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The Honest Money Show is your guide to understanding what money really is, and where Bitcoin fits in. Hosted by Anja Dragovic, Australia's female-led, Bitcoin-only podcast, it cuts through the noise to explore how money shapes our lives, why the current system leaves so many people behind, and what a clearer, fairer future could look like.
Expect honest, accessible conversations with some of the most interesting thinkers in the space, the kind that take you from "I don't really get this" to genuinely curious. No hype, no pressure, just money, made clear.
Whether you're brand new to these questions or already deep in them, you're welcome here.
Speaker: Welcome to Honest Money.
I'm your host, Anya, and today's
episode is brought to you by hard block.
Jeff: Welcome to Honest Money Jeff.
Ah, thanks for having me.
Anja: I am so pleased you made the time.
I really, really wanted to speak to you.
I've obviously read your book and
followed you on many podcasts, and I
guess to kick things off, I'd love for
you to introduce, um, to my audience
what your kind of core thesis is.
I assume most of my
listeners are familiar.
And, um, obviously you talk about,
uh, technology driving deflation,
and that's at constant odds with our
current, um, debt-based monetary system.
So let's maybe start there for.
Jeff: You just, you, you just did it.
I don't have to, but that's it.
It, it's actually really
quite a simple, the thesis.
Um, it, it, what's not simple is your
brain is wired to think differently and
to unwind the un unwind the learning
that's occurred in your brain, that is
actually false is the hardest thing.
So, so, um, the, our, our system of, uh,
of how we measure the world is at odds.
Um, uh.
A, a free market demands
productivity growth.
In fact, real wage growth, real, uh,
real growth is productivity growth, and
productivity growth drives deflation
or prices to fall because we choose
things that give us more value.
Every, every free market participant has
to create more value for somebody else.
Um, or they fail and they fail
in the free market if they don't
create more value because we don't
choose the thing they create.
And so, so, so it's not separate
from us, it's part of us.
That's the way the free market, uh, o
operates and which drives you down in
that could keep going forever because
once you realize what I just said is
true, for sure, um, then you realize
you've always lived in a control system.
You've never lived in a free market.
You've never lived, and, and you'll
come up with excuses on why you
can't, why inflation is required.
Why, what about governments?
What?
What would happen to society if
we allowed a free market approach?
You come up with your own rationalization
to defend essentially a total lie that
you've been exposed to your whole life
and you don't wanna unwind that lie.
So it is true for sure that the natural
state of the free market is deflation.
It is true for sure that as you add
more productivity in the terms of AI
and technology, that that deflation
or that price, that abundance should
be shared broadly as people, you know,
entrepreneurs would still collect more.
The free market would work perfectly.
They would just be, their value
would be determined by the
value they deliver to society.
And then other people
would compete with them.
So prices would keep falling and falling
and falling, and your time would be freed.
That's the way the free
market has to work.
It's an infinite game.
Um, and that that means that the, all
of the systems and all of the books
that you've read, and all the econ
economists and all the rich people
and everything else inside the other
system are trying to convince you
that, that what I just said is false.
When you can observe for sure through
your own actions that it's true.
And that creates a cognitive dissonance
on our brain that we have a hard time,
and some people, because it's such
a hard time, it just can't be true.
I don't want to investigate
what he said, right?
I want to trust JP Morgan.
I wanna trust my financial record,
who is, is inside that system.
I want to trust the experts
instead of trust my own rational.
Uh, uh, question and it forces that
cognitive distance in the brain
because the other system that we
live in and we measure everything
from the credit based system.
This is also true, that credit
based system, once credit is money
and we believe money is credit,
and credit is money, then that
credit money has to expand forever.
So, so it has to stop the
free market at whatever cost.
And you can see this everywhere.
You can see Elon Musk coming into Doge.
We're gonna rip out the waste, and
we just add to the waste, right?
Because if we rip out the government, if
we rip out the waste, if we rip out the
fraud, if we rip out all the nonsense,
we tip into a deflationary spiral
because free market has always been
deflation and the credit that we measure
everything from would fail spectacularly.
And if it failed spectacularly and we
measured everything from it, and our
lives were embedded in that credit system
that we thought was solvent, and all of a
sudden it was insolvent, what would we do?
So we, we continue to measure from that
system that's already insolvent, knowing
it's insolvent, spending our time in
that system thinking it's somebody else.
Anja: Yeah, I, I, look, I agree and I
completely resonate when you say that.
It, it does break world views a little
bit, and even in my own kind of journey,
I notice myself swaying back and forward.
You know, sometimes I. It makes complete
sense to me from first principles
thinking, but then I see what's going
on around the world and I start kind
of questioning whether like that whole
system is, is feasible on its own.
Like let me give you an
example of what I mean by that.
So you would know of, um, Joe
Bryan, who's one my first guest,
and I mentioned you quite a bit.
He uses an example of, um, a free
market stemming from an island where
people get stranded on an island and
they have to build things from scratch.
And he uses that analogy to illustrate
how the free market would essentially,
um, stand up from, from nothing.
But what I'm always in doubt is that,
you know, with human nature, do we
always fundamentally move towards
centralized and control systems out of,
I don't know, like all the wonderful
reasons we give ourselves, such as
safety and the need for regulation, the
need for laws, and ultimately we build
this system that becomes tangled up.
Jeff: Yeah.
So the answer is yes, in 5,000 years
of human history, the, the, the answer
is absolutely unequivocally yes.
Um, and, uh, and, and so, so let's LL
and, and I'm gonna, uh, I'll answer
the question first and then I'm gonna
move to kind of why and why that
happens, why bitcoin's different.
But the, the answer is yes, unequivocally
'cause otherwise money wouldn't be
broken over and over and over again,
and we wouldn't go through these
chaotic changes forth turnings.
War all over the world or invasion
of other countries to reset currency
and then start again, right?
The same pattern repeats
throughout history.
So it means we have to be part of
that same pattern and why would
we be part of that same pattern?
And so let's, let's use it gold as an
example, and this historical reference
of something that was, that was really
good for holding governments in control.
And let's use, uh, let's go
way back in, uh, and, and time.
If that gold was a, a really good
reserve reserve and you could create,
and you created essentially unlimited
money on top by coin clipping, then
you, for a while, you could actually
could fake out your population.
They would think they were growing
productivity growth, but they were
actually getting stolen from, but
they would be part of a system
that they would be stolen from.
But that excess money supply in
that region, let's call it Rome,
would drive what appeared to be a
productivity miracle, which would
then appear to be a military miracle.
Then you would steal other people's gold.
With your armies.
And you would expand and
you'd expand and expand.
And until that, until that was masked,
until you, you had to realize that
you weren't getting further because
productivity was, and then they,
they, the, the, the, uh, it would
collapse under its own weight as
other, as other countries expanded too.
So, throughout time, we've
always found the same thing.
We've always found, and,
and, and so now go forward.
If you were, um, the Bank of England
or any other currency holding gold,
then we would, um, we, we would want to
believe that there was a risk-free way to
create more units on top of that money.
And we would never, we'd stop trading in
the underlying asset 'cause we couldn't
move the underlying amount asset around.
And we'd trade in the derivative
instrument because we traded
in the derivative instrument.
We wouldn't see the excesses building,
right, and and because they would be
all be mass because it would just be
increasing monetary supply against a
world that was always deflationary.
Until, um, until that, that broke.
And then what would happen is the
underlying gold would be repriced
because it was centralized.
And we would just then
move to the next stage.
And you can see this in when, when us
had the gold in 1933 and then it was
gold was centralized and repriced.
You could see it again in
1971 when that happened.
You can see the same
pattern caused because.
Um, essentially we've always used
something that had to be centralized,
and we've used and broken money
on top of the centralizing asset.
So money to us isn't money.
We look for assets underlying broken
money, and, and the asset holds its
value more than the broken money does.
So it creates a, a, a reinforced
game that we try to look for assets
that can't be stolen because we, our
money has always been stolen from us.
Um, and, and so what, Bitcoin is so
different in like, so crazy different.
We don't have a, we don't have a mental
model for what it looks like because that
mental model has never existed before.
We need a new mental model for what
that looks like, 'cause there is
no historical precedent of what
Bitcoin is as a protocol, as a, as,
as it's not just a store of value.
If it was a store of value only
and everyone just stored it.
In BlackRock's custody or in
MicroStrategy, and everyone did
that and nobody ran nodes, it
would fail as a store of value.
For the same reason Gold's
fails as a store of value.
It would get centralized and then it
would get co-opted and, and it would
look different than Bitcoin looks today.
It if different, if it was a protocol.
And it was held in self custody and
it was, you were your own bank and
you ran a node to protect the network,
and you built technology on top.
You built layers on top of it like
lightning ment and cashew and noster.
If you saw it as a protocol,
emerging and layers, and it was
money, it, it is money as well.
It would be the first time in history that
the asset and money were the same thing.
Right?
That, that not just the asset and money
were the same thing long, long time ago.
It'd be the first time in history where
the asset and the money, um, were the
same thing that could travel in, uh,
at infinite speed around the world.
So, uh, so that's what it is, that's
what it, and, and what Bitcoin is to you.
And I, I mean, every per person
listening to your show, it's different
to every single person based on
their observation of what Bitcoin is.
So some people, it's a Ponzi scheme from,
from, from their, uh, from their worldview
they'd always be looking for all the
scams in crypto and, and everything else.
And they would conflate Bitcoin and crypto
as the same thing because they weren't,
they're, it's matching their view and
they haven't gone deep enough on Bitcoin.
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Anja: Yeah.
Jeff: So everything, when, when I watch
this and, and I watch kind of the noise in
the world, um, even going back to my book.
If you read my book today, ev,
virtually everything is the same.
It's just we're further along
like one system's breaking the
divide of society's happening.
As that inflates more, more
money, you can see it everywhere.
And Bitcoin is repricing the world.
All prices are falling against it forever,
the first free market that's ever existed.
And so you have to ask yourself
if everyone else believes their
view of the world is correct.
They find all of the
reasons to, to reinforce it.
How good is the review of the
world or their model of the
world at predicting outcomes?
And, and, and because that's the
ultimate test of your model, right?
And if I, if I look at Bitcoin in my
worldview of IT predicting outcomes
and all my house prices falling in
it, my energy prices falling in it,
and all prices falling, falling in it.
And as it.
It moves as a protocol
and does more and more
my worldview is matching or my,
my, the reality is happening at
exactly what I would expect it to
according to, to my model of reality.
And then this other system is, is,
is unwinding at the same speed.
So the un uh, the, the and, and, and
people's view of their reality within
that, they're surprised by Trump
did this today, AI did this today,
this, that, there's always another
thing that's a surprise, their mental
model, because their mental model
is based on, on unlimited pieces
of paper being worth something.
Anja: Yeah, Jeff, I already can
see myself going fully off script.
I have a whole bunch of questions
here that I wanna ask you.
And you just mentioned the word protocol,
and this is something I've always
wanted to talk about on my podcast, and
I feel like you are probably the best
fit to explain this to my audience.
Um, the significance of protocols
particularly, and why Bitcoin
isn't just an asset class or, or a
money, it's, it's deeper than that.
Jeff: And, and again, it can
be whatever you think it is,
but that's going to evolve.
We create the world we, we imagine, right?
So every single entrepreneur, there's
something stuck in, in, in the world.
They see a problem and the entrepreneur
goes and tries to solve that problem.
Most fail spectacularly because they
don't deliver more value, but some
of them create such a difference in
your brain that creates value for you
that you never knew existed before.
That.
Immediately you change, right?
And you can't see what's going on in
their brain to be able to say, if I build
this across all of the these things,
then people one day will understand.
And that's the, that is essentially
the value creation from entrepreneurs
in the, uh, society or anybody
who works for an entrepreneur.
Kind of a team of people trying,
trying to drive that now.
So now let's extend that into protocols.
And what pro?
So, so we, we see protocols
very, very rarely.
Um, protocols are not.
Uh, so there's, uh, Paul Baron, I
think, uh, I think it's Paul Baron,
but Baron, um, back in the late, in
the mid sixties, came up with, um.
An idea for distributed, uh, distributed
computing and that that idea was, was
ultimately carried through, carried in
by DARPA or ARPA at the time, and, and
started with four networks that became the
foundational structure of the internet.
And what, what the, the whole idea
was in the mid sixties was, uh, was,
um, in event of a nuclear holocaust.
To have no nodes that you could
keep communications up, and so they
couldn't rely on one centralized
control or distributed to a couple
center because that would be too
much risk to keep communications up.
It had to be fully decentralized.
And so that became the foundation,
um, which eventually became
T-C-E-I-P at the base of, of, of
what we now know as the internet.
Now remember when that happened?
That was so 1965, he tried to
at and t. Threw it out, right?
Because, because that would,
that would hurt their business,
their monopoly business.
Everybody, like they threw, uh, a
whole bunch of different companies
disregarded it, but it became the basis
of communication technology, T-C-P-I-P.
And then from there, if you
imagine being back in 1969.
And imagine if somebody told you that
this thing was gonna become the internet
and everything would live on top of it.
As it developed more functionality,
you would've thought they were crazy.
Um, if you go to 1989 and measure what
happened on the internet, you would
thought that you would think those people
are crazy and building on the internet.
But if you go back to 1969 and how
that emerged and what, what it showed
you is, is neutral pro protocols
that anybody can build on are winner
take all, because there is no,
there doesn't need to be a second.
There's no second internet.
All of the data, all of everything
is available and you can get it all.
Now, there's guardians, custodians
trying to centralize and, and,
and, and not let you see it all.
There's North Korea that
doesn't let you see it all.
There's China that does a great firewall
that doesn't let you see it all.
But with a VPN connection, you have
access to the same internet that
everybody has access because at the
bottom of it, uh, you can access it.
It's an open protocol Now.
You can see the same thing happening.
People are trying to control
it at the top layers.
Um, but at the bottom of it, through
privacy tech and, and, and, uh, VPNs and
such, you can access the entire internet.
So, so the same thing happened on
the evolution of the internet that is
happening on the evolution of bitcoin.
The next layer comes and
adds more functionality.
And the next layer as it emerges,
everybody says, well, that's not enough.
They disregard what it'll do.
Right?
Because, because they're used
to, they have a bias in what the
thing that it did originally,
and it can never do all of this.
And so they're constantly,
they can't see what's there.
Able to unlock until they're
already using the new thing.
And the new new layer requires a
whole bunch of work to be able to
make that new layer, um, efficient.
And so let's use that example for
what happened with Bitcoin or was
happening with Bitcoin and Lightning.
So, so.
So lightning is second layer and it's
now lightning, spark, arc, um, uh,
liquid, whole bunch of the, uh, second
layer, all inter operable lightning.
Five years ago, if you were to
run lightning, everybody would've
said it fails all the time.
Doesn't work right?
It on big transactions, it fails.
And that was the iteration and
iteration of all of these entrepreneurs
building on top of a neutral protocol
that today, lightning is ubiquitous.
You can use it anywhere.
You never have payment failures
and, and, and, and that works.
And it's come from all of this work
to harden to make it more efficient.
Now, at the same time as that's
happening, and why I say that is
neutral protocol attracts the world.
To build on top of the decentralized,
uh, and, and secure protocol Bitcoin,
the world, and all of those ideas
are, are emerging on top of this.
While that's happening, there's a whole
bunch of different ideas trying to
control money and create a new Bitcoin.
Right?
And, and, and it'll be, and, and
just like on the internet that all
of the monopolies at the time tried
to advance their own Internets.
So you would expect it, right?
You'd expect the competition because if
this protocol emerged, if it was saved,
decentralized, and secure, and then it did
payments, and then it provided privacy,
and then it allowed identity, then you
would've a parallel internet that would
destroy the entire control structure.
So because it would free humans.
And it would allow productivity
to flow to each human.
And, and as more and more people
were building on it, it would,
uh, gain more and more value.
So it becomes a huge threat to the
existing control structure and the
existing control structure will do
anything to try to stop that threat.
But this is why neutral
protocols emerge anyways, right?
Because you have the entire world talent.
Looking at the neutral protocol and
saying, I'm gonna build on top of the
thing that is not built on quicksand.
I'm gonna build on top of the thing
that's neutral and I, my business or
whatever I do is going to add value to it.
And that value accrues and accrues.
Then eventually people say,
oh my God, it does this too.
And they, they, they unlock.
So if you watch the internet
kind of, and, and today.
I don't think any of your user or any
of the people listening to that are
thinking, how do the, the nuts and
bolts work of T-C-P-I-P and so, so
now we're trying to explain Bitcoin.
A lot of people are trying to explain
Bitcoin on how do the nuts and bolts
work of the protocol layer, right?
The first protocol layer, and there's
a whole bunch of people that over
here that are just super confused.
It's too much for them.
They don't have a, um, a mental map,
but they won't need one 'cause in time.
They'll just be provided more value on
top of it by all the entrepreneurial and
the talent that's building on top of it.
Anja: Wow.
Like I've learned so much in that segment.
So yeah, thank you for
sharing all of that.
Um, I do wanna ask you something
that I've asked a recent guest,
because this is something that's been
playing on my mind a lot and it ties
into this conversation perfectly.
So.
Do you think we are living in
a world that is becoming more
centralized or more decentralized?
Because what I'm saying is kind of the
top layer, the political, the geopolitical
layers, the news, the mainstream media,
but maybe the underlying technology
tells a completely different story.
Jeff: Both.
And there's where the value is and the
value is each person is to, is measuring
that and, and reinforcing the view that
they, that is predominant in your head.
Um, and I know that's a, a sit with
what I just said because it won't
feel, feel good, but if you're using
Fiat dollars or if you're just holding
Bitcoin in a, in, in BlackRock.
You are still part of a system of theft
and you're feeding your strength into that
system of theft, and it has to centralize.
It must centralize because the
free market is the opposite.
The free market must decentralize
as, as our ideas compete to
provide more value to other people.
So if something's stopping our
ideas, providing more value to each
other, then it has to centralize.
It has to tell you that
these people are bad people.
These people are good people.
It has to, it has to
condition you to everything.
I, I would say 99% of pe, 99.9%
of people are still in that world.
95% of Bitcoiners are still there, right?
Feeding the very system that's stealing
from them, thinking that they're
outside of it, while they're still
fully inside of it, looking at other
people saying, why don't they get it?
Well, they still don't get it.
And, and that's hard to
recognize, but it is true.
Right?
Because, because, and you don't
want it, want it to be true.
'cause you don't want it to, to
expose the ugly thing in you or me.
Right?
And then, and then as you start to
understand Bitcoin as a protocol,
you start to move more of your time.
And as you see that world emerge, right?
See, the world doesn't just happen to us.
Or, or it can if we believe somebody
else's control, but if we believe
we have agency, we have control.
And actually that's the
entrepreneurial spark too.
It comes from that same thing.
People are stuck over here.
I have agency.
I'm gonna do something different.
I'm going to use this thing.
And so that's what you're seeing.
You're seeing this build
and people waking up.
Building on this privacy tech, on this
open source, uh, o uh, o, open source
movement, all of these things that
are building on top of this protocol
and measured against that protocol.
If you're inside that, uh, uh.
System or that that new system,
you see hope and you see abundance.
You see, you see the more you're
there, the more you see all
these inter pieces that make it
stronger and stronger and stronger.
And the less you worry about all the other
noise, what the world looks like, what
those people do, you're 'cause you're just
focused on your time mattering to you.
To build the type of future you want.
Anja: Yeah.
And one of the things I've heard you
mention in various podcasts is the concept
of that the two systems cannot coexist.
I really wanna explore that a little
bit more with you because Yeah.
Jeff: So, so, and, and again, this
shouldn't be, it's, it's only hard for
you to, uh, because, because you don't
have a mental model of, of what I said.
That's why I constantly say the natural
state of the free market is deflation.
That means as we see productivity
gains, productivity gains, or ai
or any technology, that means if it
works, prices should fall faster or
abundance, or our time should be freed
faster if it doesn't feel like that
you're measuring from the wrong system.
It's really that simple because, um,
because those two systems, so if number
one is true, and so people should,
and, and please push back here if.
Uh, it it, because I mean, if there's a
stuck in your mental model is the natural
state of the free market deflation.
Anja: Yes.
Jeff: So if that's categorically true,
then not just the inflation rate that
you're taught, that you hear from,
uh, economists, what it is or the,
uh, or the president or anyone else.
It's that plus this, uh, money
that prices should have fallen.
That's actually the theft.
Because where does the So, or we're
more simply put, there are 21 minute
million units measuring the world.
All prices would fall forever
against those 21 million units.
Because?
Because we only use the things that
give us more value for the entire 8
billion people competing to give us value
must make those 21 more million units.
More valuable.
The only caveat to what I just said
is if Bitcoin gets broken and gets
centralized or, or, or is insecure, but
if it stays, uh, decentralized and secure,
then it is imposing what I just said.
It doesn't care what I think about it.
It is imposing a, a new based energy
backed money that decentralized
and secure around the world and
that energy is not being broken.
To be able to, so those 21 million
units are repricing the world.
If your frame of reference is, there's
infinite amount of units and those
infinite amount of units are allowed
to grow unconditionally, you see,
see data exploding everywhere, right?
But you don't even know how much
the data just breaks your brain
because it's such a big number.
But your pricing from those units of
debt that are already insolvent and it's.
Infinite number of units.
So against the infinite number of
units, prices could appear to be rising
for as long as you believe in the
infinite number of units, as long as
you believe they're valuable, as long
as you spend your time in, in that.
So those two systems
are incompatible, right?
One is manmade out of a belief
set, that one is grounded in.
In free market and, and physical
reality and, and energy.
So, so those, those two
systems are, are incompatible.
And one, one things you can, you can
kind of do is if you're comparing all
the time, I know it's hard at first,
um, but if you're comparing all the time
bitcoin relative to the piece of paper.
To, to, to measure things, then you're
still stuck in the piece of paper 'cause
your anchor is the piece of paper.
And it's like going to another
country with a higher inflation
rate with, I go to a country and,
and, and millions of dollars of
currency units versus the US dollar.
When you go to that country, your
brain is playing a trick on you.
You're kind of, okay, how much is this
really cost versus the millions of units?
And you're going back to the
reference point of the us.
But it takes a while for you to understand
the new currency relative to the, to
that, to the prices in that region.
That's the same thing that's
happening in Bitcoin, right?
That new that Bitcoin is pricing
all things all over the world.
Falling in price, but you're wanting to
measure them to your anchor of a currency.
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Anja: Yeah, it makes, it makes a lot of
sense, but I'm also really curious to
know like what are the types of things
that keep this tension prolonged and what
are the types of things that speed it up?
Jeff: So, and, and I've said this
on lots of podcasts, but you could
explain economics to a five-year-old.
We compete to provide more value
to other people in the world.
And we only win when
we provide more value.
That's it.
It's all of economics, right?
It um, so that means all of economics
that you believe in is flawed by a
principle of we need to create more money.
So those other people, right, so
we control those other people.
So the, so the entire system,
the entire belief set is skewed.
Now, if what I just said is true,
free market is deflation, and you
could explain it to a 5-year-old.
And the question come, comes
back to why aren't we doing it?
It all comes back to agency and it all
comes back to, to, we want those other
people to do it, but we wouldn't do it.
And, and, and, and from that,
that agency, you can decide where
you, you live on that spectrum.
You can completely unlock and you can
move more time to Bitcoin or you can stay
measuring Bitcoin from a piece of paper.
And if everybody moved tomorrow, the
world would look radically different
because there would be no cheating.
The governments would collapse.
The type of governments that we
have today would completely collapse
and be replaced with, honesty.
Would be, it would be because it
would, because we would have control
rather than a centralized power.
Um, so what does, what drives
the timing isn't some those other
people, what drives the timing is us.
Um, and now if you, now if you're
being um, take the other side,
steelman the other side, um,
I can know all these things.
I can move my time to be in the new
system and understand completely
well that that's going, that's
gonna take a long, long time.
'cause people think it's other
people instead of themselves.
So what drives the time?
How could it look?
It could be look abundant
next year, will it?
I suspect not.
It's gonna be chaotic because most pe,
most of the population, the vast majority
of people are still giving all of their
energy to the centralizing system.
Anja: Yeah.
I observe this a lot and I've been
thinking about this as well, like, you
know, Weimar Germany for example, when
their currency being was being debased and
well def inflationary, um, people moved to
gold and, you know, more recent instances
of sovereign nations got un undergoing
similar changes like the bank run that
happened in Lebanon and Iran, for example.
Um, you do hear some use cases
that people, some people are
moving to Bitcoin, um, but it's
not happening at the rate that you
know, people like me would expect.
Jeff: So the funny thing is I actually
see, so I see a different world, um,
a parallel world and, and, and, and
I, I think I see it because we're
investing in that ecosystem and I'm
traveling all over the world to the,
uh, to, to places that are using it
as a currency that are V villages and,
and it's totally circular economies.
Um, and you're watching this.
Truth, hope, abundance explode.
Like, um, and was Brandon Quim wrote
this article on, uh, on mycelium or, or,
or, and, and and how that evol emerges
and it, um, and you're seeing this
network at the ground up emerge exactly
the, the, the same all over the world.
And then people are wondering,
why isn't it happening faster?
It's happening at the
rate, I would say just say.
It's happening at the rate
you would totally expect.
If this was a paradigm changing thing
for our brains and we didn't have a,
a mental model for it and we didn't
know about the mental model for it,
we would have to eventually adjust
to the, to something that was being
imposed and we could be a part of it.
Or fight against it.
And so you'd ex I I would think, I
think it's happening at the exact rate
that I would ex expect it to happen.
And, and all of the fights and all
of the, what's still to come is
exactly what I would expect to happen.
Anja: Yeah.
One thing I would love to know is, I keep
thinking about this all the time, um,
you know, with ai, obviously AI's been
around for, for like few decades now?
Like, is that right?
About decades,
Jeff: about 70, 75 years,
Anja: yeah.
Oh, wow.
Okay.
That's not, I wasn't aware that it
was, to me it was like 15 years.
But anyway, um, and you know, in the early
days it was kind of like early days of
Bitcoin, you had to be a little bit geeky
and a little bit special to be into ai.
Well, the rest of the world just didn't
care, and it was only fairly recently,
I think Chad, GPT kicked it off and now
it's become like such a global phenomenon.
Everyone on LinkedIn link
LinkedIn is speaking about it.
Everyone's getting educated on
it and taking all these courses,
teaching courses, but I wonder
what Bitcoin's AI moment will be.
Jeff: So those are one to, to
me, they're one and the same.
And, and it's not Bitcoin's ai moment,
it's how these things accelerate the
pro proce process against each other.
So one of the things, and, and
remember in my book I wrote
that, uh, piece about exponential
patterns and how hard it is to see.
So, so even what you just said about ai,
let's explore AI from what it actually
is, but it's actually part of a greater
technology thing that's been moving.
Even further back, but let's just
use AI as an ex example to that.
So in my book, I, I talked about
a piece of paper folding on
itself, one fold, two folds, three
folds, four folds, five folds.
And I, I, I just imagined that
piece of paper going 50 folds,
um, and how, how thick the piece
of paper it would, would be.
Now, I've asked that question to
tens of thousands of audience people.
Hundreds, thousands of
audiences all over the world.
People, and the general answer
you get on the piece of paper
folding is two inches of 50 folds.
But that piece of paper would
folding 50 times would reach the sun.
You can only fold it seven times,
but if you could theoretically, uh,
fold it 50 times, the doubling and
doubling and doubling would reach the.
And what?
And, and, and so it produces something,
uh, in, in that, and everybody right now
is kind of in their own brain saying,
oh, I get it, and they'll move on.
But that's not the point
I was trying to make.
The point point I was trying to make is,
is if everybody says two inches, then
everybody is terrible at exponentials.
We're living in, in information
moving at an exponential rate and that
information creating more and more value.
So now if you follow that back to
what ended up happening in AI in
the, in the fifties, Minsky and, and,
and others that came up with, uh,
the original ai ai, um, what you'd
see is paper fold once or twice.
And you would see an expectation of
what AI would do against something that
was, that was felt like if just fold a
piece of paper once or twice and feel
how thin it is compared to the sun.
Right?
And then there was another AI that,
so that created a whole bunch of
investment and then a, a hype cycle
and then an AI winter as the hype fell.
And then the same thing
happened in the eighties.
An investment cycle because AI was getting
closer, because now you had more and more
folds, thicker steps, and at that time
there's a massive build into ai and what
it would do in another hype cycle that it
all failed and it just kept on unfolding.
So now we're in fold.
Imagine the paper analogy now we're in
fold 36 or 37, and the steps are so much
bigger, like to the, to the, to the sun.
Are so much bigger that it fee, it
appears like AI just came outta nowhere.
When that doesn't, it's not true at all.
If you actually watch AI on a, on,
on, on an exponential pattern, it's
ex exactly the same trend rate.
That's why in the book, I could ex I,
I could expose where AI would be today.
From the exponential trend rate, and
people think, think I had a crystal ball.
It's not a crystal ball at all.
It's just understanding exponentials.
But what does that mean for
the way our brains work?
What it means that that most of the
progress is in front of us, not behind us.
And you're measuring AI today
and every day you're saying,
well, and then what will I do?
What will human labor do if
this tool can do everything?
And the point is.
You're going to use the tool
because if you don't use the tool,
um, people won't use your business
because they'll seek more value.
And so every business will be the,
and it'll drive out human labor, just
like all technology is supposed to do.
Right?
And, and free our time as a result.
And prices.
Would that what you'd expect on
that tangent against something
that was held constant?
You'd expect prices to fall faster.
Way faster as 8 billion people
realized that they could use the
same tool to provide more value
to you and all of those ideas.
It drove into the market and they competed
on price to give you more and more value,
you'd expect prices to fall way faster.
And instead of you being out of a job
where you had to stay on a mouse wheel
to to, to keep up with rising prices
that were just rising un unnaturally
because people made up money, you
wouldn't need your job because your
value of your money was gaining forever.
Be.
Um, and so, so, so that's why
it's, it's moving at this rate.
We can't understand the rate it's moving
and we're stuck in this other system
that's expanding monetary units to try to,
to stop what should be gains to all of us.
The stopping of that
provides centralization.
And then Elon Musk comes out and says
like stupid things, like crazy, stupid
things like universal high income.
And, and because he, he's a good
entrepreneur, people, uh, people say,
oh, he must be spar in economics too.
Um.
And nobody asks, where does
universal high income come from?
Like, what is it?
Like where, where did the, so it
has to come from him centralizing.
'cause now he owns the means
of production, Google X, Tesla,
um, the means of production.
Then it comes.
Stealing the means of production and
giving a small token to other people to
operate on this same system, and those
people thinking he's a superstar for
doing that, it locks in, essentially,
it's the opposite of the free market.
It locks in these monolithic,
monolithic structures.
By stealing more money.
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Anja: Yeah.
And on that exponential change,
um, this might sound like a bit
of a strange question, but, um,
come with me on this journey.
Jeff: Yeah.
Anja: I'm really curious to know.
When you foresee where the world is going
to go from here on, what is your heart,
sorry, your head, your heart, and your
gut, tell you how this change is going
to look over the next 10 to 20 years?
Jeff: Um, I, I am mostly when I can
I spend in Bitcoin, um, I try to,
I, I I try to give a, uh, a d um.
Every business that I go into,
I ask if they accept a Bitcoin.
I'll try to, to give it incentive
to, to essentially expand the world.
I want to see, I invest in the ecosystem.
I invest broadly in the ecosystem,
and when I watch the people in
that ecosystem, the people, and not
everybody knows at the same level.
But when I watch the Heart and
those people, I generally think
most people are really good.
They might be stuck in a wrong system.
They might be, there's some
evil, some really evil, right?
Um, but most people defer to what's
best for them and their families, and
they're not trying to do, do harm.
Now, if you have a system that,
um, allows that to expand.
That was based on an
honest pro, uh, protocol.
You would expect that to expand
if most people were like that.
And so that's what I see and
that's the, that's the what I
see in, in essentially my heart.
And, and I see it actually, it's
going to happen no matter what
because, because that's who we are.
And there's, and, uh, and, and as, as
you, as each person understands that they
can unlock and feed their time into an
honest system versus a dishonest system,
I suspect more people are going to do it.
It might be slow, it might be, and
they might feel every reason right now.
Well.
Bitcoin doesn't do this right
now, so I can't do it right now.
And they might make every excuse
or I need to pay the bills.
And even though the pays, the, the,
my job is here so I can't do this.
They'll make all sorts of
rationalizations excuses for
their families, and that's okay.
But in the end, if you have dishonest
system against a dishonest system,
they're going to collide and people will
choose what they just determine their
reflection of the world will look like.
And that gives me massive hope.
It doesn't, it's not just hope
from a, from a, because it would
be easy to say, um, what a,
uh, that view is is so utopian.
Um, and, and, uh, and, and Jeff is, is
not close to reality, but it, it would
be, and and I understand that because
if people didn't live in my world
and didn't see what I see every day.
That would look like that.
It would appear like that to them.
But the people I meet every day
and the pe, the thousands, probably
tens of thousands of people that
have already moved their time and
contributing to this all over the world.
That's actually what's
give me, gives me hope.
I'm watching it happen.
I'm part of, I'm a, it's an
emergent function of those people.
And to me, creating a, a new
parallel system and that they, and
even though, let's call it tens of
thousands, let's call it 10,000 people.
Those 10,000 people are up against
8 billion people thinking different.
So it would feel like it was
just a, like a fringe group.
But it doesn't feel like a fringe group
when you're inside it and watching what's
happening and how fast it's happening.
It doesn't feel like that, that at all.
And it's open to anybody to join
any time to add their contribution.
So, so that's what it, that's what I know.
It's going to be not, not think it's
gonna be, I know it's gonna be that.
Because the thing that
keeps it decentralized and
secure is also that group.
Those people adding their
agency to a protocol.
What you're doing, what you're
doing by learning and exposing your
questions, that you're still learning
on an adventure to an audience
who's learning is adding a node.
To to to that which everybody becomes
better and stronger and each person
and, and, and, and, and by your actions
you create the, the world you see.
So that's where I know it's going
against that, the existing system,
because it has so many participants
in it, and it's so distorted.
It's going to, it's gonna be
chaotic and it's going to try
to break what I just said.
It's going to try to co-opt it.
It's going to try.
All of these things are gonna
happen and every different country
is going to, you can see what's
happening around the world today.
People are moving to either socialism
or fascism, and they're both in,
both parts of that are, are blaming.
The other part without looking at.
What's driving the whole
thing, which is money, right?
So they're, they're, they're, and they're,
and they're so wedded to their belief,
trying to solve a problem from inside
the system that steals their money.
Um, that they can't,
they can't see out of it.
And they, um, and, and so
that is going to be chaotic.
It's gonna be so, so, so my rational mind
says, what can you do inside that chaos?
There's nothing I can
do about everyone else.
I can only do what, uh, what I can do
and so I can spend my time creating,
creating more flexibility, right,
to 'cause regions are gonna change.
One region that's appeared to be safe is
not gonna be safe anymore in an instant.
And it's gonna, it is
gonna move un, un unsafe.
And, and all of the things
I'm talking about now would
naturally move you to more fear.
I don't live in that fear at all.
Like, as I live on this other
system, I just know it's there.
I just know a lot of people are going
to, there's gonna be another COVID
infant and so there's gonna be like,
there's gonna be na natural think.
'cause that's co uh, control system is
gonna do everything to make you fearful,
controlled, uh, and, and the works.
And probably most people will bite.
Anja: Yeah, I mean, I certainly kind
of oscillate between hope and fear.
Like, uh, I'd be lying if I said I didn't,
because even, you know, as, as someone
who's got a podcast and is trying to
educate people around it in the local
community and also online, you know,
part of me always wor worries that.
Which direction Australia is going to
go in and whether that control system
is ever going to try to crack down.
And I guess like make, try make
an example of people trying to.
Jeff: The answer is likely, like quite
li, quite, quite likely depend depending
on, on when people wake up to this.
Uh, um, but the answer is quite li uh,
quite likely that's why in Bitcoin, um,
which is it would be in a fair objective
later, uh, a long time ago because
it's an open, uh, ledger that it wasn't
private and that WIC Bitcoin wouldn't be
able to withstand what was coming then.
That would be a fair.
You need a different coin, right?
That has to be private.
But all those private
coins get centralized.
So you, instead of that, when I go back
to protocol, you needed to drive privacy
into the protocol at a different layer.
And so because you need you privacy in a
world that's centralizing faster when your
communications, um, can be exposed and
your communications are being monitored.
And to, to determine if you were good
for the state or bad for the state.
Then, then the, the, and, and you
needed, you needed entrepreneurs
who saw what were gonna happen way
before it happened to build the
privacy tech that saves your life.
And so, so, so all of this is, is
largely available today and getting
stronger and stronger and emerging
around the wor uh, around the world.
But this is the, um, you'll need it.
Anja: Yeah.
Wow.
This conversation has completely gone in,
in a direction that I didn't, um, expect.
But, um, I guess before we wrap up, I
wanna just kind of leave my audience
with some practical tips and, you
know, for the average person listening,
what is it that they should be paying
attention to and what is it also
that they should be kind of noise,
that they should be drowning out?
Jeff: Yeah.
So you control, um.
The pa, um, the past
is only a guide, right?
It controls this moment right now.
This moment is the only moment
that matters in anybody's life.
With this moment, you can either make
a change and say -Something here hit
and I need to investigate deeper.
Or you can just let it go
and go back to your past.
I would say the majority
of people in in the world.
Believe they live in the moment, but
they're living a past and of re repeating
back and back and uh, uh, back on them.
So with this moment, if something made
a difference here, and it depends where
you are, are in your Bitcoin journey,
then you want to investigate it deeper.
You want to get into self
custody, you want to, uh, you want
eventually you wanna run a node.
Eventually you want to spend more time.
And as you spend more time inside
this understanding what this
looks like, you'll be part of.
Your moments will be creating
a different future for you.
And those moments that you're creating a
different future for you, which is gonna
be a way better future than, than feeding
the system will take you out of fear too,
because they'll be VA valuable and they'll
impact a whole bunch of other people.
Um, just by, just by you doing, uh,
doing that now you could just take this
same moment and say, that's not for me.
And stay, stay stuck.
Um, but, uh, but, um, the, the highest
level thing I would say, say is of
course this would be a challenging
transition because we've never
seen something like this before.
And of course, if you wanted
to learn it, um, at the level
you might want to learn it.
It would take unlearning a
whole bunch of things that you,
you take for granted today.
So, so it just takes, it takes a
curious mind, it takes some to,
to, to, I want to investigate this.
Um, and then, and then I want to
ask where do I wanna spend my time?
Anja: Yep.
And lucky.
Last question.
So for Bitcoin as who are
listening, largely my audience is
still comprised of people who've
been in Bitcoin for some time.
Like, what are some of the
strategies that we can, um, think
of to build our resilience in our
families and in our community?
Jeff: Um, so I think that things
like ti um, are, are, are critical.
I think you should go set up a federation
on, on, on, uh, on, on ti um, uh, a family
federation because in time what's gonna
happen is, is um, so that'll protect your
communications, it'll protect your money.
It'll be private.
You can use as, uh, as moving Bitcoin
into it, then out of it to lightning and
it'll, it'll disguise your Bitcoin too.
But the, um, but.
The mo, probably the most important thing
on that is as you do that, like we we're
living in a world where you're gonna
see attacks everywhere using the same
ai and those attacks will come through.
So if I just think about what
my family might think, right, it
will, there'll be an AI agent that
acts like me, that looks like me.
I already have one.
If I could create one, then somebody
else could create one of me.
And that means that
attack factor for people.
Uh, in inside, friends, family,
everything else is at risk of
that a, a attack factor, and it'll
get better and better and better.
So you have to have a, a
privacy tool outside of that.
That is your, that can't be hacked.
That is your communication tool
with people that you care about.
And I, so I think what's gonna
happen is people have been chasing,
what does everybody else think?
What does everybody else
think inside this AI machine?
And it's all KYC and it's dangerous, and
it's gonna get more and more dangerous.
And I think the antidote
to that is, is what's real.
Right, real relationships, depth of
relationships, and you want to pull
those out of the chaos and you wanna
pull those into your own, your own thing.
That can't be a attacked.
So when I say what ti is in, in, in
that level of kind of a third layer
on a protocol, that's one of the
things that I think people should use.
And, and, um, and you can set it up really
easily now in a completely pre uh, uh,
safe, secure way to protect everything.
Anja: Yep.
I love that you mentioned that,
and I think you've just inspired
the next month's talk at Northern
Rivers here in Australia because
yeah, this is so important.
Um, thank you so much for your time, Jeff.
I really appreciate having you on.
I learned so much and I can't wait to, uh,
listen to this whole episode again myself.
Thanks
Jeff: any.
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