Welcome to the
Honest Money Show.
Thanks to our sponsor, Bitaroo
for making today's
episode possible.
Australia's biggest Bitcoin
on the exchange.
John, I have waited
this for you. John.
Welcome.
Thank you.
I know I do.
Great to be with you.
And, congratulations
on getting this,
getting your new podcast
up and running.
Yeah.
If if it wasn't
for the support
from the community,
I never would have done it
because there were
so many moments
that I wanted to back out,
and it was everyone's spirit
that carried me through.
It got to push through it.
Yep. Yeah.
So I wanted to
chat to you about.
I noticed that
on your social media
you posted recently
that you did
a talk at a crypto event.
I wanted to know
how that went. I did.
So originally I was
contacted by a young member
of the University
of New South Wales,
cryptocurrency club.
I apologize,
I haven't got the exact
words of the acronym correct,
but you get the idea.
They don't. Most of these.
This is probably true
of all universities,
and it's been true of
people outside of our
Bitcoin community
for a long time.
Does it
they're almost allergic
to the word bitcoin.
And so they're always
using the word crypto
which means that they can
then really
what they end up talking about
is really nothing
to do with Bitcoin at all.
It's all of these
other kind of Rube
Goldberg machines
and other things
that rode on
Bitcoin's coattails,
pretending to be innovative
and useful
and claiming
to have the features
that Bitcoin has but doesn't.
But anyway,
he got in touch with me.
I think it was
basically sort of
Bitcoin alive
and my role in that.
And
he and I'd
spoken to him before
just before Bitcoin alive.
And I'd managed
to sort of essentially
explain what Bitcoin
was to him.
And he very quickly, smart guy
very quickly understood
how much he'd
essentially been
deceived
by the whole blockchain
crypto type narrative
and that bitcoin was the far
more interesting thing
to be looking at.
And so he and a few of his,
friends from, from university,
from the university
crypto group
came to Bitcoin live.
So my talk there
and more recently
got in touch with me
and said that there's,
an event that
that they're running.
They're it was an
it was in combination
with that
in conjunction with the new,
bitcoin exchange that's
launching locally
and wanted me to be the,
the speaker there.
And so and essentially,
you know, he
he knows what I'm all about.
It's no mystery
that I'll be there to talk
about Bitcoin.
And actually
it's also make sure
that I highlighted
those differences.
And so
going along to that
I kind of had expectations
that be some
a degree of apprehension
or a degree of wailing
and gnashing of teeth,
as I put in the tweet,
about the
some of the things
that I would be saying
about Bitcoin
as opposed to and,
and about crypto,
which wouldn't be necessarily
particularly flat
towards the crypto side.
But before
I even gave the talk
I arrived
in, before
I even gave the talk,
the people I spoke to,
they were very receptive
to the message.
In fact,
even the Ethereum speaker
admitted that,
yeah, I've got like, yeah,
I love bitcoin.
I've got one more
Bitcoin and Ethereum. And so,
and it's almost as though,
and this is a big change
from my years in this space,
because it's not
the first time
I've spoken to crypto people.
In fact,
although I've never
sort of really like,
traded bitcoins
and all of that sort of thing
I did when it first
when the narrative
first emerged
that these alternative things,
I did go along to blockchain
and crypto type events
to see what it was all about.
Now, I never found any
of a convincing
because I'd already understood
the game theory behind Bitcoin
and why trying to change
that wouldn't work,
but I nevertheless
went along and
and would often speak
to a great many crypto
quote unquote crypto people.
But often.
But they were still back
then, much more,
you know, way more,
sure of themselves
and way more argumentative,
I think, and way more,
way more defensive
at their position
than, than what
I found
this group of people to be
when I went and gave my talk,
I even even the exchanges,
admittedly, it's
it wasn't a bitcoin
only exchange.
This was essentially
a crypto exchange. And,
they knew they had my slides.
They did their credit.
I mean, they didn't object
to what I would be saying.
I did do another talk,
at another group,
a few months ago,
I was at a golf club where
there was a
degree of apprehension
from the crypto
exchange sponsor
who wanted me to refrain
from saying anything
negative about, crypto.
The way
we managed
to figure out
a good compromise there.
But this exchange.
Not if they didn't try
to like, you know,
they didn't
try to lean on me
or put any pressure
of what I should say
and whether or not, you know,
I should,
you know, back down from my,
you know,
bitcoin maximalist message.
Nothing like that.
I gave the talk and,
and as I said
already before
I even gave the talk,
people were like,
you know,
these are
things that are sort of
like common knowledge
almost among the
Bitcoin community
and not common knowledge
among the crypto communities.
Right.
And, and it's
it doesn't take long
to sort of start
putting some
of the fundamentals
of Bitcoin to them.
And they, they come to see
why the crypto
narrative is very misguided
and ultimately isn't working.
Not that it's
I can say that it won't work.
But now after like
7 or 8 years of this narrative
going on,
I can say it isn't working.
Every narrative they've tried,
has, has, has failed.
And I think now
the the general impression
I took away
and what
a couple of other Bitcoin
is that that
came along and supported me.
Tatum.
Marcus.
They were like
also struck by just how,
it's almost like
a degree of capitulation.
There was in the,
the very that
the whole that whole
as I said,
I keep using
that expression,
that narrative has really,
it's just not what it was
and for good reason.
I mean, like,
how long can
people keep getting?
Absolutely, like curb
stomped by reality?
Until you just
have to accept that
it is what it is.
Yep. Yep. Yeah.
It's so funny
because as you were speaking,
I was remind myself of the,
there's a tweet that says,
how do you know
which side is in the right?
And then,
or which side
is telling the truth.
It's like usually the,
the side
that's not trying to censor
the other party is. Broadly.
Speaking, the truth. Yeah.
But it's interesting.
I had no idea that, that
the crypto community has,
thinks of, like, you know,
Bitcoin is a dirty word.
I know that in our community,
we don't like the word
expression.
I mean, it's
just that they seem to
just like they
they can't bring themselves
to use it. And I'm trying.
And whenever I talk to them,
I always try to break them
out of the habit by sort of
it sounds like I'm
being pedantic,
but it's very it's
a very important distinction,
which I think,
you know,
we in the Bitcoin community
all understand very well,
but they don't.
And so they keep
even when they're describing
what it is that,
that I'm there to talk about.
They keep saying
crypto and I keep having
to convert
correct them back inside.
No it's bitcoin.
And yeah I know like
and people could argue that.
Yes.
Taxonomic
bitcoin is a cryptocurrency.
And that's
what crypto is short for.
But we don't call other human
beings animals,
even though taxonomically
human beings
are part
of the animal kingdom.
We only use the word animals
when we're talking about,
you know,
all of the non-human animals.
If we're talking about people,
we just say people.
And so therefore,
if you get to
and if you talk about crypto,
well,
what you really
then wanting to talk about
is all this extra shit
and all that extra shit
doesn't matter.
Only bitcoin matters.
And therefore
Bitcoin is the only word
you need to use.
Yeah, yeah.
Well I've had
a lot of guidance
from the start
from Bitcoin maximalist.
So I avoided that whole
crypto saga all together.
And
I'm interested
to know.
I guess how do I say this.
So in my mind
ultimately I thought
was thinking
about this last night.
And I think
that maybe the crypto
necessarily wasn't a bad thing
because early on in the day,
in the Bitcoin days, people,
you know,
didn't really understand
the protocol very well,
didn't understand
technology very well,
and they sort of
thought that
the slowness of Bitcoin
ease is a is a bug.
And they wanted to
see if they can make
make an improvement on it.
So is it almost like
it's not until
you try to improve and realize
that it fails
spectacularly,
that you realize that.
Yeah,
I get what you're saying, but,
yeah, but the thing is, is
none of that
was ever really true.
I mean,
where the crypto people,
what the crypto
people actually did is made
that whole situation worse.
They spread
that misunderstanding.
They amplified it.
In fact,
they essentially traded
on ignorance
of Bitcoin
in order
to push
their alternative solutions.
It was never a
particularly no.
I mean, in some cases,
people might have
been genuinely,
you know, misguided.
But no, it was a
there were deliberate,
disingenuous attempts
to muddy the waters,
not clarify anything.
And, and
and so the crypto
community itself,
or at least the,
the leaders in that community,
were themselves
responsible for a great deal
of that confusion,
because what they
never admitted was that, yeah,
they would say things
like Bitcoin is slow
because it can only do
seven transactions per second,
but our blockchain can do this
many thousands of transactions
per second.
But of course,
that just leaves
you open to
some other blockchain
coming along and say, well,
we could do 100,000
or 1 million.
It's like that thing,
that the hitchhiker sailing.
There's something about Mary
where you know,
that the eight minute
abs, you know,
and then the guy says, well,
what about
if someone comes up
with seven minute abs,
then what are you going to do?
And the guy just did
they try to just glitches out.
He can't, you know,
that blows
a fuze can't deal with it.
But that's kind of
like the thing he you
what they don't tell you
though, when they say
that thing about Bitcoin
is they don't admit
to the trade offs
that their own project
had to make in order to,
to get that extra,
number of transactions
per second.
What they ended up trading off
was the most important thing,
the very thing
that made Bitcoin unique
in the first place.
There's nothing
particularly unique
about being able
to do a million, millions
of transactions a second.
The fiat system does
millions of transactions
per second.
Perfectly fine.
We don't need something else
that can do transactions
at that, at that speed.
But what we did need
and this is the
this is the problem
that Bitcoin actually solved,
was to be able
to actually create consensus
in a network
without a trusted third party.
But what these what these
guys of these
projects are doing
because they are necessarily
centralized projects,
they have
they have CEOs,
they have
marketing departments,
they have budgets
and all these sorts of things.
They put that
central third party
right back in there
and and all the whole
time, it's
not as like Bitcoin has.
The Bitcoin community
has been under
any illusions that
that somehow
we're going to build
a whole financial system
with only seven transactions
per second.
But the way in which
and this is the other thing,
the crypto community
doesn't seem to
under like they
they keep or
although whether or not
they get to still keep doing
that due
to what I said before.
But for years
they've always tried
to pretend as though things
like the Lightning Network
doesn't exist,
which is the Bitcoin
solution
to the scaling problem.
So you keep keeping the bottom
layer of the protocol
sacrosanct, that is,
those features
that you can't
get anywhere else.
The trustless decentralization
that I talked about before,
but then doing the scaling
on a level above that
so you can make your
compromises there
without compromising the,
the lower level.
And, and so you can kind of it
that way,
both because blockchains
have that, that,
that they have that trilemma
where you have to make
a compromise somewhere.
And so
Bitcoin is choosing
to make its compromise
on the Bitcoin blockchain
makes its compromise
on scaling,
but then essentially farms
that out to the layer above,
but again
in the crypto community
to bring it back.
They're either
unaware of that or with
they are
where they conveniently
pretend as though
it doesn't exist,
so that they can keep pushing
their narrative as faster.
Yeah, like
as a faster blockchain,
because a lot of
the whole reason
for these things
existing is to,
is to address
some kind of
perceived deficiency
in Bitcoin,
perceived
or fabricated deficiency
in many cases in Bitcoin.
Yeah,
that's interesting
because if I'm hearing
what you're saying
correctly, it's almost like
there were Bitcoin
is all along.
Very early
on, if you had the foresight
that none of these projects
were going to work
and there was hindsight, yeah,
I'm more of a hindsight person
and think like, oh,
you know, great.
We tested this with this
and now it doesn't work.
And we know
not to go back to that.
But it's interesting
that they have been people
all along who
saw had the foresight
to see Bitcoin for what it is.
Yeah.
I mean it's amazing
technical experts,
the people that
have been doing
who had been
working on this stuff
even before Bitcoin
existed, all understood
that Bitcoin was a very,
very carefully
balanced set of,
you know, components
with very with very carefully
devised game theory
that you couldn't
just, you know,
pluck bits out of
and hope would somehow work
on their own
or with completely different
sets of
incentives and parameters.
Because that's the key thing
that Bitcoin,
at the end of the day, it's
just a
just it's just
a bunch of incentives
that work
really, really well together.
Essentially addressing
the tragedy
of the commons type problems.
So for those listeners
that might not be familiar
with the tragedy
of the commons problems,
they are problems whereby the,
interests of the
individual actor
do not align
well with the interests
of the community overall.
And it comes from the idea of,
of a, a shared common
grazing area
and all of the participants
that were grazing cattle
or sheep or whatever
it was on that area
would agree
that they would put
no more than ten animals,
on into the space,
because if people
were just able
to put as many animals
as they wanted into the space,
it would overgrazed the area
and destroy the land
for everybody.
So by all agreeing
to only maybe
put a maximum of, say,
5 or 10 or whatever
it is on there, then then
the that
the land wouldn't get ruined.
However,
as a selfish individual,
you could say, you know,
particularly
if there were like,
you know,
dozens of other farmers,
you could sort of
push that number up
if you just put 20 on there
and everyone else
is following the rules,
presuming
everyone else is following
the rules,
the land will
probably be okay.
But you'll get to,
you'll get to graze twice
as many cattle.
So it's in your interest
to try to get as many
cattle on there as possible.
But that doesn't align
with the interests of the
of the group overall.
So with Bitcoin
on the other hand, again,
all the incentives are
is is like everything is
is looked at as
how do we align everything?
How do we make it
so that everything
that happens in the
way the network works,
only has to trust
that all of
the participants
in that network
are going to behave
in their most
rational self-interest.
Yeah.
You know,
I'm still I'm
still happily baffled.
The more I learn about
Bitcoin's design,
the more I just can't believe
that a single person
or a group of people,
whoever it was,
designed something so pristine
and yeah, like, it just works.
It doesn't.
And that's the thing.
Well,
you mentioned
the hindsight thing before.
It's so many people have tried
to, like,
change a little bit
and then realize later
on, oh, that's
why Satoshi did it that way.
I see now
because they
actually had to do it
and watch it fail.
Whereas Satoshi,
whoever he or they were,
was very, very prescient.
In being able
to sort of almost game
out how all of these things,
would go.
It's also important
to remember that
as elegant as as it
is, it's not like
it's not like
it wasn't invented
sort of whole cloth in 2008
or and 2009
being
when the first
block was mined,
it wasn't invented
whole cloth.
There's a whole history
of technology
going right back to the,
you can go back
as far as you want,
but in terms of computing
at least, it's
sort of the 60s,
the 70s, the 80s and 90s,
different things,
like different kinds of,
you know,
encryption protocols,
proof of work
was something that, that,
that existed beforehand.
I first
remember hearing about that
as a form of,
spam mitigation,
whereby every piece of email
you got, it wouldn't be like
it wouldn't be accepted,
except if it could show
it cryptographically
that a certain amount
of computational power
had been expended.
And that would mean that
if you just wanted to send
a few emails,
the amount of computation
would be trivial.
But if you're sending
bulk email,
then that would really add up
to some significant
amount of computational power.
That would have to be,
did you have to prove you did?
And that would
then throttle back
any spammers ability
to send out
billions of email messages?
That was in the air.
That was around
like 2000, 2001 blockchain
that came.
And this
this is the thing
about blockchain.
That was the big buzzword
in 2002 thousand
and, 17 blockchain.
It was around in
I think, 1991,
you know,
it was a paper by Harper
and Stone
era proposed
how you could get
a chunk of data
and then basically do a thing
called a hash,
which takes like
a unique number from that
that you can't reverse.
You can't
reversibly calculate,
add that to the next block.
The idea being
is that if you tried to change
any data in that system,
you'd have to change
like everything
that came later
and that is
very, very difficult to do.
If you combine
that with proof of work,
because then you have to
not only
you have to do
all the proof of work.
Calculations for every block
where it doesn't
work is on its own,
because you could
trivially change
all of the data
that's stacked on top.
If you don't have to do
any proof of
work calculations.
In the process, a
computer could very easily.
If you want to
change something
that in the data base
that was
put there years ago with
thousands of blocks on top,
you could very
easily recompute
all of the blocks
that sit on top.
But if you've got
proof of work there
that require ten minutes
of calculations
of the most of the combined
computing power of, of,
thousands of miners
all over the world,
then that you cannot
you can't even roll one
block back little line,
let alone dozens or hundreds
that you might need
if you wanted to
change something
that occurred,
earlier on in the history.
Yeah.
But this is the that.
So I love that.
I love that you said that, JP
because as you were speaking,
I was smiling
because I remembered
I recently saw on Instagram,
Mark Boris did a podcast with,
with the CEO of
crypto exchange in Australia.
And I noticed
in the notes that he said
it was a paid partnership.
I found that very interesting.
But I just
watched this short
little sound bite and
from what I could see,
the message was very much
that blockchain
is a technology that allows
for decentralization
of finance.
And I'm like,
No no no no no no.
Yeah.
No, no, this is the problem.
Yep.
And, I naturally
I couldn't help myself.
So I commented just to clear
up, the confusion for any,
people who stumble upon it
and may want to know
that there is a little bit
more that requires,
for us
to achieve decentralization.
Just have to ask
as well as if it
if it's blockchain again,
you know,
without without Bitcoin's
proof of work
and without a whole lot
of this other stuff,
if it was so revolutionary,
why didn't anyone do
anything with it?
Between 1991 and the,
the development of Bitcoin in,
2008?
Yeah, it does it
it just becomes
in an idiosyncratic
data structure.
That's it.
You know, an append
only database.
Not that useful.
And what did they talk about?
Oh, but it allows us to
you can have this,
you know,
we can have this system
where the data is all
decentralized, right?
You already have that.
I mean, when you log on to
your social media
that is stored simultaneously
on servers all over the world,
you could a nuke
could take out a country
holding part
of that infrastructure,
and you'll still be able
to log in.
It'll file over to another
copy of the of the data
and the and the
and the
system
will reroute
around the problem.
So there's nothing new
about a decentralized
database, but
but it is
ultimately blockchain.
And this is kind of
gets back to the presentation
I did at the university.
It was one of the early
marketing buzzwords,
essentially really became it's
really more
of a marketing term than it is
any it's still around.
Well, yeah.
But and
and it's kind of metastasized
into other things.
Like there was sort of
this like, well then it was
it was
blockchain and then it
then it was sort of rebranded
last thing last, cycle to DeFi
and then
and now
they're calling it Web3.
That's
because that's ultimately
what the topic of the thing
that I went and spoke
at last week was, was
it was essentially a web
three day and,
and so I sort of rather
cheekily titled
my presentation,
Why Bitcoin
is the only blockchain with a
with a cross out
through it, crypto
with a cross out through it,
a bunch of other
and then I think it was,
DeFi with
a cross app through it
and then Web3 that matters,
you know,
in other words,
to show how you know,
this is just
the latest iteration
of a whole series
of marketing terms
that have come and gone
as each of the narratives
that were associated
with that market,
with that marketing term,
have failed in the market.
Although, of course, it has a
it didn't fail in the market
for everybody.
It just failed it
it just failed in the market
for everyone
that that system failed
the client care about.
It worked
very well for a few insiders
that created tokens and, and,
you know, spun up like things
like venture capital pump
like what is it
with these serial
entrepreneur types
that all they ever do is
like continually
spin up ideas,
but they can't wait
to flog them off.
And it's almost
like they build these things
for that purpose.
It's not really built with any
with any kind of long
term vision. And they know it.
They building this thing to be
something
that they can flog off,
to either to raise
the venture capitalists
can flog off to,
to mug punters, to retail,
and this time, really
retail isn't really showing up
at the moment, like,
because the the narratives
have gotten kind of
sillier in cilia.
In the beginning, there was
a degree of sort of,
you know, if you didn't
scratch too deeply,
there was a degree of,
a plausibility
to the narratives.
But what's the
latest thing now?
It's just like it's
just like meme coins.
It's all left.
You know,
they they just literally
call the main coin.
I mean,
at least that's more honest.
At least you can just say,
yeah, look,
we've we've given up.
They've given up
on any pretense
of these things being useful.
You are just buying a meme.
That's it.
And and now we see how
there's like
the same curve of that.
I think they get pumped
by the insiders.
They start selling boom dump.
Yeah.
Rinse and repeat.
There's no,
there was never
any kind of long term
deal with any of this stuff.
And but
and that's what bitcoin
have been very good at doing.
Bitcoin is a here
for the long term.
And yeah this
is reflected
as well
in our made up numbers.
It used to be that
during bear markets
when it was all just sort of
when there was no bitcoin
crypto distinction is that,
everyone would
would show up
in massive numbers,
like he could get
hundreds of people
at these made ups
during that bull markets.
And then as soon as
three months later
when the bear market
was around,
literally
we'd be like five people,
if that like it was,
it would just drop to nothing.
With the Bitcoin community.
Now, our events are equally
well attended
regardless now of what
part of the cycle
that we're in.
Yeah, consistency is key.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
I wanted to ask you
if you can simply
explain, like,
I think there's
a lot of people
in Northern Rivers area
that are sort of
dabbling in crypto space.
And I do get this
question a lot.
You know, Bitcoin
versus crypto.
How would you explain it
to complete beginner as to why
they should not be
investing in crypto?
One of the
interesting distinctions
I think
very well,
I think it's
a very clear distinction
you can join is to draw
other is to us
before even
to ask of all of these things,
including Bitcoin,
what problem does it solve
now Bitcoin
right
from the very first part.
In fact,
the problem that it solves
is embedded
in the very first Bitcoin
block itself.
Satoshi put it in there.
He says.
You stay in that line
that says,
governor on the brink of
second bailout for banks.
Okay,
so what's the problem there?
Is that money printing, right?
This idea that insiders
can keep breaching
the trust
of the monetary system
by printing money
to bail out their friends
at the expense of everybody
who holds that money,
who gets diluted.
All these other guys
take the risks.
I'm just. I earned my money.
I hold my money,
and I'm just getting diluted
by these people that that,
that took
risks and don't
seem to have to suffer
the consequences
when that risk goes wrong
because their mates
at the money printer
are going
to print more of them
and bail them out.
So that's embedded
in the blockchain
as well as that.
He also writes in
some very early posts,
he explicitly says the problem
with traditional fiat currency
is the,
the amount of trust
that it requires
in central third parties.
And I'm paraphrasing, and the
and how history is
full of repeated
breaches of that trust.
It's pretty close.
Yeah, that's
pretty actually close
to the original quote.
So you did really well
remembering that. Yeah. So,
so you couldn't define
the problem more clearly.
Start out with the problem
now, here's the solution.
And by the way,
it wasn't the first attempt
at such a solution.
There were
precursors to Bitcoin
which probably involved
to date involved
many of the same
technological components.
Just that Bitcoin
was the first one
to kind of get it all,
to get everything
decentralized, like
there was things before
that had attack
that is still like certain
central attack vectors
that that the
that the legacy system
could, could go for
and take down.
And it's kind of
like what happened
with, with file
sharing in the
very early days.
Some of your older listeners
would remember,
things like Napster,
and that was pretty much
completely stole
it had a big
centralized server.
You'd be old enough
to remember the other name.
But there was a central
kind of mediating server.
And that,
of course,
as soon as that was shut down,
and then there were ones
that sort of took
more of the central points
out of it.
Eventually it got to what
we have.
It didn't take long.
It all happened
within a few years.
BitTorrent.
And so the only things that
now can get taken down,
I like the websites
that hold the actual
like torrent link,
but you could just have
those people
could just hold those
like you could have
those links everywhere.
You could keep putting
those links around
as long as you could send
those links around.
The data
now just moves
between all of the peers
in the network in the total,
totally decentralized swarm.
And that's why
we still have
BitTorrent to this day.
That protocol is essentially
the underpinnings of of,
still have all online
file sharing
and that this is
we're going back,
what, 20, 25 years now.
And so Bitcoin is kind of like
the equivalent of BitTorrent.
Except now for money.
It's like it just it
it took out by that.
It was the thing
that no longer
had anything in it
left that, that that could be,
that could be attacked
and and
and prevented from working.
And, I forget what
the beginning
of the question was.
Where did I get off?
What was the side of that?
Yeah.
If we're talking about,
crypto versus bitcoin, right.
It's about the hope
that it's solved.
So it's solved that problem.
And once it was solved,
it was solved.
Now, the thing with crypto
is that they have
they're always it's
like they've got
this solution.
They've got this
blockchain tech.
They thought
it was what it is.
And they're always trying
to find, oh,
what's a problem
that this could solve.
And and they have
even hackathons
that attempt to sort of
come up with problems
that you could solve with it.
And it's the complete
wrong way
you should do things. It's
and of course, that's why
all of these things failed,
because these
were never problems.
And so when you're
looking at these things,
you have to ask yourself,
what problem is it
actually solving?
So when someone comes up
and says,
oh, look, you know, I could
we could have
a, a virtual pat
on the internet
and I can sell this
cat and I can do this,
I could feed this
cat and I could do all this.
Okay, well, that's
nice, but like,
what probably is
it's always yeah.
And then this may work.
And then there's
things like the,
that these things
have been put forward
as digital collectibles.
Well,
they could solve the puzzle.
I don't know, that collectible
were a problem
that needed solving.
But one thing
about collectibles
I can tell is
if you look at my background
here, I do a
little bit about collecting
is that if you have
if you try to create something
for the purposes of
being a collectible,
it's there.
It's never collectible.
Think of your grandmother's
Franklin Mint brick gum
plates or, you know,
royal Royal,
you know, royal crockery,
all that sort of stuff
that was explicitly
created to be collectible.
It never is, but it is.
It's,
this,
what is collectible
as things that were sort of
in sort of
relatively normal use
but then become scarce
and people
then want to study the history
of whatever that thing is and,
and, collect
and collect examples of it.
But Franklin Mint stuff,
that's the good
example of that.
Those things are just
there's no limit.
There's no,
what's the word?
It's,
I forget the expression now,
but it's,
the idea that, you can't fake
the amount of effort that made
that went into creating it.
Start saving in Bitcoin with
BitTorrent,
Australia's biggest bitcoin
on the exchange.
Beta offers easy tools
and advanced features.
Join thousands of happy users
making their first Bitcoin
purchase today.
Download the app or visit
beta Dot.
Today you.
When you mentioned
collectibles,
I was just thinking
I feel like the bullish case
for Bitcoin
has become a klepto
because when I went to buy
the book, it's
like $600 or something.
I was like,
you can buy it with cheap.
Oh, really? Okay.
Yeah. Like, I mean.
It's just
it's like
gold was never
to be collectible,
but it's not. That's right.
It wasn't created. Is that.
But now that Bitcoin
has become popular
and and that's from a time
when Bitcoin wasn't
that well known,
I didn't print
that many copies.
People that are interested
in bitcoin
want to want to create
to create.
So to complete
their Bitcoin library
with that book, perfect
example of stuff
that becomes collectible
because it was never intended
if it was intended to be
collectible from the start.
Yeah.
It wouldn't have it.
It wouldn't
have been addressing
any real problem.
That's the one thing.
And, and I would add, there
probably wouldn't
be any reason why you couldn't
just create
unlimited numbers
of the thing.
Yeah.
Which is also kind of
like the same reason
why they will never be
another Bitcoin.
You can't replicate the events
that took place
to make it what it is today.
Exactly. Yeah.
It's it's described
in it's described
as Bitcoin's
immaculate conception in that,
it's it
the whole purpose of
was of Bitcoin was,
resistance to replicability.
And so
if you can't therefore
if you replicate
the whole thing,
then you no longer
have digital scarcity either.
You're going to have a world
in which the idea
of digital scarcity exists
or you don't.
Now, if you do have that world
and that's the world
that we're betting on,
then there can only be one,
because if there are more,
you don't have
digital scarcity
anymore, in which case, well,
then you might as well
not be involved
in any of them.
So it becomes essentially
a bitcoin or nothing argument.
Yeah.
And so when people
are looking at the differences
here,
it's necessary
to understand what problem
solving, how it solves it
and the
and the game theory
involved with that
which isn't present in crypto.
It's also
you have to look at Bitcoin's
immaculate conception,
which again, no, cryptos
do not have that.
They're they're created
by central parties
that issue unlimited
number of numbers of tokens.
And usually people,
they just sell
those to the public.
So there's no unaffordable
cost limits there.
They're highly centralized.
They could make claims
of immutability
like as
Ethereum claims
that its
monetary policy is now
makes it more scarce
than Bitcoin.
You might have heard
this claim.
You know,
you know, with our
monetary policy.
Now what's our issuance?
Right. A
is it
a better stop to flow
ratio than what Bitcoin is?
But that's meaningless
if your monetary policy itself
is not immutable
and it's gone
through more changes
of monetary policy than its
than its founders
have probably
had changes of underwear.
I mean, it's, it's it's,
and so it's not it's
not a meaningful claim
when, when it can,
when it can be changed
as easily as big
as Ethereum, for example.
I don't want to pick on
a theorem.
It's true
of all of them have had their
they have had
their monetary policy change
throughout the histories.
You know plus pre mine.
That well that's right.
The pre mine too. Yeah.
Which 70% pre-modern.
Yeah.
And they only ever like
the Ethereum
Foundation for example
has only ever sold
theorem support.
It's only ever sold it
to the public.
That's the totally opposite
message.
You get from the Bitcoin
community. It says that
the mission that
you want to be on at
the moment
is understanding
that this thing is finite
and it's meaningfully finite.
It's not just finite
because someone said
it is meaningfully finite.
It there's
there is actually no way
that anyone can change
the numbers of Bitcoin
that we can divide it into.
Just before anyone says
about satoshis and all that,
you could divide it up
into thinner slices.
But you can't increase
the overall, money supply.
And, and so this is a very,
very important distinction.
And,
and a lot of what
when I again,
going back to the sort of talk
I gave at the university,
a lot of that talk
was explaining how
all of these great things
that I'm telling you
about Bitcoin,
the crypto, the
of which a group is named
after all these other things,
they don't necessarily
share any
or certainly not
all of those attributes.
And it's important
that that has
all of those attributes.
It might have some of them.
But in order for it
to do
to solve the problem
that Bitcoin solves,
that needs to have all of them
and indeed to solve
to be
a meaningfully
decentralized thing
that is okay,
to do something better
than other technology
would do,
it needs to have all
of those attributes.
I don't
I'm not against the idea
of, yes,
you could use
blockchain to do,
you know,
people could store land
titles and things on there.
Okay.
But the moment
you start doing that,
you have to bring
in again, third parties
say with Bitcoin
everything that Bitcoin is
it's just
is on the blockchain.
It's purely
within the digital realm.
If you have your own
private keys,
then only
you are
the you're the only one
putting information
on the blockchain
in the moment.
You do that, that's it.
That's the end of it.
You make your transaction,
that's it.
But if you want to do things
like storing land titles
or something
on the blockchain,
yeah, you can store
information there.
But in order to
make that action
meaningful,
it has to link back
with the real world
some some way.
You need someone
to enforce that contract.
So why not just trust
that guy to
run the whole blockchain?
You haven't because it's like,
well, what all you
you can say, well,
I own this property
because I have
this ledger entry
on this blockchain.
Yeah,
but that's like saying
you own the territory
because you want in the map.
Like having owning that
transaction on that blockchain
says that you
just own the land.
It gives you all
the shape of the map.
It does to me, enforced
in the real world,
the ownership
of the actual territory.
The difference with Bitcoin
is that those things are one
and the same.
The map and territory
are the same.
There's no separate territory,
it's just the map
is the thing.
I pass you the map.
Now you have that,
you have that.
You have that economic
potential energy,
to, to
to spend wherever you wish.
There's no other entities
needed to enforce anything
that's going on.
It's all happening
within the digital realm.
But that's again the big,
the stake with the game theory
and the incentives
that the blockchain crowd
still doesn't understand.
They, they
by linking it in
with the real world,
if they're doing things
that, that
where, that,
where that,
where the incentives
do not align.
Like it
very importantly
lines in bitcoin.
Yeah.
I do want to ask you
a more about game theory
because I'm very interested.
I've never gone down that
rabbit hole.
But before I do
I just want to sort of
go back to the crypto versus
bitcoin debate,
because I think
most normal people
who are crypto curious
and have an interest
in, in this,
like as an investment
class, they,
looking at making money
like they're not
thinking about what
the value proposition,
what the purpose
of Bitcoin is.
They're more thinking
how how do I make money?
And I think a lot of
them as well
think like, okay, Bitcoin's
the most established one.
But I'm not going
to get the gains
in Bitcoin anymore
that I might get
in some
other speculative token.
So I think there's
an element of, I guess, greed
where they are hoping
they're going to get like
17 x gains
from, from something else
because they,
they know that
they can't get that
in Bitcoin anymore.
Oh they believe.
I mean well I mean not not
I mean that's the thing.
I mean
but remember that
when you risk
adjust these things though
it all in fact
it dips in Bitcoin's
favor in my view
when you risk
adjusted because,
the thing with these
other tokens is.
Yeah, you can.
Yeah.
Like, I'm not going to die.
People have made,
you know, hundreds
of X on these things,
but that you are
if you're going
to try to think
that you're going to do that,
you are competing
against people
who've got far more insider
knowledge than you.
They know exactly what
the pins are about
to be pulled you down.
And in aggregate,
all of the people attempting
this are actually down
on their money.
The reason being is
because think about it
for a minute.
I mean, the
is taking
whatever their percentage
that their trading fees
or their, owed and the spread.
So when you add that up,
if you actually
put the aggregate
of all of those crypto
trading people together,
they're actually down
by a couple of percent
because of the trading
fees on the exchanges.
These are zero sum
or slightly negative
sum gains,
or at least zero some gains
when you put
the exchange in there
and when you and
and yeah, between traders
they're actually in aggregate
down on their money.
And then it gets even worse.
When you consider that it's
only a very,
very small
percentage of traders
that make all of the gains
and everyone else
who naively sort of
jumped in on the pump,
they're the ones that
get dumped on the 90.
More than 90
plus percent of these people
don't make any money.
And it all gets concentrated
on those few insiders
that have the advantages that
the the,
the sort of neat people,
naive people
just sitting at home
on their trading platform
just don't have.
So it's a mug's game, really,
at the end of the day, like
if you just want to say
what they say exactly,
say that gambling.
Look at my,
libertarian, relatively
libertarian views.
I don't think these things
should be banned.
I just in favor
of being honest about them
and calling them out
for what they are.
If people want to gamble
and they know that's
what they're doing,
good luck to them.
But let's stop pretending
that these things
are innovative
and new and are going to,
you know, and
going to change the world
and all of this.
No, they're just gambling and
it is a little bit
disappointing that
when you see
sort of people
promoting this idea of, of,
of, of gambling,
and then to be honest,
there was a degree of that
at the disappointed
to hear a little bit.
One of the speakers there
who was
I don't want to sort of
I don't want to call him out,
I think
I don't think
his motives
were nefarious, but,
he was actually at like a
they do actually do not do
bitcoin and slash crypto,
courses at,
at the university now.
And it was actually literally
one of the professors
who was talking
about his history
of sort of essentially
trading these tokens
and saying
how you can dabble in them
and you'll yeah,
you could wake
up, up your money
or wake up broke, you know,
and it sort of
seemed to be a kind
of a sketchy thing
at a university to be kind of
I don't know whether it is
encouraging it, but even
he certainly wasn't
condemning it.
He certainly wasn't
giving any kind of
warning against it.
And I sort of felt like say,
well, you know, okay.
Yeah,
you could dabble
in this stuff.
I mean, what's next?
I mean, you know,
heroin dabbling that drugs.
I mean,
you know,
the heroin addiction,
I mean, you can dabble
in all these sorts of things.
I mean,
gambling and drugs
and all these things are very,
very destructive behaviors.
Yeah.
Now, gambling might not be
as damaging
to your physical health
as drugs, but,
it absolutely destroys lives.
It rips.
It destroys families.
I mean, it's,
it just like it.
And depending on city.
Yeah,
to varying degrees,
it can be a very, very,
destructive addiction
to many people particularly.
And a lot of this
thing, it does attract people
with potential
gambling addictions.
And so I think as
responsible people, we should
always catch
it in those terms.
Just make sure that we say,
you know,
how just remind people
that how damaging gambling
behaviors can be
and that that ultimately is,
is what's going on here.
Not banning me,
not trying to tell people
what to do.
Just just be clear
about what it really is.
Yeah.
Because Bitcoin is obviously
a lot more predictable
and stable
than these other tokens
because it has.
That long term view.
It is it's
not trying to sort of like
you're
not trying to dabble in it
just so you can get more of
something else. Yeah.
But even then
involved in
crypto ever
wants to have more of of
if it wants to own more
come rocket right.
No one is is
is about that.
They think that they could
the whole point of
it is to buy it
and then to dump it
at the optimal point
at the top,
so they can get more
or more Bitcoin.
Yeah, it's true.
A lot of these people
actually they do
believe in bitcoin
and they try to do it
to get more bitcoin.
You know I feel sorry
for some of these people
who think that
some of these other tokens
have actually got a future.
And that's where it gets,
you know, and
and when you've got
I have nothing but contempt
for these sort of influencers
that got the
crypto influencers.
And we've had a few of them
in Australia,
some of them that have got
very big
and then have had
spectacular falls
when it's
when they've ended up,
you know,
having too much
of their own, product
and ended up coming undone
very badly, leaving,
huge amounts of debt.
And,
in this particular case
that I have in mind,
some of your listeners
will know who I'm
talking about.
Investors
ripped off and,
not to mention,
they use that their sort of,
prominence to sort of shill
tokens, they claim.
Oh, I don't have
I'm not getting paid
any kind of endorsement
or anything like that.
But if you've seen
these people's communications
behind the scenes,
there is
definite self-interest
in there.
They've got
they do have an
allocation of tokens
or they'll talk about things
that they've given,
that they've been given
an incentive to talk about.
The incentives for them align
very well
as the kind of insiders
that I've warned about before
who are in the position
to dump on you
with the very things
that they're
telling you to buy.
Well, then I'll tell you them.
So they're very careful
in the way
they do what they say,
not financial advice.
And then they go on and give
a load of financial advice.
Yeah.
And
but ultimately the
point of getting it
is no one wants,
no matter what
they say about it,
no one ultimately wants to own
more of any of this
other stuff.
It's only a vehicle
for getting more
of some other thing.
And that is also
your distinction between
what is the Ponzi scheme
and what's the actual
real money?
Because people don't
buy bitcoin
just so they oh, some people,
some people buy bitcoin,
they just want to
get more dollars.
But the point is though,
that there's a huge number,
that there's a vast
number of people that aren't
that are actually
using Bitcoin
as their unit of account
and are trying
to accumulate more bitcoin
because it is this it is fine.
They are using it as money.
It's not
and therefore it's
not a Ponzi scheme.
Certainly not.
And not in the way
these other things are where
they're just trying
to get more of
of something else with it.
I don't know anyone who's
trying to get more,
of pretty much any other token
you can think of.
It's always about
how you can trade that thing
to get more of a trade.
The Bitcoin will say it.
Yeah, yeah.
Sorry, I just forgot
what the point
I was going to make was
we were talking
about earlier on,
about, you know, gambling
with these speculative tokens.
And then I was just
going to make the point that,
you know,
even with Bitcoin, like,
if you receive advice
from a Bitcoin,
it's never to like
try to time
the market or speculate
when you're going
to reach the top
or when you're going
to reach the bottom.
It's always buy and hold.
The closest you get to
it is like dollar cost
averaging type of advice,
like which is the opposite
of trying to time the market.
It's a
yeah, just use it
like you put your savings.
It's a savings account.
That's all it is.
Don't get rich quick scheme
at a not get poor
slowly scheme is someone
else coined that expression.
And
and so you just treat it
like a savings account.
It wasn't always something
that you could,
as safely do that
with as you can now.
I think now
that it's reached a size
whereby it's,
it's not like it's
so entrenched
now in the, in
everything that
the prospect of it
going to zero
is no longer a meaningful one,
like the legacy
system has a far
greater chance
of taking, of wiping you out
now than Bitcoin does. Yeah.
But it could have been argued
ten years ago that
you were taking a risk,
not necessarily a risk in that
this thing was any good.
I think anyone
who understood it
realized that
this thing works.
And solves the problem,
but the risk that
there wouldn't be
a significant number
of other people in the world
that would come
to the same realization,
because you need to have that
if you're going to have money,
it has to be something
that enough other people
are willing to put value into,
in order for it to
hold value for you.
The menu.
If you're going to put
your money in there,
you have to be able to.
Ideally, you would want
someone else down the line
to be able to give you back.
So if you've
if you've created a certain
you've done
a certain amount of work
or you've created a certain
amount of economic output
and you want to hold that
for the future,
that economic
potential energy,
as I describe it, you,
at least in the future,
would hope
that you could at least
get that amount of energy back
out of the system
to benefit you at some,
some faraway point.
Bitcoin.
While it's growing, though,
it's going to do a
hell of a lot better than that
because it's
it's still growing.
But as long as it does
at least that.
But, you know, if
if it had never caught on,
then, and no one had
just ever come around
to the realization then,
that, yeah,
you would have it, that
you would have
essentially lost
the economic
potential energy
that you put in.
That's why now
when people talk
about getting into Bitcoin,
they talk about,
well, they can
they put all that,
they they talk about
all that's put every space
if they have some of the more,
adventurous people
talk about getting loans
and that sort of thing,
this is not what people said.
Back in the early days,
even the most, ardent
Bitcoin bulls
would say things
like, don't invest
more than you
can afford to lose.
It was yeah, maybe put it.
And now it's.
Their money savers.
Yeah.
Say let's go to saying
which is the inverse of that.
Do you know what it is like.
Don't know.
Right. Don't you don't like.
Keep out of it.
Don't keep it.
Say it bull
that you can afford to
or don't. Yeah. Or.
Yeah. That's right.
Put in what only put.
Yeah.
Put in what you,
What you can't afford to lose.
Yeah, exactly.
And that,
that is the mindset
that I have as well.
Like, for me, it's,
buy and hold.
Forget I have it.
Right. Those storms.
And then if I get emotional
about the drawbacks,
reach out
to a friendly org for support.
Because it
all of
the other things
you had to do all this stuff,
like you've got to stake it
in order to
so you don't get deluded.
You got to do all this
and you've got to keep it in a
in wallets that are for,
you know,
typically are
online connected.
And yeah.
So you can't
it can't just be
you can't just simply
save your money.
You have to jump
through all sorts
of other hoops to,
to keep
because you've got to keep
trading it
or turning it over
into the next big thing.
This is what they do.
That is this is dying.
So you've got to move it
into the next one
and the next
speculative thing.
Meanwhile bitcoins,
they're just humming along.
All you had to do
is just buy it.
Every shit
coin, is it that ever was.
No matter how much
they might have made,
they still would
have done better in the end
if they just put that time
and effort
and money
into bitcoin
right in the start.
We'll have to wait
for ten years to go outside.
I told the students, is this
you guys
sitting behind computers
because all you're doing
is like you're
you're sitting
at your computer.
The other guys
person
sitting at their computer,
they're trying to take
they're trying
to take your money.
You're trying to
take their money.
Nothing's been created here,
just the other guy
trying to take the
other guy's money.
And you're spending.
And how
many hours you guys have spent
both at the end
to try to do this,
which is the number of hours
that are spent
staring at charts and
working out positions
and doing all of this
when the whole time
all you had to do
was just put your money
into bitcoin,
hold the private keys
yourself, keep it safe
and just go outside.
Touch grass too.
Whatever you got to do,
not worry about it.
I know you have some.
And you'd have done,
you know, in the last
you'd have done
no 100 X in the last,
you know, 7 or 8 years.
That was. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
It was that and it
and and the
and you know, nothing
none of these things ever.
These are the things
by the way.
They all had their
peak in 2017.
Ethereum
is great chart
from Jane's check.
Pointed out
that Ethereum
has now been down
70, I think
73% of all the days
that it's existed.
It's been in the red 20, 73%
of the time against Bitcoin.
So there's therefore there's
only something
like 27%
of the days of Bitcoin
of, of Ethereum's existence
that if you bought
that you would be ahead,
on your Bitcoin investment.
And as and the longer
it goes on the,
the the smaller
that percentages of days
ahead in the Etherium
there are because it's
a continuing
to trend downwards
against Bitcoin
as we said it always would.
Because not only
is it sort of essentially
trying to solve problems
that don't exist,
it's also gets
because it's the second
and third and fourth
or whatever thing alone,
it has no shelling
point around it.
There's no reason
why you have
to remain loyal to a
if you
if you think that those
smart contracts
are interesting.
But he might
genuinely think
that there are things
that you can do on those
on those platforms.
Well,
you don't need to do them
on Ethereum.
If as soon as Ethereum
gets too expensive,
you could do them on
numerous other smart
contract blockchains
like Solana, roll, NEM
or whatever,
I mean, and these
and these are all
coming in there
and cannibalizing
the same market
share of people,
so they are
genuinely unlimited.
That's why they
they could never
ultimately go up,
because they just get to keep
getting cannibalized by faster
and better smart
contract blockchains
because they again.
And then also
they're also trying to compete
on that tech perspective.
I just want to make
this other point
about the distinction as well.
A lot of people
make the mistake of looking
at this whole thing,
looking at Bitcoin
in particular as a
as a tech phenomenon,
when it's
it is to some extent,
but it's primarily
a monetary phenomenon.
Now, if you had
made the mistake
of looking at it
as primarily
a tech phenomenon,
you would have made
the false pattern match
between,
Bitcoin and things like,
you know,
the Betamax video recorder.
That's probably
dating me a bit there,
but there's other
examples of like, you know,
you know,
when you've had a, a system
that was the earlier one
and then it gets made obsolete
by a better one.
And if you looked at it
as a tech phenomenon,
you would very easily
try to say, well,
you know, like it's
all the better one.
They kept saying is
Bitcoin is my space.
And Ethereum
or these other
things are like,
you know,
the the newer social networks
that came along afterwards
that were,
that were much
more successful,
where my space
is essentially irrelevant.
That turned out to be
and we always said
it was was a false
pattern match.
It was a
it was a false analogy. Yeah.
And that only came about
because you were looking at it
as a tech phenomenon,
because that's what
tech does, right?
It's like a new tech
that gets better
and replaces the old tech.
But if you believe that,
you would have
also had to believe that
whatever tech
came along to replace Bitcoin
would itself
get replaced by
something else,
and that would have
just gone on forever.
And you'd be back to the point
of not having
digital scarcity anymore,
you know?
And that's exactly
what has happened to Ethereum,
because the very
same arguments
that it tried to make
against Bitcoin
were made against it
by these other smart
contract blockchains.
So they're going to continue
to come along
and add more of them
all the time
that they're
going to cannibalize
its market share.
So it's not going
to end up being
so all of these things
ultimately will trend to zero
against Bitcoin.
I'm not going to say
that they're going
to be worthless.
They'll always be in anything,
even in the stupidest thing
you can imagine.
There will always be
some diehards
that will ascribe
some value to it
and keep
the bid just above zero.
But I say they will trend
towards zero
as as Bitcoin continues
to be adopted
and these other things
continue to essentially
cannibalize each other
for the fewer
and fewer people
that remain committed.
You know, to whatever they,
whatever they think
these things could do
for them.
Yeah. You know,
as a Bitcoin elder,
I actually want to ask you
on, on something
because I want to validate
if my assumptions or the story
that I'm telling myself
has merit
or it's completely way off.
You mentioned that,
you know, Bitcoin
is a monetary
phenomenon,
not a tech phenomenon.
But on in my head,
I am telling myself
the story that up until 2017,
the Bitcoin discussions
were largely dominated
by the tech crowd.
And then just say it's not.
It's not.
It is a kind of
it is a
I'm not saying
it's not a tech,
it's just not primarily
a tech phenomenon.
That's the thing.
Yes, yes,
obviously it involves a great
deal of tech. Yeah, a lot
is is doing that.
It's. Yeah.
Yeah.
Is it,
is it almost like Sophie?
Then came a moose. Sorry.
The safety
and a moose came along and,
you know, released
the Bitcoin standard
and introduced
sort of the world to this,
you know,
reintroduced the world to,
Austrian economics
because it was
in my mind again,
forgotten science.
And then he
basically made
the case for it.
No, this is actually
really hard money.
This is why this thing
is going to succeed.
Is that what happened?
Well, as influential
as influential as, safe.
Dean's book has been.
I wouldn't say
I wouldn't suggest
that it was the thing
that, like,
suddenly crystallized
this idea
in, in everyone's mind,
Bitcoin from
its very beginnings, was,
posited
as an Austrian economic
by system.
And that's
because of its finite supply,
like it was designed
from the outset
with Austrian economic
principles in mind that were,
that were well known
to the earliest of, of,
earliest of, of people
involved in it.
I believe,
I think
some of the early writings
of the Mises
Institute, like
Bitcoin was spoken
about in, Austrian
economics circles
almost from day one.
The contribution saved
made, of course, is in writing
the Bitcoin standard.
That was perhaps
some popularizing
those concepts
to, to the,
the very wide
not the,
the very
large number of people that
were introduced
to those ideas through
his book.
That sold very well.
But that was
yeah, it was
that was quite
a number of years.
I'm not sure what year
the bitcoin stand.
I think it's 2017.
That's vaguely
what I remember saying that.
That sounds about right.
So yeah.
So that's
many, many years after
these ideas were already quite
the solid know already formed
the solid foundations for,
for not only Bitcoin,
but also
many people's interest
in Bitcoin
as a monetary phenomenon.
Yeah.
No, I've never heard of the
the Austrian economics
before of it,
the Bitcoin standard.
So that was
a very interesting. Yeah.
So yeah.
So credit
to to safety and smoke
if that's
what brought it to you.
But but it can say though
that those ideas were,
were before that.
Well-established in, in
in people
in the circles of people
interested in
not only Austrian economics
but Bitcoin.
And the
marriage of the two was,
was appreciated
almost from day one.
Yeah.
Nice.
I wanted to ask you
about game theory.
This is a rabbit hole
I've never gone down.
How would you
explain it to a complete noob?
Oh,
I would explain it
in terms of.
People ultimately act
on incentives,
and
the idea here is
that you are trying to predict
what the other guy
is going to do
based on what you think.
He is going to want to do,
to maximize
his own positive outcomes.
That's not
very eloquent, but,
No, it makes sense.
There's a
and there's
also a sort of second order
to that as well in that
an even more sophisticated
player in this,
because it is a kind of a
game, is also going to be
not only thinking of
what's best for him,
but he's also
going to be thinking of what
he thinks you're going to do,
which means that
he's also thinking.
So it could go back and forth
a bit like that as well.
And,
and so it's ultimately
all of the people
in, in a, in a,
in essentially a system.
Optimizing
their own outcomes.
And there's many
different ways
you could set up.
And you can set up
different systems
with different rules.
And they're going to lead
to different outcomes
because of the way
in which it affects
people's behavior.
Assuming that
people in that system
are going to be acting
according to their own
rational self-interest,
the whole system breaks down.
If participants
are irrational.
So a good example of
game theory would be the idea
of mutually
assured destruction.
This is quite topical,
I think, like
in the last week,
the doctrine of
mutually assured destruction.
And the idea is, is that,
if we have a whole
bunch of people that have got,
a whole bunch of superpowers
that have got nuclear weapons,
then it kind of ensures
a degree of peace
because
no one is going to want
to, like, increase the,
increase attention
to the point where,
as soon as one guy,
one country drops
a nuclear weapon on the other,
then that the retaliation
will destroy them as well.
So no one wants to escalate
the situation.
To the point,
because as soon as one
person launches a nuke,
they're going to get
destroyed, too,
because there's like,
enough power there
just to wipe out everybody
and so on.
And so what it ends up
doing is deterring
that, gives them
that deterrence.
From anyone from,
from launching a nuke at all.
So but you sort of have them,
but you don't use them.
The having of them
kind of prevents
people from ever using them.
That assumes that the,
the act as a rational,
the argument against allowing
someone like an Iran
to have
nuclear weapons is weird,
is that if there's
if you believe
that they are
a religious theocracy,
that may
that may believe that the,
second coming of Christ
or the
or that's not the right word
for Islamic technocracy,
of course.
But if you believe that
they are not rational actors,
let's just leave it at that.
Let's not try to pick up.
Let's not
make this theological.
Let's just say that
if you didn't believe
that they were
rational actors,
then you wouldn't want them
holding nukes,
because they would.
They would bomb
you and not necessarily
care about the consequences
to themselves.
So game theory is
based on the idea that the
that the act is irrational,
that they've got to try
to optimize
their own outcomes.
And so therefore
with knowledge of that
and the system
you, you it's, it's
you want to design things
in such a ways that,
it affects you
as an individual,
as your behavior,
as to how you're going
to behave in the system.
Because you're also going
to have to think of what
the other guy's going to do.
But it also affects
like how you design systems
in terms of
if you want them to work,
then you want the, the, the,
the, the,
the interests
of all of the individuals
in the system
to align
with what's
also best
for the system overall.
So,
I refer back to the tragedy
of the Commons example,
like I said before,
where the systems
didn't align very well.
And so
people would cheat
and so you'd have to
then have enforcement
to come in there.
And,
we can't have enforcement
with Bitcoin.
There is no central authority
to enforce anything.
So all we've got left
is to trust
that everyone will
behave selfishly.
So you got to make sure
that that selfish action
also happens to line up
with what's best
for the system overall.
And Bitcoin it does.
But in most other things
in the world,
the two
those things don't align.
And so you get people
that cheat. Yeah.
And they benefit themselves.
But it
but to the detriment
of the greater good.
And this is why I
will never have more than 21
million coins.
Well technically
yeah that's right.
The game
theory says that like.
Yeah.
Again,
a good example
of the game theory.
Like why would any
of the participants
in the network agree
to increase it?
Yeah, because everyone.
Could do it. But yeah.
Yeah.
But like yeah,
why would I want to like
why would I want to debase
the money that I hold.
I've got fiat for that.
And take something like
Ethereum though
with that proof
or I don't know
pick on Ethereum anything
with like a proof
of stake mechanism.
The game theory doesn't align.
This is what happens.
All of the people
that have got
the have
all of the people
who actually have the result.
In this case,
the token can decide that,
well,
what if we just make it
that everyone who has
more than this
number of tokens gets extra?
They could do that, right?
They could do it. They could.
If you had a
controlling supply,
you could all get together
and just make a rule
that benefits
only those people that have,
the controlling supply.
Whereas with Bitcoin
there is
no it doesn't allow
any kind of tyranny
of the majority.
So you're, it's
it's like a
kind of like a system
that it's
a constitutional republic.
There's a constitution
of 21 million and it's
those.
And if you've
and even if you've got
a very small
part of the supply with,
you can't get trampled on
by the people
that have the majority
of the money,
through any, any,
anything that might
just benefit
those people
to the detriment of the poorer
people in the system.
Yeah.
Proof of stake systems
don't have that. You.
Because it's like the whole
the whole way.
Those things are
literally voted on by.
By how much
of that thing that you have?
So those systems don't
align very well for everybody.
That's not a system
that if you were coming
in, knew
that you should feel
very comfortable
about
getting on board with you
don't think that there's no
you are
only got you've
just got to trust
that the people
that own the majority.
But again,
they do the right thing.
Yeah, but that's not aligning
with their incentive
to do the wrong thing. Yeah.
So I hope by at least
by example it might,
might, might,
but it's not an easy subject.
Yeah.
But it is a very important one
to at least have a basic
understanding of
to see why
Bitcoin differs and works,
versus,
many other things that,
that, that
try to change the game
theoretic model around.
Yeah, yeah.
The incentives
in different places.
Yeah. Nice. Very interesting.
I wish I learned about it
when I worked in like
did service design.
I always thought
incentives were important,
but I feel like,
could I have gone a little
bit deeper?
But anyway,
I want to pivot a little bit
and
I was thinking I wanted to ask
if you personally know
of any Bitcoin
I that's also a
central banker.
I know
that's a very
specific question,
but I'm asking
because I feel like there's
so many people in Australia
as well as globally
that work in banking.
They work in
traditional finance
and they're full
blown Bitcoiners.
I haven't come across one yet.
That's a central banker.
I don't know that I that's,
I know,
I mean,
I know of central bankers,
but I mean,
how many central bankers
can most people name?
I'm not sure.
And it's very kind.
Of like
the question
doesn't
exactly pop up
with the pub trivia.
You know, it's
nine, nine
five central bankers.
I mean, like, yeah, I,
it's the sort of thing,
I think that
if they did own it,
they probably wouldn't
want to be too
public about it.
Do you know what?
I find that
with a lot of people.
So when I came
out of the closet
on LinkedIn last year
and started
talking about Bitcoin,
I've had colleagues,
like ex colleagues
that I've worked in the past
sheepishly come up to me,
said, by the way,
I'm really not Bitcoin
or I really like Bitcoin.
I've been in it for years
and they just keep it
very quiet.
They don't like
any of my posts
because they don't
want to be associated.
It's like their
dirty little secret.
I think that's going
to change soon.
You know, even Jerome
Powell said that he's
becoming a mainstream thing.
So.
But I was curious
to ask that question.
I'll tell you why
is because
I really want to know
about the mindset
of these people.
You know what I mean?
Like, I want
I want to know
their mindset of, of like,
I want to get
inside their brains
and understand
what they think of Bitcoin.
Like,
what do they think of it?
I'm sure they've heard of it.
I'm sure they have
an opinion on it.
Do they still think
it's a scam?
Do they think it's disruptive
or are they scared of it.
Like I want to know.
Yeah I don't know.
I mean I'm sure opinions
vary between them.
But you might
you will find that
if you've got
if you do get inside the head
that there's just there's
quite a wide spectrum
of views on it.
I think
they probably ask some people
very nicely
that think that it's
some sort of scam,
but that's an
incredibly obtuse position
to be taking after this
length of time.
You'd have to literally
have not even like
looked at the first one thing
to think that this,
that after this
length of time,
all these years,
that you couldn't
get off, that that's the most
rudimentary kind of objection
that you could make.
I would think
even central bankers
would be a little bit
more sophisticated
in their objections
than that at this point.
I, I think the main objection
is, is that
they would consider it.
They would probably say things
like if they did
things like,
well, it's
not backed by anything.
And they just sort of again,
these are just as tired
and these are just
bad arguments.
But they're
but they're a little bit more
they're a little bit,
take a little bit more nuance
to defeat
than just saying to scare.
Like, it's
very easy to say
this in the sky.
Okay, where's the
where's that,
where's the entity
that like this,
putting this out.
Like where's the
okay, who's the you know,
who's the thing behind it
that's doing it?
It's a scam.
You know, like it
has that, you know,
I think at this point
it's more of like that.
A lot of what
blockchain was about
was the attempt to kind of,
that's kind of actually
where blockchain
actually really came in.
Like when,
when that came in,
there were
a lot of central bank
types and fiat money types
that really jumped
on that blockchain,
not Bitcoin bandwagon,
because that's how
it was originally presented.
They they would say
this was their kind of way
of dealing with it.
If you want to really
get in their heads and this is
this is makes perfect sense.
Yeah.
Because they want to keep.
That was actually their way
of dealing with it.
They would say that.
Oh well you know
the technology underlying
Bitcoin is interesting.
We just don't think that
that currency is valid,
that we don't need
that currency.
And so that's
why you've got
the central banking types,
taking an interest in,
things that they
could somehow
they might be able
to leverage,
some of this
blockchain technology,
the use in central bank
digital currencies.
So if you think for a minute,
like a lot of people
tried this, oh,
we're all on the same side.
No we're not.
A lot of the blockchain crowd
is very much interested in
how they could
apply blockchain.
But it isn't even
necessarily blockchain.
It's just fintech.
But they
they're in this sort
of blockchain communities.
How they can use it
to be the bedrock of
of government
mandated central bank
digital currencies.
That is so the
so the so
the central bank
types are quite interested
in potentially
interested in blockchain
and have been for
a very long time.
And and even like Ethereum
for all of its origins,
it for a long time has its,
its, its proponents
have been vying for it to be,
as I say,
the bedrock of government
mandated central bank
digital currencies.
They would love that.
Because it's just got it.
It's
again, it's a, it's a,
it's a centralized
enough thing for the, for the,
for them to be able to,
to try doing
something like that on it.
So these are
the things
could not be more antithetical
to what Bitcoin was
was created to avoid the need
for in the first place.
We don't need central banks.
Central banks are the problem
that we are solving for
not here to be
something that like
makes central
banking more effective
or more or more,
at what it does.
I don't want central banking
to become more effective.
It's a it's
effective enough
in terms of what it can do
in terms
of censoring people,
in terms of locking down,
controlling people,
doing all of
those things that,
that we saw
of actually try to do,
like we saw them
actually flex this power
throughout the,
throughout the Covid,
hysteria period.
They flex this on people.
They even after the,
January 5th,
business in the Capitol
in, at the Capitol building
in Washington, DC.
They even tried
to, like, shut down
Donald Trump's
banking accounts
that literally tried
to get the guy,
like to remove the guard
if they
take the guy's whole ability
away to operate in the,
in the banking system,
and they could try to
do something like that to him.
Imagine what they would do
to, to
just an ordinary citizen
or someone who didn't
toe the line,
who didn't agree
with the whatever
the latest prevailing
narrative was.
I wouldn't be surprised
if those attempts to remove
Donald Trump
from the banking system
were potentially an orange
killing moment for
Donald Trump himself.
Oh, 100%, I think even,
I think even Eric,
said that
that he got debunked.
And that was
one of the main reasons
why he got into Bitcoin.
I do it on the.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
A lot of these things.
That's the point
I made before
all of the other.
Not at that thing
I said
all of these things
that that have happened on
crypto and are happening
in the financial world,
these bad things,
terrible things.
You can't do it
on a, on a Bitcoin standard.
Yeah.
Because those bad things
were the very problems
that, that Bitcoin
was solving for.
Yeah.
Important problems.
Yeah.
Do you think it's easier
to get crypto
people to switch to bitcoin
or complete no coin is
who do you think
who is easier to grasp?
I see
I see a crypto people
because crypto people yeah.
And I know coin is of
like have taken a kind of
a no coin or is a
is a fairly extreme
position actually. Yeah.
There's
actually two extremes.
The there's the extreme.
No coin, the position
that's the
those people
don't believe that there's
anything here at all.
They don't believe in
bitcoin crypto, blockchain.
None of it.
There's nothing here at all.
It's like to them
it's like it's gold bars.
It's like
which they somehow
still most of them
still think somehow backs
the fiat currency
that they love.
Yeah. But then there's that.
They're the no coins.
They just can't get themselves
around the idea
that there could be
another unit of account.
They're going to be
permanently stuck
in that kind of dollar
fiat mindset. Yeah.
Then there's the
other extreme,
which I actually put
to be the blockchain,
crypto and people,
they think that this stuff
could do anything.
You know, not only is it,
it can polish your shoes and
wipe your ass, you know, like
they haven't run out of ways
of thinking
about what it could do.
They're always sitting down,
trying to
trying to find, try
to think of more,
trying to find more problems
for this, that this solution
that they've got to solve.
I put them at
the other extreme.
I've always said that
Bitcoin was
the sensible
moderate position.
It wasn't
the maximalist position.
Although we say Bitcoin Maxes,
the maximalist position
was to say
that somehow
this tech was like,
you could pull bits
and pieces of this tech apart
and use it for anything.
We make the relatively
modest position,
the relatively modest proposal
that it could be used to
solve for money and make it,
essentially,
essentially finish
the idea of what
money is like with many ways
of doing money
throughout history
that have improved upon it,
some of which is improved
on earlier versions.
Now in the 21st century,
what we need is we want,
we want,
we need it to be electronic
so that it can be passed down
a wire.
But anything electronic
can be infinitely replicated.
It can't.
It's not
can't be
guaranteed to be scarce.
So people then say,
oh, we'll have to go back
to a gold standard,
but a gold standard
because it's physical
and cumbersome,
is what
led to a Fiat
standard in the first place.
If you go back
to a gold standard,
you're just going
to get enough.
I could say that again,
because you need to have
because you can't
send gold down a wire,
so you have to represent it
with a
with a ledger entry
in a database.
Then you start trading
ledger entries
and ledger entries.
You can make up
whatever number you want
and put it in the ledger.
Bitcoin combines
the scarcity of gold
with the electronic nature
of fiat money
and finally
marrying the two together.
And now money is all
it needs to be.
It doesn't need to be.
Don't need any
further improvement.
It's like the ballpoint pen.
How many different types
of writing implement
did we go through?
Ballpoint pen was invented
in like the 1950s.
Still
still here.
You know,
that's the 1950s
that was done.
Yeah.
And there's lots
of other examples.
And so,
and so to again, going back
to looking at Bitcoin
as the monetary phenomenon
rather than the tech
phenomenon,
it's done apart
from tinkering
around the edges,
it's done
there doesn't
need to be another
another totally new system.
They'll just be some minor
refinements made to bitcoin.
But the Bitcoin is eager.
So hold that's that's it.
Now that's the money.
I have another question.
Are you
because you've been in Bitcoin
for a while
and you've learned so much
along the years.
But do you find that
you still learning a lot
about Bitcoin
even after many, many moons.
Oh yeah. Yeah.
Look there's always this
there's there's
there's so much to learn and
and there's so much
I still need to learn.
I mean, I,
certainly on the more
technical levels.
Yeah.
I mean,
you know, that that's that,
this, this and and this.
I don't think,
one person
can even really cover it
now, like there are now
has to be specialization
within Bitcoin,
let alone
Bitcoin is
people told
that Bitcoin was
a specialty in itself in
a wider
range of different things.
But but now
you have to
have specializations
within Bitcoin.
And in order to be sort of,
to sort of get any kind of
if you were going to try
to have any kind
of career in Bitcoin or,
if you really have to have
a niche in Bitcoin
and be good
at just that niche,
if you could be good
at just that one thing,
that that one niche
you can do well in Bitcoin,
that has been leading
to that like,
yeah, this, this is still
and that will never end
like for everybody.
It's like that Dunning-Kruger
like what is it
the Dunning-Kruger. Yeah.
You know like
you get to go up,
you're going to have
that mountainous mount stupid.
And then as you come down
on the other side.
I'm at the bottom.
I learned so much last year
and in the beginning
of this year
and I'm like, well,
I just don't know anything.
There is so much to learn.
Eat delicious.
Yeah, I'm
not really like that.
You've come
to that realization.
That means you actually do
understand, like
at least the extent of the
of the information out there.
The most ignorant position
is actually thinking
that like, yeah,
this is all there is
and I know all that now.
So that's it. I know,
that's where,
you know, a
lot of these people like you,
Senator, rednecks
and things like that,
go back to him.
That guy has.
Made today.
Stupid on any topic
his entire life.
I messaged him
earlier on today on Instagram.
I mean, I posted,
I commented on
because he posted
another thing.
He was ripping
at banks and talking
about how the ownership behind
the big four
is all inclusive
and and I was like,
commented on that post.
I was like,
I really think you need
to give Bitcoin a chance.
I'm like trying to
let him know
every single judge.
He thinks he already knows.
I know I've studied bitcoin.
I'm a
I have this degree
this and I went to.
So I already know
all there is about that.
That's the peak
of Mount Street.
He does not
He doesn't need
to look at Bitcoin
because he's already
looked at it.
He knows everything.
He knows the whole thing.
There's nothing.
There's nothing
you can tell it.
He can
see the Financial Times.
Sorry.
He read about
in the Financial Times
whatever.
Yeah I mean he knows
he knows everything.
That's nothing more,
nothing more.
You can tell him.
And is my favorite week.
Yeah. Sorry.
That was my favorite week
in Australia with like,
it's like I did this
weird global.
It was just circulated
in Denver
and so many different,
like, media companies
published it
and it was just
it was so funny.
And Pete
Rizzo as well retweeted it.
It was just
it was the best week
in Bitcoin Australia I am
I should take some screenshots
before it's all taken down.
So.
Oh yeah. Yeah I guess so.
I suppose it's mostly yeah.
Let's people delete the tweets
but I won't be.
I'll leave mine up
because I think it's
I wasn't that upset
to have someone like
that though
necessarily not
be on our side,
because
if you had heard that guy
ever speak on other things,
yeah.
It wouldn't
it wouldn't
bring us great credit
to be at a point and say,
oh, look, this guy agrees.
Yeah, but that guy's an idiot.
Like, yeah, I want,
you know,
there needs to be like,
if you heard this guy
speak on other matters,
it's like
there's a Senate inquiry.
Like, look,
I might agree
with his political positions
on a few things,
but the arguments
he deployed in
defense of that position
was so laughably ignorant
that they actually argued
against the position
that he was taking
because they were
just so easily shot down,
by opponents of that position.
So you don't want someone
like that
arguing in favor of Bitcoin
and putting forth completely
stupid, boneheaded,
absurd type arguments for it
make us all look stupid.
Well, he was yeah,
he wasn't reelected,
so he's going to
think this is he's lost.
Irrelevant.
That's exactly. Irrelevant.
And hopefully
the conversation.
So
but, I liked him.
I liked the
he question
rba on on gold audits.
Like.
Yeah I feel
like he did a few good things.
So absolutely I agree.
But
it's not going to be a,
it's not going to be
an effective champion
of any of the causes
he stands for, though,
because unfortunately,
that doesn't have the ability.
But he get
and that's course it.
And the tragedy of all that is
he thinks he
already knows everything.
So he's never going to he's
never going to improve,
on his knowledge
if a topic because he's delved
his deepest
deeply is he thinks
there is to go,
one of the but
however, I
don't necessarily
think it's futile
arguing against such people
because remember,
whenever you're
getting into a debate online
with somebody about something,
your aim shouldn't
necessarily be
to convince that other person,
because quite often
that other person
is completely,
yeah, immune to reason,
allergic to reason? Almost.
But remember that
there could be thousands
of other people reading it
so that back and forth,
that argument,
there's a whole lot of people
that really don't know
where to sit.
I do that too.
I, I don't
when I don't know something.
I just often
sit back
and read the arguments
backwards and forwards
and eventually,
like you read it
backwards and forwards
and eventually
a position emerges
that's clearly
makes more sense
than the other one.
And so you can learn a lot
just from reading the debates
and staying well out of it
while you make your mind up.
And so
that therefore, having those
debates with someone
whose mind you know
you're not going to change
is still performing a service
for the audience.
It's now
the audience you're
trying to convince,
not your opponent.
Yeah, yeah,
there was some great, really?
And soon as we
in this call, I'm
going to be taking
some screenshots
of the rebuttals
before they take you down.
I'll put them
in the history book of
Australian Bitcoin
because yeah,
I've got to give
some credit to cons as well.
He has some really good
come back.
See him is like
do you know what money is.
Oh
yeah.
What else.
Oh my gosh okay
I kind of just realized
what time it is as well.
So
Where can we go from here, JP.
Well,
maybe I could just
point out,
maybe just a quick
shill of the made ups.
That sort of
Bitcoin activities.
Let's do that.
So, many of
you Australian listeners
probably already
heard me mention
this on other,
other podcasts as well.
But, I host the Bitcoin Sydney
made up.
So, we've had that going for.
Oh it's been going since
Stefan Lavera
and Harry
Rob and myself established
that back in 2018.
I think it was as a
as I said
explicitly, Bitcoin
only made up in the face of
the fact that everything else
had gone to the crypto
and, and blockchain.
So this was the first of
the explicitly Bitcoin
only made ups.
That was in Australia and
relatively early
for the world as well.
We realized that was necessary
to fix the scene as you know,
because it was, you know, the
the conversation
had gotten very derailed,
not just with crypto,
but with Bitcoin forks
and things like that as well.
And that has proven
to be a model
that others that have gone on
and created Bitcoin
only made ups
around the country.
But then there's now
a sort of a full,
lot of Bitcoin made up,
meaning
not just in the,
in the capital cities,
but I think you mentioned
as well, Regional.
Northern Rivers.
Yep.
And so Australian bitcoin
body lists
all the locations
around Australia.
But rather than round them
all off the Geary
strike perfect bit
Australian Bitcoin in the body
I host also the pox Bush bash.
So there is four bush bashes
a year
which are events
that all bitcoin Bitcoin
is from all around Australia
joining on.
And the New South Wales
one is held in Parkes.
It'll be on again
at the end of November.
So I hosting that and
and what else.
I think
and of course
as far as the Sydney
meetups are concerned,
we also have socials
around the,
around the Northern Beaches,
western suburbs,
southern suburbs,
again, as you mentioned.
Any at all on the Australian
bitcoin industry body website.
And he does a great job
with that.
And he's
also the host up there
at the Northern Beaches,
as well as co-host down in,
down in Sydney here.
So yeah, so plenty of things
if people are not,
just watching this
and you haven't
gotten yourself
on around to a made up,
don't be intimidated.
Particularly
I think we were talking about
as well
about the women in Bitcoin
things earlier on
before the podcast. Anyway,
I'll let you maybe
talk about that, but,
yeah, the fires
that may that's a concern
that they may
they're not like intimidating
like technical type things.
We have separate things
for that.
If you want to go down.
That tech
group is also a bit
that that, Alex Hanley
and Sydney here is somewhere
it was that
to one of those over
at Chatswood last night.
So there is that small groups
focusing on technical stuff.
But these are designed to
be for new people and or,
and, and seasoned bitcoiners
to all
get something out of it.
Yeah.
But on the women in Bitcoin.
Yeah, we spoke about that
earlier on
and I wanted to mention
like since I started hosting
some women in Bitcoin
events, we've had,
you know, a lot more women
join the scene.
And I describe myself
as like the gateway drug
to bitcoin quite often.
You know,
women will be part
of the online chats
or the community,
but they don't actually
go out to meetups
because I don't know,
sometimes it's
a practical reason,
like they've got kids in
a family
to look after
and can't make it to,
devs being on a pub, in a pub,
but other times,
like if they just find it
a lot easier
to sort of break through
if a woman is
hosting an event,
or if a woman is
organizing an event
because
they will come
see that it's
a really friendly crowd.
Everyone wants to help
you learn.
Everyone wants to,
you know, offer
as much knowledge
for free as possible
because that's how we like,
and yeah, I
so that's
one of the things women
end up
joining the main meetup,
just because.
I think that was,
as I was saying before,
I thought, was that
because there's been a few
ideas like,
why have we got
to have separate women, things
like all the
like no one's ever
nothing's ever happened to it
like bad to a woman
and didn't like a normal
mix made up.
What's the problem?
I guess, though, from my
point of view,
from the
point of view of people
who haven't
been to the same before,
they don't know
where to start.
It provides that initial thing
and then they realize,
okay, I've come to that now.
I can just come.
It's not not so intimidating.
I could just come now
to the normal meetup.
We don't, you know,
it's always a way of,
of potentially
getting people involved
that might have
had trepidation,
beforehand because,
and by the way,
I don't think the
the point
we were talking about before
is how
the people that sort of say,
oh, you know,
why are we having separate
women?
Things like,
I don't think those people
have anything against,
women having their own events.
It's just that
our society has made it
sort of taboo
for there to be male
only spaces. And so it's.
Yeah. Therefore.
Well, if why, why,
why can't we have I think,
I think people are all
the people that have
sort of said
that they don't like the idea
of sort
of these separate women,
things are perfectly fine
with it.
If they could also weren't
being frowned upon by
by the existence
of male spaces,
which has all
been essentially,
been many cases drawn there.
And I think there was this
there are situations
due to the inherent and
differences
between men and women,
that we shouldn't
feel awkward
about acknowledging.
Yeah.
That means there are times
when you want to have
potentially separately
just I'd
say that it's okay for one,
but not I think the other.
I think.
Exactly.
No double standards, please.
Yeah, yeah.
No, I have had that
question before
and it's like
I just kind of answered
honestly, you know,
sometimes it's easier
to speak to other women. Some
women come to those things.
I find there's no problem.
You can come along
like the normal made up
says no. Yeah.
They're not intimidating.
There's they're not
there's not going to be
like creeps there or whatever.
Whatever other creeps
in Bitcoin I promise you.
But I did remember
while we were speaking,
I also wanted to ask you,
you traveled
recently to South Korea.
You went to Seoul,
did like a conference.
You were on a panel like,
tell me about that.
Yeah. Yeah, that was great.
So, yeah, again,
thank you
to the
to the organizers, of that,
I was,
so we had a member,
in, in Sydney, was, specter.
His name is a screen name.
Is is,
developing a thing,
a way of he's
part of a development team
that's trying to
to make the Bitcoin node
essentially run on a phone
by having a sort of hash
of the blockchain on there.
I don't want to get
too deeply technical.
I'm not exactly
sure how it works,
but that's the
the project
that he was in Sydney,
and he was also up
in very close
with the organizers
of Bitcoin Soul
and invited me like to
to speak at sold.
So I haven't
been to Korea before.
What better way to
to experience
in the country than do it
and you know,
with a bunch of
other bitcoiners
and so
was it all
going to be in town.
And so,
I went along to that,
and I
basically hosted the panel
on the first VIP day
about Bitcoin community.
So I was had a conversation.
We had a conversation
with representatives
from El Salvador.
There was another one
from, Indonesia.
It's Caitlin from Indonesia.
Oh yeah. Keep playing.
Keep up. Yeah.
He was,
from Indonesia and we
had and,
Arthur from the
Bitcoin Association
of Hong Kong
and I think it was a
Roman forum.
From El Salvador.
So yeah, three terrific
Bitcoin communities.
And with me
from Bitcoin Sydney
and we went
yeah we just discussed
ideas of
you know
the various ways in which
some are creating,
circular economies and,
the challenges
they face in
terms of how they,
you know, keep shit
country
out of their community.
That came up,
a bunch of other things.
But overall,
it was a great experience.
It was in a,
a magnificent location
on the 76th floor of,
of the tallest
building in Korea, which was,
I think, the signal
signal tower.
I think it was called
Massive Building.
So it was over
three days and had a chance
to check out
a few of the other.
I usual tourist sites in,
in, Seoul,
but very impressive country,
very much
like what I,
I haven't been to Japan,
but what I would expect
I've heard lot
Japan is like very high trust,
very clean.
Everything works.
Everything is
really well-thought through
people very,
you know, courteous and polite
as a, as a whole.
You know, it's like that,
I guess
it's like what you get
when you go
to sort of
homogenous, high
trust society,
where you genuinely do
have a sense of community.
I remarked,
when coming back
to Australia is very much
you don't really feel
now in Australia
that there is
an Australian community
or an and Australian culture.
We are now just essentially
a random collection
of tangible economic units
replaceable
with more fundamental,
fungible economic units.
It can just be keep
being imported from overseas
in order for the government
to prop up the GDP
at the expense of the per
capita GDP.
And everybody
who already lives. See,
that's all we are.
We're just.
No, we're not citizens.
We're just fungible
economic units.
You walk out your door.
I don't
I imagine
what goes through
the head of tourists
who come in now,
they probably want to, like,
where is this? Australia?
It's like this.
It's just like it's it's
a generic.
It's like
there's no discernible,
you know,
culture of people here
or national traits whatsoever.
Yeah.
I think you need to come
to northern Rivers because.
That still exists. Now.
I agree, it still exists.
Like I love it.
It's like Australia.
Yeah. 30 years ago.
Yes.
It's like
I remember what before
I decided
to come and live here,
I was impressed to see
so many families
like dad
with two kids riding a bicycle
with no helmet down the road.
It's like it's optional.
You can choose a helmet,
you can choose not
to wear a helmet.
No one's going to police you.
The people are very freedom
minded.
They're very,
the government
here feels like they're here
to serve the people,
not the other way around.
It's just it's
just a beautiful place, like.
You know, I.
Understand without a permit.
Yeah.
What?
I said
that, of course, it's
a very much a capital city
centric view.
But you had,
I think even in Brisbane,
it's probably
still much like the.
It was, decades ago.
But how long that will last?
I don't know, because the
the present government
that we have. Indeed.
I don't think it matters
which side you vote for.
They're on the side of
the people
that donate to their coffers,
which are businesses,
large businesses
who the only way
when you
when you're a business
like a Wesfarmers and a Coles
and between you you've already
pretty much got 100% of
the market share
of the country,
then how do you increase
the size of your business,
increase the size
of the population
you don't like?
That's all you got,
and you take as many people,
you will be pushing
for as much immigration
as you can and
and you want.
And it doesn't
matter to you
how you know that
the people
that already live here now
can't buy a home
because you have
the demand side
pressure that you've put
there,
has so greatly exceeded
the supply side.
Because the average person
looking to buy a
home is not a political donor.
It's not donating
to the liberal fact
it's political.
Just a and it's
maybe a lot of people
probably know this,
but the people that about
the political donor class
don't just donate
to like their preferred party,
they don't donate
to Liberal or Labor,
they donate equally to both.
And then they threaten both.
They then threaten to withdraw
funding from one of them
if they don't get
what they want out of
whoever it is that wins.
Again, a terribly
bad bit of game theory.
They're in a system
designed that way.
Again, very
because that's the thing.
So you donate to both
and then withdraw,
then leaving,
then only the of yeah,
the other side
can then ask many.
So therefore
whoever gets in
will do what you say and it's.
Yeah.
And it just kind of sucks
for everybody else.
Yeah.
I, saw a start the other day.
It's it's
a really broad problem.
So abs released, a report
basically they said that in
Western Australia
in particular,
since 2019, rents
have increased by 75%,
75% in six years.
I didn't see what
the other states were, but.
It's, Yeah, yeah.
That we're in price control,
territory.
It's it's like I don't.
And then that.
Needs to happen for things.
Yeah.
I really don't know
what needs to happen,
to fix
to fix the country from here,
but I'm very concerned
about where it
where it's headed.
That is a whole debate
within the Bitcoin.
I can speak to it
like a lot of Bitcoin
as I speak to.
And some say, look,
they cannot
they're not just going
to surrender their country
to the Communist.
They're going to stick around.
And others are saying
screw this.
You know, I've got Bitcoin.
It's portable wealth.
I could just pull up stumps
and take it all with me
and, and and spend.
Just one day on your way out.
Right? Yeah.
Yeah.
Potentially,
unless they defer it.
Yeah.
In which case
it potentially be deferred
to the the the never, never.
Yeah. I'm 20 people have.
You'll do your own
and some people
may even decide that
if they don't intend to ever
return to the country, then
just leave, you know, like,
I don't know, like, I'm
not suggesting I'm
not suggesting people do this,
but I'm just
trying to imagine
what some people might say
they would do is just,
well, I'm not
going to come back.
What they buy
Bitcoin and leave.
Yeah.
What are they going to do?
It's like
they could potentially
like they did with Paul Hogan.
Like if you, if you didn't
declare a capital gain
upon exiting,
they could get you when you
go back into the country.
So, you know,
you got to think of that.
But otherwise
some people may
well just decide to say,
screw this, I'm going.
And they go. And living
in a better,
much more favorable
tax jurisdiction.
Yeah,
hopefully
there will be some game
theory there
that'll make governments
decide, hey, we're losing.
And that's not happening
as well.
And other countries are losing
millionaires. UK UK is now.
Let me see.
This is not
the first isn't happening.
Many other countries
are losing it.
And these are the people
that are already
shouldering the majority
of the tax burden.
So you lose those people
and you have to increase taxes
even more on those who remain,
which then incentivizes
more people to leave.
So there's,
an ideal point on the,
the level curve,
I think it's called
where they say
the ideal amount
you can tax before
you disincentivize people from
creating anything
that can be taxed
in the first place.
But, yeah,
these are problems
that I think
Bitcoin can help us solve.
I think once,
Bitcoin, you can
it is very hard to confiscate
from people.
It's not, confiscated.
Well, you could be held
and then if there's a
they've got you,
they can potentially coerce
you into.
That's where sort of
trading Bitcoin
privacy is very
important being,
that's a whole topic
that we often deal with.
It made ups.
You can maybe in future
podcasts get people on to talk
more deeply
about those aspects.
But there are many
tools available to help
increase your privacy.
Bitcoin because you,
there are many reasons why
not just that
you might not want all
and sundry knowing,
what your bitcoin
holdings are,
not the least of
which is your own
personal safety.
Yeah.
And, there are certainly tools
that will enable that.
I think that's a whole.
Yeah. You're right.
That's a whole other
podcast episode.
Yeah.
All right, well,
let's wrap up here.
Thanks so much for coming
on, JP.
I've really enjoyed
having you on.
I've learned a lot from you,
so I'm very excited.
I think we'll go all the best
with the future podcasts and,
looking forward to seeing
who else is going to be on.
That's it for this week
on the Honest Money Show.
Big thanks to be to check out
why more Aussies
are choosing them at future
Root.com Dot
Edu and shout
out to our listeners
and found to where you can
earn subs just by tuning in.
If you appreciate the way
we cut through the noise,
you can support us
directly via
the QR code
in the episode notes.
Until next week,
take care of yourself
and your money.