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you are being slaughtered and you don't
realize this there could be a dollar
crisis they're debating the currency by
15% a year I mean it is inevitable that
it's going to happen but does that just
mean that we're crazy and that it's
going to be fine I'm not saying
everybody is wrong I'm saying that
people that believe in Bitcoin are wrong
you're missing the point why the hell
would anybody buy these These are
obviously going to go to zero I'm not
concerned about the Cliff of death how
do we make sense of these numbers or is
this a guaranteed Slaughter and we just
don't know when
the tension between the way the two of
you think has been really instrumental
in helping me and I think countless
others um build a worldview that will
help them navigate uh different moments
in the economy well um I think right now
we're going through a period of just
massive transition and so I come to the
debate between um crypto not crypto with
that in mind so to oversimplify your
guys' stances um I see r i see you as
Pro crypto Peter I seeu as anti- crypto
I know those are really gross
simplifications so I'd love to start
with Ral if you could walk us through
your position um how you see crypto why
you think it's valuable and then Peter
will come to you for your take okay so
I'm I think we will both agree that
things are pretty screwed up we'll all
agree right what is really screwed up is
the world is massively in
debt the workforce is shrinking
population growth is slowing down it's
slowing down GDP growth so there's not
enough GDP growth to pay or service the
amount of debt out there and what we
found since 2008 that the answer to this
debt issue has been printing of more
money debasement of currency people
think of it in terms of at first they
think it's going to be inflation as in
the price of CPI goes up but it's
actually not it's actually something
much worse is Wages don't rise
but assets go up because optically
you're debasing the
currency your future self is getting
poorer because assets are all about
storing wealth for future deferred
consumption but what's happening is you
can't afford as much of that
now and so your future self is in fact
poorer so a classic example is a 35y old
now in the United States getting married
having kids a house is very expensive
now
compared to when Peter and I were young
it was relatively cheap three times
incomes now it's like 10 times incomes
so there's no real way of getting up the
ladder the equity Market is much more
expensive your kind of percentage share
of the S&P is so much less so the
advantages that your parents had are not
available to
you so that's a problem at a problem for
society overall is this issue of
debasement of currency the government's
are doing it cuz there's no way of
paying the debt so what you're going to
have to do is continue to print money so
then if that is the
case and I found out in this everything
code analysis that I talked to you about
what we found is since 2008 they reset
interest rates it's like a debt reset
the debt Jubilee happened it was
everybody was given the chance to not
pay interest and everybody reset their
debts on this 3 to 5year time Horizon
and so four years is the middle and
we've got this perfect fouryear
cycle all assets are now incredibly
correlated with this cycle whether it's
Emerging Markets whether it's the dollar
whether it's rates whether it's crypto
whether it's gold whether it's equities
everything so if we've got a super
correlated environment where asset
prices keep going up because of
debasement of currency I the Optics
because the value of the currency is
going down then your job is to find
something that offsets it so the rate of
De basement by my calculation is about
15% a year on a globalized basis so your
hurdle rate is
15% now equities have done something not
far off that but that just means you're
not actually making any money you're
actually just standing still NASDAQ
which is in a secular trend is actually
beaten that 15% hurdle rate somewhat so
it's actually
helped the traditional way of doing it
would have been gold and you know I've
been a long-term gold investor I've
always like gold but gold has not done
particularly well in recent years
against debasement on a globalized basis
it still works beautifully well as a
Global Currency and against Global
debasement over time it works but the
really strong debasement we've been
having in recent years it just hasn't
done well enough and many of us from the
macro world started thinking okay we
need to find what is this hedge what is
the right way of doing
this and that's where crypto which I've
been involved in for a long time started
to really fit in here because it offers
a bunch of ways that the financial
system can use it in an overly indebted
system where you've got a collateral and
then like 30 uses of that same
collateral so nobody owns anything you
own a fraction of what you think you own
in an indebted system same with a bank
you have money in a bank it's not your
money it's actually the bank's money and
that's been proven time and time again
Bank bail-ins in Europe were
particularly
so we've got a broken Financial system
and the blockchain rails are something
that's actually very useful we can
figure out who owns what at any point
with instant settlement so it reduces a
lot of the risk of the settlement layer
but also you got you gave the rise of
cryptocurrencies which also have this
supply and demand Dynamic that's
interesting there's a limited Supply and
it has the properties somewhat of
digital
gold and that's worked very well if if
you look at that because you've got this
technology adoption of the blockchain
plus this store of value or this
collateral layer it's massively
outperformed
everything so it's been a phenomenally
good asset even with these massive draw
Downs on Route we have enormous draw
Downs
monstrous and still it's the best
performing asset in all recorded history
almost on any time Horizon
so it makes it very difficult to
allocate any money in anything
else um and that's why I've struggle I
just do every chart against Bitcoin or
every chart against the FED balance
sheet and try and say okay well what
goes up gold has actually gone down
versus the FED balance sheet I don't
think I think that's more of a temporary
State of Affairs than a permanent State
of Affairs again I'm actually not an
anti-gold person whatsoever I just think
when you've got technology plus goals
call it that as a narrative you're
always going to do better and in our job
to help people navigate this
journey if you're 65 years old go does a
great job for you if you're 35 year old
you ain't going to get anywhere you're
going to have to you have to gain wealth
not just protect wealth because you
don't have it when you're young and
that's the difference here the this is
the core difference to me is there's a
suitability factor for different types
of people and you're trying to solve
different
problems very well laid out uh Peter
what's your position how do you come to
your
worldview well I agree with r that
inflation is a is a problem
unfortunately it's the path of least
resistance for politicians to go down um
it's the way they finance their spending
it's the way they buy their own
reelection it's the way they avoid
having to be honest uh with the
electorate and tell them the truth about
um you know how broke they are and uh
it's really a hidden tax it's uh you
know it's instead of taking your money
uh by taxing you openly and directly or
even you know indirectly through a sales
tax they surreptitiously rob you of your
purchasing power by just creating money
out of thin air usually with a complicit
central bank and then they spend that
into
circulation and that drives up prices
whether it's Goods prices asset prices
uh but you know what's happening is the
value of each monetary unit is is going
down um as more of them are spent into
circulation and and that's going to
continue in fact that's going to
accelerate based on the F fiscal
predicament that we're in based on the
demographics uh certainly in the US we
have the baby boom I'm one of the
younger baby boomers born in 1963 1964
is the is the end of it uh but uh you
know I'm 60 I'm going to be 61 in March
right so I'm theoretically four years
away from cashing or collecting Social
Security um but you know there's a lot
of people in my
generation uh there's not a lot of
people in the generations that follow
with the ability to to make good on
these commitments so you know the Ponzi
is imploding uh so inflation is
basically you know that's what they're
going to do now I think that they're
playing with fire here I think
politicians and Central Bankers probably
think they can control it uh and it
won't run away from them and and turn
potentially in a hyperinflation and I I
wouldn't be so sure I think a lot of
politicians have overestimated their
ability to keep that Genie uh anywhere
near the bottle once once it's once it's
out so I think there's a lot of
inflation and so it is a problem that
you need to deal with but I don't think
the solution is to invent a a
make-believe asset and then all pretend
that that make believe asset has value
because of some artificially imposed uh
constraint on Supply
uh and ignore the fact that there's an
unlimited number of other
cryptocurrencies uh that exist that you
know for most practical purposes are
actually better than Bitcoin uh they're
cheaper to use they're faster to use to
the extent that you want to use Bitcoin
which nobody does because it's not a
very good uh
cryptocurrency um I mean it's certainly
uh not a store value but it's not a good
medium of exchange or unit of account I
mean there are plenty of other cryptos
that actually fit that bill better to
the extent that somebody wanted to use
them uh for that purpose but they don't
I mean everybody uses a crypto to gamble
I mean that's uh the the main use case
and in fact uh that's what's happening
now with these ETFs the ETFs have simply
provided yet another way to gamble on on
bitcoin and it's it's ironic now you
have all these people buying Bitcoin
through a third- party custodian who's
charging a fee I mean you're getting
everybody back into the very Financial
system that they were supposed to be
leaving and I keep heing these people on
television say well you know it's so
hard to buy Bitcoin it's so difficult
and this makes it easy now everybody can
buy it I thought everybody could buy it
before the beauty of Bitcoin was
supposed to be it was so simple and easy
you didn't need a third party you didn't
need a custodian you didn't need Service
uh uh Service uh storage charges I mean
so it's all they're doing is now trying
to convince Wall Street to buy this
asset uh which has no fundamental value
has no income has you know no earnings
no nothing but as long as we keep buying
it and nobody sells it well the price
will keep going up and we can all
operate under the delusion that we're
getting rich as long as nobody tries to
get out and everybody keeps pretending
that they've got all this money because
on paper you know uh they've got
something but you know it's going to be
very different when people try to get
out and I think uh it's going to be very
noticeable with these uh uh Bitcoin ETFs
because I think a lot of the money
that's going into the
ETFs uh is is is is trading money I
think a lot of it came out of gold
stocks and if you look at what's
happened in the last week or two uh gold
stocks have been clobbered even though
the price of gold is unchanged to
slightly higher you've seen 10 20% drops
in big gold stocks uh I think maybe
they've been selling them uh to put
money into into Bitcoin ETFs uh but I
don't think that money is married to
those ETFs I think it's there for a
trade a lot of people might even have
stops beneath the market looking to get
out if the market turns uh but I think
people are going to find it's a lot
easier to get money into these ETFs than
to get it out I think it's just going to
go to money Heaven because you know when
when we've had these big drops in
Bitcoin before um you know what tends to
happen to stabilize the market is all of
a sudden there's a bunch of tethers out
there and uh and and and Bitcoin gets
bought uh using you know fake dollars
but when these ETFs when people who own
the ETFs sell now the ETFs take the
Bitcoin that they own and they sell them
on the market they can't they can't get
tether they need real actual dollars
uh to to return uh they can't send the
the the shareholders tether uh so there
could be just a real vacuum uh you saw
like a little blip yesterday I think
Bitcoin dropped
from uh 63,000 or 60 yeah 64,000
whatever it was to under $59,000
$5,000 in I don't know like 30 seconds
uh and you know came back but I mean it
could drop a lot more than that in in 30
seconds or a minute and I think I think
it will uh maybe there's some trouble
we'll see a lot of these Bitcoin mining
stocks in the last couple days have been
clobbered I don't know you know what's
special about them but they've dropped
substantially in the last couple of days
uh so we're starting to see some some
resistance here and some of these names
uh buckling uh but you know this is just
to me it's a speculative U Mania uh and
this is not the answer to the problem
people are creating a whole different
problem uh uh with the with these uh
crypto uh tokens so it
if oh I wanted to say so it's not like I
don't I'm anti- crypto or I don't see
value in crypto it depends on what
you're talking about so if you're
talking about blockchain if you're
talking about the potential to use a
cryptocurrency uh actually as a medium
exchange and a unit of account which
would mean it would be tied to something
with value a stable coin uh obviously if
you if you tie it to something like the
dollar or the Euro you don't have the
real long-term store value you don't
have an inflation Hedge but you do have
a Medi of exchange you have a unit of
account I think the the ideal marriage
uh is between gold and blockchain if you
tokenize gold and put it on a blockchain
uh you can have a unit of uh a Medi of
exchange and a unit of account but you
actually have a real store value you
have something that is a superior uh
monetary instrument to any of the Fiat
currencies that are out there and it's
far superior to to bitcoin because once
you tokenize gold uh and put on a
blockchain the transactions are faster
and cheaper than the transactions with
Bitcoin but you have a real commodity
that can store value see when when
people try to say well Bitcoin is you
know yeah it doesn't work as a currency
but it's a great store of value it's a
lousy store of value because there's no
value you have to have value before you
can store value Bitcoin has a price and
people confuse price with value you
could put a price on anything doesn't
mean it has any value it just means that
somebody wants to buy it uh but they may
want to buy it for all sorts of reasons
people want to buy Bitcoin because they
think it's going to keep going up it's
the greater fool Theory I'm going to buy
it because somebody else will buy it and
pay more uh but that doesn't work
eventually it collapses and and you know
you can't store price you can you can
store value uh and sometimes price can
be very low and there could be good
buying opportunities you can get a good
deal if something of value has a low
price because of the the market at that
moment uh but but Bitcoin only has price
it has no value um and so it can't be a
store value and just because some people
bought it and got rich and and and you
know Ral maybe made a lot of money in
Bitcoin I mean I know a lot of people
who did um I'm here in Puerto Rico with
a lot of Bitcoin whales there are a lot
of guys here that got into Bitcoin ether
or you name it uh early on and yeah they
made a great trade they got into it when
nobody was buying it uh they they put a
big you know money on it and uh it it
went way up but you know you know the
majority of the people who own Bitcoin
are not making a lot of money in Bitcoin
I mean Bitcoin yeah it's back up to
60,000 but it was at 60,000 three years
ago you know it's had a roller coaster
it went down below 20,000 now it's back
up it's it's kind of been moving
sideways uh over the last few years so
it hasn't you know done anything as far
as kept up with inflation over that time
period yeah if you bought it a year ago
on after it dropped and you sell it now
you have a you have a good trade uh but
if you wrote it all the way down and all
the way back up you haven't made
anything and of course if you don't sell
it and it goes right back down and you
know there's no way to know let's say
Bitcoin collapses again from the 60,000
level just like it did a few years ago
it may not stop at you know 19,000 what
if it goes to 10,000 or 5,000 who the
hell knows how low the next drop is
going to be and and maybe after that
happens they manage to get the get the
price back up again and then it
collapses and eventually you know it
collapses and never comes back um so I I
think you know people who are getting
out of the dollar or the Euro and and
buying Bitcoin have jumped out of the
frying pan Into the Fire Ian so you
don't have to reinvent the wheel if you
want to get out of Fiat currencies uh
you can own gold uh but you could also
own other good inflation hedge assets
real assets you know most of my money is
isn't in Gold either I have actually now
I put a lot more money into gold stocks
personally in the last week because I
just thought they were giving them away
and so I I wanted to buy more um but I
have a lot of assets around the world
that I own I own shares of businesses
that generate a lot of income uh selling
products providing services that that
people really need and that people will
pay higher prices to get and those
companies pay me lots of dividends and
as inflation uh you know drives up
prices uh those companies increase their
prices and pay me higher dividends and I
own real assets that are that are not
losing value I own the property the
plant and the equipment you know the IP
uh whatever these companies own that are
tangible real assets if I'm a
shareholder I own a piece of those real
assets and you can own uh you know real
estate you know farmland or you know
land where you know you can grow trees
or mine Metals you know real land
productive land or you can have you know
lands with factories on them or or
things like that uh people own uh you
know residential real estate now or
commercial real estate depending on
where that is uh some of these markets
could could have uh have some problems
uh in the near term uh but you know real
assets are something that you want to
own when inflation is uh is the concern
and likely to get worse you don't want
to own paper you don't want to own uh
Bank deposits you don't want to own
annuities you know things with a fixed
income cash value in an insurance policy
um you know munity bonds these are all
the things that lose value inflation
taxes those those assets and what
inflation really does is it transfers
wealth from
debtors uh from creditors rather to
debtors so the debtors get their debts
wiped out and the creditors see their
their assets wiped out their savings and
you know the the biggest dtor in the
history of the world maybe even the
history of the universe as far as I know
is the United States government and so
the United States government is the main
beneficiary of inflation and and clearly
they're going to create it they they
create inflation because it it suits
their purposes uh the only problem for
them now is they've got this national
debt with such a short maturity that
they're in the predicament where you
know if interest rates go up which they
should uh they're in you know in a in a
huge problem because they can't pay
which means the FED has to play an even
important mon role in monetizing that
debt which is why the risk of inflation
running away is so great so we're
definitely going to go down the Where Do
We Go From Here debt how this is all
going to play out uh but I want to keep
the um the the first Collision Point
here in Focus which is is Bitcoin the
right answer to the problem you guys
both seem to agree on the problem we're
printing money we're creating inflation
uh you've got to find a safe haven where
do you go from there um so my question
is always is a big part of the appeal of
Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general
simply the volatility and this is a
culture that is responding by becoming
gamblers or is the appeal of Bitcoin
specifically is this a change in the
frame of reference of the Old Guard that
looks at gold which is the result of an
exploding star literally and so hey
you're not going to come by any more of
that very easily and so that's why all
cultures over time have gravitated
towards that provably scarce resource uh
um so is is volatility the thing and one
way to put our finger on whether that is
what is driving um bitcoin's adoption or
not R would be a question for you which
is why didn't
Satoshi tokenize gold and make that
Bitcoin why didn't he back it by
anything other than thermodynamics well
we kind of have a tokenized gold and it
[ __ ] everything up it's called the
Futures Market um that because
still gold is a very physical asset as
Peter rightly says and to move it around
the world is difficult so you're moving
claims around the world even on
blockchain now as far as I'm aware the
maau exchange for gold is going to
tokenize there's a bunch of people
tokenizing gold we've seen gold things
great it's maybe a more efficient
settlement rail or an ownership rail um
but it's not instant transfer of the
actual asset itself if I transfer you a
Bitcoin it goes straight into your
Ledger wallet let's say and you own it
it's yours it's self-
custody gold is more difficult to self
custody just because of its size now
many people around the world do self
custody to their gold and that's fine
too again I don't have an issue but in a
world of 8 billion people where we live
on the internet it actually is nice to
have an asset and Peter's absolutely
right we've meaned a trillion dollar
currency into
existence we've meaned it it's just
human
narrative but guess what so is gold so
is everything that we do including
religion everything is a meme how often
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so mimetics rule the entire way that
humans understand the world around them
and because we believe something to be
true it is is true to us so we believe
that this digital asset that is scarce
is valuable Peter's right there are
other blockchains that are much more
effective and by owning those
cryptocurrencies they're not currencies
and this confusion over there's all
these cryptocurrencies they all
competing against Bitcoin they're not
these are networks where you own a
tokenized part of a network and the
network generates fees you make money
it's like owning shares essentially but
somewhat different Bitcoin itself is
because we believe it to be true it has
the sorts of properties that we as
humans think of as holding
value as does gold certain other things
don't paper physically doesn't right
even paper money but paper itself it
destroys copper over time destroys
silver over time erods but gold doesn't
so gold has this long-term value in a
digital world those properties have been
mimicked but even honed down to a way
that every everything is knowable in
Gold well when the price is high enough
the gold price becomes cyclical because
the miners will find new ways of getting
gold out of the ground and so Supply
adjusts and brings down price which is
fine in Bitcoin you can't do it so it's
really a function of demand in
everything in Bitcoin so it's the
function of how many people believe this
to be true that this asset has value and
when you go back and say well people
shouldn't do this nobody has the right
to tell people what they should or
should not
do this is the best performing asset the
world has ever seen it is up 6 million
per. since we first put it on real
Vision in 20 13 2014 it's up
380,000
W you know I I if if Bitcoin is a
thousand 10 years from now you could
still make the argument it's the best
per per forming asset in the world if
you want to start from that point in
time so it doesn't matter the people
didn't own it when it was pennies that's
a little bit disingenuous because it
actually is the best performing asset in
the world on a 10 year 5e four year
threee 2E oneye basis Well it can't be
on a three-year basis because it's about
unchanged right it was at it was at six
it was over it's all it's record Tak the
alltime high as the yard stick right 3
years ago was March 20 uh was March
2021 it was much lower well when did it
hit 60 65 69,000 when was that like
November 2021 all right so from from
that point but yeah I just made a big
rally it's just Bitcoin is up 40% in the
last few weeks so obviously everything
looks like a valley when you're up on
this hill question is has Bitcoin
performed very well over its time
lifetime the answer
is provably mathematically yes that's
okay doesn't mean you have to like it
doesn't mean you have to like it but
it's provenly gone up more than any
other asset look let's see what happens
when the people who own it want to get
rid of it and do something with it it's
been around a couple points I want
makeer it's been around 14 years we've
gone through four Cycles where it's gone
down
90% and it still is the best performing
asset so your oh my God scenario goes
down 90% I've gone through three of
those myself it doesn't it still doesn't
all right well you're going to go
through another one and it may not come
back next time but the point I want to
make a couple of points that address
what you said so I I I I agree that it
is easier to store Bitcoin I don't know
obviously we don't need these ETFs
that's just the manufacturer to try to
pump up demand but yes it's easy to
store your Bitcoin relative to Gold but
the difference is when you're storing
gold you're storing something and so
since you have something it takes some
effort to to to to store it when you're
storing Bitcoin you're storing nothing
so what good is the fact that it's easy
to store nothing yes I've got a very
safe secure supply of nothing and
Bitcoin though as long as people think
it's going to go up as long as they
maintain that delusion and more people
want to buy it sure it will have a price
and if enough people don't sell it then
some people can't right there are always
going to be some people who can get out
that is the nature of all Investments no
it's not no it's not when you talk about
gold gold is an actual commodity that is
used does what in industry it's used it
has properties
what share of gold usage of gold that's
mined is actually used in manufacturing
no about half of it is used in jewelry
that's jewelry that's just storing of
gold on your physical body how much is
used no that's used I got a gold watch
here I didn't I didn't buy a tin watch
and why did you buy a gold watch because
you want to wear gold because it's no I
can go swimming with the rot watch it's
doesn't rust it looks beautiful it lasts
Scrat it scratches cuz it's gold guys
let me jump in here I want to ask a very
pointed question on that fact so gold if
half of it is being used for jewelry I
think that's a very valid point my
question is how would you feel if
somebody were wearing their crypto punk
as a piece of jewelry but they're not
wearing their Bitcoin they're they're
wearing something that has Bitcoin
written on it there you don't need the
Bitcoin if if you want a gold watch you
got to have gold actually that's not
true Peter because if you have an
inscription on bitcoin like a Bitcoin
ordinal which is an nft yes I know what
those are I created some myself and they
are stored on the blockchain you
actually need Bitcoin for it to exist
yes you need a Satoshi yes you need when
you look on Twitter I have my crypto
Punk that actually is also a claim on
ethereum yeah all right you know but
it's it's it's it's all part of the
speculation of Bitcoin it's not about
wearing your your your jewelry but again
gold gold is a conductor of electricity
it is the best conductor we know it's
the best conductor we have it's used for
all sorts of things in electronics it's
used in medicine it's used in dentistry
it would be used more if the price was
lower but the price is high but the
reason that the price is high is when
you own gold you are
storing the future use of that gold a
thousand years from now somebody could
use that gold to KCT electricity you
don't know what they're going to use it
for I I talked about this this telescope
that we sent into space this Hubble
telescope and they had a coat these huge
mirrors with gold now that was very
expensive they didn't want to coat it
with gold but that was the only metal
that was going to work so they they had
to buy gold to to coat these these these
mirrors
so when you own gold you own all those
properties those properties are not
going to go away over time and you're
storing them for future use Bitcoin
doesn't have anything that anybody uses
for anything I mean as long as people
want to gamble on it uh there's a price
but people don't have to buy gold uh for
money there's always going to be people
who need gold in Industry who are going
to be buying it and central banks yes
central banks buy it as a monetary asset
because they need something to back up
their Fiat they can't just back up one
currency with another currency they need
something real so central banks have
been buying more and more gold uh they
have a lot more that they need to buy uh
because their reserves are still too low
but you don't have that with Bitcoin you
don't have industrial demand you don't
have Central Bank demand you don't have
jewelry demand you just have speculative
demand and that's very fickle yeah if
the Market's going up the speculators
will buy starts going down they're going
to want to get out uh but eventually the
story blows up you know people stop
believing in the fairy tale you know you
talk about all these young kids uh that
think they've reinvented the wheel and
think that they know more than their
parents or their grandparents you know
it's like look you know little kids
believe in all sorts of things they
believe in the tooth fairy they believe
in the Easter Bunny and and Santa Claus
you know but they don't believe in these
things for their whole lives as they get
older uh they they start to uh see the
truth and I think the same thing is
going to happen with with Bitcoin uh
people are going to grow up and they're
going to learn from the mistakes of
their youth really fast I want to jump
in here I don't want to just move past
this idea of uh that gold would be used
more if the price were lower but the
price isn't lower why is the price lower
because it's really thought of as a
store of value as a flex so store of
value and flex seem to be the thing that
actually drive the value of gold um and
I think I have a hypothesis that the
core thing that drives the difference
between you two as archetypes is a
belief that either digital things are
real or digital things are not real
and if you believe like I do um that the
future of the world is more digital
where people will spend more of their
lives in the digital world where I heard
the story of a kid U their parent came
to them and said why do you want a
fortnite skin those aren't real and the
kid was befuddled they had no idea what
the parent meant by it's not real yeah
but that that that argument is is really
a straw man because I believe in digital
things uh like you know music I I listen
I I don't have to go out and buy a a
record I can listen to music digitally
uh there are a lot of things that I can
do digitally but just because I believe
in digital that doesn't mean that I can
eat digital food right food can't be
digital because I'll die if the only
thing I eat is digital food I'm not
going to get enough calories and I'm
going to die I need actual food I can't
replace food with a digital uh image and
that's the same thing with gold gold is
a real metal digital gold is not gold
it's nothing now yes if I want to you
know have a character and I want him to
have all kinds of gold fake gold jewelry
in some video game sure but I mean it's
not worth that much because you could
replicate it indefinitely you don't need
actual gold to have an image of gold on
a computer screen um you know that's why
you know for a while they had people
that were buying digital real estate oh
I got beachfront property well who cares
about beachfront property in a computer
game there's an unlimited Supply that I
mean if you want an actual beachfront
property in the physical world that's
more scarce than a a a a digital Beach
you know that your avatar can can can
can lie on uh so it's very different
it's not like I I'm not into technology
sure I I I can appreciate it but I can't
live in a digital house I can't eat
digital food and we can't have digital
gold Gold's got to be real in order for
it to be gold and do the things gold
does so here's an interesting thing Tom
is is in a digital world we talked about
and rightly as you rightly say every day
is more digital than the last right that
is a endless Trend that we are
seeing and in a digital world we can
make infinite amounts of anything
digital and we've seen that so stuff
like email has gone from being something
we paid for to something that's free
Cloud compute everything compute itself
is exponentially declining in cost
because everything digital almost goes
to zero because you can make infinite
amounts so that's a real problem in a
digital world until the invention of
blockchain which creates digital
scarcity it's a
mathematical way to to create scarcity
so scarcity is the asset that is why
gold is valuable it is a scarce asset
that's why silver is less valuable than
gold there is more silver there's plenty
of silver that's why copper is less
valuable than gold scarcity is what we
as humans value and in a digital world
where everything can be created
infinitely like food in the physical
world what you need to maintain value is
something and that's what blockchain did
so that's why younger Generations who
live more in the digital world say okay
this is great because I'm living in this
digital world and I want to changeable
with my physical world and therefore I'm
happy that digital assets have value and
I can think of Bitcoin as the
foundational value layer for all of this
and that makes sense being scarce is not
enough you have to be scarce and you
have to have valuable properties that
that people want and so gold has very
valuable metallic properties it's the
most useful metal on the periodic table
and yeah there's not a lot of it so it's
something that we need
has it's very useful yet it's scarce so
it's going to have a high price I mean
something like air we all need air right
air is very valuable without air we die
but there's so much of it it doesn't
have a high price because there's
there's a lot of air in the atmosphere
as opposed to how much gold there is in
the ground so you could say yes Bitcoin
is scarce but it doesn't have any value
and so there could be one Bitcoin if
nobody wants it then it's worthless
right now yes people want the 21 million
Bitcoin but I'd rather talk about the
2.1 quadrillion Satoshi because when you
talk about gold in order to actually do
something with gold you need a certain
quantity of gold right a little speck of
it isn't going to do anything you need a
particular quantity to do a job but with
Bitcoin you know whether I have an
entire Bitcoin or one Satoshi doesn't
matter I can't I I I can't do any more
with a Bitcoin than with a Satoshi
because I can't do anything with either
one and and so there really is 21
quadrillion Satoshi so there's plenty of
Satoshi to go around everybody can have
a few hundred thousand of these things
uh on the planet Earth but not only is
there an unlimited supply of of or of or
there's a limited supply of these
Satoshi there's an unlimited supply of
other crypto tokens that can be created
more than 20,000 have already been
created in theory 200,000 2 million can
be created that have properties that are
similar to or even improve on the
properties of Bitcoin uh and so so what
I mean what is value about you yeah
people it's all the rage now people are
talking about it but in a 100 years will
anybody even remember uh what Bitcoin
was I mean most people probably won't
know about it I mean how many people
even know about you know tulip Mania or
stuff like that that happened in the
past or Beanie Babies I mean these
things are like fads they come and they
go I mean some people may study it if
they study history
uh but to think that in a 100 years uh
anyone's even going to be be be thinking
about Bitcoin what gives you the
confidence to say you're so sure what
would say make you say you know what I
don't know this is interesting because
it's obviously obviously people like it
it attracts a lot of investors a lot of
smart people if you go and see Dan
mohead or Dan tapiero do you say listen
guys you guys are morons you're just
believing in some you wouldn't say that
you would well look there are a lot of
people a lot of people on Wall Street
have done foolish things in my lifetime
whether it
wascs uh subprime mortgages I mean
people were doing a lot of foolish
things with their money and and they
lost it uh and I know Wall Street has a
a tendency just to try to make money off
of any fat I mean whatever's popular you
know there's an expression feed the
Ducks while they're quacking and that's
what Wall Street does it's like whatever
the public wants they Supply it and they
take take a fee and and so if they could
get a lot of interest in Bitcoin then
they're going to create these products
and they're going to make it so that uh
people can trade they don't care they're
operating casinos they're they're
they're making they're making money but
what you should think about is not okay
maybe I'm wrong maybe there's a slim
chance that I'm wrong but there's a slim
chance that you're right I mean you're
betting on a long shot the odds are it's
not going to work right so it's it's a
real long shot that that that that this
project is actually going to succeed
right would you be less concerned about
the whole thing if gold had actually
gone
up no I mean look I mean gold has gone
up the pro so gold Min for example gold
mining equities have gone nowhere in 45
years well gold mining equities are not
gold gold mining equities are not gold
so gold gold in the last 100 years has
gone up 100 fold so the dollar has lost
99% of its value and even if you go back
to the year 2000 gold has gone from
under 300 to over 2,000 in the last 20
years so it's just that during the last
10 11 years where Bitcoin has been on
the scene gold has been very stable
while Bitcoin has gone way up that
that's in your your reference point
let's assume you were
less fixed on your view and you saw this
new thing and saw that people also
thought of it in the same kind of way
that people thought about gold and
doesn't it make you go you know that's
fascinating I wonder if this this really
could work in a digital age but instead
you'll say no no chance they shouldn't
buy it they're all idiots what makes you
so sure like I would never say about
gold that's stupid I would say I
understand it of course gold is
interesting but it's it's a weird way to
approach it is here is literally tens of
millions if not hundreds of Millions
people owning something and you're
saying they're all morons I'm
right regardless of the performance of 6
million per it's all just Beanie Babies
is that really what you think I'm not
saying they're all morons there are
people that are trading it because it's
going up and they think they'll get out
before the Music Stops and maybe they
will I me you know how how long does
this go on for I mean we're 14 years in
Peter we're 14 years in what you're
saying is why don't I why I why don't I
accept that nothing is something why
don't I believe in this fantasy like
everybody else why am I the same person
you know when you have all these insane
people you should be asking yourself is
why do I believe this nonsense that you
know I mean there are other smart people
I'm not the only person I can hold two
competing ideas in my head at all times
and it's a probabilistic game it's not
that I don't understand Bitcoin I
understand it that's why I know it's
worthless but there are plenty of other
smart people who look at it the exact
same way as me I'm going to jump in
really fast because the only way forward
is to identify the base assumptions that
Drive Your guys' World Views so as we go
through this uh Peter what comes to the
Forefront from you is that the belief
system is if something doesn't have
intrinsic value then it all it is is
gambling do you agree with that
statement around your beliefs if it
doesn't have intrinsic value it's not
going to be money you know and and and
now currency is a money substitute and
currency doesn't have any intrinsic
value unless it's backed by gold or some
something else but then it that its
value is derived from what backs it up
but a Fiat currencies right which we use
now have no intrinsic value but they
have uh governments behind them uh they
have laws that uh you know make them
legal tender they have a government that
demands payment of taxes in that
currency so you can have a a Fiat system
that will work it won't work as good as
a as an honest system based on gold but
it can it can work temporarily and and
sometimes temporarily can be a long time
but my my my premise is that if Bitcoin
doesn't have an actual use
Beyond uh my giving it to somebody else
or selling it to somebody else whatever
other than as a uh as a as a potential
Exchange if its only us as I can buy it
and sell it to somebody else who buys it
and sells it to somebody else it's a
Ponzi it's a pyramid it's a chain letter
there are a lot of ways to describe what
this is and they've been doing this for
hundreds of years right it's not new all
that's new is the digital part but all
the all the other um uh factors have
have have been tried and you know over
and over again it's just a modern
version of this and it's going to end
end the same way that in all these prior
uh pyramid schemes have fallen apart
okay so I'll say it a different way uh
because I feel like I understand your
beliefs but I'm having a hard time
getting you to agree that I understand
um so gold is back stopped by the fact
that it can be used by other things
therefore it is the wiser um store of
value because the price is never going
to fall below what uh its usefulness in
the real world is well yeah gold is a
commodity like wheat like oil like corn
uh like cotton uh and people need gold
just like they need these other
Commodities the difference is you know
gold is a better commodity to store
because it doesn't tarnish it doesn't
rot it doesn't Decay uh and it's
relatively easy to store I mean it's
certainly a lot easier to store uh gold
than than than cattle you know or oil uh
you know of all the Commodities that you
could choose to store gold is the
easiest and so that's one of the reasons
that that that that we we use it now is
it easier to store Bitcoin yes but then
again you give up the fact that you're
storing something you're storing nothing
right what I'm what I'm trying to get to
is the core of why R I think rightly
from a just understand the world I'm not
saying who's right or wrong I'm just
saying to understand the world uh R's
reaction makes sense if you believe that
belief in the item the the mimic ability
to transfer the belief in the item is is
the thing that matters and I think R
tell me if I'm wrong but that you
believe Gold's value is
driven in the vast majority by the
mimetic belief that gold is a great way
to store value well no it's it's its
value is derived from its properties but
I I I agree that that that Bitcoin
Bitcoin is purely a function of your
belief of confidence it's a giant con
game as long as we all believe it has
value uh then it can have a price and
people will want it but the question is
can you put your faith in that
confidence enduring over time that in
the future people will be just as
infatuated and and hold these beliefs
just as strongly in the future and I
think the far off into the future you
want to extrapolate the harder it is uh
to to to believe that that will be the
case you know tomorrow will people stop
believing in Bitcoin tomorrow probably
not in 6 months well probably not but in
10 years in 100 years the further you go
out at some point yeah what's what's the
odds and so you can't be a store of
value because at any point in the future
there could be absolutely no confidence
whatsoever in Bitcoin you know it's you
know it's to me it's more of a fat yes
people people are are infatuated with it
now because it's gone up and people have
gotten rich and there's all this money
being pumped into it um but who's to say
that that's going to be the case in the
future I think a lot of money is going
to be lost in Bitcoin in fact you know
far more people are going to lose money
in Bitcoin than than have made money in
Bitcoin that is very possible so what I
I want to be clear what I'm trying to do
right now is simply State what you guys
believe to be true not convince you of
anything else because uh we are in a
battle for ideas in the greater world
and so I want people to understand the
base assumptions that drive your guys'
worldview so they can form their own uh
Peter I feel very confident in saying
that you believe the reason that gold
has value is because it has intrinsic
physical properties that people can use
and that makes it valuable uh and so
that becomes a game of I don't need
people to believe so even if belief
drives a certain amount of this it it
really has usefulness and that is ground
Truth for Peter shiff and gold the
properties don't always have to be phys
physical they could be intangible right
you know there's a value there uh so I'm
not I'm not against aged intangible uh
assets uh you know okay perfect so now
on the Bitcoin side on R your argument
and take this up and tell me if I'm
wrong is that we are entering a phase of
perception where the mimic value the
belief that computers for instance are
the future it's a Bedrock that people
grow up with that a certain subset of
the world and I actually put myself in
this so I don't have to project into
other people um that they believe that
the thermodynamics that you can
represent on the blockchain to produce
the Bitcoin is is real is as real as an
exploding star therefore all that's
needed is the
mimetic spread of that belief and if
that belief takes hold and it one
hypothesis I don't know that this is
true but one hypothesis about why gold
is not going up in this time of massive
inflation and uncertainty but Bitcoin is
despite volatility is that that belief
is becoming more and more common now who
ends up being right on a long enough
timeline financially we will get to but
I just want to lay out and R please tell
me if you disagreed with what I just
said that seems to be the set table just
so we clarify something just using
technology chat GPT 4 um and the world
gold Council 10 7 and a half to 10% of
gold Supply every year is used for use
so 90% is
mimetics to 92 and a half% it's we
believe it to be
so okay so that is an element of
humanity but what you're touching on is
okay the technology itself there are
some elements of that if we believe it's
scarce enough we can attach a value to
to it that's memetics there is also the
elements of okay the Bitcoin mining
itself has
created opportunities so for example we
are seeing in the Middle East using gas
flare offs which is wasted energy
reusing the energy to
create tokens which then are used to
release that we're seeing it with low
balancing so there's an element of it's
a way of sharing electricity in a world
that doesn't do that very easily but
it's also something more the physical
property here is actually the physical
property of the blockchain itself the
reason this goes up so fast is not
because of mania it's because it's an
adoption of a technology it's metcar law
so what you're finding is networks as
they gain adoption price gets a bit
crazy now in 20 years time will bitcoin
price be as crazy highly unlikely
because it gets to maturity and it looks
more like a mature asset so people get
confused
what we're doing here is saying what
bitcoin's price is doing is saying yes
there's the element of memetics it has
this scarce value nothing in the digital
world has scarcity so this is
interesting for Humanity it's not proven
it's not had a thousand years of History
it's interesting it also has interesting
properties in how it can reuse wasted
energy or rebalance energy loads okay
that's interesting but also what is the
future expected value of the blockchain
itself now we may say today or we would
have said a year ago well Bitcoin
blockchain is not very useful but now
we've started to see these ordinals and
inscriptions which is using the
blockchain for other things we're seeing
other use cases of layer 2os built on
bitcoin there's more incentivization in
a network the more people that that
invest in it or join it to create other
use cases are there's money around
there's money to do stuff with it so we
don't know what the future of the
Bitcoin blockchain is but if enough
money is attracted to it it will create
other use cases because it's a network
with a lot of people on it so Network
value is a weird thing for somebody who
doesn't live in the digital world in the
digital world that's what's created all
the value in Amazon Google Apple
Facebook it's what's creating the
digital uh the the value in Tesla it's
what the value is in chat GPT it's
Network effects so we've got this
incredible asset which has these scarce
properties that solves a problem we
don't have that we had in the digital
world it has some physical properties
because what we can do with electricity
and how it's mined and then it has the
future expected value of the
network that to me makes it a very
interesting asset now the question is
does it exist in
50 years time 100 years time I don't
know no nobody knows would humans use
gold in 100 years time nobody knows just
because they Ed gold yesterday doesn't
mean they use gold tomorrow so
everything changes people have used car
shells they've used Stone they've used
all sorts of things as a store of value
bushels of wheat that was a very common
store of value back in Egyption times so
take nothing for granted but observe
when new things are happen Happ and
we're actually seeing people using these
things in different and unique ways you
pay attention and it's driving a lot of
value that for me is enough because
we're getting two elements here we're
getting the the store of value plus the
adoption of this technology that's
driving it is for you um the volatility
of the asset the mimetic belief is that
what makes this interesting to you or
are you uh Bitcoin Maxi who really
believes this needs to replace physical
gold for reasons of
anti-seizure um better ability to store
ownership Etc so I believe in the latter
but that is a future we're not there
yet and I'm an investor at core my job
is really you know to also make money
out of Trends I'm trying to better my
future
as we all are and so yes I believe in
the philosophy that's how I got into it
I saw that this was probably a better
answer for many of the issues within the
financial system not for gold per se
gold is fine it'll continue being gold I
have no issue with
that but it just seemed to me that this
was something
that was going to solve the
philosophical and the real problems of
the financial system the real core of it
who owns what in an overly indebted
Society it's going to really do
something there and so if I can make
money out of a
solution well of course I will so it's
both but really you know how much longer
am I on this planet I'm 56 years old
maybe I live for 50 years if I'm super
lucky what is my job my job is yes if I
think this technology is a good thing
for Humanity I will help promote it the
best I can but it's also my own life and
my family's life and if I think it
has investment properties that
outperform other assets of course I'll
invest in it even with the volatility
because risk
adjusted even if you take from draw down
adjusted volatility adjusted whatever
ratio still the best risk adjusted
reward of any asset we've ever seen
Fidelity produced this fabulous chart
which is like it's a dots plots chart of
risk adjusted returns for all of these
assets and there's like gold and and
NASDAQ looks really quite good and Etc
right they're all clustered and there's
a blank sheet of paper and then
somewhere up there in the far right is
Bitcoin the the risk adjusted return is
alien we have never seen anything like
this so regardless of what people say
about the volatility everything else the
risk adjusted return is like an alien
asset we've never had anything like this
which is why to me when I simplify
everything down I just say this is the
best macro opportunity of all time we
got the best risk adjusted return asset
that has the highest performance of any
asset in history it's being adopted at
the fast looking in the rearview mirror
it may not look that way in the future
in fact it's more likely to revert to
the mean or way below the mean seems
like if it's gone up so much in the past
there's a lot of risk that it's going to
go down I think you're ignoring that um
you see all of these like NASDAQ and
you're probably a bear of the NASDAQ too
but all of these things are secular
Trends in a logarithmic charts because
that're that they're secular Trends
they're not cyclical this is not the
commodity has been around long enough to
be a secular anything it's been around
for 12 13 years and and really it's been
around you know in the in the eye of
investors for a much shorter time period
maybe five years I mean I I've I've been
investing since 2012 so I'm 12 years
into this yeah yeah you but most Wall
Street hasn't been into it that long
they they they got they got into it
really you know 2,000 time frame around
there you know after it really went up
they kind of got interested in it uh
they weren't looking at it back then
well that makes me even more bullish
right that makes me even more bullish if
they haven't really adopted it yet
therefore they're in it what do you mean
they're in it like got all these ETFs
now they they're in it they've been
promoting it they've been touting it uh
there's been Bitcoin commercials now for
years I mean the top advertisers on
cable TV are crypto companies I mean
they're pumping and pumping and pumping
and pumping and spending a lot of money
to try to con the public into buying
this stuff uh and so you know they've
suckered a lot of people in you know but
that there's a limit to how much longer
they're going to be able to do it you
you can't do it forever the bottom is
going to drop out you
know and as far as the NASDAQ look you
know yeah I mean there's a lot of
liquidity there's a lot of inflation
it's been driving a tech stock higher
I'm not sure these stocks I mean I think
the market could go up because I think
the dollar is going to go down but at
least in the tech stocks you know a lot
of these companies are real businesses
they may be overvalued but they have
some value uh they're gener they're you
know you mentioned a lot of companies
that you say have networks like Tesla or
apple but they make a ton of money
selling products right they they you
know I got a lot of Apple products
myself apple is earning a lot of money
you know you can argue about what the
price of the share should be
but you can't argue that there's a
valuable business there uh but with
Bitcoin you know there is no business
it's nothing it's like you know in in in
sales that you know they say sell the
the sizzle not the stake well in Bitcoin
there is no stake it's just Sizzle it's
so it's all being hyped up yeah it's not
certainly true because the people who
mine it get given block rewards so they
get paid if you're mining it you make
some money sure I'm not talking about
Bitcoin mining can be profitable for now
as long as I could sell it above th cost
of mining it but that that's that's
different but that creates value selling
Bitcoin business see Peter it's the same
as all mining if the cost of
production is above the price of the
asset people don't
mine and so Supply is reduced or in this
case that the amount of hashing in the
network either security the network gets
when it comes to bitcoin the supply has
really is very little to do with mining
because almost all the Bitcoin have
already been mined so the question is
with the 19 million odd Bitcoin that
exists right now forget about the couple
of million more that they could bring on
stream over the next few decades the
question is with the 19 million that
exists or however many haven't been lost
is do people want to hoard them or do
they want to sell them and if they want
to sell them is there enough new demand
to buy them not the price crashes what
happens if China sold its gold oh the
price would crash happens if the FED
sold their gold theice it somebody needs
it this is not an argument 10% of all
gold Supply is used for
industry so if a central bank comes in
and dumps their gold like the UK they
have dumped gold central banks have
dumped gold before what absorbed in the
market the price went
down and so maybe the price of Bitcoin
goes down when people sell it no [ __ ]
that's what markets do until you find
the clearing price it's normal I don't
see why it has to go to you know what
one of the things that I've learned you
know over the years with Bitcoin is it
is like a religion and people believe in
it the way they believe in a religion or
a cult and when you get to that type of
mentality there's no rational argument
that you can make I can't I can't
logically try to tell somebody that
there's no God if they believe in a God
I mean it's a belief system that you
have and it's almost it's impossible to
to entertain uh that you might be wrong
right so and then you know so you
believe in it believe in it I mean
there's nothing I can do about it I mean
uh and if if if you end up losing a lot
of money you lose a lot of money and and
the problem is you know some people that
lose a lot of money can't afford it the
best thing about Bitcoin is that most of
the people who are going to lose a lot
of money are young and they got plenty
of time to earn it back and it's going
to be a valuable lesson that people
learn that they can carry into their
older years the memory of all the they
lost in in Bitcoin could it possibly be
you that learns the lesson I don't think
so okay I mean May Maybe I'm Wrong maybe
Warren Buffett is wrong maybe a lot of
smart investors you know maybe we all
got it wrong and and and you guys got it
right I I don't think that's the case
but you know I suppose anything is
possible what would have to happen for
you guys to reverse your opinion so Ral
what would have to be true of Bitcoin
down to zero for 10 years 100 years
whatever before you give up Peter same
to you what what would have to be true
for you guys to reverse your opinion for
me simply if people stop using the
network if if there's less activity on
the network people start becoming
disinterested then it's shown that its
store of value principles erode it would
be the same with gold and that's one of
the reasons gold has been somewhat
lackluster because there's been less
adopters of gold in a new digital world
so it's not done as well as it would
have done historically in the kind of
debasement environment that we've had so
if I were to observe in Bitcoin itself
forget all the other crypto and I'm no
Bitcoin maximalist as you all know um if
we saw that people were using it less
there was less activity less value was
being transacted less new people were
joining you know the Bitcoin Network I
having wallets
then I would say you know what there's
something wrong here and is that
persistent over time if it's persistent
over time then the network may not work
and we've seen many of those things
happen in the past there's a possibility
that happens I don't think it's the
highest probability certainly not this
decade could it happen after that of
course possible now why don't you worry
about that during the bare markets
because so for example in uh 2022 was a
great example Le is um the market went
down 70 odd per
75% the number of uh active uh wallets
in crypto went up 22% uh 42% so the
adoption was still ongoing while price
went down activity was less but then
we're seeing okay so if we step back and
we hear oh governments are going to
build on blockchain Rails
cbdcs all the banks want to put assets
on blockchain
Rails we're hearing gaming companies
want to put these metaverse gaming
experiences on blockchain
Rails we're hearing I was at the world's
largest one of the world's largest
commodity trading firms in Switzerland
last week speaking to their uh one of
their senior a agricultural Commodities
physical Traders I'm like and she's an
investor in my digital asset um Asset
Management Company
um and I'm like are you guys using
blockchain surely you should be solving
supply chain she goes oh we've been
using blockchain since
2021 so we are doing eight I think of
the world's largest agricultural
Commodities houses are putting their
letters of
credit their
shipping their um the the uh all of the
kind of Transit proofs the supply chain
and the settlement all on blockchain
so going back to your question Tom when
I see this and I see the price of
Bitcoin down 75% or the whole crypto
space down
80% you say I have to ask myself is
adoption
stopping or is just this a cyclical
Factor that's driven by the business
cycle and until I would see otherwise
unless these things go
away then I can only assume that
tomorrow is more digital than today and
and tomorrow more people will use
blockchain technology than they did
yesterday simple as that Peter what
would you have to see for you to change
your mind I don't know it's going to be
tough I mean obviously it hasn't been
changed yet I mean I've been watching
Bitcoin from a few dollars a token to
60,000 right so price obviously isn't
going to do it um you know the whole
time I've been observing Bitcoin and and
and in involved in interacting with the
whole community and I've seen it grow
and I I you know I I've you know seen
more and more people uh you know
believing in it and and and speculating
on it but what I haven't seen is a use
case you know people make a big deal
about oh Peter shiff you know shift gold
we accept Bitcoin well we started early
on with uh working with bit pay uh where
we enable people to take their Bitcoin
through bit pay and bit pay just lets
you sell your Bitcoin kind of point of
sale and get dollars to buy gold uh but
I I I haven't seen any real increase
it's a tiny part of our business every
once in a while somebody buys gold with
with Bitcoin but they don't actually buy
with Bitcoin they sell the Bitcoin and
then they buy the gold with dollars but
you know I remember back in 2017 when
Bitcoin kind of popped on everybody's
radar for the first time because it kind
of went from obscurity and it had that
big run to 20,000 from you know under a
th all of a sudden people start talking
about it a lot of companies started to
announce oh we're going to we're going
to sell products in Bitcoin we're going
to accept Bitcoin and there was like a
rush of that and that all went away I
mean nobody today is talking about how
they're taking Bitcoin I mean the only
company AMC the movie the the the meme
stop for a while stock they they they
said oh we're going to take Bitcoin at
our theaters just part of the the Mania
you know that stock is down like 99% you
know since that I got hyped up uh uh
Elon Musk uh announced at one point he
was going to sell cars for big coin and
I don't know how many months later he
pulled the plug on the whole thing and
said no we're not doing it anymore but
so we haven't seen that adoption it
hasn't it hasn't uh become any more of a
currency than it was when it was first
created that's a very fair thing it
hasn't because the problem is it keeps
going up so you're disincentivized to
sell it or it's very volatile right it's
not very good as a currency well it's
not very good at the main thing it was
designed for but and and I remember when
I first heard about it when I first
heard about Bitcoin the way it was sold
to me was hey you can circumvent all the
AML requirements you don't have you get
out of the banking system you can
transact anonymously in private and you
and you don't have to worry about the
government spying on you you can be out
of the banking system I got into it for
an entirely different reason which is as
Dan tapier would call it it's the
security truth machine it's the value of
The
Ledger it's the value of having a new
way of creating trust in the the world
in a world where trust is broken you
don't know how much gold the Federal
Reserve has right this is a trust
problem we've got the same trust problem
with the future have any I'm going to
channel the comment section right now
and they are all saying Peter Schiff is
religious about gold because Tom asked a
question what would need to be true for
you to change your mind and you've spent
the last five minutes telling us all the
reasons you won't change your mind well
I'm not talking about gold I mean Gold's
been valuable for thousands of years
it's not like it's up to me what what
would have to be true for you to change
mind about Bitcoin if the answer is
nothing that is religious conviction
from where I'm sitting I've been given
the same answer for you know for 10
years what will prove me wrong about
Bitcoin would be if Bitcoin replaces the
dollar the Euro you know as a uh as a
currency uh when I go to the grocery
store and not only does the grocery
store accept payment in Bitcoin but all
the prices are in Satoshi but do we do
that with gold
have you gone to have you gone to the
supermarket with a gold bar to buy a bag
of chips no but gold is not being used
as money right now it's being used as a
commodity it's being used as a metal
Bitcoin can't be used as anything so it
it has to be a currency it was created
to be a currency so let me see it
function as a currency it hasn't done
that at all since it was created you're
applying a different set of Standards my
friend no I'm not it's like it's like
you're also asking me what would it have
what would have to happen for me to
believe that Santa Claus is real I don't
know you know I mean you're asking me
you it it's a fake asset it's phony I I
can't imagine what could happen to
convince me that something that isn't is
you know it's the the more question is
what gets you to stop believing in it
because you're the one that is that
believes in a fantasy I live in reality
so he answered that his answer just to
recap is that the energy in the network
adoption usage would have to go down
very finite totally understand but you
in your just gave a very concrete answer
uh I don't know how I'm less worried
about that
but I what I'm trying to do so I'm just
trying to paint a sense of what the base
assumptions are that build your guys's
worldview uh with that answer Peter I
it's very helpful um I come back to your
core thesis is if it isn't real physical
tangible and does not have real physical
tangible use cases then it it will never
cross your threshold it can be int it
doesn't have to be physical to be useful
but Bitcoin doesn't do anything right
all it is is a is a speculative vehicle
that I could trade I can yes I can hold
it and I can sell it but my ability to
sell it rests on the the the fact that
somebody else wants it and why would
somebody else want it because they they
think they can sell it and they think
they can sell it at a higher price if
they think they can sell it at a lower
price they're not going to want it so
the demand for Bitcoin is a function of
the fact that everybody expects the
future price to be higher but the minute
you no longer have that expectation for
an appreciating price there's no buyers
there's not because there's nothing you
can do with it between the time you buy
it and the time you sell it and so it
just goes down there's no reason to own
it I am very much not trying to convince
you I simply want this position position
to be understood you can still reject it
and say that doesn't work for you and
I'd completely understand but um I think
one position that's worth putting on the
table would be that I look at the
economic situation that we're in right
now and I say I need a flight to safety
um so I have invested in Gold that that
is one potential flight to safety I have
unease about that because I have a
thesis that the every new child born now
is going to believe in digital things
more than physical things in in this
case now I could end up being wrong and
over time that that will be in the wash
but again just just trying to be
understood not trying to be convincing
um that the use case then for someone
with that belief set becomes that if
there are only 21 million there will
only ever be 21 million and people keep
losing them so that number is actually
deflating now I have a place that
mimetically people believe in that I can
I can buy and hold that I don't need the
price to be volatile in fact with my
personality I would rather it was not
volatile and now as it matures there's
no volatility or at least low there's a
place for me to um Park my money that
cannot be inflated now I feel good
buying Bitcoin today at60 odd, of
Bitcoin do you think that's safe do you
think it's a safe place for your money
do I think it's safe no I don't think
anything is safe in a shorttime horizon
on a longtime Horizon right now it feels
the safest but even if even if in the
short run it can go from 60,000 to
20,000 you still think it's safe even
though you might need to sell it when
it's 20,000 well so again I I I don't
consider myself a a partner in this
debate I'm merely trying to steer it so
I just want to make sure that that that
idea is understood again rejected is
fine just trying to place it as a thing
to be understood because I think this is
the core thing that breaks between again
you guys' archetypes that's where I
think this breaks is when I look at
Bitcoin and now I'm just speaking about
Bitcoin I see Ah that's that's an
inflation has that hedge that resonates
with me because I believe in the same
thing that Ral happens to believe in
which is the network effects just
mimetically people believe in it and
then I ask myself is tomorrow when I say
is tomorrow going to be more digital
than today I'm mean will people have a
baseline understanding of the world as a
digital place or a physical place I
think they will have a baseline
understanding of the world as a digital
Place more than a physical place now
that that may have horrendous KnockOn
effects I'm I'm not even speaking to
that I'm just saying I think that is
where it's going maybe you're right
maybe you're wrong but
regardless uh buying Bitcoin is not safe
it's it's highly speculative you're
speculating on a bunch of things that
you think might happen but you're not
playing it safe nobody should operate
under the delusion that I'm buying
Bitcoin because I want to play it safe
you're you you know you should not put
any money into Bitcoin that you're not
100% willing to lose all of it so if
you're say yeah this is risk money I
could lose every penny that I put into
Bitcoin and I'm okay with that I mean I
hope I don't lose all my money I hope it
goes to the moon and I buy a Lambo but
if I lose it all I'm okay because I got
other resources that I can fall back on
you know that's how you have to look at
it you can't think that oh I'm going to
put my money my all my money in here
because it's real safe yeah I I think
that's a very very fair point and is
exactly how I look at it um so just to
put a fine point on it so uh for you to
change your mind it would have to become
uh a currency that replaces the dominant
currencies in use today yeah itd have to
achieve some kind of scalability as a
medium exchange unit of account and yeah
eventually the volatility would
obviously have to go away it' have to
stabilize you know you know at some
price it could gradually rise you know
over time slowly you know depending on
you know how much inflation there is uh
in other currencies but maybe no other
currencies maybe all the other
currencies go away and all that's left
is Bitcoin right that's all that's all
we have left there's no more Euro
there's no more Yen the US government
wants Bitcoin Bitcoin is how you pay
your taxes Bitcoin is if you get a
welfare check it's it's Bitcoin that's
what you get right if if this all this
happens then I guess I was wrong um but
if all it is is a spe speculative
vehicle if all we have is more ways to
bet on the direction of the price uh
then nothing has been proven and yeah
the price could go up Could It Go from
60,000 to 100,000 it could but it could
go from 60,000 to 10,000 or a lot lower
and my my question would be and I'm sure
if Bitcoin Falls today from 60,000 to
20,000 or 10,000 all the people who have
been telling me how great it is they're
they're not they're going to be saying
the same thing they're and they're going
to be saying well don't worry it'll come
back it'll come back well maybe maybe
not maybe it won't come back you know
maybe it maybe the next time it really
drops it'll just drop again there's no
way to know you know they always say
past performance is no a guarantee of
future results so just because Bitcoin
has come back in the past doesn't mean
it's going to come back in the future do
you do speculative investing do you have
a portion of your portfolio yeah I mean
I do I mean I've been buying that's what
I said I bought a lot more gold stocks
this week I regard that as highly
speculative but I bought I bought them I
thought I think you know I think they're
cheap I think I'm going to make a lot of
money on my gold stocks we'll see uh but
I know I'm
speculating I didn't buy I didn't buy
any physical gold I I but I bought gold
stocks now when I buy gold stocks I own
some physical gold because the gold
mining companies have gold in the ground
they haven't mined it yet so as a as a
stockholder I have a share of that
unmined gold okay as uh for both of you
as spec when you're speculatively
investing do do you look for volatility
or do you avoid it well if I'm
speculatively investing I'm looking for
volatility with a risk adjusted return
that I think is in my favor obviously we
get bets wrong we get bets right that's
the idea so you you look for a strong
trending asset with some hypothesis that
is relatively provable over time that
should continue to drive the asset
whether it's the Indian stock market a
technology company
or Bitcoin or even gold volatility is
something you want if you're a Trader I
mean if you're trying to trade a lot
volatility to trade but when I talk
about speculating in an asset like a
mining
company I'm not looking for the
volatility I'm looking to buy something
that I think is cheap but I'm also
hoping that there's a catalyst so that
in the future it will become expensive
and so I want to buy something when I
think it's cheap and not a lot of other
people want to buy it and I I want to
hold it till I think it's expensive and
everybody wants to buy it and I may be
wrong right I'm making a gamble because
I'm betting on things changing I'm
betting on whatever exists today
whatever perception people have that
those perceptions are wrong and they're
going to change in the future and so I
don't care about volatility I mean I
just want to buy I I want I care about
price I want a low price uh and um and
what I like about the gold stocks is
nobody really owns them there's just a
handful of people that if you if you
look at the major uh you know holders
institutions endowments Pension funds
hedge funds they own either no gold
stocks or just a tiny amount but most of
them don't own any in fact I I joked on
my podcast you know there was the
nvidia's increase in its market cap in a
single day basically exceeded the entire
gold mining industry in one day just a
gain not the market cap of the whole
company just the increase on that one
day uh so it's a tiny little segment of
the market that has the potential to be
a lot less tiny you know and if that's
the case you know I I can make a lot of
money in these stocks meanwhile I do get
some dividends a lot of my gold stocks
are not my best dividend payers I mean
but I three 4% dividend so I collect
some interest some income on a lot of
these gold stocks uh but I'm giving up
some income because I get better yields
in other Investments but I think there's
a lot of potential for appreciation I
recognize I could be wrong in which case
I don't get the appreciation but I think
you know some of these stocks could go
up five or 10 fold some of them the
smaller ones could go up 50 or 100 fold
so I I I think there's a lot of uh
upside potential relative to the the
downside risk in these stocks so that's
why I'm I'm buying them but I look at
them as speculative if you had a time
machine you could go back in time and
buy Bitcoin 10 years ago would you do it
of course I mean I'm not an idiot well
first of all if I had a time machine I
can do a lot of things I you know uh and
I i' you I'd be the you know but of
course look you know yes do I regret I
mean I remember when I was sitting at my
desk my studio in Connecticut in Weston
and a guy working with me on my campaign
they were showing me Bitcoin and the guy
was like look just buy some you know
what the hell and I looked at it and I
don't remember if it was under a dollar
or over a dollar because I can't
remember but I remember it was like 2010
when I looked at it and I remember I
thought about it yeah should I I mean I
can throw 10 grand in it 50 Grand I
don't know I thought about it and I
didn't do it I was like ah you know this
is ridiculous what am I you know I I
just I I I went away from it but I
thought about it I I thought about all
the odds and I I I didn't see this kind
of bubble potential I mean I thought
yeah maybe it could go up but I just
didn't want to deal with it now
obviously do I wish I had made a
decision to have thrown 10 grand 50
Grand 100 Grand into it sure yeah I you
may be worth hundreds of Millions
assuming I didn't sell but again I don't
know what I would have done had I made
that decision maybe I would have put it
all on Mount gox and I lost it there but
I don't know maybe some of the mount
gaw's money is coming back um I don't
know what I would have done if I had
bought it but yeah clearly I mean I I
mean I wish I'd have bought it but you
know I I would even if I had bought it
even if I would have bought it I
wouldn't have told other people to buy
it I would have had to kept quiet about
it because I never believed in it so I
would have bought it just betting on
other people being dumb enough to buy it
and pay a higher price right I I
wouldn't have bought it because I
actually believed in it I would have
bought it because I believed other
people would be would be foolish enough
or greedy enough to buy it so I would
have had to kept it quiet I couldn't
have like encouraged other people to buy
so I would have I I I so I think
publicly I I wouldn't have had a
different you know I would have been
singing the same song I just would have
made a lot of money if I would have if I
would have bought it so you don't think
that was a remote chance you might have
been more enthusiastic about it had you
have bought it been involved in the
community made some money attended some
of these conferences saw what's going on
with the technology could it have been a
different piz of shift and it could have
been Shi crypto written on the wall
there I think there's a chance it could
have been and maybe you missed it well
look I like to think that I have
integrity and that I would have had the
same Outlook look but is it possible
that had I bought it like so many other
people
did might the fact that it went way
up might I have decided that rather than
being a lucky Gambler I was some kind of
a
genius and I I I I maybe operated under
the same delusion I mean it's possible
look you know there's you know a power
corrupts so maybe money corrupts or it
distorts your perception I mean it's
it's easy for me to see the bubble when
I'm not inside it so maybe if I was in
the bubble with you guys maybe if I was
a crypto billionaire uh uh maybe maybe
maybe that would distort my perception
so maybe I would be maybe I would be out
there you know just as crazed as you
guys Peter in what world do you think
it's acceptable to insult asset holders
and think that's a normal thing that
they're idiots they can't see it they're
speculated why is why has that become an
acceptable way of
interaction I don't do it to Apple
shareholders well I mean or I mean it's
not it's not so there's a there's a some
sort of psychology around gold that it
feels like it's being threatened and
that therefore there's an attack there's
an attack going back I mean it's kind of
strange remember I I look I talked to a
lot of people during the 1990s who were
in love with various dotcom stocks and
they all went to zero I talked to a lot
of people who thought they would get
rich owning their home and multiple
homes during the the the real estate
bubble and so I know the psychology and
and the way people act when they're
trapped in a bubble and they can't see
it now there were plenty of smart people
that own these stocks that went to zero
there are plenty of SM smart people that
own real estate so I'm not saying there
there are some really smart people I
mean intellectually smart high IQ smart
that own Bitcoin I'm not saying they're
dumb
I'm just saying they're making a mistake
and their judgment is being clouded by
the money uh they can't think everything
is going to be obvious in hindsight see
a lot of the things that I was saying
when I was warning about uh the housing
bubble and the subprime market a lot of
the things I was saying in 2003 and four
and five and six that were being
dismissed all of a sudden people were
saying the same thing oh yeah of course
yes yes this that's Peter are house
prices higher or lower than they were
then are technology stocks higher or
lower than they were a a lot of them
went to zero it doesn't matter last Che
zero yes if you bought Amazon if you
bought you know uh uh you know uh uh
eBay you know if you bought there are
some stocks that made it but if you
bought pets.com or the globe.com you
lost everything there were a lot of
stocks most of them went to zero you
just need to own NASDAQ it's an index
and it has the top 100 technology
company so the bad ones get dropped out
the good ones survive and you made an
enormous amount of money by backing
technology but you're saying that people
were stupid to buy technology in 1999 no
I'm talking about individual stocks that
I'm talking about people were they
people they were cult like you would
have picked the stocks better than those
people for sure cuz you saw it was all a
bubble the NASDAQ the NASDAQ went down
from 5,000 to 1,000 so it went down 80%
and the only reason it didn't go down
90% was because the FED slashed interest
rates to 1% so you had the FED rescue
the market it's up 15x I know where it
is now it's another bubble so let's see
where the let's see where the next
bottom is you know I mean it's not I
mean we're going it's a Serial bubble
blowing it's the same inflation that
you're talking about that is driving
these asset bubbles I'm not I'm not
denying that that happened you know and
I own I own some stocks that are into
technology that have gone up 10 I I own
none of these stocks I I have some so
out of Interest what value do you get
out of owning your gold what is it that
it does for you gold gold gold is a
small part of my portfolio physical gold
but it's a it's a store of value it's a
safe haven it's an insurance policy it's
it's I I look at gold against what
against what pet Rob when you ask me why
do I own gold you should say why do you
own dollars why do you have dollars in
the bank account why do you have Euros
or Yen right why don't I just spend all
my dollar
and buy assets buy real estate buy
stocks see gold is liquidity for me it
is an alternative to the dollar to the
euro it's not an alternative to real
estate it's not really an alternative to
stocks uh it's an alternative to to the
dollar so what are you most overweight
in do you think your your savings um
mainly in real estate or you know how do
you think well those are investments
savings can be in Gold but you real
estate would be an investment unless
it's my you know my primary residence or
something then it's more of as an
investment you're speculating and going
up right because that's what an
investment is well an investment would
have an income component so if I have
real estate I got rental income if I own
stocks I have dividend income uh so my
my my investments are generating a
return um you know if you're
speculating you know you're you're
betting on theice is is Amazon an
investment well Amazon it doesn't pay a
dividend right so I'm
it sounds like it's a bad investment for
me well Amazon has earnings so it could
pay a dividend if it wanted to but it's
reinvesting it could do but it does that
makes it okay okay but but you're asking
me do I think Amazon is a good buy no I
don't I think Amazon is is overpriced
it's obviously been overpriced for a
long long time you know and and and and
that hasn't stopped it from going up but
I do think that there is a major decline
in Amazon's future whether it happens in
nominal terms or in in real terms so
nominal terms would be the dollar price
goes down in real terms the gold price
goes down but one of those two things is
going to happen I don't own Amazon I
mean I I'm a I'm a good customer we buy
from Amazon every every day so I know
they you know there there's definitely
value in that business model the
question is what's it worth you know
what's the what should the price be and
I think the market has been overpricing
it for a long time you can reboot your
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today I just want to plant Flags in in
World Views here for everybody tracking
this so um Peter the way that I read
where you're coming from is there is a a
safety measure that you put in when
evaluating an asset whether it has uh if
it's a dividend paying stock that has a
real uh profitable business behind it
there's a level of safety there that you
can count on that it's going to pay out
uh when things are potentially bubbles
you're certainly going to avoid that
real assets are going to get a real good
look from you uh there's something
physical something tangible about it
gold as a world currency that feels good
because if the dollar hyperinflated or
whatever you have an alternative um
place to go that that all makes sense
whether people agree with it or not
there's at least an internal worldview
that I can track everything that you're
saying about integrity um again whether
people agree with that or not at least
it tracks uh it that the what's going on
in crypto does not meet your um criteria
of something that you would advise other
people to invest in uh you tend not to
invest in things minus the time machine
uh that you would not recommend that
other people invest in you didn't say
that but I'm I'm taking that much away
um so uh same thing with what was going
on in uh the early.com days just there
was there was a lot of Madness happening
um that all tracks for me R uh you see
the network adoption being a big part of
this technology a big part of your
thesis looking for areas of vola
where you see liquidity moving into the
system you see people adopting it um yes
there's going to be high volatility but
there's some excitement to that there's
mimetics which I think is a big Schism
between the two of you uh R I know that
you are very much a part of meme culture
you enjoy meme culture it's fun and I
think that um that is a bigger part of
what's happening in crypto than people
give credit to uh or or maybe just that
they they don't internalize what a big
part of all of that that is um and what
people believe in is not something that
you place a judgment on it just
something that is and as a as an
investor who's looking for that I can
buy here and it's going to go up over
time you see huge opportunities in that
and uh your core thesis would be to
advise people the quote unquote don't
[ __ ] this up idea which we will
certainly get to later rather than um
stay away from this new uh space because
the volatility there because so many
people are going to get wrecked just
stay out of it you take a very different
approach do either of you fail to
recognize those characterizations yeah I
just want to just um add a little bit to
mind because I'm I don't suggest you
know there's a lot of my videos and
you've seen them where I talk
about life the value of Life Style and
other things right so the value of a
home owning a home so I'm not saying
that those things don't matter they do
that gives you the foundational layer to
of which to take more risk and then do
these things and the other thing I just
want to touch on is when you say I'm
involved in mean culture I've learned
this bell curve which is the mid twit
bell curve which is like if you can
explain the the the person who comes
into a space kind of like number goes up
that's how they think of it right
Bitcoin number goes up then there's a
whole group of people in the middle the
mid twits and they're arguing about
every aspect aspect of it whether over
arguing in its favor or over argu
against it and then there's a person to
the right side of the bell curve gold
has exactly the same right there's a lot
of people who've done a tremendous
amount of work on gold and will just say
well over time Gold's a good investment
I get
that memes help you distill something
down to its simplest Essence and if you
don't understand something properly you
can't get it down to simplicity so I
talk about metics not also in terms of
meme that's kind of fun but if you've
read the book sapiens you'll understand
that it is the language of humans it is
the basis of everything government
religion
Community Law the legal system
everything is based on
storytelling that's the one thing humans
have over other animals and we created
an entire civilization based on
storytelling gold is part of story in
everything is storytelling so we can
make it as complicated as we can or we
can understand that there some memetics
to it and that's why I kind of Ed that
term interchangeably but actually is a
much deeper level it's how humans do
things I mean the other thing that's
very important in this whole space and I
think something you and I have talked
about is everything in human society is
contractual some are
verbal some are written some are by
purpose and if you understand that all
of everything we do like me turning up
today was a contract now it wasn't a
contract for money or anything it was
like I agree to come on with you and
Peter these things are really
interesting because this is also part of
what blockchain is doing within these
things so we need to understand the
deeper elements of society and why this
matters at a at a larger scale so
there's a there's a lot behind all of
this so it's not just a network adoption
it's like these are the elements of
humanity much like gold has been an
element of humanity in many ways because
it's lasted when we needed things to
last when things we didn't store things
very well if you remember Peter did you
recognize yourself in my
description I guess somewhere in there
but yeah I just can't accept the idea
that we're all just going to
you know pretend something and that's
going to make it so I mean I I recognize
that religion it it can work for a while
yeah look I mean yes I mean religions
have been around for thousands of years
I guess so yeah I mean if you're going
to say well this is a religion but it's
not because because look people are
going to want to spend their Bitcoin at
some point the hoders are going to want
to buy real things with their paper
stacks of of of of Bitcoin and you know
and so if there isn't a new group of
converts to the religion to buy those uh
Bitcoin then it's a it's a
crash um and so you know yes it's all
sounds good we can all just you know
believe in something and because we
believe it so you know it it is so I
kind of like to feel the
dreams uh
but the O I'm not going to bet on that I
mean that's a long shot and I'm not
going to put my confidence in
that and um it's really got nothing to
do with gold I mean the only reason that
gold comes up with Bitcoin is because
Bitcoin is trying to pretend that it's
gold it's trying to be a counterfeit of
gold I mean it's depicted as a coin when
it's not a coin it's depicted as the
color gold it has no color it has no
substance uh it doesn't have any of the
properties that gold has uh you know
it's not a metal right so it you can't
use it instead of gold in any of the
ways that gold is used um but yeah you
can divide it like you can divide gold
uh uh you know you can exchange it from
one person to another like you can
exchange gold but that doesn't make it
gold that doesn't make it digital gold
it makes doesn't make it anything uh but
you know but there people are trying to
claim it's gold to give it value it's
like what gives Bitcoin value well it's
the new gold right we don't need actual
gold anymore we have Bitcoin that that
that's that that's the that's the
selling point that's the the Spiel that
you you know that you that you're out
there promoting uh to get people to to
own it I just don't believe in it I
think it's a bunch of hype I mean you
know it's again it's the latest
iteration of Fools Gold that's what it
is fair okay very clear uh I want to ask
you guys both um your thoughts on
Michael sailor so he is rapidly um
becoming one of the biggest micro
strategies is becoming one of the
largest companies in the world uh last
check it was at 534 so just outside of
the Inc five uh the S&P 500 um obviously
you'd have to make meet other criteria
but that's all based on the rise in
price in Bitcoin now you want to talk
belief perhaps even religious belief um
he certainly represents that never
selling only ever going to borrow
against it uh it's etc etc what what do
you guys think about that at this point
I don't think micro strategy is a
software company I don't think the
shareholder base even cares what micro
strategy does I think it's a Bitcoin
proxy it's kind of like a a a closed in
Bitcoin fund or something like that I
mean that's really what it is so uh it's
just going to rise and fall with the
price of
Bitcoin and um you know I know they have
borrowed some money so it's a lever bet
on bitcoin so it's ultimately probably
riskier
than than just buying a Bitcoin ETF but
you know you're levered up a bit um but
I think the market cap of of uh bikro
strategy is is a fiction I think I think
it's going to collapse so you know I
don't care you know where it weights in
the S&P
500 um you know I remember years ago
Mike Michael strategy uh he had a
conference you know Bitcoin for CEOs and
he was trying to convince CEOs to put
coin on the balance sheet I don't think
any of them did I mean maybe one did I
don't know but I haven't heard of
anybody that that did that and he's not
even out there trying to sell that
anymore uh but he loaded up his own
balance sheet with it and yeah now that
Bitcoin is back at 60,000 I think his
average price is about 40,000 so he's
got a gain but you know a year ago he
was sitting on billions of dollars of
losses um and we'll see what happens I
think he's going to lose a lot of money
in Bitcoin I think uh the shareholders
of micro strategy but I think you know
that this people that actually bought it
as a software company they're long gone
they probably made money off of this
they were able to sell out to a bunch of
Bitcoin speculators and so I think when
the price crashes it's just Bitcoin
speculators who are going to lose R
what's your take I won't get into the
personal elements because again there's
no reason to be personal
about Michael and his position he holds
within the community
he took a very brave bet he saw
something I think I was the second
person ever to interview him um he saw
something that nobody else in the
corporate had seen and look let's face
it Michael strates was a kind of going
nowhere
business and he saw a way out it was
sitting on cash and he was worried about
his cash that's we've all
been and he decided to put some of his
cash into an asset
and that proved out to be really good it
was a it was a it was a risky bet and it
worked and then he thought about well
why don't I
just use my company to accumulate as
much of this asset as possible no issue
with that there's been several people in
commodity World who've done very similar
things it's a great strategy um he
took more risks than I probably would
have done I don't really like Leverage
with a volatility of like that but it
paid off um it could have gone wrong I
know that there was you know there was a
relative layer of comfort but in the
market like crypto you don't really know
so he took a very brave bet with a
corporate balance
sheet and the shareholders came along
with him for a ride for the reason Peter
said because it became a proxy to
Something in the end it's does he turn
it into something more which is now he's
talking about can you turn it into a
whole kind of Bitcoin technology
business okay that's interesting that's
another call option on top cuz if not
it's just a Bitcoin holding company and
there's an ETF but if he now says hey
I'm going to do what Jack dorsy is
trying to do and start
using uh Building Technology around
Bitcoin to solve many of the problems
that we see in the world today good on
him if he can do that great and if you
can still keep adding Bitcoin to the
balance
sheet no different than if we found
somebody who was a gold miner or had a
company when they bought gold if they if
Michael sailor had bought gold Peter
would love him and he'd done the same
thing with his balance sheet so look he
took a macro bet and he did a bloody
good job of it it was risky uh I
probably wouldn't have done it myself
because of the
leverage but it but it worked so and if
we can now build something on top of
this then he's taken a ex growth tech
services company and turned it to
something very interesting so he
deserves plaudits for that it's a little
premature to just declare that it that
it worked or that it was a success now
it may have been a success for some
shareholders who got out and and made
money I don't know how many shares Mike
Michael sailor has personally sold or
how much money he's personally made off
of this decision but to say that it's
been a success for micro strategy it
it's it's it's too soon to say uh he
hasn't sold he hasn't paid off the debt
the money that he borrowed so we don't
know how it's going to end he may end up
with a complete disaster on his hands
the company could end up bankrupt that's
absolutely Fair we don't know what he's
going to do maybe he takes out A5
billion loan and you know we don't know
right maybe he becomes too risk seeking
and the whole thing implodes I totally
agree it's possible but so far he he uh
what he's done seems to seems to have
worked it seems to have worked for now
because the price has gone up it didn't
look like it was working a year ago when
he was when he was upside down uh
billions of dollars and so we'll see you
know we'll see where the price of
Bitcoin is when those notes mature and
he has to repay them you know uh so
there's still a lot of risk in in micro
strategy stock um so again you know I I
you know you should reserve your
judgment uh yeah he made a big bet you
know whether it was just bravery or
foolishness uh that he did it I a lot of
the stuff that Michael stor says I I I I
don't like I think he's led a lot of
people astray I mean I've heard him talk
uh encouraging people to take out loans
to take out credit card loans to buy
Bitcoin all kinds of you know
encouraging people to speculate uh and
go into debt to buy Bitcoin I think
that's a bad advice you know he he talks
about Bitcoin you know as if it's energy
you know I mean yes I I understand that
you need energy to create a Bitcoin but
owning a Bitcoin provides no energy
whatsoever I can't extract energy from
Bitcoin it's not like it's a battery you
need energy to produce it but all that
energy is a waste because you've
produced nothing but he says a lot of
things about it that I just think are
completely deceptive uh to try to tout
it up because obviously he has a big
vested interest in the Bitcoin price
going up and so every chance he gets he
um he he wants to you know pump it up
but you know he's a lot of people have
tried to get him to do what you and I
are doing a lot of people have said hey
Michael sailor will you do a Bitcoin
debate with Peter shiffy he's refused
every invitation but he likes to talk
about me he likes to bring up my name
but he he he wouldn't engage me the way
you're doing so um you know I I even was
at a conference I went to a conference
out of the you know and he was supposed
to be there and so I agreed to go and
they were going to try to get me to
debate him and then not only did he not
want to debate me he ended up cancelling
and he would he didn't even show up at
the conference I was there by
myself so yeah he doesn't want to have
he doesn't you know because there are a
lot of things that he said that I've
taken issue with that I wanted to
challenge him on and I I've never gotten
the opportunity can you guys help me
understand his meme of never sell your
Bitcoin so if he's buying on Leverage uh
the only way I can WRA my head around it
is as long as the price has gone up more
by the interest on the loan you could
theoretically keep taking out a loan to
pay the previous loan uh is there
anything I'm missing or is that
literally loan after loan after loan
yeah eventually he has to sell to repay
the debt unless he thinks the you know
the he can just keep borrowing more or
if he thinks that his creditors will
take will take their payment in Bitcoin
in which case he can just give his
creditors his Bitcoin R do you have any
insight look if if your loan is this big
and your assets got so the loan is your
debt is this big and your collateral is
this big right it's the opposite of the
financial system issue doesn't really
matter it's fine it's only when your
collateral is below the ount of of the
debt that you have so yes I mean he can
just sell a small fraction of his a
fraction um a you know a percentage of
his Bitcoin to pay it off what would
normally happen is maybe people continue
to roll it maybe they don't depends what
happens with his business does he build
new cash flow you know there's a lot of
unknowns in this equation so I think
it's very difficult to know what that
answer is uh until we see how he it's
also possible that the collateral could
collapse in value and the loan amount
does not and you know he borrow sailor
borrowed a lot of this money in a zero
interest plate environment now he didn't
pay zero but he got a pretty good deal
uh and when these loans mature to roll
them over it would be far more expensive
than it was when they were originally
yeah it depends whether they Interest
really makes a difference in a volatile
asset like this but I mean that was the
risk right in the bare Market of crypto
was was his collateral going to be worth
less than the debt and was he going to
get called on it um you know and a lot
of people were trying to work out that
mechanic but you know he got it he did
it he structured it well enough that he
didn't get called on it okay so so far I
me do you know when the debts are due
when when he actually has to
repay I don't know how the the maturity
length but also don't forget a lot of
them were from much lower levels if he
didn't get tests on it when it was down
75% at 15,000 he's not out of the woods
look you know all these banks that that
would have failed last year you know
what did they own they own they owned
treasuries they owned mortgages and
interest rates went up and uh you know
they were they were insolvent I I think
there's a lot of risk in the micro
strategy balance sheet uh it it all
depends on where the Bitcoin price is
Peter I think there's a bigger risk I
think the bigger RIS is
huus if you think you can if you think
you can do no not you but if
if once you've taken such a big bet and
it's worked and you've used leverage you
have a tendency to want to do more of
it he may he may buy even more Bitcoin
who knows I mean he already I mean it's
possible that would be the bigger risk
if he went out if he went out and raised
another 10 billion in debt to do this
trade again you know there's thing
hubris is a big you know when people
have a big successful trade I've had
many friends who nail stuff like the
financial crisis
and the subprime and the Sovereign
crisis in 2012 they've never recovered
because they've always thought that the
next big trade is coming and and they've
blown themselves up doing it I don't
know there that's one thing is hubis
would be my biggest risk here that can
he make a mistake or can he just say
I've taken the risk it worked out I'm
going to build this new Bitcoin
technology business and we can all sail
off into the sunset and be happy but if
he if he were to sell a bunch of Bitcoin
now and pay off his debts early and and
deleverage the balance sheet you know
then you know you could say something
but I I I doubt that that he's doing
that I I you know and I wouldn't be
surprised if he's buying into this rally
I would not be surprised if we find out
that he's bought more oh he has I
thought he has he just made
announcements yeah just oh he did two
days ago I think at these
prices he's been buying all the way yeah
well that's part of the reason it's
going up because he keeps buying it's
like what happens when he starts selling
we find where the price is yeah I mean
we'll see old you st thing is he is not
going to sell huh he he has stated on
multiple occasions he is not going to
sell all right well yeah okay he has to
say
that he has to say that we we'll see
we'll see I don't know where that goes
all right I want to move on to where the
economy is going so we set up in the
beginning that uh we have this economic
problem um I want to zero in on debt so
I am Peter one of the things that I
really gravitate towards you with is
that I can't shake the more I learn
about the economy the more I find myself
pulled into this sense that the economy
is Wily coyote he's already run off a
cliff and it's that moment where he
holds up the sign but he hasn't fallen
yet and I think I heard that actually
from you Ral so it's like ah H what is
happening like we have so much debt how
do we how do we get out of this I've
been using that Wy coyote analogy for
like 20 years so it shows you how long
we've been off the cliff and nobody's
looked down um but does that just mean
that we're crazy and that it's going to
be fine and look at this point you know
the the the the numbers are just so big
the trajectory of the debt uh with the
maturity of you know we have a $34
trillion debt uh where in the next year
you know 102 trillion of it matures it
has to be refinanced it was originally
the money was borrowed at very very low
rates uh the rates are many many times
higher the structural deficits are
higher um the FED is selling treasuries
uh the the government trust funds Social
Security me is selling treasuries
foreign central banks are either selling
or not buying uh it the bubble is just
you know it's so big at this point you
have you know households or have record
amounts of debt credit card card debt
Consumer Debt all-time record high in
all facets of debt you know at record
highs um you know the numbers are just
so big so you know can it go on for
another 20 years I I just don't see how
it's even remotely possible um can it go
on for another two years that's that's a
a more a pertinent question I don't know
uh but yeah I think at any moment
there's there could be a sovereign debt
crisis there could be a dollar crisis I
mean it is inevitable that it's going to
happen
the only thing that I don't know is when
and obviously it's you know it's taken a
lot longer than I would have thought uh
the bubble's gotten a lot bigger I mean
the US has been able to get away with it
we've gone deeper and deeper into debt
uh and we've been able to survive only
because we can keep borrowing more and
nobody
questions whether or not we can repay
nobody even cares if we can repay
because they know that we can print and
they just assume that the dollars we
print are always going to have value no
matter how many we create
and that's just not true you know at
some point uh you know it it ends right
it's like how many straws can you put on
a camel's back we're going to find out
but you don't know until the last one
breaks it and something's going to
happen uh and and this whole system's
going to collapse and when it does you
know if you're an investor you better
have the right portfolio and that you
know I think I've been overly prepared
for that for a long time but I think I
think the day will come where I'm I'm
going to be be Vindicated on that ra
what do you think there's uh there's no
difference between getting the timing
wrong and just being wrong um but let me
throw out some numbers by the end of
this year the national debt will be 2
trillion per year in three to four years
the government will pay more in interest
than they collect in taxes so uh we're
already uh bigger than National Defense
in terms of what we pay here in the US
just servicing the debt
um how
if it goes for another 20 years somebody
with my mentality is is just going to
get slapped around the board because I'm
acting like it's going to happen soon um
but is it like how do we how do we make
sense of these numbers is is there a
nothing Burger way out of this or is
this a guaranteed Slaughter and we just
don't know when you are being
slaughtered and you don't realize it it
all happened already it is underway and
everybody's waiting for that all the
assets are down 90%
it can't happen it simply can't happen
because it all happened in
2008 in
2008 the world
stopped the whole debt system blew up we
had to have a debt Jubilee of resetting
all government debts around the world at
zero so we could afford to service
it we've kept rates low we've been then
using the balance sheet of all of the
central banks just to pay the interest
on the debt from the previous Cycles
this is this everything code thesis that
you and I have talked
about so we are paying the debts by
printing money pure
debasement the system broke in 2008 we
then changed the financial system with
the Basel 3 agreements which forced the
banks to lend less and to hold more
treasuries why there's going to be a lot
of supply of
treasuries the whole system everybody's
aware that it's broken it broke so what
is going on now well for it to actually
broke the down 90% it's all going to be
1929 again can't you just see it you're
missing the point they're debasing the
currency by 15% a year it adds up to a
staggering loss of
wealth it is in a tax That You Don't See
15% a year debasement is easier than
increasing your tax rate 15% which is
politically unacceptable which is what
they need to do to pay the debt because
the printing of money just abases the
currency so you are paying it we are all
paying it what what they should do is
default on the debt that is the best
thing to do because can't they can't
Peter I I agree I know that the Austrian
thing the Austrian thing is what they
should have done it it it was too late
and the reason
look they're not going to they're not
going to they're not going to do the
right thing well they can't because
maybe Malay will do the right thing in
Argentina at this point we'll see yeah
but they see the difference of the
structure of the western Society is all
the money is held by old people the
entire system is basically in the hands
of retirees and all the wealth so if you
say all of their assets are down
75% that is the wealth of the nation's
gone so nobody's going well it's not all
their assets but yeah they're they're
going to they're debt but they're going
to lose it through inflation either way
it's either default or or or deas way
but you know I wanted to point out you
you talk about the national debt you
know official national debt is 2
trillion but the actual national debt
the budget deficit they claim is 2
trillion but the national debt is
already growing at four trillion a year
that's we're that's how that's the rate
that it's growing already and during the
next official recession it's going to be
on an even greater trajectory
so the issue is why we all agree
right but I just don't think it can
collapse why because of debasement but
that is a collapse that's a collapse of
the monetary system that's and it could
lead to hyperinflation yeah let let me
just play out my thesis here which is I
don't disagree you can't have assets
going down 90% you know the core
collateral of the system if they're
debating the currency cuz because they
go up optically because the currency is
going down the Venezuelan stock market
goes up in bolar terms and down in
dollar terms right so therefore if your
collateral keeps going up which is what
they learned in 2008 is we can back stop
the entire thing by debating the
currency quickly the collateral goes up
and hey Presto my debts aren't so bad
okay magic it's not magic as you know
it's a slight of hand it's not pure
magic what they're doing is robbing you
in a different way okay
this has happened before this is exactly
what happened in the 1940s and 50s
saddled with massive debts after World
War II the large economies did the same
thing Financial repression that had
yield curve control which is buying of
government bonds keeping interest rates
low which we've
seen and they just printed money and
over time the value of the debt had
eroded and what they'd managed to do was
create a productivity Miracle which
drove GDP growth one one thing you're
you're you're overlooking though a key
difference back then so after the second
world war and the government ran up a
lot of debt uh during the War uh but
they did it they paid for a lot of the
war with tax hikes they had tremendous
tax hikes uh particularly the income tax
which tripled uh when the war started in
fact they introduced the withholding tax
in 1942 as a victory tax so before the
second world war hardly anybody paid
income tax
by the end of the second world war a lot
of people were paying income taxes and
when the war ended the government had
all of this income tax revenue coming in
and they initially it was temporary to
win the war but when they stopped the
war they didn't stop the income tax and
so the government was flushed with cash
and so it paid down a lot of that debt
debt collapsed in the years because the
government ran huge surpluses and paid
down a lot of that debt so it wasn't all
just inflated away yeah would the 1960s
and70s rolled around there was a lot of
inflation but the initial big drop in
debt was an honest repayment because we
stopped spending money on the war the
problem now is we haven't cut any
spending we're taxing people to the hilt
right now and we don't have the type of
economy we had a real industrial economy
in the 1940s we had we had wealthy
consumers that that loan money to the
government that bought the the war bonds
uh we sold the war bonds to China you
know Americans are broke so we're a
levered up country running huge trade
deficits uh you know we're we're we're
and we we have no means of repaying the
debt like we did in 1946 so the the debt
is now going to go straight up it's not
going to go down like it did uh during
those decades we we're just go we're
just getting started it's 125% of GDP
it's going to go to 150 200% 300% it it
can't stop until everything implodes I
don't disagree
I'm so I'm wildly crazily bullish
because I'm so
bearish bullish on what assets because
they're going well in nominal terms in
nominal terms correct but in Gold terms
a lot of these assets have to come down
the real price has to come down so you
know I also believe that GDP growth
equals
productivity plus population plus debt
growth I think debt growth died in 2008
and all Deb now servicing of old debts
and population has been shrinking so
economies have been slow and
productivity is low because of Aging
populations we're just bringing Ai and
robots into the workforce it's infinite
human infinite humans so we GDP growth
driven by productivity and population
growth is what I think is on the horizon
which is what rescues this rescues this
but after what 15% a year debasement of
ccy you know you add 10 years of that
and you've lost most of your money so
none of us disagree we're all getting
[ __ ] but it's how you going to get
[ __ ] you going to get [ __ ] in one go
because it all Burns to the ground or
are they going to [ __ ] you so you don't
really know you're being screwed but
you're just going to get angrier and
angrier that's what we're seeing
politics has gone like this because
everybody's so bloody angry because they
can't figure out who's screwing them and
they're blaming each
other what Screwed them is there was too
many old people and they borrow too much
money what I want to understand is the
timeline on all of this because it seems
like the debt is going to ratchet up so
fast uh and if we're only going to be
able to print our way out of it I get at
first maybe for the next three maybe
five years um I don't notice that I'm
being screwed over
but unless you guys tell me that the
amount that we can print before we break
the camels back is 180 trillion or just
some
unbelievable number that is so far from
where we are today this feels like if
we're really in a race for do do I get
to that number of trillions of dollars
before the robots come and increase
productivity so much that I'm back to a
1946 place where I'm generating so much
productivity I can actually pay the debt
down I'm sure Peter won't agree with
this and you will half agree with it and
half hate it and that's
okay if I'm right that AI plus robots is
infinite
productive
units and you see how fast it's coming
you literally are not capable of
understanding what an economy looks like
Beyond 2030 that's the problem I've got
here I'm not concerned about the Cliff
of death right that we're going through
I found an asset that I can invest in
crypto or I could buy technology and
it's offsetting the mess of the
debasement so I'm
fine what's harder is to say what the
hell doesn't economy mean after 2030
when you've got endless Ai and robots
and AGI what is a
company what value do you provide in
that world or I provide we sit there
talking to people about it and thinking
our way through it but both you and I
are developing AI tools of which we will
have a digital Tom and a digital ra and
we don't even need to turn up to these
and they'll do a pretty good job we're
both working on these things right but
are we going to be just repl the point
being is when you go to like Nick bostom
who who is the the key thinker about
this at Oxford University who wrote the
book I can't remember the famous book
about the whole kind of where the
future's going there's a group there an
economics group there who share the same
concerns as me it's like if this is
right you could double GDP in a year
Global GDP or a week
what what what do companies mean when AI
I have a theory that open AI is using
AGI to build its own AI which is why
they're iterating so fast with what 500
people it's [ __ ] Madness what they're
doing how how fast they're iterating
I've never seen anything like it even
Elon Musk is like I've never seen
anything like what's going on here the
more we have ai to to build AI to build
businesses the faster and faster this
goes so in answer your question the
explosion could be the other way
around it could not it might not be the
economy imploding it could be the
economy exploding in a way that we don't
even know how to deal with it what do
humans mean what is our job you know all
of this stuff you and I have talked
about I actually worry about very
different things I don't worry about the
economy going down the toilet because I
know how they're dealing with that
they've kind of set the rule book I can
make money from that that's okay it's
this other bit that's the hard bit
that's more scary what do you give the
odds Peter one do you think that he's
onto something or does that seem just
completely sci-fi to you well um I mean
I think there's no question that over
time um artificial intelligence robotics
is going to lead to a dramatic increase
in human productivity I mean that's just
what capitalism does and this is a I
think a potentially game-changing
Innovation the question is how long is
it going to take to build out and scale
up and you know uh and how are
politicians going to
react uh to the creative destruction
which always comes from uh Innovation uh
there's always somebody that loses uh
but net net Society gains and eventually
you know over time everybody gains
because we we don't want jobs I mean we
want stuff I mean that that that is the
the the the secret of of an economy it's
a scarcity of things uh we all desire uh
certain things and the constraint is the
ability to supply them and and Supply is
constrained by land by labor by Capital
uh but uh Ai and Robotics has the
potential to dramatically increase uh
the supply of labor uh intellectual you
know thinking and and processing and so
at the end of the day
we could produce a lot more with a lot
less and we'd all be wealthier I mean
you know again means work is a means to
an ends you don't want your job you want
all the things that you could buy with
the paycheck that you earn if you could
skip the job and go right to the stuff
most people would do it right most
people don't work because they like to
work they'd rather not work they just
like what they could buy uh with with
with the paycheck so I mean I I I think
that all of this could be good and you
know certainly a lot of potential you
know I'm 6 years old I'd like to think
that this AI could figure out how to do
something about that so so I could I
could I could be younger and live longer
and so that's another GameChanger I mean
what if our life expectancy is
dramatically extended too right I mean
maybe maybe we don't live to a 100 maybe
we live to 150 I don't know 200 who the
hell knows you know um but yeah there's
a lot of things that could happen that I
would be looking forward to I'm not you
know apprehensive about these things um
um
but I also don't think that it's
necessarily it could be but I don't
think it's necessarily A get out of jail
free card uh for the sins of the past uh
that we're not going to have to deal
with the debt well you probably all
agree Peter that we are dealing with it
now right we're all we're all get having
the effects of this put upon us already
well we're we're feeling it and I I I've
been saying for a while that's why Biden
is so unpopular it's not because of his
mental gaffs it's because the Eon sucks
and the voters know this and they're
blaming Biden because he's at you know
at the Helm of the ship that's sinking
and and so despite all the hype and all
the statistics the average American
family is feeling the inflation tax in a
big way and and and yes there's a lot of
jobs but there's second jobs and third
jobs that people would rather not have
they're struggling to make ends meet and
they hate having to take on these extra
jobs and and this is going to get worse
I think the inflation genius out of the
bottle uh it never was really gone it's
just that the government was able to
cover up inflation uh with a you know by
cooking the books but the inflation is
now so uh pricious and the and the
impact on prices is so great that even
when you whitewash it you know with the
CPI it it can't hide it anymore because
the numbers are so big the costs are
rising so rapidly people can see it and
there's a limit to how small they can
make the packages at some point they
can't keep shrinking stuff they got got
to raise prices and make it even more
obvious uh but and it's not just America
it's happened in Europe it's happened in
Japan I mean all these countries that
said for years the problem is we don't
have enough inflation we need to create
more they now have too much inflation
and and they can't stop it because
stopping it would require politically
unexpectable things they have to cut
government spending you know they have
to default on a bunch of promises they
have to deliver a lot of bad news to the
voters and nobody wants to do that and
so everybody is is going to continue and
they think oh we've gotten away with it
before we did qe1 we did QE2 we did qe3
we did covid so we can do it again right
look every time we get into trouble we
just print money and we're out of
trouble well all that is is inflation
and so if your problem uh is uh uh uh
deflation or collapse of assets or
whatever and you think you can solve the
problem by creating
inflation the problem is when inflation
is the problem when that's the source of
everybody's
misery you can't solve the inflation
Problem by creating more inflation
because that's been the solution to
every problem we've had is let's create
inflation that's our solution we can
call it quantitative easing easy money
but what we're really doing is we're
solving the problem by papering it over
with inflation well now we're at the
point where inflation is the problem so
more inflation just makes it worse so
it's you know we're past the point of no
return uh and it's just a question of
yeah you know when when do we look down
and real realize we're standing on
nothing and I think that applies to
bitcoin too you know you look down and
you realize there's nothing there you
know there's a lot of uh false
perceptions that are going to uh meet
reality uh in the near future just as a
side note what happens Peter if all of
these value assets that are going to
catch up eventually and haven't done for
the last 20 years don't what happens if
gold continues to underperform what
happens if your model of the world is
outmoded not saying it is but could you
possibly consider that not everybody's
wrong it's just the way that you assume
that everybody's wrong I just find that
a little
bit I'm not saying everybody is wrong
I'm saying that people that believe in
Bitcoin are wrong but that's certainly
not everybody and the Market's wrong and
the technology price is wrong and that
that your source of truth is the truth
and the market pricing is not the
truth markets markets get itong WR a lot
you know in the short run it's a voting
machine in the long run it's a weighing
machine and right now I think people are
are making bad bad votes you know uh and
and and so I you know I just think it's
a Mania I mean you know every time
there's a Mania right it means assets
are mispriced I mean we've had plenty of
Bubbles and they pop and and that's that
um I just think that that that this is
this is another one so you know I I I
think the the onus is on the people who
believe in it to try to say why this you
know this is different of course you
know that's the famous words of every
bubble This Time It's Different uh I
don't think it is I think this time it's
the same I mean you know and and and and
and so I think that the same thing is
going to happen but as far as why you're
saying why is gold not gone up look in
the scheme of things when people look at
a long-term chart of gold the fact that
it's gone sideways for 10 years is is is
immaterial to the you know the thousands
of years that gold has been around and
gold has been a store value but that's
over the period of the worst debasement
that we've seen in the last 100 years
and gold didn't do it right so let's say
gold all of a sudden has a year or two
where it catches up and it goes from
1,000 to five or 10,000 right so it it
doesn't necessarily have to go there in
a straight line gold could go up go
sideways go up you know and so yeah over
a longer period of time it's going to
smooth its way out now the question is
why did gold not go up higher sooner
well remember it went from 300 to almost
2,000 it had a very big move uh in a in
a relatively short historical period of
time and and so then it went sideways
for a decade and the reason I believe is
because
investors have complete confidence in
central banks they don't believe that
there's a a threat of of inflation out
there or a debt B bubble uh and and so
they don't see the reason to buy gold
they would rather buy tech stocks
um and and so I I I I think it's just
people have a
misconception just like you know you
mentioned the subprime and I remember
you know when I was when I first found
out about these subprime mortgages a guy
showed up at my office named Andy lahti
probably in 2005 or six and you know I
was already bearish on the housing
market and he came to me with an idea to
set up a hedge fund to short these these
subprime uh mortgages this tranch and he
explained it to me and I was like well
why the hell would anybody buy these
These are obviously going to go to zero
I mean how could people be buying them
and they were trading above par they
were they were actually paying more than
than par to buy these tranches that I
knew were going to zero and I was like
well you know people just believed in
this you know and so the assets were
mispriced and they were mispriced for a
few years until they eventually were
priced correctly as zero but but I knew
that they were worth zero the minute
they were explained to me but you know
and what the guy told me is he had gone
to a lot of uh you institutions with the
same story and everybody laughed at him
I was like the first guy that didn't
laugh at him because I knew that real
estate prices were going to go down
everybody else thought real estate
prices could never fall and so as long
as real estate prices never fell well
then it didn't matter if anything
defaulted right I was a guy that knew
that eventually real estate prices would
come down uh and and so you can have a
period of time where a lot of smart
people can believe something that's
wrong and so assets could be mispriced
as a result of that shared delusion and
I believe that's the situation with with
Bitcoin and what happened to me was
actually the opposite cuz I was the
macro bear that everything reverts to
the mean that it was all terrible and it
is all
terrible and I realized I had the wrong
mental
model and the moment I actually freed
myself of my own biases and try to
understand what the [ __ ] was going on
and why were these assets going
up why why was this happening I then
could see what was going on and what the
big game was and as soon as I could see
that it became a game I could make money
from and that I didn't have to be stuck
wishing and I've seen a lot of friends
of mine do this wishing that value
stocks or small Caps or whatever is
are going to work for them and it's been
20 years now and I've realized I had the
wrong mental model and the moment I
changed it I feel felt liberated because
the world kind of makes sense and I just
urge all of
us to just make
sure that we don't get obsessed by our
own mental models because they will
change and the world changes and
sometimes we can be dead wrong and
sometimes we can be dead right I I mean
I nailed the financial crisis I nailed
the European Sovereign crisis I nailed
covid I nailed all of these things by
being a big bear and something I
suddenly realized is yeah but assets
kept going up that whole period I should
have just been long and have made more
money and that made me ask a question of
Myself by the dip by the dip that ask
the question is like that dumb meme of
by the dip I wanted to go all the way
across the bell curve go to the middle
bit arguing it all come to the other
side and realized that by the dip was
actually the single best strategy to
have ever existed over this period of
financial mess and I was stupid for not
seeing it so anyway I'm just saying be
careful because Tom I can see that
you're so all lorded by the black hole
the black hole that is there you it kind
of comes to you and we have this
conversation I try and pull you back
from the black hole and say yeah it's
there but there's an opportunity here
and you're like but the black hole just
be care careful of the mental model
because it will massively restrict you
in what you do even how you think about
life and how you interact with people
around you so it's something I've
learned the hard way is we've all got to
be a little more open to a everyone's
opinions and B our own biases and how
ingrained they
are and have they become part of our
personality just because it is
or it's part of the how we fear like
some people fear risk so they become a
certain way and present that to the
world around them or somebody some
people have made money and then they've
worried about losing it because their
family didn't come from money we're all
set of our own human ridiculous biases
so just we should just all in all of
these conversations just step back a
little bit you're looking at it from the
vantage point of where we are everything
is at record highs and so it looks like
yes that was the right thing to do to to
buy the dip but we haven't had the
crisis yet that's the thing we we've
been able to Kick the Can down the road
and all of these structural problems
have been growing the entire time uh
that we've been ignoring them and and
the question is you know how many more
times can this work um because there we
get I mean I think you gota you got to
watch the bond market you got to watch
the gold market the Foreign Exchange
Market but at some point it's going
going to crack Tom did this Tom did this
earlier and it was a very good question
is what would make you think the
opposite and we all need to be able to
do
that because you we can't keep saying
well asset price have gone up so
therefore you don't know whether you are
right or wrong it's like and it's this
is no attack on you or anything it's me
thinking through this stuff is how do
you
know that maybe you have done yourself a
disservice or I've done myself a
disservice or Tom is doing himself a
disservice by thinking the way that we
do have we held ourselves back have we
lost an opportunity cost that we didn't
imagine because we're so Anchored In
what we think we think or we project to
other people I'm just that's all I'm
trying to get across is not about who's
right who's wrong I'm
saying at a human
level what happens if you had bought
Bitcoin and bought the NASDAQ and were
10 times richer than you are today would
you care about some of the things you
think about now maybe not Tom if you
hadn't made money when you were
young and then fear losing it maybe you
wouldn't be worried about the black
hole maybe you'd be more risk seeking
maybe it you know
just think about it in a bigger context
than fighting over what price and asset
is we need to ask ourselves why we think
that I think that's really interesting
yeah the point is as long as the
underlying problems continue to get
worse I don't I don't think I'm wrong so
if we actually find a way to solve these
problems you know if if uh you know we
get dramatic Cuts in in government
spending if we start paying down the
debt if we get enough deregulation but P
sorry I just want ask you a question
what is the end the worst case scenario
game what is the thing that you fear
that we are to the worst case scenario
is we destroy the currency completely
right and so the dollar has no value
okay let's assume that happens right
let's say we do that which we've been
doing but slower but let's say it
completely goes it hasn't got there's a
lot there there's a long way to go
between where we are now and zero okay
so let's assume it goes to zero I'm long
crypto and technology stocks your on
gold they all go up we're fine what's
the [ __ ]
problem well first of all there's a big
problem because a lot of people first of
all you maybe crypto goes up maybe it
goes down who that you know there's no
way to know but but explain to me what
I'm fearing here myself when the dollar
because you're wiping out the savings of
a generation you're wiping out the
retirement of of T in debt I thought
they were in debt you told me they're
all in debt so we're wiping yes you're
WIP out debt but every time you wipe out
one person's debt you wipe out somebody
else's asset okay you wipe out the value
of people's Insurance you said earlier
that you wanted the big reset that we
should do this and when the money is
worthless you can't buy things with it
the farmer doesn't want to give up his
food because you have nothing of value
that he that he wants America can't
import anymore because nobody wants our
dollars I mean if if we go through
hyperinflation I mean it's going to be
riots there's going to be I mean it's I
mean it it's going to be bad it's not
like something that I'm looking forward
to I understand but you've got your gold
and your real estate and you'll be fine
and I've got my stuff so what are you
fearing what is the fear look and the
other thing is the government can become
even more oppressive than it is now and
that the worst case is they blame it all
on capitalism and the solution is that
we become a complete totalitarian state
and the government takes over everything
I mean so there's the you ask me what's
the worst thing that could possibly
happen right what is it you fear you you
so you're now fearing a totalitarian
state where they seize all your assets I
mean
okay well what good is investing in gold
and what good is doing anything I I
don't know I guess if they if they if
they throw me in jail or kill me I guess
it's not going to matter but I don't
know what they're going to do Tom what
is it that you fear Tom what is the fear
what is that black hole Yeah so as
somebody who is very practiced in
staring into this I'll I'll walk you
through so um because I feel confident I
will make it to the other side sort of
come Heller high water when Co kicked
off I realized I was afraid for uh
people that I know and love that don't
understand money and that that began my
journey of actually understanding what's
going on so like Peter I share exactly
his concern um and I'm a little unclear
on um the only thing that makes sense
for me for you to push on this is if you
think it's basically impossible for it
to happen because to me it is
self-evidently horrific to go through
something where um it's either a war an
external war or an internal War because
like Peter is saying there's just so
much anger and resentment at the
implosion of the debt which to Peter's
point is somebody's um asset that now
just went away people won't do that
quietly they will Riot also when you get
to the point where you can't feed your
populace because there's no money uh and
your money's hyper inflating and people
walking around with wheelbarrows full of
money to try to buy a loaf of bread um
that suddenly the line of Good and Evil
that Soldier nson talks about in the
gulg archipelago you realize it really
does run through every human heart and
all of a sudden all those narratives and
mythology that you're talking about that
hold us together as a society all of
those crumble and I'm sure all three of
us are students of history but when you
become a student of History you realize
that the long Arc that bends towards
Justice is punctuated with moments of
such horrible cruelty death and
destruction that you just pray to Sweet
Baby Jesus you are not one of the people
that are around for one of those moments
of Correction and they they happen and
they happen so predictably that the
black hole I'm staring into again I
don't feel like I'm staring into it for
myself I've and I mean this is a glimpse
into my soul I've told the employees
here if it ever kicks off come to the
house first of all we have The High
Ground we are up on a hill uh I care
about them all and so I want to see them
Thrive we will do better as a part of a
collective but the fact that I even have
to say that out loud uh is is unnerving
now I bend towards optimism so I
actually think nothing is ever as good
or bad as you think it's going to be and
so I believe there is sort of this
stumbly slow erosion of the dollar path
that will end up looking something like
what happened to England now Peter when
you and I last spoke you pointed out
very rightly that World War I and World
War II were some pretty bad things and
so since that was part of how they end
up losing their empire and status as a
reserve currency I I concede the point
that that that is absolutely horrific so
I just know every Empire of all time has
crumbled and I I really do think a lot
about how America becomes the next Rome
but the reason that becomes a meme and
the reason that people think it's
ridiculous is because the odds of it
happening in the next two years border
on zero the odds of it happening in the
next 10 years go up a little bit Ray
Delio puts um America being in a world
war at 50% over the next 10 years but
like maybe it happens in the next 20 and
so if it's true that it isn't happened
for 10 or 20 years me or Peter and Peter
I think you know you have this
reputation and I have a feeling I'm
rapping L gaining it as well is like
I've predicted 10 of the last two
recessions right so I'm so focused on uh
the Confluence of things that go bad
that I end up potentially missing the
all the opportunities that are present
that's what I was trying to get in I'm
not saying you're right or wrong right
I'm just saying we should think about
these things there's another bias that I
want you to think
about is ask your wife if she shares the
same views and her friends do because
she's
British and she won't it's a quite a
uniquely American thing doomsday
prepping the fear of the decline of
Empire and the collapse of
society is weirdly an American thing
even though the Europeans have gone
through it twice two world wars where we
killed everybody each other in the most
horrific ways
possible Europeans don't think of the
same way of the collapse of civilization
that Americans do it's just a really
weird cultural
phenomena um and it's because it's the
largest most powerful economy and it's
saddled with debt and everything else so
just again just there's biases in
everything that we do that make
us as as you said rightly
Tom we some we project too far either
way and it can still be pretty horrible
in the middle it can still be a terrible
political environment there still could
be riots there there still could be
kinetic Wars but it may not have to be
the end game yeah remember the the other
thing that's uniquely American is the
degree to which we depend on the dollar
status as Reserve currency to run
trillion dollar year trade deficits so
you know we need to be supplied goods
from abroad and if we lose those Supply
chains uh we have no ability to to
replace them so it's it's it it we it
could be you know a m a major collapse
but the other we sell the best what we
did though what the US did was really
clever is it created a dollar deta
system where the rest of the world owes
so many dollars that they can't get rid
of the dollar it's like what we exported
what the Americans exported was
debt oh and inflation debt and inflation
but you know um yeah I mean you know
there are people that think that but you
know I I I I don't think that the dollar
is impervious because we have so much of
them and have have so much step but the
point I wanted to make about recessions
is one of the problems with forecasting
recessions is the government gets to
Define them and the government comes out
with the GDP numbers and like I think
we're in a recession now I think we've
been in one for a while but the
government just doesn't acknowledge it
because of the way they keep score I
don't think the deflator is honest I
think GDP is going up because of prices
I don't think it's going up because the
wealth of the economy is expanding we're
just paying higher prices for things and
we're borrowing a lot of money to do it
the debt is growing faster faster than
the GDP numbers so all this is an
illusion we're not growing anything
we're we're spending ourselves in
bankruptcy we're buying products uh a
lot of those products are are are
imported and we're paying higher and
higher prices so you we we could have
been in a Perpetual depression uh for
years and years and years I think we
kind of it's just that the way that we
keep track of it you know we don't
acknowled I think look when you're
debasing the currency in people's
savings by 15% a year over time
everybody's going to feel like they're
not getting ahead everybody feels this
right and you're right somewhere hidden
within all of
this has been an ongoing depression from
2008 for the average
person not for a tech company not for
certain parts of society but most people
have been in a miserable L for a long
time their wages haven't gone up their
costs have gone up it's been terrible
and they're they're like choked with
debt they can't pay their kids to go to
university they can't
afford retirement
savings yeah I agree that's it's been
bad for a long time yeah so uh just to
gaze into the abyss a little bit further
and I'd love to get a sense where you
guys think this goes so um I I believe
that
Society that's a little overstated I
believe that culture is becoming a toxic
soup and that toxic soup is causing kids
to um collapse inside of themselves eat
terribly poor diet um they are having
less sex less babies um just a general
lack of optimism there's a a phenomenal
meme that says uh we'll put it up on the
screen in the Final Cut but it says uh
my parents in their 30s and it shows you
know these little sketches standing
outside of a house let's a house it says
me and my 30s and it shows a guy just
absolutely frazzled and it's like your a
maximum bid of a
$625 cheeseburger has been rejected uh
by Wendy's uh and that vibe that Meme
while funny is real and that really
worries me a lot in terms of um I think
that ultimately culture is a battle for
ideas and I think the ideas that are
taking hold of people's minds are
terrible and I have a feeling that to
some extent maybe a massive extent this
is an echo of what happened in 2008 and
so this becomes a question of inflation
interest rates um and so if I'm right
that that this isn't like forget the
Doomsday scenarios that that it's just a
malaise that is gripping the young and
that that's going to Ripple through
Society I don't know how much you guys
have read about the
industrious Revolution um but it's an
idea that I find
absolutely fascinating that part of what
made America great was that there was
not only the Industrial Revolution but
there was a sense of the Protestant work
ethic I'm going to go ham I'm going to
work until I Dro dead of a heart attack
and I know how silly that sounds but
like it gave birth to the America that
leads in Innovation became the dominant
Global superpower etc etc and man is
somebody who is hiring a lot of young
people I would just tell you Jesus like
we have to filter through all of the
people that just have that malaise of
like oh companies are just taking
advantage of me why would I run on the
hamster wheel and make better widgets
it's like those ideas will cause a real
problem and when I look at okay so how
do we solve it one just combating the
ideas but two solve the underlying
problem and without solving the de yet
by I look I hear you I don't think
inflation is the answer let me just say
that I think that you have to have a
period of austerity I think it is going
to be grotesquely unpopular but I don't
see a way around that even when you just
take sort of that milk toasty like ah
there's not going to be any big
revolution but we we do have to make a
societal change what do you guys think
about that and if you agree what is that
path I just say I again I just think I
just think we're using the wrong framing
we have I mean there's 76 million people
in the United States who are over 70
years old
now right you've got a demographic cliff
in front of your
face it's happening in Europe what South
Korea got to a
07 replacement rate right now right
we've got a population collapse coming
maybe those young kids are dead [ __ ]
right they should not be doing any of
this stuff because it's all
worthless maybe you're wrong maybe they
can see what the future is for them
which is they're going to be replaced
pretty
quick the reason you don't want to hire
these people is you don't need to that's
the dirty truth here and we'll need to
hire less of
them what is happening is a much larger
disruption but it's not in the way of
the past it's always so easy to say the
past is going to repeat sure but in
different ways there is whole
revolutions happening in front of us
that are going to shape Society in ways
we can't yet understand and we're
looking back saying well maybe the
dollar gets trashed it's like oh my God
can't you see what's in front of us now
I'm an optimist I think there's a path
that we figure it out but I don't think
it's going to be without
volatility but it's going to be driven
by that and not that that is known and
that is AI Rob robotics that forward is
AI robotics longevity you know so many
structural changes cracking it entire
Human Genome and figuring out medine so
much to deal with that is well we spent
too much money we're debating the dollar
we're going to have a hyperinflation
it's like yeah tell me something we
don't know tell me something we don't
understand we don't understand that
that's scarier now it could also be
great it could be amazing a world of
opportunity
but my God it's not going to be a
straightforward course right it's just
not well first of all you know
unfortunately I think inflation is the
answer I mean it's not the correct
answer it's not the solution and can you
sorry Peter just to check something can
you inflation versus debasement are they
the same things to you CPI versus no I'm
not I'm trying to make a point that he
said inflation was the well he didn't
think inflation was the answer I'm
saying it's it is the answer it's the
wrong answer it's not a solution
unfortunately it's the politically
expedient choice because the right
choice is too difficult for politicians
to make because politicians their
primary goal is their own reelection and
so that's how they see every problem is
how do I get reelected and so they're
not trying to make things better for the
country they're trying to perpetuate
their careers which are often at odds
with what's right for the country so
we're going to get start stuck with
inflation uh no matter what now can we
get an offset to that by a burst of
productivity which without the inflation
would just be even better right because
the the free market is trying to lower
prices by increasing productivity the
government is raising them by creating
inflation and so it's a it's a a dance
uh but to the extent that we can have a
a huge surge in productivity that's
driven by by AI or robotics or a
combination of the two
that's actually a good thing um you know
it that's not what You' be afraid about
when it comes to AI I mean if you're
going to be afraid about something the
fear is that AI decides to kill us all
and it can actually do it right that's
the supposed fear not that it takes away
our jobs we we don't want these jobs we
want computers to take away our jobs
that's great then we don't have to do
them we still get the stuff without
having to do the work I mean every
advancement has you know reduce the need
for human labor I mean if you go back to
the beginning of society everybody had a
job it was looking for food all day long
that's what you did right you had no
leisure you had nothing because you
worked every minute of every day I it's
other than when you slept uh but as we
in invented things and tools we didn't
have to work as much and so we had more
Leisure ultimately if we can replace all
human labor with machines we're all
going to have a lot more Leisure and
we're all going to have a lot more stuff
we going to have a system of money
because money is like expenditure of
energy whether it's human brain power
whatever and in exchange for money right
right and ultimately in a in an Ideal
World with complete abundance of
everything that we won't even need money
if I could just push a button and have
everything I need and I wouldn't have to
pay for it because it just gets conjured
into existence by some super
intelligence right I don't need money
anymore money just facilitates trade
somebody has something I need or I want
how do I get it well I got to give them
something that they need or they want
but rather than barter uh we we we we
exchange a mutually but if we're not
bartering if we're not bartering our own
Services intelligence physical labor how
do we earn money well how are we going
to earn money in the future we may not
need to that's my point uh but obviously
between here and there people have to
find how did somebody who got put out of
business you know with a shovel you know
guy that was digging a ditch and now
somebody invents a shovel and so we
don't need as many ditch diggers so what
did that guy do he he did something um
um and so people are going to have their
jobs replaced by computers or robots and
they're going to do something else you
know instead what I don't know what I
don't know all these things like what
they're going to do but the problem
might be if the government says hey you
lost your job so just go on welfare and
here's a check because you know you
that's that's a big problem if that's
what happens and then then people end up
getting entrenched you know in that
state of dependency where they don't go
out and find something else to do
because they just you know stick with
the government check and that check is
you know is is offsetting the benefits
of productivity because the government
prce money to pay somebody to do
nothing um so it's it's the government
that would make the mistakes it wouldn't
be the free market innovating it would
be the government uh inflating and and
getting in the way looking forward
we're in a big year
2024 election year obviously the having
cycle the debt re structuring all
happens in the same year what do you
guys think the world looks like with a
Biden Victory what does it look like
with a trump Victory no different in in
in Market terms no different you don't
think the market will have a response at
all to one or the other won't give a
[ __ ] it's really driven by liquidity and
flows you know it's going to be they're
doing the same game so no I don't think
it makes a a single bit of difference
I've not seen an election that has
turned markets because shock somebody's
come in Donald Trump huge shock what did
the market do sell off for exactly one
evening brexit huge shock what did the
market do sell off yeah it just doesn't
matter politics don't matter in the
short run but obviously they can change
the structure of economies in the long
run but the market doesn't seem to
concern itself with that when liquidity
seems to be the dominant factor that
drives markets and that's driven by
central banks do you think they're still
going to um be printing their way out of
problems there is no choice either one
there is no choice what are you going to
do you're going to bankrupt all the Baby
Boomers blow up all the banking system
because for what
Justice I the right answer is to blow it
all up nobody's going to do that it's
insanity they will never do that so they
will do absolutely everything within
their power to try and not let that
happen and that it goes back to what
we've all been talking about is however
you define inflation I don't think it's
CPI inflation it's asset price inflation
V basement is the game Financial
repression let's call it that that is
the game and they will do that now Pizza
may be right maybe it ends up in
hyperinflation I put a very that's the
worst case scenario I don't know that
that's where we're going I me no and
again I would say that's the worst case
scenario andoss I don't know what
probability but yeah but yeah that's
what they're doing they'll keep doing
repression why not but in answer you
know it's it's not going to change the
game I mean Trump's been president
before I mean he didn't change the game
then he he he ran up the debt when he
was president I think on the margin you
know it's it's it's worse to reelect
Biden and to put Trump back in office
but I don't think that Trump is going to
you know change what what going to
happen we're going to have a currency
crisis we're going to have a sovereign
debt crisis you know whether Trump or
Biden is in office whether it happens
during that four-year term again I don't
know I mean maybe they kicked a can down
the road and it happens you know on the
watch of whoever replaces them because
whoever wins we know one thing they
can't run again right you only get to
run twice so if whoever wins is not
going to be president in
2026 um so maybe they get out of Dodge
and maybe they don't um but I I I would
think that assuming we had the collapse
during the term of whoever wins right we
have a a crisis I would just assume have
Trump there than Biden you know Trump
has a greater probability of doing the
right thing than Biden Biden maybe has
no chance of doing the right thing and
Trump maybe has a slim chance so slim is
better than none and doing the right
thing in this case would be spending
less at the government level well
dramatic cut right they have to do the
opposite
of every political Instinct because what
they want to do when there's a the
economy is weak they want to try to
stimulate it with more government they
want to run bigger deficits they want to
cut taxes they want to print money they
have to do the opposite they have to
shrink government cut spending they may
even have to raise taxes I'd rather them
just do it all from the spending side
but they got to cut spending they got to
let interest rates go up they got to let
Banks fail they got to let companies go
bankrupt they got to let people lose
money they got to allow a lot of painful
things to happen to have a real recovery
that that that is on the other side so
do you think but you is that is that
what they should do do you think yeah of
course they have to do the right thing
it's like if you have a drug habit stop
taking drugs you know yeah it's not
going to be good you're going to be in
withdrawal for a while but you got to
get the stuff out of your system you got
to be healthy we can't keep drugging
ourselves up and then we die of an
overdose that that's where you know
that's that's what hyperinflation is
it's the equivalent of a monetary
overdose you destroy the currency and
then you destroy the economy uh and so I
want to avoid that I want to all I we
need to restructure the economy on a in
a sustainable path it's not on that now
it's it's it's it's a house of
cards and I don't want to I don't want
to keep the house of cards going knowing
eventually it's going to collapse even
worse I want to let it collapse now so
we can start replacing ing it with with
a structural that's sound a real house
you know not not a phony one so we've
heard clearly what you want to
happen what will happen what do you
think they're they're going to keep on
printing until the dollar uh collapses
now the question is when stop stop there
a sec so they're going to keep on
printing so given that
information what would you do investing
I'm doing exactly what I'm doing now
it's like like I'm I you know but I'm
hoping that they stop the presses at
some point when it gets bad enough uh
that they you know cuz once it's so bad
all of your assets go down right see
once it's let me finish this point once
it's so bad that everybody in power
knows they're gone hey there's no way
I'm getting reelected with the economy
this bad then maybe they'll do the right
thing because they they've run out of
options right they they'll they'll do
the right thing only after they've
exhausted all the other possibilities so
that we may be able to do the right
thing and and and and stop the presses
you know before before you know the
dollar goes to nothing there there is
there is no graceful way out at this
point we we've long past that right
there's there is no you know
painfree uh solution here you know you
could hope that AI eases the pain and
and maybe it does hopefully it will you
know that would be good and I take this
differently I'm like if we have an
observable Behavior which is most likely
to repeat
however ugly the situation is around us
we can actually help ourselves get out
of this trap as individual level by
investing correctly around this this is
what I strongly believe in I think the
world is truly screwed but as you
pointed out there is only one way they
will deal with this armed with that
information that is like the Magic
Bullet this is the everything behind
this idea of the everything code is if
you know this to be what is going to
happen you can look into the future and
you know what the hell to own except
every time they've done it before the
dollar hasn't collapsed because people
have maintained confidence if the dollar
Colles if the dollar collapses it's very
different it's going to look very
different than what you've seen in the
last 20 years I don't know last time I
checked the Venezuelan stock market went
up like a rocket
[ __ ] all I'm saying is yeah Tom you and
I spoke about this when we first started
speaking back in 2020
it's this is the life
raft right the life raft is what saves
people it could be goals I have no issue
with that it could be Bitcoin it could
be tech stocks it could be whatever you
shouldn't be concerning yourself with
any of this stuff this apocalypse
because we know the outcome is financial
repression and print more
money right so we just get to hop on the
life raft and we avoid all of that
that's what I don't get about all of the
the Doom arguments is I get it it's
totally screwed but it's so predictable
cuz we all agree what they'll do right
but the thing is they've been a they
they've been able to do it and not
precipitate a a a real crisis that only
matters if we do a different thing in
the face of what we've all said too much
debt inflation's the only answer no no
not a different thing if we keep doing
the same thing eventually it's not going
to turn out the way it has the world is
not going to accept it the world is not
going to believe our ability to
stimulate with QE with inflation is
predicated on the false belief that the
FED could shrink the balance sheet uh uh
withdraw the liquidity normalize
interest rates we can pay off the debt I
mean when the markets come to the
unfortunate realization that that's not
true then the bottom drops out and and
we can't kick the can down the road
anymore because there's no more Road and
then we have to deal with the
consequences in a way that we haven't
had to deal with them in the past right
we can't send out stimulus checks
because they bounce right or they don't
buy anything forget about the big
picture what they must do what what
happens to humans in that level you and
I in Investments and Tom right the
individual what do it what happens right
if so let's play this out and I've gone
through this in great
depth is when you play it out if you go
to hyperinflation he who owns assets
wins
fact if you go to any of these you
certainly lose a lot less I mean the
only way you do not win is if they do
what you want the most which is tighten
policy so badly that you let the air out
of everything yeah then we completely
get nuked and we are all poor what I
want them to do what I I advocate that
they do is contrary to my strategy
because I don't invest based on what I
want but based on what I expect I expect
them to do the wrong thing and so that's
how I'm invested but even if they do the
right thing I think I'll lose a lot less
than everybody else which means I might
win because it's all relative so if if
if my portfolio goes down but the things
I want to buy go down even more I'm I'm
wealthier uh but yes the the best thing
for my strategy is that they do the
opposite of what advising but that's
what I expect them to do you know you
you you you you hope for the best but
you plan for the worst I hope they don't
do these mistakes but I'm pretty sure
they're going to make them you know
that's just the the the the most likely
scenario I'd rather they didn't do what
you want them to do because everybody is
going to lose their entire they're going
to lose more if they do what I expect
inflation is going to wipe out more
people than honest default and
restructuring slower um it'll happen
slower you can take the pains fast or
take it it's all pain right it's all
pain it's pain will be slower yeah it'll
be a slower death but it will be a more
painful death it's all pain I get that I
have one last question for you and it'll
be quick over the next six months where
do you guys think the price of Bitcoin
is going to be well I would guess lower
actually it's gone up so much at this
point 6 months from now my my guess
would be lower it's about 60,000 now
right 61,000 so I'd take the under for
six months I'll take the over just on
the historical pattern of election years
uh stuff like that tends to go up in a
straight line so you know my time
Horizon is not really 6 months but
generally speaking in these election
years this kind of Bitcoin Haring cycle
it tends to be higher so significantly
higher significantly higher so not just
higher how much higher I
think I don't know but you know I it
wouldn't be surprised if it's trading at
75,000 uh by July August look I might
that would I wouldn't be surprised by
that either but I also wouldn't be
surprised if it's you know 20,000 or
less so I mean gentlemen I cannot thank
you enough I'm beyond grateful for the
time that you gave all of us today to um
go through those ideas I think it's
really super useful hopefully this is
round one of many to everybody watching
at home if you haven't already be sure
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you can even take your Bitcoin and and
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all right everybody thanks for joining
and until next time my friends be
legendary take care
peace to learn more about the current
economic crisis be sure to check out my
conversation with Patrick Bet David this
guy stole $8 billion on people's money
we're not talking $8 million or $80
million 8
billion and he was practically buying
politicians