{ "episodeId": "SLP408", "speakers": { "stephan": { "name": "Stephan Livera", "role": "host", "tag": "STEPHAN" }, "jeff_booth": { "name": "Jeff Booth", "role": "guest", "tag": "JEFF" } }, "segments": [ { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "00:08", "start": 8.45, "text": "Hi and welcome to Stephan Livera podcast, a show about Bitcoin and Austrian economics. This show is brought to you by Swan Bitcoin. Swan is the place to go and buy Bitcoin, as well as learn about Bitcoin. Swan has a lot of projects coming up that will be released soon, but most importantly right now, there's the Pacific Bitcoin Conference that's coming up in November on the 10th and the 11th in LA, California. Now, this is going to be an all new West Coast event, deeply dedicated to Bitcoin and Bitcoiners. So as you can come to expect with Swan, it's Bitcoin only. There'll be an fantastic experience with excellent Bitcoiners there, education, workshops, all kinds of fun. So make sure you've got your ticket, and if you have any family or friends who are new coiners or pre coiners, and you think they need some exposure to that Bitcoin culture, you know, you'll find it here at Pacific Bitcoin. There's an excellent life Lineup of speakers, I'll be one of the hosts. You can be sure that if you bring someone to this event, they will come out orange pilled. So go to PacificBitcoin dot com and use the code Livera to get a discount on your tickets. When it comes to Bitcoin hardware security, my favorite is the Coldcard by CoinKite dot com. The Coldcard looks like a little calculator. It is one of the leading Bitcoin hardware devices in the space. It's highly recommended. It comes with all kinds of features, so many features that you might not even ever end up using, but There, nevertheless, you can use it in single signature, you can put a passphrase on it, you can use Juri's PIN, you can have a \"brick me\" PIN that bricks the device, you can use seed Xor, you can use BIP eighty five, and of course, you can use it as part of a multi-signature setup. So this can be handy either for yourself or for your family and friends. So it's useful to have a few extra that you can have on hand to help teach your family and friends how to secure their coins once they're ready to take that step." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "02:00", "start": 120.02, "text": "and kite dot com and use the code levera to get a discount on your cold cards. Mempool dot space is the Bitcoin explorer built by Bitcoiners for Bitcoiners. It features real-time transaction tracking and mempool visualization so you can quickly get the information you need about your Bitcoin transactions. I personally use it just before I'm about to send a Bitcoin transaction, it helps me target the fee and also you can use it when you need to check if your transaction has gone through. Now mempool dot space is available over Tor, it's completely open source You can even run your own. Over one million people use mempool dot space every month. The project is operated freely for the benefit of the Bitcoin community without ads or third party trackers. Go try it out today at mempool dot space. So today for episode four hundred and eight, my guest is Jeff Booth. He re-joins me. He's a tech entrepreneur, author, and Bitcoin advocate. So he re-joins me to chat about his latest article, Finding Signal in a Noisy World, as well as prior biases and experiences with technology disruption, why Bitcoin adoption will be It'll be more bottom up, as well as some of his thoughts in investing in the space with Ego Death Capital. I think the key message is helping people zoom out and see the bigger picture. So, on to the show with Jeff. Jeff, welcome back to the show. Hey, buddy, thanks for having me. So, Jeff, lots going on in the space, we've got plenty to chat about, and I know you did a, a blog post recently, which was excellent, by the way. So, listeners, I'll make sure we, have that in the show notes for you. But yeah, Jeff, I guess just high level, what's, what's on your mind recently in the world of Bitcoin?" }, { "speaker": "jeff_booth", "time": "03:33", "start": 212.51, "text": "I think the thesis is only being more and more confirmed all the time. So, regardless of price, what" }, { "speaker": "jeff_booth", "time": "03:42", "start": 221.8, "text": "And not just Bitcoin, Bitcoin the asset, I'm talking Bitcoin the ecosystem, the, the layered technology. What's happening is just unbelievable, and I can't believe I get to play in this space that's emerging like, like this. And going back to my book, everything that's, that I wrote about is playing out at an accelerated pla-- pace in the world today. And, and so, so I think I'm not surprised by the, by all of the events in the world. I just have a different view-- I have a different viewpoint, similar to many of the bitcoiners, where this moves to and what transitions from one system that can't functionally work in, in the world to another system that can and works better for humanity." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "04:25", "start": 264.66, "text": "In the world today, it's- Seems there's a lot of confusion, and we see that even in, in the Bitcoin understanding that a lot of people, maybe not people who are really deep into the Bitcoin world, but people who are, let's say, newer to Bitcoin or maybe outside of Bitcoin a little bit. And I think part of that, I think your article has all touched on this as well, so the article's titled \"Finding Signal in a Noisy World.\" So I think that was a really interesting one because one of the themes I saw was this idea that people are misunderstanding the value creation delivered to society. So do you" }, { "speaker": "jeff_booth", "time": "04:57", "start": 297.12, "text": "Yeah, so let's, let's start at a different place, if you don't mind. Sure, sure. Let, let's start at, when you're in Bitcoin as deep as you are as I am. And you understand it at a first principles level and, and why the system is corrupt, and it c-- and the system is corrupt and it cannot function to where technology is taking us. your first thing you do is, even though you never understood it when you first looked at Bitcoin, the first thing you do is, is wonder why everybody else can't see it. And you have a bias that they can't see it because they're manipulating, they're hurting people and everything else, because there's no way they can't see something like this. And so I would say that, that there's a whole bunch of people, even in Bitcoin, that would, how can't my parents see this? How can't this person-- It's so un- important, why can't they see it? And so you, you spend your time with other bitcoiners, and you go deeper and deeper and deeper, and you get madder and madder at the system because it's so corrupt, and you wanna lash out at the, anybody in the system. Who is adding to that corruption. So both, I totally understand that, I totally understand that. But I, but I live in a world where a whole bunch of my friends are in that exi-existing system, and I'm around them all the time, and they're still my friends. and, a bunch of my friends, and some of my friends have been to, World Economic Forum. And their belief is they are actually helping, they're there because they think they're gonna help. Now, I categorically disagree with them, but, but what I'm getting at is they don't see it They don't see it like I do. And so what some Bitcoiners would look at as those terrible people, I don't look at as those terrible people. I look at it as Some people that just don't, they haven't, they haven't looked down the rabbit hole as far as I have, and as a result, they're living in this world that they can think they can solve it a different way. and I disagree with, it can't be solved a different way. I'm sorry, that's, I, I, I think it can only be solved with Bitcoin. So we have a, we have a disagreement on the way it's going to be solved, but they're not bad people. And so with that, that's actually why I wrote that article, because what would a world-- what would a world look like that was driven by technology, that was-- that things should be getting cheaper and cheaper and cheaper? But you lived in a corrupt system that everything you measured was from that corrupt system, and that must make prices more and more expensive. So what would that world look like? And why would it be so confusing for people within that world? And as they move to fear or protection or, or whatever, thinking that they lived in the same world they grew up in, that the thing, same things, what would they naturally do in something that was so hard to understand, like a protocol? Level technology like Bitcoin, which is going to form a new peer-to-peer internet for the world. So again, what I, what, what I see from, from the space I'm in, and, and this is talking to governments, this is talking to, to really respected individuals that, that just aren't there yet, I see just a massive confusion, but the confusion is completely understandable because they live in a paradigm, and they're measuring that paradigm from that paradigm. They're measuring the system from the system. Thinking that there's a way out from that system. So I understand their confusion." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "08:33", "start": 513.2, "text": "And when it comes to teaching people about Bitcoin, sometimes you come up to people who are just simply not ready to hear that message. And in other cases, there are people who you give them that first pitch and then they're ready. Or in other cases, maybe it's seeing is believing. You show them a lightning transaction. Or in other cases, maybe it's like a longtime friend of yours who, let's say, over time, seeing, \"Oh, hey, you're doing...\" Doing really well, and you're doing all-- you're into all this Bitcoin stuff. Why don't you, why don't you teach me a bit about that? It has-- what's been effective in your time, in terms of being an advocate and educator of Bitcoin, at least amongst the friends and the people you know?" }, { "speaker": "jeff_booth", "time": "09:12", "start": 551.51, "text": "Well, I think one of the things that I wrote about, that I wrote about in, in the book, was a missing piece for a bunch of Bitcoin, of Bitcoin people in Bitcoin generally, and brought a whole bunch more people, on just from a very simple Is techno-- does technology produce productivity, and is that productivity deflationary? Really simple concept. The answer is, there isn't one person who can argue that that's not true. Right? So, so pr- in other words, prices should be coming down in the world. and once, and, and we should be gaining time as prices come down. Why isn't that happening? And it forces people to, to, to say, \"Wait, why isn't it happening?\" And, and explore why it isn't happening, and as they explore why that isn't happening Then they have to come up with, it should or shouldn't happen, and then why should it or shouldn't, ha-happen. But they can't argue the fact, they, they, 'cause, 'cause it's in, in their face every day, they see it in their face. And so what they, what they end up facing from that, from that first principal question is a conflict in a whole bunch of their understanding of the world. And that conflict of, wait, if prices have to go up, and who gets to control prices going up, which is-- when it's against the nat-- free market, when it's-- and that, and, and that question that they have to force into, then has them explore, wait, if I live in a democracy, but I don't have a vote in inflation, does my vote count at all? Is a free mar-- Is democracy and, and, and communism the same model under printed money? And so a whole bunch of these ideas that weren't in conflict in their minds before become in conflict just from a simple question, \"Is technology deflationary?\" And, and it's amazing how many people can say, \"Yep, technology is deflationary,\" and then go back to the old system. And, and, and I'll tell you, one of my friends and one of the things that, he was a contributor to the article only because I couldn't break through to him. I was so frustrated, by him that, that I couldn't break through to, to him. And, and one of the things I asked him on my deck, drinking beers, is, 'Cause he think-- he, he totally believes the institutions and laws protect you. And I said, \"If that were the case...\" Where money is most broken, you'd have the best laws. Money supersedes laws because the-- because the, the power, of money ends up setting the laws. And, and so, so, and those types of things, if-- in that one specifically, it kind of broke his brain because he wants to believe that, because he's-- it, it's worked for him as all, all his life. and just asking a different question forced him to, to see that. So when you, when you ask- How do people get there? I think every single person gets there in their own way, and what, what is the thing that actually causes that conflict to move from a system that is so profound in every other decision they make, but they believe in it, to a new system or to see hope in a new system? It's different for every single person." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "12:34", "start": 753.63, "text": "Of course, and as you rightly posed that question, is technology deflationary? And of course, I'm with you, but let's say the average person out there, they may be defaulting back to preconceived view or something that they believe. So whether they are from, whether they are on the left or the right or a moderate, they may, you know, let's say if they're someone from the left, they may say, \"Oh, look, it's those greedy corporations.\" If it's someone on the right, \"Oh, look, it's those evil immigrants.\" Or, And spit back at you. And I understand, as you're part of what you're trying to do, and I think what many Bitcoiners are trying to do is say, \"Look, there's actually a, a bigger cause here, there's a bigger answer here.\" But how do you approach that when you get that kind of-- as I'm sure you do, how do you approach that kind of pushback?" }, { "speaker": "jeff_booth", "time": "13:18", "start": 798.08, "text": "Yeah, so, so again, that's deflecting the question. I just go back to the question. I just go back to, \"Is technology deflationary?\" And they have to answer yes. So, so you could say, \"Is it-- It's not, it's not greedy corporations, it's not immigrants, it's not anything else, it's technology, which is unambiguous, right? It's not a person driving that. It's a, it's a process, and it's technology, it, it's the things that we come up with in our minds that are better than the old things, that get better and better. So it's our innovation, our, our ideas, that if they meet, if they meet the market, and the market decides that...\" They're better, we use them. So it's us deciding. And that, that means that unless we do the same mistakes over and over and over again or build more cost and do, and build worse processes, I suspect we wouldn't use. They come back to, okay, I'll grant you, technology is deflationary. Okay. Now, but, but now you can't move the ball, 'cause what you just, what that question presupposes is, okay, I'm not gonna answer your question, I'm gonna move the ball to a different thing, right? And I just, okay, let's deal with first principles. Is this true? Because if this is true, and it's going-- and, and technology is speeding up because our ideas are speeding up, we're getting-- we build on top of other ideas. If that's sp- if that's speeding up in the world, then how does the existing system deal with that? And that's-- Yeah, and I" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "14:52", "start": 892.45, "text": "think it forces, it forces them to think about it. Totally." }, { "speaker": "jeff_booth", "time": "14:55", "start": 895.15, "text": "And that's, and that's why, so I just keep bringing them back to that, that question, because what people wanna do is deflect the question, because it's too hard to deal with, because if you deal with that question, then it forces there has to be a change in operating systems for our world. There has to be, a-and then it forces the existing system, because it's based on credit, can't allow a deflationary collapse. So what would you do? How would you change the existing system from the system? You can't. And now it opens up What possible alternatives that are outside of the control of the existing system could change the system and offer hope abundance to society, and then you only come to Bitcoin." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "15:41", "start": 941.07, "text": "And so are you also seeing that people are uncomfortable having to think about some of these ideas, because maybe they're-- it's like this idea of people are used to thinking in a certain rut, right? You're used to walking in a certain rut, and now this bitcoiner or the person who's- Advocating Bitcoin or educating about Bitcoin is trying to tell them, hey, there's actually maybe you're, you've got a prior bias here, maybe there's something else you could like genuinely give it the time of day." }, { "speaker": "jeff_booth", "time": "16:07", "start": 966.84, "text": "Yeah, and that's what I, I don't want to mention names here, but, but it's working, and it's working at a level that surprises me sometimes, because those articles or what ends up happening with me being asked to speak to hedge funds or private equity funds or governments or, the level that it- It's surprising because I'm just some entrepreneur that wrote a book. That's how I think about, that, that, that cares about kind of the future of humanity, where we go, and, and, so I don't think about myself, as, okay, this person. But when you hear, when, when you get this feedback and everybody wants to, to talk to you, and, and then I'll- A major, major capital provider, major capital provider, who has been investing in, in all of the nonsense, Ethereum, all of the, those, and probably made a lot of money there Recently called and said, \"Said, we always knew Bitcoin was it, but we couldn't invest on top of that. There was no ti- the timing was wrong. So we w-invested on things that could make money and we're disappointed with what that looks like. And I've been following your work for a long, long time.\" And now I can see what you mean with, and maybe that, that article was one of those things that broke out, now that there's a-- it's early still with Lightning, Taproot, everything and it's coming. But now there's a time where the-- there, there can be mass, a wall of money coming into, into businesses that are building on top of a, a stable and secure and decentralized foundation. And so, so we're early in that process, but what I would say is, had I not written the article, had I just, or not started the VC fund, or not been involved in this ecosystem And actually, m-kind of making a differ-trying to make a difference in this ecosystem, I wouldn't have ever got that call, so I wouldn't have seen it, and hadn't not been involved in this ecosystem and seeing all the incredible entrepreneurs that are building on top of this Decentralized secure foundation, even though it's early, had I not seen, all, all of what's coming, I might be way out here as one of my friends might be, thinking, \"Oh, this is just a Ponzi scheme.\"" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "18:28", "start": 1108.38, "text": "Yeah, and I think another theme that came through from the article to me was this focus, as many Bitcoiners have, on this idea that adoption is going to be bottom up. So what are your views there? Why, why do you think it's going to be more bottom up?" }, { "speaker": "jeff_booth", "time": "18:43", "start": 1122.51, "text": "all technology is bottom up ad- adoption, or most technology is bottom up ad- adoption, and, and, and it's, it, and, and whether that re- is, is money or technology broadly, what ends up happening is the- The technology breaks the rules for the existing monopoly, and it breaks the rules and it offers better value to society. And, and so the people closest to the monopoly reinforce the monopoly because it doesn't provide better value to them, because they get the most access to the existing monopoly. But the value, because it a-offers so much value to people who don't have that access, it moves from the bottom up. And there's simply more people at the bottom than there are at the top. And so once you, once you do that, the technology just, the, the tech-technology explodes and the, and the advantage moves to the, to the new Now, in-- and this is a bunch of the premises in my book, too, because if you understand how capital moves, if you understand how a free market moves to be able to make more money, the incentives, the natural incentives, then the natural incentives move to where people can make more money. And or, or so-- and, and that moves on top of where people are, are transacting. And so we're early in that pro-- we're early in that process within Bitcoin, but, so first an example. Kodak invented the digital camera, but their monopoly selling film and selling ca-cameras was hurt by, by, by, by the invention of the, the digital camera. And Steve Sasson, who created that, actually went twice to, to executives at Kodak, trying to get them to understand that a different change in their business was, it was inevitable and it was going to happen anyways. But they blocked access because all of their money was coming from selling- Selling film. And then there's a whole bunch of people using, using that, film and taking a very limited amount of pictures. And a whole bunch of other people that couldn't even access photos. So it stands to reason that if you have a lower cost technology, a massively lower cost technology that brings abundance, we take Trillions of photos today, around versus a very small number, twenty years ago, and they're free. And so, so you can ima- totally imagine why Apple, other Phone company said, \"Wait, I'm gonna just integrate that into my device and offer it for free, because now it creates a moat around my business.\" Because I'm giving people something that they'd never had before, free, free cameras, and then editing software and everything else that's also free. It's because, because a lot of this stuff ends up being a line of code, and the marginal cost of production falls to zero, of delivering that. So now you have a competition of phone companies or, and other, camera, camera companies using the exact same technology to be able to monetize their business. So that's, that's, and In, in film, same thing happened in Blockbuster, same thing happened, in countless other businesses by, by believing that people wouldn't change their mind to, to the new value. But when that value is-- when that value provides more value to society, it moves really quickly. And so what's happening today, today, if you just said, \"Look at Bitcoin as an asset class,\" so Bitcoin, it's the number one asset class over the last thirteen years, so it's provided a lot of value to those people. And then, and, and then now Bitcoin is Lightning Network and a payment rail. What you're seeing is, is why, why Lightning is growing so fast is it's providing massive value. So you have two network effects reinforcing on themselves, providing more and more value, which is driving more and more entrepreneurs into that, more and more governments, nations thinking, \"Wow, what's coming is going to be unstoppable and it's gonna provide value to, to society.\" And the monopoly in this case is a monopoly over money. And those closest to the monopoly over money, including, kind of first world nations, as a byproduct, they wouldn't-- they would be Kodak. They wouldn't see it, because it-- their money hasn't devalued like, like it, it has in Zimbabwe and, and, and, and so in El Salvador and what, what nations that are, are dealing with the, the negative, what, what's really happening is Those nations are the periphery to our core, and, and to protect the core, we sacrifice the periphery. And sacrificing the periphery means they have nation building or pawns, dictators, or, or whatever that you put into, to this, to, to IMF comes in and gives them loans that, that end up hurting their population. To protect the core. And then the, then the same loan, denominated in US dollars, then the US, the US dollars get, get more expensive, and their population can't pay for that loan. And so you, you run this over and over and over again, this, this, this Ponzi game around the world, and those nations and those citizens in those nations are the unfortunate victim of protecting, protecting the core. So in other words, they're furthest away from the monopoly. So what do you think is going to happen when you give that-- when you give those nations, those people in those nations, a way to escape the monopoly? And as that grows, and as, it, it, it changes everything." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "24:46", "start": 1485.79, "text": "Back to the show in a moment. Are you interested in Bitcoin mining? Check out brains dot com, that's b r a i i n s dot com. Now, this might be handy for you if you're exploring the idea of going into mining. On the Insights dashboard, which you can find on brains dot com, they've got a mining profitability calculator. So there you can punch in the numbers, put in your estimates around things like hash rate and so on, and you can come up with a number in terms of how profitable your Bitcoin mining venture may be. Now, Brains also offer Brains OS This is firmware that you can install on your ASIC. Now, check the website to see which mining models are supported, but if your mining machine is supported, you might be getting something like twenty percent more efficiency. So you're just leaving Sats on the table if you're not using this. Also, remember, the Brain's team are driving forward adoption on Stratum v2. So if you use Brain's OS Plus and you point your hash rate towards Slashpool, which will soon be Brain's pool, you are supporting Stratum v2, which improves privacy and it reduces the bandwidth loads for miners in remote locations. So that website is brains dot com. Do you need an easy way to run a Bitcoin node in the cloud? Voltage can help you here. They can help you whether you need to run a Bitcoin node, a Lightning node, or a BTC Pay server node. So BTC Pay server can help you become a merchant. So if you are looking to take payment over the Lightning network and do this online, Voltage can make it really quick and simple for you. Now also if you're a Bitcoin builder, you need to check out Voltage because they can help you scale nodes instantly by the thousands. They can help you get quality inbound liquidity. So when we're setting up on the Lightning Network, we need to get inbound liquidity and Voltage have a solution for you here. They can make it all really slick and easy for you. Just go and test it out on the website. You can get a node up and running in two minutes by visiting Voltage dot Cloud. Unchained Capital can help you with multi-signature and improving your security standpoint by removing single points of failure, and Unchained is running a drain the exchanges promotion for Konsioch onboarding. So the Konsioch onboarding program involves some support that where you are assisted in terms of creating your multi-signature vault and withdrawing from the exchange or out of your single-signature wallet into a multi-signature vault set up by Unchained. Now, this is available until the eighth of September, so they are taking that one thousand dollar rebate down, and the simple price is two hundred and fifty dollars, and you get a discount off that if you use the code Livera. So this is a great opportunity, it's a time-limited promotion, so make sure you get in, take this time now Now get your coins off the exchange, use Unchained to help you do this. So that website is unchained dot com slash concierge and use the code levera to get a discount on your concierge onboarding program. And now back to the show. Yeah, I mean, as you gave the example with Nigeria, as I understand, they have one of the most high, highly adopting in terms of Bitcoin population. I think it's, last I saw the stat, it was something like forty percent of the country has some Bitcoin. So, and this is not a small country, we're talking, I think the population is maybe one hundred and fifty or two hundred million, something like, we're talking massive, a big country. And so it's really interesting to see and, and I think this bottom-up dynamic as well, and it very much, this reminds They've read the book, The Innovator's Dilemma, by, his name, Clay, Clay Christensen. Yeah. Right? And so it's exactly that, it's exactly this. And so, as I recall from that book, it's that certain businesses, whether they are Kodak or Blockbuster, they have this competitive moat in a certain way, and then they see this alternative option that almost cuts against and undermines themselves, and it's just too difficult to disrupt themselves. And now of course, many business people, I'm sure everyone's been to some- kind of business talk or whatever where they say, \"Yeah, you've got to disrupt yourself,\" but the reality is it's, it's much easier said than done, you know? And so I think that's probably the, the challenge." }, { "speaker": "jeff_booth", "time": "28:41", "start": 1720.99, "text": "I've done that in a number of businesses myself, and I actually failed in one of my businesses because I tried to do-- to change from, from the business that was three hundred and seventy-five people to a new business which was way better from the existing business. And what I didn't realize is we were right in the transition to the new business, but everybody had to go away, and they-- everybody in the team believed we were right, right, as we moved to the new business, but then you had to almost increase your team to be able to build the technology to get to the new business, and then everybody in the business would go back to their desks And work on the old business, because what else would they do? And I misunderstood the inertia of a business that a business has, because everybody in that business is doing a different job than the new business. So how do you just cut over to the new business? Because the jobs are totally different. So I co-founded a company in Thailand s-similarly, and it's the second largest company, it-it was run by the second largest company in, in Thailand. And I, and I spoke to the board and I said, \"You can't do the-- you can't build what you want to from your existing business, but I'll help you build a new one outside of that with new team and everything else so that you can port the best of this business over to the new once it's, once it's ready.\" And that's a really successful model. by the That's what Steve Jobs always did. He put, he put a secret group together that were insulated from the rest of the business, that wouldn't get overwhelmed by the existing business. But, but now if you think about the business of money and the business of, of what this looks like, why people are confused is because this very same thing is happening, and it's never, it's never happened at money, right? It's never happened at, at decentralised and security together on, on money. We've never had that, so we had to trust Institutions to protect and the rule of law to protect citizens, but money supersedes, supersedes law, and so we've never had decentralization and security together, so it's, it's bound to be a really big head scratcher for a lot of the population that is, that is s-simply living in that world, measuring everything they have from that world." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "30:59", "start": 1858.84, "text": "And I think the other aspect of it, as, as we're talking about people who are, let's say, confused- We, we've got this world where it is quite challenging from a macro perspective, right? Inflation, CPI, to be clear, is rising in a lot of countries, and not just in the poorer countries, even in the, in the UK, we had the recent stat, ten point one percent in July was the CPI number for the UK, and you would think people should be all running to Bitcoin, but unfortunately, it seems that There's still that barrier for understanding for people because maybe they're seeing Bitcoin, it's like, it's a gamble or it's, you know, it's too far. You know, what's your perspective on that? Do you think more people should be running to Bitcoin because of these macro conditions we're in?" }, { "speaker": "jeff_booth", "time": "31:44", "start": 1904.22, "text": "They will, anyways. It's just the timing that they'll get, they'll get it. It's just, they'll find it in their own time. Just re-remember every single economic decision today, the, the existing, the existing world that you live in is four orders of magnitude Bitcoin. So if twelve people decide not to print money for a month or two, then that's gonna have a massive impact on every single-- Remember, we have a deflationary market. There's no question we have a deflationary market. The only thing that is driving all decisions is when twelve people are going to print. And I, just maybe not twelve people, because all over the world, there's gonna-- China just le-- eased as well. But, but when central banks are going to ease more, so essentially- The thing that's driving all of your economic value, everything, in the-- every decision is really coming down to when people are going to print, and when people are going to destroy the value of your time and money. That's, and so, but you're living in that system. So if you're living in that system and they don't for a while, and you have a rollover and start to get credit, credit collapse, and, and joblessness spikes, and so you, so you have- layoffs and then those layoffs trickle into people not being able to pay their mortgages and then, and house prices start falling and then the banks start failing as a result of, of that, as that counterparty risk around the world explodes. you could think Bitcoin would fall too, right? Because, because in that case, the, the, the only thing of value, if you just kept playing that forward, the only thing of value would be Bitcoin It would price everything, right? It would re-- it would reset around Bitcoin in that, in, in that event. But on the way there, Bitcoin could fall in price a lot because the entire forwarders of magnitude market Was, was experiencing a cr-uh, credit contagion. And so as that's happening, there's gonna need to be a staggering amount of liquidity destroying the value of your money into, into the system And what you're seeing today, is, is you can't print energy. Energy supersedes all of these conversations because if you print, it just keeps on going, up higher. So as, as that ends up happening It drives inflation rate, people can't eat, people can't feed their, families, people can't, run their businesses because the energy cost is, is too high, and they start failing in a different way. And those global supply chains, you're, Germany's gonna have to choose, do we heat homes or do we turn off critical supply chains to the world? In the winter, this win- this winter. And so those start to travel around the economy and people get more and more confused because the base level of everything that they're making decisions in is being manipulated, it has mis- it's carrying misinformation and is carry- and it must create greater and greater misinformation in society. So that's what, so, so will Bitcoin, if that, if you just play that out, forget C-P-C-P-I, everything else, forget it all, we-- technology is deflationary, prices should be following. The only reason they're not is because, because money is being manipulated a-- and, and if it's not manipulated to a greater extent, an exponential extent, extent You're gonna ca- you're gonna have a credit collapse, and a reset of a different way, a different means. If it's, if it's manipulated through more and more easing, you're gonna have increasing war internal dynamics every nation, for myself, and this accelerating, so it's going to unfortunately get really bad from the existing system. So what can you do? You can either- Give that existing system more energy, yell at it, get mad at it, but it's not gonna change it. It's a structural, system, and nothing, no person in that existing system can, can solve the inevitability of what's, what's, what's coming. No one. It has to be solved by a new system. And so, so I've decided to do is spend more of my time because it feels better. Because, because I, not only, can I, can I make a bunch of money, but that's, that's not really why I'm doing it. I don't need more money. It actually just feels a lot better realizing where this is going and trying to build bridge, bridge to the new system as fast as I can so more people can walk across the bridge. And, and so when I meet entrepreneurs that are building that new system, wow, is it exciting. And so, but in what I just said, all of the nonsense that we spend our time on, on why won't they see it, making it, we're actually making that existing system stronger. It's just a waste, total waste, total waste of your, your time and energy. Spend the time building the future you wanna see. Spend your intention building the future you wanna s- see. And, and you'll be s- you'll be You'll be surprised at how much actually you have an a-ability to influence the future you want." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "37:03", "start": 2222.94, "text": "I think that's great advice for everyone, and I think what is a common thing we see is this people have this idea of, \"Oh, if we could only get the right person in charge, then it would be fixed.\" And I think as you, as you rightly say, that's not, that's not going to solve things. The problem we have, the problems we have are fundamentally just structural, and of course, there are different ways that people conceive or explain that. Like, let's say See, it's the swamp, and there's all the, you know, and, and a person on the left might say something, say it in a different way, they may say, \"Oh, look, it's certain corporate, you know, greedy fat cats who are, you know, a-and fundamentally, it's just a structural issue that is just going to be there no matter which side of the, you know, the aisle you're coming from. There's just structural problems, and that there's a need to build something new and something better. And so I think that's, that Tell us a little bit about that. So you've got, Ego Death Capital. What's, what is it and, you know, why, why Ego Death Capital?" }, { "speaker": "jeff_booth", "time": "38:05", "start": 2284.8, "text": "So it came from, even the name came from Nico and Andy, who, who are my partners in, in that. And Nico is a longtime friend who, who over time wanted to say do something in business with me, and over time came to the conclusion that I had on Bitcoin. And may, maybe it was me, maybe it was him, whatever. but over time, he, he gained conviction, and in gaining conviction, he also looked at all the alter-al alternatives, and so did, so did Andy. And so when they came to me and said, \"Would you start this fund w-uh, with us? \" I was in this, position where I wanted to spend more of my time in this ecosystem with the builders of this ecosystem, but I, but I didn't have enough bandwidth to do it all, like because my, it, it, it'd- You'd get a hundred emails a day and you couldn't keep up, you couldn't do service to those. So, so this fund gave me a structure where they could carry the load and, and do a bunch of the, a bunch of the work in, in vetting and meeting entrepreneurs and everything else, and I could lean in and help where I, where I could. And so, so it solved, it solved a whole bunch of, and opportunities for me, where I get to, I get to spend my time with, with Really, really great entrepreneurs building this ecosystem and, and, and work with just incredible people and Nico and Andy to be able to help highlight which ones I should spend more time with and which ones, which ones we should, we should invest in. So it's been, and it's, I'll, I'll tell you, we've only announced our first lead investment, which was Fedi. and, and Obi's just, just a star, and, and I think, and I think a lot about what that technology can do, but, but we have three other terms, or two other term sheets firm that are, that are, we haven't announced yet, and some of what's happening in this space, and, and then a bunch of others in, in behind there, we've seen two hundred and sixty companies, and some of the innovation and what's happening in this space, and what's going to happen on layer two and three and everything else. That's, that's coming is just like, wow, I can't believe I get, I can't believe I get to do it. It goes back to that, it goes back to this thing I said before, spend your time building the world you want to see, rather than complaining about the world you see. And you'll be amazed at what ends up happening." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "40:39", "start": 2438.61, "text": "And when it comes to investing in the Bitcoin ecosystem, are there any particular priorities you have? So for example, self-custody, privacy, scaling, financial products, what kinds of-- what kinds of things are interesting for you in terms of investing in Bitcoin companies?" }, { "speaker": "jeff_booth", "time": "40:56", "start": 2456.26, "text": "So one of the things that I, that I like, so let's use FETI as an example. That's a commercial entity on top of FETAMIN. And Fedimint is open source technology that anybody could build on and create a better application than Fedi. So the same kind of technology underpinnings, which what, which what that means is, it's going to be decentralized by nature, and a whole bunch of, if, if you look at Lightning, there's a whole bunch of instances of Lightning That are decentralized, by, by nature, and then companies forming to say, \"My value is better on top, on, on top of this,\" and the only way they can win is if they provide more long-term value to society. So I love the, I love the approach. You have a decentralized secure protocol layer That the next layers must interact with that layer, and the next layers on top interact. So you have protocol des-design that keeps this thing decentralized and, and secure forever, and then you have company formation that can only work if it delivers value to society, and I, I suspect that the value to society is going to be overwhelming, and that, that's what we're-- that's what we're investing in. We're investing in people that are, and, and so all of- All of the above that you just said, we're looking at, how do you, how do you make unwraps, e-easier? How do you make custody better? How do you make non-custodial wallets, i-integrate better so that it preserves the decentralization and security and delivers value on top of that, to society? And there's, there's just a, a million use cases and more and more coming all the time with things like Taro and FedMint and so things that, that we don't even- Even know even what I'm talking about, we don't even know how Lightning, Taproot, or Fedamant or that will come together and form a different use case that I can't even predict right, right now, but I know they're coming similar to what happened with, with Essentially, TCP/IP, the foundational layer of the Internet, and HTTP or HTTPS, la- later on, which was a layer four solution that built the w-World Wide Web. But just, you wouldn't know, you wouldn't know if you were talking about TCP/IP in the late 1960s when DARPA created it, that HTTPS would connect all of those websites and form the World Wide Web, because you weren't looking at it in layers." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "43:32", "start": 2612.16, "text": "And I think that's really the importance of thinking about this scaling in layers approach that I think the Bitcoin community, at least today, understands that quite well. Of course, in the fork wars of twenty fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, that was, that was part of the fight inside the Bitcoin community, and I think obviously leaders in the space, people like Greg Maxwell and others, who wrote some of those seminal posts about this idea, and I think he's got this famous one of like a rocket ship going, you know, you're going on a rocket ship to space, and you're, you're doing it layers and, as, as the rocket goes up, there are, pe- pe- layers that are peeling off and so on. And so that was like a seminal post for a lot of people who maybe weren't so tech savvy, maybe they were into Bitcoin, but they hadn't quite grasped all the different technical components of it, or maybe they didn't quite analogize with the internet in the same way, this idea of layered scaling. And so I think it's fascinating to see, I think the other aspect is perhaps in some ways we're impatient. People are expecting lightning To be built today, you know, you know what I mean? Like so it's kind of like Lightning, the white paper came out in, someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it was around twenty fifteen or sixteen, but the actual Lightning network didn't come out into the wild until I believe it was like late seventeen or early twenty eighteen. And so basically it was required, you know, it was basically, it was mostly reliant on having SegWit, otherwise without having SegWit it would have been severely handicapped. So we had SegWit and then Lightning started, Really now, like, really, really starting to hit some stride, whereas I think in years gone by, I think, and even maybe even I was impatient with where things were at. I'm, I'm curious, do you have any thoughts on that, sometimes you, you have a vision for the future, but let's say we're impatient." }, { "speaker": "jeff_booth", "time": "45:19", "start": 2719.37, "text": "We bias time. So once you're in Bitcoin, you think, okay, why isn't this happening yesterday? This whole thing should happen, yesterday. And you're looking at this entire-- You're looking at a transition that's And it takes time. Remember, DARPA, 60s, late 60s, World Wide Web, call it '89, couldn't launch until '89, 'cause there was no way to interconnect that on, on layers. And what would you have said, what would you have said in nineteen ninety about the internet? Most of the value of the internet didn't happen until kind of after two thousand. Google wasn't in-- invented until two thousand. It wasn't, it wasn't a company in ninety-nine. So it was, it, it, so, and then Facebook was two thousand and eight. And so, iPhone, which uses all of the same tech-- underlying technology, wasn't until, was it, two thousand and five? So all of these things we take top of a slowly developing protocol that, as it got hardened and stronger and stronger, built all these other use cases. And, and that slowly developing protocol, Bitcoin being decentralized and secure and the only thing that is decentralized and secure, provably if you go through that article, and the only thing that can be, nothing else can be. You can see why it's forming the base layer of the new internet, and now governments, governments around the world, are gonna have to choose, \"Am I gonna shut off the internet and all of the value that comes from it to try to stop Bitcoin? Am I going to give that value and all of the people that are gonna build on top of it, am I gonna stop them from coming to my country and send them to another country where they can build that innovation because I can't, I can't stop it, I can only stop it for my citizens.\" And so now you're not, you're not dealing with Bitcoin just as money, right? As, okay, that, that we need to protect the existing system. You're dealing with it as a protocol layer technology that looks like the internet. And so if you try to stop that, you can see, you can, you can see what's going to happen to your society, and your people, the people in your country are just going to have to get poorer. As others get, get wealthier, and the innovation moves to the free market. And so that's what, that's actually why these, these things are way bigger choices today, and it's part of the reason I wrote the article, because what I re-realized in government, which is just, when we say government, we think about this big, the structure of government, but all it is, is a bunch of people making a bunch of mistakes. And if we see the same mistakes throughout society, then we should expect the government has just as much. Mistake, more, mistakes is just people. so I wanted to give a path to, to what, what this looked like, and shutting off the internet would be a real-- You could be North Korea and shut off the internet, but what, what does that do to your, to your citizens?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "48:15", "start": 2894.8, "text": "Of course. And I think something else that is interesting that we've seen, obviously, as I'm sure you've been watching over the last few months, in the quote-unquote crypto world, over the last few months, we've seen a lot of lend- There's operators in the space either go bankrupt, need a bailout, you know, stop withdrawals, and in many cases, these were kind of quasi-banks who were offering yield, and it seems there were a lot of entities actually caught up in all of this. Even I, I recall, maybe you correct me if I'm getting this wrong, but I believe there was some Canadian pension entity who had put money into Celsius, and so it was around the world, like all kinds of government entities and pension entities, and you, you were just, you were like surprised when you found out I found out who had put money in with Celsius, and I think it's just part of this whole yield chasing, yield farming, and of course, maybe that's a little bit of a fiat mentality, but I'm, I'm curious on your view on that, like how are you explaining that to your, your friends who are pre-coiners, new coiners, people who are maybe still trying to find their feet in this space and understand what's really going on, where's the signal, where's the noise?" }, { "speaker": "jeff_booth", "time": "49:21", "start": 2960.72, "text": "Yeah, and again, why I wrote the article, I, I, I couldn't was, was growing. I couldn't believe people get it, were getting caught in it, and when I say I couldn't believe, from a market standpoint, because most people won't do the research, they just trust somebody else, I could believe it. And from a, from same way a bank, it could, builds, builds leverage into a system, a new market participant that builds leverage on top of something that has no counterparty risk and doesn't offer a return, you have to ask Where is that return coming from? So the first company comes out and says, \"I'm gonna give two percent return,\" and maybe they're better traders for a short while than somebody else, right? But to be better traders forever over something at zero, it, it doesn't-- nobody wins in the market that, that far. But so again, you have to ask, \"Where does the yield, yield come from?\" Now, okay. Then you'd have to presuppose this company can be better than everybody else, better than the market, to be able to give me that yield. And as soon as they do that, let's just imagine a two percent yield. Then, and a bunch of market moves in because they make more money than just leaving Bitcoin parked, a bunch of market moves in, then another entrepreneur, another company says, \"I can make four percent yield.\" I can make, and then somebody says six, then somebody, and the market just chases this Ponzi scheme because they think it has no risk, because, but it's just a market function, and, and, and all of these things have massive risk. Now, keep in mind that some of the leverage that took Bitcoin up was the same thing happening. Right, so, driving up. And so you have a wall of money coming in saying free returns. And the pension funds, too, saying, \"Wow, this thing's great. I can make free returns.\" And, and, and, and again, I can't-- when, when we talk about this And you think other people are smarter than you that just did, just did this? Realize they're not. Just realize they're not. They do the same thing, fear and greed, drives in, and they will, in a, in a hot market, people pile money in because they think somebody else has done the work, and they, and, and they, and they, and, and that- drives fear and greed in the market, Bitcoin rises as a result of that fear and greed, and then it gets liquidated, and it starts getting liquidated at twenty percent, Luna. And it just falls down the channel and everything gets, everything gets liquidated. And what do all those companies have to do? They have to sell Bitcoin on the way down too. And Bitcoin just, because it's a protocol technology, no counterparty risk, it tick, tock, next block, and it keeps, keeps going. Because the people that aren't pricing Bitcoin from the system Thinking that it's, that it's, and it's a huge mistake, it's a huge error code in what they're doing. They're thinking I'm getting wealthier in fiat dollars by, by pricing in Bitcoin instead of what's actually happening is Bitcoin is gonna reprice everything. So, so, so, so if that, i-if what I just said i-is true and Bitcoin is going to reprice everything as a result of this, why would you ever sell your Bitcoin? Why would you ever lever your Bitcoin to try to get more yield and take that, take that risk? And so when I explain that to-- when I explain what I just explained my friends, light bulbs go on. But before I explain that, they think, \"Oh, Bitcoin just fell, it's, it's just a, it, it, it's not working.\" It's, they don't understand kind of the fear and greed that, that is normal in all of us, and normal in markets. And if you had something that could lever to Bitcoin And promise something else, then it would create a natural market cycle that people would abuse." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "53:27", "start": 3207.28, "text": "You're right there, and also at the end of the day, there are just cycles in this thing, and in many things, and I, I think for me, having been around since 2013, I just sort of, there are times when Bitcoin is the hottest thing in town, and there are times when everyone hates Bitcoin, and/or there, or maybe e-even more, there are times when people are just indifferent to Bitcoin, they're just kind of, \"Yeah, whatever, it's doing its Sort of rinse and repeat, and then in the next bull cycle, people make all the same mistakes, or maybe in a way that rhymes, similar mistakes, and then we sort of rinse and repeat, and we're sort of going to-- we're probably going to see a few more of these play out until the, the hyperbitcoinization moment or the, the fully pricing in Sat." }, { "speaker": "jeff_booth", "time": "54:11", "start": 3251.03, "text": "But actually, look at the long-term trend on holders, like people that have been holding for a long term, right? And what you see through all these cycles, there's, there's more holders, there That, that realize, \"Huh, everything I just said is true for every cycle, and it keeps on be- and it keeps on happening, and every time that brings on a whole bunch more people who understand why this is, why this is critical, and, and they hold it through those cycles.\" And it brings on a whole bunch more people. Remember, the existing market that we live in is way bigger than the tiny market Bitcoin. So it's, it has to do that as more, as each cycle brings on a whole bunch more people, and those people get-- and unfortunately, that's also why I wrote the article, is those people get scammed into a whole bunch of others, a whole bunch of other, other things, it has to, and then they come out the other side, or a bunch of 'em come out the other side and say, \"Ah, I get it," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "55:06", "start": 3305.87, "text": "it There you go, I think that's a fantastic spot to finish up there. So, listeners, make sure you follow Jeff on Twitter, you can find him at jeff booth, and I'll link to the article. And Jeff, where can people find, Ego Death Capital if they wanna find you there?" }, { "speaker": "jeff_booth", "time": "55:20", "start": 3320.04, "text": "it's just egodeath dot capital." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "55:22", "start": 3322.18, "text": "Fantastic. Well, Jeff, I really enjoyed, chatting with you and, hope to-- Well, I'm gonna see you next week at Bitblock Boom, so yeah. Awesome. Look forward to it. I enjoyed the chat with Jeff and I think it was definitely useful to zoom out a little bit amongst all of what's going on in the space. It's important for us to zoom out and remember the big picture that we are educating and advocating for. So if you think this episode is useful, make sure you share it with your family and friends so they can also learn. The website is stephanlivera.com/408. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you in the citadels." } ] }