{ "episodeId": "SLP409", "speakers": { "stephan": { "name": "Stephan Livera", "role": "host", "tag": "STEPHAN" }, "steven_lubka": { "name": "Steven Lubka", "role": "guest", "tag": "STEVEN" } }, "segments": [ { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "00:08", "start": 8.39, "text": "Hi and welcome to Stephan Livera podcast, a show about Bitcoin and Austrian economics. Today my guest is Steven Lubka, he is the managing director of Swan Private, and we're talking about the true meaning of inflation. This has gone back and forth, all kinds of people are discussing about whether it is an inflation hedge, is it not an inflation hedge, what's the right meaning of inflation. Now this show is brought to you by Swan Bitcoin, and Swan is Making it easy for you to buy Bitcoin and also learn about Bitcoin. Now, the big event coming up is in November, on the 10th and the 11th, it's Pacific Bitcoin. This is a two-day experience filled with all kinds of Bitcoiners, education, workshops, and all kinds of fun. There'll be panels, there'll be fireside chats, there'll be a swan dome, there'll be a Bitcoin lab where you can get in-person support, there'll be so many awesome experiences. So make sure you book your tickets for this event. It'll be for that So many awesome speakers, I'll be there as one of the hosts, and I'm looking forward to seeing you all there. To get your ticket, go to pacificbitcoin dot com and use the code livera to get a discount on your ticket, and remember, just think, stop and think, do you have any friends and family who could really benefit from this exposure? I think if you bring your friends and family along, there's a good solid chance they get orange pilled. So that's November 10th and 11th in LA. Go to pacificbitcoin dot com and use" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:30", "start": 90.02, "text": "They've got all kinds of content on their website as well as BrainzOS Plus. This is firmware that you should be looking at and considering installing on your Bitcoin mining ASIC machine because you can increase the hash rate and improve efficiency by as much as twenty-five percent. You can point your hash rate to any pool or get zero pool fees on Slashpool, which will soon become Brainzpool. Also, don't forget to check out their analytics and insights dashboard where you can run a mining profitability calculation. You can also keep an eye on the Bitcoin mining space and- Look at statistics like hash price and others. That's available over at thebrains dot com website, that's b r a i i n s dot com. Are you in the market for Bitcoin hardware security? My favorite is the Coldcard. It's such a practical device. You can get this over at coinkite dot com. So if you are new to self custody or perhaps you're looking to upgrade, Coldcard is a great choice. You can start on it as a beginner, you can just directly plug it to your computer and use it easily with wallets like Sparrow Wallet. Or if you're more Use multi-signature and you can use all kinds of advanced techniques and features that the coldcard offers. I really like the address explorer. This helps you verify the address that you are receiving to, because this is actually a common or a very juicy hacking or attack vector. So by verifying our receive addresses, we're helping stop the hack happen in the first place. So if you're interested to get your coldcard, go to coinkite dot com and use the code livera to get a discount on On your cold card. And now onto the show with Steven. Steven, welcome to the show." }, { "speaker": "steven_lubka", "time": "03:05", "start": 184.94, "text": "Hey, thank you, Stefan. Happy to be here." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "03:07", "start": 187.49, "text": "Yeah, so, it's obviously I've known you for a while, working together at Swan and everything, but I wanted to get you on to chat about what's going on in the world with inflation, macroeconomics, bit of energy, and just, you know, what's going on. And I know you wrote a piece recently on inflation, so do you wanna just tell us a little bit where did the impetus for that come from" }, { "speaker": "steven_lubka", "time": "03:30", "start": 209.64, "text": "Yeah, so that came from, obviously, there's been this narrative, right? There's been this kind of view of Bitcoin as an inflation hedge. And so people, you know, people bought Bitcoin, they're investing in Bitcoin, they're thinking, \"Okay, I'm doing this because I wanna hedge inflation.\" And so obviously, CPI in the US goes up to, you know, nine percent, Bitcoin goes down. And so obviously, investors are asking questions like, \"Hey, I thought this thing was supposed to be an inflation hedge, did it fail?\" Is, you know- You know, should we be, concerned? And so I wrote this article to try to push back against it, because contrary to popular belief, I don't believe that Bitcoin failed as an inflation hedge. And not just that I think it will do it in the future, but I think it has functioned as one today. How do I arrive at that conclusion? It has to do with the definition of inflation, right? So if we define inflation just as like CPI, like consumer price increases, no other nuance, then yeah, it looks like Bitcoin didn't perform well, although, you know, you can make the argument that if you bought it before CPI went up, obviously you, you did pretty well, right? Like even, even at today's prices, twenty-three, if you bought it before they printed the money, you know, you're, you're, you're more than double, you know, more than double. So you can make that argument. But even with that aside, we need to look at inflation the right way. And in the article, you know, what I talk about is that inflation really is the expansion Of the monetary supply, and this isn't just my idea, this is actually how it was historically defined. So in the past, I mean, that's where the word inflation comes from. When you think about the word, like, why did they choose that word? They chose it because it was-- they were talking about the money supply. And when we use that view, Bitcoin performed perfectly, you know, before they printed money, before they expanded the money supply, or, or as they were doing it, it went up tremendously. It had a huge bull run Two, from, you know, eight thousand to sixty-nine thousand, it responded better to the monetary expansion than basically any other asset, certainly any other asset class, anything significant. And, then, you know, what happens, and I think this is something that isn't appreciated, they started contracting the money supply. And so it's not just that they stopped printing, they're, they've actually been contracting it. And, you know, while I certainly don't believe they can sustain that for long periods of time, the reality is That it's been contracting, and part of the reason I say that isn't just, not just rates and, and not just some of the Fed policy, but that actually, I've argued that asset prices are actually, you know, like stocks and houses in our economy, in our world, are part of the money supply, and those going down tremendously is a contraction. So that was, that was a few things, but that was, that was, you know, the, the point of the article was just to push back against that." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "06:26", "start": 385.52, "text": "Right, I see. So as, as I read you, basically This argument that people are saying, \"Oh, Bitcoin isn't an inflation hedge,\" it's about looking at what is the definition of inflation firstly, and obviously, as many Austrian economists have been talking about for a long time, they've always been looking at it as money supply inflation, and CPI is a different thing. So that's kind of the first thing that most people should understand. And then secondarily, as you were saying, is to look at what is the actual supply of money. Now, that's where I think things get more Into the weeds because there are different definitions, right? You have base money, there's M1, M2, there's Eurodollars, there's people think about our bonds considered, right? And so I think that, that's perhaps where the debate and the discussion goes as well. but I also noticed from the article there was an interesting example you made where you had two hypothetical societies, and do you wanna just explain that little example just as a concept for people to think about?" }, { "speaker": "steven_lubka", "time": "07:25", "start": 444.85, "text": "Yeah. Absolutely. So this is, I, I wrote this because I think it helps contextualize what we're really looking at, you know, of what causes CPI. So there's two examples here. In the first example, let's assume that, let's just say Saudi Arabia, let's say tomorrow Saudi Arabia stops producing oil and this huge amount of oil supply just goes totally offline. What would you see after that? You would see the price of energy shoot up, you'd see the price of manufacturing shoot up, you'd see the price of almost everything shoot up, because oil's kind of a, you know, a master resource, right? And with that, you're gonna see CPI, let's say, you know, that happens, CPI goes to fourteen percent or fifteen percent, right? We have this huge spike in CPI, but no money has been printed, there's been no monetary expansion, and, and, and, and so what's really happened is the- World has become less abundant in real terms. So like, in the world of actual stuff, of real economic activity, of like, the things that actually make our lives good and function, there's less abundance. We are poorer, right? Like, you know, if having more commodities and more abundance makes us richer, you know, a bunch of oil production going offline, the world has become poorer, right? And so we see a spike in CPI not because of any expansion, but because- As of like actually a, a physical tangible crisis. So that's scenario one, that's one way you can get CPI to fifteen percent. The other way you can get CPI to fifteen percent is, I, I, you know, I give an example of, you know, the MMT rebels take over the government and they say, okay, you know, we need to, we, you know, we need a better society, and the way we're gonna get there is we are gonna print our way there, and, they decide to give everybody two thousand dollars a month cash every month And so they create a huge amount of, additional money. And so this money goes into the economy, it increases people's purchasing power, they buy more goods and services, and you see the same thing. You see, you know, the prices of goods go up, you see the prices of energy goes up, 'cause now people wanna use more energy and we don't have more of it. You see the prices of food, all these things. And so let's say CPI also gets to fifteen percent. Maybe we get higher in that scenario, but, let's just say it also gets to fifteen percent. And so while the, the increase in money does, you know, I mean, there's not enough goods, right? There's a, there's a, there's an element where there is a shortage of physical things because people have more money to buy it. But, the, the dir- the directionality and like the way we get there is via monetary expansion. So you have two scenarios, both of them result in a CPI print of fifteen. 15%. But they're very different, right? One is because we have expanded the monetary base, which is kind of this, this abstract thing, right? It doesn't involve cars or oil or production or energy. It's just like the accounting system for the economy. We have, we've messed with the abstract accounting system. The other is incredibly physical and tangible, and all of the price increases we see from that are, you know, very, very driven by the real world And so my argument in looking at those two scenarios is that Bitcoin protects investors from the monetary expansion scenario, because Bitcoin is a monetary good. And so when they mess with the supply of money, Bitcoin as a fixed monetary commodity and, and, you know, pristine money and pristine collateral can increase with it. But when there's a crisis in the world and we become poorer as a civilization, that, that's not, that's not constructive for Bitcoin, and it also isn't constructive For gold. So I make the example that, you know, while people debate if, if Bitcoin's an inflation hedge, it's, it's commonly accepted that gold is, and yet we saw gold not do well in this supply-driven CPI crisis. So I think that backs it up as well." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "11:33", "start": 693.15, "text": "Yeah, I think that's a really useful thought experiment for people out there just to think about and understand the nuance of what's happening, because over the last, call it two or three years, we've seen Global shutdowns, we've seen a lot of examples of scenario one, right? We've seen shutdowns, forcible shutdowns, but in some cases, we've also seen a lot of government stimulus, we've seen a lot of governments taking out loans, we've seen a lot of, expansionary, monetary expansion at the same time. So I guess from your perspective, how do you, let's say, disentangle these two components because they're both happening at the same time?" }, { "speaker": "steven_lubka", "time": "12:12", "start": 732.07, "text": "Yeah, that's a great question, and this is, you know, doesn't necessarily mean that my view is right. These are tricky things to untangle. I, I don't think anyone can like draw a clean line and say, \"Okay, this, this part was money printing, this part was supply.\" But my basic model for looking at it is that When the, the big stimulus came out, so we do the stimulus checks and we do the PPP loans and we do QE, and then you see, asset prices start rising, you see Bitcoin start rising, and you also see CPI starting to head up. So that first kind of leg of CPI, increases, I, I'm, I'm, I would say is driven entirely by monetary expansion, stimulus checks, and then the direct effect of that money in the system stressing supply chains, right? So, you know, that, that tangible stress, well, that's driven by monetary expansion, not, you know, commodities going offline. So that first increase, a lot of the CPI we saw in the beginning and- And obviously we're still experiencing impacts from it today, was driven by monetary expansion, and that, and that follows very closely with a period where Bitcoin did very well. This was the bull run, this was the big increase, right? So Bitcoin performs well, you also see gold perform well, and you also see stocks perform well, which at this point have just become a liquidity proxy for monetary expansion in a lot of cases. But then what happens is you hit this other stage of CPI increases, and I would say this is mar- Marked by two things. One is, is the war, in Ukraine breaking out. Now, I wanna be very clear, I reject the notion that we can attribute all of the commodity shortages and, and energy stresses just to the war breaking out. Like, I view that as like the match that lit the fire, right? And, and the kindling that was built up was decades of underinvestment in, in energy production, decades of underinvestment in nuclear, in commodities, right? Like Like we, we set ourselves up for that weakness by our industrial and energy policies. So I'm not somebody that just like points the finger at Putin, but it is a scenario, and it is a very real scenario that set off this real shortage, this real lack of, Europe can't get enough natural gas, countries can't get enough fertilizer, right? There's not enough, o- you know, oil and refined petroleum products or stress. So you see the war break out, that, that really in- influences the supply of essential goods to the world economy. And then you also see the Fed flip into tightening mode, and you also see assets starting to go down. So at this point, the, the direction of monetary expansion has inverted, it starts to contract. And so you have the monetary supply contracting via money, via assets, via, you know, rates, and you also have like real commodities Going offline, yet CPI continues to head up. That part I look at as, again, you can't, it's not black and white, but more supply driven, more fundamentally, like fundamental economic disruptions, and much less coming from any sort of ongoing monetary expansion. In fact, there's a contraction." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "15:41", "start": 941.46, "text": "Right. And that, that is another complicating factor as well. So do you wanna just explain your view of the monetary contrac- traction that you were just mentioning there." }, { "speaker": "steven_lubka", "time": "15:51", "start": 951.44, "text": "Yeah. So there's a couple things here. So starting from the more traditional and accepted view, the Fed starts raising rates and tapers off QE, right? So there's, there's, you know, obviously decades of debate of is QE monetary expansion, people go back and forth on that. I'm, I'm gonna make the argument that actually I see stocks as a money, as a money substitute, and because QE, it recapitalizes the banks and all- Ultimately, that money flows into stocks and assets. So in my opinion, yes, it is monetary expansion. We'll, we'll, we'll get to that. But so you have QE and you have the raising of rates. So those are, well, the, sorry, you have the, the end of QE, you have it tapering down. And so in a very traditional lens, those are seeing the monetary expansion contract, you know, reverse and taper off. so that's one form where that, that comes in. but the other form is that in our Economy today. I, I, I take the stance that most of the appreciation, a lot of the appreciation in stocks and equities, also in homes, is essentially just driven by monetary expansion, more so than those companies becoming more productive of technological breakthroughs. You know, I would argue that growth, like real, real growth and innovation and advances in physics and advances in engineering Engineering, that, that has really kind of flatlined over the last fifty years. We've made very little tangible progress. and so, you know, the growth, the, the massive bull run we've seen in US equities, it's very difficult for me to attribute that to like fundamental economic progress. And, and if it's not driven by economic progress, then it's driven by monetary expansion. and so at this point, you know, stocks have essentially become a, a- Money substitute, which is, you know, a term from the Austrian school, where, you know, something that functions like money close enough becomes money. And, you know, I've made the example, like, let's say we were, we were conducting a real estate transaction, let's say you wanted to sell your great, you know, great spot in Dubai, and I wanted to buy it, and I said, \"You know what? You know, I'll buy it, I'll give you a five percent premium, but I'm paying in Apple shares. That's it. Like, That like, I'm not tricking you in some way, like I'm not like pulling off some sleight of hand. You're gonna accept it, you're not gonna be like, \"Oh no, like, those aren't good money.\" Like, you know, the Apple shares and Google shares and these things have come to function as the primary stores of value for most people in, in America and around the world, and basically function as money, right? And so when they go up in value, there is an increase in the money supply, there's an increase in, like, the actual Actual dollar denominated value that households, people, businesses own. and so if we accept that, you know, if we accept that view that, you know, stocks function as money, they're part of the money supply, and, and, you know, so if we accept that view, then this big decline, we see this huge drop off in the stock market, it's particularly bloody in, in tech, but, you know, the S&P goes down, I don't know what it is, it's twenty percent, but, that number's a- A little distorted because energy went up a lot and tech got killed, but most people didn't own energy, right? So, you know, the, the total decline in the S&P, I think it, it kind of underestimates that most people were in tech and very few people were in energy. So you get this big, you get this big decline in, essentially like dollar-denominated wealth. People own less dollar-denominated wealth via the stock market. And so this is a mon- Monetary contraction. So you have QE ending and going into QT, and you have rates rising, which slows the pace of lending and increases, you know, that interest that's getting paid. You can think of dollars being absorbed by the banks, and then you have the stock market falling off a cliff, and so all of these are monetary contraction." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "20:10", "start": 1210.03, "text": "Yeah. So I think, I, I think you're broadly right. I think I, I might slightly disagree a little bit that, say, the stocks are part of the money supply, but I think your point is still correct, right? Like, I think Put it this way, I don't consider Apple stocks part of the money supply, but I see other people are, right? So I think of it like in, in that way that, so I think some, some of the Austrian economists might kind of be more tight and strict about exactly what is money, because they may say, \"Well, is it immediately redeemable?\" But in this case, let's say it's Apple or it's Google or it's one of these very liquid tech stocks, and, you know, the home where buying and trading is, you know, some small, tiny fraction, Sell those stocks for, you know, some Bitcoin or some cash, which are then straight away turned into Bitcoin, then, okay, I could see that scenario, and I think the conclusion you're going at is right. I think the conclusion is that we are just seeing asset prices going, number go up, right? Because the fiat and the Keynesians have set up this world where they just believe, you know, the number has to go up, and they don't deal well when the number isn't going up, because now, you know, there are pensioners and people who are dependent On stocks and property number go up, and that's a very dangerous scenario for society to be in. So I think, and that's obviously part of our message as Bitcoiners, and we're trying to help explain this for people, so how do you explain that? So let's say you're talking to, a person who is maybe more advanced in their age and they have assets in, in the form of property and stocks, which is quite typical, how would you explain for them, you know, why they should consider- To Bitcoin. Yeah," }, { "speaker": "steven_lubka", "time": "21:50", "start": 1309.78, "text": "absolutely. And before I answer that, I just wanna say, I, I totally agree with you on, you know, like the definition of money. And, and that's actually why I use the word money substitute. Like, it's not really money, but it has the aroma of it, right? You know? So I, I, I agree with you. There's definitely- You, you can't really say it's literally money, depending on how you define it, but it, in practice, it, it, it walks and talks like money. so agree with you there. And then, and then on your question, right? So, I, I lead the Swan Private team for, Swan Bitcoin, and that's dealing with all of our high net worth, clients, companies, trusts, those sort of things. And so I've had the absolute pleasure of running that, that team for the last, year and a half or so. And, it's taught me a lot, like I've learned a lot doing it from interacting with all sorts of different people that are investing in Bitcoin, interested in investing in Bitcoin. And I think one of my biggest takeaways is that everyone's different. There's no one story, there's no one, angle, there's no one view of Bitcoin that like resonates with everybody. And everyone, I think, you know, there's maybe like four or five main reasons, but people get- Get into it for different reasons. For some people, they have a principled stance against the state control of the money supply. For other people, they just wanna protect their retirement value, right? Like it's just a very utilitarian, either I wanna protect it or even I wanna make it, I want it to go up. and those are, those are different people, and, you know, it's, it's not to say that one is right and the other is wrong. and so, you know, my, my presentation of Bitcoin, you know, it changes And so when I'm talking to someone, let's say I'm talking to a retiree, that's, it's a very different scenario, and I wanna be more conservative there, right? Like, you know, I think in the Bitcoin community, we can be very passionate and we can be willing to take, larger risks, right? Like larger percentages of our portfolio. And also, we're probably like, not a lot of us are retirees, like retirees are probably a smaller segment of like the people on Bitcoin Twitter, right? So there's a reality we're all so young, we have Living off our savings. But so, but so talking to a retiree, like, one, you need to be more conservative because that person is selling down their assets every month to pay bills. And so, you know, if you go all in Bitcoin, right? That means they're selling their Bitcoin at twenty-three K, like, and, and they, you know, maybe they bought it higher, right? So that, that doesn't work out like super well, right? They're, they're forced sellers every month. And so for, for a retiree, I think there's- It's a very strong argument that, like, you wanna keep some, you know, if, if your expenses are in dollars, like, you wanna have some either dollars or something lower volatility or something, you know, and le- at least until we start hitting really high inflation or there's a crisis in the faith of the dollar, like, you know, that changes, but, we're, we're not fully there. so I think a retiree, they need to have other assets, they need to have something that they can reliably sell- Sell down, let's say over the next five years to pay for living expenses while they hold their Bitcoin. And, you know, if they wanna start selling into their Bitcoin in five years or ten years to pay, you know, to, to pay for their retirement and their food and their, you know, housing, then I, you know, I think that's more reasonable. But they need to, they need to make sure they have other assets for the long term. And that's just being pragmatic here. And it's, you know, it kinda gets into more boring traditional portfolio construction stuff. So, You know, it's a, it's a different world, right, when you're living off your assets compared to living off your income. So those are, those are kind of my first thoughts." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "25:46", "start": 1546.29, "text": "Yeah, sure. how does it change then if we, let's say we're talking about, you know, a typical Swan Private customer, so probably someone who's a high net worth person, maybe they own a business, but l-let's say they're a little bit younger now, let's change the example, let's say they're, maybe they're a," }, { "speaker": "steven_lubka", "time": "26:04", "start": 1563.96, "text": "they're a Gen X More risk tolerance you have, like you can be more aggressive. Now we get into this interesting thing of actually like, how educated are you on Bitcoin? I, I'm a believer that like, if you don't understand Bitcoin very well and have, have at least a measure of risk tolerance, like, you're not gonna be able to handle holding it over like the swings, right? Like, it, you need to know what you hold. If, if your understanding of Bitcoin is Limited to like, I don't know, like, you know, my friend told me this would go up, so I'm putting some money in. You're gonna get shaken out on the volatility most likely, and you're gonna, you know, that's gonna be bad, right? That's gonna be a bad experience, and then it's gonna turn them against Bitcoin, and they're gonna think Bitcoin's bad, and then they're gonna make a no-coiner Twitter account, and then we're gonna fight with them. So, you know, it's important to me that people, they, they need to have the right experience. They need to have a, you know, a good experience. That doesn't mean Bitcoin doesn't go down or goes up tomorrow, but we need to set people up for, an allocation that, They, given their current level of understanding, their emotional temperament, and their risk tolerance, and their financial situations, can hold for the long run. And so if somebody comes in that like scores highly, right? Like they understand Bitcoin very well, they've got a lot of cash flow, they don't have a lot of fixed expenses, they've got a lot of savings, and, you know, they've got some money, like, you know, they'll be okay if they have to, like, you know, use other money for a few years, then that person can't afford- To be, I mean, I would say like as aggressive as they want to be, right? Like whatever, like if they wanna do a large allocation, they're very bullish on Bitcoin, like, like we are, and they understand what they're doing, then I think that's totally appropriate, right? It's sizing risk. And, you know, and, and that's the conversation right now, and there's, but there's a caveat, right? Like, there's a caveat that a lot of the reason a lot of us are into this is 'cause we think" }, { "speaker": "steven_lubka", "time": "28:14", "start": 1694.02, "text": "Like a system's failure that the, that the current financial system is facing. And again, I try to approach this in, in a measured way, where I do think, I do believe that the inevitable trajectory, unavoidable, is the dollar is gonna need to be inflated by at least thirty or forty percent to reduce the debt. I think there's a very high probability that the US Treasury stops being the reserve asset of the world. I think the dollar hangs in as the larger fiat currency for longer than most people think. I think the treasury gets replaced is the most likely scenario, and but eventually over a long enough time horizon, you know, the dollar, you, you know, can be replaced and hopefully by Bitcoin. But so that's the caveat is like, as we get closer to those cracks, as we get closer to that, you know, it's not one year of nine percent CPI, we've got nine percent CPI every year, then that changes. And And that changes, right? So, you know, I, I like to work with people where we are today and, and, and tailoring their investment strategy to their personal financial circumstances and everything else, and so that, that's kinda, that's the conversation right now, but, obviously, you know, if the dollar weakens and the system becomes, you know, more fragmented, which could be a very real possibility in the near term, I'm not, I'm not saying that that- Necessarily is a long, a long ways away. That, that advice changes." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "29:49", "start": 1788.84, "text": "Back to the show in a moment. Now it's time to drain the exchanges. 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Vaultage can help you out, whether you need to run a Bitcoin node, a Lightning node, or a BTC pay server node, Vault- Voltage can help you out, and they can make it really, really quick and simple for you. So, for example, if you are a Bitcoin builder, you can scale nodes instantly by the thousands. Now, if you wanna do Lightning and take payments as a merchant, you need to get some quality inbound liquidity, and Voltage can help you here. So, they just help you with all of these different aspects of running your Bitcoin and Lightning nodes. You can think of them like a sherpah, they guide you on that process. You can get your Bitcoin, Lightning, or BTC Pay node up and running in Voltage dot cloud. 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 whenever I'm about to send my transactions and I can quickly target my fee in this way. Mempool dot space is available over Tor and it's also completely open source, so you can even run your own mempool explorer on a Raspberry Pi with just one click. Over one million people use mempool Mempool dot space every month. This 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. And now back to the show with Steven. Yeah, for sure. And so, I'm curious then, from your point of view, are you getting the typical questions, things like, \"Oh, is the government gonna ban it?\" and things like that, or is the government gonna regulate it? I, I presume you're getting those kinds of questions. How do you normally handle that for clients? Yeah," }, { "speaker": "steven_lubka", "time": "32:13", "start": 1933.02, "text": "absolutely. Yeah, we get that question, I get that question all the time. So the short answer is I think that's very unlikely, right? So if we're gonna define like the government banning it as like Like this full frontal assault of like Bitcoin is illegal or something, you know, effectively like that, like you can't build on an OFAC like violating block or something, right? I think that's pretty unlikely. So first of all, my answer would be basically no, like low probability. But here's why. I don't have the right number 'cause I did this calculation when prices are higher, but, but the last time I did this calculation, I added up all the Bitcoin that Americans own that we can know about The value of all US Bitcoin linked equities, so the miners and, you know, part of Coinbase's valuation and, you know, just all the MicroStrategy, the funds, VC funds, you know, hedge funds that own Bitcoin in the US, right? So all of these like Bitcoin and Bitcoin proxies, these assets that would lose value if Bitcoin were to like go down. And at the time I did the calculation when prices are higher, I got something like six hundred billion dollars dollars of total American exposure to Bitcoin, and disproportionately, right? Like, like the wealthy and the powerful in, in, in America, like, they own, they own a good chunk of it, right? Like, it's not just, it's not just like, you know, lots of, lots of just normal hardworking people that own Bitcoin, but lots of people with political power own it too. and so there's the scenario that if the US government were to, like, try to go nuclear on Bitcoin, they're destroying a huge amount of American wealth. That not only like is a big hole in the system, but is enormously politically unpopular. You're just like, so many people own some Bitcoin in America now, so it's, it's enormously politically unpopular. like the current administration, for example, is polling extremely low. Like, you know, they're, they're already really concerned about reelection, and, you know, the thought that they're gonna do this thing that pisses off like a huge amount of people in this country and destroys a huge amount of American wealth, I- I think is pretty unlikely. and then you also have kind of the views of government, right? Where like, you know, the government's not a monolith. Not everybody in, in government hates Bitcoin. You know, you've got, obviously Senator Lummis, you've got other senators that have, you know, fought for it. And with, with this comes, there's tension and there, there's, there's not, you know, there's, there's defenders. Bitcoin has defenders in, in Washington, and there's lobbying firms And there's all these big, you know, funds. And, and I think we saw this play out in a real way, right, during the infrastructure bill. So this was, this was a little while ago for those that maybe weren't around for this, but during the COVID infrastructure bill, they snuck in some like Bitcoin legislation at the last minute. And I think that the view at that time was that, oh, like the government can kinda do whatever it wants. If they wanna regulate Bitcoin, they're gonna regulate Bitcoin. And instead, what happens is- There is uproar, there is just total political pandemonium, like there is chaos. The senators are banding together, they're, they're freezing the discussions, they're educating Congress on proof of work. There's fifty thousand phone calls coming in to people's representatives. The entire bill got stalled for like two weeks over-- I'm not saying it's insignificant, but it was nothing close to a ban, right? Like it was like tax reporting. Like the biggest problem with it was that miners Just like technically can't comply, 'cause they don't have the information. But I don't think the government knew that, I think they just didn't understand Bitcoin. And so basically it was like, \"Hey, give us more tax information,\" which is very different from like, \"We're banning Bitcoin.\" And even that, it got totally waylaid and pushed back against. Janet Yellen was forced to make a statement in favor of proof of work, which was kind of crazy, like she had-- she expressed formal support for the proof of work protection bill, not, that's not what it was protected, it was an amendment that protected proof of work. and so we saw like some very tangible statements, and we saw this political game theory like play out in a real way. And, you know, ultimately the bill passed because of like a, it was like a weird technicality, they're working on it right now, but, but they had support for the amendment. The, basically the amendment would have passed if there wasn't this weird arcane rule where like if a single person objected to it, it didn't go through. So it didn't pass on a- Technicality, but it did have popular support. And looking at that to me, I think that was like a, like a precursor for, kind of Bitcoin's immune system in, in Congress, Bitcoin's immune system in the US, which acted very well." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "37:12", "start": 2231.68, "text": "I see, yeah. And so on a related topic is all the energy stuff, which I'm sure that's also, coming up as well. So people seem to continually be raising this whole question around energy usage, and I know energy is definitely, one of your hobby-horse issues also to talk about and think about and reason about. So do you want to firstly give us your thoughts on that whole question, like how would you, if you had to give a short answer for somebody who's asking you that question, oh, what, why doesn't Bitcoin use all this energy? Energy, what's your sort of go-to answer there?" }, { "speaker": "steven_lubka", "time": "37:45", "start": 2264.88, "text": "Yeah, I, yeah, I'm definitely an energy hobbyist. I, which, which I credit to Bitcoin, right? This is one of those cool things about Bitcoin. I knew nothing about energy, and in order to respond to the criticisms that, you know, get hurled at Bitcoin, I was like, I need to really learn about energy more, 'cause I was working off like just very wrong priors, you know, like a lot of people. energy is a very politically charged topic. Right now. And, I believed a lot of that stuff, like those were my assumptions too, just, you know, not, not looking into it too much. And Bitcoin, I have to credit Bitcoin with it got me incredibly interested, and I've spent kind of years studying energy now. It's one of my favorite topics, and not only is it relevant to Bitcoin, but I think it's like the most important thing for human civilization too, like it just is a master resource that governs so much of what we do and the quality of lives, quality of life that people live. But, Answer the Bitcoin question. So first of all, so traditionally, let me, let me, okay, so first of all, the way the Bitcoin energy question is normally answered, and there are people that have done a very good job with it, we've all read, you know, Nick Carter was like the Coindesk champion for years writing all the energy articles and, tons of other people and Saylor and the Bitcoin Mining Council, so it's been tackled from a lot of angles, and those angles have primarily been, actually Bitcoin, like, I'll- A large, large percentage of mining is basically zero carbon, right? Like, you know, and so to, to piece it apart, why does-- Why is Bitcoin's energy a problem to critics? Well, it's carbon, right? Like, essentially what they're arguing is like, it emits carbon. so, you know, if the energy didn't emit carbon, then it, it-- Why, they shouldn't have a problem with it. They might still, 'cause they believe in like degrowth, but, but they shouldn't. So what we're looking at is like, That's hydro, whether that's solar and wind, or whether that's waste energy, which is like just any form of energy that had been produced and then was just gonna be discarded. And this includes methane, right? Like, so when they do the methane mining, well, that's actually like negative carbon, like, weirdly enough, probably a whole other topic. But, so it's been addressed from that angle. It's also been addressed from the angle that like Bitcoin uses like point one percent of global energy use or something minuscule. It's been addressed from the- The angle that, like, washing and drying machines use more energy, and it's also been addressed from the angle that the energy consumption is worth it, right? It's just like, Bitcoin's valuable, it's worth it, like, it doesn't, it's okay if it uses energy. And so people have done very thorough jobs on this. What I like to discuss is that Bitcoin's energy consumption is good because it causes us to use more energy, and using more energy is good. And I, I think this This is true for, right? So there's kind of two camps of people in the world today. There are the people who are primarily focused on, let's just say, climate issues, and there are the people who are primarily focused on like human wellbeing and economic growth, right? And my argument is that actually more energy use is good for both of those camps, regardless of which one you, you, you are in. obviously it's very clear for the economic growth and human wellbeing people because more- More energy, more abundance, better society, better control over our environments, right? So that's simple. but why is more energy good for the climate camp? And the way I've answered this, and I've got an article that's coming up soon on it, is that, so there's this great guy, C- César Hidalgo, and he's a researcher in this field called economic complexity, and he has this really awesome view on human knowledge, and basically he makes the argument that there is- Like a, like a categorical difference between the sort of knowledge that is like in books and can be taught in universities and what he calls productive knowledge or process knowledge, which essentially means like the things we learn by doing, like that we can only learn by doing, like riding a bike, for example, is productive knowledge, right? You can't read a book on riding a bike and do it. But in the same way, I would make the example of like, you don't wanna have your nuclear power Power plants run by PhDs, like only PhDs and nobody who's ever worked in a nuclear power plant, right? Like no matter how smart they are on the science of nuclear technology and energy, they don't know how to run the power plant. There is productive knowledge there. And so- In that, we, we, we come to the conclusion that the only way to get better at energy is to produce energy, right? Like we have to actually do it to get better at it. And so regardless of whether you think we should be doing nuclear power or we should be doing solar and wind or even some people think we should just do more fossil fuels and grow, the only way we're gonna improve our energy technology is by producing more of it. And the great thing about Bitcoin is that because Because of the difficulty adjustment and the economics of mining, Bitcoin provides capital to the most efficient energy producers. So whoever can produce energy the cheapest, boom, there go the miners. And so if you're in the climate camp and you think renewables are like, you know, God's gift to, to humans, and you think it's the cheapest energy, then that's what Bitcoin's gonna use, like it's a foregone conclusion in your, your worldview. Like if it actually is the cheapest, then that's what- Miners are gonna use, and it means they're gonna funnel capital into those energy resources, which we're gonna get better and better at making them and running them and producing them. And, whether that's true or not, whether, whether that's true of renewables or maybe we should be doing nuclear, I'm obviously, I'm kind of a nuclear fan, getting better at controlling energy, it gives us more control over our environmental impact. And the only way you can get around this fundamental situation is to say, \"Well, we're just gonna- Going to use less energy. And I don't believe that works. I think that is essentially an, an, an academic utopian pipe dream, right? Like, I, I think it's politically impossible. I don't think people will ever accept it. And I think it, it doesn't work. Like, the road forward is to become better masters of energy and learn how to produce it cheaply, efficiently, and with minimal environmental impact." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "44:26", "start": 2666.01, "text": "Right. And I think the world is slowly having to learn that lesson in some- Some ways, because for some time, people have just been saying and just saying whatever delusional ideas they had in their minds, and so they'll say, \"Oh, look, net zero,\" and, and, you know, perhaps, fine, to their credit, they might think of it like, \"Oh, like I'm, obviously, I disagree with so-called renewables or unreliables, as Alex Epstein calls them,\" but, even on their own terms, like some of them might theoretically think, \"Oh, yeah, we're just gonna get so good at, you know productively in that way. But I think in practice, what's happened is, you know, we've seen this massive unreliability and we're seeing en- energy prices skyrocketing around the world, and particularly in, in Europe and, and other places around the world too. and so we're seeing, in some sense, many of these countries and politicians are having to wake up to reality. They can't just kind of say these nice-sounding things, now they actually have to deliver. And I think to your point It's they have to have productive knowledge." }, { "speaker": "steven_lubka", "time": "45:32", "start": 2732.21, "text": "Yes, absolutely. And, and we're on the same page, right? Like, I, that is, that is my personal view too. I think Europe is, case in point, right? Like, you had, you know, Germany is the most vulnerable coun-country in Europe right now from an energy perspective, and they're the country that pushed renewables the hardest. Like, you know, the proof is in the pudding. They, they embedded structural reliance on natural gas into the safety of their people. Like, I- I, I, my personal view is that nuclear is the only viable zero carbon energy technology besides hydro, but you can't, you can only build hydro sometimes. I think the world would be better off if we did almost all of our baseload power from nuclear. So, yeah, I, I'm, I'm, I'm critical, I'm critical of renewables, but, my, my point to people that disagree with me is even, even if you disagree with me, Bitcoin is good and using more energy is good. And the proof will be in what wins out. Like, we're, we're gonna see what works, and hopefully, we're gonna learn that without too much human suffering, which is what we're seeing now, and is the, the price of bad energy policy, like it's a human price. And I think that people who, don't place enough seriousness on the drawbacks and consequences of different energy policies, they don't take that into account enough, and they- They, they, they, man, I just think there's, there's a real, there's a real overestimation of the scale, pace, and magnitude of human suffering that will come from climate compared to The damage that will come from wrong energy policies. The wrong energy policies are immediate, they're near term, and they're bad. And we sh- I think we should take this debate, much more seriously, because I feel that the main problem is that there isn't open debate, right? Like, like the debate has been kind of like, you know, captured within a certain academic boundary of permissibility of what you're allowed to support or say, and it makes it very difficult for anyone who disagrees with, like, the renewable batteries, like, structure to say, \"Hey, wait a minute, like, there's some problems with this. Like, why aren't we doing nuclear? Why aren't we, like, or, you know, why aren't we okay with Africa using more fossil fuels because, like, they're still fighting for economic stability?\" Like, and those discussions are very hard to have, and whether they're right or wrong Like, you know, that, that, that's, that's kind of my argument to people is like, you don't have to agree with my conclusions, but you should agree with the right and the value for us to discuss them." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "48:25", "start": 2904.88, "text": "Yeah, absolutely. And, on this topic, I'm looking forward to meeting Alex Epstein. He'll be at Pacific Bitcoin, so, so listeners check that out. That'll be in, in LA, November 10th and 11th. So, Pacific Bitcoin dot com, just while we, while we're here. and I want to also just kind of switch a little bit back to the macro aspects of it. So kind of where are we going from here? Because, you know, we started the conversation today, today, today about inflation, monetary supply inflation versus kind of supply blocked inflation, let's call it. So what's your, I guess, if you had to sort of look at what's the likely case, what's the likely outlook from here over the short to medium term, what are you looking at going forward?" }, { "speaker": "steven_lubka", "time": "49:12", "start": 2951.57, "text": "Yeah. So my base case Case is that I think the Fed is more trapped than most traditional commentators think, right? I think there's this traditional view where the Fed can kinda do whatever they want, they're in charge, they can raise rates as high or as low as they want, and it's like real economic growth and earnings and that's gonna drive everything. And, you know, that's maybe true over very, very short time periods, but I, I think the thing they miss, and I gotta shout out- Luke Grohman, because he's probably been the largest advocate and clearest communicator of this, so definitely shaped my views. But what they don't take into account is the debt. We are at, I think it's like a, I don't know, it's changed, but like a hundred and thirty percent debt to GDP. Actually, we did a, we did a private interview with Lynn Alden last night, and she said if you take household debt into account, we're at three hundred and seventy percent debt to GDP, and well, private sector, companies and household, which I'd And like, you know, wow. But even just the government debt, hundred twenty, hundred thirty debt to GDP. when you look back, people will keep referencing the '70s and like, \"Oh, well, you know, Volcker was a, you know, total badass, and, you know, he just really crushed inflation and raised rates.\" Debt to GDP was a fraction. I think it-- I don't, this isn't the right number, but I think it was like thirty percent, something like that. It was, it was, you know, multiples lower. And that" }, { "speaker": "steven_lubka", "time": "50:45", "start": 3044.6, "text": "So more financialized, and one way this shows up is that almost all growth in consumer spendings is essentially attributable to capital gains, right? So like assets going up is a huge proportion of, the money that people spend into the economy. And so the flip side of that is when assets go down, spending falls off a cliff, which means tax receipts fall off a cliff, right? And so you have this scenario Where just on a very baseline level, the US has to pay out a certain amount of money every month to keep Social Security, Medicare going, to keep the army operating, and to pay interest on its debt. And so as the Fed raises rates, not only does the interest expense go up because it has to keep borrowing at higher rates, there's, there's a maturities kind of curve, so it doesn't happen immediately, but it starts to happen. But also as they raise rates, assets go down Down, which means tax receipts fall. And so you have this like dance between tax receipts and spending. And the, the challenge of raising interest rates is spending goes up and tax receipts go down. And at a certain point, the US can't pay its bills, and we don't have a lot of buffer, right? Like, like the buffer is really thin, like our tax receipts barely cover our expenses, and that includes no spending packages, right? Like that- That includes nothing additional, those are just entitlements, defense, and interest. And so the moment we get to a negative kind of balance there, the Fed has to print the difference, that's the only way. So the moment that is like our tax receipts are lower than our spending, the Fed's essentially gotta finance the deficit, which is printing money, right? Which is like, I don't care what rates are at, the moment they're printing money, they're printing money, and we're, you know, they've essentially been invalidated in a sense. So I'm skeptical. I, you know, that argument I think has held a lot of, i-is a very solid argument to me. And there's even probably more uncertainties of like other things that would break, right? Like the global financial system is so complex at this point that nobody understands everything. There's no human alive that understands the whole thing. And so there is this kind of, it's a little bit of like a hand-wavy argument of like, \"Well, something's gonna break. Well, what is that something? I don't know, but it'll happen.\" and, and that, that kinda seems weak, but it's also kinda true. and I think it, it is true, right? Like, there's so many dependencies and so much complexity that, you really can't-- you know, interest rates have basically done nothing but go down over the last fifty years. There's been small jumps up, And it's just down. And, trying to reverse that and have like a consistent federal funds rate of five or six percent, which would still be below inflation, it would still be like a negative real yield, assuming inflation stays where it is, I think it's just very unsustainable. and Lynn, Lynn made this comment too, when we spoke the other day, that like we can't have positive real yields. Like wherever, wherever it goes, the bottom line Is basically, basically we can't, it's gotta be negative, so the interest rate has gotta be below inflation. So, I mean, if inflation goes up to fifteen percent, okay, maybe they can take rates up. If it comes down, you know, maybe they're, they gotta lower. But, all that to say, all that to say that I think the Fed is relatively trapped. I don't believe that they can fully get inflation under control. I think inflation will be with us for a decade, and, and not just consumer price inflation But monetary expansion, which is the relevant point for Bitcoin investors, I think money will need to be printed, there will be expansion, and ultimately to keep the country running at this stage of financialization, asset prices must go up over the long term. Like bottom line. So, you know, does this downturn last for another six months? I don't know. You know, maybe, maybe not. Maybe we've already bottomed. But can it persist for years?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "55:07", "start": 3306.81, "text": "No. I, I think that makes a lot of sense. And ultimately, as you say, the Fed and central banks and governments around the world are basically painting themselves into a corner with, with, with the conditions that you, as you've just outlined, they have high government debt in many governments around the world. They have all these issues, and they- in a sense, putting populations into what's called financial repression, because they're putting, yes, the interest rates, you know, down so low, while at the same time, inflation is so high, so most people, if they just leave their money in the bank account, or if they leave their money in bonds, they are just losing purchasing power over time. And so, what better case for Bitcoin could there be? Of course, there will be short-term movements, and of course, yes, I understand right now, people can laugh at us and say, \"Oh, look, see," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "55:55", "start": 3354.7, "text": "Is it twenty-one thousand? Haha. But I really think it takes zooming out to really understand that Bitcoin right now is, is a small market, and that's actually a bullish thing. That's, we should be bullish because of that, because it's still early days. So I think that's probably where I would, I guess, summarize where things are at. But, any final closing thoughts there for the listeners, Steven?" }, { "speaker": "steven_lubka", "time": "56:16", "start": 3376.14, "text": "On the macro topic?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "56:17", "start": 3377.29, "text": "Yeah." }, { "speaker": "steven_lubka", "time": "56:18", "start": 3377.71, "text": "Yeah, I, I think, I think the closing thought is just, these are great prices. Like, I, I really believe these are value prices for Bitcoin. Buy it in a way that's consistent with your personal financial situation, your income, your savings, right? But, but these are great prices to be accumulating Bitcoin. I'm deploying capital here, and, you know, it's, that, that's what we help people do at Swan Private. So if you wanna talk about that, if you wanna have a discussion and- And evaluate your personal, you know, how to, how to balance the Bitcoin investment. That's what I do all day, that's what we do all day at Swan Private. But our view is, these are great prices. The, the long term conviction in Bitcoin hasn't changed. And actually, I think that's one of the more interesting things, right? Like, you know, you and I were both here during the twenty eighteen bear market, and the thing that I would say was the most different then is like, maybe you weren't, but a lot of people were seriously doubting whether- Bitcoin was gonna succeed or fail. It was like an existential, like, \"Oh my God, maybe this thing is like bullshit, like maybe it's just gonna fail.\" there was real worry and concern over the future and fate of Bitcoin in twenty eighteen, and one thing I will say, in today, in twenty twenty-two, in twenty twenty-one, that's not how, that's not how it is. I, I, I rarely, rarely talk to somebody who thinks that this downturn is evidence of Bitcoin's failure. They just see it as like, \"Yeah, but...\" Prices are down, it's a tough macro environment, like, you know, there's these cycles, but compared to 2018, very few people are questioning the long-term prospects of Bitcoin. And, Not just not questioning, but I think people are, you know, obviously, it, it, it, you know, no one wants to ride an asset down sixty or seventy percent, but, people, I think, are a lot less troubled, right? There might be anxiety over losing money, but as far as like, is the government gonna have to print money? Is the money supply gonna be expanded? Is there gonna be increasing financial repression around the world? Yeah, and so you need Bitcoin, right? Like it's, and so- I think that's something I take, I, I think is a, maybe it could be a comfort to investors, right? Maybe for people listening that weren't here in twenty eighteen or in previous cycles, it's a notable difference, and I think it reflects the growth and solidity of, of, of Bitcoin, like how solid the market has become and how much capital has come to it, the infrastructure that's been built. There's so much infrastructure today around Bitcoin that wasn't there previously. So, I'm proud of the growth of the asset, I'm proud of what the community has accomplished, and, yeah, and maybe just one more thing for the listeners. So, by, by, you know, I, I'm, I'm kind of, you know, I'm, I'm fortunate based on my position that I get to talk with sophisticated investors, every day. I've talked to thousands of, high net worth investors that have been putting capital in Bitcoin, and by virtue of doing that, I've, I've gotten to see certain things that aren't visible on the surface, but what's really cool to me, based on my conversations, is I'm just, I'm just constantly in conversations with CEOs, with people from Wall Street, lawyers, accountants, doctors, founders, entrepreneurs. There's so many people from across the world, internationally, from within the country, from different industries, highly sophisticated investors, highly sophisticated, brilliant people, right, that are deploying their capital into Bitcoin, right? Like it's, it's not just like- Like, you know, a bunch of like iconoclasts on Twitter that are like trying to fight the state, like, you know, yes, like that's part of Bitcoin's DNA, but, at this point, it's become-- it's so broad, so many people from across all walks of life and even all political spectrums are, are, are investing in Bitcoin today, and, and that's really encouraging to see, right? Because I'm of the opinion that, like, if Bitcoin is to become money, like, like global money Global money isn't political, it isn't ideological, right? It's like, it's not just like only used by one type of person. That's not a global money. Like a global money is something that is used by everyone, and that's what I'm seeing Bitcoin become. I'm seeing it grow from like, yeah, like its birth and its start and its passion was people that, like, they were very specific sorts of people that had the, the constitution and the willpower to try to drive this thing. But I'm in- Encouraged now to see all sorts of people now getting into this, storing their capital in Bitcoin, and, you know, just seeing the value in what, everyone that came before us worked so hard to build." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:01:10", "start": 3670.16, "text": "Yeah, I, I think, it's really interesting you mentioned the point as well around, I, I mean, I largely agree with what you're saying, and it's interesting the point you mentioned about how twenty eighteen, for some people, was the moment where they thought, \"Oh, Bitcoin is, yeah, is it dead?\" kind of thing. Now for But I sort of, oh, I had that kind of gut check moment, was twenty fourteen, fifteen cycle, right, Len? It was like, oh, right. and look, Bitcoin has had multiple eighty percent drawdowns in its history. In two thousand and twelve, it had two, and twenty thirteen, it had one after twenty eighteen, and this one that we've seen, I think peaked to trough so far from sixty nine to seventeen thousand or so, was about seventy five percent. So the way I would explain it for people is, look, it's been through eighty percent drops before That, you know, but to, to the point you're making is you have to zoom out and look at, well, governments have to print money. There's just not an easy way around this, right? They're either going to default or they're going to print money, and in either scenario, it's bullish for Bitcoin. So that's, that's how I'm seeing it. but that's probably a good spot to finish up. So listeners, make sure you follow Steven. you can find him on Twitter. His handle is at, at, how do you pronounce" }, { "speaker": "steven_lubka", "time": "01:02:19", "start": 3739.91, "text": "this?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:02:29", "start": 3749.39, "text": "Gotcha, Zambala Hodel, and of course, swanprivate dot com is where people can find Swan Private. So Steven, thank you for joining me, and I had a great time chatting." }, { "speaker": "steven_lubka", "time": "01:02:37", "start": 3757.16, "text": "I hope to see all you guys at Pacific Bitcoin, I'll be there all week before the conference, would love to get together, it's gonna be great. Stefan, I've had an awesome time talking, thank you." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:02:46", "start": 3766.75, "text": "Just a quick note before we finish up, the episodes over the next few weeks might be a little bit slower as I'm traveling. I'll be over in Austin for Bitcoin Boom coming up, and then straight after that, over to Riga for Baltic Honey Badger. So I'm looking forward to seeing a bunch of Bitcoiners, and, hope you all enjoy yourselves out there. Get the show notes at stephanelivera.com for the show. Thanks for listening, I'll see you in the citadels." } ] }