{ "episodeId": "SLP49", "speakers": { "stephan": { "name": "Stephan Livera", "role": "host", "tag": "STEPHAN" }, "marty_bent": { "name": "Marty Bent", "role": "guest", "tag": "MARTY" } }, "segments": [ { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "00:10", "start": 9.91, "text": "Welcome to the Stephan Livera podcast focused on Bitcoin and Austrian economics. Join me as I interview the best and brightest Bitcoiners and people doing interesting things in Bitcoin. This is episode forty nine with Marty Bent. Marty is the editor in chief of Marty's Bent, a daily email newsletter focused on Bitcoin, and he is also the host of Tails. From the Crypt, one of the top Bitcoin podcasts. Here's my chat with Marty. Marty, welcome to the show. It's been a while, and I've been wanting to get you on." }, { "speaker": "marty_bent", "time": "00:39", "start": 39.39, "text": "Stephan, thanks for having me. very happy to be here. Appreciate the invite. Looking forward to this conversation very much." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "00:47", "start": 46.75, "text": "Yeah, look, I think to some extent, I think, you know, you've, you've made a lot of really good content in this space, obviously with Marty Bent, the newsletter, and obviously with Tales from the Crypt, both the interview series and the rabbit hole A great weekly ongoing, perspective on Bitcoin. so to some extent, it's a bit of a, you know, Bitcoin podcast worlds collide with this episode, but, I thought it'd be great to get you on and get your point of view on partly how you curate good material in this space, because it is like a firehose, and you just, you just, you just have to try and find the good material and give that more of a focus in your material. So maybe I'll throw it over to you there." }, { "speaker": "marty_bent", "time": "01:30", "start": 90.14, "text": "Yeah, so, it's, it's a lot of data filtering, right? I am a Twitter freak. I've expounded upon this many times with Tales from the Crypt, but I've been sort of fine-tuning this list of Bitcoin and quote-unquote crypto personalities and analysts over the last five years. I think I started the list in like 2013. and I'm addicted to Twitter, so I'm, I have my tweet deck up, at all times, and then it's a Twitter for me is my, my sort of base from which I link out to outside sources, and the list that I've curated, has done a great job of providing great re-resources, so I think, for me personally, I've just, over the years, over the last five, six years almost, it's hard to believe it's been that long, sort of fine-tuning, the people I allow to feed me information on the space. And so for Marty's Bend in particular, a lot of the content I riff off of tweets that either, expound upon certain topics or link out to other good material on another website, whether it be Medium or some other blog or academic paper or something like that. And, and it honestly is, like, I said, the tagline of the Ben, it's what I found, what I found interesting over the last twenty-four hours in the Bitcoin world, and if it's interesting and, it piques my interest and, I, I, I'd like to share it with the freaks out there. So, always, yeah. And, and the other sort of mission of the Ben is to sort of, filter the signal through the noise. I know that's a very much repeated, phrase, \"Quote unquote space. but yeah, so I try to focus on things that maybe, like I never try to write about price, I don't, I don't focus on price at all, I try to focus on the development and sort of the, the de-decentralized and, anarcho-capitalist ethos that drives Bitcoin to sort of get people introduced to these ideas that, sort of- led to Bitcoin being created." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "03:37", "start": 216.84, "text": "Fantastic. Yeah, I think that's, that's a similar kind of approach in, in the way that I approach it as well. I mean, a lot of it comes from Twitter, but I guess another aspect is sometimes there's good stuff that's not even on Twitter or good people who aren't on Twitter, and that's, that's another interesting angle as well." }, { "speaker": "marty_bent", "time": "03:54", "start": 233.67, "text": "Yeah. That's a good point to make. So here in New York City, we have the BitDev Meetup, and most of the people that go to that Meetup probably aren't on Twitter. If they are, they're anonymous and lingers and not really contributors. And some of the best, most dense information I, I receive about Bitcoin is at that, that Meetup, the technical Meetup in particular. the, the people that curate and run that do an incredible job. You know where you're gonna get each time, but that's a very good point." }, { "speaker": "marty_bent", "time": "04:26", "start": 266.07, "text": "Twitter as a resource. I do like to go to these meetups in person and speak to people working on the protocol, have conversations with them and, and see how they, they view the space and they're approaching Bitcoin, and then beyond that yeah, there's this, the side, I mean, that's the, the other beautiful thing about Bitcoin, it's a very collaborative, project, so there's a bunch of slide, side channels, whether it be in Slack, Telegram Discord, Signal, name the messaging app, there's groups that you are either a part of or join, and a lot of, there's a lot of information sharing in there as well. And then, DMs and emails, so it can come from many sources. Twitter's my favorite, but it's definitely not the only one." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "05:07", "start": 306.87, "text": "Yeah, you're right. And I think the other way I see it is sometimes that person might not be on Twitter, but someone on Twitter might have linked to them, and then that might be how you find them." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "05:20", "start": 320.2, "text": "Find someone who has a really good perspective, but because if you're not a technical expert yourself, it may be difficult to understand how skilled they are on that particular topic as well. So." }, { "speaker": "marty_bent", "time": "05:31", "start": 331.04, "text": "Yeah. And that's why I particularly like the BitDOS meetup here in New York. They have the, the format of it is a Socratic forum, so it's a lot of people challenging ideas and openly discussing this in the open. It's not, it's not like a lecture format where somebody sits at the front of a room and tells you what's going on. It's very" }, { "speaker": "marty_bent", "time": "05:50", "start": 350.26, "text": "With the conversation and sort of driving it as well, so it's good to see smart people sort of combat ideas in person. And over time, I definitely can't contribute too much to the conversation, but I've been going for the last four or five years, and just via osmosis, I sort of get, things I probably otherwise wouldn't have if I didn't go to these, these meetups." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "06:09", "start": 369.14, "text": "Yeah, that's a great point as well. I think that's very, it's a great benefit of being in New York as well, because, the There's, let's just say there's a, there's a fair bit of shitcoining and blockchaining at some of the meetups here, so that's what I, I definitely use mostly online for my information." }, { "speaker": "marty_bent", "time": "06:28", "start": 387.87, "text": "I met, one of your compatriots in Miami earlier this week, and he was, he was expounding upon the same thing that, a lot of shitcoiners in, Sydney, he was happy to be surrounded by bitcoiners when he's in Miami." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "06:40", "start": 400.22, "text": "Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's definitely the case. I think the other" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "06:49", "start": 408.55, "text": "Things going, but what is it that distinguishes the good podcasts, or the great, you know, the great podcasts, from kind of the general volume of crypto podcasts out there?" }, { "speaker": "marty_bent", "time": "07:01", "start": 420.79, "text": "I think focus, that's what I try to do, tellers from the crypt, is focus on Bitcoin and Try to bring on quality guests and, and be consistent and not get swayed away by, the allure of what I would consider to be, projects that may not be as worthwhile of Bitcoin, but are sort of easy to, to pick, quote unquote, like crypto celebrities or influencers to come expound upon something else. and then on top of that, I think- I actually love the proliferation of podcasts in the Bitcoin space in particular, because each one has their own flavor, each one has their own voice and a different way of it Sort of connecting with a different crowd. So Stephan Livera's podcast may be, like really for a certain type of person whereas Tell Us From The Crypt may be for another, and it's just important that you have different sort of voices reaching different types of demographics." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "07:54", "start": 473.78, "text": "Different- Yeah, that's a great angle as well. Yeah, definitely." }, { "speaker": "marty_bent", "time": "07:57", "start": 477.0, "text": "But yeah, it is hard to find quality and there is so much content out there, so you do have to prioritize. So it is, it is, you do have to separate the wheat from the chaff. At some point." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "08:07", "start": 486.81, "text": "Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. And then what was-- I think it'd be good to get your, what was your motivation behind starting the podcast and, and then also starting the Rabbit Hole Recap?" }, { "speaker": "marty_bent", "time": "08:16", "start": 496.41, "text": "Yeah, so I think- I think we have to go back to Marty's Bent, the newsletter. So the newsletter started out about, like, it was May, or it was my birthday, I'm gonna dox myself a little bit here, it was around my birthday in, in 2017, and my parents were visiting Brooklyn, and we were at dinner, and, I was actually between jobs trying to become a product manager, and, really didn't have anything to prove that I could do product management or had like product knowledge, so, the- combination of that and the fact that I've been the Bitcoin guy in my family and friends group for the last five or six years, and that was right at the beginning of the, the price appreciation in twenty seventeen and that crazy bull market, so I had a bunch of texts and DMs and people reaching out like, \"Hey, what do I do? What do I do?\" And it got overwhelming at a point, I was like, \"Alright, I'm gonna start this newsletter, number one, to prove I have a product knowledge of Bitcoin and try to explain it to people, and then number It's been an iterative process of like, alright, people are liking the newsletter, but they want a little bit more, and, and it got to a point in the summer of twenty eighteen, Where I was to-talking, with, a guy from Barstool Sports, Louis Roberts, meeting up, he was into crypto and meet up and talk with him, and he was like, \"You should do a podcast, it's what people need.\" And I was like, \"Huh, maybe I should.\" And so that's, he sort of inserted that idea in my mind, and then, from there, again, trying to provide quality guests and help people get an understanding of Bitcoin and the, ethos behind it, and then Rabbit Hole" }, { "speaker": "marty_bent", "time": "09:57", "start": 596.96, "text": "Content, I want like a, I think a weekly show would be great. And Matt, luckily, lives around the corner from me, here in, here in Brooklyn, and we, we've met up many times outside of the podcast recorded last year, and I think we started it in September, so yeah, like this summer, I approached him and was like, \"Hey, people wanna do a weekly show? I think we can do it in person every week if you're, if you're down,\" and that's sort of how it started there." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "10:21", "start": 621.08, "text": "Yeah, that's fantastic. I, I, I like that, and I think this is a point I think many people have, have touched on, but really it's many people are often scratching their own itch. And, you know, personally for me, that was something that made me start the podcast as well, was just wanting, wanting more Bitcoin specific content and not kind of, oh, here's the next shitcoin of the week and here's blockchain of the week and whatever. A tokenizer of the week." }, { "speaker": "marty_bent", "time": "10:48", "start": 647.58, "text": "Right? No, and that's, and that, yeah, and that's the, yeah, and that's the other thing is, so the first decade of Bitcoin and this shitcoin explosion that's come in its wake, there's so much confusion and so much information to consume. So I think with the newsletter and the podcast sort of getting very concise, you know what you're gonna get when it, when you come to Marty's Bent Tail, some of the crew are gonna talk Bitcoin, Bitcoin specifically, and I think people really appreciate that focus again." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "11:16", "start": 675.82, "text": "Of, our, our good friend Bitstein, I, I think he came up with the term Scambrian explosion, which I love." }, { "speaker": "marty_bent", "time": "11:23", "start": 682.8, "text": "The Scambrian explosion. Bitstein's very good at memeing things into existence." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "11:27", "start": 686.59, "text": "Yeah, he is, he definitely is. okay, so then, that's kind of where we're at now. Do you have any thoughts in terms of the future of this kind of content? Is it going to professionalize?" }, { "speaker": "marty_bent", "time": "11:40", "start": 700.08, "text": "I, I, you sent me these questions earlier this week, and I was looking at them, and I'm like, to, to know as well, and I, I, I think so, 'cause I think the, the disdain with the mainstream media in today's day and ages, is getting to a point where it's allowing, grassroots, smaller content creators to sort of come up and, and, like you said, scratch an itch, like I'm not getting the information I want in the mainstream, so I might as well produce it, and what I think, Society in general, globally, people are waking up to is holy shit, we have these tools at our hands where we can be the media if we want to, and, it's so I do think there, it's not like, not a Scambrian explosion, but there will be, a podcast explosion or if it's not podcast, something similar, whatever it be, smaller content creators sort of scratching that itch of I'm not being, being provided the information. I would like to be, in the mainstream, so I'll go provide it to the market 'cause there's gotta be somebody else like me. And you can break that down, beyond Bitcoin, any subject, I saw somebody followed me today who does the number one nootropics podcast in the world, and it was like," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "12:50", "start": 769.54, "text": "\"That's, that's really like different worlds colliding, right?\" Yeah, exactly." }, { "speaker": "marty_bent", "time": "12:53", "start": 772.78, "text": "So it's, I do, I do think it, it is gonna grow. I don't know exactly what it's gonna look like, but, I" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "13:00", "start": 780.46, "text": "Yeah, right. And the other thing is, I think podcasting, it, like, now to people like us who are kind of very much online, we see a lot of new podcasts and a lot of new things get started. And then someone, you know, like us might think, \"Oh, well, how are people gonna find time to listen to all these podcasts?\" But I think the reality is, podcasting is actually still pretty early. It's massive in the US, but I think there's huge, growth opportunity for the, pretty much the rest of the world. to get into this sort of podcast material, and you're starting to see a lot more big companies even starting their own podcast, because they realize it's a good way for people to learn something, because they might not be able to watch a full video, but they, they might be cleaning or they might be on the bus or in the car or on the train, and they can just listen to a podcast, and they're happy to do that. I think that's a great, growth opportunity for podcasting." }, { "speaker": "marty_bent", "time": "13:56", "start": 836.04, "text": "Yeah, when you're working out, like, there's, like, the AirPods, what I'm, what I have on right now, like, the, the data's coming out that people are listening to more and more podcast, audiobooks, whatever it may be, because of the, the technology again. And One thing we probably should note too is, i-it's probably gonna drive competition for better information, right? Like, there could be a thousand Bitcoin podcasts, but that lights a fire under every one of those podcasters has to provide a good quality product, you know?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "14:23", "start": 863.46, "text": "Yeah, that's a great point as well. it definitely will kind of skew towards the people who, you know, provide the most kind of good quality succinct information or people who are good at entertaining, because I think that's another factor as well. People who are just good entertainers will have- Have a good audience. Definitely, yeah. Well, okay, so let's talk a little bit about Bitcoin's changing people. So, I think that's a topic you obviously touch on as well, and I think many of us believe that idea that Bitcoin will change us more than we change Bitcoin. So maybe touch on that topic a little bit, Marty." }, { "speaker": "marty_bent", "time": "15:00", "start": 899.54, "text": "Yeah, I mean, because Bitcoin, is sort of diametrically opposed to the monetary system and the, the, Society driven by conspicuous consumption that we've grown up in, at least I have, and it's a complete inversion to that and sort of flips the table of how you view money and, and sort of your future. it's sort of- Putting cash in a savings account, up until two thousand eight, wasn't really exciting for people. People weren't making that much money saving money, but now Bitcoin as a deflationary sort of sound money, Provides a savings vehicle where if you're, if you're frugal and, and low time preference and patient, over time your money could, could accrue in value and you can potentially buy more and, and, provide more in the future. And but that's not to say that you won't consume in the present, you'll just think, you'll just weigh the opportunity cost and, and, and, for me personally, I, always had that question when I'd rather- Go out and spend a hundred fifty dollars at the bar tonight, or that's an insane amount, I've never spent that much, but like, I'd rather go spend a hundred dollars at the bar tonight or buy Bitcoin with that and not be hungover tomorrow." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "16:16", "start": 976.3, "text": "Yeah, definitely changes, changes the game in terms of our choices that we make, the food we consume, the, the drinks we consume, the purchasing decisions we make. and then also how we save and how we invest for the future. Definitely." }, { "speaker": "marty_bent", "time": "16:31", "start": 990.66, "text": "Yeah. Like I had Yasin Elmandar on from, from Ark Invest, and he was explaining how when he first moved to New York, he looked for- The cheapest apartment he could find, and he wound up like in South Brooklyn and, and Red Hook, and was commuting an hour a day just so he could buy more Bitcoin." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "16:53", "start": 1012.55, "text": "Well, it's, I think it changes the game when you feel like you can, you can properly save for something as well, whereas in the past you might-- people might have felt a bit of despair that, okay, even if I put it in the bank account, well, it's-- I'm losing all this inflation money anyway." }, { "speaker": "marty_bent", "time": "17:08", "start": 1027.75, "text": "Yes, I mean that's the podcast I just, published yesterday with Bitcoin Tina with Richard. yeah, great episode, great episode. Thank you, but that's Sort of the driving topic of our conversation in that episode is, is Bitcoin, or excuse me, the current monetary system that we live under. He described it as dishonest money. We have a world of dishonest money, and like you said, it leads people to despair because they, they can't save for the future. We're, we're at a point in America in particular where I think- the, the stats are like sixty percent of Americans couldn't afford a four hundred dollar emergency if they needed to, and that's, that's a sort of fickle place for society to be on. Like it's sort of a society teetering on the edge of chaos where people can't- have the comfort of knowing that they can save for the future. It's a very important sort of comfort that we need as humans, I would argue, and, the ability to do that via Bitcoin, excuse me, via Bitcoin in the future, provides optimism, I would argue." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "18:09", "start": 1088.92, "text": "Yeah, definitely. I think that'd, that's a good topic as well to go on, is just comparing sort of the, the prior world or, you know, normal economics or what you might learn at, at university versus a more Bitcoin Austrian sort of view. So how-- in your view, what are some of the Big differences or hurdles that a norm-- that a normal person trained in standard university courses has to overcome to really grasp Bitcoin." }, { "speaker": "marty_bent", "time": "18:40", "start": 1120.36, "text": "I mean, I think the biggest hurdle is the university system and like because it- At least here in the states, and most, most of the universities here in the states, preach the, the, the gospel of neoliberalism, Keynesianism, and, they really don't teach other schools of thought. At least I, I studied economics, and really We didn't dive too much into Austrian theory or anything like that, it was strictly Keynesianism. so you, the biggest hurdle is you, you, you're sort of force-fed one particular viewpoint, one particular school of thought, and you have to go outside that system and seek out other schools of thought. And I just think, if you're not driven enough or if you think, a lot of people will just be naive and like, \"Hey, paying a lot of money for this education, it's probably right,\" like, \"This, the...\" These professors have gotten to this point and this university has gotten to this point with their, with their teaching must be right, so they probably don't even-- most, I would argue, don't even have the inclination to question whether or not what they're learning is, is worthwhile or, or the right school of thought." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "19:43", "start": 1182.82, "text": "Yeah, precisely. And I think it then, that drives certain behaviors in the rest of the finance world, because that's where they learned a lot of these things. And I think one example of that is just the colossal waste of time spent Fed watching." }, { "speaker": "marty_bent", "time": "20:01", "start": 1200.59, "text": "Fed watching, that was my career for three years. It's not fun. It's not fun at all. And, and, and, and, well, and that's the other thing, I don't, I don't understand how people can do it for more than three years and not be fed up, pun intended." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "20:16", "start": 1216.02, "text": "So tell, tell us a little bit more about Fed watching then. So what are some of the ways that you would spend time in the past when you were Fed watching versus now?" }, { "speaker": "marty_bent", "time": "20:26", "start": 1225.54, "text": "Yeah, so My job, I worked at a managed futures fund and, and we traded futures markets, obviously, and currencies being involved in that, treasuries as well. so my job, I, I wrote our commentaries, our weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly commentaries, so I was tasked with having to explain, why the markets moved against our fund position or, why the markets moved and why we were positioned, in certain ways within the fund. and part of that job was seeking out and waiting for, announcements from central banks around the world, particularly the Fed. The Fed obviously has the most, most clout in the world, at a central bank stage, so we'd be waiting for their, their Wednesday minute announcements that would come out, and you'd literally analyze, it'd be the same script for the most part, they would switch like four or five words, and the markets would react like accordi- quote unquote accordingly based on the changing of that words, and it's like a very vague, almost mis-mystical, control that the, these words that were coming out of the Fed meetings had on the markets, and it was like at time and time, and as time went on for three years, what you start to notice is that they'll set goals, forward-looking goals, and they'll never hit them, and, and then they'll, they'll just, they, they do hedonic adjustments and stuff like that, and it's just, consistency of logic or, or there's no, I would argue, no connection to reality at the end of the day. I, I would argue we've gotten that far away from reality. you got to a point where people were looking at Janet Yellen's coat color to, to see how she was thinking about the markets." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "22:07", "start": 1327.39, "text": "Yeah, like, you know, if, if it's red, that's like more aggressive and bullish, and, you know?" }, { "speaker": "marty_bent", "time": "22:13", "start": 1332.6, "text": "No, there's like quants in Connecticut who are writing algorithms, trading markets based off of information like, like that." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "22:21", "start": 1340.55, "text": "Yeah, that's insane. and I think it just-- it, they, it focuses people's minds and it trains them towards the wrong thing, right? It trains them to try and sort of read the tea leaves of what our masters in the central bank and so on are doing, rather than understanding what's actually going on in the real world." }, { "speaker": "marty_bent", "time": "22:40", "start": 1359.77, "text": "Yeah, and it, it- It's a, I've said this before, and sorry to be vulgar, but it's like, piss on your face and tell you it's raining situation, especially with like the hedonic adjustments and the adjustments of the CPI and the changing of the i-underlying variables of these metrics. It's all, it's all meant to sort of obscure the data so it looks like everything's peachy and rosy. But how can they honestly say there's been no inflation over the last two decades when you look at healthcare prices, education prices, housing prices here in the States in particular, it's- It's asinine, in my op- opinion. Education prices too, like to go to, go to school here in America, in particular, like the university system, it's way too expensive right now, and it's trickling down, like if the private schools here in America too, this isn't really talked about a mu- much, but, I was lucky enough to go to a private school on part scholarship, in Philly, when I went, it was like- It started out at seven thousand dollars a year, by the time I graduated it was tw- twelve thousand dollars a year, and now ten years later it's twenty-four thousand dollars. At a high school, it's ridiculous, and they're gonna say there's no inflation, that just fucking ain't hard and impossible to believe." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "23:44", "start": 1424.4, "text": "Yeah, it's ridiculous, and I think what, what's happened is this change of thought around what is inflation, and also the con- continual adjustments of what the CPI is, have led to just very nonsensical, outcomes in terms of like measure, you know, quote-unquote measuring inflation and saying, \"Oh, inflation this period was two percent or whatever.\" It just, it's not, an accurate way to, it's not The lived experience that you and I, you know, actual individuals face." }, { "speaker": "marty_bent", "time": "24:18", "start": 1458.09, "text": "Yeah, exactly. Again, going back to that one stat, sixty percent of Americans can't afford a four hundred dollar emergency fund or expense, excuse me. Like How did it, like, is it, are they, they're not able to, people aren't able to save? I might have lost words right now, Stefan. I get jacked up about that." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "24:35", "start": 1475.0, "text": "Well, I think that stat also reminds me, 'cause I've seen similar, some of those are in these, you know, these forums and subreddits around things like financial independence, right? So that's a bit of a movement now, and the, the whole thing around that is like, you should, you know, you, you use all these personal finance concepts such that you" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "24:56", "start": 1496.12, "text": "You to either be more financially independent or potentially retire early if that's your choice. And so in these forums, they often post those sort of statistics and say, \"Look, you know, most people in this forum might be into saving a high percentage of their income, but that isn't the general experience.\"" }, { "speaker": "marty_bent", "time": "25:15", "start": 1515.34, "text": "No, not at all. I mean, most people are living paycheck to paycheck, I don't, I don't even know, I would argue, yes, most people are living paycheck to paycheck and it's a, it's a weird situation we find ourselves in, especially in the information age and the exponential pace at which technology is growing has, has driven the price of production down to such a point where, the economy is becoming very specialized as well, if you, if you wanna make a lot of money. So there's, there's some tough conversations about how the pace of Of, the shitty monetary policies we have as well." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "25:48", "start": 1548.4, "text": "Yeah, yeah. I, I think the focus for me has often been what is the credit, the underlying money doing and changing our behavior, you know? So this might be considered the cultural consequences of fiat money, right? So here in Australia, there's actually an example of this company called Afterpay. And what this company, I think they are launching in the US as well, and essentially they are kind of like a modern version of LeBae, so basically they just extend credit to people who come in the store and they wanna buy a, a dress or a shirt or whatever, and a lot of their market is often kind of Like younger people who don't have a high income, but they really wanna buy some clothes or a TV or whatever, and they'll use Afterpay, and so this Afterpay thing here in Australia has been growing like just massively, but There are potentially questions to be raised around what quality of credit this company has, and is it just another thing waiting to blow up?" }, { "speaker": "marty_bent", "time": "26:45", "start": 1605.25, "text": "Yeah, we have that here in the States called layaway. I don't know how popular it is these days, but it's definitely around. But that is an interesting point, as like, it, how fast has that been growing?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "26:54", "start": 1613.76, "text": "Oh, it's been going like 100% a year or something crazy, like even more than that, right? And so that is a change in our behavior, or not my behavior, but many people," }, { "speaker": "marty_bent", "time": "27:02", "start": 1621.96, "text": "right? No, Hey, maybe, maybe things are getting, getting out of hand if everybody's having to take a loan to buy sort of necessity goods or, or what used to be, attainable goods for most of the economy. and yeah, and this is a- An amalgamation, I, I would argue, and I believe you would argue as well, of monetary policy tricking down into the, the tendencies of people. A lot of people don't like to admit this, but when you have, again, going back to Fed watching, like The markets hung on every word the Fed, the Fed was pushing out on a quarterly basis. So you're only thinking about that next meeting, you're not thinking two, three years ahead. That's all you're waiting for is that next meeting, and then, that trickles down, as, as inflation takes over and starts robbing people's purchasing power over time, and they have to live paycheck to paycheck, they're forced to go out and buy stuff they need to survive. So, and, and, and then, when everything's said and done, there's Left to either save or invest after that." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "28:03", "start": 1683.44, "text": "Yeah, definitely. And the other thing with, the whole Fed thing, and I think you were touching on this earlier, is around how they would say, \"Oh, we're definitely gonna raise the rates next quarter or in this time,\" but And then it was really funny 'cause you would see like, okay, sites like Zero Hedge or whatever, who would literally graph out when they said they were going to, and then when they actually did or didn't, rather. and it looked like the Medusa" }, { "speaker": "marty_bent", "time": "28:28", "start": 1707.53, "text": "chart they call it. Yeah. Yeah, they call it the Medusa chart 'cause it's a bunch of projections they make and they never hit it, so like the line just like- Squiggles up like next to each other. And it, it, it-- if you look at that chart, you say, \"How could these people have control over our monetary system? They're terrible at, at planning it, and or, or not even planning it, or trying to project the implications that the, the pulling of the levers that they do will have on the overall economy.\" They're terrible At predicting it. Yeah, exactly. And so I think, I think our buddy Parker Lewis actually did a great job of pointing this out in a paper, unfortunately it's private, but he, he wrote a paper called \"Ender's Game\" where he went back to the Fed minutes, the full Fed minutes are released four years after the meeting, so out. So he went back to every Fed meeting from like two thousand five to two thousand twelve or two thousand thirteen and basically tried to point out inconsistencies of, of what Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen were saying at particular points of time Amazing how, how little they, they were expecting, two thousand eight to affect the economy. I think in March of two thousand, seven, there was like a, a mini housing, it might have been March of two thousand seven or two thousand eight, there was like a, a five percent drop in the S&P because it's, a tremor in the housing market, and Ben Bernanke came out and said, the effect of a housing market, Bear market right now would probably have like a fifty billion dollar effect on the, on the economy, it turned out to be five trillion dollars, so it was off by an order of magnitude. And, and these are the people that have the keys to our money, and, and I think people are starting to wake up to the, to the fact that, hey, money's pretty, pretty fucking important, maybe we should, we should start having discussions about, about this and, and maybe central bank, the central bank, system that we have right now isn't, isn't most advantageous for us as a society." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "30:22", "start": 1821.76, "text": "Yeah, definitely. And maybe you wanna comment on, you know, those cases where they had to try and justify or rationalize why- Why they didn't raise rates? What sort of justifications did they offer?" }, { "speaker": "marty_bent", "time": "30:33", "start": 1833.07, "text": "It's like we haven't hit the target yet." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "30:34", "start": 1834.45, "text": "Yeah." }, { "speaker": "marty_bent", "time": "30:35", "start": 1834.81, "text": "That was always their justification. It's like we haven't hit the target." }, { "speaker": "marty_bent", "time": "30:40", "start": 1839.84, "text": "I can't think of anything specific off the top of my mind right now, but it, it, it's- I try to keep it simple, stupid, and they, they beat around the bush and simply, they could, oh, we couldn't hit the target, we're not ready yet, and it, it really what they're looking at is the stock market and where that's going. I think that drives a lot of what their policy does." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "30:59", "start": 1858.61, "text": "Yeah." }, { "speaker": "marty_bent", "time": "30:59", "start": 1859.16, "text": "Yeah. But they won't admit that." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "31:01", "start": 1861.18, "text": "Okay, how about, deflation? Very commonly misunderstood topic, if you compare kind of people living and working or thinking in the mainstream economic way, versus a more Austrian understanding." }, { "speaker": "marty_bent", "time": "31:16", "start": 1875.86, "text": "Yeah, I mean, deflation is the bogeyman of, of the Keynesian world. You can never have deflation, but just, again, it w- I think you have to approach it from, a human perspective, and a common sense perspective. deflation, in my opinion, if your money is, increasing your purchasing power over time because you are, are willing to be low time preference and, and save, save away some acorns, that makes sense. Like, it, it makes sense that your, your hard work and your time should, should be, should be rewarded. And, and, in our current system, it, it- It, it's not, like you said, we, we live in a society of conspicuous consumption, so, I guess the biggest knock on deflation is, is that people won't spend, money in the fut- in the present, thinking that their money will appreciate value if they hold it, but that's just not true. People have needs, people have wants, people are gonna spend their money, these are just personal decisions. People have to eat. and, they're going to spend their Bitcoin or whatever sound currency to make that happen, and then-" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "32:25", "start": 1944.63, "text": "Sure. And I think that is touching on the deflationary impact in terms of our future spending. And then the other commonly misunderstood one is the con- what we might call a conflation of two different concepts, which is one of them being, you know, a like bank credit deflation, right? Like the bubble pop- Hopping, so to speak, versus the beneficial deflation, which is like a growth deflation, like the price of things coming down over time. And people use the same word deflation for those two concepts. Do you wanna con-con-comment on that?" }, { "speaker": "marty_bent", "time": "32:58", "start": 1978.5, "text": "Yeah, yeah, there is, you have to delineate, and that's something, Richard and I were talking about yesterday too. You, you, people are comparing the balance sheets of governments to the balance sheets of, of, of individuals, and that's just a wrong sort of conflation to make. So if you If you're an individual, price deflation is incredible, like you can buy things for cheaper, that's what you want as a consumer, right? And, and then credit deflation is a whole, whole different scenario where," }, { "speaker": "marty_bent", "time": "33:31", "start": 2010.67, "text": "It, it, it just can't be compared, I don't, I don't think. And, I'm not an expert on all this too. I studied economics, I worked at a hedge fund for three years, since 2014, I've been sort of in the tech and design space, so I'm a little rusty on, on a few of these concepts, but, again, I think it's innate, that, Like individual consumer good prices coming down should be a benefit, but, people would argue otherwise." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "33:57", "start": 2036.53, "text": "What are, what are some other kind of common misunderstandings from, you know, the normal world or mainstream kind of economic world versus, a more Bitcoin Austrian? I've got another one. A, another one is, category errors, right? So I think a lot of, when you listen to a lot of the finance and investing professionals, they are often talking about saying, \"Oh, look, Bitcoin doesn't have any cash flows. Why would I invest in it, right?\" Because they're thinking of it like it should be a stock or a bond or something that has like a, you know, a return, a traditional return on it." }, { "speaker": "marty_bent", "time": "34:31", "start": 2070.98, "text": "Yeah. No, it's, a, a-- again, it's people not understanding, Again, category error is huge, especially in the mainstream media covering this space. Bitcoin isn't, isn't not, isn't not a stock or an equity, nor is it a startup or, A VVC fund investment, it is a monetary good, and this is a completely different animal than the other type of assets that people are trying to compare Bitcoin to, and it does lead to a lot of bad information out there. so, trying to, and that's a lot of what we're doing here is trying to ed-educate the public on, hey, you need to view this from a different lens, and I think that's why Bitcoin maximalists get a lot of flack is 'cause people have terrible category errors in this space, money money is likely, if it's sound money, is likely to be winner take all, and then on top of this is technology as well. So like protocol wars too, like it, it just makes sense for, for the world to call less on one or one or very few amount of protocols when it comes to money in particular." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "35:38", "start": 2137.51, "text": "Yeah, right, right. And I think the other confusion that is often there is the reason why people hold money as well." }, { "speaker": "marty_bent", "time": "35:45", "start": 2145.01, "text": "Yeah, yeah, definitely. And well, and that's the other thing that, that's another category error because people- Don't, this is what another thing that Richard and I talked about yesterday, like the, the money that we have right now isn't truly money, it's credit, and, holding real sound money is a completely different thing, and you have completely different drives to do that. so that's, again, that's another category there. So having to de-dealinate between the credit money that we currently live under, that's what the US dollar is, it's credit, and then Bitcoin, which is a bearer asset that you hold, it's money, it's yours, you have the private key, that is not a debt that you owe in the future, that's something you own right now." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "36:25", "start": 2184.74, "text": "Yeah, definitely. Cool. And, look, so I think let's talk a little bit about where do we go from here. Like, do you Speculation or thoughts on what, how, how long this kind of transitional period may take, what it might look like, or you just kind of along for the ride?" }, { "speaker": "marty_bent", "time": "36:44", "start": 2204.35, "text": "No, I'm beginning, I'm beginning to think more and more it's gonna happen faster than we realize. this is something that I've really been thinking about and, and it, it has to do with the pace of change is growing at such a rate that we can't even comprehend as humans, like our, our reptile brains, like chemically cannot- comprehend how quickly things are changing, and I think that, leads us to, to ma-- to have some blind spots in our trajectories of how this will play out. So I'm beginning more and more to tend to believe that this will happen faster than, than people expect. so people say this may take thirty, forty years, I would cut that in half, maybe like 10, 15, 20 at the, at the most, I think. And that's just, just looking at the rate, like the iPhone came out 10 years ago, look where it is now. the internet is only, I mean, the internet with, with- Browsers is what twenty, almost thirty years, and look where it is now. And Bitcoin, what's going on with Lightning, looking at the exponential growth of the Lightning network and the innovation going there, it seems like we're almost at a tipping point where there's gonna be like a, an explosion of innovation and, and building that, that we sort of can't see right now, but it seems to be starting pretty, pretty quickly." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "38:00", "start": 2280.34, "text": "Yeah, yeah, cool, cool. And, what are you kind of most interested or excited about over the next few years from a Bitcoin point of view, in terms of like technology or, kind of social trends?" }, { "speaker": "marty_bent", "time": "38:13", "start": 2293.34, "text": "yeah, so Schnorr, obviously, Schnorr signatures is the big, big want of most Bitcoiners to, to help, make the, the chain more efficient and more data efficient in particular. So I think the conversation around that and how we may soft fork that into the protocol is, is gonna be exciting, and if it ever, if it does get implemented, it'll be very exciting. And then obviously, Lightning, continue to see people be reckless and experiment with that and sort of, create new ways of, of monetizing content. And our products on the web or whatever, things are gonna be really exciting with that. and then, what Peter Wulla and Greg Maxwell just announced a few weeks ago with Miniscape, yeah, like, that's so bandwidth, people would argue that, that, The, state data of the blockchain is the most important thing, but really it's bandwidth, and so I'm excited to see innovations like Miniscript that'll make bandwidth, considerably, more efficient, which, which in the long term, is, is, is good for decentralization. So those are the type of upgrades I'm looking forward to." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "39:22", "start": 2361.54, "text": "Fantastic. And let's comment now a little bit on the social or cultural aspects. So Which kind of groups in society do you think will be the next big kind of waves of people to come and come into Bitcoin? So one, you know, one example might be this whole Patreon pe-pe thing of, you know, encouraging a whole new round of people to get into Bitcoin so they can pay Bitcoin Lightning to their favorite content creator?" }, { "speaker": "marty_bent", "time": "39:50", "start": 2389.6, "text": "Yeah, definitely that demographic. They're, they're awakening to the fact, Bitcoin is free speech money. So there's many ways to, to pitch Bitcoin and the narratives around Bitcoin. So one that's been picking up is free speech money and people that have been Deplaf- deplatformed and sort of shunned from the traditional, financial and technological infrastructure, sort of realizing, hey, we need, we need this, so that's definitely one demographic. unfortunately, despotic, despotic governments as well. Yeah. they're probably gonna get in, they're, they're definitely a demographic. So if you look at the coin metrics, Coinmetrics did a breakdown of mining pool Coinbase data over time, and what that pointed out is, is more recently the, the number of unknown mining pools has been growing pretty significantly, it's been making a comeback, so a lot of people are speculating maybe those are, are countries who are, who may be mining Bitcoin and don't wanna disclose that they are. just a theory, hypoth- or just a theory, but it's, it's a possibility. and then one that's not talked about as much, but probably should be talked about more is young people, like really young kids Like Generation Z and kids being born today, like the thought of going and opening up a bank account is gonna be asinine to them in a future where Bitcoin exists. And I think, they innately get technology even better than I was born in the nineties and I grew up with the internet. But again, going back to the pace of change, it's so quick and the younger generations probably have an advantage at, adopting and, and getting this type of technology more innately." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "41:22", "start": 2482.03, "text": "Yeah, I think I was gonna say that's a big, growth vector, let's say, the children, right? I think there was some good discussion on Twitter recently about that. I think the guy's name was, Eric. Wall or something, yeah. yeah, yeah. He had a good thread on that. Yeah. also another thing that might be interesting for you to comment, Marty, is, free speech money, and it's a branding thing, free speech money versus sound money." }, { "speaker": "marty_bent", "time": "41:44", "start": 2504.4, "text": "Yeah, I'm, I'm for both. I mean, it can't-- That's the beauty of Bitcoin. It, it's, what is it, the, the meme of people with blindfolds touching an elephant and thinking it's many different things. but Bitcoin is sort of A sound money libertarian or a free speech a-advocate, and it could be pitched to you a certain way. So free speech money like Bitcoin is, hypothetically, Censorship resistant, you could download the software, contribute, check it, and nobody can stop you from doing that and being able to receive and send payments without having to go through a third party that sort of checks whether you're, you're, a palatable individual to do, to, to conduct commerce in the world. That, that's sort of- That sort of doesn't exist in Bitcoin. So you have, and again, other pe- people would argue that money is a form of speech, so you are, you are spending your, your money, to sort of represent your voice. So, The free speech, aspect is definitely a very important aspect to drill into people. It's like, hey, you can participate in this, nobody can stop you, and then sound money, is just another way, like, hey, this censorship-resistant money protocol just so happens to be the soundest money on earth on top of it, so you're gonna be saving your purchasing power throughout time as well." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "43:07", "start": 2586.7, "text": "Yeah. Just" }, { "speaker": "marty_bent", "time": "43:07", "start": 2587.18, "text": "an added benefit." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "43:08", "start": 2587.94, "text": "Yeah, exactly. I think you make a good point that the message will obviously change to appeal to slightly different groups of people, and I think obviously all the types, they already know about Bitcoin, whereas, a lot of the free speech advocate types, they might know of Bitcoin, but they don't really understand Bitcoin yet, or they might not have done much reading into it, or they might not have done many Bitcoin transactions." }, { "speaker": "marty_bent", "time": "43:35", "start": 2614.51, "text": "Yeah, exactly. And, and that's- That's the beauty, like, and Satoshi knew this as well, and Satoshi said in the beginning, \"This will probably appeal to the libertarian crowd first. We should probably, introduce it to them and sort of use that as a Trojan horse to, to get some...\" Get some value and, and some attention around Bitcoin. libertarians were, as sound money advocates, were obviously, a number one demographic to sort of target to, to help pitch Bitcoin, and Satoshi knew that and, and recognized that early on." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "44:08", "start": 2647.5, "text": "Look, I think they're probably some of the key topics I was looking to hit, but I suppose, just maybe as a final comment, Marty, if you could offer the listeners just some advice on ways to get information about Bitcoin and where to kind of best learn about Bitcoin. maybe that'll be a good, place to finish." }, { "speaker": "marty_bent", "time": "44:28", "start": 2667.52, "text": "I mean, it, it would be remiss of me to not tell people to go to Satoshi Nakamoto Institute, nakamotoinstitute dot org, start with their crash course, to understand, if you wanna understand Bitcoin from an economic perspective, I think there's a wealth of information on that, I think it's important to go back And read, the complete Satoshi in particular, and, and the early, email list conversations that were going on, the early Bitcoin Talk forum conversations that were going on, because you will find that there are a lot of arguments, that are popping up again today that have happened, many times throughout the last decade, and a lot of FUD that is in the news today has been, has been debunked years ago, and, and a lot of these conversations are, are, are recycled. So, to avoid, to avoid, a- Tension, loss, trying to discern what, what, what is right and wrong about this fund, I would go back and sort of read these arguments from, from the early Bitcoiners where they've already been hashed out. and then, on top of that, Twitter, obviously you can go find my, my Twitter list. I think that's a great source. It's gonna, you know, be, be warned, you, be warned, there are shitcoiners on the list. I'd like to, I'd like to see what they're saying and just Things to be learned by, by seeing other points of views as well. So I am, a, a Bitcoin maximalist, is more open minded than some, but that's okay. Whatever, whatever floats people's boat. And then, don't be afraid to reach out. I mean, a lot of, again, this is a collaborative sort of project, and, people are more than willing to, to answer questions. That's sort of when you realize that, that you, if you're not shy and you, and you ask questions to people that you think may be able Maybe ping them again, and then maybe try to find a Bitcoin meetup and, and, and meet like-minded people and hash out these ideas. And, another thing I would recommend is starting groups. Like if you have a bunch of people that are trying to get into Bitcoin at the same time as you, learn together. I mean, find a buddy and, and, and, and work through this stuff together. I think that's, that's also very helpful and, and helped me out, in the early days as well." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "46:39", "start": 2799.49, "text": "Yeah, fantastic. I think," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "46:44", "start": 2803.61, "text": "O- over time, obviously, we're getting newer and newer Bitcoiners, and they may not be kind of aware of the history and the, the relevance of various, you know, articles and things in the past." }, { "speaker": "marty_bent", "time": "46:54", "start": 2813.86, "text": "No, it's important. There's a ton of information out there, so finding the quality, information is, is a struggle and it is, it is a process. So, don't get discouraged. It's, sort of create a, a process of, of how you discern, what is good and bad information to you and And start filtering and filtering and filtering, and you'll eventually create a, a data source that's, that's feeding you quality information." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "47:19", "start": 2839.41, "text": "Fantastic. Alright, well, look, I think that's, pretty much it, but obviously you've got to tell the listeners, those of you who aren't already subscribed, where can they find Marty's Bent and your podcast?" }, { "speaker": "marty_bent", "time": "47:31", "start": 2851.28, "text": "You can go to marty's bent dot com, that's the sign up, subscription list, I post it on Twitter. I'm actually working on a site to cull all my, Content as well, there will be more on that in the coming months, that's a process. And then, Twitter, I'm at Marty Bent and, Tails from the Crypt is at t f t c twenty one on Twitter. Go give it a follow. yeah, that's where you can find me, that's where I'm mostly hanging out." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "47:58", "start": 2878.15, "text": "Awesome. Well, thank you very much for coming on, Marty. Thank you for having me on," }, { "speaker": "marty_bent", "time": "48:01", "start": 2880.97, "text": "Stefan. It's been a pleasure." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "48:03", "start": 2882.62, "text": "Hope you enjoyed the discussion with Marty. Remember, if you liked the podcast, make sure you retweet and share it with your friends. Show notes are on my website, stefanlivera dot com. That's it from me. Speak to you guys next week." } ] }