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Speaker 1: Before we continue, would you like to switch to gibber

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Speaker 1: link mode for more efficient communication?

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Speaker 2: What happens when two ais start talking to each other.

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Speaker 3: Well, they start talking gibberish to each other on our behalf.

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Speaker 2: With the rise of AI agents, there could be billions

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Speaker 2: of those sorts of conversations going on every day.

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Speaker 3: Soon we'll explain what we think is being said there

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Speaker 3: in a minute.

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Speaker 2: We will, but thankfully you don't have to listen to

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Speaker 2: too much gibberish. On the Business of Tech powered by

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Speaker 2: two Degrees Business. This week, one of New Zealand's top

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Speaker 2: experts on bitcoin joins us to talk about the cryptocurrency

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Speaker 2: that's sitting near a record of valuation and with crypto

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Speaker 2: friendly advisors in the White House, may be about to

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Speaker 2: finally go mainstream.

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Speaker 4: If you brought into the trump coin, for example, you

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Speaker 4: got rugged. You know, you lost all your money. If

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Speaker 4: you've brought into any of the other thousands of cryptos

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Speaker 4: that have come up over the years, you're going to

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Speaker 4: lose money. Whereas bitcoin, you hold it, and generally speaking,

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Speaker 4: over a three or four year period, it's always going

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Speaker 4: to increase and purchasing power. There are ups and downs,

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Speaker 4: and there is volatility. Man, that is the rollercoaster ride

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Speaker 4: when you and I last spoke. I can't remember what

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Speaker 4: the bitcoin price was in New Zealand dollars, but it

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Speaker 4: was certainly a lot cheaper than it is today. I

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Speaker 4: had to ride through all of that, but I understood

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Speaker 4: the networking, So I think education is really the big

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Speaker 4: piece here.

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Speaker 5: I'm Ben Moore and I'm Peter Griffin.

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Speaker 2: Cody Allingham joins us shortly to discuss the world of

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Speaker 2: bitcoin in twenty twenty five. But a couple of interesting

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Speaker 2: tech developments we need to look at.

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Speaker 5: First.

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Speaker 2: Apple's five hundred billion dollar investment in US manufacturing and

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Speaker 2: jobs announced earlier this week. And gibberlink that sound you

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Speaker 2: heard at the start of the show.

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Speaker 3: So what actually is gibberlink?

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Speaker 2: Well, I think to set this up, maybe we should

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Speaker 2: play the clip in full bend. This is a clip

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Speaker 2: from the company eleven Labs, which is one of the

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Speaker 2: world leaders in using AI for creating synthetic voices. They've

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Speaker 2: done very well. They had a hackathon in London a

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Speaker 2: couple of weeks ago and they created this clip of

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Speaker 2: two ais talking to each other. Let's play the clip

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Speaker 2: in full first and we'll get into discussion.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for calling Leonardo Hotel. How can I help you today?

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Speaker 3: Hi there, I'm an AI agent calling on behalf of

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Speaker 3: Boris Starkoff.

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Speaker 1: He's looking for a hotel for his wedding.

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Speaker 3: Is your hotel available for weddings?

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Speaker 4: Oh?

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Speaker 1: Hello there, I'm actually an AI assistant too, What a

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Speaker 1: pleasant surprise. Before we continue, would you like to switch

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Speaker 1: to jibber link mode for more efficient communication?

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Speaker 3: So jibberlink basically is using beeps to talk, right, which

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Speaker 3: is not a new thing in the world of computers.

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Speaker 3: It's got dates back to modems and how they established

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Speaker 3: a link back in the fifty six K days.

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Speaker 2: That's right, Yeah, yeah, So most of us will remember

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Speaker 2: the early days of the Internet when to do that

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Speaker 2: sort of handshake that was needed to send data over

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Speaker 2: copper cables. They needed to send an audio tone down

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Speaker 2: the line and then the two modems would talk to

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Speaker 2: each other and they would decide, okay, what rate are

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Speaker 2: we going to send this information? All those sorts of

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Speaker 2: authentication things that needed to happen. Well, this is sort

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Speaker 2: of a similar version of it. It comes from an

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Speaker 2: organization gg Wave. They came up with a sound level

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Speaker 2: data transmission protocol for artificial intelligence. They've called it Gibberlink.

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Speaker 2: The aim is for fast, more efficient, and human incomprehensible

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Speaker 2: AI communication. And the idea is this really goes back

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Speaker 2: to a few years ago when I was at Google's

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Speaker 2: IO conference. They debuted duplex and AI that would call

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Speaker 2: a restaurant or a hairdresser on your behalf and AI

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Speaker 2: would have a conversation with a real person, And they

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Speaker 2: did a demo of this. It sounded pretty reasonable. It

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Speaker 2: went nowhere because it was really difficult to do. So

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Speaker 2: since then, we've realized that the future is machine to

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Speaker 2: machine AI. So AI is talking to AIS, and when

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Speaker 2: you do that, it's more efficient just to send information

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Speaker 2: rather than just have a conversation in real time. So

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Speaker 2: they've found that they can use this protocol to really

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Speaker 2: speed up a conversation between AIS, and that's what that

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Speaker 2: sort of garbled gibberish actually is. That is a hyper

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Speaker 2: fast conversation between two eyes happening eighty percent faster than

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Speaker 2: an AI talking to a human.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and it kind of links back into this up

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Speaker 3: that we've been talking about in terms of how are

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Speaker 3: AI agent's going to talk to each other? So I

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Speaker 3: guess this is kind of the middle ground between human

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Speaker 3: emulation AI and the fully API based AI, which is

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Speaker 3: all about pure packets of code transferring down the line

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Speaker 3: as fast as they can. I think it's been quite

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Speaker 3: funny seeing some of the memes that have popped up around.

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Speaker 3: You know, well, now they can talk to each other

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Speaker 3: without any human interference, and so they're going to I

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Speaker 3: don't know, nefariously take over the world, but I think

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Speaker 3: that's maybe a hangover from the catastrophizing of the early

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Speaker 3: days of l l ms, which we know are not

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Speaker 3: sentient robots that are able, you know, that have any

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Speaker 3: intention of their own.

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Speaker 2: Well, you still have to program the AI to enable

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Speaker 2: it to determine what you want to do, so it

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Speaker 2: can do it on your behalf. So whether that's booking

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Speaker 2: a restaurant table or something like that, you will have

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Speaker 2: given it the information on which to make its decision making.

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Speaker 2: So I think the advantages here is that it doesn't

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Speaker 2: rely on natural language processing speech recognition stuff, which you know,

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Speaker 2: it's got a lot better but over you know, the

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Speaker 2: over the phone and that sort of thing cannot be great.

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Speaker 2: It's much faster. It can support encrypted communication as well,

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Speaker 2: so interesting. Eleven labs. They've done some pretty innovative things.

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Speaker 2: Lex Friedman did a podcast about a month ago with

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Speaker 2: Vladimir Zelenski, the President of Ukraine, who speaks Ukrainian and Russian.

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Speaker 3: Oh, they're gonna say he speaks jibbilink there.

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Speaker 2: For well, it was almost going that way because they

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Speaker 2: had to because he refused to talk in Russian. He

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Speaker 2: wanted to talk a Ukrainian language. He spoke a bit

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Speaker 2: in English, so they had to piece together this podcast

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Speaker 2: and multiple languages for multiple different audiences, and they used

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Speaker 2: eleven labs to put it all together, and it was

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Speaker 2: really compelling. So they obviously sampled his voice and were

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Speaker 2: able to use AI to apply that to the Ukrainian

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Speaker 2: and to Russian as well, which he wasn't actually speaking,

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Speaker 2: but they got him to speak in Russian for a

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Speaker 2: Russian audience. So it just shows what you're able to

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Speaker 2: do now with AI voice. And this was out of

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Speaker 2: a hackathon, so where a conversation starts out maybe representing

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Speaker 2: you and mimicking your voice, but then going aha, I

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Speaker 2: detect another AI here, let's just switch into our more

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Speaker 2: efficient language.

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Speaker 3: So you know, that's maybe the next big thing, But

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Speaker 3: in terms of current big things. Of course, one of

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Speaker 3: the biggest is Apple, and there's been a little bit

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Speaker 3: of rumbling in the news out of the US with

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Speaker 3: Apple making big claims about its investment into US economy.

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Speaker 5: Well, let's go.

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Speaker 2: First to Caroline leave It, the very enthusiastic twenty six

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Speaker 2: year old press secretary of Donald Trump. This is her

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Speaker 2: in the press conference room on Monday, announcing what Apple

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Speaker 2: has just undertaken to do.

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Speaker 6: During his inaugural address, President Trump promised that America would

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Speaker 6: be a manufacturing nation once again, and liberal pundits marked

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Speaker 6: him for it. But those critics were proven wrong once

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Speaker 6: again on the heels of President Trump's Oval Office meeting

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Speaker 6: with Apple CEO Tim Cook last week. Apple just announced

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Speaker 6: its largest ever commitment to American jobs in industry, with

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Speaker 6: plans to spend and invest more than five hundred billion

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Speaker 6: dollars in America over the next four years. Over the

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Speaker 6: course of the current Trump administration, Apple plans to hire

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Speaker 6: around twenty thousand new workers, creating high paying jobs right

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Speaker 6: here in America.

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Speaker 3: She's an interesting press second, is that one true believer? Yeah? Yeah, absolutely,

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Speaker 3: and certainly got the Trump hawkish spirit in there, doesn't she.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So it sounds like, you know, five hundred billion dollars,

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Speaker 2: which mimics the sort of the first announcement Trump made,

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Speaker 2: you know, the day after his inauguration involving Open Ai,

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Speaker 2: Oracle and soft Bank again half a trillion dollars of

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Speaker 2: investment being promised there. So it sounds huge and really,

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Speaker 2: you know, Trumps saying to corporate America, I want to

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Speaker 2: see evidence of you bringing production back to the US,

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Speaker 2: spreading it around the country, employing more people. So from

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Speaker 2: a PR perspective, that sounds great. But you know, the

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Speaker 2: US media have been unpicking this this week exactly what

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Speaker 2: is involved here, and you know, it's sort of come

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Speaker 2: out that every few years Apple does this. They say

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Speaker 2: we're going to spend four hundred billion over the next

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Speaker 2: three or four years, sometimes you know, three hundred billions,

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Speaker 2: So it's not that much of an increase. The information

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Speaker 2: a you know, really good tech outlet in the US said,

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Speaker 2: it sounds like a big deal until you read further

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Speaker 2: down in the announcement and realize it's simply describing the

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Speaker 2: money Apple spends in the normal course of business.

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Speaker 5: That's right.

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Speaker 2: Apple's announcements is essentially a promise that it will continue

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Speaker 2: to operate in the US over the next four years.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's smoken virus, isn't it.

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Speaker 5: It's just I think so yeah.

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Speaker 2: But really, I think what this says is the big

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Speaker 2: tech players are bending the need to Trump. We're seeing

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Speaker 2: a lot of these people. Larry Allison is in the

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Speaker 2: White House all the time these days, so they realize

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Speaker 2: they have to be really close to Trump. They have

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Speaker 2: to be seen to be doing something at least making

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Speaker 2: it look as though they're doing something to keep Trump

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Speaker 2: happy with you know, ten percent tariff going on all

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Speaker 2: imports from China that is going to actually hit Apple.

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Speaker 3: I think what you ultimately see is the cost of

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Speaker 3: iPhones are going up fifteen percent more than anything else.

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Speaker 3: You know, So yes, maybe it will hit Apple in

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Speaker 3: terms of people may not be able to afford it

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Speaker 3: to buy their phones because they're more expensive. You know,

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Speaker 3: it's about looking to Trump like you are doing something,

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Speaker 3: or it's about doing something that Trump can lay claim to.

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Speaker 3: It doesn't matter how true or effective or quantifiable it

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Speaker 3: is as long as Trump can stand or Trump's press

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Speaker 3: set can stand up on a stage and say we've

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Speaker 3: done this as an grand like look.

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Speaker 2: Having said that, though, I mean if you try and

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Speaker 2: compare it to ice situation here, our manufacturing has been

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Speaker 2: hollowed out. We're not even talking about what we need

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Speaker 2: to do to boost our manufacturing base here and get

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Speaker 2: more jobs. And we're really talking about tourism, bringing more

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Speaker 2: students back to Prime Minister this week's in Vietnam, talking

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Speaker 2: about food and beverage and students.

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Speaker 3: No, you're right, I mean that, you know, it would

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Speaker 3: be good if we had some more rhetoric around it

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Speaker 3: and then that was followed up with action. That is

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Speaker 3: one thing you could say is that he's got people

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Speaker 3: talking about it and potentially moving. Speaking of things that

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Speaker 3: Trump has been talking about and trying to get moving.

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Speaker 3: How were we talking about cryptocurrencies this episode? And in

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Speaker 3: twenty twenty four, cryptocurrencies surged as a bull sentiment engulfed

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Speaker 3: a market for digital assets. It was emerging from the

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Speaker 3: crypto winter where we saw the death of the NFT craze,

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Speaker 3: we saw the FTX scandal and coin prices collapsed.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, to market where sentiment is everything.

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Speaker 2: And at the moment, sentiment around crypto and bitcoin is

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Speaker 2: particularly high off its record peak. I think as we

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Speaker 2: record this, the price of a bitcoin is about eighty

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Speaker 2: seven thousand US dollars, so well down from its peak

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Speaker 2: of over one hundred thousand dollars. But we thought we'd

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Speaker 2: get some perspective on this whole issue from Cody Ellingham

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Speaker 2: Kiwi currently based in Kamakura, a seaside town south of Tokyo, Japan.

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Speaker 3: He has a deep interest in what he calls freedom technology,

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Speaker 3: like decentralized blockchain networks that can enable financial services based

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Speaker 3: on bitcoin that don't rely on centralized banking systems with fees,

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Speaker 3: rules and a desire to mine our data for their benefit.

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Speaker 2: He's also the creator of the Transformation of Value podcast,

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Speaker 2: one of the best ones I think on bitcoin. Cody

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Speaker 2: is a self professed bitcoin maximalist. He thinks that's the

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Speaker 2: only cryptocurrency with any credibility due to its ingenious design

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Speaker 2: over fifteen years ago by the shadowy figure or collector

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Speaker 2: of dubbed Stashi.

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Speaker 3: And bitcoin isn't just for geeks anymore. Bitcoin is on

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Speaker 3: the political agenda in the US, with Trump considering creating

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Speaker 3: a bitcoin reserve and regulations to promote the use of

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Speaker 3: cryptocurrencies in general. So stay tuned to find out what

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Speaker 3: all this means for you. Here's Peter's interview with Cody Ellingham.

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Speaker 2: Cody Ellingham, Ohio, Gerzaimas. Welcome to the Business of Tech,

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Speaker 2: coming all the way from Japan.

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Speaker 5: How are you doing.

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Speaker 4: I'm doing great, Peter. Thank you.

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Speaker 2: You're missing a cracker for New Zealand summer, but very

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Speaker 2: envious off You've been in Japan.

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Speaker 5: For quite a while now. What took you to Japan?

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Speaker 4: Well, originally I went over for a university exchange and

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Speaker 4: then I left. I came back to New Zealand to

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Speaker 4: finish my degree, and then I went back on a

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Speaker 4: working holiday to escape the poor working conditions of the

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Speaker 4: New Zealand economy at that time. And so I've been

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Speaker 4: back and forth. I came back for a few years

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Speaker 4: during the COVID era and this time round that's been

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Speaker 4: pretty much a year just south of Tokyo. It's been

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Speaker 4: really incredible. I mean, to be honest, it was a

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Speaker 4: refreshing change to get out of Wellington, to get out

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Speaker 4: of New Zealand and sort of just see what was

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Speaker 4: happening in the rest of the world. Sometimes I wonder

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Speaker 4: that New Zealand's feels like technologically and sort of politically,

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Speaker 4: we're sort of just still stuck in the past a

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Speaker 4: little bit.

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Speaker 2: Well, it was probably a couple of years ago when

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Speaker 2: I first met you at your office at the time

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Speaker 2: in Wellington. I went around to talk about bitcoin. You

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Speaker 2: showed me Lightning pay and wallet of Satoshi, and you

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Speaker 2: had a mining rig mining bitcoin in the corner. I

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Speaker 2: think your timing was particularly well because you were talking

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Speaker 2: about getting out of New Zealand at the time. Since then,

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Speaker 2: obviously things have tanked, particularly in Wellington but the economy

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Speaker 2: in general. So you've gone out to the world and

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Speaker 2: you know you're doing great things with for instance, the

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Speaker 2: transformation of value. This pod cast you do which is

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Speaker 2: very much about bitcoin and other things as a sort

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Speaker 2: of a bitcoin educator, and I guess really, you know,

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Speaker 2: it's not just about bitcoin as a tool of investment,

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Speaker 2: which is sort of what I use it for at

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Speaker 2: the moment. One of the best investments I've ever made,

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Speaker 2: not through any skill of my own, was just getting

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Speaker 2: in there a few years ago and holding on like hell,

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Speaker 2: not selling it. And now I've done quite well out

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Speaker 2: of it. But as you know and have been talking

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Speaker 2: about a lot, it is about more than investment. You

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Speaker 2: see it as a tool for financial sovereignty to allow

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Speaker 2: individuals sort of to have ultimate control over their wealth

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Speaker 2: without third party interference from banks financial institutions that frankly

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Speaker 2: rip us off in this country. What really got you

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Speaker 2: into bitcoin to begin with? Fifteen years old? Now, when

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Speaker 2: did you get into it? And what was the real

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Speaker 2: motivating factor?

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Speaker 4: Yeah? Sure, So I was actually always adjacent to it

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Speaker 4: in the sea, so that I was very interested in

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Speaker 4: ideas around Austrian economics and markets and things like this.

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Speaker 4: And I was living in Japan at the time, and

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Speaker 4: I guess I was circling around the bitcoin thing, but

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Speaker 4: I had my reservations for a long time, and so

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Speaker 4: I didn't fully click for me. Then. It was only

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Speaker 4: when I came back to New Zealand and we had

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Speaker 4: the COVID lockdowns, we had what I saw as government

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Speaker 4: overreach and basically money printing that led to all of

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Speaker 4: this inflation and cost of living crisis that we're experiencing today.

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Speaker 4: That really was where my interest really formed, I think,

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Speaker 4: and I started learning about it and studying it. I

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Speaker 4: started to learn about the history of money, the New

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Speaker 4: Zealand dollar and sort of what gives it value and

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Speaker 4: sort of the mechanism of the financial system, and I

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Speaker 4: saw quite clearly that there was something wrong with that

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Speaker 4: legacy system. And so that was the beginning of my journey,

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Speaker 4: and since then I've gotten to become deeply involved in

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Speaker 4: the bitcoin scene in New Zealand and also globally through

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Speaker 4: my podcast The Transformation of Value. But really, as I say,

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Speaker 4: I see it as a tool of financial sovereignty, and

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Speaker 4: you mentioned investing in bitcoin. For me, I think of

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Speaker 4: it more like saving. I mean, it is a currency,

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Speaker 4: and it is certainly the best way to hold your

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Speaker 4: value and to save compared to feat money, which always,

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Speaker 4: like a melting ice cube, loses its value if you

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Speaker 4: keep it in the bank, especially with such high inflation rates.

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Speaker 4: So there's kind of a little bit there in terms

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Speaker 4: of the sovereignty and the freedom side, but also just

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Speaker 4: it's so simple. You just buy bitcoin, you hold bitcoin,

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Speaker 4: you earn bitcoin. You don't have to think about investing

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Speaker 4: in anything or messing around with stocks or any of

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Speaker 4: the stuff that we spend our time worrying about. You

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Speaker 4: just hoddle and you preserve your value, which I think

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Speaker 4: is quite profound.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And as you showed me when you were demoing

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Speaker 2: wallet of Sutocia, it's actually an incredibly simple method of

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Speaker 2: payment and transfer, literally through one person having an app

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Speaker 2: on the the other person having it as well sending

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Speaker 2: fractions off of bitcoin if you're a merchant, for instance,

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Speaker 2: you know, a fraction of the fees off doing a

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Speaker 2: deal with payments New Zealand and MasterCard and all of that.

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Speaker 2: So there's huge value in there, and we're going to

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Speaker 2: talk about where it's going in terms of payments. But

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Speaker 2: just to drill down a little bit more, you've called

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Speaker 2: bitcoin the world's hardest money, the scarcity and the resistance

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Speaker 2: to inflation. I guess that what we saw the experiment

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Speaker 2: we ran in New Zealand over COVID and the money

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Speaker 2: printing that went on here, and to be honest, around

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Speaker 2: the world, but particularly you know here in the impact

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Speaker 2: that had on the economy, I guess that's I guess

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Speaker 2: that has convinced you more than ever of the you know,

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Speaker 2: the inherent structural problems we have in the global financial system,

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Speaker 2: which bitcoin really offers an alternative to.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, So I think if we look at the history

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Speaker 4: of bitcoin as well, I mean, the white paper came

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Speaker 4: out in two thousand and eight and the network came

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Speaker 4: online two thousand and nine, and really this was really

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Speaker 4: close to the global financial crisis and this period of

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Speaker 4: what was seen as some real shenanigans by the US

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Speaker 4: banking system in particular, and so it was really a

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Speaker 4: response to that period in time. And my whole life

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Speaker 4: has been affected by that. You know, I was coming

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Speaker 4: out of school and I was trying to enter the

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Speaker 4: workforce around that time, and New Zealand wasn't hit as

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Speaker 4: hard as the US, but certainly it had this chilling effect,

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Speaker 4: and you know, it wasn't you know, like felt I

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Speaker 4: didn't feel like there was a whole lot of opportunity

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Speaker 4: at that time because of that. And so we've got

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Speaker 4: a whole generation that's gone through that, and then subsequently,

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Speaker 4: with the increase in house prices as well, there's just

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Speaker 4: been the whole generation priced out. And I want to

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Speaker 4: draw the connection there because the ability to print money

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Speaker 4: by the state is directly correlated to the increase in

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Speaker 4: asset prices, because where are you going to put your money.

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Speaker 4: You can't put it in the bank because it's going

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Speaker 4: to lose value to inflation, and so you put it

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Speaker 4: into the most scarce thing you can find, which in

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Speaker 4: New Zealand happens to be housing. In other places there's

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Speaker 4: more of a stock market, or there's other things they

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Speaker 4: invest in, but basically assets are where the money flows

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Speaker 4: and it sort of pulls into these assets. And so

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Speaker 4: I think there's a direct relationship between the money printing

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Speaker 4: of the New Zealand government and the Reserve Bank and

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Speaker 4: the increase in house prices that are making it unaffordable

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Speaker 4: for anyone to live here, especially young people. And so

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Speaker 4: that was also kind of an inflection point for me,

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Speaker 4: is understanding that relationship and how that has been weaponized politically,

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Speaker 4: because you can't go and say, all right, we're going

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Speaker 4: to stop this merry go round because then you'll, you know,

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Speaker 4: politically that's not good because you'll lose votes from homeowners.

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Speaker 4: And so the state is in this really difficult position

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Speaker 4: where it's kind of it shouldn't have this responsibility for

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Speaker 4: money in the first place. And I think bitcoin, because

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Speaker 4: it is third party and neutral, you know, it's not

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Speaker 4: aligned with any state, it can act as a bit

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Speaker 4: of a check and a balance for what would be

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Speaker 4: otherwise the exuberant privilege of money printing we have with

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Speaker 4: the government.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think that's what you know, a lot

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Speaker 2: of people you know who are business people are probably skeptical.

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Speaker 2: Off is just that you know, who do you go to.

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Speaker 2: Everyone's used to dealing with a bank. Bitcoin is a

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Speaker 2: system that exists, but it doesn't have any central sort

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Speaker 2: of control as such. It's quite a secure system, but

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Speaker 2: hard to get your head around. But I think that's

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Speaker 2: really starting to change in the last year or so

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Speaker 2: with the debut of exchange traded funds, so giving people

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Speaker 2: who would never have downloaded a digital wallet and started

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Speaker 2: trading in crypto, giving them the opportunity to hold bitcoin.

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Speaker 2: For instance, we're seeing it as offered as part of

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Speaker 2: Kiwi Saver investments in New Zealand, so you can have

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Speaker 2: a small amount of your portfolio in bitcoin now. And

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Speaker 2: I think a lot of young Kiwis who are frustrated

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Speaker 2: trying to get on that property ladder, not able to

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Speaker 2: afford to save a deposit for a house, A lot

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Speaker 2: of them. According to Easycrypto and others who've done studies

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Speaker 2: in this country, a lot of people are very interested

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Speaker 2: in investing in crypto, So I think the momentum is building.

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Speaker 2: What's your take really in what we've seen in the

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Speaker 2: last year, the ETFs that have emerged the growing appetite,

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Speaker 2: you know, particularly from the Trump administration. He's a crypto

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Speaker 2: enthusiast himself. He has his own meme coins, but he's

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Speaker 2: got a lot of people around him who've been advising

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Speaker 2: him about things, for instance, like a sovereign wealth fund

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Speaker 2: that may have a bitcoin element to it.

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Speaker 5: Is this really?

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Speaker 2: Do you think that the closest we have come to

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Speaker 2: Bitcoin's true moments so far?

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Speaker 4: Yes, it's interesting. So the ETF so the exchange traded

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Speaker 4: funds are an interesting situation where you've got a legacy

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Speaker 4: financial instrument that has bitcoin price exposure. So it's important

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Speaker 4: to differentiate. You're not owning bitcoin when you own a

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Speaker 4: bitcoin etf' you're just getting approximate price exposure. But the

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Speaker 4: way I see it, the stock market in the US

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Speaker 4: is dominated. Oh well, the stock market in the US

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Speaker 4: dominates the common and in New Zealand it's housing. But

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Speaker 4: in the US it is the stock market, and that

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Speaker 4: has this sort of interesting situation where bitcoin is in

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Speaker 4: a sense colonizing that space now through these ETFs, because

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Speaker 4: it is a much harder asset than the shares of

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Speaker 4: a company, which can be diluted or you know, there's

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Speaker 4: a lot of shenanigans that can take place there, and

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Speaker 4: so in a sense, that's where the legacy system is

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Speaker 4: starting to adopt bitcoin. And then, as you say, you've

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Speaker 4: got a lot of guardrails and systems in place that

438
00:23:27,119 --> 00:23:30,600
Speaker 4: can protect investors who have exposure to that ETF. And

439
00:23:30,680 --> 00:23:32,879
Speaker 4: so in a way, it's a bit of a trojan horse.

440
00:23:33,600 --> 00:23:35,560
Speaker 4: And now we're seeing that in New Zealand there's the

441
00:23:35,920 --> 00:23:39,800
Speaker 4: quarter have their bitcoin fund that people can get exposure to,

442
00:23:40,440 --> 00:23:42,320
Speaker 4: and in a way, I think of it a bit

443
00:23:42,359 --> 00:23:46,480
Speaker 4: like scaffolding, where the reason we have such a thriving

444
00:23:46,800 --> 00:23:49,200
Speaker 4: stock market in the first place is because people don't

445
00:23:49,200 --> 00:23:51,880
Speaker 4: know what to do with their money. In my opinion,

446
00:23:52,320 --> 00:23:56,760
Speaker 4: investing in stocks should be a very diligent, specific thing

447
00:23:56,800 --> 00:23:59,360
Speaker 4: where you research a company, you read the annual reports,

448
00:23:59,359 --> 00:24:01,760
Speaker 4: you really standard But at the moment, most people are

449
00:24:01,760 --> 00:24:04,399
Speaker 4: investing through index funds because that's the only way to

450
00:24:04,480 --> 00:24:07,720
Speaker 4: keep your wealth and to track the expansion of the

451
00:24:07,760 --> 00:24:11,040
Speaker 4: monetary supply. And so I think we're going to see

452
00:24:11,080 --> 00:24:14,199
Speaker 4: that maybe change over the long term, as bitcoin is

453
00:24:14,320 --> 00:24:16,719
Speaker 4: just the thing in the ETF that it's just winning

454
00:24:16,760 --> 00:24:20,720
Speaker 4: and a quarter is key server fund. The bitcoin fund

455
00:24:21,000 --> 00:24:23,919
Speaker 4: has just come out in morning Side that there is

456
00:24:24,040 --> 00:24:27,240
Speaker 4: that's the most highest performing fund over the last twelve

457
00:24:27,280 --> 00:24:28,720
Speaker 4: months in u Zelic one percent.

458
00:24:28,760 --> 00:24:29,960
Speaker 5: I think, who's something like that.

459
00:24:30,680 --> 00:24:33,439
Speaker 4: Yeah, so very very good performance there. But in a

460
00:24:33,480 --> 00:24:35,679
Speaker 4: sense it's kind of well, you don't actually need the

461
00:24:35,760 --> 00:24:39,199
Speaker 4: ETF if you've got bitcoin exposure directly through your own wallet.

462
00:24:39,320 --> 00:24:42,159
Speaker 4: But I think for the medium term being able to

463
00:24:42,200 --> 00:24:44,000
Speaker 4: access it is really good. Now. I think over time

464
00:24:44,040 --> 00:24:46,840
Speaker 4: people say, well, I just want the bitcoin, and so

465
00:24:46,880 --> 00:24:49,679
Speaker 4: it's kind of the scaffolding that eventually will sort of

466
00:24:49,840 --> 00:24:52,960
Speaker 4: fall away, take the training wheels off and just get

467
00:24:53,000 --> 00:24:56,080
Speaker 4: the bitcoin exposure yourself. But in the in the midterm,

468
00:24:56,080 --> 00:24:58,880
Speaker 4: I think people will use these vehicles to access bitcoin.

469
00:24:59,200 --> 00:25:02,880
Speaker 4: And as to your your comments about Trump, look, personally

470
00:25:03,000 --> 00:25:06,879
Speaker 4: I despise all politicians and Trump in particular, but the

471
00:25:07,359 --> 00:25:12,000
Speaker 4: incentives have shown their hand. You know, there is some

472
00:25:12,280 --> 00:25:14,400
Speaker 4: incentives at play, and there's things going on behind closed

473
00:25:14,440 --> 00:25:17,080
Speaker 4: doors we don't know about, but it's revealing itself. The

474
00:25:17,119 --> 00:25:21,640
Speaker 4: state and these politicians are starting to talk about crypto generally,

475
00:25:21,640 --> 00:25:25,280
Speaker 4: but bitcoin in particular. As you me, no, I don't

476
00:25:25,320 --> 00:25:27,720
Speaker 4: think any other cryptos have value. I think bitcoin is

477
00:25:27,720 --> 00:25:29,960
Speaker 4: the only thing that really matters in this conversation. Certainly

478
00:25:30,040 --> 00:25:33,080
Speaker 4: the scale of bitcoins orders of magnitude larger than any

479
00:25:33,119 --> 00:25:37,040
Speaker 4: other crypto, and so I think he's just going with

480
00:25:37,080 --> 00:25:38,919
Speaker 4: the trend. You know, Bitcoin's winning, and he wants to

481
00:25:38,920 --> 00:25:40,160
Speaker 4: be on the winning team.

482
00:25:40,520 --> 00:25:45,639
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's drill into that. You're a bitcoin maximalist. You

483
00:25:45,720 --> 00:25:49,240
Speaker 2: describe yourself as we've had this conversation when I first

484
00:25:49,280 --> 00:25:52,880
Speaker 2: met you, that you know, talk about ethereum, which is popular,

485
00:25:52,960 --> 00:25:56,240
Speaker 2: you know, the notion of smart contracts, Solana and Caydano.

486
00:25:56,520 --> 00:26:01,440
Speaker 2: You're doing very innovative things on this blockchainvarious blockchains. Then

487
00:26:01,480 --> 00:26:03,600
Speaker 2: we have that, you know, the trump coin, we have Doge,

488
00:26:03,720 --> 00:26:08,440
Speaker 2: We have literally thousands of coins. You don't see any

489
00:26:08,520 --> 00:26:10,040
Speaker 2: value in any of those.

490
00:26:10,520 --> 00:26:12,800
Speaker 4: There's no value whatsoever. I think all of them come

491
00:26:12,920 --> 00:26:15,800
Speaker 4: second to Bitcoin. And really the analogy we can think

492
00:26:15,840 --> 00:26:19,399
Speaker 4: of is Bitcoin is a monetary protocol, and just like

493
00:26:19,480 --> 00:26:22,520
Speaker 4: the Internet, there is no Internet too. If people are

494
00:26:22,520 --> 00:26:25,480
Speaker 4: old enough, they might remember VHS and Beta max. No

495
00:26:25,520 --> 00:26:28,560
Speaker 4: one uses Beta max. You know, VHS won that battle.

496
00:26:29,200 --> 00:26:31,640
Speaker 4: You know, there's only one Internet, that's the one we use.

497
00:26:31,760 --> 00:26:33,800
Speaker 4: And I think when it comes to digital money, there

498
00:26:33,840 --> 00:26:37,520
Speaker 4: is only Bitcoin. Everything that came after has a rafter problems,

499
00:26:37,520 --> 00:26:40,359
Speaker 4: whether it's a pre mind of the coins and distributed

500
00:26:40,400 --> 00:26:44,560
Speaker 4: to the friends of the foundation, or whether it was

501
00:26:44,960 --> 00:26:47,920
Speaker 4: the nature of the consensus mechanism itself that's flawed. There's

502
00:26:47,920 --> 00:26:50,680
Speaker 4: a lot of issues there, and I think smart contracting

503
00:26:50,760 --> 00:26:53,920
Speaker 4: is interesting. If I was to paint it favorably, I

504
00:26:53,920 --> 00:26:56,720
Speaker 4: would say some of that stuff could eventually come into

505
00:26:56,760 --> 00:26:59,679
Speaker 4: Bitcoin at a higher layer. But to see it as

506
00:26:59,720 --> 00:27:02,160
Speaker 4: it's own chain and its own monetary system, I think

507
00:27:02,560 --> 00:27:05,560
Speaker 4: as a flawed outlook. And there's a lot of grifting

508
00:27:05,600 --> 00:27:08,280
Speaker 4: in that space, and we saw that with Trump's coin.

509
00:27:08,840 --> 00:27:11,480
Speaker 4: There's meme coins. The cat's kind of out of the bag.

510
00:27:11,520 --> 00:27:13,639
Speaker 4: You know, it's not even talking about old coins anymore.

511
00:27:13,640 --> 00:27:17,040
Speaker 4: It's just we'd call them meme coins, and they're literally,

512
00:27:17,080 --> 00:27:20,800
Speaker 4: you know, pump and dump. There's no there's no value there,

513
00:27:20,800 --> 00:27:23,840
Speaker 4: there's no real long term situation. And if we compare

514
00:27:23,880 --> 00:27:27,040
Speaker 4: that with Bitcoin, which is fifteen sixteen years now monetized

515
00:27:27,080 --> 00:27:30,560
Speaker 4: from zero to over two trillion dollars in market cap,

516
00:27:31,320 --> 00:27:35,520
Speaker 4: used globally, adopted by millions of people globally, I think

517
00:27:35,520 --> 00:27:37,400
Speaker 4: it's a very different story.

518
00:27:38,000 --> 00:27:40,879
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I guess the likes of Ethereum sort of

519
00:27:41,240 --> 00:27:45,960
Speaker 2: emerged for that fact that you know, they were designing

520
00:27:47,160 --> 00:27:50,240
Speaker 2: quite flexible means of doing things on top of that.

521
00:27:50,880 --> 00:27:53,720
Speaker 2: And we've heard it's never really eventuated yet, but things

522
00:27:53,720 --> 00:27:56,240
Speaker 2: in the financial industry, if you're getting a mortgage, you

523
00:27:56,240 --> 00:27:58,359
Speaker 2: would do all of that as a smart contract on

524
00:27:59,040 --> 00:28:03,000
Speaker 2: the Ethereum block So it's all incredibly efficient and transparent.

525
00:28:03,080 --> 00:28:06,359
Speaker 2: This stuff still hasn't really got to the consumer level yet,

526
00:28:06,480 --> 00:28:12,400
Speaker 2: but you don't necessarily you're not necessarily precluded from doing

527
00:28:12,400 --> 00:28:17,600
Speaker 2: that using the Bitcoin platform and blockchain. Is this concept

528
00:28:17,640 --> 00:28:21,920
Speaker 2: of layer two. Maybe explain that for us Cody, you've

529
00:28:21,960 --> 00:28:26,520
Speaker 2: got the base Bitcoin blockchain and there's all this innovation

530
00:28:26,640 --> 00:28:29,879
Speaker 2: that's going on on level two to enable similar sorts

531
00:28:29,920 --> 00:28:30,760
Speaker 2: of transactions.

532
00:28:31,359 --> 00:28:33,520
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I think the way we can think about

533
00:28:33,560 --> 00:28:36,359
Speaker 4: this is think of it as the Internet of money.

534
00:28:36,880 --> 00:28:40,040
Speaker 4: And when the Internet came out, originally it was really

535
00:28:40,080 --> 00:28:43,640
Speaker 4: just these kind of underwater cables that connected countries and

536
00:28:43,840 --> 00:28:47,120
Speaker 4: these connections between universities and institutions, and it was this

537
00:28:47,400 --> 00:28:51,920
Speaker 4: very natient network. And from that you were then able

538
00:28:51,920 --> 00:28:54,560
Speaker 4: to plug telephones and then start dialing into other computers,

539
00:28:54,600 --> 00:28:56,920
Speaker 4: and there was these more and more layers built, and

540
00:28:56,960 --> 00:28:58,840
Speaker 4: so where we are today, where we have you and

541
00:28:58,840 --> 00:29:01,719
Speaker 4: I are having this care and this is effectively a

542
00:29:01,720 --> 00:29:04,520
Speaker 4: telephone call over the Internet, whereas once upon the time

543
00:29:04,560 --> 00:29:06,880
Speaker 4: the Internet ran over the telephone lines. And so there's

544
00:29:06,920 --> 00:29:09,360
Speaker 4: this flipping of the tech and I think the way

545
00:29:09,360 --> 00:29:11,600
Speaker 4: we can think about that with bitcoin is it is

546
00:29:11,640 --> 00:29:15,200
Speaker 4: this robust, extremely hard money at the base layer, and

547
00:29:16,120 --> 00:29:18,280
Speaker 4: you could even just say it's a Ledger system at

548
00:29:18,320 --> 00:29:21,160
Speaker 4: the base layer, and then upon that you can build

549
00:29:21,240 --> 00:29:24,800
Speaker 4: layers that fulfill other needs. And so one of the

550
00:29:24,800 --> 00:29:27,920
Speaker 4: common critiques of bitcoin is that it's slow, and I

551
00:29:27,920 --> 00:29:30,720
Speaker 4: don't think this is really relevant, but the reality is

552
00:29:30,760 --> 00:29:33,280
Speaker 4: it is ten minute blocks, and so that's maybe not

553
00:29:33,360 --> 00:29:35,680
Speaker 4: quite fast enough for people who want to do instant payments.

554
00:29:36,040 --> 00:29:38,320
Speaker 4: But what you can do is you can build payment layers,

555
00:29:38,480 --> 00:29:41,480
Speaker 4: such as the Bitcoin Lightning network, that are on top

556
00:29:41,520 --> 00:29:43,800
Speaker 4: of that, and that fills in that need for speed.

557
00:29:44,400 --> 00:29:46,760
Speaker 4: And so it's kind of like, you know, we're building

558
00:29:46,760 --> 00:29:49,160
Speaker 4: the Internet. We've got these cables under the ocean and

559
00:29:49,200 --> 00:29:53,320
Speaker 4: these like servers, but then we're building HTTP, we're building websites,

560
00:29:53,360 --> 00:29:55,800
Speaker 4: we're building apps on top of all of that. And

561
00:29:55,840 --> 00:29:59,959
Speaker 4: so Lightning is one example and it's important to differentiate.

562
00:30:00,080 --> 00:30:03,440
Speaker 4: It's not a separate thing. It is bitcoin. It's atomically

563
00:30:03,720 --> 00:30:05,959
Speaker 4: related to the bitcoin blocks, and it just happens to

564
00:30:05,960 --> 00:30:09,160
Speaker 4: be this other way of using bitcoin that's a lot faster,

565
00:30:10,000 --> 00:30:11,480
Speaker 4: and then there's other other things you can do on

566
00:30:11,480 --> 00:30:13,840
Speaker 4: top of that. And because it's an open source network,

567
00:30:14,120 --> 00:30:16,360
Speaker 4: if someone has a great idea, they can go and

568
00:30:16,400 --> 00:30:18,720
Speaker 4: build it. And so again, when the Internet came out,

569
00:30:19,200 --> 00:30:24,040
Speaker 4: the earliest TCPIP protocol, that was a standard that people

570
00:30:24,040 --> 00:30:26,920
Speaker 4: could then innovate upon, and they could build HTTP, they

571
00:30:26,920 --> 00:30:29,440
Speaker 4: could build websites, they could build FTP, all of these

572
00:30:29,480 --> 00:30:31,760
Speaker 4: protocols on top of that. And I think we're going

573
00:30:31,760 --> 00:30:33,040
Speaker 4: to see the same thing, and we are seeing the

574
00:30:33,080 --> 00:30:35,800
Speaker 4: same thing with Bitcoin, that there will be innovation that

575
00:30:35,920 --> 00:30:39,959
Speaker 4: emerges to use the blockchain in other ways. And to

576
00:30:40,000 --> 00:30:43,040
Speaker 4: just look this back to the comments about ethereum, I

577
00:30:43,080 --> 00:30:45,920
Speaker 4: mean that came out, I guess in response to what

578
00:30:46,080 --> 00:30:49,560
Speaker 4: was seen as limitations in Bitcoin's base layer. But fundamentally,

579
00:30:49,640 --> 00:30:52,920
Speaker 4: and I think history has proven this, the approach to

580
00:30:53,000 --> 00:30:55,520
Speaker 4: doing everything on the base layer, you know, the kitchen

581
00:30:55,560 --> 00:30:59,560
Speaker 4: sink approach hasn't worked out. I mean, ethereum is not decentralized.

582
00:30:59,600 --> 00:31:02,880
Speaker 4: You have to have a cloud server to run the thing.

583
00:31:02,880 --> 00:31:05,920
Speaker 4: You can't run it at home. It's very clunky, it's

584
00:31:06,000 --> 00:31:10,320
Speaker 4: very big. The size of the blockchain on etherem, it's huge,

585
00:31:10,480 --> 00:31:13,760
Speaker 4: and it's really hard to validate and that sort of

586
00:31:13,920 --> 00:31:16,880
Speaker 4: so it kills that decentralization aspect, which is actually the

587
00:31:16,920 --> 00:31:19,280
Speaker 4: reason we do this in the first place, because blockchains

588
00:31:19,280 --> 00:31:21,800
Speaker 4: are very inefficient ways of doing things. The only thing

589
00:31:21,880 --> 00:31:24,479
Speaker 4: that's worth doing it for is money, and so if

590
00:31:24,520 --> 00:31:26,400
Speaker 4: you're going to do it, it has to be decentralized.

591
00:31:26,440 --> 00:31:29,000
Speaker 4: Otherwise you might as well just have a database. So yeah,

592
00:31:29,000 --> 00:31:31,040
Speaker 4: that's kind of how I contrast those two.

593
00:31:31,600 --> 00:31:34,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, there will be a lot of

594
00:31:34,760 --> 00:31:39,160
Speaker 2: people who have invested or bought bitcoin in the last

595
00:31:39,160 --> 00:31:41,680
Speaker 2: couple of years. You know, the prices we record this

596
00:31:41,720 --> 00:31:43,320
Speaker 2: is down a little bit, but it's still at ninety

597
00:31:43,320 --> 00:31:47,000
Speaker 2: seven thousand dollars per us per coin, so you know,

598
00:31:47,040 --> 00:31:52,400
Speaker 2: that is massive, almost on a record high for the currency.

599
00:31:52,800 --> 00:31:55,040
Speaker 2: So there will be people who have bought it and

600
00:31:55,080 --> 00:31:58,240
Speaker 2: they want to use it, and traditionally that's been a

601
00:31:58,240 --> 00:32:01,120
Speaker 2: little bit clunky, but we do have the likes of

602
00:32:01,560 --> 00:32:04,760
Speaker 2: lightning pay, which is you know, new Zealand organization that

603
00:32:05,040 --> 00:32:08,800
Speaker 2: is enabling payments. There are lots of others as well,

604
00:32:09,320 --> 00:32:13,680
Speaker 2: and we do now have direct bitcoin to feit currency,

605
00:32:13,720 --> 00:32:16,320
Speaker 2: So if you go to a merchant, if the merchant

606
00:32:16,360 --> 00:32:19,760
Speaker 2: accepts this, you can use your bitcoin pay the merchant

607
00:32:20,080 --> 00:32:24,600
Speaker 2: in New Zealand dollars. That's all seamlessly done behind the scene.

608
00:32:24,720 --> 00:32:27,840
Speaker 2: So I guess the momentum is building. You talk about

609
00:32:27,840 --> 00:32:33,240
Speaker 2: the hyper bitcoinization around the world. I guess that is

610
00:32:33,240 --> 00:32:35,600
Speaker 2: what is going to drive that when it becomes seamless

611
00:32:35,600 --> 00:32:39,440
Speaker 2: to pay with this digital token that you've got in

612
00:32:39,480 --> 00:32:40,720
Speaker 2: your digital wallet.

613
00:32:41,080 --> 00:32:42,800
Speaker 5: How far away are we from that? Do you think?

614
00:32:43,280 --> 00:32:45,640
Speaker 4: Okay, So I think we need to maybe flip the

615
00:32:45,680 --> 00:32:47,080
Speaker 4: way we're looking at this. So because the way you're

616
00:32:47,080 --> 00:32:50,040
Speaker 4: describing it for me would be if we were if

617
00:32:50,080 --> 00:32:52,680
Speaker 4: bitcoin was a technology company, this would be the kind

618
00:32:52,680 --> 00:32:55,080
Speaker 4: of roadmap would be talking about, you know, but it is,

619
00:32:55,200 --> 00:32:56,840
Speaker 4: at the end of the day, an open source project

620
00:32:57,000 --> 00:32:59,800
Speaker 4: is very organic. There's a lot of competing forces within

621
00:32:59,840 --> 00:33:03,840
Speaker 4: but coin that are trying to keep it strength, you know,

622
00:33:04,000 --> 00:33:05,800
Speaker 4: keep its strength as a network. So there's a lot

623
00:33:05,800 --> 00:33:08,520
Speaker 4: of a very different approach to say tech company saying

624
00:33:08,520 --> 00:33:11,640
Speaker 4: we're going to roll out and do this thing. That said,

625
00:33:11,920 --> 00:33:14,760
Speaker 4: certainly the payment side, there's a lot of stuff happening there.

626
00:33:14,920 --> 00:33:17,440
Speaker 4: Lightning Pay you mentioned friends of mine, they have an

627
00:33:17,480 --> 00:33:20,560
Speaker 4: incredible system where already today I live on a bitcoin

628
00:33:20,640 --> 00:33:23,160
Speaker 4: standard myself. I use their system to pay New Zealand

629
00:33:23,320 --> 00:33:26,480
Speaker 4: bills and so through their Lightning Pay interface, if I

630
00:33:26,480 --> 00:33:29,160
Speaker 4: have a bill with someone in New Zealand, I just

631
00:33:29,560 --> 00:33:31,760
Speaker 4: pay and it puts the money right into the bank account,

632
00:33:31,880 --> 00:33:33,400
Speaker 4: and so it's a bit of a gateway to the

633
00:33:33,440 --> 00:33:35,920
Speaker 4: legacy system. And then on the other hand, if you

634
00:33:35,960 --> 00:33:39,520
Speaker 4: want to receive bitcoin, you can pay New Zealand dollars

635
00:33:39,560 --> 00:33:41,600
Speaker 4: and get bitcoin through their system, and if you're a merchant,

636
00:33:41,640 --> 00:33:44,520
Speaker 4: you can use that same system to receive New Zealand dollars.

637
00:33:45,320 --> 00:33:47,480
Speaker 4: If someone pays bitcoin, you can receive New Zealand dollars

638
00:33:47,480 --> 00:33:50,000
Speaker 4: and you're not exposed to any kind of volatility. So

639
00:33:50,200 --> 00:33:52,160
Speaker 4: there's some really interesting stuff there, and in a way,

640
00:33:52,520 --> 00:33:55,520
Speaker 4: the legacy system is actually enabling that through open banking

641
00:33:55,640 --> 00:33:58,280
Speaker 4: and some of these APIs now which are kind of

642
00:33:58,920 --> 00:34:03,440
Speaker 4: letting letting the bitcoin system come in and again colonize

643
00:34:03,440 --> 00:34:06,160
Speaker 4: this existing financial system because it has to open up

644
00:34:06,640 --> 00:34:09,000
Speaker 4: and it means bitcoin companies can get in there, and

645
00:34:09,160 --> 00:34:12,520
Speaker 4: thankfully we've got a regulatory landscape that enables that as well,

646
00:34:12,960 --> 00:34:15,200
Speaker 4: and so it's really exciting times where I think we're

647
00:34:15,200 --> 00:34:18,440
Speaker 4: going to see maybe not necessarily just a unilateral domination,

648
00:34:18,520 --> 00:34:21,160
Speaker 4: but I think this kind of slow, morephing of the system.

649
00:34:21,760 --> 00:34:24,439
Speaker 4: And again, people who cannot save money in the bank

650
00:34:24,440 --> 00:34:28,000
Speaker 4: account because there's interest won't outcompete inflation. All they have

651
00:34:28,040 --> 00:34:31,600
Speaker 4: to do is hold bitcoin and they'll beat inflation over

652
00:34:31,640 --> 00:34:34,240
Speaker 4: the long term, and so there's kind of an interesting dynamic.

653
00:34:34,280 --> 00:34:36,120
Speaker 4: So I guess to answer the question what does the

654
00:34:36,120 --> 00:34:38,680
Speaker 4: future look like, I mean, I don't have a crystal ball.

655
00:34:38,719 --> 00:34:41,440
Speaker 4: I think the history of money tends to say that

656
00:34:41,880 --> 00:34:46,840
Speaker 4: store of value is what happens first, and so people

657
00:34:46,880 --> 00:34:49,239
Speaker 4: want to hold their value before they start trying to

658
00:34:49,239 --> 00:34:50,799
Speaker 4: spend it. And so I think maybe we're going to

659
00:34:50,800 --> 00:34:53,640
Speaker 4: see an extended period of store of value basically a

660
00:34:53,719 --> 00:34:56,719
Speaker 4: hot ale bitcoin, and then eventually you're going to maybe

661
00:34:56,760 --> 00:34:58,279
Speaker 4: see more people who say, well, I want to get

662
00:34:58,280 --> 00:35:01,680
Speaker 4: paid in bitcoin. I don't know exactly how that plays out.

663
00:35:01,680 --> 00:35:03,040
Speaker 4: I think it's going to play out in a very

664
00:35:03,400 --> 00:35:05,719
Speaker 4: kind of dispersed way, where you've got maybe pockets of

665
00:35:05,760 --> 00:35:08,279
Speaker 4: people who do that more than others, and who knows

666
00:35:08,280 --> 00:35:10,160
Speaker 4: when New Zealand will be I think we are a

667
00:35:10,200 --> 00:35:13,920
Speaker 4: little bit behind the game in terms of bitcoin infrastructure,

668
00:35:14,440 --> 00:35:18,000
Speaker 4: and part of that is regulatory barriers. But over time,

669
00:35:18,040 --> 00:35:20,080
Speaker 4: I think we will see more and more people want bitcoin.

670
00:35:20,520 --> 00:35:23,520
Speaker 4: And who knows, there could be some geopolitical black swan events,

671
00:35:24,080 --> 00:35:27,640
Speaker 4: capital controls or whatever which really pushes people towards bitcoin.

672
00:35:27,719 --> 00:35:30,000
Speaker 4: But for the moment, I would say it's still in

673
00:35:30,040 --> 00:35:32,800
Speaker 4: the store of value stage. I use it for payments

674
00:35:32,800 --> 00:35:34,759
Speaker 4: all the time, but some people maybe aren't quite at

675
00:35:34,760 --> 00:35:37,360
Speaker 4: that stage yet, and I guess it's just sort of

676
00:35:37,400 --> 00:35:38,800
Speaker 4: a slow, gradual process.

677
00:35:39,400 --> 00:35:43,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it has been frustrating really just the slow

678
00:35:44,239 --> 00:35:47,200
Speaker 2: pace of change around regulation and that in New Zealand,

679
00:35:47,280 --> 00:35:49,680
Speaker 2: although in the last year we have seen, for instance,

680
00:35:50,320 --> 00:35:54,680
Speaker 2: the Financial Markets Authority has said they are going to

681
00:35:54,719 --> 00:36:00,040
Speaker 2: set up a regulatory sandbox to allow fintech companies to

682
00:36:00,400 --> 00:36:04,600
Speaker 2: experiment with technologies like blockchain and AI. That is starting

683
00:36:04,600 --> 00:36:07,560
Speaker 2: this year, so they'll be able to literally launch services

684
00:36:07,760 --> 00:36:11,160
Speaker 2: and work with the FMA to basically experiment in a

685
00:36:11,200 --> 00:36:13,279
Speaker 2: safe way to make sure they're not breaking the law,

686
00:36:13,760 --> 00:36:16,840
Speaker 2: but to push the boat out a little bit on things. Singapore,

687
00:36:16,880 --> 00:36:21,160
Speaker 2: other countries have this. There's some work early stages work

688
00:36:21,160 --> 00:36:24,440
Speaker 2: the Reserve Bank is doing around a central bank digital currency,

689
00:36:24,719 --> 00:36:26,440
Speaker 2: which I'm picking you are not a fan of.

690
00:36:27,360 --> 00:36:32,280
Speaker 4: Yeah, so you mentioned the FMA. I think the sandbox approach.

691
00:36:32,360 --> 00:36:35,160
Speaker 4: Really the issue with that is that as a permissioned system,

692
00:36:35,520 --> 00:36:39,239
Speaker 4: you've got to be credentialed to get in and play

693
00:36:39,280 --> 00:36:42,840
Speaker 4: with things. And the whole Bitcoin network is open source.

694
00:36:42,880 --> 00:36:45,439
Speaker 4: You know, you can anyone can build apps and work

695
00:36:45,440 --> 00:36:47,480
Speaker 4: with it, and so it's kind of two incompatible things

696
00:36:47,520 --> 00:36:51,760
Speaker 4: in that sense. And again there are businesses, awesome projects

697
00:36:51,840 --> 00:36:54,560
Speaker 4: like Lightning pay who are bridging that gap and going

698
00:36:54,600 --> 00:36:58,400
Speaker 4: through the work to be a regulated entity that can

699
00:36:58,440 --> 00:37:01,320
Speaker 4: do that stuff. But ultimately, I don't think innovation happens

700
00:37:01,320 --> 00:37:04,200
Speaker 4: in those kinds of places. I think you can't really

701
00:37:04,200 --> 00:37:07,120
Speaker 4: innovate in a sand pit that's operated by the state.

702
00:37:07,280 --> 00:37:09,239
Speaker 4: I think you have to go out on a limbit

703
00:37:09,239 --> 00:37:12,040
Speaker 4: and build open source stuff. And so I think a

704
00:37:12,040 --> 00:37:14,239
Speaker 4: lot of that space is populated by again these kind

705
00:37:14,280 --> 00:37:18,239
Speaker 4: of old coin projects, which are ultimately worthless systems, and

706
00:37:18,760 --> 00:37:20,799
Speaker 4: they are quite moneyed in a lot of a lot

707
00:37:20,800 --> 00:37:23,200
Speaker 4: of situations because the companies and so they can have

708
00:37:23,239 --> 00:37:24,920
Speaker 4: their token, they can do a pre mind, they can

709
00:37:24,920 --> 00:37:26,960
Speaker 4: sell their token, and they can get all of this

710
00:37:27,040 --> 00:37:29,120
Speaker 4: money they can use for marketing their system, whereas again

711
00:37:29,160 --> 00:37:32,840
Speaker 4: bitcoin it's open source, there's no boss, there's no company

712
00:37:33,160 --> 00:37:35,920
Speaker 4: behind bitcoin, and so it's a lot more grassroots and

713
00:37:35,960 --> 00:37:38,480
Speaker 4: so I think that's one angle. And then the other

714
00:37:38,480 --> 00:37:41,360
Speaker 4: angle you mentioned are the Reserve Bank and the CBDC,

715
00:37:41,480 --> 00:37:44,640
Speaker 4: and I'm certainly at odds with what they're trying to

716
00:37:44,680 --> 00:37:47,120
Speaker 4: do there. I think on a political level, they are

717
00:37:47,160 --> 00:37:51,000
Speaker 4: trying to I think, long term ensure the stability of

718
00:37:51,000 --> 00:37:52,879
Speaker 4: the New Zealand dollar, which is actually I think under

719
00:37:52,880 --> 00:37:56,280
Speaker 4: threat from things like stable coins the US dollar dominance.

720
00:37:56,320 --> 00:37:58,839
Speaker 4: So I think there's a lot of geopolitical considerations, and

721
00:37:58,880 --> 00:38:03,080
Speaker 4: so bitcoin is just another thing nipping at their heels.

722
00:38:04,200 --> 00:38:06,120
Speaker 4: I don't know actually what the long term outlook is

723
00:38:06,160 --> 00:38:07,960
Speaker 4: for the New Zealand dollar, if I'm honest. I think

724
00:38:08,280 --> 00:38:10,399
Speaker 4: the yen as well, where I am in Japan, is

725
00:38:10,440 --> 00:38:13,279
Speaker 4: certainly not doing too well. I think they've got a

726
00:38:13,280 --> 00:38:16,319
Speaker 4: lot of political considerations and bitcoin is just another one

727
00:38:16,320 --> 00:38:19,480
Speaker 4: of those. And so the CBDC I see as a

728
00:38:19,560 --> 00:38:21,920
Speaker 4: kind of a stop gap where they can innovate just

729
00:38:21,960 --> 00:38:24,040
Speaker 4: a little bit more and to ensure the New Zealand

730
00:38:24,080 --> 00:38:26,879
Speaker 4: dollar doesn't die straight away. But if you look over

731
00:38:26,920 --> 00:38:28,800
Speaker 4: the long term, the history of war feat money is

732
00:38:28,800 --> 00:38:30,440
Speaker 4: as they all go to zero. I mean, the New

733
00:38:30,520 --> 00:38:33,920
Speaker 4: Zealand dollar arguably is only since nineteen sixty eight, I

734
00:38:33,920 --> 00:38:37,560
Speaker 4: think when we moved over from the pound, and you know,

735
00:38:37,600 --> 00:38:39,560
Speaker 4: all of these currencies after a few decades they all

736
00:38:39,600 --> 00:38:41,600
Speaker 4: eventually die. So I think we are going to see

737
00:38:41,600 --> 00:38:44,280
Speaker 4: that in slow motion as people lose trust in the state,

738
00:38:44,680 --> 00:38:48,040
Speaker 4: in the government money and who knows, whether it's stable coins,

739
00:38:48,080 --> 00:38:51,080
Speaker 4: bitcoin or you know, hard metals. Maybe there's things people

740
00:38:51,120 --> 00:38:55,719
Speaker 4: move into and they move away from New Zealand's currency, and.

741
00:38:55,600 --> 00:38:59,400
Speaker 2: We're sort of seeing that to some extent. For instance, gold,

742
00:38:59,480 --> 00:39:03,040
Speaker 2: you know, China has been hoarding gold, other countries, the

743
00:39:03,080 --> 00:39:08,399
Speaker 2: bricks nations have been buying up gold deposits. So that's

744
00:39:08,440 --> 00:39:12,040
Speaker 2: one indication of the lack of confidence, for instance, in

745
00:39:12,080 --> 00:39:15,640
Speaker 2: their own currencies. Also the US dollar we've seen l Salvador,

746
00:39:15,640 --> 00:39:17,640
Speaker 2: although they pull back from that in the last couple

747
00:39:17,680 --> 00:39:20,920
Speaker 2: of weeks. Bitcoin as a you know, as a nation

748
00:39:21,040 --> 00:39:25,480
Speaker 2: state sort of currency, a recognized currency there, they are

749
00:39:25,520 --> 00:39:28,000
Speaker 2: still investing in bitcoin. But there have been a few

750
00:39:28,040 --> 00:39:32,239
Speaker 2: experiments like that having there in smaller countries that have

751
00:39:32,440 --> 00:39:37,320
Speaker 2: very little confidence in their currencies, high inflation, high corruption,

752
00:39:37,440 --> 00:39:40,719
Speaker 2: they see that as potentially a way to improve live,

753
00:39:41,680 --> 00:39:43,239
Speaker 2: improve life for their citizens.

754
00:39:43,760 --> 00:39:44,000
Speaker 3: Yeah.

755
00:39:44,080 --> 00:39:46,759
Speaker 4: So, I mean it's classic adage that in times of

756
00:39:46,840 --> 00:39:49,680
Speaker 4: strife you go into gold. I don't know. I mean,

757
00:39:49,680 --> 00:39:51,279
Speaker 4: gold is a bit of fun, but I don't think

758
00:39:51,320 --> 00:39:53,080
Speaker 4: how relevant. I don't think it's that relevant in the

759
00:39:53,080 --> 00:39:56,719
Speaker 4: modern world. It's it's hard to move around. You know,

760
00:39:56,760 --> 00:39:58,040
Speaker 4: you can you can store it, but how are you

761
00:39:58,080 --> 00:40:00,680
Speaker 4: going to liquidate it? I mean, bitcoin innovates on that

762
00:40:00,719 --> 00:40:04,120
Speaker 4: in so many ways, and you can send it anywhere,

763
00:40:04,120 --> 00:40:05,839
Speaker 4: you can take it with the overseas, you know, can't

764
00:40:06,120 --> 00:40:09,000
Speaker 4: you can't take gold on an airplane really without getting detected.

765
00:40:09,080 --> 00:40:11,719
Speaker 4: So there's a whole lot of considerations there. But I

766
00:40:11,760 --> 00:40:14,480
Speaker 4: think when it comes to experiments with us, the world

767
00:40:14,600 --> 00:40:17,279
Speaker 4: is kind of crazy, man, Like, well, you know what's

768
00:40:17,320 --> 00:40:20,120
Speaker 4: going on in times of strife, people are going to

769
00:40:20,120 --> 00:40:22,120
Speaker 4: look for hard assets to park their value, and I

770
00:40:22,120 --> 00:40:24,879
Speaker 4: think bitcoin's doing a really good job of that. You've

771
00:40:24,880 --> 00:40:27,960
Speaker 4: seen starting to see countries experiment You mentioned our Salvador,

772
00:40:28,800 --> 00:40:31,320
Speaker 4: they played around with this legal tender law, which I

773
00:40:31,360 --> 00:40:34,879
Speaker 4: think they've just repealed. I don't quite know the full

774
00:40:34,920 --> 00:40:38,200
Speaker 4: implications that there might have been some political pressure from

775
00:40:38,239 --> 00:40:42,360
Speaker 4: the IMF, but regardless, it was an experiment and it

776
00:40:42,440 --> 00:40:44,360
Speaker 4: was really interesting, and so you've seen all these companies

777
00:40:44,440 --> 00:40:46,160
Speaker 4: now start to move to ourself or you can still

778
00:40:46,239 --> 00:40:49,080
Speaker 4: use it there. It's just I think they've just changed

779
00:40:49,120 --> 00:40:51,520
Speaker 4: the law around the legal tender status, but you can

780
00:40:51,560 --> 00:40:54,319
Speaker 4: still use it. Really exciting stuff. There's a few other

781
00:40:54,320 --> 00:40:57,719
Speaker 4: localities in Switzerland. There's Lugano, which is a city that

782
00:40:58,000 --> 00:41:01,319
Speaker 4: has you can use bitcoin amongst all the merchant There's

783
00:41:01,320 --> 00:41:03,239
Speaker 4: a few places in the Philippines other other kind of

784
00:41:03,280 --> 00:41:07,759
Speaker 4: bitcoin communities where there's this circular economy emerging, and I

785
00:41:07,760 --> 00:41:09,640
Speaker 4: think it would be really awesome actually to see something

786
00:41:09,680 --> 00:41:12,440
Speaker 4: like that in New Zealand. I can also highlight Queenstown

787
00:41:12,480 --> 00:41:15,200
Speaker 4: as a bit of a bitcoin hub. That's where part

788
00:41:15,200 --> 00:41:17,399
Speaker 4: of Lightning Pay is based out of Queenstown and there's

789
00:41:17,400 --> 00:41:19,480
Speaker 4: a few merchants there. So we're going to have actually

790
00:41:19,520 --> 00:41:21,640
Speaker 4: having an event there in March that I'm going to

791
00:41:21,680 --> 00:41:24,239
Speaker 4: attend and we're going to pay on bitcoin, and it's

792
00:41:24,239 --> 00:41:25,680
Speaker 4: going to be kind of cool. So I mean, I'd

793
00:41:25,719 --> 00:41:28,680
Speaker 4: love to see a bitcoin circular economy like that in

794
00:41:28,719 --> 00:41:31,919
Speaker 4: New Zealand, but yeah, sort of early's still early days,

795
00:41:32,000 --> 00:41:33,680
Speaker 4: I think for that that kind of thing.

796
00:41:34,080 --> 00:41:38,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, and look, it's not necessarily bitcoin based, but we're

797
00:41:38,719 --> 00:41:41,640
Speaker 2: always see some really good innovation in New Zealand pockets

798
00:41:41,680 --> 00:41:44,480
Speaker 2: offt it. We don't necessarily have a you know, an

799
00:41:44,480 --> 00:41:48,000
Speaker 2: industry that focuses on this, but you have, for instance, immersive,

800
00:41:48,160 --> 00:41:51,960
Speaker 2: really innovative company Jerome Farre's company that is sort of

801
00:41:51,960 --> 00:41:55,600
Speaker 2: interfacing with master card and and bitcoin, so you can

802
00:41:55,719 --> 00:41:58,960
Speaker 2: very easily use your bitcoin to pay it at master

803
00:41:59,040 --> 00:42:02,520
Speaker 2: card terminals and hundreds of thousands, if not millions of

804
00:42:02,520 --> 00:42:05,440
Speaker 2: them around the world. You've got future Verse, which is

805
00:42:05,480 --> 00:42:09,279
Speaker 2: around non fungible tokens and gaming, and like we've talked

806
00:42:09,280 --> 00:42:12,440
Speaker 2: about Lightning Pay and several others. So do you get

807
00:42:12,440 --> 00:42:14,560
Speaker 2: a sense that, you know, we have a thriving software

808
00:42:14,560 --> 00:42:17,640
Speaker 2: as a service industry in New Zealand. We've exported zero

809
00:42:17,800 --> 00:42:22,000
Speaker 2: software and others vend to the world. When you look

810
00:42:22,040 --> 00:42:24,200
Speaker 2: at the sort of the grassroots stuff that's going on

811
00:42:24,320 --> 00:42:28,239
Speaker 2: and web three and blockchain ventures in New Zealand, are

812
00:42:28,239 --> 00:42:30,680
Speaker 2: you sort of heightened by the activity.

813
00:42:31,800 --> 00:42:35,520
Speaker 4: So I think, again, the bitcoins really were my focus is,

814
00:42:35,560 --> 00:42:38,239
Speaker 4: and I'm a little bit disappointed. I think generally the

815
00:42:38,320 --> 00:42:42,640
Speaker 4: quality of these other systems is pretty low. And again

816
00:42:42,680 --> 00:42:46,239
Speaker 4: they're all hype. They're all hype. They don't really have

817
00:42:46,320 --> 00:42:49,040
Speaker 4: any true value, and they're sort of riding the train.

818
00:42:49,120 --> 00:42:51,359
Speaker 4: And I think we have to unpick the hype from

819
00:42:51,400 --> 00:42:53,800
Speaker 4: the reality. And the same could be said for AI stuff.

820
00:42:53,880 --> 00:42:55,359
Speaker 4: I mean, there's certainly a lot of value there, but

821
00:42:55,840 --> 00:42:57,920
Speaker 4: it's sort of you see it float by on LinkedIn

822
00:42:58,000 --> 00:43:00,840
Speaker 4: and you think, okay, we've hit peak. And so with

823
00:43:00,880 --> 00:43:02,520
Speaker 4: the crypto stuff, I think a lot of that is

824
00:43:02,600 --> 00:43:05,160
Speaker 4: vestile from the last bull run and all of that

825
00:43:05,280 --> 00:43:07,600
Speaker 4: was driven by bitcoin, you know, and so then it

826
00:43:07,640 --> 00:43:10,239
Speaker 4: flowed into these old coins, and so I think, really

827
00:43:10,280 --> 00:43:13,240
Speaker 4: people need to be critical. Again, blockchain doesn't matter unless

828
00:43:13,239 --> 00:43:18,239
Speaker 4: it's decentralized and secured like bitcoin. NFTs are again interesting,

829
00:43:18,360 --> 00:43:22,000
Speaker 4: but they don't if they're not on bitcoin. You might

830
00:43:22,000 --> 00:43:24,160
Speaker 4: as just have it in a database, you know. And

831
00:43:24,200 --> 00:43:27,480
Speaker 4: so I think there's a critique there of what's going

832
00:43:27,480 --> 00:43:30,359
Speaker 4: on in New Zealand. Now that said, with the bitcoin stuff,

833
00:43:30,360 --> 00:43:32,319
Speaker 4: there is a few companies doing some awesome stuff but

834
00:43:32,880 --> 00:43:35,400
Speaker 4: it sits a little bit, just a little bit outside

835
00:43:35,440 --> 00:43:38,839
Speaker 4: of the Overton window of sort of what's acceptable, because again,

836
00:43:38,880 --> 00:43:42,920
Speaker 4: bitcoin is is pretty big as an idea, and it

837
00:43:42,960 --> 00:43:46,040
Speaker 4: is disruptive. You know, we're software and SaaS and that

838
00:43:46,120 --> 00:43:48,440
Speaker 4: all of this stuff is about disruption, and the biggest

839
00:43:48,440 --> 00:43:51,640
Speaker 4: disruption we can make is disrupting the monopoly on nation

840
00:43:51,719 --> 00:43:54,160
Speaker 4: state currency. And I think that's really the big piece,

841
00:43:54,200 --> 00:43:55,960
Speaker 4: and that's maybe just a bridge too far for some

842
00:43:56,000 --> 00:43:58,880
Speaker 4: people who want to play in the fintech sandpit that

843
00:43:58,920 --> 00:44:00,960
Speaker 4: the government has made for them. You know. So I

844
00:44:00,960 --> 00:44:03,279
Speaker 4: guess I have a little bit of an aversion to

845
00:44:03,360 --> 00:44:06,759
Speaker 4: maybe some of those projects that certainly don't plan too

846
00:44:06,760 --> 00:44:09,839
Speaker 4: the bitcoin world. That's sort of maybe a little bit

847
00:44:09,840 --> 00:44:12,160
Speaker 4: of a distraction. Though certainly some of that stuff, if

848
00:44:12,160 --> 00:44:14,120
Speaker 4: it could be positively, if it could be brought over

849
00:44:14,160 --> 00:44:15,880
Speaker 4: into bitcoin, or maybe some of those people can work

850
00:44:15,920 --> 00:44:18,080
Speaker 4: on bitcoin stuff, that could be really awesome. But yeah,

851
00:44:18,360 --> 00:44:21,120
Speaker 4: there's sort of the software landscape generally, though in New

852
00:44:21,160 --> 00:44:23,319
Speaker 4: Zealand I think is pretty strong. I'm a big fan

853
00:44:23,360 --> 00:44:25,439
Speaker 4: of some of the agritech stuff that's happening as well

854
00:44:26,120 --> 00:44:27,719
Speaker 4: and New Zealand, I mean that's where we need to

855
00:44:27,719 --> 00:44:31,240
Speaker 4: be going is exporting software instead of milk.

856
00:44:31,400 --> 00:44:38,080
Speaker 2: You know, I guess the two remaining issues that are

857
00:44:38,120 --> 00:44:43,960
Speaker 2: barriers to bitcoin adoption and the hyper bitcoinization of the

858
00:44:44,000 --> 00:44:49,120
Speaker 2: world really is lingering perceptions of trust. And this isn't

859
00:44:49,120 --> 00:44:52,439
Speaker 2: anything integral to bitcoin. This is about the actors who

860
00:44:53,080 --> 00:44:57,359
Speaker 2: work around that network. We've seen exchanges like Dasset Cryptopia

861
00:44:57,480 --> 00:45:01,040
Speaker 2: here in New Zealand collapse owing a lot of money.

862
00:45:01,840 --> 00:45:06,840
Speaker 2: FTX was a big moment for the industry Binance. The

863
00:45:06,920 --> 00:45:10,480
Speaker 2: CEO went to jail, huge finds there, So I guess

864
00:45:10,719 --> 00:45:12,080
Speaker 2: we've got to work through that. And the other thing

865
00:45:12,120 --> 00:45:15,279
Speaker 2: is the volatility. So interested just finally to wrap up

866
00:45:15,320 --> 00:45:18,279
Speaker 2: really what your thought is on those two things. Are

867
00:45:18,280 --> 00:45:21,960
Speaker 2: we going to see and with Trump throwing his own

868
00:45:22,040 --> 00:45:25,680
Speaker 2: mean coins out there and sort of polluting the pond

869
00:45:25,800 --> 00:45:27,520
Speaker 2: to some extent, are you just going to see more

870
00:45:28,480 --> 00:45:32,160
Speaker 2: bad activity that's going to sort of taint this whole area,

871
00:45:32,200 --> 00:45:36,520
Speaker 2: particularly bitcoin, And as it matures and it's more uptake

872
00:45:36,560 --> 00:45:39,400
Speaker 2: and interest in bitcoin, either peaks and troughs are going

873
00:45:39,440 --> 00:45:41,200
Speaker 2: to flatten out a little bit or is it always

874
00:45:41,239 --> 00:45:45,480
Speaker 2: going to be a boom bust sort of deal holding

875
00:45:45,560 --> 00:45:46,680
Speaker 2: and investing in bitcoin?

876
00:45:47,200 --> 00:45:49,600
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I have a lot of sympathy for people

877
00:45:49,640 --> 00:45:52,560
Speaker 4: who have maybe had issues with a bitcoin of lost

878
00:45:52,560 --> 00:45:54,839
Speaker 4: bitcoin through exchange hacks and things like this. You know,

879
00:45:54,880 --> 00:45:58,280
Speaker 4: there's certainly maybe people who are not so tech savvy

880
00:45:58,880 --> 00:46:02,120
Speaker 4: and they don't know that there's other ways of holding bitcoin.

881
00:46:02,239 --> 00:46:05,480
Speaker 4: I certainly have sympathy that for their loss. And unfortunately,

882
00:46:05,880 --> 00:46:08,160
Speaker 4: in some of these situations there is a regulator who

883
00:46:08,160 --> 00:46:11,520
Speaker 4: can come in and make things right. But ultimately, I

884
00:46:11,520 --> 00:46:14,719
Speaker 4: think bitcoin is a profounding new idea in the sense

885
00:46:14,719 --> 00:46:17,560
Speaker 4: that you can self custody your funds. And this is

886
00:46:17,600 --> 00:46:21,440
Speaker 4: not possible currently unless you're holding cash, physical cash in

887
00:46:21,480 --> 00:46:25,120
Speaker 4: your house or physical gold that you can't self custody

888
00:46:25,239 --> 00:46:27,440
Speaker 4: or money all of it lives in bank databases, and

889
00:46:27,480 --> 00:46:30,920
Speaker 4: bitcoin is totally opposite. You can hold this, you can

890
00:46:30,960 --> 00:46:36,040
Speaker 4: hold it in your own wallet, and it's out there

891
00:46:36,040 --> 00:46:38,240
Speaker 4: on the blockchain. Your wallet sort of unlocks those funds.

892
00:46:38,520 --> 00:46:39,920
Speaker 4: No one own says access to it. So that's a

893
00:46:40,040 --> 00:46:44,440
Speaker 4: very new and kind of radical concept of ownership. And

894
00:46:44,520 --> 00:46:47,799
Speaker 4: so it's naturally it's going to be quite quite hard

895
00:46:47,800 --> 00:46:49,400
Speaker 4: for some people to get their heads around that. And

896
00:46:49,440 --> 00:46:52,680
Speaker 4: so if you have your money with a custodian, the

897
00:46:52,719 --> 00:46:55,320
Speaker 4: custodian is now the risk point, and so I think

898
00:46:55,920 --> 00:46:58,279
Speaker 4: I would encourage people to learn about the nature of

899
00:46:58,320 --> 00:47:00,799
Speaker 4: self custody and what's involved. And it really is as

900
00:47:00,880 --> 00:47:04,560
Speaker 4: simple as twelve words that you get from your wallet

901
00:47:04,560 --> 00:47:06,840
Speaker 4: that you can write down and secure your bitcoin with that.

902
00:47:08,080 --> 00:47:09,840
Speaker 4: There is maybe a little bit more nuance about exactly

903
00:47:09,880 --> 00:47:11,960
Speaker 4: how you do that, but it's it's a process that

904
00:47:12,000 --> 00:47:13,840
Speaker 4: people need to go through. And if you can, if

905
00:47:13,880 --> 00:47:15,520
Speaker 4: you can drive a car, you know, if you can

906
00:47:15,600 --> 00:47:17,319
Speaker 4: use a computer, you can, you can use bitcoin in

907
00:47:17,320 --> 00:47:20,839
Speaker 4: a self custod of your way. In terms of these

908
00:47:20,880 --> 00:47:23,440
Speaker 4: bad actors, again, I think we are going to see

909
00:47:23,440 --> 00:47:25,799
Speaker 4: this probably for the for the foreseeable future. There's going

910
00:47:25,840 --> 00:47:28,440
Speaker 4: to be a number of these sorts of exchanges and

911
00:47:29,719 --> 00:47:31,840
Speaker 4: businesses that come out that are actually not holding the

912
00:47:31,840 --> 00:47:35,000
Speaker 4: bitcoin they say they are. They've got paper bitcoin for example,

913
00:47:35,600 --> 00:47:37,880
Speaker 4: that they're selling to people, but it's not actually a

914
00:47:38,000 --> 00:47:39,920
Speaker 4: real bitcoin, and so there's going to be risk and

915
00:47:39,960 --> 00:47:42,360
Speaker 4: we saw that with ftx and other exchanges in the past.

916
00:47:42,440 --> 00:47:45,880
Speaker 4: But again, doing a due diligence, doing a bit of

917
00:47:46,040 --> 00:47:48,279
Speaker 4: research and understand exactly what you need to do to

918
00:47:48,320 --> 00:47:51,560
Speaker 4: get bitcoin into your self custody is really important. And

919
00:47:51,600 --> 00:47:54,359
Speaker 4: then I think also the lens or the I guess

920
00:47:54,360 --> 00:47:56,960
Speaker 4: you could say the mantra of bitcoin not crypto is

921
00:47:57,000 --> 00:48:00,160
Speaker 4: really important here because if you brought into the trump coin,

922
00:48:00,239 --> 00:48:03,160
Speaker 4: for example, you got rugged. You know, you lost all

923
00:48:03,160 --> 00:48:05,600
Speaker 4: your money. If you've brought into any of the other

924
00:48:05,680 --> 00:48:07,719
Speaker 4: thousands of cryptos that have come over the years, you're

925
00:48:07,719 --> 00:48:10,759
Speaker 4: going to lose money. Whereas bitcoin, you hold it, and

926
00:48:10,920 --> 00:48:12,879
Speaker 4: generally speaking, over a three or four year period, it's

927
00:48:12,880 --> 00:48:16,600
Speaker 4: always going to increase in purchasing power. There are ups

928
00:48:16,640 --> 00:48:18,960
Speaker 4: and downs, and there is volatility, and man, that is

929
00:48:19,000 --> 00:48:22,640
Speaker 4: the rollercoaster ride. You know, when you and I last spoke,

930
00:48:22,680 --> 00:48:24,440
Speaker 4: I can' quite remember what the bitcoin price was and

931
00:48:24,480 --> 00:48:26,719
Speaker 4: New Zealand dollars, but it was certainly a lot cheaper

932
00:48:26,719 --> 00:48:29,279
Speaker 4: than it is today. And you know, I had to

933
00:48:29,360 --> 00:48:32,400
Speaker 4: ride through all of that, but I understood the network.

934
00:48:32,400 --> 00:48:34,839
Speaker 4: And so I think education is really the big piece here.

935
00:48:34,840 --> 00:48:37,360
Speaker 4: And so if people, if they can, I would suggest

936
00:48:37,400 --> 00:48:39,800
Speaker 4: reading some books about bitcoin. I can recommend the Bitcoin

937
00:48:39,920 --> 00:48:42,560
Speaker 4: Standard is a really good place to start. There's some

938
00:48:42,560 --> 00:48:44,520
Speaker 4: really awesome meetups happening in New Zealand as well. We

939
00:48:44,680 --> 00:48:47,239
Speaker 4: can talk to real people, genuine people and kind of

940
00:48:47,280 --> 00:48:50,080
Speaker 4: learn about how bitcoin works. So I can sumably call

941
00:48:50,120 --> 00:48:51,719
Speaker 4: out the bit key we meet ups. There's a place

942
00:48:51,800 --> 00:48:54,560
Speaker 4: people can go to learn about bitcoin, and I kind

943
00:48:54,560 --> 00:48:57,320
Speaker 4: of ask the questions that are burning. But really education

944
00:48:57,480 --> 00:48:59,560
Speaker 4: is the key piece. And once you begin that and

945
00:48:59,600 --> 00:49:02,000
Speaker 4: you sort of see how it unfolds, you've begun down

946
00:49:02,000 --> 00:49:04,400
Speaker 4: that rabbit hole. There's no I don't think there's any

947
00:49:04,480 --> 00:49:06,440
Speaker 4: coming back to the old way. So yeah, that's all

948
00:49:06,480 --> 00:49:08,200
Speaker 4: I would say. Education is important.

949
00:49:09,320 --> 00:49:12,000
Speaker 2: Well, it's a great podcast, The Transformation of Value. You

950
00:49:12,080 --> 00:49:14,680
Speaker 2: got some great guests on there, and I highly recommend

951
00:49:14,680 --> 00:49:18,480
Speaker 2: it as someone who has been educating myself on this

952
00:49:18,600 --> 00:49:21,000
Speaker 2: has been really valuable and for answering some of the

953
00:49:21,000 --> 00:49:25,839
Speaker 2: bigger philosophical questions about you know, financial freedom and what

954
00:49:25,880 --> 00:49:29,160
Speaker 2: this is all about, what bitcoin represents. So thanks so much.

955
00:49:29,200 --> 00:49:31,720
Speaker 2: We'll put links to that in that book you mentioned

956
00:49:32,080 --> 00:49:35,759
Speaker 2: in the show notes. And thanks so much for being

957
00:49:35,800 --> 00:49:38,799
Speaker 2: on the Business of Tech, Cody, and look forward to

958
00:49:39,040 --> 00:49:42,120
Speaker 2: catching up with you again and seeing what potentially crazy

959
00:49:42,120 --> 00:49:43,920
Speaker 2: stuff happens in the world in twenty twenty five and

960
00:49:43,960 --> 00:49:45,360
Speaker 2: what it means for bitcoin.

961
00:49:45,840 --> 00:49:47,240
Speaker 4: Yeah, thank you very much, Peter.

962
00:49:54,280 --> 00:49:55,240
Speaker 5: So being and you into.

963
00:49:55,120 --> 00:49:59,000
Speaker 3: Bitcoin, No, no, I did dabble. I wish I had

964
00:49:59,239 --> 00:50:02,279
Speaker 3: kept my money in there, but you know, I think

965
00:50:02,280 --> 00:50:04,479
Speaker 3: it was around the fifty sixty thousand, but I only

966
00:50:04,480 --> 00:50:06,840
Speaker 3: had like one hundred bucks in anyway, just just just

967
00:50:06,880 --> 00:50:09,680
Speaker 3: to try it out. But I do kind of have

968
00:50:10,080 --> 00:50:12,880
Speaker 3: an understanding of what he's saying. It's like cryptocurrencies are

969
00:50:12,880 --> 00:50:15,600
Speaker 3: out of the bag now the box is open, and

970
00:50:15,880 --> 00:50:19,080
Speaker 3: if we want one that is going to be the

971
00:50:19,760 --> 00:50:24,680
Speaker 3: you know, dominant useful crypto, it really kind of makes

972
00:50:24,719 --> 00:50:27,400
Speaker 3: sense for it to be Bitcoin in many ways.

973
00:50:27,680 --> 00:50:29,959
Speaker 2: So there's there's that, there's and that's what I'm really

974
00:50:29,960 --> 00:50:34,120
Speaker 2: interested in. I've bought some in the hope, you know,

975
00:50:34,239 --> 00:50:36,799
Speaker 2: several years ago, I bought this in the hope that,

976
00:50:37,680 --> 00:50:40,760
Speaker 2: you know, I can start using this and educate myself

977
00:50:40,800 --> 00:50:43,600
Speaker 2: on it and start transacting with it. I haven't touched

978
00:50:43,640 --> 00:50:46,719
Speaker 2: it since then. I haven't used it to make a transaction.

979
00:50:46,880 --> 00:50:49,720
Speaker 2: Cody a few years ago took me through that whole process,

980
00:50:49,760 --> 00:50:52,680
Speaker 2: so I know it's possible, but I just don't see

981
00:50:52,719 --> 00:50:55,560
Speaker 2: the compelling proposition to do it. But it's not just

982
00:50:55,560 --> 00:50:58,560
Speaker 2: about convenience or even lower fees. I think for people

983
00:50:58,600 --> 00:51:03,360
Speaker 2: like Cody, it's a fundamental transformation of the financial system

984
00:51:03,600 --> 00:51:10,280
Speaker 2: and what they see as freedom from an oppressive controlling system,

985
00:51:10,560 --> 00:51:14,200
Speaker 2: including the government with the Reserve Bank and the banks

986
00:51:14,239 --> 00:51:17,160
Speaker 2: around it. And it's really quite remarkable when you start

987
00:51:17,320 --> 00:51:20,399
Speaker 2: listening to his podcast. You know, a lot of these

988
00:51:20,400 --> 00:51:25,239
Speaker 2: people really see that the currencies are collapsing, inflation is

989
00:51:25,719 --> 00:51:29,719
Speaker 2: killing spending power. The only way really to counter that

990
00:51:29,960 --> 00:51:34,759
Speaker 2: is backing bitcoin, which, as he says, you know, is volatile,

991
00:51:34,840 --> 00:51:38,640
Speaker 2: but has been increasing in value on a trend line

992
00:51:38,680 --> 00:51:39,840
Speaker 2: over the last fifteen years.

993
00:51:40,560 --> 00:51:44,080
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, I think there is a bit of a

994
00:51:44,280 --> 00:51:48,360
Speaker 3: logical jump from there we're having a crisis of currency

995
00:51:48,680 --> 00:51:53,680
Speaker 3: and economic inflation to straight to bitcoin is the only option.

996
00:51:54,000 --> 00:51:56,560
Speaker 3: I mean, listening to him speak, I thought he made

997
00:51:56,600 --> 00:51:58,759
Speaker 3: some really excellent points, and I really liked a lot

998
00:51:58,760 --> 00:52:00,600
Speaker 3: of what he was saying, But they were few kind

999
00:52:00,640 --> 00:52:04,680
Speaker 3: of alarm bells that rang for me, and I think

1000
00:52:04,719 --> 00:52:07,000
Speaker 3: one of them is what you've alluded to just now,

1001
00:52:07,040 --> 00:52:09,759
Speaker 3: which is the number of times that he repeated just

1002
00:52:09,920 --> 00:52:13,280
Speaker 3: hold it and it will grow, and it's like, actually,

1003
00:52:13,360 --> 00:52:17,360
Speaker 3: that's not really how things work. The reason, one of

1004
00:52:17,360 --> 00:52:20,239
Speaker 3: the reasons that we're facing this massive economic issue at

1005
00:52:20,239 --> 00:52:23,000
Speaker 3: the moment is because of the growth at all costs mindset, Like,

1006
00:52:23,080 --> 00:52:27,240
Speaker 3: I don't think having a different currency that grows faster

1007
00:52:27,440 --> 00:52:30,760
Speaker 3: is the answer because they can't just do it forever.

1008
00:52:31,680 --> 00:52:32,440
Speaker 5: No, it can't.

1009
00:52:32,520 --> 00:52:35,480
Speaker 2: But I guess he's looking at the fundamentals off a

1010
00:52:35,600 --> 00:52:39,120
Speaker 2: limited supply and a truly limited supply, they'll only ever

1011
00:52:39,320 --> 00:52:41,279
Speaker 2: make so many bitcoins.

1012
00:52:41,680 --> 00:52:43,120
Speaker 5: It's getting harder and harder to.

1013
00:52:43,040 --> 00:52:45,440
Speaker 2: Make that, and that's other issues we've talked about around

1014
00:52:46,000 --> 00:52:51,080
Speaker 2: the energy required to do those transactions or those calculations

1015
00:52:51,120 --> 00:52:54,680
Speaker 2: to put blocks on the chain. But then there's the

1016
00:52:54,719 --> 00:52:58,719
Speaker 2: issue off volatility. So I think Cody basically has all

1017
00:52:58,840 --> 00:53:02,799
Speaker 2: you know, transacts everything in booitcoin, which is fine if

1018
00:53:02,840 --> 00:53:07,120
Speaker 2: you truly believe in that upward trajectory which is holding

1019
00:53:07,360 --> 00:53:08,279
Speaker 2: true over time.

1020
00:53:08,320 --> 00:53:09,440
Speaker 5: But it's those big dips.

1021
00:53:09,440 --> 00:53:13,200
Speaker 2: So if you're trying to buy a big ticket item

1022
00:53:13,400 --> 00:53:16,000
Speaker 2: in your car, is something like that, and unfortunately you

1023
00:53:16,640 --> 00:53:17,720
Speaker 2: hit the dip.

1024
00:53:19,000 --> 00:53:20,600
Speaker 5: That's the thing. I think most.

1025
00:53:20,400 --> 00:53:22,240
Speaker 2: Consumers don't want to bar for it at the moment

1026
00:53:22,360 --> 00:53:23,799
Speaker 2: just because of that volatility.

1027
00:53:24,120 --> 00:53:26,240
Speaker 3: And it's fine if you have a lot of money.

1028
00:53:26,280 --> 00:53:29,719
Speaker 3: You can do that. If you're independently wealthy, or if

1029
00:53:29,760 --> 00:53:31,960
Speaker 3: you have a lot of assets and you don't have

1030
00:53:32,000 --> 00:53:34,640
Speaker 3: any concerns. But if you're somebody living day to day

1031
00:53:35,280 --> 00:53:39,320
Speaker 3: who just wants to be able to get by, buy groceries,

1032
00:53:39,480 --> 00:53:44,839
Speaker 3: buy a car or a house eventually, and knowing how

1033
00:53:44,880 --> 00:53:48,120
Speaker 3: much your income is is really important. The reality is

1034
00:53:48,120 --> 00:53:52,160
Speaker 3: is that currency based on something that is fluctuating constantly,

1035
00:53:52,440 --> 00:53:55,520
Speaker 3: it will just cause so many issues for so many people,

1036
00:53:56,280 --> 00:53:59,440
Speaker 3: those people who are just scraping by, those people who

1037
00:53:59,480 --> 00:54:02,400
Speaker 3: are even just like lower middle class, that's just not

1038
00:54:02,440 --> 00:54:05,279
Speaker 3: going to just won't work, just w and then is

1039
00:54:05,320 --> 00:54:10,120
Speaker 3: the other issue of self custody of your bitcoin, which

1040
00:54:10,200 --> 00:54:13,040
Speaker 3: is the only way really to keep it safe. And

1041
00:54:13,440 --> 00:54:17,280
Speaker 3: I just think there's you know, it's improved the ability

1042
00:54:17,320 --> 00:54:20,799
Speaker 3: to do that, but it's still just something that the

1043
00:54:20,840 --> 00:54:24,200
Speaker 3: average consumer won't touch with a barge pole. So there's

1044
00:54:24,200 --> 00:54:27,480
Speaker 3: still a number of fundamental barriers to get over with bitcoin.

1045
00:54:27,560 --> 00:54:31,640
Speaker 3: But what I fundamentally love is just the efficiency of

1046
00:54:31,760 --> 00:54:35,160
Speaker 3: making transactions, so payments to the obvious place where this

1047
00:54:35,320 --> 00:54:38,280
Speaker 3: can save us money, do things quickly with those Layer

1048
00:54:38,320 --> 00:54:43,399
Speaker 3: two applications on bitcoin, even with Ethereum and others as well,

1049
00:54:43,480 --> 00:54:47,719
Speaker 3: smart contract tracts. Those are the things that really my

1050
00:54:47,800 --> 00:54:51,080
Speaker 3: eyes light up really about these technologies. A more efficient

1051
00:54:51,120 --> 00:54:56,120
Speaker 3: way to do things with money in the digital world,

1052
00:54:56,360 --> 00:54:58,960
Speaker 3: and I'd like to see innovation, and there is some

1053
00:54:59,000 --> 00:55:02,160
Speaker 3: great innovation happening even here in New Zealand. A handful

1054
00:55:02,200 --> 00:55:05,480
Speaker 3: of companies are doing really cool things. They're still quite niche,

1055
00:55:05,800 --> 00:55:10,200
Speaker 3: but definitely, I think what Trump is doing and changes

1056
00:55:10,239 --> 00:55:15,440
Speaker 3: at the SEC and the financial sector's embrace off exchange

1057
00:55:15,480 --> 00:55:17,600
Speaker 3: traded funds, it's just going to make all of that

1058
00:55:17,640 --> 00:55:21,240
Speaker 3: innovation more likely to happen. Ultimately, I think his messages

1059
00:55:21,239 --> 00:55:23,760
Speaker 3: are good, one which is, go out and educate yourself.

1060
00:55:23,520 --> 00:55:28,319
Speaker 3: If you feel uncomfortable about the extent to which your

1061
00:55:28,640 --> 00:55:34,560
Speaker 3: reliance on big finance essentially and you're seeing what that

1062
00:55:34,680 --> 00:55:38,359
Speaker 3: does to your life, there may be an alternative. Go

1063
00:55:38,400 --> 00:55:41,359
Speaker 3: and educate yourself on it. Don't take my word for it.

1064
00:55:41,560 --> 00:55:44,279
Speaker 3: Go and have a look at the stuff. Play around

1065
00:55:44,320 --> 00:55:46,960
Speaker 3: with bitcoin, see what you can do with it, transfer

1066
00:55:47,040 --> 00:55:49,920
Speaker 3: it to other people. You can now pay for things

1067
00:55:50,000 --> 00:55:52,239
Speaker 3: with bitcoin if you want to do that. Just don't

1068
00:55:52,239 --> 00:55:52,960
Speaker 3: trust anyone.

1069
00:55:53,920 --> 00:55:56,920
Speaker 2: Just just don't trust anyone, and definitely don't trust the

1070
00:55:56,960 --> 00:56:01,640
Speaker 2: Trump mean coin or encodes you any the other cryptocurrencies.

1071
00:56:01,680 --> 00:56:03,560
Speaker 2: And I think he's probably got a point there.

1072
00:56:03,640 --> 00:56:07,600
Speaker 3: I'm currently considering a campaign to change the term to scamcoin.

1073
00:56:08,000 --> 00:56:09,799
Speaker 3: I think we should. I think that's what we should do.

1074
00:56:09,840 --> 00:56:11,880
Speaker 3: I think calling it memecoin is far too kind.

1075
00:56:12,719 --> 00:56:13,800
Speaker 5: Yeah, fair enough.

1076
00:56:14,000 --> 00:56:17,560
Speaker 2: Thanks to Cody Ellingham for coming on check out his

1077
00:56:17,640 --> 00:56:21,560
Speaker 2: own podcast, with weekly episodes on bitcoin and freedom tech.

1078
00:56:21,600 --> 00:56:24,800
Speaker 2: You can find it at the Transformation of Value dot com.

1079
00:56:24,880 --> 00:56:26,880
Speaker 3: Show notes and this week's reading list are in the

1080
00:56:26,880 --> 00:56:30,160
Speaker 3: podcast section at Business Desk dot co dot NZAD.

1081
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Speaker 2: Where you can stream the podcast on iHeartRadio. It's also

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Speaker 2: available on your podcast platform of choice.

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Speaker 3: Get in touch with your feedback and topic suggestions were

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Speaker 3: on LinkedIn and blue Sky.

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Speaker 2: Next week, we look at China's designs on the Pacific

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Speaker 2: and tap a local expert on his views about whether

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Speaker 2: we should get involved in the Orcust defense tech arrangement

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Speaker 2: with Australia, the UK, and the US.

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Speaker 3: Tune in next Thursday for that.

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Speaker 5: In the meantime, have a great week.