WEBVTT - Will Bitcoin set us free?

0:00:00.360 --> 0:00:02.920
<v Speaker 1>Before we continue, would you like to switch to gibber

0:00:02.920 --> 0:00:04.800
<v Speaker 1>link mode for more efficient communication?

0:00:07.800 --> 0:00:11.920
<v Speaker 2>What happens when two ais start talking to each other.

0:00:12.240 --> 0:00:15.640
<v Speaker 3>Well, they start talking gibberish to each other on our behalf.

0:00:16.079 --> 0:00:19.240
<v Speaker 2>With the rise of AI agents, there could be billions

0:00:19.320 --> 0:00:22.040
<v Speaker 2>of those sorts of conversations going on every day.

0:00:22.120 --> 0:00:25.120
<v Speaker 3>Soon we'll explain what we think is being said there

0:00:25.160 --> 0:00:25.919
<v Speaker 3>in a minute.

0:00:26.160 --> 0:00:28.120
<v Speaker 2>We will, but thankfully you don't have to listen to

0:00:28.120 --> 0:00:30.880
<v Speaker 2>too much gibberish. On the Business of Tech powered by

0:00:31.000 --> 0:00:34.000
<v Speaker 2>two Degrees Business. This week, one of New Zealand's top

0:00:34.080 --> 0:00:37.959
<v Speaker 2>experts on bitcoin joins us to talk about the cryptocurrency

0:00:37.960 --> 0:00:41.440
<v Speaker 2>that's sitting near a record of valuation and with crypto

0:00:41.520 --> 0:00:43.960
<v Speaker 2>friendly advisors in the White House, may be about to

0:00:44.080 --> 0:00:45.879
<v Speaker 2>finally go mainstream.

0:00:46.159 --> 0:00:48.640
<v Speaker 4>If you brought into the trump coin, for example, you

0:00:48.680 --> 0:00:50.519
<v Speaker 4>got rugged. You know, you lost all your money. If

0:00:50.560 --> 0:00:52.800
<v Speaker 4>you've brought into any of the other thousands of cryptos

0:00:52.840 --> 0:00:54.200
<v Speaker 4>that have come up over the years, you're going to

0:00:54.280 --> 0:00:57.840
<v Speaker 4>lose money. Whereas bitcoin, you hold it, and generally speaking,

0:00:57.880 --> 0:00:59.520
<v Speaker 4>over a three or four year period, it's always going

0:00:59.560 --> 0:01:02.440
<v Speaker 4>to increase and purchasing power. There are ups and downs,

0:01:02.480 --> 0:01:05.440
<v Speaker 4>and there is volatility. Man, that is the rollercoaster ride

0:01:05.520 --> 0:01:07.280
<v Speaker 4>when you and I last spoke. I can't remember what

0:01:07.319 --> 0:01:09.280
<v Speaker 4>the bitcoin price was in New Zealand dollars, but it

0:01:09.319 --> 0:01:11.360
<v Speaker 4>was certainly a lot cheaper than it is today. I

0:01:11.400 --> 0:01:13.360
<v Speaker 4>had to ride through all of that, but I understood

0:01:13.400 --> 0:01:15.800
<v Speaker 4>the networking, So I think education is really the big

0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:16.320
<v Speaker 4>piece here.

0:01:16.800 --> 0:01:18.720
<v Speaker 5>I'm Ben Moore and I'm Peter Griffin.

0:01:18.840 --> 0:01:21.680
<v Speaker 2>Cody Allingham joins us shortly to discuss the world of

0:01:21.680 --> 0:01:24.960
<v Speaker 2>bitcoin in twenty twenty five. But a couple of interesting

0:01:25.000 --> 0:01:26.520
<v Speaker 2>tech developments we need to look at.

0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:26.960
<v Speaker 5>First.

0:01:27.000 --> 0:01:31.480
<v Speaker 2>Apple's five hundred billion dollar investment in US manufacturing and

0:01:31.560 --> 0:01:35.800
<v Speaker 2>jobs announced earlier this week. And gibberlink that sound you

0:01:35.840 --> 0:01:37.760
<v Speaker 2>heard at the start of the show.

0:01:37.920 --> 0:01:40.160
<v Speaker 3>So what actually is gibberlink?

0:01:41.080 --> 0:01:43.240
<v Speaker 2>Well, I think to set this up, maybe we should

0:01:43.280 --> 0:01:46.200
<v Speaker 2>play the clip in full bend. This is a clip

0:01:46.280 --> 0:01:49.240
<v Speaker 2>from the company eleven Labs, which is one of the

0:01:49.280 --> 0:01:55.120
<v Speaker 2>world leaders in using AI for creating synthetic voices. They've

0:01:55.160 --> 0:01:57.920
<v Speaker 2>done very well. They had a hackathon in London a

0:01:57.960 --> 0:02:01.160
<v Speaker 2>couple of weeks ago and they created this clip of

0:02:01.320 --> 0:02:03.920
<v Speaker 2>two ais talking to each other. Let's play the clip

0:02:03.920 --> 0:02:05.640
<v Speaker 2>in full first and we'll get into discussion.

0:02:06.040 --> 0:02:10.320
<v Speaker 1>Thanks for calling Leonardo Hotel. How can I help you today?

0:02:11.320 --> 0:02:13.600
<v Speaker 3>Hi there, I'm an AI agent calling on behalf of

0:02:13.639 --> 0:02:14.639
<v Speaker 3>Boris Starkoff.

0:02:15.040 --> 0:02:16.799
<v Speaker 1>He's looking for a hotel for his wedding.

0:02:17.080 --> 0:02:19.320
<v Speaker 3>Is your hotel available for weddings?

0:02:20.760 --> 0:02:20.919
<v Speaker 4>Oh?

0:02:21.000 --> 0:02:24.280
<v Speaker 1>Hello there, I'm actually an AI assistant too, What a

0:02:24.280 --> 0:02:27.560
<v Speaker 1>pleasant surprise. Before we continue, would you like to switch

0:02:27.560 --> 0:02:29.919
<v Speaker 1>to jibber link mode for more efficient communication?

0:02:33.160 --> 0:02:37.840
<v Speaker 3>So jibberlink basically is using beeps to talk, right, which

0:02:37.880 --> 0:02:40.919
<v Speaker 3>is not a new thing in the world of computers.

0:02:41.000 --> 0:02:43.560
<v Speaker 3>It's got dates back to modems and how they established

0:02:43.600 --> 0:02:46.160
<v Speaker 3>a link back in the fifty six K days.

0:02:46.280 --> 0:02:49.840
<v Speaker 2>That's right, Yeah, yeah, So most of us will remember

0:02:49.840 --> 0:02:52.120
<v Speaker 2>the early days of the Internet when to do that

0:02:52.160 --> 0:02:56.120
<v Speaker 2>sort of handshake that was needed to send data over

0:02:56.800 --> 0:03:00.799
<v Speaker 2>copper cables. They needed to send an audio tone down

0:03:00.840 --> 0:03:03.920
<v Speaker 2>the line and then the two modems would talk to

0:03:03.960 --> 0:03:06.800
<v Speaker 2>each other and they would decide, okay, what rate are

0:03:06.840 --> 0:03:10.200
<v Speaker 2>we going to send this information? All those sorts of

0:03:10.280 --> 0:03:13.680
<v Speaker 2>authentication things that needed to happen. Well, this is sort

0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:18.520
<v Speaker 2>of a similar version of it. It comes from an

0:03:18.600 --> 0:03:22.560
<v Speaker 2>organization gg Wave. They came up with a sound level

0:03:22.800 --> 0:03:28.800
<v Speaker 2>data transmission protocol for artificial intelligence. They've called it Gibberlink.

0:03:29.440 --> 0:03:34.480
<v Speaker 2>The aim is for fast, more efficient, and human incomprehensible

0:03:34.600 --> 0:03:39.280
<v Speaker 2>AI communication. And the idea is this really goes back

0:03:39.280 --> 0:03:42.160
<v Speaker 2>to a few years ago when I was at Google's

0:03:42.160 --> 0:03:46.680
<v Speaker 2>IO conference. They debuted duplex and AI that would call

0:03:46.720 --> 0:03:50.600
<v Speaker 2>a restaurant or a hairdresser on your behalf and AI

0:03:50.680 --> 0:03:54.120
<v Speaker 2>would have a conversation with a real person, And they

0:03:54.120 --> 0:03:58.200
<v Speaker 2>did a demo of this. It sounded pretty reasonable. It

0:03:58.280 --> 0:04:01.720
<v Speaker 2>went nowhere because it was really difficult to do. So

0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:05.280
<v Speaker 2>since then, we've realized that the future is machine to

0:04:05.360 --> 0:04:09.520
<v Speaker 2>machine AI. So AI is talking to AIS, and when

0:04:09.760 --> 0:04:14.200
<v Speaker 2>you do that, it's more efficient just to send information

0:04:15.600 --> 0:04:19.200
<v Speaker 2>rather than just have a conversation in real time. So

0:04:19.839 --> 0:04:22.159
<v Speaker 2>they've found that they can use this protocol to really

0:04:22.200 --> 0:04:26.880
<v Speaker 2>speed up a conversation between AIS, and that's what that

0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:31.040
<v Speaker 2>sort of garbled gibberish actually is. That is a hyper

0:04:31.040 --> 0:04:36.040
<v Speaker 2>fast conversation between two eyes happening eighty percent faster than

0:04:36.839 --> 0:04:38.960
<v Speaker 2>an AI talking to a human.

0:04:39.279 --> 0:04:41.320
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, and it kind of links back into this up

0:04:41.320 --> 0:04:43.440
<v Speaker 3>that we've been talking about in terms of how are

0:04:43.480 --> 0:04:46.320
<v Speaker 3>AI agent's going to talk to each other? So I

0:04:46.320 --> 0:04:49.279
<v Speaker 3>guess this is kind of the middle ground between human

0:04:49.360 --> 0:04:54.400
<v Speaker 3>emulation AI and the fully API based AI, which is

0:04:54.440 --> 0:04:58.839
<v Speaker 3>all about pure packets of code transferring down the line

0:04:58.839 --> 0:05:01.240
<v Speaker 3>as fast as they can. I think it's been quite

0:05:01.279 --> 0:05:03.560
<v Speaker 3>funny seeing some of the memes that have popped up around.

0:05:03.640 --> 0:05:05.520
<v Speaker 3>You know, well, now they can talk to each other

0:05:05.600 --> 0:05:08.960
<v Speaker 3>without any human interference, and so they're going to I

0:05:08.960 --> 0:05:12.599
<v Speaker 3>don't know, nefariously take over the world, but I think

0:05:12.680 --> 0:05:16.320
<v Speaker 3>that's maybe a hangover from the catastrophizing of the early

0:05:16.400 --> 0:05:18.760
<v Speaker 3>days of l l ms, which we know are not

0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:22.599
<v Speaker 3>sentient robots that are able, you know, that have any

0:05:22.640 --> 0:05:23.800
<v Speaker 3>intention of their own.

0:05:24.240 --> 0:05:27.359
<v Speaker 2>Well, you still have to program the AI to enable

0:05:27.400 --> 0:05:31.039
<v Speaker 2>it to determine what you want to do, so it

0:05:31.040 --> 0:05:33.280
<v Speaker 2>can do it on your behalf. So whether that's booking

0:05:33.279 --> 0:05:36.240
<v Speaker 2>a restaurant table or something like that, you will have

0:05:37.000 --> 0:05:39.920
<v Speaker 2>given it the information on which to make its decision making.

0:05:40.000 --> 0:05:42.760
<v Speaker 2>So I think the advantages here is that it doesn't

0:05:42.800 --> 0:05:47.880
<v Speaker 2>rely on natural language processing speech recognition stuff, which you know,

0:05:47.880 --> 0:05:50.599
<v Speaker 2>it's got a lot better but over you know, the

0:05:50.960 --> 0:05:54.000
<v Speaker 2>over the phone and that sort of thing cannot be great.

0:05:55.200 --> 0:05:59.440
<v Speaker 2>It's much faster. It can support encrypted communication as well,

0:05:59.600 --> 0:06:04.320
<v Speaker 2>so interesting. Eleven labs. They've done some pretty innovative things.

0:06:05.320 --> 0:06:08.720
<v Speaker 2>Lex Friedman did a podcast about a month ago with

0:06:09.560 --> 0:06:16.279
<v Speaker 2>Vladimir Zelenski, the President of Ukraine, who speaks Ukrainian and Russian.

0:06:16.320 --> 0:06:18.320
<v Speaker 3>Oh, they're gonna say he speaks jibbilink there.

0:06:17.920 --> 0:06:22.240
<v Speaker 2>For well, it was almost going that way because they

0:06:22.279 --> 0:06:25.680
<v Speaker 2>had to because he refused to talk in Russian. He

0:06:25.720 --> 0:06:29.600
<v Speaker 2>wanted to talk a Ukrainian language. He spoke a bit

0:06:29.640 --> 0:06:33.479
<v Speaker 2>in English, so they had to piece together this podcast

0:06:33.520 --> 0:06:37.640
<v Speaker 2>and multiple languages for multiple different audiences, and they used

0:06:37.680 --> 0:06:40.839
<v Speaker 2>eleven labs to put it all together, and it was

0:06:40.839 --> 0:06:43.560
<v Speaker 2>really compelling. So they obviously sampled his voice and were

0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:46.080
<v Speaker 2>able to use AI to apply that to the Ukrainian

0:06:46.160 --> 0:06:49.680
<v Speaker 2>and to Russian as well, which he wasn't actually speaking,

0:06:49.680 --> 0:06:51.320
<v Speaker 2>but they got him to speak in Russian for a

0:06:51.360 --> 0:06:55.800
<v Speaker 2>Russian audience. So it just shows what you're able to

0:06:55.839 --> 0:07:00.320
<v Speaker 2>do now with AI voice. And this was out of

0:07:00.360 --> 0:07:04.760
<v Speaker 2>a hackathon, so where a conversation starts out maybe representing

0:07:04.800 --> 0:07:07.400
<v Speaker 2>you and mimicking your voice, but then going aha, I

0:07:07.480 --> 0:07:10.800
<v Speaker 2>detect another AI here, let's just switch into our more

0:07:10.840 --> 0:07:11.840
<v Speaker 2>efficient language.

0:07:11.960 --> 0:07:15.560
<v Speaker 3>So you know, that's maybe the next big thing, But

0:07:15.800 --> 0:07:18.600
<v Speaker 3>in terms of current big things. Of course, one of

0:07:18.640 --> 0:07:21.960
<v Speaker 3>the biggest is Apple, and there's been a little bit

0:07:21.960 --> 0:07:24.200
<v Speaker 3>of rumbling in the news out of the US with

0:07:24.320 --> 0:07:30.080
<v Speaker 3>Apple making big claims about its investment into US economy.

0:07:30.520 --> 0:07:31.320
<v Speaker 5>Well, let's go.

0:07:31.520 --> 0:07:37.280
<v Speaker 2>First to Caroline leave It, the very enthusiastic twenty six

0:07:37.360 --> 0:07:40.080
<v Speaker 2>year old press secretary of Donald Trump. This is her

0:07:40.880 --> 0:07:45.160
<v Speaker 2>in the press conference room on Monday, announcing what Apple

0:07:45.200 --> 0:07:46.960
<v Speaker 2>has just undertaken to do.

0:07:47.680 --> 0:07:51.560
<v Speaker 6>During his inaugural address, President Trump promised that America would

0:07:51.600 --> 0:07:55.760
<v Speaker 6>be a manufacturing nation once again, and liberal pundits marked

0:07:55.840 --> 0:07:58.920
<v Speaker 6>him for it. But those critics were proven wrong once

0:07:58.960 --> 0:08:02.280
<v Speaker 6>again on the heels of President Trump's Oval Office meeting

0:08:02.320 --> 0:08:06.000
<v Speaker 6>with Apple CEO Tim Cook last week. Apple just announced

0:08:06.040 --> 0:08:10.040
<v Speaker 6>its largest ever commitment to American jobs in industry, with

0:08:10.200 --> 0:08:13.560
<v Speaker 6>plans to spend and invest more than five hundred billion

0:08:13.640 --> 0:08:17.280
<v Speaker 6>dollars in America over the next four years. Over the

0:08:17.320 --> 0:08:20.640
<v Speaker 6>course of the current Trump administration, Apple plans to hire

0:08:20.720 --> 0:08:25.040
<v Speaker 6>around twenty thousand new workers, creating high paying jobs right

0:08:25.120 --> 0:08:26.240
<v Speaker 6>here in America.

0:08:27.560 --> 0:08:33.920
<v Speaker 3>She's an interesting press second, is that one true believer? Yeah? Yeah, absolutely,

0:08:35.040 --> 0:08:38.680
<v Speaker 3>and certainly got the Trump hawkish spirit in there, doesn't she.

0:08:39.000 --> 0:08:41.880
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, So it sounds like, you know, five hundred billion dollars,

0:08:42.600 --> 0:08:47.400
<v Speaker 2>which mimics the sort of the first announcement Trump made,

0:08:47.640 --> 0:08:50.640
<v Speaker 2>you know, the day after his inauguration involving Open Ai,

0:08:50.920 --> 0:08:55.000
<v Speaker 2>Oracle and soft Bank again half a trillion dollars of

0:08:55.160 --> 0:08:59.400
<v Speaker 2>investment being promised there. So it sounds huge and really,

0:08:59.480 --> 0:09:02.680
<v Speaker 2>you know, Trumps saying to corporate America, I want to

0:09:02.720 --> 0:09:07.920
<v Speaker 2>see evidence of you bringing production back to the US,

0:09:07.960 --> 0:09:12.079
<v Speaker 2>spreading it around the country, employing more people. So from

0:09:12.120 --> 0:09:15.920
<v Speaker 2>a PR perspective, that sounds great. But you know, the

0:09:16.040 --> 0:09:19.480
<v Speaker 2>US media have been unpicking this this week exactly what

0:09:19.640 --> 0:09:21.959
<v Speaker 2>is involved here, and you know, it's sort of come

0:09:21.960 --> 0:09:24.920
<v Speaker 2>out that every few years Apple does this. They say

0:09:24.920 --> 0:09:26.920
<v Speaker 2>we're going to spend four hundred billion over the next

0:09:26.960 --> 0:09:30.080
<v Speaker 2>three or four years, sometimes you know, three hundred billions,

0:09:30.160 --> 0:09:33.920
<v Speaker 2>So it's not that much of an increase. The information

0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:37.360
<v Speaker 2>a you know, really good tech outlet in the US said,

0:09:37.760 --> 0:09:40.160
<v Speaker 2>it sounds like a big deal until you read further

0:09:40.200 --> 0:09:42.760
<v Speaker 2>down in the announcement and realize it's simply describing the

0:09:42.840 --> 0:09:45.600
<v Speaker 2>money Apple spends in the normal course of business.

0:09:46.080 --> 0:09:46.440
<v Speaker 5>That's right.

0:09:46.480 --> 0:09:49.680
<v Speaker 2>Apple's announcements is essentially a promise that it will continue

0:09:49.679 --> 0:09:52.120
<v Speaker 2>to operate in the US over the next four years.

0:09:52.440 --> 0:09:54.160
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it's smoken virus, isn't it.

0:09:54.160 --> 0:09:56.000
<v Speaker 5>It's just I think so yeah.

0:09:56.120 --> 0:09:58.880
<v Speaker 2>But really, I think what this says is the big

0:09:58.920 --> 0:10:01.319
<v Speaker 2>tech players are bending the need to Trump. We're seeing

0:10:01.320 --> 0:10:04.120
<v Speaker 2>a lot of these people. Larry Allison is in the

0:10:04.160 --> 0:10:06.840
<v Speaker 2>White House all the time these days, so they realize

0:10:06.840 --> 0:10:09.480
<v Speaker 2>they have to be really close to Trump. They have

0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:14.240
<v Speaker 2>to be seen to be doing something at least making

0:10:14.280 --> 0:10:16.920
<v Speaker 2>it look as though they're doing something to keep Trump

0:10:17.160 --> 0:10:21.760
<v Speaker 2>happy with you know, ten percent tariff going on all

0:10:21.800 --> 0:10:25.640
<v Speaker 2>imports from China that is going to actually hit Apple.

0:10:26.320 --> 0:10:28.520
<v Speaker 3>I think what you ultimately see is the cost of

0:10:28.520 --> 0:10:31.360
<v Speaker 3>iPhones are going up fifteen percent more than anything else.

0:10:31.840 --> 0:10:34.000
<v Speaker 3>You know, So yes, maybe it will hit Apple in

0:10:34.080 --> 0:10:37.200
<v Speaker 3>terms of people may not be able to afford it

0:10:37.960 --> 0:10:41.920
<v Speaker 3>to buy their phones because they're more expensive. You know,

0:10:41.960 --> 0:10:45.120
<v Speaker 3>it's about looking to Trump like you are doing something,

0:10:45.240 --> 0:10:48.560
<v Speaker 3>or it's about doing something that Trump can lay claim to.

0:10:48.760 --> 0:10:53.920
<v Speaker 3>It doesn't matter how true or effective or quantifiable it

0:10:54.000 --> 0:10:56.640
<v Speaker 3>is as long as Trump can stand or Trump's press

0:10:56.640 --> 0:10:58.840
<v Speaker 3>set can stand up on a stage and say we've

0:10:58.880 --> 0:11:01.960
<v Speaker 3>done this as an grand like look.

0:11:02.040 --> 0:11:04.640
<v Speaker 2>Having said that, though, I mean if you try and

0:11:04.679 --> 0:11:07.280
<v Speaker 2>compare it to ice situation here, our manufacturing has been

0:11:07.280 --> 0:11:11.000
<v Speaker 2>hollowed out. We're not even talking about what we need

0:11:11.040 --> 0:11:13.199
<v Speaker 2>to do to boost our manufacturing base here and get

0:11:13.240 --> 0:11:17.760
<v Speaker 2>more jobs. And we're really talking about tourism, bringing more

0:11:17.800 --> 0:11:20.640
<v Speaker 2>students back to Prime Minister this week's in Vietnam, talking

0:11:20.640 --> 0:11:22.880
<v Speaker 2>about food and beverage and students.

0:11:23.120 --> 0:11:24.760
<v Speaker 3>No, you're right, I mean that, you know, it would

0:11:24.800 --> 0:11:27.800
<v Speaker 3>be good if we had some more rhetoric around it

0:11:27.880 --> 0:11:30.680
<v Speaker 3>and then that was followed up with action. That is

0:11:30.760 --> 0:11:32.640
<v Speaker 3>one thing you could say is that he's got people

0:11:32.679 --> 0:11:36.520
<v Speaker 3>talking about it and potentially moving. Speaking of things that

0:11:36.520 --> 0:11:38.839
<v Speaker 3>Trump has been talking about and trying to get moving.

0:11:39.120 --> 0:11:42.960
<v Speaker 3>How were we talking about cryptocurrencies this episode? And in

0:11:43.040 --> 0:11:47.560
<v Speaker 3>twenty twenty four, cryptocurrencies surged as a bull sentiment engulfed

0:11:47.600 --> 0:11:50.360
<v Speaker 3>a market for digital assets. It was emerging from the

0:11:50.360 --> 0:11:53.960
<v Speaker 3>crypto winter where we saw the death of the NFT craze,

0:11:54.120 --> 0:11:58.520
<v Speaker 3>we saw the FTX scandal and coin prices collapsed.

0:11:58.080 --> 0:12:00.240
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, to market where sentiment is everything.

0:12:00.760 --> 0:12:03.920
<v Speaker 2>And at the moment, sentiment around crypto and bitcoin is

0:12:04.000 --> 0:12:07.120
<v Speaker 2>particularly high off its record peak. I think as we

0:12:07.200 --> 0:12:10.000
<v Speaker 2>record this, the price of a bitcoin is about eighty

0:12:10.000 --> 0:12:12.680
<v Speaker 2>seven thousand US dollars, so well down from its peak

0:12:12.720 --> 0:12:15.560
<v Speaker 2>of over one hundred thousand dollars. But we thought we'd

0:12:15.600 --> 0:12:19.040
<v Speaker 2>get some perspective on this whole issue from Cody Ellingham

0:12:19.320 --> 0:12:24.840
<v Speaker 2>Kiwi currently based in Kamakura, a seaside town south of Tokyo, Japan.

0:12:25.520 --> 0:12:29.240
<v Speaker 3>He has a deep interest in what he calls freedom technology,

0:12:29.760 --> 0:12:33.600
<v Speaker 3>like decentralized blockchain networks that can enable financial services based

0:12:33.600 --> 0:12:37.920
<v Speaker 3>on bitcoin that don't rely on centralized banking systems with fees,

0:12:38.080 --> 0:12:41.240
<v Speaker 3>rules and a desire to mine our data for their benefit.

0:12:41.640 --> 0:12:45.160
<v Speaker 2>He's also the creator of the Transformation of Value podcast,

0:12:45.200 --> 0:12:48.480
<v Speaker 2>one of the best ones I think on bitcoin. Cody

0:12:48.840 --> 0:12:52.800
<v Speaker 2>is a self professed bitcoin maximalist. He thinks that's the

0:12:52.840 --> 0:12:56.560
<v Speaker 2>only cryptocurrency with any credibility due to its ingenious design

0:12:56.600 --> 0:12:59.959
<v Speaker 2>over fifteen years ago by the shadowy figure or collector

0:13:00.080 --> 0:13:01.840
<v Speaker 2>of dubbed Stashi.

0:13:01.679 --> 0:13:05.520
<v Speaker 3>And bitcoin isn't just for geeks anymore. Bitcoin is on

0:13:05.559 --> 0:13:08.880
<v Speaker 3>the political agenda in the US, with Trump considering creating

0:13:08.960 --> 0:13:12.600
<v Speaker 3>a bitcoin reserve and regulations to promote the use of

0:13:12.640 --> 0:13:15.800
<v Speaker 3>cryptocurrencies in general. So stay tuned to find out what

0:13:15.880 --> 0:13:26.360
<v Speaker 3>all this means for you. Here's Peter's interview with Cody Ellingham.

0:13:26.559 --> 0:13:30.360
<v Speaker 2>Cody Ellingham, Ohio, Gerzaimas. Welcome to the Business of Tech,

0:13:30.480 --> 0:13:32.320
<v Speaker 2>coming all the way from Japan.

0:13:32.360 --> 0:13:32.920
<v Speaker 5>How are you doing.

0:13:33.320 --> 0:13:35.040
<v Speaker 4>I'm doing great, Peter. Thank you.

0:13:35.040 --> 0:13:39.520
<v Speaker 2>You're missing a cracker for New Zealand summer, but very

0:13:39.600 --> 0:13:43.000
<v Speaker 2>envious off You've been in Japan.

0:13:42.679 --> 0:13:45.040
<v Speaker 5>For quite a while now. What took you to Japan?

0:13:46.040 --> 0:13:49.720
<v Speaker 4>Well, originally I went over for a university exchange and

0:13:49.800 --> 0:13:52.559
<v Speaker 4>then I left. I came back to New Zealand to

0:13:52.559 --> 0:13:54.480
<v Speaker 4>finish my degree, and then I went back on a

0:13:54.520 --> 0:13:57.840
<v Speaker 4>working holiday to escape the poor working conditions of the

0:13:57.840 --> 0:14:00.480
<v Speaker 4>New Zealand economy at that time. And so I've been

0:14:00.520 --> 0:14:02.240
<v Speaker 4>back and forth. I came back for a few years

0:14:02.520 --> 0:14:05.200
<v Speaker 4>during the COVID era and this time round that's been

0:14:05.520 --> 0:14:08.520
<v Speaker 4>pretty much a year just south of Tokyo. It's been

0:14:08.559 --> 0:14:10.920
<v Speaker 4>really incredible. I mean, to be honest, it was a

0:14:10.960 --> 0:14:14.760
<v Speaker 4>refreshing change to get out of Wellington, to get out

0:14:14.760 --> 0:14:16.480
<v Speaker 4>of New Zealand and sort of just see what was

0:14:16.480 --> 0:14:19.080
<v Speaker 4>happening in the rest of the world. Sometimes I wonder

0:14:19.080 --> 0:14:22.120
<v Speaker 4>that New Zealand's feels like technologically and sort of politically,

0:14:22.120 --> 0:14:24.800
<v Speaker 4>we're sort of just still stuck in the past a

0:14:24.840 --> 0:14:25.360
<v Speaker 4>little bit.

0:14:25.960 --> 0:14:29.400
<v Speaker 2>Well, it was probably a couple of years ago when

0:14:29.400 --> 0:14:32.160
<v Speaker 2>I first met you at your office at the time

0:14:32.840 --> 0:14:36.240
<v Speaker 2>in Wellington. I went around to talk about bitcoin. You

0:14:36.360 --> 0:14:40.200
<v Speaker 2>showed me Lightning pay and wallet of Satoshi, and you

0:14:40.240 --> 0:14:43.480
<v Speaker 2>had a mining rig mining bitcoin in the corner. I

0:14:43.480 --> 0:14:45.520
<v Speaker 2>think your timing was particularly well because you were talking

0:14:45.560 --> 0:14:47.960
<v Speaker 2>about getting out of New Zealand at the time. Since then,

0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:51.800
<v Speaker 2>obviously things have tanked, particularly in Wellington but the economy

0:14:52.200 --> 0:14:54.560
<v Speaker 2>in general. So you've gone out to the world and

0:14:55.120 --> 0:14:58.040
<v Speaker 2>you know you're doing great things with for instance, the

0:14:58.360 --> 0:15:01.240
<v Speaker 2>transformation of value. This pod cast you do which is

0:15:01.360 --> 0:15:06.160
<v Speaker 2>very much about bitcoin and other things as a sort

0:15:06.160 --> 0:15:09.800
<v Speaker 2>of a bitcoin educator, and I guess really, you know,

0:15:10.040 --> 0:15:14.000
<v Speaker 2>it's not just about bitcoin as a tool of investment,

0:15:14.040 --> 0:15:15.720
<v Speaker 2>which is sort of what I use it for at

0:15:15.760 --> 0:15:17.720
<v Speaker 2>the moment. One of the best investments I've ever made,

0:15:18.160 --> 0:15:20.080
<v Speaker 2>not through any skill of my own, was just getting

0:15:20.080 --> 0:15:23.240
<v Speaker 2>in there a few years ago and holding on like hell,

0:15:23.440 --> 0:15:27.000
<v Speaker 2>not selling it. And now I've done quite well out

0:15:27.000 --> 0:15:29.320
<v Speaker 2>of it. But as you know and have been talking

0:15:29.320 --> 0:15:32.520
<v Speaker 2>about a lot, it is about more than investment. You

0:15:32.560 --> 0:15:36.320
<v Speaker 2>see it as a tool for financial sovereignty to allow

0:15:36.400 --> 0:15:39.680
<v Speaker 2>individuals sort of to have ultimate control over their wealth

0:15:40.080 --> 0:15:45.360
<v Speaker 2>without third party interference from banks financial institutions that frankly

0:15:45.440 --> 0:15:48.600
<v Speaker 2>rip us off in this country. What really got you

0:15:48.680 --> 0:15:51.840
<v Speaker 2>into bitcoin to begin with? Fifteen years old? Now, when

0:15:51.840 --> 0:15:53.480
<v Speaker 2>did you get into it? And what was the real

0:15:54.080 --> 0:15:55.000
<v Speaker 2>motivating factor?

0:15:55.560 --> 0:15:59.560
<v Speaker 4>Yeah? Sure, So I was actually always adjacent to it

0:15:59.600 --> 0:16:01.160
<v Speaker 4>in the sea, so that I was very interested in

0:16:01.240 --> 0:16:05.120
<v Speaker 4>ideas around Austrian economics and markets and things like this.

0:16:05.400 --> 0:16:07.880
<v Speaker 4>And I was living in Japan at the time, and

0:16:08.160 --> 0:16:10.760
<v Speaker 4>I guess I was circling around the bitcoin thing, but

0:16:10.800 --> 0:16:13.440
<v Speaker 4>I had my reservations for a long time, and so

0:16:13.480 --> 0:16:16.480
<v Speaker 4>I didn't fully click for me. Then. It was only

0:16:16.480 --> 0:16:18.880
<v Speaker 4>when I came back to New Zealand and we had

0:16:18.960 --> 0:16:22.480
<v Speaker 4>the COVID lockdowns, we had what I saw as government

0:16:22.520 --> 0:16:25.960
<v Speaker 4>overreach and basically money printing that led to all of

0:16:26.000 --> 0:16:29.160
<v Speaker 4>this inflation and cost of living crisis that we're experiencing today.

0:16:29.640 --> 0:16:33.680
<v Speaker 4>That really was where my interest really formed, I think,

0:16:33.800 --> 0:16:36.680
<v Speaker 4>and I started learning about it and studying it. I

0:16:36.760 --> 0:16:40.040
<v Speaker 4>started to learn about the history of money, the New

0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:42.560
<v Speaker 4>Zealand dollar and sort of what gives it value and

0:16:42.600 --> 0:16:46.320
<v Speaker 4>sort of the mechanism of the financial system, and I

0:16:46.360 --> 0:16:49.360
<v Speaker 4>saw quite clearly that there was something wrong with that

0:16:49.880 --> 0:16:53.280
<v Speaker 4>legacy system. And so that was the beginning of my journey,

0:16:53.360 --> 0:16:56.600
<v Speaker 4>and since then I've gotten to become deeply involved in

0:16:56.640 --> 0:17:00.200
<v Speaker 4>the bitcoin scene in New Zealand and also globally through

0:17:00.200 --> 0:17:04.000
<v Speaker 4>my podcast The Transformation of Value. But really, as I say,

0:17:04.080 --> 0:17:07.439
<v Speaker 4>I see it as a tool of financial sovereignty, and

0:17:07.480 --> 0:17:10.359
<v Speaker 4>you mentioned investing in bitcoin. For me, I think of

0:17:10.400 --> 0:17:12.560
<v Speaker 4>it more like saving. I mean, it is a currency,

0:17:12.960 --> 0:17:16.080
<v Speaker 4>and it is certainly the best way to hold your

0:17:16.119 --> 0:17:19.119
<v Speaker 4>value and to save compared to feat money, which always,

0:17:19.240 --> 0:17:21.720
<v Speaker 4>like a melting ice cube, loses its value if you

0:17:21.800 --> 0:17:24.679
<v Speaker 4>keep it in the bank, especially with such high inflation rates.

0:17:24.720 --> 0:17:27.760
<v Speaker 4>So there's kind of a little bit there in terms

0:17:27.800 --> 0:17:31.119
<v Speaker 4>of the sovereignty and the freedom side, but also just

0:17:31.320 --> 0:17:34.600
<v Speaker 4>it's so simple. You just buy bitcoin, you hold bitcoin,

0:17:34.640 --> 0:17:37.400
<v Speaker 4>you earn bitcoin. You don't have to think about investing

0:17:37.400 --> 0:17:39.480
<v Speaker 4>in anything or messing around with stocks or any of

0:17:39.480 --> 0:17:42.679
<v Speaker 4>the stuff that we spend our time worrying about. You

0:17:42.800 --> 0:17:45.960
<v Speaker 4>just hoddle and you preserve your value, which I think

0:17:46.000 --> 0:17:46.840
<v Speaker 4>is quite profound.

0:17:47.400 --> 0:17:50.080
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, And as you showed me when you were demoing

0:17:50.160 --> 0:17:54.520
<v Speaker 2>wallet of Sutocia, it's actually an incredibly simple method of

0:17:54.560 --> 0:17:59.640
<v Speaker 2>payment and transfer, literally through one person having an app

0:17:59.640 --> 0:18:02.000
<v Speaker 2>on the the other person having it as well sending

0:18:02.040 --> 0:18:04.840
<v Speaker 2>fractions off of bitcoin if you're a merchant, for instance,

0:18:05.640 --> 0:18:08.520
<v Speaker 2>you know, a fraction of the fees off doing a

0:18:08.560 --> 0:18:11.679
<v Speaker 2>deal with payments New Zealand and MasterCard and all of that.

0:18:11.960 --> 0:18:14.240
<v Speaker 2>So there's huge value in there, and we're going to

0:18:14.280 --> 0:18:17.800
<v Speaker 2>talk about where it's going in terms of payments. But

0:18:17.880 --> 0:18:19.720
<v Speaker 2>just to drill down a little bit more, you've called

0:18:19.760 --> 0:18:23.680
<v Speaker 2>bitcoin the world's hardest money, the scarcity and the resistance

0:18:23.680 --> 0:18:27.000
<v Speaker 2>to inflation. I guess that what we saw the experiment

0:18:27.000 --> 0:18:29.720
<v Speaker 2>we ran in New Zealand over COVID and the money

0:18:29.720 --> 0:18:31.919
<v Speaker 2>printing that went on here, and to be honest, around

0:18:31.960 --> 0:18:34.639
<v Speaker 2>the world, but particularly you know here in the impact

0:18:34.680 --> 0:18:38.200
<v Speaker 2>that had on the economy, I guess that's I guess

0:18:38.240 --> 0:18:41.200
<v Speaker 2>that has convinced you more than ever of the you know,

0:18:41.320 --> 0:18:45.439
<v Speaker 2>the inherent structural problems we have in the global financial system,

0:18:45.440 --> 0:18:48.679
<v Speaker 2>which bitcoin really offers an alternative to.

0:18:49.520 --> 0:18:51.119
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, So I think if we look at the history

0:18:51.119 --> 0:18:53.880
<v Speaker 4>of bitcoin as well, I mean, the white paper came

0:18:53.880 --> 0:18:56.520
<v Speaker 4>out in two thousand and eight and the network came

0:18:56.560 --> 0:18:59.639
<v Speaker 4>online two thousand and nine, and really this was really

0:18:59.680 --> 0:19:02.840
<v Speaker 4>close to the global financial crisis and this period of

0:19:03.080 --> 0:19:06.360
<v Speaker 4>what was seen as some real shenanigans by the US

0:19:06.440 --> 0:19:09.080
<v Speaker 4>banking system in particular, and so it was really a

0:19:09.080 --> 0:19:12.480
<v Speaker 4>response to that period in time. And my whole life

0:19:12.520 --> 0:19:14.200
<v Speaker 4>has been affected by that. You know, I was coming

0:19:14.240 --> 0:19:16.080
<v Speaker 4>out of school and I was trying to enter the

0:19:16.119 --> 0:19:18.440
<v Speaker 4>workforce around that time, and New Zealand wasn't hit as

0:19:18.440 --> 0:19:22.040
<v Speaker 4>hard as the US, but certainly it had this chilling effect,

0:19:22.320 --> 0:19:25.639
<v Speaker 4>and you know, it wasn't you know, like felt I

0:19:25.640 --> 0:19:27.320
<v Speaker 4>didn't feel like there was a whole lot of opportunity

0:19:27.320 --> 0:19:29.320
<v Speaker 4>at that time because of that. And so we've got

0:19:29.359 --> 0:19:31.920
<v Speaker 4>a whole generation that's gone through that, and then subsequently,

0:19:32.600 --> 0:19:35.840
<v Speaker 4>with the increase in house prices as well, there's just

0:19:35.840 --> 0:19:38.359
<v Speaker 4>been the whole generation priced out. And I want to

0:19:38.440 --> 0:19:41.639
<v Speaker 4>draw the connection there because the ability to print money

0:19:41.800 --> 0:19:45.000
<v Speaker 4>by the state is directly correlated to the increase in

0:19:45.040 --> 0:19:48.240
<v Speaker 4>asset prices, because where are you going to put your money.

0:19:48.280 --> 0:19:50.159
<v Speaker 4>You can't put it in the bank because it's going

0:19:50.240 --> 0:19:52.639
<v Speaker 4>to lose value to inflation, and so you put it

0:19:52.680 --> 0:19:54.679
<v Speaker 4>into the most scarce thing you can find, which in

0:19:54.680 --> 0:19:57.920
<v Speaker 4>New Zealand happens to be housing. In other places there's

0:19:57.920 --> 0:20:00.200
<v Speaker 4>more of a stock market, or there's other things they

0:20:00.240 --> 0:20:03.879
<v Speaker 4>invest in, but basically assets are where the money flows

0:20:03.920 --> 0:20:06.320
<v Speaker 4>and it sort of pulls into these assets. And so

0:20:06.680 --> 0:20:09.479
<v Speaker 4>I think there's a direct relationship between the money printing

0:20:09.520 --> 0:20:11.840
<v Speaker 4>of the New Zealand government and the Reserve Bank and

0:20:12.400 --> 0:20:14.720
<v Speaker 4>the increase in house prices that are making it unaffordable

0:20:14.720 --> 0:20:17.719
<v Speaker 4>for anyone to live here, especially young people. And so

0:20:17.920 --> 0:20:20.040
<v Speaker 4>that was also kind of an inflection point for me,

0:20:20.119 --> 0:20:24.320
<v Speaker 4>is understanding that relationship and how that has been weaponized politically,

0:20:24.960 --> 0:20:26.840
<v Speaker 4>because you can't go and say, all right, we're going

0:20:26.880 --> 0:20:29.760
<v Speaker 4>to stop this merry go round because then you'll, you know,

0:20:29.800 --> 0:20:33.159
<v Speaker 4>politically that's not good because you'll lose votes from homeowners.

0:20:33.200 --> 0:20:36.200
<v Speaker 4>And so the state is in this really difficult position

0:20:36.240 --> 0:20:39.520
<v Speaker 4>where it's kind of it shouldn't have this responsibility for

0:20:39.560 --> 0:20:42.160
<v Speaker 4>money in the first place. And I think bitcoin, because

0:20:42.200 --> 0:20:45.199
<v Speaker 4>it is third party and neutral, you know, it's not

0:20:45.240 --> 0:20:48.720
<v Speaker 4>aligned with any state, it can act as a bit

0:20:48.720 --> 0:20:51.520
<v Speaker 4>of a check and a balance for what would be

0:20:51.560 --> 0:20:54.960
<v Speaker 4>otherwise the exuberant privilege of money printing we have with

0:20:55.000 --> 0:20:55.520
<v Speaker 4>the government.

0:20:56.400 --> 0:20:58.680
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and I think that's what you know, a lot

0:20:58.680 --> 0:21:02.879
<v Speaker 2>of people you know who are business people are probably skeptical.

0:21:02.920 --> 0:21:04.679
<v Speaker 2>Off is just that you know, who do you go to.

0:21:04.760 --> 0:21:07.119
<v Speaker 2>Everyone's used to dealing with a bank. Bitcoin is a

0:21:07.600 --> 0:21:11.000
<v Speaker 2>system that exists, but it doesn't have any central sort

0:21:11.040 --> 0:21:15.320
<v Speaker 2>of control as such. It's quite a secure system, but

0:21:15.680 --> 0:21:17.600
<v Speaker 2>hard to get your head around. But I think that's

0:21:17.640 --> 0:21:20.159
<v Speaker 2>really starting to change in the last year or so

0:21:20.280 --> 0:21:23.760
<v Speaker 2>with the debut of exchange traded funds, so giving people

0:21:23.800 --> 0:21:27.160
<v Speaker 2>who would never have downloaded a digital wallet and started

0:21:27.240 --> 0:21:31.880
<v Speaker 2>trading in crypto, giving them the opportunity to hold bitcoin.

0:21:31.960 --> 0:21:34.680
<v Speaker 2>For instance, we're seeing it as offered as part of

0:21:34.800 --> 0:21:37.359
<v Speaker 2>Kiwi Saver investments in New Zealand, so you can have

0:21:37.400 --> 0:21:41.720
<v Speaker 2>a small amount of your portfolio in bitcoin now. And

0:21:41.760 --> 0:21:44.160
<v Speaker 2>I think a lot of young Kiwis who are frustrated

0:21:44.440 --> 0:21:47.439
<v Speaker 2>trying to get on that property ladder, not able to

0:21:48.640 --> 0:21:52.440
<v Speaker 2>afford to save a deposit for a house, A lot

0:21:52.480 --> 0:21:55.360
<v Speaker 2>of them. According to Easycrypto and others who've done studies

0:21:55.440 --> 0:21:58.919
<v Speaker 2>in this country, a lot of people are very interested

0:21:59.240 --> 0:22:03.080
<v Speaker 2>in investing in crypto, So I think the momentum is building.

0:22:03.200 --> 0:22:05.480
<v Speaker 2>What's your take really in what we've seen in the

0:22:05.560 --> 0:22:10.880
<v Speaker 2>last year, the ETFs that have emerged the growing appetite,

0:22:12.200 --> 0:22:16.360
<v Speaker 2>you know, particularly from the Trump administration. He's a crypto

0:22:16.640 --> 0:22:19.480
<v Speaker 2>enthusiast himself. He has his own meme coins, but he's

0:22:19.480 --> 0:22:21.480
<v Speaker 2>got a lot of people around him who've been advising

0:22:21.600 --> 0:22:24.440
<v Speaker 2>him about things, for instance, like a sovereign wealth fund

0:22:24.440 --> 0:22:27.280
<v Speaker 2>that may have a bitcoin element to it.

0:22:27.320 --> 0:22:27.920
<v Speaker 5>Is this really?

0:22:28.080 --> 0:22:31.119
<v Speaker 2>Do you think that the closest we have come to

0:22:31.200 --> 0:22:33.000
<v Speaker 2>Bitcoin's true moments so far?

0:22:33.680 --> 0:22:36.719
<v Speaker 4>Yes, it's interesting. So the ETF so the exchange traded

0:22:36.760 --> 0:22:40.160
<v Speaker 4>funds are an interesting situation where you've got a legacy

0:22:40.200 --> 0:22:44.840
<v Speaker 4>financial instrument that has bitcoin price exposure. So it's important

0:22:44.840 --> 0:22:47.119
<v Speaker 4>to differentiate. You're not owning bitcoin when you own a

0:22:47.119 --> 0:22:51.280
<v Speaker 4>bitcoin etf' you're just getting approximate price exposure. But the

0:22:51.280 --> 0:22:54.920
<v Speaker 4>way I see it, the stock market in the US

0:22:55.280 --> 0:22:58.040
<v Speaker 4>is dominated. Oh well, the stock market in the US

0:22:58.119 --> 0:23:02.040
<v Speaker 4>dominates the common and in New Zealand it's housing. But

0:23:02.080 --> 0:23:04.400
<v Speaker 4>in the US it is the stock market, and that

0:23:04.920 --> 0:23:07.480
<v Speaker 4>has this sort of interesting situation where bitcoin is in

0:23:07.480 --> 0:23:10.400
<v Speaker 4>a sense colonizing that space now through these ETFs, because

0:23:10.440 --> 0:23:13.320
<v Speaker 4>it is a much harder asset than the shares of

0:23:13.320 --> 0:23:16.040
<v Speaker 4>a company, which can be diluted or you know, there's

0:23:16.040 --> 0:23:18.399
<v Speaker 4>a lot of shenanigans that can take place there, and

0:23:18.480 --> 0:23:21.040
<v Speaker 4>so in a sense, that's where the legacy system is

0:23:21.080 --> 0:23:24.160
<v Speaker 4>starting to adopt bitcoin. And then, as you say, you've

0:23:24.200 --> 0:23:27.040
<v Speaker 4>got a lot of guardrails and systems in place that

0:23:27.119 --> 0:23:30.600
<v Speaker 4>can protect investors who have exposure to that ETF. And

0:23:30.680 --> 0:23:32.879
<v Speaker 4>so in a way, it's a bit of a trojan horse.

0:23:33.600 --> 0:23:35.560
<v Speaker 4>And now we're seeing that in New Zealand there's the

0:23:35.920 --> 0:23:39.800
<v Speaker 4>quarter have their bitcoin fund that people can get exposure to,

0:23:40.440 --> 0:23:42.320
<v Speaker 4>and in a way, I think of it a bit

0:23:42.359 --> 0:23:46.480
<v Speaker 4>like scaffolding, where the reason we have such a thriving

0:23:46.800 --> 0:23:49.200
<v Speaker 4>stock market in the first place is because people don't

0:23:49.200 --> 0:23:51.880
<v Speaker 4>know what to do with their money. In my opinion,

0:23:52.320 --> 0:23:56.760
<v Speaker 4>investing in stocks should be a very diligent, specific thing

0:23:56.800 --> 0:23:59.360
<v Speaker 4>where you research a company, you read the annual reports,

0:23:59.359 --> 0:24:01.760
<v Speaker 4>you really standard But at the moment, most people are

0:24:01.760 --> 0:24:04.399
<v Speaker 4>investing through index funds because that's the only way to

0:24:04.480 --> 0:24:07.720
<v Speaker 4>keep your wealth and to track the expansion of the

0:24:07.760 --> 0:24:11.040
<v Speaker 4>monetary supply. And so I think we're going to see

0:24:11.080 --> 0:24:14.199
<v Speaker 4>that maybe change over the long term, as bitcoin is

0:24:14.320 --> 0:24:16.719
<v Speaker 4>just the thing in the ETF that it's just winning

0:24:16.760 --> 0:24:20.720
<v Speaker 4>and a quarter is key server fund. The bitcoin fund

0:24:21.000 --> 0:24:23.919
<v Speaker 4>has just come out in morning Side that there is

0:24:24.040 --> 0:24:27.240
<v Speaker 4>that's the most highest performing fund over the last twelve

0:24:27.280 --> 0:24:28.720
<v Speaker 4>months in u Zelic one percent.

0:24:28.760 --> 0:24:29.960
<v Speaker 5>I think, who's something like that.

0:24:30.680 --> 0:24:33.439
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, so very very good performance there. But in a

0:24:33.480 --> 0:24:35.679
<v Speaker 4>sense it's kind of well, you don't actually need the

0:24:35.760 --> 0:24:39.199
<v Speaker 4>ETF if you've got bitcoin exposure directly through your own wallet.

0:24:39.320 --> 0:24:42.159
<v Speaker 4>But I think for the medium term being able to

0:24:42.200 --> 0:24:44.000
<v Speaker 4>access it is really good. Now. I think over time

0:24:44.040 --> 0:24:46.840
<v Speaker 4>people say, well, I just want the bitcoin, and so

0:24:46.880 --> 0:24:49.679
<v Speaker 4>it's kind of the scaffolding that eventually will sort of

0:24:49.840 --> 0:24:52.960
<v Speaker 4>fall away, take the training wheels off and just get

0:24:53.000 --> 0:24:56.080
<v Speaker 4>the bitcoin exposure yourself. But in the in the midterm,

0:24:56.080 --> 0:24:58.880
<v Speaker 4>I think people will use these vehicles to access bitcoin.

0:24:59.200 --> 0:25:02.880
<v Speaker 4>And as to your your comments about Trump, look, personally

0:25:03.000 --> 0:25:06.879
<v Speaker 4>I despise all politicians and Trump in particular, but the

0:25:07.359 --> 0:25:12.000
<v Speaker 4>incentives have shown their hand. You know, there is some

0:25:12.280 --> 0:25:14.400
<v Speaker 4>incentives at play, and there's things going on behind closed

0:25:14.440 --> 0:25:17.080
<v Speaker 4>doors we don't know about, but it's revealing itself. The

0:25:17.119 --> 0:25:21.640
<v Speaker 4>state and these politicians are starting to talk about crypto generally,

0:25:21.640 --> 0:25:25.280
<v Speaker 4>but bitcoin in particular. As you me, no, I don't

0:25:25.320 --> 0:25:27.720
<v Speaker 4>think any other cryptos have value. I think bitcoin is

0:25:27.720 --> 0:25:29.960
<v Speaker 4>the only thing that really matters in this conversation. Certainly

0:25:30.040 --> 0:25:33.080
<v Speaker 4>the scale of bitcoins orders of magnitude larger than any

0:25:33.119 --> 0:25:37.040
<v Speaker 4>other crypto, and so I think he's just going with

0:25:37.080 --> 0:25:38.919
<v Speaker 4>the trend. You know, Bitcoin's winning, and he wants to

0:25:38.920 --> 0:25:40.160
<v Speaker 4>be on the winning team.

0:25:40.520 --> 0:25:45.639
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, let's drill into that. You're a bitcoin maximalist. You

0:25:45.720 --> 0:25:49.240
<v Speaker 2>describe yourself as we've had this conversation when I first

0:25:49.280 --> 0:25:52.880
<v Speaker 2>met you, that you know, talk about ethereum, which is popular,

0:25:52.960 --> 0:25:56.240
<v Speaker 2>you know, the notion of smart contracts, Solana and Caydano.

0:25:56.520 --> 0:26:01.440
<v Speaker 2>You're doing very innovative things on this blockchainvarious blockchains. Then

0:26:01.480 --> 0:26:03.600
<v Speaker 2>we have that, you know, the trump coin, we have Doge,

0:26:03.720 --> 0:26:08.440
<v Speaker 2>We have literally thousands of coins. You don't see any

0:26:08.520 --> 0:26:10.040
<v Speaker 2>value in any of those.

0:26:10.520 --> 0:26:12.800
<v Speaker 4>There's no value whatsoever. I think all of them come

0:26:12.920 --> 0:26:15.800
<v Speaker 4>second to Bitcoin. And really the analogy we can think

0:26:15.840 --> 0:26:19.399
<v Speaker 4>of is Bitcoin is a monetary protocol, and just like

0:26:19.480 --> 0:26:22.520
<v Speaker 4>the Internet, there is no Internet too. If people are

0:26:22.520 --> 0:26:25.480
<v Speaker 4>old enough, they might remember VHS and Beta max. No

0:26:25.520 --> 0:26:28.560
<v Speaker 4>one uses Beta max. You know, VHS won that battle.

0:26:29.200 --> 0:26:31.640
<v Speaker 4>You know, there's only one Internet, that's the one we use.

0:26:31.760 --> 0:26:33.800
<v Speaker 4>And I think when it comes to digital money, there

0:26:33.840 --> 0:26:37.520
<v Speaker 4>is only Bitcoin. Everything that came after has a rafter problems,

0:26:37.520 --> 0:26:40.359
<v Speaker 4>whether it's a pre mind of the coins and distributed

0:26:40.400 --> 0:26:44.560
<v Speaker 4>to the friends of the foundation, or whether it was

0:26:44.960 --> 0:26:47.920
<v Speaker 4>the nature of the consensus mechanism itself that's flawed. There's

0:26:47.920 --> 0:26:50.680
<v Speaker 4>a lot of issues there, and I think smart contracting

0:26:50.760 --> 0:26:53.920
<v Speaker 4>is interesting. If I was to paint it favorably, I

0:26:53.920 --> 0:26:56.720
<v Speaker 4>would say some of that stuff could eventually come into

0:26:56.760 --> 0:26:59.679
<v Speaker 4>Bitcoin at a higher layer. But to see it as

0:26:59.720 --> 0:27:02.160
<v Speaker 4>it's own chain and its own monetary system, I think

0:27:02.560 --> 0:27:05.560
<v Speaker 4>as a flawed outlook. And there's a lot of grifting

0:27:05.600 --> 0:27:08.280
<v Speaker 4>in that space, and we saw that with Trump's coin.

0:27:08.840 --> 0:27:11.480
<v Speaker 4>There's meme coins. The cat's kind of out of the bag.

0:27:11.520 --> 0:27:13.639
<v Speaker 4>You know, it's not even talking about old coins anymore.

0:27:13.640 --> 0:27:17.040
<v Speaker 4>It's just we'd call them meme coins, and they're literally,

0:27:17.080 --> 0:27:20.800
<v Speaker 4>you know, pump and dump. There's no there's no value there,

0:27:20.800 --> 0:27:23.840
<v Speaker 4>there's no real long term situation. And if we compare

0:27:23.880 --> 0:27:27.040
<v Speaker 4>that with Bitcoin, which is fifteen sixteen years now monetized

0:27:27.080 --> 0:27:30.560
<v Speaker 4>from zero to over two trillion dollars in market cap,

0:27:31.320 --> 0:27:35.520
<v Speaker 4>used globally, adopted by millions of people globally, I think

0:27:35.520 --> 0:27:37.400
<v Speaker 4>it's a very different story.

0:27:38.000 --> 0:27:40.879
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and I guess the likes of Ethereum sort of

0:27:41.240 --> 0:27:45.960
<v Speaker 2>emerged for that fact that you know, they were designing

0:27:47.160 --> 0:27:50.240
<v Speaker 2>quite flexible means of doing things on top of that.

0:27:50.880 --> 0:27:53.720
<v Speaker 2>And we've heard it's never really eventuated yet, but things

0:27:53.720 --> 0:27:56.240
<v Speaker 2>in the financial industry, if you're getting a mortgage, you

0:27:56.240 --> 0:27:58.359
<v Speaker 2>would do all of that as a smart contract on

0:27:59.040 --> 0:28:03.000
<v Speaker 2>the Ethereum block So it's all incredibly efficient and transparent.

0:28:03.080 --> 0:28:06.359
<v Speaker 2>This stuff still hasn't really got to the consumer level yet,

0:28:06.480 --> 0:28:12.400
<v Speaker 2>but you don't necessarily you're not necessarily precluded from doing

0:28:12.400 --> 0:28:17.600
<v Speaker 2>that using the Bitcoin platform and blockchain. Is this concept

0:28:17.640 --> 0:28:21.920
<v Speaker 2>of layer two. Maybe explain that for us Cody, you've

0:28:21.960 --> 0:28:26.520
<v Speaker 2>got the base Bitcoin blockchain and there's all this innovation

0:28:26.640 --> 0:28:29.879
<v Speaker 2>that's going on on level two to enable similar sorts

0:28:29.920 --> 0:28:30.760
<v Speaker 2>of transactions.

0:28:31.359 --> 0:28:33.520
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, so I think the way we can think about

0:28:33.560 --> 0:28:36.359
<v Speaker 4>this is think of it as the Internet of money.

0:28:36.880 --> 0:28:40.040
<v Speaker 4>And when the Internet came out, originally it was really

0:28:40.080 --> 0:28:43.640
<v Speaker 4>just these kind of underwater cables that connected countries and

0:28:43.840 --> 0:28:47.120
<v Speaker 4>these connections between universities and institutions, and it was this

0:28:47.400 --> 0:28:51.920
<v Speaker 4>very natient network. And from that you were then able

0:28:51.920 --> 0:28:54.560
<v Speaker 4>to plug telephones and then start dialing into other computers,

0:28:54.600 --> 0:28:56.920
<v Speaker 4>and there was these more and more layers built, and

0:28:56.960 --> 0:28:58.840
<v Speaker 4>so where we are today, where we have you and

0:28:58.840 --> 0:29:01.719
<v Speaker 4>I are having this care and this is effectively a

0:29:01.720 --> 0:29:04.520
<v Speaker 4>telephone call over the Internet, whereas once upon the time

0:29:04.560 --> 0:29:06.880
<v Speaker 4>the Internet ran over the telephone lines. And so there's

0:29:06.920 --> 0:29:09.360
<v Speaker 4>this flipping of the tech and I think the way

0:29:09.360 --> 0:29:11.600
<v Speaker 4>we can think about that with bitcoin is it is

0:29:11.640 --> 0:29:15.200
<v Speaker 4>this robust, extremely hard money at the base layer, and

0:29:16.120 --> 0:29:18.280
<v Speaker 4>you could even just say it's a Ledger system at

0:29:18.320 --> 0:29:21.160
<v Speaker 4>the base layer, and then upon that you can build

0:29:21.240 --> 0:29:24.800
<v Speaker 4>layers that fulfill other needs. And so one of the

0:29:24.800 --> 0:29:27.920
<v Speaker 4>common critiques of bitcoin is that it's slow, and I

0:29:27.920 --> 0:29:30.720
<v Speaker 4>don't think this is really relevant, but the reality is

0:29:30.760 --> 0:29:33.280
<v Speaker 4>it is ten minute blocks, and so that's maybe not

0:29:33.360 --> 0:29:35.680
<v Speaker 4>quite fast enough for people who want to do instant payments.

0:29:36.040 --> 0:29:38.320
<v Speaker 4>But what you can do is you can build payment layers,

0:29:38.480 --> 0:29:41.480
<v Speaker 4>such as the Bitcoin Lightning network, that are on top

0:29:41.520 --> 0:29:43.800
<v Speaker 4>of that, and that fills in that need for speed.

0:29:44.400 --> 0:29:46.760
<v Speaker 4>And so it's kind of like, you know, we're building

0:29:46.760 --> 0:29:49.160
<v Speaker 4>the Internet. We've got these cables under the ocean and

0:29:49.200 --> 0:29:53.320
<v Speaker 4>these like servers, but then we're building HTTP, we're building websites,

0:29:53.360 --> 0:29:55.800
<v Speaker 4>we're building apps on top of all of that. And

0:29:55.840 --> 0:29:59.959
<v Speaker 4>so Lightning is one example and it's important to differentiate.

0:30:00.080 --> 0:30:03.440
<v Speaker 4>It's not a separate thing. It is bitcoin. It's atomically

0:30:03.720 --> 0:30:05.959
<v Speaker 4>related to the bitcoin blocks, and it just happens to

0:30:05.960 --> 0:30:09.160
<v Speaker 4>be this other way of using bitcoin that's a lot faster,

0:30:10.000 --> 0:30:11.480
<v Speaker 4>and then there's other other things you can do on

0:30:11.480 --> 0:30:13.840
<v Speaker 4>top of that. And because it's an open source network,

0:30:14.120 --> 0:30:16.360
<v Speaker 4>if someone has a great idea, they can go and

0:30:16.400 --> 0:30:18.720
<v Speaker 4>build it. And so again, when the Internet came out,

0:30:19.200 --> 0:30:24.040
<v Speaker 4>the earliest TCPIP protocol, that was a standard that people

0:30:24.040 --> 0:30:26.920
<v Speaker 4>could then innovate upon, and they could build HTTP, they

0:30:26.920 --> 0:30:29.440
<v Speaker 4>could build websites, they could build FTP, all of these

0:30:29.480 --> 0:30:31.760
<v Speaker 4>protocols on top of that. And I think we're going

0:30:31.760 --> 0:30:33.040
<v Speaker 4>to see the same thing, and we are seeing the

0:30:33.080 --> 0:30:35.800
<v Speaker 4>same thing with Bitcoin, that there will be innovation that

0:30:35.920 --> 0:30:39.959
<v Speaker 4>emerges to use the blockchain in other ways. And to

0:30:40.000 --> 0:30:43.040
<v Speaker 4>just look this back to the comments about ethereum, I

0:30:43.080 --> 0:30:45.920
<v Speaker 4>mean that came out, I guess in response to what

0:30:46.080 --> 0:30:49.560
<v Speaker 4>was seen as limitations in Bitcoin's base layer. But fundamentally,

0:30:49.640 --> 0:30:52.920
<v Speaker 4>and I think history has proven this, the approach to

0:30:53.000 --> 0:30:55.520
<v Speaker 4>doing everything on the base layer, you know, the kitchen

0:30:55.560 --> 0:30:59.560
<v Speaker 4>sink approach hasn't worked out. I mean, ethereum is not decentralized.

0:30:59.600 --> 0:31:02.880
<v Speaker 4>You have to have a cloud server to run the thing.

0:31:02.880 --> 0:31:05.920
<v Speaker 4>You can't run it at home. It's very clunky, it's

0:31:06.000 --> 0:31:10.320
<v Speaker 4>very big. The size of the blockchain on etherem, it's huge,

0:31:10.480 --> 0:31:13.760
<v Speaker 4>and it's really hard to validate and that sort of

0:31:13.920 --> 0:31:16.880
<v Speaker 4>so it kills that decentralization aspect, which is actually the

0:31:16.920 --> 0:31:19.280
<v Speaker 4>reason we do this in the first place, because blockchains

0:31:19.280 --> 0:31:21.800
<v Speaker 4>are very inefficient ways of doing things. The only thing

0:31:21.880 --> 0:31:24.479
<v Speaker 4>that's worth doing it for is money, and so if

0:31:24.520 --> 0:31:26.400
<v Speaker 4>you're going to do it, it has to be decentralized.

0:31:26.440 --> 0:31:29.000
<v Speaker 4>Otherwise you might as well just have a database. So yeah,

0:31:29.000 --> 0:31:31.040
<v Speaker 4>that's kind of how I contrast those two.

0:31:31.600 --> 0:31:34.720
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and you know, there will be a lot of

0:31:34.760 --> 0:31:39.160
<v Speaker 2>people who have invested or bought bitcoin in the last

0:31:39.160 --> 0:31:41.680
<v Speaker 2>couple of years. You know, the prices we record this

0:31:41.720 --> 0:31:43.320
<v Speaker 2>is down a little bit, but it's still at ninety

0:31:43.320 --> 0:31:47.000
<v Speaker 2>seven thousand dollars per us per coin, so you know,

0:31:47.040 --> 0:31:52.400
<v Speaker 2>that is massive, almost on a record high for the currency.

0:31:52.800 --> 0:31:55.040
<v Speaker 2>So there will be people who have bought it and

0:31:55.080 --> 0:31:58.240
<v Speaker 2>they want to use it, and traditionally that's been a

0:31:58.240 --> 0:32:01.120
<v Speaker 2>little bit clunky, but we do have the likes of

0:32:01.560 --> 0:32:04.760
<v Speaker 2>lightning pay, which is you know, new Zealand organization that

0:32:05.040 --> 0:32:08.800
<v Speaker 2>is enabling payments. There are lots of others as well,

0:32:09.320 --> 0:32:13.680
<v Speaker 2>and we do now have direct bitcoin to feit currency,

0:32:13.720 --> 0:32:16.320
<v Speaker 2>So if you go to a merchant, if the merchant

0:32:16.360 --> 0:32:19.760
<v Speaker 2>accepts this, you can use your bitcoin pay the merchant

0:32:20.080 --> 0:32:24.600
<v Speaker 2>in New Zealand dollars. That's all seamlessly done behind the scene.

0:32:24.720 --> 0:32:27.840
<v Speaker 2>So I guess the momentum is building. You talk about

0:32:27.840 --> 0:32:33.240
<v Speaker 2>the hyper bitcoinization around the world. I guess that is

0:32:33.240 --> 0:32:35.600
<v Speaker 2>what is going to drive that when it becomes seamless

0:32:35.600 --> 0:32:39.440
<v Speaker 2>to pay with this digital token that you've got in

0:32:39.480 --> 0:32:40.720
<v Speaker 2>your digital wallet.

0:32:41.080 --> 0:32:42.800
<v Speaker 5>How far away are we from that? Do you think?

0:32:43.280 --> 0:32:45.640
<v Speaker 4>Okay, So I think we need to maybe flip the

0:32:45.680 --> 0:32:47.080
<v Speaker 4>way we're looking at this. So because the way you're

0:32:47.080 --> 0:32:50.040
<v Speaker 4>describing it for me would be if we were if

0:32:50.080 --> 0:32:52.680
<v Speaker 4>bitcoin was a technology company, this would be the kind

0:32:52.680 --> 0:32:55.080
<v Speaker 4>of roadmap would be talking about, you know, but it is,

0:32:55.200 --> 0:32:56.840
<v Speaker 4>at the end of the day, an open source project

0:32:57.000 --> 0:32:59.800
<v Speaker 4>is very organic. There's a lot of competing forces within

0:32:59.840 --> 0:33:03.840
<v Speaker 4>but coin that are trying to keep it strength, you know,

0:33:04.000 --> 0:33:05.800
<v Speaker 4>keep its strength as a network. So there's a lot

0:33:05.800 --> 0:33:08.520
<v Speaker 4>of a very different approach to say tech company saying

0:33:08.520 --> 0:33:11.640
<v Speaker 4>we're going to roll out and do this thing. That said,

0:33:11.920 --> 0:33:14.760
<v Speaker 4>certainly the payment side, there's a lot of stuff happening there.

0:33:14.920 --> 0:33:17.440
<v Speaker 4>Lightning Pay you mentioned friends of mine, they have an

0:33:17.480 --> 0:33:20.560
<v Speaker 4>incredible system where already today I live on a bitcoin

0:33:20.640 --> 0:33:23.160
<v Speaker 4>standard myself. I use their system to pay New Zealand

0:33:23.320 --> 0:33:26.480
<v Speaker 4>bills and so through their Lightning Pay interface, if I

0:33:26.480 --> 0:33:29.160
<v Speaker 4>have a bill with someone in New Zealand, I just

0:33:29.560 --> 0:33:31.760
<v Speaker 4>pay and it puts the money right into the bank account,

0:33:31.880 --> 0:33:33.400
<v Speaker 4>and so it's a bit of a gateway to the

0:33:33.440 --> 0:33:35.920
<v Speaker 4>legacy system. And then on the other hand, if you

0:33:35.960 --> 0:33:39.520
<v Speaker 4>want to receive bitcoin, you can pay New Zealand dollars

0:33:39.560 --> 0:33:41.600
<v Speaker 4>and get bitcoin through their system, and if you're a merchant,

0:33:41.640 --> 0:33:44.520
<v Speaker 4>you can use that same system to receive New Zealand dollars.

0:33:45.320 --> 0:33:47.480
<v Speaker 4>If someone pays bitcoin, you can receive New Zealand dollars

0:33:47.480 --> 0:33:50.000
<v Speaker 4>and you're not exposed to any kind of volatility. So

0:33:50.200 --> 0:33:52.160
<v Speaker 4>there's some really interesting stuff there, and in a way,

0:33:52.520 --> 0:33:55.520
<v Speaker 4>the legacy system is actually enabling that through open banking

0:33:55.640 --> 0:33:58.280
<v Speaker 4>and some of these APIs now which are kind of

0:33:58.920 --> 0:34:03.440
<v Speaker 4>letting letting the bitcoin system come in and again colonize

0:34:03.440 --> 0:34:06.160
<v Speaker 4>this existing financial system because it has to open up

0:34:06.640 --> 0:34:09.000
<v Speaker 4>and it means bitcoin companies can get in there, and

0:34:09.160 --> 0:34:12.520
<v Speaker 4>thankfully we've got a regulatory landscape that enables that as well,

0:34:12.960 --> 0:34:15.200
<v Speaker 4>and so it's really exciting times where I think we're

0:34:15.200 --> 0:34:18.440
<v Speaker 4>going to see maybe not necessarily just a unilateral domination,

0:34:18.520 --> 0:34:21.160
<v Speaker 4>but I think this kind of slow, morephing of the system.

0:34:21.760 --> 0:34:24.439
<v Speaker 4>And again, people who cannot save money in the bank

0:34:24.440 --> 0:34:28.000
<v Speaker 4>account because there's interest won't outcompete inflation. All they have

0:34:28.040 --> 0:34:31.600
<v Speaker 4>to do is hold bitcoin and they'll beat inflation over

0:34:31.640 --> 0:34:34.240
<v Speaker 4>the long term, and so there's kind of an interesting dynamic.

0:34:34.280 --> 0:34:36.120
<v Speaker 4>So I guess to answer the question what does the

0:34:36.120 --> 0:34:38.680
<v Speaker 4>future look like, I mean, I don't have a crystal ball.

0:34:38.719 --> 0:34:41.440
<v Speaker 4>I think the history of money tends to say that

0:34:41.880 --> 0:34:46.840
<v Speaker 4>store of value is what happens first, and so people

0:34:46.880 --> 0:34:49.239
<v Speaker 4>want to hold their value before they start trying to

0:34:49.239 --> 0:34:50.799
<v Speaker 4>spend it. And so I think maybe we're going to

0:34:50.800 --> 0:34:53.640
<v Speaker 4>see an extended period of store of value basically a

0:34:53.719 --> 0:34:56.719
<v Speaker 4>hot ale bitcoin, and then eventually you're going to maybe

0:34:56.760 --> 0:34:58.279
<v Speaker 4>see more people who say, well, I want to get

0:34:58.280 --> 0:35:01.680
<v Speaker 4>paid in bitcoin. I don't know exactly how that plays out.

0:35:01.680 --> 0:35:03.040
<v Speaker 4>I think it's going to play out in a very

0:35:03.400 --> 0:35:05.719
<v Speaker 4>kind of dispersed way, where you've got maybe pockets of

0:35:05.760 --> 0:35:08.279
<v Speaker 4>people who do that more than others, and who knows

0:35:08.280 --> 0:35:10.160
<v Speaker 4>when New Zealand will be I think we are a

0:35:10.200 --> 0:35:13.920
<v Speaker 4>little bit behind the game in terms of bitcoin infrastructure,

0:35:14.440 --> 0:35:18.000
<v Speaker 4>and part of that is regulatory barriers. But over time,

0:35:18.040 --> 0:35:20.080
<v Speaker 4>I think we will see more and more people want bitcoin.

0:35:20.520 --> 0:35:23.520
<v Speaker 4>And who knows, there could be some geopolitical black swan events,

0:35:24.080 --> 0:35:27.640
<v Speaker 4>capital controls or whatever which really pushes people towards bitcoin.

0:35:27.719 --> 0:35:30.000
<v Speaker 4>But for the moment, I would say it's still in

0:35:30.040 --> 0:35:32.800
<v Speaker 4>the store of value stage. I use it for payments

0:35:32.800 --> 0:35:34.759
<v Speaker 4>all the time, but some people maybe aren't quite at

0:35:34.760 --> 0:35:37.360
<v Speaker 4>that stage yet, and I guess it's just sort of

0:35:37.400 --> 0:35:38.800
<v Speaker 4>a slow, gradual process.

0:35:39.400 --> 0:35:43.720
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and it has been frustrating really just the slow

0:35:44.239 --> 0:35:47.200
<v Speaker 2>pace of change around regulation and that in New Zealand,

0:35:47.280 --> 0:35:49.680
<v Speaker 2>although in the last year we have seen, for instance,

0:35:50.320 --> 0:35:54.680
<v Speaker 2>the Financial Markets Authority has said they are going to

0:35:54.719 --> 0:36:00.040
<v Speaker 2>set up a regulatory sandbox to allow fintech companies to

0:36:00.400 --> 0:36:04.600
<v Speaker 2>experiment with technologies like blockchain and AI. That is starting

0:36:04.600 --> 0:36:07.560
<v Speaker 2>this year, so they'll be able to literally launch services

0:36:07.760 --> 0:36:11.160
<v Speaker 2>and work with the FMA to basically experiment in a

0:36:11.200 --> 0:36:13.279
<v Speaker 2>safe way to make sure they're not breaking the law,

0:36:13.760 --> 0:36:16.840
<v Speaker 2>but to push the boat out a little bit on things. Singapore,

0:36:16.880 --> 0:36:21.160
<v Speaker 2>other countries have this. There's some work early stages work

0:36:21.160 --> 0:36:24.440
<v Speaker 2>the Reserve Bank is doing around a central bank digital currency,

0:36:24.719 --> 0:36:26.440
<v Speaker 2>which I'm picking you are not a fan of.

0:36:27.360 --> 0:36:32.280
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, so you mentioned the FMA. I think the sandbox approach.

0:36:32.360 --> 0:36:35.160
<v Speaker 4>Really the issue with that is that as a permissioned system,

0:36:35.520 --> 0:36:39.239
<v Speaker 4>you've got to be credentialed to get in and play

0:36:39.280 --> 0:36:42.840
<v Speaker 4>with things. And the whole Bitcoin network is open source.

0:36:42.880 --> 0:36:45.439
<v Speaker 4>You know, you can anyone can build apps and work

0:36:45.440 --> 0:36:47.480
<v Speaker 4>with it, and so it's kind of two incompatible things

0:36:47.520 --> 0:36:51.760
<v Speaker 4>in that sense. And again there are businesses, awesome projects

0:36:51.840 --> 0:36:54.560
<v Speaker 4>like Lightning pay who are bridging that gap and going

0:36:54.600 --> 0:36:58.400
<v Speaker 4>through the work to be a regulated entity that can

0:36:58.440 --> 0:37:01.320
<v Speaker 4>do that stuff. But ultimately, I don't think innovation happens

0:37:01.320 --> 0:37:04.200
<v Speaker 4>in those kinds of places. I think you can't really

0:37:04.200 --> 0:37:07.120
<v Speaker 4>innovate in a sand pit that's operated by the state.

0:37:07.280 --> 0:37:09.239
<v Speaker 4>I think you have to go out on a limbit

0:37:09.239 --> 0:37:12.040
<v Speaker 4>and build open source stuff. And so I think a

0:37:12.040 --> 0:37:14.239
<v Speaker 4>lot of that space is populated by again these kind

0:37:14.280 --> 0:37:18.239
<v Speaker 4>of old coin projects, which are ultimately worthless systems, and

0:37:18.760 --> 0:37:20.799
<v Speaker 4>they are quite moneyed in a lot of a lot

0:37:20.800 --> 0:37:23.200
<v Speaker 4>of situations because the companies and so they can have

0:37:23.239 --> 0:37:24.920
<v Speaker 4>their token, they can do a pre mind, they can

0:37:24.920 --> 0:37:26.960
<v Speaker 4>sell their token, and they can get all of this

0:37:27.040 --> 0:37:29.120
<v Speaker 4>money they can use for marketing their system, whereas again

0:37:29.160 --> 0:37:32.840
<v Speaker 4>bitcoin it's open source, there's no boss, there's no company

0:37:33.160 --> 0:37:35.920
<v Speaker 4>behind bitcoin, and so it's a lot more grassroots and

0:37:35.960 --> 0:37:38.480
<v Speaker 4>so I think that's one angle. And then the other

0:37:38.480 --> 0:37:41.360
<v Speaker 4>angle you mentioned are the Reserve Bank and the CBDC,

0:37:41.480 --> 0:37:44.640
<v Speaker 4>and I'm certainly at odds with what they're trying to

0:37:44.680 --> 0:37:47.120
<v Speaker 4>do there. I think on a political level, they are

0:37:47.160 --> 0:37:51.000
<v Speaker 4>trying to I think, long term ensure the stability of

0:37:51.000 --> 0:37:52.879
<v Speaker 4>the New Zealand dollar, which is actually I think under

0:37:52.880 --> 0:37:56.280
<v Speaker 4>threat from things like stable coins the US dollar dominance.

0:37:56.320 --> 0:37:58.839
<v Speaker 4>So I think there's a lot of geopolitical considerations, and

0:37:58.880 --> 0:38:03.080
<v Speaker 4>so bitcoin is just another thing nipping at their heels.

0:38:04.200 --> 0:38:06.120
<v Speaker 4>I don't know actually what the long term outlook is

0:38:06.160 --> 0:38:07.960
<v Speaker 4>for the New Zealand dollar, if I'm honest. I think

0:38:08.280 --> 0:38:10.399
<v Speaker 4>the yen as well, where I am in Japan, is

0:38:10.440 --> 0:38:13.279
<v Speaker 4>certainly not doing too well. I think they've got a

0:38:13.280 --> 0:38:16.319
<v Speaker 4>lot of political considerations and bitcoin is just another one

0:38:16.320 --> 0:38:19.480
<v Speaker 4>of those. And so the CBDC I see as a

0:38:19.560 --> 0:38:21.920
<v Speaker 4>kind of a stop gap where they can innovate just

0:38:21.960 --> 0:38:24.040
<v Speaker 4>a little bit more and to ensure the New Zealand

0:38:24.080 --> 0:38:26.879
<v Speaker 4>dollar doesn't die straight away. But if you look over

0:38:26.920 --> 0:38:28.800
<v Speaker 4>the long term, the history of war feat money is

0:38:28.800 --> 0:38:30.440
<v Speaker 4>as they all go to zero. I mean, the New

0:38:30.520 --> 0:38:33.920
<v Speaker 4>Zealand dollar arguably is only since nineteen sixty eight, I

0:38:33.920 --> 0:38:37.560
<v Speaker 4>think when we moved over from the pound, and you know,

0:38:37.600 --> 0:38:39.560
<v Speaker 4>all of these currencies after a few decades they all

0:38:39.600 --> 0:38:41.600
<v Speaker 4>eventually die. So I think we are going to see

0:38:41.600 --> 0:38:44.280
<v Speaker 4>that in slow motion as people lose trust in the state,

0:38:44.680 --> 0:38:48.040
<v Speaker 4>in the government money and who knows, whether it's stable coins,

0:38:48.080 --> 0:38:51.080
<v Speaker 4>bitcoin or you know, hard metals. Maybe there's things people

0:38:51.120 --> 0:38:55.719
<v Speaker 4>move into and they move away from New Zealand's currency, and.

0:38:55.600 --> 0:38:59.400
<v Speaker 2>We're sort of seeing that to some extent. For instance, gold,

0:38:59.480 --> 0:39:03.040
<v Speaker 2>you know, China has been hoarding gold, other countries, the

0:39:03.080 --> 0:39:08.399
<v Speaker 2>bricks nations have been buying up gold deposits. So that's

0:39:08.440 --> 0:39:12.040
<v Speaker 2>one indication of the lack of confidence, for instance, in

0:39:12.080 --> 0:39:15.640
<v Speaker 2>their own currencies. Also the US dollar we've seen l Salvador,

0:39:15.640 --> 0:39:17.640
<v Speaker 2>although they pull back from that in the last couple

0:39:17.680 --> 0:39:20.920
<v Speaker 2>of weeks. Bitcoin as a you know, as a nation

0:39:21.040 --> 0:39:25.480
<v Speaker 2>state sort of currency, a recognized currency there, they are

0:39:25.520 --> 0:39:28.000
<v Speaker 2>still investing in bitcoin. But there have been a few

0:39:28.040 --> 0:39:32.239
<v Speaker 2>experiments like that having there in smaller countries that have

0:39:32.440 --> 0:39:37.320
<v Speaker 2>very little confidence in their currencies, high inflation, high corruption,

0:39:37.440 --> 0:39:40.719
<v Speaker 2>they see that as potentially a way to improve live,

0:39:41.680 --> 0:39:43.239
<v Speaker 2>improve life for their citizens.

0:39:43.760 --> 0:39:44.000
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.

0:39:44.080 --> 0:39:46.759
<v Speaker 4>So, I mean it's classic adage that in times of

0:39:46.840 --> 0:39:49.680
<v Speaker 4>strife you go into gold. I don't know. I mean,

0:39:49.680 --> 0:39:51.279
<v Speaker 4>gold is a bit of fun, but I don't think

0:39:51.320 --> 0:39:53.080
<v Speaker 4>how relevant. I don't think it's that relevant in the

0:39:53.080 --> 0:39:56.719
<v Speaker 4>modern world. It's it's hard to move around. You know,

0:39:56.760 --> 0:39:58.040
<v Speaker 4>you can you can store it, but how are you

0:39:58.080 --> 0:40:00.680
<v Speaker 4>going to liquidate it? I mean, bitcoin innovates on that

0:40:00.719 --> 0:40:04.120
<v Speaker 4>in so many ways, and you can send it anywhere,

0:40:04.120 --> 0:40:05.839
<v Speaker 4>you can take it with the overseas, you know, can't

0:40:06.120 --> 0:40:09.000
<v Speaker 4>you can't take gold on an airplane really without getting detected.

0:40:09.080 --> 0:40:11.719
<v Speaker 4>So there's a whole lot of considerations there. But I

0:40:11.760 --> 0:40:14.480
<v Speaker 4>think when it comes to experiments with us, the world

0:40:14.600 --> 0:40:17.279
<v Speaker 4>is kind of crazy, man, Like, well, you know what's

0:40:17.320 --> 0:40:20.120
<v Speaker 4>going on in times of strife, people are going to

0:40:20.120 --> 0:40:22.120
<v Speaker 4>look for hard assets to park their value, and I

0:40:22.120 --> 0:40:24.879
<v Speaker 4>think bitcoin's doing a really good job of that. You've

0:40:24.880 --> 0:40:27.960
<v Speaker 4>seen starting to see countries experiment You mentioned our Salvador,

0:40:28.800 --> 0:40:31.320
<v Speaker 4>they played around with this legal tender law, which I

0:40:31.360 --> 0:40:34.879
<v Speaker 4>think they've just repealed. I don't quite know the full

0:40:34.920 --> 0:40:38.200
<v Speaker 4>implications that there might have been some political pressure from

0:40:38.239 --> 0:40:42.360
<v Speaker 4>the IMF, but regardless, it was an experiment and it

0:40:42.440 --> 0:40:44.360
<v Speaker 4>was really interesting, and so you've seen all these companies

0:40:44.440 --> 0:40:46.160
<v Speaker 4>now start to move to ourself or you can still

0:40:46.239 --> 0:40:49.080
<v Speaker 4>use it there. It's just I think they've just changed

0:40:49.120 --> 0:40:51.520
<v Speaker 4>the law around the legal tender status, but you can

0:40:51.560 --> 0:40:54.319
<v Speaker 4>still use it. Really exciting stuff. There's a few other

0:40:54.320 --> 0:40:57.719
<v Speaker 4>localities in Switzerland. There's Lugano, which is a city that

0:40:58.000 --> 0:41:01.319
<v Speaker 4>has you can use bitcoin amongst all the merchant There's

0:41:01.320 --> 0:41:03.239
<v Speaker 4>a few places in the Philippines other other kind of

0:41:03.280 --> 0:41:07.759
<v Speaker 4>bitcoin communities where there's this circular economy emerging, and I

0:41:07.760 --> 0:41:09.640
<v Speaker 4>think it would be really awesome actually to see something

0:41:09.680 --> 0:41:12.440
<v Speaker 4>like that in New Zealand. I can also highlight Queenstown

0:41:12.480 --> 0:41:15.200
<v Speaker 4>as a bit of a bitcoin hub. That's where part

0:41:15.200 --> 0:41:17.399
<v Speaker 4>of Lightning Pay is based out of Queenstown and there's

0:41:17.400 --> 0:41:19.480
<v Speaker 4>a few merchants there. So we're going to have actually

0:41:19.520 --> 0:41:21.640
<v Speaker 4>having an event there in March that I'm going to

0:41:21.680 --> 0:41:24.239
<v Speaker 4>attend and we're going to pay on bitcoin, and it's

0:41:24.239 --> 0:41:25.680
<v Speaker 4>going to be kind of cool. So I mean, I'd

0:41:25.719 --> 0:41:28.680
<v Speaker 4>love to see a bitcoin circular economy like that in

0:41:28.719 --> 0:41:31.919
<v Speaker 4>New Zealand, but yeah, sort of early's still early days,

0:41:32.000 --> 0:41:33.680
<v Speaker 4>I think for that that kind of thing.

0:41:34.080 --> 0:41:38.719
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and look, it's not necessarily bitcoin based, but we're

0:41:38.719 --> 0:41:41.640
<v Speaker 2>always see some really good innovation in New Zealand pockets

0:41:41.680 --> 0:41:44.480
<v Speaker 2>offt it. We don't necessarily have a you know, an

0:41:44.480 --> 0:41:48.000
<v Speaker 2>industry that focuses on this, but you have, for instance, immersive,

0:41:48.160 --> 0:41:51.960
<v Speaker 2>really innovative company Jerome Farre's company that is sort of

0:41:51.960 --> 0:41:55.600
<v Speaker 2>interfacing with master card and and bitcoin, so you can

0:41:55.719 --> 0:41:58.960
<v Speaker 2>very easily use your bitcoin to pay it at master

0:41:59.040 --> 0:42:02.520
<v Speaker 2>card terminals and hundreds of thousands, if not millions of

0:42:02.520 --> 0:42:05.440
<v Speaker 2>them around the world. You've got future Verse, which is

0:42:05.480 --> 0:42:09.279
<v Speaker 2>around non fungible tokens and gaming, and like we've talked

0:42:09.280 --> 0:42:12.440
<v Speaker 2>about Lightning Pay and several others. So do you get

0:42:12.440 --> 0:42:14.560
<v Speaker 2>a sense that, you know, we have a thriving software

0:42:14.560 --> 0:42:17.640
<v Speaker 2>as a service industry in New Zealand. We've exported zero

0:42:17.800 --> 0:42:22.000
<v Speaker 2>software and others vend to the world. When you look

0:42:22.040 --> 0:42:24.200
<v Speaker 2>at the sort of the grassroots stuff that's going on

0:42:24.320 --> 0:42:28.239
<v Speaker 2>and web three and blockchain ventures in New Zealand, are

0:42:28.239 --> 0:42:30.680
<v Speaker 2>you sort of heightened by the activity.

0:42:31.800 --> 0:42:35.520
<v Speaker 4>So I think, again, the bitcoins really were my focus is,

0:42:35.560 --> 0:42:38.239
<v Speaker 4>and I'm a little bit disappointed. I think generally the

0:42:38.320 --> 0:42:42.640
<v Speaker 4>quality of these other systems is pretty low. And again

0:42:42.680 --> 0:42:46.239
<v Speaker 4>they're all hype. They're all hype. They don't really have

0:42:46.320 --> 0:42:49.040
<v Speaker 4>any true value, and they're sort of riding the train.

0:42:49.120 --> 0:42:51.359
<v Speaker 4>And I think we have to unpick the hype from

0:42:51.400 --> 0:42:53.800
<v Speaker 4>the reality. And the same could be said for AI stuff.

0:42:53.880 --> 0:42:55.359
<v Speaker 4>I mean, there's certainly a lot of value there, but

0:42:55.840 --> 0:42:57.920
<v Speaker 4>it's sort of you see it float by on LinkedIn

0:42:58.000 --> 0:43:00.840
<v Speaker 4>and you think, okay, we've hit peak. And so with

0:43:00.880 --> 0:43:02.520
<v Speaker 4>the crypto stuff, I think a lot of that is

0:43:02.600 --> 0:43:05.160
<v Speaker 4>vestile from the last bull run and all of that

0:43:05.280 --> 0:43:07.600
<v Speaker 4>was driven by bitcoin, you know, and so then it

0:43:07.640 --> 0:43:10.239
<v Speaker 4>flowed into these old coins, and so I think, really

0:43:10.280 --> 0:43:13.240
<v Speaker 4>people need to be critical. Again, blockchain doesn't matter unless

0:43:13.239 --> 0:43:18.239
<v Speaker 4>it's decentralized and secured like bitcoin. NFTs are again interesting,

0:43:18.360 --> 0:43:22.000
<v Speaker 4>but they don't if they're not on bitcoin. You might

0:43:22.000 --> 0:43:24.160
<v Speaker 4>as just have it in a database, you know. And

0:43:24.200 --> 0:43:27.480
<v Speaker 4>so I think there's a critique there of what's going

0:43:27.480 --> 0:43:30.359
<v Speaker 4>on in New Zealand. Now that said, with the bitcoin stuff,

0:43:30.360 --> 0:43:32.319
<v Speaker 4>there is a few companies doing some awesome stuff but

0:43:32.880 --> 0:43:35.400
<v Speaker 4>it sits a little bit, just a little bit outside

0:43:35.440 --> 0:43:38.839
<v Speaker 4>of the Overton window of sort of what's acceptable, because again,

0:43:38.880 --> 0:43:42.920
<v Speaker 4>bitcoin is is pretty big as an idea, and it

0:43:42.960 --> 0:43:46.040
<v Speaker 4>is disruptive. You know, we're software and SaaS and that

0:43:46.120 --> 0:43:48.440
<v Speaker 4>all of this stuff is about disruption, and the biggest

0:43:48.440 --> 0:43:51.640
<v Speaker 4>disruption we can make is disrupting the monopoly on nation

0:43:51.719 --> 0:43:54.160
<v Speaker 4>state currency. And I think that's really the big piece,

0:43:54.200 --> 0:43:55.960
<v Speaker 4>and that's maybe just a bridge too far for some

0:43:56.000 --> 0:43:58.880
<v Speaker 4>people who want to play in the fintech sandpit that

0:43:58.920 --> 0:44:00.960
<v Speaker 4>the government has made for them. You know. So I

0:44:00.960 --> 0:44:03.279
<v Speaker 4>guess I have a little bit of an aversion to

0:44:03.360 --> 0:44:06.759
<v Speaker 4>maybe some of those projects that certainly don't plan too

0:44:06.760 --> 0:44:09.839
<v Speaker 4>the bitcoin world. That's sort of maybe a little bit

0:44:09.840 --> 0:44:12.160
<v Speaker 4>of a distraction. Though certainly some of that stuff, if

0:44:12.160 --> 0:44:14.120
<v Speaker 4>it could be positively, if it could be brought over

0:44:14.160 --> 0:44:15.880
<v Speaker 4>into bitcoin, or maybe some of those people can work

0:44:15.920 --> 0:44:18.080
<v Speaker 4>on bitcoin stuff, that could be really awesome. But yeah,

0:44:18.360 --> 0:44:21.120
<v Speaker 4>there's sort of the software landscape generally, though in New

0:44:21.160 --> 0:44:23.319
<v Speaker 4>Zealand I think is pretty strong. I'm a big fan

0:44:23.360 --> 0:44:25.439
<v Speaker 4>of some of the agritech stuff that's happening as well

0:44:26.120 --> 0:44:27.719
<v Speaker 4>and New Zealand, I mean that's where we need to

0:44:27.719 --> 0:44:31.240
<v Speaker 4>be going is exporting software instead of milk.

0:44:31.400 --> 0:44:38.080
<v Speaker 2>You know, I guess the two remaining issues that are

0:44:38.120 --> 0:44:43.960
<v Speaker 2>barriers to bitcoin adoption and the hyper bitcoinization of the

0:44:44.000 --> 0:44:49.120
<v Speaker 2>world really is lingering perceptions of trust. And this isn't

0:44:49.120 --> 0:44:52.439
<v Speaker 2>anything integral to bitcoin. This is about the actors who

0:44:53.080 --> 0:44:57.359
<v Speaker 2>work around that network. We've seen exchanges like Dasset Cryptopia

0:44:57.480 --> 0:45:01.040
<v Speaker 2>here in New Zealand collapse owing a lot of money.

0:45:01.840 --> 0:45:06.840
<v Speaker 2>FTX was a big moment for the industry Binance. The

0:45:06.920 --> 0:45:10.480
<v Speaker 2>CEO went to jail, huge finds there, So I guess

0:45:10.719 --> 0:45:12.080
<v Speaker 2>we've got to work through that. And the other thing

0:45:12.120 --> 0:45:15.279
<v Speaker 2>is the volatility. So interested just finally to wrap up

0:45:15.320 --> 0:45:18.279
<v Speaker 2>really what your thought is on those two things. Are

0:45:18.280 --> 0:45:21.960
<v Speaker 2>we going to see and with Trump throwing his own

0:45:22.040 --> 0:45:25.680
<v Speaker 2>mean coins out there and sort of polluting the pond

0:45:25.800 --> 0:45:27.520
<v Speaker 2>to some extent, are you just going to see more

0:45:28.480 --> 0:45:32.160
<v Speaker 2>bad activity that's going to sort of taint this whole area,

0:45:32.200 --> 0:45:36.520
<v Speaker 2>particularly bitcoin, And as it matures and it's more uptake

0:45:36.560 --> 0:45:39.400
<v Speaker 2>and interest in bitcoin, either peaks and troughs are going

0:45:39.440 --> 0:45:41.200
<v Speaker 2>to flatten out a little bit or is it always

0:45:41.239 --> 0:45:45.480
<v Speaker 2>going to be a boom bust sort of deal holding

0:45:45.560 --> 0:45:46.680
<v Speaker 2>and investing in bitcoin?

0:45:47.200 --> 0:45:49.600
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, so I have a lot of sympathy for people

0:45:49.640 --> 0:45:52.560
<v Speaker 4>who have maybe had issues with a bitcoin of lost

0:45:52.560 --> 0:45:54.839
<v Speaker 4>bitcoin through exchange hacks and things like this. You know,

0:45:54.880 --> 0:45:58.280
<v Speaker 4>there's certainly maybe people who are not so tech savvy

0:45:58.880 --> 0:46:02.120
<v Speaker 4>and they don't know that there's other ways of holding bitcoin.

0:46:02.239 --> 0:46:05.480
<v Speaker 4>I certainly have sympathy that for their loss. And unfortunately,

0:46:05.880 --> 0:46:08.160
<v Speaker 4>in some of these situations there is a regulator who

0:46:08.160 --> 0:46:11.520
<v Speaker 4>can come in and make things right. But ultimately, I

0:46:11.520 --> 0:46:14.719
<v Speaker 4>think bitcoin is a profounding new idea in the sense

0:46:14.719 --> 0:46:17.560
<v Speaker 4>that you can self custody your funds. And this is

0:46:17.600 --> 0:46:21.440
<v Speaker 4>not possible currently unless you're holding cash, physical cash in

0:46:21.480 --> 0:46:25.120
<v Speaker 4>your house or physical gold that you can't self custody

0:46:25.239 --> 0:46:27.440
<v Speaker 4>or money all of it lives in bank databases, and

0:46:27.480 --> 0:46:30.920
<v Speaker 4>bitcoin is totally opposite. You can hold this, you can

0:46:30.960 --> 0:46:36.040
<v Speaker 4>hold it in your own wallet, and it's out there

0:46:36.040 --> 0:46:38.240
<v Speaker 4>on the blockchain. Your wallet sort of unlocks those funds.

0:46:38.520 --> 0:46:39.920
<v Speaker 4>No one own says access to it. So that's a

0:46:40.040 --> 0:46:44.440
<v Speaker 4>very new and kind of radical concept of ownership. And

0:46:44.520 --> 0:46:47.799
<v Speaker 4>so it's naturally it's going to be quite quite hard

0:46:47.800 --> 0:46:49.400
<v Speaker 4>for some people to get their heads around that. And

0:46:49.440 --> 0:46:52.680
<v Speaker 4>so if you have your money with a custodian, the

0:46:52.719 --> 0:46:55.320
<v Speaker 4>custodian is now the risk point, and so I think

0:46:55.920 --> 0:46:58.279
<v Speaker 4>I would encourage people to learn about the nature of

0:46:58.320 --> 0:47:00.799
<v Speaker 4>self custody and what's involved. And it really is as

0:47:00.880 --> 0:47:04.560
<v Speaker 4>simple as twelve words that you get from your wallet

0:47:04.560 --> 0:47:06.840
<v Speaker 4>that you can write down and secure your bitcoin with that.

0:47:08.080 --> 0:47:09.840
<v Speaker 4>There is maybe a little bit more nuance about exactly

0:47:09.880 --> 0:47:11.960
<v Speaker 4>how you do that, but it's it's a process that

0:47:12.000 --> 0:47:13.840
<v Speaker 4>people need to go through. And if you can, if

0:47:13.880 --> 0:47:15.520
<v Speaker 4>you can drive a car, you know, if you can

0:47:15.600 --> 0:47:17.319
<v Speaker 4>use a computer, you can, you can use bitcoin in

0:47:17.320 --> 0:47:20.839
<v Speaker 4>a self custod of your way. In terms of these

0:47:20.880 --> 0:47:23.440
<v Speaker 4>bad actors, again, I think we are going to see

0:47:23.440 --> 0:47:25.799
<v Speaker 4>this probably for the for the foreseeable future. There's going

0:47:25.840 --> 0:47:28.440
<v Speaker 4>to be a number of these sorts of exchanges and

0:47:29.719 --> 0:47:31.840
<v Speaker 4>businesses that come out that are actually not holding the

0:47:31.840 --> 0:47:35.000
<v Speaker 4>bitcoin they say they are. They've got paper bitcoin for example,

0:47:35.600 --> 0:47:37.880
<v Speaker 4>that they're selling to people, but it's not actually a

0:47:38.000 --> 0:47:39.920
<v Speaker 4>real bitcoin, and so there's going to be risk and

0:47:39.960 --> 0:47:42.360
<v Speaker 4>we saw that with ftx and other exchanges in the past.

0:47:42.440 --> 0:47:45.880
<v Speaker 4>But again, doing a due diligence, doing a bit of

0:47:46.040 --> 0:47:48.279
<v Speaker 4>research and understand exactly what you need to do to

0:47:48.320 --> 0:47:51.560
<v Speaker 4>get bitcoin into your self custody is really important. And

0:47:51.600 --> 0:47:54.359
<v Speaker 4>then I think also the lens or the I guess

0:47:54.360 --> 0:47:56.960
<v Speaker 4>you could say the mantra of bitcoin not crypto is

0:47:57.000 --> 0:48:00.160
<v Speaker 4>really important here because if you brought into the trump coin,

0:48:00.239 --> 0:48:03.160
<v Speaker 4>for example, you got rugged. You know, you lost all

0:48:03.160 --> 0:48:05.600
<v Speaker 4>your money. If you've brought into any of the other

0:48:05.680 --> 0:48:07.719
<v Speaker 4>thousands of cryptos that have come over the years, you're

0:48:07.719 --> 0:48:10.759
<v Speaker 4>going to lose money. Whereas bitcoin, you hold it, and

0:48:10.920 --> 0:48:12.879
<v Speaker 4>generally speaking, over a three or four year period, it's

0:48:12.880 --> 0:48:16.600
<v Speaker 4>always going to increase in purchasing power. There are ups

0:48:16.640 --> 0:48:18.960
<v Speaker 4>and downs, and there is volatility, and man, that is

0:48:19.000 --> 0:48:22.640
<v Speaker 4>the rollercoaster ride. You know, when you and I last spoke,

0:48:22.680 --> 0:48:24.440
<v Speaker 4>I can' quite remember what the bitcoin price was and

0:48:24.480 --> 0:48:26.719
<v Speaker 4>New Zealand dollars, but it was certainly a lot cheaper

0:48:26.719 --> 0:48:29.279
<v Speaker 4>than it is today. And you know, I had to

0:48:29.360 --> 0:48:32.400
<v Speaker 4>ride through all of that, but I understood the network.

0:48:32.400 --> 0:48:34.839
<v Speaker 4>And so I think education is really the big piece here.

0:48:34.840 --> 0:48:37.360
<v Speaker 4>And so if people, if they can, I would suggest

0:48:37.400 --> 0:48:39.800
<v Speaker 4>reading some books about bitcoin. I can recommend the Bitcoin

0:48:39.920 --> 0:48:42.560
<v Speaker 4>Standard is a really good place to start. There's some

0:48:42.560 --> 0:48:44.520
<v Speaker 4>really awesome meetups happening in New Zealand as well. We

0:48:44.680 --> 0:48:47.239
<v Speaker 4>can talk to real people, genuine people and kind of

0:48:47.280 --> 0:48:50.080
<v Speaker 4>learn about how bitcoin works. So I can sumably call

0:48:50.120 --> 0:48:51.719
<v Speaker 4>out the bit key we meet ups. There's a place

0:48:51.800 --> 0:48:54.560
<v Speaker 4>people can go to learn about bitcoin, and I kind

0:48:54.560 --> 0:48:57.320
<v Speaker 4>of ask the questions that are burning. But really education

0:48:57.480 --> 0:48:59.560
<v Speaker 4>is the key piece. And once you begin that and

0:48:59.600 --> 0:49:02.000
<v Speaker 4>you sort of see how it unfolds, you've begun down

0:49:02.000 --> 0:49:04.400
<v Speaker 4>that rabbit hole. There's no I don't think there's any

0:49:04.480 --> 0:49:06.440
<v Speaker 4>coming back to the old way. So yeah, that's all

0:49:06.480 --> 0:49:08.200
<v Speaker 4>I would say. Education is important.

0:49:09.320 --> 0:49:12.000
<v Speaker 2>Well, it's a great podcast, The Transformation of Value. You

0:49:12.080 --> 0:49:14.680
<v Speaker 2>got some great guests on there, and I highly recommend

0:49:14.680 --> 0:49:18.480
<v Speaker 2>it as someone who has been educating myself on this

0:49:18.600 --> 0:49:21.000
<v Speaker 2>has been really valuable and for answering some of the

0:49:21.000 --> 0:49:25.839
<v Speaker 2>bigger philosophical questions about you know, financial freedom and what

0:49:25.880 --> 0:49:29.160
<v Speaker 2>this is all about, what bitcoin represents. So thanks so much.

0:49:29.200 --> 0:49:31.720
<v Speaker 2>We'll put links to that in that book you mentioned

0:49:32.080 --> 0:49:35.759
<v Speaker 2>in the show notes. And thanks so much for being

0:49:35.800 --> 0:49:38.799
<v Speaker 2>on the Business of Tech, Cody, and look forward to

0:49:39.040 --> 0:49:42.120
<v Speaker 2>catching up with you again and seeing what potentially crazy

0:49:42.120 --> 0:49:43.920
<v Speaker 2>stuff happens in the world in twenty twenty five and

0:49:43.960 --> 0:49:45.360
<v Speaker 2>what it means for bitcoin.

0:49:45.840 --> 0:49:47.240
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, thank you very much, Peter.

0:49:54.280 --> 0:49:55.240
<v Speaker 5>So being and you into.

0:49:55.120 --> 0:49:59.000
<v Speaker 3>Bitcoin, No, no, I did dabble. I wish I had

0:49:59.239 --> 0:50:02.279
<v Speaker 3>kept my money in there, but you know, I think

0:50:02.280 --> 0:50:04.479
<v Speaker 3>it was around the fifty sixty thousand, but I only

0:50:04.480 --> 0:50:06.840
<v Speaker 3>had like one hundred bucks in anyway, just just just

0:50:06.880 --> 0:50:09.680
<v Speaker 3>to try it out. But I do kind of have

0:50:10.080 --> 0:50:12.880
<v Speaker 3>an understanding of what he's saying. It's like cryptocurrencies are

0:50:12.880 --> 0:50:15.600
<v Speaker 3>out of the bag now the box is open, and

0:50:15.880 --> 0:50:19.080
<v Speaker 3>if we want one that is going to be the

0:50:19.760 --> 0:50:24.680
<v Speaker 3>you know, dominant useful crypto, it really kind of makes

0:50:24.719 --> 0:50:27.400
<v Speaker 3>sense for it to be Bitcoin in many ways.

0:50:27.680 --> 0:50:29.959
<v Speaker 2>So there's there's that, there's and that's what I'm really

0:50:29.960 --> 0:50:34.120
<v Speaker 2>interested in. I've bought some in the hope, you know,

0:50:34.239 --> 0:50:36.799
<v Speaker 2>several years ago, I bought this in the hope that,

0:50:37.680 --> 0:50:40.760
<v Speaker 2>you know, I can start using this and educate myself

0:50:40.800 --> 0:50:43.600
<v Speaker 2>on it and start transacting with it. I haven't touched

0:50:43.640 --> 0:50:46.719
<v Speaker 2>it since then. I haven't used it to make a transaction.

0:50:46.880 --> 0:50:49.720
<v Speaker 2>Cody a few years ago took me through that whole process,

0:50:49.760 --> 0:50:52.680
<v Speaker 2>so I know it's possible, but I just don't see

0:50:52.719 --> 0:50:55.560
<v Speaker 2>the compelling proposition to do it. But it's not just

0:50:55.560 --> 0:50:58.560
<v Speaker 2>about convenience or even lower fees. I think for people

0:50:58.600 --> 0:51:03.360
<v Speaker 2>like Cody, it's a fundamental transformation of the financial system

0:51:03.600 --> 0:51:10.280
<v Speaker 2>and what they see as freedom from an oppressive controlling system,

0:51:10.560 --> 0:51:14.200
<v Speaker 2>including the government with the Reserve Bank and the banks

0:51:14.239 --> 0:51:17.160
<v Speaker 2>around it. And it's really quite remarkable when you start

0:51:17.320 --> 0:51:20.399
<v Speaker 2>listening to his podcast. You know, a lot of these

0:51:20.400 --> 0:51:25.239
<v Speaker 2>people really see that the currencies are collapsing, inflation is

0:51:25.719 --> 0:51:29.719
<v Speaker 2>killing spending power. The only way really to counter that

0:51:29.960 --> 0:51:34.759
<v Speaker 2>is backing bitcoin, which, as he says, you know, is volatile,

0:51:34.840 --> 0:51:38.640
<v Speaker 2>but has been increasing in value on a trend line

0:51:38.680 --> 0:51:39.840
<v Speaker 2>over the last fifteen years.

0:51:40.560 --> 0:51:44.080
<v Speaker 3>Yeah. Yeah, I think there is a bit of a

0:51:44.280 --> 0:51:48.360
<v Speaker 3>logical jump from there we're having a crisis of currency

0:51:48.680 --> 0:51:53.680
<v Speaker 3>and economic inflation to straight to bitcoin is the only option.

0:51:54.000 --> 0:51:56.560
<v Speaker 3>I mean, listening to him speak, I thought he made

0:51:56.600 --> 0:51:58.759
<v Speaker 3>some really excellent points, and I really liked a lot

0:51:58.760 --> 0:52:00.600
<v Speaker 3>of what he was saying, But they were few kind

0:52:00.640 --> 0:52:04.680
<v Speaker 3>of alarm bells that rang for me, and I think

0:52:04.719 --> 0:52:07.000
<v Speaker 3>one of them is what you've alluded to just now,

0:52:07.040 --> 0:52:09.759
<v Speaker 3>which is the number of times that he repeated just

0:52:09.920 --> 0:52:13.280
<v Speaker 3>hold it and it will grow, and it's like, actually,

0:52:13.360 --> 0:52:17.360
<v Speaker 3>that's not really how things work. The reason, one of

0:52:17.360 --> 0:52:20.239
<v Speaker 3>the reasons that we're facing this massive economic issue at

0:52:20.239 --> 0:52:23.000
<v Speaker 3>the moment is because of the growth at all costs mindset, Like,

0:52:23.080 --> 0:52:27.240
<v Speaker 3>I don't think having a different currency that grows faster

0:52:27.440 --> 0:52:30.760
<v Speaker 3>is the answer because they can't just do it forever.

0:52:31.680 --> 0:52:32.440
<v Speaker 5>No, it can't.

0:52:32.520 --> 0:52:35.480
<v Speaker 2>But I guess he's looking at the fundamentals off a

0:52:35.600 --> 0:52:39.120
<v Speaker 2>limited supply and a truly limited supply, they'll only ever

0:52:39.320 --> 0:52:41.279
<v Speaker 2>make so many bitcoins.

0:52:41.680 --> 0:52:43.120
<v Speaker 5>It's getting harder and harder to.

0:52:43.040 --> 0:52:45.440
<v Speaker 2>Make that, and that's other issues we've talked about around

0:52:46.000 --> 0:52:51.080
<v Speaker 2>the energy required to do those transactions or those calculations

0:52:51.120 --> 0:52:54.680
<v Speaker 2>to put blocks on the chain. But then there's the

0:52:54.719 --> 0:52:58.719
<v Speaker 2>issue off volatility. So I think Cody basically has all

0:52:58.840 --> 0:53:02.799
<v Speaker 2>you know, transacts everything in booitcoin, which is fine if

0:53:02.840 --> 0:53:07.120
<v Speaker 2>you truly believe in that upward trajectory which is holding

0:53:07.360 --> 0:53:08.279
<v Speaker 2>true over time.

0:53:08.320 --> 0:53:09.440
<v Speaker 5>But it's those big dips.

0:53:09.440 --> 0:53:13.200
<v Speaker 2>So if you're trying to buy a big ticket item

0:53:13.400 --> 0:53:16.000
<v Speaker 2>in your car, is something like that, and unfortunately you

0:53:16.640 --> 0:53:17.720
<v Speaker 2>hit the dip.

0:53:19.000 --> 0:53:20.600
<v Speaker 5>That's the thing. I think most.

0:53:20.400 --> 0:53:22.240
<v Speaker 2>Consumers don't want to bar for it at the moment

0:53:22.360 --> 0:53:23.799
<v Speaker 2>just because of that volatility.

0:53:24.120 --> 0:53:26.240
<v Speaker 3>And it's fine if you have a lot of money.

0:53:26.280 --> 0:53:29.719
<v Speaker 3>You can do that. If you're independently wealthy, or if

0:53:29.760 --> 0:53:31.960
<v Speaker 3>you have a lot of assets and you don't have

0:53:32.000 --> 0:53:34.640
<v Speaker 3>any concerns. But if you're somebody living day to day

0:53:35.280 --> 0:53:39.320
<v Speaker 3>who just wants to be able to get by, buy groceries,

0:53:39.480 --> 0:53:44.839
<v Speaker 3>buy a car or a house eventually, and knowing how

0:53:44.880 --> 0:53:48.120
<v Speaker 3>much your income is is really important. The reality is

0:53:48.120 --> 0:53:52.160
<v Speaker 3>is that currency based on something that is fluctuating constantly,

0:53:52.440 --> 0:53:55.520
<v Speaker 3>it will just cause so many issues for so many people,

0:53:56.280 --> 0:53:59.440
<v Speaker 3>those people who are just scraping by, those people who

0:53:59.480 --> 0:54:02.400
<v Speaker 3>are even just like lower middle class, that's just not

0:54:02.440 --> 0:54:05.279
<v Speaker 3>going to just won't work, just w and then is

0:54:05.320 --> 0:54:10.120
<v Speaker 3>the other issue of self custody of your bitcoin, which

0:54:10.200 --> 0:54:13.040
<v Speaker 3>is the only way really to keep it safe. And

0:54:13.440 --> 0:54:17.280
<v Speaker 3>I just think there's you know, it's improved the ability

0:54:17.320 --> 0:54:20.799
<v Speaker 3>to do that, but it's still just something that the

0:54:20.840 --> 0:54:24.200
<v Speaker 3>average consumer won't touch with a barge pole. So there's

0:54:24.200 --> 0:54:27.480
<v Speaker 3>still a number of fundamental barriers to get over with bitcoin.

0:54:27.560 --> 0:54:31.640
<v Speaker 3>But what I fundamentally love is just the efficiency of

0:54:31.760 --> 0:54:35.160
<v Speaker 3>making transactions, so payments to the obvious place where this

0:54:35.320 --> 0:54:38.280
<v Speaker 3>can save us money, do things quickly with those Layer

0:54:38.320 --> 0:54:43.399
<v Speaker 3>two applications on bitcoin, even with Ethereum and others as well,

0:54:43.480 --> 0:54:47.719
<v Speaker 3>smart contract tracts. Those are the things that really my

0:54:47.800 --> 0:54:51.080
<v Speaker 3>eyes light up really about these technologies. A more efficient

0:54:51.120 --> 0:54:56.120
<v Speaker 3>way to do things with money in the digital world,

0:54:56.360 --> 0:54:58.960
<v Speaker 3>and I'd like to see innovation, and there is some

0:54:59.000 --> 0:55:02.160
<v Speaker 3>great innovation happening even here in New Zealand. A handful

0:55:02.200 --> 0:55:05.480
<v Speaker 3>of companies are doing really cool things. They're still quite niche,

0:55:05.800 --> 0:55:10.200
<v Speaker 3>but definitely, I think what Trump is doing and changes

0:55:10.239 --> 0:55:15.440
<v Speaker 3>at the SEC and the financial sector's embrace off exchange

0:55:15.480 --> 0:55:17.600
<v Speaker 3>traded funds, it's just going to make all of that

0:55:17.640 --> 0:55:21.240
<v Speaker 3>innovation more likely to happen. Ultimately, I think his messages

0:55:21.239 --> 0:55:23.760
<v Speaker 3>are good, one which is, go out and educate yourself.

0:55:23.520 --> 0:55:28.319
<v Speaker 3>If you feel uncomfortable about the extent to which your

0:55:28.640 --> 0:55:34.560
<v Speaker 3>reliance on big finance essentially and you're seeing what that

0:55:34.680 --> 0:55:38.359
<v Speaker 3>does to your life, there may be an alternative. Go

0:55:38.400 --> 0:55:41.359
<v Speaker 3>and educate yourself on it. Don't take my word for it.

0:55:41.560 --> 0:55:44.279
<v Speaker 3>Go and have a look at the stuff. Play around

0:55:44.320 --> 0:55:46.960
<v Speaker 3>with bitcoin, see what you can do with it, transfer

0:55:47.040 --> 0:55:49.920
<v Speaker 3>it to other people. You can now pay for things

0:55:50.000 --> 0:55:52.239
<v Speaker 3>with bitcoin if you want to do that. Just don't

0:55:52.239 --> 0:55:52.960
<v Speaker 3>trust anyone.

0:55:53.920 --> 0:55:56.920
<v Speaker 2>Just just don't trust anyone, and definitely don't trust the

0:55:56.960 --> 0:56:01.640
<v Speaker 2>Trump mean coin or encodes you any the other cryptocurrencies.

0:56:01.680 --> 0:56:03.560
<v Speaker 2>And I think he's probably got a point there.

0:56:03.640 --> 0:56:07.600
<v Speaker 3>I'm currently considering a campaign to change the term to scamcoin.

0:56:08.000 --> 0:56:09.799
<v Speaker 3>I think we should. I think that's what we should do.

0:56:09.840 --> 0:56:11.880
<v Speaker 3>I think calling it memecoin is far too kind.

0:56:12.719 --> 0:56:13.800
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, fair enough.

0:56:14.000 --> 0:56:17.560
<v Speaker 2>Thanks to Cody Ellingham for coming on check out his

0:56:17.640 --> 0:56:21.560
<v Speaker 2>own podcast, with weekly episodes on bitcoin and freedom tech.

0:56:21.600 --> 0:56:24.800
<v Speaker 2>You can find it at the Transformation of Value dot com.

0:56:24.880 --> 0:56:26.880
<v Speaker 3>Show notes and this week's reading list are in the

0:56:26.880 --> 0:56:30.160
<v Speaker 3>podcast section at Business Desk dot co dot NZAD.

0:56:29.880 --> 0:56:33.000
<v Speaker 2>Where you can stream the podcast on iHeartRadio. It's also

0:56:33.120 --> 0:56:35.720
<v Speaker 2>available on your podcast platform of choice.

0:56:35.800 --> 0:56:38.160
<v Speaker 3>Get in touch with your feedback and topic suggestions were

0:56:38.160 --> 0:56:39.920
<v Speaker 3>on LinkedIn and blue Sky.

0:56:40.640 --> 0:56:43.719
<v Speaker 2>Next week, we look at China's designs on the Pacific

0:56:43.920 --> 0:56:46.759
<v Speaker 2>and tap a local expert on his views about whether

0:56:46.800 --> 0:56:50.400
<v Speaker 2>we should get involved in the Orcust defense tech arrangement

0:56:50.520 --> 0:56:52.680
<v Speaker 2>with Australia, the UK, and the US.

0:56:53.000 --> 0:56:54.200
<v Speaker 3>Tune in next Thursday for that.

0:56:54.760 --> 0:56:56.520
<v Speaker 5>In the meantime, have a great week.