Speaker 1: All right, welcome back. You are listening to another episode
Speaker 1: of the Mark Ma Show where we talk about bitcoin,
Speaker 1: we talk about cryptocurrencies, we talk about the decentralized revolution
Speaker 1: that is changing the world right before our very eyes.
Speaker 1: And it's kind of like, um, you can't see the
Speaker 1: forest through the trees kind of thing. It's like when
Speaker 1: you're living in it. You don't see it, but it's there.
Speaker 1: And UM, we've been talking a lot about what the
Speaker 1: central banks are doing. Of course, when you think about
Speaker 1: bitcoin cryptocurrencies, one of the biggest things that people would
Speaker 1: say trying to talk against it is that, yeah, but
Speaker 1: the central banks will never allow it, right, the central
Speaker 1: banks will ban it, things like that, And so it's
Speaker 1: kind of important to watch the central banks to see
Speaker 1: what they're saying. Now, I will say side note that
Speaker 1: the central banks can't can't do anything. No nobody can
Speaker 1: do anything. Nobody can do anything to stop it. Um
Speaker 1: what they could do. And first of all, first of all,
Speaker 1: central banks don't set the laws. UM. So that's that's
Speaker 1: one thing to keep in mind. UM. You can see
Speaker 1: this very clearly, UM in Russia, where you've seen in
Speaker 1: like different parts of the government fighting over this. UM.
Speaker 1: In the United States, you see it a little bit
Speaker 1: as well. I mean the sence the central Bank, the
Speaker 1: Federal Reserve is um separate right and their private Um.
Speaker 1: So you saw, like during Donald Trump's presidency, he was
Speaker 1: tweeting at them a lot and saying, hey, they better
Speaker 1: do this, they better raise the rates or lower the rates.
Speaker 1: They better you know, not do these things. And so
Speaker 1: they're like trying to kind of control them a little bit. Um.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, like I said, they're they're
Speaker 1: they're they're on their own, so they don't set laws. UM.
Speaker 1: So anyone who thinks that the central banks gonna make
Speaker 1: it illegal, they don't understand how central banks work. Um.
Speaker 1: That being said, though, of course, they wield enormous power
Speaker 1: because they control the money supply and so they can
Speaker 1: do things to you know, change the markets, which then
Speaker 1: of course could influence politics. UM. But I think it's
Speaker 1: still important to look at what the central banks are saying.
Speaker 1: Now we have obviously the Federal Reserve here in the
Speaker 1: United States, UM, led by J. Powell, and then in
Speaker 1: the in Europe we have the ECB European Central Bank,
Speaker 1: which is run by Christine Legarde. Now Christine Leguard is
Speaker 1: she's old. Let me just say that she's old. I
Speaker 1: don't know how old she is, but she's pretty old
Speaker 1: and she's been around a long time. Before being head
Speaker 1: of the e c B, she was head of the
Speaker 1: i m F. The i m F is the International
Speaker 1: Monetary Fund, which is sort of like the central bank
Speaker 1: above central banks. Um, the B I S is really that,
Speaker 1: But I am a for whatever we're talking about here.
Speaker 1: I think the i m F is kind of above
Speaker 1: the central bank. So she used to be the head
Speaker 1: of the IMF before the head of the ZB. Now
Speaker 1: it's important to note a side note that Christine Legard
Speaker 1: is a criminal. What do I mean by that? I
Speaker 1: mean like an actual real criminal, like actually convicted of crime. Um,
Speaker 1: actually convicted of crimes regarding finance financial decisions. But yet
Speaker 1: she's still head of the i m F previously and
Speaker 1: now she's had of the ECB. It seems kind of
Speaker 1: weird now, UM. I thought in the United States, like
Speaker 1: felons who did their time and got out and her
Speaker 1: productive members of SIETE again they can't even vote. But
Speaker 1: yet here we have a convicted criminal that's running the ECB.
Speaker 1: Pretty interesting, isn't it um And anyway, Christine leguards, he
Speaker 1: said a lot of crazy things. She's uh again, she's old.
Speaker 1: She has had a lot of crazy things, including some
Speaker 1: crazy things like um, innovation is a threat to our
Speaker 1: financial system. Mhm. More like innovation is a threat to
Speaker 1: their financial monopoly. Maybe we'll give them that. Uh now,
Speaker 1: I guess it could be a threat to the financial
Speaker 1: system as well, because the existing financial system, the status
Speaker 1: quo is changing, and we're building a new financial system.
Speaker 1: That's It's something called creative destruction. Creative destruction means when
Speaker 1: something new is created, something else must die. So for example, um,
Speaker 1: when digital when digital photos came out, and really it
Speaker 1: was because of the cell phone taking photos, I believe
Speaker 1: it was the Nokia phone really blew that up. And
Speaker 1: then with Instagram, that was creativity and it destroyed Kodak.
Speaker 1: Kodak was a film company, right, So something new destroyed
Speaker 1: something old. It's a circle of life, just the way
Speaker 1: it goes. Right now, old companies like Kodak, they actually
Speaker 1: had the digital camera first. They could have pioneered it.
Speaker 1: They had it, they were the first ones with it,
Speaker 1: but they decided to hang onto their old business model.
Speaker 1: And of course they were eventually replaced. That's just the
Speaker 1: way that that's just the way it goes. Um, it's
Speaker 1: not and it's not not sad, it's just the way
Speaker 1: it goes. And so, yes, the financial system will change,
Speaker 1: it is changing now. But anyway, she says crazy things
Speaker 1: like that. But she this week went on to a
Speaker 1: panel and uh it was it was pretty funny. Actually,
Speaker 1: Um she went and she said she urged patients as
Speaker 1: the bank looks to pair back it's now eight trillion
Speaker 1: euro balance sheet in the face of rising inflation, and
Speaker 1: asked viewers of a Dutch talk show to imagine the
Speaker 1: damage to the economy had the central Bank not intervened
Speaker 1: in such a large way during the COVID. Christ Is
Speaker 1: So she's saying, yeah, I know the FED, you know,
Speaker 1: or the ECB, the central Bank. Yeah, we we created
Speaker 1: a trillion dollars and uh, yeah, it's it's a lot
Speaker 1: of money, and it's debt that we we need to
Speaker 1: oh we gotta pay, and yeah it's dragging things down.
Speaker 1: And yeah it's a problem. But imagine how much worse
Speaker 1: it could have been if we hadn't intervened in such
Speaker 1: a large way during the COVID crisis. Um she wanted
Speaker 1: to say. Uh. Leguard argued, had the ECB not stepped
Speaker 1: in with an emergency package of asset purchases as the
Speaker 1: COVID lockdowns began and massively boosted that program as the
Speaker 1: pandemic continued, the damage to EU economies would have been devastating,
Speaker 1: which I would agree with her. The problem is that
Speaker 1: the problem wasn't the pandemic itself. The problem was the
Speaker 1: government's response to it. So the government forced people to
Speaker 1: shut their businesses down. The government ran businesses out of
Speaker 1: business that had been around for decades and centuries. It
Speaker 1: was the response to that that created business that that
Speaker 1: put companies bankrupt. And so had they not helped bell
Speaker 1: some of that damage out, yeah, it could have been worse.
Speaker 1: Or maybe they wouldn't have done the damage in the
Speaker 1: first place. There's that too, But anyway, she went on
Speaker 1: to say that when asked specifically about this eight trillion
Speaker 1: dollars and what are we gonna do about it, and
Speaker 1: she said, quote, it will come, It will come in
Speaker 1: d due course. Yeah, that's what she said. Um, they
Speaker 1: asked her, quote how great question? How the questionnaire during
Speaker 1: an episode of the College Tour TV show pressed again,
Speaker 1: how and she said, in due course it will come.
Speaker 1: That was the only answer. So it's gonna come. It's
Speaker 1: gonna come in due course. And they said, okay, but
Speaker 1: how and she said in due course it will come
Speaker 1: means she has no idea. Uh. And and the reason
Speaker 1: why she has no idea is because it's impossible, because
Speaker 1: there is no way for it to come back down.
Speaker 1: That's why she has no idea. It can't come back down.
Speaker 1: What they uh, this is a Kensian economics, so Unkensian economics.
Speaker 1: They believe that the government should step in and start
Speaker 1: printing money to stimulate the economy. And so when the
Speaker 1: economy takes a hit, if we lose a trillion dollars
Speaker 1: out of the economy, if the government weren't to intervene
Speaker 1: and say, print a half a trillion, they could stimulate
Speaker 1: enough to get that trillion dollars back, borrowing a little
Speaker 1: bit of money to make more money. The problem is
Speaker 1: is that they've gone way too far and now with
Speaker 1: eight trillion dollars, there's no way to get enough growth
Speaker 1: to pay that back. We're in a very low growth
Speaker 1: place in the world um where de evolving supply chains
Speaker 1: are breaking down. The entire world is being remapped out. Um.
Speaker 1: The the economies of the West developed world of Europe
Speaker 1: and Canada and US are not growing at all, like
Speaker 1: almost no growth, and so there's just no way to
Speaker 1: grow out of it. And so the reason why she
Speaker 1: has no answer is because there is no answer, not
Speaker 1: not for them, but there's an answer for us. Now,
Speaker 1: what does this have to do with bitcoin? Well, what's
Speaker 1: funny is that Christine Leguard, who has been very outspoken
Speaker 1: about bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general, like I said, saying
Speaker 1: that innovation is a threat to her financial system. She
Speaker 1: went on to say that crypto and bitcoin is worth nothing.
Speaker 1: That's what she said, It's worth nothing, she read read
Speaker 1: it at that point, Well, one I would say, if
Speaker 1: it's worth nothing, then why are you're worried about it?
Speaker 1: And if it's worth nothing, why are you trying to
Speaker 1: regulate it? Because it's worth nothing? Right, just leave it?
Speaker 1: What do you care about it? Right? Um? But what's
Speaker 1: funny is she was asked by an audience member if
Speaker 1: she owned any digital assets and she said, no, she isn't. No,
Speaker 1: maybe she does, maybe she doesn't, but she said her
Speaker 1: son does. Her son has invested and she said, as
Speaker 1: they asked, what's the success track record with it? And
Speaker 1: then she said, oh, he hasn't told me. So It's
Speaker 1: funny is she's old, but her son owns bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.
Speaker 1: He gets it. What are we doing letting these old
Speaker 1: people make our policies? That's a whole another question for
Speaker 1: a whole another time. You listen to the Mark Mo Show.
Speaker 1: We're talking about bitcoin, cryptocurrencies and the decentralized revolution. Giving
Speaker 1: you the play by play, I got more coming back.
Speaker 1: We're talking about what the central banks are doing and
Speaker 1: what these governments are doing, uh, and more importantly, what
Speaker 1: you should be doing about it. And I want to
Speaker 1: talk about um ethereum crashing, the prices crashed and another
Speaker 1: massive development UM in the payment space that's happened. I'll
Speaker 1: be back with that and more in a minute, So
Speaker 1: don't go away, all right, Welcome back. You are listening
Speaker 1: to the Mark Mo Show. We're talking about bitcoin. We're
Speaker 1: talking about the decentralized revolution that we're witnessing right now. Now.
Speaker 1: I talk a lot about UM. If you've been paying
Speaker 1: attention to any of my content for any period of time,
Speaker 1: you know I talk a lot about three revolutionary cycles
Speaker 1: that are converging hundreds of years of history, tell us
Speaker 1: what's happening now and where we're going and how we're
Speaker 1: moving into peak centralization. So through this money inter it's
Speaker 1: enabled these institutions and not government, not just governments, but
Speaker 1: institutions three letter NGOs, non government organizations to just grow
Speaker 1: increasingly bigger and bigger and bigger. And so we're witnessing
Speaker 1: this peak centralization and it's been been completely on display
Speaker 1: for the world to see this week as all these
Speaker 1: so called world leaders have been meeting in Davos in Davos,
Speaker 1: Switzerland at the World Economic Forum, to plan our lives,
Speaker 1: to tell us how much meat we should be eating
Speaker 1: on a daily basis, how many miles we should be
Speaker 1: driving on a daily basis, and on and on and on, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, is nine. They think you should drive
Speaker 1: nine miles a day. Um, if you drive more than that,
Speaker 1: that's a problem anyway. Um. So they've been having all
Speaker 1: these meetings, have been saying all these crazy, wacky things.
Speaker 1: And I've been talking a lot about how the financial
Speaker 1: system is changing right before our very eyes. And one
Speaker 1: of the biggest catalysts that we've seen, which it's been increasing. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, we saw the UK sees Venezuela's gold two
Speaker 1: billion dollars of gold. The Biden administration seized um, the
Speaker 1: Central Bank of Afghanistan's money about seven and a half
Speaker 1: billion dollars. Then we saw the Trucker protest where the
Speaker 1: Bank of Canada's just started stealing people's money or freezing
Speaker 1: their accounts. I should say, I believe all those accounts
Speaker 1: were actually um open back up, they got their money,
Speaker 1: but they did freeze them temporarily. But then the final
Speaker 1: nail in the coffin was this Russia Ukraine situation where
Speaker 1: now basically the financial the FX reserve system, the financial
Speaker 1: system was weaponized against Russia and about six and a
Speaker 1: half billion dollars of their money was frozen. So all
Speaker 1: of this is happening now. Um, when I talk about
Speaker 1: the financial system weaponized against them. Um, how has money
Speaker 1: moved around the world. Well, it's moved through the Swift system.
Speaker 1: So if you've ever gone to the bank and sent
Speaker 1: to wire, then you probably you've probably heard of what
Speaker 1: swift is before. So Swift is a as a as
Speaker 1: a messaging service and it's what trans transmits the money
Speaker 1: around the world. Now, the Swift system is old. It's
Speaker 1: from I believe the seventies and it's this message system
Speaker 1: that that like I said, since this money Now, how
Speaker 1: much has technology changed since the seventies? A lot? Right,
Speaker 1: there was no personal computers, there's no Internet, there's no
Speaker 1: iPhones back then. But yet we're still using nineteen seventies
Speaker 1: technology to send money around the world. Kind of interesting
Speaker 1: and so um, but now that this Swift system has
Speaker 1: been basically weaponized, now, um, the brick nations, which are Brazil, Russia, India, China,
Speaker 1: they're all including others, Iran, et cetera. They're all working
Speaker 1: to set up a new payment network that's not Swift.
Speaker 1: And so really Swift has already been dying. It's already
Speaker 1: old technology. But um, by kicking people out of it,
Speaker 1: you've now forced them to go start their own. And
Speaker 1: so it's already on the demise, and I think it's
Speaker 1: gonna happen sooner than later. But at the world that
Speaker 1: kind ofic formed this week there was a there was
Speaker 1: a a meeting going on, a panel going on with
Speaker 1: a bunch of of financial titans, if you will, and
Speaker 1: we had Michael my back he's the CEO of MasterCard,
Speaker 1: and he was there on on the panel along with
Speaker 1: some other people. It was part of the Global Blockchain
Speaker 1: Business Council UM Blockchain Central at Davos, and it ran
Speaker 1: adjacent to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. And
Speaker 1: so we had all these big heavyweights there, UM, and
Speaker 1: they're all asked different things. UM. And the moderator asked
Speaker 1: each panelist whether they thought Swift would still exist in
Speaker 1: five years now. UM, each of these panelists are, like
Speaker 1: I said, heavyweights in the financial space, and they didn't
Speaker 1: want to be UM antagonistic if you will, UM, we
Speaker 1: had you've all rus, the CEO of Digital Assets and
Speaker 1: Data Technology, David Treat, director of Assenture and co lead
Speaker 1: of the company's blockchain business UM and so forth. However,
Speaker 1: master Cards se EO my Buck, he didn't hold any
Speaker 1: punches back. As a matter of fact, when asked by
Speaker 1: the moderator if I thought Swift would still exist in
Speaker 1: five years, my Buck caused the audience to gasp in
Speaker 1: shock as he said, no, I don't. Uh. He was
Speaker 1: pretty he was pretty pretty blunt about that. UM. Now,
Speaker 1: since that's happened, it's kind of like Biden. President Biden
Speaker 1: with all his gaffs. Um, President Biden said that we
Speaker 1: would attack Russia with chemical weapons, and then the State
Speaker 1: departments like, well, well, he didn't he didn't really mean that.
Speaker 1: That's that's not what he meant, even though that's what
Speaker 1: he said. Um. Just last week Biden said that we would, uh,
Speaker 1: we would go to war against China to defend Taiwan,
Speaker 1: and very quickly the State deparments like, well, he didn't
Speaker 1: really mean that, and that's that's kind of like what
Speaker 1: happened here. Um. And so the CEO of MasterCard said, no,
Speaker 1: I don't think Swift will be around in five years now.
Speaker 1: I would say probably, Um, they probably will be around.
Speaker 1: It probably won't be be used very often. And why
Speaker 1: would they Why do we need to use ancient system
Speaker 1: when we have new technologies. But, like I said, they
Speaker 1: had to walk that statement back. MasterCard spokesperson downplayed my
Speaker 1: Back's comments, and an email statement said, quote, let us
Speaker 1: let us clarify the intent of the on stage comment. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's not what he really meant. Let us clarify this.
Speaker 1: It's not as simple as a yes or no answer.
Speaker 1: Michael was simply reinforcing what Swift has previously said. Their
Speaker 1: operations continue to evolve, its current form will not be
Speaker 1: the same in the future. They're adding more functionality and
Speaker 1: moving past just being a messaging system. So uh, they said, well,
Speaker 1: well that's not many meant that they just won't be
Speaker 1: around in their current form. But the thing is with
Speaker 1: bitcoin is that it's peer to peer. So if I want,
Speaker 1: I can send you money any anybody anywhere in the world,
Speaker 1: regardless of sanctions, regardless of permission. Anyone in the world
Speaker 1: can download an app on their phone and I can
Speaker 1: send them bitcoin. Right now. I don't need to go
Speaker 1: to the bank to send a why your transfer. I
Speaker 1: don't need the bank for it. The bank doesn't need
Speaker 1: Swift for it. I can send it directly to the
Speaker 1: recipient now before that, right, so, gold was money for
Speaker 1: five thousand years. The problem with gold is it's not
Speaker 1: very portable now today we and and so you know,
Speaker 1: if I wanted to send money across the country from
Speaker 1: California to New York, it was very difficult. So if
Speaker 1: we put our gold in the bank, then the bank
Speaker 1: could just use a ledger and they could say, hey,
Speaker 1: we're gonna deduct it from Mark's account and we're gonna
Speaker 1: give it to John's account for example. Right, Um, they
Speaker 1: could do that, and then banks different banks could have
Speaker 1: a way to communicate with each other, which is what
Speaker 1: the Swift system came into. And so now my bank
Speaker 1: can communicate with your bank, regardless if it's in the
Speaker 1: United States or across the world. And so when I
Speaker 1: go send a wire transfer through the Swift messaging service,
Speaker 1: they're basically saying, hey, take this money from Mark's account
Speaker 1: and send it and credit to John's account. The problem. Uh,
Speaker 1: And and that was great, that was a good way
Speaker 1: to do it. It's sped up the velocity, it's sped
Speaker 1: up how fast we can transfer money. But it caused
Speaker 1: us to use debt. So now instead of me given
Speaker 1: my gold from my golden California to John in New York,
Speaker 1: what we've done is we've issued an IOU debt, meaning
Speaker 1: John now has a claim he can go claim the
Speaker 1: gold if he wants, right, But Bitcoin has changed all that.
Speaker 1: Now I can just send the actual money to John
Speaker 1: right now without needing debt. I don't need issue debt,
Speaker 1: I don't need a claim for it, and I don't
Speaker 1: need the bank, and I don't need the Swift payment system.
Speaker 1: So um, to Swiss comments here. Um, they're they're trying
Speaker 1: to evolve their operations to add more functionality, to be
Speaker 1: more than just a messaging system. That's great, but I
Speaker 1: don't need him anymore. It's like the DVD player. We're
Speaker 1: stream music now. We don't need DVD, DVD or CD
Speaker 1: players anymore because we stream our music in our movies today.
Speaker 1: So the DVD and the CD player, they can go
Speaker 1: retool all they want, and they can build in streaming
Speaker 1: services inside that DVD or CD player. But I don't
Speaker 1: even need a CD or DVD player anymore. A matter
Speaker 1: of fact, I don't even have one of my else anymore.
Speaker 1: Why because I can just stream it directly to my
Speaker 1: TV and so they can go retool all they want.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter in my opinion anyway. That's a lot.
Speaker 1: I know you're listening to the markma Show. We're talking
Speaker 1: about bitcoin and the decentralized Revolution. I got a lot
Speaker 1: more updates when I get back in a second, so
Speaker 1: don't go away, all right, Welcome back. You're listening to
Speaker 1: the markmas Show. We're talking about bitcoin, We're talking about
Speaker 1: the decentralized revolution. We're navigating the intersection of politics finance
Speaker 1: and technology to bring it all into context so we
Speaker 1: can understand what's going on. Now. We've been talking a
Speaker 1: lot about central banks and what they're doing, um, and
Speaker 1: we're seeing how this money is evolving and changing things UM.
Speaker 1: And a lot of times we don't understand all the
Speaker 1: implications of this and what that means. So that's why
Speaker 1: we try to dive into each of those subjects. And UM,
Speaker 1: of course, everybody's noticing that prices are going up on everything.
Speaker 1: Doesn't matter where you're at in the world, you are
Speaker 1: noticing it. The price to buy your groceries, the price
Speaker 1: to go out to lunch, the price to fill up
Speaker 1: your car with gas is going crazy. Now, don't worry, Um,
Speaker 1: prices are going up, and there's even shortages of things.
Speaker 1: But don't worry, because the government's got your back, right,
Speaker 1: They've always they've always got your back, they've always got
Speaker 1: your best intentions in mind, and they're gonna fix everything,
Speaker 1: right because they're the solution to everything. Well, I don't
Speaker 1: think so. As a matter of fact, I said that
Speaker 1: sarcastically because I don't believe government's the solution. I think
Speaker 1: it's government's that's the problem. So let's let's take a
Speaker 1: look at that for a minute. And I remember it's
Speaker 1: through the unlimited money printing that allows the government to
Speaker 1: continue to grow bigger and bigger and bigger, which allows
Speaker 1: them to hire more and more regulators. What do regulators do?
Speaker 1: They pass regulations, what do those regulations do. It starts
Speaker 1: to drag on everything. It's more expensive for me to
Speaker 1: run my business today. Now, if it's more expensive for
Speaker 1: me to run my business, than I have to pass
Speaker 1: those costs onto you, right, And that's how it works.
Speaker 1: And so um, what we've seen is that prices are
Speaker 1: going up on everything for all different types of reasons.
Speaker 1: I've talked a lot about gas prices because that's where
Speaker 1: people are really feeling the pain. I know, I drive
Speaker 1: a truck. I'm in California, and gas prices are insane.
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, they're pushing eight dollars a
Speaker 1: gallon in some places in Los Angeles, which is insane.
Speaker 1: When Biden took office, I said, I predicted that I
Speaker 1: would see ten dollar gallon gasoline before Biden Less left office.
Speaker 1: And here we are, and I think I weigh undershot that.
Speaker 1: Now I'm thinking it's gonna be fifteen bucks a gallon
Speaker 1: before he leaves. If not more, um, I hope not.
Speaker 1: But anyway, we're almost eight bucks a gallon in in California.
Speaker 1: And why And I've broken this down. You know, they
Speaker 1: say it's because of Putin, but I've talked about how
Speaker 1: it's not because of Putin. Gas prices were going up
Speaker 1: long before the Russia Ukraine War, and and a lot
Speaker 1: of it goes back to why. And it was because
Speaker 1: his very first day in office, the most important thing
Speaker 1: that he could do in the whole history of the
Speaker 1: world was by executive order, meaning no one else's opinion,
Speaker 1: just him as a dictator, was just start shutting down
Speaker 1: all the all the gas and oil and so supplying
Speaker 1: the man. You ever heard of that when there's less
Speaker 1: supply and there's the same demand or there's more demand,
Speaker 1: what happens. Prices go up so they can shut down
Speaker 1: all the oil and natural gas. That's great, But what
Speaker 1: about the demand because people still need to drive to work.
Speaker 1: I still need food to get delivered to my grocery store.
Speaker 1: That still has to happen. If food doesn't get delivered
Speaker 1: to my grocery store, if the farmer doesn't have gas
Speaker 1: to drive his tractor, there's no food, and there's no
Speaker 1: one to drive the food to the store, and then
Speaker 1: we starve, so like we still need it. Right, of course,
Speaker 1: there's this hypothetical dream of one day will be on renewables,
Speaker 1: and I'll just tell you that renewables, which is wind
Speaker 1: and solar, make up less than three per cent of
Speaker 1: our of our energy. And currently there's no solution for
Speaker 1: renewables to provide most of our most crucial energy, which
Speaker 1: is our farm tractors and our big rigs to deliver
Speaker 1: the food and stuff like that. So anyway, supply demand
Speaker 1: is pushing prices up. Also, what happens is that you
Speaker 1: know when you uh, when you tell oil companies for
Speaker 1: a decade that you're gonna put them out of business,
Speaker 1: your goal is to bankrupt them. Guess what happens. They
Speaker 1: don't reinvest into their business. Why would they, They're going
Speaker 1: to go bankrupt. And so, um, now we see a
Speaker 1: shortage because they have been reinvesting, we haven't been getting
Speaker 1: more oil out of the ground. Um, we've been shutting
Speaker 1: down all their all their their permits, so they can't
Speaker 1: even drill, they can't even get more out of the ground,
Speaker 1: and prices are going up like crazy, um, and uh,
Speaker 1: your government has a solution for that, don't worry. Um.
Speaker 1: Here in the United States, we saw this week House
Speaker 1: passes bill. The House passed the bill targeting the alleged
Speaker 1: price gouging amid high gas prices. So it says here
Speaker 1: the House has voted to seventeen to two or seven
Speaker 1: to pass a bill that gives the Federal Trade Commission
Speaker 1: the FTC, the authority to investigate energy companies for alleged
Speaker 1: price gouging as prices at gas pumps nationwide hit wreck
Speaker 1: here too highs mm hmm. Okay, let's think about that
Speaker 1: for a second. This says, this bill, sponsored by Rep.
Speaker 1: Katie Porter of California, of course in California, where you
Speaker 1: have the highest gas prices, and Rep. Kim's Shreyer at Washington,
Speaker 1: gives the President the power to issue a declaration making
Speaker 1: it unlawful for energy companies to increase prices that are
Speaker 1: unconsciously excessive. Now that sounds good, right, I mean, they
Speaker 1: shouldn't be ripping us off, right, And I'm for that.
Speaker 1: I don't want anyone to rip me off. But let's
Speaker 1: just take a second to think that through for a minute. Now,
Speaker 1: first of all, um, producers people producing gasoline oil. They
Speaker 1: have to produce the oil, and then they have to
Speaker 1: produce the trucks to drive the oil, the refineries to
Speaker 1: refine it, and they have to produce the director drive it,
Speaker 1: and then they have to produce the gas station to
Speaker 1: pump it. All of those producers are in business to
Speaker 1: make a profit. If they don't make a profit, what happens, well,
Speaker 1: then they stopped producing. And if they stopped do see
Speaker 1: then what happens, well, then we don't have gas, or
Speaker 1: whatever gas we have left goes up to astronomical levels.
Speaker 1: And so, UM, I don't want them to unco treat
Speaker 1: us unconsciously excessive as it says here in this quote,
Speaker 1: but they do need to make a profit. If I
Speaker 1: take away their ability to profit, So what if we say, well,
Speaker 1: you can't profit more than x percentage, Well, whatever that
Speaker 1: line is, well, here's how it works in a free market.
Speaker 1: We don't have to do that because if I want
Speaker 1: to gouge you, and I'm saying you know what I'm
Speaker 1: gonna I'm gonna charge you triple my whatever gas prices
Speaker 1: are because I can right I'm the only gas station
Speaker 1: on this block, I'm gonna charge you triple. Well, my
Speaker 1: competitors are gonna say, well, he's charging way too much.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go undercut him. And then my next competitor's
Speaker 1: gonna undercut me, and my next competitor's gonna undercut me
Speaker 1: and undercut me. And that's what happens in a free market.
Speaker 1: And free market always produces better products, better service at
Speaker 1: better prices, because if I get too greedy and charge
Speaker 1: you too much, someone else is going to charge you less.
Speaker 1: That's what works. But when we're not in a free market,
Speaker 1: when you end up with monopoly ease that are protected,
Speaker 1: then you get into these situations. So the answer isn't
Speaker 1: to say, hey, you can't make a profity more, or
Speaker 1: we set the threshold for what that profit is. The
Speaker 1: answer is to allow competition to do its thing and
Speaker 1: so that these guys will bring their prices down. The
Speaker 1: other thing that's important to understand is that if you
Speaker 1: remember March when the markets crashed, oil went from um
Speaker 1: not I forgot to tift bucks and barrel to negative
Speaker 1: thirty five. Now, I was working with a publicly trade
Speaker 1: oil company in Dallas, Texas at the time. We're working
Speaker 1: on setting up we're working on setting up some bitcoin
Speaker 1: mining on the flare gas and at that time, the
Speaker 1: publicly traded oil company went under. The CEO lost his job,
Speaker 1: They lost a lot of money. As an oil investor,
Speaker 1: we lost a lot of money. Now we're making some
Speaker 1: of that money up. So when you look at these
Speaker 1: oil companies, they're finally making a profit. But that's on
Speaker 1: the back of years of losing money. So what happens
Speaker 1: is as an investor, as a business, sometimes you make money,
Speaker 1: sometimes you lose money, but averages out over time. So
Speaker 1: they've been losing, losing, losing, losing, losing, and now they're
Speaker 1: finally making some profits. Then we gotta take that away.
Speaker 1: But if we take away their profits, how can they
Speaker 1: one payback all those losses to How can they invest
Speaker 1: into new technologies to make it cleaner? How can they
Speaker 1: invest into new oil wells so we don't run out?
Speaker 1: And the answer is they can't. Um it says here
Speaker 1: Um Murphy, who's not running for reelection, criticized the bill,
Speaker 1: saying the measure could further reduce supply. Quote imagine that
Speaker 1: says quote. At best, this bill is a distraction that
Speaker 1: won't actually address the problem. Um, she said in a statement.
Speaker 1: At worst, it could make the problem more severe. And
Speaker 1: this isn't just the United States. UM. In the UK
Speaker 1: they did the same thing you pay. UK slaps a
Speaker 1: one off tax on oil and gas giants to ease
Speaker 1: the pain of soaring household energy bills. So if we
Speaker 1: tax these oil companies in the UK, then it eases
Speaker 1: the pain for household energy bills. How's that? Are they
Speaker 1: going to return that money? So they're gonna they're gonna
Speaker 1: do a special tax and then return that tax back
Speaker 1: to everybody, and who's everybody? If you make a certain
Speaker 1: threshold of income, all of this is then it requires
Speaker 1: more people and more regulations and more accounting, which and
Speaker 1: which eats up even more money. It's inefficient, is what happened. UM. Anyway,
Speaker 1: that's just one of the ways that our financial system
Speaker 1: is being centralized, our government is being centralized, and it's
Speaker 1: becoming more and more inefficient and harder and harder to live.
Speaker 1: And of course, yes, decentralization fixes that. Bitcoin fixes that, UM,
Speaker 1: as we can decentralize the money. You're listening to the
Speaker 1: markma show, UM talking about bitcoin and decentralization. I've got
Speaker 1: a lot more to talk about when I come back,
Speaker 1: including um, some new payment systems that set up that
Speaker 1: are going to just crush the adoption. It's going to
Speaker 1: be pretty exciting. We'll be back with that and more
Speaker 1: in a minute. So don't go away, all right, Welcome back.
Speaker 1: You are listening to the Markma Show. We're talking about bitcoin, cryptocurrencies,
Speaker 1: the decentralized revolution, and everything in the middle. Of course,
Speaker 1: we're talking about the intersection of politics, finance, and technology.
Speaker 1: We've covered a lot here Um, a couple more things
Speaker 1: to look at that this week I think are massive.
Speaker 1: You know, I talk about bitcoin now. In the bitcoin space,
Speaker 1: we like to say bitcoin not crypto, and so what
Speaker 1: we've seen over the last couple of years is bitcoin
Speaker 1: has really distanced itself from cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin has become its
Speaker 1: own asset um and cryptocurrencies are just a random mix
Speaker 1: of everything else. The number two cryptocurrency by market cap
Speaker 1: is Athereum, and Ethereum has promised to be everything to everybody.
Speaker 1: It's the world's virtual computer if you will um, and
Speaker 1: a lot of people think that Ethereum will be the
Speaker 1: world computer. Everything will be built on Ethereum, and Ethereum
Speaker 1: will flip Bitcoin at some point meaning flipping it meaning um,
Speaker 1: the market cap will surpass that of bitcoin. Now, trying
Speaker 1: to compare a bitcoin and ethereum is like apples and oranges. Um.
Speaker 1: The revolution, the technological revolution that's going to change the
Speaker 1: course of the change the course of humanity. It will
Speaker 1: drive the financial markets for the next fifty years is decentralization.
Speaker 1: That's what bitcoin brings to us. Decentralization. Now, a couple
Speaker 1: of things about that. Not everything needs to be decentralized.
Speaker 1: I know it's a contrary and view. And the second
Speaker 1: thing is, I don't think there's such a thing as
Speaker 1: decentralized ish there either is that there isn't. And so
Speaker 1: we can see bitcoin is decentralized and pretty much everything
Speaker 1: else is not. And why do I say that? And
Speaker 1: that was a big statement, And don't turn me off yet.
Speaker 1: Let me explain what what makes decentralization is. If you
Speaker 1: have a central database, that's one database, or you can
Speaker 1: have a bunch of databases. If I had a billion
Speaker 1: dollars in one bank, that would be a big target
Speaker 1: a lot of people who want to break into that
Speaker 1: bank and still have billion dollars. If I had a
Speaker 1: billion banks with one dollar each. There wouldn't be very
Speaker 1: much motivation to do that. It would be almost impossible
Speaker 1: to go get that billion dollars. And so what bitcoin
Speaker 1: has done is taken instead of one database, there's a
Speaker 1: million in databases and they're spread all around the world.
Speaker 1: And the Bitcoin database is very small, it's about three gigabytes.
Speaker 1: I could run that on a thumb drive. I could
Speaker 1: use an old laptop, a five year old laptop. I
Speaker 1: could download the Bitcoin database and I could run my
Speaker 1: own node. And because it's so easy and it's so small,
Speaker 1: anybody in anywhere in the world, even third world countries,
Speaker 1: can run their own node, and they do. That's what's
Speaker 1: created made it decentralized um. Other cryptocurrencies you can't do that.
Speaker 1: So good luck running a node for ethereum or cardano
Speaker 1: or x y z token um in a third world country.
Speaker 1: And so because of that, it's not decentralized. It's maybe
Speaker 1: it's decentralized ish, but not really decentralized um. The other
Speaker 1: thing is that it's so complex and so complicated that
Speaker 1: it creates all kinds of problems, and so we saw
Speaker 1: that firsthand today. So Bitcoin is very simple. A lot
Speaker 1: of people have have accused of being too simple, it's
Speaker 1: too dumb, it's too slow, it's too basic. But what
Speaker 1: we've seen now is that technology scales and layers and
Speaker 1: so now using layer to technology, we can send Bitcoin faster, deeper,
Speaker 1: and more private than any other cryptocurrency it is said
Speaker 1: to be on layer two. What we're seeing now with
Speaker 1: layer three is now we're starting to do messaging and
Speaker 1: video and all that happening on Bitcoin, just on a
Speaker 1: different layer. Now we've seen now we have smart contracts.
Speaker 1: Now with this new Torro upgrade, we have the ability
Speaker 1: to even create new tokens on the Bitcoin blockchain. And
Speaker 1: so Um we needed something simple so we can have
Speaker 1: unlimited attempts and progress built on top of it. Whereas
Speaker 1: you take something like Ethereum that's so complex that it
Speaker 1: limits what you're able to build on top of it,
Speaker 1: and it's hard to understand what's going on, and it
Speaker 1: causes problems. So we saw this week the Ethereum beacon
Speaker 1: chain experienced seven block reorganization. What is going on? So,
Speaker 1: if you've been paying attention, the price of Ethereum created
Speaker 1: this week. While the market overall for cryptocurrencies has been bad,
Speaker 1: Um the blue chip ones if you will, the bitcoins,
Speaker 1: the ethereums, they've been hanging on a little bit um,
Speaker 1: so to speak. But Ethereum this week just got absolutely
Speaker 1: crushed where we saw it plunge about um in a
Speaker 1: single day. And why did it drop a single day,
Speaker 1: Well because of this problem that happened, this reorganization. It says,
Speaker 1: this reorgan is not an indicator of a flawed fork choice,
Speaker 1: but a non trivial segmentation of updated versus outdate client software,
Speaker 1: suggested Core Ethereum developer Preston van Loon. And so what
Speaker 1: happened is Um a blockchain, it adds a block and
Speaker 1: so every depends on what blockchain you're talking about, but
Speaker 1: it adds a block of data and then each block
Speaker 1: adds to the next and it creates a chain. What
Speaker 1: happened that that that gives as security. So in order
Speaker 1: to um reorganize the chain, you would have to roll
Speaker 1: it backwards. Several blocks can happen in bitcoin, however, Um
Speaker 1: we are seeing it happen in other chains quite often,
Speaker 1: and here it happened with the Ethereum chain, and we've
Speaker 1: seen this reorganization. Now they're saying they don't know if
Speaker 1: it was a malicious attack if it was a bug,
Speaker 1: if it wasn't ever, but um, it's a big deal.
Speaker 1: It's a big deal. It basically broke. And you can't
Speaker 1: have all the money of the world on a chain
Speaker 1: that can break and they don't even know how it
Speaker 1: broke because it's so complex. That's a problem. Now, can
Speaker 1: they get this figured out at some point, Maybe maybe not,
Speaker 1: But you can't have these types of bugs, and that
Speaker 1: is what happens when you have this complexity that bitcoin has,
Speaker 1: and that's why it's crash this week. I'm sure they'll
Speaker 1: figure out more about it and they'll give us some excuses.
Speaker 1: But the problem is this can't happen. You need to
Speaker 1: keep things basic so they don't break, and we have
Speaker 1: that um. But jumping back into bitcoin, UM, we contendue
Speaker 1: to see massive adoption happening there with the theory. Um,
Speaker 1: we have you know, n f T S and we
Speaker 1: have DeFi, which is basically nothing. It's its own little ecosystem.
Speaker 1: It's not transcending into the bigger markets overall, whereas bitcoin is.
Speaker 1: And so we have bitcoin. We saw Stripe, it was
Speaker 1: one of the largest payment processors in the world just
Speaker 1: announced businesses will be able to convert any amount of
Speaker 1: payments into bitcoins of Stripe. I use Stripe for my
Speaker 1: business to accept credit cards. It's one of the largest
Speaker 1: payment processes in the world. They're saittting it now I
Speaker 1: can convert any of my payments into bitcoin, it says.
Speaker 1: The functionality is available via a new app from Bitcoin
Speaker 1: Lightning Network infrastructure provider open Node on stripes new app marketplace. Stripe,
Speaker 1: one of the leading payment processes in the world, just
Speaker 1: announced they are working with Bitcoin Payment Infrastructure Company to
Speaker 1: allow businesses to convert fiat payments into bitcoin. And what's
Speaker 1: cool about is is usually will be able to convert
Speaker 1: fiat payments into bitcoin in real time. Businesses can sider
Speaker 1: an automatic amount of their payments to be converted into bitcoin,
Speaker 1: or they will be able to manually convert any amount
Speaker 1: into bitcoin they wish. So bitcoin is good for saving money,
Speaker 1: good for saving technology. So what I could say is
Speaker 1: like I should be saving ten percent of my money
Speaker 1: so or my money or whatever. So I could say, um,
Speaker 1: ten percent of all my payment coming in automatically get
Speaker 1: converted into bitcoin at the way the dollar cost average
Speaker 1: in And it's kind of like the savings account or
Speaker 1: later on I could just convert some of them into that,
Speaker 1: which is pretty cool. Now again, uh, this is the
Speaker 1: largest payment processor, one of the largest payment processors in
Speaker 1: the world, and now people can automatically just convert their
Speaker 1: payments into bitcoin. Now I've just seen this, and I
Speaker 1: think I'm going to have to take advantage of this
Speaker 1: in my own payment account. Um it says it was
Speaker 1: just announced today and allow companies like open note to
Speaker 1: create customer US customer user interfaces that will streamline workflows
Speaker 1: and allow data sinking compatibility between Stripe and its participating partners. So, um,
Speaker 1: this new app store and this new customized interface that
Speaker 1: they've developed will create even more innovation. You see, it
Speaker 1: doesn't happen on the main chain like what happens with Ethereum,
Speaker 1: it happens on top of it. So now we have
Speaker 1: bitcoin being integrated with the one of the largest payment
Speaker 1: processes in the world, allowing me as a merchant to
Speaker 1: set my flexibility on how I want to receive bitcoin,
Speaker 1: if at all, what percentage, or I can do it later.
Speaker 1: And it opens up the open the the interface for
Speaker 1: more businesses to come and take advantage of it to
Speaker 1: create even more progress, to create even more ideas. It's decentralization,
Speaker 1: more people ideating, more people solving problems, more people creating solutions,
Speaker 1: and it's being done with bitcoin, not Cardano, not whatever
Speaker 1: whatever you think is the is the next best one.
Speaker 1: It's all happening on bitcoin, which is why earlier I
Speaker 1: was making the case that bitcoin is sort of like
Speaker 1: the NASDAC, meaning it's not a company in the NASDAC,
Speaker 1: like Facebook, Apple, Netflix, Google, it's the interface where all
Speaker 1: the companies will be built on it. And that's exactly
Speaker 1: what we're seeing now converting some of my payments into bitcoin.
Speaker 1: It's awesome and I think I'm gonna have to do that.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Mark Ball Show. We're talking about bitcoin,
Speaker 1: talking about decentralized revolution, talking about how the world is
Speaker 1: changing before a varied as politics, finance, and technology converge
Speaker 1: into one. That's what I got for you today. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much for listening.