Speaker 1: All right, welcome back. You are listening to another episode
Speaker 1: of the Mark mass Show, where we talk about the
Speaker 1: decentralized revolution that is taking place in the world. We're
Speaker 1: talking about bitcoin. We're talking about the intersection of politics, finance,
Speaker 1: and technology and how things are changing right before our
Speaker 1: very eyes, and of course how to navigate them. I'm
Speaker 1: happy to be joined in the studio today with a
Speaker 1: good friend, Corey Clipston. He is the CEO of Swan Bitcoin,
Speaker 1: a place that I like to use, uh, Swan Bitcoin.
Speaker 1: You can find him on Twitter at Corey Clipston. Corey,
Speaker 1: thanks for joining me today. It's great to be here. Mark,
Speaker 1: thanks for having me on again. Yeah. Man, always fun
Speaker 1: to sit down and talk with you. You haven't been
Speaker 1: traveling much in the last year, so I haven't really
Speaker 1: seen you but in person. Yeah, that's been going on
Speaker 1: unfortunately for a little over a year and a half.
Speaker 1: And it's uh, it's not COVID related in in my case,
Speaker 1: it's some family health stuff on the West Coast that
Speaker 1: keeps me keeps me out here. But hopefully I'll get
Speaker 1: back out on the road a bit second half of
Speaker 1: the year. Nice, So I hope, I hope. So, but
Speaker 1: you know, Corey. I love what I love what you've
Speaker 1: done with Swan Bitcoin. Um. One of the things that
Speaker 1: I liked the best. I just I love what you've
Speaker 1: done is like really turned it into kind of like
Speaker 1: this media kind of education company first, um, which is
Speaker 1: such an amazing way, such a great way to bring
Speaker 1: people in, but it's also just this public good as well. Um.
Speaker 1: Was that was that done intentionally or was that just
Speaker 1: kind of like organically? Uh No, it was very intentional.
Speaker 1: That's kind of you know, you got to play to
Speaker 1: your strengths. And that's something that I actually know how
Speaker 1: to do. I don't code, but I do media. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, building building media businesses. And you know, I
Speaker 1: was a broadcast journalist over twenty years ago. When I
Speaker 1: started my career, I was a local NBC TV reporter.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so long before I got into you know,
Speaker 1: B school and then Silicon Valley and Bitcoin. Uh that
Speaker 1: was the beginning. So it's been very natural. Uh. And
Speaker 1: I love brands that put out of content, and I
Speaker 1: love brands that think of themselves as media companies. Um.
Speaker 1: There's a little bit more to it, because I think
Speaker 1: the media is just like one of the products we do.
Speaker 1: We kind of have a um a philosophy of product
Speaker 1: lead acquisition. So customer acquisition for Swan is by building
Speaker 1: products that people use, and some of those people end
Speaker 1: up using Swan and buying bitcoin from us. So bitcoin
Speaker 1: or Jobs is a great example of that too, right, Like,
Speaker 1: that's a site that I built that we ended up
Speaker 1: rolling into Swan and we have you know, a hundred
Speaker 1: bitcoin companies around the world that lists jobs there. But
Speaker 1: each one of those is now a connection. They can
Speaker 1: be part of, you know, the Bitcoin Benefit Plan and
Speaker 1: pay their employees and bitcoin through us. They can be
Speaker 1: integration partners and we can turn it on and light
Speaker 1: it up so that there there people can buy bitcoin
Speaker 1: through their app or through their site using Swan. So
Speaker 1: it's just kind of kind of being being everywhere, always
Speaker 1: throwing the party. That's kind of the vibe and media
Speaker 1: as they gotta throw the party. Mark I like that.
Speaker 1: Um let's talk about that for a second. So the
Speaker 1: bitcoin er jobs, so that's like a big job board.
Speaker 1: You said a hundred and forty five companies are listing
Speaker 1: jobs on there. Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah is that? And
Speaker 1: and and nash app just joined uh this week. So
Speaker 1: cash app is listening their jobs on Bitcoiner jobs as well. Wow,
Speaker 1: And and is that like only for like couders and programmers.
Speaker 1: Is that for like anybody who wants to work just
Speaker 1: in the bitcoin space at all. Yeah, it's it's for
Speaker 1: anybody who wants to work in bitcoin. And you can
Speaker 1: also post profile on bitcoiner jobs and let people browse it.
Speaker 1: So there's over a thousand candidate profiles on there as well,
Speaker 1: and you can post an anonymized profile. So if you
Speaker 1: have a job and you're at like Goldman Sacks or
Speaker 1: something and you don't want to tip your hand that
Speaker 1: you're looking to leave, you can post an anonymized profile
Speaker 1: and let the bitcoiners check you out. So, um, if
Speaker 1: I was an accountant or a graphic designer, but I
Speaker 1: would just like to be in the bitcoin space, I mean,
Speaker 1: there's potentially jobs in there for me in there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So this is a full time jobs marketplace essentially, where
Speaker 1: also going to be launching a services marketplace for people
Speaker 1: that want to, you know, essentially be an accountant or
Speaker 1: a personal trainer or you know, whatever it is, financial advisor,
Speaker 1: and you'll be able to post your services. So essentially,
Speaker 1: you know, whatever whatever it is. But I might I
Speaker 1: might want to be a full time accountant though, right
Speaker 1: for exactly for sure, so that those jobs are up
Speaker 1: all the time. We just hired we just hired a
Speaker 1: senior accountant to the site. Uh last week actually, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: I just trying to clarify that for people that are listening.
Speaker 1: I think, um, one thing that I've learned it was,
Speaker 1: actually it's probably about a decade ago. I had this
Speaker 1: a Fortune one consultant that I had hired to help
Speaker 1: me scale this business. And we're scaling it pretty fast,
Speaker 1: and I turned it turned into a nightmare. I hated
Speaker 1: the business. And uh. He sat me down with a
Speaker 1: piece of paper and he drew drew circles. He's like, uh,
Speaker 1: here's your customers on a scale one to ten. Hire customers.
Speaker 1: And here's the media on a scale one to ten.
Speaker 1: And here's the regulations and all these things. And it
Speaker 1: was like it was like a one or two or
Speaker 1: three a one. And then he's like put me in
Speaker 1: the middle, like you're in the middle. And he said,
Speaker 1: in order to be great in business, you must be
Speaker 1: first in a great business. And he's like, you're in
Speaker 1: a horrible business. And I was like, shoot, you're right,
Speaker 1: and I had I left that business. But um, the
Speaker 1: bitcoin industry is an area that's growing rapidly. And um,
Speaker 1: I mean if somebody's looking for something exciting to do,
Speaker 1: some long term job security, uh, it seems like a
Speaker 1: pretty good place to be. So it's nice to know
Speaker 1: that whether you're in accounting or graphic design or a coder,
Speaker 1: maybe that's a good place to go. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that's right. And I think you just got to look
Speaker 1: at the number of people that we expect to be
Speaker 1: in the bitcoin over time, right, and if you could
Speaker 1: get in early on something and spot a trend and
Speaker 1: be one of those first people. You know, I think
Speaker 1: of people that got into health food in the eighties
Speaker 1: or nineties, like they're all doing well. You know, if
Speaker 1: you got into like Paleo, cross fit, quantified self stuff,
Speaker 1: you know, twelve fifteen years ago. Everyone who got into
Speaker 1: that back then and just made the network connections early
Speaker 1: and started adding value and figuring out you know, they
Speaker 1: just ended up with equity stakes and different things, or
Speaker 1: they took three swings and their third one took off,
Speaker 1: and you know, your third try was in fourteen, So
Speaker 1: now you're eight years into the one that's working and
Speaker 1: you're doing fine, right, So bitcoin is like that, it's
Speaker 1: just this massive tidal wave of adoption that's happening. It's
Speaker 1: still super early, and you have a better chance of
Speaker 1: succeeding at that than you would going into some totally
Speaker 1: saturated market. What about um? What about what about like coding,
Speaker 1: like people that can actually write UM code for bitcoin
Speaker 1: or design applications that can work on bitcoin because bitcoin
Speaker 1: is open source, so anybody could technically go kind of
Speaker 1: start building on top of it or with lightning? Do
Speaker 1: you think, um, do you think that that's something that
Speaker 1: maybe the market is maybe sleeping on a little bit
Speaker 1: and that maybe very quickly the industry might find themselves
Speaker 1: short on actual people that can build on that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's reasonable to assume that, uh, there are not enough
Speaker 1: lightning developers today that more people should be fascile with
Speaker 1: that technology. And you know, you can use I mean, gosh,
Speaker 1: we probably use twelve different languages at SWAN for different
Speaker 1: aspects of the business in the system, right, so you know,
Speaker 1: whatever you know is going to be useful, and good
Speaker 1: engineers can always pick up a new language anyway in
Speaker 1: a week or two. So, UM, I don't know if
Speaker 1: it's necessarily like deep experience with one kind of language.
Speaker 1: It's more just like an engineering mindset and and some
Speaker 1: real experience with with building products. That's good to know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, just it's just curious just to add you know,
Speaker 1: you you're obviously in that, and so you kind of
Speaker 1: have some insights and I know, you know something I'm
Speaker 1: talking about with this decentralized revolution. I mean, the world's
Speaker 1: changing really fast. Um, we know that, you know. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: it looks like gas prices and food prices are are
Speaker 1: going up and not coming back down, and people need
Speaker 1: to be prepared for that, and so you want to
Speaker 1: you know, certain jobs will be phased out and and
Speaker 1: some others will grow. So anyway, for those people that
Speaker 1: are listening, I think, uh, you need to take those
Speaker 1: things into consideration prepare for that. And one of those
Speaker 1: might be developing some skills or getting a job in
Speaker 1: an area or an industry that you think would continue
Speaker 1: to grow. And so as I was just kind of
Speaker 1: getting near insights into that. Yeah, absolutely, And I'm and
Speaker 1: I think um reading Mastering Bitcoin, uh dated book now
Speaker 1: six seven years old, but the code base is basically
Speaker 1: the same. But that's by Andreas and Sinopolis. So that's
Speaker 1: a good place to start. And then um, maybe check
Speaker 1: out resources around Jimmie Song's work programming blockchain, which is
Speaker 1: all about the bitcoin blockchain. But I think those are
Speaker 1: good good places to get rolling if you're interested in
Speaker 1: the space as a coder, yeah, or just if you
Speaker 1: want to be even an accountant or a personal trainer
Speaker 1: or something like that in the space, just because you
Speaker 1: want to position yourself in a good business and you
Speaker 1: want to position yourself into an industry that's growing and
Speaker 1: so um, even if it's not coded and related, you know,
Speaker 1: at least you'll still be in the industry. Um U,
Speaker 1: that's that's growing anyway. So I think that I think
Speaker 1: that sounds good. I want to get into a lot
Speaker 1: more stuff with you. There was a tweet that you
Speaker 1: recently put up about E S G and energy. Um.
Speaker 1: I also want to talk about investing the bitcoin. Also
Speaker 1: know that you run an investment fund as well. UM,
Speaker 1: So there's a there's a there's a lot that I
Speaker 1: want to dig into with you. When we come back
Speaker 1: and you're listening to the Mark Mo Show, we're talking
Speaker 1: about bitcoin. We're talking about the decentralized Revolution, we're talking
Speaker 1: about the intersection of politics, finance, and technology. I'm in
Speaker 1: the studio with Corey Clipston. He's the CEO of Swan Bitcoin.
Speaker 1: I want to dig into some energy stuff with him
Speaker 1: and some investing stuff with him. We've got a lot
Speaker 1: to cover, so do not go away. I'll be right back.
Speaker 1: All right, Welcome back. You are listening to the Mark
Speaker 1: Mass Show. We're talking about the decentralized Revolution. We're talking
Speaker 1: about bitcoin, and I am in the studio with a
Speaker 1: good friend, Corey Clipston. He's the CEO of Swan Bitcoin,
Speaker 1: and they make it easy to get bitcoin um, especially
Speaker 1: if the dollar cost average into it. Um. Anyway, Corey,
Speaker 1: before the break, we were kind of talking about getting
Speaker 1: jobs in bitcoin. I like that, UM, but I want
Speaker 1: to kind of transition into something else, you would. Uh.
Speaker 1: One thing that I've been talking a lot about lately,
Speaker 1: I think everybody's in paying attention to it is you know,
Speaker 1: oil prices have gone crazy, um, Gas prices have gone crazy. UM.
Speaker 1: We have this whole Russia Ukraine thing that's going on
Speaker 1: that's disrupting all of that. And m it seems like
Speaker 1: I've been having these big epiphanies. I talked about in
Speaker 1: the first hour. But the world's kind of transitioning off
Speaker 1: of this fiat system and kind of been thrust back
Speaker 1: into this commodity based system. And um, we're finding that
Speaker 1: energy it's at the base of you and I aren't
Speaker 1: finding but the world is starting to find that energy
Speaker 1: sits at the base of all that. And it's interesting
Speaker 1: because the United States are really the West United States,
Speaker 1: Canada and Western Europe have been trying to do their
Speaker 1: best to destroy their own energy. And you put out
Speaker 1: a tweet and you said, over the next decade, E
Speaker 1: s G proponents like Larry Fink of Black Rock and
Speaker 1: the World I coming for him, will walk back almost
Speaker 1: everything they've pushed for. They love natural gas because it's
Speaker 1: natural and coal uh and fun studies showing wind solar
Speaker 1: can never be enough. Talk about that tweet that was
Speaker 1: That was February. That's when out it was. It was
Speaker 1: right after the that was the day. That was the
Speaker 1: day I think, yeah, it was it was the day.
Speaker 1: That was the day I talked about that date earlier.
Speaker 1: That's the day at the US basically froze us UM
Speaker 1: sorry Russia's FX reserves. That was March second. That's the
Speaker 1: night that Zoltar sent out his note that was March second.
Speaker 1: But yeah, the week before, I think was when the
Speaker 1: tanks rolled in and it became really obvious, like you know,
Speaker 1: and so the so the follow on. The funny thing is,
Speaker 1: um Fink went on CNBC this morning or I think CNN.
Speaker 1: Actually actually it looks like it was Fox Business, but
Speaker 1: CNN ran the clip and said energy security has joined
Speaker 1: the energy transition, meaning green energy stuff as top global priority.
Speaker 1: And it's like, well, no, it was always energy security
Speaker 1: has always been the top priority. You know. I'm I'm
Speaker 1: on record as saying the only thing that's more important
Speaker 1: than bitcoin and will be more important than bitcoin in
Speaker 1: the future, is energy itself. Right, Bitcoin is like the
Speaker 1: nearest proxy for that. It's it's a sort of energy
Speaker 1: based commodity, um and time based commodity. But um yeah,
Speaker 1: we're all gonna we're all gonna have to get real
Speaker 1: over the next decade or two, and we're gonna understand, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the Fiat system allowed us to play these
Speaker 1: games that were based on ideology and not reality, and
Speaker 1: now we're getting back to a reality based monetary system.
Speaker 1: Even if Bitcoin wasn't around, it's already moving toward a
Speaker 1: reality based monetary system. It's moving to commodity money or
Speaker 1: outside money, as our friends from Credit Squeeze talks about it,
Speaker 1: inside money versus outside money. That's where we're headed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think, Um, you know, I've used an analogy just
Speaker 1: to kind of role play things on videos and stuff before,
Speaker 1: where if I was on a deserted island with a
Speaker 1: billion dollars of cash, a billion dollars of gold, or
Speaker 1: a billion dollars worth of bitcoin, it's all worthless. Bitcoin
Speaker 1: is just as worthless as the gold in cash unless
Speaker 1: I have goods and services to acquire with that. So, bitcoin, golden,
Speaker 1: and cash are all just mediums of exchange, right, and
Speaker 1: so really it's goods and services that are wealth. And
Speaker 1: it starts with energy. So the wealth of a nation
Speaker 1: has always been off of the energy. And so you know,
Speaker 1: the really it was one of the technological revolution, one
Speaker 1: of the five technological revolutions in last two or fifty years,
Speaker 1: which was oil in like eight, which was here in
Speaker 1: the United States. The United States led that Saudi Arabia
Speaker 1: didn't get oil until like the forties and really not
Speaker 1: until like the sixties and seventies. Um, but it's always
Speaker 1: been that oil and back to you know, bitcoin is
Speaker 1: is important, but to your point, it's all about the
Speaker 1: energy and um, you know, it seems like the United
Speaker 1: States is doing their best to get rid of the
Speaker 1: energy through these E s G narratives. Do you think
Speaker 1: that was just um, because they've been living in this
Speaker 1: false sense of reality because of FIAT for so long
Speaker 1: they haven't realized it. Or do you think there's something
Speaker 1: else going on? Um, it's a big part of it. Um.
Speaker 1: But then a lot of it just comes back to
Speaker 1: sort of like the maenthusisan bent that remains in a
Speaker 1: wide swath of the political spectrum in the U. S
Speaker 1: which is just sort of anti progress and sort of
Speaker 1: anti humanist. Really, it's it's just this whole idea of
Speaker 1: you know, nature is pristine and not realizing that humans
Speaker 1: have shaped nature since humans existed, Right, So I think
Speaker 1: it's just it's just wrong headed. Unfortunately, Yeah, yeah, it,
Speaker 1: I mean it is wrong. I guess, uh, it just
Speaker 1: when you look at like what's going on today. So
Speaker 1: now you know, we have they're trying to sanction Russia.
Speaker 1: Russia's supplying you know, a good amount of oil and
Speaker 1: energy for the world, um and then you have you know,
Speaker 1: Biden going on and basically begging you know, other nations
Speaker 1: to get energy from them, like Iran, and like maybe
Speaker 1: in exchange for giving them oil, we have to and
Speaker 1: giving them billions of dollars for their oil. Then we
Speaker 1: have to also let them get their nuclear program back
Speaker 1: on board, when we could just create more jobs in
Speaker 1: the US and just turn it back on here. And
Speaker 1: it's like, why would they do that? Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: we don't in the US. We don't need any of
Speaker 1: the Venezuelan oil or the Iranian oil or any of
Speaker 1: that um or even more Saudi oil. We're fine. We're
Speaker 1: energy sufficient. Essentially. All you'd have to do is just
Speaker 1: turn on a few things that we've turned off and
Speaker 1: we're just fine. It's much more a sort of a
Speaker 1: game of politics and trying to make sure that Western
Speaker 1: Europe can be supplied, uh, knowing that a lot of
Speaker 1: the Russian supply is going offline. It's not going to
Speaker 1: be enough though, that's the end of the day. Like
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. It's just honestly, it's just political wallpaper
Speaker 1: talking to Iran about stuff like this. They can't bring
Speaker 1: enough supply online. Nothing close to it to offset what
Speaker 1: with what the western European nations are gonna lose from
Speaker 1: Germany or from from Russia. Yeah, yeah, I saw. I
Speaker 1: was doing some research, um early this morning too, because
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm I've been investing in the energy for
Speaker 1: a long time. I'm I'm I'm a g P and
Speaker 1: an oil field here in the in the US. UM,
Speaker 1: So I know a little bit about it, but I
Speaker 1: don't know. I'm not an expert by any means. UM.
Speaker 1: And I was listening to somebody and they're talking about
Speaker 1: how the US has peaked out in its energy. But
Speaker 1: the you kind of talked about this enthusiasan fear spell
Speaker 1: and the whole world operated on the theory called peak energy,
Speaker 1: meaning that they thought by the year they thought the
Speaker 1: world would run out of oil. But in two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight, the private market came up with a new
Speaker 1: technology called fracking, and then we found out we had
Speaker 1: all this energy. And now some people are saying that
Speaker 1: maybe the US is maxed out and that we we've
Speaker 1: kind of hit the point of no more energy again. UM.
Speaker 1: But I just think again, like, well no, because technology
Speaker 1: is always going to improve. Um. But when you have
Speaker 1: the United States basically telling oil company is gonna go bankrupt. Uh,
Speaker 1: they're probably not gonna want to invest into that new
Speaker 1: technology too much. So, Uh, what do you think it happens.
Speaker 1: I think the market sorts it out. Market sorts at
Speaker 1: getting a big smack in the face right now. And
Speaker 1: you know, the biggest proponent of E s G narratives
Speaker 1: for the last six seven years was Larry Fink, the
Speaker 1: head of the world's largest asset manager, and he took
Speaker 1: him what less than a month to turn around when
Speaker 1: when reality smacks you in the face, they're not going
Speaker 1: to try to turn off fossil fuels anymore. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: you're absolutely right. And also another thing he pivoted on
Speaker 1: this week was, Uh, they came out and announced that
Speaker 1: they were going to move into bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, and
Speaker 1: just in July of last year he said they weren't
Speaker 1: considering it because there was no appetite for it, and then, um,
Speaker 1: just this week he said that due to investor demand,
Speaker 1: they're going to get into it. So that's a pretty
Speaker 1: big pivot in less than a year, um, from the
Speaker 1: world's largest asset manager. As you said, they've just so
Speaker 1: by the way they've they've had a large blockchain group
Speaker 1: that's cross functional, including full time employees for over two years.
Speaker 1: And most of the people who run that are actually
Speaker 1: essentially bitcoin maximalists that have to say blockchain internally just
Speaker 1: to kind of be nice. But I've spoken to their
Speaker 1: group on like internal internal black rock meetings and stuff
Speaker 1: like that, and yeah, they definitely they will be there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're listening to the Mark Moas Show. I'm sitting down
Speaker 1: in the studio with Corey Clipston from Swan Bitcoin. We're
Speaker 1: talking about bitcoin. Of course, I got a lot more
Speaker 1: to dig in too with him when we come back,
Speaker 1: So do not go away, all right, Welcome back. You
Speaker 1: are listening to the Mark mo Show. We're talking about
Speaker 1: the decentralized revolution that the world is going through right now.
Speaker 1: We're talking about the collision of politics, finance and technology.
Speaker 1: Of course we're talking about bitcoin. I'm in the studio
Speaker 1: with Corey Clipston. He is the CEO of Swan Bitcoin,
Speaker 1: and um, we're talking about jobs in bitcoin. That was
Speaker 1: pretty big. We were just talking about this energy component
Speaker 1: of it of of what the world is going through
Speaker 1: and and bitcoin. There another thing Corey I was I
Speaker 1: was talking to so I had a conversation with Luke Grahman,
Speaker 1: who has been doing a lot of good research, and
Speaker 1: then I had another conversation with U with Jeff Booth,
Speaker 1: and I was kind of thinking these things through, and
Speaker 1: I kind of had this epiphany this morning, which I
Speaker 1: hate to say it epiphany because you and I think
Speaker 1: about the things all the time. But like the whole world.
Speaker 1: You referenced a letter from Zoltan sultan Um about the
Speaker 1: world kind of being thrust into this new financial system,
Speaker 1: which is a commodity based system. And so we've seen
Speaker 1: over the last several years the world has been um
Speaker 1: net buyers of gold and net sellers of treasury, so
Speaker 1: they've been transitioning off of this fiat treasury system and
Speaker 1: into a gold system. But then we have this situation
Speaker 1: where the U S c's to Russia's treasuries. Um, there's
Speaker 1: U S. Senators calling for a seas of their gold
Speaker 1: and sanctioning their gold. We saw the UK stole Venezuela's
Speaker 1: gold dirty one tons, about two billion dollars worth, and
Speaker 1: so like we've really seen a breakdown of trust altogether.
Speaker 1: And if everyone's gonna go back to this gold back system,
Speaker 1: how could that work in a world with no trust,
Speaker 1: like even if China had a seven live stream on
Speaker 1: YouTube of their gold supply, how do we know it's
Speaker 1: like gold tungsten um bars, right, And now the countries
Speaker 1: can't let someone else hold their gold like Venezuela will
Speaker 1: steal it, Russia, that will steal it, so they have
Speaker 1: to hold it themselves. And if that's the only system
Speaker 1: we have, like, how could that work in a world
Speaker 1: with no trust? It's almost like you would want to
Speaker 1: have like a blick Ledger where everyone had a copy
Speaker 1: of the Ledger and you could actually see what people
Speaker 1: claim to own and they could like prove their reserves. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's almost like we're talking, of course about bitcoin, which
Speaker 1: I think is where we'll be in you know, fifteen years,
Speaker 1: thirty years, something like that. I do think that's how
Speaker 1: everything will sort of run, and that will be the
Speaker 1: reserve asset of all of these countries. Yeah, it's just
Speaker 1: like you know, uh, the Americans trusted the United States
Speaker 1: to hold their gold, the banks to hold their gold,
Speaker 1: and not print too many papers certificates, but in nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty three they did and they seize their gold, and
Speaker 1: then in the world agreed to let the US hold
Speaker 1: the gold. In ninety one, they found out they couldn't
Speaker 1: get it back, so they couldn't trust that. Today we
Speaker 1: found out, you know, no one can. You can't trust
Speaker 1: anyone to hold your gold. You can't trust anyone to
Speaker 1: hold your treasuries. We can't trust anybody, Like I mean,
Speaker 1: gold already has this problem because it's slow and clunky
Speaker 1: and it's heavy. But now we have trust broken down,
Speaker 1: Like I just I don't see any other option. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's um it's still just such a tiny market.
Speaker 1: So when you're talking about you know, net inflows, net outflows,
Speaker 1: the treasuries or whatever, it's still just nibbling around at
Speaker 1: the edges. UM treasuries just dwarf it, and you know
Speaker 1: a lot of other asset classes just dwarf gold completely
Speaker 1: as gold. Tradable gold is probably about half of the
Speaker 1: total supply. Total supplies about eleven trillion dollars worth, so
Speaker 1: tradable is like five or six trillion. It's just miniscule
Speaker 1: compared to what the world economy needs in you know,
Speaker 1: to run and for these governments need for their for
Speaker 1: their reserve assets. UM. As far as the US, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that broadly this disruption and this sort of
Speaker 1: like new new maybe not cold war, but you know,
Speaker 1: cold freeze or whatever. This is this disruption and sort
Speaker 1: of deglobalization. It'll be very um. Everybody will be hurt,
Speaker 1: but the US will be much less hurt, and the US,
Speaker 1: you know, relatively will gain in strength and power and
Speaker 1: wealth versus other nations around the world because of the
Speaker 1: disruption that's going on right now. I explained that why
Speaker 1: why would most nations be hurt but the U. S
Speaker 1: Would do better because of the disruption. Well, the I mean,
Speaker 1: Germany is going to be hurt, so that's a that's
Speaker 1: a top economy. Russia is obviously being hurt. That's a
Speaker 1: top top military power. It's the number two military power
Speaker 1: behind US. Well, being hurt, being hurt by what being
Speaker 1: hurt by this disruption, this de globalization right, This was
Speaker 1: this was US sort of creating a world order where
Speaker 1: everybody played nice since World War Two, and US policing
Speaker 1: the oceans right, keeping it open for trade. Even when
Speaker 1: we were fighting in Vietnam, the U. S. Navy was
Speaker 1: making sure that boats could sail straight into Hanoi without
Speaker 1: being messed with. Even as we were fighting the Vietnam War.
Speaker 1: That's going to be out the window here in the
Speaker 1: next decade or so. Um. A lot of people think
Speaker 1: that this disruption with Russia might lead to something like
Speaker 1: increased power for China, but this is this is massively
Speaker 1: negative for China. They rely a ton on Russian oil.
Speaker 1: They the whole sort of Siberian fields come south into China,
Speaker 1: and those are serviced almost exclusively by Western firms that
Speaker 1: have actually pulled out already, right, Slumberja and and Haliburton
Speaker 1: have pulled out, and so they don't have the ability
Speaker 1: to service those fields anymore. So it won't become obvious immediately,
Speaker 1: but over the next couple of years, with that lack
Speaker 1: of expertise and the lack of parts and the lack
Speaker 1: of repairs in a place like that that freezes six
Speaker 1: months a year, like they're just d l a those
Speaker 1: that oil is gonna stop flowing. That gas is gonna
Speaker 1: stop flowing to China, and they can't go get it
Speaker 1: anywhere else, right, they can't go, you know, the the
Speaker 1: naval capacity, there's no insurance for those boats to go.
Speaker 1: There's no deep water ports for Russia to put these on.
Speaker 1: Supertankers and ship it to China, like there's nowhere else
Speaker 1: for them to get the oil that they're losing. M yeah,
Speaker 1: and the world desperately needs that oil overall. I mean
Speaker 1: they're they're a small percentage, I think, less than ten
Speaker 1: percent of the world's energy, but the world needs that.
Speaker 1: If you reduce the energy by denver cent, it's a
Speaker 1: big problem. Well, you got the biggest economy in Europe, Germany,
Speaker 1: that gets like their gas from Russia, right right, So
Speaker 1: that's gonna be a big problem. Yeah, that's a big problem.
Speaker 1: So um yeah, the world is just so connected now
Speaker 1: that you know, you pull on one string and it
Speaker 1: just kind of pulls everywhere else. But like I was
Speaker 1: kind of saying, so, um, now, when this trust is
Speaker 1: broken down, I mean there's just I just don't see
Speaker 1: how going back to a commodity based system or a
Speaker 1: or a gold back system could work because without trust,
Speaker 1: it's always going to require that. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: so then it's kind of like, well, if not Bitcoin,
Speaker 1: then what, because, like like you said, it's almost like
Speaker 1: we need this like trust less ledger. Um, so if
Speaker 1: not Bitcoin, then what. But I guess to the point
Speaker 1: that I'm seeing and you actually just made like bitcoin
Speaker 1: is not really ready for that. Like, no, it's gonna
Speaker 1: be treasuries for a long while. Yet flawed as they are,
Speaker 1: that's still what it's going to be for a few
Speaker 1: more decades in my view. And everyone's just gonna have
Speaker 1: to just bow down and kiss kiss the feet of
Speaker 1: the US so they don't get locked out like Russia did. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the Western the Western world and those who choose to
Speaker 1: remain part of whatever global system remains and be plugged into,
Speaker 1: you know, the equity markets and the bond markets and
Speaker 1: the credit markets, they're just going to have to continue
Speaker 1: to play ball. It'll just be a slightly smaller playing
Speaker 1: field for for the West. Yeah, I mean, so smaller
Speaker 1: plane filled for the West. But what about like Russia,
Speaker 1: I mean, if they're kicked out, obviously, what they have
Speaker 1: plenty of natural resources. I guess to your point that
Speaker 1: you're making some of the resources might be drying up,
Speaker 1: drying up a little bit, but they still have you know,
Speaker 1: between Russia and Ukraine and control thirty of the wheat
Speaker 1: and corn it's pretty massive, huge percentage of the fertilizer industry. Um,
Speaker 1: so they still have real wealth, real goods and services
Speaker 1: that they could sell for gold. So maybe they create
Speaker 1: maybe a bifurcate the financial system and we kind of
Speaker 1: have the West system and then we kind of have
Speaker 1: these other people on their own system. Yeah, it's just
Speaker 1: it's just such a tiny sliver compared to the rest
Speaker 1: of the system, and it needs you kind of need
Speaker 1: access to global markets to be able to produce all
Speaker 1: of the inputs for those industries. Right, those aren't just
Speaker 1: sitting there waiting to be picked up, Like there's there's
Speaker 1: not going to be a planting season this year in Ukraine, right,
Speaker 1: And we'll see, you know, and it's probably going to
Speaker 1: be a bit of a failed contested slash buffer state
Speaker 1: for the next decade or so. Um. You know, we'll see,
Speaker 1: we'll see where the territorial lines get drawn. But it
Speaker 1: doesn't appear that it's going to be free of Russian influence.
Speaker 1: And it doesn't appear that it's going to be a
Speaker 1: Russian vassal state either, um, although we shall see. But
Speaker 1: either way, it's probably not good for wheat production. And
Speaker 1: this is definitely not good for Russian wheat production because
Speaker 1: while they have fertilizer and they have fuel, like, there
Speaker 1: are lots of other inputs that go into farming, like
Speaker 1: equipment and tractors and all those kinds of things. So
Speaker 1: you're talking about probably like a five to ten year
Speaker 1: retooling as they moved towards autarchy, right, and being sort
Speaker 1: of insular within their own boards. Uh, and essentially coming
Speaker 1: back to sort of Soviet style iron curtain vibes. And
Speaker 1: that was not an efficient economy, right. It didn't benefit
Speaker 1: from comparative advantage of being able to draw all the
Speaker 1: things that different countries around the world were best at
Speaker 1: making and getting them for the cheapest price. They're gonna
Speaker 1: have to make everything. Yeah, you're you're you're listening to
Speaker 1: the Mark Moss Show. I'm sitting down in the studio
Speaker 1: with Corey Clipston, the CEO of Swan Bitcoin. We're just
Speaker 1: talking about as this financial system is changing, what comes next.
Speaker 1: I want to talk next when we come back from
Speaker 1: the break, about investing into this trend. I know you
Speaker 1: run some venture funds. We'll talk about that. I got
Speaker 1: a lot more to go. Don't go away, We'll be
Speaker 1: right back everyone. Welcome back. You are listening to the
Speaker 1: Mark mo Show where we talk about the decentralized revolution.
Speaker 1: We're talking about how bitcoin is changing the world as
Speaker 1: we know it. I'm sitting down in the studio with
Speaker 1: Corey Clipston. He is the CEO of Swan Bitcoin and
Speaker 1: we've covered a lot. So if you've missed it, don't
Speaker 1: miss it again. Put this date time on your calendar.
Speaker 1: Make sure you're joined me each and every week on
Speaker 1: this channel at this time I'm or you can find
Speaker 1: it on the podcast iHeart podcast Network and you can
Speaker 1: catch up on it then. Um. But we talked about
Speaker 1: a lot of things, including energy, including what's going on
Speaker 1: with the world and uh, trust being broken down. Um.
Speaker 1: But Corey, one another thing that I want to dig
Speaker 1: into with is that we've kind of set this stage
Speaker 1: and I talk about it all the time, but I
Speaker 1: want to talk about specifically I I do talk about
Speaker 1: all the time that you know, these transitions that we're
Speaker 1: going through with the financial system change and you know,
Speaker 1: technology changes the world. It's it's uh, it's a problem
Speaker 1: for a lot of people not paying attention, but for
Speaker 1: some people that are pay attention, it could be a
Speaker 1: big opportunity. So let's talk about that and like really
Speaker 1: investing into this. And I you're the perfect person to
Speaker 1: talk to. You've been running a big bitcoin of ventures
Speaker 1: for a long time, and I know you've invested into
Speaker 1: a lot of projects there um, and now you've moved
Speaker 1: into actually starting a fund to invest into some projects.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about investing and using this as an opportunity. Yeah, absolutely, So,
Speaker 1: you know, I think you need to know what you're buying.
Speaker 1: That's just always true in investing generals. Yeah, the more
Speaker 1: you know, the more you buy. Is kind of like
Speaker 1: our internal motto at SWAN, which is why I always
Speaker 1: try to educate people about bitcoin, because if they know
Speaker 1: more about it, they're more likely to buy more of
Speaker 1: it hold onto it, right. Um. So it's kind of
Speaker 1: the same thing with venture. So I would say, you know,
Speaker 1: this trend in this sort of like wind at your
Speaker 1: sales with bitcoin, is you know, going to be a
Speaker 1: two decade trend at minimum where there's going to be
Speaker 1: sort of outsized returns and I think better returns than
Speaker 1: venture broadly in the bitcoin space. If you are heavy
Speaker 1: into it and getting to know these companies and can
Speaker 1: add some value that would make you not face adverse selection,
Speaker 1: which is where somebody only takes your money once they
Speaker 1: try getting money from all the people they really want
Speaker 1: in the deal. Um. But if you actually add value
Speaker 1: and you're kind of well known in the space, then
Speaker 1: you can get into the good deals and you have
Speaker 1: you know, you get selected for good deals, then it
Speaker 1: makes sense to go sort of deal by deal and
Speaker 1: be an angel. If you don't have that, then it's
Speaker 1: better to be a limited partner in a fund. Right.
Speaker 1: So if there's some space that you don't know a
Speaker 1: lot about um, but you just like believe in the trend,
Speaker 1: that's when it's better to just hire a professional manager.
Speaker 1: So you know, I kind of play both strategies. The
Speaker 1: Bitcoin of Ventures syndicate lets a lot of bitcoiners around
Speaker 1: the world who are really into bitcoins select the deals
Speaker 1: that they want to be in and they can contribute like,
Speaker 1: you know, one thousand and fifty thou dollars per deal.
Speaker 1: That's the Bitcoin Ventures Bitcoin of Ventures dot com. And
Speaker 1: that one's really just kind of a community service. It's myself,
Speaker 1: Jon Pritzker, Louis lou and Stefan Lavera, all pretty well
Speaker 1: known people in the bitcoin space where the four partners.
Speaker 1: But we actually take no fees and no carry to
Speaker 1: run the syndicate and we just put you know, like
Speaker 1: half a million into each deal, and we've done seven
Speaker 1: deals so far. UM. But it's you know, seven of
Speaker 1: the best known bitcoin companies over the last two years.
Speaker 1: And then separately recently launched and announced a fund called
Speaker 1: Alzonte Capital with Max Kaiser and Stacy Herbert, um the
Speaker 1: well known bitcoin advocate for the last eleven twelve years
Speaker 1: and UH and well known media figures. And if that
Speaker 1: one is focused on Layer two and Layer three solutions,
Speaker 1: so Lightning DLCs and just whatever else people build on
Speaker 1: top of bitcoin and really just building up for this
Speaker 1: next phase where a lot more people have a lot
Speaker 1: of their net worth and bitcoin and are actually looking
Speaker 1: to use it and spend it and do novel things
Speaker 1: like value for value podcasting and things like that with bitcoin.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm, that's great. UM. It's funny you say that
Speaker 1: because a lot of times people think about bitcoin being
Speaker 1: you know, deflationary or disinflationary UM, and they say, well,
Speaker 1: if if bitcoin's always going up, why would people, um want,
Speaker 1: why would they invest anymore? But to your point, if
Speaker 1: people have a lot of bitcoin, they still are looking
Speaker 1: for ways to invest into the space. UM. But I
Speaker 1: want to talk about UM specifically, so like let's talk
Speaker 1: we'll talk a little bit broadly about you know, the
Speaker 1: difference with crypto versus bitcoin. And so the thing with
Speaker 1: crypto is like it's easy for anybody. Uh I spend
Speaker 1: years in the crypto space, and my ex business partner
Speaker 1: um went for in four months, launched a crypto project
Speaker 1: and went and got a big I'm not going to
Speaker 1: name them, but a big market maker behind them, and
Speaker 1: cashed out twelve million dollars within four months. And he's
Speaker 1: got all these tokens he sits on, right, And so
Speaker 1: you have these people that just go launched these crypto tokens,
Speaker 1: and now he launched it as a decentralized protocol, and
Speaker 1: then he just walks away. Do you have all these
Speaker 1: people that can go launch that? But with bitcoin companies,
Speaker 1: they have to go like sit down with real investors
Speaker 1: that are having to give up real money. So it's
Speaker 1: a different path that has to go down, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's kind of long term greedy. You know.
Speaker 1: I had a mentor a long time ago tell me that, uh,
Speaker 1: money is only as good as the story you can
Speaker 1: tell about it. And the way I think about crypto
Speaker 1: people is like you're either gonna have to like lie
Speaker 1: to your friends or have crappy friends in the future.
Speaker 1: You know, Like, it's just it's not very attractive. I'd
Speaker 1: much rather be you know, honest about what I've done
Speaker 1: and and proud of it and be able to tell
Speaker 1: the truth about it. So I think that's one thing.
Speaker 1: It's just like I think a lot of high integrity
Speaker 1: people are drawn towards bitcoin. It's it's this this thing
Speaker 1: that seems to be true and to spread truth wherever
Speaker 1: it goes. So I think that's really attractive. Um. But
Speaker 1: I also just think like bitcoin is gonna be there
Speaker 1: and these other things, in my view, are not. And
Speaker 1: so if you're thinking about building a career over a
Speaker 1: decade or two or even just you know, leaving your
Speaker 1: name there for the history books, right, Like you can
Speaker 1: have a legacy working in bitcoin, You're not gonna have
Speaker 1: a legacy working in these you know, crypto schemes. Yeah. Now, Um,
Speaker 1: you talked about the you didn't name it, but it's
Speaker 1: al Zonte Capital that you you started with Max and Stacy, Um,
Speaker 1: who are great friends as well. I love those guys,
Speaker 1: So good team for you guys to partner up together with.
Speaker 1: I'm excited about it. But alzonte capital um and investing
Speaker 1: into layer two in layer three, So bitcoin being a
Speaker 1: base layer and then you have secondary layers. So if
Speaker 1: you think about the way that I kind of think
Speaker 1: about it is like you have the Internet, so you
Speaker 1: have like a t P I P protocol that transfers
Speaker 1: packets of data on that TCP a protocol, and then
Speaker 1: you have trillions of applications built on top of that.
Speaker 1: UM this is one application of the Internet, and then
Speaker 1: you have Bitcoin as a as a value transfer protocol,
Speaker 1: and then you could have potentially trillions of applications built
Speaker 1: on that UM. Do you think that eventually all the
Speaker 1: trillions of applications get built on one single protocol, just
Speaker 1: like the Internet? Did? I mean? Bitcoin is Bitcoin will
Speaker 1: just be money, so all the ways that you can
Speaker 1: use money. But then you think about the other the
Speaker 1: fact that it's programmable money and the fact that it
Speaker 1: can be streaming money, and that it can be you know,
Speaker 1: we're already using millissats on the lightning networks, and not
Speaker 1: just setosis which is one millions of a bitcoin, but
Speaker 1: you can actually go another three decimal points enlightening. And
Speaker 1: so think of all the different machines that could be
Speaker 1: talking to each other and transacting to it with each other,
Speaker 1: you know, based on if then statements, and you know,
Speaker 1: just kind of computer language or computer code. So I
Speaker 1: don't know, I think it's, um, what did we do
Speaker 1: with the Internet In the first decade, We basically put
Speaker 1: you know, magazines and newspapers online, and we had these
Speaker 1: static pages, and then all of a sudden there was
Speaker 1: a comments section, and we're like, oh my gosh, like
Speaker 1: I can kind of interact. And then you know, seven
Speaker 1: years later it was full blown Facebook and you know,
Speaker 1: social media, and now it's zoom every day all day,
Speaker 1: and you know, it's really hard to imagine the things
Speaker 1: that we will build by, let alone leveraging what bitcoin
Speaker 1: is money on the Internet. Value on the Internet. It's
Speaker 1: it's the Internet of value, and we've never had it before. Yeah,
Speaker 1: um yeah. And and I think even just just kind
Speaker 1: of like the Internet redefined maybe even what we would
Speaker 1: consider information or like I thought of information before Internet
Speaker 1: was like the newspaper or the evening news, and now
Speaker 1: today it's a kid around the world post a picture
Speaker 1: of the beach, and I know what the surf like,
Speaker 1: I know what the beach is like, the weather all
Speaker 1: these things and so probably redefining what we consider value
Speaker 1: as well, which I think is it's pretty big. You
Speaker 1: just got real deep, because yeah, money is information right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: money is information right. So also, um, you know it's uh,
Speaker 1: it's censorship resistant payments, which I've been making the case
Speaker 1: that without the freedom to transact, there is no freedom.
Speaker 1: So if I don't have freedom of speech, but if
Speaker 1: I can't buy a computer to get on the internet,
Speaker 1: I don't really have any speech. It's I have freedom
Speaker 1: to assemble, but if I can't put gas in my car,
Speaker 1: I can't go assemble with people. I have freedom of religion,
Speaker 1: but if my church can't pay for a building, then
Speaker 1: we have no assemble, you know. So we have that. Um,
Speaker 1: good stuff. Um, you're listening to the Markma Show. We're
Speaker 1: talking about the decentralized revolution that the world is going through.
Speaker 1: Of course we're talking about bitcoin. I'm in the studio
Speaker 1: with Corey Clipston from Swan Bitcoin. You can find them
Speaker 1: on Twitter at Corey Clipston and check out swan bitcoin
Speaker 1: dot com. Um and also if you're interested in getting job,
Speaker 1: you can check out bitcoin or Jobs. You can also
Speaker 1: check out bitcoin or Ventures or alazonte capital. If you're
Speaker 1: looking about getting some money into the bitcoin space. UM,
Speaker 1: that's what I got for you today. Thanks so much
Speaker 1: for listening.