Speaker 1: Welcome to Head of Money. I'm Joel, I'm Matt.
Speaker 2: Today we're talking banking on bitcoin with Natalie Brunell.
Speaker 1: That's right, so Joel. When we occasionally talk about bitcoin,
Speaker 1: it's typically within the context.
Speaker 3: Of investing, and like, even then, our approach is for
Speaker 3: it to be a relatively small portion of our overall portfolio.
Speaker 3: Could most folks do without it? We think that that's
Speaker 3: the case. That's true, Like, don't overly focus on I
Speaker 3: would say what we see as a more alternative investment
Speaker 3: when you haven't even maxed out conventional retirement accounts. But
Speaker 3: that is not at all how our guest, Natalie Brunell,
Speaker 3: how she views bitcoin. Natalie sees it as this entirely
Speaker 3: new system of money, a system that is incorruptible and
Speaker 3: non partisan. In her words, bitcoin is egalitarian. It doesn't
Speaker 3: benefit any race over another. It's the purest expression of
Speaker 3: freedom and self determination. All of these things sound like
Speaker 3: totally awesome. Yeah, And for over a decade Natalie was
Speaker 3: an investigative journalist. She is now a predominant figure in
Speaker 3: the bitcoin space. She's an influential educator. She's host of
Speaker 3: the coin Stories podcast, where she dives in deep and
Speaker 3: that is exactly what we're hoping to do some today
Speaker 3: all about bitcoin. So, Natalie, thank you so much for
Speaker 3: joining us today.
Speaker 1: On the podcast.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much for having me. What a nice introduction.
Speaker 1: We're glad to have you. Natalie.
Speaker 2: So much to get to on this one. But first question,
Speaker 2: what do you like to spourge on? Matt and I
Speaker 2: sporge on beer, but hey, it's okay, we're saving and
Speaker 2: investing simultaneously. What is your craft beer equivalent?
Speaker 4: I like to splurge on trips to Italy. I have
Speaker 4: an Italy obsession. A lot of people don't know that.
Speaker 4: I actually studied journalism at Italian in college and I
Speaker 4: try to find my way back to Italy every single
Speaker 4: year I live there two years of college. I'm obsessed
Speaker 4: with Italy and Italian culture. So they can take my money.
Speaker 4: That country can just take my money.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: What is the most underrated city that that you think? Yeah,
Speaker 3: just gets overlooked by most folks who you go to Italy?
Speaker 4: Ooh, underrated? That's that's a tough one. I mean, my
Speaker 4: favorite city's Florence because that's where I live. So I
Speaker 4: love Tuscany and there are so many little towns that
Speaker 4: you can discover and explore there. But I actually think
Speaker 4: underrated would be the island of Sardinia. A lot of
Speaker 4: people still haven't been there. It's got the most pristine,
Speaker 4: tranquil turquoise water that you'll ever see, and not as
Speaker 4: many tourists, so it still feels a little bit like
Speaker 4: that raw, rugged Italian that you read about in history books.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really I want to swim in.
Speaker 2: I'm putting that on my list now that I'm curious
Speaker 2: you you're a first generation immigrant. Your parents struggles they
Speaker 2: seem to impact the way you think about money even today.
Speaker 2: How what sort of influence has has, like your family history.
Speaker 1: Had on you.
Speaker 4: Sure? So, I think that so many of our belief
Speaker 4: systems and our values are shaped very early. And for me,
Speaker 4: I grew up with a fear of financial insecurity, and
Speaker 4: I was really determined to succeed because I watched how
Speaker 4: difficult it was for my parents to sort of to
Speaker 4: sort to bring our family to this country and to
Speaker 4: just create what would be like a middle class life here.
Speaker 4: They just they struggled so much. It was first very
Speaker 4: difficult to be able to come. They grew up under
Speaker 4: communism and They waited every single year to see if
Speaker 4: they want a visa lottery to be able to come,
Speaker 4: and once they got here, you know, they didn't know
Speaker 4: the language. They had to start over. We lived in
Speaker 4: a tiny apartment. I grew up around people that were
Speaker 4: much more financially comfortable than us. And once they were
Speaker 4: finally able to purchase a small townhouse, I went off
Speaker 4: to college and a couple of years later, the Great
Speaker 4: Financial Crisis hit and they were suddenly bankrupt and moving
Speaker 4: into a tiny, one droom and I just thought, how
Speaker 4: the heck can this happen in a country that's supposed
Speaker 4: to represent the American dream that you know, it doesn't
Speaker 4: matter where you come from, if you work hard, you
Speaker 4: can achieve something. And I felt like the game was rigged.
Speaker 4: I felt like the rules were were in favor of
Speaker 4: the people at the top, and so I became I
Speaker 4: became an investigative reporter, honestly because I wanted to hold
Speaker 4: the powerful accountable. And I was very much in like
Speaker 4: the tax the Rich movement. I thought that the way
Speaker 4: to fix this is for government to reach in and
Speaker 4: redistribute the wealth and punish the greedy people and give
Speaker 4: it back to the working class, And I came at
Speaker 4: this view from a fundamental misunderstanding of how economics works,
Speaker 4: how our money is actually even issued, and the broken
Speaker 4: incentives at the base layer of this system. And I
Speaker 4: didn't learn about any of that until bitcoins. So Bitcoin
Speaker 4: for me was actually a transformative journey of better understanding
Speaker 4: the entire financial system, what money actually is, and why
Speaker 4: so many people feel left behind and add a disadvantage
Speaker 4: even if they're working harder than ever. And I really
Speaker 4: think that bitcoin is the best possible solution we have
Speaker 4: before us.
Speaker 3: Okay, I feel like you're segueing very nicely into how
Speaker 3: it is that you became a bitcoin believer, because like,
Speaker 3: there are plenty of folks out there who graduated into
Speaker 3: the throes of the Great Recession and even would look
Speaker 3: to the government, right, and like as you peel back
Speaker 3: the layers and you're like, Okay, how did this come about?
Speaker 3: Like what caused there to be so many banks who
Speaker 3: are then willing to lend to underqualified borrowers?
Speaker 1: A lot of different theses on that team.
Speaker 3: Yeah, But at the same time, I think there's a
Speaker 3: whole lot of folks who would say, well, I don't
Speaker 3: know if bitcoin is necessarily the answer here. How did
Speaker 3: you kind of come around to essentially believing in bitcoin?
Speaker 4: Well, I just I really didn't know what money was.
Speaker 4: I didn't think about it, and I didn't I didn't
Speaker 4: question something that is a reality for all of us,
Speaker 4: which is that things get more expensive every single year,
Speaker 4: at least the things that you need most, right, housing, education,
Speaker 4: your groceries. And maybe they don't go up so significantly
Speaker 4: that everyone's protesting in the streets or running around calling
Speaker 4: out how many more dollars each thing costs each year.
Speaker 4: But if you step back, you zoom out, you notice
Speaker 4: this trend, everything just climbing up in prices. And I
Speaker 4: never connected that with the expansion of our money supply.
Speaker 4: They basically tell you that inflation is necessary. That's what
Speaker 4: you're sort of taught. Inflation is necessary. It stimulates the economy.
Speaker 4: If we didn't have inflation, the whole thing would collapse.
Speaker 4: And it was it was not until bitcoin that I
Speaker 4: actually started to question that, why do we have to
Speaker 4: have a form of money that expands and therefore dilutes
Speaker 4: everyone who's holding it. And there's a real thing that
Speaker 4: I think everyone should study, which is the Cantalon effect
Speaker 4: that the people who get to issue more of this money,
Speaker 4: and the people who are clicking the strokes of keys
Speaker 4: that actually expand the monetary units, they benefit the most,
Speaker 4: and the people around them benefit the most. If you're
Speaker 4: close to the money printer, So if you're the big banks,
Speaker 4: if you are the special interest groups that get first
Speaker 4: access to the money, or the big corporations that get
Speaker 4: to borrow it really ridiculously low interest rates, you benefit
Speaker 4: from those freshly minted dollars. And as you go downstream,
Speaker 4: us the working class, we benefit it from it the least,
Speaker 4: and in fact, it disenfranchises a lot of people. It
Speaker 4: destroys our purchasing power and our savings, and so over
Speaker 4: the long you know, timeline of this type of activity
Speaker 4: and manipulation with our money, we see people who can
Speaker 4: no longer save. They've they've played by all the rules,
Speaker 4: they've worked hard, they've saved up, and yet they can't
Speaker 4: afford retirement, or to have a family, or to help
Speaker 4: their you know, to get out of a medical situation
Speaker 4: that came up. There's something fundamentally broken with that, and
Speaker 4: that's what I think we need a question if we're
Speaker 4: going to have a monetary system that's going to expand
Speaker 4: continuously and lose value. Well, we need to be able
Speaker 4: to save in something that doesn't. We need the opposite
Speaker 4: of that for us to be able to save for
Speaker 4: the future. And I believe bitcoin to be the best
Speaker 4: asset because it is completely decentralized and it is immune
Speaker 4: to inflation. It is scarce and finite, and no one
Speaker 4: can ever print more of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the finite reality of bitcoin, I think is certainly
Speaker 2: one of the key selling points. I'm curious to dive
Speaker 2: deeper on inflation for just a second. How real of
Speaker 2: a problem is inflation in your mind? Because, as let's say,
Speaker 2: we've experienced it more viscerally in recent years, but aren't
Speaker 2: asset prices and incomes typically both going up? Right, So
Speaker 2: it's prices, but also people earn more. So why is
Speaker 2: inflation such a problem in your mind?
Speaker 4: So I actually think this is the biggest problem facing
Speaker 4: the working class. And again I didn't recognize it until bitcoin.
Speaker 4: So I think we're under this illusion of growth and expansion.
Speaker 4: They tell you that CPI is two percent, and for
Speaker 4: the most part, CPI is because CPI, the consumer price
Speaker 4: index is it's a measure that can be highly manipulated,
Speaker 4: and it has changed. If people actually dig into what
Speaker 4: goes in the metrics that go into CPI, it has
Speaker 4: changed drastically over the last few decades. So it accounts
Speaker 4: for things like, okay, well, if a car, for example,
Speaker 4: is getting more expensive, Oh wait, but it has some
Speaker 4: new technology. You can you know, your your music's now
Speaker 4: more digital, or you have a GPS built in. So
Speaker 4: we're going to negate that inflation because the technical components
Speaker 4: are a little bit better. Oh wait, you know, steak
Speaker 4: got more expensive. A lot of people are choosing not
Speaker 4: to even buy stak. They're actually turning to chicken. So
Speaker 4: we're going to actually put chicken into the basket instead
Speaker 4: of steak. So they manipulate the basket to tell you
Speaker 4: inflation is two percent. Meanwhile, the rate at which the
Speaker 4: money is actually expanding, if you measure it by M two,
Speaker 4: which is the kind of agreed upon index for monetary supply,
Speaker 4: it's actually increasing between six and eight percent annually. So
Speaker 4: if you are not getting a raise of eight nine percent,
Speaker 4: you are actually just keeping up with the rate at
Speaker 4: which they're expanding the money supply. A lot of people,
Speaker 4: again don't realize that, and so yes, assets have been
Speaker 4: going up because that's where money tends to go. And
Speaker 4: who has the majority of assets Wealthy people, Right, Wealthy
Speaker 4: people hold the majority of the assets. And so when
Speaker 4: they manipulate interest rates down, which they did for basically
Speaker 4: two decades, and when they expand the money supply, the
Speaker 4: first recipients of that money, they tend to do things
Speaker 4: like buyback shares of stock, they manipulate essentially real estate prib.
Speaker 4: They go into real estate, they buy real estate. So
Speaker 4: all of this is affecting the very things that the
Speaker 4: working class can no longer afford because their wages are
Speaker 4: only going up by about three point nine percent. So
Speaker 4: this is actually something I wrote about wrote about in
Speaker 4: my book that's coming out this fall. Bitcoin is for Everyone.
Speaker 4: I wrote about how how money supply expansion is moving
Speaker 4: at a much faster rate than wages, which is why
Speaker 4: so many people feel like they can never catch up
Speaker 4: because yes, they're getting a raise, but when you zoom
Speaker 4: out again, the money supply is growing much faster than
Speaker 4: their wages are. And so that's why I think the
Speaker 4: working class is sitting there going, yeah, why don't you
Speaker 4: tax the rich because they've got all the stuff. We're
Speaker 4: working harder than ever. We don't have anything, and we
Speaker 4: don't know how to take care of our families, and
Speaker 4: I think that's why we've become so polarized politically. But
Speaker 4: it's really two sides of the same coin. It's a
Speaker 4: broken monetary system and red blue left right. It's not
Speaker 4: going to fix it until we fix the money.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I wonder too if that's it seems like we've
Speaker 3: seen a divide among classes.
Speaker 1: Too, as opposed to just blue versus red.
Speaker 3: But like, you're highly need the problem here inflation. But
Speaker 3: practically speaking, though, how are you actually using US dollars?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 3: Because you can say that, oh, this is ideally what
Speaker 3: we'd moved towards, and you know, when it comes to like,
Speaker 3: I guess bitcoin as an actual currency, but you can't
Speaker 3: use bitcoin to actually pay for groceries at the grocery
Speaker 3: store that you're talking about that are going up in price.
Speaker 3: Practically speaking, how are you interacting, I guess, with the
Speaker 3: current financial system as it exists.
Speaker 4: Well, I think this is a great question because there's
Speaker 4: sort of a debate about whether bitcoin is a currency
Speaker 4: or is it an asset. I actually believe that first
Speaker 4: it will be an asset before it turns into a
Speaker 4: mainstream currency. And the reason is because it is going
Speaker 4: up in value and your dollars are losing purchasing power.
Speaker 4: So most people want to spend their dollars, which are
Speaker 4: going to continue to get inflated and debates, and they
Speaker 4: want to save in bitcoin. That makes sense to me, right,
Speaker 4: So increasingly merchants, I think, are going to incentivize people
Speaker 4: to try to spend their bitcoin because what do they want?
Speaker 4: What does everyone want? They want to accumulate bitcoin. So
Speaker 4: if you can get people to purchase whatever it may
Speaker 4: be with bitcoin, I think we're going to see an
Speaker 4: increase in that. We're already seeing places like one of
Speaker 4: the most posts popular apartment rental companies in Los Angeles,
Speaker 4: owned by Rick Caruso, they accept bitcoin for rent. More
Speaker 4: and more companies are starting to say, hey, here's an option,
Speaker 4: you can pay in bitcoin if you want to. But
Speaker 4: a lot of especially hardcore bitcoiners, they don't want to
Speaker 4: spend their bitcoin. They want to save it for the
Speaker 4: future because there's only going to be twenty one million.
Speaker 4: You want to race to accumulate as much as you
Speaker 4: possibly can. But in the future, again, if this does
Speaker 4: become more of a monetary standard, which I do see
Speaker 4: a future WHEREK could be. Then I think that we
Speaker 4: will see more and more commerce denominated and paid for
Speaker 4: in bitcoin. Right now, though obviously governments are incentivized to
Speaker 4: have their fiat currencies be the mediums of exchange. They
Speaker 4: want to be able to tax people in their fiat
Speaker 4: currencies and levy that as sort of the medium of
Speaker 4: exchange that's accepted by decree, right But I think that
Speaker 4: things are changing because governments have really abused their power
Speaker 4: over money, which is why bitcoin exists in the first place.
Speaker 4: And so it's going to be very hard to convince
Speaker 4: people to save in a form of money that just
Speaker 4: gets debased and inflated every single year. And that's what
Speaker 4: I think we're seeing with US treasuries right now. We're
Speaker 4: sort of in a between a rock and a hard
Speaker 4: place because we need to keep expanding our debt. That's
Speaker 4: how the whole system is now underpinned with these US treasuries.
Speaker 4: But why would someone hold treasuries when the real rate
Speaker 4: of return is negative because they keep inflating the money
Speaker 4: supply far greater than the rate that you're earning an interest.
Speaker 4: So that's a huge dilemma, and.
Speaker 2: There are historical realities of this happening in countries around
Speaker 2: the world at different periods of time, where the currency
Speaker 2: becomes so devalued the people are using the currency for
Speaker 2: toilet paper, wallpaper, because it's more valuable in those ways
Speaker 2: than it is to spend on stuff. You have to
Speaker 2: have a billion dollars essentially in that currency to afford
Speaker 2: a meal, and so even if you're incredibly rich, the
Speaker 2: value of the currency gets deflated away so significantly that
Speaker 2: people are living in poverty. I'm curious, so too, you
Speaker 2: talk about the haves and have nots under the current system,
Speaker 2: is there a possibility for a half and have nots
Speaker 2: in the bitcoin system? Essentially early adopters first, late adopters,
Speaker 2: because I just think about what's happened with the price
Speaker 2: a bitcoin over the past ten years, and gosh, it
Speaker 2: feels like that people who are thinking about getting in
Speaker 2: now the price of skyrocketed so significantly.
Speaker 1: Are they too late?
Speaker 4: They're definitely not too late. It's still very early for
Speaker 4: all of us in bitcoin. And this is actually one
Speaker 4: of the things that's most empowering about this piece of technology.
Speaker 4: We've never had an asset like this whose total addressable
Speaker 4: market is eight billion people. So yes, early adopters of
Speaker 4: course benefit from the earliest massive price swings and appreciation.
Speaker 4: But think think about the early adopters of Amazon stock, right,
Speaker 4: they're probably living in they're nice, they're nice mansions and
Speaker 4: have their yachts and all that. But a kid in
Speaker 4: a developing nation could not have purchased a share of
Speaker 4: Amazon stock. They can't buy a fraction of a mansion
Speaker 4: in Miami Beach and watches that appreciates, but they can
Speaker 4: purchase a fraction of a bitcoin. And I think that again,
Speaker 4: in the future, it's a system with a finite supply
Speaker 4: where you have to provide value or expend resources in
Speaker 4: order to get bitcoin. We've never had really something like
Speaker 4: that that the whole world can buy it connected through
Speaker 4: this digital economy, or work for it or earn it,
Speaker 4: and so it's going to be a constant I think
Speaker 4: exchange of value around the world in a way we've
Speaker 4: never seen. This is why I actually think that we're
Speaker 4: going to enter an era of abundance and prosperity that
Speaker 4: we haven't seen before, because at the base layer, we're
Speaker 4: going to have a form of capital that no one
Speaker 4: can manipulate and steal from under us. Like inflation is
Speaker 4: a hidden tax, it just steals from us. Bitcoin does
Speaker 4: the opposite. It reinforces the base layer of all of
Speaker 4: our interactions through commerce, through business, through money in a
Speaker 4: way that no one can cheat and manipulate. I think
Speaker 4: that that will actually usher in the most opportunity for
Speaker 4: the most amount of people. Well, the early adopters have benefited, sure,
Speaker 4: but there if they're going to want to you know,
Speaker 4: live and eat and travel and all that, they're going
Speaker 4: to have to spend their bitcoin eventually because someone's going
Speaker 4: to say, hey, the only way you can get this
Speaker 4: is if you pay me in bitcoin. Now we're talking
Speaker 4: about a world probably you know, decades from now. I
Speaker 4: think that the transition will take a long time because
Speaker 4: dollars are still really entrenched in the whole global system,
Speaker 4: and most debt is denominated in dollars and most people
Speaker 4: transact in dollars. But I think over the long time horizon,
Speaker 4: we will transition into this bitcoin standard because it's better
Speaker 4: and most people will vote with their money.
Speaker 1: What do you think about stable coins?
Speaker 3: I feel like there are more brokerages and investing firms
Speaker 3: in I guess they're talking about those, it almost seems
Speaker 3: like crypto light or Bitcoin light almost where it's just like, Okay,
Speaker 3: you don't want to own the actual thing.
Speaker 2: For a lot of folks, you can't stomach the swings
Speaker 2: and price.
Speaker 3: You're brand new to this, and so it's I guess,
Speaker 3: what are your thoughts about about some of these different
Speaker 3: stable coins?
Speaker 5: Sure, well, let's keep it really really simple.
Speaker 4: A stable coin essentially, especially if you're talking about the
Speaker 4: dollar back to stable coins, that is a digital dollar,
Speaker 4: and what is the dollar designed to do. It's designed
Speaker 4: to inflate and increase in supply. These stable coin companies,
Speaker 4: it's been a wild ride to watch because some of
Speaker 4: them are now purchasing more US treasuries than entire countries,
Speaker 4: like tether Tethers, I think the seventh largest buyer of
Speaker 4: US treasuries. So they're essentially just printing money because they're
Speaker 4: sitting on all those treasuries earning risk free interest, and
Speaker 4: they're growing and I think that their profits for like
Speaker 4: one hundred people in their entire company almost exceeded Goldman Sacks.
Speaker 4: So it's wild right, and obviously US banks and US
Speaker 4: companies are looking at this saying we want a piece
Speaker 4: of this action. So that's really one of the priorities
Speaker 4: Wall Street, the big banks. They want to be able
Speaker 4: to issue their own stable coins, and the US dollar
Speaker 4: wants to prioritize, or the US Congress and the US
Speaker 4: government wants to prioritize this because they want to extend
Speaker 4: dollar dominance. If you create more demand for the dollar
Speaker 4: around the world, that benefits us, especially if these companies
Speaker 4: are all backing the dollars with treasuries. What do we need.
Speaker 4: We need buyers of treasuries. So I just see, you know,
Speaker 4: stable coins as the future. It's a digital version of
Speaker 4: the dollar backed by US treasuries. And I would never
Speaker 4: save in a stable coin right because it's just going
Speaker 4: to continue to get devalued.
Speaker 5: But I think that it.
Speaker 4: Will be an entry point for a lot of people
Speaker 4: as they start to use this technology and use crypto
Speaker 4: rails in order to save in bitcoin, so, you know,
Speaker 4: spend your dollars to spend your stable coins, but save
Speaker 4: in bitcoin.
Speaker 2: The price of bitcoin can fluctuate wildly, and some people
Speaker 2: have said that it's essentially akin to when you look
Speaker 2: at the movements of the stock market, Bitcoin mirrors the
Speaker 2: S and P in some ways, but more extreme, And
Speaker 2: so I could see why people who want are willing
Speaker 2: to take greater levels of risk put more money into
Speaker 2: bitcoin because they're hoping for greater reward. But that also
Speaker 2: I think incentivizes people to speculate in bitcoin, especially with
Speaker 2: inter day movements that can be significant. How do you
Speaker 2: think about You're talking about holding bitcoin, holding it for
Speaker 2: the long haul, and I think that has been a
Speaker 2: mantra for a lot of people in the bitcoin space.
Speaker 2: But then there are other people who say, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think I want to try to make some money
Speaker 2: on a day to day basis, just kind of speculating
Speaker 2: on where the price of bitcoin goes. How do you
Speaker 2: think about that?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I'm not a day trader. I wish people
Speaker 4: luck who day trade this asset because it is very volatile.
Speaker 4: I mean, obviously, you know, people can gamble at the
Speaker 4: casino and make a huge amount of money or they
Speaker 4: can lose a lot. So I don't recommend day trading.
Speaker 4: I especially don't do not recommend recommend using leverage because
Speaker 4: there can be very significant swings that wash people out,
Speaker 4: so be careful. This is a long term hold strategy
Speaker 4: for me. I think that if you understand bitcoin. If
Speaker 4: you've taken the time to really study this asset class
Speaker 4: in network, then you have a longer time horizon and
Speaker 4: you don't look at the everyday price wings. I mean,
Speaker 4: I'm at the point where when bitcoin dips like it
Speaker 4: has been over the last few weeks, I get excited.
Speaker 4: I'm like, oh my gosh, mo and my target buy
Speaker 4: orders just got execute because bitcoin dropped. This is an
Speaker 4: excellent place to just add a little bit more. And
Speaker 4: I actually celebrate the dips as an opportunity. Now that,
Speaker 4: obviously for a newcomer, is very, very scary. You have
Speaker 4: to really learn about bitcoin before you can stomach the volatility,
Speaker 4: and I certainly was not ready to do that at
Speaker 4: the very beginning. I was extremely skeptical, and when it
Speaker 4: made price wings, I thought, oh my gosh, any day
Speaker 4: it's going to go to zero. But that was coming
Speaker 4: from my ignorance about what it really was that I
Speaker 4: was investing in. And nothing does that for you other
Speaker 4: than just taking the time to study it. So volatility
Speaker 4: doesn't bother me. In fact, I think that it can
Speaker 4: really be, as they say, a feature, not a bug,
Speaker 4: in the sense that volatility can increase your sharp ratio
Speaker 4: and actually increase your returns across a portfolio that's very diversified,
Speaker 4: even if you just add a tiny bit of bitcoin.
Speaker 4: And you can see that when you look at tools
Speaker 4: like the Knackomoto portfolio, or you look at statistics from
Speaker 4: I believe Preston Pish was the first person to note
Speaker 4: that if you had just invested ninety eight percent cash
Speaker 4: and two percent bitcoin over the four year cycle between
Speaker 4: twenty twenty and like twenty twenty four, you would have
Speaker 4: outperformed the S and P five hundred and anybody outperformed.
Speaker 5: So isn't that crazy?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so a little really does go a long way.
Speaker 4: And I don't think it's going to be a question of, oh,
Speaker 4: do you own bitcoin in a portfolio? You know, five
Speaker 4: years from now, it's going to be how much do
Speaker 4: you own? Is it two percent or is it more?
Speaker 4: In my opinion, it's going to be closer to like
Speaker 4: is it ten twenty fifty percent of your portfolio?
Speaker 3: All Right, you're getting into, like, I guess, the practical
Speaker 3: side of things, Like you've made the best case for
Speaker 3: it from like a very high level why our current
Speaker 3: system is broken. But Natalie, we've got more questions to
Speaker 3: get to we are going to talk about more of
Speaker 3: the pragmatic practical steps when it comes to implementing bitcoin
Speaker 3: into our portfolios. We'll get to that more right after this.
Speaker 1: All right, we're back.
Speaker 3: We're still talking about bitcoin with Natalie Brunell, who know
Speaker 3: a lot about bitcoin, and Natalie. Matt is ready to
Speaker 3: take the red pill or whatever color pills or I
Speaker 3: should have done that, I should have done that. He's
Speaker 3: so ready. Let's see if he takes it by the
Speaker 3: end of this episode. Maybe I maybe I I've secretly
Speaker 3: been micro do saying orange pill over the past four years.
Speaker 2: All right, I'm curious. So you kind of talked about
Speaker 2: just briefly there, how you think about when you buy
Speaker 2: more bitcoin? And it sounds like you have metrics in
Speaker 2: place to say that are predetermined instead of on a
Speaker 2: given day letting your emotions get ahead of you and say,
Speaker 2: all I think I'm going to buy some bitcoin now
Speaker 2: because oh dropped eight percent. Do you have predetermined measures?
Speaker 2: How are you are you dollar cost averaging into bitcoin?
Speaker 2: How do you think about when and how much bitcoin you,
Speaker 2: you know, increase in your holdings?
Speaker 4: I buy bitcoin every single day. I dollar cost average
Speaker 4: every day Yeah, I have a DCA setup for daily buys.
Speaker 4: It's great because you know a lot of the platforms
Speaker 4: if you do a d C eight, there are no
Speaker 4: like I buy on River, no fees if you buy daily, weekly, monthly, whatever.
Speaker 5: So that's great.
Speaker 4: And I just figure I'm going to spend ten dollars
Speaker 4: on like a coffee if I walk out the door,
Speaker 4: why not put ten dollars or whatever out you're comfortable
Speaker 4: with and in bitcoin, and a little again goes a
Speaker 4: long way. I also just find ways to earn bitcoin
Speaker 4: in any way I can. So I accept bitcoin from
Speaker 4: people that I partner with or my sponsors.
Speaker 5: I use bitcoin.
Speaker 4: Reward credit cards so that I earn bitcoin back instead
Speaker 4: of like airline miles and hotel points that inflate at
Speaker 4: forty percent a year.
Speaker 5: I don't know if you knew that, but that's a fact.
Speaker 2: Hey, what's the best bitcoin rewards credit card.
Speaker 1: In your opinion?
Speaker 4: So Gemini dot Com Slash Natalie that's a great one,
Speaker 4: and also Fold. They haven't released THEIRS yet, but they're
Speaker 4: coming out with one, but I highly recommend Geminis because
Speaker 4: THEIRS is out right now. But I also do target buys,
Speaker 4: so I watch macro very closely. If you watch my show,
Speaker 4: you know, I bring on analysts who are both bullish
Speaker 4: and bearish on everything that is happening in the economy,
Speaker 4: and when there's a great amount of signal that hey,
Speaker 4: we might crash soon, I create some target buy orders
Speaker 4: online where I say, okay, if bitcoin drops to seventy
Speaker 4: k I'm going to purchase this amount of bitcoin. And
Speaker 4: so those are just sitting there, and while the money's
Speaker 4: sitting there, I'm actually earning interest in bitcoin on my account.
Speaker 4: So it's like a win win across the board. And
Speaker 4: maybe that buy order never gets executed. But recently someone
Speaker 4: by buy orders were because we crashed down to seventy
Speaker 4: something thousand.
Speaker 2: How did you deal with the crypto winter as it were? Right,
Speaker 2: we're extended downturn in bitcoin.
Speaker 3: Values that and for some people, I think Natalie just
Speaker 3: kept buying Joel, did you have a digit?
Speaker 2: Were you buying every day? Because some people were saying
Speaker 2: this might be the end? Is this the time that
Speaker 2: bitcoin gets unproven, that thesa gets gets unproven? Were you
Speaker 2: were you doubting or were you were you just buying
Speaker 2: like normal?
Speaker 4: You know, I said on a recent show that I'm
Speaker 4: so grateful for that crypto winter, because I thought at
Speaker 4: the time that we were going to sail away to
Speaker 4: one hundred fifty two hundred K, and it is harder
Speaker 4: to accumulate when the price per coin is that much, right,
Speaker 4: But having an almost eighty percent, I believe I forgot
Speaker 4: the total it drew down in the bottom of the
Speaker 4: bear market. That was actually a gift to those of
Speaker 4: us who have put in the time and the work,
Speaker 4: because yes, I was buying. I thought that it was
Speaker 4: going to go down to ten K, and I was
Speaker 4: going to load up as much as I possibly could
Speaker 4: with any savings that I had.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I was.
Speaker 4: I was buying all the way down the bear market,
Speaker 4: and it was kind of one of those first times
Speaker 4: where I realized that I now understand the age old
Speaker 4: investment advice that you should you buy when there's blood
Speaker 4: in the streets, you should buy when there's all the fear,
Speaker 4: And I never really understood that, and I was always
Speaker 4: scared of that paradigm. But because I had put in
Speaker 4: so much work with bitcoin, and I was highly convicted
Speaker 4: and had sort of the evidence and the years of
Speaker 4: studying to back that up, I felt comfortable buying the
Speaker 4: dip as hard as I possibly could, so I'm very
Speaker 4: grateful for the crypto winter. I don't think we'll ever
Speaker 4: see prices below fifty thousand. I'd be shocked if we did.
Speaker 4: And yet we're still so early. Going back to that
Speaker 4: earlier point of at one hundred thousand dollars per bitcoin,
Speaker 4: which we have retreated from. That's a two trillion dollar
Speaker 4: asset class. That's tiny compared to the other asset classes
Speaker 4: that we're essentially competing with, which are gold at twenty trillion,
Speaker 4: equities at one hundred trillion, real estate at hundreds of trillions,
Speaker 4: and bonds at hundreds of trillions. And I think that
Speaker 4: over time Bitcoin will demonetize these other asset classes, and
Speaker 4: to what extent I don't know, but I would feel
Speaker 4: comfortable projecting that in a few decades we're at fifty
Speaker 4: trillion market cap, if not one hundred trillion.
Speaker 3: All right by now, Joel, I'm just thinking about Natalie
Speaker 3: literally buying daily, so she truly is that's like averaging
Speaker 3: to the extreme. She really is microdosing. Yeah, yeah, on bitcoin.
Speaker 3: And now, well you mentioned that you're buying. You've got
Speaker 3: these daily orders set up on River like, what's the
Speaker 3: difference when it comes to practically owning bitcoin. You've got
Speaker 3: different brokerages. I've purchased bitcoin over on robin Hood before.
Speaker 3: But then you've got folks who talk about cold storage wallets,
Speaker 3: and if you don't own you have your own wallet,
Speaker 3: it's not really your bitcoin talk to us about because
Speaker 3: I think that's a barrier.
Speaker 2: ETFs are another option for people.
Speaker 3: Now, it's sure, right, yeah, but I guess, and so
Speaker 3: you've got all these different ways to get into holding
Speaker 3: actual actual bitcoin, But I guess I'm curious specifically between
Speaker 3: buying bitcoin with a brokerage like robin Hood or in
Speaker 3: your case, River versus folks who've got like a cold
Speaker 3: storage wallet.
Speaker 4: Well, the great thing is optionality. I really think that
Speaker 4: the more ways that people can buy and interact with
Speaker 4: bitcoin the better, and then people will choose based on
Speaker 4: their risk tolerance and things like convenience. Unfortunately, right, so
Speaker 4: recently the rules were changed in the memo from the
Speaker 4: SEC was changed so that banks can actually start custding bitcoin.
Speaker 4: And we're not there yet, but once the really big
Speaker 4: banks like Chase and Wells Fargo and all of them
Speaker 4: start offering bitcoin, I'm pretty sure a lot of people
Speaker 4: coming in will say, well, why would I go to
Speaker 4: some small crypto exchange when I could just buy at
Speaker 4: my bank right now. The thing that I think people
Speaker 4: should just be aware of is it is important to
Speaker 4: do your homework with bitcoin because it's unlike any other
Speaker 4: asset in that it is a bare instrument that is
Speaker 4: intended to remove all counterparty risks. So you can actually
Speaker 4: take self custody of your bitcoin. You can purchase a
Speaker 4: cold storage wallet, or create a multi key situation, a
Speaker 4: multi sig scheme to basically decentralize and diversify your points
Speaker 4: of failure or risk so that you don't have one
Speaker 4: key accessing your bitcoin. Some people are willing to learn
Speaker 4: about that process, which I really encourage. I don't think
Speaker 4: it's difficult or technical, and others are saying, no, I
Speaker 4: don't want to manage my own keys. I don't want
Speaker 4: to have to worry about that. I'd rather just keep
Speaker 4: it at a bank or buy exposure to bitcoin, not
Speaker 4: really the underlying asset through one of the ETFs. I
Speaker 4: think this is just a really personal choice, and I'm
Speaker 4: a huge believer in the market, so I'm not going
Speaker 4: to dictate to you.
Speaker 5: What's right for you.
Speaker 4: I think that you know, there's sometimes technology barriers and
Speaker 4: depending on what age you are, that kind of informs
Speaker 4: what you're willing to do. But let me just tell you,
Speaker 4: anyone can take self custody. If you don't know how
Speaker 4: to do it, there are great one on one personalized
Speaker 4: services that walk you through it, like the Bitcoin Way.
Speaker 4: The Bitcoin Way had an eighty two year old customer
Speaker 4: recently takes self custody of their bitcoin. Like literally, anyone
Speaker 4: can do it, So I recommend it just because then
Speaker 4: you remove all counterparty risk. You're not trusting a bank,
Speaker 4: you're not trusting inn exchange or an institution. The bitcoin
Speaker 4: is fully owned by you. It can never be confiscated,
Speaker 4: and you can create multiple keys, and you know, you
Speaker 4: can have a situation within a state planner that you
Speaker 4: will your keys to your children. All of that can
Speaker 4: be set up. It's just what are you willing to
Speaker 4: do and how much time are you willing to take
Speaker 4: to learn about how to do it.
Speaker 2: What's your take on other cryptocurrencies? And there have even
Speaker 2: been alternative cryptocurrency. The ETS announced too coming down the
Speaker 2: pike saying hey, we're gonna have actually an ETF that
Speaker 2: offers exposure to a range of crypto and because you
Speaker 2: seem so bitcoin centric specifically, and yet there are like
Speaker 2: what hundreds of cryptocurrencies that exist, thousands, thousands, and some
Speaker 2: of which are based on memes, jokes, some of which
Speaker 2: seem like don't have any They don't seem to be
Speaker 2: equivalent to Bitcoin in any way, form or fashion. How
Speaker 2: do you think about the whole cryptocurrency space? Bitcoin gets
Speaker 2: lumped in as a cryptocurrency, but it seems also to
Speaker 2: be really unique.
Speaker 4: Yes, Bitcoin is very special. It is unlike all the rest.
Speaker 4: And I know that for a newcomer it might sound like, oh, well,
Speaker 4: you're just pumping your own bags. I went through that
Speaker 4: whole journey. So first, let me just say, if you're
Speaker 4: new to the space and you're looking at it and
Speaker 4: you don't really see the difference, I was right there
Speaker 4: with you. In twenty seventeen, I bought a bunch of
Speaker 4: the other tokens. I thought, oh, well, these are cheaper,
Speaker 4: and I could pick up a bunch of these for
Speaker 4: in less than a penny. I was looking at it
Speaker 4: from kind of a gambling mentality and honestly just totally
Speaker 4: speculating and then it took me years to really wrap
Speaker 4: my head around bitcoin and how beautiful and technically perfectly
Speaker 4: engineered the consensus mechanism the mining actually is. It is
Speaker 4: a commodity, a digital commodity that is backed by energy
Speaker 4: and math that no one can manipulate or hack or compromise.
Speaker 4: It is really really special. We've never had anything like this,
Speaker 4: and bitcoin is the only thing that could serve as
Speaker 4: a reserve grade asset or as a new base layer
Speaker 4: for a monetary system, whereas everything else I really see
Speaker 4: as an industry of mainly digital equities. I do not
Speaker 4: want my money to have a CEO. I think it
Speaker 4: was totally selfless and amazing that Satoshi Nakamoto walked away
Speaker 4: from bitcoin, never revealing his or her identity, and also
Speaker 4: never extracting a profit or creating some sort of foundation
Speaker 4: or trying to market his token. He just created it
Speaker 4: and sort of gave it to the world to organically
Speaker 4: succeed or fail. And I think that that's incredible.
Speaker 5: I mean he could have, right, I mean we could.
Speaker 4: So Toshi could be someone that tried to have a
Speaker 4: bitcoin company and a face in front of it and
Speaker 4: tell you, like, you know what the plans are in
Speaker 4: the future, and that's what we see with a lot
Speaker 4: of the other tokens. We see founders, we see vcs,
Speaker 4: we see foundations, and I don't trust people. The point
Speaker 4: of bitcoin is I don't have to trust any of
Speaker 4: these people. I don't have to worry about ten years
Speaker 4: from now if one of them decides to change the
Speaker 4: code or propose something different. None of that risk exists
Speaker 4: in bitcoin, which makes it truly unique. And I just
Speaker 4: urge people to be careful with crypto because everything falls
Speaker 4: against bitcoin. I just urge you to take any token
Speaker 4: that you're looking at, price it in bitcoin, and you
Speaker 4: will see it just crashing to zero. And that's what
Speaker 4: I think people should pay more attention to, because yes,
Speaker 4: you can get lucky in the short term, but if
Speaker 4: you do sell it and buy bitcoin's that's what I think.
Speaker 1: Joel.
Speaker 3: Doesn't this sound like something that Satoshi would actually say herself?
Speaker 3: Is it?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 3: Now, like you talked about it being perfectly designed, Like
Speaker 3: speak to that, like I guess the security aspect of bitcoin.
Speaker 3: You say that it's it's perfectly secure, But what about
Speaker 3: we're reading a little bit more about the advent of
Speaker 3: quantum computing and just what some of these computers are
Speaker 3: are capable of. Do you, I guess does that not
Speaker 3: concern you at all?
Speaker 5: It does not.
Speaker 4: I've actually looked into this for the last couple of
Speaker 4: months because all of a sudden there was a new way.
Speaker 4: There's always new fud, right, fear, uncertainty, doubt, and the
Speaker 4: latest fud has been about Quantum's going to break Bitcoin.
Speaker 5: Well, I just I just.
Speaker 4: Want people to know that, first of all, the Sha
Speaker 4: two fifty six hashing algorithm, which brings so much security
Speaker 4: to Bitcoin, there's gonna be a lot that's going to
Speaker 4: be cracked before that. We are nowhere near the level
Speaker 4: of being able to crack that. And so these AI
Speaker 4: tools that are coming out and even Microsoft talking about,
Speaker 4: oh well we have something that has like this amount
Speaker 4: of care bits, da dada, we're gonna be able to
Speaker 4: accomplish this in terms of computing. I just want people
Speaker 4: to remember that everything will be cracked before Bitcoin, every
Speaker 4: banking system. When I go first, the nuclear codes all
Speaker 4: of your all of your Internet activity, right, so everyone
Speaker 4: is incentivized for that not to happen. And do you
Speaker 4: think that if Microsoft basically came up with an AI
Speaker 4: tool that would crack all of its systems that it
Speaker 4: would sell it like. No, I mean, it's it's kind
Speaker 4: of a it's kind of It goes to what I
Speaker 4: always say about the free market, which is that the
Speaker 4: free market's the best referee because it will it has
Speaker 4: like self protection mechanisms in place. We don't need government
Speaker 4: interference and all the laws that exists because the free
Speaker 4: market will actually protect itself in many ways, just like
Speaker 4: nature protects itself. And I yes, computing is going to
Speaker 4: increase and maybe there comes a time many years from
Speaker 4: now where we have to upgrade everything to quantum resistance.
Speaker 4: But I will tell you that I'm not worried about
Speaker 4: bitcoin compared to everything else will come before it.
Speaker 2: So going from something that is like future oriented, what
Speaker 2: about something incredibly simplistic. We were talking to someone recently,
Speaker 2: Matt and I were who is a big bitcoin investor,
Speaker 2: and she mentioned, and I'd never heard of this before,
Speaker 2: five dollars rench attacks, and that is like the most
Speaker 2: basic threat. I guess, this most simple thing is a
Speaker 2: dark alley and a wrench in your face, where a
Speaker 2: personal attack on somebody who holds a lot of cryptocurrency.
Speaker 2: How worried are you about that. How prevalent is that
Speaker 2: almost like someone saying, hey, can I borrow your phone
Speaker 2: and then transferring money from your Venmo account to their
Speaker 2: own account. How big of a problem is potential violence
Speaker 2: in stealing people's bitcoin stashes.
Speaker 5: So yeah, I.
Speaker 4: Actually did a few episodes recently about this because we
Speaker 4: are seeing an increase and people make themselves out to
Speaker 4: be targets. Right. Some of the most recent instances where
Speaker 4: we've seen this are people talking very very loudly about
Speaker 4: all the crypto that they hold, and then all of
Speaker 4: a sudden someone tries to literally harm them or kidnap
Speaker 4: them or threaten them with violence.
Speaker 5: So it is a reality.
Speaker 4: So I would urge people, first of all, if you're
Speaker 4: investing in this space like no one's no one's tweeting
Speaker 4: about their Amazon balance, right, Like I just I just
Speaker 4: think you be a little bit more private and be
Speaker 4: a little bit more careful about what information you're putting
Speaker 4: out there because so much of us, you know, our
Speaker 4: identities and our personal infos already online, So don't add
Speaker 4: to becoming a potential target. Number two, create ways to
Speaker 4: have barriers around your bitcoin. What does that mean, Well,
Speaker 4: don't have single points of failure. Don't have a situation
Speaker 4: where even if someone were to take your phone that
Speaker 4: they could immediately send bitcoin. A lot of the platforms
Speaker 4: right now, if you were to have a hot wallet,
Speaker 4: actually create vaults where you have to wait a certain
Speaker 4: amount of days to withdraw more than say one thousand
Speaker 4: dollars of bitcoin. So like my platform, for example, River
Speaker 4: creates what they call a force field around your account.
Speaker 4: And if you're trying to transfer all of a sudden
Speaker 4: out of nowhere, you know, tens of thousands of dollars,
Speaker 4: that's going to be a flag to them that hey,
Speaker 4: this might be something nefarious going on, and we're not
Speaker 4: going to allow that bitcoin to move until we verify
Speaker 4: that this is actually Natalie sending it. So a lot
Speaker 4: of the companies are creating, you know, options like that
Speaker 4: and tools like that.
Speaker 5: And then again going back to.
Speaker 4: Multi sig multi key custody, if you take bitcoin into
Speaker 4: self custodying, you create a multi key scenario. There's nothing
Speaker 4: that the person could do to get your bitcoin if
Speaker 4: you have to get another key that's in another state,
Speaker 4: Like they could want it, but they can't get it,
Speaker 4: they can't access it. So I just think you need
Speaker 4: to do your homework in terms of being able to
Speaker 4: decentralize distribute any points of risk. And then yeah, just
Speaker 4: be careful what you're posting because they're dangerous, scary people
Speaker 4: out there that are wanting to take from you, and
Speaker 4: you just you have to do yours to protect yourself.
Speaker 4: But it can happen, you know, not just for bitcoin,
Speaker 4: but for a multitude of reasons.
Speaker 3: Okay, I like how you continue to say, do your homework,
Speaker 3: and so I guess I want a last note here
Speaker 3: on I guess practical advice or suggestions, like do you
Speaker 3: have a recommendation on what percentage of individuals investable assets
Speaker 3: that should be in bitcoin versus the stock market, especially
Speaker 3: for a lot of folks out there who are are
Speaker 3: newer to it, and we typically are like, you know,
Speaker 3: we understand that there's a case for it, but be
Speaker 3: super careful and how much you a lot? Based on
Speaker 3: what you're saying, I guess I wouldn't be surprised for
Speaker 3: you to say, you know, so, like you said a
Speaker 3: second ago, ninety eight percent of your portfolio could be cash,
Speaker 3: and then like so, basically one hundred percent of your
Speaker 3: actual investable assets are dumped and bitcoin, but I'm I
Speaker 3: guess I'm curious to hear your thoughts on somebody who
Speaker 3: is new to bitcoin. What you would recommend from a
Speaker 3: percentage damp stock market. Do you still invest in stock?
Speaker 4: I think that everyone should be invested in bitcoin. I
Speaker 4: think it's that actually a lot easier in terms of
Speaker 4: an investment strategy, because you just set it and forget
Speaker 4: it and just keep accumulating. I think that over time
Speaker 4: there will be more tools, like you could borrow against
Speaker 4: your bitcoin. People are going to be taking out, you know,
Speaker 4: to buy a house. They're going to be using bitcoin
Speaker 4: as collateral. Like there's going to be a future of
Speaker 4: services and products that we haven't even envisioned yet, but
Speaker 4: definitely get off zero. So I think that if you're very,
Speaker 4: very new and the volatility makes you nervous, or you
Speaker 4: need to make a really big purchase in the next
Speaker 4: couple of years, then keep your allocation very small, you know,
Speaker 4: one to two percent, five percent. But as you learn,
Speaker 4: believe me, your conviction starts to grow. And so yeah,
Speaker 4: I mean I ended up. I was actually upset that
Speaker 4: I even still had for a time being gold in
Speaker 4: my portfolio or some of these stocks, because bitcoins so
Speaker 4: aggressively outperformed. And you know, if I have this conviction,
Speaker 4: but I'm not really putting my money where my mouth is,
Speaker 4: then do I have conviction. So I eventually ended up
Speaker 4: just shifting a lot of my positions to just being
Speaker 4: very bitcoin focused in my retirement cown. I do own
Speaker 4: the bitcoin ETFs because that's just it's just easy to
Speaker 4: hold in a retirement portfolio as opposed to spot bitcoin.
Speaker 4: And then I hold spot Bitcoin outside of my retirement
Speaker 4: accounts and self custody, and I'm like a full on
Speaker 4: bitcoin maxie, and I'm super happy about it.
Speaker 1: That's awesome.
Speaker 2: Right, We've got a few more questions to get to
Speaker 2: with you, Natalie, including well, if government is part of
Speaker 2: the problem and part of the reason that we need bitcoin,
Speaker 2: what happens when they enter into bitcoin ownership. We'll talk
Speaker 2: about that and more. Right after this, we're back from.
Speaker 3: The break again speaking with Natalie Rutinelle and Natalie. As
Speaker 3: Joel alluded to before the break, let's talk about government policy.
Speaker 3: Because Donald Trump, he seems to be the first president
Speaker 3: to actually embrace crypto, at least I don't know, at
Speaker 3: least publicly. He announced the creation of the Strategic uh,
Speaker 3: not just bitcoin reserve, but also crypto. So I'm kind
Speaker 3: of curious as to if you think that he is
Speaker 3: wasting his time and effort with some of the other
Speaker 3: cryptos don't need harpening. But how will that impact bitcoin specifically?
Speaker 3: And then I guess just a crypto space as a whole.
Speaker 4: Well, let me just clarify something first. We have a
Speaker 4: strategic bitcoin reserve and that bitcoin is pledged not to
Speaker 4: be sold, and I think we're going to start adding
Speaker 4: to it in the next year or so. Whereas the
Speaker 4: digital assets stockpile does have crypto that was seized through
Speaker 4: civil forfeiture, but that can be sold. So what the
Speaker 4: government is saying is don't sell your bitcoin, but maybe
Speaker 4: sell the other digital assets down the road. So I
Speaker 4: wouldn't be surprised if the government actually sold a lot
Speaker 4: of those other digital assets that are in the stockpile.
Speaker 4: And we're going to definitely be focusing on a strategic
Speaker 4: bitcoin reserve. A lot of people maybe don't realize, but
Speaker 4: we have strategic reserves for other assets and commodities. We
Speaker 4: have a strategic oil reserve. People might be familiar with that.
Speaker 4: We have a strategic chie reserve. We have a strategic
Speaker 4: obviously gold, but I think what we need is a
Speaker 4: strategic bitcoin reserve because it is important for the government
Speaker 4: to recognize this technology as one that can help us
Speaker 4: address some of our many financial issues. We're a nation
Speaker 4: thirty six trillion dollars in debt. We need to keep
Speaker 4: up the demand for the US treasuries, which we talked
Speaker 4: about earlier, which is why they're so in favor of
Speaker 4: stable coins and anything that will extend dollar dominance.
Speaker 5: But what will actually help.
Speaker 4: Us grow or get out of debt. We need an
Speaker 4: asset that appreciates rapidly, that is here to stay, which
Speaker 4: we know bitcoin is, and that is finite and cannot
Speaker 4: be hacked or manipulated or inflated. So that's Bitcoin. I mean,
Speaker 4: I really do believe. I had Senator Cynthia Lummis on
Speaker 4: my show I'm releasing it this week, and she's talked
Speaker 4: about how we could cut our debt in half if
Speaker 4: we pass the Bitcoin Act and start strategically accumulating bitcoin,
Speaker 4: because Bitcoin is growing faster than any other asset, and
Speaker 4: it will out allow us to outpace this debt that
Speaker 4: we keep accumulating.
Speaker 5: And that's what I think.
Speaker 4: We need in order to be able to grow and
Speaker 4: maybe focus on sort of revitalizing the American dream that
Speaker 4: seems lost. The thing that brought my parents here. This
Speaker 4: nation was so strong and prosperous because of its economic power.
Speaker 4: It was the credit or nation. It made so many
Speaker 4: amazing things that it exported around the world. And now
Speaker 4: we're just highly financialized and all we export is our
Speaker 4: dollars and basically we just go into debt. And so
Speaker 4: I think that there's a better America ahead. I think
Speaker 4: the bitcoin age is ahead of us, and I think
Speaker 4: that if America embraces it first, we will be at
Speaker 4: a strategic advantage. So I'm so excited to see that
Speaker 4: this administration is embracing bitcoin, even if not all the
Speaker 4: politicians fully understand bitcoin yet, which they don't, But I
Speaker 4: think this is a starting point. I think we will
Speaker 4: be a leader and we will set a standard for
Speaker 4: the rest of the world.
Speaker 2: Okay, looking to the future, I don't want to hear
Speaker 2: price predictions or anything like that. I can get those
Speaker 2: on CNBC or really any financial website. So so predicts
Speaker 2: bitcoin to a million in a year and a half
Speaker 2: or something like that. That happens all the time. But
Speaker 2: when it comes to the way bitcoin interacts with our
Speaker 2: everyday lives, even people who haven't or have been really
Speaker 2: slow adopters of bitcoin. What's that going to look like?
Speaker 2: And I think the thing I'm particularly curious about. You
Speaker 2: talk about bitcoin, and that's one of the existential questions
Speaker 2: is is it an investable asset or is it a currency?
Speaker 2: And you think it's an asset that will transition into
Speaker 2: a currency. What's that look like? How does that shake out?
Speaker 2: What's the future for bitcoin?
Speaker 5: I think it's going to take a long time.
Speaker 4: My goal is to just help people learn about bitcoin
Speaker 4: so that they start saving in it, because I do
Speaker 4: think it's the most powerful and am empowering savings technology.
Speaker 4: So I think that people will increasingly save in bitcoin.
Speaker 4: There are going to be more and more tools and
Speaker 4: services to allow you to do that. I think that
Speaker 4: companies will come out with killer apps that make interacting
Speaker 4: with bitcoin on a day to day basis a little
Speaker 4: bit easier, and that will facilitate more of the medium
Speaker 4: of exchange aspect to bitcoin, so people do start spending
Speaker 4: it more for their business activities. But I just see
Speaker 4: a long time horizon where we slowly shift away from
Speaker 4: underpinning the entire system with sovereign debt and one nation's currency,
Speaker 4: and we start underpinning it with things that no one
Speaker 4: can control, and a lot of people would think that
Speaker 4: we're retransitioning back to gold, which I can understand. If
Speaker 4: you don't understand bitcoin, then you might think gold is
Speaker 4: the next best solution. I would be in that camp
Speaker 4: if bitcoin didn't exist. But because Bitcoin exists, I think
Speaker 4: it's going to eventually move into a system underpinned by
Speaker 4: bitcoin as the capital, as the pristine collateral, as the
Speaker 4: savings technology, and as the way eventually people do spend
Speaker 4: their money.
Speaker 3: Very cool, Natalie Bruneill making a great case for bitcoin.
Speaker 3: And Natalie, you mentioned your book that comes out l
Speaker 3: later this year, Bitcoin for Everyone. Do you have a
Speaker 3: scheduled publish or release date for that.
Speaker 5: I'm so excited.
Speaker 4: Yes, you can already pre order it on Amazon, Barnes
Speaker 4: and Noble, all the bookstores. It's coming out in October
Speaker 4: or November, and I'm so excited because it is the
Speaker 4: book that I wish that I had starting my journey.
Speaker 4: It explains the problem that currently exists and why bitcoin is,
Speaker 4: in my opinion, the best solution, and why everyone should
Speaker 4: buy at least a little bit of bitcoin.
Speaker 1: Nice awesome.
Speaker 2: We look forward to checking it out when it comes out. Natalie,
Speaker 2: thank you so much for joining us today on the show.
Speaker 2: We really appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Thank you, ok jil, I feel like after that conversation,
Speaker 3: did you just get orange pilled?
Speaker 1: Because we always hit stop.
Speaker 3: On the recording with the guests from the interview, and
Speaker 3: you know, we have a few words thank them for
Speaker 3: coming on, and then you and I end up talking
Speaker 3: for like fifteen minutes, and we probably just talked for
Speaker 3: about thirty minutes, and you just got pretty fired up
Speaker 3: before I resumed the recording. Here for us to come
Speaker 3: back and present some takeaways. But what do you want
Speaker 3: to share?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 2: So my big takeaway, okay, is that everyone should read
Speaker 2: more about economics, so they should understand our economic system
Speaker 2: how it works, and really the history of economics too.
Speaker 2: And like, sorry, big homework assignment, people, but I've just
Speaker 2: finished reading two incredible books by Thomas Soul, Basic Economics
Speaker 2: and Applied Economics, and I think why I'm recommending that
Speaker 2: is because I feel like this conversation with Natalie, a
Speaker 2: whole lot of the why behind bitcoin comes down to
Speaker 2: the flaws in our current economic system and the way
Speaker 2: the people in charge of the levers of power have
Speaker 2: handled our system of money.
Speaker 3: And Jill, everyone's putting you in their box of conspiracy
Speaker 3: theorists as you say.
Speaker 2: This, it's not just you know, it's truly not conspiracy.
Speaker 2: It's just the literal fact. I mean, we've noticed it
Speaker 2: with just even artificially low interest rates, what happens when
Speaker 2: the government does print more money and the inflation that
Speaker 2: causes and the pain that causes typically on the even
Speaker 2: lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum. Do I think bitcoin
Speaker 2: is the fall on solution? And I don't know, like
Speaker 2: I am down to own some bitcoin. I am probably
Speaker 2: down to own more. I feel like Natalie explained it
Speaker 2: really well, But I do think like my big takeaway
Speaker 2: is just that to understand bitcoin, even to feel like
Speaker 2: this conversation is successful, I think people need even more
Speaker 2: of a fundamental economic education, and that's that's sorely lacking
Speaker 2: in this country. So yeah, Thomas sol read Thomas Soul.
Speaker 2: That will help you out a lot.
Speaker 3: So my big takeaway will be less onerous for those
Speaker 3: who are like, yeah, dude, I'm not going to.
Speaker 1: Do that, which is they're like they see the thickness
Speaker 1: of the book. I thank you. I've got a life
Speaker 1: to live.
Speaker 3: So on that note, my big takeaway is going to
Speaker 3: be when I asked her about what percentage of your
Speaker 3: overall portfolio should be dedicated to bitcoin, and she said,
Speaker 3: it's just good to get off zero. And I interpreted
Speaker 3: that as it's better to have some than to have none.
Speaker 3: And I think even if you're thinking, well, dude, I'm
Speaker 3: not gonna completely understand how the world works, how the
Speaker 3: FED is manipulating money, FIAC currency, or you know, nudging
Speaker 3: the economy in certain directions, well you also don't have
Speaker 3: to completely understand that to diversify a little bit to
Speaker 3: head your bets. And there's a part of me that
Speaker 3: feels that that's what the US government is doing. The
Speaker 3: ability to set up to set up a strategic reserve
Speaker 3: points to the fact that you don't really know what
Speaker 3: the future holds, and do you want to double down
Speaker 3: on a system that you're not totally sure of, or
Speaker 3: do you want to perhaps quietly start having a strategic
Speaker 3: reserve when it comes to something like bitcoin. I think
Speaker 3: it's smart not only for countries, but obviously for individuals
Speaker 3: as well. I don't know if that's going to change
Speaker 3: how much I'm currently holding. Yeah, But for those out
Speaker 3: there who have had their interests piqued, I think there
Speaker 3: are some very easy ways to check it out if
Speaker 3: we wanted to.
Speaker 2: And I'm not changing a rule of them yet, But
Speaker 2: I think we've always said something like up to five
Speaker 2: percent of your portfolio, but maybe kind of what you're
Speaker 2: hinting at is it should probably be something up to
Speaker 2: five percent of Sure, you know, but until now it's
Speaker 2: been like you don't need any but if you want to,
Speaker 2: you can, And so maybe it's like, I don't know,
Speaker 2: maybe you should have a little.
Speaker 3: Bit have something, Yeah, And I think it'll get you
Speaker 3: thinking about it, and I think that can be the
Speaker 3: beginning of the helpful process of learning what it's all about.
Speaker 3: All Right, we got long winded before when we weren't recording,
Speaker 3: so we'll try to say save all of our listeners
Speaker 3: from that. But our beer that you and I enjoyed
Speaker 3: today was a stash IPA. Looks like this is Independence
Speaker 3: Brewing Company out of Austin, Is.
Speaker 1: That right, Texas? Yeah, this is one of the beers
Speaker 1: that you picked.
Speaker 3: Up while you were there in Austin for the.
Speaker 1: iHeart Podcast Awards. What were your thoughts on this beer?
Speaker 1: I liked it.
Speaker 2: It was a little dank, a little grapefruity, mildly bitter.
Speaker 2: So sometimes the hyper West Coast style IPAs can just
Speaker 2: be like too better, too hard for me to endure.
Speaker 2: This one was like, maybe it's because it's in the
Speaker 2: middle of the country. It was like it was mid bitter,
Speaker 2: which I can appreciate.
Speaker 1: So I like this one.
Speaker 3: Yep, had the dank going on, but with like a
Speaker 3: little bit of fruit, like not a specific fruit that
Speaker 3: they you know, forced into it, but just tasted great,
Speaker 3: nice and bright, juicy. Glad that you and I got
Speaker 3: to enjoy it and share it today on the episode
Speaker 3: That's Gonna Be It.
Speaker 1: For this episode, you can find show notes.
Speaker 3: Up on the website at Howtomoney dot com, and we'll
Speaker 3: make sure to link to the pre order to Natalie's book.
Speaker 3: And we didn't even know that she's coming out with
Speaker 3: a book later this year, so I'm glad we.
Speaker 1: Got to catch her early.
Speaker 3: So buddy, until next time, Best Friends Out, Best Friends Out,