Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, welcome to another episode of The Mark Moss Show.
Speaker 1: Where we're talking about bitcoin. We're talking about cryptocurrencies. We
Speaker 1: are talking about the decentralized revolution that is happening right now.
Speaker 1: We're witnessing it. Now a real or quick or recap
Speaker 1: of where we're at. We're almost wrapping up the year
Speaker 1: two thousand one, and we'll get into some more stuff
Speaker 1: to kind of wrap up the end of the year.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna give you the full wrap up right now,
Speaker 1: but you know, just to kind of figure out where
Speaker 1: we're at. I was looking back at the price, and um,
Speaker 1: we're pumping today. As a matter of fact, dang, we're
Speaker 1: up over a thousand dollars just since I've been talking
Speaker 1: to you guys. That's not too bad and I'll take that. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: not too bad at all. Actually, But if we look
Speaker 1: back through the let's let's call it the way back machine,
Speaker 1: and if I look back to about a year ago
Speaker 1: with the price of I'm sorry, two years ago, the
Speaker 1: price of bitcoin was about thousand dollars. If we go
Speaker 1: back to one year ago, yeah, where we are about
Speaker 1: twenty three thousand dollars one year ago, So twenty three thousand.
Speaker 1: You know, now we're here, let's see. So that's about
Speaker 1: If you go to we're a hundred percent a year,
Speaker 1: it's not bad. I'll take that. If we go back
Speaker 1: to two years ago, you know, we're at about seven
Speaker 1: thousand dollars, so looking pretty good. And yeah, the price
Speaker 1: is pumping as we speak. Maybe maybe, just maybe we're
Speaker 1: gonna get into one of these, uh, these end of
Speaker 1: year rallies. We've seen bitcoin move thousands and thousands of
Speaker 1: dollars in a single month. That's one of the reasons
Speaker 1: why you don't really want to trade bitcoin. I know,
Speaker 1: when you look at the technical analysis, you look at
Speaker 1: like a chart, and it's very vaultile. It is, it
Speaker 1: goes up and down all the time. And when you
Speaker 1: look at it. Of course, the in life, hindsight is
Speaker 1: is hindsight is clear. I mean, you look at you like, dang,
Speaker 1: if I could have just sold it here and then
Speaker 1: I could have bought it back here, and then I
Speaker 1: could have sold it here, and I gotta bought it here,
Speaker 1: and it looks so easy. And of course you hear
Speaker 1: all these stories of people doing all this and whatever.
Speaker 1: The reality is is that it's very difficult now there's
Speaker 1: been numerous studies done in the stock market. I don't
Speaker 1: have them pulled up in front of me, but numerous
Speaker 1: studies in the stock market that shows like over the
Speaker 1: last like not knockouting this year, that was crazy, but
Speaker 1: but before this year, if you look back over like
Speaker 1: the last like thirty or forty years, you know they've
Speaker 1: had an average turn of whatever eight eight percent um.
Speaker 1: But if you would have missed like the best twenty
Speaker 1: days of stock market performance in those like thirty years,
Speaker 1: your turn drops from like eight percent to like four percent.
Speaker 1: And if you miss like the top the best twenty
Speaker 1: days out of that thirty year thing, then your returns
Speaker 1: were flat. And if you missed like the best thirty days,
Speaker 1: then you actually lost money. And that's like so sitting
Speaker 1: out of sitting out of the market for only twenty
Speaker 1: days could have effectively wiped out all of your gains.
Speaker 1: And that's in the normal stock market, which isn't near
Speaker 1: as volatile as bitcoin is. But bitcoin moves super super fast.
Speaker 1: And so for example, I can look back over here,
Speaker 1: if I'm looking at the chart here back to where
Speaker 1: was this sept number September um. I mean, in one day,
Speaker 1: the price of bitcoin shot up, sent it dropped, it
Speaker 1: jumped two's out two thousand dollars in almost a single day.
Speaker 1: And here we are. You know, we've rallied, uh we
Speaker 1: rout rally like three thousand dollars since I've been talking
Speaker 1: to you guys. And so if you were out and
Speaker 1: you're trying to trade that and you missed that three
Speaker 1: thousand dollar pump, um, I mean I would, I could
Speaker 1: set back your your gains big time. And so UM,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, there's better things to do with your time.
Speaker 1: There's much more productive things to do with your time.
Speaker 1: There's much more things that you can do to bring
Speaker 1: value to the world than sit there looking at these
Speaker 1: stupid charts all day long. Zoom out two years ago
Speaker 1: seven thousand. Last year is about twenty tho and now
Speaker 1: we're over fifty thousand at the time we speak. So UM.
Speaker 1: That's that's some perspective that I would like to give you. Um.
Speaker 1: And we'll talk more about about that as we get
Speaker 1: later into the show, and to talk about some of
Speaker 1: the top five bitcoin stories of we're gonna dig into that.
Speaker 1: Before we do, I want to talk about something that's
Speaker 1: been pretty cool. I like to say that the price
Speaker 1: is the distraction. I say that the best the two
Speaker 1: things you want to look at about the growth of
Speaker 1: the network and the development that's happening on the network.
Speaker 1: The growth of the network, you know, you can see
Speaker 1: through UM stories that pop up all over the place.
Speaker 1: So for example, this week I saw Visa partners with
Speaker 1: sixty crypto platforms to let consumers spend digital currency at
Speaker 1: eighty million merchants. Man, that's big. Visas head of Crypto,
Speaker 1: has revealed that the payments giant has partnered with about
Speaker 1: sixty leading crypto platforms to launch card programs to make
Speaker 1: it easy for consumers to convert and spend digital currency
Speaker 1: at eighty million merchant locations worldwide. Emphasize we've built a
Speaker 1: lot of momentum in the space and will continue to
Speaker 1: support the crypto ecosystem in several ways. That's big, right,
Speaker 1: That is going to bring more users, and so remember
Speaker 1: we're looking at the growth of the users and the
Speaker 1: development the network. So that's big. I mean that's big.
Speaker 1: That's UM eight million. Now, who knows how many customers
Speaker 1: go through those eighty million merchants, but I would imagine
Speaker 1: it's uh hundreds of millions, if not billions of people,
Speaker 1: and so that is going to increase the amount of users.
Speaker 1: And then I want to look at the development on
Speaker 1: the network. And I talked about a couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 1: we talked about how Jack Dorsey, the founder CEO of Twitter,
Speaker 1: actually stepped down from Twitter, and he stepped down from
Speaker 1: Twitter to focus on bitcoin. He didn't he wanted to.
Speaker 1: He wanted to build out some bitcoin services. He renamed
Speaker 1: um Square the payment company to block and then he
Speaker 1: renamed them. He had another company called spiral Um. And
Speaker 1: since then, Jack has been going on quite the rampage.
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, he is going head to
Speaker 1: head with the tech bros as we might call them,
Speaker 1: the venture capitalists out of Silicon Valley, et cetera. Which, um,
Speaker 1: it's pretty interesting to see now. A lot of people
Speaker 1: had criticized Jack Dorsey because at the as the CEO
Speaker 1: of Twitter um, Twitter was not living up to its
Speaker 1: um original intention, which was supposed to be a platform
Speaker 1: for free speech. And Jack Dorsey is supposed to be
Speaker 1: this advocate for free speech and yet here he is
Speaker 1: the CEO and he's he's censoring. I mean, they kicked
Speaker 1: off the active sitting president of the United States last
Speaker 1: year a long way away from being the quote unquote,
Speaker 1: you know, open free source of communication. But now that
Speaker 1: he has left, he stepped down to work on bitcoin,
Speaker 1: not crypto, just bitcoin. Um, we've seen some rapid changes
Speaker 1: happening on Twitter. As a matter of fact, they've started
Speaker 1: to censor people pretty pretty crazy. But he's also changed,
Speaker 1: and so the message that he's been sitting out has
Speaker 1: been pretty radical. The other day, um, Cardi B and
Speaker 1: for any of my hip hop fans out there, Cardi
Speaker 1: B tweeted out and said something, Um, she said, will
Speaker 1: cryptocurrencies replaced the dollar? And Jack Dorsey replied and he
Speaker 1: said bitcoin will not crypto bitcoin will, and so um,
Speaker 1: after that exchange, we saw the price start pumping, and
Speaker 1: I tweeted out, I think I said, uh, I said,
Speaker 1: did uh? Did Jack Dorsey tweeting at the Cardi B
Speaker 1: drive the market higher? Just kind of a tongue in cheek.
Speaker 1: By the way, if you're not following me on Twitter,
Speaker 1: you definitely should. I'm the number one Mark Moss at
Speaker 1: one Mark Moss just follow me there. Shoot me. Let
Speaker 1: me know you heard me on the radio. Asked me
Speaker 1: a question. I'll make sure to answer it. For you. Um,
Speaker 1: but anyway, it was kind of funny to see that happen.
Speaker 1: And since then he went on a rampage and what
Speaker 1: he's on a rampage over is what's called now what
Speaker 1: these people are calling Web three point oh. Now, if
Speaker 1: you've been listening to me for a while, you know,
Speaker 1: I've been on the Internet for a long time, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we had the web, and then we had
Speaker 1: Web two point oh, and now we have Web three
Speaker 1: point oh, and like really just like the web. But anyway, um,
Speaker 1: there's this whole thing about Web three point oh and
Speaker 1: it's this the new crypto thing, and it's Web three
Speaker 1: point and it's bringing all this investment capital in, um,
Speaker 1: you know. And so he went on this rampage on
Speaker 1: that and he said, quote, you don't own Web three
Speaker 1: point oh, says Jack Dorsey. He criticized its centralized nature.
Speaker 1: He said, quote, you don't. You don't own Web three
Speaker 1: The vcs and their LPs do. It will never escape
Speaker 1: their incentives. It's ultimately a centralized entity with a different label.
Speaker 1: Know what you're getting into? End quote um. And that
Speaker 1: was pretty cool. And then of course all the venture
Speaker 1: capitalists came out and started attacking him for that. Um
Speaker 1: even um Balaji said, uh oh no, Um. Twitter was
Speaker 1: started as a protocol, and he said, dude, you're talking
Speaker 1: to the wrong guy. I'm the founder of Twitter. It
Speaker 1: was started as a company, a centralized company. And so
Speaker 1: the big thing here is that these venture capital funds
Speaker 1: are starting these web three which are quote unquote these cryptocurrencies.
Speaker 1: But to his point, it's ultimately a centralized entity with
Speaker 1: a different label, meaning they control it. They control the
Speaker 1: amount of tokens that were printed, and they control what
Speaker 1: happens on that network moving forward. The different much different
Speaker 1: than bitcoin. Bitcoin nobody controls and I know, I know
Speaker 1: they use all these buzzwords and it's decentralized, don't you know.
Speaker 1: Market's decentral is decentralized governance right. Well, the very fact
Speaker 1: that it has governance tells you that it's not decentralized.
Speaker 1: So somebody can control it. Who can control it? The
Speaker 1: person with the most tokens. Um, I'm gonna tell you
Speaker 1: more about what Jack said, and then I want to
Speaker 1: come back with the top five bullish stories of two
Speaker 1: thousan You listen to the Markma Show, We're talking about bitcoin,
Speaker 1: cryptocurrencies and the decentralized revolution. We'll be right back. Hey everyone,
Speaker 1: welcome back. You are listening to the Markma Show and
Speaker 1: we're talking about bitcoin and cryptocurrencies and the decentralized revolution
Speaker 1: that's happening. I got one of my good friends, Justine
Speaker 1: that just joined me in the studio, Justine Harper. She
Speaker 1: works with Unchained Capital. We were just talking about some
Speaker 1: problems I had with my multi sig security earlier and
Speaker 1: she they managed to help me out. So that's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: But Justine, thanks so much for joining me, Thanks for
Speaker 1: having me, and Merry Christmas. Yeah, man, we are there.
Speaker 1: I can't believe it, man, two thousand one, just I
Speaker 1: went by so fast that it's uh happened yeah, like
Speaker 1: um something, you know, the pandemic happened in March of
Speaker 1: last year, so it's been like almost two years, and um,
Speaker 1: I think it. I don't know, almost like slowed things
Speaker 1: down last year and now like things happened so fast.
Speaker 1: It's like, wow, I can't believe we like two years
Speaker 1: into it, you know. I agree. I think I saw
Speaker 1: a meme the other day and it was like I'm
Speaker 1: still trying to process and wait, we're twenty two now,
Speaker 1: Like what's what happened, um, and I definitely can relate
Speaker 1: to that, like what has occurred? Um. Yeah, time flies, man,
Speaker 1: but yes, glad to be here. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Crazy year in bitcoin, Yeah, it's crazy year in bitcoin,
Speaker 1: and so I thought it'd be fun just to kind
Speaker 1: of look back and talk about some of the big
Speaker 1: stories that happened throughout the year. UM. I still am
Speaker 1: working on my kind of big moments for myself and
Speaker 1: what I'm expecting for next year. So probably next week
Speaker 1: we'll talk about that. But I was just kind of
Speaker 1: looking through some of the big stories and some of
Speaker 1: the big ones that kind of caught my eye I
Speaker 1: thought we'd just talked about. So I think the big
Speaker 1: one was probably price action, and that's typically one of
Speaker 1: my least favorite ones to talk about. UM I called
Speaker 1: I called the bitcoin price like the bait and switch.
Speaker 1: You get baited in to try to make a bunch
Speaker 1: of money and then you get switched into the all
Speaker 1: the other all the other properties of bitcoin. But if
Speaker 1: we look at the price action of bitcoin, UM, I
Speaker 1: mean it did pretty good for the year. We're up
Speaker 1: and I was almost sevent it's actually on a run
Speaker 1: right now today. UM, pretty crazy. But I think if
Speaker 1: we look back, if we zoom out and we look
Speaker 1: at the lowest price point every year, and so um,
Speaker 1: we went to was four bucks, sixty five bucks, two
Speaker 1: hundred bucks was the only year it was down from
Speaker 1: two thirty eight hundred, and then the lowest point last
Speaker 1: year was three This year was twenty seven thousand. So
Speaker 1: we're almost double that. I mean, that's pretty damn good growth.
Speaker 1: I would say, yes, And this is why I laughed
Speaker 1: very hard any time we talk, like when we have
Speaker 1: any sort of a bearish day, right or a drop
Speaker 1: in the market, Oh, Bitcoin's dead, Bitcoin's over, And it's like, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: so we're literally to the point where forty six thousand
Speaker 1: is dead. Bitcoin's dead. And then when you when you
Speaker 1: zoom out and look at where we were we're a
Speaker 1: year ago, it's it's worse. Yeah. I mean, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: with you. Um, prices irrelevant to me at this point,
Speaker 1: but I understand that it's not irrelevant to everyone, and
Speaker 1: it's a big factor into bringing people in, right, and
Speaker 1: it's important to sort of factor in bitcoin success from that.
Speaker 1: But I personally I don't care about the price. Do
Speaker 1: I have more SATs today? Than I do yesterday. But
Speaker 1: also it is kind of comical to look at where
Speaker 1: we've been, what the what the loads are for each year,
Speaker 1: and then just where we are now. It's it's, uh,
Speaker 1: it's shocking. I mean I remember it's over nine d
Speaker 1: memes or nine thousand memes, right, um yeah, I mean like,
Speaker 1: how are how are we sitting here? And how is uh,
Speaker 1: how are people still doubting the the adoption of bitcoin
Speaker 1: at this point? I think it is pretty impressive. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I love just the perspective. I mean when you
Speaker 1: zoom out and you're just like, you know, everyone's like,
Speaker 1: it's it's too volatile. It's too volatile. It's not a
Speaker 1: good store voute because is too volatile, and never make
Speaker 1: it as meaning exchange, which you know, it's not maybe
Speaker 1: the best met to exchange today. It doesn't mean it
Speaker 1: won't be in the future, but as a store of value,
Speaker 1: it's like it's too volatile. It's like, well, it's been
Speaker 1: up every single year, you know, like that's a pretty
Speaker 1: damn good store of value in my opinion, you know,
Speaker 1: um right, I think it's average it's up two eage
Speaker 1: year or something. I could be wrong on that. On
Speaker 1: that percentage, but it's like, yeah, when you zoom out,
Speaker 1: it goes up. I've joked about my my future t
Speaker 1: a podcast or YouTube channel where it's going to just
Speaker 1: be like, you know, it goes up and then it
Speaker 1: kind of like goes down for a little bit, and
Speaker 1: then it's just like it's continuously going up in an
Speaker 1: upward right position, you know direction, because yeah, yes it fluctuates,
Speaker 1: but it's it's up your after year and anyone holding
Speaker 1: their wealth and pitcoin is doing pretty good. I think
Speaker 1: it's funny because I started buying bitcoin back when it
Speaker 1: was about three hundred bucks, and I've been trying to
Speaker 1: get friends of mine into it for a long time.
Speaker 1: And I don't really go super wide with my friends,
Speaker 1: but friends that are a little bit into kind of investing,
Speaker 1: I try to get dragging the man. And I remember
Speaker 1: one of my friends I finally convinced to buy it
Speaker 1: about four thousand dollars and then it dropped down to
Speaker 1: and he was so mad at me. He hated me,
Speaker 1: like I I got him into the scam. He lost
Speaker 1: half his money. Like, dude, you bought in at four thousand,
Speaker 1: it's like fifty thousand a day, right, And I had
Speaker 1: another friend, Um, I got him to buy in January
Speaker 1: after bitcoin had blown off from twenty thousand, and he
Speaker 1: end up buying about I think fourteen fifteen thousand, and
Speaker 1: they continue to go down. Uh, and the same thing.
Speaker 1: He's like, oh, you told me to buy, now all
Speaker 1: of it down, and I'm just like, I mean, people
Speaker 1: would be so happy to have bought it fifteen thousand
Speaker 1: a day, you know. And um, no matter how much
Speaker 1: they'd tell him like zoom out, have this long tip perspective,
Speaker 1: they don't do it. Um. But yeah, looking backwards, say,
Speaker 1: it's kind of funny. Oh, it's hard to do, I think,
Speaker 1: but it also is uh. I think it's it's almost
Speaker 1: a ride of passage, right, Like bitcoin makes sense for
Speaker 1: a long term, and I think it's really hard for
Speaker 1: people to sort of zoom out. And so my mom
Speaker 1: the same way. I shouldn't say this, um, but you know,
Speaker 1: she finally bought at a certain price and didn't buy
Speaker 1: a lot, you know, but and then it immediately went
Speaker 1: down and she was like, oh, okay, UM, So I
Speaker 1: think it is it's hard to uh when you're stuck
Speaker 1: in the moment see it. But but yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: if you Look, you're after year, you're over year, You're
Speaker 1: you're going to be fine. Yeah, we've all had well,
Speaker 1: if you've been in long enough anyway, we've all had
Speaker 1: those awkward Christmas and Thanksgivings where you have to sit
Speaker 1: around the table with your family and they're all down
Speaker 1: in their positions. Um, Luckily, my parents, man, they've got
Speaker 1: strong hands. Man, my my, my parents have held strong
Speaker 1: and they haven't they haven't wavered. And and so I
Speaker 1: gotta give him that. I guess they got me so. Um.
Speaker 1: By the way, you're listening to the Mark Ma Show,
Speaker 1: I'm in the studio with Justine Harper. You can find
Speaker 1: her on Twitter at Misshotel M S h O d L.
Speaker 1: Give her a shout out and say hello. Um. We're
Speaker 1: talking about some of the top stories in bitcoin for
Speaker 1: two thousand twenty one. Another big one this year was
Speaker 1: Tesla adding bitcoin to its balance sheet. I think that
Speaker 1: was a big one. It um instantly, I remember, I
Speaker 1: remember ever when happened, instantly shot bitcoin higher. Um, you
Speaker 1: know it what. Ellen has a million followers on Twitter,
Speaker 1: so it instantly shot that up. Um. A lot of
Speaker 1: bitcoin people thought that was great. Things have kind of
Speaker 1: fumbled a little bit since then, but I think it
Speaker 1: really did help it to kind of notch a level higher.
Speaker 1: I would say, I don't know what you think. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I agree with that. I think that it says a lot.
Speaker 1: People can talk about certain things on Twitter. UM. I
Speaker 1: say this as like there's celebrities who are paid to
Speaker 1: say things. I think Ellen really enjoys Twitter. He likes
Speaker 1: to rile people up, but also just kind of enjoys it,
Speaker 1: so he'll mention things on Twitter and UM. But it
Speaker 1: says a lot when you actually are betting your your
Speaker 1: cash reserves of your company on bitcoin, I think that
Speaker 1: shows a level of commitment that's much different than shilling
Speaker 1: something on Twitter. UM. In my opinion, it makes perfect sense.
Speaker 1: I mean, the dollar is devaluing year after year, and
Speaker 1: when you have cash reserves for a business, the last
Speaker 1: thing you want is to see your your profits go
Speaker 1: down while the expense of everything you need to do
Speaker 1: goes up. So why wouldn't you hold it in an
Speaker 1: asset that that holds its value better? So I think
Speaker 1: it makes sense. But I do think it was quite
Speaker 1: a move for you on um because he he kind
Speaker 1: of you know, he likes to ruffle feathers but I
Speaker 1: think actions are are stronger than words, and this was
Speaker 1: a pretty big action in my opinion. Well and it
Speaker 1: and it put it on the map. So it put
Speaker 1: it on the map for all of those fifty million
Speaker 1: people that follow on Twitter plus you know, it's a
Speaker 1: bigger audience or whatever. So I think it put on
Speaker 1: the map. And then to your point, the skin in
Speaker 1: the game put his money where his mouth is. He
Speaker 1: did go out to say that I have not sold
Speaker 1: any of my bitcoin testlas old temper cent of its
Speaker 1: holding is essentially to prove liquidity of bitcoin as an
Speaker 1: alternative to holding cash on balance sheet. So um, to
Speaker 1: your point, Justine, he's moved it into reserve, he's still
Speaker 1: holding it, and he has continued to hold his holdings
Speaker 1: as well. Are you listening to the Mark mo Show.
Speaker 1: We're talking about bitcoin and the decentralized revolution in the
Speaker 1: studio with Justine and we're talking about the top things
Speaker 1: that happened in bitcoin in two thousand twenty one will
Speaker 1: be Iraq, don't go way all right, welcome back. You
Speaker 1: are listening to the markma Show and we're talking about bitcoin.
Speaker 1: We're talking about the decentralized revolution that's happening, and I'm
Speaker 1: in the studio with Justine Harper. You can find her
Speaker 1: on Twitter at Misshotel M s h O d L.
Speaker 1: And we're talking about the top five things, the top
Speaker 1: couple of things that have happened in bitcoin, and two
Speaker 1: one that went by like a whirlwind. And so we
Speaker 1: talked about the price. Um the lowest price of the
Speaker 1: year was twenty seven thousand, and we're up almost double
Speaker 1: that at this point. We talked about Tesla adding bitcoin
Speaker 1: both to its balance sheet as well as um elon
Speaker 1: Musk holding it and said that they are not selling it.
Speaker 1: I think, um the next story, which I think is
Speaker 1: has got to be the biggest story of the year,
Speaker 1: is that El Salvador, right, El Salvador declares bitcoin as
Speaker 1: legal tender, which is pretty amazing. I mean, they had
Speaker 1: to fight off the World Bank, they had to fight
Speaker 1: off the International Monetary Fund. Uh, they've had to fight
Speaker 1: off what maybe you know, US Federal Reserve CIA operatives
Speaker 1: working down there to to destabilize that. I mean, they've
Speaker 1: they've come under massive, massive fire. They've obviously had technical
Speaker 1: difficulties to roll out something that big, but through all
Speaker 1: of that, I mean, the president bu Gallea is like
Speaker 1: held strong and uh and uh kind of turned into
Speaker 1: one of the top Twitter trolls. On top of that, Yes,
Speaker 1: he's uh. I would say that he's very good at Twitter. Um,
Speaker 1: and it's amazing to see someone in his He might
Speaker 1: be as good as you, Justine. I think he's much
Speaker 1: better than me. I was going to put him up
Speaker 1: there with Elon, but I think that I I appreciate
Speaker 1: the principles from one a little bit more than the other.
Speaker 1: But uh, but I do think, yeah, he has a
Speaker 1: way of kind of like he stands behind what he
Speaker 1: says and what he does. Um, no matter what you
Speaker 1: think of him as an individual. UM, I think it's
Speaker 1: huge And I think sometimes I think Alex Godson says
Speaker 1: this best. You know, we kind of come from a
Speaker 1: privileged world when when we live in the U S.
Speaker 1: And we don't realize the issues that many individuals have
Speaker 1: for accessing financial services. And I think Al Savager is
Speaker 1: a huge example of that. Is is the bitcoin a
Speaker 1: great medium exchange for us right now? Uh? No, you know,
Speaker 1: the dollar works pretty good for that. We can save
Speaker 1: in bitcoin and we can you know, like you know,
Speaker 1: spend things when needed and so forth. But some people
Speaker 1: don't have access to those services. You know, people in
Speaker 1: el servera door. From my understanding, we're on a and
Speaker 1: you were there, We're on a bus for hours, you know,
Speaker 1: to go access financial services with cash on hand, where
Speaker 1: they could be robbed, where you know, it's it's a
Speaker 1: dangerous situation for them. Um. So I think bitcoin solves
Speaker 1: that problem for so many people in a way that
Speaker 1: also allows them to save in an asset that won't devalue.
Speaker 1: So individuals who maybe have never had the ability to
Speaker 1: say before now have that as well. So I think
Speaker 1: this was huge. It hands down the biggest story of
Speaker 1: the year, um, And I think it was. It was
Speaker 1: definitely a moment that everybody was watching to wait. They
Speaker 1: were waiting for them to fall on their face, and
Speaker 1: now they haven't. So how will that look? You know what,
Speaker 1: Other countries are now going to be looking into this
Speaker 1: because at the end of the day, it fixes it
Speaker 1: solves a problem for them, and I think it's huge.
Speaker 1: Yeah to your point. You know, Um, in the United States,
Speaker 1: where we're privileged, Um, the dollar works really well as
Speaker 1: a mean of exchange. And I tell people, don't spend
Speaker 1: your bitcoin, save your bitcoin, spend your fee at but
Speaker 1: in El Salvador, Um, Yeah, I've been there, And they
Speaker 1: don't have access to a digital banking world like we do.
Speaker 1: So they can't walk around town and spend off their
Speaker 1: Venemo or spend off their debit cards. They don't have that,
Speaker 1: and so it's a cash society. And so um, the
Speaker 1: stores and both you know, both both the merchants and
Speaker 1: the retailers, they have to just basically pay with cash
Speaker 1: and they can't you know, send him, receive money electronically
Speaker 1: and whatnot. And so they don't have that privilege we have.
Speaker 1: And now bitcoin has enabled them to join this global
Speaker 1: financial network, um, which is which is pretty dang cool, um,
Speaker 1: And so it's a big need for them. They've they've
Speaker 1: on board, and millions of people, those millions of people
Speaker 1: all got like thirty dollars worth a bitcoin, which is
Speaker 1: since like doubled since they got it. So like that's
Speaker 1: pretty cool as well. UM. And you know they've had
Speaker 1: their troubles, right, I mean, there's a numerous complaints and
Speaker 1: problems with the tech from the achiev A wallet and
Speaker 1: I get that, um. I mean, UM, imagine rolling out
Speaker 1: a new system that's never been done before. This this
Speaker 1: this advanced, um and not having some problems like come on,
Speaker 1: cut them some slack with right, I mean it's insane. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's that's to be expected for sure. Um.
Speaker 1: I think that one of the stats that I saw
Speaker 1: come out was that and I forget the exact number.
Speaker 1: You may may know this more than me, but essentially
Speaker 1: saying that more people in Al Savador now have a
Speaker 1: bitcoin wallet than you know, a banking account. And I
Speaker 1: think that really shows the need for that area and
Speaker 1: what problem it's solving for them, because yeah, you can
Speaker 1: as an individual, I can now go into Al Salvador
Speaker 1: support my local common economy with just simply a cell phone. Right,
Speaker 1: I can download an app I have, I have access
Speaker 1: to digital financial services and don't have to use you know,
Speaker 1: some sort of outside party where I have to travel
Speaker 1: a long long distance and from a merchant standpoint, I
Speaker 1: mean this is huge for them in my opinion. UM,
Speaker 1: so yes, I think this is I don't think this
Speaker 1: is the like, it's not the story that happened in
Speaker 1: one and then it's done, like. I think this will
Speaker 1: be like the ongoing story. This is a a thing
Speaker 1: that will continue to develop and we will see more
Speaker 1: and more people sort of using it as an example
Speaker 1: to shape their own economy. Um. And that's that's what
Speaker 1: bitcoin is, right, It's freedom. It solves problems, and I
Speaker 1: think what problem it solves for each individual is different,
Speaker 1: and I think this is a great example of that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was just looking here. Seventy it says here for
Speaker 1: the latest Bank of America report, whal Research reports seventy
Speaker 1: of the adult population else ove order did not or
Speaker 1: does not have a bank account seventy. So it's pretty
Speaker 1: pretty massive. I would agree with you, Justine. I think
Speaker 1: this is going to be, um, something that's you know,
Speaker 1: when you look back through history, like I love to
Speaker 1: look at history, there's these certain key things that happened
Speaker 1: that really pivoted and changed things. And I think this
Speaker 1: is going to be one of those things. Um. And
Speaker 1: I think it's going to really signify, um, hopefully. I
Speaker 1: think I hope that's going to signify kind of the
Speaker 1: end of this giant nation state and back to more
Speaker 1: of a competitive landscape because not only it seems like
Speaker 1: and I don't know about the politics, I don't know
Speaker 1: the president personally, and I know people have accused him
Speaker 1: of being this you know, dictator whatever. I don't know, um,
Speaker 1: but it seems like to me that once he got
Speaker 1: bit by the bitcoin bug, he's now starting to attach
Speaker 1: to a lot of the other properties, the freedom properties
Speaker 1: and things like that, because now we've seen he said, uh, hey,
Speaker 1: now El Salvador is an open country, no mandates, no testing. Uh,
Speaker 1: we have vaccines if you want them, everybody can have
Speaker 1: them for free. If you don't want them, don't have them,
Speaker 1: no big deal. And uh, like it's really and oh
Speaker 1: and by the way, we have this bitcoin sitting there
Speaker 1: and you can come and no taxes, and like, um man,
Speaker 1: you're really starting to see kind of be this like
Speaker 1: a place of freedom, which is pretty cool. Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 1: I was going to say that that it seems like he, uh,
Speaker 1: he kind of changed his mind on some of the
Speaker 1: more in my opinion, like government overreach mandates that he
Speaker 1: had he had had previously, which is great. I think
Speaker 1: a bitcoin, uh, it changes us. It makes us look
Speaker 1: at things differently, and and it aligns the incentives in
Speaker 1: a way that we can't ignore. So I think that
Speaker 1: was a really beneficial fantasy as well. Now the one
Speaker 1: thing is, so he's speaking at the bitcoin conference bitcoin
Speaker 1: Uo is coming up in April, I believe of next year.
Speaker 1: I'm speaking there. By the way, so if you're not
Speaker 1: already getting your tickets to Bitcoin conference, you should. And
Speaker 1: by the way, you can save ten percent on your
Speaker 1: tickets by using mark at the checkout code. But also
Speaker 1: the President Bukeley is also speaking there, and supposedly, according
Speaker 1: to a bitcoin magazine, supposedly he's got something really big
Speaker 1: to announce. We don't know what that is, obviously, I
Speaker 1: don't have the spoil alert. I sent out a tweet
Speaker 1: on on Twitter the other day, I said, Hey, what
Speaker 1: I really want I said, there's he's gonna announce something.
Speaker 1: What I really want him to announce is that there's
Speaker 1: like a citizenship program for bitcoinners that we can get passports, um,
Speaker 1: I said, retweeted if you wanted to get up there.
Speaker 1: And I don't know God or whatever, but that would
Speaker 1: be really cool if he comes and announces that where
Speaker 1: you could invest you know, two bitcoin or or one
Speaker 1: or two bitcoin or three whatever the amount is, but
Speaker 1: to get citizenship right away. Uh. Any thoughts on that
Speaker 1: that would be huge. I'm a big fan of Katie
Speaker 1: who does climb passports, and this is something that you
Speaker 1: know she helps bitcoin or is there really anybody it's
Speaker 1: not just a bitcoin specific right, finding that second passport,
Speaker 1: finding places that are more freedom minded. Um, I think
Speaker 1: this is like exactly how it should be. I think
Speaker 1: that the free market, if allowed to work properly, works
Speaker 1: for everyone. And I think the free market idea with
Speaker 1: citizenship and being able to essentially like, I'm gonna move
Speaker 1: to where it incentivized it is to me most to
Speaker 1: be a citizen and those countries are incentivized to offer
Speaker 1: me really great things that I want to come via
Speaker 1: citizen for it improves everything. Um. So I think this
Speaker 1: is the natural next step, right Like bitcoinners have already
Speaker 1: completely fully supported al Savador and the Bitcoin city um idea.
Speaker 1: So having the ability to actually gain citizenship for many
Speaker 1: people would be a game changer. So I'm with you.
Speaker 1: I think that's probably If I had to bet, I
Speaker 1: would guess that that's probably what it is. But UM
Speaker 1: excited to see it. I don't have any spoilers either,
Speaker 1: but but definitely definitely think that we'll keep our fingers crossed.
Speaker 1: I heard, uh, I heard, I heard if you buy
Speaker 1: this bitcoin bond, that's the other big thing is that
Speaker 1: now there's this bitcoin bond, so they may be able
Speaker 1: to raise money um without having to go through the
Speaker 1: I m F, whichould be big um. And maybe if
Speaker 1: you buy the bitcoin bond, there might be like a
Speaker 1: residency which is like a five year path to citizenship.
Speaker 1: But we'll wait and see on that. Unfortunately, as American citizens, uh,
Speaker 1: we're not allowed to participate in that, you know, for
Speaker 1: our own protection. By the way, you're listening to the
Speaker 1: Markma Show. We're talking about bitcoin and the decentralized revolution.
Speaker 1: We're talking about the biggest stories of two thousand twenty
Speaker 1: one in the studio with Justine Harper at Miss Hotel
Speaker 1: and uh, we discovered a couple of stories. We're gonna
Speaker 1: be back with a couple more, so don't go away,
Speaker 1: all right, welcome back. You're listening to the Markma Show
Speaker 1: and we're talking about bitcoin and we're talking about this
Speaker 1: decentralized revolution. We're talking about the biggest stories that happened
Speaker 1: for bitcoin in two thousand twenty one. I'm in the
Speaker 1: studio with one of my good friends, Justine Harper you
Speaker 1: can find her on Twitter at Miss Hotel, and we
Speaker 1: recapped a couple of big things so far. We talked
Speaker 1: about the price, which to me is the least important
Speaker 1: thing to talk about. But UM low point low points
Speaker 1: this year is twenty seven thousand, and we're almost double that,
Speaker 1: which is pretty cool. We talked about Tesla adding it
Speaker 1: to its bounce sheet and you know, Elon Musk maybe
Speaker 1: bringing it to the forefront of of all his followers minds,
Speaker 1: which is pretty cool. UM. He did say that Tesla
Speaker 1: hasn't sold a name of his holding. Well, they sold tempercent,
Speaker 1: he hasn't sold any of them. And then we just
Speaker 1: talked about El Salvador, which I think is really the
Speaker 1: biggest story of the year. And if I would have,
Speaker 1: I should have reorganized this because I should have been
Speaker 1: the biggest story. It definitely was in my mind, it's
Speaker 1: the most important story. UM. Another big story, though, that
Speaker 1: I think is equally as big. I'm as happy about
Speaker 1: it personally. UM, is that I think, uh that the
Speaker 1: bitcoin et s were approved and UM, since like two
Speaker 1: thousand and seventeen, they've been trying to get bitcoin u
Speaker 1: e t s through and they've just been denied, denied, denied, denied, denied. UM.
Speaker 1: There's pros and cons to this, I think. UM. The
Speaker 1: one thing that I would say that the pro though,
Speaker 1: is that whenever you have a new technology, um there's
Speaker 1: like this bell curve um. It's the innovator, innovator's diffusion,
Speaker 1: diffusion of innovation, and it's how a new technology gets
Speaker 1: out into adoption. And so you start out with the inventors,
Speaker 1: and then you get the visionaries, and that it gets
Speaker 1: to about fifteen percent adoption, and then there's something called
Speaker 1: the chasm before you get to the early majority and
Speaker 1: then eventually the late majority. And the chasm represents a
Speaker 1: gap in the public's mind where they don't understand what
Speaker 1: the technology is or that it's real. It's still a scam,
Speaker 1: it's still a joke, it's still what it ridiculous, whatever
Speaker 1: it may be. It's a chasm. There's something in their
Speaker 1: mind that's blocking them. But to get over the chasm,
Speaker 1: the early majority's mind has to get past that where
Speaker 1: they see it as something real, legit, and the use
Speaker 1: case has even changed. And I think El Salvador definitely
Speaker 1: helped that. I think lots of things. I think this
Speaker 1: is the year that we crossed the chasm for any
Speaker 1: number of reasons, but I think that bit when E
Speaker 1: t F also really helps that it helps legitimize it, It
Speaker 1: It helps people be able to get access to it
Speaker 1: very easy, and and maybe just in their mind, a
Speaker 1: lot of people that were skeptical on the sidelines might
Speaker 1: look at it as like, well, dang, I guess it
Speaker 1: might be a real asset. I don't know if you
Speaker 1: think I'm on some on something there, Justine, I I
Speaker 1: think we agree on this pretty pretty on point. Um,
Speaker 1: I I'm with you. Like this. To me, it's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: that's cool. I'm not personally excited about it, but I
Speaker 1: do agree that I think that there is a there's
Speaker 1: an aspect of adoption that's going to take time, and
Speaker 1: Bitcoin by some folks is seen as a specific thing.
Speaker 1: They don't understand it. It seems like some sort of
Speaker 1: strained tech technology that people they don't like must use it.
Speaker 1: You know, it's must be used for illegal activity because
Speaker 1: you know, the dollar isn't right, um, sark hasn't there. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I think that this will be a huge
Speaker 1: turning point for many people. It legitimizes it, as you say,
Speaker 1: I mean, I have family members who are sort of
Speaker 1: stuck in this hole. I've been talking to him about
Speaker 1: it forever. I thought I had it for a minute
Speaker 1: where they kind of saw it, and then they've gone
Speaker 1: back to, oh, well, you know, I'm not sure the
Speaker 1: technology is weird. You know, it's it's like this underground
Speaker 1: dark web thing, and so you can't you can't think
Speaker 1: of bitcoin that way anymore once we get to sort
Speaker 1: of et F stage. In my opinion, um so, I
Speaker 1: think that from that standpoint, it does help and it
Speaker 1: will allow more people to you know, have access to
Speaker 1: bitcoin and have the benefit from it in one one way,
Speaker 1: shape or form. I personally hope that that's just the
Speaker 1: beginning of their journey because I think that everybody should
Speaker 1: be holding the keys to their wealth, because that's the
Speaker 1: goal here, right, like to really be sovereign in your wealth.
Speaker 1: But I think it's okay to start somewhere that maybe
Speaker 1: doesn't look like that, and this may be the first
Speaker 1: stepping stone for many, which I think is is good.
Speaker 1: So I agree, big thing happening. Me personally, not personally
Speaker 1: excited about it for me, um, but I do I
Speaker 1: do see the value. It's one of those things like
Speaker 1: it's good for bitcoin. Even if myself doesn't personally benefit
Speaker 1: from anything, it can be good for bitcoin. It can
Speaker 1: also be bad for bitcoin. So I think there's actually,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, there's actually probably more. I think there's
Speaker 1: maybe actually more bad for bitcoin than good. So the
Speaker 1: good is obviously, as I said, like getting over that
Speaker 1: mental chasm, and I think so I think just changing
Speaker 1: the public perception, I think is good. Um In in
Speaker 1: other countries, in Canada and countries in Europe, Um, they've
Speaker 1: already had e t s for bitcoin. The thing with
Speaker 1: bitcoin with e t s, and there's two types of
Speaker 1: e t f s, and so one of them is
Speaker 1: physically settled, so that means that I'm betting that price
Speaker 1: of bitcoin goes up and down, and depending on if
Speaker 1: I'm wrong or right, I either have to give them
Speaker 1: bitcoin or they give me bitcoin that's physically settled. The
Speaker 1: other one is cash settled, which means that I don't
Speaker 1: actually buy the asset or sell the asset. I'm only
Speaker 1: just making a bet, like it's like betting on a
Speaker 1: base on a baseball or football game, and I just
Speaker 1: have to pay you the cash. And what in the US,
Speaker 1: they've denied every single future or physical settled e t
Speaker 1: F and so the only thing we have now is
Speaker 1: a cash settled in the problem that we have is
Speaker 1: that you know, you can have these here these economics.
Speaker 1: Before you came on, Justine, we were talking about Steve
Speaker 1: Hanky and his theory which is just insane. But in
Speaker 1: the real world that all all prices set off supply
Speaker 1: and demand, and so if there's more demand for bitcoin,
Speaker 1: then there is supply, the price goes up. It's pretty simple.
Speaker 1: But the problem is that, um, maybe let's say that
Speaker 1: you're a hedge fund institution that had a billion dollars
Speaker 1: or a few billion dollars that you want to put
Speaker 1: into bitcoin, and you can put that into bitcoin, or
Speaker 1: you can put that a few billion dollars into a
Speaker 1: just betting on the price of bitcoin. And so what
Speaker 1: it does is it it takes artificial supply. So it's
Speaker 1: almost like increasing the supply. So instead of buying the
Speaker 1: bitcoin and taking that that's that bitcoint of the market
Speaker 1: and increasing the demand, you just bet on it with
Speaker 1: the same amount of money. And so I think I
Speaker 1: think that in itself is a net drag. It changes
Speaker 1: this uh, this this demand curve. UM. So I think
Speaker 1: that's the problem. And uh, I hope that at some
Speaker 1: point they'll have a physical settled one. UM they keep
Speaker 1: denying them. UM, So I think it could be bad
Speaker 1: from that perspective. UM. But yeah, I don't know any
Speaker 1: thoughts on that. No, I I agree with you there,
Speaker 1: that's kind of UM, I guess what I was alluding to.
Speaker 1: And I don't personally think it's good from my perspective
Speaker 1: for me, if that makes sense, I don't like the
Speaker 1: idea of UM essentially, like you mentioned, betting on assets
Speaker 1: that aren't there or can't be a guaranteed or there.
Speaker 1: I think it's it's hard dynamic because bitcoin is kind
Speaker 1: of the first asset that we have that is fully auditable, right,
Speaker 1: Like I think of like gold notes, um, And this
Speaker 1: is what in my you know, as as a previous
Speaker 1: gold holder, I wanted physical gold. I don't want to
Speaker 1: note that says that maybe you have some somewhere, and
Speaker 1: I don't want to bet on on gold. I want
Speaker 1: it if it's an asset that I hold my wealth,
Speaker 1: and then I want to physically have it. But not
Speaker 1: everybody is sort of in that mentality. UM. I think
Speaker 1: it's interesting with bitcoin though, because we can't audit bitcoin
Speaker 1: very easily. How does that work? How does that work
Speaker 1: in this future's betting world? Like how does it look
Speaker 1: different or does it fall into those same traps and
Speaker 1: and downfalls of it in the past, in the in
Speaker 1: the legacy world. So I'm not sure I want to
Speaker 1: have a huge opinion on it. I do have some concerns,
Speaker 1: but then also at the same time sort of see
Speaker 1: the benefit of it getting to that point from an
Speaker 1: adoption standpoint. But I don't know, I don't know what
Speaker 1: it looks like. I guess it's a good way to
Speaker 1: put it in a world where you can't audit the asset,
Speaker 1: but you're just betting on on what it may or
Speaker 1: may not do or so forth, or what it will
Speaker 1: look like in the future. Um so, yes, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: a little I'm a little sworn on this one specifically.
Speaker 1: Um yeah, yeah, so I think we we aligned pretty well,
Speaker 1: good and bad, good and bad, you know. And and futures.
Speaker 1: Futures were really designed for for farmers. And I didn't
Speaker 1: know what my crop was going to be like in
Speaker 1: the future. I didn't know how much oil is gonna
Speaker 1: produce in the future. And so what I could do
Speaker 1: is I could hedge with the futures, and I could
Speaker 1: sell my crop at this fixed price today, and that
Speaker 1: way I d risk UM. And it's also for things
Speaker 1: that are difficult to UM take custody of. So to
Speaker 1: your point, Justine, so UM futures are great for commodities
Speaker 1: like wheat or oil or gold that are very hard
Speaker 1: or almost impossible to take delivery of it. In the
Speaker 1: March of Saw, the oil price dropped to negative thirty
Speaker 1: five and the reason why I went to negative thirty
Speaker 1: five is because you have to take physical delivery and
Speaker 1: nobody wanted to take physical delivery of it. And so
Speaker 1: UM futures are great for those types of things. But
Speaker 1: for bitcoin, it costs zero dollars to take custody of
Speaker 1: your own bitcoin. That's that's really the killer app of it,
Speaker 1: and so UM hopefully that changes things. Hopefully people would
Speaker 1: rather just take custody of their bitcoin UM as opposed
Speaker 1: to you know, oil or wheat. It's very difficult to
Speaker 1: do that UM, and so hopefully that will change it.
Speaker 1: Of course, just throw a little bone for Justine while
Speaker 1: she's here with me, thank you for coming on. And
Speaker 1: she works with unchained Capital, which is a multi stick
Speaker 1: setup that I used to secure my bitcoin UM and
Speaker 1: so it makes it super super easy too to secure
Speaker 1: it UM but those are the big stories I guess
Speaker 1: that I'm thinking of for for bitcoin, UM will continue
Speaker 1: to see the network growing. I mean elsal it are
Speaker 1: brought on millions of people alone. UM and UH we'll
Speaker 1: continue to see that the development on the network growing.
Speaker 1: We saw Jack Dorsey leave Twitter to go work on
Speaker 1: bitcoin specifically, and UH we'll come back next week. We'll
Speaker 1: talk about what to expect. For two. You're listening to
Speaker 1: the Mark Moa show talking about bitcoin. We're talking about cryptocurrencies,
Speaker 1: We're talking about the de centralized revolution. I've been in
Speaker 1: the studio with Justine Harper, Miss Justine, I'm sorry at
Speaker 1: misshotel on Twitter for unchained capital. Justine, thanks so much
Speaker 1: for coming by and hanging out. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: Look forward to it next time. That's what I got
Speaker 1: for you today. Thanks so much for listening. To see
Speaker 1: you next time.