Marty Bent and Parker Lewis explore Bitcoin’s role as money and currency, its real-world adoption, self-custody, and regulatory challenges.
In this episode of TFTC, Marty Bent and Parker Lewis explore Bitcoin’s dual role as both money and currency, emphasizing the importance of self-custody and regulatory clarity. Unlike traditional commodities like gold, Bitcoin functions without intermediaries, eliminating inefficiencies and reliance on third-party trust. The discussion highlights real-world Bitcoin transactions, such as paying invoices via Zaprite, showcasing its growing role in commerce while reducing fees and settlement delays. Lewis warns against misclassifying Bitcoin as merely a commodity, arguing that regulatory missteps could hinder adoption in the U.S. while other countries embrace its potential. The conversation also touches on Bitcoin Takeover Week, an Austin-based event countering the absence of Bitcoin representation at major tech conferences like SXSW, focusing on real-world applications and industry innovation. Ultimately, the episode reinforces Bitcoin’s evolution into a fully functional monetary system, with increasing adoption strengthening its network and making it harder for governments to suppress its use.
This episode of TFTC makes a strong case for Bitcoin as both a store of value and a functioning currency, challenging the notion that it is merely a commodity. Marty Bent and Parker Lewis highlight real-world examples of businesses using Bitcoin for payments, proving its adoption is already underway. They emphasize the significance of Bitcoin Takeover Week in advancing education and innovation amid ongoing regulatory debates. Ultimately, the discussion serves as a wake-up call: Bitcoin is already reshaping the financial system, and aligning economic policies with its growing role is crucial for a smooth transition.
0:00 - Intro
0:49 - Bitcoin Takeover
10:41 - Parker's paper
19:46 - fold & Bitkey
21:29 - Stablecoin legislation & distinguishing money/currency
30:05 - Triple entry accounting
36:11 - Unchained event announcement
36:41 - The details are important
42:44 - Bitcoin inherently competes with dollar
51:04 - Choosing bitcoin over the dollar
1:01:10 - Capital gains
1:08:58 - Bitcoin has value in utility
1:18:26 - All In Collison brothers - fiat premiums
1:21:51 - Link pending Parker's response to my text
1:24:05 - More on utility
1:34:08 - Go to Bitcoin Takeover!
(00:00) the network itself is able to issue the 21 million control the supply schedule validate all currency transactions and because Bitcoin has a baked in Native unit it can do all of the things that any other currency that would otherwise need an issuer to do without an issuer the only reason to add a fiat currency into that equation would be unsolved into to the form of money that can't be printed it is currency that is the economic reality you can't deny it the more that people use it the more effective the tools will get and then in
(00:32) the end Bitcoin will be able to be a working economic system for more people if you lump Bitcoin in with everything else and when it becomes clear to everyone that it's snake oil they're going to associate it with Bitcoin and then they're going to over regulate Matt El Rancho most impressive restaurant in all the world it's wonderful I can't believe my brother thought what did he think were you part of this conversation yeah it was Matt he called you didn't he or he called he called me in or he texted me in my brother I think it he was
(01:08) asking about Matts buford's and one other I think it was bufords there was another one but then Matts was second yeah it it RS it rakes incredible service you know exactly what you're going to get place was a zoo we got there at 4:30 we had to swim out yeah yeah navigate that's why you go at 4:30 especially if you have kids you bring bring them my boys were running wild yeah it was uh it was jack's first uh first Mets yeah he slept most of the time he did it was uh it was a great night great night stoked you being on the show today but
(01:48) we're going to talk about something different we're going to do a longer series at some point so look out for that freaks but we're going to talk about the article that he just wrote I think it's very preent considering the narrative in space right now particularly around the reserve and all that but first we have to get a proper shill in for next week yeah fourth annual Bitcoin takeover fourth annual Bitcoin takeover uh next week it's going to be uh here at the commons there's a few events or there's an event at University of Austin across
(02:18) the way just count caddy corner of the commons but looking forward to it a lot going on I think we have seven Bitcoin events or actually eight Bitcoin events in six days five or six days so um I think you were part of the you were here already in Austin for the first takeover but um Bitcoin takeover is something that we really started when we launched the commons and historically South by Southwest despite being a big technology in addition to film and music festival doesn't ever include Bitcoin as a track and given the absence of Bitcoin
(02:57) at South by Southwest here in Austin it was appropriate for us to host the Bitcoin takeover of South by Southwest to give Bitcoin its due and so the first one was in 2022 and we've hosted it every year since continues to get better and continue to expand it so it'll be next week March 11th to the 15th 15th 15th well we added on a a screening a film screening so in South by southw in honor of South by Southwest which is a technology film and music f Festival we've got a whole series of events so the 11th Nifty and Bitcoin Plus+ are
(03:36) hosting a hackathon here at the commons and then the evening of the 11th we are hosting a Bitcoin not blockchain event myself and Drew bonsel will be giving a presentation to help educate all of the people that either believe that uh crypto is valuable or blockchain is valuable to help understand what Bitcoin is why it's blockchain is the only blockchain of relevance and why blockchain is not Tech and then so that's the 11th Tuesday Wednesday we're hosting an event here with hrf called The Great Divide Bitcoin
(04:10) versus cbdc is really highlighting that there are two paths forward either a panopticon um with mass surveillance of cbdcs that's the the natural way that the Fiat world is going or the open monetary system closed vers open centralized versus decentralized so that'll be with hrf on Wednesday the 12th and then Thursday the 13th CL laabs hosting their startup day that has their top Builder finale on the 13th and then we'll have awesome bit devs that evening where the the winner of uh ple lab stop Builder will be
(04:46) announced and then on Friday we'll have our main event which is our full day of speakers people can find out about it at bitcoint takeover. org if they're interested in coming uh it's a high signal day we have 10 founder CEOs giving presentations on what they're building around Bitcoin covering education custody Financial Services insurance payments lightning infrastructure mining mining infrastructure demand response and oil field mining so we'll have representation from Upstream data Steve Barber going to be there speaking uh
(05:27) Michael Goldstein from satosi Nakamoto in um on the open source side we'll have Mike Schmidt founder and executive director of brink I'll be giving a talk on zap right and payments we have the co-founder and CTO from Light spark Kevin Hurley coming to talk about lightning and what they're building at light spark Drew bonsel will be giving a talk Becca rubenfeld from anchor watch will be giving a talk mark suan from Open Secret um we'll give be giving a talk uh a few others so that'll be Friday that's the main event it's a full
(06:00) day each speaker will give a presentation which I I think it worked really well last year which is why we're replicating the format this year of being able to hear from 10 different Founders and CEOs talking about what they're actually building followed by 10 minutes of Q&A and then on Saturday we're actually doing a film screening it was it was a late addition to the program but we're doing a a film screening of Elena media's dirty coin talking about Bitcoin mining and how it can help fix energy problems all over
(06:31) the world so uh I've only seen an extended kind of 17-minute clip of it so I'm excited for that um but yeah it's going to be great H week and uh really showcase uh not just the Bitcoin Community but what's actually being built on and around Bitcoin so anybody that's interested with all the crypto stuff that's going on DC now and over the coming weeks uh the Bitcoin takeover week in Austin will be a full High signal series of events what's your view I mean you've been at each of the takeovers you're a big part of the
(07:03) Takeover I I left out one big part which is we're going to be doing a live tftc after the speakers which we did last year let's get Danny the props live tftc what Bitcoin did crossover yeah that's gonna be exciting it is we talking to Danny behind the scenes No I mean it's my favorite event of the year it's high signal it's a long day but it's uh High signal jam-pack day and the caliber of people we get in the Commons on that day has been high and I think the bar has been set high and we're keeping it high and I think ju toos to South by
(07:37) Southwest it's really important that we do this here because Bitcoin does not get the lip not even Lip lip service isn't doesn't get no I mean and you you were looking through for the headliners the headliner this year is like Chelsea Clinton like it's completely it's like David Duvy Chelsea Clinton and three people that you've never heard of yeah I like David Duvy well I mean it's not it's not like don't like d jovy but but it's it's gotten far away from its roots of uh support like Twitter was announced at South by Southwest back in 2005 2006
(08:10) whenever that was and today it's like Chelsea Clinton's the lead yeah I'm actually writing a piece a short piece on the Takeover that I'll get out tomorrow but that talks about the roots of South by really being a creative you know an indie music festival originally Austin's live music Capital World kind bed out to film and it was a music and Film Festival very you know Indie focus and and creative focus and then it shifted to technology and I don't want to say shifted but it expanded to technology and and it used to do cool things and
(08:44) then that technology piece started to dominate and overshadow all of the really Soulful things about South by Southwest and now we kind of live in a world where that technology piece still tends to dominate South by Southwest but even that has lack has lost its luster because you know it's one thing to launch Twitter at South by it's another thing for just big tech companies that can pay large fat checks did you walk down Congress yet today no the the UAA city state of Dubai has their own space that they're setting
(09:24) up it's literally just Dubai on it on I think like third in Congress so I'm I'm hopeful that South by will find its way back to its to its roots and in the interim and it's also that it's purposeful that they don't include Bitcoin people submit Bitcoin tracks so the way it works people submit talk ideas and then South by Southwest selects it and people always submit Bitcoin talks and they always pass it buy and so their losses are gain and you know I have you know Vision that maybe for South by to make it they'll have to
(10:00) turn it into a Bitcoin conference yeah well we're going to do that yeah we have been doing it we're going to continue to do it but really it is I I consistently get that it's the the highest signal single day that people attend and that and because we've each of the past three bar continue or each of the past three years continue to raise the bar creates a little stress to continue to raise it higher and higher but there is no ceiling there is no ceiling there's no top because there is no bottom to Fiat there's no top there's no top the
(10:30) Takeover so check it out bitcoint takeover. org for anybody interested or if you're following me on Twitter you've probably seen but get your tickets Cu uh we're going to sell out this week they're going fast and I think a lot of what we try to do at the take over is shift the Overton window towards the signal in Bitcoin like what's actually happening what are people building a lot of the topics that don't get tick in the mainstream and may not be the main narratives that are being put forth by many who are viewed by the public as the
(11:06) the Supreme Advocates of Bitcoin I think that's why we're here to talk mainly today is this recent piece that you wrote Bitcoin is money and currency from first principal logic like you like to do and just get down identify a hangup somebody has with Bitcoin and then you spend the time really digging into your mind and getting back to the base layer of an argument and then building up from first principles explaining why Bitcoin is or is not a certain thing and I think I texted you and we talked about it at Saturday when we were at mats this is
(11:44) one of the best pieces you've read in some time because it's a problem that I didn't even realize like the distinction between commodity money and currency never really thought through who actually defines that or what defines that distinction and how has it been recognized in the market to date and you were explaining that you've run into this question a couple of times and that you had the same sort of I've never thought about this before and so that's what set you out to write this paper yeah it um you know and I didn't intend it
(12:19) to I guess when I started writing it I didn't really think that it was going to be as fundamental as it was but I had recorded a podcast I think it was a Prince and he had asked I I can't remember how long ago it was but he had asked me you know what's what's the difference between currency and money and I didn't really understand the question but I'm on a podcast so I have to answer it and and at that time I I didn't really understand the distinction I kind of understood the broader distinction in the context of
(12:58) money and currency and history but hadn't thought very deeply about the distinction in the context of Bitcoin or why it was a subject of De debate really and so however I answered the question is probably ridiculous and in hindsight because it wasn't really getting at the true nature of the question and then since then from a policy discussion standpoint and while I'm somebody that's always vocal and and advocating for Bitcoin and contributing where I can in the background of providing advice I have resisted being part of an advocacy uh
(13:39) formal advocacy part uh group just because there's so much noise particularly in DC that it just feels like you're swimming Upstream so much and that there's this concerted effort from crypto and blockchain special interest to to lump everything together and you know some of the context which got me thinking about it more was uh Michael sailor who's somebody that I have a you know a lot of respect and appreciation for you know he's he's a great advocate of of Bitcoin he would describe Bitcoin as money and property but then he would
(14:16) expressly say that it it's not currency and I was trying to understand what his view was of of of around those definitions and and as I started thinking about it more and then as the Trump Administration came in and appointed did David Sachs as as cryptos are I had written a piece about a month ago talking about how it feels like the crypto blockchain craze was dying at slow death and was on the brink of of fading away and this just reinvigorated this ultimate negative consequence to bitcoin everything's good
(14:53) for Bitcoin in the long term but there can be negative consequences in the short term of recharging this conflation of everything and the confusion around that conflation the confusion because 100% if people get sold a narrative around blockchain Tech or crypto or all the utility all these crypto scams are going to bring it is definitionally harder for them to understand Bitcoin and if I were to take somebody from zero and help help them understand build them up from zero to help them understand Bitcoin I can help
(15:32) I can get them there fairly quickly but if somebody's wrapped their head around and become convinced of some blockchain narrative or some crypto there's going to be a thousand different currencies it is definitionally quantitatively qualitatively harder to help that person understand Bitcoin it's 10x harder to refute than it is to put it out in the world yeah and and especially once somebody has become convinced of something and then taken a bunch of different actions with those incentives they they actually have an incentive not to
(16:07) understand and it's it's not the same as whatever the quote is where some you know somebody's job is dependent on it so therefore they don't understand it it's not it's not the same way as as the canalon effect but if somebody's become convinced that all this crypto nonsense is Tech and blockchain's Tech then and they've gone out and started speaking about that then they don't want to be wrong there's an inherent bias to to not want to uh hear an opinion that runs counter or logic and reasoning that runs counter and so
(16:46) as the conversation in DC is has quote heated up and as that has recharge this conflation of the two there is a lot of people trying influence policy in DC and I think that it in the long term I I I think you know certainly Michael saor means well um but there are other people that don't mean well that want to Define you know Bitcoin a certain way and create a market structure to allow for basically to codify and legitimize what what I view is detrimental and I don't come at this from a perspective that the free market
(17:31) shouldn't sort itself out but it's also better for somebody to be able to be clear-minded around Bitcoin and not set policy for Bitcoin conflating all these things together because what happens in that world from my perspective is that if you lump Bitcoin in with everything else then the snake oil is always snake oil and when it becomes clear to everyone that it's snake oil they're going to associate it with Bitcoin and then they're going to over reggulator box that it shouldn't be in and that you know again while everything
(18:10) is good for Bitcoin in the end it can make people's lives harder in the United States it can certainly make people's lives harder that are working on bitcoin and so I think it's important that people get it right and that's that's what prompted like I think there's a I guess I wrote it before Trump came out with his shitcoin stockpile but there's a an event DC at the White House that David Sachs is organizing on crypto like a crypto I don't know what they're calling it crypto Summit or crypto working group on Friday and then
(18:40) there's another event on Monday and so I do think that it's important not just to get ahead of it but to to frame Bitcoin correctly we've had podcasts in before where we talked about the importance of framing Bitcoin correctly and not seeding the ground because if it turns out if you're just kind of Towing the line then eventually people are going to figure out what it is and it's better to set good policy on the front end and not to run away from it so in the piece Bitcoin is current or money and currency I specifically laid out the case for why
(19:19) it's both and why just from a fundamental economic perspective because of the way that Bitcoin works it can't not be currency such that if it were to be put tried if people tried to put it in a regulatory box or bucket that doesn't fit the substance of what it is that will ultimately um be detrimental at least to the people that are here in the United States Su freaks do you have a credit card are you getting cash back or Airline points or points for some other service guess what those are shitcoins you want to be
(19:58) stacking Bitcoins and I have some groundbreaking news for you the team at fold has finally released the Bitcoin rewards credit card they have a wait list going to be Distributing the cards later this year so you want to get on the wait list full Plus members are going to get unlimited 2% Bitcoin back on this credit card if you get on the weight list they're up to $200,000 in prizes they're going to be given out so get on it as quickly as possible go to tc.
(20:30) fold and get on the weight list there if you're on the weit list you have the potential to win some of the prizes check it out sup freaks this rip of tftc was brought to you by our good friends at bit key bit key makes Bitcoin easy to use and hard to lose it is a hardware wallet that natively embeds into a 203 multisig you have one key on the hardware wallet one key on your mobile device and block stores a key in the cloud for you this is an incredible Hardware device for your friends and family or maybe yourself who have Bitcoin point on exchanges and have for
(21:00) a long time but haven't taken the step to self- custody cuz they're worried about the complications of setting up a private public he PA securing that seed phrase setting up a pin setting up a pass phrase again bit key makes it easy to use hard to lose it's the easiest 0o to one step your first step to self- custody if you have friends and family on the exchanges who haven't moved it off tell them to pick up a big key go to big keyworld use the key TFC 20 at checkout for 20% off your order that's bit keyworld code TF tc20 that is the
(21:30) frustrating thing about the framing of Bitcoin by many people trying to what's the word I'm looking for um to um mold policy around Bitcoin is just this this footing around the fact that Bitcoin is money number one in this currency as well and I think as an industry we need to rip the bandaid off particularly with the Trump Administration the way they're posturing and the way the broader lobbying from the broader crypto industry is towards creating a distinction between Bitcoin and stable coins and really trying to say that Bitcoin is this
(22:13) digital Gold Store value Asset um that is reserve asset for companies individuals countries potentially even and it helps embolden stable coins which they play together and and I'm still trying to understand the logic of that connection but this is how it's Being Framed um I can certainly see how many people think that tether's involved with Bitcoin and cryptocurrency they're stacking Bitcoin and the demand for stable coins driv demand for treasuries and I guess the logic is that people are using the stable coins to trade Bitcoin but that's
(22:50) like the extent of the connection there's this weird I'm not I'm not sure if you're you feel this way too but it feels like the way stable coins just supposed to bitcoin Are Being Framed from the big crypto lobbyist is they they're sort of symbiotic and I think there is a clear delineation between them yeah so I I think the because one one of the big competing priorities in in Washington DC or there's three big competing priorities there's stable coins there's this concept of Market structure that will try to create
(23:22) regulatory Clarity of locking up tokens not just stable coins but all the crypto grip and and Bitcoin and then there's another priority which is the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve that Cynthia lumus senator from Wyoming um has a a proposed bill for and is trying to work that through the legislative process and so there's constituents that really want stable coins to be the priority there's other constituents that really want Market structure to basically legitimize crypto altcoin scam cam world and then there's a constituency that's that's
(24:03) trying to focus on bitcoin and within the three buckets it's generally saying trying to label okay bitcoin's a commodity there's this thing called the digital assets which is all the crypto grift and then there's stable coins which are currency um and or digital currencies and the distinction just for for people's context and this was something that I I didn't from a definitional standpoint have as great of appreciation for say a year ago that I do now because most most people and I talk about this in the piece that I wrote most people if
(24:43) you were to ask them what's the difference between money and currency they would look at you kind of cross-eyed they' think that you're being pedantic and saying what do you mean the dollar is money and it's currency money and currency are two interchangeable words and from a practical perspective that's true from a legal and Regulatory perspective and in the context of the history of money there there is a distinction and the distinction Matters from a regulatory perspective and so just to kind of spell out that distinction for
(25:18) folks it is that historically say if you had a commodity money like gold gold was money and gold needed some currency to sit on top of it and that currency came in the form of coinage typically tied to the state or the crown um and then in the Fiat World similarly initially when the dollar emerged gold was money and the dollar was a paper note that essentially served as a contract that was convertible to gold and so prior to bitcoin every and money historically wasn't always Commodities but but Commodities emerged as the best form of money but
(26:09) then the currency sat on top and the currency always had an issuer that was typically the state Now history of the United States there were private monies and Banks could issue private dollars scrip companies would would issue money yeah uh but that distinction between money and currency is is distinguishing between the underlying say commodity money like gold and then the the formal currency that needed to set a weight and measure and actually issue um convert or you know if if you were thinking about it from a coinage perspective the
(26:52) process of refining gold into a coin served an actual tangible valuable process in converting the commodity into a currency to make it a utility in trade um not only setting a weight and measure putting it into a standardized unit validating it enforcing against counterfeit and so so historically there's a there's a good reason to distinguish between the two the thing about Bitcoin that makes it so unique in the history of money is that it is a commodity in the sense that a commodity would be traditionally defined but it's also useful as money
(27:36) and because Bitcoin the network itself is able to collectively as I would frame it issue money like issue the 21 million control the supply schedule control how it how that 21 million is issued enforce the fixed supply of 21 million validate all currency transaction actions transmit currency transactions like you do not need the US dollar system to transmit Bitcoin transactions the Bitcoin Network facilitates all of that in a closed loop and because Bitcoin has a bakedin native unit it can do all of the things
(28:20) that any other currency that would otherwise need an issuer to do without an issuer and so bringing in back that to this bucket of what's a commodity and what's a digital asset and what's a digital currency it's like yes Bitcoin is a commodity but it's also money and it's also viable as a currency and trying to distinguish and say this is a commodity but not a currency is swimming Upstream for fundamentally what it is from a economic standpoint and the economic gravity will dictate that it will be used as such and
(28:59) the only we can kind of like go into some of those specifics of kind of what the roles that issuers have played and how Bitcoin helps eliminate it but the really the consequence if you follow logic through is that the only reason to have a another currency sitting on top of Bitcoin when Bitcoin can operate perfectly functionally as a currency system is to restrict its use and I'm not saying like absolutely I don't believe that that anyone who understands Bitcoin most notably Michael saor that thinks it should be defined as commodity
(29:36) and not as a currency I don't think he's you know he doesn't have that incentive at all nor do I think that is what his aim is I'm saying that the consequence of creating these two distinctions that that's the logical endgame and so that's not only the logical endgame but it creates a consequence for anybody who's interacting with Bitcoin not just as money and a store of value but but as currency yeah the and it's funny as I read the piece and as I'm listening to you describe it now thinking back to one of the big memes particularly in the
(30:14) early years that people would run with to try to Define Bitcoin as this incredibly Innovative technology that represents a breakthrough in human history and it's triple entry accounting it feels like pry particularly um going back to the issuer and trying to account for the validation of transfers of the currency within the system like this explanation that you're describing should be an add-on to that Meme of triple entry accounting like it allows us to have this enclosed system that does everything from issue the money
(30:49) control the issuance validate what's being sent where when um and then act as a unit of account as well yeah so you know if I if I just frame say the the role of an issuer historically in money thinking about well you know in the context of gold and I always try to reinforce people that you don't have to understand why gold was money to understand Bitcoin but the Dollar's origin was gold and even if people don't understand gold they can at least appreciate that gold the gold standard existed and that the entire world whether they understand why
(31:35) or not the entire world Converge on gold as a monetary standard but in order for gold to be functional as money gold is an element it's a rock in the ground got to get it out of the ground you got to actually get the gold or out of larger Rock then in order to turn it into a coin there's or there's a metallurgical process to get the gold out of the The Rock ore but then there's another chemical process in a refining process to turn this raw material into a shiny gold coin that is in a standard weight and measure that says that this is a 1
(32:15) oce gold coin and 1 ounce might have emerged on the market but it was set by an issuer it was set by somebody who's doing the refining and for money to be viable as currency you need standard weights and measures and it's no it's of no small consequence that that Bitcoin removes that need for setting standard weights and measures not only did gold need some issuer to set standard weights and measures but the dollar also needed someone to set standard units measures a penny a nickel a dollar a $5 bill a $20 bill a
(32:54) $10 bill a $100 bill now in the digital world the dollar lesso needs a standard unit but it but it does need an issuer of currency and somebody to validate currencies and that that idea of uh you know triple entry accounting however you might want to think about it it's that there's this closed loop aut truly autonomous system that can validate all currency transactions and that you don't have to trust another third party in the current iteration of Fiat currencies and the reason why an issuer is necessary in
(33:29) the context of All Digital Fiat currencies whether it's a stable coin or uh you know that sits on top of the US dollar or the fed's system itself the FED is ultimately the one that validates all currency transactions the treasury is one that prints dollars and ensures that someone's not running around with a counterfeit bill or printing counterfeit bills and getting them into the currency Supply that is is 100% a system that's based on trust dependent on trust to work dependent on trust and issuer to work and the thing
(34:03) that allows Bitcoin to operate without the issuer is this record system that is immutable that relies on no third party to be a source of truth that anybody can validate the currency and anybody can send it because the process of actually sending if you think about if you send think about a a bank transfer from one bank to the next Banks can't do that one to one now A Bank could take a $100 bill and walk it over to the other bank without a central third party but they're dependent on ultimately the fed from for clearing
(34:44) those transaction system yeah that's another place where you know it's like there is this autonomous accounting system that's that tracks all these records enforces all these records and when someone's ready to transmit the Bitcoin Network handles that directly it doesn't need to trans transmit quote through a massive thirdparty intermediary or any thirdparty intermediary so that is you know kind of on on kind of like the unit level in terms of the unit of measure the the SATs or the Bitcoin as well as this open record that again oftentimes
(35:22) for people that are new I like to qualify that there's not just one Bitcoin blockchain every everyone's maintaining the records themselves everyone's validating records themselves when when transactions are transmitted it's passing around to to every node that exists and that all nodes need to to maintain their own Independent Record and that they're able to get to the consistent state of ownership because of the way that the Bitcoin network works but that through that process all also is what allows for the elimination of an
(35:52) issuer entirely from the process so I I do agree and it's it's an extension of this idea and it's part of what allows it to operate perfectly from a technical perspective as a currency system without an issuer that that kind of idea of a triple entry accounting Su freaks Bitcoin is the ultimate scarce asset joined Bitcoin macro expert Nick baa at a live online event on March 17th for death taxes and 21 million learn how to Shield your wealth leverage tax advantaged accounts and secure your Bitcoin for future generation
(36:28) your financial adviser accountant or attorney might not be up to speed on bitcoin so invite them to join too register now at unchain dcom tftc that's unchain dcom FC March 17th be there again it's a shame that this your explanation of Bitcoin is currency and again going back to people really don't understand this you didn't even understand I didn't understand it until you wrote the piece and then it's was like oh crap there are these very minute details that matter for definitions particularly when people are trying to
(37:05) put Bitcoin into a bucket at the the the government layer of society and erect regulatory Frameworks around it and I think it's crucial that we are as clear as possible when it comes to defining Bitcoin um at the at the government level particularly here in the United States obviously we're Americans this is what we care about and I do worry that the noise that exists in DC could create a situation where it gets wrongly defined because people don't understand it or others are trying to muddy the waters about what Bitcoin
(37:44) actually is for their own incentives and their own gain um in the long run and I think that extension of triple entry accounting is a good way to frame it to people that are that are trying to understand this or trying to pitch it to others out there as well as the significance of it the significance of this entirely autonomous system that isn't dependent on a cenal third party to coordinate any of the functions that have historically been um necessary to have a there's been a division of labor amongst all these to
(38:23) make a currency system work and that doesn't exist in Bitcoin and there are consequences to that and one other thing that I want to make clear is that Bitcoin doesn't need any advantages to succeed people building Bitcoin companies don't need any advantages to have their we we don't need special treatment Bitcoin is what it is fundamentally and the regulation is going to need to fit it otherwise it's like governments can create bad policies and constituents can be harmed by those bad policies eventually the quote
(39:09) regulation is going to fit the economic reality because it's a gravitational force but in the intervening period a lot of pain can be created and that that's what I think is important to avoid and that the what I believe is logical not I think it is an indirect consequence if you if you define the the consequence of incorrectly defining Bitcoin if you if you define it as a commodity and say it's expressly not as a a currency and then it's it is not you know we don't need the government to have an spr for Bitcoin to succeed and
(39:49) all the individuals who are owning Bitcoin to have their number go up we also don't need all capital gains to be removed from Bitcoin from like good Economic Policy would be that all governments should hold Bitcoin and you should remove capital gains from Bitcoin but Bitcoin doesn't need that um doesn't need that advantage to succeed by having bad policy again you can slow things down and make certain people's lives harder that that's fine and well the the big risk is as soon as you define it as it is this thing and it's not that thing
(40:28) it is commodity and it is not currency and then the dollar continues to degrade as a currency system price of beef at the grocery store when I went last week was up another 10% that is happening because of gravitational force as people begin to realize that the economic reality is that and I'll walk through the logic not because I want this to happen just because it's it it is again the economic real it is it either is or isn't this isn't my opinion is that Bitcoin is competing with the dollar I don't believe that's a
(41:05) bad thing I can understand people's perspective that it is my my view is that it's not and we made that case on another podcast but it is competing with a dollar and people are sending currency transactions I'm working on bitcoin payments I'm helping Everyday People every day you ranchers doctors lawyers shop owners not just people working on bitcoin people run media Empires yeah people that run media Empires like tftc except Bitcoin as payment and so if if you defined this as a commodity and not a currency and then there's
(41:42) increasingly this trend of people using as currency and at the same time that the dollar is losing its value which is one of the bases for Bitcoin to be a store of value and that as everyone's doing that then it becomes natural for them just to move the money between each other because it's the best form of money somebody comes along and says I don't want you doing that I don't want you transacting in Bitcoin that's a commodity it's not a a currency we we were told it's not a currency you can't use it as such and so
(42:17) just reinforcing for people it's not this isn't important to try to get a policy that advantages Bitcoin it's important not to make a misstep that can come back to haunt you later on let's just call it what it is let call Spade of spade and let's have a direct conversation about it and hopefully create good policy that does allow Bitcoin to flourish and doesn't slow it down yeah and I think we went over this when we recorded the episode about combating the FED that Bitcoin does not compete with the US dollar it
(42:53) does compete with the dollar and yeah and let me let me let me yeah let me explain this cuz I also I have this lo I lay out the logic in the piece and you can find it at gradually then suddenly. XYZ it's also on Twitter a Twitter article nftc andt nftc thank you for helping Syndicate as the media Empire in the room but I'll walk through all of logic but I'll start at this point because is where we were which is you can't store the same value in two different currencies at once you can store different value in
(43:33) different currencies and you can choose what percentage of your value you store in one versus the other but you have to choose which you're storing value and that that is the there's no fundamental way around those like when you're when when you get paid either for your good or service directly or your employee gets your paycheck you have to decide say you get $5,000 a month you have to decide do I want to save a thousand of that in Bitcoin 2500 in Bitcoin 5,000 in Bitcoin and then you have to decide what you want to do with
(44:14) the rest of it but you can't store the $5,000 in Bitcoin and fiat currency at the same time and this idea of having kind of a fiat currency sitting on top of Bitcoin even in that world you have to to choose because there is something fundamentally different even if you're using a custodian it would be fundamentally different if you were to deposit $5,000 into the Bitcoin exchange and have a liability of this exchange like a deposit that's denominated in dollars versus having a contract and a liability that's denominated in Bitcoin if you
(44:53) deposited $5,000 into the crypto SL Bitcoin exchange and it was a $5,000 dollar denominated liability that is fundamentally different than you have xats from a contractual perspective and so like if you think about the history of gold gold was convertible to Dollars you would put your gold in the bank and the bank would give you $20 the gold the gold in the bank was the banks you now had the dollars and there was a contract that said you could convert those dollars back to 1 ounce of gold that contract was later broken in
(45:33) 1934 when the government devalued the dollar to 35 to1 but it's this distinction of if you if you're trying to like you know have this idea that you're going to save in Bitcoin and spend your dollars well the first thing is you know as an example right now with the ETF you don't actually have Bitcoin you have stock or some security in an exchange traded fund that has a claim on bitcoin but your asset is the claim on bitcoin not the Bitcoin itself and even though iit's working on being able to allow you to take Bitcoin
(46:15) in kind it's drawing this distinction that if you had this fiat currency sitting on top of Bitcoin you could either live in a world where you actually own the Bitcoin directly and it's titled To You or you could have a fiat currency that's convertible or you could just hold a fiat currency that's free floating but in any of those cases you have to decide what percentage of the value you're saving in Bitcoin and what percentage you're saving in dollars and Bitcoin kind of like working back from the beginning of the logic it's the
(46:52) Bitcoin has a credibly enforced fixed Supply it represents money that can't be printed it's only credibly enforced because it operates entirely decentralized and not decentralization theater decentralization is not trivial Bitcoin as a function of that decentralization is as a at the network level is resistant to all forms of censorship that's what allows it to be Global and permissionless and it's what allows the Bitcoin Network to credibly enforce its fixed Supply without the need of trust the basis of Bitcoin storing value
(47:27) is its fixed Supply but again its fixed Supply is only credible because it's resistant to sensorship that's what allows you to permission if you want to to be able to plug directly into Bitcoin and transmit the currency without going through some outside system and everyone in the world is incentivized to hold a form of money that can't be printed versus one that that can so if you think that you're just going to store your value and spend your dollars you that reality itself is predicated on you making a decision of storing a certain
(48:06) percentage of your wealth in one versus a certain percentage in the other even just for that moment where you want to convert into it to send it it was predicated on somebody else holding the dollars and that's where it gets to well everyone will be in the future is today but just by the reality very few people still understand Bitcoin but in a world where everyone understands Bitcoin who who are all these dollar holders like everyone every time they're getting paid and taking dollars as as currency are having to decide what percentage stays
(48:39) in in that versus not and and what might be converted to bitcoin and in the end everyone like to a person is incentivized to hold Bitcoin and everyone is incentivized to hold a maximum amount of Bitcoin such that the only reason in that world where Bitcoin adoption grows and there's more people if there's two two Bitcoin holders on each side of a transaction that are willing to transact in Bitcoin directly for goods and services the only reason why another currency system would need to sit on top would be because Bitcoin
(49:18) wasn't capable of facilitating The Exchange on a direct basis which it is capable of technically facilitating that which then comes back to well if everyone's maximally incentivized to hold Bitcoin and it's capable of sending and transmitting currency transactions and processing for final settlement without a third party the only reason to add a a fiat currency into that equation would be unsolved in the form of money that can't be printed and from a practical standpoint the only reason for that to exist again would be
(50:01) to ban the transactional use to police and exert control over who has access and the other thing that I mentioned I'll pause that was that was long rant but nothing about Bitcoin from a regulatory perspective from a fundamental economic perspective being money and being currency prevents say the US government from regulating its Financial system those those those two statements are not in congruent um so and then that that's one of the reasons why it's like hey just recognize that treat as currency and it doesn't prevent you from regulating JP
(50:42) Morgan the way you want to regulate JP Morgan it's a US company that Services us individuals and if they're interacting with Bitcoin and you want to regulate how an individual interacts with a financial institution or what obligations a financial institution has that's fair game um but that sits at a different level than the regulatory treatment of Bitcoin itself yeah and this is the question I was one of the questions I was asked at Bitcoin investor week in New York Pal's conference on stage and it was this
(51:16) whole debate about um what is actually happening in Bitcoin the question is the question he put forth was does Bitcoin compete with the dollar and I said yes and leaning exactly into this example that you're describing we'll just give a tangible example what tftc as a business like we and and before you even wrote the piece this is how I described like does Bitcoin compete with the dollar yes every day as a business owner I make the conscious decision do I want I look at the dollars in my bank account that come
(51:46) in through ad revenue and other revenue streams that we have and I look at it like how much money do we have how much Fiat expenses do we have in the next 15 the 30 days how much cash do I want to keep in my bank account and then I've run that calculation and anything above that that is excess cash in our bank account I immediately sweep the Bitcoin that example right there is the dollar competing with Bitcoin I making a conscious decision of do I want to hold these dollars in my bank account or convert them to bitcoin yeah and that
(52:20) and that's what people just have to accept at basically an Atomic level that they're they're making they they're every every single person in the world whether they're conscious of Bitcoin or not is having to make a decision about what they store in dollars versus other assets just so happens that Bitcoin is actually money and viable is a currency system so this dilemma becomes more of consequence right because people in the traditional world will look at that same dilemma and say well I don't want to hold these dollars because I
(53:02) know that they're engineered to lose value so I'm going to hold stocks or I'm going to hold real estate it's just that stocks and real estate aren't also money and so the consequence of or the perceived consequence of Bitcoin quote competing with the dollar is more significant because it's competing on a more direct level it's competing as money and that if people just accept that Atomic level each time they're deciding whether to convert X percentage into Bitcoin that allocation whether it's 5% or 10% or 20%
(53:37) or 50% or 100% into Bitcoin they're being forced into that decision they're making it they're making the decision by their actions every day and if they ascribe or understand this path to why incrementally they're storing more of the value value in Bitcoin and making that Progressive decision to store less than the dollar and as and if everyone around them is having to make that decision as more people figure out Bitcoin and it does have this fixed Supply and that's better than the dollars that are losing their
(54:12) money then well what happens when everyone has figured that out and you're going to love this to extend the example further using tftc as an example I told you Saturday when we were at dinner that I paid three zap R invoices that week I got my fourth yesterday yesterday morning I'm drinking my coffee getting the news Bing email comes zap R invoice and for this particular expense it was the first zap invoice that gave the option to pay in Fiat using card or a or Bitcoin and so going back to that thought experiment of
(54:50) how I run the business earlier of I keep I look at my Fiat expenses um what I think I'm going to have to pay how much cash I should keep in the bank account how much Fiat and put the rest in the Bitcoin this was the first of this particular expense that gave me the option to pay in Bitcoin or um Fiat and the Fiat had a 4% premium on it if I want to pay Fiat it's 4% more so I made the conscious decision there where I had the cash in my bank account expecting it to be a Fiat expense at some point uh in the month but the
(55:21) Bitcoin payment option was there and I was like I'm not going to pay 4% so I just paid in Bitcoin and immediately bought the same amount because I was going to use that cash anyway to pay this expense yeah and so so let's walk through that example because that that gets to another part of the the the logic that I articulate and sometimes it can be hard for for somebody to grasp it that is thinking about capital gains and is thinking about their own decision to store value in Bitcoin versus dollars and and and one thing I
(56:00) would say to certain people for anybody calls on this I have the receipts I will share them if if people want to ask for them yeah but um that for people that have say 5% of their money in Bitcoin and 95% in Fiat yeah just spend the Fiat you've got more Fiat than you have Bitcoin what that also means is you're storing more of your value in the form of money that's losing its purchasing power than the form of money that's gaining in purchasing power and that you're probably just underexposed to bitcoin but in your
(56:40) example and this is something that I explain in the piece that if if there's two current and I I I showed a diagram to this if there's two people there's holder of Bitcoin a and holder of Bitcoin B and they're actually trading partners somebody issuing you an invoice if you both have Bitcoin and you are both willing to transact in Bitcoin the cost of that transaction irrespective of the capital gains is cheaper the transaction itself is cheaper if you just send that person Bitcoin because it's just one transaction you had Bitcoin they wanted
(57:23) Bitcoin even if you didn't use the dollars but you you're you know running low on your working capital and and occasionally you have to convert Bitcoin back to Dollars to facilitate the dollar currency transaction in that case had you done that you would have had to convert Bitcoin to Fiat you would have that's transaction one you would have had to then send the Fiat that's transaction to and the person on the other side wanted the Bitcoin so they would have to convert the fat to bitcoin so it's three currency
(58:00) transactions when one could have sufficed it's three set of transaction fees and Fiat transaction fees or more it's by definition inefficient and so that is I don't want say fewer and far between but given the fact that there are still few people say one in 100 that understand Bitcoin I would gather that it's it's less than one 100 that really get it but that's the prime example where where that person on the other side wanted Bitcoin they were able to communicate it to you by putting a 4% premium on bitcoin but on cash yeah on
(58:36) dollars on dollars sorry 4% premium on Fiat that you were able to affect one currency transaction rather than three um and that's the definition of efficiency you're affecting the same work for Less work you know the the same transaction for Less work and a direct example that these two things compete yeah not only that I paid the invoice over the lightning Network on a Sunday morning so that immediately settled in their account there was no because even if you had sent your dollars you would have had to replenish it so like and
(59:06) they would have had to say you sent the dollars to them it was at minimum two because they were going to convert it to bitcoin they had expressed their you know they had expressed their preference that they wanted the Bitcoin and so helping people understand that that is a perfect example of of two Bitcoin holders one that has Bitcoin one that wants to be paid init Bitcoin and that it was used as currency it is currency that is the economic reality you can't deny it um and that if you were to uh by some regulatory or legal decree
(59:42) tried to prevent that behavior from happening not only are you introducing an inherent economic inefficiency but you're also trying to stop water from moving downhill it's capable of being sent between peers and in this dilemma where you know one out of a 100 people understand Bitcoin there's going to be naturally fewer instances relative to the Fiat world where there's a Bitcoin holder on either side of a a real Commerce transaction but as that one out of a 100 goes to two out of 100 goes to three out of 100 gets
(1:00:22) to 60 out of 100 and ultimately 100 out of 100 then it becomes very clear to everyone what the same economic reality is that you just described um and so even though it's not common every day now when I say that it's like people are facilitating Bitcoins more and more every day so for them it is functionally operating as currency transactions but for people who can't understand that because they're not participating in it it still doesn't change the economic real it it's just harder for them to gather because of the adoption Dynamics
(1:01:02) but that will necessarily change as more people figure out the Bitcoin has a fixed Supply and as fiat currency gets to base more and more yeah and I I think that last that last point is really important I tried to drive that home last week on the stage at at the conference is that it may not seem like it like you may not experience these types of economic transactions in your daily life but they are happening and there more will happen over time and to your point the fact that they are happening is a validation that Bitcoin
(1:01:36) is currency yes and I I think narrative wise it's something we need to brainstorm in the industry because that's one of nobody uses Bitcoin uh for money as money speculative asset blah blah blah Roger bar it's too expensive on chain like which isn't even true today but like bad example yesterday morning sitting at my coffee table paid a $3,000 transaction over the lightning Network instantly settled immediately rebot the Bitcoin plus a little bit because I was like you know what let's buy a little bit more um and I paid an
(1:02:10) invoice I'm good to go yeah it's and it it's it's actually easier and it's it's particularly easier if you can EnV Vision this future world where you're not constantly having to go in and out of currency transactions um an exchange but in a world where there's two Bitcoin holders on either side that are willing to trade in Bitcoin going in and out of the fiat currency necessarily just makes a ton more friction and so with that perspective that that is how the Bitcoin Network itself operates and is able to coordinate trade
(1:02:53) between two counterparties without uh without a currency issuer sitting in between there can be intermediaries like you might have used a non-custodial wall or you might have used the custodian but the Bitcoin went from address a to address B and there was no third party that needed to say that currency transaction is good it can it can now move on and be validated the Bitcoin Network itself did that on its own that the because that's the economic reality the best policy would be to match what Bitcoin is with the
(1:03:37) appropriate regulatory framework and that would incentivize Innovation it just doesn't need that to succeed and for the people that you know get hung up on the the tax treatment it's like the if the the real thing that's holding Bitcoin back from being used day-to-day as a currency is more so that people don't understand Bitcoin it's that dilemma of one out of 100 people understand it if 20 out of 100 people understand it there would be more than 20x the amount of Bitcoin payments because there's a certain reality that
(1:04:10) you need density of Bitcoin adoption to allow for overlaps of I'm individual a paying individual B I have Bitcoin and and individual be wants to receive Bitcoin it's just a law of small numbers and the law of large numbers will dictate greater density and and more more natural trade so the the tax treatment the the capital gains is a source of friction but Jack MERS made this great point on one of his money matters podcast where he articulated that if you if you have a capital gain on a transaction it just means that your
(1:05:00) money didn't get destroyed so imagine if I got compensated in Bitcoin when it was 16,000 and say I got one Bitcoin and and I and I decided for some irrational reason to convert those to dollars at the time I wouldn't have had any tax consequences I would have just gotten $166,000 and then Bitcoin goes to $100,000 and I'm sitting on 16,000 and I have some good or service last year I needed to get my transmission fixed which was $10,000 okay I just spent 10,000 out of my 16,000 so now I've got $6,000 left well if I had saved it in
(1:05:50) Bitcoin and Bitcoin went to 100,000 and even if I needed to sell it back to Fiat but say let's let's say the example was the the guy was willing to take Bitcoin $110,000 worth of bitcoin I have to sell 0.1 of a Bitcoin I have to pay capital gains tax 20% on the difference of $10,000 um the percentage that's between 16,000 and um 100,000 100,000 so I need to pay 20% on on 80% something like $2,000 rough math well how much money do I have left yeah 87 88,000 so 8 875 yeah 875 of a Bitcoin versus 6,000 divided by 100.6 of a
(1:06:46) Bitcoin that that that's functionally the Dilemma so so if people are hung up on that capital gains it yes it is a friction but it it's more of uh I'd sayoc a luxury friction it's a luxury friction yeah and so once somebody understands that and also I'm not this is not tax advice but I I did not know this there's a there's a $60,000 exemption of on cap gains that's good to know double check that but I've had multiple tax advisors and financial advisors tell me that but that none of that changes the fact that that economic
(1:07:24) reality is the the same that you're still you're still incentivized to store more of your wealth in Bitcoin and spend the Bitcoin than you would be and pay the capital gains then you would be just being the bag hold dollars yeah um but that that's not really the thing that's holding back Bitcoin payments it's more just needing more people holding it and as more people hold it then there will by the density alone be more natural occurrences of Bitcoin holders being on either side of a of a transaction and so
(1:08:01) um that that's the reality now if they were to remove capital gains as a policy which in the piece I basically said like you don't need to Define this is a commodity this is a digital asset which by the way digital asset itself is a grift um and stable coins it's like call Bitcoin currency if you want to make the best policy call it currency and take away the capital gains and yes the government should buy it but just don't try to Define it or put it into a box that doesn't fit I think that's hard for people and it's fascinating to me that
(1:08:36) it is hard for people because particularly in the industry and particularly the people that are really hitting the pavement and beating the drum that Bitcoin isn't currency doesn't compete with the dollar it's like you're also saying it's this incredibly Innovative new technology and you're trying to put it into these these buckets of pre-existing Frameworks where it sort of those two ideas conflict directly right yes and there's just this natural thing that's left on and people just like don't poke the bear too well
(1:09:11) that's part of it but people on CNBC will ask Michael s's interview today but it was asked in a little bit of a different way it's like but what do you do with it you just sit it just sits there like you know if you describe this as this the best store of value but it's just this digital thing it's a very esoteric point to just end at like oh every everyone's just going to store value in this thing and everyone's just going to store more value and the logical connection of it is well no because it's money and it's currency and
(1:09:49) then you're going to use that thing called Bitcoin to buy food at the grocery store gas to the gas station on a direct basis that that's the end state if you don't have that logical end State none of it makes sense so we're all just holding this Bitcoin it's all going up in value but to what end the currency piece of it is actually what helps it become more logical yeah and this was the piece you wrote right before this one right is the um um it's like schro Ringer's money like Bitcoin only has value The Exchange the
(1:10:26) value oh yeah that was two yeah two ago yeah yeah um different that that's a little bit of a different point but my the point I'm making here is is more than it confuses people because people in the public you're like you're not going to do anything with it right it confuses people if they if you and it's not to say create a story for the sake of creating a story but it's I just told you a real life example of this happening if you don't connect the logic where like if your logic is and we're all just going to hold Bitcoin and it's
(1:10:55) just going to exist it's going to go up in value and there's going to be fiat currency it's like how how does it just keep going up in value it's like well well it's going up in value because it's actually money and money is used to coordinate trade and in the end people are actually going to be using this money to pay each other directly that is actually logically coherent whether or not someone accepts it as the reality that is at least logically coherent to to paint a vision otherwise it's just kind of the IC of
(1:11:26) everyone's going to hold Bitcoin and no one's ever going to spend it but it's just going to keep storing value for everybody and that it's it's particularly confusing because it's not Lo like the logic it's not that the logic breaks down it doesn't end at the point that it actually ends at yeah which is it's used as money to and you leave people confused because they can't draw that yeah since you're not drawing that distinction for them or not even drawing it for them but highlighting it to them they get they get lost at that
(1:11:58) sort of this sounds like a Ponzi scheme because everybody's going to buy it store their value in it right yeah there there's something missing there's something very logically that is the true reality that's missing from the end of the and it fascinates me people are so afraid to admit it like yeah but I I don't think it's so much a afraid to admit it I think that it's it's actually believing it mhm and that that world can exist where you're just the world can exist where you're just storing value and spend or you're just storing value
(1:12:29) in Bitcoin and spending your dollars cyia cyia ran with this beam last week too right um next time I see her I'll you know I'll explain this directly but that world can only exist where very few people hold Bitcoin and the majority of people hold dollars but if for the same reason that you started to hold Bitcoin if everybody figures that out and everybody's holding Bitcoin then that reality can't exist yeah well it's it's fascinating observing it as a business owner that obviously we're a Bitcoin company are a lot of our
(1:13:10) counterparties in the space where there's advertisers the commons are bitcoiners but it's been like the last 6 months like we just we we're doing a design collab with Skyler from finite Supply he sent me his ight invoice like the the amount of counterparties in this business both sending invoices to and receiving invoices from that have the option to pay um in Bitcoin is increasing every month satosi pacholi when I go to pay my monthly bookkeeping and uh accounting services zapo invoice Bitcoin boom like and I can see it here
(1:13:50) personally and this obviously this is a bit of anomaly to the broader public because we are a Bitcoin company but you you see it every day what you're doing it's not just Bitcoin companies doing this right and that's a I mean that that's a good point to help connect people just on seeing this Future Vision and I I think it's important to articulate that Bitcoin is currency today like from an economic Atomic level it's currency today it's it's not objectively objectively by every definition historical or otherwise you
(1:14:27) know historical in terms of the context of how people have defined money practically just in terms of how people interact with money Bitcoin eliminates the issuer entirely from all the functions that an issuer previously played in the function of money what it what it doesn't eliminate is you still need tools to interact with Bitcoin um you still need a computer you need a hardware wallet you know those tools you know just because you need other tools to make the money a greater utility and and a more effective currency doesn't
(1:15:16) mean that any of those tools that you need are reinserting an issuer into the equation which is the critical piece between money and currency on the payment side the other thing that it needs is tools to help people facilitate Bitcoin payments is that zap right you know like you said an invoice well we created an invoice to make it easy not just to accept Bitcoin but to accept Fiat and Bitcoin side by side but then we have a lot of things in that piece of software that help provide for you and for the person who sent you
(1:15:54) the invoice the business cont context you have the record what you paid not just the amount but what you paid for so that you can then do your accounting we provide the Bitcoin to Fiat accounting cost basis all of those pieces just in the context of the invoice and we you know have an API that does the same thing and a virtual point of sale and different payment templates those are building out Bitcoin as a currency system putting Tools in merchants and and entrepreneurs and ultimately consumer hands that allow
(1:16:27) them to functionally like anybody can send Bitcoin to anybody else but the world of payments necessitates combination of business context and the Fulfillment of goods and services each one of those type of payments needs infrastructure to be built around it to make it not technically possible because it's technically possible today but functionally easy for a consumer and individual or sorry a consumer in a business as more of those tools exist the tools have to exist for people to use them people adopt the tools and then more people use them it's
(1:17:01) a iterative cycle and and that's another reality it's like if people don't use Bitcoin as currency then the tools won't get built to make it better it is currency so the economic gravity of the situation will will dictate it that it will regardless of the economic friction that might be created by some regulatory apparatus but the point remains means that those tools still you know even if you've removed the issuer from the core of the currency system you still need tools to be built to make payments practically adoptable
(1:17:38) for individuals and businesses and in the future Bitcoin is going to have to be built into every payment system every Bank every you know again every type of transaction a real estate transaction on oil transaction a gas transaction a grocery store transaction a gas station transaction that is actual work that has to be done in order you know if you want to pay for gas at the gas station some people have to get together to build Bitcoin payments into the gas meter meter yeah right um so just understanding that it's it's a process
(1:18:19) but but none of that changes the fact that in the background money is moving moving between counterparties without a central issuer not needing a central issuer yeah did you uh did you listen to the Allin podcast with the the Callison Brothers yet that we were talking about Saturday I've heard multiple people have reached out to tell me about it but it's hilarious cuz you have and the reason I bring it up is because a right after I told you to listen to that because I'd listened to it the week before and they
(1:18:47) still have a fundamental misunderstanding of Bitcoin they use the old Tire Trope like we implemented Bitcoin a while ago back it was on chains before lightning existed nobody's really using it it was slow and expensive and we believe that stable coins are going to be the currency of choice in the digital economy Bitcoin really isn't a currency um and it was hilarious CU going back to that invoice I received yesterday morning and they had a 4% premium on Fiat payments and I paid him Bitcoin um and then just uh spent and
(1:19:20) replaced immediately and I talked to the person who sent me the invoice and that's any body is sending zap invoices I haven't really done it yet but it really was the kick in the ass just experiencing it yesterday in person put a premium on Fiat cuz I saw that 4 it was only 4% and I was like I'm banging Bitcoin CU I don't want to pay that and I talked to the person who issued the invoice you saying yeah because it goes to stripe and that's like around like the fee that they would charge us to to process this transaction and so you have
(1:19:48) the colis and brothers out there saying Bitcoin uh isn't really good for payments and then yesterday I consciously decided to use it because the friction they introduce with their the fees that they charge was enough in particular if you're sending large amounts yeah like that was it was a $3,000 invoice right yeah they they add up I get paid you know $500 wire I get a $500 wire from a sponsor the Houston Meetup and it I believe I get $465 oh my bank takes a $15 wire fee in their bank takes a $20 it's like seven 7% I think yeah um but uh an
(1:20:33) interesting point about that just connecting this idea is that when we built that invoice for zap right you can you can put a discount on it you can put a you can put a discount on bitcoin or you can put a premium on Fiat that itself is a tool that had to be built you know a part of what allowed whoever sent you that invoice without having to have a discussion with you to say you can pay me an either but I want Bitcoin and they didn't have to have a conversation they just could put a premium on it that the premium the 4% premium like if you want
(1:21:08) to pay me $3,000 you can either pay me $3,000 worth of bitcoin or you can pay me three $3,120 and right I think yeah is that right yeah yeah um without having to have a conversation that is combination with power software but then also a tool build built that allowed economic incentives to eliminate a conversation between two peers to affect the transaction and I I haven't seen the all-in podcast with with the cison brothers but I there there was this um I don't know if you guys put notes in the show notes it might not be worth it but
(1:21:52) there was this funny um if if this was Logan take notes take notes I'm listening waiting there was a one of those Steve Job like um you know Steve Jobs used to great for all the Zoomers out there that don't remember Steve Jobs great product pitches he would you know deliver this beautiful new phone you know and it's in this Auditorium and and and it worked cuz he was Steve Jobs but all these Tech Founders try to replicate it and they try to to integrate his Showmanship but for products that just aren't nearly as
(1:22:38) significant and and but anyway so one of the cison brothers is up there talking about how they're integrating stable coins and he it's almost like a humiliation relational obviously he doesn't understand it but um he's talking about um we're going to use salana and I'm going to open up my Unis swap wallet and you has to reference all these different weird things about the shitcoin world and he's like and I now I send it and watch it's done it's like bro like these networks are like ephemeral things sitting on top of the
(1:23:15) dollar the whole thing here is that fiat's getting debased you're people call them stable coins but they're just losing the same that the dollar is losing and eventually they're going to be worthless and but just the way he like went through the transaction and was like he like and now it's just instant done like done I like man when this guy figures out Bitcoin he's going to be so embarrassed right by you're standing there like I don't even know how to use Unis swap like I've how would like so you're he's explaining that that use
(1:23:51) case and as an end user I'm like okay I've got to download Unis Swap and well I mean not even that I just thought was like Unis swap you're around with that you know yeah like well think about this there were there were others that he mention but it was just like thinking that that was the Innovation and in my mind not only do I know that the real innovation's Bitcoin and and again the connect not people can think that the friction to bitcoin payments is capital gains taxes it is to an extent it ranks like a distant
(1:24:27) third the payment tools need to be created the biggest thing limiting adoption of Bitcoin payments is Bitcoin adoption as a store of value as more people have it um but that the way I also think about all the like why the stable coin stuff is noise and people use them so I'm not not saying it's invalid and people in the Bitcoin mining space use it I don't think it's interesting it it's going to have the same fate as fiat currency but it's like a worse venmo where if you send venmo if you spent money on venmo money is not actually
(1:25:04) moving if you send stable coins like the only way that dollars actually move through the US banking system is through the fed and dollars aren't moving through the FED they're just it's the equivalent of a venmo transaction just within another closed Network you can think of it as open because you know different wallets can connect to it but the actual dollars if you want to get them into the banking system and then say go spend them um at all the retailers that because like literally they're no they're they're
(1:25:36) they're functionally a worst form of dollars today the best you can do is make them as good as the dollar you know basically the dollar equivalent which they're not today but then what you do between here and now is spend all of this time in investment and they bought one of my friends companies so good for Zach you know I'm happy for them but you basically have to do all this work to make stable coins equal to the dollar which is in the process of degrading and failing and I'm I'm not being rude having my phone out I went to check the
(1:26:06) transaction of the invoice I paid $3,000 yesterday when I paid it was before the market pumps so it was like three and a half three 3524 million sets and the fee was 4,400 sat so and I just was doing the math like a 12 basis point did you pay onchain no lightning okay lightning 12 basis point fee going through the lightning Network yeah and you you you got a $3,000 lightning transaction that went through like immediately yeah and settled in their wallet immediately that's the definition of economic efficiency yeah and instead of paying
(1:26:41) $120 I paid and and part of this also to connect for people is because it is multi-layer that the E if you have two people that want Bitcoin on either side there's an efficiency because it's just one transaction versus three but also the reason why there's this gravitational force that will force Bitcoin to be used as currency is that that transaction and transaction fees will fluctuate as more value is delivered by parties are going to need to be paid for that but the transaction itself is trustless and well
(1:27:21) lightning let's call it trust minimize but even in that context between you and and your peer functionally speaking you couldn't get that Bitcoin back it was gone and there didn't need to be a central third party in between so the the transaction is not just more efficient because there was one transaction that was effective versus three it was more efficient because bitcoin's a trustless system that itself is able to move value between parties more efficiently than in producing trust and then that trust is a more Arcane
(1:27:58) process of of validation that requires more infrastructure and work and more risk because the the strip fees are so high because they're taking credit risk there's risk of chargebacks there's risk of fraud um and somebody's paying for that the system is paying for that in a currency system that's 100% built on trust everything is credit but when you can push a payment that is funded and that can't be taken back that's also part of this efficiency gain um the other side of it that people might be thinking about or wondering is like well then the
(1:28:39) price of Bitcoin went up it's like it's not just such as life it's that imagine a world where you had 100% of your savings to bitcoin that you were maximally um exposed to bitcoin going back to that example like if I had taken payment in dollars at 16,000 and just sat in dollars versus converted it all to bitcoin and then had to deal with the the currency consequences imagine you only in that same example imagine I only had Bitcoin I only had that one Bitcoin the 100,000 I had to spend the $10,000 because I needed to fix the transmission
(1:29:11) of my car which was necessary to my life if Bitcoin doubled it doesn't matter I needed I needed the car fixed and I still have 90% of my savings you know and in reality when you're send spending your Bitcoin if you have virtually all of your savings in Bitcoin which is someone like myself does and you not to out you but I know you well enough is that it doesn't matter if it goes up because when you're spending Bitcoin you're spending like a very very small fraction and then you're working to get more Bitcoin you
(1:29:47) know like it's just that that that's trade reality of of Economics you have certain needs and wants and it doesn't matter if the price goes up if you have virtually all your money in it because you're small spending a small fraction of it yeah doesn't it doesn't make sense if you only have 5% of your money in Bitcoin and 95% in Fiat yeah sure spend some of your Fiat but you have too much Fiat too yeah in this example it' be better if the price didn't crash down to where it was before the pump yesterday oh I see at
(1:30:16) the time of recording no but I mean for the same the same example I just described would have been better but like then you're just for like a period of 20 hours like I paid that invoice and then it was literally I paid that invoice immediately rebot plus some what I would have saved on the what I did save by not paying a Fiat and having to stomach those strip fees like I paid in rebot so I was back to I was back above where my Bitcoin balance was before I did the payment and the person received the payment like for a period of time in
(1:30:50) the last 24 hours they were up 10% on that so they had 30 $300 worth of value at one point yeah and I what I would say is like none of that really matters no right like if again imagine illustratively you have 100% of your savings in Bitcoin it's like you had an invoice to pay and you're going to get paid in Bitcoin in the future and if you're endeavoring in your business as you should be it's like I got to be spending fewer Bitcoin than I'm making for this economic activity to make sense and the the part that ties it
(1:31:25) together because someone might be sitting there thinking like well if it goes up certainly there was a consequence that and like yeah M you know you have to make economic decisions do you want to consume or do you want to save and maybe not all good you know consumption decisions are are good and you you should have saved rather than consumed and in business you can Endeavor to make investments that don't pay off if you're minded to consume on only the things that you really need if in business you're endeavoring to
(1:31:56) produce things of value then as you're spending Bitcoin as it's going up you should be doing that with the mind that you would only pursue that activity to make more Bitcoin and this and the piece that you mentioned that I had written before on the exchange theory of money it's that value is actually created through exchange so in that example it's less so um that the you know between you and your peer someone has the Bitcoin you know someone has the how many STS 3.
(1:32:29) 5 million so the value went up the value went down for one of you it's up for the other one you went down but you paid someone to do a service that's vital to my business that's vital to your business he got paid as compensation and your business is generating Bitcoin that's how value is created value is created through trade you needed somebody with some specialized skill to do a part of your value chain so that you could deliver services to all of your consumers the the podcast listeners the readers of the tftc media Empire the uh we shouldn't laugh at it
(1:33:09) it is an Empire it is it is but um that that's how that's how value is created through money money is coordinating trade it's not Zero Sum the guy who got the Bitcoin that you paid he he got the money you got the service you sell that service to people you get more Bitcoin yeah you know that that's not zero sum is the point the more that that happens the more that Bitcoin is used as currency that is how it deres value doesn't mean that it every every value transfer to bitcoin helps AFF is how value is created even
(1:33:47) if you're using dollars and intermediaries I'm just connecting for people that it's not Zero Sum like the same SATs exist one person has it you don't but you're destined to get more SS by delivering a great service and through that operation more value is created for for more more like um what's the term um more economic benefit it actually expands it doesn't remain static positive Eva yeah and we'll be able to talk about this more openly uh at the Bitcoin takeover wonderful yeah Cliffhanger Cliffhanger yeah so go get your tickets
(1:34:24) freaks yeah get the tickets to bitcoin takeover bitcoint takeover. org yeah it's going to be an amazing day um capped off by the live tftc what Bitcoin did but really spans across every you know every facet of Bitcoin I don't think I don't think I missed any or we missed any in in the program so no um I hope this real world example helped to articulate this point about that on the go I think it's important too yeah it is to help some because I I can I can on the currency funny question I I hope people kind of Come Away with a better
(1:34:58) understanding of the distinction it might it from a practical perspective it can seem pedantic but it's currently being debated in Washington DC and and there and there will be consequences so I hope People Come Away with just a better distinction of that but then I I can also appreciate how people can get hung up on not necessarily what's the point but there seems to be so much friction so why even Elevate this as something that that needs to be debated and it's because of what Bitcoin is at its nature and because people are really using this and
(1:35:34) that the more that people use it the more effective the tools will get the the greater the economic efficiency and then you know in the end the that Bitcoin will be able to be a working economic system for more people and help end this Fiat Calamity you know it doesn't it doesn't end without tools to exist to affect Commerce and and the more people that use those tools the more people that get a zap right invoice and pay it or you know pay somebody with BTC pay or um any service um that the more people that use those tools and
(1:36:12) understand like this this layered thinking of like don't get hung up by the cap games don't get hung up on the accounting it's like use it the more that you do the better the tools we'll get and that's how we actually get out of this conundrum well thank you for building the tools and honestly like zap right thank you for delivering the podcast I listened to two last week on my way out to Marble Falls I listened to the um Kevin mckernin one that was phenomenal you're bringing in people from kind of outside the traditional
(1:36:43) Bitcoin voices and then Kevin Dolan so those were two great podcast so I'm I'm I'm a consumer of the Pod obviously thank you thank you for uh helping us on both ends of the business no and honestly like the tools are getting better like I mentioned Satoshi pacholi like since we run our business on Z I think it's pacholi pacholi I used always get it wrong ping that's on me sorry Joe Joe um I got your back but zap right like since we invoice via zap right and it has Fiat and Bitcoin it makes accounting very easy I don't stress as
(1:37:13) much as I was two years ago three years ago running this business like Exchange accounts if you have there's whether it's strike River they have business accounts they do good accounting like if you're using combination of self- custody Bitcoin like zap right for big invoices that we receive load up an xub associated with one of my cold storage wallets and that's where we receive it to if we need to get cash with Bitcoin I have the ability to move that Bitcoin from that wallet to an exchange to sell I typically try not to do that keep a
(1:37:47) balance on the exchange keep a balance on Cold Storage keep a balance in cash the the ability to run a business on a Bitcoin standard has never been better and it's only getting better by the day yeah and there's a lot left to do but the more people that engage in that and use the tools the better the tools get by reps and feedback and working out Kinks and getting great ideas from customers as well as just more customers means more Revenue means more Capital to build more things so positive EV it's not Zero Sum
(1:38:18) it's not zero some we we used the modern day example we'll talk about it more on stage at the Bitcoin takeover now next week yeah um Bitcoin takeover. org if you're interested in Zite zaap right.com if you're interested in the piece it's on tftc doio it's on my blog gradu and suddenly. XYZ it's on my X um Parker a Lewis feel like I'm forgetting something but.
(1:38:52) com jftc if you want $40 off yeah there you go yeah uh it's a good deal best deal in the market um no I think that it um there's other events during Bitcoin takeover so if you find us on Meetup uh Bitcoin Commons Austin all the events that I mentioned at this at the start um are on the Meetup page oh yeah come see us next week and there's going to be a lot more of this we've got we got some ideas for some evering content we're going to work on so stay tuned for that forward to the series yeah peace and love freaks
