Tuur Demeester joins Marty to discuss how this bitcoin bull market could be different from previous cycles.
In this episode of TFTC, Marty is joined by Tuur Demeester, a long-time Bitcoin analyst and proponent, to dive into the current state of Bitcoin and the broader market. The discussion is rich with insights about the evolving landscape of the market, the dynamics of Bitcoin's recent price action, and the macroeconomic factors influencing investor behavior.
Tuur expresses an unprecedented level of bullishness on Bitcoin, contrasting the current market sentiment with the speculative frenzy of 2021. He points out that investors are finally recognizing Bitcoin's importance and the return to sanity in the world of investing. The election of officials with libertarian ideologies gives him hope for sustainable economic policies, which he believes are now gaining traction thanks to a broader understanding of sound economics.
The conversation also covers the impact of ETFs, the role of Bitcoin as an early indicator for market movements, and the potential for Bitcoin to dislocate from traditional financial narratives. Tuur theorizes that as Bitcoin's market cap grows, it could start to influence other markets, with price movements in Bitcoin signaling shifts in the global economy.
Marty and Tuur delve into the implications of the Federal Reserve's monetary policy, the increasing distrust in institutions, and the growing realization among the public that the current economic systems are fundamentally flawed. They discuss how Bitcoin, with its principles of sound economics, is not only a lifeboat but also a tool to rewire the monetary foundation and catalyze political change.
This episode serves as a compelling narrative about the shifting tides in the Bitcoin and broader financial ecosystem. Tuur's bullishness reflects a deep understanding of the economic and technological nuances that contribute to Bitcoin's emerging role as both a market indicator and a foundational asset in a world that is increasingly questioning the status quo of traditional financial systems.
The conversation extends beyond mere speculation, touching upon the philosophical underpinnings of sound economics, the potential for political upheaval, and the transformation of societal structures. Marty and Tuur's exchange offers a reflective exploration of how Bitcoin stands as a beacon of hope and change amidst global uncertainty.
Listeners are left with a sense of optimism about Bitcoin's future and the profound impact it may have on the world economy. The episode encapsulates the idea that Bitcoin is not just an investment or a technology, but a revolutionary force with the potential to redefine the very fabric of economic and political life.
0:00 - Intro
5:07 - Tuur is bullish
12:08 - Public is catching on to money printing
17:01 - Effect of newbie influx
22:57 - Regulatory and centralization risk
29:04 - Totalitarian regimes
41:06 - Belgium and helpless mindset
51:32 - AI and information accessibility
1:00:55 - Gradually, Then Suddenly
1:01:34 - How high are we going?
1:18:14 - Building, form and function
1:32:13 - Wrapping up
00:00:02:21 - 00:00:04:01
Marty
Ter. It's good to have you back, sir.
00:00:04:05 - 00:00:08:21
Tuur
Murray Good to be here. It's been its while lately.
00:00:08:26 - 00:00:34:29
Marty
It has been. That's why I wanted to get you back on. I haven't. I haven't prepped you for this at all. Yeah, yeah. But I have something to say. I've known. I've been following on Twitter for what feels like the better part of a decade now. We met in person in 2018, so I've been following your analysis and your perspective on Bitcoin for some time now, and I don't think at any point in the time that I've been following you, I've ever seen you this bullish.
00:00:35:02 - 00:00:38:18
Marty
You've gone full. Yes. You're fully balled up right now.
00:00:38:21 - 00:00:39:08
Tuur
Yes.
00:00:39:10 - 00:00:40:26
Marty
What is going on in your mind?
00:00:40:28 - 00:01:05:11
Tuur
Yeah. I mean, honestly, Yeah. It's I think that looking back because I think there was something that felt a bit off about the 2021 atmosphere rally like it was. And of course, that's just one cycle ago maybe, you know, I don't know, back in 2017, that was another cycle, but definitely the 2021, something felt off and like everyone was like, Hi.
00:01:05:12 - 00:01:30:20
Tuur
Right. I mean, like everything was going crazy in terms of prices, real estate, just equities, just everything, shit coins. And I think part of why I'm so bullish is that it's like the world is like there is some sanity in the world again, like there is some focus, like Bitcoin is going crazy. Not really. I mean, it's just the beginning, but but I don't know.
00:01:30:20 - 00:02:07:08
Tuur
It's it's the way it should be, right? I mean, the finally investors after 14, 15 years are starting to understand that this thing is important. And I don't know. I think additionally, I think Milly getting elected was like really it killed something in me that was like, oh, yeah, I guess, you know, as a libertarian, I'm always going to fight like the losing battle or it's just, you know, I'll be the guy who's like in the corner like, excuse me, like you just maybe, you know, not have welfarism and subsidizing everything like crazy just to see that happen.
00:02:07:08 - 00:02:22:29
Tuur
It really gives me hope because, you know, it's not that I don't want for people to get nice things. It's just that I want societies that are sustainable, economies that are sustainable, that can actually grow. And so, yeah, I feel a lot of hope. Yeah.
00:02:23:02 - 00:02:51:20
Marty
I do too. And it does feel like this time I almost said it. This time is different in a way because we have the ETFs are here, which I'd love to get your thoughts on where your broader thoughts on the ETFs. I think enough time has passed in Bitcoin's history and the history of its competitors, particularly altcoins that it's becoming clear that there's a clear demarcation between Bitcoin and the rest of the crypto world.
00:02:51:22 - 00:03:24:11
Marty
And on top of that, you have all these tailwinds that are blowing on Bitcoin's back, whether it be a record low confidence in institutions across the board, whether it's media, politics, education, medicine, whatever it may be. People are really not happy with the state of the incumbent power structure. So they're more receptive to a disruptive technology like Bitcoin that could hand power back to the individual and society at large.
00:03:24:13 - 00:03:48:12
Marty
And then on top of that, you have this very interesting dynamic at play from a monetary policy perspective, where the Fed has rates above 5% and a narrative for a long time was Bitcoin essentially moves with Fed policy. If they're lowering rates of printing money, of course Bitcoin is going to go up. But the last six months have proven that Bitcoin is beginning to dislocate from that broader narrative.
00:03:48:12 - 00:04:14:11
Tuur
So yeah, I want to throw this out there as as a theory slash prediction and it might already be already happening. We used to be assuming because Bitcoin was so small that Bitcoin responds to things that happen in the world and so that, you know, one of the things that, you know, we've talked about and many people talk about is that Bitcoin is actually correlated.
00:04:14:11 - 00:04:43:08
Tuur
The cycle is actually correlated to the money supply, right? I mean, Bitcoiners are smart. They look at the actual monetary inflation and then they respond to that by buying. But I think what's going to start happening is that the tail is going to start wagging the dog, meaning the world markets are going to start looking at Bitcoin as an advance indicator that something big is starting to happen because Bitcoin is now trillion dollars, it's going to go to $1,000 trillion.
00:04:43:10 - 00:05:07:21
Tuur
And so when the Bitcoin price rises up because of, you know, the laws of physics communicating vessels, it means somewhere else a bubble is deflating something is going on elsewhere. And so to look at the Bitcoin price can be like an early indicator that something big is happening. And so it just occurred to me a few days ago that I really think people are going to start looking at Bitcoin as a as a an early indicator.
00:05:07:21 - 00:05:36:20
Tuur
And specifically, what this could mean now is money leaving the banking system just going to be parked in Bitcoin where it cannot be confiscated because banks really are totally underfunded. They have extremely low reserve rates and and they don't offer Bitcoin directly. So it's not like, oh, you can store your bitcoin with us and then we can fraction or reserve it and, you know, do all kinds of things with it and, and still keep our business going.
00:05:36:20 - 00:05:47:15
Tuur
It's like no it once you buy Bitcoin, even an ETF, like it's actually leaving the bank and so yeah that's something something potentially really big that's happening.
00:05:47:17 - 00:05:59:07
Marty
And to put that these are still attached to this particular price movement. Like what do you have any inclinations of what's currently deflating and flowing into Bitcoin specifically?
00:05:59:10 - 00:06:22:00
Tuur
I mean, Peter Brandt just tweeted out accurately. He says crude oil is breaking out, stock markets are breaking out. Obviously Bitcoin is breaking out. And so if everything's breaking out to the upside, it basically means the denominator is starting to get really hurting, starting to hurt, and that's the dollar. So the dollar's weakening. I think that's what everybody expects.
00:06:22:02 - 00:06:44:24
Tuur
You know, Biden wants to keep the market strong, but also inflation down. But at the same time, the you know, as we all know, the governments have to keep on somewhat staying solvent. And so they need income. 20% of their of their budget is already being spent on just paying interest rates, paying interest on their debt. So they're just going to have to print a lot more.
00:06:44:27 - 00:07:02:24
Tuur
The only question is when, when is the big next wave coming? And if you look at global M2, it's actually already trending up again. So we don't even have to wait for, you know, Powell or whoever to to say like, yes, you know, we're now officially lowering interest rates like, you know, central banks around the world. They're already doing it.
00:07:02:26 - 00:07:03:18
Tuur
Mm hmm.
00:07:03:20 - 00:07:14:12
Marty
That was another interesting thing that happened this week was broccoli at CPAC over the weekend, actually last week, and basically exposing the fraud of government debt.
00:07:14:12 - 00:07:17:01
Tuur
I'm not sure I follow that. Yeah. So can you what is the summary?
00:07:17:01 - 00:07:41:13
Marty
I basically went to CPAC and gave a five minute speech on the dynamics of monetary policy and government debt. And this is laid out for the audience at CPAC that your government is funded on debt and money printing, like in tax collection, is essentially a humiliation ritual to make you think like you are actually paying for things that the government does.
00:07:41:13 - 00:08:03:20
Tuur
Right, right, right. It's like it's like we're all citizens that, you know, we're all underlings of this icon, this like shit coin, and they can just print more whenever they want to, but to kind of keep up the charade, they're like, Oh, we're actually also taxing you and you got to pay your taxes. But it's all just to keep up the the idea that it's actually backed by anything.
00:08:03:20 - 00:08:29:25
Tuur
The currency. Yeah, yeah. But I mean, I think the bigger picture of that as well is that Bitcoin and, and economics like sound economics, are actually becoming genuine political talking points like yeah, I saw that meeting, you might have seen it too between them Physic Ramaswamy and M.A. and the first thing they said was like, I think the VC said like, Hey, I'm, I'm more of a higher guy.
00:08:30:00 - 00:08:51:09
Tuur
You're a mises guy. Like, we're all friends here. And then of course, Millay said, like, Oh, yeah, but you know, Rothbard is a is superior to all of them. And anyway, the he didn't say that exactly but, but just the fact that like, you know, Austrian economics just sound economics, it's starting to resonate with people that like, hey, something's going on here.
00:08:51:09 - 00:09:06:09
Tuur
Like, we want to know. And you can't just keep telling us that inflation is like the weather and that like we just have to look at consumer spending to somehow predict like, no, no, it's created by money printing. Like regular people are starting to catch onto that.
00:09:06:11 - 00:09:19:01
Marty
Yeah. And there's like a bunch of things in the sound economics movement. I really like calling it sound economics. Yeah, it should just be economics. Plainly, we shouldn't have to label it as Austrian economics. It's just should.
00:09:19:07 - 00:09:21:00
Tuur
Be non garbage economics.
00:09:21:00 - 00:09:45:07
Marty
Yes, but trends over the last year, like E.J. Antoni has been making the rounds on Fox News and CNBC and getting out there. He's from the Heritage Foundation doing a good job of explaining sound economics. Peter Saint Onge I think his daily videos that have every single one of them seems to go viral. Hundreds of thousands, millions of views, doing a good job of getting good education.
00:09:45:09 - 00:10:02:12
Marty
Shows like this, a bunch of other Bitcoin shows. I think people are really, again, like you said, Melaye, getting elected is really an inflection point of people are waking up to the fact that the economic systems they've lived with in their whole lives are potentially systemically broken.
00:10:02:12 - 00:10:20:00
Tuur
Yeah, and we've all experienced as bitcoiners that one of the best absolute best ways to orange peel someone is just to explain the problems with the existing system. And that's you know that's what the safe things Bitcoin standard does what so many Bitcoin books are doing. And so it's kind of like it's it's lifting the veil from people's eyes.
00:10:20:00 - 00:10:35:26
Tuur
And I think the reason why the time is now is that now there is there's actually something you can do about it. And like it used to be, this kind of shoulder shrug moment, it's like, yeah, everything is kind of fucked up. Like, you know, we know that, but, you know, we just we just move on. There's nothing we can do.
00:10:36:02 - 00:10:54:28
Tuur
Whereas now it's like, No, no, no. You can opt out. Like, just get some bitcoin. Yeah, that's and well you can, you could have done that the last ten years. But now there's the relief, the psychological relief that there is like, you know, really high profile people that are leading the charge and that are like giving a good example.
00:10:54:28 - 00:11:14:24
Tuur
There's all kinds of like, you know, different political colors involved with with this movement. And I think that's changing. And also the access is easier. You don't have to like jump through the KYC hoops anymore. You just buy the ETF or something. Your advisor is finally starting to talk about it. Yeah, let's dig more. Who is starting to reduce?
00:11:14:24 - 00:11:17:14
Marty
Like how big in your mind are the ETFs?
00:11:17:16 - 00:11:36:25
Tuur
It's humongous and it's kind of boggles my mind that, you know, seven months ago when we talked, we were talking about my report, which is like, you know, how to position for the bitcoin boom, and it doesn't even mention ETF approval as a factor. I was just like super bullish and like all these tailwinds for Bitcoin, I didn't even and I'm kind of in a way I'm glad I didn't.
00:11:36:27 - 00:12:08:01
Tuur
It shows how how jaded we all were and I was after nine years of like all this regulatory fight to get it approved that it was ever going to be approved. But I think it's important that we we actually have a genuine bullish case for Bitcoin regardless of ETF approvals. I do think this is somebody said on Twitter like this is the equivalent of I think it was David Bailey, the equivalent of the whole world getting approved to their Coinbase account.
00:12:08:02 - 00:12:29:28
Tuur
Like all of a sudden the whole world literally has direct access to Bitcoin, at least the Western world who has a brokerage account. And yeah, I mean the amount of money going in is insane, right? And it's going to be of course there's going to be, you know, it's kind of like the 15 year old who's starting to drive with a car, like, yeah, he's going to wreck the car at some point or some of the teenagers are.
00:12:29:28 - 00:13:00:19
Tuur
And so some of these ETFs are are not going to be the place to be like. And there's no I mean, I'm sure we agree, like no way. These ETFs are all going to survive the next 30 years. Like there's going to be some hacks, there is going to be, you know, but it's just growing pains. Like it's it's it's part of the process that we we are going to live through as like, you know, we're kind of like the parents looking at the newbies, getting into Bitcoin, being like, yeah, like people are going to make their own mistakes and it's it's cute.
00:13:00:21 - 00:13:01:25
Marty
Yeah, it's funny because I see you think.
00:13:01:25 - 00:13:05:06
Tuur
You're a Bitcoin owner because you have some some bitcoin ETF shares. That's cute.
00:13:05:12 - 00:13:24:22
Marty
Yeah, a couple of things here. Like one. Yeah, a bunch of people are like the ETFs are here. Bitcoin has been co-opted, it's done. Wall Street's here. They're going to they're going to control Bitcoin. I think Lynn and I think she was on the Bitcoin Frontier podcast and she basically flipped. It was like now, like bitcoin's an open source permissionless network.
00:13:24:22 - 00:13:44:24
Marty
There's nobody, no Bitcoin committee that gets together and says, All right, we're going to let ETFs. And like, if ETFs want to form around this asset, there's nothing we can do to stop it. And you should just view the ETFs as an API for the incoming financial world to plug into Bitcoin in some way or another.
00:13:44:26 - 00:14:05:12
Tuur
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And there is so much bitcoin that is that is locked, locked up, locked in that the OTC desks still have access to and and so, you know, the price is going to keep going up until we find some some people wanted to let go of their bitcoin but yeah I mean how.
00:14:05:12 - 00:14:06:13
Marty
Crazy do you think it can get.
00:14:06:14 - 00:14:15:13
Tuur
Do you think ETFs could could you know could could like custody more than a million Bitcoin or 2 million maybe?
00:14:15:15 - 00:14:22:27
Marty
Where are they at 370 Or if you include BTC, they're well above 700,000 already, right?
00:14:23:00 - 00:14:25:09
Tuur
Yeah. I mean.
00:14:25:11 - 00:14:26:02
Marty
So not too far.
00:14:26:02 - 00:14:37:09
Tuur
Yeah. I mean, it's something that we have to keep an eye on, you know, at When MONGOX went bust, it had 7% of all bitcoin in circulation, which is a nice precedent. You know that MONGOX never had any power over Bitcoin.
00:14:37:09 - 00:14:45:13
Marty
And most of these ETFs are customer. They're using Coinbase as a custodian, which just this week had another. Yep.
00:14:45:16 - 00:14:46:17
Tuur
Embarrassing moment.
00:14:46:17 - 00:14:50:15
Marty
Missing moment where they can't seem to handle high price volatility of their systems.
00:14:50:18 - 00:15:17:19
Tuur
So simple things like the retail people, they literally saw zero balances appear instead of like an error message that they like were unable to lower your to reveal your balance right now. Don't worry, your coins are safe. Like that's like one on one stuff. And they had like three or bear market to prepare for an increase And it's just you know it's like I'm always like a bit self-conscious when I criticize Coinbase and I'm like, you know, why would I do a better job?
00:15:17:19 - 00:15:36:12
Tuur
And it's like, but at the same time, like you have to think about some objective industry standards. Like we are growing up now, companies need to and there's other companies that show how it, how it can be done. Like these are not impossible standards to not shit the bad. The moment like bitcoin has a surge of interest which was totally expected.
00:15:36:15 - 00:15:37:05
Marty
Yeah, maybe.
00:15:37:05 - 00:16:08:24
Tuur
Like maybe do a little less at coining like maybe focus, get a bit more involved in the engineering world like because. Because that's for a long time and you know, there are certain Bitcoin companies that are that don't have that good of a reputation. If you actually talk to the engineers who are a bit more insular, you know, and then the ones that do focus on pushing for open standards, getting involved in the conferences, those are the ones that kind of hold themselves to the the universal standard that we, you know, naturally Bitcoin holds itself to.
00:16:08:26 - 00:16:35:09
Marty
Yeah. And you'd think like Coinbase went through this problem in 2017, same exact thing. And then Brian Armstrong comes out like we load test this for ten x increase in volume and the volume far surpassed our expectations. It's like, did we just, like you said, went through a three year bear market? Like of course when the interest comes back it's probably going to be ten X above what your yeah, what your standard rate was during that period of time.
00:16:35:12 - 00:16:51:23
Tuur
I'm afraid it's a bit of an attitude problem because I felt like he was defensive in his tweet. He was like, Oh, but you know, we tested for ten x volume increase and this, you know, exceeded that kind of like trying to say like there was no way that we could have predicted this. Like this is like an act of God or something.
00:16:51:23 - 00:17:10:20
Tuur
And like, no, like take responsibility. I just say, like, this is not cool. Like, you know, I'm going to get to the bottom of this. Or so that attitude, it's like it's not about this one time. It's just like, I think it's a pattern, you know? And I think it's going to cause them to lose the lead. You know, they're going to lose their lead in Bitcoin.
00:17:10:25 - 00:17:32:18
Marty
Yeah, they have a pretty massive lead right now. And imagine being an ETF provider. We're not even an ETF provider. Somebody bought one of the ETFs that these providers are distributing to the market. And you know, the Coinbase is the custodian and you see this problem and you're thinking, Oh, the shares that I just bought in this ETF, the Bitcoin underlying it is held by this company.
00:17:32:21 - 00:17:34:11
Marty
Like I'm not comfortable with that.
00:17:34:11 - 00:17:53:05
Tuur
How many thousands of emails that customers send to like, imagine you're like you bought like a $50 million chunk here, some kind of fund and then you notice that the custodian is is embarrassing themselves like this. Like I would I would email my my ETF manager and be like, what's going on? Like, can you guys switch now?
00:17:53:05 - 00:18:07:08
Marty
Then it highlights the centralization risk. And I tweeted this yesterday. I think you like the tweet, like these ETFs that they're going to be responsible and proper fiduciary is they should custody this bitcoin a multi institution multisig where you don't have this like obvious.
00:18:07:10 - 00:18:18:18
Tuur
Yeah yeah and also it's it's it's embarrassing how little insurance there really is. I think Coinbase is only insured for like $400 million.
00:18:18:19 - 00:18:20:10
Marty
It's like 1% of their hot wallets.
00:18:20:10 - 00:18:41:12
Tuur
Not even God. It's like and so that means that this ETF, of all the ETFs that exist in the world, there's probably thousands, is probably the single most high risk ETF that you can own where you have genuine risk realistically in the next five or ten years to get wiped out because people think an ETF is like golden, right?
00:18:41:12 - 00:19:13:06
Tuur
Somehow. But like the Fed is not going to bail out bitwise if they they all of a sudden get hacked or Coinbase gets hacked. No no So and it'll be I mean so that's kind of what I think is the likely next phase is like you know this is this is going to there's going to be a bad event that happens somewhere during this bull cycle and and then the Fed is going to be like the cavalry coming in or the regulators, and they're going to be like, hey, we need more regulation.
00:19:13:06 - 00:19:33:21
Tuur
You know, even though if we, like, turn back the clock and look at what happened is like, no, no, it's because you guys pretended to give this one seal of approval or like, pretend to do your due diligence and then give only one company your seal of approval that this could happen in the first place. But never mind that they're going to come in and say, hey, you know, we need more regulation.
00:19:33:24 - 00:20:10:06
Tuur
And then I think they're going to start pushing for a Federal Reserve of Bitcoin. Like, it's weird to say it right, but that seems the logical next step that they're going to be like, you know, we need a we need kind of a fund that is more thoroughly protected so that when these custodians go bankrupt, we can then provide relief to the people that have lost money and at least, you know, give them a smaller haircut or a little bubble and just all the usual stuff we know from the 19 tens here in the US, like it's I don't know, it feels a bit like overly simplistic, like maybe there is going to be other
00:20:10:06 - 00:20:31:07
Tuur
ways that they're going to want to intervene that I'm not seeing. But but yeah, so, so that's another reason, I think, why you want to keep your money out of these regulatory darlings custodians, because you have that like split in the market where there's pure market players that are just kind of like, yeah, regulation is just a pain in the ass.
00:20:31:07 - 00:20:56:09
Tuur
Like we're just going to get what we need in terms of licenses, but we focus on serving our customer and having top notch security. And then another part of the market that's like we're all about compliance, compliance, compliance. We want to become the darlings of the federal government and of like, you know, the powers that be. And then what you're going to see is that technologically these are going to be inferior companies, just like we see in the energy markets and other places.
00:20:56:12 - 00:21:17:03
Tuur
And and so you want to be on the right side of that market. I mean, obviously with Bitcoin, the nice thing is that you can obviously do your own custody and or involve a company into one of your multisig, you know, signatures. So but, but yeah, I think that's probably where we're going, where like we're going to kind of have the split in the market.
00:21:17:05 - 00:21:39:15
Marty
And if you're listening out there and you're earning the ETF, you're saying, Yeah, I feel comfortable here. Like you have to act because I have a microcosm example of this risk in my own life this week where I have a buddy is a public figure and he's talked about owning Bitcoin in the past in a couple of years or three years ago.
00:21:39:15 - 00:21:56:02
Marty
Now at this point, he had all of his bitcoin on Blockfi and their yield, well yield generating products. And he told me that and I was like, you need to get that out. Like the way they're generating that yield is going to lose your bitcoin. You did that, moved it back to an exchange like a year later he was texting me.
00:21:56:02 - 00:22:14:15
Marty
He's like, thank you. When Blockfi inevitably blew up, he's like, I got it out. I listen to you have it on the exchange, and I was like, You don't want it on the exchange. Like connecting them with the people down the hall and unchained was like, set up a vault and secure your bitcoin properly. Because you are a public figure, you are a target.
00:22:14:15 - 00:22:41:03
Marty
You've talked about owning Bitcoin and lo and behold, the sun got SIM swapped and they got control of his phone, his email and they tried to get into old all the exchange accounts that he was previously using and holding his bitcoin since he had his bitcoin in a multisig collaborative custody vault with unchained keys offline, they weren't able to get his bitcoin, but it was only because I was telling a story similar to this at the time.
00:22:41:05 - 00:23:06:23
Marty
He had his bitcoin and Blockfi Blockfi was seemingly fine and they never really blew up. And then he had an exchange and I was like, That's a risk. If you get hacked, you're going to lose your bitcoin. Yeah, it was fine at that moment. But he then moved to Unchained and then let me all this week he has a personal blowup where he has a security, uh, security slip up on his end and they tried to take his bitcoin.
00:23:06:23 - 00:23:11:19
Marty
They couldn't. So moral the story is act earlier than later.
00:23:11:21 - 00:23:53:06
Tuur
Yeah. And, uh, yeah, no, absolutely. And it's almost like, you know, it's almost like the human body where, like, there's all these factors that are threatening our health and and our livelihood and. But there's a silver lining because the exposure to it builds your immune system like you just learn every time and hopefully, you know, you don't get the attack is not too strong the first time around so you can still and that's where it can be a good idea, I think too, if you're not into Self-custody yet to at least diversify your custodianship and things like that, to, uh, to, to, to not have all your bitcoin eggs in one basket.
00:23:53:08 - 00:23:59:29
Tuur
Um, but yeah, just, just very, very interesting stuff. The world is learning so fast.
00:24:00:01 - 00:24:16:21
Marty
That's, that's why in others it does feel like people are learning quickly not only about Bitcoin but about the corruption, systemic risks that exist in the incumbent system. And it does feel different. I don't know if it is different. It certainly feels different in many ways.
00:24:16:21 - 00:24:44:20
Tuur
Yeah, and I feel like we can feel that there is going to be a changing of the guard in many, many countries like the because even just purely from a mathematical counsel point of view, like these kind of policies are unsustainable. Like you cannot spend that much money going forward because the debt is chasing you down and like you're going to have to massively cut.
00:24:44:27 - 00:25:15:20
Tuur
I was actually looking at them. Uh, you know, I grew up in Belgium and so I obviously follow follow the news there still. And I remember just pulling up like a breakdown of the government budget and which is totally unsustainable. Like they, they, they also have 100% debt to GDP and things like that. And some of the largest banks in Europe which are zombie banks, um, and um, and so I was like, you know, what would happen if Melaye got elected in Belgium?
00:25:15:20 - 00:25:42:21
Tuur
Like, you know what, what could you cut? And it pretty easily, like pretty obviously you could cut like 80% of the budget to 80%, which means you could actually either lower taxes by 80% or, you know, start paying or is like balance the budget at least. And very quickly, which we've seen in Argentina as well, like 90 days, they had the first, um, reversal of the deficit in like 12 years or 12 administrations, I think 12 years.
00:25:42:23 - 00:26:05:29
Tuur
So but yeah, like, you know, and, but, so in order to implement those ideas, you need new people. Like, you know, people are not going to believe the existing politicians that they who created this problem that they can sort of figure, you know, they they only know how to dig the debt hole deeper. Right. And so, yeah, it's just becoming so obvious to me that, um, there is going to be a changing of the guard.
00:26:05:29 - 00:26:23:09
Tuur
And I think in some countries it's going to be great. And in other countries it's going to be kind of scary because it'll be kind of, you know, also people that don't get it, but that just have a slightly different story and they're just going to try and keep digging and we're going to, you know, have people get sick.
00:26:23:09 - 00:26:49:23
Tuur
But at least I think there's going to be more of a diverse picture that it's going to show up. And in some ways, I think a lot of Bitcoiners are looking around and kind of trying to understand which country is going where to to decide, like, am I going to keep living here? I'm going to like, try and get like residency in that country just as like a plan B or I definitely feel that there is more discussion about that.
00:26:49:25 - 00:27:15:10
Tuur
Definitely like in Europe, like it it's just it's one of our most precarious races. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It really is. It really is. Because, you know, historically there are some places that you could go to like, you know, maybe like Switzerland or the U.K. or like there are some like the U.K. in a way. Was like the America of of, you know, couple of hundred years ago.
00:27:15:10 - 00:27:38:28
Tuur
That's where people would would go to. But like, people are getting thrown in jail there for for like just purely things that just pure opinions. Right. And that are then labeled as racist or whatever it is, because they have all these hate crime laws that are awful. They're throwing people in jail, they're finding them. And, uh, and of course, there's zero self defense.
00:27:38:28 - 00:28:13:09
Tuur
And so if crime gets out of hand, like there's, you know, if there is going to be armed gangs and stuff, like people are just going unable to help themselves. And you can also get sued for defending yourself, you know, So. So yeah, it is you know, it's it's precarious. I think there is still going to be good places in Europe and or in that in that sphere it because it's it's a big continent and you have all that game theory stuff that starts playing out because once as a country you start really being Bitcoin friendly, like you become like a magnet.
00:28:13:12 - 00:28:33:26
Tuur
And then I think there is like a it just strengthens, there's momentum that comes from that. And then of course there's a lot of money that's going to follow. So there's going to be economic incentives to keep it that way. So I don't know, maybe like in Iceland or uh, there's so many, you know, things that are on the periphery that could really flourish.
00:28:33:28 - 00:28:54:16
Tuur
But yeah, it's, it's, it's not looking good in general. It's, it's not looking good because also because of all the censorship, people can't even discuss the problems. It's so sad, right? You can't even just like you and I sitting here, like, I don't know, I don't feel worried about am I going to say the wrong thing or like, can I get sued or or thrown in jail?
00:28:54:16 - 00:29:09:04
Tuur
But, like, that's so weird, you know? And growing up, I never had that feeling. But the last ten years, it really started shifting that way where I just honestly, I couldn't tweet the things I tweet. I don't think or say the things I say on podcasts. If I still lived in Belgium.
00:29:09:11 - 00:29:15:28
Marty
No, in Ireland's got crazy hate speech laws on campus means without the police knocking on your door. Same in the UK Canada.
00:29:16:04 - 00:29:18:04
Tuur
Did you see the last thing the proposal?
00:29:18:08 - 00:29:20:07
Marty
No, it's in Canada, right?
00:29:20:10 - 00:29:21:12
Tuur
Yeah. The ministry.
00:29:21:12 - 00:29:22:00
Marty
From Prison.
00:29:22:00 - 00:29:48:26
Tuur
Of Justice is backing this bill. It's a proposed bill indeed. Throwing people in jail for life for, like this whole list of supposed hate crimes, which is like discriminating people or talking badly about people based on age, uh, physical appearance, religion, like basically the whole comedy scene. You could just, like, shut it down and say.
00:29:48:26 - 00:29:52:11
Marty
Okay, Boomer, you're in the clinker for life.
00:29:52:14 - 00:30:15:21
Tuur
It's just complete insanity. Oh, my God. And so and so it's it again makes it so clear why this is this movement of Bitcoin is so important because it's censorship resistant money. It means you can get the hell out, you know, like you can just and it's like an insurance policy. You can just have it stay living where you are with your family for you to say like, look, we're all frogs here.
00:30:15:24 - 00:30:18:16
Tuur
This is getting a bit hot. I'm going to jump out. You can do.
00:30:18:16 - 00:30:50:00
Marty
It. Yeah. And I think we need to better not align ourselves with I think we're already very aligned. But Ally with movement, like the one that happened in Argentina with my way here in the United States is a big contingent of conservative thinkers and organizations like Heritage and obviously the MI6 Institute. There's a lot of people who understand that things are systemically broken, whether it's in the financial sector, the energy sector, the big pharma sector.
00:30:50:03 - 00:31:12:11
Marty
And they grok that central planning is the core issue of all these sectors, and the government's meddling is leading to massive disruptions in the market and the quality of life for individuals. And yet many of them do not grok Bitcoin and understand that if they were to lean into it and ally with the Bitcoin movement, it would be extremely powerful.
00:31:12:11 - 00:31:39:08
Tuur
Yeah, it's more than just a lifeboat, right? Because the lifeboat ideas like, oh, you know, you can kind of get away from the problem or survive a little bit. It's really like you have this society as a body and then there's a big cancer who's like growing and, and really undermining the ability for the body to survive, which is that like a welfare warfare complex that's fueled by fiat.
00:31:39:10 - 00:32:06:18
Tuur
And and so Bitcoin really is a system that helps the body root energy around that and siphon energy away from the cancer to literally starve it and to diminish its influence and diminish its power because the, you know, the power ideology, ideologues and like these people think in terms of violence, It it literally is how the system is wired.
00:32:06:20 - 00:32:40:09
Tuur
And that's why things are so precarious now. Because if if there wasn't Bitcoin, I would be a lot more worried. Not that I'm not worried now, but it's just like I really I would struggle so hard to find an alternative to World War three, right? But like this idea of like, you know, literally defunding, defunding all these dangerous institutions and giving the money literally or allowing the economic energy to flow to people that are peaceful minded, that are long term oriented, that might would draw for a while from the, you know, the chaos.
00:32:40:12 - 00:33:20:17
Tuur
And then once things start to settle down a bit, can come in and help, you know, reestablish institutions, retool things, build new institutions. That's I mean, that's given me so much hope, you know, And the fact that you don't it's the first time in history that this can happen where the the wealth is not tied down geographically. And so it's just so powerful that you can have a family office or like a very large stash of wealth that is just hanging in the cloud where those those violence oriented, I don't know, socialists, communists, whatever you want to call them, collectivists is probably a good word where they cannot be reached with they cannot reach that.
00:33:20:20 - 00:33:38:27
Marty
Yeah. And this is a conversation people have a lot in the bitcoin space is like, how long will it take to get to that point where the dust has settled? We can come in and begin rebuilding institutions and reinvesting in a stronger economy. And I might be naive, maybe too optimistic, too idealist, whatever word you want to use.
00:33:38:27 - 00:33:44:11
Marty
But I think the reflexive nature of the bitcoin price expedites the process much. Yeah, it.
00:33:44:11 - 00:34:01:23
Tuur
Does. Which. Which is why bitcoin is going to be tech. Look, we can predict it now, right? I mean, bitcoin is going to be blamed for the inflation because people are going to say, you know, the powers that be are going to be like, this is wrong. Like, you know, you guys are getting everyone to invest in your pyramid scheme.
00:34:01:23 - 00:34:27:11
Tuur
Therefore we have so much inflation, it's your fault. And and we're just going to have to kind of shrug and be like, Well, good thing I'm out of Dodge because, you know, I think you're wrong. I don't wish you any ill, but I don't want to be thrown into a cage for for disagreeing with you. And so, yeah, I'm just going to wait until you're kind of tired because, you know, you're now poor.
00:34:27:16 - 00:34:53:17
Marty
But even with that point, like, I think they're losing again, the public. Look at Elizabeth Warren. Yeah, the Department of Energy, the EIA, this registry they sent the miners riot Texas Blockchain Council got on the horn right away, basically like, no, you're not doing this. And now it seems like a settled. I'm not sure exactly where it sits right now, but they initially got a temporary restraining order.
00:34:53:20 - 00:35:21:11
Marty
They were supposed to have a case or a hearing on Wednesday that got canceled. It seems like there's a settlement outside of the courts that happen, which doesn't seem like we have to answer the survey anymore. And we have all the data on our side, like in that particular argument where they're like, Bitcoin is dangerous to the grids and you literally just pull up the data of ERCOT, the large flexible loads and you point to it and you're like, Bitcoin miners are 95% of the large flexible load in this grid.
00:35:21:11 - 00:35:30:13
Marty
And you can visibly see when they turn off, when demand spikes and you can visibly see the prices go down because they turn off. Yeah, your arguments hold. No way.
00:35:30:13 - 00:36:14:07
Tuur
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I feel like I can almost speak from experience because like, like I grew up in Belgium, which, which is, which has that culture of like, you know, you kind of bow your head, you're like you just kind of, you know, stay below the lawnmower. And there is always a fear of like there's a lot of pressure for people to be normal or whatever, to kind of to kind of just survive, like focuses on survival more than like, let's do the best you can do.
00:36:14:07 - 00:36:47:24
Tuur
Let's be ambitious. Let's, you know, like speak your mind, which is understandable because, the history. And so and there is that like victim complex, which is unfortunate, but I think it's very real and it's this idea that basically it's when you haven't processed trauma, you just recreate it right? So Belgium was invaded twice in a century and and horrible things happened.
00:36:47:26 - 00:37:14:04
Tuur
And as a different from the UK where they actually had treatment centers for PTSD and stuff, there's extremely little of that in Belgium. So there's just that's why, you know, addiction is so prevalent and things like that. But I think if you if you haven't and I do think people pass it on even from generation to generation that like victim mindset, if you haven't really come to terms with happened and then you just basically recreate it.
00:37:14:04 - 00:37:32:04
Tuur
And I think this is kind of what happened. Were you project helplessness and to other people and you think like, oh, we got to help them And they've done that with with immigrants. Like they've really like all these people in, in, in all around the world who are suffering like, oh, I recognize that, you know, we've been there.
00:37:32:04 - 00:38:00:22
Tuur
And I am not saying it's wrong to empathize, you know, not at all. But like from that kind of almost, well, definitely immature standpoint, they've started massively subsidizing immigration. Like really to the extent where people get the same monetary benefits as, you know, local citizens who've paid taxes for generations and and those kind of things. Not that I'm in favor of even that kind of welfare, but that's another story.
00:38:00:25 - 00:38:20:10
Tuur
But so yeah. And so what they've done, rather than having a system which is a little bit more the way the U.S. works. So it's like, sure, you can become an immigrant here and but you, you pay your own way. You you've, you've figured out how to do it on a voluntary basis. You find a way to add value economically to you, find a job, etc..
00:38:20:12 - 00:38:50:11
Tuur
And but but so because of that victim mindset, Belgians started to subsidize immigrants and they have literally attracted a different kind of people. I don't mean racially speaking, I just mean the kind of the type of person who would be attracted to welfare as a different type of person who will be attracted to here is an open market with very high mobility where it's easy to climb the ladder of of of society if you just put in the work.
00:38:50:11 - 00:39:19:02
Tuur
Right, that's different. And so now Belgium has lots and lots of immigrants that are being actively subsidized. I just saw a statistic where it says literally of all the countries in Europe, the employment, the degree of employment in Belgium among immigrants, the lowest, it's 50%. So 50% not only does not work, but of the 50% that does work, a lot of them even work only part time.
00:39:19:05 - 00:39:53:25
Tuur
And if you don't work, you don't have a job. You literally get unemployment benefits just like everybody else. So it's completely unsustainable. But but it's that it's that mindset. And I guess what I wanted to get at was when I started talking about this helplessness mindset, is that it comes with the sort of, um, almost like a, a visceral set of, um, what do, what should I call it, emotional impulses that regulate your behavior.
00:39:53:28 - 00:40:22:06
Tuur
Like you're basically kind of an unstable person and but you keep things going by viscerally responding to certain things in your environment. And so one of the things that I remember when I was like 18 in Belgium, there was a party called the Flemish BLOCK, and they actually, uh, because of the anti, uh, racism laws, they were sued and they then just restarted the party with a different name.
00:40:22:08 - 00:40:42:10
Tuur
Um, so which is also kind of bizarre in itself. Like, you know, you get sued as a party because of, you know, things you've said. It sounds weird to me, but so, but, so this is a party that's long been for like more independence in Flanders. But they had a like a strong anti-immigrant standpoint. And for sure, I don't want to, like, whitewash it.
00:40:42:10 - 00:41:07:14
Tuur
Like there's there's people involved in there that are like, definitely racist and, you know, like but I think rather unfairly, they've been labeled as like, extreme right, like literally like Nazis. And so they've been boycotted for like 20, 30 years now. And so so when I was like 19 or something or 20 something like that or 18, a friend of mine said, like, we were just talking.
00:41:07:14 - 00:41:33:02
Tuur
And by the way, he said like, oh, that he had voted for this party. And I, I felt sick. I, I felt sick to my stomach. It just the weirdest thing to now, like look back on just because somebody voted for a party and a leader, I looked and actually looked at their program and their even like and not not that I would vote for them but they were even in favor of like Swiss style democracy where it's like, you know, you vote by referendum.
00:41:33:02 - 00:41:52:09
Tuur
And so there's like it's definitely a mixed bag, right? I mean, now I wouldn't say like these guys are evil and all the rest are so much better. But because of my training, because in the in the school system and, you know, everything is just you get programed to have a very visceral reaction against certain things. And so anyway, just long story.
00:41:52:09 - 00:42:16:15
Tuur
But that's what I think of when I see people like Elizabeth Warren, just like just say the craziest things with a straight face is that they seem like people to me that have been like, you know, really brought up in this like religion of victimhood and that just cannot are allergic to reason are allergic to certain ideas. And so Bitcoin is just too much.
00:42:16:15 - 00:42:29:19
Tuur
It's too much responsibility. She assumes that she can handle it. She assumes that her constituents can't handle it. And she feels like she needs to protect her flock. And that's my that's my totally amateur analysis.
00:42:29:25 - 00:42:35:25
Marty
Everybody needs to go read their soul of victimhood. It is because it so so.
00:42:35:26 - 00:42:38:03
Tuur
Oh, yeah. Is that how you pronounce it? I'm a soul.
00:42:38:03 - 00:42:41:18
Marty
Soul? Yeah. Yeah. I'm not known for correct pronunciation.
00:42:41:18 - 00:42:43:24
Tuur
It's time I should learn my pronunciation.
00:42:43:26 - 00:42:51:11
Marty
No, I'm probably worse than the water. Um, it's your pronunciation. Denigrate. Denigrate.
00:42:51:11 - 00:42:53:26
Tuur
Logan, I'm. I'm trying to get it right before he dies early.
00:42:53:26 - 00:43:16:26
Marty
So that's because it's such a clump. All these issues we're talking about are so complex to solve. And that's why I anchored a Bitcoin. This is the guy. We're going to solve all these problems. Let's focus on one first and an important one, which is money. Yeah. Then to your point, like rewiring people's brains to get out of the victimhood mentality is a daunting task.
00:43:16:26 - 00:43:38:04
Tuur
Well, and it's and you literally can't do it like literally when you like look into all the programs to help addicts and stuff like that. Like the main thing is like just like, you know, you kind of do your thing and let them do their thing because the more you start to like, you know, treating them like their children, the more they get enabled to write.
00:43:38:04 - 00:43:55:19
Tuur
And the actually, the longer the dysfunction is going to last. Like you're you're, you're feeding the cancer. Right. And so it's kind of like compassionately you just have to kind of be like, I'm going to buy my bitcoin, you guys do your thing. But I feel like it helps me too, because because they can get under your skin, right?
00:43:55:19 - 00:44:18:08
Tuur
To be like, oh, like, you know, are you doing to us? And like, you know, And so it's like to, to deal with that, like to be like, oh, am I being an asshole? Like by, by like, you know, just promoting Bitcoin and not whatever don't because that's often a thing like, oh, you got to donate money and you got to like, it's like, actually, no, I think if we build this economy out, we focus on that.
00:44:18:09 - 00:44:29:21
Tuur
Like even Saylor, right? If he were to just be like, I'm not going to donate a single Bitcoin to a thing, I'm going to just burn all my private keys. He would be doing a boon to the world.
00:44:29:26 - 00:44:34:00
Marty
Yeah? Mm hmm. Well, he does want to go to the grave with his private kids. He said that?
00:44:34:03 - 00:44:38:09
Tuur
I didn't know. I know. He's talked about the possibility. But I didn't know he actually.
00:44:38:15 - 00:45:13:07
Marty
Oh, maybe the possibility could be missed for him now, but it's like I'm so conflicted because I can see both sides. Because there's one thing at 1031, we've been having a lot of calls with people. And one of the big themes across all the calls is recent bitcoiners who are radicalized In 2020 and 2021, they had their eyes open to go over government overreach, money printing found Bitcoin eyes wide open and holy crap, this is the solution.
00:45:13:07 - 00:45:25:01
Marty
And I just wonder how many others out there that we haven't spoken like, What are the percentage of the overall population that had a somewhat radicalized experience? Yeah. Yeah.
00:45:25:01 - 00:45:32:11
Tuur
And also like even the word right radical like we often like viscerally growing up, I would have been like, oh, you know, if you're radical, you're kind of scary.
00:45:32:11 - 00:45:37:00
Marty
Yet that's the definition of the word. It is like radically different perspective on the world. It's like radical change.
00:45:37:05 - 00:45:55:09
Tuur
But literally the Latin root is rattus, which is roots. So it just means you're going to the roots. That's all you know. And like, like it's it's weird, right? Once you just start thinking about it calmly, it's like, what does it actually mean to be radical? So like, yeah, I'm a radical. You know, there's nothing wrong with that.
00:45:55:09 - 00:45:55:16
Tuur
I mean, to.
00:45:55:16 - 00:46:19:28
Marty
Get down to the root cause of what's going on and try to work from first principles. Yeah, you have to get radical to think from first principles, but it is again to like the language policing, even though we discussed all these hate speech laws that are coming in Europe, in Canada, I do think people are throwing their hands up like, whoa, whoa, whoa, Like you're I think they're tired of the Orwellian.
00:46:20:01 - 00:46:20:29
Tuur
Yeah.
00:46:21:01 - 00:46:24:26
Marty
Well, not only the propaganda, but the policing individuals.
00:46:24:26 - 00:46:53:05
Tuur
Exactly. And our context is actually ironically, this is all happening in a context of well, fittingly, understandably, this is all happening in a context of even growing connectivity. The world is more connected than ever before with StarLink and everything. Like you can literally live in the bush and have, you know, have Internet. And now, you know, we're starting to get like peer to peer technologies that that allows us to untether from more centralized Internet providers.
00:46:53:05 - 00:47:23:27
Tuur
And additionally, the language barrier is finally being breached bridged with they you literally it's happening now I was asking I was talking to the translator DMing with him asking like, so how is A.I. right now impacting your ability to translate? And I think he said the cost is down. Um, I think it's like down 75%. So that means efficiency has increased by four X And he says most publishers haven't caught on to it.
00:47:23:27 - 00:47:44:03
Tuur
But actually a lot of translators for your first draft, you just like run it through an AI and you have a pretty good first draft and then you kind of like brush it up and stuff. So I think people who grew up in English don't realize like how poor the accessibility of information really is in almost any other language.
00:47:44:03 - 00:48:05:09
Tuur
Like maybe Spanish is a little different because it's such a big one. But like, like Dutch, I remember, like, I just know from growing up the Dutch actually buy extreme amounts of books like per capita, like one of the highest amounts in the world. They print lots and lots of books. And so having grown up in Flanders, we had access to that same market.
00:48:05:09 - 00:48:30:27
Tuur
It's the same language. But if you think about it, like if, if, if the the ideas that are being disseminated via in the book market, let's say that that we're looking at English language books, it's going to be it's going to follow a parallel. We have a very, very long tale of just books that are less and less popular and that have more radical ideas.
00:48:30:27 - 00:48:54:00
Tuur
Right. And the ones that are closest to the curve that are most popular are going to be the cookbooks and the like. You know, Hillary Clinton's memoir and stuff like that. So but so and so the ones that are being translated are all in that popular bracket, like the more radical ones who are who are ahead of the curve, who are like, kind of like not most novel science don't get translated.
00:48:54:00 - 00:49:14:23
Tuur
So people are trapped in the language island very, very often. And it's not enough. Like you travel around Europe and you think like, Oh, but these people speak English. It takes a level of proficiency to get comfortable with reading a book in English. Most people really don't do it like 90. I bet only maybe 1% of the population will.
00:49:14:25 - 00:49:39:10
Tuur
It's probably even maybe one. And I don't know, one one in 100 maybe will read a book in English on a regular basis. And then because of their having grown up in that island, they have that bias. So they don't necessarily know to find the ideas that are going to juxtapose what they already believe. So anyway, so that's why I'm so optimistic for the coming generation, because instant translation, it's coming.
00:49:39:10 - 00:49:40:22
Tuur
It's here on here, right?
00:49:40:22 - 00:49:47:16
Marty
I mean, you see the high end video of Malay Malay speech and it translates to English and to the right.
00:49:47:16 - 00:49:53:17
Tuur
Yeah, Yeah. So and we can even see them like lip sync and oh, in your local language it's incredible.
00:49:53:18 - 00:50:14:09
Marty
Yeah. And there was a big Super Bowl commercial I think it was Galaxy one of the phone providers ran this big spot where a gentleman lands and I believe Thailand or something, an American, and he gets in a Uber and he's voice messaging with the Uber driver and he's speaking in English and it's automatically translating it to him.
00:50:14:12 - 00:50:18:02
Marty
And then the audio comes out in Thai.
00:50:18:07 - 00:50:45:07
Tuur
It's like, God, yeah. Because I mean, in one of my first jobs was translating this, uh, this giant book by this Water de Soto about business cycles. It's like 500 pages, crazy amount of footnotes. Took me nine months, nine months every month. I would like send in a chapter and they would pay me. I could like barely pay my rent and then, like, do the next chapter and it was harrowing.
00:50:45:07 - 00:51:04:22
Tuur
And after that I was like, I'm never doing this again. This is just crazy. I learned a lot, but I mean, like that's, that's the amount of work. Whereas now, like that same book, I don't know, an hour, you throw it into the eye and you have like 80% version, you know, maybe, maybe because it's a technical book.
00:51:04:22 - 00:51:25:26
Tuur
So maybe it's only like 70 or 75%. But but I mean, it's coming, right? It just you exciting all this all this Austrian economics that's been trapped in a way it's and of course you know, the whole the Bitcoin canon like everything that's on Nakamoto Institute like we can translate that to 100 languages in a snap.
00:51:25:28 - 00:51:40:20
Marty
Yeah no I got me all bullish and optimistic. It's like, imagine what the world would be like in a decade, two decades from now. The government just got away out of the way, allowed us to adopt Bitcoin, allowed us to lean into AI.
00:51:40:20 - 00:51:41:09
Tuur
Yeah.
00:51:41:12 - 00:51:42:09
Marty
Like.
00:51:42:11 - 00:51:46:12
Tuur
Yeah, and we've run our own eyes locally, right? We don't have to abide by science.
00:51:46:14 - 00:51:47:16
Marty
Not to go get a license.
00:51:47:16 - 00:51:51:08
Tuur
From Google or something. Yeah, yeah. And then going.
00:51:51:10 - 00:52:01:03
Marty
We don't have to go. I mean, it seems abundantly clear that the open the eyes of the world, the Googles of the world, are actively petitioning to create regulatory moats and a license.
00:52:01:03 - 00:52:02:19
Tuur
And they lie. They're trying to lie.
00:52:02:20 - 00:52:26:03
Marty
Yes. I mean, Google's Gemini product is laughably bad. That's the other thing, too, which makes me optimistic, is these people at high levels of the power structure, whether it's in politics or big tech or big media, they're just laughably shooting themselves in the foot like that. Gemini releases like, are you kidding me?
00:52:26:05 - 00:52:46:22
Tuur
Yeah. And I mean, on the one hand, you don't want to underestimate, you know, the, the, um, you know, the ability that the people in power have to, you know, go after individuals and things like that. But on the other hand, like, yeah, it's just so exciting to get involved in this, in this burgeoning world economy. It's like Bitcoin.
00:52:46:22 - 00:53:07:18
Tuur
It's not even an island. It's like a continent. It's like a new continent. It's like, don't you want to live in the new world? It's like, how exciting is it? So like, so. So I think that there is a there is a brain drain from from people that prior were in Wall Street and government and like kind of just all meshed in with the powers that be.
00:53:07:20 - 00:53:27:03
Tuur
And now we have this like alternative. Um, you know, it's like this, this new continent where you can yeah, the casualty rate is pretty high still, but I mean, it's so exciting and you just feel that it's like this is where the next generations of people are going to create. Amazingly beautiful things.
00:53:27:05 - 00:53:54:06
Marty
And it's already happening. So for example, Lyle Pratte, uh, from Vida Bitcoin or what they're doing a Vida to combine AI and Bitcoin to reduce phone spam is pretty fascinating. Like we went through a demo of their product last week going to call and what they're able to do for very little money is insane.
00:53:54:09 - 00:53:59:05
Tuur
So, so is it like with, um, we, you have to pay a little bit to call someone, is.
00:53:59:06 - 00:54:19:20
Marty
It. Yeah. So it's actually acts as a screener. So yeah, um, like if you're in my contact list, you want to pay me, but if you're not, you get screened by Visa and then you reach an agent. My agent, which basically snuffs out, like, what's this call for you? Spam. Yeah. Are you actually trying to get a hold of this person in a way in which they would want to respond?
00:54:19:20 - 00:54:28:00
Marty
And you can give the agent like, hey, if this, that and the other thing happens again, pick and let me know that you should probably call them back or so.
00:54:28:00 - 00:54:29:23
Tuur
It's like you're I bodyguards.
00:54:29:23 - 00:54:30:11
Marty
Yes.
00:54:30:17 - 00:54:31:04
Tuur
Damn.
00:54:31:11 - 00:54:35:03
Marty
But I mean you can do really unique things with that.
00:54:35:06 - 00:54:36:09
Tuur
Reminds me of, uh.
00:54:36:09 - 00:54:38:22
Marty
And the cost is so cheap. Wow.
00:54:38:22 - 00:54:59:01
Tuur
That reminds me of Jesse Powell back in 2015. He had this, like, little project called Elephant Grass, where I don't know if it was, like, very early, and he was basically just a little script where automatically whoever wanted to email him would get an email back and say like, well, you know, send some Bitcoin to this address. And then, uh, and then I'll respond.
00:54:59:01 - 00:55:01:04
Marty
Like that's what 21 co pivoted to eventually.
00:55:01:05 - 00:55:15:20
Tuur
Oh. And so but he said people hated him for it and he says, Stop doing it. But in a way you could say like, well, you know, it just wasn't intelligent enough. This was like kind of like a mechanical bodyguard that was just, you know, too simplistic for the actual market demand. Yes.
00:55:15:22 - 00:55:40:01
Marty
And you can think of it, too, like there's instances where maybe it's not a spammer, maybe it's a a brand that's trying to get a hold of me and, you know, if they want to pay me a thousand SATs for me to read a basically a text message advertisement or respond to a survey, see if I'd be a likely customer, like, yeah, if you gave me a thousand sets, I'll look at it, I'll read it, I'll interact.
00:55:40:03 - 00:55:42:02
Tuur
Maybe. Maybe you're worth a little more than a thousand.
00:55:42:02 - 00:55:46:28
Marty
Yes, yes, I know the price going up. I think it'd be a lot of money and.
00:55:47:00 - 00:55:51:11
Tuur
Yeah, but then. But that means your importance also goes.
00:55:51:13 - 00:55:55:24
Marty
It his back to price. Like, how high do you think we go this cycle?
00:55:55:25 - 00:55:57:29
Tuur
And I know, uh.
00:55:58:01 - 00:55:58:23
Marty
We're back on story.
00:55:58:23 - 00:56:22:11
Tuur
I know how I actually I liked, I liked David's theory, David Bailey's theory of, um, that the magnet this time around is going to be the gold parity. So like $600,000 bitcoin that he think as we, as we go up and we go, especially once we go above 100, it's like, okay, new territory, like what's next? It seems like the obvious target to lock on to.
00:56:22:14 - 00:56:51:22
Tuur
Of course you can say a million bucks, which is Samsung Mouse. You know his theory that that's going to happen this time but I like the 600 K one because it kind of like whoever is targeting for a million is obviously going to have to pass through 600,000 as well. And it's just such an important like psychological thing to be like, holy hell, this 6000 year old money, we just surpassed it in 15 years or 16 years or something like that.
00:56:51:25 - 00:57:29:10
Tuur
So but I think lately I've been thinking about I've always been so hesitant to put price targets on on a bull market because I feel that what is more certain, much more certain, and maybe what everything hinges on in a bull market is the length of the length of time that we're talking about. I think the human brain is only capable of so much exciting and for so long and so much FOMO and so much adrenaline and everything else that at some point after a certain while on average.
00:57:29:10 - 00:57:53:07
Tuur
So there must be like, we need a science like the bull market science or something where people, you know, like how insurance companies have actuarial tables where they can predict like how many people will die of a given population. Like we need that same thing with like, you know, how long till people go crazy, You know, in a bull market, like, you know, like there must be a point and you can even maybe look back at the Bitcoin cycles and figure it out.
00:57:53:09 - 00:58:14:23
Tuur
But yeah, so I think that people's brains just get fried at some point and then they just go nuts and they go in with leverage and they kind of like they kind of mess it up for themselves. And, and because once you start levering up, then you push the price beyond what's what makes sense. And then even conservative people get confused and get caught up in that and then they might take profit off the table.
00:58:14:23 - 00:58:43:12
Tuur
And then you actually have the correction and you go into a bear phase again. So anyway, long story short, to just say that, you know, rather than predicting how high is going to go, I want to say maybe there is, you know, psychological fuel in the tank for like a two year like real bull market. And and then the fact that we're starting was a big push right now in the beginning makes me very, very bullish.
00:58:43:15 - 00:59:05:23
Tuur
Reminds me of like 2013 where like people thought like, oh damn, like it's going like we were to ten bucks in 2012 and then we went to like 30, which was the previous all time high. And then it just like zoomed past that and we went to, I believe, 1400, right? Actually, no, we went to 270 in the spring of 2013 and then it declined.
00:59:05:23 - 00:59:31:05
Tuur
It went down 80 bucks and people thought it was over. And then that in a span of just a few months, we just went back on the horse. And by the end of the year 2013, we were at 1200 bucks. So like from 10 to 1200, 100 X in two years time, you know, So the fact that we had we have so much going on right now, it makes me very bullish.
00:59:31:05 - 00:59:47:12
Tuur
And so it makes me think like maybe this could be one of those two legged, like there's going to be a big fake out and then we just keep steaming forward. And so all within a span of two years, yeah, we could we could hit a million bucks. Like, it's weird to say, but it's it's almost like only a ten from here.
00:59:47:12 - 00:59:50:04
Tuur
Really? Yeah. 600,000 is. Hmm.
00:59:50:11 - 01:00:15:17
Marty
Well, I guess maybe a better question is, like, how strong do you think the floor that will be developed in this market will be when you factor in ETFs getting in, a lot of people are saying that that money may be stickier than than allocators of of years past the ETFs are and I mean I've been hearing a lot of rumblings out of the Middle East that people are seriously looking at this the sovereign wealth funds, the energy producers.
01:00:15:19 - 01:00:24:22
Marty
I would be pretty confident that we're going to see more nation states enter the fray pretty publicly over the next two years.
01:00:24:25 - 01:00:35:02
Tuur
Who are all going to be I mean, a bunch of them will have limit orders to buy the dip, right? They're going to have limit orders all the way down. So I think those are important factors to think about.
01:00:35:02 - 01:00:39:20
Marty
Sellers are not going to be sitting on his island in the public markets alone for too long.
01:00:39:26 - 01:00:41:24
Tuur
Hmm. No, no, exactly.
01:00:41:24 - 01:00:43:11
Marty
We have a having like.
01:00:43:11 - 01:00:45:22
Tuur
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, at.
01:00:45:22 - 01:00:49:17
Marty
What point do we just completely detach from cycles, if at.
01:00:49:17 - 01:01:14:19
Tuur
All? No. And I think it's important to really consider the idea of that four year cycle. It's going to be gone because the money is really going to we're going to live in a different world like so far we've been living in a world where you could actually make some money being invested in bonds, government bonds, and that's gone almost entirely right?
01:01:14:22 - 01:01:48:13
Tuur
Mean people are even buying bonds with negative interest rates and making money on it like that's only a few years ago. So so in a bond crash because basically the fiat system because you have monetary tokens that are being debased all the time, obviously there's no incentive to hold cash. And so they kind of developed this proof of stake system, which is like, Oh, now you have yield, which is all that government bond stuff and certain people have access to the yielding things and like.
01:01:48:13 - 01:02:16:14
Tuur
And so therefore, and the longer term you are invested in the system, the higher reward you might so, you know, buy those long dated bonds like 100 year bonds are the perpetual bonds. Right. So so so with with the rug being pulled on that whole edifice, it's so hard to predict like what would be the bottom because you're that means you're putting on your dollar glasses and you're looking at the Bitcoin price.
01:02:16:14 - 01:02:39:11
Tuur
But like, what if the world starts throwing away their dollar glass and be like, does it make sense to even think about, you know, like the Argentine peso? Like, you know, let's speculate like what would be the bottom of the next cycle for the Bitcoin price? It's like, I don't know, there's going to be so many debts. Like we can speculate about the volatility along the way, like how how percentage wise, how big are the corrections going to be?
01:02:39:11 - 01:03:04:16
Tuur
But but to have like a really lengthy bottoming period that assumes you have a stable currency to begin with. And so I'm not saying that the dollar is going into hyperinflation. This, you know, the next two or three years. But it's really something to keep in mind as a possibility, you know, to just not be like, oh, yeah, I'm counting on the next bottom of the barrel is going to be 200,000.
01:03:04:16 - 01:03:22:15
Tuur
So once we go above that, I'm going to start selling and you know, they have that hole and then I'm going to somehow pay my capital gains tax. But still, you know, it's like, No, no, doc, don't do it. I would say like, yeah, sure, like sell a bit of Bitcoin if you think it'll help you cover your living expenses for the next two years.
01:03:22:22 - 01:03:45:26
Tuur
Sure. Like, okay, some cash but don't. That's what I generally would recommend. Don't speculate on, um, on these big swings, you might want to speculate a little bit with borrowed money. Like if you can borrow money that is like in a small percentage of your total wealth, your total liquid net worth and, and then you have some cash and you can kind of play around with that.
01:03:45:26 - 01:03:54:17
Tuur
If you're a good trader, you can do that. Right. But but, but to sell your principal, I don't know. I just think it's a bad idea.
01:03:54:19 - 01:04:17:29
Marty
To I've been in laughed at a lot because I, I truly believe that this time, like the culmination of all the events we've been describing, this whole kind of like I find it hard to believe that this time isn't different. Like when you have all this money coming in from the. Yes, it's sticky money. I think the nation states are getting it in a big way.
01:04:18:01 - 01:04:46:02
Marty
The energy sector is getting it in a big way. You Utility of what you can do with Bitcoin is improving at a rapid pace. It's getting integrated into a bunch of different things, very early stages. And the integrations, whether it's noster, I or super collateral for for credit agreements, whatever it may be like, I think, I don't know the 2024 election, the state of the lack of confidence in these institutions.
01:04:46:03 - 01:04:54:25
Marty
I think I find it hard to believe that we have these four year cycles like we have had in the past.
01:04:54:25 - 01:05:30:25
Tuur
Well, let's. THIELMAN That is what is a scenario where there is kind of a is a way for governments to extend the confidence that the general public has in their currencies. I think once is where on the one hand our dream, quote unquote comes true or our prediction that central banks start buying Bitcoin. But then what if they turn around and governments start saying, Oh, our currency is now backed by Bitcoin, so this is as good as gold, and we guarantee that it's legal.
01:05:30:28 - 01:06:15:17
Tuur
You can pay your taxes with it, it's going to retain its value, blah, blah, blah. So why would you just go into that gray, ugly market where terrorists are also active and like buy your Bitcoin and like deal with all these like shady devices where they can steal your money like just by the euro. It's now backed by a clean bitcoin that is ethically mined, you know, so so I think I mean, I need to think this through but like the thing there is always I've learned to not to try and not underestimate the extent to which people can look let's say it, and I've learned to not underestimate how gullible markets can be like.
01:06:15:17 - 01:06:42:28
Tuur
When Etherium came out, I was like, This is a fucking scam. Like, even the way the auction was set up was like, this is like reverse Dutch auction. And like, there is no way to know the supply beforehand and like, and here we are like, what, nine years later, the room is worth like billions of dollars and like, and it's so far keeping up with Bitcoin in this market in this bull market, you know, it's just like an IQ wise.
01:06:42:28 - 01:07:06:07
Tuur
The average IQ of market participants is going down because like now we're talking mass adoption. So I don't know, it's I've just I've just had to eat a lot of humble pie like I thought back in and there's, there's gold bulls that have been predicting hyperinflation since the late seventies, the 1970s. That's like 50 years. They'll be like, this thing is going to blow up.
01:07:06:10 - 01:07:29:23
Tuur
And they were right. But it's hard to like, actually nail it. I mean, that said, we're the closest we've ever been, that's for sure. Yeah, that's for damn sure. We're the closest we've ever been to a complete collapse. And we also know. Thanks, Parker. You know, people go bankrupt gradually and then suddenly. So, like, there is going to be a waterfall moment where we're in freefall.
01:07:29:25 - 01:07:32:13
Tuur
Yeah, it's going to be very sudden once it happens. Yeah.
01:07:32:20 - 01:07:57:00
Marty
And that's why, like you mentioned, the average IQ of everybody enter the market is falling as mass adoption happens, which I agree. But I believe like the average IQ, if you index the average IQ for the amount of money that's coming into the space, like I think the higher IQ section of the market is accumulating way more Bitcoin right now than retail investors would be.
01:07:57:02 - 01:08:06:07
Tuur
I mean yeah and it but it's so much is a function of psychology really because there's there's highly like you know Elizabeth Warren is no dummy she doesn't like I sure.
01:08:06:07 - 01:08:06:22
Marty
About that.
01:08:06:26 - 01:08:15:10
Tuur
I mean yeah she has like a Ph.D. or whatever. Like I'm not saying she's genius, but I mean, like, you know, she's she's not retarded. Sorry. Does that kind of fun?
01:08:15:11 - 01:08:15:22
Marty
Yeah, she.
01:08:15:22 - 01:08:16:22
Tuur
She's not regard coming.
01:08:16:22 - 01:08:19:09
Marty
Back. It's coming back.
01:08:19:11 - 01:08:22:01
Tuur
We're in Austin, like comedy capital of the world. Yeah.
01:08:22:04 - 01:08:28:17
Marty
Um, we need to get those guys down here, by the way. We need to figure out a way. Motherships two blocks away. They need to start coming into the club.
01:08:28:17 - 01:08:47:20
Tuur
We went to see Tom Green two Fridays. Oh, it was awesome. Yeah, it was awesome. Yeah. Also is really special. Yeah man. It's so special to have that. And I think it's actually not a coincidence. And you're totally right. Like there, there is all this cross-pollination that I think is bound to happen and like, yeah, let's, let's make it happen.
01:08:47:20 - 01:09:05:26
Tuur
But, but there's so much it's waiting to happen like this this and I think it's going to not dilute Bitcoin. It's going to enrich it to have all these people from different backgrounds get involved and and we can all learn from each other.
01:09:05:29 - 01:09:15:13
Marty
Exactly. Not only that, it's going to be a symbiotic relationship because we had the one of the gentleman from the University of Austin, which is catty corner to us here at the Commons.
01:09:15:13 - 01:09:16:08
Tuur
And on the podcast.
01:09:16:08 - 01:09:20:24
Marty
No, he came through and just like wanted to see what was going on here. That's like a prime example you have.
01:09:20:24 - 01:09:38:06
Tuur
Yeah, I've been to several of their events. Like just that. That's another one. Another evolution of things that are happening at the forefront, like really like a new university with new people and, and like a radical openness to ideas. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:09:38:07 - 01:09:44:10
Marty
And it's like you get those guys get us, you get the comedians down the down the road is.
01:09:44:13 - 01:09:48:01
Tuur
Music scene music. Last time we talked about music, I think there's.
01:09:48:01 - 01:10:01:18
Marty
A lot of symbiosis that could happen, I think. And how are your new university with Bitcoin and power, your monetization, your comedy with Bitcoin and your endorsements of this tool are going to help Bitcoin at the end of the day. Yeah, it's, it's.
01:10:01:18 - 01:10:36:01
Tuur
Like, uh, it's like the shipping industry hundred years ago. It's like, you know, who wouldn't want to use this? You know, the technology of shipping and navigation to further their, you know, what they're about. And the more radical people in Europe, they would use that. And then that's why we have those different periods of settlement in the U.S. where the most radical people in Europe would just start a little colony or start a trading post using that technology of shipping that wasn't available before, like people were able to cross an ocean.
01:10:36:01 - 01:10:55:28
Tuur
But apparently Nick Saban says this, that the breakthrough in the 1500s was, um, I forget exact if it was the sextant or something like that, but people gained the ability to find their way back because that was the thing. Like you could go wherever you wanted, but the tools allow you to figure out the same way back.
01:10:56:00 - 01:10:56:09
Marty
I didn't.
01:10:56:09 - 01:10:57:13
Tuur
Really. Yeah, yeah.
01:10:57:16 - 01:11:14:13
Marty
Yeah, yeah. Because you imagine, like, the thing about flying in the air when I was in college at it was a three hour flight on the way there and a two and a half hour flight on the way back. So you have these different dynamics at play, like in the air with the, with the stream. Yeah. Exist in the ocean.
01:11:14:13 - 01:11:20:16
Tuur
Well yeah. And so it really helps if you know where you are on the map. Yeah. That, that's the kind of number one requirement.
01:11:20:18 - 01:11:26:15
Marty
Mm. That's another like our maps accurate. That's the uh.
01:11:26:22 - 01:11:40:21
Tuur
You mean like, you mean in terms of how large the countries aren't stuff. Yeah. I mean the Peterson projection is the one you got to look at to, to, to realize how large Africa is for example, and how relatively small Russia is and places like that.
01:11:40:24 - 01:11:43:12
Marty
That is crazy. That's Like a weird form of propaganda. Uh.
01:11:43:15 - 01:11:47:29
Tuur
Like the The Globe started by a Belgians.
01:11:48:05 - 01:11:48:23
Marty
Really?
01:11:48:24 - 01:11:49:28
Tuur
Yeah. Mercator Yeah.
01:11:50:00 - 01:11:53:15
Marty
Why was why did he come on the map in this way?
01:11:53:18 - 01:12:11:16
Tuur
I think it kind of makes intuitive sense, right? I mean, you just have the globe and you can just kind of like cut it out and you, and then you, but then you have all these, these, if you like, a balloon, right? If you cut it out, you put it on a flat piece of paper, then you have all these weird pointy things at the top.
01:12:11:19 - 01:12:28:01
Tuur
And then what are you going to have a bunch of emptiness like, Well, you don't want that. So you try and connect them. You have to, like, stretch them out and then you have these nice straight lines. So you think it's just appeals to people's sense of esthetics. And then it was nice, a nice side effect that all of a sudden Europe looked bigger.
01:12:28:04 - 01:12:32:06
Tuur
And so yeah, it was made in Europe. So it makes sense that they would come up with that, I think.
01:12:32:11 - 01:12:46:11
Marty
Yeah. And since you mentioned against Segway to the event that will be here Wednesday. Oh yeah. South by South 13th you Austin Kelly getting a group of people together here at the Commons to talk about bitcoin urbanism.
01:12:46:11 - 01:13:06:22
Tuur
Yeah Oh man I'm so excited somebody said somebody posted this meme of like I forget to some comedian it's just like some gifs some comedian who's like at the gates that are closed. He's like, Let me. And I was like, I feel exactly the same way, even though I'm I'm, I'm hosting it. But, uh, no, I'm, I'm so excited.
01:13:06:25 - 01:13:27:10
Tuur
Um, Bitcoin urbanism, I mean, everything is being bitcoin ified, right? And because, because Bitcoin is changing the world. So we need to kind of look at every, every thing that exists in society and like, do we need to rethink this? Like, what does it mean if we throw bitcoin in the mix? Uh, always talk about how bitcoin changes people's time preference.
01:13:27:10 - 01:13:59:00
Tuur
It lowers your time preference, makes you think more long term. And so this event is going to be about, well, what does that mean for building? What does that mean when people build a house, when people start interconnecting houses in a community or commission developments? Is that going to look different? I think it is. And I think a lot of the the former kind of glory that we love, things that we love about these older cities that were built when the world was on a gold standard is going to come back.
01:13:59:03 - 01:14:38:27
Tuur
So there's just a lot to be said about how housing has changed over time and then how a different mindset and a different type of access to capital and different people having access to capital is going to really change how people build a house. And it's very exciting. And, you know, my my granddad, you know, um, I was like six years old and I remember like seeing the building site and then gradually like seeing the building emerge and, you know, it's the house is still there and it's, you know, that idea of like building something from the ground up and then especially imagining that it would stand there for a long time.
01:14:39:00 - 01:14:56:09
Tuur
And I grew up in Brugge, which is like one of the best preserved, you know, stone masonry based cities in the world. And so the contrast has been so stark, right, to move to the US and to see to live in this startup society where to me, like.
01:14:56:12 - 01:14:57:01
Marty
It's all crap.
01:14:57:01 - 01:15:01:09
Tuur
I mean, to me the houses look like they're made out of sticks and cardboard, right? It's like.
01:15:01:11 - 01:15:05:19
Marty
What it is. I mean, they literally are in a lot of cases. Yeah. Yeah, they're cardboard and a lot of houses.
01:15:05:19 - 01:15:33:16
Tuur
Yeah. And also, like the building, the quality actually has been declining over the last ten years because of all the cheap money. So there's just so much to be said about how the money changes everything. And so that's why I'm so optimistic as well about how that's going to change. You know, we don't people have been part of the you know, I don't like the word, but part of the propaganda that people have been fed is that everyone needs to have a house.
01:15:33:19 - 01:15:58:02
Tuur
I don't think that's true. If you have, what would you rather have? Like, you know, you quote unquote, own your own house made of cardboard and sticks and that's going to fall apart unless you maintain it every three years? Or would you rent in a in a beautiful stone house that's going to that that you get to occupy and it's going to be standing the next 500 years?
01:15:58:02 - 01:16:22:25
Tuur
You know, I'm not saying everybody should pick the the ladder, but I think we're going to gradually evolve to a society where, you know, uh, most people are going to choose that they're going to save in Bitcoin and they're going to rent. And then the major there is going to be a minority of capitalists that just make it their business focus to build and maintain houses and there'll be landlords.
01:16:22:27 - 01:16:30:04
Tuur
And that's totally fine. It's it's not exploitative, it's win win. It means that it's division of labor, all that stuff. Yeah.
01:16:30:06 - 01:16:32:28
Marty
And you have what's your last name again.
01:16:33:01 - 01:16:37:17
Tuur
Austin to tunnel to. No. Yeah he's in Oklahoma City and that's where he has his business and he's.
01:16:37:17 - 01:16:39:18
Marty
Doing really cool things. Oh, massive building.
01:16:39:18 - 01:17:04:12
Tuur
Yeah. Actually visited one of his builds. Yeah. So, Austin, um, uh, um, I believe about, uh, I'm trying to think, I think it's about close to ten years ago, made a career switch and started learning from this other guy who's also in Oklahoma. He has a website, I think it's called a thousand Year House. And, uh, very masonry focused because bricks are so amazing.
01:17:04:12 - 01:17:46:17
Tuur
Like, we, we often talk about how Bitcoin should scale in a modular way. Like you want layers that are clearly delineated and separated from each other, that interlink so that you have these clear building blocks. And that's exactly what a brick is like. This literal. This Littlefield building is also built out of bricks and it's it makes it so versatile and predictable and um, and so yeah, anyway, he started learning like how to build load bearing masonry walls because nowadays if you look around in the U.S., most of the time, if it's a newer build, you'll see the bricks like that and they'll all be the same size one next to another.
01:17:46:19 - 01:18:09:01
Tuur
And that's that's a pretty good giveaway that it's purely ornamental. I guess it's just a little layer that's that's not carrying any weight at all. It's just kind of pasted on top of it to make it look nice. But so that building then is just a pastiche of, you know, an actual brick building. And so that's what he builds is actual brick buildings where where the bricks carry, the weight of the house.
01:18:09:03 - 01:18:39:06
Tuur
And it's those kind of houses that not only are they so beautiful and like when you walk into them, you feel the sturdiness, you feel safe. It has like wonderful qualities when it comes to, um, heat exchange and, and moisture exchange as well. Like, the air is actually qualitatively better and houses like that. But also if the economy goes through a period of depression and you cannot afford to maintain it, there's nobody there for like 20 years and it's starting to be dilapidated.
01:18:39:09 - 01:18:58:19
Tuur
The house is fine. You can just, you know, go back in there and fix it up and it'll be fine. It'll be beautiful or if you want to expand it, you just, you know, you can just make a new doorway or add, you know, and that's what you see in Belgium all the time as these very old houses that have gradually they're like living things almost.
01:18:58:19 - 01:19:25:10
Tuur
They gradually change and they get they get, you know, depending on the needs of the occupants, which is a beautiful thing. And you don't have that with especially concrete, for example, you concrete is is very, very difficult to change, has all kinds of issues when there's rebar. Yeah. Well concrete itself is not that bad, but because there's such haste in the economy and builders just want something that that works right now.
01:19:25:13 - 01:19:48:20
Tuur
No matter whether it's going to last for ten years or 20. So they put steel rebar in there to kind of have tensile strength to like, be able to to hold weights and cross a larger area. Well, that's steel. Once it starts rusting, it literally just breaks down the concrete is because it expands it literally cracks and destroys the concrete over time.
01:19:48:22 - 01:20:07:11
Tuur
So, um, so yeah, there's, you know, Brick doesn't have that at all. That's why it's so, so inert and beautiful. So anyway, so that's Austin's, um, you know, um, background and, you know, the houses that he's built so far are just amazing. And it just baffles me that he's one of the very few in the U.S. that do that.
01:20:07:12 - 01:20:26:19
Tuur
Yes. It's incredible to me that it's it's almost like a lost art and it's not even that much more expensive. You know, it's it's I think it's like 20, 30% more expensive to build a house like that. Probably in the developer that's that's life or death because they they compete with all these other cheap builders who who who provide what the market wants.
01:20:26:22 - 01:20:36:10
Tuur
And most people are not even in the mentality of like living in their house for an extended period of time. They they're probably going to flip it. So um, very interesting to see this. Yeah.
01:20:36:10 - 01:20:38:07
Marty
What do you guys plan on covering?
01:20:38:09 - 01:21:23:25
Tuur
Well, I mean, it'll be just thinking about the parallels between like Bitcoin as a, as a, as a technology that's durable and, and that has all these beautiful beneficial side effects. And then classical architecture with a similarly has a lot of durable principles that make a whole lot of sense together. And probably one of the things is going to be to clarify that like, like to, to enjoy classical architecture doesn't mean you're a Luddite and that you're against, you know, anything new or um, but it can it's, it's you know, what it can mean is just that you appreciate things that really work and there are time tested and proven which is similar to what
01:21:23:25 - 01:21:41:18
Tuur
Satoshi to Bitcoin. So that's just one of the aspects that we'll talk about. And then of course, there's that exciting speculation of like, well if we imagine an entire economy already being on the Bitcoin standard, like what kind of projects would you see emerge that we don't see today? Yeah. Mm hmm.
01:21:41:21 - 01:21:49:24
Marty
You're not allowed to. If you like classical architecture, you just objectively like good esthetics and and beauty in the world.
01:21:49:26 - 01:22:09:05
Tuur
As well I think I'm a little hesitant. It's like people like Roger Scruton and like the British, like conservatives, like they kind of like really focus on like, oh, but it's just esthetically, esthetically and, and um, and then, but to me then there's always like, Yeah, but what about people that say like, Oh, but I just love modernism and to me that's beauty.
01:22:09:05 - 01:22:13:23
Tuur
And then, then there's kind of like a standoff or still so.
01:22:13:25 - 01:22:14:25
Marty
Function to this as.
01:22:14:25 - 01:22:48:13
Tuur
Well. So yeah, the Vitruvian Triad like that, that was the, the famous Roman architect who is the only one that actually had a book that was passed on to us. Um, it's, um, that's what Leonardo's drawing of the Vitruvian Man refers to is Vitruvius. He was that author. So the Vitruvian Triad is those three principles that he keeps going back to, which is, um, utility, durability, fear, meters and then beauty.
01:22:48:13 - 01:23:09:19
Tuur
So those three are the core elements, sustainable good architecture. And so to me that's what you see when you, when you, when you see a beautiful building, If it has the two first ones, if it has utility and if it has real durability, almost always it's going to look very pleasing to the eye because just like in nature, right?
01:23:09:19 - 01:23:34:16
Tuur
I mean, everything in nature is, is also built to have that sustainability, durability. And so you see the same shapes like like an ark, for example. It's, it's, it's a beautiful but it's, it's also extremely useful and fur and you know, it I mean those things are very interconnected. So I feel like sometimes conservatives really talk about that very much about the, the technological side of things.
01:23:34:16 - 01:23:57:13
Tuur
And um, if you want a building that's durable, it's not enough to just like slap a few solar panels on the roof, right? I mean, it's it's going to break down in ten years. Like you're going to waste so much more material by it by or can able you're you're able to save so much more costs if you have a strong foundation.
01:23:57:16 - 01:24:03:01
Tuur
And that means using stone and mortar and and wood and things like that. Usually, yeah.
01:24:03:01 - 01:24:06:24
Marty
The long run costs are significantly less than what you'd have to do.
01:24:06:27 - 01:24:20:16
Tuur
Yeah, which makes sense if you have a low time preference society where people save in bitcoin, who's going to be selling Bitcoin to build a building? It's like, whoa, if you want to leave a legacy, right? It's like a way to to say I was here.
01:24:20:18 - 01:24:31:20
Marty
It was funny because as we're having this conversation, I'm thinking of something I saw you put on Napster yesterday, which is the goal isn't to live forever, it's to build things that last forever.
01:24:31:23 - 01:24:36:03
Tuur
Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's that's exciting to me.
01:24:36:05 - 01:24:42:09
Marty
Yeah, me as well. I'm happy because it's sort of maybe not last minute, but it came together. Sort of.
01:24:42:14 - 01:24:45:16
Tuur
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Very, very serendipitously.
01:24:45:19 - 01:25:01:15
Marty
And Kelly, Kelly and I have had multiple conversation on the show about Bitcoin urbanism and the way he thinks about it and being a builder himself and understanding the financial aspect of it. I think it's going to be a really cool conversation right here at the Commons. Yeah.
01:25:01:15 - 01:25:26:22
Tuur
So we'll we'll have Kelly we'll have Austin who's who's rapidly being orange pilled he's he's been reading the bitcoin standard and some of the things and um I mean I'm I'm I'm definitely not specialized in bitcoin urbanism but but I'm very interested in it and then we recently there's a a German gentleman who's been talking about Bitcoin urbanism as well he forgot his name.
01:25:26:22 - 01:25:47:11
Tuur
Now I want to say Udi but that doesn't sound right. Anyway, he's going to be there too. So like whoever is listening and is thinking about showing up, it's to be like, I don't know. It's going to be a very early gathering where maybe I think it's going to turn into a big movement. So I would say definitely up.
01:25:47:11 - 01:25:54:10
Tuur
I want to see who's going to be there. Right? It's like, that's why I'm doing this. I want to see who shows up and who we can have conversations with.
01:25:54:12 - 01:25:58:20
Marty
I will be there. Awesome. I will be here. Suite There's here in this building. Yeah.
01:25:58:20 - 01:26:01:04
Tuur
We actually might do a podcast after, right? Maybe Friday.
01:26:01:07 - 01:26:19:12
Marty
Yeah. Yeah, we need to. We need to make that happen. Yeah, because it's one of my subjects. So I'm not an expert by any means, just a respecter of durable buildings and good esthetics. Desperately think need to be brought back to the world.
01:26:19:14 - 01:26:31:23
Tuur
You know, maybe we can like from humor to and then we need to find something that rhymes and that it's talking about. I love the word humor.
01:26:31:25 - 01:26:36:06
Marty
What humor built the boomers destroyed. Well.
01:26:36:08 - 01:26:37:19
Tuur
Figure something. We'll think.
01:26:37:19 - 01:26:43:13
Marty
Of something. Hmm. Speaking, thinking something, if anything, on top of your mind. You think we should wrap up with?
01:26:43:16 - 01:27:09:00
Tuur
No, I just. I mean, like, I'm trying to think. Well, I mean, I think it's always a challenge in the bull market to kind of, you know, keep stay sane. And so maybe now, like, okay, we have this big signal that like, okay, Peter Brandt said it to like this candle that we saw this last month, massive. And it probably means that this thing is going to go really high.
01:27:09:00 - 01:27:26:04
Tuur
And so I would say it's it's a good time to like sit together with your wife and like, talk about some plans, like, you know, do we have any plans? You know, like talk about different price points and just discuss like, yeah, what do we want to do? And it's totally valid to say we're not going to do anything.
01:27:26:04 - 01:27:45:06
Tuur
We're to just, you know, ride this whole market. You know, we're going to keep it for the next five years or Bitcoin, and that's our plan. And but, but I think it's helpful to go through it, you know, just to talk it through and be sure you're on the same page, whatever it is that you want to do, because because it's going to get crazier from here.
01:27:45:09 - 01:27:49:19
Marty
My wife and I to dinner last night and had one of those conversations like, Yeah.
01:27:49:21 - 01:28:00:00
Tuur
Because now it's starting to feel real. It's like, oh, it's different, right? From six months ago. We're like, Oh, it's going to go so high and it's not real. But now it's like, Wow, we actually doubled in a couple of months.
01:28:00:00 - 01:28:15:27
Marty
I was not expecting the last two weeks to play out the way they did. Yep. I mean, I expecting the ETFs to bring a lot of flow and there to be some price movement, but I wasn't expecting it to be that much this quickly.
01:28:15:29 - 01:28:17:28
Tuur
I got to say, it feels good to be right.
01:28:18:05 - 01:28:19:01
Marty
It really does.
01:28:19:01 - 01:28:26:25
Tuur
And I mean to me also because it's almost like I think I speak for a lot of bitcoiners, like we just invest so much our life and our energy in this.
01:28:26:25 - 01:28:28:16
Marty
And we're in this building.
01:28:28:18 - 01:28:49:27
Tuur
Right now. Yeah, it's not even 9 to 5, it's like 24 seven Bitcoin ing. So Yeah, it just feels very validating, I would say, to be like, Oh man, like, and in some way I think it's also like, it's fine and not hurry, you know, the world is going to I mean, not to be complacent and we want to stay humble, but in many ways the world is going to come to us.
01:28:49:29 - 01:29:06:17
Tuur
And so if we just kind of like focus on like, okay, what is important to me and what I want to what do I want to really excel at, I think the world will find you if you do that in a good way, because there's there's so many aspects to the bitcoin Diamond Right. MM.
01:29:06:19 - 01:29:13:09
Marty
Facets there is, well, I'm excited for this journey we're about to embark.
01:29:13:09 - 01:29:16:08
Tuur
On in two years. Um.
01:29:16:10 - 01:29:18:11
Marty
It's always a pleasure. Yeah. Sitting down and.
01:29:18:11 - 01:29:19:13
Tuur
Totally.
01:29:19:16 - 01:29:31:24
Marty
The other way. And also we got to do this more than once every seven months to do another one. Hopefully in a few weeks on Bitcoin urbanism. Come down on the comments. If you're in Austin during South by Southwest, it's Wednesday the 13th, correct?
01:29:31:26 - 01:29:47:25
Tuur
Wednesday the 13th. I think it's starting at around 6 p.m.. Uh, if you follow bitcoin comments on Twitter, you'll more announcements. It's now listed as like a meet up event. So it's, uh, I think there is limited admission, but it is free.
01:29:47:28 - 01:29:53:15
Marty
Yes, it's a good check out the page. Join us. We'll see you guys. Peace.
01:29:53:15 - 01:29:54:03
Tuur
Love you.
