152 – Tuur Demeester: Investing In Bitcoin

10 Oct 2016 · 1:16:00

Dutch economist Tuur Demeester, one of the earliest voices advocating Bitcoin as an investment to a mainstream audience, joins Epicenter to lay out his investment thesis and how it has evolved since he discovered Bitcoin in Argentina in 2011. He discusses the metrics he uses to evaluate Bitcoin, how it compares to gold as a store of value, and how he weighs other cryptocurrencies, including Ethereum, as investment opportunities.

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[Music] this episode of epicenter is brought to you by Jax Jax is the userfriendly wallet that works across all your devices and handles both Bitcoin and ether go to jx. and embrace the future of cryptocurrency wallets and by high. me protect yourself against hackers and Safeguard your identity online with a first class VPN go to hi. me/ epicenter and sign up for a free account today hi welcome to epicenter the show which talks about the Technologies

projects and people driving decentralization and the global blockchain Revolution my name is Sebastian K and my name is Brian Fabian crane we're here today with t de and tour is actually somebody who was on this podcast before he didn't remember uh I also had to check whether it was the case but it is indeed the case he was in one of the First episodes that we did in February 2014 when we were at actually this was also when Sebastian and I met for the first time at the Bitcoin inside bitcoin's conference in Berlin turbos there as well we did like a bunch of different interviews uh shorter like 5 10 minute interviews and then one of them was with him so he's been around for a very long time in the Bitcoin space he's an economist and an

investor and he's the editor in Chief at a company called admin research and among other things he's been he was the first or one of the first people to recommend Bitcoin as an investment to a more kind of mainstream audience I guess so yeah it's a pleasure to to have you on tour yeah thanks for having me yeah so well I guess let's let's get started with that how did you originally learn about Bitcoin and how did that journey start for you yeah like overall it was in 20067 and then obviously eight I started feeling uneasy about about the economy and that's kind of why I like worked harder to to to try and do

something online and try and also do something with investing because because I knew things were going to shift and I kind of wanted to know longterm what to do in in in that area even if I was going to work in another area um and so that grew into a professional activity and um so I had been the the main thing that I was looking for uh seeing that there's so much debt all around the world uh corporate debt but especially sovereign debt governments and and and states and and so on uh I was looking for assets that have low counterparty risk and so I was looking hard into into gold and silver and those kind of things um but then when I was uh doing a trip in Argentina uh which was in a way also

it was also research I was trying to see if you know I I I would want to live in Latin America America at some point which I eventually did um and so I was traveling around there and I met some people and they were super excited this was I think April April 2011 probably April April May June um very excited about Bitcoin and and they explained to me how it was useful to them and how also how it was accessible to them I mean this was one of the countries one of the harshest uh Capital controls and still these people could you know internationally uh trade using bit coin so that's where it caught my attention and where I started researching it so back then people were actually using Bitcoin in Argentina like in what way

were they using it well so these guys had bought some um some graphic cards and mined Bitcoins like found a way to mine Bitcoin and so early on there wasn't a lot in terms of what you could um you know what you could buy you can buy some alpaca socks back in the day and maybe a pizza but uh not a lot at all uh but at the time even then it was used sometimes for remittance I have heard like stories of even like real estate transactions and stuff like that um so yeah there was some use there uh and also as a tourist uh because if you wanted to buy the local currency and you went to a bank you would pay the official the official rate which was uh vastly overpriced you would buy the

pesos at vastly higher prices then if you had either dollar cash on you and exchanging in the street or you had a buddy or on local Bitcoins you found someone who would uh sell you some Bitcoin and then you got the the market rate so back when uh back when this was going on uh this was in in what year you mentioned so that's 2011 okay um so did did you get this this feeling then that so the argentinians were looking at this as some sort of Refuge store value was there uh what was the sentiment there uh with regards to sort of the you know Argentinian Central Bank and Argentinian Financial

system well I went to one of the first Argent uh meetups in Argentina um and there were like five people it was like a barbecue just five people uh but then later when I came back I think it was like a year later I came back and they had uh they had almost 100 people at their Meetup um and so there was definitely interest the interest was like in min uh people were just trying to find ways to you know um make some money and then there were like also Traders people who come in who would like buy and sell or or who would provide to the local market um so there's definitely and and so and and you the first La Bitcoin the first Latin American Bitcoin conference was in Argentina so there's definitely and and

I mean seru larner is one of the people that was involved in Bitcoin on the core protocol from very early on so they have you know they definitely have entrepreneurial chops um definitely compared to the other Latin American countries I think uh they've they've they've been they've been at the forfront uh still I don't think that you know it was it was seen as the ideal case for Argentina uh but the penetration of Technology isn't that deep outside of Buenos cidus so I think that's kind of why the you know that mainstream adoption that people had thought Argentina was going to be the first at uh didn't really happen uh maybe not yet um I don't think you know I think if you look at who is at the Forefront right

now it's maybe like countries like Netherlands and uh and and and Israel where you have like very high level uh and a very long tradition of of of Technology Innovation and adoption by the general public so Brian mentioned earlier that we met back in 2014 this was a couple of years later but I remember being at that Berlin Conference and definitely uh unbanked Market remittances this sort of use case was definitely one of the things that a lot of people were talking about at that time uh and uh even like back then there was projects like 37 coins and and others like it that were really focused on this sort of uh you know you bridging this you know technological Gap uh that you mentioned

by allowing people to say send Bitcoins through SMS that kind of thing so back then I agree that there was a lot of uh a lot of use cases sent turned around sort of bringing uh Financial technology to countries that largely didn't have stable Financial systems or financial infrastructure right right and I mean to some extent I'm not as fast as people hoped had hoped but to some extent that is becoming a reality like Bitcoin definitely is kind of part of the the global remittance rails even though it's like still a very very small percentage uh but you know when I talk to people who are involved in like a you know Bitcoin btms um and stuff they they are

seeing volumes pick up and it is actually being used for uh for remittance so how did you go from saying okay this is cool this is fascinating this is a great a great little thing going on here how did you go from there to saying this is a good uh investment and develop kind of a thesis around that and then you also went on to to Advocate that to to other people people what was the kind of the process that happened there yeah that was hard because I mean macr Trends was my first investment newsletter and so there I was I was like we launched in June 2011 so I was like Bitcoin is awesome but like you know I

don't even know really who my audience is because I was partnering up with a with a publisher so he had this huge email list and I was basically talking to I think mainly Baby Boomers there are some younger people too but um so that's part of of why held off a bit and also the price at the time was still coming down from the the 2011 bubble it had like gone up to $30 and then it went all the way down to $2 so that was kind of still happening um yeah it was it was pretty scary but the the thing that convinced me was the technology made sense to me like I could see how it it it it it just um you know the the concerns that that people could have there were arguments against that

everything every question I had was answered uh and then on top of that everybody said it was crazy like everybody said it's a Ponzi scheme it can't work uh and so the fact that people that weren't even willing to look at it um kind of made me think that at least the risk reward maybe this is longterm maybe it will there's going to be some bugs or problems but at least right now the risk reward seems very favorable because like literally everyone says it's crazy and it's not an investment even the core defs were like imploring me like my Cent at the time and also uh petero like hey like this is an experiment like don't you know don't invest uh or at least be very careful so that was like oh well maybe there's something here and I was

always like you know I always stressed that you you know only want to invest a little bit um but yeah it worked out and over time my confidence just only increased and uh the main I I I am a cryptocurrency maximalist so the main thing that I was always looking out for is that is there you know is there another asset that could be a better digital gold than Bitcoin because that's kind of my Benchmark like Bitcoin is the digital gold and uh you know that's why I'm looking out for if there anything else that's better and then I might have to revise my thesis that you know Bitcoin is the number one digital gold so you had this email uh this newsletter sending macro Trends uh how how did you how many people were reading

that and what was the kind of feedback you got when you were recommending uh Bitcoin both back back then and maybe later over time did a lot of people follow your advice yeah yeah that's that's interesting so uh from from launch uh we had about 400 paying subscribers and then we grew to about 1,500 uh this was in 2013 and then in November 20 no actually earlier summer 2013 I I kind of started abandoning the newsletter and and I found a successor and so it was all in all like a pretty brief period um so yeah how the reception was uh people would email me saying like yeah this is nuts like this is a Ponzi scheme some

other people would ask me specific questions so I would have a section in the newsletter answering specific questions I wrote a lot about Bitcoin I remember kind of looking back in my newsletter and I think I wrote like uh 8,000 words before it hit $1,000 just on like you know what was happening and some analysis and email updates um so so I also had an interview with pet Peter wer back in 2012 um and so I just tried to address all these concerns but in the end I did do a survey which I think I sent out when Bitcoin was like $400 when it was kind of going up in that steep slope in late 2013 and I asked like how many of you have actually bought Bitcoin and I think uh it was about 20% no actually this is

uh this I already answered this question when at um San Jose so this must have been before May 2013 so about only 20% you know U actually bought Bitcoin but I did get stories from people that were like pretty impressive like yeah they you know did very well financially uh the people who who did buy even a little bit uh and so I feel I feel really good about that I just you know did what I could and um that's kind of the thing with being early like even if you have a newsletter and even if people do pay for your advice it's still up to them like I I made some calls that were bad as well and so maybe they they uh I I I I like that people just make up their own judgments so how has your investment

thesis evolved over time do you still see it as this digital gold and and and even if you see it as this digital gold how would you value that like how would you say it's on pric or overpriced like what's the basis for that yeah that's a good question so my thesis is actually I don't think it has changed at all uh like I'm still you know I'm still seeing uh just everything in the economy being way over levered over like banks have leverage that is just way too high um if everybody gets a bailout then we have hyperinflation if there are no more bailouts then we have a bailin which is you know like a all the banks have to

close because there's not enough money around uh and so we need these assets that have very low counterparty risk and that are liquid that you can buy and sell everywhere around the world so uh there's a huge you know a huge need for asset that people can use to save in for the long term not to speculate not to like do anything like that but just just money basically and um so yeah my thesis is actually I think the same um maybe just a bit more refined here and there so how you would value it because I mean a thesis is okay but then for example digital gold there's also the physical goal so when would for example one be overpriced relative to the other

yeah that is very very hard and I definitely don't have like hard metrics um um I I do like right now for example Bitcoin is worth uh 0.02% of all the physical gold and and above ground that has been mined so I think it's not crazy to say that that could go to 1% uh especially because Bitcoin has many of the qualities of physical gold and more right it has multi you can can um store it in in in very sophisticated ways that are not possible phys with physical gold you can verify that it's real in in better ways sometimes than physical gold because

that that's an issue too you I have known people that have bought fake coins uh because tunston for example um which in in Europe it's known as Wolfram it's the the metal that's inside light bulbs um that has very similar weight um has a very similar weight to volume ratio than gold so you can just mix it in and and and fake gold bars so so there's these these things that you can do with Bitcoin that are really hard to do with physical gold so in some ways you can say it's the upgraded version of gold and then there's some some downside risks that gold doesn't have which is you know the the if there's a 51% attack you cannot 51% attack physical gold unless maybe you come up with a way to

synthesize it in a lab and and just produce it out of thin air or something um so so they complement each other very well and I think you know to say that they can Bitcoin can have 1% and physical gold the rest is not a stretch and then from there we'll see because if if Bitcoin is 1% that means the price is I think about $3,000 well I guess it would have to go up 50 fold if you said it was at 0.02 at the moment right so right if we if we have 500times 50 that would actually be 25,000 I think I remember calculating that 1% of the physical gold is is um is about $3,000 but I could be wrong I think the total of all the gold

in the world and of course these prices fluctuate is about uh I think it's about5 trillion do okay yeah there's about 5 billion pounds around uh sorry five five billion ounces around let's take a short break to talk about Jax Jax is a multicoin wallet created by the people at the central now in the past if you had a whole bunch of cryptocurrencies it was a pain to handle them you either had to leave them on an exchange which was insecure or you had to have all these different wallets which was a hassle fortunately now with Jacks those medieval days of darkness misery and suffering are over Jack supports multiple cryptocurrencies and

new ones are being added but it's not just storing cryptocurrencies you can do with Jacks but you can also exchange them directly from with inside the wallet thanks to their shape shift integration and since there's only one seed Jax makes it super easy to back up and sync to the other devices Jax works with Windows Mac OS Linux Android iOS and has browser extensions for Firefox and chrome so go to ja.io that's jx. to download the wallet and get started today we'd like to thank Jack for the support of epicenter so you you mentioned that you think that Bitcoin is a good vehicle vehicle for people to use as a as a store of values essentially as a way to

save money over the long term so people buy Bitcoin they and it's uh a good alternative to financial markets and um Fiat currencies that may or may not be around for a long time or uh May crash at some point so it's a refuge value if I understand correctly what you're saying so um having said that though if if people use Bitcoin as a store of value and people essentially just hold Bitcoin and don't spend it um isn't that a counter to this idea that in Bitcoin could be a good investment because if people are simply holding it and they're not spending their Bitcoins they're not creating sort of economic value around

that currency uh how would the how will the price go up how how will Bitcoin become more valuable I think this is a fallacy that Bitcoin needs to be spent in order for uh us to together increase the value of of the network at least uh I don't think Bitcoin has to be spent more or a lot or what I mean obviously at some point you you know you would expect it to change hands but when you look at you know the the the function of saving in an economy it's to what you do is you defer gratification and you build up this you know this pot of value and it grows and then what you can do is you use it to

invest in a company for example or a piece a piece of Machinery that will then make something that already has to be done in the economy more efficient for example you invest capital in inventing a new type of car maybe you know like what what Elon mus did with Tesla that took a lot of saving before that was possible to make that leap and now the product is there and uh it makes you know it it it reduces um deaths on the road it um it it's it's um more clean so there's less problems with lung disease maybe over the over the long run so there's all kinds of advantages but that was only possible because of saving and so I see a similar thing in Bitcoin

where uh if you save in Bitcoin um it it it it really rewards long-term um long-term improvements to the economy because yes at some point you will exchange it for maybe something that will yield dividends you you maybe you know buy a house or invest in a company who will then kind of return some of the profits over time but at least with with Bitcoin or gold you don't have um this um reality chasing you that it's decreasing in value all the time your your value is not rotting away like with Fiat money like back in the 19th century most people just save in Gold like that was a huge part of the economy was just Savings in gold and you

weren't forced to buy debt or like government bonds or other bonds you weren't forced to invest in the stock market uh part of the reason why we have all these bubbles is because there's not really a decent um uh medium to save money and for the long run without necessarily wanting to speculate uh so I think there's a huge function and it increases Prosperity a huge amount over time and the more people come in they kind of lift into Bitcoin they lift the boat for everyone uh there is more value going around there's a bigger all over market cap uh there's more liquidity as a result um so I see all kinds of benefits and so like this word of like you know the derogatory word is often hoarding is like you know you just hold

on to your coins and you sit on it first of all it's not easy it's not easy at all to hold just hold some Bitcoin and not ever sell them or that is very hard but and so but what you do by doing that is you you help build a floor under the price so it does it's not going to drop below a certain price because you have all these kind of uh you know um I forget the word but you have all these hoarders basically that kind of like support the the ecosystem in that sense and I don't think it's the only function we need absolutely we need developers we need entrepreneurs but I think it's a vital part of of the Bitcoin Community to have people who decide to save in Bitcoin yeah I very much agree with that I think the the argument around the

digital goal is actually pretty strong with Bitcoin and you don't need that much besides a secure network uh and and then the ability to trade it for fiat currency you know easily kind of all over the world right if you have that that's actually already enough to to be good as as a store value and then you you don't necessarily need even the you know opportunity to spend Bitcoins and buy your coffee with it I think that's that's sort of it enhances of course the usefulness of Bitcoin but it's not absolutely required that's kind of bonus those things like micr transactions and then especially like the second layer stuff

where uh you know you have the lightning Network and highspeed transactions if you look at physical gold um uh I'm totally not saying that this system is is is anywhere close to perfect um but just as like you know it kind of works uh physical gold and what you see is that there are wholesale markets in gold and uh so if you want to actually move a ton of gold you need to go there uh usually especially if you are going to do it on a regular basis and stuff so in London there's the London bullan Market Association they only have I think about seven members or something and they move the most gold in the world and when you look at the transaction volumes they're like tiny I don't remember the exact number I

remember looking it up I think it was like a 100 transactions a day or something but every transaction is on average $ Million worth of gold um and so uh you know and and there's layers built on top of that people buy the financial products that are emitted by the members of the London Buon Market Association or gold miners sell their go to that organization and so you can have layers uh layers of confidence built on top of that and the problem with physical gold is that there're hardly any decent audits so there's a lot of question about like is all that gold really there is it is it not fractional but you don't have that problem with Bitcoin you can always um monitor the the Bitcoin blockchain I I I understand you're guys's argument uh I would say that gold

has somewhat of a different um is position differently in the financial system as it has been a historical value for Millennia uh whereas uh whereas Bitcoin is relatively new and so bitcoin's value being inherit to the fact that it's only a store of value uh that may be true for gold you may you may we may be able to say okay gold can be a store of value in itself and even if we're not using it as a you know as for payments every day uh but I think that in order for that to happen with Bitcoin um the store value aspect of it in itself is not enough for uh for

the price of Bitcoin to be to you know to go to these Heights that people have been predicting you know $2,000 $20,000 or whatever so I I I don't I don't agree with that I think if you had a lot of people who wanted to treat it as a store value then the price could go super high I mean look at gold I think the problem with Bitcoin more is the security model completely breaks down over time at least if PE people don't um use it a lot because well I I think the security model of Bitcoin in the long run doesn't work in any case uh but but really because the mining Ro goes down and down like at some point it just becomes kind of unsustainable right because minus uh

the the revenue for providing network security goes away and if people don't use it a lot then transaction fees don't make up for that yeah you do I like I agree that you do need um you need uh liquidity and transactions uh I mean that feeds into the motivation for people to use Bitcoin as a store value like that that's kind of I guess I'm like you can look at it from different uh perspectives um like part of the reason why you would want to own gold is like if you know uh there's this story I don't really know if it's true but it's like it circulates among um you know gold Fanatics or whatever gold bugs um that one of the things that was given to British fighter pilots when

they were on their mission is some gold coin because uh after they crashed it didn't matter where in the Sahara they would still be able to uh you know to to to to buy some some food or transportation and that especially historically wouldn't always be the case when you just had dollar bills because those could be fake um but so so the fact that people actually accept it and you can do transactions with them and there's evidence of transactions uh and then also for the miners it's important that there are transactions uh because in the long run that's what they need they need the transaction fees and so that's probably why these you know side chains and stuff are going to be helpful in in in in kind of securing during the long-term future of Bitcoin because uh high volume transactions they can then

um some small fee can be charged on that and then the miners can also profit of that so I I agree that it's it's not just exactly one or the other so since you started recommending Bitcoin it's a long time uh a lot of time has passed right the world is is a different world Bitcoin has changed a lot the cryptocurrency the blockchain community has evolved enormously so how do you look at the the community and Bitcoin today how would you describe the state of Bitcoin and are there any sort of objective metrics that you follow and haveen Following over time to kind of say okay how how is

Bitcoin doing well when you look at the amount of value that is being moved on chain uh in terms of dollars right the dollar denominated value that's being moved moved on the Bitcoin blockchain is the highest ever I don't know exactly how much it is I think it's about $50 billion dollar a year or something um so from that point of view Bitcoin is extremely healthy uh when you look at Bitcoin from a security point of view there are no major concerns like all the you know all the the the there is a hardfork um kind of um proposal that is in the works but that's more to kind of fulfill the promises I think Peter Todd as working on that no actually Luke Jr I think um

but there's a very small chance that the hard Fork is actually going to happen so security wise uh Bitcoin is extremely healthy I think also if you look at uh the hash rate uh it's basically on its course to Triple again compared to last year um which means that the firewall around Bitcoin is just getting stronger and stronger um and So eventually we're going to have these commoditized mining chips and so that will allow more diversification among the miners I think uh the centralization of Bitcoin mining in Bitcoin is is overblown I don't think it's it's a real issue uh 51% attack is kind of still a possibility but um you know because of the the the the increase in hash rate it's again it's becomes

harder and harder um I think it's going to be more tempting for governments to start accepting taxes in Bitcoin or accepting some form of payment in Bitcoin which is like the LoveHate relationship that governments I think will have with Bitcoin in the future is that um you know I hate it because people can uh you know they they can get paid internationally like all kinds of gray black market transactions can happen with this but then the love is like oh well how about I can tax people you know so so I'm I want Bitcoins as as a as maybe even as a reserve asset in the long run um so my main focus is always security and I think Bitcoin by far is the most secure cryptocurrency there is and uh even by its own measures

it's that's just improving and then there's these wonderful uh technological innovations that are happening with lightning Network and side chains and um a lot is happening on terms in terms of fungibility too so improving the privacy of Bitcoin uh a lot of talks about that now on in the scaling Bitcoin conference in Milan um so yeah I'm I'm I'm just more positive than than I've ever felt about Bitcoin cool that's great I I really like your perspective cuz I think certainly on this podcast we've become more skeptical over time I think there's a lot of reasons for this one of them is just how divided the community has become I think there's it's been it's

become a very negative hostile environment which which was completely different in 2013 where there was extremely a lot of optimism exuberance activity so I think that's something that's changed um I it's certainly true that a lot of innovation is happening and and yeah you're right I think at this point Bitcoin is secure I personally I think there are some design flaws that could lead to problems down the line but you know they're not not on the horizon at this point um but I also think a big thing is just been that a lot of activity when it comes to Startup

activity is it's not happening on bitcoin right that's happening uh with ethereum or with permission blockchains I think those those are the two area where a lot of activity is so but that being said of course you know it's it's very exciting and and a lot of the technological projects that we seeing they're there right with lightning Network seg witness Etc and we we just we haven't really seen the effects of that so it's it's nice to have somebody who has the the fullon um a different perspective and and sees more ways more the positive sides than the the things that aren't going so well yeah I I mean when you talk about the

startups um yeah it's definitely true although like even back in 2012 13 there were a lot of like um startups who I guess back in the back then transaction fees were not an issue so you could build uh you know um a gambling website and you just do it all on chain like like um Satoshi dice or you could have a stock market that kind of operated on the Bitcoin blockchain and but then over time people kind of started seeing that oh there's transaction fees so we can't just you know uh put all these transactions on the network and then it took you know side chains was an idea but it it takes it just takes a long time to make that leap and so people have like um segwayed into focusing on altcoins which already I mean back in

2013 was already pretty you know pretty a lot of activity was there uh and then also yeah you're right uh ethereum which is also an altcoin and then the the build trying to build on top of that because it's more accessible um I think it's true there's you know as far as applications go there is more activity and in the altcoin space than there is in Bitcoin UHC I think it's because Bitcoin is harder and uh and and my my contention is that uh Bitcoin is more robust and it will scale better in the long run because it has these layers and doesn't try to do everything on the main chain uh and I so I think that this startup activity is going to return to bitcoin um in part because that's where the most money is and that's where the

you know the the network effect is the strongest and because it's the most secure network if you want to help people store value or move value then I think the minimum requirement is that you offer the best security possible I'm not sure I would agree with the idea that the startup activity is going to return to bitcoin I don't think Brian what your thoughts are on this but um we we both work in startups that uh deal in in the blockchain space and all of the demand today is coming from Enterprise who want to implement blockchain Technologies um and for the most part using permission blockchains as a way to

upgrade existing infrastructure that is you know just um like in a dinosaur era uh what do you feel about that yeah I think that's I think that's great and uh and I think that um it's possible that that demand is not going to weaken I'm not saying that all the entrepreneurs that are now you know building permission blockchains are going to you know move back to to bitcoin what I think is that um what if Bitcoin goes from 10 billion to 100 billion then all of a sudden there's a$ hundred billion doll worth of savings that wants Services I want to send my Bitcoin to India and I want that money to be deposited on a bank account somewhere or um I want to you know uh to do uh an

initi an IPO on a side chain like help me do that like there's all this money now in Bitcoin like help us do that um and I don't think that money has to be sioned away from from you know other blockchain projects I think it's possible but I I don't really think that needs to happen at all so I don't know if that makes sense like I don't necessarily think that the blockchain space would shrink a lot uh although I do think there's maybe some you know some overzealousness in terms of what you know what private blockchains actually can achieve but um yeah I think that both can totally coexist and in a way I feel like you know the private chains and maybe you're not just talking about private chains uh correct me if I'm wrong uh but I think permission blockchains is kind of like talking

about intranet solutions back you know back in the day it's like oh well let's improve office infrastructure and like kind of improve the way we communicate between these these companies and I think that has its place and um I I I think they totally can coexist today's magic word is investment i n v s t m n t head over to let's talk bitcoin.com to sign in enter the magic word and claim your part of the listener reward you wrote this really great article uh back in in 2014 on coin desk entitled why Bitcoin is the petroleum of

our time which uh at least for one reminds us how cruy we treat animals or have always treated animals and uh so in this article you um you you compare uh uh Bitcoin to sort of the uh the the transition from the whale oil economy to the petroleum oil economy uh and and explain that Bitcoin is to The Current financial system what petroleum was to the to the whale oil industry back in the 19th century uh and although I I agree that there are similarities there I think there's one specific characteristic that is different um from

from that uh from that transition in those Technologies is that the rails on which uh that industry um was basing itself on that is U the lamp um was the same so you know if if you had an oil lamp you could or any any type of um apparatus that burned uh oale oil uh as a source of heat or or energy uh you would simply need to put uh this new type of oil like kerosene uh in this apparatus and it would work so the the underlying infrastructure was the same whereas with the financial system that

is not the case and I think that that is one of the ma reasons why we haven't seen this Mass adoption of Bitcoin as uh people were predicting back you know two years ago when we first met uh I mean back then there was so much enthusiasm about you know Bitcoin will be like massively adopted next year in two years from now uh the price you know people making like outrageous price um predictions which we all sort of believe I guess but I think that that fundamental difference the fact that you can't simply go from from the existing Financial system that is so ingrained in our society and our culture and our politics and just the world economy uh and just say like okay now I want to use

Bitcoin in that same system that's a major flaw and I think will be will continue to be a huge burden on on bitcoin as something that can be massively adopted by just anyone yeah I think that's a great point I think it's true that um you know like even while back with petroleum what did need to happen was you needed to um distill it in some way you couldn't just use the crude oil you had to you know make like you say you have to make the kerosene and and then maybe also redesign some of the lamps and but there was like no regulation almost whatsoever there's a good movie about the early oil era and so there was some adjustment that needed to happen but there was virtually no

regulation whatsoever and uh also the whales were already dying uh I mean in the sense that the population was declining so the price was was high and then there was all these all these new applications for petroleum that were kind of adding to the appeal um so yeah I agree that that you know the the adoption there was easier than for Bitcoin especially I mean money is really it's almost there's Al almost like a religious element to it too like it's almost like blasphemy to Advocate uh the use of another type of money than the national currency uh because that's what you use to pay your taxes with and that's what you know how you get your subsidies and how you pay your your work and all that so there's that then

there's the fact that well with Bitcoin you until very recently or I mean until even to onchain transaction is only seven per second so even if the whole world wanted to use it they would all have to use these clunky Bitcoin exchanges that would then get robbed and so there's a lot more bottlenecks for Bitcoin to actually scale uh which I think was why it's taking a longer time and then there's also these psychological barriers that uh are just I mean yeah who cares what you're you know oil lamp is made of but if you have to explain to your aunt or grandmother that your savings are now in Bitcoin which I don't recommend that all your savings are on bitcoin but it's just like it can be a weird conversation uh you know maybe it's like she'll be like

oh well you use it to buy drugs like why do you have Bitcoins um so I think there's more controversy there and like you say that the rails this just just way more effort is needed to to develop the infrastructure like I mean look at how long it took for the internet to take off it was you know it was decades uh the early peer-to-peer protocols were developed and then I think it took about 20 years for it to go mainstream to to come to your question sebastio your point about uh you know startups and and the Bitcoin and the sort of case for Bitcoin I think right now the I don't see any signs of an increased number of startups building on bitcoin uh if anything it's decreasing

mind you I I say that but like the company that I that I work for and co-founded we actually do stuff on bitcoin yeah we we use Bitcoin like it's in our API uh but we're one of the few startups that do that or at least in the sort of permission blockchain space yeah so so some do and and some will continue to do and um but I also think tourist point is is very valid right because fundamentally it is if you look at this technology if you look at blockchain blockchains and then one of the very obvious use cases uh and uses of it and I think that is something that will have uh really a future is is the idea of of

exactly what bigcoin is trying to do as sort of native digital asset that you can use for uh payments and for sore value and if you if you look at that then what's important for that to succeed um so Network effects are very important uh it's important to have a sort of history and the trust behind it and and just that Bitcoin has been around for a long time is certainly a longish time is certainly a strong Factor there so if you ask me today you know what what has the best chance of being that kind of asset also a you know a non-governmental controlled asset that it's not to say that there won't also be government issued cryptocurrencies and

all I think there's a role for that too but as say same time there will be a demand for uh a non-government controlled asset uh and and then you if you ask me like what has the best chance of making that I would still say that's Bitcoin at this point um and and if that is going to go that way then there will be opportunity to build various startups around that so I I totally I see your thesis I think it's a it is I totally buy that it's just I guess we don't know how likely it's it's going to be that it happens but it's totally plausible and and not unlikely I think what one of the use cases too that we fail to mention

here and that we often forget uh with Bitcoin and I I think like on the Enterprise side at least uh it will is demanded and will continue to be demanded is the fact that you can you know have uh digital uh secure immutable registry of historical facts which is notarization uh and at the moment Bitcoin is the only trusted public uh decentralized Network that allows you to have really good notorized uh easier cheaper and more

scalable uh which I don't see any any real contenders right now I think Bitcoin will continue to have this uh as like a really good use case for Enterprise to keep using it and since Enterprise will use it uh then that gives Bitcoin I guess more legitimacy with um these institutions that perhaps on the monetary side on the uh on bitcoin as money side don't support it so much right yeah that's really interesting it's kind of weird how you know Bitcoin is this TR I imagine like this tree and it has roots that go like into like deep into mdor with the like the dark net which by the way darket markets talk about Bitcoin startups there's lots of Bitcoin

startups there that you know nobody talks about uh which I don't know that much about but I do know that the volumes are there and there is lots of activity um so so so the the roots go really deep uh and then you have the trunk which is May maybe like Bitcoin as a store of value and then there's the tree with all the like the fruit that comes off and part of part of that was I think what you're talking about is like the most trusted time stamp in the world is you know a transaction on the Bitcoin network uh there's just there's nothing out there that that beats it for now and so long term what I hope will happen is that the the um you know permission ledgers will kind of touch Bas every now and then with the Bitcoin blockchain to

just use it as a layer of consensus like just kind of like all right we're this is our hash we dropping it in in in the main chain uh just so you know and then we do a whole bunch of things offchain and then we come back um I think I think that could could be very very interesting and I don't I don't see why not why you would not sometimes touch Bas with the main chain of Bitcoin I agree and I I think that from what I've seen anyway uh increasingly Enterprise has become more comfortable with this idea so they they there's an understanding that uh that you need to have a permissioned Sy system um for certain use cases and that you know you can anchor down into the Bitcoin

blockchain once in a while as you said to provide that layer of certification that layer of uh independent audit that layer that enables independent auditability of whatever uh you're dealing with on a higher level in your in your in your infrastructure and so that I think that that gives it I've definitely seen a sort of a shift in mentality with Enterprise uh people working Enterprise that um uh on on bitcoin and sort of that being a very legitimate use case uh that you know they can see being used in within their their infrastructure yeah and like and the fact that you know it's something that a lot of people deplore but it's still the case the fact that uh Bitcoin has never

had a hard for kind of like it should like it should validate that thesis that oh well yeah this is kind of an immutable uh blockchain and so we can't trust it with a Tim stamp it won't be you know you know won't be changed or reversed and it's proof of work which means that it's incredibly hard like basically impossible to change anything past that's happened more than an hour ago let's take a short break and talk about hi do me hi me is a VPN provider and if you don't know yet why you should need a VPN provider let us help you I'm sure you like me and when all the crazy Revelations came out during the Snowden time uh of all the Des spying that is being done by NSA and other government

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me is that they have a free plan which includes 2 GB of unthrottled bandwidth per month so you can go to hide.me epicenter to create your free account and when you use that URL you'll automatically get 35% off if ever you decide to go premium Now the premium plans are really great they include unlimited bandwidth with access to all of the 30 exit nodes that high. meet provides and you can install it on up to five devices at a time so you can have this running on your phone your tablet your computer at work your personal computer and just be completely protected all the time and of course high. me accepts Bitcoin so we'd like to thank high. me for their support of epicenter Bitcoin now speaking about other cryptocurrencies right there's a lot of

other project there's certainly ethereum that's gotten a lot of attention there some that will be launching soon zcash which um you know we've also talked about on the show we've had zuka on and and it's certainly a very interesting project and then there's a whole lot of others that you know some of them are interesting some of them are not but a lot of them get attention so what's what is your view on on those projects do you view them as uh interesting investment opportunities as well how do you evaluate those and and how do you compare them with Bitcoin yeah so usually with altcoins I see them as like interesting kind of trade opportunities in the short to medium term I haven't found an altcoin that I really would want to stick with

for the long run uh like as of now so I had a like a small long position in in Monero I sold pretty like when it was like $300 million market cap so pretty much at the top um and then zcash I do plan to buy some um I have some Litecoin still uh I have a short position in Bitcoin versus ethereum so if if ethereum is stagnating and Bitcoin goes up then uh that will be profitable um so so that's kind of my view is that um I think there there can be uh like for example with privacy I think uh allcoins can complement Bitcoin because for now even though there's a lot of interesting work happening um because like coin join

for example is I think a bit expensive because of the transaction fees um so if you have a younger altcoin that is focused on privacy like Monero you know there might be some value there um and then there's zcash as well but uh I think there was there's you know privacy will be implemented in a side chain probably or in some other way in Bitcoin there's a lot of a lot of avenues there uh and then as far as smart contracts go uh I don't see you know I have trouble seeing how um Computing the actual contract on a blockchain is is long-term viable and useful I think you um you know you want to validate contracts on a blockchain but not compute them so um I I I I

that's why that's part of why I'm bearish on on ethereum the main reason is I think there's a lot of security issues that are kind of baked into the system because of the design choices they made um so I don't know that's maybe in a nutshell I think zcash is really interesting because uh the technology has been around for quite a while z um zero coin at the time back in 2013 was a concept and so they kept they kind of took the longer term approach which I appreciate I think the main concern there is that first of all it's it's a separate chain so they have kind of the network effect of Bitcoin to compete against and then the other one is that um trans um the transactions are bigger so they require more space on the blockchain uh it used to be I think

about 50 kilobytes now they managed uh the minimum I think is about 5 kilobytes um which is is great but the the question is like are users going to um you know are they going to be okay with a pretty fast growing blockchain versus the Bitcoin one for example well with zcash and this is what we were discussing earlier before the show is that uh I mean although there are some use cases I think for you know for privacy as a public network you we have a lot of that now I mean there's you mentioned coin join uh there are other sort of blockchains that provide privacy and once you have Bitcoin I if you want to just like trade

that for Litecoin on shape shift and then back into another currency and then back into Bitcoin there's it's very hard after for someone to trace uh the flow of those transactions with with zcash increasingly where I see potential use cases is uh as a as a permission Network so as a way to trade assets for instance uh um so one could imagine some sort of an exchange built on zcash where perhaps you need to have kyc on the individual addresses but you want those transactions to be private interesting yeah I hadn't thought of that I'll uh I'll think about it more and so what about appcoins and the crowd sales is is that something you're you're watching as well and and you find

interesting well I mean that's like the problem there is that they're fighting this enormous wall of the network effect like why would you buy the coin oh well it's because it's part of our company or because it's the asset that you need to like you know vote vote here or to gamble or or whatever uh so in a way it's kind of like corporate credit or and you know or some form of of um of equity um and um I just it's like why not launch on on as a side chain well it's hard to develop a side chain all right well maybe that's saying something about the quality of your team if you can't do that um so yeah like I have not seen things that I'm like really and and

I don't think like I'm dogmatically opposed to anything that's not Bitcoin like I I I really yeah I I really don't think so it's just uh I think and also sometimes I'm suspicious that it's just a quick money grab uh these plans are just very very like thin and uh you know just a lot of projects have failed and it's kind of sad because a lot of people come into Bitcoin or the crypto space and they're new and they see these projects and they can totally see it like oh I can totally imagine this decentralized Exchange change or you know this project or uh but they don't realize it has been tried in Bitcoin before like it in 2012 or 2013 uh so a lot of these half-baked ideas they just come back and try to like entice a new generation so

sometimes it makes me mad that it's like well you know you know it takes a lot of effort to debunk some of these things to really look at the technology and kind of show that hey this is not sustainable longterm and so a lot of people don't bother because they have their own lives and their own projects and then you know people get suckered in there's like they don't really know the kind of arguments they're new to the space so um it's kind of the pink sheets right am I against pink sheets which is like a um platforms uh for um penny stocks that's what pink sheets are and it has a very low low barrier of Entry you can very easily Do It um you know lots of fraud is happening there I don't I'm not against the concept you know some of these

companies do become viable over term over the long term which I suspect you know the uh cryptocurrency crowd sales are probably also going to yield some interesting results uh like in a way Tesla is doing crowd sale as well it's not like it's you know it's a bad thing but uh there's a lot of uh just nasty stuff that I don't like um and and looking at individual projects and the thing is that sometimes it's just my suspicion I don't know until it implodes and then you know we can pick up the pieces and we know what happened yeah know I'm totally in agreement with you I think the concept is strong but at the same time it's been just too easy to raise money uh with these crowd cell so we've seen a lot of very bad projects yeah like for example

rep the sorry talking about augur uh market cap is $72 million now is that really is that project worth that much like building on top of ethereum which is now under attack and like I'm just saying like it's I'm not saying it's impossible but yeah just on the face of it that seems high that seems really high to me yeah I'm 100% agreement with actually that's a is something I've looked at quite a lot I thought about and I felt like doesn't really make sense to me how they built it and and it's interesting because then I was like in the crowd sale I was like should I participate in that was like no I don't think that's going to work and it's tempting because you know it's probably going to go up in the beginning right right and now you look at it and now

it's gone up insanely and it's not like that any of the concerns I had have been addressed or unvalid anymore I still think they're valid we don't know maybe maybe they're right maybe they're going to solve it all but it's it's still very fundamentally unproven but then it's worth an insane amount which is if you look at what does a startup have to do in order to raise Venture Capital at those kind of valuations they have to be at a very very different point uh than than some of these projects so I I am you're totally right it's um the the whole crowd sale thing has gotten a little bit um irrational and and I mean part of it

is that and I know this for a fact I mean I've heard it say literally part of it is that some people feel they missed out on bitcoin on the big you know the big rally and they um they want to um they want to um uh have dra ride the next wave and I think that's too bad because there is probably going to be a next big rally in Bitcoin and if they are all like spread out in in reps and in all these other altcoins they're I think they're going to miss out that's I think that's too bad I think Bitcoin as far as investing goes I think there's a huge amount of value that is not being expressed now in market cap that uh that is I think is probably going to come closer to it in the next two years uh I

think we're going to see a big big rally actually that's a that's a good point bringing us to that uh So you you're one of the people who have made predictions about price at various times many people in the space don't do that um what's your view right now like what do you see over the next 6 months and over the next few years yeah like maybe first like as far as like what I have done in the past uh like I've always said that I thought Bitcoin was going to go up um and then the the I did become uh bearish in like January 2014 which is when it was $1,000 I thought it was a double top and it would go down and it did go down uh I did make the mistake that I thought that it was

going to be a similar period of going down as the two previous times which it wasn't it was a lot longer this time so that I I I I misinterpreted I think mainly how much um what would happen when the miners would start selling their coins uh and then also I underestimated the amount of fraud that was happening in Mount GA and how the markets were actually artificially High uh but I mean after I realized that it was like around Bitcoin being like 500 400 I did think that we would go down below um below 300 and and hit 200 and we did uh and and I've been bullish since like Bitcoin was $300 again that it would go up again so we're double now so we're already in a rally it's 600 now

um for me the main thing that I look at is sentiment I don't really think like oh well Bitcoin is going to hit 2,000 or five because once it goes up it's like it it can go to 2,000 or 5,000 or even 10,000 in one big rally like it's just when things go insane they go insane like you just it just happens like how could you predict how high the NASDAQ was going to go back in in 99 2000 uh so I do think we will have some type of mania situation um and so then I mainly look at the sentiment and and how how if you have stories of people saying like I'm putting all my life savings Savings in Bitcoin or look look at my fancy Bitcoin tattoo uh you know that kind of

stuff starts coming up then it's probably time to diversify out of Bitcoin again and we're not seeing that now I think you know the sentiment is very like tepid and not there's not a lot of excitement about Bitcoin at this point so you you're saying if I see a guy with a Bitcoin titoo I should sell uh if yeah which I I mean that's what back in late 2013 like I was like I saw this guy who was boasting and he had he had done it the day before so and it was on Twitter and I retweeted saying like we're probably close to the top and that was when Bitcoin was like it was like uh literally a week away from the top it was so close so yeah I mean it's it sounds silly but yeah when people start doing things that you wonder like kind

of like back in you know talk to people who are there at the at the NASDAQ bubble uh you know what happened what what what were people's mindset like if it sounds like Euphoria and U you know I think that that that's something you want to look out for rather than just look at the price um I mean of course you can diversify on the on the way up you can just gradually sell some or just you know stick with it because I think the price in five years is going to be even higher than what it's going to become during this rally so the I always have a hard time taking predictions seriously because I've heard so many people make predictions and they all turned out to be pretty wrong I mean I think I remember at that at that

conference where we were at in Berlin a few years ago there was one one guy at the end I there always used to be white guy at the end say so you on the panel like what do you think the price will be and people making just predictions off the the top of their heads uh what are your predictions uh for the next year 5 years 10 years if you have if you have any yeah I I don't really uh I just like I just it's going to be higher it's going to be higher expressed in dollars it's going to be higher expressed in Gold um uh I think that you know these waves are real so we are going to see you know it move in waves uh going forward as well um I think like saying like $10,000 by 200 like 19 or something

is like very much not outrageous um um you know like Wes cett is saying eventually a million dollars yeah like it also depends on how low the dollar is going to go like what will you be able to buy with a million dollars 10 years from now I don't know is it going to be a house a car a bike uh a pencil like you know it really depends on what the dollar does and that's kind of why I'm really like really bullish on bitcoin and on gold is because like doche bank for example I in a you probably saw it in my Amsterdam presentation I had a slide about doche Bank saying that it was massively over levered there would be problems and look at the news now like yes indeed Deutsche

Bank is is probably going to be either the biggest bankruptcy or the biggest nationalization in Europe and there's going to be a lot of Fallout from that um the banking system is rotten and people are going to look for uh a refuge and uh I think that the um the SDR from the IMF is not a Panacea it's not going to solve anything money printing is going to go forward Full Throttle uh interest rates are not going to be raised significantly because then you just you just explode the Government Bond Market so all these reasons uh are are reasons for me to be bullish on bitcoin and I'm not really excited about this stuff because a lot of things will be disrupted and uh High inflation is

very disruptive for economies uh it's it's not really fun to like even if you have a good you know you make a good living there crime Rises and all those things uh but it's probably I mean in the long run it will be for the better uh because I think we need a more balanced system we need more balance between public and private assets and right now all the money in the world is issued by the governments and they're not responsible so we need some counterbalance yeah I was I wanted to come to that topic maybe briefly before we we end the show so you uh of course your thesis right is to a significant extent as you talked about uh driven by what we are seeing with just an enormous uh explosion of debt and and we you know

2008 is is quite a long time ago now eight years ago uh we certainly seeing some things that aren't uh doing so well Deutsche Bank being one example do you see but what's what's your view here on the time Horizon do you think Deutsche Bank is um and and maybe some other things that we're seeing and are going to happen that's are those outliers is this you know one event we'll see other events over next year so is this sort of the beginning or something else like 2008 do you have any kind of view on that what are we speaking about do you think this could go on another 10 years uh of uh you know quantitative easing and uh zero 0%

interest rates so yeah first of all the nature of the problem like the nature of the problem is is insolvency we have insolvency and uh you know um in that sense the way to look at the financial system from my point of view is kind of the way you would look at an Enron or the way you would look at mon gaw or the way you would look at Bernie Ma's Empire before it collapsed you just you're an Insider and you can look at the books and you see that it doesn't make sense and that um you know probably this is going to you know hit the wall at some point but you don't really know what is going to be the thing that will cause Enron to blow up you don't know um there could be many things it's it's all like what is

going to and the question for the economy at large is when are people going to realize that um they are losing money if it's sitting in the bank if uh their their savings account even though it gives them 2% interest rate per year the inflation is higher so they're losing money and what is it going to take for people to realize that they're going to lose money faster every year cuz that is going to cause a run for the doors that's what when people get their money out and that's the institutional players in a way are already doing that with doche bank they are withdrawing funds and questioning their liquidity and then Deutsche Bank has emitted assets that are stored by other Banks who are holding that as collateral so I

mean it's been named I think it was by the IMF as the the bank with the biggest risk of uh contagion of all the banks in Europe um so we could have a lot a lot of Fallout similar to 2008 maybe worse and what is likely to happen is they're going to paper it all over they're just going to print money and try to do 200920 again to just kind of you know drown everything and and in new money but the debt has already increased World debt is now over hundred trillion dollar that is um that's already 50% more than in 2007 so what's going to happen with the next Crisis they're going to like double the debt or triple the debt um so I don't know so I know your question is

about specifics um I I I always thought it would last longer than many people thought but it was hard because when I when I got involved in 2008 there was already a crisis so a lot of people with great urgency we're talking there was this economist who was living in Mexico and he said in hindsight he said like you know the way it went in Mexico in the 80s was it got worse every day just a little bit worse just a little bit worse and then one day it was all over there was a 50% devaluation everything was in disarray there's just one day and uh I think it's possible that we will see this for example in Japan like things can just happen in one day where there's a big devaluation and and then there's panic and the banks close and

you know so so it's hard it's hard uh it's really hard to to but I think in 10 years from now things will look extremely different from today uh and I think we will see a Government Bond Market could crash somewhere in the next 5 to 7 years uh and I'm talking government bonds of some like major established Western World countries you mean as they will default and or they won't be able to issue new bonds there will be no buyers yeah like the way it happened in Argentina was that uh back in 20 2001 is that the local governments defaulted on their debt and those Bonds were held by the Banks and so people realized that the banks were actually you know had worth

assets on their balance sheet and so they went to the bank to pull out their money because they didn't trust it anymore uh and so I think you and also in the the USSR the end there was you know local uh local debt that was basically going belly up and so for example with brexit in Europe as things kind of kind of start falling apart um people don't trust that uh you know Uncle Uncle ECB is going to rescue us and that's when they sell the bonds and you get the bond crashes so I think it's likely that there's probably going to be more on the local level first maybe like Detroit or Puerto Rico or places like that and then the contagion just just spreads to to larger um you know larger government

entities well we're running uh pretty late already so but this was uh extremely interesting to talk with you it was a pleasure I think it will be interesting especially to kind of come back to this when we see some movement in this direction right and if you're going to see maybe something also in the economy changing uh and then if you especially if we're going to see effects in on bitcoin coming through that I mean really when I got interest in Bitcoin originally I was also you know very very closely following the financial crisis in 2008 and that was a big driver for me to to sort of just understand this alternative asset and a little bit on the back of my mind this whole time I've been thinking like when is it coming

because at some point it is uh and um well we still waiting but it will be yeah and I think like I mean the three of us I think it's fair to say like we're Millennials so the Chan is very low that we have ever owned any Blue Chip stocks for example or like real estate of any significance so in a way we're very much not invested in the old Financial system we just kind of maybe have our degree and you know we have some knowledge about coding or some you know some some some practical things that help us make money but um so I think in that sense we it's easier for us to access the the kind of outside perspective on what's really going on especially after 2008 I don't know if you agree with that yeah I I agree and I

I also agree that uh I also agree with you that there's you know there's a good chance that this this will happen again and not much has changed since 2008 in terms of U you know regulation and if if anything uh uh things perhaps are getting worse from uh some viewpoints and now with uh now we can see similar things happening with that happened with subprimes with uh um car debt uh in the US uh we see similar schemes and sort of reinsurance uh and um and so I I think that on the one hand uh there is a risk for this to happen again on the other hand I also think that uh in some sense um a lot of what what was the cause of

the financial crisis in 2008 or at least one of the major factors was lost track of risk and this is where blockchain Technologies and I'm speaking more about you know sort of the permission side uh can provide some mitigation for that but that it's going to take a long time to put into place and you know become you know commonly accepted and sort of a standard within Financial Industries Insurance Etc yeah and I think crises could be a catalyst for this like in a way 2008 was already a catalyst but if there's a new crisis people going to want more transparency and not just like you and me and any any consumer but also on the corporate level if you want to work together with another company after there's been a major stock market crash

maybe you want some reassurance maybe you do want to see things that are um publicly accessible on a blockchain about that other company uh so I uh I think that you know that's just just a thought that I really think that crises can be Catalyst for good things too so before we wrap up uh do you want to tell us about um adamant research and this podcast that you recently launched sure yeah so Adam research is the name for uh my research activities um I put out a report on uh how to position for the rally in Bitcoin I think Bitcoin is actually worth 50% more since I put that out um so so that's the rally I'm talking about um then uh I I am working on uh new reports uh for now there is no

subscription based newsletter that is in in the works for the long term um and yeah I did start with a podcast interviewed Paul storts from uh Bitcoin hive mind who's working on on a very interesting side chain project um so yeah the most of my activities are on Twitter that's kind of where I announce what I do and um the articles I wrote I have a new article that just came out a two-part article it's it's called why I'm short ethereum and long Bitcoin which kind of makes the case why I'm I'm bearish on on ethereum so if you want to check that out that's that's on medium uh and I think all all those things are going to appear in in the notes of this of the show yeah absolutely well T thanks so

much for coming on it was a pleasure talking to you again and very interesting to hear kind of your perspectives and hopefully we can we revisit these topics at some point in the future yeah you're very welcome thanks for having me and yeah let's revisit especially as soon as we see some big changes in in the world economy absolutely okay thanks so much T so also thanks for listeners we are part of the let talk Bitcoin Network you can find this show and other shows on let Talk bitcoin.com and of course we put out new episodes every Monday uh and you can subscribe to it on your favorite podcast app or watch videos also on youtube.com/ Bitcoin so thanks so much and we look forward to be back next

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