BTC219 - The Big Print w/ Lawrence Lepard
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January 29, 2025

In the latest episode of the Bitcoin Fundamentals podcast, titled BTC219 - The Big Print, host Preston Pish engages in a deep and enlightening conversation with sound money advocate Lawrence Lepard. The discussion emphasizes systemic issues plaguing monetary policies, the profound impacts of inflation, and how Bitcoin and decentralization can pave the way for a more equitable society.
Key Topics Covered in the Episode
1. The Manifestation of "Broken Money"
- Lepard articulates how the concept of broken money impacts daily life and society at large, often unnoticed.
- The societal costs of inflation as a hidden tax are discussed, revealing the misconceptions many hold about its effects.
2. The Role of Inflation
- Inflation is described as a hidden tax that erodes the wealth of the middle class and below, yet many still misinterpret its relevance.
- Lepard highlights how historical context and economic data illustrate inflation's pervasive influence on American life.
3. Insights on Fiat Currency and Historical Trends
- Fiat currencies have a troubling history of failure, with humanity repeating itself amidst lessons of economic collapse.
- Lepard explains Gresham’s Law, clarifying why bad money drives out good money and how this principle applies in the current economic environment.
4. Moral Considerations of Sound Money
- A compelling moral argument is made for sound money; Lepard asserts that a robust monetary system is essential for future societal stability.
- He discusses how fluctuations in the financial system lead to wealth inequality and economic instability.
5. Practical Steps Toward Decentralization
- The conversation shifts to practical advice for individuals looking to support monetary decentralization.
- Listeners are encouraged to explore how they can contribute to a future defined by sound money principles.
Historical Lessons and Future Implications
- Throughout the episode, Lepard emphasizes how understanding historical cycles can guide individuals through current economic crises.
- A vision is painted for a future America thriving on the merits of sound money, where decentralization and financial equality prevail.
The Role of Bitcoin
- Lepard discusses Bitcoin as a revolutionary tool that challenges traditional monetary systems. He provides a rationale for why Bitcoin should be embraced as a sound monetary alternative.
- He predicts that as awareness and understanding of Bitcoin grow, it will undoubtedly revolutionize global finance.
Conclusion: A Message of Hope
- The episode concludes with both speakers emphasizing a hopeful outlook on the future. By embracing decentralization and sound money, Lepard envisions not only financial stability but also peace and equity in society.
- Listeners are left with the reminder that while the current system is fraught with issues, meaningful change is attainable through education and action, paving the way to a bright future.
Key Takeaways
- Inflation as a Hidden Tax: Recognizing how inflation subtly impacts financial security for the average citizen.
- Sound Money as a Moral Imperative: Understanding the standpoints advocating for just financial systems.
- Practical Steps for Change: Encouraging individuals to take proactive measures in supporting monetary reform.
This episode not only serves as a wake-up call concerning the pitfalls of current monetary policies but also offers a pathway forward, making it essential listening for anyone interested in the evolving role of Bitcoin in the financial landscape.
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You're listening to TIP. Hey, everyone. Welcome to this Wednesday's release of the Bitcoin Fundamentals podcast. On today's show, I have the one and only Lawrence Lapard, who's a deeply experienced sound money advocate that is some exciting news about a new book he's released about macroeconomics and the solution to many of the world's problems, which of course is Bitcoin.
This was really fun to talk to Larry because he's been working on this book nonstop for the past year. And I'll tell you guys, this book is exemplary. It is so good truly. So I hope you enjoyed this candid conversation between the two of us on what it took and what he learned by going through this journey of writing his new book. So with that, here's my chat with Larry.
Now, for your host, Preston Pish.
Hey, everyone. Welcome to the show. I'm here with the one and only Larry LaPard. I told Larry as soon as this connected, I said, Larry, we're not going to have any admin. We're jumping straight into this because this book is so good. Yeah. Yeah. Honestly, Larry, I'm blown away. This is so good. Like the organization of it. And like, I can tell you have put your heart and soul into this thing. Thank you. Yeah.
It is really really good Larry are you being very kind i did the best i could you know that's i left all the field right what else can you do. Yeah and you know what the layout like we have a problem here is the problem definition like i guess as an engineer this is why i like it so much you start off.
You can't even begin to discuss the solution until the reader deeply understands the problem and I mean you go by the numbers you lay out every single chart. I love all the charts that you were using in this and it really helps illustrate it but honestly good lord man before you go on too much let me just say because I really want to say this is a disclaimer because.
This is a group sourced book. There's so many people contributed to this and I'm reliant upon so much intellectual work that's been done before me. I mean, I got to highlight safe in his book, Lynn and her book, you and your work, sailor and his work. The list goes on and on. I can't list them all here, but.
What i've done with what i think my talent is present everyone has the highest and best use of life i think mine is kind of figuring stuff out trying to explain it in a way that every man can understand. Yeah that's that's really what i tried and the goal of this book i wrote it because i was sitting around one day last spring watching some blue team argue with some red team and they're fighting about all this nonsense just complete total nonsense i was like you guys are missing the one underlying fundamental issue and somebody's got it.
Say something about that. Well, you know, safety did a good job of talking about it, and Linda did a good job of talking about it, but kind of text bookie and the average American looking to get on an airplane flight in an airport isn't going to pick up their book and read it. Yeah. And what I'm hoping, what I tried to accomplish with this book is a book that the average American can pick up and read and say, oh, yeah, I get it. I get what's wrong. And furthermore,
There's a hopeful solution. I get how we can solve this whole thing. So if I did that, then I'll view it as a success. I mean, I think Bitcoin is going to love the book, right? Yeah. It's not really the audience. The audience is somebody who doesn't think about this stuff and doesn't know about this stuff. So that's just background.
Did your wife think that you were crazy taking on this? Because these things are. She made enormous contributions because I used her as the test case, right? I mean, she's not into monetary stuff at all. She was a writer and an ad exec. And so, you know, I'd run a buyer say, do you understand this? And she's like, no.
There's a footnote in there that says, what is the Federal Reserve? You've got to remember, there are people in this country who don't know what the Federal Reserve is. She recommended there's a chapter in there called skepticism. She said, look, you know, that all these other technologies have been introduced and everyone was skeptical in the beginning. Why don't you talk about that?
right? And so that whole chapter grew out of her comments. So, but yeah, I mean, look, she's been long suffering with me in the sound money trade, because it's been up and down as I talk about in the book. And furthermore, I started this in May, June, and it's done. We're just trying to get it laid out, which is driving me nuts. So in six months, I did nothing but this book. And that caused a little bit of friction. You know, she likes to spend time with me. We like to do things together. And some of those got kind of canceled, but
Anyway, here it is. It's done. And I'll go back to my regular life after this thing's over. So let me just say for people listening, this is the, if you want to get a book that you can hand to somebody and say, this is the stuff I'm always thinking as Bitcoiners, we're always having these conversations with families and friends, right?
I look at your book as I'm literally going to buy 20 of these and just kind of keep them in the house and the next time I'm watching and having a discussion with a family member or whoever and just like, yeah, I don't know. And they come up with some weird argument that like they think is dispelling. I'm just going to grab this book. I'm just going to hand it to him. Just kind of like, if you can take the time to read this, I think it will help explain my point of view and why I think Bitcoin.
It's kind of you to say, because if that's what it does, it will have been a success. I mean, I really want to orange pill the world. And I really want to try and protect the average citizen because as you and I both know, we've talked about for so long, they're just getting screwed left and right. And I see it all the time. And many people who are doing quite well don't really see it or focus on it. But I do. And, you know, my sister lives in a community that's more rural and she sees it. And she tells me about it. And it's just, it's tragic what's going on. We got to fix it.
The good news is as the book talks about it's getting fixed in fact yes technology stuff is really gonna give us a solution which is fantastic. So there's a lot of good news but there's some bad news in there too is you and i both know this thing's really broken. Oh yeah yeah very very broken.
I want to start off here because this story and I hate to ruin this story because I love the ups. Yeah, you're talking about the HBS event. Yes. Yes. Is that OK? We can. I guess people buy it anyway. If you want to do what you can, but I've tried to hold that back because I want. Well, that's OK. Right.
Well, let's go. I don't know. No, no, no. Here's what we'll do for the audience because you're right. I don't want to spoil this story because for me personally, Larry, when I was reading this and because we're friends and I know you, I'm reading this and I can see exactly where this is going with. I was like, oh, please tell me he's not going to stand up and say something.
And I knew you would. And you start telling the story of the book. And I got this giant smirk on my face because I'm just like, of course, Larry is going to take the opportunity to tell these people, these highfalutin individuals. And I got to tell you, I was the turd in the punch bowl. I thought that this is probably going to invite me to any more events. I can tell you that.
I'm telling you what I was done reading is like I can only imagine how awkward all that was extremely awkward. Yeah, extremely. I mean, I got some real dirty looks from pretty high level people too. Oh, it's have funny.
Let's just say, uh, for the folks listen, I'm sorry we're talking around this. I do want to kind of keep it for the readers that the whole whole story, right? Let's just say Larry was speaking truth to power. I had it. Yeah. Truth to power. I had it buried in the book and I had a couple of people read it and they were like, Oh, no, no, no, no. This you got to leave off the book. Yes. Yes. Yeah. It captures your attention right out of the gate. You're like, Oh dear God.
See, and by the way, that's a part of what I tried to do here. I mean, people watch movies and people read stories and people care about people. People don't read economic textbooks that explain why Keynesianism is wrong. You know what I mean? So I tried to bring all the laryisms into it because it makes it more interesting, right? I mean,
How about the carrier landing story with George, right? Yeah. I'm sure as a former aviator and pilot serving in a war zone flying helicopters, you could relate to that, right? I mean, it's just, you know, I've never served in the military, but I've phoned planes. The moments of sheer terror we all know about, right?
I just, I figure those kinds of things are what will hopefully keep people reading, right? Yeah. Yeah. That's the idea. I have to laugh it. So we're talking about George. He's an artist in the space and he recently tweeted out. I saw, yeah, I have, I have more takeoffs than landing sitting for anybody in the aviation. They know what that means.
Well, yes, I didn't put it in there. Sometime you got to get him to tell the story of how he ejected out of a jet during top gun. And the jet was lost and it was quite an inquiry. The flaps had gone bad on him. And so he had the right to do it. But he said it was no fun going through all the process of defending himself, right? And he says the ejection was probably under 100 feet above the ground. Wow, I didn't know that part of it. Wow. So he does have more takeoffs than landing. Yeah.
Not to mention for anybody that's actually ejected out of a jet probably one of the not that i have but i've heard is one of the most painful things the amount of jeez you pull getting shot out of the thing is just absurdly painful but anyway let's go ahead and dive into this sorry for all the side chatter for people listening in the beginning so you lay it out here's the problem here's the solution is pretty much the two compartments of the book.
At that beginning, the thing that I find so frustrating when I talk to people about this topic and about the problem is they say, well, Larry, inflation is just since COVID. Like inflation was not even 2%. And they just kind of wave their hand and then the whole CPI and all these things that we've been taught as far as what is inflation is heavily masked. You talk about this idea.
You talk about that it's the leading cause. Here's the quote, the leading cause of ruin in our nation is this idea of inflation. What is being missed? How are they able to dupe everybody into thinking that this isn't? First of all, there's just normalcy bias. I mean, it's kind of everyone's gotten used to inflation. And, you know, by the way, real estate investors, I mean, they think they're geniuses, but really it's inflation. It's making them look good, right? Yeah.
There's a section of the book talks about John Williams and shadow government stats, which I'm sure you saw. And they figured, you know, there are four or five tools they've used to basically mask the real inflation, the hedonic adjustments, et cetera. And frankly, I think they just outright lie. I don't think there's anybody who thinks that inflation is what the reported inflation numbers are. I mean, my auto insurance, up 30%, homeowners insurance was up 100% last year, try to go to a veterinarian or pay a medical bill.
It's insane what's going on and this is why everyone's hurting so bad. This is why the middle class is just getting eviscerated and lower classes as well. But the thing that frustrates me the most about it is this whole notion that this is normal and we need these animal spirits to keep the economy running.
And the 2% is somehow price stability. I mean, that one just stuns me. Originally, the mandate was price stability. And of course, in 78, the amended the law to say price stability and full employment. And then price stability came to be fined as 2%, which was frankly just theft. So I don't know. I mean, I think what's going on. And this is the other reason I wrote the book is
I was the kid in the 70s and the early 80s. It was a great time. The country had problems. We were in the Vietnam War. That was a mess. But it was a really great time. There was a middle class. There was a different America. There was a kinder, gentler America, in my opinion, than there is today. It wasn't all just a big money grab. The middle class was robust. I went to school with kids whose dads worked on the assembly line, and they did about the same as my dad did. And he was just a retailer.
And all that's changed. And I think it changed. It started. The biggest change came in 71. I was doing a band in gold and you can see that in the chart right in the beginning of the book. But then it just kind of progressively got worse. And we're now at the stage where it's just so terribly broken. You can't miss it. Everybody knows it. Everybody sees it. And yet, you know, we got these political people sets of greedy corporations, you know,
And that's not really what it is. I mean, it's not the greedy corporations. It's the Federal Reserve, the government, the elites and the policies they pursued, full stop. So you want to solve it? You know, you return to sound money and, you know, gold tried to do that, but gold was broken and flawed and couldn't do it because the government figured out workarounds and changed the laws. But fortunately, as von Mises said, you know, Bitcoin is that sly roundabout way and
They're all going to have to come to terms with it. And it's really fun kind of watching them all come to terms with it slowly, but surely I tweeted out recently. I think Ray Dalio said something along the lines of, you know, we've got a sovereign debt crisis. It doesn't appear that it can be derailed, which is kind of limbs, you know, no train stopping. And then he further said, and golden Bitcoin are the solution. I think it's the first time I've heard him say something positive about Bitcoin. Yeah. Yeah. Right. I mean, this is very recently. This is just in the past couple weeks. December. Yeah. Yeah. I tweeted that. Yeah.
It's going in our favor and that's a good thing and my view is it can't come fast enough because there are a lot of people who are hurting on the existing system.
You know, for people that hear you talk about the back in the 70s and 80s and how it wasn't perfect, but now it's just way worse. Is this a function of, because I think any Bitcoiner would look at this and say the real debasement rate in the US is around 7 to 8 percent based on the M2 money supply growth. When we look at that, we do a compound annual growth rate. That's kind of the number that a lot of people are using in Bitcoin these days. And I agree with that.
And so are we at the tail end of just decades of this debasement just eroding and gutting the middle class and that's why it feels so much worse now versus then because I guess the argument would be nothing has changed is just we've endured this erosion and now at the end of it it just feels so much worse than it felt back then but we're dealing with the same exact problems even back then.
I think you're right. We were dealing with the problems back then. I mean, there was a lot of inflation in the 70s for sure. I mean, very inflationary decade. Volcker kind of tamed it and put it back in the can and we had kind of a, they were able to hide it for a number of years. And keep in mind, as Jeff has pointed out so brilliantly, the deflation in technology and all the other stuff is fighting against the inflation. So, you know, the world, it's funny, the world's gotten better because of all the deflation of the technology, right? But the monetary side has gotten worse because
They just took these little steps, right? They modernized the futures, the commodity futures markets, and Enron happened, and Phil Graham was corrupt, and he was part of pushing for that, and his wife was on the Enron board making millions of dollars. They got rid of Glass-Steagall, and then in 2008, they went to Zurich. I mean, we had never had Zurich in the United States. Briefly, they had it during the Depression, but very briefly.
And then QE came in and with each step it got worse. And the other thing that I think describes what you're talking about is the way that numbers compound and that any mathematician or engineer, if you start compounding numbers and put it on a chart, eventually the line almost goes vertical.
Yeah, right. And that's kind of what's happening. I think the problem is getting progressively worse, which is why we're now in what I call a sovereign debt crisis. And really, the math is, as we all say in Bitcoin land, it's just the math. I mean, it's irrefutable.
This is an opinion. It's a mathematical fact that if you grow the data faster than you grow the underlying ability to support it, which is the GDP, eventually the divergence creates a crisis. I mean, that's history for thousands of years and unlikely to be overturned in my view.
I like this point about the deflation of technology being a compounding curse. Then you have the compounding inflation of the fiat that is happening. The diversion of that is maybe why it's seeming so obvious today versus think about it.
Yeah, if we've had deflation or if we've had technological deflation, that is exponentially going, right? And then over here, we have the inflation of the fiat that's going at a whatever pace, call it 8%. The version of these two has gotten so profound. I mean, look at AI, Larry. Like, it's totally nuts. Like if we showed somebody in the 70s, we're capable of doing it. Five minutes.
My partner has a new Tesla and I took a ride in it the other day. Four or five years ago I took a ride in Tesla and I watched the self-driving feature and I was like, ah, this is years away. Never going to happen. I got my partner's car in Wellesley Mass and he said, drive us to Harvard Business School. And without touching the wheel, we got there. I was blown away. Yeah, right? I was blown away.
Absolutely blown away. I mean, and you see these robots and what they're doing. I mean, this stuff is just coming at us so fast. And yes, I think you're right. It makes the problem more obvious, observable and acute. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And for folks that are wanting to do a deep dive on this idea of technological deflation, Jeff Booth is really kind of, he has a book called The Price of Tomorrow. It's phenomenal. I know that was a huge instrumental, like,
puzzle piece like the click in the place. Anything else that you discovered by writing the book on that particular topic? I mean, yeah, you know, I hadn't been into the deep history of the United States. I mean, I didn't realize that we financed the war of 1812 with that and it was a sense of
That's better than specie payment and that began right then and there you know this this sound money argument has been going on for a long long time. I mean Jefferson understood it right you know and Jackson understood it. Yeah or field understood it. They were young when they understood it right that was. No right looking under Lincoln understood it be took the wrong side of it you know and point printed greenbacks I mean.
Yeah, so I was doing the history deep dive was very interesting and I learned a lot in doing that. And this problem is as old as time, which is why Bitcoin is so unbelievably unique as you would say, here you have a form of money that can't deflect. You know, there are a fixed number of monetary units, right? I mean, yeah.
Getting your head around that is so hard and understanding that because of that, everything will look different. Just absolutely everything will look different. And that's why concealer can credibly make a claim that this will be 13 million a coin because there's a fixed supply and productivity is growing and technology is improving. And eventually we're going to get to the point where the dollar really isn't going to be the numerator. So my kids, Larry, what is that point?
When is that point? I don't know. In dollar terms, so is that five million dollars a coin? Who knows? I mean, that's that's the and then suddenly pardon. I don't think we I just don't think we know. I really don't. Look, I love Samson and I hope we go to a million this year.
But honestly, I just don't know the precedent. I use the power law as my base worst case model because I think we'll easily do that because we've done that historically. There's 97% correlation. But I think we'll break that to the upside very clearly as the Gresham's law piece of it kicks in. Let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors.
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My audience gets a special offer of $1,000 off Vanta at vanta.com slash billionaires. That's V-A-N-T-A dot com slash billionaires for $1,000 off. All right. Back to the show. Let's see. So you talk about Gresham's law a bit in the book. Describe this for people who might not be familiar with it and how you see that kind of taking place. Yeah. Sure. I think most of your listeners are going to know it, but I'll just do it quickly. The general idea is that if there are a couple of forms of money that exist in a society,
And one of them is being debased by printed and people know that it's being debased and it won't hold its value they save and the money that they know is not being debased or good money and they spend the money that they know will be debased because they know they won't spend as well in the future.
And so the phrase the law is the bad money drives out good, which is you spend the bad money and you save the good money. And of course, before Bitcoin, this was all thought of in terms of gold and silver. And so if there were fiat currencies pre-Bitcoin, people would spend the fiat because they knew it wouldn't buy as much in the future and they would hoard their gold and silver. So that's the general thesis of Gresham's law.
And frankly, we see that going on right now. I mean, I just I sent to you free the show some charts that showed that I believe the sovereign debt prices has started. And the reason I say that is that in Bitcoin and gold terms, the US treasury bond, which used to be the base layer of risk free collateral.
has depreciated markedly since 2020. It's now 200% compared to gold. It's now 2000% compared to Bitcoin. So in my book, the sovereign debt prices has already started and those charts are what show it. But we're still probably in the gradually phase and
When and how suddenly phase unfolds, I don't know. But as you and I have talked about many, many conferences, we know it's coming. I mean, the other part I really like about the book, and I think it was one of my, I think it's my book Asian who pulled it out because I use the term is, I just think the big print is so descriptive of what's about to happen. Right. I think you and I have had this conversation before we just, I might have actually gotten that idea from you. I don't know. We both talked about how they're going to just have to print until their eyes bleed or else the system collapses.
Well, another point that I would put in there as well, Larry, is not only are they going to have to print, but a lot of the printing, in my humble opinion, I'm curious if you would agree, has already happened. It's just manifested itself like it's bid fixed income to levels that none of us thought could even happen.
And so the unwinding of that is going to be the floodgates, but the printing already happened, not all the majority of this printing has already happened. And it's just sitting there in this fixed income that's just going to continue to unwind itself. Completely and totally agree. I mean, it's already there. They're in the stock market too. I mean, the whole valuation of all these stocks and it's there in the real estate market and Bitcoin is going to demonetize all of these things.
absolutely all of them. It still blows my mind that Jesse Myers chart shows $900 trillion of assets of financial assets. If you include real estate, throw out real estate, it's half that and Bitcoin is what? Two trillion? Yeah, it's like 10th. So of 1% good Lord. And this is the best form of money ever invented. It's hard because I think you've probably encountered this. I have to and I've tried to deal with it in the book a little bit. It's so hard because I have a lot of friends who know I bought in much cheaper and that just how can I pay $100,000 for this thing?
Let's cover that question, because I don't necessarily know how to answer this for a lot of people, and they're looking at it and saying, okay, it's $100,000 for this imaginary coin, right? In their mind, right? I'm just trying to put imaginary. You know that. But in their mind, they're saying, this is an imaginary coin that we don't know who even invented this. And it's some software that I got to trust the software works, and I've got to pay $100,000 for one of these imaginary coins. And you bought it at 200. Well, of course, you love it or whatever.
Right. What is the appropriate response to this type of person? Because if I have to try to be objective with myself and put myself in their shoes, it's kind of a crazy question. It is hard. It's really hard. It's really hard for them to get their arms around.
You know, I use various different models. One model, I think, is a good one is the burning theater model. The fiat currency is on fire in a theater. And yeah, I mean, I've already got out of the exit door because I bought some cheap. Yeah. And maybe it costs a little more for you to get out the exit door, but does that mean you don't want to get out the exit door? You know what I mean? If what you hold is going to burn and this is going to go up forever,
Then you really want to get out the exit door no matter when it occurs. And so you have to kind of, you know, when I sometimes use the Weimar example, it's like, yes, somebody who would pay more for gold couple of years in than the first person that bought gold. But at the end of the day, if the alternative, which was German marks became worthless, you were glad you had the gold. Yeah. And so I try to use that. The problem with that is that that's a scary prospect for people that the whole currency is going to fail. Yeah.
The other model I try to use is just, I just say, look at the performance and I sometimes, I draw this comparison. I say, okay, great. Yes, I get it. You know I bought some at 10,000 and it's at 100, so I've got a 10 bagger. But let me just ask you this. You look at what it's doing, you look at how it got here, you look at how it's been compounding, you look at what it is, and then you ask yourself, if in six years it's at a million, are you going to experience regret that you didn't buy it at 100,000? And my guess is the answer is yes, because anything that does 10 X in six years, and I think it will do that,
You don't want to miss it. So I'm not necessarily suggesting you have to take all your money and plow into it. But I also in the book tried to talk about just asymmetry and how as an investor in my career, I was a venture investor before I got into this area, how just asymmetry is how all great fortunes are made. You buy things that have unlimited upside. Look, any investment, you can lose your money. Trust me, I figured that out.
And I've done it and lost money. I mean, a big money in a couple of cases. But the beauty of this business, as my old boss told me, is when it works, you don't just make two actually make five X or 10 X or 15 or 20 X. And I love sailor's comment. It's going up forever, Laura. I mean, it's, you've got a form of money. I mean, this is a thousand. This is a multi is a millennium year old problem. I mean, thousands and thousands of years, we have never had a form of money that could not be diluted full stop.
And here you have a form of money that cannot be delivered what do you think is going to happen. It's gonna you know they're just there's not enough of it to go around and it's going to go to numbers that are going to blow people away and twenty years from now it's going to be very obvious who owned bitcoin and who didn't. So what i try to emphasize to my clients is just the only wrong allocation of zero i get it if you're afraid of it i get it if you don't understand it but.
Look at people in my category, a lot of these people are fairly well to do and like they buy a car that costs over a hundred thousand bucks. I'm like, you know, look, you can afford to buy one of these things. You really can and you should. And they're like, no, I don't know. It's a bubble. You paid less blah, blah, blah. You know how it is, right? I think the nominal value at this point.
is actually causing this challenge for people because they're looking at it and say 100,000 now is a really large amount of money. I mean, it's a third of a house or a fourth of a house for many people. If they have a house, it's three or $400,000.
I also think that the nominal value, this hundred thousand number is also so in your face that for most people, they're saying clearly I'm missing something because there's no way people would be out there spending a hundred thousand dollars on an imaginary coin if there wasn't something there. So this dichotomy
is really quite strange where we're at right now. And I'm curious if when we get to 500,000 and let's say we get to a million a coin, is it that much more obvious because it's like, okay, clearly I'm missing something because there's no way people would be paying a million dollars for an imaginary coin. It gets so obvious at that point. Do you think that that's coming? I think that's coming. And I think that's right. I mean, it's yeah, that is a dichotomy though. And some people dig in and just think, no, you're crazier than ever and it's going to fall back down and other people don't.
i know i remember when i was watching it i watch the dollar in two dollars and i didn't buy it because i thought it was like did you cash or e-gold or e-cash i watched a bunch of these things they'll fail i think this is going to work i'm not buying it right now you know i went to a hundred. I was like oh hang on a second kind of work and i still didn't buy it then it eventually went to a thousand and i said alright there's got to be something here and it corrected back to three hundred and i bought it and so i think that.
Is we continue to make higher highs and higher lows, more and more people come to see what it is and come to understand it. It's like any form of technology adoption. And as you know, in the book, there's some good technology adoption charts, people in the beginning who don't believe, they just don't believe. But then eventually it just becomes obvious and accepted wisdom that this is better money than any other form of money out there. And one of the best investments that anyone can make.
The difficulty, as you know, and we're all, it's incumbent upon all of us to help people through this is for people to understand the volatility because the one way people do get hurt. I tried in the book to make this extremely clear. Yeah. Is that they don't know what they're buying. They buy in on the excitement and a price run up. Classic. Correct. And then they freak out and they sell. I've seen people do that and it just breaks my heart. And that's why dollar cost averaging. And there's a lot of, there are a lot of books and articles you can read about dollar cost every day.
so important and having a long timeframe and a long time preference. I mean, as you and I both know, anyone who's been in it for four years is ahead. But there were some times, I mean, I was buying at 17,000 at Thanksgiving of 2017, convinced it was going to change the world. And a year later, it was at 10 and two years later, it was at four and a half. I was looking at myself thinking, Jesus, maybe that wasn't so smart to do that.
And I revisited it all, did all my work, got the, but that was kind of what I learned about difficulty adjustment and some of the technology behind, boy, this thing's ingenious. And so I doubled down, you know, and so look, everybody has their own path to doing it, but I think it will become more and more obvious. And I think there really isn't a wrong price to pay for it if it's time. I mean, there's another thing, I didn't talk, put this in the book, but I read an article recently talked really, it was a great thing. And I know you'd appreciate this because you respect them a lot. It's not just timing the market. It's time in the market.
how much money Buffett made from the same when he was 65 to 85 being in something that's growing consistently for long periods of time. Sit down with a financial calculator and do the compounding on an asset. If you can just compound an asset at 10% a year, if you're a young person, you can compound an asset at 10% a year for decades. There's just no way you don't let up silly rich.
And I think this thing is going much more than 10% a year. Yeah. And I think it's going to run for more than decades. I mean, it's going to become the base layer of money. So I try to, when I'm talking to people about that, just say, hey, look, don't think about buy it today, buy what you can at 100,000 and honestly hope it goes down. Hope it corrects 50% and you've got some dry powder to buy to double down on. And if it goes to 200, don't sell it. Be happy you've got it. And if you get some more free cash, buy it at 200. I mean, he's saying 200,000 folks.
So it's a hard financial beast to understand. And in the book, I tried to really point that out. There's just never really been anything like this before. And so it'd be like trying to describe to people who were getting on the first airline flight in the 1930s, some propeller plane to take them from one city to another, that in a bunch of years they were going to be able to fly to London on a concord in three hours. They couldn't conceive of it.
Do you know what I mean? And that's what's going to happen here. I mean, this is going to be the base layer of all money in the world, in my opinion, in the future. And sat is going to be worth, I don't know, a dollar or 10. Who knows what it's going to be worth. But in terms of today's purchasing, we don't really measure things in purchasing power, but obviously all prices will be sat based. And that's, in my opinion, that's where we're going. Slope of that curve. Gosh, we can debate that forever.
Yeah. Yeah. In the book, you argue that sound money is a moral issue. Yeah. And I agree with this. I'm just hesitant to, I guess at the end of the day, I'm looking at the incentives and I'm saying the incentives for fiat, the incentives for what has happened historically, because I think Bitcoin's the very first technology ever to exist to truly give us sound money ever. Right. I agree.
And I'm just saying, I agree, it's a moral issue, but there just hasn't been the discovery of a way to make it happen to bring this forth. No, that's right. Gold was a broken alternative. It was the best thing we had before Bitcoin, you know?
And I say it's moral just because I think that it's very obvious that in any financial system, there has to be a level playing field. And there's not a level playing field in the fiat system because as we all know, the Contillionaires have access to the money printer and, you know, in a zerp environment, they can borrow a zero percent interest and they can buy yielding assets. You and I could do that. We'd be billionaires too. And I point that out in the book.
And this behavior of the billionaires is just it's outrageous. It's absolutely outrageous. The wealth inequality that we're all experiencing. I mean, 92% of the wealth is controlled by the top 1%. That's not what the founding fathers had in mind. And capitalism doesn't have to devolve in that way. What's happened is we've got crony capitalism. We've got broken capitalism.
And that's what's so sad because a lot of people think that it's capitalism that's broken, but we don't really have capitalism. We've got a fake capitalist system. But yes, I mean, I think you would agree. We would all agree if you're playing football, you're playing any game, the rules of the game have to be fair and they have to apply to everyone in the same way. And that's the basis of all morality and that's the basis of all religions.
And so yes, having sound money, in my view, is very strongly a moral issue. And by the way, this is not some new thought, right? The authors of the Bible were talking about honest weights and measures and how not using them as an abomination to God in the way that people cheated financially in the past because they had a dishonest weighing scale and so they could skim something off the top, right? Yeah. This problem has been around for a long time because of human nature. And what I love about it is that mathematically, we've got a solution to human nature.
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All right, back to the show. I know that you've, I've seen some of these conversations online with as far as Bitcoin being impacted in a similar way that gold was compromised with the derivatives market, cash settled derivatives market, the centralization of and control of gold. How do you view Bitcoin? And if you were going to audit it today based off of some kind of standard of it's been completely compromised, it hasn't been compromised at all. Where do you think it stands?
question. I know there's some smart people who worry about paper Bitcoin. And honestly, I worry a little bit about paper Bitcoin too. I mean, I'm not going to read that paper Bitcoin on his balance sheet, right? I mean, there are bad actors. So there are a couple of things I would watch. I mean, the book actually calls for a ban of derivatives, because I think we should do that. I also think that we should have proof of stake it so that if somebody is running a proof of reserves, you mean? First of reserves. Yeah. Somebody's running an ETF. They should be able to show their addresses or should know it's really there.
But yeah, I mean, I think there's certainly paper Bitcoin is a risk. I mean, on the scale things today, compared to gold, which has been 100% compromised, Bitcoin's kind of like at the 5% level. And I'd say that because I look at kind of the derivatives around it, futures, options, etc. And they're pretty small compared to the trading volume and the total number of units outstanding. So I don't think we do have much paper Bitcoin today.
Furthermore, I think that people who would play with paper Bitcoin today are taking great risk. Gold never went up 5x in six months. So they could manipulate gold in the paper markets, knowing that when it came back down, they could cover their shorts or they could print the money they needed channel to the Cayman Islands in order to keep BIS solvent.
You get short Bitcoin and it goes up 5x. I mean, you're going to have to put a lot of money to cover that. You're going to get wrecked. It's in my opinion, it's going to be harder to manipulate Bitcoin with paper. But I think it is a risk. I don't disagree with the possibility that humans are human and they'll try and figure out ways to game it. But again, I think the way that we solve that is we push it for as much transparency as possible, as much proof of reserves as possible. And I would actually call for an outright ban on financial derivatives because I think
I think financial derivatives are nothing but a machine or a game that allow the biggest player at the poker table to screw the other players because they can outback the other players. And that's really what the central banks do with the gold market because they can print the money they need to just cover their shorts if they're on the wrong side.
Just as an example to piggyback on what you're saying there for people that don't necessarily understand this concept. If you've ever played poker and you've played with somebody who's extremely wealthy, that person, if they're playing with you, all they want to do is just have unlimited buy-ins. So if they're losing, they want to be able to buy in with more chips and just keep playing the game. And if you're playing with a billionaire and maybe your net worth is $10,000, you're going to lose that game if they're more persistent and want to stay on that table as long as they can.
Yeah, they can make a bet that you can't call. That's right. That's right. And that's what that's really what the derivative market is. And that's what and that's what the central banks have done because they've got the printing press. Yeah. So they're the biggest player at the table. They can read the game. Yeah. But the book calls for the elimination of central banks. So we eliminate central banks. It'll be a better world.
How do you see that process unraveling? Are you just saying this should happen in an idealistic kind of setup, but in practicality or in application, how would that go down? Well, I mean, look, Ron Paul's been fighting this battle. And I think probably politically, it's going to be really hard to eliminate the central banks, although their powers are slipping. I mean, and this book by Chris Leonard, I'm sure you read it, the Lords of Easy Money, you know, a good book.
Central banks are losing their grip. People are becoming aware of it. And that book was well reviewed by some very substantial publications like the Journal and FT, et cetera. So I think the central banks are in trouble. How is it all going to unfold? Well, I hope it's not going to unfold the way it did in the mandibles. I think that as a practical matter, what will happen is we will have a lot of inflation because we have to. And the inflation problem will become very painful to so many people. And so obvious that it's based upon broken money as Lin coined the term.
that we get politicians who actually understand that we need to do a reset and return to a sound money standard it seems like that's playing out by the way it is right we're seeing some of that i mean right so and then eventually eventually you know with enough pain sadly i mean as i'm sure you're aware i think all the listeners are aware politics really they respond to crisis and they don't do things unless there's a lot of pain a lot of noise around it.
And there's a lot of pain right now, probably not enough to just go out and shut down the central bank or return to sound money. Sadly, I think we're going to have to endure some more pain before that happens. But I see positive trends. I see alumas or I see RFK Jr. I see others who are massy and I see others
who are aware of the issue and there'll be more. Hopefully, if we get millions of Americans to read this book and I'm going to go to Congress and give everyone a free copy and make a hell of a lot of noise about it, there's going to be a groundswell, what we tried to do with Ron Paul, but weren't successful in doing, there's going to be a groundswell of people and voters who say the money's broken, fix it.
You know, that's my number one issue. And if you're not going to fix it, I'm not going to vote for you. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's kind of what I think and hope will happen. But it's all part of this fourth turning, which probably got another seven, eight years to play this thing out. And there's my guess. I don't know what your timing is. Sometimes I think it's going to happen tomorrow, but then other times I get very frustrated. I mean, Trump comes in and they create Doge and Musk says that they can take two trillion dollars out of the budget, which is just an absolute joke. There's no way they can do that. Right. And the stock market, yeah, you know, it makes no sense, right?
Let's pull on that thread. I had a conversation with Luke Groeman about this a couple weeks back. I thought it was a great conversation. Yeah. And this was an idea that I asked Luke and he seems to have the exact opinion that you have, Larry, which is how in the world are you going to spend less extract that liquidity out of this system that is completely dependent on the expansion of more fiat units into the system?
As an American, I want them to be more efficient. I don't want all these programs, but the system that it currently exists is reliant on the expansion and the growth of these things. So how do we get there? Yeah, how do we get there? I'm not anti-Trump and I'm not anti-Doge. I want to see them succeed. I think the problem that they've got is that 80% and this is in my quarterly letter, which will be out next later this week or the next week, and I'll lay this out in great detail. 80% of the government spent 6.75 trillion last year.
80% of that are in buckets that are very hard to touch. Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, defense, and interest. Interest, you can kind of touch if they go back to the server. We could take the interest down a bit. But then you already have an issue where nobody wants to buy it and you're so short on the duration of issuance. Reserve, you lose your bond market.
Right. So the answer to your question is, it really is brain surgery. It's going to be very, very hard to do. And I know there were a lot of people who wanted Lutnik to be Treasury Secretary, and he would have been fine. He's a big Bitcoiner. But honestly, I'm actually glad he chose Bassett because I think Bassett has a better sense of the markets. And I think this is brain surgery. It's going to be a tricky, tricky issue to get from here to where we want to be. I mean, I think they are going to do a strategic reserve. I spent some time speaking to Matthew Pines at the party we were at, and he led me to believe that that's a done deal.
How are they going to go about that, Larry? According to Matt, how does he think that they're going to exit that? I think it's an EO. I think it's an executive order very early on. If you think about it, Nixon did it as an EO. We're going off the gold standard, and FDR did it as an EO. In theory, Constitution says that monetary issues should be brought up by Congress. Of course, we've ignored that for a long time.
And so my sense is that they know and understand, I mean, the set gets it. The set has said things along the lines of we need another Bretton Woods and I want to be at the table. Wow. The set has said things like, I like gold. My largest holding is gold. That was pretty interesting. So.
He gets the triffins dilemma and the problem that we're in. Now, how they're going to navigate it is very much uncertain. Another thing I would add, though, that Pines told me, and I thought it was quite interesting, and he was in the mean of conference as was I, and he said that the discussions among the Trump people there were along the lines of
They were talking with some of the Middle Eastern countries, including Saudis, Oman, and the UAE, all three of whom they say are buying, accumulating, or mining Bitcoin. And those countries were kind of asking, this is Manafort specifically, he said, asking, are you guys okay with us announcing that we're adding this to our strategic reserve and response from the Trump side? He said was something along the lines of, yeah, we're fine with it, but just let us go first.
I thought that was interesting. And we'll have to see what happens here. But if you take this whole thing up to the nation state level, Preston, it gets pretty interesting. And it seems like we're kind of at that crossroads now. Yeah, we're right there on the cusp of it. So a lot of my thinking is informed by Luke and I got to get Luke just an enormous hat. Oh, he's brilliant. He's brilliant. And I watched this thing and I love the best part of his last interview with you. I just love this part where he said,
He went into the galactically stupid thing, which that's one of the best scenes ever in the movies. People should get on Google, galactically stupid, a few best men and watch, you know, the Lieutenant Callie rant or whatever his name is, the rant that he has. I mean, the notion that we spent eight trillion dollars and you were a part of this, you saw that we spent eight trillion dollars in the Middle East to secure Afghanistan, to give it back into secure Iraq so that they could sell their oil to China.
And then then we have a recurring liability of $325 billion a year to take care of the injured veterans that were serving there. It was just, I mean, it's criminal. It's insane. Dick Cheney should be behind bars. So did George Bush. It's absolutely criminal. What we did over there. And that's, and that drove a large part of the problem that we've got because that was kind of the kickoff to the big deficits that we've now gotten. It's only gotten worse. So.
It's a sad state of affairs that's brought us here. And, you know, I'm part of the boomer class. A lot of people yell at the boomers and I get it. But all I would say is we're not all that way.
There are some exceptions and all along the way, I was opposed to these policies and opposed to this stuff. It is what it is. There are some of us who could see what was going wrong, and we supported guys like Ron Paul, but we weren't listened to. The Neocons took the field, and they won at the time. But we will ultimately have our revenge, because, mathematically, they've painted themselves into a corner. They're in that box canyon. They don't have enough lift to get out of it, and they can't turn around.
Another thing that I think Luke does a really good job at describing in some of his newsletters on this idea of them having to expand the monetary units is just the tax receipts alone. They can't allow these markets to sell off in any kind of meaningful way, because if they do, the tax receipts, the gap that you're going to have from the lack of revenue. Exactly. That's why I'm so convinced that we're really, really close to the suddenly part and the end game.
Because we're running, you saw the first two months deficit of this fiscal year, it's up 64% year over year, right? We're running huge deficits right now in a healthy economy with a record stock market. And as we all know, in 2008 and 2000, 2008 was really the last big, well, no, the last big premise 2020, but
The market went down 40% and tax receipts fell drastically and expenses go up because you've got all the unemployment expenses that run through. So we are on the cusp of a really, really messy financial situation. And I'm not trying to be a panic artist. I'm trying to be an analyst and be objective about it. But if I look at the math, I'd say to myself, good Lord.
Yeah, this is going to get really messy here sometime in the next couple of years and and that's why that's what drove me and help me to write the book is just like I gotta tell people about this. I gotta warn him because people who I believe have invested in something that sound are going to come out a lot better than the people who haven't and then there's of course the one obvious solution which is so much better than everything else and of course that's the second half of the book is talking about that.
Yeah, we didn't really get into this solution very much in our discussion with the book. I think most people know what the solution is with this. Yeah. But the book does an amazing job covering the solution. And let's wrap it up right here, Larry, with at the end of the book, you have a message of hope and absolutely.
I love this. It's fixed the money, fixed the world. But if you were going to, for a listener that's maybe this is one of their first Bitcoin podcast they've ever even listened to, what is this message of hope that you have that you really want to kind of articulate? Yeah. I want people to understand that I'd like to say that people are feeling like they're hurting financially and money-wise. They are. And that it's real. Don't deny that. Don't let the other side gaslight you into thinking that something's not wrong because something
is wrong. It's deeply wrong. It's been building for a lot of years and it's coming into crescendo. That's the bad news. The good news is there's a solution emerging. It's going to get fixed on the other side of this. We're going to go back to a much better world. Things are going to be very, very good and bright and your kids and grandkids and all of that. We're going to enjoy a first
turning, which is going to be spectacular based on all the technology that we've got that's coming. So the problem that most people face and I think people got to realize is that we've got five years of very turbulent choppy waters. And to get to that good other side, we've got to navigate these five years. That's not going to be simple. And the book is designed to help people to do that. But what's on the other side, I think, is really fantastic, decentralized world, these big, sclerotic governments.
are going to be able to slaughter millions of people. I mean, we've fortunately World War II scared everybody. We haven't had another one of those since then. We've now got all these smaller proxy wars, but I actually think those will disappear as well. And look, Bitcoin is number go up. Technology Bitcoin is getting ahead of financially. It's all of those things. But to me, the most optimistic part of Bitcoin is making things fair again.
which is what America is all about, and it's also eliminating war, and everything's safe again, so that fewer people get killed. You fought in a war zone, you know what that's all about. I never did, but I came close to the draft in Vietnam, and I was concerned about talking to my dad about it at the time. I've watched all these wars, and I just think they're tragic, absolutely tragic.
And the only way, if the book lays this out very clearly, debasing the money is the way that governments have funded wars since the beginning of time. It's logical to think that if we can create a system where they cannot debase the money, they can't have wars. So imagine a world with no wars. Wouldn't that be a better world than the world we're in? I think it would. And so that's
That's my biggest, most positive statement regarding Bitcoin and why, like Jack, I'm willing to die on this hill. We got to stop these wars. So if only for that, forget about the investment side of the book. If only for that, read the book for that because it's going to make the world a better place. And the good news is this is going to happen no matter what. I mean, we got so much momentum now. It's going to happen no matter what. The book is written to try and make it happen faster because I'm not young.
I want to see this happen as quickly as possible because I can't wait to see the day when Ben Bernanke is in the history books as being the John Law of our era, which is what he deserves. I'll ask you this, Preston. A couple of people who read the book said, man, you took off the gloves here and you went a little beyond the pale and your attacks on the Federal Reserve. What's your reaction on that? I don't think I did.
No, that wasn't my take. My take was. I'm glad to hear that. Yeah, no. I mean, you're laying out. That was my wife's take. She was like, you can't say this about these, you know, elected officials. You know, I hear it. I hear the point, but honestly, I think they deserve it.
I think from an outsider's point of view, they'd be looking at it and say, I don't think that these people were acting maliciously that were in these roles. I truly believe that they were just trying to maintain stability in a system. That's all they need. I mean, hell, Larry, we have to acknowledge this before Bitcoin was invented. So prior to 2008, there really was no other way to do this.
Right. So we can look at these people and say, oh, they're so immoral. They're so this, but like what other system could they have done to keep economic stability in the short term, right? And so right. And I say that in the book. I mean, not everybody's got supporters evil. Some of them, they just don't know better. They don't understand it. Yeah. So I mean, I'm just as guilty as you. I mean, you've heard some of my rants through the years.
I guess I should have known you take my side on this one. Of course, I'm on your side, Larry. My wife thinks I should have toned it down a little bit. For all the Bitcoiners out there, you're going to get lots of raw meat. I wouldn't have believed that you wrote the book if you were. Absolutely. It wouldn't have been me if I hadn't done it, right? That's right. That's right. You just got to stay true to your tone, right, sir? You know, I've got a brand that I'm sticking with.
Larry, I can't thank you enough. It was truly an honor to be one of the first to read this and stop, stop, stop. It's an honor to be in this community. It's an honor to get the information that you and Luke and Lynn and Jeff and safe. And I mean, just everybody in this community has been so good to me. And all I've tried to do is just pull together the best of the best and put it in a format so that a everyday person, a layman can read it and go, I get it.
Now you mission accomplished, let me tell you. Yeah, that was the goal. Yeah. Thank you. Very good. This comes out. Did I see the 14th of February is when this hits the street? Is that the latest date? Okay. So just to bring everyone up to date, we're in the layout phase. Okay. I'm trying to make it look as good as possible. I pray that it'll be well before the 14th, but I don't know. If I had to guess right now, I'm kind of thinking maybe Feb 1, but it would be plus or minus it could be a little shorter than that or a little longer than that.
Yeah, I mean, I'm sure your wife's wanting it to be out before Valentine's Day. Oh, absolutely. My wife wants it to be out yesterday. She's tired.
All right, Larry. Well, okay. So really great to be with you. Enjoy your good front. You are a good friend too, sir. And this is going to be available on Amazon. Sure. Anywhere you can actually available now as a Kindle preorder. And by the way, if you can do that, it'll help the algorithm. It's 10 bucks. And before I put it out, I will put a tweet up that says it's coming out in five days and print. And you go back and cancel your Kindle preorder. Oh, okay.
to get the Kindle version. So if you don't want to read on Kindle, but you want to support the algorithm, go pick one up today. I love that. I love it. Because you know how it all works. If the algorithm shows a lot of purchases, then that brings it higher and all that other good stuff. So I have no doubt it's going to do very well, sir. I will say, I hope so. Yeah. All right, Larry, anything else you want to highlight? Are you good? That's it.
Thank you to everybody in this community who contributed to this book and you're in there. There's a huge acknowledgement section and I just, I owe so much to this community and I just want to try and give it back. Well, what a pleasure having you. It's a pleasure to call you a friend, Larry, and congrats. Congrats. We'll see. Let's see how it does. I mean, it may not go over real well in the establishment. I kind of expect that to be the case, but that is what it is. I mean, it can't go any worse than your Harvard. No, it can't go any worse than that. The opening scene was about as bad as it gets.
Oh boy. Okay. All right, sir. Thank you so much for making time coming on. Yep. Bye. Thank you for listening to TIP. Make sure to follow Bitcoin Fundamentals on your favorite podcast app and never miss out on episodes.
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