← The "What is Money?" Show
The "What is Money?" Show
Bitcoin 101 - How Bitcoin is Changing the World with Robert Breedlove (WiM543)
01:16:06
I join Ste Lane of Radical Health Radio to discuss the basics of Bitcoin, money as the most sought after monopolistic power of man, money as abstracted time and energy, fiat money and fiat food, Satoshi Nakamoto and the Cypherpunks, Bitcoin not Shitcoin, and how Bitcoin is changing the world.
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- [00:00]
Robert Breedlove
My somewhat limited understanding of bitcoin is it emerged as a solution to a problem and I think it's important to understand what the problem is.
- [00:07]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
Inflation is legal counterfeiting. Counterfeiting is criminal inflation. So there is no difference between you and I printing out some new $100 bills and what the Fed is doing by the trillion.
- [00:18]
Robert Breedlove
Who is behind it? Why? What is happening?
- [00:21]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
The heart of man.
- [00:23]
Robert Breedlove
What's the story? Is Trump good for bitcoin? Tell me a bit more.
- [00:27]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
Yeah, I am the worst guy to talk to about politics. I don't want to endorsing fiat. Political statism.
- [00:36]
Robert Breedlove
Fiat. You've used that term a bit. And I'm interested in the parallels between the broken fiat money system and how you've talked about fiat.
- [00:45]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
Food life energy density per unit of food has gone down.
- [00:51]
Robert Breedlove
We are overfed and undernourished.
- [00:53]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
Exactly.
- [00:54]
Robert Breedlove
Are you jacked? You look great, dude. Thank you. So, a quick little high level view of your health journey. I wanted to start this conversation today with an aptly named title slash question of your podcast and let you do with this what you will. What is money?
- [01:16]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
Well, that's a very seemingly simple question and it has a lot of answers. I never know which one to share. Honestly. I've been accumulating answers to this question for almost five years now and I think I have like 50 some odd answers to the question. We've actually compiled past guests answering this question in different ways. We've compiled all of their answers into single episodes and we have a whole series called the what is Money? Series. Going through all of these smart people that I've talked to and hearing their individual, unique perspectives on how they describe the nature of money. And it's actually very interesting because it goes into almost any domain you can think of, right? Some people go into mathematics, some people go into philosophy, metaphysics, anthropology, technology, energy. Like it's just all over the spectrum. And I don't. Yeah, I feel very fortunate to have stumbled upon this question as like, in that it's very philosophically tantalizing, but it's also very relevant to the time in which we are living. Obviously it's inspired by the emergence of bitcoin and I think a lot of people and institutions are now actually wrestling with that question, what is money? So I give you all that as like kind of a setup. I really don't know which way to take it. But on my way over here this morning, had a one hour Uber ride and so I was sitting in meditation and it was occurring to me that a Lot of what humans do is ritualistic, right? Even our daily we talk about our morning rituals. So we have them independently and unique unto ourselves, but we also have them collaboratively and amongst people. Obviously you can say a business is kind of a ritual. You go to the gym, you go to a workout class. That's a type of ritual. Everyone's coordinating their actions and efforts in a certain way, in a certain pattern. You know, if you're in a yoga class, you're literally all putting your bodies in the same geometric patterns designed to align yourself with the universe and maybe make yourself a little bit more limber so that you can sit in meditation longer, which is another ritual. And so we are this like, ritualistic creature. And I think from ritual, one of the most primary rituals for human beings is trade, basically, right? This is how we actually become interdependent. It's how we enjoy the things that we are each good at. So, you know, obviously you're good at making hats and I'm good at making boots. We both benefit by trading. This is the division of labor. This is the win, win game that humans can play and actually increase their standards of living through cooperation. This is also why coercion is a big problem. Because that's opposite to that process makes it a zero sum game rather than a positive sum game. So let's say ritual is very primary. Trade is probably the primary ritual. Money is an emergent phenomenon of trade. Ultimately, it's just whatever the most tradable asset is in any economy. You'll often hear people talk about prisoners using cigarettes as money and things like this. It's because that particular asset best plays the role of money in that micro economy, right? Like it's divisible, it's durable, it's use. All these things we can get into later. And so money is just this social phenomenon, or this social technology, if you will, that we impute to a certain asset. But it's just the asset that is most tradable and held with the intention of trading it in the future, not consuming it. So it's something that like activates and energizes and continues this ritual across time. And so it gets. This is where my meditation got a little strange for me because we actually metaphorize time in terms of money. How do you spend your time? You better invest your time wisely. You know, we actually understand the abstraction of time in terms of our embodied experience of handling money. So I, you know, but the thesis that I'm wrestling with this is very new. After my meditation on the Way over here is it like we have physical embodied experience. Primary to that is trade, so that we can engage in the division of labor and cooperation with one another. From that embodied experience of handling money and trade, we gain this conceptualization of time. And from the conceptualization of time comes basically everything else in the world of ideas. Right. From calendars you get religion, from religion you get social institution. From social institution you get civilization, basically. So I don't mean to give you the super deep answer to the question, but when you asked me this morning right after my meditation, that's the one that comes up.
- [06:18]
Robert Breedlove
Yeah, well, I appreciate it. I'm glad you're working out in real time with us here. So it sounds to me like, I like that analogy of different forms of money being used in the context that's applicable at the time, like cigarettes being traded, because that's something that's obviously valuable and it infers that. But you mentioned bitcoin and that's obviously central to today's conversation a lot of your specialty. So Bitcoin 101. I think a good place to start here is my somewhat limited understanding of Bitcoin is it emerged as a solution to a problem. And I think it's important to understand what the problem is and then position why bitcoin might be or is the solution to that.
- [06:55]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
Yeah, it's another very deep question why.
- [06:59]
Robert Breedlove
We like deep man, let's go years.
- [07:01]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
And years talking about it on the shows. I'll do my best to try and hit the high points. You know, if money is this emblem of human energy or time, right. So labor, human labor is a product of human time and energy, obviously. Right. We have to allocate our time and energy to create things of use. And money is an emblem or a language of that, that we're using it to represent those things to one another. So you could think of it as like there's the classic saying, the map is not the territory, money is the map territory. The territory is economic goods, actual things that we're using, microphones, tables, headphones, etc. And so the problem with money today is that the map can never be the territory. But you do want a map that is very high fidelity depiction of the territory. If the map misrepresents things too much, well then it's going to lead you astray and you're going to get lost and you're going to get hurt and you're not going to be able to accomplish your aims. So continuing with this metaphor, the problem with money today is that we have so wildly diverged the map from the territory. In pre1971 era, the dollar was representative of gold and gold was representative of actual human labor expended in the creation of that metal. And so it was actual tokenized human labor energy. But when you divorce the dollar from gold, you can now produce new representations. You can expand and rewrite that map ad infinitum without any commensurate expenditure of energy. So the map becomes very misleading, very deceptive. It's used to steal energy and time from people, basically through the counterfeiting of currency. And this is the core problem. This is what bitcoiners say, fix the money, fix the world. This is like a spiritual sickness or a spiritual corrosion on this fundamental ritual that connects us, which is trade, right? We need to be able to trade and have trust in the medium of trade, which is money, that it's not going to mislead us or deceive us, or be used to steal from us. Yet we are living in a world that is dominated by central banks and fiat currency. That is the furthest extreme example of that misrepresentation and deception. And I think the way I've tried to crystallize this for people, inflation is legal counterfeiting, counterfeiting is criminal inflation. So there's no difference between you and I putting a dollar printing machine on this table and printing out some new $100 bills to go and spend in the economy. There's no difference between that activity and what the Fed is doing by the trillion, right? They're just creating new claims to goods, new representations of goods, but they're not doing any work. So the people that do the work, that actually bear the brunt of that when they increase the money supply, that's money supply inflation. But people bear the brunt of it in the form of price inflation. So the people that get the new money first benefit at the expense of those who get money later. So this entire system is being used to basically steal from the poor and the working class and reallocate purchasing power to those nearest the spigot of counterfeited currency, which are central bankers, bureaucrats, politicians, etc. This is that like root problem, right? Bitcoin seeks to root out.
- [11:03]
Robert Breedlove
When and why did that emerge, this central bank, the Fed, this corruption, crony inflation, who is behind it, why? What is happening?
- [11:17]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
The heart of man. I think Ron Paul's definition is excellent here on money. He says money is the most sought after monopolistic power of man. As Lord Acton said, power corrupts Absolute power corrupts absolutely. I don't think there's any closer implementation to absolute power in the world than to have a money printer. Because you're actually counterfeiting tokenized human labor energy. You're counterfeiting it, right? You are producing it. You're producing something for free that other people have to work to obtain. I can't think of a more asymmetrical, advantageous position to be in, right? So this is why it is the most sought after monopolistic power of man. Every country in the world, every gang in the world, everyone wants to fight over the power to issue and control their own currency. And it's, you know, you're not. I'm not here to cast aspersions on any individual group or enterprise because ultimately it is this temptation that lives in the human heart. And so the bitcoiner perspective on this is something like there's a saying that the line between good and evil cuts down the heart of every man. I think the bitcoin, irrespective, is that material incentives hold a very strong influence on the oscillation of that line between good and evil and bitcoin. By simply being money that cannot be printed, we could get into why and all the things. But if you just take it at face value for a second, money that nobody can print, right? It's the only fixed supply asset we've ever had. It just removes the option for that game and that exploitation to even occur. You can't monopolize it, right? The most sought after monopolistic power of man in bitcoin. It cannot be monopolized.
- [13:14]
Robert Breedlove
It's uncorruptible.
- [13:15]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
Exactly. It's incorruptible. And specifically, the meaning of corruption, the uneven application of rules, right? We would say something like, the laws of physics are not corruptible because they evenly apply to all of us. I can't change gravity. I'm pretty sure you can't, not yet. I don't think we can change the speed of light. So we just adhere, right? We comply, basically, and we work out and we live. And eventually gravity wins and we die, right? That's kind of the game that we're in. But it's a fair game, at least in that we know that the rules are fixed, they're evenly applied. They're not going to change.
- [13:50]
Robert Breedlove
We're all playing the same bullet.
- [13:51]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
You could imagine how horrible the world would be if the laws of physics could be manipulated by man and how much human effort and war and strategy and all of the things that would go into trying to control the laws of physics. Because if you could control the laws of physics, you could actually win every game in perpetuity forever, right? So what we've been seeking throughout human history in this sought after monopolistic power of man is something tantamount to that. And the miracle of Bitcoin is that it has imported the integrity of the laws of physics into the socioeconomic domain. We actually have fixed rules that are evenly applied to all people. There's a principle at the bottom of western civilization called equality in the eyes of the law. Well, that's an ideal, right? We've sort of approximated it. I would say our best approximation has been the US Constitution and this experiment we've built on top of it. However, we. We've seen the censorship and the lawfare and all the nonsense, especially in the post pandemic world where corruption has festered once again. Right. Bitcoin is a realization of that ideal, I think, in a permanent way where we all are actually equal in the eyes of bitcoin, no matter what. It's perfectly impartial to human affairs. And this is what makes it so mind bending in a way. It's a new form of social institution that forces us to comply with its laws rather than our laws regulate and comply with it. So it's. And this is where you see countries and businesses and individuals and all of us philosophically wrestling with this gargantuan thing that we call bitcoin. And as far as like a historical parallel, I wrote an essay called the number zero in Bitcoin and I think that's the best comparison you could possibly make. We could talk about that if you like. But I promised we were going to keep it surface level today. But I don't seem to be doing a good job that right now. But I hope this is useful.
- [16:01]
Robert Breedlove
It's very useful. And I want to, you know, somewhat walk in both worlds of the very tangible. I love that fix the money, fix the world philosophy. And also this, this spiritual conundrum, you know, when you were saying that about it reminded me of my dad growing up. He's like, oh yeah, when we get a money tree, you know, we could do all these things you want to do. And it's like, oh, wait a minute, these people have the money tree.
- [16:23]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
Yes.
- [16:23]
Robert Breedlove
And they have the money tree.
- [16:25]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
Said the same thing.
- [16:26]
Robert Breedlove
Yeah. So I'm like, oh, and they're not using it for good because of the absolute power corrupts absolutely. And also that money is the root of all evil, et cetera. And it can exacerbate those things. You've obviously done a lot of thinking about this. I'm fascinated. As money as a energy, right, Currency. Like how does, how does Bitcoin play into this? Money as energy? And is it possible to save the world from this deep, deep rooted corruption, censorship, nefarious intent and bad actors?
- [16:56]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
Well, it's a, in many ways, it's like one of the defining questions in the arc of human history. It's like if this is the most sought after monopolistic power of man. You could trace a lot of the twists and turns of human history around the axis and movements of money and how it's changed forms. Even the current geopolitical layout of the world is largely based on who has the gold. The old saying, he who has the gold makes the rules. Or there's also the Rothschild quote that give me the power to issue a nation's currency and I care not who makes its laws. Right. So this is again the primary law basically of human collaboration. And so, yeah, in the United States, we have the most gold on paper. We haven't audited Fort Knox in over 50 years. So like, there's no verification on that. We just trust whoever put the gold in there. It's still in there. You know, who knows what's going on there? But that gives us this position of geopolitical dominance. Right. We're called the global superpower, largely based on how much gold we hold relative to other nations. And that's the same reason why countries like China and Russia have been large accumulators of gold for the past 10 years. I think China has been the number one producer and importer of gold for years running.
- [18:32]
Robert Breedlove
Now, when you say producer of gold, doesn't all gold have to be mined?
- [18:35]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
Right. So yes, inside of the border of China, they are producing it, mining it, extracting it, refining it, stockpiling it. They're also buying it from world markets. And so this is like, don't trust what they say, trust what they do. All central banks in the world are simultaneously engaging in currency counterfeiting, which is often euphemistically called quantitative easing or increasing the debt ceiling or whatever. They always put a new word around it, but at the end of the day, it's money printing. All the central banks are printing specifically currency. It's not actual money. If we consider that gold is the actual energy, they're not really printing the money, they're printing the representation, the monopoly notes that represent it, the map, not the territory. But if people believe the map, then it works. They can use it to steal people's energy, basically. If people keep working for the thing that you're printing, well, then people will expend their labor for something that you don't have to expend labor for. So it's again, the asymmetry in the game. And so, yeah, China, Russia, they've been stockpiling gold for a long time. So you have to trust what they're doing, which is they themselves are holding gold while they are inflating the currency, printing the currency, dumping the cost of that onto anyone that's foolish enough to hold it, basically. And at the bottom of that is people that are poor, right? People that are living on fixed incomes, retirees, pensioners, people that need that dollar to work next week. This is the bottom of that pyramid that's getting dumped on through central banking. So when we say the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, I would argue that this is the core determinant of that dynamic. It's not to say that rich won't maybe continue to increase their wealth relative to the poor, even in a free market environment, but at least in that environment, you get the tide that rises all ships that we're increasing standards of living and human productivity per capita. So on a per capita basis, and we've seen this, like since the Industrial revolution, GDP per capita has gone up despite all of this theft and reallocation and war and all of these other things that have contravened the market dynamic that. That gives us so much prosperity, basically. So Bitcoin is. Yeah, it's. It's the map that does not deviate from the territory. Right. It's actual tokenized human labor energy in a network that a central bank cannot monopolize, corrupt, distort, stockpile, manipulate. Like you can stockpile. All you can do is accumulate it, basically. So that's the game everyone is now forced into playing just to accumulate this thing, Right?
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- [24:40]
Robert Breedlove
Amidst the cultural changes afoot with the election and Trump getting re elected to President and some changes there, how does Bitcoin play into this landscape? If this corruption is through the central banks and I imagine there's a lot of corporate capture and things like that, what's the story? Is Trump good for bitcoin? Tell me a bit more.
- [25:03]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
Yeah, I am the worst guy to talk to about politics. I guess I would say through my recent conversations with certain influential bitcoiners that I've become a believer. Basically that this Trump victory, which we just had two days ago, is a good thing for human freedom and bitcoin. Now, I say that as someone who's deeply anti state and anarcho capitalist in my viewpoint. So I'm not supportive of the state or any. I don't even endorse political candidates. Like, you know, I was asked to endorse rfk. I think RFK is an amazing guy. Right. Like, I, you know, really like the guy a lot, but I still was hesitant to. And I did not ultimately endorse him because I don't want to be endorsing fiat political statism. But anyways, it gets complicated the older you get to. You're like, well, you got to kind of comply with the structures that you're in, even if your ideals deviate from them. So to answer your question, in short, I think the Trump victory was a good step for Bitcoin, obviously. And anything that's a good step for Bitcoin is a good step in the direction of furthering human freedom.
- [26:21]
Robert Breedlove
Yeah, fiat. You've used that term a bit. And I'm interested in the parallels between the broken fiat money system and how you've talked about fiat food. And actually these are more closely linked than we might imagine. So what is fiat? What are the parallels here?
- [26:39]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
Yeah, I would actually point people to the book, well, safed D&amous has written the bitcoin standard. He also wrote the fiat standard. Then I think someone wrote a book called Fiat Food, which I have not read myself, but I've heard does a brilliant job explaining the connections between fiat money and fiat food. To speak somewhat philosophically about it. It's like, okay, fiat currency is that map that does not actually connect to the territory. Right. It's money divorced from energy, basically. But when you do, when you have it divorced from energy, but other people think it's still redeemable for energy, they'll work for it. So you can steal labor through printing currency, basically. So you get currency that has very low energy density, like the purchasing, like in the technical term of economics. It has low purchasing power density, which means each unit can't purchase as many goods and services as it otherwise could. And this seems to permeate into the sphere of food production through a number of, again, these complex webs, which I'd point you to these books to describe. But it has a lot to do with subsidies and certain vested interest that can lobby government to let's promote seed oils and get rid of raw milk, create legal frameworks like this that get us into the situations we're in today. And so you end up in this world where again, it's kind of mirroring as above, so below the food world. All of a sudden we have a very low nutritional density actual, like life energy density per unit of food has gone down.
- [28:26]
Robert Breedlove
We are overfed and undernourished, exactly as.
- [28:30]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
We are over indebted and under prosperous, basically. Right. So as we've debased the currency and the money, we've debased ourselves nutritionally. And I think you can go a step deeper and say we've debased ourselves morally, spiritually, et cetera, of course.
- [28:48]
Robert Breedlove
Yeah, it's all connected. What do you think is so attractive? And why are these superpowers of bitcoiners and beef maximalists coming together?
- [29:00]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
I would take it right back to this, this idea of density, right? Which is a very important quantity in physics, right? It's content per unit volume. And if we are this animal that is obsessed with economizing, which is to do more to accomplish greater results with less efforts, right? To get more done in less time to solve problems better, faster, cheaper. Well, then density really matters. Density really matter. Like I need to take as few bites and chew as few times as possible to get the maximal energy so that I can go do other things, right? I'm constantly trying to economize myself for the next task. And then, yeah, similarly with money, right, you want. I don't want a hundred million units of the thing to hold the purchasing power that one unit could, right? I want maximal purchasing power density in my money across time. So if I expended a thousand labor hours to acquire that bitcoin or whatever unit of money it is, I want to know that in the future I can get a thousand labor hours roughly out of that, you know, and now it gets a little tricky because you don't want to get into the Marxist labor theory of value. It's not one to one. It has to be labor that other people find relevant and valuable. You can't just dig a hole and fill it back up all day every day and call that, you know, useful labor. Like, that's not obviously not useful. So. But that seems to me to be the connection is that we need density in our nutrition and we need density in our economic tools of economic exchange so that we can economize. I also think this gets into human integrity, by the way. It's like a man of his word. A man that you. If I just can trust that you are who you are and you Will do what you say you will do. Well, that lets us economize, right. I don't need to, like, look at you and like, constantly evaluate. Are you doing? You're still doing. And we have to establish that trust at some point, in some way. But if I, once I trust you, we're good, right? Like, I can go and do all these other things. And I know whatever you say, you know, with this very low, It's a very low cost signal for you to say that you'll do a thing, a lot of energy behind it. Right. To see that you'll actually do it. When we have integrity, right? Between word and deed, we have density of meaning. Your words actually carry weight. They carry energy. And the extent to which they carry energy is the extent to which we can have harmonious agreement. And the extent to which we can have harmonious agreement is the extent to which we can be more prosperous and effective across time and building civilization. So all these things are intertwined for me. Density, integrity, trust, truth.
- [31:51]
Robert Breedlove
Beautiful. What's that all for? For you? Why, why does it matter? What does it afford you in life? What kind of life is this? Freedom, sovereignty? Is it something else, like, philosophically that drives you? Why is this so important for you and globally to be adopted?
- [32:10]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
Yeah, I think it. I mean, for me, it does come down to the word freedom. But I would also caution people that my own understanding of freedom has evolved a lot over time as I've aged as a man and as I've gone through things in life and gone through adversity. And I think the more immature perspective on freedom is something like, oh, I can do whatever I want whenever I want to do it, you know, very probably, you know, teenage men, 20s, in their 20s, at some point you go through this, it's almost inevitable. It's a testosterone thing. I suppose. I get it. Right? Like, totally get it. As someone that is still pulling himself out of it, you know, I'm not, I'm not going to talk to you like I'm on some kind of high horse over here. Like, I've solved this. It's part of who we are. Right. We are territory takers. We are. We're warriors. Right. We've literally been fucking at war forever. That's what humans do.
- [33:10]
Robert Breedlove
Yeah. Like you said, we've always traded. We've always fought, too. We've always fought.
- [33:14]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
Exactly. Yeah. And I guess it's, you know, in many ways, Bitcoin is like helping bring out the better angels of our nature in that way that maybe we can Stop fighting amongst ourselves so much physically, and then start trading and actually, you know, lean into our humanity more. Lean out of the animality, into the humanity. And it's not. Look, I'm all about the animality, by the way. I like to eat meat, work out, hunt all this stuff, but I don't want to go to war with other people. That's actually the least productive thing you could ever do.
- [33:46]
Robert Breedlove
Yeah.
- [33:47]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
If you instead coordinated and traded with those people, everyone would become more rich, wildly more rich. And what is like, there's maybe a. It's demonized to say that, like, to be rich, but it's like, don't you want everyone to be rich? Right. If everyone has their basic material wants and desires covered, then they are free, they are liberated to pursue the things that they find interesting in their heart, whatever they may be. Well, that's a world I want to live in where everyone's like, coming from the truth of their heart and doing what they want to do with the limiting principle of other people. And this is where you asked about freedom. Founding fathers had it right, sort of. I think you have to go back to 1215 Magna Carta, where it was life, liberty, inviolable, property. This is the essence of institutionalizing freedom. So far as I can tell. It's biblical. Right. This is the socially institutionalized form of the biblical commandments. Thou shalt not steal, thou shall not kill. Life, liberty, inviolable, private property. We swapped out property for pursuit of happiness in the US Constitution. I'm less convinced that was the right thing to do. But ultimately freedom for me today is the recognition of that. And I would further add to it, actually. Maybe I'll read the words here, but there's this paradox in freedom where it's like this submission to truth. Right. If I have to submit to the laws of physics to be free, because so far as I know, as we said, they're unbreakable, right?
- [35:36]
Robert Breedlove
Yeah. You fight that, you're going to lose every time.
- [35:38]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
You cannot fight nature. Right. Francis Bacon has a great quote. Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed. It's a paradox, right? You can't control nature. You can only conform yourself to it, basically. So in freedom, if you actually want liberty and freedom and transcendence and commanding of nature, if you will, well, you better have to learn a deep obedience and a worship of her principles, her physical principles, her metaphysical principles, moral principles, ethical principles. All these things we've discovered over time. You have to take those things very seriously if you want to actually transcend and Become more human, become more free. And so it gets a bit radical. I don't guess I could read this. I will read to you. I will share with you the words that came to me after my meditation today. And I hope it lands with people as a. Not as. I'm not actually a religious guy. I consider myself more philosophical, spiritual. I do consider myself to be a disciple of Christ. Like Christ consciousness. I try to hold myself to a very high and strict standard, and I try to hold those around me to a similar standard. That's not my creation. I feel like I'm just carrying on an old family tradition, as we might say in Tennessee. So this came to me today, and it's not. Not a religious guy, but I said King energy is the enacted recognition of the kingdom that lives within the heart of every man, woman and child. Christ consciousness is the proper apportioning of energy among every member of every kingdom within and without. The philosopher King worships at the altar of Christ consciousness in order to emulate him in the building of crystalline cathedrals of freedom, truth and love in the hearts of every fractal kingdom, edified by the knowledge that we will always miss the mark, let us nonetheless strive to perfectly imitate the perfect integrity of Christ in every thought, every word, and every act. And I think bitcoin is an exemplar of that in that it. It has perfect integrity. Bitcoin literally can't do anything other than what it says it will do. And to what extent does that have an impact on us? Through material incentives? Yet to be seen. But I do see a lot of promise in it, inspiring transformation in people's lives to date. So, yeah, very hopeful for what bitcoin can do.
- [38:14]
Robert Breedlove
Yeah, that's a fascinating frame. The Bitcoin is one of the tools that unlocks. I think it's Charles Eisenstein's idea of the more beautiful world that our hearts know is possible. And Eckhart Tolle Paul says the second coming of Christ is not him coming back down. It's the awakening of Christ consciousness within the heart of every human being on earth. And that bitcoin is one of these radical tools that take us there. And a lot of inner work and alchemy as well, of course. But going back a few minutes, you mentioned, wouldn't it be wonderful to be in a world where everybody is rich? Maybe not purely monetarily, but rich in different currencies too, rich in meaning, rich in the currency of happiness. And it sounds like you're radically optimistic about this tool. And There is something like a cynical safety blanket in the world right now where people have a hard time feeling into that because rightly, maybe so, they look at our history and say, well, that sounds wonderful, but it's not realistic. How practically could bitcoin be something that spurs on this great awakening that actually creates a world that we can inherit a more beautiful world?
- [39:30]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
Very, very light question there.
- [39:32]
Robert Breedlove
Brocism.
- [39:33]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
Brocism, bro. System at its finest and deepest. I mean, you're now entangling this question with things that. I'm at the very edge of my own understanding. So I don't. I'm just going to be flailing about a little bit. But I mean, you brought up the term alchemy. That's a very interesting rabbit hole to go into how it was foundational to science, basically, Right. Carl Jung described alchemy as the dream from which science was born. So if we go back to ritual being this primary thing, it's like we had to imagine this ritual of science which has become very rigorous and defining of our modern culture. Obviously scientism. Now, scientism, we had to birth it in our imagination and then into poetry and then into literature. Like, it's like the science fiction precedes science fact kind of thing. Like, we had to actually give birth to science through our imagination. And if, you know, in the beginning, they're probably like, oh, who are the. And actually they were considered heretical. The alchemist, the church were like, the church basically said, Christ the sacri. You know, Christ was the final redeemer. Spiritual sacrifice of Christ is the final redemption of humanity. Well, the alchemists look around a few hundred years later and they say, hey, we still have poverty and suffering and sickness and disease. Like, maybe that wasn't the final redeemer. Maybe there's something more to this Christ thing and we should investigate and look for the principles of Christ in nature. Like actually in the laboratory of nature itself. Well, that dream, that pursuit became. That's where we get the word chemistry, right? It's from alchemy. It became the scientific method. So we dreamed the scientific method into existence. And then the scientific method obviously has given us a lot, right? It has completely changed everything as we are basically demonstrating in every action. All of our clothes, our thoughts are everything that we touch and do every day. So, you know, how can bitcoin be. You know, this is real rabbit hole, material process of material right here. The way I've heard the philosopher's stone described, which is the lapis philosophorum, which was the Aim of the alchemist, actually, like the ultimate aim of the alchemists, wasn't necessarily to turn lead into gold, which a lot of people think it was actually to find that process of refinement within oneself, and that's reflected in the material world. So a process of moral refinement that's reflected in the material basically was like this idea of the lapis philosophorum. It was to discover the principles of Christ in matter or to bridge divinity into materiality, something like that. And I've heard it described as the philosopher's stone was intended to be the incorruptible substance that would serve as an antidote to tyranny in the world. And there's been extensive writings about the philosopher's stone and alchemy. I do not pretend to be an expert on any of this. I'm just giving you my interpretation. Largely influenced by Carl Jung, secondhand, largely through Jordan Peterson, who introduced me to Carl Jung and Carl Jung's deep and mysterious works on psychology and alchemy and all of that, and also informed by people like Mises, right, on the economic side. So bringing these worlds together of kind of like Jungian psychology meets Austrian economics and praxeology through people like Mises, you know, Safety in a Moose obviously introduced me to Mises. And then also influenced by the book the Creature from Jekyll island, which talks about the problems with central banking. I think bitcoin might be that incorruptible substance. Right again, if we define corruption as the uneven application of rules. Well, bitcoin is the only system of rules or the only game humans have ever created that we ourselves cannot game. We have for the first time given birth to something that we cannot corrupt ourselves. And again, there's no historical analogy or comparison to this that I have found other than the number zero. It's like it's the one thing we made one time, first and best, and it just stuck. And it also changed everything. Like that's a whole other rabbit hole we won't go into. But it supports a lot of the things we've talked about today, right? Like the creation of science and the creation of calculus is only possible to zero, et cetera. So I think bitcoin could be the philosopher's stone. It could be the incorruptible substance that serves as an antidote to tyranny. By maximizing the individualization and individuation in a Jungian sense of the individual, right, you are maximizing individual life, liberty and property so that we can self organize In a way that's maximally immune to top down coercive control. So you get a much stronger bottom up emergence of humanity and the human spirit and a more individuated and individualized world through Bitcoin. And so I don't think Bitcoin is a separate invention. It's like an extension of this enterprise, you know, that goes through Christ and through others, through Buddha, you know, through all, many that have practiced Christ consciousness, including the founding fathers of this country. Right? When George Washington won the Revolutionary war and they said, we want to make you king good sir. And in channeling, which is to me staggering philosopher king energy, he had earned the keys to the kingdom and he had the keys to the kingdom handed to him in his hand. All he had to do was close his hand to become the emperor of the empire, of the next new dynasty. For all, we would not be the United States, right. We'd be the American empire. And he left that hand open and said, no, I will not be your king. We fought for the principles of being a constitutional republic. And I will only be a two term president, I will not take the third term. That man is channeling some serious, what I would call Christ consciousness or philosopher king energy. And I hope that Bitcoin is an enabler of that. We get more men channeling that spirit, right? He's not doing what's best for him, his family, his lineage. He's looking out for the entire family of humanity and creating a new like step change in governance structures that changed the world forever that we're still living through the benefits of today. Right. We just had an election that's like, okay, great, we got the guy we want. Hopefully that's going to sway it back in our favor. Like all of these are vestiges from that decision that one man made standing on the inspiration of Christ. So that's powerful.
- [47:15]
Robert Breedlove
Yeah, really cool. Very, very cool.
- [47:19]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
By the way, I promised to come in here and do Bitcoin 101.
- [47:22]
Robert Breedlove
I don't know, maybe this is, this.
- [47:24]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
Is like brocism thing is really strong. This is what strong brocism vibe.
- [47:28]
Robert Breedlove
It's the man buns. That's what it is.
- [47:30]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
Really.
- [47:33]
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- [49:45]
Robert Breedlove
Well, let's go back into a Bitcoin 101 then put our feet firmly on the ground. Because Bitcoin is not crypto. Correct. It is a cryptocurrency, but it is not crypto. What's this whole Bitcoin not shitcoin, Bitcoin not shitcoin. What's that about?
- [50:00]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
Bitcoin is the only credibly decentralized crypto asset. It's kind of complicated because I would say read the book Block size wars of 2017. Bitcoin has gone through these market tests basically to become ossified as the standard that people interact through. So as as central influences and powers had tried to attack Bitcoin and control Bitcoin, it has resisted those attacks. The consensus of node operators, which is like the will of the people, if you will, has won out in many battles over time. Even when these battles are very well funded, you know, influential bitcoiners and lots of money and Corporate power state. Who knows what all was behind. Again, read the block size wars of 2017. There was a very concerted effort to attack the decentralization of Bitcoin. And Bitcoin won. The people won. The people said, no, fuck you. We're going to operate, we're going to run the Bitcoin language that we understand that benefits us individually, not that benefits any central power, that benefits the individual user. And that vote that social consensus became Bitcoin. So Bitcoin is like this battle hardened, proven, decentralized money. Nothing else is that. Everything else is just a cheap imitation of that. It's the other analogy I could use. Like if you guys remember, which I'm getting old now, I guess most people don't remember the emergence of the Internet actually, but I'm old enough days. I'm an old millennial, so I guess I'll sound like the old guy now pushing 39 years old. But I remember a day before the Internet and when the Internet was emerging, there were a lot of really cocky, arrogant Fortune 1000 companies that said we don't need the Internet. We don't need to create a corporate website, we don't need anything in the cloud or a web store, shopping carts, we don't need any of that shit. We're going to create our own Internet, our own private, permissioned, controlled intranet. Intranet, not inter as in interconnecting. Intra as in we control it. It's our insulated, private little domain. All the big companies thought they were going to create their own intranet and they were going to run the world from their own little private intranet. And what happened? 25 years later, there are zero intranets. Zero, basically. I mean, I don't know, you could probably find some in governments and I don't know, whatever. But for all intents and purposes, we're all on the Internet today. All the companies are on the Internet today. There's a principle that the open network has economic advantages, that the closed network cannot afford you because you have to spend time enforcing the rules of the closed network and protecting the turf that you don't have to expend in the open network because it's all consensual and voluntary. It's like you abide by it or you don't. You know, you make your own rules, basically choose your own rules. And so the open network, as we learned from the emergence of the Internet, over intranets, the open network out competes closed networks. Bitcoin is the Internet of money. Shitcoins are the intranets of money, they're all closed, they're all controlled, they're all permissioned, manipulated. You're trusting some guy, you're ultimately trusting the promises of some group of humans. And bitcoin is the only network where the promise of individual humans has been maximally dissipated. We're trusting almost again, it's like I say, it's imported the integrity of the laws of physics into the socioeconomic domain. We have a fixed protocol like we have in the Internet that may sound a little fanciful. And people are like, what do you mean? It's like, well we have it already. HTTP, tcp, ip. Like the Internet is a stack of these open source protocols that have ossified and become a linguistic standard or protocol standard through which we interact. Bitcoin is just the latest layer in that, but for economic energy rather than just information.
- [54:20]
Robert Breedlove
That's cool, that's a really cool analogy. But to help people understand this, at some point bitcoin had to come from somewhere and that came from some guy at some point. Tell me that story because it's fascinating.
- [54:33]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
Well, nobody knows.
- [54:34]
Robert Breedlove
I know. I mean the mystery of the guy's name is Satoshi.
- [54:39]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
Satoshi.
- [54:39]
Robert Breedlove
Well named, maybe a woman who knows.
- [54:42]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
Yeah, it's, it's, it's pseudonymous. He identifies as an individual man. But basically bitcoin was released as an open source project to a chat room of people that had been working on non state digital cash for like 25 years. So it was all the people that were primed to poke holes in the idea and you know, implement it if it was useful, break it if it's not useful. You know, it's again, there's this long legacy and it's, it's the cypherpunk legacy, right, which is born from the anarcho capitalist legacy, which is born from the libertarian philosopher legacy, which is born from the Austrian economic legacy, which was born from, I would argue, founding fathers. It goes deep, basically. Not just the founding fathers, there's other people have been fighting for liberty outside of just the US obviously. I don't want to come off as a US exceptionalist by any means. Mises, for instance, he came to America ultimately to preserve his liberty, but he is not of American origin. And he carried that seed of actual economic knowledge and wisdom into the future. So yeah, sorry, I got off from the initial. What was it?
- [56:03]
Robert Breedlove
Unpacking who this satoshi character might be.
- [56:06]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
Yeah, Satoshi, we don't know.
- [56:08]
Robert Breedlove
And how, more specifically, like how has what he set up like with these other. The Internet of Shitcoins, like, they ultimately come down to good faith that a person won't screw this up and how bitcoin is slightly different to that. Basically, he's rendered himself out of the picture.
- [56:25]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
Yes. Like, man. It's brilliance, like meta brilliance. It's like he knew the game that he is disrupting is so big. It's the game of money itself. The most sought after monopolistic power of man. Okay, I, Satoshi Nakamoto, I'm going to introduce a thing that disrupts that whole game. I can't be an I. He can't be a human. He can't be an identifiable person. He can't be, because not only will the state target you, but they'll also denigrate you. They could even just smear the project optically. And it's like, oh, this bitcoin is bullshit. It's just this guy trying to get rich. Look, he's got a million bitcoin. He's out on the Mediterranean with his yachts. And like, you can't trust this guy. You don't want. So he. I mean, we don't know. Again, we don't know. I don't know. Is it unintentional disappearance? Did he die? Was it a team of people that lost the keys or the project fell apart? We don't know. We actually don't know. But in that mystery is this nice bedrock of decentralization. So bitcoiners can say things like, we are all satoshi. You couldn't say that if we knew who satoshi was. Like, no, you're not all satoshi. He's satoshi. But we can't do that. There's no guy to point at. There's no one to point. So we just have this mystery. So it has, like this mythological. They call it the immaculate inception or the immaculate Conception. Right. Obviously drawing on a Christ analogy. But, yeah, I think the mystery is a really good thing. And sure, it's fun to speculate on who satoshi might be. I had a guy on the show recently talking about John Nash. He thinks John Nash is satoshi. John Nash is popularized in the movie A Beautiful Mind. But he's like, very. It's not the father of game theory, but he advanced game theory a lot. He's where we get the term Nash Equilibrium.
- [58:29]
Robert Breedlove
Right.
- [58:30]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
And so, yeah, anyways, there's a lot of fun, entertaining journeys to go down. Who is satoshi? But at the end of the day, it's like, I think it's just really.
- [58:38]
Robert Breedlove
Good that we don't know yeah, that's awesome. What are the government going to do now if they see. Because they're going to want a slice of the pie somehow. So are they going. They're going to. I believe they may even have it in the works or whatever. But is there going to become a digital centralized bank? And how might that. What should we be looking out for, though?
- [58:58]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
Well, definitely the CBDCs, which we're already hearing about, are a direct competitive response to the emergence of Bitcoin, and they are the antithesis of Bitcoin. Right. If Bitcoin is open, you know, it's literally open source. So all of the rules, all of the code are openly inspectable and verifiable by anyone. It's a language in which nothing can be hidden or in which lies cannot be told. Right. Because it's open for all to see. You know, sunlight is the best disinfectant. I don't know how many analogies you want to say about this. It's like when everyone has all their eyes on it, you basically can't hide anything. Right? Well, the CBDC is the exact opposite of that. The exact opposite. It's like, it's literally just a black box. Trust our seven guys or we'll hurt you. And, you know, we're gonna print as much as we want, and if you talk back to the government, we're gonna turn it off and blah, blah. And it's already. It may sound like conspiracy theorists, tinfoil hat guy, but it's like they already have the social credit scoring system in China implemented and active right now. If you go and say something against your gov. Against the ccp, they will. Well, I mean, it depends on what you say, I guess. If you say something softly enough, they'll just shame you publicly. They'll literally put you on a billboard in your neighborhood and shame you like this guy. Don't be like this guy. And then if you take it a step further, they'll, like, turn off your money. Yeah. And if you take it a step further, they'll black bag your ass and put you on a train. Right. Like, is that the world we really want to usher in? Essentially, controlled money is the ultimate instrument of social engineering of that type. So what is the opposite of that? Human freedom. Human individuation. Liberty.
- [60:47]
Robert Breedlove
Wild. Wild. Man. I have been relatively recent, I believe, in the bitcoin world. It's an orange pill that I've swallowed recently, which is cool.
- [60:57]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
The orange pill. Yes. I. I hope, yes, that's the right metaphor because it's.
- [61:03]
Robert Breedlove
Yeah.
- [61:03]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
Invoking the metaphor of the Matrix, which is invoked from the allegory of the cave by Plato, actually, where you are awakening. You take the Bitcoin lunch bill and you're like, oh, wow, the world is not what I thought it was at all. I've been unplugged from the Matrix. I see it for what it is. I now need to figure out how to respond. Welcome, welcome my friend.
- [61:23]
Robert Breedlove
I know it's good being here. I'm worried maybe, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, whether I'm in the right place though, of where I'm holding, because you hear all this conflicting opinion about wallets and yada yada. Right now I am in Coinbase. Is Coinbase a safe place to put money? Is there a better places? What should people be thinking about here?
- [61:41]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
Not your keys, not your cheese, as you say in Bitcoin. So to hold Bitcoin is to hold the private key that can spend that Bitcoin.
- [61:54]
Robert Breedlove
Yeah.
- [61:55]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
So it's the physical possession of gold is literally in your hands, in your safe, in your vault, under the ground, where only you can access it, no one else has knowledge of it. Right. That's the same level of security and seriousness you need to take with this piece of information called the Bitcoin private key.
- [62:15]
Robert Breedlove
Yeah.
- [62:15]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
You leaving it with a custodian. Coinbase is the worst too, by the way. They're selling all your data to the Feds and like shit, get off of there. They're not a sponsor of mine, as you would imagine.
- [62:29]
Robert Breedlove
I bet not. I bet not.
- [62:31]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
Just get the keys into your own hands and into your own control. I think the best way to do it, you can just do normal self custody On a hardware wallet where you own your private key, you can access and spend your funds through a access to a physical device with a pin number. Right. And if you lose the device or the pin number, you have the backup, which is the private key itself. However, that single point of failure, which is you. Right. Like if you lose any of that or if you die, well, that makes it difficult to pass those funds on. So I think multi key custody is the best. And there's a lot of different ways you can do that. You can do that among individuals in your own little group and you can build your own little multi key quorum. You can do it at the institutional level if you're securing a lot of money. If you're using Bitcoin as a treasury reserve asset for your business balance sheet, you can secure those keys with multiple custodians. Rather than just trusting Fidelity Digital Assets to hold all your bitcoin, you could give them one part of a three part key. And you need two of three to unlock and spend those funds. So you can create a collaborative dynamic at the institutional level, at the individual level, whatever it may be. This is the same protocol we use, by the way, to secure nuclear launch codes. Right. There's not one guy with his finger on the trigger. There's concentric circles of guys that need to do certain rituals in very specific steps, in very certain timing according to very specific things before that missile goes launch.
- [64:08]
Robert Breedlove
Yeah, probably a good idea.
- [64:10]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
Yes. So bitcoin gives you like that. You can get as deep and precise as you want with it, but it gives you that level of control and precision and planning over the control of your purchasing power.
- [64:20]
Robert Breedlove
Okay, well, I got some homework to do.
- [64:21]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
Yes. And sorry, I don't mean to make it sound intimidating. There's companies that hold hands and do this. I won't name any here out of. Not to play favorites, but yeah, research, multi key or multi signature custody set up for bitcoin.
- [64:37]
Robert Breedlove
Cool.
- [64:38]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
And there are some credible US companies that will walk you through that process.
- [64:42]
Robert Breedlove
Cool, cool. Well, I have to ask you this as we start wrapping up here. Give me if you do a price prediction for this next cycle.
- [64:51]
Unknown Advertiser
The worst.
- [64:52]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
Least bro system question you've asked me all day.
- [64:56]
Robert Breedlove
Close it with a banger.
- [64:57]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
Yeah. You know, it's utterly unpredictable. I put out one of the. I'm saying that. But I've also put out price predictions in the past. And I put out one. I think you have to check me how many years ago it's been now it's been three or four years probably. And I predicted that bitcoin would hit north of 300,000 in its next market cycle peak. So I will say those who live by the crystal ball are promised to eat glass. I'm not saying to take a price prediction as gospel and incorporate it into your leveraged trading strategy and get wiped out. Don't, don't do that. This is not financial advice, all of those things, but in my own speculation about. Okay, well, what has bitcoin done historically in kind of a geometric way? Right. It goes to these geometric waves where it will grow. I mean, 2017 we grew from sub $1,000 bitcoin to $20,000 bitcoin by the end of the year.
- [66:05]
Robert Breedlove
Right.
- [66:06]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
So it did a 20x in a year and then it does an 80% drawdown and goes back down to 3,000 and it trades sideways and you know, around that range bound trading for three or four years before it goes into another one of these exponential waves up. And those exponential waves up seem to be mapped onto the halving cycle of bitcoin which we didn't talk about today. But it's basically every four years this new issued, newly issued supply of bitcoin contracts by half and you take that supply off the market, puts upward pressure on the price, you get these big waves. So I think, yeah, I did used to run a hedge fund and do all, do all this analysis. I basically said yeah, I think it's going to hit. I think I said 317,000 at the next peak. But don't hold me to this and don't do trading strategy on this. The optimal strategy with bitcoin is first of all study it, right? Nothing that I'm saying is gospel. Nothing that anyone says is gospel. Decentralize your worldview. When you decide you want to hold some of it, I think it's best treated again this is me giving you advice now. Treat it like a long term savings device, not as a checking account. If you're emotionally attached to every bitcoin price movement, you're over allocated basically you should be excited. Like I, when the price goes down, I'm like oh, I'm accumulating more. When the price goes up, I'm like oh, I'm richer.
- [67:27]
Robert Breedlove
Yeah, right.
- [67:28]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
I have no, like it doesn't change my investment strategy. I just, I literally you can, I can just run grandma's wisdom, right? Make more money than I spend and save. Just in this bitcoin world. My savings actually works for me now. It's like growing at 200% annualized compounded growth rate. Like it actually really, really, really works for you. So that's the way to treat Bitcoin is just treated as long term grandma style savings account.
- [67:53]
Robert Breedlove
Solid, very solid. All right, last one for me bro. Bro to bro, selfishly not money related but you jacked. You look great dude. Thank you. So a quick little high level view of your health journey. Where did it start and what are you, what are your big. Obviously we talked about nutrient density and food but like what are your big principles that you do to stay in great health and great shape?
- [68:14]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
So this has been, it's been a lifelong thing for me. So was a big kid. I was actually overweight, like 200 pounds, seventh grader, you know, like 1112 years old, tall, always a tall kid, always a big kid, but also overweight. And I think my family just didn't have The. They just bought into the standard American diet, basically. My mom was like, oh, you're a growing boy. Eat whatever you want. You know, pizza, McDonald's, whatever. And so I had to learn, well, somewhat through the emergence of the Internet and other things. Like, I was like, this is not right. I don't want to be the fat kid at the pool party. I want to look good. I want to take care of myself. What can I do differently? And so I guess got interested in nutrition at somewhat of a young age. I was also getting into sport, so I was very fortunate that I got into Olympic style weightlifting at a very young age. I had done football and wrestling before, but then Olympic style weightlifting became my primary competitive sport. I competed internationally for years, and I was again, a big kid that started lifting heavy weights and got even bigger, right? I was. I was 120 kilos by the time I was 17 years old.
- [69:26]
Robert Breedlove
Damn, 120 kilos.
- [69:28]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
Like, almost 255 pounds. At 17 years old, competing internationally in Olympic style weightlifting. I was clean and jerking 402 pounds. I was snatching 325 pounds. And I broke American records, but only in the. Not for the. There's a lot of guys stronger and better than me at the sport. Like, a tall guy actually is not great at that sport, which is where I ultimately gave up. I was like, what the fuck am I doing? I'm six four. I'll go to these competitions, and these guys are like, 5, 10 to move that weight over. Exactly. You're at a disadvantage, basically. So. But anyway, I was just. I was telling you all that basically to say that I was a very big dude naturally. And then I also did this sport that made me really big. And, like, this is way before I got into, like, trying to be in shape or a body. Like, I was just doing Sport, basically. And so 17, I give up. Olympic style weightlifting, and I'm like, okay, I don't look good, by the way. I'm 265 pounds, but I'm all thighs and ass, you know, like, my upper body's like. People always say, what can you bench? I'm like, I don't know. Like, nothing. I don't bench. I put weights over my head. And so I made this conscious decision to start, like, trying to be more aesthetic and, like, take care of myself, I guess. Starting the journey of longevity as much as you can, kind of late teenage years, but really caring more about aesthetics, right? Like, you want to look good. Curls for the girls. You know, you want to look good at the beach and all that. Exactly. All that stuff. So, yeah, basically been following that path and then also got into yoga, Pilates, swimming. That was really good for the spiritual development. Getting into meditation. Everything we've talked about today, like, largely influenced by my meditation practice, my spirituality, all, like, I can only tap into that world through that ritual, basically. And I've also had health struggles. Autoimmune condition that I still deal with. Paul Saladino has been very transformative for me in that respect. He, you know, quitting coffee. Quitting coffee, Dude. Quitting coffee. I really was like, there's. I had quit everything, by the way. I, like, cut everything out of my diet. I was eating beef salt coffee. That's what I was down to. And I was still having gut issues and all the. I'm like, paul, what else can I do? I'm like, really? It had been a long time, a lot of months, a lot of struggles. He's like, dude, you've got to cut out the fucking coffee. Are you kidding me? You're drinking roasted beans and just assaulting your gut lining. Like, no, it's like you're drinking poison. And I was like, don't take my coffee. Please don't take my. It felt like the only thing that allowed me to be a human.
- [72:18]
Robert Breedlove
Yeah.
- [72:18]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
You know, and sure, I'm probably speaking to millions of people that have a coffee addiction, because we all do, basically. Most of us, at least. And I listened to Dr. Paul, and I just kicked it cold turkey. And week one, I was exhausted. Week two, I was sad.
- [72:38]
Robert Breedlove
Yeah, right.
- [72:38]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
Really sad. Like, felt like I had lost a friend. Honestly, melancholy, like, actually felt like I had lost a friend. And it was very sad and emotional and difficult. And then by week three, you, like, start to come back a little bit. And so what do I do today is like, I do. I lift weights. I still do, like, Olympic style. I don't do Olympic style lifts. So I'm not doing the power cleans and the power snatches and all that, But I'm doing a lot of kettlebells, a lot of dynamic movement, CrossFit style workouts. Do a lot of instinct training. So I'm just trying to get the metabolic conditioning, you know, like, trying to get my heart rate up, but also trying to get a pump and always trying to keep the body in this place of exhaustion a little bit. You know, I don't feel right when I'm just not sore at all. I mean, I do take a couple of weeks off a year, right, and just, like, let the body completely rehab. But throughout the year, I'm like, I'm going, yeah. And so I think it's just all that, like, that's what my fitness journey has become, is, like, all these layers of, like, you know, competitive sport and then also trying to look good. I still want to look good, by the way, but it's becoming less about looking good as I get older and more about cognitive performance and feeling good. And now I'm really starting to think about longevity. As you get into your late 30s and things actually start to fall apart, and you're like, oh, shit, I need to.
- [74:02]
Robert Breedlove
Yeah, yeah. Not made of magic and rubber anymore.
- [74:05]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
Exactly.
- [74:05]
Robert Breedlove
Pay attention.
- [74:06]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
And Paul Saladino has been great on that. And frankly, yeah, the organ supplements have been a big part of it. I don't. Like. I've got. I still have the autoimmune condition, but the symptoms are, like, 99% under control. And I can't singularly attribute that to any one thing. I can't say, oh, it was the coffee that did this. It was this, it was that. I do. I'm Also following recently Dr. Jack Cruz, all his stuff on light and circadian rhythm. Like, that's been a big benefit. And again, this is just something. This is the latest chapter in my health journey, I guess, but, like, these things have all been accumulating over time, and I've. Yeah, I hope I'm. I'm trying to embody, like, what I want other people to have. It's like, yeah, feel good. Take care of yourself. You know, do what you love, trying to be that person. I'm not perfect at all, and I've made a million mistakes, a ton of inner darkness and all the things, like, every one of us. But, yeah, that's basically my health journey.
- [75:08]
Robert Breedlove
Yeah, man, you're on the right path. It's working.
- [75:10]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
Thank you.
- [75:10]
Robert Breedlove
But we got to get out of here because you got a plane to catch, so where can people go to keep up with what you're doing?
- [75:16]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
Thank you so much for having me. By the way, this place is awesome.
- [75:20]
Robert Breedlove
Yeah, it's pretty dope. We like it.
- [75:21]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
Yeah, the vibe here.
- [75:23]
Robert Breedlove
Come back anytime, man. And the announcement, the reason we had this conversation today is we're now accepting bitcoin on the website, which is really dope and a big step forward for us in the right direction. So we wanted to get the guy on to talk about.
- [75:35]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
Oh, well, I am honored to be the guy. That's awesome.
- [75:39]
Robert Breedlove
So send us your satoshis.
- [75:41]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
Yeah.
- [75:42]
Robert Breedlove
Where can people go and keep going?
- [75:43]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
WhatIsMoneyPodcast.com. cool.
- [75:45]
Robert Breedlove
Easy peasy. Robert Breedlove, ladies and gentlemen.
- [75:48]
Unknown Bitcoin Expert
Thank you, Rob.
- [75:50]
Unknown Advertiser
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