BTC250: Is This Bitcoin Bull Market Over w/ Tuur Demeester (Bitcoin Podcast)

Summary

Podcast Summary: BTC250: Is This Bitcoin Bull Market Over? w/ Tuur Demeester

We Study Billionaires – The Investor’s Podcast Network | Bitcoin Fundamentals Series
Date: September 3, 2025
Host: Preston Pysh
Guest: Tuur Demeester

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Episode Overview

On this episode of Bitcoin Fundamentals, Preston Pysh welcomes back Tuur Demeester, legendary investor and respected voice in the Bitcoin space. The discussion is centered on Tuur’s newly released report, How to Position Yourself for the Bitcoin Boom in 2025, and a deep dive into the current Bitcoin cycle. Together, they analyze whether this cycle is truly different, the unique institution-driven market psychology, potential government responses, and the intersection of finance, geopolitics, and emerging tech like AI. This episode doubles as a guide for long-term thinkers and a warning about the new risks lurking for Bitcoin holders—including custodial confiscation.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why This Cycle Feels Different

• Absence of Speculative Mania:

  • Tuur and Preston agree that the current cycle "doesn't feel anything like a speculative mania" with none of the frenzied behavior or retail exuberance of earlier bull markets.
    • “I haven't seen a mania like it… my gut was like, I think there's a lot more here.” —Tuur (02:04)
  • Bitcoin price has “quadrupled… in two and a half years,” yet "it feels somewhat bearish," lacking prior cycles’ blow-off tops (03:28).

• Institutional Bull Run:

  • Tuur views this as the "real institutional cycle," suggesting that "retail is really not in this market yet" (03:51).
  • Preston notes the “incentives and playbook” of institutions are different—less visible mania, more strategic long-term moves, possibly with institutions "pulling out a lot of the playbooks they've used in markets for decades" (07:50).

2. On On-chain Metrics & Whale Behavior

• Hodler Net Position & Whale Activity:

  • Tuur relies on the “Hodler net position change” to gauge sentiment:
    • “Whales are just stoically holding … we have seen a few spikes down, but no moves really above 100,000 in the past six to nine months.” —Tuur (04:42)
  • Whale movements might indicate "using leverage to increase [bitcoin] stash" (05:35), not just profit-taking.

• Speculation on Large Coin Movements:

  • Preston posits:
    • “It appears they're going into the spot markets … means they want you to see that they're selling… quite head-scratching.” (06:34)
  • Both agree that this cycle defies simple four-year patterns:
    • “If there's one thing I've learned in bitcoin, it's when you make a really simple decision like that … it seems to always figure out a way to prove you wrong.” —Preston (08:42)

3. Rethinking the Four-Year Cycle

• Timing & Duration Are Uncertain:
  • Both guests are “timid” about easy predictions, having been “burned” in past cycles.
    • “You just can't copy paste the previous cycle. You never can.” —Tuur (11:33)

4. Risks: Custodial Confiscation by Governments

• Government Narrative & Stealthy Seizure:

  • Tuur explains how governments can expropriate value "not by barging in and grabbing coins," but by “nationalizing or diluting” shares in public companies that hold Bitcoin, referencing the US government's actions with Intel as a roadmap for potential stealth confiscation (18:03).
    • “The story is we’re partners now... if a Bolivian government had done that, we would be like, this is confiscation, this is nationalization of the industry.” —Tuur (21:06)

• Political Incentives & Social Contracts:

  • Preston highlights the dominant short-term political interests:
    • “A huge population... just look at the government like, ‘oh, you’re going to print some money and just mail it to me’ ... without the thought of long-term consequence.” (16:10)
  • Tuur warns that not all custodial risk is equal and it’s time to seriously factor in “custodial confiscation risk” (19:26).

5. Fiat System Dynamics: Is the System a Ponzi?

• Tuur and Preston agree the fiat system relies on perpetual monetary expansion:

  • “Is the fiat system just a total Ponzi scheme and they have to keep expanding it or else things start melting down?” —Preston (28:00)
  • “Yeah, it is, in my opinion.... There's just more debt than can ever be serviced. So the only way to keep doing it is to extend M2 until you hit a wall….” —Tuur (28:00)

• Consequences of Collapse:

  • Tuur mentions historical hyperinflation scenarios, mass impoverishment, and the risk of civil unrest if monetary expansion halts (30:00).
  • International tensions and potential for a “global fiat crisis” are now more pronounced; Europe, the UK, and China cited as at risk (31:15).

6. Bitcoin vs. Gold

• Bitcoin Not Yet Dominating Gold:

  • Tuur tracks the BTC/Gold chart, noting psychological resistance at “one kilo of gold,” which has held for five years (32:04).
  • Predicts the “next target” for Bitcoin is “11 kilograms of gold equals parity in market cap with gold” (32:50).

• Importance for Gold Investors:

  • “That's been a tradition, a long standing tradition in the gold world is to express all kinds of asset classes in terms of gold…” —Tuur (33:57)

7. Bitcoin vs. Crypto in the Age of Institutions

• Conflation Risks:

  • Bitcoin wrongly lumped with other “crypto” can muddy its case for political acceptance:
    • “The more they are conflated, Bitcoin and all these centralized crypto coins, the more you can try and sell the illusion that bitcoin is just another fiat currency…” —Tuur (38:45)
  • Institutional product strategies mean Wall Street has little incentive to educate about Bitcoin’s technical superiority.

• Long-Term Trends:

  • Bitcoin’s "conservative investment" image is growing; altcoins are seen as speculative.
  • Financial power is moving beyond Wall Street to entities like Tether and global actors (41:06).

8. Bitcoin Scaling, Lightning, & Real World Assets

• Layered Architecture:

  • Preston underscores that Bitcoin layer 1 is optimized for security and decentralization; layer 2s like Lightning solve for scalability (43:46).
  • Both agree that real-world asset tokenization atop Lightning is inevitable, but infrastructure and patience are needed (43:46–45:00).

• Adoption Barriers:

  • “Boomers are not going to run their own nodes, but they still have the majority of the money” —Tuur (45:20).
  • Generational wealth shift may accelerate Bitcoin-native adoption.

9. Future Trends: Institutional Disruption and New Geographies

• AI & Robotics:

  • Tuur forecasts a "boom in blue collar jobs" and a “marriage made in heaven” between Bitcoin mining and AI/data centers, especially near energy hubs (46:16).
  • US regions with “natural resources, particularly in the energy domain,” and pragmatic, pro-business policies will win out (50:25–51:37).

• Rise of New Global Centers:

  • Compares possible new financial/tech centers to Ravenna after the fall of Rome and cites Singapore as a model for agility (51:37–52:24).

10. Can Bitcoin Reduce Global Conflict?

• Technological & Moral Leap:

  • Tuur genuinely believes Bitcoin "can reduce global conflict... it's an incredibly powerful tool. And also it's going to be the stage for this enormous wealth redistribution that we're seeing” (52:49).

• Moral Foundation:

  • Argues that Bitcoin’s origins in “cypherpunk” moral philosophy are vital for realizing its peaceful, constructive potential:
    • “We're basically going to have new kings … To the extent that we're critical of previous generations … it wasn’t just because they had the wrong technology—it was also because there was a laxness, there was an indifference towards universal moral values.” (54:47)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On This Cycle vs. Previous Ones
  • “This is the real institutional cycle. I don't think retail is really in this market yet.” —Tuur (03:51)
• On Whale Behavior
  • “Whales are just stoically holding and we have seen a few spikes down, but no moves really above 100,000 in the past six to nine months.” —Tuur (04:42)
• On Uncertainty:
  • “If there's one thing I've learned in bitcoin, it's when you make a really simple… decision like that … it always finds a way to prove you wrong.” —Preston (08:42)
• On Nationalization:
  • “The story is we’re partners now... if a Bolivian government had done that, we would be like, this is confiscation, this is nationalization of the industry.” —Tuur (21:06)
• On Fiat as a Ponzi:
  • “Yeah, it is [a Ponzi], in my opinion.... There's just more debt than can ever be serviced. So the only way to keep doing it is to extend M2 until you hit a wall…” —Tuur (28:00)
• On Bitcoin’s Morality:
  • “It has to be a collaborative effort... there was an indifference towards universal moral values... the cypherpunk … was a really moral project.” —Tuur (52:49–54:47)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Start & Context: [00:00-02:04]
• Cycle Analysis & Absence of Mania: [02:04–04:20]
• Whale Behavior & On-Chain Metrics: [04:20–08:42]
• Risks of Custodial Confiscation: [15:32–23:05]
• Fiat System as Ponzi | International Debt: [28:00–31:36]
• Bitcoin vs. Gold Discussion: [32:04–34:49]
• Bitcoin vs. Crypto, Conflation Concerns: [38:15–41:30]
• Lightning Network & Scaling: [43:46–45:55]
• AI, Growth Centers, and Industry Disruption: [46:16–52:24]
• Bitcoin’s Impact on Global Conflict: [52:49–54:47]

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Conclusion & Resources

Tuur Demeester remains optimistic about Bitcoin’s role as a positive force—both technologically and ethically. The episode warns of complacency, urges listeners to “pay attention to custodial risks,” and highlights the unprecedented opportunity posed by the next phase of global wealth redistribution.

Action Items:

• Read Tuur’s 2025 Report: How to Position Yourself for the Bitcoin Boom in 2025 (see show notes for link)
• Follow Tuur Demeester: @TuurDemeester on X
• Subscribe & Explore Show Notes: The Investors Podcast website

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A must-listen episode for Bitcoiners, macro watchers, and thoughtful investors navigating the uncertainties of a financial system in transition.

Transcript

[Preston P.]

You are listening to tip.

[Preston Pysh]

Hey everyone. Welcome to this Wednesday's release of the Bitcoin Fundamentals podcast. Today I'm joined once again by legendary investor and bitcoiner Tur Demister, someone I've been talking about bitcoin with since all the way back to 2016. Tor just dropped a new report titled how to position yourself for the bitcoin boom in 2025 and it's a must read. We dive deep into what's really happening in this current cycle, from the absence of a speculative mania to to how institutions are moving in and why this might be the true institutional bull run. We also explore critical risks like potential custodial confiscation by governments and long term implications of AI and just the monetary reset in general. This is one you won't want to miss. So sit back, relax and I hope you guys enjoy the show.

[Preston P.]

Celebrating 10 years, you are listening to Bitcoin Fundamentals by the Investors Podcast Network. Now for your host, Preston P.

[Preston Pysh]

Hey everyone. Welcome to this week's show. I have the one and only Tur Demeaster back on the podcast. Tur, I think we've been recording shows about bitcoin and this entire space since I don't even know, 2016. 2016.

[Tur Demister]

I want to say 2016.

[Preston Pysh]

Yeah, yeah. Maybe even 2015, I don't know. But it's been a long time. So great to have you back. I've learned so much from you through the years and now is no different. And you have a new report that you just published. How to Position Yourself for the bitcoin boom in 2025. This is a free download that people will have a link in the show notes that if people want to download this and read it, it is amazing. It's about 24 pages. You go into depth. We're going to cover a lot of that on the show. But yeah. What was the impetus for writing yet another banger of a report?

[Tur Demister]

Yeah, I'm glad you like it. Well, it was twofold. One, it was. @ some point we were just talking, you know, I worked with Unchained here in Austin and we were just talking about our general collaboration and doing some events and things like that. And they were like asking like, oh, have you considered writing a new report? And I was like, oh, actually not, because I always do them in the bear market, but give me some time and I'll think about it. And I did. I did have that feeling of kind of disagreeing with the consensus, which is usually a good time to put something out. And it Seems like there was a kind of a consensus that 100,000 is nice, we should be happy with that. Let's just accept it's a four year cycle, so we're going to go back down and we'll take some profits here and call it a day. And I was like, I don't think so. Yeah, I haven't seen a mania like it just my gut was like, I think there's a lot more here. So it was a great motivation to dig in again and actually look at the data and see what comes out.

[Preston Pysh]

It's funny that you start off with that because I completely agree with you. Having been through a couple bull markets, this right now doesn't feel anything like a speculative mania or anything. That is like the past cycles at this point in time from the having. Right. If anything, it feels somewhat bearish right now as far as just like almost like nothing even happened. I think for most.

[Tur Demister]

Even though the price has quadrupled in. Yeah, two years and a half.

[Preston Pysh]

Yeah. I mean the previous cycles always had this speculative blow off that usually lasted what, six to nine months where it was just the price was literally raging. 3 to 5%, what felt like every day for like six months straight. And we haven't seen anything like that.

[Tur Demister]

No. I think whoever's buying is probably like hate buying right now. Like they, they kind of feel like they have to own some and they don't like Trump. But you know, it's like you got to diversify somehow. I just. Yeah, it's not at that stage where people feel like this is the be all, end all answer to all, you know, all problems. It's not there. And we have, it's an institutional cycle. I don't know if you agree, but I think this is the real institutional cycle. I don't think retail is really in this market yet.

[Preston Pysh]

Wow. Yeah. Your report kind of starting off there, the narrative or the talking point is whales are selling. But in your report you kind of say you're not saying the opposite. But your report suggests that whales are holding rather than capitulating and signaling a mid bull sentiment. Talk to us a little bit about this and what metrics you're looking at that are suggesting that.

[Tur Demister]

Yeah. So the Hodler net position change is a metric I like to look at and it basically looks at all the coins in aggregate, but weighted for their age. Are we seeing net hodling or are we seeing net moving of coins which usually indicates selling. And so you see these spikes in the graph and usually in an early bull market there's just no, no movement whatsoever. Whales are just stoically holding and we have seen a few spikes down, but no moves really above 100,000 in the past six to nine months. Yeah. So you see those little spikes and actually in my video presentation, which was a little bit after the report, there was another spike down and that was that 80,000. The one that people were talking about 80,000 Bitcoin being sold, which led to a. I think it was only a 3% move in the price.

[Preston Pysh]

Yeah, incredible.

[Tur Demister]

And actually I looked up the Bitfinex hack back in the day. I think there was 160,000 coins even that, like, yeah, the market had a little sell off, but it didn't do anything substantial. So also, I think you have to keep in mind that there may be bitcoin whales that are moving coins not because they're selling, but because they're seeing the sailor strategy opportunity of, hey, if I put my coins in a vehicle here, we can now use leverage to increase our stash and for the first time in a kind of a. Yeah, an illegally legitimate way. So I don't want to put all my money on that. Like, oh, it's totally that this time is different. I still think that there is some, probably some profit taking among whales as well because they're accustomed to the four year cycle. We're above the previous all time high. Like, it feels like a nice time to. To do that. I'm curious what your take is because you're also really deep in the bitcoin space and talking to people like, why do you think these older coins are moving a bit?

[Preston Pysh]

Yeah, I don't know. It seems kind of weird that you're seeing such large blocks kind of come onto the market the way that they're coming onto the market because they're going to. It appears they're going into the spot markets, which for all intensive purposes means they want you to see that they're selling. They want you to see it kind of getting ready to be released and then wanting you to position yourself for that event. And that's kind of odd, right, because if you really wanted to mask this, you would do it as much over the counter and behind the scenes and as slowly as possible if you didn't want the market to know. So I find that quite head scratching. I don't have an answer for it, but if you were going to pick through the incentives of why somebody would be doing that, I guess they're trying to signal to the market and maybe go into some type of derivative to catch after the move to be more levered in the long term play call it, you know, a one year derivative or a two year derivative on the underlying. So I don't know. But it's very different. It's very different than what we saw in previous bull runs. And I think so much of it is just to your point that you made earlier. The institutions are here and Wall street is here in full steam and they seem to be kind of pulling out a lot of the playbooks that they've used in markets for decades, which is if you want to acquire the underlying, you do fancy stuff like this, I guess.

[Tur Demister]

Yeah, it's good. You make good points. Yeah. And it's true that we don't really know. I mean, I do think there's blockchain analysis that's fairly good, but still, you know, we don't really know where these whales are. So I don't know. What if you're a Chinese whale and you've kind of had some visitors from the government? They're like, hey, we want you to have a good future. But also we're looking to acquire bitcoin, so maybe we can work something out where you ostentively sell a whole bunch of bitcoin, et cetera, who knows? There's so many possible scenarios, but I do think in the aggregate you do got to pay attention to this. If we're going to see bigger blocks move, like two moves of like 200,000 coins, I think that's often a sign that the whales know something is up and. But I don't feel like we're there yet.

[Preston Pysh]

Yeah, yeah, I agree. And you know, it's interesting, there's so many people running around saying, well, we're here, we are. We're coming up on the point in time of the four year cycle that you sell your coins and you go away for a year and a half and then you come back. If there's one thing I've learned in bitcoin, it's when you make a really simple like decision like that or you think you figured it out, it seems to always figure out a way to prove you wrong and to change and to adjust. And I have no idea what to do right here. Absolutely no idea.

[Tur Demister]

Yeah, I think that's why I put out the report, because I have that same feeling and I was wrong. Back in the day in I think it was 2016, late 2016, early 2017 maybe were we were like between 1500 and $3000. So it was a new all time high.

[Preston Pysh]

Yeah.

[Tur Demister]

And had this like mental block. Me too. It was like, you know, I think this is too much and people who are ignorant are getting in. And I remember even selling, selling some bitcoin just thinking like, oh you never know. And then we went to 20,000.

[Preston Pysh]

Yeah, yeah.

[Tur Demister]

So. And I, I feel like there's a lot of like bullish predictions of like I guess the Samsung is probably the only one who has like very bullish prediction and a short term prediction. Whereas most people are like oh yeah, a million bitcoin but by 2030 and most predictions seem to be hovering around like 200,000 which is yeah, 2x from here. But we, I don't know. I just don't, I don't know.

[Preston Pysh]

I mean you get the blow.

[Tur Demister]

Happy to have egg on my face, you know, when it happens and, and be exposed or whatever that I was way too bullish. I do feel like we could tack on another 18 months possibly to this cycle, maybe eight to 18 months or something like that and have a real blowout. Because also the capital is now concentrated in bitcoin. Like yeah, there is an old coin. We're seeing that bubble up again. These coins in my opinion, but I don't feel like it's. People are so ignorant. They were in previous cycles. They know bitcoin is the game in town. And also if you have appetite for risk, go at it right in the bitcoin space. Any kind of risk you just is there for you. You name it, you can buy it. So you don't have to go to these pump and dumps.

[Preston Pysh]

Yeah, yeah. It just doesn't. There's no speculative mania that I'm seeing whatsoever compared to previous cycles that give you that big giant sell off is because people made a bunch of fast money. They don't really realize why they made it. They just followed their cousin who told them about it and then they bought in and it ripped 100% and then they sold and you know, that's the collapse of it all. I just don't, I'm not seeing that right now. But we'll see. You can see how timid. For people listening, you can hear how timid we both are. Having been through seeing a lot of.

[Tur Demister]

You just can't copy paste the previous cycle. You never can.

[Preston Pysh]

You definitely can. You definitely can't.

[Tur Demister]

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[Preston Pysh]

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[Tur Demister]

All right, back to the show.

[Preston Pysh]

Hey, you bring up in your report this risk of custodial confiscation by governments. And this is a risk that I'm looking at the incentives of the government, more and more spending, more and more, reliance on the basement of the currency. I look at the social construct of society and there's a huge population that literally just look at the government like, oh, you're going to print some money and just mail it to me. Yeah, that's what I want you to do. Without the thought of the long term consequence. They don't care about the long term. They just need relief now.

[Tur Demister]

Yeah.

[Preston Pysh]

And so the politicians that are representing a lot of this population that need the relief now, I don't see them looking at any of this as if they're going to rein in and perform austerity or anything like that. So with that being the setup and then you're looking at the world potentially moving to this new form of money and you look at the consolidation of the coins into the hands of institutions that are custodying very large swaths of this quote, unquote new money. Walk us through how you think some of this could potentially unfold. Is it a high risk? What are the probabilities that you're kind of putting on some of this? Walk us through it.

[Tur Demister]

Yeah, I mean, I think part of why this risk was considered to be so abstract and, you know, far, far away is that most people had a bit of, I guess they would underestimate the craftiness of government in terms of, you know, coming up with a narrative that they can sell to the public. Because the image was, oh yeah, Confiscation means the government barges in and it just kind of yanks 80% of the coins out of coinbase, puts it on their own account, and there we go. What are you going to do? We have the guns, you don't. And then people would be like, no, this is America. That would never happen. But to look at what Trump did with the tariffs. He wanted to increase taxes, he wanted some kind of VAT system like they have in Europe, but he couldn't sell that. He couldn't push it through the legislature, probably. But so what he did was call it tariffs and. But it's almost like the net same effect. He has a whole bunch of new tax revenues that are by and large paid by. It looks like it's going to be American consumers that are going to pay for that. It doesn't really seem like I could be wrong, but it doesn't really seem like international producers are lowering their prices because I think oftentimes they just have very thin margins themselves. They just can't.

[Preston Pysh]

Yeah.

[Tur Demister]

So, yeah, just to see how they pull that off and sold it. You know, it's just the reality now. It's been something that people would think was impossible six months ago, and now we're just living it. And then just last week it was like, oh, yeah, and by the way, intel got a lot of bailouts or a lot of stimulus money during COVID so we're going to take 10%. And initially Trump seemed to say, like, oh, we paid good money for it. It's a great investment. And now he's tweeting like, isn't it amazing? We got it for free. We just took it. And I think the market is a little delusional to pump in the intel stock, like, as if this is great news for intel, that investors are diluted and that there's a risk of even more of that happening to intel or other companies in the near future. I think that's just a short term, kind of short circuit in people's minds. But so, yeah, I think that's the reality. And so when you think about how bitcoin confiscation would happen, I think it could be similar where all of a sudden the government moves, all these companies are going to be publicly traded, so they can just kind of take stock in them and say it's a sovereign wealth fund they're building. And then what probably you want to do as a government is to try and use those assets as collateral to then borrow against it, because ultimately a government doesn't really care. So much about cash. Like they don't really, they don't want to be debt free necessarily. They just want to be able to service their debt, which means just issue more of it. And if you have, if you're losing credibility internationally in the way that you've always done it with the bond markets, which clearly is the case. Bond markets are, in my opinion, are strong and a strong bear market corrected for inflation worldwide. So you got to come up with other ways to do it. And I think also we have to keep in mind local governments can also start, you know, coming up with schemes like this. There's no limit. Almost the advantage of bitcoin, of course, is that it's highly auditable and you can move things around. So there is still time to kind of position yourself for this new reality. But I think you have to just, it's just another risk factor that you have to now really add to the list if you're a bitcoin investor, because I said this to Conor in a podcast just yesterday, that as well, that of course we all know the risk in bitcoin is not spread homogeneously. But I think it'll be the same for confiscation. There's not going to be a, I don't think a blank, blank out ban of bitcoin that seems impossible with the Trump administration, given how bullish the all these people are in the administration. But I do think certain vehicles could just have more risk than others.

[Preston Pysh]

It's interesting that you kind of use the intel as an example of how government could just dilute existing shareholders in a stealthy kind of way, then borrow against the shares through a sovereign wealth fund and most shareholders or the public or people covering it. I mean, I would think that your typical American wouldn't even really understand like what took place to be outraged or upset about with respect to something.

[Tur Demister]

The story is we're partners now. Like, you know, was government and the American people and intel. We're partners now.

[Preston Pysh]

Yeah.

[Tur Demister]

Whereas if somebody in Bolivia, if a Bolivian government had done that, we would be like, this is confiscation, this is nationalization of the industry. And we all know there's examples, there's studies of like oil companies when the government owns 50% of an oil company or a majority share, their production goes down by about 50% on average. Like that. They just.

[Preston Pysh]

Is this like gas prom as like an example or who.

[Tur Demister]

You have several examples. Yeah, Venezuela as well. You just kind of compare it to pure private play oil companies. And of course, because they have a board with market People, they don't have bureaucrats on the board. We saw it in Belgium too, like the government nationalized, what was it again, the telecom company and the postal company and even the national. That's a funny example, actually. The Central bank of Belgium had lots of gold and the government came on board as a partner. And so now even to this day, you can buy shares in the Belgian national bank and have a claim to all the gold, but the shares are trading at way below nav, way below nav. Because people don't fool themselves to think that they could actually pull that gold out.

[Preston Pysh]

You know, this is such a salient point because this is something that I've talked about on stage at different conferences and whatnot. But I've always left it very generic as to the government's going to eventually figure out that they're broke and they're going to need real money to pay for things. And I'm looking at this over here and this is a honey pot. And then it's pretty much end of analysis. And I don't really get into the mechanics of how they might actually try to pull it off. And what you're describing here just makes so much, doesn't make sense, it's terrible. But from how, if you're trying to predict or project what they would do next, this seems like a very viable path because it just kind of masks and hides the reality of what's actually taking place.

[Tur Demister]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's also new for me. Like I was like, yeah, I did write about the risk of confiscation. I just didn't really know how it would happen. And I think in general, yeah, you always want to look at what is the government doing. And then what if we extrapolate it, what is it? They just keep doing it. They apply it to different industries. And I wouldn't be saying this if the government had a 10% debt to GDP, but you know, it's six and a half percent deficit. It's a trillion, what is it, over a trillion dollars a year now that they have to pay in interest.

[Preston Pysh]

Just interest.

[Tur Demister]

Bonkers. It's worse than the Great Depression, literally.

[Preston Pysh]

How about the pivot from the start of the year? So when the administration came in and Elon was going to make the government efficient with Doge and all this stuff. Right. It seemed like, it seemed like they actually were thinking that they might be able to implement austerity measures and get the, get the whole ship under control and save it. And then it was what may time frame that it seemed like, they did literally a 180 hard pivot and was like, okay, like, this whole thing's going to hell in a hand basket. And then they really leaned into the genius act and like all this. And I know that they were kind of working on some of that stuff since the start of the year, but it was like they just kind of forgot about all when Elon and Bassett had their blow up and it just like the whole thing just spun 180. Like, what are your thoughts on some of that?

[Tur Demister]

Well, I mean, I agree with that analysis. Additionally, I do try to put myself in the shoes of the administration, be like, okay, what is this like, from their point of view.

[Preston Pysh]

Yeah.

[Tur Demister]

And maybe one of the things they underestimated is just how much of a. It's almost like a covert civil war that's happening. Like, there's just so much strife internally in the US there's, you know, on the international stage, there's the threat of war everywhere. And I think that's like, that feels very imminent to these people who are trying to run the ship and trying to, first of all. Yeah. Not sink. Trying to keep it on course more or less. Trying to not get overthrown by the previous. More like liberal elites, like, for them to come back and just take it over. So I think that is maybe in that sense a reality check. I also feel like, yeah, Scott Besant, it feels a bit like his confidence is just less than what it was like then. Well, we're going to pull this off. It's going to be great. Doge. The 5 million dollar. What is it called? Golden tickets that we're gonna sell.

[Preston Pysh]

Yeah, yeah.

[Tur Demister]

Million wealthy people in the country, all those revenue sources. I do think the story of the tariffs is kind of going pretty well. It's going better than what people expected. Yeah, I would agree with that, but it's not enough. Yeah. So what are you going to do? And I think for bitcoin savers, it's important to probably keep in mind that this is kind of a story separate from the bitcoin price. It doesn't mean if a government gets aggressive, it's not a world government, it's the U.S. government. 300 million people live in the U.S. there's.

[Preston Pysh]

Yeah.

[Tur Demister]

So many. There's so much money outside the US and you saw it with Roosevelt as well, when he confiscated gold. The literal gold price went up 50% in the 12 months following.

[Preston Pysh]

Yeah.

[Tur Demister]

So that's counterintuitive, but it can totally happen to bitcoin too, where we have a raging bull Market, in a way, it's the biggest possible endorsement. Like, what is the asset that they're after? It's the most valuable asset on the world stage. So it's a huge endorsement of Bitcoin, the asset class.

[Preston Pysh]

Yeah, yeah. At the beginning of the year when all this was coming out, I made a video back in. It was like probably January of 2025. And I said, this is literally impossible, what they're trying to do, simply because if they are like reducing the expansion of the. They have to replace them. They have to put. The whole thing is literally a Ponzi scheme. And if you're removing units out of that, you're going to get so much impairment across debt instruments that the market's not going to be able to handle it, but there's just not going to be enough money or currency in the system to service the demands and the flow of commerce. And it seems like they've figured that out. And it seems like. And you write about this in your report with the M2 and how Bitcoin tracks the M2 growth rate. And back when I was talking about this, I was just looking at the M2 and I'm like, hey, they've aggressively contracted on a global scale, the M2. And they're kind of at the limits of where everywhere we've looked in the past 20 years, where the trend line has to keep going up and to the right was where we're at right now. So, like, I just don't see it happening. Talk to us about this, this idea of M2 growth and anything else that you want to kind of unpack with some of those ideas. And I guess my question to you and all of that is, is it really a Ponzi? Is the fiat system just a total Ponzi scheme and they have to keep expanding it or else things start melting down.

[Tur Demister]

Yeah, it is, in my opinion. And you know, I really respect you and other people who go into the nitty gritty of like, you know, Lyn Alden and like really understanding how it functions. But that was that realization back in 2006. Seven for me was. Was the start of trying to find an alternative place to go and finding real scarcity, really, because yeah, it does. There's just more debt than can ever be serviced. So the only way to keep doing it is to extend them to. Until you hit a wall, and that's for inflation. And then of course, the debt gets washed out and you get a huge restructuring of society. Certain people, there's all these stories, of course, of People borrowing huge amounts of money in Weimar Germany and getting away with it, like just buying real asset just because they had the right connection, they made the right decision at the right time. But then at the same time, you get the mass of the populace who just gets impoverished, and that's a new problem. It means they get angry, they have very little to lose. You can get revolutions, those kind of things. And then the government has to try and find a way to keep finding revenue sources, just to try and keep the machine running, at least from a governance point of view. Maybe the Ponzi scheme is broke, but, yeah, you got to find a way to keep it going somehow. Or you just. You have a literal civil war and the country falls apart, something like that. So it's. It's very hard to. There's so many moving pieces, right? There's just so many moving. I'm also surprised to see how fast the international tensions are ramping up. And I think it is because once the Ponzi scheme comes to an end, all of a sudden you realize how weak you are. It means that even in the past, outside forces that were considered to be weak, like these gangs or whatever, all of a sudden they can make their way in because they're profiting off of your instability. Like in when Russia had their hyperinflation, it was so hard for Moscow to get even some revenue. Like, you probably know this, but Yeltsin did, like, organize a commission to figure out, like, why are the tax revenues not arriving in Moscow? What's going on? Like, we can't raise money. And what had happened is that. And this is way down the line, I'm not saying this is for tomorrow, but what had happened is that these provinces, technically, they were paying their taxes in kind because, you know, the ruble is worthless. But it was so hard to oversee all that that literally, like, for example, the province of Samara in Russia was paying taxes, quote, unquote. And what it was is they had filled a container with toxic waste and just literal toxic waste, like chemical waste, and send it to Moscow and be like, this is our payment. You know, deal with it. Or, like, you would have the local construction company and they would have to pay taxes. And then the city would be like, you know what? How about you guys build us a metro system? You know, just do that. And that will consider that to be your tax.

[Preston Pysh]

So, yeah, it's just.

[Tur Demister]

It's not the end of the world. But it is like, it is a difficult environment. Once the money is the blood of the economy of Course you and I agree. There's anemia, there's all these problems. And so once, once that really hits a certain critical point, the coordination becomes so hard in the economy and now in the world economy, it's probably the first time that we're seeing a fiat crisis on a global scale.

[Preston Pysh]

Yeah, yeah.

[Tur Demister]

I don't know the details about China either, but like they're probably going to run into issues with the yuan. Europe obviously is going to have issues with the euro. The yen is already toast pretty much. So now I'm seeing news that it looks like France is going to need an IMF bailout. The uk the same like that is.

[Preston Pysh]

It's moving out.

[Tur Demister]

That's acceleration.

[Preston Pysh]

Yeah, yeah, it really is. Talk to us about gold. You've covered gold quite a bit through the years. Bitcoin is still not breaking out to a new all time high against gold, which I think is an interesting discussion point. How do you kind of see the coming five years with bitcoin and gold and how it's kind of treated on the international stage with all this institutional adoption happening now on bitcoin?

[Tur Demister]

Yeah, this is a little pet peeve of mine and maybe looking back it'll be some kind of bizarre coincidence, but when I look at the bitcoin chart expressed in gold, I see these psychological points of resistance. You know, one gram of gold, one ounce of gold, 100 grams of gold, and now one kilo, a thousand grams of gold. We hit that point in 2020 and now five years later we're still at a kilo of gold. And so I do think we're going to break above that. Just because bitcoin is more provably scarce than gold, there's a lot more you can do with it. It's not as geographically constrained, it's more auditable, all that stuff that we all know. And so yeah, I do think it'll be very meaningful once bitcoin breaks up. In terms of gold, I think the next obvious target is 10, 11 kilograms of gold because, you know, 10 is maybe a psychological target or maybe like how many kilos is 400 ounces? Because I think that's like a good delivery industrial bar that's also somewhere around that maybe that's 12 kilos. And then people estimate that 11 kilos of gold is pretty much parity for bitcoin in terms of market cap. So if we get 11 kilos, then the gold market cap and bitcoin market cap going to be the same. So that would be an excellent next point of resistance where People just, they don't think it'll go above that. Maybe eventually, of course I think it will. But for the coming cycle, that's. Or for the coming 24 months even that might be an interesting target. So, yeah, I think it's very important to look at those graphs because, I mean, I don't know if you're into technical analysis, but it's just, it's become impossible to look at long dated charts expressed in dollars. I can't see rhyme or reason in them. They're all just going parabolic because the dominant universe is being destroyed.

[Preston Pysh]

On the gold front, I mean it's. Do you, I guess this is the question. Do gold bugs look at that chart or is this bitcoiners that pretty much look at that chart?

[Tur Demister]

I think somehow they have to, you know, because it just, it's been such a, like I said that 1 ounce resistance, that was also a three year resistance, that was not, you know, not a small potato type thing. That was a big deal. I remember, yeah, in 2014, people were really talking about coin at one ounce of gold. And this is important and meaningful. And I do think gold bugs, at least the informed ones, probably the movers and the shakers, you know, they, why wouldn't you? Why? Because they. That's been a tradition, a long standing tradition in the gold world is to express all kinds of asset classes in terms of gold and to look at resistance and support and those kind of things. So my bet would be yes, absolutely. Like maybe not every retail investor, but I think the long term, very dedicated gold investors are looking at Bitcoin in terms of gold. Let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors.

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[Preston Pysh]

So something that you and I have talked about for what feels like almost a decade is this difference between Bitcoin and crypto when it comes and I guess now that we have nation states involved and a potential adoption. Eric Trump was, I guess, on stage saying that there was some nation state out there that bought tens of thousands worth of coins. How damaging, in your opinion, is the conflation of the two for bitcoin's political acceptance moving forward?

[Tur Demister]

Well, I mean, the more they are conflated, Bitcoin and all these centralized crypto coins, the more you can try and sell the illusion that bitcoin is just another fiat currency and that it's the same thing and that anybody can just be a victim of the endless pump and dump and dilution. Because a centralized coin, it can very easily be influenced by political actors who do have the guns and the intelligence and everything. So even if you're like, oh, but you know, yes, we're 10 guys, but we're spread around the world like, it's not that hard for an intelligence agency to track those people down and say, hey, let's partner up. Kind of like how the mafia knocks on your door as a shopkeeper and be like, let us protect you. Protection rackets. So I do think these crypto coins are going to stay in existence. I think hopefully the separation is going to continue. I think bitcoin dominance is just so huge now. And I feel that people are seeing bitcoin increasingly as a conservative investment. And they're not saying that about Ether or Cardano or any of the other coins. Those are not conservative investments. So I just feel like that fits in the zeitgeist, where the whole world is looking for safety. Like, what is safe, what is permanent, what is universal, what is apolitical? And bitcoin fits that to a T. Of course. Now, interestingly, within bitcoin, we're starting to have that debate of like, hey, like, are these latest upgrades, is that actually conservative? Should we be doing that? So, but I think that's just a sign of the times that that kind of the speculative mania type zeitgeist versus the newer counterculture of conservatism.

[Preston Pysh]

Yeah. One of my frustrations with the institutions and Wall street showing up right now is I haven't seen or heard anybody from that, from those institutions really kind of laying out bitcoin from, especially as they're comparing it to call it Ethereum or Solana or any of these other things. They don't get into any of the tech or why it's more decentralized or why it's more secure at all. It's just kind of like a wave of the hand. Here's bitcoin, here's these other blockchains. We think you. And they're clearly incentivized to just sell product. They just want to sell ETFs that are rappers on top of all these things. And so maybe the reason we're seeing that is they're incentivized to just kind of like not really get into it because they have more to sell.

[Tur Demister]

But.

[Preston Pysh]

Sure.

[Tur Demister]

But then again, they're no longer. The Wall street is no longer the only game in town. Like they might believe that, they might want to believe that, but you know, look at Tether. They're making more profit than J.P. morgan.

[Preston Pysh]

Yeah, yeah.

[Tur Demister]

The new generation is here and they don't need to live in New York City at all.

[Preston Pysh]

Yeah, yeah.

[Tur Demister]

And so I think it's like to the extent that they will, you know, that Wall street will just continue on this road. It'll just be digging its own grave.

[Preston Pysh]

Yeah.

[Tur Demister]

You know, similar to how London was supposedly the financial heart of Europe and everything is happening from there. And maybe there is still that to an extent, but it feels increasingly like it's a kind of a pretend thing, like it's already gone. Like people have already given up on London. So, you know, New York has that risk as well. And I think that's a little bit of the Achilles heel that maybe Trump has is that he grew up in that environment. He has that New York DNA of just like deal making and whatever is moving. Like we want to be involved in that. And of course there's a lot to be admired about the entrepreneurial spirit doing the 10,000 hour type study of one particular platform or technology. That's usually not really part of the New York mentality, I would say.

[Preston Pysh]

Yeah, yeah. My frustration, and we talk about this on the show quite a bit, is just like when you look at the Lightning network and you look at If Bitcoin layer 1 is optimized for decentralization and security and not optimized for scalability. That's. And this is the trilemma that we're talking about here. The scalability is pushed off into subsequent layers that are above it when you do go to those subsequent layers. The scalability is the thing that shines when you get into the layer two. And it still comes with the security and decentralization of layer one. And so when I'm looking at all these stable coins, and we had Tether back in January, say that they were going to try to use, I believe, the Taproot Asset protocol from Lightning Labs to issue tether on Bitcoin Lightning, it's going to move faster it's going to have lower fees, it's going to have the decentralization of the node network and not four people running a quote unquote full node that's going to have tens of thousands of nodes that are running and having the reliability and all of that that comes with it. And so I'm looking at it, I'm saying long term, it just doesn't make sense to me that something that has better incentives would lose. I'm assuming you agree with that. But do you, and are we just impatient? Do we just need to give this more time for real world assets being tokenized on top of lightning being a better use case with no native token, unlike Ethereum, Solana, Tron, you name it.

[Tur Demister]

Well, there's probably a bit of, you know, there's a test phase that kind of needs to happen. And I think there was a little bit of overexcitement maybe early on about lightning. I think it was not realistic to think that everybody would just run a lightning node and do it well enough to keep doing it. Similar to maybe early on people thought anyone is just going to run an email server, their own email server in their basement. So yeah, you need to kind of build that infrastructure. It does seem maybe that lightning needs to be interoperable with one or more other protocols to really become like that performing juggernaut. And that also takes time to do it well. We need people that have the knowledge and the risk appetite to invest in those companies and make it happen. So I'm not surprised. It's been, I think 2016 was the lighting paper maybe. So I'm not surprised. It's been nine years also because the real trunk of Bitcoin is that store of value property. Like that is the real kind of the root, the strong foundation of it all. And then the branches and the leaves, like that's more retail, that's more of that high speed stuff. But I do think, you know, especially now that we're seeing the middle class is kind of disappearing, it's something that used to be very easy, like, oh, paid $20 for a wire transfer, you know, wait for four days for the money to arrive. Maybe younger people especially are not going to be willing to endure that anymore or just not be able to afford it anymore. So, you know, maybe those people will just kind of become bitcoin natives increasingly. But that's then also a generational thing. So that, that takes some time as well. Like boomers are not going to run their own nodes, but they still have the majority of the money. In the economy for now. I keep saying it, but their next year boomers are going to be between age 62 and 80 years old. So it's really kind of getting to that point where they're going to be liquidating, they're going to be gifting, you know, sometimes just to stay afloat, sometimes just to kind of do family planning. That's coming in the next five to 10 years. Especially if the pain in the real estate keeps increasing.

[Preston Pysh]

Yeah, speaking of pain, what institutions or industries do you think will be most disrupted coming in the next five years? Ten years.

[Tur Demister]

I mean, within Bitcoin or within Bitcoin.

[Preston Pysh]

And also I think when you combine that with AI, like what are we in for coming here in the next five years as far as disruption goes?

[Tur Demister]

Well, I think from the highest possible level, I think, yes, I do think new robotics is going to be huge. Like you just seeing what they can do, like really they can get into human environments and just take over. Like the work that I used to do as a job student in a factory, like, you know, you can just put a machine there, but at the same time, you know, they are maybe more vulnerable to supply chain disruption, those kind of things. Like you have to maintain the robots, you have to get all the parts. And then what if there's trade wars happening where you, you know, there's delays. Like you wanted to do business in Latin America, you, you were facing all those problems even in the past 50 years. So I think it's important to not be too rose, you know, put your rose colored glasses on too much of like, oh, robotics is going to solve it all. Especially if you look at the U.S. there's, there's so much stuff that is not being produced here anymore and maybe we'll lose access. So I don't think the boom in blue collar jobs is, is going to be stopped by AI or robotics anytime soon. Like definitely the next 10 years, I think we're just going to see more and more people get into welding, get into all these kind of productive production type jobs, maybe go back to agriculture to an extent also, because the core of the economic machine is just going to be focused on that more. Like people just won't be able to afford so much a cruise ship or a Netflix or those kind of things. It's tightening the belt. That's kind of the macro idea. And then. Sorry, what was the question? Oh yeah, the new, what new things are coming up? Yeah, I do think mining and AI is a marriage made in heaven. Like these data centers, like they can just switch from one to the other. If they're close to a cheap energy source, if they have political stability on a relatively around them, they can really flourish. And we can even see new towns, new cities be built around that. I think that's going to be huge. I think there will be new financial centers around the world. I'm not really sure where yet. It's a little bit kind of wait and see. I was looking into. Maybe this sounds a bit overly dramatic, but when Rome fell, wealthy people, elites, they had to go somewhere. And so there was a flourishing of this city called Ravenna. And like, it was kind of in the area of Venice, but it was protected by the coast on the one hand, and on the other hand the mountains and then also the river. I think it was the Po River. So they kind of built this city in a swamp. So very kind of unintuitive, like, oh, you know, it wasn't the obvious answer, but it just kind of gradually became the answer to these bigger centers. And so who knows where. I think in the US there's a lot of room. So who knows, maybe it's the Appalachian Mountains or maybe, I don't know, like, you know, and it doesn't mean that everyone's going to live on a farm or something. Like we could actually have cities that, that start to flourish in unexpected places. I'm just kind of open for that. That's why I've been trying to follow Argentina as well. Like, that might be an area where. Where a lot of capital could find its way eventually if they can maintain their stability in some way. I mean, people have been betting on El Salvador to an extent. I don't know how sustainable that is, but yeah, so. And because there's so much inertia with these big centers that are built around a different philosophy that I don't think it'll be very easy to just say we're going to revive New York. You know, we're just going to pivot New York and it's going to be, I don't know, there's just so much.

[Preston Pysh]

Inertia there that seems like the simpler, the more opportunity there is. Like.

[Tur Demister]

Right. Because if you want to be in from. If you're a bitcoiner, you're like, let's punt some money there and we'll see. You know, let the younger people build it out and then we'll kind of join them and. Yeah. And then specifically, industry wise, I mean, I've long been bullish on the insurance sector. Like, I think it also fits in that people want stability. There is that more conservative mindset nowadays. So how do you protect your family? It's going to be life insurance, deposit insurance, those kind of things. Very boring sounding, but an insurance sector that's built around paying out claims in dollars might not be sustainable if we're going to get 30, 40% annual dollar inflation. So I think that's really going to need reinvention. And it's already happening. You know, we're starting at the beginning of that. But yeah, I'm curious, what areas are you looking at?

[Preston Pysh]

No, I just your point on if there's natural resources, particularly on the energy domain, that's huge just because of the data centers and the bitcoin mining and just kind of what energy means at its core. Right. But you also have to have the policy and the government domain that's on the wrapper on top of that. That is wide open saying, yes, come here. Like, it's whatever you can build, whatever you can capture and kill, it's yours kind of thing. And when you look at cities that are very established. You mentioned New York. Right. I look at the policy and procedures of some of these cities and I'm saying they're, they are going to have a very hard time competing, I think, in the coming decade or two just because they're just not going to be agile to how fast all of this is changing and like, what incentives they need to be putting in place to attract the future businesses and what they're looking to do. And so I think the simplicity, if it's got a lot of energy and it's got a government with policies that are like, yeah, come on in here and do what you will. I think they're gonna crush it. I think they're gonna be really like far out in front.

[Tur Demister]

And I think Singapore has been a great example. Something that that's already been shown and proven. Yeah, when entrepreneurs would come to Singapore, they'll be so surprised that like all of a sudden you get a visit from the government and it's not like, you know, how can we extract all the possible value out of you? But it's more like, what can we do for you? How can we help you? What do you need? We want you here. They would, even the Singapore government, they would travel abroad and like have these diplomatic missions. I remember early on visiting Cathie Wood in her little New York office. This is like before they blew up and she had to cut short my meeting because she was meeting the Singapore Sovereign Wealth Fund who were like coming.

[Preston Pysh]

To visit yeah, yeah, they're out there doing outreach. Right, yeah, because it's a young.

[Tur Demister]

That's the thing. It's a young place. You know, like, the founders are still alive.

[Preston Pysh]

Yeah, yeah, right, Yeah. I think that's going to be huge. Hey, so at the end of your report, you compare bitcoin to the power of the piece and you have this artwork channeling technology towards order and harmony. And bitcoiners are known for saying bitcoin solves everything. But in this case, do you genuinely believe bitcoin can reduce global conflict or is this just inspirational hope?

[Tur Demister]

No, I do think so. Yeah. I really do think so. It can reduce global conflict. It's an incredibly powerful tool. And also it's going to be the stage for this enormous wealth redistribution that we're seeing. So we're basically going to have new kings that are going to be made, and then, of course, it's up to those kings to make it happen. Like, you can't just assume they're going to be great guys. Like, we're going to have to kind of try and be vigilant and because to an extent, it won't just be the kings who decide, like, I'm the king now. Like, it'll be because there is a critical mass of people who believe in them and their project. And so that's why when I look back at that edge from Vedics, from back in the thing, it's like the late 1500s, they don't just show technology and being like, oh, swords and the plowshares. And then we had this big furnace in the middle. The main characters are the virtues. So you see, like, fortitude and justice, and they're personifying the moral virtues that are needed, needed to make all that happen. Yeah, you see in the sky, you see peace and justice. And so, yeah, it has to be a collaborative effort. We're gonna have to, you know, to the extent that we're critical of previous generations of, like, they messed up. It wasn't just because they had the wrong technology. It was also because there was a laxness, there was an indifference towards universal moral values. And so I think that that's why, you know, trying to go back to the core or the origins of bitcoin, the cypherpunk, like, that was a really moral project. And so I think that's the rabbit hole to keep going into and. Or the source to keep tapping into. And I think thin libertarianism probably is not enough. Like, just. I think property rights are very important, but it probably won't be Enough to really kind of have a real renaissance, like a kind of a revitalization of society. But it's a fantastic start.

[Preston Pysh]

Yeah, I love when you put some of this artwork out there. You are a master at finding awesome stuff from the past to kind of show the correlation and being hopeful for.

[Tur Demister]

The future of a master than the actual artist.

[Preston Pysh]

But yeah. All right, well, ter, we're going to have links to the report, anything else that you want to highlight and we'll have a link to your Twitter account where you're active or your X account.

[Tur Demister]

Really. I mean, I have a couple episodes still coming out on my podcast, but I'll publish that. No, I mean, I think it's. It's just, it's still exciting to be in the bitcoin ecosystem and I think in a way we were often annoyed at these cycles. Like people are so ignorant and then they get overexcited. But still, it's been a great gym to just kind of use personally to not get overly invested in the price too much and try to keep a long term perspective. So I do feel grateful for all that. And then, you know, it's interesting how with the bitcoin development just to see again that moral debate is like, okay, what is bitcoin actually about? Is it about these financial transactions and storing them as best as possible in a very lean ledger or is it an agnostic ledger where we should be able to put anything? Like the tools that people use to debate are. Yeah, I mean, superficially it's all technological arguments, but ultimately it's about that moral argument of like, okay, what is this really about? What is the higher goal of this entire project? So that's just very fascinating still and important.

[Preston Pysh]

Yeah, yeah, we'll have links to the things that we mentioned there in the show notes. Tur, thank you so much for making time and I obviously look forward to the next time we can chat.

[Tur Demister]

Always a pleasure, Preston, Always a pleasure.

[Preston P.]

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