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BTC255: Bitcoin Is For Everyone w/ Natalie Brunell (Bitcoin Podcast)
01:00:13
Preston and Natalie discuss her book Bitcoin is for Everyone, a concise, accessible guide to Bitcoin’s relevance in today’s world.
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- [00:01]
Preston Pysh (Host Intro)
You're listening to tip.
- [00:03]
Preston Pysh (Host)
Hey, everyone. Welcome to this Wednesday's release of the Bitcoin Fundamentals podcast. Today we're diving into a book that I think will serve as one of the best entry points for anyone trying to understand Bitcoin's role in fixing our financial system. I'm joined by journalist and educator Natalie Brunel, whose new book, Bitcoin Is for Everyone does something extremely difficult. It organizes a complex, messy set of economic problems into a clear, accessible framework that anyone can grasp. We talk about why the current financial system feels broken, how inflation and debt distort everyday life, and why Bitcoin offers a creditable alternative grounded in fairness, property rights, and real value. Natalie draws on years of investigative reporting, hundreds of interviews, and a front row view into how the incentives of the system actually work. It's a focused, highly informative conversation and one of the best introductions to Bitcoin's why that you'll find this is surely an episode you won't want to miss. Natalie is incredible and somebody that is just so clear in the way that she communicates, and I have no doubt you guys are going to enjoy this interview.
- [01:12]
Preston Pysh (Host Intro)
Celebrating 10 years, you are listening to Bitcoin Fundamentals by the Investors Podcast Network. Now for your host, Preston Pysh.
- [01:30]
Preston Pysh (Host)
Hey, everyone. Welcome to the show. I'm here with the one and only Natalie Brunel, who has a new book out. Bitcoin Is for Everyone. I did the audible version of this and Natalie, I want to start here. The thing that I loved about the book, especially the audible version, was that you read it. You didn't hire somebody to do this. You took the time and read the whole thing and you did an amazing job. And on top of that, the book is exemplary. And I truly mean this. You can tell I've read a lot of books in my day and, and this book is so good. You do an amazing job. Just kind of like the. The organization of it. I mean, everybody knows your. Your superpower is to be able to compress like crazy amounts of information into much more digestible sound bites. And you do this in book form in a way that you cover so much ground, but you do it in such a concise and efficient way that for me, as far as books that I hand out to family and friends, like, this is at the top of the list. It was so well done. I really, really mean this. So bravo. Kudos to you because I couldn't imagine how hard this was to piece together.
- [02:44]
Natalie Brunel (Guest, Author and Journalist)
Well, thank you so, so much, Preston. All right, put up your QR code. Where do I send the bitcoin that we talked about? Now, I really, truly. That means the world coming from, because you're someone who I've looked up to for so long. It's an honor to be on your show. I'm a long, long, long, long, long time listener. You've taught me so much. So thank you. That's just such an honor to hear from you.
- [03:04]
Preston Pysh (Host)
Okay, so here's where I want to start. And it might not be in an area that you're expecting. I get this sense that, and I don't know this. I know you personally, and I have met your mother very shortly when I was in St. Louis. And I get this sense that you're, like, carrying on this dream that she has had, not just for you, but you're carrying it on in a much bigger theme and a broader theme of hope and this American dream that I think for you as a girl growing up and you talk about this in your book, that you saw this, your mom had this vision of hope and prosperity by coming to America. And then when you were in your teens, this was, like, shattered right before your eyes. And it seems that you're, like, carrying on this mission that she had instilled in your family, but you're doing it on a national level and trying to bring hope to other people. And bitcoin is the talking point as the solution. But you're doing an amazing job at defining the problem of, like, why that hope wasn't there. Is that what you're really doing? Because until I read your book, I never, like, pieced that together or saw that from you until I was able to kind of read it on the pages.
- [04:23]
Natalie Brunel (Guest, Author and Journalist)
Well, that's interesting to hear from you, because I do think that my mom made the biggest impression on me of anyone in the world. And that started very young because I just watched her work so, so, so hard and dream so, so, so big. But it was almost as if she was dreaming for her children. Because, you know, by the time you reach your late 30s, early 40s, and I'm around the age that my mom actually decided to come to the US or was finally able to, and not a lot of people would take that chance and make all those sacrifices to say, you know what? I'm going to just move. I don't know the language. I'm going to pick up everything I have and start over from scratch. And I don't know what's going to happen. I have no certainty, but I'm going to do it. Because this will offer a better life for my kids. It was so selfless. So watching my parents work as hard as they did growing up and the conditions that we sort of lived in, where my parents were willing to sleep on the sofa and my brother and I had our rooms because we were living in a small apartment, and they, you know, crack of dawn, getting up to scrape the car of the. Of the snow in Chicago and getting home late, I was just like, wow, this. This sacrifice is something that I can't take for granted. And so I always wanted to work to justify all the sacrifices they made. I think that that was my driving force. And so it's funny, because if you read the book, too, you'll see I kind of struggled in terms of they wanted me to become a doctor or a lawyer or work in government because they associated all of those with economic stability. And here I am saying, I want to work in television. Hey, mom and dad, I'm going to Hollywood. And I think that normal parents might say, hey, that's probably not the best decision. That's a little risky. And my mom was like, you know what? Go do that. Go dream big. You can do it. You can make anything happen. She just really represented this idea that the American dream stands for, which is that you can do anything, coming from any background, if you just work hard, if you get an education, if you're a good person, just go for it. So that has carried with me, and I think that that promise has died for a lot of people, or they think that it's dead. And that's why I think Bitcoin is so imperative for everyone to study, because it restored my hope, it restored my belief in not just the American Dream, but really this universal one that I think breaks all the divides and, you know, the differences among us. We all need a sense of hope for the future.
- [06:43]
Preston Pysh (Host)
Why did they initially go to Chicago?
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Natalie Brunel (Guest, Author and Journalist)
Because everyone from Poland comes to Chicago. It has this massive community. So the way that my parents were finally able to come is because of my mom's brother. So he married an American, and he came out earlier, and then there's an application process. So we came out. I was 5 years old, and then I had to wait another 13 years to become a citizen. So I was 18 years old just in time for college when I got my citizenship. I had my alien registration card until then.
- [07:15]
Preston Pysh (Host)
Why did it take that long?
- [07:16]
Natalie Brunel (Guest, Author and Journalist)
Because that's how long the immigration process takes. I mean, there are so, so many things I wish I could fix about the immigration system. But, yeah, we Waited in line for a very, very, very long time. And, you know, until you become a citizen, you, at least at the time in the 90s, like my brother, for example, he didn't qualify for grants or scholarships when he was going to school. Things were really, really tough for him. That's why I've always felt like I. I felt guilty in a weird way because I was lucky. I was five. I assimilated very quickly. I learned the language very quickly for my parents and for my brother, because my brother was older. He was 16 and a half when we came. It was so much tougher. And so again, that for me, it was like, I have to make it. Like, if there's one person in my family that's going to make it, it's got to be me. And I want to help them and build on the legacy that they created and started.
- [08:02]
Preston Pysh (Host)
Yeah. And in the book, it talks about how. So you describe living in the apartment, and then it seemed like things were getting better for your family there. You know, after five years, they went and they were able to eventually go buy a house, and everything was kind of trending in the right direction. And then the great financial crisis hits in 08, and it was just like an absolute, you know, devastation for the family. And so it was almost like that trend of progress was like, oh, my gosh, like the American dream is playing out and this is working only to be like the rug pulled out underneath the family. And it almost, in a way, made it worse because it was almost like the whole thing was fake or a facade. Then when it was, you're right at this prime moment in your life where you're getting ready to go off to college. I think the timeline is around that point. Right after this, you were in college as this was playing out. I just can only imagine from seeing your parents through that and how much that kind of incentivized your future mission in your life.
- [09:05]
Natalie Brunel (Guest, Author and Journalist)
Well, you described it. I mean, rug pull is exactly what happened and what it felt like for millions of Americans around the country, because like I said before, my parents played by all the rules, and then suddenly they were filing for bankruptcy. My dad had had a good job. He was an electrician. My mom actually worked for a bank, but then she wanted to start her own business, and it all just so quickly fell apart. My parents are. I've heard a lot of immigrant parents be similar in this way, that they were filled with so much shame. They didn't even want to share how bad it was, but I could. And it really devastated Me, and I saw where the world was going and I graduated into that recession, and I thought, where is the American dream? Where is this promise that, oh, you go to the school, you get the good grades, and where's that job waiting for me so that I can pay off my student loan debt? And it wasn't there. And I think that really did spark a fire in me to want to become an investigative journalist, because, as you know, in the wake of the great financial crisis, the Occupy Wall street movement quickly rose up. And I really resonated with it. I thought, absolutely, we do. Why are there some people at top who have made so, so, so much money? And the average person that has been productive and paid their taxes and they just wanted to provide for their families, they're the ones losing their homes. But these bankers are getting bailed out. No one's going to jail. This is not fair. And someone needs to come in and fix it and maybe redistribute the wealth. And that's where, I mean, I look back now and I understand why people are crying out for fixes that come from the government, because where else is the fix supposed to come from, right? You associate these massive corporations with and you think, well, someone has to come in and regulate it or prevent that from growing and happening and empower the average person. I didn't realize that it was the system itself that was so corrupted that we had a monopoly over money that led to this incredible wealth concentration and caused the average worker to be left out and taxed through inflation. And until I learned that, I really didn't feel a lot of hope for the future. And I felt just as disillusioned by capitalism as so many people do today.
- [11:11]
Preston Pysh (Host)
Well, this wasn't in your book, but you and I have had conversations where you told me when you were working in the media space, in the news reporting space, how even some of the stories that you'd be covering were being somewhat silenced or just not being presented in the way that you're there on the ground, like doing the research and doing the interviews, and you're like, this person is an absolute parasite to society. But it's not being like the reporting and where I want to take the reporting is just not allowing me to broadcast that message. So I'm curious if your time in the media space, particularly where you were reporting in the past, was kind of just more fuel on the fire to for you, that there's just something seriously broke. Like there's something. I can't put my finger on it, but there's something really, really broke with the world right now.
- [12:01]
Natalie Brunel (Guest, Author and Journalist)
Oh, absolutely. I was reporting on all the symptoms and I was interviewing families that felt so much like I was interviewing my mom and dad. Just like, what is going on? This is really unfair. I'm working harder than ever. Why can't I afford? The cost of education, the cost of healthcare, housing was becoming so out of reach for more and more people. And so I could relate to a lot of the people I interviewed. But you're absolutely right. There were many instances where I would start digging and I would start following the money. And my stories were not able to always err because there were very powerful, influential people who had access and who I think that some of the networks did not want to scare off or upset. And so my stories, some of them didn't air. And that was very, very frustrating because it happened not just once in my career, but a few times where I worked really hard on some investigations. And those stories never saw the light of day or they were later reported on by someone else by a network that was willing to cover it. But again, it really does represent the overall system, though, where it protects the incumbents, it protects those at the top, at the core of that system, at the expense of everyone else. It privatizes the gains and socializes all the losses. And the average person is left holding the bag, just like my parents were. And it's like, this is not capitalism. This is not representative of the American dream. We need something that's going to address and strike at the heart of that corruption. And I didn't realize that the solution actually did exist, which is bitcoin. And so when I did finally come to the conclusion that we have a solution that we can all embrace. It's the most accessible form of capital for the average person to empower themselves economically. That's when I started to realize this might be my calling. Because my whole background has pretty much primed me and set me up for this. Not just my family's experience, but also spending 10 years reporting and communicating and doing stories. This is what I'm now meant to do. I have to share and spread the message of bitcoin. Let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors.
- [14:05]
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- [15:35]
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- [17:46]
Preston Pysh (Host Intro)
All right, back to the show.
- [17:48]
Preston Pysh (Host)
So just for the listener. So the first half of the book, Natalie goes into a lot of detail describing the problem, and she does it from a bunch of different vantage points so that the reader can kind of see it from you. Talk to anybody that's a millennial or younger, and their biggest gripe is, I can't afford anything. I can't go out there and buy a house with these new interest rates. Like, I'm never going to be able to buy a house. And like, that's just like one facet of the general story that you're talking about, where, you know, people walking around, they all know something's wrong. They say, oh, well, it might be this political point of view or it might be this policy that's in place. And they're pointing at effects of the problem. They're not actually pointing at the problem. And what I love about the first half of the book is that you cover the problem in tons of detail, but you also show back to the legacy financial system as to how that is the root of all these downstream problems that everybody's experiencing. But they might not really understand what the source is. That's way upstream of all of it. And whether you believe bitcoin's the solution to these problems or not, the thing I really like about your book is you don't even really talk about bitcoin until the second half because you're doing such a great job, really kind of laying out the root cause and how it points to this breakdown of fiat money. Yeah, it was just so well done. And for people that this is the message that I would say for the listener is the person who is listening to this, you know, there's something wrong with the world. You also know that socialism isn't the answer. Right? Because that's the other thing, Natalie is so many people that would have experienced what you did in your past of all these problems and these effects, they're looking at it and they're saying, well, it's capitalism. Capitalism's broken. And therefore, we gotta try something different. Therefore, let's elect a socialist. You didn't end with that conclusion. You ended with a very different conclusion. So I guess my question for you is what allowed you to see a different path than socialism?
- [19:59]
Natalie Brunel (Guest, Author and Journalist)
Well, first of all, I do want to say I think a lot of people feel frustrated with capitalism because they associate it with sort of the, the greed that they think they see in corporations and the wealth concentration. But we really haven't had capital because capitalism means that risk is borne by those who take it. And it's not socialized to us, all the rest of us, the hard workers in the middle class, so to speak. It would actually be a very, very different system if we saw capitalism. We wouldn't have the bailouts, we wouldn't have the constant balance sheet interventions. We wouldn't have a system that essentially protects the incumbents and those at the core at the expense of everyone else. So I just want to say to people, what I realized is I didn't even understand capitalism because I thought we had it here and we don't. And you always do such a great job of talking about this as well. And capitalism is actually the best system that protects our rights and also creates opportunities for human flourishing and abundance and the most productivity. But you have to start with capital. And when the capital is essentially government IOUs from an issuer that's $38 trillion in debt. That's not a system that you can really build upon and trust. But we've created this mirage that this is the system. And we've created this idea that treasuries should underpin the entire system. It's completely debt driven. And that's why we have to print all this money just to keep the ball rolling. And it just gets harder and harder for the average person to make it. And so my book at the very beginning focuses a lot on just what is inflation. And I've shared before actually that when I was a reporter, we would share the CPI number, right? And it was kind of an afterthought. I didn't think about it at all. In fact, the years of 2010 to 2020 saw an average of less than 2% inflation. And yet all of these things became so much more expensive in that decade. The cost of homes, stock valuations went crazy, healthcare costs, healthcare premiums, insurance. And it's like, wait, what happened here? Because you're telling me that inflation is around 2%, but my cost of living went up 40, 50%. There's a disconnect here. And so I think it's important to help people Understand what is actually happening with our money. And the fact that the money supply is constantly being expanded is not just a problem, but it's something that you can see when you look across asset classes. You can see how stocks have just skyrocketed, homes have skyrocketed, but paychecks haven't. And so we need to recognize that disconnect and then dig into what's actually happening, because this is why the average person can't save for the future. And you might celebrate that, hey, well, I've been saving in my home. A lot of people have used real estate to create wealth or build their family nest egg. But have you really made a lot on. When you look at the money supply and how much that's increased? If you actually zoom in, have you just been treading water? And now you have to pay more in maintenance costs and property taxes. And when you go to sell, you're just going to have to buy another overinflated, expensive home that's not really worth it. It's like we don't really understand what value actually is. I think prices have just been completely detached from reality. And so I'm trying to break that down in a simple way that the average person can sit back like I did when I learned about Bitcoin and say, oh, my gosh, I had no idea. I didn't realize. And now I need to figure out a way to empower myself in a system where your money is a melting ice cube.
- [23:20]
Preston Pysh (Host)
And you do that in the book. You have an example with wine, when you're talking about the deletion, which is amazing. The one that I particularly like the best was this example that you provided with just like airline tickets when they've overbooked. And I think it's such a great analogy for people to understand. Well, heck, right now, like, we're watching the bitcoin price get crushed relative to the dollar, and people are confused and they're wondering, like, what in the world's happening? But when you understand this analogy that you put in the book, as far as, you know, plane tickets and it's. The whole credit system is just a bunch of promises. And to get to the root of the promises that have been made in this past cycle, you have to get to baseline dollars, which there's only a few of them, relatively speaking, in the system, relative to the amount of promises and credit that's in the system. And when the flight is overbooked, you find out real fast who actually holds the baseline ticket and who doesn't. And what the going rate or price is to get one of those tickets. And there's so much to kind of wrap your head around in this space. And I guess my question out of all of this, Natalie, is because it can be really frustrating from an education standpoint. Just like that idea that we talked about. You start telling people that bitcoin is hope and that it can be the salvation to all these problems. But then people see the volatility and they see all this. How do you handle those conversations? Because I think there's a lot of people that are listening and are wanting some advice from somebody who's had a lot of those conversations. How do you explain things like that to somebody that's coming with very surface level knowledge on the topic to help them bridge that gap of their lack of knowledge to where you're trying to get them to fully grasp and understand what powerful thing that they potentially hold?
- [25:12]
Natalie Brunel (Guest, Author and Journalist)
I think it's interesting what you're alluding to because I do say bitcoin is hope a lot, right? It's this antidote, it's this ultimate solution. But it's so funny, human nature. Like, you can tell someone, hey, don't worry, everything's going to be great, and they'll sort of just shrug and not pay attention. Tell them that the world is on fire and something bad is about to happen and you have their full undivided attention. And believe me, I know that really well from working in news, because if it bleeds, it leads. And it's like you can really sell panic. And I'm actually trying to do the opposite because I think the thing that people most need is a feeling of, I can do this. The future can be better than the present. I can make it, I can achieve, I can empower myself. And that's really ultimately the underlying message of the book is it's not too late and you can take control over your time again. And that's what I think is what money allows us to do, is control our time again when we feel this constant pressure on our backs. You've actually talked about this, I think, on my show before, or another show. I think it's led to so much of the decay morally that we see in society when every single member of the household has pressure on them to provide and it never feels like enough. Now you need three incomes for what you used to be able to afford on one income. And you see us getting more and more divided and negative online. And we all use social media, I think, as this tool. If you're In a great place, you use it as a tool to get more information and improve yourself, create businesses. But if you're in a bad place, you use it to vet your frustration and probably find scapegoats and find other people. Misery loves company. And we're in this very, very divided and I think just a place of mental angst where people just feel so resentful and frustrated of how far they've fallen behind. And it's not your fault. Part of the book is saying you are working hard. I'm acknowledging the fact that you have put in this work and you deserve to feel like you have control over your time and your future. And that's what bitcoin offers you. And bitcoin is in my opinion, the best solution. But it's really just representative, a good form of money that allows you to save for the future because it cannot be debased, because it is scarce, because it is divisible, because it is portable, because it answers to all of these defects that came before in other forms of money. That's the whole message is for the first time in human history we have a form of money where the average person can start to accumulate apolitical, globally traded capital, to start to have a seat at the table and plan for their lives. Their families drop their time preference. And that's what makes me so excited and also why I think that it's so important to share this message with the average person who feels left behind.
- [27:55]
Preston Pysh (Host)
In the second part of the book, when you're going through explaining bitcoin from somebody that literally knows nothing, to really quite comprehensive overview of how it works, why it works, why it's sustainable, why it's decentralized, all of those things. I had this moment where I'm listening to all of it and for whatever reason I started hearing it from like this outsider, like objective point of view, almost as if I would had never heard of bitcoin. And I'm just like thinking through how an outsider that's never heard about any of this stuff would just be hearing it all. Like the difficulty adjustment and the mining process and like all of it, it's a lot to take in. We're talking about it all the time. And to us, like your example at the beginning of the book, the fish in the water, right. I think for us we're in the space and we're super deep and it's just kind of like, oh yeah, there's a difficulty adjustment that happens every two weeks and blah blah, blah, blah blah. And with just like Second nature. But when you look at it from that first point of view, like you've never heard of it and you're hearing it for the first time, I would just think that, like, trying to cover the whole thing in the way that you did so well in the book was. I guess my question is, what was the hardest part to, like, explain it in a simple, digestible, like, organized way? Did you struggle with this part of the book when you were writing it? And if so, what was the hardest part for you to try to piece together as you're making it simple for. And trust me, she made it very simple for everybody to understand. I'm just curious if you had challenges as you were trying to, like, organize all of this because it's so much to, like, coverage.
- [29:35]
Natalie Brunel (Guest, Author and Journalist)
This book was the most challenging but rewarding project of my entire career, TV news journalism. I've been accustomed to writing two minute scripts. Two minutes is actually a luxury in television. Usually I'd have to say the full story in about a minute to a minute and a half. And so having 200 pages, you would think that that's kind of a luxury. But still, bitcoin is so complicated. I mean, people spend years studying it and it took me years to really, really learn it. So you have to come up with the right analogies that simplify it. And for the average person who's busy, who doesn't have a degree in economics or engineering, finance, you really have to break it down and distill it in a way that's going to make sense to them and resonate with them. So I feel like a. I'm standing on the shoulders of giants because I've read every single book in the space, some of them several times. And so I wanted to pull out the lessons and what resonated with me most from each of those works and just give my own spin, my own analogies to them. And also, I have to say, no one does anything great alone. And I had a phenomenal team. Maura Phelan, my book agent, and Allison Gustafson, who's an incredible writer and editor. We literally had zoom calls every single week where we pored over every chapter, every word. I mean, words are my currency in the communication industry. And we wanted to make sure. Does this word have the wrong connotation? Will people read it this way? This way? You have no idea how much time went into choosing every single word that really went into this book. And it was a very time consuming but very. Just amazing, rewarding process because I really think that we Got it right. This is the book that I hope everyone starts their journey with. And again, there are fantastic books in the space. I hope mine serves as maybe an appetizer for the bitcoin standard, the big print, inventing bitcoin, the broken money. But I just really wanted this amazing entry point that someone could say, okay, I get it now. I still have to learn more. It's not like this is the be all, end all. You really need to dig in more because some of these topics are so complex. But I want it to be a really approachable entry point.
- [31:42]
Preston Pysh (Host)
Well, you nailed that when I was done with the book. And I'm thinking, okay, so who does this apply to? It is the broadest audience of somebody that literally knows nothing about finance or economics, but you get them up to speed on like, the most important issues, in my humble opinion, that could be covered on the topic to clearly define the problem and then clearly define the solution that's out there. Like, truly, Natalie, it hits that perfect. So, yeah, kudos to you. It's awesome. One of the things that you covered in the book, and I really like this because I don't hear a lot of people talking about this idea, is that the energy is worth it. And you're comparing the energy expense that bitcoin has versus, like, what does this blob of a fiat system cost and energy on an annualized basis. As we compare that relative to bitcoin being a settlement layer. Talk to us a little bit about that idea and just anything else that you have learned through all your interviews and years of covering the space as it relates to energy and why the bitcoin network is worth it.
- [32:52]
Natalie Brunel (Guest, Author and Journalist)
So I love that. Bitcoin actually changed my perspective on and opened my eyes to the importance of energy itself. Energy is the currency of the universe, and I never really thought about it and how important it is and where our electricity actually comes from. Right. I mean, people conflate energy and electricity and we don't realize that it's what you mentioned on my show and what Luke Grohman writes about. It doesn't come from the light switch. There's a whole industry and process that has so many different inputs, and energy really is the most important. It's that first input that defines everything and defines so many of the costs of everything that we have. And bitcoin is tied to energy, and it is the one thing that nobody can print. You cannot create it, you cannot destroy it. And that kind of fundamental lesson, I think already kind of, you take a step back and you realize, oh, this is something that is way, way bigger than myself and bigger of a concept that I have to dig into because people can just say, oh, something uses too much energy. Well, how does it use that energy? And why does it use that energy? And when you dig in. And one of the things I share in that chapter is not only does bitcoin not even use that much energy, especially when you compare it to other industries, and I show kind of the pie chart of different industries, but also the way that it uses it actually moves us into a world where we can have more abundance of resources, of energy, be able to deploy electricity in even remote places, capture things like stranded or wasted energy. It moves us into a more energy abundant world. And we need energy. I mean, we see it daily. I think it's funny that now some of the headlines about energy use for bitcoin have faded because AI is going to use a lot of energy. And I guess everyone's okay with the data centers slurping up energy, but it's a reality that we have to think about these things. And I think again, you have to break it down simply to the average person because they'll hear these headlines and they get mad at the companies and they don't actually realize what's happening, what it takes, the supply, the demand, the resources. And I'm trying to connect those dots for people in a more approachable way, because as you can see, that's one of the biggest conversations right now. How are we going to not just stabilize the grid, but grow it, grow it in a way that meets the demand that we're going to have from all these data centers in an artificial intelligence driven world. And we're not there yet. And we've really put that on the back burner over the last 20 years. And we can't just wave our hands and suddenly build up all this infrastructure. It doesn't come from thin air, like the way that we can print units in the system. We have to build things. We have to have the skilled labor, we have to have the connections to the energy. We can't transport it. We have to think about all of these inputs. And I think so many of us don't, or they take it for granted.
- [35:37]
Preston Pysh (Host)
You talk a little bit about the human rights implications of this, particularly on the energy front as well. What was your favorite human rights story that you've. It could be from the book or it could just be from covering on your podcast through the years as it relates to Bitcoin and just the solution that it's providing.
- [35:56]
Natalie Brunel (Guest, Author and Journalist)
Yeah. I mean, two of my favorites are in the book, Farida and Roya. I loved their, their stories. They're such passionate fighters for freedom and empowerment. Roya, I'm sure a lot of people are familiar with her story. I've had her on the show. Alex Gladstein has written about her, but she was the first female tech CEO in Afghanistan and paid her female workers in Bitcoin and even guaranteed that they would not lose money on the bitcoin that they earned if the price was volatile. And that has allowed many of them to not just achieve financial freedom, but also just achieve freedom in the sense that they aren't tied to a banking system that requires for a man to open an account for them. They were able to use it, some of them, in order to flee when the Taliban took over. Again, it truly is a freedom technology. And that's how Farida positions it as well. She's from Togo, but she fleed because of persecution. And her family have been outspoken advocates for freedom and for democracy, and their family has faced political violence as a result. And she talks about how the government, it's still kind of a relic of colonialism, really, what they've done with the money there in the CFA franchise, where the French treasury actually controls the currency in many countries in Africa, and they can devalue people's savings by 50, 100% overnight. And that's people's times that just evaporates. You can't get it back. And so she's fighting for people to be able to save in Bitcoin, in a hard asset that can't be controlled by the government, and to root out the corruption that she's seen in the government. So these are very powerful stories. I think Alex Gladstein says it well, check your financial privilege, because as many problems as we have here in the west, there are so many other problems that people face in oppressive regimes and authoritarian countries with inflation crises and currency crises far worse than we've ever seen here in the US let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors.
- [37:42]
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- [41:11]
Preston Pysh (Host Intro)
All right, back to the show.
- [41:13]
Preston Pysh (Host)
One of the things that, I mean, you indirectly cover this through the energy piece in the book, but in your humble opinion, why did you not talk more about why bitcoin is different than all the other cryptos that are out there? I mean, again, Natalie, you cover it, but not in a lot of detail. And I think for a lot of people that show up to this space, they might be like, yeah, but how about dogecoin or how about eth or how about Solana and all these other things? I guess now in the interview, why, if somebody's listening to this and that maybe they like some of these other things and maybe they're very crypto y, what is your talking point to them or why is bitcoin different than these other things that you think is important to cover?
- [41:56]
Natalie Brunel (Guest, Author and Journalist)
Well, I think that bitcoin is foundational. It's just a transformative technology that once again, it fulfills the ultimate properties that make for good money that you can save in over the long term. And I really do focus more on the store of value, especially in the beginning of the book. But then I also expanded out to why it is also a great medium of exchange that allows us to reduce some of the frictions and the gatekeepers and the costs that exist in our current payment systems. But I really wanted to make a conscious focus on bitcoin. I specifically talk only about bitcoin. I don't give energy to anything else that's in the space because I believe that bitcoin is the solution. And I am for bitcoin. I'm not against anything else. And I think that when you start to speak negatively about pick a company, pick a stock, pick a crypto, you're just kind of inviting antagonism and you're inviting a debate that I don't want to take part in. If people want to experiment, I think that they should go on a journey. It's one that I think will end in the same conclusion that I came to, which is that bitcoin is where you want your money. But I just felt like I really wanted this book to be laser focused on bitcoin. So I don't even, you know, it's like that saying, like, I don't even think about you. Like, you know, I think about crypto.
- [43:16]
Preston Pysh (Host)
I love this idea of not giving energy to something else. But the only reason I bring it up is because I just see so many people that show up to the space from all these other tokens and there's just a Ton of confusion as to if I was going to argue with my own question, Natalie, and point to why you don't need to. It's. You do such a great job of defining the problem up front. And when you understand the problem, you also will quickly come to the realization that, well, in order to solve that problem, it has to be decentralized from government actors. It has to be tied to something that is scarce and desirable, like energy, you know. So you go into a lot of detail explaining the problem and what type of solution would have to exist to satisfy that problem. And you obviously pointed out at the.
- [44:09]
Natalie Brunel (Guest, Author and Journalist)
End, but, yeah, I don't exist in a fantasy world where I think everyone's just going to own Bitcoin, right? There are going to be companies, there's going to be real estate. I just want the values to come closer to reality. And I want the economy to be built on something truly of merit, something that we can truly gauge prices with, as opposed to what I believe to be a very chaotic mix of asset classes where I don't think the valuations reflect reality anymore. Especially when it comes to these stocks where we're completely untethered from earnings and fundamentals. It's literally just based on liquidity. And I think Stanley Druckenmiller even said that into the 2010s. It's like we are untethered. It's all based on what the Federal Reserve does and the liquidity in the system that's not real value. And you always do such a great job of talking about how there's really no more biodiversity and we see all these monopolies springing up. It's like we have big pharma and big food and big tech. I actually don't think that those would have as easy of a time rising up and existing in a capitalistic system with actual hard money, with something like Bitcoin at the base layer, because there would be more competition and you wouldn't just get to rely on your scale and access to cheap credit and your connections to policymakers in order to grow. You would have to compete based on actual value. And so I hate to look out there and see things like the fast fashion and all the stuff that's made really fast and easy and cheap, as opposed to a hundred years ago when things were so quality and we saw it in our buildings and in clothing and everything felt like it was more quality, right? And it lasted longer. And now we live in this highly fiat, just corrupted world where everything just feels like it has no real value to it but that a few companies have extracted so much wealth from all of us. And I want to reverse that and place it on its head. And I think Bitcoin's the best solution to do that.
- [46:09]
Preston Pysh (Host)
I've watched your arc of learning economics over the past five years, and I honestly, Natalie, don't know anybody. And I know the people that listen to your show and listen to you through the years can also attest to what I'm saying here. You have got up to speed on some of the most complex economic ideas in the past five years. And I'm kind of curious if you had to analyze, like, what helped you from an idea standpoint, like what fundamental economic theory or idea helped you kind of accelerate your learning curve the most or that you think helped you build a mental model that was so effective as you just kind of look at all the different ideas that you've heard or seen through the last five years.
- [46:57]
Natalie Brunel (Guest, Author and Journalist)
I guess I would have to say Austrian economics. If you would have reversed time 10 years and said to me, hey, so there's this thing called Keynesian economics versus Austrian economics. I'd be like, I have no idea what you just said. I have literally no clue. And those are the types of things I tried to leave out of the book because I did want to make it really approachable for the average person. But just this idea, again, that really does focus on capital and capital accumulation, dropping your time preference, accumulating capital so that you can use it for something productive in the future. That's really the basis of capitalism and the importance of property rights to be at the core of that. Because if you don't have property rights intact, you lose so many of your other freedoms. And so many freedoms kind of are second and third order effects from actually being able to hold and control your property. And so I just. I think I had to relearn all the things I learned in school. I had to kind of unpack it from a different angle. And I was always a really good student because my immigrant parents would get really mad if I got a B. So I had to get A's. But I never learned this. I learned history through the lens of wars and battles and empires rising and falling, but never how money affected all of these things, how currency changed how currency affected these things, the creation of the central bank and the banks of the different nations, like Lords of Easy Money and the Lords of Finance. I think those are the two books that I also quote in. Bitcoin is for everyone. I mean, those are the types of things where I'm like, how come I didn't learn this in school? How come I didn't learn the history of money? How come I didn't learn about how our banking system actually works? Because that actually does empower you. And so I really encourage people to read because I just didn't read enough. And then I went on this crazy journey as so many of us probably did. Right. I mean, you've known it for a while because you were an investor for so long. I didn't like, I did not read books about economics or monetary history, but when I did, they really opened my eyes.
- [48:49]
Preston Pysh (Host)
Yeah, you've been doing the show for a while now. So let's talk about one of your favorite guests.
- [48:55]
Natalie Brunel (Guest, Author and Journalist)
Who is it and why that is so tough. This is like a 10 way tie. I mean, you're one of my favorite guests. First of all, I always learn so much from you. I've truly. I'll share who I feel like just off the top of my head, who I've learned the most from because I highly recommend, recommend people listen to these episodes, including. I have some gems at the beginning of my show that I think some people that have started to listen to me maybe two, three years in, they don't realize that at the very beginning of my story, I didn't set out for this to be my full time career. I didn't even know that something like that would be possible. All I wanted was to learn about bitcoin from the people who I was following and studying and whose works I had read or listened to. I just wanted to hear their backstories because for me, I don't know if you're like this or any of your viewers or listeners, but I. But I've always found biographies and autobiographies to be incredibly inspiring, especially people who were rags to riches stories or overcame incredible obstacles. I love hearing those stories. I'm like, wow, if he can do it or she can do it, I can do it. So for me, I was like, I wanted to put kind of a human face to the bitcoiners that I was following. It's like, okay, you're talking about the money and you're talking about the technology, but who are you people? Where did you come from? So I started reaching out and I wanted to hear the life stories of you and Jeff and Lynn and Michael Saylor and all the people who influenced my journey. I wanted to know where they came from, what they wanted to be when they grew up, what made them realize that money's broken, what made Them realize that bitcoin is a great solution. And so I was planning on just doing a couple of episodes, like 12 episodes, and then calling it a day and returning to my news career. Oh, yeah. And then it just kind of took off and had a life of its own. I didn't realize that there was such an audience for this type of content. And then I kept going. And so over the years, I've had the chance to do more than 300 interviews in this space, which is just incredible. Amazing, by the way.
- [50:49]
Preston Pysh (Host)
That's a lot in that timeline. That's a lot of work. That's a lot of work. Yeah.
- [50:55]
Natalie Brunel (Guest, Author and Journalist)
I ended up leaving my job, taking a chance. I had no clue what would happen. But I've just learned so much from you, from Lynn Alden, who's so just thoughtful and methodical, and it's one of the reasons why I really wanted to send an copy of the manuscript to her, because I take it as a huge responsibility. Now that I'm on my own as a disseminator of information, I need to make sure it's airtight. I don't want someone to read it who's brilliant and has market experience and say, that's not actually how it works. That's not actually how it works. So she got something wrong. I wanted it to be accurate, even though it's highly simplified. And so Lynn read my book. Jeff Booth, who explains so thoughtfully this paradigm shift we're going through and how inflation and deflation actually work and what it means for the future. And Michael Saylor, who has just incredible experience running a public company and is such a student of history himself and can whip out an analogy or a reference from history like no one else I've ever seen. I mean, it's just we're so lucky to have these people. And that's why I've said before, I mean, if I'm wrong, I'm wrong on the right team, because you guys are all brilliant. I mean, I respect you all so much. So, yeah, I've been very blessed.
- [52:04]
Preston Pysh (Host)
The person I was expecting for you to say is Colonel MacGregor.
- [52:08]
Natalie Brunel (Guest, Author and Journalist)
Oh, well, he's my most popular guest.
- [52:10]
Preston Pysh (Host)
Oh, interesting. I see. I didn't know that.
- [52:12]
Natalie Brunel (Guest, Author and Journalist)
So I'm gonna actually read you.
- [52:14]
Preston Pysh (Host)
Do you know why I say that, Natalie? Is because anytime I've been hanging out with you, you have always brought him up. It's like, Preston, did you hear this interview with him? It's like, you really need to listen to his conversation. I think you would really enjoy hearing what he has to say. So I was, I was expecting you to say that and then I had follow on questions, but you said something different, so.
- [52:34]
Natalie Brunel (Guest, Author and Journalist)
Well, Colonel McGregor is my most listened to guest and you guys have very interesting connections with your military background and experience. I feel like he speaks to a lot of the things that you have shared as well when it comes to the military industrial complex and how hollowed out we are at this point, how dependent we are on countries like China for critical minerals and infrastructure. And we can't just build that back up overnight and all the trillions of dollars that we've spent on wars. And I just find it fascinating, two people who literally come from military backgrounds who say, hey, why are we going out and fighting all these people? Why are we spending trillions to kill people? We can actually create a more peaceful system if we focus on fixing the money, of all things. And so he read the book. Actually, he just read the book and so he texted me this morning, so I'm going to read it.
- [53:22]
Preston Pysh (Host)
Oh, let's hear it.
- [53:24]
Natalie Brunel (Guest, Author and Journalist)
He said, natalie Brunel's primer on Bitcoin is a must read for Americans who want to survive the developing financial crisis and come out of it with millions. Straightforward and to the point. This is precisely the kind of book investors need today. So I'm thankful for his endorsement.
- [53:39]
Preston Pysh (Host)
That's awesome. That's awesome. Yeah. No, on that point, though, that you're saying, I completely agree with him. I just don't think that when I look at military leaders, because I know a lot of them still to this day, classmates that I went to West Point with, I think they're just very delusional in the fact that they don't realize that the reason we've had so much military might is because the US treasury has been the network effect of the petrodollar system. And it gave us this huge luxury of just being able to go out and spend at will on anything and everything that we want. And if that regime is changing, you know, dollar dominance via the petrodollar system, which you and I are of the opinion, and Colonel MacGregor seems to be of the opinion as well, is changing, well, then your ability to go out and just buy anything you want is also going to change. And it doesn't seem like anybody. I was literally at a dinner with a guy a couple nights ago that is still in active duty service. And they do these exercises where it's called a spar, where they're planning out like 25 years into the future. And I asked Him, I said, so for a spar, are you guys, like, what are you guys using for planning purposes of your costs? Are you using a 2% inflation target for 25 years straight? And he goes just straight face like, yeah, yeah, that is what we are using. We're still using 2%. And I just burst out and laughing. And he didn't, you know, we don't really talk economics, this guy that I'm referring to. And he just. Why is that so funny? And I said, well, I mean, if it's 4%, like, your prices are going to be drastically different than what you think they are today. And if you're buying, you know, a hundred units of XYZ, like, now you're buying 50 units of XYZ if your inflation is that differential. Very rough numbers. But, yeah, I think that they're. Honestly, I think that the whole defense industrial complex is very delusional as to what the implications of the future money being. And the lack of firepower that they were able to pull from, pardon the pun, but that they were able to really kind of harness from the petrodollar system is very, very. We're not even getting into the fact that. That a lot of the raw materials and stuff are coming from countries that aren't your best friend.
- [56:00]
Natalie Brunel (Guest, Author and Journalist)
Exactly.
- [56:00]
Preston Pysh (Host)
It's crazy.
- [56:01]
Natalie Brunel (Guest, Author and Journalist)
Well, I really. I want to give credit to Luke Gromen, because Luke has really helped me connect the dots along with you about all of this and how we kind of think of the US Dollars backed by the US Military. Well, what's the US Military backed by? Right. Because we rely so much now on China and other countries when it comes to the actual stuff, the real goods that make the equipment that we need. And I love that he's been highlighting our lack of leverage now in critical minerals and rare earth elements that go into every EV and cell phone and military equipment. Radar systems, fighter jets, missiles. We're in a position, and I didn't realize this until reading his newsletter, where we can't go to war, we can't project the conventional power that we once did, because we're going to deplete everything that we have in a matter of 10 days, and we need years to build it back up. And so what does actually back the dollar? Because it seems like our military, the industrial, the industry that created all of those great things that once made us so powerful and so strong has been completely hollowed out and offshored. And we can't just turn on a light switch and reverse 30 years of what we have done offshoring everything. We've financialized the economy and we spent $8 trillion on foreign conflicts that have led to us nowhere, that have just inflated away the purchasing power of the average working class person. Meanwhile, China was focused on actually building up its industries and subsidizing workers to have skills like welding and electrical work and building up these industries and energy infrastructure. So they're now far ahead of us and they have a monopoly over refining rare earths. And I mean, it's just like, I think the hubris from our political leaders on both sides is just absolutely insane. And that's why I think we need more outlets that are down the middle. Really, truly apolitical. And money that's apolitical because both sides are just leading us into total chaos.
- [57:55]
Preston Pysh (Host)
100%. Natalie, the irony for me on the. And you're right, Luke has been doing an amazing job highlighting this, but it goes back to this analogy that you have in the book, which is this plane ticket. Everybody can understand this because everybody's had it happen to them at the airport, right? Like, oh, they overbooked the flights. They promised more than what was there in physical reality, which is the number of seats on the plane when it comes to the rare earths and all of these raw materials that are the inputs to. And this is the important part. These are complex end items. If you think do Department of Defense is building just basic trinkets, like they're building the most complex pieces of equipment, whether it's an F22 fighter or some type of, you know, complex type of artillery round or whatever, submarines. I mean, just think about the complexity of these end items. And when you take raw materials that you're already. You don't have the seat on the plane in the raw material.
- [58:58]
Natalie Brunel (Guest, Author and Journalist)
Yeah.
- [58:59]
Preston Pysh (Host)
Now think about the assembly of all the additional components that go into a complex end item and how they all have to be there. It's almost like in order for the plane to take off, every single seat has to be filled. And if there's one seat that's not filled, and I know this is kind of the antithesis of the previous example, but when you're dealing with a complex end item, you need all of the pieces and parts to be there to put it together or else the whole thing won't work. And so you're combining these two things together and it's a little scary, to be quite honest with you, where this is all going to.
- [59:35]
Natalie Brunel (Guest, Author and Journalist)
Well, truly. I mean, and now that I understand some of these more complex aspects of the shifts in our geopolitical environment and in our economy, really truly at the base layer as they try to print more money in order to finance these massive deficits. It's like, if I didn't understand bitcoin, I would have very little hope, like so many people do, because that's. I mean, you've mentioned it on my last show, right, where we're moving with artificial intelligence, displacing more and more jobs and people not really having the mental capacity or the skills to go back to work, to what, put together these little widgets that are going to go into missiles. Not to mention that those industries we don't have, the regulatory environment, that any of those facilities and operations would be easily built. Here. We offshored literally everything. We're like, go to other countries, produce it there, send it back to us. It's like, okay, well, now we've hollowed out our entire country. I had a guest on who I'm going to be sharing, Arnaud Bertrand. Do you know him? He's a geopolitical analyst. Very, very popular. He talks about even just one of the critical minerals, gallium, how that's like you'd extract a tiny bit of it out of an aluminum industry that we don't have anymore because we offshored all of our aluminum. So we would have to first rebuild all of our aluminum power, and then we would get a tiny bit of gallium from it, which is needed for a bunch of different things. And it's like, we don't have any of this. You have to rebuild it over 20 years. And how they going to do that? Obviously, they're going to have to print money and they're going to print to buy commodities and real goods, which means that US Treasuries actually aren't worth anything. The commodities and the stuff is worth something. So you need bitcoin to protect yourself.
- [61:12]
Preston Pysh (Host)
Well, Natalie, for the listener, and I don't mean to embarrass you, but I'm going to embarrass you probably a little bit. But for people that don't know Natalie personally, I can tell you, like, she's the real deal. You're the real deal, Natalie. Like, I'll give you an example. This past week, my wife ended up in the er and we were coordinating the show and whatnot. And she asked, hey, Preston, how's things going? I said, oh, you know, my wife's in the er and that was the end of it. And she was asking, like, how she was doing. And I told her she's doing great. She's back at the house. And by the way, everything's fine for the listener, but it was a week later, and these flowers show up to my house. And, you know, we got it. There was a card there. I hope my wife's name. I hope you're doing better. And. But that was it. And so we're going around the neighborhood with all of our friends. We're like, who sent the flowers? Because there wasn't a name there and blah, blah, blah. And so it was like, for a week, we were trying to figure out who these flowers were from. And lo and behold, it was Natalie Brunel that sent the flowers. And it just. You know what? For people that don't know you, Natalie, I've known you for years now. This is just who you are. You're just a total giver. You're somebody who's always trying to do the right thing for everybody that's out there. And it is an honor for me to call you a friend. And this book is phenomenal. Truly is. Just phenomenal. And for anybody out there, like, I'm telling you, if you have a family or a friend that's even remotely curious about bitcoin and want to understand the problem that's plaguing the world right now, this book does it in spades. If you do buy the book and you enjoy it, I'm telling you, if you want to help Natalie out in any kind of way, the way you help her out is you leave reviews for these kind of things on Amazon. It helps out a lot. She will not tell you that. I will tell you that. But, Natalie, bravo, amazing job. Give people a handoff if they want to, you know, learn more about you or whatever you want to say. But thank you for making time and coming on the show. And you hit a home run with the book.
- [63:14]
Natalie Brunel (Guest, Author and Journalist)
Oh, my gosh. Well, for Preston, thank you so much. I love you and your family so, so, so much. You're so, so, so kind. Thank you for welcoming me into the space. I remember when I met you in person at Safety's dinner. Okay, guys, wait. Quick story. I went to that first bitcoin conference. I didn't know a soul. I got kicked out of every event that Paula and I tried to go into. It was like, you're not on the list. Okay. But I did pay for Safedine's dinner because I wanted to ask him to come on my show. And I met Preston Pysh. I still have his business card. You were with Russell, I believe. Russell Okun.
- [63:47]
Preston Pysh (Host)
Yeah, the family.
- [63:48]
Natalie Brunel (Guest, Author and Journalist)
And I just introduced myself yourself and you said you would come on the podcast and so it's crazy to think of all that's changed since then. But I just thank you for always being so kind to me. You've taught me so much and I really look up to you, not just as someone who's so successful in the space, but also as the family man that you are. You have a beautiful family. And thank you for the kind words about the book.
- [64:09]
Preston Pysh (Host)
Thank you, Natalie. All right, well folks, you can find it on Amazon. Bitcoin is for everyone. Natalie Brunel, thank you so much.
- [64:18]
Natalie Brunel (Guest, Author and Journalist)
Thank you.
- [64:19]
Preston Pysh (Host Intro)
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