← What Bitcoin Did
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- [00:03]
A
Bitcoin is what we said it or what we think it is. If it is the best money, of course everyone's going to want a piece of that. Doesn't matter what political persuasion you have. There's something here for you. Doesn't matter if you're blackrock or the Fed or you know, anon cold card in your in your basement guy, there's something there for everyone. Every day bitcoin's around and not neutered is another day closer to that future. Even if adoption is slow at different periods, if we get through this fourth turning, if it's 10 years from now and we have self custody rights and it just keeps chugging along, I think that number goes from like 20% to 50%. Right? So in my opinion, not just bitcoin, like the direction of society for our lifetimes and our kids lifetimes will be decided in the next five to 10 years. Lock in decisions now disproportionately affect the future in a way that 80s 90s. It wasn't like that.
- [01:00]
B
Let's get into this. Brandon Quint, good to have you back on the show, man. We were just talking before we started recording. It sounds like you've got a new bitcoin article coming out. And this is the thing that we spoke about last time on the show. I've spoken to Fernando about recently the idea that bitcoiners gave up on this sort of novel philosophical writing around bitcoin. Are you bringing it back again?
- [01:24]
A
Yeah, I'm hoping to. But full disclosure, I started this essay in like 2022 and only recently when I saw the divisiveness in the culture and people lamenting what's going on, we're fighting, we're blaming the orange ties. We're doing this now. I feel like the essay, which we'll get into today here, I feel like the message I was trying to get across then is actually more relevant to the discourse today. And so yeah, we were talking over the last week, hey, what should we talk about? And we've been kind of riffing on these ideas and yeah, I think now is the time to bring it out. And to your other point, yeah, the Think Boy content is essentially gone. And to me that was the most interesting part of my time in bitcoin. Call it 2018-2022 maybe. You know, Gigi's coming out with mind blowing stuff every other month. Like the list goes on and I had so much fun consuming content then and I look at content now and I honestly, I'm pretty bored of most of it. Like, I don't listen to amount of podcasts here and there. Yeah, sure. I loved your one with Fernando, by the way. I thought that was a really good discussion.
- [02:31]
B
Yeah, he's awesome. But I totally agree. Like, that's when bitcoin was really fun. And I feel like it's got too serious, it's got too orange tie. Everything's sort of the financialization side of bitcoin. And the philosophical part has really been lacking. I'm hoping that you're bringing it back, man. So tell me, like, so you started writing this in 2022. What was the. What was the sort of impetus to write it then? And why has now, like, what sparked it to come back now?
- [02:56]
A
Yeah, the original idea was around the thing that I think a lot of bitcoiners still don't grasp, or at least I observe and I don't think people grasp, which is that the good things about bitcoin are emergent. The properties we care about are not defined in the code, in anything. They emerge out of it. And what do I mean by that? Like 21 million emerges out of the code, even though it's written down. But how can you trust 21 million? Because everyone involved has UTXOs, and it's in their economic best interest interest not to screw over their own wealth. And so if you trust humans are greedy, you would trust that the utxo UTXO set doesn't want to screw that up. That's emergent censorship, resistance. We could just lose that. Right? That doesn't come with bitcoin. And what Satoshi did was created a protocol with a whole bunch of different Franken technologies that come together. And what comes from that Franken technology are the properties we like. They emerge out of that system. And so that was the original idea earlier in the, like, the early drafts of the essay, was critiquing things like Ethereum. Right? Where I don't think Ethereum has the same durability in the social protocol or the social contract that comes with the protocol. However, now I think the essay has a new meaning and it's around fractured groups with different points of view. And that's totally fine. That is a natural state of bitcoin. That's the normal state. And then we talk about that monoculture period between 2018 and 2020, which I agree was the most fun. We're the counterculture pushing back. And it's exciting. Backs against the wall. We're on a mission. It feels good. That's sort of eroded, but I Don't think that that's a negative aspect of bitcoin. I think that's genuinely a growth phase. That is a phase of us outgrowing that small group of revolutionaries and attracting people that don't have the same political posture or the same things animate them. And so yeah, we had the finance, orange tie group and we have all these, you know, the ordinals, art crew, whatever, these different factions. And I don't necessarily align with those factions. I think that they're, they make my time in bitcoin less fun. However, I think it's a mature stage in bitcoin's development to see those non monoculture groups entering the system. Because if bitcoin is what we said it or what we think it is, if it is the best money, of course everyone's going to want a piece of that. Doesn't matter what political persuasion you have, there's something here for you. Doesn't matter if you're BlackRock or the Fed or you know, anon cold card in your basement guy. There's something there for everyone. And so if we didn't achieve this level of growth in terms of different factions, I think that would be a worse sign today.
- [05:54]
B
I totally agree with that. But there is sort of one thing to be cautious of which is that we don't become too apathetic to bitcoin being essentially neutered and co opted along the route. I agree that bitcoin was always going to be the Wall street tool. It's always going to be part of the sort of progress that it makes, but it's not out of the woods. I think bitcoin probably is the Trojan horse and isn't going to be the thing that gets neutered. But that's not guaranteed yet.
- [06:19]
A
Yeah, I wholly agree. I think apathy is the biggest risk to bitcoin. And yeah, there's a world where bitcoiners get rich and the protocol is totally neutered. And you know, when we tell our grandkids the story of the good old days, we're going to be telling them a tragic story where we fumbled the greatest opportunity to take money away from the state ever. And that would be a big shame. And it's not an easy thing to figure out, right? Like there's examples that we use culturally, like a third generation curse, right? First generation works really hard. They make lots of sacrifice, acquire wealth. Wealth. The kids of those people who generated the wealth observe the sacrifice. So they value the wealth. But the third generation sees no struggle. All they Know is wealth, and everything's easy for them, so they squander the wealth. Right. And we're sort of entering a similar scenario here with bitcoin, where as soon as you have FU money, do you really have an incentive to fight the state and put yourself at risk? And I think the answer is no on the margin. Right? So we do need to cultivate a culture in bitcoin that does preserve the values of bitcoin, the unique values of bitcoin. Because if we screw this thing up, it's going to be another 500 years of monetary repression and we may never get another chance again.
- [07:41]
B
How do you do that, though? How do you fight the third generation curse?
- [07:45]
A
I don't know. I don't have a good answer here. I've done some thinking on it. You can look to historical parallels, like, how do you preserve culture long term? You have, like, a priesthood class who learns the values, and then they protect the culture and pass the culture on. And you sort of have this, like, organization to do that. Right. There's been many attempts to do this in bitcoin, and they all have been catastrophic failures. So I don't think that's actually the move. Eric Cason had some zany ideas on how to preserve this and create, like, a secret society. There was the bitcoin foundation by J. A while back that. That also burned. And so I don't know if that's the right move. I think one way to do it is in modern times, we have memes, we have instant communication. There's a world where we just meme this into reality, and the culture around bitcoin absorbs the values. My fear with that is we should still be able to pull that off today. But it certainly doesn't feel like the last wave of adopters care at all about those type of values.
- [08:51]
B
Yeah.
- [08:51]
A
And maybe it's naive for us to think that they would. Right. And then it comes back to, what if we have no social power to preserve bitcoin? Really? And it. What if it does fall down to the fact that did the incentive mechanisms inherent to bitcoin, were they actually good enough from the beginning? And if the answer is no, that's going to be really sad. And, you know, let's bring in Satoshi quote on this one. Satoshi said, I don't know if this is like, the end all be all. I'm paraphrasing, obviously. Stosh said, I don't know if this is the end all be all money forever. But at a minimum, it buys us time in the arms race against the state. Right. And I think it's important for bitcoiners to think about that. Is bitcoin this like 20 to 50 year money and all it does is give us a temporary tool to evade the state? Or is this really money for 500 or 5,000 years that truly subverts the monetary hegemony? And I don't think we know the answer to that. I think it's the first money in history to have a chance at taking that power out of the state. But I think you're right to bring up these concerns. I think people feel the concerns and I don't think the average person who owns bitcoin will ever care about this. So we're again, we're ending up with the intolerant minority. And can the intolerant minority, you know, get this thing through, you know, provide cover fire to get this thing through the door until it's, you know, too big to fail?
- [10:22]
B
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- [13:22]
A
Yeah, I agree. I don't think that's the ultimate win. I think we would consider that a win. On the long arc of history there's this amazing blip where so monetary sovereignty is alive and well. But if we lose that, that I think that's still a big shame. Even if we, where do we put the odds at, let's say 20% chance Bitcoin's here in 500 years or 5,000 years. That's still the greatest opportunity in history, and we should not put our swords down yet. Right. Another thing we talked about, actually, to bring this up, it feels like the average bitcoin journey. You come in early, you're immediately enamored by number, go up, then you find the value set, and you're like, oh, I. I resonate with the values. I want to promote this. And then you do a tour of duty. You evangelize hard, you fail very hard in the beginning, then you sort of realize you gotta shill lightly. Okay. You adapt your approach, and then you do work. So let's say your first five years of bitcoin is your tour of duty. Most bitcoiners seem to, like, back off. Hey, I put a lot of energy here. I don't have the energy to keep orange peeling people. And so then you. You would rely on the next wave of people to do that work for you. However, the next wave of adopters, let's say in the last three to four years, they don't seem to have the same sovereignty value set that the original quote, unquote group did. And so are we just fighting gravity? Like, is that actually not a thing? Like, will they not promote the same values? I think we have to be ready, accept that that is true. Now, the counter example would be when times are good, quote, unquote, nobody wants to fight. But if the encroaching state keeps taking freedoms, keeps taking liberties. Right. More pain, then I think that more pain will. Will ultimately drive people towards sovereignty. And so, yeah, I don't. I don't have a good answer here. It's like, more pain does the job for a while. We can try to fight harder online to get people to see our point of view. That doesn't seem to work.
- [15:26]
B
I don't know. It's interesting. I mean, you're 100% right on the sort. The evangelizing bitcoin. I. I don't know about you, but I basically don't talk to anyone about bitcoin that's not in bitcoin. If someone comes up and. And asks me, like, a genuine question, I'm more than happy to have the conversation. But I'm. I'm not in the phase of my bitcoin journey where I'm like, talking to my taxi driver about bitcoin. And. And like you say, that's always been, like, ever since I came in, like, there was a period of time where I was doing that with everyone I could possibly get five minutes with. And then I. You just give up. It gets boring, whatever, you move on. But there's always been coming through doing that. And I feel like people talk about the last sort of cycle, last few years, not really having any retail come in, which I think is true. I, I don't necessarily think it's a massive deal. And I think the reason it never came in, the retail never came in is because we never got that crazy like euphoria, price action. Like that's what brings retail in the first place. And hopefully they become sort of community members when the price drops. But I, I don't know. I, I don't necessarily see that as a bad thing, but I can also see that the evangelizing newcomers are not here right now.
- [16:30]
A
Yeah, my honest take here is that the evangelizing folks, this cohort we wish was here, that aren't. My honest take here is that they don't exist. And what I mean by that is like the perpetual rabbit hole dwellers, which is how I would define Bitcoiners pre2022. These are people that go deep on everything. It's not just bitcoin. And they're also people who feel comfortable holding an opinion about something that's not popular in the social climate. And so that type of people, that archetype, I've done some Myers Briggs study. These are the intp, INTJ crowd. They're already here. And so let's just assume that ideological cohort already owns bitcoin or they already have an opinion. What's left is a large group of people who don't think like us. They don't take social risk in their opinions. They absorb the group's perspective. And if that's true, then us shouting about sovereignty on Twitter is falling on deaf ears and we should expect that to be true. And what gets that next group over the hump? It's when bitcoin is normalized. And how does it become normalized? It becomes, does need to become financialized. It needs to come from brands and names of people that are more established, that feel like consensus. And so maybe all we're going through is that like lull period where we have this boring financialization which normalizes bitcoin. Then next time there's hype in the market, you'll have the people who are fence sitters prior go, okay, the cost socially to adopt bitcoin is actually below my threshold. I'll put in 1% in my whatever account.
- [18:11]
B
That personality testing you did was so interesting when I first saw that. Because you've done this a few times, right? I Think I maybe first saw it four or five years ago whenever it was. And I was like, there's no way I'll be the same as all these bitcoiners. I was like ENTP, which I think was like 30% of Bitcoiners or something stupid.
- [18:27]
A
Exactly.
- [18:27]
B
Why is it that bitcoiners are like in these, in these, like intp, entp, these like groups which are very sort of small in general society, but so large in bitcoin. Like why is that?
- [18:39]
A
Yeah, so those pe, those folks. Let's just take intp, intj, you can swap in the E. Introvert, extrovert still relatively applies. They're systems thinkers, they're future oriented, they're technology first adopters. And so that's the type of group that will look at a system and say, oh, something's wrong with my money. What is that thing? Oh, there's this whole system, there's a structure around it. How do the patterns work? Oh look, the money is systemically oppressing us. Let's find a way out. Oh, now we're going to place a bet that isn't true today, but we think is true in the future. Right. So it's just the type of thinker that can wrestle with where Bitcoin is or was at its adoption cycle. And the app, let's just say the 2/3 of the Myers Briggs personality type people, they wait for consensus before they make decisions. They don't think for themselves, they don't look at systems or patterns, they just do the social consensus, which I think is a defense mechanism from our evolutionary biology. Like we essentially evolved in kin groups of like 100, 150 people, you know, everyone. And in that situation we, we lived in that social structure for the majority of our DNA's life. And because that's true, our hopes, fears, dreams, ambitions, all that stuff is forged in a society that doesn't exist anymore. And so what does that mean to bring it full circle in that society? If you're kicked out of the tribe, that's the worst thing imaginable because you die, your genes die. And so we develop this, this horrible feeling when we feel left out. And I think that that is just vestigial emotion from a prior era. And so layering that onto modern society, that means most people are followers because being a follower, not rocking the boat, was actually the safest way to pass on your genes. Maybe you're not number one, but you do get to reproduce. And the people who rocked the boat that push back on the leaders, they're Taking high risk. And so most people didn't reproduce in that setting. Right. High risk, high reward. And so I think that carries forward. And now a small percentage of people go against the grain by nature.
- [20:59]
B
That's really interesting. And I wonder how that changes over time when. When those sort of same consequences aren't there with your actions. Like the consequences are now totally different. And there's actually huge potential upside to being someone who thinks outside the box.
- [21:13]
A
Yes. Which is where like the weaponized autism memes come out.
- [21:17]
B
Yeah.
- [21:18]
A
In an Internet world, everyone's zigging. You do want a zag. Right. And you want maniacal focus on that counter narrative. And like all of Silicon Valley is based on this idea that you should make non consensus bets. Looking to the future.
- [21:34]
B
Right, Interesting. All right, so we've done a bit of a tangent there, but I want to get back to your. The article you've written. Do you want to like, lay out the framework for us, explain what it is?
- [21:45]
A
Yeah, absolutely. So, like a typical think boy, which I wear with a badge of honor, I learned something in the world that's unrelated to Bitcoin and I can't help but just ram it through my Bitcoin lens. So I was reading about the Native American group known as the Apache Indians. They settled in the Southwest of the US and they just have this incredible history, incredible story, and their social organization, they're a decentralized group. They don't have leaders. They break into small groups and they cooperate together if there's a big battle or they want to trade or something like that. So I started seeing these parallels. Then I start reading books and books on the Apache, and I'm just obsessed with this group. And out of that came a very long essay exploring Bitcoin through this lens. So I'm going to give a couple history, a couple little fun things to wet the whistle. And then we can go down in the more clinical analysis here. But the story starts with Hernando Cortez, who would was a Spanish conquistador. They were exploring the New World, the Americas, and he showed up to modern day Mexico, took his horses to Tenochtitlan, which is now Mexico City, where the Mayans had their empire. And he shows up with horses and he demands all the gold. And this is an enormous civilization, over a million people, very advanced aqueducts, all this stuff. And Cortez showed up right to the capitol, went to the leader and essentially sacked the city with like a couple hundred men on horses and armor, and boom. This empire for thousands of years is Gone.
- [23:22]
B
How did he do that with a couple hundred people?
- [23:24]
A
Well, he. He talked to the leader. The leader was arrogant. The leader let him in. They wanted to have a conversation with these crazy magic people from another part of the world. And he essentially got himself stuck in. In the palace. And they're like, hey, we want the gold. Now we're in charge. And that was it. So the takeaway there is a centralized organization has a leverage point, a choke point, which can be exploited. So superior technology, small group, exploit the leader, civilization falls. Right then Hernando Cortez with his soldiers went north and he stumbled into the Apaches. Okay? He's like, oh, these are our primitive people. No roads, no aqueducts, no big temples. This should be easy. And unfortunately, Hernando Cortez realized that these Apache don't play by the same rules. They were separate groups. So they went and got the leader killed. The leader, they're like, oh, this is done. And then they realize that the leader's gone. And now the group fractures into two. And they're doing these like, hit and run type things. You go to sleep, they steal all your horses. You're on the road up through the mountain pass and you get ambushed, right? So they had superior knowledge of the local terrain, and they had a decentralized social hierarchy that made it hard to stop. Okay, fast forward. A few years later, Mexico gets their independence. And Mexico is trying to reclaim the Apache territory. And they go out there for 50 or 100 years. They can't stop the Apache either, so they just give up and they secede the territory. Okay? Now the US is progressing west, and the US starts bumping into the Apache again. 50 to 100 years. They can't stop them either. They're getting so frustrated.
- [25:05]
B
But.
- [25:06]
A
And what ultimately took down the Apache. And this is sort of like a. I want to caveat this. This isn't like the established historical narrative. If you read a textbook on the Apache, they give you all these different reasons and how they ultimately fell. But the takeaway here, which at least some people believe, is that the US Said, okay, we can't fight them head on. Instead, we're going to try to subvert them from the inside. So they gave the Apache leaders who are only. They're not like, they don't have power in the leadership. It's like strong warrior wants to go fight and people follow him, right? It's sort of like that. So it's like a reputation based. Follow whoever you want. Groups are fluid. They would break apart, come together. And that was Their strength, essentially. So what the US did was they gave them a hundred cows. So here's a hundred head of cattle, which is a lot of wealth, okay? Then the leaders of the little groups come together and they say, hey, how are we going to distribute this wealth? And now they have this. Now this, like, symbolic power becomes real power. And that led to their decline. Over time, they. They started creating committees and figuring out where the wealth goes. And then that decentralized social hierarchy, which made them very antifragile, all of a sudden, starts to hurt. Hurt them. And then they ended up on the reservation. And so obviously, the parallel here is the bitcoiners have that same decentralized social hierarchy. And the cautionary tale is like, beware of the golden cow. Right? Don't allow wealth or paper bitcoin or any of these looming threats to subvert the culture from the inside. If we do, bitcoin ends up on the reservation. On the reservation, of course, means the revolutionary properties are neutered. And maybe we get to live out our days with our bitcoin wealth and we're happy. But we fumbled the opportunity here in front of us, and that would be a shame.
- [27:01]
B
Yeah, that's interesting because it's like in. You can see the comparisons there where it's like Bitcoin or the Apaches have prioritized resilience rather than convenience. And the thing that I don't know is, like, what the. What the Golden Cow would be for bitcoin. Like, what is the potential subversion that we would fall for? And I'm sure there's probably multiple. But, like, what do you think is the most likely?
- [27:26]
A
Yeah, I think it comes back to paper bitcoin being the biggest threat right now. If the supply is so hyper concentrated in a handful of custodians that the US Government can lean on, I think that becomes a very serious risk. And I mean, percentage of the supply. I want to make that point very clear. It's not about the number of users, the number of users. The majority of the users will always choose convenience. Yeah, this is ETFs, this is your coinbase, this is your whatever. But what we really need is an intolerant minority to hold a large chunk of the coins outside of the system. And what that serves is it just makes the cost of that Golden Cow centralized supply attack really hard to pull off. And so it's essentially having a security sign or, like, big scary dog lives here in front of your house. It doesn't. You don't even have to have a Security system. You don't even have to have a big dog. But if you have a sign that says this house is protected with guns, dogs and security system, the would be attacker is going to just try and find an easier victim.
- [28:33]
B
Right.
- [28:33]
A
So we need to put up that hey, good luck, the attack's going to fail energy so that no one actually attempts it. That's how I see it now.
- [28:42]
B
So I like, I agree in terms of. I think custody is a real issue and I think it's a growing issue. Do we know how many coins are actually held in self custody still today? Is there any sort of good metric on that?
- [28:57]
A
Yeah, good question. When I started writing this essay the number was over 50%. I don't know the number now. Let's see. Can I pull this off an LLM immediately? So one shot it on ChatGPT they recommend, they're saying 45 to 60% of the supply is held in self custody.
- [29:17]
B
Okay see that's like it's very hard to know what, what acceptable is there. Like I don't, there's obviously there's not a precise number where you're like above that is. Okay, below that is not. But the, the scary thing is the trend, like the trend is definitely moving to more and more coins held in custodians and I don't know how you turn that around. Like as, as we said earlier in the show, like the financialization, Wall street coming to bitcoin, that stuff is inevitable and they are not the kind of people that are going to be holding coins in self custody and they're the, are going to be at least exposed to a large number of coins. So like if I look at the trajectory, I can only see Coinbase holding more and more coins going forward. Like same with strategy, same with all these companies. Like I don't know how you buck that trend.
- [30:05]
A
Yeah, I, I think you're hitting on a really important point because if we're going to say that the ideological bitcoiners are already here, what makes us believe down the road there's going to be ideological bitcoiners to take the supply into self custody? Yeah, I, I don't have a good answer for that one. I agree the trend is not good. But what I would say is we don't need that many people. Right. If we, if we did a number comparison, I bet it's over 90% of individuals hold their coins in someone else's custody. Let's say 80, 90%. So 80 or 90% leave their coins elsewhere. But that's still roughly 50% of the supply is self custody. And so really what we're trying to do is hope the ideological OGs stay that way long enough. Right. And shout out to Satoshi for releasing half the coins in the first four years, 75% of the coins in the first eight years. Right, yeah, that really matters because the archetype of the early bitcoiner is so much more ideological. And you know, obviously we saw a bunch of those folks selling last fall, according to our friends who run the analysis there online. Yeah, I can't blame them for selling. Imagine holding $100 million worth of Bitcoin that you bought for a dollar a coin or 10 cents a coin.
- [31:31]
B
Yeah. And I think that that really big one, the guy who sold like a billion dollars worth of bitcoin, apparently, wasn't that just him putting money into like a trust or something like that? Like it was a bit of a rebalancing rather than necessarily just selling it. But like I, obviously if you're sat on billions of dollars from bitcoin that you bought for 100 bucks, like you're going to be selling something at some point. But the problem, like you say, is the trend, but what I don't know is when, when, like enough's enough. Like when, when does it become a real problem? Because I, the, the threat is that no one cares enough about self custody to protect self custody. Therefore self custody is sort of regulated away. You're not allowed to do it legally within the US or the UK or wherever. And that's like one way that bitcoin gets totally neutered is self custody becoming illegal. It doesn't mean you can't do it, but it's means that very few people do do it.
- [32:22]
A
Yeah, I mean it's very concerning looking around the world, like the US seems to at least have some energy to try and preserve that. I'm not keeping up with the latest in D.C. but I see a lot of like Cynthia Lummises of the world saying, hey, we got to keep self custody legal. I think Florida passed a rule that said you have to on the other side, like the rising communism, socialism stuff they're, they're fighting and that that group is growing very fast. That energy is pushing back against the self custody narrative. Trump family grifting so hard in the quote, crypto industry that's going to bite us in the ass in the next few years for sure. And so yeah, there's a battle brewing over self custody. I think that that's real. And your point, like if only 10% of the bitcoiners care about self custody, where's the energy to fight for it? That is a real concern. And that's where you got to prop up people like BPI and hope the intolerant minority has enough juice to pull it off, even if the average person doesn't care.
- [33:26]
B
If you hold Bitcoin long enough, there's going to come a time when you need some dollars. It might be a tax bill, a business expense, life getting in the way. But whatever it is, it might come at a time when you don't want to sell your bitcoin. That's where Lennon comes in. Leaden lets you borrow against your Bitcoin instead, with tiered rates that go as low as 9.25% so you don't have to sell your stack if you don't want to. Leadn have operated through every market cycle since 2018 and have originated over $11 billion in loans. But the important part for me is the way Leadn handles these loans. Your collateral is held in custody and never lent out to generate interest. And Leden's more than just loans. Tether Gold is now live alongside your Bitcoin with Instant trading across 10 pairs and later this year you'll be able to borrow against Gold in the same way that you do with Bitcoin. Leden really is an awesome company. I've used them multiple times, the applications have taken me less than 15 minutes and you have the dollars in your account within hours. If you want to check out LEDN, go to LEDNIO and use the code WBD for 0.25% off your first loan. That's LEDENIO and use the code WBD. If you're already self custody Bitcoin, you know the deal with hardware, wallets, complex setups, clumsy interfaces and a seed phrase that can be lost, stolen or forgotten. Bitkey fixes that Bitkey is self custody built for real life. It gives you an intuitive easy to use wallet with no C phrase to sweat over. And it has a strong recovery system and built in inheritance for long term peace of mind. And bitkey's just had a massive upgrade. The new device now has a screen so before you approve something you can check it on the BitKey itself, the transaction, the address or any account changes. It's a big difference. You're not just trusting what's on your phone, you're seeing it for yourself on the device. It's simple, secure self custody without the stress. Go to BitKey World today and use the code WBD to get 10% off the new BitKey, that's BitKey World and use the code WBD. The thing that keeps me up at night with Bitcoin cold storage isn't bitcoin failing, it's my setup failing. And this is where AnchorWatch comes in. With AnchorWatch, your Bitcoin's insured with your own a rated Lloyds of London insurance policy and all bitcoins held in their time locked multisig vaults. So you have the peace of mind knowing your bitcoin is insured while not giving up custody. So whether you're worried about inheritance planning, renture tax, natural disasters or just your own silly mistakes, you're protected by AnchorWatch. Rates for fully insured custody start as low as 0.55% and are available for individual and commercial customers in the US you can speak to AnchorWatch for a quote and for more details about your security options and coverage, visit anchorwatch.com today. That's anchorwatch.com one of my hopes here though is that the sort of rise of the multipolar world actually really helps us on this front. I think Iran using Bitcoin for those insurance payments in the Strait was a huge signal and I think one that wasn't properly appreciated. If we are moving to a more multipolar world, people are going to need a money that is money for enemies. They're going to need that. And the sooner we have big nation states, the pariah nation states transacting in bitcoin, the more likely we are to actually retain self custodial Bitcoin. I think like if these countries need it to trade between themselves, like I don't know, that seems like a pretty good signal to me.
- [36:36]
A
So from a bitcoin lens I wholeheartedly agree that's demonstrating the use case. Let's flip it in the let's say statist government official point of view. Oh, big scary Iran is doing on chain transactions and we can't stop it. We like to be able to police the world's financial system. We must force everyone through Swift 2.0, stablecoin, Swift, whatever you want to call the new thing they're cooking up. So yes. And also it's good marketing fodder for the status.
- [37:08]
B
Sure. But what if the US are needing to use it to transact with, I don't know, Venezuela or China or whoever it might be like they may be needing to use this as well.
- [37:17]
A
That would be great. Yeah. And yeah, if the US is trading with enemies settling in Bitcoin, I think the ship sailed. We won the fight. I don't expect the US to be first there. However, the Trump administration feels more bullish than we've ever seen. So do you think they pull it off in the next two years?
- [37:37]
B
I mean, they're about to get neutered in the midterms, I think, most likely, which. So it looks like you talk about the regulation in D.C. it doesn't look like clarity is going to go through. Apparently, from what I've heard from people who actually know about this stuff, if it doesn't go through before the midterms, it's probably not going to. But I mean, bitcoin doesn't need regulation. You can still use it how you want to use it.
- [37:57]
A
Yeah. At least today that's true in the U.S. you know, you've got the California wealth tax, you got the Illinois 0.2%. If you move bitcoin from anywhere to anywhere.
- [38:09]
B
That's crazy.
- [38:11]
A
Yeah. Those counter forces are very scary right now. And in my opinion that the social fight we're about to experience is that like, are we going to flirt with communism again? Right. We did this in the 1930s. We did this previous fourth turning before that. It just happens, like when the social contract is eroded, where young people feel disenfranchised, they seek alternatives. And we're firmly in that now. And AI is a big part of that story. People are inherently distrustful of new technology. And then you have this new super scary technology that's going to take everyone's jobs and, you know, destroy society, which is coming directly from the leaders of these frontier labs. And so, yeah, you're creating this culture where people feel left out and the future is looking worse and worse every day, not better. And that means they're going to burn the cities down if we don't write the ship. And so is it AI companies giving out an AI UBI type thing? Honestly, I'm really excited about the Trump accounts. We should talk about that for a minute. So, branding aside, Trump created essentially an IRA account, individual Retirement Account, which is like a tax advantage US Account that most employers sponsor for their employees. But today you can't do that if you're under 18. And so they essentially allowed babies to have this investable account with tax advantages. You can have your employer contribute it, you can have the parents contribute, you can have your aunts and uncles, your grandparents contribute, whatever. And now all of a sudden you have a one year old owning a piece of the S&P 500 and contribute every year. And theoretically it compounds and so what is that doing? That's inoculating the next generation to have upside in the market. Right now, less than 50% of Americans own any stocks. And so you're giving theoretically everyone that advantage. So now they get to taste what markets do, what capitalism provides, and at the same time, Social Security is dead. And that was a fun experiment. This is sort of like a reboot of that same idea, which is that if you start investing from a very young age, theoretically you'll have retirement savings with not too many contributions because you have so much time. And so combine that with many, many, many billionaires and individual states saying, hey, I'm going to donate a lot of money here and seed all these accounts.
- [40:42]
B
Right.
- [40:42]
A
And so that, that's the type of counterforce we need to get out of the communism trap that we're, we're running down right now.
- [40:51]
B
Yeah, I actually think that's really cool because I mean, I do that with my daughter. I bought her, bought bitcoin every week since she was born, which is essentially. Yeah, I mean, I think that's probably going to outperform the S and P. But I think, I think that taste of capitalism is a really important thing because it's, it's the 18 to 25 year olds that are coming into the world and realizing they're, you know, they're behind in the game, they don't have exposure to markets. Like everyone's getting richer while they're getting poorer. Like, that's a, a really hard, like world to come into. And I, I feel like that sort of K shaped economy is worse than when we were that age, I think. And I, I think the despair and the nihilism is understandable. Like, I, I do think obviously communism is the wrong solution to that, but I understand the frustration that they feel and especially in Europe. I don't know how you kind of stop that, that rise in communism. I think it's really taking hold. Like you see what's happening with the political parties in the UK and the sort of outright communist groups coming out of the universities there. It's kind of scary.
- [41:52]
A
Absolutely. I mean, I don't live in Europe, thankfully, but everything I see out of the EU is terrifying right now.
- [42:01]
B
Yeah.
- [42:01]
A
I mean, people in the UK going to jail for liking memes. Like, what are we even talking about here? Like, how, how can that be? How can that be accepted? It's dumbfounding to me.
- [42:12]
B
Yeah. And do you know the thing that's even scary? Like, that's obviously stupid, should never happen, like insane. The thing that's scarier is the more subvert, like the, the, it's the, the fact that they're trying to control what you can do on the Internet that they're trying to do it through. Like, claiming to protect the children, which is essentially the UK's version of the Patriot Act. Like, you know, like, saving children is the same as saying you're a patriot in America. And then the new PM coming in, Andy Burnham, is trying to ban, like, ban any VPN usage. So they're essentially just trying to control entire speech and they're also trying to bring in something which will scan pictures that you take on your phone before you send them to anyone so that they can, so the, they can prove that it's not like harmful, abusive material or whatever. And the way they're trying to say they're doing this is with, like, local AI models, but that's not how they're going to do it. Like, I don't think that's even possible right now. Like, I don't, I, I, I just see it's more and more control, more and more Orwellian, dystopian, and, and for the first time ever, I, I couldn't move back to the uk. Like, if, if everything lined up for my, me and my family to move back to the uk, I don't think I could do it right now. And I've never said that before, I'd always would move back.
- [43:27]
A
That's crazy to hear. Yeah, yeah. When I catch Pete's show, he's always lamenting. You catch him on Twitter, he's guns blazing. Like, what question for you, what? What are the more individualistic Brits doing right now? Like, is there a counter movement? It's just kind of quiet? Or do people just say, put your head down, move on?
- [43:50]
B
I honestly don't know. Like, in terms of my friendship group, I don't think most of people are even aware. And I think the, all of these things coming in, these controls coming in under the guise of protecting children, I think most people just fall for it. Like, I think. And the very, the really hard thing about anything like that is if you try and argue against it, you're like, what, you want kids to be exposed to this? Kind of. It's like, obviously not. That's not the point I'm making. It's that, like, the ends don't justify, like, the means don't justify the ends or whatever way around it is. And so it becomes really, really hard to battle against. You just sound like a lunatic when really like I feel like I'm the only one screaming with any sort of anything based on first principles, any first principles thinking in this. So I don't know, I don't know what people are doing. I think the only thing you can do realistically is, is leave. Although, although maybe that's not true. Maybe it's not just leave. Because if you want to live in that country but not live under those rules, there are ways of doing it. Like you can run a phone with graphene OS and still run a VPN and. But it's like you become a, an outsider in your own society. That's the hard thing.
- [44:57]
A
Yeah. And that's essentially like quietly opting out. Right. There's voice and exit that would be on the exit side. Even though you don't physically leave, you just exit from the Internet stack that the state supports. I don't think that'll move the needle. Maybe you buy yourself a couple decades and your family keeps their head down, but it feels like this is going to come to a head in society because like on one side we have this beautiful redo of American values built on a bitcoin system and markets matter and take power away from the state and empower individuals. On the other hand you have like AI Communism. Right. Take the UK as our template here kyc the Internet backdoor in every phone thought police like pre crime, like they're setting up pre crime essentially. And yeah, the only way I see this, this not ending up there is with some sort of big fight and I don't think Europe has it in them to right the ship and that means America is the last chance here for everyone. And can, can we pull it off again? I don't know.
- [46:09]
B
The crazy thing though is the like Europe clearly furthest behind in this I think Canada, Australia, it's going to come to all these countries and I think it's going to come to the US as well. Like I don't, I don't think it's going to stop. They're going to try it. Whether they can pull it off there. I think it's going to be the hardest fight. But I think they probably will. Like it's already starting. Like there's already some Internet controls in places like Florida and Texas and they're kind of like right leaning states which is weird.
- [46:37]
A
Like pornography. Is that what they're doing?
- [46:39]
B
I mean that's where it starts, isn't it? That's what, that's where it started in the UK too. And it's always sort of the the slippery slope.
- [46:45]
A
But.
- [46:46]
B
And then the countries, like if you want to move, great. Like, but I have a family. Like I. It's not just easy to get up and go and it's where do you go?
- [46:55]
A
I will say the, the best chance for the US and we're seeing good data here is the federalist system, meaning each state has their own set of rules and people can move states pretty easily. Now it's not trivial if you have no money to move. Yeah, there's money involved. Like caveat.
- [47:10]
B
Caveat.
- [47:11]
A
But we saw massive intra country migration during COVID Like loose states with bad budgets and crazy COVID policies are having massive net migration out. And then you have the Tennessee, Florida, Arizona, Texas, slurping up all these people. And so my sincere hope with the rise of socialism, which they're is actually communism in disguise. My, my hope for that is we actually see crazy Mamdani policy, crazy California policy. And it just. We just watch the experiments fail at the state level. Yeah. And we watch the states that lean into the opposite of that succeed. And hopefully that's enough juice to like change the social climate in the US at the same time, if I'm a government official who believes in strong state power and Palantir is like, hey, we got the whole spyware built. All you gotta do is turn the button, push the button. They're gonna push the button. Right. And to your point, Prior, yeah, it's save the kids. It's start with pornography. We gotta put a camera on every corner to keep you safe. It always starts there. And then, you know, once the system's built, it's not hard to advance it. And so yeah, honestly, pretty bleak to think about. And then you have to make a personal decision. Does that mean I fly to South America and I find a nice mountain time, mountain town and just ride out my days in relative peace and quiet. Do I stand up and fight? That's the decision for everyone to make here.
- [48:43]
B
The thing that would be interesting is in the UK if Rupert Lowe got in as the next Prime Minister. I don't agree with everything he says, but he is certainly not part of like the established politician group. That would be a signal like if he could do something or if he, I guess the actual. As if he can't do something, then it's over. Like I don't know what you do after that. So that, that's kind of like what I'm waiting to see.
- [49:09]
A
He's like the nationalist, anti immigration, pro Brit camp politician, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. People think about him. Does he have a chance?
- [49:19]
B
He has a chance for sure. Like, the tricky part is on. On that sort of further right side of the. The spectrum, it's him and Farage is splitting the boat at. The boat at the moment between reform and restore. Like, I, I prefer. I can only call him Nigel Lowe. I prefer Rupert Lowe, but I don't know. He's the only one that's outside of this political sort of agenda that everyone else is under. And, and if, if he can come in and make a change, that would be interesting. That's. I think that is the only thing that says voting harder, bro. Might work.
- [49:51]
A
Yeah. Some headlines coming out of the EU member states that were essentially changing immigration policies. Like with all the stuff, all the headlines coming out and the violence from immigrants and whatever, I saw states, countries that I would be surprised to hear starting to change their tune. I don't know if that's real or my Twitter is just feeding it to
- [50:11]
B
me, but I mean, no, it's. It's definitely the, the sentiment, the words are real, the whether the action will be real is. Is. Is different. So Andy Burnham, the guy who's coming in to replace Keir Starmer, has been. Always been like, pretty pro. Immigration has really changed. His tune has become much more anti just because, like, the social climate needs him to be. The question will be again whether he does anything. Like saying stuff's fine. Like, will he actually do anything?
- [50:37]
A
Yeah. Campaign promises blowing the wind. And then at the end of the day, that politician is not beholden to the people.
- [50:44]
B
Yeah.
- [50:45]
A
Which they should.
- [50:45]
B
And to be fair, like, the stuff he's saying is just common sense stuff that should always have been in place. Like, it's not like he's going to the extreme of like deportations and things like that is just. Is common sense stuff that was, for whatever reason, has not been followed for the last 10 years or whatever.
- [50:59]
A
Oh, he's trying to deport people.
- [51:03]
B
Oh, no, no, no, no. He's just being. He's just be like, we'll be stricter
- [51:06]
A
on immigration and that's even considered too right wing. Yeah. That's crazy.
- [51:10]
B
No, no, no, no, that. That's the, the left wing politician that's coming in. Yeah. So he's coming in to replace Keir Starmer now because Keir Starmer stepped down the, the right wing opposition. Rupert Lowe, he's. He's absolutely. He wants to deport everyone. Like, he's got it full steam ahead. Yeah.
- [51:28]
A
But the takeaway here is the politicians on the left because of the social climate Shifting. They're even becoming more moderate on immigration.
- [51:35]
B
Yes, yeah, yeah, exactly. I feel like the sort of overton window shifted a little bit there. But I don't know how we got here, man. How did we get to UK politics? I feel like Pete
- [51:47]
A
Petri dish for the whole conversation, honestly.
- [51:51]
B
Yeah.
- [51:52]
A
And when I wrote the fourth turning essay six years ago or whatever, the takeaway was like, the battle is centralized versus decentralized to keep it simple. Is it communism or fascist nationalism, whatever. Versus like a bitcoin reboot at the bottom layer. So I think it's all relevant. We're just zoomed in on the petri dish for a minute.
- [52:14]
B
So remind me, when was the last first turning?
- [52:17]
A
It would be 1946 until like the mid-60s. So right at the tail end of World War II, we just got Bretton woods. So new monetary order, rebuilding in Europe. America's king for a while. And we actually had something like a gold standard. And prior to that, Right, we had World bank, NATO, imf, Social Security, fdic insurance. Communism was popular amongst the intelligentsia class. Very similar to where we are now. And like crazy policies that would be insane 10, 20 years prior all got passed. Right. And we're entered. We're firmly in that stage now where things that 20 years ago would be insane. They're like, oh, okay, we're doing that now.
- [53:06]
B
Yeah, we're late stage, late stage, fourth turning. Do you still think that the only way through this is with another major conflict?
- [53:15]
A
Yes, unfortunately, it doesn't need to be like a global hot war. Let's define it. It needs to be something sufficiently dramatic or mobilizing to actually get the people to make significant change. Because we don't get out of this with incremental changes. We get out of this with large changes. And large changes historically only come when our backs are against the wall and we just try to shoot the moon at the last second. When the pressure is highest, we finally act. And historically that's been war. Now could it be like a cold war with China as we sort of like re carve up the map and it's just like a decade long of cold war, economic war, trade war, confusion. Yeah, it could be that. Could it be us rips each other apart, left versus right, and we can't come to some sort of consensus? Yes. Could it become a hot war? Yes.
- [54:15]
B
Is the idea that because like after something like World War II, the country has like a state is in this sense of sort of shared, like, togetherness to move forward? Is that what you're Looking for, for a first turning. Is it like people coming together again after something that was so divisive?
- [54:32]
A
Exactly. I think there's two primary variables. One is you actually get the majority of the people aligned on a certain issue. And war is an easy one to get people aligned on because you can pitch the story. Your way of life is at risk if you don't put your petty differences aside and win the war. Right. And then the other side of the equation is, is I'll just call exhaustion. So the people are sick of fighting, they're sick of the chaos. They want some normalcy. They want to just do normal basic BO white picket fence stuff. Right. So the mood shifts to exhaustion. And the only way it shifts to exhaustion is if you see some sort of light at the end of the tunnel and we're ready to put down our, our swords, so to speak.
- [55:16]
B
I mean, it feels like this sort of catalyst here could also be AI in the sense that if AI starts really displacing jobs and there's like a, a huge pushback against AI or, or it's just like everyone has to figure out where they fit in the world now. Like, it feels like that could be the catalyst for a change.
- [55:39]
A
Yeah. So I think AI has definitely going to play a role. No question. It's probably the biggest technology in our lifetimes, maybe ever. Right. If that's true, of course it has a role here. Coming from the philosophy of the fourth turning from the authors, which I diverge on slightly, their perspective on technology is technology is always and forever coming and going and influencing society. It is of course, a force. But the fourth turning lens says how do the generational cohorts and which stage of life they're in, how do they respond to technology? What is the mood around technology?
- [56:16]
B
Right.
- [56:17]
A
Right now, all the tech, all of our social narratives are, technology is bad, right. Everything's about dystopia, the end of the world, everything's bad. If you go to the 90s, everything's an optimistic tone. Right. That's a representation of the mood. The mood now is technology bad, technology scary.
- [56:37]
B
But the mood's like that because of the way that people are implementing technology. The palantirs of the world and like the data harvesting from OpenAI and Claude. And there's a reason that people think technology is bad right now because most applications of it are pretty dystopian.
- [56:53]
A
Yeah, maybe so. I mean, pre AI, though, like, like GBT3 or whatever it was, the, the resurgence here. We had smartphones, we had the Internet, and when The Internet came out, it was like, this is the most democratizing force ever. Everyone gets free knowledge. We're all going to be super geniuses. It's the end of history. A Fukuyama book that said, like, we solved all our problems. It's now abundance, right? Which obviously didn't happen, but the mood at the time wanted to see it in that way, right? You can see AI in the lens of ever abundance for everyone. Intelligence is now commodified. Everyone benefits. And you can also see AI as they're stealing your data and they're ramming communist AI dystopia down your throats. And I think it just represents the mood today as more people are aligned with dystopian future versus not. And I think they're right to have that point of view. Like, if you have no economic prospects, you're 25, and you realize that you will never own the house that you grew up in. You couldn't ever afford the house you grew up in. That is a really shitty thing to accept. And that radicalizes people in a very big way. We also tell them that the world's going to end from climate change and you shouldn't have kids. And like, you meet young people today. And I try, like, my server is a younger person and we get to chatting, I always ask about these questions and a shockingly high percentage of people have, like, I am diagnosed with climate anxiety.
- [58:26]
B
You know, I mean, that's insane.
- [58:27]
A
End their life right there. They believe that they're stuck. And yeah, you can't have a young generation that has no hope for the future. What do they do? They burn all the cities down. And so to me, having hope, having something to the future for people to look forward to, maybe it's the Trump accounts, because maybe my life sucks, but my kid has a better shot. Like, that goes a long way. UBI from AI or whatever, some version of this where you make it so corporations can't buy houses and we deport people that shouldn't be here, and all of a sudden housing's affordable. Right? Those are the type of structural changes we need to change that mood for young people. And if we don't, we're going to get all of the communism everywhere, which obviously defeats the whole game.
- [59:16]
B
How do you bring hope back, though? Is this where we need faith in institutions again? We need faith in universities. Why have universities become such breeding grounds for leftist communism?
- [59:31]
A
Yeah, I think you're bringing up some good points. So do we need strong institutions? I'm going to start there. The answer is yes, 100% right now we look around, all the institutions are decayed. You can't trust anything. So you're right to be bearish on society. If you look at our institutions, Bitcoiners would say institutions are bad. It's all about the individual. I lean on that side politically as well. But institutions genuinely keep us on course in society. And it's like this static infrastructure that's all around us that funnels us in a good direction or it funnels us in a bad direction. What's going on with education? I think that's a whole podcast that I don't know if I'm qualified to speak on. But my view on education is it was never intended to create independent thinkers. It was created to create. It was created to manufacture human worker drones who can follow the rules, show up on time, do your task in a factory. And so like the modern education system, the ancient universities were like, send the wealthy kids there so they can be enriched culture naturally. But we'll just take like from the 19, early 1900s on in America. It's all based on the Prussian education system, which is a military turn people into factory worker system. So I think face it started out in a model that was never going to fit to changes in society. If you look specifically at the universities here, like their, their budget on administrators went skyrocketing high, their teachers are, are flat. So they become this like epically bloated institutions that like attract people who care about the latest thing. So the DEI departments and the student, whatever departments, I think you just create incentives that lead to bloat. Just like in our government. The, the incentive of a government is to become a bigger government. And so what do they do? That's what they do. That's what all institutions do. And that I think is why the fourth turning cycle is healthy for society, is because institutions outgrow their mandate through a little bit of corruption, a little bit of apathy, a little bit of just not being fit for the times. And then we need to have a brush fire in the forest to burn all the dead wood and then redo our institutions, modernize them, make them adaptable to our recent needs. And I don't want to make it sound like we do this and it's always good. We just respond to the most recent crisis, the previous fourth turning. The lesson is we just solved the problems that were directly in front of us. Doesn't mean we solved them in a good way. Social Security, the model in the US means you pay into this system and then Theoretically, you get paid later. But that model only works if every future generation is bigger than the last. And that's not the case anymore. And the money was never invested, so it doesn't actually keep up with the fiat money printer weighing it down. So, yeah, I'm under no illusion that the new version of the institutions will be genuinely better, but they will address the problems that are nipping at our heels right now.
- [62:39]
B
I have, like, a hypocritical take on the institutions thing because, like, I desperately think we need strong institutions. And I also get how, like, institutions can be a centralizing force, like you're setting them up to be sort of corruptible in the future. But something I spoke to Fernando about this idea that when, like, I was growing up, my parents and all their friends would all watch the 6 o' clock news and they'd all get their information. And whether that information was right or wrong, they got the same information. So everyone was like singing off the same hymn sheet. And I, I understand why that's totally flawed because you're basically trusting what this institution are telling you. But it meant that society had, like, a shared truth. And I think society does way better with a shared truth. If you could have an institution that was actually, like, not corrupt and telling you the truth and then everyone had that shared truth, like, that is how I think society can flourish. Like, otherwise, you just live in your own siloed world, like, view of reality. And. And I don't think there's any form of collectivism. And I think. I think an amount of collectivism is really healthy in society. And I think we're moving. Like, you want to be able to be, like, radically independent, but with a shared cultural value. And I feel like that's what we're missing right now.
- [63:49]
A
Now, I think you're 100% right. Marshall McEwen has done cool work looking at media, and one of his famous line was, the medium is the message. And so what that essentially is saying is that the type of multimedia you consume, is it television from the three channels that all pretty much say the same thing? Is it a unique algorithm to every individual? Where we live in our own little reality bubbles, right? Those create very different reality in the world. Doesn't matter what the content is, but the form that that content takes would be like broadcast versus individual niche, right? Those create different outcomes. And you're 100% right. As humans, one of our superpowers, the reason why we took over the world and not some other group is because of this ability to believe in A shared fiction that's larger than our kin group. Right. We talked about evolutionary biology. 99% of our life is kin group. So you pretty much know everyone. Everyone's loosely related. You don't need to have some like America fiction to believe in or Christianity or. You don't need those things because you have a biological reason. As soon as you grow larger than that, you do need a shared fiction. It could be same tribe, same culture, same language, same colors. We live on this side of the river, not that side of the river. Right. And if you look at America, if you don't have the American dream, if you don't have patriotism, if you don't have like, yeah, shared fiction with the broadcast media, all those are, are doing the same thing. They are creating a unified force and that makes you very strong. If we're fractured, we're weak, we're susceptible to coercion, we're susceptible to destroying ourselves from the inside. And I think it would be silly not to mention that our competitor nation states. Pick your favorite enemy of America. We would be very naive to assume that they're not meddling in our culture. No, a hundred percent, of course they are. And in the same way that our like, you know, our NGO industrial complex uses those feel good NGOs to apply soft power for regime change or whatever, we're doing it everywhere, they're doing it here. And so I think it'd be nice to assume they're not. And so, yeah, like we're in a, we're in a toxic soup right now while culture and technology is growing exponentially and our meat suits haven't changed in a hundred thousand years.
- [66:22]
B
Really.
- [66:23]
A
And so we're not fit for the times. And the more powerful technology is, that means it's more powerful for the good, but it also means it's more powerful for the bad. And so that's why I think the knife's edge between AI Communism and something more like OG American values is the fight of our lives. And I genuinely don't know where we land. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not instilled with confidence when I look at the average person in my daily life.
- [66:55]
B
Yeah, I totally agree with that. Depressing stuff, man. So how long do you now think we have until we move into this first. First turning period?
- [67:06]
A
Yeah, I find the question hard. Everyone wants that one. If you look at just historically, how long do the turnings last? They're like 20 to 27 years or so. And we started in 08, in this fourth turning. So, you know, we're getting pretty close and I would say in the next five years feels about right. But you know, these things can shift. This isn't a, this isn't like a metronome we can count on. It's more like large structural forces. And the best thing you can do with the fourth turning is realize that, yeah, the world's crazy, but we've been here before, we've gotten through it okay. It's not crazy. This is actually rational. These are like collective instincts to seek change when our institutions are failing. Right. It's just a defense mechanism in society. That's what I believe. And so we're there and if you squint, you can try to predict how will people respond to catalysts in the future. And I think, think growing wealth disparity and the fears of AI is a good example here. Yeah, of course that's going to scare the shit out of people and we should do our best to counteract that. And I don't, I don't see that right now.
- [68:19]
B
It's funny, as like an early 90s kid, we kind of had a shit hand, but with tons of opportunity in it. Like it's, we, you know, starting from as soon as we were like basically entering the workforce as 9, 11. Sorry, that was when I was a kid. And then when they're coming into workforce, there's a financial crisis and there's Covid. Like there's been a lot of stuff that's kind of been adversarial to us having a good run at it. But at the same time there was tons of opportunity. We got to see bitcoin, we got to live in the most interesting time at the birth of AI. But the thing that I'm really psyched about is the world that my daughter has the potential to grow up in. That's the cool part. This is why people need kids. Then you have a vested stake in the future.
- [68:59]
A
Yeah, Amen to that. Yeah, I agree. Like I've got a four year old, almost four year old upstairs who is just chirping in our ears, maybe you'll, maybe you'll make it into that. But I, I definitely see a world where our kids have an amazing future. Like we're, we're lamenting the education system. Agree. Well, historically the best, like the wealthy king's son, they all had personal tutors that were experts in all these different fields to like individually teach them how to be incredible and whatever what they want to learn. Well, now we're going to have AI teachers that know our kids extremely well and their curiosity is the only constraint to knowing everything about everything.
- [69:41]
B
Right.
- [69:41]
A
That's pretty exciting to see. Now there is a world where they don't know anything about privacy digitally or in real life. And so I'm not whole throated excited about the future, but if I'm, if I have my optimistic hat on, I can see some things that would make me very optimistic. But we're not out of the woods with AI Communism.
- [70:02]
B
No, that's for sure. I was talking to my wife about this recently. What do you think you'll do for schooling? Because AI is going to change that, like you said. Are you thinking about doing the homeschooling thing?
- [70:14]
A
It's probably the number one conversation my wife and I have. We've been touring all these schools so far. Jack's only been at home with mom this whole time. And yeah, a couple like little things here you go for half a day there and do this thing. But I can't see a world where he's at just a normal elementary school with Mrs. Jones and 30 kids. And I don't see that being a thing. So we're exploring like the Montessori and all these alternative schools. I'm on team homeschool, especially when they're young. And my philosophy on education is essentially teach agency, teach curiosity, don't teach. Like, here's the thing, you got to learn at a certain time. My view is if you're obsessed with something, you will choose to learn it and you will retain it and you will go hard. But if you're sitting down to force to learn something you don't care about, you're teaching kids to hate education and hate learning and they're not retaining anything anyways. And maybe I'm over biasing to myself. That's how I was.
- [71:17]
B
I was gonna say this. This was me as well.
- [71:19]
A
Yeah, I did fine in school and I could get all A's if I gave a shit and I wanted to. And like the classes I liked. I would set the curves on the classes I didn't like. I couldn't be bothered. And I thought my entire life that I didn't like learning until I was like 23, 24, 25, after I paid all the education and did all the things speaking my language. All I want to do is learn. All I want to do is clear my entire calendar. And to me, that's a tragic story. And I think it came from like, you remember the TED Talk? It's the most popular one ever. Schools kill creativity. I'VE never even heard that one. 10 something super old Recommend it. But his thesis is like, you send kids to school and then they, they are like, you like beat the exciting part of learning out of them and they become compliant task followers essentially. So I feel that way and I don't want to put my kid through the same. And I see the same tend tendencies like apple tree not too far away. And so anyways, my point is I want whatever he's obsessed with, I want to just facilitate him building that out. Right now he likes building stuff. He builds entire cities and there's like pipes and water treatment facilities. He's got the sanitation crew and he just likes that engineering stuff. It's like, great. We're going to get you engineering stuff with more advanced stuff. Oh, you like video games? Great. You're going to learn programming, make your own video game. Oh, you like nature? Okay, we're going to go camping and do all the nature stuff. Stuff that, that's how I see education. Fundamentally how we achieve that. Probably homeschooling. But he's 16 years old and he's like dad, I want to go chase girls at the school and play basketball and do the high school stuff. Okay, fine.
- [73:06]
B
Yeah, that makes sense. And we've been like kind of, I guess, coming to a similar conclusion. The one thing that I have this sort of romantic idea about that might not actually work in reality is like just gonna go and travel for a couple of years, like be wherever with the kid, like homeschool. Because like I think that's going to be very, very easy in the next year, a couple years ahead of me, but I think that'll be very easy to do. And like, I think you're probably going to learn a lot more about how the world actually works by being in lots of different places with unique experiences like that. That's the idea I have in my head, but I don't know what will end up happening.
- [73:38]
A
Yeah, there's a lot of people do that. Like unschooling is a brand for that. There's a company called Unbound, I think it's called and they host these. You can go one, two, three months and it's like, like homeschool families that I have it all over the world. You can go to the Costa Rica one, you learn Spanish and surfing and whatever and you co work, co live in like a group homeschooling environment. I've heard good things. Vet friends go on these trips and they love them. You pay a healthy premium for them to facilitate everything for You. But I think the network of people who choose to go to this would be worth the extra cost.
- [74:16]
B
The world's changing, man. The world's changing so fast and I don't know, I'm excited. I think let's get over the next few years and we're away to the races. Let's finish on bitcoin. At the start. We would talk about this idea whether bitcoin would be money for the next 30 to 50 years or whether it would be forever money. Essentially, if you had to sort of put your, I guess you are putting your money where your mouth is on that. I'm sure you're all in bitcoin, but which do you think is the most likely outcome?
- [74:48]
A
Yeah, if it's 49 or 51% we're talking about here, I think most likely Bitcoin lasts 50 years or less and it gets neutered. And we hope we have something else to shift to after that. I think even if it was a 1% chance it's worth fighting for. Do I think it's a 1% chance that it's 500 years or. I think it's 49%. I think it's like maybe 20, 20, 30% chance. If I had to just finger in the air, gut feeling, will bitcoin be here in a hundred years? I think that's worth fighting for. I mean that's a really big number. I think if you ask that number to the institutions that would not want that to be true, they would consider that number to be terrifying. Yeah, right. And so I, I also think their hubris is our advantage. And so like flying by on the rad every day bitcoin's around and not neutered is another day closer to that future. Even if adoption is slow at different periods. Yeah, I think if we get through this fourth turning, if it's 10 years from now and we have self custody rights and it just keeps chugging along, I think that number goes from like 20% to 50%. Right. So in my opinion, not just bitcoin, like the direction of society for our lifetimes and our kids lifetimes will be decided in the next five to 10 years.
- [76:23]
B
Holy shit. Time to lock in 100%.
- [76:25]
A
That's what the Fourth Turning is. Lock in like consequences here are disproportionately going to affect like decisions now. Disproportionately affect the future In a way that 80s 90s, it wasn't like that.
- [76:40]
B
I mean we live in the most interesting time, that's for sure. Brandon, this has been awesome, man. We should do this again more often. I'm going to come up to your way in September, so maybe we could do another one then.
- [76:52]
A
Let's go. Yeah. Quick shill. There's going to be a small bitcoin conference in Minneapolis September 19th weekend. And there's going to be some music elements, some get out on the lake elements, kind of like showcasing what Minnesota, Minneapolis is all about, rather than like the big, huge industry thing. This would be a smaller, curated, more niche, Get a little more of the local flavor. So the. The. I always go to conference people, which I feel bad for those people. They'll. Hopefully there's something there for those people.
- [77:24]
B
I'm excited. It's going to be good. And tell everyone about. What else are you working on? When's this article going to drop? Is it going to drop in time for the show?
- [77:36]
A
No, definitely not. It's not ready. I essentially have to pick it up, dust it off, and resharpen the arguments for the modern time. I could publish it, but I wouldn't be happy with it now. So I can't commit to it. Maybe before September. Maybe that'll be my goal.
- [77:53]
B
I need you to. I need you to publish this at some point, though, because I feel like this could sort of bring life back into that bitcoin think boy stuff again. We need it back.
- [78:01]
A
True. That's a good motivation. If other people commit to following my lead and putting out more think boy stuff. That's good motivation.
- [78:09]
B
There we go. All right, Brandon. Thanks, man. I will speak to you very soon.
- [78:13]
A
Sounds great. Thank you, Danny.