Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Head of Money. I'm Joel, I'm Matt.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Today we're talking banking on bitcoin with Natalie Brunell.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
That's right, so Joel. When we occasionally talk about bitcoin,
it's typically within the context.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Of investing, and like, even then, our approach is for
it to be a relatively small portion of our overall portfolio.
Could most folks do without it? We think that that's
the case. That's true, Like, don't overly focus on I
would say what we see as a more alternative investment
when you haven't even maxed out conventional retirement accounts. But
(00:51):
that is not at all how our guest, Natalie Brunell,
how she views bitcoin. Natalie sees it as this entirely
new system of money, a system that is incorruptible and
non partisan. In her words, bitcoin is egalitarian. It doesn't
benefit any race over another. It's the purest expression of
freedom and self determination. All of these things sound like
(01:13):
totally awesome. Yeah, And for over a decade Natalie was
an investigative journalist. She is now a predominant figure in
the bitcoin space. She's an influential educator. She's host of
the coin Stories podcast, where she dives in deep and
that is exactly what we're hoping to do some today
all about bitcoin. So, Natalie, thank you so much for
joining us today.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
On the podcast.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
Thank you so much for having me. What a nice introduction.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
We're glad to have you. Natalie.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
So much to get to on this one. But first question,
what do you like to spourge on? Matt and I
sporge on beer, but hey, it's okay, we're saving and
investing simultaneously. What is your craft beer equivalent?
Speaker 4 (01:48):
I like to splurge on trips to Italy. I have
an Italy obsession. A lot of people don't know that.
I actually studied journalism at Italian in college and I
try to find my way back to Italy every single
year I live there two years of college. I'm obsessed
with Italy and Italian culture. So they can take my money.
That country can just take my money.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
What is the most underrated city that that you think? Yeah,
just gets overlooked by most folks who you go to Italy?
Speaker 4 (02:14):
Ooh, underrated? That's that's a tough one. I mean, my
favorite city's Florence because that's where I live. So I
love Tuscany and there are so many little towns that
you can discover and explore there. But I actually think
underrated would be the island of Sardinia. A lot of
people still haven't been there. It's got the most pristine,
tranquil turquoise water that you'll ever see, and not as
(02:36):
many tourists, so it still feels a little bit like
that raw, rugged Italian that you read about in history books.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Yeah, it's really I want to swim in.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
I'm putting that on my list now that I'm curious
you you're a first generation immigrant. Your parents struggles they
seem to impact the way you think about money even today.
How what sort of influence has has, like your family history.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Had on you.
Speaker 4 (02:59):
Sure? So, I think that so many of our belief
systems and our values are shaped very early. And for me,
I grew up with a fear of financial insecurity, and
I was really determined to succeed because I watched how
difficult it was for my parents to sort of to
(03:19):
sort to bring our family to this country and to
just create what would be like a middle class life here.
They just they struggled so much. It was first very
difficult to be able to come. They grew up under
communism and They waited every single year to see if
they want a visa lottery to be able to come,
and once they got here, you know, they didn't know
(03:40):
the language. They had to start over. We lived in
a tiny apartment. I grew up around people that were
much more financially comfortable than us. And once they were
finally able to purchase a small townhouse, I went off
to college and a couple of years later, the Great
Financial Crisis hit and they were suddenly bankrupt and moving
into a tiny, one droom and I just thought, how
(04:02):
the heck can this happen in a country that's supposed
to represent the American dream that you know, it doesn't
matter where you come from, if you work hard, you
can achieve something. And I felt like the game was rigged.
I felt like the rules were were in favor of
the people at the top, and so I became I
became an investigative reporter, honestly because I wanted to hold
(04:24):
the powerful accountable. And I was very much in like
the tax the Rich movement. I thought that the way
to fix this is for government to reach in and
redistribute the wealth and punish the greedy people and give
it back to the working class, And I came at
this view from a fundamental misunderstanding of how economics works,
(04:44):
how our money is actually even issued, and the broken
incentives at the base layer of this system. And I
didn't learn about any of that until bitcoins. So Bitcoin
for me was actually a transformative journey of better understanding
the entire financial system, what money actually is, and why
so many people feel left behind and add a disadvantage
(05:05):
even if they're working harder than ever. And I really
think that bitcoin is the best possible solution we have
before us.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Okay, I feel like you're segueing very nicely into how
it is that you became a bitcoin believer, because like,
there are plenty of folks out there who graduated into
the throes of the Great Recession and even would look
to the government, right, and like as you peel back
the layers and you're like, Okay, how did this come about?
Like what caused there to be so many banks who
are then willing to lend to underqualified borrowers?
Speaker 1 (05:34):
A lot of different theses on that team.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Yeah, But at the same time, I think there's a
whole lot of folks who would say, well, I don't
know if bitcoin is necessarily the answer here. How did
you kind of come around to essentially believing in bitcoin?
Speaker 4 (05:47):
Well, I just I really didn't know what money was.
I didn't think about it, and I didn't I didn't
question something that is a reality for all of us,
which is that things get more expensive every single year,
at least the things that you need most, right, housing, education,
your groceries. And maybe they don't go up so significantly
that everyone's protesting in the streets or running around calling
(06:09):
out how many more dollars each thing costs each year.
But if you step back, you zoom out, you notice
this trend, everything just climbing up in prices. And I
never connected that with the expansion of our money supply.
They basically tell you that inflation is necessary. That's what
you're sort of taught. Inflation is necessary. It stimulates the economy.
(06:32):
If we didn't have inflation, the whole thing would collapse.
And it was it was not until bitcoin that I
actually started to question that, why do we have to
have a form of money that expands and therefore dilutes
everyone who's holding it. And there's a real thing that
I think everyone should study, which is the Cantalon effect
(06:52):
that the people who get to issue more of this money,
and the people who are clicking the strokes of keys
that actually expand the monetary units, they benefit the most,
and the people around them benefit the most. If you're
close to the money printer, So if you're the big banks,
if you are the special interest groups that get first
access to the money, or the big corporations that get
(07:13):
to borrow it really ridiculously low interest rates, you benefit
from those freshly minted dollars. And as you go downstream,
us the working class, we benefit it from it the least,
and in fact, it disenfranchises a lot of people. It
destroys our purchasing power and our savings, and so over
the long you know, timeline of this type of activity
(07:35):
and manipulation with our money, we see people who can
no longer save. They've they've played by all the rules,
they've worked hard, they've saved up, and yet they can't
afford retirement, or to have a family, or to help
their you know, to get out of a medical situation
that came up. There's something fundamentally broken with that, and
that's what I think we need a question if we're
going to have a monetary system that's going to expand
(07:58):
continuously and lose value. Well, we need to be able
to save in something that doesn't. We need the opposite
of that for us to be able to save for
the future. And I believe bitcoin to be the best
asset because it is completely decentralized and it is immune
to inflation. It is scarce and finite, and no one
can ever print more of it.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Yeah, the finite reality of bitcoin, I think is certainly
one of the key selling points. I'm curious to dive
deeper on inflation for just a second. How real of
a problem is inflation in your mind? Because, as let's say,
we've experienced it more viscerally in recent years, but aren't
asset prices and incomes typically both going up? Right, So
it's prices, but also people earn more. So why is
(08:41):
inflation such a problem in your mind?
Speaker 4 (08:43):
So I actually think this is the biggest problem facing
the working class. And again I didn't recognize it until bitcoin.
So I think we're under this illusion of growth and expansion.
They tell you that CPI is two percent, and for
the most part, CPI is because CPI, the consumer price
index is it's a measure that can be highly manipulated,
(09:05):
and it has changed. If people actually dig into what
goes in the metrics that go into CPI, it has
changed drastically over the last few decades. So it accounts
for things like, okay, well, if a car, for example,
is getting more expensive, Oh wait, but it has some
new technology. You can you know, your your music's now
more digital, or you have a GPS built in. So
(09:26):
we're going to negate that inflation because the technical components
are a little bit better. Oh wait, you know, steak
got more expensive. A lot of people are choosing not
to even buy stak. They're actually turning to chicken. So
we're going to actually put chicken into the basket instead
of steak. So they manipulate the basket to tell you
inflation is two percent. Meanwhile, the rate at which the
(09:49):
money is actually expanding, if you measure it by M two,
which is the kind of agreed upon index for monetary supply,
it's actually increasing between six and eight percent annually. So
if you are not getting a raise of eight nine percent,
you are actually just keeping up with the rate at
(10:11):
which they're expanding the money supply. A lot of people,
again don't realize that, and so yes, assets have been
going up because that's where money tends to go. And
who has the majority of assets Wealthy people, Right, Wealthy
people hold the majority of the assets. And so when
they manipulate interest rates down, which they did for basically
(10:31):
two decades, and when they expand the money supply, the
first recipients of that money, they tend to do things
like buyback shares of stock, they manipulate essentially real estate prib.
They go into real estate, they buy real estate. So
all of this is affecting the very things that the
working class can no longer afford because their wages are
only going up by about three point nine percent. So
(10:53):
this is actually something I wrote about wrote about in
my book that's coming out this fall. Bitcoin is for Everyone.
I wrote about how how money supply expansion is moving
at a much faster rate than wages, which is why
so many people feel like they can never catch up
because yes, they're getting a raise, but when you zoom
out again, the money supply is growing much faster than
their wages are. And so that's why I think the
(11:15):
working class is sitting there going, yeah, why don't you
tax the rich because they've got all the stuff. We're
working harder than ever. We don't have anything, and we
don't know how to take care of our families, and
I think that's why we've become so polarized politically. But
it's really two sides of the same coin. It's a
broken monetary system and red blue left right. It's not
(11:37):
going to fix it until we fix the money.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
Yeah, I wonder too if that's it seems like we've
seen a divide among classes.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Too, as opposed to just blue versus red.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
But like, you're highly need the problem here inflation. But
practically speaking, though, how are you actually using US dollars?
Speaker 4 (11:54):
Right?
Speaker 3 (11:54):
Because you can say that, oh, this is ideally what
we'd moved towards, and you know, when it comes to like,
I guess bitcoin as an actual currency, but you can't
use bitcoin to actually pay for groceries at the grocery
store that you're talking about that are going up in price.
Practically speaking, how are you interacting, I guess, with the
current financial system as it exists.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
Well, I think this is a great question because there's
sort of a debate about whether bitcoin is a currency
or is it an asset. I actually believe that first
it will be an asset before it turns into a
mainstream currency. And the reason is because it is going
up in value and your dollars are losing purchasing power.
(12:35):
So most people want to spend their dollars, which are
going to continue to get inflated and debates, and they
want to save in bitcoin. That makes sense to me, right,
So increasingly merchants, I think, are going to incentivize people
to try to spend their bitcoin because what do they want?
What does everyone want? They want to accumulate bitcoin. So
if you can get people to purchase whatever it may
be with bitcoin, I think we're going to see an
(12:56):
increase in that. We're already seeing places like one of
the most posts popular apartment rental companies in Los Angeles,
owned by Rick Caruso, they accept bitcoin for rent. More
and more companies are starting to say, hey, here's an option,
you can pay in bitcoin if you want to. But
a lot of especially hardcore bitcoiners, they don't want to
spend their bitcoin. They want to save it for the
(13:18):
future because there's only going to be twenty one million.
You want to race to accumulate as much as you
possibly can. But in the future, again, if this does
become more of a monetary standard, which I do see
a future WHEREK could be. Then I think that we
will see more and more commerce denominated and paid for
in bitcoin. Right now, though obviously governments are incentivized to
(13:39):
have their fiat currencies be the mediums of exchange. They
want to be able to tax people in their fiat
currencies and levy that as sort of the medium of
exchange that's accepted by decree, right But I think that
things are changing because governments have really abused their power
over money, which is why bitcoin exists in the first place.
(14:00):
And so it's going to be very hard to convince
people to save in a form of money that just
gets debased and inflated every single year. And that's what
I think we're seeing with US treasuries right now. We're
sort of in a between a rock and a hard
place because we need to keep expanding our debt. That's
how the whole system is now underpinned with these US treasuries.
But why would someone hold treasuries when the real rate
(14:21):
of return is negative because they keep inflating the money
supply far greater than the rate that you're earning an interest.
So that's a huge dilemma, and.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
There are historical realities of this happening in countries around
the world at different periods of time, where the currency
becomes so devalued the people are using the currency for
toilet paper, wallpaper, because it's more valuable in those ways
than it is to spend on stuff. You have to
have a billion dollars essentially in that currency to afford
a meal, and so even if you're incredibly rich, the
(14:49):
value of the currency gets deflated away so significantly that
people are living in poverty. I'm curious, so too, you
talk about the haves and have nots under the current system,
is there a possibility for a half and have nots
in the bitcoin system? Essentially early adopters first, late adopters,
because I just think about what's happened with the price
a bitcoin over the past ten years, and gosh, it
(15:09):
feels like that people who are thinking about getting in
now the price of skyrocketed so significantly.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Are they too late?
Speaker 4 (15:18):
They're definitely not too late. It's still very early for
all of us in bitcoin. And this is actually one
of the things that's most empowering about this piece of technology.
We've never had an asset like this whose total addressable
market is eight billion people. So yes, early adopters of
course benefit from the earliest massive price swings and appreciation.
(15:39):
But think think about the early adopters of Amazon stock, right,
they're probably living in they're nice, they're nice mansions and
have their yachts and all that. But a kid in
a developing nation could not have purchased a share of
Amazon stock. They can't buy a fraction of a mansion
in Miami Beach and watches that appreciates, but they can
(15:59):
purchase a fraction of a bitcoin. And I think that again,
in the future, it's a system with a finite supply
where you have to provide value or expend resources in
order to get bitcoin. We've never had really something like
that that the whole world can buy it connected through
this digital economy, or work for it or earn it,
(16:20):
and so it's going to be a constant I think
exchange of value around the world in a way we've
never seen. This is why I actually think that we're
going to enter an era of abundance and prosperity that
we haven't seen before, because at the base layer, we're
going to have a form of capital that no one
can manipulate and steal from under us. Like inflation is
a hidden tax, it just steals from us. Bitcoin does
(16:42):
the opposite. It reinforces the base layer of all of
our interactions through commerce, through business, through money in a
way that no one can cheat and manipulate. I think
that that will actually usher in the most opportunity for
the most amount of people. Well, the early adopters have benefited, sure,
but there if they're going to want to you know,
(17:03):
live and eat and travel and all that, they're going
to have to spend their bitcoin eventually because someone's going
to say, hey, the only way you can get this
is if you pay me in bitcoin. Now we're talking
about a world probably you know, decades from now. I
think that the transition will take a long time because
dollars are still really entrenched in the whole global system,
and most debt is denominated in dollars and most people
(17:23):
transact in dollars. But I think over the long time horizon,
we will transition into this bitcoin standard because it's better
and most people will vote with their money.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
What do you think about stable coins?
Speaker 3 (17:35):
I feel like there are more brokerages and investing firms
in I guess they're talking about those, it almost seems
like crypto light or Bitcoin light almost where it's just like, Okay,
you don't want to own the actual thing.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
For a lot of folks, you can't stomach the swings
and price.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
You're brand new to this, and so it's I guess,
what are your thoughts about about some of these different
stable coins?
Speaker 5 (17:57):
Sure, well, let's keep it really really simple.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
A stable coin essentially, especially if you're talking about the
dollar back to stable coins, that is a digital dollar,
and what is the dollar designed to do. It's designed
to inflate and increase in supply. These stable coin companies,
it's been a wild ride to watch because some of
them are now purchasing more US treasuries than entire countries,
(18:19):
like tether Tethers, I think the seventh largest buyer of
US treasuries. So they're essentially just printing money because they're
sitting on all those treasuries earning risk free interest, and
they're growing and I think that their profits for like
one hundred people in their entire company almost exceeded Goldman Sacks.
So it's wild right, and obviously US banks and US
companies are looking at this saying we want a piece
(18:41):
of this action. So that's really one of the priorities
Wall Street, the big banks. They want to be able
to issue their own stable coins, and the US dollar
wants to prioritize, or the US Congress and the US
government wants to prioritize this because they want to extend
dollar dominance. If you create more demand for the dollar
around the world, that benefits us, especially if these companies
(19:02):
are all backing the dollars with treasuries. What do we need.
We need buyers of treasuries. So I just see, you know,
stable coins as the future. It's a digital version of
the dollar backed by US treasuries. And I would never
save in a stable coin right because it's just going
to continue to get devalued.
Speaker 5 (19:18):
But I think that it.
Speaker 4 (19:19):
Will be an entry point for a lot of people
as they start to use this technology and use crypto
rails in order to save in bitcoin, so, you know,
spend your dollars to spend your stable coins, but save
in bitcoin.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
The price of bitcoin can fluctuate wildly, and some people
have said that it's essentially akin to when you look
at the movements of the stock market, Bitcoin mirrors the
S and P in some ways, but more extreme, And
so I could see why people who want are willing
to take greater levels of risk put more money into
bitcoin because they're hoping for greater reward. But that also
(19:52):
I think incentivizes people to speculate in bitcoin, especially with
inter day movements that can be significant. How do you
think about You're talking about holding bitcoin, holding it for
the long haul, and I think that has been a
mantra for a lot of people in the bitcoin space.
But then there are other people who say, I don't know.
I think I want to try to make some money
on a day to day basis, just kind of speculating
(20:14):
on where the price of bitcoin goes. How do you
think about that?
Speaker 4 (20:17):
Yeah, so I'm not a day trader. I wish people
luck who day trade this asset because it is very volatile.
I mean, obviously, you know, people can gamble at the
casino and make a huge amount of money or they
can lose a lot. So I don't recommend day trading.
I especially don't do not recommend recommend using leverage because
there can be very significant swings that wash people out,
(20:39):
so be careful. This is a long term hold strategy
for me. I think that if you understand bitcoin. If
you've taken the time to really study this asset class
in network, then you have a longer time horizon and
you don't look at the everyday price wings. I mean,
I'm at the point where when bitcoin dips like it
has been over the last few weeks, I get excited.
I'm like, oh my gosh, mo and my target buy
orders just got execute because bitcoin dropped. This is an
(21:01):
excellent place to just add a little bit more. And
I actually celebrate the dips as an opportunity. Now that,
obviously for a newcomer, is very, very scary. You have
to really learn about bitcoin before you can stomach the volatility,
and I certainly was not ready to do that at
the very beginning. I was extremely skeptical, and when it
made price wings, I thought, oh my gosh, any day
(21:21):
it's going to go to zero. But that was coming
from my ignorance about what it really was that I
was investing in. And nothing does that for you other
than just taking the time to study it. So volatility
doesn't bother me. In fact, I think that it can
really be, as they say, a feature, not a bug,
in the sense that volatility can increase your sharp ratio
(21:45):
and actually increase your returns across a portfolio that's very diversified,
even if you just add a tiny bit of bitcoin.
And you can see that when you look at tools
like the Knackomoto portfolio, or you look at statistics from
I believe Preston Pish was the first person to note
that if you had just invested ninety eight percent cash
and two percent bitcoin over the four year cycle between
(22:06):
twenty twenty and like twenty twenty four, you would have
outperformed the S and P five hundred and anybody outperformed.
Speaker 5 (22:13):
So isn't that crazy?
Speaker 4 (22:14):
Yeah, so a little really does go a long way.
And I don't think it's going to be a question of, oh,
do you own bitcoin in a portfolio? You know, five
years from now, it's going to be how much do
you own? Is it two percent or is it more?
In my opinion, it's going to be closer to like
is it ten twenty fifty percent of your portfolio?
Speaker 3 (22:30):
All Right, you're getting into, like, I guess, the practical
side of things, Like you've made the best case for
it from like a very high level why our current
system is broken. But Natalie, we've got more questions to
get to we are going to talk about more of
the pragmatic practical steps when it comes to implementing bitcoin
into our portfolios. We'll get to that more right after this.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
All right, we're back.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
We're still talking about bitcoin with Natalie Brunell, who know
a lot about bitcoin, and Natalie. Matt is ready to
take the red pill or whatever color pills or I
should have done that, I should have done that. He's
so ready. Let's see if he takes it by the
end of this episode. Maybe I maybe I I've secretly
been micro do saying orange pill over the past four years.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
All right, I'm curious. So you kind of talked about
just briefly there, how you think about when you buy
more bitcoin? And it sounds like you have metrics in
place to say that are predetermined instead of on a
given day letting your emotions get ahead of you and say,
all I think I'm going to buy some bitcoin now
because oh dropped eight percent. Do you have predetermined measures?
(23:40):
How are you are you dollar cost averaging into bitcoin?
How do you think about when and how much bitcoin you,
you know, increase in your holdings?
Speaker 4 (23:48):
I buy bitcoin every single day. I dollar cost average
every day Yeah, I have a DCA setup for daily buys.
It's great because you know a lot of the platforms
if you do a d C eight, there are no
like I buy on River, no fees if you buy daily, weekly, monthly, whatever.
Speaker 5 (24:06):
So that's great.
Speaker 4 (24:06):
And I just figure I'm going to spend ten dollars
on like a coffee if I walk out the door,
why not put ten dollars or whatever out you're comfortable
with and in bitcoin, and a little again goes a
long way. I also just find ways to earn bitcoin
in any way I can. So I accept bitcoin from
people that I partner with or my sponsors.
Speaker 5 (24:25):
I use bitcoin.
Speaker 4 (24:27):
Reward credit cards so that I earn bitcoin back instead
of like airline miles and hotel points that inflate at
forty percent a year.
Speaker 5 (24:34):
I don't know if you knew that, but that's a fact.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Hey, what's the best bitcoin rewards credit card.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
In your opinion?
Speaker 4 (24:41):
So Gemini dot Com Slash Natalie that's a great one,
and also Fold. They haven't released THEIRS yet, but they're
coming out with one, but I highly recommend Geminis because
THEIRS is out right now. But I also do target buys,
so I watch macro very closely. If you watch my show,
you know, I bring on analysts who are both bullish
and bearish on everything that is happening in the economy,
(25:01):
and when there's a great amount of signal that hey,
we might crash soon, I create some target buy orders
online where I say, okay, if bitcoin drops to seventy
k I'm going to purchase this amount of bitcoin. And
so those are just sitting there, and while the money's
sitting there, I'm actually earning interest in bitcoin on my account.
So it's like a win win across the board. And
maybe that buy order never gets executed. But recently someone
(25:25):
by buy orders were because we crashed down to seventy
something thousand.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
How did you deal with the crypto winter as it were? Right,
we're extended downturn in bitcoin.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
Values that and for some people, I think Natalie just
kept buying Joel, did you have a digit?
Speaker 2 (25:41):
Were you buying every day? Because some people were saying
this might be the end? Is this the time that
bitcoin gets unproven, that thesa gets gets unproven? Were you
were you doubting or were you were you just buying
like normal?
Speaker 4 (25:51):
You know, I said on a recent show that I'm
so grateful for that crypto winter, because I thought at
the time that we were going to sail away to
one hundred fifty two hundred K, and it is harder
to accumulate when the price per coin is that much, right,
But having an almost eighty percent, I believe I forgot
the total it drew down in the bottom of the
(26:12):
bear market. That was actually a gift to those of
us who have put in the time and the work,
because yes, I was buying. I thought that it was
going to go down to ten K, and I was
going to load up as much as I possibly could
with any savings that I had.
Speaker 5 (26:24):
Yeah, I was.
Speaker 4 (26:25):
I was buying all the way down the bear market,
and it was kind of one of those first times
where I realized that I now understand the age old
investment advice that you should you buy when there's blood
in the streets, you should buy when there's all the fear,
And I never really understood that, and I was always
scared of that paradigm. But because I had put in
so much work with bitcoin, and I was highly convicted
(26:48):
and had sort of the evidence and the years of
studying to back that up, I felt comfortable buying the
dip as hard as I possibly could, so I'm very
grateful for the crypto winter. I don't think we'll ever
see prices below fifty thousand. I'd be shocked if we did.
And yet we're still so early. Going back to that
earlier point of at one hundred thousand dollars per bitcoin,
(27:10):
which we have retreated from. That's a two trillion dollar
asset class. That's tiny compared to the other asset classes
that we're essentially competing with, which are gold at twenty trillion,
equities at one hundred trillion, real estate at hundreds of trillions,
and bonds at hundreds of trillions. And I think that
(27:31):
over time Bitcoin will demonetize these other asset classes, and
to what extent I don't know, but I would feel
comfortable projecting that in a few decades we're at fifty
trillion market cap, if not one hundred trillion.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
All right by now, Joel, I'm just thinking about Natalie
literally buying daily, so she truly is that's like averaging
to the extreme. She really is microdosing. Yeah, yeah, on bitcoin.
And now, well you mentioned that you're buying. You've got
these daily orders set up on River like, what's the
difference when it comes to practically owning bitcoin. You've got
(28:04):
different brokerages. I've purchased bitcoin over on robin Hood before.
But then you've got folks who talk about cold storage wallets,
and if you don't own you have your own wallet,
it's not really your bitcoin talk to us about because
I think that's a barrier.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
ETFs are another option for people.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
Now, it's sure, right, yeah, but I guess, and so
you've got all these different ways to get into holding
actual actual bitcoin, But I guess I'm curious specifically between
buying bitcoin with a brokerage like robin Hood or in
your case, River versus folks who've got like a cold
storage wallet.
Speaker 4 (28:34):
Well, the great thing is optionality. I really think that
the more ways that people can buy and interact with
bitcoin the better, and then people will choose based on
their risk tolerance and things like convenience. Unfortunately, right, so
recently the rules were changed in the memo from the
SEC was changed so that banks can actually start custding bitcoin.
And we're not there yet, but once the really big
(28:56):
banks like Chase and Wells Fargo and all of them
start offering bitcoin, I'm pretty sure a lot of people
coming in will say, well, why would I go to
some small crypto exchange when I could just buy at
my bank right now. The thing that I think people
should just be aware of is it is important to
do your homework with bitcoin because it's unlike any other
asset in that it is a bare instrument that is
(29:18):
intended to remove all counterparty risks. So you can actually
take self custody of your bitcoin. You can purchase a
cold storage wallet, or create a multi key situation, a
multi sig scheme to basically decentralize and diversify your points
of failure or risk so that you don't have one
key accessing your bitcoin. Some people are willing to learn
(29:39):
about that process, which I really encourage. I don't think
it's difficult or technical, and others are saying, no, I
don't want to manage my own keys. I don't want
to have to worry about that. I'd rather just keep
it at a bank or buy exposure to bitcoin, not
really the underlying asset through one of the ETFs. I
think this is just a really personal choice, and I'm
a huge believer in the market, so I'm not going
(30:01):
to dictate to you.
Speaker 5 (30:02):
What's right for you.
Speaker 4 (30:04):
I think that you know, there's sometimes technology barriers and
depending on what age you are, that kind of informs
what you're willing to do. But let me just tell you,
anyone can take self custody. If you don't know how
to do it, there are great one on one personalized
services that walk you through it, like the Bitcoin Way.
The Bitcoin Way had an eighty two year old customer
recently takes self custody of their bitcoin. Like literally, anyone
(30:27):
can do it, So I recommend it just because then
you remove all counterparty risk. You're not trusting a bank,
you're not trusting inn exchange or an institution. The bitcoin
is fully owned by you. It can never be confiscated,
and you can create multiple keys, and you know, you
can have a situation within a state planner that you
will your keys to your children. All of that can
(30:48):
be set up. It's just what are you willing to
do and how much time are you willing to take
to learn about how to do it.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
What's your take on other cryptocurrencies? And there have even
been alternative cryptocurrency. The ETS announced too coming down the
pike saying hey, we're gonna have actually an ETF that
offers exposure to a range of crypto and because you
seem so bitcoin centric specifically, and yet there are like
what hundreds of cryptocurrencies that exist, thousands, thousands, and some
(31:18):
of which are based on memes, jokes, some of which
seem like don't have any They don't seem to be
equivalent to Bitcoin in any way, form or fashion. How
do you think about the whole cryptocurrency space? Bitcoin gets
lumped in as a cryptocurrency, but it seems also to
be really unique.
Speaker 4 (31:34):
Yes, Bitcoin is very special. It is unlike all the rest.
And I know that for a newcomer it might sound like, oh, well,
you're just pumping your own bags. I went through that
whole journey. So first, let me just say, if you're
new to the space and you're looking at it and
you don't really see the difference, I was right there
with you. In twenty seventeen, I bought a bunch of
the other tokens. I thought, oh, well, these are cheaper,
(31:55):
and I could pick up a bunch of these for
in less than a penny. I was looking at it
from kind of a gambling mentality and honestly just totally
speculating and then it took me years to really wrap
my head around bitcoin and how beautiful and technically perfectly
engineered the consensus mechanism the mining actually is. It is
(32:18):
a commodity, a digital commodity that is backed by energy
and math that no one can manipulate or hack or compromise.
It is really really special. We've never had anything like this,
and bitcoin is the only thing that could serve as
a reserve grade asset or as a new base layer
for a monetary system, whereas everything else I really see
(32:38):
as an industry of mainly digital equities. I do not
want my money to have a CEO. I think it
was totally selfless and amazing that Satoshi Nakamoto walked away
from bitcoin, never revealing his or her identity, and also
never extracting a profit or creating some sort of foundation
(32:58):
or trying to market his token. He just created it
and sort of gave it to the world to organically
succeed or fail. And I think that that's incredible.
Speaker 5 (33:08):
I mean he could have, right, I mean we could.
Speaker 4 (33:11):
So Toshi could be someone that tried to have a
bitcoin company and a face in front of it and
tell you, like, you know what the plans are in
the future, and that's what we see with a lot
of the other tokens. We see founders, we see vcs,
we see foundations, and I don't trust people. The point
of bitcoin is I don't have to trust any of
these people. I don't have to worry about ten years
(33:32):
from now if one of them decides to change the
code or propose something different. None of that risk exists
in bitcoin, which makes it truly unique. And I just
urge people to be careful with crypto because everything falls
against bitcoin. I just urge you to take any token
that you're looking at, price it in bitcoin, and you
will see it just crashing to zero. And that's what
(33:52):
I think people should pay more attention to, because yes,
you can get lucky in the short term, but if
you do sell it and buy bitcoin's that's what I think.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Joel.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
Doesn't this sound like something that Satoshi would actually say herself?
Is it?
Speaker 4 (34:07):
Well?
Speaker 3 (34:07):
Now, like you talked about it being perfectly designed, Like
speak to that, like I guess the security aspect of bitcoin.
You say that it's it's perfectly secure, But what about
we're reading a little bit more about the advent of
quantum computing and just what some of these computers are
are capable of. Do you, I guess does that not
concern you at all?
Speaker 5 (34:26):
It does not.
Speaker 4 (34:27):
I've actually looked into this for the last couple of
months because all of a sudden there was a new way.
There's always new fud, right, fear, uncertainty, doubt, and the
latest fud has been about Quantum's going to break Bitcoin.
Speaker 5 (34:38):
Well, I just I just.
Speaker 4 (34:39):
Want people to know that, first of all, the Sha
two fifty six hashing algorithm, which brings so much security
to Bitcoin, there's gonna be a lot that's going to
be cracked before that. We are nowhere near the level
of being able to crack that. And so these AI
tools that are coming out and even Microsoft talking about,
oh well we have something that has like this amount
of care bits, da dada, we're gonna be able to
(35:02):
accomplish this in terms of computing. I just want people
to remember that everything will be cracked before Bitcoin, every
banking system. When I go first, the nuclear codes all
of your all of your Internet activity, right, so everyone
is incentivized for that not to happen. And do you
think that if Microsoft basically came up with an AI
(35:22):
tool that would crack all of its systems that it
would sell it like. No, I mean, it's it's kind
of a it's kind of It goes to what I
always say about the free market, which is that the
free market's the best referee because it will it has
like self protection mechanisms in place. We don't need government
interference and all the laws that exists because the free
market will actually protect itself in many ways, just like
(35:44):
nature protects itself. And I yes, computing is going to
increase and maybe there comes a time many years from
now where we have to upgrade everything to quantum resistance.
But I will tell you that I'm not worried about
bitcoin compared to everything else will come before it.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
So going from something that is like future oriented, what
about something incredibly simplistic. We were talking to someone recently,
Matt and I were who is a big bitcoin investor,
and she mentioned, and I'd never heard of this before,
five dollars rench attacks, and that is like the most
basic threat. I guess, this most simple thing is a
(36:23):
dark alley and a wrench in your face, where a
personal attack on somebody who holds a lot of cryptocurrency.
How worried are you about that. How prevalent is that
almost like someone saying, hey, can I borrow your phone
and then transferring money from your Venmo account to their
own account. How big of a problem is potential violence
(36:44):
in stealing people's bitcoin stashes.
Speaker 5 (36:47):
So yeah, I.
Speaker 4 (36:47):
Actually did a few episodes recently about this because we
are seeing an increase and people make themselves out to
be targets. Right. Some of the most recent instances where
we've seen this are people talking very very loudly about
all the crypto that they hold, and then all of
a sudden someone tries to literally harm them or kidnap
them or threaten them with violence.
Speaker 5 (37:06):
So it is a reality.
Speaker 4 (37:08):
So I would urge people, first of all, if you're
investing in this space like no one's no one's tweeting
about their Amazon balance, right, Like I just I just
think you be a little bit more private and be
a little bit more careful about what information you're putting
out there because so much of us, you know, our
identities and our personal infos already online, So don't add
(37:29):
to becoming a potential target. Number two, create ways to
have barriers around your bitcoin. What does that mean, Well,
don't have single points of failure. Don't have a situation
where even if someone were to take your phone that
they could immediately send bitcoin. A lot of the platforms
right now, if you were to have a hot wallet,
(37:50):
actually create vaults where you have to wait a certain
amount of days to withdraw more than say one thousand
dollars of bitcoin. So like my platform, for example, River
creates what they call a force field around your account.
And if you're trying to transfer all of a sudden
out of nowhere, you know, tens of thousands of dollars,
that's going to be a flag to them that hey,
(38:12):
this might be something nefarious going on, and we're not
going to allow that bitcoin to move until we verify
that this is actually Natalie sending it. So a lot
of the companies are creating, you know, options like that
and tools like that.
Speaker 5 (38:26):
And then again going back to.
Speaker 4 (38:27):
Multi sig multi key custody, if you take bitcoin into
self custodying, you create a multi key scenario. There's nothing
that the person could do to get your bitcoin if
you have to get another key that's in another state,
Like they could want it, but they can't get it,
they can't access it. So I just think you need
to do your homework in terms of being able to
(38:48):
decentralize distribute any points of risk. And then yeah, just
be careful what you're posting because they're dangerous, scary people
out there that are wanting to take from you, and
you just you have to do yours to protect yourself.
But it can happen, you know, not just for bitcoin,
but for a multitude of reasons.
Speaker 3 (39:05):
Okay, I like how you continue to say, do your homework,
and so I guess I want a last note here
on I guess practical advice or suggestions, like do you
have a recommendation on what percentage of individuals investable assets
that should be in bitcoin versus the stock market, especially
for a lot of folks out there who are are
(39:26):
newer to it, and we typically are like, you know,
we understand that there's a case for it, but be
super careful and how much you a lot? Based on
what you're saying, I guess I wouldn't be surprised for
you to say, you know, so, like you said a
second ago, ninety eight percent of your portfolio could be cash,
and then like so, basically one hundred percent of your
(39:46):
actual investable assets are dumped and bitcoin, but I'm I
guess I'm curious to hear your thoughts on somebody who
is new to bitcoin. What you would recommend from a
percentage damp stock market. Do you still invest in stock?
Speaker 4 (39:56):
I think that everyone should be invested in bitcoin. I
think it's that actually a lot easier in terms of
an investment strategy, because you just set it and forget
it and just keep accumulating. I think that over time
there will be more tools, like you could borrow against
your bitcoin. People are going to be taking out, you know,
to buy a house. They're going to be using bitcoin
as collateral. Like there's going to be a future of
services and products that we haven't even envisioned yet, but
(40:19):
definitely get off zero. So I think that if you're very,
very new and the volatility makes you nervous, or you
need to make a really big purchase in the next
couple of years, then keep your allocation very small, you know,
one to two percent, five percent. But as you learn,
believe me, your conviction starts to grow. And so yeah,
I mean I ended up. I was actually upset that
I even still had for a time being gold in
(40:42):
my portfolio or some of these stocks, because bitcoins so
aggressively outperformed. And you know, if I have this conviction,
but I'm not really putting my money where my mouth is,
then do I have conviction. So I eventually ended up
just shifting a lot of my positions to just being
very bitcoin focused in my retirement cown. I do own
the bitcoin ETFs because that's just it's just easy to
(41:03):
hold in a retirement portfolio as opposed to spot bitcoin.
And then I hold spot Bitcoin outside of my retirement
accounts and self custody, and I'm like a full on
bitcoin maxie, and I'm super happy about it.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
Right, We've got a few more questions to get to
with you, Natalie, including well, if government is part of
the problem and part of the reason that we need bitcoin,
what happens when they enter into bitcoin ownership. We'll talk
about that and more. Right after this, we're back from.
Speaker 3 (41:41):
The break again speaking with Natalie Rutinelle and Natalie. As
Joel alluded to before the break, let's talk about government policy.
Because Donald Trump, he seems to be the first president
to actually embrace crypto, at least I don't know, at
least publicly. He announced the creation of the Strategic uh,
not just bitcoin reserve, but also crypto. So I'm kind
of curious as to if you think that he is
(42:03):
wasting his time and effort with some of the other
cryptos don't need harpening. But how will that impact bitcoin specifically?
And then I guess just a crypto space as a whole.
Speaker 4 (42:14):
Well, let me just clarify something first. We have a
strategic bitcoin reserve and that bitcoin is pledged not to
be sold, and I think we're going to start adding
to it in the next year or so. Whereas the
digital assets stockpile does have crypto that was seized through
civil forfeiture, but that can be sold. So what the
(42:34):
government is saying is don't sell your bitcoin, but maybe
sell the other digital assets down the road. So I
wouldn't be surprised if the government actually sold a lot
of those other digital assets that are in the stockpile.
And we're going to definitely be focusing on a strategic
bitcoin reserve. A lot of people maybe don't realize, but
we have strategic reserves for other assets and commodities. We
(42:55):
have a strategic oil reserve. People might be familiar with that.
We have a strategic chie reserve. We have a strategic
obviously gold, but I think what we need is a
strategic bitcoin reserve because it is important for the government
to recognize this technology as one that can help us
address some of our many financial issues. We're a nation
thirty six trillion dollars in debt. We need to keep
(43:18):
up the demand for the US treasuries, which we talked
about earlier, which is why they're so in favor of
stable coins and anything that will extend dollar dominance.
Speaker 5 (43:26):
But what will actually help.
Speaker 4 (43:27):
Us grow or get out of debt. We need an
asset that appreciates rapidly, that is here to stay, which
we know bitcoin is, and that is finite and cannot
be hacked or manipulated or inflated. So that's Bitcoin. I mean,
I really do believe. I had Senator Cynthia Lummis on
my show I'm releasing it this week, and she's talked
about how we could cut our debt in half if
(43:50):
we pass the Bitcoin Act and start strategically accumulating bitcoin,
because Bitcoin is growing faster than any other asset, and
it will out allow us to outpace this debt that
we keep accumulating.
Speaker 5 (44:03):
And that's what I think.
Speaker 4 (44:04):
We need in order to be able to grow and
maybe focus on sort of revitalizing the American dream that
seems lost. The thing that brought my parents here. This
nation was so strong and prosperous because of its economic power.
It was the credit or nation. It made so many
(44:25):
amazing things that it exported around the world. And now
we're just highly financialized and all we export is our
dollars and basically we just go into debt. And so
I think that there's a better America ahead. I think
the bitcoin age is ahead of us, and I think
that if America embraces it first, we will be at
a strategic advantage. So I'm so excited to see that
(44:46):
this administration is embracing bitcoin, even if not all the
politicians fully understand bitcoin yet, which they don't, But I
think this is a starting point. I think we will
be a leader and we will set a standard for
the rest of the world.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
Okay, looking to the future, I don't want to hear
price predictions or anything like that. I can get those
on CNBC or really any financial website. So so predicts
bitcoin to a million in a year and a half
or something like that. That happens all the time. But
when it comes to the way bitcoin interacts with our
everyday lives, even people who haven't or have been really
slow adopters of bitcoin. What's that going to look like?
(45:20):
And I think the thing I'm particularly curious about. You
talk about bitcoin, and that's one of the existential questions
is is it an investable asset or is it a currency?
And you think it's an asset that will transition into
a currency. What's that look like? How does that shake out?
What's the future for bitcoin?
Speaker 5 (45:37):
I think it's going to take a long time.
Speaker 4 (45:40):
My goal is to just help people learn about bitcoin
so that they start saving in it, because I do
think it's the most powerful and am empowering savings technology.
So I think that people will increasingly save in bitcoin.
There are going to be more and more tools and
services to allow you to do that. I think that
companies will come out with killer apps that make interacting
(46:00):
with bitcoin on a day to day basis a little
bit easier, and that will facilitate more of the medium
of exchange aspect to bitcoin, so people do start spending
it more for their business activities. But I just see
a long time horizon where we slowly shift away from
underpinning the entire system with sovereign debt and one nation's currency,
(46:23):
and we start underpinning it with things that no one
can control, and a lot of people would think that
we're retransitioning back to gold, which I can understand. If
you don't understand bitcoin, then you might think gold is
the next best solution. I would be in that camp
if bitcoin didn't exist. But because Bitcoin exists, I think
it's going to eventually move into a system underpinned by
bitcoin as the capital, as the pristine collateral, as the
(46:46):
savings technology, and as the way eventually people do spend
their money.
Speaker 3 (46:52):
Very cool, Natalie Bruneill making a great case for bitcoin.
And Natalie, you mentioned your book that comes out l
later this year, Bitcoin for Everyone. Do you have a
scheduled publish or release date for that.
Speaker 5 (47:03):
I'm so excited.
Speaker 4 (47:04):
Yes, you can already pre order it on Amazon, Barnes
and Noble, all the bookstores. It's coming out in October
or November, and I'm so excited because it is the
book that I wish that I had starting my journey.
It explains the problem that currently exists and why bitcoin is,
in my opinion, the best solution, and why everyone should
buy at least a little bit of bitcoin.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
Nice awesome.
Speaker 2 (47:25):
We look forward to checking it out when it comes out. Natalie,
thank you so much for joining us today on the show.
We really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (47:30):
Thank you, ok jil, I feel like after that conversation,
did you just get orange pilled?
Speaker 1 (47:37):
Because we always hit stop.
Speaker 3 (47:39):
On the recording with the guests from the interview, and
you know, we have a few words thank them for
coming on, and then you and I end up talking
for like fifteen minutes, and we probably just talked for
about thirty minutes, and you just got pretty fired up
before I resumed the recording. Here for us to come
back and present some takeaways. But what do you want
to share?
Speaker 1 (47:55):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (47:55):
So my big takeaway, okay, is that everyone should read
more about economics, so they should understand our economic system
how it works, and really the history of economics too.
And like, sorry, big homework assignment, people, but I've just
finished reading two incredible books by Thomas Soul, Basic Economics
and Applied Economics, and I think why I'm recommending that
(48:18):
is because I feel like this conversation with Natalie, a
whole lot of the why behind bitcoin comes down to
the flaws in our current economic system and the way
the people in charge of the levers of power have
handled our system of money.
Speaker 3 (48:33):
And Jill, everyone's putting you in their box of conspiracy
theorists as you say.
Speaker 2 (48:38):
This, it's not just you know, it's truly not conspiracy.
It's just the literal fact. I mean, we've noticed it
with just even artificially low interest rates, what happens when
the government does print more money and the inflation that
causes and the pain that causes typically on the even
lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum. Do I think bitcoin
(48:59):
is the fall on solution? And I don't know, like
I am down to own some bitcoin. I am probably
down to own more. I feel like Natalie explained it
really well, But I do think like my big takeaway
is just that to understand bitcoin, even to feel like
this conversation is successful, I think people need even more
of a fundamental economic education, and that's that's sorely lacking
in this country. So yeah, Thomas sol read Thomas Soul.
(49:21):
That will help you out a lot.
Speaker 3 (49:22):
So my big takeaway will be less onerous for those
who are like, yeah, dude, I'm not going to.
Speaker 1 (49:27):
Do that, which is they're like they see the thickness
of the book. I thank you. I've got a life
to live.
Speaker 3 (49:34):
So on that note, my big takeaway is going to
be when I asked her about what percentage of your
overall portfolio should be dedicated to bitcoin, and she said,
it's just good to get off zero. And I interpreted
that as it's better to have some than to have none.
And I think even if you're thinking, well, dude, I'm
not gonna completely understand how the world works, how the
FED is manipulating money, FIAC currency, or you know, nudging
(49:58):
the economy in certain directions, well you also don't have
to completely understand that to diversify a little bit to
head your bets. And there's a part of me that
feels that that's what the US government is doing. The
ability to set up to set up a strategic reserve
points to the fact that you don't really know what
the future holds, and do you want to double down
on a system that you're not totally sure of, or
(50:19):
do you want to perhaps quietly start having a strategic
reserve when it comes to something like bitcoin. I think
it's smart not only for countries, but obviously for individuals
as well. I don't know if that's going to change
how much I'm currently holding. Yeah, But for those out
there who have had their interests piqued, I think there
are some very easy ways to check it out if
we wanted to.
Speaker 2 (50:39):
And I'm not changing a rule of them yet, But
I think we've always said something like up to five
percent of your portfolio, but maybe kind of what you're
hinting at is it should probably be something up to
five percent of Sure, you know, but until now it's
been like you don't need any but if you want to,
you can, And so maybe it's like, I don't know,
maybe you should have a little.
Speaker 3 (50:56):
Bit have something, Yeah, And I think it'll get you
thinking about it, and I think that can be the
beginning of the helpful process of learning what it's all about.
All Right, we got long winded before when we weren't recording,
so we'll try to say save all of our listeners
from that. But our beer that you and I enjoyed
today was a stash IPA. Looks like this is Independence
(51:16):
Brewing Company out of Austin, Is.
Speaker 1 (51:18):
That right, Texas? Yeah, this is one of the beers
that you picked.
Speaker 3 (51:20):
Up while you were there in Austin for the.
Speaker 1 (51:22):
iHeart Podcast Awards. What were your thoughts on this beer?
I liked it.
Speaker 2 (51:26):
It was a little dank, a little grapefruity, mildly bitter.
So sometimes the hyper West Coast style IPAs can just
be like too better, too hard for me to endure.
This one was like, maybe it's because it's in the
middle of the country. It was like it was mid bitter,
which I can appreciate.
Speaker 1 (51:41):
So I like this one.
Speaker 3 (51:42):
Yep, had the dank going on, but with like a
little bit of fruit, like not a specific fruit that
they you know, forced into it, but just tasted great,
nice and bright, juicy. Glad that you and I got
to enjoy it and share it today on the episode
That's Gonna Be It.
Speaker 1 (51:54):
For this episode, you can find show notes.
Speaker 3 (51:56):
Up on the website at Howtomoney dot com, and we'll
make sure to link to the pre order to Natalie's book.
And we didn't even know that she's coming out with
a book later this year, so I'm glad we.
Speaker 1 (52:04):
Got to catch her early.
Speaker 3 (52:05):
So buddy, until next time, Best Friends Out, Best Friends Out,