Inflation Fears 2021 Emergency | Jeff Booth
luna the fastest easiest way to buy bitcoin if you're just getting into crypto it's the perfect place to start guys and welcome back to another episode of the lehigh pen show powered by the vc firm icon plus capital and sponsored by block five so if you don't know block fight offer very competitive interest rates particularly on bitcoin and stable coins i use them i love them so if you are interested then i'm gonna leave a link in the description and in the comment section i think you can get around 250 when you sign up so pretty good so today i have um a very exciting guest um i'm in the middle of reading his book so it's great just to speak to him um and also with everything that's going on in the world right now particularly with inflation which we found out is not transitory it's gonna be great to speak with him so joining me today is jeff booth entrepreneur tech leader and author of the price of tomorrow jeff great to have you how are you great thanks for having me leila yeah it's so good to speak with you i think that especially during times like this where we're seeing um astronomical levels of inflation we were told that it was transitory um it's clearly not quite transitory i know you have um some really interesting um ideas which i really want to go into and i kind of want to start with the premise of your book which is essentially that technology um and the price well technology will essentially um lead to price deflation which will then cause mass unemployment so i'd really like to understand exactly what you mean by this where does technology come into play yeah so the overriding factor in the world right now and what central banks have been up for up against for a long time is technology is supposed to make our lives give us more for less which is inflationary so that technology is productivity exponential productivity and if you look at your phone or or this this call we're doing if you think about anything we do today we're used essentially technology to do it and that technology what ends up happening with technology is is that things move towards the marginal cost of production which becomes free especially with ai so if you a really good example is 10 years ago 20 years ago think of all the industries around camera equipment camera sales film distribution of it and everything else and how many photos you took yep compared to how many photos you take today and and the cost of it entire industries are decimated new industries are formed and the new industries give you way more for less we take trillions of photos how the photos are driving part of our culture today and it's all essentially free the the photo the the camera on the key on the iphone is i think it's an under five dollar bill of materials item today and it produces 3d and everything else so so that even that camera 10 years ago would have been 700 so so when you think about what happens it just that that that base layer of technology is driving everything down in price as we're supposed to be getting more against that and that's why i said it's been happening for a long time now against that we have a system that can't allow deflation so our system that we live in is a credit-based system and that that has to grow forever so inflationary inflationary you have essentially you have we believe we need two percent inflation to survive it's just it's not true the the system that we designed a credit-based system that doesn't actually have hard money at the bottom of it it's just credit requires inflation to survive so that raises a very interesting interesting um quandary or it's it's it's actually the driving force of every other thing in the world today these two things colliding into each other one man-made system that must that must create inflation against technology that's trying to drive the other way and so when you do that what ends up happening is you concentrate wealth and power in very few hands from then player and you're picking the pocket of a whole bunch of other people and they're looking out of the world and the things that aren't being driven by technology and there is still technology in it that let's say housing or food hasn't transitioned as fast as others or education education is free today people just don't know it's free today yeah but it's um but all of those industries that are scarce go up in price and we and a whole bunch of people that had their pocket picks through inflation can't afford to live anymore and they rise up and they vote for different leaders who carry on the same type of tactic because the exact entire inflationary system would collapse without wit without manipulation so why did why does that two percent inflation have to have to exist why is inflation necessary because because but what ends up happening with an inflationary monetary policy is and let's say the reason that exists in the first place is because then governments can give you more service than they can pay for and they can hide some of that in inflation that nobody votes for so it can expand government's powers to essentially pick your pockets um and and and because we will all vote for people who will say we would if somebody said i'm going to tell you the truth here's what it looks like and we need to go into a deflationary spiral and every bank will collapse and every institution collapse would that person get elected no and so it so that's that's the point we all believe that we need inflation we don't it's it's insane to think that inflation it's insane just to think humanity requires um a uh a theft in their money of course to live in a productive society it's just not true it's categorically categorically not true what is true is the system requires it and because because when debt keeps on getting bigger and bigger inflation has to go higher to pay back the debt because you can't pay it back with taxes you can't pay it back if you increase taxes if you if you charge every company 100 percent taxes next um in the us you couldn't put a dent into one year of what is needed to run the run the budget so access can't solve it so you have to you so you have to resort to playing tricks and essentially funding in a different way which is destroying currency and hurting a whole bunch of people as a result of that it sounds quite um inherently um evil and like it's sort of done by design do you think that it is done by design or do you think it's just by accident that we ended up here yeah i i so it would be easy to think it's done done by design and i think there's there's a number of books out there that uh that that would talk about by design in the monetary layer um well that might be true in some senses i don't think that where we are now is done by design i think it's more ineptitude and and understand and and not understanding how a system feedback loop works that that system feedback loop making it bigger and bigger and bigger all the time requiring more debt all the time requiring more um and no way out but but ask ask any policy ask yourself if you were elected queen of the world today how would you fix it and how would you fix it other than an alternative system because the system itself can't fix it because if you if you stopped if you stopped inflating if you allowed the free market to work people would not want the free market to work right now because the free market would mean every single thing would have a cascading collapse everything every bank would fail around the world you would have no food on the street you're on shelves you would it would look it would look terrible because we are so far past the point of rescue on the existing system so so what you could say policymakers are trying to do and they're scared to death and rightfully so um is there they have to what ends up happening is when you have corruption and money you have corruption everywhere there's a result and and so what they'd have to do is oh look over here and create and create more misinformation to be able to keep printing which hurts a whole class of people but you have to ask what would they do what it would so so they're trapped right unfortunately they're trapped right now and as a result of them being trapped we are all trapped so there's so much there to unpick so i want to start with the idea that if we move to an alternative system you're essentially saying that everything would collapse banks would collapse would be supply chain issues no food on the streets um but i'll get into bitcoin in a bit because i know that you every tweet you end with bitcoin you're obviously a bitcoiner um so how then do we how then would we even move to a kind of world of hyper bitcoinization if there would be this serious collapse and i know that bitcoiners don't really care necessarily if there's going to be a collapse with the banks right we're kind of almost unbanked anyway they should care okay explain and they should care because if you don't understand that piece you misunderstand human nature and know what human nature would do under those conditions yes under those conditions um we are very susceptible to dictatorships controlling us and doing really terrible things to other people so every bitcoiner should care that the existing system doesn't collapse they should be voting for a smoothie in fact bitcoin smooth transition and that's that smooth transition um as mad as they are at the existing system as mad as they are there are people in this existing system that are that are terrible people yeah but there's also a whole bunch of good people in the existing system and and it's easy to it's easy to turn against all people in an existing system when you see the truth and what's that existing system is most of the what's happening in the existing system is just momentum that has to keep on feeding back on itself and many people have no idea so how what would a transition look like i look at bitcoin i look at bitcoin specifically and that's actually why i post quite a bit i've looked everywhere for for understanding this problem what what possible way what possible bridge to the other side uh is there and i've only seen bitcoin it's the only possible bridge i've seen i may be wrong but but i've done investigation every uh everywhere and i don't see another one for a very variety of reasons but when is it what the thing is happening today is people are looking at bitcoin and they're looking at bitcoin through the lens of where bitcoin is today okay and and imagine in the u.s or canada or any g7 nation that everything collapsed could you use your bitcoin everywhere and and that's the problem today you can today it's hard yes but but what ends up happening with all technology is people project the current forward instead of where it's going forward so the network on bitcoin the network effect on layer two on bitcoin is making the roads easier and easier to use bitcoin to be able to become a store of value and to purchase with it and so i i use this example i've used this example often in 1999 when when the when the dot com market collapsed the dot-com market collapsed and amazon was trading at under five dollars and they were selling books and a couple other items what if in that time and and then the writing was it was on the wall that amazon was going to be this great company i was an investor in it then i saw what it was it was going to be this great company writing was on the wall then they're doing the same thing today but but what if every retail store collapsed in 1999 and amazon wasn't selling books you would see what what i'm talking about the layer in the monetary layer here right so what ends up happening is a transition happens in the net when one system builds and it's getting stronger and stronger and stronger and one system flails and gets harder and harder and harder to be able to use and as that system starts to flail more and more people see the new system and they walk across the bridge to the new system that's what bitcoin is and as more and more people are walking across the bridge to to build the new system both in holding bitcoin uh yes the early people walking across the bridge on more uh more or more of the future have more say in the future but all people walking across the bridge make the bridge better and better for everyone else and it's easier and easier to use and so all the all the investment and layer two all the all the technology all all that is essentially you could look at yourself myself at this call us talking to other people who will see this call and and say i need to get off zero i need to understand bitcoin and and you could see those people as becoming nodes in the new in the new infrastructure nodes in bitcoin which make that system stronger and stronger and stronger over time if that happens at the right rate then if i you if you looked at el salvador today you could buy your groceries with bitcoin right you can so there's places in the world that you can start to see this transition happening it just hasn't it just hasn't it it needs it needs more time to move to the other side okay so it's all about a slow transition it's not as if tomorrow we can essentially overthrow everything um the the existing system um so so let me just clarify that too okay i can't say what will happen because when you have a system that is this uh fragile yes anything could happen um said which snowflake causes the avalanche we got a lot of snow falling on the avalanche um and uh on on and and there could be a cascading collapse any time there could be mat and that cascading collapse would cause massive more printing to try to stop it but there's a lot of there's a lot of fragility in the existing system so i'm i'm telling you what i hope happens the healthiest way right yeah yeah okay so that would be the healthiest way um that slow transition infrastructure slowly being built so people can buy their groceries but my question really is el salvador got a lot of hostility from the imf even the bank of england which is laughable because of course inflation is isn't in unprecedented levels in england yet the bank of england are focusing on el salvador rather than themselves and the imf the u.s so much um hostility even christine lagarde and the president of um the european um uh central bank she basically said that bitcoin isn't a currency so we can see that the establishment really don't like bitcoin they see the power that it has so how then is this go how is this transition really going to take place it's as if like let's say blockbuster versus netflix you know what if blockbuster were powerful enough and angry enough to actually stop the development of netflix is that possible so so number one your question makes me laugh because yesterday i put a tweet out that said people in glass houses shouldn't uh made of manipulated money shouldn't throw stones right your glass house of the world imf lives in and everything else throwing stones at somebody who wants freedom and a currency that can't be manipulated seems kind of ironic um and and so but but more important there is every monopoly faces the same thing um if you do the only difference this time and is by the way it's a big difference because we've always had a monopoly of money that we we haven't questioned that it always will look like that um monopolies in the economy and and that question look at other monopolies in an economy and what ends up happening what ends up happening is a monopoly has its control through scale or something else and it it controls the access to that monopoly and and few people are privileged the monopoly is privileged and most people are hurt by it right any monopoly so what protects that is those few try to protect the walls and the end of that monopoly what ends up happening is then technology lowers the barrier cost the access cost so much so and produces so much benefit that monopoly to to change their business they can't change the business because the access comes from delivering value in a completely different way your blockbuster netflix example or the one i wrote about in the book is a good example because the lowering of the cost of essentially fiber and and video meant nobody had to drive to a store to pick up a video in fact you could in an instant technology changed the rules and invalidated blockbuster's business and how did it do so it opened access for a whole bunch of people who didn't have access before and so every technology does the same same thing when you when you hit that point in technology when you have kind of a 10x value over the existing infrastructure the existing infrastructure can't compete so and and what ends up happening is because way more of us way more people are hurt by the monopoly than are helped by the monopoly all of the people that are hurt start using the new technology or or all the other entrepreneurs that say wow i could never create a business over here in this structure yeah and on this new structure and they and they go to build their dreams hopes empower the future on the new technology so that actually that happens everywhere from horses to cars to to to the printing press to to the compute the internet every single thing looks the same thing and a way and the monopolies that used to stand before were built on different rules and then technology changes the rules that's all that's happening with uh with that's all that's happening right now um is bitcoin specifically lowered the barrier cost access costs everything else from the existing system and a whole bunch of people that are hurt by the existing system are moving to the to the new system and that that movement creates that bridge across to the other side it actually makes perfect sense that el salvador would be on bitcoin before the us because the monopoly and and just like it made perfect sense that no no vendor that sold to walmart was the first seller to amazon it was all the people who couldn't it was the 99 of products that couldn't get into walmart went on to amazon so it's it's just what ends up happening with any technology change yeah land of uh the place of opportunity the blockchain right now the land of opportunity um but you did an interview with um andrew yang which i was actually so happy to see um because um i want to talk about universal basic income because he has this idea that um with technology um developing um people are essentially going to be put out of work and we saw that happen um at the time of the century but um essentially with technology speeding up right now the whole idea that people can simply learn to code isn't quite possible and so he believes to sort of um i guess make that transition easier we should have a universal basic income so i'd love to know your thoughts on that and whether and how you think we would transition bitcoin aside just in general with technology moving forward the metaverse and everything like that you know i think i think engineers and developers are one of the most sought after jobs right now um so what's you know your lorry driver going to do um when we're all sort of living in the metaverse yeah um keep reading my book by the way um andrew came and i don't think publicly he can say this and everything else but he came on almost a 180 from his belief pattern before so he oh okay so we agreed so he we both see technology and what it's going to do and it's going to save time and that saving of the time comes as a result of jobs going away like we could be we here's the most kind of big example i could say why don't you pay for your oxygen the air you're breathing right now i feel like we kind of do area breathing right now why don't you pay for it um and and and it would be ludicrous to create an economy where you had to pay for your the area breathing because the hair you're breathing is it abundant is abundant right we don't even think like why would we do that well there are so many places that right that that essentially technology is going to create the same thing just like just like so um so it's it's moving everywhere and what it means is things should be dropping in price as jobs come out of the market things should be dropping in price at the same rate the reason why basic income is is kind of used as a fix is because you're having to you're pushing prices up against the natural forces and then people say i need money to live and and it like and think about this so i create more inflation so most prices go up and because house prices go up and it's the only way people can escape it's one of the only ways people can escape that inflation blackstone starts buying houses and then rent and then rents go up mm-hmm and open and and people can't pay if people can't pay their bills so so then government says wait i need to create more inflation so i can give them more ubi so they can pay their bills it's insane so cause it's a cycle it's a cycle that reinforces itself and reinforces itself and a lot of people will vote for that cycle because they're so hurt by the system it's like a monopoly board going around a monopoly board somebody has all the properties the properties they they get to keep the properties forever there's this injection making those properties more and more valuable and then a whole bunch of people that are that can't get around the monopoly board anymore and can't end the game normally in the monopoly game would be thrown out or the game would end right people would break um and but they can't get around the board so so what the people in power say instead of give them 200 when they pass go we're going to give them 400 and push the prices even higher right so and then they can't get around the board again and so that's what's so when you look at ubi through that lens that's what it is and what it in and andrew after that call we've had lots of sense and everything that's cool but but he became a bitcoin advocate after that call because um and and but he asked me he goes how many people understand bitcoin like you do like the the this is the this is a transfer in systems that that can allow humanity to flourish on the other side and we need to get to the other side of that that system so so i have a lots of respect especially lots of respect for somebody who um will will look at the facts and change their mind um and and so uh but but but he he and he now understands bitcoin and why it's so important he's actually speaking in the bitcoin conference as well oh amazing that's so good to be able to um i guess orange pill somebody um especially a politician um because i think i think we need more people um on our side but in times in terms of inflation in general i think what really concerned me was the idea that people are um claiming that it was it was going to be transitory um i think um the video actually came out of the uk which was saying um that economists didn't expect it um which is so strange because um i don't have a any um finance degree or anything like that i have a journalism degree and yet i expected it right so how do i how do i know that information was going to come and things like that but economists didn't so either the economists that are um essentially in charge because they obviously um provide financial advice for those who make who set policy um either they're ignorant or there's something else going on here so how did they not know yeah so is this so do you remember that paul krugman uh yes that says about that about the internet the internet it made no difference the facts machine 15 years later defending that quote i didn't know he defended it oh i didn't know that in a big way he defended it and he said this which is way worse than the original quote i'm an economist i don't make predictions on on technology so so and why is that worse we have an economy globally that is more and more led by technology all of it is technology yet an economists think they're immune from people making mistakes on technology an economist that doesn't understand technology it can't be a very good economist by definition and and so and and that's the that's the thing that's so hard in these transitions most people most people we predict our future for our existing path forward instead of where technology is leading us it's very hard to understand and so there's a whole bunch of economists that are stuck in that same loop thinking they're playing by the rules before and all their models are working before as before and they simply cannot work in the techno and where we're moving with technology it's actually this sim is really this simple technology moving at this rate requires a currency that allows for deflation requirement if if and and that requirement is almost impossible for an existing central bank to allow right so but but and i'm going to put a caveat on that requirement it does it doesn't require it if you concentrate all control in central banks and and and the world looks like the entire world looks like china very few people making decisions for everybody else um but if the world looks like that it's not a world i want my kids to grow up in but and it and so but it but where technology is moving how fast it's moving it requires a currency that allows for deflation otherwise with inflation against that because they're opposite opposing forces otherwise you concentrate all all wealth and enhance ends of you it's really that simple wow so it's the only thing that i've seen that allow will allow that transition okay so okay so just i'm really trying to like understand it really it's just the it's kind of just the push and pull and the friction between technology which is which is allowing for deflation in prices because of the abundance that it's creating versus the the essentially the monetary system that we have which is causing inflation and then that those two together creates this centralized power and so so yeah exactly and and you centralize faster and faster and faster because the because because technology is moving one way in the uh opposite way so so people that are thinking you're going to have inflation forever the minute the government stop uh printing you're going to have a deflationary spiral the minute and is and that's good or bad so that would collapse the system right right right right would it collapse into that collapse with no food on the street and everything yes yes yes um people us we would elect dictators to fix it for us there would be so individual rights and freedoms would go away a different way in if that collapse like that without the collapse keep on printing we elect dictators in a different way and and so unfortunately there's only door one keep printing um and when i say door one or door dude or door two don't and keep printing on the way there typically looks like revolution and war there's high likelihood that as you keep going even in the u.s that you have revolution um that that trickles over and everything else as more and more people think it's those other people that's the problem when it's a system problem but at a high level you have one or two doors keep printing um all of the negative externalities from key printing don't keep printing all the negative externalities of that and and that's actually why the system can't change itself it needs an escape valve it needs this bridge to the other side and so a lot of people that are understanding bitcoin they're starting to walk across this bridge and the bridge is gonna and on the other side it's really exciting it's really exciting for the people there's so much opportunity in the ecosystem right now it's really exciting for the but but this transition from one system to another is going to be messy so both doors lead to hell and dictatorship essentially unfortunately there is no okay unfortunately there is no that's good no that's a good thing wow i would say yeah it is but it's actually also why why in bitcoin many more people i i know i know people do care care about this but it's so easy to look at an unjust system and say those people it's really all of those people and there are people in there that know the system's unjust and and and gain from it anyways and and and um and will close their eyes to the gains that they get so i understand how you could paint everybody with a picture of a few people um and say but most people in that system don't know what's happening so um i have so many questions okay so how did you i'm gonna start with this one first actually how did you land on this realization um between deflation and inflation um and how did you really just realize before bitcoin that we desperately need um an alternative system and that both doors lead to dictatorship and health essentially um i i've always been um this sounds arrogant no it's fine i've always been able to see the future in a way that other that very few my friends could that that because because um because i know how my own mind changes and stuff as well and i'm not always exactly right but directionally it's what creates it's actually why i've always been an entrepreneur and i've created tons of value in understanding how the technology the intersection it's almost from asking this it's why does the world look like this when technology could create it to look like this and so if you just think through that is what ends up happening is um all of our reality from our systems we live in and the things we use are actually ideas first if you think about this this iphone it would it was an idea that competed with an idea of a blackberry that you needed keyboard and when it first came out everybody thought it was a toy everybody in using blackberry thought that what a gimmick and everything yes and look at it now but that idea was just such a radical idea and by the way in and if you think about the evolution of that at palm pilot which was almost the same idea didn't hit the right step of the kind of the the intersection of when technology changed the rules to be able to create a better idea it was early and and it failed yes because technology opens up an ability to do something totally different our minds change and we accept a new idea and that new idea is really exciting because it gives us so much value and so it explodes that's what i do in business i do that everywhere in business i've been quite successful in a whole bunch of different companies in business boards investments and everything else and and so from that and and seeing all of the different things in that i was working on and the leading edge of what's coming in ai and 3d printing and and and all of that i couldn't stop asking why aren't prices going down everywhere why prices weren't going down everywhere like it was it was kind of a 10-year question and i would talk about this all the time all the time and i did not want to write a book about it but but i'm an entrepreneur i want to i want to when i see something that doesn't work i want i i have to figure out to the bottom of it why not how could it work and and so that's what led me to to look at this and then then i realized okay why inflation is like this why it's needed for the existing system and but but when i looked at the last 20 years required 185 trillion dollars of easing to be can we work to grow the economy by 46 trillion essentially to to when i said those angles one system is moving this way and the other system must have the opposite effect so you have to increase the amount of printing to offset that over and over and over again i could see the train wreck coming and and in the train wreck and i realized that my family my kids wouldn't grow up in the same type of world that i i did and i i and and i needed to write the book to be able to explain that because it was driving me crazy it was driving me crazy that you had a whole bunch of technology entrepreneurs on one side talking about what they were going to do and how much money they were going to make and everything else not being able and and and not being able to put together the you can't make that much money if the free market works and the prices come down like that money is being a derivative of of of inflation driving driving the monopolies bigger and bigger and bigger so google bigger so so that's why i wrote the book i just i i eventually i got mad um i love that good no that that's great you know i think um we need this kind of education um i think it upsets me that there isn't any financial literacy in school um i have my own theories as to why that is which a lot of people probably share um so i you know i i love having these conversations um you know books like yours which really just hopefully wake people up and you know we can try and move to a better system um so how did you then realize that bitcoin was the answer what year was that and um talk to me about that transition because a lot of people obviously think it's a scam when they first hear about it they think it's this weird internet money that doesn't exist so um yeah yeah tell me about your journey behind it so i i wish i uh so i was too busy in my businesses to be able to take this bitcoin seriously in the beginning um and and and bunch my developers kept coming to me and saying you got to get on this it's really important and everything else and i still didn't uh didn't take it seriously um i was in bitcoin before i wrote my book but if you'll notice on the book there's one paragraph on bitcoin um in the book it's not a bitcoin book it's a um and and even after i wrote the book i was still and and am still open to any possibility that could change this system to to so but what i realize what i've realized and can i'm still open if there's a but i don't see another possibility i think to to to move to the other side without revolution war reset to and and if you had that you would actually build an inflationary system on top of the reset again just like has happened throughout history um i don't see a another um anything that actually competes with what bitcoin is to get to the other other side so so that that journey to get there and and i remember my book was written two years ago and it's everything has played out if you just look at that book when it was written and you think about what's happened since it's like it's like a road map for what's happening and what happens next as a result of uh as a result of this so it's it's hardened my position on on bitcoin i think it's that important yeah i agree um since the last two years since cover started and all this money printing my position on bitcoin has totally been solidified um even more so you said that there isn't another alternative but you are open to seeing you know if there is one you're open to it you're open-minded which i think is great but there are over 10 000 different cryptocurrencies of course they aren't all the same we've got you know let's just say a nice top five um so what is it about bitcoin which um really seems to be the answer compared to all the other different um cryptocurrencies what is it about the technology that you really admire that's hard to do in in in a show like this and that but i'll i'll give that a a stab the way that the system is designed to approve for work and decentralization um people will not make a choice to have a deflationary currency because there's too much wealth and power to be able to design as a different system so us we won't make that choice and that's why the the the the the decentralization essentially that's driven into the into the protocol the security proof of work that that that security is a feature that proof of work is a feature of the system the energy use and require it for bitcoin is the thing that keeps it decentralized and it's a feature of the system that that stops humanity from actually changing the rules so that's that's a big big part of it now but let's just say okay bitcoin versus ethereum so bitcoin tries to win store value this innovation and everything else and and and it does so and it does so over time and remember if if bitcoin came out today and everybody knew what it was today and it was in its infancy it would have been shot down today today like so if it so if it came out and it was a small market cap and everything else and it had this dream of being able to do this regulators would shut it down because now they know what it means right think about what's happening with the imf when you think about what happens with china when you think about people are trying to shut it down and they can't shut it down it's impossible um but but in year two they might have been able to bitcoin so you had this this evolution and this this system that got hardened and hardened and hardened before people woke up to realize that it's a redistribution of power away from central power to human humanity and and and so and and so now it it's it's far enough along that that its heart is very very difficult to stop so now enter other alt coins and because bitcoin was going after that it let's the use ethereum as example wow this is a really interesting blockchain can do this and everything else how do we make money but that looks more like a company making making money and we're gonna and so so a small group of people do a pre-sale a pre-mine and say a world computer and it's gonna be blockchain for everything else i actually do understand why ethereum would have a network effect today um doing nfts and everything else but the design of the system in fees makes it less secure and you have to central and you have to have to centralize and you keep changing the design of the system yeah and you have to keep and and and it's not just it is you keep changing it by the people who control the system and so and and then altcoins underneath that as fees go up on ethereum it opens up attacks from below on oh i can do the same thing for less cost and you have tons of different alt coins so i'm not necessarily against people making their own choice on their free market investment they can make advice and everything else the i just categorically i don't believe they have any value in the long term i think what ends up happening is the design of bitcoin kind of on layer one what ends up happening on layer two and layer three why do you need those other coins i think everything starts to aggregate to the winner because um because all of those all of those use cases can be designed on something that's way more efficient and reinforces the primary one so so so it's not um i just think yeah i wouldn't again i'm an investor in technology lots of technology companies and i i i tend to think what would i what do i believe and what would i put my money in and and and set it and forget it um i wouldn't do that on a whole bunch of altcoins um in in bitcoin i can easily do that i love that um i love hearing those kind of um arguments but in terms of just the other side um of um what we were talking about going through those doors and reaching the other side with a better system um how do you then see it played out so do you do you actually see a world where things are denominated um in satoshi's um so how yeah tell me how you see it and also do you think that would see only certain states certain countries adopting this new technology or is that just part of the transition how does the future look is part of the transition and so so so what gives the us dollar um strength is besides kind of using oil and energy through a war machine to be able to price and oil in u.s dollars what what gives the u.s dollar strength around the world is a network effect that it's used everywhere it's a common currency everywhere as that happens with bitcoin as more and more countries users and everything else start to do it and layer two with lightning or liquid and start to start to use that this more and more people that's what i meant about the network effect more and more people the on-ramps the technology the different things the use cases it's way easier to use bitcoin and be secure in bitcoin today than it was five years ago the on-ramps are way easier it's simple and the ux and the design and there's and so the innovation coming into this ecosystem is bringing more and more people in that if i want to hire an engineer in um in india um without going through government without going through a bank by the way i i i it took three weeks one time to get a six-figure wire transfer about two months ago to india through it's just a nightmare through the existing system and all paperwork and everything else i don't need to do that anymore i can i can hire anybody anywhere and i can start trading with those those those those people through a different through an altered network um that network is in its infancy but it's growing leaps and bounds and more and more people are moving onto that network which opens up more and more so that's the transition that we're talking about and states can't stop it because because because people everywhere where a state has tried to stop bitcoin it's accelerated why yes because because because they're essentially screaming at you with a megaphone that says here's why you need it yeah i think it's so interesting and we saw that happen with china saw that happen in nigeria all it does is either further decentralize the network or it forces people to end up trading um peer-to-peer which was the initial goal in the first place um so yeah it's really interesting i want to just move on slightly so i know we're obviously short for time at this point but i'd love to talk about entrepreneurship because obviously you've had um tremendous success um especially with build direct so i kind of want to understand um firstly do you think that anybody can be an entrepreneur i think anybody can i just don't think people are uh geared uh towards it and i think and and why is they perceive risk differently so so they don't perceive risk of his status quo they think status quo is safety and they perceive so a lot of people would look at entrepreneurs as these enormous risk takers i categorically just disagree we're because here's the way i look at an entrepreneur at being one i'm in i i'm i'm actually i'm risk adverse i just i see the risk in the existing system and i don't want a job in the existing system where i have no control over my destiny and even if i go in over here and and and under so that's actually why i would chase down to the sand will this work or not what will it take and because it's a bet on yourself it's bet on your team it's a bet on what you have to do to change to create the opportunity and so even if you fail you come out of that learning with so much learning that the next time it's easier and so um so i i think great entrepreneurs aren't risk takers they're asymmetric debt takers that's such a good point um because i remember years ago um i was living in a country um and i loved my job and i was so happy that the job brought me to that country but the company was failing and so i had to leave the country and i was so upset because now i didn't have control over where i lived and it was from that moment that i said to myself i can't ever rely on an exterior party to basically determine how my life is going to look so at that point i was like no i've got to make my own money um i can't do that so i yeah so i could totally get that so a lot of people watching um are trying to build in this industry in the crypto space so what advice i know it's really cringy but it has it is actually very helpful what advice would you give somebody who is looking to start building um especially in the world that we're living in right now um a lot of people do feel that opportunity opportunities are being taken away um just given travel restrictions and inflation and things like that so what kind of words of wisdom would you give someone looking to build right now there's so much i wish i was younger because there's something right there literally is um because as any time there's chaos in the world um there's system transitions entrepreneurs um are required to be able to move that forward hopes dreams everything else and on their hopes and dreams do we ride as a civilization that's what ends up happening and and so so when you look at system problems and those system problems create a whole bunch of pain for other people understanding how you can fix that pain is what an entrepreneur does and when you when you do that in a way that delivers tons of value the business is bound to be successful now doing that figuring that out is which market how does it how do i do this how do i focus but i'll give you an example of what's happening today to so then existing industry and you could use twitter's new ceo you could you could use google you could use facebook you could use our communication channels are getting more and more controlled and they're getting more and more control and what ends up happening to build these monopolies what ends up happening is you you have to attract people who will deliver let's use youtube as an example people who deliver different content to your system which attracts users and so people think it's attracting users that's the trick it's not it's a tracking contract providers and then as more and more content providers come in and they're and if you think about how many hours of youtube are uploaded a day and most of that is not seen what ends up happening is there's so much competition to try to be that found and more users are attracted to the platform mm-hmm those platforms are monetized today are youtube gets all the money through advertising and these people are essentially selling their souls through advertising and they get one percent two percent half a percent of the advertising break to be able to to to meet a buyer on layer two on lightning and what's happening on on lightning that whole thing will be reinvented and it will be reinvented everywhere lots of other opportunities but that whole industry would be reinvented in in that if content is the value and most of the content producers are getting very very little value then there's an opportunity on a system that lowers the barrier cost because because because google system requires that barrier cost because it was built on a different model on lightning it lowers the barrier costs and there's somebody that could come out and say listen i need three percent to run the business or five percent business to run the business but 95 of the value is yours where do you think the content producers would go lightning and as you did that what do you think if the content producers are all going there where do you think the people would go and and and and that's and and so you're able to recreate a whole bunch of value by giving more people value the change to change change business that's just one example but that example would be in a whole bunch of different places on the new rails uh commerce that are coming so it's true when people say bitcoin fixes this um you know we could start actually seeing those kind of decentralized systems on the bitcoin network um you know youtube alternatives and stuff like that yeah that's what i expect to happen yeah that'll take a bunch of time but once that network effect starts to to to spin it'll spin faster and faster and faster amazing so what are you working on right now is there another book in the works i know you said you didn't really want to write one and of course right now i doubt it i'll probably put up free content rather than the uh yeah and i do a bunch of these podcasts to be able to get out i'll never say never because maybe i'll get mad again on something else but um but the um this is moving i think it's inevitable and and people like you a whole bunch of influencers in in this community i would rather just take the message forward um and and and and build it i can just slide off in the background well i really appreciate you coming on jeff it's been so interesting i'm really excited to continue reading your book where can people um follow you and find your book probably just best on on twitter uh at jeff booth the book's called uh the price of tomorrow why deflation is key to an abundant future and amazon's probably best spot for that jeff i want to thank you so much it's been such a pleasure and i want to thank everyone for tuning in thanks a lot all right we'll speak soon and guys don't forget to tune in next week for another brilliant guess
2021-12-06 12:14
