Jeff Booth: Bitcoin Is Repricing the Entire World

What you're telling me is that music is about to stop and we're going to be left holding the biggest bag of odorous extrem ever assembled in the history of data. 1974 1987 92 97 2000 whatever we want to call this. It's all just the same thing over and over. We can't help ourselves. I say when we sell. >> Hey, I say when we sell. >> This week we're joined by Jeff Booth. Here's a quick sneak peek into what we discussed during the conversation. We discussed what does it look like to transition from a debt-based fiat financial system to a free market driven by deflation and technology. Why individuals and businesses need Bitcoin for survival and to make it into the next system. What can we discern from the US government's interest in Bitcoin this year? What about other countries? What about gold? What does this tell us about the current system and the transition to a Bitcoin standard? Is AI a productivity miracle as many make it out to be? Or does it actually make the debt problem worse for the United States and other countries? We discussed this and more during the episode. And if you're an individual or a business that already has begun to shift your energy and time to a better form of money in Bitcoin, then On-Ramp is here to protect it and provide you with peace of mind on a secure foundation of multi-institution custody with inheritance, insurance, and access to financial services like loans. You can be confident knowing that your family or business can make it to the other side of this paradigm shift from the fiat monetary system to a Bitcoin standard. So, thank you again for tuning in to this episode and hope you enjoy it as much as I did. It's the last trade. We're joined this week by Jeff Booth. Jeff, it's a great pleasure to have you on the show. Thank you for joining us today. How are you doing? >> Great. Thanks, Jackson. Great to see you again. >> Yeah, it's been a while. Um, and of course joined by my co-hosts Brian and Michael from On-Ramp. So for those who are not familiar with Jeff, uh Jeff is an entrepreneur, technology leader. He's a partner at Ego Death Capital and author of The Price of Tomorrow, which I would say if you have not read that book, it has to be up there for me, certainly in my top three favorite Bitcoin related books. It's just a it's really a macro masterass. And Jeeoff would love to start there because it's been 5 years since you published the book, believe it or not. And I would love to just get your take on how things have progressed. Is it in line with your expectations? Have things evolved a little bit differently than you expected? I said right before we hit record here that, you know, we've added a lot more debt in the past 5 years and um it the advancement of technology is just continuing to uh evolve more and more rapidly. So, what are your thoughts? Yeah. So, it's actually been six years or almost six years since the book uh book came out and and and I think the model that the book laid out um is exactly what's happened. Um the and so so the what I in Price and tomorrow uh why deflation is key to an abundant future. I made the case that that the free markets were deflationary, right? The natural state of the free market is deflation because we compete against each other to provide more value and we only use the things that provide us more value. And so the output of that has to be deflation. And the ideas that essentially broadly are in technology are all all ideas in our head that then we encode into more information to make the more world more productive. And that would be moving exponentially because all of those ideas sit on top of past ideas. and make it better and better and better and we go faster and faster and faster on that. And so if the natural state of the free market is deflation um and technology is moving at that rate because we're competing on more and more value then you'd expect exponential deflation. You expect the entire world to live in abundance through uh through that process. And the but the other side that I explored in that book is that would not be allowed from a debt-based system. because the debt pay system couldn't allow deflation um or it would collapse and so we by measuring within the debt system would blame each other while we were active participants in that death pay system. We would be ripped apart inside the control system as as the offset from the deflation that should flow broadly to society from a free market is captured by very few people on top and all the rules change to to keep that capture. All the laws change to keep that capture. So, so the paradigm that I talked about in the book is playing out exactly as I would have pro projected. Um, I don't know if you remember this, but in the book I talked about the preceding 20 years. the kind of the smoking gun knowing I was right was was in from the year 201999 to 2019 we had an increase of $185 trillion of debt to to grow the economy global economy by 46 trillion. So at that time there was in almost entire history you had a buildup of debt to about 60 trillion then you added 185 trillion in 20 years. Um but I made the case that's not what I was worried about. What I was worried about is because of all the manipulation of money and because people are living on this and you there always be an excuse to make more debt because we wouldn't allow the system to fail from that. the as productivity expanded that debt must expand exponentially. So I just revis I just looked at the numbers recently um and so we're six years later from writing my book um and now the global debt is 650 trillion. Yeah. And the numbers are just nonsensical, right? So, so remember if that global debt is 650 trillion and the entire asset base of the world is one quadrillion or 900 trillion, every asset in the world is tethered to that debt, that liability. So, if it's insolvent, all the assets are zero. That's why no one will let that debt fall. No one, you won't, no one will. And um and no government will. So they'll continue to manipulate money, which is the continuation of coercion and control and centralization and very few people making decisions for everybody else to steal the wealth that should flow naturally in a free market. What else does it mean? It means we've never lived in a global free market, but we believe we have. And we're measuring and we're measuring what we're we're measuring essentially. Most people are measuring what's happening in Bitcoin from the other system, strengthening the other systems hold over them by thinking they're getting rich in Bitcoin. Bitcoin isn't going up. All prices are falling against it. >> Yeah, it's a it's a very fascinating um thesis that's obviously correct. And I would posit that the only individual or type of individual that could have come to it is an entrepreneur because what you explain you feel viscerally like an academic or somebody that is working for somebody doesn't feel it innately but this is just the status of how a free market works and um there's a couple themes. One is um h I forget the the CEO of Citadel but uh Citadel Securities he has a book that he gave everyone for forever. It was called are you playing to win or are you playing to play? Uh and it's the same idea of it it's called hard ball and it looks like from the outside well that's pretty kind of uh cutthroat but the reality is it's a moral imperative to play to win because to your point that's how you uh thrive and you grow as a society and I didn't expect to share this but this will be an interesting anecdote for you is my background was in traditional tech at the Googles I was actually at we work well with Adam Newman lighting money on fire while I was going down the Bitcoin rabbit hole and then I came into the Bitcoin space and was building um products and services, but I saw venture capital and really ultimately loose monetary policy and liquidity drown all the soundness of unit economics and business decision-m and so when I left those firms I was scared shitless of ruining this business. So I built it with my own money with Bitcoin and that's how you get to the most discerning efficient outcomes on hiring to using leveraging AI tools and it's worked exponentially because you're working not only the price of Bitcoin's going up but you have the hurdle rate or the discernment of the cost of capital in your favor if you understand it and so you get to run laps around everyone else because to your point it's just in the congruence with like the the way the world is supposed to go while everything else is becoming more expensive and people are getting more inefficient in this world. If you step outside, you get a lot more efficient. >> Yeah, that's what's happening in every one of our portfolio companies. Typically, what ends up happening is in when I used to invest in kind of same areas that you were talking about, the misallocated capital was so staggering based on a simple assumption. get big really fast on a network effect so that with broken money that that every you win it all and everybody's uh and and and this new system and so in that system you'd have seed free seed seed series A B CDE E FG and you'd go public and the companies still like Uber still weren't profitable right and after spending tens of billions of dollars to be able to build the brand all based on if I get there, there's going to be no competition I own at all. Right? And and it worked largely for Google, Facebook, Amazon. Um and and their cost of capital was so low that it also prevented anybody else from playing the same game. So, and and then they remove their labor. you still use the thing and and they suck out all and and so even the entire market if you're not investing in those companies you're getting killed because you're in the other companies but in Bitcoin it looks totally different looks totally different and and out of all the companies we funded not one has failed yet there's uh there's three companies that are already profitable growing crazy growing crazy in Bitcoin adding Bitcoin to their balance sheet each month at growth rates that are unbelievable that didn't require any more capital. Um, and so that you've got in some cases you're going from preede or seed to profits at that growth rate. Um, and adding Bitcoin to the balance sheet each month. So, it's a it's it's a trade that it's unbelievable that most people more people don't know about it. And and why would that trade exist? Because because when you know something that's no one else knows and you've gone down to the sand on it like most Bitcoiners have and you move your time into to creating more value, what you're really doing is you're actually the market just so most people are stuck in the other control system and they're providing rails for people to get out of the control system into a different thing and they have so much knowledge on that and know how to run their balance. sheets that essentially it's a perfect expression of the free market on giving value to people who don't know it yet. And the more value you give, the faster you grow. It's so simple. Um it's and and and so so you you find people moving more and more of their time to this new system and the people that move more of their time to this new system are giving more value to that's if your business is successful. Michael, that's what you're doing, right? You're you're solving a problem that exists in the market for people to understand this. And if you keep keep doing that and keep doing that better than anyone else, your business will be successful because you've helped people. >> Yeah, it's exactly right. And I think um what's interesting in that model is uh you there there's a component of the filter because when you understand Bitcoin, it helps you see the world for what it is, not what you want it to be. So it allows for independent of the capital appreciation, you have a better lens of everyone else. But then the other aspect um ties into the the notion of when those individuals have the Bitcoin, even if they I I make the and you would probably make the same case, but most wouldn't. Like if you gave yourself a million dollars versus a h 100red million a million in BTC and you gave it a competitor $100 million in dollars maybe 100's a lot but 10 million on relative time frame maybe the more capital is just a longer time frame you're going to run circles around them because you're just going to build the right foundation you're going to counter position but that's not a common theme so to your point and we did this case study uh with like we work if they would have taken the bill the money and put it in BTC and you know they would have effectively own all the real estate right they would have had the better model >> um because It's a common trope. It's like I need Silicon Valley money. I need all these things to win. It's like you actually don't. It's like once you understand, you can counterposition the market. And maybe you may have to take different trade-offs or different ways to fundamentally build, but they will just have better first principles uh basis and un economics. And on the other side of that, you'll have a foundational ecosystem versus built on like quicksand effectively. >> Exactly. Exactly. And and and the knowledge that we're talking about right now is so thinly known, right? is just not widely known even even from a bunch of Bitcoiners. They're still operating in the mindset of fiat world. Um and so if you if you again that's how markets work. Uh markets work by by by having a different point of view than everybody else being right. Right. and and and and so so and that's why I constantly say if Bitcoin stays decentralized and secure, which I suspect it does because of our agency within it, um then if it stays decentralized and secure, it doesn't care what what Silicon Valley is doing. It doesn't care what Elon's doing. It doesn't care about any of these things. It's repricing all of it. It's just repricing the world to this monetary standard. And that is the energybacked system that's decentralized obscure is an objective reality of the free market working. Whereas whereas the other the other world that everybody's living in is a is a belief structure based on somebody else gets to control you. >> Yeah. >> Really it's really that simple. I'm curious if you think that belief structure is eroding or if there's any shift in perception broadly, you know, call it over the past six years since you wrote the book. I think I could point to a few different sort of signposts of the shifting of the Overton window, sort of um these concepts being more in the zeitgeist. I think one big one was in 22 uh the se the seizure of of Russia's treasuries which was a really eye opening moment I think for a lot of folks around this concept of of the risk-free rate treasuries being risk-f free um and you know if you say something we don't like then you know that's it's no longer uh no longer your asset so that's there's clearly risk embedded in in treasuries and government debt in general I think that was a big one and then I I'm even looking at like you know the last six to 12 months in terms of you know we don't like to read too much into the tea leaves because it's it's you know mostly nonsense that comes from the Fed and there's you know there's always been sort of a fallacy around Fed independence but I think that that's even more sort of in the four now around um just the pressure from the administration to to cut rates um and you know firing of of certain governors like do you think that there is a shift in the broader zeitgeist around this recognizing the concepts that you wrote about 6 years ago. >> In the broader context, it's no I I I don't I don't Every one of those things you just described have people trying to resolve paradox from the system creating the problem and the problem's getting worse. So just use an example of Elon Musk, we're going to cut $2 trillion out of out of spending. If they cut two to3 trillion dollars of spending, you would have jammed a deflationary spiral immediately and it would have started unwinding which at the time would have caused banks to fail, supply chains to fail, houses to just collapse and keep on collapsing until such time that the voters said print everything you can. Right? So we believe it's somebody else. Right. And how many people on both sides of that conversation, I'm just using this one conversation as an example. Um, were cheering Elon or somebody else or Trump or this or this. Um, still caught in in inside the system that's creating all the pain and nothing changed. The debt goes up because it has to go up because if it doesn't, you're going into deflationary spiral from a credit based system that can't allow a credit deflationary spiral. So, so, so it's it's completely mathematical, illogical to measure from that system or listen to anything in that system. But, but it captures us. It captures our attention through fear and ego and we we want somebody else to be able to solve the problem from there and we just keep making it stronger at our own demise. Right? So, a broad-based um a broad-based understanding of this. This is also why we're so crazy early because there's there's not a broad-based understanding of this. I don't think there's a broad-based understanding of this on this call, right? on on and and I don't mean to to uh to poke >> Jackson's a little slower so you know he >> but but I'm just I I'm I'm just positing something that this is so we wouldn't have the mental model to be able to to hold on to these thoughts because 5,000 years of human history have gone through a different model and we're trying and what we do is we we take new information and we try to make our existing model accurate. But these are two fundamentally different models. The natural state of the free market is deflation, meaning you've never lived there. You have no model for it, right? And so so it's so easy to grab on these news events and try to attach Bitcoin to the existing system. >> It's exact. It's it's 100% right. It's some uh it's healthy friction. We have uh my background was it not in traditional finance. Brian in particular had 10 plus years at Brown Brothers Heramman, a private bank and we we naturally talk about these things because I I it's very hard for me to acknowledge Fed speak because it's it's so it's so much noise you can feel when you think about just inflation in general. And to your point, you I I've heard you speak about like living outside the system. It's very hard for people to uh think about. It's very similar to like good and evil. Most people don't want to acknowledge it. they like to chime it up to incompetence because it's it's very hard to um uh acknowledge like a different system like what does that mean but to your point is where we're going is it has to be built from the ground up or it goes back to like 01 0 to1 and Peter Teal references um if the foundation is cracked in any endeavor whether it's a relationship a personal relationship all the way to a company the whole thing will permeate at a certain point and so that's what we're talking about here there is no fixing anything that currently exists uh even if if you insert Bitcoin to like slow that down, ultimately somebody will step in to Jeff's point with first principal understanding and they will outrun uh at that basis. And so to your point, there's a different levels of spectrum of this and nobody fully knows it, but there's like intuition, there's reps and then there's natural just like first principles thinking and looking at the craziest part is all this has been we're in an anomaly, right? for thousands of years, this is how the world had generally operated on a gold standard or some subset of it and we're kind of just going to run that back but have to like reconstitute everything. Mind you, Michael, even if you put push on that and let's just like debate that piece. I think for thousands of years, we've always lived in a zero sum game. We're used to zero sum games. Somebody had to lose for us to win. and we would invade another country, take their gold, put them in slavery, and and it would look like the country that did that was winning, but somebody had to lose for us to win. The free market is a different game, right? So, that wasn't a free market. It was imposing slavery on somebody else because of a war machine that allowed you to do that. Um and you'd extract um gold in that case to be able to do it or you would in or invade and go to war all over the world to be able to keep your keep your structure inside the structure at the top of it just like fiat system at the top of it looks like you're winning but everybody's losing in that zero sum game um because in eventually the system fails under its own under its own weight because when people are so persecuted for so long they rise up and overtake people. You can't build walls high enough, right? When a whole bunch of the population now we've just repeated that zero sum game through a financial engineering and a financial through a monetary system that imposes it around the world it looks exactly the same. um going back to gold wouldn't solve it because gold gets centralized and and we play a zero sum game to steal somebody else's gold or cheat gold because we can't audit it all the time. So that can't resolve this paradox. But the free market is an infinite game. Add more people that compete to provide value to you, you get wealthier. um that it's such a different so if we've always lived in the zero sum game where you could you you could exploit people to be able to are our our consciousness and describing what this changes from that game would obviously look like this that a whole bunch of people would be stuck in that model trying to exploit that game and the free market's a completely different game it's an infinite game everyone wins >> so could we play out Jeff, then the um the transition period between these two, so between a true free market system that you're describing and then the system of exploitation, the fiat monetary system, like how um how do you kind of see this playing out over the longer term in terms of these two competing forces with technologydriven deflation against the ever compounding inflation of the monetary system? Um maybe we'll start there. I have other thoughts and ideas, but that's a big question. >> Yeah, it's a big question and and and again there's layers of this at the at the highest level you can you can imagine is going to be massively chaotic because because it's not driven it it's actually driven by us our own agency and what system we're giving more energy to. So if we say we're Bitcoiners and we're giving all our energy to fiat system through kind of the fear coercion everything it's trying to it's just a system it's not bad people but there's the same people in both systems that don't know this right they're trying to resolve a problem and they're so convinced they can resolve the problem in their way from the system causing the problem. Ask yourself a really simple question. Is there anything in the world, the biggest problem that you can think of that could be solved by manipulating money more? Every problem gets worse, right? And so, so, but that's that's that's all news cycle, the entire news cycle that everybody's living and spending their money in that system. And and so you have to ask yourself, what would that system that g gains its control from our fear and coercion within it do to try to stop Bitcoin that gave our agency back to us? And you can see from that very simple uh uh that that moves to this infinite game. And so our energy within that system that gives it makes it more stronger. So it's actually the change in us moving our time and energy into the new system completely spending in it uh saving in it um helping others understand it. It's that change that is the change in the world. So, so, so instead of saying what does it look like um now or how does it look, how fast are individual people going to make that change, right? And and and I think that I think the answer is individual people is going to make that change very slowly. >> I certainly agree with that. It's um yeah, I'm always surprised I think year after year just how slow adoption especially with the idea of how at least I've perceived S-curves and how technology is adopted. It still feels like we're in that period before the really big runup of of adoption of Bitcoin. And um yeah, just shocking year after year how little people have actually tried to address the root cause of this this issue. Like one of the things that I've always thought is a great analogy is uh Plato's allegory of the cave, right? And so you have people that are just looking at shadows on the wall and perceiving that to be their reality. But kind of on the back side of that, you have these two parties that are effectively one party both involved in manipulating the money. But then you have, to your point, it gets more and more chaotic because the money continues to break and break further. And this has so many downstream consequences to everything, right? every every single way we interact on a day-to-day basis. >> When I when I say that and I had to face the same thing in myself, it's easy to tell yourself a lie when it when your ego won't let you. So, and for for me when when I moved my time completely into Bitcoin, started ego death was was myself going through a lie that I told myself. I I I wrote a book on this. I talked all over the world about Bitcoin and the truth is at that time I had hedged most of my time 95% of my energy was in the existing system. That's where I made all my money and I put it into Bitcoin. And it wasn't until I woke up one night and went, "Huh, wow, this is hard." Because it's hard for it's I wanted to believe that thing that I needed to do this to buy more Bitcoin. I want. So I was I was it wasn't until I realized the hypocrisy in my actions that 90% 95% of my energy was making the world worse unsafe for my kids when I could just move my energy into the new system and create something else in the new system that that that that created that was aligned with where I wanted to go. And I wouldn't have seen all of the incredible entrepreneurs and all of the all of what's happening and they might not have found me had I not moved my energy. So, so by and by by doing so that so you start to bend reality into a different world. And I couldn't it's it's almost impossible to describe how rewarding that has been. >> Yeah. >> Because my old my old belief system wouldn't have believed it. I really empathize with a lot of that because I was similar to yourself, not not as nearly successful, but it was in that space and uh in the traditional tech space and I felt the pool and uh you know the golden handcuffs and I always got scared so I'd always leave and uh I jumped in the space fulltime in 2020 almost through some coercion. You know Parker Lewis is a very persistent individual. is one of the the first early folks uh to help build out Unchain and I just naturally as one does you know you want to provide value because you remember how hard it was to come into the space so you talk to everyone all of our clients at the time there and here it's like they're friends and family and I say it right when they jump on the call it's like we just provide frameworks it's the right thing to do and you said something early about if you deliver value you're going to make money and it's something I've always held deeply in this space is if you deliver value from you know hiring for 5 you're seeing that visceral change when somebody's able to put all of their energy uh the people I've hired and unchained that weren't salespeople but are world-class sales people once their energy is directed into something they're passionate about and you get to do that for for years and and one of the things that Brian and I talk about because we have a venture fund and and uh it's I say we're value investors but not value investors like obviously you know to make money you need to buy at the right value in general but we're value investors that we invest in things that produce value for the world So, I won't touch anything related to prediction markets or gambling because I don't think it provides value to the world. But when you start thinking about what are the things that fundamentally help the world, you cannot help but make money, especially if it's in a Bitcoin uh centric way. And so, to your point, you can't even really feel it until you're in it like you're describing that the world just starts to open up in no and it may feel it in the short run. It's the common trope of hard decisions, easy life, easy decisions, hard life. may like not feel like you're taking a step back, but you're actually maybe taking a a a notable in from an optics in a fiat world step back, but you're going 100x forward, but a lot of people can't do that because they have the house, the wife working remote or at home. And so, you get to really see the difference and the people that are willing to take that leap just kind of completely change everything about their life and the people around them. I look at it around the Bitcoin community and the and the people that today are well known, doing extraordinarily well that I knew back five, six years ago that made the same move five, six years ago and and and now and people look at them and well, how did they do that? And all they did is move their time just like I did. And it's just it's it's it's wild to watch. It's just it's exciting to watch because it's actually the way this world should look, right? provide value to other people. You do well by uh by providing value in a in a in in a protocol that that heals the world. >> I I would imagine with that I don't know if this is a good transition point, Jackson, but uh you're probably a little bearish. I'm personally I think a lot of our team on the the digital asset uh treasury deal. And the reason why I would say that, and maybe you can clarify if you're not, is because it's basically what it's an embodiment of what you're describing of the fiat world trying to like insert its value into Bitcoin and it's just inherently a flawed construct that will ultimately not work out. Yeah, I guess I want to be careful of that because I don't like I think Michael Sailor did a really great job and some leverage um on this uh on an asset like this if you're you really borrowed Pierro Rashad's playbook right from 2014 and uh um and and I think that there's going there can be winners in that as long as you don't get over your skis. Um and uh um but there's also going to be a a massive amount of broken bodies that uh that are all in the same that are all in the same trade. It might push Bitcoin up in the short term all levered players for a while. Um but then on the other side as they as Bitcoin falls like just just essentially the animal spirits of markets, right? the the whole the zero everybody wanting to beat somebody else just races everybody into the same type of uh of trade where then it uh then it capitulates at some point and falls on itself and so I don't see a lot of uh when I look around at these companies I don't see a lot of uh companies that could withstand that uh what that what that looks like so you can expect um a whole bunch of broken bodies on the way through on the way through which might provide an opportunity. Again, this is going to distribute Bitcoin. Um, it's going to distribute Bitcoin to a whole bunch more people that are value investors that understand the longer term play and what what we're playing. The other thing is if the market entirely looked like that, if everything in Bitcoin was that, then it would be a centralizing function in a world where people believed that inflation was required to to they would be essentially making a trade there that would centralize Bitcoin. Not everyone will do that. and and that system will have to come and attack Bitcoin at some point and when it tries to attack Bitcoin and the nodes don't move then then that system might go to zero right so if you just if you just play through um again these are fundamentally not bad people not bad or just people making decisions in these things but they're fundamentally incompatible an inflationary monetary system cannot not coexist with the free market. And it feels like it can in the beginning. And what the and then as it gets worse and worse, as it has to steal more, it has to coersse more, it has to change laws to enshrine power, has to and it gets worse and worse and worse until fundamentally it breaks, right? But they those systems cannot coexist. So, so whatever system you you then from there from that question if so first you'd go is what Jeff just said true right go as deep as you want if if that's true because what you'll get to is no I believe the free market can't exist so somebody needs to control this for these people and then that expands right but but fundamentally if you understand that from first principles that they can't coex coexist a true free market. Then it means we've never lived in one globally. We've never experienced one. We don't we don't know what it looks like. And and you can expect all of what's coming in this fight, chaos, and everything else. And you can you don't have to play it. You could just be in the in the free market. Go in self-custody in Bitcoin. Add value. Add add value. understand understand uh how to add uh and you're immune from all of the the chaos. >> Did you know that there's been hundreds of billions of dollars of losses due to poor custody? It's remarkable. I mean, Bitcoin is only a $2 trillion asset, yet we're sitting on hundreds of billions of dollars of losses. I mean, that is something that is unique to this asset class and really a testament to how early we are and how challenging it's been to protect Bitcoin for the long haul. So that's why at on-ramp we pioneered multi-institution custody. And one of the latest product features that we've launched is on-ramp guardian. Think about guardian as additional controls and verifications on your account to protect you, your family, your bitcoin wealth against various types of digital and physical threats. The thing here is as Bitcoin continues to appreciate, there are both good things about that and bad things. And so you can only imagine the amount of awareness around the asset as Bitcoin goes from 100,000 to 150 to 200 and so on. And so you just want to make sure that you're ahead of the curve here. I found you never really want to be in a position where you're rushing to make changes to your custody setup or you're rushing to make sure that your family has an inheritance plan. Best to get ahead of that. And so on-ramp guardian is really just another component of our solution here to ultimately provide you with peace of mind. Whether it's for you and your family or it's for your business, we're here to help. So if you want to reach out onrampbitcoin.com, you can schedule a consultation there or you could also reach out to me at jackonrampbitcoin.com. Thank you. Yeah, I I'm curious um Jeff for you, but really for for Brian and Michael as well, just in the nature of this conversation, right, with these these two systems that you've described in your book and on this conversation today, how do you start to think about um nation state adoption or even within the United States, right? There are states that seem to be a little bit more on the forefront with adopting Bitcoin as a strategic asset, Texas being one of them. uh but there there are a few um because to your point I mean these systems don't coexist or at least they don't coexist at the end of this this journey that we're on but in the meantime how do you perceive for instance in the in the US this year the Trump administration has taken a keen interest in let's say Bitcoin crypto stable coins right it's certainly not maybe the Bitcoin ethos that the four of us look to embody on a day-to-day basis It's more than the previous administration or more than the first Trump administration. Right? So you're having what seems to be at least some embrace by government. But is that is that ultimately a positive a negative or is that part is this a crucial part or is this a requirement in terms of the transition of from one system to another? >> All of the above. It would look if the system that I we're describing, by the way, and I say if, it absolutely is. We live in a system that's a zero sum game that's based on manipulation of money. Um, and we're moving to a system that's an infinite game based on not manipulation of money. Assuming Bitcoin stays decentralized and secure. So if you were a government, if you were say imagine this the power that comes unjustly from stealing your energy to acrue to government power and how much bigger government has got over the last hundred years, right? More and more infrastructure, more and more people telling you what to do, more and more away from the free free market, more and more and more um because it has to is it's a function of it. more and more three-letter agencies with their own different ideas on how to control people and through AI and to control and most people believing kind of the narrative that's fed to them. What would those agencies do and what would the the the governments do all over the world is not just the US but all over all over the world if if for 16 years they tried to kill something that couldn't be killed? What would they do? What would you do if you were to be part of it? Wouldn't you try to co-opt it? >> Yep. >> Wouldn't you try? Um, and so, so you have to look through all of this and see kind of the actions that are playing forward right now. Of course, they would look like this. Of course, people would look at this. And it's not bad people. It's just the a different know all different knowledge of what I'm saying that what was the first thing you did when many people when they first understood Bitcoin I want to buy as much as I can right that's what many governments are going to do and by buying as much as as you can if you thinking like that then your citizens are richer later on right if you're so just as it works for you personally works the same as the government If that if that's the if that's the end goal and and if it's the end goal then you realize also that government has to get way smaller in service of society against that right and it and it heals as it gets smaller and smaller and the free market works um each different state would have the same thing or you could say I'm going to control enough of this that then I'm going to change the rules rules or try to change the rules. And I could take my US dollar from a gold reserve, change the rules to a petro dollar reserve, change the rules to a bitcoin reserve. And both and all of those things would uh all those things would also play out by different actors within the system having different motivations within the system. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I think um the thing where we think about timelines, the only one that I can credibly even put uh you know a pulse on is really generational timelines. When you think about individuals aging out and and an individual being born into a world that Bitcoin exists and it's still you can make the case I think the case is that Bitcoin doesn't really exist in the sense of these concepts we're talking about. So you have to like they have to permeate society for uh a generation multiple generations before you get to the other side. So this might be over a hundred year thing when you really extrapolate. It's not a 10 to 20 year Bitcoin you know takes uh you know gold's market cap and it does its thing is this is a socioeconomic uh facet that people's brains have to be rewired and they generally can't be and so they have to just naturally uh you know drift off. >> Yeah. to just building on that point, if you're measuring with fiat and Bitcoin goes to $10 million, you're probably many of the Bitcoiners today won't be Bitcoiners, right? They'll they'll sell back into the system and they're they were always measuring in fiat, right? They um and that'll distribute Bitcoin to a whole bunch of other people who have the same choice to make to make and the same thing will happen to a hundred million. And I'm using fiat dollars as an example just to just as a reference point. But yeah, that's the so so it's really us that's changing. Okay, this is imposing a new model for real of reality that's that's aligned with free market. It's an objective reality. It's kind of a physics-based by by energy. And everybody could know that perfectly well, but choose to live in a in in a perceived reality that's different. If they're living in the perceived reality from that world, things are going to get worse. >> I was I was just going to ask Jeff like on the just back to the the nation state adoption sort of, you know, sovereign game theory element like in your view, what causes the flip? because I think there's natural biases, right? Like if you have if you exert a certain amount of control over the fiat system, you know, it's it's hard to rationalize moving to a different system, but like as Sailor says, the you know, the first country to just print as much currency as they can and just buy Bitcoin ultimately wins. I guess why hasn't that happened yet? Is it just those inherent biases that you're actually killing the system that you actually have power in today? And then you know it's it's uh I think Matt Pines has said like at this point like the gun is kind of on the table proverbally like it's in the zeitgeist that this is a reserve asset but no one's picked up the gun and just said I'm printing a ton of money to buy Bitcoin. >> Yeah. And and and so I don't see it I know some people do see as it as a reserve asset. I I see it as a protocol that's imposing a new reality. So So as a asset you see it as a part of an existing system. Mhm. >> Well, that part of the existing system is inflationary monetary system that we've always lived in. That's actually why I specifically call that out. These two are completely different systems. It could only be a reserve asset if it gets captured and and by capture by capturing it, everybody agrees to the new rules of the capture. I don't think that that's very logical to assume with uh with what's happening on Bitcoin and how the nodes drive consensus. I don't think that I think what'll happen is if that happens the Bitcoin will fork and you'll have you'll have a US coin and real Bitcoin and so so this is this is always outside the system as a reserve asset. You would assume it's inside the system. Yeah, it's an interesting uh maybe you'll help me finish this because I can't fully uh articulate it, but it's it's a symptom of what you're describing. It's um I don't know who coined it, but I don't know if you've heard of the term Nakamoto point. It's effectively when global energy production um it gets split evenly 50% to just natural energy production, the other 50% to power um uh you know the the Bitcoin network. And it's this idea if you go back from energy production has naturally had some hop between an inefficient scale usually either gold or the the petro dollar and that's what causes all the different uh you know ramifications across um global um global conflicts and just what we see today. And that's an example of like once you don't have that inefficiency that game you can't really actually uh you can only get close to squint and what it's going to look like but you don't necessarily know what it looks like. And that's kind of this point of it's a positive sum game because you're either selling your energy to the Bitcoin network or you're directly selling it to the asset that is non-controllable. There's no hop and that brings an efficiency that we've never seen in global markets for something as u integral as energy. >> Yeah. So, so measure um there's by the way there's a whole bunch of these things that are they're left outstanding by the conflict of people in trying to integrate Bitcoin to their previous model. It is it's everywhere. So mining mining rewards. I need to make more more from JPEGs on the on the thing because because people need to pay I need to in 20 the year 2140 I need to have enough transactions to pay for the network. 2140 and and and the further out you go on a totally different model that's exponential in nature. exponential exponential productivity exponential mean productivity gains means exponential deflation and so so by 2140 if you actually lived in this world it look at the energy prices in Bitcoin today you're seeing abundance you're seeing prices of everything falling what do you think they're going to do by 2140 as you build an entirely new energy infrastructure powered by powered by Bitcoin you decentralize energy all around the world and you explode energy, the energy prices will keep coming down and the amount of that you'll need to secure this, it'll be the exact same ratio today in 2135, right? But people are using a fiat mindset to be able to say, what do I need in fiat to be able to pay for my mining equipment and energy and everything else? Because in fiat, the energy prices are going up. And so the the these these all of these ideas that are because they they arise from from trying to pull into a different system, an entirely different system that's imposing a new reality to your other system. And I see and I see those breaks everywhere. They're they're interesting to talk about, but they're like they're literally everywhere. >> How does gold factor into that? Maybe with some of the recent the I mean this has been the past six months um generally past 50 years but past six months we've seen kind of gold u specifically in Shanghai markets but in general with the price how do you see that um factoring into like I don't want to call it the canary in the coal mine but you sending a signal of the world's trying to figure out uh a different model and obviously gold naturally has its limitations. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, we have we have kind of 5,000 years of human history on gold working. The gold always gets centralized or broken. And if you're a central bank wanting to buy more gold, you're going to default to your previous reality and say, "Okay, I can fix it with gold." Because then if you had enough gold, you could change the rules. Like, of course, gold will will look like that. And then you have this new protocol that doesn't care what you think, right? So, so, so gold priced in Bitcoin will fall just like all other things fall um fall, but it'll look it'll appear to a fiat world. And a lot of people will do that. It'll appear because it matches their expectations of what should happen even though it can't happen because gold always gets centralized. It'll it'll match the if gold worked then we'd still be using gold, right? If gold it worked to actually have a free global free market, we'd still be using gold. Doesn't work. >> Yeah. The way I perceive it is that there's at least a recognition at the individual level, right? So, we recognize it at an individual level that you need to step outside of the system. And for me, it was measure or adopt Bitcoin as really my barometer. um yeah my barometer for not necessarily even wealth but just like I guess measuring things over time and so the way I perceive gold in this in this case is that there's a recognition by other countries that the system the fiat system is becoming increasingly fragile. It's increasingly weaponized against them. And so to your point, Jeff, they're trying to go back to a system that maybe was more fair because gold, you know, there's no there's no country that can just mint gold out of thin air. There's a lot of energy and uh resources that go into extracting the metal. And so I at least recognize that to be well, this system that is being weaponized against us outside of the US. And even I mean certainly you can make the case in the United States it's being weaponized against the the people of the United States too because they're getting destroyed by inflation. But at least I think now gold is being perceived less as a trade or less as like an investment at the sovereign level and more so a survival mechanism. And so I almost think that the next step from there and again it could be slow to your point earlier the next step from there would be well gold is no longer allowing us to survive. Bitcoin is the new system that allows us to survive. >> I I fully agree with that and that's probably that's like sovereign level that is absolutely what's happening because people see it still as a store of value against manipulating currencies. So of course it would look like that and I think there's many people especially older generation that still see it like that instead of Bitcoin because they haven't done the work on Bitcoin. Um so so it would make sense that as we moved through this lots of people would see themselves in gold um and and and and do that and and gold would protect the state in that in that matter protect the size of the state because it can still be manipulated. So, so if you were China and you had a dictatorship, a control structure, you couldn't allow the free market to work. You couldn't allow Bitcoin because it removes the control structure. So now if you're the US and and both China and Russia are have gaining a whole bunch of gold buying more gold, would you want to revalue your currency to gold or to Bitcoin? So and this gets into some of the game game theory that I think we're playing out right now. Um and and so what what the US will probably try to do with um with um stable coins, I love, by the way, one of my favorite things is monikers like the Federal Reserve that isn't federal and has no reserves, right? Or or or a Patriot Act or or or or stable coins. They're all the exact opposite of what they actually are because all a stable coin is is a guaranteed loss coin. it loses value at the exact same rate as it as the US dollar. Um, but lots of people around the world think the US and not think they're right to think the US dollar is a better uh store of value than their own currency. So if you give them a stable coin, they will fund your debt by holding your your guaranteed loss coin, right? And so for so it makes perfect sense why the US would would try to integrate stable coins into an inflationary monetary system to to drive drive the debt and drive essentially the US dollar stronger through that structure because there's a whole bunch of 195 other nations that have weaker currencies that are failing all the time and they will fund it. It's a great point because at the end of the day the those in power in the US as the reserve currency recognize that there is declining trust in the dollar. Now that doesn't mean like some people perceive that to mean the dollar goes away next year. I mean people have been saying that for a very long time. They'll continue to be wrong on that. >> And so what I'm if I'm picking up what you're putting down is that and I agree is like if you take a look at all of these reserve assets, right? If we step into the shoes of policy makers, high level leaders, executives within the United States government, they are looking at what options do I have to continue to exert power over the money? How do I continue to get people to purchase our debt, keep confidence in the dollar? And so you look at the toolkit and you have stable coins as a way to soak up more dollar demand because Jeff to your point the stable coin or the would you say guaranteed loss of purchased >> losscoin uh is is still better than a lot of options that people have in other countries. And then you look at gold. Well gold historically has given people confidence in uh currencies backed by gold and then we totally went away from that. And so if you're able to get to a point of accumulating gold or something like Bitcoin and so ultimately at least how I perceive this is that the United States recognizes that they're you know the their adversaries have been strategically acquiring gold over certainly the past decade uh but even at a more rapid clip the past three or four years and I I do think that there's an acknowledgement that Bitcoin it's less about hey we like Bitcoin as this uh alternative system that totally derails our uh or destroys our uh power that we have over our people. It's less about that and it's more so well maybe Bitcoin we have a strategic advantage as a country to acquire more of that if that is going to allow us to extend the longevity of the system we have today. >> Yep. And it's integrated into stable stable coins. So of course this is going to happen, right? and it's going to be a big big part of the the world. And it's and from that system, you would have you just have um imperialism 3.0. If Bitcoin isn't used as a currency around the world, you would just have a new set of leaders on top of a system that was still just as broken. That would be uh that would be in stable coins. It was driving the same output. I it won't look like that because any because that creates more and more instability in the system. But but if you just imagined that world which you could say some policy advisor stuck into today's reality would want because they're they're what they're thinking is how do we stop China and we're going to do everything. But but some of these actions actually make the make your own system weaker as well. and lead you to to to war because of the because all of these things with inside a framework of the existing system, monetary system where prices always go up have to they have to centralize. Just a quick break. If you're enjoying the episode, please leave us a like, a comment, subscribe to our page if you haven't done so already, or if you're listening on Apple or Spotify, a fivestar rating really goes a long way. The short of it is, you know, it takes time to run a podcast, to reach out to guests like Jeff, get them scheduled, prepare for an episode, record it, edit it, and so on. So, if you can take a few seconds, like, comment, subscribe, really helps to grow the show. It helps get our message out to more people who may need to hear it. And I really appreciate it. I'll I'll try to respond to every comment. And so if you leave a comment good, if you leave a comment bad, and you know provide feedback on how we can improve with the show, I'll also take that into consideration as well. So thanks again for being here. I appreciate it. >> I think one of the big things um that's that gets discounted across the board is what you were referencing in the personal change and it sounds softer like ideological, but it's it's rooted in pragmatism of if you have a better form of money, you'll naturally want it. But people get caught up in deflation and Bitcoin's price appreciation and nobody will want to use it or spend it. But the reality is and I I had this discussion deeply about if there was some kind of global collapse and Bitcoin skyrocketed but nobody would spend it. It's just not rooted in pra like practicality because you have it doesn't happen in a vacuum. And the way I acknowledged or discussed it was it doesn't actually matter what you want to spend is who if you want a cow or you want oil or whatever it is if they if they don't they're not going to accept anything other than that. And so you're going to have to spend it. And similar with war or somebody going to um you know protect a sovereign or your just personal uh you know city if you can't fund them then they will not uh or they if you they accept Bitcoin and you do not participate in you know economic activity transfer they will not uh work on your behalf. And that's the thing that I think gets missed across the board is as a price appreciates it's not in a vacuum. >> I spend every day I buy and replace right spend spend and replace. Um and I spend every every day why because I want to give an incentive to the world that I want to create. Um there's lots of people like me and and what what ends up happening so if you just think about just the structure of markets free markets today if you're in the US you're probably every business is is spending at least 2 and a half 3% on fees to take money in a money that's losing money. every business fee. I'm paying somebody else like these or Mastercard or the bank through two and a half on every transaction to take to pay somebody in the middle to take fees on money that's losing money. If you go into other regions around the world, they might be paying 5 7 10% to take fees in money that's losing money faster. And then you enter enter in Bitcoin on lightning um or liquid or some and there's virtually no fees in money that's not losing money. What do you think businesses are going to start doing? Right business and by the way this is happening because I can see it in our portfolio. I can see how fast this is growing. It's growing. It is growing faster than the internet. But of course it is. And where is it growing the most? It's growing in areas where the fees are really high. and the money's losing money faster. And so what would people do in a in a market like that? They would move to what's more efficient. What would the businesses do? I want to get more Bitcoin and I'm going to give a discount because I can give a discount to the purchaser in Bitcoin. And the market will just the market just moves and by the time people realize what's happened, it's already there. Yeah, it's it's such a good point and it ultimately is about meeting people where they're at because while you we've talked a lot about this just being a totally different system and you don't want to measure one system from another, the reality is that that's how it's going to be for a while before people can fully accept the new reality, right? And so if you are a business um you know adopting Bitcoin as a you know strategic reserve on your balance sheet while while that to your point Jeeoff is an acknowledgement that this is just part of the other system that you currently live in that's at least going to allow your business to potentially survive into the future for the next system. Right? because uh Brian and I, we did a podcast a month ago. And so there was a I cited in that podcast that there was a family business that closed down local to me after about 50 years of being in business and it was really sad for the community. It's been a staple, but they cited just rising costs across the board for their their food as a restaurant, uh for their labor. And so as a business in this case, right, you have three choices. who either just devalue the quality of their product, which they said in this article they didn't want to do. They said that they would not be able to continue to operate the business and provide the same level of quality and service to the their customers that they have for the past like two or three generations. So, that's one option is you make your product worse, right? And that's dishonest or you raise the prices, but your customers are likely facing the same problem that you are and they may not be able to stomach those higher prices. And then the third is well you just make less money and then maybe you go out of business you have less margins you're not increasing your your uh you know you're not increasing your prices in line with the cost. And so while I hear you on the fact that these are two different systems I guess what what I'm trying to convey to those that'll listen to this is you have to still there's still a there's still a progression, right? It's there's there's stepping stones here in terms of if you're a business or an individual, you may only be able to make it if you start to at least denominate your life in Bitcoin or I would even argue in gold, right? I mean, we're we're uh focused on Bitcoin, but I I thought there was a really interesting chart a few weeks ago from Luke Roman where he denominated the S&P 500 returns over the past 50 years in dollars versus gold. And it's a flat line in gold, right? >> Exactly. >> Remarkable. Mind you, bury that two two thoughts. You're exactly right. Every business should have some Bitcoin on their balance sheet. It's almost an imperative. Every human being needs to have Bitcoin on their personal balance sheet. Because the same is true for every one of us. It instead of the money losing value, the money's essentially acting in the free market and all prices are falling against it. So you can offer more services. You can deliver more to your customers. you can expand from a different mindset, an entirely different world that gets you off of a um off a rat wheel that you have no control over. And so so from that rat wheel, if you look at private equity, just going in and just with debt that is almost zero and going in and levering companies, it's so broken. is so distorted the incentives of the world because if you're really big and you can play that game, you can just destroy companies. Um, and and play financial engineering, get out and you don't care if the company fails. Do it again and again and again. And you look at the the nature of family businesses, long held family businesses that were society pillars, they're all getting broken because of exactly what we're saying right out of the other system. So, I have a lot of empathy for for for family businesses or businesses that are trying to deliver value and they don't know what's happening, trying to deliver value, and it's getting harder and harder and harder to deliver value. They're working tirelessly on a treadmill that's getting further and further away from them. They don't know what to do, right? And all they need to do is move some of their energy into the new system. And it works exactly inverse to the other system. It gets better. They're carrying forward. Why would the S&P be flat in gold? Gold gold. It's because there's still inflation in gold. Remember, the natural state of the free market is deflation. S&P 500 should be falling, right? It should be the the the value um the value of that in a hard hard currency. So when when Elon or or the besties talk about the productivity mirror miracle that's coming from AI and that's going to solve our debt. It it like it's so crazy to me that people are saying this smart people are saying this because it actually makes the problem worse because the productivity miracle is faster deflation. I don't know a business. I'm involved in tons of businesses that aren't removing labor with people with with AI. And if they don't, no one will use their service because the service won't be competitive. >> Yeah. This was this is crazy. >> It's crazy. So I just it's crazy that people are measuring that system that they're a part of and they will only use the things that are providing them more value from a system. it's wired exactly the opposite that steals all that from them and and then they're complaining about those other people, right? When it's them. >> Yeah. I would be curious your thoughts on um I'll have to send this to you afterwards because I we we shared it. It came out about a year ago. We have our venture fund. It's I think it's still today the only Bitcoin denominated venture fund and we had a white paper breaking down a lot of these concepts. And why I'm bringing up here is because this is actually where from a venture perspective I'm most excited because for 5 years I've been focused on this industry and there's a lot of opportunity but where I really see the main opportunity especially for economic you know value to be uh returned to ourselves and LPS is on the all the other inefficient markets that when people like yourself and myself and individuals listening and this where I appreciate you taking the time uh to to share this message because I know you don't have to is when they realize this there's generally I call it the carrot and then the stick. The carrot is they try to get their company to get more efficient. They try to get them to adopt Bitcoin but because they've been storing their personal balance sheet in a better form of money. They have increased optionality and then the stick is like okay I'm out and now I'm going to go run back the playbook because if you look at just the publicly traded companies think about how much inefficiency forget about like Bitcoin and AI just from a SASbased perspective how many still are leveraging old uh tools versus just new software. And so the point being is not only are they able to understand where the bodies are buried and rebuild that business more efficiently with the tools, but they can start to graft on other the things they've seen worked, but if they have a Bitcoin balance sheet and they have that lens of efficiency that we're talking about here, they're going to outrun everyone else. And just by nature of those markets being the largest, if they sweep that capital into BTC, they are going to, you know, you think about like uh one part of the piece was uh everyone's a Bitcoin miner. Google and Apple are some of the best examples when you think about free cash flows on an annualized basis. Now, it doesn't have to be at that scale, but that's what I personally get excited about because like the Bitcoin space and it's growing and it'll grow and it's very fast, but you think about all the other economic activity that's coordinated that's inefficient. Once somebody comes at it through this lens and sweeps it into BTC, those will be some of the best revenue generating uh companies in the world. >> Yeah. And and but the the structure of all of these companies that people know is coming is they're going to in the next 10 years it the the chaos that's coming what people if you if you're at the front edge of AI right now and you see how how we do things we we work really well through the division of labor right and because we get become experts in something right now most people are using these are giant LLMs but the but this the tiny little things, the experts are moving into a agents and they're free and they're better than the LLM at a narrow task. Now, you can string together a whole bunch of narrow tasks cuz think of anything you do, anything. If you can teach it to somebody else, you can teach it to an agent. Now, string together a whole bunch of these agents, a swarm of them that's doing just about anything. And you can see the structure of companies that live that today that we use won't look like that tomorrow, right? If they don't change, then a new company is going to take all of the business because it's going to be able to do it for 10 times uh 10 times cheaper and you'll use the new company. And so, so when I when I say when I say that prices fall to the marginal cost production and the marginal cost of production of AI is zero, that's what I'm talking about. And then it gets merged with robotics and then it gets so all of the physical tasks that we think about doing and everything else they they they move into this real realm too and they start falling at that price. That's actually what Bitcoin's measuring that productivity. And so so now carry that on to so so a different and I've said this many times but imagine if you're um in Venezuela for the last 20 years and and you just held US dollars you would you would be protected from the massive depreciation of the currency and you would have more wealth than all the other v all of your other neighbors by just holding it. Imagine a different scenario. You're in Venezuela and you create a US nominated dollar business and you're acrewing more more US dollars. That would look very different than the person just holding US dollars. Right now, just go to Bitcoin and say that's the exact same thing that everybody's playing with right now. And there's people holding Bitcoin dollars and they're going to do really well. But what if you could create businesses that were creating more Bitcoin on your balance sheet? What you're doing is you're advancing a new world, a new new idea, and you're getting paid really well by it because it's almost venture returns on top of venture asset because everyone today lives in Venezuela. They just don't know it, right? When we look at play when we look at countries like Venezuela and what's happened and they trended to they either go to socialism or or complete control right a dictatorship that's is what typically that path looks like and they can't see the same things happening in the US too right because it's a relative devaluation rather than and so so they look at other cultures and they look at other people how did those people fall into that trap when They are in the trap. >> Jeeoff, I'm curious. I know we're coming up on time, but I would love to um I think at the start of the show, you said that this has played out exact exactly as you had expected in your book six years ago. I'm curious if you can give us like a forward-looking what are the next six years look like less so on the debt side. I think we all know where that goes in terms of exponential growth in debt and money supply. But what um since you've been an entrepreneur, you've been in technology a long time, what can you share with us? What can we expect on the technology side? What do the next six years look like in terms of um disruption there? A a right now is the worst it'll ever be by a staggering amount. the the I'm talking to people that six months ago thought it was a toy in coding and that 5% of their energy would go into into um an idea and then 95 be ex 95% would be coding the idea. The 95% is now all AI and now all of the time is expanding ideas and these things expand and expand on top of themselves. So if you're in that the rate of this it's moving so much faster than people realize and it touches it touches everything and so not just in one area these things turn into they'll drive better health outcomes they'll drive better um better outcomes um everywhere but it is breaking and by the way the same AI is being used through Palunteer and others and and every media organization to have you believe something that's not True. And people are stuck in that same nonsense. Like mo Twitter is just mostly bots today. People are interacting with these bots like it's a person learning from these bots that want to believe this other thing that there's some evil enemy on the other side, right? And they and they're buying it and they're getting more and more mad. So it's breaking society when um and and so would I expect that to change? No. might expect it to get worse, right? I don't that doesn't but but you don't have to if you actually go deep in here and understand how these tools would both be positive or could be used against you. You can you can remove yourself from this this chaos. you can measure from a new system and just expect all of these things to happen and not get because remember um I like to say this um fear is a giant way to control people. Just think of all of the things that where a government would use fear or a false flag or something else to be able to change the rules of society and gain more control. Happens all the time, right? So fear is a massive control. hope is stronger. So if you live in hope and you live into the in in the the other system and you don't give your path to to the fear, you're almost immune from it. But that's that's why it's so so why I say chaotic though is if if you individually are listening to this or Jackson Michael Brian if you're individually you can you can feel it in your own world right the things you care about things you care about your family and you the these things when the killing just happened the other day just it's an entire like you just get sucked into the vortex right be and and and that's that vortex is going to get worse. So, so try to try to hold on to what's real, what's in in that and don't give into it because it's designed to keep you paralyzed. >> Yeah. And it's a real paradox in uh feedback loop of either negative or positive because um if you reference and you've had a lot of discussions, you'll probably remember or think about the the big uh eye opening point for a lot of individuals was 2020, but they'll say that it's the money printer and the amount of debt, but it really wasn't that. It was that they got off the rat race because everyone got locked in a box, so they had time. >> And most people don't have time because they're on the negative feedback loop of trying to make ends meet. And so to your point, you, myself, and individuals on this podcast and probably some listening, if you've bought into this new system, it's just having a better form of money, it affords you to get off the rat race and just think critically about what's happening. But it's very hard for individuals to do that. And so you're ultimately going in the other direction. Uh, and so that's why it's so imperative to just be able to understand where Bitcoin's, you know, again, it's a a lot of these things sound a little ephemeral when we say networks and others. It's just like once you have a better form of storing your value and economic output, everything else just gets a lot easier. >> Yeah. And and and and then have a whole bunch of empathy for people who are still stuck because they don't know if they're stuck. Their life is really getting worse. They're they're scared. They're not going to say the exact reason they're scared. Um but it's um and uh and then some in Bitcoin says, "Have fun staying poor." Which is just outrageous, right? the uh they're they're it's coming from a position of fear and you can't move to somebody more fear from fear to more fear >> if you if you Yeah. So I just say we all every one of us um had to go through the same pro process in our understanding and had to had to deconstruct a whole bunch of lies that we were told and a whole bunch of knowledge that we knew. So why wouldn't that look the same for every single person in the world that's going through it? It's almost as I find it ludicrous that we get to this spot that now we know we think everyone else should know tomorrow. >> Yeah. One thing I I want to call out before we wrap is um so Jeff, founding partner at Ego Death, uh recently announced a $100 million plus raise. So very big congratulations because raising money is not easy. Um but even more congratulations for you know it takes a lot of work to stick your neck out in um day-to-day output to invest monetary resources in the old system to come into the new system cuz that's personally how I got into venture was just realizing you know if you have the network in the groups and they're willing to put up capital it's very hard it traditionally was insanely hard back in 2020 it's still today to focus solely on Bitcoin and raise capital and that framing and so just curious anything you want to share there or just in general like what's the most exciting things you're looking at from a just a venture perspective moving forward. >> So, it it's been the easiest thing and this is what like it's actually I pinched myself how easy it it's been by sticking my neck out and and stating what I wanted to do um and where the where I thought the world was going and how I help bend the world to that spot. It's amazing how many people are aligned. Like they e even if they're stuck, right? Even if they're stuck right now, it's the more and more they listen, the more and more they're aligned. The capital raising honestly, Michael, it was crazy easy. The first one was harder because we were just getting started and we had FTX that collapsed in the mid in the middle of it. Um but even then, if I look back at how capital raising normally is, pretty easy. And then we had remarkable success out of that uh that first fund. Um and uh and the second one is really easy. It's like everything's getting easier. >> Well, if you're listening to this, don't start a venture fund because I promise you it's not easy. It's easy for Jeff because not everyone's as eloquent in explaining what's happening here. Um but if you if somebody leaves and goes starts a venture fund, I can promise you it's probably not going to be as easy as Jeff. But I do hear you there that uh and I I I get what you're saying like in the sense of the people that do deeply understand there's something wrong, they have a moral they feel the moral imperative uh to participate. It's the joke of you know in the fiat world it's like who will build the roads? It's like we'll build the roads because we need our kids to get to school in a uh pretty uh you know uh efficient fashion, but the state will want you to believe that we need them to help uh build the roads or produce when we can figure this stuff out ourselves. And it sounds like you're doing a great job of it. Yeah, it's super fun on the company side too. Um it's hard to say what one I'm most excited about because you know you know in venture something will change or we have a curve ball and um and such but there are so many uh port codes just killing it inside the uh portfolio and are going to make huge huge advances to this proto protocol on on different layers that add privacy add ability to transact privately to all of these things that are required for Bitcoin to emerge is this what we're talking about and they are already impossible to stop. They've already been and so um not just that but it's it's it's so wild to be a part of seeing this and working with entrepreneurs kind of helping them drive their dreams and what this looks like. Um so we we have we we're doing diligence right now on seven deals right now. um that that all seven could close in the next uh 45 days. Um and and we get told um that there's no no deals here. Now, this is a series A fund. So, so many of these companies are already profitable at growing at crazy rates. Um and and if you talk to the general community about and so they're adding Bitcoin to the balance sheets already, they don't need the capital. Um and and so to to be doing these uh type of deals at the same time most of the world is saying there's nothing happening here. Okay. >> I love it. >> Well, thank you Jeff. Really appreciate your time. I know you're busy and um it was really a pleasure to have you on the show today. And for anyone who does want to get in touch, where should we send them to? Um, I'm I'm not on Twitter anymore, so I'm just on Noster. And but I just ask so my probably my website jeff.ca. And the reason I say that is is if you're following me on social media, make sure it's me. There's so many scammers out there. And so if if I ever change my name pub on Noster or something like that, I'll update my website to make sure that people can double check. >> Excellent. Thanks again, Jeff. Awesome. Thanks for joining us. >> Thanks, guys. >> Thanks, Jeff. Thanks for listening to this week's episode of the show. If you found the information valuable, please share the episode with a friend or leave a rating on your favorite podcast app. All the links we discussed in today's show will be in the show notes inside your podcast app. Before we finish, a quick reminder that Onra Media is forformational and entertainment purposes only, and nothing should be construed as investment or legal advice. Regardless of where you are on your Bitcoin journey, we'd love to hear from you. Visit onrampbitcoin.com/cont to schedule a consultation with one of our private client adviserss.