November 7, 2020

Capital University | What is Bitcoin? With Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss

Check out Capital University Podcast Episode Page

Starting and owning companies with conviction is the way to build generational wealth, not by diversifying and playing it safe
Bitcoin is the first money built for the Internet, and it’s decentralized
- To take it down, you have to stop the entire Internet
A Bitcoin price prediction of $500K/bitcoin is a conservative estimate
- That said, it’s a long term bet, buy it with a 10 year time horizon
You hold 1 bitcoin and you know there will only be 21 million bitcoins
- Remember that you can own a fraction of a bitcoin

Cameron Winklevoss (@winklevoss) and Tyler Winklevoss (@tylerwinklevoss) are venture investors, Olympic rowers, the founders of Gemini Cryptocurrency exchange
- Check out the Podcast Notes from their appearance on The What Bitcoin Did Podcast
Anthony “Pomp” Pompliano (@APompliano) is a Co-founder at Morgan Creek Digital and host of The Pomp Podcast
Bryce Hall (@BryceHall) is the Co-founder of Ani Energy and a social media personality. Check out his Instagram and YouTube

After being introduced to cryptocurrencies by a stranger in Ibiza, the twins quickly realized this is the next big thing
Bitcoin is the first money that is built for the internet
- Think of it as Gold 2.0; it’s superior to gold in all the properties that make gold valuable
  - For instance, whereas gold is scarce but not fixed, Bitcoin’s supply is fixed

Bitcoin is decentralized money, you have to stop the entire internet to take it down
- “We didn’t see how this thing wouldn’t work and if it did work it was gonna be really big” – Tyler Winklevoss
  - Thus, the twins ended up buying 1% of the supply
Wealth is built by people who have conviction in companies they start and own (e.g. Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, etc.)
- You don’t make generational wealth by playing it safe or diversifying
“When you really have conviction in something, [like] a great idea, definitely going hard into it makes a lot of sense” – Tyler Winklevoss

Bitcoin could easily appreciate 40-50 times within the next decade, here is why
- Institutional money is not yet in Bitcoin
- If Bitcoin is going to disrupt gold, then it has to exceed gold’s market cap
  - Gold sits at $9Tr market cap, compared to Bitcoin’s $200Bn
“We actually think that’s like a conservative thing, it could be worth quite a bit more” – Cameron Winklevoss

The dollar is a medium of exchange that is being challenged by all the money printing, and it’s already mostly digital
- “You hold the same amount of dollars but that supply keeps growing a lot bigger” – Winklevoss
- By contrast, you hold 1 bitcoin and you know there will only be 21 million bitcoins
  - Remember that you can own a fraction of a bitcoin
Historically, people protect themselves against inflation by buying assets such as gold, except Bitcoin now offers a superior alternative

Bitcoin is hard money that protects you against inflation and political and economic events
- It’s a long term bet, not a day trading thing, Buy it with a 10 year time horizon
- “If you are patient, put an allocation into Bitcoin and it’s gonna be a great lifetime bet for you and most likely your children and next generations” – Winklevoss
Apart from Bitcoin, invest in technology companies whose products you use every day
- These companies are probably well-positioned to change and stay ahead of the curve

Bitcoin is a stepping stone into the larger cryptocurrency universe
- Crypto is the future, a movement, technology, and philosophy around decentralization, and there is so much to learn and do
- Get some skin in the game, then start learning more about the space
  - For instance, explore Ethereum and DeFi technologies
“I think the biggest risk is doing nothing at all” – Cameron Winklevoss