November 23, 2020
Michael Saylor & Jeff Booth – Bitcoin Is The Fight Of Our Time | Once BITten Podcast
Check out The Once BITten Podcast Episode Page & Show Notes
Key Takeaways
- Contrary to the mainstream narrative, deflation is not evil. Goods and services going down in price is natural and desirable to any rational person
- In a free market, entrepreneurs win only by consistently providing more value, creating deflation, and abundance, “fighting that is robbing humanity” – Jeff Booth
- You can change bad actors in a system and it will still operate the same way. Bitcoin changes the system and “is the best chance we have today for a peaceful transition” – Jeff Booth
- “Bitcoin is whatever the hodlers believe it is, Bitcoin is driven by the character and conviction of the hodlers” – Michael Saylor
- When explaining Bitcoin, “It’s a lot easier to incrementally introduce good ideas than it is to overcome systemic bad ones” – Michael Saylor
- Bitcoin is where the internet was in 1995, a few understand the potential and are building an entire ecosystem on top
- Startups that attempt to compete with a monopoly in every aspect always fail. Successful startups achieve a breakthrough in a niche, dominate it, then expand from there
- A decentralized, non-sovereign store of value is the triumph of a crypto network, not features like privacy and transaction processing
- Central Banks’ Digital Currencies‘ (CBDC’s) purpose is to allow direct money handouts to people and enable negative interest rates
- “A digital dollar is no more threatening to Bitcoin than a physical dollar is” – Michael Saylor
Intro
- Michael Saylor is the CEO of MicroStrategy, Saylor Academy, and author of The Mobile Wave
- Read the Podcast Notes from his appearance on Stephan Livera Podcast and Pomp Podcast
- Jeff Booth (@JeffBooth) is an Entrepreneur, tech leader, and author of The Price of Tomorrow
- Read the Podcast Notes from his appearance on Tales from the Crypt Podcast and The Investor’s Podcast
- Host – Daniel Prince (@princey1976)
The Inflation Narrative
- Deflation is when goods and services go down in price; this is natural and desirable to any rational person
- However, it seems unnatural in the current economic system that requires currencies to constantly lose value
- Politicians and economists parrot the narrative that a depreciating currency is necessary to stimulate spending and grow an economy
- “It’s pretty much the stupidest thing you’ve ever heard in your entire life, that prices should always go up” – Michael Saylor
- Akin to turning down the temperature in a restaurant to make it cold and uncomfortable so customers would hurry up, eat and leave
- “It’s pretty much the stupidest thing you’ve ever heard in your entire life, that prices should always go up” – Michael Saylor
Bitcoiners are Entrepreneurs
- An entrepreneur sees something that doesn’t make sense and decides to take a different path and defend their future view of the reality
- More people come to see Bitcoin as a technological invention and the only path to a fairer world
- “Bitcoin is whatever the hodlers believe it is, Bitcoin is driven by the character and conviction of the hodlers” – Michael Saylor
- Hodlers and maximalists have a multi-decade time horizon and see price crashes as buying opportunities, this signals courage, conviction, and trust
- Whereas conventional bitcoin investors talk about 1% hedges, hodlers are racing to reserve spots for the $100K price party
- Which group of people do bet you on and believe in?
- If you understand why Bitcoin makes sense from first principles, it becomes difficult to understand why other people don’t get it
- Consequently, some bitcoiners may seem aggressive and push people away
- Bitcoin is where the internet was in 1995, a few understand the potential and are building an entire ecosystem on top
- People are caught up in an inflationary monetary system that makes no sense. Instead of “housing always goes up”, contemplate this:
- “Would housing have gone up in the last 20 years if there wasn’t $185T of stimulus?
- And “will there be another $300T of stimulus in the next 20 years to keep housing going up?”
- “Would housing have gone up in the last 20 years if there wasn’t $185T of stimulus?
- You can change bad actors in a system and it will still operate the same way. Bitcoin changes the system and “is the best chance we have today for a peaceful transition” – Jeff Booth
The Fight of Our Time
- The current economic system fails without exponentially growing manipulation of asset prices and money printing, coupled with handouts for people to afford those higher prices
- This is totalitarian government control where whatever is given to you can be taken away just as easily
- In contrast, the free market creates increasing innovation through endless ruthless experiments, entrepreneurs win only by consistently providing more value, else they fail
- “The benefit of that is deflation, so fighting that is robbing humanity”
- “It’s [Bitcoin] the biggest fight of our time, it’s man kind’s greatest invention” – Jeff Booth
- “The benefit of that is deflation, so fighting that is robbing humanity”
Bitcoin Board Rooms Conversations
- Entrepreneurs and CEOs have to go down the bitcoin rabbit hole before putting their money on the line
- To that end, it’s often easier to start with the current system and where it leads before talking about Bitcoin
- Entrepreneur controlled boardrooms move quicker, and many executives already own bitcoin in a personal capacity
- To that end, it’s often easier to start with the current system and where it leads before talking about Bitcoin
- “I think it’s a lot easier to incrementally introduce good ideas than it is to overcome systemic bad ones” – Michael Saylor
- Introduce an incremental virtue that caters to your audience, for instance,
- To gold bugs, introduce Bitcoin as pharmaceutical grade gold, with none of the impurities, hangover, or liabilities of gold
- Bitcoin is a better macroeconomic hedge than shorting 30-year bonds, this suits macroeconomists,
- To big tech investors, Bitcoin is a monetary network you can plug into an iPhone and put on your balance sheet, this generates value for shareholders
- Anyone of the big tech companies could decide to be the first mover and generate profits
- Bitcoin’s ecosystem improves the more people join, whether it’s investors, techies, anarchists, corporations, etc.
- Introduce an incremental virtue that caters to your audience, for instance,
How Bitcoin Grows
- Startups that attempt to compete with a monopoly in every aspect always fail
- Successful startups achieve a breakthrough in a niche, dominate it, then expand from there
- For instance, Google offered free search when everyone else sold ad-spots on a crowded webpage, competitors didn’t notice till it was too late
- Bitcoin started as a better store of value than gold and as it grows, more talent and innovation comes into the network
- Additionally, Bitcoin’s game theory incentivizes governments to accept it, and it eventually becomes a reserve currency
- Successful startups achieve a breakthrough in a niche, dominate it, then expand from there
- “I think Bitcoin is going to be successful with or without any of us, I think it’s already past the event horizon and it’s going to continue” – Michael Saylor
- That said, a decentralized, non-sovereign store of value is the triumph of a crypto network, not features like privacy and transaction processing.
- It’s a silly notion to displace the Euro, Yen, Dollar, and circumvent Interpol, FBI, and the Treasury Department, and also defeat Amazon, Google, Microsoft applications, all before becoming a store of value
- Bitcoin as a store of value saves 95% of the world’s money, and that’s enough
- That said, a decentralized, non-sovereign store of value is the triumph of a crypto network, not features like privacy and transaction processing.
Central Banks Digital Currencies (CBDC)
- CBDC’s purpose is to allow direct money handouts to people and enable negative interest rates
- Else, people would just withdraw all their money from the banks
- As people start to see CBDCs as complete manipulation and concentration of power, Bitcoin becomes the beneficiary
- People will realize that “For the first time in human history, I don’t have to be manipulated by the state. Because of this innovation [Bitcoin], I personally have vote” – Jeff Booth
- “A digital dollar is no more threatening to Bitcoin than a physical dollar is” – Michael Saylor
- Additionally, CBDCs may remain in the planning phase for years to come
- “I think it’s just another thing, another technology, that is a lot easier to tweet about than it is to do” – Michael Saylor
- Additionally, CBDCs may remain in the planning phase for years to come
Additional Notes
- Technology creates abundance in everything
- “Everything in the world is free, it’s my time that’s not free” – Jeff Booth
