Gold & “The Bitcoin Standard”

Published on
October 17th, 2019
Duration
65 minutes

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66

Gold & “The Bitcoin Standard”

The Interview ·
Featuring Saifedean Ammous

Published on: October 17th, 2019 • Duration: 65 minutes

Is there a path for bitcoin to become the new gold standard? Economist Saifedean Ammous, author of the hotly debated 'The Bitcoin Standard: The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking,' joins Real Vision for an in-depth analysis of both gold & bitcoin, drawing on his extensive knowledge as a professor of Austrian economics. Ammous touches on the far-reaching implications of various monetary systems and singles out the paradoxes of Keynesianism for an intense critique. Hosted by Marty Bent. Filmed on October 9, 2019 in New York.

Comments

Transcript

  • bh
    bjorn h.
    17 October 2019 @ 21:56
    0 0
    Or next best choice on Quantum computing issue: Is programs on quantum computing and perceptions on stock flow ratios and where quantum computing will disrupt in the future?
    • BB
      B B.
      17 October 2019 @ 22:10
      1 0
      Bitcoin Q&A: "Quantum supremacy" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eo7mwcsUbdo
    • BV
      Brendan V.
      18 October 2019 @ 01:01
      0 0
      Algorithms will evolve to keep up. Computing power is just computing power. It's the design that counts.
    • KL
      Katriina L.
      16 January 2020 @ 00:05
      0 0
      Fuck and die u ass holes
  • BV
    Brendan V.
    18 October 2019 @ 01:04
    3 0
    Brilliant guy, great interview. Indeed it is theoretically going to become the hardest money to ever exist and the first that was bred from free market interactions + fully digital. Therefore the divisibility problem is resolved and it is globally accessible in jurisdictions where it is impossible to safely store physical tangibles. It merits everybody to have exposure to Bitcoin, even just 1%. I think it is wrong to consider it a competitor to gold - it's a complement.
    • KL
      Katriina L.
      16 January 2020 @ 00:05
      0 0
      Fuck and die u ass holes
    • KL
      Katriina L.
      16 January 2020 @ 00:05
      0 0
      Fuck and die u ass holes
  • RP
    Raoul P. | Founder
    18 October 2019 @ 01:12
    26 0
    This was one of the interviews i really wanted to see and it didn't disappoint! If this didnt make you stop and think, you are impervious...
    • JB
      James B.
      18 October 2019 @ 04:12
      1 0
      In the next 5 years you're going to see many institutions and funds get off zero.
    • AS
      Andrew S.
      18 October 2019 @ 04:37
      2 0
      Me too - I’m a huge fan of Saifedean Ammous and this did not disappoint - well done by all
    • IO
      Indi O.
      18 October 2019 @ 20:20
      0 1
      Yes, and you know, I believe I am the first person who posted about this book here on RV. You're welcome. :)
    • KL
      Katriina L.
      16 January 2020 @ 00:05
      0 0
      Fuck and die u ass holes
  • JS
    Jim S.
    18 October 2019 @ 01:48
    0 0
    How would have the Weimar Republic, the US in 1929? Or the globe in 2007 faired if they were on a bitcoin system (either directly or indirectly) How would this currency work if there was another large scale war? If we lost? And if we won? I don’t know the answer to these but just asking for a thought experiment.
    • AS
      Andrew S.
      18 October 2019 @ 04:36
      0 0
      Well there’s really no scenario to recover from rampant inflation without raising interest rates in a fiat currency/central bank model. Increased interest rates led to the Great Depression in 1929 - the economy didn’t recover until interest rates rose even higher to the point where the dollar became more valuable, more valuable then gold. Will be very interesting to see how Bitcoin behaves in this kind of scenario
    • KL
      Katriina L.
      16 January 2020 @ 00:04
      0 0
      Fuck and die u ass holes
  • SB
    Stephen B.
    18 October 2019 @ 01:49
    9 0
    Quite brilliant - one of RV's top ten of all time. I would disagree only on one point in that it should be self evident that Government's and CB's will not willingly give up the enormous power they gave accumulated during the 20th Century. A replacement for the US$ centric system will be needed, possibly quite soon, but I guarantee you they will promote a currency they can control. Carney's Jackson Hole speech (and Q&A) couldn't have been clearer. Not RMB. Not gold. Not Btc. But a new digital currency they issue and control.
    • mj
      miztaken j.
      18 October 2019 @ 03:39
      0 0
      can you plz share audio/video link of Carney's speech and QnA?
    • SB
      Stephen B.
      18 October 2019 @ 04:10
      1 0
      You can find the full transcript on the Bank of England website (August 2019). He then gave a series of media interviews, some in print and videos which you should find on YouTube.
    • KL
      Katriina L.
      16 January 2020 @ 00:04
      0 0
      Fuck and die u ass holes
  • SB
    Stephen B.
    18 October 2019 @ 02:04
    6 3
    As an ex utility (power grid) executive I would add one comment about Btc. Btc relies on the internet and the internet relies on the power grid. Over the last one hundred years we have been seduced into believing that the power will always be there (bar a few, short term emergencies). What is often not pointed out, however, is: (i) with the replacement of traditional, large, base load, coal and nuclear plants with (intermittent) renewables the grid is far less robust than it used to be; (ii) criticise old fashioned power utilities for inefficiency if you like but the one think they did well was to keep the lights on; (iii) the risk of a (natural) solar CME (as occurred in 1859) or (man made) EMP event has been consistently understated. Should such an event occur, the grid could be down for years, not days, as it would require the remanufacture (and transportation across the world) of large power grid transformers. Btc will surely find its natural long term role but there is nothing quite like gold for long term security.
    • AS
      Andrew S.
      18 October 2019 @ 04:25
      2 2
      “There is nothing quite like Gold for security” - during WWII Hitler was able to take over Europe by seizing gold stores and using the funds to purchase and develop advanced armaments - this became a self-perpetuating cycle. Gold perpetuated this. It’s no wonder the western world moved aggressively off the gold standard after WWII (not the only reason but one of several). The idea of keeping vast amounts of gold in a secure vault today is an insane concept especially given the instability at the highest levels of the United States government. Not to mention anywhere around the world where populism is taking a stronghold. As an electric company executive, you understand risk management, as a financial technology executive, I understand that when a better technology comes along to address these existential and system risks you should pay attention.
    • JS
      Jim S.
      19 October 2019 @ 02:47
      2 0
      My thoughts as well on EMPs or increased cosmic rays / intensities. Gold would survive all of these and as it won’t even oxidize except under extreme pressure and temperature conditions.
    • KL
      Katriina L.
      16 January 2020 @ 00:04
      0 0
      Fuck and die u ass holes
  • NF
    N. F.
    18 October 2019 @ 02:33
    0 0
    “Verse” != versus
    • KL
      Katriina L.
      16 January 2020 @ 00:04
      0 0
      Fuck and die u ass holes
  • DC
    Daniel C.
    18 October 2019 @ 02:45
    2 0
    One of my favorite interviews this year!
    • KL
      Katriina L.
      16 January 2020 @ 00:03
      0 0
      Fuck and die u ass holes
  • JP
    Jack P.
    18 October 2019 @ 03:11
    1 28
    While he is accurately describing BTC he did not describe Bitcoin. Bitcoin was defined in a white paper which described “Nodes” as mining nodes (Section 5) and not as Ammous described as passive observers of the network and BTC has so few true nodes that it is not decentralized at all. BTC could be taken out easily so it was amazing that Ammous claimed that “decentralization” is a key feature of Bitcoin and yet that word or concept is not to be found in the white paper. And Bitcoin IS electronic cash in every sense including paying for your coffee and this is done by scaling the blocks which is made possible with Simplified Payment Verification (SPV) also mentioned in the white paper; Ammous described this incorrectly when he claimed that Bitcoin could not be used for everyday transactions. Ammous also claimed that no one can change the protocol but the BTC developers have made all sorts of changes including adding Segwit, RBF, stripping out the op codes, adding layers etc. Fortunately the original protocol is being restored and all of the benefits that he described and many more are possible with Bitcoin (BSV), the original protocol.
    • DP
      Daniel P.
      18 October 2019 @ 03:52
      11 0
      Craig is that you?
    • RA
      Ross A.
      18 October 2019 @ 04:02
      1 1
      Whoops. I posted my question without seeing this. I cant type without looking at the keyboard! It seems to address my question in a way. But would like to hear your thoughts.
    • AS
      Andrew S.
      18 October 2019 @ 04:20
      12 0
      Bitcoin BSV is a scam promoted by Craig Steven Wright - he has claimed to be actually Satoshi to promote this scam but has been debunked every time. Pls do not allow yourself to fall victim to hoaxes and scams - there’s a lot of publicly available information from reputable sources about Bitcoin.
    • ML
      Matt L.
      18 October 2019 @ 04:26
      10 0
      nice try Craig
    • JP
      Jack P.
      18 October 2019 @ 04:55
      0 5
      Please notice how none of the replies to this post address the concerns mentioned there including: all nodes are miners, “decentralization” was not a part of the design but use as P2P cash was, SPV solves scaling, and that BTC developers have made massive changes to the protocol. All they can do is ad hominem which is very telling.
    • JP
      Jack P.
      18 October 2019 @ 05:00
      0 4
      And Craig asks no one for money but is instead spending millions patenting everything in the space as he has over 800+ in progress with about 200 granted. He has been doing this for years while others bicker on twitter. He’s spending so much money that he is the worst “scammer” in existence.
    • DK
      Dan K.
      18 October 2019 @ 06:41
      4 0
      Bitcoin SV is a fork of bcash, its a walking corpse. No development, no users, and Jack P is spreading disinformation.
    • DK
      Dan K.
      18 October 2019 @ 06:43
      5 0
      and Craig Wright is a FRAUD
    • JP
      Jack P.
      18 October 2019 @ 14:23
      0 5
      Bitcoin (SV) is exploding with projects, has proven, consecutive massive blocks and is taking over BTC on the key metrics of average block sizes and # of transactions. DYOR. (And Dan K. sounds suspiciously like the Dan K. Darkpill, FUDster on Twitter, and can be ignored as he presents no arguments.) https://sv.coin.dance/blocks https://twitter.com/watchingbsvgrow/status/1184827554194251780?s=21
    • AK
      Ado K.
      18 October 2019 @ 22:20
      1 0
      Good day Jack, first I have to say that you are a dangerously insane human being, but that being said let me address your points. Scaling the blocks bigger increases bandwidth and storage demands to run a full node. If the blockchain becomes used by a a large number of individuals merely huge entities will be able to run full nodes due to capacity and bandwidth demands, these big entities will become banks since they are the only ones to handle final settlement. Then we have done nothing but create a system based on new banks, rather then displacing the centralized financial model. Segwit, second layer etc were put forward as suggestions and the vast majority of the community and full nodes supported them, this is called bringing forward your ideas to the marketplace and seeing how the community reacts. To never change anything in the base protocol is kind of ludacris, Bitcoin is programmable money, and will in the future probably make vast improvements through primarily soft forks.
    • JP
      Jack P.
      19 October 2019 @ 04:50
      0 2
      Ado, you must have missed the part where Satoshi said that mining would inevitably end up in larger server farms, not banks. Also where Satoshi said that SPV solves the scalability problem as mentioned in the white paper. And just because social media was used to via UASF to mangle BTC by removing the legally binding signatures doesn’t mean it was a very smart thing to do.
    • AW
      Adam W.
      19 October 2019 @ 16:49
      3 0
      Congrats for exposing people to this absolutely worthless tribalism that exists in the crypto space. Let the best money win.
    • KL
      Katriina L.
      16 January 2020 @ 00:03
      0 0
      Fuck and die u ass holes
  • RA
    Ross A.
    18 October 2019 @ 03:55
    2 0
    Again, a great talk by an extremely knowledgeable guy. I am curious about the following though. My understanding of what currently EFFECTIVELY stops a 51% attack (the rewriting of the chain and who owns what) is that there is a constant stream of new transactions. That means the miners have transactions to mine and place in to Blocks. So a bad actor that starts recreating the chain from X number of blocks below the current one will never be able to ‘catch up’ to the ‘real blockchain’ height and force their chain to be the ‘new real chain’. As by the time they replace the X blocks there is already another 10X blocks on top of the original chain. (This assume they have about 10% of the hash power.) The miners do the mining, not because of their generous nature, but rather by and large because they will earn the “Block Reward”. The freshly minted blocks referred to as the ‘flow’ in the various RV talks. They also pick up any transaction fees that the buyers and sellers of BC add to the transaction. But these fees seem to be inconsequential currently. Taking the last block created when I wrote this (Block #599859) I can see that the Miner for their effort got a Block Reward of 12.5 freshly minted BCs and 0.05 BCs from transaction fees. So approximately USD$88,000 from the freshly minted and USD$400 from transaction fees. The above block contained 554 transactions. So that is a total cost per transaction of about USD$160. Let’s assume that the mining world is efficient (in an economic sense) and that USD$160 per transaction is fair. So what happens when the ‘flow’ of new blocks (Block Rewards) stops? Do the miners keep doing it for just the transaction fees or do they shut down? If they shutdown doesn’t that mean the bad guy’s 10% could potentially become 51%? Or do the Transaction Fees have to go up? And if they do go up does that stop the flow of transactions enough so that the honest miners either shut down or lay idle? So again the bad actor can pounce. (Sorry for the length, I am sure a smarter person could ask this in a lot less words)
    • AS
      Andrew S.
      18 October 2019 @ 04:18
      0 0
      The last bitcoin will be mined in 2140 - 120 years from now, in that world the fees structure will be an incredibly substantial incentive for miners exists. This is potentially after world governments end their arms race for hashing power and network control - it will truly be surprising if world governments continue to exist in 2140. In that world, every conceivable transaction will occur over many layers and side chains and the actual blockchain we know all know today will be used for the very expensive (rightly so) final settlement. Final settlement on today’s blockchain is extraordinarily cheap. To learn more, I’d dig into Satoshi’s writings with cypherpunks in the old bitcoin talk days - you can find them online. The main point is that today’s Bitcoin still encapsulates the spirit of the original Bitcoin philosophy.
    • RA
      Ross A.
      18 October 2019 @ 05:23
      0 0
      Thanks Omar S, i didn't know when the block rewards ran out. The long time period negates my concerns in a way, but also weakens the RV interviewee's call that BC is harder than gold as the Flow will stop. As there may not be any more gold to mine in 120 years either.
    • KL
      Katriina L.
      16 January 2020 @ 00:03
      0 0
      Fuck and die u ass holes
  • IK
    Ian K.
    18 October 2019 @ 04:18
    3 0
    Beautiful episode. Unfortunately, they didn't touch on price stability when talking about BTC as payment. It currently would imply fiat on/off-ramps to transact in the real world. Until Bitcoin reaches price stability, around $10 trillion, stable coins would be a perfect addition to these series to draw a full picture of the digital monetary system as well as Internet 3.0, which is huge in terms of market size. a16z has good podcasts on it.
    • KL
      Katriina L.
      16 January 2020 @ 00:03
      0 0
      Fuck and die u ass holes
  • RW
    Ryan W.
    18 October 2019 @ 05:05
    7 2
    Kudos. This is definitely one of the better videos in the series and a great talk about governments, banking and economics. RealVision is a fantastic source of views to think about on my favorite topics. I am curious if any viewers found themselves motivated to buy more bitcoin as a result of watching. Tonight, I added to my gold holdings as a result. Thank you! Please keep these coming!
    • KL
      Katriina L.
      16 January 2020 @ 00:03
      0 0
      Fuck and die u ass holes
  • AS
    Aaron S.
    18 October 2019 @ 06:12
    7 30
    Bitcoin supply isn't fixed. There are hundreds of other cryptocurrencies with the exact same features, and better ones are created every day. Infinite supply.
    • MS
      Melvin S.
      18 October 2019 @ 07:44
      12 1
      You said it yourself, there are other cryptocurrencies. And they do certainly not have the same features, they're not (as) immutable as Bitcoin, not as scarce, they do not have as many people that compete to mine bitcoins, they are not secured by the same amount of hashrate as Bitcoin and so on.
    • MZ
      Martin Z.
      18 October 2019 @ 07:48
      7 0
      There have been a multitude of different (and interchangeable) fiat currencies as well, some in virtually infinite supply, but that hasn't made the USD worthless - at least not yet. ; - ) Bitcoin's supply IS immutably fixed, and although there are many other cryptocurrencies, none of them are likely to displace BTC as a store of value (or ETH as a financial transaction platform) which is why those two still make up the vast majority of the sector's market value. Although I vastly prefer gold to crypto, IMO the whole Bitcoin vs. Gold debate is unnecessarily binary (pun fully intended). It's much like comparing Gold to Silver, which also have similar - as well as different - value propositions. Why not just own both, in whatever ratio you feel comfortable with?
    • DS
      Darryl S.
      18 October 2019 @ 08:21
      2 1
      Indeed. Spillover needs to be mentioned once BTC is fully subscribed. And as Simon Mikhailovich mentioned it's all 1.0 at the moment. There will be more and they will be better.
    • JA
      Jernej A.
      20 October 2019 @ 16:57
      2 0
      Note that a similar argument could be applied to (eg. Amazon's) shares. They are worthless because anybody can make their own shares.
    • KL
      Katriina L.
      16 January 2020 @ 00:02
      0 0
      Fuck and die u ass holes
  • GN
    Griffin N.
    18 October 2019 @ 10:06
    1 0
    Awesome interview, freaks!
    • KL
      Katriina L.
      16 January 2020 @ 00:02
      0 0
      Fuck and die u ass holes
  • HS
    Hassen S.
    18 October 2019 @ 10:31
    6 0
    Can we have a follow up of Saifedean (Austrian) with another economist Steve Keen (Complex Systems Theory). The reason is they both come from different economic perspectives and disagree with each others positions but do agree that MMT (modern monetary theory) is destroying the world
    • PW
      Paul W.
      18 October 2019 @ 18:28
      4 0
      I don't think we can assume that dollar supremacy is a fixture of the universe as no fiat currency has had a perpetual duration; it was only slightly before my time that the pound sterling gave way to the dollar. To the extent that the US has used its global reserve currency status as a blunt instrument to bend other countries to its will, it has set us up as a global bully with highly incentivized opponents. Whether the dollar is destroyed from without or within, it will fall just like all other fiat currencies in history.
    • KL
      Katriina L.
      16 January 2020 @ 00:02
      0 0
      Fuck and die u ass holes
  • TS
    Taranvir S.
    18 October 2019 @ 11:40
    5 0
    No matter what video you listen to about gold or bitcoin, the word 'dollar' will always be mentioned. This has an implication for those who understand who rules the world and has the final say on which currency/money should lead the world.
    • SB
      Stephen B.
      18 October 2019 @ 20:27
      2 0
      I agree. The key stranglehold governments have over the choice of currency is the tax system. While the IRS continue to only recognize tax payments in US$'s, corporates and banks will run their accounts in US$'s.
    • KL
      Katriina L.
      16 January 2020 @ 00:02
      0 0
      Fuck and die u ass holes
  • TS
    Taranvir S.
    18 October 2019 @ 12:19
    1 0
    The 2nd half was much better than the 1st
    • KL
      Katriina L.
      16 January 2020 @ 00:01
      0 0
      Fuck and die u ass holes
    • KL
      Katriina L.
      16 January 2020 @ 00:02
      0 0
      Fuck and die u ass holes
  • SP
    Sat P.
    21 October 2019 @ 17:40
    12 0
    Just when you think you've heard every perspective on a given topic, someone like Saifedean Ammous comes along to make you completely rethink your position! It was really thought provoking when he said that we may simply have a soft transition to hard money in the way that he explained by collapsing the debt by reducing the demand for existing currency (I hope I got that right!). There were so many interesting investing insights in this video I'll have to watch it again and take down notes. This was a great interview.
    • KL
      Katriina L.
      16 January 2020 @ 00:01
      0 0
      Fuck and die u ass holes
  • CT
    Crispim T.
    21 October 2019 @ 23:00
    2 2
    Awesome. Bitcoin/BTC truly is the new gold. With plenty of advantages. The next decade is going to be spectacular for it. Finance will be turned upside down. You'll see.
    • AS
      Aaron S.
      22 October 2019 @ 08:14
      0 3
      Xi and Putin are glad you agree, they've been hard at work building their mines.
    • KL
      Katriina L.
      16 January 2020 @ 00:01
      0 0
      Fuck and die u ass holes
  • RH
    Robert H.
    21 October 2019 @ 23:39
    0 0
    Can I stuff my mattress with Bitcoin?
    • KL
      Katriina L.
      16 January 2020 @ 00:01
      0 0
      Fuck and die u ass holes
  • RS
    Ruben S.
    22 October 2019 @ 14:52
    0 0
    i m not sure i agree with the view that households in developed economies are spending more and not saving.. probably the opposite is taking place given they see yields on "risk free" assets dropping further lower, so they save more and hence dont spend that much...
    • KL
      Katriina L.
      16 January 2020 @ 00:00
      0 1
      Fuck and die u ass holes
  • JF
    Joseph F.
    23 October 2019 @ 16:00
    1 3
    The Bitcoin Standard. BTC/USD -500.55 -6.29% Oct 23/19. HODL, LOL.
    • QJ
      Qasim J.
      26 October 2019 @ 06:47
      3 0
      checked the price today?
    • KL
      Katriina L.
      16 January 2020 @ 00:00
      0 1
      Fuck and die u ass holes
  • JH
    Joseph H.
    24 October 2019 @ 12:54
    2 6
    Renewable energy advancements will dramatically reduce and eventually eliminate costs associated with powering bitcoins network.
    • DB
      Doug B.
      26 October 2019 @ 09:32
      2 1
      If that were to occur, it would destroy the Bitcoin network. Proof of work, by design, requires it to be expensive.
    • KL
      Katriina L.
      16 January 2020 @ 00:00
      0 1
      Fuck and die u ass holes
  • TS
    Tom S.
    25 October 2019 @ 02:29
    4 0
    Great interview - one I really enjoyed. Thanks to the RV team. Money and time well spent.
    • KL
      Katriina L.
      16 January 2020 @ 00:00
      0 2
      Fuck and die u ass holes
  • CH
    Chris H.
    26 October 2019 @ 03:48
    0 3
    Having read his book and now watched this I think he's very good at pointing out the numerous problems with fiat which we'd probably all agree with but it's not clear why bitcoin is the answer indeed the last minutes are telling where he admits that his real objective is providing competition to fiat to make central banks and governments more honest. This could be done with any crypto or gold.
    • KL
      Katriina L.
      16 January 2020 @ 00:00
      0 2
      Fuck and die u ass holes
  • T~
    Tshort63 ~.
    28 October 2019 @ 01:45
    0 1
    I voted thumbs down on a great discussion. My vote is based on the future and narrative of bitcoin. If bitcoin's greatest purpose is to enforce sound money policies than I'd rather keep my 10K and put it in gold. Great depth but the arguments pro vs con tended to net out con. Personally, I'm not planning on sending large amounts of money to China and that one example became tired. Now I am picking nits but cest la vie. ;-)
    • ME
      Mina E.
      24 December 2019 @ 03:30
      2 0
      There's a lot more than just transferability. Censorship resistance, liquidity, ease of validation, portability...the list goes on...
    • KL
      Katriina L.
      16 January 2020 @ 00:00
      0 2
      Fuck and die u ass holes
  • SG
    Sven G.
    31 October 2019 @ 17:27
    1 0
    last 30-40 seconds of every video is an add!!! was Realvision secretly highjacked by google ads or some other marketing machine? Very annoying!
    • KL
      Katriina L.
      15 January 2020 @ 23:59
      0 2
      Fuck and die u ass holes
  • KL
    Katriina L.
    15 January 2020 @ 23:56
    0 4
    How is thta fucker with natzi white fuck ypu fase
  • SS
    Steven S.
    3 November 2019 @ 03:17
    2 0
    Exceptional! Ammous is very insightful.
    • SS
      Steven S.
      5 November 2019 @ 21:24
      0 0
      Excellent interview, but one of the points that I'm having a difficult time understanding is the claim that we only need one national fiat currency in the world. 1) the cycling of currency strength relative to other currencies serves as a negative feedback loop for the regulation of exports and imports. 2) It provides countries with a mechanism for soft default, reducing debt burden and increasing growth ...at the expense of sovereign debt holders. 3) Empirically, look at the mess that the Euro has generated. 4) With a global fiat currency, governments would still have the ability to print and devalue against hard assets. I'm not a finance guy, but I don't understand.
    • GH
      Garrett H.
      14 November 2019 @ 22:44
      1 0
      The supply of BitCoin is capped so if countries settled in it then it would change the strength of their fiat currencies, similar to how gold reserves worked.
    • KL
      Katriina L.
      15 January 2020 @ 23:52
      0 2
      FUCK YOU
  • KL
    Katriina L.
    15 January 2020 @ 23:51
    0 3
    FUCK YOU
  • KL
    Katriina L.
    15 January 2020 @ 23:50
    0 3
    IF I EVERE SEE YOU I WILL USE REAL POWER TO FUCK U UP
  • KL
    Katriina L.
    15 January 2020 @ 23:49
    0 3
    FUCK YOU
  • KL
    Katriina L.
    15 January 2020 @ 23:48
    0 2
    Can i come and give some......
  • NR
    Nelson R.
    23 October 2019 @ 23:56
    3 14
    There is an infinite supply of cryptocurrencies. There is an infinite supply of cryptocurrencies. There is an infinite supply of cryptocurrencies. There is an infinite supply of cryptocurrencies. There is an infinite supply of cryptocurrencies. There is an infinite supply of cryptocurrencies.
    • MG
      Mac G.
      24 October 2019 @ 21:25
      1 1
      Research 'network effect'. Distributed Ledger Tech allows for scarcity within the boundary of network effect.
    • CH
      Chris H.
      26 October 2019 @ 03:42
      0 0
      if there was a network effect shouldn't bit coin use be growing at a very fast rate? it doesn't seem to be.
    • SC
      Stacy C.
      30 December 2019 @ 20:40
      0 0
      But the majority of value accrues to one chain. There’s a reason for that, several actually.
  • JL
    James L.
    1 November 2019 @ 10:27
    3 3
    "We're going to get to a point where there's going to be 21 million bitcoin and that's it and there's nothing else anybody can produce... This makes it more of a gold than gold." - This statement seems so simplistically wrong. There are an infinite number of Bitcoin-like currencies that are creatable, this is already true now, but even more so as we reach the limit of the total number of Bitcoins, the pressure and incentive for both miners and transactors to move to Bitcoin-2 or Bitcoin-3 or Bitcoin-n is going to build and build. There will always only be one element that has the properties of gold, and it's supply grows inline with technology and the human economy.
    • GH
      Garrett H.
      14 November 2019 @ 23:20
      0 2
      If this was true then Bitcoin would not have a market cap of 150B...other currencies would have already eroded it's market cap, as people would have been incentivized to create their own. In fact, this is what we saw during 2017. Yet Bitcoin is top dog still by an order of magnitude. There are an infinite number of social networks we can create, yet we only choose a few such a Facebook to be the majority. Bitcoin's market cap is governed by the same network forces. Network forces tend to create monopolies of market share in things like Facebook, Twitter, and Bitcoin.
  • MG
    Matthew G.
    2 November 2019 @ 20:26
    4 0
    This guy is awesome! Even if you hate bitcoin, his framework for thinking through the monetary basis of our global economy is impressive. His book is equally thought provoking. Highly recommended it.
  • JL
    J L.
    17 October 2019 @ 08:58
    5 6
    An interesting conversation but I feel you got the money supply argument backwards. The reason gold acts as a store of value over very long time horizons is precisely the fact that the supply is not limited and more can and will be created if it becomes too valuable relative to the labour and energy that go into mining it. If gold triples you can bet the supply increase won't remain at the 2-3% number (think about why silver miners didn't really have a stellar performance when the metal was trading at 50$, the forward prices were probably never going to remain at those levels). Reliable store of value means purchasing power is maintained over time, not increased. A purely fixed money supply eliminates the supply response and is likely to cause price instability. In this regard bitcoin is certainly not the better gold. That said everytime there is financial turmoil or capital controls are introduced over the next few decades I do believe some of the cryptos should outperform as they are HUGELY more practical than physical gold, and at this point BTC is the king of crypto. Whether it is a MySpace or the real thing only time will tell!
    • AW
      Andrew W.
      17 October 2019 @ 09:31
      17 1
      The numbers themselves refute you. The price of gold did indeed triple and the SFR barely changed. A store of value being deflationary is just brownie points. Prince instability won't be an issue once we have more liquidity (more buyers and sellers at every price). I can't believe you actually think the less scarce good is superior as a money. BTC as a Layer 1 monetary policy is 100% complete and thus is not the MySpace of crypto. You may benefit from reading Saif's book.
    • SS
      Steven S.
      18 October 2019 @ 02:37
      2 1
      BTC is basically like TCP/IP--the language our computers speak to each other that makes us "online". We figured it out. We've achieved consensus on the Bitcoin protocol. Now people are busy installing software that speaks Bitcoin into every nook and cranny, every bit of hardware, and every piece of software we can. This is an almost irreversible process. Literally hundreds or thousands of companies and a multitude of individuals are doing it independently. It's not something that can be overtaken. You could invent a better TCP/IP but you will never convince humanity to switch. Bitcoin is in our lexicon. Its brand power is enormous.
    • JP
      J P.
      23 October 2019 @ 21:10
      0 0
      "supply is not limited and more can and will be created " Really? can you explain that with a graph of supply and demand curves. I guess you got an F in Intro to Economics? Bitcoin as already established it self at the TCP/IP for transfer of value. Bitcoin is a protocol not an application the MySpace example does not hold. Further bitcoin's creation was the culmination of prior trial and error in the creation of digital money. Never let facts get in the way of opinion.
  • RS
    Ruben S.
    22 October 2019 @ 13:31
    0 0
    when talking about the cost do you take into account energy cost ?
  • AS
    Aaron S.
    18 October 2019 @ 15:53
    5 21
    Being popular for a couple years does not create money, nor scarcity, nor a moat, nor a store of value, nor anything compelling. Any large transnational could launch a marketing campaign for its new cryptocurrency and replace the popularity, network size, technology, everything about bitcoin, within a few months.
    • MB
      Marty B.
      18 October 2019 @ 16:36
      16 1
      Good luck!
    • DP
      Daniel P.
      18 October 2019 @ 21:11
      5 1
      Oooooookay.
    • vs
      victor s.
      18 October 2019 @ 23:30
      3 1
      You need to understand what decentralization is.
    • AS
      Aaron S.
      19 October 2019 @ 02:10
      3 7
      Russia and China owning 80% of hashpower, zero quantum resistance, a single person owning 40% of lightning network, a single named successor (Gavin Andresen), and a piece of software code invented by 10 people. That's decentralization? Rofl.
    • AN
      Andrew N.
      19 October 2019 @ 22:06
      7 0
      Good on you for airing a contrarian point of view. Great to hear. Personally, I think Bitcoin has a number of things which makes it very hard to supplant. These can all be surmised as "network effects", and include things like... most active speculative use, most genuine economic use, very active development, most public awareness and familiarity, most accumulated proof of work etc, etc. It's perhaps worth noting that these self reinforcing effects have taken a decade to compound, and have been totally impervious to competitors marketing thus far.
    • AS
      Aaron S.
      22 October 2019 @ 08:16
      0 1
      Network effects can be purchased with marketing budgets.
  • PJ
    Peter J.
    21 October 2019 @ 08:35
    2 2
    Bitcoin is currently a financial /technology construct created by financial technologists to circumvent fiat currency and political interference. Gold has been adopted by the market as true money because it was “accepted” and understood to be money by “everyone” for millennia, that is from the ordinary peasant to a king. It therefore has the confidence and trust of the people as the primary store of value and that is why it has and IMO will continue to be primary money now and in the future. Bitcoin has yet to get anywhere near any sort of acceptance by the ordinary joe in the street / the true market. Can it get there, possibly, but it is going to need to get the man in the streets acceptance, otherwise it will remain a niche player in the Finance realm and widespread acceptance will continue to be an out of reach aspiration.
  • RS
    Robert S.
    20 October 2019 @ 16:25
    3 10
    Terrific line of argumentation. Absolutely worth seeing. I love the concept behind bitcoin, but with seven transactions per second it will be hard to pay for your cappuccino. Unless of course you’re one of the few that is paying for a cappuccino right now. But things will improve with Hedera Hbar using the Hashgraph technology.
  • AW
    Adam W.
    19 October 2019 @ 15:55
    1 0
    Absolutely fascinating, thanks.
  • RI
    R I.
    19 October 2019 @ 12:44
    1 0
    Effectively! Lol
  • JB
    John B.
    19 October 2019 @ 03:29
    0 1
    Lets see if BTC continues to be priced in US dollar and the sellers stores those dollar some where. Is that one big central vault that becomes a security risk. Or are the sellers also your buyers when you want to go back to dollars? Or will they not be convertible some day? Otherwise the US dollar still needs to be available so all the new BTC can be purchased, all the way to 2145?
    • as
      andrew s.
      19 October 2019 @ 09:59
      2 9
      The ponzi of bitcoin is the fake usdt (tether) that is supposed to be convertable 1 : 1 with $
  • JS
    Jim S.
    19 October 2019 @ 02:57
    3 0
    But if our central banks used Bitcoin as a way to resolve payments and imbalances between countries.... how would we deleverage our economy in debt crises? I can’t imagine that Bitcoin, alone, would be the panacea for solving deficit spending, current account deficits, or wars. It seems like all debt crises may resolve in debasement/inflation vs Bitcoin.
  • bh
    bjorn h.
    17 October 2019 @ 21:46
    2 0
    With all the Bitcoin debates and limited supply - I have yet to hear the defence against quantum computing. I am not educated enough on quantum computing to argue one way or another. But that is the 1 noticable element lacking in these debates. Why supply of Bitcoin is limited forever. Is that premise irrefutable and super robust? Would like to know one way or the other. Because the stock flow ratio central argument is based on exactly that premise that there is negative dilution.
    • BB
      B B.
      17 October 2019 @ 22:10
      1 0
      Bitcoin Q&A: "Quantum supremacy" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eo7mwcsUbdo
    • BV
      Brendan V.
      18 October 2019 @ 01:02
      0 0
      Bitcoin and crypto is software. It can be upgraded. More computing power from quantum computing can just be applied to making more vigorous networks & cryptography. It is not an immediate threat and the industry has at least 12 months to start planning ahead. Personally I am not concerned.
    • AK
      Ado K.
      18 October 2019 @ 22:34
      0 0
      Good day Björn, I would not expect anything else then a brilliant question from a man with such a robust name as Bear! When it comes to quantum computing the signatures can be changed to quantum proof signatures. The reason this has not been done is because this is not even close to being an issue at the present time. The scarcity is a great question that has a rather complex answer. For the max supply to be reliable the system must be decentralized, no one entity can be able to change the emission schedule. The scarcity is based on the users and full nodes wanting to follow the chain with the current emission schedule. The benefit of doing this is the access to decentralized sound money, the consequences of not doing so and following a chain that alters emission schedule is that Bitcoins value proposition disappears and the price falls a lot. Note that this even applies for a emission schedule that lowers the stock to flow, for instance if we do a hard/soft fork to go to only 20 million coins. If the users and nodes accept this it means that the capped supply can be altered and the coin has no value what so ever. So to summarize the scarcity is based on a game theory scenario in which the users face severe punishment for detracting from the emission schedule. It is a self imposed scarcity, but it is robust as stone due to behavioral economics and game theory within a decentralized system.
  • PN
    Philip N.
    17 October 2019 @ 12:25
    3 2
    I enjoyed this a lot but I find I have several issues with the bitcoin as free money argument. The first is the relationship with government. If bitcoin is money you can be sure every government is going to regulate it and they are going to use tech companies to do so. There will be no freely moving a billion in bitcoin in or out of China. The next is that government will passively allow bitcoins to take over. Several governments shut down a child porn hub this week and one of the announcements was that bitcoin was used to fund it. If bitcoin becomes a threat to central banks you can be sure it and its owners will be smeared hard. I have other problems with bitcoin as money, I am under the impression that almost all bitcoins are owned by less than 100 people. That doesn't seem like the basis to start a currency, conversely everyone has at least a little gold. Even if it is only rings, chains or teeth. What happens if the really big bitcoin holders suddenly need money, how low does the price go if the Winklevoss brothers suddenly have to liquidate a significant part of their holdings? Bitcoin has never been through an economic downturn. It could weather it fine but until it does we don't know what it will do. Lastly is the argument the supply is fixed so it is hard money, I'm not sure that fixing the supply of Brazilian Pesos will make it the number one money in the world in a few decades. While the supply of bitcoin is fixed the number of new "coins" is infinite. All that said I enjoyed Mr. Ammous knowledgeable commentary. He makes a good case for bitcoin even if I disagree with him about it.
    • AK
      Ado K.
      17 October 2019 @ 13:32
      2 2
      I think you miss the fact that Bitcoin can not be regulated. Simply because nobody controls it, and there is no barrier to entry for anyone who wants to join. Lets say China bans you to send Bitcoin, you can still do it, how will they know you send it, how will they even know you own it. What Bitcoin really does is that it changes the economy of violence, meaning that there is nobody to throw in a cage to make them shut down Bitcoin. This is basically the foundation of government law, and they use force to implement their will. When they face a disrupter they can not use force against there playbook becomes small to say the least. Finally stock to flow would help the Brazilian Real a lot it would probably not help the Brazilian Peso as it does not exist.
    • RV
      Ryan V.
      17 October 2019 @ 15:03
      3 1
      Afo, bitcoin absolutely can be regulated. It has a choke point where bitcoin is bought and sold for dollars and euros. The exchanges. If western nations decided to stomp it out they would only need to ban banking for these exchanges and criminalize it to “protect the masses.” Sure you could still buy and sell locally for cash but it would be at a fraction of todays value. Never underestimate the might of the current financial system and the stakeholders in public office that back it.
    • SA
      Sanne A.
      17 October 2019 @ 18:55
      1 1
      1) Bitcoin cannot be regulated. Only the fiat on- and off-ramps can be regulated which is exactly what has happened. You can make it difficult for people to exchange fiat money for bitcoin, but you can't stop someone from accepting bitcoin for goods or services. Consider a bright young kid who cannot get a bank account because he is to young, he will always be able to sell his services online for bitcoin. 2) The top 100 addresses, of which a significant number are exchanges, own about 15% of the bitcoin in circulation, see: https://bitinfocharts.com/top-100-richest-bitcoin-addresses.html 3) Not everyone owns gold, although far more people probably own gold than they own bitcoin. 4) You cannot simply fork Bitcoin and say the supply has increased. It's akin of buying a fake Chinese copy of some limited product of a prestigious brand. It does not increase the supply of the real deal. 5) Bitcoin has been in downturn environments and has been proven quite resilient and useful in Cyprus, Venezuela and Argentina - to name a few. Not only that but it was actually bootstrapped in the worst economic downturn. No one could have imagined in the early years of how far this crazy experiment would go, and we still can't. It is an exciting time to be alive and see history being written in front of our eyes.
    • PN
      Philip N.
      18 October 2019 @ 11:47
      0 0
      Aldo K. I don't think you understand what sort of methods and resources that governments can bring to bear to shut down bitcoin if they choose to do so.
  • CB
    Clifford B.
    17 October 2019 @ 14:49
    8 10
    Bitcoin as money has multiple issues and simply stating that it is "better" than gold or something else while having multiple inefficiencies is not a valid argument. 1) Environmental impact - Takes more energy than many countries to keep it going and to state that it takes less than the current banking system is not an excuse to facilitate it more so since there are MANY more efficient crypto platforms and systems available. 2) Political interference - To state that control/prevention of transaction and transmission of BTC within and between countries is not possible by Governments is laughable. The tech is there to monitor and stop this traffic should the need arise. 3) BTC is the betamax of crypto and very well may not stand up to future tech advances in computing. 4) Ability of very few individuals who hold large sums of BTC to wash trade the value up or crash the system 5) The irrefutable fact that the majority of mining/computing power for BTC is held within China. What western country would allow the Chinese to have that level of control over their finances? 6) My personal view is that BTC is bigger fool theory at it's best. buy it and hope the next fool pays you more for it. At the end of the day i am not arguing for gold either but the inherent issues of transport of gold/precious metals is not an argument for BTC.
    • PG
      Petter G.
      17 October 2019 @ 17:11
      5 1
      @Clifford: I believe that many share your concerns. Here's my take: 1) Yup. Running the Bitcoin network consumes a lot of energy. That's the price to pay for running an open, borderless and immutable ledger. But claiming that there are more efficient platforms out there is false. None of the other systems have proven to be as safe and/or truly open. 2) Governments can most certainly make life difficult for bitcoiners but it would be virtually impossible to stop it (too broad a subject to go into details here). I mean, they've tried to shut down PirateBay and the Dark Web for how many years now? 3) Bitcoin and other crypto projects are based on open source software which means that anything can be freely copied and incorporated into Bitcoin by changing the software (given consensus is reached among participants). Also, protocols such as Bitcoin are very hard to displace once they've gotten traction. 4) This is hard to prove, but it might very well be true. But it's an unregulated market (mostly) that's just 10 years old so that's most likely no surprise to anyone. This will change over time. 5) You should study up on the history of Bitcoin. It's already proven that the miners *don't* control the network. The users (node operators) choose what chain they want to use. The miners are just service providers. Also, you're referring to the fact that the majority of the mining pools are chinese. That's not the same as saying that the underlying computing power is based in China. A physical miner can be based anywhere in the world and then choose to join whatever mining pool they see fit.
    • GN
      Griffin N.
      18 October 2019 @ 10:03
      0 0
      Lucky for us that we have negativ yielding bonds and fees on stroring cash so everyone can store their wealth safely..
  • TH
    Timo H.
    17 October 2019 @ 14:11
    10 1
    Here's a thought experiment for anyone who believes, that there could be a Bitcoin standard for a legal tender. Assume, that the current fiat system collapses today, because the trust in central banks is completely gone, and the banking system will be closed for three weeks. (This is a completely plausible scenario.) What kind of monetary system will we have, when the banks open? My bet is on a gold-based system, because that's what central banks hold in their vaults today for exactly this scenario. Setting up a new system based on bitcoin would require, that the entity, that launches it, actually owns lots of bitcoin. No central bank owns any. They don't need to, because they own gold. It is also worth remembering, that the majority of bitcoin is in the hands of relatively few, mostly unknown individuals. It is somewhat impossible for such currency to become an officially approved legal tender at any significant scale. Money is power, and such power won't be allowed to be with someone, who was lucky/visionary enough to mine lots of bitcoin when mining was easy.
    • QJ
      Qasim J.
      17 October 2019 @ 16:15
      5 1
      "allowed" :) Bitcoin is permissionless, it has gone from 0 to $8000 (currently) without anyone's permission.
    • PG
      Petter G.
      17 October 2019 @ 17:15
      7 0
      You don't have to invest in Bitcoin because you believe it's gonna be the world's new reserve currency. You can invest in BTC because it's got an assymetrical risk profile. Gold will always be gold and be valued by both individuals and institutions. But Bitcoin is proving it's worth every day. It's gaining traction and gaining momentum. Putting 1% into BTC is not the same as saying it's gonna replace gold or be the basis of a new monetary system.
    • SA
      Sanne A.
      17 October 2019 @ 19:02
      1 0
      Pretty sure that bitcoin is distributed equally 'fair' as gold. Compare https://bitinfocharts.com/top-100-richest-bitcoin-addresses.html with the largest entities that hold gold. Bet on today's collapse: gold Bet on tomorrow's collapse: bitcoin
    • WR
      William R.
      17 October 2019 @ 20:35
      2 0
      One of the most important things said by the Professor is that gold and bitcoin are money technology chosen by the market and not by "fiat." The growth of bitcoin will come from rational market participants choosing to store their wealth therein in a world of increasingly poor alternatives. The game theoretical effects of this are profound, and gives bitcoin properties similar to gravity. As it continues to attain a larger market cap, it becomes more liquid and stable and useable, etc. At some point, and I think that point is sooner than we realize, bitcoin will become a black hole that will absorb a tremendous amount of global wealth.
    • RT
      Ramon T.
      18 October 2019 @ 03:31
      0 0
      If there's enough economic activity in Bitcoin (if this happens it's because of free will and not because it's imposed), don't central banks have to have a stockpile of it as well?
  • LG
    Lev G.
    17 October 2019 @ 15:36
    3 4
    https://www.zerohedge.com/crypto/feds-bust-worlds-largest-dark-web-child-porn-marketplace-following-bitcoin-trail
    • SA
      Sanne A.
      17 October 2019 @ 19:04
      4 0
      Your point being?
    • DK
      Dan K.
      18 October 2019 @ 01:37
      4 0
      Bitcoin is traceable which is why law enforcement loves it. Cash is not
  • NI
    Nate I.
    17 October 2019 @ 15:52
    8 0
    I agree with 99.9% of what Saifedean said. He is clearly very knowledgable. Kudos to RV for having him on. I plan to read his book. He nailed it when he said that gold became money due to its unique properties (doesn't rust, doesn't corrode, scarce, etc.). I would also add that gold is inherently useful (dentistry, electronics, jewelry, etc) and we would all coat our bathroom fixtures with it if it wasn't so expensive. Perhaps debatable, but I believe that gold being useful also helped usher in its role as money. Now imagine that the periodic table had a hundred elements with the same properties as gold. Would it have become money? Doubtful I would say. That's the problem I see with bitcoin. While bitcoin itself has scarcity, crypto currencies do not. There are over 2000 of them today and new ones arriving frequently. Anyone can create a new crypto currency with many of the same, or perhaps even better, properties as bitcoin. That's the situation I would like someone to address. Why will other crypto currencies wither away and leave bitcoin as the last one standing and therefore make it a unique store of value?
    • MB
      Marty B.
      17 October 2019 @ 15:58
      9 1
      https://www.unchained-capital.com/blog/bitcoin-cant-be-copied/
    • AK
      Ado K.
      17 October 2019 @ 17:08
      4 1
      The answer can really bu summarized to a 10 year head start in stock to flow combined with 7 network effects described by Trace Mayer. If a coin is to have truly scarce issuance it cannot be centralized because the party in charge can just change the emission schedule. So it has to be decentralized. The coins have to be distributed through a Proof of work algorithm that in the beginning will have very low stock to flow, hence not giving it a monetary premium. The new coin must attract miners so its chain is safe, but why would miners mine it when it has no monetary premium, no liquid off-ramps to fiat, no developers etc. Network effect are very real and this in combination with a head start of 10 years in stock to flow as well as truly decentralized proof of work with 10s of thousands of full nodes makes it more or less impossible to "beat" Bitcoin. Bitcoins biggest weakness is though how much reading it actually takes to realize this, it is essentially the creme de la creme of game theory.
    • DK
      Dan K.
      18 October 2019 @ 01:35
      4 0
      In addition to Ado K's excellent reply below I would also like to comment on the preeminent "team" behind bitcoin. This team consists of some of the most brilliant programmers in the world, countless innovative companies run by world-class entrepreneurs that have built businesses around bitcoin or on top of bitcoin, some of the most successful investors in the world are betting big on BTC. None of these people want to work on or with bitcoin clones like bitcoin cash, bitcoin sv, bitcoin, gold, bitcoin diamond, and so on. There is so much innovation happening on a daily basis that its almost impossible to keep up with. If you don't see the value in bitcoin its simply because you dont yet understand it. It takes a lot of mental effort to "get it.". Once you start learning you will be sent down a rabbit hole of economics, cryptography, game theory, monetary policy, etc and at some point, a lightbulb will illuminate. I have been ridiculed by many very smart people whom I respect, they claim bitcoin is tulips, a Ponzi, they cringe when I tell them I have 1/3 of my net worth stored in bitcoin. They have simply not invested the time to understand it. It is intellectually lazy to dismiss Bitcoin without investing the time to truly educate yourself, and this will take easily 50-100 hours of learning.
  • MW
    M W.
    17 October 2019 @ 19:54
    11 0
    Drink some whiskey guys....
    • BV
      Brendan V.
      18 October 2019 @ 01:03
      1 0
      Three steps ahead of you :)
  • RV
    Ryan V.
    17 October 2019 @ 13:40
    5 7
    It’s a bit disingenuous to say bitcoin could be a standard for a few hundred dollars a month when it is powered into existence with monthly electricity costs of $444M. $5.336B annually with just electricity costs and that’s not factoring in equipment costs and labor. At today’s market cap it has a value decay of 3.6% annually when looking at only electricity costs. If the powering of the network stops, bitcoin stops existing.
    • MB
      Marty B.
      17 October 2019 @ 14:27
      13 2
      Bitcoin isn't consuming enough energy!
    • AK
      Ado K.
      17 October 2019 @ 16:50
      3 0
      Not sure what your point is. Roy Sebag brought up a meaningless point like this some time ago. As long as there is a incentive to mine people will mine. The regression theory of money from a Austrian standpoint does not matter once Bitcoin has established a price.
    • IO
      Igor O.
      17 October 2019 @ 17:26
      1 1
      Thumbs down? Somebody buthurt with facts?
    • SA
      Sanne A.
      17 October 2019 @ 18:14
      1 1
      I don't know where you get the numbers from but I'm pretty sure that there were a lot of assumptions made when conjuring them. That being said, I do I agree. However, bitcoin is also more than just a store of value. It is also a store of truth, in the sense that you can record anything with it and be confident that it won't get lost or be tampered with. It is my opinion that a truth machine is worth the seemingly staggering costs, especially, in a world where people increasingly say one thing but do another.
    • PG
      Petter G.
      17 October 2019 @ 19:33
      2 1
      This is a non-issue as the system is self-adjusting. There will always be money to be made on bitcoin mining somewhere in the world. If the price would drop to pennies people would start mining for a profit on their laptops again.
    • Sp
      Scott p.
      17 October 2019 @ 23:55
      0 0
      Well let's raise that market cap then shall we?
  • PG
    Philippe G.
    17 October 2019 @ 23:36
    3 0
    Excellent!
  • WW
    William W.
    17 October 2019 @ 19:54
    20 1
    Perhaps the most thought-provoking interview I have ever seen on RV. Loved the comment at the end about (paraphrasing) not caring whether it is Bitcoin or gold so long as we return to a hard money system.
  • MJ
    Markku J.
    17 October 2019 @ 19:27
    9 1
    I've read the book, yet this interview was worth every minute. Indeed there is a case to be made that bitcoin is harder money than gold. Already in 200+ days bitcoin inflation will be on par with gold inflation, and will halve again in 2024. If the market were to shift from gold to bitcoin (in a similar way as silver was demonetized), we could see 100X returns. While that kind of shift is unlikely, the probability IMO is significantly higher than 1/100.
  • JB
    James B.
    17 October 2019 @ 14:56
    16 0
    Can someone provide a good reason to not put atleast 0.5% of your portfolio into Bitcoin? If anything, it would protect you from Bitcoin being a potential blind spot. You have to have some humility and accept the possibility that you're completely wrong about bitcoin, and bitcoiners do too.
    • NI
      Nate I.
      17 October 2019 @ 15:55
      6 13
      Should we also put 0.5% into the other two thousand crypto currencies just in case? That rhetorical question may help to answer yours.
    • PG
      Petter G.
      17 October 2019 @ 16:40
      6 3
      If people would give up 0.5% of the time they spend on researching stocks/bonds and instead spend that time on researching Bitcoin they would put more than 0.5% of their portfolio into BTC. To all of you who are doubting this technology because there are "thousands of cryptos": Start by reading up on Bitcoin and ignore the rest.
    • IO
      Igor O.
      17 October 2019 @ 17:22
      2 4
      - "Imagine if bitcoin keeps doing the same for next 100 years" me - imagine what power consumption going to be? we'll have to choose keeping lights on or bitcoin..
    • SB
      Salvatore B.
      17 October 2019 @ 18:46
      8 2
      Nate, no other crypto has the properties of bitcoin, so that would obviously be a foolish idea. This is such an awful, awful argument made by only those who are not educated on the topic, and would prefer to spend their time dismissing it rather than actually learning about it.
  • vm
    vaz m.
    17 October 2019 @ 18:41
    6 1
    Thank you for this conversation. It has been a lot time to hear someone with real logic in this world that we are living. The world we are leaving, has in Greek 10 year bond -0.02% interest rate. Great, i want it all, where can i buy more! These insane things bitcoin can at least fight.
  • AK
    Ado K.
    17 October 2019 @ 13:39
    4 0
    I would disagree with the marvelous Saifedean on a few points. First of all a Gold Standard would not solve 2 very important factors. Unconfiscability and uncensorability. Meaning that as long as you hold your own private key nobody can seize your Bitcoin, a digital certificate based on gold can easily be seized by the party controlling the ledger. Nobody can ban you from sending Bitcoin to an Iranian while once again the central controller of the ledger could ban your gold backed token transaction. Gold standard or non gold standard if you loose the decentralized proof of work you loose the aspect of free money and enter the realm of slave money. Gold as fantastic as it is, is not immune to this. So my point is that even if governments go back to a gold standard Bitcoin still has additional/different value propositions, that a lot of people will find beneficial.
    • LG
      Lev G.
      17 October 2019 @ 15:52
      2 0
      If a government links you to your wallet, they can put you away in jail for some time. The jails do miracles to human memory and u might volunteer your private key. I’m bullish on bitcoin, but my time horizon is 5-10 years. I would be very cautious forecasting bitcoin future for 100 years. I feel much safer to expect gold to be around for 100 years and to preserve the buying power during the next century.
    • NI
      Nate I.
      17 October 2019 @ 16:01
      3 0
      The government doesn't need to break your private keys. They just need to break you. That's exactly what happened recently to a bitcoin thief. In so many words, the government said give us the private keys and get 2 years in prison or don't and get 50 years in prison. So yes, gold can be confiscated but if you place it in various jurisdictions, doing so isn't as easy as it sounds.
    • SA
      Sanne A.
      17 October 2019 @ 18:03
      1 1
      Good points. Some people don't realize that bitcoin transaction privacy will be solved in due time. In fact, it is already possible to shield your account balance by cutting your account in an arbitrary number of pieces using zcash's shielded transactions and then exchange your zcash back to bitcoin using a decentralized exchange.
  • PT
    Pradeep T.
    17 October 2019 @ 18:00
    14 1
    One of the best bitcoin conversations I have come across ever!
  • GE
    Glenn E.
    17 October 2019 @ 16:46
    26 1
    Best interview of series so far
  • SD
    Sebastien D.
    17 October 2019 @ 16:28
    2 0
    Great interview and good to see Marty's face when used to his Pod @TFTC21 Only things that surprised me is the comment at the end between the superiority of public/private electric utility and the superiority of the later. The public utility EDF such but not as bad a most US private utilities.That last bt was a little libertarian cliché I guess. Anyway I'm going to listen ot it again :)
  • MC
    Minum C.
    17 October 2019 @ 16:19
    4 0
    Excellent content and terrific delivery. I'd guess that John "in the long run we are all dead" Maynard Keynes knew that his brand of economics was not genuine and came with a best before date. Because it seems the long run has arrived, and he IS dead. Mr. Ammous is arguing for the end of fractional reserve banking which is, by definition, a rather deflationary event. I cannot imagine this will be a smooth process.
  • AP
    Ash P.
    17 October 2019 @ 15:58
    7 0
    I'm not sure what all the argument is all about. If I told you about a 25 cent trade where you stood lose all 25 cents, but make $25...well...that is surely a nailed on no-brainer. All you have to decide is what your '25 cents'. Yes it very well could go to zero (and Ammous here makes one argument that I have never heard before - the possible emergence of sound central banking to compete with a bitcoin standard). But there are so many compelling reasons that it just might not. Buy the damn lottery ticket (or don't - fine by me).
  • BP
    Bryce P.
    17 October 2019 @ 15:47
    3 9
    Bitcoin, cryptos, blockchain whatever you want to call this scheme will end up being the most repressive monetary scheme ever!!!
  • NB
    Nicholas B.
    17 October 2019 @ 15:10
    18 3
    Prices when media declared bitcoin dead: Wired: $2 Forbes: $15 Bloomberg: $93 NY Mag: $105 Slate: $131 Biz Insider: $182 WaPo: $182 USA Today: $208 NY Times: $208 FT: $290 Guardian: $318 Reuters: $327 AOL: $332 CNN: $333 Yahoo: $479 The price when they criticized bitcoin: Peter Schiff - $17.50 Emin Gün Sirer - $214.13 Warren Buffett - $634.10 Nouriel Roubini - $637.38 Paul Krugman - $717.51 Jamie Dimon - $811.40 Ben Bernanke - $5,577
  • TJ
    Terry J.
    17 October 2019 @ 13:11
    8 0
    Saifedean's views on money, economics and life make total sense and in a rational honest world we would still be on a gold standard. Sadly it is not a rational honest world, and the Keynesian banking elite have held sway ever since the introduction of the Federal Reserve by sleight of hand more than a hundred years ago. Will a bitcoin standard be permitted to succeed when millennia old sound money, namely gold, was ditched as it was a serious impediment to unlimited greed that only fiat currencies could facilitate? I doubt it, but I live in hope. Another exceptional interview. Thank you.
  • SP
    Stephen P.
    17 October 2019 @ 12:11
    4 0
    The Forex market and the existence of dozens upon dozens of national currencies is Barter. Brilliant.
  • AW
    Andrew W.
    17 October 2019 @ 09:24
    7 1
    This is epic!