The Nation State Case for Bitcoin with Balaji Srinivasan

 
 
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“It’s basically the best investment of all time, and I have a feeling it’s not going settle down for a while. I mean, it could go to $1 million, even $10 million... $ 1million is no longer a crazy number to put out there for bitcoin.”
— Balaji Srinivasan

SHOW DESCRIPTION

Location: Remotely
Date: Friday 19th February
Company: balajis.com
Role: Angel Investor & Entrepreneur

The corporate adoption of bitcoin has widely defined the last 12 months for bitcoin. Following Michael Saylor’s watershed move, companies such as Tesla and Square have been adding bitcoin to their treasuries.

Many see the next logical step as nation-states adding bitcoin to their reserves. While some countries like Estonia and Malta have been very open to bitcoin, a large number still, at least publicly, have a less welcoming stance.

The Indian government recently announced its intention to ban ‘private’ cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin, fearing adoption would threaten national security and create a capital outflow from the country. Balaji Srinivasan thinks this is the wrong move and put forward the opposite case in his recent article Why India Should Buy Bitcoin.

In this interview, we discuss the benefits to a nation-state adopting bitcoin, why India are the perfect first mover and the demise of Silicon Valley.

TIMESTAMPS

00:06:00: Introductions
00:06:50: The inspiration behind the India article
00:09:48: "India - The Internet Country"
00:13:07: The rise of the digital yuan
00:16:29: China's Belt and Road Initiative
00:19:48: Thucydides Trap applied to the US and China
00:20:10: Social Networks' war
00:22:30: T-Bills explained
00:27:00: The Weimar hyperinflation
00:29:42: Global dollar transactions
00:31:02: Dollars versus CBDCs
00:32:54: Currency internationalisation
00:36:54: Stablecoins and USDC
00:40:05: Estonia's e-residency
00:42:30: Bitcoin's impact on CBDCs
00:45:40: Seasteading
00:48:09: India's 2016 demonetisation
00:49:90: The possible attack methods on crypto
00:59:40: Why India should adopt Bitcoin
01:08:22: The billionaire flippening
01:12:20: India's relationship with gold
01:14:32: Risks to a nation state adopting Bitcoin
01:18:16: The decline of San Francisco
01:28:37: Australasia and COVID
01:33:14: In summary: why India should buy Bitcoin
01:43:31: Final comments

 

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SHOW NOTES

PodcastPeter McCormack