WBD170 Audio Transcription
Reflecting on Two Years of What Bitcoin Did with Luke Martin
Interview date: Monday 18th November 2019
Note: the following is a transcription of my interview with Luke Martin from Coinist podcast. I have reviewed the transcription but if you find any mistakes, please feel free to email me. You can listen to the original recording here.
In this interview, I talk to Bitcoin trader & analyst, Luke Martin. Luke is the host of the Coinist Podcast and analyst for Coin Research. We reflect on the two years since we recorded WBD001 and discuss Bitcoin, financial services and Twitter.
“It’s very rational and a higher probability that Bitcoin will be around the longest and maybe the only one that survives.”
— Luke Martin
Interview Transcription
Peter McCormack: Luke man, two years to the day exactly!
Luke Martin: Pretty wild!
Peter McCormack: Feels a lot longer?
Luke Martin: It does feel longer. I think crypto has a way of distorting time, making everything seem longer and also at the same time things seem to move at a pretty rapid pace here.
Peter McCormack: I've had it before where people have been like, "how long have I known you?" And they're like, "I think it's like four months" and it's like, "shit, I thought I'd known you for like a year and a half!" But yeah, two years! I think some of this equipment's the same. There's still the same mic stands...
Luke Martin: Still the same mic stands, the same mics.
Peter McCormack: Well no, they're replacements, they broke. This is the same, these are new, the wires are new, but half of the equipment is the same as what we did two years ago. It's so funny man looking back, reflecting on doing this interview and thinking what it's become and watching what you've done and trying to take it all in, because I didn't start the podcast to make any money or a career, I was just hanging out in LA and was trading, but I knew I wasn't good at it, I knew it was luck.
I said to my friend Rich Roll, "I'm going to do a podcast, how do you do it?" And he said, "go check out the Pat Flynn course", which I did and then I decided I was going to do it and I knew you were in LA, so I messaged you and I'm like, "Luke, do you want to do the show?" You said yes, and then I bought the equipment on Amazon and I think it was like the next day we did it.
Luke Martin: Next day yeah, showed up in the Valley.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, in an Uber and we recorded the first show. I said to you yesterday when we were out drinking, that I've tried to listen to that show back and it's really painful!
Luke Martin: It's rough!
Peter McCormack: It's rough! I tell you what else is funny about it, you know the intros and outros?
Luke Martin: Sure.
Peter McCormack: I used to record them without mistakes, actually it was like 50 takes to do it and after I was about 10 episodes in, my engineer said to me, because I was talking about it saying, "oh I just hate doing the intro and outro, it takes like 50 takes." He was like, "what, if you make a mistake you start again? I was like, "yeah." He said, "no, I can edit those out and chop it up!" I was like, "really?" That saved me like an hour or two for each show! How do you look back on the last few years?
Luke Martin: Oh man! I don't know, it's such a big question, it's almost impossible to say. It's nearly the same way, I think you get into this and you don't really have...
Obviously I came in wanting to learn, wanting to meet as many people as I could, but everything kind of happens in some way, even if you do have your goal set out or have some things you want to accomplish or people you want to meet, things move at such a rapid pace and try to say yes to as many opportunities as I can, like you sliding by in LA and fortunate enough to have some of those turn into some really good deals.
Peter McCormack: Do you have a standout moment, anything from the last two years, where you're able to look at that and go "wow!" Because I've got one and I'll tell you mine in a minute.
Luke Martin: I actually think I mentioned this to you yesterday when we were getting drinks was, and it wasn't anything crazy that happened that day, but I was leaving grad school at the time or trying to decide if I should leave grad school, just got into the master's program that I really wanted to and I had already missed a quiz that week, I was just really obsessed with jumping down the rabbit hole!
I really wanted to attend a conference that week and it wasn't like conferences we have now like Consensus, which is $1000 and overbooked, it was a small thing that I saw people talking about on Twitter. I think Ari Paul posted it on Twitter and I called my parents and I was saying, "I really think I have to bail on my first big accounting test in masters, I think I have to go to this conference" and I had never wanted to go to a conference before.
My first job in SF was an interesting job, but it was fucking awful. I didn't want to go to a conference for fun and I went to this conference and was able to speak with him and saw a lot of other guys talk and it was just this idea that, having your mind constantly working on thinking about what you want to be working on is kind of an amazing thing and that was kind of the first time I'd ever had it. So I think that moment was big.
Peter McCormack: That's quite early on though?
Luke Martin: That was early on. I think recently as well, getting to speak on that CNN segment, which came up in a pretty hilarious way actually. I think Pomp tweeted about going on CNN and he said, "what should we talk about?" Drops the fire emoji like he always does and I posted below, kind of half kidding, because it's CNN.
I said, "stomp out some of the fake news happening in Bitcoin", which is also I think a problem on CNBC, as they consistently talk about how Bitcoin can be hacked, all these different things. The CNN producer messages back and I'm trying to tell if it's a real Twitter account and she says, "hey Luke, can you speak with the lady who runs the show Julia Chatterley" and I said, "well sure yeah."
I still can't really tell if she's a real person, sets up a phone call and it turns out to be the real person! She said, "yeah, I saw your comment under Pomp's tweet, so let's do a whole segment about getting rid of the fake news." In my head I'm like, "does she know I was trolling CNN saying I don't like fake news?" But it worked out and it was a pretty cool show too.
Peter McCormack: Did you go to the studio to do it?
Luke Martin: Yeah in New York.
Peter McCormack: Wow, that must've been very cool!
Luke Martin: It was epic yeah!
Peter McCormack: So I'll tell you mine, because it is a real standout moment and I've talked about this a few times and you've got to remember the build up like the years before I've had divorce, drug addiction, mother dying, so there's a lot of shit stuff that has happened. My company collapsed, everything just went to shit. But then obviously I did the podcast and there's no real moment in doing the podcast where you go from, I'm a guy who's recorded the first episode to like, "oh shit, this is something serious."
There's just a transition. But when I launched the second show, I had the opportunity to go out to Taiwan and interview Thae Yong-ho, who is the most senior defector for North Korea. He was based in London and he defected. I was like, "yeah cool, I'm going to do that."
So I went out and I met him in reception and he turns up with four bodyguards because Kim Jong Un wants to kill him and he will kill people! I mean, he killed his brother at Malaysia airport. So we get in the lift, me, him, these four big guys and I am thinking, "wow, this is mad!" So we get to the room and I have to wait outside where they go through my room and check my room.
Then they stand outside my room, guarding it and we sit down like you and I now and I just had this moment where I was just like, "whoa, this is a bit fucking mental!" And luckily, out of all of this, I've got this new career which I really enjoy, I've got two shows now, I love it!
Luke Martin: Did you have that thought? I mean before our interview, I know you didn't plan to make any money or know how big it could be, but did you have a thought of, this is something I'm going to pursue for years or was it a project and I want to try it out?
Peter McCormack: No, it was just try it out. I'll try anything out and see how it goes. I did the first show and then I did the show with Nik and then I wrote to Lopp, because I saw the picture of this cool guy with his guns and a beard and I was just like, "he's cool." So I wrote to him and I said like, "oh I've got this little podcast, can I come and interview you?" He said, "yeah" and I said, "well look, I'll fly out. By the way, I've never shot a gun. Can we go shoot guns?"
He was like "yeah", so I went out and did that. There are key moments that do stand out. I think we talked about this last night, but interviewing Lynn Ulbricht and that turned out to be on Ross's birthday and the Silk Road is how I first discovered Bitcoin, so that was quite important to me and I knew I had to take it serious, because we're dealing with someone's lives here, this isn't just about magic internet money.
This is someone who is in prison for the rest of their life, for something which I don't believe they should be. So that one I really prepared for, because I wanted to be compassionate in the interview and I actually videoed that one and I'm really proud of that as an interview, seeing as it was like my 10th. I think when I started to realize it could really be something, it was over a year in, I think it was last August last year when I got my first check, which was like $2000.
But when I got my first proper deal, which was with BlockFi, a proper negotiated multi-month deal, I was like "okay, this can become really serious." Then there's so many different wins along the way, whether it's getting the Szabo interview, which actually is his first proper solo interview!
Luke Martin: I thought that yeah.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, because the one he did for Tim Ferriss was alongside Naval. That was a huge win or getting Pieter Wuille on was a huge win and all the different opportunities that come to you. But there's never like one moment, there's just like this slow growth and lots of things happen.
Luke Martin: Lots of things yeah, that you can look back on and appreciate.
Peter McCormack: Yeah and it's been mad! I've travelled the world, I've been to Japan twice, Taiwan, the States countless times, probably a hundred flights in two years!
Luke Martin: You travelled more of the country than I have and I live here, man.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, I'm ticking off a lot of the States now, I think I've done 12 of the States now, maybe more? Travelling around America's really interesting Luke, because it's so different.
Luke Martin: Than travelling around Europe and anywhere else?
Peter McCormack: I mean the States themselves are so different, they're like different countries, that just speak English. Wyoming is so different from New York, which is so different from Texas. I think Texas is definitely one of my favorites. So yeah man, you're now a podcaster as well?
Luke Martin: Yeah, well it's something that I definitely want to pursue more. Going into 2020, it's definitely a goal of mine to focus a lot more time on it. Probably won't have two shows like yourself, but no, looking to nearly be doing it full time. It's one of those things too that, I also, when I started, it wasn't really like I can make a business out of this or this is going to make me money, the same with the Twitter account.
It was just like, "well this is actually a great way to speak to people that I probably wouldn't have access to anyways" and it's almost like an excuse sometimes for me to be a little bit selfish and honestly ask the questions that I want.
I've gone through this thing where at the beginning it was, "how can I set up a show that people will be interested in", as opposed to now, I don't want to do that because almost everyone has that same line of thinking and then you get this repetitive same circle of guests, whatever it is, so you always have to find that new angle. But I love it!
Peter McCormack: Yeah, it's like where can you innovate?
Luke Martin: Exactly.
Peter McCormack: In crypto broadly, there's probably around like 50 podcasts. I see so many mentioned, maybe 25, I don't know. Then there's Bitcoin ones and you can find, like I was driving the other day and I was going through them looking for shows to listen to and it's a lot of the same guests over and over again and all fantastic people, so there's no discredit to them, but it's a Trace Mayer, it's Saifedean Ammous, it's Dan Held, it's a lot of the same people.
What I'm trying to do now, is I'm like, "well how do we grow the pie? What are the new people we can talk to?" Which is why I did Hotep Jesus, which I know was controversial, Jamie Bartlett who just did the Missing Cryptoqueen, I've just interviewed Stoya, the adult actress, it's like "where are the new people we can talk to, where Bitcoin might touch their life or might have a different perspective?" I guess that's what I'm looking at.
Luke Martin: And also what's tough, and I think that a lot of times maybe people ignore this or just don't think about it, but there's so many brilliant people that aren't spending all day on Twitter.
So there's this very loud, smallish group of people, it's a big industry, but still relatively small, that have these large followings on Twitter and they're the most outspoken, but I'm sure there's hundreds or thousands of people that are fascinated by this, but who just don't spend so much time on Twitter.
Being able to get their perspective, I think is a whole new angle. There's so many ways to take it! The investment side, which is what I like to focus on versus kind of the entire Bitcoin, all the granular stuff that you and the other Bitcoiners like to focus on as well.
Peter McCormack: Well, we'll get into Bitcoin, there's a lot to talk about Bitcoin. But what have you found out about yourself in making the show?
Luke Martin: I found out honestly that I really do appreciate just creating a show, editing, I know that I shouldn't be doing all the editing and eventually I need to outsource that, but I really do enjoy that.
Peter McCormack: I think by doing it, you learn a lot more about the construction of a show though.
Luke Martin: Oh yes!
Peter McCormack: Like I did, for good year and a half, I edited my show because the Bitcoin price dropped, so I couldn't afford an editor and so I did it all myself. I would edit in Audacity and then arrange in Garage Band. But I learned a lot about the shape of a show because, actually I tell you what else I learned, I learned a lot about approach to interviewing as well because I had to re-listen to every show.
That doesn't happen now, when the show is recorded, I won't re-listen to this, because the engineer does the editing. But because someone else is doing it, I don't do that anymore, which I feel like I'm losing something with that as well.
Luke Martin: Well partially, I very rarely listen re-listen myself, unless I'm editing, but I'm just kind of skimming through. I've also learned that usually the best conversation almost always happens right after you stop the interview, every single time, it's like that question I've been dying to ask, but I'm not sure it's appropriate and then that starts a whole other thing.
Peter McCormack: Why didn't I leave the mic on?!
Luke Martin: Yeah exactly! Well that's the lesson that I'm slowly learning. But also just so many things about conversation styles, how to warm someone up and get them to where you want, without directly asking the question. Some of the things man, it's tough.
Peter McCormack: Have you done any interviews in person?
Luke Martin: No, I haven't had the chance to.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, I think you should try that.
Luke Martin: Yeah, that's the next step in 2020, is I want to do a very similar thing, which is fly out and do it in person. It also makes the video better, it just makes the entire... It makes the mood better, sometimes it's hard to get that on Skype.
Peter McCormack: Get the rapport going or the hangover! I was talking to you last time I remember as well about... Well I tell you what I'll talk about first, is I don't think a lot of people understand how much work goes involved. I've had a lot of people come to me and say, "oh I want to do a podcast", so you have to sit down and explain to them, there's a lot!
Luke Martin: Yeah, I think a lot of people say they want to start a podcast, but it's like starting any other business. Everyone has a great idea and I think that people should, but what happens a lot, it's the same with a YouTube or a Twitter account, unless you're going to be insanely consistent and seriously pushing and putting in more hours than the podcast should take, you're just going to fall behind.
You said this from day one, you said, "Luke, it's a fulltime thing. You have to do it weekly or you have to set a schedule, you have to do this" and at first I was like, "oh I'll just do an interview whenever." I got Arthur Hayes, who'll do the interview and then I can't find another one for a month and I put it off for another month. Unless you have that weekly schedule, oh man, it's impossible.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, you've got to be consistent. I was listening to a show on the way in actually, the Tom Woods show and he was talking to another guy who has a show and they were saying that most shows actually don't get past seven episodes, because people give up. But if you miss a week and someone's expecting it, then there's plenty of other shows they can go to and you can lose some loyalty from that as well.
Luke Martin: It's also, there's a weird thing that happens, you can have two completely unrelated guests, but just by having a consistent show, it almost makes, just tying in each show together, every single extra show that you do, that next marginal show, it's better because you tie in all the other guests, you're in a better flow, it's all these different things they add up together, but if you're not doing it consistently, it shows.
Peter McCormack: Well that's that consistent narrative I talked about, that Rogan does very well. What I realize is, they're not independent interviews. It is a constant body of work, which is like a lens on society and what's happening society. So like I said, one week he might have an MMA guy and the next week he might have B-Real from Cypress Hill and then next week he might have, I don't know like Andrew Yang on.
A lot of the topics that he will talk about will consistently run through, whether it's Antifa, whether it's freedom of speech and I think that's what people get hooked into. One of the really good things about it, is this ongoing narrative which is that if you keep talking to other people, I think you frame a better conversation and you frame a better understanding of things. When you go to something like Twitter, which I'm terrible at, because all I do is fight everyone and I keep getting into fucking bullshit...
Luke Martin: You fight less now!
Peter McCormack: That's because you told me off! When was that? I think that wasn't long after the Roger Ver interview, you got in touch with me and I remember it, you came to me on Twitter and you're like, "Pete, I think you need to stop fighting everyone!" It was funny because somebody else did it, this guy Jamie Burke did it as well and he was like, "even if you think you've won the argument, you don't actually win anything."
The problem with Twitter is it becomes a fight, but I'm never going to fight in an interview, I mean, a mild one with Brock Pierce, but never really got into a fight.
Luke Martin: See when I listened to that, it didn't really come off as a fight. I think it was combative or maybe there's just a misunderstanding of your intent, but I thought it was enjoyable to listen to and you did a part 2?
Peter McCormack: Yeah, well he interviewed me. I'll be honest, I went into it and I think the guy's a dick, I'll be honest. He might listen to this, but whatever.
Luke Martin: I don't think he's going to listen to this.
Peter McCormack: Well he might, if someone tweets out "Pete called you a dick." But I think he's a dick, I do. I don't care and I think if someone's a dick, you need to call them out. Now I get called a dick all the time because I can be, but I think he's a dick and I think what he was doing with Mt Gox was a dickish move, because he was kind of upsetting something that was in progress.
So I just thought that I'm going to prod you on certain things, which I disagree with and it was when he said, "oh, do you trust Mark Karpeles" and I just said, "I don't trust either of you" and I think that's what really got him going.
Luke Martin: I think Mark's interview just came out more sincere and I listened to a lot of those shows. I don't know the full story, I'm sure Brock or Mark themselves obviously know more about the situation than me or some of the creditors, but it seemed like, just on my basic understanding, there had to be an angle for him to want to get involved and I didn't understand what that incentive was.
There has to be one, I don't think it's entirely altruistic and Mark seemed, I don't know, maybe he was not capable and shouldn't have been running it and he was negligent and all these things, but listening to him, unless he's just a very good actor, it seemed like his intent was more pure, in trying to get this thing solved, than trying to kind of write his name.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, well that's why I really want to do the interviews in person because sitting down with Mark, spending time with him before the interview and talking to him, I kind of got a feel for him. I also read a lot into the case and I think the thing what happened was, I always said, I think people would look at Mt. Gox with a 20k Bitcoin lens.
Whereas it wasn't a 20k Bitcoin at the time when it happened and what happens, he took over the site from Jed, it was arguably trading insolvent already, I think they were down like 80,000 Bitcoin, I can't remember and I think he was just out of his depth and this thing just spun up and he didn't have the competence or the capacity to deal with it and he just kept digging a deeper and deeper hole.
Now he was in the wrong, but I don't think he was malicious, I just think he was incompetent. When you look at someone like Brock, I don't think it was altruistic. There was a financial incentive because he wanted to start a new exchange and he wanted to get all those OGs trading on it and I just did not trust the guy at all.
Luke Martin: I was actually interested in that though, I kind of wanted him to start that exchange. The exchange industry in crypto has got to be one of the most fascinating tales right now, because even at its current market cap, the $200 billion or whatever it is, the reason that so many derivatives exchanges are popping up is because the volume on these derivative exchanges, whoever can capture that, is going to be a 100x volume eventually.
So whether it's BitMex or someone else, I think a lot of them can do really well. That would've been so cool to see what this new Mt Gox could be. I'm not sure if people would ever trust it, but if you can run an exchange, get it up and get some volume, that's essentially a money printer. I know it's a bit of a honeypot, there's always security risks.
Peter McCormack: Hence not altruism thought, it's a money pot.
Luke Martin: Sure, but it's the best business you can have right now in crypto. Those are the most valuable speculation industry right now.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, I just wouldn't want to put any money in Brock Pierce's pocket.
Luke Martin: Into Mt Gox too.
Peter McCormack: Well the name's tarnished, like let it die! It's tarnished, let it go, let people move on. But the funny thing was, he wanted to do a follow-up interview because he didn't come across well and a lot of people said, apart from like two people who obviously are Brock Pierce fans, he didn't come across very well and there were a lot of tweets saying he didn't. So he approached me and in fairness, he apologized.
Luke Martin: He was aware enough to realize that.
Peter McCormack: So he was like, "I'd like to do a follow-up interview with you" and I was like, "okay, fair enough." I was in Chicago at the time, so it was recorded remotely and I was in the hotel room. He did this really weird thing whereby, I loaded up the Skype and he was there and he sat there for 10 minutes without acknowledging me on his phone! I'm sat there smiling going like "hi" and waving and like, "is this a power move?"
Luke Martin: It's like a Donald Trump yank, when he shakes your hand!
Peter McCormack: I was like "is this a power move?" Then it turned out to just be such a nothing interview, like he just wanted to know some stuff about me and it was nothing in the end. But I did also bump into him again in Oslo at the Freedom Forum, but I didn't go to his session because yeah, I didn't want to as I don't like him, I'm sorry!
Luke Martin: That interview aside, that series was... The series ideas that you've done, I mean they're incredible. Do you have a new series coming up? Anything you're working on that you can make public?
Peter McCormack: Yeah, there's a few things, I think I've already mentioned it. Let me tell you about the background to that though because again that was funny because it wasn't planned as a series and I've got to say a big thanks to... Oh what's his name? Let me get his name because he deserves a shout for this, because he's the reason it happened.
Ryan Calder, he's a really nice guy out in LA. If you ever go there, just meet the guy, he's just the nicest person you'll ever meet! But what happened was, is that I got introduced to Jed, I won't say who introduced me, someone said, "look, you should do an interview with Jed." So I got the interview with Jed and went out to San Fran and did it. We got into some of the Mt Gox staff and it was quite revealing.
Some of the stuff, I was surprised he talked about, I think he probably even regrets. So I did that and I'd been trying to get Mark Karpeles to come on for a year and he was just like, "no, no." He did an AMA and I asked him, he then DM'ed me and then just didn't reply again.
But I would send Mark an email every three months, saying "have you changed your mind? I'll come out to Japan, same rules as everyone else. If there's something you don't want to answer, you don't have to, but I'd like to interview you", he just went silent. I did the interview with Jed and I mailed him and said, "I've done an interview with Jed, would you be interested to do one" and he was like, "yep", straight away!
Luke Martin: Oh wow!
Peter McCormack: So I had that one booked and I was out in LA and Ryan wanted to meet up for a beer. So I met up with him and we're having a drink at the bar and I told him about this and he was like, "oh well there's all these other people that are really interesting. You should speak to Brock and you should speak to..." Like he listed off all the people, Daniel Kelman, Kim Nilsson etc and I was like, "okay, can you connect me?"
He did and then I was like, "do you know what? I could just make this into a series." So I did and I think a lot of people appreciated it, because it was the first time that Mt Gox had been kind of distilled into a body of work. If I was to do it again, I would structure it more like Serial, whereby I would have chapters rather than people and I would knit together the narrative.
Luke Martin: Chronologically?
Peter McCormack: Yeah! So the reason I've told you that, is because you said, "am I going to do anything else?" I have been working in the background for quite a long time on what happened with SegWit2x, what happened with the New York Agreement and the fork. I've kind of got this idea and I've got a name, it's like "The battle for Bitcoin", which I think is a strong name.
So yes I want to do that, but I also want to document the Silk Road and I've talked to Lynn about that and I've said I think it'd be very interesting to document exactly what happened. Again in a Serial kind of format and then I'd like to do one about Craig Wright, because even though he's suing me, lawyers have said don't talk about it anymore, I still find him actually fascinating, like as a character and a human. How fascinating is it that this person behaves in the way they do?
Luke Martin: Yeah, it's a TV show and he's bizarre.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, so I've got an interest in doing those seasons. I think they work, I think people get interested in it. I've also got a beginner's guide, which I've also started work on. But look, it's time man! All this shit together is endless, endless amounts of work.
Then beyond that, I also wanted to do Defiance News and I was listening to the Rogan interview with Matthew Taibbi yesterday and I actually think there's legs in doing a media company, which is entirely based on podcasting, because people still listen to podcasts because it's dead time, running at the gym etc.
Whereas print news is kind of dying. You can do a six month investigative journalism piece that dies in 36 hours, that's what Matthew Taibbi was talking about, it's like investigation into Trump's numbers. Whereas the podcast is like multitasking, as you can listen to it. So I think there's legs in a lot of things, but it's finding the time. I'm sure you've got loads of ideas of what you want to do?
Luke Martin: A million! I have a series I'm working on, that'll be out, but I don't want to spoil that though.
Peter McCormack: Okay, but if I can help you in any way, just let me know! But I think people buy into that. They buy into it as a block of work.
Luke Martin: The other thing is, there's an abundance of information. You can get information anywhere and you can reach most people on Twitter, but it's not always digestible. Lopp has that incredible resource guide and you could almost make a series on every single section of that.
That would be a way easier way, for someone getting in and they're trying to understand that SegWit2x and all these different things, someone just reading this for the first time, while they're also trying to wrap their head around Bitcoin versus crypto, all these things, it's impossible.
They'll hit a dead end, they won't want to learn more or they'll just kind of give up on even trying to understand it. So if it's an easier, smoother way, an on ramp, I think that's huge.
Peter McCormack: Yeah. So where are you at with trading now? How much of a trader are you still?
Luke Martin: I would say it's a lot less often, partially because I'm now running the show and I do so much work in the analysis and all those different things, but also you have to kind of adjust to the market. For the past year and a half, we haven't had a single alt coin theme that lasts longer than 7 to 10 days in what, 12 months? A lot of that market is ignored, but a lot of those things are still down 80-90%. Bitcoin still presents some opportunities, but a lot of what I do, I wouldn't even say it's trading, it's more like allocating.
I think of it as almost like a slow swinging pendulum, like is Bitcoin trending up? Is the value good and is momentum good? I want to be more exposed, versus taking some off. I think this trading verse holding meme gets such hate from some of the Bitcoin community and it's a great meme to have, the holders of last resort, Trace Mayer has a really good segment on that. But if trading is looked at, maybe in a different light, I mean consider active managers, if they're managing your retirement money or they're managing your investments.
What active managers aren't trying to do is, hedge funds get all this shit if they don't beat the S&P. Well of course a hedge fund isn't going to beat the S&P when it's a bull market, because there should be hedge, they should be taking less risk. So you have to think of an appropriate benchmark and I think that for a lot of people trading Bitcoin, Bitcoin is a great benchmark if you're investing in alt coins.
But if you're trading or actively managing some of your Bitcoin, maybe just having a lower risk profile or a lower risk tolerance for those holdings, is what's going to keep you in the game. This idea of holding, if you would've held your Bitcoin, you would have made 500%, did you trade and you only made 300%? well maybe that person holding through 2018, people do sell near the bottom, people are emotional. I know a ton of people that sold Bitcoin when it was falling 6k, then they never get back in.
So if you have some kind of rule, I mean a very arbitrary thing of having 60% in Bitcoin, 40% in cash, rebalancing quarterly if that ever gets out of whack. So if Bitcoin rises, your Bitcoin is probably going to be 80%, your cash should be 20%, moving some of that Bitcoin to cash
And it's just really to even out the swings more than it is, sure holding would've beat that strategy, but if you didn't stay in the game because you couldn't weather the hold, then you're completely out of it anyways. So it's just this idea, people do it with stocks as well. I mean that's when everyone calls their financial advisor, is when stocks are in a bear market and near the bottom.
So you have to have some kind of rule set that keeps you in. I think hold is a great meme if you can do it, but a lot of people can't and I think that's more of the way that I think about Bitcoin for my own strategy and then like I said, alts have been far and few between with those opportunities.
Peter McCormack: I haven't actually done an active trade in over a year. I've sold stuff because I'm getting out of alt coins. So when I sold all my alt coins earlier this year, when the show went Bitcoin only and I've acquired Bitcoin... Actually I haven't even bought Bitcoin, I've earned a Bitcoin. Andreas says earn Bitcoin. So a couple of my clients pay in Bitcoin. I convert 75% to cash and hold the other 25% in Bitcoin. So my Bitcoin balance is just steadily going up. I earn interest through BlockFi and I just keep a record every month.
So rather than ever worrying, I always know there's never going to come a month where I'm going to have less Bitcoin because of that. But I stopped trading, one because I'm terrible at it, but also because I don't have the time and I lost entire belief in alts, as I couldn't see any value in anything anymore.
There's a lot of things that went into that, the whole, "you've got a Bitcoin show, stop covering shit coins", when I did the Rizun interview, but naturally, the gravity was pulling me in of Bitcoin and it's been a really good thing.
I take the piss out of altcoiners and upset them occasionally, but I fundamentally believe that if you ask me what's going to be here in 10 years, I believe Bitcoin will be, I could not tell you a single alt that will. I mean Ethereum in some way or another might still exist, but I think most of it is a problem because people aren't using it.
Luke Martin: Well yeah, they're all still fighting for a use case, when Bitcoin has established that. Bitcoin already has the investment thesis, the store of value. Alt coins, I think that each of them can have their limited supply, their supply schedule or whatever it might be, but as a whole, it's almost no cost to produce more or another one. You can always spin up another ICO and so as they fight for that use case with an ever increasing supply, yeah it's very rational and a higher probability that Bitcoin will be around the longest and maybe the only one that survives.
Peter McCormack: Do you like anything else? Do you look at anything else and go, "actually, I do like that."
Luke Martin: I think that anything that resembles, well that carries a risk of its own, but anything that almost resembles equity and I know that pretty much every exchange owner that has a coin will say it's not equity. But some of those coins are interesting to me, even if they're a quasi-equity and they're doing everything not to be security.
But if they offer a yield or there's some kind of [Inaudible 39:51], I still am quite interested in a lot of those models, but at the same time, I really treat them as... Let's say I do establish a position in some exchange coin, it's not like Bitcoin where I have an investment thesis of 2, 5, 10 or however many years, it's looking for a cyclical upturn or you have some kind of target and looking to scale out.
I really do treat it as a shorter term investment and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I know some listeners to the show are like, "oh that's evil" and all this stuff, but shorting Bitcoin, is that evil, to earn more Bitcoin? Is trading my Bitcoin and selling it to you higher, is that evil? As long as you're not promoting it, pumping it or scamming people in some way, investing in that if you believe in it or you find it interesting or it makes you money, I like those opportunities.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, I'll be interested to see what your position will be, if you went full time podcasting. If that became all you did and I talked to you about this last night, I see you more than a crypto podcaster, I think you understand markets and trading and you understand how it all works, but I'll be interested to where you will be say a year afterwards. I'd expect, I could see you drifting more to Bitcoin.
Luke Martin: I would say I'm already kind of there, definitely. I mean that's what I think about. If I'm thinking about... The only thing that really makes my head turn is still Bitcoin about this space. I'm always open to learning about some, but I have such a dismissive attitude I guess and maybe that's not the right word, towards a lot of the stuff coming out.
I don't think I've read a white paper and I don't know when, since the last ICO I invested in, which was like 2017, early 2018. Bitcoin is where all of my focus is. But in terms of understanding trends and things like that, I'll still look at those coins. I think it's still a very inefficient market and I think those opportunities are going to exist for a while.
Peter McCormack: One of the key things for me with Bitcoin is I actually use it and that's the key difference than everything else, I pay people in Bitcoin. Say if we went out to dinner and I forgot to give you the money, I don't have Venmo, but I'd be like, "Oh Luke, just give me a Bitcoin address." I actually use it and it's a really easy way for transferring money internationally, like getting paid in Bitcoin is really easy.
Luke Martin: It's preferred.
Peter McCormack: Yeah and also, I like the way that Bitcoin doesn't change too much. I know people will say, "oh well it was originally created to be cash and now it's a store of value," if that's the only change its ever had, then that's quite neat. Whereas you look at something like Ethereum, it was world computer, then it was ICO, now it's for stable coins, like it's trying to find a solution.
I also look at what's building out around Bitcoin, like there's some fucking good companies, beyond the exchanges. You know I'm a big fan of BlockFi, yes, for transparency, they're a sponsor, you will have heard it anyway, but actually they're doing a really neat thing where they're integrating financial services. They've got a lending and they've got an interest market and again, that's very interesting.
I really like what Fold are doing, what Lolli are doing, where you can earn interest or sorry, cashback, on using their apps. I really liked what Casa is doing in creating almost like essentially that be your own bank from home. There's some really neat businesses building around it. Then I look at something like EOS or Ethereum and I just don't see it.
I was mildly interested in MakerDAO at some point, then I realized that it's so complicated I don't understand it and I think the whole narrative breaks down into stupidity when you break it apart. But there is something there in Bitcoin.
Luke Martin: Yeah, I mean for me, to be completely honest, I don't even find a lot of the peer-to-peer cash or using it when I pay for something on Amazon or whatever that interesting. I think just as an investment class and thinking of it as a store of value, I think is interesting enough. I mean it's already proven that thesis and I think that's going to stick around for a long time.
I think this debate of, should it be a medium of exchange or a store of value is silly. That's like people still wondering that with gold, it's a $21 trillion bucket that people store value in, whether they store it in art or collectible cars or gold or whatever it is. I'm just so interested in its investment characteristics, the fact that it's still is going to be an uncorrelated, source of returns versus anything else.
Peter McCormack: And it can be for you what you want it to be.
Luke Martin: Sure.
Peter McCormack: So that other thing like, "what is Bitcoin", is kind of like, "well what do you need it for?" These are its properties, like I say a store of value or it's unconfiscatable and censorship resistant.
Luke Martin: Sure, it's a way for people to get property rights if they can't in their country.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, so for me it's kind of like, my pension got decimated in my divorce and I'm kind of like, this is a potential pension for me. Leave it there for 20 years, that might be a pension. But it's also a medium of exchange for me, it's a way that I can get paid by clients easier than going through the banks.
I had the incident when I went out and interviewed Mark Karpeles, I had a camera man, a local camera man, British guy, but he was based in Japan and he came out and did the work, whatever it was, and I had to pay him a couple of thousand dollars.
I could not connect my bank to his bank, we physically couldn't do it. It was an absolute nightmare and I was like, "can I pay you by PayPal" and we couldn't get that to work. So I was like, "can I pay you Bitcoin?" We didn't in the end, but that would have been a solution. If he accepted Bitcoin, I could've just done it, so it can be a medium of exchange.
I think the thing is that once you've got Bitcoin, you've held it, you've used it, you find out what it is for you, rather than say, telling people what they should use it for.
Luke Martin: Yeah, just the debate on use cases, it's so funny to me. Like I said, it's a small group of people on Twitter that are debating it and I think the inflows that are coming into this space are investing because it's an investible asset that already serves a purpose.
Peter McCormack: I piss off that small group of people sometimes!
Luke Martin: Well I think you do it in a tasteful way now!
Peter McCormack: The show was always, when I decided it was going... When I did the first couple of trading shows, I thought it was going to be a show about trading and actually, it came out the same time as Crypto Street pod and I was like, "they're nailing the trading."
Luke Martin: Yeah those guys are great.
Peter McCormack: Well none of them like me, but they did a good job of the trading staff and it was kind of funny at times. Then I did the Lopp interview and the Lynn one and I was like, "actually no, I want to do more of the human stories", but anything that's education-based, all these people are like, "oh, he doesn't run a fucking node" or "he's stupid, he doesn't understand Bitcoin."
I'm glad I don't understand how the protocol really genuinely works on a technical level and as controversial as this is, I don't want to, because the people who need to know how it works, Jameson Lopp knows how it works, Pieter Wuille knows how it works, all the people that matter, Luke Dashjr knows how it works, Matt Corallo, they know how it works and I fundamentally trust them.
I do not need to be debating about technically what needs to come next for Bitcoin because I don't care, I trust them. But what I do care about is that if I understand too much, I don't want to be so far removed from new people coming in and not understand their experience. I'd much rather align myself with people who have just discovered Bitcoin and their experience.
Luke Martin: Sure, it makes a better show and like you said, it's more relatable. You probably even understand some things about Bitcoin at a more granular level than I do. I was speaking with Matt Odell and I was asking about convenience and security trade-offs and I ask some dumb ass questions on Twitter where people still comment below, they're like, "how do you have this many followers?" I'm like, that's not why people follow me, it's not for a technical prowess of Bitcoin. I'm very aware about that, I'm not going to ever try to kid anyone. I'm here learning about that stuff as well.
Peter McCormack: Matt's awesome, I pick his brain all the time! But I even got that challenge because I've been like, "usability, UX must be better, no one's going to run a fucking node", blah blah blah. I got so much shit for that node stuff, but actually the flip side to that is I got a lot of people write to me who also said, "oh that was really good, that was really useful." I still think very few people are going to run a node.
Luke Martin: Sure and I saw the replies to your thread and I couldn't even understand half the words in there.
Peter McCormack: And they couldn't even agree, they were arguing amongst themselves!
Luke Martin: Exactly! And it presented the exact reason for you suggesting the question of, what do I choose here? Does it need to be easier? All those things, but it gets ignored. It's great that there are those people that are that dedicated to knowing it and it's healthy for the space and people have to, to continue pushing it forward. But at the same time, you can't know everything, it's impossible.
Peter McCormack: Well I had my assumptions challenged. I was listening to Janine interviewed by Marty Bent on Tales from the Crypt and she was saying that she preferred it when the UX was terrible because, I might get this slightly wrong, so people should listen to the show, but it didn't allow people to have the trade offs. Right now, people will use Coinbase because it's really easy to use.
But by using Coinbase, they're giving all their KYC information over, they're giving all the information to chain analysis. There's that horrible company, what were they called, the one that Coinbase bought? Fuck, I've forgotten what they were called, really nasty company.
Luke Martin: Yeah and they had to make a public statement about deleting their contract with them, I forget who it was.
Peter McCormack: Or they sacked some people. But that made me go, "do you know what, that's a really fair point." But again, I stand by the fact that look, if Bitcoin is for everyone, we've got to think of it as something that is as easy to use as your debit card and I think if you want everyone to have perfect privacy, use Tor, to be using a mixer, on something like Samurai, it's just not going to happen.
Majority of people are going to go on Coinbase or Kraken and they're going to buy their first bit of Bitcoin. They're hopefully going to get a hardware wallet but might not and we've got to accept this and really think of these people.
Luke Martin: Yeah, you can't always be a baby. Those trade offs are going to exist and if anything, I think it's going to continue to go down that route.
Peter McCormack: Have you got a node?
Luke Martin: No!
Peter McCormack: Are you going to set up a node?
Luke Martin: I was going to, I believe the Coinmine I have will have that capability pretty soon.
Peter McCormack: You've got a Coinmine? I've head that's a scam.
Luke Martin: I've heard it as well and it's running in my basement.
Peter McCormack: It doesn't actually mine Bitcoin does it, it mines shit coins and converts them to Bitcoin?
Luke Martin: Correct, it algorithmically selects whatever, Grin, Eth, Monero, Zcash and something else and then whatever other corny stuff. What they recently added was, this is like a Coinmine ad now, but I really like Farbood, I think he's a great guy, good buddy and I just believe in him trying to further the industry.
There's been so much talk about, does the device, is it more appropriate to buy Bitcoin, is it a better $800 investment, is it going to ROI all these things, but now they have, if you mine Bitcoin or you mine your sats, you can put those sats to work, all these different things.
I know that some Bitcoiners even hate that term anyways, but it does get people interested. That's how I got into this space, I built an Eth rig and ever since then, understanding how the network works, you start to understand things. That device didn't ROI, but it was still one of the best learning experiences I think you can have.
Peter McCormack: I got a lot a flak back with BlockFi. I really like it, I'm a customer, I actually deposited some Bitcoin on there and I get interest every month. But I got a lot of flak back from people saying "this is antithetical to Bitcoin. Not your keys, not your Bitcoin, you're trusting somebody else.
There could be a catastrophic market breakdown where you lose all your Bitcoin" blah, blah, blah. I'm kind of a fan of these services. There are others and I shouldn't just say BlockFi just because they're a sponsor, there is Unchained Capital and there's a few others doing it.
Luke Martin: I think what's appropriate and I think what there were some issues with, was maybe how it was marketed, but I still didn't even have a problem with that. It was just to make it clear that yes, this is a risk you're taking, that's why you're getting paid that yield.
It's not as straight forward as, you're putting your Bitcoin down and you get an interest payment straight back in Bitcoin, you're literally betting that BlockFi will pay you back. But at the same time, if people understand that risk, then that's their money or Bitcoin to put at risk. It's this weird, morality that's shoved on people, if you want to take that risk, as long as you aren't lulling people in with false promises and promoting something or whatever it is, that's your capital to put at risk.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, it's not a scam. Also this is a free market, right?
Luke Martin: Sure!
Peter McCormack: You Bitcoiners, you want a free market, well this is a company or these are companies have emerged from a free market who are offering a service and I think that as Bitcoin grows and as it takes over and hyperbitcoinization, if it happens, then there's going to be a market for borrowing and lending Bitcoin, that's going to be huge! I mean I think that some of these companies, they could be potential unicorns, as long as Bitcoin grows! We won't stay in this region forever, this endless bear market of hell.
Luke Martin: I wouldn't even say it's a bear market. I mean 2019 we started at 3k! People still think of it as a bear market and it's like, put something in context, this is still the best performing asset in the world for the entire year. The fact that you can earn 300% uncorrelated, it's not like we're betting on Tesla and exposed to the stock market, this is something that moves entirely separate from that.
Peter McCormack: Have you got into the whole Austrian economics and libertarian side of things, because that's something that I've really been sucked into?
Luke Martin: Oh gosh, I, I did listen to your show with Stephan. I have Saifedean's book, I haven't read it.
Peter McCormack: It's a good read.
Luke Martin: Yeah, I find it all quite interesting. I went to finance school, the funny part is I almost side with Joe Weisenthal in some of these talks a little bit more, just in the sense that I don't really think central bankers per se, are evil and all this money printing is thwart people and cause them to be poor and whatever else it is. I really do think it's just our society and how we formed and trying to grow more business...
Peter McCormack: Careful, they're going to troll you!
Luke Martin: I know, just as Joe did! But I don't think it's evil as much as literally trying to find the best solution at the time and sure it might have now evolved into something which is more risky and less understood than it should be, but I just don't believe that central bankers or bankers in general are evil and it's this master plan and all of these things.
Peter McCormack: Maybe they're just trying to fix the stupidity of government? I mean it's the government who over spends, right?
Luke Martin: Or we're going down this path of, now we're hooked on QE, as Travis Kling likes to say, I really think it's just, as things are rolling, we try to find the best solution, we patch it up. I just don't think the intent is bad, maybe the methods in which we're doing this, is not so good, but intent is really important. I really do think that this is the system we've created and we're trying to support this economy and we're trying to support as many businesses and people as we can.
Whether or not they should play a role, I guess that that's the Austrian verse Keynesian debate, but where I come from, I just don't think it's evil intent. I think we've rolled along this far, our economy is massive, there are tons of people on this planet Earth and this is the best system we've come up with for now.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, like I said a moment ago, I tend to think it's more the stupidity of government and I think there are evil people in government and I think the problem with government is that it's about power. I also find that in the US there's this very strange lobbying thing. I find the lobbying side and the fact that you can be paid by lobbyists, very strange.
Luke Martin: It's bizarre.
Peter McCormack: It's a system of corruption essentially.
Luke Martin: Yeah I'm a massive fan of the smaller the government, the better and the less overreach, all those things. But I was specifically talking about the Fed and that.
Peter McCormack: But I think it's the government that make the decisions, it's the governments that overspends, it's the government who comes up with all the stupid departments to create the stupid rules for the stupid things we have to do, overspends and therefore has to turn to the central bank to fix their problems. Am I seeing this wrong? You know this better than me.
Luke Martin: The central bank, that monetary policy is completely separate from... Donald Trump can try to influence. I think he's the first President, well there was one President way back that was maybe at odds with, or tried to influence the central bank, but this is kind of the first time they're doing it on Twitter. It's this grand theatre now, you can see the President literally try to intimidate cqentral bankers into doing what he wants.
If anything, it's the best ad for Bitcoin ever! I think people will realize that even if bankers and the system we're in, it is people trying to do their best to support the economy and to grow things and to make sure the most amount of people do well, that people will make mistakes and people are emotional, like our President or a certain central banker or a certain nation. In the United States we're lucky, but other nations around the world are showing that they're maybe not as responsible.
Peter McCormack: Donald Trump is so good at Twitter.
Luke Martin: Oh, it's incredible! Even if you don't like the guy, he doesn't get enough credit there.
Peter McCormack: He's so fucking funny sometimes as well, like the way he trolls people, he kills me.
Luke Martin: The meme warfare is so real. He's very good at attention and yeah, he's winning that war, whether you like him or not.
Peter McCormack: Well, whoever wins the nomination for the Democrats, who I've got no idea by the way, but whoever wins it, it's going to be a train wreck watching it! They were talking about this on Rogan, like watching how Donald Trump will go after them with his meme war on Twitter is going to be amazing to view, just fucking insane!
Luke Martin: Just from an entertainment aspect, yeah.
Peter McCormack: I haven't been following the Democratic nomination debates too much. There doesn't seem like a very strong candidate amongst them.
Luke Martin: It doesn't interest me. I spend very little, if none of my time following any of that stuff. It's all theatre!
Peter McCormack: You're not going to declare your political allegiances on my podcast?
Luke Martin: I have no interest in doing that!
Peter McCormack: All right, man. How did the Colts do yesterday?
Luke Martin: I didn't even watch the game, but I think we're actually pretty good with a backup quarterback. Andrew luck backs out at the beginning of the season and we're still doing well.
Peter McCormack: You've been very good at dealing with trolls online. I think I've seen you snap once.
Luke Martin: When was that?
Peter McCormack: That wasn't long after you gave me a telling off. Someone made an accusation against you and you flipped.
Luke Martin: I don't recall.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, you did and he deleted the tweets. I was amazed. It's like with Pomp, I think he's the most trolled person on Twitter. I saw he flipped recently on Dudas, but that was again the first time. I lose my shit every time I get trolled, "fuck you motherfucker!" How do you keep so calm?
Luke Martin: Oh man, I'm not really sure. I think I realized really quickly that, especially if it's just so stupid, the shit that people will even talk about on there or make a discussion or make an accusation about. I think the one time I will flip, is if it is kind of a pure accusation of something I've done or something like that, I kind of want to correct the timeline, but I realize that if anything, I'm just giving more attention to it. So the mute button is a blessing! It's a powerful tool and I recommend that everyone use it.
Peter McCormack: I block more than mute. I want them to know!
Luke Martin: I block some as well, but I think I just spent so much less time on Twitter. At the beginning, it was almost like a game I guess, kind of like the podcast in a way.
I'm sure you look at your download numbers and want to grow them and all these different things and that's not the only thing going on, but it is an incentive system of, you see what your audience likes, you see what you want to learn about in all these different things and after a while, I don't have any interest in having any more followers and if anything, it's now just more of a risk or kind of an issue.
I can't really talk about all the things I want to or throw in a meme or a joke, whatever it is and I get 30 people commenting, asking if I'm serious about that. It's like no!
Peter McCormack: It comes from pressure, like nothing prepares you for it. We were talking about it last night, I think I had around 5,000 followers when we did this, but it might have been a lot less. I might have had like 1,000 followers, who knows, but I didn't have a lot and you were at like 30,000, I seem to remember. You very quickly went over to like 150-160k and I got to about 30k. Now I've gone up to like nearly 75k and you're like at 220k now?
Luke Martin: Something around there yeah.
Peter McCormack: But I don't think anything prepares you for it, because it can get insane. Like you say, you can put something out, it's slightly wrong, people misconstrue it.
Luke Martin: But I also realized, I think one of the things that I was still okay with, especially when I put my face out there and if you use your real name and your real picture, there are times obviously I wish I was still anonymous, but if you're using your real name and your real face, there are some things that are so fucking dumb that I don't even want to associate with, now that my real name's there.
So I think that keeps me out of a lot of trouble and just kind of having integrity in that sense. Then also understanding and acknowledging and accepting that I'm going to be wrong all the time and I've never really had a problem with that. I don't get on there and pretend to be a guru or be able to predict any of these things. I throw out a ton of ideas and I'm wrong all the time.
I don't know a lot of stuff, but I'm just going to kind of continue to learn and share some ideas and all those different things. So if you go into it with this idea of, "I have to be perfect or have this persona or always be right or be a perfect trader", you're fucked! So if you accept that you're just sharing some ideas still, I think you'll do pretty well.
Peter McCormack: Another quite powerful thing that I've done before is to acknowledge mistakes and apologize, which not many people do and it's quite liberating actually. I've put out some really stupid shit sometimes or I've put out something and I've realized I've not researched something I should have and the facts are wrong.
When I've been wrong, I've tweeted and said this was a mistake, I apologize. I think a lot more people should do that because you only benefit from it. You don't get people trolling you and giving you shit, everyone always respects you for it, but people don't seem to do it.
Luke Martin: Well for me, sharing investment ideas or just kind of my thoughts on what I'm doing, every once in a while you get it, people retweet or it'd be like, "wrecked" or "you blew it" or "God I can't believe it" and all these different things. I'm like, "what are you talking about?" On a good week, I'm hoping to be 50/50, so I don't know, it's just this idea that I'm going to be wrong, I've been wrong a million times before and so it takes a lot of the pressure off.
Peter McCormack: So what are your long-term plans man? Do you think like five years ahead, what you'd like to be doing and where you'll be at with all of this?
Luke Martin: Yeah, I think that's one of the most exciting things about having the show. The one idea that is most similar to what I want to do and what I've always found interesting since being here, is the access I get to people that are investing in this and some insanely smart investors spending all their time here now and willing to share it.
In the finance world, you could dream about wanting to speak to this portfolio manager, whatever it is, hedge fund, CIO, never get that access, ever! But now I have this, for whatever reason, I spent too much time on Twitter and enough people understood it, that now I have the access to ask them all those things.
So Raoul of Real Vision, I think he has a pretty similar concept of almost what I want to do. I'm fascinated by wanting to learn what a lot of the top investors here are doing, but also outside of crypto, I also want to learn about what any other investors are doing in any other market or other stories like sports betting, all these different things.
Peter McCormack: Yeah Raoul is great! I did a show with him and it just blew up, the numbers were insane.
Luke Martin: That was a good show!
Peter McCormack: Yeah and he's a really interesting guy to talk to. I think there's more and more people, like Dan Tapiero, there's more and more people like that who are starting to appear that I think are giving a different conversation and just makes it a bit more interesting.
Luke Martin: So the show is one angle and then also, like I said, I'm really interested in... I came from the FX world and worked for one of the largest brokers here in the US, so I'm really interested in seeing how these exchanges will grow and making some investments in there and helping those companies out and that whole investment side of this industry, it's almost like there's so many Bitcoiners that don't want to focus on that, "it's evil, why are you worried about price", all these different things.
That's what's so fascinating to me, is working in the most exciting part of finance, which was fringe finance and is now on the front lines, this is the opportunity of a lifetime. There's not too many times in your life that an asset class gets created, accrues this much value and has the potential to change so many things.
Peter McCormack: Well it might be the last time in our lifetimes.
Luke Martin: Yeah, that's what I'm saying! Assets don't just up and get created and if they do, they don't turn into $200 billion or $1 trillion dollar market cap.
Peter McCormack: So how do we get more people in? How do we get more people interested, because right now, I'm struggling! I'm constantly telling my friends about it, teaching them about it on Facebook, no-one gives a fuck!
Luke Martin: For me, it's so reflexive. If you look at when everyone joined in 2017 or when most people joined, the guys that I kind of came in with or started learning about it with and saw their names pop up and they're still here, it was when price was going through an exponential rise or a parabolic rise. So if that happens again, I'm sure a new wave of people will come. I'm not so worried about, I guess getting the retail side in, I think that over time it's just going to continue to grow like it is and so that part of it just doesn't concern me so much.
Peter McCormack: It's there ready for you when you do. All right man, well listen look, it's always good to talk to you, getting to know you over this last two years, you're not just somebody who's come on the podcast, you've become a friend, we've hung out a bunch of times. I love what you do, I know I can rely on you if I get in touch and I need anything, so I wish you all the best. I wonder if we'll be here in two years doing this again, I hope so!
Luke Martin: Yeah, you'll be on episode 400 and have 10 shows by then!
Peter McCormack: Fuck man, I don't know if I can do 10 shows! It's a struggle enough with two now.
Luke Martin: You'll have an empire!
Peter McCormack: Honestly dude, trying to keep up with everything is insane. Before we came out last night I was recording an intro to get to my engineer, then we went out and then I got up and it was published. I want to go to a daily show, but if I do that, I've got to become very disciplined about my time. But yeah, I hope in two years we are doing this again, it'd be great if we are!
Luke Martin: Yeah, it's a nice way to recap.
Peter McCormack: It will mean that Bitcoin's still a thing as well.
Luke Martin: Bitcoin will still be a thing and it'll be bigger than ever!
Peter McCormack: All right Luke, tell people where to find you and find your show man.
Luke Martin: Yeah, follow on Twitter @venturecoinist and the Coinist podcast as well. I have a new series coming out, we're going to be talking about Bitcoin as a store of value. That word gets thrown around so much, but I don't think anyone really understands.
Peter McCormack: You've let the cat out of the bag now!
Luke Martin: Well someone can try to copy, it's already in the works, but instead of just digital gold, it'll be Bitcoin as a store of value versus every other store of value and that's the bucket that I think we're competing in. It's a $21 trillion bucket versus just the $6 trillion gold bucket stuff. That'll be fun, follow along, Coinist podcast!
Peter McCormack: All man, well keep crushing them!
Luke Martin: Cheers!
