WBD301 Audio Transcription
Why Bitcoin Wins with Gary Vee & Robert Breedlove
Interview date: Tuesday 19th January
Note: the following is a transcription of my interview with Gary Vee & Robert Breedlove. 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 entrepreneur, author & speaker Gary Vaynerchuk and founder of Parallax Digital, Robert Breedlove. We discuss the government response to Bitcoin and the road to hyperbitcoinisation.
“We had two certainties in life; we had death and taxes. We’ve introduced the third certainty; 21 million Bitcoin.”
— Robert Breedlove
Interview Transcription
Peter McCormack: Gary, good to see you again, man, how are you?
Gary Vaynerchuk: I'm well, Peter, how are you?
Peter McCormack: I'm good, man. Good to see you again, Breedlove; are you well, my man?
Robert Breedlove: I'm doing well, Peter.
Peter McCormack: Well listen, last time we spoke, Gary, Bitcoin was about $17,000, $18,000. It's been on a tear, everyone's talking about it and you and I had a long conversation about one specific subject which I wasn't really prepared for, didn't really have good arguments for. That's why I've asked Robert to join us; he's an excellent speaker on Bitcoin. He's actually, the last couple of days, been talking to Elon Musk on Live on Twitter for everyone to see. He engages people, so I thought he would be a good person to join us.
I want to go back to the point we were talking about last time, where your concern -- I'll let you explain it, but you expressed concern about Bitcoin. If it gets to, say $200,000, what the response from the state might be; that was your biggest concern. But, do you want to articulate that again?
Gary Vaynerchuk: Sure. I would even change the word from concern. I think, you know, hello to the audience again and, Robert, great to see you. As I've been pretty consistent, especially to your point, it has been on a tear and I feel, you know, I've had so many people ask me things, I've been trying to put out a little bit more for my community and, whether it's the New York Jets or wine or how communications work with human beings, I have this incredible level of conviction and confidence, because I have 30 or 40 years of reps, it feels in my body, and I love speaking about it.
I would argue, Peter, that I don't think -- I wasn't looking for rebuttals, or I wasn't even speaking about concern. I think in general, when I speak, I'm so high energy and so passionate that, from my perspective, it was more the question, right? I'm thrilled that Robert's here, others that can speak to it. This is not a place that I feel I've given enough of my personal thinking to; nor have I been in the hundreds of hours or thousands of hours of consumption and conversations that gives me stability in my feet when I speak to.
I think, when I think back to our last interview, I think it's fascinating; I genuinely think it's fascinating. And, not only has Bitcoin gone from $17,000 to $37,000, or whatever we sit with today, but the other thing that's happened during that in-between period, is that the Amazons and the Facebooks and the Apples of the world have pretty much, for all intents and purposes, shut down Parler, a social network in America, right, and I think it bleeds a little bit into my, you know…
Let there be no confusion. I've been quite busy and I'm always looking on Twitter, but this is not a category where I feel like I'm a put-the-flag-in-the-ground guy and say this; to me, it's more I'm genuinely curious what happens if Germany puts $1 trillion of its liquid into a currency and tries to do Estonia 15.0; I'm genuinely curious about the concept of money, gold, Bitcoin, you know, money being such a powerful part of the human experience that whether it's $200,000 or $37,000 or $9 billion, all this is is trust, brand, transactions, humans; and sovereign states fascinate me.
Then, if you think about decentralisation, or like human to human, there are all these incredible aspects of it. There's just also human self-interest, right. So, if you think about the pipes; so much of what happens with currency, there's the internet world, right? We don't have a secondary internet. So, you have real life, you have the internet, there's going to eventually be a VR ecosystem that will be fascinating; but to me, the people that control the pipes of society, there's so much intuitively that I feel happens if money gets disrupted that it fascinates me.
It fascinates me and I think that's where, to me, Russia -- China, you know, it's not like I'm so deeply educated on Chinese geopolitical; it's that China has obnoxious ambition. And again, an early indicator, years ago I remember the headlines. You two gentlemen know way better than I do how the Chinese government got involved at some point. I just get genuinely curious about this hitting macro, macro scale.
Peter McCormack: Well, listen, you're an important voice, you're very well known; I've done 300 episodes, right. My son, he's 16, he doesn't give a shit. When he saw that I'd done an interview with Gary Vee, he was like, "Oh, I'm going to listen to that one". You've got an important voice, there are people who care about what you say; you are known. You did a video once where you were talking about motivation and that's one that my son really loved.
So, I think it's good to have Robert with us today to talk about this stuff and answer any questions you may have, discuss some ideas. I do want to deal though with that issue we talked about last time, about the state response, because I didn't have a good response because I didn't know. When you said, "Look, if Russia bans, Brazil bans, India bans, what happens?" I didn't really have in my head a good response; I did a poor job on that one, so I reached out to Robert.
Gary Vaynerchuk: Pete, you know what's funny, my friend, just real quick. I don't think it's about having a good, like -- I mean, I'm ecstatic now and I can't wait to give the floor here to Robert; I'm excited to listen. I think we can all agree it's going to be, as much as we have strong hypotheses, I don't think, for example, the Donald Trump Presidency is not something, and the pressures it put on ecosystems, it's very hard to predict that, even if the three of us were incredibly educated in 1992 on American history, right?
What I think Bitcoin's doing, from my perspective, blockchain, Bitcoin, wherever you want to take it; Bitcoin, let's stay on Bitcoin, because when I say blockchain, people get antsy about that. I think it's putting pressure, and I think Robert's about to say some really bright things that are rounded in a ton of being in that space, and I'm excited about that.
What I'm excited about though; not excited, that's not the right word. What I'm genuinely curious about, and maybe the reason your son or people -- the one place that you feel strong about is humans; that's what I feel good about, right? I think I'm ultimately more psychologist and anthropologist than I am much of anything else. And, what I think is fascinating is when this puts pressure. Pressure is what's interesting to me. Pressure is what leads to war; pressure is what leads to all sorts of things that make me curious. I'm not excited about that; I'm curious.
Robert, I'd love for you to pick that up, or Peter; I was kind of transitioning.
Peter McCormack: Let me just jump in quick. I think the Parler point's really interesting actually, because while I am not a fan of Donald Trump in any way at all, I've been a huge critic of his; at the same time, the control that the tech elite have in San Francisco to silence people, it does concern me. And essentially, we've seen the President cancelled, which is fascinating in itself. We've obviously also seen Jack Dorsey talking about decentralisation, so it is an important issue; but, where do you want to start, Robert? Do you want to start about the state thing so we can tick that off?
Robert Breedlove: Yeah. Great to connect, Gary, and thanks again for having me, Peter. I think there's a reason we're all struggling to get our head around this and that's because currency traditionally has always been the domain of government. It's not as if there was ever a truly free market option in the space for money throughout history; so, to contemplate the ramifications of something like Bitcoin really succeeding in the way that many of us talk about it, it's hard to imagine. There's no analogy for it; there's hardly any analogy.
So, to plug the book that a lot of these ideas come from, it's the first guide book that I've seen for what I think we're going into, and Peter and I are actually doing a show on this at the end of the month; it's this book, The Sovereign Individual. I talk about this book a lot. It was written in 1997; it predicted social media; it predicted the use of pandemics, actually, by governments to control borders; it predicted the emergency of anonymous digital cyber cash like Bitcoin; and, it predicted a lot of other things.
So, to your point, Gary, money is the base layer, right; that is the base layer of human organisation. I think the common misconception is that the government actually produces money, but in fact it's money that produces government.
Gary Vaynerchuk: Correct.
Robert Breedlove: Once we moved into the agricultural age and all of a sudden we had savings accumulated, whether it's grain in the store house, or whatever it may be, governments emerged as a protection service basically around those stored assets. And, the sovereignty of the state that we respect and adhere to today, it's really based on its control of money. If you look at what central banks hold, they hold a shit load of gold, because gold was essentially selected on the market as money.
Gary Vaynerchuk: I'm sorry to interrupt, Robert. And, their ability to control weapons, right?
Robert Breedlove: Yes.
Gary Vaynerchuk: Because they think, you know, this is not a place I feel incredibly comfortable speaking to, meaning I don't have incredible understanding of military or things of that nature. However, again, the simplicity of how I think about things allows me to feel comfortable in saying, as we're playing out right now, right, this gets to scale and it becomes humans that carry extra weight as voices, right?
You look at Elon Musk putting out a tweet about Signal and what that means for that platform. The rise of the sovereign individual, you know, the power that a human has in a decentralised, the internet's the middleman, nobody's a gatekeeper for me talking to 98 people; it's exceedingly powerful. Well, what happens to that individual that becomes a threat to that nation? The weapons start to come into play, whether that's an FBI, whether that's a KGB; that's just history; that's just the way it's always worked.
Robert Breedlove: Yeah. And, the main thrust of this book that I'm referring to is that, actually, encryption technology is changing the logic of violence. So, by virtue of encryption tech making the cost of defence so much smaller, it actually decreases the returns to violence and changes the way we organise ourselves. So, it's a really big idea and it's a lot to get our head around; but, one analogy that's helpful --
Gary Vaynerchuk: But, real quick on that, Robert, because that's exciting; I'm an enormous fan of one step backwards, three steps forward, like couldn't believe in it more. And, I think the sentence you just said, I'm actually a believer of, are the people listening to this podcast right now, you and I, our friend Peter, are we just going to be the men and women that are involved in the, one step backwards, three steps forwards, as this emerges?
Robert Breedlove: That's a big unknown. No one knows.
Gary Vaynerchuk: It's a huge unknown.
Robert Breedlove: No one knows how this shakes out, and there's definitely going to be countermeasures and counterstrokes. The one analogy that I think is apt is actually, the decline of the feudal age. When the printing press emerged, I think it was in the last decade of the 15th century, there were 10 million books produced. This was roughly equal to the total amount of books ever produced for the 100 years prior to that. So, we had this exponential explosion in accessed information, and this broke the Church's monopoly on information, essentially.
So, this has the consequence of creating more thinkers, making people more curious, more educated, and over time, the institution just basically became eroded by losing its monopoly.
Gary Vaynerchuk: That's right.
Robert Breedlove: So, what I think we're seeing, the similar allegory today would be, encryption technology. Again, we consider the purpose of the state is to preserve peace and protect property rights; we can now do that orders of magnitude more cheaply in digital space using encryption, than is necessary in the government.
So, the state, or whoever -- not the state; Twitter and private enterprise kicks Trump off social media. Next week, 25 million users sign up for Telegram, an encrypted messaging app. So, the act of censorship, or the act of trying to suppress encryption technology actually drives demand for it, and this was similar to what we saw with the printing press.
Church saw a bunch of books being printed; they lost their monopoly on knowledge; they tried to press down on it; it actually drove the proliferation of the printing press. So, it's creating demand for the very thing they're trying to stamp out.
Gary Vaynerchuk: I couldn't agree more. The control of thought is extremely different than the control of money and weapons.
Robert Breedlove: Agreed.
Gary Vaynerchuk: Right, so I think you're absolutely right, and I'm head-nodding in my head at scale right now. And, what you're doing right now, and everybody who's listening, I think what Robert's doing right now is super important. I think history repeats itself continuously. I was an atrocious student, but was a borderline A-student in history. And it was always this weird thing; why did I get good grades in gym and history, and my mum and I used to joke about it.
Only in the last five to seven years, as I've started to understand myself better in my fascination of humans, I'm like, "Oh, right, I needed that context and pattern recognition to be able to be good at predicting things", and it became foundational for me. I think you're making a great, great analogy and it's actually why I believe in the thesis.
What I keep coming back to is the in between and the leverage points, you know, the Pope, or -- I'm a little undereducated on what religion looked like at the time. The moves that person had versus the moves that Putin, it just feels quite, quite different and I think that to your point, I believe that humans will go in a certain direction. I actually think this story plays out…
If I had a bet right now; if Peter was like, "Gary, no, predict it", I would say, "Yes, it ends up in the place that the Bitcoin people today think it ends up". To me, it's a timing question and what happens in between. For example, so much of what I bet on is that people underrate humans. I keep reminding people, even in these times, the world is so much better than it was 1,000 years ago. Do you understand, in 1930, the kind of genocide that was going on in the world? There's genocide going on now, but the scale?
So, I'm a buyer of the intuitive nature of us as animals to collectively do right, and I actually think a lot of what we're talking about here gets us there; I just don't know if it's 400 years. I think a lot of people think, you know, let's call a spade a spade; I'm starting to read a lot of it. The self-interest in the promotion of Bitcoin is extraordinarily high. When I break down, you know, what I'm doing now is looking at all the advocates, and there's a zillion of them, and then this is what I do; I watch people.
You go back to their posts four and a half years ago, they're doing the same thing around something else. There are two very distinct communities and the one that has by far the louder voice right now is the self-interest commerce aspect. So, I think it's a really interesting time for this brand.
Robert Breedlove: Yeah, I would say actually betting on Bitcoin is betting on human ingenuity, because fiat currency is something that imposed from top down; Bitcoin is something that's voluntarily adopted. And, I would push back and say, there is clearly a lot of selfish interest in people adopting and evangelising Bitcoin, but it's one of those few things. Not only is it selfish, but it's also selfless. There are many of us that work in the space that are trying to educate people about the true nature of money, that's not necessarily in our best interests.
Gary Vaynerchuk: By the way, I believe there's an extraordinary amount of people that see the bigger picture here. Let me give you an example: I think of it like fashion. I think most people buy very, very expensive clothes to flex to hide their insecurities; but, I feel there are plenty of people that genuinely enjoy the craft of the clothes.
I think there are millions, forget about tens of thousands of people that genuinely, to your point, Robert, are in it for really a selfless, mental kind of evergreen time, like a lot of good. I think that doesn't take away the fact that if you go into Clubhouse, Twitter, Forums, Discords, there is a shocking amount of momentum of what the short-term commerce implications are.
By the way, I think that's great. Let me say something different. I don't think it's great or not great; I just think it is. There is no judgement about that; it's an important variable. I also believe it's an important variable to understand, because when selfishness tips over, it creates vulnerability for other things to emerge.
Peter McCormack: Breedlove, Rob, let me throw one in. Do you think us, as bitcoiners, what do you think are our blind spots, because we promote this, we talk about this, there are a lot of people who don't understand it, a lot of people disagree with it; do you think we've got blind spots?
Robert Breedlove: Yeah, I want to just put some maths on that last point. Just to Gary's point about, people tend to collectively self-organise around the things that are best for them over time, right. So, we would say that the thesis of Bitcoin should play out in the long run, which I agree with.
But, to put some numbers to it; governments today, they enjoy a monopoly over money that they've become accustomed to depreciating at will. Bitcoin, we can consider this as a money with 0% terminal inflation. So, if you just put some maths to this, very simple maths; if you're paying $10,000 a year in annual tax payments and you can instead save that money, and this could be taxation or inflation, same thing; you can reduce that payment and put it in a savings account compounding at 10% per year. That's a $4.4 million decision over 40 years. If that amount's $100,000, it becomes a $44 million decision.
So, I think there are massive incentives for people to adopt uninflatable money. They sort of shove them into this monetary network over time. We know the government's going to increase taxes, they're going to increase inflation, that fiat currency requires more and more leverage to remain sustainable; this pushes people further out along the risk curve into more volatile asset.
Gary Vaynerchuk: Robert, let me ask you a question. Let's play out that fall of that -- this is actually, I genuinely ask this and again, Peter, I'm going off your energy. To me, I was looking for an answer, or a hypothesis; or really, you to be a voice to give me a sense of what the community was talking about, so I'm pumped that Robert's here.
Robert, okay, let's say everybody decides that, let's say, it goes all the way, that there's 80% of people in society, 7.5 billion people; let's inflate that to 8 billion people by the time we get to 80%, just say, "It's Bitcoin; it's not money". What does happen to the nations in that scenario?
Robert Breedlove: Your revenues decline really rapidly.
Gary Vaynerchuk: Wait, I know, I apologise. That part I know, brother! I'm talking about, what's your intuition, or what has been the conversation amongst the community, or things that you've heard, or your own personal opinion; that becomes non-sustainable?
Robert Breedlove: Of course. So, the sort of players, I mean, these are the blind spots because this is such an unknown, this type of event. The closest allegories we have are something like the fall of the Soviet Union, where once it become economically --
Gary Vaynerchuk: Well, it's not, because it was within the structure of the rest of the world. You're talking about one little tiny -- it's just not. As somebody who was born in the Soviet Union and somebody who really spends a lot of time thinking about this stuff, it's not, because there were alternatives for those people.
Robert Breedlove: What I'm saying is, the size of the state being shrunk economically caused it to fragment, right? We went from the USSR to, what, 30 countries; is that about correct?
Gary Vaynerchuk: I apologise, but I think we're talking about stubbing the toe versus dying of cancer. The Soviet Union falling and going back to the places it invaded 70 years earlier is just an extremely different conversation to your point. And, I think you were making a great point earlier. We can't use things that we understand.
Robert Breedlove: Right.
Gary Vaynerchuk: I think so much of what my life has been about, and what I'm trying, as I'm going to go through my journey here and get educated, what I'm extremely simple about that helps me a lot is, you can't say that's the -- firstly, you can say anything you want. And by the way, by the time it hits scale, this is where I get very fascinated.
I believe subconsciously, not even consciously, that there are a lot of people in the community that believe that by the time it gets to the place where China, Russia, America, or whatever else, gets in this, Jesus, line-in-the-sand moment of complete carnage, reset, who the heck knows, Nirvana, wherever you want to take it, that the people that are listening right now believe they won't be on earth. I really believe that.
I believe that that's happening a little bit, because that's the part that the community, Peter, in my opinion, that I keep looking for -- and by the way, I'm sure there's people listening right now that would be like, "Fuck, I wish I was on. I would tell Gary --", and that's great. I'll be honest with you, I'm thrilled about that. For me, to be unbelievably on the record, I have zero emotion or financial ramifications of Bitcoin becoming what the dollar is in every part of the world, or vice versa, because I'm an adapter and a counterpuncher; I'm not overthinking about that. I'm actually, as a human, incredibly curious what the community that's been in it really thinks is going to happen.
Robert Breedlove: The only other deeper circle analogy I can think would actually be the fall of Rome, where their currency debasement led to their ultimate demise and fragmentation. The other thing there was the cost of maintaining foreign borders, because it was unable to be supported by the agricultural economy.
Gary Vaynerchuk: Here's my thing; correct me if I'm wrong. Rome, which really was actually scary for American purposes right now, undermining elections or restricting; the USSR just resourced allocation to an arms race that communism -- it's beautiful, you know. Marxism is pretty on paper, but not real human. This goes back to the human question for me.
It's almost like the internet, right. Think about what the internet has accomplished in disrupting so many norms, literally. And, let's just call the modern internet a 1990 phenomenon, but let's call a spade a spade; it really started kicking more in 1994/95/96/97, with America online and other things of that nature around the world.
I mean, to me, this is connecting everybody. The Soviets or the Romans versus the other people on earth, this is actually, and correct me if I'm wrong, men; this is saying, "Hey, we're all going to be together on this", and the enemy to all of us in theory, if you play it out that basic, is every other sovereign nation. It's them against us. It's breaking the entire board game.
Robert Breedlove: Yeah, it is. I would actually argue too that Bitcoin itself is even more prolific than the internet. We've had these distributed, permissionless, communication technologies that have reshaped --
Gary Vaynerchuk: Yeah, I'm with you on that; I'm with you on that. I'm arguing the same.
Robert Breedlove: So, Bitcoin would just be the value layer of the internet, even more disruptive. But to your last point, yes, it destroys nationalism, right. I think, should Bitcoin succeed, we wake up from this nightmare of nationalism where we've identified --
Gary Vaynerchuk: Right, I'm with you Robert. But, for anybody to think that China… let's just stick there, because you just have to look at humans and infrastructure and the current state of the game. For anybody to think China's going to lay down, after all the work they've put in the last 50 years, the way that country's structured, the way it's completely bought South Africa, which has set itself up for the next 50 years; for anybody to think that China…
But, you know what; let's not be unfair. Russia, America, and you can plop in a whole lot of other people; for you to think they're going to lay down?
Robert Breedlove: No, we don't think they're going to lay down, but we can game that out, if you guys want?
Gary Vaynerchuk: I do, but I want to game that out because honestly, that's the only thing I want to learn, to be frank. To me, it's by far the most interesting conversation. Whether Bitcoin goes to $200,000 or $37,000; whether Ethereum, for a different reason, does X, Y and Z; why did Facebook's thing not fail; will Germany put $1 trillion into its own…; those things are cute. Playing out the game theory of no nationalism is one of the heaviest thoughts I've ever allowed myself to think, and I think it's fascinating. And, I'm just generally curious how anybody thinks that happens peacefully.
Peter McCormack: I had an interesting conversation. I moderated a debate between a guy called Nic Carter, who's another Bitcoin guy, and a detractor by the name of Frances Coppola, and Nic brought up something interesting, Breedlove, in that I have struggled with this idea that we have this breakdown of all the nation states and all live on a Bitcoin standard; I've struggled to see how that actually happens, because I certainly think that some countries are not going to allow the might of their military to fall and they're certainly going to put up some fight.
I also think perhaps, in some ways, it's dangerous for certain countries to lose their military power to the US, because they are somebody who can push back on China; not that I agree with it; not that I agree we should have these superpowers at war, or potential war. I struggle to see the idea of the state ending.
But, what I do see is a scenario potentially, and you'll probably say, "No, Pete, that's just step one", but Bitcoin just becomes a reserve currency for the individual, or the company, or a state who chooses it; but, it becomes an optional reserve currency, but we still have local sovereign currencies, which are used of a medium of exchange.
So, Bitcoin is really just your kind of reserve asset, your savings account; but, you'll still have local sovereign currencies. I can see a scenario where that happens and perhaps we sit in that scenario for quite some time. Now, you might say that won't happen, or a transitional phase, but I've struggled with that, like the endgame that some people talk about.
Gary Vaynerchuk: Yeah, the bigger question there is, what's the incentive for the people that have the most leverage to allow Bitcoin to be that, versus them standing up their own with the amount of leverage they have? This is what's so absolutely fascinating about this conversation. And, I've been doing a ton of listening for a long time, but quite a bit for a year, and now hyper-bit for six months. I don't think a lot of people in the community realise they're speaking to only the endgame of the elimination of nations.
When you start saying, to your point, Peter, I love how you hedged it; you know that the listeners in the community, when you just said what you said for two minutes, that's too half-pregnant; that's unacceptable, and it comes along with too many things that don't make the promise of what it's supposed to be, be. And by the way, I think that's beautiful. I don't think anything has to exist, not the Church, not America, not China, not Bitcoin. So, I think it's an incredible conversation.
I just continue to have this incredible fascination with the thought that nations are going to go away; I just really struggle with that. Now, maybe this is 500 years out too. And again, I think, Peter, what I think is happening is a lot of people are betting on, this takes a long time and I'm going to make a lot of money for the next 50 years on this one currency; who gives a shit. I really just generally think that that's actually underneath a lot of conversation which, by the way, awesome; I don't know; good, that's what humans do anyway.
But, I think the notion of a borderless world, I just can't see it. As a matter of fact, I think the timing's weird. I think it had a better chance -- I think the internet's timing was remarkable. Think about when the internet started hitting scale. It was a time of global peace unseen for a long time. You'd just had the fall of the Soviet Union; America was kind of in this place of a Bill Clinton Presidency, which was very centralist, right, if you think about where he sat as a Democrat; you just had Eastern Europe completely taken… It was this very interesting time that allowed the bigger energy.
Today, I think if the internet drops today, it struggles to have the same things happen because of where Russia, China and America sit today, compared to 1995/6/7/8/9/2000, and I think that is one of the fascinating convos of this convo, which is incredibly interesting, because I think, Pete, Robert's point's incredibly right. I think so much of $37,000 and Telegram and Signal comes from this; I think he's exactly right. I actually think that's the point.
Peter McCormack: But, you know what, Gary, it's a good point you make, the timing of the internet; because, I would say the timing of Bitcoin is actually perfect right now as well. And, I'm very much interested in the idea that Bitcoin gives people a life raft and perhaps can lead to a reduction in the size of the state, not so much the downfall. I think the downfall's too big a picture that I can't get my head around now. But, if it restricts the state a little bit, if it draws the state back, if it brings back some freedoms and gives people a life raft, that next step is what I'm interested in. Over to you, Robert.
Gary Vaynerchuk: Robert, before you jump in, I apologise, I'm just going to have a little entertainment value on this show. Our friend, Peter, here just tweeted a picture of us. I am looking at it, because I like to multitask in these things; I didn't realise that you are a male model, Robert. Jesus Christ!
Peter McCormack: He's a handsome mother fucker!
Gary Vaynerchuk: These photos…!
Peter McCormack: Look at him!
Gary Vaynerchuk: Peter, what the fuck, bro! Look at this dude; look at this mug shot here!
Peter McCormack: Dude!
Gary Vaynerchuk: I'm impressed, Robert.
Peter McCormack: He's ripped, he's a handsome mother fucker, he's smart as shit, every girl loves him.
Gary Vaynerchuk: He must be sitting on some Bitcoin; this guy's got some fucking leverage out here right now!
Peter McCormack: He doesn't need the Bitcoin; I need it; I'm a fat fucker. I need the Bitcoin, he doesn't! Come on.
Gary Vaynerchuk: Go ahead, Robert.
Robert Breedlove: Thank you, Gary; I'm honoured. So, to gain an out, it's not like states and central banks are going to just decide that, "Oh, let's drop currency and we'll go to Bitcoin now because it's better for people"; that will never happen. They won't hold onto this thing. However, what they're initially likely to do is to buy Bitcoin as an insurance policy against its own success, and there are a lot of other reasons, but we'll focus on that one.
What I mean by that, if the board of central bank governors, or any other sovereign entity is sitting round a table and they determine, with 99% chance, that Bitcoin will not work, right, will not happen, so a 1% chance that Bitcoin does play out, then mathematically, if we use today's Bitcoin price, approximately $40,000, its post hyperbitcoinisation, which is Bitcoin eating everything, is roughly $100 trillion. So, we'll say that's $100 trillion divided by 21 million coins; roughly $5 million.
Unless a central bank or sovereign entity is more than 99.2% certain that Bitcoin has no chance of success, then their only prudent move is to invest at least 0.8% of their assets into Bitcoin as a perfect hedge against its success. Because, if Bitcoin goes from $40k to $5 million, hyperbitcoinisation price is 125X increase. So, that would justify a 0.8% allocation of a balance sheet.
Now, every time, there are also huge incentives to adopt first. The central banks or governments that adopt first benefit at the expense of those later; it's the whole musical chairs thing. Every time one does adopt, the same calculus gets run by another one, so we've increased the market cap of Bitcoin; we've increased the likelihood of its success; we've now gone from 99% chance of no success to maybe 98%. So, a central bank or government entity would increase the allocation slightly more. And, it's this gradual step-by-step process, I think, that will force even government entities into Bitcoin.
Gary Vaynerchuk: That's fine --
Robert Breedlove: The final conclusion, by the way; I now we keep saying my state and your state, but I don't think it's a binary outcome. The outcome is, the state moves from a pure monopoly that's unaccountable to the preferences of citizens, also to a private enterprise over time, as more and more capital is stored in its network and they cannot generate unilateral revenues to taxation and inflation.
So, I think the big move here is making states competitive. And, by making them competitive, they should shrink and they should become more attuned to the wants and needs of citizens.
Gary Vaynerchuk: Robert, in a lot of ways, doesn't that mean that Bitcoin plays out to just be a currency? I think you're making the argument for a lot of commerce-driven conversators in the community, which is great. Again, I'm going to say it again; I, by nature, am an entrepreneur and a capitalist, I was born in the Soviet Union, I grew up in the US; I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think what you just articulated is a hedge, which is amazing, and speaks to why Bitcoin could go from $37,000 to $5 million, which is fine by me too.
But, I think that the community as a whole is at a very funny spot, because they speak to the bigger purpose, they demonise currency; but, what's really happening is, in a lot of ways, the ambition is it for it actually to be a currency that's just a lot more than the money they put into it, so that they can benefit for it. And, there isn't this bigger conversation of what the promise or opportunity, at a bigger, philosophical and humanity states; that's what I take from when I listen to something like that. I'm not judging that; I think it's an interesting part of the conversation.
Robert Breedlove: I would draw the line between currency being the domain of government always, and I see Bitcoin as actually disrupting or dematerialising gold, which is the base layer of currency even. So, I think they can actually coexist, and we may have this for a while. We may have black market Bitcoin for some time that can be exchanged across a number of jurisdictions, whereas we have white market Bitcoin inside these state-walled gardens that you can only trade on a group of exchanges or use on a --
Gary Vaynerchuk: Can I ask you two a question because, Peter, this was really why I wanted to be on your podcast, really to almost do a reverse interview to what I'm trying to extract some information? What is the common conversation in the ecosystem, and take away the people that are so incentivised for Bitcoin that they're unable to see anything past that which, by the way again, I don't judge; actually, it's human nature, right? What is the current conversation in the ecosystem around the potential of other currencies gaining enough trust and brand recognition, infrastructure?
I'm wildly aware that there have been many other attempts and you see them on Twitter, whether it's Dogecoin; I remember Lite back in the day, and Ethereum's a whole different kind of ecosystem a little bit; but actually, on a personal level, Peter, Robert, do you think 14 years from today, is there another coin, another currency that might not be at $130,000 like Bitcoin; it might be at $16,000, but it's at 0.01 cents right now, or not existing right now?
What's your intuition and then, how much belief is there that a lot of times when you think about currency, you're thinking about brand and trust, right; if you really think about what's happening, people are just trusting Bitcoin; trusting; it's trust. I understand the underlining tech that allows more trust, the transparency, the ledger; but then, how much belief is there that there'll be others, and how much, for the people that do think of this as business sense, is putting time and effort and building community around it and thinking about this? Forget about pump and dump discords of Dogecoin, I'm talking like meaningful conversation of, "Yeah, this is one".
The US dollar; guess what? The yen has money in it too and so does the rouble and, if we're going to go this route, if we're going to say that it doesn't take away nations because that is heavy; wars, heavy death, whatever, is there a current conversation around the potential? And, for the people that are looking at this strictly from a commerce lens, is there worthwhileness to try to get very educated and spend 20% of your energy and time trying to be thoughtful of the emergency of another currency, because it is a lot of fun to get in at 5 cents to something that gets to $31. Thoughts?
Peter McCormack: Yeah, let me jump in first on this one, Robert, and then I'll let you have your one. I think, especially within Bitcoin, and Robert may agree or disagree with me, but I think a lot of us feel like Bitcoin is our one shot. If this one fails, we can't see another one coming out that is that far out of reach of the state; that has managed to build up the network effects; to maintain decentralisation; to have enough security. This is our one shot.
But, I also think we've passed the point of being able to be shut down. It can be legislated against, sure, but actually shutting it down, I think we're beyond that point; now, that can't happen. There will always be other currencies --
Gary Vaynerchuk: Can I ask you a question there? I apologise, because you gave me a thought.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, yeah.
Gary Vaynerchuk: At what point of regulation, back to Parler, back to pipes, back to the internet being an important thing, like, I'm an early investor in Coinbase; does Coinbase get knocked of the Apple store; just real stuff, just a lot of fun fodder. At what point does regulation -- because this, I think, continues to be the theme that most excites me as someone who loves to think. Forget about commerce and money. As someone who loves to think, genuinely loves to think, this is what I keep going back to over and over and I'm in love with it, because it's so challenging, I guess, is what I would say.
Social was easy for me, "Oh, we're going to live on the internet; people like to talk to each". That will always be true. This one's challenging. At what point does the regulation really change the promise, or the macro conversation?
Peter McCormack: Okay, just a couple of things. Let me put one more point before then for some perspective. I first bought Bitcoin when it was about $100; got involved seriously when it was around $500 in the start of 2017. I've spent more money on Bitcoin since it was $10,000, basically in the last few months, than the previous years. That comes down to conviction of what's happened in the last six months.
Gary Vaynerchuk: By the way, I think you might enjoy this: I've been yelling, publicly, for three years about sports cards and I've spent more money on sports cards in the last three months than I did -- or, six months, than the last -- because, to your point; that's just how everything works by the way. But, keep going.
Peter McCormack: Conviction, yeah. Yeah, the conviction comes at the right time. In response to your -- what was the other question? Oh, it's about the regulation.
Gary Vaynerchuk: Yeah, when is regulation kind of --
Peter McCormack: It's an interesting point, because kind of what regulation? If there's an outright ban, for example --
Gary Vaynerchuk: I'll give you an example. I'm sorry, Peter, let me play because Robert brought up some good points and I think I can ask my question a little bit. When tax revenue starts to get affected aggressively and a sovereign nation struggles to run itself for the 5,000 people that kind of control that, the thought of the momentum of that, of actually regulating the internet companies that control the way we transact on it, what happens there?
Peter McCormack: Well, think of it like this. Think of what's happening right now with the exodus from San Francisco. People are heading off to Wyoming, Texas, sometimes abroad. People have realised they can live, work wherever they want.
Gary Vaynerchuk: I think this continues to play in the game, and I'm sorry to interrupt, that Robert brought up with the Soviet Union. America doesn't give a fuck about California losing tax revenue to Texas. As a matter of fact, America's incentivised for having that.
Peter McCormack: But, my point I'm trying to get to is the options people have. So for example, if the UK, not even an outright ban; say the UK stuck a 50% tax on Bitcoin, I most likely leave the UK; I'm incentivised to go and live somewhere like the Cayman Islands. But also, what they do is if you have too heavy-handed a regulatory environment, you incentivise other places to have a lesser regulatory environment. Somewhere like, I mean, Estonia's great right now; Malta.
Gary Vaynerchuk: Let's play. What happens when Russia invades Estonia?
Peter McCormack: Well, I mean… yeah, yeah.
Gary Vaynerchuk: I think this really matters.
Peter McCormack: I leave.
Gary Vaynerchuk: You leave where?
Peter McCormack: I leave Estonia.
Gary Vaynerchuk: Yeah, I get it. But, what happens when America goes after the Cayman Islands? I mean this, because I think that, and I don't think it's naivety; I think the part that I continue to struggle with is the thought of the big three, and add the next 50 underneath them; the nations. Everyone keeps talking these nations have been inherently again us; you're right. So, why do you think, when we build momentum against them, that they're going to be like, "Yeah, everyone's like Estonia".
Cool. When Russia invades Estonia, as a matter of fact I would argue that more than Estonia's currency, or you can sit with your Bitcoin there, the more incentivised the Soviet Union, that Russia, Putin, has to go in there. I mean, I think people that live in the UK, the United States tend to have a naivety of certain aspects. To me, it only incentivises Putin. If I'm Putin, and I'm acting the way Putin's been acting, I want everybody to go to Estonia and then invade it and then put you, fucking Peter, in jail and tell you to give me 80% of your Bitcoin.
There's so much fascination to me on this.
Peter McCormack: But Russia, Gazprom, has just started mining Bitcoin.
Gary Vaynerchuk: Yeah, I get it, but like, fine. To me, that is exactly what Robert's talking about. I think that's right and I think all of them can and will. I again think that goes to the argument of, "Cool, I just think this is a good currency". I'm not going to talk anymore about people's right --
Peter McCormack: Well, it's a good investment.
Gary Vaynerchuk: That's right. I think this is where I get into the -- this is why I like dinner conversations, right; I'm with you, Peter. But, the community as a whole, and to Robert's point earlier; you have 100 people in a community, different fragmentations. But I think, when challenged with the question of what sovereign nations are going to do about it, normally, and I've talked to a lot of people at this point, normally goes into more of a conversation of, "But, it's going to be worth $300,000 a coin", then the promise that normally comes out of the mouth of what this is going to mean for humans, why this is good for the world, like all this stuff that is on the façade, which is again incredible; it's important to me, because I want to make sure everybody understands my tone.
I don't have judgement on somebody for being excited about buying something for $37,000 that's going to be $5 million. In fact, I understand it the most; it's been my chemicals my whole life. I'm a buyer and seller; I love it. But I think that, what I'm fascinated by is, people try to take it to a different kind of intellectual conversation and really, I think the fascinating thing is the questions of what happens in that environment. The argument that Bitcoin's $37,000 on its way to $4 million is fine; that's like any conversation. But, it can stop there then if Russia's mining it now, or like Robert says, they're going to incorporate.
To me, the bigger thing on that front is, if you really think about it, why give humans any leverage? Back to what Robert said. I think what Robert said perfectly correctly: as this scales, it forces countries to do better by their citizens, because they lost leverage. Let's just talk about the simplicity of leverage?
To me, I think that what we're in the precipice of, in the next half decade, as this continues to gain momentum, is those three or four entities saying, "Wait a minute; we have zero reason to let this have momentum. Let's pump our own infrastructure; create, incentivise a currency that we control, not as decentralised or has the momentum of Bitcoin". It is the enemy of the state.
Peter McCormack: Breedlove, I'm going to hand over to you, man.
Robert Breedlove: Yeah. I agree that you can think of Bitcoin as kind of the irrepressible barometer of state action. In a way, I describe Bitcoin as an insurance policy against central banking, so the more dollars they print, the more valuable that contract becomes. And, it's something they can't hide. The gold price; central banks own about 20% of its supply, so they've always been able to put downward pressure on it to keep their currencies relevant, but with Bitcoin it's a different story.
And I think too, the other thing that's challenging here to our mental model is, it's very easy to think in economic aggregates like, "What will China do [or] what will Russia do [or] what will the US do?" We have to remember that these are loosely coupled networks of different agendas and interest groups and people. And then, when top-line revenues start to decline, the thing that keeps this whole economic aggregate cohesive, then it tends to fragment. So, the decision-making body itself goes from America, per se, to maybe it's more like Texas and California competing with one another. So, I think that's a bit challenging to our mental model.
And, as far as to your earlier question about the difference between Bitcoin and --
Gary Vaynerchuk: Play that out, Robert, because I think this is great stuff, and I think it's really going to help me to think and everyone to think and you to think, right. So, again in that scenario, what do you think happens at a Washington DC level when there is actually the scale that you're talking -- I mean, when you make that statement of Texas versus California, it's absolutely right theoretically.
You know what's so funny is, it's the first time I thought of it. I think this is starting to get a little bit into Marxism for me as well, and here's what I mean; let me tell you where I'm going with that, Robert. I believe there are certain things that look so great on paper and theses that don't become human truths. And so, what you just said is exactly right, by the way. One day, this will be watched in 80 years, and I'll be like, "Damn, Robert was right", that's right; like, fragmentation. The question though is, Roman, Soviet, there were other places to go. What I'm fascinated by Bitcoin is it's omnipresent. And so it, by nature, suffocates the option.
I mean, to me, Russia, the UK, America and China actually have an alliance on this conversation, you know?
Robert Breedlove: Yeah, I agree. There are incentives to collude, right, perhaps between superpowers to maintain monetary authority. But, if you look, I think a quick study of history will prove that we've never seen effective, concerted action among antagonistic nation states, especially at the superpower level. So, I think that pressure to collude alludes to the need to adopt --
Gary Vaynerchuk: Can I ask you a question? Would you argue, or what would your point of view be on the fact that America and the Soviet Union both have the ability to press buttons and create World War III at a scale and carnage we've never seen; and in fact, from 1950, whatever, to 1990, it didn't happen. Would you argue that potentially, that is subconscious collusion?
Robert Breedlove: That's kind of like a game theoretic stalemate, isn't it?
Gary Vaynerchuk: Yeah, but I actually think it plays out in this scenario. I actually think superpowers do collude, you know, in the macro game, just not the micro games, and I wonder if that rears its head. I wonder if there's a way, and this again, I come on this show hypothesising.
For everybody one more time, I do not believe I'm right; I really don't. I surely haven't done enough homework to really even begin to think. I think I'm more right in human social media dynamics and other things, but I like hypothesising and this is such a fun conversation. And, that's where my mind went when you said --
Robert Breedlove: Let's take this simple mental map here. We know that fiat currency, central banking, requires steadily more and steadily faster growth in the money supply to remain relevant, right. It's a deadbeat system; you have to add more money to it at an increasing rate to keep it relevant. As that rate of money production increases, so do the incentives to adopt uninflatable money.
Gary Vaynerchuk: I absolutely believe that.
Robert Breedlove: So, it's almost a forcing function into Bitcoin. And then, as you move into Bitcoin, it's accelerating that process again because, every time we buy Bitcoin, we sell dollars, we further accelerated the inflation of the dollar and other fiat currencies. So, I don't see how people don't end up here economically. I don't know what shakes out afterwards, but it just --
Gary Vaynerchuk: By the way, good news, Robert. That proved that to be true. We're not even in predicting mode. Bitcoin's $37,000 a coin. So, I don't think that's even a conversation. And, you made that point earlier in the podcast and you're doing it again, and I don't even think we're hypothesising. It has been proven to be true.
Robert Breedlove: That's a good question; it's like, do we go back to a gold standard, or is this global, digital, non-state money that we call Bitcoin a viable alternative?
Gary Vaynerchuk: And, I think the thing that's most fascinating to me is, the community feeling comfortable. I actually think what undermines the community is this conversation; let me explain. I think that people are coming into -- I'm on Clubhouse, I'm on InForum, I'm on Discord, I'm on Twitter, I'm reading, I'm talking to humans, I'm watching, right. What's happening with the community right now is I think it's potentially making its own self vulnerable; let me explain.
There is this higher nobility conversation that the Bitcoin community has that's so aggressive that I think when you play this out, needs to be careful, because people are talking about the bigger thing, and they're not having these kinds of conversations that allow people on the other side. All the people hear on the other side that come in by the droves every day is, the nobleness, the rationale, the part that you just explained, Robert, and it becomes incentivised kind of dollar behaviour. And, I think as they all go through their journey of thoughtfulness and have convos more like we've had here in two episodes, you don't want to lose that trust because, what you don't want to do is become the thing that you were shitting on.
I think between what governments are going to do from a regulation standpoint, and what the community is doing, it's kind of like network marketing, right? It's like the lifestyle, the lifestyle, the lifestyle. And then, people come in. At first, it feels good; and then later, you kind of look at them and you're like, "Wait a minute?" And, I don't think it's the same, but I think there's a conversation to be had of how much responsibility is on the community that exists today, especially the people that have been anointed as "thought leaders", to be a little more thoughtful about a complete conversation, which I think will create more trust, not the reverse.
Robert Breedlove: Right, agreed.
Peter McCormack: Yeah.
Gary Vaynerchuk: I think Bitcoin's greatest vulnerability is somebody coming out with 21 million coins and having a thoughtful conversation on both sides, which will then gain momentum with human beings in way that's a little bit more thoughtful and practical, and not self-interest oriented. Everyone's self-interest oriented and by the way, so everybody hears, what I just said I don't say lightly. There's so much infrastructure, so much network effects, the years that Bitcoin's been; I get it. What I'm saying is, don't underestimate trust being lost as an incredible --
Peter McCormack: Do you know what, Robert, I just want to say it's a good point in some ways because, I mean, I'm a big hypocrite for this for jumping on the memes and laughing at people who don't like Bitcoin. And the other thing, as the price gets higher, you know, when we head into, say, six figures; if, and I believe it's an if, I think it's going to get worse actually. I think it will mean more and the people who didn't get in will be more distrustful of it and a bit more salty that they didn't. And, there is a potential that it feels too far away for some people to get in. I think Gary's making fair points there.
Robert Breedlove: Yeah. I would just add that it sorts of gets back to the difference between Bitcoin and alternative coins. The thing that makes Bitcoin so special is that it has proven itself immune to human opinion in politics, right. It's fought these civil wars, it's achieved this level of network effect, liquidity, decentralisation, 21 million. As I've said before, we have two certainties in life: we have death and taxes. We've introduced the third certainty; it's 21 million Bitcoin, and it changes the entire game of being a human on earth.
Gary Vaynerchuk: Robert, I think Bitcoin's next -- I think there's some real validity to that. I would also caution everybody in understanding that ten years in the scheme of human behaviour is awfully, awfully small. And again, one more time, I'm going to say it again, I have zero interest in thinking Bitcoin is not in perpetuity. I also have zero interest in thinking Bitcoin's in perpetuity. I think this is an incredible time to think and learn and evaluate and I think, Peter, your point is so well-taken.
People that bought Bitcoin at $500 or $80 or even $3,000 and that 21 million fragmentation holdings is subconsciously and consciously affected by believing it's in perpetuity, and I do think, Peter, as it continues to explode, and if it explodes quickly the way it is, you have a quick hyper overreaction the other direction for it to not. And, I think that is, you know, a really interesting conversation.
But, Robert, I agree with you. The brilliance of how it was structured, the mining ecosystem; I do not underestimate what ten years is. There were plenty of things that came along in the 2015/16/17, because I was paying attention more there, that tried to be the next. Like, I'm with you and I think the community should have a lot of conviction; I just think that we have not had the real wars yet of this, because when you play the chess out of what this actually, actually means, I do think it gets into Cuban Missile…
I'll tell you what I think is the wars. I think the Cuban Missile Crisis was the collusion, Robert. Do you know what I mean? There were brinks of -- and I don't know when, or if, or what world events, but as someone who just loves life and loves learning and seeing different things, boy that's going to be a scary and interesting moment if I happen to see it in my lifetime, when we get to that blink moment between, let's say, one of these superpowers; or, how about even the area we touched on? The four superpowers together versus the 8 billion; it's just a fascinating conversation.
Robert Breedlove: I want to say that those modes of extortion in the past, I don't think they hold as much relevance in Bitcoin. And then, the last point is that, Bitcoin is apolitical money; it's more like the internet. All other coins have political attack vectors; they have creators; they have issuers; they can be manipulated; they can be extorted, etc. And Bitcoin too, the point I push back on you guys is that, I don't think it can be disrupted by an alternative coin because, first of all, it's perfected all the properties of money; and second of all, it can absorb features from competitive crypto assets. So it's kind of like, competitive crypto assets are the test net for Bitcoin in a way.
Gary Vaynerchuk: Robert, I think those are all right. I think that we continue, and this has been always what's happened with technology in the last 30 years; we underestimate the human element. I do not believe enough people have interest in Bitcoin at this point, and the narrative is so hot that if it doesn't land in the next decade to be in enough people's hands, there is absolutely enough momentum with enough human beings to create conversations of alternative things.
Peter McCormack: Just let me throw in, Gary; does it actually matter if people option out, as long as it's there as an option in for people?
Gary Vaynerchuk: Peter, it does not matter for Bitcoin to go from $37,000 to $480,000…
Peter McCormack: Because, what happens is you have an option in, whether you're Lebanon, Argentina…
Gary Vaynerchuk: Correct. Peter, do you know how many people care about owning a Michael Jordan Rookie Card? Almost nobody. It's $236,000.
Robert Breedlove: Guys, I'd like to read this one line. It's this one line from The Sovereign Individual that I think speaks to this perfectly, "Market forces, not political majorities, will compel societies to reconfigure themselves in ways that public opinion will neither comprehend nor welcome. As they do, the naïve view that history is what people wish it to be will prove wildly misleading".
This is like an economic fundamental technological change that I don't think politics can sway. So, even if a big majority of people said, "Hey, we don't want Bitcoin anymore; we're going to try to go another direction", the incentives of Bitcoin still force itself upon them.
Gary Vaynerchuk: By the way, Robert, you'll appreciate this. I couldn't believe in it more. My question is, does China blow up the world?
Robert Breedlove: Yeah, well…
Gary Vaynerchuk: Like, Robert, it's a really serious, fair question, right? Everything you just said is right, in my opinion; I could be 100% wrong. Okay, you're talking about the whole game. We're not talking about what Peter said before. That sentence is the whole game. Peter's sentence, which is absolutely true is, yeah, by the way, there could be three coins that are like Bitcoin, like really fucking serious, in 40 years and that doesn't affect Bitcoin from $37,000 to £1.7 million instead of $5 million, right? That's fine.
But, I think the point you're making is the one -- I'm trying to actually spend my time on the point you're making. I'm clearly going to go out and get that book and I'm probably going to head on out the whole time, because my intuition, which has served me extremely well around human conditioning and things of that nature, is going to shake its head. That's the first time I've heard that; I couldn't believe it more.
Peter McCormack: There's another book though. If you're going to read that one, you need to have The Fourth Turning as well.
Gary Vaynerchuk: Listen, I always love that shit, so I will do that. Thank you, Peter. I'm telling you right now, that sentence, Robert, has me so invigorated out of curiosity, you can't imagine; because, if that's true, there's 0.0 of me that doesn't see extreme carnage and pain to get there.
Robert Breedlove: Yeah, transitions are scary, and that's why I --
Gary Vaynerchuk: No, transitions are always ugly; always.
Robert Breedlove: Yeah. The best thing you can do in this situation is optimise for optionality, right. So, you need things like Bitcoin, you need multiple passports.
Gary Vaynerchuk: Hey, Robert, Peter, if you play out what we're talking about right now, history and human conditioning can speak to a really fascinating conversation where humans that sit with the most Bitcoin in the moments that we're talking about in the future are actually in incredibly invulnerable spots. Hence, why many have already even subconsciously or consciously realised that and have stayed quite private.
You would think that people with the most holdings of such, in the day of reckoning of nations versus humans, are the ones that get slaughtered, and it's actually the people behind them, right. It's almost like, "Don't be the first whatever, be the second one". Talk about something very dark that's not fun to talk about, but again, this is why I'm so grateful, Peter, for the invite.
This is what I used to do in private rooms with friends. I've never really been in a podcast format where I'm ideating, hypothesising, asking, curious, learning; this is so fun. By the way, I think more podcasts should be like this. By the way, I think this is why Clubhouse has the moment right now, if this is what's happening in those worlds.
Nonetheless, one could argue that if you play the chess moves out, that the people that are sitting with the biggest holdings in the world become incredibly vulnerable as the people that are most vulnerable to that initial ugliness before what you just said plays out behind it.
Peter McCormack: They also become powerful, incredible powerful.
Gary Vaynerchuk: Well, that's right, which then leads into different dynamics, because money's not the only thing. So, now to your point, we're seeing it now with personal brands, right; but to your point, if somebody's sitting with an incredible amount of Bitcoin and is a Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Gandhi-like communicator, right, more me than let's say a lot of people that know a lot about social, but they're just quiet in their writings; what does that mean. And, by the way, there's a reason Elvis and John Lennon were on the FBI's list.
I remind people, Elvis was heavily paid attention to by the FBI; Elvis, right? Why; because popularity, when leveraged of attention gets to a place, it becomes dangerous. Does anybody not think that America, China and Russia right now have a list of the human beings that are sitting with the most Bitcoins? It's impossible, to the best of their abilities, right. Fascinating conversation.
Robert Breedlove: Agreed.
Peter McCormack: Hmm.
Gary Vaynerchuk: I guess that's the part that I'm most -- I think I like humanity and kindness and good so much that I'm almost like, oh, maybe the reason I'm so passionate about this is I feel like through my auditing the last four years, heavily the last year, aggressively the last six months, I think if we had more convos like this, it would actually protect people, not the other way round.
Robert Breedlove: Agree completely. And I would say too, that realisation, Gary, you just went through, people will increasingly have that and then decide which side of history they want to be on. It's like, you need optionality going into uncertainty, and Bitcoin affords you some of the greatest optionality in the world.
So again, it's another one of these forcing functions where, I love the thing Thiel said; he was quoting Trotsky, he said, "You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you". Well, I think that's true for Bitcoin, "You may not be interested in Bitcoin, but Bitcoin is interested in you".
Gary Vaynerchuk: Yeah, I think that's right, brother. Men, real quick before I bounce, what about all the other stuff: Ethereum, other currencies, other conversations; why does it feel so combative, the micro communities with each other?
Peter McCormack: It's because it's about money. When it's about money, people become combative. The reality is most of them are doomed to failure. I think if we're in ten years' time, whilst I'm not a fan, I think Ethereum probably still exists in one way or another, people are still doing experiments and mucking around with it. I've got no interest in it; I'm Bitcoin only. But, the majority of it, 90%, 99%, is just garbage. Breedlove, you?
Robert Breedlove: I think all human belief systems have an immune system-like response. Any time you adhere to an ideology, you're resistant to others.
Gary Vaynerchuk: I think that's the great vulnerability. For example, Peter just talking, I started laughing in my head, kindly, of he's just talking the same thing that people talked about money about Bitcoin.
Robert Breedlove: The thing about Bitcoin, though, is it's an ideology centred on mathematics, truth, transparency, thermodynamics.
Gary Vaynerchuk: I totally understand. I couldn't understand more, Robert. The gold standard, right, once it went away from that, Nixon, I get it. It also doesn't mean it can't go back. It also doesn't mean all the other stuff. But I get it. But by the way, then it goes into what probably will happen, which is an incredible level of coexisting for such a long period of time that everybody who's listening right now who's alive, forget about the future which is kind of cool, could you imagine listening to a podcast right now of people talking about the first actual paper currency? Let's just talk about that for a minute.
Talk about things that people don't think about. Could you imagine if you woke up this morning, got interested in money for the first time in your life and pulled up a podcast from 1403, 609, like whatever; I'm not educated enough on those years! But, how cool is it that this conversation, hopefully, if there's no disruption, is something people listen to in 400 years and are just making fun of the three of us like, "Oh, those guys had no clue!", whatever it is; or, "Holy shit, can't believe Peter knew that 400 years ago!"
Robert Breedlove: I actually think that gets into when I was trading tweets with Elon the other day, which was super cool for me; but, I tweeted him and said, "Money is simply a tool for moving value across space and time; gold was great for moving value across time, but not space; paper currency is great for moving value across space, but not time; only Bitcoin has optimised for moving value across both space and time". So, one of those podcasts you're referring to in 609, or whatever, talking about the introduction of paper currency, the guys would be like, "Oh, this is super cool. We can move our gold around the world much more easily now".
But, it's these technological innovations that really drive society, right. The move to paper currency, it enabled the nation state that we live in today.
Gary Vaynerchuk: But to me, what gets so interesting is that collective humanity decides.
Robert Breedlove: Yes.
Gary Vaynerchuk: Fuck gold, fuck Bitcoin; why can't it be tulips?
Robert Breedlove: Well, the market decides though.
Gary Vaynerchuk: Correct. The market is humans.
Robert Breedlove: Yeah, the market selects for the credibility of monetary properties. So, tulips don't have the properties.
Gary Vaynerchuk: Correct.
Robert Breedlove: So, people that use it lose.
Gary Vaynerchuk: Correct. So, what's interesting to me on that is the trigger points that actually get trust at scale, hence the thematic that I think I've spoken about here for an hour and 11 minutes, which is the roundedness of the conversation and the taking a step back from blind conviction that the community has right now, is likely going to be the thing that gives it its best chance. And, if it keeps going the way it's been going, in my opinion, for a long enough period of time, that creates the opportunity for something else, even though BTC has such an advantage.
Robert Breedlove: Yeah. I think, as a guy that like to think, you're going to love the Bitcoin rabbit hole; you haven't really been down it yet! There's guys like Nick Szabo, you know, they actually describe this as trust minimisation. We don't need to trust one another by using Bitcoin; we trust the maths, essentially.
Gary Vaynerchuk: By the way, that is something many of my most thoughtful friends, who've gone down the rabbit hole for a longer period of time -- that's the beauty of having smart, nice friends; you get sped up on things. I get that very much.
Robert Breedlove: It's a game with fair and unbreakable rules and people always voluntarily adopt that game.
Gary Vaynerchuk: Within it; and my point is, no doubt it, within it.
Robert Breedlove: Yes.
Gary Vaynerchuk: And then becomes humans.
Robert Breedlove: Correct.
Gary Vaynerchuk: So, one human, the leader of China at one moment is an interesting variable. John F Kennedy Jnr and Khrushchev, luckily for a lot of us, in my opinion, were the two humans in play. I'm curious what happens if Putin and Trump were the two humans in play at that moment; like, just how life works. There are many people that would be alive still if the other human wasn't a killer that was in their apartment at that moment.
There's such fascination of mine on the human element of everything that I think what ends up happening with technologists and things that are based in things like maths is, a lot of the human truths get commoditised and we don't have thoughtful enough conversations; I really believe that. Because the thesis is right, but there have been a lot of theses that were truly right that have not played out, you know. I see it every day.
To go to a much more silly thing, we have people coming into marketing for the last 20 years all the time on technology that are maths-based, and they're fascinated by why it didn't work out, because art is part of the equation. Bitcoin is so much more art than people realise, and that is still being shaped. The maths is iron-clad, Robert; the art is still in its infancy, and I'm fascinated by that.
Robert Breedlove: Agreed. And I would just say that as far as a thesis being expressed in the marketplace, there's never been one expressed more loudly and more clearly than Bitcoin. I mean, I think that's the reason all these things we're talking about --
Gary Vaynerchuk: Well, I think the reason everyone tries to attach it to gold is, gold clearly pulled it off. I'm not educated on how, but it did.
Robert Breedlove: Gold has the greatest, longest story, but Bitcoin has the fastest growing, most incendiary story.
Gary Vaynerchuk: Well, that's because there's something called The Internet, Robert.
Robert Breedlove: Exactly, exactly.
Gary Vaynerchuk: It's called the internet; the speed in which -- so, I'm with you, brother. Instagram did a hell of a lot quicker to get to 10 million than the telephone did; it's the speed of the internet, no doubt about that. And, that is why I remind everybody, and this is a great way, for my opinion, of wrapping up the incredibleness of this conversation; I remind everybody that the internet is controlled and that becomes, to me, the biggest thing that would give me confidence is if the sovereign nations didn't control the emerging internet too while Bitcoin was happening. And, I think that is a fascinating conversation maybe for a part three, Peter, one day.
Peter McCormack: Give it a year, man. Give you a break on this, and we'll come back to this.
Robert Breedlove: I might have something to say about that too, so you're absolutely right and I think we'll see new internet structure.
Gary Vaynerchuk: I agree. Kudos my friend; I think that's right. To me, that's where my chessboard goes, right, which is like, this is going to force internet too; because everyone's going to realise, it's so easy to control Bitcoin than sovereign nations, because the internet is controlled by the nations and that is a requirement. And, I think that is going to be fascinating.
Peter McCormack: Gary, look, appreciate your time again. I will revisit this in a year. Thanks, Robert. It's pretty late where he is, like 1.00 in the morning, so I appreciate you staying up, brother. Look, I think people are going to love this; I think this was much better than the last one. Have a great weekend, guys. Stay in touch and anything either of you need, reach out.
