WBD331 Audio Transcription

Bitcoin HODL FOMO with Brady Swenson

Interview date: Wednesday 7th April

Note: the following is a transcription of my interview with Brady Swenson. 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 the Head of Education at Swan Bitcoin, Brady Swenson. We discuss the bitcoin bull market and HODL FOMO, the transitional period between fiat currency and bitcoin and how the future role of state and government will change.

“Money is the pillar of civilisation, and our money is broken, its breaking down, its crumbling.”

— Brady Swenson

Interview Transcription

Peter McCormack: Anyway, man, welcome.

Brady Swenson: Thanks, dude.

Peter McCormack: I can't believe this is the first time you've been on my show.

Brady Swenson: Yeah, it's been a while, man.  You've been on my show a couple of times.  We've had fun hanging out.  We got to hang out at Bitcoin 2019.  That piano bar party was kind of crazy, man!

Peter McCormack: That was so good, man.

Brady Swenson: That was a good one.

Peter McCormack: Yeah.

Brady Swenson: Yeah.

Peter McCormack: But, I think my show's finally got big enough to get you on!

Brady Swenson: Yeah, man.  I had to wait until you really hit the big time.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, man, well I appreciate it.  I'm actually embarrassed I've not had you on yet.

Brady Swenson: It's all good.

Peter McCormack: Here we are, man.  We've got a good topic to talk about as well.  We're going to talk about the HODL FOMO.  Do you know why I love this topic?

Brady Swenson: Let's hear it.

Peter McCormack: Because I think those two words together, well I know FOMO's four words, but those two words together, they describe this bull market.

Brady Swenson: I think so too, buddy.

Peter McCormack: Everything that's going on in it.  I was like, "Fucking hell, Brady, you've literally crystalized this bull market into two words".

Brady Swenson: I love it too, because it flips FOMO on its head, right?

Peter McCormack: Yeah, man.

Brady Swenson: FOMO's all about, "I got to get in the game.  It's hysteria".  HODL's all about long-term thinking and figuring this thing out and is the opposite of hysteria; it's like levelheadedness and patience.  I love the idea of putting them together and flipping FOMO.

Peter McCormack: Well, I'll tell you why I love it, because I completely screwed 2017 up, right.  If I had have HODL FOMOd 2017 correctly, I would be very, very wealthy this bull market; and I didn't.  I traded the shit up, traded it down; and then what I've done for this year, I've just stacked sats like everyone said, as much as I possibly can and I'm just sitting through this.

Brady Swenson: Yeah, just calm man, zen as can be.  It's a nice place to be.

Peter McCormack: Zen.  Wait for that 20X and just sit through it.  And, one of the most regular questions that people keep asking me, especially in the comments on YouTube or DMs is like, "What price do you think that market tops out; when are you going to sell?" and I keep going back and saying, "Look, I wish I knew".  If I had a good indication, I maybe would sell a little bit.  But realistically, I don't want to FOMO, what are we talking about?  2025; I don't want to get to 2025 and think, "Shit, I sold the wrong time.  I'm now hodling with a smaller stack".

Brady Swenson: Right.

Peter McCormack: I don't want that.

Brady Swenson: No, I don't either, man.  I lived the same thing.  I had a lot more Bitcoin in 2017 than I ended up with, trying to trade.  I told myself I did figure out that Bitcoin was the thing, but I told myself, "Look, I can trade in and out of some of these shitcoins that are pumping, catch the right timing".  I was trolling Telegram groups and Discord groups and trying to find these shitcoin whales that were saying, "All right, this is the next one.  We're going to pump this one", and it never happened.  I couldn't find those little pots of gold.

You might hit lucky a couple of times, but it's no different than gambling in Vegas; the house is going to win at some point.  So, I lost some Bitcoin, I didn't understand the taxes, just totally raked over the calls on taxes.  So, yeah, not good; lessons learned, though.  That's how you forge a hodler, right there.

Peter McCormack: Dude, I used to keep this spreadsheet on my laptop and it was my Bitcoin, it was all my shitcoins and what they were valued in Bitcoin, and what my total Bitcoin holding was.  At its peak, my entire portfolio was, I think it was like 182 Bitcoin.

Brady Swenson: Are you fucking kidding me?

Peter McCormack: No, dude.  Like 182 Bitcoin.  I can't remember the price.  I don't think we'd gone over $6,000 at that point, because I'd bought XRP at fuck-all; I'd bought all these shitcoins at nothing, right, and they just exploded.  I had one, I think it was an XRP position of, I want to say $500 that went to $30,000.  I had so many things like that, like a big EOS win, etc.

But, at that point I was like, "I'm going to be so fucking rich".  And that's when I was like "Okay, now I'm going to get into mining.  And now I'm going to start up a trading business.  And then I'm going to buy even more shitcoins".  And then, I rode all that shit down and then had to pay my taxes.  And I'm not going to say it all went, because it didn't, but about 90%, maybe more went.  I look back and I was, "Holy shit".  I mean, what the fuck would that be worth now; let's have a look?

Brady Swenson: A lot, a hell of a lot.

Peter McCormack: Where are we at now; $60,000?

Brady Swenson: $10 million?

Peter McCormack: Yeah, $10.7 million!  Oh, dude, yeah.

Brady Swenson: Ouch!

Peter McCormack: Yeah.

Brady Swenson: It's all good.  You know what though, what I respect about that is that you hung on, you didn't say, "Fuck this, I'm out"; you were like, "I'm going to figure this thing out and I'm going to start the biggest podcast in the space and I'm going to hustle", and look what you've built, man; and you're here for the long-haul now.

Peter McCormack: I think you've got that chronologically wrong, though, because you've made me sound like a legend!  What actually happened was, I started the podcast during that period, because I was like, "I'm going to start a mining company; I'm going to start a podcast", and by the time I was going nearly broke, the only thing I had left was the podcast; that's all I had. 

There was one point, I got to a point where my total net worth, outside of my house, was $60,000.  But, I also had a £90,000 tax bill coming in and I had my house.  So, my net position was almost negative; I think probably about even, including my equity in the house.  Because I didn't have a job, I couldn't get a mortgage.  I don't know what it's like out in the US?  I had to get a mortgage, so I spoke to the mortgage company and they were like, "Well, because you haven't got a job, we can't give you one". 

So, this is where I'm going to confess one of those other things and people are going to hear it and they're going be like, "Oh, fucking hell, Pete, you've committed fraud again", but I kind of told a lie to get a mortgage; not a full lie.  I sent a letter from my employer about my job, and my job was What Bitcoin Did, right?  But I didn't connect the two that it was like some shitty podcast that wasn't doing anything.

So, I got my mortgage and I was down to my last $60,000 of everything; it's not like $60,000 in the bank.  And then I just fucking worked.  I nearly took a job at one point and then I got some cheques from the podcast and here we are.  But, it was rough.  And, I'll tell you the worst thing about it.  I actually had some good money when I left my agency job. 

When we closed the agency down, I had a few hundred thousand and I blew that shit during the bull market.  I bought a watch and a car and flew first class like a proper moron!  Shit, I'm kind of doing the same stuff now, but, yeah.

Brady Swenson: Yeah, how's that Aston doing?!  The funny thing is, I never know if it's a marketing ploy, or if you really got that Aston; I just can't tell, because you're so good at doing that, getting people riled up, you know; so, I just don't even know anymore!

Peter McCormack: Yeah, I bought the car.

Brady Swenson: Nice.  Is that a dream?

Peter McCormack: Yeah, it is, man.  All I give a shit about is cars, right.  I'm at that point where I should have moved house and I was like, "I don't want to move house.  I'm okay with my house.  I've got four walls and a bathroom and I can watch the TV here.  I don't have a cool car, so I'm going to get the car".  But I did post up the picture of it at the garage knowing full well that people would be like, "What the fuck kind of garage is that?"

Brady Swenson: Yeah, that was a good one.

Peter McCormack: Like, the lawnmower!

Brady Swenson: Next up, the football team!

Peter McCormack: Yeah, dude.  Listen, that's next.  You know what; I've got an idea about that.  I think I can make that happen.  Anyway, this is not meant to be about me, dude; it's mean to be about you.

Brady Swenson: I'm just catching up.

Peter McCormack: How's this market treating you?

Brady Swenson: Great, man.  I mean, like we were talking about, I'm just zen, watching this Number Go Up.  I'm just busy right now living the dream, getting to work in Bitcoin full time, so that's super exciting.  And I'm just waking up and focussing on that, falling asleep thinking about Swan; so, it's basically Swan and family time right now and it's fantastic, man.  I'm loving it and it's fun.

It was good timing.  We started it about a year ago and just had about six months at the end of the bear market and it was build, build, build and kind of had heads down.  Then the thing kind of took off a little sooner than we thought, but as you know, Number Goes Up in price, number is going up on all the Bitcoin businesses in every way possible as well.  So, we're just trying to keep up and scale and having a great time.  Man, we have such a fun team.

Peter McCormack: Well, we'll talk about that, but you're right; every Number Goes Up, right?  Bitcoin Number Goes Up; your downloads go up; your inbox goes up; your spams you have to deal with goes up; your bullshit annoying people you have to deal with go up.

Brady Swenson: All the people, all the scammers trying to impersonate you, goes way up.

Peter McCormack: Yeah.  I was having a conversation, I can't remember who I was talking to about it recently, but I was saying I actually prefer the bear market on almost every measure.  The only two measures that I don't is net wealth and downloads, right, because downloads is a measure of the business and net wealth is a measure of the cool shit you can buy in the future.  But, everything else I prefer about the bear market.

Brady Swenson: Yeah, the bull markets are pretty crazy; it's just a ton of work to do, which is good.  I mean, it's good work, it's a good busy, it's a fun busy; but, it is nice to be able to put your head down and actually work through some of the bigger projects that you had in mind to get done, because once this thing comes on, you're just trying to keep up with incoming and there are not a lot of long-term projects that can be really well thought out and executed.  It's just, "We've got to get this thing out, even though it's half-baked, and we're just going to build the engine while the plane is flying".

It's fun; it's a hell of a lot of fun.  I'm the kind of guy that likes that environment.  I like the startup environment.  I'm not a corporate drone, keepable kind of guy; I don't like that kind of routine.  I want to have something different every day, wear a bunch of different hats and just grind with the team that I love.  So, this suits me very well.

Peter McCormack: You guys are killing it as well?

Brady Swenson: Thanks, man.  Yeah, it's been a year; it's been an amazing year.  We launched 31 March last year, so just over a year now.  And, yeah, I think there was just a market for a Bitcoin company focussed on Bitcoin, focussed on education and not doing anything else; just doing those two things.  Because, you teach people what's going on here, they're going to buy it and they're going to buy more of it.  And, people are nervous and scared about what this thing is.  It's new; it's your money; it's your wealth.

We're onboarding a lot of boomers, which kind of surprised us a little bit at first, but makes total sense now.  And what they want is trust and understanding.  So, having a team that will get on the phone and talk to you, or we're starting to do this series of webinars now, where we'll just send an email, "Yo, you want to learn about Bitcoin?  We're going to be here and we're going to be doing these webinars every week and just jump in and we'll give you a quick 20-minute overview and then, you can ask any questions you want". 

We're doing the same thing on Clubhouse, literally just walking people through the signup process and answering their questions as they go.  And, it's been incredible.  I mean, that's just what people need; they need to understand what's going on here.

Peter McCormack: Well, it's a bit like Pomp said.  Pomp said, "All companies need to be --", it is need to be; or, "All companies are media companies".  You need to be a media company and that's what Swan is.  Swan is a media company that sells Bitcoin.

Brady Swenson: Exactly right, man.  That was our thesis from the very beginning, "Be the media, create all this educational content", and I think that's what creates a moat around a business like ours.  Because, everybody's going to be selling Bitcoin at some point and it's going to drive margins down.  And so, you can't, long term, rely on that business alone; but what you can do is build a brand that's really well-trusted, because you've created a bunch of educational content, you're really taking the time to teach people what's going on, and that trust builds a moat around your business and hopefully, will allow us to be around for a while.

I mean, I think we got in early enough on selling Bitcoin that that helps too, kind of getting in a little bit early enough, and being one of the first Bitcoin-only companies I think helps.  But, being in the media and producing all that stuff helps build a moat around the business and that's been the strategy since day one.

Peter McCormack: Well, I think it's been really impressive to watch from the outside.  Do you publish any numbers; do you talk about volumes; are you being included in CoinMarketCap or anything yet?

Brady Swenson: Well, we did launch a coin, SwanXRP; you can go to swanxrp.com and check that out.

Peter McCormack: You know what I mean, when they have -- you know when they show the volumes?

Brady Swenson: Yeah.  No, I don't think we're on exchange volumes yet.  We haven't published anything explicit.  But, you know, it's definitely been growing a lot.  I think Cory might want to publish it at some point.  We've got tens of thousands of customers now.  The amount of Bitcoin we're selling has gone up a lot since we launched Swan Private and are taking in a bunch of entities, so I've got to thank Michael Saylor for that, man; he really kicked off that trend.

So, there's this kind of niche for companies that the big NYDIGs of the world aren't really interested in; they're kind of small fish for them.  But, they need to know what's going on, they need to learn, they want to talk to a human; so, we've been taking on a lot of midsize to just transitioning into really big companies.  That's really pushing up the volume of Bitcoin that we're selling per customer.  So, it's definitely taken off.

We hit profitability in eight months.  Cory's really good at keeping our run, our burn rate down, and just being mindful of the long term, man, just like Bitcoin long-term thinking.  We want to make sure we're around; we don't know when the bear market's going to come and we just want to be in a position to survive it, you know what I mean.

Peter McCormack: Well Cory's just a proper businessman, right?

Brady Swenson: Oh, yeah absolutely, man.  I've never seen a networker like him.

Peter McCormack: A dude.  I met him first in LA and the moment I met him I was like, "Oh shit, bigshot here".  But, just watching him operate from a distance and seeing the moves he's made, it's been really interesting.  I don't know if this was him, but the advisers and the Swan team you assembled, it's like a little team of superstars, right?  All out there, networking, creating content; it was impressive to watch.

Brady Swenson: Yeah, just picked up some of the best bitcoiners in the space.  No one had done it really, just building a Bitcoin company and taking the Bitcoin educators.  Everybody on our team, even Yan, he's written probably the best intro book on how Bitcoin works, the system works.  And, he's our CTO and co-founder.  Gigi was on the squad for quite a while, has written a book.  He just moved over to Seetee with that billion-dollar Bitcoin startup.  That Norwegian family is just amazing; he's like employee one over there now.  So, we always joke that our engineering team are better writers and educators than the rest of us, so yeah; it is a cool team.

But, yeah, this market is going crazy and I think things are different this time.

Peter McCormack: I think they are.

Brady Swenson: That's what you were getting into with the HODL FOMO thing.  I wrote this thread back on 13 November last year and I've been talking to Preston Pysh on Swan Signal Live about "escape velocity"; that's what he was calling it.  And then, Dan Held wrote a piece that he talked about on your show, the Supercycle; he wrote that in December. 

So, the idea's been floating around and it's really simple.  It's just that the 2017 run was driven by short-term retail trader speculation.  They were denominating everything in fiat gains, but that's it.  And I think this run is being dominated by individuals and corporations and entities that are understanding that this is a thing to hold for the long term, that this is a hedge against the mass inflation we're seeing; and, they're denominating their gains -- basically, they're FOMOing into hodling, which is why I call it HODL FOMO; they're FOMOing in. 

They're like, "I've got to get in here at the best price possible and start converting some of this [as Saylor puts it] melting ice cube into something that's not going to be debased".  And so, that fundamental understanding, that fundamental change in understanding what Bitcoin is, will create hodlers with massive means, right, because Saylor's not going to sell any of his 100,000 Bitcoins; and they will then set this floor much higher. 

I don't think we're going to see massive pullbacks, because we're going to see people who understand what's going on scoop all that up.  So, maybe at 50% or 40%, they're going to be, "All right, this is a massive discount; I'm going to scoop this up", and all the people who are waiting for that 80% drop are just going to be left behind.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, it's interesting.  The drawdown; will it happen, won't it happen, because we still don't know?  I don't know how much of this is controlled by whales; I don't know if there'll be a bear market at drawdown; I don't know.  I've got a feeling we won't, because I've got a feeling we've got a much deeper pool of dip buyers, right?

Brady Swenson: Yeah, that's what I'm saying.  Yeah, I think so.

Peter McCormack: But, I don't know, man; maybe we do and it's a 70% drop.  I don't know.  All I know is one of the things that's really hard is telling hot tops and telling bottoms and if you don't need to spend the money, then it's best to hold it in Bitcoin.  I've done it.  I don't know how much you guys keep of your treasury or reserves in Bitcoin?

Brady Swenson: As much as we can!

Peter McCormack: Yeah.  I do.  Anything beyond eight weeks of cash flow goes into Bitcoin.  I mean, this is just a podcast, dude, and you have got to be thinking most of the money we've been putting in Bitcoin now has essentially done anything from a 4X to a 6X.  And now, we've got the capital to launch other brands, to try other things, just because we did that.  We don't have to raise venture money, because we've held money in Bitcoin.

But, that's been great, that's been really cool; but, the only thing that worries me, if there is a bear market, I have to think about what the drawdown is on the business reserves.  That's something I have to really think about.  So, it's more of a hope, dude; I just hope it doesn't happen.

Brady Swenson: Yeah, and it certainly could.  I mean, it could be the same thing where companies are watching their balance sheets.  Talk about a melting ice cube; melts away in terms of dollars and they're going to go back to -- they're going to get out.  Maybe there's a cascade again and that's certainly possible.  There are funds and insurance companies, etc, that have bylaws that say that they have to rebalance their sheets when one asset gets to be too high a percentage of their total investments, and so that's going to put some slow pressure on. 

The graphs that I've been loving to watch is just the precipitous drop in coins coming off exchanges.  I do think part of that is an increase in people understanding that this is a thing to hodl and they're pulling it off exchanges to put it in deep cold storage.  But, there are a lot more reasons to take your coins off exchanges in this cycle than there were in previous cycles.  I mean, the yield-generating businesses are out there; people will take their coins off trying to seek some other yield.  The Bitcoin-backed loans out there; you've got to pull your coins off exchanges and put those in as over-collateralised usually and lock those up.  So, that's another reason to lock up coins and not sell them.

So, I'm just seeing that trend.  I know some of that is not for long-term hodling and some of it is, but it's a very interesting turn to see these coins being taken off exchanges in droves like we've never seen.

Peter McCormack: Yeah.  There are a couple of interesting things that Saylor's done.  Fuck me, that guy's come through like a steam train and changed the game; like, unbelievable!  I don't agree with everything he says, but I've also watched him change his position sometimes.  I'm like, okay, he's still learning himself, but what a fascinating person to listen to. 

But, the two really important things that add to the HODL FOMO narrative; forget the $1 billion, $2 billion he's gone and raised and spent on Bitcoin, right.  My most favourite thing he does is that thing every month where they're like, "We've bought another 250 Bitcoin with our profits as part of our treasury strategy".  That's the really important thing; that's the real message.  It's not the massive purchase, which in itself is super interesting and will most likely prove him to be a genius; but it's the actual keep stacking. 

I call it million-dollar cost averaging.  He just keeps stacking.  Those amounts are quite small compared to the big stack, but he keeps stacking.  Sometimes, I don't know if you ever have it, you think, "Oh, we're in a bull market now; what's the point of stacking anymore, because it's only $300 this week; what does that even compare; how does that even make a dent?"  So, that's the first thing.

But also, he's been instrumental in this narrative of the kind of Pierre Rochard speculative attack, that you shouldn't be spending your Bitcoin.  It's a pristine asset; you should be borrowing against it, and he's fucking right.

Brady Swenson: Yeah, man.

Peter McCormack: And both of those support the HODL FOMO, dude.

Brady Swenson: Absolutely, yeah.  I mean, I think the thesis of the HODL FOMO is definitely strengthened by this macroeconomic environment.  I would not think that, and I didn't before all of this stuff happened, the economic response to COVID, that this cycle would be any different than 2017 in terms of just, there's still a big information asymmetry between people who have been studying this thing for a while and people who are going to be coming in.

But, with the monetary policy, just the massive amount of money printing, and we're looking at printing another $2 billion; these are just steps towards a UBI and modern monetary theory that they're out there just doubling down on this idea, this conceit, that they can manage this economy by printing whatever they want and manage the purchasing power of the money over time with yield curve control and interest rates and all that stuff.  It's never happened in the history of the world.  They're utterly convinced now that they can do it, "We got smart enough; we understand enough now; so we can actually do it this time", and it's just not going to end well.

I was talking with Max Keiser the other day on Keiser Report and I was just, "Look, UBI might be the best thing for us to transition to a Bitcoin world, because these guys, the richest of the rich, have been benefitting from this monetary socialism, this money printer, the Cantillon effect, where the closer you are to the money printer, the more you benefit; that hey, just throw a little bit our way towards the end of the collapse of this money, and maybe we can buy some Bitcoin with it and have a little bit fairer distribution". 

These big banks are coming in now and I think they're going to be taking that cheap money from the printer once they wise up to what's going on and they're going to be, "All right, this thing's going up and this is the better money and, Gresham's Law, we're going to drive it out and we're just going to buy up everything that we can".

I see that happening and I think that that has been pulled forward from the future massively with this economic response and this idea that, yeah, we got this under control, we can print however much we want.  What was that guy's name; Kashkari, with the eyes, the crazy eyes wide open.  He's like, "The Federal Reserve has infinite cash", in whatever that CBS interview was and that meme goes around.  They believe this, man.

Peter McCormack: Well, they're all from the church of Stephanie Kelton.

Brady Swenson: Yeah, you interviewed her, right?

Peter McCormack: I did; she's pleasant.

Brady Swenson: Yeah, she's a nice person.

Peter McCormack: I think she made me look smart sometimes, which always concerns me.  I think if you make me look smart, there's something fucking wrong with you.  But, she couldn't even answer some basic questions I put to her.

I understand, if you're not a bitcoiner and you're just in that world of Keynesian Economics, I can see how you can rationalise MMT; I can see how you can rationalise it, because they've done it for so long, they've printed money for so long and the economy keeps ticking.

Brady Swenson: They've spent decades building up this academic tradition justifying these ideas.  So, they've minted all these PhD economists and given Nobel Prizes to them and they're stuck in their ivory towers with these Federal Reserve banks, regional banks, and the main Federal Reserve Central Bank, and they just really, really believe that they know better than everyone else and that they will be able to make this work.

Danielle DiMartino Booth, she was the right-hand analyst for the Chair of the Dallas Fed in 2008/2009.  He was actually the only Fed Chair, regional Fed Chair, to express some dissent and doubt about the approach, the quantitative easing approach.  And, she writes in her book that it's incredible how convicted these people are about their own ideas and about their ability to manage the global economy.

I asked her once, "Do you think that they get it; are they starting to understand?" and she's like, "No.  They're just complete zombies to these ideas and there's so much skin in the game that they're never going to change their minds until it smacks the right in the face".  I don't know, man.

Peter McCormack: Yeah.  I keep referring people to Jonathan Haidt's book, The Righteous Mind, because the thing that sticks out in that to me is not the left and the right thing; it's more the fact that we take a position then we post-rationalise it.  I just think that's what happens.

Even if Stephanie Kelton had some doubts, how does she come out and go, "Yeah, do you know what?  Yeah, fuck, I got this wrong.  MMT's bullshit; we're basically blowing up the economy"; how does she do that?  Her whole career's built on the idea of MMT; she's a published author based on this; she gets speaking engagement's based on it.  There is zero incentive for her to objectively review her own thesis, because she's economically aligned now with MMT.  And, I think that happens with a lot of things.

By the way, I also think bitcoiners are sometimes completely guilty of this.  I think sometimes we don't always look objectively at our own thesis, because we're also economically aligned; I just think that happens, right?  But, the MMT thing, I mean it's just -- I think it's worse out in the US, by the way.  I mean, we've got massive debt here in the UK and we're definitely seeing inflation and the real inflation's very different from the reported inflation. 

But, I think you've got a much bigger problem out in the US.  I feel like you guys are living in a reorg at the moment.  Rather than a block reorg, you've got a state reorg.  I keep speaking to people who are leaving New York and San Francisco and some people are leaving the country.  It's a bit of a shit show.  The money printing situation is just -- I can't get my head around these numbers.  The $1.9 trillion and now Biden's talking about, what is it; another $3 trillion.  It's like, "What the fuck?"

Brady Swenson: Yeah, it's crazy.  Those numbers in 2008, the bailout numbers, were $700 billion.  That was astronomical, that was mind-blowing; no one could get their minds around it.

Peter McCormack: Hold on, was that the total number for 2008?

Brady Swenson: That was the first bailout, yeah.  It was $700,000 that they --

Peter McCormack: In 2008; $700 billion?

Brady Swenson: Sorry, $700 billion; is that what I said?  Yeah, $700 billion.

Peter McCormack: Wow, it just doesn't seem that much now, right?

Brady Swenson: Yeah, exactly.  I mean, it is fascinating.  I was just re-listening to your episode with Brandon Quittem and how he studied --

Peter McCormack: It's a great show.

Brady Swenson: Yeah, it was an awesome show, man -- how he studied The Fourth Turning, a book by Neil Howe, and this is right on time for this sort of breakdown of massive distrust in centralised institutions.  We feel it here, man; we definitely feel it.  I think a lot of the world is feeling it.  But, it is fascinating to happen here; it's humbling, right?  This is the American Empire, the American Dream. 

We grow up and we're fed that this is the greatest country in the history of the world and you're lucky to be here and your birthright is a home and a car and a good job and easy retirements and all that stuff.  It just goes along with just the hubris that comes along with, "We can manage all this money and we can run the world and we know exactly what we're doing".

Then, we're watching this play out, man.  And another thing I want to talk about is how I see, and this is the tagline on my show, The Dawn of the Bitcoin Rennaissance, and how I see this happening, how I see it playing out.  But, the first part of the dawn, the darkness before the dawn, is the fall of the money and the end of the empire.  And, money is the pillar of civilisation and our money's broken; it's breaking down; it's crumbling.  We use money to communicate to each other our needs and wants and if you distort that signal, that language, then we can't accurately get that stuff, those messages, spread around the society.

So, when we've had errors of fiat money and we've had errors of sound money, it's very clear what happens.  So, if you look at, and I kind of studied this a little bit, the fall of the Roman Empire.  That was absolutely -- a massive part of it was the debasement of the main currency that was circulating around the economy, the denarius.  There was a gold coin called the aureus, but that was too valuable to be used every day; so your everyday Roman would be paid in the silver coin, called the denarius.

So, when Julius Caesar first started minting them, they were pegged to the aureus.  The aureus itself had started being debased, so it was like 8 grams of gold; 100 years later, it was 6.5 grams of gold; another 100 years later, it was 4.5 grams of gold; so, that base money was being debased, the core money.  But then, look at the denarius, based on that; all of that just kind of pales in comparison.  So, the denarius, like I said, was the backbone of the Roman Economy.

The citizens were earning this money and the denarius began as a 4.5-gram silver coin and it stayed that way for centuries which was really, again, the foundation of the Roman civilisation; it really flourished.  As we know, it was the greatest empire of the time.  But after that, things started to crumble, because they started adding in base metals like copper, blending in, and there was coin-clipping going on.  So, it went from containing 90% silver down to 70% in a century.  A century later, it was all the way down to 5% silver by 350 AD, all but worthless.

Then there was economic chaos from the hyperinflation and Rome went from this shining city of 1 million people all the way down to 50,000 people, because everyone got the fuck out, because it was completely crumbling.  There's a phrase, "Bread and circuses", this idea they called bread and circuses, and it was from this Roman poet.  The idea is, and we still use it, is these offerings or benefits and entertainment from governments to placate discontent to distract from this policy situation that the government has basically ruined the country with or the empire with.

Peter McCormack: Was that the world of decadence?

Brady Swenson: Yeah.  It's like, you know -- yeah, go ahead?

Peter McCormack: I was going to say, have you compared the fall of the Roman Empire in detail to what's happening right now?  When they were coin-clipping, I'm assuming it was because, what; was it greed within the Roman Empire, essentially the Roman Government; or was it because they were making mistakes and trying to pay for things they couldn't afford, pay for wars?  I've never studied it; what actually happened?

Brady Swenson: Yeah, man, it was just, again, human hubris.  They just wanted to expand the empire and in order to that, they debased the money.  They debased the gold too, but that was the money they were using for international trade, or trade across large distances and to settle big transactions.  So, they debased that a lot slower; that was the money they were using.

But they realised taxes were unpopular just like they are now.  People would definitely throw fits about being taxed too much.  They found out, they realised, "Look, we can just start taking some silver out of the coins, put some copper in there, clip them and that's basically a tax and they don't even see it, so no one gets upset about it".  It funded the expansion of the empire and it just completely collapsed.

The foundation, when you're doing that, of your empire just crumbles and that's what we're seeing right now in the United States.  The dollar, in 1913 purchasing power, the US dollar right now is worth a nickel, right?  So, it's the exact same thing happening again, right; it's messed up.

Peter McCormack: Is there any recommended reading you've got on the fall of the Roman Empire; I feel like I need to read something on this?

Brady Swenson: The stuff I found was just really a bunch of essays on the internet.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, I'll google all that shit.

Brady Swenson: I've been working on a piece for a long time, but it's just hard to get focussed time to write with so much going on.  Again, the bull market thing is just so busy.  But, I've put together a nice list of resources and I do have a book that I'm listening to right now about the Medicis, so that kind of gets to the Renaissance side of it, to compare the historical comparison to the era I think we're heading into now.

But, yeah, before I go there -- what's that?

Peter McCormack: What's that book called?

Brady Swenson: It's just called, The Medicis.  I'll send it to you, but I think it's just called, The Medicis.  I can't remember what the subtitles called.

Peter McCormack: Medici Ascendency?  Medici Chronicles, Book I?

Brady Swenson: Let's see.  The Medici, by Paul Strathern.  There's definitely some stuff about the advent of the florin and international trade and how that really built up the Renaissance era in Europe.  But, there's also some fascinating stuff about politics and betrayal and all kinds of cool stories about the Medici family and basically holding power over the papacy, because they were -- the papal power was basically borrowing money, using the Medicis as their bank and knowing all the power that they wield.  Anyway, it's fascinating stuff.

Peter McCormack: Do you not find there's not enough time in the day?  So, I am still working through The Sovereign Individual; I'm also reading The Anatomy of Fascism; I listened to Nic Carter with Lex Friedman the other day, so now I've downloaded The Three-Body Problem; I did an interview with Julian Assange's brother and father, so I've got Julian Assange's book on Cypherpunks; I've got podcasts coming out of my ears I want to listen to; I just need some more fucking time; I need longer days!

And then, any time I interview somebody, everyone's so fucking smart and they seem to have read every book I need to read and I'm like, where does everyone find the time; how's everyone doing this?

Brady Swenson: I don't know, man.  I think there are just people whose brains work faster and they can process stuff a lot faster than mine.  But, yeah, it's amazing, man.  Bitcoin is just that rabbit hole and it just leads to all of this study.  You just listed off five books that you've heard about and you want to read in the last four weeks, or whatever, and that just happens month after month after month; it's amazing.

Peter McCormack: I've started walking now just so I can listen to audio books, because I find I get through a book quicker as an audio book than I do reading it.  I don't know if you have that, but when I'm reading a book --

Brady Swenson: I do that too.

Peter McCormack: I do like ten pages and I'm like, "Fuck, I didn't take any of that in.  I don't even know what I've just read", and I have to go back.  If I'm with an audio book, I listen to it better.  So, I just go out and walk for an hour or two every day to try and get through some of this shit.  But, trying to keep up with everything; there's too much, man.  I don't know how other people do it.

Brady Swenson: I know, I hear you.

Peter McCormack: And then, you get someone like Nic Carter.  He does this; he also runs a fund; he is a guest on podcasts; and then he does these epic essays that he writes.  I'm like, "How does this guy find all the time?"

Brady Swenson: Incredibly productive, man.  And Breedlove; Breedlove has read everything and then produces incredible essays.  Yeah, there are some amazing people.  I think this era will be studied in history pretty closely, because it's going to be a massive pivotal point in human history; and I think all those guys that we can out and talk with, and women too, I mean just people in this space, will be written in the history books.  It's just a privilege to sit back and think about it, to be here and hanging out and learning from these people directly.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, I was talking to John Vallis the other day on Twitter; we were just DMing each other and I was saying how lucky we are to be living through this and at the front of it and I feel so fortunate to talk to all these amazing people.  They give me their time and patience to talk me through these ideas, but it's funny; you go to school, you study history and you hear about World War I and World War II and then you hear about the fall of the Roman Empire; you never think, like, I never put myself in their shoes and thought, "What would it have been like to have been a Roman at those times?"

I think you become a little bit complacent and you just think, what you're living now will be forever.  You just don't think anything drastically is going to change; but actually, in a decade, the world could be a very different place, like entirely different, or two decades and we're living through that.  It might be bloody, it might be messy; we don't know this is going to play out, but we're living right through it.  And like you say, they could write about this in the history books.  This was the period of time when money changed and everything else changed.

I don't know how it will be written, because I don't know how it's going to play out.  I don't know if the theory of The Sovereign Individual is correct, or whether we'll see the states fight back, whether we'll see China take over and we'll all become subservient to the Chinese; I've got no idea how this all plays out, but we're living through it.

Brady Swenson: Yeah, and that's what I love to think about, right.  That's what we do these podcasts for, is to think about all this stuff.  One, we try to learn from the history; but then, two, we try to figure out where we're going from here and what it all means.  And yeah, that's the part, the second half of this piece I'm trying to get out of my head, is the Dawn of the Bitcoin Renaissance and what happens from here.  So obviously we think Bitcoin's better money.  And I think that we made it clear through history that we converged on gold as the best money.

I think that during the Renaissance, one of the main reasons was we had this very solid foundation to build it on.  The florin was the main money for national trade and the main settlement layer, essentially, for 300 years and it's amazing that several families somehow had this knowledge that you couldn't debase the money if you wanted to maintain a healthy economy over a long period of time. 

That amazes me; I'm absolutely in awe that they were somehow able to resist that power for 300 years.  They attained a lot of power regardless and I think they had this long-term thinking that if we want to maintain this power for the future and for our heirs, we've got to maintain the integrity of this money.

So, the florin was trusted, because it had spanned generations; think about the middle 200 years, right?  All those people that lived those middle 200 years never knew a time when the florin wasn't good money.  You couldn't trust that the florin was going to be worth the same amount 10, 15, 20, 30 years from now; and that's what we've been talking about, Austrian Economists have been talking about, that we're all learning because Bitcoin's teaching us that. 

This is the nature of money; this is the true nature of money and this is the way it needs to be if you want to have a flourishing economy and human society be able to communicate those needs and wants back and forth to each other and have efficient solutions delivered, and then decrease the cost, the relative purchasing cost of those needs and wants and solutions over time. 

Then, we can all move up that Maslow's Hierarchy of, we have our basic needs met and then eventually, we just have this time to pursue our dreams in something really interesting; hone our crafts and produce art and architecture that's going to take 10, 15, 20 years, because you know the money's going to be there to support the project 50 years from now and you can just hand it down generations to build something like that.

You can't do that now at all.  You can't plan a project for 15, 20, 30 years in the future and have a set of capital, of dollars, that you're going to just say, "All right, here's what we need to build this project.  I'm just going to set it here; I'm going to fund it with this money", let's say like some Patron like the Medicis, "I'm going to build this cathedral; here's the money for it.  This is how much I think it's going to take".  And then, 50 years from now, they're still pulling from that same fund; it has the same purchasing power as it did when the project started.  You can't do that.

So, I think what we do moving forward is we can start thinking that way again.  And what's interesting now that was different then, is that we've got this deflationary, exponentially advancing technology.  So, we're living in this -- you think of like the x-squared asymptote of a basic graph.  We're right there on that elbow.  And, as Jeff Booth talks about, he has that great visualisation of folding paper and how many folds does it take for the paper to be wide enough to get to the moon; and it's like 27 folds, or something like that.  It just blows your minds, because our brains can't think exponentially.

Peter McCormack: I'm going to tell that one to my kids, man!  I think it's not though; I think it's 50.

Brady Swenson: Okay, something like that.

Peter McCormack: Or, 50 gets you to the sun. 

Brady Swenson: To the sun, all right.

Peter McCormack: So, I get the piece of paper out and I'm like, "How many times can you fold this?" and they do it seven.  And then I say, "How many folds do you think it gets to the moon?" and they're like, "8 million", or something.  And I'm like, "50".  They don't say bullshit, but they're like, "Bullshit, dad; I'm not having it!" and I'm, "I'm telling you; it does".  So then, we end up getting out a calculator and we get the width of the paper and we do it on the calculator and I'm like, "Here you go".  They still won't believe me!

Brady Swenson: Yeah, you're right; 50 times.  There it is!  I just looked it up.  50 times; it's crazy.  So, we just don't think that way.  But, it's happening; we're living through it right now.  So, there's a scene in one of my favourite movies, called Waking Life, which just totally blows your mind.  It's just a set of scenes of discussions that Richard Linklater had with people.  So, it's sort of this kind of autobiographical movie and it's really trippy.  It's animated with 50 different artists, or something, and it's a cool movie and you should check it out if you haven't yet.

But, there's a scene where he's talking with this sort of philosopher and he's talking about the telescoping evolution of humanity.  He's like, "Look, we had X amount of time for life to emerge; 2 billion years for life to emerge; 6 billion years for the hominid to emerge; 100,000 years for mankind as we know it; 10,000 years for agriculture; 400 years for the Scientific Revolution; 150 years for the Industrial Revolution". 

What have we been; 30 years for the Information Age, the digital revolution, and so it just telescopes.  And, we are at that point now where this stuff's going to be happening, these just massive human advancements, evolutions in the way we live our lives and the way that our bodies work with biohacking and merging of man and machine, that this is going to be happening every 10 years, 5 years, 1 year.  With AI accelerating it, the idea is we're going to get to be this kind of superhuman, this neohuman, and we'll have this sort of new individuality, there'll be this new consciousness. 

I think he talks about the amplification of the individual and this gets back to The Sovereign Individual idea, that before, the old evolution was this kind of cold, sterile, efficient, biological evolution that manifests these social adaptations, because of the way that evolution worked.  So, you would get -- the sort of moral expression of that process was like competition, parasitism, dominance, force, morality, war; just because that's the way our biological evolution happened too, which was a battle and the survival of the fittest.

So, in this sort of new age, where we don't have to do that anymore, because we're these evolved individuals to this new level, those kinds of things will be subject to de-emphasis.  Then, the new paradigm will really lift up these human traits, that we have aspired to for a long time, and been working towards over those 100,000 years, of truth, loyalty, justice, freedom.  We'll be able to attain that finally in this kind of neohuman; it's crazy.

Peter McCormack: I'm not comfortable with it.

Brady Swenson: I'm not either, dude; I'm not either.  It blows my mind; it scares me, but Bitcoin fits right in with that.  It's that deflationary money that supports that kind of deflationary, technological advancement and exponential technological advancement.  So to me, it's inevitable that it's going to happen.  And, who knows where we go from here, man?  It's going to happen so fast, I think about my kids' life, you know?

Peter McCormack: Dude, this is why I think about my kids.  Why the fuck are we teaching them this bullshit now?  During the lockdown, it became really obvious, because I could hear my daughter in lessons and she's 11 years old; she was 10 years old during the lockdown.  I'm hearing the stuff they were teaching them and I'm like, "Huh?  What is this?  What a waste of time".

It's like, there's that TED talk with this guy.  Let me dig it out; I'm going to tell you about if you've not seen it.  Have you seen the TED talk with the teacher who talks about dance?

Brady Swenson: No, I haven't.

Peter McCormack: It's about this kid who wants to learn about dance.  I've got it here; it's Ken Robinson.  You should check out Sir Ken Robinson's TED talk.  Essentially he's saying, look how quickly technology's evolved and the stuff we're teaching the kids now, they're not going to need by the time they -- we don't even know what they're going to need.

My daughter finishes school in seven years.  Where are we going to be in seven years?  Which industries won't exist anymore?  But, it does all weird me out, Brady; a lot of this weirds me out.  AI weirds me out, because I don't know how dangerous it gets.  The Neuralink stuff weirds me out because I'm like, will we get to that point where you can just download any kind of information into your brain and learn anything?  If you can, what does that mean?  Does that mean we can all learn everything, or does it come down to who can afford it?

These are real moral questions.  It's like, if you're rich, you can basically download all the information and be kind of a superhuman.  Will it end up a bit like in that film, Limitless?  That weirds me out.  There's so much stuff that weirds me out.  Almost in some ways, I'm starting to think about wanting to escape from all of this, which is weird because I'm involved in Bitcoin.  Do you know Alana Joy?

Brady Swenson: No.

Peter McCormack: So, I've been talking to -- I've been in a couple of Clubhouse rooms with her and last night, we were talking, DMing each other and just talking about going to buy a bit of land and building a house in the middle of nowhere and getting away from all this shit.  Because, I don't know if I want all this; it weirds me out, dude.

Brady Swenson: Yeah, it totally weirds me out, man.  I mean, we're not ready for this; it's happening too fast.  I mean, we are the product of this whole paradigm and something else is coming that's completely different, and it's scary.  And again, I'm scared for my kids because I don't know what it's going to look like; I don't know what it means.  It's one reason that I think we need Bitcoin, because having so much power, purchasing power, in the hands of so few people, the wealth inequality is almost a direct product, in my opinion, of fiat money.

Obviously, there are people who are going to earn more money than others, even in a Bitcoin world.  But, I think that the drastic wealth inequality that we have is, in a large part, due to fiat money.  I think, if we had a fairer money, then we would be able to distribute these technologies more fairly.  But, at the same time, these technologies will be more accessible more quickly to people if we had deflationary money to pair along with the deflationary technology; the technology that's advancing exponentially.

So all that stuff becomes more accessible to people if we don't have an inflationary money; it's fighting against that.  So that's, I think, a moral case for Bitcoin too.

Peter McCormack: Let me ask you something?  I'm not completely sold on full hyperbitcoinisation, whereby Bitcoin becomes the unit of account, yet.  Yes, it might happen, but I'm just not completely sold on it yet.  And I can't remember if it was with me or another interview, but I heard Nic Carter talking about that he still thinks Bitcoin will exist, a bit like gold, alongside sovereign currencies.

So, do we need a better money, or do we need a better base money system?  Do we need hyperbitcoinisation, where we only spend in Bitcoin as unit of account; or, do we need a system like Bitcoin, which backs our sovereign currencies, which creates that level of fairness and responsibility?  Or does it not matter; is it either/or?

Brady Swenson: I think it's either/or.  I think there will certainly be currencies built on top of Bitcoin and I think some of them will be sovereign; some of them will be corporate; I think some of them will be independent and self-sovereign, like the Lightning Network; and I think people will choose, the market will choose their preferred money.  I think those currencies that are built on top of Bitcoin will be used for exchange, but then people are going to want to settle their savings into Bitcoin as much as possible, I would say, or bake onto the Lightning Network, which is pegged to Bitcoin in a trustless way.

I think what happens is that we have a kind of delocalisation, or decentralisation also of the way we govern ourselves.  So, there's this word I came across that I like; it's "glocalisation", which is a combination of globalisation and localisation.  So, we have this global economy that's based on Bitcoin and internet commerce.  At the very least, Bitcoin is the base money of the internet and more and more commerce, and I think most in the future, will happen on the internet.  So, that's how Bitcoin really worms its way in to becoming the base money is, it's the base money of the internet. 

Then the idea is that we are empowered then to basically defund the nation state, because we're going to more of our money into this self-sovereign money, more of our wealth there, and make the nation state less powerful.  I think we're going to move back more toward a sort of republic-style structure that this country was founded on.  And I think even more so, we'll devolve, or move down into these much more local communities, which is where humans naturally want to be.

We grew up roaming the plains of Africa with Dunbar's number, like 150 people or so, and that's the group that could be sustained.  So, I think Bitcoin will allow us to decentralise the way we live as well, which I think is good thing; something I'm looking forward to.  It's going to change everything, but the thing I keep thinking about is, what's the bigger force for change?  The money, which I'm absolutely convinced will change the way society works over the next hundreds of years.  But, I think the greater force for change is just technology and we're just at this point where things are going to get wild, man.  So, that's where I don't know.

Peter McCormack: I'll tell you a couple of things that are on my mind where I'm not entirely there yet and keep prodding away.  Okay, so one of them is with this idea of governance.  I'm doing this sovereign individual stuff with Breedlove; I'm working my way through the book; I'm working my way through his essays.  I'm not convinced on this entire breakdown of the nation state.  It might happen, it might not; I kind of think the sovereign individual, I see it as someone who is just able to roam in the shadows of all nation states, just drift around the world, go where they want to go and just almost be globally off grid.  That's why I think the sovereign individual is right now. 

I don't know if you ever get to a state where a nation completely collapses and we move to this more kind of anarchist society.  And I think even if you do, I think it becomes more like countries maybe become more like companies.  But the problem that I have with that is you're still centralising power and in some ways, you're centralising power in a different way; and I don't know if it's better or not.  Does it become more authoritarian and do we see this kind of breakdown of democracy; is this a kind of failed idea; is that better or is that worse; I can't really get my head around that and it's something I'm thinking about.

I listened to Balaji on Tim Ferris this week and he was talking a lot about Singapore.  Singapore is an efficiently run, successful nation.  But is it also essentially kind of authoritarian?  Is that better or is that worse; is democracy a complete failure?  Balaji talks about ascending and descending nations; he talks about the US as being a descending nation.  It's, you would argue, one of the most free countries in the world, but democracy is weird in America right now, right?  So, what happens there?

Then, the other thing I can't get my head around is, you know how this kind of art imitates life and if you play computer games that are set kind of 300 years in the future, or watch films in the future, the world ended up being split into two, right?  It tends to be the red and the blue team.  It also tends to be these two armies and I'm trying to remember if it's Total Recall or The Running Man which was similar like that, but I'm wondering if we end up going down that route.  Because, I don't know if China goes through hyperbitcoinisation, I don't know if they're too strong as an authoritarian regime with too much power and strength to have a full type of bitcoinisation.

You also see now, we've seen the US dollar reserve status is slipping away; we've seen this kind of axis of Russia, China, Iran starting to do their own deals; you can see Brazil fall in line; perhaps even India; and I'm starting to see, are we going to see this divergence of two worlds, half the world adopts and accepts Bitcoin and this other half doesn't; and what does that mean?  I don't know if I'm on my own thinking about this, but they're two broad concepts I cannot escape from myself at the moment.

Brady Swenson: Yeah, I mean that's some really good thoughts.  I love thinking about this stuff too.  I don't think that honestly, and they'll be plenty of bitcoiners out there that disagree vehemently with this, but I don't think that we'll live in some sort of libertarian anarchist society. 

Peter McCormack: No, I don't.

Brady Swenson: I think there will be, I would say, pockets of the world like that, but there are efficiencies to be gained and comforts to be gained and security to be gained by having a state and that's how the state began, was like collective security to protect wealth of a certain geographic or social collective of people.  And I think what we'll see is less economic control of the state, less economic centralisation, which changes the nature of the state a lot, just a lot of things.  It makes war much less likely, because it's hard to fund international war; social security programmes and stuff like that would be less easy to fund.  Is that good or is that bad?

I think personally, it's a good thing.  I think that those sorts of decisions should be more local.  I think that Bitcoin will empower individuals to almost shop around to find the way that they want to live.  And I think there will be Californias and people that want to live like that; and there will be Texases and people that want to live like that; and Bitcoin will allow us to not have to live under this sort of massive, increasingly centralised nation state, that is increasingly centralised, mainly because they have the power to print.

So, I think it will definitely lead to a decentralisation of power, but I don't think the state's going away completely and we're going to live in some Mad Max world, or whatever!  Even in Mad Max, there were little -- like Bartertown that came together, a collective of people, that formed this way to live together.  That's never going to change; that's never going to go away. 

I think that there's this truth, this moral truth, of the idea of centralisation, or what I like to call "the will to power", the will to have power over someone; and decentralisation, which is based on the will to empower other people, empower individuals.  So I think that societies that seek, or individuals that seek power over others, will build the mechanisms of their own destruction eventually; it's going to happen.  It's fragile and I think that a society of individuals --

Peter McCormack: Can I throw an alternative at you?

Brady Swenson: Yeah.

Peter McCormack: You say "… that seek power", but could it be the case that it's accidental power as well?  So, could there be a scenario whereby, I don't know, I'm hypothesising off the top of my head; but, just say a group of bitcoiners get together and they're like, "Do you know what; fuck this shit.  Let's buy an island and go and do our own thing".  This island starts off with a few hundred people and then ends up, say, 20,000 people, but you still have to have a way of organising these people, right?

That's not to say you can have 20,000 people who won't commit some form of crime.  What are the crimes; what are the laws; how does that island govern itself; oh shit, well we need to have rules, we need a judiciary, we need our own police force?  How do we vote in the leader?  You can theorise about some kind of utopian idea, but can you accidentally rebuild the same structures; and when you accidentally rebuild the same structures, do you accidentally put people in a position of power and can that power then still corrupt?

The reason I bring this up is because, I always find it important to question ideas and I've never fully got away from the idea of the state.  The problem with that is that in the Bitcoin world, you just get, "Oh, you're a fucking statist cock!" etc.  But, all I'm trying to do is theorise that perhaps, whatever we think of the state and whatever you think of liberty and freedom, is it something you just can't get away from; it's a naturally occurring phenomenon of how people organise themselves?

Also, in some ways, despite all the shit things about the state, is it a net good?  Like, yes, if you're one person and your belief is ultimate liberty and freedom, nobody has any power over me, then you're absolutely going to disagree with this.  But, is there a scenario whereby, when you just weigh it up, having some form of state is a net good?

I'm going to say something now that's going to sound really controversial, but I mean it with intellectual honesty.  There's a really interesting conversation between Eric Weinstein and Bret Weinstein and it was following the death of George Floyd.  Eric Weinstein said something that sounds highly controversial and a lot of people are going to lose their shit when they hear it, but he said it's actually a good thing that the state has a monopoly on violence; because, even though the state can fuck it up, by having that monopoly on violence at least you have a -- I'm not going to explain it how he did, but at least you have that central control of violence, rather than full Mad Max anarchy.

I think what he's trying to get at is that we should never approve of state violence, but by having that monopoly on violence, perhaps net violence drops.  Have I explained myself in a decent way?

Brady Swenson: Yeah, you have, and that's definitely interesting.  I think that it comes down to --

Peter McCormack: I'm going to get so much hate for this, dude, just even bringing it up.

Brady Swenson: Hey, I mean, this is what I like though.  I think it's important to bring this stuff up and talk about it, because we want to continue to question ourselves too and I think bitcoiners do have, you know, there is an ethic in Bitcoin that emerges that is, because of the properties of Bitcoin, I feel like there are these emerging ethics from it; and one of them is, we need to question things, we need to not trust, we need to verify.  And so, I think it's important to bring this stuff up.

I think what it comes down to is the ability to choose, right.

Peter McCormack: Optionality.

Brady Swenson: Optionality.  And that really comes from controlling the resources you generate.  That is the base of this, and not allowing a central party to control the resources that you're generating.  It's time theft, it's the "WTF Happened in 1971?" chart, it's the top of the website; it's wages go flatline, productivity continues.  So, with Bitcoin, you get to reap the rewards of your increasing productivity over time and hold onto it. 

That gives you the optionality and there will be, like I was saying, I think there are going to be states that will value a much more centralised control and people will appreciate that and will go there, and there'll have centralised militaries and they'll feel safer and they'll have a centralised education system and whatever and healthcare.  That's the way those people want to live and that's fine; they have that option.  They can pay their taxes in Bitcoin, they can do everything; they can live in a way that seems familiar now, but you won't have this monoculture of the way nations, or geographic areas, are governed.  And I think that's a good thing.

I think there's going to be competition against different types of the way societies live and I think we'll figure out, through that competition, what works well to protect yourself, protect your physical self; like, what works well?  Is it going to be a nation state that does that; is it going to be private corporations or companies; is it going to be private collectives that come together and share in their security?

I think that because Bitcoin isn't physical, that also reduces the propensity for physical violence, because with a distributed multisig, you can't just come and take my gold and run away.  You'd have to go through a harder process to get my Bitcoin than you would to come in here and take my gold jewellery or something.

Peter McCormack: So, I guess what you're really saying is, Bitcoin just brings better rules and better discipline to society?  Even if the state doesn't go, even if we don't lose the state, we certainly change the role of the state.  It's a bit like, and I think I've talked about this before, you earn whatever you earn every month working at Swan and you have a budget and you have a house and you have expenditure, right?  And if you want a bigger house, you can take out a loan and if you can't pay your mortgage, the bank will come and take your house.

We kind of want, if there is going to be a state, if we have to accept the state, we at least want them to play by the same rules, but they don't.  The rules they play by is that they can borrow money and if they fuck up, they can just steal ours!

Brady Swenson: Yeah, exactly.

Peter McCormack: That's, I think, what pisses everybody off, is that there's no consequence to their mistakes; and they also tend to be removed from the problems, because they have another incentive themselves, which is to retain power.  On a Bitcoin standard where the government cannot print money, or the state cannot print money, then they have to essentially balance their own books.  So then, they become a service provider.  So, perhaps we don't lose the state, or perhaps there's a transitionary period where the state reorganises itself.

I think the other thing which doesn't help me is that you're in a very different situation in the US.  You have that optionality to go from California to Wyoming or to Texas and have those very different rules.  In the UK, it doesn't matter where you go, you've got the same fucking rules.  I can move to Manchester or Leeds or Grimsby or Hull.  Wherever the fuck I move, I'm going to pay the same tax rates, I'm going to have to live by the exact same rules.  My only optionality is to leave the country, which by the way, I'm definitely considering; and I kind of want to go to Texas, just because everyone's going to Texas!

We don't have that optionality, so I keep thinking of the Balaji 10,000 City thesis, whereby I need to be able to compare cities globally, and it's a bigger challenge, right.  If I could just move to London and pay lower tax, I would and I'd still see my kids; it's not an issue.  Moving to another country, I don't have that same optionality.

Brady Swenson: Yeah, I mean I think that's what's going to happen, man.  I think we're just going to see a less monoculture of the way that we choose to live and more optionality, and that was the idea behind this country, the United States and the Republic and having some sort of competition between states where citizens can choose which set of rules they want to live by, or which they prefer.  This country has slowly, over time, just become more and more centralised.

The Founders of the country understood the risks of central banking to this idea of a Republic.  George Washington wrote a letter, I think it was to someone in Delaware, one of the leaders in Delaware, and he said, "Paper money has had the effect on your state as it ever will.  It will ruin your commerce, it will oppress people", and then I think he said, "… open up the door to every kind of fraud or injustice", or something like that.

So, these ideas were being debated; the threats were understood.  And sure enough, we fought battles against central banking for 150 years until 1913, when the Federal Reserve was finally established and took hold.  So, that's really what it is.  It comes down to, if we can just decentralise the money, then we will have just a lot more options on how we want to live, and I think that's a fairer way to do things and I think it will be better for people; and we can live the way we want. 

We can take our money with us; we won't have a nation state that are authoritarian that will say, like Yan Pritzker, he understood Bitcoin at a deep level, a visceral level, because his family escaped from Russia, as a Jewish family.  And they, because of capital controls, got to leave with $100 worth of money in their pocket and come to the United States.  All of their wealth was just stolen.  So, they didn't have that optionality; that's the reality for a lot of people around the world.

Us in the UK and the US, we spend most of the time talking about, we want to invest in this thing; it's a speculative asset; it's the most asymmetric investment in human history; and we're going to get in early on this global-based money and it's going to make us all rich.  But, you know, Bitcoin's being used, as Alex Gladstein -- I love talking to him about this stuff -- by so many people around the world, right, for reasons other than watching Number Go Up.

Peter McCormack: I think Yan's book is massively underrated and I'm saying that knowing how well people think of it.  I was really glad to hear Nic Carter bringing it up at his interview with Lex Friedman.  But, I actually got -- people will think I'm just saying this to be a dick, but I think it's a more important book than The Bitcoin Standard.  I actually think it's probably the first book people should read with regards to Bitcoin.  I think he did a fantastic job with it and I'm going to promote it.

Brady Swenson: Yeah, it's a great intro.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, I think it's such a brilliant intro and I think it is pretty -- because he's quite a chilled guy, he's not pushy; I don't think he's pushed the book enough, so I might do it on his behalf.  But, I think his book's fucking amazing.

Brady Swenson: He's giving it away for free now, man.

Peter McCormack: Is he?

Brady Swenson: It's swanbitcoin.com/freebook.  Anybody can go there and grab it.  We have it on PDF, we have a Kindle version, we've got the audio version by Guy Swann, so it's out there for free for anybody.

Peter McCormack: Dude, Guy Swann should narrate every -- they need to create a Guy Swann bot now that can read every book.

Brady Swenson: I tweeted that!  Two years, I was like, "All I want for Christmas is a bot that reads my Twitter feed to me in Guy Swann's voice"!

Peter McCormack: Did you?!  Dude, I twice did Gigi's book.  I did Gigi's book and then I did it again and just hearing his voice…  Because, it's got like that twang in it and it just sounds so good.  I mean, I don't know how he does it, dude.

Brady Swenson: Southern comfort.

Peter McCormack: Southern comfort, yeah!  Do you know what; Yan gave me a copy of his book, but if he's giving it away for free, I'm still going to buy it again.

Brady Swenson: Yeah, man.  Have you had Yan on the show?

Peter McCormack: Do you know what; I don't think I have.  Now I feel like a berk, and he gave me a copy of the book.  I think it was at Tone Vays's.  Do you know what; I've got to that point, I don't know, I might sound like a dick; I sometimes can't remember if I've had -- because, I've done 330 shows now, I sometimes don't even remember if I've had everyone.

Brady Swenson: Damn, it's been that many now?  That's crazy.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, 330 down.

Brady Swenson: Yeah, you should have him on.  He's got a lot of good stories to tell and just really understands this thing from an economic and technical perspective and stuff.  So, I think reading The Bitcoin Standard gives you more of the economic history and context, and then Inventing Bitcoin gives you some of the reasons why, from a human rights' perspective, Bitcoin's important to Yan individually; but then, just goes through how the system works. 

So, that's the one-two punch I usually recommend.  It's like, learn about the money; learn about how the system works and why it's important, and those two books are a good complement.

Peter McCormack: Well, I'm going to have to get Yan on now.  Let's see if Ben -- you know Ben's working with me now, Ben Prentice?

Brady Swenson: Yo, man, I love Ben.

Peter McCormack: Did you know though?

Brady Swenson: That was a good pickup.

Peter McCormack: Well, I met him at a bar in Boston; he just came up to me and I immediately loved the guy.  So hopefully, he's listening right now.  Ben, make sure you get Yan booked.  Let's see if this works; let's get Yan on the show and talking about it.  But, no, it's such a great book.  I always tell people to read that.  I always tell them to read Saifedean's Bitcoin Standard, but I tell them to rip out his art propaganda, because I fundamentally disagree with his distaste of modern art, but that's my thing; that's my war with Saifedean!

Brady Swenson: I wasn't a big fan of that chapter either, but you know; it is what it is.  Just because it was just such an absolute opinion, I was like, "Not all art is a banana taped to a wall, or some paint splashed on a canvas", or something like that; there's some pretty good modern art out there.  But, I get it, whatever; he's trying to make his point, you know.

Peter McCormack: Well, he makes his point valid in some ways, because there is some bullshit art out there.  But also, the point I have is, art is a reflection on life, right?  So, if we're at a time of living on fiat standard and high time preference and therefore, we've got crap architecture and products which are just shit, art reflects that.  But art is therefore doing its job of reflecting life and modern culture.  So, I would buy anyone that book they want, but I would rip out that chapter, and Saifedean hates me for that.

Brady Swenson: Yeah, he definitely has a point.  There is definitely a lot more art and architecture that happened in the Renaissance, for instance, that took a lot more time to produce; and that was because, again like we discussed, you had some money that would respect your time and give you the confidence that you could invest that time in something that wasn't going to pay off for a long time.

Peter McCormack: Do you always think it's that, or do you think also, it was just a different time, different egos; it was just a different time?  Is it necessarily just the money?

Brady Swenson: No, definitely not necessarily just money.  I just think it was a part of it.  But despite that, I still think there's some great modern art out there and I still think there's some great modern architecture out there; it's just despite of the money and the way the situation is.  I think that maybe during the Renaissance, it was a bit easier to create those long-term projects than it is now; but, yeah, I don't agree with the kind of absolutist tone that that chapter takes.  It kind of rubbed me the wrong way, especially when I read it the first time.  Although, I do have more of an appreciation for it now than I did when I first read it; so, I'll admit that.

Peter McCormack: I understand where it's coming from, but I disagree with it.  But, do you know what; even though me and Saifedean hate each other, I actually do appreciate his book.  I think his book is a good book and I think people should read it.  There's just a lot of his stuff I don't buy, but whatever, man; we're all different.

Cool, man.  Well, listen, you're just one of those people I can just talk to.  I've got all my questions here and I haven't looked at them fucking once.  I just started with HODL FOMO and we went from there.  You're just so easy to talk to; I could literally talk to you for hours.  Is there anything else that you do want to talk about that I've not asked you about?

Brady Swenson: Oh, man, I don't know; we've been through quite a bit and this has been a lot of fun, man.  Are you going to Miami; do you think you're going to be able to make it?

Peter McCormack: Well, I'm meant to be MCing the event.  So, I was going to go to Austin next week for Bit Devs.  I put the application in and I can travel for work.  So, there are two things: can I leave the UK; and then, can I get in the US?  Now, we have a law in the UK now that says you can't leave.  It sounds very authoritarian and it kind of is, but we've been trying to manage this COVID situation.  I'm not going to get into the rights and wrongs of that right now.  Let's just say the government has a set of rules.

We had a lot of people who were leaving, saying it was for work, and they're really just influencers going on holiday because they just didn't want to be stuck in the UK, and they're risking bringing COVID back into the country.  So, they put in this new rule: if you travelled without proper reason, then you could get up to ten years in jail.  On the face of it, that sounds super authoritarian.  It's really just a way of saying, "Look, just stop fucking off and bringing COVID back into the country"; so they put that rule in place.

But, if you've got a proper business reason, you can travel.  Now, I do have a proper business reason.  I'm MCing the conference, right, I need to be there.  I think that's a proper business reason.  So the next thing is, can I get into the country?  So, I applied to get in for Bit Devs and I got rejected.  The US Government said it's not a good enough reason.

So, my expectation is they'll do the same for Miami.  Now, if nothing changes between now and the middle of May, so I've got six weeks, there is a chance that the US removes the UK off their red list, because we've got a successful vaccination programme; our infection rates are low; our deaths are low; I'll probably be vaccinated by then.  But, if it isn't, I have to go somewhere for two weeks beforehand.  So, it looks like I'd have to go somewhere like Antigua, because I can fly direct; wait there for two weeks and then fly to Miami.

If I have to do it, I'm doing it.  I'm not fucking missing Miami, but I've got a right old bunch of bullshit hoops to jump through.  But, I'll be there, I think.  Listen, everyone's going to be there.

Brady Swenson: Oh, yeah, we'll hang out.  Swan's going to have a dome outside, like an air-conditioned dome.  It's going to be the Swan lounge dome.

Peter McCormack: What, like in the Simpson's movie?!

Brady Swenson: Yeah!  It's going to be fun.  It's going to be wild, man; we're going to set up a studio in there.  You've got to come in and hang out and maybe even record a show, do an interview from our studio if you want?

Peter McCormack: Let's do it, man.

Brady Swenson: Yeah.

Peter McCormack: Let's do a Swan special; let's get all of you fuckers on.  There's like ten of you!

Brady Swenson: That'll be good man, that will be a good time.  So, it's going to be fun.  I'm looking forward to hanging out with everybody, including you, man.  We can sit down in the pub and just talk for hours.

Peter McCormack: I might do another -- because, you came to the one in, was it New York or San Fran?  San Francisco, wasn't it?

Brady Swenson: San Fran, yeah.

Peter McCormack: What Beer Did II, so I might do a What Beer Did III; get one of my sponsors to pay for it!  But no, look, I want to be there.  I'll tell you what; the one thing is, if you wanted to take out Bitcoin, you just need to take out Miami that week!

Brady Swenson: I know, people have been saying that!  Well, remember we were at that Beefsteak in 2019 and it was all the -- there's that picture that I love, Marty and Matt and Pierre and you and me and Gary Leland and Stephan.  And it was just --

Peter McCormack: It's a great picture.

Brady Swenson: I took that picture -- somebody took it; I posted it and just like, "Bitcoin podcaster centralisation"!  So, if that building collapsed or something, it would be over.

Peter McCormack: You say that dude; there are so many others now.  I've been listening to a lot of John Vallis recently; he's such a fucking good interviewer.

Brady Swenson: Right, he's a baller, man.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, and I've clashed with him before, but I've been chatting to him a bit more recently.  He does a good job.  I also think Anita Posch, I think that's how you pronounce her surname, does a really good job; she's underrated.  And, it's just good to have a woman amongst us with her opinions and her stuff, and I think she does a great job.

Brady Swenson: Absolutely, I think so too.  I like her.

Peter McCormack: I think we're blessed to have so many.  I mean, Max and Stacy kill it, of course.  There are just so many of us, but that's a good thing, man, and I always like talking to you.  I'm so sorry it's taken to episode, what 325 are we on; 335?  We should have done this a long time ago.

Brady Swenson: It's all good, bro; it's all good.  I'm glad we were able to do it now, and it's not like we haven't been talking.  We've been in touch.

Peter McCormack: I know.  I just had to get big enough, dude, to get you on, man; get your people to allow you on!

Brady Swenson: That's so funny!  I have to say though, I respect what you've built, man.  I tweeted this out the other day at you; respect the hustle man and love to see what it's grown into and see bitcoiners getting paid to Bitcoin more and more.  And, picking up Ben is a big deal, man; he's such a sharp dude and really cool.

Peter McCormack: Well, I'll tell you the big difference having him on board, right; if you want to come on the show now -- if you used to want to come on the show, you could email me and you'd be on next week.  If you come on the show now, you're not going to get on until June.  We are fully booked.  He has booked us out with solid guests all the way through to June and we're having to turn down things, because we just can't fit it in.  He's prepping the interviews; he's just doing a solid job.

But, no, I feel very fortunate.  Look, the show is number 11 in the US investing chart.  When you think about it for a moment, take a step back; within four spaces, you've got me, Pomp and We Study Billionaires.  And, Preston's doing a lot of Bitcoin stuff now.  There are three or four Bitcoin -- you've got Peter Schiff there as well, which is essentially a Bitcoin show, because he doesn't shut the fuck up about Bitcoin!  Shout out to Peter Schiff!

Brady Swenson: Is that who's on your shelf now, man?

Peter McCormack: Yeah, that's Peter Schiff up there, keeping an eye on the BlockClock for me.  But, up in the investing chart, there are a lot of people in there talking about Bitcoin.  People want to hear about it, so it's super cool, man.

Brady Swenson: It's really cool.

Peter McCormack: All right, brother.  Well, listen, good to talk to you. 

Brady Swenson: All right, brother; likewise.

Peter McCormack: It won't be 330 shows until we do this again; maybe we'll do something in Miami.  Maybe you, me and Yan will sit down, maybe you, me, Yan and Breelove, or whatever; we'll sit down and we'll come up with something special.

Brady Swenson: Hell, yeah, that sounds fantastic; let's do that!

Peter McCormack: All right, dude.  Well listen, you stay cool, stay safe.  You know, if you ever need anything, you just ping me and I will do anything for you.

Brady Swenson: Same, man, same.  Appreciate it.  Thanks for all you do for Bitcoin, man, and thanks for this conversation and I can't wait to hang out in Miami, man; it's going to be wild; it's going to be great.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, all the hangovers.

Brady Swenson: No shit. Hang out, hangovers.