WBD389 Audio Transcription
Teaching Kids About Bitcoin with Michael Caras & Violet Mauceri
Interview date: Wednesday 25th August
Note: the following is a transcription of my interview with Michael Caras & Violet Mauceri. 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 author Michael Caras and student Violet Mauceri. We discuss how digital natives understand bitcoin, the properties of sound money, Bitcoin and Judaism.
“You know about digital currency from when you are a little kid...but they don’t have any way to deal with it, except now with bitcoin they can; they can understand the finite supply, they can understand that it’s uncensorable, nobody knows censorship like a kid.”
— Michael Caras
Interview Transcription
Peter McCormack: Michael, aka Bitcoin Rabbi. How are you, man?
Michael Caras: I'm doing great. Thanks for having me on, I'm great.
Peter McCormack: Dude, look, thanks for coming on. I've been messing you around with this for ages. We've been meaning to do this for quite some time, I'm so sorry, but we got here finally. When did I last see you; it wasn't Crypto Springs, was it?
Michael Caras: It was, I think 2019 Crypto Springs, so just about two years now.
Peter McCormack: Damn, that's incredible. So much has happened; so little's happened as well.
Michael Caras: I wasn't able to get to Miami this year, but I'm sure we will catch each other at the next one. Are you going to be in Texas?
Peter McCormack: For BitBlockBoom?
Michael Caras: Yeah.
Peter McCormack: Do you know what, I think I will be. But my problem is, I need to be in Boston on the 28th. I think it starts on the 26th and I've got to go to El Salvador first. So, I think what I'm going to do, I'm going to come in for two or three days. I will make a day of the conference, I will probably have my kids with me, but that's cool, I want them to see it all. So, if you're there, I will see you, brother.
Michael Caras: Awesome, okay.
Peter McCormack: We can talk, we'll catch up. Well, listen, this is a really important topic. The show we're making today in some ways is the one I want to put in front of my children. I'm not saying, "Let's make it as a kids' show", but I want them to hear about this and hear about what you're doing and why and the challenges; but then also, for everyone else.
I got this really interesting email the other day. I just did an interview with Dylan LeClair, who's a 20-year-old, works for Bitcoin Magazine, dropped out of uni, and he gets Bitcoin better than me. He is very, very smart. I got this email that came through and somebody said, "Pete, you probably don't realise, that's one of the most important shows you've made, because that's the type of show that can go out to other 20-year-olds. It shows how a 20-year-old doesn't have to go down the traditional uni route and they can go and learn on their own. Also, from this, they'll probably relate to it more than you", and I thought that was a great point. I don't know if you've checked it out?
Michael Caras: I haven't heard that from him, but I think I read his piece and I've spoken to him before.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, he's smart, dude. But the reason we're making this show is, it's a funny story, right? I had this teacher in South Korea write to me and she said, "I've got a kid here working on a project about cryptocurrencies. She was wondering if she could have some of your time; she's got some questions". I get a lot of enquiries, but I thought, "You know what; let's just do this".
So, this kid comes on and she's 11 years old, right, and I'm fully expecting to have the most basic chat ever. Then she goes into all this detail. She's asking me about MMT, she's asking me about Bitcoin, the difference between Bitcoin and Ethereum. I was thinking, "Hold on a second, my kids aren't studying this stuff at 11". It turns out, she's at this great school.
But I went away from that really inspired thinking, "This is really cool", and funnily enough, my daughter actually today asked me to learn more about Bitcoin, which I'll come to as well. But I started to think about, "You know what; I have not done enough work in understanding your work". I know your book; I have a copy here, but I haven't done enough work understanding the importance of teaching kids about Bitcoin, and also getting my own mental models in place.
But you have done this. You've probably attacked this more than anyone else in the entire space, so I really want to talk to you about it, man. I want to talk to you about why you did it, everything you've been through, what you've learnt. Yeah, really fascinated to hear the whole journey.
Michael Caras: Well, the thing about kids coming to Bitcoin is that most of the people that we interact with in this space are either coming from a super technical view, or they're involved in the financial investment space, which both you and I are not from either of those industries. So, the thing is that Bitcoin can be really simple. It can be simple that a child can understand it, and maybe even understand it better, because they don't have to unlearn so much of the financial system, the banking system.
You think about all the stats about people who are unbanked and underbanked; even in the richest country in the world, children don't have bank accounts. They have to get from their parents and they can't access all these services. If you're under 18, even with your parents' permission, you can't sign up for PayPal, you can't sign up for Cash App, you can't sign up for Venmo. But yet, they know about money and they know about digital currency from video games; every interaction that they have is with digital.
When I was a kid, we were playing with Mario with coins and things; you know about digital currency from when you're a little kid, and even more so now. But they don't have any way to deal with it, except now with Bitcoin they can and they can understand the finite supply, they can understand that it's uncensorable. I mean, nobody knows censorship like a kid, you know. So, they can understand some of these basic ideas of what makes Bitcoin useful, valuable, important, and how the way things are now just seem convoluted and unfair, if they're not on the receiving end of the benefits.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, it's really interesting, because this is highly relevant at the moment to me, and I've been through it all. So, my kids have a bank account each where I've put £50 a month in since they were born. So, I think it works out, by the time they're 18, they'll have about £10,000, which was their "go travelling for a year" money. I wish I'd put it all in Bitcoin, obviously, for the last ten years, but whatever! But they have that, but they can't access that until they're 18, and that is managed by us.
They both have money, which they get as gifts from parents and grandparents, brothers, sisters, aunties, uncles, but that is cash that sits in a draw, and that's fine, that's usually fine. But when we're out and about, they want things and they don't historically have cards, so I always pay for it. Then my son, when he was about 14, started talking about wanting one, and there is one company where you can get a bank account for them, but it's like you open an account and they get a card, and I just couldn't be bothered with it. But he did at 16; he signed up for a neobank and got himself a Monza account, but neither of them could, as you said, get an account when they were younger.
Then the other point is, you're totally right; my son understands digital money. He understands FIFA points, he understands earning them, he understands using them, buying things, essentially scarcity within that. He understands Fortnite dollars, whatever it is in that.
Michael Caras: Yeah, V-Bucks, I was just going to say that.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, so they understand all that. Then today, it was funny, it was total coincidence; we were driving into town, we had to go and get some bits, and my kids were talking about, because we're going to see my dad, I haven't seen him in ages, I'm like, "We should get him a present", talking about stuff like that. They were saying, "You always buy grandad good presents, and we'll have to do that for you when you're older, but you want a Lamborghini", and my daughter was saying, "I can't afford that".
I said, "To be honest, if you have my Bitcoin, you'll be all right later on", and she was like, "Will I get your Bitcoin?" I said, "Well, look, naturally when I die, half my Bitcoin goes to you and half goes to you brother". She said, "Well, you need to teach me about Bitcoin, dad, because I don't know how to use it, so can we start?" I was like, "That's so funny you should say that, because I'm doing an interview today with Michael, aka The Bitcoin Rabbi, that book that I've shown you about", because she's got a copy of the book. So, yeah, we're going to do this conversation and then, from this, I'm going to make them listen to it and then I'm going to start their education.
Before we start, quick question, do you have kids? I don't know if that's an OPSEC question you don't want to answer!
Michael Caras: I have six, thank God.
Peter McCormack: What?!
Michael Caras: Yeah, I have six kids. The oldest is 9 and the youngest is a baby.
Peter McCormack: You have six kids under 9? Are you trying to compete with Luke Dashjr?
Michael Caras: I mean, yeah, Luke. I think Jimmy Song's got a lot of kids.
Peter McCormack: Yeah.
Michael Caras: I mean, bitcoiners, it's a good thing, we make more bitcoiners in this world!
Peter McCormack: Dude, you've got a little mini football team there; that's awesome!
Michael Caras: The easiest way to make a bitcoiner is to birth one, you know. It's much easier than trying to argue them on the internet, convert them. Some people love arguing with gold bugs and boomers and things like that. I just say, let them live in peace and the bitcoiners, the kids of this day, the digital generation, they're going to get it. Because, if you talk to the old folks, the main thing they don't get, especially the people from an economics, Austrian background, like Peter Schiff, they just don't understand the digital, they don't understand the computer science of it, that's it's not physical, or whatever.
They could get it, but that's where the younger generation will just inherently understand it from birth. Little kids, you see when they touch a book that's not touchscreen, they kind of scroll on it, because they think a book should scroll. It's just in the DNA of kids now.
Peter McCormack: Well, my kids have never known no internet; it's just always been there, and I sound like that old fuddy when I'm like, "Well, in my day, we didn't have the internet"! They've never not known that; they've always known mobile phones; they've always known technology. It's natural for them.
Michael Caras: I showed my kids, the older ones, the video of Steve Jobs presenting the iPhone for the first time. If you haven't seen it in a while, it's pretty interesting to go back. It was only 10, 12 years ago, and to see that original video again from this perspective of how novel and exciting it was, because it really changed a lot.
Peter McCormack: Didn't he present it as three devices?
Michael Caras: Yeah, exactly.
Peter McCormack: He said it was a phone, an internet --
Michael Caras: And it spun around and then it combined into a phone, an internet device and an email communicator, or something like that, and then it joined together.
Peter McCormack: And now what it's become; incredible. I'm going to do that after this, I'm going to deal with them. Okay, listen, I'll tell you something quite funny, and you've probably had this said to you before, but I think for some adults, a quick skim of your book is also a good starting point, I really do.
Michael Caras: I mean, my oldest daughter when I wrote it was 7, so I kind of had her reading level in mind. She's a very avid reader, so it's meant that children can read it and obviously, it's colourful. But it is a PSYOP to get the adults to read it. The point is, you give it to your sister for her children and really, you're trying to get your sister to understand Bitcoin.
Because, if you're trying to hand somebody the Saifedean Ammous, The Bitcoin Standard, or Andreas Antonopoulos, The Internet of Money, somebody with a 100- or 200- or 300-page book, unless they're committed, they're not necessarily going to go into that. But they'll give a little comic book a read. From my book, they'll get at least the basic five main points or so of Bitcoin.
Peter McCormack: Smart, I love it. Well, look, we should let people know --
Michael Caras: It's also for old folks. That's what I say. I have on the back a quote from grandpa; that grandpa, it's the first time he could understand Bitcoin!
Peter McCormack: Well, it's a layer. You should start with Bitcoin Money, then you should go to The Internet of Money, then you can go to The Bullish Case For Bitcoin, then you can go for The Bitcoin Standard, then you can go to Mastering Bitcoin; it's a tree of books. But listen, it's a great book. Let's tout it out at the start. It's called Bitcoin Money. Where can people buy it? I know I do this at the end, but let's tell them now.
Michael Caras: Yeah, it's on Amazon if you look up Bitcoin Money or Bitcoin Money book. It's easy to find there, or bitcoinmoneybook.com. Yeah, I mean it's been great. It's been out for two years now, and I kind of lost track, but we're somewhere in the 20,000 copies range, is how many we've done. We've done, I think, 10 or 12 different languages now, so it's been translated into French, Spanish, Japanese, German, Dutch, Portuguese; just a bunch of different language people have reached out to me and requested different languages, so that's been awesome to get it into those different markets.
I'm hoping to get a hard cover copy this year; that's what I want maybe for the holiday season, a hard cover, if someone wants something a little more sturdy. Right now, it's something almost like a pamphlet. People order 10-packs, or 30-packs, and give them out to their students, whatever. I've had an investor, somebody who has a small firm, buy it for their clients, or for their employees, or something like that.
When you were at Bitcoin Is with Russell, they got 50 copies or something to give out. Bitcoiners have a natural tendency; Bitcoin wants to spread, so bitcoiners want to share it, so it's something that you can pass out and give out to people that gets the message out.
Peter McCormack: Well, it is a great book. There's a few little Easter Egg characters in there as well, which is always nice to see.
Michael Caras: Yeah, some of our pals show up in Bitville.
Peter McCormack: In Bitville! So, listen, you wrote the book, it is brilliant, but let's talk a bit about this. Let's talk about educating kids about Bitcoin. So, when you approached the book, you said you wrote it for your 7-year-old; did she become a testing bed for it? Was that how it worked; was that your approach; you would write a chapter, test it on her? Did you test different models on her? How did you do it; what was your approach?
Michael Caras: Well, no. I wrote the whole thing in one sitting. I mean, if you count the words, it's really like an essay; it's about 1,000 words. So, I think I was lying in bed and the idea of the book came, and then I woke up the next morning and just wrote it all out in one sitting. Really, my wife is a graphic designer, so she took what was an essay and turned it into a book.
Peter McCormack: Oh, wow!
Michael Caras: Yeah, she's worked in publishing books before, and that's one of the things that she does. So, I did, after it was written, go through it and clarify sentences and make things understandable, make sure that the vocabulary was age-appropriate and the sentence structure. But it's based off the structure of a lot of Saifedean's book and oddly enough, I see you have Peter Schiff behind you; it is strongly influenced by a book that Peter Schiff wrote, called How an Economy Grows and Why it Crashes, which is based off a comic book which his father wrote.
So, I had influences, and also Nick Szabo's writing. So, I had influences for how the structure came about. But I'm a middle school teacher, that's my day job.
Peter McCormack: Well, there we go.
Michael Caras: Yeah, so I share Bitcoin, I give classes to the teenagers and pre-teens, as well as I speak at synagogues and Jewish groups and youth groups, to give my pitch or my explanation, and I connect it with Judaism, because I'm a rabbi. So, I want to give both of those perspectives. So, I've been trying to educate people of all ages. Then, when people want to hear more about it, they will then get into the more technical details and stuff, and then I'm really helping out.
So, that's pretty much what I do. I mean, Bitcoin isn't my day job, but I just, in different ways for different ages and different levels, try to assist people and explain it to them.
Peter McCormack: And is that a Jewish school you teach at?
Michael Caras: Yes, it's a small Jewish private school that I've been teaching for the past ten years.
Peter McCormack: So, I've got a few questions on that as well. I was going to save it until the end, but we might as well do it now as you've touched on it. You're an Orthodox Jew, right; is that the correct way of saying it?
Michael Caras: Yeah. So, that is correct, I'm Orthodox; maybe more within Orthodox, more specifically a Hasidic Jew, that I have a beard and I wear a coat and hat. But generally, Orthodox is the correct term.
Peter McCormack: No, but do you say "Orthodox Jew", or do you say "Orthodox Jewish"; I don't really know?
Michael Caras: Orthodox Jew is correct; that's okay.
Peter McCormack: Okay. So, if you're in a private Jewish school, these schools obviously have a different curriculum to standard schools. Obviously, some of the work, I guess, will be teaching of certain things specific to being an Orthodox Jew?
Michael Caras: Yeah, so we split up our schedule. So generally what it is, is in the morning before lunch is Jewish subjects, so Bible class, Jewish law, philosophy, theology, history, Hebrew language, those kinds of classes in the morning. Then, we do the secular English subjects in the afternoon, so all the standard stuff, English reading, writing, maths, science, all of those things as well.
There actually was a teachers' this year, because a lot of schools were out of session. So usually, I only teach Jewish subjects; but this year, I was filling in, so I was also the maths teacher, the middle school maths teacher, so this past year I had double the teaching schedule and the responsibilities of what I usually would, which is usually just a half day.
Peter McCormack: What age maths were you teaching?
Michael Caras: 6th, 7th and 8th grade, so that's ages 11 to 14.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, perfect. Okay, so listen, I hadn't touched maths in years and I was pretty good at maths. It was the one subject I was okay at, right. Obviously, we went through a lockdown and the teachers were working from home, the kids were home, but you have to chip in a bit, get the yell from downstairs, "Can you come and help me?" So, this is my 11-year-old, right, she's like, "Can you help me with maths?" and I'm going down thinking, "Yeah, I've got this; let's go!"
Then, we sat down and I can't remember what it was and I was like, "What the fuck is this?" I had no memory. So, I was having to go online to figure it out. So, did you have to scratch up on your maths skills?
Michael Caras: Yeah, I mean a little bit. I also volunteered to do it, because I also did pretty well in maths. But some things, they change the way that they teach them, from when you and I were in school, before the turn of the century. But a lot of it's pretty similar; just a few things that I had to -- things that you don't use, I just needed to be reminded of a few rules of how things worked. But it worked out pretty well.
We were in school this whole year, so last year, from April/March something of last year, we were off the last couple of months, but starting September until the end of this school year, we were all in person in our schools. So, you just had to make it work. It wasn't the only thing that we had to work around of taking on extra classes.
Peter McCormack: And, with regards to teaching Bitcoin within the school, I mean I don't know the structure, if you have a Headmaster, but did you have to go to them and say, "Listen, I'm down this Bitcoin rabbit hole, I want to teach the kids about this. How do you feel about this?" What was the deal with that?
Michael Caras: So, where I am specifically, it's a pretty small, tight-knit school. We're only about 100 students and I'm really involved. It's almost like a communal school, a lot of close families and communities and we all go to the same synagogue, and lots of cousins and neighbours. So, everyone knows I'm The Bitcoin Rabbi; I mean, every person knows that. It's been a few years. They've all seen my book and talked to me, the adults and stuff. So, they don't mind.
It's not like I was taking off and saying, "We don't have to learn maths this year, we're doing Bitcoin instead", but it got sprinkled in and everyone was happy. I'm not pushing! I give out some Bitcoin to the kids, we read some of my book, I do some of my presentation. So, it just got sprinkled in. I had some classes about it and showed some videos, some more of the technical stuff. But when we get our maths work done, you can do some extracurricular things.
Peter McCormack: And just generally speaking, amongst the Jewish faith and Jewish people, how does Bitcoin fit in? I'm so uneducated on this subject, but I know there are certain religions -- so for example, I know within Islam, there are considerations whether Bitcoin is Islamic. Is there any consideration that has to be given with regards to money or property, and therefore Bitcoin fits into this?
Michael Caras: I would say Bitcoin fits in from two aspects: one, from a financial, and also from a technological. So, you see somebody who has a beard and hat and sometimes dresses in dated clothing from the 1800s, sometimes people might see that and think, "Oh, you must not use electronics". There's a similar-looking group in America called The Amish people, and there might be others that shy away from technology; that's not really the case in Judaism.
There is, I would say, a hesitancy as far as media and social media, but that's about the content, not about the technology itself. So, you'll find a full embracement of the use of whatever kind of technology, financial technology, medical technology; just we don't use electronics on the Sabbath, on Friday night to Saturday. So, that's one side thing.
As far as the financial, the one main issue is about interest, charging interest, usury. So, that's something that's similar in Islam and Judaism, but it's not a huge part of it; it's not really so relevant. If you are using Bitcoin, there are a couple of questions that come up of when you're lending out Bitcoin, is it a currency; is it a commodity; is it the same thing as a gold coin? But the truth is, those same questions came up in Judaism when we went to fiat dollars as well, "Is this money really worth anything?" So, they're kind of more theoretical questions.
From a day-to-day application of, can you use Bitcoin, can you save money in Bitcoin, it's not really something that you have to -- Bitcoin is kosher; that's what I say. Bitcoin itself is a technology. If you use it for kosher things, then it's kosher. All technologies, if you can use it for good or you can use it for bad, you should choose to use it for good things, and that's what you do, that's what I do, that's what 99% of the people who use Bitcoin do; they use it to try and be a store of value, they try and use it for a means of exchange, or whatever it is, just to live their life.
Peter McCormack: Is "kosher" used as a slang term broadly in the US like it is in the UK?
Michael Caras: Yes, absolutely. Kosher does mean that specifically, a food is acceptable for Jewish consumption. But "kosher" just means that it's good to go, it's all right.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, good to go. Like, if you're buying some tickets for a football match, you'd be like, "Are they kosher?" "Yeah, they're fine"!
Michael Caras: Yes.
Peter McCormack: That's funny; I didn't know if that was just a British thing. Okay, one last question in this area, because you mentioned the teaching of Jewish law. How does that work in respect of the fact that, for example, if you're in the US, you have state and federal law? Jewish law, is it a law amongst Jewish people, they agree a way to treat each other; what's the deal there?
Michael Caras: Yeah. Jewish law, when I say that, primarily it means that there are two: it's how you interact with yourself and God, meaning your ritualistic law. Like kosher; kosher is a Jewish law. Is this food permissible for you? Now, there's no one forcing that on you. You choose to be Orthodox or not to be Orthodox, to observe this or not, but these laws go back to the Torah, to the Talmud, to Jewish writings for the past 3,000 years.
So, we learn about how the holidays are observed, how Sabbath is observed, various things. There are some monetary laws that are how you should interact interpersonally with another person. I mean, even if the government allowed you to steal, or do something that we would consider immoral, you would still have the Jewish legal obligation. So, it's not superseding federal or state law; that is part of Jewish law, that you have to follow the local ordinances, and when you're a citizen in a country, you need to follow those laws as well.
So, part of that is, as far as Bitcoin, to use it legally to pay your taxes; all of those things are part of Jewish law that we have to be good citizens as well.
Peter McCormack: I think Islam's fairly similar in that you are also meant to follow local laws as well. But let me ask you, sorry, final question in this area, because I've never been to Israel and I'd love to go. There's a chance I might be going this year if I can. Is Jewish law therefore enshrined into Israeli law, or is it still different?
Michael Caras: So, not much. Israel is majority secular and most of the laws -- so, in England, believe it or not, England is a religious country, meaning the Rabbi of England is a government position. The head of different churches and other religions is a government position. So, if you want to have a Jewish wedding in the UK, it has to be according to the Head Rabbi of England, which is according to the government of England.
So, that is similar in Israel. There is the head of Islam, the head of Christianity, the head of Judaism, for religious affairs. But as far as the country as a whole, there are some, but it is primarily not. I mean, there is no law that says you have to follow Jewish law; anyone can live there. And especially for someone who is not Jewish. I mean the population of Israel, citizens of Israel are Jews, Muslims, Christians, every which religion in the world live in Israel and can live and pray and worship, or not worship, or anything they want. People are allowed to live the way they choose to in Israel. It's a secular, liberal democracy.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, I mean it's definitely an area I am ignorant on, I don't know enough about, I don't understand enough about, and I should spend more time; and it's probably one of those things I'd love to just sit down and have dinner with you and talk about more, because I'll have so many different questions. I'm really fascinated by the history of religion, multiple religions. So perhaps one day, when I see you next, we'll sit down and we'll have a chat.
Michael Caras: Absolutely.
Peter McCormack: That was a bit of a tangent. Let's get back to the topic of kids. Okay, so the book's been out, what, three years, four years?
Michael Caras: Two years.
Peter McCormack: Is it only two years?
Michael Caras: 2019, yeah, 2019.
Peter McCormack: I thought it had come out way before I'd met you. So, what's been your biggest surprise --
Michael Caras: Well, we met in August 2019, so it came out just a few months before then; it was only out for six months.
Peter McCormack: I'm struggling to remember, because the last 18 months have been so weird. So, what are the things that surprised you most about the book, in terms of having it released out there, having the feedback that you've received; what's surprised you about it?
Michael Caras: I did not expect it to reach as many people. I never imagined that it would be translated into a language, into other languages. I was hopeful that it would get -- when I published the book, I had just been on Twitter for maybe six months or something, I had never met a bitcoiner in person, I had 1,000 followers on Twitter, so I didn't have an audience, I didn't have who to share it with. I mean, I just had Bitcoin Twitter.
It propelled and I'm amazed at how far it went and how far it took me, that it took me to California, and that it's taken me to different places to meet bitcoiners and to get to have conversations like this. That was really part of the goal of it; not the book, but part of the goal of me being The Bitcoin Rabbi and trying to be a public persona, is to make these kinds of connections, to be a bridge.
You probably have seen Orthodox Jews, visually, and you don't have an opportunity to talk to them to ask these kinds of questions before. Some people have never talked to a rabbi, whether a Jewish person or someone who's not, or any other different religion. So, I wanted to have all of these connections. I've chatted with people from around the world of all different religions, and they'll ask me questions, like we're having today. So that, I've just been so happy that the book has opened up that world to me and all of those different relationships that I've been able to make.
It's been a surprise and a huge pleasure to be able to reach this, because the Bitcoin community is so global and so diverse, and also I want to show that Bitcoin isn't just a bunch of tech nerds and finance bros. There are all different types of people. There are family people, there are religious people, there are all different types of people that bitcoiners come, and Bitcoin is really for everybody.
Peter McCormack: Right, okay. Well, let's start getting into the book, because this is the interesting bit. This is the juice of what you created. You went to teach people about Bitcoin, you said you wrote it in one session, tell me how you started, because you've got to be thinking that there's a goal here. You're going to put the book in front of someone, maybe 5, 6, all the way up to about maybe 10, 12?
Michael Caras: Yeah, that's really the range for the kids; and then also, for their adults. Teenagers in the middle are aware they can read -- if you can get them interested in anything, then you could probably get them interested in a serious adult Bitcoin book.
Peter McCormack: Okay, so when you were approaching this, what was the goal, what did you want them to feel by the end of the book; what was your objective with it?
Michael Caras: So, I write in the epilogue that I want people to understand what money is. And I think that children know that inherently. I don't even feel it teaches them that much that they wouldn't already understand. The book explicitly goes through what are the good qualities of money which, as bitcoiners, we're familiar with, and most people in the world are familiar with at a gut level, at an instinctual level; you know why something is money and something isn't money.
Then, it's just for them to look at fiat dollars. And today, some people think that the dollars are still backed by gold. They understood why gold was money, they understand why barter doesn't work. So, I want people to understand what makes good money and why Bitcoin is that and can be that and that inflationary money is not a given that money has to be this way, and it really shouldn't; and it's that way to benefit the people that are the ones with the printing press.
So, I think that children, who have a natural understanding of fairness, can see the book and understand that there's something not fair about that, and there is something fair about Bitcoin.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, absolutely. I want you to explain though, because there will be some people who haven't read the book. They should buy it; go and buy the book, please, because it's brilliant, especially for your kids. But talk about how you explain the coincidence of wants?
Michael Caras: So, the three children in the book are Alice, Bobby and Charlie and every time you're describing a Bitcoin transaction, it's Alice and Bob. So, it's ABC; person A transacts to person B, etc. They do household chores, so Alice sells lemonade, and Bobby mows lawns, and Charlie is an artist and he paints pictures, and these are all things that people want and people can trade with each other.
But trading doesn't work all the time, because you have to have a lot of coincidences to make everything match up. You have to be in the same place at the same time and want the same thing and the same amounts. So, sometimes it works; sometimes you can meet your pal and say, "I like your shoes". "I like your hat". "Let's trade my shoes for your hat". But you can't build an economy that way.
So, you can't build an economy where the person who is the chicken farmer always has to bring his chickens to the market and find the people that want chickens and want exactly what they want. There has to be some way that the chicken farmer and the shoemaker can trade with each other and they're not just only getting chickens and shoes. So, those are the coincidences of wants and that's why money had to be invented, because there has to be this means of exchange, this medium of exchange, that everybody agrees this is valuable and just because it's a representation of all the other things, the money isn't really valuable to itself.
I mean, gold can be valuable because it's jewellery, but that's not what makes it money. The fact that it's jewellery has nothing to do with the fact that it's money. What makes it good money is that it's good at keeping track of what people have. And that's how Bitcoin -- I mean, for all the technologists who get Bitcoin and try and explain it in the blockchain, in mining and private keys and pub keys and nodes and all this; when it comes down to it, Bitcoin is just a spreadsheet.
Peter McCormack: It's a ledger.
Michael Caras: Yeah, it's a ledger. It's my account. I mean, whatever, you and I both know there's more complexity to it, but it's my account and your account. My number says this, your number says that. I want to give you money; we just erase it over here and we change it there and people can understand that. They don't need -- just like you don't understand how your phone works and you don't understand how Wi-Fi works and computer chips and all this stuff; you don't need to get into all that detail, not when you're talking children and not when you're talking to 99% of the people in the world.
Peter McCormack: Well, funny you should say that, because I interviewed John Pfeffer, I think it was yesterday; no, it was Monday, for The ₿ Word, the event that's being put on, which is going to include the Jack Dorsey and Elon Musk debate, which I'm fascinated to watch by the way. But my question to him was, "How did you discover Bitcoin?" because he's a big investor and supporter of open-source dev as well. He said, he was sat down by Wences, and Wences just said to him, "Listen, money is a ledger and Bitcoin is the best ledger there is". That's it; he immediately gripped to that.
So the question is, "Why is it the best ledger?" and you get into the details of the properties of money and how it works, but he said it's simply the best ledger that's ever existed. John was like, "Well, if it doesn't work, it's a VC loss, but if this works, it's the best asymmetric bet I can make".
Michael Caras: Wences was one of the original people to explain this well. I mean in 2012/13, he was on stages. I have seen his presentations where he explains; very much an influence on the book of explaining the properties of money, explaining about barter. And it's not like a development of, "First there was barter and then there was money". It's not necessarily about that, it's just explaining why barter couldn't work, why do we need to invent this whole thing called money, when nobody actually wants money.
I mean, you can't eat Bitcoin, you can't sleep in Bitcoin, same thing for gold. It's not like you actually want it for its own sake. It's just a ledger; it's just to keep track. And it's fair because it's the best ledger, because nobody's in charge of it, nobody can cheat it, nobody can print themselves more. Those are the properties of it and why that works and how that works is details.
Peter McCormack: Well, nobody can cheat it; I mean, that's the principle of it. It's the best ledger and nobody can cheat it. So, what about the properties --
Michael Caras: And kids like that. Kids like something that can't be cheated. They like something that their principal can't cheat at, their friends can't cheat at, that's fair. And if you do the right thing, you get the right outcome; kids like that.
Peter McCormack: What about the properties of money, because I first learnt about the properties of money through Vijay Boyapati's The Bullish Case for Bitcoin. And even today, I was with my doctor and he was asking me about the Bitcoin thing, and I was like, "Well, it's the best money that ever existed and it's better than gold because of…", you know, talking about durability, scarcity, etc. But he kind of glazed over me with this. How did you approach the properties of money and why Bitcoin is the best?
Michael Caras: So, all the kids, everybody wants whatever they have to be the money. The kid that mows lawns, he's like, "Hey, I've got a lot of grass clippings, how about that?" The girl that makes lemonade, she's like, "Why can't lemonade…?" And we all know in our intuition why those things can't be money, because they aren't durable, because they aren't divisible, because they can't be transported. All of these things; houses are valuable, they're useful, but you can't break a house in pieces; a bicycle, you can't. All of these things, they just need to be used for what they're used for.
Money has to be something that you can carry around with you, you can break into small pieces, they have to be uniform so that they're all the same. That's why shells aren't good and beads and even jewels. Precious jewels aren't uniform, they're all different sizes, different shapes, different colours. All of these things can be used as money, if you don't have anything better. They can be, and that's what we've see in ancient civilisations, there were all of these things used as money, but they're not perfect, or they're not good enough.
They might have been good enough when there was no alternative. It's better to use beads or jewels or salt or something when you don't have an alternative, but when you have something that can be transported, divisible, it's uniform, it's recognisable, or verifiable, all of these properties that we see with Bitcoin; and frankly, fiat has a lot of those things as well. Digital fiat, the problems are the inflation and the permission of it, that you have to get permission to use it and that you can be censored on all of those things. So, for most people, if inflation is low and if you're not being censored…
I mean, when I'm going out and doing my day-to-day purchases, I'm mostly using fiat, because it works for those things. Bitcoin is when you're trying to hedge against inflation, or if you're trying to hedge against censorship or government control. That's what you need it for.
Peter McCormack: Do you know what; inflation's another funny one with the kids. I always seem to have anecdotes for everything! But I was watching a documentary on the BBC a couple of nights ago with my son, and it was about this group of mercenaries who were employed to go out to Columbia to assassinate Pablo Escobar. I'm watching it with my son and they're all in this hotel room getting paid, and they're talking about how much money they got paid.
One guy was on £1,000 a day, another was on £5,000 a month. My son was like, "That's not much money" and I was like, "What do you mean?" He was, "Well, this is a risky job, dad, they're going to kill Pablo Escobar. £5,000 a month?" I was like, "Yeah, but this was back in the 1970s, 1980s; you've got to count for inflation". He was like, "What do you mean?" I said, "Well, you know how much this house is worth. My mum and dad's first house cost them £2,000".
So, I basically went into a calculator with a rough estimate. I said, "Okay, so the guy getting £5,000 a month, actually he's getting about £50,000 a month. The guy getting £1,000 a day, he's actually getting a few hundred thousand pounds a month because of that, based on today's money". He was like, "Oh, how is that?" I was, "That's inflation. Things get more expensive". He was, "Why is that?" I said, "There's a few reasons. Supply and demand drives it, but also just the expansion of the money".
That was a real chance to explain it to him. I still think inflation, even sometimes with some adults, it's a concept that you have to explain. I think some people think it's just a natural part of the economy; this is growth, right? It's not something that's a little more sinister.
Michael Caras: Yeah. I think Jeff Booth has been really talking about this in his books, that really the natural state of things is deflation; that as things get more efficient and the economy gets more efficient, then things should cost less. The reason that they cost more is because there is more money in the system. I'm sure the economists will explain ten different reasons why it's other things and there are other factors. Good, they can explain it different ways, but it's pretty simple that if you print more dollars or pounds, which they are doing, and there's more of those and there's the same amount of goods, then the prices go up for that, and that's what happens in the book. Everybody's printing out money.
The girl thinks that she raises the price of lemonade from $1 to $2; she thinks she's doing great. Then, all of a sudden, everything else is costing more; the lemons cost more, the pitchers cost more and you're at square one, you haven't gained anything. You might even lose out, because your wages don't grow at the same rate. Is everyone getting a 5% raise, or 3% raise, or whatever it is per year for that?
I think really, inflation and the stories of it from when I was a child, they say, "When were you orange pilled?", and from a child, my dad would tell me -- we'd go to the movies and he'd always say -- a movie was $10 or something. He'd say, "When I was a kid, the movie cost 25 cents for a ticket. And when my father was a kid", so we're talking the 1940s or 1950s or something, "the movie cost 5 cents for two tickets. So, his mother would send him with 2 pennies and tell him to go find a rich kid who has 3 pennies so that they could get in together".
So, you look at what we're paying now to go to the theatres; I don't know, I haven't been in a long time, probably $20, versus 2 cents. I mean, that's not natural. That's not just because we're all richer, which thank God we are, but again that's because of technology and that's because of advancements and efficiencies in the market. The reason things cost more is just because there is -- I mean, you look at the charts, especially this year, or how much money is being flooded into the system, and that's what it is.
A child, and hopefully an adult, an adult might think that it's a lot more complicated than it is and they'll be told that there are experts that know what they're doing and can predict inflation; but a child just knows that if you make more of something, it's less valuable, it's less precious, it's not fair. If you worked for something and then somebody else can just make it for free and give it out for free, that's what happens with money, with fiat.
Peter McCormack: Well, if you price everything in Bitcoin once every four years, it appears to be getting cheaper!
Michael Caras: Well, that's the solution. Some of the kids were sceptical of Bitcoin, but the ones that switched over to the Bitcoin standard saw that their purchasing power was going up. Essentially, that's what all the other things that have to do with Bitcoin, it does have to do with the Number Go Up meme; that is the primary. The limited supply which causes a price increase feedback loop is at the ,core of what makes it a much superior money for the average person, that they can put some savings.
Like you said, you've got your savings account for kids; I've got savings accounts for kids and I've got Bitcoin accounts for kids. I've got some dollars put away, because you never know when you might need a few dollars here or there, but also Bitcoin. I put just as much into the Bitcoin, if not more than into the other accounts, because I think that when they are 18 and older and when they want to do that, they're going to appreciate that Bitcoin savings account more than their dollar savings account.
Peter McCormack: Dude, if I'd have done their $50 of Bitcoin a month from birth, bearing in mind one child's 17 and I couldn't have actually done that; but if I had, they'd be billionaires now.
Michael Caras: Well, start now. The best time to buy Bitcoin was yesterday, but the second best time, that's what I say!
Peter McCormack: I know. I actually said to them, "What I'm going to do is I'm going to switch it soon to Bitcoin and you're going to have Bitcoin accounts", because by the time they need to -- well, especially my daughter. My son's slightly different; he's going to go travelling at some point. Actually, he might not do it until after uni, so if I start now? Yeah, I think I'm going to do it.
Michael Caras: Kids are the best hodlers also, because kids, when they're born or when they're a teenager or pre-teen, or something, when they don't actually have any expenses, real expenses, they can save Bitcoin. I give out Bitcoin for bar or bat mitzvahs, which are when the kids are turning a teenager, and they're not going to touch that; they don't need it. They're going to sit on that for maybe the next decade. That's the ideal situation. At this point, while Bitcoin is going through fluctuations and it's volatile and all of this stuff, just having a kid have…
The two benefits they can see with Bitcoin is one, putting away some Bitcoin in a savings account for them, a Bitcoin vault, or a multisig, or a saving, or a paper wallet, or whatever it is that they're not going to touch for ten years, and you can just keep adding a little bit to it and a little bit to it. And, on the other side, if you're in a situation where -- we're not quite there yet, because we don't have a circular economy, but maybe we'll see this happen in El Salvador, and maybe it can happen in small things, where a kid who doesn't have a bank account, doesn't have a credit or debit card or something, but does have a phone, or does have an iPod or something, they can use Bitcoin, they can use Lightning Network and have that $50 worth, or something, that they can have spending money and they don't have to carry around cash.
I've heard you talk recently about your different cash in different currencies that you have to have from country to country. I have teenagers that you have a babysitter, or you get teenagers to help out or clean out the synagogue or do something, and they're the only people that I have to pay with cash, because they don't have Cash App, they don't have Venmo, they don't have all these things. Bitcoin really can be a good solution for the pocket change.
It's hard to imagine that these kids, everything is digital for them and they're getting devices younger and younger. That's its own question of when to get devices and what parents should do about good health with devices; but you can have a Bitcoin wallet and the parent can set it up for them and just deal with that. So, I think it can be a good solution for kids and teenagers also.
Peter McCormack: Well, I think I won't do it monthly at £50, because I've got Shinobi ringing in my ear right now and I'm thinking he's saying, "Pete, UTXOs, consider UTXO management, come on. Stop giving them $50 UTXOs".
But, look, the other thing is, whilst you're birthing bitcoiners, you're also trying to birth Bitcoin maximalists. How did you approach that, because the other thing is, I was with one of my son's friends yesterday; my son got dropped off and he was there and he was saying, "Connor says you do the Bitcoin thing". He was like, "I've got Polkadot and Cardano, etc, and this shitcoin, that shitcoin". I was just, "Oh, mate, we need to have a chat". But you're birthing Bitcoin maxis as well with the book!
Michael Caras: So, the last chapter, chapter 6 -- I've always been a Bitcoin maximalist. Some people say that you need to have gone through the fire of altcoins or anything, and I never did. The first time I heard of Litecoin, I thought it was a ridiculous idea. Nothing ever made sense to me. I tried to understand why anyone would need Ethereum; I still don't understand. There are some cool gambling aspects that people like to do in it and they leverage trade and stuff; not interesting for me.
I think that when you come at it from the monetary aspect, which that's what I came from; I came from studying Austrian Economics, inflation, the gold standard. No other coins as monies made sense to me. That's how I started off and that's just how I've been. No other projects that I've seen in the space have really interested me at all. Both from an ideological as well as a financial thing, I recommend people just stay away from them.
If you like betting in casinos, then go ahead. But if that's not what you're interested in, if you're interested in the next global reserve currency, then Bitcoin is, which that's what I'm interested in.
Peter McCormack: But how did you explain to kids; how do you try and get it across to them?
Michael Caras: So, I show all the different coins. I mean, the main value of Bitcoin is that you can't print more of it, and altcoins; everybody prints their own new altcoin. I mean, there's 20,000 of them, and it's the exact opposite of the purpose of what makes Bitcoin valuable, is that nobody's in charge of it, nobody's printing more of it, nobody's controlling it, and you can run your own node.
I even allude to that. I say everybody's got the software on their phone, they don't need to trust anyone else. No other coins really have that aspect. So I say, first there's Fedcoin, that the government figure, the Fed, tries to make his own coin; then there's Bitcoin big and Bitcoin small and Bitcoin red and Bitcoin green and all of these, which you know what, I don't remember the exact timing if this was before or after your now infamous 2 Bitcoins tweet, when you said your pal was asking about why there are 2 Bitcoins on Coinbase, so I don't remember if I wrote this before or after that.
But I backed you up on that. I said it's confusing and it's confusing when people come into the space and I think it's important, as someone who is knowledgeable, to come out straightaway and say, "Bitcoin is the thing. Everything else is not worth your time and not legitimate, or doesn't live up to its promises".
Peter McCormack: All right, last one. Lightning: that's a difficult one to explain to people sometimes. I think you actually approached it in a very clever way.
Michael Caras: Thank you.
Peter McCormack: Well, tell us!
Michael Caras: Oh, what, sorry! I thought you were saying lightning round!
Peter McCormack: No, Lightning!
Michael Caras: I'm sorry, I misunderstood you. Lightning, I mean just a scratch, I think I gave it two lines. Again, who needs to understand Lighting. If you're running a node in this -- some people complained and whined and said Bitcoin is too slow and doesn't work. Details. Let the tech people figure that stuff out. Right now, I've got five different Lightning wallets on my phone and I'm not managing channels, I'm not doing any of this back-end stuff.
So, some people want to understand that, some people want to have absolute full control and are involved in that and that's great. And the great thing about Lightning is that you can do that. But the details of it, there are some really smart kids that are working on making Bitcoin faster and cheaper and all of that and I've got Elizabeth Stark and Olaoluwa Osuntokun there, and they're shooting Lightning beams back at each other.
So, that's basically how it works. I understand at a pretty high level and thorough level how Lightning works, but I don't think it's all that important for the average user, for the people in El Zonte, how this thing works or doesn't work, or what all of this is; it's got to go into the background. I don't understand how my router on my computer, my modem and my router, makes connections to the internet, because good, intelligent engineers were able to put that in the background.
You appreciate that and you really spell that out well as a UX designer, which I've always appreciated that perspective of yours, that Bitcoin has to be beautiful and elegant and simple to get people to use it in the best ways, the most self-sovereign and self-controlled way. But different people are going to make different choices how they're going to do it.
So, Lightning just gets a couple of lines, that there's some smart kids working on it, and that's just about the main thing people need to know. And it's even more true now than it was then. I mean, there are so many people working on Lightning and made it worlds better now than it was two years ago. I posted a video last week that was from two years ago, when I first set up Lightning on my computer. It took about a week! I needed assistance, I had video chats to help me get my nodes up and stuff, I was doing it on my desktop. I was able to buy some stickers and it was just a mess.
But I could see that that was just the first step and now, Lightning is simple, it's easy, you can use it anywhere, you can use it anytime. It's really gotten far and so, I'm glad to see that what I talked about in the book, "Don't worry about it; it's working", has actually come to fruition and we're at a pretty good place now.
Peter McCormack: Well, I just released a show today with Christian Decker and Carla, I forget her surname; Carla Cohen -- I think she's got a double-barrelled surname -- all about Lightning attacks. And do you know what; it was one of those things where I was doing the show thinking, "Do you know what; no one actually really needs to know this". The question is, "Is Lightning safe?" It's like, "Yeah, we're figuring out all the attacks", because basically these kids don't need to know it. All they want to do is they want to see a QR code, scan it and go, "Done, paid". So, I think you're right with that.
All right, man, just to finish off, are you working on a follow-up?
Michael Caras: Great question! I'm not really working on one now. I've brainstormed a few things. Like I said, I spent a lot of time working on the translations, so that was a big project. I've thought of a few different directions to go with the follow-up, but this book when I wrote it, it was almost like inspiration. It came to me, I'm really proud of it, I think it gives a real overview, and I don't want to put something out that I don't feel as strongly about.
Also, the things that I'm involved in, like I said, Bitcoin isn't my day job. So, I've been teaching and doing all the other work that I have to do. And the main thing that I do to help people is give these classes, or do one-on-one talks with people that are just coming in and they need some technical help, or they need some guidance, and that's where I'm really doing most of my Bitcoin work, in the Twitter DMs, or the other messenger groups, messenger apps of people reaching out to me.
My name has gotten out enough now that Jewish people, Orthodox Jewish people know where to come to get their Bitcoin information, and that's been great.
Peter McCormack: You're the guy!
Michael Caras: Yeah. So, I am working on those things, but it's mostly behind the scenes. So, right now, Bitcoin Money is where it's at. I'm hoping to get a hard-cover version of it out, but it's been such a great book and has reached so many people and it's still selling; there are still people. And the more that it goes on, the more bitcoiners there are, the more people are going to need to read it.
So, I'm hoping that it's a classic and it will still have a good shelf life. I don't want to write something that's just going to go and be outdated. If you get into too in the weeds and the technical also, you find that you write something and then a year later, it's not accurate anymore, because that information is outdated, the technology changes, so that's another idea.
Peter McCormack: Well, listen, the book's awesome. Actually, I'm going to go and dig it out, because I haven't looked at it since I first read it with my daughter. Did you ever see the photo? I've got this classic photo of me reading the book and my daughter reading Mastering Bitcoin!
Michael Caras: I do remember seeing that. I tried to find it. You should send that to me, because I haven't seen it in a while and you don't have your old tweets. But I love when people send me -- I've got probably maybe 50 or more pictures of kids, families reading it together, and it's nice to have something. I share this with my family. I mean, it really is the whole thing. Like I said, my wife helped me put the book together, we worked on it with my kids.
Bitcoin is a family affair by us and I love to see it as a family affair, because Bitcoin is for everybody, but Bitcoin is for families and Bitcoin is for kids, that's for sure.
Peter McCormack: Well, listen, I'll try and dig that photo out; I'll see if I can find it. But just keep doing the work, man, keep pushing it out there. It's a great book. I hope people listening buy it, I hope every cycle, it keeps getting bought up, I think it's great. And it's great we've finally done this, because this is so overdue, not even just for the last few weeks with my back, but it's overdue. It's great work you're doing supporting kids in education; I love it, man.
Hopefully, we will get to see you in Austin, we'll catch up and we'll talk Bitcoin and a few other things, man.
Michael Caras: Awesome, that's great. Thanks, Peter, thanks for having me.
Peter McCormack: No, dude, listen, tell people where to find you and tell them where to get the book again.
Michael Caras: Okay, so I'm @thebitcoinrabbi on Twitter. I'm there 24/6; I take off on Sabbath, but my DMs are open. I love talking to people of all religions, all types, whether it's a Bitcoin question, or a question you want to ask a rabbi; that's what I'm there for. My website's thebitcoinrabbi.com, the book is Bitcoin Money: a Tale of Bitville Discovering Good Money, and it's on Amazon, really easy to find, or bitcoinmoneybook.com.
One of the best things about Bitcoin and Bitcoin Twitter is the community and so, reach out to me; I love talking to people.
Peter McCormack: Love it, man, keep doing your thing. And fingers crossed, I'm going to see you in Austin in a few weeks.
Michael Caras: All right, take care.
Peter McCormack: Okay, that was Michael Caras, The Bitcoin Rabbi, but next up we have this short ten-minute interview with Violet, the amazing 11-year-old, who interviewed me in preparation for her school project, and I just wanted to bring her on the show today. I think she's awesome. We covered a few basic questions with her, and I just wanted to get her introduced to the WBD crowd and over to Violet.
Hello again, Violet!
Violet Mauceri: Hi.
Peter McCormack: How are you?
Violet Mauceri: Good.
Peter McCormack: So, you're officially the youngest person to come on What Bitcoin Did; how do you feel about that?
Violet Mauceri: Pretty good, a little nervous, but feel good.
Peter McCormack: You don't need to be nervous, you just need to do what you did last time when you crushed it. Right, I'm going to hand over to you. Do you want to tell people how we met?
Violet Mauceri: So, I was doing an exhibition in school and I'm in Grade 5, and I was learning about cryptocurrency and how it affects kids and some effects it also has on the world and how it might affect the future. So, I was researching and my teacher found you online and we got in contact and I asked you a couple of questions, and I got some notes and some research, and then I had my exhibition.
Peter McCormack: So, tell me how the exhibition went?
Violet Mauceri: It was good. We had quite a lot of audience. A lot of people enjoyed my stand. They were interested in how, at a young age, I was eager to learn about this topic, and yeah, so I think people really enjoyed it.
Peter McCormack: Well, you certainly blew me away; I told you that. I was really impressed with the level of knowledge you developed, not just around cryptocurrency, but also around how the economy works. So, tell me what you found out, tell me what you learned about cryptocurrency.
Violet Mauceri: So, I'm not going to get into too much detail, but I was learning about printing money and the MMT. We were also learning about that kids should probably be learning about money and taxes and the basic stuff, in lower elementary, and then learn more and develop more towards high school. But just that teaching kids about money and how to use it and how to keep it safe, at a young age, is good so that they know for the future.
Peter McCormack: But do you feel yourself that's right, do you feel it's important, because I know, for example, my daughter's the same age as you; we talked about this. They're not being taught things like this. These are the kinds of things that either I have to teach them, or they learn about after they finish high school and go into university. I mean, they might do a little bit in senior school, and if they study economics or business; but generally speaking, we don't teach financial literacy.
So, is your belief that this should happen; is this something that's going to happen in your school?
Violet Mauceri: Well, me and my partner for the exhibition were trying to work towards it, so some of our actions were to create a year-wide topic, or learning topic for kids for next year's students in Grade 5, so that they know about it. And then, in middle school, we were trying to talk to the economics teachers to maybe come into the classes in middle school to talk to them a little bit.
Peter McCormack: All right, so tell me what you learned about the money printer.
Violet Mauceri: So, not too much about it. Just, people print money because they either want more of it, or don't think they have enough. But sometimes, when you print too much money, it becomes worthless and it has no value anymore. And, yeah, we watched a really good video about what happened in Zimbabwe, and you told me you have the bill and it's worth nothing anymore.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, well I went to Venezuela, and what happened in Venezuela was very similar to Zimbabwe. It went through a period of hyperinflation, because if you print too much money, the money becomes worthless, because there's too much money in supply. So, because of that -- I mean, this is an important issue for people involved in, I'm going to say Bitcoin rather than cryptocurrency, because that's what my podcast is about; but, that's one of the things that people care about and why they buy Bitcoin. So, did you spend much time looking at Bitcoin?
Violet Mauceri: Most of it was Bitcoin, but I also looked at a bit of a wider range, not too much at it. Most of it was Bitcoin and to try to see how it changes. I was trying to look for a pattern. It was pretty hard to understand how it works, but once I looked at it for a while over time, it got a little simpler.
Peter McCormack: Violet, I find it really hard to understand. You have to understand economics and technology and game theory and I find it really complicated. Can you think of any of the things you learned about Bitcoin that you liked?
Violet Mauceri: Well, in school, one of our other actions was mining Bitcoin and that was something I really enjoyed. Even though you didn't do much, you just had the computer set up and it mined for you. It was really fun to actually do it, because you felt like you were being part of something really big, so I found that really fun.
Also, I was talking to some teachers and asked them what they knew about Bitcoin, so that was pretty fun as well.
Peter McCormack: So, did you understand what the mining does, what it's for?
Violet Mauceri: It's really hard to understand, but I know you mine part of it, not the full thing, and then you get satoshis; and then an amount of satoshis adds up to a full Bitcoin. So, that's the basic stuff.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, so what the miners do is they secure the network. So, they build the blocks and they run this fast algorithm and once they've found a solution to the block, it closes and it batches up the transaction and they get the Bitcoin rewards; it's called the mining reward. They also then get the fees for all the people who've put transactions into that block. Have you seen recently lots of people are talking about mining with regards to the environment?
Violet Mauceri: A little bit of it.
Peter McCormack: Yeah. So, did you see what happened in El Salvador this week?
Violet Mauceri: No, I don't think so.
Peter McCormack: So, in El Salvador this week, the government passed a bill which made Bitcoin legal tender, an actual currency in the country, and everyone has to accept it. And they've also got volcanoes in El Salvador and they're going to be using the energy from the volcanoes to mine Bitcoin.
Violet Mauceri: Wow!
Peter McCormack: What do you think of that?
Violet Mauceri: It's intense!
Peter McCormack: It's intense! Well, so one of the big issues with mining at the moment is it uses lots of energy and people have concerns for the environment. So, lots of bitcoiners are looking for clean energy they can use. There are some people in Paraguay who are looking to use the power from hydro dams.
Violet Mauceri: When we were mining in school, we had a computer, but I think it's called GTA or something, and the amount you get is the faster it mines. So, we didn't have a lot of that, but I saw somewhere it was affecting the environment; not a lot, but…
Peter McCormack: Yeah, so all the specialist miners use a piece of equipment called an ASIC, and that's a machine that's designed specifically for mining. It's super fast and that can run the algorithm really quickly.
So, we say this thing in Bitcoin, "stacking sats", which means you're collecting and building up your Bitcoin balance. Are you stacking sats, Violet?
Violet Mauceri: A little bit!
Peter McCormack: A little bit. Are you getting your pocket money in -- well, you call it allowance; are you getting that in Bitcoin?
Violet Mauceri: Yeah.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, cool. And is your dad a bitcoiner?
Violet Mauceri: Yes!
Peter McCormack: He is. Big time bitcoiner, is he?
Violet Mauceri: Yeah, he was teaching me and helping me learn about it.
Peter McCormack: Good man. Okay, so what's next for you with this?
Violet Mauceri: So, I've finished my exhibition, but probably the next step would just to be learning about it in school, in middle school, because I'm going to middle school next year, and probably just learning more about, well not affecting kids, but how it could change in the future and see how it develops over time.
Peter McCormack: And, have you been telling your friends about Bitcoin?
Violet Mauceri: Yeah. In fact, I think they're a little annoyed at how much I know!
Peter McCormack: Well, it gives you an advantage to them. If you keep collecting your allowance between now and, say, when you're 18 in Bitcoin, you might have a good stack by then. So, you've got a head start on your friends. And, did you look into other cryptocurrencies?
Violet Mauceri: I looked into Ethereum and my dad talks about it. I don't know if it's been doing so well, because I don't keep up with it that much; but we looked a little bit into it and the difference in price from Bitcoin and Ethereum, and yeah, that's basically it.
Peter McCormack: Did you know there are these people called Bitcoin Maximalists?
Violet Mauceri: No.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, so they're the people who only believe in Bitcoin.
Violet Mauceri: Oh, I thought you were saying, when I did the interview with you for the exhibition, that Bitcoin is one of the main topics you focus on, especially in this podcast?
Peter McCormack: Yeah, it's pretty much the only one. So, I'm considered a Bitcoin maximalist, because I only care about Bitcoin. But I sometimes cover other things, I sometimes host debates. Okay, so is there anything else you wanted to ask me?
Violet Mauceri: Have you enjoyed creating a podcast and talking about Bitcoin with some other people?
Peter McCormack: I've loved it. I think it's the best job in the world, Violet. I get to travel the world. Do you know, I'm in your country at the moment?
Violet Mauceri: We're in South Korea.
Peter McCormack: No, but where are you from.
Violet Mauceri: I'm from America, I was born in California, but I lived most of my life in South Korea.
Peter McCormack: So, I'm in New York right now. I've missed coming out here. Yeah, I love creating the podcasts. I get to travel around the world and meet other bitcoiners and talk about Bitcoin; it's really good. I would recommend you go and research what's happening in El Salvador, because it's a really amazing project.
Violet Mauceri: Okay.
Peter McCormack: But I just want to say thank you. I think everyone's going to appreciate the fact that we got you on, and I wish you the best and you have my contact details now. And if you have any questions, you can always stay in touch.
Violet Mauceri: I'm very glad I got this opportunity.
Peter McCormack: Well, I'm very glad I got this opportunity as well, Violet, so thank you.
