The 2% CPI inflation figure is misleading — the money supply expansion shows up in skyrocketing asset prices (homes, stocks) while wages stagnate, making it impossible for the average person to save.

(00:00:01) You're listening to TIP. (00:00:02) Hey everyone, welcome to this Wednesday's release of the Bitcoin Fundamentals Podcast. (00:00:07) Today we're diving into a book that I think will serve as one of the best entry points for anyone trying to understand Bitcoin's role in fixing our financial system. (00:00:16) I'm joined by journalist and educator Natalie Burnell, whose new book, Bitcoin is for Everyone, does something extremely difficult. (00:00:24) It organizes a complex, messy set of economic problems into a clear, accessible framework that anyone can grasp. (00:00:32) We talk about why the current financial system feels broken, how inflation and debt distort everyday life. (00:00:38) and why Bitcoin offers a creditable alternative grounded in fairness, property rights, and real value. (00:00:44) Natalie draws on years of investigative reporting, hundreds of interviews, and a front row view into how the incentives of the system actually work. (00:00:52) It's a focused, highly informative conversation and one of the best introductions to Bitcoin's why that you'll find. (00:00:59) This is surely an episode you won't want to miss. (00:01:01) Natalie is incredible and somebody that is just so clear in the way that she communicates and I have no doubt you guys are going to enjoy this interview. (00:01:12) Celebrating 10 years, you are listening to Bitcoin Fundamentals by the Investors Podcast Network. (00:01:19) Now for your host, Preston Pish. (00:01:30) Hey everyone, welcome to the show. (00:01:32) I'm here with the one and only Natalie Brunell, who has a new book out, Bitcoin is for Everyone. (00:01:39) I did the Audible version of this and Natalie, I want to start here. (00:01:44) The thing that I loved about the book, especially the Audible version, was that you read it. (00:01:49) You didn't hire somebody to do this. (00:01:51) You took the time and read the whole thing and you did an amazing job. (00:01:56) And on top of that, the book is exemplary. (00:01:59) And I truly mean this. (00:02:00) You can tell I've read a lot of books in my day and this book is so good. (00:02:06) You do an amazing job, just kind of like the organization of it. (00:02:11) I mean, everybody knows your superpower is to be able to compress like crazy amounts of information into much more digestible sound bites. (00:02:21) And you do this in book form in a way that you cover so much ground, but you do it in such a concise and efficient way. (00:02:29) that for me, as far as books that I hand out to family and friends, like this is at the top of the list. (00:02:35) It was so well done. (00:02:36) I really, really mean this. (00:02:38) So bravo, kudos to you because I couldn't imagine how hard this was to piece together. (00:02:44) Well, thank you so, so much, Preston. (00:02:46) All right, put up your QR code. (00:02:47) Where do I send the Bitcoin that we talked about? (00:02:50) I really, truly, that means the world coming from you because you're someone who I've looked up to for so long. (00:02:55) It's an honor to be on your show. (00:02:57) I'm a long, long, long, long, long time listener. (00:02:59) You've taught me so much. (00:03:01) So thank you. (00:03:01) That's just such an honor to hear from you. (00:03:04) Okay, so here's where I want to start. (00:03:07) And it might not be in an area that you're expecting. (00:03:09) I get this sense that, and I don't know this, I know you personally, and I have met your mother very shortly when I was in St. (00:03:18) Louis. (00:03:19) And I get this sense that you're like carrying on this dream that she has had, not just for you, but you're carrying it on a much bigger theme and a broader theme of hope and this American dream (00:03:35) that I think for you as a girl growing up, and you talk about this in your book, that you saw this, your mom had this vision of hope and prosperity by coming to America. (00:03:46) And then when you were in your teens, this was like shattered right before your eyes. (00:03:52) And it seems that you're like carrying on this mission that she had instilled in your family, but you're doing it (00:03:59) on a national level and trying to bring hope to other people and Bitcoin is the talking point as the solution, but you're doing an amazing job at defining the problem of like why that hope wasn't there. (00:04:13) Is that what you're really doing? (00:04:14) Because until I read your book, I never like pieced that together or saw that from you until I was able to kind of read it on the pages. (00:04:23) that's interesting to hear from you because I do think that my mom made the biggest impression on me of anyone in the world. (00:04:31) And that started very young because I just watched her work so, hard and dream so, big. (00:04:39) But (00:04:39) It was almost as if she was dreaming for her children, because by the time you reach your late 30s, early 40s, and I'm around the age that my mom actually decided to come to the US or was finally able to. (00:04:51) And not a lot of people would take that chance and make all those sacrifices to say, you know what, I'm gonna just move. (00:04:58) I don't know the language. (00:04:59) I'm gonna pick up everything I have and start over from scratch. (00:05:02) And I don't know what's gonna happen, I have no certainty. (00:05:05) but I'm gonna do it because this will offer a better life for my kids. (00:05:08) It was so selfless. (00:05:09) So watching my parents work as hard as they did growing up and the conditions that we sort of lived in where my parents were willing to sleep on the sofa and my brother and I had our rooms 'cause we were living in a small apartment and crack of dawn getting up to scrape the car of the snow in Chicago and getting home late. (00:05:28) I was just like, wow, this sacrifice is something that (00:05:33) I can't take for granted. (00:05:34) And so I always wanted to work to justify all the sacrifices they made. (00:05:39) I think that that was my driving force. (00:05:41) And so it's funny because if you read the book too, you'll see I kind of struggled in terms of they wanted me to become a doctor or a lawyer or work in government because they associated all of those with economic stability. (00:05:52) And here I am saying, I want to work in television. (00:05:55) Hey, mom and dad, I'm going to Hollywood. (00:05:58) normal parents might say, hey, that's probably not the best decision. (00:06:02) That's a little risky. (00:06:04) And my mom was like, you know what, go do that, go dream big, you can do it, you can make anything happen. (00:06:10) Like she just really represented this idea that the American dream stands for, which is that you can do anything coming from any background, if you just work hard, if you get an education, if you're a good person, just go for it. (00:06:21) So that has carried with me. (00:06:22) And I think that that promise has died for a lot of people or they think that it's dead. (00:06:26) And that's why I think Bitcoin (00:06:28) is so imperative for everyone to study because it restored my hope, it restored my belief and not just the American dream, but really this universal one that I think breaks all the divides and the differences among us. (00:06:40) We all need a sense of hope for the future. (00:06:43) Why did they initially go to Chicago? (00:06:46) Because everyone from Poland comes to Chicago. (00:06:49) It has this massive community. (00:06:51) So the way that my parents were finally able to come is because of my mom's brother. (00:06:57) So he married an American and he came out earlier and then there's an application process. (00:07:02) So we came out, I was five years old and then I had to wait another 13 years to become a citizen. (00:07:08) So I was 18 years old just in time for college when I got my citizenship. (00:07:12) I had my alien registration card until then. (00:07:15) Why did it take that long? (00:07:17) I mean, there are so, many things I wish I could fix about the immigration system. (00:07:24) But yeah, we waited in line for a very, very, very long time. (00:07:27) And until you become a citizen, you, at least at the time in the 90s, like my brother, for example, he didn't qualify for grants or scholarships when he was going to school. (00:07:35) Things were really, really tough for him. (00:07:36) That's why I've always felt like I (00:07:38) I felt guilty in a weird way because I was lucky. (00:07:41) I was five. (00:07:42) I assimilated very quickly. (00:07:43) I learned the language very quickly for my parents and for my brother, because my brother was older. (00:07:48) He was 16.5 when we came. (00:07:49) It was so much tougher. (00:07:51) And so again, that for me, it was like, I have to make it. (00:07:54) If there's one person in my family that's gonna make it, it's gotta be me. (00:07:58) And I wanna help them and build on the legacy that they created and started. (00:08:02) Yeah. (00:08:03) And in the book it talks about how, so you describe living in the apartment and then it seemed like things were getting better for your family there. (00:08:12) after five years, they went and they were able to eventually go buy a house and everything was kind of trending in the right direction. (00:08:18) And then the great financial crisis hits in 08 and it was just like an absolute devastation for the family. (00:08:26) And so it was almost like that trend of progress was like, my gosh, the American dream is playing out and this is working only to be like the rug pulled out underneath the family. (00:08:37) And it almost in a way made it worse because it was almost like the whole thing was fake or a facade. (00:08:44) Then when it was, you're right at this prime moment in your life where you're getting ready to go off to college. (00:08:49) I think the timeline is around that point right after you were in college as this was playing out. (00:08:56) I just can only imagine from seeing your parents through that and how much that kind of incentivized your future mission in your life. (00:09:05) Well, you described it. (00:09:06) I mean, rug pull is exactly what happened and what it felt like for millions of Americans around the country 'cause like I said before, my parents played by all the rules and then suddenly they were filing for bankruptcy. (00:09:17) My dad had had a good job, he was an electrician, my mom actually worked for a bank, but then she wanted to start her own business and it all just so quickly fell apart. (00:09:26) My parents are, I've heard a lot of immigrant parents be similar in this way that they were filled with so much shame. (00:09:33) They didn't even wanna share how bad it was, but I can just see it. (00:09:36) And it really devastated me and I saw where the world was going and I graduated into that recession and I thought, where is the American dream? (00:09:44) Where is this promise that, oh, you go to the school, you get the good grades and where's that job waiting for me so that I can pay off my student loan debt and it wasn't there. (00:09:52) And I think that really did spark a fire in me to want to become an investigative journalist because as you know, in the wake of the great financial crisis, the Occupy Wall Street movement quickly rose up and I really resonated with it. (00:10:05) I thought, absolutely, why are there some people at the very top who have made so, so, so much money and the average person that has been productive and paid their taxes and they just wanted to provide for their families, they're the ones losing their homes, but these bankers are getting bailed out, no one's going to jail, this is not (00:10:22) not fair and someone needs to come in and fix it and maybe redistribute the wealth. (00:10:27) And that's where, I mean, I look back now and I understand why people are crying out for fixes that come from the government because where else is the fix supposed to come from, right? (00:10:38) You associate these massive corporations with greed and you think, well, someone has to come in and regulate it or prevent that from growing and happening and empower the average person. (00:10:47) I didn't realize that it was the system itself that was so corrupted that we had a monopoly over (00:10:53) that led to this incredible wealth concentration and caused the average worker to be left out and taxed through inflation. (00:11:01) And until I learned that, I really didn't feel a lot of hope for the future. (00:11:06) And I felt just as disillusioned by capitalism as so many people do today. (00:11:11) Well, this wasn't in your book, but you and I have had conversations where you told me when you were working in the media space, in news reporting space, how even some of the stories that you'd be covering (00:11:23) were being somewhat silenced or just not being presented in the way that you're there on the ground, like doing the research and doing the interviews and you're like, this person is an absolute parasite to society, but it's not being like the reporting and where I want to take the reporting is just not allowing me to broadcast that message. (00:11:42) So I'm curious if your time in the media space, particularly where you were reporting in the past, (00:11:49) was kind of just more fuel on the fire to, for you that there's just something seriously broke. (00:11:55) Like there's something I can't put my finger on it, but there's something really, really broke with the world right now. (00:12:01) Oh, absolutely. (00:12:02) I was reporting on all the symptoms and I was interviewing families that (00:12:07) felt so much like I was interviewing my mom and dad, just like, what is going on? (00:12:11) This is really unfair. (00:12:13) I'm working harder than ever. (00:12:14) Why can't I afford the cost of education, the cost of healthcare? (00:12:19) Housing was becoming so out of reach for more and more people. (00:12:23) And so I could relate to a lot of the people I interviewed, but you're absolutely right. (00:12:27) There were many instances where I would start digging and I would start following the money. (00:12:31) And my stories were not able to always air because there were very powerful, influential people who had access and who I think that some of the networks did not wanna scare off or upset. (00:12:47) And so my story, some of them didn't air. (00:12:50) And that was very, very frustrating 'cause it happened not just once in my career, but a few times where I worked really hard on some investigations and those stories (00:12:59) never saw the light of day or they were later reported on by someone else by a network that was willing to cover it. (00:13:05) But again, it's like it really does represent the overall system though, where it protects the incumbents, it protects those at the top at the core of that system. (00:13:13) at the expense of everyone else. (00:13:15) It privatizes the gains and socializes all the losses and the average person is left holding the bag, just like my parents were. (00:13:21) And it's like, this is not capitalism. (00:13:23) This is not representative of the American dream. (00:13:26) We need something that's going to address and strike at the heart of that corruption. (00:13:31) And I didn't realize that the solution actually did exist, which is Bitcoin. (00:13:35) And so when I did finally come to the conclusion that we have a solution that we can all embrace and it's the most accessible form of capital for the average (00:13:43) person to empower themselves economically, that's when I started to realize this might be my calling because my whole background has pretty much primed me and set me up for this. (00:13:52) Not just my family's experience, but also spending 10 years reporting and communicating and doing stories like this is what I'm now meant to do. (00:14:00) I have to share and spread the message of Bitcoin. (00:14:02) Let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors. (00:14:05) Curious about online trading but haven't taken the first step yet? (00:14:09) You're not alone. (00:14:10) And Plus 500 Futures is a great place to start. (00:14:13) The futures markets are moving fast and with Plus 500 you can explore popular assets like oil, gold, S&P 500, Bitcoin, and more. 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(00:17:05) Start your free trial at shopify.com/tip. (00:17:08) All right, back to the show. (00:17:13) So just for the listeners, so the first half of the book, Natalie goes into a lot of detail describing the problem and she does it from a bunch of different vantage points so that the reader can kind of see it from, (00:17:27) You talk to anybody that's a millennial or younger and their biggest gripe is, I can't afford anything. (00:17:32) I can't go out there and buy a house. (00:17:34) With these new interest rates, I'm never going to be able to buy a house. (00:17:37) That's just one facet of the general story that you're talking about where people walking around, they all know something's wrong. (00:17:46) They say, Oh, well, it might be this political point of view or it might be this policy that's in place, and they're pointing at effects of the problem. (00:17:54) They're not actually pointing at the problem. (00:17:57) And what I love about the first half of the book is that you cover the problem in tons of detail, but you also show back to the legacy financial system as to how that is the root of all these downstream problems that everybody's experiencing, but they might not really understand what the source is that's way upstream of all of it. (00:18:19) And whether you believe Bitcoin's the solution to these problems or not, the thing I really like about your book (00:18:26) you don't even really talk about Bitcoin until the second-half because you're doing such a great job really kind of laying out the root cause and how it points to this breakdown of fiat money. (00:18:38) Yeah, it was just so well done. (00:18:40) And for people that this is the message that I would say for the listeners, the person who is listening to this, you know there's something wrong with the world. (00:18:47) You also know that socialism isn't the answer, right? (00:18:51) Because that's the other thing, Natalie, is (00:18:54) So many people that would have experienced what you did in your past of all these problems and these effects, they're looking at it and they're saying, well, it's capitalism. (00:19:03) Capitalism's broke and therefore we got to try something different. (00:19:08) Therefore, let's elect a socialist. (00:19:11) You didn't end with that conclusion. (00:19:13) You ended with a very different conclusion. (00:19:15) So I guess my question for you is what allowed you to see a different path than socialism? (00:19:24) First of all, I do wanna say, I think a lot of people feel frustrated with capitalism because they associate it with the greed that they think they see in corporations and the wealth concentration, but we really haven't had capitalism because capitalism means that risk is borne by those who take it and it's not socialized to us. (00:19:42) All the rest of us, the hard workers and the middle class, so to speak, it would actually be a very, very different system if we saw capitalism, we wouldn't have the bailouts, we wouldn't have the constant balance sheet interventions. (00:19:54) we wouldn't have a system that essentially protects the incumbents and those at the core at the expense of everyone else. (00:19:59) So I just want to say to people. (00:20:00) What I realized is I didn't even understand capitalism because I thought we had it here and we don't. (00:20:05) And you always do such a great job of talking about this as well. (00:20:08) And capitalism is actually the best system that protects our rights and also creates opportunities for human flourishing and abundance and the most productivity. (00:20:18) But you have to start with capital. (00:20:20) And when the capital is essentially government IOUs from an issuer that's $38 trillion in debt, that's not a system that you can really build upon and trust, right? (00:20:29) And so, but we've created this mirage that this is the system and we've created this. (00:20:34) idea that treasuries should underpin the entire system. (00:20:37) It's completely debt-driven. (00:20:39) And that's why we have to print all this money just to keep the ball rolling. (00:20:42) And it just gets harder and harder for the average person to make it. (00:20:46) And so my book at the very beginning focuses a lot on just what is inflation. (00:20:50) And I've shared before actually that when I was a reporter, we would share the CPI number. (00:20:54) And it was an afterthought. (00:20:56) I didn't think about it at all. (00:20:58) In fact, the years of 2010 to 2020 saw an average of less than 2%. (00:21:03) inflation. (00:21:05) And yet all of these things became so much more expensive in that decade. (00:21:10) The cost of homes, stock valuations went crazy, you know, healthcare costs, healthcare premiums, insurance. (00:21:17) And it's like, wait, what happened here? (00:21:19) Because you're telling me that inflation is around 2%, but my cost of living went up 40, 50%. (00:21:23) There's a disconnect here. (00:21:25) And so I think it's important to help people understand. (00:21:28) What is actually happening with our money? (00:21:30) And the fact that the money supply is constantly being expanded is not just a problem, but it's something that you can see when you look across asset classes. (00:21:39) You can see how stocks have just skyrocketed, homes have skyrocketed, but paychecks haven't. (00:21:46) And so we need to recognize that disconnect and then dig into what's actually happening because this is why the average person can't save for the future. (00:21:53) And you might celebrate that, Hey, well, I've been saving in my home. (00:21:58) A lot of people have used real estate to create wealth or build their family nest egg, but have you really made a lot on when you look at the money supply and how much that's increased? (00:22:08) If you actually zoom in, have you just been treading water and now you have to pay more in maintenance costs and property taxes? (00:22:15) And when you go to sell, you're just gonna have to buy another overinflated expensive home that's not really worth it. (00:22:21) It's like, we don't really understand what value actually (00:22:24) I think prices have just been completely detached from reality. (00:22:28) And so I'm trying to break that down in a simple way that the average person can sit back like I did when I learned about Bitcoin and say, oh my gosh, I had no idea. (00:22:37) I didn't realize. (00:22:38) And now I need to figure out a way to empower myself in a system where your money is a melting ice cube. (00:22:45) And you do that in the book. (00:22:46) You have an example with wine when you're talking about the deletion, which is amazing. (00:22:51) The one that I particularly like the best was this example that you provided with just like airline tickets when they've overbooked. (00:23:00) And I think it's such a great analogy for people to understand, well, heck right now, like we're watching the Bitcoin price get crushed relative to the dollar and people are confused and they're wondering like what in the world's happening. (00:23:13) But when you understand this analogy that you put in the book as far as plane tickets, (00:23:19) And it's the whole credit system is just a bunch of promises. (00:23:23) And to get to the root of the promises that have been made in this past cycle, you have to get to baseline dollars, which there's only a few of them, relatively speaking, in the system relative to the amount of promises and credit that's in the system. (00:23:37) And when the flight is overbooked, (00:23:40) You find out real fast who actually holds the baseline ticket and who doesn't and what the going rate or price is to get one of those tickets. (00:23:49) And there's so much to kind of wrap your head around in this space. (00:23:54) And I guess my question out of all of this, Natalie, is, because it can be really frustrating from an education standpoint, just like that idea that we talked about, you start telling people that Bitcoin is hope and that it can be the salvation to all these problems, but then people see the volatility and they see all this (00:24:10) How do you handle those conversations? (00:24:13) Because I think there's a lot of people that are listening and are wanting some advice from somebody who's had a lot of those conversations. (00:24:20) How do you explain things like that to somebody that's coming with very surface level knowledge on the topic to help them bridge that gap of their lack of knowledge to where you're trying to get them to fully grasp and understand what powerful thing that they potentially hold? (00:24:37) I think it's interesting what you're alluding to because I do say Bitcoin is hope a lot, right? (00:24:41) It's this antidote, it's this ultimate solution, but it's so funny human nature. (00:24:45) Like you can tell someone, hey, don't worry, everything's gonna be great. (00:24:48) And they'll sort of just like shrug and not pay attention. (00:24:51) Tell them that the world is on fire and something bad is about to happen and you have their full undivided attention. (00:24:56) And believe me, I know that really well from working in news because if it bleeds, it leads and it's like, you can really sell panic. (00:25:03) And I'm actually trying to do the opposite because I think the thing that people most need is a feeling of I can do this. (00:25:10) The future can be better than the present. (00:25:11) I can make it. (00:25:13) I can achieve. (00:25:14) I can empower myself. (00:25:15) And that's really ultimately kind of the underlying message of the book is like, it's not too late and you can take control over your time again. (00:25:25) And that's what I think is what money allows us to do is control our time again. (00:25:30) When we feel this constant pressure on our backs. (00:25:33) You've actually talked about this, I think on my show before or another show. (00:25:37) I think it's led to so much of the decay morally that we see in society when every single member of the household has pressure on them to provide. (00:25:46) And it never feels like enough. (00:25:47) Now you need three incomes. (00:25:49) for what you used to be able to afford on one income. (00:25:52) And you see us getting more and more divided and negative online. (00:25:56) And we all use social media, I think, as this tool. (00:25:58) Like if you're in a great place, you use it as a tool to get more information and improve yourself, create businesses. (00:26:06) But if you're in a bad place, you use it to vent your frustration and probably find scapegoats and find other people, you know, misery loves company. (00:26:12) And we're in this very, very divided (00:26:15) And I think just like a place of mental angst where people just feel so resentful and frustrated of how far they've fallen behind. (00:26:24) And it's not your fault. (00:26:26) Like part of the book is saying like, you are working hard. (00:26:29) I'm acknowledging the fact that like you have put in this work and you deserve to feel like you have control over your time and your future. (00:26:37) And that's what Bitcoin (00:26:38) offers you. (00:26:40) Bitcoin is, in my opinion, the best solution, but it's really just representative, a good form of money that allows you to save for the future because it cannot be debased, because it is scarce, because it is divisible, because it is portable, because it answers to all of these defects that came before in other forms of money. (00:26:55) That's like the whole message is for the first time in human history, we have a form of money where the average person can start to accumulate apolitical, globally traded capital to start to have a seat at the table (00:27:08) lives, their families drop their time preference. (00:27:11) And that's what makes me so excited. (00:27:13) And also why I think that it's so important to share this message with the average person who feels left behind. (00:27:19) In the second part of the book, when you're going through explaining Bitcoin from somebody that literally knows nothing to really quite comprehensive overview of how it works, why it works, why it's sustainable, why it's decentralized, like all of those things, I had this moment where I'm listening to all of it. (00:27:38) And for whatever reason, I started hearing it from this outsider, objective point of view, almost as if I had never heard of Bitcoin. (00:27:47) And I'm just thinking through how an outsider that's never heard about any of this stuff would just be hearing it all, like the difficulty adjustment and the mining process and all of it. (00:27:59) It's a lot to take in. (00:28:01) We're talking about it all the time. (00:28:03) And to us, like your example at the beginning of the book, The Fish in the Water, (00:28:07) I think for us, we're in the space and we're super deep and it's just kind of like, oh yeah, there's a difficulty adjustment. (00:28:12) It happens every two weeks and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. (00:28:14) And with just like second nature. (00:28:16) But when you look at it from that first point of view, like you've never heard of it and you're hearing it for the first time, I would just think that like trying to cover the whole thing in the way that you did so well in the book was, I guess my question is, what was the hardest part (00:28:33) to explain it in a simple, digestible, organized way? (00:28:38) Did you struggle with this part of the book when you were writing it? (00:28:42) And if so, what was the hardest part for you to try to piece together as you're making it simple for everyone? (00:28:48) And trust me, she made it very simple for everybody to understand. (00:28:52) I'm just curious if you had challenges as you were trying to organize all of this, because it's so much to cover. (00:29:00) This book was the most challenging but rewarding project of my entire career. (00:29:07) You know, TV, news, journalism, I've been accustomed to writing two-minute scripts. (00:29:11) Like two minutes is actually a luxury in television. (00:29:13) Usually I'd have to say the full story in about a minute to a minute and a half. (00:29:17) And so having 200 pages, you would think that that's kind of a luxury, but still, you know, Bitcoin is so complicated. (00:29:24) I mean, people spend years studying it and it took me years (00:29:28) to really, really learn it. (00:29:29) So you have to come up with the right analogies that simplify it. (00:29:32) And for the average person who's busy, who doesn't have a degree in economics or engineering, finance, you really have to break it down and distill it in a way that's going to make sense to them and resonate with them. (00:29:44) So I feel like I'm standing on the shoulders of giants because I've read every single book in the space, some of them several times. (00:29:51) And so I wanted to pull out the lessons and what resonated with me most from each of those works. (00:29:58) and just give my own spin, my own kind of analogies to them. (00:30:02) And also I have to say like, no one does anything great alone. (00:30:05) And I had a phenomenal team, Maura Phelan, my book agent, and Allison Gustafson, who's an incredible writer and editor. (00:30:14) We literally had Zoom calls every single week where we poured over every chapter, every word. (00:30:19) I mean, words are my currency in the communication industry. (00:30:22) And like, we wanted to make sure, does this word have the wrong connotation? (00:30:25) Will people read it this way, this way? (00:30:27) Like, (00:30:27) You have no idea how much time went into choosing every single word that really went into this book. (00:30:32) And it was a very time consuming, but very just amazing rewarding process because I really think that we got it right. (00:30:40) Like this is the book that I hope everyone starts their journey with. (00:30:43) And again, there are fantastic books in the space. (00:30:45) I hope mine serves as maybe an appetizer for the Bitcoin standard, the big print, inventing Bitcoin, the broken money. (00:30:52) But I just really wanted this amazing entry point that someone could say, okay, (00:30:56) I get it now. (00:30:57) I still have to learn more. (00:30:58) It's not like this is the be all end all. (00:31:00) You really need to dig in more because some of these topics are so complex, but I want it to be a really approachable entry point. (00:31:07) Well, you nailed that. (00:31:08) Like when I was done with the book and I'm thinking, okay, so who does this apply to? (00:31:13) It is the broadest audience of somebody that literally knows nothing about finance or economics. (00:31:20) But you get them up to speed on like the most important issues, in my humble opinion, that could be covered on the topic to clearly define the problem and then clearly define the solution that's out there. (00:31:32) Like truly, Natalie, it hits that perfect. (00:31:35) So yeah, kudos to you. (00:31:37) It's awesome. (00:31:38) One of the things that you covered in the book, and I really like this because I don't hear a lot of people talking about this idea, is that the energy is worth it. (00:31:47) and you're comparing the energy expense that Bitcoin has versus what does this BLOB of a fiat system cost in energy on an annualized basis as we compare that relative to Bitcoin being a settlement layer. (00:32:02) Talk to us a little bit about that idea and just anything else that you have learned through all your interviews and years of covering the space as it relates to energy and why the Bitcoin network is worth it. (00:32:17) So I love that Bitcoin actually changed my perspective on and opened my eyes to the importance of energy itself. (00:32:25) Like energy is the currency of the universe. (00:32:28) And I never really thought about it and how important it is and where our electricity actually comes from, right? (00:32:34) I mean, people conflate energy and electricity and we don't realize that it's (00:32:39) What you mentioned on my show, right? (00:32:41) And what Luke Roman writes about, it doesn't come from the light switch. (00:32:45) There's a whole industry and process that has so many different inputs and energy really is the most important. (00:32:51) It's that first input that defines everything and defines so many of the costs of everything that we have. (00:32:57) And Bitcoin is tied to energy and it is the one thing that nobody can print. (00:33:01) You cannot create it, you cannot destroy it. (00:33:04) And that kind of fundamental lesson (00:33:07) think already, you take a step back and you realize, oh, this is something that is way, way bigger than myself and bigger of a concept that I have to dig into because people can just say, oh, something uses too much energy. (00:33:18) Well, how does it use that energy? (00:33:20) And why does it use that energy? (00:33:22) And when you dig in, one of the things I share in that chapter is not only does Bitcoin not even use that much energy, especially when you compare it to other industries, and I show the pie chart of different industries, but also the (00:33:33) way that it uses it actually moves us into a world where we can have more abundance of resources of energy, be able to deploy electricity in even remote places, capture things like stranded or wasted energy, like moves us into a more energy abundant world. (00:33:51) And we need energy. (00:33:52) I mean, we see it daily. (00:33:53) I think it's funny that now some of the headlines about energy use for Bitcoin have faded because AI is going to use a lot of energy and I guess everyone's okay with the data centers, you know, slurping up energy (00:34:04) But it's a reality that we have to think about these things. (00:34:07) And I think again, you just, you have to break it down simply to the average person because they'll hear these headlines and they. (00:34:13) They get mad at the companies and they don't actually realize what's happening, what it takes, the supply, the demand, the resources. (00:34:20) And I'm trying to connect those dots for people in a more approachable way because as you can see, I mean, that's one of the biggest conversations right now. (00:34:26) How are we going to not just stabilize the grid, but grow it, grow it in a way that meets the demand that we're going to have from all these data centers in an artificial intelligence driven world? (00:34:37) And we're not there yet. (00:34:38) And we've really put that on the back burner over the last 20 years and we can't just like wave our hands (00:34:43) and suddenly build up all this infrastructure. (00:34:44) It doesn't come from thin air, like the way that we can print units in the system. (00:34:49) We have to build things. (00:34:50) We have to have the skilled labor. (00:34:51) We have to have the connections to the energy. (00:34:54) We can't transport it. (00:34:56) We have to think about all of these inputs. (00:34:58) And I think so many of us don't or they take it for granted. (00:35:02) You talk a little bit about the human rights implications of this, particularly on the energy front as well. (00:35:08) What was your favorite human rights story that you've, it could be from the book or it could just be from covering on your podcast through the years as it relates to Bitcoin and just the solution that it's providing? (00:35:21) Two of my favorites are in the book, Farida and Roya. (00:35:24) I loved their stories. (00:35:26) They're such passionate fighters for freedom and empowerment. (00:35:30) Roya, I'm sure a lot of people are familiar with her story. (00:35:32) I've had her on the show. (00:35:33) Alex Gladstein has written about her, but she was the first female tech CEO in Afghanistan and paid her female workers in Bitcoin and even guaranteed that they would not lose money on the Bitcoin that they earned if the price was volatile. (00:35:44) That has allowed many of them to not (00:35:47) not just achieve financial freedom, but also just achieve freedom in the sense that they aren't tied to a banking system that requires for a man to open an account for them. (00:35:56) They were able to use it, some of them in order to flee when the Taliban took over again. (00:36:00) Like it truly is a freedom technology. (00:36:02) And that's how Farida positions it as well. (00:36:05) She's from Togo, but she fled because of persecution and her family, you know, have been (00:36:10) outspoken advocates for freedom and for democracy and their family has faced you know political violence as a result and she talks about how the government it's still a kind of a relic of colonialism really what they've done with the money there in the the CFA Franc where the French treasury actually controls the currency in many countries in Africa and they can devalue people's savings by 50 100% overnight and that's people's times that just evaporates like you can't get it back and so she's fighting for people to be able to (00:36:40) save in Bitcoin in a hard asset that can't be controlled by the government and to root out the corruption that she's seen in the government. (00:36:46) So these are very powerful stories. (00:36:48) I think Alex Gladstein says it well, check your financial privilege because as many problems as we have here in the West, there are so many other problems that people face in oppressive regimes and authoritarian countries with inflation crises and currency crises far worse than we've ever seen here in the US. (00:37:03) Let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors. (00:37:07) One part of being an investor that I don't think gets enough attention is how hard it can be to continue to improve as an investment researcher. (00:37:15) And for myself, I'll often find that when I finish a great conversation with some industry expert or fund manager, my head is full of ideas. (00:37:22) But by the time I sit down to write it all up, half of them are already gone. (00:37:26) That's why I've been using plod note (00:37:29) It's a small device that sticks to the back of my phone and captures the conversation and hands me back a clean, searchable recap. 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