Bitcoin & The Future of Money

Video Version: https://youtu.be/yvX6b318nuk

In this forward-looking and deeply practical episode, host Bo Kemp sits down with Bitcoin lawyer and digital-asset expert Joe Carlasare to unpack one of the most important shifts happening in global finance today: the rise of digital currencies and the movement some are calling the Great Reset. Far from theory or hype, Joe offers a grounded view of how Bitcoin, stablecoins, and emerging digital currencies are reshaping access to capital, transaction speed, and market opportunity.

Together, Bo and Joe explore the rapid expansion of digital currencies and what the “Great Reset” really means for entrepreneurs and investors, how Bitcoin and stablecoins are being used right now by innovative operators to unlock capital and accelerate business growth, why real estate developers stand to gain from faster settlement, global liquidity, and borderless transactions, the competitive advantages early adopters are already experiencing in deal-making, capital raising, and market access, the legal, financial, and regulatory insights every entrepreneur should understand before integrating digital currencies into their strategy, and what the future of money could look like — and how to position yourself ahead of coming shifts in the global financial system.

This episode is for entrepreneurs, real estate developers, and forward-thinking leaders who want to understand where money is headed — and how to harness Bitcoin and stablecoins to build smarter, faster, and more resilient businesses. Joe’s insights reveal why digital currencies aren’t just the future — they’re a present-day competitive edge.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Are you ready to grow your business, build wealth, and spark transformation in the topovers of Chicago? Visit stoplanddevelopment.org today and sign up for our newsletter, stay connected, get the resources, and be the first to hear about the achievement where entrepreneurs, developers, investors, and change makers come together to ignite growth and opportunity. Don't just watch change happen, be a part of it. Join the movement at stoplinedevelopment.org and start building your legacy today. In this episode, Bitcoin lawyer and expert Joe Kalasari joins me to unpack the explosion of digital currencies and the global shift, some are calling the Great Reset. More importantly, we dive into how entrepreneurs and real estate developers can leverage Bitcoin and stable coins right now to unlock capital, speed, and new market access. If you're an entrepreneur or a real estate developer, understanding stable coins and digital currencies could be your new competitive advantage. So welcome to our podcast, The First Million is Always the Hardest. Really excited to have you, Joe. And just for everybody who's listening and watching, um, just give us your name, tell us a little bit about yourself and your background.

SPEAKER_01 1:19

Yeah, thanks, both, for having me on. Uh, Joe Carlosari. I am a commercial litigator with the law firm of Amundsen Davis, based there out of Chicago. It's a Midwest firm with numerous offices, and we do full service law firm. I have a practice that focuses on uh commercial litigation generally, but also uh I have a particular sub practice in the digital art uh digital assets, cryptocurrency, fintech, blockchain practice group. So I've been growing that practice for years. I've had a lot of success and this real nascent field and uh happy to chat with you about it today.

SPEAKER_02 1:49

Yeah, well, that's exciting and it's different and interesting. You know, as a commercial litigator, um, you know, you don't think of Bitcoin as being an area of expertise, but it has become. And when did that kind of transition go from this is kind of an interest of mine to, hey, there's a business out of actually representing cases and people that need uh just issues with digital currency?

SPEAKER_01 2:12

Yeah, well, so I I I was the uh younger associate at the time in the law firm when these stuff started getting, you know, really going, and people say, hey, uh, this is some weird uh cryptocurrency thing. It's like these hackers and eccentric cypherpunks are experimenting with it, send to the young associate to handle the file when it comes in the door because it wasn't a big profile thing. And this is you know 2014, 2015. Yeah. So I had some of those some of those early cases where we were having to explain to judges who at the time weren't even using email, uh, you know, here's what digital assets are, here's how they work, here's what a blockchain is, um, and sort of you know, making those early connections, seizing the opportunity in a field where the the more senior partners weren't really interested. They kind of brushed it off as sort of uh uh passing fad was great for me. And one client, you know, and you get a good result for them, that can lead to two or three clients, because we live in a referral type uh environment where people based on trust say, hey, this guy got a good result for me. So I say by 2016, 2017, there was an influx. You know, crypto was finally coming onto the main stage, it was being featured regularly on CNBC. A lot of entrepreneurs were coming out and saying, I want to build mining farms where we mine for Bitcoin, I want to start an ICO where we launch a token, I want to start a business that's focused on digital asset custodies. And if you were one of the few attorneys in the space that not only understood the law, but understood the actual discipline of cryptocurrency and digital assets, you could speak their language, right? You had that shared bond where they didn't have to explain to a regular commercial litigator, here's how the technology works. So once I realized that, okay, this is fascinating to me from a technological perspective, but also I can uh marry it with my legal acumen. It was a perfect uh it was a perfect uh marriage at that point for where I was in my career. And honestly, the the amount of companies that just exploded through there, through booms and busts, uh, but they're always coming back stronger was a really a blessing. I mean, we have now major miners, major Bitcoin miners that have massive infrastructure and power agreements, and they're working with municipalities and working with uh, you know, uh power companies to to try to uh mine Bitcoin. And we have smaller shops that, you know, the average guy that's just setting up a mining farm and uh, you know, where we can provide service for them too. And then as you know, just to wrap up here, in the field, right, because it's the Wild West, because the regulations are always changing, because the government policy shifts from administration to administration, there's a lot of people playing fast and loose with the rules. There's a lot of fraud going on. And uh in my world for litigation, you know, that's where we we come in and try to clean up, clean up the mess.

SPEAKER_02 4:41

Well, it's interesting too with things like fraud, because that's where you really start to get into this mix between I'm representing you to get you the best deal, but I'm also developing policy because everything we're doing is so brand new that just the application of, you know, I'm gonna represent you almost in and of itself becomes a policy conversation.

SPEAKER_01 5:02

100%. Because if if you're representing clients, right, and you set forth a legal policy or a precedent for your law firm, you would not be doing a service for them as a lawyer if I say, Well, I'm gonna represent this client and take this position legally, and then now another client walks in the door and I have to take a completely control, yeah. Contrary position, right? So you kind of have to make these broader macro discussions of what will Joe's firm have as a public policy with respect to this area of law. Because the worst thing that can happen to you is you argue something in front of a judge, and then your opponent cites something where you maybe the exact opposite argument, right? There's a famous Abraham Lincoln quote where he's representing uh two different people, uh two different clients. In the one in the morning, he argues one point of law and he argues the exact same opposite point of law. In the afternoon, the judge asks him, Well, Mr. Lincoln, which one is it? Is what you said this morning or the afternoon? He says, Well, clearly it's the one right now, judge that I'm arguing.

SPEAKER_02 5:53

Clearly it's that one. Well, it's fascinating too, just in terms of your own career development, and this is a note for those who are younger and thinking about this. You took an opportunity, could have been a dead end, right? It could have just been extra work and not be meaningful. Um, and you actually were able to leverage that into a position within your organization that you carved out. And I had a similar experience when I was with Fragry Drinker, I did a lot of opportunity zone work, which was very early in 2018. And it was the same sort of thing, you know.

SPEAKER_01 6:21

Yeah, it and I think it re it recurs throughout history, right? If you're a younger person, right, you kind of want to go where the energy's at, what's fast moving, what's exciting, what field is there, you know. It it goes back to even the people that were in in the old country and moved over here, you know, Italian immigrants, right? We we came here because there's opportunity, because it was growing, because there's excitement, because there's something new. Right now, there's tons of fields, like from AI and quantum and different fields for young people that, you know, if I were giving advice to somebody that was trying to get started out, is like go where the energy's at, go where there's growth. Yeah, right. That's where you want to sort of focus your efforts.

SPEAKER_02 6:53

That's good. In general, the way to evaluate where to be within an organization is where do they make the most money within that firm? So you were in litigation. Everybody's making money. And it it's basically if you're a lawyer, you basically do intellectual property, you do litigation. There's almost like nothing else anymore, it feels like. Um, but you found a niche within litigation. Yes. Um I I want you to do a favor for all of us, which is just kind of outline the industry a little bit. Because you got engaged pretty early on, you know, 2014, which by the way, by 2014, judges should be using email.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

I'm sure there were a few that weren't, but I believe it or not, there were judges using fax machines in 2014.

SPEAKER_02 7:30

Well, the fax I I I I can't fully justify it, but I do understand that.

SPEAKER_01 7:34

In 2014, 2015, even 2016, you go over the Daily Center here in Chicago, they were using carbon copy. Yeah. Carbon paper. Carbon paper. I mean it was it was incredible.

SPEAKER_02 7:46

That's funny. Well, I want you to kind of take us through a high-level explanation of like Bitcoin versus stable coins versus you know uh DeFi and all the different elements, just to make sure that we frame for the listeners and and viewers uh the conversation that we want to have.

SPEAKER_01 8:04

Okay. I'm gonna I'm gonna start very basic because what you just asked me. You I I've studied probably 10,000 hours of it, so I'm gonna make it real simple for people because that's what I try to do as a litigator. So the essential task of what Bitcoin is trying to accomplish is trying to create a shared ledger. Okay. Uh think of it if ledger if it's easier like an Excel sheet, okay? Where Bo has X amount of Bitcoin here, Joe has X amount of Bitcoin here, and if we want to swap, that ledger is updated in real time. If we want to say, I'm gonna give you a Bitcoin and take a Bitcoin, that ledger is updated. Yep. Now the problem is that who's gonna maintain the ledger? Okay, who who actually is the one who is possible who's responsible and not only who's responsible, how do we make sure that ledger doesn't get hacked? So what Bitcoin does, and it's really a beautiful design, even if you think it's a terrible investment, I encourage you just to explore it because what it did is it found a way, again, through trying to overcome issues of distrust, uh, to have collective understanding of what a shared distribution of knowledge and value is. Okay. And the way they did that, they created something called Nakamoto Consensus. It's a uh and and a proof of work mining. We basically say we're gonna have an operating system where all of these nodes they all keep an identical copy of the ledger, okay? And the nodes are constantly communicating and broadcasting, and and without getting too technical, they're trying to say, how do we verify that the ledger is correct? So I run a node, right? It's basically just a tiny little computer at my house. And what it is doing in real time is validating every transaction, every single thing from you know that you and I sending Bitcoin back and forth to me sending it to somebody in China to me sending it to an exchange. It has every transaction since the history of Bitcoin. So when you hear the frame blockchain, what you're basically talking about is that ledger that is the blockchain continually getting updated, really every 10 minutes, roughly. That's a block. Okay. So so a new block will have a series of you know, various transactions in it and it will update it. So how do you secure that? Okay, because it's a digital good. What they try to do is they try through the design of Bitcoin, they try to say there's these blocks that are validating all of the transactions, but underpinning it, there are miners. And the miners are providing, in broad sense, security for the network. They are the ones discovering which is a genuine block for the next sequence. What are they doing? Just think it's very simple. They're taking huge amounts of computing and they're trying to solve a puzzle. Yeah, think of it like a giant Sudoku puzzle, right? They're putting all this computing, all this hash power, um, you know, they're investing huge amounts of electricity and they're trying to find the hash. And if the if a Bitcoin miner finds the block, he gets to broadcast what transactions go into that. So all of these nodes and miners are working together in this. 100%. Exactly. That's a great analogy. They're they're trying to work together to share and update and protect, most importantly, to protect this digital ledger. And the reason they're they're they're it's there's power behind it is because to actually try to attack this, to hack it, okay, you have to devote massive amounts to electricity, massive amounts of computing, and it's very challenging for anybody to overcome that. I mean, to give you an idea of the size and scope and scale, um, you know, by some estimates to recollect create the infrastructure behind the Bitcoin blockchain, the extra not the asset, but just the blockchain, talking about hundreds of billions of dollars worth of real physical world infrastructure. Nobody can do that in short order without it, you know, raising a lot of alarms and you know, uh it would be on people's radar.

SPEAKER_02 11:31

You know, it's interesting in this whole conversation we're having about future technology, um, whether it be AI, robotics, and all of that, all of it goes back to some really old school technology, yeah. Infrastructure, um, water, power, all of these things actually matter so tremendously that um we forget that that's what's powering a lot of what it is that we're doing.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

Well that's that's the beauty of Bitcoin, people don't, I think, initially grasp. So with respect to Bitcoin, right, you may say, how is it that a ledger entry, Joe, is worth roughly a hundred thousand dollars? How does that make sense? And the reason is because I can prove cryptographically that that ledger entry is unique, okay, that it's one of a kind. And how do I know it's secure? Because if I have an email or a file on your computer, you know as well as I do, you can copy that file a million times over, right? You can duplicate it. What Bitcoin figured out how to do is how do we make a digital good scarce? And the way you make a digital good scarce is you marry it to the physical world infrastructure. You basically say it is protected by this massive amount of electricity and computing power, so no one can duplicate it. So someone can prove that this Bitcoin is unique, it has a unique signature, and you can't just you know copy it at will.

SPEAKER_02 12:41

Yeah. And and I, you know, I I'm sure it exists, but I have never seen it. The direct uh connection between the investment level required in the infrastructure and the actual value of Bitcoin. Oh yes. Because cost of mine. But there's but there's different components to the value of the Bitcoin because the cost of mine is not the only component. There are other components to it.

SPEAKER_01 13:03

Um like any valuation, right? When we're talking about a company, you can there's a million, if you know, I studied economics in in university, and there's a million different ways to value something, right? What is subject? I mean, even in simple uh uh corporate disputes I have, we have to hire appraisers, right? And there's replacement cost value, there's all different actual cash value. Like you have to all that kind of stuff. You know, you have to figure out how do we how do we value this. So one of the ways to your point though, of people valuing Bitcoin, they say, well, what is what is the cost to mine? Yeah. For a commercial miner, what is it what does it cost in terms of physical infrastructure and electricity? And and then you can look at the actual price and say, is that higher or lower? There are times where Bitcoin falls below the cost to mine, believe it or not, and times where it stays roughly, you know, 20, 30 percent above.

SPEAKER_02 13:46

Well, I will say, and this is uh, you know, we did another podcast that was about uh artificial intelligence. And if there is, and I believe artificial intelligence is probably gonna be a net positive more than it is a net negative, but it's gonna go through cycles. Sometimes it's gonna be very negative. Yes, other times it may be very positive. But if there is a safeguard, because I don't believe there's been enough, the one is that you can pull the plug because without electricity, you won't have to worry about a lot of these things. So if we ever if it really gets bad, yeah, that's gonna be the only answer.

SPEAKER_01 14:19

Right, right. But you know, you I I try to stay optimistic because I truly believe that you know humanity can solve any problem in its way, right? So like I I don't I don't really buy into a lot of the real negative, doomerish type uh ideas about AI or I think we're gonna figure this out. Like I I have faith in humanity that maybe it's gonna be a rough process, maybe there's gonna be a lot of growing pains, but we're gonna figure out what the place is for AI and places for Bitcoin and other digital assets. It just takes time.

SPEAKER_02 14:46

I I I share your optimism in the long run. But what I um and this is a plug, of course, to go listen to the uh podcast, but what I will say is that the period of transition um I think was gonna be very rough. Yes and has the potential to be catastrophic if not handled well. But I also think it won't be handled evenly. And it's interesting because as an economist and a person who works in the space, the kind of concept of a K-shaped economy, I know you get what that is, and you're um the the phraseology that you have of what the silent depression for young people is in in another form a K-shaped experience of you know, wage earners versus you know non-wage earners, asset earners. Um, I think the same is gonna be true for AI. There are gonna be some populations who, because status is not tied only to money, will transition in how they do work and cooperate with one another faster. That will allow for all of the benefits of AI to dramatically outweigh the negative parts. But those who hold on to kind of old world ethos of uh status being directly connected to productivity, money, and all those other things will fight till the bitter end to not give up that worldview and that will cause all kinds of pain.

SPEAKER_01 16:01

I I couldn't agree more. I mean, but but uh my broad strokes takeaway from that is that how how is that different from other periods in history? Because it it's a recurring theme, right? It is a recurring theme. You have the only constant in our lives is change, right? You you have to be prepared for violent in many ways uh upheaval of the status quo. I mean, uh if you would go back, I think, you know, 20, 30 years or when we were growing up, the world looked totally different, right? Every everything's changed. We walk around with devices and people are glued to them. I mean, you the look at the stats about you know, a younger people when they're dating and the majority how they're meeting their partners. It's like all on a loting or how they're not meeting, right? I mean, i everything is constantly changing and and you have to be adaptable. I mean, for especially for for younger people that are listening to this and trying to figure out their way in the world. I mean, you have to think in bets, you have to think in probabilities, you have to think, I don't have perfect information, I don't know how AI is gonna all play out. Right. But but each and every day, based on this piece of information and a reasoned judgment, here's what I think is the best path forward for me. And the problem I think we have is that we have so many people that think, well, I'm gonna do exactly what my parents did, or I'm gonna do exactly what their parents it it it won't work.

SPEAKER_02 17:10

But it never worked that way, and it's really interesting, you know, you actually in the stories you've already told is a story of adaptability, right? Um so 2014-15, you're an associate, I'm assuming, you know, at a law firm, and you got this project, and what you decided is you know what, I'm gonna really invest in this. Yeah, I'm gonna go learn what there is. I'm sure you bought some early Bitcoin. So back in 2014, you got actually you you could have actually made some money in Bitcoin. I've done well on Bitcoin, you know, and and but that level of investment to the possi to the possibility of change actually repositioned you to be in a completely different sphere. I feel the same way. Um my nature is to be interested in that change, that kind of intellectual curiosity, as opposed to shy away from it.

SPEAKER_01 17:54

Well, I I approached Bitcoin originally as a skeptic. I mean, I lit and that's just how my mind works as a litigator. Like I always try to do the devil's advocate, adversarial thinking. I try to think like how do I tear this thing apart. Right. And the the moment where it clicked for me that I really I thought this is gonna change the world is when I actually experimented with it. I didn't read an article about forecast a price. I mean I well, I bought it and I sent a transaction. And I would v I would venture that the majority of people who even own Bitcoin, they bought it on an exchange or they've never done anything. They've never done anything with it. They never actually experimented with it, they never sent it, which is like sending an email, which is just I mean, it's wondrous. If you actually just look from a technological forget the investment case for a second, just if you're messing around, right, and you could do this for you know$25. You could send, you know, a small amount of Bitcoin from wallet to wallet, on-chain, experiment with it, look how it works in the blockchain, approach it like a scientist. And I and I was doing that activity, I'm like, this is incredible. Like, there's nothing like this in the traditional finance world. You have to go through banks and intermediaries, and there's settlement, and then there's clawbacks and all these things that that are totally different. And I'm like, this is gonna be really attractive to some people. It's gonna change the world and how we think about possession and custody. And that was the point where I thought, okay, well, at a minimum, I have to explore this further.

SPEAKER_02 19:08

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SPEAKER_00 19:50

We are now returning to the show.

SPEAKER_02 19:53

It's interesting, and I wanna um um actually when you brought that up, it just it it it triggered in my mind. Going back to this idea about how different uh locations and cultures will deal with AI, you know, um lots of times people don't get the benefit of traveling the world, but if you go to a lot of places that are developing nations, you'll see that they have completely different ways of doing all different types of transactions. Whether it's taking a phone call or sending money to one another, sometimes in ways that we think, oh, well, that's not super sophisticated. But yeah, there's 50 million people that are using that system, right? Transacting a lot of business on a flip phone, right? You know, in Africa. Um and things like AI and things like Bitcoin only facilitate the speed of their transactions. Um and they happen to be one of the few places in the world that's actually growing in population. All the natural things that you would have to actually start to see growth in places are happening in a lot of fl places that are less sophisticated financially than we are. Yeah. Um and all these sorts of systems actually facilitate their growth at a much faster pace.

SPEAKER_01 21:01

I mean, stable coins are growing exponentially in emerging markets because they don't have access to dollar-based bank accounts, right? That's a that's very exciting for them, and they're using it to your point in ways that we can't even uh fathom, which is, you know, because we have access to very uh sophisticated, you know, Zells and Venmos and all these different payment infrastructures. They don't they don't have any of that. They don't have any of that. So it's it it's fascinating, you know, the the necessity, the mother of invention, right? When you're in those situations where you have to be creative and be imaginative, that generally leads to a lot of very innovation, right? Like Einstein said, imagination is more uh i uh important than knowledge in many respects. And to me, like I think that when you look at like AI, people now they know of it, they have general awareness of it. I mean, I even I talk to lawyers and they they they think, well, I wanted to write briefs or do legal research. I use it in some bizarre ways. Like I'll I have uh done a mock cross-examination of an economist. And you can do it in real time. I think you're experimenting with that that episode you were telling me about. You I can I can uh ask an economist, okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna pretend you're you're having this theory, you're offering this opinion at trial, and I'm gonna cross-examine you in a real dialogue. And I I did it as a mock draft before I actually went and cross-examine the economist, and it was remarkable because he said very similar things to what the actual witness ended up saying.

SPEAKER_02 22:17

Right.

SPEAKER_01 22:17

And I think a lot of lawyers aren't even ex like they aren't even thinking about the different applications that could be used for the technology.

SPEAKER_02 22:23

I agree fully. And and just investing in I I have a philosophical point, which is you know, most of us need to find at least two hours a week just to study. Yes. Something. Right. And two hours a week is not easy, but not impossible. But if you do that consistent consistently, you know, consistency compounds, as they say, right? Two hours a week over the course of six months, you really now know something in a very different way, um, and can apply it um to your point in ways that are probably not expected.

SPEAKER_01 22:55

And it could be diverse study. I I mean I I I find it very difficult when I talk to even people in their their thirties and forties, and they look at school and education as a completed task. Right. It is so bizarre to me.

SPEAKER_02 23:06

Like, that was training just to teach you how to go learn.

SPEAKER_01 23:09

That's all it was. Right. And and and in many ways, a lot of it's out of date, to be honest. Like if you if you if you went to you know university, you know, a decade or more ago, I mean, every field has evolved. I I don't care what it is, political science, sociology, hard sciences the the the the amount of knowledge that we have accumulated is compounding and it's growing, and you have to constantly I mean as a lawyer I have to take continuing legal education. Yeah. And you know, their case law that that uh there's case law that exists now that fundamentally changes what I was taught in law school.

SPEAKER_02 23:38

Right.

SPEAKER_01 23:38

How could I just ignore that and and do my clients uh you know good service?

SPEAKER_02 23:43

Well, you know, this whole issue of stable coin that you brought up is one that I'm interested in. And one of the things that's happening as I see it is um there's an effort afoot, and you've actually represented a bank who in fact uh established their own stable coins. Yes. What is it that a bank thinks that they're solving by doing that?

SPEAKER_01 24:04

Yeah. So it's a great question because I think uh let's just start for folks what a stable coin is. And there's been recent federal leg legislation that's come through, uh the Genius Act that is allowing this, it's making it so that you know U.S. regulated institutions and non-financial institutions can launch stable coins. So what it is, it's go back to we talked about Bitcoin, and to build off that, uh rather than it just be a ledger entry that's just uh uh not backed by anything, the idea of a stablecoin is we can have a ledger entry on Ethereum or Solana or one of these other blockchains that's sort of uh uh blockchains that came after Bitcoin, we can have that ledger entry represent something in the quote unquote real world. Okay, it can represent treasuries effectively. So the idea behind a stable coin is you don't really buy it for an investment use case. You're not you're not investing in stable coins because you think it's gonna go up like Bitcoin. You're buying it because you want a solid stable peg to a dollar. So if I have 10,000 stable coins of uh uh various different you know types, there's several different brands effectively, then that will be equivalent to$10,000 USD. And I can rest assured that that$10,000 United States dollar, which I can move freely from peer to peer, I could send you in final settlement very quickly, you know,$1,000, just like I would with a Vel or a Zen uh Zell or Venmo. But the difference is that I have custody of it, like it's it's in my possession. And then behind those tokens, a bank or other institution has the treasuries that back it. So why is this attractive? Well, there's a huge amount of people that don't have bank accounts, right? A lot of people banked and underbanked, and if they they carry cash mostly, and this is sort of the digital equivalent of cash. You know, they're gonna have you know uh a wallet where they can control it, they can control it real time. It will run 24-7, 365. You don't have to worry about bank holidays, you don't work to have to worry about any of that. And it's done in such a way so that we have a regulatory apparatus now that has oversight over it that's gonna ensure that it's not just fake cash, uh fake uh digital dollars that don't have cash behind it. And then for those people that are unbanked, they can actually have greater access to you know financial inclusion and be able to spend it. And in my view, it is an improvement upon a lot of the existing banking infrastructure. It doesn't solve every problem, it doesn't provide in many cases access to credit. And we know a lot of people, they're hand to mouth and they're living off credit cards. That's just a desperately. But there are a lot of other people that say, listen, I don't want to mess with credit cards, I just want access to a stable cash equivalent in the digital world. And that is particularly attractive to emerging markets. Like part of the uh uh impetus for put passing the Genius Act was that we want to drive demand for treasuries, right? Because we've got a ton of debt. So if you say that every stable coin is backed by a treasury, then that's gonna be theoretically should have a supply and demand issue. So if you're you know somebody who has access, you know, if you're in uh El Salvador or if you're in Zimbabwe or in places that don't have access to regulated banking services, uh, you can hold stable coins. You can pay each other on a peer-to-peer basis for relatively low cost, and you have access to the American dollar, which we know that the dollar is sort of the global reserve currency.

SPEAKER_02 27:14

There's a lot of now at least, not going.

SPEAKER_01 27:16

For now it is for now it is. But I mean this is gonna the idea is this would strengthen that argument, right? That you have more and more global access to it. And why would I hold uh the Argentinian peso when I can hold the dollar? And as Americans don't. And then they don't, right? And and if you've if you've traveled abroad, right, there are a lot of places in the world where they would prefer dollars over their native currencies.

SPEAKER_02 27:39

You know, two things out of that conversation are interesting to me. One, and I'll tell a little bit of a story. You know, I do uh regional economic development and I'm I'm an investor and VC and all that kind of stuff. A lot of times people underestimate why people don't go to banking, and they think uh it's just a poverty issue. It's actually much more complicated than that. And it ties directly into why at least one of the early benefits of Bitcoin was the anonymity right part of this, right? So there is a whole world of people who are un underbanked or unbanked, and it's not necessarily nefarious, like they're trying to do illegal stuff, but they have reasons that they don't want to have you know all of their information.

SPEAKER_01 28:22

Privacy. I mean, they want privacy. They want privacy. There's nothing wrong with wanting privacy, by the way.

SPEAKER_02 28:26

Most of us want privacy, right? As much as we can, you know, reasonably uh have. Um but it like you said, that's a whole segment of the population, some of whom have a lot of money actually, that are not in the banking system at all. Right. So all of the analysis that we do about the economic impact is actually not fully reflected by these underbanked folks. Right. So just giving a system that allows people to be banked and accounted for in some way has kind of uh an impact that goes far beyond just giving them access to a bank. It has an impact on terms of our level of information and knowledge. And I think that's really interesting. I I think the other interesting part of it is when you were describing the role that uh stablecoin potentially could play in at least the demand for the US dollar. I almost think of it like there's this term that you would use if you are an investor and let's say you got a bunch of stock and warrants because you are part of the operating team, your company goes public, but you can't sell for a certain period of time. What they would do is they do this thing called short against the box, right? Where you essentially take options and you lock in the price at the market today, but you buy equal amounts of options that it goes up and that it goes down that allows you to essentially pull that cash out and start to use that money.

SPEAKER_03 29:43

Correct.

SPEAKER_02 29:44

And to a large extent, what you're describing that stablecoins does is a a version of that slash a version of like ETF, you know, kind of a way of reflecting the market in this one other uh uh product that I can then access and use.

SPEAKER_01 30:01

Correct. Yeah, and and and that's attractive for a lot of people, I think. And you know, do I think it's gonna change overnight? No, it's like any other technology, there's gonna be periods of adoption where it grows. People have to get more comfortable with it, they have to get more comfortable with it. You gotta have more retailers more comfortable with it. But I think it's coming. Um, and I think that a lot of the non-traditional forms of payment are going to accelerate into the into the future. And the other thing that I think has held Bitcoin back as a medium of exchange is like paying for coffee and different things, is that you know, if I if I spend some of my Bitcoin that I've been holding for years now, if I go buy a Starbucks with it, that's a taxable event. I've got to pay capital gains tax on it, which to be honest, I'm not gonna deal with the headache of that. It's a huge it's a huge deal. Um if you buy a stablecoin, right? Theoretically, you shouldn't have any cap gain, you shouldn't have any appreciation. It's just a dollar, it's a it's a simple transaction. So to me, it makes a lot more sense in the developed world and in the emerging markets for to use stablecoin. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:56

And when banks are issuing them, what do they think they get out of that process?

SPEAKER_01 31:01

Well, I mean that you get the inflow of the treasuries, right? So the banks, the banks, uh this is the uh big secret why they love this, right, is that uh banks make money on the assets under management, right? So if they're holding, you know, a couple hundred billion dollars or more treasuries, they don't care where it is, where the customer is that holds the the end product, the stable coin, they're getting that interest. They're getting those t that T-bills. So, you know, whatever's backing it, they're gonna pull in three percent. And and relatively, it's very low cost to run these things. I mean, uh on the blockchain, there's some compliance costs and there's there's some transaction fees, but they're minimal compared to what they're yielding in uh in the actual um uh product of holding the assets. There's a company uh uh that issues a stable coin called Tether, right? And by per capita by employee, it was one of the most profitable companies in the world because they were holding hundreds of billions of dollars of treasuries that were earning, you know, two people that work there. With very small amount of people, they were making more money per per employee than Goldman Sachs because they're they're they're pulling four percent on hundreds of billions of dollars. Just think about think about the return on that with a very limited upside. So now uh now from the standpoint of all these banks getting in, they're gonna they want that capital. They want that that ability to capitalize on that.

SPEAKER_02 32:10

Aaron Powell How quickly are you seeing the stablecoin kind of underlying asset um diversify from things like treasuries to something that you know what I'm particularly interested in as a regional economic development? Like can I start to do public-private partnerships, major projects where we're building, you know, a billion dollars worth of real estate um and leveraging stable coin for that transaction?

SPEAKER_01 32:35

Yeah. So early on, years ago, just to set the table here, there was a tremendous amount of confusion at how do we even treat these things. I mean, in the early days, they were arguing Bitcoin was a security rather than a commodity. There was a lot of ICOs, initial coin offerings, which were basically securities, the people saying, you know, why don't you invest in this company that puts bananas on a blockchain and buy the token and it'll appreciate. Um now what we're moving towards is various bills in Congress, including the Clarity Act, which are supposed to provide a quick path to do what you're talking about doing, which is provide tokenized securities, tokenized commodities, let them come in a regulatory, clear way. That's why it's called the Clarity Act, with what this thing is. Okay. The problem we've had for years is we had uh an administration uh that was very hostile to digital assets. Um I think they've they've evolved on both sides of the aisle, both Democrats and Republicans have said, no, this isn't going away. It's not going to disappear.

SPEAKER_02 33:29

I think as I was going to say, the evolution is a function of the fact that uh it's gonna be here.

SPEAKER_01 33:34

Yeah, I mean, even the Treasury Secretary right now, Scott Besson, he was very critical of digital assets, and he just gave an interview recently saying, you know, I've evolved on that, which I think a lot of people have, right? That's that's generally the approach. And the question is from here, how do we how do we have a market that has consumer protections? How do we have it that's clear from a regulatory standpoint? And you know, there's a lot of entrepreneurs, and I I believe in letting entrepreneurs uh work their creative genius to bring products to market in a safe way. You know, it's always a balancing act, but of course, you know, people like you should be able to launch these things and allow lots of mainstream investors to participate in a in a in a way. And obviously, there's no guarantee in an investment, but we have to figure out how to bring more people into the fold. And part of the problem we have right now, I think, uh going back to the K-shaped economy, is that there's really two sets of rules. I mean, one of the things I rail about all the time is the accredited investor rule, which are you're familiar with.

SPEAKER_02 34:25

But for the benefit of everybody else, essentially you have to have a certain amount of assets or make a certain amount of money over a consecutive period of time for you to be able to make an investment. And if you don't, you're not even able to make the investment at all.

SPEAKER_01 34:36

Aaron Powell Correct. So if you're if you're a younger person starting out and you've identified the next great entrepreneurial opportunity, you want to put your hard-earned capital in, you are restricted in some ways from investing in that. And there's reasons for that. And the and the reason is because we don't think you're sophisticated enough as the accredited investor, right? Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02 34:52

You have to have some experience, is what they're arguing. Which actually is reasonable, but it it's constraining in ways that I don't think they intended it to be constraining.

SPEAKER_01 35:01

Trevor Burrus, Jr. Exactly. And that and that's the key. So how do we fix that problem? And I think one of the things is what you're talking about. How can we tokenize these different ventures and uh efforts to and get more people in in a safe and responsible way? It's always the balancing act. And I think Clarity Act and some of the other bills that have been proposed in Congress do that. So to answer your question succinctly, I think that that is coming with a new piece of legislation from Congress where we're gonna be able to say definitively as a lawyer, I have a law here that says here's how it works and here's what I can tell you. Because before, what I would have to do is I'd have to analyze a whole bunch of decisions that are conflicting and give you sort of a a reasoned opinion. Here's what I think you can do without being violative of the law. Uh that that's not fun for an entrepreneur, like right when you're trying to quantify risk. It's too much risk. It's too much risk.

SPEAKER_02 35:44

I spent all my time, I mean, paying you, which I'm sure you are worth paying, but I spent all my time paying lawyers to protect me when in fact I needed the law to be clear.

SPEAKER_01 35:53

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 35:54

You know what's interesting, I I I don't feel quite yet that the both federal and state governments learned the lesson of the experience that we had, for example, with the internet. Meaning that um we did very little to support legislatively the development of the internet. Um and some of that was good because it gave freedom, but some of it was really bad because it meant that we didn't have any fail-safes and things. And I'm not I don't have the sense that the lessons, good and bad, from that past experience are now being adopted in you know, both Bitcoin or stablecoins or AI or any of this. And I just someone who I think is probably closer to it than I am. Am I wrong? No.

SPEAKER_01 36:39

You're you're exactly right. I mean, we we have and I think this is I say this as a in a in a nonpartisan way. I think we have a real problem in our Congress because they cannot tackle big issues, even even sensible ones, which a lot of there's you know, broad spread uh consensus view on it's just gridlock and it's just you know, we can't get anything through. I mean, the fact that it took us years to get a stablecoin bill through when this the things like this were proposed five, six years ago. And all we're talking about is treasuries on a blockchain, right? Um we need to figure out a way to tackle these issues, and and I'm not for over-regulation, I'm not for under-regulation, I'm for smart regulation. I think that you should have a smart, tackled way to promote entrepreneurialism. And the problem is that most of the time that just gets completely lost in Congress. There's special interest groups that either want to box out competition or the uh you know in a protectionist type way, or there's people out there that want to over-regulate and crush anything new that comes on on the block. And uh you have to figure out a balance.

SPEAKER_02 37:34

Your your your silent depression, as you were describing it, really encapsulates a lot of different things. Um, but it really, I think, centers on this concept of wage earners versus asset earners. Nothing about those two categories is substantially different than it has been throughout history, right? Right. The people who've always made the most money in this world were asset earners. Correct. Um and the people who were, you know, struggling day to day have typically been more wage earners. And very little that we've done has really helped move people from wage earners to asset earners. Um it kind of almost is self-perpetuating. In fact, I would actually make the argument that we've done a lot to move asset earners to wage earners, um, and that that we've made that group of asset earners even smaller.

SPEAKER_01 38:20

Right. I mean, uh the way I look at it is I think that we have made it public policy that asset prices need to rise all the time. All the time. No matter what. Right. I mean, you you see a 10, 20 percent decline in the stock market, which historically was garden variety, and you see shows that say, you know, turmoil in the markets on CNBC, people freaking out, people scared. Right. Um, because our entire system is built on the stock market rising. You have pensions, you have you know tax receipts. I mean everything is re Funding schools. Funding schools. Everything and and and and that's a problem because if you basically say we have to do whatever it takes to get asset prices to rise, what you're effectively doing is you're trying to disturb the natural cycle of things, which there's a boom-bust economic cycle, things grow, then they decline. And and in in when that reset, just like the changing of the seasons, there's opportunity, right? When when things fall, you give younger people opportunity to buy houses and to buy stocks and to and to take risks, right? The problem I have is that we've gotten into a situation where we have normalized exorbitant, in my view, asset prices. The average, in in this goes back to the science depression. You know, you look at people's incomes, right? Uh 20, 30 years ago, the average median worker, they could pick up real estate for three, four times their their their annual salary. Now it's six to ten, right? Um the the you we've normalized young people taking out huge amounts of debt without any realistic return on that investment in the form of college. We have normalized a whole generation of people in their late 20s, early thirties living at home with their parents, right? Because they can't afford housing, because they can't get started in their career. We've normalized all these things that make it a stock market cannot fall fail, but real wages aren't gonna be able to rise. And and and you know. one of the things we we sort of miss is that in this environment post pandemic, there was a period for a couple of years where we where you actually saw people's real income rise. Yeah, there was. For and now it's back flatlined.

SPEAKER_02 40:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:11

And what are cost of living still trickling along, compounding at 3%, right? So so we have to figure out how how do we create a growth that is not only just you know paper gains in stocks and assets, but how do we create growth that actually is inclusive for younger people? And this is particularly difficult because we have the blessing and and I say this with with parents that are you know living, you know, my dad's my dad's in his 80s, right? Like it's wonderful to have people living a lot longer, right? But those people have accumulated so much wealth and so many resources that they can basically spend a lot of them without any restrictions. Yep. And you got a lot of younger people that are just fighting to survive. The exact opposite I can't tell you about how many times I hear stories about young professionals in their early 30s. They're married, they have two incomes and they they're barely making ends meet.

SPEAKER_03 41:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:01

I mean that that is just stunning to me if you look back historically. And the problem is like if you're only focused on asset prices, that's not going to help those people because they don't have assets.

SPEAKER_02 41:10

That's right. And and it and it takes assets to get more assets. And it's a it's a bit of a perverse situation. But it also brings us to you know this narrative that's in the market right now that um those who do have assets and have accumulated a lot of them, the wealthiest of not just this nation but of the world are moving in this direction of an asset reset. And you know the great reset you know theory where hey um there is a need for a reset because hey there's a lot of debt and we need a mechanism to pay down that debt. But in the process of leveraging whether it be stable coins or Bitcoin or anything else to use that as a vehicle to pay down the treasuries and the actual debt that extended out there you're going to depress prices substantially. Everyone's going to suffer in some degree but those who have more assets are going to be left with something and can pick up the rest. I'm not saying I agree with this as a theory and that this is where things are going. But there are elements of it that that feel real um just to the naked eye. And I'm curious kind of your take on that whole kind of great reset theory.

SPEAKER_01 42:21

Yeah. Well I mean you let's start with the debt issue. The the challenging aspect of the of the debt issue is that you don't have a whole lot of great options. You have the option of okay we're going to cut spending which we know if you cut spending that's going to hurt tens of millions of regular working people. We know a lot of people depend on the on government spending just to survive. Right. And that's not really attractive. And in that environment where you cut spending you're probably going to collapse asset prices which is going to make things worse. And you're really not going to hurt uh the upper income because the upper income we're going to have access to credit and the ability to buy things on the cheap. You're going to probably hurt the working poor and in the moderate and modest households the most. So that doesn't seem particularly attractive. And it's not politically viable right like you Yeah politically is not viable. It's not viable at all. So so we're not going to we're not going to cut spending or cut the cut our uh out of our our way out of this problem with the debt. So then what's the opposite? The opposite if you if you push the other direction is what if we accelerate spending? You know what if we the there's a the theory in in economic circles right now called running it hot. What if we run the economy hot which right now if you look at um you know the the deficit to GDP we're running at like six to seven percent deficit to GDP we're blowing a lot of money into the economy right now which if you're spending in a private private sector deficit that's a excuse me a public sector deficit that's a private sector surplus right so so what does that do? That that will keep inflation probably higher than it should be closer to three percent maybe than the target where they're supposed to be at two and that compounds year after year. I mean the difference between two percent annual inflation and three percent it may not seem like a lot it's a ton because it's compounding right and you know how compounding interest works it's it's massive erosion of purchasing power you know keep people's wages so that theory is like the run it hot type theory let's just just push a lot of capital on it let's use that to grow our economy and hope we hopefully we can grow our way out of this mess. The problem is that that will eventually result in a lot of financial repression I think that makes it harder for people in in to to bear those constant increases. So you don't have a really good option. So then those are the first two then there's the third method like what if we we renegotiate everything what if we try to peg it to something different whether it be gold or Bitcoin or some alternative asset that is perhaps a way out but it's far more violent right it it and it and to your point if you're a wealthy person right now they have this you know CNBC is talking about this uh debasement trade where the debasement of the dollar is the path forward because if you debase the dollar you make the debt more sustainable so it feels like that's what we're trying to do but I'm not sure if that I well I'll let you finish because it's exactly it. I mean I mean look at look at the price of gold look at the price of even even the stock market I think it it's such a disconnect because you know stocks okay they have some implicit inflation protection right because every people keep wondering like well how how do corporate earnings keep going up with so many people struggling is because they can pass along the inflation to their to you. Yeah and you pay for it. Yeah right um the the biggest challenge though out of all this if you balance these out is try to figure out this is why I always think like the problem is political it's not an actual economic problem is it's that some people at a certain point are going to say enough is enough and they're gonna revolt, right? They could revolt to the left they can revolt to the right either way I think when you stretch people far enough that's when you tend to have violent disruption and then you have someone coming in and saying well what if we do it this way and historically I think if you if you look at that that generally results uh you know if you push people far enough it generally results in more of a command and control type economy it generally results in more of a leftist skew I think historically that's the free market folks don't win that argument they lose it.

SPEAKER_02 45:54

No no it you know it also interesting to this whole idea of the reset though and I want you to come back to this is okay prices are depressed and you know those of us who've been wage earners we are really stuck in that but asset earners are relatively stronger in that role um do you have a sense of well you know what I'm asking the question I'm gonna answer. In 2021 when we went through this process right there was a huge shift in ownership that went from wage earners to asset earners because of the depression that took place um from COVID right um so it makes a ton of sense that that's what we are likely to see replicated. I guess the real difference is is there any sense that that is something that people are kind of banking on? Like is the market saying this is going to happen? Whether they're trying to cause it or not is a different question. Yeah. But are they so intent now that this is the direction that we're going that people are now like Warren Buffett going into cash, right? Waiting for the asset prices to be depressed, you know, buying land up in you know New Zealand or wherever it may be to kind of save haven from this is that your sense of what's happening here?

SPEAKER_01 47:11

So my view is that if faced between two alternatives which is deflation and assets falling and inflation policymakers will always choose inflation. They'll always choose it and it's a very simple reason because the again going back to the retirement apparatus the the the treasury market all of these things depend on asset prices rising tax receipts I mean tax receipts alone if the stocks fall tax receipts government fall you know precipitously. So so I think they will always favor moving forward hotter hotter inflation than deflation. And part of the thing that is screwing up a lot of investors I think is that from the period post great financial crisis we had roughly 10 years right from 2009 to 2019 where the policymakers at the Federal Reserve would sit around and they and they can go back and listen to the meetings. They would scratch their head and say is inflation dead is there ever any ever going to be inflation again? We can't even generate inflation we're doing QE quantitative easing for for folks we're trying to stimulate the economy we can't generate and then we get this massive burst of inflation through a variety of factors right it's not any one politician or uh uh policy it's your you you know you shut down the global economy COVID basically and at the same time people were were were trying to be um uh you know trying to survive the COVID period you had a massive influx of spending we threw huge amounts of cash at the problem so what is that gonna do that's gonna be a cocktail of demand and you're gonna have uh supply issues because the market the the economy shut down we went from famine to feast right and the problem is that I think that that period was sort of a watershed moment economically because I think you finally lit the fire of inflation that's gonna be we're gonna be fighting against this for a while. That doesn't mean like runaway hyperinflation it just means elevated relative to relative to trend and in that environment okay when you are responding to higher structural inflation can policymakers are they going to be willing to pour as much gasoline on the fire with more stimulus in the future? I don't know about that. It's a question right for me.

SPEAKER_02 49:08

You know what's interesting though in my mind is I think what we saw from COVID, whether wherever you are kind of on the spectrum of you know uh the level of involvement of government but for the investments that were made by our government right we would be in a much different position. We emerged from that process stronger as a nation than every other nation in the world by almost every measure in standard and and so it kind of cements the concept that well there was something to Keynesian economics and there was something to the the the the the the importance of the government stimulus. That doesn't mean we got it right and there's lots of things we can you know um tinkle with a little bit to kind of make a little bit better but you know monetary policy in that instance was important but uh you know the fiscal policy won out today.

SPEAKER_01 49:59

I I look at it from the standpoint of no matter what path you take in life in economics in business there's always trade-offs right there's no there's no perfect solution when you're dealing with some difficult problem like you know there's a virus raging we don't fully understand it we're trying to figure out how to deal with it we don't want people to starve there's breadline you know so what what are we going to do? We're gonna we're gonna try and figure our way through this and we might not be right. Right a lot of it's we're gonna do some things that are a little extreme at first but you know right right and and I think you know one of the problems we have as a society is we always cast this sort of negative light of people trying to do something something when in reality I think you know there's people that are good and they're trying to figure out their way through a complex world and they're trying to make probabilistic bets with imperfect information. Yeah um you know life there's this great book again young people uh I I I always recommend they read it's called Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke and she talks about life isn't chess right we don't sit at the board have perfect information about every piece and every possible move forward and what the result is going to be if we think through it long enough. Life's poker, right? You have incomplete information you try to figure out your way you try to make bets and you can go back through the process you can learn through the process and and you're never going to play that exact same hand in the exact same way. Every single thing's gonna be different there's going to be a different player across the table and and all you can do is make probabilistic bets. That's it. So you know did we do a little bit too much? Maybe did we do a little bit you know of the wrong type of thing maybe but right now what are we going to do? That's the key question.

SPEAKER_02 51:26

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SPEAKER_01 53:08

There's some but but again it's there there's there's different groups right there are some people that are just saying I don't care about broader public policy decisions. I want to make money. There's a lot of people like that. But there are good people out there I I believe that are trying to make the right call. We talked uh a little bit before we jumped on air about uh the Federal Reserve, the FOMC, and you know there are people there who I think they're to your point, maybe they're saying we need to err on the size of side of caution. We need to we need to cut preemptively the rates even though inflation is way higher than our current target you know uh significantly we we we need to cut because we we're fearing a slowdown and the economy feels a little wobbly and maybe unemployment's ticking up so we want to be uh pre preemptive in that and and that that doesn't mean they're evil or bad actors it's just they're they're they're biased towards like let's be cautious here. Yeah and I think there's a lot of people like that.

SPEAKER_02 53:59

Yeah I I do I agree and you know one of the problems is that we don't do as good a job nationally of teaching people fundamentally how these institutions work so that they understand what the tradeoffs that that particular institution is actually making. And to the point the conversation we had prior to air, you know my take was hey um how do I balance the idea that if I make this choice to make a cut today, I've taken a potential cut away from the future as well.

SPEAKER_01 54:26

Yeah and how do you balance that with the fact that the current chair is done in May this term's up.

SPEAKER_02 54:30

So it's like let it be the other guy's problem right so yeah so there's so many elements here I guess everybody now is going to like Calchi and all the open markets to figure out what the answer is going to be. Yeah um but um I want to come back to this idea at a practical level like what what do people do? So I'm taking care of my parents I'm got a kid who's in college or more and I'm trying to figure out how what's what how do I play stable coins? How do I play Bitcoins? I'm an entrepreneur I'm a real estate developer, a small one, but I want to buy my business I'm trying to grow my business what are the practical things in your experience that you think we should be adopting from that perspective?

SPEAKER_01 55:12

Well a lot of that depends on where you're at in life. You know if you're if you're someone who's built up a great amount of assets um you know this is why any financial decision any financial decision is uniquely personal. Right? Like you have you have to figure out like where am I at what am I trying to accomplish and you know it helps I mean I I I have an FA myself and I know financial markets really good but it's good to talk to somebody and have a springboard and say like okay here's here's what I think and and check my math on this uh here's what my goals are here's what I'm trying to accomplish I think for younger people which I spend a lot of time trying to help younger people because I think it's a difficult time right now for a lot of younger people I I always say you know to me the best investment you could make is in yourself and in your business and in your your ability to uh to try to you know grow income a lot of younger people I think look at it from uh our financial markets as a big casino they look at it as sort of like a gambling thing where I have to hit it big and if I don't hit it big I'm I'm I'm kind of screwed to be honest. Um I think that's the wrong exactly the wrong mindset. Um you should not be trying even if you you win big I know a ton of guys in crypto that made a lot of money they they became overnight millionaires and they lost it all within three or four years. Yeah because they didn't go through the grind of building themselves up built becoming mature they got cocky they were too uh sure of themselves on everything and it was easy money uh easy come easy go like you know with the money right that that that the story happens again and again because the the idea behind true wealth and you know the the first one million right or show I think the first one one million has to come from you when you are ready to go on that path. You have to figure out am I in a position where I'm going to do what it takes to grow you know my personal worth and not just in a financial sense but in all respects.

SPEAKER_02 56:51

Yeah. Well you know that's it's that thank you that's a plug for the show because you're right you know one of the things is you can't raise your net worth until you raise your self-worth. And so that concept of as we were talking earlier of saying hey invest two hours a week and get smart about something this is a good opportunity to get smart about you know stable coins and Bitcoins is a good opportunity to get smart about AI. But that investment for that two week two hours a week over the course of six months actually could be completely life changing.

SPEAKER_01 57:21

Well that this is the problem because I think because we live in the era of instant gratification of 10 second TikToks and and constant like you know how do we get there quicker? How do I get the answer? That's my biggest fear with AI right the people not going through the actual work product people just getting the answer. The most important thing I think to realize about life is that it's complicated uncertain and you don't have all the answers. There is no easy answer for a lot of this stuff. So why is that important? It's because if you go through the grind, if you if you have a low time preference meaning you're not focused on you know what is immediate how do I get there right away you're focused on the long haul that tends to be more rewarding it not just financially certainly financially but uh personally for from a from an emotional from a uh uh a self-worth standpoint knowing that you built you come from nothing and you built something that's real and you have those deep relationships and it wasn't just what boxes did I press to get the answer right away. To me that's the that's critical and in financial markets we have people I I I think it's so uh frustrating because I have people that will buy a stock that I'll tell that they'll buy you know XYZ company and then two weeks later they'll want to sell it.

SPEAKER_02 58:30

And what was the purpose of buying it in the first place?

SPEAKER_01 58:31

Right, right. And I mean you have to be focused on the next 10 years particularly if you're young you know some people they should be focused on the next 20 or 30 years if they're really young. Right. You shouldn't be focused on what you're doing over the next six months because the the most important things the most enriching experiences life sometimes they take a decade to get there.

SPEAKER_02 58:48

And not sometimes almost always they take that almost always yeah almost always so that's a good transition and as we kind of start to wind up you know one of the things I wanted to ask you personally was about um how you find personal fulfillment. And you've talked a little bit about the effort that you have underway to work with young people and address some of the issues that are out concerning but just where does your personal fulfillment come and how does the work that you're doing right now related to you know Bitcoin, stablecoin, digital currencies all play a role in that?

SPEAKER_01 59:21

Yeah so I I I get a lot of personal fulfillment from trying to help people and that starts obviously with my family and close friends, right? But it extends to my clients. You know we're I believe firmly we're put on this earth to try to help each other and to try to build communities with one another. I d I reject really violently the idea of individualism. I think that like if you're only on the earth to serve yourself and gain personal riches, what's the point? Yeah um th that to me that's not very fooling at all. We we were talking about like you know younger people getting frustrated and what I what I find difficult in this is that I can acknowledge on an intellectual Level, the silent depression, the K-shaped economy, how difficult. But when I'm talking to a young person, I'm saying you've got to put all that out of your mind.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:06

You've got to get rid of all that. Because I can't tell you how many times I've come up against something where it becomes an excuse. Well, it becomes an excuse, it becomes defeating, it becomes mentally paralyzing, and you have to steal yourself against that. Nothing meaningful ever occurred without a whole host of people saying that will never happen. Exactly. You know? Um and and and time and time again, I had a case really early on, it was wonderful in my career where all of the managing partners, all the senior partners said, You'll never win that. You're gonna go to trial, you're gonna get your head buried, you know, it's gonna be a mess, right? I went there and I I buckled down, I said, I'm gonna prove all these guys wrong, and sure enough, we had a fantastic result. It was great. Some stuff like that. And and and and again, that was the fifth time after the four other ones where I lost and it was embarrassing and you know and uh uh uh difficult to go look your client in the eyes and say, you know, I'm sorry, we're gonna have to pay a huge judgment because uh it's painful, but that one time where I was able to, I think, truly make a difference is worth it. It's worth those four times where it was unsuccessful. Because there's a lot of people that just get jaded and negative and say, you know what, why do I even bother? And we have a we have a crisis in this country right now about apathy and people saying, Why do I even bother? There's no hope for me, I'm stuck. And and that that's not gonna help you.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:16

No, and you know what it it it it is a it's a lack of perspective, right? And one of the problems uh and and and this is true for not just young people, but everyone. Like, you know, one of the things I've said um last year when we I had my team meeting for my organization, I made a statement that I think for a lot of people was controversial, which is you know, there's never been a time of less poverty in the world than there is today. That's actually a true statement. Now you don't feel that way. But the fact that you don't feel that way doesn't mean that that your feelings are true. Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:48

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:48

Right? But if you were to evaluate poverty as you know, around the world over the course of world's history, we have less today than we've ever had before. But you have to look at it at that kind of scale. If you're looking at it just in the last ten years, that might not be true. If you're looking at it in the last five, it's definitely not true.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:07

So why why, Bo, in a situation like that where we have less poly, we have a lot of opportunities, everybody's got Netflix and phones and everything. Why do we have surging rates of depression, suicide, opioid addictions, all this sort of you know, people that are dis dissatisfied and and and and and very frustrated with this existence? And that's the most fascinating question.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:26

It is, and I think you actually hit on it earlier, which is it's about social connection. And it's that um this this concept, it's a very Western concept about individualism and what individualism means. Because in Western concept, the idea of individualism is devoid of any social and broader responsibility. And I don't believe that that's true. I believe there is a even as an individual, you have a social responsibility to others, whether you know them or not. And I think the breakdown of those social constructs that come in all different types of forms, whether it be from communities and how people grew up and live, and whether people are in, you know, other spiritual communities or whether people, you know, um just literally sit and talk to one another, you know, simple things like I get on the airplane, I sit next to a person on the airplane, I talk to that person, all those little things, yeah, they all play a role. Like there's a reason that um solitary confinement is considered a cruel and harsh penalty for a reason, right? And it's and and and people forget that we are social beings by by design. Right. By design. And so the breakdown of that social construct actually uh has all different types of things that affect us. And and one of them is our inability to have perspective, right? Those ancient stories that are told from your grandmother and your great grandmother and all this stuff, they get lost and you're not told. So you don't have perspective of what's happened over the course of time. Doesn't mean that you should be, you know, uh uh you'd be placated by where we are today. It's just to acknowledge that things can be bad today and still be better than they were before. Absolutely. Right? Those two things are not at uh wit's end to one another. So um I want to take and ask you just a few lightning questions before we we we end. Um and want to thank you again for just a really intellectually engaging conversation. So here are my three questions. I had to write these down, right? So in 2035, uh, which matters more? Spot Bitcoin ETFs or dollar stable coins?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:25

Um so this the spot Bitcoin ETFs are gonna be really important. I think Bitcoin in general is the more important than the stable coins in 2035.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:33

All right. Question number two is central bank digital currency, yes, no, are already obsolete.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:39

So I say no central bank digital currency in the next 10 years, and here's why. Number one, to get the Fed's policy, the Federal Reserve, and Chair Powell has talked about this already, they believe through their legal memorandums that you can't issue a central bank digital currency without an act of Congress. Now, I think an act of Congress that empowers the Fed to issue a central bank digital currency is gonna take a ton of ton of resistance. And number one, one of the most powerful lobbies in the United States, the banking lobby, is going to fight tooth and nail to kill it because what does it do? It would allow the Fed to directly issue a tokenized asset to U.S. consumers. I think that's gonna be very difficult because they're gonna cut out the banks, right? If there's a if there truly is a US C B D C a U.S. central bank, what is the purpose of the banking institution but for extending lines of credit, right? Um they're not gonna like that. So I think they're gonna have a lot of bank lobbies do whatever it takes to restrict that. The only exception that would change my thing is there's a true catastrophe. If there's a true need to get hands, uh get money into the hands of you know tens of millions of people.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:42

Um, you know, like Ron Manuel said, there there's never never let a crisis go to waste. Like that would be a situation where you could probably get it through uh in that situation. But short of that, which I I don't expect that, I I expect actually more of the silent depression over the next 10 years. A lot of of more of the the wealth divide, income inequality divide. That's sort of my base case. Um so no, I don't I don't think you're getting it.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:03

All right. And the last one here is would you rather own tokenized treasury, uh bank stable coin, or physical gold for the next five years?

SPEAKER_01 1:06:12

Uh well not the tokenized treasury, not certainly not a stablecoin, because you're not gonna get any return on that. So gold is gold.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:20

You've gone back to the 1970s.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:22

I gotta have gold if I want return on the on the investment. I think gold's gonna do fine. I mean, it's not gonna do what I think Bitcoin's gonna do, but can gold really go that much higher? I I mean you're you're talking relative, right? So like I I I hold very I hold zero gold. Okay, so I'm not a gold investor. I don't believe I I'd rather own uh NVIDIA stock than gold, but but uh which I do. Um but uh among those choices, I'm gonna I'm gonna go with gold.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:46

All right. Well, this is good. Well, listen, this was fantastic. Um, and your breadth of knowledge and your application in the space is fantastic, and thank you for coming on the show. I really appreciate it. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:57

Great, thank you, man.

unknown 1:06:58

Appreciate it.