David Lin (Uncut) 01-14-2025

          you made a call on my show a couple months ago that Bitcoin is heading to $200,000 I think by the end of the year I think you said are you still stick to that timeline bitcoin’s down to 92 by The End by the end of 2025 I mean I also made calls that Bitcoin would hit 100 by the end of 2024 unfortunately I was I was right about that although it’s bounced around it that level but yeah I do kind of think we’ll see 200 on this particular cycle Lawrence thear joins us once more he’s the managing partner of

the equity Management Associates and partner of the Bitcoin opportunity fund will be talking about his views on sound money 2025 and his new book the big print very interesting book welcome back to the show Happy New Year Lawrence good to see you yeah happy New Year nice to see you David thank you for having me on your show I always enjoyed talking to you give us a 60-second elevator pitch for your book yeah so the pitch is um I want an average American or Canadian or really citizen of the world but obviously I

live in America to be able to pick up my book and read it and say to themselves oh I Now understand why you know this economy is damaging me and what I need to do to protect myself um the inflation is really the problem of our age and I think the it will be continue to be the impr problem of this decade and it’s gotten worse and although it’s evaded a little bit right now I think it’s going to continue to get worse and so and I think a lot of people don’t really fully understand it um you know people in the

financial markets might understand it but the average citizen doesn’t understand it and so I wrote the book to try to educate the average citizen as to why it’s the government and the government policies and the Federal Reserve that are creating inflation and then to you know lay out a way that they can protect themselves and how we can fix this broken system because I think you would agree and probably many of your listeners would agree that um the system is broken you know it’s really not working very well for a lot of

people I I want to get into those details and talk more about the book in uh in just a minute uh this leads to recent news actually you’re you know you’re spot on about inflation you’re not the only person concerned about inflation the Fed is the Federal Reserve is concerned themselves Michelle Bellman fed Governor Michelle Bellman said today on Thursday that she supported the recent interest rate cut in December but she said that should be the last one do you agree well uh yes and no I mean I I

I I don’t really comment much on fed policy because I don’t I think almost almost by definition what they do is going to be wrong but I can see why they have to say that because some of the PPI numbers have been coming in hot and so the FED is the Fed is really very much trapped as I’m sure will discuss uh and that is to say they you know they would like to continue to cut rates because uh the federal government interest expense is is out of control and creating larger and larger deficits uh but in turn you

know the economy is doing okay and inflation is per percolating back up and so they there’s an argument that they can’t cut rates or they’re going to have to increase rates so they’re really stuck between a rock and a hard place is the best way to look at it but but do you agree with the market expectation at least that inflation will remain sticky going into 202 I do I think I I do I mean you see the inflation swaps are starting to show that you also see the the fed the CME fedwatch site is showing

that there’s there’s a 90% chance they are not going to cut rates at the next meeting so yes I mean it’s it it it it appears to me that at a minimum they’re going to stay flat I don’t know if they’re going to R raise rates I also thought when you’re bringing up Bowman I also think was interesting that yesterday president Trump said interest rates are way too high and we need to get them lower so I I sense that there’s a a a colossal Clash sitting up here between the fed and Trump and although Trump can’t fire Powell he can certainly

make his life miserable by making a lot of noise about interest rates and I’m I’m guessing he probably will now let’s talk about uh this broken system that you referenced earlier um sure what exactly is broken how is it broken and then we can talk about what to do about it yeah sure just at a big picture level the notion that you have a Federal Reserve Board of 12 people setting the most important price in the world which is the price of money the interest rate um you know nobody could do it even if

they were Godlike in terms of their intelligence and they’re not they couldn’t do it um the interest rate should be set by supply and demand the supply of Capital Savings as against the demand for investment savings that’s a market-based economy I mean what we’ve got is is like a you know a command and control communism based economy it’s like the Russian setting the price of grain and and and this is why the economy has swung back and forth between booms and bus and Bubbles and crashes you know the fed and when it’s really

tight like under vulker it went as high as 20% and then when it’s really loose like when theom Bubble Burst or when the housing bubble burst in particular they took it down to 0% so these interest rates are all over the map and nobody can make intelligent long-term plans as a result of these um you know these mandarins that run the Fed setting the rates I mean they shouldn’t be doing it that’s that’s wrong and and uh and the outcomes that we were getting as a result of it are are causing a lot of

pain for a lot of people you know throughout the world really um and so you know so we’ve got to return to a system based on sound money where interest rates get set at the price at which savings and and investment you know match one another that’s that’s the fundamental thesis of the book but there’s a lot more to it than that that but I’m trying to boil it down to a couple of sentences before we continue the video let me tell you about how important it is to protect your personal data a massive data breach recently

exposed new three billion personal records once again highlighting the growing risks of having your private information online it’s a reminder of why protecting your data is so important that’s why I use today’s sponsor delete me they help remove your personal details like your address phone number and more from hundreds of data broker sites it’s simple effective and something I trust to keep my information safe getting started is quick submit your details and within a week you’ll get a privacy report showing exactly

where your data was found and removed delete me keeps working all year round to Monitor and remove your data so you don’t have to worry go to join delet me.com David Lin link down below or scan the QR code here and use the promo code David Lin checkout to get 20% off of all us plans start taking control of your privacy today I mean the Federal Reserve is a relatively recent phenomenon it was founded at the turn of the century last century of course and um you know before then we had Free banking but uh tell us

how interest rates were set before a centralized Authority well they were set in the marketplace and we did have free Banking and um you know and even before the FED I mean they were they were set as the cost of capital and we and capital at the time true money was gold or silver um underlying at all although there were exceptions to that you know Lincoln printed greenbacks and so forth but um yeah they in the past they were set in the marketplace but it’s it’s a little more complicated and tricky than

that because the banks had you know the ability to do fractional Reserve l and lending lend out money that they didn’t really have and so that whole system in and of itself you know led to a series of booms and bust which was then actually used by the bankers to create the fed you know they they claimed the FED would dampen out these swings and provide a necessary back stop and and wouldn’t overstep its boundaries and then in fact they did create the FED in 1913 it immediately overstepped its boundaries and broke the rules in order

to finance World War I so you know this is a this is a problem that’s going been going on for some time um and it it’s you know there have been steps along the way that have accelerated it Roosevelt accelerated it when he confiscated gold Nixon accelerated in 71 when he went off the gold standard um you know bernacki accelerated it massively in ‘ 08 when he introduced Zer and QE quantitative easing and so you know and with each step it’s gotten more and more unwieldy and more and more out of control and the

fundamental thesis of the book The Thesis of you know um my investments in general is that they have to continue printing money or the system will collapse and not only do they have to continue printing money they have to continue printing money in ever increasing measure which is why you know the covid response was bigger than the GFC response and the GFC response was bigger you know than the one before that and so on and so forth so it’s it’s a system that’s broken David and um you know it’s it’s either going to get

solved as a result of intelligent policy decisions or it’s going to eventually go over the cliff and you know fiat’s going to f which so many times in the past it has there’s a few things that may point to the other side of the story which maybe I can ask you to address so first if you take a look at um I I was looking at this chart a while ago a couple weeks ago somebody pointed this out the number of recessions over the last 150 years since the 1800s and the duration of each recession they have both decreased in

both frequency and duration meaning before there were more recessions they lasted longer now it seems that there the only way we’re going to get a massive slowdown is some sort of systemic shock whereas before it was part of the normal business cycle clearly something is working I’ll just let you well it’s working if you measure it in terms of of recessions and the reason you’re not getting as many recessions is that they’re just printing their way out of every downturn it’s not working if you measure it in terms of

inflation you know the the level of inflation that we’ve experienced since 1971 is just large and unprecedented and it’s caused enormous pain for people all over the world and so you know it’s it depends on what you want to measure right I mean if you want to measure recessions sure there’ve been fewer and and we had normal cleansing Cycles in the past that led to recessionary times although some of them were pretty quick I mean the downturn of 1920 you know was a year and a half so um but but yeah

your point your point is correct but my point is that inflation is really the the thing that’s causing damage to everybody I mean if you look at the average working person throughout the world you know they’ve just seen the cost of most things they buy you know go up 40% because the money supply grew by 40% with the covid response and um and and their wages haven’t kept pace and so this is what leads to the wealth inequality I mean as you and I both know there there are a group of people who actually have figured out how to gain

the system and benefit from inflation I mean the the L the wage earner does not know how to gain the system they can’t borrow at 0% they they pay credit cards companies 25% to borrow money yeah um and so there were a very severe disadvantage to those people who were on the inside who know how to game inflation actually make inflation make them wealthier the the rate of inflation right now is below 3% though Lawrence um you know one could argue it’s not that much of an issue anymore how would you

respond to that well two things one it’s yes after it just went up 9% you know a year and a half ago yes um and the overall so so you know it’s still running and and to I would also say that you know as Shadow government statistics has has said and shown and it’s demonstrated in my book The the government inflation statistics are not accurate I mean I don’t think there’s anybody who really believes 3% is the actual rate of inflation if that’s the case then why did my homeowners insurance go up 100% last year and why

did my auto insurance go up 30% last year um and why are food prices going up at greater than 3% I mean there are a lot of things in these numbers the politicians have figured out very effectively how to gain the numbers but but I will give you your D I mean inflation is not running as hot right now as it was at the peak in Co and that’s because they raised rates and slowed down the growth of the money supply so you know there are it does wax and Wayne but I think the important thing for people to understand is that

the long-term trend is solidly up right and so you know maybe it’s three now but it could be higher you know not not too far from now why why is a longterm Trend solidly up though what would because yeah it’s because well it’s not not only that it’s because of the compounding of the debt and the death Doom the debt Doom loop I mean mathematically you know they have to continue to print money to service the the debt that’s out there and let me just give you a good example of it let me describe the debt Doom loop I know

you know what that means that some of the listeners might not um you know the US government pays interest on its $36 trillion worth of debt and that interest expense is now running around 1.2 or 1.3 trillion a year 5 years ago that was 3 400 billion so that’s gone up very sharply with this increase in rates that they put in place to try and tame the co inflation well that caused the deficit to get larger and the deficit getting larger meant the government had how does how does the government pay for a larger

deficit they sell bonds to raise the capital to cover the deficit well the bonds go out there into the marketplace and you know more supply of bonds the same number of buyers interest rates are going to go up well if interest rates continue to go up then you know guess what that interest expense goes up because we we’re the biggest debtor in the world with 36 trillion and the deficit gets bigger and that means you have to sell even more bonds and you can see where I’m going with this it’s a vicious circle in a in a in a negative

feedback loop where ultimately you know the the you know the FED is is in the entire bond market and interest rates are skyrocketing and what that then leads to what that will shove them into and they haven’t done this for a while because they’re actually reducing their balance sheet right now what that then will lead to is they will have to Institute yield curve control which is effectively QE where they say okay we cannot tolerate these high interest rates we are going to buy the bonds we’re going to issue the bonds and we’re

going to buy them on our ourselves and what that really is is that’s just we’re going to print the money to pay the to pay the cost of interest and and so a comparable to this would be you know this this is like the the the um this is like the family that has a lot of credit cards and they’re making the minimum payments and they’re unable to make the minimum payments so they go get another credit card with a bigger credit limit and they use the borrow against that to make the minimum payments on the prior

ones so it’s a it’s a vicious circle David that’s the problem I have to uh speaking of the money supply let’s take a look at the M2 money supply this is a story that may or may not be flying under the radar on the media here but this is the M2 money supply and we are once again nearing the peak of the feds balance sheet or not balance sheet but the money supply in uh the financial system this is M2 there’s there’s various measures of money but uh we’re during the peak of 2022 Lawrence and if you just take a look at it from a annual

percent change basis percent change from a year ago you can see that it is growing at 2.6% um perom and I I wonder what that is and you know whether or not this is a precursor for more inflation I think it is I mean you can see obviously you can see the enormous look at how big that spike is with the covid event I mean it’s really you know that’s I mean they grew the money supply 25% that’s that’s just huge and so we’re still suffering from that I mean people say why do we still have inflation if

the money supply is now only growing at 2 or 3% part of it is inflation is also a psychological event and everybody who saw their wages you know decrease the you know saw their purchasing power you know get decreased because their wages didn’t go up they’re still asking for higher wages and you know frankly I mean there haven’t been anything in the papers recently but you know we saw the doc workers we saw airline pilots we saw a lot of people you know striking and getting 10 15 you know 20% wage bumps

which they needed to keep Pace with the the higher level of inflation so so yes I mean this this goes back my point that that they have to inflate it with debt growing the way it’s going growing they have to inflate the money supply to service the debt or else you know not enough money to pay the debt here here’s my here’s my um uh here here’s my push back here this look the the the uh the rate the natural rate of growth for the money supply has been however 5 to 6% 7% 8% in uh you know all throughout the

’90s and 2000s there was a massive inflation then it’s only when it goes to double digits above 26 20% in 2021 that we had the 9% inflation the way that we saw so this is just normalization right from the base of fair enough fair enough and that’s and that’s I think what the market thinks that we’re now living in in an inflation or deflationary world and we’ll go back to where we used to be yeah and I would say that would have been a possibility if we weren’t in such a deep debt hole and the fact that you know we we wasted

$8 trillion in the Middle East and we’ve run up a $36 trillion debt and we’ve got this enormous interest expense I mean that to me is the is the piece that’s different I mean if you go back to 2000 or you certainly go back to the early 80s sure you knowb to GDP was 30% and so you didn’t have this underlying burden the problem with debt is it’s cumulative and you know it’s not as though we’re paying it down it’s getting bigger and so that’s that’s why I think that you know this 40-year trend of deflation

that we’ve had that was brought on by you know cheap cheap Goods out of China and you know fracking oil and a lot of other benefits that we had I think that trend has shift shifted and we are now you know psychologically workers want more money because they know there’s inflation and yeah even though the money supply is under control I think we are in an inflationary World um and and again it goes to the debt issue and that you know the the fact that the government has to keep the system going I mean if look if there’s a there’s a

way that it would not be inflationary and that is they would you know balance the budget you know if they were to cut defense and they were to cut you know the entitlements by 30 or 40% and move towards a BAL balanced budget and actually look at you know maybe paying the debt off or at least not growing the debt well then the problem would not go worse and I would be willing to accept the possibility that inflation won’t return but I think you know what what you what I see out of Washington DC I

don’t see much you know evidence that they’re going to go in that direction I mean they’re talking about it and this Doge program that Elon and and um VC are talking about trying to convince Trump on I mean that that’s the right kind of talk but the math is just very much against them I mean if you look at the US federal government it spent $6.75 trillion in September fiscal year last year 80% of that is pretty much Untouchable I mean if you assume that Social Security Medicare interest which you got to pay and then defense which

you know we could make touch that but that’s those four items are 80% of the budget so you know the balance is like $1.3 trillion so we’ve talked about how inflation is a problem still for people well let’s talk about what to do about it I know you’re invested in both gold resources and Bitcoin take a look at what Mark cubin said um this week he’s been making rounds to the media Mark Cuban I’d rather own Bitcoin than gold if something bad happens to the economy I think it has more value people see it

as an option in the event of the economy going down or something bad happening uh gold isn’t based off the supply and demand of jewelry um and then people he said people who hold Bitcoin um see it is great store of value do you agree you know yeah it’s you know this I mean I don’t know how much you followed Cuban’s thought patterns on this but if we’ve watched him historically you know he was skeptical um and he’s really kind of come around here uh and so yes I agree I mean I as you know and your

listeners I’m sure know too that I’m I’ve been a sound money epicate for a long time before Bitcoin existed and so that had me in the gold business or gold stocks and and silver stocks and so forth and until Bitcoin was invented that was the soundest form of money around um then Bitcoin came around and you know very volatile but um in my opinion now it’s it’s as good or better than gold and um certainly in terms of upside appreciation potential it’s more volatile still but that’s just because it’s being adopted and um you know I

really kind of view it as digital gold and the the macro point that I would make that you know I think most people listen to me know and you know is that you know the government is in a position as we discuss where they just have to keep printing money and deluding the value of the currencies in compared to things goods and services and assets and um you know the beautiful thing about gold the beautiful thing about silver the beautiful thing about Bitcoin is the government can’t print them they they’re

outside of government control and uh I think that’s you know that’s important I think it’s going to become more important you know is in this next five or 10 year time frame yeah I don’t think Cuban has ever liked gold he called it a pet rock at one point I don’t know has that point of view um but yeah why why invest in IR Rock I mean what’s what’s the upside here I mean yeah well I mean look you know before Bitcoin came along it was the soundest form of money around and it’s got you know 5,000 years of

Lindy effect and eight billion people know that gold is money and so it’s not going to just disappear you know I mean people say well bitcoin’s going to replace gold and and to some extent that’s true and bitcoin’s per price performance will outperform gold and that’s because it’s you know they they both will go up as as the you know money is diluted I mean that’s a fact um but Bitcoin will in my opinion go much much faster because it’s also enjoying an adoption curve I mean you know gold is not some new thing I mean it’s been

around for Millennia and so anyone who wants to own gold knows what it is and they’ve already bought it and uh whereas Bitcoin you know 15 years ago didn’t exist and 10 years ago almost nobody knew about it and now more people know about it and so that adoption curve is what’s making Bitcoin outperform gold but they both will go up if Fiat currencies fail and I think there’s some chance of that um they will both go up in Fiat terms now you know the the problem there is I mean we could have $110,000 gold we could have million

dollar Bitcoin we could also have you know $30 gasoline so um because Fiat you know is is is just programmed to debase so the the when you say fail it just means purchasing power of Fiat is going down that’s what you mean just going down and at different at varying rates so as you and I discussed earlier in this call you know or in this conversation I mean some years it goes down 9% some years it goes down less but it’s there aren’t many I mean there aren’t years when Fiat goes up very often in in terms of assets uh you know

gold and and silver and Bitcoin and real estate so forth so um you know and and that’s just the way the system’s constructed you made a call on my show a couple months ago that Bitcoin is heading to $200,000 I think by the end of the year I think you said you still stick to that timeline bitcoin’s down to 92,000 by The End by the end of 2025 I mean I also made calls that Bitcoin would hit 100 by the end of 2024 unfortunately I was I was right about that although it’s bounced around that that level but yeah I do kind of think

we’ll see 200 on this particular cycle um you know and and by the way once we get there we might correct back down to 130 or something but you know we are in a bull market cycle for Bitcoin based on you know the past Cycles they tend to go 5x off the base and and you know the base was called the base depends on what you want to look at but say it’s 40,000 5x is 200 so so yes I think cycle will take us to 200 but that’s just a guess I don’t know for sure right but Lawrence uh the the major impetus or uh Catalyst

for higher bitcoin price one could argue already happened we had the Bitcoin ETF the most successful be ETF launch of all time Trump has been supportive of Bitcoin Pro Bitcoin people in government all happened already you know what’s the next Catalyst then yeah it could all be in the price well certainly one that we’re all watching and I we think that it’s going to happen is if the United States decides to unilaterally you know create a Bitcoin a strategic Bitcoin Reserve that could have an impact on the

price um I think that you know there’s evidence that other countries are accumulating Bitcoin and so there’s further evidence that in my mind that this is starting you know so so this used to be a very individualized investment just crazy bitcoiners were buying it um then it became a broader investment when the ETFs got approved and people like Black Rock the largest fund manager in the United States started buying it and approving of it yes um and and now now we’re kind of moving into a situation where countries

are buying it I mean Salvador has been buying it but they’re kind of small and they were the first mover um you know I was at this um Bitcoin conference in the Middle East at Abu Dhabi in in December early December and uh Trump’s son was there and so was Paul maniff for who’s a trump guy did the trans part of the transition team and it’s pretty clear to me that they think that they’re going to do a strategic reserve and the other Rumblings behind the scenes were that Abu Dhabi uh Oman or Abu Dhabi being UAE

Oman and the Saudis are all accumulating Bitcoin and in fact I was told that they want to announce it but the Trump Administration said can you wait until after we’ve announced ours so you know if you get to the point where nation states start to realize that this is important I mean look nation states realize gold is important that’s why they hold gold on their balance sheet that’s why central banks have been net buyers of gold for the last five years but do you agree with cuin with the notion that Bitcoin is a better uh Safe

Haven asset in in hard times well yes I mean I mean so let’s define let’s get our terms right let’s define Safe Haven I mean there is no doubt that Bitcoin is more volatile than gold I mean that’s just a statistical fact yeah so you know if you want to find Safe Haven is low volatility then no gold is a better asset than Bitcoin if if your only measure is volatility I mean if your measure is Alpha and potential upside Bitcoin crushes gold um so you know it kind of depends on what you’re what you’re looking at it for one criticism a

lot of people have leveled at Bitcoin is they’ve said well it’s really just a liquidity widget and it trades like the NASDAQ you know when the NASDAQ goes down Bitcoin goes down and uh it’s not a it’s you there isn’t a safe haven bid for Bitcoin and that’s a fair criticism because there has been a pretty tight correlation but I think that that will change over time I think that we’re heading into a period where it’s going to be seen as a safer Haven and I’ll tell you why I say that David there’s a

really interesting chart I don’t have it in front of me right now but if you run a chart of bit coin compared to the long Bond you know which the what used to be the safest Haven financial asset the long Bond the 10year bond the 30-year Bond right I mean it’s a US Treasury couldn’t default you know it’s just it was good as gold so to speak well if you look at Bitcoin and gold compared to that they are just absolutely crushing it in in the last three four years and so so so so the bonds are disappearing

as a safe haven asset in my opinion and uh and and Bitcoin you know gold has always been a safe haven asset I think we’ll continue to be one but Bitcoin I think I think it’s going in that direction but just just as with anything else when when you’re in the early adoption stage of something it’s going to have a lot of volatility a perfect example this Amazon I mean Bill Miller made a fortune by believing in Amazon ear betting big on it Amazon had and this is actually in the book I wrote Amazon had multiple huge draw Downs you

know in the early years before it really got fully established and uh and that’s that’s very comparable to what Bitcoin is seeing I mean let’s not forget that Bitcoin has had Corrections of 70 or 80% you know and I don’t think the next correction will be that large because I think there’s more Universal demand but I don’t think suddenly in a world where there w’t be Corrections in Bitcoin I mean I I fully expect that we’ll get a real big ramp on this cycle because that’s how it tends to happen and that

at that point in time everyone will be a little too ahead of themselves and we’ll get a correction and you know so we go to 200 we come back to 120 something like that I I’m just making those numbers up but that’s kind of my guess not everybody in the crypto space is bullish shortterm to medium-term on bitcoin take a look at what Arthur Hayes of bidm had to say uh time to sell H he said yeah yeah right on schedule just like every other year it will be time to sell in the last stages of the first

quarter and wait for positive Fiat liquidity conditions to reemerge in the third quarter boy you know he could be right he could be wrong none of us really know I mean this asset trades like a wild animal um but you know I would be more worried about missing you know the upside than about any potential downside from here I mean I you know the model that I use that I think is a pretty decent model is the power law model developed by Fred Krueger and you know a few other guys and uh you know it says right now fair value is kind of

right around 80 or 90 and sometimes this thing gets to two standard deviations above fair value which would take you up to 200 and sometimes it trades at half a half a standard deviation below fair value which would take you back down to 60 so you know it’s it’s my view is I mean I don’t look at it as something I trade okay I I I hold it for a very long-term time frame because I think it’s going to continue to compound at a rate that’s higher than almost anything else out there I mean maybe if you can

pick a really good company that turns into an envidia you can beat it but you know for those of us who can’t do that and just want a safe you know place to put your money where you know in a fiveyear Time window I am highly confident that the performance of Bitcoin is going to be really good what does ordinary sorry go ahead no I just but between here and there David it’s gonna go up and down a lot you know right what does the average person do then about the uh you know deterioration and ultimate destruction of Fiat

currencies we need a medium of exchange for our daily lives Bitcoin gold safe you know they Investments their stores of value but we need something to transact with on a daily basis that doesn’t appreciate right what do we do about that well so I I think I think the way a lot of bitcoiners and and gold people handle it is I mean you you’ve really so so money really serves two functions right you’ve got your money that you’re saving and then you’ve got your money that you use to pay your bills and I know a lot of people who all

their savings money is in either gold or Bitcoin or some combination of those two and then as they need money to pay bills they may sell a little bit and pay the bills but they don’t leave money sitting in dollars just you know unprotected getting you know 4% on treasury bills or something they just it’s not enough return um and so so you you kind of divide your money into the two buckets you know your savings bucket and your spending bucket and you know the dollar is obviously the you know Reserve

currency of the world it’s the easiest thing to transact in I will say this I mean the lightning network is getting better and better and there will be ways to transact with Bitcoin more easily in the future but it’s still early days and so you know to me it’s a it’s a straightforward thing that that you know it’s your what what I’m talking about are savings and investment not dollars that you’re going to spend and you know if if you need the money to tomorrow you know you I mean for people all in on

bitcoin and have to sell Bitcoin fine if you want to do it that way great but I always keep you a small balance of Fiat to pay bills with so and this comes to the point of why Bitcoin is not used universally as a med I say universally is a medium exchange right now obviously you can use Bitcoin for many things gr’s law you’re familiar with the concept of Gres law absolutely bad money drives out the good let me just give a 30 second synopsis for the audience so when you have a currency that is going to be

debased in theory you would want to spend that currency that you think is going to get debased and then save the good money for a store of value ironically what that means is it drives out the use of such good money in circulation because no one’s going to use it everybody in the Bitcoin space is saying well if it goes up it’s going to you know increase your your your your wealth it’s going to store your value why would I spend it ironically that means no one’s going to use it yeah that’s exactly right it is it is

somewhat ironic but you know what what’ll happen over time is is there’ll be more and more ways to very easily convert it and and convert back and forth yeah and so that’s that’s you know that just is what it is we we’re still in very early days I mean one thing I’d like to point out David I think your listeners might enjoy it’s just the notion that this is I mean a lot of people I know think they’re too late they look at Bitcoin at 100,000 they know people who bought it cheaper they think how can I pay that it’s way too

much it’s too high and what they don’t really understand is that it’s going to continue going up for a very long time as it kind of slowly but surely replaces the dollar standard and you know they $900 trillion of Global Financial assets out there if you look at everything if you includ real estate stocks bonds cash Etc the Bitcoin market cap today is 2 trillion so it’s 2/10 of 1% of all of the mar you know the assets out there so you know that’s a very small percentage a very small waiting I mean we’re still

very early days and I mean Bitcoin could go up in value 10x which we take it from today’s value $100,000 up to a million dollars a coin and if it were and if it were to do so it’d still only be 2% of total assets out there you know and and so um you know it’s it’s got quite some way to run and I think that’s one of the things a lot of people have a hard time getting their head around I mean you know I know when I was buying it I mean Max Kaiser bought it at $2 and I was buying at 400 so you know everybody

feels like they’re too late but if if we’re correct that you know the Fiat is slowly but surely getting debased and that this is a potential new monetary system which I think it is and my book talks about that then you’re really not too late you know you just you just buy it and forget about it hold on to it and I think you wake up in three to five years I mean you know in let’s say in five years it’s a million dollars a coin which is kind of what I expect five years sure well anybody coming along

looking at it then is gonna say oh my god you bought it at1 100,000 you know gee whiz you know I wish I’d done that right and and so um you know and then of course the person who Vis it at a million that you know 10 years later it’ll be at 10 million a coin and somebody will have the same conversation so um it’s the thing and the reason I say all this and the thing that I also think is important to point out with respect to it is we’ve never seen anything like this David this is a this is a commodity that has an inelastic

supply that cannot we can’t make any more of it so so the 21 million we’re growing towards that we’re at 19 and change um so there’s a little bit more being made but I mean basically that you know we’re very close to the supply limit and as a result of that doesn’t matter what the price is the the schedule of Supply isn’t going to change you know we price of gold goes to 10,000 which I fully expect in this cycle by the way we’re going to mine more gold I mean they’re going to people going to dig more holes and produce more gold

because it’ll be profitable to do so um the the schedule the issuance schedule of Bitcoin doesn’t change and that’s why it’s very hard for traditional Financial people to get their head around the fact that this thing’s going to go up a whole lot it’s really it’s it’s a very asymmetric bed and I’ve I’ve been saying that the book says it this is the most asymmetric thing I’ve seen in my 40 some odd years of of making Investments and so do you feel the same way about any other digital asset Lawrence I really

don’t I don’t I mean I don’t and I’m not I’m not um some Maxis I’m a Bitcoin Maxi which means I believe in Bitcoin above all most other digital assets um you know I don’t go so far as to call them all shitcoins because as some people do I think there’s there is a lot of Fraud and malfeasance in some of these coins and I think you know I look at like Doge at $50 billion of value and I’m just like you know I don’t get it or fcoin recently went to a billion yeah billion five there’s a lot of there’s a lot of

nutty stuff having said all that there the layer two so so so we’ve established in my opinion we’ve clearly established that Bitcoin is the superior store of value digital currency it’s digital gold the medium of exchange currency for for you know online is still I think a little bit of a jump ball I mean bitcoiners hardcore bitcoiners think that the lightning network will provide that but there are people and and intelligent people who have alternative views that another currency will emerge that will be a much better and more

efficient and you know widely used way to exchange money in cryptocurrencies you know whether it be a stable coin or a salana or you know xrp I mean there a lot of different things competing for that but there’s no guarantee that lightning is going to be the solution so um I think we just have to wait and see but the the thing about you know the thing about this medium exchange coin is by definition it’s not going to be a sound of money built they’re built on ethereum and ethereum’s had you know seven

monetary policies right and that’s a yeah that’s a good point because here’s my issue with uh with bitcoiners and crypto Enthusiast talking about an alternative currency um for a medium exchange if you if you actually look at B2B transactions on platforms like coin payments for example uh they used to transact primarily Bitcoin many years ago now it’s primarily stable coins stable coin is just a digital Fiat people are still using Fiat in blockchain form um so well and the and the yeah that’s right that’s exactly

right and the other thing that’s really true is that you know we’ve got pretty good payment mechanisms I mean you know we got PayPal you got venmo you got credit cards you got I mean you know it’s not like medium of exchange and the dollar works so medium of exchange is pretty well covered now if you’re in the third world maybe it’s not if you live in you know there actually have a good um example in my book about Nairobi is has become a very heavy user of Bitcoin because they got a shitty currency that

depreciates constantly and so there are a lot of people there who use Bitcoin en lightening to transact but but yes you know the medium of exchange question is still a very un you know undetermined and unanswered question in my mind but that’s that’s a different issue than the issue of of you know investing in a currency or an asset that you know will protect you from inflation which in my opinion there’s just nothing that even compares to bitcoin you know on that for that problem right so tell us about a

few interesting facts or pieces of information that you found through the research of your book yeah we writing that of your book rather that’s a great question well it’s you know so first of all I went back and I I did a deep dive on monetary history and uh particularly with respect to the United States and it’s really kind of amazing how many times you know they they’ve done inflationary things I mean the the story of the War of 1812 the story of you know the Civil War and Lincoln ISS greenbacks the story of World War II

where they printed a ton of money and the price level doubled in 10 you know in six years yes um so there there’s a lot of you know it’s not just inflation is not something that’s just new it didn’t just pop out of the ground I mean there are you know people like Daniel Webster who said you know inflation is the way that rich men you know they they they fertilize their soil with the sweat off of the Poor Man’s brow through inflation so this was in the middle 1800s so it’s not like this problem is

new um so there’s a lot of fun stuff I found there I also found a lot of corruption uh and told a little bit about some of that corruption and and you know kind of pointed out I mean I’m again the book is trying to energize people to understand why the system is broken and then given that the system is broken what they need to do to you know Advocate to one protect themselves but also you know to to think about this politically I mean I think hopefully in the future there will be sound money political candidates will come along in

fact up in Canada I think you know your potential next you know U prime minister you know Pier P I think he really understands Bitcoin he understands the importance of sound money he is not a Keynesian he is not a big spender is my understanding I mean you probably know better than I do but but the point is that I think we’re going to have more politicians that understand how important this issue is and and that’s part of getting the whole issue solved I mean you we really need to solve this problem a lot of people are hurting all

over the world as a result of inflation and we really need to solve it you know I mean I I worry about my kids and their kids and yet unborn but you know and and I and I look around the country and yeah I mean look we’re fortunate enough to have you know roofs overhead and three meals a day and you and I are doing fine a lot of people listen this are probably doing fine but there a lot of people in this country who aren’t doing fine there a lot of people in the world who aren’t doing fine you know this what what

they’ve done with this inflation thing has really hurt a lot of people very seriously and so you know we owe it to try and fix it you we owe it to those people to try and fix it anything that private citizens can do to fix this problem uh we you know we can’t control monetary policy but I suppose no we’re not the FED yeah I mean well yeah there there it just seems to be like a demand issue it’s like well inflation you know I had this is a good counterargument to the monetary policy causing inflation

thing it’s like well people buy things the FED doesn’t buy things the FED can inject liquidity But ultimately once we have liquidity people can choose to save it but they don’t they just spend it right so yeah you know it’s a Ault phenomenon is what I’ve heard right but well but that’s yeah but but spending money is what human beings need to do to to keep themselves alive I mean there’s nothing wrong with spending money to feed yourself I mean sure and inflation is certainly not driven by spending

money it’s the fact that there are more monetary units out there so that you know when what you’re competing for has to go up in price um just a supply and demand issue but but yeah the the the point I guess that um I would make is that inflation really is the core underlying problem and um you know when we solve it things will get a lot better and and I guess one of the things I think a lot of younger people don’t understand is that it is a solvable problem I I lived in a world pre 71 that was not inflationary yes um you know if

you if you study the history of the United States and we had these inflations when you know say civil war broke out or World War I broke out but in general there were very very long periods of time in US history when the price level was damn stable I mean it was really it didn’t change at all inflation was not an issue and that’s because we were on the gold standard and things were s sound so there’s no there’s nothing that says we can’t be back go back to that I mean and that’s a good piece of the book is actually kind

of debunking the Keynesian propaganda that says we’ve got to have inflation or else the econom is going to die we’re going to go into a depression if we don’t have inflation I mean that’s that’s how the keynesians and the government people have spun this so that we all sit back and say well yeah it sucks this inflation suck but there’s nothing we can do about it we got to have it or the economy is going to die and and that’s just not true that’s a lie I mean you know the the economy did you know this

the United States built itself into the most you know powerful and my in many ways decent you know country in the world from 1789 to 1946 and you know we were on a gold standard you know more or less I mean there were times we violated it but but my you know my point is you know it’s not as if we didn’t do reasonably well when the money was sound and it in’ 71 that big change we we we broke the tide of gold and that’s that was the beginning of the problem and uh it’s sadly we’re now at the stage where the

problem is pretty big we’ve been kicking the can for a long time the can’s getting bigger it’s getting heavier and we were’re not able to kick it as easily and so something’s going to have to give uh and again that’s that’s kind of what I try to lay out in the book what I think it’s what think it’s going to be and then how to protect yourself yeah all right well that sounds like a great conversation for another time with do deep doph deeper into um mmt and Keynesian theories yeah versus everything else you know yeah we can

talk about def we haven’t talked about deflation the consequences of defl yeah there’s a lot there’s a whole chapter on the book on deflation why it’s good why it’s a positive thing why it’s something we should embrace yeah just give us a teaser why is it good I mean deflation implies negative economic growth is it not that’s contraction you’re losing your job no not necessarily it depends on how you measure okay no deflation deflation implies that we are getting better at doing things and therefore

things get cheaper as a result of Greater efficiencies and so you know deflation is what we’ve experienced in computers and TVs right in other words Electronics is a perfect example of a deflationary world you know where every year you know the the the chips get better and the technology gets better and you know what used to be a $10,000 flat screen TV is now a $400 flat screen TV it’s just as good if not better that’s deflation you know you get more for Less Price and well take a take a look at this right this is a chart

that’s been circulating a couple of uh years ago so look so deflation of tech right televisions toys that’s where you software this is where efficiencies come in but look at this Hospital Services things we actually need in a regular basis College tuition college textbooks Medicare medical expenses Child Care housing gone up so it’s like our core Necessities are just constantly inflating and then things like technology which arguably are disposable items you know stary Goods deflating can you explain this well that’s right and

that’s because the the microprocessor has more of an impact on the stuff at the bottom but the point is the the stuff at the top has been inflating because of the monetary system not necessarily because of lack of innovation I mean it’s um I mean I suppose someday we’ll have robotic nurses and then maybe Healthcare will be deflationary but right now it takes people to provide health care services and you know you can’t there it’s hard to get more efficiency out of people past a certain point the thing that’s

interesting to note here and the book talk talks about this a lot is I’m I I reiterate Jeff Boo’s point from his book you know the price of tomorrow which says you know we’re trying to operate an inflationary monetary system on top of a deflationary world and that represents a conflict you’re trying to continually increase the money supply to prevent the debt from going bad when in reality you know what you want to be doing is is keeping the money supply flat or constant and letting things get naturally cheaper in the existing money

supply and that’s what technology will allow to happen if we just let it happen and so this conflict between these two systems is part of the the problem that we’re seeing today um and you know the book shows in a couple of instances how you know there were periods in the in the 1800s where there was a lot of deflation and living standards went up I mean there was actual real growth real GDP growth with in a deflationary fact prices were falling and yet we were selling and making more stuff so it’s it

it’s not the notion that C said you have to have animal spirits to drive inflation and that drives growth and if we if we stop all that we’re going to have another Great Depression I mean the the the big thing and there’s a great quote in the book from Janet ya Who basically says you know if we get close to deflation it’s all going to fall apart we’re going to have depression that’s just not true yeah I mean the notion that keynesians have is that what you know okay so if we think prices are going to fall everyone will stop buying

and therefore the economy will collapse well hang on a second I I know for example that and I use this in the book that the TV I bought you know for you know $500 a couple years ago I know it would be cheaper in the future but I wanted to watch TV two years ago so I bought it you know what I mean I’m not going to wait around for that TV to get cheaper I mean human beings have needs and so the the notion that you know deflation is bad is it’s just wrong and we’ve been brainwashed by the FED to to

believe that okay Lawrence excellent when does your book come out so right now you can pre-order it on Amazon in the Kindle format it’s $9.99 so that’s it’s up there um and then it’s also right now it’s written the final manuscript is complete um it’s in production uh which really is layout and uh U that will probably take at the most a couple of weeks um I have a a hard hard launch date of February 14th but I actually expect to beat that but I’m not going to guarantee it it kind of depends upon how well this layout process goes

but I I tend to think that within maybe two two weeks from now yes U it’ll actually it’ll actually launch and when it does I’ll make you aware we can do another one another po if you want to talk about it all right well we’ll keep tabs in that thank you very much Lawrence we thank you yeah I always enjoy talking to you David I think you’re doing a great job with your show I really appreciate it well I appreciate that and uh thank you for being here thank you for watching don’t forget to like And subscribe