EP09 Bitcoin podcast with Conner Brown.

Welcome back to the bit by bit podcast. In today's episode, I speak to Connor Brown. We recorded this remotely, and we had some serious technical issues, but we got through it in the end.

And I'm glad we persevered, because I really enjoyed this one. I hope you do too.

Everything is happening, so whenever good for you. Cool. All right, perfect. Perfect. Well, yeah, like I say, thanks for coming on. And just before you came on, I was just having a quick read through Bitcoin, the blockchain for truly smart contracts, and you put it perfectly, you know,

I have that sort of conversation so often with people who were very blockchain and thinking it's going to solve these sort of problems.

And to be honest with you, I found it quite difficult to articulate and explain to them why, because they get so excited. And it's, it's a difficult one to explain really, but I think you've put it really nicely there.

Yeah, well, I really appreciate you having me on. And, yeah, so that that article kind of came out of my frustration coming from a legal perspective. And, you know, when I originally got into the space, it was because I really wanted to, you know, see what all the hype was about smart contracts.

And I'm a law student right now so I'm learning about contracts and learning about how they work and what their important functions are. And when I looked at smart contracts and what they're being sold as I didn't see a contract.

I saw something completely different. And the really, really key takeaway is that a contract does not require a third party to be there when you're actually engaging in it. It's simply that you can back on the third party for enforcement, if that's necessary.

And so, with that in mind, kind of try to look at, well, the Lightning Network looks a lot like the sort of third party enforcement mechanism where you don't need them, but you can use them.

And that was kind of the inspiration for the piece and I think still is why the Lightning Network is far competing as the competitors just because it's, it's taking in those basic elements of contracts and sort of putting them into use.

There's a line in there which really stood out to me which was with Lightning, millions of transactions can take place without needing a judge at all. However, in the event that something goes wrong, the benevolent Bitcoin judge can step in.

And I think that really encapsulates it is that you don't need all of this on chain. It only needs to step in when there's a problem and I think that's what it all boils down to really isn't it.

And the approach of other chains is kind of like this complete surveillance at all times approach, which sounds nice in theory, but it goes back to the scalability problem that you can't practically have one chain supervising every single transaction that takes place at all times.

The only way you can get a scalable result is if you, you kind of, you know, are able to parse them out. You allow people to interact on their own. And that also is important for privacy reasons too.

You don't want the surveillance overlord watching every single transaction. You want to just kind of be able to do your own thing and then if something goes wrong, then you can go back and fall back on chain.

Yeah, exactly. I guess coming from that, that legal viewpoint probably drew you to that more than most. I'd imagine. I mean, how did it.

I've listened to a podcast with you on before and, you know, a little bit about it. But what what made you, well, first what made you stumble across this and what is it that really grabbed your attention because it's been a short amount of time you've been in this space.

It seems like you have just gone absolutely full steam ahead. And it seems like you haven't come up for air and you've just, it's taken over your mind, which is something that I've experienced myself coming at it from a different viewpoint, but the same thing.

A couple of years ago I came in and all day, every day, this is all I think about. And it's weird, isn't it? It's very weird. It's probably one of the weirdest things that's happened to me in my life, just because it is my environments that you just can't get rid of.

I think initially I started just because I was, you know, a law student trying to figure out how to make a good resume and I was thinking, well, you know, I'm at Stanford, it'd be great if I had some sort of expertise in some technology field.

And Bitcoin seemed like, or at that point, it wasn't even Bitcoin, it was blockchain technology that I was very, very excited about. And, you know, that was more just trying to develop an expertise that I could market myself with.

And I think that what really pulled me into it was kind of seeing this perfect storm in terms of the unique philosophical insights that Bitcoin's predicated on, and how that lined up with what I had previously learned.

So I was able to the ideas of, you know, the sort of skepticism, the, like, not seem to Lebs work on my randomness and blacks one, you know, skeptical of these sort of, you know, forecasting experts that can, you know, analyze a data set and tell you like a crystal ball what's going to happen in the future.

I had that natural skepticism, but I think Bitcoin was the first time I had a way to express. All right, here is an alternative to that system, because it's very easy to criticize it's very difficult to construct.

Seeing that, you know, real world instantiation of, here's the alternative way, instead of relying on a board of, you know, 20 experts and suits sitting around a table to determine interest rates for the entire economy, we should instead take that decision out of the hands of humans

and simply say the money supply will be static, and, you know, we can build banking and credit on top of that. But to keep the money supply static seemed extremely important for kind of embracing that humility that comes with understanding you can't predict

how these complex systems should be operated, and kind of taking that step back. So that was, that was, I think, from there, I was, you know, the possibility seemed endless because I realized that this philosophical insight was extremely valuable, especially

after 2008, you know, it kind of keeps going from there. I don't know if you found the same, but you're like you said, when, when you say, oh, well, you know, this seems like a crazy idea to have a few people making the rules for everyone on the planet and they have all that power.

It's only once you learn what you know about Bitcoin that you go, well, there is a viable option that's an alternative because until then it's like, well, yeah, wind or you like that come up with a better plan, you know, and once you know what you know, it's kind of like,

ah, trying to try to get it across to people that actually, unless we're all crazy, but, you know, it seems, it seems that this is a real viable option and that it solves so many problems.

And it seems simple in retrospect, when you, once you know you go, why, why, like, this seems so obvious, but it takes a long time to fall down that rabbit hole and sort of all the things to link together, doesn't it? That's the, that's the issue with that thing.

Especially, I mean, I think a lot of people, you know, as just, you know, it's just the nature of their lives, they don't have the time to, you know, rigorously do an examination of every single, you know, novel idea that someone comes up with.

Because most of the time they're just pitches on scams, you know, where they're just, you know, they're blowing hot air, they're snake oil salesman.

And, you know, it takes kind of a leap of courage in a couple different ways to kind of go down the Bitcoin rabbit hole because you have to first be willing to say, all right, all the people in suits you see on TV.

Yeah, they're not really experts. They think they are, but they're really not. And in fact, they're more dangerous than just doing nothing because, you know, it's one thing to say, you know what, we don't know, we can't predict it so we're just going to be cautious.

It's another thing to say, yeah, all right, I'm an expert, I can predict the future, and you're not doing anything risky as long as you follow this, you know, simple investment guide or something like that.

So, you know, the people that are my eyes as this seems says, yes, exactly. And so, are supposedly de risking the system or actually dramatically increase in the risk in the system.

And, following that pill is really, really hard. I mean, it goes against essentially everything that your condition, which is, you know, these people are the experts, these people are the smart academics, they have their tenured positions.

They have their research, they have their Nobel awards. And, you know, that's, it's hard to say, all right, all of that is wrong.

But from a first principles approach, you know, when you take like a Hayekian view of knowledge, and you say, this is a fundamental human limit on the ability to know complex systems, then, you know, all of it seems to kind of fall away.

And so, you know, you look empirically, these people have never forecast a recession, never forecast a banking crisis in their lives and continue to get it wrong.

You know, it just, it all kind of piles up. Yeah, it does. And, I mean, I don't know if you found it scary or exciting, I sort of found it somewhere in between, because it's, it is sort of exciting to see what can happen and it's scary to think.

And so, it's all clear to us, are we in the system and, and how bad are things at the moment, and the more you dig, the more dirt you find it kind of, it's like an endless, it is endless once you start thinking, isn't it?

It really is. It can be. I mean, it is kind of scary in a way, you feel like you're going a little bit crazy in the beginning, just because like so many things that were constants in your life are suddenly called the question, you don't really know what to believe or who to believe.

I think a lot of people can kind of go too far in that rabbit hole too because, you know, if you go, if you go to one extreme, and you're like, all right, I believe everyone that the everything like the mainstream says, then, you know, you're a sucker.

You're like, all right, everything the mainstream says is wrong, there's no, like all the mainstream views are completely backwards, then you can go into some really crazy stuff too, and you don't want to go too far.

I don't know, it's, it's a very delicate balance that, yeah, I try to, I've, I've almost felt like, you know, I've spent a ton of time on Bitcoin and economics and money. In that field, I feel reasonably certain about the Austrian school.

But in terms of like other fields like medicine or nutrition, it's just like so overwhelming with information and, you know, a whole other branch of expertise that I just kind of stick to Bitcoin.

Well, there's, I don't think anyone's brain can take just Bitcoin because it's just endless. And once you start layering on everything else, it's just, yeah, it becomes too much, doesn't it?

And then you, so you were at Stanford, and were you still there when you started learning about all of this stuff or were you, had you finished already? Yeah, I'm still at Stanford right now actually I'm in my last year finishing up.

I started down this, gosh, like a year and a half ago or almost two years now. So, it's, it's been law school's a three year process so I'm on my last year. I'm actually working at the Hado Institute right now in DC, just like a libertarian think tank.

And, you know, they've, they've been, they've been great at hosting me and basically letting me be a visiting scholar for cryptocurrencies. So I've been focusing on, you know, Bitcoin and doing some publications and, you know, I had that smart contract.

I also have a few more coming down the line on essentially how Bitcoin can bring out like private legal systems, because law actually originated, especially contract law and commercial business law originated when merchants, they wanted to deal with each other.

They usually dealt with each other on trust, you know, like I'll pay you next week if you deliver it now. Yeah, they needed some sort of formal enforcement mechanism because, you know, European cities became more interconnected and they started dealing with people they

didn't know they couldn't necessarily trust them and so they needed some sort of enforcement mechanism so they created this thing called the law merchant, the law merchant. This is around like 1000 AD.

They basically created inter merchant juries and or not juries but trials, where if someone breached a contract, they would go to another merchant and the merchant would act as like a judge. And so you would have a legal system without any sort of government or nation.

It worked very, very well and sort of the basis of a lot of ideas that we have in contract law today. So my idea with this new piece is thinking about how Bitcoin can enable this sort of on a global scale and a shift back towards private legal systems

because, you know, right now there's a bunch of defunct legal institutions there's a bunch of developing countries that don't have strong property rights guarantees. And so essentially with bitcoins, you know, multi signature schemes.

And I have very safe. You can have like very safe contracts with people that are arbitrated by, you know, sort of like a third party to the transaction without ever having to touch an actual nation state legal system.

And reduce contract cost and, and generally increase your ability to transact with other people, completely avoid the banking system and avoid counterparty risk as much. So that's kind of where I'm, I'm, you know, going now is thinking about how we can kind of return to this privatized notion of commercial law.

I assume you see lightning being a big part of that then. Yeah, I think, I think lightning is especially important for, you know, cross border payments and, you know, sort of just further integrating this sort of global economy, but I think, I do think online.

Sorry, on chain transactions are still going to be big for, for like high dollar transactions and the multi signature ability for on chain type stuff is huge. They're already starting to use it in dark net markets.

And they're basically, you know, each transaction when you buy something on a dark net market is a two of three multi sig. And this is also I don't know if you're familiar with this gets like a peer to peer.

I love this. We've got a bit of a problem with this care though, the liquidity is dreadful. Really, it's never, never used it. But I think that it's something that like, I, it's definitely early on, but I feel like they're on to something very, very important in terms definitely.

So, you know, who knows, and there's also the point of viscous like, you know, you never need it until you need it type thing and like, it's good just to have it and maybe we'll never need it because there won't be any sort of crazy crackdown that will, you know, necessitate using it.

But I think that in terms of a peer to peer protocol, it's very, very cool. And they sort of have the same idea. They have reputation systems to have two multi sig I think right now. But you also still dispute it and have someone from the community sort of adjudicate the dispute.

So it has a lot of these notions that we saw a thousand years ago coming right back to life. So, I think all that is extremely exciting and thinking about that on a global scale is kind of overwhelming, but very cool.

Yeah, it is. And, you know, with Bisk, I actually think that the UX is really good on it. A lot of people have complained and said, Oh, well, you know, they're not going to compete with a coin base or whatever.

And it's like, well, for all the reasons we've just said, you know, it's better, but also, it's really simple to use.

I mean, I've found that. I don't know if you've found the same, like, being in Bitcoin, I've been for a couple of years when I first got it and all this stuff was really, really scary and like sending a transaction was scary and using any of this stuff was quite clunky.

And now I'm thinking, well, it's so early and it's already pretty easy. So, I can only see these things getting better and they've got, I think, is it Wiz working on it and a few others? So it's, yeah, I think it's really exciting, really exciting.

No, I mean, to say that UX is lacking, like, I've used it. I haven't, I've used it a little bit. I haven't, I've basically tested it. I haven't used it substantially.

But, um, yeah, it seems very amazing, honestly. And the fact that it's all here to appear and it's like a thing you can't shut down. I mean, that is truly something I think it's really right. Like, people are just judging it way too early.

Yeah. Ten years from now, it's, it's been a while.

It's even this last year. I feel like if you blink, this space just moves so fast, it is mind-blowing. And I think it's with lightning stuff. It seems like it's going to accelerate much faster because all the, all the protocol stuff, obviously, you know, you have to be very, very careful with.

Whereas with lightning, it's like you can really experiment with this stuff. And I see that it's going to just explode in the next five years. Yeah. And that was actually something I just published another piece today, actually, that was responding to criticism from my last piece.

Essentially, on my last one, when I was talking about smart contracts, some of the people from the Ethereum community said, you know, it's not good that you have a really conservative base layer.

You can't do all these, you know, fancy things for smart contracts. And, you know, my response was basically like, you want the base layer to be as conservative as possible. And that's really strong foundation allows people to have confidence in building things on the second and third layer.

And so I think you're exactly right. Like, we're sort of out of the, we're sort of out of the woods a little bit in terms of like we have this really stable, set in stone foundation. And now we really get creative with iterating on top of that, because we know that it's not going to change very much.

Yeah. And so, I mean, just what's happened, like you said, the last year in lightning has been wild. And then atomic multipath payments, or I think they're called multipart payments now.

Yeah, that is going to be huge. Like, I mean, they've already started integrating it and see lightning and L and D. And then once they get the send function.

And I guess the next release is going to be really wild because that's going to dramatically reduce routing failures. So, it's crazy to imagine what's going to happen. You have what the development with squares, light and development kit is going to be really awesome too.

So, I went to the lightning conference this year and that was incredible seeing all those people and, you know, that was just for lightning, like an entire conference just for a layer two thing on Bitcoin.

I know. It is. It's mad. I feel like I miss out on a lot of these conferences and bits and pieces because there's not a huge amount that goes on in the UK. There's one in next month, actually, in London, advancing Bitcoin.

But I see all the bits that go on in the US and I miss out on it. It always looks so fun. Yeah. The lightning conference. It was in Germany. That was my first time in Europe. Oh, it was the one in Germany. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. I don't know if they'll be in Germany next year, but you should definitely check it out for those.

I have lost you Connor either. Hello.

Yeah, I can hear you now. That was, that was strange. It just suddenly cut off. I was, I was, yeah. Yeah. So, what do you say the last one was in Germany and the next one you thought was.

Yeah, the next one is, I think it's still in Germany. Okay, they're going to keep it there. They're in London. Yeah, this one was in Berlin. Okay. And it was, it was awesome. It was a great venue.

I have to make it out there for the different football stuff. So, yeah, it was, it was blessed. I'm also going to be at Bitcoin 2020. Okay. Awesome. Yeah, I'd like, I really want to get out to the States, actually. I've just been, I've been so stuck here. But if I get a chance, I'd love to come to some of these is.

Yeah, it, it seems there's a lot going on, but I guess, biggest and then just the size of the States, you got.

What I find weird is that there's loads going on in New York, but then you've got the bit license and all this sort of stuff and it's, you've got a community of people there and then you've sort of got the antithesis of Bitcoin with, with that bit license, which seems odd.

Yeah, that was definitely not ideal. And I think it, it definitely limited a lot of companies being built there, but it seems like there's still a strong developer sort of pool in New York.

So, yeah, New York, New York's great. I went to the, a couple of different chain code seminars over the summer.

Yeah. And it's just, it's a really good group of people there. So, and they also have the, the Socratic with the, that does meet up. So, I'm super talented people. That was another thing that just like really reaffirmed my belief in Bitcoin.

It's like, just go into these meetups and meeting people working on it and just being blown away by how smart these people are. And I don't know, that was, that was another major turning point. It's just like meeting these people in person and just never meeting people like that before.

Yeah, I found a similar thing. It's, I've never experienced anything like it. I just, I go to these meetups and, you know, a lot of it goes over my head. Most of it goes over my head when I go to these bit devs meetups and like the Socratic and things like that.

It just, it, like you say, reaffirmed you, because you know, you sometimes think, yeah, am I crazy because it's such a small group of people, especially on Bitcoin Twitter, like there's such a small group of people.

And we all have such strongly held beliefs. And then you speak to most people in the outside world and smart people. And, and they sort of, the idea of the things that we're talking about seem absolutely wild and crazy to them.

But once you meet some of these people within Bitcoin, you're like, you know, maybe I'm wrong, but they're all these other people wrong. You know, we, you know, they really are just the smartest people I've ever met in my life.

By far have been in the Bitcoin community. It's just mind blowing. And the other thing is just like when you meet the people that are, you know, trying to, you know, critique Bitcoin or detract from it. Their arguments are always just so simplistic and like, you know, it's too volatile or something like that that like,

without. And I think that was another thing that really reaffirmed my position is just like getting a strong economic understanding about money, Austrian theories of how money progresses over time.

And, you know, sort of understanding it as it goes through these sort of phases where, of course, it doesn't matter if you can't spend it right now because you don't need to spend in order to like bootstrap a store value.

And the medium of exchange isn't the first stage. It's like one of the later stages that at the beginning, it's just about, you know, it's scarcity and it's different monetary characteristics about how well it can store value.

But if you can't buy a cup of coffee with it today surely Bitcoin's failed, isn't it? I can't buy coffee with gold. So I guess a million dollar market cap of gold is just a fluke. Yeah, absolutely. It's, it's, but I'll be really glad when Square just like integrates lightning payments and I can just tell them all the shut up.

Yeah. Very basic stupid argument. Yeah. So the people who sort of attacked you for your last article assume mainly a theory and community. I mean, did they have anything that you looked at as an argument and, you know, coming from a background of debate and we can get a little bit into that because

I'm interested to know sort of, I've never been involved in debate or anything like that, but it sounds like a really interesting thing to be involved in was there, was there anything that you thought.

Okay, no that's fair enough and like I understand your point or, or was it all what we've heard a million times it just makes no sense.

I think it's an interesting question. I think that there's definitely, you know, there's, there's kind of two different parts. There is one in saying that, you know, there's all these great features in Bitcoin that could be added.

And we have, you know, we have proposals for how to improve Bitcoin in this way and we can do it just like this. And for some reason the Bitcoin community is just so slow and so conservative. And, you know, if they were just able to change things around faster, then we get to have a much smoother

development process and the smart contracts could be even better. I think that's like one flavor of critique. And, you know, I get what they're saying, I'm excited about Bitcoin too. Trust me.

But there has to be some sort of patience there because of how critical these things are. And I think that a lot of it comes from a typical software background of like, just make it.

And if it breaks, that's fine. Just make it again and make it again until you get something really great. But with Bitcoin, like people's life savings are on the line. And it's a lot of people.

And I think the other big thing that's often missed in this debate is like, even if Bitcoin in the scenario that there is some sort of terrible problem with Bitcoin, that is like an unforeseen error or like, you know, you rush something and it breaks consensus or something like that.

But if it is a really fatal error, then like this idea of digital money is basically dead, like on Bitcoin on a thing on any altcoin because if the original breaks, then why will the second one not break?

You know, like, I think that it kind of lives and dies by Bitcoin in that sense because no one would have enough confidence or put their faith in something for a second time.

You know, maybe it takes like 20 or 30 years to bring back efforts if something was to go wrong. So that, you know, I tried to get a sense in my, in my response of just like, here's what the stakes we're playing for are.

Here's why, like, you know, rushing it and trying to add new features and bells and whistles at the expense of security. It's just not the way to win the race need to be slow and anxious and really make sure what the trade-offs are as deeply as possible before doing something.

So that was, that was kind of my response to that first point. And I get the point, it's just, you know, it's like a trade-off. But it is what, like you say, it's one, or as far as I can see it, it's not even if we make a mistake on Bitcoin and we lose confidence 20 years from now or something might happen.

In my mind, it's, we have one shot, and this is it. Like, if we don't have Bitcoin, I don't know how we have another proof of work system that's going to be fairly distributed.

Like, we had the element of surprise because no one was paying attention for a few years. We have these network effects and I don't, and also where I feel we're up against time, because as we go more and more into this kind of privacy is bad.

And fiat, money taking over and cash being eradicated and all the problems we've got. I do feel strongly that Bitcoin is our one shot and to let you say to lose that and the security for buying a cup of coffee a bit quicker that you could do with your credit card anyway, just seems crazy.

Yeah, I think those are two very good points. And, you know, now I think about it, I wish I had articulated them more and flesh this out more because you've, you've brought up two really good points of the organic nature of Bitcoins.

You know, like birth or whatever you want to call it, the way that it just kind of came into the world is basically impossible now. Like, if, like, you can see these new startups like Grinn and, you know, these other sort of similar to Bitcoin, I think Grinn is probably the closest to Bitcoin's ethos in a long time.

And even Grinn, despite having it sort of mysterious origins, no founder, it still had, you know, this crazy amount of press at the beginning, you know, a lot of it was VC back and, you know, sort of centrally mined.

And so, and I don't know, I just think that, like, Bitcoin's natural selection process in the very beginning and sort of slowly growing is actually a very important aspect of decentralization.

Because there's a, you know, there's so many people who have got into Bitcoin and then, like, subsequently got out and, you know, sort of lost faith in it and sort of like, you know, we've built this really strong community of people.

And without that group, without that sort of like natural process, I don't think we have something nearly as decentralized in the future. And the other part I think you're right too is like, Bitcoin did massively benefit from being swept under the radar or for flying under the radar.

And I think, especially given the fact that, you know, everything feels very fragile. I think, especially from our perspective, everything feels very fragile in a monetary sense.

And if things go south, and these professional risk forecasters are wrong once again about the banking system, then, you know, I think that it could be a really serious loss of human freedoms and liberties.

And that if we don't have that escape route then, then, you know, we might not see that opportunity again. So, yeah, it's some Bitcoin. It's really crazy when it came about like it. I sometimes wonder if Satoshi like, sat on it for a while or knew when was a good time to put it out there because it just feels so serendipitous that.

Yeah, release Bitcoin like 10 years before things started to go sideways. Yeah, it does. It's kind of, it was the perfect time. And, you know, that first block and the quote put in there and it all just, it's so clear.

The point that he, she, they were making it's like, you can't trust the system as it is, then we need better if we're going to succeed as a civilization. And he's just said it in one sentence, you know, one quote, and it does feel like it was, yeah, like you say perfectly timed.

Yeah, because if it had been another 10 years, you know, if it had been like 2020 when Bitcoin was released and we go for, you know, like, like we're starting to see the beginnings of like negative interest rates and things like that.

Yeah. And we start are going towards this push towards cashless society. If Bitcoin started today, and in 2030, we were at where we are today with Bitcoin, then I think governments are already be done in terms of like having almost complete control.

So, it is really wild. It's really wild. Do you have some sort of, I mean, I know it's an agreed point that it doesn't matter who Satoshi is and all the rest of it, but do you have a sort of wild theory on it? Do you have sort of something that you'd like to be true, or you just don't care.

I think, well, first of all, I think that it is really miraculous that someone didn't like, I think Satoshi's choice to like be anonymous and just disappear was like one of the best things that could have possibly happened perfectly.

But I think it, I mean, my, my gut is that it's how we're on the same page. It seems so perfect, especially like, yeah, through the forums, and you're like, you know, Satoshi proposed this and then suddenly this other guy is like, I don't know, it seems like a great idea.

Yeah, if you take one, three, it might be worth having some. Yeah, I'm absolutely that's exactly who I think as well. No, I do, but it's also quite fun to sort of think, well, could it be an AI or is it an alien or these sort of crazy ideas, but.

I'm traveler. Yeah. It's easy apocalypse of money. Yeah. Yeah, but I do think how it's probably best, but yeah, it just seems to fit. Yeah, it does. Well, if it was hell, thank you very much, mate. That's quite a gift you've given us all.

So, I mean, like I said, you're coming from, obviously, you're coming from a completely different viewpoint. You're coming from the legal side and looking at it like that. It must have been quite a serious deep curve of learning for you, just the speed at which you've gone through all the finance side of things and digging into that.

Yeah, did it bend your mind? I mean, was it just, it must have been a full on, you must have just not blinked basically until now.

Yeah, it was, it's been a wild ride. I mean, I already have sort of like, I don't know if it's an addictive personality, but like when I really get into something, it's just like I can't stop thinking about it.

So basically like, you know, I just, well, it was also magnified by Bitcoin because I've always like had these little spurts where I really get interested in something and maybe it's like playing an instrument or playing a video game or like just really getting into the details of something.

Yeah, but I feel like Bitcoin was dramatic in the sense of like, this is much larger than just developing an expertise and like getting really good at chess where you can beat other people with it.

It was the first thing that I felt like there was macro implications for something this big, but I think that something that really helped me actually with my background in not having a finance or economic background because you know you sort of are able to question.

I think when you come from an outsider's perspective, you're able to kind of question the current dogma of an institution and say like, all right, here are the current assumptions, and you can kind of look at it through fresh eyes.

That wouldn't have been possible if I had had, you know, four years of Keynesian economics drilled into me at a university. If I lost you again, it's a fucking thing. Oh yeah, that's so it's so weird. It just suddenly, it went a bit blippy just before it and then it cut out, but.

Yeah, I'm not really sure. I've actually never used this internet for anything serious before so maybe it's just. Oh, well, no worries. We're back on now. I can't actually remember where we were now.

I think we're talking debate or background.

That was it. Yeah, just just as in, you know, how was it coming from from that side and learning all of the monetary stuff and how that might may have helped in a way I think you were saying, because you hadn't come from that Keynesian economics background and I suppose then you're not boxed into a certain

thought or way of thinking, I guess. Yeah, exactly. And that sort of just like, you know, it lets take like a first principle approach and just kind of stack up where the arguments are.

And after reading some of the Austrian school, it just seems abundantly clear where, you know, the real logical arguments lie. So that was, that was kind of where I started and then, you know, when you look back at a bunch of like empirical stuff of how these people

consistently, you know, used Keynesian statistical models and consistently just been wrong. Yeah, it's not very hard to go to the Austrian side of things. It's crazy, though, right? That nobody goes and learns Austrian economic, not nobody, but the general consensus is that I didn't even know there was such a thing as Austrian economics.

A few years ago, but even though it existed. It is pretty wild. I don't know. There's different, you know, theories on this on on why it is. And, you know, some people, I think some people attribute it to, you know, more like maliciousness on behalf of

governments and some sort of like conspiracy type thing. I wouldn't go that far. I think it's just, you know, the incentive system of the ones that are since the Federal Reserve is essentially the most prestigious position.

People are going to want to go to the Federal Reserve and they're going to want to agree with the philosophy of the people that they're trying to look up to.

And then I think that the other thing is just given the success of the hard sciences in using data and empirical studies that the social sciences basically wanted to use empirical evidence to kind of bolster their own credibility and say, you know, we're real science too.

And I think that that that urge to, you know, seem legitimate compared to their hard sciences peers really pushed the boat in terms of getting them to go in the direction of, you know, more statistical predictive forecasting models and sort of instead of like, here's first principles.

Economic thinking and here's why these systems are too complex for anyone to actually model. Yeah, I suppose that would be a logical argument. I have to say I go slightly more down the sort of conspiracy theory side.

But yeah, well, not fully what you've just said makes absolute sense. However, I think that maybe it started that way they've realized that it's a load of bullshit because you must eventually like, if you keep doing something and making projections and forecasting and you're always wrong.

You must question it. They must know of Austrian economics and they must know that Keynesian theory helps people in power.

And the people in power do make the decisions so they're going to make those decisions selfishly so I don't know whether it's a conspiracy it's just, you know, the same with Bitcoin in terms of everything works on in terms of.

You're not going to cheat the system because you know it doesn't work well for you. You'd be better playing by the rules and it's all incentive based. And that's all really life is. It's just we sort of go about and do what's best for us generally.

And I feel that's probably what's happened is they probably know, or at least some of them must know and just think, oh, well, you know, life's pretty sweet for me. It's nice to be able to print money out of thin air and crazy crazy stuff that's going on. And yeah, I, so maybe I'm somewhere in the middle of the two, but you do so.

I mean, I certainly sound crazy when I say that to people. They're just like, I'll go. At the same time you have, I mean, I definitely see we're coming from in terms of like, you know, you get Alan Greenspan. He was chairman of the Federal Reserve. He was, you know, probably the most respected central banker in a long time.

He was considered a genius at the time. And, you know, he had written, he has this really, really good article called. Can you hear me. I lost you again. Hi Connor, can you hear me? Hello. Yeah, can you hear me?

Ah, yeah, I can hear you now. That's all right. This is the problem with technology, isn't it? I hate technology. We're going back to gold. Peter Schiff was right all that time. That's it. We just way gold out and everyone has to meet in person. If you want to send a transaction to Australia, you get a boat.

Is there a way? I haven't used zoom before. Is there something I need to do a Mayan? I don't think so. I pressed record. It's showing us record. I've only used it once. So, yeah, I've used it. I spoke to Pierre Rashad the other day, and he suggested this one. So I used it to record with him. It looks like it's working. I can hear you.

I can hear your show is recording on your side. Yeah, it does. Okay. Well, let's hope it's it's okay. But yeah, this is so much easier to meet over a beer and have a conversation. But, you know, we got a big, big load of water in between us.

Well, okay, so I guess back to where we were. We're talking about the whether or not there is a conspiracy to downplay Austrian economics abilities and to promote Keynesian thinking in schools.

I think, so I think you have a good your point was good, which was that, you know, it just seems to be a coincidence that there's a theory that helps people in power and they just happen to use that one theory.

Something that is really interesting in this regard is Alan Greenspan wrote this, wrote this short little like essay titled golden economic freedom. And he basically was like laying out a serious gold standard free banking piece.

You know, this is a guy who used to be chairman of the Federal Reserve, you know, super revered amongst his peers. And, you know, he was definitely down for the cause in terms of like the way he was writing was really aggressive.

He goes on to be the head of the Fed, and find it really hard to believe that you go from understanding the sort of first principles, Austrian understanding of money to thinking Oh, if you got money's fine.

And then after he leaves the Federal Reserve, he goes back and you know in 2016 he was talking about gold being money. And so, yeah, that really puzzled me in terms of like, maybe once you get in there like you just.

It's either you get in there, and you're so arrogant that you think that everyone else, somehow, was not up to the task but you of all people are, and then you are the person who can you know just, you know, wizard their way out of economic crises, or the problems that you face when you get in there are so big and the pressures

are so overwhelming, you can't help but just fold, and go along with it. So, yeah. I don't know, I feel like that pressure is definitely mounting by the day. And I don't know man I feel like we're just kind of like at the end of the line.

But when you see this new QE not QE business, the whole repo market fiasco, it just feels like the clock is ticking. It's so easy to feel like a lunatic when you say these things because no one's paying attention. No one nobody is paying attention to this.

Everyone's just going about their lives just like it's all normal and they're talking about politics that doesn't matter and just useless shit and you think, just want to say like, you want to shake them and be like, do you have any idea what where we are in this cycle

of what what is coming. And it feels like it's inevitable. I can't see how it's not. I know it really does. And I just feel like we're just on accelerating train, especially in the United States.

It's not too up to speed on British politics. I did pay attention to the latest election, and that was pretty interesting. It seems like, you know, there is a, I guess I'm curious to hear your take on the latest election and sort of the fact that the Conservative Party seems to be doing quite

well despite the, you know, the Metropolitan Liberal elites, you know, making fun of them in every turn. Yeah, my take on it. And a lot of people hate me for this. My take on it is I just don't care anymore.

Well, to the point now where I don't trust or believe in any of them, the more time that I've spent involved in Bitcoin, the more I am going down the lines of just, I wouldn't say complete, complete anarcho capitalism.

I wouldn't say, you know, but certainly a libertarian leaning and that most of what is discussed by these politicians most of the time is not irrelevant, but fix the money first.

And it kind of frustrates me when people are talking about Brexit and all this sort of stuff. And it feels to me that there's no one that I would feel confident voting for.

Oh, that's the, I mean, so I kind of just don't bother to spend my time on it here. You know what one might be slightly better than the other for this reason and one might be slightly better the other for this reason.

But what it's caused in the UK is that there's anger on both sides. There's like you say the sort of the woke people. What we have them here too. And it's just there's so much hate from from that side that I almost feel like no one can sit and have a reasonable conversation anymore.

And it feels to me like it all just stems really from from money for that reason I've tried to step back and tried to just focus on what I can do myself, rather than get too worried about it.

But yeah, it's it's a it's a crazy time and people are really angry in this country like people are really sort of, I don't know, it's it's it's really polarized.

Yeah, and I think that I mean it's the same thing's happening to us. It feels like it's accelerating. You know, I wonder if it's just, you know, it's easy to feel like tensions are high in the moment and they're actually not as bad as they seem.

But it really feels like things are getting more heated over time. I think that you're definitely right. And the fact that everyone seems to be like misdiagnosed in the cause.

I mean, I think it really comes down to just like stagnant economic progress from teams and policies and that if the economy was humming along, I don't think there would be the sort of incredible outrage.

But, you know, that's just sort of where we're at right now where these people don't really know where to channel their anger. And, yeah, they, you know, the, they kind of take the easy target something politicians aren't going to say, well, it's the printing press that both of us.

Yeah, or not. So it's like, you know, some random social issue that is affects the lives of hardly anyone and that's like the big thing they rally the base around.

Yeah, I don't know it's scary here just because I think that it's going to be weird because basically I feel like the global economy is kind of in this weird hot potato moment where everyone's just kind of like, especially from our sidelines like we know something's going to happen.

Like, from first principles these policies aren't sustainable. So it's a question of like who's left holding the bag. And, you know, I wonder if it's better to have Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders as president because I do feel like, whichever one is president.

And I guess there's a similar relationship with the UK's politics is like, whichever group is in power when this whole thing goes down, whenever that is, you know, maybe it's next year, maybe it's this year from the coronavirus scare.

And you never know what blacks one it's going to bring it down, but we know that there's inherent fragility that is way bigger than we can deal with. And, and maybe it's five years from now, like two presents for now or something like that, but whoever is there is going to take

the blame because people love pointing at someone. And if it's Trump in office, people are going to blame capitalism, even though Trump is a, you know, socialist in many regards. Yeah. On the other hand, if it's Bernie Sanders it'll be blamed on socialism, which I think would be a good thing.

So like, maybe we want socialists to be in power now so they can go ahead and like take the blame when inevitably blows up. Because, yeah, you know, if, if everything falls apart under, you know, quote unquote conservative capitalist types, then I just shut

the thought of what sort of reactionary. Yeah, ultra socialist is going to suddenly be really popular when people want someone to be angry at. It gives them the excuse, doesn't it? That's the problem.

It's that misdiagnosis. What's weird is that, especially around this, this part of things like I'm near London. Most people that I'm me are just nice, cool people who just want to spend time with their families. They aspire to, you know, eventually own their own home and they have the people have the general

time sort of aspirations. They tend to generally not care too much. What's happening as long as it's not affecting them. And as long as people are being polite and reasonable. And most people just get on.

But as soon as it comes to the politics, it's like, Oh, well, you know, tax billionaires, because, you know, if they weren't billionaires, then everything would be alright. And you're like, no, you're wrong.

There's a list of reasons why that's absolutely stupid, what you're saying. And then you have the other people on the other side who are saying, Oh, well, you know, life's getting harder and we're getting more and more businesses getting harder because we're getting

more regulations and there's not as much money because there's immigrants coming in and there's this and it's that. And you're like, No, you're wrong as well. You're both wrong. It's actually just mainly the money. That's where the problem is.

Yeah, I just don't know what the answer is unless Bitcoin can run for president.

Yeah, I mean, I think that it is interesting. And I think Brexit is sort of the beginning stages of this. And who knows, maybe Brexit is just like phase one of further breakup. But like, I think in the United States, they're suddenly sort of renewed talks for.

And I just, I just hear the idea more commonly of, you know, it wouldn't be so bad of California just left or it wouldn't be so bad of Texas just left. And like, I think the idea of, you know, maybe putting 500 million people under one government can't quite meet the needs of everyone in their own locality.

And that idea is kind of coming back. And I hope it does because, you know, as someone who values decentralization and, you know, humility and decision making, I think that the best answers come at a local scale, and that the larger the scale,

the larger the possibility for corruption and just like, you know, failure to understand what you're governing. And so, maybe Bitcoin kind of creates, or I don't know, I feel like we're kind of on this path either way of sort of like a fracturing.

And, you know, maybe Bitcoin is a good way to sort of create a monetary system outside of these sort of mega nation states because, I mean, ultimately nationalism is something that has been around for, you know, the past like 200, 300 years.

And it's like a relatively newly mentioned. Yeah, practically speaking, it doesn't really make any sense like, no, people on the east coast hate the west coast and vice versa so why are it.

It already there's a lot of tension but imagine when there's all these pensions where, you know, California has been underfunding its pension has been, you know, taking risky bets in terms of how it's managing its finances.

You have like a, you know, more fiscally conservative state like North Carolina, which, you know, has done a decent job of balancing its budget is pensions are like relatively well funded.

Secondly, it's going to be not only you hate these people and you have to be governed under the same laws as them, but oh you also have to build them out. And I feel like that is maybe that will be kind of the tipping point for this sort of increased fracturing of, you know, like, you know, we've been

so choldering the burden we've been the the savers, why are we stuck with the bill for other people who haven't been doing that I don't know if there's some more problems in the UK but very much very much so.

Yeah, and I think that's definitely the vibe here and I think that it's only going one direction because those pensions, especially, I mean it all comes back the money right, all these pensions are underfunded because they're based on estimates.

From, you know, statisticians who are projecting that they'd be able to get a rate of return of like 7% and now you have negative interest rates it's basically bankrupting pensions and just making system generally.

It's hitting Europe quite badly. Yeah, so that it just, you know, it just increases the temperature bit by bit by bit. And I feel like eventually people are just a nice little plug, plug for the show there. Thank you.

Yeah, exactly. And as the monetary policy continues to turn up the heat. I think that even if people don't realize it's going to be money. And I don't think many people are going to realize that money is the problem.

Until we get to a real crisis, that even in the medium term, when they still don't realize, I think it'll still be sort of a shift to smaller scale governance. Yeah, like you say, it makes sense to have things on a local level because how can you understand something when you're the other side of the country?

How can you understand the way things work? You can't just look at numbers on the screen and think you can understand those human interactions and how things work.

It just doesn't make sense. And you just have so much more accountability when you're focusing on a smaller scale group of people and someone that's more directly accountable to.

All right, if, if they're, you know, if the person in DC is screwing over someone at the federal level, like they don't know these people, they're never going to interact with them. They can, it's easy when you're screwing over 500 million people to treat them as like, you know, these faceless numbers on a page.

Because if your accountability comes at a local level, it's really hard to justify being corrupt. And you got to see that faces every day. Yeah, you got to drive by the elementary school.

You just chose to embezzle. I think that's, you know, it's, it's, it's a much better system. And it also allows competition among nation state or not nation states, but what kind of essentially like if this fracturing happens.

Then you could have a lot more competition where people can be like, you know, I'm not going to be in the state that can't balance the budget. Can't, you know, provide infrastructure at a reasonable cost.

And, you know, you start to see these sort of competitive taxing programs. I think that is where we really start to see some major improvements in governance. And now with things so large, there's, you know, like, doesn't really matter where you go in the United States, you're going to be subject to pretty much the same system.

And to leave, you know, you have to like go all the way across the ocean, which isn't very practical. So, yeah. You know, more competition, a smaller scale from fracturing seems like it'd be very good for everyone.

Yeah, I think it makes, it makes a lot of sense. Like you say, you have the accountability because it's on your doorstep. And if you don't like it and another state or another country is doing things better in your eyes, then you vote with your fee and your money.

Yeah, it does seem to make sense. And, you know, a lot of people, especially on our Bitcoin Twitter, you know, you've got the Citadel meme and you've got all this sort of stuff going on.

And like, obviously, a lot of it's tongue in cheek, but I don't necessarily see that it's going to be that far from the truth in terms of, you know, if there's

going to be certain places which are better for starting a business or better for tax reasons for people's Bitcoin and all this sort of stuff. I do see people getting pulled into these areas where it meets their needs and that fits with their principles and like you say, there's

going to be a fracturing of ideas. And the way I see that eventually playing out is that as these fractions, these ideas fracturing these people move, the people who have these socialist tendencies, no matter what happens over time, they're going to have to somehow fund themselves, which they're not used to.

And then suddenly they're, I think, going to change their minds. Yeah, because, you know, because they're going to be broke. Yeah, they're going to be, they're going to be broke. They're going off fucking out. What am I doing? Like, where's where's the money? It's like, yeah, well, we told you.

This is what we've said. So, you know, in many ways, it's that and it's self-regulating, then, isn't it? Because, you know, if you, if you're going to have those socialist tendencies and be unrealistic, eventually you're going to get hungry.

And then when you get hungry, then maybe you're going to have a bit more of a capitalist mindset and then maybe you change. And if you don't change your stuff, that's nature.

Yeah, and I just feel like, at this point in the cycle, I don't know, it is really strange, because I feel like for some, I cannot understand why the idea of socialism won't die, because it just seems like such a obviously bad idea that it's just been disproven and disproven and disproven and yet somehow.

It's, I don't know, I find socialism to be really similar to like, ideas that the sun, that the earth is a center of the universe, because like, when you look, I mean, it's exactly.

When you, when you like, you know, from the average everyday person's perspective, you look up and you're like, Oh, yeah, there's a sign just rotated around us again. And like, the ideas of socialism of like, we'll take some of this money and we'll take it from those rich people and we'll give it to all these poor people and we just

have this society, like, it just seems so simple. And yet you just have to drill it in the people's heads like, you know, fundamentally that's not how wealth works wealth is not a zero sum game.

And you want to promote the policies that promote the most mutually beneficial wealth creation, which is a concept that they is not really intuitive, intuitive concept is, you know, everyone has a slice of the pie and pie is a fixed size.

Yeah, I don't know. I feel like there's a lot of people in the United States that they're just going to have to go through a socialist phase and see how bad I can get, like, San Francisco, despite just going straight into the ground these past five years.

Just still is hell bent on making things worse. Yeah, it's like they can't learn, but I'm like, I don't know. So, so, so, for example, like, let's, let's have a positive view on the future and say that, you know, I believe this and it sounds like you believe this that

eventually Bitcoin becomes maybe the global reserve currency and technologies like lightning and these contracts and things can really help businesses and people interact globally.

So, do you see things going like if you, if you were to take sort of call it 1520 years from now, where do you see this going and and and you see it being, there's a bit of a loaded question actually, let me rephrase it.

So, having Bitcoin as a base money is going to make for a better world and make it fairer in society for people who want to work. I think it's kind of two elements of that because it depends on your definition of fair.

I think the sovereign individual is still just the best book by far at in terms of just predicting what's going to happen. I think that their analysis of kind of how this technology sort of percolates and changes society makes the most amount of sense.

I think that I think the Bitcoin dramatically improves human freedom and I think that is a incredible good. And so in terms of making society more fair, you know there's it's unquestionable that the ability to freely communicate value with anyone around the globe is massive

and makes the world a lot more fair for people just like the Internet has. Yes, but I also think that if you define, you know there's also this idea of fairness that is like I would rather, there's this concept of like I would rather make $70,000 a year

and my neighbors make $60,000, then make, you know, $80,000 a year and all my neighbors made $100,000. And there's this idea of like, you know, you can be wealthier but if inequality is greater or not in your favor, then you're not going to feel like it's fair.

And I do feel like Bitcoin will increase inequality around the world. In some ways. I feel like the Internet and the seem to love kind of talks about this in the black swan but essentially like we've moved from mediocre stand to extremist and we've moved

into independent systems that have their own, you know, ecosystem that is more diverse into these more like memetic viral systems that are fractally distributed and that you have a in those situations you have a lot more concentration of outcomes

like a few fat tales. And I think that I think he's pretty right on that and I think we've already seen that with the Internet where like, you know, you've kind of flattened out a lot of different economies and like, so instead of having a unique music market

in a different country. Now you kind of have like a global pop music industry and there's like a suit. There's a few like mega superstars. And I think that's, you know, kind of the trend over the past 200 years as we've just become more globalized

in future markets. Yeah. So I think the Bitcoin dramatically improves human freedom fairness and access to these markets. But I think that some people might think, Oh my God, the extremes are even more extreme.

It's clearly unfair. And I don't think that's a valid criticism. But I think that it can be invalid and still acted upon and that some people will freak out and be essentially reactionary to that.

And, you know, I don't think it'll be, I don't know, I go back and forth. Some days I'm super optimistic. Other days I feel like it's going to take some real pain and frustration. Well, I think that there's going to be pain and frustration either way because right now we're living in a world where a lot of promises just can't be met.

And the question is, do we move from that system to a new, you know, more fractured local Bitcoin system in a peaceful way. We'll see.

We will. No, I think I agree with what you're saying there. I think when I say, bear what I really mean is that there's less of a barrier to entry with Bitcoin. I feel that in more parts of the world, more people can be part of the economy.

And if there's less regulation and less big government, I feel that the way that they can have monopolies will change because people can start up a business online from a laptop and accept Bitcoin.

They haven't had to go and see a regulator and a solicitor and an accountant and all of these barriers that for somebody who's really not earning money behind them is unthinkable in today's society.

And for me that's a really exciting thing because I think why shouldn't they be allowed to give it a go and why shouldn't they be allowed to, you know, try and, and, and all these big, big businesses just cry out for regulation, and it just crushes innovation.

So, totally, because, I mean, I think that's another thing is like people misunderstand that regulation is something that helps business instead of like rains it in, you know, because regulation is essentially just a tool to like box off your own territory to make sure you can't have competitors.

Absolutely. I think. Yeah, I mean, that is, that's why I care about this so much and I'm totally on the same pages. You know, that is truly going to change the world when anyone can have a business.

I think that my concern, and you know this is just inevitable outcome is places like the United States were essentially built on this idea that United States is like, you know, worth more or something like that, you know, because the best companies were in the United States.

And the best ideas were in the United States and we kind of had this network effect. And as a result, a lot of standard Americans who didn't really have any great skills.

They still got paid a lot of like, you know, many, many times more than their counterparts that were doing unskilled labor in other parts of the world. Right. And essentially just given the dynamics of America was where the ideas were is where the money was in the post war era.

And that was how businesses were set up so the businesses were centralized that the people made the most money for unskilled labor in the United States. And there was a very high standard of living for the average unskilled worker in the United States, compared to unskilled workers and other parts of the world.

Because we kind of move into this digital environment. And anyone can make a company anywhere and can accept the coin anywhere. Then you have much more distributed companies. And I think, you know, essentially the United States had a monopoly and they were sort of like benefiting from their status but as this competition kind of seeps in.

The countries that we're making a lot relative to their peers for the same type of work are suddenly going to see that bonus drop off. And I think that's going to be painful.

Definitely for sure. You know, that's like, yeah, exactly. And we're already seeing the beginning of it. And it's, I think it's a big reason for a rise of populism in the West. And, you know, that's kind of like the cost of progress.

You know, it's, it's always good when a free market flourishes I think and that when someone who previously had a monopoly finally has some competition but, you know, the monopolist is going to lose out and it's not going to be quite as good for them.

And, and I don't know, I think, so Jeff van drew recently did a podcast that Marty Ben where he talked about this. And he takes a contrary. He's a Bitcoin pointer, but he's also sort of, he wouldn't say as a socialist, but I would say as a socialist.

This is the guy who is talking about Marxism and all of these things, wasn't it? Yeah, I have to say I agreed with very little of what he said. Yeah, I did too. And I think that, but I think his viewpoint is, I think I disagree with him. But I understand where he's coming from.

And I think that that is going to be an incredibly common perspective going forward. Oh, yeah, sort of like, we need. I mean, I guess his, his point is like we need to just maintain the standards that we used to have.

And I think the response is, first of all, there's like, I think the biggest response is simply you can't, right? Like the standards we used to have were based on that monopoly position for unskilled labor.

And as all these other countries are coming in and competing, then, you know, you just can't maintain this living standards. And if you try to impose those living standards through coercion and through a government, then you're just going to shoot yourself

even faster, because now you're definitely not going to like, if you're increasing your minimum wage flow to try to claw back some semblance of prosperity used to have.

Then it's just going to make you even less competitive, and it's going to make you fall even faster on the global stage. So I think there's there's really no turning back at this point, kind of the genies out of the bottle.

And I'm excited for what it brings, but I do think it is about perspective and there's going to be costs to some communities that have kind of thrived on third world countries not really having a seat at the table.

Yeah, it feels like it's just going to be massive, massive change, and that it's going to be quite quick, but it also, like you said earlier, you know, we don't know how long things can continue like they are.

And that we have this fear consumerist sort of crazy and negative interest rates and all this crazy, crazy stuff that's happening.

Yeah, we don't know what's going to cause it to implode or explode, but it feels like it's really close, and then probably there'll be a lot of pain before there's good that comes out, almost like it's that forest that needs to burn down and, you know, new saplings will grow, but there's going to be some despair out there.

And I don't know how to, I mean, that's part of the reason I started this podcast was like, I've given up talking to normal people about this stuff, I've just given up.

I mean, it is just, they look at you like you're a lunatic, everyone has their strong opinions, but when you really dig into why they hold those opinions, it pretty much comes down to, I read it in the newspaper and you're like, right, well, do you want to just open your mind to something slightly different and then, but they don't.

So the idea with this is to just try and sort of get different people's opinions and experts in different fields to try and open people's eyes because I don't want to see the people around me suffer, but, but every day, I just think, how much longer have we got?

I know man, what's gonna happen. I know it's hard I mean I come from like just a small town in North Carolina, and it's, you know, it's not a town with any money really, and it's, it's weird going back there I visit occasionally on breaks and stuff and it does.

I mean, I don't know it's it's weird because it, it kind of goes back to the dynamics of this new environment or like economic system where people are much more mobile, and I think it's partially due to the rise of the Internet, but, you know, like 50 years ago when people are really successful.

You know, they would stick around, they would, they would become the attorney in town or they would become the doctor in town. Yeah, but now it feels like the opportunities are, you know, just kind of dwindling.

And so, yeah, so the brain drain is happening, not only from, you know, you hear about brain drain happening a lot from like, you know, countries in the Middle East or something where their best scientists come to the United States to study universities or something.

There's another type of brain drain, which is essentially the very brightest kids in the United States, and I wonder if this happens to Britain too but essentially the very brightest kids they go work in, you know, DC, or New York City, or San Francisco, or, you know, LA.

They don't come back, you know, they're trying to go on that professional path and all the major companies and major opportunities and consulting or law, finance.

They're in these big metropolitan centers. And then the people who stay behind are not as qualified or, you know, the people who just didn't make it out for whatever reason, maybe they're qualified but, you know, they just have a grandparent or a parent they need to take care of and practically can't leave.

And so there's sort of this like major disproportionate set of opportunities in these coastal areas coastal cities metropolitan areas, and the smaller towns and stuff are just being sucked dry of talent and that's another thing that when I go back.

I wonder how that's going to play out and how that kind of evolves, because I think that's another reason that kind of like heightened extensions is like you don't have. I don't know there's just a lot more mobility so it makes communities a lot more fragile it seems like the people that are left behind it's a weird phenomenon.

It's similar here, but I find as well that a lot of it comes down to like there's a lot of crazy smart people, and they then never make it to university because of like saying it's either they have someone to care for or financial situation means they can't do it or there's lots of different

reasons and you have this sort of elitist society which I maybe is more prevalent in the UK than it is in America I don't know but you have or we have some absolute fuckwits who have a mummy and daddy

I went to a private school like I was around a lot of very very wealthy kids and some of these kids just have a mummy and daddy who maybe work in the banking sector and they get a job and somehow they keep it I don't know how and then there's

other kids who are miles, miles more competent and they never get the chance it's a it's a weird it's a really weird system.

Well going back to what Jeff Vander was talking about you know and his his points on you know he was talking from like a distributivist perspective and he was you know trying to thread the needle between like anarcho capitalism and socialism

and then a big issue with his point was the presumption that capital always centralizes and that was kind of like a really key assumption to him and I want to kind of go back to the idea that it always comes back down to the money

like a lot of this sort of weird brain drain that's happening where talented kids are going to the only opportunities they have which is on the coastal cities is because we have artificially large companies essentially because

you know the size of firms is dictated by the type of money there is and I think that there's a really strong case to be made that if we didn't have a fiat monetary system and we didn't have the ability to have massive deficits subsidies

organizations and essentially create artificially large firms by eliminating their competition that the most efficient economic organization would not be to build something the size of Amazon and share something across the country

and we need to build it right there nearby and local companies are actually more efficient but these other types of companies like Amazon can survive by you know a subsidized infrastructure system and

various types of regulations on how companies have to behave and perform and you know you need a certain scale to be able to fit the rules and to lobby your way for you know tax breaks or whatever it is

and that small scale stuff just can't do that under a fiat monetary system. And I think under a Bitcoin standard it would pressure firms to be much smaller because you're just not going to get the same level of handouts. And so, you know, that sort of

fractal localism would be really good in terms of, sorry, it would be benefited by a hard money system that sort of keeps it all in line.

Yeah, and I've heard you made a point recently which I thought was interesting as well. I can't remember where you might have been on with Marty actually when you were talking about this but talking about money being held in assets like property

and the stock market and these big zombie businesses and all this sort of stuff, how potentially if you have something like Bitcoin the changes that that can make. I mean you have, I mean we have it here, property prices are seen

and a lot of it is just because it's like well where do you park your money, you know you've got this fiat system, you know that there's inflation, you know that these assets are going to continue to bubble because the money's going to go somewhere and what it does is it prices a lot of people out at that market

and a lot of the anger that we feel or we hear here is that like oh you know young people can't buy properties and all the rest of it and oh well let's tax landlords it's like, well actually no look at the money again so it'd be interesting to see your thoughts on if Bitcoin is this

black coal and it does suck up more and more of this value, what will happen in terms of these traditional assets that people will park their money in, you know how is that going to change things.

Yeah, I think that's another huge important thing is like we've never had a pure money, or at least I mean, you know since World War I essentially we haven't had like the sort of pure store value that we can like park things in or park our time in.

We've been having to use alternatives, and that does lead to things not being used for their commodity uses but we're using them for the monetary properties.

And I think that goes missed a lot because people just think all these people are just getting wealthy and they're making it so I can't afford here to live here and then they're like oh well.

You know this government control of housing or the solution is to, you know artificially, you know, cap rent, or you know all these sort of market interventions that just lead to further problems with housing and sort of exacerbate the issues.

You know rent control has never worked but somehow it still seems like a good idea, because, you know, it goes back to like the thinking the sun revolves around the earth is like well, prices are too high.

It is but maybe we should just stop making them high, you know it's like, okay well it's a little bit more complicated than that we need to think about why all this money is flooding into these assets people aren't using in the first place.

And you know it's it really comes back down to the piggy bank problem of people don't know where to park their wealth. And you can imagine with negative interest rates this is only going to get much much crazier, because now they can't put their money in a bank.

Oh, we're basically there now we're like 25 bits or something here. So, I mean, in terms of like thinking about yeah I mean that's, it's nuts, and it's only going to continue to get worse.

But then in terms of Bitcoin like think of the incredible upside potential like Bitcoin's not only competing with other countries monetary bases.

The total addressable market of Bitcoin is like, literally global store value in all of these different aspects like how much money is funneled into real estate or the stock market simply to store value.

And people don't want to be exposed to risk. Like essentially the solution to risk right now is just diversify. And just, you know, park your money and passive index funds but even that, I think is much much more risky than people believe.

And it's just a temporary solution. And I think when ultimately, all this comes to light. And this sort of fragile economic system finally has its day whenever that is, that, you know, it's all going to be clear that we just need something safe that doesn't require you to make incredibly risky financial bets on.

And you can just park it somewhere, you can move it anywhere. And you can, you know, liquidate it whenever you want.

That's crazy. I mean, the real estate market is trillions, the stock market that is being used for monetary purposes instead of, you know, actual, you know, financial instead of like, you know, you think that you buy a stock when you have reason to believe that the price is going to go up because you

evaluate the fundamentals. Very little stock buying is based on that, you know, investment strategy. It's just based on trying to park your money somewhere. So, yeah, yeah, it's crazy to imagine how big Bitcoin can get as this sort of global value exchange system.

Well, like you said, a total addressable market, you know, people's people scoff when you say we're gunning for gold, people scoff at that. But, but really what we're saying is we'll go to the start.

And the total addressable market is so much bigger because of like what you said, and it's not just properties, you know, and not just property in the stock market, you've got things like art.

I appreciate art, but when people are spending hundreds of millions of pounds on a painting, it's not actually because they love that painting so much when they walk down in the morning, they look at that painting, it lights up the world in the same way that 100 million pounds word.

It's because they need to partner well somewhere. And if, like you say, if we do have it change across and it does suck up that value, and people can be confident and secure in the fact that, okay, my money is secure in Bitcoin.

There's that if anything, it's going to be increasing in value over time, although less and less over time because it's become less volatile. However, they can have this thoughtful calculation of like, okay, what am I going to do with my money? And I feel that is one of the things that leads to a better world.

It leads to better decision making, and a sort of a more thoughtful and long term view on things rather than just shit, but open money. And the people with the money get richer and the people without a get poorer. It seems like an obvious that that's where the problem is.

Totally, totally. And, you know, that's, that's why we're here. I'm curious. For an artist perspective, you're the first like Bitcoin artists I've really talked to you. Oh, really?

I'm curious. So it's safe for Dean in the Bitcoin standard. You know, yeah, he's like, it's incredible monetary history. And there's a few parts of there where he's like, by the way, modern art, it's crap.

It's all because of money. What are your thoughts on that? Do you feel like? I mean, do you feel like money has had, or I guess the use of money as a store of value? Is that relevant when thinking about these types of things? What are your thoughts?

To some extent, I would say that I agree with almost everything that safe says in that book. I think it's an amazing book. I don't necessarily agree. Well, I don't agree that all modern art is crap. And that the only good, you know, the only thing that's worth painting is something that looks exactly like the thing that you're painting.

And I think that it's subjective, you know, it like, yeah, what subject of value. Yeah, and what I like is going to be different to what someone else likes. And I think that, for me anyway, I came from more of a business background and became an artist because I was suffering from depression and anxiety and I was painting in the evenings.

And I wanted to work to get over those anxieties and problems. And it became just a passion where I just love painting. So the value for me is really, it can't be measured.

I would say like it's difficult to measure that. And if someone enjoys my work and they want to buy it, that's amazing. I'm not an artist at the level where anyone's investing in my art.

I like that piece. It will look good on my wall. But I do think he has a point in terms of some of the artwork and it's subjective. Like, to me, it's bullshit. I look at some of the work and I think I'm sorry, but I don't think that's worth $30 million. And there are artists who are doing much, much more interesting work in my eyes.

But I think that a lot of it comes down to snobbery. And there's probably a little inside club where it's like, you know, you have art critiques who were friends with the top artists who know the top galleries who know the top investors.

They say it's brilliant. It's brilliant. And it's going to hold value. So I agree with him in that sense. Hmm. That's, it's really interesting. I have, um, I just have zero exposure to that world. But, um, yeah, I'm coming across it. I mean, there has been definitely modern art that I feel like has been really moving

and I don't think that art's dead or anything like that. Um, but it is, it is weird going through some museums and you're just like, all right, how is that on the wall? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.

I think it's just like, there's been a weird multiplication of artwork also. You know, like digital paintings and things like that have just like blown open what's even considered like, or who it goes back to the access question, right?

Like, um, because so many more people have access to art and digital tools for drawing and then recreation and reproduction of those images everywhere. Um, you know, it's the art critic really just becomes a curator and it seems like curators at present. Art critics are not keeping up with curation properly.

And that there's much, much more art out there, especially on the internet, that it's just completely flying under the radar and they're still kind of stuck in like an old system. And to say that art is failing as a whole, I feel like isn't taking into account progress is being made digitally or like, you know, many other places.

Yeah, it's like saying music's dead. You know, you flick on the radio. There's a lot of shit on the radio and you think, what is this? Like, what, you know, what is this? But they're making money and then you can walk down the street and there's a busker and they blow your mind.

Totally. Yeah. It's the same in the art world. You know, I see people who can barely afford to pay the bills and they are talented beyond the leaf. I look at their work and I just think, oh, if I could have 1% of your talent, I would just, I would be so happy, but you can't pay the bills.

And I see other work where I think I hate it. I would actually hate to have that on my wall, but it's millions of dollars. So, yeah, I think it's the same with any type of art, whether it's music or painting or, you know, theatre or film or any of these things.

It is very difficult to come up with a value and I think it is controlled by a small group of people. Totally. So, listen, I don't want to take too much of your time, Connor, but I would like to just ask you another question.

I wondered if there's one thing that excites you the most at the moment and maybe you'll be writing about it soon. If there's one thing that looking out over the course of this year, what excites you the most and what worries you the most?

What are the two things that most exciting and most worrying in your eyes from what you've seen in this space? That's a great question. I think, gosh, one thing that excites me, there's kind of two big ones that stick out for me.

One I've already talked about, which is multi-part payments. I mean, I just think that that is going to be so massive for lightning user experience, and it's just going to put so many criticism.

People have been criticizing lightning for not working properly for a long time. It's like a user experience, but this is just going to destroy that argument completely. The other thing that I'm really excited about is the happening. I think people really underestimate it, man.

I think it's going to get wild. Maybe not in the day of, but just, you know, it's going to be a long year. It's just eight months after the happening, and we'll see what happens. I think, you know, price going up is one of the most important things for Bitcoin, just because it's the ultimate advertisement and publicity.

If plan B is right, you know, and this integration and all this kind of stuff is correct, then this hardening is going to be, is it hardening or halving or a source suggested? Healthening. I liked that one. Did you see that one? Yeah, I like that one.

I like that. The halving. Things I'm worried about. I don't have any major concerns other than just like this weird, like, the sky is about to fall at any moment, and I don't know when it's going to be.

Or maybe the coronavirus. That's been pretty free lately, too. Yeah. It's funny. Bitcoin Twitter is in this like perfect balance between, you know, they don't believe anything on the mainstream media, right? So, you see that the coronavirus is completely made up.

To just scare you into complacency, and you shouldn't even consider it in your daily life. And then the other half of Bitcoin Twitter is like, "Oh my God, guys, the media is completely lying to you. It's so much worse than you think it is."

Get your mosques. Yeah, get your mosques. Yeah, they're like giving you prepping advice. And I'm like, which one's true? They both think about it. So, I don't know, hopefully we'll live through the halving.

I hope so. I'm sure there'll be some big parties if we're right and things go the way we think they're going to be. Totally, man. All right. Well, listen, like I said, I don't want to take too much of your time, but it's been really, really nice to have a chat with you.

I've followed you for a while. You've put out some amazing content. Grassbone, the whole space is just mind-blowing. And I would suggest to any of my listeners, if you want to learn more about the things that we've talked about today,

they follow Connor, you're going to be in for a treat. So if you can just tell them where to find you and what you're working on. Yeah, the best place to find me is on my Twitter account. It's Underscore, Connor Brown Underscore, and that's Connor with an ER at the end.

And that's where I post all my stuff. And you can also find me at medium at -- my medium username is @Connor_. So those are just two places to find me. And I should have some more articles coming out in the next few months.

I'm just kind of here researching right now and cranking out stuff. So, yeah, we'll see what comes down the pipe. But, man, I've had a blast with this conversation, and I really appreciate you having me on and talking to me.

Excellent. It's been really, really good. And if you do find yourself in London at any time, just give me a shout. Let's go for a drink. Yes. It has to happen. It'd be really nice to meet. Yeah, for sure.

Definitely. For sure. All right. Thanks again. And, yeah, we'll speak soon, I'm sure. All right. Take care. Cheers, Connor. All right. See you, man.