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Stablecoins Are AOL. Bitcoin Is the Internet.

27 May 2026 · 1 hr 14 min

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Show notes

Stablecoins vs Bitcoin: Why Stablecoins Are AOL and Bitcoin Is the Internet

Stablecoins vs Bitcoin is really a question of closed systems vs. open protocols. Randy Lorensen and Anthony Marino use AOL and the early internet as the frame: stablecoins are a familiar, dollar-based on-ramp, and Bitcoin is the open, permissionless network underneath. Dr. John Oberg joins for the Abundance Briefing.

Are stablecoins the future of money—or just the AOL of a much bigger financial internet?

In this episode of Tales of Abundance, Randy and Anthony break down stablecoins, Bitcoin, inflation, bank-created money, and why the real battle may not be stablecoins vs Bitcoin at all. It may be closed systems vs open protocols. Using the early internet as a frame, they argue that stablecoins are a simpler, centralized bridge into digital money, while Bitcoin is the open, permissionless network that could outlast them all.

They walk through how stablecoins like Tether work, why they’ve exploded in countries facing currency collapse, and how they make money by holding U.S. Treasuries. Then the conversation shifts to the darker plumbing underneath modern banking: fractional reserves, money creation through lending, and why the current fiat system starts to look a lot like a legal Ponzi scheme once you really understand it.

From there, the episode goes deeper into Bitcoin as “freedom money.” Randy explains why Bitcoin’s decentralization matters, why governments can freeze stablecoins but not easily stop Bitcoin transactions, and how Bitcoin mining is pushing cheap energy and infrastructure into places that traditional systems ignored. The discussion also covers self-custody, Coinbase risk, KYC tracking, capital gains questions, and why more investors are starting to treat Bitcoin as a hedge against long-term currency debasement.

If you’re trying to understand stablecoins vs Bitcoin, the future of money, inflation, banking risk, digital sovereignty, and why open financial networks may matter more than most people realize, this episode will help you think about it from first principles.

What Is a Stablecoin, How Does Tether Make Money, and Why Bitcoin Self-Custody?

What you'll discover:

  • Why AOL is the right frame for stablecoins vs Bitcoin: closed systems vs. open protocols
  • How stablecoins help people escape inflation in places like Venezuela, and how Tether makes money
  • How banks create money through lending, and whether the system is a "legal Ponzi scheme"
  • Why the U.S. could freeze stablecoins but can't easily stop Bitcoin payments
  • KYC, taxes and the case for Bitcoin self-custody vs. leaving coins on Coinbase
  • In the Abundance Briefing: the SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI IPO race, AI and disease, and a land-based rival to the Panama Canal

Timestamps

  • [00:00] Stablecoins, Bitcoin, and the future of money
  • [00:30] Why AOL is the frame for understanding stablecoins vs Bitcoin
  • [01:52] Open protocol vs closed system: why it matters
  • [03:12] How stablecoins help people escape inflation in places like Venezuela
  • [05:10] How Tether works and how stablecoin issuers make money
  • [08:19] Why someone might trust a stablecoin more than a traditional bank
  • [09:55] How banks “create money” through lending
  • [14:57] Is the banking system basically a legal Ponzi scheme?
  • [16:52] Stablecoins are still dollars, just on new rails
  • [17:54] Why almost all stablecoin demand is still tied to the U.S. dollar
  • [19:20] Silicon Valley Bank, audits, and hidden bank risk
  • [19:45] Why the U.S. could freeze stablecoins but not Bitcoin payments
  • [21:37] Why Bitcoin is so hard to stop
  • [22:04] Decentralization, miners, nodes, and the size of the Bitcoin network
  • [23:36] How Bitcoin mining can unlock cheap energy in overlooked regions
  • [26:17] Privacy, regulation, and why governments struggle to control Bitcoin
  • [29:55] KYC, taxes, and how governments track crypto on-ramps and off-ramps
  • [32:11] The case for self-custody vs leaving Bitcoin on Coinbase
  • [35:05] What private Bitcoin transfers governments can and cannot see
  • [37:00] Why centralized crypto platforms may be winning now—but not forever
  • [37:47] Anthony explains Randy’s Bitcoin thesis
  • [39:02] Freedom money, sovereignty, and why Randy made Bitcoin his plan A
  • [44:46] Why Anthony bought Bitcoin too
  • [52:26] What has changed as Bitcoin became mainstream
  • [55:22] Final takeaway: stablecoins may matter, but Bitcoin is the bigger system
  • [57:55] Break — Sponsor: AG1
  • [59:07] Abundance Briefing — The IPO race: SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI
  • [1:00:21] Anthropic, Elon's data centers and the trillion-dollar AI race
  • [1:04:02] OpenAI's math result and what it could mean for science
  • [1:10:21] Could AI cure all disease? The debate over the timeline
  • [1:13:03] A land-based rival to the Panama Canal
  • [1:14:38] Wrap-up

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About the hosts

This is a hosts-only episode with no guest. Randy Lorensen and Anthony Marino host the main conversation, and Dr. John Oberg joins for the Abundance Briefing. (Host bios are on the host pages linked below.)

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Meet the hosts: Randy Lorensen · Dr. John Oberg · Anthony Marino

Transcript

A full transcript is below. It was generated automatically from the episode audio, so expect some spelling errors in names and terms.

[00:03] stable coins, Bitcoin, the future of money. And uh I want to take you back to the 90s. Okay, I know long time ago, but you and I are old enough that we remember getting online. And what that meant was going for me it meant AOL. For you, was it AOL? Was it Prodigy? Was it Compuserve? Where did you go? — In the very beginning, it was CompuServe, but then Ao AOL just swept everybody away and that's where everybody went. I still have an AOL mail — Yeah, we got mail. And uh anyway, and and the little, you know, that that dialup from your modem and for you kids, I mean, I know this seems like a long time ago, but you couldn't use the phone while you were on the internet because it ran over the same phone line, but at that time, AOL gave you, it gave you the basic stuff, email, chat rooms, news, and it was a simple doorway into this new future, the internet. It was centralized. AOL wasn't the internet. People thought that was the and they were they were getting on the internet, but it was it was a very centralized internet and it was really dominated by AOL, Prodigy, and CompuServe and in particular AOL. Underneath AOL was this much bigger protocol. They were open protocols, right? TCIP, the web, you know, all these things. It doesn't We're not going to get into how the hot dogs made. I don't even understand very well how the hot dogs made. But those those things like TCIP were open protocols that anybody anywhere in the world, no matter what you believe, no matter what you thought, you could build upon them.

[01:35] And for a while, AOL, Prodigy, they had a they had a nice run, right? AOL in particular, became, you know, at one point they bought Time Warner, I believe, right? Which was a huge huge company at the time, one of the biggest companies companies in the country. And this little startup bought them. Well, all those companies went away. Why did they lose the battle? They lost the battle a lot because the open protocol throughout history almost always beats the closed protocol. And I think this is a little bit of what's happening with stable coins, Bitcoin. Right now, stable coins are very hot. They have they're having remarkable success and we're going to talk about that. But they are a closed protocol, right? Whether you go to Tether and you're in Tether's system or you go to Coinbase or all of the banks are creating their own. There's a whole bunch of them. They're in a closed system where Bitcoin is a permissionless open anybody in the world. It doesn't matter if you are Russian or Ukraine. You can build on Bitcoin. You can store in Bitcoin. You can use Bitcoin. You can take your wealth with you anywhere in the world by, you know, memorizing a seed phrase and whatever. It doesn't matter. enemy. It It's money for everybody. Freedom money. So, you know, it's I think stable coins are just better banking software, but let's get into that. You may disagree. And, you know, I think they're a bridge to a bigger protocol. And I think the pattern is going to be very similar with stable coins and Bitcoin as it was with AOL and the internet as a whole. So, Anthony, I know you have you have thoughts about stable coins. So, um — yeah, let me let me let me try to explain it. I think I understand them. I definitely don't know what bridges we're going to be crossing in the future with both stable coin and Bitcoin. I can't predict the future anyway. But the the the the simplest use case that I know of, I hope I explain this well is let let's take the country of Venezuela.

[03:36] They've had in the past, you know, rampant inflation. So much so that people were getting paid two or three times a day because the value of their currency was dropping every single day. So if they had a $100 in Venezuelan currency in the morning, by dinner time it would could be worth, you know, $50. So what what they could do is when they had that quote unquote $100 in Venezuelan currency, they could buy a stable coin, buy $100 worth of um or convert $100 worth of Venezuelan currency into the into whatever the equivalent US dollar amount would be. Let's say it would be worth 50. And now it's in a stable coin. It's backed by the US dollar. So that they they have now escaped Venezuelan inflation and they've bought US inflation essentially. So of course US inflation is less still inflation but it's a lot less than Venezuela. So that $50 for all intents and purposes will be $50 tomorrow be $50 on Friday. It will be $50 in a month from now. Um and it so it preserves their buying power. So that's the the repository for their money. What I don't understand is how they can spend it. I don't I don't understand the mechanisms for their ability to spend it to get it back, convert it back to a Venezuelan dollar so that they can buy bread and so forth and so on.

[05:10] — Let me let me put a couple more details on there. First thing, yes, it's backed one to one with US dollars and the biggest player is Tether. So let's just use Tether. They're they're the 600lb gorilla. Um, at one point Tether had more revenue than Goldman Sachs and they had 80 employees. I think they might have two or 300 employees now, but they are a runaway success. And you'd asked me a question before the show, how do they make how do they make revenue? Let's talk make sure we hit on that, too. it. So if somebody, it doesn't matter if it's Venezuelan money, Argentinian money, Turkish money, Australian dollars, euros, they all go in and you're taking your money, as you mentioned, and you're pegging it to the dollar one to one. How do they do that? Okay. What's going on behind the scenes? Well, Tether, if you put the $100 in from your example, they buy a $100 of US bonds to back your money. So really, you're buying US. I mean, look, dollars, if you really think about it, they're debt. The whole US debt system is US bonds and debt is really what's underlying the dollar. It's that's a bigger whole topic to itself. But they are buying $100. So no matter what, if there's mass inflation in the US, you're still going to get your $100 back, right? You're guaranteed to get that.

[06:27] And they did an audit, I think, within the last year, certainly within the last two years. They are they have all the bonds. They have a crap ton of US treasuries. In fact, right now, I believe Tether alone is something like the fourth or fifth biggest buyer somewhere in that ballpark. I might be off by a couple numbers of biggest purchaser in the world of US bonds. Okay? So, that's how they make money. By the way, you put your $100 in, they take your $100, they buy a $100 US bond that pays these days four 5%. They're mostly short-term, so probably more like 4%. And now they're making $4 a year on your money, but they're doing that with billions, I think trillions of dollars at this point, right? Hundreds of billions at least probably. And they're making that four% spread on all those bonds. Then what Tether does, they take the profit each month. They get the profit, they get the payouts, they pay all their expenses, their handful of employees that they have, and then they bought Bitcoin like crazy. They're one of the biggest holders of Bitcoin in the world. They don't want to save. This should tell you what you need to know.

[07:36] Tether doesn't want to keep its money in US dollars. They know that there's an inflation problem. So, they take their profit. They hold your money in dollars. They take their profit and put it into Bitcoin. Now they've started diversifying in the last year or so. They've been buying real estate. They've also been buying gold. So now they've got a little more diversity, but still a big part of their stuff is in Bitcoin. Does that explain better how it works or does that make sense? — No, that that's that's great. So why would a US citizen who buy buy a stable coin? What what's the upside for me buying putting my money in the stable coin? A dollar. going to get $100 back? — Good question. Only, I guess, if you trusted Tether more than you trust your bank, which by the way, you probably should because Tether has a 100% dollarbacked reserves. And they've got Bitcoin, gold, and real estate sitting on top of that from all their profit over the years, right? There's billions and billions extra. So, they not only have all your money and have been audited, they have more than your money, right? they have more than 100% reserves. Well, if you go to the banks, I don't know what the current number is.

[08:51] When I wrote my book and I did the research at that time, banks had loaned out about $25 for every dollar they had in deposits. So, if you buy $100 worth of Tether, they put $100 in bonds, it's reserve, you will get you will get your $100 back. You put $100 in Chase or Bank of America or Wells Fargo or whoever you bank with, you're going to get your money probably because the government's not going to allow that to happen. They'll just print more. So, you're probably backed. But they take your $100 and they loan out $2,500 either to one person or multiple people. They're supposed to have 10% reserves. They're only supposed to do out 100, but as of a few years ago, the average was 4% they held in reserves. That's the That's really the difference. Okay. And by the way, your bank is loaning it out. They take it, pay you 0 .01% or whatever ridiculous interest rate for on $100, and then they loan that out to 25 other people at 4, 5, 6, 7, 12, what, whatever interest rate they're loaning it out at.

[09:55] — But where are they getting that? Where are they getting the actual capital to do that? — Who? The banks. — The bank. Yeah. So, let's say that it's a it's a it's a the bank has — Who? The bank can't print money. — Yeah, they do. They do. They really do. All printing money means in 2026 is they change some numbers on the screen. When the bank takes your $100, they now legally, but nobody enforces it, have the right to to loan out $1,000. They're not getting that $1,000. They're just bet. All the bank is betting on is there isn't going to be a run that not everybody's going to come looking for their money at once. But they literally So if you put your $100 in, I go to the bank and say, "I need $1,000 loan." They don't have my $1,000. They have your $100. They just add a thousand. They just take the numbers on their computer and they add $1,000. So let's let's let's for the for the listeners let's let's walk through this because it is a little confusing and and it's it's going to lead to a discussion on the the possibility of of a banking collapse. Let's just put that at the end of the at the end of the road here. So when when I buy a house, I buy a I want I need a $300,000 mortgage. I put, you know, uh 25,000 or $50,000 of my own cash. I take it out of the bank. I give it to the builder. Now I need another $300,000. When he finishes building it, he's receiving $300,000 in cash.

[11:33] Where does that if if the bank is lent out everyone's $100 25 times, 10 times, 25 times, where do where is that actual cash that's going to go into the builder's bank account? Where does that come from? PMF or PFM. Pure effing magic. Okay. Pure effing magic, Anthony. It is. They are. I know this is hard to get your mind around. They don't have that money. They create it. They literally change numbers. So, they take they now have a note and you have a liability for $300,000 to the bank. They have the credit they have a credit on their balance sheet, right? and they put $300,000 in your account. They just change the numbers on a screen. I'm telling you, bank, everybody thinks the Fed's the only one that prints money. But any bank that's giving loans in US dollars, there's banks outside the US. There there there's the whole Euro dollar system that has trillions and trillions in it and nobody knows how much it is. There's European and banks in the Caribbean, etc., that that write these loans and give out US dollars that don't necessarily even have US dollars.

[12:52] This isn't just US banks. This is all over the world because the US dollar is the world's reserve currency, at least for now. That builder got $300,000 worth of currency that he could spend it. So, it has to move from Chase Bank to builder bank. So, — they're just both making up the numbers, — moving numbers or they're moving numbers around on a spreadsheet on their computers. Okay. So, let me ask you this. This is a hard concept, so I don't mind spending some time here. This this is this takes a while to get your head around and it's a little it's not that happy of thoughts when you really get your head around it, by the way. So, you had a very nice exit from Pella a year or two ago, right? You got a nice check. How much of that did you get cash? — Technically all of it. — No, I mean cash, dollars, fe like that you could put in your pocket or a briefcase or your trunk. — Okay. So, what did they do? Now, Pella happened to you bought sold it directly back to Pella probably had the cash in their account, but you were talking to people that were looking at financing, right? people that didn't have there was a certain number they had to go to the bank get it the bank if it would have gone that way okay and maybe this maybe Pella got it financed too but I'm going to assume they had the cash but if you had sold it to an individual like me I would go to the bank get the loan I would now owe the bank that money and the bank the bank they basically are going to take look they're going to take the number they're going to take x they're going to they're I'm going owe them that and they're going to put that in your account.

[14:40] Their books are balanced, right? X goes X goes into your account. They just change the numbers, right? They're literally just if you get paid, they just change the numbers. It's zeros and ones in a computer. Well, I guess they're hoping that the the the survival depends on a continual flow of new money coming in to finance those — Yeah, we Yeah, we call that a Ponzi — That's what I was about to say. I said this sounds awful lot like a Ponzi — Yeah, it is. Now, it might be the safest Ponzi scheme going, right? Because you got the backing of the US government, the US military, however you want to look at that. They have the money printer. They're never going to default in my opinion. They're going to print money. That's what his nations have done throughout time. I mean, we can go back to Kublakhan. We can go to the, you know, to the Persians. We can go to the English, the French, the the Germans. Why our Republic that's why you mentioned the superinflation or hyperinflation in Venezuela where prices literally can change overnight or during the day.

[15:50] That's because they instead of defaulting on the debt, they're just going to print more money. So, it's not that you lose your money, it's that's your money becomes worthless. It won't buy as much. That's what's happening with inflation. And inflation, they're trying to keep it at 2%. And really, their strategy at 2% inflation is we can steal 2% a year from you, Anthony, because you won't notice. You won't notice if we steal 2% a year. Now when it starts getting to to five 10% people start now politicians start losing jobs right and 20 and 50 and some of these places have had thousands. I mean you know our our little inflation here is nothing compared to Argentina, Venezuela, Turkey, Zimbabwe, you know, on and on and on and on. Well, we'll have to come we'll have to come we'll have to come back to this in another episode and talk about what could be a banking crisis and go through history and talk about how every fiat currency has eventually failed and what happens when that happens. So we come back to — Yeah, the whole system is built on debts. I think the last thing to do before we move on, stable coins are US dollars. It may not be may not be a physical dollar bill you put in your pocket, but it is a US dollar. Spends the same, gets deflated the same, or I'm sorry, inflated the same, right? Just not as quickly as some of these. It's kind of the the tallest or the least dirty shirt in the hamper is is the phrase that's used a lot. So that's when you're buying a stable coin, you're doing that. But if if you live in Venezuela where inflation is thousands of percent a year, 2 to 10% is a huge win, right? There's a there's a whole arbitrage opportunity there, etc. But the that you're buying fiat currency, the difference is it is not controlled by Chase Bank. It's controlled by Tether or Coinbase or whoever's stable coin you buy.

[17:51] — Are there any stable coins in other Yes, but I believe the number well over 90% and volumewise I think over 99% it's huge is in US dollars but there's a euro one and there might be some other ones but they just don't for now at least people want the dollar right we'll see we print enough money they they won't um but for now people would prefer to to save in dollars versus their other stuff right so let's talk about the difference between stable coins and Bitcoin. They are not the same thing, right? One of them is dollars, another one is a completely new banking system. Here's the other thing. Even so, if if you want to audit Chase Bank, how do you audit Chase Bank? How do you audit Bank of America, Wells Fargo, or whoever, wherever your money is to see how much they have? like once a quarter I think the SEC comes in, but you don't really it's pretty hard to audit them and know what's going on in any given time. If you remember a couple years ago there was the bank run at Silicon Valley Bank.

[18:57] Literally that thing happened so fast. Okay, there was was it Peter Teal or it was one of those guys. One of the the Silicon Valley guys put out a warning saying, "Hey, these guys are way overextended." By the way, the SEC, the government had given them a clean bill of health like a week before this. — Fed. The Fed did. The Fed. — Yeah. They came in and inspected. They passed with flying colors. All of a sudden, a bank run happened in like 24 hours. They were done. I got tied up. I had no idea I even had exposure. My payroll company kept their money at Silicon Valley Bank. All of a sudden, we'd made we they took our money for payroll and we couldn't get it out of Silicon Valley Bank. It got tied up for a week or two later. We got it back. But we had to find an alternative way to do payroll that week. Not a lot of funds that can happen. Again, a stable coin might be safer than that because Tether is back is backed. However, Bitcoin, let's look at what's been going on in in Iran in the straight of Hermuzz. Iran started charging these tolls to go through the straight and they said they would either take um they would take stable coins, they would take, you know, one, they would take Bitcoin. Some of the ships paid with Bitcoin, right? 2 million bucks or I forget whatever they were charging. Some of them paid with stable coins.

[20:20] $354 million worth of stable coins. The US government came in and froze. If they can freeze that, that means they can freeze your money and my money. Now, they probably don't have a reason. It's probably safe. And they couldn't freeze the Bitcoin. Iran has the Bitcoin now. It's freedom money. Doesn't matter where. Again, I mentioned it. I mentioned Russia and Ukraine. both countries when people are fleeing Bitcoin has become very popular. A lot of these places that are doing very poor and people are fleeing you know and refugees it's a way that they can get money out of the country. So to me that's the really big thing is it's You can send it anywhere. You can take it anywhere. who don't need their permission and they can't stop the US. The full force of the US government couldn't stop the Bitcoin payments to Iran. But with one little phone call, they stopped 354 million in stable coin — Explain Explain. You'll do a better job of it. Explain why they can't stop it.

[21:39] technical, so I'm going to try and keep but the Bitcoin network, I don't know how many nodes are running, but but you can have the entire entire transaction ledger on your computer anywhere in the world, right? It doesn't matter you live here in Austin, Texas, or you live in Kenya or you live in Tokyo or you live in Melbourne. It doesn't matter. you can run the entire history, every transaction in the history of Bitcoin, you can keep on a computer and have and verify it and it's decentralized much like a torrent site, right? Bit Torrent was a big deal back in the day because if you hosted this music, it was pirated music mostly games, whatever else, books. If you kept the music on a centralized server and shared it with people for free, the government could just come turn that down. But what happened there is the same song would be shared on a thousand or 100,000 different servers all over the world. There's no way to enforce that. There's no way to shut down 10,000 of them simultaneously, right? Well, the same thing with Bitcoin. It's on I millions of machines in every country in the and some of it's even you know it's being using satellites and everything else. So it's really decentralized. The miners again there's there's Bitcoin miners securing the network all over the planet. Okay. The number that I always talk about the size of the Bitcoin network. Okay. all the computers securing the network is not just the biggest computer system in the world.

[23:14] But if you add up the next three biggest which I believe are Microsoft, um Apple and um Google or Google, no Google, Amazon and Microsoft I think are the three the two, three and four them combined are something like 150th the size of the Bitcoin network. And the other difference is Bitcoin, Bitcoin naturally goes to the cheapest energy. These waterfalls, like you go into a lot of the northern places, there's these waterfalls that maybe could, you know, produce a 100 units of energy, but only 20 can get used because there aren't very many people there. It's a natural place for a Bitcoin miner to go because there's basically free energy. That's just green, free energy. They can use the excess of that waterfall, turn it on, turn it off. One of the most amazing things in Bitcoin, what's happening in Africa. Millions and millions and millions of people are getting access to energy that never would have got energy because there was no financial incentive. In fact, there's there's places in Africa that play pay less for energy than we do that didn't have energy a couple years ago. They've built these Bitcoin mines because there there's a waterfall. There was a great place to do energy, right? Or a river.

[24:27] They dam it. They produce all this. They use whatever they get. the local community, they sell it to them for like 10 cents a kilowatt hour, which is way less than I don't know what the average is in the US now, but I think it's pushing 30. And they sell it to those people for 10 cents a kilowatt hour before. By the way, I just heard this the other day. NOS's have been building these power plants in Africa for years and they tend to run like 70 to a buck 50 or something, but like the cheap ones are running at 70 cents a kilowatt hour. Even though they were built 100% with like charity or NGO money, the people can't use them. It doesn't help the local people. Nobody's using the power because they they charge 70 cents while the Bitcoin miners are charging 10. So it just attracts and it goes into every little crevice and it's just out there looking for opportunity and cheap energy and people that need this whether doesn't matter where they live. Does that explain it? I mean it's super decentralized would be the way. — Go back to uh what you said earlier — you can see every transaction on your computer. What? What if I had to if I wanted to send you a hundred Bitcoin?

[25:41] $100 worth of Bitcoin? — I like the first one. — Yeah, no kidding. Um, is that just going to be zeros and ones showing up on the screen or does it say Anthony sent Randy $100 worth of Bitcoin? — The transaction there's a public You have a public key and a private key. We're getting really wonky. — No, but in terms of But it's still — I never look at this. — It's still It's private. Still private. — Yeah. like you don't know like if if if you sent me $100 and Mary wants to look at the chain, she can see that $100 transferred from your wallet to my wallet, but there's no name attached. — Okay. So, the reason I brought that up is this is where the governments have had a problem and the Iran example you gave illustrates it. the transfer of Bitcoin from one entity to one entity to another is because it's private. There's a lot of problems with that in the sense that illicit activity transactions are happening using Bitcoin and that's one of the that's one of the major not downsides but major issue that governments have with it and have tried to regulate it and to this point have been unsuccessful. Do you think someday they're going to be able to regulate it?

[26:55] I mean, or is it just so decentralized it can't happen — at some point? It's so decentralized. Anthony, put it here's a here's a good way to look at it. We think of China as being very authoritarian, right? Russia, we think, boy, Putin, what a guy. What what an ass. China has made Bitcoin illegal multiple times. In fact, before they made Bitcoin mining illegal at one point, they had over 50% of the the hash rate, which is the computer power, the processing that was pointed at at mining Bitcoin, was in China. They made it illegal. And now Texas leads the world because a lot of the Bitcoin miners, and they went to Kazakhstan, and they went other places, but a lot of them came to Texas. So, that just chased people to a different jurisdiction. If Texas made Bitcoin mining illegal, they'd go to El Salvador, they'd go to Kaz, they would just go somewhere else, right? So, they're chasing New York chased away a lot. Canada chased away a lot, both of them. And it's dumb because there was literally the waterfalls I was talking about earlier and the unused electricity that they're now just wasting instead of having a taxpaying company there. But it's just China couldn't make it illegal. China buys a lot of Bitcoin like private citizens and still almost something like 20 or 25% of the world's hash rate. The processing is still in China even though they made it illegal.

[28:18] India made it illegal. Couldn't stop anybody. Russia made it illegal. Now Russia's come back around. They're collecting Bitcoin and mining. All three of those countries are well I don't know about India. Russia and China are definitely mining Bitcoin as a country as are several other countries. So all it takes is one jurisdiction. And as great as our military is, I mean, we can't finish Iran off in whatever it's been months. We can't fight the whole world. Like there will always be it'll be like whack-a-ole. And there's just there's no way to shut down. And again, I don't want to get wonky, but there's a new block every 10 minutes. In order to hack it, they would have to hack like millions of machines in 10 minutes simultaneously in all different So, right. — So, Bitcoin has been, you know, was a few dollars, you know, 10 years ago and now it's, you know, $80,000 per coin now. For those people that um have invested in Bitcoin and and enjoyed the capital gains, if you will, of Bitcoin if it's if it's in a how did how does the government, the United States government get its share of the capital gains on it? How do they know when I if I have um you know, if I if I'm in possession of my key, you know, you know, a thumb drive with my Bitcoin on it and I transfer, you know, $5,000 of it to you, how how's that? It's like it's like selling a stock. Some amount of that was capital gains. How does the government get their hands on it? So, it depends on how you sell it. It depends on your wallet. Banks have something called KYC, which is short for know your customer.

[30:06] They can track the money. If you have money at a given bank, right? Bob's Credit Union, doesn't matter. You have your money at a given bank, you send it to Coinbase, and you buy Bitcoin. They're going to go, "Anthony, where' this $100,000? What did you do with that?" Now, if you don't sell the Bitcoin, there is no capital gains. Just like if you don't sell your Apple stock, there's no capital gains. But when you sell it, you're probably selling it to buy something. So now you're going to transfer it back to your bank and the bank is going to report, hey, Anthony had $100,000 come through and the IRS is going to know that. Now, if they really want to go after you, they can start connecting dots and but it's that's an expensive process, right? That happened to Ross on the Silk Road, but you know, they put enough resources into it, but that's really expensive to do that forensic accounting. They're not going to do it for a normal person. So you you my my Bitcoin is stored at Coinbase. Your Bitcoin is stored on a thumb drive. — And we need to get you to the other — Yeah, I agree. So now let but let's com I can I can see how Coinbase could create a um 1099 or something. You know that I don't know if if you know I bought my and this is the the problem. I bought my Bitcoin at a bunch of different prices. So, if I if I want to sell, you know, 25% of my Bitcoin, do I tell Coinbase I want to sell this bit this Bitcoin that I bought at the highest price so I minimize my capital gain or do they take the average over time? How do they how — I would I would talk to an accountant at this. This is not — You should You should You should have known this by now. You've been at this a long time. This is not financial advice, but the way mine works is first in, first out.

[31:57] Okay? And there's some stuff in Congress right now. One of the things they're talking about in the Clarity Act, I don't think it's going to get through, but I hope it does, is the dimmin deminimous exemption. So that a certain amount if you buy coffee or you buy you treat it that it doesn't get reported and it doesn't matter. You can spend it and it treats like that would that would be unbelievable for the Bitcoin market. But I want to emphasize something that where you are is a great first step, but you're still counting on a counterparty. You're still trusting Coinbase. Now, Coinbase is making money. I don't think you're in any danger anytime soon. I'm not the biggest fan of Coinbase, even though I have an account with them myself, but you're trusting, Anthony, that they hold your Bitcoin, but you can't audit it. You don't know that they have your Bitcoin. and probably because Michael Sailor has billions there and Black Rockck has it and all these different companies have it. I'm pretty sure they've done their due diligence, but you don't really know. Number one, and number two, if the government comes in, and Brian Armstrong's the CEO of Coinbase, and the government comes in and says, "Hey, Brian, I'll tell you what, we want Anony's Bitcoin." And Brian says, "No." And the government says, "Great. You know what? We're the ones that make the laws and we're the ones that have the cages. We're going to go throw you in this cage for the next 10 years if you don't give me Anony's Bitcoin because guess or freeze it or Brian Armstrong's freezing your Bitcoin.

[33:24] He don't give a Now, if you have it on a on a thumb drive or you have it in cold storage or a paper wallet, I don't I don't care. You have it on your own. You are opting out of that corrupt, system. You are taking your money and going into a different system. You are making a choice to say, you know what, now there's responsibility that comes with that because you have to remember your own keys or keep your own keys and keep them safe. But you're saying, I'm not counting on Chase Bank. I'm not counting on Coinbase. I'm not counting on anybody else. I control. And there's ways you can do multi-IG and a bunch of other stuff in case you lose your keys. I would recommend Coinbase, who actually is a sponsor of this show, but I haven't uh or not Coinbase, Unchained Capital here in town. We just haven't actually run the ad or whatever, but we have a link to them I would recommend for multi-IG. Uh there's like you're taking control. Nobody else if something happened, God forbid, and you had to bug out, you could take that with you and nobody could stop you. So, that's where I was going earlier with um you know, the the tax ban. So, that you know, you're a former professional poker player. Let's say you and I were let's say I have a a thumb drive and you have a thumb drive and I and I win $50,000 from you in a in a poker poker night and you say, "Okay, I just got to pay in Bitcoin." You you plug your thumb drive into your computer. You you put in your keys and transfer 50 grand to me. I plug it into my computer. I accept it. Does anybody in the world know and does any government in the world know that Not if it's not KYC, right? So, let's say I have a I have a blank wallet, right? Okay. I've got a I've got a cold storage. Never been used. I bought it.

[35:17] It's mine. There's no Bitcoin on it. You send Bitcoin to it. Nobody knows it's mine. Somebody else sends Bitcoin to it. Nobody knows it's mine. be a million transactions. Nobody knows it's mine. Now, if I take that Bitcoin and I send it to my Coinbase account and I cash it out, they have a clue cuz Coinbase is a again, Coinbase is still part of the old or I send it to Chase Bank or I send it wherever. Right? All of these banks have KYC. They are going to report it to the government. If the government wants to look and it's not that easy, they could start connecting dots, right? Like I've got a cold storage where some of it came from Strike, some of it came from Coinbase, some of it came from I forget what it was called, but the one I used to use before it was called Coinbase Pro now or whatever. Like I probably have Bitcoin that's flowed into that wallet from 10 different places and about eight of them had KYC. So guess what? Even the two that aren't KYCed, they know it's mine, right? They can track it. So, you would have to keep a completely separate wallet that is not tied to one that has ever had transfers from your accounts.

[36:30] — And that I guess it only gets flagged when you you convert the Coinbase to dollars or to to some currency. the world down the road like El Salvador, they they they're they're a coinbased based monetary system now and their their supermarkets, their gas stations, all accept Bitcoin. So in a different world, it's going to be a different world someday. It's coming. This is this is what we're talking about right now. The AOLs are winning, right? Coinbase is Right now they're winning. It's centralized. But in the long term, decentralized always beats it just will, right? It'll there there's advantages to being centralized and there are advantages to it, but long term it's just more and more people are going to see the need to hold hold their own keys, protect it, etc. All right, let's anything here before we move to our our final little section. any — No, this I was just about to say I was going to I was the two of us have very different reasons we we got into Bitcoin — I'll explain Ry's I'll explain Ry's — you'll explain mine — I'll explain yours to the — Go ahead I want to hear this is good — now um you believe there's an apocalypse coming you don't know if it's tomorrow or 20 years or 50 years or 10 years where the US dollar and other currencies are going to fail And they're much like Venezuela and Turkey and those other countries that had runaway inflation. Uh it's going to it's going to it's going to happen at some point that the the the money printers will have printed so much money which means borrowed so much money that the interest payments on that money is going to exceed all the other expenses that the company needs that country needs to spend their money on. uh that right now the debt on the US debt the interest on the US debt is larger than what we spend on the military and it's growing every day. So — something 1.2 1.4 trillion so so every reason to believe that there's going to be a um a financial crisis. It has happened. You've educated me on how many times it's happened in history or you referenced it earlier and so this is your safe haven when that happens. Did I do a good job?

[39:02] — Pretty It's — pretty accurate. Yeah. U I will tell you I first was introduced by a gentleman by the name of Andreas Antonopoulos. Um and I heard him talking about it and he talked about freedom money. And freedom money very much appealed to me. And I've known this problem for years. I mean I started reading books on this 25 years ago. Most of those books back then said buy gold. And I just never quite got on the gold band. I it was one of those things I intended to do because I could see it was coming. I wasn't convinced that it was eminent at that point. Our debt was still low enough to GDP that there was a way to get out. And the Fed though, this we're never willing to pay the price. We're never willing. It's the the analogy that I like is it's like somebody that that is an alcoholic and they need to stop drinking, but they don't want to have the hangover. But if you keep drinking enough, eventually you're going to kill yourself. And they just keep drinking more and more and more. That's what happens with dollar printing, right? The worse the debt gets, the more they have to do it. And look, I don't know when it's going to happen. Could the dollar go another 50 years? It could. I I underestimate the Fed's ability to kick the can down the road, but I don't think I don't see how the math works. To your point earlier, there's over a trillion dollars in debt.

[40:23] We only bring in5 trillion a year in tax revenue. I'm sorry, over a trillion dollars a year in interest on the debt. Okay? Like right now, it's something like 25% of our tax revenue goes to paying that interest. And I don't know if you just saw 10 years up, right? They didn't raise rates, but the market is saying, "I don't know about these dollars. You're in a war. Oil's going up and interest rates are going up. That means interest payments are going to go up." Also very interesting and I don't want to take us too far down this. I have been watching Japan like a hawk for years because Japan is further down this road than we do and there's some there's some societal differences and they actually own a bunch of our debt. They they're the biggest holder of US treasuries as Japan, but their debt is terrible. We don't have to go back very many years. Japan actually had negative interest rates like negative a quarter. I think at one point they got to negative half a percent which is insane and then they were at zero and they're one. I just heard Japan's interest rates are now over 4%. And they have basically double the debt that we do. They're cooked. There's unless they cut spending like 80% they can't pay their way out.

[41:36] Think about what happens. And we got to turn this back into tales of abundance, not tales of misery. the um but if if Japan starts going, they're going to sell their dollars, which is going to put more bonds, more supply and demand. The Fed's going to have to print more money. There's really a trigger there and a and a domino effect that happens that Japan, you know, rolls through, not just the economic impact. So, I don't know when it's going to happen. I'm not saying it's going to happen tomorrow, but I am telling you it's inevitable because if you do the I just do encourage you do the math. Do your own research. go on AI and ask it if we keep doing this, how how do we get out? How does this end? It's how it has to end. So for me, I came for freedom money. I like the idea of being able to send money. I remember I remember right before I heard Andreas, I had just sent like $10,000 to a Hong Kong brokerage account to buy some some stocks in that region. And I used to do that fairly frequently before I started buying Well, Chase Bank would charge me a $40 wire fee. It would take nine days and then I wouldn't get 10,000 in my hunt.

[42:45] By the way, it was dollars going to There was no conversion. It would take 9 days, $40. So, I'd send basically 10,040 intending to get 10,000. But what would really show up in my account would be like 9,998. They'd steal between a couple pennies and 10 bucks every time, which has irritated me more than the $40, right? Even though and they would say it was the exchange rate. Well, there was no exchange. We just took dollars and put it in a dollar denominated Hong Kong brokerage account. Okay, with Bitcoin, I thought, "Oh my god, I can send this in seconds all across the world for like and it's there instantly or close close enough to instantly." That was a big part for me and I I just I saw the freedom and the sovereignty and being your own bank and I already knew the banks were a middleman that I wanted out of my life and they didn't need to take a cut of everything. So for me, it really was about a new financial system.

[43:49] I was hoping it was going to be easier. This might be a 25, 50, 100year process of changing the system, but I think it will happen and it's going to create freedom and abundance in the world. The faster it can happen, the better, you know, and so it was a way to diversify. It was my, you know, at that point, Anthony, the US dollar was still my plan A. Bitcoin was my plan B. Those Hong Kong stocks or Asian stocks primarily were my plan C and then I started buying some gold and silver miners that were my plan D. I have since sold Bitcoin has become my plan A. The C and the D I got I got rid of I sold those to buy more Bitcoin. Even real estate, I sold a condo to buy more Bitcoin. M it's again it's just math. Nobody can print more of it. That's the big thing, right? We don't know how many dollars there's going to be tomorrow, next week. Certainly not next year or 10 years from now. We just know there's going to be more of them because they keep printing. — And that's where inflation really comes from. I do know there will never be more than 21 million Bitcoin.

[44:55] — The reason I got into Bitcoin, you know, I've I have a traditional portfolio of stocks and bonds that's managed conservatively. Frankly, if you look at and you mentioned gold and silver as other hedges against inflation, I didn't get into gold and silver either. Even though my uncle Tony when I was in high school and gold was at, you know, a $300 said, "You should be investing in gold. It's it's going to go up. It's it's a great place to save your money." But that said, and it's true, if I if I had done that, it would gone up however many% it's gone up since 300 to 5,000. But over that same time, you know, the traditional S&P 500 has returned with dividends is well outperformed gold. Um, — no, it hasn't. — No. Yes, it has. It absolutely positively has. — You keep you keep talking. What was the year that What was the year — 1970? If you go back to N we did this the I did it Saturday with my my — You keep you keep going. I'm just telling you we did we did the math on this and it's it's significantly higher since 1970 over both gold and silver.

[46:01] That's that's fine. But the reason I got into Bitcoin while you ch chat GPT it I got into it as a diversification and I'll never you know I bought at a reasonable price and I've made you know significant [snorts] gains on that part of the portfolio more so than I've made in the market during the same period of time. But I didn't buy it for the gains. I bought it as protection against what you're worried about. Uh not for me necessarily because I'm, you know, of an age where it's unlikely that there'll be a a worldwide collapse in my lifetime. But I was worried about my grandkids. You worried me enough that I wanted to have something for th for them, the five of them, just in case. So it was a you know, at one time it was just a couple of percent of my portfolio. So now it's significantly more of a percent of my portfolio because of its growth. But uh that's that was the the singular reason I did it was to protect them just in case. Now my hope is that your fears are unfounded and the government somehow generates enough revenue without collapsing the economy to start paying down it pay. You know England it took a hundred years for England in the 1800s to get rid of their debt. They were in a similar position at the end of the 1700s and it took them almost the entire century to get out of it, but they did get out of it. Now they're right back in it again. Um, you know, I guess they didn't learn their lesson, but that's what wars will make you.

[47:33] — But how did they how did they get how did they get out? — Well, that's how they got in. — No, they got out by spending less than they uh than they took in. So, they cut spending. And the the biggest spending cuts came from not being in any wars. That's really where the trouble starts. You know, Germany, you mentioned Germany earlier. You know, they just printed dollars to fight World War I. And then, excuse me, they spent all their money to fight World War I. And then the Allies demanded reparations. And in order to meet the payments of reparations, Germany had to print uh marks, German marks or whatever they were called back then. And that basically destroyed their economy and they never did pay back the reparations. And then Germany and United States decided and the eur European nations decided to get into another war in World War II. And then when we finished that one, we decided to go to war in Korea. — Those reparations and that broke and that inflation is what led to Hitler, the Nazis, and really in a lot of ways forced them into the war. I mean, there's a there's a I I think history does not represent this well, but England got out when they printed all that money because one, they cut spending. I forget if it was 80 or 90%.

[48:53] They cut spending. That's what Argentina is doing right now is they're cutting spending and it's working. So, there is a way out. I just don't see any appetite. The way the US system is set up and the way corporations and lobbyists and all these people, the way that these politicians get super rich, right? They make 170,000 a year and they have 10 2050 hundred million dollar net worths. That's insane. Um and that they are so incentivized to make themselves rich that I don't see any stomach for us to have cut spending like that. It's I just don't think it's going to happen. And by the way, England also got incredibly lucky. It was the industrial went through the — productivity went through the roof and they cut spending 80 or 90%. Now, we could have the greatest industrial this this could make the industrial revolution look like a little kid's tea party. Okay? Like what AI could do, we could have massive we might be the luckiest people ever. Anthony, I'm less we are going to default on the debt and we could be so lucky our generation that if AI, robotics, all these things, increased energy creates all this abundance that it may not be as painful as we want. And I will also tell you for me personally wealth-wise that would be really really beneficial for me and I absolutely do not want that world. I hope we avoid that cuz I'll be okay either way and millions and millions and millions of people are going to struggle if that go if that happens, right?

[50:31] Because most people don't have Bitcoin or something. They don't have another asset. Even the stock market, right? Lots of people don't own stocks. That's stocks aren't going to perform like Bitcoin, but they will perform. You know, they'll perform plenty well. By the way, let me uh let me just share you a little screen here because you're not going to believe me otherwise. You're not going to like this. Um according to the chat GPT, I asked that if I b,000 in gold in 1970, what would I have today? And if I put Oh crap, a hundred. Um oops. You got to make sure you say include dividends. — Yeah. Here. Okay. So, including dividends. You are right. — I am right. I know. I I went through this with my son-in-law on — You're right. I'm — son-in-law on on Saturday and I were having this discussion and he's hoarding um not hoarding. He's buying uh gold and silver solely and I'm trying to get him to diversify into some Bitcoin as well because he has the same belief. he's doing it for exactly the same reasons you got into Bitcoin. Um, so and he also believes that with silver that there's going to be um a shortage of the actual material because of all the things silver is used in, you know, so may or may not be.

[51:51] — Yes. Okay. So, you know, and look, it doesn't have to be Bitcoin. Gold will work. He'll be okay. He'll do better with Bitcoin, but he'll do fine with gold and silver, by the way. If I wasn't buying Bitcoin, I would probably be buying energy. And I think the need for energy in these data centers and all like somewhere I would be playing that game. It might even be copper wire, but it would be real things that are going to keep being valuable no matter how much money they print. Right. So, well, let's let's talk about what has changed since you first got into Bitcoin. Nothing's really nothing significant has changed other than you know Bitcoin be has become mainstream. It's you know there is an acceptance of it and you know the the great banker Jamie Diamond I think he called it a shell game or something. He had some you know some derogatory statements on it as did many others. Chase is buying Bitcoin faster than it can you know lend out the money. So suddenly his mega bank is in with these individuals, you know, this revolution really. And that's what that's that's the way I looked at at it.

[53:05] It it was it was a revolution and now it's mainstream. You know, Black Rockck, you name it. You mainstream amongst the very rich, by the way, these big corporations, the billionaires, which is a little disconcerning for me, right? Because I came into it for freedom money. I don't really want to be on the same team as Black Rockck, but here I am. And one of the things we always say in Bitcoin is it's it's good for you. It's good for your enemies. Nobody, you know, nobody can take it away. And it was inevitable. We said this was going to happen. It's just a little uncomfortable now that, you know, Black Rockck and Chase and all these people are playing the same game. But if you listen to billionaires, I don't know what percentage own Bitcoin now, but it's a it's it's high. like a high high percentage of them are are putting more and more into it. — Why would it's become a trading asset? It it wasn't a trading asset in the initial well in the very very beginning when people first got into it. Um you know that went from $8 to $800. People sold it at $800 to buy a car or pizza or whatever the heck they're buying. I know those folks, they call it an $80,000 pizza now, I think, is is something that some people have said because that same eight bucks is worth 80 grand now. Um, — well, I think it's worth more than that.

[54:24] I think that was 10,000 Bitcoin, — Maybe. I don't know. — I think it's like a billion dollar. I think it's like a billion. — So, whatever the whatever the case, it's a mainstream. It's like Apple stock, you know, it's people are buying Bitcoin ETFs. They're trading it. They're getting in, they're getting out. And that's I think one of the advantages and disadvantage. They can work both ways. You know, it's people are trading the volatility is there because, you know, if it goes up now, you have um Black Rockck who's got it isn't a person trading and it's a AI bot or agent trading it every day. And if it goes up by, you know, half a percent, they they go and grab some gains and then they hedge it going down. It's become, like I said, just a regular tradable asset. So, it's mainstream, which is which is good for me because if if I ever if I ever needed it, I could sell it and get my money and be done with it. But, um, that's not why I have So, I think a good way to sum up what you're saying there, too, is that, you know, whether it's Jamie Diamond or whoever, by the way, Black Rockck was against it early on. Larry Frink had terrible things to say. Then, Larry Frink became one of the biggest advocate. Michael Sailor, who owns more Black Rockck, their company owns an insane amount of Black Rockck of Bitcoin, right? He first came out and tweeted this will never work, right? And that it's going it's that it it was and then did more research and the saying is you don't change Bitcoin, Bitcoin changes you. And so many people have tried to bend Bitcoin. They've tried to ban it. They've tried to they've tried to do anything they could to change Bitcoin and they're never successful.

[56:03] But people that eventually they come around and I look at this look at this a lot like when gunpowder came around, right? The samurai were these fierce warriors that nobody could beat, but they would not embrace gunpowder. And then other people came in and killed all the samurai because they wouldn't embrace gunpowder. Similar thing happened when the whole world went to gold and China chose silver. China got run over because they picked they picked the wrong horse. And I think the same thing's happening in Bitcoin is that people fight it, they fight it, and then eventually you're either going to embrace it or you're going to get run over by it. And maybe that's not today, but the earlier you embrace it, the more benefit you'll get in the long run. But so for me, what's really changed is I came in for freedom money and and how to spend it. And with this thought of I'd be able to buy coffee with it. And it really has become more of a store of value. I think we need to get back to the freedom money and the spending and I think both things need to happen. But the stuff like I said earlier, the power plants and bringing power to millions of people in Africa and around the world and all of those things I think are the real some of the really coolest thing or people that are fleeing, you know, any warn torn country or any place that they're trying to get away with their wealth and them being able to take their wealth with them. I mean, it's really changing lives in ways that I didn't necessarily think of. So, let's put a let's put a bow on this thing, Anthony.

[57:28] You know, I think stable coins have a they have a place. They're new rails. They're payment rails. They're faster. I think they're actually safer than the banks in my opinion. But you may not trust Tether more than you trust, you know, whatever your local bank is. But Bitcoin is a whole new system. It is isn't a way to replace the current system entirely where stable coins are just building on top of it, right? And it's it's permissionless money. Listeners, download, subscribe, tell your friends, and we will talk to you after the break with the abundance — Here are Tales of Abundance. We know that fitness is just as important as money or milestones. It's one of our five Fs, but lots of other things. Taking care of my body while I build my life is one of the more timeconuming and difficult goals to chase. That's why we're partnering with AG1. It's a daily drinkable habit less than a minute that's formulated with 75 plus vitamins and nutrients and designed to support energy, digestion, and immune defense. It even has a few grams of protein uh that we're all chasing these days. And if you want to try it with our affiliate link, you'll also receive a free AG1 flavor sampler plus vitamin D3 plus K2 with your welcome kit when you first subscribe. A $72 value. Go to shop.drip Anthony during the break. I don't get didn't find his way back from the bathroom and John made made it in. So, — well, welcome to this episode, John. I mean, well, I made I made it all the way back, which is great. You know, 3 minutes it could be dangerous.

[59:07] — There you go. So, let's talk about the IPO race that's going on. I mean, this is really something going on. Like, like there SpaceX is the big one. Let's start there. Like, we're, you know, reportedly they're targeting a $ 1.75 valuation in June. I mean, I've heard people predicting it's going to go to two. Some people say it's worth 1.5. I mean, I don't know. You start throwing around a quarter of a trillion, pretty soon you have some real money. I mean, you know what? What are your what are your thoughts on this? Like, like I — yeah, I mean, look, I I think I think you look at just just to kind of give reference, you know, Bitcoin has 1.5 trillion in value out there right now. — Apple 4 and a half trillion. You know, Google four and a half almost five trillion. Berkshire 1 trillion. And so I think, you know, I heard someone say that that this, you know, SpaceX was going to be a referendum on Elon Musk, but when when they did that deal with I don't think that's true anymore. I think it's really about it's a bet on compute. It's a bet on AI. It's a bet on SpaceX is the name of the company, but it holds a lot of technologies.

[1:00:21] — Tell people tell people listening what you mean about the deal with with Anthropic. Well, I think you know there's two massive data centers that Elon has built and is building and he Grock wasn't getting the utilization of all of that. It just didn't need all of it and so he sold that compute and energy to Anthropic. Anthropic has soaked it all up, you know, contractually. I think the number I heard was that Anthropic is going to be paying $1.25 billion per month. — For that compute roughly per year contract. So 15 billion a year in extra revenue from that. — Yeah. Yeah. And so I think I think it's it's a really interesting. So I mean there there's a couple things going on here. One is like you know what is the actual valuation of a tech company of that size? Like I think I think and you know can we see multiples that far in the future has been one of the questions I hear about the public markets on a regular basis from kind of nonwall street people. and and then uh you know I think one of the assumptions about AI is that everything gets easier if you keep doing the same amount of work.

[1:01:23] Never in history have we created technology where the amount of work stayed the same. We've always increased the workload. So I I think it's super interesting and I think you know that uh I'm I'm I'm happy and excited to see the public markets doing some of these things. There's some real questions about how much liquidity is in the market. How much can the market soak up? I think a lot is probably the answer. There's been a lot of money on the sidelines for a long period of time from my perspective as a non- insider. You know, I don't know that much about Wall Street. And then I think the other thing that's really interesting is, you know, how important is it going to be to be first to liquidity that that liquidity market like how important will it be that you know, I think SpaceX probably gets there first. I think Enthropic is is ready to file all their paperwork to try to start get trading and I think Open AI is now cleared to go to. So, it's going to be interesting. — Yeah. Well, to your point, I mean, they're coming, right? Anthropic, they're talking about another trillion dollar company and then open a I another trillion. And again, maybe it's 800 billion, maybe it's 1.2 trillion or whatever, wherever that range is. There's three new trillion dollar companies potentially, plus some of these other companies.

[1:02:30] Cerebras, I'd never even heard of them until a couple days ago, and I just listened to an interview with their their CEO, uh, you know, that's in the data center thing and made a little different little different play. So there's a lot of money flowing into a lot of things. And to your point, is there that much right now? I think they're about ready to print money like a drunken sailor. I think they are forcing themselves into a corner where they have no choice. But and that money will flow into the market. But it it is going to be very interesting. I mean, how long was it? Was it Apple that was the first trillion dollar company, right? And — wasn't that like 2020 is all like it was — it's pretty it's pretty fast. you know, and we see that that kind of acceleration happening on the finance side, kind of like we've seen it happen with Moors law on the technology side. I think the you know, I to me I'm hopeful because I think this means that you're going to see more technology available to more people is my hope. I I you know I think right now um and I am concerned about a widening gap between the has and have nots on a lot of levels financially, technologically. My hope is that this makes it you know easier. I think part of the challenge though is that, you know, those companies have been subsidizing users from a cost perspective. We saw this happen with software as a service years ago where all of a sudden prices jumped massively and we're already starting to see that.

[1:03:46] And so, yeah, it I'm very fascinated to watch this. I'm hopeful that it means great things for our society. I think we're going to be solving bigger important problems as we go. And I think that I think that's our next topic. But yeah, I I'm enthusiastic and I'll keep watching enthusiastically. — All right. Well, let's go. Let's let's go to the next one. This one is fascinating. It's a little hard to explain, but the gist of it or the big picture is Open AI. Now, this was an internal model, not the model you and I have, right? Us mere plebs. But the open AI internal model cracked an 80year-old math assumption. And it's basically about how many plots you can put on a map. And they thought that doing a grid was the best. And this has just been accepted and other stuff built upon this for 80 years. It turns out AI proved this wrong. And it not just wrong, like they found out there's many better ways to do it, right? It's it's literally solving math. We've talked about this before and I think both Anthony and I were like, I don't we both had a hard time getting our heads around what does it mean to solve math? And I'm still not sure I have it. But but they're pro they proved this thing wrong. It's 80 years old. So what says you? What's Dr. John?

[1:04:55] I think look this is a this is really interesting about like you know how many dots can you put one unit apart on a on an infinite plane and what's the best layout for that for and and so I wouldn't even know how to conceptualize beginning to look at that problem and my understanding is that AI found not one but like a ton of better answers. — And so what what does that mean for like here are the things that that I hope for. I think we can then take this and say, hey, based on what we know about people, maybe we can figure out what is going to happen with drugs more effectively. And maybe we don't get to the answer of yes, this drug will work for this, but we can at least rule out a whole bunch of things we know that it won't work. Or I was talking to a doctor yesterday and it's, you know, one of the cool things is that if if we get really clear about one individual person, maybe we can get closer to understanding how something's going to work for that person as a digital twin. Like I think like the whole concept of digital twin u whether it's a digital twin for a person or a community or you know whatever I think this opens up a lot of possibilities maybe and it's not just about uh being able to do this but it's about being able to do it cost-effectively and so if we can keep driving the cost of this digital twin idea down boy I think that makes for a lot of positive things you know my Randy my dad died of renal cell carcinoma in 1984 I was 11 years old I have a friend who was diagnosed post in the as who's alive and kicking, you know, 20 years later and has a really great prognosis.

[1:06:25] So just from 84 to 2007, so what is that 16 22 years later? Totally different prognosis for the same disease, right? And so what happens if we can accelerate that? And and that causes a whole series of other questions we've got to get answered. were difficult. But as like looking back to my 11-year-old kid, like like I I certainly wish we'd had better technology then. — Yeah. It's I mean you start changing like like what's interesting to me about this, right? This is something that many many humans evidently like mathematicians this is something they have put eyeballs on and there was just an obvious answer that you you put these out as a grid that everybody just thought oh yeah that's logical that's right and nobody's questioned it right or if anybody questioned it nobody was smart enough to prove it wrong whatever and you know I don't think this is that consequential that we were building a lot of other math on top of it but maybe we were but I think this happens you know you know this is one of my sticking points is we have all these things that that are considered truth and that's the exact opposite of science, right?

[1:07:30] Science is you're supposed to be questioning and coming up with new thesis trying to prove things wrong. And I think this is fascinating and and the breakthroughs like who knows where we're stuck because we made we just made a left turn when we should have made a right. Not not anybody meant bad. They thought they figured it out and they didn't. I mean I I think it's through — Yeah. I think I but I do think I do think it's like made a right turn but should have made a deeper right turn or a different right turn. Like I think that's the thing about science is there are sometimes that science goes 180 degrees the other way. That happens but more often it takes it further the same direction and we learn more and more and more about it. So I think you know I never want to be so so worried about the next scientific breakthrough that it that it paralyzes me from what I need to do today. But to your point like what will this unlock right for a whole bunch of other thing and and and my hope I don't have any evidence of this yet but my hope is that it's going to unlock quite a bit in terms of like personalization of medicine as a place where I'm really passionate and I think that's going to be a big unlock. I think there's other things too where we just you know people are going to be able to continue to take large quantities of information and synthesize it. I do think one of the challenges with AI is we're creating more content. It's like it's like camera phones, right? More pictures taken last year than all of human history combined was a thing that was said several years ago. And so it's like we're going to be creating more content in a year than we've created in all of human history at some point probably in the near future. We've got to be careful because consuming that content and making sure that content is valid becomes a real issue.

[1:09:00] — Well, look, I I I should probably make something clear. I think that the way science is going in any given direction, we should keep building there, right? Yeah. But we should be building in every direction like let the free market work in the scientific community. The free market is one of the most amazing things in the universe that no human actually understands no matter how much of an economist they think they are. It's it's beyond comprehension. So if it's a if it's a certain drug like I'm I'm going to take cancer which is one that's dear to my heart rate lately. All of the research pretty much goes into better ways to do chemo because there's no money in all of these other methods and and it just they keep going down that direction and that's fine. Keep making chemo better. I'm I'm 100% in favor. Right. However, they should be there should be money and effort and energy going in a hundred or a thousand different drugs. — Let's Yeah. on different on a different episode. Let's let's ask about basic research versus applied research. Like those that's a really important question we haven't touched on yet. It's for a different episode. Here's what I'm also excited about. The scientific method and and the amount of peer review that in my view has become less rigorous than it was years past. I think this type of of view will hopefully increase the rigor for science, which I'm I'm a huge fan of. So, — all right, let's move to speaking speaking of alternative views. Let's let's jump into this next one about alternative views. I'm really excited about al alternatives.

[1:10:27] — I mean, really, John, this is building on what we just talked about. Demis has I don't know. I I don't want to butcher the man's name, but anyway, the super genius AI Demis Hazabus, he says that AGI is going to cure all disease. And he originally he was saying it was like 2030 or beyond. Now he thinks by 2029 that this could actually happen. We could just cure all disease. And that's a lot of what we just talked about, right? Curing math, curing science. Like when you start getting — here's the deal. Like I'm I'm back to the personalized medicine thing. I'm pretty skeptical about that one in the sense that like could we could we cure every type of cancer for a person? I don't know. Maybe. But like every body is different literally. And so I I just the number of times we've heard we're going to be at Mars by 2021 and then 2022 and then 2025 and like I think AGI is really exciting. I think there's a lot of promise. I think getting people excited about that is a good thing. I think having all disease cured by 2030 like that's cute. I hope I'm wrong by the way. I can't I can't wait till someone comes back in 2030 and pulls up this recording. He's like, "Hey Oberg, look how wrong you were." Like I will absolutely go by Dennis dinner and be like, "Hey man, like my bad." But I just it's hard for me to see that — less concerned with the date, right? And that's if if it's 2029 or it's 2035, it's pretty close or 2040, right? And — even if it's 209, — this guy has not been wrong a lot. I mean, even if it's even if it's 2099 and we just we're moving that direction, like that's the like I would hate to have someone get here's the thing. It's like people are going to be naysayers if someone gets the date wrong or whatever.

[1:12:11] I just think it's the wrong thing to focus on. I think you focus on like what what we are actually doing and all the the things we're it's it's it's amazing. And so if you say things that are debatable or arguable, then you start the argument versus like look how far we're going. Look how many cool things are happening. More gratitude, more more abundant abundance-mindedness. — Yeah. Real simply, let's say we let's say we wiped out 25% of the disease that kills people now or that affects people, right? In that in those five years, like how much better is the world? If we miss this by 75% and we weigh about 25% of disease, that's just a huge huge, you — I mean, look, look at what's happened for like polio and measles and a couple other things like that. If we could knock down 10 more diseases like that in a shorter period of time, like so so much excitement there. So, I really would hate to have the argument be about the date and more about like how do we put more energy into getting the work done. I'm really excited about that, — And our final topic is just going to be a blip. We're going to go real fast. Mexico has is basically creating a landbased rival to the Panama Canal.

[1:13:14] What it is is instead of going through the Panama Canal, which is very slow, backed up. It's quite a thing to actually go look at if you've ever if you've ever been there. But ships take I don't know days or weeks to get through, they are just laid train track. You take it, they offload the ships, they run it on the train across the country real quick, 300 kilometers, load it on another ship, and off they go. I think it's fantastic. It's just, you know, we need a competitor to the Panama Canal because one, it couldn't handle the traffic. Two, they're under bidding Panama and doing this more cheaply. So, congratulations. The cartel is getting more powerful. There's my cynical side for the day. — Yeah, I don't Yeah, listen. I don't want to I don't want to put a target on our back. Look, here's the and and with robotics and unloading and all the cool things we're doing there and you know I I don't know if it's one rail or two rails in parallel where you can send them back and forth. I like I don't know how that works at all, but like how exciting to take, you know, 300 km, right, and say, "Hey, look, we're going to we're going to increase throughput, — right, through rail, we talking about AI, now we're back to rail." Like, — super cool. Like, I just again I I think that my hope is that it it again it narrows the gap for people as it reduces costs for goods. And so, hopefully it does that.

[1:14:28] — And and if anybody wants to know how important this is, look at the straight of her moves, right? like like having one choke point is not a great thing for a global economy. So anyway, — it's great. — That wraps it up. If you're still here, you obviously love us. We're obviously the best. That means go download, subscribe, tell your friends, and until next week, everybody, go out spread a little abundance. — See you, Andy. All right. Bye.