The Next Financial Crisis Could Trigger A Bitcoin Revolution

I have to admit. I'm a reformed Bitcoin skeptic. I spent years bashing the protocol without understanding fully how it worked, despite understanding the need for sound money and, only a couple weeks ago, wrote about why I had a change of heart.

I took that discussion even further last week when I took to the “What Bitcoin Did” podcast to talk for nearly 2 hours about what I like and don’t like about Bitcoin, its community, the wreck that is the monetary system, my thoughts on investing and tons of other conversation.

I talked about why I thought bitcoin could finally become standardized after the next financial crisis, something I have written about: "If you're out there putting in the work, and the only thing you want to do is preserve your wealth, you have a legit beef with monetary policy. You have a legit beef with running $2 trillion deficits. So, if you want to opt-out of that system and you want to get pissed off, the next time there is an Occupy Wall Street, the exit ramp could very well be Bitcoin for a number of reasons."

"Bitcoin is a hell of a lot better than going out and running up GameStop because there's no counterparty, right?" I told host Pete McCormack. "So, you don't have to worry about somebody else not being there to take the trade. Nobody can shut trading off for you; nobody can take your Bitcoin. There's no dilutive danger because nobody's going to go out and issue more of it, and it is, in essence, a way to opt out of the entire system."

I continue: "Your beef is with the fiat system; you're getting f****d because of the fiat system. Your quality of life is diminishing because of the fiat system. It feels horrible when you work a 40-hour week, and you can't afford a Domino's Pizza because of the fiat system. So, you can exit the fiat system a number of ways. Gold is my first preference, but Bitcoin could also work as well. And by the way, when FOMO catches on in Bitcoin like I think it'll probably do into the second half of this year, there's no more supply to meet the FOMO, you know? It's just a bigger bid."

"And what happens when the bid gets bigger? What happens when five million pissed off Occupy Wall Street, GameStop, Wall Street bets—what do they call themselves? R*tards, apes—what happens when five million of those degenerates, term of affection, combined with like the 5 million disgusting, dirty hippies that were living in tents during Occupy Wall Street, combined with the two million people that are still walking around with Ron Paul signs like I am. What happens when all those people join together and join the Bitcoin network?"

I also talked about adoption accelerating from the bitcoin ETFs: "The ETFs are essentially a tacit blessing from regulators. There's no turning back. You know, it's not like the next administration is going to come in and say, 'Wait a second, we f*****d up. We got to take the ETFs off the exchanges.' It's just never going to happen. So now, the question is, okay, you've opened up the RIA funnel, which will be a couple of trillions of dollars into Bitcoin. Bitcoin's market cap is still only whatever, a trillion dollars or 900 billion dollars. So, open up that funnel, right?"

I added my predictions about foreign money and other nation states pouring into bitcoin: "You got this conference that just happened in Dubai last week where you see like all these ultra-rich people, and I don't mean like, 'Hey, I live in a nice mansion in New Jersey, and I drive a Mercedes-Benz.' Like, I have four Bugattis and a pet tiger."

"That is wealth on a different level," I continue. "That is Saudi Aramco wealth. That is, 'I live on top of an oil well' wealth, right? These people are just looking for something to do with their money. They have more money than they know what to do with. They're gold plating water slides at water parks and building entire cities in the middle of the desert."

"If you think some of these guys are not going to allocate $20 billion, $25 billion to their sovereign balance sheets in the Middle East, even if it goes to zero, they don't give a f***. You know, they want to be trendy; they want to be on the next wave, whatever it is. They don't even have to understand it. So, it's almost better that they don't understand it. You know, they just say, 'Alright, well, it's this flashy thing. We want to get some of it. Maybe we'll hold a trillion dollars in gold, 10 billion dollars in Bitcoin.' But I think when that kind of stuff happens, the game theory just takes over, and it's Katie bar the door."

"Jim Chanos said to me sometime years ago, 'You know, this is an unprecedented experiment in monetary policy. We've never done this before.' And so, is it really that ridiculous to think that we're going to have an unprecedented outcome? No, it's not. So, what does an unprecedented outcome mean? It means something is going to happen that we don't expect to happen," I concluded.

That question now is just whether that unprecedented solution involves Bitcoin. You can watch the full interview here:

Articles mentioned in the interview:

QTR’s Disclaimer: I am an idiot and often get things wrong and lose money. I may own or transact in any names mentioned in this piece at any time without warning. I didn’t double check any numbers or figures in this piece and am generally lazy with my research. Contributor posts and aggregated posts have not been fact checked and are the opinions of their authors. Contributor posts and curated content are posted either with the author’s permission or under a Creative Commons license. This is not a recommendation or solicitation to buy or sell any stocks or securities, just my opinions. I often lose money on positions I trade/invest in. Sometimes I just lose money by misplacing it. I’m generally irresponsible. I may add any name mentioned in this article and sell any name mentioned in this piece at any time, without further warning. These positions can change immediately as soon as I publish this, with or without notice. You are on your own. Do not make decisions based on my blog. Do your research elsewhere. I exist on the fringe. The publisher does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information provided in this page. These are not the opinions of any of my employers, partners, or associates. I did my best to be honest about my disclosures but can’t guarantee I am right; I write these posts after a couple beers sometimes. Also, I just straight up get shit wrong a lot. I mention it numerous times because it’s that important that you understand.

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