00:00 Thank you’all for being here today. I am
00:02 here to talk to you about money, but
00:07 maybe not in the way that you think I
00:10 would be here to talk to you about
00:12 money. I am here not to sell you
00:15 anything, but I’m here to advocate for a
00:19 money that more accurately reflects the
00:22 value of our work. And I’m going to do
00:26 that by comparing and contrasting the US
00:30 monetary system, which is the system we
00:32 currently use, and the Bitcoin monetary
00:35 system. Um, but before we jump into
00:38 that, I have a very basic question that
00:40 I had to ask myself um before even
00:42 presenting this. And that question is,
00:45 how often do you think about
00:48 money? My guess is a lot. So whether
00:52 it’s shopping, saving, or investing, you
00:55 think about getting up in the morning
00:57 and the reality is you have to decide,
00:59 am I going to buy my lunch? Am I going
01:02 to pack my lunch? Am I going to buy that
01:04 amazing coffee up the street? Or am I
01:06 going to make it at home? So you’re
01:08 making monetary decisions all the
01:11 time, but have you ever taken the time
01:15 to understand how money actually works?
01:19 And as you can see this is this visual
01:21 up here it it looks very complicated but
01:24 the reality is that money its job is
01:28 actually quite simple. Money’s job is to
01:32 accurately reflect the value of your
01:35 work.
01:37 So it’s not just reflecting the value of
01:40 your work in just a sphere of we’re
01:44 talking about systems and we’re talking
01:46 about money and policy and things like
01:48 that. It is very personal because what
01:52 happens to our money affects us. It
01:55 affects our families. It affects our
01:57 entire communities and economies. So I
02:00 will just share two personal experiences
02:03 where my family has been impacted by uh
02:08 mismanagement in the monetary system. So
02:10 in the
02:11 1930s the value of my
02:14 great-grandfather’s work was destroyed
02:16 because of bank mismanagement. And as
02:19 you know 1930s that was the great
02:21 depression. So the vast majority of
02:24 people, if not all, in the US were
02:27 significantly affected by mismanagement
02:30 of the monetary system at the time. So
02:33 let’s let’s fast forward though. That’s
02:35 that’s the um the mismanagement most of
02:39 us remember. We’ve learned about it in
02:41 school. But let’s fast forward to the
02:43 1980s. So in 1986, the value of my
02:47 father’s work was destroyed because of
02:50 government mismanagement. So I don’t
02:53 know how many how many of y’all are
02:55 connected any way to agriculture or
02:57 farming or own land or anything like
02:59 that was nice. Um so you know what goes
03:04 into farming and what happened in the
03:08 1980s was an agricultural crash because
03:13 uh the government had printed too much
03:14 money. It had caused significant
03:17 inflation and they were trying to get a
03:19 hold of inflation by ramping interest
03:22 rates up. So when my father was farming,
03:25 he was looking at 18 plus interest
03:29 rates. And we’re not talking about, oh,
03:32 my dad’s going to go out and buy a
03:33 Ferrari. We’re talking about interest
03:35 rates on seed, interest rates on
03:38 equipment, interest rates on fertilizer,
03:41 all of those things that you have to
03:43 take out a loan for to put food on our
03:46 tables, right? So, my dad lost
03:49 everything in that crash that it would
03:51 have been the equivalent of about $3
03:53 million today simply because of
03:57 mismanagement of the money. So, at the
03:60 end of the day, it was all about the
04:02 money.
04:05 But it’s helpful to step back and say,
04:07 okay, well, if we have to trust all
04:10 these big players with our money and
04:12 what’s happening with the system itself,
04:14 let’s ask, why do we even need money?
04:16 Maybe we can just opt out of the system.
04:19 Well, let’s see. Money actually makes it
04:23 easier to trade what you have for what
04:26 you
04:27 want. So, for example, I have eggs. Joel
04:31 has a cow.
04:32 That would be hard to trade, right?
04:34 Although with the with the price of eggs
04:37 right
04:38 now. Maybe it wouldn’t be as hard as we
04:41 think. Yeah. One to one. Um, so that’s
04:44 hard to trade. It’s hard to trade a cow
04:46 for a house or definitely a house for
04:48 eggs. So money solves that problem. It
04:51 makes it easier to trade. So that’s what
04:55 money does. It values our work by
04:57 empowering us to purchase what we need
04:59 and want so that we don’t have to trade
05:01 things anymore. We don’t we don’t have
05:03 to have a bartering
05:05 system. But money doesn’t operate alone.
05:08 Money operates within a system. Just
05:11 like what I mentioned before, we have
05:12 the US monetary system and the Bitcoin
05:14 monetary system. Those are operating
05:15 within a system. But what does the
05:18 monetary system do? Well, it creates,
05:21 distributes, and regulates the money.
05:25 And this is really important right here
05:27 because in the US monetary system, the
05:31 US dollar is what’s being created,
05:33 distributed, and regulated. With
05:36 Bitcoin, in the Bitcoin monetary system,
05:40 Bitcoin is being created, distributed,
05:44 and regulated. So, whenever you hear
05:46 Joel or me or anyone talk about Bitcoin,
05:49 we could be referring to Bitcoin the
05:51 monetary system or Bitcoin the money
05:55 because it functions as both and it has
05:56 the same name. I don’t I don’t know why
05:58 they did that, but that’s what they
06:00 did. All right. So, the US dollar is the
06:03 money in the US monetary system. So,
06:06 let’s talk about the big players within
06:08 the US monetary system. There’s the
06:09 banks, the central bank, and the
06:13 government. These are all major players
06:16 that are managing our money. And of
06:19 course, we have taxes.
06:20 So that goes without saying. So a
06:23 monetary system has to manage two
06:25 things. Who owns what money and the
06:28 total amount of money. So we can think
06:31 of this as a spreadsheet. I don’t know
06:33 about you, but sometimes my eyes cross
06:35 looking at spreadsheets, but I promise
06:36 this is going to be a simplified a
06:39 simplified spreadsheet. So, let’s look
06:41 at the US dollar system spreadsheet
06:44 first. This number is the only number
06:47 most people think about my money. How
06:49 many dollars do I
06:52 have? But dollars in the system is also
06:57 just as important. Now, why is that
06:60 true? Because it determines what my
07:03 dollars can buy. It determines my
07:06 purchasing power. So if you take my
07:08 dollars, divide them by all the dollars
07:11 in the system, it determines what stuff
07:14 I can
07:16 buy. So if I have $100, there’s $1,000
07:19 in the system. I’m able to buy 10% of
07:23 the stuff in the system. So what happens
07:26 when dollars in the system goes
07:28 up? If that
07:30 increases, my purchasing power falls. So
07:34 it’s fallen by half. I’m down to
07:36 5% of what dollars can buy
07:40 now. So, we can ask the question, well,
07:43 how many dollars are there exactly?
07:45 Because it changes the value of the
07:48 dollars that I
07:50 have. Well, currently there are $22
07:54 trillion in the system. So, right now,
07:58 $100 can buy a one gram set of gold
08:02 earrings. I know those are kind of hard
08:03 to see, but it’s just a little two
08:04 little stud earrings. So, $100 can buy
08:07 you one gram set of gold
08:09 earrings. But has the US dollar supply
08:12 always been 22 trillion? And has a $100
08:15 always bought this much? That may seem
08:18 like an obvious question because I know
08:20 many of us remember days when, you know,
08:22 gas was under a dollar and things like
08:24 that, but it’s worth looking at.
08:28 The US prints 7% more dollars on average
08:32 every
08:34 year. So the numbers of dollar or the
08:37 number of dollars in the system has
08:39 grown 75 times since
08:44 1960. So in 1960 there were $286 billion
08:48 dollar in the system and $100 bought 88
08:53 grams of gold. So that that’s a
08:55 significant difference of what of
08:57 purchasing power in the 60s as opposed
08:59 to now. So when that number is rising,
09:03 our purchasing power is
09:05 falling. Printing money is a major
09:08 reason why you see all of these prices
09:10 rising across the board of going to the
09:13 grocery store. It doesn’t matter if
09:14 you’re buying a house, whatever you’re
09:16 doing, prices have risen just across the
09:19 board. So we’ll use we’ll use a Big Mac
09:22 as an example. Hopefully hopefully the
09:24 restaurant we’re in won’t mind too much.
09:27 Um the price of Big Mac from 1968 it was
09:31 45 cents. Now it’s up to
09:34 $529. So that has gone up 12
09:37 times. And Campbell Soup has gone up 10
09:41 times. So the same stuff is more
09:44 expensive. All of these things have
09:45 increased in
09:48 price. But wait, there is a caveat here.
09:52 Hasn’t that number gone up? Haven’t
09:55 wages gone up? Well, yes, but also no.
10:00 They have gone up, but they have only
10:03 gone up half as much as inflation. So,
10:08 what you’ve got now is your wages by
10:10 half as much soup and Big Macs as they
10:14 did in 1975. You are working the same
10:18 hours. you were doing the same work, but
10:21 you can only buy half of what you did
10:23 back
10:25 then. So, we have so much more money in
10:28 the system now, but why don’t we feel
10:31 wealthier even though we have more money
10:33 in the system? Well, as Adam Smith said,
10:36 wealth does not consist in money, but in
10:40 what money purchases. We’ve known that
10:42 since 1776, so quite a while.
10:47 So a de decrease in your purchasing
10:49 power it equals a decrease in the value
10:52 of our work. And that’s something that
10:55 has really uh struck me as as I’ve
10:59 engaged with Bitcoin, as I’ve engaged
11:01 with the US monetary system, as I’ve
11:04 seen my my family’s history in this. The
11:08 reality was it wasn’t just money that my
11:12 great-grandfather and my dad lost. It
11:14 was their work. It was a lifetime of
11:17 work put into the land, a lifetime of
11:19 work put into the bank. So, it’s it’s
11:22 the value of our work that’s being um
11:25 that’s being harmed here. So, what’s
11:28 going on? So, let’s let’s break this
11:30 down just a little bit. Well, banks keep
11:33 spreadsheets with all the green numbers
11:35 of my money. Each bank records who owns
11:37 what.
11:39 Federal Reserve makes sure two people
11:41 don’t own the same dollars. So, they’re
11:43 keeping track of all the money in the
11:46 system. And it’s actually a giant
11:49 spreadsheet or a database. It just runs
11:51 on computers and they keep track of all
11:53 the dollars in the system, even the ones
11:55 in your
11:58 pocket. But how do those dollars in the
12:01 system change? That’s a that’s
12:04 definitely a question worth asking. So,
12:07 we have a Federal Reserve Board of
12:08 Governors and we have Jerome Powell as
12:11 the head of that chair and
12:15 literally he can click a mouse button
12:19 and he can change that number to
12:22 whatever number he wants. Now, he’s not
12:24 going to call it printing money, but
12:27 that’s in effect what it’s doing. There
12:29 are all sorts of of uh different
12:31 reasonings behind that money is printed
12:35 but it in effect it is hurting your
12:38 purchasing power in the way that he is
12:40 in the way that he does it. So if the
12:43 dollars in the system go up easily my
12:45 purchasing power decreases quickly and
12:47 as the number of dollars go up the value
12:50 of the dollar goes down. So in 1935 a
12:55 dollar was worth a dollar.
12:58 today down by 95% it’s worth 5 cents
13:03 which is just a significant loss when it
13:06 comes to the value of our
13:08 money. So could we tie this number uh
13:11 the number of dollars to gold? Yes, we
13:13 have tried that before in the US
13:15 monetary system. We tried making a paper
13:17 promise for gold where literally a $10
13:20 bill would say there is deposited in the
13:22 treasury 10 $10 worth of gold coins. So
13:26 you could literally take your money and
13:29 get gold for it. But in 1971, the US
13:34 government broke that promise and took
13:36 us off the gold
13:39 standard. So now $10 is $10. It’s it’s
13:43 the paper it’s printed on. So what about
13:47 different governments? Well, I have I
13:48 have good news and bad news in that
13:50 regard. Um, the US dollar is actually
13:55 the strongest currency in the world
13:57 right now. So, obviously, I’m sure
14:00 everyone knows this that every country
14:02 prints its own money out. So, you know,
14:04 if I’m going to go to Britain, I’m going
14:06 to have to exchange my US dollars for
14:08 for British pounds. So, everyone is
14:10 printing their own money out, but the
14:12 money that they print um is not even as
14:16 strong as the US dollar. So when you
14:19 look at how much value we’ve lost, it’s
14:22 significant in other even more
14:24 significant in other parts of the world.
14:26 So the dollar is still king right now,
14:29 but that’s that’s having an impact on us
14:32 and the entire
14:34 world. So are there any other options?
14:36 Well, this is presumably why you’re here
14:38 because I have the great news of saying
14:41 there is another option and that option
14:45 is Bitcoin.
14:48 But what exactly is Bitcoin? Well, we
14:52 mentioned this a little bit earlier that
14:53 Bitcoin is a monetary system and it runs
14:57 on software and it creates its own money
14:60 again called
15:03 Bitcoin. So, it works like a
15:06 spreadsheet that runs on
15:08 computers and it keeps track of my
15:11 Bitcoin. If only I had 10 Bitcoin right
15:14 now. I think it’s at 103,000 per
15:17 Bitcoin. That would be really nice. But
15:20 um it keeps track of my Bitcoin and your
15:23 Bitcoin and it limits the total Bitcoin
15:28 in the system to 21 million. Anybody
15:31 remember what the total amount of US
15:33 dollars in the system
15:36 was? 22 trillion. So this has a hard cap
15:40 of 21 million and it cannot be
15:46 increased. All right. So Bitcoin
15:48 software has hardcoded rules about who
15:52 owns what and to enforce that 21 million
15:56 limit. Now this is a very important
15:59 point because when we were looking at
16:01 the US monetary system, do you remember
16:03 the big players in that system? Right?
16:06 the banks, the Federal Reserve and the
16:09 government. Bitcoin automates that. So,
16:12 Bitcoin as a monetary system is not
16:15 being manipulated by individuals or
16:19 organizations or governments. It’s
16:22 hardcoded to
16:24 automate these uh these rules that it
16:27 essentially lives by. So, it’s an
16:28 important distinction between how these
16:31 two monetary systems function. So the
16:34 two two main rules are who owns what and
16:36 to enforce that 21 million limit. So
16:38 first rule all right ownership of
16:41 Bitcoin is protected by encryption keys.
16:45 Now if you have further questions about
16:48 encryption keys then at the end of this
16:50 I will hand them over to Joel because
16:53 how this works is too genius for me. Um,
16:56 I have looked into it and it’s it’s
16:58 incredible the way that the encryption
17:01 keys work. But the main thing you need
17:03 to remember is that it would take all
17:05 the computers in the world a billion
17:07 trillion billion trillion years to crack
17:11 one Bitcoin key. Now, if you use a third
17:16 party, you know, that that is a
17:18 different story as far as how that
17:21 works. So things like third parties can
17:24 be hacked. But in self-custody with your
17:26 own encryption keys, it’s it’s basically
17:29 unhackable as as Joel would say. All
17:32 right. So the computers running Bitcoin
17:34 software, they connect to each other and
17:37 they make exact copies. So there’s not
17:40 just one overall spreadsheet keeping
17:42 track of that. all the computers on all
17:44 the networks are keeping track of it
17:48 until there’s over a 100,000 Bitcoin
17:50 computers running uh running the network
17:52 and they have all the same
17:55 numbers. So if I have a key, I can send
17:58 or spend my
18:00 Bitcoin and the numbers change on every
18:03 computer. Again, not a centralized
18:05 computer, every computer that is running
18:07 the Bitcoin software. All right, rule
18:10 number two, the enforcing the 21 million
18:12 limit. So, this is from the White House.
18:14 The Bitcoin protocol permanently caps
18:17 the total supply of Bitcoin at 21
18:20 million coins and has never been hacked.
18:23 The White House has done its homework
18:26 and this is what they’ve this is what
18:28 they’ve said. So, it’s never been hacked
18:30 and it limits that
18:32 supply. So, 21 million is all the
18:34 Bitcoin. No one can make more if they
18:36 try to. Bitcoin is hardcoded to
18:40 disconnect them. So they’re over here
18:43 with their little spreadsheet in their
18:44 system all by themselves. There’s no no
18:47 connection that’s happening
18:49 there. All right. So the value of
18:51 Bitcoin is going up as more people adopt
18:54 it and the money in the dollar system is
18:58 losing
18:59 value. So money in the Bitcoin system is
19:02 gaining value. But, and this is a very
19:05 important question to interact with,
19:07 Bitcoin’s price is volatile. I’ll just
19:10 tell y’all a little story. When uh when
19:12 Joel gave me, you know, he he
19:15 periodically gives gives Bitcoin away
19:17 and I think he gave me $30 and uh when I
19:20 opened my account, it was like you have
19:22 $30 and then suddenly it was $29.99 and
19:25 then suddenly and then suddenly it was
19:28 30.05 or something like that. So, you
19:31 know, I say that to say don’t let that
19:34 make you nervous. You’re just able to
19:37 see in real time what the market’s
19:40 doing, which is pretty incredible uh to
19:43 be able to do. So, let’s talk about that
19:45 volatility, though, so that y’all have
19:47 the confidence to be able to see what’s
19:50 going on here. All right. Where does
19:53 that price volatility come from? Well,
19:55 we’re still extremely early in the
19:57 adoption cycle. We’re at 3% of adoption.
20:01 Um, Bitcoin in 2025 is at 3%. So, that’s
20:04 like online banking in 96. I I don’t
20:07 know anyone who did online banking in
20:09 96, but I wasn’t thinking about it at
20:11 the time. Then, um, social media in 2005
20:14 and the internet in 1990. So, all of
20:17 those technologies have changed the
20:19 world, but it took time for them to
20:22 change the world. So, we’re just very
20:25 early in the adoption phase. Another
20:27 thing to keep in mind is how volatile
20:29 the world is. It’s incredibly volatile.
20:33 There are things going on all over the
20:36 world. But the US dollar is actually a
20:39 big player in all the things that are
20:42 going on in the world. So the US dollar
20:43 right now is
20:45 18% of the entire world’s money. Again,
20:49 US dollar uh is is used by other nations
20:52 as well.
20:54 So the US dollar is like a large ship in
20:57 a large ocean. The dollar is sinking
21:02 slowly and Bitcoin in comparison is only
21:07 1.3% of the world’s money. So again,
21:10 back to that volatility
21:12 issue. Bitcoin is a little bit like a
21:14 small little boat in the ocean. It is
21:18 getting there and it is growing, but
21:21 right now you’re going to feel it.
21:22 You’re going to feel the ups and the
21:25 downs. Yes, smaller systems go up and
21:28 down more easily. Larger systems are
21:30 more
21:31 stable, but Bitcoin will get there. It’s
21:34 just going to take time. So, when in
21:37 doubt, zoom out. And this is very
21:39 important to keep in mind again as you
21:41 see that volatility kind of going up and
21:43 down. All right, this is Bitcoin’s price
21:46 history every day. You can see all the
21:48 jagged edges there. uh the drops and the
21:51 and the um the higher points as well.
21:55 But look at it. Every year that’s
21:57 starting to smooth out. Every two years
22:01 we’re pulling back even more. It’s
22:02 smoothing out even more. Three years.
22:05 And as you notice, it’s all uphill. It’s
22:08 going up in value. And four years,
22:11 you’ve just got a nice smooth line
22:14 there. All right. This is uh as Joel
22:17 mentioned at the last meeting. This is
22:19 this is one of his favorite quotes and
22:21 it has really grown on me because we
22:24 tend to overestimate the effect of a
22:27 technology in the short run and
22:29 underestimate the effect in the long
22:32 run. So, one of the things, especially
22:36 for for you guys who’ve never really
22:38 interacted with Bitcoin uh before,
22:40 Bitcoin is not a a
22:43 get-richquick scheme. As you can see
22:47 from this PowerPoint, it is a new
22:49 technology that is changing the world.
22:53 But again, that takes time. And so, you
22:57 know, in the long run, being able to
23:00 automate a monetary system, it’s never
23:03 been done before, not in the digital age
23:05 of being able to do that. So, again,
23:08 this is not about some kind of
23:10 get-richqu scheme. You know, you’re not
23:11 going to have a million dollars in your
23:13 bank account tomorrow if you invest in
23:14 Bitcoin today. But the technology and
23:18 the genius behind it is what we’re
23:21 investing in essentially. um it’s the
23:24 solutions that solve so many of the
23:27 problems uh in the monetary system that
23:29 we’re using. So all that to
23:32 say we have something now that my
23:34 great-grandfather and my father never
23:36 had and that is a choice. They were able
23:40 they were forced to uh to use the
23:43 monetary system that they were born
23:46 into.
23:48 um you know and in some ways that worked
23:50 out well, in some ways it was absolutely
23:53 devastating. So it it’s beautiful to me
23:56 that now we have an option that we’ve
23:59 never had in the history of the
24:01 world and that option is Bitcoin, a
24:04 better system and better
24:08 money. Thank you all so much for having
24:11 me.
24:15 If if you want to if you want to learn
24:17 more um we have Joel Bumgar.com live and
24:20 it’s got all of I mean as you know Joel
24:23 has an incredible amount of resources
24:24 that he’s created himself. All of those
24:27 resources are going to be available at
24:28 Joel Bombgar. Also if you are interested
24:32 in just the community of Bitcoin of
24:34 being able to ask real-time questions uh
24:36 feel free to join our um Bitcoin group.
24:39 We have a little Facebook group and that
24:41 way you know we can answer any questions
24:43 you have in in real
