0:02

What people miss, now I still understand why

0:04

it's so hard, Bitcoin

0:07

is the best savings

0:09

technology that's ever been

0:11

invented. Everyone should be doing

0:13

it. Everyone should

0:15

be doing it. There's

0:18

no left, there's no right, there's no republic, there's

0:20

no democrats, there's in and there is out. Money

0:26

is an asset that exists in the absence of a

0:28

liability. I

0:31

have recently invested

0:33

in. You

0:38

might have known by

0:40

2.1 quadrillion, always like that

0:42

name there, you might know him from, he's talking

0:44

about a lot of interesting projects happening

0:46

with, or not sorry, corporations adding

0:49

Bitcoin to their balance sheets. Another

0:52

CEO, CIO of Morgan Creek

0:54

Capital, Mark Usko, how are you doing

0:56

today? Doing great, doing great, how are

0:58

you all doing? Doing fantastic. This is an

1:00

honor, this is straight up an honor to have Mark Usko

1:02

on the show. Thank you. Yeah,

1:05

Nick's a big fan always bringing you

1:07

up. Alright, so right now you're

1:09

talking about node monkeys a whole lot, we can

1:11

get into that in a second. I'm super excited

1:13

to talk about the dominoes that

1:15

never fell. This is something I talk about on

1:18

this channel a lot, Mark. Yes,

1:20

the promises that we thought were going to play

1:22

out in the Q4 2020. If

1:25

you recall, lots of chatter of,

1:27

oh, inflation's going to be pretty bad.

1:30

These corporations have tons of cash just

1:32

sitting in a bank account doing nothing.

1:35

Well, not doing nothing, losing value

1:37

quarter after quarter, and they have

1:39

a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders.

1:42

And the next thing you know, Michael Saylor is

1:44

doing a big symposium with all these S&P 500

1:46

CEOs. Elon Musk is

1:48

on board. Months later, El Salvador,

1:51

I'm like, this is happening. Apple's

1:53

going to be adding Bitcoin to the balance sheet. Amazon's going

1:55

to be adding it. All these companies are going

1:57

to be adding. I can't wait for these dominoes to fall. big

2:00

the Tesla domino is no

2:02

other domino fell well

2:05

now we're starting to see little dominoes fall am

2:08

I imagining it am I too bullish

2:10

or we might see some serious

2:13

corporations add Bitcoin to its balance sheet in

2:15

2024 what do you think not

2:17

well I clearly I love

2:20

the leading question so uh I

2:23

I've been tweeting about this this week so

2:26

I have recently invested

2:28

in one such corporation uh

2:31

a Japanese corporation called MetaPlanet and

2:35

myself and Jason Fang and a number of others

2:38

so Simon Garovich

2:40

has has run this company for a number of

2:43

years and he realized

2:45

that you know

2:47

the the issue is worse in Japan than it

2:49

is in the US because the

2:51

Japanese yen has been on

2:54

a one-way downward path since

2:56

2011 it went from 85 yen per dollar to 152.7 this morning I mean it's

3:03

just brutal and he finds you know

3:05

what we're we're going to take a

3:07

page out of the the sailor and

3:11

micro strategy playbook and you know

3:13

when when a play works you should run it and

3:16

to your point lots of

3:18

corporations in the United States who are

3:20

sitting on these mountains of cash you

3:22

know Buffett for example but

3:24

Buffett's never going to do it right because

3:26

he calls it it rat poison squared I'm

3:28

like what does that even mean and

3:31

how do you know what rat poison tastes like unless you're a

3:33

rat I'm just kidding around um so

3:36

yes other companies are going to do

3:39

it it'll be smaller I think at

3:41

first and there's probably some

3:43

that have done it but they don't really want

3:45

to talk about it because if it doesn't work

3:47

and and you

3:49

can't have a short time horizon for this you

3:52

have to have a long time horizon and

3:54

you have to have the ability uh in

3:57

the company to uh access

4:00

capital markets to grow. And

4:02

I think that means you have to have

4:05

good reach and good relationships,

4:07

so good management. So I

4:09

think, you know, not every company

4:12

should probably jump right in if you

4:14

don't have people who are well

4:16

versed in the segment. Actually,

4:19

that's not true. Everyone should be doing it. I'm

4:21

just, everyone should be doing it. I was

4:24

gonna say, Marc, I just had a quick question. Japan

4:26

kind of has like a special place in the Bitcoin

4:28

lore. There is a

4:30

ton of, you know, blockchain development there.

4:35

My understanding is, and I'm more of like,

4:38

I'm always gonna be a perpetual student of money. I

4:40

kind of really finally understood it in my

4:42

late 30s. And

4:45

so I understand that, you know,

4:48

the Japanese economy and

4:50

its demographics are

4:52

also in a slide. And Japan

4:55

also, correct me if I'm wrong, they're the

4:57

biggest or second biggest holder of US Treasuries.

5:00

It seems to me that the whole

5:02

US Treasury kind of like time

5:04

bomb has definitely been a

5:07

poison pill to the Japanese economy. Is

5:09

that true or am I not coordinating

5:11

that correctly? No, 100% true. Japan,

5:14

if you go back

5:16

to the late 70s, early

5:18

80s, and you went

5:21

to Harvard Business School, they

5:25

were teaching classes on how to emulate

5:27

Japanese corporations. Absolutely. You know, telling you

5:29

to do the calisthenics in the morning

5:32

and everybody wear the same uniform and

5:35

say, oh, how good is I, in the morning. I

5:37

mean, it was, Japan was it. I

5:39

mean, it was Japan, Inc. And,

5:42

you know, the stock market

5:44

just a couple months ago made

5:47

the old high from 1979. We're

5:50

in 2024, y'all. I mean, that

5:52

was a long time between peaks. And

5:57

so, It's

6:02

this interesting dynamic in that

6:05

demographically, Japan

6:07

is 11 years ahead of the United States.

6:09

So everything that happens in Japan happens

6:11

in America 11 years later. So

6:13

Japan had their—no, I'm sorry, it was 1989, not 1979,

6:15

1989. So

6:20

1989, Japanese stock market peaks,

6:22

2000, 11 years later, U.S. stock

6:24

market peaks. Yeah, we've

6:26

then—we made new highs late earlier,

6:29

but it's because we devalued

6:31

our currency faster, which we'll come

6:33

back to. And what's

6:36

interesting about assets

6:39

is they don't price in

6:43

their thing, right? We don't price stocks

6:46

in stocks, right? We price stocks

6:49

in currency. We don't price my

6:51

house in my house.

6:53

We price my house in currency. So

6:58

I sit here in Chapel Hill, North Carolina,

7:00

and according to Zillow, my house

7:02

went up 50% over the

7:04

last couple years. My

7:07

house did not grow. It did not get

7:09

more efficient. The money got worse. So

7:12

the money getting worse, and that's why Bitcoin prices

7:14

go up, or other asset prices go up, is

7:17

one Bitcoin is one Bitcoin. But we

7:19

don't price Bitcoin in Bitcoin. We price Bitcoin in yen

7:21

or euros or dollars and going

7:24

down. We've been making new highs

7:26

in Turkish, Lira, and Venezuelan boulevards for a

7:29

couple years. We didn't have bear markets

7:31

in those markets. So back

7:33

to Japan. So Japan has this

7:35

demographic cliff. They

7:38

have more people, 65 to 85, than

7:40

any place on the planet

7:42

in terms of percentages. And

7:44

it turns out 65 to

7:46

85-year-old people are not productive. They're

7:49

perfectly nice people, but they're not productive.

7:52

And they don't spend very much.

7:54

So you have a deflationary death

7:56

spiral that occurs when you get

7:58

to demographic cliff. And

8:01

again, we're 11 years behind them

8:03

demographically. And so our debt got

8:05

downgraded in, their

8:07

debt got downgraded in 1996. Ours

8:09

got downgraded in 2007, 11 years later. In

8:13

2007, they said they would, I thought

8:15

2008, they

8:20

said no more QE. They

8:24

said no more QE, we're not gonna buy any more bonds. And

8:27

that was when they were 100% of GDP debt to GDP. Today

8:33

they're 220 and they own 60% of the government bonds at

8:38

the Bank of Japan. So they kept doing QE. So

8:41

we said a couple of years ago, no more

8:43

QE, right? We're gonna stop doing QE. No,

8:45

we're not. We're gonna keep doing QE. And

8:48

then we're gonna go off this demographic cliff. And

8:50

there is a race to the bottom, right?

8:54

When you get overly indebted, you have

8:56

four choices. And this has been true for

8:59

millennia. I actually did a presentation on this the

9:01

other day down in Cayman about

9:03

power, politics and populism. And

9:06

you go back through the history of

9:08

empires, they all rise

9:10

through power, military might and

9:13

power. They stagnate

9:15

because of politics. Capitalism

9:18

turns into cronyism and people at the top,

9:20

you know, I always use the all seeing

9:22

eye, it's people at the top start stealing

9:24

from the people at the bottom through this

9:26

thing called inflation, which is devaluation of currency.

9:29

And then populism rises up and you get

9:31

kicked out and that ends the empire. Roman

9:33

empire fell and then we had the British

9:35

empire and the American empire. And

9:38

eventually we'll have the Chinese empire and then

9:40

we'll have the nation stateless empire. But

9:43

this falling of empires

9:46

is inevitable because when

9:48

you have a lot of debt, you have four choices. You

9:50

can pay it back, right?

9:52

With the debt in the United States, if you

9:54

tax the wealth of everyone

9:56

in this country, You couldn't pay it back

9:58

to debt, forget income tax. Young cat

10:00

will be strong. everybody's wealth he couldn't

10:03

pay back minute. To

10:05

camp paper sack me do is

10:07

you can restructure it. But.

10:10

To restructure it, someone's gonna take their

10:12

size. Was Japanese going? take sixty cents

10:14

on the dollar? Health is no Chinese

10:16

can take success that are held to

10:18

the know. So thera yeah from restructured

10:20

you can default on it. Or

10:23

on because you default on it, you get

10:25

kicked out of power in your the politicians

10:27

care about read. there's no matter how right

10:30

there nor publisher has stairs again and there's

10:32

out. And when you're in,

10:34

you do or say whatever it takes

10:36

to stay in. And when you're out,

10:38

you do or say whatever takes the

10:40

guest star. Trump is a lifelong democrat.

10:42

Iran's republican whenever he calls himself and

10:44

he got in right. That's how it

10:46

works. You get in your stance so.

10:48

Your. Only choice. Is to

10:51

devalue. And. That is exactly

10:53

what Japan has been doing since he

10:55

has eleven. Bobby

10:57

someone came in and said we have one goal.

11:00

We. Would devalue the currency and

11:02

that will make asset prices

11:04

rise and people will feel

11:06

wealthier and know don't engage

11:09

more and so prices go

11:11

up. But. They're not going

11:13

up in real terms are going up

11:15

in nominal terms. Here's a crazy Sat.

11:18

Stocks. Or and says or new all time

11:20

highs right? Now. And on

11:22

now you're not gonna are real

11:24

value them in gold do the same

11:26

price as nineteen ninety sounds. Really?

11:30

Nice. Are ninety Six same price

11:32

when you pricing goal and goes

11:34

goal for five thousand years has

11:36

been the only money. Money isn't

11:38

acids that exists in the absence

11:40

of liability. Everything that we think

11:43

of is my is currency currencies

11:45

back by debt. It sits on

11:47

top of gold, Gold sits in

11:49

the central bank vaults. And

11:51

then we build money on top of

11:54

it through debts, currency i'm sorry, currencies,

11:56

and so. Go. for five

11:58

thousand years a single ounce He's

12:01

bought a fine person suit from Cleopatra's time

12:03

to a suit of armor to a suit

12:05

suit in the 20s to Savo Road today.

12:08

You exchange one coin and

12:10

you get a fine person suit. The

12:12

problem with gold is it's not very

12:14

divisible and it's not very portable. Like if

12:17

I had a bar, which I don't

12:19

have one handy, but if I did – You're not

12:21

Bob Menendez? You don't have gold bars in your closet

12:23

like Bob Menendez? Well, I do, but I'm not going

12:25

to show you where online. All

12:28

the books behind you, every one of those

12:30

books has a bar-shaped hole cut out of

12:32

the pages. But okay,

12:34

so I grab a gold bar and I'm

12:37

going to break it into three pieces. Now look,

12:40

I'm not strong enough to do that. So even if

12:42

I could do it, I

12:44

couldn't stuff it in the computer and send you

12:46

each a third of the bar. But I

12:48

can send you Bitcoin instantaneously

12:51

because Bitcoin is more divisible and

12:53

more portable. And the reason I

12:55

am hashtag 2.1 quadrillion is

12:58

there are 2.1 quadrillion satoshis in

13:00

the world – or

13:03

there will be when we're at the end in 2140 –

13:06

and that's each Bitcoin divisible

13:08

to 100 million units. And

13:13

I long for the day when we no

13:15

longer talk about the price of Bitcoin. I

13:18

mean, I have the buy Bitcoin sign back

13:20

there. Yeah, our chat loves that thing. Is

13:22

that the one that was behind Janet Yellen?

13:25

No, no, here's the thing. That is

13:27

an original. I got it from Christian.

13:30

It is signed. It is numbered. But

13:33

I tried to buy the original

13:37

and he said, yeah,

13:39

okay, but I really think it should be

13:41

in a museum. Oh, wow.

13:44

It will be in my museum,

13:46

the Yuzco Museum. And

13:48

he declined. But

13:50

he did make me that and gave it to me – or didn't

13:52

give it to me. I bought it from him. But

13:55

now it comes out this morning that

13:58

he is going to offer me a new account. auction

14:00

the the original so

14:02

I will be at the auction but my

14:05

guess is I will lose to someone with

14:07

With more money than you know

14:10

that kind of brings me to my next question

14:12

here And that's people spending their Bitcoin and og

14:14

whales you know early miners people that have been

14:16

in Bitcoin for more than 10 years Are

14:18

they more willing to spend their Bitcoin

14:20

versus other assets because you know you

14:22

tweet about a node monkeys a lot

14:24

and Bitcoin DeFi is starting to flourish

14:26

and we got a Bitcoin means mean

14:28

coin season probably One small correction coming

14:30

months in small correction. I tweet

14:32

about on chain monkeys a lot. Yes I

14:35

also tweeted about node monkeys and and runes

14:37

and everything else yeah I

14:42

mix up my simians I apologize here, but

14:45

uh you know You

14:47

know we have people that are in Bitcoin for

14:49

a long time and almost the longer they're in

14:51

it the less likely they want To spend it

14:53

and it's you know I'll never buy that s

14:56

coin. I'll never buy that new DeFi protocol I'll

14:58

never buy that protocol that has a stable coin

15:00

on it. I just I'm a Bitcoin maxi. I'm

15:02

a Bitcoin You know I'm a cypherpunk will

15:04

these same people that would never buy aetherium

15:06

would never buy Solano would never buy Cardano

15:09

Will these people do you think they'll be

15:11

inclined to buy a meme coin you know

15:14

say will that? Will there

15:16

be Bitcoiners that exist that will never touch

15:19

dogecoin? But we'll just be deejining into these

15:21

meme coins like those go tomorrow That's

15:24

a great question. I mean that's a great

15:26

question. You know I I I

15:29

have fun with the maxis Because

15:32

I'll go into a Bitcoin

15:34

maxi space and they're like

15:36

yeah You should coin or what are you talking

15:38

about? I have more Bitcoin than you and that's

15:40

not a brag It's just

15:43

it's just real and and that's

15:45

just luck right. I'm not against not a

15:47

brag. It's just Don't

15:50

call me just because I Am

15:52

a technology maximalist and so yes, I

15:54

own Aetherium I was an early investor

15:56

in Solana Not because I'm smart, but

15:58

because Kyle was smart. Than we invest with

16:01

Kyle and. Who can

16:03

a lot of money and salon and

16:05

now salon. I got a real trouble

16:07

because he a bet a ago I

16:09

was on a show and and I

16:12

was this would do with your sauna

16:14

base it was sold most of it

16:16

know why? Well. Because we

16:18

made like two thousand times

16:21

or money. But but I

16:23

sold because. It

16:26

was breaking. right? The I

16:28

said transactions were vaporizing and the community

16:31

went batshit crazy. There are you. We

16:33

We never roll back. the chances never

16:35

said you roll back to change. What

16:37

I said was transactions go out. Network

16:41

congested. And. It also. Is

16:43

less on one only that resubmit it

16:45

were now seventy five percent last weekend.

16:48

So so anyway so this this guy

16:50

reached out to mean he said we

16:52

just. Show me

16:54

So he walked me through and we

16:57

set up or Santa while it needs.

16:59

If he bought me marquees Go.saw him.

17:02

And he sent me some semi ten

17:04

dollars on a new set of the

17:06

Phantom Experience, sending us Dc. Far

17:09

superior, Than been any.

17:11

the ones have been been fun.

17:13

way better but it was cheap

17:15

fast. But here's the thing. If

17:18

seventy five cents transactions on settle

17:21

because the networks congested. we got

17:23

a problem and. So. I

17:26

I like things that work

17:28

and I like. At.

17:31

And here bob the bottom

17:33

line is t answer questions

17:35

are Maxis. Frequencies.

17:38

Gonna. Ape in two. Or.

17:41

Nose and runes. a few.

17:44

Myself included. I consider myself a dick

17:46

en masse over the two matches. it's

17:48

odd are units of. I.

17:51

Own some or knows I was

17:53

runes and I'm really excited about

17:55

the and Runes launch. Ah I'm

17:57

coming up. so I

18:00

am pre-runes. I don't want ruins yet. I don't want

18:02

pre-runes. But I'm pretty excited about

18:05

what's going on there because inscriptions enable

18:08

higher transaction fees, which means the miners

18:10

get compensated and the network's more secure.

18:12

So I like that. But

18:15

I don't think the

18:17

true maxis, like the real hardcore,

18:20

you know, you can pry the Bitcoin out of my

18:22

cold, dead hands. Well, here's the problem with that. I

18:25

ask these people all the time, how

18:27

much money do you have in the bank? Like,

18:30

what are you talking about? Well, how much money

18:32

do you have in the bank? Well,

18:34

that's not the same. Like, yeah, it is because

18:37

it's not your money, right? You live

18:39

in a world where you still need to spend in

18:41

fiat, right? You can't buy coffee. I mean, you can

18:43

buy coffee in a few places with Bitcoin. But bottom

18:45

line is most of what we do is in –

18:47

you can't pay your taxes. You've got – We're

18:50

not immortal vampires. We have bills

18:53

and food and shelter. What

18:56

people miss – now, I still understand why it's

18:58

so hard. Bitcoin is

19:00

the best savings

19:03

technology that's ever been

19:05

invented. Both of them. It's

19:08

money that doesn't

19:11

devalue. It actually

19:13

is deflationary instead of inflationary.

19:17

And so it's the best savings –

19:19

now, when do you spend your savings? Not

19:21

never. Not never.

19:24

You spend it when you have a big expense, right? You want

19:26

to buy a house. You want to send your kids to

19:28

college. You want to take a vacation. So

19:31

this, you know, this whale that bought

19:33

it at – I think it was like 70 cents

19:35

or – no, 50 cents. Maybe

19:37

held it all the way to 70,000 and sold 1,000. It

19:43

was like, oh, my God. You know, it doesn't have

19:45

diamond hands. Like, what are you talking about? At

19:47

some point, you need to replenish –

19:49

the way you have to think about it is three

19:52

buckets, right? We all have

19:54

a liquidity bucket, 10 To 15 percent

19:56

of our wealth that we need to spend

19:58

for our lifestyle. Then.

20:00

We have a get Rich bucket.

20:02

right? Ten to fifteen percent Nasrallah crazy

20:05

ideas. You know, the brother in law's

20:07

condo deal that the hot spots you

20:09

got from your friend? you're going to

20:11

lose all that to kiss. Keep a

20:13

small, but that's fine. And

20:15

then you have your savings

20:17

bucket and that seventy to

20:19

eighty percent your wealth. And

20:21

and the Boomer approach is

20:23

sixty forty seventy thirty. diversified

20:26

portfolios, documents will now this

20:28

incredible asset. Digital Assets has

20:30

come along and now you

20:32

can diversify. Into. Those things.

20:35

And. You can even say well with better

20:37

to just it's was hope you feel.

20:40

Individually. Find. Your

20:42

idea to sign? That. Back to be

20:44

your savings. But here's the thing. Ten

20:47

to fifteen percent your liquidity bucket. There's

20:49

a Nevada is good. a dream

20:51

see gotta keep replenish. Was out

20:53

of and as. The bitcoin

20:55

keep soup appreciating. Remember, bitcoin

20:58

doesn't grow. It's

21:00

the currencies, it's getting worse and

21:02

or the demand is rising, right?

21:04

Supply and demand. and. I.

21:06

Don't see why that so hard and

21:09

I don't see why people look at

21:11

it is a negative if you take

21:13

some of your savings. And

21:15

Spend. Your whole life works.

21:17

Yeah, like I say, you know we're not vampires.

21:19

People get mad. How dare you spin that bitcoin

21:22

had is like you know that person needed a

21:24

vehicle. I call me crazy, but you know may

21:26

buying a vehicle so they can go back and

21:28

forth to work the hey maybe buy more bitcoin

21:31

in the future could be a good thing. Well

21:33

it's great talking to you Mark A Mark. Of.

21:35

Folks if you want to listen to

21:38

Mark the More, they have a web

21:40

and are coming up in about a

21:42

week. It's April twenty fifth. Long sort.

21:44

Equity is back the current or future

21:46

and himself and Corey Leicester the Morgan

21:48

Crooked Creek Capital Management. Check that out.

21:50

Really really great Target the A, One

21:52

One O O or every week. We

21:54

also do up who called the Ab

21:56

C D news roundup A I Block

21:58

Chain Ships Data. If you go

22:00

to at digital currents, you

22:03

can find that YouTube

22:05

as well as Spotify and Apple. And thanks

22:07

for having me on, and we'll talk again

22:09

soon. Oh, it's a great time. Everybody smash

22:12

the like for his Buy Bitcoin sign. He

22:15

might get the original. All right, this guy

22:17

is a true maxi, even if he

22:19

bought some Solano. We forgive you. We love you. You're the best.

22:21

All right. Thanks, y'all. All right, that was good.