FFS093 - Lawrence Lepard

Larry: [00:00:00] mean,

Intro

Larry: I heard the number for this conference was like 3, 000. Is that what you heard?

Knut: In terms of athendees, yeah. Yeah, something like And I think, uh, it's one of the bigger conferences they've had in this stadium, or on Madeira in general, because this is like the biggest venue

Larry: this is a place I would go on a vacation with my wife. You know, it's just such a nice place.

Knut: Yeah. Instantly fall in love with it. It's impossible not

Larry: when's Bitcoin going to go to a million dollars? I don't know. I mean, I follow Samson. He knows, um, I think we're going to see 100, 000 sometime, pretty soon. I mean, you know, 6 months or so. I mean, the havings coming and so forth. Um, I think it really will get turbocharged when we see the next financial, I mean, I, um, J Powell pushing up interest rates, that slowed everything down in the monetary debasement world. I think we're about to have something else break. And when something does break, I think we're responsible to print more money again, as they always have. And that will really be the next turbocharged move that will take to certainly 200, 000, maybe headed towards half a million.

This is the Freedom Footprint Show, a Bitcoin philosophy show with Knut Svanholm and me, Luke DeWolf. And we love to expand our freedom footprint. We hope you do too. The best way to do that is of course to emit as much freedom dioxide as possible. The best tool we have for doing that is of course [00:01:00] Bitcoin.

Before we dive into today's show, we'd just like to tell you a little bit about how you can support us. First, to support us directly with Bitcoin, visit our Geyser page at geyser. fund slash project slash freedom. Or you can send us sats directly to freedom at geyser. fund. You can also support us as you listen by listening to the podcast on Fountain.

The app is available on Apple and Android and you can stream sats or send a boost. It's the easiest way to support the show just by listening normally. And if you don't care too much about Luke, you can always visit knutsvanholm. com, where you can buy my fabulous wine, my books, and a t shirt or two. And if you don't feel like supporting your fellow Bitcoiners at all, at least like, subscribe and brush your teeth.

But seriously, that stuff actually helps. It'd be great if you could subscribe to the YouTube channel, like the videos, send us a comment or leave us a review. All this stuff really helps the show. Seriously. Click the damn bell! So thanks for tuning in to the show, and we hope you enjoyed today's episode.

Welcoming Larry Lepard

Knut: Larry, welcome back to the Freedom Footprint Show.

Larry: you. So nice to have you. Great to see you again.

Knut: Yeah, same, uh, same to you, and welcome back to Madeira.

Larry: [00:02:00] Yeah. Fabulous to be here. I mean, it, uh, as you know, we were here a couple of years ago, right?

Knut: yeah, it wasn't even two years ago, it's like in one

Larry: June of a year and a half ago or

Knut: Yeah, a year and a half

Larry: year and a quarter. Yeah.

Knut: Yeah, and now this, it's

Larry: It's unbelievable. Yeah. Andre has really done a great job.

Knut: Yeah, yeah, I'm lost for words, it's just amazing.

Larry: Yeah. I mean, the speakers he got, we just listened to Michael Saylor and it's very impressive. Yeah. So.

Knut: And I'm so fascinated with his passion. I mean, he doesn't need to do any of this, but he's the, I think he, I suspect he loves it.

Larry: Well, that's right. And I think he really has the mission that we all have, which is to make the world a better place and fix the money, fix the world. I think, you know, he, he's an example of that, you know, a shining example. So. Yeah.

Knut: And I think the love he gets back from the community is just,

Larry: Yeah. And, but deserve it. I mean,

Knut: Yeah.

Larry: you know, he's obviously made his strong bet and, uh, and he's embraced the community. He's been very generous to everybody in the community and, you know, and, and has [00:03:00] absorbed the ethos of the community, you know, I think as, as he's, he seemed, he sounds more and more like every Bitcoiner as time goes by, you know, um, which I think I really like,

FREE Madeira Backstory

Knut: So, so, so let's, let's do a little backstory on this whole, uh, FreeMadeira thing. Like, we, we both ended up here for, for different reasons. Uh, so, so I'd like to hear your version of what happened one and a half years ago. So, so what, what, what made,

Larry: Yeah, what made

Knut: did you get here?

Larry: as you know, I think the, the, the, the onshore impetus for this was Andre Loja, who is a Madeiran and a Bitcoiner, and was able to take the president of Madeira to the Miami Bitcoin show and orange pill him. And kind of thought, this is interesting, you know, if we could turn Madeira into an orange pilled island.

That would be really meaningful and so, um, he kept kind of working that with the legislature here and then also with some of the legislature over on the mainland island of Portland, or you know, main shore of Portugal, I'm sorry. [00:04:00] And not Portland, I'm thinking of Maine. Yeah, got my country's wrong. And um, so he reached out to Jeff Booth and said, Hey Jeff.

Um, you know, could you round up some Bitcoiners and, and bring them over here? Uh, and we'll all make a campaign to truly orange pill the president, the legislature of Madeira, and perhaps some of the legislature. of mainland Portugal. And so Jeff reached out to, uh, friends he had in the community and I feel very fortunate to be one of them.

I'm not quite sure why I got picked, but I did, um, cause I was an advocate of Bitcoin, also an advocate of gold prior to that. And, uh, you know, he reached out to you and Obi and, I mean, you know, Troy Cross and he, he kind of put together a cross section. I don't know how many of us were there, maybe 10 of us or so.

Knut: a bit more, I think between 15 and 20, maybe a

Larry: so. And

Knut: Some, some, some came in a bit later, like Rob Brinder, for instance. Tagged along later on.

Larry: So, so he, he, he got some people from all walks of life in Bitcoin. I mean, different, you know, I mean, as you know, Troy is kind of an energy guy and a mining guy. [00:05:00] And, um, you know, you, you come at it as a publisher and having written books

Knut: I don't think I was even in, like, I came from it earlier than, like, Jeff's cohort was one thing, and even though I know Jeff and stuff, I think the connection for me was through Andre. Because André, I had signed a contract with André for the Portuguese translation of the book,

Larry: didn't realize that was, that was

Knut: and then I got to know André a little better in Miami, and also, uh, President Miguel and

Larry: Yeah.

Knut: Prince Philip, who was also there with Daniel Prince, they shared, they were on the same plane together, so we hung out in Miami, and one thing led to another,

Larry: Right, so he, you know, he ended up pulling this group together, and we all came over here, and what did we spend? A week, maybe, was it? Ten days?

Knut: Yeah, yeah.

Larry: And, you know, kind of, we did a lot of meetings with different government officials, we talked a lot internally about how to make Madeira more of a Bitcoin friendly island.

You know, [00:06:00] they really wanted to create an initiative that would make this a place where Bitcoiners would want to travel to, because, you know, Um, you know, and, and that could boost, you know, tourism and, and income to the island. I mean, at the time, El Salvador had just adopted. Um, you know, Bitcoin as, as their currency or as a, you know, as a reserve asset that they were going to hold and, um, and we saw, and I think Madeiran saw how much that generated in terms of additional tourism to El Salvador as Bitcoiners were thinking, hey, this is a good place to go on vacation.

And so Madeira thought, oh, that would work. I mean, because Madeira does happen to be a, you know, tourism is a big part of the, of the revenue of the, you know, the Madeira Island. So, um, I think there was that piece of it as well, but they did a great job, pulled it all together. We, you know, I think it was an outstanding experience and I think we made a little bit of headway.

You know, the Portugal is part of the eu and the EU is not particularly Bitcoin friendly, at least my understanding of it is that it isn't.

Knut: friendly in general.

Larry: right. Well, I know, for example, the ECB is [00:07:00] not at all Bitcoin friendly. And so, you know, there were limits as to how far the, you know, the Portuguese, um, politicians can go, you know, with respect to, um, you know, um, pushing for a full Bitcoin standard.

But they could certainly support the development of Bitcoin on the island, and, and we all did that. So, it was good. It was very good.

Knut: Yeah, we had this think tank thing during the days and then in the afternoons, we went out and played. different types of excursions.

Larry: excursions. Yeah. Andre rented a boat one day and we got to see a large part of the island, which is a gorgeous island. I mean, just fabulous.

Knut: the island sells itself.

Larry: does sell itself. I mean, highly recommend anyone who's watching this who hasn't been to Madeira, uh, this would be a great place to take a vacation.

I really would. It's a lovely place. Yeah,

Knut: that were great because we, we got to see all these old buildings in the central Funchal and, and talk to all of these people in all these institutions. And, and Jeff was like the natural alpha male of the flock,

Larry: you're right.

Knut: And there was one particular [00:08:00] meeting where, uh, well, Jeff wasn't there.

And it was just like having the, the baboons trying to figure out who's the alpha during the meeting.

Larry: Yeah, I know which one you mean. With the power guys, right? Yeah, yeah,

Knut: yeah, that was really funny. Like from a, from a group psychology perspective, it was hilarious.

Larry: Yeah. Yeah.

Knut: we had a great time. And a few of us, few of us, it didn't stop here, because we went to Lisbon and we, we were in parliament

Larry: Yeah. I went with you on that. I remember that. And that was fun.

Knut: yeah, we talked to a bunch of politicians, I think from the most, quote unquote, libertarian party, but also for the social democrats, I believe, and some right wing party.

Uh, and that was interesting to like,

Larry: It was, it was, it was, it was very interesting. I mean, I, you know, they, I think, and they were receptive. Um, that was, you know, which was impressive. They were open minded and receptive.

Knut: they weren't hostile.

Larry: Exactly. That's what I mean by,

Knut: that's,

Larry: that's a, that's a,

Knut: as you can hope

Larry: exactly. And something as new as this. Yeah. [00:09:00] And so it was great.

It was all good.

Bitcoin Atlantis

Knut: So, so when, when did you come in? Like, uh, yesterday?

Larry: and for this particular trip, yeah, so it's Friday. I flew overnight Tuesday. Um, I'm in Florida in the wintertime, so I flew Miami, Lisbon, Lisbon, Madeira, and got here Wednesday morning.

Knut: Okay. So, so you've been here for a couple of days. Have you seen some of the places that take Bitcoin now?

Larry: I, you know, I, I'd like to, and I've been through the downtown area a bit, but as, as you know, how these things go, you end up, um, you know, I'm, I'm with some partners, we're running a fund, we're investing in Bitcoin things.

So I've got fund meetings, I've got a podcast. And so I haven't had a lot of vacation time, but that's, but that's okay. I

Knut: so we're literally stealing your vacation time,

Larry: no, no, no, you're, no, you're not because, because we're at the conference and we just watched sailors speak and then, you know, I'm in an hour or two. I'm going to go back and be on a panel.

So it's all good. This is just a break in the action. So

Knut: yeah, I hope you get the chance to, to, to walk around Funchal and see all the places that accept Bitcoin now because

Larry: yeah, I

Knut: a lot has [00:10:00] happened,

Larry: I looked at the map. I mean, there was zero when we were here last time and there are quite a few now. Yeah.

Knut: yeah, yeah, it's really great to see, like, especially since, uh, this Sovereign Engineering Cohort has been here for

Larry: Yeah. Well, and some of our group moved here. Like Nico moved here, didn't he?

Knut: And Niko was already here,

Larry: Oh, was he? I didn't realize that. Okay.

Knut: Rob moved here,

Larry: Rob moved here. That's right. Yeah.

Knut: and there's a bunch of other Bitcoiners that moved, moved to the island after that thing, and we, we, we got a little bit of attention, so I think, and, and the more, it's like the Metcalfe's Law, you know, the network, the value of the network is, uh,

Larry: It grows. Yeah. Yeah. Geometrically. Yeah.

Knut: if we, if we have 20 Bitcoiners here, the, already the value of the network is immense, because,

Larry: to where it was. Yeah. Yeah.

Knut: So, so, and I think especially after this event, uh, uh, that a lot of people's, uh, people are gonna, you know, decide to stay here or consider moving here.

Larry: Well, and, and I don't know, I'd be curious. I haven't heard, I didn't have a chance to ask Andre. I'd love to ask him, has the tour, [00:11:00] have we seen more tourism as a result of the Bitcoin connection? You know, I don't, I'd be interested to get that the data point, they must have some information on that.

Knut: Could be hard to quantify though.

Larry: Yeah, that's true.

I mean,

Knut: Well, didn't he say something about that, uh,

Luke: there was some millions of euros that they estimate is going to, like, I mean, I think, I think saying a number doesn't make any sense here, but there's, I think this conference is supposed to bring in quite a lot, uh, to the economy just from everyone traveling here.

And I, I mean, I think,

Knut: I think there's something to that.

Larry: Yeah, for sure. I mean, I heard the number for this conference was like 3, 000. Is that what you heard?

Knut: In terms of athendees, yeah. Yeah, something like that. And I think, uh, it's one of the bigger conferences they've had in this stadium, or on Madeira in general, because this is like the biggest venue

Larry: I see. Yeah.

Knut: So that's great, of course.

Larry: Yeah. It's all good. I mean, um, and you know, I now know that, you know, when I get a chance, I mean, this is a place I would go on a vacation with my wife. You know, it's just such a nice place.

Knut: [00:12:00] Yeah. Instantly fall in love with it. It's impossible not

Larry: Yeah.

The show is sponsored by Amber App, the number one Bitcoin exchange in the Southern Hemisphere. And the reason we partnered with Amber App is the people that work there, especially Izzy, my favorite hippie. If you haven't seen it already, check out our episode with Izzy. It'll show you exactly why we just had to partner with Amber App.

Izzy focuses on the orange glowing light, and so do we. And we think you should too. Amber App will be launching their version 2. 0 soon and rolling out globally. They'll be including a non custodial on chain wallet, an anonymous lightning wallet, a fiat wallet, and an exchange all in one. It's going to be a super app.

It's like WeChat, but without the CCP. So, stay tuned, follow Amber App on X, and check out their website for more information at amber. app. Next up, Wasabi Wallet. The privacy by default, open source, non custodial Bitcoin wallet with CoinJoin built in. It's the easy to use, comprehensive, affordable way to make your coins private.[00:13:00]

Oh! If you want the privacy of your Bitcoin, don't be an idiot samurai! Use Wasabi Wallet now! So check out wasabiwallet. io and download Wasabi today.

Cyber Safety

Knut: so anyway, from, from one thing to another, the, you had, uh, um, some, uh, you've had some difficulties with your Twitter account right there, right? Can you tell us about

Larry: So I, I offer this as a kind of what not to do and, uh, and, and, you know, a, a matter of, uh, caution and warning for, and particularly probably for older people, because I think younger people might, I told my daughter what happened here and my daughter was like, dad, you're an idiot. You know, anyone knows not to do that, but let me tell you what happened to me.

I was out one Saturday morning and I started getting all these text messages, um, from my mobile provider. So, you have a lot of people that are saying somebody's trying to change their SIM card. Do you approve of that? And I reply, yes or no. No. And another one, you know, ask again. No. I got like five or six of these.

So somebody was clearly had the ability to get to my mobile provider and try and swap out my SIM [00:14:00] card. They were trying to SIM swap me, which, um, people who know about 2FA, two factor authentication. A lot of it comes through a phone. And if you can steal somebody's phone number, then you can steal a lot of their online identity.

And so, but anyway, so I was now on high alert that, you know, somebody was trying to take my account. I actually ended up calling my mobile provider. And saying, you know, definitely I'm not changing my SIM anytime soon, lock it down, ignore these requests, etc. But then it started happening with other things, you know, I got a request from Uber, you know, or somebody's trying to sign into your Uber account, you know, do you approve of this?

And Amazon, and all of a sudden, so, so clearly I was being quote unquote digitally attacked. Somebody was trying to get into my online accounts. Okay, here's where I fell for the flaw, but, but, you know, in my own defense, I was freaked out, right? I'm like, gosh, somebody's trying to get into all my accounts and I'm kind of freaked out.

I get a text that says, hi, this is Google Gmail support. Somebody is trying to get into your email. And would you please call us immediately in order to lock down your email? Okay? This was [00:15:00] a phishing attack, which, you know, was a fake. This was not Google, but it was an Atlanta number. And so I called this number in Atlanta, Georgia.

The guy answered. It sounded very official. You know, hello, Google Gmail customer support. How can I help you? You know, and I told him who I was. I told him, oh, yes, sir. I get it. Don't worry. We can solve this problem for you. We can lock your account down so nobody can get into your email. All I need you to do is read back the two factor identification I'm just about to send you from Gmail.

That's how you lock down your email. Right? And so I get the Gmail code, right? Of course, he was a bad actor. He now had that code. He instantly could take over my email. See what I'm saying? And so, so I read back what I shouldn't have read back, which was a two factor authentication. He could get in without knowing my password, change my password, lock me out.

Then once he had my email, um, in my case, and it's because um, Twitter's not as good as giving as many two factor authentication choices, he My two factor authentication on Twitter was my mail, right? So now he had control of my mail, he could go get control of my Twitter. And then he instantly posted on Twitter, he took down a lot of my [00:16:00] stuff, and he instantly started posting all this shitcoin stuff, and all these, you know, free airdrops and free money and get this and click here and click there.

Which apparently I was told, and I don't know if this is how it works, but I was told that if people were to click on those links, it could reach into the phone, grab any crypto wallet they had and drain it. I don't know if that's accurate or true. I would imagine somebody would have to make some steps to have that happen, but But that was their, you know, I have 160, 000 plus followers on Twitter and so, so they're figuring, I mean, obviously the reason I was a target is they're thinking, hey, if we can, you know, get just a few of these followers, it's a crypto guy, we get a few of these followers, drain their wallet.

That's real money, right? So that's why it occurred. Um, you know, the bad news of it was, it took a long time to unwind this. I mean, first of all, getting control of my Gmail again was quite tough. Um, fortunately my daughter actually works at Google, kind of saved my ass, got me to a very high level techie there who was able to authenticate me and we got the, we got the mail back.

That was good. But the Twitter was a much more difficult problem because Twitter has hundreds of millions of [00:17:00] users and Elon, when he came in, in order to drive profitability and cut costs, really eliminated a lot of the support. And so, as they say, you know, there's just no, there just aren't enough people in customer support at Twitter.

To deal with issues. I mean, it's just, they're, they have thousands of issues and, you know, hundreds of people or, you know, not enough people. And so, um, what I was able to do there was through networking and contacts and cyber security people finally get to somebody who had some drag at Twitter, which is kind of what it took.

And, and they were able to, you know, reach out to their contact at Twitter and say, this is a special case. You got to go down and focus on it right now. and restore it and so I did it took me a week or two but I did get restored on Twitter and all was good and I set up a different two factor FA but back to actually back to the original risk the original risk was I was going to get sim swapped and I immediately called some of my friends in the crypto space who've been sim swapped and in sim swapping and for those who are familiar and unfamiliar with it it's really [00:18:00] important it's where somebody would steal your phone number And it can create a lot of havoc because they can get into your bank account, they can wire money, they can do all kinds of things if you're using, because as you know, when you're doing two factor, most people have their two factor authentication set up on their phone.

They haven't taken the time to put on Authy or Google Authenticator. They don't have the little, I'm forgetting the name, but there's a little dongle thing that you can

Knut: yeah.

Larry: that, you know, is also an authenticator.

Knut: UB key, I think.

Larry: Exactly. Thank you. Um, and I've ordered some of those by the way. And, um, so in any case. The SimSwap problem has become really a big problem because unfortunately what they're uncovering is that in some of these phone companies, there's corruption.

And so if you get a bad employee, and it's not just the phone company, it could be the phone company's store, but if you get a bad employee that has some override codes. They can get in there and override the protections and let, somebody will steal your phone number. So to those listening, what I would say, you will know that if you ever wake up, turn on your phone and there's [00:19:00] literally no phone service, you've been SIM swapped.

Your phone doesn't work, immediately go to another phone, call your cellular provider, tell them what happened and unwind it. But in my case, what I did, because it was recommended to me by so many of the security experts and I'm. This is a shameless plug, but I don't get anything for it and I'll just, I like them, they're very good.

There's a company called Efani, E F A N I. This company sits on top of your cell or your provider and controls the keys to your SIM card. So that you, even if there were a malevolent actor at the cell provider, they're not able to change the settings on your SIM card. Now you pay a service for this and it's not cheap, frankly it's about a thousand dollars a year.

But, if you're a high profile person, in my case I have 160, 000 files, you know, I'm a target for SIM swapping, and there have been people like me who have been SIM swapped multiple times. And so, in my case, it was worth, and I've now signed up with Afani and it's been a very good experience. So, um, you know, never, [00:20:00] ever read a two factor authentication to anybody on the phone until you've verified who they are, and that was the mistake that I made.

But, you know, in my defense, I was susceptible to the mistake because I felt like I was being attacked.

Knut: it's great that you're honest about it and like,

Larry: look, I don't mind. I mean, look, my daughter said, dad, you're an idiot, but, and I am, but, but I'd rather tell, you know, I'd rather warn people because these crooks have gotten pretty sophisticated, right? I mean, they can,

Knut: And it's, it's going to get worse with, with the AI and when, when they can pretend,

Larry: Well that's, so, so it's funny I'm not gonna tell who it was, but I called somebody in, that we all know, in the, in the Bitcoin community and I said, you know, it's Larry and help me with this.

And he said, hang on a second, you're Larry, when was the last time I saw you? And I told him, what, what hobby do we have in common? And I said, okay, you're really Larry. I said, why did you do that? And he said, because it's not gonna be long until somebody's gonna be able to listen to two hours of you speaking.

And they're going to have a voice generation capability where they can call up and pretend to be you. And [00:21:00] it's going to sound like you. Isn't that amazing?

Knut: It is amazing. And it's scary at the same

Larry: It's totally scary. And think about it. They could do it with your kids. You know, Hey dad, it's, it's Neil. You know, I mean, Oh my God, we're terrified, right?

Knut: Yeah. So you need to say something that only you would

Larry: Well, that's right. And that's why what I've done with my family is, you know, you have safe words. You have words that you make a point, you know, to, to say that indicate that either something's not right here.

Knut: So, so, so does my family. We have safe words, but I'm not able to say them on camera

Larry: No, nobody would. That's that, that, that,

Knut: for several reasons.

Larry: That, you know, that, that violates the whole purpose of the

Knut: Yeah. You think you're making a joke, but

Larry: But, but I mean, but, but yeah. I mean, if my son were to call and say, Hey dad, I'm in trouble. I need some money. I'm here. You know, this, that and the other, you gotta do this, that, and the other.

And I would say, okay, fine. What's our safe word? You know? And, uh, you know, they wouldn't know it.

Knut: The thing is, genuinely, I,

Luke: I, you probably don't know this about me, but I, I, cyber security is my day job, and yeah, yeah, yeah, totally, and, and, and what you're [00:22:00] saying is, you are not an idiot, I'm, I'm like, I'm saying that cyber security awareness is, is a difficult thing, because as you're saying, everything is moving so fast, and, and the scenario you described, very sophisticated, these are people with resources and dedication, and, and the best cyber security in the world really, really doesn't work with someone with unlimited resources.

Resources to, to pull off the attack. It just doesn't work. Well, and I would say that basically universally, all you can do is delay it, put up layers of defenses, this and

Larry: Fair enough. Let me ask you, let me ask you about that, that AI, that voice AI. Is that, is that a real threat

Luke: Oh, absolutely. It's absolutely like it's, it's

Knut: very soon, very soon. I mean, they can make videos from a picture now.

Like, yeah, yeah. So, so, and, and, uh, yeah, funny thing. I had a conversation with my mother about this and she's like, uh, do you know that you have to be because she's been a target for various, I mean simpler scams, but Still, and, and I tell her like, [00:23:00] these things are gonna get more sophisticated, and she, she replies, I know, no, I'm watching, I know exactly what they're trying to do, because I watch public service news channels, and they tell me what to do.

Yeah, you fell for the base, most basic scam of them all, you're watching, you're watching, yeah, you're

Larry: the public service.

Knut: State

Luke: is propaganda! Like

Larry: yeah, fair enough. Fair enough.

Luke: The point I wanted to make, though, is that you're doing exactly the right thing in the aftermath. Building the awareness of exactly what happened, and now you have new defense mechanisms.

I think the safe word thing is fantastic. Everyone should absolutely do that. Because that is the only way to really safeguard against this stuff. Because the technology,

Knut: right?

Larry: that is just freaky. I mean, that's freaky that somebody could call up and sound like somebody you know and love. And, you know, that's just really, that's terrifying.

Knut: Yeah, I don't mean to, I don't mean

Luke: to sound like everyone is inevitably going to get hacked. Knut was right. It gets costly, but if someone really wants to and is willing to spend the cost, then yeah, basically all the [00:24:00] technology can eventually get, uh, get in there somehow. So you need to have non technology means of dealing with this, right?

And the safe words is the perfect thing. And the in person connections is the perfect thing. You know, friends who, friends who know you for you, right?

Knut: Are you, are you a spiderman?

Larry: Yeah. Exactly.

Luke: actually a

Larry: actually

Luke: Well, and, and, and genuinely, genuinely Bitcoin and cryptography is, is one of the, the only solutions here, basically, that, that you have something that, that if you can sign a message from a Bitcoin address that you control, that's genuinely hard to get into as long as you're, you're doing the right key management sort of thing.

Uh, you got your private key on a hardware device. Yeah, a lot, a lot

Knut: of this conference has been, a lot of the talks I've been having here is like, uh, uh, conversations I've been having is about how public to private public key cryptography is becoming a thing in, In people's lives, like, especially with Nostr catching on a bit more, people are getting, like, comfortable with, like, hang on a minute, uh, [00:25:00] yeah, yeah,

Larry: Prove it. Yeah.

Knut: uh, and I think that's a good thing, because it's, it's

Larry: a good thing. Well, it's, it's, it's gonna, it's gonna be absolutely essential because When you think of AI and all the power that these people are going to have to just bomb you with this stuff, you know, and you're going to have to be able to fight back.

Knut: and they're not Nigerian princes anymore, they're, they're your mother, or you're, you're,

Larry: these are sophisticated. These are sophisticated people. I mean, I, somebody told me about the algorithms they have for cracking passwords and I was stunned. I mean, you know, they get a couple of your passwords and cause then they know the pattern and that's, yeah, scary stuff.

Knut: everyone should use a password

Luke: manager, basically, is the advice I give is use a password manager and generate a new password with every single site that you use. Don't reuse passwords. Does

Knut: that include Google's built in password manager in Chrome?

Luke: No, use something that's not that.

Larry: Are you familiar? Are you familiar with One Pass and do you have a

Luke: Yeah. Yeah. Uh, one, one pass bit warden.

Larry: the one I use. Yeah.

Luke: yep. All good stuff. All good stuff. Last pass is [00:26:00] the one that's had the most issues. Sorry to kind of throw them under the bus,

Larry: one Pass seemed to be the best from one I the reviews I read. Yeah.

Luke: Probably there's three or four that are like, pick pick one and, and, and, and you're set. So, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And this is all just to say that the summary is UB key, like a hardware key.

And these safe words, that's the best you can do really. Plus, plus the sim swapping defense. I mean, you're putting up defenses, that's the point. And this is true for anyone in the space. Numbers go up, right? Everyone who's in the space eventually, right? Target. So, I mean, that's a little tricky to get your head around.

Make it costly to attack you. That's right,

Knut: that's right. That's how you defend yourself online,

Larry: Yeah. Yeah. No, they're looking for easy marks. They don't want to mess with it if it's tough.

Luke: And hopefully there wasn't

Knut: anything permanent out of this. I mean, if there was,

Larry: they were just, yeah. I mean, I, at some point I thought they were going to try and mine my, you know, my email and find something and you know, yeah, no, I, it's look, when I was actually quite relieved when all I realized is they were trying to get shit coiners to, you know, [00:27:00] steal their shit coins, you know, it's like, okay, yeah, fine.

I mean, I get it. I know why you did that, but. Um, cause, cause yeah, they could have, I don't know, you know, I've got 20 years, 10 years of email in that file and they could, you know, AI that and, and that would be scary, right?

Knut: So how long was this incident? How long was the

Larry: so, um, it, it, yeah, I'll tell you exactly what it's cause I, it's Saturday morning, I'm out running errands and it happened while I'm in my car running errands.

I had to pull over to the car to kind of deal with all this shit cause I keep getting the SIMs from up there. I'm like, hang on a second. I got to focus on this. Um, I lost the email. I wasn't, my daughter wasn't able to get me to the right person at Google until Sunday. I'm So, so I lost the email and I lost the Twitter and I mean quickly.

I went home, immediately tried to log in, email couldn't get in. Went home, Twitter account couldn't get in. I was like, uh oh, you know, I've been, I've been attacked. Um, took me a day to recover Google and I don't think the average human would be able to get it back in a day. Um, I think I was lucky because my daughter works there and she got me to the right place really quickly.

Um, and [00:28:00] the Twitter was over a week. Uh, and involved, you know, getting some security experts involved and I, I had to tip them a little bit of money to spend time on it. And that was fine. I didn't mind doing that because they were working to do, to get me my account back and I wanted my account back. So

Knut: Have you heard of Start9?

Larry: I, I have, yeah, I run my own node.

I've got a start nine node that I run. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

Knut: Awesome, awesome. Yeah, so that's, we've been looking into that a lot lately. And, uh, like, it's a fantastic idea. And it seems like a fantastic product, all of them. Like,

Larry: no, that's a really good company with good products. Yeah.

Knut: so it's basically de cloudifying computing and like, make you,

Larry: Correct. I mean, I have great hopes for things like this and Nostr and, you know, all of these things. And I know people who are going, getting out of Gmail and going to more decentralized mail servers and so on and so forth. I mean, my problem is I'm not technological. And so, so I'm, you know, without, and I, and I don't want to spend, I don't want to have a full time techie on my [00:29:00] payroll to do all of this.

And so it's not simple as, as, you know, as you know.

Knut: but there's, there's always going to be trade offs between convenience and, and, uh, responsibility and safety, like, What's that? Was that a Benjamin Franklin quote? Like any, any society that would give up a little security to gain a little, or a little freedom to gain a little security will

Luke: deserve neither and lose both or something?

Well, genuinely in cyber security, it's, it's the trade off between security and convenience. Every single piece of cyber security is an inconvenience and everyone knows it. I mean, no one is thrilled that they have to have a certain strength password or that they had to do this and that with their. With their IT system and all this, and Bitcoiners, I think we have to do that a little bit extra later because there's the responsibility, the self custody, all this, right?

But no, no, no, it's entirely exactly this, and I mean, um, yeah, it's unfortunate that we're in that situation, but, uh,

Larry: as you say, it'll only get worse, but

Luke: as long as bad actors exist, but maybe [00:30:00] Bitcoin can help fix the incentives,

Larry: well, that's right. A little bit of preparation.

Knut: Yeah, I think one of the more beautiful things is this. The 12 words, the 12 magic words, because it's so simple, it gives you the same level of complexity, but through such simple means.

Larry: and there's, and there's a certain beauty to, you know, writing them down analog,

Knut: Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's something special about all of

Larry: on my computer. You know, there's nowhere digital that those words exist.

Knut: yeah, and people say Bitcoin is too hard, but like, how hard is writing down

Larry: Yeah, that, that, yeah, BIP39, BIP39 was an enormously important development in self custody world. Yeah, so, I mean, the notion that you can get on an airplane, go anywhere in the world, you know, have a BIP39 device and re establish control of your coins with 12 words, that's just so powerful.

Gold is Bitcoin for Boomers

Knut: So, so having, having talked a lot about these complexities and these trade offs, uh, the, the follow up, the natural follow up question is, is gold just Bitcoin for [00:31:00] boomers?

Larry: pretty much. Yeah, pretty much. I mean, it's, you know, it's not useless. Um, and gold people shouldn't, Bitcoiners should not, I mean, you know, we just saw Michael, so I love Michael. So I love absolutely everything about him. The only thing the entire time I've known him and seen him operate that I, I disagreed with him on was when he said gold was the enemy because I, I, and I'll tell you why.

Um, it offended gold people and he, his goal should be to convert gold people to Bitcoiners, you know, and, and so he shouldn't view them as the enemy. In fact, in many ways, they're an ally because they're anti fiat already. If you own gold, you're anti fiat by definition. You got there. The odds are very good that you got there because you're an Austrian economist, you understand monetary debasement.

And actually, I view my role in this whole development, um, I mean, I was in gold, just a background for people who don't know who I am, I've listened to this before. I've been in the gold investment since, you know, the 1990s, okay? Um, I was buying gold in 2000, 2001, and before Bitcoin ever existed, I was a sound money gold guy.[00:32:00]

And by the way, before Bitcoin ever existed, it was your best monetary debasement protection. You know, it's, it's now second best by quite a measure, but at the time it was your best. It

Knut: So there is a second best.

Larry: yeah, there is, there is, I mean, it's not even close, he's right. It's not close in terms of performance, but if I had, you know, if somebody said to me, I want to own sound money that's not Bitcoin, what would you buy?

I'd probably say in this order, I'd probably say silver and gold. I mean, silver is so deeply undervalued and that's a whole nother story. But, but the point is that. gold is analog sound money and has been for 5, 000 years, and Bitcoin is digital sound money, and Bitcoin's going to eat gold. You know, all of gold's premiums someday, but not tomorrow.

That's the, and that's an important thing for people to understand. The notion that the price of gold is going to actually go down, while the price of gold or Bitcoin is going up. I don't think that's true. I think nominally the price of gold will continue to go up. There are 8 billion people and a lot of them aren't ready to accept Bitcoin.

And so for them, gold represents the second best form of sound money. It has gone up at 7 or 8 [00:33:00] percent a year, compounded. And it does represent something the government can't debase and print. So, um, you know, it's very inferior to Bitcoin. I mean, I agree with that. I don't, you know, and, and over time, my gold holdings will become a small fraction of the value of my Bitcoin.

That's already happened in a large part because my Bitcoin's gone up so much. And today, I do not buy any more gold. In fact, I have sold some gold. But, but I, but I, but I keep some, because what it represents is, um, money that can't be debased, that doesn't have the volatility of Bitcoin. And the thing I would ask people to consider and remember, is that, let's say you're 70 years old.

And let's say you're trying to figure out where to put 10 million in savings. Okay? You know, I mean, Saylor would say, take the whole 10 million and put it in Bitcoin and don't worry about it. You know, you're gonna be fine. Okay, fine. But, but you're 70. You might die when you're an 80.

Knut: And borrow another 10 and

Larry: Yeah, borrow another 10 investment. And, and, and, and by the way, in the next 10 years, you [00:34:00] might need some of it, right? And as we all know, there are times when Bitcoin has gone down 50 percent or more, right? So if you put the whole 10, if you got the timing wrong on Bitcoin, you put the whole 10 in Bitcoin and it went down 50%, You wouldn't be feeling so great.

And so, you know, again, and that has to do with your age. I mean, if you're 20, you know, you put it all in Bitcoin, you don't care. Because you got a very long time for it. You got a very long life left. But gold has never really drawn down more than 24 percent a year. And in that year, it recovered pretty quickly the next year.

So, so gold is, it doesn't go up as fast, but it also doesn't go down. And, and so, You know, for wealth preservation and, and fiat in gold terms, and fiat in Bitcoin terms is always going down. So if you're 70 and you've got 10 million of savings and you're, I mean, let's, we're leaving stocks out for a minute.

You're looking to put it in something that represents quote unquote money. You know, your choices are silver, gold, and Bitcoin. I can see there's an argument to hold some silver and some gold. I mean, there really is.

Silver vs Gold

Knut: So, so doesn't that make, uh, you know, [00:35:00] is gold to Bitcoin, what silver is to gold in that sense then?

Larry: a little bit. A little bit. you know, silver is a unique case, and here's why. Silver is a monetary metal, right? It's been money for a long, long time. Um, but it's actually also an industrial metal. And, um, and we don't have a big stockpile of silver in the world. We, we have two hundred and some odd thousand tons of gold in the world.

All the gold that's ever been mined, we either have it, it's around a woman's neck, it's in a vault, or it's in the form of coins. Okay, or it's at the bottom of the ocean if the boat sank. Right, that's where all the gold is. Um, and so, if we need gold, you can always find it. It's available. Silver is a, you know, you eat it, it gets used as we produce it.

We produce about 900 million ounces of silver a year. We use over 900 million ounces of silver a year. And we melt down silverware and, you know, we recover it sometimes from old technology. You know, they're people who grind up computers to get the silver on the circuit boards. [00:36:00] So, um, because of that, if there's ever a big increase in demand for silver, we've got 900 million ounces coming out of the ground every year.

That's it. That's it. And that's why it's very, the prices can be very spiky. It's like that marginal barrel of oil. You know, as they say, you know, the oil market, 3 percent change in demand in the oil market can send oil up 40%. Because right at the margin, you really need that oil. I mean, you got to run those boats You need the goddamn oil.

The same is true with silver. And one of the interesting things about silver is that, um, the uses are really growing. It's used heavily in solar, and as we all know, solar is a big part of, you know, ESG and where we're going there. And you can debate whether that's a good thing or a bad thing in terms of, you know, it's a cost efficiency, but The fact of the matter is we're doing it and the projections that we look at show that within five years China, which now consumes maybe 20, a little under 20 percent of all the silver produced in the world, will produce, will consume over 55 percent of the silver produced in the world for solar.

So there's a, yeah, so there's a growing demand case. [00:37:00] So, you know, when you look at silver, it's a little hard, you know, to say is this a, is this a monetary metal? Or is this, I mean, you know, what it represents, um, other than, well copper, it's better conductivity, conductivity than copper, but it's more expensive.

But, but in terms of, at a certain level of conductivity, it's the most efficient metal for its price. And so it's really needed in certain circuitry, certain electrical cars, solar panels, etc. So, silver is a special case

We're thrilled to introduce our new sponsor, the BitBox02 Bitcoin only edition. BitBox, BitBox, BitBox, BitBox. It's fully open source, Swiss engineered, and Bitcoin only, forever. The device only supports Bitcoin, which means less code, less attack surface, and improved security for your Bitcoin. Check out the BitBox02 Bitcoin only edition at bitbox.

swiss. com And use code, and use code freedom for 5 [00:38:00] percent off. BitBox. BitBox. BitBox.

The show is also sponsored by orange pill app, the Bitcoin only social network where you can stack friends who stack sats, make local connections and find all the nearby meetups, see what's going on in your area and connect with Bitcoiners around you. And now with a brand new merchant section, it's easier than ever to find and connect with local businesses that accept Bitcoin.

The best part about orange pill app is that you know, that it's high signal because you're paying for orange pill app. And so is everyone else. There are no Asian ladies asking you how your trade is going on orange pill app because it's not a trading app. It's a dating app. Is it a dating app? So download the Orange Pill app on Apple or Android, send us a DM, and start building your local network of Bitcoiners.

Negatively Priced Oil

Knut: Yeah, so, so speaking of, uh, you know, cost at the margin and everything in oil, uh, there was this thing during when that boat got stuck in the, in the Suez canal and during COVID and, uh, or during the lockdowns. And there was a point where the, they had to sell oil at a negative price. You remember

Yeah, I remember, [00:39:00] I remember it extremely well. And that was because they didn't have anywhere to store it.

no, exactly. It was cheaper for them to sell it at a negative price

Larry: Right. They had a real problem. Yeah.

Knut: so Could that happen on a Bitcoin standard in your view?

Larry: That's a great question. I'm not sure I know how to answer that. I'm not sure I'm right. I don't,

Knut: It just struck me, so I haven't thought it through myself either,

Larry: I'd have to take a while to get my head around that. I don't know. I suppose, I suppose it could. Because I think that's a thing specific. I mean, the reason there was a negative price is that people were literally paying somebody To say, I don't, even though I've committed to buy this oil from you, I can't take it, I don't want it, so I, you know, I will, I will pay you more money to not give it to me, even though I've paid you to give it to me, right?

I think that's what the negative price was. So, I think that could happen on fiat, bitcoin, I don't think it, so the monetary standard matters. I think it was a storage supply demand problem, [00:40:00] you know, where somebody was going to get some oil that they had nowhere to put and they weren't going to be able to pour it in the ocean.

Knut: the thing I doubt about that is if the Demand would ever be high enough for that to happen if you had totally some money

Larry: Fair enough.

Knut: Because, like, you're incentivized to save it rather than spend it all, so maybe it's self correct somehow.

Larry: and, and what I think caused that to occur was the big COVID shock

Knut: Lockdown shock.

Larry: yeah, and the lockdown shock, right, that, you know, um, was really, I mean, rocked the monetary system. Yeah. Yeah. And, um, you know, I, I think if we'd been on a Bitcoin standard, the monetary system would not have gotten rocked in the same fashion.

Because, I mean, what happened there is, as you'll recall, the central banks had to just open the floodgates and pour money into the system.

Knut: But not only that, I mean, the politicians themselves wouldn't have that much power to begin with to do.

Larry: well, there's that

Knut: Yeah, yeah, so there's a

Larry: there's that too.

Knut: [00:41:00] of effects that would stop this from, yeah,

Knut: yeah, it's a fun thing to think about.

Effects of Hyperbitcoinization

Larry: It is interesting to think about. I mean, you know, we were talking about it at dinner last night. I mean, the way that the world will be, I think very few people, even probably us, don't really, can't really fully understand how much better and different the world will be on a full Bitcoin standard.

But I'm pretty sure it's going to be a whole lot better and different. I mean, you know, and I map it to kind of some things I remember in my lifetime. When I started out, the IBM PC had just come out in 1980. That was my, I started my career. And so that was, you know, what is it now? Um, you know, 40 odd years ago.

And, um, and you know, if somebody had told me what PCs would be doing today and what we'd have today in terms of, I just said, that's, that's science fiction. There's just no way.

Knut: No, is it James Bond's wet dream of 20 years ago or 30 years ago was just a smart

Larry: Yeah. Right. I mean, it's just like, I can't believe that that could all be possible. And yet that's what the microprocessor brought us. And, and I think that the Bitcoin standard for the [00:42:00] money, the monetary system, which has been broken for thousands of years, I think it's going to be a similar change and none of us can really fully understand how much better and different it'll be.

But I'm pretty sure it's going to be better and different.

Knut: I totally agree, and we had a brief conversation with Michael Saylor about this yesterday, and Jeff's been talking about it a lot, like that the money is poisoned, like it has an amount of poison in it, which alters the way, like, all of human history is wrong. It's written by the winners, and not necessarily winners who won because they produced the money.

Things of value to their fellow men, but they, all of history is, is false. Like it's full of lies because, because the money itself has this layer of lies built into it. And if you remove all that and you, all you have is truth and all you have is sound. Truly sound money. Like we have no idea what that will

Larry: what it did was it allowed [00:43:00] the wrong people to get in charge.

Knut: Exactly.

Larry: Because, you know, let's face it, great wealth gives you the ability to control governments, to make, to set rules, to You know, to take advantage of people, blah, blah, blah. And, um, when the money is broken, evil people by definition will figure out how to use that to their own advantage and then become, you know, dominant and, and take advantage of those who have less power and less money.

And so that's, that's the story of human history, right? I mean, and, you know, warfare, all of it. So, um, you know, I'm not saying, you know, Bitcoin ends war, but it might, you know, it might. It's within the realm of possibility, I think. I mean, what would the incentive to be? What would the incentive be for anybody?

Knut: yeah, no, no,

Larry: there would be no incentives.

Knut: no. If you, if you can't know how much another person owns, which is true now for everyone on earth, because they might have Bitcoin in their heads. And if you can't very easily take it by force, because you don't even know if they [00:44:00] have it, and you don't know if, even if you manage to take a part of it, you don't know how much of it Like they can still have more.

Larry: I mean, and let's take the most recent example. I mean, you know, okay, so Russia invades Ukraine, something we don't like. And the U. S. says, guess what? Those 600 billion of assets, you know, that are, that are in the Western system, they're ours. We're grabbing them. You know what I mean? And, and, and now they're going to give them to the Ukrainians, you know, give the money to Ukrainians.

I mean, look, I'm not endorsing Russia invading Ukraine. I mean, that's a whole different issue and story. A lot of the two sides of that as well. But, but the point is that, you know, when you've got a system where, you know, you can, you can see powerful actors just Stealing, literally stealing money from other powerful actors.

You know, that's like, what's this all about? This isn't right.

Knut: No, no, but given a long enough time frame They won't be able to because because of that that you know If you don't know how much another person owns and if you can't take it by force It's more profitable to you, uh, to give them something in return instead of trying to [00:45:00] take stuff by force. So it removes the shelling point of violence, like, and that's,

Larry: that, that's exactly right. That's, that's the point I'm making. And that's why, yeah, one could dream and envision that there might be kind of much fewer, much less war. I mean, probably still be criminal activity. There'll probably still be gangs and so forth. I mean, um, but you

Knut: But they would be less profitable, and that's the point, like, yeah, yeah. Including if, if it's a highway robberman, a mafia, or a government, or another criminal organization,

Larry: Right. Yeah.

Knut: And I think that notion is one of the, you know, binding things that this group of people have, like the, the, the, that's why we're passionate because it's, it's really give peace a chance.

Right?

Larry: I mean, and a lot of, I think a lot of people in Bitcoin have come at it that way. I mean, it's some, they come for the number goes up. I mean, let's face it. Everybody's got a certain amount of greed and then nobody wants to suffer economically and that's fine. That's human nature.

But then once they really [00:46:00] get enlightened into it, they really realize this is much more than number goes up.

Knut: this is love go everywhere.

Larry: Exactly. This is, this is, this is, you know, fairness. It's just like, it's like, imagine if we had a fair world, you know, and I'm not, again, you can't be naive. I mean, there will always be bad, bad actors.

There are bad humans out there, but you know, if you, if you make it a lot harder to do unfair things, you, you know, you incentivize everybody to do what's right. And, you know, and that's a good thing.

Knut: Yeah, but that's also a thing, like, like, there's a good point to be made to be not too over enthusiastic and over optimistic. But as you say, nobody knows where

Larry: Well, that we don't know.

Knut: uh, the passion we have for this thing is real, it's totally real, and, and like, the more of it we spread, like, the more other people can see that we just live in a

Larry: and the thing is, it's just so damn intrinsically obvious. Do you know what I mean? To me that it's going to happen. I mean, you know, it's, it's spreading, it's spreading like a virus. I mean, [00:47:00] that's what Michael's, you know, um, you know, speech was just about, which is, you know, we've got to spread the word on this thing because the faster this goes, the better and the sooner we'll get to, to where we want to be.

Bitcoin Compared to Microsoft and the Internet

Larry: And, and it's interesting. I'll, I'll bring up something and I'm going to talk about this when I'm on my panel, but I. Um, I think it's helpful because I'm one of the older guys in the space. Um, I'll never forget, uh, in the 80s, I was a venture capitalist. I was investing in technology companies. You have to remember back then, technology companies were IBM.

Do you know what I mean? And, and Prime and DEC and, I mean, you know, micro, mini computers. And, you know, the PC had just come out. A lot of the big guys were saying, oh, these are a toy. Nobody's, you know, this is a glorified word processor, right? You can't do anything else with it. You know, Lotus 1, 2, 3 has just come out in a spreadsheet and it's going to change the world.

But anyway, Microsoft came public in 1986, okay. They did a public offering and they came public at 14 times trailing earnings, which is low. And they were growing at 40 percent a year, and they had the MS DOS contract, and you know, they were doing extremely well with it. And I'll [00:48:00] never forget, the talk on Wall Street was, Ah, you know, the stuff, the software stuff, it's ones and zeros, you can't really touch it, it's intangible.

It's like, how can it really have value? I'm not going to invest in a software company because they don't have value. Hardware companies have value. IBM has value. You know, DEC has value. People who make tangible machines that do computing operations have value. The software that runs on it, that's just kind of a subsidiary thing that comes along with the value in the machine.

I mean, how much does this sound like what we're going through right now, right? And, and at the same time, I was with, um, my, my business school roommate and his roommate from Harvard college, a guy named Steve Ballmer. And we were walking along the Charles River, and Ballmer was saying, Larry, this thing is going to be in every single house, it's going to be on every single machine, you know, the entire world is going to use computing power, and [00:49:00] MS DOS is going to be driving it, this company is going to be worth billions of dollars, and my eyes just kind of opened up, it's like, wow, Wow, he might be right.

And of course he was right, but I couldn't see it. I mean, I kind of could see it, but I had no idea how spectacularly right he was going to be. And I look at the Bitcoin thing, and I look at kind of the adoption, I look at where we are in the early curve of it, It's the same thing. I mean, it is going to be, there is no doubt in my mind, this is going to be the base layer.

We are going to price everything in sats. We're going to be, you know, someday we'll be at a penny a sat parity. That'll be a million dollar coin. That's not that far out. And I think beyond that, at some point, we'll be at a dollar a sat parity. You know, and, and there won't be any dollars anymore.

everything divided by 21 million.

it's exactly that.

You know, there's a, there's a,

Knut: says. Or half, yeah.

Larry: who wrote a book about it. It was really cool. And he also has a really cool logo that, that, that I really respect. So yeah, everything divided by 21 million. Right. So, um, it's, it's that kind of a [00:50:00] fundamental base layer change. And, you know, I mean, I, any new innovation, I mean, when the automobile was invented, could you, could you see, foresee the interstate highway system?

Knut: No, and it took a decade for horses to disappear.

Larry: Of course. And, and when, and, you know, and when the airplane was invented, could you foresee, you know, the, the Concorde? Do you know what I mean? I mean, when, you know,

Knut: well, the concord is a story.

Larry: well, I,

Knut: not really around anymore.

Larry: I get it, but, but yeah, um, yeah,

FFS49KnutLuke: Ouch.

Larry: but the point is. The point is, one has to have a little bit of imagination and look out in a 20 year time frame and recognize that we are in front of a digital revolution of money here and those who understand it and embrace it and invest in it are going to benefit enormously.

I mean, my subsidiary story to that Microsoft story was I bought stock in Microsoft on that IPO and it went up. I [00:51:00] think, I can't remember exactly, but I think I made two or three times my money. That's good. A few years, right? Well, I needed to buy a condominium. You know, I need a place to live and I was renting.

All right, I sold my Microsoft stock because I needed a down payment, right? That was a big fucking mistake. That stock, I mean, split adjusted. They came public at six cents a share. It's now at 300 a share. That's like 47, 000 times. I mean, right. I, I fucked up. Exactly. Well, arguably Bitcoin's even better because that's just one technology in one segment. Admittedly, it was the leading technology. PC technology until Apple came along and that's a big deal, but, but actually, actually Bitcoin's bigger because it's the base layer of everything,

Knut: yes, exactly.

Larry: And that's just the base layer that, you know, MS DOS was what's grew into Windows and everything else, but, you know, Microsoft is the base layer of the computing world, which is a big deal.

Don't get me wrong. It's a very big deal. But, but, you know, Bitcoin is the base layer of all money. I mean, compute everything. And [00:52:00] so, so yeah, it is bigger. Bitcoin is bigger.

Knut: that speaks to my heart, that story about Microsoft, because I have a similar experience, even though a little later, because I vividly remember being like between 16 and 18, and see, this is, uh, Well, I must have been a bit older. I'm born in 76 and say the internet took off 95, 96 or something. So I'm 19, 20 years old.

And I see like in the beginning, I could really see like that nobody understands how big this is. Like all computers are going to be connected. How, how, how huge is that? No. Yeah. Well, I wish I did. I wish I had a

Larry: Some money. Yeah.

Knut: Or, or at least some interest in, in, uh, taking a bigger role in, you know, computing and internet in general, but instead I went and became a sea captain, which, which is sort of what just happened.

Like, like for every young person you try stuff and

Larry: was a dream. You wanted to do it and you did it.

Knut: but when, when Bitcoin came along, um, I had the [00:53:00] exact same feeling. I see this thing and this, this time I'm not going to be, you

Larry: not going to miss it.

Knut: no, I'm not going to miss this boat, pun intended.

Larry: I, I, yeah, I've had three cycles. So I had the Microsoft cycle, you know, the PC goes from nothing to being an important thing. Then I got very lucky in 92 or 3, somebody gave me a card with an internet address on it. It was a copy server and said, send me, send me those files to my internet.

I said, what the hell is that? They said, well, you have a, you have a Novel,

Knut: good fax machine over here.

Larry: yeah, exactly. Yeah. You have a, you have a Novel LAN, right? You can link your computer. Yeah. Yeah. Imagine if you could send email anywhere in the world. I was like, Oh shit, that's powerful. Right. And so I went and got an account and then I went to my guys and we were a venture capital firm.

Right. And we invested in all the internet companies we could find and yeah, in 94, 93 and 4. That worked really well. That fund, 25 million fund, returned like 150 million. I mean, it was, if you just send me some money, I can get you 5 million.

Knut: me one and I will give

Larry: I will give you 5 million. Exactly. Yeah. I've been stolen from me.

Yeah. [00:54:00] So, um, yeah. And yeah, I mean, look, humans learn through experience and pattern recognition is an important part of experience and investing. Yeah. And to me, the Bitcoin revolution is just, it's, it's PCs, it's the internet, it's just the next step. And, um, and therefore, you know, anyone listening to this who's scared of it, I encourage you to just go learn, ask questions.

Bitcoin is a very friendly, they'll try and help you. They want to, you know, they want to help you. Because, um, they've, you know, they recognize how important it is for, you know, for all people to protect, you know, protect themselves. Yeah.

Knut: as you say, like, computers is just one sector. I'd say, I'd say, Bitcoin will do to finance what the wheel did to transportation.

Larry: Yeah. Yeah.

Knut: It's even, even bigger than

Larry: It's much bigger. Yeah, it's absolutely, it's absolutely much

Knut: Touches everything.

Larry: Yeah, and I mean, the thing that's so interesting about it to me, and it really is an experiment, that's the only way to, in my mind, to describe it, [00:55:00] is we, you know, there has never been a commodity in the world that does not respond to higher prices.

In other words, if, you know, the price of gold goes up, we're going to buy more gold. Price of oil goes up. We're going to drill for more oil. The price of corn goes up. We're going to grow more corn. Every commodity known to man, the price will drive supply and demand supply. This is an algorithmically fixed supply, you know, asymptotically decreasing every four years.

And as a result of that, it's just not going to change. And that's why, that's why when Saylor says this is going up forever, Lawrence, he's right. It actually will go up forever. You know, and, and I mean, we've never seen, we've never seen digital scarcity before. Never.

Knut: or, nor absolute scarcity.

Larry: yes. Correct. Yeah. That's correct. So, yeah.

And, and, and, and that, and, and so I think, I think what's tough for investors and people looking at this, it's kind of tough to get your brain around it, you know? 'cause it's, it's a, it's a new thing, right?

Knut: You know, Augustine Carstens, that Bank of

Larry: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Knut: when [00:56:00] I see the picture of his one button on his jacket, I, I, I think of Bitcoin because that's like, Immovable object meet unstoppable force.

Larry: Yeah, yeah, yeah,

Knut: No offense, Augustin.

Larry: yeah, yeah,

Knut: Pretty sure you meant defense. Defense, maybe. Talking about Bitcoin is defense.

Alright, alright.

Larry: yeah, they're, they're, they're trying to kill it, so it's, it's fair to fight back. Yeah, I mean, it's, um, yeah, I, look, I, I have plenty of time for anyone who's a skeptic. I have no time for people who are, you know, just parroting and, and, and hating on it, you know, because they know it's going to ruin their privilege.

Critics of Bitcoin

Knut: you ever heard a Bitcoin critic that understands Bitcoin?

Larry: Not really.

Knut: Not really,

Larry: no, no, I mean, if you, if you, if you scratch pretty hard, you kind of, you can't really get there. I mean, A [00:57:00] lot of the gold guys use the intrinsic argument, intrinsic value argument, but as Menger taught us, all, yeah, all value is subjective, right? I mean, nobody knows, you know, and, and it's subjective at the point in time.

I mean, you know, a glass of water is priceless to a starving man in the desert, you know, but water is ubiquitous. You know, in the Alps. So, um, but yeah, no, I, I haven't ever seen a Bitcoin critic that has a really good argument. Um, and, and a lot of times they don't fully understand it and, um, you know, they haven't taken the time to do the work.

I mean, I think, I think, you know, a lot of the critics are smart enough to recognize that it represents a threat to their privilege. You know, there are a lot of people, I mean, I, and I'll tell you who I throw in this, I throw Jamie Dimon in that bucket. Right? I mean, I think he understands it. I think he knows what it is.

I think he knows what it

Knut: think so?

Larry: Yeah. I

Knut: after, even after this last interview when he was all blockchain, blockchain, blockchain and no use case and only criminals and all.

Larry: Well, but that's, see, that's just, he's just throwing up smoke. I think he [00:58:00] knows that's not true. And I think what he's doing is he's, he's saying all of those things in order to defend his privilege because he knows that this is not good for who he is.

Knut: No, no. And, and that's, that's, if that is the case, that is then

Larry: being disingenuous. That's

Knut: he is a symptom of, of, uh, of rotten system

Larry: He's dishonest. He's dishonest.

Knut: how can you be that dishonest in that position? If the system is

Larry: Oh, that's my point. The wrong people have won. Yeah. Here's a dishonest

Knut: global elite are really just the thieves.

Larry: Yes. They're dishonest.

Knut: most successful thieves.

Larry: That's right. Yeah. And then, and he has a, he has a horse and pony story to explain, you know, why it's no good because of, you know, it's being used for, you know, nefarious things, which is not, I mean, it is to a small degree, but so is the dollar.

Knut: yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Larry: is cash. I mean, Epstein, he was Epstein's banker.

Knut: is water,

Larry: Yeah, right. Exactly. Yeah.

Knut: You can drown people with it. Like, that's such a, that's such a [00:59:00] bullshit argument. Like, there's

Larry: Yeah. But I, no, I, um, I have reason to believe based on, you know, kind of direct context, I have reason to believe he's smarter than that. And, and, and, and therefore you're right. He's being dishonest. Yeah.

Knut: Which is worse. , which is worse.

Larry: Yeah. Actually, if you were just stupid and didn't truly understand it, you know, that would be bad, but okay.

The guy's not very bright. He doesn't get it, but no, it's worse than that in my view. He gets it.

Bitcoin Price Predictions

Knut: Maybe we can, uh, pull this

Luke: back around. We've been going for about an hour here, and honestly I think, I think we probably want to get back to this fantastic, uh, conference. So what, anything else on your mind? Uh, a preview of, uh, something, uh,

Knut: you're talking about

Larry: no, I mean, you know, so when's Bitcoin going to go to a million dollars? I don't know. I mean, I follow Samson. He knows, um, I think we're going to see 100, 000 sometime, you know, pretty soon. I mean, you know, 6 months or so. I mean, the havings coming and so forth. Um, I think it really [01:00:00] will get turbocharged when we see the next financial, I mean, I, I, you know, I operate a fund that invests in Bitcoin and gold.

And so, um, you know, the J Powell pushing up interest rates, that slowed everything down in the monetary debasement world. I think we're about to have something else break. And when something does break, I think we're responsible to print more money again, as they always have. And that will really be the next turbocharged move that will take gold over 3, to half a million, or certainly 200, 000, maybe headed towards half a million.

So, um, those are kind of the things I see ahead. The one piece of information I will say that I've been getting because I know a lot of people in D. C., um, in the U. S., I think the most acute area of financial distress right now is commercial real estate. Um, you see a lot of these office buildings all over the country getting sold for 30 cents on the dollar and those notes are held by the regional banks throughout the United States and Silicon Valley Bank failed in March of last year, they papered it up, you know, BTFP, all the usual stuff, they put it all back in the camera, there are more of those, there are more of those coming and the rumor out of D.

C., but you [01:01:00] know, kind of credible because I've heard a couple places and people in D. C. talk, Is that they're cobbling together some kind of a resolution trust, you know, new entity that would buy troubled CRE from the banks, you know, in order to protect the banks from the losses and so forth. And of course, buy with what?

Knut: yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Of

Larry: Yeah, right. And so, so I think, and I think if and when they unroll that kind of a program that says we're going to, we're going to backstop all this, I mean. There's, I mean, Barry Sternlich says there's maybe 1. 2 billion dollars of just, you know, of worthless CRE debt. I mean, that would be a big, if they backstopped all that, that would be a big number.

So, and I think, I think when, when they do that, you know, the investing world will wake up and go, Oh, more monetary debasement. They can never stop. And because they can never stop, I've got to protect myself. And, you know, the, the old folks who don't understand Bitcoin will say, I know how to do that. I buy gold.

And everyone else who's smarter, younger, and studied Bitcoin will go, Great, you know, [01:02:00] we need to buy more Bitcoin. And so I think they're both going to really start to accelerate. And at some point they're gonna accelerate so much that, that they're gonna, you know, it's, it's gonna be the last acceleration.

Right. And the, and the dollar fails.

Knut: And then, then it goes really crazy.

Larry: But the, but the other thing to keep in mind, 'cause and that's not my Twitter feed, people should look at it, you know, we've all kind of, you should look at the chart of the price of gold in Weymar Germany, that there could be some real volatility here.

Knut: And, and the guy who came out, the, the rich, one of the best investors in history from the Weimar Republic by, by just, by, by just, he's doing exactly what Michael Saylor is doing right now.

Larry: Hugo Sinnes was the, yeah, the inflation king. Yeah. Of Weimar. Yeah. Yeah. He borrowed money and bought sound assets with it and he paid back the money. The money became worthless. He paid it back. Yeah. It's a dangerous strategy though. You got to be careful because if you get blown out on the borrowing, you don't want to, you know, you don't want to get called in.

Knut: no, no,

Larry: Right. Yeah. I don't recommend using leverage. I guess that's what I'm [01:03:00] saying.

Wrapping Up

Luke: Larry, it's been a fantastic time chatting with you and you've got, you've got such, you've got a perspective that no one else we, we really talked to, I think has, I mean, it's great to hear about the experiences you've had with previous cycles and all that and the, and the parallels with, with Bitcoin, but it's, yeah, it's, it's, it's, uh, great to have you,

Larry: That's the advantage of being old, right? You've seen a lot of shit.

Knut: yeah, and if Larry ever starts tweeting about, uh, shit coins again, yeah,

Larry: anyone was paying attention to my feed about three weeks ago, and there were a bunch of shitcoin tweets, that ain't me. And hopefully that won't ever happen again. I think we got that problem solved.

Knut: Except if the shitcoin is gold, because then it's probably a slur.

Larry: Yeah, that's right.

Knut: I had to.

Larry: I know you did. That's okay. I carry a lot of, I carry a lot of, I take a lot of heat from bitcoiners for owning gold, but I'll tell you what, I have helped the cause of bitcoin a lot because I've been able to convert gold people and, and only not, I would say [01:04:00] a gold person is the best person to convert a bit to who's become a bitcoiner like me.

It's easier for me to do it because they trust me because they know I'm a real legit gold guy and I've moved over to here. And so like, there's a guy called Chris Irons who runs Quoth the Raven on Twitter is very

Knut: Oh yeah,

Larry: I just orange pilled him. I mean, he's all in. He was a hundred percent gold guy.

Yeah, so, so that's my role in this whole thing has been to kind of, hey gold guys, wake up.

Knut: So when Peter Schiff?

Larry: Uh, I tried, I did, I did an hour and a half interview. He is so intransigent. I mean, I, Google it. I had a, I had a debate with him. Very pleasant. I would, I tried to keep it very professional. He just can't get over it.

Although he conceded a few points to me. And to be brutally frank, it would not surprise me, he's too smart, it wouldn't surprise me if he's got in his back pocket, if he's got some, and he's not talking about, part of the reason he doesn't talk about, he's got an enormous business based on gold, selling gold, investing [01:05:00] in gold, you know, clients, He almost can't.

I mean, I've got clients who are into gold, but they're, you know, they're flexible and, and I can migrate, do you know what I mean? He's, he's got 30 years in gold and, and so he's kind of trapped and I think he'd probably lose a, if he, if he said, I like Bitcoin, he'd probably lose a lot of clients. I said, I like Bitcoin.

I lost, actually, I did lose a few clients. When I said I like Bitcoin, I lost a few gold guys and said, well, I'm out and I don't, that's not good. I don't want you doing that.

Knut: But you gained a whole bunch of

Larry: Well, exactly right. That's exactly right. And so, so I think Peter might be the last guy to come around, but he's, again, he's smart enough that, you know, if he, if he's, you know, I wouldn't, if, you know, it wouldn't surprise me if he owned some personally.

You know, another guy who I think is in the same camp, you know, um, uh, Brent Johnson from, uh, Santiago Capital. The Dollar Milkshake guy. He's kind of neutral, a little bit neutral on Bitcoin. I'll bet he owns some. He's too smart not to, you know. [01:06:00] So, anyway,

Knut: Anyway.

Larry: much. Really

Knut: Great

Larry: you, man.

Yeah, good to see you, brother.

Luke: Thanks a lot,

Larry: nice to see you, yeah.

Luke: Yeah. All right. Any, any last words? Anywhere you want to send people? That's it. That's good. That's good. We'll send a fax about the details. We'll send

Larry: pill everybody you can. That's, you know, that was Sailor's message, that's my message. This is going to make the world a better place, and so, to the degree that we can do the work of converting people, that's all we can do, right?

Knut: Fantastic,

Larry: Yeah, great. Thank you so

Knut: Thank you so much. This has been the Freedom Footprint Show. Thanks for listening. Brush your teeth.