Episode 238 - The Dangers of CBDC with Guest Joe Vezzani

[00:00:00] If you're a California conservative, a libertarian, a moderate Democrat, believe in common

[00:00:11] sense, or just the same person.

[00:00:13] This is the political podcast for you.

[00:00:15] It's the California Underground Podcast.

[00:00:18] What's going on everybody?

[00:00:28] Thanks for tuning into another episode of the California Underground Podcast.

[00:00:31] I'm your host Phil, along with me as always is my trusty co-host, the best and fastest

[00:00:35] researcher in the West Camille.

[00:00:37] And tonight we are joined by a special guest, Joe Vazani, who is the CEO and co-founder

[00:00:42] of Lunar Crush.

[00:00:44] Joe, welcome to the podcast tonight.

[00:00:47] Thank you both for having me.

[00:00:48] I'm excited to be here.

[00:00:49] This is great.

[00:00:50] This is a little, I would say, out of the ordinary or out of our scope of what we usually

[00:00:56] do on a podcast dedicated to California politics.

[00:00:59] But I have been getting a ton of people, whenever I ask about topics or stuff like that,

[00:01:04] people are always saying, why don't you cover central bank digital currency?

[00:01:08] So finally, Camille was like, I think I know someone who can talk all about that.

[00:01:13] And so here we are.

[00:01:15] Why don't you introduce yourself to everybody?

[00:01:17] Tell us a little bit about yourself.

[00:01:19] Sure, yeah.

[00:01:20] So my name is Joe Vazani.

[00:01:21] I'm the co-founder and CEO of a company called Lunar Crush.

[00:01:25] What we do is social analytics.

[00:01:28] And we started back in 2017 all in crypto.

[00:01:32] So we looked at the cryptocurrency market back then.

[00:01:35] And this is a time when all these kind of crazy coins were coming out.

[00:01:40] It wasn't just Bitcoin that was started.

[00:01:42] It was all of these other different cryptocurrencies.

[00:01:45] And so we looked at the market and said, hey, how do consumers and retail investors really

[00:01:50] understand what's happening with these cryptocurrencies?

[00:01:53] They don't have all of these traditional metrics that you would look at when you look

[00:01:57] at a financial asset.

[00:01:59] You wouldn't look at their income statements and their balance sheets.

[00:02:01] These are all new technologies.

[00:02:04] And the way that they worked was very community driven.

[00:02:06] It was very social driven.

[00:02:08] And this was long before I'm not sure if you guys remember kind of the whole Wall Street

[00:02:11] that took the horns of the hedge funds.

[00:02:13] And they actually drove hedge funds out of business, which is actually, you know,

[00:02:17] shouldn't say it was cool that anyone wanted a business but it was cool to see consumers

[00:02:21] actually take the upside on that.

[00:02:24] And so we were actually looking at crypto and those communities very early on.

[00:02:29] And so we actually build software and we have data streams that different exchanges like

[00:02:33] Coinbase will use, you know, different trading software like trading view will use.

[00:02:38] And so we actually have a lot of data that we're looking at on social media.

[00:02:43] And so that's actually turned into, you know, a pretty cool platform at LunarCross.com

[00:02:47] if you want to check it out where you can go and actually search any keyword now.

[00:02:51] So if you want to search CBDC, you're going to see what the social media graph for that

[00:02:56] is and who's talking about it?

[00:02:58] Who are the influencers that are most influential and the creators that are most influential

[00:03:02] on all these topics?

[00:03:03] And we're really kind of a repository for, you know, whether you're an investor or a hobbyist

[00:03:09] or a creator to come and kind of create a new following or find out which topics you're

[00:03:14] influential for.

[00:03:15] Yeah, I actually remember I was on, I'm a big fan of Reddit so I was on Reddit when

[00:03:21] Wall Street Batch was going nuts about GameStop and all of that.

[00:03:25] It was fun to watch how retail, Robinhood investors could like just bring down hedge funds.

[00:03:32] So I know that the people in power weren't too happy about that, but all right.

[00:03:37] We talked about this before.

[00:03:39] We hopped on tonight.

[00:03:41] I'm coming into this episode.

[00:03:44] The child's mind.

[00:03:45] I will admit I know little to nothing about what the heck we're going to talk about tonight.

[00:03:51] I did a little research.

[00:03:52] I have a vague idea.

[00:03:56] I think the best place to start is maybe let's start with the biggest one.

[00:03:59] Let's talk about what the heck is Bitcoin?

[00:04:03] I see it all the time on CNBC.

[00:04:05] I see it goes up.

[00:04:06] I see it goes down.

[00:04:07] People are like, I should have got in on Bitcoin when it first started.

[00:04:10] I could have been a bajillionaire.

[00:04:13] What's Bitcoin and why should I care about what Bitcoin is?

[00:04:17] Well, in simplest terms, you can think about Bitcoin almost like a digital gold.

[00:04:23] You know, there's a finite amount of Bitcoin that's out there that's available for people

[00:04:27] to get.

[00:04:28] It's actually 21 million total that will ever be in distribution out in the world.

[00:04:33] It's actually a couple of million they believe are already lost, so it's a little bit less

[00:04:36] than that.

[00:04:38] But very simply, you know, when Bitcoin came out, there wasn't a way to, you know, they

[00:04:44] solved something that's called the double spend problem.

[00:04:47] Sounds kind of like a quick way to say something, but just think about it.

[00:04:51] It's double spending money.

[00:04:53] How do you not spend money twice?

[00:04:56] So Bitcoin solved that digital money on the internet, I would say.

[00:05:01] So it made it very simple for people to basically look at a ledger of the blockchain and figure

[00:05:07] out, hey, if I send Camilla Dollar on the internet, she can't send you that same dollar and then

[00:05:14] send me back that dollar.

[00:05:15] We know that there's just one specific dollar on the internet.

[00:05:18] It's on a blockchain.

[00:05:19] It's traceable.

[00:05:20] Everyone knows where it's at.

[00:05:21] So really Bitcoin was kind of the first and the largest cryptocurrency to solve this problem.

[00:05:28] And it went through, you know, many iterations and a lot of, you know, there's something called

[00:05:34] the Silk Road that you might remember where, you know, there was when it was like drugs

[00:05:39] and weapons and all these things that were for sale on the internet.

[00:05:43] Bitcoin was kind of the value transfer on there and people were kind of buying things

[00:05:49] and Bitcoin and everyone kind of thought, oh, Bitcoin is completely anonymous.

[00:05:54] It's not at all.

[00:05:55] There's a ledger and it's there forever in perpetuity.

[00:05:58] You can't change it, right?

[00:06:00] And so what's happening is that you've got millions of computers worldwide and servers and

[00:06:07] what they're doing is they're trying to race to solve an equation, you know, and it's

[00:06:13] solved through guessing game really is the way you can think about it.

[00:06:16] And they're all racing to do that.

[00:06:18] Yeah.

[00:06:19] So here it's like, think about like every person that you know had a computer that's running

[00:06:26] the same software at the same time.

[00:06:28] And that's what's holding this network up and making it so like sensor like resistant

[00:06:33] and you can't, you know, no one can hack it and kind of get into it is because of how

[00:06:37] many people have adopted the technology and how many people are pushing forward the technology.

[00:06:43] And so Bitcoin is basically just like digital gold.

[00:06:45] It's money that you can spend on the internet.

[00:06:48] You know, there's countries that are adopting it as national currencies or part of one of

[00:06:54] the national currency that they can use and making it acceptable anywhere.

[00:06:57] And then you've got almost 15 years of adoption in people just buying Bitcoin and you

[00:07:05] know, you can go to an exchange and buy it.

[00:07:07] You can, you know, people go to meetups and they buy from each other.

[00:07:11] There's all sorts of ways to get a hold of Bitcoin.

[00:07:13] But it is like the strongest and largest cryptocurrency that's out there.

[00:07:19] And even the adoption now, it's getting as big as where they're trying to create like

[00:07:24] an ETF for Bitcoin.

[00:07:26] It's called a spot ETF so it's not a futures product.

[00:07:31] So it's basically saying like if, you know, if BlackRock or someone is selling you one

[00:07:36] Bitcoin in the ETF, they have to then go hold one Bitcoin, one true Bitcoin.

[00:07:41] So that's a lot of the kind of bullishness that people have seen and you know, Bitcoin's

[00:07:45] actually even passed 40,000 again which a lot of people are actually not paying attention

[00:07:50] right now to what's going on because of everything that happened with FTX.

[00:07:56] And you know, that's like just a, you know, something that kind of sticks out in people's

[00:07:59] mind.

[00:08:00] And so Bitcoin is digital gold and there's a long-winded way to kind of talk through

[00:08:02] it.

[00:08:04] But it's like it's the original.

[00:08:05] It's the OG.

[00:08:06] It's the biggest most adopted, most secure.

[00:08:11] Now, again, correct me if I'm wrong.

[00:08:14] Is this sort of like the idea of like blockchain because I hear people talk about like blockchain

[00:08:18] and how blockchain could be helpful in elections and voting where you could track and lock

[00:08:25] it in that this is someone's vote.

[00:08:27] You can't go in there and tamper with it.

[00:08:29] You'd have an attrace of everything like that.

[00:08:31] Is that sort of the same idea or is it related?

[00:08:35] Yeah, they're all different cryptocurrencies are on blockchains.

[00:08:39] So when you can, you know, you could say, oh, the Bitcoin blockchain, you know, oh,

[00:08:43] the Ethereum blockchain, oh, the Litecoin blockchain.

[00:08:47] They're all running on their own and blockchains the technology behind that ledger that I was

[00:08:53] kind of talking about where you can't double spend.

[00:08:56] And each of these blockchains has just a different, you know, a couple different features

[00:09:00] or attributes to it that make them all a little bit different and useful in different ways.

[00:09:05] But yes, blockchain is the technology that's behind it.

[00:09:10] And that's actually kind of talking and leading into CBC.

[00:09:14] The CBC would be on potentially beyond eight blockchain.

[00:09:18] It wouldn't be I'm guessing it wouldn't be as public and easy to use.

[00:09:23] And you know, sensor resistant as like a Bitcoin blockchain would be.

[00:09:28] But yes, blockchain is like the technology and you talked about voting, right?

[00:09:34] And so there's a lot that you can do with blockchain when it comes to even voting or,

[00:09:40] you know, like for example, I could run on a platform that says, hey, you know, I'm just

[00:09:43] a, you know, I'm just basically crowdsourcing my ideas and, hey, here's a law that's going

[00:09:49] to come into place in my city, right?

[00:09:52] And everyone in my city basically, you know, I know they have their address.

[00:09:56] And I know that they have one entry or one vote.

[00:09:59] Maybe my job as a representative in Congress would be like, hey, I don't, I'm not making

[00:10:03] any decisions.

[00:10:04] I'm just like a crowdsourcing your information and then that's the way that I'm going to

[00:10:08] vote, right?

[00:10:09] And so blockchain would be a secure way to say, hey, do we want this part of the city?

[00:10:13] Do we want to road over here?

[00:10:15] Yes or no?

[00:10:16] And then everyone could just like tap yes or no on a very clear and concise summary of

[00:10:20] what they want.

[00:10:21] And it's like you'd actually directly have the power with the people right there by saying

[00:10:24] like, hey, you know, everyone's just voting and then I'm just, you know, basically taking

[00:10:28] that and carrying it through and executing on it.

[00:10:31] So that's like, I've seen people actually run a little bit on some of those platforms.

[00:10:34] Very difficult.

[00:10:35] I think for people to understand also, you know, do you want everyone's busy and sometimes

[00:10:40] you're like, hey, I'm electing you so that you go make the decisions, right?

[00:10:43] And I can't be in there every day.

[00:10:45] But then, you know, you would have probably, I think a large subset of people would want

[00:10:50] to be involved in that and would want their voice to be heard a little bit more.

[00:10:53] And so if there's disruptions that could happen utilizing this technology where like if

[00:10:59] you just had a centralized or, you know, say you're just going to trust, you know, a dominion

[00:11:05] or like trust someone else to like make that decision, you have to trust an entity, right?

[00:11:10] You've got to trust them to make that decision and say, hey, that they've not been hacked.

[00:11:14] Nothing's been double counted.

[00:11:15] How do you prove that there's audits that go in place?

[00:11:18] But the cool part about crypto, I don't know if you guys remember, you know, Google had

[00:11:23] this ad campaign, you know, and it said don't be evil.

[00:11:27] Right?

[00:11:28] It was just this ad campaign, try to push Google products and there was a great ad campaign

[00:11:33] that was done by a company that's called stacks.

[00:11:36] These be called block stack, which basically said can't be evil.

[00:11:39] Right.

[00:11:40] And so I think that's the mentality of blockchain and crypto is the transparency and the technology

[00:11:46] is what brings that to life.

[00:11:49] I know as a political nerd and maybe I can speak for Camille as well.

[00:11:53] If I had the ability to tell a political representative, yes or no on everything, I probably

[00:11:58] would.

[00:11:59] My vote would be easy though.

[00:12:01] It'd be like should we spend money on and I'd get past that and go, no, should we

[00:12:07] spend money now?

[00:12:08] You can automate that.

[00:12:09] You could say whenever the bill comes through, I want to spend X money on and it just automatically

[00:12:13] shoots no right?

[00:12:14] This is how you build automation into it.

[00:12:16] That sounds like you're like describing utopia for me right now.

[00:12:20] The one thing I'm kind of picking up from Bitcoin and it's odd, but it's almost like Bitcoin

[00:12:27] is returning to the traditional way of how we used to do currency in America.

[00:12:33] This idea of it's linked, we used to be on the gold standard.

[00:12:38] There was a finite amount of gold and that's how you knew my dollar was worth X amount

[00:12:44] because of gold.

[00:12:46] Now once we came off the gold standard, it's not connected to anything.

[00:12:50] It's just fiat money and we're printing left and right.

[00:12:53] From what it sounds like, what you're describing is there's a finite amount of Bitcoins.

[00:12:57] The demand goes up, price goes up.

[00:13:01] It's connected to a finite resource that you can measure.

[00:13:05] It's almost like digitally we're going back to the gold standard.

[00:13:10] Does that sound correct?

[00:13:12] Yeah.

[00:13:13] I think that's why people talk about it as digital gold a little bit.

[00:13:16] Obviously, it's a lot.

[00:13:18] With gold there is a finite resource but we do still mine it.

[00:13:23] It's not transferable as easy as something like Bitcoin is.

[00:13:26] You can send a billion dollars of Bitcoin to someone across the world for five cents.

[00:13:31] You can't transfer a billion dollars of gold anywhere.

[00:13:35] The idea of that kind of hard money is there, but with many other characteristics that

[00:13:43] make it even better than that.

[00:13:45] I think a lot of people who are Bitcoiners, we talk a lot about just being better money

[00:13:50] period.

[00:13:52] That's the cool part about the movement that's been created around this is that we talk

[00:13:57] about you mine for gold and we talk about it like hey, we're mining for Bitcoin.

[00:14:02] There's something called proof of work and so the amount of work you put in and effort

[00:14:06] you put in, it takes time energy resources money to mine Bitcoin.

[00:14:11] Same thing for gold.

[00:14:13] It's not just like you can snap your fingers and grab one.

[00:14:16] In the very early days, yes, it was much easier to do but probably similar for gold.

[00:14:21] There's a gold rush people went out west.

[00:14:22] It was easier than it is probably now.

[00:14:26] There's a finite amount and so that's where it's a major disruption for the Keynesian model

[00:14:33] that we're in right now with money printing and money supply and continuing to be able

[00:14:39] to print money and devalue our dollar or any national currency.

[00:14:44] You brought up Keynesian now I'm excited.

[00:14:48] Now we're getting into the hardest stuff that I love.

[00:14:52] Yeah, I keep hearing people say it's the way to decentralize currency and take power away

[00:15:00] from the Fiat currency that we're currently on.

[00:15:04] We're seeing it with record inflation which is why everything's costing more because of

[00:15:08] the fact that we're not connected to anything.

[00:15:11] We're just printing money left and right.

[00:15:15] Bitcoin is digital gold before we segue into central bank digital currency.

[00:15:23] Is it still a good idea to invest in Dogecoin or is that not a good idea anymore?

[00:15:28] I can't give financial advice but I would say there are other investors who are in

[00:15:35] your crash.

[00:15:39] Other cryptocurrencies that have other aspects and values to them and features to them,

[00:15:46] that Bitcoin does not.

[00:15:49] I probably can't sit here and advocate to go sell your house and buy a bunch of Dogecoin

[00:15:55] but if buying a little bit of Dogecoin gets your foot in the door of understanding what

[00:16:00] blockchain technology is and understanding trying to focus on your financial future in

[00:16:07] a way.

[00:16:08] We're not teaching kids in middle school how to use credit cards and what the inverted

[00:16:14] yield curve is.

[00:16:16] Even some of the most basic financial education that's out there is not given to this Gen Z

[00:16:23] or even the younger kids that are coming up.

[00:16:25] I think that cryptocurrencies and specifically Dogecoin and some of the altcoins that are

[00:16:29] out there are really interesting instruments that people could learn a little bit about

[00:16:35] finance.

[00:16:36] If you're going to take $10 or you're going to take $100 or whatever your unit of risk

[00:16:42] is, I think it's totally fine to understand what these things are about and make up your

[00:16:47] mind yourself on what these things are as opposed to.

[00:16:50] A lot of people do go into these tribal camps when it comes to crypto and Bitcoin only and

[00:16:56] Bitcoiners and then cryptocurrencies altcoins and DeFi and you can just go down this rabbit

[00:17:01] hole.

[00:17:02] I say, go find out yourself obviously don't risk your entire life savings and anything

[00:17:06] you should always stay diversified.

[00:17:08] I'll keep that in mind next time I talk to my financial advisor.

[00:17:12] Awesome about Dogecoin.

[00:17:14] All in on Dogecoin.

[00:17:15] All in on Dogecoin and Silver.

[00:17:18] All right.

[00:17:19] So hard pivot now to central bank digital currency.

[00:17:24] I think we have a good idea of crypto and where that is.

[00:17:30] A lot of people, some people ask on a podcast, pre show what the heck is a CBDC?

[00:17:37] I have a vague idea of what the plan is or what the idea is but why don't you describe

[00:17:44] your take on central bank digital currency?

[00:17:47] Sure.

[00:17:49] So I think we need to understand most dollars like 90% of dollars are digital.

[00:17:54] They currently are there and you're, they're a chase bank.

[00:17:57] They're at Bank of America.

[00:17:59] There's somewhere they're digital or not in cash.

[00:18:01] Very few dollars actually are.

[00:18:06] The difference though between that and potentially central bank digital currency is that those

[00:18:10] dollars are held at a bank or they're held in stocks or bonds or some sort of brokerage

[00:18:17] account.

[00:18:18] And those dollars, yes, they're issued by the US government.

[00:18:22] Congress has to sign off and we have spending bills and more dollars can come into circulation.

[00:18:30] But those dollars, technically your bank knows where you're spending those dollars.

[00:18:35] They have records and there's a ledger at each of those banks but that's a level abstracted

[00:18:40] from direct government access to that.

[00:18:44] So, you know, the central bank digital currency there's a paper written last year and they

[00:18:50] talked about what would this potentially look like.

[00:18:54] And you know, what it would look like is a dollar that's directly issued from the government

[00:18:59] onto potentially a blockchain that would be completely run by the US government or any

[00:19:06] governments that are out there.

[00:19:08] So you would just be having a dollar, you know, maybe not in a bank account, maybe in

[00:19:12] a bank account or maybe just in the Federal Reserve or your US government app, right?

[00:19:17] And it just has like dollars in there.

[00:19:20] And so those dollars though would be tied to some sort of blockchain so that you can't

[00:19:24] double spend them like we talked about at the beginning, right?

[00:19:27] You can't double spend it.

[00:19:28] And so what comes with that though, like whenever you interface with any sort of digital

[00:19:34] app or you know, whenever you interface with like a website, it's out there, all those

[00:19:40] kind of standard footprint things that come with interacting online would come with it.

[00:19:45] Right?

[00:19:46] You need to open up that US government app, right?

[00:19:48] You need to open it up from your phone and your phone now has your location, right?

[00:19:53] It has the speed that you're traveling.

[00:19:55] It knows if you've dropped your phone and knows what other potential apps are running

[00:20:00] on your phone at that any given time.

[00:20:02] You know, if you've got some some Google software out there too, they know where you've

[00:20:05] been.

[00:20:07] You know, so a lot of like the data sharing that's out there is suddenly and potentially

[00:20:11] opened up to this kind of centralized source.

[00:20:15] And so basically it's just a dollar that's just directly issued and held with the US government

[00:20:22] that you have access to, not even potentially that you own.

[00:20:26] And so that's I think where I mean, just explaining it like that, I think people probably

[00:20:30] understand like okay, that seems pretty scary, right?

[00:20:33] And so, you know, if you could, you can steal the money for a minute and say, well, what

[00:20:38] potentially would be some good things about a CVDC, right?

[00:20:42] Like so say the government did need to issue like emergency funds or something to eat to

[00:20:47] an individual or potentially, you know, if they're going to give over $700 to people in

[00:20:52] Lihina, right?

[00:20:53] They could just, you know, basically bam, they can send cash directly to people.

[00:20:58] You know, so they can potentially react faster to a lot of those things that are out there.

[00:21:03] They can, you know, they could cut off fraud probably a lot quicker, you know, if someone's

[00:21:08] sending money to a country or a terrorist group or individuals and those are digital dollars

[00:21:14] CVDCs, they could potentially cut access to those things.

[00:21:17] So there are some I think that those are the right ways that they'll probably pitch that

[00:21:21] to be positive.

[00:21:23] You know, so I could stop you guys having any questions about what exactly it is.

[00:21:28] But if you think about it, it's just the same thing as like any other cryptocurrency or

[00:21:32] Bitcoin, but issued by the US government and held with the US government.

[00:21:37] Yeah, I guess if you propose it to people and if you say, well, the government's going

[00:21:47] to be able to see your transactions, they're going to be able to see that a lot of people

[00:21:52] will believe, well, government can kind of see all your stuff anyway.

[00:21:54] So it's the big deal.

[00:21:56] But you're correct.

[00:21:58] If I'm wrong, it's sort of there's that layer of privacy because you're with a bank and

[00:22:04] there's this legal protection of well, if you want to get access to my bank records,

[00:22:09] you're going to have to go through legal channels.

[00:22:10] You're going to have to go to court.

[00:22:11] You're going to get a court order.

[00:22:12] You're going to have to get subpoena.

[00:22:15] But this kind of removes that barrier.

[00:22:17] Correct.

[00:22:18] So the government will just always be able to peep in on like, what are you buying?

[00:22:21] Like what did you spend on?

[00:22:23] Oh, did you buy a firearm?

[00:22:24] Did you spend too much on gas this month?

[00:22:27] Is that sort of the concern is that that wall of privacy and legal protection will kind

[00:22:32] of fall down with this central bank digital currency?

[00:22:38] It's kind of the idea.

[00:22:39] Obviously, they would probably say, hey, we're going to create maybe a government agency

[00:22:44] and that government agency, kind of like a fan email or Freddie Mac with mortgages

[00:22:48] is a government agency but it's kind of slightly different.

[00:22:50] I'm not sure exactly how they would kind of pull it off.

[00:22:52] Yes.

[00:22:53] Like you do have the checks and balances of one layer of abstraction different by being

[00:22:58] at a bank, right?

[00:22:59] And so the bank does know like where you're spending but there's free markets.

[00:23:05] You can be with multiple banks and you can spend money with multiple credit cards.

[00:23:08] And someone would need to basically try and delete a lot of things to figure something

[00:23:12] out.

[00:23:13] And it's just a, do you want a bank account with the US government?

[00:23:16] Like that's the question that you should be asking.

[00:23:18] Like, hey, I want all my money with the US government.

[00:23:21] Right?

[00:23:22] And like, can they now that they would have an office which I think that's where the

[00:23:25] slippery slope comes into play where people could start to get a little scared.

[00:23:28] Like, you know, hey, like Phil looks like you bought too many, you know, like course lights

[00:23:34] this month.

[00:23:35] Like we're going to your social score.

[00:23:36] Like we're going to turn that off or like, hey, you know, you're buying too much and

[00:23:40] eating too much meat.

[00:23:41] You know, we're going to turn that, we're going to turn that off.

[00:23:44] It's there's this kind of level there that I think scares people when it comes to this.

[00:23:48] Now, if you're going to ask my personal opinion on whether or not I think a CVDC is coming,

[00:23:52] I actually don't think it's coming.

[00:23:54] I think when you think about the banking system today and how all that works and how much

[00:23:59] money is in the banking system, how much money, you know, if you're Jamie Diamond in your

[00:24:04] running chase, like do you want all of that kind of power and money to be slipping over

[00:24:09] to someone else potentially?

[00:24:11] Right?

[00:24:12] And sure maybe they can come up with some sort of idea around or plan around, you know,

[00:24:16] the banks will still be holding some of this, right?

[00:24:18] But they'll always be a back door to the government, right?

[00:24:22] And so I think that that's, you know, I think that they're the uphill battle is too much.

[00:24:28] Also, you know, when you're, you know, the number one superpower and your currency is used,

[00:24:33] you know, for petriot dollars and we have a lot of strength in the US currency and the

[00:24:36] way that it is, the way that it's traded in the markets that are, you know, you're seeing

[00:24:41] the strength of the dollar right now with some of the things that are being done.

[00:24:44] I think the banks and a lot of the investment banks and a lot of the capital markets, this

[00:24:48] isn't a positive thing for them.

[00:24:50] Right?

[00:24:51] And those folks like, you know, the lobbying that is done in the first strings that they

[00:24:54] hold, they hold, I think it's a very tough and uphill battle for them to make something

[00:25:00] like that happen because it does centralize the power and, you know, there's thousands

[00:25:05] of banks and even if you think, you know, the top 10 banks, you know, are holding, you

[00:25:09] know, 80% of deposits.

[00:25:12] It's still, you know, you still would rather have five than one.

[00:25:16] Another concern that I hear people say is, well, the government already issues all the

[00:25:21] currency.

[00:25:22] So why does it make a difference?

[00:25:24] But I think it needs to be clarified that the reason the government does issue paper currency

[00:25:30] is because when people in a free market trade with each other, the idea of paper notes

[00:25:37] was, well, we're going to standardize how much this is worth.

[00:25:42] This is worth $20 as opposed to people arguing over, well, this amount of silver is not

[00:25:48] equal to this amount of gold or bartering systems or anything like that.

[00:25:52] But at the core of it, it was still people making voluntary transactions in a free market,

[00:25:58] whether it was exchanging goods and services with gold or with silver.

[00:26:04] The government just kind of stepped in and said, look, we're just going to issue paper currency.

[00:26:09] This is what it's going to be.

[00:26:10] Now you guys are all on a level playing field.

[00:26:12] You know exactly how much something is worth makes it a lot easier for commerce.

[00:26:17] That to me still leaves it as it's your property.

[00:26:22] Money is your property, meaning you should be allowed to do what you want with your property.

[00:26:26] You earn that money.

[00:26:28] There are dollars in your bank account.

[00:26:30] It's like if you own a house, if you own a computer, if you own anything, it's your personal

[00:26:35] property.

[00:26:38] My concern is when it comes from the central digital bank currency, you no longer own that

[00:26:45] money.

[00:26:46] It's almost like the government is giving you permission to spend a certain amount of numbers

[00:26:52] in a bank account.

[00:26:56] If they decide you no longer have permission, they'll just turn the off switch.

[00:27:01] Am I completely off base or does that sound like on brand with what's going on here?

[00:27:08] I think that's what everyone's worried about.

[00:27:11] Is that that would be what the end of product would actually be.

[00:27:16] The paper that's out there now, I think they threw that out there to kind of gauge reaction

[00:27:22] because you're seeing other countries start to dip their toes in a little bit on this

[00:27:26] with India, obviously China.

[00:27:31] You're seeing that and even there's push back there and people don't want to use it.

[00:27:35] I think the average account size that was reading, it's like 50 cents or something like

[00:27:39] that.

[00:27:40] People don't want to use these things but I think they always have to throw something

[00:27:46] out there to just say, what's this reaction going to be?

[00:27:50] I think they would probably try and issue something that they said, hey, this is on this

[00:27:57] blockchain.

[00:27:58] It could be audited and you can see that we can't see anything.

[00:28:02] Now, whether or not people believe that, that's to be seen but if it's a fully transparent

[00:28:08] blockchain and you can get in there and understand what the actual contract, the smart contract

[00:28:13] function alley would be so what the code is doing on the actual blockchain.

[00:28:19] There could potentially be a world in which it's audited where they say, hey, this is

[00:28:24] how this thing works and what's these things.

[00:28:27] These $2 are potentially on your account.

[00:28:33] We can't see them anymore but once they come back online, potentially they can see them

[00:28:37] because if I'm giving you $5, I don't know what your privacy controls are going to

[00:28:43] be and you don't know what my privacy controls are going to be so eventually there could potentially

[00:28:48] be some sort of like triangulation of where these things are at.

[00:28:52] But again, I think that American people probably won't want this when if they actually started

[00:28:58] to push this and make this pretty serious and you would have a big battle with it.

[00:29:02] And I just think it's just way too disruptive to the current banking system that we could

[00:29:09] be talking 10, 15 years from now potentially they would try to pull something together.

[00:29:14] But again, I think there's other options and the money works pretty good right now

[00:29:20] from where things are at as far as a pure functionality standpoint with the money.

[00:29:26] Yeah, you raised a really good point that the bankers who are deeply tied with Washington

[00:29:34] are not going to want to relinquish control that quickly because they have so much power

[00:29:38] in influence in Washington.

[00:29:39] You know, JP Morgan is not going to want to go.

[00:29:42] Yeah, sure.

[00:29:43] You guys take it all over we'll go out of business.

[00:29:45] It's fine.

[00:29:46] We don't need to do banking anymore.

[00:29:48] Yeah, they're scraping pennies and that you know economies of scale are good right?

[00:29:53] You know, it's like if someone can create an awesome business and they can create economies

[00:29:56] of scale and they can offer a what used to be very expensive product for cheaper and

[00:30:02] they can make a huge profit at it everyone's benefiting from that right and then a lot

[00:30:07] of times that money makes its way back into a market whether it's philanthropy or whether

[00:30:11] it's you know, giving or whether it's salaries being increased or whether it's just stimulating

[00:30:16] the economy because of growth and people are investing in those companies.

[00:30:20] You know, to pull that much like the banking sector is gigantic right asset management

[00:30:25] is huge is one of the largest sectors that we have and to try and stifle that in some

[00:30:30] way would be detrimental to the stock market and would be detrimental a lot to a lot of

[00:30:35] these large businesses and so it would be an extremely complicated feat to pull off

[00:30:41] in especially in a very small amount of time.

[00:30:43] They can't just be like, hey, super going to suck all these old dollars up and now we're

[00:30:47] only issuing you know CBDC dollars so it could take a long time and especially if it's

[00:30:52] an opt-in type thing, you know, you're going to get definitely going to get half of America

[00:30:57] that's going to say no and then you're going to get other people that are just going

[00:31:00] to be slower doctors.

[00:31:01] Yeah, is it kind of like right now or they're just kind of like peeking open the over

[00:31:07] 10 window?

[00:31:08] They're just cracking the over two window to be like, okay, what do you guys think?

[00:31:12] Now, okay push back because that seems to be sort of how the government plays these

[00:31:17] games of like they kind of they tip toe in.

[00:31:20] They feel how the water is and then like once they sort of see the reaction if the reaction's

[00:31:25] bad, they'll kind of run back and be like, no, we were just kidding.

[00:31:28] It was kind of like, I don't know if you remember was it this year or last year when they

[00:31:33] were rolling out this, I mean for a lack of better terms like the Ministry of Truth

[00:31:39] where they were like the Department of Misinformation and the government was going to tell

[00:31:42] you what was true and what was not true.

[00:31:45] And like the backlash to that was so immense that they were like, nah just kidding we

[00:31:49] weren't ever going to do that.

[00:31:50] We never named anybody to do that just kidding.

[00:31:53] So is that sort of what it's like?

[00:31:55] It's like right now they don't plan to do it immediately but they're kind of tipping

[00:31:59] their toes in the water a little bit.

[00:32:02] That's sure what it feels like, right?

[00:32:04] Put a paper out there and see what people's reaction is.

[00:32:07] You know if they put that out there and everyone's like, yes please like you know survey

[00:32:12] everything that I do suddenly they would fast track that thing, right?

[00:32:16] But that's not the reaction that they're going to get.

[00:32:19] You know there's obviously they're going to do a lot of studies on these things but even

[00:32:23] Jerome Powell who runs the Fed right now, they're like the Fed chairman doesn't even want

[00:32:28] this right now.

[00:32:29] He was pretty explicit last year talking about he's bearish on it.

[00:32:32] And so you know you've even got kind of the powers that be at the Fed again, the Fed potentially

[00:32:37] can lose some control as well.

[00:32:39] Right?

[00:32:40] So you've got a lot of people in power positions and you're thinking well how would the

[00:32:43] Fed lose control?

[00:32:44] It's like well if everything's just super transparent which I actually think that macroeconomic

[00:32:49] data is too slow and should be more transparent with the dollar obviously it's a much different

[00:32:54] thing but when you have this kind of transparency and quickness of data, right?

[00:33:00] Like all these lagging indicators for the economy like what is the you know what's the

[00:33:04] own employment rate?

[00:33:05] Like what's core inflation at you know what's CPI?

[00:33:08] Like what are these numbers at we're always looking at these lagging indicators.

[00:33:11] We have this data today, right?

[00:33:14] We can make and the Fed can make potentially adjustments to rates.

[00:33:19] Like why do rates have to change once you know every six weeks or every quarter, right?

[00:33:24] Why can't they change every single second in real time based on the data that's out there.

[00:33:29] Wouldn't we be able to stifle inflation faster, right?

[00:33:32] Wouldn't we be able to spur the economy by putting more capital and more dollars into

[00:33:36] the economy if we need to if things are slowing down and that's their model?

[00:33:40] So the speed of that information is actually could be a really good and beneficial thing

[00:33:43] that is not done.

[00:33:44] It's just kind of legacy data that's out there.

[00:33:47] And so that put that in the CBDC model.

[00:33:51] Suddenly maybe there's less decisions that the Fed has to make, right?

[00:33:54] And maybe there's less people and maybe we don't need a Fed you know chairman at every

[00:33:57] single bank Federal Reserve around the country.

[00:34:00] Maybe there's you know and those are probably pretty popular.

[00:34:03] You know pretty big big jobs that are out there that people want that control.

[00:34:06] So you can see there's like there's this kind of legacy leadership that's out there

[00:34:11] that this is actually not good for either.

[00:34:13] You know so I think it's that's where I'm just thinking that we're a lot further out

[00:34:18] than maybe people think but it's such a hot topic thing to talk about because it is

[00:34:22] very scary to think about someone being having an on-off switch and like you know

[00:34:27] and then you go down the kind of social score route and everything else which like

[00:34:30] that's just not what we want.

[00:34:33] I had perfect segue to my next question which was let's get real conspiratorial.

[00:34:37] Let's get real controversial.

[00:34:39] Let's talk about sort of the worst case scenario what happens when there's a central bank

[00:34:45] digital currency and whether or not how they can implement social controls or social credit

[00:34:50] or you know we joke about like oh you know if you buy too much meat which I'm pretty sure

[00:34:56] would kill Camille's husband with the amount of meat that he goes through anyway.

[00:35:01] But it's kind of that idea of like we're watching what you do and we're going to control

[00:35:07] it because of how much you can spend on it.

[00:35:10] Talk to me a little bit about that kind of controversial side of the control aspect.

[00:35:17] I think you could kind of start with you know like the amount that you spend or the amount

[00:35:23] that you would want to transfer controls.

[00:35:25] You know there's already controls I think in Europe where they have a hard time sending

[00:35:28] large amounts of capital around and if you go to the bank even today and you ask you

[00:35:34] you're like yeah I'm going to go pick up you know I got to go buy a car.

[00:35:37] I need $20,000 right?

[00:35:39] They're like what are you using this money for it's like why are you asking me that question

[00:35:42] like this is just my money right and they're going to try and kind of pull some stuff out

[00:35:46] of you.

[00:35:47] You know imagine just trying to make a large transfer right and having to fill out a form

[00:35:53] right or you know maybe if it's 15 20 years in the future suddenly something pops up on

[00:35:58] your phone and suddenly you're on like a face time with someone from the government

[00:36:02] like hey like Phil what are you spending this money on.

[00:36:05] It's like whoa like you're just turning the phone away right there's a lot that you could

[00:36:08] potentially go down that you know we can go down the slippery slope and talk about I mean

[00:36:13] basically having an on off switches you know hey you went in you know your car gets declined

[00:36:19] or something gets declined because you know you're buying food for like a party because

[00:36:22] maybe you bought you know you bought a bunch of steak for someone and they're like hey

[00:36:26] you've taken too much of your share right for this this month and like well I'm spying it

[00:36:30] for a party.

[00:36:31] It's like now well I got to explain this to someone and so there's just the freedom aspect

[00:36:36] of like you know people I feel like most people just kind of want to be left alone and

[00:36:41] just like live their lives and go to work and come home and like be with their families

[00:36:45] and go watch a ball game once in a while and you know maybe enjoy a drink once in a

[00:36:48] while and it starts to really overreach the bounds of what is right and what's wrong

[00:36:55] there and you know when you and you have kind of the facade of hey we're trying to protect

[00:37:02] everyone that's almost whenever one should like their ears should always perk up when

[00:37:05] you hear that comment so yeah there's the your mind you know you can just keep going

[00:37:10] down the rabbit hole with what potentially it can be done if someone does have the ability

[00:37:14] to do those things.

[00:37:15] You speak in my language just live sort of you left alone just leave me alone.

[00:37:22] I was reading actually read an article today from zero hedge where they're talking about

[00:37:27] like coming soon your travel will be restricted by personal carbon, carbon allowances so that's

[00:37:34] another thing that if you want to fly to Europe guess what that's all the carbon you could

[00:37:39] use for that year because you flew 6000 miles.

[00:37:43] Like it could get even that bad where they say you're spending too much on flying around

[00:37:48] the country that's terrifying that you can get that much control right like they could say

[00:37:57] that's too big of a carbon footprint you can't be going here now you're restricting

[00:38:01] like freedom of movement for people to go where they want to go.

[00:38:04] Yeah I mean think about enforceability there right like it when you don't if you didn't

[00:38:10] have a way to stop someone from spending money right someone could probably work with different

[00:38:17] companies and those companies have different policies or those companies might say I'm not

[00:38:20] going to listen to that policy.

[00:38:22] It's very similar to almost when you think about COVID in lockdowns at the end of the day

[00:38:27] your local police were the ones that had to like enforce those things and I think it was

[00:38:32] like a real lesson for people to learn about where do you want to live and what's it like

[00:38:37] there because at the end of the day rules can come down but someone's kind of forced those

[00:38:41] rules right and so when if you think about essential bank digital currency that would

[00:38:45] be one way to enforce a rule like that.

[00:38:48] You know I'd love to see what the carbon credits would look like and everyone that's got

[00:38:53] a private jet including you know all this CEO is another people are out there and I mean

[00:38:58] what's Air Force 1's carbon credits like you know like the things gotta be using the most.

[00:39:04] Yeah all the people who show up at these like COP conferences and stuff like that.

[00:39:10] I was going to I had a question on the tip of my tongue I hate when this happens.

[00:39:16] Um darn I hate when that happens.

[00:39:20] Um all right we'll pivot and if I think of it I'll come back to it.

[00:39:25] So kind of bringing it like full circle and going back to stuff like Bitcoin people

[00:39:32] again I've heard people say like well Bitcoin or stuff like that is the answer to fight

[00:39:36] back against a CBDC.

[00:39:39] How does it fight back against this central bank digital currency?

[00:39:45] You could say that you know when you hold Bitcoin or you hold other cryptocurrencies that's

[00:39:49] kind of like a vote for that.

[00:39:51] It's kind of like you vote with your wallet when you go to the store and you buy you know

[00:39:55] range free eggs or you buy organic you know whatever you're buying it's like those are it's

[00:40:00] always a vote for something.

[00:40:03] But so you know the amount of capital that's infused into something like a Bitcoin or

[00:40:07] the market cap of that or if everyone you know there's you know over 50 million Americans

[00:40:13] that are holding cryptocurrency now.

[00:40:14] Those are people that are saying I vote for this thing.

[00:40:17] I like this this thing that's out there.

[00:40:19] I like the technology I want to use it and I think that's why you're not seeing as much

[00:40:23] legislation kind of coming down is because they're the same thing with putting out the idea

[00:40:27] that they're like okay people like this and at the end of the day those people need to

[00:40:30] vote for me and the number one thing that they're thinking about in their KPI is just getting

[00:40:35] reelected right.

[00:40:36] And so they're going to they're going to leave those things.

[00:40:39] You know it's it's a completely they're just so such different things Bitcoin and like

[00:40:43] a CBC is just such a different thing.

[00:40:46] Sure the underlying technology could be similar with this blockchain that's solving this

[00:40:52] double spend problem or you can't spend two of each things.

[00:40:56] The fact that there are millions of processors running the Bitcoin blockchain all across

[00:41:04] the world and that if one of them went down it's just immaterial and it doesn't matter

[00:41:09] and that blockchain stays up.

[00:41:11] It's very you know it's it's like a truth machine anything you put into it is as long as

[00:41:16] the internet and there's power on the earth right now it's like you know the largest network

[00:41:20] of computers it's not gone down since it went up you know 14 years ago and so it's just

[00:41:27] a it's it's by the people for the people right like it's that's what it is but I think

[00:41:34] when you really think about Bitcoin and the US dollar you know the US dollar is like

[00:41:39] the strength of like America right.

[00:41:42] Like that's it does provide us a lot of strength and a lot of you know trading value and market

[00:41:48] value and there's a lot that's there.

[00:41:51] And so like Bitcoin potentially could be seen as a risk towards that it could be seen

[00:41:56] like that but the way that Bitcoin is a lot of people around the world we talk about

[00:42:00] this is like it's going to happen right and so what we would love to see is for the US

[00:42:06] government to completely adopt cryptocurrencies specifically Bitcoin and put legislation in

[00:42:12] place that makes it easy and help fund companies that are building on it you know I love to

[00:42:18] see even more innovation around other cryptocurrencies they're out there and I think that the banks

[00:42:24] themselves actually there's more disruption that can happen from digital currencies on

[00:42:28] the banks than the government specifically but they are like they are very very very different

[00:42:33] things.

[00:42:34] I think there's there at very early on I think people kind of confused oh if there's a

[00:42:38] CBC that will help fuse that will bring more capital into cryptocurrencies that's just

[00:42:43] not the case right it's going to be it might even be harder to go from a CBC to Bitcoin

[00:42:48] than it is for the go from dollars to Bitcoin right because if you have a CBC and the government

[00:42:53] doesn't want you buying Bitcoin you try to buy Bitcoin with those CBC dollars there's

[00:42:57] your off switch again right so it's like that's where it's like it actually would be a

[00:43:01] harder thing to get into Bitcoin from a CBC but I think early on when I think people just

[00:43:06] hear digital currency right and they think that they're kind of synonymous but they really

[00:43:10] aren't.

[00:43:11] I remember what my thought was before when we were talking about people who just go for

[00:43:19] the idea of protection from the government that kind of worries me when you say that because

[00:43:24] we saw just not that many years ago a COVID so many people were quick to give up a lot

[00:43:29] of their rights and freedoms in order for protection because the government said so so there

[00:43:35] are large swaths of people in this country who if the government came out and said oh

[00:43:41] the CBD sees for your protection it's for X Y and Z it's all for it's for the greater

[00:43:46] good I'm afraid there'll be a good amount of people who adopt it I don't think a majority

[00:43:50] of people will adopt it but there's a good amount of people who will adopt it.

[00:43:57] But nine question if there's a finite amount of Bitcoin how does it come how do countries

[00:44:02] start to adopt it if there's a finite amount and there's only so much that can go around.

[00:44:08] They just buy it but when they do the price goes up okay right and so like the way you

[00:44:13] know there there's also mechanisms built into the Bitcoin group becomes more scarce over

[00:44:18] time so all these people that are trying to mine it you know for the same amount of effort

[00:44:22] you get half right it's called the having and that's coming up April or May of next year

[00:44:27] and it happens roughly every like four years so it's actually only getting harder to own

[00:44:32] Bitcoin so the only option for the money as hard as Bitcoin when someone's buying a lot

[00:44:38] of it is for the price to go up that's it right and no one can go create more big coins

[00:44:44] right that's it it's done and so the more people that are adopting it the more people

[00:44:48] that realize that you know it's probably the best money that's available right now it's

[00:44:55] it will potentially drive prices to go up and so I think you know long tail like you know

[00:45:01] people this is a long game for a lot of Bitcoiners is a hundred hundred fifty year plan you know

[00:45:06] that's in people's heads eventually the volatility will come out right and so there's you

[00:45:13] know for you still have to send transactions right and so to keep the you know the network going

[00:45:19] there still needs to be all these miners per se but they're basically holding the blockchain

[00:45:23] up and they what they would earn from like a send would be enough to keep the blockchain going but

[00:45:29] I mean short like short answer would be you know basically Bitcoin it has it has so there's

[00:45:38] so much future proofing that's been thought into it's actually a genius paper that everyone should

[00:45:42] go read it's so much future proofing that you know you just realized that it was very you know

[00:45:48] very thoughtful and very thought out you know it says the the on the first 2009 Chancellor on

[00:45:55] Brink of Second bailout for banks right that's inscribed onto the first block of Bitcoin by

[00:46:03] its creator and what they're looking at is you know this was the bailout this was 2008 2009

[00:46:09] this was like massive money printing this is all the people that they you know that a lot of

[00:46:15] people you know I came out of school in 2008 you know I wanted to go work at Lehman Brothers you

[00:46:19] know they didn't exist you know two months after you know I was going to graduate school and go

[00:46:25] work and so a lot of people kind of came out of that and said there's got to be a better way

[00:46:31] and so the other fact that Bitcoin was created right at that you know press base at that time is

[00:46:36] I think you know I don't think it's a coincidence

[00:46:39] someone submitted one question I think it's kind of tongue in cheek somebody said if CBDCs are so

[00:46:47] great why don't the politicians be the first to use it for a year as their only income source

[00:46:52] I like that I mean you know I can't I can't digress into politicians and where they're spending

[00:46:59] money and you know I think Washington used to be a place that people would go and work for four

[00:47:05] years you know if they ran a business or they were you know a prominent lawyer someone in their

[00:47:09] town then they would go to Washington for four years and you go home right like what Washington's

[00:47:13] kind of turned into an amount of money I mean I remember like you know one of my friends was a

[00:47:19] consultant and he was working on like the postal service back in like 2008 when like the recession

[00:47:25] was there I remember the postal service everyone's like it's going out of the business and I remember

[00:47:28] him telling me you know you know they could like expense like $25 jack and coax and everyone's got

[00:47:35] two at the end of like a long day for there right and I'm like there there was just so much money

[00:47:40] that's there now and it's just such a rich job and it's I think it's it's pretty sad but I think

[00:47:45] that you know of course these guys wouldn't want you to know everywhere there's money there's

[00:47:49] also like if you think about it there's kind of like a location security risk there a little bit

[00:47:55] too where a lot of times with hacking it's not like no one could kind of like brute force get into your

[00:48:03] any of your counts to like your password right if your password's long enough and diverse enough

[00:48:08] outside of it leaking in some sort of way no one's just going to guess your password very impossible

[00:48:13] what ends up happening is it's a lot of insiders like Twitter had some hacks back back in the day

[00:48:19] and it's because someone was kind of socially hacked they followed an employee that had credentials

[00:48:24] they figured out who that employee was and then they hacked that person in some sort of way whether

[00:48:30] that person had a you know they get a USB stick that they drop at a coffee shop that they grab

[00:48:35] or they do a free giveaway and that person puts it in that's how a lot of these things happen

[00:48:39] you know does the government official even want the other government employees that are maybe

[00:48:44] lifetime employees or somewhere do they want them knowing everything about where they're

[00:48:47] potentially spending money do they want the ability for those things to be hacked in some sort of way

[00:48:52] and sure you could say a bank would also be hacked but at least you have the optionality with a

[00:48:56] bank to not always spend money in the same spot right you can use different cards you can use different

[00:49:01] debit cards you can use cash sometimes would you want to let you know if your government employee do

[00:49:05] you want someone knowing exactly where you are at all times or hey so-and-so bam just spend money

[00:49:10] and maybe an off-the-road spot that I'm going to go find them and I think that's scary

[00:49:15] well it's no coincidence that the riches zip codes in America I think are like outside in New York City

[00:49:21] and then outside of Washington DC so outside of the financial sector of the country

[00:49:26] and obviously outside of Washington DC there's just an enormous amount of money that pours into both

[00:49:30] those locations uh another question somebody said assuming that CBDCs are implemented uh what are

[00:49:38] alternatives for those who wish not to participate I wish I knew the answer to that right away

[00:49:43] I mean if it's issued and I can I would bet there would be some sort of redemption

[00:49:51] program or what they would do is they would work with the banks potentially to basically like

[00:49:56] hot swap your money your digital money right so I can see if people knew that it was coming that

[00:50:00] people would try to start withdrawing money and all this other stuff but um you know with with

[00:50:05] crypto a lot of times we talk about Bitcoin is opting out of the system right like it's it's your chance

[00:50:11] to finally opt out of everything um that's been done in the de-dollarsation and um you know the

[00:50:19] you know think about like you guys are talking about inflation that's basically just like stealing

[00:50:22] you know specifically from people that cannot invest um in assets that go up and price so it's

[00:50:28] it's stealing from a lot of people that are on minimum wage or a living paycheck to paycheck that

[00:50:32] can't put their money away you know if you're invested into all the top tech stocks and you've got

[00:50:38] brokerage accounts and you've got the ability to invest in some of those things

[00:50:42] um you know you can you can kind of ride that wave right like you can your assets can grow

[00:50:48] um and so you know I would I would think that there would probably not be a lot of ways out of it

[00:50:53] outside of potentially something like Bitcoin um and other other cryptocurrencies that are out there

[00:50:59] um you know hard assets that you can have but at some point if it gets issued

[00:51:04] you know they'll make sure like I'm sure the work with like the point of sale

[00:51:09] right they'll work with Visa Mastercard they're gonna work with all these people and say hey

[00:51:12] you better get on board or else and then suddenly you don't really have a lot of options

[00:51:19] I feel like we could sit here and talk about this for like two or three more hours and I

[00:51:23] probably still wouldn't fully grasp it but this has been a great introduction to it

[00:51:29] and I feel like I know a lot more about it now um we're coming up on the hour so I would just

[00:51:35] want to get your your final thoughts on CBDC what your predictions are for everybody um so let's just

[00:51:43] get your final thoughts before we log off sure yeah and then thank you guys for having me so much

[00:51:49] it's been fun um I would say don't be too scared right now um you know I think that it's

[00:51:56] it's a little bit further out you know from becoming a real thing in this country at least

[00:52:02] keep your eyes on you know what's happening in places like India, Australia, places like

[00:52:08] you know obviously look keep keep keep what is happening in China it's like if China can't pull it

[00:52:12] off I don't know if anyone can pull it off and so I'd say keep your eyes on some of those things

[00:52:16] if you do want to kind of really pay attention to some of this stuff but I would say

[00:52:21] you know understand where the market is and understand what money you know get out there and

[00:52:26] invest a little bit you know figure out how money works get educated um so that you're ready to go

[00:52:32] for some of these things but take advantage of the the market that's out there for yourself now

[00:52:36] you know if you're if what you do well is just go to work and put your head down and then

[00:52:40] invest a little bit then that's what you should be doing every single day um but I would say

[00:52:45] you know listen to folks like yourself and don't get too distracted from you day to day

[00:52:49] because I think it's I think it's a little bit further out than than people are thinking but

[00:52:53] um it's good that everyone is paying attention that needs to pay attention to kind of beat this stuff

[00:52:57] back when it comes out excellent yeah I'm definitely gonna keep my eye on it and learn more and

[00:53:05] I think you've kind of peaked my interest more about Bitcoin and all this stuff I feel like now I'm

[00:53:08] gonna go learn more about it um Joe thank you again for coming on explaining this complex topic

[00:53:15] to us in a way that's easily digestible for like I said someone who knew nothing about it I hope

[00:53:21] I think all our listeners are gonna get plenty of information out of this and learn a lot um quick plug

[00:53:26] for you uh working people find you or or if they want to check out your company or anything like that

[00:53:32] yeah check us out uh lunarcrush.com and see lunarcrush uh lunarcrush.com or just follow us on x

[00:53:39] just at lunar crush we love to follow cool all right and thank you everyone for uh watching tonight

[00:53:45] as I like to end every episode make sure you like share subscribe review comment all that stuff

[00:53:52] it helps with the algorithm and as always the best and cheapest well freeway to help with the show

[00:53:57] and support the shows to share it with somebody else just message them send it to them throw it up

[00:54:03] on x I don't care just make sure you share it with somebody who might be interested in this topic uh thank

[00:54:08] you to everybody for tuning in and we'll see you on the next one have a good night everybody

[00:54:16] you

[00:54:26] thank you for listening to another episode of california underground if you like what you heard

[00:54:30] remember to subscribe like and review it and follow california underground on social media for

[00:54:34] updates as to when new episodes are available