Lex Fridman on Bitcoin vs Gold: Argument with Michael Malice and Yaron Brook

Lex Fridman Podcast full episode: • Michael Malice and Yar...
Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
- Ground News: ground.news/lex
- Public Goods: publicgoods.com/lex and use code LEX to get $15 off
- Athletic Greens: athleticgreens.com/lex and use code LEX to get 1 month of fish oil
- Brave: brave.com/lex
- Four Sigmatic: foursigmatic.com/lex and use code LexPod to get up to 60% off
GUEST BIO:
Michael Malice is an anarchist. Yaron Brook is an objectivist. Both are podcasters and authors.
PODCAST INFO:
Podcast website: lexfridman.com/podcast
Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2lwqZIr
Spotify: spoti.fi/2nEwCF8
RSS: lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/
Full episodes playlist: • Lex Fridman Podcast
Clips playlist: • Lex Fridman Podcast Clips
SOCIAL:
- Twitter: / lexfridman
- LinkedIn: / lexfridman
- Facebook: / lexfridman
- Instagram: / lexfridman
- Medium: / lexfridman
- Reddit: / lexfridman
- Support on Patreon: / lexfridman

[@zorezakbar9892]

The way they hold this discussion is amazing utterly shocked at how productive and how they actually are listening to each other not pushing ideas mindlessly.

[@bradhanley7310]

You need a grammar lesson.

[@zorezakbar9892]

@@bradhanley7310 haha its become bad habit. Ill take it to heart 😅

[@youtubeme7195]

did you observe yaron's arrogance and wilingness to infer "shut up kid, adults are talking." in ALL of the conversation for the full episode.

[@Rob-vl1vc]

Well said.

[@therav2007]

Michael Malice's face during some of Yaron's comments are a reflection of what any Bitcoiner's face would have been

[@michaelrorman4031]

I thought that also. The "government" stepping in is all great and whatnot unless another government accepts Bitcoin and moves ahead of non-accepting governments. Russia is already determining on whether or not they will take Bitcoin in exchange for their oil.

[@mephik]

Looks like a government stepping in has, once again, shit on the "digital gold" / "store of value" concept. So, circle the wagons around digital currency!! Fuck me, new bagholders. Same as the old bagholders.

[@btccookie201]

😂

[@TherealJesseLivermore]

@@mephikHow’s that view working out for you

[@briansandford3596]

"The government thrives on letting you do stuff in the black market so that they can decide when to put you in jail." and not one person argues with the statement. Pure genius!

[@Jake_Hamlin]

Some governments supply said black markets, like they did with AN0M....

[@dflip8268]

Lex cracked himself up with that joke lol I love it!!!

[@Low_commotion]

I think he realized he bombed, and then Michael laughed at his mortification lol

[@brandenreece]

@@Low_commotion he didnt bomb he hit it out of the park and they didnt get it..... which makes it even more funny.... you did get the joke right? lol

[@wogi9412]

"I don't understand it, but I don't believe it will succeed". There are better arguments than that.

[@sergiootero5904]

I don't think he was saying BTC is gonna fail because he doesn't understand it, but just being honest in that he doesn't believe it.

[@leonidsdreams3919]

Bitcoin has greater problems than what he outlined. Most people who "invest" in Bitcoin don't understand it. It's becoming increasingly more centralized (because you need specialized hardware that is hard to find and super expensive). Most owners don't use it as a currency (to buy and sell things), but as an investment, speculating that the value will continue to go up.

[@lighty9023]

6:45 Bahaha the only person who makes Lex laugh is Lex himself!

[@DjRenect]

They can always fix that with a software update.

[@Rob-vl1vc]

When people communicate like this, problems get solved and the audience can actually learn something.

[@MisterCovek]

Just get Michael Saylor on the show already.

[@benjaminishmael2139]

MS can't debate reasonably. he just gets super pissed and refuses to hear others points

[@MisterCovek]

@@benjaminishmael2139 How many debates have you seen him in?

[@AmplifyAmbition]

@@MisterCovek the correct answer is zero

[@josuardgonzalesmedia]

@@benjaminishmael2139 you are nonsense!!!

[@mediocrejokre]

@@benjaminishmael2139 kzbin.info/www/bejne/maCrdJJvdtV1msk

[@anizzutz1107]

The old man's description of Bitcoin not being money because you don't know the value could easily be applied to all fiat money.

[@elmikatv]

10:22 that look to the camera cracked me up

[@stulego1]

Construtive conversation thank you to both parties and Lex!

[@nickkacures5507]

Concentrations of wealth in elite circle's would tend to prove the fed favours the elite

[@FightForFreedom1776]

Power/Control they can utilize from bailing elites more like.

[@kadeemk4679]

17:17 to 17:21 says it all. The lack of understanding from Yaron is very apparent and Michael knows this.

[@raelized]

Yaron is so wrong about the aspect of scarcity.

[@kadeemk4679]

@@raelized right like who the hell would say to themselves I have a scarce asset I better go and sell it now that there's no more being created.

[@bradvincent2586]

Wait Yaaron was right in that section, he basically said once all the Bitcoin is mined, deflation will occur. His conclusion that it’s a bad thing is wrong.

[@kadeemk4679]

@@bradvincent2586 precisely

[@rrangel1968]

OMG! @ 6:48The funniest thing Lex has said thus far. I love it. His AI is kicking in. Damn fucking Robot,

[@broken1persona]

If you don't use bitcoin because of possible government interference, then you might as well not invest in anything.

[@BlackhaloZ]

Especially gold, after they pointed out FDR seizing it.

[@xf1956]

12:30 the look at the camera was hilarious

[@daveg4963]

Brook doesn't fully understand BTC and crypto

[@Mooseman327]

He doesn't understand a lot of things but his genius is sounding authoritative about whatever he's talking about. He's very good at that. His reductionist materialist core philosophy discounts 99% of reality. For Brook, spirituality, in any form, does not exist. However, even when we look at science, we see that matter only accounts for, at most, 5% of reality. What about the rest? What is it? How does it affect the 5% we can measure? He just ignores all that. That's where he goes wrong on every subject. For example, saying that humans make jewelry made of gold (or silver) because humans "like shiny things" as crows do, for example, ignores the conductive and health properties of these metals and their effect regarding electricity and life, in general. Gold and silver have inherent positive attributes that other metals do not possess. Ancient peoples recognized that, even though Brook, with all his modern hubris and ego, cannot. He has to reduce things to their most philistine explanations...always.

[@Reblwitoutacause]

@@Mooseman327 woo woo

[@DjRenect]

I can’t hold his ignorance on BTC against him though. Keeping up with the latest developments on the frontier of crypto is a hobby you have to be into. However, as the real-world adoption is growing, there’ll be a point where it will hit his peripheral.

[@johnnyblackrants7625]

14:33 Malice trying to contain his laughter at “a crypto backed by gold would be more successful” 😂

[@stlouisix3]

Yaron merely made a common-sense statement🤣😂

[@matthewklein9225]

So what is crypto backed by?

[@timewave02012]

I don't blame people for not understanding the cryptography, but thinking cryptocurrency could be backed by physical assets is a fundamental failure to understand the economics and philosophy of cryptocurrency. Thinking that any particular form of money has to be everything for everyone is also shortsighted.

[@matthewklein9225]

@@timewave02012 I don't see what the upside to crypto is at this point. Government will crack down on it. Also, if I have to convert crypto into dollars to actually spend it I don't see the benefits. The grocery store is compelled by the government to accept my dollar bill. They are not compelled to accept crypto.

[@timewave02012]

@@matthewklein9225 The grocery store is not compelled to accept Federal Reserve Notes. "Legal tender" laws only apply for debts. Ever been somewhere that doesn't accept $100 bills? It's rare now with inflation, but used to be a thing a few decades ago. Anyway, crypto has been serving its purpose, facilitating transactions governments and banks don't approve of, for over 10 years, and they haven't cracked down yet. If they do, it'll still work on dark web and other black markets, and having a digital currency for black markets is a big deal. It also likely won't be banned everywhere, and a ban on crypto will be an early sign of rising tyranny, at which time it'll be useful for escaping with wealth.

[@spritecut]

Michael ‘Bugs’ Malice showing infinite patience with Elmur Fudd who is literally making arguments that have been addressed 4 years ago. Best episode of Looney Toons ever!

[@Ms123kill]

Should get Economist, finance and Crypto programers to argue rather activists and journalists. I would love to see economist pov vs crypto programmers and finance specialist

[@dzolv4008]

So according to Yaron's logic when BTC is completely mined the price will still start to fall as the quantity becomes fixed and the dollar inflates? Does anyone follow this because it makes no sense to me? I struggle to listen to someone who is self-admittedly naive on a subject and such a strong opinion. Next, he probably will tell you his opinion on finishing a triangle choke even though he has never trained a day in his life.

[@josuardgonzalesmedia]

Boomer madness haha

[@oscarg8449]

Based on your comment, you didn’t understand his point. The irony is that the description you gave Yaron perfectly described you. He was saying that prices will go down in terms of Bitcoin, because of the scarcity. He doesn’t mention the dollar. Isn’t it the point that Bitcoin is supposed to work as money according to you guys? Because of this, there might be massive deflation in periods of high productivity growth. He sees this as a problem.

[@lucaschiasson5399]

Why I'm not very interested in a bitcoin vs. gold argument: Just buy both. Diversification. Both have there pros and cons, strengths and weaknesses. You cancel these out by not having a unilateral preference and adding both to your portfolio.

[@daireconnolly522]

The only pro gold has over bitcoin is that gold has a utility function outside of its monetary function e.g. jewelry. Bitcoin is better than gold in every single monetary aspect

[@sulack]

14:35 - That face XD

[@hiob51]

"i cant invest in it not knowing wath the value will be in 5 years!" 14:06 but you sure know the value of 1 dollar in 5 years. 50cents?^^

[@_Dovar_]

How optimistic.

[@AntithesisDCLXVI]

I think gold has been a favorite for jewelry because it has a sunlike quality, and we've always revered the sun in some way. Also, modernly, it's very useful for electronics as it is a great thermal conductor and it does not rust.

[@themissinglightninglink]

I wish there were a way to thumbs up lex's channel(s). I'm already subscribed and like most of his videos, but it would be nice if i could give him a little thumbs up or pat on the back every time i enjoy his work. Which is quite often. So here's to you Lex, thank you! 👍

[@FacilityMax]

Talking about firing electrons at other elements, I think it would be much easier in short term to do asteroid mining and get gold by that. What about that?

[@one4320]

If this is an argument, give me more. These 3 guys are great together.

[@thomasjohn4814]

This was such a great podcast

[@siniestros7]

He doesn't fully get BTC, he is loud but WAY off, but the comment about the gov about control is very true. Cold wallets are a must! (95% of BTC would eventually be stored there with only 5% in open exchangers)

[@user-ej9lb8pz4p]

Bitcoin has the same mechanism that gold has and it's called difficulty adjustment. When the price goes down the mining power decreases due to the incentive being Lower which in turn reduces the difficulty so the incentive returns to being lucrative. Another point to mention is that when hyperbitcoinazation happens it will become the new standard replacing the dollar so basing your argument about how it has a limit thus the price will go down because it can't keep up to productivity is irrelevant, not to mention it being finite would make it depreciate in value and incentives saving (just like how it was with the gold standard) which will allow for very very long term economic planning and that's how a civilization thrives.

[@Nothingman88]

I don't understand how Yaron can say that the fact that Bitcoin is limited will ultimately make the value go down. That seems to contradict supply and demand.

[@kevinjohnson4498]

I dont think he is referring to the $ price of Bitcoin by "value". He is talking specifically about the value of Bitcoin as currency, as opposed to an asset whose value is attached to a fiat currency. If theres not enough supply to operate the economy then its not valuable as currency. Bitcoiners think we will live in a world where a gallon of milk costs .00000000000478 BTC. The population is increasing over time so supply and demand for goods/services increase as well. If the money supply at capped, then the price of goods/services will decrease over time as their supply increases. In theory it should still work since we can break Bitcoin down into ever smaller amounts. But its a radical change to money for people to adopt. And theres always the issue of govt not giving up their control of the money supply.

[@Nothingman88]

@@kevinjohnson4498 I'll have to give it another listen however, Yaron considers it an asset only, not a currency. So, that wouldn't really apply. He says because it's finite and ends, the price of Btc will go down. (Around the 17 minute mark) Edit: Also, he says (gold) prices go DOWN because there's too little gold... this also contradicts supply and demand.

[@BMWWolf]

He means that prices will go down (deflate) as bitcoin becomes more valuable. This would be the opposite problem of inflation

[@Nothingman88]

@@BMWWolf Are you referring to the price of goods and services?

[@AlwaysElevating]

You can literally wrap Bitcoin, lend it, borrow against it in stablecoin, and use that for payments, these boomer-tier arguments should not even be tolerated in 2021, even the SEC recently acknowledged the potential of DeFi, they know it can't be stopped. Yeah you can still pay with BTC if you want but I think the USD will likely remain the medium of exchange and it will probably be through an audited stablecoin or hopefully a decentralized one like DAI.

[@kazykamakaze131]

Yaron feels to like he is trying to sound smart in a room of smart people, so he feels intimidated by someone else challenging his intelligence, you can see how he reacts being 1 upped by Michael as an example. It's clearly apparent he doesn't understand how bitcoin works and what constitutes as money.

[@ajykumar2]

16:00 productivity relation.

[@zekeinvest7041]

This makes me wanna put my whole net worth into Bitcoin as a 20 year old in the United States

[@user-ju6ts8ij5l]

balls

[@TheEconomicExpert]

Do it

[@nichtsistkostenlos6565]

Put it into various cryptocurrencies. Betting it all on one cryptocurrency when there's 10,000+ cryptos, all innovating would be like putting all your money into IBM, instead of investing in Apple, Microsoft, etc. Bitcoin Maxis are gonna be disappointed in 10 years when BTC slowly loses its market share because it's the first iteration and naturally aging technology.

[@zekeinvest7041]

@@nichtsistkostenlos6565So far I’m convinced on Bitcoin and ether, and own 1 doge. I’ve heard good things about Cardano and XRP but I haven’t done research

[@nichtsistkostenlos6565]

@@zekeinvest7041 DOGE is a trash crypto, it has no interesting technology and no long term future in this space IMO, but absolutely do your own research. There are a ton of great projects out there, my personal favorites are Cardano, Algorand, Chainlink, Cosmos, Polkadot and Stellar, but you're absolutely right to look into everything and understand it before doing any kind of investing.

[@Mooseman327]

"Government is not greedy for money. Government is greedy for power. Government is greedy for control." - Yaron Brook Most spot-on comment in this entire conversation. This is a reflection of why Republicans gravitate towards the business world and capitalism and Democrats gravitate towards government and socialist politics. This is how the basic conservative/liberal split reveals its core concerns. For example, if Donald Trump were to exhibit corruption it would be in his business dealings while if Joe Biden were to exhibit corruption it would be via his abuse of political and governmental power. For Repubs, governmental power is just a means to their principal goal...more money...while to Dems, money is just a means towards THEIR principal goal...more power.

[@simon824]

Can't wait till joe rogan has people talking about btc. Hopefully it'll help more people get in.

[@xavier6037]

He's had on guests before to discuss BTC.

[@naxtrades]

Joe should have Michael Saylor on his podcast.

[@invanorm]

He had Andreas Antonopoulos on twice years ago and they talked about almost nothing but Bitcoin.

[@capitalist4life]

BTC has enough momentum at this point. I doubt JRE could move the price of a trillion dollar asset.

[@so5075]

He has has a person one like 6-7 years ago. Probably way before you ever heard of it.

[@blueshattrick]

Gold and (especially) silver, platinum and palladium are also used often in tech/manufacturing

[@bahmak2003]

Bitcoin used specifically as monetary network asset,metals use in industries and jewelleries! Gold goes to 100k, then industrial products like phone goes very expensive. Bitcoin goes to 100k, has no effect on mobile phone and electronics. So gold goes higher creates more problem! 😂😂😂😂

[@DejanOfRadic]

I think Lex went for the old world European wisdom on that bedroom joke.....then remembered that he better laugh hard to make it seem like he didn't mean it lol

[@name-vi6fs]

He's right. Gold has value beyond currency, unlike Bitcoin. It's not just jewelry. It's a highly conductive metal, and very resistant to corrosion.

[@sirreginalddukeofchutney234]

16:30 - The higher the network's difficulty, the more computing power is needed on average by miners to find the next block hash. As Bitcoin's price and difficulty fluctuate, miners become more or less profitable and turn on or shut off hardware accordingly creating a sort of homeostasis.

[@philfortner1805]

Gold's value for commercial uses is about 15%. So it's worth by that standard is $280 an ounce.

[@brownie003]

Hilarious last line of that vid by Malice "Noone says I'm naive. Naive people think they're not naive" 😂

[@proper_noun436]

lex, when you mentioned bitcoin being the possible final base layer, you could have mentioned the possibility of forking the bitcoin rules based on mass consensus, to, say, increase the total supply from a finite number to a linearly increasing supply.

[@skipondowntheroad5833]

@Dustin Franklinv But there would be no benefit to increasing Bitcoins total supply. This cap on the bitcoin supply is a major appeal of Bitcoin. If you fork Bitcoin, the vast majority of people will stay with Bitcoin and not the fork as it will have the superior monetary policy, namely low inflation vs higher inflation, as well as a higher stock to flow ratio that will outpace that of the fork.

[@proper_noun436]

@@skipondowntheroad5833 I agree. The purpose would be for means of exchange rather than store of value. i don't think any asset/currency can be both a store of value and means of exchange on principle that it would prevent the velocity of money.

[@rkirkpatrick01]

Lex are you on Nostr yet?

[@jonathanrabbitt]

BTW. Gold as a monetary standard is a legacy of the use of gold in minting Chartalist coins. It is, in effect, the proof of work (because mining it is laborious and expensive) that prevented counterfeiting of state currencies. It was only useful in a pre-Bretton-Woods world, l in which it was used to settle international trade imbalances. Gold reserves were also used as a ruse to kick-start willing participation in the Bretton Woods proposal (in addition to the Marshall Plan investment of US capital into Europe and Japan). Whether countries will revert to gold (or Bitcoin as Bretton-Woods systems break down is another question.

[@jims6274]

13:00 the simplified version of this statement would be, effectively, that Bitcoin is not money because it is not legal tender. Though it might be in a few third world countries today, it is not yet so in the first world. It's an asset. It's not legal tender.

[@Gh0stHack3r.]

Bitcoin is a protocol, what you argue about is BTC the currency people speculate it's value in US dollar on many exchanges. Hint there are many software changes done to the protocol where one scale (BSV as ticker) and have original scripting still working on chain.

[@maksimsamartsau8144]

13:26 he looks into the camera like "wtf is going on here"

[@jasondoolin6476]

Malice’s face when yaron says crypto should be backed by gold 🤣

[@blackasinc]

Him:I dont think it works...I can imagine a world. Me: 🙃 Central Banks: 🤫

[@lupusdei0819]

Love arguments

[@JohnBeans]

Too many minutes spent learning Yaron doesn’t understand Bitcoin.

[@400kot]

I dont get when he says when quantity of gold is low prices go down? 🤷 Shouldn't it be the opposite?

[@oscarg8449]

He’s talking about prices of goods. They go down in terms of gold with productivity growth.

[@brotatoto]

Plato: I know that I know nothing Yaron: I'm not naive

[@wantanamera]

Socrates*

[@manny75586]

I generally like Yaron, but he is definitely missing a lot about Bitcoin. Several times he mentioned the government taking BTC away, clearly he is unaware that BTC (crypto generally) can be stored offline. He should probably stick to other subjects.

[@gavingonzalez7174]

Never though these two would talk, nonetheless it’s still a very interesting conversation.

[@blottolotto7648]

idk man. brooks sounds pretty clueless on every topic they covered

[@Lucas-hb1uq]

The problem with gold is it can be centralized just like his example in the 1930’s. You can’t put a gun to everyone’s head and make them give up their recovery code.

[@bettycooper369]

not exactly, they used propaganda to coerce people into giving up their gold. They villainized those who held their gold and used propaganda to make those who gave up their gold feel like heroes.

[@Lucas-hb1uq]

Betty Cooper No doubt. Definitely not saying anyone had a gun to their head. What I am saying is that’s what it would take to get people to give up their wallet code. Unlike the propaganda of the early 20th century, Bitcoin owes no allegiance to a country or ideology except itself.

[@Lucas-hb1uq]

ClumsyClicker They could but it would be at the detriment of their own power structure. If they were to have tried to stop it before 2012 they could have but it’s now too big of a tax revenue producer and has the fifth highest market cap in the world.

[@Lucas-hb1uq]

ClumsyClicker Two reasons: Gold is a physical asset that can be taken yet it was taken with propaganda not force. Using force would essentially cause our political system to collapse as people wouldn’t give up their digital assets without a fight.Patriotic propaganda won’t work in this age. The second reason is that if the US does confiscation or means of theft through goods you do two things. Hurt businesses even corporations who have traded in this format, negatively effecting your own economy and giving your “enemies” like China an economic victory as they would soak up all the hash rate while soaking up all the worlds currencies that go into Bitcoin. If China bans it then it becomes an advantage for the US to do the same essentially soaking up all the worlds currency.

[@Lucas-hb1uq]

ClumsyClicker My point is no amount of force or executive orders will coerce the public to give up their assets in today’s age. Politicians may not truly care if another country succeeds of not but one thing is for sure our US politicians need a boogeyman to keep the tax money coming in and the votes to sustain their careers. As far as my “soaking up the currencies” comment. That is literally what is happening. The US dollar, Yen, Rupel, euro etc are being used to buy up Bitcoin. Less cash is coming back out of that system except for hardware purchases and the cash out from individuals. Most of the fiat currencies stay on the exchanges ledgers and with miners. With the advent of stable currencies people don’t sell into cash during a market drop, they just put their money in limbo util prices stabilize. This is why if the US banned it somehow countries like China who’s government is already subsidizing mining operations would have an economic victory. They could nationalize all mining (China already has over 60% of the global hashrate) and control all funds coming in and going out.

[@juanfa98]

14:32 Michael's reaction

[@kylorenkardashian79]

Love this dudes lisp. He sounds like Isaac Arthur

[@LESN16]

You sir are a man of culture 😂

[@kylorenkardashian79]

@@LESN16 ❤️

[@raiderlance6145]

There are two solid crypto projects launching that will be backed by gold (and silver). Lode.one and kinesis. Lode.one (LODEPay) is launching agx and aux coins on the exchange Hitbit in the 2nd quarter. Full disclosure I hold coins in the Lode project.

[@taysoprano]

Did that guy argue with the statement “the banks are in bed with the government?” That was the single most insane statement I have ever heard anyone say who wasn’t Elizabeth Warren. This isn’t really a debate it’s more like Michael schooling a very old man who’s firmware clearly is not up to date. Lol I laughed so hard when the dude started defending banks like they were victims 🤣

[@nikd4721]

Still waiting for the counter argument

[@abanger]

"Scarcity creates a real problem economically. It's the issue of planning. There's a beautiful mechanism in markets. Prices are going down because there's too little gold. What happens then is there's an incentive to go mine for more gold. It becomes cheaper and cheaper to mine as the price goes down, so you mine for more gold. So it keeps increasing, basically very correlated to the rate of increase in productivity. That's the beauty of gold mining. Because prices are related to gold, gold is the dominant money, it increases at about the same rate as productivity. So it *keeps prices relatively stable*. With Bitcoin it's finite, it ends. Now prices will only decline. What rate will they decline at? They'll decline at the rate of productivity increases."

[@andrewthompson5242]

One guy dominated the conversation on Bitcoin, and it was the guy who said at 22:36, "to a large extent I don't understand the technology."

[@martinlutherkingjr.5582]

A gold backed crypto is pointless apart from speculating on gold’s price without a broker.

[@skipondowntheroad5833]

There are many problems with a gold backed crypto. That guy suggesting it is clueless.

[@AltumNovo]

As deflation in bitcoin occurs, debt in bitcoin also increases as people become more optimistic about the future as cost of living is going down, which increases the paper supply of bitcoin easing the deflation. Other cryptos and all kinds of assets also get spin up in a time of exuberance reducing the demand for bitcoin. So the underlying asset bitcoin never needs to inflate it's supply for prices to be stable

[@daraghcuddy244]

Yaron is a bit soft in the head with some of his comments... Bitcoin backed by gold? LOL

[@jdd4652]

Only in the last half century did golds utility be made clear to humans or more like we got lucky the shiny metal we liked a lot turned out to be a good semi conductor in the future

[@NeoStoicism]

We only value gold because the Annunaki genetically encoded it into us so we'd mine it for them. Fort Knox is empty.

[@427vot]

16:15 Is he describing deflation as a problem?

[@tedpaulus]

The fact that gold is used for purposes other than that of money is not a feature. It complicates matters and is indeed not a desirable characteristic of a money.

[@WilhelmFreidrich]

Can you really turn a different element into gold?? I am highly skeptical of that.

[@matthewklein9225]

Gold doesn't tarnish or rust Excellent conductivity Gold foil can be 2 atoms thick

[@issemxfi]

In a post ww3 scenario, are you more likely to get food or water to survive by exchanging a gold coin, or a hard drive with 1BTC???

[@axnoro]

In a post ww3 scenario, I don't fuckin care man. I'd take a wooden spear over gold, and a gun over a spear because in those conditions the only law is might makes right.

[@ChucksSEADnDEAD]

Anyone who has access to a market where they can trade gold will surely have access to BTC.

[@simonjesusbeliever3467]

Depends. Does it mean we go back to th3 stone age. I'd use gold lol. Is it like ww2. Then you'd have access to btc

[@Oscar-lz2mv]

BTC - stored gold... XRP - liquid gold

[@joyjayant]

The round wheel needs to be invented once and once only, peer to peer money transfer needs to be invented once only. It also has a network effect now, I don't know what can be better than Bitcoin, now and forever...

[@peterbarrett5496]

Yaron one of those guys that’s using 2013 arguments. Peter schiffs arguments make more sense, although I think flawed, because he keeps up with the space and knows the lingo.

[@kylen4701]

I'd say buy silver / gold at this point... but I am also retarded.

[@Seegie16]

Nothing wrong with buying gold & silver in the near term at least as both commodities have just begun a pretty decent bull trend.

[@JamesCarnley]

Yikes, Yaron Brook really loves to hear himself talk

[@Alex-ht3fk]

And it was all good information

[@skipondowntheroad5833]

@@Alex-ht3fk Nope

[@copperdove056]

I don't know Michael Malice aside from seeing him on Tim Pool's show, but the guy is intelligent and has a sense about things. This other dude likes to hear himself talk and has nothing of any real value to say. Shut up and let Michael speak already!

[@lucasglowacki4683]

Well, we make “fake” diamonds all the time and the diamond monopoly has set the prices pretty firmly and demonized the cubic zirconia. If we end up making gold there will likely be two tiers..the real mined version and the lab made one. The latter being of less value.

[@nonyab3237]

They make diamonds by rearranging carbon atoms. We can't make gold atoms. If we could, the amount of energy to make gold atoms would be magnitudes greater than it is to "make" diamonds. Even if it was possible, the economics wouldn't ever be even close to remotely profitable.

[@michaelallen3304]

@@nonyab3237 people are talking about rearranging atoms and mining asteroids while the United States is in the middle of societal collapse. lmao.

[@cromcccxvi3787]

To say Banks did not benefit from the 2008 bailout is one of the most offensive pieces of corporate propaganda I have ever heard, and undermines the validity of everything else he said. I was on the front line, we underwrote home loans based on 1 criteria. Not the borrow, not the actualy value of the home, not whether or not we thought they would even foreclose but whether or not that 200k house could be sold for 300k the next year..... trash loan upon trash loan, it was reckless, terrible business decisions and in the end it was No Risk. Executives paid themselves their bonuses and took TARP the next day... so the statement "the 2008 bailout didn't help the banks because their stock went down for less than a year"? Are you kidding me.... Corporate Propaganda makes me sick

[@glenallan6279]

Chia will not be finite! Get Bram Cohen on Lex!

[@mrRSdaily]

Not sure why Yaron says gold is not finite? There is a limited amount of gold that can be extracted out the Earth.

[@rjim1]

Because each time there is an earthquake and the super heated "stuff" (im not a geologist 😂) comes up to the surface it turns the right minerals into gold instantly, hence its always being made. I only learnt this recently myself.

[@MisterCovek]

It's only scarse in theory. In reality, gold is being descowered a couple of percent every year. And when we find all the gold in Earth, we will make it as Malice said. We already know there is gold in space on asteroids. So technically, gold is not finite.

[@rjim1]

@@MisterCovek very true about the asteroids but they estimate that is a minimum of 250 years away to be able to mine that and bring it back. Just one they found has more gold than Earth!! 🤯

[@raelized]

@@rjim1 which proves that if bitcoin works, it's can continue to be a money standard beyond the next 300 years.

[@rjim1]

@@raelized indeed! 👍

[@codforlife]

That could be the best anti bitcoin argument i've heard. And it wasn't very good.

[@allanhutton]

Yaron, yaron yaron. oh my some shocking logic and understanding there.

[@PhilippeLarcher]

read "the dictator handbook" (or invite the author :D)

[@terrardwhey281]

15:00 can someone explain this part to me? Bitcoin's total supply may be finite but the supply is never going to stop, it's just going to get exponentially harder to mine bitcoin (which does kinda get negated by mining hardware getting better to some point). I'd expect gold to have a similar mechanism, there's a finite amount of gold on the planet and as we mine more and more of it it's going to get harder and harder. And stuff like converting other elements to gold or mining gold from other planets is so difficult and far away right now I'd argue it's easier to hard fork bitcoin to raise it's maximum supply and convince everyone to move to the new chain.

[@skipondowntheroad5833]

@Terrard Whey But who would be convinced to move to a new forked Bitcoin chain with it's inferior monetary policy? It would be the equivalent of trying to convince gold holders to switch from holding gold to holding iron as iron has a larger supply. Do you even understand what money is and how gold became the winner as the best money?

[@manibharathy1994]

Govt : Shut up and take my money.

[@lupusdei0819]

Federal reserve writes our economic policy just FYI.

[@JStreet904]

Damn this hurts

[@carmineglitch]

Gold vs. Bitcoin, sheet that's a tough debate! My dudes lets have both and settle it there lol

[@The_Marketsurfer]

ESG score, will regulate the individual. That way Bitcoin holders will just pay double

[@Joe-yi8xj]

Guys. WTF. Not enough research. This conversation sounds like it could have happened 5 years ago. You’re out witted by 15 year old crypto nerds. Don’t bother if you’re not up to date.

[@mileshall9235]

I would accept bitcoin before gold as payment for something.

[@tc3383]

Fav number third

[@user-fy1sx4vt4m]

The need for the lightning network destroys all the alleged benefits of BTC.

[@danOH112]

Hearing the arguments against bitcoin from the old guy makes me more bullish on bitcoin. He’s a textbook example of the dunning Kruger effect in regards to bitcoin.

[@themadmattster9647]

Dig Malice more the more I hear him