Welcome to Head of Money. I'm Joel, I'm Matt.
Today we're talking banking on bitcoin with Natalie Brunell.
That's right, so Joel. When we occasionally talk about bitcoin, it's typically within the context.
Of investing, and like, even then, our approach is for it to be a relatively small portion of our overall portfolio. Could most folks do without it? We think that that's the case. That's true, Like, don't overly focus on I would say what we see as a more alternative investment when you haven't even maxed out conventional retirement accounts. But that is not at all how our guest, Natalie Brunell,
how she views bitcoin. Natalie sees it as this entirely new system of money, a system that is incorruptible and non partisan. In her words, bitcoin is egalitarian. It doesn't benefit any race over another. It's the purest expression of freedom and self determination. All of these things sound like totally awesome. Yeah, And for over a decade Natalie was an investigative journalist. She is now a predominant figure in
the bitcoin space. She's an influential educator. She's host of the coin Stories podcast, where she dives in deep and that is exactly what we're hoping to do some today all about bitcoin. So, Natalie, thank you so much for joining us today.
On the podcast.
Thank you so much for having me. What a nice introduction.
We're glad to have you. Natalie.
So much to get to on this one. But first question, what do you like to spourge on? Matt and I sporge on beer, but hey, it's okay, we're saving and investing simultaneously. What is your craft beer equivalent?
I like to splurge on trips to Italy. I have an Italy obsession. A lot of people don't know that. I actually studied journalism at Italian in college and I try to find my way back to Italy every single year I live there two years of college. I'm obsessed with Italy and Italian culture. So they can take my money. That country can just take my money.
Okay.
What is the most underrated city that that you think? Yeah, just gets overlooked by most folks who you go to Italy?
Ooh, underrated? That's that's a tough one. I mean, my favorite city's Florence because that's where I live. So I love Tuscany and there are so many little towns that you can discover and explore there. But I actually think underrated would be the island of Sardinia. A lot of
people still haven't been there. It's got the most pristine, tranquil turquoise water that you'll ever see, and not as many tourists, so it still feels a little bit like that raw, rugged Italian that you read about in history books.
Yeah, it's really I want to swim in.
I'm putting that on my list now that I'm curious you you're a first generation immigrant. Your parents struggles they seem to impact the way you think about money even today. How what sort of influence has has, like your family history.
Had on you.
Sure? So, I think that so many of our belief systems and our values are shaped very early. And for me, I grew up with a fear of financial insecurity, and I was really determined to succeed because I watched how difficult it was for my parents to sort of to sort to bring our family to this country and to just create what would be like a middle class life here. They just they struggled so much. It was first very
difficult to be able to come. They grew up under communism and They waited every single year to see if they want a visa lottery to be able to come, and once they got here, you know, they didn't know the language. They had to start over. We lived in a tiny apartment. I grew up around people that were
much more financially comfortable than us. And once they were finally able to purchase a small townhouse, I went off to college and a couple of years later, the Great Financial Crisis hit and they were suddenly bankrupt and moving into a tiny, one droom and I just thought, how the heck can this happen in a country that's supposed to represent the American dream that you know, it doesn't matter where you come from, if you work hard, you can achieve something. And I felt like the game was rigged.
I felt like the rules were were in favor of the people at the top, and so I became I became an investigative reporter, honestly because I wanted to hold the powerful accountable. And I was very much in like
the tax the Rich movement. I thought that the way to fix this is for government to reach in and redistribute the wealth and punish the greedy people and give it back to the working class, And I came at this view from a fundamental misunderstanding of how economics works, how our money is actually even issued, and the broken incentives at the base layer of this system. And I
didn't learn about any of that until bitcoins. So Bitcoin for me was actually a transformative journey of better understanding the entire financial system, what money actually is, and why so many people feel left behind and add a disadvantage even if they're working harder than ever. And I really think that bitcoin is the best possible solution we have before us.
Okay, I feel like you're segueing very nicely into how it is that you became a bitcoin believer, because like, there are plenty of folks out there who graduated into the throes of the Great Recession and even would look to the government, right, and like as you peel back the layers and you're like, Okay, how did this come about? Like what caused there to be so many banks who are then willing to lend to underqualified borrowers?
A lot of different theses on that team.
Yeah, But at the same time, I think there's a whole lot of folks who would say, well, I don't know if bitcoin is necessarily the answer here. How did you kind of come around to essentially believing in bitcoin?
Well, I just I really didn't know what money was. I didn't think about it, and I didn't I didn't question something that is a reality for all of us, which is that things get more expensive every single year, at least the things that you need most, right, housing, education, your groceries. And maybe they don't go up so significantly that everyone's protesting in the streets or running around calling out how many more dollars each thing costs each year.
But if you step back, you zoom out, you notice this trend, everything just climbing up in prices. And I never connected that with the expansion of our money supply. They basically tell you that inflation is necessary. That's what you're sort of taught. Inflation is necessary. It stimulates the economy. If we didn't have inflation, the whole thing would collapse.
And it was it was not until bitcoin that I actually started to question that, why do we have to have a form of money that expands and therefore dilutes everyone who's holding it. And there's a real thing that I think everyone should study, which is the Cantalon effect that the people who get to issue more of this money, and the people who are clicking the strokes of keys that actually expand the monetary units, they benefit the most,
and the people around them benefit the most. If you're close to the money printer, So if you're the big banks, if you are the special interest groups that get first access to the money, or the big corporations that get to borrow it really ridiculously low interest rates, you benefit from those freshly minted dollars. And as you go downstream, us the working class, we benefit it from it the least,
and in fact, it disenfranchises a lot of people. It destroys our purchasing power and our savings, and so over the long you know, timeline of this type of activity and manipulation with our money, we see people who can no longer save. They've they've played by all the rules, they've worked hard, they've saved up, and yet they can't afford retirement, or to have a family, or to help their you know, to get out of a medical situation
that came up. There's something fundamentally broken with that, and that's what I think we need a question if we're going to have a monetary system that's going to expand continuously and lose value. Well, we need to be able to save in something that doesn't. We need the opposite of that for us to be able to save for the future. And I believe bitcoin to be the best asset because it is completely decentralized and it is immune
to inflation. It is scarce and finite, and no one can ever print more of it.
Yeah, the finite reality of bitcoin, I think is certainly one of the key selling points. I'm curious to dive deeper on inflation for just a second. How real of a problem is inflation in your mind? Because, as let's say, we've experienced it more viscerally in recent years, but aren't asset prices and incomes typically both going up? Right, So it's prices, but also people earn more. So why is inflation such a problem in your mind?
So I actually think this is the biggest problem facing the working class. And again I didn't recognize it until bitcoin. So I think we're under this illusion of growth and expansion. They tell you that CPI is two percent, and for the most part, CPI is because CPI, the consumer price index is it's a measure that can be highly manipulated, and it has changed. If people actually dig into what goes in the metrics that go into CPI, it has
changed drastically over the last few decades. So it accounts for things like, okay, well, if a car, for example, is getting more expensive, Oh wait, but it has some new technology. You can you know, your your music's now more digital, or you have a GPS built in. So we're going to negate that inflation because the technical components are a little bit better. Oh wait, you know, steak got more expensive. A lot of people are choosing not
to even buy stak. They're actually turning to chicken. So we're going to actually put chicken into the basket instead of steak. So they manipulate the basket to tell you inflation is two percent. Meanwhile, the rate at which the money is actually expanding, if you measure it by M two, which is the kind of agreed upon index for monetary supply,
it's actually increasing between six and eight percent annually. So if you are not getting a raise of eight nine percent, you are actually just keeping up with the rate at which they're expanding the money supply. A lot of people, again don't realize that, and so yes, assets have been going up because that's where money tends to go. And who has the majority of assets Wealthy people, Right, Wealthy
people hold the majority of the assets. And so when they manipulate interest rates down, which they did for basically two decades, and when they expand the money supply, the first recipients of that money, they tend to do things like buyback shares of stock, they manipulate essentially real estate prib. They go into real estate, they buy real estate. So all of this is affecting the very things that the working class can no longer afford because their wages are
only going up by about three point nine percent. So this is actually something I wrote about wrote about in my book that's coming out this fall. Bitcoin is for Everyone. I wrote about how how money supply expansion is moving at a much faster rate than wages, which is why so many people feel like they can never catch up because yes, they're getting a raise, but when you zoom out again, the money supply is growing much faster than
their wages are. And so that's why I think the working class is sitting there going, yeah, why don't you tax the rich because they've got all the stuff. We're working harder than ever. We don't have anything, and we don't know how to take care of our families, and I think that's why we've become so polarized politically. But it's really two sides of the same coin. It's a broken monetary system and red blue left right. It's not going to fix it until we fix the money.
Yeah, I wonder too if that's it seems like we've seen a divide among classes.
Too, as opposed to just blue versus red.
But like, you're highly need the problem here inflation. But practically speaking, though, how are you actually using US dollars?
Right?
Because you can say that, oh, this is ideally what we'd moved towards, and you know, when it comes to like, I guess bitcoin as an actual currency, but you can't use bitcoin to actually pay for groceries at the grocery store that you're talking about that are going up in price. Practically speaking, how are you interacting, I guess, with the current financial system as it exists.
Well, I think this is a great question because there's sort of a debate about whether bitcoin is a currency or is it an asset. I actually believe that first it will be an asset before it turns into a mainstream currency. And the reason is because it is going up in value and your dollars are losing purchasing power. So most people want to spend their dollars, which are going to continue to get inflated and debates, and they
want to save in bitcoin. That makes sense to me, right, So increasingly merchants, I think, are going to incentivize people to try to spend their bitcoin because what do they want? What does everyone want? They want to accumulate bitcoin. So if you can get people to purchase whatever it may be with bitcoin, I think we're going to see an increase in that. We're already seeing places like one of the most posts popular apartment rental companies in Los Angeles,
owned by Rick Caruso, they accept bitcoin for rent. More and more companies are starting to say, hey, here's an option, you can pay in bitcoin if you want to. But a lot of especially hardcore bitcoiners, they don't want to spend their bitcoin. They want to save it for the future because there's only going to be twenty one million. You want to race to accumulate as much as you possibly can. But in the future, again, if this does become more of a monetary standard, which I do see
a future WHEREK could be. Then I think that we will see more and more commerce denominated and paid for in bitcoin. Right now, though obviously governments are incentivized to
have their fiat currencies be the mediums of exchange. They want to be able to tax people in their fiat currencies and levy that as sort of the medium of exchange that's accepted by decree, right But I think that things are changing because governments have really abused their power over money, which is why bitcoin exists in the first place. And so it's going to be very hard to convince people to save in a form of money that just gets debased and inflated every single year. And that's what
I think we're seeing with US treasuries right now. We're sort of in a between a rock and a hard place because we need to keep expanding our debt. That's how the whole system is now underpinned with these US treasuries. But why would someone hold treasuries when the real rate of return is negative because they keep inflating the money supply far greater than the rate that you're earning an interest. So that's a huge dilemma, and.
There are historical realities of this happening in countries around the world at different periods of time, where the currency becomes so devalued the people are using the currency for toilet paper, wallpaper, because it's more valuable in those ways than it is to spend on stuff. You have to have a billion dollars essentially in that currency to afford a meal, and so even if you're incredibly rich, the value of the currency gets deflated away so significantly that
people are living in poverty. I'm curious, so too, you talk about the haves and have nots under the current system, is there a possibility for a half and have nots in the bitcoin system? Essentially early adopters first, late adopters, because I just think about what's happened with the price a bitcoin over the past ten years, and gosh, it feels like that people who are thinking about getting in now the price of skyrocketed so significantly.
Are they too late?
They're definitely not too late. It's still very early for all of us in bitcoin. And this is actually one of the things that's most empowering about this piece of technology. We've never had an asset like this whose total addressable market is eight billion people. So yes, early adopters of course benefit from the earliest massive price swings and appreciation. But think think about the early adopters of Amazon stock, right, they're probably living in they're nice, they're nice mansions and
have their yachts and all that. But a kid in a developing nation could not have purchased a share of Amazon stock. They can't buy a fraction of a mansion in Miami Beach and watches that appreciates, but they can purchase a fraction of a bitcoin. And I think that again, in the future, it's a system with a finite supply where you have to provide value or expend resources in
order to get bitcoin. We've never had really something like that that the whole world can buy it connected through this digital economy, or work for it or earn it, and so it's going to be a constant I think exchange of value around the world in a way we've never seen. This is why I actually think that we're going to enter an era of abundance and prosperity that we haven't seen before, because at the base layer, we're going to have a form of capital that no one
can manipulate and steal from under us. Like inflation is a hidden tax, it just steals from us. Bitcoin does the opposite. It reinforces the base layer of all of our interactions through commerce, through business, through money in a way that no one can cheat and manipulate. I think that that will actually usher in the most opportunity for
the most amount of people. Well, the early adopters have benefited, sure, but there if they're going to want to you know, live and eat and travel and all that, they're going to have to spend their bitcoin eventually because someone's going to say, hey, the only way you can get this is if you pay me in bitcoin. Now we're talking
about a world probably you know, decades from now. I think that the transition will take a long time because dollars are still really entrenched in the whole global system, and most debt is denominated in dollars and most people transact in dollars. But I think over the long time horizon, we will transition into this bitcoin standard because it's better and most people will vote with their money.
What do you think about stable coins?
I feel like there are more brokerages and investing firms in I guess they're talking about those, it almost seems like crypto light or Bitcoin light almost where it's just like, Okay, you don't want to own the actual thing.
For a lot of folks, you can't stomach the swings and price.
You're brand new to this, and so it's I guess, what are your thoughts about about some of these different stable coins?
Sure, well, let's keep it really really simple.
A stable coin essentially, especially if you're talking about the dollar back to stable coins, that is a digital dollar, and what is the dollar designed to do. It's designed to inflate and increase in supply. These stable coin companies, it's been a wild ride to watch because some of them are now purchasing more US treasuries than entire countries, like tether Tethers, I think the seventh largest buyer of
US treasuries. So they're essentially just printing money because they're sitting on all those treasuries earning risk free interest, and they're growing and I think that their profits for like one hundred people in their entire company almost exceeded Goldman Sacks. So it's wild right, and obviously US banks and US companies are looking at this saying we want a piece of this action. So that's really one of the priorities
Wall Street, the big banks. They want to be able to issue their own stable coins, and the US dollar wants to prioritize, or the US Congress and the US government wants to prioritize this because they want to extend dollar dominance. If you create more demand for the dollar around the world, that benefits us, especially if these companies are all backing the dollars with treasuries. What do we need. We need buyers of treasuries. So I just see, you know,
stable coins as the future. It's a digital version of the dollar backed by US treasuries. And I would never save in a stable coin right because it's just going to continue to get devalued.
But I think that it.
Will be an entry point for a lot of people as they start to use this technology and use crypto rails in order to save in bitcoin, so, you know, spend your dollars to spend your stable coins, but save in bitcoin.
The price of bitcoin can fluctuate wildly, and some people have said that it's essentially akin to when you look at the movements of the stock market, Bitcoin mirrors the S and P in some ways, but more extreme, And so I could see why people who want are willing to take greater levels of risk put more money into bitcoin because they're hoping for greater reward. But that also I think incentivizes people to speculate in bitcoin, especially with
inter day movements that can be significant. How do you think about You're talking about holding bitcoin, holding it for the long haul, and I think that has been a mantra for a lot of people in the bitcoin space. But then there are other people who say, I don't know. I think I want to try to make some money on a day to day basis, just kind of speculating on where the price of bitcoin goes. How do you think about that?
Yeah, so I'm not a day trader. I wish people luck who day trade this asset because it is very volatile. I mean, obviously, you know, people can gamble at the casino and make a huge amount of money or they can lose a lot. So I don't recommend day trading. I especially don't do not recommend recommend using leverage because there can be very significant swings that wash people out, so be careful. This is a long term hold strategy
for me. I think that if you understand bitcoin. If you've taken the time to really study this asset class in network, then you have a longer time horizon and you don't look at the everyday price wings. I mean, I'm at the point where when bitcoin dips like it has been over the last few weeks, I get excited. I'm like, oh my gosh, mo and my target buy orders just got execute because bitcoin dropped. This is an excellent place to just add a little bit more. And
I actually celebrate the dips as an opportunity. Now that, obviously for a newcomer, is very, very scary. You have to really learn about bitcoin before you can stomach the volatility, and I certainly was not ready to do that at the very beginning. I was extremely skeptical, and when it made price wings, I thought, oh my gosh, any day it's going to go to zero. But that was coming from my ignorance about what it really was that I was investing in. And nothing does that for you other
than just taking the time to study it. So volatility doesn't bother me. In fact, I think that it can really be, as they say, a feature, not a bug, in the sense that volatility can increase your sharp ratio and actually increase your returns across a portfolio that's very diversified, even if you just add a tiny bit of bitcoin.
And you can see that when you look at tools like the Knackomoto portfolio, or you look at statistics from I believe Preston Pish was the first person to note that if you had just invested ninety eight percent cash and two percent bitcoin over the four year cycle between twenty twenty and like twenty twenty four, you would have outperformed the S and P five hundred and anybody outperformed.
So isn't that crazy?
Yeah, so a little really does go a long way. And I don't think it's going to be a question of, oh, do you own bitcoin in a portfolio? You know, five years from now, it's going to be how much do you own? Is it two percent or is it more? In my opinion, it's going to be closer to like is it ten twenty fifty percent of your portfolio?
All Right, you're getting into, like, I guess, the practical side of things, Like you've made the best case for it from like a very high level why our current system is broken. But Natalie, we've got more questions to get to we are going to talk about more of the pragmatic practical steps when it comes to implementing bitcoin into our portfolios. We'll get to that more right after this.
All right, we're back.
We're still talking about bitcoin with Natalie Brunell, who know a lot about bitcoin, and Natalie. Matt is ready to take the red pill or whatever color pills or I should have done that, I should have done that. He's so ready. Let's see if he takes it by the end of this episode. Maybe I maybe I I've secretly been micro do saying orange pill over the past four years.
All right, I'm curious. So you kind of talked about just briefly there, how you think about when you buy more bitcoin? And it sounds like you have metrics in place to say that are predetermined instead of on a given day letting your emotions get ahead of you and say, all I think I'm going to buy some bitcoin now because oh dropped eight percent. Do you have predetermined measures? How are you are you dollar cost averaging into bitcoin?
How do you think about when and how much bitcoin you, you know, increase in your holdings?
I buy bitcoin every single day. I dollar cost average every day Yeah, I have a DCA setup for daily buys. It's great because you know a lot of the platforms if you do a d C eight, there are no like I buy on River, no fees if you buy daily, weekly, monthly, whatever.
So that's great.
And I just figure I'm going to spend ten dollars on like a coffee if I walk out the door, why not put ten dollars or whatever out you're comfortable with and in bitcoin, and a little again goes a long way. I also just find ways to earn bitcoin in any way I can. So I accept bitcoin from people that I partner with or my sponsors.
I use bitcoin.
Reward credit cards so that I earn bitcoin back instead of like airline miles and hotel points that inflate at forty percent a year.
I don't know if you knew that, but that's a fact.
Hey, what's the best bitcoin rewards credit card.
In your opinion?
So Gemini dot Com Slash Natalie that's a great one, and also Fold. They haven't released THEIRS yet, but they're coming out with one, but I highly recommend Geminis because THEIRS is out right now. But I also do target buys,
so I watch macro very closely. If you watch my show, you know, I bring on analysts who are both bullish and bearish on everything that is happening in the economy, and when there's a great amount of signal that hey, we might crash soon, I create some target buy orders online where I say, okay, if bitcoin drops to seventy k I'm going to purchase this amount of bitcoin. And so those are just sitting there, and while the money's sitting there, I'm actually earning interest in bitcoin on my account.
So it's like a win win across the board. And maybe that buy order never gets executed. But recently someone by buy orders were because we crashed down to seventy something thousand.
How did you deal with the crypto winter as it were? Right, we're extended downturn in bitcoin.
Values that and for some people, I think Natalie just kept buying Joel, did you have a digit?
Were you buying every day? Because some people were saying this might be the end? Is this the time that bitcoin gets unproven, that thesa gets gets unproven? Were you were you doubting or were you were you just buying like normal?
You know, I said on a recent show that I'm so grateful for that crypto winter, because I thought at the time that we were going to sail away to one hundred fifty two hundred K, and it is harder to accumulate when the price per coin is that much, right, But having an almost eighty percent, I believe I forgot the total it drew down in the bottom of the bear market. That was actually a gift to those of us who have put in the time and the work,
because yes, I was buying. I thought that it was going to go down to ten K, and I was going to load up as much as I possibly could with any savings that I had.
Yeah, I was.
I was buying all the way down the bear market, and it was kind of one of those first times where I realized that I now understand the age old investment advice that you should you buy when there's blood in the streets, you should buy when there's all the fear, And I never really understood that, and I was always
scared of that paradigm. But because I had put in so much work with bitcoin, and I was highly convicted and had sort of the evidence and the years of studying to back that up, I felt comfortable buying the dip as hard as I possibly could, so I'm very grateful for the crypto winter. I don't think we'll ever see prices below fifty thousand. I'd be shocked if we did. And yet we're still so early. Going back to that earlier point of at one hundred thousand dollars per bitcoin,
which we have retreated from. That's a two trillion dollar asset class. That's tiny compared to the other asset classes that we're essentially competing with, which are gold at twenty trillion, equities at one hundred trillion, real estate at hundreds of trillions,
and bonds at hundreds of trillions. And I think that over time Bitcoin will demonetize these other asset classes, and to what extent I don't know, but I would feel comfortable projecting that in a few decades we're at fifty trillion market cap, if not one hundred trillion.
All right by now, Joel, I'm just thinking about Natalie literally buying daily, so she truly is that's like averaging to the extreme. She really is microdosing. Yeah, yeah, on bitcoin. And now, well you mentioned that you're buying. You've got these daily orders set up on River like, what's the difference when it comes to practically owning bitcoin. You've got different brokerages. I've purchased bitcoin over on robin Hood before.
But then you've got folks who talk about cold storage wallets, and if you don't own you have your own wallet, it's not really your bitcoin talk to us about because I think that's a barrier.
ETFs are another option for people.
Now, it's sure, right, yeah, but I guess, and so you've got all these different ways to get into holding actual actual bitcoin, But I guess I'm curious specifically between buying bitcoin with a brokerage like robin Hood or in your case, River versus folks who've got like a cold storage wallet.
Well, the great thing is optionality. I really think that the more ways that people can buy and interact with bitcoin the better, and then people will choose based on their risk tolerance and things like convenience. Unfortunately, right, so recently the rules were changed in the memo from the SEC was changed so that banks can actually start custding bitcoin.
And we're not there yet, but once the really big banks like Chase and Wells Fargo and all of them start offering bitcoin, I'm pretty sure a lot of people coming in will say, well, why would I go to some small crypto exchange when I could just buy at my bank right now. The thing that I think people should just be aware of is it is important to do your homework with bitcoin because it's unlike any other asset in that it is a bare instrument that is
intended to remove all counterparty risks. So you can actually take self custody of your bitcoin. You can purchase a cold storage wallet, or create a multi key situation, a multi sig scheme to basically decentralize and diversify your points of failure or risk so that you don't have one key accessing your bitcoin. Some people are willing to learn about that process, which I really encourage. I don't think it's difficult or technical, and others are saying, no, I
don't want to manage my own keys. I don't want to have to worry about that. I'd rather just keep it at a bank or buy exposure to bitcoin, not really the underlying asset through one of the ETFs. I think this is just a really personal choice, and I'm a huge believer in the market, so I'm not going to dictate to you.
What's right for you.
I think that you know, there's sometimes technology barriers and depending on what age you are, that kind of informs what you're willing to do. But let me just tell you, anyone can take self custody. If you don't know how to do it, there are great one on one personalized services that walk you through it, like the Bitcoin Way. The Bitcoin Way had an eighty two year old customer recently takes self custody of their bitcoin. Like literally, anyone can do it, So I recommend it just because then
you remove all counterparty risk. You're not trusting a bank, you're not trusting inn exchange or an institution. The bitcoin is fully owned by you. It can never be confiscated, and you can create multiple keys, and you know, you can have a situation within a state planner that you will your keys to your children. All of that can be set up. It's just what are you willing to do and how much time are you willing to take to learn about how to do it.
What's your take on other cryptocurrencies? And there have even been alternative cryptocurrency. The ETS announced too coming down the pike saying hey, we're gonna have actually an ETF that offers exposure to a range of crypto and because you seem so bitcoin centric specifically, and yet there are like what hundreds of cryptocurrencies that exist, thousands, thousands, and some of which are based on memes, jokes, some of which seem like don't have any They don't seem to be
equivalent to Bitcoin in any way, form or fashion. How do you think about the whole cryptocurrency space? Bitcoin gets lumped in as a cryptocurrency, but it seems also to be really unique.
Yes, Bitcoin is very special. It is unlike all the rest. And I know that for a newcomer it might sound like, oh, well, you're just pumping your own bags. I went through that whole journey. So first, let me just say, if you're new to the space and you're looking at it and you don't really see the difference, I was right there with you. In twenty seventeen, I bought a bunch of the other tokens. I thought, oh, well, these are cheaper, and I could pick up a bunch of these for
in less than a penny. I was looking at it from kind of a gambling mentality and honestly just totally speculating and then it took me years to really wrap my head around bitcoin and how beautiful and technically perfectly engineered the consensus mechanism the mining actually is. It is a commodity, a digital commodity that is backed by energy and math that no one can manipulate or hack or compromise.
It is really really special. We've never had anything like this, and bitcoin is the only thing that could serve as a reserve grade asset or as a new base layer for a monetary system, whereas everything else I really see as an industry of mainly digital equities. I do not want my money to have a CEO. I think it was totally selfless and amazing that Satoshi Nakamoto walked away from bitcoin, never revealing his or her identity, and also never extracting a profit or creating some sort of foundation
or trying to market his token. He just created it and sort of gave it to the world to organically succeed or fail. And I think that that's incredible.
I mean he could have, right, I mean we could.
So Toshi could be someone that tried to have a bitcoin company and a face in front of it and tell you, like, you know what the plans are in the future, and that's what we see with a lot of the other tokens. We see founders, we see vcs, we see foundations, and I don't trust people. The point of bitcoin is I don't have to trust any of these people. I don't have to worry about ten years from now if one of them decides to change the code or propose something different. None of that risk exists
in bitcoin, which makes it truly unique. And I just urge people to be careful with crypto because everything falls against bitcoin. I just urge you to take any token that you're looking at, price it in bitcoin, and you will see it just crashing to zero. And that's what I think people should pay more attention to, because yes, you can get lucky in the short term, but if you do sell it and buy bitcoin's that's what I think.
Joel.
Doesn't this sound like something that Satoshi would actually say herself? Is it?
Well?
Now, like you talked about it being perfectly designed, Like speak to that, like I guess the security aspect of bitcoin. You say that it's it's perfectly secure, But what about we're reading a little bit more about the advent of quantum computing and just what some of these computers are are capable of. Do you, I guess does that not concern you at all?
It does not.
I've actually looked into this for the last couple of months because all of a sudden there was a new way. There's always new fud, right, fear, uncertainty, doubt, and the latest fud has been about Quantum's going to break Bitcoin.
Well, I just I just.
Want people to know that, first of all, the Sha two fifty six hashing algorithm, which brings so much security to Bitcoin, there's gonna be a lot that's going to be cracked before that. We are nowhere near the level of being able to crack that. And so these AI tools that are coming out and even Microsoft talking about, oh well we have something that has like this amount of care bits, da dada, we're gonna be able to
accomplish this in terms of computing. I just want people to remember that everything will be cracked before Bitcoin, every banking system. When I go first, the nuclear codes all of your all of your Internet activity, right, so everyone is incentivized for that not to happen. And do you think that if Microsoft basically came up with an AI tool that would crack all of its systems that it
would sell it like. No, I mean, it's it's kind of a it's kind of It goes to what I always say about the free market, which is that the free market's the best referee because it will it has like self protection mechanisms in place. We don't need government interference and all the laws that exists because the free market will actually protect itself in many ways, just like
nature protects itself. And I yes, computing is going to increase and maybe there comes a time many years from now where we have to upgrade everything to quantum resistance. But I will tell you that I'm not worried about bitcoin compared to everything else will come before it.
So going from something that is like future oriented, what about something incredibly simplistic. We were talking to someone recently, Matt and I were who is a big bitcoin investor, and she mentioned, and I'd never heard of this before, five dollars rench attacks, and that is like the most basic threat. I guess, this most simple thing is a dark alley and a wrench in your face, where a personal attack on somebody who holds a lot of cryptocurrency.
How worried are you about that. How prevalent is that almost like someone saying, hey, can I borrow your phone and then transferring money from your Venmo account to their own account. How big of a problem is potential violence in stealing people's bitcoin stashes.
So yeah, I.
Actually did a few episodes recently about this because we are seeing an increase and people make themselves out to be targets. Right. Some of the most recent instances where we've seen this are people talking very very loudly about all the crypto that they hold, and then all of a sudden someone tries to literally harm them or kidnap them or threaten them with violence.
So it is a reality.
So I would urge people, first of all, if you're investing in this space like no one's no one's tweeting about their Amazon balance, right, Like I just I just think you be a little bit more private and be a little bit more careful about what information you're putting out there because so much of us, you know, our identities and our personal infos already online, So don't add to becoming a potential target. Number two, create ways to have barriers around your bitcoin. What does that mean, Well,
don't have single points of failure. Don't have a situation where even if someone were to take your phone that they could immediately send bitcoin. A lot of the platforms right now, if you were to have a hot wallet, actually create vaults where you have to wait a certain amount of days to withdraw more than say one thousand dollars of bitcoin. So like my platform, for example, River creates what they call a force field around your account.
And if you're trying to transfer all of a sudden out of nowhere, you know, tens of thousands of dollars, that's going to be a flag to them that hey, this might be something nefarious going on, and we're not going to allow that bitcoin to move until we verify that this is actually Natalie sending it. So a lot of the companies are creating, you know, options like that and tools like that.
And then again going back to.
Multi sig multi key custody, if you take bitcoin into self custodying, you create a multi key scenario. There's nothing that the person could do to get your bitcoin if you have to get another key that's in another state, Like they could want it, but they can't get it, they can't access it. So I just think you need to do your homework in terms of being able to
decentralize distribute any points of risk. And then yeah, just be careful what you're posting because they're dangerous, scary people out there that are wanting to take from you, and you just you have to do yours to protect yourself. But it can happen, you know, not just for bitcoin, but for a multitude of reasons.
Okay, I like how you continue to say, do your homework, and so I guess I want a last note here on I guess practical advice or suggestions, like do you have a recommendation on what percentage of individuals investable assets that should be in bitcoin versus the stock market, especially for a lot of folks out there who are are newer to it, and we typically are like, you know, we understand that there's a case for it, but be
super careful and how much you a lot? Based on what you're saying, I guess I wouldn't be surprised for you to say, you know, so, like you said a second ago, ninety eight percent of your portfolio could be cash, and then like so, basically one hundred percent of your actual investable assets are dumped and bitcoin, but I'm I guess I'm curious to hear your thoughts on somebody who is new to bitcoin. What you would recommend from a percentage damp stock market. Do you still invest in stock?
I think that everyone should be invested in bitcoin. I think it's that actually a lot easier in terms of an investment strategy, because you just set it and forget it and just keep accumulating. I think that over time there will be more tools, like you could borrow against your bitcoin. People are going to be taking out, you know, to buy a house. They're going to be using bitcoin as collateral. Like there's going to be a future of services and products that we haven't even envisioned yet, but
definitely get off zero. So I think that if you're very, very new and the volatility makes you nervous, or you need to make a really big purchase in the next couple of years, then keep your allocation very small, you know, one to two percent, five percent. But as you learn, believe me, your conviction starts to grow. And so yeah, I mean I ended up. I was actually upset that I even still had for a time being gold in my portfolio or some of these stocks, because bitcoins so
aggressively outperformed. And you know, if I have this conviction, but I'm not really putting my money where my mouth is, then do I have conviction. So I eventually ended up just shifting a lot of my positions to just being very bitcoin focused in my retirement cown. I do own the bitcoin ETFs because that's just it's just easy to hold in a retirement portfolio as opposed to spot bitcoin.
And then I hold spot Bitcoin outside of my retirement accounts and self custody, and I'm like a full on bitcoin maxie, and I'm super happy about it.
That's awesome.
Right, We've got a few more questions to get to with you, Natalie, including well, if government is part of the problem and part of the reason that we need bitcoin, what happens when they enter into bitcoin ownership. We'll talk about that and more. Right after this, we're back from.
The break again speaking with Natalie Rutinelle and Natalie. As Joel alluded to before the break, let's talk about government policy. Because Donald Trump, he seems to be the first president to actually embrace crypto, at least I don't know, at least publicly. He announced the creation of the Strategic uh, not just bitcoin reserve, but also crypto. So I'm kind of curious as to if you think that he is wasting his time and effort with some of the other
cryptos don't need harpening. But how will that impact bitcoin specifically? And then I guess just a crypto space as a whole.
Well, let me just clarify something first. We have a strategic bitcoin reserve and that bitcoin is pledged not to be sold, and I think we're going to start adding to it in the next year or so. Whereas the digital assets stockpile does have crypto that was seized through civil forfeiture, but that can be sold. So what the government is saying is don't sell your bitcoin, but maybe
sell the other digital assets down the road. So I wouldn't be surprised if the government actually sold a lot of those other digital assets that are in the stockpile. And we're going to definitely be focusing on a strategic bitcoin reserve. A lot of people maybe don't realize, but we have strategic reserves for other assets and commodities. We have a strategic oil reserve. People might be familiar with that.
We have a strategic chie reserve. We have a strategic obviously gold, but I think what we need is a strategic bitcoin reserve because it is important for the government to recognize this technology as one that can help us address some of our many financial issues. We're a nation thirty six trillion dollars in debt. We need to keep up the demand for the US treasuries, which we talked about earlier, which is why they're so in favor of stable coins and anything that will extend dollar dominance.
But what will actually help.
Us grow or get out of debt. We need an asset that appreciates rapidly, that is here to stay, which we know bitcoin is, and that is finite and cannot be hacked or manipulated or inflated. So that's Bitcoin. I mean,
I really do believe. I had Senator Cynthia Lummis on my show I'm releasing it this week, and she's talked about how we could cut our debt in half if we pass the Bitcoin Act and start strategically accumulating bitcoin, because Bitcoin is growing faster than any other asset, and it will out allow us to outpace this debt that we keep accumulating.
And that's what I think.
We need in order to be able to grow and maybe focus on sort of revitalizing the American dream that seems lost. The thing that brought my parents here. This nation was so strong and prosperous because of its economic power. It was the credit or nation. It made so many amazing things that it exported around the world. And now we're just highly financialized and all we export is our dollars and basically we just go into debt. And so
I think that there's a better America ahead. I think the bitcoin age is ahead of us, and I think that if America embraces it first, we will be at a strategic advantage. So I'm so excited to see that this administration is embracing bitcoin, even if not all the politicians fully understand bitcoin yet, which they don't, But I think this is a starting point. I think we will be a leader and we will set a standard for the rest of the world.
Okay, looking to the future, I don't want to hear price predictions or anything like that. I can get those on CNBC or really any financial website. So so predicts bitcoin to a million in a year and a half or something like that. That happens all the time. But when it comes to the way bitcoin interacts with our everyday lives, even people who haven't or have been really slow adopters of bitcoin. What's that going to look like?
And I think the thing I'm particularly curious about. You talk about bitcoin, and that's one of the existential questions is is it an investable asset or is it a currency? And you think it's an asset that will transition into a currency. What's that look like? How does that shake out? What's the future for bitcoin?
I think it's going to take a long time.
My goal is to just help people learn about bitcoin so that they start saving in it, because I do think it's the most powerful and am empowering savings technology. So I think that people will increasingly save in bitcoin. There are going to be more and more tools and
services to allow you to do that. I think that companies will come out with killer apps that make interacting with bitcoin on a day to day basis a little bit easier, and that will facilitate more of the medium of exchange aspect to bitcoin, so people do start spending
it more for their business activities. But I just see a long time horizon where we slowly shift away from underpinning the entire system with sovereign debt and one nation's currency, and we start underpinning it with things that no one can control, and a lot of people would think that we're retransitioning back to gold, which I can understand. If you don't understand bitcoin, then you might think gold is the next best solution. I would be in that camp
if bitcoin didn't exist. But because Bitcoin exists, I think it's going to eventually move into a system underpinned by bitcoin as the capital, as the pristine collateral, as the savings technology, and as the way eventually people do spend their money.
Very cool, Natalie Bruneill making a great case for bitcoin. And Natalie, you mentioned your book that comes out l later this year, Bitcoin for Everyone. Do you have a scheduled publish or release date for that.
I'm so excited.
Yes, you can already pre order it on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, all the bookstores. It's coming out in October or November, and I'm so excited because it is the book that I wish that I had starting my journey. It explains the problem that currently exists and why bitcoin is, in my opinion, the best solution, and why everyone should buy at least a little bit of bitcoin.
Nice awesome.
We look forward to checking it out when it comes out. Natalie, thank you so much for joining us today on the show. We really appreciate it.
Thank you, ok jil, I feel like after that conversation, did you just get orange pilled?
Because we always hit stop.
On the recording with the guests from the interview, and you know, we have a few words thank them for coming on, and then you and I end up talking for like fifteen minutes, and we probably just talked for about thirty minutes, and you just got pretty fired up before I resumed the recording. Here for us to come back and present some takeaways. But what do you want to share?
Okay?
So my big takeaway, okay, is that everyone should read more about economics, so they should understand our economic system how it works, and really the history of economics too.
And like, sorry, big homework assignment, people, but I've just finished reading two incredible books by Thomas Soul, Basic Economics and Applied Economics, and I think why I'm recommending that is because I feel like this conversation with Natalie, a whole lot of the why behind bitcoin comes down to the flaws in our current economic system and the way the people in charge of the levers of power have handled our system of money.
And Jill, everyone's putting you in their box of conspiracy theorists as you say.
This, it's not just you know, it's truly not conspiracy. It's just the literal fact. I mean, we've noticed it with just even artificially low interest rates, what happens when the government does print more money and the inflation that causes and the pain that causes typically on the even lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum. Do I think bitcoin is the fall on solution? And I don't know, like I am down to own some bitcoin. I am probably
down to own more. I feel like Natalie explained it really well, But I do think like my big takeaway is just that to understand bitcoin, even to feel like this conversation is successful, I think people need even more of a fundamental economic education, and that's that's sorely lacking in this country. So yeah, Thomas sol read Thomas Soul. That will help you out a lot.
So my big takeaway will be less onerous for those who are like, yeah, dude, I'm not going to.
Do that, which is they're like they see the thickness of the book. I thank you. I've got a life to live.
So on that note, my big takeaway is going to be when I asked her about what percentage of your overall portfolio should be dedicated to bitcoin, and she said, it's just good to get off zero. And I interpreted that as it's better to have some than to have none.
And I think even if you're thinking, well, dude, I'm not gonna completely understand how the world works, how the FED is manipulating money, FIAC currency, or you know, nudging the economy in certain directions, well you also don't have to completely understand that to diversify a little bit to head your bets. And there's a part of me that
feels that that's what the US government is doing. The ability to set up to set up a strategic reserve points to the fact that you don't really know what the future holds, and do you want to double down on a system that you're not totally sure of, or do you want to perhaps quietly start having a strategic reserve when it comes to something like bitcoin. I think it's smart not only for countries, but obviously for individuals as well. I don't know if that's going to change
how much I'm currently holding. Yeah, But for those out there who have had their interests piqued, I think there are some very easy ways to check it out if we wanted to.
And I'm not changing a rule of them yet, But I think we've always said something like up to five percent of your portfolio, but maybe kind of what you're hinting at is it should probably be something up to five percent of Sure, you know, but until now it's been like you don't need any but if you want to, you can, And so maybe it's like, I don't know, maybe you should have a little.
Bit have something, Yeah, And I think it'll get you thinking about it, and I think that can be the beginning of the helpful process of learning what it's all about. All Right, we got long winded before when we weren't recording, so we'll try to say save all of our listeners from that. But our beer that you and I enjoyed today was a stash IPA. Looks like this is Independence Brewing Company out of Austin, Is.
That right, Texas? Yeah, this is one of the beers that you picked.
Up while you were there in Austin for the.
iHeart Podcast Awards. What were your thoughts on this beer? I liked it.
It was a little dank, a little grapefruity, mildly bitter. So sometimes the hyper West Coast style IPAs can just be like too better, too hard for me to endure. This one was like, maybe it's because it's in the middle of the country. It was like it was mid bitter, which I can appreciate.
So I like this one.
Yep, had the dank going on, but with like a little bit of fruit, like not a specific fruit that they you know, forced into it, but just tasted great, nice and bright, juicy. Glad that you and I got to enjoy it and share it today on the episode That's Gonna Be It.
For this episode, you can find show notes.
Up on the website at Howtomoney dot com, and we'll make sure to link to the pre order to Natalie's book. And we didn't even know that she's coming out with a book later this year, so I'm glad we.
Got to catch her early.
So buddy, until next time, Best Friends Out, Best Friends Out,