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The Bull Case for Bitcoin in the Covid-19 Era with Peter McCormack TPP276


In this episode I’m joined again by my brother in Bitcoin and metal, Peter McCormack, host of the What Bitcoin Did podcast for a timely exploration of bitcoin’s many apt use cases in the Covid-19 era

Please visit his website and podcast at:

And find him on Twitter at

My Non Verbatim Show Notes

TP: if there’s one podcast you listen to, What Bitcoin Did Podcast

PM: thanks for the intro, love the last show we made, talked about metal

government vs liberty, misinformation

enjoying cooking, exercise, time with children, processing strange time

TP: echo of satoshi’s voice, I told you so, proving out every fundamental thesis, right now in super concentrated form, positive response, I’m not technical analyst, bitcoin still leading all of crypto, is some from of safe haven, hedge, uncorrelated, continues to show gains, best performing asset the history of money, selling points, or study points

PM: never want to go too far, one of most important things I did with bitcoin, about a year ago, stopped checking price, sold on my thesis, hedge against government fuckery, fiat dying, insurance against a lot of things, investments made, not selling any for 10 years, stuck with that for a year, doesn’t matter what the price is done, that said, if you don’t own bitcoin, never been a better time to look into it, do some research

at a conference, mass adoption, we have mass awareness, most people have heard of it, don’t have mass adoption for a reason, some reason they’re not buying, could be for a number of reason, weird magic internet money, reality is, over long enough time frame, always proven to be a success, scarce asset, limited supply value will always go up

governments printing money, us dollar global reserve currency, with everything happening now, weird government decisions, reason to question government/money, research bitcoin, if you think you need a hedge/insurance, maybe its the time to buy

TP: hesitant to be a shill, go out and buy, coinbase statements about 1,200 stimulus checks, don’t invest money, invest time understanding it, if you can answer certain question, andreas antonopolis youtube binge party quiz

like to see speculative hype energy to closing the loop of products and services, like New Hampshire, the end to end, real peer to peer, narrative, can’t trust government, can’t trust money, beyond hype bubble, use it for peer to peer electronic cash, more circulating

PM: wouldn’t put all money in anything right now, weight out risk/reward, healthy hold some bitcoin, some gold, some cash, some physically some in the bank, have a spread in case one blows up, in a bad way

peer to peer cash, strange one, white paper, has to be a store of value before medium of exchange, I don’t think it’s a death nail for people not to be spending, people may spend it, is it coffee, betting, buying a house, whatever people choose

what do I spend it on, buying people, donating, I get paid in bitcoin, I don’t spend bitcoin on every purchase, depends on user, don’t need to push any specific use case, find the use case that fits you, some people censorship resistant spending, investing, hodling, capital controls, people can find own use case, don’t need to push a narrative

TP: enlighten people about use cases in hyper inflated economies

meme coin, orange coin good, number go up, robust and healthy memes, strategies for people in different circumstances, bitcoin podcast, crew massage this notion of hodl plus, be a hodler, but when you can have gains that provide life changing event potential, paying off debts, not be in mind fuck, when do I take money of the table, if you can do something that radically transforms your life,

then notion of spend and replace, buy something with bitcoin, to keep it circulating, take same fiat amount, place a trade try to get a discount buy, or just a market order, spend and replace

PM: number go up is a great meme, meme so important, bitcoin plays on human greed, get wealthy, buy something new, save for a future, capitalism is about green, desire to make more money, it’s what makes a capitalist economy tick, engine drives efficiency, desire, number go up is a great meme, truly works

however good the meme is, the reality is, how much does it suit you

Venezuela, hyper inflation, 90-5percent people can’t use it, people living on $5 a month, high transactions fees, fluctuation

but if you’re middle class or upper class you know you need bulivar, but don’t want to hold your money in it because it’s getting inflated you can hold bitcoin

Argentina, people used to having money seized

memes are memes

need to buy in to what bitcoin is, find a use case

TP: you’ve done a great job bringing light to the case of ross ulbrict, helping people understand, bitcoin was bootstrapped by the silk road, still to this day majority dark markets are still using bitcoin, not monero, not any other altcoin, or shit coin

your personal story of your mother’s need for medicine

PM: mom had cancer, wanted to get her cannabis oil, illegal in uk, had to buy on dark market with bitcoin, great case study, gave me the option, option of buying cannabis oil, based on morality of government, uk can’t buy it, illegal drug, bullshit, don’t care what government thinks, treatment for my mother, 3 tools bitcoin, tor, plus the website, enabled me to buy treatment for my mother, get around bullshit of government. Other people want cannabis oil for treatment, could be for somebody suffering from anxiety, child with epilepsy, whatever, enables to buy for treatment

victimless crimes, government wants to punishment, great thing about bitcoin allows you to get around that bullshit

TP: of all critiques of bitcoin, I appreciated what Edward Snowden said, potential existential threat to bitcoin, tracking, not fungible

interview with chainalysis, people believed in pseudoanonymity

jameson lopp could give primer on how to go dark with best practices to do transactions, now with more spot lights on you, vpn, tor, always a moving target, advise people on staying private

PM: if you’re a tech nerd, proficient in computers, understand all of this, you can set up perfect privacy, tor, you can still leak out information, easy to make small mistake, perfect privacy is really hard, some people can figure it out, I can’t I know I’d make mistakes, I don’t know how you could do it, lot of work, waiting for day when it’s all abstracted away

TP: could you explain trade offs, trust minimized digital currency across the internet, intro series that just came out

PM: as soon as you use an exchange, KYC you, attached to your identity, you can use coin join, tool allows you to essentially anonymize your coins, gets super technical, beyond me, pretty sure you can coin join coins, problem, you try to move them to certain services, they’re gonna block you, flagged as something companies don’t want to deal with

most important thing you could do is a set up an anonymous wallet, buy bitcoin for cash on the street, you can mine, it couple other ways, for common man, no solid easy way to have full anonymity

TP: it takes just one nanosecond of internet going up before VPN connects, run by an agency, local bitcoins, hyper regulation, a lot of chilling effects, in covid-era, a lot more black and gray market, medicine, food, contraband of all kinds, weapons for defense,

argentina financial collapse, not mad max over night, just encroachment of more crime, need for more security

grey market exchange, if government has their hands full

PM: best way to get bitcoin is to earn it, not attached to you, mining, meet in person, buy bitcoin, obvious and easy ways, but everything now is kyc, sad, annoying,

TP: I think earning is a great idea, of your studies, what are most compelling scenarios, how can people earn or do something that people tip you for, trace mayer, setting up own wallet yourself or with service

stories of how people earn it

PM: earning it, andreas, talks about, bitcoin you earn you really enjoy it, all I can tell you is you can do, you can create a wallet you get paid in bitcoin, I pay a lot of people in bitcoin these days, enjoy doing it, enjoy supporting economy, I don’t really talk to people who’ve done it, don’t want to dox them

TP: some of my favorite bitcoiners in the space, Alex Gladstein, some one very public, digest of feelings about his work, if you want to be donating to causes, humanitarian work, charitable bitcoin organizations

PM: Big fan of Alex, because of him I set up second show defiance, am now making films, human rights foundation, want to end tyranny, expose authoritarian states, cruely unleashed on people, lack of freedom you get, he recognizes over half the planet people live in authoritarian regimes, have no freedom, bitcoin opportunity to exit, vote out, might not have ability to vote for leaders, they can vote out of the economy, china, get around capital controls, turkey, iran, avoid hyper inflation, buy something you can’t buy

he’s taking bitcoin beyond that la, san fran, new york, london speculation, he’s taking it to people who actually need it

TP: one of my favorite guys to listen to, for the people haven’t really been down the rabbit hold, covid 19 era, understanding, can’t explain glossary jargon, economics, history ledgers, do understand simply, something you can expand on, what is soft money, hard money, sound money, should be household terms now we have government financial fuckery on steroids, created for money printer go brrrr, devaluing, flooding market with currency, like an insidious tax that never ends

PM: most people think of money as cash, pounds or dollars, survive day to day, don’t ever think about properties of money compare, bitcoin, gold, and fiat, analyze in terms of how good, grade them, fiat, pretty good, pretty fungilbe, portable, verify, easily divisible, problem its not scarce, when government needs more money they just printed, the more there is the less it is worth, dollar or pound value just drops and drops,

gold definitely scarce, bitcoin scarce only 21million, scarce gives more value, durability, portability, hardest money has highest rating on all these factors,

people will defer to the hardest form of money

if they keep printing fiat money, it’s not gonna end up good

TP: you can make all the covid 19, quarantine jokes you want until someone close to you dies, ways it’s impacted me 100% thanks to bitcoin I have a financial strategy that’s making me far more robust in these times than have just been bleeding money out and not saving and not holding, I owe a lot to satoshi and network

there’s a bit of a cynical chuckle when I see the government fail so miserably, so parasitic, comes time for them to give tiny fraction of bail out money to the people, consumers, how simple it would have been to press a button, bitcoin network, during 2017 bubble, multiple us states we accept taxes in bitcoin, well send it back to my address thing, they want to take fiat taxes, and bitcoin

the spirit of satoshi, ten years later, the need for it, and what’s been revealed about the governments

PM: views are slightly controversial, yes the government is completely incompetent, abuse financial system, print money, use to fight wars, stupid shit, all that is true, at the same time, are we ready for an entire economy based on bitcoin, I don’t think we are, technically not ready, not educated, people don’t really want to be self sovereign, father wants insured bank account, that’s reality,

we can get all excited, hyper bitcoinization, a lot of people don’t have skills to use bitcoin in that way, we’re talking about a parallel world,

still have to go from bitcoin back to fiat, spirit of satoshi is alive, hyperbitcoinization, maybe, seems unlikely, does give opportunity to vote ourselves out, government can’t stop you

more realistic about how that will happen, what are the steps, if it can’t happen what’s getting in it’s way, support ideas of freedom, taking down government is hard, people are conditioned to enjoy having the state

people live in democracy, are happy with it, I could be bitcoin cheerleader, fuck the government, take them down, have to be realistic

bitcoin taken us in positive direction

really touch and complicated questions

TP: on realistic camp, I have my wild fantasies of crypto anarchy, sci fi, cyber punk, cypher punk, hacking the matrix, but it’s gonna be a multigeneration process, historical events continuing, white paper, functionally the systems we rely on, government incompetence,

chills I got from watching one of first andreas videos, called bitcoin guru, spoke in early days to financial or technology committee in canada, wrote powerful essay, indicted everything historically corrupt about currencies, explained, peer to peer networks, tool of the people has to be understood and embraced

do not underestimate this, governors of wyoming and colorado, crypto friendly , realistic, not so much about replacing all fiat, chopping head off government

but implementing math, computer science

are there actors within government or processes happening in regulation that you feel are validating and hopeful, hybrid between crypto anarchy and crypto-statism

PM: no, state just wants control

ban bitcoin in china, massive step to ban bitcoin in us, jobs lost, uprising, what can they do, just regulate the fuck out of it, dont see as nice compromise, they see no benefits, they would love to get rid of it, only doing this because they have to, don’t see any nice comfortable relationship government, they’re gonna regulate it

if it continues to grow and becomes a threat they’ll ban it

TP: you could say it’s parasitic in its nature, will continue to exploit and abuse, best arguments iv’e heard, if we had local governance, transparent financial ecosystem, community voluntary tax, people in community agree to give up percentage of wealth to help solve problems we all agree on, preventing child abuse or stopping people from smoking plants or eating fungus,

could you see models where people, in defiance of governments, we’re gonna solf our own problems not by socialism, or top down, but self managed mutual aid networks, making services of governments obsolete, crypto anarchism

PM: if they try to replace a government services, can’t see how that works, government allow it, doesn’t mean you can’t have crowdfunding project, raise money through bitcoin, replacing government will be very difficult, smaller voluntary acts, pay in bitcoin, don’t declare, micro shadow economy builds up, get into the realm of the citadel idea, sounds interesting, don’t see government saying yeah you can be autonomous

TP: Erik Vorhees, its about moving in direction fo more freedom and autonomy

PM: I think I said I can’t even picture this libertarian world, one of my issues its a great idea, but requires everyone to be a libertarian, might just be greedy with guns who just rob people, gangs warlords, assumption is everyone in libertarian society , everybody is libertarian

TP: not about getting 100% of night

PM: lets just talk about having less government, 5% or even 1% just move towards less government, are we happier, maybe, has to happen step by step

TP: the prepper fantasies, zombie apocalypse, new world order, red dawn, more plausibility to any number of collapse scenarios, apocalypse porn, people want security in an area no longer being heavily patrolled, bitcoin militia, more practical, farming/growing co-ops, new hampshire,

PM: do want to go out to new hampshire, really do, haven’t been out there

TP: really heart warming stuff, believe voorees was there, porq fest, full loop peer to peer off government rails, not the first time, hippie back to the land co-ops, time banks, local currencies, precedent for displacing government service

government will tax you and take money from you weather you like it or not, policing, city codes, impose rules,

other type, buy their services, make them obsolete, they’re taking money from you, don’t give them money if you don’t have to, buy peer to peer

timeliness and timelessness of this revolution,not necessarily hyperbitcoinization, moving towards less volatility more stability, belief that when the whales who are sucking up huge portions of the market, manipulate, pump and dump, flood the market, macro, financialization, potentially abuse of its nature, to create fractional reserves, leveraging, fuckery, as the little guy, retail investor, hodler of last resort, in major crash, black thursday, a few weeks ago, data that came out, really hopeful for those who are looking towards this effect, big whales get nervous, liquidated all assets into fiat, opportunity for commando hodlers to buy that dip and spunge up that supply tighten that drum, poor people mop it up, rich people don’t need it, dump it, every time that happens, one drop at a time, that’s what moves to towards more reliable, less volatile, more commoner, usability, we don’t care about the lambo

PM: care a little bit about the Lambo,

TP: used to have lambo posters, hack it make more eco, reliability, more stability

PM: forget about price, buy into the core ethics, the core idea, its an exit from government, the only money you can truly own and not be taken from you, you can hold it in your head, hide seed in your head if you memorizing, don’t recommended, can’t be stolen

buy into the mindset, play the long game, buy, stack sats, hold out for decade, see what happens, put in whatever you’re welling to risk losing, we don’t know when volatility will end

TP: paying premium for immutability, paying for security, time stamping, notarization, immutabilty as a service, what I’m gonna take away from this conversation, the most valuable thing for me, I pipe in a lot of podcast, hodler of last resort, want to have more tools to explain to people why they should participate in the movement, risk minimized, simplest way, say have you ever joined a club, not necessarily you’re paying for a gym you like the people, like twelve steps, you pass the hat, I have been in recovery have put in dues, if putting in the dues, holding the network together, hold a couple of chips, hold a couple coins, not checking the price everyday, supporting movement because its’ healing me, enhancing my life, I value the people, those moments of epiphany, hats off to you Peter, stepped up in a huge away, humanness, feeling of being a part of something, it’s cold faceless governments

when I hang out at bitcoin meet up, or podcast like yours, inclusiveness, solidarity, links, thoughts to wrap up, appreciate you being here, top favorite metal bands

PM: appreciate you having me on, two shows, what bitcoin did, defiance.news, made films, metal at the moment, Ghost Inside, been around a few years, 3 years ago, tour bus crash, driver was killed, drummer lost half a leg, last year played gig in la, flew out went to the gig, afterrmath, drummer new drum kit, plays with one leg

TP: hopefully we’ll take again soon and under better global health circumstances