WBD285 Audio Transcription
Gary Vee on Bitcoin
Interview date: Tuesday 8th December
Note: the following is a transcription of my interview with Gary Vaynerchuk. I have reviewed the transcription but if you find any mistakes, please feel free to email me. You can listen to the original recording here.
In this interview, I am joined by Gary, who asks the big questions; what happens if Bitcoin takes over and how will states react if Bitcoin becomes a threat..
“When paper [money] is printable in perpetuity, and not grounded to the gold standard, or some other aspect, the thesis is not difficult to understand.”
— Gary Vaynerchuk
Interview Transcription
Peter McCormack: Gary, how are you man?
Gary Vaynerchuk: I'm well, my friend, thank you for having me on.
Peter McCormack: Hey, well thank you for doing this. I know how busy you are; you're a very busy man. So, listen, I know we've got a certain amount of time; there are two things I want to talk to you about. I want to talk to you about football and I want to talk to you about Bitcoin.
Gary Vaynerchuk: Let's do it!
Peter McCormack: Let's start with football, and there are two things I know about the Jets, right? Firstly, I know you want to buy them.
Gary Vaynerchuk: Yes.
Peter McCormack: Secondly, I don't know why you want to buy them, because I know they suck!
Gary Vaynerchuk: They have not won a football game this entire season. They are zero wins, ten losses, as of the moment we are recording this.
Peter McCormack: That's a record right?
Gary Vaynerchuk: It's not a record. There are two teams in the American NFL Football League that have gone 0 in 16; there are 16 games in a season. There is one team, when they used to play 14 games in the late 1970s, that was 0 in 14. However, in comparison to the two teams that went 0 in 16, they have been worse than those two teams in the first ten games, so it has definitely been a challenge watching every single play, which is what I do.
Knowing your accent and making some assumptions that there are some proper football fans listening, I am an American Football fan that looks more like a proper Premier League European Football fan. I actually completely live and die with the New York Jets. I am in a worse mood this morning because they lost yesterday, other than I actually want them to lose so they have more leverage for the draft, which is how it works here.
For me, they represent America. I was born in the Soviet Union, I didn't know how to speak English, and one of the first things that Americanised me was American Football and the Jets. It's once a week; it's on Sunday; it takes on a little bit like that Church religion thing; and, I was very fond of all sports growing up, but when I started my professional career, I worked a lot. I worked until 10.00 pm to close the liquor store. What that meant is, I missed an enormous amount of hockey, baseball and basketball games.
So, the Jets being once a year, only 16 weeks a year normally, because they didn't meet the playoffs that often, became very easy for me to maintain and really ascended to the deepest part of my sports heart and, yes, it's a deep passion; I do want to buy them so that I can end the misery. If I own them, I have control, and that's what I'm looking for.
Peter McCormack: Well, I want to buy Bedford Town Football Club. I mean, I don't know how many times you've been to England, but I live in a little town called Bedford.
Gary Vaynerchuk: Many times.
Peter McCormack: Well, I live in a place called Bedford. It's a really small, little shit town, you probably won't know it, but it's about 40 minutes north of London; but, I want to buy them. I think they'll be a bit cheaper than the Jets.
Gary Vaynerchuk: What league are they in?
Peter McCormack: Do you follow English football?
Gary Vaynerchuk: Enough to know Premier League. I know that you get relegated down below. Are they three down, four down?
Peter McCormack: No, so below that, you have the Championship and then you have League One, League Two and then you have the Conference. Then you have Conference North, Conference South and then you have about seven more divisions, and then that's Bedford Town!
Gary Vaynerchuk: How many people go a Bedford Town game?
Peter McCormack: About 50!
Gary Vaynerchuk: Five zero?!
Peter McCormack: About five zero, yes!
Gary Vaynerchuk: I love it; I think I want to become a Bedford Town fan! What are the colours?
Peter McCormack: Blue; we play in blue. But, listen, we were once big. We used to get thousands. We once drew with Arsenal in the Cup. But, we don't have a team.
Gary Vaynerchuk: Really?
Peter McCormack: Yeah, we don't have a team. So, that's my goal.
Gary Vaynerchuk: Real quick, because we have a few minutes, when did you draw with Arsenal; when were the golden years?
Peter McCormack: Oh, God, let me find that out. I think it was in the 1980s or it might be in the 1970s.
Gary Vaynerchuk: Oh, so not too long ago?
Peter McCormack: No, it was before me, way before me. Oh, look, maybe it was 1955, 1956, we had a 2-2 draw with Arsenal. We used to have a ground. The size of town we have, we should have a team. So, that was always my goal; I'm going to buy them and I'm going to get them in the Football League.
Gary Vaynerchuk: I love it.
Peter McCormack: And then, I'm going to invite you, Gary, I'm going to get you over. We're going to watch Bedford play Arsenal.
Gary Vaynerchuk: I'll come!
Peter McCormack: Do you like an English team; is there a team you like?
Gary Vaynerchuk: You know, I like the Spurs a little bit, because they've never won, and I like that they haven't won for 40 or 50 years. Three or four years ago, I tried to get into them but I said, you know what, I just love this sport; let me pick a team that's in the Premium League, but not a perennial winner, who's like the Jets, who hasn't won since the 1960s. And, they came and it felt right.
But then, the reality is, the season started where I was going to get very locked in and my little guy just started playing baseball and I can't be a fake fan. So, I gave one try three or four years ago to be a Spurs fan; I did not pull it off, so at this point I still am not one. However, I really enjoy the sport quite a bit. I mean, the World Cup has become something that I think about actively as I can't wait for it.
I watch a lot and I invest in it now, because I bought an enormous amount of Mbappe rookie cards. I've been thinking about buying up a bunch of Sancho. I'm paying attention more; I can speak lightly to it in a way that I couldn't five or ten years ago. It continues to gain momentum with me, but I would have to say officially today, I am not. I gave it a try four years ago with the Spurs; I did not pull it off; so, I have to go with officially, no I'm not.
Actually, it's a very funny conversation, similar to Bitcoin. There are things I really understand and then there are things I'm like everybody else in other categories, where I have an understanding, but I haven't put in the time and effort to really go deep. I know that I would be an incredible proper football fan, because I love sports where every match counts, so the structure of the league is incredibly done well. I love passionate fans where people get very territorial and I like to fight, like I literally like to fight when it comes to sports; it's the only place that I'm tough, or I think I'm tough.
So, there's a lot about it that I really like; similar to Bitcoin. I like the macro thesis of peer-to-peer and decentralisation and brand building and just a million different things I like about it. However, the serendipity of my career has never taken me to a place where I've gone as deep as the conversations that led to us having this podcast. So, I appreciate you having me on and I think it's interesting how those two things tie in, which is they are places of intrigue and surface level and maybe slightly more than surface level understanding.
But, in a world where I deeply understand a couple of things, it fascinates me when people want to talk about things as experts when they have no idea what the fuck they're talking about. And for me, I tend to try to stay quiet in places I don't know what I'm talking about. It doesn't mean I don't know anything. I mean, I bought Bitcoin and Ethereum for nothing, seven, eight, nine years -- I'm trying to think what south buy that was; maybe 2016. So, was that five? Or 2014, 2015, maybe 2015?
Peter McCormack: 2015.
Gary Vaynerchuk: Yeah, 2015. So, it's not that I haven't touched -- AJ, my brother, is more actively involved. I thought a lot, a lot, three years ago about building a coin or the thought of the reality of, what if I built a coin infrastructure that gave people access to -- like, what if there was a coin for my universe, a small little coin built on top, you know? So, I think about it, but I definitely am not deep in it the way I am with communication and content and the New York Jets and sports cards and the threat to consumer brands and other things.
Peter McCormack: Well listen, look, my background is similar to yours, well, not as successful. I had an agency in London once. We did web marketing, search marketing, emails, social, all of that stuff. I got out of that a few years ago, got into the Bitcoin thing. But what I would say is that, let me put a couple of questions to you and then we'll deal with basics.
Gary Vaynerchuk: Please.
Peter McCormack: Okay. Do you know what the price of Bitcoin is today?
Gary Vaynerchuk: I saw somewhere on my Twitter line $18,000 get tweeted out over the last week, so my guess would be somewhere in that ballpark.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, so we're about $18,500. If I said to you there's a very good thesis for why that price, within the next 18 months, could easily go above $100,000, even $200,000, does that interest you; does that make you think, "Oh, shit, I should look at this?"
Gary Vaynerchuk: Let me answer it with a story. At that south buy in 2015 when I bought it, in 2016 or 2017 when it popped off a little bit, much more than the way we were talking about it in these GM sessions, which is when I would get a bunch of guys and girls together at south buying and we would just talk about the world. I don't remember what the price was, but I remember going around the room with Mark Cuban, Ashton Kutcher, Chris Sacca, fancy, fancy internet people, and the question was very simply, "Would Bitcoin, by the year 2020, be $100,000?" and disproportionately, the room said yes.
So, it's funny that you use that exact number, $100k, because that was literally déjà vu to something that was a debate four to five years ago in a hotel room in Austin, Texas. Would it interest me? Less than you would think. Let me explain, but sure, of course. If you're a business person, to me, I would enjoy the getting in and being right more than the dollars associated, not because the dollars are insignificant, because that's a lot of money and I would be very excited if I'd put in $1 million at $18,000 a piece and it becomes 5X more.
I think for me, I've always been, which is why I've never made as much money as I thought, or I think, or many around me think I could, I'm really passionate about loving the way I make my money more than making money. So, if you told me, "Gary, $18,000 to $140,000", versus, "Gary, you buy Pokemon and Sancho and LeBron rookie cards and from that $18,000 it goes to $27,000", I'd probably like that more.
I have not enjoyed making money on my companies that I invested in privately when they go public. I mean, the amount of money, whether it's Shopify or Snap or Twitter or Facebook; I've made a lot of money on those products on the Stock Exchange. I do not gravitate towards public stock, crypto, venture capital. I've come to learn that I enjoy operating. I like operating and I like alternative investing that fits my happiness at that moment.
But, let me say something else. That doesn't surprise me at all, like, that doesn't seem so far-fetched. It wouldn't surprise me if it's $12,500 either in a year, because I've watched it enough to see that it has its moments, then there are micro step backs. Do I believe the macro thesis of blockchain; of blockchain creates a scenario where Bitcoin, the strongest brand that plays on top of it, can get to that level? That seems very obvious to me as something that could happen.
Peter McCormack: Well we should deal with the basics first. I don't think you should ever do a coin; I think you'd regret that. I think doing your own coin; that has a reputational issue.
Gary Vaynerchuk: You see, I think there's a reputational issue in being a personal brand unless you know how to do it.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, but all these coins tend to fail.
Gary Vaynerchuk: Yeah, but they tend to fail because people try to make money off of people. If you're doing a coin that you're trying to create brand value and create experience and bring more value to the person that holds the coin, in actual dollar value; then, if they didn't … If organisers of a conference had to pay me $150,000 to give a speech, which is what they have to do today given my speaking fee career, however I also accepted VCoin, and they actually got me to speak at their conference for what amasses to tracking it back to two years earlier because they were a fan and they bought into it, and it cost them $79 to do that…
You know I think, to your point, the reason every coin has failed in the micro is because the person or thing behind it has been financially driven and they've tried to not bring as much value and return and have tried to -- I don't think people know how to build currencies, my friend; they don't bring value.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, well, I don't know. You see, I think the thing with Bitcoin has proven that with that, in that instance, they know how to build currencies. I just don't think you'll ever get the liquidity behind a coin. Ultimately, people end up selling off. I just think they're always fraught with danger; I mean, even Ethereum, the number 2.
Gary Vaynerchuk: By the way, real quick: when I said "a coin", let me just create clarity. First of all, clearly I agreed with you because I didn't do it, number 1.
Peter McCormack: Good!
Gary Vaynerchuk: Number 2, I think of a coin as a personality, as something that you do very small for a very small group of people, call it 100,000 people, that creates a fun currency within that ecosystem where the human, much like the way I built my personal brand, which was access, actual engagement if there's actual value exchange, it was more of a fun way for me to disproportionately reward my audience for giving a fuck about me, and a way for me to really learn that I never had any thought that I was going to build some fucking real-life thing that the world was going to play on, back to your point, like a Bitcoin.
But I did, for a while think, hey, I can really learn this ecosystem. I'm a learner who learns by doing and I was like, I'll enjoy learning and if I can bring people enormous value, like if they were given my coins and then you could buy my case with sneakers, instead of for $100, what in essence was free to you, or $1, would I be able to continue to JV with the world? Would I be able to continue to do things with bands, conferences, experiences? Would I be able to continue to over-deliver for the people that held that currency?
I do believe, my friend, that I think people will create micro realities like that if they were committed to the community, not to themselves, which is a rarity amongst human beings.
Peter McCormack: Yeah. All right, well look, I understand why you would and we could talk about that, but Bitcoin's the one.
Gary Vaynerchuk: I don't think that's interesting for anybody listening. I think I just randomly brought it up, because I was trying to think about things that I've actually been thinking about over the last seven years that this has been on my radar.
Peter McCormack: Let me tell you about what's been happening this year that's been really interesting, because I've been in Bitcoin now since late 2016. I first heard about it in 2013, but didn't really do anything with it; but, late 2016, early 2017 and I went through the spike and the bear market, which sucked.
But, what's been really interesting this year, what's really been happening, is this cross-section with the pandemic, a lot of people on lockdowns, a lot of companies closing, here in the UK as well as the US, and rampant money-printing by the government to support furlough schemes. The massive increase in the money supply has this relative risk of us seeing a potential increase in inflation.
So there's this company, do you know MicroStrategy, the data company?
Gary Vaynerchuk: No.
Peter McCormack: Okay, so they're a data company. There's a guy runs that, Michael Saylor; he came out of the woodwork this year. They had $1 billion in their treasury and he put $450 million of that straight into Bitcoin this year; his thesis being that the dollars that he's holding in his treasury is essentially a melting ice cube.
Gary Vaynerchuk: Listen, when paper is printable in perpetuity and not grounded to the gold standard or some other aspect, the thesis is not difficult to understand. I also think that people are bad at history. There was a time when people traded rocks and other things. Money by governments is not a forever thing and so, people have come along and reinvented currency for a very, very long time.
I am not educated enough to stand on a soapbox, like I am in other things, and go deep on this, but as a common sense human being, and that has been my North Star, and as one that believes that humans decide everything in collectives … I mean, listen, I didn't have a lot of money when I bought Bitcoin back then. I bought it for a reason; I didn't follow it through. I would, at least from a financial standard, would have benefitted quite a bit from following it through, but the macro thesis of blockchain is very right.
Peter McCormack: Let's say the macro thesis of Bitcoin, not blockchain. The blockchain thing is just such an unimportant part of it; that's just one of the tools. I mean, there are loads of components of Bitcoin that make it work; blockchain's just one of them.
Gary Vaynerchuk: Well, to me the question becomes, if you're saying that, what gets fun is that it becomes a game of, okay, this is now question form, because obviously I come in not as educated as the majority of people listening. For me then it becomes, okay, so you're saying this brand is the disproportionate leading brand, which also then speaks to no different than dollar versus yen, versus euro, which is, okay, cool.
Over the next 50 years of my life, if this plays out, there will be other brands that come along and have the potential to become the leading player; though this one is so grounded for so long, there's a safety within it. But, once this "cat" is out of the bag, there will be an enormous 8 billion people's worth of energy to figure out how to establish other brands, because there'll be so much money in the establishment of new brands; that's my question; true or not?
Peter McCormack: Well, true because it's already happened; it's been happening over the last three years, but they keep failing. There are a number of unique things about the Bitcoin brand.
Gary Vaynerchuk: Yeah, but that's no different than what I heard from people about why Yahoo would be the search engine in perpetuity, "Gary, you're wrong". I mean, I had this conversation in 1999 where I was starting to learn, honestly, in a weird way very similar to this. I learn by asking questions from people that know and I started getting a little nerdy, you know.
I was doing the wine thing; I'm now, "Why are the dotcoms working?"; I'm like, "This internet thing is cool, let me learn", and I asked some really smart Silicon Valley friends, people that I went to High School with, that were out there; nerds, Princeton, Yale, you know, all that good stuff and I was like, "So, wait a minute, so maybe I should think about starting a search engine"; by the way, talk about something I definitely was never going to do. But, this was late night drinks and you're thinking; this is what's so fun.
By the way, that's the most fun, I think, of the Bitcoin and other communities, like when there's emerging tech. It's nothing like that, because there's no feeling like -- I mean, literally, this is not a joke; you'll have to explain it for people that are listening: I have goosebumps, you see that?
Peter McCormack: Yeah, I see it.
Gary Vaynerchuk: Because, the most fun I've ever had in my life is when new things have happened: dotcom, social media.
Peter McCormack: Bitcoin.
Gary Vaynerchuk: In a lot of ways, I probably should have been really in that Bitcoin game, because it was another big technology shift. Inevitably, VR, AR, Voice, all those things were coming. They're always my favourite, because you're really inventing the future, you really have to think. And, I remember saying to my friend, Ken Osowski, I said, "But, there's going to be another search engine?" He said, "No, Yahoo's too locked in and others have tried", Ask Jeeves, Lycos, Dogpile, and obviously then it played out with Google.
Honestly, it's one of my biggest things I've been thinking about lately which is, it almost intuitively feels to me that it's time for somebody to come along and become the next search engine. I can't believe that I'll die 50 years from now where Google was the search engine in perpetuity; I get excited about that.
So, I think one thing for people who are overly bullish on Bitcoin, and there are a lot of reasons to be, I think it would be crazy to think that there aren't going to be things that come along in the next 20 to 40 years that are on par, if not become the actual brand.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, I think there are a lot of difficulties with that, and I understand your point. I think, because we then had AltaVista, didn't we? I remember AltaVista being the one and then, Google came along. But really, the search engine came down to, did it find me the best result? In the end, if it found me the best result, it's a very easy thing to switch between.
Like, gold has been the dominant store of value for thousands of years now and Bitcoin is now taking market share from gold. There are increasingly people moving their money from gold into Bitcoin, because it's a better form of money than gold.
Gary Vaynerchuk: The only difference in that scenario is that gold was a physical product; Bitcoin is a brand.
Peter McCormack: But, they're both brands in some way?
Gary Vaynerchuk: Yes, but the ability to replicate -- going out right now and saying, "Hey, everybody, lock your economics into concrete or into tulips", which would be a very good example for historians that are listening, or something else, I would say is a dramatically more difficult jump from gold in our contemporary society than from somebody, once they understand the ramifications of what you said just now.
When you think about the economics associated with the statement, or the assumption, or what you're alluding to here, which is Bitcoin becomes the standardisation, you now have an entire world of governments, trillionaires, you know, Putin alone can start a currency with the amount of money he's hidden. If it's open, as one would understand it to be, there's just so much rationale to human behaviour for many to give it a much bigger try than what I think you've seen over the last three to four years.
When this gets real fucking real, the efforts of trying to establish will be remarkably different; not to mention, in a world where governments are nationalisation, you look at what's going on around the world. We're living through an amazing rise of nationalising, right? Brazil, India, America, I would argue, was the tipping point. What's going on in Eastern Europe is reminiscent of the things we saw in the turn of the 1900s.
There is a whole lot of government DNA that really doesn't win if this emerges to that truth, and one would argue that for this to go all the way through and become the foundation that many believe it will, there will be an enormous amount of carnage and war that it triggers, which is something to debate and think about; not from a, "Hey, let's not support this because it's going to create war". I would argue that humans have done an incredible job as an animalist species to continue to make it better and better.
I live in a world in my mind where I don't think I'll see it, but if I'm watching down from Heaven in 3029 and saying, "Oh, shit, no countries; that's cool. I can see how that happened; I can see the chess moves". But I think, this is very big girl, big boy talk of what it means for this to become something that is what the world's economics are grounded towards.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, and look, you're essentially asking the same questions I've been asking for three to four years myself and a lot of it, I was very sceptical and dismissive of at first.
Gary Vaynerchuk: You know what's funny, my friend? I'm going to really nail this point. I hope nobody is confused by my tone and tenor. I'm actually remarkably not sceptical or cynical. I would actually argue, if you rewind the last 13 minutes, and especially if you consume my content and know my tones and tenors --
Peter McCormack: I know your tenors.
Gary Vaynerchuk: Yeah, so then you know this. Then I would say, I don't think I'm actually cynical at all. I actually think this is a wildly fun, thoughtful, mind place to go into. I think it's very possible that the most bullish people, on Bitcoin's point of view, see their day. I also think that if that is true, I think people have not talked about the other side of what happens in a world where -- if Bitcoin's $200,000, there are a lot of things that come along with that.
Peter McCormack: Of course, yeah, man. Look, I've talked about these things.
Gary Vaynerchuk: And, by the way, do I think that Russia or America or England, UK, China, need to actually exist; I'm being serious now? Do I believe they need to actually exist? The answer is, "No, I don't". When people, and good friends are, "Gary, you don't fucking get it with Bitcoin", I'm like, "Bro, I'm not anti-Bitcoin; I'm busy in what I'm focussing about and I'm thrilled if you make $1 trillion and I make $40".
Currency and central banking, that's just not the stuff that gets my juice. I want a garage sale and find something for $5 and sell it for $10. I'm not out here worrying about money; it's just not my framework, it's not it. Karma: I think Bitcoin winning is small in the way that I think of the 1,000 years ahead of us could be. I probably believe in Bitcoin and things like Bitcoin really happening.
By the way, I'm a complete believer that the printing of money is something people really don't understand and if, at scale, they understand, well it changes everything. I hope everybody understands. People fight wars over religion; it becomes ideology; it becomes how you see the world. If 4 billion people just decide Bitcoin's more valuable than money, then it is; it just then is. It's just how humans work.
So, I actually think Bitcoin is a preview to a humanised reset on what things people believe, because information has always been the most important thing in the world; that's why books really fucking matter. The printing press changed everything and I think we are very naïve on how early we are in internet society, and I think that there's a whole lot.
Karma: these countries are not going to go down and just say, oh, okay. I think people are very confused of the people that are leaders in the world. I promise everybody right now, Vladimir Putin is not going to be, "Oh, cool, money is not worth anything?" I mean, he's spent his whole life trying to amass all of it. So, I think people have to think through the social and human ramifications of a $200,000 Bitcoin.
But, I can see the path and I definitely do believe that if that becomes true, that the attempts to create another Bitcoin are going to be far greater than I think most people will realise because then, like I said earlier, all bets are off and everybody just goes gung ho.
Peter McCormack: But I think the reason those ones fail is for the same reason that Bitcoin exists and is difficult for companies to attack and switch off.
Gary Vaynerchuk: I agree, I agree.
Peter McCormack: The decentralisation, to actually hit that level of decentralisation, I feel like Bitcoin is so far ahead. For somebody else to actually --
Gary Vaynerchuk: But, they're not going to use brand and technology, they're going to use weapons. You think a government is going to fight a cryptocurrency versus currency battle with a marketing firm? They're going to fight it with weapons.
Peter McCormack: But, that's a different point.
Gary Vaynerchuk: No, no, it's the most important point.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, but this is talking about will governments accept Bitcoin and will they attack it? I mean, I think in some ways, the US Government is accepting Bitcoin, because it realises it's a very American idea and it realises actually, it's something they can't switch off.
Gary Vaynerchuk: America loves the idea of America when it's in its vested interest.
Peter McCormack: Well, I think a lot of the Bitcoin's held in America, so maybe it is.
Gary Vaynerchuk: Yeah, but that's on an individual basis. I think, listen, I love America, I'm so grateful to have lived in America and leave Communist Soviet Russia, but I think it's a heady conversation, I think it's a fascinating conversation where I think I'm fascinated when I skim, or I read my Twitter timeline, or I get involved with a buddy over dinner who's deep into the space.
I don't think the reply from the most powerful, the most wealthy governments, organisations, people that found themselves sitting on cash at the tipping point; I don't think their response is going to be to build up Ethereum. I think people are very naïve of how the world works and I think the timing's bad. I think people think the timing's good; I actually think the timing's bad. Let me explain.
We are going into garden walls, just like internet companies are building up their garden walls and not sharing data; Apple versus Amazon versus Google versus Alibaba and that whole ecosystem. I think that governments are doing the same thing. We have never, in the last 50 years, been at a point in our global society where we have more walls being put up by governments on a daily basis. Governments have used these excuses of terrorism to create nationalism at scale, and these leaders will not give up leverage.
Peter McCormack: They might not have a choice though.
Gary Vaynerchuk: China and Russia -- yeah, I think they do have a choice.
Peter McCormack: If they choose to fight it, they might lose.
Gary Vaynerchuk: They might lose, and this goes back to the bigger, heady point which is, fuck me, are countries … To me, Bitcoin is money. I mean, we're talking about a very big subject matter here. We're not even talking about the thought of freedom or money for one person: the dictator; we're talking about the whole fucking game.
I think this plays out probably when we're all gone, but I think this plays out with, do countries exist or does it become one world, because I think money is that big of a foundational conversation. I just don't see China and Russia, and America by the way, giving up that easily, because you have to understand, if that's it, it's a complete reset.
Peter McCormack: Yeah. Well, this is the thing. I was talking about this with a guy the other day. I said, "Look, there's a reset coming one way or another". I mean, the global financial system is in chaos at the moment and it cannot continue. And the World Bank, I think it was the World Bank, or the World Economic Forum came out the other day talking about "The Great Reset", because there's no money left. But, I also think there's a second reset, which is one which is Bitcoin-based, whereby we are increasingly seeing the gravity of Bitcoin drawing people's money in.
One of the big things is, I don't know if you know much about this, but do you know about the fixed limit, the scarcity, the 21 million?
Gary Vaynerchuk: Yes, I do.
Peter McCormack: To me, to a lot of people, this is one of the most important things about Bitcoin.
Gary Vaynerchuk: No, it's the reason it's different, otherwise I would sit here and say, you could mine in perpetuity, just like you could print in perpetuity. I'm very aware of the restrictions; it's the biggest reason I buy rare sports cards.
Peter McCormack: I was going to say; it's the same thing?
Gary Vaynerchuk: Yeah, it's the same. But again, this is all anybody needs to know. Long before I invested in Coinbase, which was five -- actually, I bought Bitcoin much earlier, because I invested in Coinbase in 2016. I have to actually ask, "Hey, Josh, Allman, or Ashton, or Aaron Batalion, if you're listening right now, please tell me when we bought?" Do you know how hard it was to buy it?
Peter McCormack: Yeah, I do!
Gary Vaynerchuk: I didn't even know how to buy it. I needed my friends to help me, or my brother, AJ; I'm trying to remember who.
Peter McCormack: Did you keep it?
Gary Vaynerchuk: I capped it; I have it.
Peter McCormack: You've still got it?
Gary Vaynerchuk: I've still got it. Yeah, I don't sell things very often. I still have it, but here's the thing with it. Oh, here's where I was going with that story; this is why I just brought this up again.
The second I heard the restriction is the second I decided to buy it. I understand. I think my point of view to the community is the word "carnage". I understand it. I would actually argue, because of probably what has everybody who's listening bullish on it, that it makes sense. I don't think it's some weird cult or some bullshit; I understand. I mean, why is anything anything? It's a collective of people just deciding. I mean, I believe in this the fucking most.
What I'm not worried about, because I'm not really -- I think I established early in the podcast why maybe I'm not as deep; I just don't like money that way. If I liked money that way, let me explain what I mean, I would have started a VC firm seven or eight years ago and made $20 million a year just to take meetings because of my 2%. I just know myself and so, I'm playing my life. That doesn't mean I don't fully believe in the macro thesis; I do. I just think the more, not fun, the wildly -- I'm going to use "fun" again.
For me, a man that really loves understanding human behaviour and thinking about dominos and chess, I think the part, and I don't know, maybe this is a major conversation in the Bitcoin community, I'm not close enough to it to know; I think what I believe is, if it's to get to the Holy Grail, whatever one deems the Holy Grail, what the fuck does that mean in the macro? I just struggle with the transition of governments in this environment, because it's a big, big deal.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, look, I won't deny that and I've talked about that.
Gary Vaynerchuk: I apologise; one last thing. Unlike eBay coming around and fucking up Sotheby's, or Amazon coming around and fucking up retailers, or Facebook coming around and fucking up Myspace, I don't think people realise it's governments that are going to react to this. I would be stunned if Bitcoin hits $200,000, that Russia and China don't ban it and put people in jail for having it; I would be stunned.
On the record, I would be shocked if whatever the price and whatever the reason that Bitcoin crosses that chasm, not some guy putting $450 million in, which is fucking dogshit; huge for Bitcoin but dogshit in the conversation you and I are having, which is the world's money; if there is that tipping point and I live to see it, I don't see any path that doesn't put more than half the world's leaders in a place where they completely ban it. I would argue that America and the EU will do a cute version of it that doesn't look like a dictatorship.
And then to your point, my friend, when you whispered, "They don't have a choice", now you get into the most interesting conversation of how big of a deal this convo is, which is, then what?
Peter McCormack: Well, you play it out, right? I mean, China has banned it; Russia's heavily regulated it.
Gary Vaynerchuk: Yeah, but as you know, because I know both of those points-ish, because what they're doing, they're slightly hedging it enough to think through what they want to do about it. I'm not talking about today when it's still a pimple on the arse in the real conversation of economics; I mean that it's a bigger pimple than it was even three years ago. And, if it becomes what we're talking about, if it gets to $100,000 in the way that you said, in the next year, it's going to be something that Russia and China will be thinking about differently than they do about it today.
Then the question for me becomes, what happens when it hits that moment; not when you fake ban it, or you watch it carefully, or you fool around with it, or you do what America does, which makes it seem like it's getting incorporated; what happens when they actually are scared that the money's not worth anything?
Peter McCormack: Well, you have to game it out, dude, and that will probably take us another 30, 40 minutes, 2 hours.
Gary Vaynerchuk: No, but I think is honestly where I think I can bring, not the most value, but I think I just -- Vladimir Putin waking up this morning and realising the $1 trillion he has hidden is worth nothing or, more importantly, let's talk about it real, is the starting indication of it potentially not being worth something in the next five years, is not something he is going to take passive.
Peter McCormack: No, I know. Bitcoiners recognise this, Gary; bitcoiners recognise that --
Gary Vaynerchuk: Educate me; so, what does that mean?
Peter McCormack: They recognise it's a threat and so, a few of the things they have to focus on is a couple of things --
Gary Vaynerchuk: And, who's they?
Peter McCormack: Like, people who work, people who are interested, people who work, developers, opinion people, people who invest in Bitcoin. There's a big focus on decentralisation across the board from developers to nodes to mining, to keep this as decentralised as possible. You cannot switch off Bitcoin right now, and that's fundamentally not possible right now, which is a good thing.
Gary Vaynerchuk: By the way, I'm not confused by that, but you can switch it off when 73% of the countries in the world make it 100% illegal. You have to understand, this is not trading cocaine; this is the whole game. So, when China, Russia, Brazil, India say, if you are found in any shape or form to hold this product, that you will go to jail for a minimum of 20 years, it changes things.
And let me say this. There is nothing like it; that's what I'm fascinated by in the whole thing. It's so big that there is no comp, there are no missiles. Maybe the only comp was trading the actual information to the atomic bomb; maybe that's the comp. But, this is currency; this is the entire oxygen of society.
Peter McCormack: But, maybe this is then the ultimate fight for everyone's freedom.
Gary Vaynerchuk: By the way, I'm a buyer of that. Notice how I've alluded multiple times to no countries. I just think that's a lot of carnage to get there.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, but we went through a lot of carnage to get where we are now where we need Bitcoin; I mean, global wars that we've had, you know.
Gary Vaynerchuk: By the way, I'm a buyer of that; I think it's a tremendous point.
Peter McCormack: So, maybe this is a fight we --
Gary Vaynerchuk: I just think, are we ready for global war? And when I say that, like in the macro, it's fascinating. How does that play out individually? Like, okay, it gets banned in the UK, banned; 20 years. Does your mother say to you, "Son, please, please just get rid of it". It gets very personal very fast. We're talking here on a podcast theoretical. This is real talk and when it becomes real, what become the conversations?
People have lived in dictatorships for many, many years because it's very hard to break them, because you need everybody and if you're the first one, you get killed, you know.
Peter McCormack: Yeah. But, I guess that has to be gamed out when it happens, because I don't see the UK suddenly very quickly turning around saying, you get 20 years in jail for banning this; I just don't see that happening.
Gary Vaynerchuk: I agree with you on that. But, I think what you'll see is, I do think you'll see that in China, Russia, Brazil and India; I do. And I think once they do that, what the democracies of the world do, it's going to be fascinating.
Peter McCormack: Well, if it becomes international settlement, it puts different pressures on different countries about what they can or will or won't accept. I mean, that's the ultimate goal, that it becomes a global settlement and then, you can't not use it.
Gary Vaynerchuk: I don't think the emerging power in the world is in the benefit of this narrative.
Peter McCormack: Okay.
Gary Vaynerchuk: The first country to show any banning indication a couple of years ago when the momentum hit was China, right? Let there be no confusion: no China on board, no global settlement.
Peter McCormack: I disagree; I think you can. I think if the rest of the world was settling in Bitcoin, they would have to. Now, getting to that point is a long way off and I just don't know what kind of world --
Gary Vaynerchuk: No, this is fascinating convo. By the way, everybody who's listening, this is stuff I've thought a lot about in the last five to seven years. Almost everybody listening here has probably deeper Bitcoin knowledge than I do. The only thing I've been good at in my life is understanding human behaviour and I think that's what I've been focussed on on this. This doesn't mean that there's not a play to come in at $18,000; goes to $47,000 as it's on its way to this big conversation we're having. You make that transaction; you decide to live your life how you want.
For me, I choose to look back at this in 40 years and see how right, how wrong I am, and these are the feelings I have inside of me now, because I do think it's a big, big, big deal. It's almost like regulating oxygen. To me, it's the number 1 thing and it's fascinating and I enjoy the conversation. And again, a lot of people are probably hearing me for the first time. I speak with passion. Don't confuse the passion with me thinking I know or I think I'm right. These are my passionate, intuitive, subjective curiosities and so, I just wanted to put that disclaimer out there.
Peter McCormack: Well listen, look, I'm conscious of your time, so I don't want to take up --
Gary Vaynerchuk: Let's keep going thought, let's keep going. I don't want that to be the -- oh, shit, I am late by ten minutes; you are right. All right, why don't we do this? I'm going to come off, but since we took up so much of the oxygen in the macro, let's do a part 2 somewhere here in the next 100 days and let's jam on it, because I do have to run; I have a finance meeting, ironically!
Peter McCormack: Let's do it, yeah. Well listen, look, I'll reach out to you. I'll drop you an email and we'll fix up the second one.
Gary Vaynerchuk: Cheers.
