Speaker 1: I don't often talk about this on the show, but I've mentioned off and on that
I've owned bitcoin for a long time and over the last 24 hours I got like 10 or 12 different
requests to talk about what's going on with bitcoin.
And it's in the news so much in the last day or two that I think it does make sense to
talk about it.
In the last week, we've seen some major mainstreaming of bitcoin.
And at this point, the idea that it's just going to go away is seeming very, very unlikely
to me.
And I'm going to explain to you why.
But to give you some examples of the mainstreaming of bitcoin recently, here is, for example,
AMC Entertainment, which owns movie theaters CEO Adam Aron, who says they are going to
start accepting Bitcoin, Litecoin and Ethereum before the end of the year.
And Dogecoin next year.
Take a look at this.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we've said we're going to have that.
We're going to accept before year end.
We will accept Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin all by here.
All all, buy right now for the gift card.
By year end.
Four Bitcoin Litecoin in theory.
Well, I think we'll be able to take Dogecoin in Q1.
So again, big changes, we're we're entering the 21st century in a big way.
Speaker 1: We've also learned over time and some of these decisions were actually made
made long ago about how more and more college endowments, as well as financial advisory
type companies are holding or recommending holding some percentage of assets in cryptocurrency.
Some examples the Harvard management company has invested in bitcoin since 2019, according
to one report.
The Brown University Endowment has invested in cryptocurrency now for some period of time.
JPMorgan is now or has been since about six months ago, suggesting to investors, Maybe
look at putting one percent of your portfolio in bitcoin.
Morgan Stanley has actually started offering its wealthy clients access to bitcoin funds,
and a number of new funds and ETFs have gone live even in the last several weeks, just
picking different things to show you the breadth of this.
NBA owner Mark Cuban says that soon the Mavericks will accept Dogecoin for tickets to the games,
and the Mavericks have long been asset long for some period of time have already been
accepting bitcoin for payment as well.
So all of these things together, what what is the point here, I guess, is the question.
This is not a segment about is bitcoin good or is bitcoin bad?
In fact, the the longer bitcoin is around, it's sort of like saying, is the dollar good
or is the dollar bad?
These are financial technologies that exist.
And really, it's about how were they used?
How are they regulated?
What do they mean, etc.
This is not about is bitcoin used for criminal transactions?
Sure, it is.
The dollar is still the primary currency used for criminal transactions.
Not a super interesting conversation for this segment.
What about energy use for bitcoin mining?
An important topic for sure.
Not the topic of this particular conversation.
The conversation today is is this going to be merely a passing fad?
And it seems tougher and tougher to argue that bitcoin is going to be a passing fad.
Now, notice that I haven't talked in this segment about the price of bitcoin yesterday
today.
Bitcoin roughly equaled its all time high of about $64000 per coin.
This is about adoption and this is about use.
It's tough to imagine bitcoin just evaporating.
Could it be regulated into obscurity at this point?
Maybe, maybe.
But it would really require coordinated action by lots of governments.
And even then, I'm unsure.
There are ETFs, there are funds, mainstream funds and ETFs which are based on cryptocurrency
at this point in time.
Now am I recommending anyone do anything in particular?
Absolutely not.
That's not what the show is about.
This is not a segment about buy bitcoin or sell bitcoin, or I think bitcoin will be worth
X at any point in time.
That's not it at all.
I wondered if this might be something with lasting potential.
Back in 2015, and so I bought bitcoin back then in a few other coins, and as they've
gone up in value, I've sold pieces of my holdings to lock in gains, all with the idea that I
have no idea where this is going to go.
But now?
My thinking is as follows Nassim Nicholas Taleb wrote the book, The Black Swan, wrote
the book Antifragile, as well as other books.
Very interesting work, Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
And he says, you know, when thinking about like, for example, what books to read and
what has stood the test of time and likely will continue to, he says.
You know, if something's been around for 500 years and people keep reading it, it's quite
plausible that it's going to be around and people are going to keep reading it for another
500 years.
That might be something worth reading.
Maybe if the topic is interesting and you know, everybody make a decision for yourself,
a book that's been around for a year, we can say it'll probably be around another year.
But it's harder to say it'll probably be around another 500 years.
And in fact, most books written in the last year are not going to be read 500 years from
now.
Along the same lines, bitcoin was created in 2009.
That's now been 12 almost 13 years.
It's hard to imagine it going poof in the next month.
It's hard to imagine it going poof in the next year.
And so the longer that it goes, particularly when you see trade volumes so high and the
price is certainly a signal as well, it becomes more and more reasonable to think it's going
to continue being around.
And that's a really interesting change from what was being said in 2011 and what was being
said in 2013.
So again, just to be really, really clear, I have no idea what the price of bitcoin is
going to be.
I'm not suggesting anyone buy or sell it, but at this point, as a financial technology,
it seems as though it's here to stay.
And it's quite plausible that it's been here almost 12, almost 13 years.
It's quite plausible to me.
It's going to be around another 12 or 13 years.
At that point, it will be 26 years.
And if it can make it that long, it becomes even harder to imagine that it's just going
to disappear.
That's my perspective at this point in time.
I'm curious to hear from folks and please comment on what I've actually said, which
has nothing to do with what I expect the price of bitcoin to be.
I've not said a word about that