Alright, guys. Good morning!
Welcome to Meta Money!
As you know, we always have a fun time on Saturday morning.
It's no exception.
We are here in Miami, Florida at Bitcoin 2022.
And we want to talk about the rise of Bitcoin
and then the rise of the metaverse.
Because obviously Bitcoin started slow.
Man, we've been coming to these conferences for years.
- Yeah. - And they were not as big as they are now.
Remember the BitBus?
- Oh, I remember the BitBus. - The BitBus?
You were there, too!
- In San Francisco? - Yeah. Yeah.
But, anyway, flashback to 2018,
Bitcoin was not as big as it is now.
That's kind of where we are with the metaverse. Right?
Yeah, I think if you look back at 2017/2018, you know.
I mean, 2017, things were going, going, going. Then, in 2018, like, everything got stifled.
And what's so crazy to me as we come to this conference
and we look at all these announcements and we look at all these partnerships
and all the stuff with Bitcoin,
it's like the stuff that's commonplace now for us in crypto and Bitcoin,
like, they were only dreams in 2017 and 2018.
- Right. - You know?
We were talking about, like, we didn't even have futures.
Like, we didn't have institutional investors.
We didn't have any of that stuff coming in the market.
And now the top 100 are owned by institutions, you know?
So it's kind of a thing where when you look at the metaverse right now,
you know, it's something that people talk about.
It's a buzzword.
But, you know, the things that seem like dreams right now,
like, in four to five years are going to be reality,
and then there's going to be a whole other set of dreams.
Absolutely.
So let's just talk about yesterday, the big announcement from Jack Mallers.
You know, it talks about the payment gateway
and how it's going to be open to millions of more people
and more on the transactional side for the business.
Yeah.
Was that anything?
- I mean, like, we were all talking, like, - No.
we're like, "Okay, which country is it?"
- "Is it Apple? Is it--" - The buildup was so long.
- Yeah. - Like, so long, I thought it was going to be--
They sent out this thing. As he's up there speaking,
the conference sent out this alert.
Those like,
"If you thought last year's announcement was big, wait until Jack Mallers announces this one today!"
And he said, "I got this haymaker."
And it's like,
"Oh, you can spend Bitcoin in McDonald's now."
Like, they're not making you spend it at McDonald's.
Who was it that said "Don't spend your Bitcoin. Save your Bitcoin"?
Michael Saylor!
Michael said, "Don't spend it."
And then Jack Mallers said, "Hey, you can spend it on a burger or a cup of coffee."
Well, the one thing they were saying, you could have USD.
- It just uses Bitcoin as a payment network. - Right. You--
But you're not supposed to spend it!
No, but it's not Bitcoin. It's cash.
- You don't have to spend Bitcoin with it. - Yeah.
But here, this is basically his big argument is.
You know, "Since 1949,
we've had the same payment network, and it's a card payment network,
and so to stick it to the cards,
what we're going to do now is now we're going to allow you to spend Bitcoin,
or you're going to be able to spend US dollars through Cash App,
but you're going to use the Bitcoin network to do it."
How many people you think care about that?
No one.
- How many do-- - It's too many steps.
All the people that care about it are in this building right now.
- That's it. They're all here. - Pretty much. Yeah.
It's too many steps. And so
to motivate people to want to use the Bitcoin network without using Bitcoin,
it can only be done from one side.
It cannot be done from the person side.
The person that wants to spend their money,
they're going to spend it the easiest, most convenient way that they can.
The motivation has to come from the point of sale side.
It has to come from the retail side.
So, basically, if you're McDonald's,
what you have to say is
"Hey, we're going to use this point of sale system
to where you're going to be able to use the Lightning Network
and you're going to be able to use Bitcoin
because we're saving 3% on every transaction.
You can't use cards. We're not taking those anymore because
they're charging us 3%."
Yeah.
That's what it's going to take before this becomes useful.
And I don't get the excitement of
Michael Saylor, "Don't spend your Bitcoin!" Everybody clapping.
- Jack Mallers, "Now, you can spend your Bitcoin!" - "Spend your Bitcoin!"
Everybody clapping.
- Like, they're just frickin' brain-dead zombies. - Yeah.
A lot of folks, man, they can't think critically,
and I don't like it.
I had the same realization actually.
Yesterday morning, we walked down Miami Beach.
- We wanted to get some coffee. - Yeah.
And the store's credit card machine is not working,
so they forced every single person that came in
- to download the app, or they can't eat. - Yeah.
- So, like, some people walked out. - That's motivation.
- Some people did it. Yeah. - That's strong.
So I was like, "Man, what if we apply this to other things?"
Like, people will change once you force them to do it. So.
Anyways, enough about Bitcoin.
- Because we're Meta Money. - Ugh! Bitcoin is so lame.
We want to talk about the metaverse.
So, what is the catalyst though to really get it to be mainstream?
Because I feel like it's such a new space and it's growing.
Is it really going to be gaming?
Is it like--
are we just waiting for the tech to get better for the experiences to get better?
- What do you think? - Well, I think it is gaming
because, I mean, if you look at like some of the other uses of metaverse,
you'll look at, you know, whether it's remote working,
or whatever it might be,
like, what is the big deal?
Like, why do people care to do a meeting in metaverse instead of Zoom?
It doesn't seem to be that significant of an upgrade.
It's so you can see your avatar.
- Exactly. Yeah. - That's it.
So I think that when you look--
I know I say this almost every time I come on your show.
Sandbox is so far ahead of everything else.
The gaming element is what's going to push stuff.
But when you look at Sandbox,
the way that they chose to do things with the pixels and the voxels,
it's so smart
because even though it's not everybody's cup of tea,
what it's going to do is it allows them to have their game out
way before any of these other metaverses.
When you look at the Sandbox metaverse versus all the others,
right now, Sandbox is basically the Bitcoin of metaverse.
Look at Decentraland.
But how many people you know want to go play in Decentraland?
- No-- it's-- - Literally nobody.
They got a lot of money,
- but they're not as popular. - Exactly.
So when you look at the gameplay element of it, and when you look at what Sandbox is doing,
I think we're going to see Sandbox continue to thrive, continue to push forward.
I think, really, we're looking at probably two to three years away
before there really is a competitor coming in having a good gaming experience.
So if we look at what's going to usher in the mainstream in the metaverse,
it's going to be when we've got multi-metaverses that kind of fit everybody's cup of tea.
But Sandbox is going to be so heads and shoulders above everything else.
As I've said, it's the Bitcoin of metaverse.
Yeah.
I think one thing, too. It'll take celebrities and mainstream people to come in,
which they already are with NFTs.
And so if they're already into the NFT space, they might then correlate that into their own
- community of metaverse. - Yeah.
So, like, they bring their community into this metaverse,
and that's where they hang out with them.
That could be one way but kind of early to tell.
Yeah, it is. And speaking of early,
we hope you guys have a great rest of your Saturday.
This has been a fun Meta Money with Ben in the middle.
See you next time!