Um you know Bitcoin ETFs are not in um in Korea
yet but everybody is waiting for it to happen
But some some people worry about Bitcoin ETFs um
expanding to these many many major countries
Do you think Bitcoin ETFs spot ETFs will
eventually manipulate the Bitcoin price
I mean uh any buyer or seller
manipulates price almost by definition
Right
Like so anytime anyone buys it that that
means there's a little bit more demand
Uh and Yeah
You know anybody anytime someone sells it then
there's a little bit more supply and so on
So by definition yeah I
it it manipulates the price
Now is it gonna be done at the level that like
the Federal Reserve does with the stock market
or treasury interest rates or something like that
I mean there there are arguments to be made
on both sides but I I suspect not really
because you know the these are um yeah
I mean it's possible that they start
rehypothecating the Bitcoin and uh you know
selling Bitcoin that doesn't exist and stuff
But you know it uh if you get um and
they're they're talking about this right now
It though those are cash redemption ETFs only
So if you want to um you know take out
a 100 Bitcoin I think that's the tranche
or whatever that you have to get to
um be able to withdraw from the ATF
You you get cash instead of Bitcoin
Uh but they're talking about
um actual Bitcoin settlement
Uh and if that that rule goes into effect then all
of that will be um very obvious uh you know when
if they're trying to um sell Bitcoin that doesn't
exist or or you know sort of do the fractional
reserve stuff that uh that got you know banks in
trouble years ago and what a lot of people suspect
is going on with like the gold ETF and so on
So Right
So so you know there there
there's a there's a bit of that
It's hard to tell and we don't really
know but the volumes on these ETFs are
absolutely huge and for a good reason
Right
Like prices going up
Um I think it's one of the best
performing assets in the past year
It doubled last year
It doubled this year
It's like it's looking pretty good for most
most people that have been in it uh and
you know people are coming around to it
Uh so obviously there's a lot of interest uh
institutionally a lot of pension funds and
so on that are uh that have significant gaps
Uh they're underfunded and they're
assuming sort of like 9% annual
return for like the next 20 years
And they need riskier assets except
they're not allowed to invest in them
So you know having having a b Bitcoin
ETF can certainly help with that
Um now I I'm like what how how that affects
Korea or other countries when when they have it
I don't know
It it probably depends on sort of like the
public union infrastructure and any sort
of like pension plan that your country has
And I I'm not familiar with
that at all about Korea
But if any of those are underfunded
then I suspect that uh you know the this
sort of thing would become a little more
popular because at a certain point you're
you're going to have to start taking risk
Right
Like if you're an underfunded pension and you're
assuming 9% returns and you've been getting 6 or 7
you're going to have to do something different
And this is like the one hope for them
And um yeah who knows
We'll we'll we'll we'll see
But that that's sort of the
role it has in the market
I don't know if it's going to be manipulating
Bitcoin price as much as just adding demand
And we know Bitcoin has a fixed supply and the
more demand there is the higher the price goes
Right
Absolutely
I think it's Hester Pierce the SEC congresswoman
Mhmm
She's the one who's advocating
for this um Bitcoin redemption
Right
In kind redemption
So everyone who purchases Bitcoin ETF when they
when they sell the ETF and they
can get actual Bitcoin out of it
Is that No
No
The the the way ETFs work is that
um they're tied to a commodity
Right
So a gold ETF um is supposed to track gold
Then the way they make that track exactly is the
ETF has a certain amount of gold that it possesses
But if you have enough of the ETF shares and it's
usually a large trench so it's something like
uh you know I I don't know the exact number but
uh you know a 1000 ounces of gold worth of the
ETF You can redeem only in 1,000 ounce increments
Right
Like so you have to give and but that gives
it enough of an arbitrage opportunity to a big
player so that if the price goes out of whack
then they'll either put in more gold into the ETF
or they'll withdraw the gold from the ETF
So that that's the idea is that there there
would be market makers that uh that sort
of create that strong link between the 2
because if they're able to withdraw Bitcoin
not at like the point you know 1 Bitcoin level
but probably in trenches of like 10 Bitcoin or
something like that a $1,000,000 worth of Bitcoin
Like you have to have $1,000,000 worth
of the ETF to be able to withdraw
10 Bitcoin something like that
And it's only in multiples of 10 then that
would uh give enough of an escape hatch that
it would be very strongly linked and almost
guarantee that it's not fractional reserved
Yeah
I think it's almost similar strategy
with the Japanese yen carry trades
Right
Mhmm
These uh Japanese rich people
in in Japan called missus Watanabe
They um throughout the period where
when their their economy like was
so down for almost 30 years uh they they
have to invest in something stronger than yen
They so they just use the you know dynamics
Right
They they borrowed with a cheap
interest rate in Japan and then they
invest into something all much stronger
And
Mhmm
I think the most of the money
came into the US the stock market
I think nobody can deny that the the reason
why Nasdaq or S and P 500 has has gone up
so dramatically for the last 20 or 30 years
was because the this the money from Japan
it is missus Watanabe they had to invest
in something stronger than Japanese yen
So that you know that's the that's one of the
reasons that why the US stock market was so good
Um and I think the US corporations are doing the
exact same thing with the dollar and Bitcoin
That's how I compare these two strategies
Yeah
I I I'd say that's that's pretty accurate
Uh the Yankee trade wasn't
nearly as profitable as the Yeah
Bitcoin trade though because the Bitcoin trade is
just uh like you you he's just printing stocks and
you using that to collect money and buying Bitcoin
And because the multiple is higher than 1 then
he can just it's kind of an infinite money glitch
Um it's Yeah
And he he he's like buying like
1,000,000,000 and 1,000,000,000 every week
It's it's it's just absolutely insane
And he yeah
He's not gonna be the only one
There are other other
companies starting to do that
And at some point like that that ball gets rolling
It's okay
We we have this much Bitcoin
on our balance sheet too
But I right now my MicroStrategy
is king on this score
But I mean there there's gonna be competition
There already is in some ways
Hey
I think the world economy is in a
really strange situation now because
US is decreasing the interest rate
Um at the same time Japan is about
to increase the interest rate and
China is devaluing their currency
And then they are they they
just rolled out this new huge plan
for bailout bailout their economy
So and there's 2 war going
on in Middle East and Europe
So I don't know
The uncertainty is like even
bigger than beef uh it's so big
So nobody can you know expect what to
happen the next year or the uh after 2 years
but do you think do you still think the
global liquidity will increase eventually
Because the the correlation
between the two is so high
Right
The Bitcoin and the global m two supply increase
Mhmm
I think Bitcoin price is going going to go up
dramatically when the global m two uh increases
Mhmm
Um do you think even in Trump administration the
US will still print money issue the new bonds
Uh Yeah
I mean I I think they kinda have to
We'll see how much of a cut
like uh Doge will do and so on
But the biggest liabilities uh on the US budget
are are the biggest spending things are you
know Medicare Social Security and Defense
Like those aren't I mean there there'll be
some cuts administratively and so on but
like the unfunded liabilities on Social
Security alone is like 300,000,000,000,000
I mean that's and you can either
you're going to have to print
Right
Because you're you're not gonna
collect enough in taxes to pay those
out especially as population decreases
So I that there's no slowing down that train
unless you inflate your way out of it which is
typically what governments do when they have
obligations that they can't uh they can't meet
Uh but I yeah
Look
What you were saying about like uh you know
Japan is increasing the interest rate and
uh you know the US is lowering it somewhat
Well that that's taking away the Yang Carey trade
Right
Like and that that was a big hole the
last few years and that was a big driver
of the stock market inquiry uh you
know increase in the US like you said
Um you know similar with China and so on
Like there's a lot of people there that wanted
to park money in some somewhere other than China
So they you know they've been buying up real
estate all over the world like uh especially
like places like Vancouver or Toronto Dubai
Places like that
Yeah
I mean it it's it's it's just kinda crazy uh
but but that that that's been happening uh as a
part of sort of like almost like a derisking of
uh of the uh you know putting all your eggs in
like sort of China's basket or whatever uh because
I I think a lot of people are kinda nervous
Okay
What what happens if something really goes down
Uh how how is everything going to work out
Um and you know people feel that uh the you know
the the world uh the wars that are happening
right now certainly don't help with that
And you know just uh you know the amount of
um sort of economic turmoil that this has
caused the like the Ukraine war for example
has caused Europe is just absolutely insane
Like Germany like economic stagnation
like significant economic stagnation there
But even places like Canada just bad management
Right
Like uh yeah they they they had almost you know
near parity with the US in terms of salaries
and so on uh like 20 years ago but it's like
fallen behind by a significant amount since then
So you know you get a bigger
brain drain and everything else
So yeah I there there's there's a lot in
the world that's kind of weird right now
And uh and I think this is why a lot of people
are turning to Bitcoin because they they like
at least the people that understand what what
it's about at least the people in the meetups
that I I've met in a lot of these places
Yeah
They they get it
They're like okay
Yeah
This is like a pristine asset that
is not controlled by a government
It's politically neutral and it's uh you know it's
not at the whim of some central banker somewhere
uh that that becomes extremely attractive
And uh I think it will continue to be so
You know as a lot of these fiat institutions
sort of like are aging out um they're
sort of collapsing in on So I was the
bureaucratic uh like there's like a
bureaucratic black hole of you know Yeah
Money sucking that's uh that it it's
you know the event horizon is expanding
So it's it's just it's getting worse and worse
So I suspect that that's that's going to
be a big part of the next you know however
many years until we get on a Bitcoin standard
Yeah
100%
I agree with you like 100%
And then the more I think more people escape
to Bitcoin to prepare for this uncertainty
And the other side on the
other side there's the government
Right
The government wants to control people
They want to especially control
the finance out of their people
Then their solution will be CBDCs I think
Um I don't think US government is um trying
to issue CBDCs anymore um because of the
Trump administration said they would ban CBDCs
But Korean government is still exploring
into it and China has already launched it
And then they're beta testing in different cities
Um Europe is experiencing uh
exploring into um CBDCs as well
You think CBDCs will be a threat to Bitcoin
Do you think it's going to come out and eventually
the surveillance level from the government will
be harsh harsh than be more harsh than before
And everybody will be suffer from
the financial repression from the
government because of the CBDCs
Um I actually don't think uh CBDCs are that close
And uh and the reason I say that is because I'm
a programmer and I know how badly government
does anything IT related and like if you think
about how well a CBDC has to work it has to
be up 247 can't ever have any downtime And
it has to be a it has to work the first time
It has to be really convenient
Like everywhere that's tried a CBDC usually
falls to technical problems user interface
problems user experience problems and so on
Like Nigeria released 1
Like just nobody used it because it
was like way too difficult to use
Like and they're like wait
We're used to cash is easier
And uh and I've seen this
Like eve even in you know other industries
the this uh this tends to be the case
where you try to digitize everything
like put everything online or whatever
It takes way longer than you think
Right
And it's it's only with like many like like
many iterations and a lot of failures that
you finally get to something even usable
Uh you know like I I used to work in health
care for example and uh you know big thing
for a long time is electronic medical
records instead of like paper or whatever
And you'd observe these doctors like use
the use a piece of paper and they they
can go through it in like 2 minutes and
mark up everything that they need to
And then they go on to like a website that
they're supposed to fill in all their information
It takes them 20 minutes
So there's no way that they're going to go
with something that takes 20 minutes versus 2
So their time's just too valuable
Right
I suspect that's what's what's going to happen
with a lot of CBDCs is governments want it
Don't get me wrong
And I I I think uh it's a central banker's
wet dream but they're not going to be able
to do it because they're not that good at IT
I I don't I like you you could hire really
good people I guess or whatever but generally
you know the people that a government hires to
do this sort of thing they're not that good at it
Right
Like they get it because of political
favors or because they know the processes
for government procurement and have the
right connections to get that contract
they're not actually good at making software
So you know I I I just don't think
it's like I I know China is trying
I mean they they might be able to pull
it off because they're very authoritarian
But you know the US or whatever if you if
you saw what happened with healthcare dot
gov like think of you know they you know the
website went down like the first day and
couldn't handle more than 50 users or whatever
Like like that's the level of disaster I think
we're looking at with any sort of CBDC rollout
It's not gonna happen
It's way too politically risky
It's gonna be way too costly
So for for most of the people that are
going to push for it it's just gonna be
too big of an uphill battle to make happen
What do you think of the stablecoins then
Everybody wants to issue their own stablecoins
Ripple just issued their own stablecoins
And the reason why XRP price shot up
recently was because of that you know issue
Right
Um of authorized stablecoins
Paypal issued their stablecoins
Tether is so dominant
Everybody
Mhmm
Um so some of my subscribers asked me
Mhmm
Do you prefer
um making this dollar um checking
account in the bank or purchasing
Tether and store in the private wallet
Which one do you think is a better option
And I'm surprised that people ask these questions
Tether is I think I still believe
owning the actual dollar in a bank
account is a safer option of course
Tether is just issued by one company
Right
But people just trust USDT as the super
super safe um investment um option these days
Um do you have an opinion on Tether
Yeah
I I I mean I think I might disagree with
you there because uh in a sense like if
you if you hold dollars at your bank Yeah
They are fractional reserve banking
Right
Like they they lend out way more
money than they have in reserve
They're the the savings of everybody that
hold money at the bank
is like 10% of the loans that they give out
Right
Like the reserve ratio in that case would be 10
where you have maybe like $1,000,000 in deposits
and you lend out 10,000,000 something like that
Like that that would be a reserve ratio of 10
You look at the reserve ratio of Tether
and the assets that they have and it's like
um I think for every dollar they have like
a buck 10 in like reserve reserve stuff
Like they they it's like it's like overfilled
So in that sense like uh you know for me what the
lesson of Tether is that's what a bank should be
Right
It's literally like just like they're
performing all the functions of a bank
They have 50 employees
They have like a $125,000,000,000
assets on their management and they're
probably worth more than any US bank
Right
Which like Chase Manhattan I think
alone employs like 200,000 people
Right
Tether has 50
Like that tells you how inefficient
the current banking system is that
they they have to have all of that
Yeah
But that that's because they're
they're a protected industry
essentially by the government and so on
So um yeah I I I kinda like
to me stable coins are just
like wildcat banks or something like that
Right
Like uh or less regulated banks of
some kind because they're they're
doing the functions of a bank
They people just wanna save
dollars right all over the world
Right
Whether you're in Nigeria or Japan or wherever
And uh and that's that's all they wanna do and
they they just don't want it to be debased using
their own crappy currency which debases way faster
So let's just give us dollar
So we were we at least keep up better than our
neighbor who keeps it in the local currency
That that seems to be the main use case
Now the the bad part about Tether
is that it's not that liquid
Right
You have to you have to convert it back to US
dollars or whatever your local currency is and
they're they're sort of like friction around it
Uh so if if they could solve that problem um which
again that's sort of like the medium of exchange
dilemma for almost everything is you know getting
a merchant to take it is actually quite difficult
unless the merchant really wants that asset
So you know the I mean that that
that's what tether is to me and
that's what like stable coins are
And this is why like a lot of other stable coins
are trying to come on to the market but I really
don't think it's gonna be easy to take that mantle
away from Tether because there's a network effect
Right
Like if if one person is willing to take Tether
they're not suddenly going to say well alright
Do you take Ripple dollars
Uh no
No
I got no
They like why would I like that
that's too much of a headache
Why would I do that
Also how long has ripple dollars have been around
Like a month
Right
Like Tether has been around for like 10 years now
Right
Like it's it's it's a lot more
of a brand name and it's something that people
trust because it's been there a long time
And that lead's only going to get bigger
as they've lasted longer and longer
So uh yeah I like all these other stable
coins I I have I have doubts about
Like there there's some weird
rumors going around USDC for example
Uh but you know like the Tether seems
to have won that stable coin market
and I'm not sure there's really like
demand for any other kind of stable coin
They've they've tried launching
like stable euro or uh stable yen or
what like nobody wants any of that
It's a
it's
they just want the dollars
Right
Do you know there's a really big
wholesale market uh clothing wholesale
market in Korea in Dongdaemun
Uh it's called
Uh it's it's a really famous wholesale market
So people the merchants come out and sell
the fabrics or even garments like jeans
and t shirts and jackets and as as well
So a lot of Chinese online shopping
sellers come to Korea Mhmm
And purchase a lot of the fabrics there
And then Mhmm
They import it to Chinese mainland and
then they sell it to Chinese market
And from the early this year I heard these
merchants in the they accept USDT Tether Oh
wow
Yeah
Everybody everybody the the Chinese sellers
Chinese buyers actually Chinese buyers come to
this market and then they pay with the Tether
That's what I hear
Yeah
I guess uh that would make sense because it's
uh it's easier for them to interact with that
rather than because if they were to try to pay
in yuan then they would have to convert it to
dollars and then convert the dollars to yuan
That that's like 2 round trips that
they avoid just by using Tether
And if they get other uh you know their their suppliers
pay them in Tether then they
can they can like actually go through
And you know I mean that's kind of
what international trade is mostly
conducted in anyway is the dollar
So if it's close enough to the
dollar I guess that would make sense
Yeah
So I think this will be the last question
Mhmm
After the martial law taking place
a few weeks ago um there are growing people who
want to try South custody for the first time
You know
The the majority of the uh crypto investors in
Korea they they purchase Bitcoin and leave it
in their crypto exchange account but this demand
for self custody is just growing and growing
Um so I try to educate as easily as possible to
these people but it's still you know difficult
very difficult and people having hard
people have a hard time understanding what
these private wallets do and um the the private
key do the what does public key is etcetera
What do you think will be a game changer
for the mass adoption of self custody
What do
you think will be necessary
for people to learn the self custody
and actually exercise self custody
Yeah I suspect a lot of those people are either
non technical or old or something like that
There there's some barrier to that right
And there's probably not that many resources on
how to do self custody and stuff
And my my thesis has been for
a while now that uh you know right
now you have like sort of 2 extremes
You can leave your coins on an exchange and that's
sort of trusting the exchange and then there's
self custody where you don't have to trust anybody
There's sort of nothing in between where
you know you can you can trust somebody
that you know or something like that
Uh so I I I think we'll naturally go
in that direction because I I don't
think everyone should self custody
If you're if you have a 10 year old kid
probably shouldn't be self custody
Right
I I don't care like how careful they are
They're probably gonna like lose
their seed phrase or whatever
Also similar with like 85 year old grandpa
Right
Like probably not like you know
starting to go senile or whatever
Kinda not a great idea to have
them you know self custody either
Uh and there there's a lot of people that
I think are just don't don't wanna bother
so I I think what's going to happen
or the the way it's going to evolve and like
to some degree this this already happens is
you're you're going to keep it with somebody
that you trust that's sufficiently technical
So I know I I am bad for a lot of my relatives
Right
Like my my parents keep their Bitcoin with me and
like you know I I tell them okay
You have this much
Like let me know whenever you need it or whatever
Uh that I think is the is going to be the
way that you're not going to get exactly
self custody but at least off the exchanges
Right
You don't have to have the central honeypot
Instead it's sort of like smaller
like little federations or something
Uh and who knows
Maybe maybe that's like a good place for
something like e cash uh protocols of some
kind where you know you can you can trade
those with privacy and so on
But that that that seems to be that that I think
will help at least have the coins not be on
exchanges and be with somebody that you trust
Right
Um and you know like for the truly paranoid yeah
you you can you can still go in self custody
you know given you have sufficient
technical aptitude and so on
Um but that that's that's where I think uh you
know like especially in in a place like Korea
where you have a very trust based culture
Right
Like you you have close relatives
and you know like most families have
like at least one guy that's like at least
somewhat technical can figure this stuff out
Uh you know I I suspect that that'll be
something that uh uh that will become popular
And uh maybe maybe there's a
business in there for somebody
Yeah
I don't
know
I thought it would be really amazing
to have some kind of a cold wallet
that has a neural link feature
So it can be connected with my brain
the Neuralink and then they can read the private
key or seed phrases printed in my brain and then
activate it when it's right close to the wallet
Right
It'd be awesome
Right
I I don't I like the way Neuralink works from
what I understand is that you need to train it
Right
Like Okay
So so that that then it sees the pattern
many times and then it understands okay
this is what you want or something like that
So um you would have to train it
somewhat in like recognizing what
you want before before it would do it
Uh but I mean like just uh I I I'm very wary
of like having any sort of like machine part
of my brain that could get hacked in some way
And like you know you suggest me
So I I'm like I get it for people
that are paralyzed and you know
don't have loss of certain functions
And it's the only way to interact with the world
But I'm voluntarily putting it in
I I know how many security
holes there are in software
It says it's just not a good idea
Take it from a programmer
Don't don't do it
Right