Alright
There we go
How's everything going
Um pretty good
My producer just said um if you can voice
up a little bit that's uh that's better
Okay
Is it is it not loud enough
Let me let me check
Perfect
Yeah
It's loud and clear
Okay
happy to have you back
Yeah
It's uh it's been a while
Uh I I saw you briefly in Korea
last year uh this summer but
This summer
Yeah
I don't think we got to yeah
I I don't think we got to talk very much
Uh but yeah how how's everything been man
Um as you know the because of the politics it's
Uh-huh
Very noisy in here in Korea
Uh but I'm focusing on my brand business
And also I started this uh YouTube channel
from this April and I've been dedicating
myself into it and I'm having having fun Okay
Meeting Bitcoin in Korea educating Bitcoin to
Korean publics and it's been a fun experience
Okay
How about you
That's good
It's good
Um you know the bull market's nice
So uh but you know there's like whenever
bull markets come around I always get busy
There's like random people asking me to do stuff
And uh it's hard for me to say no to a lot
of it especially when they're paying me
So yeah
it's it's it's
been good
It's been good
So are you in Texas right now
Yeah
I'm in Austin
Right
So the time is central central time
Right
Yeah
So it's uh it's Monday evening uh 7 PM right now
So
7 PM
Right
So I got It's morning over there
Yeah
It's uh 10:10 AM in the morning in Korea
Uh-huh
Yeah
And it's like Christmas Eve
Right
That way it's
Right
This is Christmas Eve
Happy uh Merry Christmas Eve
Yeah
Sure
So your your new book is going to be
published in Korea soon and I might ask
you to interview with me one more time
Uh-huh
This one
Okay
Alright
That book
Okay
Great
And I heard there's another guy um translating
your bank up for Bitcoin in Korean also
Yeah
There there's a couple of guys that
are working on it um and we we signed a
contract so it should it should all be good
Uh but yeah I'm hoping that
it'll be ready by the summer
Um and I I hope to visit
again over the next summer
So we'll see
Are you gonna be here for the next
Bitcoin solo event or is it going
to be just another tour for you guys
Uh I mean we we are gonna spend
like a month in Japan anyway
So and it's right there
So if uh you know we if uh if it works out
then yeah we'll like my kids wanna go back to
Korea and get a few things and stuff like that
So we'll we'll see
So the whole family again
The family trip
Right
Yeah
I mean it's that's what we're doing every
summer now so it's it's a lot of fun
Yeah
I'm going to Japan this uh April
No
February
Okay
To my parents
I love Japan
To uh just to watch her to
like tour around or something
What what what's the main reason
Yeah
1st I love Japanese food
Um I've been to Tokyo for my for the first
time in my life last year and then I loved it
I loved the food
And uh I I like running you know and I
went to this Imperial Palace in Tokyo and I
there's a running course around the palace
And there were so many runners like running
really experts and I loved running there
So yeah I wanna be there again
I wanna take my parents this time
Can you uh briefly briefly
introduce yourself to my subscribers
And just in case they don't know who you are
um they wanna figure out who you are
I I told I talked I talked about you many times
to my subscribers but you know I showed the
picture that I took with you in Vietnam Vietnam
You know
Do you do you remember the picture
I Yeah
Yeah
I mean I I saw that post you put on
LinkedIn about like how that inspired you
to start exercising or something like that
Yeah
But yeah I I I remember
Uh Yeah
It was uh you know bunch of bunch of
people from Korea that came came over
That that was a lot of fun and you know
we got to hang out when we were in Korea
So yeah I remember
Yeah
Right
So
Okay
Were you are you are
Just uh just brief introduction
Uh I'm I'm Jimmy Song
I'm a a Bitcoin expert
I've been in Bitcoin since 2011
I've written 5 books on Bitcoin
Uh one a very technical one that's translated into
Korean uh along with another one uh the little
Bitcoin book that's also uh translated into Korean
I've been coding all my life
I understand this stuff pretty well
I've been um doing a lot
I I I I teach I uh I consult
I invest
I do I do a bunch of things in the Bitcoin
space but mostly I um you know I explain
technical things to nontechnical people
That's what I end up doing
Lovely
So in your new book you talk about
how fiat money is ruining everything
Um and you said there's a
birth rate issue in Korea
Right
Do you think Bitcoin will be a
solution to this problem to Korea
Well so the the thing I've I've observed about
Korea is that there's a lot of old people
that are not letting go of their houses right
like it's or their positions or whatever
It's and uh and I like does does
that get solved with Bitcoin
I mean somewhat
Right
Because there there is sort of like this
almost involuntary wealth transfer from
you know fiat holders to Bitcoin holders
But uh the the bigger thing that needs
to happen and I I believe will happen
I I don't know what timeline is that you you start
dismantling sort of like the administrative state
the bureaucrats the people that don't add anything
And there's a lot of that in the US but
there's a lot of that all over the world
And like especially in places like Korea
where you have sort of this cultural sort
of um support of a lot of that bureaucracy
So you'll you'll get a lot of people in these huge
companies like the Samsungs and the LGs and and
place Hyundais and places like that where you're
you're not really sure what the person is doing
but they get paid kind of like a large salary
Right
Just because they have seniority
Um and that that I think uh like there there
isn't sort of that churn that you have uh
in a more dynamic entrepreneurial society
It's still the case in Korea where you kind
of stay at a place for you know 20 30 years
and you you sort of hope to get up there
Now like that's not to say that um
that's necessarily bad
I it is kind of nice for the person at
least to have a stable job or whatever
But you know there's a lot of inefficiency that
goes into that because there there's not enough
competition if there was a lot of competition
And certainly at the retail level there's way
more competition in Korea than I see in the US
So you know you go and you know try
to find like an escape room here
There's like 2 3 choices in Austin
You look for an escape room in Seoul
There's probably like 30 in one neighborhood
Right
Like it's it's like insane the level of
competition and that happens at the retail level
But uh but there there's
There's a sort of like an administrative
bloat uh there there's a bureaucratic bloat um
not just within government of course that that
like pretty much every government bureaucrat
is a net negative in terms of productivity
But there there's also these
large companies and so on
And you know a honestly that's probably a
large part of like the bitterness and the
sort of political um you know wrangling
that's going on right now is that there
there is sort of like the you know rich
poor kind of divide that that that's there
So that needs some dismantling
And the the reason why a lot of that
exists is because of fiat money printing
Uh now Korea can't print nearly as much as the US
And in fact they need to export a whole
ton of stuff to the US to get those dollars
in so that they can uh they can keep up a
reasonable peg a peg with their currency
Uh but uh you know there there's still a
significant amount of bureaucracy and rent
seeking and administrative people that aren't
really adding anything that are still there
And until that gets flushed out and I
think that naturally does through a fiat
money it's it's not going to get fixed
But you know it's like hopefully
the US starts on that train
You know like we got Doge and Elon Musk
and Vivek Ramaswami working on that stuff
Uh and you know if the US does it I can I can see
a lot of other countries sort of following suit
And you know we're we're hearing about um you know
a lot of other places you know France and Germany
in particular you know the you know right wing
parties that are more Trumpian are are starting
to get a lot of uh you know a lot of traction
So uh uh we'll we'll see if that
that's the road that they go down
And I think Bitcoin can definitely usher that in
But you know how long does it take
Right
Is it 5 years or 50
I I don't know
But like in 50 years Korea
might be like 20,000,000 people
I don't know
Uh so it's Yeah
Like what what it might be a little late
Uh so yeah that that's that's where I'm thinking
Uh like uh you know how it'll play
out is is really a political issue
and it's that's very unpredictable
Yeah
I also studied in both China and the US
I went to college in Washington DC
Right
And one thing I noticed really strange in
Korean culture is the private institute
You know everybody every every every
parent every household wants their
kids to go to this private institute
Couple of them or even 3 or 4 of them after
the school and then they get prepared for
Oh the Hagwon
Okay
I was
like The Hagwon private institute
Yeah
You should speak Korean when it's uh like
we we like that's not that that's not
a term I was familiar with in English
So yeah
It's Okay
Okay
3rd grade
Yeah
The hagwon
Right
After school they go to you know
bunch of hagwons and then they prepare
for the higher level of education
Right
Um they even start when they are 10 or 11
years old and then you know parents spent
huge amount of money into this kind of
you know education private education
Um and then they want their kids
to go to the college no matter what
Preferably they want their kids to go to the
best colleges in Seoul the 3 of them the top 3
Even the if if they can't go to those top schools
then they have to go to the colleges in Seoul
Um so you know it's just packed
Everybody wants to everybody has to compete
against each other on this one exam at you
know when they're in high school and then they
have to go to these good the good colleges
Um and they go to these colleges and
then they graduate from the colleges
They have to go to the you know huge
conglomerates who pay the good wages
Right
Samsung Hyundai those corporations
And when they get into there then then what
You know
There's just that's like the end of their
career journey and that's why they have
to fall into these um investments
They have to invest in stocks they have to invest
in real estate because the wages are there um
it's just you know it's it's it's just there
There's no upside potential whatsoever
So they have to make this breakthrough
to get better um to to get by because
the Korean won value is diminishing
Right
So that's why they find out uh
Altcoin is really interesting
You know
It it has a huge upside potential but they just
they just don't realize it's just so it's almost
impossible to uh make a good profit out of it
Right
Mhmm
Um why do you think it's so hard for Korean
people to um figure out altcoins are shitcoins
It's so hard to make a profit out of it
You know they get busted every cycle you
know they see them collapsing every time
But why do they why do you think XRP is
you know it's becoming a huge boom again
this cycle and they just neglect Bitcoin
Yeah
It's interesting
As you were talking I was uh I was thinking about
just sort of like the reputation East Asia has
And it's not just Korea but Korea Japan Taiwan
Uh and this this is like pre Altcoins pre Bitcoin
like uh even back in the nineties and so on
East Asia has had the reputation
of being the absolute last commerce
to any kind of investment vehicle
So yeah anything hot in the US it it
goes to Europe first and eventually
finds its way to uh East Asia
By the time East Asian retail is into it
everyone else in the world knows to get out of it
That but that that's that's a common thing
Now why why does that happen
Well there's an information advantage
um to being in the US and so on
And uh Europe is closer to the
dollar than the 1 or the yen are
Um and so that that kind of makes sense
But there's also sort of like a cultural thing
And uh and the main uh cultural thing
that I think uh you were pointing out and
is that uh you know parents really want to
reduce risk for their children significantly
Right
And this is why they send them to hagwon
This is why they want them to go
to the best universities and the
best companies and everything else
Even you know growing up as a Korean
American you know the things that the
Korean parents want you to do are like
the most stable and risk free professions
Right
It's doctor lawyer engineer or something like that
Yeah
The this is why like watching somebody like
Edward Lee is so profound because Right
That's not one of the you know like paths that
Korean parents typically will steer you to
It's it's almost entirely done because uh
the individual in question like uh is is sort
of willing to take on that risk and go for it
But that that's a that's definitely a cultural
thing where the reduction of risk in career
profile is something that everyone strives for
So what happens when you reduce risk significantly
is that you you do re reduce uh you know the
downside but you also reduce the upside as well
This is what happens when you
you know go become a lawyer
You're you're going to make good money but
you're not going to make life changing money
You're never going to get there
because you're a lawyer right
Like you charge you know a few $100 per
hour and you that's that's an excellent rate
Right
And a lot of people are happy to do that
But if you if you wanna change the world or
like uh you know add a lot of value you're
you're going to have to do something that's
a little bit outside the um sort of like
the well trodden paths of everybody else
But that that's the direction that um that Asian
cultures tend to push their children towards is
is something that is as uh you know as little
risk as possible so that they have a good life
And I I've seen this in my own parents
Right
Like it's funny because my mom used to
tell me you know all I wanted you to
be was just somebody that was normal
I was like sorry mom
That's not what I am
It's not what I
I've seen a lot of my friends that go
down that I have cousins and you know uh
you know my sibling and uh and all that
They they they've gone on to be
lawyers and doctors or whatever
Uh but you know that that that road is riskless
and it it it capture upside but it also like
sort of like very it's a very crowded road
Right
Like if you're if you're trying to go down the
road that everyone else goes towards success
it it is just enormously crowded
Like uh you know the exam that you were talking
about that you know it's famous because like
I think they shut down the airport for a
few days or something like that and stuff
It's absolutely insane because that's how many
people are trying to get into a or whatever
It's they they all want to go to the best
so that they can then uh sort of like have
the rest of their life set up for them
But but really like the the entrepreneurial
energy the the you know civilization
is built with from risk takers
So when when you reduce risk like that
you you have a significant appetite
to take on risk ironically enough because you
have almost no risk anywhere else in your life
So I know a lot of Korean people are
addicted to gambling and so on
And that's kinda how I see all coins
It's it's a lot of gambling
And honestly that's uh that's kind of
understandable when you're when you're
living sort of like a very structured
riskless life to desire more risk
So there there's definitely a cultural component
and uh there's an information component
Uh but you know I mean the
the last part is just like you know
it's a very conformist culture as well
So you know you you see your
neighbor get in and do well
Um you know you're you're
you're going to want to get in
And that that is particularly
uh strong in Korean culture where you you you
want to ape in and you have a lot of FOMO
uh about you know whatever your neighbor is
uh is doing with their stocks or whatever
Uh so that that tends to um
snowball into really huge bubbles
Uh and you know I mean we we've seen that many
times in Korea on on a lot of different things
Uh but that that um you know because
you have sort of like a uniform culture
like that that tends to happen as well
Like it that's not nearly as much the
case in the US because you you have a
melting pot of a lot of different cultures
So people don't ape into something
because their neighbor does
It's like oh that person's just kinda weird
and we're not gonna listen to them or whatever
Um so you know whereas in Korea it's like
okay my my cousin did this and he made a lot
of money so I I gotta go do it or whatever
It's it's it's a very uh you know there
there are benefits to sort of like
cultural um homogeneity I guess
Uh but uh there there are also downsides
and you know it makes you a little bit more
vulnerable because there's not as much diversity
Right
Like everyone has sort of the
same um same uh attack surface
vulnerability or something like that
Right
Um I think one of the reasons Koreans
love Altcoins is because they they
have this tendency to like technology
Um when they study about their investment
strategy when when they um prepare for when they
form their portfolio uh with stocks real estate
and um some of the Altcoins they tend to pick
something that has a higher level of technology
I think that's why they fall into
these bunch of Altcoins who claim to
have a better technology than Bitcoin
You know Bitcoin is um often
um represented as a 2 g smartphone
No
2
2 g um mobile phone and Ethereum is
the um smartphone and Solana is a
better version of smartphone etcetera
So I that's a common notion in Korea
Um most crypto investors think of this way um and
they just um think of Bitcoin as a old technology
Right
Yeah
So I want I saw you at the Lightning
Con event in Danang last year
Right
Mhmm
And so do you think Lightning Network has a
breakthrough for Bitcoin as a scalability solution
Do you think Mhmm
Lightning Network will be changing the dynamics of
Bitcoin and even appeal to Korean public later on
Yeah
I mean the the thing about that that error is that
it's it's been made many times all over the world
Right
Like people see Bitcoin they think technology
And okay that means that you
know the better tech will win
And that's not how money works
Bitcoin is money not technology
Well it is also technology but it
has a lot of monetary properties
And this is the part that sort of confuses a
lot of people because they think okay well in
technology if you have a smartphone with you
know a better better camera or something then you
know that's going to win over one that doesn't
But this is money we're talking about
It has a network effect
There are certain properties of money that you
want um and decentralization and incredible long
term scarcity happen to be 2 things that are
extremely important that if you're enhancing the
technology you necessarily give up those things
Right
Uh so Ethereum for example
is highly highly centralized
And even like to the degree that people
think it's like you know uh technically
advanced or whatever it's it's really not
And we you know you you look at something like
uh you know how how it was created and so on
Yeah
You know like uh the Bitcoin addresses have
something called a checksum so that if you
you know misstate a letter in the address
um any wallet can tell okay
Yeah
That you didn't write this down correctly
Can you go and ask again or something like that
Uh and that that's the function of a checksum
Ethereum when it started they decided
you know uh let's not have a checksum uh because
Vitalik being 19 and thinking that he knows
everything like a lot of young programmers do
All right
I'm gonna invent my own thing and it'll be good
Um and of course it wasn't because you know you
make you put like the wrong letter in or something
like that and suddenly all your funds are gone
you know gone out into the ether as it would be
Um but you know it was it's not even technically
good uh but they they marketed themselves as that
Uh I remember talking to this guy
Um I think it was like consensus
19 and he was from Korea
And uh and we were just talking and he's
like yeah but Ethereum has smart contracts
And he's like hold on
Hold on
What do you think a smart contract is
It's like you know it's it's what
the Ethereum does blah blah blah
I'm like okay
You do realize that Bitcoin has
had smart contracts from day 1
Right
He's like Bitcoin has smart contracts
I need it
It it here's it
Like and for for the rest of the
night like every time I still can't
believe Bitcoin has smart contracts
I did not know this
This is like that's how little retail often
knows about the technology that they they're just
told something and they just sort of believe it
And I kind of get it
Right
Like you know Koreans are very trusting
It's a very trust based society and so on
So yeah like your your neighbor tells you Hey yeah
Ethereum is better because it has smart contracts
And it's like okay Bitcoin has smart
Like no one's there to correct them or
to uh uh show there's no one technical
to uh to tell them Hey like you're you're kind
of wrong here about uh about all of this stuff
but all that said the big thing is Bitcoin is
decentralized has credible long term scarcity
And those are the 2 most
important things about money
None of this other stuff has any of that
And this is why Bitcoin has been
successful over a period of 15 years
whereas all coins come and go day by day
You know like I like it's literally day by
day these days with like meme coins and so on
Now with respect to lightning and all this
other stuff if you actually know technology
you rec recognize lightning the lightning
network as the brilliant innovation that it is
All of this other stuff is LARPing
Right
And if your uh audience isn't uh familiar with
that term LARPing stands for live action role play
You're pretending to be something right
rather than actually being that thing
Bitcoin has lightning
It has uh you know there
there's an implementation of arc
There's state chains
There's um there there's
a whole uh you know bit VM
There's a whole bunch of technologies that actual
real technical people that know what the
heck they're talking about and not just
you know talking marketing speak or whatever that
uh that that actually have a lot of this stuff
And the thing is like these
things take a while to mature
Uh so lightning started you know 2017 2018
and it it's been maturing for a while
And it's now at a point where you can go to any
Bitcoin conference pay for everything in lightning
And you know you know like I you know
I'll I'll sell books for example at
a bunch of conferences and you know take
payment in Bitcoin uh with through the
lightning network and it it works great
Uh Few people know about it though because you
don't have all these marketing dollars that
say Ethereum or Solana have or even ripple
Uh and they and that's that's what they
use it for is to deceive the public
Like Koreans kind of need
to be a little less trusting
Right
This is the slogan that we have in Bitcoin
It's uh you know verify don't trust
And when once you trust people
you know they're going to take advantage of you
And these these are people that have an incentive
to pump their coin so that uh you
know they can dump it on you and so on
Right
Well one of the things that I do these
days um I take these uh my friends um to
a bar and then we like drink together
And then at the end we like Dutch pay
Right
And then we do the rock scissors
papers and then the winner pays for
the whole thing with the credit card
And then the rest of the group pays me
with the Bitcoin with the like wallet
Um that's that's one thing I do every time I
go to a bar with my friends and then experience
the lightning network and then Bitcoin
instant payments at that at the time then
they they just uh find it really interesting
Wow
This works
Bitcoin Mhmm
It doesn't take 1 hour to transact Bitcoin
And yeah it's a moment for them
Right
Mhmm
Um
so you know one of the so there
are many Bitcoin experts in Korea too
Um and I think some of them the the the one
group um advocates that claims that there's
going to be cycle repeating um next year
Bitcoin has 4 year cycle so it's going
to go up a lot and then crush um probably
in the early took this out to 2026
The other group on the other hand um because of
the institutional adoption this cycle the Bitcoin
price won't go up that much and it won't crash
It just will gradually increase
Um what do you think will happen
Yeah
That's that's a tough one
And I I I don't really
I'm not really in either camp
I I don't know
Right
Like this is
Right
Uh but I I get it
Like the these are the most
popular videos on YouTube
What the price is going to do in the
next 6 months or something like that
because that's what everyone wants to know
Yeah
But uh but you know I mean we
we have had 4 4 year cycles
This is true
And you can you can look it up
2013 2017 2021 and the next one would be 2025
So there there's decent reason for that
We we have 3 previous cycles that
we can look at and say hey there's
there's a pattern here possibly
But you know it could certainly
break on the 4th cycle
I don't know
Um and you know I I can also see the other side
um you know where uh you know they're saying okay
we have institutional adoption so volatility is
dampened and maybe it goes up a little slower
Uh but you know you don't you don't have
like these crazy bull runs or whatever
I I mean that could be I mean I I suspect that
that like it's that that slow and steady rise
I I don't think that's going to happen just
because that's never been Bitcoin's history
In fact that hasn't been
almost any commodities history
It's only uh like uh with centralized intervention
that you get steady sort of prices on anything
Right
Like you you have for example in the
US the strategic petroleum reserve
And when the gas prices are
low they buy up a lot of it
So the price goes up
And when the price is very high they sell
from the reserve to bring it back down
This is how how it's controlled
This is also how the Korean Central Bank manages
the won against the dollar uh for you know I
think the last uh I I think almost 40 years now
You know they've been trying to keep
it at around a 1,001 to a dollar
And you know I within like plus or minus 30% or
something like that they've been mostly successful
Obviously the current situation's a little
bit out of the norm but that's that's what
a central bank does is they they um they
buy up their own currency when it's cheap
Um the fact that they aren't doing that right
now probably tells you that they don't have
the dollars to buy with Or or if uh if their
currency is really strong they just print more
uh more of their own currency into the market
So uh yeah they there the this
is what sort of causes artificial
lack of volatility
Right
Steadiness uh over time is some
centralized manager that does that
So if you don't have that
then it's going to be volatile
So I I suspect that Bitcoin is
gonna continue to be volatile
You'll see 70% drawdowns and like you
know you know days where it goes up
like $20,000 or something like that
Like that that that stuff happens all the time
And you know this is part of the you know
holding mentality is you you have to be steady
through all of that and and not get too high
or too low and just uh you know have enough
savings so that or you know do whatever work
that you need to to continue to make money and
you know use it as savings so that you're not
dipping into it at that worst possible moment
Uh and you're uh using it to you know go and uh
do the stuff that you really want to do rather
than working like an office job or something
Right
Like go go do stuff
Right
Like it's it's crazy to me how many how
weak the dreams of people in the fiat economy are
Right
I just wanna go
Yeah
You know on a vacation once in a while or whatever
It's like okay
Those those are not dreams worthy of a human being
Come on
Like go go and try stuff that's
a little bit further out there
Right
Like try to change something do
something more interesting than
I you know I wanna live a comfortable life
Um so yeah I I I it's the
volatility I I think will stay now
Like whether this 4 year cycle
happens this time or I don't know
I like I suspect maybe but who knows
Yeah
That's the golden ratio that I
always tell my subscribers too
Um there's a really famous saying in the bible
Right
Um it's love your neighbor as you love yourself
Is it correct
Mhmm
Yeah
That's the one um the saying that
I love the most from the bible
I'm not a Christian but I somehow you
know pray every morning these days
I listen to morning prayer from the
YouTube and then I pray for 15 minutes
I don't know
But just like you said I'm taking my um I'm
taking risk um because I'm an entrepreneur
I run my business and then I always
bump into this hardships and difficult
times you know even many times a day
And then one the the you know one very good
solution that I can you know uh resolve these
problems and issues is having a morning prayer
And I found it really useful and I
suggest the subscribers who's
watching the show can um try sometime