Crypto Unplugged with Natalie Brunell

Doc:

For example, there's a lot of alternatives that are out there and you coming across bitcoin for the first time. Of course, being in journalism, you're obviously CNN reporting about a lot of problems, economic problems, and like you mentioned, civil unrest and things like this. What is it that struck you? I mean, can you remember a conversation that you had with someone or something that you read that basically was like a light bulb moment?

Natalie:

Yeah, so actually I wasn't working at CNN at the time. CNN was my first job in journalism, and then I've worked my way through different cities and I went to a national level. But in 2017, I learned about bitcoin for the first time and I found like so many people that I just really kind of glazed over it. I was like, this is probably like a stock. It's digital, so it's vulnerable to hacking or someone could steal it, it could go to zero. I believed all the misconceptions and misinformation that's out there. And the moment that transformed me an 'aha' moment for me was when I had a mentor of mine gave me the book, the Bitcoin Standard. It's by Dr. Saifedean Ammous. For people familiar with bitcoin, you might know it, for others, I highly recommend it. And the book, it's a bit of a misnomer, to be honest with you, because it makes it sound like the book. I mean, to me, when I picked it up and I bitcoin Standard, I thought it's a book about computer science or the technology or it's about how it was programmed. And it's completely not. It's actually a book that's eight or nine chapters about the history of money and our current financial system and then about two chapters on bitcoin and what it is and why it's trying to fix the problems that were kind of set up in the premise of the book.

So that was the ‘aha’ moment for me because again, I knew that there was something going on in the system that was broken and that was disadvantageous to the working class, the average person. But I didn't understand what it was until the book taught me about how our financial system was set up, why the US dollar as the global reserve currency when we went off the gold standard, the idea of hard money, and what money printing was. And that was like for me, it was like the veil lifting off my eyes. And I thought, wow, a lot of the problems we have are because we exist in a system of debt with money that is not backed by anything that politicians can spend with no consequences, and we really need a return to hard money, and bitcoin provides us that potential.

Doc:

Absolutely. Obviously, you talk about education, that sense of creating what you call public awareness. And not only public awareness, obviously more targeted awareness amongst certain individuals or decision makers or policy makers in order to convince them things like this. Now, I'm not sure this is the case, but did you actually interview the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele?

Natalie:

So I didn't interview him for my podcast. I actually sat down with him for a meeting, and I had the chance to talk to him about bitcoin and his background, which is really fascinating. I don't know if a lot of people know this, but before he was president, he was mayor, and before that, he was a business owner in San Salvador. He owned, like, bars and clubs, and he worked really hard. He actually has been in bitcoin for many, many years. He understands it. He's put in the work. And I think it's interesting to see headlines that call him a dictator, because when I think about someone who's a dictator adopting a form of money that he can never control, he can never manipulate, he can never expand the supply of that doesn't really fall in the same category.

Doc:

So, do you see Bitcoin more as an ideological solution to existing problems around the world or do you feel that obviously bitcoin is just restricted to monetary concepts because a lot of people do have the narrative, there's a lot of rhetoric that goes on that Bitcoin can obviously solve a lot of issues, even if sour monetary sphere. What's your view related to bitcoin as more of an ideological solution?

Natalie:

Well, absolutely, I think it's both. I think it's ideology that is sort of achieved through a technological breakthrough. In many ways, I think that bitcoin is the most important invention of our time and I really believe that it allows for us to almost flip the worst aspects of human nature, which I would argue one of those is greed. Flip it on its head and make that an incentive system that actually benefits the majority of people as opposed to the few, which is our current system. And so, I do think it's highly ideological because we talk about the idea of capitalism. And capitalism, in my opinion, has allowed for more access to economic opportunity and prosperity than any other form of economics and government leadership. But we don't have capitalism in the United States, in my opinion, anymore because capitalism doesn't have a system of rent seeking and bailouts and a structure in which basically massive institutions are too big to fail and they can take a ridiculous amount of risk at the expense of taxpayers because the government will always step in with debt to make sure that their executive bonuses are being paid and everyone gets bailed out. I just don't think that that's capitalism because in capitalism, actually things that don't work or are mismanaged or took on too much risk are allowed to fail. We actually see more capitalism right now in the crypto market and it's painful. We have painful lessons being learned, but we're seeing the liquidity kind of drain out from projects that were not properly collateralized, they were not properly managed. And now it sucks for the investors that believed or invested in those companies, but they're allowed to fail. There's no big papa bear, mama bear coming in from the Federal Reserve saying don't worry, we're going to hand you a check and we're all good. Maybe there should be a cleansing and the system would be more fair because again, if you have a system of government where they can write blank checks and spend as much money as they want because it's all debt, essentially it's something that we kick the can down the road for future generations to deal with while you have job security and a nice pension that doesn't create a system where people can actually thrive and provide value. Everything is diluted and everything gets pushed into these two classes of people where it's now the haves, they have the growing majority of the pie and they have all the houses and they are all the landlords and they have all the stocks and the equities and everyone else is at the bottom sort of starting to fight for scraps. Again, that's not capitalism. There's a disadvantage. The proportion that goes advantage goes to the top at the expense of everybody at the bottom. The losses are socialized. And so I don't think we have capitalism and I think this is a highly ideological conversation and bitcoin sort of again, just as the seed that has been planted that can address these issues if it's allowed to grow and take on sort of the potential that I think it has.

Doc:

Do you think, for example, because there's a lot of debate nowadays and you're very active on Twitter and social media and you see a lot of people suddenly becoming experts in macroeconomics and things like this. I know it's a very long, massive subject, but do you believe, obviously, that the headlines do affect Bitcoin and its pricing?

Natalie:

Sure, I think a lot of things affect Bitcoin…