Dollar Auction Show
Dollar Auction Show
Geopolitics and AI
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Hello everyone and welcome to the dollar auction show with Alex and Shimon. All time highs during war edition. How are you doing, dear Alex?
SPEAKER_01Well, now that you framed it as all-time highs during war, I can't be doing too bad, can I? Although we don't want people dying, but we're just financially speaking, uh, and we want peace on earth.
SPEAKER_02But financially speaking, it's and also why Bitcoin is down 35% from the all-time highs. So I'm just talking about the NASDAQ. But I'll take it, you know what? I'll take it.
SPEAKER_01That's good. But so I let's talk about actually why um the market is is at an all-time highs, and uh specifically, you know, this is something that you and I talked about a little bit earlier, where people like Warren Buffett and others are sitting out on the sidelines. Warren Buffett has a record of what something close to $300 billion in in cash, I think, uh on hand. I don't remember the exact number. But um while the markets are pumping, and today Mohammed Elarian, um, who's at Oxford, he's a phenomenal economist. I like him a lot. But he he pre-posted of um an article, I think, from the Financial Times, but basically the bank of you know central banks, I think it was in the UK telling people that they're racing for market downturn. I sent it to you, I can pull up the exact uh the exact note just so we're not completely um uh bluffing, so to speak, on the podcast. But while I pull it up, basically it was the public sentiment that the markets are going to fall, uh, but they're not falling, right? And so this is I wanted to get your reaction on this. And here, I sorry, I found it. This was the uh BBC's business editor um basically saying that the Bank of England expects stock markets around the world to fall as share prices do not reflect the many risks facing the global economy. Its deputy governor told the BBC. So why are the stocks up? Are we just gonna see a major crash? What do you think?
SPEAKER_02No, I just think that first of all, social media is not what the market expects. So they're like we spoke about this last episode, social media is emphasizing things that are likely to be clicked on. So you're probably not seeing the article that says stock market to just perform like it has always performed. You know what I mean? That thing will not bubble up to social media. So I've just been not treating social media as people think. It's some people think, and it's the people that social media chooses to emphasize. Uh so that's my take. I mean, look, I I very strongly believe that at any point in the timeline, the current price of the market has everything that everybody believes about the market. Now, can it change and suddenly crash? Of course, but it can also change and crash up. So I just don't buy the argument that most people think that it's gonna fall. What do you think?
SPEAKER_01Well, so I maybe I should have restated. And in this case, it's yes, sure, it's published on social media, but it's uh the comment from the Bank of England. Major, many, major institutions out there, Bank of England, but in the US, many stock pickers, again, Warren Buffett, right, sitting on $300 million billion dollars of cash. There's a good portion of the market that thinks that we're going down, and um, and you and I uh believe otherwise, at least in the in the medium to longer term. Now, look, on one hand, it could be easy to say, okay, well, of course, in the medium term things go up. But I think our view is a little bit more nuanced. Our view is that especially in the next few years, that the market is mispricing what's happening. You know, for me, and I'll I actually I want you to react to this, and then I have a couple things to share with you that that uh because I have a point of view on this. Um to react to what specifically? Like, like you know, why why do we think in the medium term your market will keep on going up?
SPEAKER_02Well, I just think that if anything, the market price a lot more risk uh because of this war. And the more the war progresses, the more we see that all these risks are not um are not coming to fruition. And so I really think that this thing will be optimistic for everything uh for everybody uh once it settles. So, like the latest analysis that I've heard on the war that I really uh appreciate kind of across several people that I listen to that I respect. They say, look, it's all the this is just all about the choke points, it's not about the Iran uh nuclear stuff, and it's not about specifically the Straits of Hurmuz. It's more like if you look at China, which ways does it have to get its stuff out into Europe and into the global markets? It can either go through the Strait of Malacca in Singapore, right? Or it can go to the Panama Canal. Um and so we just signed a deal with Indonesia that controls the state of uh the Strait of Malacca, and Singapore is clearly our ally. So we control the state, the Strait of Malacca, and and for those of you listeners that don't know, imagine China all the way to Australia. It's a series of islands. So the only way to pass through this through these islands is through Singapore, through the Strait of Malacca. Otherwise, you have to go all the way around Australia, which makes your stuff more expensive and less competitive. So it's it's not feasible. So you have to pass through the Strait of Malacca. And then what's basically the reason that China wants Taiwan is that Taiwan can block all of their ports. So it's not just about reunification with their ethnic brethren, but it's more like if you if you control um Taiwan, you can pretty much block, you can starve China, right? So then China says, look, we're not willing to be starved, so we're going for we're going for um for Taiwan, whether it's through military, whether it's like what they did to Hong Kong, and slowly like bribe the officials there, but the the basically thesis is that China will take Taiwan. And then the question is once China takes Taiwan, what can we do? Or what can we do to prevent them from taking Taiwan? Is we can say, fine, you can take Taiwan, but we're gonna get you in Panama and and and Malacca. And so this is kind of like a proxy war, just like the Ukraine war is a proxy war, of where we show what happens when someone closes a street. And I think the way the US played it is is very good. And so that's why the markets are pumping. Because, first of all, I'm hearing so many stupid takes about 20% of the oil isn't uh hitting the market. No, it's 20% of this oil isn't hitting the market, and instead, people are buying oil from the US and from like pipelines that that go around the world.
SPEAKER_01And and by the way, from Minister.
SPEAKER_02It's not like we don't have oil. I yeah, I literally heard, I can't believe how stupid people are. I mean, you can't be ignorant because like if you're ignorant, don't go and give an interview on this topic. But this guy said in two weeks Europe will have no more jet fuel, and and that's just not true. Like they can buy their jet fuel from the US.
SPEAKER_03Well, no, I don't think it's that simple.
SPEAKER_02No, but the way he said it, he said it GDP will collapse, stock markets will collapse. Why? Because 20% of the oil hasn't been going. No, that's true, and people are only using their reserves, and once the reserves end, that's when the economy will collapse. And I say that's stupid. No, that's when maybe you start paying a little bit more for your oil because it comes from the US instead of cheaper oil from Iran. So, anyway, my whole point is that this war is getting is going much better than people expected, and that's why the markets are pumping. Now, in a world where the US controls these straits, it's much it's a much more stable world going forward for like shipping and for everything. So I think that's why markets are pumping. And then the other thing is the whole trillion and a half dollars of military spending, it's like half a trillion dollars more than we planned before this war. So this money is hitting the markets. I mean, you know, employees of Raytheon and Boeing and all of these guys are going to uh target and buying toys for their kids. So that's why I think the markets are at an all-time high. Basically, just like if you think about it, you know, with the startup, they say every round of funding that you raise is because you've de-risked one more level of the business, right? So you raise seed, it's all risk. Like nobody knows if it's gonna work. Then you raise series A, you say, okay, at least I found a product market fit in this particular tiny segment. Then you raise series B, it's like, okay, I could scale my product market fit, I de-risk the fact that the segment is too small. So it's the same with this war. It's like at first they thought nukes are gonna fly between China and the US. And now it's like, okay, like who with Iran will we negotiate and what exactly will be the terms of the agreement? That's the discussion currently. Nobody's talking about nukes, nobody's talking about like Iran destroying all the desalinization plans of the UAE. People are not talking about this anymore. So that's why I think the markets are at an all-time high. That's my take. What do you think?
SPEAKER_01Well, you said a lot, and I uh I think all your points, Stan. I think it's um uh maybe a couple things. I completely agree that this is uh a war over global influence for many reasons. Iran needed to go, it was a state-sponsored terrorist, so I Trump doesn't want that. He doesn't want Hezbollah and Hamas to influence things throughout the Middle East and have an unstable area of the world. I think that to me is obvious, regardless of how he thinks about the Iranian people. Obviously, he says, I'm gonna free them, I'm gonna help them. Whether he actually truly is at the number one driver, I don't know. Probably not, unfortunately or fortunately, but it is what it is. By the way, I love um the Trump, what I like that he does is that he just says things as they are. You know, somebody told him that China's you know meddling in uh uh in in the in the US and so on. He's like, yeah, okay, well, we do it too. It's like, yeah, that's what they gotta do what they gotta do. Like, are you are you upset with them? It's like I'm not upset, they gotta do what they have to do. And it's refreshing because it's uh I think what it does is it it uh continues to push um and just establish the credibility that he's a deal maker and very pragmatic. Now you know he he can grift and you may not like him, but he's a deal maker. So if he he's not you know, he it I think strengthens his negotiating position in all the other deals because he basically keeps on uh uh like he he accrues benefits to his word. But anyway, um so so it's definitely a proxy war with China. I agree about the straits. I don't agree it's that quick to just say, okay, well, we'll just buy our oil from the US. You know, it's not like a quick change. So oil prices could spike, and yeah, the animal may being will increase over time in the UK, be 20-30 percent more. I completely agree though that in the call short medium term, they bring their tankers, buy it from the US, buy it from Venezuela, which was before at Maduro with Maduro at 25%. Uh I think it was something of 25% efficiency of their oil wells. Now that you got rid of Maduro, people like, oh, this is good. We you know, we got a sitting president. First of all, he wasn't a president because pretty much every single credible uh international monetary organization said that he stole the elections. It was quite obvious. Um, so he wasn't actually elected. But anyway, well, once we got rid of him and the government's cooperating, their their oil fields can actually export oil, which has to go because it's heavy crew to the US. So it benefits us, whether people buy from Venezuela or the US. But yeah, he's shifting it, but they're gonna they're gonna feel the pain, and they're gonna it's not gonna be quickly over, but they're gonna feel the pain also because Europe has just insane policies. You know, Europe has had just absolutely insane injury policies for decades.
SPEAKER_02Again, I I basically said this, I think, on the last episode, but I'll say it again. Like Europe, by not helping out sort the Iran situation, is basically agreeing to China getting a 30% discount on its oil. Now, one of the things I heard on this podcast, which I never thought of in this way. So, what what is what is manufacturing? Right? It basically you have people that operate machines, and then you have energy and raw materials going in one side and stuff like goods coming out the other side. So the biggest advantage of China was that people were cheaper there because they had a billion people that were willing to work for very cheap. And now it's not so cheap anymore. So the the biggest advantage now is that they get a 30% cheaper energy bill. So imagine just a factory in China and a factory in Germany, all their input costs can be the same, especially with automation. Um, but then the energy is 30% more expensive, so Germany cannot compete. So these idiots in Europe, if you want to make more tax revenue, if you want to do more social programs for your for your elderly people and sick people, you gotta fight for the competitiveness of your industry. And by allowing China to cheat in this way, you're basically hurting your own population.
SPEAKER_01Can I can I interject? Can I interject for one second? So this is a point that you've made, actually, Shimon. You made this to me privately. I don't know if you made this in the podcast, but I thought it was a critically important point of yours. Your point is always that because of the US guaranteed global uh protection, basically, for 40 years, we have been essentially subsidizing Europe's welfare programs. Because instead of instead of paying for military, Europe said, well, US got it, so we won't pay 5% to NATO, we'll pay two. The other 3% is gonna, because it's a massive budget, will go to early retirement or sick leave or whatever, you know, like all the benefits that Europe has. So Americans, which when you framed it like this, it it really got me angry, to be honest. Our tax dollars are going to a lot of fraud and abuse, as we now see in the government, and also to subsidize Europe, which it's like okay, do we need social programs, in my opinion? Yes, we do. Do we need to protect our partners and be good global why shouldn't we get those benefits?
SPEAKER_02Why should Europe get those benefits? Well, because find social security instead of paying for like Europe's.
SPEAKER_01But that's that's my point. That's my point. I don't think we should pay for they yeah.
SPEAKER_02That's what I'm saying. It's like we like social programs, but we want the social programs to be for American citizens.
SPEAKER_01Not for European citizens. Exactly. Exactly. So like, but I I do think it's important to have friends around the world and you know support in different ways. But we support militarily, you know, we don't need to exactly support their social programs, their welfare. So, so uh I I actually forgot how it was gonna tie in, but um it's it's oh it's Europe and the energy policy. But but if you're Europe, you've been playing your um you're playing it exactly right because you're like US got it, they're paying for our social programs, we're gonna import cheap energy from somewhere else. We don't need to innovate and develop. And because of Trump is shaking up the world order, he's finally making Europe realize they need an energy policy because they need to manufacture, because the US won't always be there because you need to get off your asses and actually do something. And people completely miss this. At the end of the day, this is going to cause Europe to be to actually be great again. This is gonna cause Europe to wake up and re-industrialize and re-militarize and be another global power again. Because now they're laughing stock. They're this they're completely complete laughing stock of the powers that matter. Um and so it's like it's jump rough. Yes, does he maybe does he come off like a like a jerk? Yes, does he do some some things that are ugly? Yes, but is this like it's like a kid, it's like a kid at home, you know, and and at 25 years old, still living off of off of you know, playing video games all day, smoking pot and sitting on the couch. And at some point, you're like, you gotta go, you gotta get your life together. And then when the kid is 35, they're gonna come back and say, Dad or mom, thank you, you were right. You know, you got me going, and and this is exactly what's happening. But Europe is screwed.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and also like the the whole idea is that uh on the larger scale things, right? All of this is a war for energy dominance because there's this understanding that with AI beyond a certain point, and people like think of when is that point? Is it 2029, 2035, whatever? But at some point, whoever has the best AI will have a biggest advantage because it will just keep improving faster and faster and faster. And so basically, people said the nuclear uh deterrence is dead, and now it's all gonna be AI deterrence. Because if you think about it, nukes, if everybody has them, then nobody uses them. It only worked when it was like, okay, only the USSR and the US had nukes, and so yeah, it's a strong deterrent against everybody else, and also it deters each other, but it's not if if suddenly like everybody has or many, many people have nukes, it's much more effective to unleash an AI weapon on someone, and so it's all a function of energy because people think the models are gonna be commoditized, the Chinese will figure out how to make chips, so it's not there's no secret sauce in the chips, it's just a matter of sit down, figure out how to build chips. And so the only bottleneck when all is said and done is energy, and so the US is just planning for that. For like when that thing happens, we need to control most of the world's energy so we can control the world's AI. And I think that makes perfect sense. And and I like looking at the war in this light because it's like all these like micro-tactical things, you know, will they show up to the negotiations, will they not show up to the negotiations? All that doesn't matter, and I think the stock market is good at pricing things long term, you know. Why do you think it doesn't matter? Because at the end of the day, they'll resolve it. I have no question in my mind that this war in Iran will be resolved. I mean, even the Iran-Iraq war was resolved. Ukraine and Russia will be resolved. Like all the wars are resolved eventually. But the question is after you resolve the war, where do you stand? Do you stand at a better place or at a worse place than before the war? So you could argue that after the war in Afghanistan resolved, the US was at a worse place than before the war in Afghanistan. Iraq, coin cost 50-50, because we still got their oil. But Afghanistan, definitely a mistake, right? So I would argue that Iran will not be a mistake, it will be like we'll be in a much better position when all is said and done. And I think that's what the stock market, and we're talking only about the US stock market. I haven't even looked at Europe or Asia. So, you know, the high prices of oil, as we covered on this podcast, are a net positive for the US as a whole. Of course, they can be a net negative for certain sectors, but when we talk about the stock market as a whole, high oil prices are not a problem. So then the only question was like, okay, how much disruption will continue going forward? And I think the markets are pricing. You even look at the price of oil, it kind of peaked. The price of oil crashed, yeah, yeah, but it peaked before the blockade. So if you think of when we put the blockade on, everything suddenly started turning. And I noticed it financially, I noticed it like across everything. It's just like once we put the blockade on, I think the world understood, okay, that's it. Time is now in our favor. It doesn't matter how much time it takes. At the end, Iran will break and they'll negotiate. Because, like, look, without with this blockade, they have another week. They have to start shutting off wells because they they don't have a place to store the oil. And what I understood is like the smaller wells, once you shut them down, it's easier to reopen. The bigger wells, once you shut them down, it's six to nine months to reopen. So it's a genius thing where we keep the blockade on, and then they first shut down the small wells, then they shut down the medium wells. Then before they shut down the big wells, and they'll see, you know, they have like finance people showing them what is nine months of no oil revenue mean to like the ability to pay salaries to the people that are supposed to shoot the protesters. You know, you gotta pay these people. So, like if you can't pay these people, then you negotiate and you sign a deal. Because then you know that once the protesters come, nobody's gonna shoot at them. So then you want to sign a deal to stay in power, and I think that's what that's what we're going for.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, look, I think that's gonna that's going to happen as well. I was gonna actually tell you, so my what I wanted to start the podcast off with, I do think that the market, even you're saying it's priced in. I actually don't think it's as priced in as um as you may think it is, that the Russia Ukraine war and the Iran war are gonna be tied, like be over soon. I think Iran closer. I think people understand, I agree with you on the blockade. Uh we'll see what happens to the actual oil walls. Every single time it's like for two years now, people have been. Saying that Russia their economy is gonna break. It seems like this year in the fall, now it's really gonna break. There are internal sources from Russia coming out to Putin saying, like, we're screwed if we don't get this under control.
SPEAKER_02Um yeah, something about a 1917 style revolution, they were saying yeah, because it's yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_01Well, again, these these things can be exaggerated. This is the social media part. It's like, oh, there are 13 days and that's it. No, it'll probably be longer than that. But there was a post today, uh, some news coming out that they're starting to pull out their really old oil tankers, Iran, and and and uh moving to Harg Island and why you have old oil tankers that have been out of commission is because you need someplace to store the oil. So clearly the pressure is building, obviously. But I think I think the world is maybe underestimating uh that like the end of the Russia-Ukraine war. I think even if you it's not about Trump, okay? It doesn't it's been four years at some point. You know, these wars, modern wars, aren't this is not gonna be a 10-year war. Uh, all the wars that are lasting a long time, there's not like a hot active battle. And I think Ukrainians are starting to um kind of break through uh not uh some lines, but not really lines. It's about like cyber and channels and um videos of people getting recruited in Russia to come to the Russian uh army, and they have an interview with a soldier at the front, and they stole the feed, and it was a Ukrainian soldier. He's like, We're all gonna kill every single one of you if you join the army. I mean, thing, you know, like things like that. They're hitting Russian oil um uh refineries deep inside of Russia. Ukraine has now the best drone production and probably even artificial intelligence, so you can argue Palantir does or or um Andrew. But Ukraine is definitely in the forefront of the global of drones. And when you talked about AI, not nuclear deterrence. Yeah, you can launch nuclear weapons, they can wipe each other out, but it's actually uh, and you you're not gonna do it because you ultimately, unless you're super crazy, you don't want to die. But you could create a drone swarm very cheaply and have it be AI enabled and find targets much better than someone else, or avoid you know, counter drone measures with your better AI. That's cheap to do, and you can do it quickly at scale. And so whoever has the best AI, you don't need to launch a nuke when you can throw in or fly in 20,000 drones and have them take care of a you know of an enemy position, and that costs you two million dollars instead of you know 200 million dollars.
SPEAKER_02So it's although I heard that even that it's like it's always an arms race, you know? Yeah, because like the laser weapon can take care of drones wars.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Uh there's a bunch of stuff. I mean, look, the the the I completely agree with you that the war in Ukraine has been dragging on for too long. And uh I think within this administration, I could bet that the most wars end, and that's gonna maybe win them the election. Um because like imagine you run as a Republican is saying, you know, that Trump guy, he was crazy grandpa, half demented, but look at what he did. You know, he had like really good achievements, and now I'm the same like him, same policy, but I'm normal.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I'm gonna build partnerships across the world. Winning ticket for sure. Like a Rubio. If a Rubio runs and says, Hey, you know, I disagree with Trump on substance, but I agree with him on policy. Here's what we did. But one thing I can do differently, like you said, is be more palatable, bring back Europe. You can easily run on, hey, I can bring back Europe, right? And a lot of Democrats want that. And I can I can bring back Ukraine and I can make men's with China. Easily run on that. Like Rubio, for example, and then yeah, then they have it in the back. He's who is he gonna go against? Newsom?
SPEAKER_02Or like just Well, look, it's not a sure thing because like I still think people are stupid enough to vote for Gavin Newsom as someone who lived in California for 10 years. Um, but I mean that's why I hold Bitcoin because people can vote for Gavin Newsom. But I'm just saying it improves the odds if they win the wars, it improves their odds. I just will never underestimate how stupid people are. And I think like the Biden administration was just objectively so bad that Trump might have gotten a lot of tailwinds just from how like incompetent they were. So it's like if you just have a competent person running on Biden's policies, I could see them winning. I mean, it's 50-50, as far as I'm concerned currently. Well, again, you win the wars, it becomes more than 50-50. But currently it's like, I mean, there the Republicans are gonna say like hi stock market, let's say they don't win the wars, they're just gonna say hi stock market, and then the Democrats are gonna say, yeah, but it's all going to rich people, vote for us and we'll redistribute. They could win with that. But if the Republicans say hi stock market, and we ended wars that Biden started, and you know, Obama started the Iran war by giving them this agreement that led them to rich uranium, I could see people being convinced by that. A friend of the pod told me that I should steel man uh opinions that are different from our own. So this is my steel man of the Gavin Newsom position. It's like we'll just keep the good things going, but give more money to the poor people.
SPEAKER_00There's a beautiful steel man. And Republicans are racist, so we're gonna protect the multicultural.
SPEAKER_02But that swings people, you know all of the things that are big issue.
SPEAKER_00ICE is a big issue.
SPEAKER_02And it's like, look, Mamdani was a big surprise. It's it's so funny to me. Like, as someone who grew up in communism, it's always funny to me when people vote for communism and then they complain about the results. So, like, I don't know if you saw, but the the either the East Village or West Village, they had like a 70% or 75% support for Mamdani in New York, and now they're suing him because he wants to relocate like the biggest homeless shelter from someplace in the middle of nowhere to the West Village of New York, and it's gonna like lower their like quality of life. So now they're suing him to prevent him from doing it. Like, what did you think he's gonna do? Like, he campaigned on like you know, helping the poor people and screwing the rich people. So, like, is this a surprise to you guys? He's moving the homeless shelters to the expensive neighborhoods.
SPEAKER_01Well, I think this is just like the Palisade Spires in LA or woke up, hopefully. Um, but this online woke up a lot of people from you know, a lot of Californians. I hope this wakes people up. And I realized, you know, I kept on thinking, like, how is it that I understand? Um, like how I just I you basically understand this, and everyone, most of the people that I talk to, especially people that are you know multicultural for whatever different background they have, because you know, Democrats are supposed to be the you know party of the multiculturals and whatever Republicans are only of the white people and the racist party, oh, it's bullshit. But a lot of multiculturals that I know that are Republican, it's they've seen communism and they experienced it, you know. Cubans, for example, you know, um, and I know a lot of Colombians that are much more even killed in the issue. And then you have people from haven't experienced communism and they're like, oh, you know, Trump, he's against Hispanics. Um, the point is that it's not even Trump, it's just democratic policies of communism are terrible. That's unless you experience it, you don't understand it, especially if you're anyway, if you're rich and privileged, you think your whole life things have been easy. Like, yeah, I want it to be easy for others. You have no idea what it is for communism to come and then take away everything that you've had and earned. And then when you realize that even if you're let's say upper middle class, but now you're considered the rich, you thought it was always someone else's problem, but it's coming after you. And this is, and to me, I'm I'm partly kind of glad this is happening in such a way because people need to feel before this disease, and enough people need to vote against it before it consumes us, because this is a real danger. And I understand now why you know, after World War II the Americans were hell-bunt on fighting communism. This is a mind virus, just like the woke mind virus, they can really do damage.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I just learned that the CIA was staffed when it was founded by lots of Nazi intelligence officers. Um and the whole idea was like, okay, now that the war is over, we need to fight the commies. Who's the best at fighting the commies? Oh, Gerhardt, come here. We have an offer for you.
SPEAKER_01Gerhardt.
SPEAKER_02It's true, it's true. No, and and it's not necessarily Nazis that are part of like SS or like, you know, part of the whole thing. Just your regular run-of-the-mill Nazi. No, it was intelligence officers that, you know, their job was to like hunt down like the USSR people, and so they're like, okay, come work for us now. So I mean, look, it's it's very sad, but I think humanity just it's a pendulum, right? You swing one direction, you swing another direction, you just see it, you know, Carter, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, Obama, Trump. Like, you know, Obama to Trump was the biggest kind of pendulum, both in terms of color of skin from black to orange. From black to orange.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, like no, it's crazy.
SPEAKER_02I mean, it's just like these like crazy characters, you know, like anyway. Uh, but with that being said, I wanted to know how do you feel about the fact that stock markets are all-time high, but Bitcoin is not, and it's still far from its all-time high. What do you think? We haven't been talking too much about Bitcoin over the last couple of months.
SPEAKER_01I think there's a serious fear of quantum, and I think the Bitcoiners need to get their act together. And we're our act together, I'm part of this. Um, professionally, I've been talking as like in my day-to-day job, I've been talking about the fact that we have no narrative for ages. Now I work in a marketing agency, right? So I'm biased and I get that, but even outside the bias, truly, there's no like talking points, there's no roadmap, there's no marketing, and it's part of it's because Bitcoin is decentralized. But it we're super vulnerable to some of these things, and the answer of well, it'll take care of itself, or here's this BIP 360 or 361 or BIP XYZ that does this, and arguing over shore algorithms, you know, uh vulnerabilities, these are like so deep that it glazes over everyone else. Uh uh. Can yeah, so I think I think we're at a serious risk here. Yeah, Shimon, sorry, we need to pause it. You're you there's a lot of back, it's like muffling and oh sorry.
SPEAKER_02I moved to speaker because I had to do something on my car. Now is it better now?
SPEAKER_01Much, much better. Okay, 30 32 minutes. Okay. Okay.
SPEAKER_02Uh yeah, did you say Shore algorithm?
SPEAKER_01Well, I think so.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so his son, uh, his name was Yoni Shore, and I served with him in the army. He's a very yeah, he's the son of the person who invented uh the algorithm. And he was also a brilliant mathematician.
SPEAKER_01Like father, like son.
SPEAKER_02Yes. So Yoni Shore, if you're listening to this, how's it going? But anyway, yes, I'm not uh worried at all about the function thing because I simply think that before this thing becomes a problem, we will just upgrade. And I don't know how it will happen, but I just believe that it will happen. But do you think that this is what's holding the price down?
SPEAKER_01Uh I think so. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I think it's more like the four-year cycle belief. Because um, yeah, I think there's too many people that are just in the mentality of like, you know, let's wait until October, because like the last bull market, the last bear market in 2022 lasted all the way until October. Uh, and so we will just wait. And uh what will happen is more and more retail is coming in now. Uh, I saw some data on that, and so and and by the way, when when STRC like stretch and when MicroStrategy and the ETFs, all of that can be retail. Like, I don't understand people who say, like, oh, there's the ETFs and there's retail. No, like retail consumers can buy Bitcoin through the ETFs. Like, we don't know the breakdown of institutional versus retail in the publicly traded stocks. Uh Saylor said that 80% of people who buy STRC are retail. So we know about STRC. We don't know about MSDR, and we don't see bit. But my point is I really think that more and more retail people will uh enter. That's what's gonna start moving the price, and then people will get FOMA once we get to like 90k. People will be like, okay, like apparently we're recovering before October and I don't want to miss out, and then the price is gonna start running. So I still think we're getting all-time highs this year. That's my bet. I will take I will take you that was always my bet. All-time highs before midterms. We did get all-time highs before midterms, but then we crashed. So my new bet is that we will revisit the all-time highs before the November midterms. Timestamp it. That's my prediction.
SPEAKER_01Now, in the spirit of steel manning, I will take the other side of this, even though I hope I I hope you're right. Uh, but there'll be more and more quantum peers, and basically a serious bid. The positive wins are also Morgan Stanley and others are starting to tell their advisors to recommend an allocation. But I think there'll be uh a serious a serious Wall Street bid won't come in until there's a there's uh a roadmap and a serious effort from Bitcoiners to solve the quantum issue. And not again talking technicalities, having a technical program, but not arguing, oh, this is FUD, or this is that, or I've been listening to Bitcoin FUD since 2023.
SPEAKER_02So far, you're not disagreeing with me because you said a serious amount of Wall Street money will come in. Yeah, and I agree with you that until we have a credible at least idea of how to resolve quantum, serious Wall Street money will not come in. That being said, I think the retail money will come in, and we don't need serious Wall Street money in order to revisit the all-time high of last uh uh last year. Like all-time high, and that's my position. Yeah, I could totally see how that's where you disagree with me.
SPEAKER_00I don't think retail will be able to push it.
SPEAKER_02For example, Nakamoto that pushed the price to 126k, it was purely retail, right? It was because David Bailey said it in a podcast. They said that as soon as as soon as they got to a really good stock price, then he said like a quote, like Wall Street started playing these games, and they just like they'll rob you blind, you know. That's what they do.
SPEAKER_00Oh, okay. Okay.
SPEAKER_02No, again, I don't know if he's correct or maybe he's just like talking out of his ass, but I'm just saying I it's my belief that serious Wall Street money has not come because I've spoken to enough serious Wall Street people that have said, yeah, I have my person some of my personal money in it, but not my like professional money, like not the money that I'm managing as a fiduciary. So I completely agree with you that people with a fiduciary duty will not put like tons and tons of money before uh there's a good quantum narrative. By the way, all you need is a narrative, you don't need the actual solution or the actual upgrade, but just something that people say, okay, this is a credible thing, it will protect. Some people say that they'll upgrade, BlackRocket Larry Fink says he'll upgrade, Sailor says he'll upgrade. I think that's all we need. But uh, but that's okay because retail until then I think will get us to all-time highs. I mean, look, the all-time highs weren't that high. If you think about it. Like, we're still very, very, very far from gold valuation. I think that's the market we're going after. That's like a million and a half per Bitcoin. So I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about like 150k. So I'm talking about a tenth of gold. I definitely think this technology is worth a tenth of the market price of gold.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Because it's just better. So that's it. But again, let's see how it plays out. So you think this year no all-time highs?
SPEAKER_01No, I think we'll have an all-time high this year. Um, why did you disagree with me? That it's gonna come after the election? No, I didn't actually disagree with it. I just want to take the other side and see if I can argue it.
SPEAKER_02But the the other side for me could be AI continues to outperform, it continues to steal the thunder, people allocate money to AI. It'll be that's like that's much more credible to me than like quantum.
SPEAKER_01But that's uh well, no, I I disagree with you here. I think quantum is a major thing because retail alone won't push it up, and retail alone won't push it up because of these other narratives and other things that are popping. And so it'll be very hard for retail to push it up in a way that we did before because retail got excited about these new debts. Debs are not digital asset trading companies or digital asset treasure companies, rather. They're not gonna be excited about them anymore. So there's nothing new in the space when you know that is gonna get retail excited. This needs to come from Wall Street investment advisor money, and that's not gonna happen until in a serious way, until quantum. That's that's the steel man argument for me on the other side.
SPEAKER_02And you think it's gonna happen the quantum is gonna happen this year.
SPEAKER_01I think in the next year they're gonna have to solve quantum. No, but I I yeah, well, I do what do I think? I think they'll have some sort of roadmap will be forced. But I think if all time highs happen, it'll happen very late this year. Again, I hope it's earlier, but I think it's gonna come later.
SPEAKER_02So you're saying all-time high will come before the big money comes in, but then quantum will get resolved and it will get even higher than the all-time high.
SPEAKER_01Yes, but I think this next one will be pretty epic because there'll be money coming in from retail, money coming in from financial advisors of like you know, the Gen X retail. Because let's face it, Gen X and uh whatever boomers are not buying spot crypto and mass. Uh Morgan Stanley and others that are advising them to do it will. So there'll be three pools of money: a traditional retail, these new kind of boomers in their retirement portfolios, and then Wall Street. Now Wall Street comes in after quantum. Then it takes us, I think then it goes to like 300, you know, 400. That's gonna be a major, major run because we didn't see Urvano as muted for many different reasons. People needed to exit quantum, the you know, the uh turbulence. If wars get if our wars get um solved, and I'm talking kind of a two, three-year horizon. So I'm not saying this year it's gonna go to 500. But if wars get resolved, we have a quantum roadmap, which we need to regardless. It's not like you know, we don't have a choice. The question is of when. And by the way, if quantum does take over, most of it's gonna be trying to hack Satoshi's wallets, which there are like 20,000 of them with 50 whatever coins each. Yeah, you can hack one and it takes time to hack the other, and then you're not gonna market dump. So the biggest risk is uh, you know, a couple million coins, Satoshi's and the old coins will be let's say market dumped, which will have a gigantic wake down, and then people buy all that stuff up and it'll get absorbed over call it a course of a year, and then we'll be back on track. So it's not like this this is a risk that's gonna be extremely painful if it happens, but not existential. Existential if it can get into uh into the mempool it can be within nine minutes, be but that's a whole different topic. Let's not get into that, it's too deep. But anyway, so that's more that's what I think. I think all these things will be unlocked, and we're gonna run to three, four, five hundred thousand from sixty, and then it's gonna be like kind of the epic run of 2017, but now in a mature way with a lot more money and like countries coming in, advisors coming in, markets are running, you know, you're boomer and you're seven.
SPEAKER_02That would be so poetic if ten years after the epic run of 2017 actually, that would be very poetic.
SPEAKER_00That would be very cool.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Very good, very good. Any other topics that uh I think we're good.
SPEAKER_01I think we're good for today. Let's see what happens to the run over the weekend, and uh we hope and pray for everyone for peace around the world. That's that's I think kind of important to me.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, absolutely. Hope and pray for peace around the world, and although I think in Bitcoin uh in a completely connected way to pray for both of you. All right, well, have a great weekend, everybody, and we'll see you on the next episode.
SPEAKER_01We'll see you on the next one.
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