Larry Lepard EXPOSES The Truth About El Salvador

Live from Bitcoin Beach in El Zonte, El Salvador, I have the pleasure of sitting down with Lawrence Lepard. We dive deep into Lawrence's intriguing journey from a technology investor to an advocate for sound money and Bitcoin. Lawrence shares how the 2008 financial crisis radically shifted his perspective, leading him to explore and eventually embrace Bitcoin, despite initial skepticism. 

Join us as we discuss the practical uses and benefits of Bitcoin in daily transactions and its role in potentially reshaping monetary policies worldwide. We also touch on the broader implications of Bitcoin adoption in El Salvador, highlighting how it serves as a case study for other countries considering similar paths.

Lawrence's insights into the challenges of traditional financial systems, combined with his bullish outlook on Bitcoin, make for a compelling narrative of transformation and hope in the face of economic adversity. 

This conversation is not just about the ascent of Bitcoin but also about envisioning a fairer financial future for all. 

Don't miss this insightful episode and learn why Bitcoin is more than a digital asset, it's a movement.

- Mike


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Find out more about Larry's work:
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https://ema2.com/


Browse through this quick guide to learn more about the episode:

00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:23 - How Did Lawrence Lepard Begin His Bitcoin Journey?
00:05:45 - Why Was Lawrence Lepard Initially Skeptical About Bitcoin?
00:12:58 - Why Did Lawrence Lepard Shift His Investment to Bitcoin?
00:15:55 - How Does Inflation Affect Gold Miners and Their Stocks?
00:16:48 - Can Gold Stocks Perform Well with Rising Mining Costs?
00:19:07 - What Are the Similarities Between Gold and Bitcoin Mining?
00:20:32 - Why Are Investors Moving from Gold to Bitcoin?
00:22:13 - What Is Gold's Role in a Global Monetary Crisis?
00:24:48 - Are Countries Secretly Accumulating Bitcoin?
00:28:33 - How Could Government Influence Bitcoin Custody?
00:30:55 - Will Bitcoin Become the Preferred Form of Sound Money?
00:31:35 - How Is the Lightning Network Being Adopted in El Salvador?
00:33:59 - How Is Bitcoin Adoption Affecting Businesses in El Zonte?
00:35:48 - What Are the Banking Challenges in El Salvador and Bitcoin's Role?
00:37:40 - How Are Bitcoin Onramps and the Lightning Network Evolving?
00:40:17 - What Are Common Misconceptions in the Bitcoin Space?
00:47:36 - How Can Gold Investors Be Educated About Bitcoin?
00:48:58 - What Is the Risk and Reward of Investing in Bitcoin?
00:50:46 - Why Is Bitcoin Considered Sound Money?
00:51:53 - How Could Bitcoin Adoption Impact Global Investment Strategies?
00:56:39 - How Does Inflation Impact Families and Can Bitcoin Help?
00:59:05 - What Is Driving Mainstream Adoption of Bitcoin?
01:01:18 - How Could Bitcoin Positively Impact Society?

Live From Bitcoin Beach

Transcript

Lawrence Lepard  
But money is just the most liquid good by definition, and so, it's what has the superior properties that lead it to be a liquid good. And you know, Bitcoin has superior properties and we're all adopting. Now, if we weren't all adopting Bitcoin, I mean, money is a shared illusion. Everyone agrees that dollars money because everyone knows you can go into a store and pay for shit with it and the government prints it fine. Everyone agrees that gold is money has been around five thousand years, it's hard to get it out of the ground they know what it is it's shiny, you can see it etc. You know, and what's happening is everybody's gonna one day agree that Bitcoin is money. 

Lawrence Lepard  
And you know, I mean, a lot of us already know that but, some people don't some people don't believe that it's money but, the number of those people are shrinking and the number of people who believe are growing as long as that trend continues. Bitcoin is going to be money, I mean already is but it's going to be you know, and if you look at its properties, you look at its characteristics. I mean, that's what led sailor to go this is this is a better weapon. I mean, it's we're safe to say you know, we just invented gunpowder and you know, golden gold guys have got spears and axes. I mean, you know I mean fucking gunpowder is gonna win.

Mike Peterson  
Lawrence Lepard with us here in El Salvador. I was hoping you were gonna bring Peter Schiff along with you. He could see how Bitcoin actually can be used in daily transactions. 

Lawrence Lepard  
Right now.

Mike Peterson  
We gotta get we got to get shift down here at some point. 

Lawrence Lepard  
Yeah. 

Mike Peterson  
Get him off his island. 

Lawrence Lepard  
Yeah. It's nice to be here. Thanks for having me on your show. I really appreciate it. 

Mike Peterson  
It's first time in El Salvador right? 

Lawrence Lepard  
First time in El Salvador. Yeah, love it so far. It's great. 

Mike Peterson  
I think it's one of those things that all Bitcoiners need to experience firsthand. So, obviously, the having party was a great excuse for a lot of exactly work will come down. So, I have actually followed your stuff and I know that you come from the the metal side of things but I don't think I've ever heard your Bitcoin store transaction.

Lawrence Lepard  
Yeah, sure. I'll take you through that. So, you know in pretty well, first of all, the first part of my career, I wasn't involved in any sound money stuff. I was a technology investor, you know.

Mike Peterson  
Oh really? I didn't know that.

Lawrence Lepard  
Early, all the way to 2003 or 2004, I mean, you know just really professionally managing funds. You know, venture capital funds, mostly. You know, and I got involved in internet I got and we did PCs, and graphic cards, and disk drive and all that stuff. That was kind of that was the first chapter of my career, and it lasted until about 2004. And when the Bubble Burst, the internet Bubble Burst, I kind of said I'd made enough money. I said okay this is this is good. I'm going to kind of retire or manage my own money and and pivot into investing in a different way. And so, I start spending a lot of time with my kids and their sports teams and stuff, because we're young and growing up, that's fun.

Lawrence Lepard  
And then 2008 happened, and I was a gold guy then to. I mean, I was Ron Paul supporter, I believed in you know, Libertarianism and Austrian Economics and you know, sound money and all that. I mean, I got all of that at the time, but I wasn't radicalized for it. It was like okay, it's just a part of my investing strategy. And then 2008 happened, I got radicalized, right. I mean, they bailed out those banks, and I was pissed off. I mean, I was like, okay, this is a whole another, you know, animal we're dealing with here. They're going to debase this money and I mean, little did I know, right? Because Q1, you can't miss, they started off just with the tarp and, you know, and then they just went to Q1 and Q2 and Q3. I mean, you know, zero percentage. I mean, we all know what happened. 

Mike Peterson  
Well, in retrospect, and based on what they did during COVID, it seems like nothing trivial. 

Lawrence Lepard  
Yeah right. I mean, at the time, it was like, the Fed balance sheet was 800 billion and went to like 1.5 trillion. I freaked out, I was like oh my God, you know. The savings I've got they're gonna get debased. You know, I'm young enough, I'm not going to have a good retirement if they debase. So, I started getting radicalized for sound money. So actually, what drove so Satoshi to write the white paper was also what drove me to pivot my business and I saw I said, okay, inflation is coming. Let's study inflation. Well, the last period inflation we had was the 70s, right. Very highly inflationary period, what did well in the 70s, top performing is in the 70s gold and gold stocks and gold stocks are up 35% compound for 10 years. Gold went from $35.71 dollars to $800 dollars at the end of the decade. So, I thought, all right if we're gonna have inflation I need to know about gold. 

Lawrence Lepard  
So, I went and educated myself on the gold business and started putting my money into gold mining stocks and pivoted and was a gold stock investor. Really, I was taught by a really good guy and boss. 

Mike Peterson  
Are you running any funds at that time? 

Lawrence Lepard  
Yeah, I did a little family and friends fund. Mostly my money but some family and friends then started taking outside investors and grew as people heard about it. And I had a partner or friend who was also in the same area guy named Walter Cabot, who's very famous well known gold second, and he kind of taught me the business. This is back in, you know, oh eight. And for a couple of years, it worked really well. You know, we had a couple of 40% annual returns. And then, of course gold hit up, hit a buzzsaw in 2011, 2012. And we had a really rough time for a bunch of years, which led me to getting very fit, so that I can live to make sure we beat the central bankers. 

Mike Peterson  
Yeah. I was impressed you were out there yesterday. 

Lawrence Lepard  
I was fat and overweight before before this whole thing. 

Mike Peterson  
So, I have hope still. 

Lawrence Lepard  
Yeah, no, no, you'll be fine. Sound so sound money saved me in the sense of that got me to get physically active but anyway. So, what did my bitcoin story begin? So, I'm managing this gold and silver fund hoping they're going to protect us against or against debasement and, and of course, we had a bear market, and that made it kind of rough but and all along the way, I'd been aware of Bitcoin because I was Ron Paul, and all those guys, you know, the Hampshire Free State Project and all. I mean, I know people who up there, it was a woman who did some work with me, I did some advertisements for Ron Paul when he ran for president and graphic designer up there. And she bought a bunch of Bitcoin at, you know 100 bucks a coin. I mean, it's good going, right?  I didn't do it, I'd say why. 

Lawrence Lepard  
At the time, I don't know if you'll recall but there had been a lot of attempts to do internet based money. You know, there was eCash and Egold and several Hashcash. 

Mike Peterson  
In coming from the tech side of things, you were probably aware of all that? 

Lawrence Lepard  
I was totally aware of them and I thought to myself, this is kind of cool. You know, yeah I'd love to have, you know digital money outside of the state like gold. But you know, as you recall they didn't work. I mean, they all failed, they all had a fatal flaw, they had a double spend problem, they were centralized. I mean, you name it, there was something wrong with them. You know, Adam Beck was involved with one of them that, you know. He contributed a piece to what ultimately became the white paper. But so my initial reaction, I kind of I was talking with Max about this yesterday, my initial reaction to Bitcoin was, I was fucked It'll never work. 

Lawrence Lepard  
Technically, it'll never work. Not that I don't believe I just didn't want work. But you know, and so that's oh 8 9 10 11. And I thought, well, how do I get some of these? Well, you got to go to a cafe, you got to give some guy some cash. You know, he's gonna give you a paper wallet. You know, I mean, like, what? That just seems kind of weird. You know, and so, you know, or you can run a computer and you can find them yourself. And, actually my daughter who was in high school at the time, her boyfriend was mining him and, but I think any of the things he got a lot of them but I also think when they get hit a dollar or two thousand share. 

Lawrence Lepard  
He sold him to buy a car. I mean it's like, I didn't really understand what he had. But anyway, so I kind of just, you know didn't didn't pay attention. But it kept bouncing along and you know, when it broke out from the remoras,  in the 10s, and 20s, and 30s, and 40s and 50s, and then then it broke out was couple hundred. I was like, okay well, it's still working, right? It's this is now we're five, six or five years in, and then it went over hundred and then it went to a thousand. I was like, holy shit this is, you know, maybe there's something here, I gotta pay attention to this. So, I went and I started filling out the forms from Mt. Gox, and you know, just share grace of God, right? I was about to send the money to Mt. Gox, and it failed. So, you know, I would have lost all that money. But very soon thereafter, Coinbase came public, as you recall, and Coinbase was in San Francisco venture backed real America, okay this is it.

Mike Peterson  
You don't have to send this money order to Japan?

Lawrence Lepard  
Yeah, this is totally legit. Okay, fine. So I went, I bought a handful of coins, the Coinbase not a ton but you know, like three or four thousand coins something like that. And I started studying, right? And my concern as a tech guy, tech investor background was always is this shit gonna work? You know, is it gonna blow up? I mean, that was my, because I haven't had a lot of tech experience and being around from the IBM PC days when it was launched in 1980, probably before most people's listings time there's something called the blue screen of death. You know, you'd be you'd be running your IBM PC, something would go wrong and holding the screen, we just go blue and you know, guess what, whatever file you were working on, you lost that work in. So, back then they had autosave functions and you had to remember to save your files. 

Mike Peterson  
You know, I remember doing homework and that era, and like, you're just about finished and then.

Lawrence Lepard  
Yeah, right. It crashes and you reboot it, you know just turn it on, off. It comes back up but you know whatever you were doing, right? So,that kind of thought pattern led me to just be suspicious of the technology. So, then what I did was I started going to meetups and I started and we were in Boston. So, I went to an MIT meetup. 

Mike Peterson  
What year was that? 

Lawrence Lepard  
We're probably talking 2014 2013 2014 2015. After I bought some, but not a lot and I sat next record, talking to guys. Yeah, I'm one of the core developers that we're gonna go on. So, I knew a core developer, I knew that was big and I said to him, I said, what's the story on this thing? I mean, are you worried about it? Is it going to work? I mean, is it technology sound? I mean, and I didn't remember this time. I didn't understand the hashing, I didn't understand blockchain and I said, Sha 256 difficult. I'm not, I didn't get any I just knew it was magic internet money. 

Lawrence Lepard  
And he said to me, so well, you know how to be honest with you, it's an experiment. We don't know and I can't guarantee anything and I said, well what worries you? Well, there's some times we'll make some changes to the code, and I go home that night and put my head on the pillow. I think to myself, fuck, I might have just blown the whole thing up. And so, you know, to a professional investor who's looking at putting big money in this thing. I was kinda like, I don't know, right? I mean, if it's a guy who's running it, and he's thinking I could blow up, you know. So, I was cautious, right? 

Mike Peterson  
But then the fun at that point, it could blow up. 

Lawrence Lepard  
Yeah, it could. Well, we had. I mean, if you actually check the history there were a few back doors that were closed. You know, we had the hard forks, we had the block war. I mean, there were, there were things that were risky, that everyone who's involved with it says, yeah, at any point in time. You know, I mean, very tired to take in the wrong direction, and the nodes out voted him. I mean, it was, there was shit that could have gone bad, right? We all, know but I kept buying it, slowly, just kind of accumulating it as it went higher. 

Lawrence Lepard  
And then I kind of I really got FOMO into winter in thanksgiving 2017 or it took that big ramp up to seven minutes. Like, holy shit, this is a totally different beast, man. I mean, and that was when I kind of got it and just and of course I bought a bunch of seventeen, right? 

Mike Peterson  
Everybody has to buy at the top? 

Lawrence Lepard  
You got it, you absolutely got to you got to FOMO in and then went down to ten. I've doubled down and went down to four and a half I doubled down again, and then I just kind of got into kind of a DCA rhythm where it's I'd make more money, I'd buy more coins. You know, I mean it's obviously it's been up and down and 2020 happened went way down. I mean, it's we all know it's you know it's a rocky ride, right? But I, and of course, safe book came out I read that we had saved to Boston, you know, hosted a Luncheon Forum with institutional investors. None of them got it, you know, but with the guy. Yeah, none of them. But the guy. I mean, the fidelity guys got it but that was it.

Mike Peterson  
I feel like after reading that book, it's hard for me.

Lawrence Lepard  
That book is such a fabulous book. It's gonna be historical. I give it out when I try an Orange Pill. Anybody who's smarter give me that book? Yeah, cuz it's just it's obvious, right? I mean. 

Mike Peterson  
I love how it doesn't even talk about Bitcoin. 

Lawrence Lepard  
The first half is Austrian economics, which  nobody knows and I love the fact that run around. I mean, I was, I knew all that shit. I read Von Mises at Red Rock, where I read all those guys in the 80s.

Mike Peterson  
But it was nice, the way he synthesized? 

Lawrence Lepard  
Yes, absolutely.

Mike Peterson  
Because you knew all those things, but it's hard to even like, explain it. The way he's like, put it together. 

Lawrence Lepard  
It's so cool to me and I got 30 year olds, 20 year olds come up to me quoting these guys. I'm like, holy shit, how did this happen? You know I mean, I was kind of the old, I was always the old, gold guy crank, you know what I mean? Austrian crank that nobody paid attention to and everyone thought I was nuts, including my wife. And, seriously, so I just, I got more and more conviction as I learned more and more about it, like we all do. And I just kept getting heavier and heavier into it, but I was still managing this gold stock fund and I still am today. And, and I have a lot of clients that I feel very responsible for them. 

Lawrence Lepard  
And we're going to do fine. I mean, gold is gonna go up with Bitcoin, it's gonna go up more. But you know my responsibility to the gold fund, is to get them all out at a very nice profit which I think on this next run, we will do. And then and then we'll see. I mean, I don't haven't decided.

Mike Peterson  
Do not hold any bitcoin in that fun? 

Lawrence Lepard  
Yes, we do. Yeah, yeah. Well, and that's an interesting story, right? So, somewhere along the line, I thought to myself, you know, this is sound money fund and I've told him gold and I've told him gold mining stocks, and we've done all that. But this Bitcoin thing is a real, you know, there's enormous and so I said, an accent and I gotta tell everybody, right? So, I took, you know, one, twe percent Bitcoin position, you know, 98%. And some people left, some people got pissed, and they left and you know and I think that cost, I mean, it was like four thousand a coin or something, right? And you know, and they're glad we did it now. And now we've got about a 10 to 12% Bitcoin. Actually, Bitcoin weighting, then we've done some private deals. 

Mike Peterson  
Is that with, have you done any rebalancing during that time or is that just from the initial?

Lawrence Lepard  
That's just from the initial while we've added, we've actually added. I mean, it's but some of it's from the initial. Yeah, I mean, there was I think there was a time we needed some liquidity might have sold something bought some back. But long story short, yeah we're up to about you know, 12% now, I think 10 12% at today's prices in Bitcoin. We did some bitcoin venture related things. We've been in some, we've been in, we were in a minor, we were early stage mining, Bitcoin mining operation.We've done ego death, we've done 10 31. We're in custodian bank, which just got a very unfavorable judgment and Caitlin we really believe what she was trying to do. 

Lawrence Lepard  
But sadly, and I think she'll recover and there are other ways for that business to go but that's it was kind of a kick in the teeth. But the point is, you know, there is we have serious, some bitcoin exposure to the gulf and but most of the people who invest with me. 

Mike Peterson  
It balances out the minor perform? 

Lawrence Lepard  
A little bit, yeah, it helps. It definitely helps.

Mike Peterson  
Why do you think the gold miners have been? 

Lawrence Lepard  
Oh, the miners have been horrible. Well, that's an entirely different story. I mean, look when they work there really weren't. I mean, keep in mind, you know in 1997 or I'm sorry, 2019. My fund went up 97%. 2020 my fund went up 122%. Okay, so that's basically 400% in two years. So that's what that happens when the miners are working. Okay, that was COVID we're going to print money. There explosive to the upside. Okay, to be totally fair, they're down 40 to 50% from there. Now, we gave half of that back as they corrected, okay. 

Lawrence Lepard  
And sadly, it always works within these businesses. You know in 2020, after I'd been up 14%, everyone in the brotherhood wanted to invest. 

Mike Peterson  
Yeah, right. 

Lawrence Lepard  
Give me some of that. Give me some of that. Give me some of that and of course, now they're bitching. You know, what the hell happened? How am I down 40%? You know, I mean, so. But to answer your question, why the miners have been such poor performance? The miners are leveraged better than gold. I mean, if you actually look at gold, it's up quite a bit, you know since 2016.

Mike Peterson  
That's what it seemed, I mean I don't follow that. You know that closely, you see gold going up in the miners kind of like stack?

Lawrence Lepard  
We'll get to that in a second. But yeah, just to just to reprise the history in 2016. I mean, so in 2011 after I'd had a couple of really good years, gold was $1,900 dollars. Big Bear Market, a lot of ways I can explain that business but t's not worth going into. In 2016, gold bottomed at 2015 end of 2015, gold bottom at $1,050 dollars. Today, gold is at $2,300 dollars. Okay, so gold has been in a bull market since 2016, with ups and downs, you know, zigzag along that way. And if you held gold in that timeframe, you made money. Gold miners are leveraged bets on gold, very leveraged bet single, which is why you can have a couple 100% up years, and then a 30% down or 40% down, right? 

Lawrence Lepard  
And the reason the miners and the starting to take off again now and I think we're about to have some more of those years. But the reason the miners are so leveraged is that they have big operating costs. It costs money to take gold out of the ground. Typically, when back in 2016, it probably costs $800 dollars, on average to mine gold and gold was a thousand bucks. It's pretty skinny margin, they went up to thirteen to fourteen hundred and that eight hundred cost of taking it out didn't go up that much. And so the margin started the group grow and the stock started to go up. 

Lawrence Lepard  
Today, the average cost to taken out to the ground is $1,300 dollars and the price is $2,300 dollars. Intel, but that's only very recently as recently as a couple months ago, the price was two thousand or nineteen hundreds something like that. So, and that thirteen hundred, that is affected by inflation in a big way. Okay, in other words, you know you've got explosives, you've got oil, you've got, you know, truck tires, you've got my wages, all of that. So, every year the cost of mining announced goes up, inflation adjusted 8 to 12%. Well, okay, so if the price of the metal doesn't go up that much, guess what your margin just disappeared. And so, so what was going on since 2020? We have big burst of inflation, stocks went way up, the price of gold went way up but then the price of gold leveled off. 

Lawrence Lepard  
You know, nineteen hundred, eighteen hundred to two thousand. But you know, what used to be eleven hundred to nine. Is now thirteen going to fourteen going to fifteen. So, everyone is a gold stock investor saying holy shit, with gold at nineteen and thirteen and cross going to sixteen going to you know, pretty soon these guys aren't gonna make any money, these stocks are no good. So, that's why the gold stocks have performed so poorly. Now, and I can say with certainty that, you know the consensus estimates on Wall Street and in Toronto where most gold stocks are priced, was that the price of gold was gonna stay in the eighteen hundred to nineteen hundred dollar area. And if it did, they would be shitty businesses, because it costs will keep going up. But what's happened is gold has just broken out twenty one hundred ceiling, it's now at twenty three. You know, I believe in go to twenty five or three thousand, and of course at that level.

Mike Peterson  
I know it is because shift, you know, we have something to tweet about. 

Lawrence Lepard  
Right? Exactly yeah. He's happy with poor Peter. Poor Peter. He's just he's missing it all. He's got so much of it, right? And he just can't get this piece, right. I tried to educate him, I debated him, I tried to help him out. But anyway. Yeah. So, I think we're one of those periods, we're about to have another run. But I would say to everybody is involved in gold mining stocks. I mean, remember these are stocks to rent not own. I mean, it's a very difficult business, and that and you know, yes, they work really well when you have a tailwind at your back. But they also don't work so well when the metal prices flat are going down. In that respect, they have a similar characteristic to Bitcoin miners, right? When Bitcoin miners.

Mike Peterson  
Yeah, I was gonna, I was wondering, well.

Lawrence Lepard  
There's a real there's a real parallel, right? And there's a real parallel, you know you gotta keep your energy costs low. And, and you're finding that having, I mean, every four years, your rewards getting chopped. And so you know.

Mike Peterson  
I guess in gold mining, it gets more and more difficult the percentage.

Lawrence Lepard  
It does. I mean, we've been mining gold for hundreds of years and I can assure you the easy deposits have all been found. I mean, I always laugh there was a something on the web or on Twitter or something, somebody's gonna say, oh we found 30 billion ounces of gold. You know, I mean, no, no, you didn't. It's actually physically impossible. I mean, this the whole world has been so scoured for gold. And that used to be that we find five and 10 million deposits in five to 10 million ounce deposits, you know, one every few years. 

Lawrence Lepard  
Now, we're not finding any of those. I mean, we're finding like one and two, I mean, so, though it does get harder there's a slight difficulty adjusting In gold do right? It gets harder to find good deposits. So, but you know, it's a tough business, it's a really tough business and I would say, you know throughout this whole process, you know I have become more and more and more Orange Pilled. You know, it's very very clear to me that Bitcoin is digital gold, it's a superior form of gold in all respects except the volatility and if you can handle the volatility which I propose you handle it by sizing your position correctly. Then, it's just a much better Alpha choice. I mean, it's crushing gold.

Mike Peterson  
It seems like in the in the Metals Camp there's like this divide between you know, the people that are metals, but get bitcoin and now are kind of like you move in that direction and then the ones that absolutely hate it. I think partially because they feel like it's stealing some of gold's momentum.

Lawrence Lepard  
There's no doubt that it is and it's sad and I you know, everyone has their own reasons. I mean, it was it Sinclairs, it's hard to get a man to understand something that affects his pocketbook. You know what I mean? And so, you know, yeah that's correct. I mean, you've seen a lot of the people pivot and understand it. I mean, like seems like they exactly well. We're taking a guy like Ronnie Stouffer leaves a good guy and a brilliant guy and a friend and does. You know, definitive gold report but has a partner who's doing Bitcoin and totally understands Bitcoin and they support Bitcoin. I mean, there's a role for both of them, there really is. I mean, that's it's not, you know I mean the one thing I would say, some Bitcoiners say, well gold's going to zero tomorrow. Now, that's not going to happen. Gold is gonna work. Bitcoins gonna work a lot better and that's, and that's really my way of viewing, and so I actually think.

Mike Peterson  
I think there's a lot of Bitcoiners who have actually bought some gold since they got into Bitcoin.

Lawrence Lepard  
Maybe a little I mean, like, I like to say, it's really good for bribing the border guards, right?

Mike Peterson  
I think it's just to hedge your bets.

Lawrence Lepard  
Exactly. Well, yeah. I mean, fosse always used to say that gold is a CDs on the failure of Bitcoin, right? I mean, if for some reason the Bitcoin network went down, gold would go straight up. And, and there's one other piece we haven't really talked about, but it's worth mentioning is that, we're in a monetary crisis, we're in a sovereign debt crisis, we all kind of concede that we see that the money is broken. And you know, guess what? Other people in the world see that too, including, you know Central Banks and Foreign Central Banks and, you know. I mean, not everyone's enlightened yet about Bitcoin and let's just say maybe there's a time where we need a monetary reset? Well, I think those Foreign Central Banks might think let's go to gold first. You know, I mean they're not ready for Bitcoin and Bitcoin may not be ready for them. So, you know,

Mike Peterson  
We've seen recently the shift, they're not they're buying less and less treasuries, and more and more. 

Lawrence Lepard  
Exactly, that's right. 

Mike Peterson  
I mean, that seems to be what's driving the gold price. It doesn't seem to be retail buyers. 

Lawrence Lepard  
Correct. In fact, it's very interesting. If you look at the charts of US Gold based ETFs, they are shrink. I think it's funny, they're almost shrinking in the same way that the Bitcoin ETFs are growing. I think a lot of people and I think Bitcoin has stolen a good piece of Gold's Thunder, you know in that respect. Keep in mind, though, that there's still a lot more to go. I mean, the Bitcoin network is worth what one four today or one, three? Something like that.

Mike Peterson  
Fraction of gold. 

Lawrence Lepard  
Yeah, gold's $12 trillion dollars. Now, also, keep in mind. Also, keep in mind that not all of that 12 trillion is really available that includes every museum in the world which you know we're not going to melt down you know famous museum artifacts, that includes all the jewelry that's around women's necks now. A high enough price, a lot of jewelry will get melted down, that includes all the gold that's held by central banks.

Mike Peterson  
Isn't there a crazy amount of percentage gold in India? 

Lawrence Lepard  
Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Mike Peterson  
Like a percentage?

Lawrence Lepard  
Yeah, I would guess like 20% or 30% of the world's gold is in India. Yeah, it's crazy because there's so culture and love.  A lot of it's in China too and China under reports what they own but we know, they're under reporting. The reason we know that is most of the gold in the world is refined in Switzerland, it's the biggest refinery. And they do report where they send their gold. And they're sending just gobs and gobs of it to China. So, if there were a monetary reset and gold were the chosen vehicle, the Indians and Chinese would benefit disproportionately to the rest of the world. Which is why Jason Lowry and his whole thesis I think is so important that the US just LeapFrog that and you know, we go on a Bitcoin standard. And just skip the gold step but you know, whether or not we'll be smart enough to do that. Who knows? I mean, yeah right. I mean, think of our government.

Mike Peterson  
Nothing points to that.

Lawrence Lepard  
Yeah. They're not the sharpest tools in the in the drawer, right? So.

Mike Peterson  
So, I'm curious as to you know, you're here in El Salvador. The first country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender. And to put it on their balance sheet. Do you think there are other countries out there right now that are doing?

Lawrence Lepard  
Yeah, it's funny.You should mention that, I do. And I don't think why would they broadcast? I mean, if they're trying to do it and do it. 

Mike Peterson  
We're trying to accumulate. I want to push the price. 

Lawrence Lepard  
Exactly. So yes, I do. I strongly do. I was at Satoshi's brown table which is a Bitcoin and Crypto Event in Dubai. And, you know the entire big piece of the Dubai, the UAE royal family and their advisors were attending and listening quite carefully. And yes, I think that there are other countries that are accumulating Bitcoin. It wouldn't surprise me if Russia as an example were mining and holding Bitcoin. I don't think China is enlightened enough to do, and I could be wrong but yeah, I do think that other countries are going to be doing it. It's, you know it's Game Theory, and it's kind of an arms race and you know. I will say this another data point is relatively important and it was told us a small meetup where we were, before the kind of the government clamped down on him and took away his ability to sell his book. 

Lawrence Lepard  
You know, Jason Lowry, the guy who works at the Pentagon, and he said his understand his belief is that the CIA and the Pentagon get it. I mean, they, in other words, they, you know, they read his book, they understand that this is going to be the apex predator of the monetary network and they get it and they think we should be buying it. The problem is, you know the Fed, the Treasury, the Congress, the President, everybody else hates it, because it threatens their money game and the way they can print it will and so on and so forth. So, so you've got kind of competing factions, but not everybody in the US government stupid.

Mike Peterson  
Well, I'm sure even within those organizations, there's some people.

Lawrence Lepard  
Yeah, right. 

Mike Peterson  
Even really get it and other people. 

Lawrence Lepard  
Yeah, we don't believe, right.

Mike Peterson  
It was interesting after they adopted bitcoin is legal tender here that the US Embassy here was like, freaked out. 

Lawrence Lepard  
A world of interesting. 

Mike Peterson  
Completely blindsided, like they had no.

Lawrence Lepard  
Well, and the other thing I thought was interesting. You know, the IMF response to El Salvador. I mean, they did not like that one bit right?

Mike Peterson  
Now, it was it was amazing and I think that young people say they you know, rushed the things here and that it was messy, and that's all true. But I really think that was by design that who Mac Kelly was smart enough to know that if he like, if you made them time they would back channel and make up some way to make all these threats. That if you do this, we're going to do that. But if he just got the toothpaste out of the tube, I made a mess.

Lawrence Lepard  
It's too late. Yeah, that's interesting. You see that? Yeah, I can see that. 

Mike Peterson  
But they yeah, they sent it was actually Peter McCormack was here and MSE sent like a team of three people down. One was there like, I think their CIA Liaison and he was the most anti and that but that you could just tell they were just like, of this group. You could tell one guy and of the three got it? One guy was like, no, this is only money laundering. The CIA guy and the other guy was kind of neutral. But they were what? Explain what happened here. What how did we miss this all this? You know, you know, all the spine? They had no idea that was announced in Miami at this conference. 

Lawrence Lepard  
I know. It's like they weren't paying attention. It was like a wake up call. Yeah. I mean, that's one of things. I often think that you know. I mean, there was a time where they probably could have really thrown sand on our face and killed this whole damn thing. Do you know what I mean? If they, you know, put restrictions on it or taxed it? I mean, they're okay. But now, I mean the toothpaste is out of the tube, as you say. I mean, and these three judges in Delaware. I mean, these guys are gonna get out of here are the ones who approved you know, who saw the way that in favor of greyscale? Because that's what pushed Gensler to do the ETF. And the ETF is just an enormously important thing and sailor says he's right. I mean, I totally agree.

Mike Peterson  
So you agree, you're on that side?  I still have.

Lawrence Lepard  
I know its not so accustomed. But go ahead, what do you what don't you like about?

Mike Peterson  
My concern is, is this is going to be the government's? Like, I sanctioned way for you to totally.

Lawrence Lepard  
I totally agree, and I talked about that yesterday. Totally agree. 

Mike Peterson  
Are they gonna push more and more? And they're just gonna, they're not gonna say it's illegal to self custody but they're just going to make it more and more challenging. People just not worth it.

Lawrence Lepard  
Absolutely, there's a strong, there's a strong possibility that they looked at it said, okay this is going to happen either way. Let's at least have it in our system rather than out of our system. So, that if we decide in the future that we want to shut it down, we can make six phone calls to Fidelity and BlackRock. You know, all the insight, give everybody back their cash and send a Bitcoin to us, you know 6102 I mean, that is very possible. So, and also they know they're gonna get the tax income on it, right? I mean, one of the things I hate about it now is, you know you buy it cheap, you sell it, you don't report it. It's pretty easy to be, you know to avoid the tax and so, this way they do get the tax. 

Lawrence Lepard  
So, I hear you on that and I agree with that and I think that's a risk down the road. But having said that, I think the counterweight to that why I think they're in general net good is that they just bring more people into the understanding of what it is and they will push the price up and the price being higher will pay for the development of lightning and all the other things that will help with the adoption that we so badly need. If we intend to make SATs legal tender and denominate most things in SATs. You know, we got a lot more users and they help and this helps right?

Mike Peterson  
Now, and that's and then that's where we'll see it play out over history is that does that bring people in? My fear is that keeps people from actually spending Bitcoin using it having Circular economies like I see. 

Lawrence Lepard  
Yeah and look, I think the Circular economy thing is great. I think spending Bitcoin is great but I'm gonna sailor. This is digital property and let's win on the digital property argument first. Let's get that one right and because you know it just and stop the monetary debasement and protect people from being stolen from from the government every year. If we get that piece right to start with, you know we can take our time. I mean, I wish we wouldn't, I wish it would go faster to have the payments and the lightning and all the other stuff around it that you and I both known. We need to really make it spendable money and everyday money. You know, but right now it really is a good version of digital gold is the best way I see it. I mean, to me, gold is analog sound money and Bitcoin is digital sound money. 

Lawrence Lepard  
And so, let's let it win on that basis. I mean, it'll pass gold here sometime next few years, pretty easily in my view. You know and the other thing is those apps will come, the settlements will launch and we'll have more and more Lightning transactions. I mean, I was stunned. You know, here I arrived in El Salvador. You know, I come through customs, I show my passport, I have to pay my entry fee which is very modest like $12 dollar or something. And I asked what do you take? And you know Bitcoin, Mastercard or cash, and I thought this is great. So, it's a real advancement.

Mike Peterson  
It's amazing. The number of Bitcoiners who I've seen make their first Lightning transaction in El Salvador. I'm like, all right. Well, I know there's Lightning but I've never actually used it, I might right come on. You've got like, gotta get going. Even I think Peter McCormick was it was the first time he used Lightning. He was here early he was one of the first to come and he bought cabooses with Lightning and reuse of from Paxful. He now, no one's I think it is that he was here, he's like, I've never use lightning. 

Lawrence Lepard  
So you live, you live in El Zonte? I mean, when you go out to dinner or you go to a store you do things in El Zonte. What percentage of the time can you use Lightning to transact?

Mike Peterson  
Oh a 100%.

Lawrence Lepard  
Really? 

Mike Peterson  
Yeah, I mean, but part of that just because I don't go to the places that don't.

Lawrence Lepard  
But there are enough places that have. So you've got a grocery store, you've got a gas station, you've got every gas

Mike Peterson  
Gas station was the hardest one for some reason. And it was and that was partially problem with Chivo because these people said they took Bitcoin but it only worked if you had achieve a Wallet so it's not really Bitcoin. But now there is a gas station on board but yeah, the main supermarket in the country takes Bitcoin their version of Costco, which is price mark. Thanks Bitcoin, we've bought a couple brand new trucks for the project. 

Lawrence Lepard  
My goodness. Yeah, wow. 

Mike Peterson  
Yeah, there's tons of people are buying properties.

Lawrence Lepard  
You go work for a restaurant? 

Mike Peterson  
Yeah,  yeah.

Mike Peterson  
I mean, if you get outside of El Zonte then. it falls off course. There's gonna be if you want to only spend Bitcoin you can definitely outside of El Zonte. They live on Bitcoin only but you're gonna be, you're gonna have, but in El Zonte, yeah.

Lawrence Lepard  
So, you gotta you've got a real Circular economy. 

Mike Peterson  
Oh, yeah. 

Lawrence Lepard  
That's great.

Mike Peterson  
It's still in process, still a lot of those. You know, a lot of businesses are like keeping their Bitcoin and shorted pain. They're employees like, you know at least a portion of Bitcoin. You know, a lot of them are converting to dollars. But now, you know that as we get into a Bull Market they're like. Oh man, I should like, and so I think that's always helpful to get them to see that over time dnd then they hear from us hey, dollar is just gonna keep going down. 

Mike Peterson  
So there's one hotel owner in particular Palo Verde, which is a beautiful hotel. 

Lawrence Lepard  
Nice hotel, right? 

Mike Peterson  
Yeah, and he was came on early. It's a family business. He's the I think the the son that you know but it's you know, someone's parents money and he's like. Hey, we're gonna do this, we're gonna go all in on Bitcoin and we're gonna keep it and he said, it was very hard during the Bear Market because everybody's like. Hey, you're an idiot but he's like, now I look like a genius. Okay, the obvious decision. 

Lawrence Lepard  
When you take it to seven, eight goes to fifteen. It's hard. 

Mike Peterson  
So now you see. You know, but now they was taking it when was that 15? 

Lawrence Lepard  
Right now 70, yeah. 

Mike Peterson  
So, they're sitting very, very good with it and so it's funny to that thing. It freaks me out sometimes because I'll go to these little stores and they like. I gotta pay and they see the balance when they see on their phone and I'm like.

Mike Peterson  
It's pretty good. 

Mike Peterson  
You should not have that on your phone. We need to upgrade you to a hardware Wallet. 

Lawrence Lepard  
Yeah, I need to show you what Gold card is.

Mike Peterson  
But when I was at, you know fifteen thousand, it was a different thing. Now, that it's seventy thousand that their just accumulating and you know spending when they need to. The nice thing too for them is there's a lot of services that they can pay. They don't have bank accounts, but they can pay their electric bill with Bitcoin. 

Lawrence Lepard  
Really? Wow.

Mike Peterson  
Some of them through like third party services like electric bill is something you do through bit refill. 

Lawrence Lepard  
The company helps you do it. 

Mike Peterson  
It's a direct. I mean, it's very simple.

Lawrence Lepard  
They take like a small slicer. 

Mike Peterson  
Yeah, I think I think they get a slice from the electric companybecause it saves them. Otherwise, you have to take all these payments in person. So, they're, they have a cost of doing that and so. But it just makes it so much easier for us to have to go down in person and wait in line.

Lawrence Lepard  
I was going to ask him what percentage of the people you know, are banked in El Zonte? I mean, whether it was at a high percentage, low percentage?

Mike Peterson  
Probably about 30% in El Zonte. I think nationwide it's about 40%. But that would you know, obviously the people living in the capital city would have a higher propensity. Part of it is the banks are horrible in El Salvador. I mean, it absolutely.

Lawrence Lepard  
They rip you off.

Mike Peterson  
As well they just make it so painful to do anything, you wait in line for an hour. Then, I finally got a bank account here. And we signed I mean, the stack of paper like this, they want on my tax returns from the US. It was and then they come back and they're like your signatures wrong, you need to redo it, like what do you mean? They're like, well, it doesn't match your Salvador and ID card, which is one on one of those electronic things that don't work. So, they made me like, I mean, I kid you not a stack of papers. 

Lawrence Lepard  
Do it like trace it?

Mike Peterson  
They had me trace it on,like the twenty places I was supposed to sign. So, they're just so bad and they're they're so afraid of the US. They're so afraid of getting kicked off the Swift Sifts, that even one of the one of the banks, that's a National Bank has been kicked off the SWIFT system. So, there's this like, threat overhang from the US government. So they don't want, there's no banks in El Salvador that will let you send the direct transaction from any bitcoin exchange. So that they're just so fearful.

Lawrence Lepard  
How do you, what's the principle? Like, if so you're in El Zonte and you're, you know your wage you're working? And I assume you're probably I mean, the kind of the currency used here is the dollar. You're getting paid in dollars and you're not SATs because your employer is not enlightened. You then want to convert those dollars into SATs? Can you go to a store and do that, are there ATMs where you can do that, or is there a broker here that will help you do that? I mean, how? 

Mike Peterson  
Yeah, all the above that has been one that one of the good things about Chivo. They have the Chivo ATMs and there's really no commission or fees or it's very slight.

Lawrence Lepard  
Okay, so there's a wave on ramp. 

Mike Peterson  
Yeah. 

Lawrence Lepard  
That's great. 

Mike Peterson  
And then there's also a Local ATM company that's developed these cool Lightning ATMs that you can buy a nickel worth of Bitcoin. 

Lawrence Lepard  
Oh my goodness.

Mike Peterson  
I can just point up.

Lawrence Lepard  
It's one Lightning Wallet that kind of works best in El Zonte. One of this actually with Lightning is some Wallets work, some places some don't, you know what I mean? Is there one down there that everyone uses? 

Mike Peterson  
So, the main one that people use is blank, which was the Bitcoin Beach Wallet, originally. We kind of we separated the names just because one's a month you know, grassroots. And the others is a for profit, we don't really have anything to officially do with it. Even though we, they're great. Gallo is a great company and they have a great product and so there's work the biggest problem is some Lightning Wallets will work with the QR codes. Where it's, it has a zero like you put in the amount there's other Wallets that only will work if you actually create a QR code and put the amount in. So yeah, but it's it seems to be getting better and better. Initially, that was a huge problem right? But it seems to be now.

Lawrence Lepard  
Most of my Lightning transactions are Bitcoin things because that's where we're prepared to take SATs.

Mike Peterson  
Are you are you leaving directly from here, are you gonna make okay, you're not gonna go? 

Lawrence Lepard  
Yeah, I'd love to but I gotta, sadly, my wife needs to be back in the States tomorrow and so. I gotta get out of here tomorrow morning. So I can't, I don't have time. 

Mike Peterson  
But you have to come back and spend some time here in El Zonte. 

Lawrence Lepard  
I will, I will. 

Mike Peterson  
See how to do it seamlessly it's.

Lawrence Lepard  
I mean, this was kind of my introduction, but I will be back because I'm very impressed by it. It's great country. 

Mike Peterson  
It's funny because once you get used to it, it's actually way easier. You don't never have to bring any cash with you. My kids will be like, they'll text me like, Dad, I need Bitcoin for the pizza. And there's no Venmo or anything like that. That works here. So, if that didn't exist, your situation we couldn't get them funds. It's funny just how easy it works and that's what I think draws a lot of people in and I think El Salvador's adoption of Bitcoin has actually supercharged the development of Lightning applications. And it's still, I'm like there's a real need for this to be user friendly. So I'm curious as to what your theory is, is to like. Why there's people like in the gold space that get Bitcoin and then there's people like Peter Schiff that like, they're great.

Lawrence Lepard  
Yeah, yeah, they're going down with the ship. I don't know on that one, let's but as a general rule, I divided into a couple of buckets. I think the biggest thing that a lot of people have gold people have trouble getting comfortable with Bitcoin on is they're bounded in a history of gold or of money having to have a physical property and being a commodity of some sort, you can touch it and feel it. And there were commodity cycles and had been a lot of forms of commodity money. Of course, gold emerged as the superior one and they just they can't get, they have a hard time getting away from the fact that you can't touch it and see it and feel it. 

Lawrence Lepard  
And so they can't make the jump from a physical ledger. You know, a physical piece of the ledger to a paper ledger. But yes, it's so funny that when I push them on this, they've done it in every other part of their life. I mean, if you look at their bank balance, it's not like the bank has the money sitting in the vault. It's just a bunch of zeros and ones on the screen. Yeah, you know what I mean? And, I also try and use the analogy where I say, look, you know before we before mankind even found gold and mined gold and determined that gold was the best form of money. We know, we have historical records of people sitting in caves and having putting markings on the wall. 

Lawrence Lepard  
Tally sticks and keeping track of shit, and so money is a social obligation. If I have money, I can pay you to give me food or gasoline or whatever I want. And in turn, you know if I do labor for you, you pay me money for doing the labor and, and so it's just an obligation between people. And it's really money in its base, it's really just a ledger. It's just keeping score of who owes who, what. So, why does a ledger need to have a physical property?

Mike Peterson  
And you think gold people would get that? 

Lawrence Lepard  
You do. You do and also gold people are generally Austrian Economists, and Karl Menger, the founder of the Austrian school said, money is just the most liquid good, by definition. And so, you know it's what has the superior properties that lead it to be a liquid good. And you know, Bitcoin has superior properties, and we're all adopting it. Now. If we weren't all adopting Bitcoin. I mean, money is a shared illusion, everyone agrees that a dollar is money because everyone knows you can go into a store and pay for shit with it and the government prints it fine. Everyone agrees that gold is money has been around five thousand years. 

Lawrence Lepard  
It's hard to get it out of the ground, they know what it is, it's shiny you can see it, etc. You know, and what's happening is everybody's gonna one day agree that Bitcoin is money. And you know, I mean a lot of us already know that but some people don't, some people don't believe that it's money. But the number of those people are shrinking and the number of people who believe are growing. As long as that trend continues Bitcoin is going to be money. I mean, already is but it's going to be you know, and if you look at its properties, you look at its characteristics. I mean, that's what led sailor to go this is, this is a better weapon. 

Lawrence Lepard  
I mean, it's we're safe to say, you know we just invented gunpowder and you know, gold guys got spears and you know. And axes I mean, you know I mean fuck gunpowder is gonna win. You know so, I mean, so I think but a lot of people are hung up in the physicality. Then, I think the other thing to defend my gold friends a little bit, you know as she watched the whole Crypto thing unfold from back to present. There was a lot of fucking bullshit fraud. I mean, a lot right? I mean, you had Novogratz you had. I mean, there's just there were a ton of grifters, there were a ton of. 

Mike Peterson  
There's still they're live in Cryptos space? 

Lawrence Lepard  
There still are, right. But my point is, I mean at least the biggest one is now headed to jail. You know, but I mean, there was so much criminality. A raw around all these tokens and pre mining. Even Aetherium, which is you know Monetary policy has changed six times. I mean, there's so much criminality around all these that people you know. We all live and operate with mental heuristics, right? You just kind of, you know, we don't have time to figure out everything to the Nth degree, you just kind of you, you look at it, you see a pattern.

Lawrence Lepard  
You go okay, I know what that means. I'm not you know, based on that pattern, I'm going to this how I'm going to behave, right? I'm not gonna go dig deep and figure out that Bitcoin is a totally different animal and it's not Crypto. They don't have time for that. Just look at it go. Hey, there's a bunch of fucking grifters. You know, pounding the table here. I know those are bad people. I don't want it. It can't be anything good in that space and you know, I get that. I mean, I understand that and so.

Mike Peterson  
Especially when the media loves Bitcoin and like you have, Ben McKenzie. The guy from the OC, that's written the book recently. He's showing up here and in El Salvador for the conference, you want him to do some type of hit thing. I'm sure and we're like, hey we agree with 90% when you're saying. You just are confused, do you think Bitcoin and Crypto are the same thing? There are like really on opposite ends of the spectrum?

Lawrence Lepard  
That's exactly right and so, and those people have done us a lot of harm, in my opinion. I mean, they've really slowed down they threw sand in the eyes of a lot of people who might have understood this more easily and better if they if there hadn't been all that fraud going on.

Mike Peterson  
Well, that's why I'm so thankful that Max and Stacy because they have come down and just brought the hammer down.

Lawrence Lepard  
There are a ton of people. I mean, Corey clips scene. I mean, you know, there are a lot of people who've been out there just pounding the table and calling out these frauds. I mean, how there were a lot of us. I mean, I recall being with a bunch of Bitcoiners in Madeira, the first Madeira Conference bunch of years ago. And we were talking about how we knew Sam Bankman, Winfrey was a fraud. I mean, Caitlin knew Sam Bankman was a fraud. She was telling the SEC. I mean weird, this was not hard to figure out, you know. I mean, that look go look at his box video where he talks about creating money in a box. 

Lawrence Lepard  
I mean it's just, it's very obvious, he was a scamster. And yet, people didn't see it for a while and it took time to unfold. But I understand, I mean when I talk to friends who are normies who have zero knowledge of the space, they immediately say, oh really. You know, that's the thing that the bank when freed went to. You know, they jumped to that, right? And you're right, that was really, really, really bad and there's a lot of that out there. But what you're, what you're missing is the signal of this Digital Innovation. This unique Digital Innovation and it's so important technologically what we figured they figured out the Satoshi's figure it out, it really is important.

Mike Peterson  
So do you think that that story will just become clear over time? 

Lawrence Lepard  
Yeah, I do. I do and, and I think, you know, I've seen in my gold friend, you know cohort, I've seen more and more of them slowly but surely coming over, you know they maybe you're right. I mean my investors say maybe you're right, you know I've seen. How do I buy this thing again? You know, what's this cold storage thing? I mean, it's, you know as recently as a couple of years ago. I gave a speech at a gold conference. Like, It's funny, I'm not getting invited to gold conferences to give speeches as much anymore because you know, they've kind of joined the enemy camp. I guess. I mean, and by the way, I don't see them as two enemy camps. I see them synergistic. I mean, we'll get to that in a minute. 

Lawrence Lepard  
But you know, but I asked the question at this conference, and how many of you guys and this is old, generally speaking gold conference or older people, you don't mind 25 year olds at old conferences, you know, 30 year olds, and 50 67 70  year sold people? And I said, how many of them bigger and half the hands went up? So I mean, right that's, it's they're getting there. You know, they're definitely getting there. I mean, that's why and the other thing, I would say to Bitcoiners too. I'd say to gold guys, you know, one don't attack Bitcoiners. They're on the same team as you. But I'll just say the Bitcoiners isn't one sailor originally came out and was kind of like gold to the enemy. We got crushed gold. I didn't find that constructive and the reason. The reason I didn't was your gold guy is actually one of your easiest converts because they totally understand the problem. I mean, they get it. 

Lawrence Lepard  
They believe in monetary debasement they know the government's a mess, they know what's coming. What they don't understand is that there's an alternative solution that's superior. And so, you know, with kindness, we need to educate them as to why you know. Okay, I'm not saying sell all your houses, I'm not suggesting that I'm just suggesting that having zero Bitcoin, you know in 10 15 years, I bet you're going to regret that. So, you should definitely start to put your toe in the water and get some Bitcoin. And of course, once you you know as we all know, once you put your toe in the water, it's a slippery slope. And pretty soon you become a complete raving Orange Pilled nut. Like you or me.

Mike Peterson  
You rarely see somebody start with a 2% allocation and then decide they want to drop to a 1% allocation. 

Lawrence Lepard  
That's not the way it's not always the other way goes. Yeah, I mean, so when they say you get the price you deserve. And so my view is, buy now avoid the rush because it's gonna, it's gonna cost more. I mean, you know I mean I think it's hard for people to understand this but everybody thinks they paid too much for their Bitcoin. But when it's a million dollars a coin and being a whole coiners, or is a big deal. You know, you won't regret that you've paid 70 versus 68 or 75 versus whatever. I mean, you know, obviously, I mean, the buyer, the century really and I was buying but not, you know I didn't I was pretty fully allocated. I really didn't have any more money to buy. But I know some guys who kind of got it late and then they after the objects and they bought him. 

Mike Peterson  
That was the risk.

Lawrence Lepard  
The trade. I mean, I was paying 17 in 2017. Okay, so here you went. 

Mike Peterson  
There was still a lot more risk. 

Lawrence Lepard  
Oh, it's gonna enormously more risk right here. You are seven years later and you got or no. I was probably 6 years later because 15 was a year ago now. I think at least but you know, and you got an opportunity to buy it for 15.

Mike Peterson  
What I'm like you I had a little at that time, but I was already.

Lawrence Lepard  
I was already all in. I was selling what I could with other stuff. But yeah. 

Mike Peterson  
I was already I was like, gotta be kidding me. 

Lawrence Lepard  
Yeah, I was really quite a bargain, right? 

Mike Peterson  
Yeah. That I remember talking to my wife because she gets a little nervous. She's all, all in Bitcoin and she's like. I'm like, we need to buy more. She's like, but it's going down. I'm like, no trust me.

Lawrence Lepard  
Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's, yeah, my went to 15. I recall my wife thinking, you know, are you sure about this shit? And I was like, yep, I am. Just relax we'll be fine.

Mike Peterson  
The worst for me is because the first entry point early on, it was hard to buy it in your IRA, unless you did the whole session self directed thing. Which was a pain in the but really, and so my wife was in, you know hers was all allocated to GBTC. So, not only was it going down with Bitcoin, but then it was trading it like she's like. What the hell?

Lawrence Lepard  
Yeah, it's not even equal to the low bitcoin price. Yeah. 

Mike Peterson  
And then at that time, you're like, well, there's somebody knows something I don't know, and this Bitcoin doesn't really exist? Then I'm trying. I'm trying to like, tell her no, it's going to be okay. But in my mind, I'm gone. I hope this isn't a Giant Rug Pulled.

Lawrence Lepard  
Yeah, right. No, I agree with it. But there was a time when that discount was pretty large.

Mike Peterson  
And kind of like, 50%. 

Lawrence Lepard  
I know, it did.

Mike Peterson  
And it was.

Lawrence Lepard  
Yeah, I know it did and it was and you're thinking for the better have those fucking coins? You know, right?

Mike Peterson  
Yeah. No. So, I was relieved when that whole thing played out and it was a lesson learn to not do what's easy. You gotta you gotta control well.

Lawrence Lepard  
Yeah, having having the keys to your coins? Yeah, critical. It's absolutely critical and that's, by the way as we talk people into buying the ETF to get them started, you know the next talk is a self custody talk because the ETF doesn't solve that.

Mike Peterson  
No, no, it doesn't. But like you said, it can pick people's interest and get them. 

Lawrence Lepard  
Well, that's right and there are certain pools of Capital as you say starting self directed IRA is hard. There's certain, you know. I mean, I even have some legacy IRA 401k stuff and you know it would be hard for me to get that to where I want to be to buy that. I got a lot of coins I have the keys to so. I just didn't find a way to buy the ETF. You know, it's like, yeah, I got exposure to the price there it's a small percentage of my holdings but it's there.

Mike Peterson  
Sometimes, ou got to mix. 

Lawrence Lepard  
Yeah, right. I mean, it's you know, we have so much time. Yeah.

Mike Peterson  
So, we'll like to get a prediction from you, will we will we see, will we see a country go back on the gold standard or on Bitcoin standard first? 

Lawrence Lepard  
Oh, that's a really tough call. I don't know the answer to that. That's a really tough call. I think. I probably think the Bitcoin standard first. I think that we're talking about two different sets of countries, right? That the bigger more powerful countries aren't ready and are gonna go to the Bitcoin standard. You know, if they tried to reset of China or something tried to reset that in Russia, they would be more inclined to go to gold because a whole lot of it, etc. But, you know, the way the game theory is set up. I mean, the smaller countries have everything to gain and nothing to lose. I mean, it's not a surprise that a very small third world country was the first adopter. You know, there was there was nothing but upside here.

Mike Peterson  
Well, especially because they had already given up their own currency, they had the dollar. So, it wasn't even competing with their own currency.

Lawrence Lepard  
Exactly, and so I think that I think we will see some more small countries make this flip. I mean, I was disappointed recently to say this Malay and Argentina doesn't fully understand the difference between Crypto and Bitcoin. I mean, and but I mean, there's a candidate for maybe eventually flipping in our in our favor, or I mean in Ecuador or Colombia. You know, I mean, it's I think we will see other countries adopting it. You know, perhaps some of the countries over in Eastern Europe, you know I think a couple of those kind of get it.

Lawrence Lepard  
You know, we'll have to see. But even if no other country adopts it. Like the more important thing, just as as numbers go up, and as it becomes more and more of a stable reserve asset and as volatility goes down and volatility is going down. You know, it's just, I mean, it's gonna be just more and more common to own this stuff and the other thing that I would point out that I just think it's really important for everybody to focus on is just the Macro picture of how early we are, and how big this could be and where it could go. 

Mike Peterson  
What's crazy how it lines up to with the decisions the US government's making and how they are just, it seemed like before they could maybe always pull back now it's like, I don't see any.

Lawrence Lepard  
We have totally crossed the Event Horizon of of sound money. I mean, the only chance they would ever have of getting us back on the right path would be to try and do what Paul Volcker did, which is really increase interest rates really cut spending balance the budget.

Mike Peterson  
Even with that was the government debt level.

Lawrence Lepard  
That's my point. If they do that, then they end then the interest cost balloon and then we have an enormous recession and yeah. I think you're right I mean, I think we've crossed we have crossed the Rubicon where there is no going back. And so now the only thing that's uncertain to all of us is you know at what rate and and what bumpy fashion do we go forward with more with more monetary debasement? I mean, you know, you can I love looking at the Fed's Balance Sheet. It was 800 billion before 2008. You know, bumped up on that to three, seven at the high came back in a bit and then a bumped up to nine coming back in again. 

Lawrence Lepard  
When I think the next bump takes us twenty, right? I mean, it's kind of logical. I mean, Lynette Linode has a great chart in her book that shows that how that the debase money supply has to be available to support the debt. Without growing the money supply, the debt starts to default. Which you know you could have that that's the 1930s. That's a deflation, that's a depression and that's always a possible outcome. I mean.

Mike Peterson  
I just don't think they have the stomach for that.

Lawrence Lepard  
Exactly. I mean, that's always a possible outcome. Except that consider we're dealing with politicians, whose job is to keep kicking the can if they can, and the ease.

Mike Peterson  
I think they think they were successful in COVID. I think they took the exact opposite lesson from it. They're thinking the MMT works.

Lawrence Lepard  
Oh absolutely. I think that's absolutely right. Like this definitely, right. But, but but but remember they do they do react to the body politic and what the body politic is saying. And the body politic is pretty friggin pissed off about inflation. Pretty freakin pissed off. I mean everybody, there isn't a person to a person in this country. I mean, pre this whole event. There was maybe set inflation or whatever, you know as a little bit. I mean, I think you talk around, you look around, you know, tables of families throughout this country. I can't imagine there's a family that's not talking about inflation and what a problem is. You know what I mean? And so that's, that's a big deal. I mean, the politicians are going to have to deal with that. I mean, they're gonna, they're trying to deal with it you know they're trying to pretend like they're dealing with it but.

Mike Peterson  
I think before they were impacted by it, and they knew they were because of the housing market and everything that they felt like, I'm falling behind where my parents were at this time. But they didn't see it at the grocery store. Now, they've got both at the same time, they still can't afford to buy a house or you haven't anything and now they can't afford groceries.

Lawrence Lepard  
I've got three kids in their 20s and I mean, they're just looking at me. Like, Dad we're screwed. I mean, you know they're all doing fine. Finally paid not excessively, but they're fine. But you know, the notion.

Mike Peterson  
Like the previous generation, they hadn't been definitely go buy.

Lawrence Lepard  
Buy a house, buy a car. I mean, it's like no. You know, I mean they're really they're pinch, they're really, really pinched. And, and that's playing itself out all throughout the country. I mean, everybody's feeling the same, the same level of pain. 

Mike Peterson  
Unless you're on a Bitcoin standard.

Lawrence Lepard  
Well, that's right. Unless you're on a Bitcoin standard which case everything's getting cheaper. I love that meme that somebody put up on the Web where the choke or on Twitter word showed the cost of a house in Bitcoin, right?

Mike Peterson  
Pres and I were talking about that. Housing prices are crashing.

Lawrence Lepard  
Yeah housing, the Fiat price of the houses have gone up and but the bitcoin price of the house have gone down. Substantially, it was like thirty Bitcoin to fifteen Bitcoin to like four Bitcoin to buy the average house or whatever. I mean, it's really quite amazing. So, it's definitely a better savings technology.

Mike Peterson  
And I love that meme, too, because I think that's something that people that they're not they don't care about finances. They don't care talking about Bitcoiner. But you show him that they're like, oh wow. This is why I can't afford a house but these people can.

Lawrence Lepard  
Yeah. It's like yeah, it's a big differencea and as I say more and more people are going to wake up to it, and they are waking up to it. I mean, we see that every we see that every day. So yeah and to me, it's an exciting time because I think we're kind of pressed and I was speaking with this yesterday. I think we're kind of at the elbow that curve where this is really about to go bigger mainstream. You know, we were pretty fringe. You know, 10 years ago, 5 years ago, even a few years ago. 

Lawrence Lepard  
But now, this is I mean the ETF that I mean, you know I mean that the terrible channels CNBC. They're talking about Bitcoin every day, they're putting the price up there. I mean, this is it's going man, it's going bigger stream, you know I mean and so, you know if you look at you know the adoption of cell phones or the adoption of any new technology and any new innovation, you reach a point in the S curve where adoption really starts to grow rapidly. I feel like we're at that point.

Mike Peterson  
I'm waiting for somebody to come out with the Inverse Cramer Bitcoin prediction fan. I know they were there was an Inverse Cramer fine but his Bitcoin calls are always anytime he says that game Bitcoin.

Lawrence Lepard  
Yeah, Peter ZeiHan, there all these tariffs are all these terrible people who are just you know, like fine short it, you know, please short it. Yeah. Good luck.

Mike Peterson  
Let's get into this droid. Yeah. Well, any other observations you have in El Salvador?

Lawrence Lepard  
No, I really appreciate being on your show. I really love El Salvador. I meant nothing but nice people here and well. 

Mike Peterson  
You got to come back with your wife. 

Lawrence Lepard  
Yeah, I'll bring my wife.

Mike Peterson  
There's beautiful hotels in El Zonte. 

Lawrence Lepard  
I think we're coming back going to El Zonte.  I think that's I think that's the plan to get to know it better and, you know I mean, it's a very nice place. 

Mike Peterson  
Short, short flight from Florida. 

Lawrence Lepard  
Yeah, it really is. 

Mike Peterson  
It's two or three hours. 

Lawrence Lepard  
Yes. Two and a half hours less. Yeah, from Miami. So it was, it was quite easy to get here no problem there. So yeah, and you know, I commend Max and Stacy, I commend you. I commend the people up in Berlin. I mean, you know that's obviously, it's making a difference, right.?And, you know, I think historically, the United States, a lot of people who were looking to come down to, you know, kind of Latin America to retire that Costa Rica was kind of the go to place. A lot of friends who take it and, you know,I've been to Costa Rica. But you know, because this is Bitcoin and that's not similar. I think I'd come here.

Mike Peterson  
Well, and the difference we're seeing here too, is people are coming to build here. They come there because it's cheaper, it's paradise. But people see opportunity here and that's the difference we're seeing. There's a simple economy. 

Lawrence Lepard  
There's businesses and stuff.

Mike Peterson  
There like this, this is the new frontier. So I mean, that's what's fun to be around those type of people.

Lawrence Lepard  
Because they're positive. I mean, that's, and that is the great thing about Bitcoiners. I mean, you know we have hope we know that this is gonna make the world a better place. And there is there is upside in being in this group. It's not just about number go up. It's about society get better. Yeah. 

Mike Peterson  
And that's wanting the finance system to be fair. 

Lawrence Lepard  
Yeah, exactly. If the finance system is fair by definition society will get better. Yeah. No, I've really enjoyed talking to you and I'm enjoyed being on the show. I appreciate it. Well, thank you very much.

Mike Peterson  
We'll get you back down here soon. 

Lawrence Lepard  
Yeah. I'll come visit us out to sometime. Yeah. Thank you. 

Mike Peterson  
Thank you.