Did Scott buy Bitcoin? November 14, 2025

25:49It would be a stupid idea. The reality is what they are effectively doing. By the way, I say they. This is only in the US for now, but it will come here as sure as night follows day because some idiot in government and some idiot in the banks will be like, Hey, guys, if I did this, it would be good for me. It shifts the overton. It would be good for you. Yeah. It shifts what's normal. Right? And so all of a sudden, and everyone's incentivized to do it because it feels good, looks good, gets people in a house like an afford$5 ,000, not$50 ,000,$100 a month. I'm going to do it. All the stuff that we think.

26:16And what happens? Prices go up yet again, even further. So now not only does it take your entire working life's worth of repayments, it then steals from your retirement income. A third, a half, three quarters, all of your super. Depends whether you worked or not. If you're a woman who's taken a couple of years out or quite a few years out of the workforce to have kids, if you started late, if you've been on holidays, if you've got a low-paying job, guess what? You are screwed. Not only are we going to screw you during your working life, we're going to screw you in retirement. And this great superannuation system that is genuinely great all of a sudden just becomes a house price balloon payment system.

26:50Also now, once you've made the balloon payment, it's like, oh, so now I actually don't have any money to live off. Exactly. Right? So that's the - And you're back on the pension. So then the federal budget has to deal with people who shouldn't have been on the pension, who are now on the pension, because they spend their super paying for housing. So also, with all the inflation that is just set in stone with this course of action, right? What's the reaction to higher inflation? What do we do when that happens? We raise interest rates, right? So you just did a really nice example there using a million dollars.

27:21So if it was a million dollar loan, and you've got a 1 % extra interest rate. Again, 50 years, a lot can happen. I don't think I'm going out on a limb to say, you know what? Over a 50-year period, interest rates might go up 1 % between then and now, maybe, particularly if there's a bunch of inflation around. Well, 1 % on a million dollars is an extra$833 a month. In other words - How about that? You just wiped off your savings. Yep, yep. And Lord help you, if it goes up 3%, 4%, ask any of the boomers what they were paying in there. They'll happily tell you, they'll volunteer the information, but you know.

27:57what interest rate they were paying, you know. It happens. It happens. Double-digit rates of, you know, mortgage rate happens. And it's just like, you're never paying that off, man. And it's - If rates go to 6.68%, so that's 1 % more to your point. You're right. You're back at the same payment you'd be paying now over 30 years. Yep. But over 50 years, so same repayment, and an extra - What have I done here? Yeah, 6.68%,$400 ,000 over. So not only are you already paying$2 million in interest, it's now$2.5 million in interest. Someone will go, oh, but in the US it's set for loans. Okay, fine, sure it is.

28:36But, you know, that also means you can't move. Correct. And that is actually something that people are complaining about. They locked in these incredibly low mortgage rates now, but it just removes a sort of mobility, which any economist would say is actually a really good thing for the economy, right? You want people to sort of reduce frictions for mobility. So there are people who are just like, I am never leaving because I can't afford to, right? If I move and I have to refinance and all that, I'm screwed. Anyway, and in Australia, we don't have that. So it's sort of like it's a moot point for us here.

29:10Anyway, I think we've vlogged this. It's a dumb idea, top to bottom. There's no way it makes sense unless you're a real estate agent, mortgage broker, a banker, or a politician. Now, outside of those casts, you know, you're hiding for nothing. Speaking of hiding for nothing, speaking of stupid politicians, because, you know, they're not all stupid, but a lot of them are, unfortunately, in this sort of case. Only 99 % of them. Yeah, actually, you know the worst part. They're not. As I said, they're craving all stupid and they're not stupid. Yeah. Which is worse. I missed this, mate. I missed this.

29:42This was announced back in late October. And I don't know if I was asleep, but I think you missed it as well. I suspect it wasn't unveiled in particularly large letters, maybe for the reasons that you might expect. The federal government has announced an inquiry into, quote, oh, sorry. I'm going to read this straight out from the Fin Review. Professor Richard Holden, really good writer. I don't always agree with him, but he does a good job. Quote, on October 20, the government announced a, quote, consultation on making supermarket price gouging illegal, end quote, as it released the exposure draft of its legislation.

30:16That's the end of Richard's. Now, I've got to read a couple of things. First, he says, the consultation closed on November 5. That's 14 work days. Second, this is again Richard, it made the sound observation the ACCC found there are significant barriers to entry in the supermarket sector and that coals and walleys have limited incentive to compete on price. Third, the exposure draft makes clear that the government wants to reduce what economists call, quote, price cap regulation, end quote. Quote, as the draft puts it, quote, very large retailers may be liable to a civil penalty for supplying or offering to supply grocery products to consumers at excessive prices, end quote.

30:55What's excessive? I was going to ask you the same question. I mean, it's subjective, right? I always start with the acknowledgement here because you can jump to your ideological preference very quickly. and I made this observation with a friend actually recently is that I think too often we end up talking past each other because we have different ideas of what words mean. I said something about socialism on Twitter. I really regret it because people see you as some like, I mean, like it's a loaded term. And it's like, when you start peeling it apart, it's like, oh, that's what you, oh, I don't mean that by that word i mean this by that word and it's like i actually think we're we're actually in a like staunch agreement on a lot of things but these these terms just sort of get a little bit you know um hard to do but but you know so so let me acknowledge that this always comes from a good place and people see well there's a cost of living crisis my groceries have gone up it's very visual right it's very visceral it's right in front of me like this sucks this is where I'm feeling it at the pump, at the petrol station, I'm feeling it my electricity bill, I'm feeling it at the grocery.

32:13These big megacorps are to blame for it. Now, I'm the last person to step up to the defence for the megacorps. I think they've got a whole bunch of unfair structural advantages which sort of probably don't reflect proper capitalism in the way that it should be. But it's too short-sighted. It's too near term. And it's just a wonderful shell game to basically sort of say, oh, it's not us. It's them. Right? Exactly. And again, it may sound like a bit of a nutter, but it's like I would argue very stringently and anyone who will listen, it's like the root cause of it is all of the rampant money printing.

32:54That's why we've got inflation. And a massive, massive component of that is unfunded structural deficit spending by the government. They keep borrowing at infinitum and they get free backstop by a central bank that can print money out of thin air. That's the problem. It's complicated. It's a bit nuanced. It's a bit difficult. But it's much easier to go, oh, Coles is charging more for eggs. It's Coles' fault. And politically, right, that's the other thing. We think they're charging a lot because the prices are up. Politicians say, you know what? You're right. They are bad people and I'll fix it for you.

33:25I mean, it is political bastardry, really, honestly. I don't use that term lightly, although it's not a particularly offensive term these days. It is just straight out. They know. They've had inquiries. Alan Fels did an inquiry on behalf of the union movement. That's the point of having an inquiry, yeah. On behalf of the union movement. And they went, yeah, no, no price gouging. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, but they must be, right? So we'll look again. We'll keep looking until we find it because if we do, then we get to say inflation is not our fault. It's their fault. Just pay delight for it. Their AI will tell you what you want to hear.

33:51It's the odd utopia thing we walked in. What would you like to see? Oh, we want a free and fair inquiry. Yes, of course, but what would you like us to do? Well, just look into it and see what you can find. Yes, of course. But if you had a view, what would you like the view to be? I don't mind. Okay, well, what would the minister - I don't know why I'm laughing. I should be crying. What would the minister like? Well, I suppose the minister would like to see some price. Thank you very much. We've got enough. No, no. Do you need anything more? No, no. I think we can take it from here. It's just, it's all that.

34:17I'm going to - Let me very quickly try and lay out why it's a dumb idea. And by the way, the new New York mayor is trying to go down this path with rent controls. Again, great intent. I get the desire. I get the problem. There's definitely a problem and it definitely needs to be fixed. But let's just, I threw our eggs there before. So let's say, and here's the other root challenge of it. Someone, somewhere, a person, a group of people have to make a subjective decision as to what is excessive. Because it is a subjective term. What you consider excessive, I might not. A listener out there might completely disagree.

34:53I mean, there's no right, there's no formula to solve that tells you at this exact monetary point, it becomes excessive and everything below. You don't know, right? So there is that massive difficulty. But let's put that aside, right? And you go, well, I think a carton of eggs shouldn't cost more than$2, right? And you go, okay, that's good. I don't like paying any more for eggs. And if I could pay$2 for a dozen eggs, that'd be fantastic. Now, remember, someone makes those eggs. ultimately a chicken but that chicken's got to be bread it's got to be housed it's got to be fed you know it's got to be uh inoculated it's got a whole bunch of i have talked to a chicken farm back in a million years ago one of the jobs i had over um christmas holidays was scooping out chicken sheds it was like hell on earth i do not recommend it to anyone um but i thought it was good money at the time but anyway so the chicken because again someone makes this that there's a chicken farmer out there somewhere going i can run this thing with the most perfect level of efficiency and it costs me three dollars to make a dozen eggs yep and then and then i've got to pay someone and then someone's got to like ship it or pack it and then ship it and then stock it you know the supermarket needs a cut so the prices are a signal we've got always remember that it's telling us something so what do you do when the government points the proverbial gun at your head and said, you can't charge more than$2 and it costs you$3.

36:21You either do one of two things. You go, well, I guess with my billions and billions of dollars, I'm happy to sell as many eggs as I can and make a loss on each one because it's good for the economy. The more eggs I sell them, more money I'll lose. But you know, that's okay. Yeah, it's fine. I like losing money and I've got the balance sheet to fund it. Or in reality, they go, well, I guess I'm closing down. And guess what? In an effort to make sure that everyone gets cheap eggs, you actually make eggs ultra scarce. And if you remember your year nine economics, supply versus demand, suppliers just crashed through the floor.

36:52So guess what? Prices are now going to be even natural. Natural prices are going to be even higher. Not only does it work, it's counterproductive. It's like the opposite. They don't go up on the shelf because they won't because they're capped. What happens? You just create a black market for it. So your point about natural prices, what you've done is you've incentivized everybody else to effectively sell eggs for$9 a dozen anyway. So there's four packets of eggs on the shelves. Russian bread shortages. The before package eggs on the shelf is all selling for$2. When they're gone, they're gone and we'll go, oh, there's no eggs anymore.

37:21And there's a massive line out the back of the farm where the bloke's like, look, I'm selling you for five bucks. Just don't tell anyone, all right? I'm not trying to rip you off here. I'm just trying to make some money. So I'll sell it at the back of the shelf. Not make some money. It's not even I'm trying to make. I mean, we've got to stop considering profit as this evil thing. Like, I'm so sick of it. I hear it all the time on the news. I've got a lot of friends who talk, oh, yeah, it's all about profit. But it's like, do you give your time away for free? Yeah. Like, no, you don't. Do you charge your employer less than you can get away with?

37:53Right. I'm going to say to my boss, look, I could probably work for you for X dollars. I'll work for half of that because I believe in price caps on wages. Yeah. No, you don't. Oh, no. Oh, you don't believe that. You only believe it for other people. Exactly. Or they're for bad businesses. Big, bad businesses, mate, because they're awful. If you want to do something, right, it's got to be worth your while to do it. Not because you're an evil person, because otherwise, again, you must have a capacity and a desire to be extraordinarily charitable out of your own pocket. So if you've got billions of dollars and you want to offer a bunch of stuff to people below cost, then I commend you for doing that.

38:31But 99.99999%, not even in that position. So we can't do it. So all that profit says is it says you're able, if you make a profit, and again, let's remove all the nasty crony capitalistic nonsense that goes on in our economy. But let's say that you actually make a profit. It just meant that you were able to deliver someone a good or a service at a cost that was at a price that was above your cost to produce. In other words, you had an incentive to do it. In other words, you will have an incentive to keep doing it. And as long as people keep buying off, you're not because someone put a gun to their head because they just like the eggs that you make or they like the service that you provide.

39:10That's why they're doing it. It's why any of us buy anything. So we want the thing that we're paying for. It's like, well, I guess I'll keep paying the person who satisfies that for me very well. They've got an incentive to do it. I've got an incentive to do it. Everyone wins, right? It's not an evil thing. and it just it really drives me sad but drives me mad and sad as well because it's sort of like look this isn't this isn't too oh let me let me backfill this a little bit quick because people go oh yes but and then you will find absolutely you'll find examples of gouging of un you know rampant rent seeking and all of this horrible kind of stuff yeah absolutely exists and no one's advocating for that but to point to the exception to the rule and then say advocate therefore or profit should not exist.

39:56It's like, well, okay, but then there's no incentive for us to anyone to do anything. Even if you work for the union and you're as left, as left, as left as possibly can be, it's like, you're still not rocking up to the union for free. They're paying you. Of course they're paying you, right? Like that's how the world works. And it just, it seems so obvious. I don't even know why I need to explain it, but it just, it feels as though like a lot of people miss this really fundamental point and I'm probably not even doing it well. You are, mate, you are. And here's the thing, right? So what should the government...

40:25We've talked about this before. What should the government be doing? Making sure there are grounds for competition to work in an as unfettered way as possible. Yep. And that's kind of it, right? And this... Richard Holden makes an article, a great AFR article, as I said, written during the week. Makes it... Just like... That's the job, right? Why would you cap prices? You would cap prices if you... Well, other than for political expediency, which frankly this is. I mean, that's the other problem. We're talking about economics as if it matters. And it absolutely matters, except if you're making stupid political decisions where you're just like, I'm going to ignore the economics because I've got a political point to make.

40:58And I'm going to screw everything up so I can make a political point. And that is the biggest debacle of the law, right? Which is they either don't know or know and don't care that this is a stupid way to set policy. Why? So they can say on election day, we set a cap for prices. They can't screw you anymore. You're welcome. Vote for us. Which is absolute stupidity. It's madness. Again, it was not stupidity. It's craven, moronic, self-interested, damaging for the economy, right? For all the reasons Ram said. If you want, and Richard Holt makes this point, if Willis and Carl's like, let's say they're profiteering.

41:31What do you want? You're in competition. You want other people to come in and say, Jeff Bezos is a line. We've said a million times, your margin is my opportunity. If there's no money there. Willis is making a 12 % net. I'll happily take 8%. I'll happily take 8%. I'll take 6%. I'll take 4%. The market will find its level. That's how it works. Now, is there land banking? Is there other stuff we could change? Probably, yeah. Totally, 100%. And again, that's what I mean. Government's job is to maximize the opportunity for competition to play out. That's the job, right? Capping prices because you just think X dollars is too high.

42:03Here's the other thing Holden says. This gets a bit nuanced, mate, but it's also worth it because even if capping was somehow defensible, he says this, quote, let's start with a simple question. What is price gouging? Actually, that's an incredibly difficult question. One, first, to even begin to think about whether prices are excessive, requires the regulator to know what a supermarket's costs are. But they don't. Two, second, costs aren't simple objects. How one allocates overheads to specific products is arbitrary, or at least fluid. And three, what if some prices being high cross-subsidised price of other items, such as staples that are low?

42:39Oh, they used to lost lead on milk and bread, remember? They still do. Arnots are sold at 50 % off. Arnots shapes on the front page of the thing. Coke, same thing. That could benefit lower income shoppers at the expense of higher income shoppers. Do we really want to call that price gouging, asks Richard Holden. I mean, it's true. And then the question is, well, how much money is too much? Yeah. What is excessive? Someone has to decide. What's the excessive price, right? Yeah. Who's going to decide? Are they going to share your views? Are they going to be right? Are they going to be reasonable?

43:04Are they going to be complete nut job ideologues? Like you don't, you just don't know. It's really difficult. I just want to touch on something you said there before, because it's the language that's used. And you're 100 % right. You said bad for the economy. Yep. And it's another thing that I, as a term, I'm more and more bristle against because it's sort of, I agree with you, right? Like it is bad for the economy. But I think in a politician's mind, that's in and of itself the end goal. And when they say the economy, they just mean GDP growth, which is one really, really narrow dimension to it.

43:36No, you used it in the proper term. So I'm not having a go at you, but I need to unpack it because it is a term that gets thrown around a lot. and what it really means is your standard of living and what it really just means like here's here's here's the most uncontroversial statement ever every single human ever except for perhaps some weird weirdos out there we basically want as much as we can get for as little effort as we can get that's just rational right if i can if i can have 12 ferraris a harborside mansion never work and eat steak and lobster all day long and i only have to do one hour a week i will take that right You know, it's just like generally that's what people are going to do.

44:14When we say things are bad for the economy and we actually have a proper conception of what we mean by the economy, what we're really saying is that, yeah, life is going to get harder for you and other people. And that is, I think, a self-evidently bad thing. So it's not this got to get away from, you know, unemployment and GDP or even inflation. These are all interesting data points in and of themselves, but I always like to try and bring it back to the very real, tangible, lived experience of people. If you, dear listener, right there, probably on your way to work, right, as you listen to this podcast, working as long as you've ever worked and as hard as you've ever worked and getting further and further behind.

44:59That's bad for the economy, right? Not because of whatever it means to some abstract notion of quarterly GDP and, you know, whatever they're going to report in the AFR. but for you in your life and what you need to do to get the things that you desire and that you need. And again, the final point, which I always have to make is it's like it is the least advantage to really wear it the most because the least advantage only have their labor to sell. They don't have a share portfolio. They don't have 18 different investment properties where the asset can protect you against some of these kinds of things.

45:33It's heinous. It's evil. It's wrong. This is why economics matters so much because it's really just, it just tries to get to the very pernicious reality of the fact that there is scarcity in this world, whether it's, you know, land or lobsters or eggs, it exists. And it's up against the unfettered, unlimited demand of us as a species. And so you've got to figure out how to make stuff and divide it all up, right? And whenever you start getting, whenever it starts to be purely ideological and purely bureaucratically kind of driven, it just, again, it's like, I feel like I'm just making an assertion and trust me, bro.

46:14But history, just if there's one thing we can draw from history is like just every time that happens, we all collectively end up poor. Some people end up much, much, much better off, right? So we do have to acknowledge that. But in aggregate, it's very bad. I just want to make that point. Like economics matters for all of those reasons and why I get so worked up about this kind of stuff. Because if you're against inequity, if you're against, you know, unfair profiteering and the rest of it, then economics really matters. It's kind of like it's super, super important if you want a more equal, more prosperous society.

46:53And so it's more than just a textbook kind of thing. Yep. No, totally. I mean, at the end of the day, we said for years, the economy is there to serve society all the way around. Yeah. And however you define it, however you aggregate it, that's the job is to make people better than that. If we're not doing that, we're missing the point somewhere badly. And also too, that no one knows what you want better than you do. So it's actually, even if you were, okay, yeah, I agree with all of that. Yes, it's all about maximizing human prosperity. Well, how, I'll make you king of the world, right? Okay, thanks.

47:24Okay, do it. like okay so now you've got to understand the subjective judgment preferences situations opportunity costs of literally 27 million people in australia not just now but tomorrow and the day after that like how do you do that you're gonna stuff it up right and it's this sort of like that's why when we sort of i very much advocate for like when we're talking about what's good for the economy let people decide what they think is good for the economy how does it best serve you And again, ultimately, you're going to try and get as much as you can for as little effort as you can, right? So you've got the time to really do the things that matter, which is family, friends, community, all this corny, old-fashioned kind of stuff, which you just can't do when you're working.

48:05You and your partner are both working 80 hours a week in dirt servitude on paying off your 50-year mortgage while some economist in Martin Place tells you it's good for the economy. And what are you worried about? GDP was up 2.3 % this quarter. Crazy. That's a good point. Very good point. Very well made. Motley Fool Money. For more, subscribe to the free newsletter at fool.com.au forward slash listener. When you've got too many ideas and too little time, that's when you need Wix for your website. Wix helps business owners like you and me get more done without burning out. It's packed with AI tools that actually make running your business online easier.

48:43Build a full site just by talking with AI. Get an AI agent to manage your sales and marketing or work like a 10-person team, even if it's just you. Try it for yourself at Wix.com. Mate, I've got a couple of things to get through, so we'll try and do one quickly and then spend a bit of time on the extra one because I suspect you've got a lot to say or talk about. Menu Log went broke this week. Or at least, or should say, went broke. It withdrew from the Australian market. It's owned by a Dutch-based company, a new parent company. The business was sold to someone else, sold to someone else. It was Aussie-based, Aussie-formed.

49:15Yeah, it was. Found it here. Yeah, that's right. So five years ago, there were at least five large food delivery mobs. Foodora. I didn't even remember those guys. Went to exit the market in 2018. We lost... Oh, man, I'm going to forget the name. Deliveroo. Deliveroo in 2022. 2025 is the year that we lose MenuLog, leaving effectively, at least at any scale, only Uber Eats and DoorDash. MenuLog... Get this, but I didn't realise it was this bad. In Australia, Manulog lost$400 million over the last three completed financial years. I shouldn't say last three, actually. 22, 23, and 24. I don't think 25 numbers are out yet.

49:50It's not completed, that's why. So 22, 23, 24,$400 million they lost in total trying to win, effectively, a land grant. This was new business, and it's really illustrative of a whole lot of stuff. But effectively, when you've got five plus players all trying to win the war to become large enough, have enough scale, enough dominance, enough efficiencies, enough whatever to profitably serve the delivery market in Australia. There were some numbers at one point. Menu Log was losing apparently. I heard on Wednesday. $400 million, was it? Yeah, sorry, but up to$40 per order at one point. So we were paying for food, in some cases paying a delivery fee, and they were still losing$40 in order.

50:34When you advertise things like marketing, and can I say, by the way, my favourite thing about Menu Log going broke is those stupid ads are going to go away. Oh, Snoop Dogg. How much did they pay for that? Right? Speaking of losing money, I mean, we're talking about it, so maybe it was effective, but they just couldn't scale. And this is, you know, when you are in a business that is growing so quickly, effectively funded by private equity. We've had food delivery subsidised for a decade. Oh, yeah, yeah. The customers are the winner here. Exactly. 100%. By private equity investors throwing money at this thing, trying to get to the top of a greasy pole faster than anybody else, knowing the poll can only hold one or two or three players.

51:11Turns out in Australia, it seems to be two is the maximum, at least for now, whether both DoorDash and Uber Eats survive. Apparently, globally, they're both making money, those two companies. So in theory, maybe Australia, they never make it because the market's too small or we're too geographically spread or something else. But at least for now, those two seem like they're going to hang around. But yeah, it was an interesting kind of observation, just one of those trade of destruction. It's about private equity. It's loss leading. It's race for scale. Yes. It's just this really interesting kind of business outtakes from the failure.

51:43Yes. So the only obvious question, given our recent series of podcasts, is when is the government going to bail them out? Like, surely. What about the jobs? Correct. The jobs. All those drivers. Come on, let's bail. I mean, like, I'm dead serious. Why not? Like, I bet you there are more menu log drivers than there are steel workers in Wyala. Oh, gotcha. So we use one as a rationalization to bail out one company. So someone out there right now is going, strategic value, you know, it's like we need a smelter, but we don't need derivative, some nonsense like this. But, you know, anyway, so they're not going to get bailed out.

52:24Good. Not because I wish anyone harm, but it's just like, again, this is back to the earlier point. This is what happens when there's no profit, right? It's like, oh, so we've now lost variety and choice in the market because they weren't making money. And it turns out making money is kind of important if you want the thing to stick around. Yeah, exactly. The other thing is I actually saw elsewhere in the Fin, there was an article and they're talking about how much you charge for a menu log. So what it is on the menu if you just walk into the restaurant versus there's a service fee, there's a delivery fee, and there's a markup on the price.

52:59And the tone of the article was really interesting. It's like, oh, those buggers. It's like, well, think about it. I mean, yes, it's probably more opaque than it otherwise needs to be, but someone has to pay the piper. Someone is getting on a bike, riding through the rain and the hail and the sleet and the snow, dealing with really bad traffic, awful conditions. I mean, these casual workers get just, they don't get super. They don't get all of the other benefits that so many other people benefit from, but they've still got to be paid. Even the pittance that they do get paid must be paid, right?

53:31And it's just sort of like, of course, right? And so they've done all of this and still not made money. And think about it yourself. Like what would be required of you to get onto an electric bike and ride around for eight hours on a Friday night taking food to other people? Now everyone's going to have their own price, right? But I would imagine for a lot of us it's a pretty reasonable price. Yeah. And ultimately that's got to come from the person who's receiving the value of the service. which is I don't want to get off my bum and drive to the kebab shop. I want someone to deliver it to me. And I'm not even having a go.

54:12There's no judgment in that. I'm guilty as charged. But it's not a charity. It has to be paid for. And what all of these companies did ever since Uber and Airbnb really kicked this whole thing off, which was we'll lose money up front to gain market share and we'll all make it back eventually. It's kind of like negatively gearing. We'll lose bleed cash now, but don't worry. Eventually, the property will sell for enough to make it all worthwhile. In this case, it worked out. It kind of happens in every business, right? I mean, even capital-intensive businesses, you buy the steel mill before you make your first bar of steel.

54:44So you say, well, I'm going to try and enter the steel market. I'm going to spend, I don't know what steel mill costs, a billion dollars. To build a steel mill, hopefully someone will buy my steel. And so it's not all that different, but it's still the same idea of let's bleed the cash in whatever form, hoping that at some future point we'll get a return on that investment. Oh, absolutely. It's more that the derision that you hear is like, oh, I used to get it for free and now they charge. It's like, yeah, because someone's got to, again, that's how it works. And even with all of that really, that hyper competition, that easy free credit essentially from private equity, they still couldn't make it work.

55:18And those that have managed to make the pivot, I'll just use, I'll pick on Uber, not even pick on Uber, just use them as an example. It's like, I remember, I actually remember when they first came, we were working together at the time. I think the first time I caught an Uber might have actually been with you. I was like, this is fantastic. It's so cheap and convenient. If you get in an Uber now, it's just like a taxi. Drivers are annoyed, you know, they're late. It costs a fortune. It's a sort of like, you know, it's a taxi in every single way. And again, it has to be because the market sort of needed to pay up for it.

55:51And just, it turns out that once you're in that position to sort of flex that pricing power, you flex it because you have to, to recoup your losses and to remain viable going forward. And so if you can't make that transition, if you can't get funding for long enough for that to happen, you're going to go out of business. So I'm not dancing on the grave here of Menulog at all, other than to say that this is the natural end game of running an viable product with no near term viability in sight. And so I suspect when this fully plays out, But again, free markets doing free market stuff, if allowed to do so, we will reach a point where that service is provided to us, the consumer, at a price that reflects the very real costs of getting people to jump on an e-bike, buy the e-bike, jump on the e-bike, dedicate their time, you know, cover all of the expenses to do that.

56:41And then we will make the choices like, do I want to pay 35 % extra to not get off the couch or do I do it? And I'm not even, no value joke. But that's the choice that we made. And it will be through all our collective interactions that determine what that level is. And, you know, but I do suspect that now that we've only got the two major ones left, they'll start flexing their pricing power. They'll put up prices. And they have to. They kind of have to. Otherwise, they'll go the way of menu log and then no one's delivering anything, right? Well, it's not even really a bad thing. We got a special, we had an introductory deal while they had other funders fund our meal purchases for a while.

57:21It's great for us. Yeah, which is great. But don't expect it to last that way, right? Yeah, correct. And why wouldn't it? It can't. Yeah, correct, correct. Mate, should we get to the tease at the beginning of the podcast? Lay it out for me. Lay it out for you. We run out of time, unfortunately, so let's... No? No. No? No. It's possible. Come on, fess up. It's possible. It's possible. I'm trying to get rid of teeth. You know, you do something you regret it immediately. I wasn't an immediate regret. It's kind of a delayed regret. Earlier this week, I bought some Bitcoin. Hey! Everyone bends on the occasion eventually.

57:58Absolutely. Of course you did, because you're not an idiot. Well done, sir. All I have in my head is you saying in previous times, everyone gets the price they deserve, Scott. Everyone does. And what happened after you bought it? The price fell. Of course. Every time. Now, I'm going to write a little bit more about this, because it does need a bit of a detailed and thoughtful spelling out. Before you do, can I just say I want to dispel any – I think the setup here sounds like I'm going to be opposite, absolute opposite, full respect. You took your time and like anyone else who's spent any time looking at it, like you've just reached the inevitable natural conclusion, surprising as it is to all of us, right?

58:40and so I'm not going to laugh at you. I'm going to do nothing other than to congratulate you and say well done for being a flexible thinker and letting the facts lead you where they inevitably will lead anyone who makes the concerted effort to have a good faith, open-minded investigation into this crazy thing. So well done, sir. I've got nothing but respect. I thought about a smugness in that thing of like, well, I was always right and you just had to realise I was right, Scott. But some of us are right sooner than others. And look, you know, so it's, it's, I don't even really know the best way to try to spell out or explain what's going on, but it requires, it requires some, right?

59:21Welcome to my world. I have, now we all know I own, those who listen to this podcast, this is my second time with Bitcoin. And I will absolutely say, and as much as you're not going to, you know, dance on the proverbial grave or claim too much credit, it's absolutely to your credit that you've been thoughtful and careful and clever and slow and detailed and all those good things and explaining what's going on to your mind. What I think is, I'm not going to, and we've got a short amount of time, even when I write something about it, it's not going to be long and you can't do the whole story. You can't.

59:50And I'm not going to make the case for Bitcoin either. But what's worth – the reason I'm taking time with this is because there is a sense of – and you've been through this yourself, mate, which is our traditional finance guy buys Bitcoin, therefore some sort of victory slash, you know, coming over to the dark side or the bright side of being able to look at it. The traditional finance guy is like, oh, he's an idiot. And the, you know, the crypto bros, which I know you love, Andrew, or the Bitcoins anyway. Oh, thank God he's here. Oh, look, we've converted another one. We made another win. This is great.

1:00:19And so it kind of gets caught up in all that sort of stuff. And I've bought a very small amount of Bitcoin. I'm not going to disclose how much, and I won't disclose how much. I don't do any of my shares at all. Only three or four of them? No. Bitcoin. Sorry. I only deal in double digit numbers. you know that so yeah and the share price Bitcoin price hasn't gone down so I bought it so thank you very much you own me I tweeted and wrote about this ages ago I want to say ages it might have been a year ago do you remember the Twitter thread made about it yes I do and it was basically for the longest time and you've made the point about the level of risk is down even as the price has gone up for the longest time Bitcoin was misunderstood and frankly unproven or at least I want to say unproven the tech hasn't changed markedly and I'm no expert by the way checkers changed it's barely changed but it's not nothing but it's not in no fundamental way is the tech changed the base layer anyway but the reality is could it have been fatally flawed yes could there have been an unknown or unexpected problem yes could there have been something that was a showstopper a hacker whatever yes so early on very reasonable I think and I'm not going to excuse me this is not by the way me justifying it but I want to explain to our listeners who care what's going on so there was that I was like I don't know I just don't know and no one did right and when you don't know you're not sure There's no, correct.

1:01:35There's no harm in saying, I just wait and see. So I did. I bought some Bitcoin and I bought a hundred bucks worth ages ago just to follow along. And I did that. And even then, I didn't really follow along in any meaningful way. I bought a hundred bucks on an exchange, held it and went, okay, I guess I'll get rid of it because I've still got it. And what am I doing with it? It was an exercise and the exercise was completed. So I was done. That was also, I think, pretty reasonable. By the way, don't do the math on how much it might be worth now. I mean, it was a hundred bucks to start with, but it would have been nice to have the gains.

1:02:04and my tweet when I did it a while ago, I should have looked it up before we started chatting, was just a kind of broad observation that my concern was always, is there enough adoption to justify this thing continuing to accrete value? Will the price keep going up? That's the ultimate question. Right. And so for any product, you can say, I love this product. I think it should be worth more. And everyone else goes, no. Yeah. You know, Scott, you might love Beanie Babies. There was a time. No one loves them anymore. They're not worth, no one cares. There's 15 hardcore, right, 15 hardcore collectors, but no one else cares.

1:02:44Even if, and this is where I do, this will get me some lack of belief and support from some Bitcoiners. I'm not buying it for the mission. I'm not buying it because I want to see a thing happen, right? Or because I think the thing must happen or will happen, or I'm not saying, aha, what's going to happen is Bitcoin's going to take over the world because I wanted to because it's wonderful and great and terrific and not that I think it's bad by the way at all. I don't. I don't for a second. But this is not me jumping into it. I will say cult and I'll say cult with a smile. I don't even mean it. But I'm not saying I bought into the church and therefore everything the church says is real and I just have to believe in the Lord and Savior, you know, Satoshi and therefore I'm not going to think about this anymore.

1:03:21I'm just going to do it because I've just, I've drunk the Kool-Aid. It's an article of view of faith. Right, right. Now again, is it great? Yes. The tech, I've said for years, the tech is super cool. It's just really, really, really clever. And the more you learn about it, the cleverer it is, which is awesome. That's not enough. Right. A lot of cool tech out there, right? Right. It can't be enough. And equally, I don't think the mission is necessarily - It's going to have utility at the end of the day. Yes, yes, yes. If it doesn't solve anything for anyone, then it's just a technological curiosity.

1:03:50That's all it is. And here's the other thing. It doesn't even have to have utility for me. We talked about shares before. What do I own shares that I don't use? I've never been to a dare store in my life, ever. Right, right. My wife loves pillows on the bed. I hate pillows on the bed. I love you, sweetie, but fair dinkum. We've got like eight pillows on the bed. I just have to take them off every day. And then we make them put them back on again. And they're just in the way. And I hate pillows on the bed. It's almost a meme at this point, that phenomenon. Anyway. Yeah, of course. Because other people want pillows on the bed, right?

1:04:22And by the way, just because my wife loves pillows on the bed, it doesn't mean that it doesn't make money either. That's why this is a great example for Bitcoin. It can be, she can love pillows and theirs might still go broke, right? I can hate pillows and theirs might still make a gazillion dollars or somewhere in between on both those scores. And so for me, the Bitcoin thing is, I think it is reasonable to believe that the tech and the underpinning infrastructure is solid enough that there's a very, very, very good chance it survives. Not 100 % because nothing's 100%, but it's proven itself for long enough.

1:04:54I think it's going to survive. I think the people who love the hell out of this thing are actually really valuable to the cause because they're out there proselytizing. So other people are like, yeah, I get it. I'm going to do it too. What does that mean? If more people join the church, and I've got shares in the church, the church is worth more money. Now, part of me wants to say churches aren't money-making ventures. Other parts of me think that some of them are. And if you remember those churches, good day. So if more people join the church, I make more money. Okay, that's pretty convincing too.

1:05:25and that's kind of about where it comes to. I said in the tweet, if I do end up buying Bitcoin and I have, it will be probably because adoption continues to rise. Now, Em, you've made some really good points on air and off air recently. You've got lots of big ETF providers. You've got lots of big managed funds. You've got the US government. I love the US government's administration currently, but it's not nothing. They're doing it. You've made the point to me that payment providers are now enabling payments to be received and made in Bitcoin. Shout out to Square. There you go. And so the trajectory is looking pretty positive.

1:05:58Now, there's a limited number of things and more people want to use and own those things. There's a pretty good chance those things become more valuable over time. And I've got to say, more or less, that's kind of my investment thesis, which more people probably use. It's my investment thesis, yeah. Right. And so you've won me across. Now, one, I want to talk about valuation very quickly, and then I'll let you jump in with some thoughts, mate, because it's not all about me. But I just want to be really clear about what's going on. for the longest time I have been an investor who says I want to see a basis for valuation that is I see a cash flow I see a profit I see a dividend I see a thing a future profit Kogan's not making any money drink everybody I own shares he's making small amount of money now I'm not buying it I'm not paying a large multiple today's profit because I think today's profit is as good as it's going to be I think the profit will grow over time so it doesn't need to be last year's earnings it can be next year's earnings or it can be five years time's earnings but there's a fundamental basis and for a while for a very long while it took me a long time to wrap my head around trying to be have take that approach to bitcoin without feeling like i was just purely speculating and frankly both personally and because i'm an investment advisor the day job i felt like i had to be able to consistently and reasonably explain why i was just going off on a flyer speculating gambling betting that bitcoin might be worth more in future and what it came down to for me in the end mate and it's been a process been a evolving process is is it you've talked about this before and one of the things you said to me a while ago i'm pretty sure on the pod but might have been might have been separately is the product is the price the price is the product you can use those words i don't think directly but that's what i took from and then in that case it's kind of not important but super important right it's the only thing but then it's nothing so it doesn't produce anything the thing is though because there's a limited number of them the price reflects demand.

1:07:46Now, does it say how much an individual Bitcoin should be individually, specifically worth? No, you can't really do that. You can compare it against other asset classes. You've done this before. You compare it to gold, compare it to other, you can do that sort of stuff and you can, and that's not an unreasonable way to do it. For me, what I kind of came down to - 10 times better than gold and it's worth one-tenth the price of gold. There you go. That's how I look at it. So for me, what it came down to, was I will buy Kogan shares or someone else's shares on the assumption that in some future time, the representative value generally in revenue terms will go up because more people like the product or the service that the company is providing.

1:08:30So I will use profit to say I will pay X times profit. And that's always going to be a gap for Bitcoin. You can't ever do that. But what I did kind of end up deciding was that If I think Coke and we'll sell a lot more stuff in five years than today, that increase in demand reflects an increased desire for the thing. In this case, Coke and retail services. It could have been cans of Coke. Coke's an even better one because it's a physical product, right? Now, again, they're consumed and replaced, so it's not nothing. This is perfect. but the idea that people will want more of that in future is an assumption i make and willingly uh try and guesstimate some sort of educated guess i think people drink more coke in future because x if i don't do that i can't believe coke's gonna be worth more in the future and if i don't think it's worth more over the same amount i've got to believe that's true how do i how do i know that people can drink the same amount of coke in five years time now it's a shorter part to think well it's been happening for a hundred and something years it's addictive uh it feels good it's cash and all.

1:09:30You can make an argument as to why they might do it, but you've got to believe they're going to drink as much or more and then work out some sort of price. Now, because there is no profit, really, Bitcoin's equivalent to betting on Coke's revenue in my mind or Coke's unit sales. So my, and this is where I came to being comfortable enough to at least consider a very small position in Bitcoin was if it's true that uptake continues, if there are only so many of them, than supply and demand. You and I talk about supply and demand 101 all the time. What does supply and demand look like? It looks like the same number of units available and more people wanting them.

1:10:08And what does that mean? It means the price is probably higher. And very quickly, it's the only thing in the world where increasing demand does not induce a supply response either. Other than pictures by dead artists. But yes, it's effective. Oh, yeah, sure. But yes, yes, yes. I can't take the Mona Lisa, divide it up into four billion pieces and give it a little bit to everyone to buy coffee with, though. But yes, yes, yes. Yeah. I'm not doing it to be – I wasn't going to be facetious. There are examples, but you're right, in the mainstream sense of any other supply and demand interaction. And to your point, when more people want Coke, people don't go, huh, oh, well, I guess I'll pay more for it then.

1:10:44They go, we should make a lot more Coke. Or oil, or soybean, or wheat, or coal, or iron ore. Yep, exactly. Yep. Exactly. They will find it. No, you nailed it, mate. That's the short version of why. I don't want people to rush out and buy Bitcoin for the sake of it. I suspect, hope, that we will see an increase in uptake over time. If I didn't, I wouldn't. You've made the point that adoption is the only mechanism you're looking at in terms of, I think that's fair to say. I've got a double woes your mouth. I mean, there's a lot around it, but that's what it's distilled. But it boils down to if more people need to use it, and if it doesn't, then, yeah, it's not going to go on.

1:11:25If people stop using it and do something else, then there's a very good chance the price falls at that point the thesis is fine and that's fine and by the way I'm also not because I'm not on the church of Bitcoin it doesn't need to become the global standard for me for this investment to work out I'm not looking if it does dude if it just replaces half a gold you're going to make a fortune there's a 5x upside right and now that's easy to say and I will say that's not my thesis either I don't have a I haven't done the whole you have to contextualise it somehow yeah totally right so yeah I don't know I don't know if there's anything you want to add I want to explain I want to share Is there anything I want to add?

1:11:58The floor is yours. No, no, mate. No, you've laid it out well. The only thing I will try and augment some of the points that you made because there will be some people listening going, well, so you're basically saying as long as more people want it, it will go up, which is true. But I would just go one layer deeper and go, well, why would more people want it? Because if they want it for the sake of it, then it is just a Ponzi. Like, why do we want it? Because I think other people will want it. Why do other people want it? Because they think other people will want it. So we're all just going to have this thing and we're not actually going to do anything with it, but it's just going to go up because we all want it to go up.

1:12:37And at some point, I guess we'll cash it in. And it's sort of, that's where I think naturally trips up a lot of people. And I think that for me, at least one of the many epiphanies along the way was it's like, no, there has to be utility there, right? And it's money. Utility is the money. So for me, I don't necessarily think that needs – well, there is utility already. Yeah. People have to believe there's utility, I suppose. I would – to my mind – I'm not buying it for vibes, man. I'm buying it because it solves a very, very real problem for me and everyone on planet Earth, which is – I'm going to step back from that, though.

1:13:10So for me personally, I don't need to believe a Picasso solves a problem to believe that more people want it and pay more for that Picasso in a period of time's time. Yeah. Right? So I only need to believe other people believe it has utility. That's what I was saying about, you know, I just want to know some of the harder called Bitcoin is because I'm not saying I think it is the solution to anything in particular. It's a solution for money. I know it has utility to those people. I guess, and I'm not trying to be abstract here. I'm just trying to make the point that I'm not, I haven't decided that this is better than anything else for its own sake.

1:13:46It may well be. And I'm not saying it does not. I'm just not, I'm not having personally, as long as enough people believe that to be true, whether it's true or not is irrelevant to me. Do I think Blue Poles is worth X million dollars, the famous painting in the art gallery? No. But yes, because that's what someone paid for it. And I believe it's a popular painting. I believe there's no more of them being painted. I believe other people will want more of them in future or at least demand more for the single version we've got. And as long as it remains popular and has, in the very, very broad sense, utility, that is pleasure or scarcity or something, then I don't have to believe that Blue Poles in and of itself is a wonderful painting.

1:14:22I don't have to believe in all the attributes other people see in it for me to believe that it will become more demanded over time. Perfectly logically consistent. And I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm just saying I go a layer deeper, I suppose. And I think where everyone gets confused is they go, they think that you buy Bitcoin to make money. And I think for those of us further indoctrinated into the cult. You go, no, no, no, no. We don't, you don't buy Bitcoin to make money. You make money to buy Bitcoin. Bitcoin is just, Bitcoin is money. There's a very good reason why I use Australian dollars and not Japanese yen, right?

1:15:03Like it's just, it's got far more use. Japanese yen's great when I'm in Japan. It's absolutely useless in every other regard, right? Australian dollars brilliant here 98 of the global economy doesn't touch it right like it's absolutely useless so um so so when when when i sort of say all of that it's like i'm not i'm really not i'm not buying it because i'm waiting for that adoption to grow so i can sell it and go back to australian dollars in the same way that someone in argentina isn't swapping pesos for u.s dollars waiting for the depreciation to play out a bit more and then swapping the u.s dollars back to the peso.

1:15:41No one does that. It is a one-way street. Why? Because it's a better currency. That is why. And in fact, you have to get a little bit deep into the weeds here and sort of say, well, let's just start from the abstract. What is money? That's a very deep question. And then when I've got a view of what money is, what are the kind of characteristics I would want in a money? And I'm not going to go through it now because it'll be a six-hour podcast, but in any of the characteristics, you know, whether the sort of vulnerability, scarcity, et cetera, et cetera. Bitcoin's like 100x better than anything else.

1:16:16Like, just, it's not even, it's daylight between what it can promise and what other things can. The one shortfall it has is that it's not widely accepted. Yeah. And that's the Achilles heel that it has. It's kind of like, well, in theory, well, not in theory, it's like, it's more scarce than anything else. It's more verifiable than anything else. It's more easily transmissible than anything else. It's more permissionless than anything. Like all of the things. But I can't easily get a coffee with it, which is why I come back to adoptionist because as that goes forward, then that changes. And so in the meantime, I've got something that protects me from the rampant inflation that's out there.

1:16:58And it does. People can hang up on that too. They go, oh, well, inflation was up and this was down. Like they look over like a three-week period and they look for these perfect one-to-one correlations. and all you have to do is like, bro, zoom out. Like, how is this not protecting you from inflation, right? Like, it obviously kind of does. But it's also, I will never sell it. I'll spend it. Sometimes, in some instances, I will need to convert it before I spend it. Like if I held yen, right, and the Aussie dollar depreciated against the yen, at some point I'll sell the yen back to Aussie dollars, not because I want the Aussie dollars, but because I want to buy the things that the Aussie dollars need to buy me.

1:17:33You don't spend your shares, but you sell your shares so you can spend the money. I can't buy a coffee with my Apple stock. Oh, go. Apple stock's not worth anything. That is literally the argument that people have. Now, I mentioned Square before too. They just this week launched it on their terminals. They have four million businesses, right? And now anyone who's using that can accept Bitcoin. They don't have to do anything. There's no change in the workflow. They don't have to sign up for anything. In fact, I can pay in Bitcoin. You can receive dollars. I can pay in dollars. You can receive Bitcoin.

1:18:03I can pay in Bitcoin and you can elect to receive half in Aussie dollars and half in Bitcoin. It just, it has - Super cool. All of the arguments have died. The government's going to ban it. They're not banning. It's bad for the environment. Actually, it's good for the environment. Wall Street's never going to adopt it. No, it's been the most successful financial product that's ever existed. And guess what? Now I can buy a coffee with anyone in a square terminal. I can now go and spend my Bitcoin and they don't have to do a damn thing, right? So it's sort of like, and why? Why would they do it?

1:18:31because I don't have any credit card fees on top of that. I don't have any chargebacks. It's seamless. It's perfect. It's instant. Like, it's just, it's the utility of it. So I just wanted to go a layer deeper here and sort of say it's not just the, not that you're wrong, by the way, because it doesn't even matter why people are adopting it. It's just that they are adopting it. You're right. That's why it's right to zero in on that. I just go trying to help people get over that bridge of, yeah, but why will people adopt it? Yeah, that's fair. And again, we, we in the West are the most, I mentioned you off air that I listened to a bunch of podcasts on this kind of stuff.

1:19:09And, and there's, there's a lot of people in the human rights foundation and elsewhere who do a lot of work in Latin America and Africa. And it's like, when you go to Australia, you go to the U S this is all about number go up, you know, it's, it's an asset. And it's like for people in the Congo, for people in, you know, in Latin America, it's not, it's, it's, It actually solves a very, very prescient problem that people there, which is constant debanking and constant devaluation, where your dad can be like 56 and have had his savings being eviscerated eight times over his adult life because the government just resets, right?

1:19:45Yeah. And they're not there for any cultish religious reasons. They're there because I just want something that no one can rug pull me on, that I can truly own, I can send anywhere. It doesn't debase. And that's why it will win. And you might not look at it as solving a problem for you, but check your financial privilege. It solves a problem literally for billions of people around the world. And this is just pure logic. If adoption continues, right? And I'm already seeing it firsthand. Because you meet other Bitcoin. You go into a shop and you see a little sticker there. You go, ooh, Bitcoin. Oh, yeah, I'd say, oh, man, let me pay.

1:20:22Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, off you go. high fives and hugs all around. My people, my people. We're in this very, very unusual historical point where it's bootstrapping itself up from zero organically. No CEO, no marketing department, nothing, right? And when it gets to the point where it's sort of like, you know what? It's just in my ANZ banking app and I can spend it everywhere. Not only can I spend it everywhere, but merchants are giving me a discount on it. Why would they give me a discount because they're saving on credit card fees and chargebacks and because as more merchants become bitcoiners they just want it they just want the bitcoin they don't want the aussie dollar because when they get aussie dollars anything that's residual and they don't need for their working capital they convert to bitcoin anyway i know dozens of these these people right and and so and so that's that's that forms a momentum in in of itself and i just feel as though that's why I'm so vocal about it at this point in time.

1:21:21It's just like to sort of say it does nothing means that you just don't understand how money works. And you certainly don't understand what is desirable in a money. And yes, the adoption is the tricky part. But when you go from 2009, when Satoshi first released it to the world to today, adoption has gone up in virtually in a straight line. It looks like every other S-curve adoption, whether a TV, microwave, electricity smartphone the internet it's identical in a chart it doesn't mean it can't stop tomorrow but here's the other thing with adoption curves is that generally so two things to notice about adoption curves is generally the time it takes to get to zero to ten percent is the same time it takes to get from 10 to 90 because the network affects compound it's like at the moment only 0.1 percent of the world might use it so it's kind of pointless when 10 percent of the world use it like the utility is off the chart like it uh uh it's it's insane the other thing with with these adoption curves as well is that it gets to a point where it becomes goes from a choice to a necessity right ask yourself to i'm old you and i are both old enough we're in our 50s right yes there was a time when the internet was a luxury you might go down to the neighbor's house because they had the internet and you wanted to send an email oh you didn't need it same with color tv yeah all of these kinds of things my dad was just on the weekend was telling me stories about the you know all the the neighborhood kids went to the one rich piece of person's house in the neighborhood so they could watch the cricket right yep do you think anyone out there listening today do you consider the internet a luxury or a necessity and i would say no it's like water and electricity like it is a utility like i have to have it ask any business out there do you think that the internet is a nice to have?

1:23:07Or it's like, no, it's a necessity. And so when you progress along these adoption codes, it just gets to the point where it's like, the ideological choice to not use Bitcoin is shooting yourself in the foot. Like you are actually disadvantaging yourself at that point in time. Now, I'm not saying this is a fait accompli. It might not happen, but I can tell you that if that path continues, it will happen, right? And that's why you rightly point out the bet here. And I think this is the way that we all go. It's just the proposition today in 2025, extraordinarily different to where it was in 2012, even 2017.

1:23:46And that's why I feel it's like, don't worry about the price. The price, it'll always, if you're in Argentina, it is always a good idea to switch to dollars. It is always a good idea. No matter how much your local currency devalues, it's never a point like, well, you know. Bitcoin has no top because fiat has no bottom is the meme, right? And that's just the way it is. So what am I saying? I'm saying you're at a point now where it's like the risk-reward proposition has never been better. I'm not saying you do what I do and have a ridiculously insane, irrational allocation to your portfolio. But how do you not have 1 % at this point, right?

1:24:26You've used the analogy before of a biotech startup. But I think it's a really, I've come back to it a few times. I think it's a really good one because there's a million biotechs on the ASX that are trying to cure cancer or some horrible disease. And none of us would advocate that, well, you should buy everyone because the one that actually succeeds is going to go to the moon. While that might be true, there are so many losers that it still makes it a very, very, very poor proposition. Bitcoin is the biotech that's gone from, has now got a successful phase three trial and is on the doorstep of commercialization.

1:25:02Right, yeah, yeah. Like a PolyNovo is very different. I don't want to name them, throw anyone under the bus, but you know, a dodgy biotech company that had an interesting experiment in some rats that looks promising. Like they're both biotechs, very different, you know? And it's also, I don't know, I could go on and on and on. I've got to try and stop myself other than to say that I think your experience proves my experience and my attestation that you do not find, maybe there's an example, I've never seen one. You do not find someone who has had a good faith investigation into this and has gone away negative.

1:25:41You just don't. And then now I don't want to hold you in it. I'm going to make you promise anything, but I guarantee you, you're not stopping. You are not stopping, man. zero to one is the hardest right yeah and then at some point as you because there's nothing that sharpens the interest and the focus more than than ownership and you start paying attention a little bit more and then at some point in the time in time you'll go you know what the 0.3 allocation i need one percent you know what i need three percent allocation and and by the way the number itself will will wait as it as it goes up in value as it continues to do that it will and then you'll Look, it just, everyone is going through this experience.

1:26:22So no one who looks at it in good faith walks away. And no one who makes it an adoption, you don't ever find any ex-Bitcoiners. They don't exist. Like they just don't exist. It's like, oh, this is so much better. And I don't know. I know it looks crazy. I know it does. But it's like, I just think that if someone like Scott Phillips can adopt, that to me is like, we have won. So I'm always offended and complimented by that. I'm not sure which way I should take that one. I meant it as a compliment. I mean, only because you are, and I say this as a compliment, you are not a reckless investor. That is very much a compliment.

1:27:02You are very slow in a good way to make any, whether it's a share or nothing to do with Bitcoin. You are very methodical. You are very deliberate, right? And it's just like, and you just, you went through the process with, with a very healthy degree of skepticism and you arrived at this conclusion. And that's why I just think, yeah, we're going to win. We're going to win. And moreover, moreover, it's going to make the world a better place. It really is. And I will save that for another episode, but I am, I am here for the cause, man. I am here for, I am here for, to making the world. I think a sound money standard gets rid of all of the BS that we see out there and that we will actually have a far more even, even is not the right word, equal opportunity, fairer, more robust, higher standard of living, more prosperous economy as a result, because it turns out that sound money is really, really important.

1:27:57It's the first time ever in the history of humanity that we've actually had a sound money before the gold pugs get too excited, right? Gold naturally centralizes, which is why. Gold failed for a reason. It was the best, the best we had right it really was but it failed for a reason and and now we've actually got a fair crack at actually doing doing having a real digital permissionless open sound money and it's it's mark it in your calendars too there was there was there was pre-steam engine there was post-steam engine it's pre-electricity there was pre-sound money and there was post-sound money and history books we just live at this really really unique point in time and it feels slow to us i was like oh it's been around for when you speak to sort of retailers like it's been around forever and what's it ever done and superpowers i was like it is a blink of an eye how fast this thing has gone right like you have no clue how long it took you know tvs to be adopted or microwaves to be adopted or electricity to be adopted and like this is this when when you when you you'll find the charts out there when you look at the various s curves that are plotted this one's just vertical and it's straight up because everything is moving faster now and so i get that it looks slow i guess that it looks volatile i get that it looks crazy but i just i just don't want anyone out there to have to explain to their grandkids it's like hey grandma granddad did you just live through the disruption of money and and laugh at it the whole way like you know one chance there was there's one chance to to be to be early and and it's there there you go sorry everyone gets the price they deserve andrew but it's never till when i got it so i don't even want to it sounds like a humble brag i want but whatever price i got it at yeah it was a record all-time high yeah and i was thinking this is ridiculous i'm so late and now i look at it and go like this is like it seems so cheap yeah exactly and like that like if you can say to someone i would suggest within the next 10 years that, oh my God, you bought it around 100 ,000 US?

1:30:04Oh my God, that's so cheap. In fact, I get to a point where it's like, we're not even talking about it in dollar terms anymore. Really, honestly, we won't. Like, why would you? It just becomes the unit of account. Anyway, I'm pretty bullish. I'm going to let Andrew go and celebrate and run around the room with his hands in the air, shouting woohoo for a while, while we finish this particular the podcast and then we will come back assuming he's been able to come off his uh bitcoin high by then will you join me for a sunday morning mailbag podcast yeah hell yeah man of course in that case thanks for listening um is there is there a is there a pro bitcoin phrase is what all the cool kids say oh there's there's here's the other thing that you're you're going to find out uh as you go along this journey is all the memes are true all the memes are funny and like well you know well one bitcoin is only one bitcoin or fix the money fix the world you know Everyone gets the price that is like, they're all true, man.

1:30:57They're all true. So you can, but I'll go with fix the money, fix the world. There you go. Fix the money. Fix the world. Until Sunday. Fuller. Cheers. The Motley Fool and people appearing in this program may have positions in the companies mentioned. General advice only. Please speak to your financial professional to understand how it may pertain to your situation. Subscribe to the free newsletter at fool.com.au forward slash listener. The Motley Fool operates under Financial Services License 400691. I don't know about you, but when I'm using AI for my business, I don't need it to tell me what to do.

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