In short
Ansel Lindner argues “everyone is wrong about inflation,” claiming the real macro problem is deflation via shrinking credit and money (money = credit). He links this to deglobalization, war-driven low-trust geopolitics, and a likely end-state where countries back currencies with Bitcoin (or gold), not runaway hyperinflation.
Guest backgrounds
Ansel Lindner is a long-time Bitcoin public figure since 2016, focused on Bitcoin economics/macro and previously covered the scaling conflict. He has a military background and says he has insight into recent conflicts (Iran, Venezuela).
Key claims
- Credit-based systems fail under low trust; deglobalization shrinks global credit markets.
- This produces “hyper deflation” dynamics during financial crises (defaults wipe out liquidity), though not necessarily classic hyperinflation/hyperdeflation price spirals.
- Bitcoin fits “international settlement” in a multipolar, low-trust world; peer-to-peer payments come later.
- Bitcoin can act as a geopolitical hedge (uncorrelated over the long term), but instant crisis crashes can be bad for it.
Notable examples
- Iran reportedly accepting Bitcoin for ship payments through the Strait of Hormuz.
- Mentions U.S. strategic Bitcoin reserve talk; China easing a Bitcoin ban as a possible next step.
- Oil oversupply forecasts (surplus glut) and bond yields not spiking as inflation evidence.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOThe Malfunction of Credit Systems
0:00 to 0:45
Learn how credit-based systems may lead to a collapse in liquidity.
“The credit-based system is going to malfunction.”
War's Impact on Bitcoin and Macro Economics
1:49 to 2:45
Discover how recent global conflicts relate to Bitcoin and economic shifts.
“And so this stuff around Iran and different things that have been happening recently, you know, with Venezuela and then Iran kind of have some insight there as well.”
Deglobalization and Financial Systems
2:45 to 3:58
Explore how deglobalization is reshaping financial trust and currency use.
“No, it's just we're stepping down the road towards deglobalization.”
Bitcoin as a Neutral Currency
3:58 to 5:00
Understand why Bitcoin is favored in low-trust situations over traditional currencies.
“with zero trust what money do you use like you can't use the us dollar in that situation you have to go to something neutral like Bitcoin.”
The Future Role of Bitcoin in Global Finance
5:00 to 6:06
Learn about Bitcoin's potential as a high-powered money for international settlements.
“by a whole third of the rest of the world or something like that.”
Bitcoin as a Geopolitical Hedge
6:06 to 8:34
Examine the argument for Bitcoin being a stable asset during geopolitical tensions.
“We might not be using it in daily transactions, but it will be used with international settlement, settlement between central banks, things like that.”
Bitcoin as a Geopolitical Hedge
10:15 to 10:47
Examine the argument for Bitcoin being a stable asset during geopolitical tensions.
“There's a million things going on at the conference and it's the best way to find all the after parties and side events and connect with Bitcoiners while you're there.”
Bitcoin as a Geopolitical Hedge
10:50 to 11:33
Examine the argument for Bitcoin being a stable asset during geopolitical tensions.
“Well, by mining Bitcoin with Blockware, you can.”
Inflation vs. Deflation Perspectives
11:33 to 14:00
Delve into the speaker's views on deflation as a larger issue than inflation.
“That's blockwarsolutions.com forward slash WBD.”
Understanding Deflation and Its Impact
14:00 to 17:27
Explore how deflation affects economic cycles and markets, particularly oil.
“And that is actual deflation that's happening.”
Show all 28 chapters
The Future of Currency: Bitcoin and Gold
17:27 to 19:34
Discuss the potential shift towards backing currencies with Bitcoin or gold.
“You know, I speak to a lot of macro people and the general consensus is that inflation is the worry at the moment.”
Global Economic Dynamics and Bitcoin Adoption
19:34 to 24:10
Analyze how global economic conditions may lead to countries adopting Bitcoin.
“They've changed it so many times throughout its history.”
Bitcoin's Role in Inflation and Deflation Scenarios
24:10 to 28:00
Examine how Bitcoin can act as both an inflation and deflation hedge in economic crises.
“One thing I've said for a long time is that Bitcoin aligns incentives, and I don't see how Bitcoin can be against the dollar.”
Bitcoin as a Hedge Against Inflation and Deflation
28:00 to 28:54
Explore how Bitcoin acts as a hedge in both inflationary and deflationary environments.
“So deflation or inflation, Bitcoin wins.”
Surprises in Bitcoin's Price Action
28:54 to 31:01
Discuss the unexpected price movements of Bitcoin over recent years.
“over the last sort of 12 months or so is that commodities have caught a bid.”
Options Markets and Bitcoin Volatility
31:01 to 34:16
Understand how options markets influence Bitcoin's price volatility.
“Like if we have a decent 2026 sort of end of 26, then I still think that like the four year cycle, you mean?”
The Potential Reversal of Bitcoin's Market Dynamics
34:16 to 36:27
Analyze the future possibilities for Bitcoin's market dynamics and volatility.
“managed, and then all of a sudden something changed, maybe a big player blew up or something, and it went to a new level.”
The Potential Reversal of Bitcoin's Market Dynamics
37:30 to 38:37
Analyze the future possibilities for Bitcoin's market dynamics and volatility.
“That's cape.co forward slash WBD and use code WBD.”
The Nature of Bitcoin as Money and Currency
39:53 to 42:00
Delve into the distinctions and relationships between Bitcoin as money and currency.
“And then maybe the next week it goes 25 % down and goes at that level.”
Bitcoin as a Currency and Money
42:00 to 43:30
Explore whether Bitcoin can function simultaneously as both a currency and a money.
“If you pegged it at 10 satoshis, you would have 10 satoshis per dollar.”
The Role of Sidechains in Bitcoin
43:30 to 45:36
Discussion on the potential of sidechains to scale Bitcoin and manage UTXO sets.
“Well, I really like sidechains and I really haven't thought about this for a long time.”
The Future of Bitcoin and Fiat Relationships
45:36 to 47:25
Examining how Bitcoin might back fiat currencies and its role in global finance.
“You know, like gold has that opportunity right now, but it's not.”
Implications for the Federal Reserve's Future
47:25 to 49:28
Analyzing the potential future of the Federal Reserve and its independence.
“So in that like normal progression of money from store value to medium exchange to unit account, you think Bitcoin will never get to the sort of full stack?”
QE and Economic Growth Drivers
49:28 to 52:09
Insight into how QE affects the economy and the role of unshoring efforts.
“So I think that's going to happen maybe 10 years down the road, but that's going to happen for the Fed.”
Automation, AI, and Economic Disparities
52:09 to 54:49
Discussing automation and its impact on global economies, especially in developing markets.
“going to do something like a minimal qe and call it something like reserve management and sure enough, like a meeting or two later, they came out with the reserve management facility, I think is what they call it.”
Demographic Challenges and Retirement Funding
54:49 to 56:00
Investigating the sustainability of retirement systems in aging populations.
“Right now we have this kind of, I think, unwarranted assumption that running AI is cheap.”
Japan's Demographic Challenges and Economic Implications
56:00 to 57:53
Explore the impact of declining populations on economies, focusing on Japan's situation.
“So if they haven't hit it yet, they can probably, you know, financially engineer it for a little while longer.”
Closing Thoughts and Resources from Ansel Lindner
57:53 to 58:32
Ansel shares his insights on de-globalization and where to find his work.
“Is there anything that we've not talked about that you wish we had?”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:02Danny Knowles:The credit-based system is going to malfunction. It's not going to work as it once did. Boom. Inevitably, bus. What would happen in a deflationary bus situation? Pretty much that means everything goes to zero. Credit goes to zero. The supply of money actually goes to zero. Everyone defaults simultaneously. There's no more money and liquidity to go around. It's all wiped out.
0:27Ansel Lindner:Do you still see this as being something that could cause the end of the fiat system?
0:31Danny Knowles:Yes, but it won't look like hyperinflation or hyper deflation even. I think what it's going to look like is countries backing their currency with Bitcoin. There's very low trust in the world. Bitcoin fits perfectly within that new system. As soon as Bitcoin finds its legs, I think it's going to happen pretty fast.
0:53Ansel Lindner:Ansel, good to see you, man. This is the first time we've met. I've had quite a few people reach out saying I need to have you on the show. So welcome. Do you want to start with a bit of an introduction about who you are?
1:04Danny Knowles:Yeah, thanks, Danny. It's a pleasure. I'm excited for this talk. Yeah, so Ansel Lindner, I've been public in Bitcoin going back to 2016 with the scaling conflict. Started a podcast back then. And right when the user activated software dropped that night, I made a podcast and said, this is how SegWit's going to get adopted. So I was on top of the scaling conflict back then, more from an economics angle than anything else. And then I just been, there's been a few hiatus breaks in my content over the years, but I've been producing content for this whole time. I concentrate on economics, of course, the macro of Bitcoin.
1:47Danny Knowles:I also have a background career in the military. And so this stuff around Iran and different things that have been happening recently, you know, with Venezuela and then Iran kind of have some insight there as well.
2:00Ansel Lindner:Yeah, we should get into that because like, as you said, you sort of concentrate on the macro side specifically. And this around war seems to have changed everything. And there's a few things that have come out of it from a Bitcoin perspective that are particularly interesting. especially in the recent, you know, the last few days, really. But from a macro side, has this changed the entire picture, this war?
2:22Danny Knowles:No, I don't think so. I think it's a continuation of where we're going. So I think we've been evolving away from this post-World War II era into something new, into a deglobalized sort of paradigm. And this is just one more step along the road and we're going to continue down this. I mean, the next one is going to be even crazier and people are going to say, is this the breaking point? Is this the breaking point? No, it's just we're stepping down the road towards deglobalization. And I think it will continue. So I'm not surprised at all that this is happening. I mean, it could be anything. I mean, it could be something blowing up in Eastern Europe or in the Middle East.
3:02Danny Knowles:I mean, anything, but that we're going to have these kind of breaks in the old system where we see allies not being allies, trade not being aligned the way it was before and getting rerouted. We're just going to see all these types of signs of deglobalization, and that's going to take us into the next paradigm. So your listeners might know like the fourth turning, right? It has something to do with that. There's these generational cycles, and we're about, what, 80 years since the end of World War II, and so it's right on time for the next cycle. So I think
3:38Ansel Lindner:that's where we're at it definitely feels like fourth turning times at the moment um and like the most interesting thing that i've seen in bitcoin in a little while one that truly surprised me is when the iran government whoever's in charge there now said that they're going to take bitcoin as payment for ships traveling through the strait of hormuz um and this kind of plays into that multipolar world thing you're talking about where it's like if you are in a trust in a um a situation with zero trust what money do you use like you can't use the us dollar in that situation you have to go to something neutral like Bitcoin.
4:10Ansel Lindner:It feels like a really pivotal moment, but I know as Bitcoiners, we get sort of excited about things like this. Do you think it is a real shift?
4:18Danny Knowles:Yeah, I think it's an acknowledgement or maybe a wake-up call for people, because this was inevitably going to happen because the dollar system that we've been on, a credit-based system, you have global credit markets, and what happens to a global credit market in deglobalization. Well, it starts breaking down, starts shrinking, starts contracting. And so you have this financial system that was built for an era of high trust. It's not going to work as well in an era of low trust, if at all. I mean, some countries are going to be cut off. There's going to be these multipolar regional alliances that they might not be trusted by a whole third of the rest of the world or something like that.
5:03Danny Knowles:And so you need a currency that is able or money that is able to move between these big blocks when there's very low trust in the world. If Bitcoin didn't exist, that would be gold. Most likely we'd go back to gold. But with Bitcoin being able to be sent anywhere, you know, in the world in 10 minutes, very low storage costs, easy to assay and all this stuff, then Bitcoin is just really suited for this very specific use case, which Iran has highlighted now. And I think we will continue to see. I mean, we've already seen the seeds with the strategic reserves in different countries, different countries mining Bitcoin, even in that era or in that area with the UAE and Qatar and stuff.
5:50Danny Knowles:They're very interested in investing in mining and in strategic reserves of Bitcoin. So I think it's just one, again, it's one more step down this road towards deglobalization and Bitcoin fits perfectly within that new system, at least as high powered money. We might not be using it in daily transactions, but it will be used with international settlement, settlement between central banks, things like that. That, that would, I would think would be the first thing. And then eventually down the road, we will get peer to peer payments.
6:22Ansel Lindner:That feels like the real Bitcoin story in this whole conflict. Alongside the fact that it's performed relatively well since the conflict began. While everything else was crashing, Bitcoin has been sideways to slightly up during that period. And there's a lot of people that are asking, is Bitcoin becoming a risk-off asset? Which I think is way too early to say that, but it has almost been a hedge during this conflict. How do you see its place in the markets right now?
6:51Danny Knowles:Well, I reacted to, I don't know if you know Michael Green. Yeah. Yep. I reacted to one of his posts a while back about Bitcoin not being a geopolitical hedge. And this was specifically around October 7th. So just going back a few years and that Bitcoin immediately on October 7th, Bitcoin crashed. and I said well okay this isn't really you're kind of changing the definition of what a geopolitical hedge is a geopolitical hedge is not necessarily a short position right so you have you have a hedge that you take out that is specifically designed to move contrary to something else but if you have a geopolitical hedge you're actually trying to get uncorrelated returns so it doesn't matter necessarily if something crashes and then Bitcoin skyrockets immediately or vice versa.
7:47Danny Knowles:It matters that over the long term, your returns are uncorrelated. And so there was actually somebody that did a study a couple of years back. I don't know. I cited it in that blog post, but and they detailed out statistically that gold and Bitcoin are really close to being the same from an uncorrelated geopolitical hedge type of scenario. And so, yeah, I pushed back on that. and I said Bitcoin was a geopolitical hedge at that time. And I think this time too, it shows that, you know, Bitcoin is not crashing and it's not skyrocketing, anything like that. It's very stable. It's kind of uncorrelated to the craziness that we see out there in the world.
8:26Danny Knowles:So I think very much so that it is stepping out on its own right here as being a very good geopolitical hedge. At least it has to be in the conversation when you talk about gold, treasury bills, treasury bonds and Bitcoin has to be in that conversation.
9:08Ansel Lindner:platform of Bitcoin services, including tax advantage retirement accounts, advanced Bitcoin cold storage using collaborative self-custody, inheritance planning with both trust and entity accounts, tax loss harvesting, asset-backed loans and more. SWAN have helped over 100 ,000 clients since 2020. And if you're serious about acquiring and securing Bitcoin, I recommend SWAN. Meet the team at swan.com forward slash WBD, which is swan.com forward slash WBD. If you already self-custody Bitcoin, you know the deal with hardware wallets. Complex setups, clumsy interfaces, and a seed phrase that can be lost, stolen, or forgotten.
9:45Ansel Lindner:Well, BitKey fixes that. BitKey is a multi-sig hardware wallet built by the team behind Square and Cash App. It packs a cryptographic recovery system and built-in inheritance feature into an intuitive, easy-to-use wallet with no seed phrase to sweat over. It's simple, secure self-custody without the stress. And Time named BitKey one of the best inventions of 2024. Get 20 % off at bitkey.world when you use the code WBD.
10:10Danny Knowles:That's B-I-T-K-E-Y.world and use the code WBD.
10:14Ansel Lindner:If, like me, you're heading to Vegas for the Bitcoin conference this month, then Club Orange is the app you need. There's a million things going on at the conference and it's the best way to find all the after parties and side events and connect with Bitcoiners while you're there. I've been using Club Orange since it was Orange Pill app and it's my go-to whenever I'm traveling. Not just for conferences, but for finding meetups and events and merchants accepting Bitcoin wherever I am. There are over 19 ,000 Bitcoiners on there and it's a great way to stay connected whether you're on the road or at home.
10:43Ansel Lindner:If you're on there, drop me a DM and say hi. And if not, search for Club Orange on your app store or go to cluborange.org. Do you want to pay less in taxes and stack more Bitcoin? Of course you do. Well, by mining Bitcoin with Blockware, you can. Under section 168k of the US tax code, Bitcoin mining servers qualify for 100 % bonus depreciation. This means every dollar you spend on miners can directly offset your income in a single year. And that's true for both business owners and W2 earners. If you have$100 ,000 in ordinary income, you can purchase$100 ,000 in miners and potentially offset your tax liability entirely.
11:18Ansel Lindner:Blockware's mining as a service does all the heavy lifting. They secure the rigs, they source the low-cost power, and they handle all the day-to-day maintenance. So you get to stack Bitcoin every single day while drastically shrinking your tax bill. Get started today at blockwaresolutions.com forward slash WBD and use code WBD for$100 off your first miner. That's blockwarsolutions.com forward slash WBD. The thing that I struggle with when you kind of call Bitcoin a hedge is the fact that it trades 24-7. Does that mean it's very hard for it to be a hedge? Because we've seen Trump time a load of his announcements when markets are closed in the US.
11:56Ansel Lindner:And so there's really one asset that can move a lot of the time and that tends to be Bitcoin. And so it is the thing that moves first. And if it's a negative statement or something that the market deems a negative statement, then Bitcoin does sell off. Does that make it a tricky asset to be a proper hedge?
12:14Danny Knowles:Yes. If you're looking for, you know, you want to maximize or you're day trading and you want to make sure that you're scalping as much of the gains as you can. But if you're in it for the long term, I don't think so. I think that that stuff levels out over the long term. I mean, just zoom out to like 52 weeks or something like that, and you won't see any of those real reactions to the market like that.
12:40Ansel Lindner:Fair. I do think that's also one of the most interesting elements of Bitcoin in that it is like a 24-7 prediction market, essentially. And it does move first. And quite often it will move actually before announcements happen. It's like the way you keep your finger on the pulse across markets. But with this war, we've obviously seen oil prices go through the roof. And there's a load of talk of inflation coming back in a stronger way. And I know that's something that you've quite often talked about. And you think that instead of inflation being the concern, it's deflation. Has this war changed that perspective?
13:19Danny Knowles:Not at all. Not at all. It's just made it stronger, I think. So my, my, there's some people out there that talk about deflation as like prices falling. I don't talk about deflation like that. I think it's the money contracting. So the supply of money getting smaller and what is money today? Money is credit. And so like we just mentioned at the beginning, there was a global credit markets and how are they going to react to deglobalization? They're going to shrink. I think about it like a carrying capacity. So the globe has a certain carrying capacity for debt and credit. But if you start deglobalizing, that carrying capacity goes down.
13:58Danny Knowles:So you had to shrink credit markets. And that is actual deflation that's happening. And the problem with actual deflation is that it spirals out of control. You get hyper deflation instead of hyperinflation. Everybody's been worried, myself included 10 years ago, was worried about hyperinflation, right? But we didn't get that after trillions, tens of trillions of dollars of QE and fiscal spending and all that. And we still do not have hyperinflation. That's because the overriding pressure is deflationary. So in a bubble, just think about boom and bust cycles, right? Boom, inevitably, bust, right?
14:41Danny Knowles:So you juice the credit, you juice the inflation, you get a boom, and what happens? It busts. You can't avoid the bust. Even if you try to print your way out of the bust, you can extend and pretend for maybe a decade or something like that, but eventually it's a bust. Eventually it's a deflationary bust. And so I think that's what we're seeing here. Specifically with the oil markets, I think that we have a surplus of oil right now on the market. It might not seem that way because shipping is affected. But in 2026, so far, up until the beginning of this conflict and all of the forecasts from most of the major forecasting firms in the oil market, they were thinking three to four million barrels per day surplus.
15:31Danny Knowles:so that means that they would go into inventories etc etc um so the world right now is in a fundamental surplus or glut for oil that's why when you look at the chart you see a spike during the ukraine russia kickoff it spiked up to like 120 130 and then it drifted down for two or three years then we see this spike and it's going to drift back down uh it'll probably be faster this time if the conflict is faster. I don't think this conflict will last into the three or four years like the Ukraine-Russia conflict has. So overall, we're in a oversupply situation, and the U.S. continues to increase its pumping.
16:14Danny Knowles:Venezuela now promises to increase its pumping. Brazil is forecast to increase by a million barrels per day this year. I mean, it's just everywhere you look the oil market is oversupplied except for this Hormuz situation so once the Hormuz situation gets cleared up which I expect it to get cleared up relatively shortly we're going to be back in that same situation oil prices are going to keep going down.
16:46Ansel Lindner:Interesting and but what are you seeing in the sort of broader market outside of just oil that makes you think deflation is coming?
16:53Danny Knowles:I mean, you can look at the bond market and you can see that people have been predicting bond yields to explode and get out of hand. That's what we would see in a high inflationary situation. Even at a high risk of inflation, we would see 10 % on the U.S. 10-year, but we're not seeing anything like that. The kind of pressure is downward. Same with the oil price, Same with a lot of commodities. I mean, commodities have had a little bit of a run here in the last six months or so. But overall, if you look back to the great financial crisis compared to today, very few commodities are above 15 years ago.
17:33Danny Knowles:They're all lower.
17:34Ansel Lindner:You know, I speak to a lot of macro people and the general consensus is that inflation is the worry at the moment. And I'm just curious, like why you see it differently? What it is that you see that makes you go kind of go against that consensus view?
17:49Danny Knowles:because for inflation to be sustainable, you need to have economic growth. So in a system, in a credit-based system, we're not in a real, technically, we're not in a fiat system. We're in a credit-based system. When you print money, if we were in a fiat system and you printed money, you would have just assets being put on a balance sheet. But in a system we have today, you have asset and a liability. so you don't have more money chasing the same amount of goods you have more money chasing more goods because that bond is actually tradable and stuff so you don't really have inflation the way that people that talk about fiat that we have inflation like that so to have sustainable high levels of of inflation and credit creation you have to have productivity gains you have to have growth in the economy.
18:41Danny Knowles:If you don't, then the pressure turns from boom into bust, and you start getting contractionary forces. And if the credit market isn't growing, it's shrinking. And so that's the bust phase. And overall, 75 years building up to now, I think now we're in this bust phase, and we can't run away from it forever. We can kick the can down the road, but the overriding pressure is still going to be towards a bust.
19:12Ansel Lindner:Like obviously with the people that think that inflation is going to get out of hand, potentially move to the hyperinflation again, timelines vary depending on who you talk to, but eventually most people will see this as being like, there will be a time when the fiat system comes to an end on the deflation side. Is it the same thing? Just it plays out in a different way. Like, do you still see this as being something that could cause the end of the fiat system?
19:34Danny Knowles:um yes but it won't look like what most people think about it won't look like runaway hyperinflation or hyper deflation even um i think what it's going to look like is countries backing their currency with bitcoin so the a lot of people they just kind of completely discount the possibility that the u.s government decides to back the dollar with gold or bitcoin again. I don't see why that would be the case. They've changed it so many times throughout its history. This has been a floating currency experiment for 75 years, and we're getting to the end of that, especially if, say, other countries are like, we don't want to accept your dollar unless you have some other collateral with that, which would be Bitcoin or something like that.
Read the full transcript
20:24Danny Knowles:So I think it naturally, the end state of this is towards backing of the dollar with Bitcoin or gold, but Bitcoin would be the better answer in my opinion.
20:38Ansel Lindner:And what do you think would force a country to do that? Because like they will love having the superpower of being able to print money with nothing backing it. Like why do you think they would go back to a hard money backed currency?
20:52Danny Knowles:Credit collapse. Hmm. Because no one accepts their money anymore. Because to do business, you don't trust other people. You don't trust other countries. You don't trust other regions. And so you have to have some sort of asset that's flowing with the money to give it value. And so that's that's why they would do it. Because the old the credit based system is going to malfunction. It's not going to work as it once did. You know, it used to be where these developing countries could join the system, join the WTO, get access to foreign capital, foreign credit, build up their export industries, export to the world.
21:35Danny Knowles:Well, what if nobody's importing? What if they have to run a bunch of bilateral trade agreements instead of accessing the global market for things? You have to go to this country and this country and this country to negotiate your stuff. It's just a world where if you want your currency to work, you're going to have to do what the market wants. And if the market is demanding Bitcoin or a gold-backed currency of some sort, you're going to have to do that. You don't really have a choice.
22:05Ansel Lindner:I know as Bitcoiners, we like to jump on these things quite often too early. But do you think the stuff that's happening in the straightforward moves with Iran taking Bitcoin as payment is like a very early sign of that happening?
22:17Danny Knowles:Yes. Yep. I think it's just a sign of what we're going to. I mean, like I said earlier, we're seeing some other similar steps. Just the U.S. talking about a strategic reserve of Bitcoin is a sign that it's going this direction. Now we have the Iran thing. One thing that I predicted last week in my newsletter is that we're going to see China easing the ban. So they're going to ease their stance on Bitcoin as well because they see that they probably, this is total speculation on my part, but I think that they might view Bitcoin as another attack vector on the dollar. So if Iran can use it, it's an attack vector on the dollar to circumvent SWIFT and to circumvent these other payment processors and things.
23:04Danny Knowles:And so they might look at Bitcoin as being a way to attack the dollar at the same time. But in reality, what they're doing is, you know, the U.S. has 300 ,000 Bitcoins. It has a push towards a strategic reserve. It's kind of in a first mover type of position for governments, at least. And so I don't think it's going to hurt the United States. But that was my prediction is China is the next one maybe that we'll hear loosening their ban.
23:32Ansel Lindner:That would make sense. I mean, they've done that before. I could see them doing it again. Yeah. But the interesting thing there is, like, you say they may see it as an attack on the dollar. We've obviously had a lot of people in the US, the sailors, the politicians, the policymakers in the world saying that Bitcoin can actually help strengthen the dollar, which I've always found very hard to really believe. Which way do you see that going? Do you think it can help strengthen the dollar or is this just a straight up attack?
24:00Danny Knowles:I think it will be viewed as an attack by China, but I don't think it really is an attack. Being that the U.S. has the biggest government stockpile, I think any adoption of Bitcoin is actually just going to help the United States. One thing I've said for a long time is that Bitcoin aligns incentives, and I don't see how Bitcoin can be against the dollar. It's like saying gold is against the dollar. they're totally competing in opposite realms uh the dollar can simply just say okay now it's 10 satoshis per dollar and that's the exchange rate that's what we're backing the dollar as uh and that's it so i in that scenario how would the dollar be going against bitcoin or
24:48Ansel Lindner:bitcoin be an attack on the dollar i guess i maybe i'm wrong in this but i think my perspective on that would be it only helps the dollar if the US adopt Bitcoin to a degree. Like I can see it really helping the dollar if they start doing Bitbonds and they really integrate it into the system. But if they try and ignore it for too long, then I do think it's probably an attack on the dollar because it's just like a separate system that their fiat dollars can flow into.
25:15Danny Knowles:I don't think, to be honest with you, I don't think the people that are buying a bunch of treasuries are worried about if it's backed by Bitcoin or it has some Bitcoin tied to it in the structure. I really don't think they care about that. It actually might be more of a risk to many of them if that was the case. So, you know, demand begets supply. A lot of times people think, oh, I can build this shit coin and people are going to buy it and it's going to be so great and it solves all these problems. But really, the demand needs to be there first. So the demand for these bit bonds needs to pull that supply onto the market.
25:55Danny Knowles:It's not like they're going to offer bit bonds and all of a sudden there's a market there. You have to do the right order of operation.
26:03Ansel Lindner:If we do get this deflationary bust that you talk about, how do you think Bitcoin performs during that? Because in a hyperinflation event or a high inflation event, the sort of pathway for Bitcoin looks clear. Who knows what will actually happen, but you can see, you can project what you think may happen based on like COVID stimulus and things like that. What would happen in a deflationary bus situation?
26:26Danny Knowles:Well, a hyper deflationary scenario, like a financial crisis, where you have, remember during the great financial crisis and then during the September repo rumble in 2019. 2019, yeah. And I think also in COVID for a very brief period, the markets went bidless they had zero liquidity in the financial system and pretty much that means everything goes to zero uh credit goes to zero the supply of money actually goes to zero which is very interesting to think about um so what does that actually mean the supply of money goes to zero well because money is credit and if everyone defaults simultaneously there's no more money and liquidity to go around.
27:15Danny Knowles:It's all wiped out. So anyway, if that happens, I think that's very bad for Bitcoin because people are going to bid for food and water and they're going to run out there and try to save themselves. But in the long term, in the buildup of those financial crises, I think it's going to be positive for Bitcoin. So Bitcoin is not going to do well in those instant crashes, but it will do well in a deflationary environment. For the same reason why gold will do well in like a buildup to a recession. People start getting worried. They start, you know, squirreling away their money and safer assets. The same aspect is going to happen with Bitcoin.
27:57Danny Knowles:And so, yeah, that's so the buildup is good, but the actual financial crisis is bad for Bitcoin.
28:05Ansel Lindner:So deflation or inflation, Bitcoin wins.
28:09Danny Knowles:Yes, it actually is an inflation hedge and a deflation hedge. And gold bugs should tell you the same thing. And Bitcoiners should tell you the same thing. So in a system that's built on counterparty risk, if you have an asset that has no counterparty risk, then that asset's going to be bid in a period of deflation. or default, I would say. That's going to be bid. So that is the deflationary side. And then the inflationary side, obviously that's pretty self-explanatory. There's a fixed number of Bitcoin and the supply of money goes up. So the price of each Bitcoin is going to go up. So yeah, it's an inflation and a deflation hedge.
28:52Ansel Lindner:Well, let's go. One of the interesting things that happened over the last sort of 12 months or so is that commodities have caught a bid. Gold's been flying. Silver had an amazing run. And Bitcoin had an all right 2025 and then so far a bad 26. Have you been surprised with Bitcoin's price action?
29:10Danny Knowles:Absolutely, man. Absolutely. I thought 2025 was going to be much. I thought by this time last year that we would be, you know, going in the top of the blow off phase of the bull market, but that never occurred. It's been very tamped down. I mean, it's been how many years and we're still at 70 ,000. You know, when did we hit 69 the first time? Back in 2020? 21, I think. Yeah, 21. So five, six years later, we're still in the exact same spot. So I have definitely been surprised by it. How do I explain that? I think it is options markets. I also think that there There was a four-year cycle that a lot of OG Bitcoiners that had tens of thousands of coins, perhaps.
30:03Danny Knowles:Oh, that's the end of the four-year cycle. We didn't get our blow off top, so I'm going to sell now. And they sold at$100K. I said before we got to$100K, I was like, there's probably going to be significant resistance of people selling at that round number. You know, like they bought in for$10, and then they held. I'm just going to hold to$100K. and they held, then they sold. It didn't happen right away, but that whole kind of zone around$100 ,000 provided a lot of resistance to the Bitcoin price. And so I think we just have to eat through that supply and come out on the other end. It's just really hard to think, man, strategy is buying tens of thousands of Bitcoins every week and the price is not moving.
30:49Danny Knowles:What's going on? So I don't know. It'd be interesting to hear your take on that.
30:52Ansel Lindner:No, I'm the same. I was surprised and I sort of fell into the camp of thinking maybe this time will be different. And so far, at least it's not been. I still think there's the potential that it could be proven different. Like if we have a decent 2026 sort of end of 26, then I still think that like the four
31:09Danny Knowles:year cycle, you mean?
31:10Ansel Lindner:Yeah, I think I think it probably still breaks that four year cycle idea. And I don't really understand why the four year cycle would still exist. You know, the subsidy coming online is kind of irrelevant now. um like you say strategy's buying way more than the mining subsidy so i don't know exactly why the four-year cycle would stay i don't see any real reason for it so i i i would love to see that narrative get thrown out of bitcoin but i was definitely surprised i thought we were going to go higher last year and i didn't think we'd go as low this year um but bitcoin market humbles you i guess um do you think we're going to have a positive sort of second half of 2026 eggs.
31:49Danny Knowles:As soon as Bitcoin finds its legs, I think it's going to happen pretty fast. I don't think it's going to be like a slow buildup, you know, at the end of the year, we're at 100. And then six months later, we're at 125. I think it's going to go from 75 to 125 in a couple weeks when it does happen eventually. Now, when is that going to be? I don't know. It could be some major country like Iran or some major situation that everyone has to sit back and say, okay, they're accepting Bitcoin. This is real. Maybe the China thing. So we just talked about maybe China easing their ban on Bitcoin. Maybe that's a trigger to see a repricing in Bitcoin by 100 % up.
32:34Danny Knowles:So I don't know, but that's kind of what I expect to happen is fast and furious when it does come because the market wants to screw everybody possible out of every last dime that it can. And so it's not going to let fence sitters get the chance to jump into a trade. It's going to happen really fast. And everybody that's in gets to go. Everyone that's not in, they get a buy at the top and we repeat. So that's what I'm thinking.
33:01Ansel Lindner:Yeah, I think one of the other dynamics that was different this time is like since I've been in Bitcoin, we had the 2017 run, we had the 2021 run. And then and both those times it bitcoin was like the exciting fresh new thing that everyone was interested in there was fomo whereas this time that was ai like it was the ai trade that stole so much of the hype and even within bitcoin i think it was the treasury company hype rather than buying spot bitcoin um i think that has definitely played into it i don't know if that comes back maybe it does i think price action fixes that like if bitcoin starts absolutely ripping it will get the attention um but you mentioned the options markets there and it's something like i don't pretend to fully understand options markets but why would that have a negative impact on spot bitcoin price
33:46Danny Knowles:if you're in a different regime you can have options that either accentuate the volatility or depress the volatility depending on what regime you're in and we've just been in this regime where the options are set up to sell the rips and buy the dips. So that keeps you in a range until something changes that. And that's why you see the very fast dips, because it was being held, managed, and then all of a sudden something changed, maybe a big player blew up or something, and it went to a new level. And it has stayed in that new level in that regime in the options market. Now, it can happen in the other direction.
34:30Danny Knowles:And that's kind of what I'm talking about, is as soon as the regime changes to enhancing volatility, so you buy the rips and you sell the dips in the options the way you trade your options, then that means that it's a reinforcing loop higher. And also there's talk about, you know, a gamma squeeze or a Vanna gamma squeeze. I'm not an expert in the options market, but these things are reinforcing. So as price goes up, you know, these people have to reevaluate their risk. The market makers have to reevaluate their risk, and they have to go out and buy Bitcoin. So if they're taking the other side of a trade and they're shorting Bitcoin and someone else is longing Bitcoin, well, they do that based on a formula.
35:15Danny Knowles:How much Bitcoin do I have to have to hedge this short position that I'm taking to make a market? And as the price of Bitcoin goes up, well, they got to buy more Bitcoin to hedge that position that they have on. And so that is a reinforcing volatility loop and to the upside. Right. And so eventually that will happen in Bitcoin. When that happens is is unknown. But I tend to believe it's sooner rather than later. I don't think we can go on for another two years like this. I think it really does have to happen relatively soon. Maybe around the middle of the year, we will see how it goes.
35:53Ansel Lindner:The thing that keeps me up at night is the idea of a critical error with my Bitcoin cold storage. And this is where AnchorWatch comes in. With AnchorWatch, your Bitcoin is insured with your own A-plus rated Lloyds of London insurance policy. And all Bitcoin is held in their time-locked multi-sig vaults. So you have the peace of mind knowing your Bitcoin is insured while not giving up custody. So whether you're worried about inheritance planning, wrench attacks, natural disasters, or just your own silly mistakes, you're protected by AnchorWatch Rates for fully insured custody start as low as 0.55 % and are available for individual and commercial customers located in the US Speak to AnchorWatch for a quote and for more details about your security options and coverage, visit anchorwatch.com today That's anchorwatch.com If you hold Bitcoin, your phone number is one of your biggest vulnerabilities SimSwap attacks are one of the most common attack vectors targeting Bitcoiners.
36:44Ansel Lindner:Somebody socially engineers an employee at your carrier, moves your number to a new device, and they're into your account. It happens because traditional carriers put a human in control of your phone number, someone who can be bribed or tricked. But CAPE is a US mobile carrier built from the ground up with privacy and security at the core. They don't ask for your name or social security number when you sign up, they collect the minimum data required, delete it as fast as possible, and never sell it. When you sign up, you receive a 24-word passphrase, just like a Bitcoin wallet. That's the only way to move your number.
37:14Ansel Lindner:Not a customer service rep, not even Cape's own staff can do it. You're the only person who controls your number. If you hold your own keys, you should hold your own phone number too. So head over to cape.co forward slash WBD and use code WBD at checkout for 33 % off your first six months. That's cape.co forward slash WBD and use code WBD. If you're holding Bitcoin, there's going to come a time when you need some cash and you might not want to sell. Well, Ledin lets you borrow against your Bitcoin so you don't have to. They're the global leader in Bitcoin-backed lending with over$10 billion in loans issued and a perfect eight-year track record of keeping client assets safe through every market cycle.
37:51Ansel Lindner:And Ledin have just introduced their lowest rates ever. There's no complexity, no fine print. The larger the loan, the lower the rate. And these new rates come with the same gold standard protection. Your Bitcoin remains in custody and has never lent out for interest. You get auto top-ups, LTV alerts, and partial repayments to keep you in control. And you can repay whenever you want with zero penalties. I took out a loan with Ledin and the whole process couldn't have been easier. The application took me less than 15 minutes and I had dollars in my account within hours. You don't need to choose between a great rate and the safety of your Bitcoin.
38:22Ansel Lindner:You can get both with Ledin. Check out your rate using a loan calculator at ledin.io and use code WBD for 0.25 % off your first loan. That's ledn.io forward slash WBD. so this idea that um volatility is going to be suppressed going forward in bitcoin just because of how this sort of market dynamics have changed is that something you don't buy into then you think we still can have you know the the crazy run-ups the blow-off tops and then obviously bear market always follows a blow-off top but you think we can still have that volatility in bitcoin
38:57Danny Knowles:well yes i do but i think it's going to be fewer and far between so if you look at gold right gold Gold has been, it's not that much older than Bitcoin in the sense of having like an ETF. I think the gold ETF was in 2006. Listeners can correct me if I'm wrong on that. It's 2006. And, you know, we couldn't even own gold until my lifetime. Like people could actually own gold again in the United States. So it's not that much older. And it is also heavily manipulated in the same way. Uh, but it has just done a parabolic move. You know, it did a parabolic move during the great financial crisis and then another parabolic move here now.
39:43Danny Knowles:So they can't, it can happen. It's just going to be fewer and far between. Um, but I think Bitcoin is going to have these like moonshots. One, one week, it's going to go 50 % up and then it's going to find a new level. And then maybe the next week it goes 25 % down and goes at that level. But it's going to break the options regime that it's in. It's going to reprice. And then it's going to be held there for a while.
40:11Ansel Lindner:So this is the idea of sort of extended cycles. You think it might not be the four-year cycle, but it's always going to play out in boom-bust cycles.
40:20Danny Knowles:Yes. That's how assets work, pretty much. That's how gold has worked. even though it was pegged to the dollar, say. And so$35 an ounce, that's how much gold was. But its purchasing power did fluctuate. And so, yeah, I think there will be booms and busts until it's pegged. And then maybe that will even suppress it even more because once you back a currency with a commodity, that commodity is held in everybody's account, right? And it's a very, very deep market. It takes a lot to move and bring volatility to a market where everybody owns some. And so it will suppress it more, but it will happen in that respect as well.
41:04Ansel Lindner:So a bit earlier in the conversation, you called Bitcoin currency and then kind of corrected yourself and called it money. And I'm curious what you were differentiating between that.
41:15Danny Knowles:Yeah, I think, well, first off, I think cryptocurrency was a really bad branding mistake. and I don't think Satoshi used it I can't remember now but if maybe he used it later on after somebody else used it but he didn't come up with it he didn't brand it maybe later like 2010 or something like that that he used the term cryptocurrency but a currency is a measure of money that's that's that's what I think of it as so you have a money gold or bitcoin and then And you have currency that is a denomination of that money. So one ounce, you have$35 per ounce of gold. So dollars is the currency, gold is the money.
41:59Danny Knowles:And same would be for Bitcoin. If you pegged it at 10 satoshis, you would have 10 satoshis per dollar. The dollar is the currency and the Bitcoin is the money. So that's how I would define it.
42:12Ansel Lindner:So you don't think Bitcoin can be both money and currency?
42:16Danny Knowles:Yes, it can be. A gold coin is both, you know, a gold coin with a face value is both money and a currency. It can be, but it probably won't be. The UTXO set kind of limits how many people can use Bitcoin. Even if we had huge blocks, you know, unlimited block space, you still would have UTXOs. And you really wouldn't want to have a UTXO set that had 100 billion entries because it would take almost, as long as a block to just find one UTXO out of the list of the UTXO set. It was always going to be a derivative. I mean, even Hal Finney talked about Bitcoin banks, right? And so it's always been known that most likely, if it really does become some sort of global money, then it will be a derivative that's traded.
43:13Ansel Lindner:You don't think this will be solved with like layer two solutions, layer three solutions, whereas you might, you know, you might be using Spark or ARK or Lightning or whatever, like, cause even with an open time, there's still a UTXO there. I know you can trade it physically, so you don't need to do any, there's no like on-chain footprint of swapping that UTXO, but you don't think this can just be solved technically at different layers.
43:34Danny Knowles:Well, I really like sidechains and I really haven't thought about this for a long time. I used to talk about sidechains being what's going to scale Bitcoin because you could, you know, each country could have its own side chain. And then you could have atomic swaps between side chains. And this would all be cryptographically proven and managed. And so side chains are a really good solution. That way, you don't have to mess with the on-chain UTXO set and all of this. You just have your side chain. And you can have your own rules as well. So one government might allow confidential transactions, and another government might not allow confidential And so each government can have their own side chain that is cryptographically pegged to the actual Bitcoin, and they can have as many transactions as they want.
44:26But overall, I think that the biggest, this, I saw you had Junsetth on.
44:32Danny Knowles:One thing that he would always say, at least in the past was, you know, there's benefits to fraud protection, there's benefits to being able to reverse a transaction. and if you have it on chain especially you can't do that but even if you had it on a side chain that would be much harder to to have those type of protections and so um i think there there is demand for a layer like on chain for major major transactions uh maybe even demand for a side chain type layer but then there's also a demand for just a regular old payment rail that's decentralized that somebody can reverse and manage and you trust the bank and you know that's that
45:18Ansel Lindner:so yeah i don't mind the idea of side chains either um obviously liquid really hasn't got any traction and people are trying to build out these bitvm things we'll see if they work um but it sounds like you're talking about bitcoin even you know decades into the future as having as big as fiat still being around do you think that is what's going to happen or when you talk about fiat is this like a tether type stable coin like what are you thinking the future looks like
45:44Danny Knowles:well i think the dollar i think uh currencies will be backed by bitcoin or we might go into a breton woods situation you know where the dollar is backed by bitcoin and then all these other countries are backed by the dollar but it really goes back to bitcoin um you know bitcoin or the dollar at the end was 40 backed so we had reserves to cover 40 of the supply of dollars it could be reinstated something maybe it's 10 for bitcoin um i don't know there's all sorts of different plans and how that or there's all sorts of different ways that you could plan it to institute it um but that's what i see if it's not backing of the dollar by bitcoin it's going to be what we have today i really don't see bitcoin just being floated out there as its own thing.
46:37Danny Knowles:You know, like gold has that opportunity right now, but it's not. Yeah, it's gone up to$5 ,000, but it hasn't really, it's not used in transactions with central banks or with anybody. I think maybe Iran and some sanctioned people might use it once or twice, but it hasn't really been a currency used or a money used. And it's had a long time to do that. So I don't think that Bitcoin, if it doesn't get backed or if it doesn't back a currency, I don't think there is an opportunity for Bitcoin to really be used globally. I hope that makes sense. It will always have a place in a portfolio and as a store of value, but it won't be used for that medium of exchange rule.
47:25Ansel Lindner:So in that like normal progression of money from store value to medium exchange to unit account, you think Bitcoin will never get to the sort of full stack?
47:37Danny Knowles:No, I think it will. But I think it gets there by backing Bitcoin or by backing the dollar and backing other currencies.
47:44Ansel Lindner:Not on its own. Right. Hmm. Interesting. I mean, that still seems like a massively positive outcome. I guess at that point, you probably don't have things like the Federal Reserve because there's not just six people in a room or 12 people in a room, whatever is deciding the price of money.
48:02Danny Knowles:Yeah, well, I think that the Federal Reserve will probably lose its independence. I mean, it'll go away naturally. I don't think I don't I don't foresee like losing the actual role of the Federal Reserve for a long period of time. But there will be losing of independence of the Federal Reserve. So one thing we've seen recently, you know, Besant and Powell and Trump, they all are kind of there's all there's all sorts of different stuff going on. So Trump is trying to fire Lisa Cook. If you remember that she's trying to fire one of the governors. She actually wasn't one of the bad ones. Like she was relatively dovish.
48:45Danny Knowles:She was one of the dovish board members, which is what Trump wants on the FOMC. But he wanted to make a statement. He wanted to say that you guys work for me and I can fire you at any time. Well, he tried to do that. Powell said, no, I'm not going to listen to you. And so now it's going to the Supreme Court and it's still at the Supreme Court and we'll see what they say. I think there's good arguments on both sides, but I tend to believe that if the government wants to subsume that back under itself, it eventually will. If it will be this president, the next president, somebody will bring that back into the fold and put the Federal Reserve as a subordinate of the Treasury Department.
49:33Danny Knowles:So I think that's going to happen maybe 10 years down the road, but that's going to happen for the Fed.
49:41Ansel Lindner:I mean, I can totally buy the Fed losing its independence. I think it's arguable how much independence it has already, but I think we're about a month away from Walsh coming in as governor, as chairman, sorry. And I think that's already a huge step in the direction of it losing its independence. Do you think he will be a positive appointee?
50:02Danny Knowles:Oh, man.
50:06I think he is, I think he's a yes man.
50:12Danny Knowles:He'll do what he's told. He'll do what he's told. Even though I think personally he probably disagrees with letting accommodated monetary policy at this time. I think he personally will disagree with that, but he will do what he's told and he'll try to run it hot. Now, whether he can or not, I mean, that's another question. Because I don't believe in like an omniscient Fed. I don't know if they can really do just anything they want. They can pretend to print money or they can print money, whatever. But that doesn't mean the economy is going to take off and there's going to be inflation. Just look at QE.
50:50Danny Knowles:I mean, QE, people that were watching the markets in 2009, we thought there was going to be instant hyperinflation. Or at least over the next two years, there's going to be like really high 100 % inflation rates. Never happened. It never happened. Didn't matter how much QE they did. Actually, when they were doing QE, yields dropped. You know, like this is not what we would expect to happen if inflation is picking up. And so what the Federal Reserve actually has power to manifest is up to debate, I think. So I think there is going to be somewhat of a boom in the U.S. relative to the rest of the world.
51:35Danny Knowles:But I don't think that's going to be a result of the Federal Reserve. I think that's just going to be the U.S. is booming.
51:43Ansel Lindner:Okay, I want to get into both of those things. So first of all, with the Fed, clearly Trump wants him to cut rates. I think that's most likely going to happen, whether it's this year or next, it's going to happen at some point relatively soon. um they've also been doing a small amount of qe over the last couple of months do you think that continues do you think it even potentially ramps up well i predicted the the qe that they're doing
52:08Danny Knowles:and i said like a couple months before they started it i said you know they're probably going to do something like a minimal qe and call it something like reserve management and sure enough, like a meeting or two later, they came out with the reserve management facility, I think is what they call it. So yeah, I think that's going to continue. As the amount of credit, as the absolute number in the banking system goes up, then if they say, oh, we need 20 % reserves in the banking system to maintain stability, but the system keeps growing, they have to increase the amount of reserves and so i think that's what they're doing that's that is what they're doing with qe at least that's the rationale what they're doing right now and i think they'll have that'll have to continue at least under this textbook of what they're using now does that mean they have to do that to maintain a good economy no they don't have to do that but they probably probably will is what you're saying there essentially even if they cut rates
53:12Ansel Lindner:and they continue QE, that's not on its own going to boost the U.S. economy. You think it's really because of the unshoring efforts that are happening right now?
53:20Danny Knowles:Yes. I think that they could have some confidence, you know, influences, but mechanically, it's not going to, that is not what mechanically makes the economy grow.
53:34Ansel Lindner:And why are you so confident that the unshoring, one, is going to work and two isn't going to be massively disrupted by sort of AI and automation and things like that?
53:44Danny Knowles:Well, one, I don't, I mean, those are several different questions there. Automation I'm not worried about because automation is a good thing. You know, for when new technology is adopted by a market, it actually makes the market more complex and it makes it more productive and and all those things. So I'm not worried about automation. I think it's good. If automation is adopted, it's actually a positive. It's like, definitionally, it has to be positive to get adopted.
54:17Ansel Lindner:Let's say AI is all it's hyped up to be. You could have a massive increase in the sort of K-shaped economy where there's still the people that have become like almost a permanent underclass from this, but then you have the economy could be ripping at the same time.
54:32Danny Knowles:Yeah. Well, I think there's going to be a K-shaped global economy for sure. Developing markets are going to go back to third world markets, most likely. And you're going to have a big divergence. And are those developing countries, are they going to be able to afford using AI? Maybe not, maybe. Right now we have this kind of, I think, unwarranted assumption that running AI is cheap. Oh, it's cheap. I just ask this prompt and I get all this, or I ask it to build me some software with these specifications and it's really, really cheap. But that's the subsidized price. That's the subsidized capex price.
55:17Danny Knowles:I don't think it's going to be globally like post-scarcity. It's not going to bring us anything like that. That's just a silly assumption that people make is that we're going post-scarcity. scarcity, universal, what did Musk say? Universally high income instead of basic income. No, that's just fantasy land that that's not going to happen in the foreseeable future. I mean, maybe hundreds of years down the road, but we can't, we can't see that. So in the near term, it has to pay for itself. And right now it's being subsidized by all this capex. We'll see what happens when that subsidy runs out.
55:55Ansel Lindner:So when do we get to the point where the working population isn't enough to sustain the retirement of everyone who has already gone into retirement? Like when do those payments stop? it's going to be different for different countries the the countries that are the worst off right now
56:11Danny Knowles:south korea china taiwan japan these are hitting it right now like i did a calculation about japan and they're not quite at one percent yet but they're getting really close to losing one percent of their population every year that's that's not sustainable for any sort of retirement or any sort of government assistance or pension plans. So if they haven't hit it yet, they can probably, you know, financially engineer it for a little while longer. But pretty soon, yeah, you have to have people there to actually work to not just pay, not just pay into the system, but to actually do the jobs of the economy to keep the economy running.
56:56Ansel Lindner:And but once those retirement accounts can't be paid, like the obvious thing is they're probably just going to print the money, right?
57:04Danny Knowles:It depends. Yeah, I mean, probably if they're on the same system that they're on right now, yeah, sure, they could print the money, but that wouldn't help them at all. It would be instantly into inflation, and people would be fleeing out of that system to buy hard assets of anything. Just like in any hyperinflation or high inflation environment, people instantly dump their cash and try to buy any sort of durable good that they can. If there is major capital controls in China and these other economies, then that's going to be more difficult. But no, that's not going to solve the situation. There's still going to be the same amount of pain.
57:47Danny Knowles:It's just whether it's pain with high inflation or pain with low inflation.
57:52Ansel Lindner:Ansel, this has been great. Is there anything that we've not talked about that you wish we had?
57:57Danny Knowles:Nope. De-globalization is my big thing. Demographics and then of course deflation. So I think we covered it all. I love it, man.
58:05Ansel Lindner:Tell everyone where they can go to find out more of your work, hear your podcast, all that kind of stuff.
58:10Danny Knowles:Bitcoinandmarkets.com is my original podcast and content. I just recently started Rogue Macro. So So you can check out roguemacro.substack.com for my writing. That's more 90 % macro and only 10 % Bitcoin. So you guys can check out Rogue Macro and Bitcoin and Markets.
58:29Ansel Lindner:Awesome. Thank you, man. We'll have to do this again. I really enjoyed this. Thank you, Anselm.
58:33Danny Knowles:Thanks, Danny.
58:47Thank you.
From the publisher
THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS:
FOLLOW:
Danny Knowles: https://x.com/_DannyKnowles or https://primal.net/danny
Ansel Lindner: https://x.com/AnselLindner




