Stephan Livera hosts one of Bitcoin’s leading podcasts, focused on the economics and technology of Bitcoin.
Check out his work at https://stephanlivera.com.
Podcast transcript:
So today we are here in
Lugano, Switzerland with Stefan Libera.
Stefan hosts one of the Bitcoin's
leading podcast, the Stefan Libera Podcast.
And he also contributes to diverse
outlets and publications such as the
Bitcoin magazine and the Mises Institute.
This last one is a think tank
focused on Austrian economics and libertarian thought.
Yeah, so the first question that I would like
to start with is what do you think about
the future of Argentina and Javier Milei?
Yeah, I mean, look, I'm a libertarian, so obviously
I was, let's say I had some optimism about
this because I thought, oh wow, like this is
the first time a libert, like an explicitly libertarian
Rothbard guy is coming into power.
And so now I know there's kind of, there's
details to it, obviously you understand it more than
I do, but he only has a certain number
of seats in Argentinian, is it parliament or Congress?
Right.
And so he only has so much
power that he can actually achieve.
But it sounds like he's done some
things well, something's not so well.
So I mean, on the good side, obviously he's
done a lot of deregulation, he's cut the size
of the government workforce, he's liberalized things like the
rental market and the airline market and various things.
On the downside, I think maybe his, some of his
foreign policy views like the Israel and Ukraine support.
I think that's not very a libertarian stance to take.
Like you should be a non interventionist, you should not
be trying to say, you know, that's one example.
And then the other thing is I would
have liked if he really pushed a little
harder to shut down the central bank.
I think he should have also.
I think he should really, it was a
missed opportunity for him to repudiate the debt. Right.
So instead of, you know, from a libertarian
perspective, we're going to go into theory, right.
A little bit here.
Part of libertarian theory is saying the state
does not necessarily speak for the individuals.
And so debt that was taken on by prior
Argentinian governments, that should not be the responsibility of
Argentinian people today because those Argentinean people are going
to be taxed to pay for the debts that
went for the, you know, these, you know, former
governments that were not, maybe you could argue, were
not representing the people.
And so when Milei did not repudiate that debt, it kind of
to me was, oh, that's a bit of a mistake there.
I think it's a, and it is a pretty big
mistake because now it means that they're kind of still
stuck on the kind of the IMF treadmill.
You know, there's a little bit of a concern for me
there that that might harm, you know, the future prospects.
Now overall, I think, I think it's
been a good liberty focused step.
He hasn't been perfect.
He's made a few mistakes in my view.
Now, I'm not an expert.
I mean, you probably know better than me.
I'm, I don't speak Spanish.
But just from what I've read and what
I've, you know, I've spoken to different libertarians.
I know some libertarians are very anti
Malay because they think he's kind of,
he's really making a big mistake.
And then there's others who are very pro
millet because they think he's really done a
great job given the resources that he has. Right.
So I think, yeah, you could criticize him
for certain things, like maybe he should have
done things faster or done things better.
But at the same time, you can understand it's
hard to criticize someone when they maybe don't have.
He's not a unilateral dictator, so he doesn't
have perfect power to do everything he wants.
So I would say I'm cautiously optimistic.
But I also understand that there it's going
to be, it's going to take time.
And that's one of the sad, you know, the reality
is Argentina has had, what, eight decades of Kirchnerism.
You can't undo, you know, that much damage
in a very short period of time.
And so the concern might be that maybe,
maybe the Argentinian people, maybe they grow impatient
with the approach and they're like, hey, look
how many people are in poverty.
We thought you were going to fix this
and how come you haven't fixed this?
And you know, it's kind of the, you know, it
took time to get into this problem and it's going
to take time to get out of it.
So I'm cautiously optimistic.
I believe maybe in the next, I believe it's a
midterm election coming up, maybe he can win some more
seats and then maybe he can like get some more
deregulation and more cutting the, you know, more afwera, as
they say, more of that done so right.
Yeah, the damage of socialism is hard to fix.
I think you mentioned something really interesting with the
IMF and the debt and all of that.
And for example, we saw in El Salvador
how they made bitcoin legal tender and that
contributed a lot, especially to raise this awareness
and align people also from abroad and Foreigners
who started looking at El Salvador.
What would be your advice to Argentina and
Milei regarding how to use Bitcoin to basically
attract, you know, foreign investors and like minded
people who align with the values of freedom?
Yeah, of course.
And now I know he did when he
first came in, he was saying you can
sign contracts in whatever currency you want.
So obviously you can choose Bitcoin.
Now I know a lot of people in Argentina, there's
still a lot of people who want the dollar, right?
And I can't blame them.
There's a lot of people who maybe they, you know,
they either don't earn enough or they don't have enough
net worth to be able to save and hodl, right,
because you know, we're all bitcoiners, we talk about hodling.
Um, so I try to, you know, I think it's part
of it is having empathy for the position of other people
and trying to understand the position they're in for them.
The dollar is a less, worse
fiat currency than the pacer.
So you know, I understand that.
Of course I want people, I believe
long term it's all going to Bitcoin.
And so now in terms of attracting
investment, attracting people to come live there
or even let's say the diaspora, right?
Argentinian people around the world,
for them to come back.
Like, like we saw that in El Salvador, right?
Salvadoran people coming back because they were
very bullish on what Bukela is doing.
So in the Argentinean case, I think part
of that is people want, of course they
want low taxes, but here's the other thing.
They want certainty, right?
So if you're a business operator, you
want a certain level of certainty.
You want to know that if you go and set up a
business, you go and put in your blood, sweat and tears to
build this business, that it's not going to be stolen from you,
it's not going to be regulated out from under your feet, you're
not going to just going to be shut down.
And so one concern, and that's maybe difficult is how
do you know that Millais reforms will be kept there?
Because what if the next guy, what if
he gets voted out and then the next
guy comes in and it's more Kirchnerism again.
And you know, and then so that's the concern.
So I would say that's one thing.
But yeah, certainly for an individual
think about saving in bitcoin, right?
Like think if you are able to save, save
and hodl with bitcoin and I think that applies
at every level Whether you're an individual, a family,
a family office, a small business, a large business,
a public entity, or even government, government entities, everyone
will benefit from huddling some bitcoin, right?
And so we need to help people understand that.
And the challenge that we all face is that we're
in this world with so much government and fiat propaganda.
And for a long time, let me put it this way,
a lot of the economist jobs are in the central bank.
And so it's very difficult to
bite the hand that feeds you.
And so I think that's why we've seen so
much, let's say academia and economists who are sort
of pro fiat, pro Keynesianism or pro mmt.
Now MMT is becoming very popular.
So it's about countering that narrative.
And so I think those of us who see
Bitcoin as something better, it's the future, we have
to keep putting our word out there and keep
saying, yeah, look at the results, right?
You could have been across all different asset
classes, you could have been in stocks, you
could have been in bonds, property.
And really bitcoin has outperformed
all of those things, right?
So on a 10 year annual compounded basis,
last I checked, the number is something like
65% on average every year for 10 years.
Now, it's not going to, I don't
believe it's going to sustain that.
I think it's going to taper down over time.
But still the comparable there would be if you were in
the S and P, maybe you got 11, 12%, maybe if
you were in property, really depends, you know, but you, you
might have got something just a little bit below that.
But I guess most property investors are leveraged,
so maybe they, you know, with a bit
more risk that maybe they're getting a little
bit more, but still not outpacing Bitcoin.
And bond, bond holders are getting absolutely wrecked.
And the other thing is bond holders are going to
get a lot more wrecked in the next 10 years.
And I think that's going to be a big
shift because really what a lot of people don't
understand is that they're just getting, they're getting debased.
So they are holding these bonds thinking, oh,
I'm getting my 5% or 4% or whatever.
But they're getting debased by more than that,
especially on a ten year time horizon.
So I think more and more
people are going to learn that.
I think for a long time the, let's say
the established wisdom was, oh, you've got to do
something like 60, 40 stocks and bonds, right?
That's like a typical thing that people would do and
they would see it like, oh, see, when, you know,
stocks go down, maybe your bonds help you.
But I think what's happening now
is the world is shifting. Right.
And so what looked quote, unquote safe
was only safe until it's not safe.
And so that's the hard reality that there's a
lot of bondholders who are going to get wrecked. Right.
And it even comes back to my prior answer
to you about, you know, government debt, because who
is the real person responsible for that?
I, you know, from a libertarian perspective, you
would say, no, you are not responsible for
what the past government did in your name.
Because don't forget, when government gets into debt, it's kind of
saying, I'm going to go into debt and I'm going to
tax my citizens and residents to pay this debt.
And so if these citizens and residents never
agreed to these programs or these things because
they didn't know or even they disagreed, they
didn't have a choice in that.
So is it really a legitimate contract to enforce
on them to say, oh, see, the government two
decades ago went into these debt agreements and now
you and your children are debt enslaved.
That's not really fair. Right.
And that's not really just.
And so I think there will be.
Whether you ideologically agree with libertarianism or
not, the bill is going to come
due for a lot of these governments.
And so the price of debt is going to
go up a lot and they're going to.
The natural way out for a lot of
these governments is to inflate their way out.
So if you are holding a fiat
denominated instrument, you're going to, you know,
you're going to lose purchasing power.
And so really, whether you agree with libertarianism
or not, I think you better hold Bitcoin.
Right, Right.
And I think it's also really important to feel comfortable
with a country where you are either a resident or
a citizen, because like you said, there are many places
who are set to inflate, then taxate, and then maybe
even confiscate the assets of the residents and citizens.
Which gets me into the next topic.
That is that you moved from
Australia to the United Arab Emirates.
And something that I really admire about the UAE
is their long term thinking, especially in their leadership.
And I wanted to ask you, how was
the process of moving from Australia to the
UAE and why did you choose the uae?
Yeah, so a few choices.
So for me, I was very frustrated with the way
with the COVID lockdown and the tyranny, the vaccine mandates,
the, you know, all the travel bans, all this stuff.
So I was very frustrated with Australia, given
that it was stopping me from actually doing
part of my job in a sense. Right.
As you know, I do a bitcoin podcast,
and there were events on, and I was
literally banned from leaving the country. So it just.
It was so frustrating to me that
I was kind of planning my escape.
And so what happened is, while I was out and,
you know, attending some conferences and traveling around, I ended
up getting married to my wife, who is Sri Lankan.
And so now my family is Sri Lankan,
but I'm, you know, raised in Australia, so
I married, you know, a Sri Lankan. Sri Lankan.
And so then for us, we were sort of
thinking, well, where should we actually set up?
And, you know, and then I thought back to a
bitcoin conference that I had attended in Dubai, and I
thought, oh, yeah, actually, Dubai is pretty cool, right?
They've got no personal income tax, no capital
gains tax, and, you know, low tax, and
overall, pretty easy and relatively open, especially at
that time during the lockdown era.
And so December 2021 is when we moved
to Dubai, and for a few reasons.
So obviously, low tax,
safety, easy flight connectivity. Right?
Because Dubai to Sri Lanka, it's
only four and a half hours.
So I'm not saying it's, you
know, one size fits all, right?
Everyone has to find what works for them, depending on
your family, depending on your work, depending on what taxes
and cost of living you can deal with.
And so for us, it was a
matter of, yeah, finding a pathway in.
There's different pathways in, whether you're looking at,
like, freelancer visa, or you get a business
and set that up, or you buy a
property and have a golden residence, golden visa.
So there's different pathways in.
And so I found, yeah, okay, you've got to deal with
a little bit of bureaucracy, but actually, I think the UAE
and Dubai was pretty good about that in terms of making
it easy to get in, get set up, you know, get
all the typical things that you need, like get the visa
stamp and your passport so that you can enter easily as
a resident and to get, you know, the Emirates id, which
you use for, you know, different services in the country.
So, yeah, over that few months, we got set up
and we started renting a place, and that was it.
And so we set up there, and we're having a good time.
So I think my wife really appreciates that it's
very safe as well, because, yeah, you have to
make it work for your family, too. Right.
It's one thing, you know,
different phases of life, Right.
Like when you're a single guy, you can kind of.
You can rough it more. Right.
You can just kind of do whatever. Right.
And then once you have a wife, then,
you know, you need to think about her.
And then once you have children,
that's, you know, the next level.
And so you.
Each phase.
So we, you know, had our first son, and
actually my wife's pregnant now with our second child.
So, yeah, I mean, you just adapt to each phase of life.
And overall, I found Dubai a great overall blend
in terms of, you know, as I said, taxes,
you know, and safety and convenience of services and
flight connectivity and all of these things.
It's fascinating that your first contact with.
With Dubai was through a.
Through a bitcoin conference.
I think that's a very interesting model where
you first discover a place through a conference.
They may just set up your business there and
you visit a couple of times per year, and
then you figure out you really like it and
you want to actually move there and invest more.
Yeah.
So I'll just add one more point to that as well.
I think the other thing that kind of. Let's say I was.
If I was sitting on the fence and it kind
of knocked me over and got me on, you know,
kind of got off the fence and into it is
I was talking to local bitcoiners, right.
So I was, you know, part of it is like,
when you know people from around the world and then
when you're talking to them and you're sort of trying
to figure out, especially at that time, it was one
of the few places that was open and relatively free.
Relatively.
And so that was the other big thing.
And so I think the other cool thing with Dubai
is you get a lot of people coming through.
So there's a lot of interesting entrepreneurs,
investors, and even, you know, even things
like artists and singers who come through
and have a concert there or whatever.
Like, you know, a lot of people
come to the UAE and perform there.
So in a way that's kind of, you
know, you get certain things that are.
Come along with going to one of these big cities.
I think Dubai is on the.
And the UAE is on the up in general. So it's kind of.
It's.
I think it's going to be in a comparable city.
Is going to be a comparable city
when people mention, let's say New York
and London and Singapore and Hong Kong.
And Dubai is becoming one of those cities.
And so I think it's a really
cool, it's really cool in that way.
So it's really, you get this benefit of, you know, the
people you meet, the networking and just kind of, it's a,
it's a kind of a network effect that applies because you
can kind of be there and benefit from that.
Yeah, we talk a lot about, you know,
the ascending world and the descending world and
you know, Dubai is clearly trending, trending up.
And then places like London, New
York are clearly trending, trending down.
Then there are others that, like El Salvador
that are kind of a wild car, right?
Yeah, they're trending up but they can
really explode or they can, you know,
kind of, they have more optionality.
Would you say the UAE is the most
bitcoin friendly country in the world right now?
Well, I mean, it's hard to
compete with El Salvador, right?
Like, I mean the president is like
literally, openly, very publicly promoting bitcoin.
But I think the UAE
is definitely very bitcoin friendly.
You know, I think just having no capital gains tax
and you know, having the, the regulatory regime that, you
know, I'm not going to say it's like super easy
to get set up there, but I think they are
at least open, open minded towards bitcoin and to crypto.
So I think we're starting to see that.
We're seeing a lot of people come and set up there
and you know, I think we will start to see more,
you know, a lot of news coming on this.
And even just recently, I think Tether
announced that they're doing a Durham stablecoin. Right.
So that's one thing.
And then I believe them.
I don't know the detail, but there may be one or
two other competitors who are trying to do that also.
And so I think now, you know,
I'll always talk about bitcoin first.
I kind of see pretty much
everything else as a shitcoin.
But stable coins are kind of like,
I kind of, I'm neutral on that.
I kind of like, I understand why people use that.
So for me it's kind of bitcoin and
okay, yeah, use stable coins if you need
to and then everything else is a shitcoin. Basically.
That's kind of how I see it.
But overall I think we're going to see, you know,
more openness to that, to the, you know, from the
government because I think they're really trying to be competitive
and so they're trying to actually attract people. Right.
So the, I think one of the stated
goals is to double the population by 2040.
And I think in terms of the UAE or I think in
terms of Dubai, I think Dubai has grown by about 100,000 people
per year for the last few years, which is big for.
I think it was 3.5 million just a few years ago.
And I think now we're sitting
at 3.7 or something like that.
So it's growing quite rapidly.
We're starting to see, you know, some
of the growing pains of that too.
So there's more traffic on the
roads and things like that.
So, I mean, look, nowhere on earth is perfect.
You just have to.
You have to find what you're comfortable with.
Right. To get there. We are here at the.
At the Plan B conference in Lugano.
So I wanted to ask, what's your take on
Switzerland and how bitcoin friendly you think Switzerland is?
And especially, you know, the Canton of Ticino,
the city of Lugano, on different levels.
How comfortable do you feel here as a bitcoiner?
Yeah, I mean, it's great. I think it's.
Overall, I think it's. I mean, it's Switzerland. Right.
It's such a.
It's a beautiful place, very safe, good
quality, you know, services and, you know,
restaurants and things like this.
Main criticism for me, though would
be that it's very expensive.
Like, it feels quite expensive.
But that said, I mean, if you're earning a
lot or if you have a high net worth,
I think it can make a lot of sense.
And certainly the Plan B and Bitfinex and Tether,
they're really trying to do a lot here to
partner and to make it easy for people to
come and set up businesses here.
They've got the Plan B school and so
they've got a lot of these different programs.
But yeah, coming back to it may not be
the right choice for me and my family, but
I'm sure it is the right choice for a
lot of other people, especially if you're Italian speaking.
Yeah, I would say. Yeah.
I would say, though, being Italian speaking would really make
it a lot easier here because it's kind of.
If you're only English speaking, it
might be a bit harder personally. But I.
It's not that I spend a lot of time here.
I come here for the conference pretty much.
But that's my sense of it.
I think it's going to offer an option.
And I mean, I'm sure you saw the
news recently about the Italian capital gains tax.
So I think there'll be more people who look
over the border and they're like, hey, over there
in Lugano, they don't have capital gains tax there.
Let me try and go there. Right.
So that will probably attract a lot of Italians over.
So I can see that happening.
Yeah.
Now I know Switzerland has no capital gains tax.
Also has a wealth tax, as I
understand, but no capital gains tax.
And I know, yeah, there's, there are efforts to
sort of promote it and be very bitcoin friendly.
So I think that's a good thing to see.
They're really trying to, you know, you know,
set up shops and have shops who can
take bitcoin payment and tether payment as well.
But of course my focus is more on the
Hodling and the store of value aspect of it.
I'm not against spending bitcoin, of course, I
will earn and spend bitcoin when I can.
But I think for me my focus is a
little more on the store of value adoption of
like Hodling because I think that's just the phase.
That's the phase we're in.
It's like in school when you
learn maths, there's order of operations.
And I think we have to go through this
store of value phase first before we start to
see a lot of medium of exchange adoption.
I'm not against medium of exchange adoption.
I just think one of the, you know, we're going to
have to see a lot more store of value before we
start to see a lot of medium exchange happen in practice.
Yeah.
Talking about the bitcoin as a store of
value perspective, and especially with what you mentioned
about the UAE offering so many ways to
attract foreign capital and people moving there, I
think it's really interesting how basically countries can
offer sovereignty there as a form of residency
or citizenship in exchange of bitcoin.
What do you think about countries building
their own sovereign funds in bitcoin?
Like, do you think that's going to happen soon?
Any places where your bets are wrong?
Well, the obvious ones, El Salvador and Bhutan.
Bhutan recently came like, it kind of,
I think it got doxed basically.
I'm not sure they wanted to disclose it.
I think some on chain analysts basically found it and
figured out, oh, this must be Bhutan's bitcoin stash.
And turns out they actually have
a pretty big bitcoin stash.
So, you know, those are the two obvious
examples, but I'm sure think about how many.
For example, the UAE I know Abu Dhabi's sovereign
wealth fund has some partnerships with bitcoin mining.
So I really wouldn't be surprised if we saw,
you know, something There, right in the future.
And there are other countries where
there's, you know, governments are partnering.
So Oman is part, the government of
Oman is partnering with various bitcoin miners.
So I think this kind of bitcoin mining
connection, which is kind of funny, right?
Like in earlier years when people come
into bitcoin, they have different ideas.
Sometimes they think, oh, I need to make the
bitcoin or I need to do blockchain technology or.
Whereas if someone was asking me, I would just tell, look,
the simple answer is just buy some, just buy some.
And hodl.
I know it sounds too, it's almost too easy,
it's too dumb, but actually a lot of countries
and people just in general would have done better
by doing that because maybe your competence is not
in, you know, sourcing cheap power and operational expertise
of setting up bitcoin mining, setting up the rackspace,
getting, you know, and getting bitcoin mining machines.
Maybe that's not your competence.
It might be simpler for you to just earn your
money, how you earn it and buy the bitcoin right
now in practice, what we might see is some states
will buy it like El Salvador was buying some bitcoin
and mining some bitcoin and then others like Oman, sorry,
like Bhutan, have been mining it.
So we'll see different answers, but the simple answer for
most people and entities is to just buy it.
Right.
Wrapping up here, we like to not only
talk about monetary sovereignty through bitcoin or personal
sovereignty through passports and citizenships, but also privacy.
I know you are pretty big into that as well.
I wouldn't say I'm big into it, but go on. Yeah, yeah.
What are your best bitcoin privacy tips?
Okay, so there's a few things. So.
Okay, so I guess the kind of high level
tips might be as an example, you might think
about having some bitcoin acquired through non KYC sources.
So and I understand like you could, theoretically you
could have some coins that were, you know, on
a KYC exchange and some coins that were, let's
say not or earned outside of that.
So that's an example.
Another example might be using a VPN
on your phone and things like this.
That said, I don't see myself as
like a perfect privacy advocate or whatever.
My thoughts on it are a little kind
of nuanced in the sense that I think
it's certainly there are certain products that might
help you achieve privacy from a certain actor.
But I think a lot of people get drawn into this idea
of, oh, I need to try to be private from everyone.
In practice, the cost and the convenience that
you will pay for that, it's often not
worth it for a lot of people.
I'm not against it.
I just think in practice there will be a
lot of people where, you know, trying to be,
you know, James Bond or whatever, like it just
might not be feasible for people.
So in practice, you know, and you know,
I guess don't shoot the messenger is the
way I'm trying to say this is.
People have, have sometimes unrealistic ideas about how private
the society could be that they live in.
Whereas in practice there may be societies where, you
know, there's a trade off there that you may
not like it, but there's a lot of surveillance
and that's how they make it safe.
As an example, think about Singapore or other,
you know, other places or you could even
argue about the UAE as well.
So I'm not anti privacy, but I just think in practice
it may not happen the way you know, people think now.
You know, certainly in certain specific, specific cases, yeah,
people might use VPNs or whatever and in certain
countries you're not meant to use them. Right.
So that's the other thing. So you kind of.
I'm not advocating anyone break the law here,
but there are different techniques and tools.
So things like Coin join.
I know recently there's been some trouble in
that in the bitcoin world with you know,
the US government going after samurai whirlpool, but
join market still exists as an option.
I know people are still doing wasabi even though they
shut down or at least they voluntarily shut down.
And I think there are still maybe
some other coordinators operating for that.
So I think using lightning as well, although not
perfect, I think lightning privacy is improving as well.
I think the difficulty though is that in many
cases our names and addresses are stored on various
databases and the government can just look those up
and, or maybe if you're like a private investigator,
maybe they can, they have access to some of
these databases in a legal way.
So then in practice it's just difficult.
Now there are certain steps you can take.
As I said, having non kyc coins, maybe you're
using a vpn, maybe you're using like a mailbox
service to kind of mask your mailing address.
Maybe you're cautious about what details you give
up online or maybe you're cautious about what
things you say on social media. Right.
I'll give an example.
I think sometimes people's desire to flex or to
flaunt or maybe it's kind of an ego Thing,
they sort of disclose a lot more online on
their social media than they need to.
Now, it's one thing, let's say, if you
are, let's say, a public person and you
have to, because you're talking about products or
you're advocating or it's part of your job.
But for a lot of people, if it's not
their job, then maybe they can be a bit
more cautious about exactly what are they disclosing.
Of course, even for me, public in
some loose sense, I'm still cautious about
exactly what I say online or publicly.
But yeah, it's a complicated subject and it takes
a lot of sort of understanding these different nuances
of who are you trying to be private from?
What's actually realistic in terms of
the privacy that you can achieve?
Like, maybe you can get privacy from, let's say, just
a random Google search or a random person online.
But if somebody's like going to the level
of hiring a private investigator or it's a
government, then it's a very different conversation about
how do you achieve privacy in that context.
So I think it's just understanding what are
you trying to be private from and what
price are you willing to pay in terms
of monetary cost or convenience aspects as well.
So, you know, it's a, it's a nuanced thing, but
I think what the world may be moving towards is
perhaps a world where, I'll give you a quick example.
After World War II, I believe, the number
of nation states in the world, or independent,
you know, kind of individual nation states, it
might have been something like 60 or 70.
And then last I checked, now if you look at the
UN numbers, it might be like 193 or something like this.
So a lot more nation states have
been created just in that time.
And so one way to think about
that is it's kind of decentralizing out.
And so, you know, when we're talking about
citizenships and residences and passports and different jurisdictions,
I think we're moving into a world where
there's going to be a lot more jurisdictions.
And so the hope then is that you have you.
And, you know, we as individuals have more
choices in terms of, oh, okay, these jurisdictions
are maybe really high tax or high regulation
or just really bad culture.
And, oh, there's more options over here.
So I think we're going to start seeing that.
And that could be coming in the form
of things like free private cities, or maybe
it'll be like small city states.
Maybe it'll be maybe more controversially, it could Even
be smaller monarchies and maybe they have a long
term incentive to, you know, in a different way
to what a democracy would be.
And so I think that's
probably where we're moving towards.
But coming back to your question about privacy, it may be
that you sort of have to trade off of like, okay,
maybe I can get low tax and it can be safer,
but maybe there's maybe not as much privacy and maybe people
choose that because, hey, I would rather that than pay high
tax and still not be able to speak freely.
Anyway, that was really insightful and I agree with
your vision of the future, you know, with a
multipolar world, with hopefully many enclaves of freedom, that
we can still choose to vote with our feet
and basically move there and build our lives there.
Any final words to our
audience, our Citizen X audience?
Yeah, I would say you've really, you know, I'm a
bitcoin guy, so obviously I think you've got to really
think about things in terms of bitcoin opportunity cost.
Right.
If you think about how the price of housing
in bitcoin terms, you know, a few years ago,
maybe five or 10 years ago, it might have
been hundreds of bitcoin to buy a house.
And nowadays, let's say the median house in the U.S.
or the U.K.
probably, I don't know, six or eight Bitcoin.
I don't know the exact numbers,
but you get the point, right?
It's gone from thousands of bitcoin down to hundreds
of bitcoin now down to single digit bitcoin.
And who knows, in the next cycle or maybe in two cycles
it might be a fraction of bitcoin to buy a house.
And so I think people need to get out of this mindset
of thinking of housing as kind of, that's really a good store
of value because in fiat terms they may go up.
But I think in bitcoin terms a
lot of these things are going down.
And so, you know, yes, bitcoin has these big
up and down bull cycles and bear cycles.
And so we'll see that.
And you know, I expect we'll see more of those cycles.
So be ready for it. Right.
Like you may see, we may see another big
bull run and a big 70% drawdown or an
80% drawdown from the top to the bottom.
But fundamentally, if you're long term focused, I'm talking
10 years plus, I think bitcoin denomination in terms
of your capital cost is really, really important because
I think a lot of people are doing their
numbers in fiat terms and so they might think,
oh, I'm fiat profitable.
But actually, you're not in bitcoin terms.
And over time, the world is moving towards bitcoin,
so that's an important thing to watch out for.
And then, yeah, if people want to find
me online, stefanlavera.com, search Stefan lover Podcast.
But, yeah, if you search my name, you
can find me commentating on things like bitcoin
and liberty and these kinds of topics.
Thank you very much, Stephan.
Thank you.
