Today we are actually joined by economist and author Jeffrey Tucker. Now, you might have heard of Jeffrey Tucker. He's very popular in the Bitcoin scene. He's an Austrian School economist…and you might be thinking, “what does this have to do with SuperHuman Academy?” Well, Jeffrey was here in the studio with me and we were talking about Bitcoin for a new project that I've been working on. Like myself, Jeffrey believes that Bitcoin is going to be one of the key technologies, if not the technology, that liberates humanity, creates unseen prosperity, unseen freedom, and much more. And as I was talking to him, about Bitcoin, I came to realize that a lot of the stuff that he was talking about is about financial freedom, having responsibility for your future, and a lot of different things that we've covered on the show only tangentially, but which really relate to becoming super human. And so I decided to share this interview with you guys here today.

I know Bitcoin is not a topic that you would typically think would be superhuman, but it's something that I am extremely passionate about, and something that I want to start talking more and more and more about. Put simply, I think it has the potential to really help a lot of people. So throughout the interview, we talk about what it is, why Bitcoin is such a powerful thing, and why Jeffrey is the first economist who came out and said “hey, this this technology has potential to change the world.” We talk about how it's going to change people's lives. We talk about how you can get involved and get started (here's a link to get $10 in Bitcoin free), and much, much more. I hope you enjoy.

This episode is brought to you by Organifi. Save 20% on their highly-recommended green juice products with coupon code “superhuman.”

This episode is brought to you by my latest project, Bitcoin Academy – an online course where you can learn everything you need to about one of the biggest revolutions to happen in technology and finance.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Who is Jeffrey Tucker? How did he get into the field of economics? Why is he passionate about it?
• What is the Austrian school of economics? How is it different from other schools of economics?
• What is wrong with our monetary system today? Why are we all at risk?
• What is “counterparty risk,” and why does it represent a flaw with how money works today?
• How has the zeitgeist changed in just the last few years with regards to cryptocurrency?
• What's the big deal with Bitcoin, anyways? Isn't it just like PayPal or Venmo?
• What 1 feature of Bitcoin do 99% of people not realize is a massive technological breakthrough?
• What are the qualities of money? Why is it a challenge to create the next generation of money?
• When did Jeffrey Tucker get into Bitcoin? What was the magical ‘a-ha' moment for him?
• What major challenge did Jeffrey Tucker face when realizing that Bitcoin changed everything he thought he knew?
• What about the fact that Bitcoin has no “intrinsic” value, like Tulip bulbs? 
• What role will Bitcoin have? Will it replace “fiat” money? Compete? Will something replace it?
• A discussion about scaling – can Bitcoin scale up to be a major global currency?
• What does Jeffrey Tucker believe the future will look like, thanks to Bitcoin?
• What would Jeffrey Tucker's advise be to someone who doesn't know where to get started?
• Jeffrey and I share the #1 best way to get people to “believe” in Bitcoin
• Where can you reach out and learn more about Jeffrey Tucker?
• What is the #1 message that Jeffrey hopes you remember?

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Coinbase, a place where you can get your first $10 in Bitcoin free
• Liberty.me, Jeffrey's previous business
• The Foundation for Economic Education
• Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlet
• Human Action by Ludwig Von Mises

Favorite Quotes from Jeffrey Tucker:

Transcript:

Introduction: Welcome to the Becoming SuperHuman Podcast. Where we interview extraordinary people to bring you the skills and strategies to overcome the impossible. And now here's your host, Jonathan Levi.

Jonathan Levi: This episode is brought to you by Organifi, you guys, one of the only things that. Every nutritional expert that we've had on the show seems to actually agree on is that we all need to eat more vegetables, eat more greens, eat organic, cut out all the processed junk. Well, who has the time, right? Who has the time to go out, do the shopping, make the salads, make the juices, make the smoothies?

And that's what I love so much about Organify their product is an all-organic green juice. It has. All of the nutrients that you need, it tastes absolutely amazing. And it's made by wonderful people who I consider to be personal friends. As listeners of this show, you guys can actually save 20% on your first order. All you have to do is go to Organifi.com. That's ORGANIFI.com and use the coupon code superhuman at checkout.

Greetings, SuperFriends and welcome to a special episode of the Becoming SuperHuman Podcast which is brought to you. You guys, this week by Ms. Nicole Momote of the United States of America, who says super crush on Becoming SuperHuman five stars Becoming SuperHuman is by far my favorite podcast. Jonathan is a wonderful host and this podcast has already positively affected my life in just the past month that I've been listening. It's quite a long review here, which we appreciate, but I'll skip to the bottom, which is I've listened to nearly every podcast, some even twice, keep up the powerful content. Jonathan, thanks so much for following this passion and serving us all.

Well, thank you. Nicole for your review. And for those of you who have not left a review, please remember for every review that we get, we put out a new episode. So make sure that you do it. If you haven't already on to today's episode, you guys, I said today was going to be a special episode and I'm sticking to it because today we are actually joined by economist and author, Jeffrey Tucker.

Now you might have heard of Jeffrey Tucker he's very popular in the Bitcoin scene. He's an Austrian school economist. And you might be thinking, well, what does this have to do with Becoming SuperHuman? Well, Jeffrey was here in the studio with me and we were talking about Bitcoin for a new project that I've been working on and he believes that Bitcoin is going to be one of the key technologies, if not the technology that liberates humanity creates unseen, prosperity, unseen freedom, and many, many more things. So I wanted to talk to him and as I was talking to him about Bitcoin for this other project, I came to realize, you know, a lot of the stuff that he's talking about is about financial freedom, is about having responsibility for your future and is about.

Well, a lot of different things that we've covered on the show, only tangentially, but which really relate to becoming superhuman. How can we all as a society become better? So I decided to share this interview with you guys here today. I know Bitcoin is not a topic that you would typically think would be superhuman, but it's something that I want to start talking more and more and more about because I think it has the potential.

And I think you'll see throughout this interview, it has the potential to really help a lot of people. So throughout the interview, we talk about what it is, why Bitcoin is such a powerful thing. Why Jeffrey is the first economist who came out and said, Hey, this, this technology has potential to change the world.

He was the first one who went from saying that Bitcoin was a joke to realizing the power. When we talk about that power, we talk about how it's going to change people's lives. We talk about how you can get involved and get started. Now on that note, I do want to let you guys know that this episode is brought to you by that new project that I was talking about.

And that project is called Bitcoin Academy. It's an all-new Masterclass-level product that I've worked six months on. With some of the leading educators and thinkers in the space to help you get involved in the cryptocurrency revolution. You know, you might've heard of people who've made millions of dollars in cryptocurrency and you might've heard of other people who have lost millions of dollars in cryptocurrency.

Well, this is the course that is meant to train everyone out there to safely join this revolution without falling prey, to the many hacks and thieves and problems that have cost people millions of dollars. So whether or not you guys are currently involved in Bitcoin, it is going to take you from zero to hero and help you understand why I think, and many others, like my guest today think that this is the next big technology that is going to do for money and commerce.

Like what the internet did. For information. So if you want to get involved at the ground level, you want to start participating. You want to start seeing what is the big deal? Why is this Bitcoin thing in the news every day? Go ahead and head on over to J L e.vi/bitcoin. That is B I T C O I N. And you will get a special discount on the course as listeners of this podcast.

All right. That's enough for me? Let me just switch it over to my new super friend, Mr. Jeffrey Tucker.

So welcome everybody. My name is Jonathan Levi here and I am here with economists Jeffrey Tucker. One of the very first people to go from really being a naysayer or really first economist to being a naysayer on Bitcoin to being an enthusiastic stan and advocate of it. So Jeffrey welcome.

Jeffrey Tucker: Thank you.

Jonathan Levi: Thank you for having the time. Yeah. We're so excited to have you here. Jeffrey's here in Israel for a conference and he made the time out of his schedule right before coming from the flight to come and chat with us. So we really appreciate it. So definitely for those folks in the audience who haven't heard of your work, and then maybe seeing what you've been up to, can you give them a little bit of background, what you do.

Jeffrey Tucker: Well, sure. So I studied economics in college. I'm shelling love with the science as a way of explaining where wealth comes from and why societies rise, why they thrive, why they die. This is what I wanted to know, which is why I studied economics. And, um, I don't know, I've had this rapturous love for the subject ever since.

So that's what I do.

Jonathan Levi: Amazing. And so you are known specifically for your latest project. Liberty Me is one of the big things people know.

Jeffrey Tucker: The company knows and I sold it. So it's good, but it was kind of a nice blogging platform and a library. It was a kind of a community that it was to create a scalable community of mutual interest in the topic of human Liberty that did very well.

Um, so then congratulate. Thank you.

Jonathan Levi: Yeah. Amazing. And so now you are specializing mainly in just economics.

Jeffrey Tucker: Yeah. I'm dread content at the foundation for economic education, which was founded in 1946, actually, and took in a lot of, uh, war refugees who were intellectuals and have nowhere else to go. So they came to New York, that's where offices were in New York, and the foundation sponsored a lot of great books that are still to this day, a big sellers like economics and one lesson by Henry Hazlitt. And human action by alluded by muses who had fled the, uh, on slush in, uh, in Vienna in 1934. So there's a link back and I'm really proud of the role that he had in history.

Jonathan Levi: Amazing. So that leads me really, really nicely actually to my next question, which is you are known. For being a proponent of the Austrian school. Yes. And I think a lot of people, as we were talking about before we got started, I studied a little bit of economics and then changed my major at Berkeley. But I think a lot of people don't know about the Austrian school.

Jeffrey Tucker: Yeah, I, it's a challenge to sum it up. We're going to do the elevator version heritage and late 19th century, there was a big split between the Austrian school and the German school. The German school was all about state management of economies and scientific methodology that was rooted in positivism and empiricism, the role of an economist and the German conception was just to look at data and see celebrate the state.

Basically, I've got a very different understanding. It was more of a stew Tealium. They imagined economics to be more of a logical discipline that was humanely interested in the wellbeing of nations and human persons in their real lives. So that was a big split. That happened really in the economics profession, in the 1880s and 1890s.

And most of the proponents of the Austrian school landed of course in Austria and everything was going along very well until the great tragedy, right? The early 1930s then. Cause it just so happened. The most of the economists at the time were, were Jewish. And so there was a diaspora that happened with the Austrian school that came to America, went to Geneva, went to London, hiking up in London.

Measles ended up in Geneva and then finally in New York. And the beautiful thing about ideas is that you can't kill them. Right? You could kill a lot of things. You can't kill ideas.

Jonathan Levi: Absolutely.

Jeffrey Tucker: So the diaspora spreading the Austrian school all over the world, and now we've got a robust center in Japan and Brazil and more and more Israel. And then of course the US is.

Jonathan Levi: So, I guess in today in practice, what is the difference between the Austrian school and some of the other schools that people might be learning

Jeffrey Tucker: Austrian schools? I would say that we rely more on a logical deductive methodology, and we're more interested in how people actually choose and conduct.

The affairs and their own life. We don't impose a lot of optimization models on the human experience. We want to see what people do, and we try to account for things like entrepreneurship, right. You know, which are hard to model, actually having an idea and a vision of something that could be, but it doesn't yet exist and you work, work, work, and you take the risk to achieve it.

And there's marketing involved. There's raising of capital. There's the intellectual work of discovering something. That's. Not yet discovered. Right? So all those things are mysterious and interesting, but they're the really important part of economics, you know, and you can't put them in equilibration models, you know, you can't just crank them out of a calculus.

Jonathan Levi: Right.

Jeffrey Tucker: So the Austrian school likes to reflect. And the meaning of what it is to have an imagination, to make a good judgment, you know, to take a risk. These kinds of things is what enraptured people. They are strange.

Jonathan Levi: Interesting. So, Jeffrey, you've been dealing a lot with what's wrong with our monitoring banking system.

I have to admit I'm a recovering Berkeley liberal, I think was still a Berkeley, but alone, my partner in the Bitcoin Academy has really started explaining to me, at least with the monetary system what's wrong. And I think there's no one better to explain.

Jeffrey Tucker: I can sum it up. You know, it's actually an amazing thing.

We don't actually recognize it too well because we're so used to it. But for at least a hundred years, governments have monopolized money.

Jonathan Levi: Right.

Jeffrey Tucker: They froze it in place as a technology. They said we own it. And all existing money must go through the banking system, which we will cartelize, which we will codify into existence. Protect and guard against any kind of runs or it won't be subjected to the normal to attest of any normal business banking can never go bankrupt and money will always be issued by the state. And that way, what it did is it put really the masters of the universe and government in charge of half of every transaction.

And that as a technology money never really improved, it never got better. It would be as if, you know, we were all still driving around model T or something. I put it this way because I think that's really interesting way to think of it. You don't know what you're missing as long as something is nationalized and frozen in place, you get used to it.

So a hundred years of combined, we've gotten used to the same old money again and again. It tends to be low quality and declining quality, the best we can really help. So, because it's going to be stable.

Jonathan Levi: Right.

Jeffrey Tucker: And I like the shackles are pretty solid currency right now, unlike say 20 years ago. And that's good, but still, it's not the technology we need. There is a problem in national money is called counterparty risk. Like you never really know for sure? Well, how should I put it? Transactions are not finally settled when they're made, there's always a trust relationship unless it's cash, right? Everything, but cash requires counterparty risk. You have to trust somebody to hold the money, somebody to deliver the goods. In order to earn that trust, you have to cough up your identity. They have to assess your character. They're going to be true tracking you. And that works well for people of a certain status in life, but it turns out something like two-thirds of the world's population. Is unbanked, but they still need to do economic stuff.

Jonathan Levi: Yeah. They still need that.

Jeffrey Tucker: So we need a people's currency, essentially you know?

Jonathan Levi: With lower boundaries, lower barriers to entry and less friction.

Jeffrey Tucker: Such a difference with Bitcoin because anybody can get involved straight away. And I, one of the great things about being around now is that you can see this happening. New people are discovering, you know, under-represent marginalized communities, uh, poor people, people who have been otherwise excluded and left out.

And of course, It's also happening with the major banks too, are getting interested in that because we have all communities coming together around crypto. And it's kind of interesting to think about it, right? So like five years ago, crypto is considered to be this eccentric who can understand cryptography and distributed networks because it's too complicated.

It's only for rarefied individuals. Now, here we are in 2017 because the large and largest fossil the community are getting more and more involved, more and more countries. It's become a kind of safe Haven against tyranny in places like Venezuela. And it's been right and everywhere. And it's very interesting too, to see governments trying to regulate it and trying to crush it.

They can't really, because in the end, what Bitcoin has done is it turned money into information.

Jonathan Levi: Yes.

Jeffrey Tucker: Same as every other digital good.

Jonathan Levi:  I like that because I like to say to people, when they ask me, what's the big deal with Bitcoin? I say, well, think about what the internet did for information, removing the friction, making it everywhere for everyone.

Now, imagine if that happened to money and you know, people go, well, didn't PayPal do that? Like, no, PayPal did not do that.

Jeffrey Tucker: You know? And that's, it's very difficult for people to understand. So what Bitcoin does it United took me so long to figure this out. You have to understand that I. I was a deep skeptic of Bitcoin back in 2010, I was like, there's no such thing as magic.

You can't do this. I had written my undergraduate thesis on money and read every book on monetary theory. It was supposed to be impossible. Right? But they figured it out, figured out how to scarcity the amount of money that could be created. Creative means of final payment, that was instantaneously making you just immutability making digits work like real property like you and I are next to each other, trading something, except we don't have to be, it can be geographically non-contiguous I can transfer the money to anybody all over the world.

This was actually, it was technologically. Possible to do this before 2008. Right before Satoshi.

Yeah, before Satoshi, and so this is the brand new technology. So if you don't understand it, there's reasons because it's new. Right?

Jonathan Levi: You know that's really interesting. You said a lot of very interesting things there. One, just about that we never got an improvement over money. I just heard Shaya Gossi give a lecture saying, you know, we have this unfinished technology. If you think about the vacuum, it was only recently finished when they added sensors and they added intelligence. And now we don't have to vacuum our houses and think about what's going to happen when we finish the car and add sensors and automated.

Think about what's going to happen when we finished money and make it actually impossible to forge. And then I think just another amazing thing that you've said, which many people don't realize in the digital world, there has never been any kind of asset or any kind of anything. That is impossible to replicate.

I mean, the definition of digital, which is you can replicate it. That's right. Bitcoin invented this technology skirts that allows you to exactly scarcity and people don't get it. It's like, well, what's the big deal with blockchain and that's it really.

Jeffrey Tucker: Right, it's huge with money. And we should be clear that money is only one application of the blockchain that we can get to others, but, but the critical thing about money. I mean, there's about eight different things that money has to have. You want high value per unit of way to, you want it to be fungible. You want it to be durable. You want it to be even quality across every good, all these various things that you want money to do.

You've got to have it widely recognized and so on, but a very critical aspect of it is that it has to be scarce.

Jonathan Levi: Yes.

Jeffrey Tucker: So for example, you can't have leaves as money because you know, they're everywhere, right? Anything that you can infinitely reproduce cannot become money. Whereas actually, incidentally, one of the big problems, national money is a slight problem.

So Bitcoin came along and such as you figured out how to use this ledger in the sky or this cloud-based ledger that's that could be observed by the community to replicate the conditions of the physical world. And a medium that's famous for its reproducibility. So it's just unbelievable. And I think it was so amazing if you think about it. The Genesis block so-called came out in January of 2009, but it took fully 10 months before the incredulity began to evaporate. Right? So the first posted price, a Bitcoin was October 5th in 2009. And it was something like 1/16 of a penny in  American dollar terms that was already proof of concept because it took 10 months for even the people are involved in it to fully believe that this can actually happen.

Jonathan Levi: Yeah. That reminds me of one of my favorite quotes of Satoshis, which was on technical detail. But he says, if you don't understand it or don't believe me, I'm sorry, I just don't have the time to explain it. And I think that's the case with Bitcoin. It's like, well, we're going to try and explain why this is so important, but if you still don't get it, I mean, this is like, people's money. People have invented their own money.

Jeffrey Tucker: And it was amazing for me because I had rejected it for two years. And, but also, you know, you'd have to think back and 2010 and 2011, even as late as 2012, it was very difficult to find any explanations of Bitcoin that made any sense to a normal human being. And certainly not to an economist, right?

So I read any economics. That's my language. I couldn't find any explanations. I finally obtained my first Bitcoin in like January of 2013, right? Sold some, some goods for it. And I feel so embarrassed about this retrospect, but I was using the wallet hub, blockchain.info, which at the time had a little buzz that when your Bitcoin arrived kind of go in the hand, it's the buzz that actually did it for me.

I thought.

Jonathan Levi: Like it's there.

Jeffrey Tucker: I've got something

Jonathan Levi: There's no three to five days too,

Jeffrey Tucker: Right. That's right, there's no counterparty risk. The thing, the whole transaction was finally settled at that moment. And I went home and I thought, you know, I was still just like, what has happened to me. And in those days I think we had a thing called Bitcoin store or something like that.

Yeah. And I opened it up. And the top of product of the far left-hand corner of the screen was a pair of crimping pliers. And I thought, okay, I'll buy them. So I didn't need them. I bought them anyway. So I clicked it and up came a QR code. I scanned it. Uh, Clinton sent the money, and boom, the whole transaction declared and a few days later, right to my house. But as soon as that clearing took place, I remember the day I got up from my chairs at my dining room table, and just did a groovy dance all around the table. Cause I was like, this is the future. This isn't happening. This is the money that I knew it at that moment. I didn't know why. But I knew it.

So I wrote my first articles on Bitcoin. Something like two months later. Cause I was nervous in those days to be in favor of Bitcoin was to mark you as a freak, especially now, but in those days to be an economist writing about Bitcoin, I think it was one of the first, I might've been the first like the employed economist who actually wrote about pick one.

So I wrote these articles and I swear, I didn't know what was going to happen with this. Like the roof fell in the amount of attacks and criticism and during and ridicule I faced over the coming months was unbelievable. And I was in an awkward position because I couldn't explain why it was working.

I just knew that it did what I was trying to do. That was to say to people, look, all you economists out there so brilliant, so knowledgeable, you're furious, flawless. You've been accumulating the theory for 500 years. And so of course, you know, everything except what if you don't. What if the market knows more than you do, what if you need to open up the drapes to look outside the window and see what the heck is going on?

Maybe the real world has something to teach you. Maybe you need to be a little bit humble and recognize the possibility that you don't have and fellow knowledge. The world is moving forward.

Jonathan Levi: Well, and I think so many economists and business people and bankers could not have envisioned such a technological shift. I mean, people think this is digital money, but it's like we said so much more that no one could have envisioned that any of this would have been possible, which is why it's so harmful.

Jeffrey Tucker: And, you know, over the coming year, after that, you know what, I do things like people hire me to interview the big time investors, wall, street, mavens, and so on, you know, on stages and things like that.

And I would always throw out questions like, um, sheepishly. So what is your sense of Bitcoin? And every time they would just explode, like rage thing. It was ridiculous. It's like Jamie, same thing and they split it, the race. That's ridiculous, that is a hoax, that's a Ponzi scheme. Anybody is doing that as a loser and just like an inordinate amount of anger?

Jonathan Levi: Right.

Jeffrey Tucker: Like you don't have to actually get it. You don't have to get angry about it. You can just say, well, I'm not really convinced why not? No. It's like fuming because they knew that if it was right, everything has changed.

Jonathan Levi: So their entire ecosystem crumbles. So I have a question to sheepishly ask you, which is I'm rusty on my Austrian economics, typically Australian economics talk about the intrinsic value of money. So for example, we should use goals because if shit hits the fan, it has value, right. Bitcoin does. And have that intrinsic value or does it, right?

Jeffrey Tucker: Well, so the story goes like this, nothing can be money unless it has a pre-existing value typically in barter. So for example, that's why gold became money because it was already a valuable commodity, right? So the theory is called the regression theorem and it was planted by both Carl Mangere, um, and the divine muses. And that it was a test like cans, be money. If it has no preexisting value and some exchange, then it cannot, if it does then perhaps it can.

So like in jails today, you know, in prison with us prisons, people use, uh, things like cans of mackerel or ramen noodles, right? Those have a pre-existing value, you can eat them. And so initially people said that that cannot happen with Bitcoin because it had no pre-existing value. You can't just make something money.

I can't write on a piece of paper and call it Jefferies and expect you to accept as the money. Right. And that sounds right at first until you consider something really important. And that's that Bitcoin is inseparable from its payment system in the blockchain.

Jonathan Levi: Okay. Yeah.

Jeffrey Tucker: Those things are tied, like, and this is very difficult to understand because in national money we have the dollar and we have a visa, you know, we have the shackle and we have the payment.

So we split our money is from our payment systems. But with the Bitcoin ecosystem, those are United blockchain and Bitcoin are and separately linked. So the question is what then is the use-value that gave rise to the valuation of the pricing of Bitcoin? And the use-value is precisely the capacity to bundle bits of information into immutable packets and transfer them geographically on a non-contiguous basis to anybody in the world for a very low cost.

Jonathan Levi: Right.

Jeffrey Tucker: And a final payment setting. In other words, it's the payment system of the blockchain itself that constitutes its use-value. You see what I mean? So in the same sense that gold was useful before it became money in the same sense that salt had value before salt became money.

Jonathan Levi: Right.

Jeffrey Tucker:  So it is with Bitcoin. The blockchain had developed use-value before that Bitcoin itself developed a price exchange ratio.

Jonathan Levi: So if I rephrase it in my own terms from my accelerated learning background. In a sense, if you think about it, the value that Bitcoin creates or represents is the reduction of friction in transmit.

Jeffrey Tucker: I think that's a decent way to put it, that's a decent way to put it.

If you could somehow put an ax between the blockchain and Bitcoin, Bitcoin's value would fall to zero. Hmm. I mean, that's an inconceivable idea, but I just think conceptually, if you could do that, they kind of have nobody whatsoever.

Jonathan Levi: Right.

Jeffrey Tucker: So it's the use-value of the distributed ledger itself? Uh, that, that was the impressive thing. And Bitcoin then just becomes a kind of numeraire.

Jonathan Levi: Right.

Jeffrey Tucker: You know, just like a metaphor, just like a piece of math that would carry, become a vehicle for the value of the information transporting system with blockchain itself.

Jonathan Levi: I like that, it's almost, you can think of Bitcoin occupies the value of Bitcoin occupies the 3% that visa, MasterCard, PayPal, and all the other schmucks like Western union are taking from us every single day. It's like, if you just calculate that value, you can see, you know, multi many hundreds of billions of dollars of use case value in the Bitcoin network and in other cryptocurrencies.

Jeffrey Tucker: Yeah. Because nothing like that was ever possible before. So if you think about it that way, then, then you can assess the people that's what's the intrinsic value of the, with the intrinsic value of Bitcoin is the use-value of its payment system. Just to put it in the cleanest possible way.

Jonathan Levi: So I have a really tough question for you. You talked earlier about monopoly of governments over currency, and then we talked about Bitcoin and this whole idea. Now there are hundreds of cryptocurrencies competing with governments.

Do you think that Bitcoin replaces Fiat money? Do you think that it goes along and competes and creates that friendly competition with Fiat monies? Do you think something else overtakes Bitcoin and answers one of those two scenarios? What do you think it fits?

Jeffrey Tucker: Well, I think the first one we can rule out that there's no way national money is going to maintain this monopoly and let of crypto crafts.

We simply, because better technology always wins. Absolutely over-suck your technology. I mean, it's just the way the world works. So there's that I imagine a future of parallel currencies because governments will continue to want to sustain their money. Monopoly speaking. Here's the problem though. It's a problem.

I'm actually the head of the IMF I made this point the other day, she was giving a lecture to them. Royal Bank of Britain or whatever. And she said, uh, dudes, we got a problem because national money only works because it's the only currency. And all currency goes through the banking system. And then that creates a capacity for the Central bank to manage the money and manipulate macroeconomic outcomes based on this monopoly.

With Bitcoin subtly out there, we're going to lose this.

Jonathan Levi: Right.

Jeffrey Tucker: So we need to get serious and thinking about what we're going to do because I don't think they can do anything about it, right?

Jonathan Levi:  Right. It's not like gold no control physically.

Jeffrey Tucker: But you it's your Bitcoin, right? And you also have a lot of shackles. Right. So, and you probably make money in books. Right. So if you have watched your own thinking advance, so maybe a year ago you were like making a lot of money in crypto and you went out and spent it. But now today, you're like, why am I spending my crypto? Maybe I should be spending my shackles. Absolutely. And we've all gone through this. So we're trying to calculate how are we going to manage our finances?

So as I've gone through this myself, I used to feel like I was getting a windfall and Bitcoins. I spent it. And then I realized over time, no, wait a minute, I've got this completely. The point is you save the deflationary currency and you spend the inflationary currency, you save the thing that's artificially undervalued and you spend the thing that's artificially overvalued.

This is what I see happening in the future. Nevermore, I would say kind of like crypto hoarding is going to take place, which is kinda a good thing because it builds up a new capital and that capital conserves the basis for the investment, the building of a new, ah, how should I say a new kind of crypto multimillionaire?

Uh, yeah, I've really a new social structure?

Jonathan Levi: Right.

Jeffrey Tucker: And which really smart, intelligent people like you. Hey, can a, can get a leg up? Uhm, people, they have traditional forms of power, like guns and weapons, and political power.

Jonathan Levi: And it's very interesting, really great quotes. Someone asked him, he's like, do you think it's fair? That people who saw the writing on the wall of Bitcoin, I'm going to be worth billions and you know, everyone else who gets in later, it's just going to be a different distribution of wealth. But the Gini coefficient is like, well, it's better than the distribution of wealth, which is my dad had more guns than my dad killed more people during the great civil war.

Jeffrey Tucker: That's a great way to put it. Yeah, there's going to be a massive of people in the future. And I expect the national Mondays and crypto are going to go along. Sat each other now, and now your third scenario about whether it's Bitcoin or something else. That's very interesting because one of the things we've come to realize not as subtle, she didn't know it.

And a lot of people knew it back in 2009, 2010, but only now are normal people discovering this. The blockchain Bitcoin blockchains ecosystem is not scalable.

Jonathan Levi: Right.

Jeffrey Tucker: And it was never intended to be so, you know, what are we going to do about it? And this is the block size debate, you know, SegWit. Two X or is it eight X that pick on cash and so on?

There's a lot of debates, a lot. Is it going to be good? A lot of folks coming, but it seems to me it's very likely that Bitcoin will become a kind of final settlement, a payment system. But within that structure, there'll be a lot of other microbes cryptos, right? You're going to network lightening that yeah.

Works and all kinds of all sorts. And I can see a future where, you know, banks just come up with their own crypto and they have a customer base and all the customers are using it. And then once a month, They're moving into the blockchain to settle all the transactions.

Jonathan Levi: I think that's really interesting.

I want to ask you, I see we're starting to run up on time here, but I want to ask you, what do you think is the future of humanity because of Bitcoin, as in looking at it from an economics point of view, how do you think Bitcoin changes our day-to-day lives? 10 years. Okay. Well,

Jeffrey Tucker: I'm just going to say some crazy stuff.

Jonathan Levi: Please.

Jeffrey Tucker: Cause I mean, a lot of times I pull back what I actually think. I'm just going to get some beer. I'll have a chance. I think it's going to end the war. I think it's going to end the nation-state. Like it's going to show banking and I think it's going to end power and nobody poor all over the world. And I think it's going to lead to unparalleled prosperity.

What's two-thirds of humanity can add there, the value of their brains and their creativity and buying and selling it become part of the division of labor. I mean, we are missing out on so much today. If we unleash the power of the human minds all over this planet, we're going to face unparalleled prosperity. Like we've never seen before.

Jonathan Levi: Incredible. I hope you're right.

Jeffrey Tucker: Yeah.

Jonathan Levi: I hope you would so.

Jeffrey Tucker: That's the craziest work I've ever made, but that's exactly what I believe, so.

Jonathan Levi: I like it. I liked the honesty. What would be your advice, Jeffrey for people just getting started? We don't want to give investment advice, but if you were getting started, say, what would you do?

Jeffrey Tucker: Here's the, here's the thing. If there's, I'm sure a lot of people listening to this and they're sitting there going, I'm learning a lot about Bitcoin today. I've been learning a lot about it for the last six months. I'm very interested in it, but they're not the owners.

Jonathan Levi: Right.

Jeffrey Tucker: And what I would say to those people is just get off your Duff, get out and become an owner today because you're not going to seal it until you're an owner.

And then once you become an owner and I probably like you to, I like to give crypt to other people. I mean, if it's a couple of bucks, that's 50 bucks, 20 bucks, whatever. So that they can like you to be obsessive, check the price for no reason.

Jonathan Levi: So that's how that's how I got in he's alone. He's like, well, have you ever tried it?

And I was like, I don't know about all this stuff. He's like, just try it. And opens up a wallet, helps me back up the scene, you know, very important. And now I do this to everyone. I did this to someone last night where I was like, let's just open you up a wallet and I'm just going to send you a small payment and-

Jeffrey Tucker: They're always like, Oh yeah, are you sure? And they're always a little bit nervous that I was having a coffee with somebody last night. And she was really, she loved talking about, but can I finally ask the uncomfortable question? Are you an owner? And she goes, no, no, no. It is not really my thing just yet.

And I said, look, just take out your phone right now, download this app. She's like, Oh, well, okay. Yeah. So she did it. And then I just, you know, scan a QR code Senator and you could see her whole countenance changed to suddenly say, well, she had boots on the ground. She has skin in the game, you know, whatever metaphor you want to.

She was now an owner and she felt empowered. That's what you really feel. We might own Bitcoin, you feel a sense of like, you feel empowered like you've, you've got the thing and it gives you a kind of levity in life. I mean, it's exciting. And for people who don't feel as if they have a good control over their economic lives, that's typically true with young people.

You know, who can't get bank here, get a bank account without permission to the parents. A lot of women feel dependent on the fathers, their husbands, or something like that. Poor people who just, you know that with bad credit because they default a loan, whatever. If you feel unempowered, Bitcoin is your path to personal empowerment and you know, you can do it like today.

I think, uh, in Televiv we have this beautiful Bitcoin embassy and they have an ATM. If you've got a few shackles in your pocket, just shove them in as scan it and you'll be an owner like that. And then your outlook we'll try it.

Jonathan Levi: Yeah. I think you don't have to put in your life savings.

Jeffrey Tucker: No, just a few months, whatever it is. But it helps you imagine a future in which you can become a master of your own fate.

Jonathan Levi: Beautiful. I love that. Jeffrey, I want to give you the opportunity, where can people find you and check you out? Get in touch with us.

Jeffrey Tucker: Well listen I ride almost every day, except when I'm in Israel because I'm so interested. I can't even write.

I'm walking around doing everything. They use their right over their foundation for economic education, which is feed.org, feed.org. And that's why I do most of my role. I have a new book out, just came out a couple of weeks ago on the rise of the alt-right.

Jonathan Levi: Congratulations.

Jeffrey Tucker: Yeah. So, and this is not about Bitcoin, but now I'm excited to get back into crypto. Not that hold that one up.

Jonathan Levi: Cool. Cool. And last question that we always love to ask, which is, if people remember just one message they're really 10 years from now, a hundred years from now, you know, the rise of the superhumans. They only remember one message and I carry it with them for the rest of the last, what would you hope for that for to be?

Jeffrey Tucker: Over my whole general work or-

Jonathan Levi: Just from today's episode, if they take one thing with them forever.

Jeffrey Tucker: Oh, I would say it should be trusted human beings to manage their own lives.

Jonathan Levi: Beautiful. Mr. Jeffrey Tucker, thank you so much for joining us today. It's been an absolute pleasure.

Jeffrey Tucker: My Pleasure, thank you.

Jonathan Levi: All right, SuperFriends that is all we have for you today. But I hope you guys really enjoyed the show and I hope you learned a ton of actionable information tips, advice that will help you go out there and overcome the impossible. If you've enjoyed the show, please take a moment to leave us a review on iTunes or Stitcher, or drop us a quick little note on the Twitter machine @gosuperhuman.

Also, if you have any ideas for anyone out there who you would love to see on the show, we always love to hear your recommendations, you can submit on our website or you can just drop us an email and let us know that's all for today, guys. Thanks for tuning in.

Closing: Thanks for tuning in to the Becoming SuperHuman Podcast. For more great skills and strategies or for links to any of the resources mentioned in this episode, visit www.becomingasuperhuman.com/podcast. We'll see you next time.