Finally, an interesting Bitcoin podcast!

It’s been a while since I’ve seen people argue in Bitcoin but nostr:npub1gdu7w6l6w65qhrdeaf6eyywepwe7v7ezqtugsrxy7hl7ypjsvxksd76nak managed to pull Saylor into an interesting conversation about credit and lending in Bitcoin.

Saylor apparently hasn’t fully thought through the implications of 21M and remains wedded to his fiat ideas.

He expects there to be yield on Bitcoin in future, but never says where it will come from in a completely fixed supply money.. “They’ll have to sell their assets to finance themselves!” - yeah no shit Michael!

The only way to generate yield in Bitcoin terms is to mismatch duration - literally run a Ponzi scheme. But Saylor expects that because the US Government will back the banks that this can’t go wrong 🤣🤣

Saif takes nostr:npub1sfhflz2msx45rfzjyf5tyj0x35pv4qtq3hh4v2jf8nhrtl79cavsl2ymqt line that capital will flow but HODLers will take equity rather than yield. This is the correct logical conclusion.

I’m not saying Saylor is completely wrong - I do see a future where banks will get into this space and lend and pay yield on Bitcoin.

But they WILL blow up. I don’t give a fuck if they’ve got their own nuclear arsenal let alone the full faith and credit of the US Government behind them, they WILL get out over their skis and they WILL be unable to fulfill their obligations at some point because they WILL greedily try to rehypothecate it in the meantime and no Government will be able to save them.

Saif and Allen both know the economy doesn’t require interest to function, that the world won’t grind to a halt without it - people will still spend money. Saylor just isn’t ready to let go of his statism (as evidenced earlier in the conversation) because he’s become accustomed to Billionaire privileges.

This is why I love #Bitcoin. You can be the CEO of the most successful public company of the past 4 years, all thanks to Bitcoin, and you will still be totally humbled by it unless you fully embrace the system as it is because it won’t be changing for your fiat games!

https://youtu.be/k7XhzXMSAPo

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Boom, thanks for the heads up - look forward to learning

Nik Bhatia has an interesting concept of Lightning Reference Rate, the return required to deploy BTC into the Lightning Network

True. I shouldn’t have said duration mismatch is the *only* way because Nik is right, collecting Sats fees for lightning liquidity is a yield and operates within the system without violating 21M.

Saylor’s discussing it from a capital perspective though. Borrowing money for a car or a house.

So say Bitcoin hits $13M per Saylor’s projection and a teenager wants to borrow $100k for a used car (inflation is a bitch) - that’s 769,231 Sats for a car.

In this world tx fees are going to be WAY higher. Realistically we’re heading to 500-1000 Sats per vbyte - that’s another 6.5%-13% cost on capital in tx fees.

People aren’t going to pay that kind of fee + interest to do this on the base layer to buy a used car..

Lightning or future L2s are the only feasible way to transact $100k at $13M Bitcoin. We could tack on additional lightning fees to represent the yield but then its not contained within Bitcoin any more, the car and the loan are outside of Bitcoin’s property rights enforcement which is not a knock on Nik’s idea, merely pointing out this doesn’t solve the yield either.

So if we can’t get around the 21M - where does the yield come from?..

WHERE DOES THE YIELD COME FROM IN A FIXED SUPPLY ASSET THAT IS CONSTANTLY APPRECIATING IN VALUE MICHAEL!

LN (routing) fees aren’t yield, they’re payment for a service.

It’s a yield, because I decided to move some of my UTXOs from cold storage to a hot wallet because it can provide a yield (earnings generated from someone willing to pay for the service it enables).

Then we have different definitions for yield. I see yield as return for lending. Self custodial LN routing channels generate fees or revenue.

Those fees are generated because you’ve locked up your liquidity in a lightning channel for a time and taken on some risk and cost to do so - thats the typical Austrian justification for interest too.

So it depends on how pedantic with semantics you want to be. You’re probably technically correct, but in practice it amounts to the same thing.

To be more clear, yield comes from counterparty risk. If it’s just *risk*, then everything has risk. Generating and storing private keys to UTXOs in cold storage has risk (and liquidity and other costs), but we wouldn’t say Bitcoin’s appreciation in cold storage is yield.

Yes, we could then debate the semantics of counterparty risk with the other side of your channel, but if the technical risk of mismanaging your channel and losing funds to a force close counts as risk to justify the classification of any return as yield, then the technical risk of managing cold storage private keys or even setting up your own self custodial time lock contract could also be seen as risk that offers yield.

It's always about risk and opportunity cost.

It's always about ROI > Cost of Capital. If I can generate a yield that justifies me taking UTXOs out of a cold wallet, then I'll do it. Bitcoin is capital.

Yield doesn’t exclusively come from the fact there is counterparty risk though. There is cost to deferring consumption, and providing the security and matchmaking so whilst banks needed vaults and guards for security (you could do this yourself - private credit has always been a thing), Bitcoin relies on channels which also need security and the matchmaking is routing. That’s why the Austrian definition is broader than purely having counterparty risk and considers duration and other costs for why interest is not inherently bad.

Price appreciation isn’t yield because 1 BTC = 1 BTC, but 1 BTC in a Lightning channel should over time = >1 BTC with a risk that it = <1 BTC. I agree it’s fees in the purest sense rather than “yield” but I feel like this is semantics and not really productive.

Bitcoin doesn’t map one-to-one with legacy concepts so when we apply them they don’t always fit neatly and that’s a big part of where people go wrong. It’s why Saylor is getting it wrong. We have to work within the rules of Bitcoin, imposing outside ideas on it only helps us in the abstract but if our ideas don’t exist within those rules then they’re rough proxies at best and this is an example of that.

Yes, equity is the future. Not debt. Debt is a fiat concept. Ubiquitous debt is only possible because our money is inflationary.

You don’t have to look far in history to see that’s true. Under a gold based system, lending at interest was prohibited in many cultures.

Saylor tried to use history to support his claim because there has also been lending on “sound money” at interest in the past.

But gold was never fixed in supply, the stockpile always grew so getting away with the duration mismatch to pay a yield is easier in that system, even though it inevitably led to rehypothecation and then they only got away with that because self-custody at scale is impossible in gold without becoming a target for violent appropriation, and modern economies required greater velocity.

Interesting that Allen and Saif have both studied Islamic banking and reached their conclusion that equity will be the path forward whilst Saylor apparently hasn’t so couldn’t grok this point.

Yes, you raised two good points. The new supply and the fact that gold is physical and was warehoused / centralized.

Honestly, I can’t imagine parting with something irreplaceable for a fixed interest rate where they can go bankrupt and I lose everything. 🤷‍♂️

I could see myself funding inventory on a short term basis for product royalties, etc.

Thanks for bringing this to my attention 👌🏻

This will happen, while listening I was wondering what is some AI decides that they will join in the banking system with their BTC and just get 5% for what could be infinity. It will gather most of the BTC that flows in the banks. I don’t know. Food for thought. Anyone have an opinion on this?

You’re right. If some banking system tries to open this up it will end up being destroyed. It’s a Soros/Pound attack vector with 1000X leverage - nightmare stuff.

So what then. Do we just keep our stack or how will we use it when we are in our later years?

Sounds very interesting. Will listen! Thanks!

Will watch! But what do you mean by no interest? BTC will likely be deflationary, so I figure the nominal rate might be close to zero or a couple of %, but real rate will be higher. Don’t you think? Not saying borrowing will be a good idea.

I’ve also been doing thought experiments with discount rates when valuing future cash flows. Anyone have any ideas about those?

Great post!

بتفق معك. اعتقد مايكل نظرته مو مكتملة. وكان في عنده بعض الآراء غير الصحيحة.

المحادثة بشكل عام كانت صعبة.

Take equity? What do you mean?

I think he means trade BTC for an equity stake in whatever venture you are financing, rather than making a loan and getting paid back BTC with interest.

I liked Michael Saylors sentiment. He was aiming for everyone can win, there doesn't need to be us against them. Thats a nice target. Doesnt matter who is right or wrong, it will onboard more people and then they can figure out eventually whats right. Yeah I see the argument, where would money come from for lending if bitcoin value goes up forever. I suppose there will always be people willing to lend their bitcoin to make an extra few %. Logical explanation may lead to no lending, but us humans we are great at creating some sort of fiction that convinces us otherwise. Logic, it all makes sense untill it doesn't because of unknown / overlooked variable. And then its not logical anymore.

As someone who has learned a great deal from both saif and saylor I really appreciated this conversation.

My main objection with saylors view is that he's trying to use decentralized money in a centralized world, and I don't think that works.

He said that bitcoin is an asset that we issue capital on top of, but I disagree, bitcoin is the capital, it is the money, it is the medium of exchange.

You can't issue yield in bitcoin and issuing yield in fiat is just more of the same shit. Let that way of thinking perish along with the banks as we know them.

“You can't issue yield in bitcoin and issuing yield in fiat is just more of the same shit.”

Correct, we know banks can’t issue yield in BTC because of the fixed 21M, but they can’t issue it in fiat either.

Think about it - banks would print fiat which would be dilutive of the numerator against the fixed supply denominator meaning the real yield would actually be negative against the price appreciation of the underlying Bitcoin.. No-one is going to risk that, they’ll just sell what BTC they need rather than take on counterparty risk for fiat liquidity.

This is why they cant back the dollar/peg with Bitcoin either. I mean they can and probably will try, but it will constantly break because fiat must be inflationary for the system to work.

And a system where the peg breaks frequently is revealed as pointless pretty quickly, people will just flood into BTC which.. further destroys the peg..

Absolute scarcity is a bitch. Humanity has never experienced it before and nothing in the fiat system is ready for it.

Disagree. Saylor said in a Hayekian ‘round about way’ that he agrees with Saifedean, and that his (Saylor) strategy is one of focusing on the positive benefits of bitcoin, rather than the negative impacts to all other politicized assets.

I wouldn’t mistake omission for ignorance.

Saylor is so clearly a product of the USD dominated fiat system, he can't conceive of earning money, then saving the money, then spending the money. Which is what most of the world does and always has done. Where people have equity in their own businesses, and credit is rare. The USD based credit system is the historical anomaly, it's a bubble that bitcoin will pop.

Just watches the episode. I'm not sure what Michael doesn't understand about Saifdean's point. As far as I’m concerned, I think they're on the same page. Saifdean is just saying it's realistic that nominal interest rates will go to 0%, but that doesn't mean the real interest rate will be zero. Because Btc is deflationary, the real interest rate under 0% nominal rate will be whatever the deflation is. So let's say it's 3%, that means the borrower will earn 3% a year by borrowing their money for 0% nominal interest rate.

Can someone help me understand why Michael gets so irritated about this point?

Because Saylor is a statist BitcoinBug.

He can see that Bitcoin will succeed and destroy fiat which he will benefit from with NGU, but he can’t bring himself to accept that means the destruction of Statism as well.

I’ve now watched the episode again. Seems the main difference between the two is that Saylor doesn’t agree nominal rates will ever fall below zero–which is a good point. Don’t see how it can, as no one would introduce risk without the possibility for higher returns.

Watching this ASAP. Before I do though, I fully agree. How on earth would they be able to generate "yields" with a finite supply? It's simply impossible and whoever says the opposite is either an idiot or a crook. I don't care who it is.

Saylor doesn’t say. Presumably from the fiat system because he definitely knows about the 21M hard cap. He doesn’t want to reckon with the reality though and gets annoyed that Saif holds the line of rationality.

This is the take I've waited for. Thank you.

Most people on Twitter seem to think Saylor schooled Saif, but i think Saif has thought this through further than Saylor.

Anyone who thinks Saylor won this argument is retarded. Sorry nostr:npub19jhpz8m5tv2m33z78es7r0qseth8th77kttf6kerk0x80sfuy75s44uy5w but that goes for you too.

You don’t have to like Saifedean but he will tell you the truth in a way no-one else will **because** he’s an ideologue who has actually thought this shit through.

When you disagree with Saif you’re not disagreeing with him necessarily but rather you’re disagreeing with the proper application of Austrian economics and that’s a recipe to get your face ripped off.

He’s so ideological he’ll put theory ahead of his own ego. I think he gets a bigger kick out of being right than he does making money which puts him in my

“Won’t be a Billionaire” bucket but whilst he keeps on being right.

I don’t necessarily think anyone won. I think the conversation was awkward and I really didn’t enjoy listening to it.

I also don’t really care.

I borrow money and buy bitcoin at a much higher % than Saylor pays. I’m ok with it.

I don’t know what I’m gonna do in the future.

At the end of the day opinions are like assholes, everyone has one and they generally stink.

You’re right, no-one won this argument. I was waiting for Saif to bury Saylor and he just didn’t. He was far too polite.

But Saif was on the right side of the argument.

You’re lucky that you’re still in #Bitcoin but you’ve already reached your Sats peak and will never get to the same level again.

I don’t mean that as a shame but rather as a caution for others to not go buying houses with corn.

Yeah you’re right. Unless something drastic happens my corn stack maxed in may.

I’m perfectly fine with that though.

I need a place to call home. A place for my girl to call home and a place for my kid that’s gonna be here early next year to grow up in.

Absolutely. I’m glad you used corn for your family rather than some degen stuff. That is what it’s there for after all.

Think you could have improved your timing but life and the world moves on regardless of our timings.

I agree it would have been better to hold off a year. But I sold at $105k so it’s been pretty good to date. Mrs is happy so I is happy.

Just like we haven't experienced a hard money economy for a long time, we haven't experienced an economy without usury either. Imagine borrowing bitcoin with bitcoin interest and the value keeps going up, it doesn't work. We move to a "saving" economy and living within your means and not consuming future consumption today.

I will check it out

I listened to the interview and thought that people with capital aren't going to be incentivized to invest it in companies or govts if they can make more just holding the bitcoin.

Even if the regulatory structure isn't here now to make it easy, people with capital will be incentivized to demand it.

You'll have to absolutely love a company or country to give it your bitcoin because you will be poorer if you do.

nostr:nevent1qqsp2ygavrts5yrv97vq965qn2smuxul6xmsphwhjdr9neezkz26zecpr4mhxue69uhkummnw3ezucnfw33k76twv4ezuum0vd5kzmp0qgs8efndg9ntzm65595xsxgm58rrs65hvcj0gc608ztdndn5pgugegcrqsqqqqqp47gz6a

I've listened to the full podcast, and the two mains points I got from it are :

-Saylor is all about a "soft deleveraging" (paraphrasing Ray Dalio), and think we'll go from a FIAT standard to a FIAT+BTC Standard progressively, but that not much will change in the economy. He thinks BTC will basically start to underpin FIAT and become part of the base layer of money, which is currently the bond market.

It's highly debatable that a soft deleveraging can be achieved at this level of worldwide debt, and part of me thinks Saylor is playing the statist card to not have his assets seized in the eventuality the US becomes a communist government and starts confiscating assets of "dissidents capitalists."

It's guesswork, so he might really believe it, but I personally thinks he has to play it safe with the state, otherwise he might come under fire from his shareholders/lenders...

-Saylor thinks capital that doesn't produce yield is useless, so Bitcoin would have to produce a yield to keep enticing banks, institutions, states and even people to hold it.

That's a wrong take in my opinion because as Saif rightly stated several times, you can't guarantee a yield without a lender of last resort that can print infinite money, and especially not a 5% yield.

If a 5% Bitcoin yield would somehow exist, my guess is that it would either involve paper bitcoin (Fractional reserve banking) so it would eventually collapse ; or if it was done in a Full-reserve banking kind of way, it would be arbitraged close to 0% very quickly by the big capital allocators.

In the future, I believe banks and lenders will still exists, however they'll be much smaller in size and in scope. There will be many more smaller regional/national and independent banks, which will mostly be about keeping custody of people's bitcoin with full-reserve banking, and facilitate their life for the time that fiat and bitcoin will coexist (could be for decades, even a century or two). They would also offer local investments opportunities which would return very low yields over short periods of time (months, couple of years maximum), but with very low risks because it would be for small scale, local projects with "known in the community" people (think your local farmers needing a new tractor, your local entrepreneur creating a company...)

On the other hand, specialized lenders/big national/international banks would focus on national/international companies and states, and offer lending opportunities with higher yields and equity in national or international ventures, with much bigger scope (Think the next SpaceX, the next OpenAI, even state-sponsored projects, etc...), but with also much bigger risks and time horizon. These projects would probably be offered only to professional capital allocators

Most of the everyday people would not care about getting a big yield on their Bitcoin, because due to technological improvements of the means of production over time, their purchasing power would either stay flat, or even keep increasing over time when the next big successful ventures would bear fruit. (Mass-produced factory robot workers, AI Agents replacing repetitive and boring jobs, Real full self driving cars, Nuclear Fusion...)

That in itself would be their "yield", and everyday people would focus on what matters in their everyday life : Family, Health, Work, Relationships, Community Projects... Without needing to spend time and energy fighting endless inflation due to endless money-printing, they would do a much better work at these activities too, and end up living longer, healthier and fulfilling lives...

That last points also highlights why lending is good and needed in the economy, and will surely keep existing for ever. Humanity will always birth a next Leonardo Da Vinci, a next Nikola Tesla, a next Thomas Edison, a next Steve Jobs, a next Elon Musk... And most of them might not come from a wealthy family, so they'll need capital from other people whom accumulated it over the course of their lives to unleash their creativity, fulfill their destinies, and hopefully keep pushing humanity toward a brighter future.

These future capital allocator will be probably very smart since they would have managed to accumulate capital in a fixed-money supply world, which means they produced a lot more things than they consumed.

And these future capital allocators might reach a point in their lives where they realize they'll be more efficient allocating ressources than grinding in a factory or a lab 24/7, thus allowing the cycle to continue.

The big question remains, is MicroStrategy holding the keys? Or is it all parked at coinbase?

This was a very interesting podcast. A personal favorite despite the uncomfortable exchange between two great thinkers.

To be fair to both sides, I think the BTC lending debate was viewed with different lenses. Saylor, viewing Bitcoin as collateral for fiat lending and Chase somehow providing a 5% yield that can be immediately converted to BTC. Sounds great to me, but without risk I don't see an incentive for a big, government backed bank to ever offer a generous yield to its creditors (depositors). I challenge anyone to borrow in BTC even at zero.

Saifedean's comment about little to interest on Loans in a low time preference society is 100% my interpretation of Austrian economics. True, there will always be broke entrepreneurs who might want some cash, but the aggregate savings from low time preference in a fixed money supply will significantly outnumber the demand. The only way to earn a decent interest rate would be with risk, and that means occasional setbacks reducing the overall return (in some cases total wipeout). To eliminate the risk would require socialist protectionist policies or rehypothication.

Key takeaways...don't borrow in BTC unless there is a high negative interest rate and if loans are made in fiat, don't expect a generous yield on Bitcoin to last more than a few years after initial launch.

I don’t think Saylor was saying, or thinks, that Bitcoin itself will be lent and paid back at interest.

I could be wrong of course.

I think he envisions a world that looks a lot like today. But instead of manhattan real estate being the best collateral and property, Bitcoin will be the pristine and most desired property. But still with all things fiat surrounding it.

Whether he is right or wrong or whether that is an ideal future or not aside.

But I agree was a thought provoking convo!

Saylor is probably right short term, but that's only because it is such a mental shift to move from a fiat standard to a bitcoin standard.

The more you move towards the latter, the more people will not accept a return unless it is in Bitcoin.

I agree with this completely.

I think it’s going to take a long time.

And I think if/once BTC completely displaces fiat no one will accept yield denominated in fiat at all.

And this is where I think during that conversation they were each talking from the perspective of two totally different worlds.

I agree with what Saif said, capital will only be able to be resisted through equity. Why? Because the produce of a business can always expand. So ”yield” can come from production and sharing in that production, regardless of what the prices of the produce are (going down).

So in a sense, the nominal yield in Bitcoin terms will be negative. But the real yield will be positive.

*raised through equity

Saylor is correct right now. Eventually Saif will be right. It’s a game of chicken: only a fool can’t make a fantastic yield with today’s very low bitcoin valuation, but at steady state valuation, it’s gonna implode.