Expert: Natalie Brunell – Update from world of Bitcoin | Coinspot

Bryce: [00:00:15] Welcome to another episode of Equity Mates, a podcast that follows our journey of investing, whether you're an absolute beginner or approaching Warren Buffett status. Our aim is to help break down your barriers from beginning to dividend. My name is Bryce and as always, I'm joined by my equity buddy Ren. How you going? [00:00:29][14.1]

Alec: [00:00:30] I'm good Bryce excited for this episode. We haven't spoken about crypto in a while and our expert today all the way from the US is right in the middle of the crypto markets and we're going to cover a lot. [00:00:43][13.1]

Bryce: [00:00:43] That's it, Ren. Natalie Brunell will be joining us, host of Coin Stories Bitcoin podcast. We cover current market conditions in the crypto landscape, why she prefers Bitcoin over any other cryptocurrency and where she thinks it's going to go from here. And we also talk about the issue of trust and some of the problems that some crypto exchanges have been facing. [00:01:05][21.4]

Alec: [00:01:05] But before we do, it's important that we remind you all that price and I are not experts, we're not financial professionals, and we are not licenced. We are here learning just like you. And nothing on this podcast should be taken as advice as we always say. Do not take financial advice from a podcast. But we also just wanted to jump in and say, Natalie strongly believes in Bitcoin, and you'll hear that in that interview. And I think, you know, over the journey here at Equity Mates, we featured people who believe a variety of different things on a variety of different asset classes and investing styles. And if you are interested in crypto, if you're going to invest in Bitcoin or anything else, it's important that you listen and read and research widely. Yeah, Natalie is a great resource, but she's just one resource that you should be using for your research. And there are people that have the polar opposite view of her. I think Bryce and I always sit somewhere in the middle. I think it's just important that we call that out. [00:01:59][53.3]

Bryce: [00:01:59] Nice. Thank you. To coin spot as well who are supporting this episode and supporting Equity Mates as one of the major sponsors for Fin first coin spot or one of Australia's trusted exchanges here. If you'd like more information or to find out if they're right for you had to coin spot dot com aew. But again without further ado it is our pleasure to welcome Natalie Bruno. [00:02:20][20.4]

Natalie Brunell: [00:02:20] Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to chat with both of you. [00:02:24][3.2]

Bryce: [00:02:24] So if you haven't come across Natalie before, she's an investigative journalist, podcast host and educator. She hosts Coin Stories, Bitcoin podcast. And as Ren alluded to in the at the start of the episode, we're going to be talking all things crypto today to get us up to speed with what's been happening because it's been moving all over the place, just like the public markets. But before we get started, a reminder before we crack in that we're not experts, we're not financial professionals and we're not licenced. So we are here learning just like you. And nothing on this podcast should be taken as advice. A shout out as well to Coin Spot who is sponsoring this episode? The trusted crypto exchange here in Australia and also one of the major sponsors for Fin Fest. So thank you to Coin Spot for the support for Equity Mates. But now let's crack in. So we normally ask people who come onto the show for their first investment to tell us the story of their first investment, but we want to tweak it a bit. When did you first come across crypto and what was your first crypto investment? [00:03:27][62.7]

Natalie Brunell: [00:03:28] Sure. So I first was exposed to this industry in 2017 and my background is actually news and journalism. So I was working as a local news reporter for in the US. It was an NBC News affiliate in the state capital of California, and I was covering all kinds of stories, but I had friends who lived in San Francisco. The state capital of California is very small. It's it's a Sacramento. I don't know if you guys no know it at all, but very small. Not a lot to do. So a lot of people go on their weekends to to the Bay Area, to San Francisco or Napa Valley. And so I would spend a lot of my weekends there and developed a close friend group who was really in the space. One of them had previously worked at Coinbase, a friend of a friend, and one of them lost ten Bitcoin on Mt. Gox. And obviously that's worth a lot today. And they just were talking about crypto in general. And so I was curious, but at the time I remember I did not get it. I thought that this was basically like investing in an early tech company or a tech stock. I thought it was similar to kind of being early in on Facebook, but I was also worried about losing money because to be frank with you, when I was young, I did not learn about stocks and how to invest in the financial markets. I had very little financial education. I learnt and I studied journalism, so I learnt a lot about different areas that I would eventually report on, but not economics. And I really wish I could go back and talk to my younger self and tell her to pick up a macro economics book. But that's when I first got in. I actually I bought some not really understanding it. I bought a couple of the different cryptocurrencies because obviously other cryptocurrencies were cheaper and I thought at the time that they potentially were viable changed my mind on that which we. Can get into. But I bought into bitcoin. I'm surprised that I never sold. I wrote it up the bull market then and watched it crash. And two years later a mentor of mine gave me the book, The Bitcoin Standard. And that's what changed, ultimately changed my my career. I changed my life. I, I felt like a veil was lifted off my eyes. I finally understood what money is, what the financial system is, and how it works. And I really went hard on Bitcoin and started my podcast and all that. [00:05:41][133.7]

Alec: [00:05:42] Love that and will get into the bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies debate and stuff like that a little bit later. But but I guess to just really set the scene for people, I think a lot of our audience were because we're mainly focussed on public market equities here, a lot of our audience were probably quite interested in crypto and nfts and everything that was going on in 2021. But as prices came down, I think interest waned a little bit. So for people that maybe haven't been paying too much attention to crypto in 2020 to give us the the update. [00:06:15][33.6]

Natalie Brunell: [00:06:16] Yeah, well, it's really not surprising, I think, how big of a bubble was formed when all of this money supply was injected into the markets, through the stimulus, through the response to the pandemic, and that money had to go somewhere, right? So we saw a huge increase in the price of real estate. We saw all the equities balloon. I mean, more money went into equities in one year or one year and a half than in the previous 17 years combined. And of course, a ton of money also went into crypto. I think it's really a sign of the times because we live in a world in which no matter what country you live in, the purchasing power of your fiat dollars or your fiat currency is reducing every single year because the supply is expanding. And so you need to put your money into assets. This is, again, something I didn't understand when I was younger. You need to try to get hard assets. For most people, that's a house. At least one house, right? That's the goal. That's the American dream. You have a house and it appreciates in value. I can't believe how much real estate has gone up over the last two years, but crypto then emerged as a sort of a new asset class. It's both very volatile, right? This is a very new industry, a new ecosystem that doesn't have a lot of regulation. And in the same way, like when the Internet came out, anyone can create a website and anyone can create a cryptocurrency. And when there's easy money, you know, when interest rates are lowered by the Fed, there's easy money. There's a lot of venture capital that can go into these ICOs and these new Start-Ups that may or may not be viable or be long term profitable. So you have to be very, very careful because we saw a lot of these projects and these platforms fail in recent weeks when all of a sudden the liquidity drained and the Fed started to tighten. So I really urge people to be very careful. And now that's part of my education process because yes, bitcoin is still volatile, but Bitcoin is really trying to address the problems that we have in our financial system and it is pristine in terms of how it's programmed and the technology network behind it to become a global reserve asset. Whereas the other cryptocurrency tokens we will see slowly but surely they're going to be deemed securities. And personally I don't think many of the cryptocurrencies are. Pretty much all the cryptocurrencies will exist except for Bitcoin, but that's just my opinion. [00:08:31][135.4]

Bryce: [00:08:32] Wow, that's a big call. Love that. Love big calls here on equity, right? Bold predictions. So Natalie, putting price aside, and you mentioned that the sort of the stress and pressures that a few of these platforms and coins have come under, there is a lot of discussion at the moment around trust. So can you help us understand, you know, there's Celsius, then three arrows. Tell us what's been happening there and why is it all of a sudden sort of coming to a head and making headlines? [00:09:00][27.9]

Natalie Brunell: [00:09:01] You know, trust, I think, is a really interesting and important world word within this whole new world that's emerging with crypto, because I think that a lot of people inherently are no longer trusting the institutions that run everything from our money to our social media. Right. So there's always ready, I think, an inherent distrust. And I think people are trying to figure out ways to earn money, earn a high yield and build wealth for themselves because it feels like it's getting harder and harder. Right, to just maintain the purchasing power of your money and to beat the rate of inflation and beat the cost of living. So I can see why there's a lot of speculation in in the space at large. And so these companies would emerge that have Bitcoin sort of as their as their pristine core collateral, but then they would loan out, you know, against their Bitcoin and maybe take on leverage that they were not prepared for in the case of a really significant bear market. And so again, now you're Bitcoin is a trustless system. The point of the network is so that you don't have to trust any third party you can transact and trust the network, all the people and the consensus mechanism and the programming as opposed to trusting any one third party and when you trust. The platform that's potentially trying to sell you on earning a five, ten, 20% yield. You're now reintroducing trust into the system and can you inherently trust that company? And it's been proven that there are definitely some actors in the space that couldn't be trusted. And I do feel so, so sorry for the people that have lost their life savings in everything from Luna Terra to Celsius to Voyager. I actually know some people who had a ton of money on these platforms. But, you know, the truth is this is also capitalism, true capitalism at work, because we don't really have capitalism anymore in the sense that we have a too big to fail mentality where the Fed and taxpayers essentially come in and backstop the big a big company from failing. Right. They inject liquidity back and they do a big buyout, essentially. And the taxpayers are left footing the bill for future generations. Well, here in crypto, very new ecosystem, no regulation. If it fails, it fails. You don't necessarily get your money back. And in true capitalism, risk is rewarded, but it can also be punished. So you have to be really, really careful. And I think that's what happened. Essentially, we have companies that took on too much leverage. They crossed Collateralise with Bitcoin, which means that when all the other stuff goes to zero, they have to sell their bitcoin, which brings bitcoin down and it's just a cascading domino effect. So again, be very, very careful. [00:11:33][151.9]

Alec: [00:11:33] Yeah. So I think on that point for people who are worried about some of these institutions but want to get exposure to crypto, what are some of the steps they should take? What are some of the steps I guess you take to invest in this ecosystem confidently? [00:11:47][13.8]

Natalie Brunell: [00:11:48] Yeah. So I put my money where my mouth is and I'm going to tell you exactly what I do. After spending countless hours studying both Bitcoin as well as crypto at large, I decided that Bitcoin is actually the least riskiest place long term that I can put my money. I know that it's volatile in the short term, so I know I need to calculate the current expenses that I'm going to need for, say, three, six, 12 months. But in terms of a savings account or a savings technology, there really, in my opinion, is nothing better than Bitcoin. And what I think is the absolute safest is taking self-custody. And so basically that means going to an exchange, purchasing Bitcoin and then taking a cold storage wallet, which maybe sounds complicated at first, but it's literally like writing. I mean, it's like driving a car. Once you learn at 16 years old, you pass the tests a little bit of practise, you're fine on the road, right? Might have been scary when you were 16 to first get behind the wheel. But really it's the same way. You know, you learn how to use the cold storage wallet, which is no different rather than a, you know, a hard drive. And you have to have your seed phrase protected. You have to know where that is, make sure it's protected. And you essentially take self sovereignty over your Bitcoin. And I think that that's the ultimate safe way because now you are your own bank, you're trusting yourself, you don't have to trust an institution and and it's liquidity and sometimes that's too intimidating for people. So some people do leave it on exchanges. That does, again, introduce a little bit of risk because you have to really trust the the place where you're storing your your Bitcoin. You have to hope that that platform doesn't get hacked. There's a misconception out there that Bitcoin can be hacked. Bitcoin has never, in its 13 years of existence been hacked. The network has never been hacked. But third parties, these exchanges or platforms have been hacked. So again, you have to be careful. But the easiest way is cold storage taking self-custody of your bitcoin, which is what I do. [00:13:39][111.2]

Alec: [00:13:39] Mm. We should shout out. So coin spot, we're throwing a big festival later this year and they're sponsoring that. They are one of the only exchanges in Australia that I believe hold the crypto in cold storage wallets and allow you to implement your own cold storage. Not only you just you throw out a number of terms there that I think a lot of people aren't familiar with. Look for people to extend the analogy of being a 16 year old and driving your car, you learn from having your parents sit in the passenger's seat and telling you to slow down and keep two hands on the wheel. For people who want to learn about some of these terms about cold storage, how to take the crypto off exchange, what were some of the best resources you've come across? Where are some of the best places they can learn? [00:14:24][44.3]

Natalie Brunell: [00:14:24] Yeah, and you know, that's a great point. I think that if you can learn directly from someone that you know and trust who can sort of walk you through it, hold your hand, I think that's an awesome way. So if you can connect with someone who's a Bitcoin or who knows Self-Custody, that's awesome. But luckily also today we have the internet which is jam packed with resources. So anything on YouTube BTC sessions, he's based in Canada. He does amazing tutorial how to videos any time you YouTube anything like how do I take my bitcoin into Self-Custody? You'll find so, so many resources. I talk about it sometimes with my guests. You can follow the instructions that come with some of these cold storage wallets and products. The companies generally have someone that can walk you through the process as well. If you want to do something like Multisig, I highly recommend the companies Unchained and that they're both great and they have. Members who can walk you through that process, which kind of makes it even more secure than taking just self-custody on your own. And so there's just so many ways to to learn. And again, it feels people feel it's intimidating at first. But again, there's a learning curve to almost everything, especially with technology. And once you get the hang of it, just like setting up a computer or email, it's really, really easy after that. [00:15:35][71.0]

Bryce: [00:15:35] Love that. So yeah, two rents point. If you are interested here in Australia, it might be worth looking at. Coin spot. They are Blockchain Australia certified home to two and a half million valued customers as well. But Natalie, there's no doubt you are bullish on Bitcoin here at Equity Mates where sort of much more on the equities side. And I love hearing different views though on the show. Let's get to the crypto ecosystem because you said earlier in the in the conversation that there's a there's a probability that all other crypto assets won't exist and it'll just be Bitcoin left standing. And, you know, there are a lot of coins out there that I can see that case playing out. But, you know, I want to understand why you think Bitcoin is the one that is going to last and help us to understand this debate and where you fall on Bitcoin. V Well, how many coins are out there now? 7000 or something? Ridiculous. How is this going to play out? [00:16:32][56.9]

Natalie Brunell: [00:16:33] Yeah. So there are I think 20,000 cryptocurrencies out there. I think we hit last month 29, which is kind of crazy to think about, right? So I had to really do my homework around this, this space because it's very confusing, especially when it's sort of crypto in general is sort of a buzzword, right? And the metaverse and nfts. And so we all get sort of excited about the idea of a future of digital money, digital assets and things built on this technology that is so trendy called the blockchain. But people really have to dig in and understand what the blockchain is. I mean, Bitcoin is the first true and longest operating blockchain in the sense that it is a public digital ledger that's maintained by the entire network. It is completely decentralised, has no point of failure, no CEO, no headquarters, and it relies on proof of work, which means that there's a competition that's going there's an incentive system which really makes it valuable and and grow. And the miners have to expend energy in order to be a part of this this this network in order to try to compete to earn Bitcoin. So it's really a bullet proof network and a bullet-proof protocol. But in cryptography in this space, a lot of different projects and tokens emerged because again, just like when the Internet came came out, a bunch of websites came out that in the dot com bubble you could probably remember most of them don't even exist anymore. And we don't use things like MySpace anymore. Pets.com evaporated, even though some of them had like Super Bowl ads and had stadiums, I think with names on it. This is a very, very new emerging ecosystem. A lot of the other projects and tokens and even nfts are built on the smart contracts and some of these other cryptocurrencies. But what you have to what you start to study when you really go in-depth on this space is I'm going to refer to a pyramid, and I have to attribute this because I did not come up with it. It is Jeff, Jeff Booth, who I learnt this from first because he is brilliant. You should read his book Price of Tomorrow. It sets up why we even need Bitcoin. And it's not about books and not about Bitcoin, but it tells you why we really, really need it. But you can. You can think of a triangle in this space of cryptocurrencies. On one point there's decentralisation, on one point there's security, on one point there's scalability. And so Bitcoin has actually solved, most importantly, decentralisation and security. And it's working on scalability through layers. But the others, eventually you sacrifice one of the two as you move further and further along developing these blockchain projects, because you either sacrifice decentralisation because it gets too economically expensive, and basically you centralise because economically it makes more sense and you might as well just have have had a database rather than a blockchain, or you sacrifice security and the consensus mechanism does not have enough people or enough of a strong protocol that it would work long term. And so now when you start to bring it out long term, you're basically speculating on projects that may fail long term. Maybe you make a huge profit at the very beginning when the venture capital flows in, when those early gains take off because there's liquidity in the area. But what about the project long term and who's backing it? What's the supply? You know, this is something Michael Saylor raised recently, a theory he argues is a security and it's unethical in the sense that it's selling itself as not a security. But there's an issue where there's someone there's a group in charge that can expand the supply. They can limit the supply. They've forked it multiple times. We don't know the the issuance schedule. So Bitcoin has been programmed for the next thousand years. You know what the schedule is, how the consensus mechanism works. Again, the mining. Protocol and the consensus mechanism is bullet-proof and it's growing more and more decentralised as adoption grows. So I think it's, you know, you kind of can get into the weeds and you have to really do your homework and research. But I have not found any project that has long term viability in the same safe, risk free way that Bitcoin does, because bitcoin essentially creates in a digital way, hard money, true scarcity. There will never be more than 21 million Bitcoin. No one can change that. And not only that, but it allows you to transfer value with no third party, no trust from here to across the world, and the matter of seconds at most, 10 minutes for pennies on the dollar. I think it's a truly incredible invention. I think it's going to be as powerful of an invention as the Internet was in terms of transforming our lives and bringing freedom and prosperity. And and that's why I'm really bullish on it. Yeah. [00:21:09][276.0]

Alec: [00:21:09] Well, Natalie, you certainly are certainly are bullish on it. There's no there's no getting around that. There's an interesting point there around Etherium. Most people are familiar with Bitcoin at this point, and I think a lot of people are also getting more and more familiar with Etherium. And we're hearing things decentralised finance, smart contracts, well, obviously saying nfts and stuff like that. I'm interested to, I guess, dig into your thoughts a little bit more around Etherium. As you said, Michael Saylor said it was a security. Does that mean that you don't believe it? It has staying power. It will scale. It's secure. Yeah. I guess I would just love for you to unpack Etherium a little bit more because I know a lot of people after Bitcoin. That's the one they're most familiar with. [00:21:51][42.1]

Natalie Brunell: [00:21:51] So first of all, I think that people are they think that it's necessary right now because of the idea of building things on top of it and the smart contract aspect. But again, that doesn't make the underlying technology and the people behind it reliable in the long term and viable in the long term. In fact, I think that in the future, if you are excited about the idea of something like Nfts or or some of the other emerging projects in the space, I actually think those will be built on Bitcoin and we have a lot of companies and work in the space from the Taro update to companies like Futterman and Stacks and people who are actually working to build on top of Bitcoin. So actually I think all of that energy will transfer eventually to Bitcoin. The other thing I want to say is I do believe it is a security. There is an issue where it's not a commodity and it's not hard money the way that Bitcoin is. And I think that people are looking to all of these other spaces and speculation even in terms of like NFT, right? Why why do you really why do most people really want an NFT? Because they think that they could probably sell it for a whole lot more. It's where they can store money and it's going to go from $10 to that $300,000 board. Eight. But the only reason they need to think in that way and even make those speculative questions is because our money is losing value. We can't trust our own money. We have to find a way to put it somewhere from real estate to stocks to now crypto in order to try to make a return. But now imagine a world where bitcoin has taken over more and more people. Take it seriously, adopt it. It's in reserves. Now. You don't need to speculate because your money is actually going to go up in value. We haven't had a world like that in a very long time, so I think it's hard for us to envision it. And so that opens up the door for Nfts to be more of a creative venture. I do understand why artists would be excited about the idea of, Hey, there's, there's ownership within the blockchain. So I get paid out at every transfer of the art piece or the musical. I get all that. But when you're talking about, you know, sports tickets right now on the dang blockchain, again, a database serves the same purpose. Right now. I could do a QR code to a concert in a sports arena. No one can copy it. They can't like trance for a transfer. It serves pretty much as an NFT, but maintaining it on a blockchain will be far, far, far too expensive. These companies will realise. So. So that's kind of my take in general, in a way that's most understandable, I think. Yeah. [00:24:19][147.2]

Bryce: [00:24:19] Interesting. So Natalie, we've seen around the world, central banks now turn to form their own sort of digital currencies and start testing and understanding how it can work for them. What are your thoughts on all of that? [00:24:33][13.8]

Natalie Brunell: [00:24:33] Yeah, so I am very opposed to central bank digital currencies, although I think many nations will try to issue them in the same way that China has been testing it. You know, I think that people should be very worried because programmable money that's controlled by the government is a very dangerous thing. Number one, it allows them to monitor everything you're doing financially. Number two, being programmable, that means that there can be expiration dates to your money. They can say, hey, we're issuing fiscal stimulus, stimulus or this helicopter money, but you have to spend it by this date, otherwise it disappears. So it will really disincentivizes saving because they're going to tell you when and when you can spend it. So I don't. That they can also decide where you can ethically spend it. Right. So they can encourage you or maybe give you a discount to spend in certain places rather than others. And that's essentially the government picking winners and losers. Again, that's not capitalism, that's crony capitalism, that is favouritism, that is leading us to a form of government that I do not want to be a part of. And so I think that there are a lot of bad things that can happen in in China. They've also issued a social credit system. So you can actually you know, they can shut off your account if they feel you're doing something that the government doesn't like. I think that it leads us to the potential of a very dystopian situation. But at the same time, I think that this is going to drive more Bitcoin adoption because people will see that they'd rather have freedom money than money that is basically chained to the government. So I do think that we will see more and more emerge. I don't think that the powers that be will release their prerogative on money very easily. But at the same time, I think this is all ultimately going to be good for Bitcoin because it's the one thing that people will be able to invest in that the government has no control of. [00:26:17][104.4]

Alec: [00:26:18] The counterpoint to the central banks and the countries that are looking at central bank digital currencies is El Salvador with their Bitcoin loving president who I believe you have interviewed. Correct me if I'm wrong there. Tell us about it. What do you think? What's your view on, I guess, maybe other countries doing something similar? Yeah. What are your thoughts on what's happening down there? [00:26:39][21.3]

Natalie Brunell: [00:26:39] Yeah. So I had the pleasure of going to El Salvador twice this year and one of the times I got to sit down with President Bucheli, it was not an official interview. It was just a one on one meeting. I'm hoping that he does sit down with me for an interview eventually, but it was really fascinating to see Bitcoin adoption in a place where it's the first country to legalise Bitcoin as tender. And there's a bit of, you know, a juxtaposition that you you see when you visit. First of all, there's a misconception that El Salvador is like the most dangerous place in the world. I felt so safe there, and I'm so glad that I went and met the community members that I did in both Bitcoin Beach. But also I was in San Salvador, the capital, for a while. Bitcoin Beach is a place where you've probably heard of it. Bitcoin is really immersed in the local economy. They're doing a ton of outreach to educate people. The merchants all accept Bitcoin. They transact in Bitcoin. They're learning now to save in Bitcoin. Because one thing that I learnt that was interesting is in El Salvador and in a lot of these developing emerging markets, they don't have the that like mentality or behavioural pattern to save the way that maybe people in the West do with a savings account or CD in the bank or stocks and bonds they really live paycheque to paycheque or hand-to-mouth, or sometimes they take out loans with high interest rates in order to be able to purchase things that they sell. So they really need saving. And so bitcoiners that are out there are really doing a lot of outreach to teach them that, to teach them how to use Bitcoin and also to eventually save in Bitcoin, which I think is awesome. At the same time, a ton of education needs to be done because when you go away from Bitcoin Beach, you go to the capital. A lot of people are a little bit more hesitant. They don't necessarily trust Bitcoin, they're worried about it. They just don't. They just don't understand it because the outreach has not reached those areas yet. They only got basically achieve a wallet. They were given $30 in Bitcoin and a lot of them just transferred it right to cash or $2 or cash because they just didn't understand Bitcoin. So I really do think that the country needs to do more in terms of investing in educational efforts. But I also will speak against, you know, all of this criticism that just blankly states that this is a dictatorship and that bitcoin is somehow going to be the fall of the nation. You know, if you think about Bitcoin, it is a money that can never be manipulated, never controlled. It is out of the hands of government. I don't understand many dictators who actually are for a piece of freedom technology that they will never be able to control or expand the supply of. If they want to do something with the country, they can't just expand the supply of Bitcoin in order to finance it, they're going to have to get that money from somewhere. So I think it's actually extraordinarily progressive and it makes sense that in these emerging markets that pretty much have to take risk because they are on the bottom of the of the food chain when it comes to their dependency on the dollar. And there are the cost of living. And the living situation there is is difficult for so many people. A lot of people are unbanked. I mean, Bitcoin is actually a very revolutionary thing for a leader to say, hey, I'm going to take a chance on this and maybe it will be part of my legacy. So I don't think we should have heroes in Bitcoin because you never know. Someone could always do something you would expect. And I think none of us know that some leaders on a personal level, but I do think it's extremely impressive and progressive for the president of that nation to move to a Bitcoin standard slowly. [00:29:56][196.5]

Bryce: [00:29:56] So, Natalie, you've mentioned throughout this that you think Bitcoin is a great sort of asset and an inflation hedge. And Bitcoin has been spoken about for a while as the digital gold and a store, a great store of value. And traditionally we've seen gold as the. Inflation hedges and somewhere to store value. But Bitcoin has moved pretty much in line with a lot of the growth stocks over the past few years, and subsequently, growth stocks are down. Bitcoin is also considerably down from its highs. So I guess how do you join those two arguments together and can we still say that bitcoin is digital gold and it is a store of value and really it's just proven to move and correlate with the other growth asset classes out there. [00:30:44][48.1]

Natalie Brunell: [00:30:45] I'll break that down into two parts. Okay. First, let's look at the short term. Bitcoin, first of all, is is very new and it's a very misunderstood asset. A lot of people literally don't know what it is, why it exists, how it could potentially fix our financial system. And it's 24 seven, it moves 24 seven. It's an extremely liquid because of how small it is as a new asset class. So I'm not surprised by short term volatility because as liquidity at large changes in the markets, it's going to affect something that you can literally sell at night. You can't just sell your house. Right, and you can't just get the gains from your your home that appreciated 30%. But you can sell your bitcoin. So it's going to be choppy there's you know traders that that really profit on the volatility there so not a lot of clarity that can lead to it's sort of stabilising when it comes to regulation and sort of these these bigger companies coming in to the space. So short term, it's very volatile and it has been correlated with the asset with equities, especially in this dump of liquidity that we had in response to the pandemic. Everything shot up and now things are all draining down. However, I'm really impressed with the resilience of Bitcoin. It hasn't drawn down as bad as some stocks have, so hopefully that means that people are starting to understand what it is. You know, it didn't draw down the 80, 90% that it has in previous bear markets. So I actually think that it's amazing the that it stayed in the range that it did. But that being said, look at it long term. Look at it long term. I mean, in in as an inflation hedge over the last ten years, if you got in Bitcoin even, let's just say five, six years ago, there's nothing that has beat inflation the way that Bitcoin has. It has beat all the stock indices. It has beat Tesla and the S&P 500 and Apple and Gold and all of them almost combined. I mean, this is, I think, the most revolutionary financial opportunity that has ever existed, especially for younger generations, that have probably felt left out of the system. Right. Like they graduate from school, they can't afford a house. Stocks are more expensive than ever. You know, Bitcoin, although the price of one Bitcoin is a lot price of a satoshis not. And you can start stacking really quickly and start earning fractions of a bitcoin. So when you zoom in, yes, it's short term volatile correlated and I think that that will change. But zoom out and it is a great inflation. [00:33:10][144.6]

Alec: [00:33:10] HATCH Well, Natalie, I absolutely love the passion that you have for Bitcoin Price and I are interested in Bitcoin. We definitely don't have the level of conviction that you do, but we love hearing from people like you and then I guess learning and hearing different perspectives. So we want to say a massive thank you for joining us today. We also want to say a massive thank you to coin spot for sponsoring this episode and film fest. And if people want to hear more from people who believe in crypto, believe in Bitcoin, or maybe don't believe as much in crypto, come along to Film Fest, there's heaps of speakers there. There'll be a full there'll be a number of crypto sessions, so you'll really be able to learn a lot more and you'll be able to ask a lot of questions, especially if you've got questions from what Natalie was speaking about today, because I've certainly written a lot of notes and I'm going to be doing a lot of Googling and a lot of research after this. So, Natalie, a massive thank you for joining us. If people want to follow you online, if they want to listen to your podcast, if they want to hear more from you, where should they go? [00:34:12][62.2]

Natalie Brunell: [00:34:13] Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. This has been great on Twitter. I'm at Nat Brew now. My podcast is called Coin Stories. It's on YouTube and Apple, Google, Spotify, and you can also chat with me on my you can go to my website and message me. It's talking bitcoin.com. [00:34:28][15.1]

Bryce: [00:34:29] I love it, so make sure you check those out. Will include links to to the pod and your Twitter feed in our show notes Natalie. And yes, just a reminder that it is important that you feel you can trust your exchange in the world of cryptocurrencies. So check out coin spot. Their website is coin spot dot com dot aew. They are a trusted Australian platform. Blockchain Australia certified home to over two and a half million customers. So Natalie, it's been an absolute pleasure. Now we probably need someone on that will give just as hot a bear case and we put the two together and say here when you have the call. [00:35:05][36.0]

Natalie Brunell: [00:35:05] You'll have to call up Vitalik. [00:35:06][0.8]

Alec: [00:35:08] So if we had his name, yeah. [00:35:10][2.7]

Bryce: [00:35:12] Maybe you've got his number. You can take that off line, but. [00:35:14][2.2]

Natalie Brunell: [00:35:15] I don't want his number. [00:35:16][0.7]

Bryce: [00:35:19] That would be epic. Well, if we do find someone on the bear side, it would be an awesome episode to get you back on. And we can go head to head. But thank you so much for your time, your and your sharing your passion and energy for an asset class. That is, as you said, still relatively unknown, does come with risk and certainly one that we're still trying to figure out ourselves. It's been an absolute pleasure and we'll definitely be keeping in touch. Thank you so much, Natalie. [00:35:45][25.9]

Natalie Brunell: [00:35:45] Thank you. Bye. [00:35:45][0.7]

Bryce: [00:35:47] Hey, thanks for listening to this episode of Equity Mates. We love hearing from you, so drop us a line at Contact@equitymates.com. Or even better go to your podcast player and leave a five star review. Also a reminder that the Equity Mates content train doesn't stop when you've run out of episodes to binge. We've got a brand new website, a Facebook discussion group. We're on Instagram, YouTube and slowly making our way as an influencer on Tik-tok. That's Ren. So come and say hello and join the community. We'd love to welcome you. Until next time. [00:35:47][0.0]

[2108.0]