751: Bitcoin - The Future of Money in a Digital World!?

Brian Nichols  
the good the bad and the ugly about Bitcoin plus, will Bitcoin be the future for cryptocurrency? Let's talk about that. Instead of focusing on winning arguments we're teaching the basic fundamentals of sales and marketing and how we can use them to win in the world of politics teaching you how to meet people where they're at on the issues they care about. Welcome to The Brian Nichols Show. Oil Hey there folks, Brian, if you're on The Brian Nichols Show, thank you for joining us for another fun filled episode I am as always your humble abode going to you live from our studios here in lovely Eastern Indiana and joining us today to talk all things Bitcoin, the good, the bad, the ugly and all that in between Adam O'Brien from Bitcoin wealth.com Welcome to The Brian Nichols Show.

Adam O'Brien  
Thank you, Brian. Good to be here.

Brian Nichols  
Adam, thank you for joining us looking forward to today's conversation and to kick things off, do us a favor go ahead introduce yourself to The Brian Nichols Show audience and your your history and experience with this thing called Bitcoin

Adam O'Brien  
sure i Nice that you said thing and not like imaginary or I've I've I guess I'll get into it. i Yeah, I'm Adam O'Brien, founder and CEO of Bitcoin Well, I found Bitcoin in 2013 and really fell in love well at first thought it was fake and then as I did some more research into it fell in love with the philosophy and the technology behind bitcoin went to go try and buy some bitcoin found it very difficult and then ultimately learns how to buy and then started making it easier for people to buy and sell Bitcoin here up in up in Canada. It's where I'm from. Today, we've got a bunch of Bitcoin ATMs across Canada and pretty excited to be launching our online platform in the US here this summer. So should be pretty exciting. Yeah, I've been doing this for 10 years, I've heard absolutely everything under the sun from it's a scam to to lips to freedom money. It's been it's been a wild ride. And it's been a lot of fun. I've learned a ton obviously. And I think honestly, it's we're just getting started. I mean, Bitcoin is like financial products and financial treasures aside, I think that bitcoin does more actually for our sovereignty and for our freedoms and for our ability to be to be the sovereign is ultimately what it is. Our mission here at Bitcoin well is to enable independence. It's literally it's right it's like what people see when they walk in the door. It's why we exist is to enable independence. And that's why we're called Bitcoin well and not crypto. Well, that's why we are you know, self custody by default, rather than custodial. All things that I'm looking forward to chatting about.

Brian Nichols  
Yeah, and you choose a couple things there. Number one, I mean, we're gonna dig into this down the road here in the episode but about the future of cryptocurrency and it sounds like you're on board with Team Bitcoin, but we'll cross that bridge later in the episode. But one thing that you did kind of hint at and I think maybe it's because you experienced it firsthand. And that is the importance of having autonomous banking. In this case. You experienced just a short what year ago two years ago with the the truckers when you had the protests there in Ottawa, Canada. And and all of a sudden Trudeau and the Trudeau administration saying yeah, we're gonna go ahead and just freeze your bank accounts because you're part of a protest against the government mandates and, and that right there kind of spooky, right? And it speaks to how if you're not able to control your money, what can you control? Right? And, um, and that's something I think a lot of the people in Canada, all of a sudden, we're very much made aware of.

Adam O'Brien  
Yeah, man. And I'm like, this is that was no surprise to me being so it's no secret. The banks don't like Bitcoin. Very much. I'm actually banned from every bank in Canada, except for one, really, and my wife is banned from most of them just because she has the pleasure of being married to me. It's it's quite shocking. I remember she's little story. Her and her friend were out for dinner. And she went to go use her visa card like she had 1000 times in the past and didn't work wasn't working, wasn't working. So she called the bank at the restaurant and the bank was just straight up like, No, you don't bank here anymore. And she was like, Well, I use it this afternoon. What happened? They're like, we're not going to discuss it. But your cards are canceled. Your your funds are frozen. That's it. And it's it's been this way since while 2015. I had my first bank account closed and I was deemed marketed. And it's it's not getting, it's like it doesn't seem to be getting better. So that wasn't News to me, but you're absolutely right. People often say, you know, I've got lots of money, it's all in the bank, it's safer there. And you don't quite realize that when money's in the bank, it's outside of your custody or outside of your control, you are exposed to the decisions of somebody else. And that goes with everything. I mean, if we have, like, the banks are very convenient on this convenient side, but they're not very secure in the way that I would call them secure. Because you're subject to government overreach, you're subject to mistakes are subject to a bunch of other different negative things as part of the banking infrastructure, which is, which is it can be catastrophic. And I mean, who's to say that donating to what other protests are currently perfectly legal, but what will turn illegal at the, at the drop of a hat or a breeze in the future that, you know, hey, by the way you donated to this thing eight years ago, and we don't like that thing anymore. So now that set your cut, and thank you for your donation to the to the country, it can be catastrophic.

Brian Nichols  
I just I don't think your average person listening can really appreciate how just absolutely insane it must have been for you and your wife to experience all of a sudden, literally having your financial assets just turned off. And on a whim, right, I guess that's the part that is the most frightening is that there doesn't necessarily need to be a reason given it just the spigot turns off. And the worst part is, it's your money, right? That's that's where it really gets spooky.

Adam O'Brien  
And you're guilty until proven innocent. And back in those days, it was simply because I operated a Bitcoin business. And then I would say, Well, why? And they'd say, Well, we don't like the compliance. And I'd say, Well, you haven't seen any of my compliance manuals. But here are the, you know, the big documents of compliance policies that I have, that were written by a by a banker that are you know, that the government likes, we'd like to see them. They said, No, thanks. We don't want to read your compliance. It's like, well, I thought you had a problem with the compliance. Now you don't want to see the compliance? Like what's what's going on here? going on here? Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's, it can be very scary. And you realize just how, how locked your funds are and how outside of your control everything is when your money and granted like, like you said, the majority of people don't have this problem, probably, hopefully, we'll never have this problem. But this problem will continue to get worse and worse and worse, as we drive down more of an authoritarian kind of regime in governments. And we're seeing them demonize different things, especially up here in Canada, we watched what happened throughout the pandemic. You know, we're seeing what's happening in China with CBDCs, 15 minutes, cities, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, that's only possible in an environment where your money is completely controlled by a centralized entity. And if it's not, if it's in an environment like Bitcoin, which is fully outside of the control of anyone else, but yourself fully decentralized, you have a lot more capabilities and you have the you have the ability to just up and leave, nobody can freeze your Bitcoin account, period. That's it, problem solved. And so just by that virtue alone, Bitcoin is better.

Brian Nichols  
So we've been listening obviously some of the pros here of Bitcoin I think maybe we let's keep on this path. Were a good good trajectory here listing out some of the positives of Bitcoin and we will list some of the negatives I would love to hear some of your thoughts on some of the negatives of Bitcoin because obviously, no, no type of cryptocurrency no type of fiat money has perfection littered throughout it. So we're gonna go ahead and talk about the negatives. But first, let's continue a little bit down the pros here. Adam, give us a little bit more of the pros that you've uncovered as you're going through and you've lived in this world now for quite a while. So where do you see beyond obviously the autonomy being able to own your actual your funds your financial assets? Those are obviously big big positives for Bitcoin where else do you see some wins and and some pros here on the the pro Bitcoin camp?

Adam O'Brien  
Yeah, first and foremost. So I'm a big proponent of the Freedom aspect of Bitcoin I call it Bitcoin freedom, money, not money, freedom. And freedom. Money means that it's freedom first, and then its monetary policy. But secondary is the monetary policy, the fact that we have an asset perfectly backed by energy, which is how money needs and should be, we have an asset that we can completely own or control that's programmatically designed to maintain your purchasing power. That's all done through rules and not rulers. Our current monetary system has a bunch of rulers bunch people at the top making the decisions on a whim. I'm not sure what it wasn't in the States, but throughout the pandemic, over the last three years, our monetary supply tripled. So we used to have like 1 trillion of em zero. Now we've got three and it actually hit us as high as 5 trillion on the m zero money supply. That's bad. If your money can just quintuple that means that the dollars you had are now worth five times less or, or, or a fraction of what was currently there. And so that's what happens when you have a ruled state or a rulers in charge of your money. Bitcoin has rules, these are open for anyone to read. Here's the program. Here's the policy, here's how Bitcoin or here's how the money supply is going to work. And it's just tick tock. The money supply follows the rules. And I think rules and not rulers is a key distinction that we don't often think about, we often think about money as some abstract being that just kind of flows through through the world. We don't realize there's puppeteers at the top, really, that impact the way that you're able to save and spend your money. And getting outside of that ruler. Society is so so important.

Brian Nichols  
Getting out of the ruler society, I think everybody in the audience is nodding their head in agreement. Now, definitely there are some folks out there who I know, are curious, right, they have the speculative hats on, and we're going to address some of their concerns because maybe there is some merits to those concerns. But first, we're gonna go ahead and get a shout out to today's sponsor, and that is the amazing cardio miracle Now, folks, cardio miracle is a brand new sponsor here on The Brian Nichols Show, I had John Hewlett, he is the founder and CEO of cardio miracle here on the show back about a month or so ago. And I was absolutely blown away not just by our conversation, but frankly the product because yeah, I've been using cardio miracle now for about a month and a half. And I am a huge fan. And here's the here's the reality to folks Heart disease is the number one leading cause of death in America, according to the American Heart Association. And with that being said, it's no secret your heart health needs special attention. And that's why cardio miracle is one of the best natural ways to care for your heart. As it supports better blood flow, oxygen levels and blood pressure. It supports it by doing better heart health, better sleep, better recovery, better energy, heck, a better you with 53 ingredients that are absolutely incredible, full of nutrients, but also a 100% money back guarantee. Cardio miracle is absolutely worth the investment, both in the product, but also frankly in your health. If you want go ahead and get yours today, use code TBS at checkout for 15% off your art, your order cardio miracle, proud sponsor here on The Brian Nichols Show one more time, head to Brian Nichols show.com, you'll find it right there on the homepage, use code TBNS at checkout for 15% off your order. All right, Adam. Now we're gonna go to the negatives, right? The I guess necessarily bad things of Bitcoin, but maybe some of the things that aren't the best, right? The areas that Bitcoin has some weaknesses, and maybe you can give some of your context and maybe address some of those concerns as well. Yeah, I

Adam O'Brien  
think so. Bitcoin is a very long term technology, kind of, I call it bitcoin is, by definition, a protocol, not a product. And when you have protocols, like we're used to using protocols every single day, we just want you to, we don't usually know that we're using those protocols, things like SMTP, email protocol, IP, Internet Protocol, HTTP two protocol that are HTTPS, and it's polyclinics, internet servers secure, we use all of these every single day, we just don't really think about it, because there's a company in between kind of bridging the gap or making it easier to use. And that's where companies like Bitcoin will come in is, we want to make it easier to buy, sell and use the Bitcoin protocol. And so what that means is completely flipping on its head how you currently think about money. Right? Now, people have this wrong assumption, they aren't smart enough to use the money they have, they've got the problem of, well, my dad told me that anytime I have over $1,000, I should talk to the money manager and the money manager can do what he does with it. And that's because I think our school system, our education system, and frankly, the Fiat ecosystem, which is like the broader money supply, doesn't want us really in control of our money. And we have this tendency to earn money, give it away. And that's bad, because the Bitcoin standard or the Bitcoin protocol, with rules and not rulers actually encourages you to hold your own money to hold the wealth that you create with your time, and then move it into the future. And so that's just confusing. And the biggest barrier is getting people on board with the fact that they can control their money. Oftentimes, people I hear people say, Oh, well, I don't want to lose the password or I can't be trusted to hold my own money. It's like, guy, you you you own $100 million business. You drive a $20,000 car, you're wearing a $50,000 Rolex. You can't keep a couple of passwords safe like you have. You have two kids that you've cared and loved for you. You pay your property taxes and you maintain a house and a cottage you drive a boat, you know you drive a 5000 pound steel truck down the highway at godspeed to and from work, and you can't keep up Password Safe. Like we've just been brainwashed and tricked into thinking, Oh, money, I'm not smart enough, I can't do it. And it's really like it's a societal damage, that we have people that are smart, that are capable of owning and controlling their wealth that don't, because they're scared.

Brian Nichols  
Adam, is it fair to ask this question I hope it's fair to ask, I'm gonna ask it. Do you? Do you find that maybe this is just a problem across the board for society that we as a society are just so apathetic, just don't care about not necessarily the outcomes, but really how things work. And we see the outcomes, and we're like, oh, this is terrible when bad things happen, but never really want to address the underlying reasons why things happen. And we see this across society, you know, I just did an ad read here for cardio miracle. And talking about heart disease being the number one killer in America like that. That's just reality, because we don't take care of ourselves, right, we have some of the fattest people in the world living here in the continental United States. And I mean, that alone kind of speaks to how we have this, this almost short term gratification, this short term desire that we forget long term will lead to negative consequences. When we eat the Twinkie when we eat the bag of chips when we gorge ourselves and eat 1000s and 1000s of calories. Right? We, we see this in the way we take care of our bodies. And if you look at our health of our financial system, it mirrors how we take care of our physical selves, right? And I guess, is that inherently a problem with us as society and just like the people who go to the gym, and lift weights, like they're the ones who are going to be healthy, the people who take care of their finances and take advantage of technologies and resources like Bitcoin? They're gonna have the financial successes.

Adam O'Brien  
Big time, man, it's you're talking about time preference, you're talking about this concept of high time preference and low time preference, and you got a high time preference. You're like you said, it's like, what's the quick fix? Where's the heroin? Where's the cocaine that I can just inject and get energy? It's like, Well, why don't you sleep a bit better, have some more water and lift some weights to get some energy that takes too much time. Let's just Let's just take some caffeine, let's take some, you know, some some quick hit drug that I can that I can manipulate or stimulate myself with. And and the finances are no different. I mean, we live in a world of immediate gratification I was on, I was buying the other day, a couple $100 product online, and I had like an affirm. logo, like do you want to make three easy payments of $39 a month? No, I don't like I want to pay for it today. Because if I get in the habit of paying for things over three or four months, I'm gonna spiral out of control. Because it's an add

Brian Nichols  
on. I don't mean to interject, but like you look at the kids who they are completely financially illiterate, they haven't been taught this by their parents, they haven't been taught this in school, they go, they go off into quote, unquote, real life, which is still just fascinating that we are at a point where there is such a distinction between being a child and quote unquote, real life that we call it going to real life all in for protection, right? Just just to protect them. Yeah. And then they go off into the real world, they have no idea how to manage their finances, they have no idea, the value of investments, whether that's investments in cryptocurrency, whether it's investments in the stock market, they don't understand the importance of compounding interest. They don't understand any of this stuff. And frankly, and this is something I don't know, man, I'm seeing this a lot with Gen Z, and I'm not trying to be, you know, that old man points at Cloud and yells, but like, a lot of Gen Zers. will be like, Yeah, I don't know that. And there's no desire for me to learn it. Like they they do not care. And that makes me even more, I guess, apprehensive towards the future. Because is this indicative of where we're heading to?

Adam O'Brien  
Yeah, big time. And, and you're right, they don't care because they don't need to, because their credit card works. And because, you know, Uncle Joe is going to bail them out of all their student debt. And if the mortgages collapse, again, all good, you know, the, the, the Treasury and the feds are gonna just bail that out, too. And on and on. And on, we go when we have this ecosystem of fail and no consequence, we create an ecosystem where it's okay to fail, and there's no incentive to learn, right? Why would you go to the gym seven days a week, if you can be shredded, look great and be super healthy without it as a human species. We are trained and designed to take the path of least resistance we're like water. And unfortunately, we think all outcomes are the same because there are very wealthy short term wealthy people that haven't had to put the work in that don't understand the difference between generational wealth and creating wealth for you know, your daughter and your great great great, great granddaughter, and and enabling a society and having wealth that can pass down through generations, because we're like, oh, I don't understand that but it's fine. I've got money coming in every month and I spend it every month. What could go wrong? This is what creates like I'm a big anti crypto currency guy I do not like crypto I believe that most cryptocurrencies are a scam. And I think that big everything measured against Bitcoin goes to zero in that ecosystem eventually. And I think that we've got all these like crypto casino products that are out there and all these guys on Tik Tok are like, Oh, I made 100k It's like yeah, you walk out of the casino the guy that's cheering is going to tell you that you know roulette he's got the strategy for roulette and that oh yeah go to the gym. Yeah, I figured out how to how to tell which slot machine is going to pay up no you didn't you got lucky one time idiot like like and what we're treating this you know, the stock market and the crypto casino like anything other than a casino is just foolish it's it's it's strictly that and yeah, people are going to get filthy rich just like you have a guy walk in put 100 bucks on double zero and have a down payment for a house. But like is that the strategy like right that what we're what we're going to teach our children to go and to do? No, it's not.

Brian Nichols  
And I'm sure that it didn't help you right? Like is a Bitcoin guy to see when the crypto pumping then dump happened? Like that didn't help the credibility of legitimate coins like Bitcoin right? I think that speaks to where a lot of the problem comes from it's a lack of trust that unfortunately has been built because of the the kind of shady cryptocurrencies that were out there that were just you know that they were there what what's the term we use for fake currency? There's a name I forget what's called

Adam O'Brien  
Fiat or Fiat to

Brian Nichols  
crypto. I want to say cryptocurrency by No, that's not real. Right?

Adam O'Brien  
I call them scam coins. The Crypto casino just blatant scams that like yeah, like what you're what you're describing is again, like it's just high time preference. But I think like when I started crypto, Bitcoin and blockchain were kind of all one thing. And now we're seeing Bitcoin separate from crypto and blockchain is kind of just no one cares about blockchain anymore. It's it's just you know, it's unsexy. Now, it's all alternative favor of of AI. But I think that the chasm between Bitcoin and crypto is wide and will continue to widen as crypto projects are exposed for either a scam, or for just being an illegal security like we like Bitcoin. Well, as a publicly traded organization, we had to go through pretty strict securities processes in order to get regulated and in order to get there issue our shares on the market. Most cryptocurrencies didn't do that, and as a result are off side when it comes to the Securities Commission. But they're just like, those projects, those cryptocurrencies are simply just tokens, where people believe in whatever they're supposed to be underpinning. I mean, even if eath is the token that runs on the Ethereum network, when you buy eath, you're basically betting that Aetherium is going to be a network that people at a mass scale are going to be able to use and then going to want to use at some point, that's the only reason in the future. eath has any value today, it's all speculative scams and mania. But in that like, like, imagine if somebody in 2000 was like, Hey, we're gonna give you an Information Superhighway gift certificate, you want to buy one be like No, I'll just use it later. I'll buy it when I need it later. I'm going to keep my money in something that will actually maintain purchasing power in the future. I'm not going to gamble on whatever scam like whatever token you have today, I'm going to keep my money where it needs to be in some of that maintains purchasing power into the future. And then when I need to, I need to use the information superhighway when I need to use the Aetherium network when I need to use whatever other project exists. I'll trade my bitcoin for it but everything against Bitcoin goes to zero in this cryptocurrency market.

Brian Nichols  
All right, Adam, we are getting to the end of the episode, which means it's time for us to start putting a nice bow on today's episode. And I think what better way to do that than to give us a little insight into Bitcoin. Well, you guys are doing a lot of great stuff up in Canada. I think I saw 240 Plus Bitcoin ATMs, you're helping make Bitcoin more accessible to the masses. Talk to us about what you guys are doing up there. Yeah, so

Adam O'Brien  
it's in Canada and like what we've been focused on right now in Canada is a platform to make Bitcoin usable. So in Canada right now, you can buy bitcoin and sell Bitcoin instantly. And you can also pay your bills in Bitcoin and buy gift cards and Bitcoin that's one that I really focused on right now is how do we make Bitcoin easy to use? I think it's a word decades away from walking into Walmart or Starbucks and paying with Bitcoin natively, so you can use your credit card and then pay that credit card off with Bitcoin. And you've effectively just use Bitcoin to fund your lifestyle. And so bringing that to the US and that's very important. Right now in the US at pequin.com/join. You can sign I identify as an American customer, you can currently buy gift cards with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, if you so choose. Just for the record. We don't have the ability to buy cryptocurrency, other than Bitcoin, obviously on the platform, but you can sell cryptocurrency and I think that's that's an important distinction. And then shortly, we're just working out some final banking problems, you'll be able to buy bitcoin, with self custody by default. What that means is the Bitcoin are automatically delivered directly to your wallet that you own and control this is different than like, Well, every other platform in the States. And most platforms in Canada don't allow you or don't, don't actually force you to take custody of your Bitcoin. Whereas we do and I think that's an important step, the first thing that you should do when you sign up for a new Bitcoin exchange, is tell them where you're sending your Bitcoin that's the most important piece of Bitcoin is where does it get delivered? If it doesn't get delivered directly to a wallet that you own and control, then it's not in your custody, and then you're exposed to all of the same things that your bank account is exposed to, you're supposed to the government saying, Hey, we don't like that guy, for whatever reason, give me his Bitcoin you're exposed to bad you know, malpractice at these other exchanges with Bitcoin Well, this is the safest way to buy bitcoin and having the ability to withdraw your Bitcoin immediately. And by default, there is no other way to buy bitcoin on the platform other than taking it into your direct custody.

Brian Nichols  
Bitcoin well.com Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, the Bitcoin whale, please go ahead and give them some love. And when you do, of course, tell them that The Brian Nichols Show sent you and by the way, folks, if you enjoyed today's episode, please do us a favor go ahead and give it a share. When you do please tag Yours truly, at B nickels, liberty, Twitter, and Facebook before we go to where you can go ahead and find today's episode. Adam, any final thoughts for our audience today?

Adam O'Brien  
Buy Bitcoin frequently. That's all I have to say.

Brian Nichols  
Buy Bitcoin frequently. All right, folks. There's your call to action if you are joining us here on the YouTubes Well, hello, thanks for joining us make sure you hit that like button and also hit the subscribe button and little notification bell so you don't miss a single time we go live also we are available over on rumble and Ben swans sovereign SOV. r e n if you want to go ahead and support independent media plus get a sovereign exclusive to you Brian Nichols show listeners over on sovereign which is seeing today's episode before everybody else will head over there. Support us on independent media and in general support independent media so we can keep having these types of conversations. And then also yes, we are a podcast if you want to go ahead and download The Brian Nichols Show on your favorite podcast catcher whether that's Apple podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, music or elsewhere. Just do me a favor. I know I always say is do yourself a favor. Hit download all unplayed episodes 750 episodes of The Brian Nichols Show delivered to your podcast catcher that I guarantee, much like today's episode will leave you educated, enlightened and informed but that's all we have for you today from the Bitcoin Well, Brian Nichols signing off. You're on The Brian Nichols Show for Adam O'Brien. We'll see you next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai