Become Who You Are
What’s the meaning and purpose of my life? What is my true identity? Why were we created male and female? How do I find happiness, joy and peace? How do I find love that lasts, forever? These are the timeless questions of the human heart. Join Jack Rigert and his guests for lively insights, reading the signs of our times through the lens of Catholic Teaching and the insights of Saint John Paul ll to guide us.
Saint Catherine of Siena said "Become who you are and you would set the world on fire".
Become Who You Are
#637 Bitcoin: The Moral Alternative to Fiat Currency
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What if the money system itself is designed to work against your values? Eric Sammons, editor-in-chief of Crisis Magazine and author of "Moral Money: The Case for Bitcoin," makes a compelling case that our current monetary system is fundamentally immoral.
Government-issued currencies like the US dollar can be created at will, funding unpopular wars and expensive programs while devaluing the money citizens hold. This forces people into increasingly risky investments just to maintain their savings against inflation's constant erosion.
For young people today, perhaps hoping to get married some day and start families, this creates what Sammons calls "financial nihilism" - a sense that long-term planning is pointless when the system is stacked against them.
Whether you're a tech enthusiast or just concerned about the moral implications of our financial system, this conversation challenges conventional thinking about money. Discover why Sammons believes Bitcoin might be the most moral form of money ever created.
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Welcome to the Become who you Are podcast, a production of the John Paul II Renewal Center. I'm Jack Riggert, your host. Special welcome to young people who have been joining us, especially young men who are part of Claymore. You see the big Claymore sword behind me. Miletus Christi Soldiers for Christ.
Speaker 1:What we all seem to have in common is that we know something's very wrong with the world and as we draw closer to Jesus Christ and his church and try to do good things in the world, we know from a purely practical and prudent place. We need to diversify, we need to figure out what's going on and how to save and store money. Should I buy some gold, some silver? And inevitably the question comes up what about Bitcoin? Should I own it?
Speaker 1:Here to discuss Bitcoin with us today is Eric Sammons, who wrote a second book on Bitcoin Moral Money the Case for Bitcoin. Eric is the editor-in-chief of Crisis Magazine. He holds a degree in systems analysis with a concentration in economics from Miami University in Ohio, as well as a master's degree in theology from Franciscan University of Steubenville. He's the author of several other books, including Deadly Indifference how the Church Lost Her Mission and how we Can Reclaim it. Bitcoin Basics 101 Questions and Answers, and the Old Evangelization how to Spread the Faith Like Jesus Did. Eric worked for more than 15 years in the software development field, including 10 years with his own software firm. He also spent five years as the director of evangelization for the Diocese of Venice in Florida. Eric, welcome.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me, Jack.
Speaker 1:I really do appreciate it Well, you have a business and an entrepreneurial mind, plus a love for Jesus Christ and this church. So I would imagine that you got your degree in systems analysis first and then went on to get a master's in theology. But I could be wrong, that's right.
Speaker 2:I was systems analysis and I worked as a software developer for many years started a couple different companies, actually, and then I ended up getting my master's degree in theology and then transitioned into doing more work for the church. I worked for a diocese for five years as a director of evangelization. I've edited a number of Catholic books and written some, and, of course, now I'm the editor of Crisis. So yeah, basically I started off, though, as a software developer for many years and then I moved into more church-related work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I have a very similar background to that and there's something very practical, very good about, I think, stepping into the church that way, right, Were you a cradle Catholic.
Speaker 2:No, I'm actually a convert. I became Catholic in college.
Speaker 1:Okay, without sucking up too much bandwidth here. What was the impetus for that? Without sucking up too much bandwidth here what was the impetus for that?
Speaker 2:Really it was. I was the only Protestant in my pro-life college group.
Speaker 1:Is that right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean the only real active one. We had a college pro-life group. A lot of people would come and go, but the core members were about a dozen and it was all Catholics and me. And so I really started to be concerned I was a United Methodist about the Methodist news on abortion. And that just put me down a rabbit hole and because I started thinking I need to join another denomination At the time I was thinking something like Presbyterian or Southern Baptist or non-denominational, something like that.
Speaker 2:But the more I looked into it I really came to the question well, what's to keep them from one day changing their teachings on abortion?
Speaker 2:Because of course the Methodists started off pro-life and then they became pro-abortion. Who's to say that Southern Baptists won't change or the Evangelicals won't change? And I remember asking a Catholic friend like how do you know the Catholic Church won't change its position on abortion someday? And it was funny because I still remember we were standing on the sidewalk at Miami University and he looked at me like I was just crazy, like it was the dumbest question he'd ever heard. He was very nice to me but he basically was like you just don't get it, it can't happen, it just can't happen, and he explained it, of course, more in detail than that. But that really set off my journey to Catholicism, because I started to realize that the Catholic Church was just different, that it wasn't the same as the Protestant denominations. I looked at it like just one more denomination, which is a little weirder, but just a denomination, and so ultimately then, a few years later, I decided to become Catholic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I'll tell you what you just hit on, I think, when we're talking to young guys, eric and again, claymore is this logo, this Claymore sword is the logo for this apostolate we have within our apostolate for young men, and that's what they're doing, that's what they're saying. They said, you know, we want something with roots, right, that you know, when I'm, you know, 10 years older, 20 years older, everything hasn't changed and I just wasted 10 or 20 years of my life. So this is powerful.
Speaker 2:This is powerful what you just said, yeah, Thanks for sharing that.
Speaker 1:Well, you wrote a wonderful book Moral Money on Bitcoin, and when you describe it in the book, you describe Bitcoin, how it works, and but you went on to describe it as moral money, the most moral money ever created. And I don't know where you want to start, because it's such a wonderful book and you hit a lot of things, but but. But what did you mean by moral money? That's the, that's the title. So we might as well we might as well start there.
Speaker 2:Well, it really started for me years ago. Bitcoin came into existence in 2009. Even before that, I started to recognize the immorality of our current money and that really started to understand that the way our current money and by our current money I mean the government issued fiat currency known as the US dollar or whatever country you might be in, in which government officials can simply create more money out of thin air if they want more money. So if they want to do a push through a new social program, they want to fund an unpopular war, whatever they want to do, they can just create more money. But, of course, knowing basic economics like I said, I studied that some in college and on my own as well I realized if they create more money, that devalues the money that all the rest of us hold, and so that's really like taking money from us, and we see this very clearly in inflation. The fact that we're just used to the fact that everything costs more now than it did in the past. We're used to our grandparents saying I remember when a gallon of milk costs, you know, 20 cents or whatever the case may be, and we just take that as normal. But it's not normal, it shouldn't be normal, because really that's theft. You should be able, the average citizen should be able, to save their money in a very conservative way. Just put heck even put it under their mattress if they want to in a safe at home and it should be worth the same amount, or generally the same amount, in the future. But what we have is because of our immoral monetary system. Today you have to have everybody has to be buying stocks, looking at what's the latest tech stock. What do I need to do to invest to get the best return? And we're all doing it just simply to keep up with inflation, to be a little bit ahead, so that when we retire our money will be worth something.
Speaker 2:And so that really was the beginning, was I realized well, fiat money is immoral. And that got me very interested in gold and silver, because those are very different, because government just can't create new gold out of nothing. You have to mine gold, you have to spend money, you have to spend energy to get more gold. But of course, there's problems with gold in today's world. If I want to buy something from Amazon, I can't ship them an ounce of gold or whatever the case may be to buy something If I want to get something from somebody in California or what have you. It's just simply not possible. Get something from somebody in California or what have you? It's just simply not possible. Even if I want to buy something locally, am I going to really lug around a whole bunch of gold pieces to the local grocery store? So it's not practical anymore.
Speaker 2:And I kind of thought this before Bitcoin even came into being. And then, when Bitcoin came into being, it was like a light ball went off for me when I first discovered in 2013. I thought, wait a second. This money has the properties of gold and even some better properties, and but yet it doesn't have the but yet also has the ability to transact online and person to person very easily, very quickly, the person very easily, very quickly. And so for me that was like a light bulb and over time I started to realize it's really moral money, meaning you just can't create new Bitcoin out of thin air. I can't just say, hey, I want some more Bitcoin, I'm just going to create some more, and so that really makes it have those moral properties of gold with the effectiveness and usefulness of our current monetary system.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's an amazing chapter. It's your first chapter where you start to talk about the eight reasons. You know that make it more money, right? I remember you know, one of the things that you hit with so clear is this industrial, military-industrial complex. We have going right and we just print more money to fund these wars and then we have to pay it back. So what do we do? We raise inflation so that we pay it back with cheaper dollars, which robs all of us again of our futures, moving us, as you make the point, into riskier and riskier assets all the time, and my mom and dad, who are still alive, almost 100 years old, are still. They have to own risky you know, quasi-risky assets, because if they would have stopped 10 years ago or 20 years ago, it would have eroded. And then you addressed also that this is really another thing for young people, isn't it? You say something like the financial nihilism we see among young people today.
Speaker 1:This is important. This is an important point?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think so, very much so, because I've had a lot. You know, I have my own children are now at the age. My older children are at the age where they're getting married, they're starting families of their own, and I talk to them, I talk to their friends, I talk to other young people I know, and I realized they really do have some hurdles I did not have when I was in the same spot 30 years ago, and those hurdles are the fact that the money has gotten so devalued, inflation has gotten so out of control over the years, like, for example, when the 2008 crisis hit. The answer of the government was just flood the economy with more money, and so what happens, though, is like people like the fact that their houses go up in value over time. So, for example, you bought a house in 1980 for $100,000. It's going to be worth maybe a million dollars today. The problem is, though, now a young person has to go and buy the house for a million dollars, and wages have not gone up the same way that the price of these goods have gone up.
Speaker 2:So you have a young person, does everything right, so they work hard in school, they graduate with a nice degree, which they probably had to get a huge loan for again because of the financial system we're in. And then they go get a good job and they're like I'm going to work hard, I'm going to support my family, particularly thinking of, maybe, the young Catholic men who want to support their family and let their, their wives stay at home with the kids, and they want to do that. But, oh my goodness, in most areas of the country with most jobs, that's very, that's very difficult. That is, that is a real struggle. And so I really see, you see, a certain financial nihilism, I call it, where they just kind of give up I can't do it.
Speaker 2:I can't do the American dream. It's not alive for me, and I think they're right in a lot of ways, and so I want to look for alternatives for them. I want to look for ways not risky, like crazy stuff, like okay, let's try to find some penny stock, you put all your money into that, or something like that, but something that I think is a long-term solid form of money. And I know there are people listening to this right now saying wait a second. You're saying don't get into risky investments. Yet you're also advocating for Bitcoin. Isn't Bitcoin the risky investment and I think that's one of the reasons for the book too is I'm trying to debunk that myth, that stereotype, that Bitcoin is this super risky investment.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about that a little bit. First of all, what is Bitcoin? I mean, there are people saying what is Bitcoin? And then to go on to what you're just asking right now, isn't that a risky way to store money and why should it hold up? Why should it hold up and why is it going to keep the value Right? A risky way to store money Right, and why and why should it hold?
Speaker 2:up? Why should it hold up and why is it going to keep the value Right? And I think I like answering the question what is Bitcoin? By first saying what it is not, and this is going to be a provocative statement. People are going to be like what are you talking about? Bitcoin is not an investment. Bitcoin is not an investment.
Speaker 2:Bitcoin is savings. It's a form of money. That's fundamentally what it was when it was created. It wasn't created Satoshi Nakamoto, the synonymous person who created Bitcoin. He didn't create it as like OK, this is a get rich quick scheme, this is an investment that you can build on. We're going to build whatever.
Speaker 2:No, it was created as a form of money, just like gold is a form of money. Now, I know people invest in gold, but really I would call, when you buy gold, savings, because what the difference is between savings and investment is savings is basically you're just holding on to your money and you're not spending it. Investment is when you take that money and you want to invest it in some business, some opportunity, maybe real estate, something like that, where you're trying to grow your money beyond just what you have. The problem is, savings doesn't exist in our current system, because if you just hold your cash, for example your dollars, even if it's in a savings account at the bank, you technically lose money Because with inflation, your money is going to devalue over time and devalues by five to six percent each year.
Speaker 1:It's amazing, yeah.
Speaker 2:And so. So really, we don't even know what savings is anymore. But Bitcoin is savings. It's a form of money and the reason it is that the number one reason. There's multiple reasons, but the number one reason is because it's scarce, meaning there's a limited amount of Bitcoin ever available in the world and that number cannot be artificially increased by anybody. And so there will be 21 million Bitcoin created and it's created over time. Most of it's already been created like over 19 million of it's already been created. The point is that that makes it scarce and that is what keeps the value of a form of money.
Speaker 2:Gold, for example, is scarce. You can't just create gold out of nothing. But, for example, they say there's gold potentially in asteroids. If we found a way to very cheaply mine gold on asteroids and bring it here Like I hear, there's like billions and billions of tons that would actually devalue the price of gold. Gold would go down in value because the market would be flooded. That simply can't happen with Bitcoin. There's a limit, there's a fixed limit. That is basically by mathematics I mean. It's like fundamental mathematics.
Speaker 1:Which you describe really well. You took a pretty complex subject right and boiled it down. I mean, I would love to meet the inventor of this. Oh yeah, we all would.
Speaker 2:I mean, if you think about it, what governs forms of money With things like gold and silver? It's really physics that governs that money, the supply of the money, I should say, because there's only so much you can get out of the ground, things like that. How much is there? Fiat, like currency, like dollars? That is governed by man, and by, typically, man. We all know how fallen man is, and so when we want to create more, you're going to.
Speaker 2:Bitcoin is governed by mathematics. It basically just is there's a certain, there's a, there's an algorithm, there's a certain formula that says here's how many Bitcoin is going to be, and it's just set and because of that, bitcoin maintains its value. Now I know you'll hear the news stories. I went down 20 percent, 30 percent. It went up like this. But you need to, you need to look out of, zoom out a bit. In the 16 years that Bitcoin has been in existence, it's gone up more than anything else, any other asset in the world, by like way, way more. I mean literally. When I wrote my first book, bitcoin Basics.
Speaker 1:What year did you write that?
Speaker 2:I meant to ask you 2015,. I wrote that that was 10 years ago. I wrote that when I published that book, bitcoin was worth about $330. Today maybe it was $500. It's right around there, anyway $300 to $500. Today, one Bitcoin is worth over $100,000. So clearly it's gone up in value. And that's not because of somebody in the background, some inside person in the back room kind of inflating it whatever. No, that's just because people have realized there's value to something with a fixed supply like this.
Speaker 2:Now, personally, I think over time, over a long enough time eventually, that the increases will not be as radical, but also the decreases will not be as radical. It will not fluctuate as much, not be as volatile Something early on, inuate as much, not be as volatile Something early on in its history. People are trying to price it out like what is this really worth? You're going to have a lot of volatility, but over time, as more people save money in Bitcoin, as more people own it, it will eventually become less volatile. I do think it will go up a lot in price from what it is now, but it's not going to be the craziness we've seen over the first.
Speaker 2:Like I said, I've been involved for 12 years. So I've seen it go like. I've literally seen it go down by 80%, go up by 500%, you know in short periods of time, but that's already. I think that's already slowing down, it's becoming already more stable, but I still think it's going to go up. But that's how. That's why I don't think it's a risky investment. I shouldn't say I don't think it's a risky investment. I think it's solid savings for the long-term. Yeah, you could buy some Bitcoin today, and next week it could be worth less. I don't deny that. But over the long-term five, 10, 15 years it's going to be a good savings vehicle for your money.
Speaker 1:I could see that already. The speculators were there in the beginning, right, the investors, as you called them earlier, and now the guys I know that own Bitcoin. They're buying, but they're not selling. They're incrementally adding a little bit more, but, yeah, they have no desire to sell this. They're using it for savings, just like you said.
Speaker 2:Exactly, it's using it for savings because it's a better form of money. There's something on Grisham's Law in economics and that says that the worst form of money is the type that's always used as spent first. If you have two different forms of money, you're going to take gold coins and the government would kind of shave them down. So they'd say, oh, this is an ounce of gold, but it actually wouldn't be, because they put other metals in it. People would realize what that was. They would keep the ounce that was truly a full ounce of gold and they would spend the fake ounce out there in the world.
Speaker 2:The same thing is starting to happen here, where people who own Bitcoin are like well, I'm going to spend my dollars first and I'm going to hold on to my Bitcoin because I know my Bitcoin is going to hold value, whereas my dollars won't. Now, obviously, there's times that you're going to spend your Bitcoin if it's a large purchase and you had to dip into your savings. We all have those situations. But your day to day, you're always going to think first, spend my dollars first and then only if necessary, will I spend my.
Speaker 1:Bitcoin. It makes perfect sense, as you mentioned, with these young people. They're spending their money because they have this nihilistic view that my money is going to be worth less anyways later on, so I might as well spend it now while it's worth more. I mean, how sad is that? Right it's?
Speaker 2:not only sad, but I think it's evil because it's designed that way. Our money is designed to be spent and so it really does. The consumerism, the crazy consumerism we have in the world today. That's not by accident, that's by design. If you look at Keynesian economics and the whole. I won't go into all the details, but the point is is that with fiat money, they want you to spend money. They want you to spend money. They want you to spend and consume because they think that's how you drive an economy.
Speaker 2:Now, hopefully, catholics understand that there's more to life than just consumerism and just spending money. But that's what's happening to young people. They're just like well, if my dollar today is going to be worth 50 cents in a couple of years, I might as well spend it today on something for a dollar rather than it going down in value, and then they have no savings. So I really feel like Bitcoin and I've seen this in real life. It's a real outlet for young people in particular.
Speaker 2:I know I've listened to Bitcoin podcasts. I know people where they will say I mean, I know people who aren't Catholic but they're Christian. They they got pregnant because they felt like they gave their child because of Bitcoin, they felt like, ok, they were financially insecure. Now I know, as Catholics, we have a different understanding of being open to life and all that, but still the point is is like the Bitcoin is pointing them in the right direction of instead of the fiat currency, which points them to just spend now, don't think long term. Instead of the fiat currency, which points them to just spend now, don't think long term, bitcoin makes them think, ok, long term, more deep things like bringing a new life into the world. So I've seen that happen no-transcript.
Speaker 1:You make the case really well in the book. What is a dollar really? It's not backed by anything and, to your point, we can just print more, print less, and it really destabilizes. And the more you look into it, eric, unfortunately, the more nefarious this whole situation gets. But you called Bitcoin freedom money. What angle are you looking at there? Maybe we touched on some of that already.
Speaker 2:I think the story that brings out freedom, money the best is recently, just a few years ago, if people remember the Canadian trucker protest. Yes, that the Canadian truckers were protesting, the restrictions from COVID and things like that.
Speaker 1:I did some podcasts on that. Yeah, yeah, I did too.
Speaker 2:How they took their yeah.
Speaker 2:They took their trucks and they went into the cities and all that. And what happened was is the Canadian government basically shut down their bank accounts and even took their money from their bank accounts, the donations that had been given because they asked for donations, people were giving, like on GoFundMe or whatever. That's right and the Canadian government just took that. Well, they also had a Bitcoin address available to donate to, and I donated to that, knowing they can't take that money. That's going to be theirs and so that's freedom money that you can use it when there's an oppressive government and you know there's oppressive governments have been.
Speaker 2:I know in America we don't think of that as much, and you know there's oppressive governments have been.
Speaker 1:I know in America we don't think of that as much Although maybe I'll tell you what we felt that even on this show is a show.
Speaker 2:I'm sure you felt it with crisis.
Speaker 1:You know that pressure was coming down, eric. Yeah, I think if Trump didn't get in oh yeah, it would have been the Bitcoin would have been looking really good right now.
Speaker 2:From that standpoint, you would have really felt it. Yeah, you see, things like PayPal. They were doing restrictions. They've kind of backed off from that because of Trump, I think, but they were doing things like where they weren't going to allow you to use their services if they didn't approve of your policy.
Speaker 1:We had to diversify from that. Yeah, exactly, the fear of that didn't happen to us.
Speaker 2:What Bitcoin does. It allows you to say the great thing yes, you can hold Bitcoin at a company exchange like a river, or Coinbase, something like that, and that's fine in some ways and that could be taken from you. But the great thing about Bitcoin is there are ways you can hold it personally and securely that nobody on Earth can take from you unless you give them access to it. And so it really is when we're talking about, particularly as people of the Catholic faith, we know we have a long history of being persecuted. We have a long history and we're still being persecuted throughout the world, and real persecution too. I mean, think about your Muslim countries, places like that.
Speaker 1:And so having the ability— Pope Leo just wrote about 200, you know that were slain in. Was it Nigeria? Where was it?
Speaker 2:Yes, I think it was Nigeria. I can't, but yeah, and so the freedom. Money means simply that you can. You're free to, you don't have to have that your persecutors tell you how you spend your money, and because really, that's how you cancel people in today's world. That's the persecution that happens in the Western world and America mostly is you cut off a person's ability to make money and to spend money, because once you do that, you've got them silenced, and so Bitcoin allows people to speak out and say hey, you can not like what I say, but you can't shut me up because of the fact that I have this ability to save money that you can't touch.
Speaker 1:I remember the vision just came to me in China with the social credit scores. Oh yeah, and these people are just living on the street and you say, well, what happened? And they took their money. But you think, well, that's not going to happen here. But what you just said, they did it in Canada. That's right, and those social credit scores were getting really popular with BlackRock and et cetera, et cetera et cetera right. So what a great point.
Speaker 2:I also want to bring up a confusion some people have, and that is something called central bank digital currencies, CBDCs. Those are cryptocurrencies that are built kind of with some of the technology that Bitcoin invented, but they're controlled 100% by governments, and so they're like the evil twin of Bitcoin. I call them In that, yes, they have the technology in some ways not in important ways, but in some ways is similar, but it allows for 100%, complete government control. So when we say Bitcoin is freedom money, you might be thinking, oh, wait a minute, but can't they control that, Because you hear about CBDCs? No, it's the exact opposite. They can't control Bitcoin. That's why they want people to use CBDCs, because those would be completely controlled by the government. Fortunately, Trump has already come out against those, but who knows, the next president might not. So Bitcoin allows again a way to escape from that type of system where you have complete control over your money given over to the government.
Speaker 1:You called Bitcoin in here, eric, the money of the future, and I'm still trying to get my head around. What you said earlier and what you made explicit in the book is that we're only going to be able to print 21 million of these. We've already. Print is the wrong word, obviously.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know what you mean.
Speaker 1:Issue Issue 19 million already. So can you talk to that a little bit? I mean, you know we sit here thinking, okay, well, how are we going to have enough of this, you know, to actually work on something and make it a savings and not just an investment?
Speaker 2:again, it's a common economic mistake that people make that you have to have a certain amount of money in an economy, but that's actually not true. You can have any amount of money in an economy. What matters is how divisible is it? Because one of two things will happen. When you have more economic activity, more people, let's say you just have more people in an economy and you have, let's say, a million dollars in an economy and you have 100 people in it, and so you just divide it up evenly, everybody gets a certain amount. Then, all of a sudden, you add another 100 people, and now the average is half if that happens. But what that means is, though, because there's twice as many people buying and selling, the value of that million actually, each one of those goes up. The other option would be you print twice as much, and so you print, you have two millions of one million dollars, and then it stays about the same as far as each individual dollar, stays about the same as far as each individual dollar. So what happens is, in an economy where you have a fixed monetary supply and you see this in history with gold and things like that is the value of each one goes up. So, for example and that's what we've seen it started off at zero 16 years ago and now it's over $100,000 each. But it's divisible up to eight decimal points, meaning you can own 0.00001 Bitcoin. For example, you can buy, for example, $5 worth of Bitcoin Today. You could go on exchange, you could buy $5 worth of Bitcoin, you could buy $500,. You could buy $5 million, $5 billion. All those are possible because you just simply buy different amounts. So, for example, something that costs one Bitcoin today, if everybody starts using Bitcoin, in 10 years, that same thing might cost maybe one, one millionth of a Bitcoin because the value of it has gone up. So your purchasing power doesn't decrease as it would in an inflationary environment. It stays the same and even early on in Bitcoin it goes up. You can actually purchase more over time. I mean, one thing I like to do is I price things now in Bitcoin to see like larger purchases, is it worth it Like?
Speaker 2:Here's a story I could tell In 2000,. I think it was 16 or 17. I think it was 17. My daughter, my graduate high school. She needed a car. So I went to the local car dealership and I bought a beater car for like $2,000. And I sold two Bitcoin to buy that, because that's one Bitcoin is worth about $1,000 a time. So I bought a car that, by the way, it broke down in about a month. It was a total lemon. I was not happy by it, but I spent two Bitcoin on that that today. If I saved, it would be worth over $200,000 today. And I spent a lot of Bitcoin in my time. I don't mind mentioning I've owned a lot of Bitcoin, but I've actually spent a lot because early on I didn't quite understand the long-term what Bitcoin was when I first got started, and so I kind of chuckled about that now.
Speaker 1:The good thing about you don't lose your train of thought on that story. I'm good at this. I think I'm getting ADHD as I get older, Eric, but I think the beauty of you is coming through this and that your second book is that you're starting to get real confidence in this story where I think, even early on, you say okay, well, I got a couple thousand dollars in Bitcoin, probably should spend some, just in case it doesn't. But now you know, don't you? That has some.
Speaker 2:And so now I price it in Bitcoin, I say, ok, if that thing's going to cost me point to Bitcoin today, let's say or actually it'd be point zero, zero two Bitcoin today is two thousand dollars. If it costs me that, do I think that's worth it for that to spend point zero, zero two Bitcoin? Or do I think, you know, or should I just hold on to it? And that is actually one of my main points, also in moral money, is it's forcing me into long-term prudent, temperant behavior. Instead of saying, okay, spend now because the money is not going to be worth anything soon, I'm actually. It's actually fostering the virtue of temperance in my decision making and so now I'm like it doesn't mean I won't spend it.
Speaker 1:What a great point, especially for young people, for all of us, but for young people especially.
Speaker 2:I mean, if I really need the car, I'm going to buy the car. I mean I just have to get it. But it does tell me, okay, do I need that big screen TV? I have a 50 inch TV. Do I need a 60 inch? Is it worth that point? You know, zero to Bitcoin.
Speaker 2:When I look at like that, I'm like, well, I don't think it really is, because I know that's going to be worth a lot more in the future, whereas with my dollars, if I say, oh, I'm going to spend a thousand dollars on that or something, whatever big screen TVs cost these days, I don't even know If I'm going to spend a thousand dollars on that today. Well, that's going to be worth like five hundred dollars in a few years. Well, that's going to be worth like $500 in a few years. So might as well buy it. Now you see how the whole thinking changes, and I know a lot of people who've been in Bitcoin for a while and we all testify to this that over time, I mean, my dad taught me how to be prudent, how to be temperate, how to be frugal, all that. So I thank him first and foremost because he was the one who taught me that, but it's like a check.
Speaker 2:It really does make you think before you buy. And we live in this consumer culture where we always are satisfying our wants instead of our needs. And it's not that you can't buy things you want sometimes, but it just makes you think do I really want to do I really need to get that right now? No, I don't think I do, and I found that for me, I just buy less stuff once I started to price it. In fact, I even have an app on my browser. It just came out recently and it literally converts all dollars on a screen prices to Bitcoin, so it tells you what the price is in Bitcoin. So I'm actually kind of doing that. So I know what's this going to cost me in Bitcoin, because that's really what I'm saving in and I'm less likely to spend on just dumb stuff than I would if I was pricing it in dollars.
Speaker 1:Yes, thank you, If I was going to buy. I don't have any Bitcoin, say, and I don't have 100 grand, but I wanted to buy a part of this. Where do I even start? Because I know you've got to pay a little bit, too, in trading costs.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, Absolutely. And I think there's a number of places Now I've been involved long enough with Bitcoin to know a lot of places. I just need to be very clear about this. Companies that sell and buy Bitcoin have gone under, have stolen funds, have you know? All these things have happened in the past. It's getting a lot better than it was. I mean, literally the month after I first got started in Bitcoin, the largest exchange in the world went under and basically lost all the Bitcoin for its users. So I mean, that was years ago, that was 2014. Now we're in 2025. It doesn't happen as much. So first, I'd say, go to trusted companies. The one I like the best, honestly, is called Rivercom and you can buy and sell Bitcoin there and when you're first getting started so do I sign up then, as like an account.
Speaker 1:Derek, is that what I do?
Speaker 2:Yes, it's like signing up kind of like with a bank really. I mean, you're signing up with them. You have to give them personal information, like you would with a bank, because they have laws they have to follow. They're an American company, they, they have to follow American laws. I don't like all those laws, but we live in a society where we have to follow them, so I follow them. But the thing is you sign up and then basically you connect your bank account to it and you say, okay, I want to buy $100 worth of Bitcoin and they will take the $100 out of your bank and they will give you $100 worth of Bitcoin. Now, like you said, there are fees involved. Usually they're pretty minor, like maybe a buck or two or something on a hundred dollar purchase, and so you get that and you can just hold your Bitcoin there Like you basically have a login with them. They have security. I like their security the best. That's one reason why I like River the best and they just hold it and that's fine.
Speaker 2:When you're first getting started, over time, if you feel like the Bitcoin you own is getting substantial, then I recommend you find ways. I'm not going to go into all the details here, but you find ways to hold it yourself and there's secure methods called hardware wallets that you can hold the Bitcoin. It makes it a lot more difficult, for you're not beholden to a company going bankrupt or being dishonest essentially is what it does, because it's like holding cash in your wallet at home or something like that, or holding gold in a safe at home or something like that. There's always security risks, no matter what, but it just eliminates some of those third-party risks where you're trusting a third party. But if you're just holding a little bit, you know it's just something that you're like hey, I want to put a little bit in here. I have a few hundred dollars. I mean, what a little bit is different. If somebody listening to this is a multi-multi millionaire, they might think $100,000 is a little bit. I mean, you and me we're not thinking that probably. But yeah, whatever you think is not super significant, it's okay, I think, to hold it at a third party, but eventually, if it starts to become a more substantial amount of your savings portfolio, then I would suggest learning how. It's a learning curve, you have to learn it of holding it, and the great thing is is there's so many ways now than there used to be.
Speaker 2:When I first got started, you really had to be a tech person which I am to hold your own Bitcoin. So I didn't mind, but I knew it was just too hard. When my sister wanted to get involved I was like, ah, it might be too tough for her to figure. I don't want her to lose it because she makes a mistake on her end. Same with my kids. I was like, okay, I got to make sure. But now they've just got tools. There's this tool called BitKey, which is like a hardware wallet. Know, those are some options, but we're kind of if you first want to get started, just go to a place like rivercom, buy a little Bitcoin, hold it there, get comfortable with it. Get comfortable with it Exactly, understand it more before you really go all in.
Speaker 2:That's the other thing I always say is like I don't give financial advice. I'm not telling people what they do or should not do with their money, but I always do think it's just a good idea. You always need to understand what it is you own. You need to understand if you're buying a tech company you don't buy. I mean, I know people will trade the stocks. I know what the companies do.
Speaker 2:I've never been like that. I want to know what does the company produce, what are their, what are their financial records? If I'm investing in a stock Well, for me, you know. I think you should understand the basics of Bitcoin. You don't have to be an expert at it. I mean, you own dollars. You don't know how the Fed creates those, or you don't know how gold is mined, but yet you still own my own gold, so you have to be an expert. You should, though, understand the basics of Bitcoin. Hold it for a little while, see, get used to the fluctuations, because what always? I always joke with my wife that whenever I decide to buy a little Bitcoin, it's always going to go down the next day, and I always know okay, if you want to get your Bitcoin, buy it the day after I do because it'll go down.
Speaker 2:But you learn, though, to ignore the noise you don't really care about, like okay, that's going up and down on a daily basis. You're looking more long-term.
Speaker 1:And as we wind down here, Eric, thank you for that. You specifically are talking about Bitcoin here, but we have other cryptocurrencies that are coming out. Will those other cryptocurrencies right? Will they do anything to my value of my Bitcoin, do you think? And you specifically like Bitcoin for a reason? Right, for many of the things you've outlined them in the book. But what about all those other cryptocurrencies?
Speaker 2:It's a great question, jack, and, like I, and I've evolved in my views on this. If you'd asked me this five, 10 years ago, I would have had a different view than I do today. I would say the vast majority of other cryptocurrencies altcoins is another name for them when I'm saying vast majority, I mean like 98, 99% are basically worthless. There are a few that are interesting.
Speaker 1:Technical projects Wait so you're saying 90% are worthless.
Speaker 2:Yeah, worthless in the sense that over time, they're going to go to zero. I really do believe that the vast majority of cryptocurrencies they're going to all go to zero.
Speaker 1:So we've got to be careful here.
Speaker 2:You might be able to get lucky. I did, for example, I owned an old coin in 2017 that went up a lot and I got a little money out of it and it was great and I sold it. Now it's worth almost nothing, so it's not saying you can't make money. My point is is that you should look at Bitcoin as savings, as a form of money. You should look at cryptocurrencies like you would look at tech stocks, other cryptocurrencies Like OK, does it have a good management team? Does it have a good idea? Things like that and if you do think so, maybe you want to invest in it. But understand, it's not a form of money, it's not savings. That's a true, actual investment.
Speaker 2:And my personal opinion is understand the underlying technology of blockchain, things like that. Blockchain technology actually isn't very good for most tech projects. It got got all the rage in Wall Street and Silicon Valley, but it really isn't that good of a technology for most tech projects. It's very good for a form of money, but if you're trying to make like a world computer or something like that or a search engine or whatever, it's not very good for that. And so I'm just not a believer in other cryptocurrencies. I'm not saying none of them will be successful. I just simply don't think it's worth my time to invest in them, because you'll do a lot of research and you might end up in the end just it's going to be worthless.
Speaker 1:So I'm Bitcoin only now, if I'm starting, I'm starting with Bitcoin. I'm going to hold this book up because and I'll tell you why even if you're not, even if you don't ever think you're going to buy Bitcoin I think this is a fascinating read, eric, I think you did a marvelous job here. Just talking about the money situation itself, talk about the immorality of it, all these things that you mentioned in the book were going through my mind many, many times about the Canadian truckers and all these kind of things, and you just opened it up and it's very readable. It's very readable, and things that we didn't have time to get into is the miners, how that works Fascinating stuff. So thank you so much. Where should we buy this? I?
Speaker 2:think the easiest way is just go to my website. It's ericsammonscom. Go to ericsammonscom. There's a link right on the front page where you can click on it and you can buy it directly from me and I'll even sign the copy for you. You can get a course at the regular places as well, but ericsammonscom is probably the easiest way to remember and just you can buy it directly from me.
Speaker 1:Good, and we'll put that in the show notes. And last thing, just Crisis Magazine. What a wonderful publication you have there and so. I recommend people to check that out. So check out ericsammonscom and crisis. Is it crisismagazinecom?
Speaker 2:that's right.
Speaker 1:crisismagazinecom hey, god bless you, eric. Thank you so much. Thanks everyone. Thanks for joining us today. Talk to you again soon. Bye, bye, bye.