Transcript for:
Michael Saylor's 21 Bitcoin Rules

[Music] [Applause] are you ready all right ladies and gentlemen for the main event next up yeah next up we have the founder and executive chairman of the first ever publicly traded company that went 100% on a Bitcoin standard got rid of all their dirty fear that was just losing value and put it in to the hottest money we've ever seen and let me tell you about him he's not just an executive chairman and founder and all this in 2022 I arranged a Bitcoin ple party in Los Angeles and then a few days later I met him at a Afterparty of the conference and I just jokingly asked him why he didn't show up and guess what the second one I organized which was last year in Miami one of the first gu to show up was our next guest who came and hung out with the plaps so please welcome to the stage gig at chat gig at Cyber Hornet gig a ple the man who never sells Michael sailor [Music] [Music] I love [Music] [Applause] Prague and um and I was delighted to be invited to speak again I got invited back if you're uh if you're not Bitcoin enough you don't get invited back to speak so I've been spending the entire year trying to trying to convince these guys to let me back on stage and uh they relented and I get a chance to present a new set of slides my uh second best set of slides 21 rules of Bitcoin uh I didn't label it the 21 rules of Bitcoin because everybody's got their rules and uh I'm not so presumptuous to think that I know the 21 rules but I have my 21 roles and I'm delighted to share them with you [Applause] today I'm going to start by Framing my conversation bitcoin's a singularity where science collides with economics right the this is a profound thing just like when science collided with astronomy in the capern revolution just like when science collided with medicine and we realize that diseases aren't caused by demons Bitcoin is where science collides with economics and it ushers in a new age of economic Insight which will profoundly change our political systems our financial systems the way we think about the world and of course course we all know this Bitcoin is the world's first perfect money the human race has lived for thousands and thousands of years with defective money seashells bales of tobacco glass beads copper tokens one day we'll look back and we'll kind of chuckle at Silver tokens and copper and pieces of paper and and we'll Wonder how did the human race get this far the implications of perfect money are profound it's a paradigm shift it's a it's not like your your assets are appreciating in price you're just falling through space this idea of Relativity you're in a relative frame of reference everything around you is distorted and and you have to break out of your frame of reference and in order to see the world differently Einstein did it for us with relativity but every great scientist has done it and Satoshi introduced a paradigm shift in economics and in monetary thought and so with that as my Preamble I like to talk about the 21 rules of Bitcoin I'll start with rule number one those who understand Bitcoin buy Bitcoin and those that don't criticize Bitcoin and you can see in a paradigm shift it's just so profound there'll be people that will talk about it and as long as you're talking about it it's not clear you understand it at the point that things click for you you're not just going to talk about it you're not going to criticize it you're going to run not walk to the nearest place where you can buy Bitcoin and for me it was very clear when it clicked I had to buy it and on the other hand the world's full of people that criticize it they criticize it because they have not yet grasped the paradigm shift and if you H if it hasn't clicked for you you'll have 10,000 criticisms rule number two everybody is against Bitcoin before they're for it right it's not a surprise why is this person against Bitcoin why is this Banker against Bitcoin why is this Bank against Bitcoin why is this politician against Bitcoin they're against Bitcoin because they don't understand it everybody will be against it we're going to introduce such a profound new idea that the natural human reaction of of a healthy institution a healthy political system a healthy intellect is is to First reject it this should not be discouraging it should not be surprising it's uh it's exactly and completely natural that this would happen rule number three how do you know you understand Bitcoin well the way you know you understand Bitcoin is you realize that you're never fully going to understand Bitcoin if you think you've understood it if you've studied it if you're sure you get it that means you haven't quite grasped it yet people that really Embrace Bitcoin understand it they realize you'll never be done learning about Bitcoin never what is bitcoin bitcoin's not just the protocol it's not just the software it's not just the way you interact with it or everyone else that uses Bitcoin interacts with it bitcoin's a it's a virus it's it's an economic virus it's a monetary virus it's an ideological virus it's going to Ripple through time and space so to understand Bitcoin you have to understand how the existing sets of adopters will interact on the layer two the layer three the layer four the layer five you have to understand how the layer three applications will interact with each other via Layer Two protocols via 1 protocols you have to be thinking about what will people that haven't even discovered Bitcoin be doing with Bitcoin in 10 years in 50 years in a 100 years if you want to understand Bitcoin you think about what Will 10 billion people a 100 years from now be doing with Bitcoin through 300 million different institutions across protocols and extensions of Bitcoin that have not yet been conceived and not yet been invented so when you consider how the idea will Ripple through time through space through complexity through the endless uh ways that Humanity can organize itself then you grasp the full scope of Bitcoin how will an artificial intelligent entity created in 10 years living in cyberspace 50 years from now integrating with a million other AIS use Bitcoin right that this is a profound Chain Reaction it's a fire in cyberspace it's uh it's viral through time through space through Humanity through all of the various uh vestiges of humanity and of course once you get that idea you realize that you don't really know everything that's in the minds of 8 billion people or 300 million corporations or billion things that are yet to come and with that comes humility and with that comes a thirst to keep studying Bitcoin you'll never be done learning about Bitcoin rule number four bitcoin's powered by chaos when you take your money and you put it in a bank and and you save it in a fiat currency you're loaning your money to a country when you when you take your money and you buy a stock you're loaning your money to the management team of a company when you take your money and you buy a building you're loaning your money to the mayor of a city when you take your money and you buy a piece of art you're loaning your money and investing your money in a culture when you actually buy Bitcoin you're loaning your money to the Lords of entropy you're loaning your money to the gods of chaos what's the bet the bet is that chaos will outperform cities companies countries cultures it's a profound idea I place you in Europe before World War II I give you a lot of money and I give you a choice CH you can buy any piece of land in any country you can buy any building you can you can own any company in Europe you can uh you can own art in Europe you can invest in the currencies and the bonds of Europe imagine I give you a choice of buying any asset in any Nation that's about to be a combatant in World War II or you can own the One Bank in Switzerland that's going to hold all the money of all the combatants and you see if you own if you own that Swiss bank and everybody puts their money in the bank and the war comes chaos comes and the war is a metaphor for chaos and entropy accelerated in four years what you realize is every every building is risky it may be blown up every company will probably collapse any piece of land may or may not have value the the rents and the rental contracts will probably be torn up the currencies will all collapse and in fact the more chaos the more destruction and Devastation the more the more valuable that One Bank in fact if everybody puts their money in the bank and they all kill each other the bank keeps the money and it's a very profound idea are you in the business of benefiting from chaos or are you in the business of attempting to stop it the and the law of thermodynamics says you can't stop entropy right the the the more confused uh a government is the more inefficient the mayor is the more inefficient and competitive a corporations uh Market envir environment is the more the more chaos and the more change in the culture the worse all those other Investments are and the better the Bitcoin investment is Bitcoin is powered by chaos it's going to continually outperform everything else because the one truth in the universe is that entropy goes in One Direction chaos will continue walk into a casino it's rigged every game is rigged against you maybe with the exception of Poker and when you sit down at the poker table if you're not the professional poker player that game's rigged against you too bitcoin's the only game in the casino that we can all win that's a very sobering idea yeah maybe you can win one of the games if you rig it maybe you can find something in life you can win for a while if you're the expert in this business or that region or that real estate or this art dealership or something maybe you find a game for a while that you can win but there is no game that everybody can win all the time right Bitcoin is Bitcoin is the casino it is the house of chaos anybody that wants to play in that game can keep winning in fact right the the the most profound idea here is the only way to lose in in the game of Bitcoin is you don't play the game or you quit too soon until until the odds come to your favor so walk into the casino sit down play the game of Bitcoin don't quit everybody wins or walk out of the casino play a different game over a long enough time Horizon you'll be a loser in every other game because you don't control the house you don't control the odds even when you think you own the country even when you think you own the company even when you think you have Monopoly on the market the gods of entropy are going to upset your your fragile equilibrium Bitcoin will protect you but Bitcoin won't protect you if you don't wear the armor you have to suit up what does that mean you're going to walk through fire you're going to go through a molten volcano don't armor up 1% of your body don't cut 5% of your body suit up buy the Bitcoin control the Bitcoin right maybe this means not your keys is not your coin maybe this means it doesn't help to tell everybody you know about Bitcoin but be afraid to buy it it doesn't help to buy it if you don't control it it doesn't help you know when you put one% of your assets into Bitcoin and the rest go to zero and the 1% increas by a factor of 20 or 30 or 100 you'll be saying to yourself I guess I got something and then you'll look back and you'll think I'd be a lot better if 99% of my body hadn't been burned maybe I could have suited up more than 1% of my body don't leave yourself with an Achilles heel rule number seven Bitcoin is the one thing in the universe that you can truly own how why right it's it's it's information manifested as economic value the network has to be durable the network has to be decentralized the network has to be ethical but if you find an economically sound technically sound ethically sound crypto network of which we have one called Bitcoin then The Possession of the keys is ownership of the thing everything else you have in your life you own at the pleasure of someone more powerful than you whether it's the mayor the governor the nation state the corporation you know it it could be anything or anyone you think you own it you have it until it's taken away it'll be taken away from you by uh by expropriation by taxation maybe it'll be taken away from you by regulation and in the absence of all those things it you know it'll be taken away from you by the passage of time entropy and Chaos except this thing this is the thing that if you own this the passage of time only makes it more valuable chaos only makes it more valuable nobody on Earth can take it away from you it's the first thing in human history you can own it redefines the the principle of property rule eight everybody gets Bitcoin at the price they deserve you know the decision to buy Bitcoin is an act of humility it's it's when you can overcome your fear your uncertainty your doubt it's a Moment of clarity and courage courage to overcome the fud Clarity when you realize that you need to break with your convention with your ceremony with your rituals W with with all of your history and when you finally see things clearly and when you finally overcome that fear you'll buy it uh in December of uh 2013 I looked at it and I tweeted you know bitcoin's days are numbered it'll probably go the way of online gambling big mistake uh Bitcoin was $892 okay I got the price I deserved and when I first started buying Bitcoin I was buying it at $99,500 but that's okay I'll buy it at $95,000 and then I'll be buying it at $950,000 and when it gets to $950,000 there'll be some whiny person a talking head on television saying it looks over overbought right now it looks a little bit heated I you know we think it's going to trade down to 700,000 and they'll miss it it'll go to 8 million and they'll buy it at 8 million and they will get Bitcoin at the price they [Applause] deserve you know there's a classic the classic phrase in uh in the world you know only invest the money you can afford to lose if I ran a casino with a with a deck stacked against you I would put that as a disclaimer in my ads come to my casino but only gamble the money you can afford to lose if I ran some sort of you know investment company scam and I wanted to take your money and buy swamp land in Florida or I wanted to gamble on a bunch of companies I didn't understand I said hey only invest the money you can afford to lose when you actually say only invest the money you can afford to lose in my crypto token or my Casino or in my investment whatever or my idea you're making a moral equivalence to gambling with the odds against you right you're making you're basically saying there's nothing nothing better about what I'm offering than than any Foolish Game that you're likely to lose if I run a bar you know and you asked me well how's your boy I said well we serve really good drinks but you should probably uh only come here on evenings when you don't have to work the next day that's honest right you're going to get drunk in my bar you're going to underperform the next day I'm being honest with you but you know nobody ever said hey only put the kids on the school bus that you don't need me to return I only buy a ticket on my airplane if you don't need to reach the destination right the engineers of the world don't say hey don't drive across my bridge if you really need to reach the other side and so what I say is only buy Bitcoin with the money you can't afford to lose I'm not going to equivocate you shouldn't equivocate people that equivocate don't understand Bitcoin and they still they still don't get the idea of perfect money we didn't invest in it because we wanted to take a risk we invested it and in it you know out of of disgust with the world that forces us to take risk with everything else where the risks are stacked against us and undisclosed bitcoin's better you know when you Embrace Bitcoin you realize that your entire world is defined by a bunch of synthetic metrics the CPI might come in as this and the PPI might be that the employment rate is 2% or 3% even though half of you don't have a job and the ones that have a job aren't making as much much as they were making and everything cost 50% more but the GDP is this and the nominal GDP looks like that but of course we used the Market Basket of synthe IC crap you don't want to buy to calculate the nominal and the and the real GDP that's the Matrix you're living in The Matrix and Rule Number 10 is very simple it's tickets to escape the matrix are priced in Bitcoin you don't have Bitcoin you cannot buy your way out of the Matrix and until you understand that you need to buy your way out of the metri Matrix with Bitcoin you don't understand the Matrix and you don't understand Bitcoin rule number 11 Bitcoin Insight it's restricted to those with a need to know you look at Bitcoin you don't understand it Charlie Monger doesn't understand it Warren Buffett doesn't understand it the bankers don't understand it the rich people that you hate don't understand it they don't need to know that's why they can't see it right when you're comfortable and you live in the western world and everything looks just fine to you and your cousin works at the bank you don't have a need to know when you have a need to know when your world comes crashing down when you're looking at imminent death when you're looking over the edge of the Abyss then you will understand and you will see Bitcoin for what it is so don't be shocked when people look at it and they don't get it they don't have a need to know rule number 12 all your models will be destroyed I'm talking your political models the you know everything that that we learned over 10,000 years how do you run a city how do you run a company how do you run a country how do you how do you understand economics what is inflation what is economic Prosperity what is a job why should I do this you know when you're looking backwards all these people they want to look at time series of historic stuff you know all I see is a bunch of statisticians analyzing people with chariots and and you know bows and arrows and camels and elephants you know fighting in Wars 3,000 years ago and we show up with explosives and aircraft and they're trying to back test their models and figure out you know how explosives and aircraft impact the way they organize their elephants you know it's like all the models they don't really make any sense anymore if you understand Bitcoin you realize you got to throw them all away when Godzilla walks onto the playground you know all your models are worthless they're all going to be destroyed Rule 13 the cure to economic ill is the orange pill [Applause] Bitcoin is perfect money once you understand that you realize everything you use for money in the past is toxic your capital is toxic your currency is toxic you know you're we've been living in a world where the doctors bleed you to death we're living in a world where they inject garbage and sludge into your brains you're living in a world world where where you're you're eating stuff which is poisonous right the Cure is stop putting toxic stuff in your system the orange pill is that cure we need to spread that cure to the world and how are we going to spread it rule number 14 be for Bitcoin don't be against Fiat before Bitcoin not against Fiat right if you go to Bernard Arno one of the richest men in the world and you say to Bernard well you know here's a good business uh selling handbags selling luxury items Bernard realizes he's not going to take all his money and buy Euros or buy dollar bonds or buy pesos but that doesn't mean he won't price his handbags in euros and dollars right the richest man in the world still will price things in a local currency recognizing that people would rather trade the the currency for the handbag or trade the currency for the champagne or trade the currency for the Bitcoin right we're for something which is beautiful and elegant and powerful and inspirational we don't need to be against the other thing at the end of the day 99% of all the wealth in the world is going to be in something other than the currency and half of it will probably be in Bitcoin let's just be for it bitcoin's for everybody rule number 15 it's for the people you don't like it's for the you know the AI bot that took your job is going to run on bitcoin you'll be mad about the fact that the robo taxi took your job or the robot took your job but you should be happy about the fact that the robo taxi that took your your job runs on bitcoin and wanted to buy your Bitcoin and drove up the price of your Bitcoin by a factor of 10 or 100 or a th000 right your enemy is going to buy Bitcoin the people that launch the ETF and buy the ETF that you don't agree with that come from a place you don't like they're going to drive up the value of your Bitcoin by a factor of a thousand and you don't have to like them and you don't have to embrace their ideology what you should realize is the more people that join the Bitcoin system whether they're your friend your enemy uh the religion you love the religion you don't care for the country that you're at odds with they're all helping Bitcoin and if and if you are true to bitcoin they'll be helping you rule number 16 learn to think in Bitcoin you know I see a lot of people that the whole Bitcoin you know and they still don't think in Bitcoin bitcoin's been going up 50% a year for the past four years that means the risk-free rate the cost of capital is 50% so you have the option to borrow money at 5% loan it to bitcoin at 50% and keep the 45% difference and I'll meet Bitcoin businesses that they they want to actually raise money and loan it to someone at 15% that's a counterparty why would you loan to a counterparty at 15% when you can loan to bitcoin at 50% right what why would you invest I have an investment idea for you is it a risk-free 50% return let's be conservative I you know I think oh Bitcoin will appreciate 24% a year for the next 10 years conservatively that's the risk-free rate you have an idea for me give me an idea that returns more than 24% a year plus the risk premium scalably for the next decade then maybe it's interesting most people they just have the wrong idea in their head they don't think in Bitcoin they make mistakes rule 17 you don't change Bitcoin bit Bitcoin is a swarm of cyber Hornets it's a Thundering Herd of 8 billion people it's going on for far beyond your lifetime and it's bigger and stronger and more powerful and more and more intelligent than you are right it's like TB writes about intellectual yet idiots like people with phds and Aeronautical Engineering that have that give speeches on how to make birds fly better it's like if you find yourself as the guy with the PHD lecturing Eagles on how to fly you're the person that thinks you can change Bitcoin right you're not smarter than Bitcoin you're not smarter than 300 million companies and 8 billion people and 800 80 billion people yet to be right the world is Big the market is Big you're not going to change it you're going to try to change it but it be a lot smarter for you to change yourself you know we used to joke about laser eyes rule 18 laser eyes protect you from Endless Lies people thought oh this is just a meme laser eyes laser R to 100K it's not not a meme this is going to save you when you you know who do I feel sorry for it's like I feel sorry for people to put on the laser eyes watch Bitcoin go up $20,000 and then take the laser eyes off and declare Victory right don't take the laser eyes off the laser eyes tell you a message which is you should they signify the fact that you should avoid delu distractions right when Bitcoin goes from 10,000 to 100,000 and you declare Victory so you launch 16 crappy businesses and 14 stupid Industries because you're a genius right you took the laser eyes off Pride cometh before fall and what you you know Bitcoin is going from a trillion to 10 trillion to 100 trillion to 500 trillion and at that point it'll be growing better than everything else and there's someone that wants to take laser eyes and focus on this thing as long as the joke is good and then they're going to Drift Off to launch 82 other things well let me tell you there's 2.8 million mobile apps created for the iPhone and you probably can't name a dozen that worked there's 1.8 million extensions in Chrome and you probably don't use two of them right there's a 99.9% mortality rate on new business ideas but you're sure yours is going to work right laser rizer about humility but everybody is going to BS you they're all going to tell you they've got this great idea that's better than Bitcoin the next Bitcoin Bitcoin had its run and then you're going to lose your focus you're going to get distracted maybe because you made a lot of money be by buying Bitcoin at 100 and selling it at 5,000 because you were a genius and you got out at 5,000 and then you launched 16 other crappy stupid businesses where you're just like everybody else and then then you'll be like oh yeah the mayor banned my business oh the government taxed my business oops it turns out that Microsoft wants to enter this business oops I didn't realize that you know that employee would steal whatever the money from this business oops the bank failed you know and then you will ReDiscover everything that Satoshi knew when Satoshi invented Bitcoin laser eyes are here to protect you right embrace them right don't belittle them and it takes me to my next point which is you know respect Bitcoin or it'll make a clown out of you right I mean I I come to bitcoin I've spent all my time trying to learn Bitcoin I realize I still don't learn Bitcoin I still don't know everything there is about Bitcoin but what I do re appreciate about Bitcoin is it's bigger than all of us it's stronger than all of us it'll outlive all of us right when someone shows up and says I just heard about Bitcoin I'm here to fix it right don't be that guy right have some respect for this thing we're almost [Applause] done I I would be remiss in giving a presentation of 21 rules of Bitcoin if I didn't mention this rule you do not sell your Bitcoin what do I mean Bitcoin is energy Bitcoin is life don't squander your life conserve your energy right I give you energy for you know don't let the fire go out when the fire is what keeps your family from freezing do not let the fire go out right you have a life it's beautiful you can do beautiful things don't throw yourself off a cliff right and Satoshi gave you economic energy you can you can capture it you can own it you can conserve it don't throw it away economically bitcoin's going up 50% a year for the past four years every time you sold it you gave up the best performing asset in the world to buy what divers I ification is selling the winner to buy the losers when do you sell your Bitcoin when your family is going to die you sell your Bitcoin when you need it to conserve your life those of your life the lives of those you love then yeah you trade it you borrow against it but you only need one chair you do not sell your Bitcoin everything else is inferior the World by the way the entire world is constructed to convince you to sell your Bitcoin everybody wants you to trade your Bitcoin for their hedge fund for their stock for their idea for their whatever it is and you just have to keep in mind that like no one no one is getting rich by telling you not to give them your money and uh we've arrived at the 21st rule of Bitcoin spread Bitcoin with love not hate violence invites violence aggression inspires resistance Satoshi forgive them they know not what they do people don't understand Bitcoin they're going to resist you they're going to be afraid of you they fear what they do not know but when you come across someone that that you know doesn't like Bitcoin they call it a scam They Call It Whatever whatever was the last most colorful thing that someone said about it your reaction ought to be hey they don't have a need to know they don't understand the world consists of people that need Bitcoin and they're and they don't understand it but they will and those that need Bitcoin and they're in the business of getting it um when someone doesn't understand it and they and they treat you poorly and they're mean to you or they're or or they're aggressive or they're violent to you the best thing you can do is just say they don't understand it if you understood it you wouldn't feel that way because if you push back against them with hate that just slows down their uh their um learning path they're just going to learn slower they're going to adopt slower if you actually treat them with kindness they'll remember they they were mean to you and they'll feel bad about it when they discover Bitcoin and they'll come back and they'll embrace it you make it easier for people to embrace Bitcoin and they'll do it faster don't give people the excuse that uh bitcoiners are mean they hate me they were violent to me right because then then the entire topic just shifts to you know a a struggle you know over some tangential thing which was irrelevant so go place to place door to door personto person institution to institution Nation to Nation offer them something which is going to make their life better offer it with love not hate and uh and with that I want to thank you all thanks for supporting Bitcoin thanks for being here today [Applause] [Music]