저자: NaomiBrockwell및PeterSchiff · 외국인
요약 보기
영상 결론: 피터 쉬프는 비트코인 회의론자이지만 소액 보유 및 금으로 헤지한 순매수 포지션이 있어 말과 행동이 다르다는 점이 드러남. [배경] 쉬프가 비트코인을 샀다는 소문이 퍼졌고, 실제로는 지인이 준 약 50달러 상당의 비트코인과 이더리움·비트코인캐시 소량을 보유. 기부가 쏟아지며 논쟁이 커짐. [보유·헤지] 쉬프는 비트코인이 2만 달러로 오르면 금 1온스 손실 방어 구도로 내기를 걸었고, 3000달러로 떨어지면 금 1온스로 손실을 상쇄하는 구조라고 설명. 진행자는 쉬프가 순매수(net long) 상태라고 해석. [실사용 사례] 쉬프는 파이어 아일랜드 여행 중 피자·요거트 등에서 비트코인 결제를 시도했으나 거절당함. 진행자는 비트페이 같은 중개 서비스 덕분에 암호화폐 결제가 가능하다고 설명. [가치 논쟁] 쉬프는 비트코인이 실물 가치나 정부 보증 없이 신뢰에 기반한다고 비판. 진행자는 시장 참여자 기대와 네트워크 효과, 해시파워 등으로 가치가 생긴다고 주장. [경쟁 코인] 쉬프는 무한히 생성 가능한 코인이 희석 효과를 줄 수 있다고 우려. 진행자는 시장 점유율은 변할 수 있으나 비트코인이 해시파워로 보안성이 높다고 반박. [쉬프의 입장 변화 가능성] 쉬프는 근본 입장을 유지하면서도 가격 상승을 보고 자신이 과소평가했음을 인정. 새로운 정보가 있으면 생각을 바꿀 수 있다고 언급. [예측 요약] 비트코인이 앞으로 2만 달러로 갈지 3000달러로 갈지 쉬프는 양방향 헤지를 택했으며, 진행자는 장기적으로 비트코인이 대안 자산으로 인정받을 것이라는 낙관적 입장. [주요 발언 요지] 쉬프 측은 비트코인 가치가 신뢰에 기반하고 경쟁 코인으로 희석될 수 있다고 봤고, 진행자 측은 해시파워와 네트워크 효과로 비트코인 가치가 지속된다고 봄.
다듬은 글
Peter Schiff, I hear you've become a Bitcoin convert. Well, you heard wrong. Peter Schiff and I have been friends for many years. He has done great work teaching people about sound money, but when it comes to Bitcoin, he just doesn't get it. He has been one of the most vocal critics of Bitcoin for a very long time, despite some of the best people in the industry trying to convince him otherwise. I'd also like to thank Peter for agreeing to spar with me here this evening.
That's why I was pretty frustrated recently when hundreds of people started flooding Peter with donations. To what end? He's had Bitcoin for a long time, and it hasn't done any good in convincing him. We seem to be beating a dead horse here. I was pretty vocal about voicing my displeasure with the situation, so I sat down with Peter to talk about it in person and to find out whether I'm correct in thinking there is indeed no hope for him.
Here's how it started. There were all these articles saying I owned Bitcoin, like I'm the secret Bitcoin guy. Pomp put out a tweet saying, "Hey, you know Peter Schiff owns Bitcoin. Doesn't matter what he says, look what he's doing with his own money. He's secretly been buying Bitcoin."
Yeah, I have about 50 bucks' worth of Bitcoin. Someone gave it to me as a gift. I also got a little Ether and a little Bitcoin Cash. I got the wallet from Erik Voorhees because I did a debate, Rig Debate. I think I won, but all the Bitcoiners voted me down. Eric and I went to dinner, we had a nice dinner, and he set me up a wallet. He transferred me a hundred dollars' worth of Bitcoin, and I transferred him back 50 so we could see how it was done. But I got to keep 50. For the record, I think it's awesome that Eric sent Peter his first Bitcoin.
But the fact that over a year later, Peter is still as opposed as ever, and hundreds of people are still sending him donations to the tune of thousands of dollars, I can't help but think there might be a better way for these people to spend their money.
I got the Ether and the Bitcoin Cash a year ago at the Money Show. You see, I was selling my dad's book. Did you just commandeer my show to make it up? All right, deal, pitch. No, no, it's not really a pitch, but I'm selling these books for $20. This guy said he'd pay $20 if he could purchase one, but he didn't have any money, and he said, "What, do you take crypto?" I said, "It just so happens I've got a wallet." He wanted to pay me in Ether and Bitcoin Cash, so I charged him thirty dollars instead of twenty. I said, "Look, I don't have confidence in this. You've got to pay me a premium to take that crypto stuff."
Then I started reading a lot on the internet about how I own Bitcoin. When I saw that Pomp tweet, I finally said, look, I've got not even 100 bucks' worth, and I didn't buy it, it was a gift. Then Pomp tweeted, "Oh, what's your address? I'll give you another hundred." You've got several thousand dollars' worth of crypto donated to you.
Actually, I haven't sold it, but I kind of hedged it. How did you hedge it? Well, a friend of mine in Puerto Rico is so convinced that Bitcoin is going to make a new high, twenty thousand, and I said, I think it's going to make a new low, which is about three thousand. So I bet him an ounce of gold. My hedge is this: if Bitcoin goes to twenty thousand, I own an ounce of gold, but I'm going to make more than that on the upside. If it goes down to three thousand, then when I get an ounce of gold, that will equal what I lost.
What people are hoping for, I think, is that you'd get this money in your wallet, maybe you'll go to a booth around here at FreedomFest, and say, "Oh, they accept crypto, maybe I'll buy this book for crypto." Do you think there's a chance you might try to use it to see how it works, where all these donations are coming in? Would you use it?
Look, when I first got that wallet and had this Bitcoin, I was on Fire Island for a few days. They're out of range for Fire Island, but nobody takes credit cards. Everybody has cash. I thought maybe I could use this Bitcoin. Every time I went out, for a pizza or some frozen yogurt, I'd ask, "Can I pay you in Bitcoin?" Nobody would take it. So Peter gave up trying to use Bitcoin, because he went to a remote area where they didn't even accept credit cards, and they wouldn't accept it there.
Hmm. You wouldn't have a hard time finding places on the internet. If you wanted to buy something on Amazon or Overstock or something like that, there are easy ways to purchase. People make a big deal about the fact that Shift Gold averages, but we say we take Bitcoin, and we actually don't. We use a company, BitPay, which is like a middleman. It pays great, they work with a lot of companies, and that's how we facilitate a lot of transactions in the crypto space. It's not like we're actually taking Bitcoin; we're taking the dollars people get after they sell their Bitcoin.
I think the important thing is that you're providing a market for Bitcoin people, or crypto people, who want to use it, which I think is good. Can we give you a challenge to seek out some crypto acceptors and find products? Maybe we'll document what you were able to purchase and what your experience was. I try to do this thing on YouTube, like the Peter Schiff Bitcoin challenge.
I did mention that I have this RV I'm trying to sell, and I'll take a hundred thousand in crypto if somebody wants to give me Bitcoin for it. Do not buy his RV for a hundred thousand dollars. Peter is upselling you. If someone buys my RV, I'll miss a beautiful RV. A hundred thousand dollars for your RV in Bitcoin, some Bitcoin millionaires. What, your RV? They're buying like a $200,000 Lambo RV.
All right, so can we, if I find some cool products I think you'd be interested in, or if I find a gold dealer who accepts Bitcoin or something, would you accept the challenge of using some of that Bitcoin for goods?
Well, I have to keep some of it now in case it goes to 20,000. I lose my bet. I don't think caring for the inevitable future. I appreciate that. No, I told you, I've got a hedge. That's my hedge, right? You've got it. He's a hard-luck case.
So if there's one thing we've gotten from this interview, it's a confirmation that Peter Schiff is a hedler, and there's hope for him. Not for dear life, so it didn't fully register until I started editing this video, but Peter is net long Bitcoin. He has a hedged position, but he is net long. Perhaps Pomp was right, and we should be watching what he is doing and not what he is saying.
Anyway, back to the discussion. A lot of people sent you these donations. We're not sure what you're going to do with the money yet. Money, it's Bitcoin. I'd have to sell it to get money. See, if I've got gold with it, that I'd have money. Oh my gosh. All right, I'm not going to try to convince you.
I absolutely did try to convince him, because I've tried in the past. I tried in 2014. I was on the Peter Schiff show in 2014 trying to convince him about Bitcoin. This has been a long-running feud between us. George, our program now is Naomi Brockwell. Naomi Brockwell, I'd be so rich if I didn't listen to you.
Bitcoin isn't backed by anything, and you bring that up all the time. Gold isn't backed by anything. I don't have to be backed by anything, that means well. Bitcoin is the money, because Bitcoin is a digital asset. I think people have a hard time wrapping their heads around the fact that we have digital assets now. They don't understand it like that. There's value in that, but our computers are just ones and zeros, and there's tremendous value in the data. The computer is more than just the software. Well, the software is ones and zeros, and there's tremendous value in that, because the software can do something. So it can be quite valuable. Things speed up. Anything that any other cryptocurrency couldn't do, it doesn't have any property. It has a network effect, reputation, and a whole lot of infrastructure built around it, plus products and services. You can't just replicate those.
Yes, you can. Somebody else can come up with them. That's why it's not interchangeable without the cryptos right now.
Well, so far it hasn't been around very long. So right now you're saying it's money, but it might not be money in the future. Well, I don't consider it money. Some people do. You're right, it's not a current. If it were a currency, it would be fiat, but if you want to say that it's fiat, meaning by government decree, it's the marketplace that gave Bitcoin its value, not government decree.
No, but again, it has value because people believe it has value. It has value because people believe somebody else will want it in the future. So the market has returned it, and it has value. That's why it has value, rather than the government dictating it. Value still comes from faith, even though the government is analyzing the technology and recognizing that it's a useful technology.
Let me finish my point. I'm going to keep interrupting you, like you do on your show, Peter. I think I was still pretty sore from when he kept muting me on his show in 2014. Yeah, but the government's requirements... We'll be right back. It's all fun and games, we laugh about it now. Go ahead.
Look, nobody knows in 10 years if anybody's going to want a Bitcoin, right? Maybe it'll have a lot of value because a lot of people will want it, or maybe nobody will want it. You don't know that. You're taking a leap of faith, and it's the market that will determine that.
To summarize as we wrap up, I'd say you've really entrenched your position, and it's very clear where you stand. You are infamous in the Bitcoin space. My question is, I feel bad for you, because I think we're moving into a digital age where we're going to see more and more of these digital commodities. Am I going to have programmable money? That's the problem for Bitcoin, if there are more and more of them, that dilutes the value of Bitcoin. Not necessarily, because you're seeing the emergence of different ecosystems. To me, if Bitcoin is really going to work, all the other ones have to fail.
That's not true. Why? Because I just think that if other ones can come up that are better, then more and more can keep coming, and you keep diluting the market. You keep inflating the supply of crypto. I think market shares will definitely shift over time, but the same way that the US dollar and the yen can compete, Bitcoin can compete with Litecoin and Monero. They have different functions and different properties.
But if you're saying there's no limit, there's an endless supply of potential cryptocurrencies that can be created out of thin air, people don't necessarily want them. There are a lot of coins, but they might not point to a coin. What's the difference? Bitcoin has a tremendous amount of hash power behind it, which makes it very secure for now. So if it changes, we'll see market shares shift, and I think that's totally fine.
Have you put yourself in a corner? Have you made things hard for yourself? I'm not saying you will change your mind, but it's a potential. Is it going to be difficult for you to admit that you might be wrong? No. People think I have this kind of bias. I'm in the gold business, which is only a small part of my business, by the way. Believe me, if I actually thought Bitcoin was digital gold, I would say so, and I would buy it myself.
Could I possibly admit that I was wrong about Bitcoin in the future? I could. I don't think I'm so stubborn that I couldn't change my mind if new information were able to persuade me that my initial feeling was wrong. The fact that the price has gone up hasn't changed my mind on the fundamentals. It has shown me that I should have bought it, obviously, because I underestimated that other people wouldn't agree with me. Some libertarians don't recognize a good thing when it hits them on the head, and that's totally fine, but I've missed out on so many bubbles. This is the one that was really tailor-made for me. This was my chance to become a billionaire, and I kind of blew it.
I know a lot of people now, especially in Puerto Rico, and I have a lot of good friends who have a lot of crypto. So if I'm wrong, at least I'll have some rich friends. Y'all take care of me, right? I wish I were one of those rich friends who wins Bitcoin, millions and millions of dollars a coin.
I still have hope for you, and I think maybe one day we'll get there. So I'm going to keep checking in. You have done a tremendous amount of good going out there and teaching people about sound money, so I appreciate that too. I look forward to the day when you recognize that Bitcoin isn't an alternative as well.
Thank you very much for your time. I really appreciate it. All right, take care.
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