Bitcoin or Altcoins - which is better? Crypto Debate.

Are you in?

We got a pullback. I'll allow some punches, but I'm not going to allow that type of character assassination here. Please apologize.

Asking questions.

Hello, friends, and welcome. My name is Big T. I will be your host today. I want to welcome you to the Coin Telegraph Crypto show. This is a place where we help you along your crypto journey. And so I'm going to be asking our guests today some pointed questions. Are altcoins real crypto or are they pure crypto? Just how toxic is bitcoin maximalism and what the heck does that even mean? Now can we all get along today or is our self described bitcoin maxi Joe Nakamoto going to deal a death blow to the Miami faced prince of crypto BC Ryan Kirkley.

Thanks, T. Lovely to be here with you. And lovely to be here with you Ryan as well. Thanks for the opportunity and yeah, excited to talk bitcoin and shit. Sorry. Bitcoin and crypto.

Joe Nakamoto coming out strong with a haymaker. Ryan Kirkley, what do you have to say?

I mean, we all love 1990s technology. I'm really glad I still don't use Windows 1.

Wow.

Okay. All right. So friends, nothing really getting pulled back here at all. For those of you that are new and gentlemen, as a quick reminder, here's how we do this thing. We flip a coin to see who goes first. You get a minute to answer my question. Your opponent gets a minute to respond. You get a one minute rebuttal. We ask a few more questions. You get to ask a question of each other. And then plot twist. Joe, you have to tell Ryan why altcoins are amazing. Ryan, you have to tell Joe why bit. Bitcoin is amazing.

Hey, guys.

Hey there.

This is Mitchell, this is Eric.

Definitely a lot of fun to watch.

So I thought this was a super entertaining debate between altcoin versus bitcoin maximilism.

So let's get to that in a second. First things first. Let's do the coin toss. Okay, Ryan, heads or tails?

Tails.

Tails, my man. You are absolutely correct. Okay, so you get the first.

We'll be saying that a lot.

Okay. If an everyday person wants a shot at becoming rich from crypto, should they own bitcoin or should they own altcoins? And why?

I would say both in the short term, I. I think, hey, I am not a bitcoin is going to zero tomorrow person.

Right?

It is obviously going up with the ETFs, things like that. That being said is if you are looking for a Hey, I want to 10x100x my money. Bitcoin is not your avenue anymore. That day is done. That day is gone. There are some amazing new chains coming up that have massive financial implications. And there's some older chains like XRP that, you know, once this ruling occurs and it looks like it's going to be very clearly in favor of the regulatory environment accepting xrp. Whether or not you love XRP as a solution is it's gone. A 3 to 5x. The Ethereum ETF is going to raise Ethereum prices probably 2x. And so there are some realities in the investment world of, hey, these alts have the opportunity to double, triple in a very short period of time. Bitcoin does not.

Okay, great answer, Joe. Apparently finding you extremely humorous with your XRP comments. Joe, what do you have to say to that?

I didn't think we'd hear shilling of XRP in the intro. I do. I do apologize for the unwarranted sniggering there. That was. That was impolite of me. I do apologize. But, yeah, I didn't. I didn't think that people in the crypto community still talked about XRP seriously.

To your face and then say sorry and not really mean it and. And be completely forgiven. Good job, Joe Nakamoto.

Okay, sorry.

Continue.

I'm cutting it to your top.

That's right. Regarding XRP, I mean, you use the reference of Windows 1 technology in the intro. I had to Google what Windows 1 is. I'm not sure we're the same age demographic, but If Bitcoin is Windows 1, then XRP must be. I don't know, man. Like sticks and like stones.

All right, Joe. All right, Time's up.

Wow.

Okay, again, heavy punches getting thrown. Ryan, like Ryan. I mean, you got to put your guard up, man. This guy is murdering you right now. All right, let's go to the next question. Number two. Okay, this one's going to you, Joe. Hasn't bitcoin failed because it's not a widely used payment method? I mean, everybody on their mother seven years ago said, oh, we'd be using Bitcoin to buy coffee, we'd be using it to buy all cars, we'd be using it to pay our bills. Hasn't bitcoin failed because it's not a widely used payment system?

Okay. Different ways. I can take this just to your point about cars, coffee, and bills. I pay my bills in bitcoin. I bought this coffee with Bitcoin, and I'm currently negotiating to buy a car with Bitcoin, I know you shouldn't sell your SATs. And the HODL narrative is incredibly strong. And that's what Ryan spoke about in the intro, actually, that, you know, bitcoin is worth holding in the short to medium term because it's likely to, you know, 3x10x, maybe even 100x if you take a long enough time horizon. When it comes to the fact of a medium of payment, that's not what the white paper talks about. It talks about a peer to peer cash system. So means of payment or medium of exchange is just one facet to this new revolutionary technology. And it's also thanks to Bitcoin and this means of exchange that all these other cryptocurrencies are trying to copy Bitcoin and to some extent sort of ride on its coattails. So yes, it's not universally accepted, but we have a country where it's medium exchange. Well, technically two if you include the Central African Republic. But that's another debate for another time. And on top of that, there are tens of thousands of merchants all around the world which you can check out on BTC Map which do already accept Bitcoin and lots of third party solutions which allow you to live on bitcoin such as Bitrefill or the Bitcoin company. So yes, you can live on Bitcoin in 2024. Maybe that's not what Satoshi envisaged in 2009. We're certainly leaps ahead of what the critics in the crypto camp would call, oh, it's failed because I can't buy a coffee with it. I mean, come on, get better.

All right, all right, Joe, let's, let's give Ryan a chance to come back on this. Ryan, do you hear a lot of excuse making or does this sound legit to you?

I mean, I, I hear someone who's using Bitcoin for not what it's used for today. It's not supposed to be meant for purchases. And purchasing on it is probably a pretty poor choice for your money because between gas fees, transaction fees, and in general, the time it takes to make a purchase, you're much quicker, faster and easier settling and literally any other form of currency. And so I find it always kind of comical when bitcoin maxis talk both sides of their mouth. Hey, it's going to 10x but I'm going to go buy a car today. Well, if it's going to 10x, why are you buying a car in bitcoin today that's going to cost you $540,000. Right. And so if you are actually that confident in the growth, you wouldn't be spending it. And in the. In the same breath is why are you spending it when there's clearly better technologies? And I like in the references he keeps making on, you know, how. How great Bitcoin is as a code base and things like that. No, it's.

It.

It might even not be Windows 1. It might be Linux. Right?

It.

It's. It is actually the foundation of what cryptographic ledger technology is. That doesn't mean it's the best thing. Over 15 years, we figured out better ways to write the crypto ledgers, quicker ways, better ways for transactions, et cetera. And there's certainly much better cryptocurrencies if we're looking for means of settlement of transactions, particularly as relates to a swift replacement system in world banking, or in terms of instant transaction settlement for things like MasterCard, which there's a reason they're not using, you know, something like Bitcoin as their network on blockchain.

All right, Ryan, hold on a second. I normally wouldn't allow this, but I. I fear for my life with Joe Nakamoto because he's such a thick maxi.

Okay, I'm just saying something.

Joe, I'll give you 30 seconds. Go. What do you need to say?

The point about the payments. Okay, I don't know if you've used the. Ryan. I don't know. Ryan. If you use the Lightning Network, but that's the scaling solution for Bitcoin. The whole point about Bitcoin is that it has to stay decentralized and secure, and it scales in layers. That was always the plan.

However, if you were to, say, build Bitcoin 2.0 today, we would have much better technology and code than we do on Bitcoin 1.0, which honestly was coded by basically a team of maybe one to three people. It really does not have the robust infrastructure that you'd expect of a blockchain today.

All right, let's, let's, let's. We're getting. We're getting a little off topic here. I hear you.

There's good.

There's good points on both sides. Joe, I got my eye on you. You got your yellow card. You understand that. You're from England.

It's football, not soccer. Okay. If you give me a yellow cardboard. Football, mate. Football. Appreciate it.

Ryan, I've got a question for you. Joe's head might explode with this question. Okay. Which is safer for the environment, Bitcoin or Altcoins?

It really depends on the coin, but pretty much anything other than bitcoin will be better for the environment. I don't necessarily view that as the number one thing we should be concerned about since there are many eco friendly mining operations on both sides. Pretty much any crypto miner or server farm is going to be incredibly bad for the environment today, no matter what we do. That's the job of those groups to be going solar, nuclear, hydroelectric, whatever that is to make those things happen. There's some pretty cool projects on both sides. I really think mining technology is one and the same. That being said, something like Ethereum, something like Polygon, far, far more scalable to be executing millions or billions of transactions. So if we're truly talking payment network, et cetera, even with the lightning network upgrade, things like that, there are far more scalable solutions to be using less data and less energy.

Joe, what are your thoughts? Which is safer for the environment, Bitcoin or Altcoins?

Thanks T and appreciate your points on that. Ryan, just two things on this very quickly. You see that machine behind me there? So that right there is keeping my office warm. Do you know what it is?

It's a bitcoin miner, right?

Correct T. Yeah. Now I replaced my electricity heater in my office with a bitcoin miner. So tell me, what is the ecological, environmental footprint of that versus what I was using previously? Effectively zero. I'm helping to secure the soundest money on the planet whilst also keeping my office space warm. The second point I was going to make is that Ryan makes an assumption there that using energy is bad. And I want to ask him like, do you think that humans should continue to use more energy over time in order to be more productive and in order to sort of encourage human flourishment? Because if we can't agree on that, then we're not going to have a very good debate about energy use within the bitcoin space.

So what's very interesting is my point here that was supposed to be probably pretty friendly towards bitcoin miners in the sense that the mining operations are the same and server farmers are the same. No, I don't agree that we should always say we want to use more energy. The goal should be to create less energy. And what's funny about his bitcoin mining point with the heater is anyone who's taken some chemical engineering or thermo thermodynamic classes would understand that that actually is one of the least effective ways to heat your office and you're using far more energy to do so. Than you would through a radium heater or even going old school with a fireplace. And so that's something that is very important here to like keep in mind is that like. All right guys, we're not going to.

Debate the relative efficiency of Joe, it's just a lie.

Like my, my energy costs, my energy costs stayed the same. My expense has gone down because of course I'm mining bitcoin for the pleasure of using that electricity. And we can't have a good debate about energy. If Ryan thinks that we should aim as humanity to use less energy because historically, you know, progress is driven by energy. If you don't think edges is good, then we're not going to be able to talk about the fact that bitcoin mining encourages responsible use of energy and has actually enabled the build out of renewable.

This is the problem with bitcoin maximalism is it takes the assumption that everything being more of is good, the energy is a great thing. There's no reason why we can't improve technology while also improving its energy usage efficiency.

Right?

All right, guys, all right, let's, let's just, let's just say you, both of you guys are going to agree to disagree here. I don't think either one of you actually made a great point around this. But, but, but anyway, we'll save that for another day. I've got a question for you, Joe. If bitcoin went to zero, if it went to zero, would it kill the entire crypto space? Would it be lights out for everyone?

Man, I really don't know. That's such an interesting triviality. Like I spend a lot of my days trying to work out if or what would attack bitcoin to bring it to zero.

Right?

That's actually why I ended up working as a reporter at cointelegraph because I was so determined to find the ways in which it would go to zero because I wanted to don't trust verify, one of the key mantras of the bitcoin movement. But here I am six years later, still thinking, well, I can't find the thing that's going to make bitcoin go to zero. So I might as well get on board this adoption train and might as well use it to help empower people around the world, help work towards human flourishment and work towards greater levels of renewable energy build out. So I'm actually not going to answer your question because I can't. I still haven't been able to envisage this scenario. Bitcoin will crash 100%. It continues to crash, it crashes higher, as we all know, which is why we're still doing talks on the Cointelegraph crypto channel in 2024. But will it go to zero? I mean, I, I just still can't see it. And that's the thing that really worries me, and that's the thing that makes me get out of bed each morning. So I'm like, okay, if it's going to crash, how is it going to do so? And I end up with the same eventuality, which is, no, we've achieved artificial digital, sorry, absolute digital scarcity for the first time in humanity. And this is a real chance to reshape the future of the world with this new currency.

Okay, so your position is that it cannot go to zero, Correct?

I'm convinced that it won't. Not that it cannot. I still don't know if it can or cannot. I'm still trying to test that assumption and maybe Ryan has an example of where it will. Yeah.

What are your thoughts? I mean, do you think it can go to zero? And if it went to zero, would it be lights out for the entire space?

So, yes, it can go to zero. I, I think it would require a catacly, cataclysmic event or a major technological advancement with someone in the wrong hands getting access first. For example, quantum computing, there's potential for forks, there's potential for things to be upgraded in time, but struggle with the decentralized network, because if quantum computing happens rapidly enough and expands quickly enough, we would have the ability to brute force attack the network. Because we're talking magnitudes of scale, thousand times faster process. If that happens, everything that's not a quantum resistant blockchain is going to zero. There's like maybe three out there, and most of them are ZK proofs to get really technical. We don't need to, but it would be a pretty big event. Now, there's other ways Bitcoin goes not necessarily to zero, but to two floors, right? We see massive ETF shorts on pullouts, we see an organized institutional attack on Bitcoin. We see things like after the happening, we see the transaction times go up massively. Probably the second happening, not this happening, where the amount of miners become unprofitable. We could see those drops, but we wouldn't see that affect the rest of Ethereum, et cetera, all the altcoins, et cetera, that they would still exist. I would generally agree though, that the likelihood of bitcoin going to zero in a 5, 10 year time frame is pretty low. Short of a massive technological advancement.

Okay, great answers, great answers.

All right, T, can I correct something really quickly? It's just that Ryan said that, you know, transaction times are going to be affected by the halving. That's just not right. Like the difficulty adjustment is programmed into the bitcoin protocol and ensures that every, you know, every 10 minutes there's going to be a block on average on the bitcoin blockchain. And the halving doesn't affect that. The halving affects the miner reward. It's just to correct something that if someone's listing this is the home, they're going to think, oh gosh, my transaction will take longer to confirm.

It requires the miners to continue to do so.

Ryan, altcoins are riskier than bitcoin. Yes, no, or why?

So I'll phrase it this way. There's some things that are no longer altcoins. They should be accepted as rather stable investment. Thesis is Ethereum being one. I think that you can move some of those as their likelihood of going to zero is also more or less close to zero and they become rather stable assets. And if you're looking for, if you're comfortable at 20 to 30% swings of asset classes right now, that being said, we do have shitcoins. We do have meme coins. We do. Absolutely. Those are incredibly risky. Absolutely. You should be staying away from those. Absolutely. Chains that have 70% failure rates. Solana. Ouch. A pretty strong negative view towards their ability to stay incredibly sustainable. Right. And I think that that's kind of the, that's kind of the approach I take is like, yes, there are some safe ones, but there's also incredibly risky ones. And you really have to do research and you have to listen to experts on which ones are likely to maintain value, whether they're utility token, whether they are regulated token, whether they're real world token, et cetera. Right.

Joe?

I mean, ouch. If you're a Solana holder watching this video. But yeah, to the question, which is riskier altcoins or bitcoin? I think Ryan was sort of going around the house a little bit saying that yes, altcoins are of course the riskier investment because of those points that he brings up such as, you know, pre mine over centralization, the fact that a lot of these blockchains.

So Joe, what, what is pre mine for? For people here that have never heard that.

Sure. So when these VC backed projects or cryptocurrencies, if you want to call them, when they come to, you know, be put on the TABLE there's always going to be someone that's sponsoring it or funding these projects. So take Ethereum for example, which Ryan describes as a stable investment thesis. So before Ethereum came together, Charles Hoskinson, Vitalik Buterin and Gavin woods got together in Switzerland and found out ways in which they could make this profit. This project, Sorry, I know it's about profit, but it's a project. They wanted to make this project viable. For that they had, I think it was 30 to 40% went to the Ethereum foundation and basically sort of industry insiders, they get an allocation of the token before it goes to the retail market and certainly before it ends up on exchanges that you all know and love at home Finance and Coinbase and OKX and all those other things. So these pre miners, basically an unfair head start if you're, you're talking sort of philosophically or ethically. But you could also argue that it's just free market capitalism at play and in order to get these projects over the line, you need some pre mine funding to start the market.

Okay, great. Here's a question I know a lot of people have been asking. There is rampant fraud in the altcoin section of the market. It's rampant, it's everywhere. Ryan, what's the solution?

I think from a defi and wanting to be decentralized solution, they're probably not a great one. That is a natural, it's a natural advocacy that you have, right. Bitcoin, how much frauds have happened on it by people faking wallet addresses, people creating, creating alts, things like that. Those things always exist because in a decentralized world it's on the individual to check every action they're taking.

Let me check you there for a second. Right. The actual fundamental technology of Bitcoin has never proved to be fraudulent. However, there have been projects in the altcoin space that have absolutely been fraudulent projects.

So you can always have, I would argue it's not the tech, it's the actors. There's no such thing as an altcoin tech that is fraudulent. There's actors that built the tech to be fraudulent. Right. And so I think that that's, that's a key delineation here. Right. Like if we're talking broadstream altcoins, you're right, there have been scams, there have been pump and dumps, there's been all sorts of, there's been malicious code even. Right. Like, but that exists in any world. But if Ethereum for example, at this point is gone through its trials and Tribulations. If you are actually using Ethereum, there is no risk of Ethereum defrauding you itself. Now, you could send to a bad wallet things like that, but there isn't a risk of that defrauding happening. There is no malicious code there, et cetera.

Joe, I jump in there. Sorry, yeah, just at the. So these things are tools, right? And they're built by humans. So I think the fraudulent projects you're referring to are rug pulls. And there have been thousands of rug pulls in the crypto. In the crypto space. I don't think I need to explain rug pull. I'm sure that many people watching maybe have been rug pulled at some point in their crypto journeys. But the other point I was going to make was about Ethereum perhaps defrauding people. Well, Ethereum has had, I think, four or five hard forks now, which is serious changes to the code, the most famous of which was the switch from proof of work to proof of state. I would argue, as someone who's a fan of decentralized technologies, that a hard fork is defrauding you of that conviction you had in the fact that that was a decentralized project. Because people, you. You could run a node prior to that hard fork, and after that hard fork, your node is no longer confirming that new chain. So you've been defrauded of what that, you know, that tech was. I'm sure, because you can vote with.

Your feet and exit the network at any time, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So I think that's a bit of a stretch.

Yeah, so, but then the fact you're exiting the network is because you feel defrauded. No, it's because you feel that project is somebody down.

It would be like owning a stock and you didn't like what the management team did and you decided to sell your stock and buy a different stock.

Exactly. Because it's a stock and a cryptocurrency company, as opposed to an actual decentralized movement such as Bitcoin.

We're talking different things at this point though, Right. One is a decentralization argument. The other is the technology bad. And I think that that's the key delineation here. Right. Make no mistake, we can have a centralized versus decentralized argument till we're blue in the face, but that's not really the question at play when it comes to altcoins, so.

Well, this has been a very spirited debate. So what I want to do now is allow each of you to ask the other questions. So, Joe, Nakamoto. What would you like to ask, Ryan?

Do you think. Do you have kids, Ryan?

I. I do not.

Do you want kids? Are you planning on it? Do you think?

It's going in a strange direction, but. Okay, I'll allow it.

When. When Bitcoin is like going through its monetization process and it's effectively becoming this, you know, global reserve currency or at least an excellent store of value, I think we could probably agree on the latter. Do you think your kids would be proud of their dad for supporting bitcoin on its mission? Or Bitcoin and shitcoins in order to get that?

So to be very clear, I take the approach of. Right now there's an investment thesis and there is a long term what's best for the world thesis, right? These things are not mutually exclusive and they're also not ones that you have to necessarily pick one direction or the other. Do I invest in bitcoin? Do I buy bitcoin? Do I hold Bitcoin? The answer is yes. Do I also understand the risks involved with Bitcoin and think that. That there are other competitors who could come in, or more importantly, institutions or governments that could come in and derail this adoption? Yes, I do. And I think that that's something that it's. When I talk to the biggest maximalists, right? When I talk to the Michael Saylors of the world, things like that, I respect what they've done, I expect respect their investment thesis. But I also think that there they are all in on something that still has a lot of risks towards that Forever Coin. And I think that that that's where. Where I come in is. I just don't believe it's the Forever Coin yet.

But that's the question. Would your kids be proud?

They would be proud of my investment thesis, yes. Like, I made good money in the space, right?

Okay.

Brian, what would you like to ask Joe?

My question is, this is what happens as technology eclipses. We talk about the difficulty ratings, we talk about all this and what no one wants to talk about is what happens if technology advances so fast that it actually goes faster than a two week period? What happens if it goes so fast that we could brute force attack the network? How does Bitcoin adjust to a fast quantum development, to a nefarious actor gaining access, etc. To computing power, say 10 or 1000x faster than we currently have today?

Cool. Like the question. It's a common debate that you get at bitcoin meetups and even bitcoin panels or conferences around the world. And there's lots of articles written by people far smarter than me on this topic. The question is sort of what does comping quantum computing mean for bitcoin? And there's different ways to take it. One of the common ones, like in the future is to think, okay, well we've had soft forks in the past with the bitcoin network, a software meaning that your node that was running pre software still works post software. And the idea of running a node is that this is why bitcoin is decentralized and everything else isn't. Because anyone at home can run a node as I do, as many others do. The other, the other idea, I mean, you brought up the difficulty adjustment again, but we have parked this point. Every 2016 blocks, the difficulty adjustment changes. And if there was a two week.

Period, and to be very clear, right, if. And Quantum is kind of a zero sum game. And so I'll use quantum as an easy one for those at home. Basically when quantum computing happens, which is how we're sending photons in real time, it changes the entire narrative on processing speed. We're talking a single computer would have the power of almost every server in the world. And so if that occurs, if we have a massive advancement, if we have a massive solar flare, right, if we have like either a massive wipeout of technology or a massive gain of technology, Bitcoin is not designed to adjust quickly in its decentralized state. You talk about softworks. I still ask the question, how does it adjust rapidly to what would be a mission critical situation where even a centralized entity would struggle to adapt quickly?

Sure. No, I get what you're going. So the idea of adjusting quickly is the classic sort of crypto way of addressing things like crypto is move fast, break things, whereas Bitcoin is okay, we've got this decentralized ledger of everyone's transactions since in inception 2009. How do we keep that concrete over time? And if you think about Bitcoin as just speech, then if there was a massive solar flare, if there was quantum computing, whatever it may be, then as long as there is one node that has the entirety of the Bitcoin network still stored on it, than Bitcoin can carry on in perpetuity. And this is the goal that we're heading. We're not looking to create the fastest, most glitzy new crypto token. We're looking to separate money from state, stop, you know, central banking affecting normal people's lives and create a new Bitcoin standard on which the world can build. So would it react to these problems or these challenges? Yes, it would. How would it do so? Perhaps through a software. As long as there's one node left on the earth, then it can keep going in perpetuity.

Brian, I actually want to just weigh in on this real quick because this is something I've thought about a lot. And if we had quantum computing tomorrow, our Bitcoin is really the smallest thing we need to worry about. Every single bank account in the world could get drained, and those accounts are built on ancient technology. Do you think a bank.

I'll come in here instead of this and without. Without giving certain things that I know are privileged information. I do know there are banks that have already upgraded networks to quantum resistance. Quantum resistance is something that can even happen with Bitcoin. It's not that it's theoretically impossible now. It's not quite a soft fork, easy upgrade. If you really dig into what would need take, it'd probably be a hard fork. And I'm not sure how Bitcoin handles a hard fork. But the, the reality is, is like, hey, that is the fear. Think every major investor, every investment banker, every PE person right now has in their mind, we're investing in these quantum companies. We see how close they get, we see that photon computing is here, we see what DARPA is doing, right? Like, we know that this is getting really, really close. And it will be kind of an inflection point similar to ChatGPT, where one day it's here. And I think that that's where I say there's this. Don't get me wrong, there'll be a lot of disruption. Your personal computers are vulnerable. There's lots of. But there will be financial systems, there will be hard cash counts, There will be, quite frankly, Excel spreadsheets that would exist offline, that would be able to manage money in the short term, as that stuff happens. Bitcoin, on the other hand, might not have that.

Now, this is going to be the plot twist. Joe, this is going to be difficult. Whatever deity you believe in, you're going to need to dig deep, say a little prayer, put your hands together, because here's what I'm going to ask you to do. I'm going to ask you to take. But before I do that, let me say this. I've been an investor for a very long time and I found to be a very good investor, you need to understand the other side. So if I'm bullish on something, I need to be able to articulate why I shouldn't Be bullish. I need to be able to articulate the bearish case. It just makes your bull case stronger or blows a hole in it. And you say, okay, I'm wrong. So I'm giving you that preamble, Joe, because I'm going to ask you to commit what is a mortal sin if for the bitcoin maxis, and I'm going to ask you to take the next couple of minutes and tell the world, if you believed the altcoins were better than bitcoin, why are they better than bitcoin?

Okay, I love that preamble. Thank you very much. So altcoins are better than bitcoin because while bitcoin allows some degeneracy, altcoins allow utter degeneracy. You know, if you want to do something horrific with your time, then altcoins is your playground. You know, we saw this over the past couple of weeks.

No, no backhanded knocks, Joe. I need you to take it seriously. Okay? I imagine you're in a room, you're, you're an investment banker and you've got to convince those people in that room, hey, hey. Altcoins are better than bitcoin.

Go. Okay, so I've been to lots of altcoin conferences as a journalist at Cointelegraph and as, as Oxford Business Group and a few other companies. And altcoins tend to have better drinks at their receptions and they also have better get rich quick investment opportunities. So if you're savvy enough and if you're in the inner circle and if you know the right people and you've got the right network, then you can turn a smallish amount of money into a very big amount of money very quickly. So if you are in those circles, then yeah, you can, you can make phenomenal investments. And I think that's what Ryan was talking about in his intro preamble that, yeah, Bitcoin might 10x or 100x from year over a long time period, but lots of altcoin projects thousand x overnight. And we've seen that with the meme coin phase of Solana over the past couple of weeks. So if your risk profile is tremendous, then the altcoin space is certainly for you. A second thing I would say is that the altcoin space has a lot more sort of like, it's not like friendliness, but it's a lot more like, as long as you hold my token, we can be friends. So there's this. Whereas bitcoin people tend to be more, don't trust, verify about the relationships and so are often trying to test each other's convictions and say how the other person is wrong and generally try to like, advance conversation that way. Whereas in the crypto community, it's a lot more like, hey, you've got a profile picture of a cat. I've got one as well. Let's meme together and away you go off memeing. So it's like a nice place to. To be degenerate, you know? And I've seen that firsthand. And as a crypto person, like, I used to be called Crypto Joe, and I was big into the crypto stuff before Joe Nakamoto was born. And that's, you know, what I used to spend a lot of my time doing. It's fun. Was that a good enough argument? I feel I was really struggling there.

Sorry I, I, I. For knowing what I know of you, Joe. That was amazing.

Okay. I know you're gonna thanks me.

Go through a whole ablution cycle now. Say, say 30 Hail Marys and it's not a religion.

It's not a religion.

Scourging. I was wrong. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Oh, God. It's not a religion. You can just buy bitcoin and have.

It and that's it.

And you go about your life. Most people do. I'm just the weirdo hearing.

Okay. So, Ryan, I thought Joe did a very good job. So what I'd like you to do for the next couple of minutes is you now have to sit, stand in front of this group of, you know, venture capitalists and convince them why bitcoin is in a just immeasurably better than altcoins. Why bitcoin is the way to go.

Yeah. So, I mean, it's. It's a little easier for me because I started defending Bitcoin circa 2013 and have. Have been well against the resistance before that point. I would say this Bitcoin has, has one primary advantage over any altcoin, and it's the fact that it represents 49.74% of the crypto market today.

Right.

It represents the, the, the biggest overall money. It represents the most adoption, it represents the most believers and has probably the strongest hold community that you could have, which is a key thing. It also has benefited from the fact that anywhere between 10 to 25% of it is in wallets that are long gone, which means its supply is reduced and it will always hold that price advantage. I also think that there is, there is an argument to be made depending on how governments Happen that decentralization is the winning course of action for the 21st century, that we could see a world in which the Fed does not exist, where the World bank does not hold power, and if that occurs, that bitcoin provides a safety security net and is a smart alternate asset to hold in your.

Nicely done. Very nicely done.

Do hold Bitcoin, to be clear.

Wow.

What a debate. Definitely a lot of fun to watch. Definitely exciting to see the gentlemen go at each other in support of their respective worldviews. Putting my personal opinions aside and just looking at the merits the debate, I think that Ryan was probably the more convincing of it. He made the stronger case. I would say that he won the debate. The reasons for this is his punchlines were. Were pretty strong, stronger than Joe's. His examples were good, very solid, very thoughtful. His ideas were well articulated. And even his. His case for bitcoin sounded more relevant, more attuned to my needs, more reasonable, more compelling to me. Whereas Joe's felt a little bit preachy, like he had to convince me that I should be seeing bitcoin this way as opposed to. As opposed to Ryan's view, which is, you know, much more aligned with how I as a user feel. So, honestly, I would say that Ryan is one, and I would give him my vote. Thank you.

So I thought this was a super entertaining debate between altcoin versus Bitcoin Maximilian. I certainly agreed with quite a lot of points made on both sides here, and they certainly don't conflict at all. They're really both right in a certain way. So, first of all, I agree with Joe. To say that bitcoin technology is equivalent of Windows 1.0 is just flat out wrong. Windows sucked. So I agree with Ryan's point that not all tokens should be considered if either bitcoin or altcoin at this point in time, because there are just so many other classifications and subgroups for altcoins that doesn't make each token equal in value, usability, and merit. Mechanically speaking, I think Ryan is a winner of the debate.

Ryan, Joe, I want to thank you so much. This was just a great round. You know, body blow for body blow. You know, you got to watch that Joe Nakamoto, though. He'll come up behind you and rapid punch the back of your head. He's a little tricky.

You know, us all coiners are a lot friendlier than bitcoiners. That's just.

Hey, hey, I'm friendly. Have you seen my content? Literally give out free bitcoin to people. I was going to do that in the interview, but we didn't have like, the opportunity to do so.

Awesome, awesome, guys. Thank you so much. Friends, I want to thank you for tuning in. So there you have it. You have the pros and the cons of bitcoin and altcoins. I'll add my 2 cents here. I don't think we need to worry about quantum computing right now. I like to call that a back of the Alphabet problem. If quantum computing comes about, we're going to have much bigger problems than dealing with our bitcoin, in my opinion. I also believe that altcoins have a place in your portfolio. I don't believe that you just own bitcoin and nothing else. But I do think you need to be smart. You need to get educated. Do not go all in on some shitcoin thinking that you're gonna ride it to the moon because it could just as easily go to zero. So take your time, friends, get educated. There are lots of resources out there. We hope that you found this incredibly helpful on your education journey. Again, I wanna thank you so much for being here and we'll see you next time.