S5 E20 | The Future of Money

You've got to be wondering, what is the future of money? What does your cash and your investments and your assets look like in 20 years? Well, in this episode, we're going to theorize a little bit and talk about just that.

Every season, we talk about future stuff. So I want to hear from you. What do you think the future of money is? And then we'll talk more about other cool future stuff.

Cool future stuff.

Cool future stuff. You want to hear it?

Money.

We got you.

It's been so fascinating to study, really, since 2008.

It's changing.

2008, a little thing came out called bitcoin, and that has sent people into an upheaval. Because what's cool about bitcoin is no one owns it, right? There's no institution. There's some governance, but. But no one really has control over it. And that angered a lot of people. And a lot of people said, well, that's not actually money because no one owns it. And there's nothing tangible behind it and there's no value associated with it. And so it's like, what is bitcoin? I can't really do anything with it. And then eventually it became a utility, which is the definition of money. So a utility means that you have to be able to transact it for something. And so the very famous, like, I'll give you 10,000 bitcoin if you give me a pizza, right? That happened. And once that occurred, I guess like in 2011, 2012, that's when it started really picking up value because people said, wait a minute, I can actually use this random Internet stuff for a thing. And it kind of started spiraling. So there's been so many fun cool shifts to the US Currency. After Bitcoin, different digital currencies start coming out, all kinds of fun things. And obviously this is going to continue. The very first thing that I think will happen with the US Currency is we're going to get rid of pennies.

Pennies.

Pennies. They're an irrelevant currency. In fact, they actually cost more.

Seems expensive to make, right?

They're actually. They're. They literally cost more to make them than they're worth.

What are they made out of?

Copper? Oh, yeah.

That's what I thought.

Yeah. So when you see a penny on the ground, like, it's actually almost worthless. And that's why people don't even pick them up. Fun fact, I still pick up pennies.

Yeah.

Unless it's like, in the middle of the road. I stopped doing that just, like, two years ago. Like, I'VE stopped, like, getting out of my car to pick up a penny. Yes. I've stopped risking my life for pennies.

That's good.

But if it's right in front of me, I'm gonna go get it. But, yeah, pennies and maybe even nickels will probably stop being a thing. A lot of the actual change will stop being a thing. Cash will be absolutely almost a thing of the past. In 10 years, if you use cash, you're like, what? Oh, my gosh, that's so cool. Use cash. So it'll be a very, very digital system.

Driving a gas vehicle.

Yeah, driving a gas vehicle. Internal combustion engine. Yes. Yeah. That'll start to be very unique nuance. I mean, like right now, if you drive, let's say something from the 1970s or 80s or 60s, like, you stand out because people are like, whoa, what is that? Oh, my gosh, you look unique. But if you drive a cybertruck, people are like, what is that? Whoa, whoa. So it's going to happen so, so quickly. And adaptation of currency generally takes somewhere between 20 to 50 years for things to really, really shift. So that's the timeline for something to be adapted or adopted and start really, really picking up steam. So some of the things I have written down, first and foremost, I fully believe that this is probably five to ten years away is 24 seven markets. Now. Right now you have cryptos, which are 24, seven. You have futures, which are 23, five, 23 and a half, six maybe. Depends on what exchange you have. Currencies, so not crypto, but you have foreign currencies, foreign exchange. And I think stocks and options will become 24,7 within five to 10 years, which means that you'll always have access to liquid markets all day, every day. You're just going to have to have exchanges that are open to process those transactions. But that's going to be really interesting for the economies because then you, five to six years ago, you had the broker war, which all brokers started battling and then dropping their commissions to nothing. So right now you can buy a stock for a dollar or less where 10 years ago it cost you 12 and 20 years ago it cost you $25 to make a transaction. So what that means now is we're going to get opened up to other markets. So more money is going to start flooding into different countries because it's going to become a little bit faster, a little bit more seamless. And right now, most Americans don't invest the Australian market or the London Stock Exchange or the Mumbai Exchange, like We're not really investing actively into other markets. Well, when 247 markets are coming around and these exchanges are getting a little bit closer together, that's going to happen and that's going to create a huge influx of capital for tons of other countries. Yeah. Which is really, really exciting. Now, one of the other things I wrote down here is a new credit system. This is something that I would like to work on if someone's not already working on it. Now, I think the current credit rating agency is broken, busted, or backwards or all three. It feels really wrong to me that you have to be in debt to have a good debt credit score. And. But if you're in too much debt, then the number goes down. But if you don't have enough debt, then the number goes down.

But if you pay off the debt, it goes down.

It goes down.

Right.

So there's some problems with it. And I also don't think that there's any actual tangibility to verify.

It's really just to the benefit of the creditor.

Absolutely.

Making money off you, not saying you're really good with money.

It's actually kind of saying, can I make a bunch of money? What's the likelihood I can make a bunch of money off this person? That's almost what it's saying. And if you know how to play the game, you can get pretty good at the game. And I've. I am. My credit score is over 800 now, so that's kind of cool.

Look at you.

Yeah. Just because I'm playing their stupid game now. I'm about to pay off three houses in the next month and my credit score is going to go from 800 to 620. Dang crazy. Right. Because I'm going to have literally a lot less debt on the table. Fascinating. So there's a lot of changes that are going to happen there. Will the. Either the US or other countries start changing cash before we start going fully digital? Probably. I think there's one more stab at that from other countries because it's not just a US thing. I mean, you're talking the euro is all over Europe. Right. Britain's kind of like fighting it and they had their Brexit issue and they're using their own currency still.

But the euro's really, really an interesting currency because if certain countries start defaulting because the next really big crash that happens, it's not going to be companies that go bankrupt, it'll be countries.

Yeah.

And that is a very likely scenario. And that's why people love the Whole bitcoin rabbit hole is because if Slash Win, China and some of these other larger companies start going, hey, us, you're really behind on your debt. Can we get some, I don't know, payments, please? And we go, yeah, about that. We have too many unfunded. You see, here's the, here's the problem, you know, and we don't. Yeah, there's going to be a little bit of an issue with that. And.

I don't know exactly what that issue looks like precisely, but the likelihood that we all come together and form a one world reserve currency is pretty likely. Yeah. Where imagine if you go to Japan, China, Bali, Australia or the US Whatever currency you have, that's the currency that you can trade with, that's the currency that you can exchange with. And they're going to have some type of central bank agency or reserve that's going to be over that whole thing because they're going to have to pull all of the money from the richest people and the richest companies together to bail out the globe. Because if America goes down, everyone's going down. Right. Obviously we're all going to take that slip and slide down the hill. And there's not a lot of things stopping us from the bottom of that slip and slide. So a whole world reserve currency is gonna be interesting now. A lot of people are gonna say, when you go down that road in that rabbit hole, what is that world reserve currency gonna be backed by? And that's the bitcoin maximalist people. That's the ones like, bitcoin is the thing, right? That's the digital gold. So they're gonna hope, fingers crossed that that's the reason that bitcoin's in existence is because it has no governance and there's only a certain limited amount. And I can't, I hate to keep bringing up the whole bitcoin thing, but it can be used as a currency, although I don't think that that's going to be the one. And because the reason is it's going to be too volatile. Five to 10 years from now, bitcoin is going to be in the hundreds of thousands. And if you go buy a house or a bagel with a $500,000 bitcoin and the currency as it is now very volatile, goes down. I mean, it was down 7% today. So if it goes down 7%, you lose 7% of your value overnight. People are going to be panicking about that. I don't think that's going to really, really cause panic.

Globally. So I Don't think that bitcoin has the stability or the liquidity to be the world reserve currency. That's why I think best case scenario, maybe it's the backing of that currency.

I mean, my big question is, do you think the person that got 10,000 bitcoin for a pizza, do you think they went out and traded it pretty quickly? Because they're like, you know, I saw what happened with Beanie Babies. My last big investment in Beanie Babies.

That person has zero bitcoin right now. Guarantee it.

I bet they think about it every day, too.

Oh, yeah. And again, one of the coolest trades, one of the best discussions of all time.

But today, bitcoin is up at its all time high today.

Well, that's the best part about this. Thank you for even bringing that up. Yes, Bitcoin hit the highest price in history today, which was 69,000, I think 38. And then it dropped 8%. Why?

Because everybody sold it off. Everyone sold because it was at its all time high.

That's exactly correct. And so it's very, very simple. Right? Very, very high.

My wife probably bought some more today.

She loves buying bitcoin at the highest imaginable price. It's one of her favorite things to do.

Oh, Svetlana.

Yeah, she's the best.

Speaking of Russian, okay, I know there's a new currency, Russia. Is it done? Where are they at with it? What are your predictions around that?

That's gonna be a very, very powerful currency. Bricks, I think, is what it's being called. Bricks. I don't know. That might not be the name of the currency. That's probably like the organization. So that's Brazil.

That's like the partnership.

Yeah. Brazil, Russia, India and China. Those are the four players in that. In that coalition. So I don't know what the currency is called right now, but that one's going to be very, very powerful.

Yeah, China is taking that one.

Yeah. Well, because India is. I mean, you have India and China. That is 45% of the world.

So Brazil, Russia, India, China.

Yeah, right. So interesting for Brazil to get into that mix. But if Brazil gets that mix, I.

Feel like there's the one spicy.

We're here. What's up? Hello.

I don't know if they're going to get a long, long term, but we'll see.

So, you know, that means that Portugal will probably get into that mix at some point, which means then Spain and then a little bit of Europe's gonna go. So it's gonna be very interesting to see them Kind of shift and kind of create that coalition of trade, import and exports. Yeah, but absolutely, the, the big thing that I think a lot of people are talking about or thinking about in that realm could very well be that Universal Basic Income for some of those countries. That's what they're trying to do. Right. With China, a lot of their automation, a lot of their robot factories, they're really doing their best to work on something. We're like, hey, if we're truly a communist country, we really want to control everybody. What's the best way to control people? Control their money.

Money.

And you control their money, you can control their access, you control what they do, what they can do. And so if you create this pool of currency that only certain countries have access to, and then you take a bunch of autonomous machines that can work and create and produce and build, well, they will still sell to India, Russia and Brazil. Those jobs now have created more income that China now has to give to their citizens to stay there, stay quiet, and be just in existence.

Yeah.

And get a certain UBI Universal Basic Income. That's gonna be interesting to see if that plays out. But I think that's really something that they're going towards, and I don't know how viable that is because you're gonna be relying on workers that are built by humans. Right. Again, it's gonna be all robotics piece. That's the only way UBI even makes sense.

Like you have to have explain UBI for people who have never heard of this before. This is a crazy concept that is likely to be some kind of reality to some degree.

Right. I would love to study this more from some people who are very much in the know. But UBI stands for Universal Basic Income. And what that means is every single being on this globe and or in a particular country. So the BRICS coalitions, they get a guaranteed payment from the government.

Every period of time. So let's say every single month you get guaranteed $3,000, it's yours. And that should cover all of your basic necessities. Now, a lot of people are going to say, that's amazing. What a great concept. And then you have people going, yeah, but where's the money come from? And so when you figure out a way to blend these two together with an actual answer, which would be, well, you have everyone who's currently working no longer works, because now we just have robots doing everything. The product still gets created, but just not by humans. And we don't have to pay robots because they don't have a soul or do they hashtag Elon Musk? Right. Artificial intelligence. You know, it's a very interesting.

They have a soul.

He does. Oh, yeah. Well, if they're intelligent. Right.

We're gonna come back around to this one.

It's a really, really coming back around. It's a fun discussion.

Robots have a slight soul.

Some people say they do, some people say they don't. Right. I. I have no bearing on that weight on that issue. I don't know enough about it at all. But what I can say is this. There are a lot of people that will absolutely say that UBI cannot work because the entire group of citizens that are relying on universal basic income will not work ever again. And they'll just get fat and lazy, which is the. You've seen the movie, Wally. Like that's going to happen. I mean, it's. It's spot on, unfortunately. Now, in my version of the world, I do think that UBI has a level of.

It has a level of acceptance, because there are a certain group of people that will say, listen, if all of my basic needs are provided, then I can do the things I really want to do, the things that I was created to do. I can start creating and building and dreaming and making art, and I can provide more for my community because all my basic needs are met. And now I can really live the life that I was designed to live. Therefore, I'm happier. Therefore, depression goes away. Therefore, sadness goes away. Therefore, suicide goes away. And then you have a happier, more thriving nation. So I can see the reason and the rationale on the other side of the universal basic income Tenant and Andrew Chang, the Chang gang, right? He was one of the ones that was really a big proponent of that for the United States, saying that, hey, we can make this happen in the United States. We'll just have the government pay everyone a certain amount of money every single month to live. The problem is we don't have robots yet. So he just wanted the rule. He just wanted the US to just pay everyone a certain amount of money and go, hey, best of luck. I'm sure it'll work out. Yeah, well, bro, we're already in trillions of dollars a day. We can barely, barely right now afford to pay the interest payments on just our debt with our GDP and our taxable income. So that plan didn't pan out. But if you start adding cryptocurrencies, the use of cryptocurrencies, a little bit of energy, right? Solar energy, power energy, wind energy, and then you start adding in robots, artificial intelligence, and machine labor that doesn't have to be paid, you can start getting a really interesting future. And it's something that I think every one of our listeners need to talk about, think about, just have fun discussions with. It is something that is happening. There will be a huge shift in currency for sure. And every single person who's listening to this their lifetime, there'll be a massive shift and it's coming. It's going to happen within 10, 20 years.

Well, we've got more future stuff to talk about. These are big ideas. We want to expand your mind. We want you at the next level. We want you elevating your life and that's going to start right now.

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