Tim Draper: "I’ve Met Many Satoshi Candidates"

Tim, you've been saying $250,000 Bitcoin for a while.

I didn't realize that they would set Bitcoin back 4 or 5 years. Every time there's been sort of an advance in currency or an advance in store of value, the world gets richer because we move money faster. AI, as it merges with Bitcoin, is going to be also very important. We have 5— I have 5 digital twins that I started.

Tim, you've been around Bitcoiners now for a while. How likely do you think it is that you might have already met Satoshi and not realized it yourself?

Well, look, I have met all the people that they have suspected was Satoshi, and I don't believe I've met Satoshi yet.

What makes you think that?

Because I think— well, first of all, that press person is always playing with innuendo and ended up throwing Elizabeth Holmes in jail. I mean, he's, he's got a nasty habit of trying to pull things out when there's nothing there. And so I know that there's more suspicion that, that we actually can find Satoshi. I have a theory and I will never share my theory. Government regulators need to go beyond the Clarity Act and beyond the Genius Act to a third act. And the third act should be about allowing people to operate their entire business in Bitcoin, keep it on the blockchain, have the taxes go out automatically, have the payments go out automatically, and have it all be on the blockchain so that those businesses don't need to have the auditor, the accountant, the bookkeeper, the The transfer agent, the tax lawyer, the tax collector, none of those people need to be there because we are moving to an anthropological leap forward and governments are holding us back. And it's time we let that thing go. We let it happen. Go ahead, put tax inside the blockchain and allow people to operate their businesses in Bitcoin. That's what they want to do.

I mean, a lot of people here would say that there's been a lot of regulatory developments in the US, especially the Genius Act last year and hopefully the Clarity Act for a lot of people this year as well. I mean, do you not think the US has made a lot of progress with regulations?

No, I think they've made good progress. The first one was for DeFi, BitcoinFi, that kind of thing. The second one is for— and let's hope they allow this to happen— for stablecoin and being able to create a coupon or lend or buy stablecoin. The third one really, and that's sort of stablecoin is the bridge to Bitcoin. They should be ready for a Bitcoin one that allows people to operate in Bitcoin.

Now, Tim, you've been saying $250,000 Bitcoin for a while.

I know. I didn't realize we'd have a really bad government under You know, whoever, the Gensler or whatever. I didn't realize that they would set Bitcoin back 4 or 5 years. And they did. But now it looks like we're going to be hitting my number pretty soon.

You said 18 months fairly recently. I mean—

Because that's after the halvening. We still call it halvening. It was a halving. I don't know a lot about economics, but I do know That if this is supply and demand and the supply gets cut, the demand goes up and the price goes up. So, but what I'm actually thinking is that there will be a moment where retailers start saying, hey, I want to take Bitcoin. And then there will be a moment a little later than that when retailers say, I only take Bitcoin. And then what happens? People run to the bank, they get their dollars out, they buy Bitcoin. And at that point, you're not going to want to compare Bitcoin to dollars because dollars would be worthless. So it'll have to have some other measurement.

You said before the last government screwed up that prediction of $250,000. What happens in a hypothetical world if the next administration is anti-crypto? We've got, you know, just over 2 years left of Trump in office.

Well, for one thing is they'll lose because the crypto lobby is very strong now. And so any politician who wants to go against it is, is up against it. But really, the cat's out of the bag. We've got a new economy. It's moving forward. You can see it here. You know, I mean, government can get in the way of progress, but we got progress here. It's going to be fantastic. I mean, the world will be wealthier because of Bitcoin. The world will lose a lot of the friction that is created by the banks and the central banks and the governments that have slowed down the progress of of commerce. And every time there's been sort of an advance in currency, or an advance in store of value, the world gets richer because we move money faster. It's a little like, you know, the way water works. If you conserve water, nobody gets to use it. But if you use water, it goes down and back up and down and back up. You get to use it many, many times. Moving to Bitcoin is the same thing. The frequency at which transactions can happen can really accelerate. So, you know, we just talked to somebody who's got a decentralized system and they can go, I think it's 15 times faster than the Visa network by using the Lightning Network. And so not only are we going to allow money to move much faster, so we all benefit from that, but we also will have the infrastructure to replace all of these credit networks and all of the banks and all of the central banks. And once that's all in place and the retailer recognizes that it's a better deal to take a Bitcoin than it is to take $73,000, that's going to change the whole dynamic.

And what does that world look like? Because obviously now we're even seeing with the Clarity Act, there is debate with the traditional banking system over stablecoin yields. They're kicking up a bit of a fuss.

Of course, the traditional banking system has a huge lobby and they're going to fight every way they can to keep it the same. You know, you hear bankers saying, oh, I don't understand Bitcoin or whatever. They understand it perfectly. They just realize that it's going to— it's a huge threat to their business until they start accepting it and make it a part of their business. So if you controlled all the dollars, you would not want a new currency to come along that was better than your dollars. And now there is. Now there's a new currency that's better than your dollars.

Would you see the banks Accept this asset broadly.

Well, now they are. Now they're reluctantly saying, oh, well, we can hold your Bitcoin here. What they really want to do is custody. They don't really want you to have Bitcoin. They want custody of all your assets. And some of the people in Silicon Valley noticed that their— the bankers noticed that their assets were starting to decrease and they realized That it was all going over to Coinbase. And so the assets were going into Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies. And now they're going, no, no, we'll do it. We'll hold that.

And you've been an early investor in Coinbase, along with many other investments as well.

Yeah, we're investors in about 75 Bitcoin and Bitcoin-related companies.

So, you know, for someone that might want exposure to crypto but don't want to invest in digital assets directly, what sector of crypto right now do you see having the most upside?

Why don't they want to invest in crypto directly?

They might just want to keep it on their stock portfolio. They don't want to open up a crypto exchange. There's many reasons, but they might go, you know what, I see the upside of this industry, but I just don't want to buy crypto directly. What sector of crypto would you say is giving the most upside opportunity right now?

Buy Bitcoin and put it on a Ledger or buy Bitcoin and have a— get a Coinbase wallet. I mean, you're going to have to have another account because the banks aren't ready for you yet. Once the banks start to accept it, then you can start doing that. Except when there's a run on the banks, It's going to be a little dicey as to whether you get your Bitcoin out of there.

And a lot of people are saying at the moment that VCs are starting to lose interest in crypto and pivot to AI. I mean, you're a legendary VC yourself. Is this true? Is this just rumor mill? What's going on there?

AI is fantastic. So much cool stuff happening in AI. I am blown away by what my AI can do for me. We have 5, I have 5 digital twins that I started. Now I have about a, I don't know, 100 that other people started. But AI is helping me with my business. It's helping me with fun things like designing music and games and video and then taking in huge amounts of information. And honing it down to just what matters. So it, I mean, I put my book in there and it cut it, cut like 300 pages down to about 60. And there's 60 of the best pages. Now they don't have the jokes, they don't have the stories, but if you really want the gist of what I'm saying, it's all right there. So AI is gonna be fantastic. I think it's gonna be great. AI as it, merges with Bitcoin is going to be also very important because you're going to use AI for robotics because you want smart robots, you want intelligent robots that can learn. So that'll be AI. But then let's say you have 4 different kinds of robots all on an assembly line. They all have to have some way of paying each other and they're not going to hand dollar bills back and forth. I mean, maybe if they're very dexterous robots, but it can be just like shoot Bitcoin here, shoot Bitcoin here. You know, you big semiconductor equipment company or a semiconductor company buys equipment from 500 different vendors. All those vendors are going to have robots. All those robots are going to need to be paid somehow for the work they do. And Bitcoin's a natural for that. And so I see them converging eventually. And yeah, a lot of venture capitalists are going to go chase the hot thing. That's kind of what they do. I tend to look for sort of the diamond in the rough. So I have a slightly different approach.

And what's the diamond in the rough for you right now?

Well, Bitcoin, it's gone through the hype cycle, it's come down, it's in the growth cycle, it's just coming right back up. And then it'll be bigger than anybody ever imagined. Same thing's going to happen to AI. But we're at that near the top of the hype cycle now for AI. Then it'll come back down and then there'll be a growth cycle, starts very low. Comes back up. That's what the internet did. It's what computers did.

I think you've obviously got a lot of friends that are in traditional finance, given your background. How has their approach and the sentiment towards Bitcoin changed over the past few years? Are you seeing a lot more uptake?

They always look at me and they go, you told me, I know, I should have bought Bitcoin. And I say, you should buy it now. And they say, oh, aren't I too late? Too late? Are you kidding? It's going to be the currency of like the entire global economy.

So I guess, you know, this $250,000, picturing it does come true for your prediction now that there's a more favorable government to crypto, does that mean that you're pushing back the thought on what many in the industry see as 2030, maybe a million-dollar Bitcoin? Do you see that being a bit further back now?

Well, if you were listening to me earlier, you know that what I'm actually expecting is for Bitcoin to continue up against the dollar. It's been up and down, but continue up against the dollar until people no longer want the dollar.

Yeah.

Okay. So a million doesn't matter because nobody's going to count things in dollars.

Amazing. Thanks so much, Tim. I appreciate it. Cheers, my dude. Thanks so much.