Original subtitles

There are many problems with what I'm holding here.

OK.

And I'm not just picking on the U.S. dollar I'm picking on all paper based currency.

OK it's really important to understand the problems with traditional currency like this in order to

really understand crypto currencies.

From an investment perspective it's down.

OK.

Now in your lifetime you've seen incredible progress.

You know the Internet has made it so easy for us to communicate and get access to information.

You know a child in the middle of any continent today has more access and Baxter access to information

using a smartphone than Bill Clinton did in the 1990s.

Billions of smartphones today each have more processing power than every computer in the world used

in 1969 to put the first person on the moon.

People are living longer healthier and happier lives than ever before.

You know we as a society have progressed so much because of incredible technology innovations.

There is however one aspect of our economy that has not seen significant improvements due to technology.

And I'll explain what that is.

Here is a dollar bill and this dollar bill here looks like the one we use today but it's not this here

was a dollar bill printed in nineteen fifty seven.

OK.

It looks identical to the ones we use today.

OK.

And here's another one.

This one here looks like one as you said.

It's not.

This is one from 1935 my eyes not that great.

The older I get the better.

Yeah.

This one here is from 1935.

It's like crazy.

It's identical.

And it looks the same as this uncut sheet of U.S. dollars here.

And here's another one of that difference.

This one here.

I've got two more here one from the 1800s.

Right.

And one from the early 1900s the whole process hasn't really changed in years.

I mean can you believe that the archaic form of currencies here has not really seen significant innovation

in our lifetime.

And the whole dollar process today is pretty much the same as it was.

You know over 100 years ago.

OK.

And by the way I purchased all of this cool stuff on ebay and I use them like horses and then I sell

them back.

Right.

So it's kind of like I rented them.

I've had a lot of fun with this.

OK.

OK.

So you would think that these currencies I just showed you are are worth a lot of money because they're

collector's items.

Right.

They're not.

You know why.

Because you and I have no control over how much of this paper currency is printed by governments.

More proof.

OK.

This one's crazy.

All right.

This coin I'm holding my hand is from the year 30 right from the Roman Empire.

OK.

And you would think that this thing is worth a fortune.

OK.

But it's not it's not because so many of these things were created.

Right.

It's amazing.

It's amazing so it's pretty cool though.

Has really changed the whole process hasn't changed of money in years because governments have a monopoly

on money.

And why would a monopoly try to innovate.

OK.

And so the value of a currency is a result of the available supply of it.

And that is crucial to talk about when it comes to crypto currencies.

OK I'll give an example of something that's more valuable than money printed on paper.

OK.

All right in my hands I'm holding a piece of paper.

Actually it's 10 pieces of paper that are fold in half and stapled together.

And it cost me 60 cents.

I guess that early 80s when I was a kid and I really am dating myself here.

I bought this when I was about 10 years old growing up in Canada.

Again I am dating myself here.

And this comic was epic as Wolverine fought a bear in Canada why am I talking about bears in Canada

and Wolverine right.

Wolverine's bad ass.

Love this guy.

OK.

Because Marvel printed a limited number of these comics and I knew they would not print more.

OK so I saved it.

Right.

And is worth more than the paper value of holding currencies.

It's more than this paper because the government keeps printing these things.

Marvel doesn't print these things.

OK this is it.

This is the only only print they had of these things back then so it's it's it's worth a decent amount

of money.

Now if it was a nine point eight or 10 be worth a fortune it's not OK.

It's not.

OK so governments don't give you the same value proposition that Marvel Comics or DC does as governments

can literally print hundred billion times more than you want them to.

Of your paper currency.

OK.

And it's not fair because you work so hard for that currency.

You work so hard for it and they're printing more of it printing more of it.

Right.

So they're devaluing your net worth your life's work.

And the problem is we just don't we don't have control over the supply and value of money.

And it's not fair and it's actually what we learned in 2008.

OK.

Now why has nobody done anything about this.

OK.

The answer.

The answer is because governments again have monopolies with their currency.

And there is no incentive for monopolies to innovate.

Right.

And the big banks are making too much money with the current unfair system and it's ridiculous.

As you and I we listen to central bankers and the Federal Reserve chair people tell us what our hard

earned money is worth.

And I remember when I worked at Goldman Sachs on the trading floor in New York back in the late 90s

I remember we analyzed every prophetic word that former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan's

Greenspan would say as as this person would basically determine the value of our net worth it's sometimes

you need a big bang event or a storm to clear the sky.

Thunder paper.

And this is exactly what happens in 2008.

OK.

Which is why crypto currencies exist today or at least one of the reasons.

OK.

In 2008 we were literally within 24 hours of bank which is not working.

And and it was chaos and it was so unusual that people actually referred to that event as as a black

swan event a very rare occurrence.

And historians are already referring to 2000 to 2008 as the Great Recession.

And your children and your grandchildren will ask you what was it like living or working during the

great recession in 2008.

And after that period and it was so scary and interest rates are still artificially low today in many

countries because of the disaster that took place in 2008 I remember that year my mom called me and

asked me if she should take her money out of her bank of America account.

You know people had no faith in currencies then as the sale of gold as a safe haven.

Right.

And the sale of the sale of safes right went through the roof.

These things were sold out everywhere.

People were terrified.

People had no faith in our government or any government for that matter.

In 2008 it was scary.

And so today many people see bitcoin as the new gold and kept and the great thing about bitcoin for

example and most crypto currencies is there's a limited amount of supply that you can actually make

and the stuff like that.

And unlike that paper there.

All right.

So I'm sure another example this one is pretty interesting.

In my hands I'm holding a 10 trillion dollar bill OK.

This used to be worth something.

And this is from the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.

OK.

And what happened was in 2008 things were really scary and governments didn't know what to do.

And they thought the only way they could get out of the Great Recession of 2008 was by printing lots

and lots and lots more of this money kept it was chaotic it was chaotic to the extent that countries

like Zimbabwe here printed so much more money in 2008 that the daily inflation rate was literally about

one hundred percent right.

Almost one percent is actually 98 percent per day at one point.

Frightening.

Frightening.

Right.

And it's not fair because you worked hard for that currency.

So in many countries governments printed more and more and more and more money to create economic stimulus

abets stimulus amounts.

Right and the other generations called these stimulus events steal from us Yvette's.

Right.

Because the younger generation really got shaft.

It's really sad.

You know unemployment for people that are young under the age of 25 and a lot of countries this is 40

percent right now.

Right because what happened in 2008 so far is terrible.

And older people that work their entire lives to save money were forced to go back to work or not retire.

Make it harder for others that are younger to find employment.

And it really was the perfect storm.

OK this chaotic 2008 time in history you know led to the creation partially of this new digital currency

reality that we have today because governments print too much supply of these currencies and can crypto

currencies for the most part.

Lot of them have a limited amount of supply and exists because partially because of that chaotic event

in 2008.

OK so that chaotic catalyst of 2008 led to a big change for us and it's about time.

And if that awful time of history did not take place then there is a good chance that many crypto currencies

would not exist today.

And it's not fair that the money we hold can be devalued.

Right it's out of our control.

And and to make matters worse a massive amount of people cannot get access to money today in many countries.

And they referred to as the bank.

It's really tragic.

You know for example only 20 percent of people that live in Africa have bank accounts.

But thank God two thirds of the people that live in Africa have access to cell phones.

OK it's it's it's getting easy to get access to crypto currencies using cell phones in the long run.

That God and crypto currencies are different from traditional money also because they are regulated

by mathematics.

And I'll explain this in more detail when we discuss individual crypto currencies in a lot of detail.

In part two of the course.

OK here are some staggering statistics from a global charity called Oxfam 42 people.

Yes just 42 people control the same amount of wealth as the poorest.

Fifty percent of people worldwide crazy.

And the world's richest 1 percent have 82 percent of the world's wealth in cash.

And just last year billionaires increased their collective net worth by 762 billion dollars.

That's enough to X to end extreme global poverty seven times over.

Don't get me wrong please.

I am a capitalist but this wealth inequality is too extreme especially since so many people are unbanked.

It's not fair and capital elitism should come to an end as everyone gets access to crypto currencies

in the long run OK and after the 2008 crisis governments bailed out these massive banks that were deemed

too big to fail.

And then a couple of years after those bankers that created the 2008 crisis.

A couple of years after that and after they were bailed out by the governments they got record bonuses

not fair and so many of the founders of cryptocurrency companies that I have met with you know are younger

and rebellious and they embraced this 1960s style Berkeley type of power to the people movement approach.

They despised what took place in 2008 and they are standing up to big brother so to speak in order to

make the global currency process more fair for all of us which Wallach's which I will explain in much

more detail in the next less.