Notes on The Tom Woods Show Ep. 1671 Bitcoin: A Guide for the Perplexed, featuring Vijay Boyapati

Are you tired of talking about riots and viruses? Let's hear about Bitcoin from the perspective of Vijay Boyapati, who calls it "... gold with teleportation, built-in."

He also talks about the phases that an asset might go though before it's widely accepted. Specifically, the "store of value" before the "medium of exchange" status, which Bitcoin is going through right now.

Another great point is the notion that it's hard to understand right now, but that means that the rewards for understanding it now are going to be higher for the people who bother to learn about it.

The "ground floor" of Bitcoin is early adoption in not just blind investment alone, but also in understanding, including the "why" of what problems Bitcoin solves.

They go into the "why" of what makes digital scarcity important at all, and the common "why" can't you just copy something digital?

I liked Vijay's answer, which he tied to Network Effects. If he just copied Facebook over to his own site, call it "Vijaybook," that wouldn't really do anything because the community already on Facebook wouldn't automatically come along.

And that ties it back to Praxeology. The main thing that makes Bitcoin scarce is human action, along with all the complexities of human action that come with it.

^{2030: "I just bought a house for one bitcoin. No, it's the equivalent of a dollar. Houses are often transferred for a nominal fee because the buyer is taking responsibility for containing the holo-banshees in the attic."}