Welcome to the first episode of Bitstack's “Understanding Bitcoin” interviews, The show which deciphers the Bitcoin universe in a simple, clear language that is accessible to all.
Alexandre Roubaud, co-founder and CEO of Bitstack, had the pleasure of welcoming Owen Simonin, aka Hasheur, the most followed blockchain entrepreneur and creator of crypto content in France with 600,000 subscribers on YouTube.
In this episode:
➜ The beginnings of Hasheur in Bitcoin. ➜ The genesis of Bitcoin and previous attempts. ➜ The myths and realities of Bitcoin. ➜ Why and how to invest in bitcoin. ➜ The future of Bitcoin.
There are a lot of things. First, it's the fact that I believe in this ecosystem. I think it is growing globally and I want to build it. I want to participate in this and I want to say “in one way or another, in one story or in several, I was there and I contributed to this edifice which today is much bigger than me.
That is the first point. The second is as an investor, I believe in it. The objective is still to find your bearings and therefore to select projects in which we believe that the value that will be created is greater than the value at which we join the initiative. So, if I strongly believe in this ecosystem that I am undertaking in it, why not also fund other developments that are around it?
And then, it's because I think it allows for a better understanding. To be completely honest, I arrived very early. I was also lucky. I made a lot of money because I was just in the right place at the right time and I said good to myself, instead of just capturing this value, let's try to create it, try to create jobs, try to create jobs, try to create ideas and meet the needs that will come along.
And so, I started to side with entrepreneurs who shared our values. Generally speaking. But also, I made my ideas blossom with the resources of other entrepreneurs who arrived and who pushed me and put their hands on my shoulder when I needed them. So I try to give back what I have been given and to build with people who share almost the same vision and who want to go in the same direction.
How Hasheur discovered Bitcoin
I was very interested in everything that was currency, virtual value, when I was younger, but really much younger, from the gold coin in World of Warcraft that I tried to duplicate in a game to having a video game server. I had a Minecraft server at the time and you had to pay for your server, but your players didn't earn you anything, so you had to sell virtual stuff and benefits to players to pay for your server.
In short, I was interested in numerical values. It excited me deeply. I was having fun, I wasn't working, I was clearly playing. That was the term. I also do some stupid things in this game world. I am leaving Corsica and I am starting my studies at Edhec Business School in Lille, in the north of France. And so, starting my studies up there, I have to do a first internship and I am doing an internship in the company of my brother, Vivoka, which has nothing to do with cryptocurrencies at the time, and who simply, at the time of a break, I find myself with one of these very very tech developers who is also one of the co-founders of one of my companies today and he tells me “But you were in the gold coins on video games, you were into digital currencies, you also made sports bets on the internet. How is it that you were never interested in real digital currency, in Bitcoin?” I said “What do you mean what is Bitcoin, I've never heard of it.” And he says to me, “Well, I'm surprised anyway. Because the thing is speculation, you are interested in it, there is value. There is still a technical basis and it even goes much further than just tech since it concerns and answers a lot of questions, even from a social point of view. How come you don't know that?”
I had never heard of it. He tells me the story for a few hours. In 2013, it rose to $1,300. It's turning everyone's head around. Some say it's just a fluke, others say it's a revolution, a turning point, a change in the world of money and in the way we interpret and exchange it as well.
And he says to me “Well, you're interested in that.” I'm going home. White screen, Google Translate, Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System. What is the Bitcoin white paper? How does it work? And then I translate line by line and I come across this monster with the first intention of saying to myself “OK, I'm going to get one and I'm going to multiply it, I'm going to duplicate it. There is indeed a bug. There is a way.”
And no, I was not strong enough. In any case not to reach and to touch this wall that is Bitcoin. And then I became as passionate as I was interested in volatility and in the profit that I could generate from it. To be completely honest, it was one of the doors I went through at the beginning.
And there, I fell into a world much more complete and much deeper than I had imagined.
What is Bitcoin?
It's very hard because depending on the person and their appetite, I don't have the same explanation. It's very hard because you can talk about it at 10 am and get 20 guests on a set, just like you can talk about it with just one person who in your life has a problem with their bank and you can give them an alternative.
So I can't just talk about it. All I can say is that it is a new way of exchanging value, of keeping it, which in fact allows without intermediaries, without having to trust a bank or an insurance company to maintain its value yourself, to be completely free with it. To exchange it, to receive it, to keep it, to share it also with certain people around you, if you want to. And that it is a completely new system that, for me, is not only the bearer of a Bitcoin solution, but also a message in the form of “There you go, some people have been trying to make a currency that carries all the functions of Bitcoin for years. Bitcoin. It is simply the first one that has managed to make it work and that since 2008 has been operating without any internal control body. Without any system that can say “you yes, you no”, and that is completely agnostic and includes everyone.”
All you need is a computer, a telephone, computer equipment, and just be connected to the internet. And everyone has the same rights. From a financial point of view, that alone is already crazy.
Who is Satoshi Nakamoto?
The more I advance, the less I want to know. Because I realize that a great story is also a story where there is no one to tell us what they thought. I like it when someone says, “Yes, but that's what Bitcoin was originally made for.” Is it written somewhere? “No but Bitcoin, they didn't want cash. It's like digital gold.” There is cash in the title anyway, okay, so in fact, everyone has their own reading. It's the side that bothers me from time to time, it's the slightly religious side in the “yes, Satoshi wanted that” mode.
What do you know about it? You don't know anything about it at all. You haven't met him, it's pure interpretation. Moreover, when we talk about Satoshi Nakamoto, everyone has this famous face of a Japanese man who was called just that, but has nothing to do with the real creator Satoshi Nakamoto. It's good that there is a bit of this fantasy, that there are these ideas, and above all that we have just one thing for sure: well there will always be a doubt.
In the meantime, it is a system that is there, that has been offered to anyone who wants to use it, who wants to hear it and which, as a result, does not give too precise direction. And that's actually it. I see it as a “Look what we can do. This tool belongs to everyone and to no one at the same time, make good use of it or the use you want, it does not matter. In the meantime, it is possible and we are leaving this gift to humanity.” That's what I really like.
And then you have the “Ha, if we ever knew who it was and he said “Ha but in fact, I did it for that”, there were some who were right, others who were wrong. But in fact, that's not what Bitcoin was there for. So why would we go in that direction? No, it's good that we continue to increment, so that everyone has their vision and pushes it.
In fact, we're just going to follow the longest channel. So it's up to us again to see which ideas unite the most and to line up behind the thinkers and those who use them with the noblest ideas, or at least who simply unite the most people.
What is Bitcoin's value proposition and its unique characteristics?
A limited supply. 21 million.
If I had to give big lines, there would be this one. There would really be limited supply, and especially since we are here now right now in a world where there are abuses of unlimited supply. We print, we press the money machine.
A world where money was backed by gold. And then one day we said to ourselves “No, in fact, you just have to trust us, no need to have gold behind it”. Bitcoin is one of the values that he wants to restore. So for me, among the five or six big characteristics, there is this one.
The purely decentralized side. And I'm not just talking about the fact that it belongs to everyone who uses it. I'm talking about the fact that no one, not even the biggest shark, has an interest in taking over this system. They made sure to create a financial system where, if someone becomes the king of that system, well that system collapses. As a result, no one has an interest in becoming the king of Bitcoin and taking control of it because otherwise, instantly, Bitcoin will be worthless, because it has no value except the trust that is given to it. If someone has taken over, we no longer trust Bitcoin, so everyone will sell it, so it's worthless, and that person will have become the king of a worthless world. And so it's a system where I like to say: “we are very far away technically, but we stayed very close to certain human values that we wanted to keep by saying “well, let's make sure that no one abuses them and let's make sure that if someone abuses them, he is the biggest loser”.
There are still other discussions that could be discussed, much more complex, because there could be reasons to attack Bitcoin. But the more time goes on, the bigger this snowball is and the more complicated, very expensive, and very technically impractical it becomes to bring it down. And so, that's what I also like, this decentralized side, but also in the governance, in the state of mind, in the way we approach it.
There you go, these are the two main values that I like, this limited side and also this “there is no king” side. there is no person who will say “that's it, that's going to happen,” and so we will never get into a situation where “you don't have the right to use it because I decided to”.
Why is it important to have a decentralized system like Bitcoin?
Because it's part of “Why do we turn to him?” It's stupid, but whether you turn to him for good or bad reasons, for me, he must meet the needs we came looking for. I am one of those people who are against total decentralization, the revolutionary side “Everything that is centralized must be killed, a bank is necessarily bad.” I am not one of these people. There are a lot of people who say that. But I, on the other hand, am one of the people who say in a world that is too centralized, we must have decentralized solutions. I think that balance is a cursor that must be changed very often, whether in politics, in the way in which the world is governed, in the distribution of wealth, or in equity. Equity today may not be equity tomorrow. I think it is a cursor that must be organic, that must evolve. But today's truth may not be true tomorrow. And so you have to maintain flexibility. Having a centralized world where there has already been abuse and where there were no known solutions was a problem.
Finance had already experienced problems and the problem was identified but had not been solved until then. Blockchain, Bitcoin, is an answer by saying “look, there are ways to illustrate and manage trust differently in an ever more digital world, in a world where there are always more exchanges without putting faces and without shaking hands. We are going to have problems and we are going to need a solution to respond partially or completely.” For me, Bitcoin is the start of thinking. It's the start of lots of people who are going to create lots of things and try to respond to them in their own way. And so much the better. But now, it was really important that there were other solutions, other alternatives, without saying that they are the right ones, but to say “Look, here, we had problems identified, now, we have the beginning of an answer, or total response, whatever, but in any case, if one day everyone turns their back on you in this world in which there was no alternative, know that Bitcoin will not close will never have any doors.” This is a cursor that I like and that allows me to position myself as I want.
Bitcoin: evolution or revolution?
Some people say, “So is it an evolution or a revolution?” In fact, it depends on what you do with it. It is a technology, for me, finally, it is a way of managing data that can be assimilated, to explain, simply to a technology, to be a little more precise, and which, for me, allows transactions to be made.
It's not just financial transactions. There is also talk of censorship on communication. It is the network that is revolutionary for me. But again, for us, it may be an evolution in terms of payment, but it is true that it can respond to problems that we do not have, or do not yet have. Whereas for another person who did not have access to a financial inclusion system, who could not send their value elsewhere in the world without taking 30 or 40% in fees through a Western Union, who did not know if one day they would freeze their account, or withdraw 40% of their balance without their consent, Bitcoin is an unprecedented revolution.
It just depends on the angle. It depends on what we have experienced and that is why I think that blockchain also has a lot to contribute because Bitcoin is the example that it is possible, but we can make a lot of other uses come from it, we are not obliged to take all these advantages to meet certain needs. And I am taking the example of some messaging systems that are simply based on certain blockchain networks and that allow you to just communicate without censorship. Silly, but for me, it answers a lot of other things.
And so it redefines the interaction with the world of finance for many, it will redefine it for others later because sometimes you wait until you have a problem to understand that you needed to insure yourself and protect yourself. And I think that it will answer many other problems that we may not yet have identified and that may accelerate in the world that is increasingly based on artificial intelligence and especially this incoming content. I think Bitcoin is going to have a big place to play.
Common misconceptions about Bitcoin
Received ideas. I like to break them.
“Oh yes but it pollutes.” You have to understand the why and how, and put it into perspective. “Oh my God, it consumes as much as this country.” Yes, but it consumes as much as Christmas lights. There you go, both are true. You have to put it into perspective. You have to compare what is comparable, and no one compares the consumption of their car to the energy consumption of a light bulb.
Besides, it's very hard to define the energy consumption of businesses and centralized payment systems (Visa, MasterCard). However, if we had the numbers in front of us, I don't think that would make Bitcoin blush. Not at all. In short, again, it would not even be comparable. Comparing Visa to Bitcoin has nothing to do with the model. So in reality, that would not even be really possible. But it would always be better than comparing that to Denmark anyway, that's for sure. That's the first point: take preconceived ideas, break them. Money laundering, anything. Yes it is used to launder, but all things considered, twelve times less than the euro. End of debate.
But there are subjects that we no longer have to defend today, it's already better. In 2015/2016, you really, really had to be hooked when you wanted to defend Bitcoin. There, now, today, someone intelligent, he does his research, he digs a little, then it is factual, and it is recognized. So when we see.
After that, there are questions of accessibility and understanding. “Oh yeah, but a bitcoin now is too expensive.” Don't worry, 8 zeros behind the decimal point, you can buy some dust for nothing at all.
“Yes, but it's too complicated.” Yes, but it's a glossary question. If you have the glossary you're looking at... It's all about this simplification.
Not everyone comes for the same reasons. And so generally, I try to adapt to the person in front of me and to understand what topics will affect them. I like to draw parallels between Bitcoin and the Internet. It provides so many answers to so many subjects about which we are more or less sensitive. I don't know how to make everyone aware at once, with just one speech. I can be interesting or, at the very least, intriguing. But to really touch someone and say “There you go, now you understand why this thing is going to change a lot, a lot of life., well at that moment, I need to understand the person a little more, where they are in their life, what they are doing and to really say to them “There you go, do you know that? Let me show you an alternative.” But, again, and I like to use Satoshi's words on this point: taking the time to convince people is not the point. I want to explain, but then I'm really not here to convince you.
And besides, I think I lost a lot of time trying to convince people who had preconceived ideas when most people who had divisive ideas about Bitcoin, or it was based on the assumption that Bitcoin “is not a currency”. Were we expecting another speech from the mouth of the President of the European Central Bank? No, although Aristotle thinks the opposite. But on the other hand, I think it is also normal that there are some people who question the thing because we are against change, we are against evolution. We are against change in general, it is scary, it goes quickly and we still see a lot of people who were against it, who spoke up and who very quickly returned to the mode “In fact, I did some research, I took a step back. Now I understand better and maybe I was a bit too divisive at the time when I was talking about it. And by the way, he has a lot of them now, or I'm not saying it.”
What are the use cases of Bitcoin?
To be honest, I work a lot on the uses that other Blockchains bring. On the uses of Bitcoin, it's really savings and payments. In any case, it's what we see the most. That is what is most obvious today. There is a hack that has just arrived with the famous NFC that we put in BRC-20. I think it's good that we're fiddling with this, it makes you ask the right questions, but we haven't yet found the right sustainable solutions. In terms of payments, there are a lot of things with the Lightning Network. To put it very simply, if we make Bitcoin even faster, even less expensive, to really popularize it excessively, but that will further accelerate this adoption, even if there are still questions of accessibility and understanding, it's still a bit complicated.
So I think that the big point of development will be communication and accessible products. You have to use Bitcoin without even knowing how it works behind the scenes. That's what makes adoption anyway, at least for a lot of people, and that's what made mass adoption, even if deep down, I'm for people who enter this world to take the time to understand how it works because you can also scare yourself when you haven't done your homework properly.
But the most telling, to talk about Bitcoin today: portability, the freedom to hold, exchange and keep your funds as you want without having anyone's permission, it's really permissionless. It is the absolute ownership of something, but also the financial responsibility that comes with it. Because when you have absolute property, you can do absolute nonsense too, and no one will stop you from squandering all your fortune to buy corn tomorrow if that's your choice. So think carefully before buying corn.
We are in a world where it was all right that there was an intermediary, a banker, an institution, that you had to ask for permission before spending €2,000. The fact that they didn't tell you the right to spend more than that in cash was actually good for a lot of people, this society in which there was no freedom and financial education in the fashion “but it's very complicated, it's very dangerous, it's very dangerous, let us manage it for you”. Yes, but the world is changing, whether we like it or not, and Bitcoin is one of the solutions that are very powerful in the face of the value proposals that people are looking for.
Today, the adoption of Bitcoin has already started well. So we may be we are not yet at mass adoption, but almost. We have a study under study that is still well known now from the in the Association for the Development of Digital Assets in collaboration with KPMG. Who said that almost 10% of French people, one in ten French people, would have invested in crypto?
Bitcoin: how do I get started?
For me, the best thing I can do is buy a dust bag and tinker. Having a tiny bit of it, because it forces you to already realize that you will have to, depending on where you want to buy it, give your identity, validate all that, understand the legal framework that exists now.
The second thing: you have to have Bitcoin, you have to have it, you have to hold it. What is a wallet?
If you go a little further: what is a private key? A public key? So to put it simply, it's a RIB and a password. And really understand “What can I watch? I bought Bitcoin on an exchange and it's not happening, well I can look in the blockchain directly at my address if it happened or if it's just a question of display.”
All these very basic little notions that I am talking about today are quite common, when in reality I realize that public keys, private keys, my parents took a while to print anyway. And when they understood, oh well then it's obvious. And then all the different blockchains have different public keys and private keys, so you need a wallet that can manage that, etc.
All these little things that mean that until you have a little bit of them, you don't watch. And then the same, regardless of the amount you are going to put in, whether it is 5€, 1,000€ or 50,000, at the beginning you will look at your wallet every ten minutes, every hour, because it moves, because you still have exciting cognitive biases that will give Mr. everyone the interest of “Ok, how does it work, is it evolving? Am I winning? Am I losing? If I want to send it to another wallet, what are the functions that blockchain offers me? Oh, can't I do it on this wallet when I can on that?” Yes, because it gives you even more proximity to the blockchain and it's even less centralized...
In short, all these little things that need to be taken care of. I even want to say you have to make your mistakes and ideally, you have to make your mistakes with a small amount.
Why save and invest in Bitcoin
I have absolutely no certainty. I have a lot, a lot of conviction, but very few certainties. On the other hand, I really think that it is a good way to stabilize and diversify your savings today.
Stabilize Why? Because it can quickly be 1 or 2% of your portfolio and it can literally absorb huge shocks that can happen in traditional finance in the future. And I don't want to, but if one day the world turns around violently, it's possible that this 2 or 3% of the Bitcoin line is the protective shield we needed.
Also because I think you have to have a little bit of risk. Bitcoin is a small risk today for an investor in the traditional world. I think diversifying Bitcoin is a real bet for the future, and I think it's not dangerous for a portfolio to go to a few percent of bitcoin or cryptocurrency. In any case, this is my position, and especially only the lesson that it brings, the general life lesson, nothing but curiosity... Even traditional finance, the number of things I've learned about traditional finance since I became interested in Bitcoin, because these are questions I didn't ask myself, problems I didn't have. And this world is a world that wants you to believe that there are no these problems, “So don't ask yourself these questions, someone takes care of them for you?” No. I want to know “On Bitcoin, I really hold my money, who is my custodian at the bank? Legally, who has my money? Is it a guarantee? If the bank goes bankrupt, where is my money that gives it back to me?” I would never have asked myself these questions.
And then there is France, is it a solid country? Yes, that country was also super solid. And then the same thing, “We have inflation but there will never be a two-point inflation in France” while that depends. It depends on purchasing power and it also depends on the angle we choose.
So the reality is that in short, you shouldn't imagine the worst all the time and think that tomorrow is the end of the world. I think it's not a good approach, even if our biggest asset of value, it's our time. So we should not live in terror for 30 years or 40 years without knowing if a horror like this will happen to us. But to think that if that happens, I have done my homework, I have inquired, I understood. And in parallel with that, I have studied alternatives that now allow me to maintain and exchange value, I think that is a great piece of advice to give to any human being in our society today.
What is DCA in bitcoin?
So DCA is Dollar-Cost Averaging. It is the act of not trying to buy Bitcoin when it is high or when it is low. It's just that.
When you have a Bitcoin conviction, you don't advise someone to put money in right away now, because maybe the price is too high or too low. The goal of Bitcoin is the long term, a conviction of sustainable valuation. And at that moment, it's saying to yourself “I don't care about the price today, I don't care about the price today, I don't care about the price tomorrow or yesterday, since I go every day, every week or every month, to invest a small amount that is derisory or at least reasonable, which means that, whatever the price it had, I will buy an average price. If tomorrow Bitcoin is twice as low and today it is twice as low, by buying today and tomorrow, I will have an average price between the two.” This means that over the very long term, you buy an average of your price and not the price at the moment. This is what is super recommended for any beginner and it is something that I recommend to those who want to be interested in the subject, those who are convinced about the fundamental message that it conveys, but without a concrete understanding of technical analysis, price evolution, news, regulation and everything that happens affect its price up or down, because it doesn't affect its value proposition in any way.
How Hasheur makes DCA
I practice DCA but not only on Bitcoin, I also do it on Ethereum.
Of course, now I only do that. So there are times when I have more short-term beliefs. There are times when I say to myself “OK, I want to position myself now, especially on Bitcoin”. It's been seven years. There are times when I say to myself, I think it's a good price that is particularly low and there are times when I say to myself “Oh, maybe I'm going to cut my DCA for a few weeks or a few months because at that price, I'm buying it much, much more expensive than my average purchase price”.
It's also something you get when you do DCA, you start to know what your average purchase price is. So you know about your average entry, especially when you've done DCA for a few months or a few years, you know when you're buying expensive or when you're buying cheap compared to your average purchase price, and at that moment, I sometimes disconnect my DCA or on the contrary tell myself “Well, at that moment, I would buy a little more than usual”.
And what is much easier when you have been doing for several years, to say to yourself “oh my, I think it's a great opportunity”, knowing that my basic beliefs are unchanged and on the contrary to tell myself “now, I think it's a bit of euphoria, everyone is getting into Bitcoin, everyone is buying it”, and it is certainly these people who, when it will be divided by two, will say “I I was well fooled.”
So sometimes I adjust my case and play a little bit with this slider because of my knowledge and because I only do that, 24/24, 7/7, even if I absolutely do not recommend it to someone who just takes a look at Coinmarketcap once a week.
I like to say that the more you aim for the short term, the more you look for the right time to buy, the more gambling it is. It's not even finance or investment, it's gambling. Because if someone asks me the price of Bitcoin next week, I will very clearly answer randomly. Whereas if I am asked the price of Bitcoin in 5 to 10 years, I will be able to justify the fact that it is likely to increase in value based on my personal beliefs. Of course, this is not investment advice.
But in the meantime, I think it's the same and any beginner, if only to place yourself as an investor and not a short-term trader, this is the approach to adopt.
How do you manage short-term Bitcoin volatility?
There are a lot of people who come to Bitcoin for this volatility. For me, those who are afraid of it is only a question of amount. We all have an insignificant amount that we can dedicate to DCA. It's not a question of putting in a lot. A few cents changed the lives of many at the beginning, even if it's the good stories and we forget to tell the bad ones, but what I want to say is that someone who is afraid of losing money is really part of my way of doing pedagogy, obviously, I have to put the church back in the middle of the village. You have to talk to him. What are cryptocurrencies? You have to tell him “Yes, of course if you put money that you are not ready to lose, you have nothing to do there. Even in DCA, you don't have to do anything there. Now, maybe in fact if you remove a zero from your 400€ or your 40€ per month, and now in reality you can very well do your DCA at 4€ per week. I want to, well listen, if you are afraid of losing one Vasic-Fit subscription per month, at that time, maybe you shouldn't go into cryptocurrencies at all.”
But the reality is that you can expose yourself to cryptocurrencies from a few cents and that should not scare volatility, on the contrary, When you start putting in a few coins or small change, now volatility, you say to yourself “Well, I'm really ready to lose them, I'm really ready to lose them, so I would like to see what happens over two years, and I would like volatility to push me a little”.
So I think it's a question of the amount. Someone who is afraid of this is someone who should not put a large amount and who should not risk his salary, absolutely not on cryptocurrencies, and simply invest less and more regularly, have a smoother DCA, and say to himself “I will simply invest amounts that are much smaller than I can literally afford to lose, but I will hold that a little more rigorously over time.”.
Obviously I am a big fan of cryptos, I gained a lot during the previous bull run when cryptocurrencies exploded and Bitcoin hit $69,000, I sold a few, I made my profit, obviously, bitcoin went down to 15 - 20,000$ not long ago, and I am having a discussion with my mother. And my mother tells me “At least you go to me, my money is in my euro account, and I haven't lost anything”. But then it's sad. With an inflation of five or six points, to think that you have lost nothing and to think that you are not losing when in reality what I lost over a few months, well already, in the end, I won money between my entry point and my exit point, and finally, I really know that I have gained value over this period despite the decrease, while you are losing some but you are not not.
And it's true that factually, if we're talking about value, no money, no digital currency, no I don't know what word they want to put behind these terms, whatever. If we talk about value, I gain it by taking risks that I choose, while some people don't feel like I'm losing it through risks they don't understand.
And that's in fact, all the beauty of this tool that requires you to, no matter what happens, whether you win or lose, you are going to take a great life lesson.
What are the factors that promote the adoption of Bitcoin?
Already, the fact that a large number of people who own it end up understanding the why and the how, are not just coming for its price. And when you understand the why and the how, you can't get enough of it. That is to say that I am advanced, I have really made a lot of blockchains full of cryptos, honestly, I have owned hundreds of different cryptocurrencies, I have invested in companies that offered services on all these cryptocurrencies, the more I advance, the more I advance, the more my biggest line in my wallet is Bitcoin. There are a lot of people who, after doing a tour of what exists, come back to Bitcoin.
That doesn't mean I don't have a preference for other cryptocurrencies. That doesn't mean I don't have other big lines, but in any case, Bitcoin is still bulletproof, and the only argument it has is “from the beginning it has been bulletproof”.
Each time there was a problem he improved, as soon as he had a moment of fragility his anti-fragility made him evolve... in short, every time he fell off the bike, he got back on and pedaled harder. So very clearly, I sleep really well and I don't even look at the amount in euros or dollars anymore because I am a bit immune to that. Now I know how many bitcoins I have. This is the number I am looking at, and this number, even if it is progressing slowly, it is not a big deal, it is increasing, and that is really what I am looking at.
I see a lot of people leaving because they lost money or who are temporarily losing interest in it, but I have still rarely heard people who discovered cryptos, who dug deep into Bitcoin, what services and needs it meets, and who in the end say bad things about it. I've heard people say “Oh well I lost, I'll come back to it later”, “Oh well now is not the time, I'm not interested”, “Oh I know better right now, maybe I'll come back to bitcoin later”. However, I have rarely heard people say to me “No me cryptocurrencies, no. Very little for me. The need he is responding to is not going well.” I never heard that speech.
Bitcoin Spot ETF: what do you think?
So, as we said, there is a limited supply, a good part of the bitcoins do not move, or no longer move. There are more and more people who want them and who do not want to make them move, because it is a golden digital conviction. So naturally you want to keep it. Naturally, there are no more that are issued, there is the Bitcoin mechanism which means that there will also be fewer and fewer of them. The next time, it will reduce the number of new bitcoins issued and distributed by 50%, and therefore, we will have distributed more than 95% of the bitcoins that will be issued since we will soon have 20 million bitcoins distributed out of the 21 million.
So naturally, very few sellers and selling pressure, a lot of buyers or more and more, of course, the fact that there are large financial institutions that want to invest massive amounts of liquidity in this small ecosystem whose resource is limited, will cause its price to explode. From a purely investor and valuation point of view, this is a very good thing.
On the other hand, there's also Bitcoin and the idea of decentralization, control, et cetera. After that, it's a little bit mean because you can have both speeches. “Oh my God, we are happy to say that there is a large American company that buys more than 100,000 of them, that believes strongly in it and that supports this small ecosystem. We're not crazy, we've been telling you that from the start. “, and on the other hand “Yeah, well, then you have a big American company that bought 100,000 of the 21 million bitcoins that exist”. So there are no good or bad speeches. Again, I think it's not a good or a bad thing for someone to have one, but always the same, would I like someone to own 25% of the bitcoins one day? No, because by itself, it could rain and shine. Despite everything at the moment T on the valuation of those who own it and those who have always believed in it, yes, because it will make a financial gain. And naturally, it will also bring a lot of liquidity to companies, to ecosystems that will be able to develop, democratize, educate, it takes time, it requires resources, it requires a lot of money. And it is also true that having the world that develops around your activity allows you to continue to go in this direction and also to protect yourself and to best develop the other things around. So I think there can be pros and cons, especially from a philosophical point of view.
In the meantime, from a purely liquidity and price point of view, yes I think that if we have BlackRock who comes to put a few yards on bitcoin, it can only accelerate. And as we've seen, it's the gold rush since BlackRock said “we want a Bitcoin ETF”. A week later, there were ten more Wall Street giants who wanted theirs. And if they want their own, they naturally have the ambition to inject a lot of liquidity.
Is Bitcoin proven to work?
I think that you can never completely say that it has proven itself because precisely, the proof is that until now, it is still standing. So I think any model is good until it stays up. Afterwards, Bitcoin already bent its knee a few times, but it also recovered. There have already been problems on the network, and this is where we also saw the resilience of a joint update or a common agreement, which is important, even more than never having a problem. React well when there is one. I think it is also a great motto for entrepreneurs because we will have and will have one of the biggest ones I think, over time. But how do we react to that? And that's what proves the resilience of Bitcoin.
I almost want to say “I would rather if there was a problem and we could solve it than not”, because that is also what shows the resilience of the global model. So the fact that he's still up, yeah, but I'm not someone who predicts the future, or even insults it. I like to say that Bitcoin has given something completely unchangeable, even more than its own functioning, these are the lessons it has given, to the rest of the network, to the economic incentive that it has given to everyone who has tried to bring it down, and who have shown the resilience of a model that, in turn, was based on technical knowledge from 2008 2009. It was much more rudimentary than what we can know today and yet we can make it evolve. We can update it. And I think that it still has a lot of uses, that Bitcoin and its engine for offering, which we don't know at all today. It would not surprise me if it became the Layer 1 of other networks around, which are more scalable, or more focused on data, and which end up, in a heartbeat, going to carve information on the marble wall that is Bitcoin by saying “here we engrave the information, here we will sleep well”, I don't know.
In any case, I think that the most beautiful uses do not yet exist. Maybe not the most beautiful, but in any case some, and that is the future that will tell us.
Is regulation good or bad for Bitcoin?
I would really be able, by giving my own opinion, to respond from both sides. Because it's just like everything in fact. I think it's “restricting privacy.” From then on, it's a bad thing. We're going to limit, we're going to freak out. Now, on the other hand, when there is absolutely no police, there are actually horrible things that happen. The few very few users who were offended by the regulations, who were offended to give their ID before being able to exchange money for euros, it was not to protect their privacy most of the time, and you realized that when you did a little bit of analysis.
So on the one hand, I'm here in the mode “It's sad because those who have nothing to hide and who are victims of this regulation are very clearly people whose privacy is being taken away”. These are very clearly people who see the world evolving like a Big Brother and who feel like they have a camera behind their shoulder when they have nothing to hide. And it's creepy. It's even serious.
And on the other hand, the few people who really wanted no cameras over their shoulders were not to hide the brand of yogurt that they like to consume above all, it's still very often to do things that are not clear.
So I don't have a perfect answer. All I know is that as soon as you have a business and operate in France, you have to play this game. If I didn't want to create and go in that direction, I would have left. In the meantime, I decided to stand behind my country and create value here. At least for the moment, because I think that, once again, I am not insulting the future and I do not know how it will evolve, for the moment, I am in France. Whether for questions of taxation, regulation, or operation, I play by the rules of my country and my government. If I think it goes too far, I try to make my voice heard, and it even happens to us at the regulatory level, to succeed in changing certain lines. Fortunately, the debate remains fairly open, at least in a lot of things, when there is abuse or when there are things that are far too serious. And there are also associations for the protection of privacy that can intervene in this. But on the other hand, if we don't like it, we leave. And it's true all the same. Those who say “yes, regulation is already too much”, either they are no longer there and we don't really hear them, or they tell us “yeah you shouldn't have done that”. Yes, so basically, are we kicking everyone out, are we closing the store? These are very complicated choices and certainty is a spectator's luxury. We are players so sometimes we have to deal with what happens to us. And even if you are not completely satisfied with the final situation, trying to consider everyone's opinion and trying to make in-between, concessions, that's what's hard in fact.
What are Bitcoin's challenges for the future?
The upcoming regulation for Bitcoin that is growing because it is not yet established in all countries. And even if Bitcoin is unstoppable, so even if the law forbids it, you can use it. There are a lot of people who won't do it naturally. And then, as soon as we tell you “if we get around to using Bitcoin you're going to have big problems”, even if you can use Bitcoin, you're not going to do it. In any case, I would like to see the number of Chinese who have fun when it has been banned or when there is a lot of doubt about using a free currency in a country like theirs. I don't know I think that's one of the really big obstacles.
Then, there is a question of adoption and I think that Bitcoin is still struggling to answer for the moment the side “the more we advance, the simpler it is, if you want to convince people, it's only one button, it's no problem, no hassle”. Bitcoin in its message gives responsibility in use, and therefore in adoption.
I think that Bitcoin will never be completely simple, extremely simple to use, because we force you to have this understanding, and so much the better indirectly. I think that someone who uses bitcoin does not know what a private key is, ouch, he missed something anyway in his entry into this world I think.
And finally, I would not say that Bitcoin's value proposition is not enough, but I would say that there are lots of other great things that can be done with the blockchain and that Bitcoin is not yet addressing, although he himself is the initiator.
But that's usage and it's entrepreneurship that will fill these holes, I think.
What is Hasheur's opinion on Bitstack?
I am surprised at the dynamism that it has had because it offers solutions, which do not prevent us from coming back to a base anyway, buying bitcoin in lots of different ways, with a certain simplicity. But I am surprised at the way it was brought about, that is to say that, and that's why it federated me, it's the how do you bring it, the simplicity that it gives, and the fact that I see people around me who already had solutions that made it possible to do it, and who finally say “Yeah, but I'm going to download the Bitstack application and I'm going to go through it, it's is easier, it suits me well, that's why”, at least it's simple and it answers a problem that was not yet well addressed.
That is a certainty. And I see it in use, if only on the rounding system at the card level. The DCA system really meets my needs, and I can see it myself, because it happens to me when I have solutions that can already do it, to turn to put a DCA or to adjust it easily.
From there, it means responding differently to a problem that was always there. And so, from that angle alone, it's brilliant and I'm not surprised that you have a large number of new entrants, because they are still the hardest to address, and it's still like being the customs officer between those who didn't know and those who take the first step.
And at that moment, it is a winning bet on addressing and responding to an existing need.
