Exploring the Bitcoin Phenomenon

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Oh, I see a lot of stupid takes about bitcoin from family, from friends, news articles. And for me, whenever I see a stupid take, it's like a smash by moment. I've had many of those where I just say, oh, this is. So if this is the prevailing knowledge and thought of the masses, then they really don't know what they're talking about. Bitcoin, whatever the price may be, 90,000, 20,000 at that moment, is undervalued because I have this insider knowledge about what this is and how it performs. And most of the people have a really simplistic take and it's wrong. So I'm going to get it while it's cheap and doesn't make a difference where I'm in that cycle. So. [00:00:44] Speaker B: Hello, welcome to the Money Adjustment. I'm your host, Dr. Mark Kramer. Are you interested in what's moving markets and your money? [00:00:51] Speaker A: Bitcoin is now proof of money. I like Michael Saylor's quote. He said, if you can remember 12 words, you become the money. Can we leave? Should we leave our audience? Make that. Yeah. [00:01:13] Speaker B: Become the money. Become the money. Let's get started. All right, so I'll just get right into the introduction, actually, because I. I'm very excited to start talking with our next guest today is a friend of mine from chiropractic school, and he is currently a spine surgeon. So since the last time I saw you, your career has evolved. So I'm excited to kind of see or hear whatever you're willing to share with regards to that transition. And the other thing is, and the reason I have you on is because we both have a mutual interest in bitcoin. And, yes, think that would be a nice conversation to have. So my guest today is Dr. Mohammed Zarabian. Did I pronounce your name correctly? Zarabian? [00:02:01] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, if you're. If you're Iranian, you'd say Zarabian. And. But, you know, and I am part Iranian, so, yes, most people just say Zarabian, though, either or. It doesn't really make a difference. [00:02:12] Speaker B: I know it's the American Z. [00:02:13] Speaker A: As long as you start with Zed, you get credit. [00:02:16] Speaker B: Okay, sounds good. Dr. Mohammed Zarabian. And I tried to give it a little Persian accent. I don't know if I did a good job or not. [00:02:24] Speaker A: So. [00:02:25] Speaker B: So the reason you're on here today is because you saw a clip, a bitcoin clip that I did from another podcast episode, and you commented and just said, oh, cool, you're into bitcoin. And that opened up a conversation for us because it turns out not only are you into bitcoin, I'm kind of getting right into the heart of it. I didn't even do any kind of warmup here. But you said that. Well, you know what? Before we get into that, why don't you start with your bitcoin story? Let's start. [00:02:57] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. The first time I actually heard of it was from a patient. I think that's the first time that it went raised to my consciousness and it stuck with me. But basically there was the wife of a patient. He had a minor complication. But anyways, I was with her for a few hours and she started talking about bitcoin. And I had heard it here or there, but since I heard it from. I think she was in her 70s at that time. You know, if you hear it from the shoeshine boy, that's a common adage that people use. You hear from the shoeshine boy, then it's probably a bubble about the burst. And I was like, I'm hearing it from this woman who's in her 70s. If your grandmother's buying it, it's probably a bubble that's about to burst. And I disregarded it. And then that. I think that was summer. Yeah, summer, late summer, early fall, 2017. I started to look into it, and then 18, which at the time was like the worst time to start the journey. Right. It was. Right. [00:03:57] Speaker B: Relatively speaking. [00:03:58] Speaker A: Change. Relatively speaking. Absolutely relatively speaking. So I got into that, and I got into what commonly would be called a bunch of shitcoins, and which I now adhere to that kind of language. And everything else fell by the wayside. But in terms of bitcoin, it just, it grew in its presence. And the more I read about it, the more interesting I found it to be. And I listened to podcasts about it, and I delve into it deeper and deeper. [00:04:27] Speaker B: I, I, I, I'm going to pause one second here. I apologize. I thought I had no in interruptions, but this person got through picking it up where we left off. And I'll tell you what I remembered from that, which was in 2018. You heard about it through a patient. 2017, but you didn't get involved until 2018. [00:04:47] Speaker A: No, didn't get involved until 18. Yeah. Right. So I heard it when it was probably in the few thousand mark, and then I didn't really get into it until I was puttering around the 19,000 range. Right. [00:05:03] Speaker B: And in retrospect and why we say relative, it's like, yeah, when you watch it go from 19,000 to back down to 3,000. I think at the time it seems insane and totally the bubble phenomenon. But then when you're looking at recent highs of 126,000 and now we're hovering from between 88,89,000. Although today I think is a down, significantly down day, maybe 86, 87, but relative to 20 and an expectation of millions potentially. Timing. You're still early. [00:05:39] Speaker A: Yeah, it's hard to know. I mean there's obviously that. I don't know if you've. Or the common saying there's a number go up. Technology that draws people in, you see absolutely. How many zeros are behind the, you know, the first or second digit. And that's exciting and it pulls people in. But there are aspects to it that are independent of its monetary value that I think are interesting and valuable. But yeah, man, that, that ride from 19 and a half down to the 3 to 4 range, and I did that twice over the subsequent two years was a rough time. And my wife, my mom, I was gonna say wife at the time. She's still my wife. I was gonna say girlfriend, but we were married at the time. I remember she was kind of, you know, gently putting pressure on me to sell it before it goes down to zero. My mom was saying you should sell before it goes to zero. But I mean I, I sell other stuff. But yeah, you know, I, I didn't, I didn't really touch that. Maybe small portions here or there if I wanted to minimize my exposure at some point or other. But overall I haven't really sold. [00:06:39] Speaker B: Yeah, and that's great. I actually think that's a great message for people listening right now is if you're still on the fence of whether you should hold or if you're playing games. For me personally, I played the cycle game, which I regret in hindsight. I never sold out completely, but I definitely sold a lot more that I will be chasing to try to get back to where I was. So for people listening and hearing your story, that's. You have to ride out a lot of volatility, utility. It's not for the faint of heart. But the more that you understand it and you said this, there's things beyond even just its monetary number or go up technology. Why don't you talk a little bit about that? [00:07:23] Speaker A: Yeah. So what's really fascinating about it is that you do. It's the only system that doesn't require an intermediary for exchange. It doesn't require third party validation. The process system is decentralized and it Allows for exchange across the world without any intermediaries. I mean, there really is nothing else that I'm aware of that does what it does so well, particularly for large amounts of value. You can transmit a hundred million across the world in 10 minutes. If you know, even if the cost, the fee transactions are high, you can, if you're willing to pay it, you can probably get it out in the next block, which is probably going to be in the 10 minute mark and get it around the world and then you don't have to validate it. So, you know, we're currently in a climate where a lot of people are stacking gold and they're stacking silver. My financial advisor has been pounding on that door for a while and I'm glad that he has exposed me to that and allocated some of my funds to that. But one problem I see with that is the physicality of it itself is a problem. It's both a feature and a problem. You know, silver and gold, you carry it, you can see it, but it's bloody heavy. Like I don't know if you've ever tried to transport physical, precious metals. I mean, it's heavy. Put it in the bank. I put mine in the bank, but it takes up space in the bank. And then if you have a significant amount, then you have to get another box to store it in. And then if you want to sell it or buy it. So if you're going to sell or buy bullion, first of all, you need someone that is not going to try to screw you on premiums, right? So they might try to sell it far below the value because they need a spread that they can make money off of. But then they need to validate your gold. Unless they trust you. If you have a really good relationship, that's fine. But then there's a whole bunch of different machines and mechanisms, chemical tools that you would use to validate that what you're giving to them is what you say you're giving to them. And it's the same in reverse. If you're going to buy something, you have to buy from a trusted seller. Really hard to use it as a medium of exchange. Whereas Bitcoin's. Bitcoin, it pops up in your wallet, the network validates it and you're good to go. You don't need third party transact or to validate the transaction. [00:09:42] Speaker B: This is great, you definitely understand what you're talking about. So I have a lot of bitcoin experts on that are just specialists within the space. But I was Excited to have you on because you're a professional like I am, you're a healthcare professional. And our main jobs aren't as financial advisors or financial people in general, but the fact that you have the level of understanding that you do. And congratulations for being in the gold and silver trade because that is definitely. [00:10:15] Speaker A: The trade of the moment for sure. Yeah. [00:10:21] Speaker B: So with regards to gold and silver going up and something I had heard and you could tell me if this is your experience as well where. Because it is the traditional debasement trade, the gold trade and then the silver follow trade because that is what people with traditional wealth understand where to try to like a safe haven to put their money during times of economic uncertainty. And with arguably could be the last big print of the US dollar in history. Arguably depending on where you fall on that spectrum. [00:11:01] Speaker A: But. [00:11:01] Speaker B: But given the data, it's hard to deny that we are on the cusp of definitely the United States dollar as a reserve currency is being tested, unlike it has certainly within my lifetime. And whether or not it's strange to even talk about. And like I said, I don't want to maybe even go down that economic road because we're not economists. [00:11:23] Speaker A: But yeah, you probably don't remember this. I am definitely not an economist, but I do have a degree in economics. My undergrad degree was economics. [00:11:30] Speaker B: Okay. [00:11:31] Speaker A: That's why I have an interest in this stuff. I've always had an interest in why things people do what they do and how you incentivize people incentivize economy, game theory, all those things I find interesting. Fascinating. [00:11:44] Speaker B: Awesome. [00:11:44] Speaker A: Okay. [00:11:45] Speaker B: So you are the. [00:11:46] Speaker A: No, no. But if you get my opinion, my opinion will probably be very amateurish and most likely wrong. But like, you know, armchair quarterback. I like to talk about it or think about it. [00:12:00] Speaker B: Right, right. Well, I have to say, like I said that you're. What you're saying is in line with the people that I listen to and a lot of them position themselves as authorities. I do think so. It's interesting. So with regards to number go up technology and in the context of the gold and silver trade, one of the narratives that's out there is that while gold and silver is running now, once people that are in the non traditional way of looking at money start to realize what you had brought up, where gold is not easily transportable and you can't exchange large sums of gold in a very short period of time over great distances and it gets even harder to validate transactions versus what the potential of bitcoin is. And once that realization or adoption becomes stronger. That's when we might see the next leg up with regards to bitcoin relative to gold and silver. [00:13:02] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. So, so I, I see a lot of stupid takes about bitcoin from family, from friends, news articles. And for me, whenever I see a stupid take, I, it's like a smash by moment. I've had many of those where I used to say, oh, this is. So this is the prevailing knowledge and thought of the masses. Then they really don't know what they're talking about. Bitcoin, whatever the price may be, 90,000, 20,000 at that moment is undervalued because I have this insider knowledge about what this is and how it performs and most of the people have a really simplistic take and it's wrong. So I'm going to get it while it's cheap and doesn't make a difference where I'm in that cycle. So I, I've had, you know, so I'm lucky enough to make a comfortable living. And so there are investment advisors that would come and try to ask me to park my investments with them for them to manage. And I've had several banks approach me and I would say in the last five years, across the board, either they'd say we're not allowed to talk about it or like he'd say something that was just really uninformed, shockingly uninformed. And then they'd ask me to hand over my investments to them. And I'm thinking eight. You don't know about the best performing asset in the last 15 years. Not only do you not know about it, but you're talking negatively about it and you haven't even informed yourself it's not an informed opinion. And then you're saying, can you park your money with me? And those situations for me would be, well, if these people are investing and managing so much money, then that's another smash buy moment. I'm like, okay, I get off those calls and I just be like, I'm just gonna buy some more and just park it right. [00:14:56] Speaker B: Once you understand what bitcoin is, you want more of it. That's where we realize it's a little bit of a land grab at this point in terms of the scarcity aspect for sure. So it's like if there's 21 million, then whatever cut of that 21 million is all you're going to get. And if you can get it at under a hundred thousand at this point, that does seem like a very good value. [00:15:23] Speaker A: Yeah. And then you will make the switch. I think eventually not everyone, but a lot of people I think make the switch. Where it's not even the number that is associated with a specific bitcoin, but it shifts to how many bitcoin do you have? Do you have one? Do you have five? Did you want to hit the 10 number? Did you want to hit a half? And it doesn't make a difference if you have half when it's at 20,000 or half at 125,000. You're really focused on getting that next incremental amount. Right. [00:15:54] Speaker B: So what do you think of the treasury companies that are playing that game? Do you have an opinion on those? [00:15:59] Speaker A: I don't. So I don't play that at all. There is definitely some people that make a lot of money that my. My investment guy uncomfortable with his viewpoint and he did offer for me to. I don't even know how you term it, but basically get preferred shares in. In those treasury companies. I don't want to do that because in my viewpoint this. I want a seamless transaction with no layers between me and something that retains value and something that is, you know, incredibly and fundamentally liquid. So I think of my investments and how it fits in my life and my kids life and everything as layered in terms of I have something that's going to sit there for a long time and I'm probably not going to touch for the next 10, 20, 30 years. That might be these retirement savings plans that are registered. And then I'll have you know, you have your most liquid emergency cash fund. And then you have a variety of layers in between. And that can be Bitcoin because you can get up and go with it at any time. It can be precious metals because if electricity shuts down across the board, well, you have these precious metals that you might be able to interact or transact with. And then you have other products like insurance. It's just in my mind, various products that board you different safety nets. And I don't see the point of, for Bitcoin for me is it has these characteristics that I want to retain and make it useful for me and my plan. And you lose it if I go into the treasury companies. [00:17:34] Speaker B: Yeah. And that seems to be the consensus of a lot of people that I talk to. It is that added layer between you and your money. And one of the beautiful things about Bitcoin is that it is the asset where you can invest directly in the asset itself. You don't need to go to a third party and have counterparty risk associated with you. And your money, have you used it as a means of exchange yet or are you primarily using it as a store of value? [00:18:03] Speaker A: Yeah, a few times when I've bought computer products and things like that from retailers that would accept it and you know, you take an extra step to do it. So I'll take that extra step. I'm not in a situation where I need to transact with it. So unless there's a good reason or the counterpart, the other party wants to do it, then I'll use it to validate the network. But generally, generally I'm more of a. I just periodically stack it and, and don't really think about it all that much at this point. Pre. I have to. I had those. I had those white knuckle ride moments, like you're on a roller coaster between 2018 and 2020, for sure. Yeah. [00:18:42] Speaker B: That's awesome. It's. It's great that you understood it to the level that you understood it during the period of time. Cause you talk about that 2018 period. I've been aware of Bitcoin since 2 2009, just during the financial crisis. I was aware of this alternative currency and it and its response to what was happening. I was as a technologist, I was interested in the technology aspect of it. And then I would read up on Blockchain and see how all of that worked. But I didn't put any skin in the game and I didn't even really think about investing in it until 2017. And even in 2017, I think one of the biggest reservations I had in 2017 was the. Was worried about losing my keys. Just didn't I. That story was the most intimidating to me in terms of. [00:19:36] Speaker A: Of. [00:19:37] Speaker B: Of actually pulling the trigger on getting into the asset itself. And then I came about it in a more roundabout way in 2020, in listening to Michael Novogratz on CNBC talk about it. And then I was like, wait, there's something this thing has already endured. A lot of. It's now starting to stand the test of time. For example, I remember in 2010, somewhere about that time, I remember listening to a podcast called Planet Money and there was a competition. Yeah, yeah. And it was. And it was a. Yeah. And then there was a public. I don't remember who the participants was, but I was. I remember a public con, a friendly wager that either bitcoin was going to be worth a million dollars in 10 years or it was going to zero. It was like zero or a million in like 10 years. And so neither one of those happened. Didn't go to zero. It didn't go to a million either. But I think the fact that it still exists is a testament to its resilience. But going back to the level of understanding it, it's funny you talk about like embarrassed to say, and I consider myself a pretty smart guy, but I really wasn't, maybe even until this year where things, certain things really started to lock in for me and I started listening to people on spaces on X and these were the people that had been OGs in the space and some of them were really able to articulate what was happening with the technology on a level that you don't necessarily need to be a mathematician or technologist to appreciate it conceptually. And so when those synapses started firing, I felt feel much stronger and more confident. Like you, like you said, I don't think I would have had I been in it in 2017, 2018 to be able to white knuckle it because I didn't understand it to the level and degree that I understand it now. And now I'm playing catch up because even though I got the number go up technology part of it, I didn't fully appreciate the land grab aspect of it. And then they say, you know, when you sell it, if you're selling it now, you don't understand what you own because, yeah, it's hard. [00:22:10] Speaker A: I mean, I can understand how people. So I mean, full disclosure, I did sell a little bit a few months ago because I'd always thought in my head that I had a mortgage that was going to come due. And in my mind I was like, I'm buying in this account this much and I'm going to sell at the end of 2025 when my mortgage come due and I'm just going to reduce the amount. But I had set that aside that I was going to sell it. And I did waffle a little bit because you have. And it was, it was, I have to tell you, man, it was in a very emotional battle because yeah, if you understand it, you don't want to sell it at any price. But in my, in my head it said I, this account knew I was going to sell and I'm going to sell it. It's going to be a profit. I don't care if the profits, big amount, a small amount, whatever, I'd set it aside. But I understand people have goals. I mean, gold, let's say gold is the best trade of the year of 2025, right? But you have life needs and you have goals that are independent of what the market is doing and you are going to use whatever value and assets you have to make your life better. And it's, you're the one that's going to judge it. And so you sell when you have liquidity needs and you don't when you don't have liquidity needs. And I don't judge anyone for whatever they do or don't sell. I can say overall I've, you know, I've, it's always been single digit portions of whatever I've had that one when I've sold and generally I just resume my stacking previous course. So. But I don't, I don't blame people like you know, do do it is what it is like it. I don't know if you've heard it. They say TikTok, it's next block. Right. Whether you sell, buy, you're around, you're not around, you do whatever, you interact with it however you want. It is this universal ledger that's going to keep doing its thing with or without you. So you just attend to your life and what you want to do and it will be there when you need it. [00:24:10] Speaker B: Yeah, and I do think that's a fair statement to make and I'm more open minded in that regard. Someone said this term to me early on on, on this leg of my bitcoin journey and it stuck with me which was the bitcoin complex. My friend was going to start a new hedge fund and he was going to name it the Bitcoin complex and he was going to trade the derivative. Anything that was tied to bitcoin was going to be fair game in terms of trading vehicles for these. He's a professional options trader. I like that concept of the complex of it because there are tiers of understanding people, for example, who get into bitcoin, they don't know anything about it other than the number going up point or they don't want to miss the boat on something that's happening. And so they'll get into like an ibit. So they'll get into an ETF and they'll start investing in the term that is often used as paper bitcoin. So it's not the actual asset itself. Speaking of paper bitcoin, with regards with what's happening with silver, same friend was, is talking about how you want to pay attention to the silver market to understand what could potentially be a problem down the road with bitcoin. And in his mind he says it's not an if, it's a when. Because bitcoin is a scarce asset. They're not going to be able to print more of it. And when they come to, when it comes time where there, there is a. Some type of run on the system where people actually want their Bitcoin, they're not going to be able to get it unless they have it in self custody and cold storage. So that's a bigger conversation. I'm with you. Yeah, go ahead. [00:26:01] Speaker A: Well, I was going to say I don't have a very sophisticated view. I don't know. I know theoretically some things about options and puts and calls and stuff, but I. Beyond. It's over my head for sure. Right, right. [00:26:13] Speaker B: I, I think you have a very sophisticated view for how I framed it initially, which is professionals Guest that I had on recently put the idea in my head. He's like, there's a niche in the content creation space with regards to Bitcoin because there's tons of bitcoin educators and bitcoin influencers, but there's not necessarily niche professionals like Bitcoin for documents, for example. [00:26:41] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:26:41] Speaker B: So he's like, that is where you want to start having conversations that are geared towards these people who are professionals, which actually something that you do that I don't do yet is I don't run a node and I don't. [00:26:58] Speaker A: I don't run a node. I've been meaning to run a node. I run miners which basically double as heaters, but I don't run a node which. Which is. I feel kind of. I feel bad. I'm ashamed. [00:27:12] Speaker B: I know. I'm ashamed too because the hardcore and bit. Hardcore bitcoiners are like, you're not a bitcoiner if you're not running a node. And there's people that. It's like, if you really want to have nothing between you and your money, there's the vpn, there's you running your own node, there's. It. There are deeper layers of complexity that I have not quite ventured myself, other than intellectual understanding. [00:27:39] Speaker A: Yeah. But it does speak to so same niche void that you were talking about earlier, which is healthcare professionals, which. Who are busy, you know, a healthcare professional. I'm sure you've had the yearly paperwork and the continuing medical education credits and then the ethics reviews and all this stuff. You're just a busy person and billing, insurance, all that stuff. And you don't have time to end your investments per se. That's why a lot of healthcare professionals hire someone to run their investments for them. And by the same token, it is difficult sometimes to go that Deep into it and into running your node. I still feel the need to do it because I think it does unlock value and some characteristics of Thunderlang asset that you just, you can't leverage without running your own node. I just haven't gotten around to it. Yeah. And I'm, I'm baby. Like I think your kids are older, but I'm. I'm getting baby number four tomorrow, so. [00:28:41] Speaker B: Oh, hey, tomorrow. Congratulations. Oh, wow, that's awesome. Congratulations. [00:28:47] Speaker A: They just get busy, you know. Yeah. [00:28:49] Speaker B: And the babies will keep you busy. My, My youngest is 3 and my oldest is 20. So like I have them across the board. Yeah, I only have three. I didn't get to four. I didn't stack that high stack in the kids. You know, with regards to the heating then that's actually what I meant to say is, is you, you're. You're a miner, you do do mining. [00:29:13] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:29:14] Speaker B: And so, so this part is interesting to me. Do you feel like you appreciate the is. Do you feel like it's cost effective? [00:29:26] Speaker A: Yeah, it can be depending on how you do it. So in Ontario, this is where I live in Canada, it's predominantly hydroelectric. And then the problem with my understanding of the electrical grid and the generators is that you always need to keep it on, even if the demand isn't there. So in Ontario, overnight you actually, you can opt in for an ultra low electrical kilowatt fee. I think it's 3.9 cents or 4.5 cents. I mean it's really, really quite low. And in those scenarios it can actually be remunerative to run a bitcoin miner like overnight, you can just run it even if you don't need the heat. I don't do that, but I do know of people who do do it. And then another feature in Ontario is that it gets cold. Like right now I think it's minus 10. A few days ago it was minus 15 or 16 or something like that. And it gets coldest overnight. So the same time the electricity dips to its lowest is when you need that electricity. I don't run my house on it. But for my particular scenario we have a nanny suite that's in the basement. It gets cold, so I can put one there. And it gets cold even in the summertime because when we run air conditioning for the rest of the house, all the cold air pools in her section of the house so she needs to run the heater. And then in the wintertime it gets cold. And then the master bedroom is sitting on top of her garage. And so last Year, the first year we were here, the floor, it was okay but the floor was always a little chilly. And so then I just put a bitcoin miner in the garage and it's way more comfortable and we load the kids. The garage is warm, our room is warm. And in those scenario it's a, it's a no brainer because I was going to, I was going to lose that electricity. I was going to use that electricity regardless. But now I'm getting BTC back. Right. [00:31:24] Speaker B: And that's the part I think is the cost effective aspect of it. It's not like you're mining to accelerate your stack accumulation when you're mining for, for functional purposes. Like I run space heater, I'm in Michigan so I'm same negative degree weather and we run space heaters but they're not miners. And then I think to myself man, I, if I'm going to run this electricity anyways, why not at least maybe get a kickback of potential? What, what kind of return do you even get on that? It's not like you're getting mining a whole bitcoin. It's not like a lottery ticket. [00:32:08] Speaker A: No. So I can look at my phone for the garage unit. I can just, I mean it's, it's not a ton, it's probably 30, $40. I'd have to look at the. And it varies obviously on the value of bitcoin. [00:32:20] Speaker B: Right, right, right. [00:32:21] Speaker A: 30, 40, $50 a month. Basically something in that range. Another. So I mean I can, I can think of a few use cases. So let's say you also have a multi unit. I don't have a bunch of residential properties but again because of my economics degree I just like to read or listen to different parts of the economy and how it's running. Let's say in Toronto it's a really lean real estate market. A lot of people are losing money like landlords are losing money month or month they're subsidizing their tenants housing. But in that scenario if you're going to be paying the electrical bill anyhow to heat the house, you know floorboards and things like that, you get that, you get that electricity back, the cost back in bitcoin and it allows you to reduce or make a non viable real estate investment into a viable one. That's another aspect of it. Another one would be you have a multiplex, two or three units in a house rather than having one person set the heat for three stages of house where it's hot in the top floor, bloody cold in the bottom is you install three different bitcoin miners and they don't even realize it. It's in a closet somewhere and you have piping that's going out and everyone's happy and you're. And in some cases, I mean you might even have your tenants paying the electric, electrical bill for the, for the upkeep. I don't do this, but those are things you can think about and how it would make sense. Another one for me personally is where at some point we're probably going to put a greenhouse in the backyard and rather than make it a greenhouse that just extends the growing season by a month on either side, probably would make four season greenhouse and then put some PTC miners in there and just keep it warm year round. And so when it's snowy January, you could hang out with the flowers and the greenery in your greenhouse. [00:34:16] Speaker B: That's amazing. That's amazing. [00:34:18] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:34:19] Speaker B: I'm definitely going to look into the heating aspect of the mining. I like the functional component of it and I think like you said, it's, it's. There's an opportunity there in terms of subsidizing and to make better use of the resources that we have in it. And I remember at one point during the fud, the fear, uncertainty and doubt with regards to bitcoin when Elon Musk made a case about its energy consumption and that it was too energy consuming to be a viable monetary. I don't know how strong that argument is these days. I don't hear that narrative quite as. [00:34:58] Speaker A: Much because you're wasting so much energy on AI pumping out stupid memes. The primary product of AI that we can see consumer facing is just idiotic means and memes and videos that you have to check to see if they're real or not. But the amount of energy that consumes. And you're like, this is stupid. It makes no difference in anyone's life whether or not they see that meme. But sending $100 million transacting directly with someone in Africa or China without an intermediary and the efficiency savings from that, that's huge. Yeah. And it costs a fraction of what you pay to pump out that meme. [00:35:40] Speaker B: Do you follow any of the like debates regarding like core versus knots? Is that even on your radar at all? [00:35:50] Speaker A: A little. A little bit. I haven't. Yeah, I guess. Yeah. I know that there's a concern that they're. They'll still suffer full of garbage or they'll suffocate full of illegal content that then would allow the A state, whatever state to come in and on the excuse of saying this is illegal, kind of try to wipe out or take down the network. I don't know that much about it though. I think ultimately I think it's just going to continue marching along. One thing about the block size wars was the miners were not able to wrest control from the node operators. That was my takeaway basically that there was a war between people who wanted to increase the block size and was supposedly nefarious to some degree, but ultimately that perfect a balance of node operators, bitcoin holders and bitcoin miners. It allowed the whole ecosystem to navigate that debacle and I suspect it probably will in the future. My only concern about the bitcoin network at this point is that if more and more people turn to the etf, the transaction, the transaction fees will fall so low that it might not. Like the miners will not get compensated for running the bitcoin miners as much as they otherwise would have. I don't know if anyone's brought that up or not, but no, that's, that's one way you can think of it is that the bitcoin issuance halves every four years. So you can think of that as saying to promote the security of the system. The initial issuance was very, very high. And then as it drops off, the issuance drops off. The expectation is yes, the price will rise, but then also as more people use it, the transaction fees will start to rise. And then there will be a greater reliance on transaction fees to subsidize costs in terms of maintaining the bitcoin mining system, which ultimately would be. It's the security system. It's a security backbone of the bitcoin network. You're trying to get as much hash power to do a 51% attack, it becomes prohibitively harder to do. And so you want more people to dedicate hash power, electricity to securing the network. But if the transaction fees drop off, then there might be a point in the future where there not enough bitcoin miners are being incentivized to join the system. [00:38:24] Speaker B: That's interesting. [00:38:25] Speaker A: If you look at the network now, the fees per bitcoin transaction is very, very low, like shockingly low, and has been very, very low for an extended period of time. And the thought is that as more people rely on IBIT and the brothers and sisters to buy bitcoin indirectly, there's less on paying transactions occurring. [00:38:50] Speaker B: Yeah, that's interesting. I haven't heard that threat or that concern, at least not in a broad way. I Was waiting for you to say quantum computing, kind of tongue in cheek. [00:39:08] Speaker A: I don't know about that. Even the one that I mentioned about the fees, I have come across a discussion and basically it goes that even if the fees drop off a lot, the price of bitcoin would rise so high that it would still represent a significant amount of value in terms of the traditional and monetary system to incentivize. [00:39:28] Speaker B: Enough miners for the security of the network. So I'm trying to think of the logistics of how this would work, because it's not like blackrock is mining. [00:39:37] Speaker A: No, they want. So black rock, let's say, represents, I don't know, million, two, three million people. They put their buys through black. BlackRock. BlackRock isn't going to buy immediately. If you know him and buy 50 bucks, they're not going to go buy 50 bucks immediately. They're going to batch their transactions and buy and hold. And so it reduces the number of transactions that actually happen on chain. Whereas if you were a buyer, then they represent 10 million people. Those 10 million people would periodically buy and then they'd remove from the exchange to their wallets. And every time they do that, transactions would have to be initiated and transaction fees. And if, you know, there's a block limit to each block. And so the more people are trying to transact on chain, the more competition there is for that information to be included. Do you. I don't know if you're, you're aware of that, I'm assuming about the competition. [00:40:35] Speaker B: For the next block in terms of. [00:40:37] Speaker A: Number of transactions also. Yeah. So the number of. So from the bitcoin miners, there's a competition who's going to get the next block. But then. Right, right, right. From the people who are trying to transact, there's competition to get your transaction on that block. Like if you, if you want it guaranteed, I'm going to. My, my transaction is going to go in the next 10 minutes. You pay a fee that is so high that any bitcoin miner would take that transaction and include your transaction in the block. The blockchain. [00:41:09] Speaker B: I see. [00:41:10] Speaker A: But so the more people try to transact, the higher you have to put your bid to get your transaction accepted. [00:41:20] Speaker B: In terms of the fee. [00:41:20] Speaker A: But if everyone's going through in terms of the fee. Yeah. And you'll see that when you're on an exchange, you can say, I'll pay the minimal amount. And then that would mean your transaction might go on the next, you know, 12 hours. But if you pay an extra premium, normally it would Go in the next 10 minutes guaranteed. Because it's so high that you'll outcompete other people buying for that space. That's kind of. [00:41:44] Speaker B: That's kind of interesting. What's the incentive to get it on this next block versus a block that's an hour out from now? [00:41:52] Speaker A: Well, it depends on how quick you want to do it. I mean, for the person who wants to send it. Yeah. So it depends on who wants to send. I mean, if you're doing a huge transaction, 50 million, 100 million, and you need this deal to close, you're probably going to want to do it as quickly as possible. If I'm sending it to my own wallet and I don't need it, it's long term storage. I don't care. You can send it in two days. I'll just put in a value there. [00:42:17] Speaker B: That makes sense. [00:42:18] Speaker A: Okay. [00:42:19] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Are you going to be called away? Because that was actually pretty good. That was a full hour. [00:42:25] Speaker A: No, I was probably in about five minutes. I got to run and pick up my. My oldest. Sorry. And by the way, I'm sorry if I'm rambling on. I don't know if I'm. [00:42:33] Speaker B: No, no, I appreciate you. I love it. You are. You had a lot more. You're a lot more insightful. That was no offense to you. I was just thinking, oh, here's another healthcare professional like me. But you do have your background in economics, which. That's fantastic. I didn't know I was such a macroeconomics geek until like late in life. Like it wasn't until maybe even during the COVID period that I started to too much CNBC and a lot of YouTube videos. And what I tend to be. Yeah. Was the macro component was just the understanding the larger forces that are at play that move our. The unseen forces that move our lives beyond the. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is. Cool. Well, I'd love to have you on again at some point. We didn't get to. I didn't get any of your history. I have to just have a private phone call with you and see because I, I'm curious on the evolution from chiropractic to minim. Minimally invasive spine surgery, right? [00:43:39] Speaker A: Yeah, Minimally invasive. Yeah, I went. Yeah, I went chiropractor and then obviously medicine and then from there it's actually really tortuous. So I was in psychiatry for a year, actually. I did one year of psychiatry, then did a hard left and did orthopedic surgery for five years. That's the training. And then I Did two years of subspecialty training and spine surgery. One year at Mayo Clinic, one year at University of Toronto. But I knew by about halfway through medical school that I wanted to do spine surgery. That was my focus. [00:44:10] Speaker B: To me, it seems like a natural progression, actually, if you're a chiropractor, to stick with the spine. It's like I already know the anatomy and the physiology and what can be done up to a certain point, and then what do we do beyond that? And congratulations on your clinic, because I just saw you recently opened up a new clinic, right? [00:44:29] Speaker A: Or. Oh, yes. No, that's not my clinic. That was. That is a. So it's funny, private surgery is really in its infancy in Canada. And it's because the whole healthcare space is dominated by what's provided in the public, socialized healthcare, which is good. I mean, there's a role for both sides in that. But because it's been dominated for so long, private surgery is just starting to make its forays. And. And what I had done was the first spine fusion outside of a hospital, and the first private spine fusion. [00:45:02] Speaker B: That's interesting, the concept, private. The concept of it being private. [00:45:08] Speaker A: Yeah. Nobody thought that that was possible. Even the people at the surgical center didn't realize that that was a possibility. Like, I've been working on it for two years, brought together different companies and groups and the anesthetists and everything just to make it take off. Something that in the USA is done on a regular basis. But because you're used to the system working in a certain way, you get stuck in that pattern and you can't imagine it working in any other way. The other thing is innovation happens a little bit slower, I think, in the Canadian system, probably because you don't really compete for patients. There's so many patients that a lot of times you're trying to figure out how to make sure you only get the patients that absolutely need you. Like, if someone wanted a spine consult with me and they didn't have a surgical pathology, the likelihood of them getting to see me is not that high. And then it would probably would take a while. Not because I don't necessarily want to see them, but when I'm on call, I'm on call for 2.6 million people. Right. And that means tumors, car accidents, disc herniations, people going, caught equina, whatever. Sure. And so anyways, you just, you don't. You don't compete for those patients, and so you don't necessarily have to innovate. On the flip side, I would Say some of the innovation that happens elsewhere in free market, some of it is just advertising like that. That does happen because. Yeah, I think on the flip side, in the usa you probably have more ors than you have patients that need the surgery. And so there is in some places pressure to fill those ors. And if you don't have really high internal ethical standards, you may lower the bar for your surgical indication. Somewhat interesting. [00:47:01] Speaker B: Now you kind of get into my space. I do utilization review for peer or peer review for work comp cases. So, okay, we. For me, it's just looking at tons. [00:47:14] Speaker A: Of medical records, but we could have a whole separate conversation about that. So I was the workers comp spine surgeon for the province of Manitoba, and that's how I got into the private. I set up this whole system there to do out of hospital spine surgery for these patients because they were languishing for like two, three years because of the idiosyncrasies of the spine surgery system there and then here. I actually do it at two different hospitals too, but I find that fascinating in a different way, especially because I did psychiatry for a year. So I've got some little feelers of the psychological aspect of workers comp. In addition to the surgical rehab stuff. Right. [00:47:58] Speaker B: I don't know if you remember, my background's in psychology. That's where I got my undergrad was in psychology. And I did mental health work for a number of years before I went to chemistry graduate. Yeah. So interesting histories. I think you and I are both lifelong learners for sure. And yes, hopefully we took the time to learn. [00:48:21] Speaker A: I always had fond memories of you and I remember in particular how healthy and driven and motivated you were. [00:48:29] Speaker B: Yeah, I appreciate it. You were the editor in chief, right. For our school paper, the synapse. And I remember being honored to be able to write for the paper and kind of spend time with you in that regard. And yeah, I'm glad we are. Our friendship is rekindled. And it's, it's, it's amusing that it was over bitcoin, of all things, because our paths could have crossed in a lot of different ways. And, and, and I'm, I'm truly impressed with your level of insight and understanding with regards to the technology. It's not, it's. You're, you're more. I don't know whether you give yourself credit for it or not. You're more advanced than, than certainly a lot of generalists in the space, including myself. Like I, like I said, I listen to a lot of smart people, but I am still very much a student, like, really trying to. [00:49:25] Speaker A: I don't know, the inner. Inner workings. It's tough. It's hard. I mean, it's same thing. You're busy and so you don't. All this other stuff that you have to do that you. You have limits or demands on your time. [00:49:38] Speaker B: This is how I do it. I do the podcast because I'm like, how am I going to talk to these people? This is the only. Like, I have a format so I can get people on so they can have these conversations. Thank you again so much for coming on. I look forward to. I'm going to. I'm going to hit stop and then you and I can go back and forth for a minute or I'll just let you go because I do know you have things to do. And we'll pick it up on direct message. [00:50:02] Speaker A: Yeah, Sounds good, man. And thanks for having me. Anytime. It was nice seeing again. It was. It's really nice saying again. So give me a warm Mohammed. [00:50:10] Speaker B: Zarabian. Zarabiyin. I should be able to do this better. I'm like Zarabian. I love the Persian accent. My mom was Persian and my dad was a Jewish, like, from Russia. Like third generation Russian. [00:50:26] Speaker A: Oh, okay. I'm not German for some reason. Cool. Yeah, very cool. Awesome, man. [00:50:31] Speaker B: All right, I'm going to hit stop, and I'll probably just let you go after that. Bye, everybody that's watching and listening. [00:50:38] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:50:39] Speaker B: Thank you for watching this episode of the Money Adjustment. If you want more, like comment and subscribe, you can follow me on X ark Kramer until the next episode. Stay healthy and wealthy. Should we leave our audience like that? [00:51:01] Speaker A: Yeah. And they show them the money. [00:51:03] Speaker B: The money.