Note: This transcript was automatically generated by artificial intelligence (AI) and therefore typos may be present.
Rob McNealy
This podcast is sponsored by Tusk, an open source non Ico crypto project powered by community. Check them out on the web at task dot network. That’s TUSC dot network. The Rob McNealy program is the nexus of cryptocurrency blockchain technology and entrepreneurship. Now, welcome to the program. Today, I am talking to Pascoe higly. He is a Swiss author and we’re going to talk a little bit about the book that he put out recently called ignore at your own risk, the new decentralized world of Bitcoin and blockchain. So Pascal, how are you today?
Pascal Hügli-Ignore At Your Own Risk
Well, I’m good. Thanks for being here for taking me on. It’s a great pleasure. And yeah, I’m good despite the virus and the lockdown we have in Switzerland, but everything’s good.
Rob McNealy
So I think your book is actually fairly timely. So before we jump into kind of what you wrote about in the book, tell us a little bit about you. What’s your background?
Pascal Hügli-Ignore At Your Own Risk
Well, yeah, I’m, as I already said, on a scale from Switzerland. I work as a journalist and analyst and also just writer. I do it for a company called financial media. That’s what I work for. And then I also do some research for another company, which is called Schlossberg and co it’s a company where we manage like a portfolio for other people. And yeah, where we especially have a vision for the future, and we want to help people protect for what might be coming along our way. And yeah, I mean, I studied economics and politics at University of Zurich and then quickly at university when I started my master’s I actually came across Bitcoin, you know, which I really liked. And yeah, I found it really interesting, like also theoretical endeavor, you know, to dig ever more deeper into and I did this And then I actually dropped off from from school, you know, because I actually canceled my Masters because I didn’t see any more. Yeah, real value in doing it and it just tried to be I spent my time researching on Bitcoin and other things. So I got evermore deeper into the topic and that’s why I also Then, finally 2019 it was last year when all my friends told me you, you have to write a book on the topic. You know, it’s, you know, so much. And I mean, there’s already lots of literature in English, but not in German, or not that much. And that’s why I was convinced writing the book and yes, so that’s why I did it then. Exactly.
Rob McNealy
So what part of Switzerland do you live in?
Pascal Hügli-Ignore At Your Own Risk
In Zurich. Well, I mean, switch lenses so small, so I don’t live in the city, but I live close to the city. I mean, it’s 20 minutes and then I’m in the center of Zurich, but it’s still not civic anymore. So that shows you like kind of like the proportions of how small Our country is
Rob McNealy
very nice. I’ve been only been to Switzerland once, but I really, really liked it. And back in my past, I worked for a Swiss company for a few years. So kind of an endearing affinity for the Swiss culture. So you wrote a book about Bitcoin when you started researching Bitcoin Did you come at it from the standpoint that you thought you were suspicious of it? Or did you come at it from the point of view that you think it’s a good thing and you want it invested in it?
Pascal Hügli-Ignore At Your Own Risk
Well, I thought it was a good thing, but I didn’t want to invest you know, hey, it was like it was at university maybe because I studied economics you know, was really hit by all the the mainstream economic theory, you know, Keynesianism neoclassical ism, you know, and I found this very interesting, but I still always thought that can’t be the end of the line. You know, there must be more so, back in university I started researching the whole Austrian economics thing you know, that might be familiar with that, you know, because I also lived Indiana For quite some time and there, then I like met like some other people who really are still standing the tradition of all these, you know, real Austrians living from me says hi Eric and like many more that actually lived in Ghana and around Austria as well. So then I kind of familiarized myself with these topics, you know, found it very interesting because I never heard about that university. I also went up to my teacher one time and asked him Do you know who looked big for me? He says, isn’t he didn’t so I was kind of like, Okay, if he doesn’t know, there must be something to it, you know, so I started looking into it. So I already came from this very theoretical background studying Austrian economics because I just found it to be a more realistic way of approaching economics, you know, to see it as a social science, not that much of a of a science where you can get yourself a good job and earn a lot of money. It was literally like trying to understand the real world, you know, and And also the epistemological questions, philosophical questions that these guys really touched on. So I really liked it. And there I kind of then bumped into bitcoin. So for me, it was theoretical, really interesting. Like, then or was really interesting going down this route, but still it was more theoretical. I was like, wow, there’s something happening in the real world. And it really didn’t really came. I didn’t really come to my mind to start investing, you know, I only did this, like two years later, so I got to know Bitcoin back in 2014 and then only invested like, after two years of more research, maybe 2016. So yeah, but it was still okay. Yeah. And then I didn’t have any money anyways, you know,
Rob McNealy
What about now?
Pascal Hügli-Ignore At Your Own Risk
Yeah, I still like mean, yeah, still interested. And, but I mean, I’m not one of these really crypto builders. Aires I have some friends in Switzerland because actually, you might have heard of it the krypto Valley, it’s a space where we kind of we framed it, it’s around Zurich and Zurich, you know, like in, in opposition to Silicon Valley, if you will. And that’s it’s well known actually for being the krypto Valley. And there we have like lots of friends even which are younger or that are my age that actually are really well off now, because they just had some money invested even earlier. And I’m around these people. So it’s kind of cool. But still, I myself I always, yeah, I mean, I I have it with Ludwig von Mises, actually, one time said, or like his wife, he called his wife confronted him and was like, well, you study money so closely, but you probably won’t ever have that much money. And it’s probably the same with me. You know, I’m just too interested in all the theoretical stuff. I forget everything around me and then I don’t even invest but
Rob McNealy
Yeah, sure. Well, in your book, you talked a little bit about how we left the Industrial Revolution. But yet our money is still kind of in the industrial revolution. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Pascal Hügli-Ignore At Your Own Risk
Yeah, sure. I mean, yeah, when I started, like writing the book, or even like really like trying to understand Bitcoin I saw that it’s all about money as well. You know, as with Austrian economics, man watch is about money. And at university I never really studied money because it’s to me money as well as a social phenomenon. So it doesn’t really have to do anything or like also like normal, like mainstream economic economists, they don’t really look at that, you know, because they say everything needs to be in equilibrium. And we’re so many times we’re not there, but the economic or like economies strives towards the equilibrium. So something that’s really a phenomenon that’s that is emerging And that might be out of equilibrium is not something worth to be studied. So that’s why at university you never really studied it, you know? And with Bitcoin I found it really interesting that it not only before, if you want to understand and if you want to understand what money is you have to go into psycho psychology, you know, you have to go into history, you have to go in all these other goal and go down all these other routes, you know, and that’s what I did. And then, especially history was something very interesting for me, you know, where I actually found Well, you can maybe say that you’re you. That’s what my view is, you can try to say that our world is kind of can be divided up into these arrows, you know, and then I kind of found that there might be an era called the Industrial Revolution, you know, or industrial era that started back in the 19th century, going out of Holland and then especially Britain, you know, wherever grew ever bigger. And that’s where also like society as we know it today maybe started to scale up, you know, because we had all these big banks, you know, that started to finance industry and then like railways came along and all these things. And finally, also then European people went over to the United States and built up the same big Empire over there, you know, but there we are, really was the beginning of bigger institutions of corporations. You know, the joint stock Corporation, as you can, might be able to call it and all these institutions we have now also the state maybe then started to really grow and take over more responsibilities. So we’ve all these institutions, and I would argue we are still in this age, you know, that’s what I figured out with the book. And that’s what I tried to write. But now with with the internet that’s been emerging in the last 20 to 30 years, there’s been a new force that’s coming up you know, that can be kind of or can be seen in somehow in in line with This whole thing because like normal economies to state, you know, and like corporations, they also use the internet. But there’s a whole new world that seems to be kind of in juxtaposition to that, you know, and Bitcoin is a new iteration of that, you know, that’s also pushing in another direction, if you will, you know, and that’s what I found really interesting that we might see new institutions enabled through the internet emerge that could be really saw institutions that challenge our older institutions that I would call the industrial age institutions. And as I said, the internet and Bitcoin and maybe blockchain as a institutional technology could really do a lot of in the future, you know, when it comes to changing how our society works, and that’s what I kind of try to expand in the book as well.
Rob McNealy
So how did that so how do you envision the future look as far as money goes, What does The future of money.
Pascal Hügli-Ignore At Your Own Risk
Yeah, the future of money? Well, I would say I mean, there’s so much because again, as I said, money is a social phenomenon. So there’s probably not this one money will be like the thing dominating in the future, you know, but also due to this Industrial Age, or we could call it you know, we had paper money emerge, you know, national stage currencies emerge, and they used to be tied to gold, you know, as we know, because otherwise, states probably couldn’t have really like bootstrap these state national currencies, you know, but as we also know, 1971, like the gold window was closed, like, permanently. And, yeah, I mean, we have these monies, they’re still really prevalent today. But I think with Bitcoin, I mean, we really see that there’s been a new competitor out on the field, you know, and that’s what I find find really interesting, you know, because when when gold was delivered From from the state currencies you actually had like gold competing against national currencies. But gold is money might not be a really good medium of exchange, but it’s still economic economically speaking money. So we always had like, gold competing against national currencies. We always saw it when les crisises were happening or when people didn’t even trust their government anymore people, they would buy up money like gold and silver, you know, and now with Bitcoin, you have a new kid on the block, if you will, you know, that could be a potential competitor, and then also maybe crypto assets in general, you know, that might be spawned out of this whole new phenomenon that Bitcoin actually lived in. So we don’t really know where we’re going there, you know, but in my book, I especially concentrated on Bitcoin, you know, because it’s just the first thing that’s here and that at the moment is also the most prevalent one, you know, but then I think you have this competition, you know, in the future, and I think Think Bitcoin will gain ever more in popularity also because of things that we’re in maybe right now even though when you look at the price in the last two weeks Bitcoin also went down so the people came along and said Bitcoin is no safe haven and you can forget about it again but I mean, I don’t have this really like short timeframe, I look into the future and I say well, this whole crisis that might be upon us now you know, could also bring like markets down we talked about it before you know, it could bring supply chains down and all these things so it will bring the system down and people might then go down the Bitcoin rabbit hole and I’m really excited for also curious how many people will be pushed because of that towards Bitcoin and then they will also go down the rabbit hole. It might not be that many people after all, because the system maybe is going to, you know, somehow stabilize itself again, but I think many others Like a couple of people will try to contemplate things and then maybe adopt Bitcoin for themselves, you know, and the more people will do it, the more interesting it will become. Because Bitcoin I see is really a competitor to national state currencies, not only when it comes to medium of exchange and all these things that we’re still not really in the know where Bitcoin will actually take us but also when it comes to store of value and just have money that’s uncomfy scalable, you know, that you yourself can own that you can as a crypto asset with Bitcoin, you can what I call in the book also you can do crypto secession, you you can crypto succeed, you know if your money. So I find this a very interesting idea, actually.
Rob McNealy
Do you think that crypto currencies will actually undermine the sovereignties of governments in the future?
Pascal Hügli-Ignore At Your Own Risk
Yeah, it’s also very interesting question. I mean when you look at the whole history and how it was designed it’s probably it was designed as an alternative to our day to day system you know, and it was designed the way that you can really get a hold of it and you control it yourself you know you don’t have to put it into an institution again where the institution has the keys and you don’t really own the thing you know with Bitcoin as we always hear you can be your own bank you can be your own bank CEO if you will, because you are in control of the keys and nobody can take it from you even or executor like unless it holds a gun to your head and then he can always force you know, but I mean and states can obviously do this because they have the force the monopoly on force. So there I don’t really know how things are actually really going to develop you know, I would expect that with Bitcoin gaining traction, you know, with the money, like the the old industrial money system, showing everybody cracks you know, and we’re seeing some of it happening right now again with the Khurana thing you know that it might be Corona is really bad thing but it might also be the thing that really pops the, the the bubble, you know, which was like built up way before Corona because the system itself was just really brittle because of like institutionalized money creation, you know, banks that can create money out of thin air central banks that have bloated their like balance sheets and everything always to also, like fight the last recession we had in 2008. And it wasn’t really like a lasting sustainable fight against the recession. He was just papering over old old cracks you know, with with new money and that’s not the goal, you know. So there I think the more our old system will show all these cracks, you know, and those really let people down and fail people, these people then we’ll we’ll we’ll probably move towards something else. And I think I’m not really sure how many people that that will be, you know, will it be a critical mass that he can actually really challenge the money monopoly of the state in its home? Or will it always be a little fringe movement that just takes their own individual sovereignty, which is already something very cool because nowadays, if you run a full node, if you have your own Bitcoin, you can be your individual sovereign, you know, but as a whole, because only a couple of people do this, it might not really challenge the state after all, and I don’t really know which route we’re actually going down, you know, I see that more individuality is happening. I have friends that come up to me, but oftentimes, it’s just because they want to Make Money With Bitcoin, you know, and they’re in to sell it afterwards again, for dollars for Swiss francs for state national currencies. So you see, they’re not really here to challenge the system, you know, so and I mean, Bitcoin as a tool is only as good as We people really use it, you know, if we just use it as a tool to make more national currencies in the end, we’re not really challenging it. But I mean, there is a possibility that people could really long term stay with Bitcoin and stick with Bitcoin because the old system is just letting them down, you know, also speaking of potential pensions crisis in Europe, you know, like, like the population that’s aging ever more, and then all these cracks that the state is kind of try is kind of trying to fight now. And I don’t know how long he can still put up a good fight, and maybe he can’t and that’s what I’m also trying to explore in the book, you know, but I’m really I don’t have a definite answer. Probably nobody has but yeah, we’ll see how it’s all gonna unravel.
Rob McNealy
And as it unravels, which I think you talk a little bit about in your book is what happens or how is the state going to react when it feels threatened by cryptocurrencies,
Pascal Hügli-Ignore At Your Own Risk
huh. Yeah, I mean, we’ve already seen states react against it maybe now not so hostile hostile yet, you know, because they think it’s still this fringe phenomenon that you don’t have to you don’t have to take care of. And well, I think probably, that will be going on like this, like on a global scale a little longer, until maybe crypto is really a force to be reckoned with. And then they will probably try to crack down even harder. But but by die by, by this time, it might already be too late. So, from a crypto perspective or a Bitcoin perspective, you would have to hope that it would be too late, you know, but then at the same time, so I can imagine many people you also see it in states that are called failed governments, you know, Ecuador, Venezuela, all these countries. There you can already see that. I mean, they’re cracking down on things. Sometimes. Even they don’t do it. You know, because many Well, I was told by a friend, even the government tried to like, use use cryptocurrencies, you know, start mining cryptocurrency because they found it to be something interesting they can profit themselves from also when you think that other countries like the US and bigger countries, you know, are trying to sanction states like North Korea and other roof states, you know, and they could have an interest in adopting even though they are themselves challenged by crypto, you know, so you have these really paradoxical situations, you know, where you also I can’t imagine that like world governments could come along and shut it down, you know, because we don’t have a world government. And I don’t think in our geopolitical situation today, all the states would magically gather up together and would unified or have a unified or Woods be a unified force to shut crypto down you know, and as long as you don’t have that I mean Bitcoin and all these crypto assets they are decentralized they can be spawned up somebody somewhere else in the country when they are shut down at some place you know, it’s really hard to kill him you know I got a got an example as time told where people are like they compared Bitcoin and all these currencies to starfish, you know, and I didn’t know that when you cut off a starfish leg, you know, like a new one immediately like grows again and I think it’s really good analogy to say that’s exactly how these crypto things work you know, so I think states will react like hostile and and some will do it some will try it. Some will see it as a benefit also maybe like so far the state of Switzerland, you know, where I think like regulators, they’re really open. You can also talk to them, we do it on a regular basis, you know, that they and they seem to be very open to it. And there’s not going to be like a unified force against these kryptos, at least, so far, I wouldn’t tell and I don’t think they can pull it off because they can’t even combat climate change, if you will. So they won’t be able to come back to crypto as well. So, yeah.
Rob McNealy
So, um, how do you see crypto is empowering individuals?
Pascal Hügli-Ignore At Your Own Risk
Yeah, I mean, as I already said, I find it very interesting thing, you know, that. I mean, there’s so many ways it can empower you, you know, you can, like I have a practical example from my book, you know, we had a person that was proofreading our English book, you know, and I also had a designer that was before the book as well, who did some covers for me, you know, out of Pakistan. So then I sent money to him, you know, I tried to send dollars to the guy in Pakistan and it didn’t work, you know, it just didn’t get there. You know. So then I chose, it was like, okay, Pakistan, it’s a country. I can imagine that things Don’t work because my Swiss banks or my Swiss bank actually don’t might not be liking to touch Pakistani things. So I was kind of okay and then I sent Bitcoin and that all works, you know, but I mean then I also wanted to pay our proofreader out of Canada and I mean Canada is a Western nation as well you know, I would compare it to Switzerland I don’t want to wouldn’t call it a shady state or something, you know, and even there we tried to use like the normal banking system and it didn’t work we paid it and afterwards money came back and it came less came back you know, like $50 was just gone You know, for something that didn’t work. So the customer experience was really bad. So we also opted for Bitcoin and there I saw, that’s really cool. You know, that then with Bitcoin at all, where it empowered me it empowered the proofreader we had, you know, that’s just a practical example of using it as a Like a means of payment and stuff, you know, but then I also find it really interesting to have a non sovereign store of value that I myself can own, you know, on my little hard drive a hard wallet, and nobody can take it from me, you know, especially now with stock markets going down. You know, in the last few days, you heard like stock markets closing or just being terminated for a couple of minutes, you know, you never know maybe they’re going to close stock markets down permanently or like for more than a few days, you know, and also with banks, maybe we already saw it in Greece and Cyprus, you know, where they actually rationed the money and you couldn’t take money off your bank, you know, and there you might be in a really tricky situation and again, you have crypto it empowers you, you might be able to still have it, whether you can use it to buy like bread at your, your Baker I don’t know yet if he’s aware of Bitcoin and if he would even take it But still, like, psychologically It just really helps me to know I have something on my key drive. I even have it maybe memorized you know, the the seed phrase, the words I have memorized it in my in my head, and nobody else knows that I have that money, you know, or that I have that crypto. And that’s something I really like personally because I think financial privacy is still something which is very important. And when I talked to a guy last week, we had a course when I talked to a person who deals with regulation, financial regulation, AML know your customer and all the things and the things she told me it just clearly showed me like financial privacy is that you know, it’s it’s completely dead. And going into the future it will be it won’t get better, I think and Dave, I find it really important that at least we have something like Bitcoin and other kryptos which are maybe even more private You know, but that you yourself can old and that you yourself maybe can see for yourself that you have some financial privacy left. So that’s maybe a couple of ways I see it empowering them individually, you know?
Rob McNealy
So in all your research about Bitcoin, have you drawn any conclusions on why Bitcoin has not been adopted yet?
Pascal Hügli-Ignore At Your Own Risk
Well, yeah, I mean, for one thing, I would argue maybe and it comes back to the point before maybe because I am not so sure whether Bitcoin will well, whether they will be really just hyper Bitcoin ization, and they will really, really challenge the state in a significant way. Maybe Bitcoin wasn’t really made for mass adoption. You know, maybe it was always made for a couple of people who really have problem with the government who maybe have problem that everyone is trying to spy on them. who are maybe some type of people, you know, maybe these so called libertarians, you know, I myself have like, a great sympathy for this way of thinking. So maybe it was made for these kind of people, you know, and this is why at the moment our world I mean, when I talk to my mom and to my friends, especially here in Switzerland, also everything runs smoothly, you know, and they don’t need that, you know, because they say, yeah, the state might be texting me and and things might become more expensive, but still, I can go on vacation. I have enough money all this good, you know, what are you complaining about? You know, and I it might be, from their perspective a little bit too, too. Yeah. Thinking about things that are not so imminent, you know, paranoid, one could call it but still at the same time, I also try to explain these people, you know, you might be one day you might be happy and really Lucky that you have something like Bitcoin, you know, we never know, I just have to stay humble because I don’t know what’s going to be here in 10 years time, you know, maybe the world has completely changed. Maybe we’re leaving the industrial age and we’re leaving into a whole new age of techno panopticon where we all are controlled. We we don’t know, maybe we move into a state where we don’t need crypto either, you know, because it’s still a free and open world. I just don’t know. And I would say I have to own it out of humility. But many people don’t see that argument yet. You know, and also it doesn’t really yeah, it doesn’t resonate with these people, you know, because they don’t, yeah, they have their job all this fine, and they don’t need it. But maybe again, you know, we had it back in 2018. When when we saw this crisis, or this financial repression, you know, with the problem that emerged out of the US, I mean, there many people suddenly started asking questions, you know, and they many of my friends then back then also discovered Austrian economics, you know, back then Bitcoin wasn’t there yet. So they discovered the theoretical thing. They were asking a couple of questions. Some of them read a book, but then took two to three years later, everything was fine again, and nobody knew again now back then I read a book by Mrs. But now Who is he? So there you also saw kind of people actually got they have had a lot of questions when things were imminent. But then when things all were good again, they didn’t ask the questions anymore. And that’s also something maybe with with with a new crisis happening, which states really letting them down because the pension systems doesn’t really work anymore. Also with millennials who are asking themselves the question, will I be able to buy myself a good house over here because in Switzerland, especially housing prices are Huge, you know, maybe in other cities in the US, it’s the same, you know, but in Switzerland, like really especially, I mean, and and many of the millennials seeing Bitcoin also as a revenge, you know, against the boomers and that’s maybe why they will stick to Bitcoin. So it’s just gonna be these, you know, these faiths this these individual faiths that will determine whether Bitcoin will be adopted more and more. And I when I look forward, I see some more potential that Bitcoin will be more adopted. But right now so far, there weren’t really these these reasons, you know, and that’s maybe why it wasn’t really mass adopted yet, you know,
Rob McNealy
I think it makes sense. Pascal. Where can people find out more about you and where can people get your book?
Pascal Hügli-Ignore At Your Own Risk
Well, the book itself is available on Amazon. Yeah, you can find it through Amazon. You can get it there. Yeah, it’s all about as I already said. Money. So we talked about aetherium. You know, the whole smart contract thing. You know, that might be interesting that I, myself are also a little skeptical on, but it was I thought it’s worth exploring and really see where we might be going with this maybe even in a more long term view. And then yeah, I mean, you can find me on Twitter, you know, my Twitter handle is ke H, you eg pa hc. And that’s where I will be at and I love to talk to people. So yeah, sure, hit me up would be great.
Rob McNealy
Thank you so much past cold. I appreciate you coming on the show today, folks. I will have all his information linked up at Rob McNealy calm and make sure you take care yourself out there. Thank you.
Pascal Hügli-Ignore At Your Own Risk
Thank you, man. Bye You too. Bye, guys.
Rob McNealy
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