Most conversations on Maxed Out lead Max closer — although sometimes only millimetres — to his guest's viewpoint. This discussion may have done the opposite.
Cryptocurrencies, especially Bitcoin, have captured the attention and imagination of investors all over the world, but it’s also put a lot of people on edge.
It’s volatile, fast-moving and not always easy to understand. However, some say there's still a place for crypto in your life.
“Bitcoin is the best vehicle to store your time, to move it into the future,” according to Adam O’Brien.
O’Brien is a Bitcoin enthusiast and the founder of Bitcoin Well, an Alberta-based publicly traded company.
“I've been buying Bitcoin every two weeks for like ten years. I'll never stop buying Bitcoin. I bought Bitcoin at eighty bucks. I bought Bitcoin for 80,000 bucks. I bought Bitcoin four days ago,” he tells Maxed Out host Max Fawcett.
Max and O’Brien hash over the legitimacy of Bitcoin and its value to people who mistrust the government.
O’Brien is quick to use the Ottawa occupation as an example of why people should buy Bitcoin.
“Regardless of where you sit on the political spectrum, at any point of democracy, the government can change… [If] you no longer like the person in charge, then that new person has full access to your money,” he says.
Max questions the need for cryptocurrency in politically stable economies like Canada. O’Brien warns of an apocalyptic future where Bitcoin will be the saviour.
“Do I want a collapse of the economy of the Canadian banking system of the Canadian dollar? No, a hundred percent… Am I trying to warn as many people as possible before it happens? A hundred percent. I think that this is inevitable,” O’Brien adds.
Listen to Episode 14, Bitcoin or Bust, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favourite listening app.
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- Zahra Khozema
- Producer
- @Zahra_Khozema
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Crypto is largely a scam.
Crypto is largely a scam. NFTs are absolutely, entirely a scam, and a moronic annoying one at that. Blockchain-based "currencies" are not workable as currencies. To be a currency, it has to be practical for person A to give person or small business B some of the stuff in return for what they want to buy. And it isn't practical, the fundamental nature of it is too dashed SLOW, that's why there's all these quasi-centralized "exchanges" where you store your bitcoin, effectively banks who know all the information about you and your money that bitcoin was supposed to let you not tell anyone, but unlike real banks there's no regulations slowing down their ability to use that information against you. So much for the privacy and decentralization of crypto.
The one purpose cryptocurrency serves that I think is worth anything is, it allows countries the United States is sanctioning for spurious reasons (eg Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua) to get around the sanctions a little bit. But that is necessary and helpful only so long as the United States controls nearly all international money transactions, via things like the SWIFT network. There are movements towards bypassing that control; once alternatives are in place, the crypto approach, which never worked very well, will be useless.
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