Ricardo Salinas’ Bitcoin Masterclass, Pt 3: Understand Both – w/ Keiser & Herbert

Welcome to the last installment of Ricardo Salinas’ Bitcoin Masterclass. The billionaire and his two hosts already discussed the fiat fraud and sound money, but they have yet to bring it all together so you can “understand both.” In this episode, it all comes full circle. Keiser and Herbert get Ricardo Salinas to share some things about his stock portfolio and his bitcoin allocation, but we skipped all that to focus on his take on bitcoin and the current system.

It all comes full circle at the end, after the conversation there’s a musical montage that shows us footage of everything that happened in our first post about Salinas’ visit to El Salvador. We see the ambassador to the United States, Milena Mayorga, receive the billionaire. We see the trio and Samson Mow visit the volcano where El Salvador is bitcoin mining. We see all of them having dinner with Binance’s CZ. And we see images of Ricardo Salinas and his son meeting President Bukele.

Anyway, let’s get to the bitcoin content. 

Bitcoin Is Creating The Chaos

Today’s session starts with a treat. Max Keiser answers what we deemed “the best questions of the whole conference” Bitcoin 2022. That is: “Is Bitcoin causing the chaos in the world, or reacting to the chaos?” What does Keiser thinks about his own question? He told Salinas and us:

“To me it seems like Bitcoin isn’t reacting to the chaos, but bitcoin is causing the chaos. Because, bitcoin changes people (…) It’s a mirror where, if you’re a person with decency in your heart, you become more decent, and you think about doing other benevolent things. If you’re a person who’s got a heart that’s not well , and you are envious. It makes you more envious, it makes you worse”.

Not to be outshined, Ricardo Salinas shoots a dire prediction regarding the traditional market for the next few years:

“What’s happening to the fiat world is a disgrace. Now, people that are expecting a pension are going to be defrauded of their pension. People that have saved money for their retirement, they’re not going to have the money because it’s not going to be there. It’s going to evaporate.”

BTC price chart for 05/10/2022 on Cexio | Source: BTC/USD on TradingView.com

Ricardo Salinas On Presiden Bukele

“He’s obviously a very sharp guy, he’s young, and he’s done these extraordinary things. So, I need to have a better sense of the person. Because, whatever he says or does on media, it’s not the same person,” Salinas said about El Salvador’s president. The two would meet one or two days later. Salinas elaborated:

“I want to understand what he wants to do and how he plans to do it. I want to hear it from him. But obviously his capacity to do things differently is evident (…) And you know this thing of having Bitcoin being legal tender in El Salvador, that changes things completely, because now it’s not just an asset, now it’s real money. At least in that jurisdiction.”

Ricardo Salinas And The Problem With Democracy

In an extremely optimistic moment, Max Keiser describes the current situation. “It seems to me that there’s an epic battle between fiat money, evil, and Bitcoin money, which is the best soundest money ever, it’s good. It’s good versus evil”. Ricardo Salinas is not so sure, because today’s system is backed by democracy. “This evil of fiat money fraud is being sustained by a democratic process, and it’s being voted into power every day,” Says Salinas convincingly.  “That’s the problem with democracy, (…) majority rule is no fun”.

La última foto del día, acompañado de puro personaje @Excellion, @cz_binance y mi hijo Hugo Salinas… también les dejo una de una hermosa vista acá en El Salvador.

Ahora si a descansar pic.twitter.com/OK2svSdakP

— Ricardo Salinas Pliego (@RicardoBSalinas) March 25, 2022

When questioned about “The Bitcoin Standard,” the book we’re reading in the Bitcoinist Book Club, Salinas declares it to be totally spot on about the Austrian School of Economics perspective over the Keynesian one. “I think the historical perspective is especially valuable. (…) This is a must-read not only to understand Bitcoin, but to understand the fiat fraud, because you have to understand both,” Salinas also claims.

When questioned about Peter Shiff and his father, gold bugs until the end, Salinas is still respectful of the previous king. “Having gold is not a bad idea, having everything in gold is a bad asset allocation. Speaking trash about bitcoin is a bad idea.” And by that, he means that if Shiff focused on promoting gold and not on criticizing bitcoin, he wouldn’t be making a fool of himself.

And that’s about it. How much did we learn from Ricardo Salinas?

Featured Image: Ricardo Salinas, screenshot from the video | Charts by TradingView