Gary Vee: If You’re Cynical About Bitcoin, You’re Not Seeing the Chess Moves to How Society Will Evolve
People used to trade berries for sheep.
Source — CC0 Image
Gary Vaynerchuk is an internet personality who bleeds entrepreneurship and business.
The Belarusian immigrant moved to America when he was four and lived with eight family members in a studio apartment, splitting toilet paper to save money.
Vaynerchuk, or Gary Vee as he is affectionately known, was born to be an entrepreneur, successfully running a lemonade stand franchise when he was seven.
In his early teens, he’d earn $4000 a week selling baseball cards.
His success as a serial entrepreneur is undeniable, founding multiple companies valued in the Hundreds of Millions of Dollars.
What gives him his allure, though, are his simple explanations of complex topics, which include very clever references to history, a subject he says was the only thing he did well at in school.
Vaynerchuk’s recent comments on Bitcoin, when interviewed on CoinDesk, are unbelievably insightful.
You should know that CoinDesk is a news site specialising in Bitcoin. Vaynerchuk, by his admission, does deep research on people who interview him.
He’s not one to shun himself from an audience, so he wasn’t likely to say anything significantly negative to the pro-Bitcoin interviewers and their audience.
His views on digital currency are very insightful, and as usual, so are his historical references.
CoinDesk: Question — “Bitcoin has a marketing problem. Gary, what would be your best elevator pitch for people who don’t get Bitcoin yet?”
Gary Vaynerchuck — Source
“If I were selling Bitcoin, I would speak about history, why Gold became popular, why fiat happened, and what the human psychology is to accepting things.
I would speak about things that could happen, like what if Amazon accepts Bitcoin and what if countries invest aggressively in Bitcoin.
There are a lot of logical steps to continue the affirmation and confirmation of the currency, and I think history has proven that”.
Vaynerchuk uses history and why Gold was in the ground at one point, and it wasn’t part of our store of value framework.
He also reiterates that history doesn’t always repeat itself but does rhyme.
Gary Vaynerchuck — Source
“I would use history and the domino effect that could change the outcome for people cynical about Bitcoin.
If you’re Cynical about Bitcoin, you need to see the chess moves to how Society will evolve”.
Why Did Gold Become Popular?
Gold is a social construct we’ve subjectively put a value on for thousands of years. We all agree on its value and believe it will have value in the future.
Its origins are unknown.
Humanity has always thought of Gold as an object of value, even before the invention of currency.
Monarchs, pirates, and merchants always sought the next gold score through robbery, heavy taxes, or colonising entire continents.
Even though some minerals today are more valuable than Gold, nothing beats its versatility, prestige, and aesthetic value.
In recent years the Gold Standard assured people the value of their money did not rely on their country’s ability to pay debts.
Your country’s international financial status came down to its capacity to produce Gold. Now we print more money and add it to their national debt bill.
Interestingly Gold has value traits that are eerily similar to Bitcoin, but in many people’s subjective views, Bitcoin is a better store of value.
Here is Gold’s perceived value proposition.
Rarity
Subjective Beauty
Non-Corrosive Property
Fungibility, it’s easy to break down, melt or consolidate.
Gold and Bitcoin can increase in value, so this isn’t choosing one. However, Bitcoin challenges Gold’s value proposition above.
Let’s dive into why.
Rarity: There are claims that Gold is rare, but its actual supply can not be accurately known, while Bitcoin has a fixed supply of 21 Million Bitcoins.
Non-Corrosive Property: While Gold is not corrosive, it must still be stored somewhere safe. Bitcoin is backed by thousands of decentralised computers worldwide, making it indestructible, barring the internet shutting down.
Fungibility: Bitcoin is infinitely divisible and doesn’t require the labour of melting or shrinking a physical asset. Gold has this problem.
Transportability: While Gold is transportable, its portability is far from the capability of Bitcoin. You can send billions of dollars worth of Bitcoin across borders in seconds, while you’re unlikely to do the same with Gold.
Here’s How Society Will Evolve with Bitcoin
Gary Vaynerchuck thinks citizens have adopted Bitcoin as a currency, but governments have reacted slowly.
He believes Bitcoin has already happened, but the ball is very much on the regulators’ side of the court.
Gary Vaynerchuck — Source
“Bitcoin is much further along than most things that have come before it as an accepted currency.
I do not get to say, nor do most humans get to say, what should and should not be accepted as value.
If enough people believe in it, then it becomes.
I always remind folks that some people lived in the world before Gold meant anything.
We don’t have excellent documentation, but Gold was a created echo system.
In that case, should Gold be accepted?”
Vaynerchuck believes this isn’t a game of whether we should consider Bitcoin a store of value. It’s a game of looking back at history and seeing how we’ve adopted things to indicate what we can expect in the future.
Gary Vaynerchuck — Source
“Humans create their echo systems.
People used to trade Berries for Sheep. People used to sell fur for people. People used to trade high-end wine for workers to build things.
I laugh at people’s naivete to what is happening today or what we grew up with is the end all be all.
It’s laughable.
The human race will continue to evolve. It makes more sense as we become more digital that things become the currency”.
Vaynerchuck is bullish on Bitcoin and its price potential, but he does have some warnings that are out of your control.
He believes the government aren’t going to stand idle while a new asset class develops under their noses.
Gary Vaynerchuck — Source
“There is no middle ground for Bitcoin; it’s so advanced that unless you have government involvement, it’ll continue to increase in adoption.
If you have massive government regulations, if Russia, America, and Europe said — “citizens of our country, you are not allowed to hold this” (Bitcoin).
You’ve got a whole other bag of issues. Who knows what comes out of that? There isn’t a middle ground for a long time.
You’ve got another decade max of potential middle ground in price. Either the price is going to space, or you will have unrest between citizens and sovereign nations.”
Vaynerchuck, an advocate for Non-fungible tokens, has launched his NFT project called Veefriends.
He believes Bitcoin doing well in Society lifts the rest of the digital ecosystem.
Gary Vaynerchuk — Source
“You have to understand if Bitcoin hits and leads to a currency of Society, that leads to a lot of other digital currencies and a lot of different variables to follow suit, and creates a real digital finance economy.”
Final Thoughts.
Gary Vaynerchuck’s ability to predict the future by studying human behaviour is something he did as a child.
He’d often watch people in cars drive past his house and observe where they looked, and it’s precisely where he placed his sign for the lemonade stand.
This weird trait as a seven-year-old helped him become a successful early investor in Twitter, Facebook, Uber, Coinbase and many other successful companies.
Predominantly at a time when we all thought those technologies were silly or couldn’t understand their value.
I take note of his views, and I entirely agree that there is enormous naivete if we believe that what we have now is the “be-all and end-all”.
As we immerse ourselves more in the digital space, it makes sense that there’s more to come from Bitcoin.