Something's Going Seriously Wrong in Bitcoin (Or is it?) | Eric Yakes | BFM229
View Transcript
Episode Description
Eric Yakes runs Epoch Ventures and is the author of The 7th Property: Bitcoin and the Monetary Revolution.
PARTNERS
🌳 Gain peace of mind with Onramp’s Multi-Institution Custody solution. Sign up with code BRAM to receive $150 in Bitcoin after your first deposit: https://onrampbitcoin.com/bram
🟧 Buy Bitcoin in the EU 🇪🇺 via https://relai.me/bram - Sign up with code BRAM to get 10% off your fees
PRODUCTS I ENDORSE
› Get 10% off a Bitaxe open-source Bitcoin home miner using code BRAM at https://shop.powermining.io/?ref=BRAM
› Blockstream Jade Plus: The simplest and most secure hardware wallet on the planet - Get 10% off with code BRAM at https://store.blockstream.com
› Stamp Seed: The safest way to backup your hardware wallet - Get 15% off with code BRAM at https://stampseed.com
🔔 SUBSCRIBE TO GET NOTIFIED
› https://youtube.com/@bramk
🕑 TIMESTAMPS
00:00 - Immutability as a Core Property of Money
01:19 - The Evolution of Money: From Private to Centralized
03:20 - Coinage, Coin Clipping, and Roman Debasement
05:11 - Banking Origins: Receipts and Fractional Reserves
07:14 - Central Banks, Paper Money, and the Telegraph Era
09:38 - The Fiat Era: Debt Expansion and Moral Hazard
11:19 - How Bitcoin Removes Monetary Tradeoffs
13:14 - Trust, Human Fallibility, and Objective Verification
16:58 - A Distributed Future: Bitcoin Meets AI
20:37 - Agency, Incentives, and Escaping Fiat Life Scripts
23:42 - Why Monetary Technology Adopts Slowly
25:51 - Adoption S-Curves: Store of Value Comes First
31:44 - Volatility, Institutions, and Capital Depth
38:02 - Volatility vs. Risk: Narratives Drive Markets
43:46 - Why Bitcoin Is Hard to Understand
47:58 - Banks, Credit, and Fractional Reserve on Bitcoin
57:32 - Hot Takes: Nasdaq Correlations and Crashes
01:00:16 - Quantum Computing and Bitcoin as a Protocol
01:04:22 - Fears and Hopes: Freedom Money and Mining
ℹ️ EPISODE SUMMARY
Bram Kanstein and Eric Yakes discuss why Bitcoin adds immutability as a new property of money. They trace how trust slid from coinage to banks to fiat, and why moral hazard keeps showing up. Yakes frames Bitcoin self-custody as lowering the cost of sovereignty, like holding value on a USB instead of in a vault. They confront volatility, institutions, and why narrative moves markets before fundamentals. They close on credit, fractional reserve incentives, quantum computing, and Bitcoin’s long game.
RELAI DISCLAIMERRelai sponsors this show/podcast and is authorized to provide crypto-asset services in Switzerland and across the European Union under the MiCA regulatory framework with its license issued by the French regulator, AMF (License No: A2025-006). The company is actively expanding its services to EU member states following the completion of passporting notifications.