Ray Dalio: Bitcoin | AI Podcast Clips
00:00:00.000 | So much is being digitized today and there's this ideas that are based on the blockchain
00:00:08.640 | of Bitcoin and so on.
00:00:11.260 | So if all currencies, like all empires, come to an end, what do you think will, do you
00:00:18.080 | think something like Bitcoin might emerge as a common store of value, a store of wealth
00:00:23.940 | and a medium of exchange?
00:00:26.440 | The problem with Bitcoin is that it's not an effective medium of exchange.
00:00:33.580 | Like it's not easy for me to go in there and buy things with it.
00:00:37.940 | And then it's not an effective storehold of value because it has a volatility that's based
00:00:43.540 | on speculation and the like.
00:00:45.300 | So it's not a very effective saving.
00:00:48.820 | That's very different from Facebook's of a stable value currency, which would be effective
00:00:55.300 | as both a medium of exchange and a storehold of wealth.
00:00:59.980 | Because if you were to hold it and the way it's linked to, number of things that it's
00:01:04.520 | linked to, would mean that it could be a very effective storehold of wealth.
00:01:09.500 | Then you have a digital currency that could be a very effective medium of exchange and
00:01:13.660 | storehold of wealth.
00:01:15.460 | So in my opinion, some digital currencies are likely to succeed more or less based on
00:01:21.980 | that ability to do it.
00:01:23.940 | Then the question is, what happens?
00:01:27.060 | What happens is, do central banks allow that to happen?
00:01:31.180 | I really do believe it's possible to get a better form of money that central banks don't
00:01:36.900 | control.
00:01:37.900 | A better force of money that the central banks don't control.
00:01:43.300 | But then that's not yet happened.
00:01:46.700 | And so they've got to go through that evolutionary process.
00:01:52.100 | In order to go through that evolutionary process, first of all, governments have got to allow
00:01:56.260 | that to happen, which is to some extent a threat to them in terms of their power.
00:02:02.060 | And that's an issue.
00:02:03.700 | And then you have to also build the confidence in all of the components of it to say, "Okay,
00:02:10.780 | that's going to be effective because I won't have problems owning it."
00:02:17.260 | So I think that digital currencies have some element of potential, but there's a lot of
00:02:25.700 | hurdles that are going to have to be gotten over.
00:02:28.460 | I think that it'll be a very long time, possibly never, but anyway, a very long time before
00:02:35.060 | we have that, let's say, get into a position that would be in an effective means relative
00:02:42.180 | to gold, let's say.
00:02:43.800 | If you were to think of that, because gold has a track record of thousands of years all
00:02:50.260 | across countries.
00:02:51.980 | It has its mobility.
00:02:53.420 | It has the ability to put it down.
00:02:55.060 | It has certain abilities.
00:02:56.060 | It's got disadvantages relative to digital currencies, but central banks will hold it.
00:03:02.780 | Like there's central banks that worry about others.
00:03:07.180 | Other countries, central banks might worry about whether the US dollar is going to print
00:03:10.620 | or not and that, and so the thing they're going to go to is not going to be the digital
00:03:15.140 | currency.
00:03:16.140 | The thing they're going to go to is gold or something else, some other currency.
00:03:20.180 | They got to pick it, and so I think it's a long way to go.
00:03:23.540 | But you think it's possible that one day we don't even have a central bank because of
00:03:28.380 | a currency that cannot be controlled by the central bank is the primary currency?
00:03:37.620 | Or does that seem very unlikely?
00:03:41.580 | It would be very remote possibility or very long in the future.
00:03:49.220 | Got it.
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