Cointelegraph Markets spoke with Wall Street veteran and host of the Keiser Report, Max Keiser, who explains the increasingly important role of Bitcoin in geopolitics amid potential “hash wars” and why he believes Paul Tudor Jones will become the biggest holder of BTC within two years.
Your 200K+ follower Twitter account @maxkeiser went silent for a few months. What happened?
Max Keiser: It was a software bug that froze the account for nine months. I believe it was a database contention problem. My friends at SwanBitcoin took on the challenge and sorted it out. I also sent two-dozen roses and a box of chocolates to Twitter HQ in SF, but I’m not sure that had any impact.
The United States’ national debt is now over 26 trillion. Is there a certain level at which the U.S. can default?
Max Keiser: The debt is big. But the interest on that debt is now bigger than America’s number-one budget item, the military’s 1.6 trillion spend. When the interest on the debt gets close to 100% of GDP then America will officially be a failed state. This looks like it will be the case within 5 years — as short interest rates snap back to historic levels of 5%, not the current 1/2%
Post-halving, Bitcoin’s inflation rate is now less than 2% akin to gold or the Fed’s inflation target. Is this do or die for Bitcoin now as a store-of-value?
Max Keiser: Let’s be clear, Bitcoin exhibits quantum mechanical characteristics pertaining to outcomes changing depending on observation. Per the Heisenberg Principle, the observer’s act of observing changes outcomes.
In Bitcoin’s case, it’s Bitcoin that’s observing us. As I’ve argued before, starting at around block 300,000, I started noticing that Bitcoin was becoming self-aware. This has grown exponentially to a state of meta-awareness and so instead of asking is it time for Bitcoin to prove itself we should be asking ourselves, what do we have to do as a species to prove we are worthy of Bitcoin. This is why my Bitcoin VC fund is called Heisenberg Capital. As an aside, it’s outperformed every fund globally since inception in 2013 to today.
Will U.S.-China tensions and other geopolitical risks continue to put pressure on risk-on assets, and possibly affect Bitcoin?
Max Keiser: China, America, Russia and Iran will enter a Hash War to try and grab as much Bitcoin as possible. Iran is already mining Bitcoin. I believe they have 3% of the hash rate. This is another “Sputnik moment” where America has to decide if they want to win the Hash War or get relegated to the dustbin of history. Continue Reading
A Bitcoiner since 2017 and a Bitcoin Maximalist since 2018, Tommy is our main writer and editor at Bitcoin Maximalist. Other than researching and writing about Bitcoin, Tommy loves spending time with his family and supporting his beloved Leeds United.
