#593: MacKenzie Sigalos on Mainstream Media & Bitcoin

MacKenzie Sigalos is a technology reporter based out of CNBC's San Francisco bureau, with a focus on bitcoin, cybersecurity, financial technology, and gaming. In this conversation, we discuss reporting process, mainstream media bias, her personal bitcoin journey, bitcoin mining, new story ideas, and how bitcoiners can help. ======================= Remote makes it easy for companies of all sizes to employ global teams. We take care of international payroll, benefits, taxes, and local compliance, so you can focus on growing your business. Sign up for Remote today and receive 50% off your first employee for the first three months. Check out remote.com/pomp and enter promo code POMP to get started. ======================= Choice is a new self-directed IRA product that I'm really excited about. If you are listening to this, you are likely part of the 7.1 million bitcoin owners who have retirement accounts with dollars in them, but not bitcoin. I was in that situation too. Now you can actually buy real Bitcoin in your retirement account. I'm talking about owning your private keys and using tax-advantaged dollars to do it too. Absolute game changer. https://www.retirewithchoice.com/pomp =======================

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Anthony Pompliano?

  What's up everyone, this is Anthony Pompliano. Most of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to the Pomp Podcast, simply the best podcast out there. Now let's kick this thing off. Mackenzie Sigalos is a technology reporter based at a CNBC San Francisco Bureau with a focus on Bitcoin, cybersecurity, financial technology, and gaming. In this conversation, we discuss her reporting process, mainstream media bias, her personal Bitcoin journey, Bitcoin mining, news story ideas, and how Bitcoiners can help. I really enjoyed this conversation with Mackenzie, and I hope you do as well. Before we get into this episode though, I want to quickly talk about our sponsors. First up is Remote. When you use

• 0:42Anthony Pompliano?

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• 1:26Anthony Pompliano?

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• 2:53Anthony Pompliano?

  Either way, Choice is on a mission to give you full control over your retirement savings. So head on over to retirewithchoice.com/pomp. Again, that's retirewithchoice.com/pomp and sign up for an account today. And one more thing, you know how I feel about this, but if you have a pro that manages your money, don't take any of their BS. Choice has tools for them, too. Take back control today and visit retirewithchoice.com/pomp. All right, let's get this episode with Mackenzie. I hope you guys enjoy this one.

• 3:21Speaker 01

  Anthony Pompliano runs Pomp Investments. All views of him and the guests on his podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Pomp Investments. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp or his guests as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his personal opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only.

• 3:49Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, guys, bang, bang. I've got Mackenzie here. Thanks so much for doing this.

• 3:52Speaker 02

  Thanks for having me.

• 3:53Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, let's just jump in. Why is CNBC now putting you on the Bitcoin and cryptocurrency beat? Like, what is going on in the interest of kind of the media in terms of what's going on in this industry?

• 4:05Speaker 02

  I mean, for so long, the markets team has covered Bitcoin, and so it's been very focused on price moves and what's going on on that side of it. But I'm joining, I joined the tech team. So I cover business and tech, and that's my way into crypto. And it speaks to the fact that CNBC is interested not just in the price moves, but we're kind of getting into the weeds of what's going on. And like, to the credit of my editors, they care, and they will let me go deep on things that normally we wouldn't.

• 4:32Anthony Pompliano?

  So what's the difference between the markets team and the tech team, just for people to understand?

• 4:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, so the markets team is very much focused on like day of price moves, why things are happening. And then with the tech team, you know, Friday night, I was up till 1 a.m. writing a piece on Taproot. Now, usually that would be a hard sell, but I have editors that are very like plugged into what's going on. And Personally, I knew it was an important thing to write about. Did I think that it would really hit? No, but it was a number one story on CNBC.com this weekend.

• 4:59Anthony Pompliano?

  Really?

• 4:59Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I think that that speaks to the fact that like, we're, we're finding an audience we didn't even realize was there, uh, which has been fascinating. Same thing this week. I was writing about, uh, the mining migration out of China and where these miners are headed. Number one story on CNBC.com. And this is not a credit to me and my, my reporting or writing. It's a credit to the fact that our audience is really smart and they really care about things beyond like, oh, there was this percentage drop today.

• 5:25Anthony Pompliano?

  Mm hmm. And so it feels like, uh, maybe there's becoming more sophisticated, like more macro analysis of actual Bitcoin, the market, the underlying fundamentals and some of the players in the market, rather than just price. Is that kind of a fair way to look at it?

• 5:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 5:39Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. Why do they pick you? Like, what is your, uh, journey with Bitcoin? Or kind of like, why are you interested in this? Or why were they interested in you covering it?

• 5:47Speaker 02

  Yeah. So I have, uh, it's spent five years with CNBC. Before that, I was with CNN in Hong Kong and New York. In terms of my journey with crypto, it started when I was in Hong Kong, actually. So it was right around the time of the Mt. Gox hack. And so at dinner, talking to people about what happened and people didn't really have a lot of skin in the game. So it wasn't that they felt like such a huge loss, but it just was this talking point. And then a couple of years ago, I spoke to a lot of miners in Venezuela who had turned to, you know, that practice just because of everything that was going on with the national currency. And, um, and so I started to get into it from that perspective. And then, I mean, between 2017 and 2020, it kind of dropped off our radar a bit. And, and then it, and then it came back to the forefront. I was reporting a lot on it in

• 6:31Speaker 02

  December. And this role opened up with the tech team. And, and, and it was kind of, is that what was kind of cool is that the job wasn't like a crypto reporter. The job was we want a tech reporter and we want somebody who has a vision for what this role could be. And I just, I think this world is fascinating. And I think there's so much to unpack and that's, that's kind of how I ended up in this chair.

• 6:50Anthony Pompliano?

  So let's walk through your process. So, um, maybe we'll start with like a Taproot type story, right? So for those that don't know, Taproot is a, uh, software upgrade, uh, for Bitcoin. Um, it can be quite technical. It can also have various viewpoints in terms of like, once this actually is accepted, what are the impact going to be to Bitcoin? What's the market going to react to it? And then there's also like a process type situation where what is the process from it being more proposed to actually being accepted and used? And so like, that's a lot of complexity. What do you do in writing that story to kind of gather the information? So people kind of understand like the work that goes into these actual articles?

• 7:29Speaker 02

  So what I have found is that so many members of the crypto community of like the, you know, Bitcoin believers specifically have been incredibly helpful and welcoming. And, and so my process is I want to speak to as many people as possible, those who like understand the mechanics of this, those who are trading it, people who are mining Bitcoin, people who know it from all angles, because I have so much to learn and I finally feel like I'm getting to the place where I know what I don't know. So that I at least know the players and the people that I need to speak to. So it's just like pounding the phones and like, I, that piece that I said that I finished Friday at 1 a.m. I was talking to somebody at midnight who was going through the final mechanics of it with me. I was having another conversation for another piece Sunday night.

• 8:09Speaker 02

  And that's, that's the big thing, just speaking to the practitioners who understand it best. And then from there, we try to take things that are very technical, because as you said, this upgrade that just locked is very technical, what's happening. And so trying to turn that into conversational language that translates to a mainstream audience is not an easy thing.

• 8:30Anthony Pompliano?

  It's the work of a wizard.

• 8:32Speaker 02

  No, I'd like, I still have so, I have so much that I need to do to get better at it. But that's, that's the second stage of the process, just like breaking it down and, and layman's terms and, and also making people care. Right? Like, so this is not just something that's the Bitcoin community is interested in. Like this is something that it can be hugely impactful and we can talk about the reasons why or not. But, but yeah, that's, that's what I typically do.

• 8:54Anthony Pompliano?

  And so let's say you go and you talk to a bunch of market participants and it's taproot, right? And you're like, hey, what is this? Why is it important? How does it work? What's the process? What do you think the potential impact's going to be? All that kind of stuff. You gather all this information. I'm assuming you go and you actually like put together a draft of what you want to write. And then what's the process from like your work? Through the editing process till it actually gets published, right? How much of that is reliant on like the work that you've done versus there's editors or other folks at CNBC that are into Bitcoin or interested in it or whatever? And like, what do they do with the work before it actually gets published?

• 9:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I have an editor who I file my story to, and he's wonderful. Like, as I was saying earlier, he's the kind of person who is gonna walk the path with me. If I say that we need to go and file the story on Taproot, this upgrade that not a lot of other people covered outside of the Bitcoin world, he hears me, and that's nice because I've, I mean, I've worked in newsrooms around the world, and that doesn't always happen. And then we saw that it worked, there was an audience for it, people were reading it. But the process is, I've bought, like, I give him my story, I file my story in journalistic speak, and

• 9:59Anthony Pompliano?

  That just means send it to him?

• 10:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:01Anthony Pompliano?

  Just making sure.

• 10:03Speaker 02

  And then he goes through, and he's, and he, he's skeptical of things, in a good way. Like, of any, he's not skeptical necessarily of the crypto world, but of everything that I write. And so he will kind of go back and forth with me. If there are things that don't quite resonate, or if I don't have enough, you know, on both sides of the argument, we get that in there. He makes language edits, and then we publish. Like, it's a pretty short timeline from, from when I file to when it actually is live on the site.

• 10:26Anthony Pompliano?

  And the kind of skeptical nature of it is more of like editing for language and concepts and things like that, or it's for like the validity of what the market participants, the market participants are saying. And my question really is more around, I think a lot of folks, there's been this like distrust of the mainstream media when they cover this, because mainly it's been price coverage, right? Which is, has kind of a specific slant. Two is, it's usually people who like, maybe they got assigned to do it, they're not really like into it, they're not interested, so naturally just the questions that get asked or the topics they cover definitely aren't Taproot, right? For example, like, it's like the more kind of surface stuff. And then the third thing is, there's been times where like people will like do an interview or whatever, and then the thing that gets published is like completely opposite, right?

• 11:10Anthony Pompliano?

  And it feels like right now, fingers crossed, right? Like, the process that you guys are implementing at CNBC is really trying to take like, hey, here's what the people on the ground are saying, whether they're right or wrong, this is what they're saying, and then, like you said, Bring it into more conversational language. And I think what's so fascinating is it's not being written for the Bitcoin community. It's being written for the everyday investor who reads CNBC dot com. And there's almost this like melding of worlds and you and this editor kind of sitting in the middle trying to like figure out like, how do you do that? Is that like a fair way to look at it?

• 11:41Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I think, I mean, you said it, there is this combative relationship between mainstream media and between the crypto community. And I hate that. And I want to understand why, you know, so many people think that the media in general is propagating FUD, because that's definitely not my intention. And so everything that I do, every story that I pitch, every time I'm writing something, that I want to, I want to battle that stereotype and make sure that like, it's not at all showing up in what I write and what I report. Not that I need to be a cheerleader for either side. I just like, want to give a very balanced take on what's going on. And so I'm trying to think of your original question. I kind of latched on to the mainstream media side of it.

• 12:21Anthony Pompliano?

  It's true though, right? I mean, in this sense, I think that it's a natural human reaction. If you get burnt once or twice, what do people do? They like circle the wagons, right? And they literally are like, we're ready for war. And like Bitcoiners are very well versed in the memeing and the attacking and like kind of all this stuff. But all of a sudden, in some crazy way, like El Salvador is a great example, when somebody says, hey, we see a world that you guys see, we actually have a philosophical alignment, or in your case, trying to take an unbiased approach, but saying like, I don't want to be combative. I actually want to be, I want to understand. I want to be able to kind of share the views that you guys have. It almost is like Bitcoiners

• 13:05Anthony Pompliano?

  think it behind it. It becomes a tailwind rather than like a headwind in some way.

• 13:08Speaker 02

  Yeah. I've just been shocked at the generosity of time and expertise. Like, people are tweeting me back, like, you know, at 2am, when I have a story due the next day, and they're weighing in with their thoughts. And these are people who I've sometimes I've never met before. Other people have been on the phone with, some who I've met at the Bitcoin conference. And that's, I mean, to have been able to source up this quickly, and to have people really be so welcoming and encouraging of And it's not to like, it's not to, you know, push their side of the argument necessarily. It's really just to help me get inside the mechanics of how these things work. I've appreciated that. And going back to something else you said, I was looking at this report and it was out. The research group, I think is called Clover and they were looking at mainstream media coverage of the crypto world from 2013 to 2018.

• 13:53Speaker 02

  And there are some like, I understand why, as you said, like some from the crypto community feel burnt, like one of the, you know, report, one of the things cited in the report is the fact that you saw this uptick in coverage always when there was a big sell off. And so, you know, that naturally kind of skews to negative coverage. I will say CNBC, like our ranking was balanced on the positive and negative coverage, which is great. And it's also a big part of why I'm there and doing this job with CNBC. But I get it. I get why there are hurt, not, not hurt feelings, but why there's skepticism of certain media outlets.

• 14:27Anthony Pompliano?

  What's the process for getting the other side? So like, as much as people want to say Bitcoin is amazing, it's inevitable, it's whatever, right? And I'm more bullish than most. You got to, in your role, talk to the people who completely disagree. And so what's the process in terms of getting like the bearish argument or the counterpoint to what kind of comes out of the Bitcoin community? Is it the same thing, just with different types of people?

• 14:51Speaker 02

  Exactly. Like I'm talking to a lot of people on Wall Street and, and, and while the mindset there is shifting with, you know, with several people, it isn't shifting. And so I just, I want to hear it from both sides. I want the best storytellers and argument makers to kind of debate it. And I, and I go back and forth. Like, so when I'm doing interviews, I don't do all from one side and then the other. It's like, I'm constantly ping ponging between the two so that I can put the best arguments from one side to the other side and vice versa, just so that I can fully get in it. And, and like I said, I have so much to learn still. I'm nowhere near where I need to be.

• 15:26Anthony Pompliano?

  That's what you'll learn in Bitcoin. Nobody knows. Nobody's done learning. Like, that's part of the beauty of it is the multidisciplinary like intersection, right? And so just nobody's done learning, which is exciting, but also like can feel overwhelming at times of like, oh my God, I still have so much to learn.

• 15:40Speaker 02

  And like every spare second, like I, because I like to go, I do distance running and I, I listen to podcasts, like obviously I listen to you Bitcoin audible, like Guy Swan has taught me much too, but like, I'm just in every spare minute that I have, I'm trying to take it in by osmosis.

• 15:55Anthony Pompliano?

  I'm laughing because you didn't mention the third best podcast in all of Bitcoin, which is Peter McCormick's What Bitcoin Did. You just didn't mention it. He must not be very good. I mean, Peter's a great guy. I like, I like Peter a lot, but listen, if you don't have a good podcast, you don't have a good podcast. Come on, catch up here a little bit. All right. Let's talk about Bitcoin mining. Love you, Peter. In terms of the mining story that you did, you really were focused on kind of China and the hash rate shifting out of China. So maybe walk through like, kind of what were some of the takeaways for you in that topic?

• 16:23Speaker 02

  So I was kind of informally talking to a lot of people when I was in Miami the first time around, and every single person kept bringing up this like drain of 50 to 60% of the hash rate out of China and how people weren't talking enough about it. And so then I just started to get in the weeds of it. And, and having lived in, I lived in Hong Kong for three years with CNN, spent a, you know, a lot of time going back and forth between Beijing and Hong Kong. And so I was personally interested for, for different reasons. And there, I mean, there are so many angles here. Like, yes, the destination side of it, like where are they going to go? And, and that's important to me, not just from the standpoint of what does this mean for the US and our mining infrastructure?

• 17:07Speaker 02

  Will we become more progressive in those policies? Will we move faster to build, you know, the systems necessary to host those miners? But it's also very interesting to me in terms of like the climate debate around Bitcoin. And it's something where I've been, I've been wanting to do a piece for a while on this. And I think the new Cambridge data comes out next month. And so I cannot wait to sink my teeth into that. But where they go will really decide the direction this argument takes, you know? And, and it's a toss up, right? Because like miners leaving China is Not a great thing necessarily like there's tons of hydro power in addition to tons of like coal mines. Right. And so, I mean, I don't know if it's a full net net, but like a full wash. When you have them all exit, but where they go will decide what people say about Bitcoin's carbon footprint for the next decade.

• 17:52Speaker 02

  I think.

• 17:53Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And I think part of what's so fascinating about China. So there's certain Chinese provinces where it's almost a hundred percent hydro. Right. And it's like, actually, that should be the lighthouse on the kind of hill, if you will, in terms of what we want people to do is be a hundred percent renewable. At the same time, there's a lot of examples where that's not what we want people to do. And it's the coal. But the US, I think on a net basis, you know, kind of side by side to China is a more green grid. But to your point, you could just go do a coal mine in the United States and that's not much better, right? And it's actually a negative if you went from renewable in China and to a non renewable in the United States. So there's nuance here, not just, oh, switch countries and it solves all the problems.

• 18:35Speaker 02

  Yeah. And then Kazakhstan, like it's a next door neighbor to China, a cool climate. They're very lax on their building policies and it's coal powered. So, I mean, I'm, I mean, I am fascinated to see where they go. I think for the time being, I was talking to Nick Carter about this too, that the hash rate would probably go offline there, right? And so the miners who are still mining are going to be a little bit richer. And we might see special like zones set up to absorb these miners, but.

• 19:04Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. Well, and I think also in the United States, what's really fascinating is you're getting some migration just in general. But it seems like the US is much more innovative in finding various energy sources. So, you know, oil and gas and kind of flare gas capture. There's great American mining, a couple of other companies that are doing it. They seem to be really a US based strategy before it went anywhere else. But you could see very quickly like, hey, where else do they have oil? Like, well, this could be, you know, done in many, many different regions very quickly. And so in some way, it feels like China served as kind of a breeding ground and was a very big part of the mining hash rate for a while.

• 19:47Anthony Pompliano?

  That's now shifted and is changing rapidly, but also the types of energy is we're getting more, right? Flare gas capture wasn't a thing five years ago.

• 19:56Speaker 02

  I'm writing a story on that as we speak. I'm trying to, trying to get there.

• 19:59Anthony Pompliano?

  Talk, talk about this.

• 20:01Speaker 02

  Well, I so do you know Steve Barber?

• 20:02Anthony Pompliano?

  I do.

• 20:03Speaker 02

  Yeah. So basically, I've been, he's been teaching me about this world. Obviously, he runs a company that sets up these different oil fields with the, you know, the mobile mining setups. And I think it's fascinating. And, and I just kind of want to break out that process of what this means in terms of like, the logistics of it, but also what does it mean in terms of, you know, capturing that otherwise stranded natural gas is better than flaring it? So what are the, like, the environmental impacts? Like, what are the net positives of this? So that's something I'm interested in. And then also nuclear power, right? Like, I was talking to the mayor of Miami yesterday, and he is very keen to absorb some of these migrant miners who need a home. And, and he wants to channel that nuclear power. So I've got that story coming out now, or it might be live right now.

• 20:48Speaker 02

  My boss was looking at it.

• 20:49Anthony Pompliano?

  So he, um, there's two things there. So on the flare gas.

• 20:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:53Anthony Pompliano?

  What's fascinating to me about that argument is it's not just, oh, we're gonna get the flare gas and reuse it to mine. We're actually reversing or preventing.

• 21:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:03Anthony Pompliano?

  Environmental damage.

• 21:04Speaker 02

  Right.

• 21:04Anthony Pompliano?

  Right? So instead of this being flared, it's being diverted. And so you get advantage for Bitcoin, but you also get protection of the environment, which is like, you know, that's galaxy brain stuff for the critics, because they're, they don't want to talk about the fact that you actually could be improving the situation, let alone not making it worse. But then when you start talking to like, the mayor, you get this weird world of like, it's kind of capitalism and private markets, but it's also kind of state-sponsored support. And what I don't think people quite have understood yet is the states are probably going to become massive proponents of this stuff.

• 21:41Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. I mean, Texas is very crypto-friendly and specifically trying to build up its mining infrastructure. Wyoming, another destination, Georgia.

• 21:50Anthony Pompliano?

  Kentucky, have you seen what they did in Kentucky? They, uh, they.

• 21:54Speaker 02

  The coal mines, right?

• 21:55Anthony Pompliano?

  They dropped taxes for miners and basically are trying to use taxes as an incentive for people to come there and mine. And what does it do? It not only brings economic development in terms of like, the, the money that is mined and all that, it brings jobs, right? Brings all sorts of educated people like there's a industry associated with this is not just hey we came we showed up you know we put some computers in the wall and like we laughed and so it just feels like it's easy to point fingers and yell about the environmental impact is easy to yell about like the country distribution but when you actually unpack it like mining actually may be pretty good like there's a strong argument that bitcoin mining is the

• 22:36Anthony Pompliano?

  greatest incentive of renewable power kind of R and D right now people don't like that but I think that's true

• 22:42Speaker 02

  No and I've talked to a lot of people about that and the like the casting shade on that is always like the issue of like intermittent energy use and so you ultimately it is more profitable to be mining 24/7 than it is just during daylight hours or you know so the issue of like storing it if they could figure that out

• 23:01Anthony Pompliano?

  Well longer story for sure but the idea of bitcoin being a battery right becomes like this whole thing where a bunch of people you know and myself included who are like look you're essentially storing energy in bitcoin if 24/7 persistent demand for that energy and so I guess that then brings up Tesla like what are your thoughts there and or Tesla and Elon in general a bunch of tweets and stuff have you done any work there or kind of formulated any thoughts around are they going to eventually get into mining is the concern legitimate is he just having fun on the internet like what are your thoughts?

• 23:36Speaker 02

  Yeah so I mean I've had a couple of different conversations with people about this and so like one argument is that he really understands this world he understands the nuances of mining so the reason that he would say something that is a very like narrow view of this argument is because he's laying the groundwork for something that he's going to release like whether that's a new battery or I don't know what he's going to do but like maybe it's like you know booming the runways for something that's coming down the pike or maybe shareholders were just like you need to button it up and walk it back a bit and of course like since then he's kind of reversed course he said if mining becomes what 50% more whatever the language was around that

• 24:12Anthony Pompliano?

  50% renewable and it could be proven then you would basically start accepting bitcoin again

• 24:17Speaker 02

  Yeah to buy at least one model of Tesla's vehicles so

• 24:23Speaker 02

  I don't know exactly where I fall on this.

• 24:25Anthony Pompliano?

  He didn't, he didn't sell any Bitcoin. So how big of a concern is it really, right?

• 24:30Speaker 02

  Right.

• 24:30Anthony Pompliano?

  It's kind of the view. I actually think that net, net, he's going to end up being a a positive impact on the industry. It's just, you know, a little chaos along the way. A lot of chaos along the way. What other ideas are you interested in for stories? Right? So people who are listening, a bunch of Bitcoiners, like, what are some of the things that, uh, that you find fascinating? Or want to learn more about?

• 24:50Speaker 02

  A couple of different things. So one is, how real is it that countries could nationalize mining pools?

• 24:57Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, interesting. So not just mining, but that's what mining pools themselves.

• 25:00Speaker 02

  Yeah. And, and does that, I mean, what complications is introduced? Does that introduce, introduce another layer of taxation we'd have to deal with? So that's like, one thing I'm kind of into. Policymakers, like, are they scared of stable coins? Like, what is that dynamic there?

• 25:15Anthony Pompliano?

  Depends what policymakers.

• 25:18Speaker 02

  That's true.

• 25:19Anthony Pompliano?

  Some of them love the idea.

• 25:22Speaker 02

  And then I, my editor has wanted me to do a piece on just what is DeFi for so long? And then once I get past like the what is DeFi? Like, you know, conversations that, you know, just listened to one of your podcasts about this, but kind of the, the Bitcoin ecosystem for DeFi and how that's changing and how Taproot might be, um, you know, changing. Well, obviously it's, it's making changes to the smart contract. And what does that mean for, for the world of DeFi? My list goes on.

• 25:48Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, what else? Let's go. What other ideas do you have?

• 25:51Speaker 02

  Um, I want to get into Ethereum and the question of centralization.

• 25:55Anthony Pompliano?

  Did you, did you pause before you start talking about Ethereum?

• 26:00Anthony Pompliano?

  Ethereum and, and what do you say in the question of?

• 26:02Speaker 02

  And the question of centralization.

• 26:04Anthony Pompliano?

  Basically, is Ethereum decentralized or centralized?

• 26:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:07Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, you should definitely write about that.

• 26:08Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 26:09Anthony Pompliano?

  That I think that there will be a plenty of people who listen to this, who will have ideas on both sides. Like it, I don't think I've read yet. Uh, and maybe I'm wrong on this and somebody will correct me for sure if I'm wrong. I don't think yet I've read a piece that really gets at the heart of how do you measure it? And then where are we today? Where were we? And where are we going? Right? Cause there's some element of like, none of these systems are, uh, static. And so like Bitcoin today is more decentralized than it used to be. It's definitely more decentralized than it was in 20, uh, 2009. Right? And so like, it's getting more and more decentralized. So it's not only like, where are we? But I also think like the arc of progress or, or the, uh, the direction of travel is important as well. I'll leave it for other people to comment as to what they think.

• 26:56Speaker 02

  And then, I mean, there's so much more to do on mining in general.

• 27:00Anthony Pompliano?

  Mining is like a big focus of yours, it seems like.

• 27:02Speaker 02

  As of late, it is, just because of what's happening right now and just the the places that are trying to roll out the red carpet. What does this mean for like reshaping the energy grid in Texas, which right now is extremely problematic, right? I mean, with all the storms that happened earlier this year and it's been in the headlines again recently. And the last thing I have on my list, I mean, there are more things that I wanted to cover, but the idea of green coins.

• 27:25Anthony Pompliano?

  Green coin, like ESG Bitcoin?

• 27:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. A lot of people are not, just think it doesn't make sense. And then there are like coins that have just been created with that in mind. So Chia is on my radar.

• 27:39Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 27:41Speaker 02

  What? Oh, what does that look?

• 27:44Anthony Pompliano?

  ESG Bitcoin. Let's talk about it for a second.

• 27:46Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 27:46Anthony Pompliano?

  What are the arguments that you've heard? And then I'll give you my perspective.

• 27:50Speaker 02

  Okay, so I was talking to, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna butcher the argument, the wonderful argument that Fred Teal laid out, but he was getting into the fact that kind of differentiating origin between those that have been ethically mined from those that aren't is going to be probably, participants of the market may say that they want it to be green, but do they want to pay more for it? No. And so that will ultimately end up being problematic, uneconomical, and then it won't mainstream.

• 28:16Anthony Pompliano?

  Basically, he's arguing that ESG Bitcoin won't actually be a thing, even though people are saying that they want it to be a thing because they're not willing to actually pay an economic premium for it. And if you won't pay more for it, then it all falls apart. It's just virtue signaling.

• 28:28Speaker 02

  That is my understanding of it. I don't want to misquote anybody.

• 28:30Anthony Pompliano?

  I interviewed him. He sat right in that seat. I'm positive. That's the argument he told me. Maybe he changed his mind. I don't think so. But that was the argument he told me, which was different than the argument that Marathon, the company he now runs, had taken 60 days before. So it was interesting that they had changed their mind on this. A lot of it had to do with the fact that people were not willing to pay more. They at one point thought people would be willing to pay more. So they kind of, the curtain got revealed and they were like, wait a minute, this is just virtue signaling. We're not gonna do it. What is the argument for it that you've heard?

• 28:58Speaker 02

  I mean, it just kind of goes back to the question of.

• 29:03Speaker 02

  The ethical side of mining and whether it's environmental footprint, wanting to just counter that, even if it does, if it comes at a premium. I don't, I mean, like, let's, I haven't fully reported this out. Do I have the nuanced side of the counter argument? Not as much as yet.

• 29:18Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. The stat that I heard recently, I did not go verify the stat, but I'm going to take this person at their word. I saw them tweet it. Bitcoin's energy consumption is less than 2% of just the energy consumption needed to propagate the US military industrial complex, which is the security system for the US dollar compared to the security of the Bitcoin network. And so like, that's like an interesting framework. Doesn't have to be the only framework, but like, okay, that's a data point. When you then start to look at how much of that is green? Zero. I don't know the real numbers, but like, not a high percentage, right? I don't know if you've ever seen, like, they'll say, look

• 30:02Anthony Pompliano?

  at the green energy consumption of the US dollar, and they'll show like the battleships and like the fighter jets. But I do think that there's this argument of like, it makes sense for people to, in an elementary analysis, say, oh, it should be clean. It should be renewable. It should be whatever. But I think that Bitcoin has this way of exposing these topics and really separating them from a, what should happen from like a social standpoint, what's politically correct, from a pure economic. And I think that the beauty of Bitcoin is that it's an economic incentive machine. And forget what the social consensus is. People are going to do what the cheapest thing in terms of production of Bitcoin, because that's

• 30:44Anthony Pompliano?

  how they make the most money. And it's economically advantageous to go get renewable energy, because it's way more profitable for you.

• 30:52Speaker 02

  It is. I mean, just look at the numbers of like, the average cost of renewables versus...

• 30:55Anthony Pompliano?

  It's not even close. So like, market forces are going to force everyone to become renewable.

• 31:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:00Anthony Pompliano?

  Regardless of any regulation, policies, like any of this other stuff. By the way, same thing with cars. Like, it's gonna happen. Why? Because people are gonna want the electric vehicles. But what you start to understand is like, the people who are calling for ESG Bitcoin, aren't the ones who are actually doing anything. Like, they're not building the mining facilities. They're not doing any of the actual work. They're just the ones who are kind of nitpicking and saying, oh, I don't want this because it's not ESG compliant, or I have a mandate from somewhere else to invest capital based on that.

• 31:31Anthony Pompliano?

  But I always try to separate out like, but just economic machine is going to force everyone to become renewable. And so like, this is a mute point to begin with, but also, by the way, you're not willing to pay more. So is it really more valuable to have ESG Bitcoin versus not, which I think is Fred Teal's whole argument of just the economic incentive kind of exposes who's real and who's not.

• 31:50Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 31:50Anthony Pompliano?

  Fair?

• 31:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, fair.

• 31:52Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. What other stories? Anything else?

• 31:55Speaker 02

  I feel like there's so many things I should be asking you right now.

• 31:57Anthony Pompliano?

  I know. Come on.

• 32:00Speaker 02

  Uh.

• 32:01Anthony Pompliano?

  What's the craziest thing that you've thought about writing about? Like when it comes to Bitcoin, crypto, et cetera? The thing that you're like, yeah, I don't know if I could like actually learn about it, or if people would talk to me about it, or whatever.

• 32:13Speaker 02

  Well, this is, I mean, and it kind of goes to a podcast that you already put out there, but I really think my Taproot article on Saturday initially had like Ethereum in the headline and, and kind of talking about that dynamic of, um, you know, with Bitcoin adding more functionality to its smart contracts, what does that mean in terms of the DeFi space? Like, does Bitcoin become more of a player over Ethereum, even though Ethereum has long kind of dominated the world of DeFi and people want to build dApps on top of that infrastructure? And so I don't understand everything well enough to, oh, I mean, I want to learn more, but I am afraid to touch that argument myself.

• 32:49Anthony Pompliano?

  You should do it only because, uh, if you fear going and talking about a topic, that's probably where you're going to learn the most. And what I think, if I was in your seat, right? You do whatever you want. Go talk to a bunch of the folks in what is now called DeFi, which is always interesting because Bitcoin is the largest DeFi product, but that's a whole nother thing. Um, and then go see where they're building. Some of them, or many of them are building on Ethereum, right? There's certain functionality that it provides throughput fees, whatever that make that attractive. Now there's other smart contract platforms that people are starting to build on. Go talk to them and then talk to the Bitcoin DeFi or layer two, you know, Bitcoin folks. And my guess is that, uh, and this is controversial, they actually all agree on more than you would expect.

• 33:35Anthony Pompliano?

  But the key pieces of difference make the picture very, very clear. So it's like, you know, I don't know, 70% of things they all agree on, which is like, I always joke. I'm like, do we all want something that's a decentralized financial system? Like every single one of those groups raising their hand, like, yeah, we want that. Okay. So where's the disagreement? How do we get there? Where is it built? And then all the nuances, you know, they're like, okay, well, we need like cheap fees and high throughput. Okay. We all agree on that. Like, okay. Where does that get built? Not agreement. Why? And then the fundamental differences are like really exposed. And what I think is so fascinating is it's also what's the timeline that people actually want this to be available?

• 34:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:15Anthony Pompliano?

  So if you have a 10 year time horizon versus 100 versus one. Well, there's different technical things that end up getting built based on if it needs to be ready in one year to swallow the legacy financial system versus 100 years. And I think that we always, uh, the elementary analysis is just like static view of the world, but it's more the directional progress, more so than like the static view, right?

• 34:36Speaker 02

  In terms of coverage, what do you think we're missing? And when I say we-

• 34:39Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh man, you're gonna put me on the spot.

• 34:41Speaker 02

  No, but I wanna get-

• 34:42Anthony Pompliano?

  Matt just started laughing. He's like, damn, she got him.

• 34:45Speaker 02

  I wanna get better and I also wanna like repair this, like I mean, we were talking about it earlier.

• 34:50Anthony Pompliano?

  I think there's three things.

• 34:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, okay.

• 34:51Anthony Pompliano?

  Ready?

• 34:51Speaker 02

  You're ready.

• 34:54Anthony Pompliano?

  There's a certain portion of the market that, uh, gets covered, not because of merit, but because of, uh, the speculative hype and bubble. I'm torn on how CNBC or somebody like that, uh, thinks about it. Because part of it is it will be consumed by some portion of the population as having merit because CNBC talks about it. At the same time, what they're really covering, if you look at like the Dogecoin, uh, stuff, they're not so much talking about the asset. What they're doing is they're talking about the actions of the investors around the asset.

• 35:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:30Anthony Pompliano?

  So they're reporting on like, look at this thing that is new and, and different and whatever. But then the consumption is like, oh, Dogecoin is just an equivalent to Bitcoin. Like, okay, that's probably not what you want people to take away from the story, right? So like, I think there's that element of it, which is just like, uh, I'm glad, I'm, I'm actually, uh, very glad that I'm not in the seat that has to make those calls. Cause I think that's like a very complex issue. There might not even be a right answer.

• 35:55Anthony Pompliano?

  But that clearing that up would be like a huge boost because then it just says like, oh, okay, checks off the box of like, they understand where value is accruing and like, and like merit versus things that are reporting on like the actions of the community, right? And so separating that thing is important. Second thing is, uh, there's lots and lots of coverage of the price of the tokens. There's actually a lack of coverage on the companies that are building in the space. So crypto is weird because everyone always thinks of the tokens, the coins, there's a daily price and the volatility, all this stuff. Many of the companies are actually more important than the individual tokens and things like that.

• 36:38Anthony Pompliano?

  And so it almost seems like the boring part of the industry, but I think that like those businesses end up empowering so much of this. And so like how you do it, which ones, all that's up for debate, but like the equity side, I think is really important. And then the third thing is like, you're already doing this, uh, but if we had this conversation six months ago, CNBC and nobody else was doing it.

• 37:02Anthony Pompliano?

  Bitcoin is going to end up being one of the, if not the most valuable asset in the world.

• 37:08Anthony Pompliano?

  It is global in nature. Nobody in El Salvador cares about 95% of the news in the United States.

• 37:19Anthony Pompliano?

  A lot of people in El Salvador care about Bitcoin.

• 37:22Anthony Pompliano?

  That's El Salvador, great. Go country by country around the world. Bitcoin is probably one of the most common shared topics across the world because it defies generations, it defies cultures, it defies language, like it's just this global asset. And so I'm shocked that platforms are just like, we're going to go all in and we're going to cover this in great detail. Like the Taproot article, I think was when I was like, oh, wait a second, this is different. Like that would not have happened six months ago, 12 months ago. And so I think that like, you're already seeing it, like it's the number one article, like go do more of that, right? And by the way, like, it doesn't have to be a positive article, like it could be, hey, Bitcoiners have gone crazy and like, they're doing something that's like stupid, here's the argument as to why it's stupid.

• 38:08Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay, sure, but it's just a topic that is going to continue to be the number one topic on these websites because it's pulling from a, such a global basis. And I think that's the part that people like haven't figured out yet. I don't know. This was my idea.

• 38:23Speaker 02

  Very helpful. And that's the thing. Like, I really, I, so many of these ideas come from like informal conversations that I'm having where I'm reporting out one story and then I realize that's the wrong story to be writing. Like, there's something else that's happening that really just needs some air that needs to be put in print. And, and, I mean, in terms of like my next steps, like, as I build out this beat, like, I just want to be speaking to as many people as possible.

• 38:44Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. So that was gonna be my last question before we do rapid fires. How do Bitcoiners, people in the crypto community, folks who are, who are critics as well?

• 38:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:53Anthony Pompliano?

  How do they help you? Like, like, what's the best way for them to help you get better at doing this?

• 38:57Speaker 02

  DM me on Twitter.

• 38:59Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 38:59Speaker 02

  @KenzieSegalos. I really welcome conversations, advice, like, any thoughts.

• 39:04Anthony Pompliano?

  DMs are open. Just have them DM you and DM with whatever their, like, perspective is on various topics.

• 39:11Speaker 02

  Yeah. Stories that should be, like, told that aren't being told. If they just want to, like, send me their number and we can have a phone call, like, I'm, I'm very open.

• 39:18Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay. That's a very dangerous thing to say in this world because people are gonna send you memes, they're gonna send you their phone number, they're gonna send you all kinds of stuff.

• 39:26Speaker 02

  Well, should I, is that a mistake?

• 39:27Anthony Pompliano?

  No, man, it's fine. Whatever. We'll see what happens.

• 39:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:30Anthony Pompliano?

  Not my fault if you get weird things. Uh huh. Please, people, don't be weird. Um, all right. So just DM you, uh, story ideas, but also things that they see you tweeting about or whatever, if they have perspectives on it, they can just DM you. You read them all.

• 39:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:43Anthony Pompliano?

  All good. Okay. Uh, three questions before we wrap up. Every journalist has a great answer to this. What's the most important book you've ever read?

• 39:52Speaker 02

  Oh, God, that is such a hard question.

• 39:56Anthony Pompliano?

  I know.

• 39:58Speaker 02

  I mean, I, I feel like I should be giving a nonfiction book, but I always think of The Sun Also Rises in this one line where it's just like you can't get away from yourself by going elsewhere, essentially. Um, and it's just like, it rings true. I think that people try to find themselves outside of, um, the, the seat that they're in. And wherever you go, there you are. And so I think that being really honest with yourself about what you're doing, your priorities, and how you approach life is, is pretty key.

• 40:22Anthony Pompliano?

  What, what is the name of the book?

• 40:24Speaker 02

  The Sun Also Rises.

• 40:25Anthony Pompliano?

  The Sun Also Rises.

• 40:26Speaker 02

  Ernest Hemingway.

• 40:27Anthony Pompliano?

  Ah.

• 40:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:29Anthony Pompliano?

  I, um.

• 40:29Speaker 02

  Journalist who also wrote novels.

• 40:31Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, yeah. Ernest Hemingway, I always, uh, when I hear Ernest Hemingway, I always think of, which, I don't know why I do this, Hunter S. Thompson. Two different people, but like for some reason, I don't know if it's like they're always seen in black and white photos or what, but like they, I always think of those two together. Second question is sleep schedule. So our friends are ready to sleep, have thermo regulated bed, turn it hot, turn it cold. I sleep on an ice cold, sleep like eight or nine hours now. Gain like literally the number one thing that I tell people you should go do is get this damn bed so that you can sleep cold and you get deeper or you get more deep sleep. So even if you still sleep the same, let's say eight hours, rather than maybe four hours of deep sleep, you might get five or five and a half. And by extending the deep sleep, you actually feel more rested. So their

• 41:16Anthony Pompliano?

  whole goal is eventually instead of eight hours, you might be able to sleep six, but if it's all deep sleep, then you save time and got the same rest. What's your sleep schedule?

• 41:26Speaker 02

  If I'm being totally frank, I'm not probably sleeping as much as I should right now.

• 41:30Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 41:30Speaker 02

  Um, but like five to six hours.

• 41:33Anthony Pompliano?

  Five to six. Oh, that's bad. All right. What time do you go to sleep?

• 41:37Speaker 02

  I, it varies between like 12 and one, and then I'll get up between like five and six.

• 41:44Anthony Pompliano?

  Listen, I'm telling you, I used to literally, I said to somebody recently on the podcast, when I first met my wife, she said to me like, hey, you don't really sleep that much. Like what's up with that? And I literally remember I said wolves don't sleep. And she was like, what? And I was like, I don't know where that came from. But like, like that was my mentality was just like, yeah, I'll sleep when I'm dead. Then I started to sleep and I was like, oh, like you don't even understand the value of sleep until you start. And I sound ridiculous.

• 42:12Speaker 02

  No, you don't sound ridiculous. And I think part of the problem, so my beat at CNBC, it's, it's crypto, but it's also cybersecurity. And so, and I, I'm within my first few months on the new job. So like sourcing up and, and closing that knowledge gap is.

• 42:27Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. Okay. After the first couple of weeks, didn't sleep. Uh, third question is aliens. Are you believer or non believer?

• 42:34Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, it's.

• 42:36Anthony Pompliano?

  Why?

• 42:36Speaker 02

  Because it seems outrageous that we would be the only life form in the universe.

• 42:40Anthony Pompliano?

  Just cause it's so big.

• 42:42Speaker 02

  I mean, yeah, but I mean, we're just, I feel like I'm gonna, this is not gonna be an eloquent answer, but we're like one small planet in this very like big space. Like I just don't understand how it's possible that there wouldn't be some other life form.

• 42:55Anthony Pompliano?

  I haven't said this in a while, so it might be a surprise to some people. When I was in high school, uh, there's nine planets. At one point, I think when I was in college, Pluto didn't, wasn't a planet, then became a planet again. Or so there's some controversy around Pluto. Only nine though. There's now like a thousand planets and I don't know where the rest came from.

• 43:16Anthony Pompliano?

  But there's a lot of work that's been done in space over the last like 20 years. And so, uh, if there's a thousand planets and then there are more stars in the sky than grains of sand on earth, there's gotta be something out there.

• 43:30Speaker 02

  Okay. So you also are a believer.

• 43:31Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, hardcore. Yeah. But, uh, I don't believe we'll be able to contact them during my lifetime because they're too far away. So like they're out there somewhere. Nice to meet you, whatever. Hundreds of years from now, but not probably not while we're alive. We'll see. What one question you have for me to finish up?

• 43:52Speaker 02

  What is the best piece that you've read in the last week or month?

• 43:56Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, in the last week or month?

• 44:00Speaker 02

  Those aren't nearly as like, that question is not nearly as good as the story you just asked me.

• 44:03Anthony Pompliano?

  I can't say the best piece of media that I've consumed in the last week. It will definitely get me, uh, in trouble.

• 44:10Speaker 02

  I don't care if it's not CNBC.

• 44:12Anthony Pompliano?

  No, no, no, no, no.

• 44:13Speaker 02

  Not in trouble with me?

• 44:14Anthony Pompliano?

  No. Uh huh. Yeah. I can't say that one. Um, I would say that.

• 44:21Anthony Pompliano?

  I'll give you two people that I read pretty regularly that I think are very interesting. And I'll caveat it with, um, they're both independent thinkers. They write things in a very, um,

• 44:35Anthony Pompliano?

  kind of a piercing way. So they get right at the truth of what they're saying, but they say it in a very entertaining and engaging way, which turns some people off. But, uh, Matt Taibbi and, uh, Mike Salana, both, they take things that happen in the world. Let's say for example, uh, Mike might write about

• 44:58Anthony Pompliano?

  cancel culture.

• 45:00Anthony Pompliano?

  And he'll literally nail the topic. Like he'll be like, look, there's people who were powerless before. Now they feel like they have power. They go after people. They weaponize things, whatever. And he'll like nail it. And then some people read it and be like, oh my God, this guy like, he wrote 12 pages about like cancel culture and like they like freak out. But I like reading the people who write from an independent thinking standpoint, because what they end up doing is they end up stretching like the intellectual muscle. So like, if you just read. Name your publication. You just get that. You're within some lane because that's what they're allowed to write. That's what their editors want them to write, right? That's what their audience wants, whatever. So you're within that. The more that you start to get outside of that,

• 45:44Anthony Pompliano?

  you're literally just like stretching the intellectual muscle. And sometimes like, you know, you might stretch it too far. By the way, that was a little weird. Like, you know, let me come back within the, you know, within the boundaries of like of my thought process. But like, I just think more people could do better from doing that. And so it's less of like one piece. It's just like those two people in particular, just off the top of my head. Glenn Greenwald's been doing a fantastic job of just calling out nonsense. And then, uh, let me think of who else. I'd say those three have done a really good job. And then there's a, um, a woman, I'm going to forget her name. Plan's going to kill me. She used to be the writer of all the profiles at GQ. And so she did The Rock and a bunch of people.

• 46:29Anthony Pompliano?

  Uh, she's fantastic. Anytime she writes anything, I like almost stop everything and read it. Uh, cause it's just like, um, uh, learning from people and like their stories and all that. Uh, and she has like a really eloquent, eloquent, eloquent way of doing it. And, uh, there's a story that she wrote, I'm pretty sure it's the same woman. She wrote Chris Hemsworth, was he Captain America? I don't know, one of those guys, I think there's brothers, right? Kind of like my brothers, like, ah, they're all like poms, whatever. And she like went out drinking with him. And then like slept at his house. And then wrote an article and there's this whole thing. And you read it and you're like, that might be one of the best articles I've read in a while. It's like, Playa loves it as well.

• 47:15Anthony Pompliano?

  And it's just, uh, the way that she writes is like very unique. And it like really gets at, hey, this is who this person is. So, I don't know.

• 47:23Speaker 02

  Thank you for the recommendations. I'm definitely gonna check them out.

• 47:25Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, it would help if I remembered her name.

• 47:27Speaker 02

  I feel like I have enough to Google that and find her instantly.

• 47:29Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. GQ, basically it's the profiles. All right, where can we send people? Twitter to find you?

• 47:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, Twitter. And then if you want to read my stuff, I've got a bio page on CNBC.

• 47:42Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, so just go CNBC.com, search your name, and then it comes up, or I guess Google. And then anyone, this is me, this is not her saying this, anyone who has ideas of stories for, please go DM her, be nice. But also, I think that, just introducing them, right? Because it might not even be a story you're working on now, but in the future, if you're looking to talk to somebody who does ABC, whatever, they should, if you know who they are, that you can reach out to them.

• 48:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 48:09Anthony Pompliano?

  Awesome. All right, thank you so much for doing this.

• 48:10Speaker 02

  Thanks for having me. This is an intimidating chair to be sitting in.

• 48:15Anthony Pompliano?

  It's a $5 Home Depot chair.

• 48:17Speaker 02

  In which many important people have sat across from you. So anyways, thanks.