“However, our initial unconditional euphoria has now given way to critical realism. It is therefore important to us not to overstylize the meaning of bitcoins. Yes — Bitcoin has the chance to become the best money in history; with all the associated effects on banks, society and politics. Nothing more and nothing less.”
We are Jonas Hofmeister and Manuel Bassler. Together, we run the podcast Bitcoin verstehen, in which we try to introduce our listeners to the various facets of Bitcoin in a simple and understandable way. In our weekly episodes, we try to communicate the various areas of Bitcoin as minimally as possible in order to alleviate people's fear of the topic and dispel prejudices.
We had already been talking regularly privately about investments and then Bitcoin. In 2020, there were only two pure German-language Bitcoin podcasts, Twenty-One and Honey Badger, but both had more advanced people as a target group. Since we were still relatively at the beginning of our Bitcoin journey ourselves, we wanted to create a podcast especially for beginners, with which we wanted to make it possible for anyone interested to understand the advantages of Bitcoin.
From the outset, we have therefore tried to explain the individual subject areas of Bitcoin as simply as possible in order to make it easier to get started with the complex topic of Bitcoin. To this end, we have structured our first 30 episodes in particular in such a way that they build on each other and give you an initial overview of Bitcoin that is as uncomplicated as possible. We then continued this at the end of 2023 by publishing a 10-part introductory series on Bitcoin, in which we show step by step the basics of Bitcoin for anyone who would like to learn more about Bitcoin.
Our goal is always to look at Bitcoin and the associated topics as neutrally as possible in order not only to shed light on the immense advantages, but also to critically question Bitcoin.
Like probably many people, we came across Bitcoin in the context of investment. In Bitcoin, we saw an opportunity to supplement our retirement plan. We don't need to tell anyone here that Bitcoin is much more.
This resulted in a passion for the topic that anyone who fell into the well-known “Rabitt Hole” can understand.
However, our initial unconditional euphoria has now given way to critical realism. It is therefore important to us not to overstylize the meaning of bitcoins. Yes — Bitcoin has the chance to become the best money in history; with all the associated effects on banks, society and politics. Nothing more and nothing less.
We have a total of three formats:
The biggest challenge when it comes to adopting Bitcoin is to make people aware of why we need Bitcoin and to impart appropriate knowledge.
Even though everyone has different access to Bitcoin, we believe it is essential to create a basic understanding of money. If you don't know what money is, you can't understand what's going wrong with it right now. The same applies to the financial system, which is also in trouble, particularly due to false incentives.
Unfortunately, many people have either no or a negative opinion about Bitcoin, which is difficult to break up even with knowledge transfer. There are still many prejudices and stereotypes that need to be overcome.
The resulting aversion to Bitcoin must be overcome by both citizens and politicians. Otherwise, we see the risk of too strict regulation, which stifles potential innovations before they can occur.
In short, our goal must be to put Bitcoin in the right light. If we have made the transition from “Bitcoin is at best a high-risk asset” to “Bitcoin is a store of value” in people's minds, a lot has already been gained.
For our podcast topics, we generally look at which topics or questions we are personally interested in. To do this, we exchange ideas almost daily about various points about Bitcoin, but also about the economy and monetary policy. During our research, we also regularly come across articles, videos, books or podcast episodes. From the combination of these sources of ideas, we then select our topics for the individual podcast episodes. If this is a topic that we would like to discuss with an expert in this field, then we will also search for a potential podcast guest who we will then contact.
In addition, we regularly receive mailings from our listeners with inquiries or ideas for new topics of conversation, which we then also often use as a hook for a new episode. Fortunately, the interests of our audience and our preferences often overlap.
We also try to exclude current events and Bitcoin price developments as much as possible, although we have to realize that people continue to be most interested in the price. That is why we still talk about the price at regular intervals, trying to do this here on the basis of models or basic principles.
In addition to looking at Bitcoin itself, it is also very important to us to address other topics that only have something to do with Bitcoin in passing. For example, we would like to take a comprehensive look at monetary history, which is why we have already looked at the gold standard or the hyperinflation of 1923 in Germany. We are also happy to discuss areas such as financial psychology or portfolio allocation from an investor's perspective.
We often receive letters that show that we have fundamentally changed our listeners' understanding of money and our financial system. We are very happy about this because we see breaking people's ignorance as the biggest challenge when it comes to adopting Bitcoin.
The same applies to the prejudices regarding terrorist financing and money laundering that we were able to dispel. We are incredibly happy when we learn that people have found the door to the “rabbit hole” with our help and that we can do our part to disseminate knowledge about Bitcoin and create added value.
In the last four years, we have received insights about Bitcoin in various areas, some of which have surprised us a lot. On the one hand, as far as Bitcoin itself is concerned. For example, what role Bitcoin's scarcity plays and what effects it has on possible future price developments. And which external factors, such as monetary policy, have an influence on the Bitcoin price and Bitcoin is currently being driven less by its own characteristics.
In addition, we have gained a lot of knowledge in the technical area of bitcoins. In particular, this includes an understanding of how the Bitcoin network works, with the individual factors such as cryptography, Bitcoin mining and the individual network participants who work together here. In addition, we can mention the deepening of knowledge about storing Bitcoin, during which we had a “wow moment” a few times.
We also received surprising insights into side topics about Bitcoin, such as monetary history, the CFA franc in France, the possible dangers of quantum computers or even what raison stablecoins could have.
As long as Bitcoin recharges with purchasing power and is regarded by the majority of people as a high-risk asset at best, the combination of onchain and lightning transactions is completely sufficient. For us, the transfer of knowledge that brings more people to Bitcoin is a priority.
Without a large number of people who want to rely on Bitcoin instead of Fiat, solving future scaling problems plays a secondary role.
Nevertheless, it is of course important that solutions to future problems are available at the end of the day before they become acute. In this regard, we believe in the power of the open-source community, which has had to deal with adversities in the past and was able to overcome them.
The more people recognize what Bitcoin is, the more bright minds will set out to solve emerging problems before they take effect.
From our point of view, regulation could have a positive or negative impact on Bitcoin in the future. Depending on how Europe, for example, positions itself on Bitcoin in the future, it may result in Europe once again missing out on a major technology or industry in this subject area. In our opinion, too strong regulation, especially in the area of privacy/data protection, can severely inhibit the further spread of Bitcoin in Europe. It will therefore be exciting to see how other countries position themselves vis-à-vis Bitcoin.
The further development of fiat currencies will certainly also play a major role. Will people continue to trust these currencies or will there be an increasing loss of trust. The dwindling trust would make other currencies or forms of money more interesting for many people. Should Bitcoin be able to shed its reputation as a high-risk asset by then, Bitcoin could also be a serious alternative, which would then benefit from this loss of trust vis-à-vis fiat currencies.
From our point of view, Bitcoin still pays too little attention to the topic of quantum computing. It is not yet clear whether and how quantum computers can pose a risk to Bitcoin, but the technology will continue to advance and the cryptography and thus the security mechanism behind Bitcoin would then be a potential target of attack. Therefore, this could be a technology that should not be lost sight of from a Bitcoin perspective
We don't have an ultimate secret. We treat each other as we would expect from other people. We therefore treat each other with respect, even if the other person has an opinion or has qualities that do not correspond to our own.
In addition, we are united by a friendship that has grown over decades, which certainly also helps us to empathize with others and to be able to understand ways of acting.
We also exchange views on other topics. We both agree that Bitcoin isn't everything. That is why we also take great pleasure in critically questioning Bitcoin mantras and beliefs in our episodes.
All in all, we are very satisfied with our cooperation. When we have to identify weaknesses, Manuel may be a bit too critical and Jonas is sometimes a bit hasty for that. We think we complement each other very well.
In recent years, we've noticed that there is often a certain discrepancy between desire and reality with Bitcoin. Many in the Bitcoin community already see Bitcoin much more advanced than it currently is in reality. In our opinion, Bitcoin is still a very small niche topic that receives little or no attention from the majority. However, by dealing with it on a daily basis, it is easy to attribute a larger factor to Bitcoin, even though it does not yet have it.
Some people see Bitcoin as the solution to everything. We do not share this opinion because although we regard Bitcoin as a unique invention or discovery and money also has major effects on many areas of life, it is also “just” money in the end. Even with Bitcoin, there will continue to be certain areas of life that will be negatively affected and for which Bitcoin will not be a solution.
Did you fall into the Bitcoin Rabbit Hole due to the exciting content of Bitcoin verstehen? Get the Coinfinity app now and stack satellite - simply & securely!
