Backstage, George Gilder, with his wife Nina in tow, let the New York studio know that his century-old mother had passed away earlier that morning, but that his speech “needed to be given!”
Mrs. Gilder sat in the green room to watch her husband give an electrifying speech about the inevitability of Bitcoin’s success as the data money of the future, and our crowd of a half dozen sat back to listen. For an 80-year-old, George Gilder has an incredible amount of energy, and his passion may have been unmatched by any other presenter—a feat only supplanted by his incredible history of foresight into the future from decades past. In too few words, George Gilder predicted the world in which we now live, and it was exciting to hear him speak!
His solo presentation led right into the closing presentation of the evening and aside from Jimmy’s synchronized closing montage, it would be the final memory of CoinGeek Live 2020.
Craig’s virtual entrance via London saw him appear on the big screen donning a pinstriped, vested suit with a large, gold clip holding back a deep blue tie—wrapped in full Windsor. His opening phrase was a sharp criticism of socialism, the desire for equal outcomes and how the foolishness of our generation would return us to “living in caves” if we don’t simply give over tribal power to fiat chiefs in the process! Dr. Wright was in true form, and laid it all out for the watching audience.
The conversation quickly shifted to a discussion of sound money, and the history of gold as a comparison to the “one chain” ethos of Bitcoin SV. Contrary to the strawman that Bitcoin SV has devolved or hyper-focused on data-heavy “Metanet” use cases to the detriment of sound money, the conversation took a strong position in no uncertain terms about bitcoin as the global currency for the future. True to form, both men also acknowledged the inevitable merging of money and data going forward.
“Money is a measuring stick for reality, and there’s only a single reality, and so one chain makes sense.” – George Gilder
The carbon economy
After a brief anecdote about all three hackathon finalists, and the change in security models that come with a true P2P Bitcoin underpinning all things, Gilder went on a tear about the emerging carbon economy replacing silicon in such a way where machines cooperate with humanity rather than the typical dystopian tropes of an automated future which have become the basis of nearly all Sci-Fi stories. Admittedly, this premise deserved to be researched in its own right, but the conversation merged seamlessly into a discussion of AI.
Wright reiterated a point that we have heard from him before: that machines are not intelligent, but merely tools under a directive. The bright spot of his speech on the topic was when he illustrated the false dichotomy of man vs machine because truly the most effective participant in reality is that man and machine who cooperate as a team! Gilder agreed—citing his soon-to-be-released book.
The fixed supply! And other disagreements
Returning viewers of previous CoinGeek Conferences may recall the gasps from the crowd in London as Gilder argued strongly with Wright on the merits of fixed value rather than fixed supply. The men staunchly disagreed on stage, and a valuable conversation sprung from it. But it arose again in New York! Gilder doubled down stating that the supply of money must expand as minds and economies expand and pointed out the problems that the fixed supply has caused: hoarding for speculation. Craig clearly disagreed, and Jimmy even interceded with a fair point about tokenization—presumably of other assets, but also the only truly scarce asset: time!
Gilder is famous for saying that “time price” is the only metric that matters to an economy. While seemingly a deep thought worthy of more discussion, Jimmy dug right for the next question about data ownership. Wright made the point about big data companies owning your data, and Gilder warned everyone not to become too granular or add unnecessary steps to overcomplicate the data that should truly be owned. As the conversation came to a close, it became obvious that while both men clearly respect each other for their mutual expertise, they are also quite happy to disagree with one another on the finer points. It is important to note that, amid the disagreements, both men disagreed well. They clarified their points respectfully and in a way which would allow the viewer to make their own decisions.
Closing
Wright thanked Gilder for teaching him that “everything is economic” which informed his worldview about game theoretics across bitcoin while also giving him a new lens through which to compute all human interaction. Gilder was happy to laugh and give Wright credit for being the “OG Futurist,” letting us all know that Craig would be mentioned quite a bit in his new book.
All in all, the conversation was short but informative; respectful but challenging, and both men clearly enjoyed their time on stage to close out the conference!
Watch George Gilder’s keynote speech and fireside chat with Dr. Craig Wright and Jimmy Nguyen.
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