ICYMI: Bitcoin is Critical to The Trust Revolution
In case you missed it, I recently joined Shawn Yeager on The Trust Revolution to talk about why the modern financial system is built on permission—and what happens when individuals finally take that power back.
We covered everything from fractional reserve fiction to bitcoin’s tangible sovereignty, financial independence through access, and what it really means to verify, not trust.
🎥 Watch the full interview below:
💡 Key Insights & Perspectives
Below is the TL/DR on the unique perspectives I covered during this interview.
1️⃣ Financial Independence Without Access Is Brittle
“What happens if I actually can’t access that wealth that I’ve saved up for decades? The answer to that question is: you should have bought some Bitcoin, because it’s the only thing you can truly control and own in this world that doesn’t require permission.”
Most FIRE frameworks stop at the math — save 25x your annual expenses and you’re free. But if your “freedom” still relies on someone else’s permission to access your savings, you’re not actually independent. Financial independence without sovereignty is a half-truth. Bitcoin closes that loop by giving you direct control over the wealth you’ve built — no intermediaries, no gatekeepers, no “we need a few days to process that withdrawal.”
2️⃣ The Infinite Reserve Illusion
“A lot of people talk about fractional reserve banking, but I actually think in the way it’s currently constructed, there is no fractional reserve. The reserves are infinite because they’ll just print them — and everybody knows that.”
People still talk about the banking system like it runs on fractional reserves. It doesn’t. The modern fiat system has infinite reserves. There’s no real constraint, no point where the money “runs out.” If a bank or market gets in trouble, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury coordinate to conjure what’s needed to hold things together. This debasement is how systemic stability is maintained. Each bailout keeps the machine alive, but every time it happens, confidence in the currency weakens a little more.
3️⃣ Tangibility Reversed
“People say Bitcoin isn’t tangible because it’s digital, but I actually think it’s more real than the dollars in your bank account. Those dollars are just a spot on an amorphous ledger. With Bitcoin, you can hold your keys — that’s actual ownership.”
Fiat money feels physical because we can hold a bill in our hand, but it’s really just an entry in a database that you don’t control. Bitcoin, on the other hand, is digital but feels tangible when you hold the keys. You can turn it into a physical form through a seed phrase or hardware wallet. It’s strange to realize, but bitcoin is actually more real than the dollars you think you own. When you have your keys, there’s no ambiguity about ownership—no custodian, no counterparty, no “claim.” It’s yours.
4️⃣ Push, Don’t Pull
“If you’re holding your own keys and using a financial advisor, you have to push them their fee. They can’t just pull it. It keeps them in check, because they’ve got to ask you for it — and be nice to you while doing it.”
When you hold your own money, the relationship with your financial advisor changes completely. In the traditional world, fees are quietly pulled from your account. You barely notice them. But when you self-custody, every payment becomes intentional—you have to push it. That act alone forces transparency and accountability. It’s a small but powerful shift. You move from passive client to active participant. Bitcoin flips the power dynamic back to the individual.
5️⃣ The New Corporate Treasury Edge
“If a company holds $500 million in cash and inflation averages 7%, that balance has halved in real value over ten years. Why would you keep your treasury in an asset designed to lose value? Converting a portion to Bitcoin offsets the melt and creates optionality.”
Cash used to represent safety. Today it represents guaranteed loss. When companies hold massive cash balances, they’re watching their purchasing power evaporate. Bitcoin gives them a tool to stop that erosion. By converting even a portion of their treasury to bitcoin, they can preserve value and create optionality for the future. In a world where money melts, the only rational move is to hold something that doesn’t.
6️⃣ Trust and Verify
“Reagan said, ‘trust but verify.’ Bitcoiners flipped it to ‘verify, don’t trust.’ I think there’s room for both — verification first, but it’s okay to build trusted relationships on top of that foundation.”
We don’t need to abandon trust; we just need to anchor it in verification. Bitcoin gives you the power to verify everything—the supply, the transactions, your own holdings. Once you have that foundation, you can build relationships and partnerships with confidence. It’s not “trustless.” It’s trust-minimized. The difference is that you never have to take someone’s word for it again.
7️⃣ Sovereignty Is Contagious
“You can’t insulate your kids from the world, but you can show them a different path — how you think about what’s valuable, what you spend time and money on. It’s not what you say, it’s how you live.”
Once you take sovereignty seriously, it changes more than your balance sheet—it changes how you live. Your kids watch how you handle money, time, and responsibility. They see whether you depend on systems or build your own. You can’t protect them from every external influence, but you can lead by example. Sovereignty scales from the family outward.
Talking with Shawn on The Trust Revolution was one of those rare conversations that reminds you why this movement matters.
We didn’t talk price charts or hype cycles — we talked about leverage, access, and the power dynamics at play under the surface of our financial system.
If you haven’t already, go follow Shawn’s work and subscribe to The Trust Revolution — he’s doing amazing work to explore how trust and power dynamics are shifting in real time.
For readers of FIRE BTC, what we discussed in this episode is just the first layer.
For paid subscribers only, I’ve expanded on the second-order effects of these ideas — what happens when financial sovereignty scales beyond the individual and how businesses, families, and even societies start to change.
If you found value in this conversation, you’ll want to keep reading.
👇 Upgrade to paid to dive into the next layer — the ripple effects of the Trust Revolution that are only just beginning.
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