I had the opportunity to attend much of the first two days of a 3-day cryptocurrency/blockchain conference in Aspen late last week. I was able to participate in and share small spaces with many interesting viewpoints. Some, like Doug Casey, echoed back to days from over a decade ago when I saw him speak in Vancouver to a much larger packed house. Others were brand new to me, like Colin Cantrell, who explained how bitcoin is run by 7-8 mining pools that currently control the market and how he is developing tech to break this control. Sound familiar, Gold Seekers?

What struck me most was the libertarian values that most, if not nearly all there, identified with. One can debate gold vs. bitcoin and passionately disagree, as Schiff v. Keiser did Friday afternoon (View the debate 3 plus hours into the youtube link of 9/21/17 Pt. 2 below). But no matter what detail you can find to disagree about, you can also boil down to the basic ideals that you do agree about: Liberty, freedom, decentralization, and protecting the rights of the individual.

The currency market is broken

It’s a truth that gold bugs like me have known since I was old enough to start paying attention and found gold as the answer to fix the monetary system. I’ve been pushing that derivative/paper-naked-shorted rock up the hill for quite some time now. I thought I was going to learn about crypto and blockchain at this conference, and that I did, but what I really learned is that there is still a great hunger in the world to solve this problem of fiat money. Can crypto help wake up millions in the third world by simply getting them a smart phone? The short answer is yes.

What is the fix to fiat and our current monetary system?

Everyone has a different answer to this important question, but the key point is that it does indeed need fixing.

The conference started off on Thursday morning with a rousing speech by Judge Napolitano. He harkened back to Constitutional days which established our inalienable rights before the formation of government.

Colin Cantrell then briefly introduced us to immutable ledgers, distributed databases, quantum mechanics, transparency, accountability, and equality. His deep dive into Nexus: State of the Union was saved for the next day.

Colin’s father Jim took over with his personal history and unique experience with space travel and exploration and what may be coming in the years ahead, especially from the private sector.

Roger Ver wrapped up the morning session in the main auditorium by shifting from his initial topic to instead introduce us to Free Society and the mission to establish a sovereign territory, with $100 million already raised to start that effort.

From there one could split off to any number of things. The main auditorium kept on with more great topics while 3 other meeting rooms offered more intimate seminars and roundtable discussions.

I stumbled into a talk by Ernest Hancock and stayed for Jeff Berwick, Doug Casey, and Patrick Byrne. 

Ernest drew parallels from far out ideas often introduced to us by Star Trek that are now here and really happening today.

Jeff explored the implications of 20 trillion dollars of debt and all the liabilities that multiply that number many times. He argued we can decentralize the internet and currency exchange and make government obsolete.

Doug spoke about Aristotle’s characteristics of a good form of money: Durable, Portable, Divisible, Consistent, and Intrinsic Value. How does bitcoin compare to gold? Would it survive an electromagnetic pulse (EMP), a solar flare, or other major tech problem? Gold is the only financial asset that is not someone else's liability.

Finally, Patrick Byrne, founder of Overstock, explored how much revenue the likes of JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley are getting from the little-known world of securities lending. How prime brokers are over locating short sellers, how the pension fund system is breaking, and how the first trillion-dollar lawsuit may be looming. How might pension funds claw back all of that money? Well, the blockchain of course. Patrick went on to talk about his work that resulted in the launch of t zero, the world's first blockchain based trading platform that allows for SEC approved trading of ICO’s.

Friday kicked off with the great liberal mind of Ed Asner, who expounded upon FDR and how the “Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself.” We are now 16 years into this war on terror… for what? In the 250-year history of the US, only 12 have been years in which the country was not at war with someone, or something. The 2-party political system is failing. Evolution does not have to be slow, and revolution does not have to be quick. Be sovereign in the republic of thyself.

I then moved on to an interesting round table discussion on Universal Basic Income, and followed that with an at times heated debate about Russia and media/propaganda. After a quick lunch supplied by the wonderful staff of The Aspen Institute, I moved back into the main auditorium for Colin’s deep dive into Nexus. My head left spinning, I stuck around for Derrick Broze and his journey to the decentralized lifestyle. Check out freedomcells.org to learn about how you can connect locally with others putting these ideas into practice.

Doug Casey took the main stage to talk about the rise and now fall of Western Civilization and how it compares to Rome. He explained why Moore’s Law did not just start in 1965, but extends all the way back to the invention of fire and then the spear 100,000 years later. The first leaps started then, and have continued to accelerate until now where such leaps occur daily. Dystopian science fiction may be our facts now that the future is here.

Catherine Austin-Fitts demanded that you can’t solve a political problem with a financial product like crypto. The control system still runs on analog and depends on force. She sees zero chance of the big banks failing. Bitcoin/crypto/digital backers likely don’t agree with much if any of that but that debate didn’t happen in the halls I visited. Perhaps in the days to come. Crypto backers better read Tim Wu’s book - The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires, first.

Joby Weeks gave the jolliest presentation you’ll ever see at a conference mostly forecasting financial doom and gloom. He also delivered the easiest to understand explanation of bitcoin that I’ve seen to date in the limited time he had.

Before the epic but ultimately friendly debate with Max Keiser, Peter Schiff was given the opportunity to walk into the Lion’s Den and give his view on finance first. He’s largely known as the man that predicted the housing bubble, but 2008 was only the beginning of the end. The real bubble is the $USDollar. They managed to reflate the bubble since 2008, but just look at the chart of your choice and you’ll notice that the dollar has done nothing but fall in 2017. Has its bear finally begun?

The Bottom Line

Crypto and blockchain are here and making an impact on you whether you choose to acknowledge it or not. They are the latest in a long line of historic accomplishments that expose people to monetary history and the failure of the system in which we currently live.

Explore the entire program. Research every speaker and their work. Listen to podcasts. View some of these presentations and panels below. Never Stop Learning.

Nexus Conference Stream 9/21/17 Pt. 1

Nexus Conference Stream 9/21/17 Pt. 2

Nexus Conference Stream 9/22/17 Pt. 1

Nexus Conference Stream 9/23/17 Pt. 1

Nexus: State of the Union

Charles Hoskinson | Nexus Conference 2017

Panel discussion | Nexus Conference 2017

Jesse Ventura at Nexus Conference 9-23-17

Ron Paul's Full Speech at the Nexus Conference! 9/23/17

First published on GoldSeek.com, your source for financial truth since 1995.

© Gold Seeker 2017

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