Bitcoin, The Fed, Big Lies and Fast Cars. Special Guest Mark Yusko

Betting On Zero

Burke Koonce and John Fichthorn discuss the latest topics of interest in politics, financial markets, and the cultural forces that shape the world around us.

John, who is executive chairman of Maven, owner of TheStreet.com among other media properties, and Burke, who runs the Capitalism Maven site for TheStreet.com, have a long history together discussing markets, politics and contemporary subjects.

In this episode, we are joined by Mark Yusko, founder and chief investment officer at Morgan Creek Capital Management. Prior to founding Morgan Creek, Mark was previously the chief investment officer for the endowment at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. More recently, Mark has taken the crypto plunge.

No discussion of politics and markets can ignore the presidential election and the controversy surrounding it, and John points out that the excessive political theater stoking doubt in our nation’s institutions could give rise to doubt in our currency, could also stoke inflation fears. Of course, this would have enormous ramifications for the Fed, for financial markets and for cryptocurrencies. Mark believes that cryptocurrencies, especially Bitcoin, will become an important part of everyone’s financial future. This rabbit hole goes deep. Who are the Mad Hatters in this story, the crypto enthusiasts or the central bankers? How is crypto like gold and how is it different? Will it really be around in 5,000 years? Which cryptocurrencies will have staying power?

This is our most fun discussion to date. There was a lot to unpack; we will have to visit with Mark again because we could have talked all day and almost did.

As always, there’s a Betting On Zero tie in. Mark was with us at Tribeca Film Festival, watching the film premiere back in 2016, and even has a credit in the film for being a good friend to us during production. The other tie-in is our discussion of “The Big Lie,” a line Ackman uses to describe how corporations get away with seemingly obvious impropriety. In this case, we apply it to the narrative that the election was stolen, with twists and turns along the way.

We hope you enjoy this lengthy but action-packed episode.