An Early Airbnb And Uber Investor Bought Bitcoin In 09

Updated on

Jeffrey Wernick is an independent investor whose portfolio includes early holdings in Uber and Airbnb. Wernick was also an early investor in bitcoin. He started buying it in 2009, the year it was created.

Get The Timeless Reading eBook in PDF

Get the entire 10-part series on Timeless Reading in PDF. Save it to your desktop, read it on your tablet, or email to your colleagues.

Q2 hedge fund letters, conference, scoops etc

Wernick’s initial interest in bitcoin was not just speculation that the price would rise. He believes bitcoin’s value comes from its ability to solve the biggest problems with fiat money.

Wernick believes the ability to run large deficits and debase the currency changes the relationship between the government and its citizens. He believes it gives the government the ability to do things without the consent of the people.

Wernick says bitcoin solves these problems because it is a “people’s currency, it’s defined by the people, and it’s defined by rules and a protocol that people trust.”

Jeffrey Wernick Explains Why He Started Buying Bitcoin In 2009

Transcript

I am Jeffrey Wernecke and here's why I started buying bitcoin in 2009. We've been good friends since 2010 and ever since I've known we've been time to buy bitcoin. When did you actually buy that. I initially got acquired bitcoin in 2009. Wow. So the first year that I was around Yes and what made you think that they claimed was going to be the future. Well I got my cast to go back prior to bitcoin itself. And really with my first interest in hard money and my interest with hard money really began in 1971 when Nixon suspended convert ability of dollars into gold into dollars. And I think in August of 70 of 1971 I was someone as young as someone junior high high school and elementary school. I became very kind of obsessed with the Constitution the the the the initial period. And and prior to the constitution the Articles of Confederation some of the debates in the Constitution between the federalist and the anti federalists and the debates between Hamilton and Jefferson regarding the National Bank and also within the Constitution. There was a specific definition of the dollar in terms of gold and silver. So when that link was officially terminated in 1971. My belief was and I was only 15 years old at the time that that would cause a debasement of our currency. We'd have high inflation and that's one commonly famously said that it's it's our currency. But their problem to Europe and it's also when Simon and Kissinger went to meet with the Saudis and began the petrodollars.

So we had to create another reason for people to hold dollars since we couldn't do it through good monetary fiscal policy. We do it through force by basically having the oil of oil invoiced inv. in dollars so that way central banks would not be would not. They would basically collateralized by oil rather than rather than gold. So that began the terms of when we had a period of high inflation and complete debasement about currency and I became very very interested in basically a strong currency for multiple reasons. Because what was one of the reasons that drove that was we began to have the periods of deficit finance. So for our history we basically had run reasonably balanced budget and a reasonably small government and now we were at war we had the welfare state and we started running big deficits and basing our money. So I thought that it was changing the relationship between the citizen and the governed and who and who governs us. And I much prefer when a government gets the consent of the people for whatever it does and the consent means I want to spend this money will you pay the taxes to support the spending. And I think that builds a much better relationship than one where this government says I'm going to spend whatever I spend. But don't worry about it I'm going to borrow money and I'm going to run a monetary policy that of that will mean that don't ever worry about you ever thinking that you'll ever have to pay this debt off. It's all a game anyway. So said basically he has ended the relationship.

Now the government can do a lot of things without the consent of the people because as long as the people don't have to pay for it they feel that they're less interested in it. So initially my interest in it was not just economic. It was also an issue of the fact of what should.

Leave a Comment