Inside the Currency War — Why Bitcoin Weakens the Dollar - Jim Rickards

Added: 2026-06-05

[00:00:00]Jim, you mentioned CBDC's, you mentioned blockchain, you mentioned crypto. What is your view on all of these things? I I think I read a quote with you somewhere saying that when you try to decentralize a financial system, you know, you are going to get uh a reaction, sometimes a violent reaction from whoever you're trying to take that control away from.

[00:00:19]What do you see in those things? I know crypto is different from a CBDC, but what do you see?

[00:00:24]>> Um the Yeah, I mean I I uh you know, I don't own crypto. I don't recommend it.

[00:00:30]Everyone's like, "Oh, Jim's a technological Andrew tall. He doesn't get it." Like, no. I was in a I was in a gold versus Bitcoin debate in 2010 out in in Devon, a little bit west of London. And uh uh when I'm in a debate, I like to know more about my opponent's subject than he does. Uh because I don't want to get picked off. I want to win the debate. Uh so I've been immersed in this. I read all the technical papers and white papers and you know I I you know I look at crypto exchanges. I look at I understand what DeFi is. I get all of it. I don't um think it's going anywhere. That's the view. Could be right, could be wrong, but but I I do understand it. Um and the thing about central bank digital currencies is they're not they're not cryptocurrencies. They're not blockchain. They the ledger because blockchain is just a ledger. It's just a bookkeeping way. It's digital, but the blockchain technology has been around since the 80s. There's nothing new about it, but it's your ledger and it can be decentralized. Uh central bank digital currency, there'll be a ledger, but it'll be maintained by the central bank.

[00:01:36]Uh and a a CBDC um dollar is still a dollar. Um a central bank digital euro is still a euro. Central Bank digital yen is still a yen. So, it's not a new currency. It's a new payment channel, a new settlement and clearance channel. And it is better, faster, cheaper. I mean, I if I buy something with a credit card, how does that work? Well, I'm at the point of purchase. I use a credit card. The merchant has a receivables. They sell it to somebody called a merchant acquirer who, you know, scoops up a whole bunch of credit card receivables. Then the merchant acquirer sells it uh to Mastercard or Visa, whoever the card sponsor was, and they get paid. And then Mastercard, Visa takes these small over the world. And then then they send them to the banks that issue the credit cards and then those credit card issuers send me a bill and I pay it. Well, you got five parties in that transaction. You got the customer, the the the merchant, the merchant acquirer, Mastercard, and the issuing bank and like 2 and a half% 3% fees end to end. That's a really clunky, messy, expensive, slow system.

[00:02:41]You can eliminate all that. You can disintermediate the banking system and Mastercard, Visa. interesting stock implications there with the CBDC. I can have an account at the Fed on my iPhone.

[00:02:51]Um, and I can send you money. You have an you can have an account at the Fed or Bank of England, whatever you like. Uh, and so it is better, faster, cheaper, but it's also the ultimate surveillance tool. This will complete their surveillance state.

[00:03:05]They already know enough about us uh with GPS tracking. You know, you got to turn your cell phone off and stick it in a Faraday sack. I have a few of those I carry with me uh if you want to like avoid being tracked in real time. So they already know a lot about us and digital facial recognition software etc. But this would be the ultimate because I go to a bookstore on Amazon using a central bank digital currency. They know that I just bought a book called you know why I love Donald Trump or whatever you know and if you're the wrong political party wrong political affiliation give money to the wrong candidate etc. oppose the regime in any way, they're going to know it in real time through your payment history. Uh, and they'll be able to, you know, well, in China, they're already doing this. I I say stuff like this, Brian, and people roll their eyes like, "Oh, that'll never happen." I was like, "No, you don't understand. It's it's already here. It's not universal. It's getting there. This is what they do in China. This is what the social credit score is all about."

[00:04:03]You know, people can't send their kids to colleges, can't buy a plane ticket, can't buy a train ticket, etc. because they've they have a low social credit score. It could be they were caught smoking, but it could be they they tweeted something that was like anti-I.

[00:04:20]Um, but this will come to Europe, Japan, and the US. And don't believe anyone who says, "Well, yeah, we we we could do that, but we don't worry, trust us. We won't do that nonsense." The government never gives up power, never misses an opportunity to get more power. So, that's where central bank digital currencies are going. As far as cryptocurrencies are concerned, uh I studied it for well I've studied it for kind of 12 years at this point but I wrestled with I was like okay I read all the technical papers I get it I look at the charts I hear but I can't um I can't really really understand like what's it all about because what's happened is that an ecosystem has been created around I say Bitcoin but could some other cryptocurrencies and there are exchanges, there are custodians, there are hedge funds that you know buy and sell these things, there are analysts, there are charts, there are technicians.

[00:05:18]The entire ecosystem of Wall Street has been wrapped around Bitcoin with one difference which is there's nothing there. You know, at least if I'm analyzing Tesla, you know, maybe you like it, I hate it, whatever. We can have a good debate about Tesla or Netflix or anybody, but at least there's like a real company there doing something that where we can argue. And then and then the ecosystem of custodian, settlement, clearance, brokers, all that stuff, technicians, charts wraps around something that's when I say real company, it doesn't have to be tangible. Amazon's not very tangible. It's a real company, but there's like no there where's the kernel of the thing. Uh and it it's not there.

[00:05:57]So there's no use case uh other than you know like tax evasion or money laundering or something. So how to understand it and I didn't really get a grasp of it until I did a really deep dive and I'm talking years of study and you know like 20 books on communications theory and in particular the digital environment you know Marshall McLuhan said when they when they put Sputnik up in I think 1958 or 59 he said the entire planet became a human artifact because we were we were wrapping the planet in aluminum you know that was right And uh they say um you know they're saying we we don't know who discovered water but we're certain it was not a fish because a fish is in water. When you're immersed in something you don't know it's there.

[00:06:44]You got to take the fish out of the water and the fish goes where's the water? But when you're in it you don't know it. You're immersed in. We're immersed in electronic environment which is um acoustic uh tactile nonlinear.

[00:07:00]We've been reading for 2,500 years since Plato, reading books, but now all of a sudden that doesn't matter. I mean, you can't go to a restaurant without hearing hiphop on the speakers. We're we're immersed in this digital electronic environment. And cryptocurrency is a part of that. So, they're actually hallucinogenic. Uh, everyone sees what they want to see. Um, and then when you think about it, let's say you're 25 years old. There's I've seen data on who how many what percentage of the age group co of the cohort own bitcoin or other cryptos you know by by cohort and the lowest you over 60 is the lowest um there could be big account this isn't a dollar thing or a dollar equivalent thing uh it's interesting you can't talk about bitcoin without talking about dollars that tells you something but um it's not the size of the account it's the number of those in the cohort who owns anything and the highest percentage not surpris urprisingly are generation X and millennials. But these are people who who were playing video games from the age of four and going back to the '9s when they were growing up. Uh video games had digital currencies. That's how the game sponsors made money. Like your army's losing, but you for for you know for 20 bucks using your credit using your parents credit card, you can buy more armies, you know. So, of course, when Bitcoin came along, they're like, "Digital currency seemed like the most natural thing in the world because they had been playing these video games for 10 years at that point." So, they were adopters, but it was no more real than the video game, but it was part of this electronic environment that I'm describing. So, we're in we're in this electronic environment. Um, it's an acoustic tactile world. So, what are the characteristics of that that we should look out for? One is tribalism and and McLuhan and by the many other scholars Eric Kavllock and uh um and Walter Ang and others uh but uh McLuhan's my favorite great Canadian by the way but um uh he said tribal he was the one who coined the phrase global village and everyone said a village that sounds kind of cool you know we all sit around campfire and share no villagers kill each other so and when he said tribalism he didn't mean it he said I didn't say it was good I just that's coming. And so it helps to explain um you know the the dysfunction of society and the political polarization.

[00:09:24]You when you put that in a communications theory context, you get tribalism and that explains a lot of behavior. And so my take on Bitcoin, it won't replace the dollar, but it may destroy the dollar >> by just by destroying by destroying the con concept of money. We're into moneyiness. We we actually we've lost the threat. We don't know what money is anymore.

[00:09:48]We we have moneyiness. Some characteristics, some not. That's what Bitcoin is really doing. It's it's uh turning money into moneyiness with different so-called forms of money having different characteristics, but we've lost the thread. We don't know what money is. So Jim Rickards has just recorded a video that's not available to anyone in the public and he's going to be talking about how this upcoming recession is going to be fast. It's going to be bloody. It's going to be nasty. But at the same time, he's going to show you how you can position yourself to profit from all of this chaos. Now, we've made this video only available to our viewers. Go to londonre.tv/jim.

[00:10:28]Watch that immediately. I can't say enough good things about Jim Rickards.

[00:10:33]He understands the global economic system better than any guest I've ever had on London Real. His predictions are almost uncannily true, and you can learn how to profit from his vision, from his expertise, and his understanding of economics. So, go to lunderreal.tv/jim or click the link below. It's an excellent, excellent look on what's going to happen in the future and how you can position yourself to profit from that. Jim is one of the best in the business, one of my favorite guests on London Real, and he's very, very good at predicting the future and showing us all to profit from it. So, click the link, and I hope you enjoy.

[00:11:15]I'm looking for partners, collaborators, colleagues who want to join forces with me around the globe and create real value, generational wealth, and financial freedom for everyone else around the world. Get involved in the cryptocurrency markets. Get involved in the NFT markets. This is your moment.

[00:11:31]Life all comes down to a few moments.

[00:11:33]Don't let this pass now. It's not too late. Next year is going to be too late.

[00:11:39]Ultimately, this is about freedom.

[00:11:41]That's the way I see it. This is about giving power back to the people and enabling billions of people worldwide to use the financial markets to improve their lives and those of their friends and their families and their communities.

[00:11:54]Honestly, I think it's a violation of human rights not to allow people basic access to financial services because right now people are being kept in the dark that are being robbed of education and it's a travesty. And so I'm looking for people that want to join me and be a part of this solution and that all happens inside the DeFi Academy. The gains my students are making are absolutely amazing. Double triple-digit gains in the first month alone. That's amazing. This will change your life. Now is the time to get involved. I'm going to tell you exactly how my students in my academy made money in the last 30 days. I'm talking about real trading results. And let me just wet your appetite a little bit. Let me hit you with some numbers. I'm talking Brendan from New Zealand is up 68.77% on the month. Steve from Europe up 83%.

[00:12:48]Albert in Singapore up 169.9% on one single trade. I got Susan up 153% on her call options alone. Also rocking 139% returns and 442% returns as well on individual trades. These are people that are changing their financial future in the last 30 days. But it's based on trading discipline.

[00:13:12]I've graduated over 500 students from inside my academy from over 54 countries around the world. It's amazing.

[00:13:18]When it comes to crypto, DeFi, and blockchain, we love this space. We truly believe it's the future. This is down to our core. It's authentic to what we're doing. And everybody can tell through the camera because you can't make this stuff up. If you're watching me now, wherever you are, I implore you, take 60 seconds right now and join my academy.

[00:13:38]Apply today.

[00:13:40]Now, you've got a chance. Life all comes down to a few moments. What are you going to do? What's the choice that you're going to make?