- [Kal] This thing we call the global economy
has been around for a long time.
Here, we see early traders trying
to settle on a price for, I'm gonna say, clubs?
(electronic music)
Things got only slightly more civilized
when we invented something called money.
Now, I know you may think you know what money is,
but do you?
We spend all our lives trying to get it,
but what has inspired such divine faith in a piece of paper?
Is it intrinsically valuable?
Or is it all just a big lie, like when your kid
gives you a coupon for a back rub.
The secret behind money is the big mystery
at the center of the global economy.
We all use it every day, but have you ever
stopped and asked why this doesn't
represent money, but this does?
Or even?
Whether you like it or not, we're all connected by money.
I'm Kal Penn, exploring this giant beast
that is the global economy.
(suspenseful music)
What if you didn't trust anyone?
What if you thought believing in money was dangerous?
So dangerous that you were sure
it would eventually get you killed.
Then you might be like preparedness experts
Jane and Rick Austin.
They've built this isolated hidden compound
to get ready for a worldwide financial collapse.
- When we have a total financial breakdown,
people's first concern is gonna be eating.
80% of the population will be dead in two months.
People will literally be killing each other
and eating each other for food.
(Kal laughs)
So the people that'll be left,
the 20% will be people like us that grow our own,
and the really, really, really bad psychopaths.
- And you're prepared--
- We're prepared for whatever happens, however it happens.
- [Kal] Rick and Jane left everyone else behind
to grow and raise everything they need to survive.
If the shit goes down, they are ready
to go off-grid and be entirely self-sufficient.
- This is the secret garden of survival.
I call it the secret garden of survival
'cause everything is really kinda camouflaged.
Most people wouldn't know what food is
unless it had a label and it was in a package.
If you looked down here, you'd just
kinda look and say, well, this property is abandoned,
there's nobody here, nothing to see here,
go on to something else.
- Oh, so it's designed that way purposely?
- It's designed that way, yeah.
In a grid down situation, money isn't gonna
buy you any food when there's no food to buy.
Everything we have here is our currency.
- Was the desire to do this because of
a lack of trust in what the dollar is?
- Yes.
It's only worth what people think it's worth.
And at some point, it may not be worth anything.
- [Kal] What drove Rick and Jane to this life?
What made them give up restaurants and grocery stores
to take on hours of daily labor
just to meet their basic needs?
- So I'm gonna go in the refrigerator
and I'm gonna have fun.
- [Kal] For years, Jane worked in an office,
but like many other Americans, she and Rick
were hit by the 2008 financial downturn.
Now, she's Survivor Jane and today,
she's making her own goat cheese.
- We were like the majority of consumers out there.
We bought and we worked and we bought and we worked.
And what really got our attention
was the housing market bubble.
Our gated community home that we actually
paid premium so that we could be in a nicer area,
started turning into multi-family renting.
Crime started going up, the neighborhood
started going down, and then the stock market,
right behind it.
My 401k, I was losing about $7,000 a month.
- That's a lot of money. - But it was a lot for me--
- It's a lot of money to most people. - Because I had worked
a long time, and I was told that...
I could either quit my job or I could die.
Those are the only ways I was gonna get my 401 money out.
So we took a huge leap of faith
and decided to head for the hills.
We stay up here on the mountain so our way
to get the word out is to have a YouTube channel.
As you can see, an off-grid home
doesn't have to look like one.
- I've designed and built every building on this property.
- I created what I call the Hiney Hydrant,
which is a portable bidet.
And it eliminates the need to have to buy toilet paper.
- Even though we live off-grid, we're not just surviving.
- We're thriving.
I was used to going to the shopping mall.
I couldn't do that anymore.
I had to figure out, how can I make my own makeup?
I'm gonna be honest with you, this isn't natural, okay?
The barn needs painting, okay?
I'll tell you, the goats don't care,
but the old goat does.
Okay, so I just want to let you know.
I had to make my own makeup, out of food.
We don't need money, we don't need anything
except for what we have.
And it seems like, wow, you just kind of,
your whole life is food.
Uh-huh. And I'm living pretty good.
- [Kal] Jane and Rick have voluntarily formed
a community of two, servicing their own needs.
No outsiders welcome.
- Let it stretch, there you go.
- [Kal] But what if my idea of giving up money
doesn't also include defending my family
against the flesh-eating masses?
Especially if I can't even make cheese
well enough to survive.
- Let me just tell you, you're gonna die.
(Kal laughs)
- [Kal] What if you're not looking for
an isolated mountain home, but still
want to live without money?
The 2008 financial crisis that sent Rick and Jane
to the hills dealt a crushing blow
to America's housing market.
But the economic effect was global.
(protestors chanting)
Brutal shockwaves extended to Europe,
where entire economies were decimated.
(siren wails)
Eventually, things got really bad in Spain
after massive bank failures sent unemployment soaring,
and people took to the streets in protest.
The financial crisis left many people
in Oviedo without much money to spare.
So Sergio Martin created an experimental,
barter-based market where community members
directly trade goods and services without using money.
- What's up?
It's an economy made by people,
for the people,
and with the people.
We all have needs.
And we all have resources.
So, we have to use barter, imagination, talent, resources
- I like that. - to get by inside this place.
- That's interesting.
So you're offering this idea of going back
to a trust-based community where somebody
has a good or service that they're directly giving to you.
- Yeah. - (upbeat music)
- How does it work?
- How do you get dollars? Or Euros?
- You work for it.
- What can I do? What talents do you have?
What resources can I take advantage?
For example, food is very important.
This weekend, I felt like making bread with my new oven I built.
And today I'm selling bread.
- So I love this idea, obviously, and I'm way into it.
The reason I was wracking my brain was like,
I'm an actor, and I have some teaching experience,
but we're not here long enough for me to teach a class.
I'm wearing these clothes, I have old socks on...
- We don't want you to be naked after getting...
- ...there are holes in my pockets,
nobody's gonna want this jacket.
- Do you have any film from you?
- Any like, DVDs?
- Yes. Would be nice. - I do, actually.
Okay, so we do have one, thank you.
So this is a DVD.
This I hope will make you laugh.
- This is a very nice plan for my evening.
- So thanks a lot. - Okay, good, cool.
- And now, I would give you something.
For example, you could take...
this one, which is very nice.
Smell. This is called Melissa.
- Melissa? - Melissa.
- That does smell like Melissa.
- Yes. Really? - What? No.
- No? - I don't know, there's somebody named Melissa
who's watching and she's a little
weirded out right now, 'cause I was a little creepy.
It does smell good, though.
- Really? - Yeah.
- And also I could give you some bread?
Do you like this one?
Yeah, that's a nice looking loaf of bread.
- Yeah, looks nice. - It's heavy.
This is gonna fill somebody up.
Several people. This is for a family.
Yes. This is real bread.
So, are you happy?
- Yes. - Me, too.
Great, but I could still trade this for something else.
- Yeah, of course. - Okay.
Okay, so if I wanted to barter this for this,
what are these, soap and lotion.
- Hello.
Can I interest you in some Melissa for your soaps?
They would smell amazing.
People would love them.
- You get the fragrance. - Like, smell this, it smells amazing.
- The bread. - The bread? Okay.
This is really well-made.
- Yes, because it's all handmade.
- Awesome.
Okay, alright, I will trade you for this one.
Thank you. Thank you.
You sure you don't want some Melissa?
(Sergio laughs)
- And these girls.
What do you have? Let's see, tell us.
- T-shirts, books.
- Good.
Did you make all these shirts?
- Yes.
- They're nice, they're very nice.
Can I interest you in some Melissa?
- I think no.
A plant?
Okay. We tried.
- Alright. Thank you.
This is where bartering hits a wall.
A wall that can't be paid for with a nice-smelling plant.
Economic systems don't thrive when you can
get stuck with something nobody wants.
So it looks like I'm going home with Melissa tonight.
To build a global economy, it seems like
you need something to exchange that everybody wants.
Across the globe and throughout history
there's been one rare, heavy element
that people have always been drawn to.
Seduced by.
Driven mad by its glittering shine.
Willing to do anything to get their hands on--
- Gold. (Kal yells)
You're a nervous guy.
- Around this much gold, yes.
- You're standing currently in the only
center in London where you can buy a gold bar,
sell a gold bar, test it, but best of all,
having bought it you can store it on site in a gold vault.
We wouldn't normally take a client down there,
but fancy a little look? - Yes.
- [Ross] (laughs) Come on, let's go.
- [Kal] Three decades of experience
make Ross Norman London's gold guru.
He says the gold in his vault is safe,
but he can't say the same for the cash.
- I'm about to make you very rich.
I hope you can appreciate this.
I'm about to give you $100 trillion.
Congratulations. - [Kal] Thank you so much.
- You're now the owner of $100 trillion, Zimbabwe money.
- Oh, yeah, okay, this is worthless.
- But do you know what? It goes on.
Yugoslavia, I can't even count the notes.
$10 million Deutsche Marks from the Second World War.
Turkish lira, how many notes is that?
It's only half a million Turkey lira.
Cash always goes to its intrinsic value, zero.
They're great as a medium of exchange
but through time, it erodes.
- So how does gold differ?
- It's got a 4,000 year history.
What economists call purchasing power parity.
If you'd bought an ounce of gold
in the time of Jesus Christ,
you'd have bought a suit of clothing.
Bought an ounce of gold in the time of Henry VIII,
you'd have bought a suit of armor.
An ounce of gold today is about $1,300, £1,000.
You can get suited and booted
on Savile Row in London for £1,000.
The point being, there's a world preserve.
It buys the same things throughout history.
Cash doesn't. - What's in there?
You have the key in there, and I'm
so distracted by this key, 'cause I'm like,
what's in the box? - I'm gonna show you something
I'm gonna show you something. Let's have a quick look in here.
What I've got in here is,
clients come here to store their value.
- [Kal] Ooh!
- Hands off. (laughs)
You're in a safe deposit box.
(Kal laughs)
Now, consider in this country,
the average wage is about £28,000.
In cash terms, that's £28,000.
These are £50 notes, okay.
The equivalent in gold, take it here.
Is a kilo of gold.
That's $45,000.
- This is heavy.
- It's twice as dense as lead.
- Is this pure gold?
- [Ross] 99.99% pure.
May I take that back? (laughs)
- If you have to.
- Throughout history, we had to
attach value to an element that was reliable.
On opposite sides of the world
they came to the same conclusion.
Do you remember the name Marco Polo?
- Yeah. - In the 1200s,
he went from Europe, where they used gold as cash,
he discovered in Japan and China
they were also using gold as cash.
South America, a thousand years ago.
So across the world, relatively isolated communities,
all attached to one element, gold.
- [Kal] People and gold have had
a pretty stable long-term relationship.
So why aren't we still using gold as money?
(dramatic music)
- [Narrator] Gold!
Even on this black and white reel it shines,
right off the screen.
None in the modern world has had
a more extraordinary relationship with gold than America,
the sweetheart consumers of the global economy.
For the better part of the 19th century,
America flirted with the gold standard.
We made it official in 1900, legally declaring that
each bill was worth a set amount of gold held in reserve.
Gold-crazed citizens were emancipated
from the burden of lugging around heavy coins and bars.
Put away that wheelbarrow, Jasper.
The US gold standard held down inflation
and made the dollar reliable for trade with foreign nations.
America was sitting pretty,
until the Great Depression pulled
the rug right out from under us.
Economic hardship puts a bellyful of stress
on the gold standard.
The Federal Reserve couldn't source the supply of gold
required to print more bills to stimulate the economy.
That marked the beginning of the end for the gold standard.
In 1971, President Nixon nixed it for good.
(upbeat music)
- I'm in our nation's capital,
where I spent a few years working for President Obama.
You're welcome.
I'm here to meet an old friend
at Martin's Tavern in Georgetown,
which has a long history of hosting
some of DC's biggest power players.
I'm excited that we're sitting down together.
We worked together for a couple of years.
Austan Goolsbee knows a thing or two
about why gold got kicked
to the curb by the global economy.
Austan also worked at the White House.
- We don't have the gold standard now,
and there's not any country on Earth
that has the gold standard anymore,
because it didn't work.
The people that usually advocated gold standard
have in mind, I don't trust the government,
I don't trust any individual in the government
to decide how much money there should be.
They'll probably print too much money
and we'll have hyperinflation.
And only gold, which is in fixed supply,
will give us the stability that we need.
Now the only thing about that is
the gold's not in fixed supply when they find,
you saw those old pictures of the guy
with the coveralls, he's in Alaska.
They discover a bunch of gold, it's like
they've flooded the market with money.
You haven't replaced that there are
decisions being made about how much money to print.
Russian miners and South African gold miners,
they're the ones who determine how much money's in the economy,
rather than somebody in the government.
- The actual paper on which a dollar
or $10 or $100 is printed, if a dollar is a dollar,
does the paper actually cost a dollar?
Does a $100 bill cost more than the dollar?
- What you are identifying, we don't
have a commodity money system anymore.
Instead, we have fiat money.
We print the money, and then we tell you what it's worth.
- Like is it meaningless?
Is money totally bullshit, is it meaningless?
- If you pull out your dollar and you look at it,
it says, this note is legal tender
for all debts, public and private.
It's a promise from the government
that you could use that to pay your taxes.
That's what makes it fiat money.
It just means the government says, this is a dollar.
If they print a $100 bill, on one cent of paper,
and they say this is worth $100,
will you give me $100 worth of coconuts,
you know, for this? And they will!
You'll go outside, somebody will take $100 bill,
just because the government, by fiat,
declared that that's what it's worth.
- So it's a system of trust.
- It's a system of trust, and it has to be.
Because you have to trust if I'm giving you
something other than a barter, this for that,
to say, yes,
this abstract thing represents value,
then we can use it to trade.
And there's always the temptation that whoever's in power,
would say, well, while no one's looking,
let's print a whole bunch of money
and pay off all of our, whatever debt we have.
If you abuse that, the markets and the people
who use the money, they will notice.
And when that happens, they will begin to flee your money.
Stable governments are basically the last
safe house that we have.
- [Kal] So, the government wants me to trust their money,
and their money wants me to trust someone else.
I suppose having a faith in our institutions
is easier than carrying around a heavy metal
or a potted plant, but can I choose
to place my faith someplace else?
Is there an option that doesn't
depend on a government decree or banks?
That would change the world.
And we all know where to go for that.
(modem squeals)
- I took the initiative in creating the internet.
- [Kal] The internet has excited us.
- And then there's email.
- Email, I heard that's really neat.
- [Kal] And changed our lives over and over.
- [Interviewer] You launched Facebook in your dorm room?
- Yeah.
- [Kal] Will the next big internet innovation remake money?
- It is the hottest currency in the world.
- Bitcoin. - Bitcoin.
- [Kal] Some of the biggest influencers
of the last two decades are looking at
a whole new way to get rich online.
- You know, people have made fortunes out of Bitcoin,
some people have lost money out of Bitcoin.
- [Kal] Bitcoin was the first digital currency.
It is also referred to as a cryptocurrency.
Its aim is to free us from blind faith in institutions.
And a legion of devotees have come forward
to declare crypto the future of money.
- This is a financial innovation that is not going anywhere.
(relaxing music)
- [Kal] Jeremy Gardner's early interest
in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies
made him into a globetrotting millionaire by age 25.
Now he's focused on spreading the cryptocurrency gospel
as king of the Crypto Castle.
- [Jeremy] Hello, welcome to the Crypto Castle.
- Thank you.
I thought it was going to look like a legit castle.
- It's always a disappointment
for people that aren't prepared.
Well, let's start here.
This is more of like, a man den trading cave,
this is Tony.
- Hey, Tony, how are you?
Kal, nice to meet you. - Frequent house guest.
The house started as a three-bedroom,
but we quickly turned it into a lot more than that.
We turned this into a bedroom right here,
I don't think it's available.
Got another bedroom back here.
My dream was to someday build a gym in here,
but then I remembered I didn't like exercise.
Probably the most unique component is the guest bedroom.
Got two bunk beds. - Oh, that's cool.
- [Jeremy] And so this allows us to host
all sorts of interesting people.
- [Kal] How long have people been living here
as the Crypto Castle?
- When I moved to San Francisco four years ago,
there was no gathering point for the crypto community,
because back then it was very small.
And so I really wanted to find
a space that could really host larger groups.
- [Kal] So the Crypto Castle isn't so much
a castle as a frat house-styled flophouse
for Jeremy's crypto crew.
How many people live here?
- Depends on the day.
- [Kal] Okay, today?
- Today I think we have six or seven.
- So you're, this is an incubator space, basically?
- Yeah, and not like the show "Silicon Valley" per se,
more in that it's an incubation of ideas.
Because of all the interesting people,
there's this kind of rapid ideation
constantly just trying to come up
with new ways to think about things,
and companies have been founded here,
you know, Augur, which I founded
which is first company here,
which is like worth $600 million today.
None of the team's here anymore,
but you know this is where that was founded.
Here, I don't know if she's in her room,
but Jing is the executive dir--
We're coming in.
- [Jing] What? - This is Jing.
- Nice to meet you. - Nice to meet you.
- [Jeremy] Jing is one of the most badass women in crypto.
- How did you end up living in this house?
I mean, that's like my first question.
- I started doing crypto stuff in 2012.
I was an art student at the time,
attending a women's college,
and then I went to this Bitcoin conference
with 300 men and four women.
And I was like, what is this nerdy world?
And I was hit by this horrible sense of FOMO,
so I switched majors to computer science.
- Oh, wow, from art to computer science?
- Yeah, yeah. FOMO is real.
- This is a house full of dropouts.
- Much to my Asian parents' dismay.
- Yeah, I'm sure.
- What's Bitcoin, Bitcoin is not real money!
- Jing is probably one of the most
well-tapped people when it comes to
the technical community in crypto,
'cause, you know, I deal a lot more
with the entrepreneurs and other investors.
But Jing knows all the brilliant programmers
that actually make this technology possible.
- Jeremy and Jing believe that
cryptocurrency is the future of money.
All they have to do is explain
what the hell it is to the rest of us.
How would you explain what's Bitcoin,
how does any of this work?
- Sure. Do you smoke hookah?
- Uh, no, I'm good, but feel free.
- Bitcoin is a form of electronic money
to move about in a decentralized way.
The system enables you to trust this--
engage with me, because we've created
a system of trust, that exists online
that doesn't require anyone to go
and mediate transactions.
And that's what makes this technology so revolutionary.
It's totally virtualized.
So no bank, no governments are necessary.
Literally you and me can transact something
that we both hold valuable without relying on anybody else.
- How is that ownership assigned to individuals?
Like how do you know how much of that you have?
- What Bitcoin introduced to the world
was this notion of a blockchain,
which is a distributed database with nodes,
little validators, all around the world.
It makes it impossible to hack,
and Jing may have more to add to this.
- I wanted to add something.
- Please. - Go ahead.
- So, it's called a blockchain,
and you can visualize it like this
ledger of transactions and who owes who what.
All of this data is put in a file,
and that's a confirmed block. - Okay.
- Did I confuse you more? - No, not at all.
I'm just making sure that I understand
everything you're saying.
I'm just gonna text a friend real quick.
- Dearly beloved, we are here today
to explain the blockchain.
Confusing thing, the blockchain.
It's a decentralized ledger for digital transactions
that stays on the internet forever.
And forever is a mighty long time.
But I'm here to tell you it's like something else.
And look, this isn't a perfect analogy,
but think of traditional financial
transactions like a wedding.
Two parties come together and exchange
something of value, like a ring.
Or, formerly, goats.
(goat bleats)
And, traditionally, these holy transactions
have relied on a license from a state
and an ordained official to verify them,
like a priest or a justice of the peace,
or a captain of a ship for some reason.
- I'll turn this ship around!
- You bet you will.
That is what made them centralized.
The official, like me, is comparable
to the bank or credit company
which traditionally verifies the transaction.
- But we're millennials.
- We don't traditionally anything.
- Well, alright then.
(dance music)
If standard financial transactions
are like a traditional wedding,
then blockchain transactions are like
a millennial spiritual union ceremony,
and they don't need an officiant like me.
For some reason, kids today don't
really trust the financial system.
They are satisfied to make this exchange
in front of these trusted witnesses,
who verify the transactions by taking pics,
tagging the bride and groom, and posting them online,
accessible to everyone on the internet.
So if I lose my phone somehow, it doesn't matter.
- Cashew cheese?
- Fuck no.
- I mean, if you look at millennials,
we've lived through a post-9/11 world
that's growingly Orwellian, and then
lived through the Great Recession.
If you're my age, you don't really trust the government.
You don't really trust banks.
What we're creating is something
that transcends the national economy.
We're creating something that is supernational.
Something that is global and accessible to everyone.
I tell young people, you know,
you should have 20 to 30% of your net worth in crypto,
because the upside is so exponential,
whereas the downside, especially for a young person
that can go and make more money, is fairly negligible.
As long as you believe the internet
is gonna exist in the future,
crypto assets are gonna be a part of that.
- Brah. - There you go.
- Shit, my mouth is full. - There we go.
You actually smoke hookah all the time, or--
- I do. - One of my investors saw Jeremy, and she said to him,
"You look ridiculous."
- (Kal laughs) - I don't remember that.
- [Kal] For the crypto kids,
cryptocurrency is a next gen solution
that will revolutionize the world economy
through a borderless currency that is
free from control by governments or financial institutions.
So future.
I'm in.
Now I've just gotta find me some Bitcoin.
(mysterious music)
Anyone can buy Bitcoin on a cryptocurrency exchange,
but before that happens, the coins have to be
digitally created on the network.
There's no physical treasury to mint them
or Federal Reserve controlling the supply like paper money.
Instead, Bitcoin introduced a way
to digitally generate a finite
number of coins with computing power,
a process called mining.
Now crypto mines have popped up all over the world.
They run powerful computers 24/7 in a race
to generate and hoard cryptocurrencies.
This one belongs to Petr Svoboda.
I'm here to find out how he turned crypto mining
into a business model.
Oh, wow.
The sound is from the fans in each one?
To keep it cool?
- Yes. It's very hot.
- What's the difference between these machines and these?
- These machines are specialized machines for mining bitcoin.
- And other cryptocurrencies. - Okay.
- Different algorithms.
- How many rooms like this do you have?
- There are five rooms.
- Five rooms like this? - Yes, yes.
- That's cool.
Can you explain how mining works?
- It's better for me, will be to explain it in Czech.
- Okay, perfect. My Czech is great.
- Working the algorithms...
Well, it's the uncle rib nose...
Skinny poor check Danno something something...
- uhhh... - Okay, I lied, I don't really speak Czech.
But I'm hoping there's someone
smarter than me who can explain all this
in English and like I'm five.
- Remember how the blockchain is
the digital record of Bitcoin transactions?
Well, mining is how the Bitcoins
are created and awarded in the first place.
The miners in the analogy are the guests,
who verify the transactions by taking pics,
tagging the bride and groom, and posting them online.
Bitcoin is created as an incentive for the miners
to build and maintain the blockchain.
- Okay everybody, time to catch the bouquet!
- Bitcoin is awarded to one lucky miner.
Don't feel bad for the miners who
didn't catch the Bitcoin bouquet.
Bitcoin transactions are happening constantly,
which means mining is a never ending wedding season.
The more they work to maintain the blockchain,
the more Bitcoin bouquets they have a chance to catch.
- Bitch.
- Because crypto mining takes so much energy,
mines like this are being built where energy is cheap,
like China, Iceland, and here in the Czech Republic.
And it's not just Bitcoin they're after.
There are already thousands of
other cryptocurrencies out there.
Litecoin, Ethereum, Tether, EOS, Stellar, PotCoin,
the list goes on and on.
You must have a crazy electricity bill.
- Yes. I think we spend about 60 thousand US Dollars.
- 60,000 US dollars a month. On electricity. - Yes, per month.
- Yes. - Wow.
That's a lot of money.
Can you tell me the average person,
how much they buy and invest?
- Yes, about 30 thousand US Dollars.
- 30,000 US dollars? - [Petr] Yes, yes.
- Each? Okay. - Each.
And how many machines is that usually?
It's for eight machines.
Oh, that's eight machines, is 30,000 US dollars?
Dude, this is amazing.
And you have five rooms of machines.
- Yeah.
- Are there a finite amount of Bitcoins?
- Yes, yes. - There are.
So when they're all found, then what happens?
- Nobody know.
Before I blow all my money on something
that I only understand through wedding metaphors,
I want to meet someone who can explain
how cryptocurrency actually gets its value.
(dogs barking)
(boat horn blows)
Jackson Palmer was a marketing manager
and coding enthusiast whose attempt to poke fun
at the cryptocurrency boom totally backfired.
(dog barks)
- How are you? - Nice to meet you.
- [Kal] These dogs are pretty amazing.
- [Jackson] They are.
- [Kal] These are the dogs on the coin you started, right? Dogecoin?
- That's right, I put the dog on the coin.
- (both laughing) - Yeah, these are the Shiba Inus.
Back in 2013, I was really into cryptocurrency,
noticed there was one coming on the scene
every month or so, and at the same time
I was really into the Doge meme.
- D-O-G-E.
- Your Doge?
What are you talking about?
- The Doge meme was born when a picture
of a dog with a soul-piercing gaze,
posted by a Japanese kindergarten teacher,
rose to internet fame.
Jackson took it from there,
tweeting what he intended as a joke.
Investing in Dogecoin, pretty sure it's the next big thing.
You hadn't created the coin yet.
- Hadn't created it at all.
- What happened with the tweet?
- The tweet started going viral,
and so I ended up buying the domain name, dogecoin.com,
and just slaps the Doge meme on top of a coin
and said, it's a parody cryptocurrency.
- What happens when you create a currency?
- It doesn't actually really involve anything
but putting the code out there for people to run.
It's the same with Bitcoin or Litecoin
or any of these things.
You just put up an application
that people can run and if enough people run it,
then it becomes a network around it.
- [Kal] Yup, it's that easy.
And even though Jackson is the creator of Dogecoin,
he never mined it or made any money on it.
But he did have a front row seat for Doge's rise
as an instant and inexplicable sensation.
- In about 24 hours, we started realizing
that there was all this hashing power,
all this computing power, pointed at the Dogecoin network.
I'm like, oh no, what have we done? (laughs)
It's a thing. Next thing I know, it's a $2 billion economy.
- Whoa.
That's when things got a little Doge-y.
Dogecoin's valuation soared on hype
fueled by a lovable mascot.
And I thought my love of dogs was irrational.
Hello.
And so you started a coin and yet you are a crypto skeptic.
- I'd call myself a crypto rationalist.
- Ooh, okay, crypto rationalist,
that's actually better, I like that.
- I think there's a lot of hype
and a lot of value being attached
to this stuff, with very little substance.
Cryptocurrency should be valued
on its actual merit and not the hype cycle
that says it's gonna be the biggest thing in 10 years time.
- How do humans scale something
like cryptocurrency, and at what point
does it flip from being speculative
to being an actual thing?
That's the technical term, by the way, "an actual thing."
- An actual thing? Okay. (laughs)
I think it's an interesting challenge.
I think, because the price is going
up and down all the time,
it doesn't really incentivize people to spend it,
because the currencies are so volatile.
- Jackson's concerns really point out
that cryptocurrency is still in its infancy.
Nobody knows what it'll grow up to be.
In fact, its volatile price over the last year
follows almost the exact path of the dot-com boom
that turned out to be a bust
when the internet was in its infancy.
Crypto is still a speculative asset,
more like an investment in a start-up
than hard cash in your pocket.
But there are people all over the world
trying to change that.
James Howells saw the potential of cryptocurrency
before almost everyone else.
He was one of the first crypto miners,
making a fortune in Bitcoin.
Now James is in on the race to figure out a way
to make cryptocurrency usable for everyday purchases.
Is this your doing?
- Yeah, I've actually put this into this store,
I'm using this as a test store,
because I'm selling this product
to businesses around the world.
- He's developed an app he hopes
will make crypto as easy to use as cash.
(generic pop music)
- [James] Grab a Lucozade.
- [Kal] I'll grab some crisps.
The app draws from a user's digital wallet,
which tracks how much Bitcoin cash you own.
- Yeah, now what?
I'll just play on Bitcoin Cash please, if that's alright.
This is the Bitcoin Cash Wallet,
so I've got Bitcoin Cash preloaded.
The merchant has got a solution
where they give me a QR code to pay.
I scan that and swipe to send,
and then the merchant knows that
he's actually received his funds
and they are secure in his wallet now.
- I assume Visa and Mastercard don't like Bitcoin,
because that circumvents their fees.
- Yeah, it puts them out of business.
People can transact without those third-party services.
- You shouldn't be paying third-party
just to put your money to somebody's else's hand.
- Yeah, true.
The potential of Bitcoin transactions is exciting.
No bank fees, no loose change, or long receipts.
And your crypto is safe and secure,
because the only way to use it is with a private key,
a string of 64 random letters and numbers
that is impossible to guess.
The only thing that could possibly go wrong,
is if you somehow lose your key.
Like, hypothetically, you stored it on a hard drive
and you accidentally throw it away
and it ends up in the bottom of a landfill.
I mean, then you're just fucked.
But how likely is that?
So how does one accidentally throw away a hard drive?
- I had a rather unfortunate incident
where I spilled a glass of lemonade onto my laptop.
But I actually kept the hard drive from that laptop,
because I knew it had my wallet on there,
my Bitcoin Wallet and my keys, my private keys.
And basically it was just a case of a mistaken identity.
The wrong hard drive was put into the black bag
and since then, the valuation of my drive,
$65 million today.
- [Kal] Holy shit.
- Yeah.
- [Kal] If that happened to me,
I would never throw anything away
ever again, in my life.
But James has a plan to find his fortune.
By cross referencing landfill records
with the day he threw out his drive,
he can narrow his search to an approximate location.
But the town council won't let him dig.
- In the UK, there's never been
a permit to excavate a landfill issued,
so we're in uncharted territory.
There's been a number of searches
of landfill for police inquiries,
for you know, murder investigations and things like that.
- So just murder somebody first,
and then you should be able to get your key back.
- I mean, the fact that I cannot get
$50-odd million worth of coin back,
proves that Bitcoin is secure.
- So if you had written that key down on a piece of paper,
you would've been okay? - Then I would still have it, yeah.
If I had that key, I can spend my coins.
I could set a machine, a supercomputer,
to continually guess every single code for my wallet.
The problem with that is there is more
possible combinations than there are
particles in the universe.
So I would need a couple of suns worth of energy,
actual suns worth of energy,
and a couple of billion years in order to crack it.
That, to me, is what gives Bitcoin its security
and that is why I trust in this technology
as the future of money.
Yeah, so if you wanna jump in,
we can go to the landfill and I can show you
where this multimillion dollar hard drive is buried.
- [Kal] All these people with all their money,
they trust that all of the other people
will also believe in the same money.
It's a chain of trust, unbroken.
So what should you trust?
Your government?
A shiny metal?
A computer code?
Or none of the above?
- Looking at this just gives you a scale.
- [Kal] Oh wow, yeah.
- [James] And that goes down underground as well.
- [Kal] Time will tell how expensive a blunder
James' tossed hard drive really was,
but who can blame him for trusting
in a new way forward and holding out hope
for his future digital fortune?
For now, this is as close as he can get.
- In 10 years time, there's a very good chance
that that drive is worth a billion dollars.
And I can't even walk across there to dig it up.
(hip-hop music)
(crowd chatters)
- [Director] Action.
- I'll turn this ship around!
I'll turn this ship around.
I'll turn this ship around!
- [Director] Try it drunk.
- I'll turn this ship around.
- (laughing) - [Director] Cut, perfect.