Why Billionaire Ricardo Salinas Keeps Turning Cash Into Bitcoin

**Ricardo Salinas** (0:00)
For most people, what they should think is, as soon as you get some fiat, you want to get rid of it, instead of buying some stuff, buy some Bitcoin and store it. And don't look at it, don't look at it.
Like when you buy a house, are you checking the price of your house every day on the market? No, of course not.

**Jennifer Sanasie** (0:21)
Ricardo Salinas, welcome to Coin Desk.

**Ricardo Salinas** (0:24)
Hi there, guys. Nice to see you, be with you.

**Jennifer Sanasie** (0:28)
It's a pleasure having you here.
You know, Ollie and I have been looking forward to this conversation. We're going to unpack everything from your crypto origin story all the way to your business ventures and your view for the future when it comes to crypto. But I want to start the conversation here. If you were to think back to your first memory of money mattering, where does that take you?

**Ricardo Salinas** (0:50)
Well, the conversation at the family table way back then with my grandfather and my father was always about gold. I'm born in 55, so in the mid 70s, I was 20 years old.
Of course, Nixon cut the convertibility of the US dollar in 1971, I was only 16 But that became a big topic in our family table. So the famous fiat fraud that was realized by Richard Nixon was always a big issue at home. So my dad will always go on and on and on about how gold was going to go up because the governments across the world were just printing like crazy, starting with the United States. So yeah, we've been around this discussion for a long time.

**Ollie Acuna** (1:49)
Yeah, and so, and Bitcoin, so let's just dive right straight into Bitcoin. You've talked about gold debasement, and the next obvious logical step is Bitcoin and your conversation. So when did Bitcoin come into play in your journey?

**Ricardo Salinas** (2:11)
Well, Bitcoin was introduced to me at a late stage, I think it was 2013, when it was around, let me say, $200 or $400 per Bitcoin. And the way I found out about it was at a conference in New York City, and at first I just thought, well, this is like another stock that you buy and then you sell and you make some money.
Just like many other people have found out about Bitcoin. But after some time and some education, I decided that this was not just another security that you should hold and then resell. This was something different. It was a new and better, much better form of money. So I came to the conclusion that it was actually much better money than gold or silver.
But, I mean, there's always a, how do you say, an element of uncertainty regarding how soon people are going to find out about this. But we could go on and on about all the difference between Bitcoin and gold and silver. But at the bottom line is not about gold and silver and Bitcoin. It's about the fiat fraud that underlies the whole thing.

**Jennifer Sanasie** (3:41)
You said you came to the conclusion that Bitcoin was better than gold and silver.
Just unpack that a little bit. What made you come to that, to that conclusion and when was this?

**Ricardo Salinas** (3:52)
Well, it took me a long time actually. And it was really after reading the Bitcoin Standard by Seif-ud-Din Amroud. So he made a very coherent and clear history of money. And how really at the end of the day, money is just nothing more than the most acceptable commodity around there.
It's a commodity that's easily exchanged for another commodity. There's nothing mysterious about money. You know, in a prison, cigarettes are money. And in the schoolyard, maybe chocolates are money.
So, in this fiat fraud universe that we live in, paper bills are now even digital representations of the digital, of the paper bills, count as money, which are really nothing. It's, as Menger said, you know, the famous Austrian economist, all value is subjective. So why would people take chocolates or cigarettes or pieces of paper in exchange for services or for goods? Well, because they think they can exchange that for something else. Money is nothing more than the most liquid commodity around. And so I started thinking about that and said, you know, gee, if so many people across the whole world are being gas lit by the fiat fraud and they take these pieces of paper that are worth nothing in exchange for hard labor or for real assets, why would they not take a digital token called Bitcoin, which has a lot more advantages compared to the fiat either physical or digital? So that's really what got me started thinking. And so now I'm totally convinced that the only way out of this thing is for fiat to be absolutely worthless as it should be.