The Mustard Seed—a bitcoin and long-term thinking podcast
The Mustard Seed—a bitcoin and long-term thinking podcast
Podcast Description
After finishing graduate school, I left my first job as a technology consultant at Ernst & Young to work full-time in bitcoin. One of the most valuable things I did early on was host a bitcoin podcast. It allowed me to learn directly from some of the most intelligent minds in the space and build lasting relationships.
The podcast is my way of staying connected to the most thoughtful people in bitcoin. It helps me better understand how capital is flowing into bitcoin and how the smartest leaders are positioning themselves as bitcoin continues to reshape global capital markets.
Podcast Insights
Content Themes
The podcast emphasizes themes around bitcoin adoption, financial strategies, and market analysis with episodes exploring topics like bitcoin treasury management, corporate finance strategies involving bitcoin, and the dynamics of passive capital flows toward bitcoin. An example episode features Michael Saylor discussing preferred equity as a pathway to unlock passive capital for bitcoin-driven companies.
Joe Burnett is Director of Bitcoin Strategy at Semler Scientific (NASDAQ: SMLR), the second publicly traded company to adopt a bitcoin treasury strategy, where he helped the company accumulate more than 5,000 BTC. He previously served as Director of Market Research at Unchained, which helps secure over 100,000 BTC. Joe hosts The Mustard Seed, a Bitcoin podcast featuring leading experts such as Michael Saylor, Lyn Alden, and Luke Gromen. Before Unchained, he worked at Blockware Solutions and Ernst & Young.
In this episode, Luke Gromen explains why U.S. fiscal math is breaking down, why the Fed is being forced toward monetization, and why real assets are quietly reasserting themselves as paper systems weaken. We discuss the growing divide between the financial world and the physical world, China’s long-term commodity strategy, AI-driven labor disruption, and what these shifts mean for bitcoin, gold, and institutional capital.
Timestamps:
00:00 – Introduction and setting the macro context
00:50 – Trump, the Fed, and why deficit monetization is unavoidable
03:20 – Why U.S. fiscal math is already broken
06:40 – The split between the paper economy and the physical world
09:10 – How China traded dollars for commodities and leverage
12:40 – Why the dollar no longer guarantees access to real resources
13:55 – Supreme Court tariffs and whether policy choices still matter
15:10 – Why markets remain complacent despite rising global risk
18:05 – Where real stress is showing up beneath the surface
21:15 – AI as a productivity shock to white-collar employment
24:00 – Lessons from China joining the WTO and job displacement
26:45 – Political consequences of economic dislocation
29:10 – Deflationary crash versus inflationary reset scenarios
32:50 – Why execution and communication determine outcomes
34:40 – Why Luke reduced his bitcoin exposure
37:05 – Bitcoin versus gold and changing macro relationships
40:40 – Institutional behavior and long-term technical signals
44:00 – What would bring Luke back into bitcoin
48:15 – How low bitcoin could fall in a deflationary shock
52:35 – Unknown risks and why position sizing matters
56:20 – Can bitcoin surpass gold’s total market value
Disclaimer
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