 Hello everybody, right now I'm in the beautiful and tragic city of Kiev, Ukraine in a park. I arrived this morning by overnight train and they're really uncomfortable. I didn't get much sleep and I thought I would share myself up by talking about two of my favorite things, bitcoins and economist Ludwig von Mises who incidentally was born in Lviv where I began my journey in Lviv Ukraine back when it was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. So much is made of Mises's regression theorem as I understand it one of his many intellectual breakthroughs was breaking out of the circular explanation of prices what's something worth. Well, pants are worth $35, why? Because $35 are worth a pair of pants. And he just took this linearly back in history where prices are based on yesterday's prices are based on the prices of the day before that all the way back. So the dollar for example is valuable because it was valuable yesterday because it was valuable the day before that. You follow that back because it was valuable because gold was valuable. That yelling, those are the chess players. Chess is a contact sport here in Kiev. I hope this wind doesn't mess up the sound. Anyway, so there's a lot of skepticism among Austrians for bitcoins because they seem to have arisen out of nowhere. And Robert Murphy who I think even though he's kind of a household name I think doesn't get enough credit. I think he's a genius and deserves more attention but he lays out the debate in a video that I'll link to how a lot of Austrian economists are saying that it's either bitcoins or Mises's regression theorem and he lays out that debate really well. In other words bitcoins contradict Mises's regression theorem. But I don't think that's true. I think people don't see the commodity, don't see the valuable thing that backs bitcoins because they're looking for a commodity and bitcoins are backed by a service. The day before bitcoins arrived on the scene I was willing to pay 35 bucks for international wire transfer. I was willing to pay a 1.5% for PayPal transactions. I was willing to pay 2.9% for credit card transactions. So the thing that backs bitcoins and makes them consistent with the regression theorem is not some commodity but it's a service. That's what makes it hard to spot for all these people who are used to commodity money and looking for a commodity backing which bitcoins do not have. I'm really curious what the academic sorts say about this idea. I don't know if it'll reach them because who am I, right? But perhaps if there is something to it that bitcoins are a money backed by a service then perhaps there's still one little paradox to solve. You need to change your money into bitcoins so that they could provide this service and you need some additional value. You can't use zero because if it's zero then bitcoins are unable to provide a service. Bitcoins can only provide the service of transporting money, transporting wealth if they have some value no matter how small. Even if they're worth one penny you can buy them and then transport them very easily to anywhere in the world instantly or beyond the world as long as aliens have an internet connection. But the paradox is how do you lift it from zero to one because they can't provide that service at zero but I think that's really easy. They do have some value just as a work of philosophic and logical art. So there you go. Bitcoins regression theorem. Well I'm curious if anyone has any comments. Both rants and raves are welcome. Please let me know what you think. Cheers.