Rare News Desk
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Videos by Rare
Kurt Wallace: This is Kurt Wallace and our guest today on Rare is Stephen Macaskill. He is the CEO of Amagi Metals. Stephen thanks for being with us today on Rare
Stephen Macaskill: Hi Kurt, thank you so much for having me.
Kurt Wallace: Well, we want to discuss a variety of things. Talk about precious metals, which you guys are in that business but also alternative currencies or cryptocurrencies and we’re seeing kind of creeping up of pricing in precious metals. Has gold and silver, platinum, palladium, have they hit their bottom? Are they on their way back? What is the market telling you?
Stephen Macaskill: Oh wow, well that’s the big question. For about three weeks back in June we saw a lot of stagnation across the industry. The reason why is the prices of gold and silver have been oscillating back and forth for three weeks. And we saw of course a double dip. Now we’re seeing all kinds of trends in the market like the stock market is at an all time high and yet last quarter the GDP results showed that the US economy contracted the most in the last five years.
So, it’s strange that the market is contracting and yet the stock markets at an all time high. What that leads me to believe is inflation is slowly starting to set in. That over the last ten years the Federal Reserve has been expanding the monetary base. But that hasn’t really hit the supply of money, the monetary base is the foundation and of course the banks have to take that and start lending that and loaning that out to expand supply of money. And I think we’re just starting to see that. So, the supply of money is going to start expanding a lot more rapidly. And I think we’re going to enter into an era known as stagflation. With high unemployment and high inflation and we experienced that in the 70’s.
So I definitely think that we’re starting to head at least signals are pointing in that direction. So, of course it could lead to people realizing that they need to take their assets out of paper and other paper equities and move it into physical. And of course I think that will push the price of gold and silver up and we’ll start seeing another take off.
Kurt Wallace: Now your company accepts alternative currencies such as Bitcoin and other currencies. What are the cryptocurrencies that you will accept in exchange for precious metals?
Stephen Macaskill: Yeah, so we accept Bitcoin we’ve been accepting Bitcoin since 2012 and at one point we were the largest Bitcoin retail business in the world. And then starting I think earlier this year we started accepting Litecoin, Dogecoin, Potcoin, Darkcoin and Nextcoin.
Kurt Wallace: Now have you been getting a lot of transactions in the various coins as well?
Stephen Macaskill: Some of them, yes. Other ones not so much just because the market size of that cryptocurrency is a lot smaller than some of the other ones.
Kurt Wallace: With the stagflation that you were referring to earlier how does cryptocurrency a new element or a new sort of unknown how does that affect the future of how people do business?
Stephen Macaskill: Yeah, I think that, I know a lot of people are going to be hurt financially and economically in the United States and around the world for these huge recessions that we’re experiencing and I think that actually it gives Bitcoin more power because it allows people to understand it because they see that there’s a huge problem with our financial system. And so, they start getting priced out of the financial system so they start look for alternatives and now we have many different alternatives to the current financial system. And that is Bitcoin, so I think that it’s starting to play more and more of a major role in the economy.
Kurt Wallace: You are in the precious metals business and you’re also embracing cryptocurrencies. There are those out there that are in the precious metals business that seem to not embrace it the way that you have and Peter Schiff is one of them. My question to you though is the coexistence of precious metals and cryptocurrencies what do you see that other people may not?
Stephen Macaskill: I think that the strengths of Bitcoin are the weakness of gold and the strengths of gold are the weaknesses of Bitcoin. If you want to take a million dollars in gold or silver or more to a different country across the country it’s a burden, it takes up so much space. If you’re taking it on a plane you have to go through TSA and even though it’s your own money they may harass you for it.
Whereas with Bitcoin you send it electronically anywhere in the world has no moving barriers like that. But of course gold and silver have been money for the last 3000 years so it has that track record that Bitcoin doesn’t. Also, Bitcoin has a public ledger that everyone can look at all the transactions ever made. Whereas gold its a lot more difficult to be able to show who has what gold around the world.
Kurt Wallace: Now these cryptocurrencies they’re starting to become mainstream through Bitpay who is sponsoring the Bitcoin Bowl NCAA football event and we saw another company yesterday or a couple of days ago Newegg who is now accepting Bitcoin they’re a large retailer online. Along with Overstock.com, the CEO of EBay saying that Paypal will start to introduce Bitcoin at some point. It’s sound like it’s here to stay.
Stephen Macaskill: Yeah, well if Bitcoin isn’t here to stay at least cryptocurrency will be here to stay. And I like to differentiate the two because cryptocurrency encompasses all the cryptocurrencies. You know it’s still kind of the wild west. We’re working out the kinks. It’s still a big experiment all the cryptocurrencies are competing with each other. So, we can’t really say that there’s obviously right now Bitcoin is the top dog but in 10-20 years is that still going to be the top dog? We’re not sure but it’s really interesting to see and be a part of.
Kurt Wallace: What are the types of services that Amagi Metals provide?
Stephen Macaskill: We sell precious metals and we accept Bitcoin. But we actually just upgraded our website so people can receive text messages or emails if the price of Bitcoin or gold or silver go over or under a certain amount. We’re going to add a porfolio service in the next six months where people can track their metals on our website. And of course we are offering a section called Free Market News. Which isn’t a market news which is free, it’s news from a free market perspective. So we’re trying to promote information about the economy around the world from a free market perspective.
Kurt Wallace: Stephen McCaskill thanks for being with us today on Rare
Stephen Macaskill: Yes, thank you so much for having me.
