How do we fix our broken money? This is the central question in the new documentary titled, God Bless Bitcoin. Through in-depth conversations the film takes a deep dive into the transformative and moral aspects of bitcoin and the impact that this technology can have on the world. It explains what bitcoin is, how it’s used, as well as comparing and contrasting against current currencies. The film also explores connections with ancient scriptures and the world’s oldest religions to show the moral case for bitcoin.
We talked with writers-directors Brian and Kelly Estes. This husband-wife team is making the movie free to everyone and sharing why they feel understanding this cryptocurrency is invaluable.
Interviewed for Family Entourage
Family Entourage: I like how the documentary broke down, What is Bitcoin? How it’s used, compared and contrasted it to current currencies, but what promoted you to do the film and then also make it free for everyone to see?
Brain Estes: I read a book four years ago called, Thank God for Bitcoin, which was about the Christian view of Bitcoin. And it just made me curious. I was looking at, If this is the Christian view, what do the other religions say? So I dove in and I did my research and then that’s where it ended. But then I had this internal voice in me saying, You need to tell the story. Take everything you learned. Tell the story. I’m not a storyteller. I’ve never written a book or made a movie — I don’t even like writing, let alone reading — but the voice just kept getting louder and louder and louder. And finally two years ago, I went to Kelly, who has her Master’s Degree in Education, and I said, Hey, can you help me tell this story so I could shut this voice up? And so she agreed.
And so we decided to make a movie, and it was just two weeks ago we decided to give it away for free. And the reason is because the more we thought about it, the people that need to understand the information that’s in the movie are the people who don’t have an extra $10 of disposable income. And so it just didn’t seem right to charge the people that really need to see it. So our goal is 1 billion people to watch the movie around the world. So if we take the friction out of the cost, then more people around the world can watch it. We’re dubbing it in seven different languages that encompass 85% of the spoken language in the world. Our goal is just that, here it is, you could watch it for free, you could download the movie off our website if you wanted to host a viewing or do a screening, it’s free. It’s open source. It’s a gift.
FE: I love that. And Kelly, I love how you’re a husband-wife team and you’re able to combine your strengths with finance and serving the underprivileged. Talk to me about how you were able to assemble this global team of contributors.
Kelly Estes: He is a super connector. Brian always can call on people from 30 years ago and they’re always there for each other. So that is how we assembled that [Bitcoin] part. And then from the religious and moral side, that was for me to research. I had to dig in and try to find people who would be knowledgeable about the scriptures. For Christianity, we have a priest and a minister. We have two rabbis, we have a Buddhist, a Hindu expert, and then we have, for the Islamic faith, a Muslim who speaks on that for us. So I had to just kind of dig in to find them, and that’s how we put it all together. The best part about all of them is that they were willing and more than happy to donate their time and their expertise to helping us create this film. It is a labor of love from over a hundred people probably when you count all of the people who didn’t quite make the movie, but their information was so great. It was a labor of love from a lot of people — group effort for sure.
FE: It was very thorough in explanations and so forth, but of course, anything so complex, there’s still several questions. I feel like I understand Bitcoin as an investment tool, but I’m not sure that I fully understand it as a currency unless it’s adopted by the broader market. So how would I use Bitcoin today?
BE: In the U.S., we have a good financial system. So you have Venmo or PayPal or Visa, MasterCard. Doing financial transactions is not a problem here in the U.S. And not to get too complicated, but back in 2014, the IRS said that Bitcoin is property. So whenever you spend your Bitcoin, what that means is you actually sold it. So what you have to do, is you have to file what’s called a Schedule D with the IRS and tell the IRS, this is what I paid for the Bitcoin, when I bought something, this is what I sold it for, and you have to pay a tax on the difference. So in the United States, people don’t use it as currency, it’s too cumbersome. No one is doing all that work for a $3 Starbucks. But outside the U.S. in Germany, Singapore, Portugal, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Bitcoin’s tax free. So people in other countries use it as currency. It’s just that we don’t use it as currency here in the us.
So the use case in the U.S., if we look at what the Federal Reserve says, so the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis put out a white paper in 2018 that said basically Bitcoin’s best use case is as a diversification tool for investment portfolios. They were looking at on the investment side. And so most people in the U.S. put it in investment portfolios as an investment tool, but outside the U.S., people use it as currency.
A great example is there are 2 billion people in the world who don’t have bank accounts. They’re called the unbanked. And for example, there could be a woman in Africa who has God-given talent of being able to make beautiful baskets, right? Be able to weave beautiful baskets, but she could only sell those baskets to people in her local community or maybe within 10 miles, or she could walk to them. But if she had her bank on her phone through Bitcoin and I wanted to buy her a basket, I could send her Bitcoin to her phone and then she could ship me her basket. So all of a sudden, she’s a part of the commerce system, she’s able to use her talents, build something and sell it to anybody in the world, and she’ll get a higher price for it, pay more than a local person in her local community would pay for that basket. And so all of a sudden now she has a way to support her family and create value for herself and create value for others.
FE: Help me better understand the process. So Bitcoin’s capped at 21 million. That seems low to me because depending on where you pull your numbers from, if there’s like 50 to a hundred-million users now, but there’s just under 8 billion people in the world, how does that all work?
BE: So there’s about 400 million people in the world that use Bitcoin today. And the adoption of Bitcoin is growing faster than the adoption of the Internet in the nineties and in about six years, we’re going to go from 400 million to 4 billion people using it. So we’re on this what’s called a mega trend. It’s mass adoption. And so to answer your question specifically, the 21 million Bitcoin, each Bitcoin is divisible up to eight decimal points. So what that means, there’s 100 million satoshis per one Bitcoin, and if you have three satoshis, you have about a penny worth of Bitcoin. So Bitcoin is divisible out to a hundred million. And so there’s plenty of Satoshis out there for everybody to have some.
FE: So is there an advantage then to buying Bitcoin now versus later?
BE: This isn’t financial advice, but Bitcoin has been the best performing asset class out of all asset classes, 12 out of the past 15 years that it’s been around, it’s outperform large cap growth stocks, small caps, bonds, cash, but it is very, very volatile. And the reason it’s volatile is because only about 1% of the world understands what this technology is. And some people think it’s worthless, and other people like me think it’s priceless. And so the world’s trying to decide is it worthless or is it priceless? And that’s why the price goes up and down so much.
A great place to find more information — Michael Saylor, 30 years ago bought a website called hope.com. If you go to that website, it’s dedicated to Bitcoin education, a Bitcoin University, there are lots of videos, lots of educational material. So if you want to learn more about this, that’s a great resource
FE: I so appreciate that you’ve taken the time to put this resource together for us and in making it accessible to everybody so that you can get in the game, so to speak with Bitcoin. And I encourage everybody to watch it because it’s there. Make your own informed opinion and maybe we will be having Bitcoin in the future while we’re grabbing a Starbucks and having a conversation, which would be fantastic.
Watch God Bless Bitcoin for FREE on Godblessbitcoin.com and youtube starting on July 25
