🎙️ My guest today is Richard Byworth, Managing Partner at Syz Capital, bridging traditional finance with Bitcoin. With over 25 years in global investment banking and asset management, Richard now spearheads Syz’s $300m digital asset strategies and hosts the *Syz the Future* podcast. He’s also a Board Member at Relai, and an advisor to JAN3. In this conversation, he unpacks the moment the 2008 crisis revealed the flaws in fiat money, his early dismissal of Bitcoin, and how conviction finally took hold in 2018. We discuss the launch of Syz’s Bitcoin-denominated fund, the internal resistance it faced, and how it became the firm’s most successful product launch. Richard explains why “one Bitcoin equals one Bitcoin” and why he believes Bitcoin treasury companies act as the release valve for a mispriced financial system. We explore his views on ego in finance, intuition in decision-making, spiritual dimensions of Bitcoin, and his conviction that Bitcoin represents not just an investment—but hope, and a benevolent force for human progress.
This episode is also on Twitter, Spotify, YouTube, Fountain, Rumble and more.
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We talked about:
00:00 - Coming Up
01:32 - Episode 100 Milestone & Intro to Richard
05:05 - Realizing the Money System is Broken
09:56 - Ego in Traditional Finance
13:03 - Ad Break: Trezor & BitVault
14:24 - Ego & Learning in Finance
16:51 - Intuition vs. Rational Analysis in Career Decisions
20:58 - Launching a Bitcoin Denominated Fund
29:36 - Ad Break: Abundant Mines & Expat Money
31:50 - Bitcoin Treasury Companies & Financial System Mispricing
41:58 - How Richard Sees Bitcoin & Defunding Fiat
47:18 - Bitcoin Allocation & Adoption Growth
51:48 - What Matters In Life - Personal Growth, Empathy, Introspecting
56:28 - Who Is a Great Manager
59:18 - Bitcoin as a Spiritual Tool
1:02:08 - Rapid Fire Questions
My takeaways from this episode:
Richard describes the 2008 crisis as his wake-up call, watching Citibank clients panic showed him how fragile fiat truly was
He dismissed Bitcoin in 2010 as a scam, and rediscovered it in 2017, reaching conviction after struggling through the white paper in 2018
He emphasizes humility as the entry ticket to understanding Bitcoin, ego is the barrier that keeps finance professionals ignorant
He pushed Syz Capital to launch a Bitcoin-denominated low-volatility fund, facing board resistance over “too much risk”
After the launch became the firm’s most successful, the board reversed course and agreed to hold all earned Bitcoin on the balance sheet
He frames Bitcoin treasury companies as the release valve for mispriced fiat assets, absorbing the excess liquidity of distorted markets
MicroStrategy and MetaPlanet are cited as the gold standard, while most new treasury firms lack conviction and financial depth
He rejects the idea that Bitcoin is volatile, arguing “one Bitcoin equals one Bitcoin” and that volatility is a fiat illusion
He defines Bitcoin as hope, not speculation
His message is: align your life and values with Bitcoin, question every assumption, drop the ego, act in truth, and serve through conviction
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