Mike Maharrey: Greetings, I’m Mike Maharrey and I’m joined today by Mark O’Byrne. Mark is the founder of Terra Coins. He’s also a well-known authority on gold and silver. How are you doing today, Mark?

Mark O’Byrne: I’m doing very well, Mike. Thanks for having me on. Well,

Mike Maharrey: It’s always a pleasure. It’s great to talk to you, especially as we get close to St. Patrick’s Day here. And you are speaking to me from Ireland if folks don’t know that. And to get started, I think it’s been about a year since we chatted, so I want you to just real quickly tell folks a little bit about TerraCoins and the business that you have over there.

Mark O’Byrne: Yeah, so basically I set up a company. My first company was Goldcore. We were the largest gold broker in Ireland. I set up that business 2003 and then left in 2020. And I was selling basically gold bars, silver bars, gold, Krugerrands, eagles, all the standard bullion products. And it was a successful business, but I just did it for 17 years and I was getting a bit bored with it. But I always had people come to me, particularly Irish-American people, saying, “Why aren’t there Irish coins, Irish bullion coins?” And because there’s South African, Canadian, Australian, American, British, Austrian even. So, there’s all these legal tender coins. Why aren’t the Irish ones? So, I never understood and I used to ask questions about that. And long story short, they wouldn’t do it. Irish central bank wouldn’t do it. They do some collector’s coins, but they wouldn’t do the legal tender bullion coins.

So, I decided to do it in 2023. A lot of people were pushing me and prodding me saying, “You should do this. ” So I did it. So, I spent a lot of time sort of feeling into it. My background is actually studying history, economic history and monetary history and the rise of fall of empires, the Roman Empire, the Greek Empire. So, I was always interested in the currency because that was always a motivation of empire was controlling the gold and the silver and then creating their own coinage. And the likes of Alexander Great would put their faces on the coins. So, I was always fascinated even in the new numismatic side of it in terms of coin collecting all the rest because a coin can tell a lot about a civilization or a nation at a period of time. So, long story short, I spent a lot of time figuring out what are the sacred symbols of Ireland because I want to make this coin really, really capture the essence of who we are as a people and honor our ancestors.

So, long story short, so as a picture paints a thousand words. So, I created this beautiful coin, which is they’re called The Trees of Life. So that’s the silver one, which has been sold by Money Metals Exchange, who are our biggest partner in the US and our best partner in the US in terms of distribution. And they buy them wholesale and then they sell them retail to their clients. And they also store them in their vaults in Idaho, which I believe are some of the safest votes in America. So yet the Tree of Life is basically, it’s a fascinating symbol. It’s sacred in nearly all spiritual traditions, all religions. And it’s very big in Christianity, in Celtic Christianity and obviously in international global Christianity, because it’s actually in the Bible. It’s basically the Tree of Life is at the end of the Book of Revelation.

And it’s very interesting. We’re in a time of revelations today. I think there’s a lot of things being revealed as we know. And people think Revelations is like the end of the world and the four horsemen of the apocalypse, but it’s actually a beautiful redemptive vision at the end of the book of Revelation, which is actually talking about the abundance of nature. And it talks about the water of life and the tree of life and how all the nations of the world will come together in peace and they would enjoy the fruits and the leaves of the tree of life. So that’s why it’s such an important symbolism. So yeah, so that’s the tree of life. And then the other side is basically the heart, which is a symbol of obviously of music, but it was a very sacred symbol in Irish culture. It’s actually on our passports as well.

And then the tri spiral, which is basically the energy, they believe it’s past, present, and future, but it could also be the male and the feminine and the child. So it’s the cycle of life and fertility as well. So they’re basically sacred symbols and people, they really love them. They love the designs because they really do also honor and respect the culture, the sacred culture that we have in this country. Those are a lot of wisdom in this nation many, many years ago. Obviously, we suffer from imperialism and from colonization, but we’re sort of remembering that there was this ancient past that was quite an evolved civilization. So, that’s what it’s about. And ultimately, it’s about their source of value. As you know, they are, throughout history, gold and silver been money. They’ve protected people throughout history. They’re not going up in value today. Everyone saying, “Oh, the price of gold is going up and there’s it a bubble and it has it collapsed and has it crashed.” They’re not going up at all.

It’s the dollar and the euro and all these fear currencies are losing value versus global silver. So, these are beautiful stores of value that people are buying to protect themselves from the ongoing currency devaluation that’s happening in the world. So yeah, so that’s it in a nutshell. Yeah, they’re four nines pure. So investment grade, 24-karat, and you can actually put them into the IRAs, individual retirement accounts, and they’re proven popular with Irish Americas in particular. So, hopefully they’re running to St. Patrick’s Day people and they make beautiful gifts for people as well. And it’s a great way to pass on wealth to the next generation, to children, to grandchildren, nieces, nephews. And they’re a wonderful gift rather than giving a $50 note or a 50 euro note to your children or grandchildren. Why not give them a beautiful piece of art in effect that they’ll help forever and ever they become keepsakes and family heirlooms potentially.

Mike Maharrey: Yeah. And you’re absolutely right when you use the word art because they are absolutely gorgeous. I’ve got some, and I actually gave a silver coin to each of my kids last year for St. Patrick’s Day.

Mark O’Byrne: Oh! Brilliant. That’s great to hear.

Mike Maharrey: It was fun. I was telling my daughter the other day, I said, “You know that Irish coin that I gave you? ” And she said, “Yeah.” I said, “It’s worth double now what it was when I gave it to you. ” So she appreciated that aspect of it as well, but they really are beautiful. And folks can go over to moneymetals.com and check those out if they’re interested because they would make a beautiful keepsake for St. Patrick’s Day. Hey, I’m curious about something, and this is a total aside, and I wasn’t planning on asking you this, but you mentioned it. And with your interest in coins and money, is there a particular coin that is your favorite, something that really intrigues you either because of the design or because of the history behind it? Is there one particular piece that really intrigues you?

Mark O’Byrne:

Well, there’s nothing really one in particular. I mean, there’s a lot, but I mean, I mentioned Alexander the Great. I mean, it’s fascinating how that coin became one of the most minted coins in that period of time. And basically that emperor, I mean, Alexander Great went all the way from Greece into India and they were basically taking the gold in everywhere they conquered, they would take the gold either physically they would vanquish the enemies and then they would take the gold or they would ransom it and say, “Right, if you don’t make peace with us and give us a lot of gold, we will take over your city and ransack the place basically.” So that’s a very interesting one because it really tells that, I suppose the history of mankind is just waves of empires. Empires rising and empires falling, so there’s nothing new under the sun.

And the British gold sovereign is a very interesting coin as well. And it’s interesting for a number of reasons because it’s 0.2354 of an ounce of gold. There’s a quarter ounce of gold, it’s 22 karats and it used to be a pound, it was a pound sterling. So, I think the pound sterling, and that’s where the word sterling silver comes from. So, I can’t remember, I think it was 14 ounces or maybe 16 ounces to the pound. So that even shows you the gold silver ratio throughout history that this one little quarter ounce gold sovereign was the equivalent of, so a quarter, equivalent of probably four ounces or six ounces. So, they tell you so much the story of humanity and effect is in some of these ancient coins and also the economic history, the monetary history, the ratios, why gold and silver were so important.

So yeah, I like the sandgowns as well in America. They’re beautiful design. And yeah, I think they’re particularly just the design in them and even the Statue of Liberty on coins, it just is a symbol of what America is really about, which is that true spirit of freedom for people and for families and for small businesses and for the little guy to do well, that was why people see America as they speaking of hope in the world.

Mike Maharrey: Yeah, absolutely. Great answer. Let’s talk a little bit about history since you are a historian and people will not be shocked with a name like Maharrey to find out that my background is Irish and looking at DNA, apparently Scotch Irish. So I’ve always been very interested in Irish and Celtic history and particularly Celtic Christianity. And I’m curious about how gold and silver evolved as money in ancient Ireland. I know that there’s kind of a perception that cattle was the primary currency, and you’ve argued that that’s not quite the fact. So can you clear that up for us?

Mark O’Byrne: Yeah, it’s really interesting. I also studied archeology in the first year of my degree, and it never really made sense to me. I was like, I just couldn’t understand that. You know that cognitive distance thing, but everybody accepted that that was the fact that we used cows as money. But how could you use cows for money? I mean, it was an agrarian economy. We’re actually realizing now it was much more sophisticated. We thought that there weren’t like stone age neolithic farmers. There was actually quite sophisticated urban settlement, even going back to 3,000, 4,000, potentially 5,000 years ago. So how with these small urban settlements, would they trade amongst themselves? If one person has six eggs or 12 eggs and someone else has a cup of honey, I don’t know how to keep the honey in the old days, but they have honey.

So, they basically had sophisticated means of exchange and a lot of it was barter, so they’d be bartering food amongst themselves, but they’re also using pieces of metal. And it’s interesting, in the old Irish, it’s called pifosa, P-I-F-O-S-A, which means a piece of metal. So, they didn’t have metallurgy, they hadn’t developed … That came much later, obviously with the Lydians and East Lydian … Sorry, Lydia, which is Asia minor in present day Turkey, were the first gold coins. And then obviously the Greeks evolved that. So, they had metallurgy, which allowed them to refine the gold and make the gold silver and copper coins pure, but they didn’t have that going back 2000, 2000, 4,000 years ago, nor did they have the minting technology to mint beautiful coins. So what they basically did was they would get the gold, silver, and copper, and they would … Back then it was quite abundant because a lot of it was actually in the streams, particularly the gold.

So they would be panning for gold. They would be getting gold close to level. They didn’t have to go too deep. And then they would get that all together. And then they had forget. So it’s interesting, one of the most famous Saints Ireland is a same called, obviously St. Patrick’s coming up, but there’s this female in St. Bridget who was as famous, not more famous and maybe more trusted than St. Patrick in some ways. And she’s very much associated with the fire and the water and as being a smith. So she is associated with being a metal and creating a beautiful sacred artifacts made from precious metals. And she’s associated with the forge. So the forge, you use fire to basically … So basically they would just stamp and hammer these pieces of metals into small sort of disks of gold, silver, and particularly bronze, because obviously bronze or copper was which much more abundant.

So it’s very interesting. The words in Irish, arregate is the word for money in Irish arrogant. And it sounds like argentum, which is interesting, and which is the Roman word for gold and silver combined. And then in Greek, our guiros is silver as well. So it’s a very similar … So it’s arrogant, but arrigate is both the word for money, but it’s also the word for silver. So similar to on France, it’s largon. Arjan is silver in French, and it’s also money in French. Same with Rupi. And Rupi is silver and money as well. So we had what’s called argabui was gold or yellow money, and then argued Gia was the silver money or moon money. And then Argad Rua was the earth money. So it’s really, really interesting. And they actually associate with kingship and the sun, and then silver was associated with the moon and water, and then coppers associated with the earth, the red earth.

So, they basically used small pieces of metal in exchange with each other for thousand years. And this has now been realized, it’s in the archeological record. They found these hoards, I suppose, of a little pieces of metal. And they’ve also found … It evolved into what’s called fauna, which is ring money. So they would have basically little rings. So, obviously we only use rings today for beautiful gifts and for engagement rings and wedding rings. Back then, they were actually using them as both a store of value that they would have on their fingers, but also as a means of exchange, if they wanted to buy a cow, I’m sure with one gold ring, you could probably buy a few cows. So yeah, metals were a big part of our culture. And it’s interesting. It’s been written out of the culture. I think that’s what empire does because the empire wants to monopolize the currency for itself.

The kings, the queens, the emperors, the impresses and the oligarchs at the top always want to control the money because that’s how you have control is by controlling the money ultimately and the land and the sea. So now it’s very, very interesting that the history of money, because it just tends to repeat itself as you know, Mike.

Mike Maharrey: Yeah. You mentioned to me as we were talking before we actually went live, I don’t know if we’re … I guess I should say before we record it, we’re not really live, but you mentioned the fact that the British government actually monopolized the money in Ireland. Can you tell us a little bit about that? I thought that was really interesting.

Mark O’Byrne: Yeah. Well, it wasn’t so much the government because it was a feudal … It was the Kings, basically, the Kings and Queens. And their oligarchs, their Lords and Dukes and all the rest of it. So basically, it’s very interesting. The first mint in Ireland was actually the Vikings came into Dublin in around 800 AD. And the first mint in Ireland was in around that time. And still to this day, there’s these beautiful coins that the Vikings created, particularly small silver pennies. And there was a King called King Citric, who was a Viking King who came to Dublin, and we still have these coins with his face on them. So then, but it was interesting, as it evolved in, I think 11th, 12th century, some of the Normans came in from the north of France, and I think they obviously had the minting technology because it survived.

Obviously, the Roman Empire collapsed, but it was Charlemagne at around 800 AD who was the emperor of Europe, he brought back minting quite a big way and brought back a common currency, if you will, for that European empire that he was craving. And then his emissaries, if you will, came into Ireland because they wanted to … It was land of milk, honey. They wanted the land. It’s pretty much that simple. Well, there was also a lot of gold and silver here as well. So, they came in and they started taking the gold and silver and taking the land by military force. And then they based mince in five of the cities, Dublin, Cork, Waterford, Limerick, and I think draw that. There was five, maybe six. So there was quite a big … That’s very decentralized, lots of mints going on. But gradually the crown in London was becoming more and more powerful, and they were centralizing power, and they saw that as a competitive threat in effect.

So, gradually over time, these mints were shut down. It was all centralized into the royal midge. So it’s very interesting today because I suppose even with Bitcoin, all the talk was about decentralization, and it’s not really decentralized at all, really, because it’s completely dependent on the digital technology and on digital devices and electricity and all these things. So it’s not decentralized. Whereas if you have gold and silver coins outside of the banking system, either in your possession or very, very safe faults, such as with money methods depository in Idaho, then it is decentralized. It’s because it’s out of the central system type of thing. So, yes, it’s very, very interesting. And I think it’s interesting, there’s a lot of mints popping up all over the world now. So there is a Renaissance in minting, which is great to see all around the world because people are going back to these metals and minority people still, and it’s still in its infancy, but I think this is a long-term trend that’s going to continue for … As you know, and you guys cover very, very well, this is not cyclical.

This is very much a structural … This is a long-term structural issue that’s happening, and I think it’s going to take place for the next 15, 20, 30 years.

Mike Maharrey: Yeah. Speaking of that and pulling us into the present, you talk about that currency devaluation, and that’s also a mark of empire and a mark of big government. They have to devalue in order to maintain the borrowing and the spending and to maintain the empire itself. And I was reading that the euro has devalued 94% since its inception and 75% in the last 10 years. So apparently it’s not just the US government that is fond of devaluing its currency, huh?

Mark O’Byrne: Yeah. Yeah, no, absolutely. I did a research piece on it recently, and it’s on the TaraCoins.com website, where we also have a piece actually on what we just spoke about there, a gold and silver and nation aren’t if people are interested in it. So, yeah, basically the euro … So, when the euro was introduced in 1999, by certain financial interests and by certain commentators, particularly obviously the European Central Bank, or sorry, that the central banks of Europe were positioning this Euro as a rival to the dollar and they’re basically saying this is going to become the reserve currency of the world. But when you look at the history of the Euro, I mean, Uni, I think we’ve talked about this in the previous interview, the dollar, as we know, is devalued 99%, the Federal Reserve was created in 1913, but people don’t … So everyone talks about that and everyone talks about the dollar devaluation that’s going on, and we know that, but no one is talking about the devaluation of the euro since 1999 alone like.

So it’s gone up about 1,600%. And as I said before, it’s not gone up. As we know, it’s losing purchasing power and it’s being devalued versus gold. So, in real terms, gold is actually … Or the euro, I should say, has depreciated 11.3% per annum versus gold over the last 26 years. So that’s huge obviously when you compound that 11.3% over time, so 93% lost in 26 years. So, that right there just proves categorically how fear currencies are actually dangerous to people’s financial wellbeing. And yet this is not talked about this is taboo and the Euros one has huge challenges still in terms of the level of debt that we have in the different nation states, the lack of coherence policy. It’s not democratic. There’s quite a bit of corruption at the highest levels in the EU, and now they’re trying to take us into wars, which are very, very expensive.

And the whole thing doesn’t bode well. And ultimately, I mean, last year alone, the dollar fell 66% versus gold, but the Euro fell 46% versus gold. And we see this, certain years of Euro might be a little stronger versus a dollar. The dollar might be slightly stronger versus Euro, but over time they’re both being devalued by roughly 10 or 11% per annum. And ultimately the US can’t afford to have the euro two week, and the Eurozone can’t afford to have the dollar two week. So they will engage in what’s called competitive currency devaluations. So this is the key thing for everybody to know that it’s all the fear currencies have been any value. There’s no safe haven. I mean, even the Swiss rank and System is more of a safe haven than most countries, but even the Sis Frank is there, I think, 9.5% over the long term and that’s one of the safer currencies, and that’s a creditor nation.

It doesn’t have any debt on the US and the euro’s automations. So yeah, and it just proves that the nonsense that this reserve currency thing, we’re seeing de-dollarization, the dollar’s losing its reserve currency status. But what’s very interesting is all the talk from the media was saying that the euro would supplant the dollar, but that’s not happens. What’s happened is gold is the supplanting the dollar, and now gold is now the second largest foreign reserve or foreign exchange asset on the central bank balance sheets, not the euro. So, that trend’s going to continue given the imbalances and the uncertainty in the world.

Mike Maharrey: I’m curious about your perception of this from a more of a European perspective, because I talk a lot about de-dollarization because I do believe that that’s a legitimate trend. And I think we’re seeing that in the acceleration of central bank gold buying. But I think a lot of people in the United States hear that and they’re like, oh, and it’s not really a problem. Everybody wants dollars to dollars fine. From a European perspective, do you think that the de-dollarization trend is a real thing? I mean, is this something that you’re hearing from folks on that side of the bond?

Mark O’Byrne: No, it is. It’s been spoken about. I don’t think the masses are that aware of it per se, but definitely middle-class people, business people, people who are in any way engaged with current affairs or news are aware that it’s a trend, but it is downplayed whereby sometimes they almost suggest that, oh, well, there’s almost like this rivalry that, oh, well, this means America’s on the decline and Europe is on the rise type of thing, not realizing that we’re all joined at the hip and that was the nature of globalization, that we’re all dependent on each other in terms of trade and trade flows. So, we can’t afford to have one currency become massively stronger weak versus other currency because it would destroy us. We need export growth. And obviously Trump is, that’s a big thing that Trump said he was going to do was to bring jobs and manufacturing back to the heartland.

So, it is spoken about in Europe, but it’s very much sort of, oh, America’s on the wane type of thing. America’s on the decline and Europe’s on the rise. It’s like, unfortunately, I think both they’re all on the decline from my perspective, because unfortunately they don’t believe in free markets. They don’t believe in fiscal honesty, fiscal prudence, balanced budgets, living win your means. They’re all just spending way beyond their means. And that conversation about being fiscally conservative, it’s not even on the table now because at least before, whether it be The Wall Street Journal or Financial Times and the main financial newspapers on Bloomberg and CNBC, there would be conversations. People would be saying, “These governments need to live within their means.” Whereas now it’s just like, no, they can just go on keyboards and it’s very, very dangerous. So ultimately we’re all globally, all these currencies have been devalued and that’s what both so well for the gold price because all the currencies are going to be devalued versus gold.

And I do believe in the next … I don’t like making price predictions and I try not to, but I think you have to realize that this is structural, as I said, and therefore there was a very interesting study recently, Van Eck came out with a report saying that they believe if global M2, which is global money supply, is backed by gold, it would result in a gold price of $184,000 per ounce in the long term. And it sounds crazy. And even as I say, it sounds crazy, and I’m not saying that will happen, but I think there’s no reason why it couldn’t happen in the next 40 years. By 2065, why couldn’t gold be at $184,000? And our children and grandchildren gradually see, as I seen in the last 25 years.

Mike Maharrey: Yeah. I mean, $5,000 seemed crazy two years ago.

Mark O’Byrne: Yeah, exactly. You would’ve been laughed and you would’ve been called a crazy gold bug. So unless the only thing that will stop going to those astronomical levels is if they start talking about having sell money and balanced budgets and living with their means. And one last thing, the Van Eck report was very interesting because I looked at it, I said, how did they calculate the M2, global M2? What is M2 even? So M0 is basically a very narrow measurement of money, which is basically cash and circulation and cash in the bank bank reserves. Then M2 is a wider definition, which is that it’s the M0 plus it’s your term deposits, bank deposits, money market funds. So, it’s a much broader definition of money. So they say global M2 is basically US, EU, Japan, and China money supply, but they ignored … There’s India, there’s Russia, there’s Brazil, there’s the BRICS, their money supplies are going through the roof as well.

So they ignored offshore jurisdictions. They ignored the Middle East, North Africa, Saudi Arabia, Dubai. So when I actually put those numbers into the AI and did research on it, it actually went from, I think it went from 184,000 to balance the bucks backed by Global M2 to about $225,000 for ounce. So, I’m not saying that for people to say, “Oh, well, we’re going to get rich. The price is going to go way by higher.” I’m just saying, just take a long-term view. A lot of people, they seem to think it’s about getting rich in the next two, three, four years, and it’s all about buying and then selling. And that’s not what it’s about. It is about wealth preservation over long term. And there’s nothing wrong with selling on occasionally, younger generations of people, maybe don’t have their own family home. So they may have an intention to put a lot into gold silver now.

They hope to see the revaluation go zero and then they want to buy a property and a family home, whatever. So that’s fine as well. But the key is just always focus on the long term and realize that these currencies are being debased because debasement is a very interesting thing that’s been seen throughout history, and it comes from the word base metal. So the kings, the queens, emperors and empresses basically put base metal into the coins. They took the gold and silver out for themselves and they put the base metals in. So that’s what currency debasement is. And we’re seeing that today because today they don’t even put base metal in. It’s just digital on the screen. At least in the old days, at least you’d have copper, you’d have zinc or you’d have iron, you’d have some metallic coin, which they didn’t really trust because they wanted to go and silver, but they trusted it to a degree they had to.

But today, they’re just going to keyboard and create trillions, as we know. So the currency of the basement today is on a scale we’ve never seen before in the history of mankind.

Mike Maharrey: Yeah, you make a great point. I say all the time, there isn’t anything wrong with selling if you want to buy something or you need to pay off debt or whatever you need to do. But I think it’s foolish to simply sell gold and silver to chase a profit, a quote unquote profit, because you’re just trading good money for bad. And if you’re going to hold money over time, you want to hold sound money that’s not going to lose its value. And that’s why folks need to consider having gold and silver. So before we go, I do want you to let-

Mark O’Byrne: Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay.

Mike Maharrey: I want you to let folks know where they can find Tara Coins. Of course, you can find those beautiful silver tree of life over at moneymetals.com. But if people want to check out Tara Coins, where do they go?

Mark O’Byrne: Yeah, it’s tarracoins.com. And as I said, there’s a resource page there where we do research on the history of money and both past, present and future, because there’s a continuum here, Mike. I think we’re getting to join the dots and realize that this has been seen throughout history. So yeah, tarcoin.com, and then I’m on X.com and on LinkedIn.com. And feel free to contact me about the gold and silver trees. And obviously with MMX, St. Patrick’s Day coming up. So, buy a few tubes of silver trees and your family will … There’s something quite special about them. There’s a bit of a wow factor that they really are just the quality of the minting, but also the designs because we’re the only country, the only country that has a harp. It’s a sacred instrument. It’s actually in the Bible, I think something like 42 times a harp.

And basically it’s a symbol of joy. And in a state of joy, you connect to the energy of the universe or God, which is the same thing. So they celebrate music, culture, spirituality, Celtic Christianity, which is a very, very interesting thing. So yeah, I really appreciate you having me on again, Mike. And yeah, we’ll talk again soon, hopefully.

Mike Maharrey: Yeah, definitely. It’s always great to talk to you. And I love getting a little bit different perspective than typically what we get here in the United States. We Americans can be a little bit myopic sometimes when it comes to the rest of the world. So it’s always a pleasure to talk to somebody across the pond as the saying goes and get a little bit of a different view of things. So I appreciate that and I appreciate you taking time out of your day. Very

Mark O’Byrne: Good, Mike. Thank you.

Mike Maharrey: Hope you have a great rest of your day. Thank you.

Mark O’Byrne: You too. Thanks Mike. Take care.