Billionaire Richard Branson was photographed this week holding a copy of hedge fund manager Lawrence Lepard‘s new book, ‘The Big Print: What Happened to America and How Sound Money Will Fix It.’
When Lepard reshared the photo (below), he wrote of Branson: “He is a renegade. I bet he gets it.”
Bitcoin advocates are going wild over the image. As one replied: “Wow! you’re getting the book into the right hands Larry! Great job!”
When another replied to Lepard’s post: “Do you realize how much of a renegade he really is?” Lepard replied, “i am not going to judge the man. if the book orange pills him that is a win.”
He is a renegade. I bet he gets it! pic.twitter.com/k8FCnHSdtO
— Lawrence Lepard, “fix the money, fix the world” (@LawrenceLepard) June 7, 2025
Note: “Orange pilled” is a term used in the Bitcoin community to refer to someone who’s been introduced and converted to the Bitcoin ideology.
When another Bitcoin enthusiast asked Lepard if he gave Branson the book, the author replied: “he had a friend at Bitcoin 2025 who asked for a signed dedicated copy. I did so and the friend delivered it.”
i am not going to judge the man. if the book orange pills him that is a win.
— Lawrence Lepard, “fix the money, fix the world” (@LawrenceLepard) June 7, 2025
Bitcoin 2025 was held last week in Las Vegas where many MAGA-aligned politicians spoke including Vice President JD Vance; Reps. Byron Donalds, Tom Emmer, Bryan Steil; Senators Marcia Blackburn, Cynthia Lummis, Bill Hagerty, Jim Justice; President Trump’s sons Donald Trump, Jr. and Eric Trump, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s son Brandon Lutnick, among others.
Note: In The Big Print, Lepard is “championing Bitcoin as some kind of improved ‘Sound Money’ system,” but according to Nathan Lewis, fellow of the Wealth and Poverty program at the Discovery Institute, “it is not.”
Lewis wrote in Forbes, “Basically, Lepard is a bullish Bitcoin speculator. And, perhaps Bitcoin will rise in value, in coming years. It seems to be persistently popular. But it is this tendency to rise in value (or fall in value, dramatically, from time to time) that makes it unusable as a currency; and why it is not, today, used as a currency.”