CD170: JOHN ARNOLD - TEN31 AND BITCOIN MARKET DYNAMICS

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Transcription provided by Podhome.fm
Created: 05/19/2025 22:17:17
Duration: 7167.958
Channels: 1

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More than 50,000,000 Americans hold some form of cryptocurrency.

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This digitalization of financial services is not a trend.

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It is a transformation.

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Here at the office of the comptroller of the currency,

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we've confirmed that national banks and federal savings associations

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may engage in certain cryptocurrency

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activities

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responsibly

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in order to serve their customers.

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OCC regulated banks may provide custody services

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including the safekeeping and secure storage of cryptocurrencies

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and other digital assets

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all on behalf of their customers.

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The banks we supervise also may buy and sell cryptocurrencies they hold in custody

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at their customer's direction.

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Additionally,

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these banks may provide other custody services including record keeping,

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tax, or reporting services for their customers.

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OCC banks may use a sub custodian to provide the same services

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subject to appropriate third party risk management practices.

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While a range of cryptocurrency and digital asset activities may be performed by banks and their third parties,

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I want to be clear

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that the OCC expects these activities to be conducted in a safe and sound manner and in compliance

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with applicable law.

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To learn more, please visit

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0cc.gov.

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Happy Bitcoin Monday, freaks.

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It's your host, Odell, here for another Citadel Dispatch,

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the interactive

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live show focused on actual Bitcoin and Freedom Tech

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discussion.

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As always,

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dispatch is brought to you without ads or sponsors.

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It is supported purely by Bitcoin donations

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from viewers like you.

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Two best ways to support the show

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are through our Nostra enabled, Bitcoin enabled

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live stream. You can get to there at silodispatch.com/stream.

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I see we already have two ride or die freaks there.

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Kieran has zapped a 69

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sets already. Thank you, Kieran.

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Or through podcasting two point o apps like fountain podcasts,

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the top

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zap from

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last week's show with VNPRC

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was 5,000 sets

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from a user named steak and eggs. Great breakfast choice. Thank you for the sats. There was no message.

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There was also a couple others apps there, but there was one from Bob the Cow for 500 sats that said,

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Sedel Dispatch is the second best podcast on Earth after Call Her Daddy.

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Felt like that deserved an honorable mention.

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That is a crossover

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that few have expected.

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Call Her Daddy listeners are now listening to Sedel Dispatch.

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Anyway, freaks,

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that boring ass clip that I started off the show with

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was, I think, the chair I don't know if he's the chair of the OCC, but it's the office of the

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comptroller of the currency. I guess they're in charge of banks. I'm not a bank expert.

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Maybe our guest is. We have

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ride or die freak, return guest,

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one of my

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partners at

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ten thirty one,

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John Arnold. How's it going, John?

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What's up? Great to be here. I'm glad, you chose maybe the most boring clip in the history of the show to open up, this episode with me. Feel feel very honored.

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Well, you're my favorite suit,

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and I have the pleasure of working with you on a daily basis.

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So it felt fitting. Also, I mean, I've it seems like it's a big deal. I mean, I I would never want banks to hold my Bitcoin,

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but

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that seems huge. Do you have an opinion on,

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that that news?

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Look. Yeah. I mean,

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well, on the on the suit point, I, I literally before we got on here, I realized I was wearing my Patagonia,

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pullover, so I had to rip that off and and, not I I couldn't be the first guest to support a Patagonia logo on the show, so, we we dodged that bullet. But, yeah, I mean, it's,

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in terms of direction of travel. Right? Like, it's

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I think we all expected it to eventually go this way.

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To your point on the,

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the banking question, so it's the OCC,

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the FDIC, and the Fed that are the three, like, banking regulators

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in The United States collectively.

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That probably is the limit of my knowledge in terms of,

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who controls what and who does what, and I think, like, it probably varies based on the administration. But so, yes, that that all that is to say, like, OCC,

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Fed, FDIC moving all kind of collectively in that direction

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for,

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allowing Bitcoin custody in some capacity, still TBD. What that's actually gonna mean,

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is,

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definitely a notable mile marker.

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And at the end of the day, like, I you know, if if you've been here for a little while, and you've been here longer than me, but if you've spent any time in Bitcoin, you've probably heard the phrase, you know, Bitcoin is money for enemies. So

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the idea that,

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you know, the most powerful,

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wealthy,

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organizations that kinda pull the strings of,

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you know, everything

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around the world geopolitically

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and and beyond, you know, that they weren't gonna get into Bitcoin in some way and want to have some piece of that and be able to charge a big on, you know, the AUM of Bitcoin.

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You know, I think if you thought that that wasn't gonna happen, you you probably haven't been paying enough attention, and you probably aren't bullish enough, frankly, on where,

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Bitcoin is ultimately gonna go.

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I I, you know, I think we've all discussed internally, and you and Marty have probably discussed as well

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at podcast at this point, that it's gone there faster than I think we would have ever expected even a year ago. If you looked at

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where

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regulations seem to be moving in The US around

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Bitcoin and broader air quotes air quotes crypto.

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So the last twelve months have been mass reversal,

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and I think we can get into it. I think there are definite cons to that,

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to it kinda suits being collectively a lot more involved and enmeshed in Bitcoin, but,

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I think there are some definitive pros as well. And either way,

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you know, I see it as largely just capitulation,

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on a faster timeline than I was ever expecting. So, yes, I think all of that is a long winded way to say. I think it's a big deal.

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It's the most boring, bullish

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video.

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So we have,

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rider die freaks in the live chat. I see Mav twenty one zapped us 10,000 sets. Super fat arrows zapped us 10,000 sets. Thank you, freaks.

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Guys,

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just to put it out there,

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you know, ten thirty one and the two projects I'm most focused on right now are ten thirty one and open sets.

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And as part of that, I mean, I've always tried to

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build in the open and and be as transparent and responsive as possible.

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And so part of that is

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I I I think it makes sense to have reoccurring shows,

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that involve team members at both ten thirty one and OpenSats.

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Most recently, you know, we had, Nifty and MBK on that are both board members at OpenSats with me. And now, obviously, we have John here.

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But, as always,

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the live chat is unmoderated

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and unedited.

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So feel free to hit us with any questions or comments you have as we rip here.

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I'd like to be you know, for this to be as helpful as possible for you guys who have questions.

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Yeah. So with all that said, John, I mean, I think a good place to start here is you're relatively unknown

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by those who aren't,

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paying attention. Yeah. Mav twenty one's laughing that he actually zapped us 10,000 Bitcoins.

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Like, you call the smallest unit of Bitcoin whatever you want. The cool thing about Bitcoin is that anyone can

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simply push a change to their app and

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and name the unit whatever they desire. It is a beautiful thing. You don't have to argue about it on the Internet.

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John, why don't you give us a little just a quick rundown on your background,

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how you got into

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Bitcoin.

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And, yeah, I think it should be good context for people.

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Yeah. As Adele mentioned,

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classic suit.

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Out of college,

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went the,

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investment banking

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route. So

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eight hundred hour weeks,

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arranging PowerPoint logos and churning out Excel models.

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Did that for a couple years and then moved over to

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what's colloquially called colloquially called the buy side,

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just doing

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basically investment management

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at a couple large hedge funds,

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and focusing on the health care space.

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But over the course of, like, five years doing that, fell down the Bitcoin rabbit hole pretty hard. I had been a

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a big Ron Paul guy, big gold bug, and, was coming from kind of a libertarian Austrian economics background.

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But,

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in my previous,

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forays into Bitcoin,

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I just, you know, I I didn't have the depth of my touch points to actually,

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do enough work

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to kinda grok it and understand,

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what was so meaningful about it. So

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first time I've heard about it was in college.

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It's probably around 2013.

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I think because,

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Mt. Gox blew up,

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I had maybe, like, heard it mentioned once or twice,

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on, like, Mises Institute

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pages,

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if you're anyone's familiar with that.

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But I, you know, thought, like, that's an interesting science experiment, but, obviously, Internet money is never gonna work.

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Fast forward to 2017,

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kinda working on my hedge fund seat.

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Late twenty seventeen,

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aped in a little bit.

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Not nothing huge. Kind of not exactly at the pico top, but probably, you know, like, two or three weeks before,

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crash happened. And I, you know, got scared off by the ICO craze and kind of thought I had reconfirmed my priors that, well, yeah, actually, I was right. This this whole space is a scam, so not gonna be a hedge into it.

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And then finally, third touch point was in, spring twenty twenty.

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And I'll I'll let listeners, draw their conclusions as to what led to,

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that, reawakening on Bitcoin.

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But, just

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because of

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guys like you, guys like Marty, and various other Twitter personalities, was able to kinda fully get pulled down the rabbit hole,

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and,

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was just kind of a random pleb for a couple years,

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working my hedge fund job. And in mid to late twenty twenty one, I was looking for ways to invest in the space,

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beyond just holding Bitcoin and support some of the companies that whose products I was already using,

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and 10/31 popped under my radar,

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because of because of you and Marty and, you know, saw that,

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just kinda combining,

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an interesting

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set of skill sets and capabilities between you guys on the Bitcoin technical side and then Grant and Jonathan, our other two partners, coming much more from traditional finance side that looked a lot like what I had done.

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So and already at that point, the portfolio was was very strong and has, like, gotten stronger since. But,

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saw all those data points, reached out, started just kind of working with you guys on the side of my spare time as I was able to and then was able to come on full time

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in mid twenty twenty two. I think literally the day that Terra Luna blew up was, like, my first day with you guys. So,

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been Nice. It's been almost three years now.

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Quite a lot has has changed then, but I think the the thesis thus far that got me excited, has has definitely played out.

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So that's my my rough background. Reform reformed suit.

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But, yeah. Happy to be here.

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Reform suit, ride or die freak.

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I I love the trajectory. And to be clear, spring twenty twenty, when you got reinterested in Bitcoin,

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that was, like, COVID crash,

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March 2020. Like, we fell from, like, 11 k to $3,000.

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Interesting perspective to come into Bitcoin in full swing at that point. Yeah. Well, I think it was so it wasn't like, you know, every the the market crapped out, and I, you know, saw Bitcoin fall from whatever it was, like,

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$89,000

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to, like, 3 k or whatever and thought, oh, I gotta get in on this thing now. Like, it wasn't so much that. It was probably the next, like, one to two months, the policy response to everything that All the printing. Yeah. On on a broad scale, the the monetary policy response and and otherwise,

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kinda was, I think I mean, other people have mentioned this, in other context, so I don't belabor it. But certainly, like, a a pivotal moment for a lot of people, I think, in just understanding a little better even if you kinda latently understood it before. Like, yeah, I I was very aware of the Fed central banking, kind of,

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the nature of of fiat money and,

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fractional reserve banking and everything like that from kind of my Austrian background. But, you know, it's one thing to kinda be theoretically aware of it, another to see just, a massive unprecedented acceleration of it to kind of its logical conclusion in your in your lifetime. So that,

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yeah, reframed some things for me and and made it feel a lot more urgent to

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investigate how to respond to that in my personal life.

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And so kinda, you know, April, May '20 '20 was when I started,

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that that journey.

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Awesome.

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I guess, five years ago,

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feels kind of like yesterday, but also kind of feels like a decade. It's weird. Times are weird.

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Freaks. I love the activity in the live chat. Average Gary, five thousand sats. Sawzall,

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two point one thousand sats. Dame x, that's a new name I haven't seen before. Zapped,

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10,000 sats. And Chief White, zapped 10,000 sats.

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I see some good questions there.

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So, I mean, this is a crazy time in Bitcoin. I kinda wanted this to be,

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you know,

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maybe a we'll, like, mix evergreen good stuff on, like, how we're thinking about it perspective wise, but also, like, very topical stuff because I always like bouncing ideas off of you in perspectives.

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This week,

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Bitcoiners

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lost their

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cool or got were very excited. I got be very positive. They got very, very excited about Steak and Shake accepting

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Bitcoin. What, the interfaith I'd the flow is probably the the single best

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merchant flow we've seen,

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to date in terms of just

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very well integrated,

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nice little pay with Bitcoin on the terminal.

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It doesn't launch you out to another page, just puts a QR code there,

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shows Sats shows the USD to to Sats exchange rate.

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Everything is lightning by default.

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What is your what is your opinion on on this development?

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I mean, it's great, first of all. Like, great to see.

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I you know, there's it's very self evidently, like, a good thing, so I don't know that I have anything interesting to say on, like, the positive side of the ledger. Like, the the hot take that you probably are looking for that we discussed a little bit in our 10:31 chat,

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is, like, I'm not sure that it's anything more than, like, a flash in the pan,

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pun kind of halfway intended.

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You know, Steak and Shake has, like, clearly gone down this route of being, like, you know, based since,

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like, last year, but especially since the election, you know, with, like, the the anti seed oil crusade and everything like that.

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Because that's great.

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I I'm not

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certain that we've got, like, a two sided problem right now with

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kind of mass spending of Bitcoin. Number one being, like, you've talked about this on the show, but I think there are probably, like,

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less than

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certainly less than 50,000,000 people, probably less than 20,000,000 people that, like, self custody

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or, like, self custody Bitcoin or really even, like, use Bitcoin in a meaningful way. So, like, people who don't hold it in ETF, people who don't just, like, leave it on Coinbase

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or, you know, their their their preferred exchange of choice. So the population

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of those with, like, any bit a, Bitcoin to spend at all,

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is is kind of kinda small.

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B,

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the even among those that kinda do have some Bitcoin that they control,

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you know, off of an exchange, whether in a custodial wallet or not. Right? Like,

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the actual units of Bitcoin that they could, you know, spend,

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you know, there's a huge percentage of those people that still see it as,

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a diversification

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to kind of their investment portfolio or something where they wanna hold, you know, x to have an x percent, like, target of either wealth that they wanna hold in Bitcoin or maybe they wanna build it over time. They see themselves as, like, net buyers of Bitcoin, and and, you know, they actively don't want to to spend it.

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So there's, like, that piece. And then that leads into the the other side of the the problem, which is because of that, because the population is still pretty small and even, like, a decent percentage of that existing population

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doesn't really wanna spend doesn't really wanna spend their Bitcoin,

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I think big box retailers and, like, national chains and certainly even more so, like, you know, smaller merchants, like, you know, we've seen this actively, right, like, on the ground, like, have real trouble, like,

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viewing it as worth their time to have any incremental overhead,

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to support people coming in and, like, and paying with Bitcoin. Like, the the demand doesn't really seem to to be there in mass on a sustained basis.

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And so, like, the the attitude is, am I really gonna access, like, an untapped pool of How many customers? How many people do you think spent Bitcoin at Staking Strike this week?

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How do you feel total?

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Like, just number of I mean,

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it's it's under a thousand. Right? Like, I would have to think this What percentage of the people that went posted on social media?

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Because there was, like, a hundred Almost a %. Or 200 Yeah. Posts on social media. I I think very few people went to Steak and Shake

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to to spend their Bitcoin and just to support kind of, you know, the merchants receiving Bitcoin and then didn't virtue signal about it. I think it's it's, you know, it's near zero. Right?

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Yeah. I think it was probably my guess would be, like, in the thousand range.

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Yeah. Which is an interesting dynamic. Right? Because part of the reason why I'm so excited about Nasr

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is

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is that it it natively uses Bitcoin as this

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this means of ex medium of exchange, right, as as a way of paying people.

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And if you look at something like Nasr,

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according to Nasr.band,

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to date on Nasr, which is what, like, three years it's been or something like that. But in the beginning, let's be honest, it was kind of

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broken. I mean, it's kind of been broken

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until, like, six months ago. It was hard to have a really stable experience with it. 5,000,000 transactions on Nasr. The primal wallet alone is almost at 2,000,000 Bitcoin transactions sent.

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And it's interesting seeing the,

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maybe the lack of excitement for Nasr in comparison to the, maybe, over excitement

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of Steak and Shake.

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But that said, I I mean, I think it's undeniable that this was a major narrative win.

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I think I saw a bunch of posts that, like, oh, well, you have Bitcoin. What can you spend it on? It's like, oh, well, I can spend it on a burger.

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I feel inclined.

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So that's a win. That's a big win, especially in a cycle that is very dominated by store value and investment use case. It's good to see the the opposite. Right? This is also why I

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I on rabbit hole recap this week, we highlighted

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the fact that, the Bitcoin Vegas conference is gonna try and break the world record for number of Bitcoin payments done in person.

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Because these narrative wins, they do matter. Right? And I've,

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I want people I want big good money should be you should be able to spend and save it without permission. I prefer to spend Bitcoin. My biggest issue is that there's not places that I could spend it on.

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The other piece that is interesting here to me is one of the issues we've seen in terms of merchant adoption,

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specifically

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physical merchant adoption,

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is that it requires training of,

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the help of the staff.

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And what happens is maybe one person pays with Bitcoin

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a month or two people,

295
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and then you come in and you you check, like, BTC map or something, and you wanna pay Bitcoin at this location. And you walk in and you ask the staff, like, do you accept Bitcoin? And they their eyes glass over. They have no idea

296
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what you're talking about.

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The fact that it seems that Steak and Shake has already fired all of their frontline staff and just uses touch screens,

298
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is probably is probably a win in that regard. Right? It's like you add the button once,

299
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and you don't have to do any additional training. Like, the button's on the touch screen. Like, you're not talking to a person. There's no training of a individual. So I think there's a piece there,

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that makes me a little bit more optimistic that this will be a long standing thing.

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The last thing I would mention as someone

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who works very hard for his family to avoid seed oils,

303
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there's a little key aspect here with the steak and shake thing. They stopped using seed oils in store,

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but the fries come pre seed oiled when they arrive at the store. And I think people aren't aware of this, and I just

305
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I don't want seed oil washing. I want people to be aware of of that. But

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before we move on to the next topic, John, how much of this is because

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we as a collective

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last cycle kind

309
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of false started merchant adoption? Like, I mean, I I remember I was I was personally very excited. At some point,

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I believe

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that Bitcoin will become

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very commonly used as as a medium of exchange, people paying and receiving Bitcoin. I think at some point,

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more people will be

314
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will be paying Bitcoin than selling Bitcoin,

315
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will be receiving Bitcoin than buying Bitcoin.

316
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And we were kinda

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I I I think we got a little bit too excited last cycle. Is part of your skepticism based because of that?

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I mean, that that's a piece of it. I wouldn't say it's, like, necessarily it seems like what you're saying is, like, is it just scar tissue from, like, we were we were more bullish, like, last cycle, and it didn't happen in the way that we expected or hoped as quickly. So, like, does that kinda weigh on me? Like, not so much. Like, I wouldn't say

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I don't think I was, like, hyper bullish last cycle on

320
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medium of exchange use cases kind of, like, becoming,

321
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super widespread and super mainstream

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for the same reason that I just think that I just cited before, which is, like, there are not that many people that, like,

323
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have Bitcoin.

324
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There's and, you know, there are very few people that kind of know what Bitcoin is,

325
00:24:21.294 --> 00:24:26.975
in any meaningful way. It can differentiate it from, you know, ETH or any other kind of,

326
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you know, shitcoin out there.

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And then there's an even smaller pie of people that actually have Bitcoin and and, and then a smaller pie of people that kinda want to spend it.

328
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And I think there's gotta be a

329
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more I think we need to hit a higher threshold of, like, total wealth,

330
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not necessarily people because I think, like and this is a discussion we can maybe get into on some of the other topics. But, like,

331
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a lot of, you know, wealth is disproportionately controlled by, like, a small handful of people. You can, like, cite whatever system you want on that and, like, you know, maybe that's maybe that's good, maybe that's bad. I think that there's always, like, gonna be a natural dynamic where that's the case. So it doesn't necessarily have to be, like,

332
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every single person in the world's orange bill, but you do need, like, a significant amount of cash balances, you know, as a percentage of global cash balances

333
00:25:12.335 --> 00:25:13.715
held natively in Bitcoin

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such that people,

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like, maybe, you know, the people on on this podcast

336
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have little choice but to, you know, but to spend their Bitcoin. Right?

337
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And so, like, I I I don't yet see, like, the the demand push,

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and on a mainstream basis for, like, people to come in and and spend their Bitcoin. That would be necessary to probably

339
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lead to, like, a mass kind of medium of exchange push. I think we have just a long way to go to get, like, Bitcoin in the hands of more people and get more cash balances and, like, total wealth converted to Bitcoin first before you really start to see that kinda take hold. So,

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00:25:54.230 --> 00:26:19.655
and I and I've always thought as well, like, the the stake and shake thing is good to see because to your point, it's table stakes for any of this to happen, for it to be as smooth and easy as any other type of transaction. Like, there has to be complete parity. There has to be no additional burden, no overhead for for employees or for customers. It's gotta be super smooth. But I've always felt like the natural bridge mechanism to get to kind of, like, Trojan horse more Bitcoin

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00:26:21.000 --> 00:26:27.580
transactions into, like, mainstream big box retail, like, medium of exchange type setting is to have something where

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Bitcoin is, you know, affecting the value transfer. Right? And and it's, you know, effectively the rail in the middle. But at either end of the transaction, you have you know, at the edges, you have whatever kind of currency conversion,

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you know, you want. You know? So you walk in with dollars. You pay. You have no idea that, like, what's happening under the hood is that Bitcoin is affecting that transaction,

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and the merchant, you know,

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receives into a bank account dollars, but the, but you cut out the the the middlemen

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that have come to to dominate,

347
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you know, existing,

348
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medium of exchange structures. Right? And that way you have, like, something super easy, something super convenient

349
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for both sides and actively cuts out costs for, like, low margin businesses that could be very meaningful to, you know, the bottom line of all these businesses.

350
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Like, that's that's a way I feel like you are much more likely to ultimately get

351
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Bitcoin, like, into you know, it's it's it's, you know, full flowering of, like, medium of exchange use when a lot of people are kind of leveraging it without even being aware of it, without having to be orange build or adopt any kind of new software or any kind of new payment terminals.

352
00:27:33.554 --> 00:27:45.029
You know, I think that that's, like, the the ultimate, like, killer use case that would really scale it up, like, a hundred x from a medium exchange kind of viewpoint. But so, yeah, I mean, there's there's some scar tissue, but I don't know that that's, like, my main kind of,

353
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reservation. But all that said, I'd love to be wrong. I'd love for this to go completely viral and, for this for it to be made mainstream next year.

354
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Hopefully, this is a trend,

355
00:27:57.195 --> 00:27:59.054
but it's not not a trend yet.

356
00:28:01.115 --> 00:28:04.335
Yeah. I mean, I see one comment here from Mav twenty one,

357
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which is something that I've been thinking about a lot lately

358
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is, like, this aspect of,

359
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like, could there be from a from a tech point of view,

360
00:28:18.000 --> 00:28:25.475
kind of like a black swan type of situation where we just go from zero to one and Bitcoin is accepted in a ton of places because of something like,

361
00:28:25.934 --> 00:28:30.835
Apple Pay adds Bitcoin to their wallet. Like, if I can just load up my Apple Pay with Bitcoin

362
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and just tap tap my phone anywhere Apple Pay is accepted, the merchant doesn't even know they're accepting Bitcoin,

363
00:28:39.130 --> 00:28:43.930
Apple settles on the back end Mhmm. Then maybe that's maybe that happens. But,

364
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barring that, I think it's just gonna be a slow, steady grind. I think it's a little bit different from our next topic,

365
00:28:52.665 --> 00:28:55.885
which is I wanna ask you your opinion on Bitcoin treasury companies.

366
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But with merchant adoption, I feel like it's it's

367
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it's

368
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it's gonna take longer, and it's it's not

369
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as momentum fueled. I think it's going to

370
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be small wins that we see over time that slowly and steadily Bitcoin starts eating away at transaction volume in terms of retail.

371
00:29:15.515 --> 00:29:18.815
But yeah. So the I mean, the big news of this this

372
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year, last two years

373
00:29:21.515 --> 00:29:23.855
has been the rise of MSTR and copycats.

374
00:29:26.875 --> 00:29:29.934
How do you how do you think about that strategy? How do you think about

375
00:29:31.120 --> 00:29:31.860
that development?

376
00:29:33.440 --> 00:29:35.140
I mean, it's like

377
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I've gone back and forth on it,

378
00:29:38.640 --> 00:29:42.880
from, like, a I don't know how much you want, you know, Bitcoin reviews is,

379
00:29:43.360 --> 00:29:46.635
kinda known as the the show that is best at putting people to sleep.

380
00:29:47.495 --> 00:29:53.675
I can go on a whole kinda corporate finance rabbit hole and, like, really put people to sleep if we wanna do that. No. Let's not put people to sleep.

381
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High level, like, it hasn't

382
00:29:57.440 --> 00:30:00.760
I I I struggled with it initially because, you know, the

383
00:30:01.200 --> 00:30:02.340
at the end of the day,

384
00:30:02.960 --> 00:30:07.620
like, a a corporation, especially a publicly traded corporation, like, does not

385
00:30:08.080 --> 00:30:08.580
function

386
00:30:08.880 --> 00:30:13.755
just to hold liquid assets that its investors could hold themselves without friction.

387
00:30:14.055 --> 00:30:14.795
Right? Like,

388
00:30:15.095 --> 00:30:16.635
it's drawing in capital

389
00:30:17.175 --> 00:30:18.715
to do something

390
00:30:19.175 --> 00:30:21.895
that the individual investors, you know, could,

391
00:30:22.375 --> 00:30:36.740
could not do by themselves and, you know, implicitly, like, they have decided that the most efficient way to, like, organize their capital and organize production is under the form of a, you know, corporation or a publicly traded corporation in some cases that can kind of deploy,

392
00:30:37.440 --> 00:30:45.435
you know, their their capital effectively to to some end just to generate some, you know, return over some hurdle rate. Like, that's that's basically it. Right? And so,

393
00:30:46.215 --> 00:30:50.695
with a company that makes cars or company that makes clothes or, you know, any kind of,

394
00:30:51.095 --> 00:30:52.795
goods or services, like,

395
00:30:53.175 --> 00:31:02.960
you can make a strong case that, like, we can't do that as efficiently as individuals, so we need to have capital come in, to these different structures and you do that, and that drives

396
00:31:03.260 --> 00:31:04.640
a better rate of return overall.

397
00:31:05.340 --> 00:31:23.945
But you can hold Bitcoin, right, in in many different vehicles. You can hold it in cold storage single sig, cold storage multi sig, collaborative custody. You can hold it in ETF if you want. You can, you know, put it on exchange. Don't really recommend that, but, like, something you can do. And and, generally, for, like, pretty much with pretty much no slippage, pretty much no fees,

398
00:31:25.190 --> 00:31:28.970
you know, comparatively to to most other asset assets that people hold. So,

399
00:31:29.670 --> 00:31:33.690
you know, it's it's always like, it initially you know, it's pretty mystifying to me,

400
00:31:34.309 --> 00:31:37.130
what the value is or was of,

401
00:31:38.150 --> 00:31:40.170
doing this in, like, a public company

402
00:31:41.035 --> 00:31:42.015
vehicle. Like,

403
00:31:42.635 --> 00:31:47.295
especially because at the end of the day, like, if you're if you're explicitly one of these companies,

404
00:31:48.395 --> 00:31:51.055
and you're explicitly not going to distribute,

405
00:31:52.315 --> 00:31:53.055
the the

406
00:31:53.610 --> 00:32:02.190
assets based on the fruit of the assets that you've accumulated, which ultimately, like, companies are are traditionally valued on that. Right? Like, discounted cash flows, dividends, whatever.

407
00:32:02.890 --> 00:32:12.125
The idea is, like, I put up my capital and you give me you distribute at some point in the future. Maybe it's ten years in the future. Maybe it's fifty years in the future. You distribute either through dividends or stock buybacks.

408
00:32:12.505 --> 00:32:13.245
You cash,

409
00:32:13.865 --> 00:32:16.925
that, you know, that benefits me for holding the equity. If the,

410
00:32:17.945 --> 00:32:20.525
story here is we're just gonna hold this indefinitely,

411
00:32:20.985 --> 00:32:27.100
and in fact, like, the story falls apart if we if we ever say, like, we're gonna get you know, distribute any of this Bitcoin,

412
00:32:28.360 --> 00:32:36.300
then, you know, it it basically, all this is pretty able to say. Like, there's a lot of reason, I think, to be skeptical and suspicious about, like, this concept,

413
00:32:37.885 --> 00:32:38.945
you know, in theory.

414
00:32:39.645 --> 00:32:43.985
I think that there are players out there having looked at it more that

415
00:32:44.365 --> 00:32:48.385
for various reasons have and MSTR is, like, the the obvious one. Right?

416
00:32:49.380 --> 00:32:54.920
Have had the ability some of it, I think, is as a result of just historical accidents and kind of,

417
00:32:56.340 --> 00:32:57.480
you know, call it,

418
00:32:58.020 --> 00:33:05.185
accidents of, the capital markets and restraints and regulations on different pockets of capital, have been able to,

419
00:33:05.725 --> 00:33:07.505
take in capital. And,

420
00:33:09.005 --> 00:33:11.105
for a dollar of capital, they've been able to

421
00:33:11.485 --> 00:33:13.905
accumulate more than a dollar's worth of Bitcoin.

422
00:33:14.925 --> 00:33:31.640
The debate would be, well, how long can that actually go on? Is there some reason that they should be able to do that indefinitely? And I think for the vast majority of, you know, the companies that are coming to market now and we're seeing, like I'm not the first to say it, but this is basically, like, you know, the the ICO craze of of this cycle perhaps.

423
00:33:32.695 --> 00:33:35.995
You know, for the vast majority of those, I think the answer is gonna be no. I think

424
00:33:36.455 --> 00:33:38.235
the the strategic value,

425
00:33:39.335 --> 00:33:47.610
and kinda competitive edge and mind share, which is really important here, is going to accrue to, like, a few of the big players that can move really fast in size.

426
00:33:49.530 --> 00:34:00.285
And, you know, the rest of them will probably trend toward, you know, something like one x nav. A lot of them will trend to zero because they'll probably, you know, take lever bets that blow up at exactly the wrong time.

427
00:34:01.165 --> 00:34:03.985
And, you know, the the equity will will end up being worth,

428
00:34:04.365 --> 00:34:05.185
you know, nothing.

429
00:34:06.285 --> 00:34:10.945
I but I do think, like, there's some merit to a couple of these,

430
00:34:11.565 --> 00:34:15.905
and I think that they may even help juice this cycle a lot more than otherwise.

431
00:34:17.460 --> 00:34:17.960
Ultimately,

432
00:34:18.260 --> 00:34:25.080
the flow side is probably there will be games played by a lot of them that then, help offer the the next bear market. So,

433
00:34:26.420 --> 00:34:28.280
I guess I would sum it up by saying,

434
00:34:28.994 --> 00:34:38.135
on a, again, zero on a one to 10 kind of scale where one is, you know, Bitcoin on a one to 10 scam scale where one is Bitcoin and 10 is,

435
00:34:38.835 --> 00:34:46.910
I don't know, ETH. Maybe ETH is not even the scamiest of scams. Maybe that's like an eight. I think, like, this But XRP is 10. X XRP is a 10. That's right. Yeah.

436
00:34:47.690 --> 00:34:54.585
ETH is high, but XRP would be a 10. You know, I'd I'd say this trend is on, like, you know, is like a five maybe. Right?

437
00:34:55.065 --> 00:35:00.125
Interesting. I think MSTR is is lower on that scale. There are some others that are higher on that scale.

438
00:35:01.464 --> 00:35:04.205
But, yeah, that's kind of how I'm I'm looking at it today.

439
00:35:05.545 --> 00:35:06.045
Interesting.

440
00:35:06.690 --> 00:35:11.250
I mean, so MSTR right now is trading at a two x nav. Right? So it's basically

441
00:35:12.450 --> 00:35:20.950
I mean, what Sailor has said is my goal is is to increase your Bitcoin per share, increase the amount of Bitcoin that each share is worth.

442
00:35:21.525 --> 00:35:22.345
So, presumably,

443
00:35:22.645 --> 00:35:23.865
that's pricing in

444
00:35:24.165 --> 00:35:26.825
the thought that he'll at least double your Bitcoin

445
00:35:27.444 --> 00:35:28.105
per share.

446
00:35:30.484 --> 00:35:31.865
And you think that NAV,

447
00:35:34.119 --> 00:35:41.820
yeah, like, do you think that's a justified NAV, or do you think do you think that goes up, or do you think that goes down? Does it go negative?

448
00:35:42.840 --> 00:35:44.859
Can it go negative? Is it, like, GBTC?

449
00:35:46.925 --> 00:35:48.305
Yeah. Okay. A couple of things.

450
00:35:49.165 --> 00:35:59.185
I have no idea where that multiple is gonna go. This is not financial advice. This is not financial advice. We should we should probably start talking about commodities and not securities.

451
00:36:00.400 --> 00:36:00.900
Yeah.

452
00:36:01.200 --> 00:36:05.119
All that shit scares the shit out of me. Yeah. I mean, certainly not,

453
00:36:05.520 --> 00:36:10.740
not financial advice, and anyone who tells you they know where m s where Bitcoin's going or where MSTR is going,

454
00:36:11.119 --> 00:36:12.000
is is probably,

455
00:36:12.320 --> 00:36:16.565
not something you should listen to. But, I mean so a few things. Like,

456
00:36:17.025 --> 00:36:18.085
when I think about

457
00:36:18.945 --> 00:36:26.145
the amount of Bitcoin that MicroStrategy has and let's assume let's put let's put aside the question of, like, well, do they actually have it? And,

458
00:36:26.545 --> 00:36:31.480
Let's assume they have it. Let's assume they have it. I think it's a valid and legitimate conversation to ask,

459
00:36:32.100 --> 00:36:37.400
do they actually have, you know, economic benefit from the the Bitcoin that they claim to have,

460
00:36:38.340 --> 00:36:49.444
and, you know, how how secure is that, and why don't they provide proof of reserves and addresses and things like that, like, that's all legitimate question. But if you assume that they have it and they and they are exercising control over it,

461
00:36:50.385 --> 00:36:52.865
and aren't going to get it, $61.00

462
00:36:52.865 --> 00:36:55.650
2 for to start The US strategic Bitcoin reserve.

463
00:36:56.289 --> 00:36:56.789
Right.

464
00:36:57.490 --> 00:37:02.950
It's think about the replacement cost of 575,000

465
00:37:03.010 --> 00:37:09.250
Bitcoin. Right? Like That's way higher than two x. Yeah. Could you even go buy $575,000

466
00:37:09.250 --> 00:37:18.515
of Bitcoin without, like, significantly moving the market and get that much Bitcoin quickly? Like, probably not. Right? When so when MSTR had difficult. You'd have to try

467
00:37:19.154 --> 00:37:20.535
difficult to near impossible.

468
00:37:20.914 --> 00:37:21.414
Yeah.

469
00:37:22.690 --> 00:37:27.990
So when MSTR had 5,000 Bitcoin or 10,000 Bitcoin on the balance sheet, like,

470
00:37:28.610 --> 00:37:33.670
you know, okay. You could you could replicate that probably pretty easily. And even, like, a multiple of that, you could probably replicate.

471
00:37:34.130 --> 00:37:38.865
I one so the first thing that I'm wondering with it is, has it gotten to the point of

472
00:37:39.245 --> 00:37:42.785
a level of critical mass and escape velocity where,

473
00:37:44.125 --> 00:37:47.505
getting even that much Bitcoin into, like, one single pool,

474
00:37:48.285 --> 00:37:48.945
would be

475
00:37:49.245 --> 00:37:50.465
impractical enough

476
00:37:50.770 --> 00:37:54.470
that there should be some premium applied to, like, that stack of Bitcoin.

477
00:37:55.250 --> 00:38:06.315
So that's one question. The next thing I would, like, go through in the progression and ask myself is, like, well, if we're heading eventually to a Bitcoin denominated financial services future of some sort,

478
00:38:07.515 --> 00:38:10.575
Then Saylor has, you know, several percentage points of

479
00:38:10.875 --> 00:38:13.615
the most valuable, you know, resource on Earth.

480
00:38:14.474 --> 00:38:19.055
And he starts to look, and I think, you know, he's pretty clearly tried to, like, it seems,

481
00:38:19.619 --> 00:38:35.535
try to position, you know, the company more and more in this way. Like, does it start to look more like, you know, a bank of the future? Right? Like, someone's sitting on a huge pile of the the capital asset of the future they're on once. And so if it looks like a bank and that's ultimately where he's going, well, you know, JPMorgan

482
00:38:36.555 --> 00:38:40.655
or or even, like, Berkshire Hathaway or something, you know, like, these these companies that have used,

483
00:38:41.115 --> 00:38:43.455
you know, their asset bases in very creative ways,

484
00:38:44.635 --> 00:38:51.309
those guys have, you know, traded at certainly, you know, whether it's two or, you know, I think three is on the high end in terms of book,

485
00:38:51.690 --> 00:39:00.910
in terms of book value, but they don't trade at one. Right? They don't trade exactly at NAV. And and when we talk about, like, NAV, what what we're talking about is book value. Right? It's like asset assets mile minus liabilities.

486
00:39:02.735 --> 00:39:15.875
And, you know, none of those institutions generally like, when they're healthy and doing well, right, when they're distressed is a different question, but, like, they generally trade, like, notably above, like, one x. And so if you think that there will be some sort of, like,

487
00:39:16.220 --> 00:39:20.720
future where there's something at all productive to do with the Bitcoin,

488
00:39:21.420 --> 00:39:22.720
like, Bitcoin denominated,

489
00:39:23.020 --> 00:39:43.140
you know, yield, I'll say. Right? Like, lending out Bitcoin in some way. But but but not but not like scamming you. Like, I I'm gonna give you you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna lend you some amount of Bitcoin. You think about, you know, the the when Bitcoin is appreciating, like, let's say, if we're in a future or Bitcoin's appreciating, like, 5% a year, 10% a year, whatever, you probably have you probably have much less debt in a world like that,

490
00:39:43.539 --> 00:39:59.000
just because that's much more expensive to service. But, like, you can imagine, like, economic arrangements where someone gets Bitcoin. You know, a a capital provider gives you Bitcoin in some structure. And, you know, if you're a successful business, you can repay that with some, you know, interest rate or dividends or something. Right?

491
00:39:59.515 --> 00:40:03.375
So if there's a world like that where you could do that with all of Safler's Bitcoin,

492
00:40:03.835 --> 00:40:10.335
then, yeah, it's it's not clear to me that, you know, the that pool of Bitcoin should just trade at, like, you know, one x. Right?

493
00:40:11.835 --> 00:40:12.575
So I think,

494
00:40:14.130 --> 00:40:22.390
with with a with a company like that, a vehicle like that, I think you can make interesting and not totally insane arguments for there to be,

495
00:40:22.930 --> 00:40:28.825
some premium. For for the guys who are on, you know, Twitter posting in all caps that,

496
00:40:29.204 --> 00:40:45.549
you know, here's my price target for when no. Well, no. Not not not like you. I I would never lump you into you should not on Twitter. Right? But, the Fair enough. The the the Twitter bros who are on, you know, on their posting, their sensitivity table showing here's what happens when MSTR goes to, like, 10 x nav,

497
00:40:46.170 --> 00:40:53.950
you know, and it's gonna it's gonna be worth Apple and NVIDIA and Meta combined. Right? Like, I think that's probably not, a case I can subscribe to, but,

498
00:40:54.515 --> 00:40:58.455
you know, the idea that it should have, you know, like, some premium to one to me is

499
00:40:58.995 --> 00:41:02.775
given how big the pool is and given how actually,

500
00:41:04.355 --> 00:41:11.270
well constructed at this point the balance sheet is and how, I think, low risk it is for Saylor to completely blow up at this point.

501
00:41:11.730 --> 00:41:17.589
I think it's hard for me to say that it should just be one x. Not impossible for him to blow up, but I think for it to go

502
00:41:17.970 --> 00:41:19.990
to for for the equity to go to zero,

503
00:41:20.424 --> 00:41:26.125
or very close to zero, I think you've gotta have a prolonged bear market sub, like, 25,000

504
00:41:26.345 --> 00:41:28.525
that sits there for, like, years. Right?

505
00:41:29.464 --> 00:41:34.750
So all that is to say, like, MicroStrategy is a special case or strategy, whatever. And I think

506
00:41:35.050 --> 00:41:38.670
the the players in the game that can quickly develop, like, a huge treasury,

507
00:41:39.849 --> 00:41:49.575
you know, maybe can get to a point where it becomes a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy where that capital base gets so big that they can either, you know, efficiently use it and leverage it,

508
00:41:50.214 --> 00:41:50.714
to

509
00:41:51.335 --> 00:41:57.755
build to mount, like, a real case that they can grow Bitcoin per share and acquire more Bitcoin more efficiently than you could with that same dollar

510
00:41:58.214 --> 00:42:02.714
and or, like, that they'll have, you know, this strategically advantaged kind of, position

511
00:42:03.160 --> 00:42:06.860
over the next number of years as Bitcoin gets more and more integrated into, you know, financial

512
00:42:07.320 --> 00:42:12.140
services. But that's not make that you could you could even make the argument that, like,

513
00:42:12.840 --> 00:42:20.695
like, the traditional cash pile argument. Right? Where, like, he could do strategic acquisitions or something post as Bitcoin adoption slows down.

514
00:42:21.875 --> 00:42:24.295
And he'll and he'll have the most dry powder out of anyone.

515
00:42:24.675 --> 00:42:25.175
Yep.

516
00:42:26.355 --> 00:42:31.920
But, I mean but, yeah, it's it's the the flip side of it, right, is, like, people people see a good thing, people see a successful thing,

517
00:42:34.319 --> 00:42:38.020
version of it. Right? They wanna copy it. They wanna, like, ride on its coattails. Yeah.

518
00:42:38.480 --> 00:42:41.140
You know, it's it's I like Bitcoin. Buy my shit coin.

519
00:42:42.400 --> 00:42:46.900
So, you know, it I think we have we are just in the first inning of seeing, like,

520
00:42:47.235 --> 00:42:56.535
companies, coming to market with their Bitcoin strategies. But you already see it's it's a lot like, summer twenty seventeen with, like, you know you remember, like, a Long Island Iced Tea,

521
00:42:57.235 --> 00:43:00.535
adding adding blockchain to long blockchain. Right?

522
00:43:01.260 --> 00:43:08.720
You see these companies putting out these press releases where they're like But they were all miners back then. They were like like, Long Island Iced Tea, like, bought, like, 10,000

523
00:43:08.780 --> 00:43:11.200
mining rigs, and they were like, we're Long Island blockchain.

524
00:43:11.580 --> 00:43:12.480
Yeah. That's right.

525
00:43:13.955 --> 00:43:18.055
But, yeah, you see these guys putting out these PRs where it's like, we've initiated our Bitcoin strategy,

526
00:43:18.435 --> 00:43:28.055
and we're we're targeting a a billion dollars of Bitcoin in our treasury. And you read through it, and it's like, okay. Well, like, yeah. Their their their board is evaluating a capital plan

527
00:43:28.359 --> 00:43:34.140
that illustratively, theoretically, it might someday allow them to buy $1,000,000,000 of Bitcoin. Right? So,

528
00:43:34.680 --> 00:43:39.980
you know, we're we're just at the beginning of of seeing that, and I think, unfortunately, a lot of people will get burned and,

529
00:43:40.680 --> 00:43:44.845
and rugged by, all of the kinda ankle biters that that pop up,

530
00:43:45.545 --> 00:43:48.265
over the next, you know, year and change trying to,

531
00:43:48.665 --> 00:43:50.685
maybe even longer trying to chase this trend.

532
00:43:51.945 --> 00:43:53.005
But I don't think

533
00:43:53.820 --> 00:43:57.520
I I'm not convinced yet that the entire strategy is

534
00:43:57.820 --> 00:44:05.840
completely, like, asinine and backward and doomed to failure for every single company that tries it. I think it probably is for, like, 95% of them. Right?

535
00:44:07.340 --> 00:44:08.560
But I do think there's

536
00:44:09.355 --> 00:44:13.615
some degree of signal there that will kinda ride out through, you know, a cycle or two.

537
00:44:14.475 --> 00:44:15.195
Because it's like

538
00:44:15.835 --> 00:44:19.535
Bitcoin is is such Bitcoin just because, like, if Bitcoin is what we think it is,

539
00:44:20.555 --> 00:44:23.375
it is such a powerful capital asset.

540
00:44:23.870 --> 00:44:27.730
It's there's there's no way you're not gonna have, you know, the the,

541
00:44:28.910 --> 00:44:33.010
speculative attack that Pierre Schard wrote about ten plus years ago,

542
00:44:33.950 --> 00:44:38.690
taking some form some kind of shape in, like, the deepest, most liquid capital markets in the world. Like,

543
00:44:39.185 --> 00:44:42.325
someone, you know, Saylor and, you know, his his,

544
00:44:42.705 --> 00:44:46.485
his successful followers, like, are going to figure out ways to,

545
00:44:47.825 --> 00:44:52.244
cheaply access capital, whether that's diluting shareholders or,

546
00:44:52.940 --> 00:45:00.079
you know, doing converts or doing preferred stock offerings or all these different things. Like Right. They're they're going to find ways to,

547
00:45:01.099 --> 00:45:18.765
at a low cost of capital, buy more Bitcoin. And that's what, like, individuals are doing every day. Right? If you're if you're taking out, you know, Bitcoin backed loan to buy more Bitcoin or if you're borrowing, you know, from your your bank at, like, a if you're doing an e lock from your bank to go acquire more Bitcoin, like, you are running the same playbook. Right? Yeah. Exactly. Right? Like, you're

548
00:45:19.320 --> 00:45:20.620
you're running the same playbook.

549
00:45:21.400 --> 00:45:22.140
And so

550
00:45:22.520 --> 00:45:31.660
the idea that it it would not be possible for some corporations to do the same thing at a much greater scale in these huge liquid markets is, you know, I think probably misguided.

551
00:45:32.280 --> 00:45:34.125
That said, a lot of them are gonna blow up.

552
00:45:35.645 --> 00:45:39.425
Yeah. I mean, the difference with an individual or, like, a small business

553
00:45:39.885 --> 00:45:40.945
or a start up,

554
00:45:41.645 --> 00:45:42.545
which is what

555
00:45:43.085 --> 00:45:44.945
ten thirty one is focused on,

556
00:45:45.725 --> 00:45:50.100
is the cash flow element. Right? And MSTR originally started with

557
00:45:51.460 --> 00:45:52.360
not insignificant

558
00:45:52.820 --> 00:46:03.320
healthy cash flow. Now at this point, the cash flow is, like, incredibly dwarfed by the Bitcoin position, which is why I think when people are trying to price it, they're they're obsessed with the NAF.

559
00:46:05.045 --> 00:46:06.085
But I the

560
00:46:07.605 --> 00:46:15.625
if you if you have actual positive cash flow and you're actually a profitable business or profitable individual and your income is higher than your expenses

561
00:46:16.085 --> 00:46:21.320
and you're putting that into Bitcoin, that to me always has seemed like the holy grail. Like, that is,

562
00:46:22.820 --> 00:46:32.760
you know, I've had I've had dentists reach out to me. Right? And they're like, I'm I'm a dentist. I have a dental office. I love I love Bitcoin. What can I do to, like, further the movement? I was like,

563
00:46:33.145 --> 00:46:36.205
you should just be a dentist that holds holds Bitcoin.

564
00:46:36.985 --> 00:46:40.925
Ideally, accept Bitcoin. Maybe you'll have, like, one or two clients that wants to pay in Bitcoin.

565
00:46:41.385 --> 00:46:42.765
That helps out those clients.

566
00:46:43.145 --> 00:46:48.205
You help be a part of the movement. But just be a profitable dentist and stack sets. You'll be probably

567
00:46:49.280 --> 00:46:57.859
one of the most you'll probably have some of the most options available to you in five years, ten years out of any private dental office in the world because because

568
00:46:58.240 --> 00:47:00.099
having that capital, having that,

569
00:47:00.880 --> 00:47:02.820
that treasury gives you optionality.

570
00:47:03.525 --> 00:47:07.625
But just before we move on to the next topic, like, I just because you're

571
00:47:08.724 --> 00:47:09.865
given your background,

572
00:47:10.964 --> 00:47:11.944
and given

573
00:47:14.645 --> 00:47:16.559
given your background, you

574
00:47:17.020 --> 00:47:21.760
you tend to be, like, my Oracle in terms of, like, pricing things and pricing businesses.

575
00:47:22.380 --> 00:47:23.279
Do you think

576
00:47:25.660 --> 00:47:49.750
is the is is focusing on the nav of my let's just focus on MicroStrategy because there's all these copycats and there's nuances and add additional risks to all of them. Obviously, strategy is the is the big dog in the room. Is the focus on mnav the wrong way to price it? Like, why are people no one does that. I mean, you don't you don't really see that kind of valuation when you're talking about something like Tesla that's, you know, trading at, like, massive

577
00:47:50.690 --> 00:47:51.510
PE multiples.

578
00:47:52.210 --> 00:47:55.589
Yeah. I mean, I think there are a couple of things there. So the first is,

579
00:47:56.115 --> 00:48:00.775
to get back to my bank example, it certainly seems like they're skewing themselves in that direction.

580
00:48:01.875 --> 00:48:03.575
And a lot of

581
00:48:03.875 --> 00:48:16.829
traditionally, like, banks are valued on book. Right? So doing, like, price to book is is I think it's, like, fair from from that perspective if that's kind of the the direction they're gonna go. And I think that's, like, the business model that most people can, like, most easily,

582
00:48:17.210 --> 00:48:18.670
you know, map onto them.

583
00:48:19.130 --> 00:48:20.510
So I don't think that's crazy.

584
00:48:20.890 --> 00:48:24.349
I think the other thing is, like, they also have yet to show,

585
00:48:24.835 --> 00:48:26.775
like, you know, Tesla well,

586
00:48:27.235 --> 00:48:30.295
Tesla is maybe a bad example, but, NVIDIA, Apple, Meta,

587
00:48:30.995 --> 00:48:31.975
you know, these companies,

588
00:48:32.595 --> 00:48:39.980
and and non tech companies too, like, traditionally are valued on something more like, you know, price to earnings or price to free cash flow or EBITDA.

589
00:48:40.760 --> 00:48:47.420
But, basically, like, you're valued on, like, your recurring, like, business operating earnings of some kind. Like, you can pick whatever metric you want,

590
00:48:47.960 --> 00:48:50.860
to reflect that, but they're kind of priced that way.

591
00:48:51.720 --> 00:48:54.460
But I think MicroStrategy has yet to show

592
00:48:54.775 --> 00:48:56.315
that it can generate,

593
00:48:56.855 --> 00:49:00.315
anything equivalent in terms of kind of operating earnings.

594
00:49:00.855 --> 00:49:05.035
Some of the MSTR bros will kinda try to argue that

595
00:49:05.655 --> 00:49:08.395
thanks to thanks to the changes in in FASB rules,

596
00:49:09.359 --> 00:49:11.299
you now have, like, this concept of,

597
00:49:11.760 --> 00:49:23.539
you know, Bitcoin Bitcoin yield or Bitcoin gain or Bitcoin income. Like, Sailor's got all these different metrics, which I think are, like, reasonable to kind of frame up what's going on, and you definitely do wanna look at that to kind of understand, like, well, is he actually efficiently

598
00:49:24.075 --> 00:49:32.655
increasing, you know, the the Bitcoin HODL of the company or not? Like, they're so they're relevant. But the problem is and I alluded this to I alluded this earlier. Like, with an NVIDIA or an Apple,

599
00:49:33.435 --> 00:49:34.655
you can look at earnings

600
00:49:35.115 --> 00:49:45.030
or, you know, even better free cash flow and say, like, that is a proxy or, like, an analog for what I, as a shareholder, can can receive from this company. Even if they choose not to distribute it,

601
00:49:45.570 --> 00:49:51.750
you know, they they can pay dividends or they can do stock buybacks that proportionally increase my ownership of the business.

602
00:49:52.785 --> 00:49:59.925
And that will ultimately be governed by, you know, the cash flow that they can generate. So I can I can kind of, like, as a shortcut, put a multiple on that,

603
00:50:01.345 --> 00:50:11.720
and, you know, get to some sort of, like, valuation that may make sense? The the difference especially with that I see with MSTR is not only have they not proven that they can kind of do that, even more importantly, like,

604
00:50:12.020 --> 00:50:14.760
the Bitcoin earnings that they're generating right now

605
00:50:15.060 --> 00:50:15.560
are

606
00:50:15.860 --> 00:50:25.775
not, like, I think in principle, like, not distributable. Like, obviously, they are. But the second that Saylor turns around and says, alright. I'm paying Bitcoin denominated dividends to,

607
00:50:26.315 --> 00:50:28.735
to my shareholders, or we're gonna fund buybacks,

608
00:50:29.595 --> 00:50:31.615
through kind of our Bitcoin HODL or something.

609
00:50:32.315 --> 00:50:38.829
I think the second he does that, the the whole narrative collapses that this is just kind of, like, one way machine to acquire Bitcoin.

610
00:50:39.930 --> 00:50:46.430
So if he if he does that, like, I think he's implicitly saying, we no longer see a way to capital to capital efficiently

611
00:50:46.970 --> 00:50:47.470
acquire

612
00:50:47.895 --> 00:51:02.075
more Bitcoin per share, basically. And so we're just gonna now turn this into, like, a distribution vehicle. At that point, you know, there's no reason it shouldn't basically trade it, you know, one times NAV and kind of the whole the whole game stops. Right? So I I don't think it's, like, reasonable to

613
00:51:02.550 --> 00:51:05.850
look at kind of his metrics of, like, Bitcoin earnings

614
00:51:06.150 --> 00:51:13.370
and say, well, it should just be you know, we should use, like, a PE ratio for that because, like, the the earnings between, like, NVIDIA and MicroStrategy

615
00:51:13.830 --> 00:51:20.985
are just completely different in kind. Like, they're they're not, like, approximating the same thing, which is, like, distributable cash flows back to shareholders.

616
00:51:21.285 --> 00:51:23.305
So for now, I think, like,

617
00:51:23.605 --> 00:51:31.465
cap, capitalizing it on NAV and and looking at it that way is, like, a a a pretty reasonable approach, especially since they're kinda taking that that banking route,

618
00:51:32.380 --> 00:51:32.880
anyway.

619
00:51:34.540 --> 00:51:35.040
Okay.

620
00:51:36.140 --> 00:51:37.280
I think that's fair.

621
00:51:38.700 --> 00:51:43.280
Let's go to an audience question, and then we'll go back to an Odell question.

622
00:51:43.740 --> 00:51:44.880
How does that sound?

623
00:51:48.525 --> 00:51:53.345
Superfat arrow is asking if we as ten thirty one would invest in direct competitors

624
00:51:53.645 --> 00:51:57.185
or once we have a horse in the race, would we back that one only?

625
00:51:58.820 --> 00:51:59.720
What are your thoughts?

626
00:52:01.860 --> 00:52:03.080
Yeah. I mean, I think

627
00:52:03.460 --> 00:52:05.320
couple different ways to look at it.

628
00:52:06.340 --> 00:52:11.960
Certainly, our if you look at our portfolio that we have, like, on the on the site that anyone can go look at,

629
00:52:12.420 --> 00:52:15.145
we've definitely got companies on there that

630
00:52:15.445 --> 00:52:19.865
overlap in some of the products that that they provide and some of the services they provide.

631
00:52:21.125 --> 00:52:22.025
You know, I definitely

632
00:52:22.484 --> 00:52:23.305
think there's

633
00:52:23.685 --> 00:52:27.305
room for us to invest in a lot of different

634
00:52:28.040 --> 00:52:29.100
companies that

635
00:52:29.560 --> 00:52:31.180
play in similar pools

636
00:52:31.480 --> 00:52:32.619
because the

637
00:52:33.160 --> 00:52:37.260
market opportunity here, if we're right, is so massive that

638
00:52:37.720 --> 00:52:44.915
competition, like, as such is not going to be the main governor on, like, whether these businesses kind of, you know, do well or not. Right?

639
00:52:45.454 --> 00:52:50.115
So if you're taking kind of the five to ten year view on where these companies are gonna go,

640
00:52:51.214 --> 00:52:52.195
I don't necessarily

641
00:52:52.734 --> 00:52:54.595
worry that much about, like,

642
00:52:54.960 --> 00:52:58.020
I I worry way less, I guess, I'll say about competition,

643
00:52:59.280 --> 00:53:10.515
among Bitcoin companies than I do about things like you know, we talked about regulatory. You had your regulatory episodes on the show recently. That's a piece that we're always, like, much more worried about. I worry about, you know,

644
00:53:11.375 --> 00:53:11.875
distraction

645
00:53:12.175 --> 00:53:12.675
from,

646
00:53:13.215 --> 00:53:23.160
like, altcoins and Bitcoin treasury companies and things like that, like diverting, you know, attention away from some Bitcoin native, you know, financial services and things like that.

647
00:53:23.720 --> 00:53:27.020
Fortunately, I don't think that's hindered a lot of our businesses thus far,

648
00:53:27.480 --> 00:53:33.819
but, you know, that that's something that kinda, like, slows down potentially, like, you know, the secular tailwinds of Bitcoin uptake.

649
00:53:34.760 --> 00:53:39.935
But I think, like, the the underlying, like, market tailwinds are much more of a focus point,

650
00:53:40.315 --> 00:53:45.695
for me and for us. And then, like, there's competition between, like the other, like, competitive element too is, like,

651
00:53:46.075 --> 00:53:49.455
competition with incumbents. Like, the the the the race is always, like,

652
00:53:49.755 --> 00:53:52.575
will, you know, the will the start up find distribution

653
00:53:53.020 --> 00:53:54.720
before the incumbent finds innovation?

654
00:53:55.180 --> 00:53:55.660
Right?

655
00:53:56.060 --> 00:53:56.800
And then

656
00:53:57.340 --> 00:54:00.880
to the extent that incumbents kinda wanna get more into, like, these pools,

657
00:54:01.180 --> 00:54:01.660
like,

658
00:54:02.060 --> 00:54:07.360
like, maybe enabled by, you know, the OCC and FDIC and and Fed changes. Like, if that happens,

659
00:54:07.885 --> 00:54:13.105
how do incumbents look at, you know, the companies in our space? I think they'll probably look at a lot of them as strategic targets,

660
00:54:13.885 --> 00:54:15.985
but they may also look at them as, you know,

661
00:54:16.605 --> 00:54:19.585
competitors to to be to be squashed and and to be,

662
00:54:20.285 --> 00:54:26.900
you know, done away with in some way. Right? So from a competitive angle, that's what I would think we're all much more kind of focused on.

663
00:54:27.760 --> 00:54:32.580
I think there's room for us to invest in a bunch of different companies that are all kind of overlapping,

664
00:54:33.120 --> 00:54:34.980
in some of the things they're providing because,

665
00:54:35.600 --> 00:54:36.100
generally,

666
00:54:37.215 --> 00:54:44.115
these companies, when you kinda look under the hood, are not all doing exactly the same thing. They have certain products that overlap and then certain certain ones that don't.

667
00:54:44.895 --> 00:54:52.275
I don't know that we've ever invested in two companies that do, like, precisely the same thing, that have exact the exact same value proposition to customers,

668
00:54:53.130 --> 00:54:56.750
and ex the exact same customer bases. Like, if we were ever, you know, given,

669
00:54:57.450 --> 00:55:01.630
a situation like that, like, yeah, I think we'd probably have to pick, you know, one horse over the other.

670
00:55:02.089 --> 00:55:08.855
But as it stands, I think, like, the that issue is not something that I think we lose a a ton of sleep over with the portfolio.

671
00:55:11.395 --> 00:55:15.815
Yeah. I mean, I guess there is an example with, like, Nodl and start nine.

672
00:55:17.395 --> 00:55:22.860
But I think that's also a good example of just the pie is so small. Right? Like, if the goal is

673
00:55:23.880 --> 00:55:26.300
if the goal is people self hosting

674
00:55:26.840 --> 00:55:31.260
easily with with low friction on open source with open source software,

675
00:55:33.515 --> 00:55:35.455
the hurdle is not each other.

676
00:55:36.155 --> 00:55:40.175
The the hurdle is actually, like, moving society to that type of world.

677
00:55:41.275 --> 00:55:43.375
And, usually, in most cases,

678
00:55:43.755 --> 00:55:51.320
a rising tide lifts all boats is what we're seeing and how we're kind of playing it out. I would I I mean, I would add to John's comments here.

679
00:55:52.660 --> 00:55:57.880
There have been a couple situations that we have to be delicate with it. I will say, just in general, the space is

680
00:55:58.740 --> 00:56:00.119
way smaller than people

681
00:56:01.125 --> 00:56:02.105
pretend it is,

682
00:56:02.885 --> 00:56:06.105
particularly when you're on, like, in terms of, like, businesses

683
00:56:06.405 --> 00:56:07.145
and, like,

684
00:56:08.565 --> 00:56:10.405
founders who are building in them.

685
00:56:10.965 --> 00:56:12.025
It's way smaller.

686
00:56:12.325 --> 00:56:14.425
We're all at we're at all the same events.

687
00:56:14.730 --> 00:56:18.590
We're, like, in the in similar circles. There's a lot of friendships involved.

688
00:56:20.089 --> 00:56:20.589
So

689
00:56:20.890 --> 00:56:24.590
like most things in life, there's a lot of people things to navigate,

690
00:56:25.290 --> 00:56:26.030
and relationships

691
00:56:26.330 --> 00:56:26.990
to navigate.

692
00:56:28.565 --> 00:56:32.585
But I think if you're truthful and you're transparent and you act in an ethical way,

693
00:56:33.444 --> 00:56:38.505
we haven't seen you know, you you'll you'll seek occasional flare ups on Twitter or whatnot.

694
00:56:39.605 --> 00:56:40.105
But,

695
00:56:41.100 --> 00:56:48.800
mostly, I think people strongly do believe in the idea of, like, same team where we're all working towards the same goal. We all can benefit from it.

696
00:56:50.140 --> 00:56:54.880
I will also add just, like, if you go to our website, if you go to 1031.xyz,

697
00:56:56.135 --> 00:56:57.915
35 companies are listed there

698
00:56:58.295 --> 00:57:00.795
or maybe 36 now at this point. But,

699
00:57:01.575 --> 00:57:03.994
if you actually like, in terms of funds deployed,

700
00:57:05.655 --> 00:57:11.115
percentage wise, it's a much smaller subset is the overwhelming majority of money we've invested.

701
00:57:12.240 --> 00:57:18.240
So when those when when those investment sizes get larger, right, like, we've we've invested a hundred $50,000,000

702
00:57:18.240 --> 00:57:22.100
into Bitcoin companies, when those when those investments get bigger,

703
00:57:22.560 --> 00:57:27.495
then all of a sudden you have to be a lot more obviously, you have to be a lot more deliberate in terms of

704
00:57:28.055 --> 00:57:33.115
prudence and making sure it's a good investment, but also in terms of conflict of interest there.

705
00:57:33.895 --> 00:57:35.595
And we in that situation,

706
00:57:36.295 --> 00:57:37.595
we do tend

707
00:57:39.735 --> 00:57:42.555
to coalesce around who we think will, you know,

708
00:57:43.250 --> 00:57:47.030
have more market share and and have have a stronger business.

709
00:57:48.290 --> 00:57:50.790
Do you have anything to add before we move to the next question?

710
00:57:51.329 --> 00:57:54.470
No. No. I think that's all that's all reasonable. It's a good question.

711
00:57:56.165 --> 00:57:59.545
I see another question here that I can just answer real quick,

712
00:58:00.645 --> 00:58:01.464
bringing up

713
00:58:05.365 --> 00:58:08.825
I think it was Average Gary who set it, but now I can't find it.

714
00:58:09.960 --> 00:58:12.940
Asking about the grant we gave Cali.

715
00:58:15.080 --> 00:58:17.100
How does ten thirty one determine grants

716
00:58:17.640 --> 00:58:20.700
like the one we gave Cali differently than venture funding?

717
00:58:21.095 --> 00:58:29.434
I mean, it's quite simple. You know? An open source grant is for a project that we just think is important that is not easily monetizable,

718
00:58:30.535 --> 00:58:35.595
or maybe it doesn't even make sense to monetize. Like, in Cali's case, like, I think you add a lot of regulatory risk.

719
00:58:37.250 --> 00:58:43.750
As one of the investors of Samurai Wallet, I think we know about regulatory risk and taking deliberate risk more than others.

720
00:58:44.369 --> 00:58:47.670
But in Kali's case, like, I think it's important that he never directly monetizes

721
00:58:47.970 --> 00:58:51.015
it, and she keeps it as an open protocol and

722
00:58:51.414 --> 00:58:53.035
doesn't custody people's funds.

723
00:58:53.974 --> 00:59:03.030
So we just provided him a grant because we think it's good for the ecosystem. We think it benefits our investors. We think it benefits our portfolio companies. We think it benefits Bitcoiners in general.

724
00:59:03.510 --> 00:59:04.010
Obviously,

725
00:59:04.790 --> 00:59:08.490
the lion share of grants that I'm personally involved with come out of OpenSats.

726
00:59:09.510 --> 00:59:10.730
But there is a nice

727
00:59:11.910 --> 00:59:16.730
con the it it I think businesses and individuals should be providing grants to

728
00:59:17.385 --> 00:59:19.165
developers directly without middlemen.

729
00:59:20.985 --> 00:59:29.405
And I would like to see more of that. Our whole team at 10:31 would like to see more of that. And I think the way you see more of that is by leading by example and doing it. Right?

730
00:59:29.865 --> 00:59:32.285
And there there is a beauty of

731
00:59:34.220 --> 00:59:41.040
of just giving a grant with nothing expected in return and not having to work under a nonprofit framework where you have to take all this

732
00:59:41.579 --> 00:59:42.079
different

733
00:59:42.619 --> 00:59:48.400
identifying information and stuff. So we for that specific situation with Cali, we literally just reached out to Cali,

734
00:59:49.155 --> 00:59:50.135
and we were like,

735
00:59:51.315 --> 00:59:52.675
we would like to support you.

736
00:59:53.155 --> 00:59:55.815
Send us a Bitcoin address, and we sent them some Bitcoin.

737
00:59:57.555 --> 00:59:59.335
Okay. Back to an Odell question.

738
01:00:01.610 --> 01:00:04.190
So people that were listening to Rabbit Hole Recap,

739
01:00:05.770 --> 01:00:07.930
since we started in 2018

740
01:00:08.570 --> 01:00:09.950
I think it was 2018.

741
01:00:10.810 --> 01:00:11.870
Maybe it was late.

742
01:00:13.050 --> 01:00:14.430
Maybe it was 2019.

743
01:00:15.035 --> 01:00:17.535
I don't know. Whatever. Seven years, six years.

744
01:00:18.235 --> 01:00:20.735
When we started, I hated VCs.

745
01:00:21.115 --> 01:00:24.655
I was, like, super anti VC. I was, like, very loud anti VC.

746
01:00:28.670 --> 01:00:29.490
Why is

747
01:00:30.030 --> 01:00:33.570
what what makes what makes what we do at 10:31 different

748
01:00:33.870 --> 01:00:34.370
than

749
01:00:34.670 --> 01:00:38.930
the a sixteen z's of the world, the Sequoias of the world? Like, how do you think about that?

750
01:00:39.710 --> 01:00:42.530
Yeah. I mean, I'll say, I also, like,

751
01:00:42.835 --> 01:00:46.295
did not care for VC and still don't. Like, I don't

752
01:00:47.155 --> 01:00:48.695
largely think it's a very

753
01:00:49.075 --> 01:00:49.575
attractive

754
01:00:49.955 --> 01:00:50.775
asset class.

755
01:00:51.635 --> 01:00:55.415
Maybe, you know, twenty years ago, mainstream VC was,

756
01:00:55.900 --> 01:00:58.480
but it's gotten so bloated and,

757
01:00:58.940 --> 01:01:09.105
just full of the the the incumbents that have existed for a long time have gotten just massive, and I think they've got an asset base that they just can't realistically allocate into kind of

758
01:01:09.505 --> 01:01:12.085
true hundred x, thousand x, like, early stage,

759
01:01:12.705 --> 01:01:14.005
category killers anymore.

760
01:01:14.305 --> 01:01:16.725
And meanwhile, you've got, like, just this ecosystem

761
01:01:17.105 --> 01:01:19.045
of, you know, kind of undifferentiated,

762
01:01:19.665 --> 01:01:20.484
like, generalist

763
01:01:20.785 --> 01:01:25.690
tech investor ankle biters that have popped up over the last, especially, you know, ten years.

764
01:01:26.470 --> 01:01:30.569
And I think, you know, you're seeing now, for anyone who's paying attention to to that ecosystem,

765
01:01:31.430 --> 01:01:34.970
it it's starting to come through in, like, returns and lack of distributions,

766
01:01:35.349 --> 01:01:38.205
especially from a lot of those smaller funds. And so,

767
01:01:39.085 --> 01:01:44.225
you know, I think I I I am I was and am right there with you on, like, general VC.

768
01:01:45.485 --> 01:01:47.985
And I think, you know, what we do that's

769
01:01:48.285 --> 01:01:49.425
different than that,

770
01:01:50.125 --> 01:01:56.760
that made me kind of excited to join and made me wanna get involved is, I mean, a, first of all, we're hyper focused on

771
01:01:57.140 --> 01:02:01.000
a space that we believe has massive secular tailwinds.

772
01:02:01.780 --> 01:02:07.035
So we're not just kind of an also ran in kind of b to b SaaS investing or whatever. Like,

773
01:02:07.515 --> 01:02:16.414
we're we're purpose built to be, you know, this hyperfocus machine on this one vertical that we think is ultimately gonna touch every, you know, industry in the world.

774
01:02:17.035 --> 01:02:22.440
But we have this kinda differentiated and and specific specialist lens on that that I think,

775
01:02:22.740 --> 01:02:30.760
is is necessary to have any kind of differentiated returns in, you know, early stage VC or private markets investing, like, in general. Right?

776
01:02:31.220 --> 01:02:35.960
That's a piece of it. The other piece is, you know, because we're so focused on Bitcoin,

777
01:02:36.444 --> 01:02:38.224
and because we're all Bitcoiners first,

778
01:02:39.484 --> 01:02:42.625
and are so levered to to Bitcoin and,

779
01:02:43.085 --> 01:02:47.265
you know, both the asset itself and also just, like, the the ecosystem around it,

780
01:02:47.885 --> 01:02:50.590
you know, we come at things from the perspective

781
01:02:50.890 --> 01:02:54.910
of Bitcoin being our opportunity cost. So that plays into,

782
01:02:55.770 --> 01:03:00.590
the investments that we make and why we make the ones that we do and what we find attractive and what we don't find attractive.

783
01:03:01.385 --> 01:03:09.645
It's it's a filter for us to not just invest in the latest hot round of, you know, what everybody else in the valley is investing in. Right?

784
01:03:10.185 --> 01:03:14.285
Because we need to feel very good that we can underwrite, like, a Bitcoin denominated return

785
01:03:15.065 --> 01:03:17.480
on an an investment over the course of our fund life.

786
01:03:18.580 --> 01:03:20.360
And, you know, it it also,

787
01:03:21.300 --> 01:03:24.280
biases us as a result toward investing and not just

788
01:03:24.620 --> 01:03:32.185
not businesses that not only have, you know, great potential like tailwinds and massive market opportunity and secular opportunity to grow,

789
01:03:32.805 --> 01:03:34.905
it also biases us toward,

790
01:03:35.285 --> 01:03:37.465
businesses that we think can be scalable quickly

791
01:03:37.845 --> 01:03:39.705
and can have really, really profitable

792
01:03:40.005 --> 01:03:42.745
we can become very profitable quickly so that they can,

793
01:03:43.550 --> 01:03:49.570
you know, start stacking sets and adding that to their their own balance sheets and so that they can get to a point where,

794
01:03:50.110 --> 01:03:54.370
they no longer need capital from us or from others, and they don't need to take any more dilution,

795
01:03:54.990 --> 01:04:00.664
so that they can give up the smallest amount of potential kind of, you know, Bitcoin possible. Right? So they can keep,

796
01:04:01.605 --> 01:04:02.664
our equity protected

797
01:04:03.204 --> 01:04:19.790
and get to a point where they're generating Bitcoin for their investors as fast as possible. And all the companies that we focus on also are kind of in that same boat from their perspective. You know, they're all Bitcoiners first. They would be you know, they they could be working at a Google or a a Meta or an Amazon or something as software engineers

798
01:04:20.170 --> 01:04:23.870
or at, like, a, you know, hedge fund or a bank or something, probably making,

799
01:04:24.410 --> 01:04:28.635
higher fiat salary and and using that to to stack stats for their personal balance sheets.

800
01:04:29.035 --> 01:04:37.375
But instead, they've taken the leave to to go build a business in the space that they think has all these tailwinds. And so they're also hyper focused on, you know, their Bitcoin opportunity cost

801
01:04:37.675 --> 01:04:38.735
and getting to,

802
01:04:39.435 --> 01:04:42.240
Bitcoin denominated profitability as fast as possible. And

803
01:04:42.720 --> 01:04:46.900
that kind of focus, on our side and on our company's side of,

804
01:04:47.840 --> 01:04:53.860
getting to kinda self sustaining unit economics as fast as possible and getting to a point where you're actually producing,

805
01:04:54.880 --> 01:04:56.580
you know, returns for your investors

806
01:04:56.945 --> 01:04:58.725
as quickly as possible is completely

807
01:04:59.744 --> 01:05:03.285
antithetical to the way that generalist VC operates,

808
01:05:03.825 --> 01:05:07.365
or has operated for the last, you know, fifteen plus years during during ZURP.

809
01:05:08.465 --> 01:05:11.525
And, you know, I think you can't understate how much that

810
01:05:11.980 --> 01:05:17.680
changes and fill and kinda flows into how you look at companies and how you look at capital deployment.

811
01:05:18.380 --> 01:05:28.625
It's not growth at all costs. It's not, you know, just burn as much cash as you can to get to do a land grab and get as quick, get as big as possible as quickly as possible so you can go raise your next round,

812
01:05:29.245 --> 01:05:34.225
from some other VC who's being funded implicitly by, you know, infinite money out of the Fed.

813
01:05:34.685 --> 01:05:40.465
And they'll give us a markup, and then we can go use that to go raise raise our next fund to kinda rinse and repeat, do the same thing.

814
01:05:41.460 --> 01:05:44.920
You know, I think we're all coming at it from the perspective that that world is ending,

815
01:05:45.859 --> 01:05:49.080
that, you know, we're we're coming up on kind of the end of the,

816
01:05:49.780 --> 01:05:50.280
unconstrained

817
01:05:50.660 --> 01:05:51.560
fiat experiment.

818
01:05:52.020 --> 01:05:52.520
And,

819
01:05:52.980 --> 01:06:01.545
you know, whether kind of the dollar dies, whether fiat dies, whether the fed dies in the next ten years, like, I don't know. But it's pretty clear that the free money train,

820
01:06:02.325 --> 01:06:02.825
is,

821
01:06:03.685 --> 01:06:04.425
you know,

822
01:06:05.925 --> 01:06:12.540
slowing down, if not coming to an end entirely for a lot of these these types of investors that I mentioned that have popped up over the last ten or fifteen years. And,

823
01:06:13.340 --> 01:06:15.280
you know, I think we're on the forefront of

824
01:06:15.580 --> 01:06:20.960
looking at the world through that lens where most kind of VCs are still stuck in this mindset that,

825
01:06:21.740 --> 01:06:26.705
you know, the the good old days are are just about to return, and the IPO market's about to heat up. And, you know,

826
01:06:27.345 --> 01:06:36.485
any day now, we'll be able to to get our next markup on our all our unprofitable businesses that we're invested in. We just look at things totally differently because of that that Bitcoin focus.

827
01:06:37.265 --> 01:06:38.005
Well said.

828
01:06:39.025 --> 01:06:39.845
Do you think,

829
01:06:41.480 --> 01:06:46.700
on that note, do you think like, I'm fascinated by this aspect of Bitcoin as, like, almost

830
01:06:47.640 --> 01:06:48.859
the shared equity.

831
01:06:49.240 --> 01:06:50.220
Like, if you're,

832
01:06:51.880 --> 01:06:57.984
you know, like, if if if if you're Jack Mallers and you're at Strike, you personally hold Bitcoin.

833
01:06:58.525 --> 01:07:00.065
Your company holds Bitcoin.

834
01:07:00.444 --> 01:07:01.984
Your employees hold Bitcoin.

835
01:07:02.525 --> 01:07:04.385
If you're Parker Lewis at Zapprite,

836
01:07:05.484 --> 01:07:10.020
you personally own Bitcoin. Your company owns Bitcoin. Your employees hold Bitcoin.

837
01:07:11.360 --> 01:07:16.260
How do you think about that dynamic? Like, I feel like that is a key differentiator too. That just

838
01:07:17.120 --> 01:07:18.980
no matter who you are in the ecosystem,

839
01:07:19.840 --> 01:07:22.580
you you're you're literally have this this

840
01:07:22.880 --> 01:07:24.260
this shared common

841
01:07:24.924 --> 01:07:26.704
monetary incentive to

842
01:07:27.244 --> 01:07:28.704
to grow and improve.

843
01:07:30.045 --> 01:07:31.505
Yeah. For sure. I mean, it,

844
01:07:33.244 --> 01:07:34.464
it bleeds into,

845
01:07:35.164 --> 01:07:35.664
like,

846
01:07:36.045 --> 01:07:36.865
every single

847
01:07:37.270 --> 01:07:40.810
company that's building anything of value in the space that's enhancing

848
01:07:41.510 --> 01:07:47.130
the ability of people to, like, to get Bitcoin, to secure Bitcoin, to use it in different ways,

849
01:07:47.990 --> 01:07:49.130
is adding to

850
01:07:49.990 --> 01:07:52.970
at least on the margin in some degree, right, adding to,

851
01:07:53.645 --> 01:07:56.464
the embedded value in the ecosystem and in the asset.

852
01:07:57.325 --> 01:07:59.025
And because this is an open network,

853
01:07:59.484 --> 01:08:01.105
something we talk about a lot with investors,

854
01:08:02.045 --> 01:08:03.425
the companies in our portfolio,

855
01:08:04.605 --> 01:08:17.190
all benefit in a very unique way from kind of participating in essentially the same broad project. Right? Like, one company may be working on financial services for Bitcoin. Another company is working on some sort of consumer application.

856
01:08:18.130 --> 01:08:25.215
Another one is you're doing, like, mining services or something. But they're all they all have the ability either often directly through,

857
01:08:26.395 --> 01:08:35.054
partnerships that are much less, that have much less friction because they're all operating on this open standard or just indirectly of each kind of enhancing the others, you know, relative,

858
01:08:35.435 --> 01:08:40.830
you know, the value that they're holding, on their balance sheets and the the value of their businesses in that open network.

859
01:08:41.770 --> 01:08:49.550
All the companies in our portfolio can benefit from each other and play off each other in a way that you don't see in, like, a traditional VC portfolio

860
01:08:50.385 --> 01:09:07.590
where you've got, like, a, you know, some medtech company and then you've got b to b SaaS company and then some, like, wellness company. Like, they're just not, you know, in anything like the same swim lane. And all of the all of their ecosystems are also like, everything every stack they're building on is completely closed closed source, and,

861
01:09:08.530 --> 01:09:10.710
you know, you've got people reinventing the wheel

862
01:09:11.170 --> 01:09:13.429
at every single business kind of in their own way

863
01:09:13.730 --> 01:09:14.716
versus, like,

864
01:09:15.143 --> 01:09:21.635
you know, every business every business in our portfolio just about kinda leveraging BBK, for example, like, in this great open source library.

865
01:09:22.015 --> 01:09:34.995
That's a force multiplier for very small teams. You know, you had Rob Hamilton on, one or two episodes ago talking about that specifically, about how that's helped Anchor Watch, build much faster with a very lean team. That's the kind of stuff that

866
01:09:36.190 --> 01:09:38.290
you're just not gonna replicate in any portfolio

867
01:09:39.070 --> 01:09:41.010
that is not kind of leveraging,

868
01:09:41.550 --> 01:09:47.010
where the companies are not leveraging this kind of one common shared open open source, you know, set of standards.

869
01:09:47.965 --> 01:09:51.185
So I think, yeah, like, shared equity is an interesting way to put it.

870
01:09:51.645 --> 01:09:55.585
I definitely think that's a that's a big differentiator too for for all the companies that we invest in.

871
01:09:57.165 --> 01:09:59.585
Love it. Okay. Back to audience questions.

872
01:10:03.060 --> 01:10:03.560
Gary,

873
01:10:06.820 --> 01:10:09.240
wants to know, do you see any

874
01:10:10.260 --> 01:10:12.360
pieces of Bitcoin infra services

875
01:10:12.900 --> 01:10:13.800
that are missing

876
01:10:14.340 --> 01:10:15.240
that could be

877
01:10:15.965 --> 01:10:23.025
a good business. He left that part out, but, presumably, that would be a strong monetizable business, not just for good feels.

878
01:10:25.565 --> 01:10:28.445
Yeah. I mean, the one that I like

879
01:10:29.280 --> 01:10:32.020
that we've talked about with various companies in the portfolio,

880
01:10:33.840 --> 01:10:36.980
that I've kind of been banging a drum on for a while,

881
01:10:37.360 --> 01:10:40.500
internally, and I think everyone, like, is directionally aligned. But, like,

882
01:10:42.965 --> 01:10:43.784
kind of

883
01:10:44.244 --> 01:10:46.344
an all in one place for,

884
01:10:47.204 --> 01:10:49.465
your Charles Schwab type client

885
01:10:49.925 --> 01:10:52.744
to get everything that they need in financial services

886
01:10:53.204 --> 01:10:54.025
out of Bitcoin

887
01:10:54.565 --> 01:10:56.105
without having to to

888
01:10:56.970 --> 01:10:57.470
touch,

889
01:10:58.090 --> 01:11:03.230
at first anything related to Bitcoin itself while still benefiting from,

890
01:11:04.489 --> 01:11:09.950
actual kind of assurances that can be provided on chain, right, and not just, like, buying on Coinbase.

891
01:11:12.045 --> 01:11:13.905
And, doing that in a way where,

892
01:11:15.245 --> 01:11:18.945
you can get everything that you would be expecting out of, like, a private wealth management product,

893
01:11:19.805 --> 01:11:23.720
at at a Schwab or at an Edward Jones or something while still having,

894
01:11:24.500 --> 01:11:29.000
the benefits of of relative trustlessness, the benefit that Bitcoin can provide.

895
01:11:30.020 --> 01:11:39.935
There's been a lot of talk about kind of multi institutional custody. I think that's one pathway. Anchor Watchers, as I mentioned a second ago, is is, you know, working on kind of fusing insurance with Bitcoin.

896
01:11:40.554 --> 01:11:44.975
You're seeing more and more kind of movement toward that kind of business,

897
01:11:45.755 --> 01:11:46.574
you know, providing

898
01:11:46.875 --> 01:11:49.375
something that's catering to, like,

899
01:11:49.755 --> 01:11:57.690
basically, where all the money is. Right? Getting the, you know, the people that currently have big fiat balances, whether that's in, you know, cash

900
01:11:57.990 --> 01:12:01.450
or stocks or bonds or something, getting them a way to

901
01:12:01.990 --> 01:12:02.490
securely

902
01:12:02.870 --> 01:12:03.850
leverage Bitcoin.

903
01:12:04.310 --> 01:12:11.725
And when I say leverage, I just mean use Bitcoin. They may also be, you know, leveraging it in terms of borrowing against it. But The the bank's definitely securely

904
01:12:12.985 --> 01:12:14.205
yeah. Right. Exactly.

905
01:12:15.785 --> 01:12:18.900
In a way where, you know, they could still have assurances that,

906
01:12:19.460 --> 01:12:27.480
you know, they're not putting their money into an FTX or, you know, a coin based honeypot that, you know, where they can just kinda have overnight zero if the balance is right.

907
01:12:28.420 --> 01:12:32.199
I still think, like, you know, Bitcoin's 15, 16 years old.

908
01:12:32.855 --> 01:12:36.635
We still really haven't cracked, like, we call it the order of operations,

909
01:12:36.935 --> 01:12:49.510
you know, internally and on our investor calls. Like, the adoption of Bitcoin is gonna have to go through that kind of order of operations. And right now, I think we're very much in the first inning of that. We were alluding to that earlier with the payments conversation.

910
01:12:50.929 --> 01:12:55.510
And so I think, like, when I when I think about missing pieces in the industry,

911
01:12:56.369 --> 01:12:59.989
it's where can I go to have the assurances

912
01:13:00.369 --> 01:13:00.869
of,

913
01:13:01.695 --> 01:13:08.915
or something approaching the insure the assurances of, you know, Bitcoin on, you know, my cold card with my seed stamped in steel,

914
01:13:09.855 --> 01:13:13.635
something like that much closer to that than, oh, I have some Bitcoin at Coinbase,

915
01:13:14.094 --> 01:13:22.010
while not immediately having to take on the burden of being in any way technical, knowing what an XPUB is, knowing what an output descriptor is,

916
01:13:23.350 --> 01:13:25.989
you know, knowing how to use a block explorer, like, any of that?

917
01:13:27.030 --> 01:13:27.510
And,

918
01:13:27.989 --> 01:13:31.610
probably only 1% of people will actually take further steps to really investigate.

919
01:13:32.070 --> 01:13:37.835
But I think the the point would be set it up in such a way that even though most people will not investigate,

920
01:13:39.095 --> 01:13:40.295
it it still is,

921
01:13:40.615 --> 01:13:46.475
you know, set up to not be a a giant honeypot or a giant rug, where trust is distributed in in some way.

922
01:13:47.330 --> 01:13:51.030
So I think bridging those two worlds to me is still kind of the holy grail for,

923
01:13:51.890 --> 01:13:58.930
bringing a huge amount of wealth into Bitcoin natively and not just letting it all default to, you know, iBit on,

924
01:13:59.330 --> 01:14:04.344
exchange accounts. And a lot of it's gonna go that way regardless. Right. But I still think there's massive value capture,

925
01:14:05.445 --> 01:14:11.785
to to be had, in in a product like that, that can be kind of side by side with, you know, an IBED like experience.

926
01:14:12.885 --> 01:14:16.185
Yeah. I mean, maybe maybe how we see that unfold is

927
01:14:16.680 --> 01:14:19.580
one of these existing private wealth juggernauts

928
01:14:19.960 --> 01:14:21.580
goes and acquires a company,

929
01:14:22.120 --> 01:14:23.739
like an existing Bitcoin company.

930
01:14:24.360 --> 01:14:26.780
Charles Schwab buys Unchained or some shit.

931
01:14:27.719 --> 01:14:36.595
Yeah. I mean, that's that's my guess. Right? That's that my guess is I mean, you've seen Schwab, for example, over this past year, like, make a bunch of overtures about,

932
01:14:36.975 --> 01:14:56.955
offering kind of Bitcoin custody. And it makes sense. Right? Because when you think about, a a platform like that, if they've got clients that want Bitcoin exposure, right now what they can tell them is like, okay. Well, you can buy Ibit. Right? But Schwab doesn't make anything on on Ibit. I mean, BlackRock, you know, barely makes anything on Ibit right now too because we're you know, the fees are so low temporarily. But, like,

933
01:14:57.515 --> 01:15:01.695
you you've got a few ETF providers, you know, BlackRock, Fidelity, Arc, etcetera.

934
01:15:02.475 --> 01:15:04.975
Like, they'll they'll make some fees on

935
01:15:05.595 --> 01:15:06.735
yes. There was.

936
01:15:07.115 --> 01:15:10.335
I shouldn't shouldn't have forgotten them. They're they're they're key part of the ecosystem.

937
01:15:11.040 --> 01:15:14.100
But, you know, they'll they'll be able to make some fees on those balances,

938
01:15:14.720 --> 01:15:27.205
and they'll be able to benefit from, you know, the natural, like, tailwind of AUM growth as Bitcoin does what we think it's gonna do. You know, they can take a a fixed, you know, bips fee on, you know, this growing value. But, like, Schwab, Edward Jones, Ameritrade,

939
01:15:28.145 --> 01:15:29.365
or, excuse me, Ameriprise,

940
01:15:30.225 --> 01:15:41.800
and all the all these other long tail of, you know, wealth management platforms that have, like, tens of billions or hundreds of billions or trillions of dollars, like, you know, they're missing out on being able to actually charge clients anything,

941
01:15:42.500 --> 01:15:53.175
by just, you know, referring them over to iBit. And so I think there's there's gonna be someone eventually who looks at the space and says, if I just own, you know, a tech stack that allows me to natively,

942
01:15:53.875 --> 01:15:56.295
provide some sort of, like, distributed trust,

943
01:15:58.035 --> 01:16:04.935
system to allow my clients to hold Bitcoin, I can tell people very legitimately, like, this is a step up from,

944
01:16:05.475 --> 01:16:06.695
just holding an ETF,

945
01:16:07.350 --> 01:16:12.250
for all the the properties that it gives you, and then I can monetize around that. I can charge

946
01:16:12.550 --> 01:16:18.010
AUM fees directly for, you know, the the service of actually holding real Bitcoin that we can verify,

947
01:16:18.710 --> 01:16:21.690
and, you know, everything you can do with actually holding that Bitcoin.

948
01:16:22.764 --> 01:16:34.784
And I think, like, that's that's a natural way that these massive platforms that otherwise don't really profit at all from the clients holding Bitcoin, I think that's a way that they can step in and, you know, absolutely rake, you know, rake in,

949
01:16:35.690 --> 01:16:38.270
from the, you know, the broader Bitcoin adoption trend.

950
01:16:38.650 --> 01:16:41.470
So I do think it's a logical thing to happen, you know, at some point.

951
01:16:42.410 --> 01:16:43.470
Yeah. Fair enough.

952
01:16:46.330 --> 01:16:47.630
I don't know what I

953
01:16:48.010 --> 01:16:50.350
what my answers to that question would be.

954
01:16:54.835 --> 01:17:00.035
No. No. I gotta think about it a little bit more. But, I mean, I think that product's gonna exist. It's just

955
01:17:00.995 --> 01:17:05.255
and it's gonna come from different directions. It'll be it'll come from the the existing

956
01:17:05.555 --> 01:17:06.055
juggernauts

957
01:17:06.870 --> 01:17:16.010
from a top down approach and acquisition and whatnot. And we're already seeing the early signs of it from a bunch of startups in the Bitcoin space, and they'll probably, like, coalesce.

958
01:17:16.790 --> 01:17:18.489
I see a question here from Cheaplight

959
01:17:18.975 --> 01:17:23.635
If we know of any companies that offer vacation pay and bank sick pay to be saved in SATs,

960
01:17:24.175 --> 01:17:30.835
preferably paid out in SATs. No. I mean, you could call in sick and work a second job and stack SATs with it.

961
01:17:31.810 --> 01:17:33.990
That's probably not the answer you're looking for.

962
01:17:36.690 --> 01:17:39.990
I mean, that's interest I I like I I think we'll see

963
01:17:40.690 --> 01:17:42.230
one of the interesting things

964
01:17:42.610 --> 01:17:45.110
that Bitcoin has talked about in the early days

965
01:17:45.905 --> 01:17:48.965
was this idea that if you had all of these

966
01:17:50.065 --> 01:17:51.205
freedom, ideologically

967
01:17:51.505 --> 01:17:53.525
freedom focused people, all

968
01:17:54.465 --> 01:17:57.205
generating wealth because of Bitcoin price appreciation,

969
01:17:57.745 --> 01:18:00.450
that they would have knock on effects and change the world.

970
01:18:01.250 --> 01:18:03.750
I think we're seeing the early signs of that with

971
01:18:05.090 --> 01:18:07.110
the growing Bitcoin industry, specifically

972
01:18:07.570 --> 01:18:11.350
the the Bitcoin only industry that's focused purely on Bitcoin

973
01:18:11.810 --> 01:18:13.670
rather than, you know, greater crypto.

974
01:18:14.995 --> 01:18:20.295
But we're also seeing that in in small businesses around the world. I I'll bring up the dental office again.

975
01:18:20.995 --> 01:18:27.495
Random dentist. He's a Bitcoiner. He's got four employees, five employees, something like that. I don't know what a dentist office has.

976
01:18:27.860 --> 01:18:36.760
And he's a Bitcoiner and, you know, maybe he offers incentives to his staff. You know, I could totally see that offer incentives to your staff. You don't call in sick, I'll send you sets.

977
01:18:38.020 --> 01:18:46.085
And I I think we're gonna start to see those different knock on effects. I think we see it on a protocol level with stuff like Nasr. Like Nasr was seeded by Bitcoiners

978
01:18:46.465 --> 01:18:46.945
that,

979
01:18:47.425 --> 01:18:50.244
had at least some savings that they were willing to

980
01:18:50.704 --> 01:18:53.284
try and tackle a problem as large as

981
01:18:53.824 --> 01:18:55.204
trust minimized communication,

982
01:18:55.665 --> 01:18:56.724
social, and identity.

983
01:18:58.450 --> 01:19:06.950
So, I mean, I think we'll see more of that. So I would keep your head up in in terms of that regard. But smaller businesses, more likely. Right? Because smaller businesses,

984
01:19:07.410 --> 01:19:12.710
they can adapt. It just matters who the who who's running it. If you have a big HR department,

985
01:19:13.824 --> 01:19:18.625
Bitcoin is probably not gonna be incorporated anytime soon. And I see Gary asking about,

986
01:19:19.264 --> 01:19:25.605
local custodians, providing custodial or collaborative custody for people in your local vicinity. I look. I think that's great.

987
01:19:26.530 --> 01:19:29.190
I see some people calling it the uncle Jim model.

988
01:19:30.130 --> 01:19:38.390
As the person that I believe coined the uncle Jim model, I wanna be clear that it was never supposed to be a custodian. You're you're supposed to, like, be running their node for them.

989
01:19:39.170 --> 01:19:41.350
And they were still supposed to hold their own keys.

990
01:19:42.005 --> 01:19:47.465
But I think it's a great model. I think it it makes sense as a model. I don't think it's something that can be monetized.

991
01:19:49.925 --> 01:19:53.225
From a liability point of view, you have issues. But also, like,

992
01:19:53.860 --> 01:19:58.520
custodianship is just not something that makes that much money. Like, rumors are that,

993
01:19:59.780 --> 01:20:05.800
you know, some of these big holders, they're they're paying, like, five basis points, 10 basis point, point 05%

994
01:20:05.860 --> 01:20:08.085
to have someone hold their Bitcoin for them.

995
01:20:08.645 --> 01:20:14.185
And these are with the large regulated custodians that presumably have a moat because they're, like, regulatory,

996
01:20:16.965 --> 01:20:18.105
compliant and whatnot.

997
01:20:18.805 --> 01:20:20.105
They have teams of lawyers.

998
01:20:21.150 --> 01:20:22.530
So I don't think the actual

999
01:20:22.910 --> 01:20:25.250
being a custodian is can be that profitable.

1000
01:20:25.550 --> 01:20:33.010
Then you have to deal with all the bank secrecy act and everything like that. But that's why I think the open source stuff is super interesting. That's why I think Cashew is super interesting,

1001
01:20:33.985 --> 01:20:38.805
because we should empower individuals and empower community leaders to be able to make that decision for themselves.

1002
01:20:39.985 --> 01:20:44.885
You're gonna say something, John? You seem very excited about this topic. No. I mean, I was just gonna say,

1003
01:20:45.500 --> 01:20:46.320
I don't wanna,

1004
01:20:47.020 --> 01:20:49.360
I don't wanna take that's too spicy, but

1005
01:20:49.900 --> 01:20:53.360
I I'm not convinced that the world of, you know,

1006
01:20:54.140 --> 01:20:56.560
five basis point fees for,

1007
01:20:57.260 --> 01:21:00.480
custody for big holders is, like, here to stay forever.

1008
01:21:01.505 --> 01:21:02.005
Interesting.

1009
01:21:02.625 --> 01:21:03.365
Just because

1010
01:21:03.745 --> 01:21:05.205
all it takes is

1011
01:21:06.225 --> 01:21:08.565
one hack, all it takes is one,

1012
01:21:10.385 --> 01:21:13.125
snafu with, like, misattributed funds somewhere,

1013
01:21:14.280 --> 01:21:20.140
for people to for, you know, big holders for, you know, whales or companies, especially with fiduciary duty,

1014
01:21:20.520 --> 01:21:24.300
to realize that custody is not necessarily a commodity.

1015
01:21:24.680 --> 01:21:31.465
And I think that FTX was three years ago. Like, FTX just happened. But but, yeah, but FTX is, like, no

1016
01:21:31.844 --> 01:21:32.344
no

1017
01:21:32.725 --> 01:21:33.225
major

1018
01:21:33.605 --> 01:21:35.225
US publicly traded stock,

1019
01:21:36.485 --> 01:21:41.864
or, you know, large company that has a lot of power with, like, Washington lobbyists, for example,

1020
01:21:42.349 --> 01:21:53.889
like, meaningfully lost money on FTX. Like, the people hurt by FTX could be safely, I think, you know, cordoned off into like, the the system in general could, like, you know, cordon off FTX,

1021
01:21:54.750 --> 01:21:59.135
victims into, like, you know, the crypto native people, like crypto hedge funds,

1022
01:21:59.755 --> 01:22:02.495
you know, degens, whatever. You could kinda write them off.

1023
01:22:03.035 --> 01:22:07.455
I don't necessarily know that this is this is coming, and I don't wish it on anyone, obviously.

1024
01:22:07.915 --> 01:22:08.415
But,

1025
01:22:08.955 --> 01:22:11.295
it it it doesn't it would not take much,

1026
01:22:12.130 --> 01:22:14.630
for the market to, I think,

1027
01:22:15.330 --> 01:22:22.630
quickly realize that custody is not a commodity for those that are trying to actually store Bitcoin on, like, a long term basis.

1028
01:22:23.490 --> 01:22:26.835
And because that's the thing too. Like, people people had assets on FTX. Like,

1029
01:22:27.875 --> 01:22:42.400
by and large, we're not, like, you know, trying to store massive amounts of, you know, their wealth for, like, the long term for their, like, kids to inherit. Right? Or for they didn't have, like, a ton of, like, fiduciary responsibility to a massive amount of investors or something like that.

1030
01:22:43.180 --> 01:22:45.840
So, look, like, I I don't know what's gonna happen,

1031
01:22:46.540 --> 01:22:55.535
but I wouldn't be surprised, is all I'm saying, if in the next, like I could see that. Five years, like, maybe people wanna pay just a little more for having,

1032
01:22:57.275 --> 01:22:58.015
more transparent,

1033
01:22:59.275 --> 01:23:01.375
you know, more robust kinda custody solutions.

1034
01:23:01.755 --> 01:23:06.895
But isn't the problem that well, first I mean, there's two different things here. Right? There's there's

1035
01:23:07.590 --> 01:23:08.650
big time custody,

1036
01:23:09.590 --> 01:23:14.730
like, regulated big time custody, and then there's, like, small time custody. Small time I mean, I just

1037
01:23:15.350 --> 01:23:20.650
I you're not gonna make I I do not see a path where someone's making money being,

1038
01:23:21.190 --> 01:23:21.850
you know,

1039
01:23:22.545 --> 01:23:27.125
the the custodian of their high school or some shit. Yeah. Or they're, like,

1040
01:23:28.465 --> 01:23:30.085
their their local club.

1041
01:23:30.705 --> 01:23:31.205
But,

1042
01:23:32.305 --> 01:23:40.660
Yeah. That's an artisanal cottage industry for sure. Yeah. On the big time and it's good that we we should have open source tools that give individuals power and whatnot.

1043
01:23:41.680 --> 01:23:43.780
The the thing that's pushing back against

1044
01:23:44.240 --> 01:23:46.260
that concept of fees going up

1045
01:23:47.040 --> 01:23:52.385
is that self custody is relatively cheap and low friction. Right? Like, what, like, what cost

1046
01:23:53.085 --> 01:23:56.465
would someone have to charge Sailor before he just

1047
01:23:56.925 --> 01:23:58.385
switched to in house custody?

1048
01:24:00.045 --> 01:24:03.185
Yeah. I think yeah. I'm not saying

1049
01:24:03.770 --> 01:24:12.510
to be clear, like, I'm not necessarily saying that all these companies will go to, like, self custody. Yeah. Sailor, there there is I think there's basically no cost that would be that would make,

1050
01:24:13.370 --> 01:24:14.670
MSTR preferred

1051
01:24:15.050 --> 01:24:24.614
self custody because it be it becomes like, well, yeah, because they they have their regulatory requirements. They have, like, fiduciary requirements. What about Coinbase? Coinbase self custody is

1052
01:24:24.915 --> 01:24:27.415
Yeah. Imagine if Coinbase was paying someone

1053
01:24:28.034 --> 01:24:28.775
1%

1054
01:24:28.835 --> 01:24:31.574
to to store customer Bitcoin. That'd be ridiculous.

1055
01:24:32.220 --> 01:24:35.840
They've, like, built it in house. They figured it out. Yeah. I mean, I think

1056
01:24:36.380 --> 01:24:40.560
that relates to the point that I was making that you may have these massive honeypots

1057
01:24:40.860 --> 01:24:41.360
that

1058
01:24:41.900 --> 01:24:48.105
may or may not be as secure as, you know, people are hoping that they are. All I'm saying is that there's a lot of vulnerability,

1059
01:24:48.805 --> 01:24:53.844
like, service area for something to not even be catastrophically wrong, but just,

1060
01:24:54.165 --> 01:24:57.060
and and not even calling it anyone in particular, but just, like, when you've got,

1061
01:24:57.540 --> 01:25:01.880
like, you know, trust their parties or security holes, like, when you've got massive pools of Bitcoin somewhere,

1062
01:25:03.220 --> 01:25:06.440
and you can't really audit, like, what's going on under the hood in terms of custody.

1063
01:25:07.460 --> 01:25:09.880
My point is just it doesn't take much before,

1064
01:25:10.735 --> 01:25:14.035
companies, big holders, and maybe even regulators decide, like,

1065
01:25:14.735 --> 01:25:24.510
custody is not enough of a commodity that it's something that people can just assume they can charge, like, you know, two or three basis points for, and, you know, that'll that'll that'll be enough. Like, there may be

1066
01:25:25.469 --> 01:25:27.010
demand for something more robust.

1067
01:25:27.630 --> 01:25:32.929
But that said, when I say something more robust, I don't mean, like, you know, Sailor holding, like,

1068
01:25:33.389 --> 01:25:35.570
a a a cold card in his desk and then,

1069
01:25:36.670 --> 01:25:46.905
Fong Wei holding a cold card in his desk, and then they, you know, have have, you know, their seat plate buried in the backyard or something. Like, I mean, like, some sort of multi institutional insured,

1070
01:25:47.925 --> 01:25:48.745
kind of setup,

1071
01:25:50.005 --> 01:26:18.035
that maybe has more audibility behind it. Right? Like, something that is institutional grade and is still, like, outsourced, but is more you know, leverages the distributed trust and programmability that Bitcoin provides so that you don't so you can still have, like, very cost effective, cost efficient custody without having to just put it behind, like, you know, an opaque wall of a custodian says, you know, here's a GUI that says here's your what your balance is, and that's, you know, that's the end of the story. Right? Okay. But we agree that up until this point, it's been a shit business.

1072
01:26:18.495 --> 01:26:42.034
Right? Like, that's why you see, like, the Bigto's of the world try to go to consumer buy sell because, like, they they're just not making any money off of it. Yeah. I mean, it's it's at the very least a business that only makes sense at, like, larger and larger scale. And then, ideally, you want to have, you know, value added services around that, which is also, like I mean, that's also banking. Right? Like, just, just making literally just, like, sitting there warehousing, you know, money,

1073
01:26:42.735 --> 01:26:43.215
is,

1074
01:26:43.775 --> 01:26:57.270
has never been, like, a wildly lucrative business. But Well, they're banks make money by, like, leveraging the fuck out of our our savings accounts. Yes. Exactly. I would that's that's value added services. I don't know if you knew that that's the what the euphemism means.

1075
01:26:57.810 --> 01:27:01.430
No. But, basically, like, you getting getting that beachhead of,

1076
01:27:02.770 --> 01:27:06.470
having custody of someone's funds even if you don't have it directly or unilaterally,

1077
01:27:07.225 --> 01:27:12.045
but being an access being like a a a piece of their quorum or an access point for them,

1078
01:27:12.585 --> 01:27:16.765
to kinda use their Bitcoin in some way enables the ability to

1079
01:27:17.305 --> 01:27:22.025
sell a bunch of other stuff on top of that. Right? And that's a it may not be necessarily a super,

1080
01:27:22.790 --> 01:27:31.450
profitable business or a business that you can generate huge revenue off of per customer, but it's an incredibly sticky business, which is important. And that because that enables you to

1081
01:27:31.989 --> 01:27:35.770
have have and build a relationship with, you know, customers over time,

1082
01:27:36.285 --> 01:27:40.145
as they get wealthier and as their needs change, and you can, you know, sell on on top of that.

1083
01:27:40.685 --> 01:27:44.685
And once they trust you and they have a good relationship with you, like, it's

1084
01:27:45.485 --> 01:27:47.505
there would need to be a significant

1085
01:27:47.885 --> 01:27:57.500
reason for them to move and go somewhere else. Exactly. Right. I mean, we've seen that with we've seen that with just Bitcoin buy sell. Right? Like, the thesis for a while was that Bitcoin buy sell would go

1086
01:27:58.120 --> 01:27:59.420
fees would go to zero.

1087
01:28:00.600 --> 01:28:02.460
But especially post FTX,

1088
01:28:03.175 --> 01:28:05.995
you know, I mean, I'm personally happy to pay

1089
01:28:06.375 --> 01:28:07.515
point 8%

1090
01:28:07.655 --> 01:28:08.315
or whatever,

1091
01:28:09.575 --> 01:28:19.620
to to buy Bitcoin in a trusted way where I don't think I'm gonna get rugged to where I think they're, like, taking care of my private information well and whatnot. And clearly, a lot of other people are.

1092
01:28:21.360 --> 01:28:23.460
So it's probably similar in this situation.

1093
01:28:24.960 --> 01:28:25.440
Okay.

1094
01:28:25.760 --> 01:28:28.740
I don't see any other questions in the live chat.

1095
01:28:29.360 --> 01:28:30.980
If you if you have one,

1096
01:28:32.425 --> 01:28:37.325
feel free to put it in there. Gary Gary wants to know what Gary wants to know my thoughts on Hashpool,

1097
01:28:37.785 --> 01:28:39.645
and, unfortunately, I

1098
01:28:40.185 --> 01:28:48.070
I I haven't listened to your your last one. It was literally last week. I know. I haven't listened to it yet. And Gary also talked to me about it at,

1099
01:28:48.469 --> 01:28:51.929
the mining summit this year a couple months ago. And I remember,

1100
01:28:52.949 --> 01:29:03.085
thinking that it seemed very cool and then not doing any much, like, further digging on it thereafter. So I need to listen to your episode, Gary. I'm sorry. I don't have an answer that, like, would be interesting or or meaningful at at this point.

1101
01:29:04.105 --> 01:29:09.840
I think it's pretty awesome. I think it's another example of an idea that should be funded throughout with Satsum after 10/31.

1102
01:29:09.840 --> 01:29:13.860
I don't really under I don't see, like, a strong business model there.

1103
01:29:15.040 --> 01:29:27.675
Well, it seems like more of a primitive. Right? Like, you wouldn't Yeah. You you could leverage it in a business, but it wouldn't be like the business. Yeah. Well, I would just say mining pools in general are also not a great business to be in. Yeah. So a mining pool can leverage hash pools,

1104
01:29:29.255 --> 01:29:36.315
to be a more profitable mining pool, but that's still a cut super cutthroat hard to compete in business. We've seen the most successful

1105
01:29:36.695 --> 01:29:38.875
mining pools are usually vertically integrated.

1106
01:29:39.360 --> 01:29:40.340
You know, foundry,

1107
01:29:42.080 --> 01:29:45.780
integrated basically with loans, and they have some of their own hash rate.

1108
01:29:46.639 --> 01:29:48.100
And then, of course, the Bitmain,

1109
01:29:51.040 --> 01:29:52.340
the bit the Bitmain

1110
01:29:52.875 --> 01:29:56.815
cartel over there is they're manufacturing ASICs, and they control,

1111
01:29:58.635 --> 01:30:01.695
the most hash rate in the world through all their proxy pools.

1112
01:30:02.795 --> 01:30:12.830
So it's just a really tough business to be in. But, yeah, hash I'm super excited about Hashpools. If for some reason you're listening to this episode and you've gotten this far, you haven't listened to last week's episode with the VNPRC,

1113
01:30:14.090 --> 01:30:17.290
definitely check it out. I wanted to talk a little bit about,

1114
01:30:19.210 --> 01:30:20.670
just the current market

1115
01:30:21.105 --> 01:30:24.645
where we're at right now? How you think about I've we have

1116
01:30:25.105 --> 01:30:27.445
I know this is usually a technical show,

1117
01:30:28.705 --> 01:30:34.485
where we focus more on open source software. I don't know if you freaks have noticed. I've I've tried to branch out a little bit,

1118
01:30:35.025 --> 01:30:36.405
scratch multiple itches.

1119
01:30:38.340 --> 01:30:39.400
I'm trying to do

1120
01:30:40.900 --> 01:30:42.520
one week one week,

1121
01:30:42.820 --> 01:30:44.520
software focused, one week

1122
01:30:44.820 --> 01:30:46.120
a little bit more broad,

1123
01:30:46.980 --> 01:30:49.480
and just do, like, every other week. But

1124
01:30:50.445 --> 01:30:53.265
I'm not dumb enough not to include a live price sticker

1125
01:30:53.805 --> 01:30:58.225
in every stream no matter what. And I see right now we're over a hundred and $5,000.

1126
01:30:59.165 --> 01:31:00.865
How are you thinking about the current

1127
01:31:01.325 --> 01:31:03.505
yeah. To what Gary said, one moon?

1128
01:31:04.710 --> 01:31:05.210
Well,

1129
01:31:05.670 --> 01:31:16.250
I mean, it's it's funny. Right? You've got you've got this graphic up here, and we're at a hundred 5,000 and and change Bitcoin price, and sats are at three sats a byte. And, like, yesterday,

1130
01:31:16.869 --> 01:31:17.449
I checked,

1131
01:31:17.965 --> 01:31:22.145
and we were at, Nimpol was showing zero sets per byte. Right? So

1132
01:31:22.445 --> 01:31:23.265
it's a very

1133
01:31:23.645 --> 01:31:33.180
it's an odd market right now. Right? Like, you don't you haven't seen this in prior cycles where you know? And we're not necessarily, like we're still, like, you know, one or 2% off all time highs.

1134
01:31:33.900 --> 01:31:37.020
So it's not true, like, insane FOMO yet,

1135
01:31:37.340 --> 01:31:39.600
and you're not seeing and, like like, you would expect,

1136
01:31:40.060 --> 01:31:47.760
from prior cycles that would then kinda flow through and then kind of hit the chain, and you'd see, you know, fees flare up kind of in line with with price.

1137
01:31:48.405 --> 01:31:51.065
We absolutely haven't seen that at all this cycle. Right?

1138
01:31:51.925 --> 01:31:52.744
Some of that

1139
01:31:53.125 --> 01:31:58.264
is related to, you know BlackRock is is proven to be, you know, the best scaling layer for Bitcoin.

1140
01:31:58.885 --> 01:31:59.704
Not a scaling.

1141
01:32:00.005 --> 01:32:02.105
Not a scaling layer. Yes. I'm I'm aware.

1142
01:32:03.045 --> 01:32:03.540
But,

1143
01:32:04.900 --> 01:32:11.320
you know, that's that's a piece of it. Right? Like, you're getting assuming you don't believe that it's an an entirely paper Bitcoin game,

1144
01:32:11.860 --> 01:32:17.080
which doesn't seem to be the case, you've gotten kind of Do you think BlackRock actually holds Bitcoin?

1145
01:32:18.225 --> 01:32:19.445
I think so. Yeah.

1146
01:32:19.824 --> 01:32:22.885
I think so too. Yeah. I Sorry. Continue.

1147
01:32:23.985 --> 01:32:24.465
It would be

1148
01:32:25.105 --> 01:32:26.005
yeah. I think

1149
01:32:26.705 --> 01:32:29.844
it I think it would be incredibly difficult for them to pull off

1150
01:32:30.145 --> 01:32:33.205
because of how liquid and global and twenty four seven

1151
01:32:34.530 --> 01:32:35.030
the,

1152
01:32:36.170 --> 01:32:47.150
the market is as a relative to, like, any other asset relative to, say, gold. I think it's it would be much harder to pull off for any amount of time, like a a paper Bitcoin scheme,

1153
01:32:48.170 --> 01:32:48.670
where,

1154
01:32:49.175 --> 01:32:50.155
you had, you know,

1155
01:32:50.855 --> 01:32:53.114
billions of dollars like we've had flow in

1156
01:32:53.495 --> 01:32:53.995
and,

1157
01:32:55.655 --> 01:33:01.275
not have that like, I don't know how you could actually sustain, like, the inflows they've seen without,

1158
01:33:01.735 --> 01:33:03.915
if if you were not buying Bitcoin,

1159
01:33:04.489 --> 01:33:05.949
on the other side of it because

1160
01:33:06.570 --> 01:33:09.710
that incremental demand pressure would not be, like, actually going anywhere.

1161
01:33:10.330 --> 01:33:37.429
And so you wouldn't see any kind of commensurate price move. You'd have, you know, declines in you know, as a result, like, there's a reflexivity component to to What do you say to the people that that all this money has gone to MSTR and BlackRock, but we're only at a hundred and $5,000? I I think that's I think that's, like, a big, piece of it, is that there had like, but MSTR money going to MSTR is different than money going, like, into iBit. I think IBIT actually directly hits, like, demand for Bitcoin. MSTR,

1162
01:33:37.889 --> 01:33:41.989
much less so because if I'm buying, you know, a share of MicroStrategy,

1163
01:33:42.770 --> 01:33:44.070
like, that's not

1164
01:33:44.690 --> 01:33:49.534
actually like, it's supporting incremental capital that they can then go use when they hit the ATM,

1165
01:33:50.395 --> 01:33:55.534
to to to lose shareholders and and yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. And and go buy Bitcoin. But,

1166
01:33:55.915 --> 01:34:02.449
you've got a lot of people, a lot of money that has flowed just into to that, and then also, like, MSTY, MSTX, MSTU,

1167
01:34:03.070 --> 01:34:04.050
all these other vehicles.

1168
01:34:05.150 --> 01:34:05.650
And

1169
01:34:06.030 --> 01:34:09.889
so I think, like, not all of that immediately has, like, meaningful impact on,

1170
01:34:10.590 --> 01:34:12.285
the price. Over time, it should,

1171
01:34:12.765 --> 01:34:22.445
assuming that MSTR doesn't blow up and they're actually doing what they say they're doing. But that's a piece of why I think we're maybe not higher right now. It should flow through over time. But, anyway, all that is to say,

1172
01:34:23.085 --> 01:34:25.105
you've got a lot of demand

1173
01:34:25.405 --> 01:34:27.745
that is being in some way satisfied

1174
01:34:28.290 --> 01:34:28.790
by,

1175
01:34:30.290 --> 01:34:35.670
not even, like, Bitcoin exposure, like, directly on a custodian even though, like, that's what's underneath ETFs,

1176
01:34:36.050 --> 01:34:36.710
but rather,

1177
01:34:37.570 --> 01:34:44.655
exposure to vehicles that then, like, on a batched basis have claims to underlying Bitcoin. Right? So Right.

1178
01:34:45.135 --> 01:34:49.315
I think that's that's a piece of it. That's a piece of why it feels like a weird market.

1179
01:34:50.655 --> 01:34:53.395
It's we've seen, like, in our conversations with investors,

1180
01:34:54.495 --> 01:34:57.935
in the space and, you know, potential investors, like, it's definitely

1181
01:34:59.430 --> 01:34:59.930
there's

1182
01:35:00.390 --> 01:35:02.090
a huge amount of interest

1183
01:35:02.470 --> 01:35:03.990
and a huge amount of,

1184
01:35:05.750 --> 01:35:10.410
growth in the legitimacy of the way that big money is looking at Bitcoin.

1185
01:35:11.030 --> 01:35:12.730
We get way less pushback,

1186
01:35:13.485 --> 01:35:24.864
than I think we did, you know, even a year ago on why is this interesting, why is this gonna stick around, why does this have staying power. I think there's increasing consensus that there should be some level of, you know, exposure,

1187
01:35:26.240 --> 01:35:30.100
But I don't know that people have really hit, like, the absolute

1188
01:35:30.480 --> 01:35:31.620
kind of FOMO point,

1189
01:35:33.680 --> 01:35:35.140
in kind of, you know,

1190
01:35:35.440 --> 01:35:36.820
investor circles yet.

1191
01:35:37.360 --> 01:35:41.140
Some piece of that, I think, is because we were talking about this earlier this morning.

1192
01:35:42.135 --> 01:35:43.434
Like, the

1193
01:35:44.054 --> 01:35:45.355
the broad market backdrop

1194
01:35:45.735 --> 01:35:50.875
is not, like, that accommodative right now, right, relative to where it was four years ago,

1195
01:35:51.494 --> 01:35:54.074
when, you know, in in 2020 and '21,

1196
01:35:55.490 --> 01:36:02.390
you could pretty much buy anything and, you know, it would go up 10% within a month and, like, 50%, you know, within a year.

1197
01:36:03.170 --> 01:36:05.270
And everyone's equity portfolios

1198
01:36:05.650 --> 01:36:06.470
were reduced.

1199
01:36:07.330 --> 01:36:09.795
Bonds were doing great. Real estate was through the roof.

1200
01:36:10.594 --> 01:36:16.535
So there was just a lot of money. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Like, the Fed balance the Fed's balance sheet is, you know,

1201
01:36:16.995 --> 01:36:18.614
is going the other way,

1202
01:36:19.235 --> 01:36:20.535
at least to some degree.

1203
01:36:20.995 --> 01:36:24.535
We're still technically in quantitative tightening. We're still technically shrinking,

1204
01:36:25.450 --> 01:36:28.510
you know, the overall balance sheet, and it's it's very different dynamic.

1205
01:36:28.970 --> 01:36:34.030
So people are not people are not, like, feeling the benefits of the wealth effect. Right? They're not looking for

1206
01:36:35.610 --> 01:36:39.615
new places to allocate necessarily even if they're interested in in Bitcoin. And so,

1207
01:36:40.255 --> 01:36:41.795
there's definitely a,

1208
01:36:43.455 --> 01:36:45.555
I think there's a huge amount of interest in legitimacy,

1209
01:36:46.095 --> 01:36:51.475
which is very helpful, and I think this is the best risk adjusted setup that Bitcoin has ever seen.

1210
01:36:52.415 --> 01:36:59.770
And I think people broadly in our conversations really get that. The question is just when do they start to fully feel the itch in the FOMO?

1211
01:37:00.150 --> 01:37:00.650
And,

1212
01:37:02.070 --> 01:37:10.869
you you know, like, I I won't make price predictions. It's it's well above my pay grade. And like I said, anyone who tells you where Bitcoin is going is is not really to be trusted. But,

1213
01:37:12.225 --> 01:37:13.605
I think when

1214
01:37:14.225 --> 01:37:15.605
when people come around,

1215
01:37:16.625 --> 01:37:23.925
I don't know what the catalyst is for that, but there's literally no narrative that you could use at this point to actually make you

1216
01:37:24.920 --> 01:37:34.300
fundamentally bearish on Bitcoin. So whenever your animal spirits kick into gear, whenever your the wealth effect starts to kind of kick back into, you know, the the positive direction,

1217
01:37:34.600 --> 01:37:36.300
whenever the Fed has to,

1218
01:37:36.775 --> 01:37:41.755
do its next round of accommodation and, you know, pull out its next alphabet soup facility to,

1219
01:37:42.535 --> 01:37:43.035
facilitate

1220
01:37:43.575 --> 01:37:51.275
money printing of some stripe. Like, there's really nothing that holds Bitcoin back at this point. Like, environmental FUD, no one cares about it.

1221
01:37:52.360 --> 01:38:03.820
Reg regulators are gonna kill it. It's the exact opposite. Regulators are embracing it. All the, you know, the the big banks that we just you discussed at the top of the show are interested in getting involved. You know, the president loves it. The treasury loves it.

1222
01:38:04.525 --> 01:38:06.705
Most of the agencies are way less combative,

1223
01:38:07.165 --> 01:38:17.345
against it than they were before. Hard money assets in general have seem to have, like, much more of a growing place in, like, global trading global capital flows, and people are seeing that already with gold.

1224
01:38:18.045 --> 01:38:26.920
And, and, increasingly, I think that flows over to Bitcoin. We have a strategic Bitcoin reserve in The US and, you know, more being discussed around the world, and some have already been implemented. Like

1225
01:38:28.440 --> 01:38:45.295
we no. We do have a strategic Bitcoin reserve. Now whether we add to it at all is a different question. Were they supposed to do an audit? Do we not know I think we don't even know how much Bitcoin we have. I think that well, the the problem is I don't know if they ever promised to make it public, and I think there are good reasons that they may might not wanna make it public.

1226
01:38:46.080 --> 01:38:50.179
Either if either because they have less than they thought. We have less or maybe we have more.

1227
01:38:51.520 --> 01:39:01.284
But Yeah. We technically have a sorry. I interrupted you. No. No. I'm I just like you go down the list and it's like, I can't tell you exactly when the floodgates open, but,

1228
01:39:02.145 --> 01:39:04.324
when the when the switch gets flipped, like,

1229
01:39:04.705 --> 01:39:09.844
there just are no headwinds at all like there were over the last few cycles. So,

1230
01:39:10.864 --> 01:39:17.239
I would say, like, I think it's the best risk adjusted setup we've ever seen. I think investors are increasingly appreciating that,

1231
01:39:17.800 --> 01:39:24.139
both, you know, whether it's endowments and, like, actual institutions that we talk to or family offices or high net worths.

1232
01:39:24.760 --> 01:39:31.925
It's just a question of when do people feel like they really wanna aggressively kinda get off the sidelines and and and fully get off zero.

1233
01:39:33.025 --> 01:39:33.525
And,

1234
01:39:34.225 --> 01:39:37.525
you know, it's it's tough. Right? Because the the market psychology

1235
01:39:38.225 --> 01:39:39.125
is like,

1236
01:39:39.905 --> 01:39:51.810
you know, when Bitcoin's at $1.00 5, you're like, oh, well, I missed it. Right? I I I missed the move. I can't I can't get in now. When we dump to 85 because Trump says, you know, I'm gonna put a four gazillion percent tariff on China,

1237
01:39:52.750 --> 01:40:00.574
people are like, oh, well, I I can't buy that right now. Like, it's it's dumping. Like, that's, you know, Bitcoin's so volatile. Like, I I'm in an uncertain time, and I I can't just buy Bitcoin. And so

1238
01:40:01.034 --> 01:40:06.975
everyone's gonna have to, like, oscillate through that. Was that, like, 75 k a month ago? Right? Yeah. Yeah.

1239
01:40:07.755 --> 01:40:10.175
It's it's it's wild and, like,

1240
01:40:11.050 --> 01:40:13.950
everyone's gonna have to oscillate, you know, through that until

1241
01:40:14.650 --> 01:40:15.370
until they finally just,

1242
01:40:17.050 --> 01:40:21.950
feel like they, you know, they can't wait around anymore, and that break point's gonna be different for everybody.

1243
01:40:22.490 --> 01:40:24.105
Yes. 76

1244
01:40:24.105 --> 01:40:27.804
k 70 6 k on April 7. How quick people forget.

1245
01:40:29.545 --> 01:40:34.525
That's pretty crazy. That's, like, forty days ago. It was at it bottomed at 76.

1246
01:40:34.744 --> 01:40:36.764
I think that is another piece

1247
01:40:37.530 --> 01:40:40.830
for at least larger investors that are paying attention

1248
01:40:41.690 --> 01:40:44.990
is that we didn't drop as low as people would have expected

1249
01:40:45.690 --> 01:40:46.590
in that situation.

1250
01:40:47.050 --> 01:40:48.170
Yeah. I,

1251
01:40:48.490 --> 01:40:52.605
unfortunately, I'm still, on Twitter, which I know I should be shamed for. But,

1252
01:40:53.165 --> 01:41:04.225
like, a a month ago, I tweeted out Oh, you're good. Just, like, four four charts side by side of the way Bitcoin acted relative to the equity and the the major equity indices

1253
01:41:05.880 --> 01:41:09.180
during the COVID crash versus the way that,

1254
01:41:09.720 --> 01:41:12.620
it acted during this last kind of tariff tantrum.

1255
01:41:13.080 --> 01:41:13.560
And,

1256
01:41:13.960 --> 01:41:23.175
you know, if you just thumb through those charts, and I think you'll see, like, there definitely is a difference. Like, I'm not gonna say it's a decoupling. Right? That's the that was the word that was on everyone's minds,

1257
01:41:23.955 --> 01:41:25.335
during that period. But,

1258
01:41:25.955 --> 01:41:33.255
I do think people are it's it's hard if you're, you know, paying attention to markets at all to not notice that Bitcoin did not

1259
01:41:34.180 --> 01:41:36.180
act exactly the way that you would expect,

1260
01:41:36.740 --> 01:41:39.080
during kind of a a global reset like that.

1261
01:41:40.340 --> 01:41:48.585
So, you know, it's it's you gotta see, like, everyone needs touch points, and everyone needs more and more data points like that to to get comfortable at their own pace. But,

1262
01:41:49.525 --> 01:41:53.225
yeah, that's just another kind of, yeah, arrow in the quiver, right, for,

1263
01:41:54.485 --> 01:41:55.385
you know, reasons

1264
01:41:56.805 --> 01:41:58.905
to reasons to not be bearish on Bitcoin.

1265
01:42:00.849 --> 01:42:01.829
Yeah. I mean,

1266
01:42:04.530 --> 01:42:07.889
I it it's insane to me that people are bearish at all.

1267
01:42:08.929 --> 01:42:11.909
It is I I'm curious on your opinion

1268
01:42:12.369 --> 01:42:14.469
because you did start it off with,

1269
01:42:16.425 --> 01:42:20.925
mentioning the fee rate, the on chain fee rate, because the dashboard is

1270
01:42:21.385 --> 01:42:22.925
powered by mempool.space.

1271
01:42:25.145 --> 01:42:27.725
Ten thirty one, portfolio company.

1272
01:42:29.840 --> 01:42:39.139
And we're just not like, the retail demand is just not there for actual Bitcoin, for real Bitcoin. Like, maybe retail is, like, opening up Robinhood and buying iBit

1273
01:42:39.840 --> 01:42:40.340
or,

1274
01:42:41.920 --> 01:42:42.420
MSTR

1275
01:42:44.224 --> 01:42:45.364
or one of the derivatives.

1276
01:42:47.025 --> 01:42:53.925
But I they're not here and they're not here in Bitcoin land. They're not here buying actual Bitcoin, self costing actual Bitcoin. Is

1277
01:42:54.625 --> 01:42:58.405
is that just the is is that the new normal, or is

1278
01:42:58.960 --> 01:43:01.780
or is it just still too early in this part of

1279
01:43:02.400 --> 01:43:06.420
the cycle of the cycle's extended? Like, do we see that again? Are we gonna see the

1280
01:43:08.079 --> 01:43:11.139
craziness of average people coming in and buying

1281
01:43:11.595 --> 01:43:12.815
Bitcoin stack?

1282
01:43:13.755 --> 01:43:14.975
Yeah. I mean, I think

1283
01:43:15.355 --> 01:43:18.655
I think we will see some kind of retail FOMO mania again.

1284
01:43:19.595 --> 01:43:20.415
But increasingly,

1285
01:43:20.875 --> 01:43:26.130
I don't know that that's really, like, the main marginal driver of Bitcoin's price. Right?

1286
01:43:26.590 --> 01:43:26.750
Like,

1287
01:43:27.630 --> 01:43:31.730
I don't know that it's like the, you know, the the the degen on,

1288
01:43:32.830 --> 01:43:33.630
you know, some

1289
01:43:34.030 --> 01:43:36.210
it's right on some, like, offshore exchange or

1290
01:43:36.590 --> 01:43:37.090
the

1291
01:43:37.470 --> 01:43:38.130
the guy,

1292
01:43:38.510 --> 01:43:44.625
you know, buying in in Robinhood, like, just kinda aping in his his life savings in, you know, in Robinhood or something.

1293
01:43:45.965 --> 01:43:50.625
It feels and looks, you know, a lot more institutional for for better or worse.

1294
01:43:51.645 --> 01:43:58.179
So I think we'll see that, but it's gonna I think that's gonna require, like, us getting deeper into the cycle,

1295
01:43:59.119 --> 01:43:59.860
and probably,

1296
01:44:00.400 --> 01:44:04.260
you know, some degree of, like, moving back toward monetary easing,

1297
01:44:05.039 --> 01:44:10.405
to to get animal spirits, like, you know, rip ripping again and to get kind of the the average guy,

1298
01:44:11.344 --> 01:44:13.525
you know, wanting to to participate at,

1299
01:44:14.304 --> 01:44:15.764
you know, some to some degree.

1300
01:44:16.784 --> 01:44:22.289
But, yeah, I think it's like what's gotten us here clearly has been much more, like, institutional flows,

1301
01:44:23.070 --> 01:44:23.570
than,

1302
01:44:24.909 --> 01:44:29.409
or or like your, you know, broad your your Charles Schwab accounts in mass,

1303
01:44:30.030 --> 01:44:36.165
buying iBit or something. Right? It's not been your traditional, like, retail d gen player.

1304
01:44:37.025 --> 01:44:44.304
Maybe some of them are are maybe some of those guys are now going to You don't have to you don't have to be a d r. What about the just the stackers? Like, what about

1305
01:44:46.030 --> 01:44:46.690
Well, them

1306
01:44:47.150 --> 01:44:55.650
I mean, yeah. But them too. Right? Like and and when I say them, I like, it includes me and and I would assume you, like, you know, you're, like think about Bitcoin's market cap

1307
01:44:55.950 --> 01:45:04.925
and think about, like, you know, your hundred dollar DCA or whatever per week or your $500 DCA or whatever. Yeah. Well, there's 10,000,000 people that adds up.

1308
01:45:05.545 --> 01:45:15.965
Yeah. I mean, I guess it's a it's a question as to how many are, like, actually how how many people are there out there that are DCA ing in a meaningful way and also, like, hitting the chain?

1309
01:45:16.580 --> 01:45:17.400
It's probably

1310
01:45:18.260 --> 01:45:19.720
less than a hundred thousand.

1311
01:45:21.140 --> 01:45:22.280
Yeah. That may be right.

1312
01:45:23.940 --> 01:45:32.885
But in previous cycles, it's 10 x or something. I mean, there's no way to measure it. So it could be a million people. It could be a million people.

1313
01:45:35.185 --> 01:45:35.925
Yeah. Absolutely.

1314
01:45:36.465 --> 01:45:40.005
And the tools are getting better for that. Right? And we see that in, like, our, you know,

1315
01:45:40.785 --> 01:45:44.885
some portfolio companies that we have, like, the the tools to, like, actually

1316
01:45:45.480 --> 01:45:46.700
take custody of Bitcoin,

1317
01:45:47.720 --> 01:45:54.380
and whether you wanna store it, you know, single sig or do it kind of collaborative custody or something like that. Like, that's all getting better and easier, and,

1318
01:45:54.760 --> 01:45:57.980
generally, that's kind of been, like, up into the right for all those businesses.

1319
01:45:59.055 --> 01:46:09.715
But, yeah, just as it as it relates to, like, on the margin, like, you have to add a lot more stackers every cycle who are doing it in a dedicated way to move the market to the same degree,

1320
01:46:10.415 --> 01:46:13.635
as the prior cycle. Right? Guess the as the market gap gets bigger.

1321
01:46:14.790 --> 01:46:16.730
So, like, that's that's a piece of it too.

1322
01:46:18.389 --> 01:46:21.610
I don't know. That'll be interesting to watch. I think it might just be I

1323
01:46:22.150 --> 01:46:22.889
I'm, like,

1324
01:46:23.429 --> 01:46:24.730
coming to the conclusion

1325
01:46:25.349 --> 01:46:28.730
or not the conclusion, but my working thesis right now is that

1326
01:46:29.565 --> 01:46:30.945
the treasury companies

1327
01:46:31.325 --> 01:46:34.225
and even to a lesser extent, the ETFs,

1328
01:46:34.925 --> 01:46:35.985
primarily iBit,

1329
01:46:36.845 --> 01:46:38.225
have delayed and extended

1330
01:46:38.605 --> 01:46:39.185
the cycle.

1331
01:46:40.605 --> 01:46:41.105
Because

1332
01:46:42.190 --> 01:46:43.010
you buy MSTR.

1333
01:46:43.389 --> 01:46:44.770
It's gonna take about

1334
01:46:45.550 --> 01:46:48.929
a month for that to show up in real demand for Bitcoin,

1335
01:46:49.230 --> 01:46:59.765
buying Bitcoin or whatever. Like, he's got a w even if you buy iBit, it's gonna take, like, four or five days for them to, like, settle it out and, like, make it happen. Like, they don't do it instantly. They're like

1336
01:47:01.185 --> 01:47:08.405
they have to go through whatever traditional flows to make it happen. Like, you buy on strike and, like, boom, done. You got it. It's like ten minutes.

1337
01:47:10.305 --> 01:47:12.900
So it slows it down and extends it.

1338
01:47:14.100 --> 01:47:19.080
But then the other question to me that I've been so then and then historically,

1339
01:47:20.659 --> 01:47:25.880
I believe the best months for Bitcoin price appreciation wise is usually in, like, the fall.

1340
01:47:27.235 --> 01:47:31.415
So we're, like, gearing up to for, like, a FOMO crazy fall winter.

1341
01:47:34.595 --> 01:47:37.175
But at the same time, I do ask myself,

1342
01:47:38.530 --> 01:47:40.870
historically, at this point in the cycle,

1343
01:47:42.210 --> 01:47:45.270
you would see maybe people speculating on shitcoins.

1344
01:47:45.969 --> 01:47:47.830
The shitcoin market is nonexistent.

1345
01:47:48.610 --> 01:47:49.909
It seems like it's

1346
01:47:50.415 --> 01:47:52.514
just fallen out from underneath itself.

1347
01:47:54.735 --> 01:47:55.954
Even, like, the most

1348
01:47:57.855 --> 01:47:58.994
die hard Shitcoiners

1349
01:47:59.775 --> 01:48:06.820
now have brought brought down their portfolios to, like, one Shitcoin. They're like, oh, but this one's not a Shitcoin. The yeah. The qual the quality shitcoins.

1350
01:48:07.280 --> 01:48:14.099
Yeah. They're like, oh, I I should just have, like, 1% of my portfolio in Solana, but the rest in Bitcoin. Like, I heard from, like, one of

1351
01:48:14.960 --> 01:48:16.179
my shitcoiner buddies.

1352
01:48:18.405 --> 01:48:18.725
And,

1353
01:48:20.325 --> 01:48:21.865
with the shit coins, though,

1354
01:48:23.605 --> 01:48:25.945
it was a very easy thing for, like,

1355
01:48:26.645 --> 01:48:39.350
Solana pumps. You're already self custodying Solana, and then you go to one of these swap services and you move it into Bitcoin, which you self custody. The that flow doesn't exist for, like, holding MSTR. Like, you buy MSTR and Schwab,

1356
01:48:41.170 --> 01:48:43.270
how far away are you from

1357
01:48:44.690 --> 01:48:49.805
going to self stacking self cuss you're pretty far away from stacking self custody Bitcoin. I don't

1358
01:48:50.505 --> 01:48:57.565
know how that flow work. How does that transition work? And so maybe that takes significantly longer. Maybe eventually that happens anyway,

1359
01:48:58.585 --> 01:48:59.085
probably.

1360
01:49:02.020 --> 01:49:05.720
But still, it's it's it's definitely complete it's definitely

1361
01:49:06.660 --> 01:49:10.200
same same, but different from previous cycles, it feels like.

1362
01:49:11.140 --> 01:49:11.640
Yeah.

1363
01:49:12.980 --> 01:49:13.480
Yeah.

1364
01:49:13.860 --> 01:49:14.360
Okay.

1365
01:49:15.765 --> 01:49:19.385
Well, we'll keep an eye on it. John, I let I think we'll make this, like,

1366
01:49:19.765 --> 01:49:22.265
every six months or something. We'll have you come back on.

1367
01:49:22.965 --> 01:49:24.585
Okay. Great. You can do your,

1368
01:49:25.045 --> 01:49:25.545
obligatory

1369
01:49:26.245 --> 01:49:28.025
two suit episodes a year,

1370
01:49:28.965 --> 01:49:29.864
and we can

1371
01:49:31.360 --> 01:49:34.740
give the freaks the the updates that I'm sure they were all craving.

1372
01:49:35.360 --> 01:49:44.025
Dude, people seem to freaks, it seems like you've at least the ride or dies in the live chat have seemed to enjoy it. We'll see we'll see how people feel on the podcast apps.

1373
01:49:44.505 --> 01:49:46.605
John, before we wrap, final thoughts.

1374
01:49:49.784 --> 01:49:50.605
Final thoughts.

1375
01:49:52.745 --> 01:49:58.045
I will not it doesn't doesn't really matter what I think. It doesn't really matter what anyone individually thinks. And that's the beauty of

1376
01:49:59.469 --> 01:50:03.730
emergent decentralized systems such as Bitcoin and also such as language.

1377
01:50:04.190 --> 01:50:04.670
But,

1378
01:50:05.070 --> 01:50:06.610
I won't die on many hills,

1379
01:50:06.989 --> 01:50:09.090
but I will die on the hill of Sats.

1380
01:50:09.869 --> 01:50:12.369
The Bits conversation to me is,

1381
01:50:12.909 --> 01:50:14.130
just completely illogical.

1382
01:50:15.235 --> 01:50:21.735
I I I get what people are going for, but anything that injects incremental, like, at this point in the in the game,

1383
01:50:22.515 --> 01:50:23.575
confusion on units,

1384
01:50:24.595 --> 01:50:25.095
is,

1385
01:50:25.475 --> 01:50:30.055
you know, probably not gonna have the the result that I think people are looking for. And more importantly,

1386
01:50:31.210 --> 01:50:32.190
21,000,000

1387
01:50:32.250 --> 01:50:34.190
hits, 2.1

1388
01:50:34.330 --> 01:50:44.670
does not. 21,000,000 sounds like a small number. People know what that means. Wait. You're mixing up two you're mixing up two different things. Right? There's some people that wanna call Sats the smallest unit of Bitcoin.

1389
01:50:45.370 --> 01:50:45.870
Bitcoin.

1390
01:50:46.335 --> 01:50:46.835
Yes.

1391
01:50:47.375 --> 01:50:58.355
And it but in that case the 21,000,000 names. Yeah. Yeah. So you're right. Sats, bits, and Bitcoin calling, like, each You can just change the name of Sats. But We could change the name of Sats to bits.

1392
01:50:58.720 --> 01:51:03.860
I I see them I see them as interrelated because it's a lot of the same parties, like, trying to get these different things.

1393
01:51:04.320 --> 01:51:12.340
But yes. So, like, the Sats bits thing, like, I think is pretty seldomly just, like, not gonna happen. But the calling each, each Satoshi a Bitcoin,

1394
01:51:12.915 --> 01:51:16.695
I I think distracts from or or does not take into account

1395
01:51:17.074 --> 01:51:19.574
one of the key shelling points and, like, memetic,

1396
01:51:20.514 --> 01:51:22.934
powers of Bitcoin, which is 21,000,000.

1397
01:51:23.554 --> 01:51:33.619
People don't understand how to conceptualize a quadrillion, so we're never gonna walk around telling people there'll only be 2.1 quadrillion Bitcoin and have them think like, oh, well, there aren't there aren't that many. I better get some.

1398
01:51:34.080 --> 01:51:35.619
And it is important to

1399
01:51:35.920 --> 01:51:39.780
give people that showing point that they can latch on to to understand just how scarce Bitcoin is.

1400
01:51:40.735 --> 01:51:41.875
Yeah. No. I think

1401
01:51:43.135 --> 01:51:45.315
it doesn't make any sense to me to confuse

1402
01:51:46.095 --> 01:51:50.355
confuse users, but, like, people know what a Bitcoin is. Right? There's

1403
01:51:50.975 --> 01:51:52.815
key is there's 21,000,000.

1404
01:51:52.815 --> 01:51:54.570
Like, that makes no sense to me.

1405
01:51:54.969 --> 01:51:55.710
That said,

1406
01:51:56.969 --> 01:51:57.469
if

1407
01:51:58.170 --> 01:52:03.230
if you run you know, if you maintain an app or wallet and you wanna do that,

1408
01:52:03.849 --> 01:52:09.949
by all means, do that. See, you know, see how it plays. You you're your own person. I I will say, like,

1409
01:52:11.275 --> 01:52:17.135
I can disagree with him, and I can disagree with John Carvallo in this regard if he's the author

1410
01:52:17.755 --> 01:52:20.815
of BIP one seventy seven, which proposes this.

1411
01:52:21.355 --> 01:52:27.080
But at least he did it in his wallet. Like, he just changed it in his BitKit wallet. Like, that's how it's displayed.

1412
01:52:29.300 --> 01:52:33.320
So anyone could do that, see how it plays out. There's no, like, king

1413
01:52:33.780 --> 01:52:34.680
or, like,

1414
01:52:35.060 --> 01:52:39.480
the legislature body of of, Bitcoin that can decide how to do that.

1415
01:52:40.065 --> 01:52:42.085
I don't think it's something that should really

1416
01:52:42.785 --> 01:52:51.925
debate is unproductive really on this on this front. Language is mostly organic, and people should decide what to do. But to me, the idea of, like,

1417
01:52:52.400 --> 01:52:58.580
calling the smallest unit Bitcoin is just super confusing. It adds more confusion than it presumably benefits.

1418
01:53:00.720 --> 01:53:04.420
But I don't necessarily agree with that about the whole bits argument.

1419
01:53:07.185 --> 01:53:10.325
Now there's two there's two pieces on the bits side, right,

1420
01:53:12.465 --> 01:53:13.205
which is

1421
01:53:14.145 --> 01:53:15.605
you you could we could

1422
01:53:16.065 --> 01:53:24.440
use one bit right now is a hundred sets. That's always been the case in in accepted language in the in the organic cultural language.

1423
01:53:24.980 --> 01:53:28.679
One bit is a hundred sats. So we could have bits and sats.

1424
01:53:29.380 --> 01:53:33.639
And then there's another contingent that wants to convert sats to

1425
01:53:33.940 --> 01:53:35.400
just call sats bits,

1426
01:53:36.895 --> 01:53:43.555
which then I don't know what we would do with the unit that is currently referred to as the unit formerly known as bits.

1427
01:53:45.775 --> 01:53:46.815
I just think adding

1428
01:53:47.215 --> 01:53:49.555
I yeah. I I just think adding any

1429
01:53:49.950 --> 01:53:54.930
new element to the taxonomy right now at this point is just, like, it's not

1430
01:53:55.469 --> 01:53:57.950
helpful. I don't know who's really asking for it. Like,

1431
01:53:59.150 --> 01:54:03.650
I think people can I I think it's easiest for people to track 1 Bitcoin

1432
01:54:04.275 --> 01:54:10.055
and a hundred million sats, and it's like it's just like I don't I don't really know what having a bit adds to the the conversation?

1433
01:54:10.915 --> 01:54:18.535
I guess you could say, like, you know, dollars, like, can get subdivided up into, like, pennies and then dimes. Yeah. But they're not called they're not called dolls.

1434
01:54:18.880 --> 01:54:20.500
Yeah. Right. Right. Exactly. Yeah.

1435
01:54:21.920 --> 01:54:35.475
But so, yeah, I on just the bits versus sats, like, should we add bits to the taxonomy? To me, that's like you know, I don't really care that much about that. I I but I don't really know who's asking for it at the same time. So I you know, it's not something that I really wanna see happen just from that perspective.

1436
01:54:35.855 --> 01:54:39.395
But the call each sat, just call them all Bitcoins,

1437
01:54:40.175 --> 01:54:54.489
to me, like, that's definitively in the wrong direction. And I can't control it, and you're right. Like, language is emergent and organic. But I just hope it doesn't go in that direction because I don't think it will. We have to preserve 21,000,000 as a as a mimetic shelling point. I think that's the least likely

1438
01:54:55.130 --> 01:55:00.190
the the most likely scenario is it just stays as it is. Yes. That's what the momentum is.

1439
01:55:01.795 --> 01:55:07.014
The least likely is that Sats get start getting referred to Bitcoin and catches on.

1440
01:55:07.875 --> 01:55:10.215
Sats are Bitcoin. They're little bits of Bitcoin.

1441
01:55:11.315 --> 01:55:11.815
Then

1442
01:55:12.914 --> 01:55:13.414
maybe

1443
01:55:14.200 --> 01:55:17.800
the second most likely after the stats just staying Lindy is,

1444
01:55:19.560 --> 01:55:21.180
we've renamed them to bits.

1445
01:55:22.360 --> 01:55:28.540
No. Probably not. The second most likely is that some wallets denominated in bits, which is a hundred sets.

1446
01:55:30.085 --> 01:55:30.825
I personally

1447
01:55:32.005 --> 01:55:34.185
when I was championing sats,

1448
01:55:35.125 --> 01:55:36.025
to be clear,

1449
01:55:36.405 --> 01:55:43.865
I wasn't necessarily championing the name. The name already existed. Like, someone else came up with the name. Satoshi didn't come up with the name. That was after Satoshi.

1450
01:55:45.340 --> 01:55:48.960
I was just championing the idea of thinking in the smallest unit possible,

1451
01:55:49.500 --> 01:55:52.560
and that was SaaS. And I think that's important. Right? Because

1452
01:55:53.420 --> 01:55:57.015
people think they're late to Bitcoin. They think it's too expensive for them.

1453
01:55:58.775 --> 01:56:09.595
But and we were getting a lot of pushback from, like, XRP people, Ripple people who were saying Ripple the standard, XRP the standard, XRP so cheap. Well, XRP is more expensive than SaaS. Right?

1454
01:56:11.770 --> 01:56:15.550
And Lightning Network happened at the same time. I do think it's it's hilarious

1455
01:56:16.410 --> 01:56:19.070
that even today, while people argue about it on x,

1456
01:56:19.530 --> 01:56:21.230
they're like, oh, evil Odell

1457
01:56:21.770 --> 01:56:27.835
made SaaS the standard, like, blah blah. It's like, I deleted my fucking x account. Account. Like, you guys can argue all day, all long.

1458
01:56:28.215 --> 01:56:29.895
Do whatever the hell you wanna do.

1459
01:56:30.455 --> 01:56:34.715
I'm thinking Sats. Noster is using Sats. I think it's a standard unit of value.

1460
01:56:35.255 --> 01:56:40.395
It is what it is. But change your apps. If you wanna change your apps if if Dorsey wants to put

1461
01:56:41.240 --> 01:56:45.580
change all Sats and cash app to Bitcoin, then he's welcome to do that,

1462
01:56:47.480 --> 01:56:49.100
and see how it works out.

1463
01:56:49.800 --> 01:56:52.140
Like users either like it or they hate it.

1464
01:56:55.675 --> 01:57:01.054
Sounds good. We solved it. I can't I can't believe that was your final thought. I thought we could just avoid the whole topic.

1465
01:57:02.155 --> 01:57:06.175
I feel like it was important for me to draw a line in the sand on our our shelling point.

1466
01:57:06.715 --> 01:57:09.855
Yeah. I mean, I don't really I fair enough. Well, I

1467
01:57:10.610 --> 01:57:18.710
I don't I'm it's something that I'm I sleep well at night. Like, I just don't really care. Yeah. That's that's really the right thing to do. Think it's a real

1468
01:57:19.570 --> 01:57:21.889
I don't think it's a real concern. I think,

1469
01:57:23.170 --> 01:57:24.630
I think you said it earlier.

1470
01:57:25.885 --> 01:57:30.225
I think what we see in our day to day with calls with people, particularly, like, large

1471
01:57:31.085 --> 01:57:32.065
potential investors

1472
01:57:32.844 --> 01:57:41.520
and smaller investors too. Right? We have two funds. We have an institutional fund, and then we have a a smaller one for, like, medium high net worth individuals.

1473
01:57:44.300 --> 01:57:46.560
And it's it's a weird lack of urgency.

1474
01:57:47.260 --> 01:57:50.640
And I would just say, like, I feel like all this stuff is just

1475
01:57:52.145 --> 01:57:56.645
distracting a ton of people when really, in your head, you should just be like,

1476
01:57:57.344 --> 01:58:02.245
fuck. I don't have enough Bitcoin. I need to have more Bitcoin. I need to have a deliberate strategy here.

1477
01:58:02.785 --> 01:58:03.285
Like,

1478
01:58:04.065 --> 01:58:06.325
I need to be focused on this thing because

1479
01:58:07.159 --> 01:58:13.739
we're born in this one period. We're we were blessed to be born in this period where Bitcoin gets adopted

1480
01:58:14.199 --> 01:58:20.219
during our, like, the primes of our lives where we're most focused and most productive and most working.

1481
01:58:21.405 --> 01:58:22.224
Massive opportunity.

1482
01:58:23.244 --> 01:58:25.264
And instead, you know, there's just

1483
01:58:26.445 --> 01:58:29.824
people flaming each other on social media. It's just a distraction.

1484
01:58:30.364 --> 01:58:35.185
And I just would implore people to try and stay focused and stay on Bluestacks ads.

1485
01:58:37.840 --> 01:58:38.820
Good way to end.

1486
01:58:39.760 --> 01:58:43.059
John, thanks for joining. Always a pleasure. We'll do this again.

1487
01:58:43.760 --> 01:58:46.659
Freaks, you can find them at primal.net/john.

1488
01:58:47.119 --> 01:58:48.340
What's your x handle?

1489
01:58:49.845 --> 01:58:51.705
John arnold ten thirty one.

1490
01:58:52.805 --> 01:58:55.785
X dot com slash john arnold ten thirty one. And, obviously,

1491
01:58:56.405 --> 01:59:00.425
all the information on 1031 is at 1031.xyz.

1492
01:59:01.110 --> 01:59:04.970
Freaks, thank you for supporting the show. Thank you for joining us if you were in the live chat.

1493
01:59:06.230 --> 01:59:09.050
There'll be a dispatch next week. I'm not going to Vegas.

1494
01:59:10.310 --> 01:59:11.690
I don't know who with.

1495
01:59:12.230 --> 01:59:17.815
I haven't figured that much out yet, but I'll I'll make it happen, and you can just just find out on on Noster,

1496
01:59:18.675 --> 01:59:20.615
if you wanna join the live show. Anyway,

1497
01:59:21.155 --> 01:59:23.815
love you all. Thanks, John. Thanks.

1498
01:59:25.555 --> 01:59:26.935
Stay humble, Stack Sats.