0:00

What's going on, fellas? Good time

0:02

in New York this week, John. It

0:04

was your first time at Pupke

0:06

Brady, and it was my 75th time

0:08

at Pupke. Yeah, it was the first

0:10

time I was back in New York, and

0:13

quite some time as well, so it was

0:15

fun to be in the city. Little

0:17

cold, little rainy, but it didn't

0:19

get us down. We walked a

0:21

lot, Stephen, you would have been

0:23

proud about that. Yeah. Despite the

0:25

rain and how it was there, man.

0:27

Yeah. We saw Michelle McCorry. She came

0:30

to the Swan Salon, which went great

0:32

by the way. We had, I don't

0:34

know, 75 people there probably. Lots

0:36

of great conversations. We did

0:39

a Swan Signal live there.

0:41

We had Alex Stanzik and

0:44

Jeremy Showalter sit in for

0:46

you two guys. Did about 20-minute

0:48

riff. That was fun. And apparently,

0:50

Michelle loves the show. And

0:52

so shout out to you, Michelle, if

0:55

you end up seeing this one. And

0:57

we'll definitely take you up on your

0:59

offer to bring you on the show

1:01

sometime. Be really fun. I think we gotta

1:03

get her. We gotta get her in the

1:06

chair. It'd be great to run a swan

1:08

signal live with Michelle. It would be.

1:10

It would be. All right, I'm here

1:12

with my fellows here, Stephen and

1:14

John and Brandon. We are... Coming

1:17

to you live every Friday 11 a.m. Pacific

1:19

2 p.m. Eastern so you can catch us

1:22

on YouTube You can catch us on Twitter.

1:24

I think we're on LinkedIn, but we don't

1:26

have many many people watching on LinkedIn, which

1:28

you know makes sense So if you

1:31

are watching on LinkedIn, thank you

1:33

for being one of the the

1:35

few that come to us through

1:37

LinkedIn. We appreciate you and thanks

1:39

to Mara for helping to support

1:41

the show and for helping to

1:43

supporting decentralized decentralizedizing and securing

1:45

the Bitcoin network Let's get started,

1:47

we got quite an agenda, it was a

1:49

slow week. It was a slow week until

1:52

today guys. There was a bunch of news

1:54

dropped today, you know, a little gift in

1:56

our laps, we got a nice little price pump,

1:58

so it's a happy Friday. Where

2:00

are we going to start, guys?

2:02

Well, we got this. I mean,

2:04

we really were going through kind

2:06

of a slower news period, which

2:08

is funny to say because there's

2:10

been more happening every week this

2:13

year than in all of 2018

2:15

in some ways. But it was

2:17

in some senses a little bit

2:19

slower. And then, oh, man, like,

2:21

this Friday, we just get a...

2:23

the last with it from the

2:25

sovereign wealth fund out of the

2:27

UAE buying buying Bitcoin custody news

2:29

Wisconsin so happy to start wherever

2:31

you guys want to and I

2:34

know we're giving people a little

2:36

bit to join but it's a

2:38

ton of great stuff yeah it's

2:40

uh I mean you know about

2:42

ten years ago eight ten years

2:44

ago it used to be a

2:46

huge deal just to get a

2:48

mention in the mainstream media Right,

2:50

like in any given week. And

2:52

that was throwing around a big

2:54

win. See, NBC's talking about it.

2:57

It was a big deal. It

2:59

was just, it happened, right? But

3:01

it was like few and far

3:03

between and now are just getting

3:05

news so compact. So it did

3:07

feel like a slow week until

3:09

today. So let's go ahead and

3:11

start with Abu Dhabi. Abu Dhabi.

3:13

Here, quick. You go into that.

3:15

I think the fatigue. It is

3:17

maybe what I'm feeling right now

3:20

is there's so much Bitcoin news,

3:22

it's so mainstream from all corners

3:24

of the world that it goes

3:26

through my timeline, it doesn't even

3:28

register anymore. Another state with a

3:30

bill, another country doing an LBE

3:32

strategy, another clip from Joe Rogan

3:34

talking about Bitcoin, right? Five years

3:36

ago, each one of those would

3:38

have been a week's worth of

3:40

coverage. Now I give it like

3:43

30 seconds in my head and

3:45

we move on we move on.

3:47

that would have been the biggest

3:49

thing ever that we're like we

3:51

might not even touch on it

3:53

today because we have so much

3:55

other stuff. Yeah, no, but we're

3:57

spoiled with good news recently. Yeah,

4:00

it's it's not too much winning

4:02

yet though. Let's win some more.

4:04

We got some more to do

4:06

this year. I've got a really

4:08

high capacity for winning. I've been

4:10

to training for this for a

4:13

while. I'm not I'm not even

4:15

tired of winning yet. No, I

4:17

mean, we have like three years

4:19

worth of, you know, losing to

4:21

swallow and we get really good

4:23

at that too. So let's just

4:25

spend some time, you know, I

4:27

could have a couple of zeros.

4:30

Let's start with Abu Dhabi. Abu

4:32

Dhabi, we were hearing some rumors

4:34

that Amina country was stacking some

4:36

stats, so it seems like it

4:38

may be Abu Dhabi, maybe others

4:40

as well. The Sovereign Wealth Fund

4:42

of Abu Dhabi has bought about

4:44

$436 million worth of Bitcoin through

4:46

any TFF signals growing institutional interest

4:49

in Bitcoin. than traditional finance markets.

4:51

Now this is just a note,

4:53

a very small percentage of their,

4:55

the value of their sovereign wealth

4:57

fund, which I saw earlier this

4:59

morning, I can't remember, but I

5:01

do remember that it was a

5:03

small, small, small percentage, but still

5:06

definitely of notes. And this to

5:08

me is the idea of bottle

5:10

foma where you finally get this

5:12

mass understanding. a realization that Bitcoin

5:14

is something to save, need to

5:16

hold for the long term, it's

5:18

capital that you can build on

5:20

for decades and decades to come

5:22

and maybe even generations, right? And

5:25

definitely generations in my opinion. And

5:27

so now that this understanding is

5:29

being kind of spread, there's going

5:31

to be a fear and a

5:33

game theoretic just all out blitz

5:35

to get some of the, some

5:37

exposure to Bitcoin, buy some Bitcoin,

5:39

buy some Bitcoin directly. into the

5:41

sovereign wealth funds, into strategic reserves,

5:44

into corporate treasuries. So last cycle

5:46

I was looking for the hot

5:48

ofoamo when the institutions came in.

5:50

I think we're seeing institutional demand

5:52

ramp up now and You know,

5:54

imagine what leaders of other countries,

5:56

you know, Steve and they look

5:58

at this and these leaders, let's

6:01

just take Trump, for example, I'm

6:03

very competitive. A hundred percent. He's

6:05

like, okay, Abu Dhabi is doing

6:07

it, like, we're falling behind. We

6:09

got to go. And so it's

6:11

going to be a race, man.

6:13

What did you think America first

6:15

went? Vives, papers, essays? No, it

6:17

was packing stats and beating Abu

6:20

Dhabi. So I think something, there's

6:22

a few things to, I think

6:24

layout here for people. This is

6:26

a disclosure. Abu Dhabi and the

6:28

sovereign wealth fund, they didn't decide

6:30

to make this disclosure. This is

6:32

a mandatory disclosure because this position

6:34

was in the ETF. So this

6:37

comes out because of that. Now

6:39

they're obviously aware that that was

6:41

going to happen. They knew that

6:43

was going to happen. But it

6:45

does not mean that that's all

6:47

that they own, right? And I've

6:49

heard it from a number of

6:51

people. I think it's pretty reliable

6:53

that they do own other Bitcoin.

6:56

Some of it from a while

6:58

back. you know, some people have

7:00

said as early as 2018 they

7:02

were looking into it. But so

7:04

while they have a half a

7:06

billion dollar ETF position, that doesn't

7:08

preclude them from having some of

7:10

these larger positions in other entities

7:13

and as a spot asset, which

7:15

they don't have to disclose. And

7:17

so if we take that kind

7:19

of as a prior and as

7:21

a premise, I think there's a

7:23

way you can look at this.

7:25

I was talking actually with magnanimous

7:27

Maxie on Twitter. And we're talking

7:29

about the concept that they might

7:32

be slow rolling this disclosure. What

7:34

does that mean? It means they

7:36

know that if they buy the

7:38

ETF, this announcement was going to

7:40

come out in a couple months.

7:42

They want to have that number

7:44

sized appropriately, right? Because if they

7:46

come in too big, there's a

7:49

probability where you could spook other

7:51

countries and other systems and... Like

7:53

if you come out with a

7:55

$40 billion position out of nowhere,

7:57

that's going to make a lot

7:59

more impact. and could change what

8:01

other countries are deciding to do,

8:03

rather than saying, hey, there's a

8:05

small position. This is really pretty

8:08

small for a country. But it's

8:10

material. It's, you know, it's half

8:12

a billion dollars. And I think

8:14

it's small enough that it gets

8:16

people talking, it gets people interested,

8:18

but it's not too large that

8:20

I think it spooks anybody. And

8:22

this could be a very purposeful

8:25

choice by them. 100%

8:29

and just to put some numbers

8:32

around the size, which again, Stephen's

8:34

point is that yes, they disclose

8:36

having 437 million of the Bitcoin

8:38

ETF, that doesn't mean that's the

8:40

only Bitcoin exposure they have. In

8:43

fact, I'd say it's probably unlikely

8:45

that that's the only Bitcoin exposure

8:47

they have. Just looking up what

8:49

kind of percentage of total this

8:51

might reflect. So this got reported

8:54

under Mubarak dollar investment co. That

8:56

is one entity that makes up

8:58

the broader Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth

9:00

fund. So they also have the

9:02

Abu Dhabi Investment Authority. They also

9:05

have a couple others here. Mubarak,

9:07

I think, is the second biggest

9:09

one. But basically, if you add

9:11

up all the assets of those

9:13

entities, it looks like it's around

9:16

$1.7 trillion. 437 million out of

9:18

1.7 trillion. That's not like, you

9:20

know, a huge position. I think

9:22

we're talking like two basis points

9:24

or something like that. But again,

9:26

that's probably not their only Bitcoin

9:29

exposure. And I think, you know,

9:31

it's likely to grow from here.

9:33

But even if it is their

9:35

only Bitcoin exposure, you got to

9:37

start somewhere. And I would say,

9:40

you know, maybe they're starting at

9:42

two basis points, but likely to

9:44

grow over time. I gotta assume

9:46

the US takes this very personally.

9:48

Right, right, right. So any sort

9:51

of SVR chat. I think, yeah,

9:53

gas on the fire over in

9:55

the Trump administration. And I think,

9:57

Stephen, your comments are interesting around,

9:59

what's the message they, do they

10:02

want to send to the market?

10:04

Because, are they, the question would

10:06

be, are they done buying? Do

10:08

they have their position or are

10:10

they still buying? Right. If you're

10:13

done buying, you want it to

10:15

seem like this is a formal

10:17

situation. Everyone should follow me. But

10:19

if you're still buying, you know,

10:21

you want to be a little

10:23

more guarded with your message. I

10:26

do want to say something about

10:28

the Sovereign Wealth Fund in the

10:30

U.S. So the executive order directed

10:32

Bessent and Lutnik to put together

10:34

a plan within 90 days and

10:37

deliver the plan. Now Congress does

10:39

have the power of the purse

10:41

and does have to approve new

10:43

funds for investing in a sovereign

10:45

wealth fund unless you can find

10:48

funds to redirect funds that are

10:50

already to redirect to a different

10:52

purpose. And there are some rules

10:54

around that as well. So the

10:56

plan that they come with in

10:59

the next 90 days will include

11:01

like, how can we get the

11:03

funds to invest, right? Maybe we

11:05

can redirect, like we can get

11:07

some of the funds by redirecting

11:10

this, and we should be able,

11:12

that should be legal and pretty

11:14

clear. And the rest of the

11:16

funds will need to be approved

11:18

by Congress, etc. So there is,

11:20

it's not like. Trump can just

11:23

say, okay, we're putting together, you

11:25

know, strategic, or like a sovereign

11:27

wealth fund, and we're just going

11:29

to invest a trillion dollars, you

11:31

know, in all these different assets.

11:34

So there is like, just to

11:36

set expectations, there's, you know, some

11:38

hurdles to jump there for that

11:40

to be established. Now in Abu

11:42

Dhabi, it might be a different

11:45

case. Yeah. into a sovereign wealth

11:47

fund or lease the land or

11:49

lease mineral rights things like that

11:51

yeah i think so because the

11:53

department of the interior have has

11:56

control over the federal lands. And

11:58

the Department of the Interior is

12:00

an executive branch department. So there

12:02

would be, I think, much more

12:04

space for Trump to work independent

12:07

of Congress when it comes to

12:09

selling lands. I don't know exactly,

12:11

but I do know that it

12:13

is a department of the executive

12:15

branch. So definitely would be. And

12:17

it doesn't involve spending, so, you

12:20

know, the power of the purse

12:22

idea would, of Congress, it would

12:24

involve selling. So, yeah, I think

12:26

that would be. We have a

12:28

massive deficit, which we do. I

12:31

don't think anyone's approving new money

12:33

going into a sovereign wealth fund.

12:35

So I think, yeah, you got

12:37

to sell land rights, mineral rights,

12:39

sell your, if he somehow gets

12:42

a position of TikTok, you should

12:44

sell it to private interest in

12:46

the US, raise proceeds to command,

12:48

right. And that's consistent with what

12:50

Ludnix's been saying. I'm a big

12:53

supporter of that to be honest.

12:55

There's so many mechanisms for funding

12:57

this thing. There's just so so

12:59

much you could do. It's a

13:01

very creative landscape. But this news,

13:03

right? Like, I mean, this really

13:06

is big news and obviously the

13:08

market responded, Bitcoin's price pumped up.

13:10

It, you know, I think it

13:12

takes a little bit to digest,

13:14

but it's... it's such a strong

13:17

signal that this phase of adoption

13:19

is here and there's just incredibly

13:21

real interest in this asset class

13:23

and you know it this was

13:25

it was the black rock ETF

13:28

right that's what they disclosed owning

13:30

anyone leaves so yeah this reminds

13:32

me of Larry Fink's comment where

13:34

he said he was talking to

13:36

a sovereign wealth fund about whether

13:39

it should be 2% or 5%

13:41

as the right allocation I'm not

13:43

saying that was this sovereign wealth

13:45

fund in fact I hope it

13:47

was a different one and that

13:50

would be even more bullish but

13:52

this sends a huge signal to

13:54

the market and you know it's

13:56

So we've got Wisconsin as well.

13:58

So this is another big entity

14:00

in addition to Abu Dhabi. Pension

14:03

fund in Wisconsin's got another $321

14:05

million investing in Bitcoin through an

14:07

ETF. So we get both of

14:09

these in one day. I think

14:11

this kind of hoddlethomo game theory

14:14

race is gonna play out amongst

14:16

states as well. And we can

14:18

actually take a quick look at

14:20

what's going on in the states.

14:22

Get an update here at this

14:25

great tracker. Bitcoin Laws.io that you

14:27

guys can check out yourselves as

14:29

well. Lots of great information here.

14:31

There's all the bills. There's Bitcoin

14:33

related bills in 32 states. There

14:36

are 24 of them are SBR

14:38

bills, strategic Bitcoin reserve bills. There's

14:40

a list of all the states

14:42

here and the status. You can

14:44

grab details and read the full

14:47

text of each bill. So this

14:49

is an awesome website. You ever

14:51

put this together. I'm not sure

14:53

who it is, but has done

14:55

a great job. And you can

14:57

see here a little chart on

15:00

like the progress of these things

15:02

whether or not they're introduced or

15:04

you know through the different chambers

15:06

and then enacted so There's still

15:08

Yeah, and here's dead bills North

15:11

Dakota Pennsylvania Wyoming So yeah, pretty

15:13

cool. I mean you just look

15:15

at all this activity happening and

15:17

the race is on in the

15:19

competition of states, too, and this

15:22

is kind of the way that

15:24

the Republic was built even though

15:26

we've you know been sliding away

15:28

from states, you know, for the

15:30

past two hundred and thirty years

15:33

more and more, like faster and

15:35

faster of the past, you know,

15:37

many decades, probably since the end

15:39

of what, the 1930s, you know,

15:41

with FDR, we really started seeing

15:44

much more power shifting to Washington

15:46

DC and away from states. Still

15:48

to this day, the Republic does

15:50

have a strong role to play

15:52

in terms of experimenting with new

15:54

ideas and new laws and then

15:57

those things filtering up to the

15:59

federal the federal governments. as well.

16:01

So states are leading, we haven't

16:03

seen one enacted yet, but maybe

16:05

we will before the the U.S.

16:08

government does. Yeah, there's a huge

16:10

amount of variability in these bills,

16:12

both in their like chance of

16:14

success and even what they're really

16:16

describing. I think your expectation, if

16:19

you're watching this, should be a

16:21

huge, huge majority of these fail

16:23

and don't go through, but I'd

16:25

be most bullish on the Florida

16:27

one and the Texas one. I

16:30

think those are a little more

16:32

serious with I think Florida having

16:34

the most chance of success and

16:36

I'm closer to that one. I

16:38

actually know some of the people

16:41

involved in it. And so I

16:43

think it's it's really quite a

16:45

kind of real chance there. So

16:47

watching those closely, but just as

16:49

observers, you know, don't expect that

16:51

this is like all these bills

16:54

go through or even half of

16:56

them. And Brandon gave me the

16:58

shout-out here. So shout out to

17:00

Julian, the CEO of Apollo, for

17:02

putting this site together. Great job,

17:05

Julian. Appreciate it. Hey, I'm in

17:07

the Florida, Texas stuff. Stephen, does

17:09

Florida have a crazy high budget

17:11

cumulative surplus? Like Texas, I know

17:13

Texas is like $20 billion or

17:16

something like that. I think so,

17:18

let me confirm this real quick.

17:22

It would make the reason I

17:24

bring that up is yeah two

17:26

billion two billion. Yeah anyone who

17:28

does have a surplus already It's

17:31

I think it's just an easier

17:33

sell to say yeah, let's you

17:35

know hold we're already holding assets

17:37

as like a state version of

17:39

a sovereign wealth fund Let's hold

17:42

some Bitcoin. I think it's a

17:44

lot easier for Florida and Texas

17:46

to make that argument than like

17:48

Illinois or California Correct exactly right

17:50

And you've already had the CFO

17:53

in Florida coming out and saying

17:55

they own some already. And this

17:57

is just like a different capacity

17:59

to own it. So I think

18:02

Florida's been very. Pro Bitcoin, Florida

18:04

has a budget surplus and ultimately

18:06

Florida is run, is Republican run

18:08

and you know, Trump is signaling

18:10

to Republicans that Bitcoin's cool. My

18:13

take on the states is that

18:15

yeah, every individual one's different, most

18:17

will fail, we're all riding the

18:19

hype train, but the trend is

18:21

significant. There's been a massive shift

18:24

in the last few months. Just

18:26

personally here, I don't really want

18:28

to get that involved with politics.

18:30

I find it extremely exhausting. Find

18:32

Orangeville staffers or representatives of some

18:35

kind. But in the last two

18:37

weeks, we have Tina Smith staffers

18:39

coming to our meetup in about

18:41

12 days. They're super excited to

18:44

learn about Bitcoin. She chairs one

18:46

of the committees related. And then

18:48

Representative Brian Steele out of Wisconsin.

18:50

he's the new chair of the

18:52

Subcommittee on Digital Assets. He's coming

18:55

to Minnesota in March, and they're

18:57

hosting all these events, they want

18:59

to learn, they want to get

19:01

involved. And so there's something afoot,

19:03

and like everyone, it's going to

19:06

take a while for you to

19:08

actually figure out what's going on,

19:10

and so I'm sure there'll be

19:12

nonsense over in the short term,

19:14

and eventually they'll figure out what

19:17

this thing is. I think the

19:19

modification or the addition that I

19:21

would make for this is like,

19:23

if you get at the federal

19:25

level, they start approving something, I

19:28

think your odds on all of

19:30

those states go way up, right?

19:32

Like I think, you know, if

19:34

you get a good commentary out

19:37

of the crypto task force or

19:39

the stockpile or what have you,

19:41

you start walking all this probability

19:43

stuff. Yeah, we're still at 42%

19:45

on Polymarket for BSR in. 2025

19:48

and that'll probably stick that way

19:50

until this report drops and then

19:52

it's going to either go way

19:54

up or down one way or

19:56

the other. One of the questions.

19:59

we got some questions at the

20:01

end of the discussion we had

20:03

at the Swan Salon in New

20:05

York on Wednesday nights. And it

20:07

would basically boil down to who's

20:10

selling? Who's selling right now? We're

20:12

getting these huge buys, this news

20:14

of all these huge buys, and

20:16

we're just kind of ranging consolidating

20:18

between 105 and 92, 107 and

20:21

92 basically is where we've been

20:23

for, you know, since November. Who's

20:25

selling right now? Who's buying? We've

20:27

got this, the realized cap is

20:30

a good chart, a good metric

20:32

to look at, try to figure

20:34

out who's buying who's selling. This

20:36

is a great one here. You

20:38

know, take chain analysis with a

20:41

grain of salt. It's not perfect.

20:43

There's some guessing and assumptions that

20:45

are made in these metrics, but

20:47

they're, you know, directionally interesting over

20:49

a period of time. So. The

20:52

we've got new whales accumulating here

20:54

now and old whales are not

20:56

accumulating as much now. They're sort

20:58

of satisfied with their stacks. They're

21:00

probably selling as well. This is

21:03

institutions. Abu Dhabi's and Wisconsin's and

21:05

microstrategies of the world. Accumulating big

21:07

numbers now. And you know, realize

21:09

cap. Who's got the definition of

21:12

exactly what a realized cap is?

21:14

It's basically where people bought in.

21:16

The higher the realized cap is

21:18

basically indicating new buying. That's my

21:20

understanding of it. Like new people

21:23

coming in and buying up highs

21:25

instead of holding from a long

21:27

time ago. And in a bare

21:29

market you'll see a lower realized

21:31

cap because people aren't buying at

21:34

the new highs or new lows

21:36

as much anymore. It makes sense,

21:38

you know, it's those I mean,

21:40

it's almost like the arrow of

21:42

causality is reversed and it is

21:45

not that big whales come in

21:47

during bull markets? It's that big

21:49

new whales coming in creates bull

21:51

markets. Yeah. Yeah. Here's the quick

21:53

chat gBT definition because I don't

21:56

think I did a great job.

21:58

Bitcoin's realized market cap represents the

22:00

total value of all BTC based

22:02

on their last moved price. So

22:05

providing a more accurate measure of

22:07

market valuation by accounting for actual

22:09

transaction prices rather than the current

22:11

market price fluctuations. Yeah, this would

22:13

be like a, but the thing

22:16

you guys might see in Bitcoin

22:18

term, Bitcoin terminology is also MV

22:20

Harvey, which is market value to

22:22

realize value, and that's like another

22:24

in finance jargon they might call

22:27

it, that's like market value to

22:29

book value, which really just means

22:31

like your cost relative to the

22:33

current market value. Yeah, so that's

22:35

like all kind of describing the

22:38

same thing. And I think in

22:40

the chart. it if you look

22:42

at the y-axis it's only like

22:44

a few hundred billion a couple

22:46

hundred billion and I I don't

22:49

know exactly how this was put

22:51

together but it might just be

22:53

looking at presumably because it says

22:55

whales of both it's just looking

22:58

at addresses that have a significant

23:00

Bitcoin balance so it's not like

23:02

the entire bridge coin you know

23:04

all holders have a total realized

23:06

cap of 200 billion this it

23:09

looks like it's just looking at

23:11

whales here sure And one key

23:13

point on that one, John, looking

23:15

at the MVRV, is essentially you're

23:17

getting a ratio of how up

23:20

or down the holder basis. And

23:22

so you get a sentiment of

23:24

do the existing holders feel like

23:26

they're in the money, in which

23:28

case they might start to sell

23:31

or are they down in their

23:33

position or not up that much

23:35

that they'll wait for a future

23:37

thing. And historically MVRV gets in

23:40

the like. for three to five

23:42

range. So you're up three to

23:44

five X on your money and

23:46

you see how there's in mass

23:48

dumping there. Sometimes it spikes up

23:51

to eight or nine in very

23:53

short periods, but right now we're

23:55

at 2.4. So the average Bitcoin

23:57

holder is up 2.4x on their

23:59

money, in which case we don't

24:02

expect a ton of selling at

24:04

this price, but starting to. So

24:06

that question of like who's selling,

24:08

I mean, I think people commonly

24:10

ask this question when there's a

24:13

lot of good news and prices

24:15

aren't going anywhere, but. I think

24:17

it's relatively, I think it's two

24:19

things. One, you've had like four

24:21

or five different shocks to the

24:24

market in the last month. You

24:26

had DxY in 10 year getting

24:28

way too high. You had the

24:30

deep sea panic. You had three

24:33

weekends of terra fears where Bitcoin's

24:35

the only trading asset that gets

24:37

sold off. You had trade war

24:39

tensions. I mean, there's been a

24:41

lot going on. It has not

24:44

been a smooth time. Like a

24:46

lot of people sold from that.

24:48

Couple with the fact that a

24:50

lot of these people are up

24:52

100% on their coins in like

24:55

a couple months. And so it's

24:57

like you're up, you've doubled your

24:59

money, not everyone has this deep

25:01

long-term conviction in Bitcoin and all

25:03

these negative headlines start coming out.

25:06

Yes, there's positive new on Bitcoin,

25:08

but what if there's a trade

25:10

war? What if the S&P sells

25:12

off? What if it, oh, CPIs

25:15

too hot? The market has really

25:17

been shaking those fears in the

25:19

S&Ps. I think it's at an

25:21

all-time high or basically an all-time

25:23

high today. And it's overlooked all

25:26

of that. It's gotten through the

25:28

tariffs. It got through CPI being

25:30

too hot. It got through retail

25:32

sales being too low. And so,

25:34

you know, how the market responds

25:37

to bad news is as important

25:39

as the bad news itself. So

25:41

I think it looks pretty good,

25:43

but I think holders have really

25:45

been tested. across asset classes in

25:48

the last month and a half.

25:50

So for me, that's that's where

25:52

the selling is coming from. And

25:54

that's your opportunity. I think like

25:56

that's, I think the embedded in

25:59

the question that we got in

26:01

New York a couple nights ago

26:03

was like, yeah, why isn't the

26:05

price higher? You know, it's kind

26:08

of like, I've done my homework

26:10

on Bitcoin, why are not more

26:12

people not seeing this? And I

26:14

get that perspective, but just to

26:16

flip it on its head, like

26:19

that's your opportunity, right? You know,

26:21

if you were in, and that

26:23

applies to any investment, if you

26:25

were an early investor in Apple,

26:27

Amazon, you understood the story, right?

26:30

Like there were people that probably

26:32

have invested in a video when

26:34

it was like a hundred billion

26:36

dollar company and they were probably

26:38

telling themselves like this thing has

26:41

so much potential it should be

26:43

a trillion dollar company and they

26:45

were right but it takes the

26:47

market a long time to see

26:49

that and now in videos like

26:52

whatever a three trillion dollar company

26:54

so that that's your opportunity 100%

27:01

So I think it could be here,

27:03

I can navigate this one. The green

27:05

line in the background, that's Bitcoin's price

27:08

chart going back since 2012, it looks

27:10

like. So we see multiple cycles. The

27:12

yellow is the MV Harvey, so that's

27:14

the ratio of how up or down

27:16

are those hodlers. And you see those

27:19

giant yellow spikes corresponding with the previous

27:21

cycle peaks, right? So as you would

27:23

expect, investors are up a lot. Market

27:25

gets a little frothy, they start dumping

27:27

when they're up a lot. And this

27:29

cycle, we toppeded, we toppeded, we topped

27:32

out, three so the average holder three

27:34

acts as of like a couple weeks

27:36

ago and so we're nowhere near last

27:38

cycle's peak maybe this isn't something we

27:40

should look at going forward but it

27:42

would be very surprising me at Pickling

27:45

Topsoi I couldn't agree more we're not

27:47

we're not there we have not seen

27:49

anything close to you for each and

27:51

you know that that's just the the

27:53

market structure is so different I am

27:56

not expecting a repeat in the same

27:58

way this time I think this cycle

28:00

goes on longer. I think it's milder

28:02

in some ways. I don't think it

28:04

has like giant parabolic run ups. I

28:07

also don't think it has these huge

28:09

drawdowns. We've seen that already. The market

28:11

structure for Bitcoin the last year and

28:13

the half has been a massive pump

28:15

than trading sideways for months than another

28:18

massive pump. And until that gets

28:20

broken, that is my base case for

28:22

what continues to happen. And it makes

28:24

sense because. Why would

28:26

you sell down Bitcoin 30% let

28:28

alone 50% here? The environment is

28:31

too constructive. Too many people still

28:33

need to build a position. But

28:36

that doesn't mean it can go straight

28:38

up forever. And it's actually good for

28:40

us that it's not. You know, if

28:42

you have that massive pump, like the

28:45

party's over after that point. Like, yeah,

28:47

maybe you hit 200K, but guess what?

28:49

Like, it's done now. And the market

28:52

is gonna digest that move for a

28:54

year. What we're seeing instead

28:56

is still awesome moves higher,

28:58

you know, 100%, 50%, 60%

29:00

at a time, and then

29:02

it digests it in a

29:04

15% ban for, you know,

29:06

four to eight months. And,

29:08

you know, I for one

29:10

would take that any day

29:12

over the previous structure. Yeah,

29:15

I think, you know, what

29:17

we have been talking about

29:19

for months on the show

29:21

is that... I've been saying at

29:23

least for months in the show

29:25

that we're going to see much like

29:28

the floor I'm sorry for these

29:30

drops during this bull run. Like

29:32

normally in 2017 and especially

29:35

2017 you'd see we had

29:37

like 535 to 40% pullbacks

29:39

during the bull market and

29:41

it just climbed right back

29:43

up again but it shook a

29:45

bunch of people out. I think the

29:47

floor is going to be lower

29:49

now and moving forward so 20%

29:51

25% Max, I would say, like, wicks

29:53

of 25% 20% maybe. And then instead,

29:56

we're going to just get,

29:58

you know, consolidated. across a

30:00

15 or 20 K band for

30:03

a long time, then just gaps

30:05

up. And that might be what

30:07

we're looking at. So it's more

30:09

the church more like this instead

30:11

of like, you know, staircase. Yeah,

30:14

more of a staircase. I think

30:16

that's entirely possible. I'll just throw

30:18

a potential wrench in that would

30:20

be if the Trump administration is

30:22

serious about these like really big

30:25

reforms to the financial system, to

30:27

the global trading system. this restructuring

30:29

of global trade that we've talked

30:31

about on this show, you could

30:33

see some market volatility there as

30:36

the market tries to digest what's

30:38

happening, because these might be like

30:40

changes in policy of policies that

30:42

have been in place for decades.

30:45

And my view is like, if

30:47

you see the market, if you

30:49

see the S&P down like 5

30:51

to 10% in a very brief

30:53

window of time, I think Bitcoin

30:56

sells off pretty materially. And if

30:58

it's after Bitcoin pumped pumped pumped

31:00

pumped a bunch. and then you

31:02

get some sort of headline that

31:04

people don't know how to digest.

31:07

S&P is down 8% like Bitcoin

31:09

could sell off big there. So

31:11

I'm rooting for the staircase, honestly,

31:13

that we just get like, you

31:15

know, new adoption comes in all

31:18

the time to just like get

31:20

a new floor, new floor, new

31:22

floor. But I think people should

31:24

also brace for potential volatility because

31:26

I think there's headlines that might

31:29

come out of this administration that

31:31

we might see that like we

31:33

haven't seen in my adult lifetime.

31:35

I couldn't agree with you more.

31:37

To the upset. I couldn't agree

31:40

with you more on part of

31:42

that, especially like, I think whenever

31:44

you're talking about these things, like,

31:46

yeah, if the stock market goes

31:48

through a huge volatility event, that

31:51

can throw a wrench and things.

31:53

And I think that's just a

31:55

given at any point. If we

31:57

actually saw assets which haven't really

32:00

materially crashed, and I don't really

32:02

even count COVID, because it was

32:04

really pretty brief. It was a

32:06

fantastic opportunity. but like a true

32:08

cat crashed those are wrenching things

32:11

but um You know, without that,

32:13

I think, you know, barring there

32:15

isn't an economic calamity, a world

32:17

war, blah, blah, blah. You know,

32:19

I think you do have a

32:22

pretty golden window for Bitcoin here,

32:24

where if anything, like I think

32:26

the volatility risks are to the

32:28

upside. Alex John's point here fits

32:30

into the fourth turning, the looming

32:33

sovereign debt, tensions with China, Russia,

32:35

etc. And so I do expect

32:37

massive volatility all over the place

32:39

unrelated to Bitcoin. And yes, Bitcoin

32:41

will get nuked in those situations

32:44

for sure. But when I think

32:46

about this, the optimism in my

32:48

mind is no matter what the

32:50

outcome is. If we have a

32:52

sovereign debt crisis or we don't,

32:55

or we change to a multipolar

32:57

world, China rises U.S. to clients,

32:59

I would fade that, but there's

33:01

a chance that happens. No matter

33:03

what we look at, does Bitcoin

33:06

do better on the other side

33:08

of this change? And I can't

33:10

find a scenario where Bitcoin is

33:12

worse off after a potential shake.

33:15

Agreed with that. I think the

33:17

volatility is going to come from

33:19

the fact that market participants don't

33:21

know how to respond to some

33:23

of the headlines they're seeing. So

33:26

it might be like short-term vol,

33:28

sell things, because I don't understand

33:30

what's happening, sell risk assets, meaning

33:32

stocks, Maybe there's some headline that

33:34

they think, oh, stocks should sell

33:37

off. And then like a month

33:39

later, there's like this Plaza Accord

33:41

2.0 or what's being called the

33:43

Maralago Accord. Like that happens and

33:45

that people are like, oh, wait,

33:48

the dollars being decoordinated, devalued, like

33:50

stocks should risk assets that should

33:52

pump here. So I think like

33:54

some of this, these vol events

33:56

might be short lived and I

33:59

would, obviously depends on how things

34:01

play out, but my prediction is

34:03

that. Most of all events that

34:05

happen in 2025 will be a

34:07

buying opportunity again, subject to the

34:10

details at the time, but that's

34:12

like, that's what I'm seeing for

34:14

this year. Yeah, it's interesting. So

34:16

I like, this is a topic

34:19

and I don't have my mind

34:21

made up and this is a

34:23

lot of kind of shooting from

34:25

the hip. There's been a lot

34:27

of concerns, right? Like people talk

34:30

about like, so first let me

34:32

just say. I agree with you

34:34

and like we've seen that like

34:36

even just in the tariff headlines

34:38

the trade war headlines like the

34:41

market freaked out and then it

34:43

kind of got its wits together

34:45

and you know you saw these

34:47

kind of headlines that wouldn't be

34:49

coming out of any other administration

34:52

coming out of the Trump administration

34:54

and you know I think I

34:56

think we see more of that

34:58

this year. But under like beyond

35:00

that point there's like a thing

35:03

that keeps coming up in these

35:05

discussions which is like. Well, what

35:07

if Trump's serious about reforming the

35:09

deficit? What if Trump is serious

35:11

about doge and like cutting spending

35:14

and these things? Like, isn't that,

35:16

isn't that like bad for assets?

35:18

And I get what people are

35:20

saying, you know, they're looking at

35:22

like, oh, all this money printing,

35:25

all this government stimulus and spending,

35:27

it's driving the economy, it's driving

35:29

asset prices higher. And that's of

35:31

course true. But something in me

35:34

just has, like I struggle to

35:36

think that if we actually took

35:38

this incredibly wasteful spending, which is

35:40

non-productive, which does not really effectively

35:42

cause capital formation, creates a ton

35:45

of noise in markets, and you

35:47

made that better, like I have

35:49

to think that's good, like that's

35:51

good for America, that's good for

35:53

assets, like I think it's more

35:56

of like a second order. You

35:58

no longer have like as much

36:00

of the printing as much of

36:02

the raw like inflationary stimulus. But

36:04

on the other hand I have

36:07

to think things just start to

36:09

function better and and that's bullish

36:11

in its own way. We do

36:13

have another big piece of news.

36:15

from today. State Street and City

36:18

Bank are launching crypto custody services.

36:20

Jerome Powell has been talking about

36:22

this the past couple of weeks

36:24

that banks will start to custody

36:26

crypto and you shouldn't get in

36:29

the way of allowing them to

36:31

serve clients who are legally engaging

36:33

in the industry, etc. And we

36:35

saw this with the repeal of

36:37

SAB 121 that this was going

36:40

to start happening. This is in

36:42

my opinion just another step up

36:44

for for Bitcoin in the traditional

36:46

financial industry and kind of integrating

36:49

into it. I think it's kind

36:51

of a going to be a

36:53

Trojan horse type situation. So I

36:55

think it's a good thing that

36:57

the Bitcoin's integrating into the traditional

37:00

finance system and separation of brokerage

37:02

and custody is a. crucial, you

37:04

know, sort of investor protection. It

37:06

builds trust, institutional trust, provides security

37:08

to investors, you know, the, the

37:11

idea of the regulatory compliance, etc.

37:13

While, you know, Bitcoiners, many Bitcoiners

37:15

are typically anti-state, kind of free,

37:17

more, more free markets. I think

37:19

in this case, It's a good

37:22

thing for Bitcoin to be treated

37:24

like securities and commodities and other

37:26

assets, tradable assets in this country.

37:28

And I think banks being able

37:30

to custody, Bitcoin, well, this is

37:33

part of the rails that we

37:35

need to develop for institutional adoption.

37:37

And so I think it's just

37:39

the rules of the road. It's

37:41

been that way for a long,

37:44

long time in the traditional financial

37:46

markets. You've got to separate brokerage

37:48

and custody. And, you know, who

37:50

wants to answer why? Anyway, like,

37:53

you know, I mean, I can

37:55

say it in three letters. If

37:57

you guys can guess which three

37:59

letters those are. that's going to

38:01

bring up, right? Yeah. I think

38:04

the risk here for the Bitcoin

38:06

industry is that the old school

38:08

banks mentioned above, they have a

38:10

lot of power and influence. They're

38:12

going to take custody. They're going

38:15

to issue credit against Bitcoin back

38:17

loans. There's a lot of money

38:19

to be made there. And then

38:21

they're going to very quickly whisper

38:23

into Trump's year and say, hey,

38:26

don't you think it's safer if

38:28

we custody of the Bitcoin instead

38:30

of the FTX of the world?

38:32

too big to fail. Why don't

38:34

you add a little stability to

38:37

the market and hand it over

38:39

to us? Ideally, I'm extremely against

38:41

this. That's the type of monopoly

38:43

we don't want. And so, hopefully

38:45

that doesn't occur, but it is

38:48

a real risk for the industry.

38:50

You know, I've been writing something

38:52

on this. I've got some more

38:54

work to do on the piece,

38:56

but you know, we're living through

38:59

the institutionalization of Bitcoin and I

39:01

think... Rightly so, it rubs a

39:03

lot of people the wrong way

39:05

because they're thinking like this isn't

39:08

what I got into Bitcoin for.

39:10

This isn't like what Bitcoin was

39:12

supposed to be about. It wasn't

39:14

about the banks and custodians and

39:16

regulation. And one of the themes

39:19

that I talk about in this

39:21

is just that A, you shouldn't

39:23

fight it and B. Just because

39:25

Bitcoin goes through this institutionalizing phase

39:27

doesn't mean that later on you

39:30

can't have kind of a re-

39:32

decentralizing or a reimagining of use

39:34

cases and ideas with Bitcoin. And

39:36

I think like that's my base

39:38

case. And I think there's a

39:41

lot of benefits to going through

39:43

this. I think Bitcoin grows a

39:45

lot faster, a lot more. It

39:47

reaches more people. It de-risks the

39:49

social and reputational costs that you...

39:52

incur by publicly supporting Bitcoin, it

39:54

gets more people into it. And

39:56

so it's like largely a good

39:58

thing there. And on the other

40:00

side of a, you know, a

40:03

long and wide wave of institutional

40:05

adoption. People can push for a

40:07

new movement. They can push for

40:09

new ideas and they can say,

40:11

hey, this asset that you've just

40:14

been buying in your portfolio, there's

40:16

other stuff that you can do

40:18

with it. Come follow me, we've

40:20

got some new ideas. That's possible,

40:23

and not only is that possible,

40:25

that's my base case. And so

40:27

I think you need to really

40:29

embrace this period of time where.

40:31

Bitcoin is being institutionalized. It's just

40:34

a stop along the way. It

40:36

is not the final destination. One

40:38

point I'd like to add here

40:40

is that Bitcoin does not need

40:42

the banks. It does not need

40:45

the state, but the banks and

40:47

the state absolutely do need Bitcoin.

40:49

And so let's just make sure

40:51

we have our directions correct here.

40:53

I think that's point number one.

40:56

Point number two is Okay, if

40:58

Bitcoin gets absorbed by Tradfai, does

41:00

that lead to Tradfai being able

41:02

to change the rules of Bitcoin?

41:04

Question mark, or does another risk

41:07

would be, does it get people

41:09

too comfortable in a custodial model

41:11

and they never end up learning

41:13

private key management? I think both

41:15

risks are real. I think the,

41:18

oh my gosh, the stratify is

41:20

going to change the rules. I

41:22

think that risk is actually much

41:24

lower. I don't think that, I

41:27

don't think that you want to

41:29

kill the golden goose. As soon

41:31

as you own the thing, your

41:33

incentive is to just buy it

41:35

and hold it. You make more

41:38

money that way than trying to

41:40

attack it. And I think we've

41:42

seen endless examples of people falling

41:44

in line once their incentives stare

41:46

them in the face. What happens

41:49

if we just put people to

41:51

sleep and they go straight to

41:53

ETF? They never join Swan Vault

41:55

and do even collaborative custody, right?

41:57

I think that's a real risk.

42:00

But in the back of my

42:02

mind, who, what do we think

42:04

is out there? Like, what are

42:06

people going to do? One percent

42:08

of people probably use a tour

42:11

brow. or less. I don't think

42:13

more than 1% of holders at

42:15

maturity will self-custity their Bitcoin. I

42:17

don't think more than 1% of

42:19

people will take extreme measures to

42:22

safeguard their internet privacy. I think

42:24

that's true about psychology. And so

42:26

I think the question would be,

42:28

is Bitcoin robust enough to sustain

42:30

getting absorbed by a trat-fi? And

42:33

can Bitcoin survive with only 1%

42:35

of users in self-custity? I think

42:37

the answer to both those questions

42:39

is yes, and on the 1%

42:42

of users in self-custity, I also

42:44

would like to say that that's

42:46

probably at least 30 to 50%

42:48

of the outstanding supply. So, interesting.

42:50

And the reason is Satoshi issued

42:53

half the coins in the first

42:55

four years, 25% of the coins

42:57

in the next four years, so

42:59

you're eight years in, Bitcoin is

43:01

still an internet curiosity held by

43:04

idealogues, right? And those spokes are

43:06

overwhelmingly in self-custity. And so... I

43:08

don't know if she intended that,

43:10

but our clients are overwhelmingly in

43:12

self-custity. It's like 80% of Satspot

43:15

in an average month or withdrawn.

43:17

I mean, that's an 80-20 rule

43:19

at Swan and, you know, to

43:21

the good side. That's something that

43:23

I think that might be the

43:26

case. There's a, I don't know

43:28

what the percentage might be, but

43:30

I think it's a high percentage

43:32

of current hodlers have self-custity. That's

43:34

just going to keep going to

43:37

keep going to keep going to

43:39

keep going down. That's the whole

43:41

numbers get bigger and bigger. That's

43:43

right. I just want to make

43:45

one comment here. I like Quitem's

43:48

framing of, are you worried about

43:50

some, you know, influence over forks,

43:52

like changes to the network, that

43:54

kind of thing, legit concern that

43:57

we should talk about, but separating

43:59

it from, are people just going

44:01

to stay in a custodian? And

44:03

I think that other concern of

44:05

will people just stay in a

44:08

custodian, obviously I want as many

44:10

people to do self custody of

44:12

Bitcoin as possible. to quidim's points

44:14

we have to be realistic about

44:16

what that is at any given

44:19

point in time, but in that

44:21

cat of concern, I think you

44:23

need to remember that that's not

44:25

an existential threat to Bitcoin as

44:27

a network, as a protocol. And

44:30

I'm not trying to diminish somebody

44:32

who's at a custodian that gets

44:34

rubbed like a Celsius or something

44:36

like that, but we need to

44:38

remember that Celsius going under does

44:41

not affect Bitcoin. Again, it's bad

44:43

for the people who get burned,

44:45

but like that's not a risk

44:47

of like, oh, if a Celsius

44:49

happens, then Bitcoin is dead. Right,

44:52

like that's that's a little fresh

44:54

price for a while. But yeah,

44:56

like it's not a good thing

44:58

bad for sentiment. Users might get

45:01

all that kind of stuff, but

45:03

like, Bitcoin is fine after that.

45:05

So the much bigger concern is

45:07

what could have mentioned first that

45:09

like, you know, influence over the

45:12

network in some sort of bad

45:14

way. And that's a long, long

45:16

conversation. But I just wanted to

45:18

flag like if someone, you know,

45:20

uses a custodian and the custodian

45:23

happens to rug them. It's bad

45:25

for those people, but that doesn't

45:27

take Bitcoin down as a network.

45:29

Correct. I agree. And real quick,

45:31

just Brandon, I really liked what

45:34

you said. And I honestly, I

45:36

think the right way, I think

45:38

the right question for Bitcoiners to

45:40

be asking is along the lines

45:42

of what you said. If only

45:45

one person, how can we design

45:47

and manage and run Bitcoin where

45:49

if only 1% of people do

45:51

self-custity, we're still in a good

45:53

spot? I think that is 100%

45:56

the right question to ask rather

45:58

than how do we get everybody

46:00

to do self-custity? 100% it definitely

46:02

increases the chances of some kind

46:04

of derivative, you know, inflation, you

46:07

know, paper, Bitcoin situation. That's that's

46:09

the biggest risk to me if

46:11

there's you know 95 99% of

46:13

Bitcoin holders are holding it through

46:16

some kind of proxy You know

46:18

that FCX was doing it You

46:20

know, there's I don't know it's

46:22

it'll probably be done Right? Somebody's

46:24

going to be unethical about it

46:27

and trying to get away with

46:29

it. And so that's the biggest

46:31

risk to me. The only way

46:33

to really audit the ledger is

46:35

to have complete self-custity. We're not

46:38

going to ever have that, but

46:40

that's important. And proof of reserves

46:42

as well. Yeah, I think where

46:44

we want to stress here, there's

46:46

another dimension. There's custody or self-custity.

46:49

And then you look at the

46:51

concentration risk amongst the coins that

46:53

are held in custody. Right now,

46:55

coin base is scary. They have

46:57

a huge institutional business, a large

47:00

retail business. You add it up,

47:02

they have a scary percentage about

47:04

the Bitcoin, we don't want that.

47:06

So what we want is, it's

47:08

okay if 50% of coins are

47:11

held in custody, but we want

47:13

those spread out across many jurisdictions,

47:15

many banks, right? More of a

47:17

spread out the risk, like a

47:19

free banking model, where shenanigans happens,

47:22

but the pain is isolated, right?

47:24

So we don't want coin base

47:26

to get too big to fail

47:28

and get bailed out. That's when

47:31

things get scary. I'm going to

47:33

do a shameless plug here. I

47:35

wrote an article called Will Bitcoin

47:37

follow the rise and fall of

47:39

gold and it's like this exact

47:42

topic. Will there be fractional reserve

47:44

on Bitcoin? Will it follow some

47:46

of these same paths? It's a

47:48

topic on fascinating thing because it

47:50

gets into monetary history as well

47:53

as how Bitcoin is different and

47:55

how I think things change. So

47:57

if anyone out there is listening

47:59

and you want to find that

48:01

and if you have any comments

48:04

on it and you want to

48:06

you know DME or send it

48:08

out there on Twitter, please do

48:10

And what was it called again?

48:12

Will Bitcoin follow the I think

48:15

it's I think the regular title

48:17

is will Bitcoin follow the rise

48:19

and fall of gold? Will Bitcoin

48:21

here? Will Bitcoin follow gold's monetary

48:23

rise and fall? And then the

48:26

subtitle is And a look at

48:28

Bitcoin scaling strategy, and then I

48:30

guess this is the subtitle, Bitcoin

48:32

can achieve its ultimate goal to

48:35

be a neutral base. layer of

48:37

a new monetary system for billions

48:39

of users worldwide. Awesome. What else

48:41

do we have here? We've got

48:43

a quick hit, quick hit another,

48:46

another crypto, pro-cripto guy has been

48:48

nominated for head of the CFTC.

48:50

So now we've got in the

48:52

treasury. in the CFTC and was

48:54

the other one. What's Letnik's? Commerce,

48:57

Commerce, right? Yeah, so I'll have

48:59

crypto experience. If you follow me

49:01

on Twitter, you may know that

49:03

I don't have the greatest, highest

49:05

regard for A16Z for their, simply

49:08

for their involvement in, you know,

49:10

pushing and funding a whole bunch

49:12

of shit coins. dozens, maybe a

49:14

hundred of them over the past

49:16

five or six years, and it's

49:19

just a list of failed, you

49:21

know, chicoins scams that they helped

49:23

prop up and probably, you know,

49:25

cashed out with insider coins. So

49:27

I've kind of ripped them a

49:30

little bit on Twitter for those

49:32

reasons, but you know, here's yet

49:34

another pro-scripto guy in the administration.

49:36

It's all lining up. And back

49:38

to your earlier comment, I do

49:41

think I think the Abu Dhabi

49:43

news gets some wheels turning in

49:45

the dialogues in the US. I

49:47

think you can't overlook that. And

49:50

I think it also gives the

49:52

green light for the next country

49:54

to announce it may not be

49:56

the US, right? I think there

49:58

are other players and I think

50:01

it's a lot easier to be

50:03

second rather than to be first

50:05

with something like this. All right,

50:07

another quick hit. We've got nine

50:09

companies now. with over a trillion

50:12

dollars in market cap. And 10

50:14

years ago, there were none. I

50:16

think it's crazy because I just

50:18

I remember the pipe and the

50:20

coverage when you know one or

50:23

two of these I think who

50:25

was the first one was it

50:27

Apple I want to say it

50:29

was Apple was the first one

50:31

to hit a trillion there was

50:34

just like really big deal and

50:36

now we've got nine that are

50:38

past a trillion we've got what

50:40

is that five that are past

50:42

two trillion and three that are

50:45

above three trillion I mean part

50:47

of this is these are possibly

50:49

drive this kind of inflation in

50:51

these the prices of these companies

50:53

have they just created so much

50:56

new value in the past 10

50:58

years that their market caps have

51:00

two three four x so yeah

51:02

I mean we do have to

51:05

give them some credit right these

51:07

are dominant companies that are producing

51:09

real things they have real users

51:11

they're just they're dominant but part

51:13

of this is obviously inflation I

51:16

would say part of it is

51:18

inflation, but part of it is

51:20

that people are using any Bitcoiners

51:22

going to know and appreciate this.

51:24

Part of this is that people

51:27

use these assets generally through ETFs

51:29

as a savings vehicle, because they're

51:31

forced to do so. So now

51:33

you have the whole rise of

51:35

passive investing. People take a portion

51:38

of their paycheck and just put

51:40

it in SPY or QQ, whatever

51:42

it is. That's fueling a lot

51:44

of this. You know, two things

51:46

can be true at the same

51:49

time. They are dominant companies that

51:51

have real business models, real clients,

51:53

but you have to also attribute

51:55

some of this to inflation and

51:57

the monetary premium that these assets

52:00

have. Right. There's a, and the

52:02

fact that there's no store value

52:04

property in the dollar anymore. Yeah.

52:06

Yeah. So we're going to store

52:09

our value in tech company stocks

52:11

in real estate. That's what's happened.

52:13

I mean they these these tech

52:15

stocks are the store value you

52:17

know in them in the modern

52:20

financial system that's for both America

52:22

and international investors. Be a real

52:24

shame if there was a non-sovere

52:26

and digital store value asset that

52:28

came in and disrupted all that.

52:31

Interesting idea. Yeah. All right. So

52:33

there we go. We got a

52:35

CPI numbers. Speaking of inflation, the

52:37

January 2025 CPI report, major components,

52:39

year-over-year change. Transportation leads the way

52:42

with 8% inflation. a year over

52:44

year from January 2025, gas utilities

52:46

at 4.9, shelter at 4.4, and

52:48

we go down to the deflation

52:50

in fuel oil at minus 5.3%,

52:53

there's three of these major components,

52:55

gasoline, new cars, and fuel oil,

52:57

all related to one another, are

52:59

down year over year. And what's

53:01

interesting is, what's transportation? We're gasoline

53:04

new cars and fuel oil. down,

53:06

what is transportation mean up 8%?

53:08

That like, can we, planes, planes,

53:10

buses and I think shipping? Shipping

53:12

would be a big one. So

53:15

yeah, John, you wanted to get

53:17

this chart in the mix here,

53:19

so I'll toss it over to

53:21

you. Yeah, I'll just say real

53:24

quick, you know, CPI data gets

53:26

reported once a month for the

53:28

prior month, so this is January

53:30

as the chart is titled there.

53:32

It was just released on Wednesday.

53:35

People talk about it a lot.

53:37

It's part of, you know, the

53:39

Fed's mandate. So CPI just printed

53:41

3% year over year. That is

53:43

clearly above the Fed's target of,

53:46

you know, 2%. They don't even

53:48

look at CPI specifically. They look

53:50

at something else called TCE, but

53:52

the average person looks at CPI

53:54

as the measure of inflation in

53:57

the economy. So it's just a

53:59

data point that. what generally people

54:01

look at for inflation is higher

54:03

than, you know, what the Fed

54:05

generally targets. If you look at

54:08

what the market is pricing in

54:10

for rate cuts or just rate

54:12

movements, they don't think that a

54:14

rate cut is coming until potentially

54:16

June or July or later. We're

54:19

not really big on this show

54:21

of like being Fedhawks and oh

54:23

my God, they cut by 25%

54:25

that's going to move markets dramatically.

54:27

We kind of fade that mentality,

54:30

but in terms of macro, we

54:32

just wanted to highlight it. It

54:34

comes out once a month. year-over-year

54:36

CPI in the US the official

54:39

number out of the BLS is

54:41

3% Yeah, and this you know

54:43

like surprise some people came in

54:45

hot You know, we're in that

54:47

when was this the first CPI

54:50

of the Trump administration? Yeah, and

54:52

this one's for the month of

54:54

January. So, you know, technically it

54:56

was a if Trump Trump officially

54:58

started January 20th, you know, he

55:01

had a, it was a mixed

55:03

mud for who was technically president,

55:05

but, um, yeah, for, first date

55:07

or release within Trump's presidency. Interesting.

55:09

It's ultimately the market shook this

55:12

stuff off, I think, as the,

55:14

what really caught my attention about

55:16

this is, we just took it

55:18

in stride. Let's take

55:20

a look at, we've got

55:22

two topics left on the

55:25

agenda here. I also think

55:27

that people don't have, we're

55:29

going to start out this

55:31

one with the Dahlia video.

55:33

Adequate amount of gold in

55:35

their portfolio. In other words,

55:37

gold, if you didn't have

55:39

a view of the market,

55:41

like the gold market, it's

55:43

a very effective diversifier. So

55:45

I think that having something

55:47

in the vicinity of 10%...

55:49

or maybe a little more

55:51

10 to 15% in the

55:53

portfolio is worth giving some

55:55

thought to. And when I

55:57

say gold, you know, some

55:59

people might say, did you...

56:01

currency and so on. I

56:03

own some digital currency, I

56:05

own some Bitcoin too. But

56:08

in other words, debt is

56:10

money and money is debt

56:13

and we have a

56:15

problem. We have a

56:17

supply to man problem

56:19

with it. And so

56:22

a good diversifier for

56:24

a typical portfolio

56:27

is that. Notice that he said,

56:29

you know, when I say gold, I mean,

56:31

also mean digital assets, and he

56:34

said, and I have some Bitcoin too,

56:36

right? So what does that mean? If

56:38

you reverse it, it's into the meme

56:40

that we post pretty much every

56:42

day on the Swan, the Swan

56:44

Twitter handle, Bitcoin, not crypto. Separation

56:47

of the two ideas. I love

56:49

that he, in his mind, is

56:51

separating digital assets and Bitcoin. That

56:53

is a good sign. So, and then

56:56

the other one is, is debt is money,

56:58

money is debt. I know Stephen and John

57:00

have been kind of going back and forth

57:02

in this idea and I would love to sit

57:04

on the sidelines with some popcorn for

57:06

this one. Okay, so this one honestly

57:09

is like economic definitions, like if we

57:11

really wanted to get into it would

57:13

take way too long and I think

57:16

most people would be bored by it. So

57:18

I will just say I'm a big believer

57:20

in that money is a distinct thing from

57:22

debt. By definition, money, I'm

57:24

talking base money, not your bank

57:26

deposit. Your bank deposit is debt.

57:29

Your bank owes you that. I would argue

57:31

money is an instrument where no one

57:33

is owed something. When you hold

57:35

Bitcoin, when you hold gold, even

57:37

when you hold fiat currency, there

57:40

is no borrower-lender relationship. There are

57:42

some counterpoints to this if you

57:44

use debt in like a wider

57:46

universal context, but it gets into

57:49

semantics a little bit. I will just

57:51

say the reason I get fired up

57:53

about this, it's not just me debating

57:55

semantics, is the MMT community

57:57

uses this to kind of

57:59

justify. some of their own thinking.

58:01

They burn. Push the idea that

58:03

like all money is debt, no

58:05

matter what type of money, it's

58:08

all debt. So they're just like,

58:10

and that allows them to end

58:12

up in a place where they're

58:14

like, yeah, so the government can

58:16

just print a bunch of tokens,

58:18

it's all dead, you know, everything,

58:20

the occurrence is a liability to

58:23

state. And it gets them into

58:25

a lot of what I think

58:27

are flawed conclusions. Like I said,

58:29

I think most, this is not

58:31

a topic near and dear to

58:33

most people's hearts. So, I don't

58:35

know how much time we should

58:38

spend on this. Well, if it's

58:40

near and dear to any groups,

58:42

in my few big winners in

58:44

finance nerds, Stephen. Yeah, I mean,

58:46

this was, the way this conversation

58:48

came is, was more just like,

58:50

there was, someone we both know

58:52

that made a comment about money

58:55

being debt and, I, I, I,

58:57

it's not so much my stance.

58:59

I'm not so much arguing that,

59:01

but we were having a conversation.

59:03

I like, I get why they're

59:05

saying it, but they're saying it

59:07

kind of in a different way.

59:10

And just the way I was

59:12

trying to explain like why they

59:14

say that is not so much

59:16

that it is, and this is

59:18

where it gets kind of, I

59:20

think it is misused. And I

59:22

agree with John that they conflate

59:25

formal debt where there is actually

59:27

like a balance sheet liability like

59:29

there's actually like money has been

59:31

lent or something and that's not

59:33

what they mean although I think

59:35

they use like an equivocation to

59:37

kind of handwave between that definition

59:39

and the other one when this

59:42

gets said the way I can

59:44

understand it is they're saying that

59:46

money is a claim on future

59:48

resources that that is like it's

59:50

nature when you have money what

59:52

you have is a claim on

59:54

future work future resources future labor

59:57

you can exchange that money for

59:59

work and labor and things and

1:00:01

value and so in that sense,

1:00:03

it exists as some sort of

1:00:05

like perpetual durationless, universal claim. And

1:00:07

so they go from that and

1:00:09

they say, okay, so money is

1:00:12

a form of debt, but it

1:00:14

doesn't translate well to like the

1:00:16

conventional type where there is a

1:00:18

liability, there's an issue where there's

1:00:20

a counterparty, like yeah, none of

1:00:22

that exists, or at least it

1:00:24

shouldn't exist in good forms of

1:00:26

money. You can obviously have forms

1:00:29

of money. that are collateralized by

1:00:31

debt and as such do have

1:00:33

those qualities. But I'm a little

1:00:35

sympathetic, like I'm a little sympathetic

1:00:37

to the kind of line of

1:00:39

reasoning that says, well, if it's

1:00:41

kind of a universal claim, is

1:00:44

that not dent-ish? What is the

1:00:46

closer thing that you would qualify

1:00:48

the the nature as? And I

1:00:50

get how they get there, but

1:00:52

again, I think the thing me

1:00:54

and John really agree on is

1:00:56

They then equivocate between that and

1:00:59

like conventional debt. They say the

1:01:01

two are the same and therefore

1:01:03

there's no difference between debt and

1:01:05

money. And there is clearly a

1:01:07

difference between debt and money. So

1:01:09

we got to get Ray Dallio

1:01:11

on the show to explain what

1:01:13

he meant by that statement. That's

1:01:16

our takeaway. All right, we'll get

1:01:18

Rayon. Stay tuned everybody. All right,

1:01:20

last one for the day here

1:01:22

is the Mempool cleared. For the

1:01:24

first time in. two years or

1:01:26

so. For those of you watching

1:01:28

who may not know what the

1:01:31

Mempool is, this is where transactions

1:01:33

that you send out, you broadcast

1:01:35

out to the peer-to-peer network sit

1:01:37

and wait to be included in

1:01:39

a block. This right here, this

1:01:41

graphic shows that from Mempool. Space,

1:01:43

which is a great place to

1:01:45

watch what's going on in the

1:01:48

Mempool, shows that there's... Less than

1:01:50

one block's worth of transactions waiting

1:01:52

to be included in the next

1:01:54

block. We're about six blocks deep

1:01:56

now. from when that happened. There's

1:01:58

4,242 transactions according to my Desktop

1:02:00

Widget that are waiting to be

1:02:03

included in blocks. So it's starting

1:02:05

to fill back up again a

1:02:07

little bit, but this is interesting.

1:02:09

I know Marty Bent has and

1:02:11

Matt O'Dell has gone around and

1:02:13

around about this over the years,

1:02:15

whether or not this will actually

1:02:18

happen, that it does always clear

1:02:20

at some point. And if it

1:02:22

does, what does it mean? Is

1:02:24

it a cause for concern? I

1:02:26

did have one person come up

1:02:28

to me in New York at

1:02:30

the Swan Salon event and said

1:02:32

he was worried about Bitcoin's security

1:02:35

budget if the Mempool can continue

1:02:37

to clear and that we're seeing

1:02:39

a drop in the usage of

1:02:41

Bitcoin. What do you guys think

1:02:43

about the Mempool clearing for the

1:02:45

first time in a couple of

1:02:47

years, especially in the middle of

1:02:50

what we assume and have been

1:02:52

calling a bullmarket? that started last,

1:02:54

about this time, last year before

1:02:56

the having. I'll offer up a

1:02:58

quickish take and I'll just say

1:03:00

first that there are a lot

1:03:02

of different opinions on this. I'm

1:03:05

not trying to say that what

1:03:07

I'm about to say is the

1:03:09

final word on this, but my

1:03:11

view of this is like, this

1:03:13

is showing that demand for block

1:03:15

space at this particular point in

1:03:17

time is relatively low. That's another

1:03:19

way of saying, you know, why

1:03:22

did the memo will clear? I

1:03:24

think it just highlights the fact

1:03:26

that we're in the stage or

1:03:28

the phase where Bitcoin is excelling

1:03:30

as a store of value asset.

1:03:32

Like that's what people generally want

1:03:34

to use it for. If you

1:03:37

see Bitcoin starting to be used

1:03:39

much more for transactions, whether that's

1:03:41

large or small, just Bitcoin changing

1:03:43

hands on chain transactions, then you

1:03:45

would see more demand for block

1:03:47

space and that dynamic supply demand

1:03:49

market market would bid up... the

1:03:52

price of getting those transactions through.

1:03:54

So to me this is just

1:03:56

evidence that we're in the store

1:03:58

of value phase. I think that

1:04:00

is. that makes sense to me.

1:04:02

We're not there yet for payments.

1:04:04

That's what this says to me.

1:04:06

Yeah, I think that's right. You

1:04:09

know, it's, Bitcoin is being used

1:04:11

as a store of value. And

1:04:13

I think the biggest takeaway from

1:04:15

this is that the kind of

1:04:17

emergency scaling procedures, it's kind of

1:04:19

a weak argument, right? Like we're

1:04:21

not. We're really not in an

1:04:24

environment where we have a real

1:04:26

shortage of capacity. It's not to

1:04:28

say that one day we won't

1:04:30

get there and it's not to

1:04:32

say that you don't need to

1:04:34

front run that. But Bitcoin is

1:04:36

succeeding as a store of value

1:04:39

and the network has enough capacity

1:04:41

for that currently. You know, we

1:04:43

need to keep an eye on

1:04:45

it. You know I think a

1:04:47

lot of the a lot of

1:04:49

the capacity gets delivered off chain

1:04:51

though I mean that's the thing

1:04:53

is so much of the demand

1:04:56

the movement it gets handled by

1:04:58

custodians and I mean how Finney

1:05:00

said as much in the early

1:05:02

days like this isn't an anomaly

1:05:04

the market has found an efficient

1:05:06

way to deliver throughput without too

1:05:08

many changes happening to the base

1:05:11

network so I think of anything

1:05:13

this. Cool's maybe some of the

1:05:15

urgency that some people have said

1:05:17

of like a desperate need to

1:05:19

scale the transaction capacity rapidly. Couple

1:05:21

things on this one for my

1:05:23

end. So I think it's also

1:05:25

fair. Oh, I agree. It's sort

1:05:28

of value time. It's not even

1:05:30

exchange time. I also think it's

1:05:32

fair that retail FOMO feels significantly

1:05:34

less as a percentage of the

1:05:36

market right now than previous cycles.

1:05:38

I think institutions are in charge

1:05:40

of the price. a lot of

1:05:43

the flows are going that way,

1:05:45

so that's not too surprising. I

1:05:47

also think the major, like why

1:05:49

did the Menpool clear now? I

1:05:51

don't think that's really that related

1:05:53

to store value. medium exchange or

1:05:55

new buyers. It's mostly because the

1:05:58

ordinals, ruins, and other type of

1:06:00

L2 hype sort of just faded

1:06:02

away, hopefully forever, but at least

1:06:04

for right now. And that consumes

1:06:06

a lot of the block space.

1:06:08

Now, if we go back to

1:06:10

arguments we hear constantly, some of

1:06:12

them circular, so fees too high,

1:06:15

Bitcoin can't be money too expensive.

1:06:17

Fees too low, Bitcoin cannot be

1:06:19

secure. Right, so you go around

1:06:21

and around on the Bitcoin haters

1:06:23

with these two. I think Bitcoin

1:06:25

fees are too high, can't be

1:06:27

money. I think that argument's mostly

1:06:30

behind us. We've accepted L2s, what

1:06:32

those L2s are a lightning, and

1:06:34

arc or institutional players. The fee

1:06:36

is too low, cannot be secure

1:06:38

long term, mostly coming out of

1:06:40

the eith crowd, of which I

1:06:42

would say, hey, eath rows, why

1:06:45

don't you go paddle your own

1:06:47

canoe? you're in bad shape over

1:06:49

there, I don't know what your

1:06:51

stones over here for, calling me

1:06:53

the decade. And if I would

1:06:55

take their argument a little bit

1:06:57

more seriously, I think a good

1:06:59

way to think about block space

1:07:02

is that it is a fixed

1:07:04

commodity, fixed supply commodity, it roughly,

1:07:06

we might make minor technological improvements

1:07:08

to stuff more transactions in there,

1:07:10

but it's more or less fixed,

1:07:12

let's just say 500 on-chain transactions

1:07:14

per day. It's roughly that. That's

1:07:17

a lot of transactions in 2013,

1:07:19

right, when people still thought it

1:07:21

was going to be free forever

1:07:23

because they didn't extrapolate very far.

1:07:25

But 500K on-chain transactions is not

1:07:27

a lot if you start looking

1:07:29

at a global store value asset,

1:07:32

$10 trillion, $20 trillion or more.

1:07:34

And so all it takes is

1:07:36

demand for those transactions to cross

1:07:38

some little threshold that all of

1:07:40

a sudden the price of box

1:07:42

space approaches infinity, because the supply

1:07:44

of block space cannot And so

1:07:46

I do not see this as

1:07:49

a concern now or in the

1:07:51

future because if Bitcoin can't sustain

1:07:53

fire 500k transactions on chain in

1:07:55

10 years or 20 years, Bitcoin

1:07:57

was always going to fail. And

1:07:59

so there's no screeching worth it

1:08:01

right now that we need to

1:08:04

worry about. And I do think

1:08:06

John's point on transitioning to a

1:08:08

medium of exchange later does start

1:08:10

to put a bunch of organic

1:08:12

pressure on chain. And I think

1:08:14

that that is true. Yeah, that's

1:08:16

my take. Yeah, all great comments

1:08:19

and thoughts. The only one I

1:08:21

would add is that. you know

1:08:23

ETFs for instance an exchange activity

1:08:25

is sort of a way to

1:08:27

scale Bitcoin I mean obviously it's

1:08:29

their their proxies but those transactions

1:08:31

that are happening are not happening

1:08:33

on chain because they're all their

1:08:36

batch and I remember you know

1:08:38

back in the day you know

1:08:40

six seven years ago or something

1:08:42

I got it was a huge

1:08:44

deal to call out on exchanges

1:08:46

to start batching transactions as a

1:08:48

way to help scale Bitcoin because

1:08:51

they were just like every transaction

1:08:53

was going on chain instead of

1:08:55

you know, putting them all together

1:08:57

and putting them in one big

1:08:59

transaction, which saved way, you know,

1:09:01

tons of space. So, and, you

1:09:03

know, they must be bashing transactions

1:09:05

at Black Rock. And if that's

1:09:08

happening and people are wanting to

1:09:10

get exposure to Bitcoin Price through

1:09:12

an ETF, for instance, then all

1:09:14

that stuff is trading and then,

1:09:16

you know, they'll settle to the

1:09:18

blockchain once a day or something

1:09:20

like that was one big transaction.

1:09:23

So that's another thing that's happening

1:09:25

to keep an eye on as

1:09:27

a reason why Mempool might. decrease

1:09:29

when Bitcoin usage is actually still

1:09:31

going up. All right, we have

1:09:33

one more. Little thing that John

1:09:35

just threw here in the into

1:09:38

the chat. So let me get

1:09:40

this pulled up. It's not that

1:09:42

one, but let's see, let's try

1:09:44

this. Here we go. All right,

1:09:46

John. Little Valentine's message from the

1:09:48

ECB. This is a real tweet.

1:09:50

This is not. us making a

1:09:52

joke that ECB actually sent out

1:09:55

a little Valentine's day rhyme here.

1:09:57

Roses are red for the listeners.

1:09:59

Roses are red, violets are blue.

1:10:01

Inflation is on track to settle

1:10:03

around two. That comes from the

1:10:05

ECB. You sure about that? Yeah,

1:10:07

that's some wishful thinking on their

1:10:10

part. I'm also reminded of a

1:10:12

chart. This is a phenomenal chart.

1:10:14

It was posted in 2022 or

1:10:16

2021. When we had the big

1:10:18

inflation spike around the world, they

1:10:20

showed like every country's. inflation rate

1:10:22

and then what was the consensus

1:10:25

for where it would go in

1:10:27

the next 12 months and basically

1:10:29

economists all just draw a line

1:10:31

from wherever it is to 2%

1:10:33

like there's no like insight they're

1:10:35

not like evaluating fundamentals they're like

1:10:37

oh it's at four it's gonna

1:10:39

go to two oh it's at

1:10:42

eight it's gonna go to two

1:10:44

and then you saw the actual

1:10:46

line of where it went and

1:10:48

it was like most of the

1:10:50

time at least in inflation spikes

1:10:52

like not following that line they

1:10:54

said anyway this is like what

1:10:57

the ECB wants to be true,

1:10:59

this is what they tell you

1:11:01

is going to happen. So I

1:11:03

just thought it was hilarious. Number

1:11:05

one, that they're trying to be

1:11:07

funny on Valentine's Day, and that

1:11:09

this is how they chose to

1:11:12

do it. It's ridiculous. Two quick

1:11:14

points on this one. What was

1:11:16

happening inside the ECB that led

1:11:18

to that tweet? Right. Are they

1:11:20

like... This is Elon's arrow. We

1:11:22

got a hire a 22-year-old with

1:11:24

an A-not account, like big balls.

1:11:26

Put him on the account. We've

1:11:29

got him. I would love to

1:11:31

know that story. Number two, your

1:11:33

comment about drawing straight lines to

1:11:35

end up where they want to

1:11:37

go with their predictions is a

1:11:39

beautiful summary of what's wrong with

1:11:41

central banking as an entire institution

1:11:44

and central planning in general. And

1:11:46

I think one way to think

1:11:48

about it is that central planner

1:11:50

types are bankers among them. They

1:11:52

would like to believe that the

1:11:54

economy is a complicated system. which

1:11:56

means you just need to be

1:11:59

smart digest the variables do some

1:12:01

math equations and you can predict

1:12:03

how the system will respond however

1:12:05

the economy is not a complicated

1:12:07

system. The economy is a complex

1:12:09

system, which means you cannot predict

1:12:11

the variables and it's too complicated

1:12:13

for you to even assess what

1:12:16

will happen. And so the economy

1:12:18

is complex. They treat it as

1:12:20

a complicated system and then unintended

1:12:22

consequences continue. So that's where Bitcoin

1:12:24

fits in. Bitcoin accepts the fact

1:12:26

that the economy is a complex

1:12:28

system. It does not try to.

1:12:31

steer the economy, Bitcoin adapts and

1:12:33

responds to the market's demands, and

1:12:35

it responds in a way that

1:12:37

doesn't change its core economic parameters.

1:12:39

So what does that mean? It

1:12:41

means that the economy actually shifts

1:12:43

around Bitcoin, and that gives us

1:12:45

more long-term stability in the economy.

1:12:48

However, it also brings us a

1:12:50

little bit of short-term price stability

1:12:52

in the currency. So Fiat says,

1:12:54

okay, fine, we'll manipulate this thing

1:12:56

all the time. we'll keep your

1:12:58

currency relatively stable. However, we accept

1:13:00

enormous blowups, massive catastrophes because we

1:13:03

just hide the risk through intervention

1:13:05

and then it all blows up.

1:13:07

Bitcoin's the opposite. It says, hey,

1:13:09

we're gonna accept short-term price volatility

1:13:11

on Bitcoin. However, if there's any

1:13:13

sort of risk in the system,

1:13:15

it's realized immediately settled immediately. In

1:13:18

which case, the risk of giant

1:13:20

economic catastrophes goes way down. So

1:13:22

we get a little bit more

1:13:24

systemic stability. on the other end.

1:13:26

Nice. Great breakdown. Any final words,

1:13:28

guys, before we sign off for

1:13:30

today? Shout out, Max in the

1:13:32

chat for recognizing this shirt, and

1:13:35

then also shout out Vinny, who

1:13:37

said four is around two. Right.

1:13:39

Yeah, and there's a call out

1:13:41

to you here, Stephen. He said,

1:13:43

you know, I think Stephen, this

1:13:45

is, this looks like a green

1:13:47

tea to me. So I'm getting

1:13:50

a call from NBC, NBC, guys.

1:13:52

I'm gonna take it. name drop.

1:13:54

See you? See you just cool

1:13:56

guys like that? He totally did.

1:13:58

As I was trying to roast

1:14:00

him, he just like threw it

1:14:02

right back at me. Um, yeah,

1:14:05

shout out. Jackson's calling, I better

1:14:07

not. Ray Dally was calling me,

1:14:09

I gotta run, guys. He heard

1:14:11

the one on the show. President

1:14:13

Musk on the phone, here we

1:14:15

go. Press it. I was just

1:14:17

going to shout out Vinny for

1:14:19

making that comment. Four is a

1:14:22

round two. You know, the ECB

1:14:24

said a round two. Who knows

1:14:26

what that means or could be

1:14:28

anything. They hedgedered, they hedged themselves.

1:14:30

That's so good. And Governor Trudeau

1:14:32

keeps texting me. My final thought

1:14:34

is right. I looked at coinmarket

1:14:37

cap.com today, and I noticed an

1:14:39

interesting number at the top, which

1:14:41

was that there's now over 11

1:14:43

million cryptos that coin market cap

1:14:45

puts on their page. So we're

1:14:47

doing great guys. Guess what? Two

1:14:49

thirds of those 11 million market

1:14:52

cap is Bitcoin. Yeah. Bitcoin's worth

1:14:54

twice as much as the 11.

1:14:56

Two million other coins combined. I'm

1:15:00

just glad that we could help

1:15:02

Stephen get his thoughts together before

1:15:04

MS NBC, or CMBC, sorry, CMBC.

1:15:06

All right, thanks, Gents, until next

1:15:08

Friday, 11 a.m. Pacific, 2 p.m.

1:15:10

Eastern, thanks everyone for joining in.

1:15:12

We had a fun time today.

1:15:15

We had a slow week until

1:15:17

today, a bunch of news dropped.

1:15:19

We covered it at all, Wisconsin's

1:15:21

pension fun, Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth

1:15:23

fund, State Street and Citibank, are

1:15:25

gonna custody, talked about the realized

1:15:27

cap, CPI, gold and Bitcoin trillion

1:15:29

dollar companies popping up and you

1:15:32

know out of out of nowhere

1:15:34

because inflation is high and people

1:15:36

are using those equities as a

1:15:38

store value. Tons of great stuff.

1:15:40

Join us again next week for

1:15:42

more signal here on Swan Signal

1:15:44

Live and check out Swan. I'll

1:15:46

take a quick look here. We've

1:15:49

got a card, a Bitcoin rewards

1:15:51

credit card. that will be dropping

1:15:53

sometime in Q2, hopefully early Q2.

1:15:55

So go over to swan.com/card and

1:15:57

get priority access. Get on the

1:15:59

list there and we'll keep you

1:16:01

updated about the details of the

1:16:04

card and that will drop. Head

1:16:06

over to your app store and

1:16:08

just type in swan Bitcoin. Grab

1:16:10

the swan app. If friends and

1:16:12

family are looking to get into

1:16:14

Bitcoin, they're finally ready. Just download

1:16:16

the swan app, have them download

1:16:18

it while you're standing next to

1:16:21

them. They can get. set up

1:16:23

and start buying Bitcoin in two

1:16:25

minutes. And it's a great onboarding

1:16:27

process. Super simple and really just

1:16:29

a delightful experience. So check that

1:16:31

out. Also check out Swan IRA.

1:16:33

You can buy real Bitcoin and

1:16:35

put it into your IRA, not

1:16:38

proxies is not an I-bit situation.

1:16:40

You're actually getting real Bitcoin. You

1:16:42

can put it in your IRA

1:16:44

and grow it with a tax

1:16:46

advantage status that IRAs confer. Can

1:16:48

also go beyond legacy finance with

1:16:50

Swan Private. Stephen is a head

1:16:52

of Swan Private. John is a

1:16:55

managing director of Swan Private. And

1:16:57

you can find videos of our

1:16:59

clients here talking about Swan Private

1:17:01

and about Swan Private and about

1:17:03

IRA at the top of each

1:17:05

of these pages. And then we

1:17:07

also have Swan Vaults and that

1:17:10

is Adam Back who was cited

1:17:12

in the Bitcoin White Paper, absolute

1:17:14

legend. There's Linalden talking about Swan

1:17:16

Vaults. Gives you full control over

1:17:18

your Bitcoin but you don't have

1:17:20

to go it alone. It is

1:17:22

a collaborative self-custity solution. Again, super

1:17:24

amazing onboarding, in my opinion, the

1:17:27

best in the industry. So thank

1:17:29

you so much for checking us

1:17:31

out and check out Swan at

1:17:33

swan.com. And we will be back

1:17:35

next week here on Swan signal

1:17:37

live. We appreciate you all. Thanks

1:17:39

again. We had tons of people

1:17:41

in the live stream today, which

1:17:44

is very exciting. All right, take

1:17:46

care everyone.