BITCOIN: Market Cycles, ETFs, and Nation State Adoption | Willy Woo x Archie Podcast | E004 Y25

I really appreciate you coming on, especially at, uh, such short notice and that the time zones are a bloody mess. Uh, when I looked that up, because you know I'm I'm from Melbourne, right? So it's not it's not that far, but and you guys are what a couple of hours, two or three hours further along. Yeah. I'm in New Zealand at the moment. So, normally I was expecting you to say 2 hours time yet, but you're in in England, UK time or something.

Yeah. Well, people get confused about where I'm from because they can't quite place my accent, or the people who can think I'm still in Australia. They don't realize where I live. Um, and it's I mean last cycle I was doing a lot of spaces, and so that's the only reference point people have is my voice, and they don't really know where I am unless unless you're really paying attention to like my tweets and my [ __ ] posts and whatever. You don't really know where I am. Um, but yeah, I've I'm I'm in London. I've been in London all along. So, it's like trying to organize this has been a bit um when I had a look at the time zones, I'm like, this is possibly the worst combination of two time zones to coordinate, because there's like a 4-hour window either side.

Yeah, it's it's okay. It's okay, you know, cuz we, you know, we do business um in Hong Kong. I'm currently in New Zealand. We there's in Switzerland as well, or we're partners from a private bank, and then if the call happens to be in America, man, that just covers every hour, every zone. And so it's always someone draws 4:00 a.m. or something stupid. Um, so this is okay. I I always um every time I watch a Willy Woo interview, you're always at in some obscure place with a with a with a strange background, and I'm like, what is this guy up to? What is he doing? They may get my little pink ugly ribs from my daughter. This is my This is her This is her aunt um sort of with And it's Anyway, it's a cute thing. Uh, what you see here are skateboards, longboards, and what you see back there is a piece of Bitcoin artwork that I collected in this Vegas and Tone Vayas's um unconfiscatable uh conference. I have to go to his uh conference. I've I've met I met him when he came to London um when I was still an on and uh really enjoyed his company. Seems like a really good company. Um, and I want to go to his conference. I was going to, he did invite me to docs at his conference, but I'm like, I think I'll just wait till I launch a podcast, you know?

Right. I think on a long like they say on a long enough time frame, uh, we all become podcast bros, don't we? So, it's like here we are to I'm ready to do that. So, like, hey, I'm definitely not I'm definitely not gonna do a podcast. The only reason you became a Bitcoiner and raised all these funds and managing investments is to become a podcast bro. It's that's that's become a podcast bro. You're going to become a I'm trying to reduce them, right? I think I've been quite successful because, you know, we had the kids and like been off the scene for 3 years, but I'm turning most of them down because I don't want the the prominence um to be honest like because it's becoming um you know, it's an OPEC issue as this becomes mainstream. I want to be less and less known um and I want to be more known. So, I I don't think it's the right decision to be public.

Um, can we can we talk about that a little bit because it's something I've um I've wrestled with since I started this account and really up until last cycle, there weren't really many people within the Bitcoin space who had large profiles. But suddenly, you know, like when I first started, um, it was I was f I started following the scene around about August, June, July, August of 2020. But I started the account started posting in uh January the 2nd, 2021. At that time, I think the biggest accounts in the space were maybe anywhere from 40 to 80, maybe 100,000, right? and and I think Pomp probably was the biggest of them all, but everybody everybody who had a bit of a footprint probably 10xed in the last cycle.

Yeah. And I wonder did but but you you did much more than that. You and Plan B in particular just went astronomical through the roof. You know, you both broke a million. I think you were the first You guys and Pomp were the first to break a million followers on Twitter.

Definitely not the first, but yeah, we we definitely probably, you know, accelerated the most. I I mean I mean I I just did it for commercial reasons because I knew I was going to launch in the newsletter and I just launched on Twitter and so I just said look if I break I don't know what the number was um a certain number like 100,000 150 whatever the number was I can't remember I will then launch a letter and so I just post it that's like you know the algo right you just post every day and then and then it ticks up um cuz I'm not a post everyday guy. Um, and you know, broke that and then launched the letter and then did the podcast and then the whole thing blows up, you know, cuz like you could see plan B going boom boom boom boom. There was steamrolling coming up out of nowhere and then I started doing this thing to launch newsletter and then we were neck and neck and then he he blew up actually at the end. He doubled 2xed he went to two almost I think two million or 1.4 4 million or anyway, it was just crazy. But like um but since then um after that bull cycle, I've been um basically um neglecting the account. I was even going to get off of Twitter. Um but it was all just to launch a letter. Um and nowadays, you know, you can see I post once every few weeks. Don't do the podcasts because I'm not going to play the this particular game. Um, and yeah, I I just I don't I don't think it's the I don't think it's the right um choice right now. Um, for me at least, you know, it's different, but like I don't know. You know, I had this discussion with Daniel Basson, right? You you there's going to be you say Bitcoin breaks a million, 10 million. Look, 10, 15 years from now, uh we unless someone solves the custody issue, um we're going to um you know, everyone who's held Bitcoin publicly known are just low hanging fruits for a wrench attack. You know, it doesn't even need to be much probably. They don't want to like they wouldn't want to target someone that's super super wealthy. They just want to know you hold self-custody Bitcoin and as long as it's between 100,000 and 500,000 I think that'd be a nice sweet spot. I'd go for you. Um and yeah, like it's, you know, like solving the custody issue. We we as Bitcoiners talk about solving um the self custody because everyone's buying ETFs or leaving on the exchange but there's a problem also if you self custody then you've got this wrench attack issue and so someone needs to solve a kind of a it's a little bit like feedment you need to solve where the you have you have a key, but you can't actually withdraw um because it's it's sitting with all these other parties and it's like trying to attack a bank um ultimately. Um so, and I don't know what those processes are. Maybe it needs to reflect that like the person that's withdrawing needs um yeah, I don't know what the solution is yet. Um, but I I think yeah, there's definitely have an issue.

Um, how do you think the hype cycle last time changed the scene? Because I wasn't around pre mid-2020 and we had an influx of people. I was part of that. I was I consider myself to be the early majority, not an early adult. Not even Yeah. not even a late early adopter. I think I was part of the early majority and I think we've we're just sliding up on that scurve adoption that we're about to see the majority and then the late majority in the next four to eight years. But how do you how do you think it changed the scene just on Twitter alone in terms of conversation the dynamic? because I I think when I entered the space I I felt a lot of gatekeeping that I didn't just disregarded completely. Um but I I saw other people who were subjected to that. Um but interested in your your view of how you think the scene changed this the culture of Bitcoin on Twitter. How do you think that changed?

I mean it's gone through a lot um in the early days. on the early days. Um when I'm playing early days, it wasn't really early to me is um pre20 um before Mount Gox blew up would have been early days. Um the days in which the average person could mine Bitcoin on their their home um set up whether it's GPUs or whatnot. Um and so that I feel like that's early. That was that chapter one um long gone. Um I felt like I entered chapter 2 where mining was not um possible but there was a lot that was not understood about Bitcoin and everyone on Bitcoin Twitter. It was Twitter back then. Um we were very hungry to find deep technical answers um to things. Um we were a lot of tech discussions. I mean remember the block really I came in the BM after 2014 um then that was over the block size wars there was a very very deep and technical a lot of people weren't sure if we'd get through it um and so it was just heavy it's really heavy and not heavy and as in depressing but heavy in in deep technology there was less sort of um you know like disdain for shitcoins. Um there was altcoins were considered interesting interesting sort of things to look into and study a bit. Uh so that was different and then post 2017 you know so 2014 to 2017 was this phase where it was the early retail right like it was like the early before that was super technical and then after 2017 when things blew up from you know when Bitcoin ran from $150 to 20,000 and then the altcoins just went apeshit because we didn't know what it was and we thought it might be, you know, it might fulfill all this stuff and replace botch technology would would would um you know, effectively go to the moon and and be in huge part of the infrastructure. Um that post that and there was a lot of grifting in that. Then that led into the next cycle that yup you were in and that one was huge disdain for [ __ ] coinery cuz in you know the second eo 2014 to 2017 was um it became very very clear what the game was which was print a token back it with a a white paper and it was a white paper because you wanted to copy Bitcoin and you wanted to sell or the fact that this is another Bitcoin when it was priced at under a cent and you know VC backing and all the the whole game you know you pump your coin pump and dumps and market makers and then you dump onto retail all that got very very systematized and very well known and you got the influencers coming in to shield the coins and they would get they they would stage it until the end. um you know the largest influencers would then get handed um the shilling just as it would ICO um and so there was all this sort of stuff and it became very that was the 2017 year and that so the culture in 2020 was very toxic I think um then it was also crossing into um trade with Micro Strategy and so forth. Um, and it got toxic as well. It got stupidly toxic. Um, not smart toxic as in toxic maximalism. It was

Can you elaborate on that because I think that's an interesting point. Smart and stupid toxicity.

Oh, smart toxicity is like the Bitcoin maximalism, which is kind of like the antibodies where saying this thing is a scam and calling people out when they're doing shitty [ __ ] All right, really bad stuff. And then the then but then there was this toxicness that came through which was you're wrong, you're wrong. And it was just this like it was like mainstream public that you know if you go wind it back the prior thing there was a whole bunch of effectively intellectual people that were trying to understand this and where we were to go and and then there was this attracted from 2017 but a whole bunch of re new new retail that was just doing flame wars and saying you're wrong you're stupid haha and actually then there was also So, um, in my opinion, um, a whole bunch of bot farms that were, um, attacking profiles that, um, basically would, um, you know, try and cancel people by saying, you know, you're [ __ ] whatever they would say. And then, whatever. It would get ridiculous amounts of likes. And I used to go through, you know, cuz I get this on my feed and I'd go through the the top leading replies that would get high ranks on the likes and I would look at who liked them and they were just fake profiles, right? And so there was this sort of um because in a way I'd say Twitter also got to a point where it became um very mainstream and um we got the tools to cancel people were very easy to target. And so, and I I I I kind of wonder and the conspiracist in me thinks that um a lot of that toxicity might have been from um government like um three-letter agencies trying to um make this whole industry look like a clown show. Um but that that was so the the last cycle was just stupid to me. Um, and actually a lot of Twitter these days. Um, yeah, so for the most part is, you know, it's not, it's good. I think it's gotten a lot better since Elon Musk took it over, but uh, it was getting to the point where it's just noise. And I remember having a conversation with Plan B. I don't care about my Twitter profile. I'm thinking of leaving completely. It just became a stupid platform. Um, where it was just random toxicity without any thinking behind it.

Yeah, I definitely I definitely felt that and it's part of what made me tune out of conversations. So like I don't really use my account to express opinions all that much. Every now and then I might, you know, just allude to something, but it's not I don't I don't campaign for particular points of view. I don't take positions on any particular Bitcoin policy, no BIPS, none of that stuff. I I just let it play out. Um, and I don't use my account for a platform to really express all that much personal opinion. Um, part of that is because I wanted it be to be inclusive for everybody. Um, but also I just I just don't think it's worthwhile as a place for me to engage in that kind of um, discourse. And it's interesting that you said it became stupidly toxic because I remember Nick Carter around the time that of uh his so-called cancellation, he he wrote an article about cargo cult behavior amongst um uh Bitcoin maxis. Um and it it kind of gave Bitcoin maximalism a bad name. uh that kind of behavior because it wasn't principled, it wasn't targeted, it was just reflexive and it's in many instances it was kind of misanthropic, you know, in nature the motivations and it was kind of like, oh, we've seen this kind of behavior elsewhere and we're just going to mimic what people did during the block size wars and whatnot. And that's why you see a lot of um you see a lot of people posturing for example regarding their technical knowledge because the people who are considered true Bitcoin OGs they're all highly technical very intelligent people and most of the battles as you alluded to the intellectual battles happened on the technical front and so it's like unless you're a technical person you can't be considered a true Bitcoiner. Like I'm actually the antithesis of that because I have very little interest in the technical side of things. Uh just like I have very little technical interest in how my iPhone works. I want I want it to work. I'm a consumer. I want I want to see the benefits of it working. I want to see it in action. Um which is you know it's sort of in line with where where I came into Bitcoin which is as the early majority. I wasn't an early adopter because one, I wasn't ideologically driven. I, you know, I don't have a political or economic ideology that brought me to Bitcoin. It was by necessity really, and I think that's what's going to happen to the majority of people. But I think a lot of lot of the misanthropic behavior could be um almost perfectly described as cargo cult behavior. It's it's not principled or intelligent at all, which is you know, kind of what you alluded to about the stupidity of some of some of the things going on. And and it kind of makes me think like if the government agencies were were um what do they call it? Um I forget the word, but if they were actually planting all these bots, they didn't really have to because there were plenty of real people within Bitcoin the same [ __ ] right? So, it's like um a lot of people are undermining the scene perfectly well just by themselves.

Um I think a lot of that has faded away now. Um but the bot problem is still there. I I haven't seen that the bots have improved since Elon Musk has taken it over. What I have seen, and this may be a function of um where we're at in the market cycle, is we haven't seen those concerted campaigns to promote those scam websites. You remember how those like send me send me one bitcoin, I'll send you two, that sort of thing. Um every single post I used to make, there would be like five variants of that of those campaigns. And I'm not seeing that at the moment, but maybe maybe it's because of the price action. No, I if that was what was improved because um like the moment someone did a promo follow on reply um it would drop to the bottom um and it would be hidden and now I don't even see the hidden to expand the hidden tweets anymore. But I I think I think it was very responsive to people um like reporting and yeah it was picking up on some sort of signal. What I see now is a whole bunch of effectively AI bots, right? Um trying to I don't know what they're trying to do actually. They're trying to farm engagement. I don't know. But they'll just do an AI reply to your tweet and it's just yeah, not that interesting. I reckon 80% of the replies to anything I post is AI generated. Um and it's just it's just made um the comments useless. And I've thought about uh closing them off to anyone who doesn't follow me or to verified followers only or that sort of thing. And I just thought, okay, but um am I sort of excluding people who either can't afford to get verified, for example? Um well, the thing the the the nice engagements, you know, the real engagements tend to go to the top anyway. Um, I just don't know why you would write a bot to reply to other people's tweets. You know, the only person that wants to reply write a bot to reply to your own tweets is your own tweets, right? Cuz it would then signal higher engagement. And so, I don't know. I kind of do understand it. Um because what happens is when when you're replying under a high um follow account like mine or yours um they get much more exposure just in the replies than they would

Oh yeah, right. And so as a result it's just the attention economy at work. And so yeah, but it's an AI. They just no one follows them because it's so obvious that they're an AI. They're not saying anything. Okay. to you and I it's obvious, right? And maybe to 98% of people, it's obvious, but maybe they're not harvesting people who can discern the obvious. Kind of like um you know, you send scam emails and did you know like they they're deliberately misspelled and poorly formatted because the scammer, they want to harvest the most gullible people so that they don't waste their time with people who have about them, right? And so I think I I think I know what I think you what you do is you do all these AI replies. You might get some followers by real people and then um then you've got yourself an account that looks real because it's followed by real people and then you can use that to scam people um using that account.

Well, there are people who I follow who, you know, within the space, they work in the space or or whatever, and they're not all that discerning about who they follow, and I've seen numerous obvious bots that they follow.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, like that lends credibility to them. Um, and I've seen this I've seen this cuz someone tried to do a scam on me because I had my direct messages open and I always check the profile and make sure it's legit and it was it was followed by a really high-profile person. Um, and I was like, really? Yeah. And it was actually quite do that. The the thing is um the scam and I don't even know what the scam is. You must have had this. these um reporters saying, "I want to do an article and interview you." Yeah. But there are there are fake identity posing to be a real um reporter. Numerous um messages like that when my my DMs were open up until I had like 1.1 million followers and then I closed them off. So, I used to get all of these things and I've had numerous ones posing as reporters. I'm guessing that um what they want to do is eventually send you a link once they've got your trust and you'll click that link and that'll compromise your your device.

Yeah. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. They they're trying to build trust and then they they've got some other, you know, a myriad of scams to attempt once you trust them.

Yeah, I had I had a really interesting um scam attempt. They posed as um they posed as potential sponsors and uh it's very clever the way they did it because they sound very agreeable to everything including pricing. You know, they say, you know, they want to do a a long-term deal at a fairly fairly good rate as well. So, like they're appealing to your motivation and hoping that you could trust them. And so we had a call, right? Yeah. And then in that Yeah. In the course of that call, they tried to send me a link, that link would have taken over my my device. And of course, I didn't accept that link, right? But um as soon as I pointed out what that link was designed to do, they went into a bit of a panic. And so the call ended not long after that.

Yeah. Yeah. It was very clever. They had five people on the call, right? So it looked like a group chat sort of thing with um with an organization, different departments and whatever. But no, it was um it was a scam, right? It was a scam attempt at least. Um and I can I can see a lot of people falling for that.

Absolutely. Very high resources. say it's the opposite from farming. It's like very targeted with very high touch. Absolutely ruthless and and because like they would have gone through that many times with other people. They know all the angles. They know the resistance, the objections. It's kind of like a salesperson, right? You're going through the same process over and over again. Um so you know all the questions are going to be raised by a prospect and they plan for it and they know they know psychologically how you might respond. So, it's really really um it's nasty stuff and they'll absolutely ruthless. They'll take you for everything like without any any hesitation they'll take you.

Yeah, nasty. It makes sense. Now I know why. I guess it worked. Say the reporting scam. I had another person pose as a notable character um a professor of economics or something that wanted to have a conversation or something. Um, I think my my reply was, "Oh, why are you so I I said, "How's the wife? It's been two years since we had dinner in New York. Um, how are things?" Um, Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. And they didn't reply.

Bit too specific, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You just plant I just Yeah. I just scammed them think I was good friends with them. Yeah. Too hard and they moved on. Um but yeah, how

You're dealing with the fame of Bitcoin? You know, your your profile is quite—it's it's huge in Bitcoin, right? So I I noticed that during the bare market, you almost became, you know, not reclusive. You're obviously living your life, but in terms of a pro-public profile within the Bitcoin space, you kind of disappeared for a while.

Um, yeah, I mean, I really I really enjoyed the exposure, and I actually quite enjoyed doing the podcasts and and so forth. Um, but you know, uh, that was also the end of co—I had my first kid, and then we had a second, and we were traveling as well. We did a world trip after the lockdown stopped us for many years, and we're a bit of a traveling family, and so you know, it's very hard to—um, like I just didn't want to—so I basically turned off all podcasts, and I stopped everything actually, and I was also starting a new business, so that took a lot of of my bandwidth, and so I just dropped off the scene, and actually, put through that also I was like, um, it's kind of nice to be a less less exposed—um, cuz you know, like you you come across people in the random, and I had it many many times where like, "Are you Willy Woo?" um, and I'm in some new place, or it's like—um, it's not—it's good, but it's also—um, you know, I think you know these these ups issues. Um, I I just I don't know.

Um, so I think the right like I I think about Antonopoulos—Andreas Antonopoulos. Um, I don't know if this was before your your time, but you know, obviously he was the kind of one of the original OGs, like that was—he was in the first chapter, you know, early days on Bitcoin—Bitcoin sort of—I forget the even the name of the the podcast—the very early podcasts, and then he he basically wrote books and became such a super uber educator and one of the top accounts. And then if you recall, he um had a conversation with Roger Ver on Twitter, and Roger Ver um gave him [ __ ] because he didn't have lots of money, and and he then um wrote this whole pod uh blog of how when he went into the rabbit hole of Bitcoin, he did not eat. Um, he got he lost 10£10 10£ 10 or something. All he could do was read non-stop and research Bitcoin, and he had to support his mother, and he stopped his contracting and basically any Bitcoin he bought he had to sell to support himself, and he was effectively, you know, Bitcoin broke, and um, upon posting that blog, people started donating to his you know donation because he had a donation address, you know, for the work that he was doing anyway. Okay. And um, I think 50 bitcoins landed mainly from one um person who obviously had bought a lot of bitcoin probably through his education, and um and so you know, it amounts to—even back then it was I think it amounted to—it might have been a million dollars. Um, and so and then not long after that, he just disappeared off the scene. He just said off the scene, and I was like that, and if you look—remember Antonopoulos—he's a security researcher, and then suddenly my thinking is that this this is this is not the—I'm too public, and then he had to basically tell the world, "Hey, no Bitcoin," and then after that they sent him Bitcoin, and then after that he disappeared, so—and then you got to think about this is even like him as a security researcher didn't think about this until he his account blew up and he tried to reverse it.

Um, and then now you got to think about it because you pan forward 15 years, and when Bitcoin's $10 million, was like, "Oh [ __ ] that that Archie guy, he's he had coins back in 2025, back when it was under $100,000." It's going to be like that, right? I mean, it really is. Um, just like we look back at people who harvested those uh bitcoin faucets, right?

Um, yeah, five five bitcoins per per, you know, airdrop, you know, was crazy. I saw one the other day that said it gave away 50—like, no—really a whole mind block. Wow. Like, surely not. I don't know. But um, I do I do recall those even, right? Like I I heard about Bitcoin very very early on, but I just I just considered it kind of like a, "Oh, this startup sort of technology hadn't really proven itself." I think it was 2011 or 2013 that I heard about it, right? So and and I don't regret not buying because, you know, that's just life. And I I don't really get jealous of people who did buy early because they took the risk, and they deserve that. I, you know, if you—if you take a risk in life, you deserve the benefits if it pays off because it could well have failed just like all the uh previous attempts at internet money, right?

Um, so look, you know, I I was like—it was 2013. And I heard about it and I thought, well [ __ ] if this takes off, it's going to be worth a lot, you know, cuz I just did a really quick thing. I was like, "What if it takes over gold?" Cuz, you know, MP3s had taken over. What made you even ask that question? Because back then it was just one of dozens, hundreds, thousands of attempts at doing something like this, right? But what was it about Bitcoin when you heard about it? When you knew enough about it that made you even make that comparison? I didn't go deep. I just—my lead developer was like—said, "This is digital gold," and I was like, "Okay, so it's internet native digital gold," and I just—it assumed that it would work. Um, it seemed pretty clunky. Um, but you know, I'd also used to rip my CDs into MP3s, and that was really clunky. And then I saw how that turns to iPod, and then digital music took over the world. And I thought, you know, "If this same thing happens, it'll probably take 12 years from now cuz it's still really clunky. But I know that if I don't buy at least one Bitcoin," and back then it was like good $600 or something. It was coming off the mouth [ __ ] pop, you know, and I was like, "I am going to be really pissed off at myself if this thing goes to half a million dollars." I mean, it was $600 in my face. So, I just said, "I need to buy an insurance policy from me being pissed off with myself." And so, I'll buy $600 of Bitcoin, which was one Bitcoin. And I walked out, and then I'll forget about it. You know, I'll store the key somewhere, and I'll I'll carry on. And that was the—so unlike most people—was like, "It's not going to work well," or that or—um, what's a few hundred bucks, you know, and I've never been adverse to risk, you know, because other than startups, you know, startups are like 1% chance of success.

Yeah. So yeah, so it's it's you know like—and also you just see how how tech started taking over everything, and I I figured it had a you know a fair shot. I I I figured it had—you know—it might not have been back in 2013. I didn't do much research, but even if it had 25% chance of success, um, a five to 500,000x on a 25% chance of success, it's like—it's just—why not make that bet over and over again, you know? Um, so yeah, I mean, that that was—but you know, I only just bought one Bitcoin and walked away. You know, it wasn't many years later till—well, you know, maybe a year later till I started um going down the rabbit hole and researching it. Um, that's what most people should do. They should just go, "Well [ __ ]," you know, "just buy a tiny little mount and put your foot in the door," and um, you know, "don't put much money in until you've done research." I I went the other way. I I

Yeah. No, I I got into it as a trade because I thought I've seen two bull markets go up and down, and I thought after 2017 I said, "If this thing doesn't die in the next bare market, it's here for good," and so I'm not going to miss next run. I'm not going to miss that. So I got into it as a trade. So mid-2020, I started seeing that, okay, there's a baseline here. It's coming out of the bare market, and I just wanted to sort of wait for confirmation, and um, I think October—around October 134—just as it was rising, I bought some time.

Yeah. Within six or seven weeks, I was all in—everything I had. Yes. And and then it was only later that I got into the economics, Fed policies, all that sort of stuff because, you know, for the longest time I was like, "Why the [ __ ] are these house prices still rising? We haven't had a recession in 30 years in Australia." It's like, it just doesn't make sense, right? None of that made sense to me. And um, you know, I wasn't really active online in seeking communities discussing answers to that sort of stuff. It was only through Bitcoin that I found out about all that, and I've I've got a traditional business education as well, right? So, like, you know, I studied micro, macro, all that sort of stuff. I've got a major in finance. I've done all that stuff, right? But they didn't teach us any of that [ __ ]

Yeah. It—if anything, it was—um, it was like a distraction, right? What they taught us—um, didn't give answers to any of the questions that I had. And if anything, it was an outdated way of telling us how financial institutions work. Like they—when I did my business degree, they were still teaching us that banks took money from savers and and lent them out to borrowers, and that's how credit was created, right? And it's like, "Yeah, maybe in the 1800s, like, come on." I mean, I won't name the university, but um, you know, it's fairly prominent one in Australia. It's it's—um, I wouldn't call it top tier, but it's like, you know, pretty good on the second tier of universities. And uh, that's what they were teaching. And um, so when I looked around and I'm like, "Man, I've saved up a bit of money. I think I think I've got a deposit for a house, and I'm waiting for this correction that just doesn't happen." Like, we have a recession, and the housing market stays solid, right? Well, not—it wasn't a recession, but let's just say the economy softened or—you know, even after 2008, for example, nothing happened to house prices, whereas they should have crashed, and they didn't didn't crash. Well, they recovered very quickly, but there was a decent crash. There was—

Yeah. And in America it was definitely, but even in New Zealand, it pulled back a lot cuz I remember—um, trying to sell my house during that crisis, and it was very hard. It was—the prices pulled back massively. Um, and I was wanting to sell the house because I wanted to get out of the New Zealand dollars because the US dollar was looking to get really strong, and—um—in the housing market. What's that?

Oh, how long did that last? It was only like 6 months to a year, you know, and so you won't actually see it. Most people wouldn't even see it. Um, because the market—housing market—is so liquid, particularly in those types of times, it might take you a year to sell a house. So, you know, it's not like you you have a ticker that that prints every minute like Bitcoin—every second—that measures it. Um, and and of course, you know, everything happened—you know—of course they injected liquidity, and everything pops.

Um, so yeah. Yeah. So like my recollection of a recession is 1990 in in in Australia, right? That was that was a a legitimate recession. Housing was [ __ ], unemployment lines—like every day in the newspapers they'd have—they'd have images of people lining up outside the—um, you know, unemployment benefits office, for example, because just people just couldn't find work. We haven't had anything like that. Like that's my idea of a recession—not just a couple of quarters of contraction, for example, and a little bit of softening in in the housing market.

Um, yeah, that's that's because the Fed—let's say that I think that we—I think it's safe to say it's the US Fed because everyone else copies—has to really—um—well, they're compelled to really, right? The United States almost sets, you know, policy for everybody else. Every every major economy has to follow, otherwise they're at a competitive disadvantage.

That's right. Like the the currency goes haywire relative, and they can't export. And so, um, after the .com crash, there was that crash in particular, um, they didn't let it, they didn't let it crash, right? They kind of saved it. They lowered interest rates, liquidity got injected, markets started to recover very quickly. That led on to the housing bubble. Um, they led on to 2008—they injected liquidity again—co happened—they injected liquidity—so basically from the start of this century, let's say—two year 2000—2000—around .com crash—there shall be no depressions—recessions—we'll just—I I reckon it started even before that—I think it was long-term capital management—I read a book about that—so I at the time I didn't really understand what was going on, but I read a book about it a little bit later on, and for me like those those guys pioneered financial engineering, and it sort of—rather than learn a lesson from that—I think what Wall Street did was look upon them with envy—like, "Guys, how the [ __ ] did you do that? Come over here—we we'll pay you big bonuses, and you know, if you teach us how to do all of that," and I think it was it was a similar thing with Enron as well where Enron was really pushing the envelope after that. So the the way I joined the dots was long-term capital management, Enron, 2008. I think the seeds of 2008 were planted between long-term capital management and Enron with the financial engineering going mainstream onto Wall Street, and then they use that to absolutely screw everything up.

Um, and what's happened since then, the way I read it, and perhaps I'm I'm wrong, is that it's gone from Wall Street and corporate risk to now sovereign risk. And after sovereign, there's nothing else. It's just going to be a collapse after that. So, like, I don't know what happens to the entire system. Does it all reset—um—or collapse? I don't really understand the consequences of what will happen, but I'm glad we have something that can hedge against that. But that's that's how I join those dots because I think it's essentially what's got us into trouble is—um—the financial engineering taking over and financialization of the economy taking over and precedence of everything. And inevitably whenever those things go to excess and collapse, it's been the Fed coming in to prop everything up as a result of that.

Um, interested in your thoughts on my reading. Do you do you think that's a fair uh connecting of the dots there?

U—I I think—um, you know—I think maybe since the '90s it's gone absolutely crazy what you can do. Um, but I think it's always—that game's always been there. Um, like I mean, as much as like you go back to Roman days where you could like debase by changing the metal content—this—that's that's financial engineering from Roman era, you know—um—so I mean the game has always happened, and we go through you know periods of—um—expansion after an eclipse, and then you—this the silly business happens, and then we get collapse again. So, and obviously we're in a very interconnected, very modernized, we're very digital, very fast—um—and complex. Though I think it's really only you know the last 100 years that we've had very very—um—complicated derivative instruments and ways to price it, and you know—so the machine's very very complicated, and it means that you can do a lot more complicated engineering, so you know, it's just a trend, and it's reflective of the the technology world and the 21st century.

Why why do you think the Fed got into the habit of stepping in rather than letting people eat their own cooking? Because you can make a lot of money if you're—um—sitting on top of the money printer.

Um, like you—my understanding, you know, I'm not an expert, but my understanding is that—um, you know, you have a sovereign country, and let's go back a few centuries. Have some country, you like to wage war, you like to dominate other countries, add to the empire. Um, war is expensive business, you have to borrow it. Um, you're not good to—um—on that debt. They used to sell war bonds. Um, and eventually the the people who had the money—um—the rich merchants—said, "No, we're not going to lend the money to you. Um, you know, you're not good for it." And so they started, they're like, you know, well, you know, we started to introduce—um—a claim on the taxation that the state could could levy on the population as a way to pay back the debt to cover the the war bonds, you know. So effectively—um—you get in a situation where—um—the—I think the amalgamation—the ability to go to fiat—um—is really, you know, it's not a government thing, right?—it's—um—private individuals that have—you know, the likes of—um—JP Morgan—the big private owned banks—is the Fed, and they are taking control of the money.

Um, and like the incentives are to make a lot more money, right? And so if you're sitting there—like if you're a JP Morgan, why why would you want to allow the thing to collapse? Like you're making great money with this existing system, the whole thing collapses or de detoxes. Maybe—um—maybe that's bad for your bottom dollar. Um, well, there's no incentives. The people in control are doing great, and if it collapses—um—pretty sure—um—maybe the Fed need system gets reset, but the money that's been taken through that system still is in the hands of the the rich and powerful, and I'm pretty sure they're going—they're pretty protected—as always—the wealth there's protected, and then there's new system—you got the wealth, and so I don't think there's any incentive—actually—I I don't think there's any incentive—the only kind of hope that I see right now is—um—you get like a leader like Trump who—and you know—who's there really to break down a lot of the—um—corruption that's in the system, and in America you see that with Doge—you see—um—he's pro a Bitcoin strategic reserve, but more than that he's pro—um—well, he's going to do a a—um, you know, a sovereign wealth fund—Bitcoin's very likely to be in that—um—I think suddenly you get into a situation where—um—you can—you maybe manage—monetize the sovereign wealth fund. You can use that as backing. Um, you can—I I think through the process, you know, I'm not an expert. Um, but like I think through this process, I can see—um—there's going to be less control. Um, there's more financial—um—inputs coming from the actual government and not the Fed. Um, and I could see the Fed being depowered—um, if if the right—if the right moves are made. Um, so but yeah, ultimately—ultimately the Fed's not the government. Central banks aren't the government. And um, I I think that—um—yeah, I just think that like if if we don't run off a cliff—um—it would have to be—um, you know, people that are like coming from the the current system to kind of shut this down. I mean, like, we think we're going to run off a cliff, but like actually now Bitcoin is touted as this thing that can save the US dollar and and monetary dominance, but awesome discipline on on the policies that are exercised by federal government and Federal Reserve.

Um, because it gives people an option, right? It gives people an opt out. Um, whether or not those policies change will be interesting to see. I'm not sure they will. I don't—I'm not sure. I'm not sure if we have a correcting mechanism for policy yet, but at least we have an opt out. We can save in Bitcoin, and and it it'll become a lot more stable and a lot better for—um—saving in—and we can measure—obviously we can measure the price of houses against Bitcoin, the price of everything against Bitcoin. So yeah, as a measuring stick because we don't really—empowering things of Bitcoin is like—prior to Bitcoin, if you didn't have enough money for a deposit on a house, you were locked out of the primary asset that could be—um—a hedge against monetary debasement, which is really—I mean, I I know a lot of wealthy people buy art and wine and other collector's items, right? But most people are locked out of that. If you don't have enough money for a deposit on a house, you're not even thinking about buying art and wine and watches and things like that. But Bitcoin allows you to even, you know, just whatever you've got—to put it into Bitcoin, and that can act as a sponge or or a hedge against monetary debasement. Whereas, prior to that, if you didn't have a house, you had to hold on to your cash pretty much because what else could you do with it? You're going to gamble it on the stock market and take more risk. And inevitably most people lose out doing that.

Um—most—I can tell your Australian—UK roots. Um, New Zealand's like this also. Um, I was going to say post-1971, we haven't had money. We've only had currency. We—the separation of—like we talk about separation—money and state. 1971, we had separation of money—store of value—and and medium of exchange. So we use currency to buy stuff. But—um—money was then a a hybrid—um—a hybrid sandwich between—um—store value assets and—um—then converting that hopefully in a liquid way to uh money to then spend. And so for two generations—we've had—at least two generations—we've had the S&P 500 as money. Um, and in Australia, New Zealand, UK, it was real estate. Um, but the problem with real estate is terrible because, um, real estate's a Ponzi. Um, because people are putting it in. See, real estate, people aren't just buying real estate—like they're buying Bitcoin. They're buying real estate on leverage because, as you say, you can't afford a whole house to start with. So you basically, you know, back back in the day when I first bought my house, it was—um—you could actually borrow 90%. So it was 10x leveraged on real estate. And that looks great cuz if real estate goes up by even 5%, you're getting a 50%—50x gain—minus my interest payments or whatever. But—um—it's it's high leverage and highly liquid. And and then you got—so you got Australia, New Zealand, UK very much in the real estate way of using real estate was the store of value for the money, you know.

Um—not very liquid. Um, so you know, you might just—you would have this thing called revolving credit line which is basically using your house's collateral to borrow it to then spend, right? Um, that's essentially what happened from the mid to late 90s onwards, and boomers never had it so good. And then like—um—now you compare that to something like the US, and the S&P 500 is the is the money which goes up—um—10% per year historically for decades and decades. Real estate I think is a bit under that—um—but highly liquid. Um, as long as you hold the S&P 500 and weather the ups and downs. The problem with the S&P 500 is you can have the—you—you get the minute-by-minute ticker, and that leads you—Australia—you can actually see it—drew—drew down—you know, 35—40% in—you know—co shock—um—where where most people are oblivious to the real estate crashing, and then—but also like you said—you can leverage it quite—you can leverage real estate quite safely to juice up your returns—most people can't really do that to any meaningful shares, right?—yeah—because because—um—it's because real estate is a really really really shitty collateral—um—you know—this talk about Bitcoin is the pristine collateral. Um, that needs to be ex, you know, expanded on. Bitcoin is the pristine capital if you're the lender because I want to be able to liquidate that dude the minute they're in the red. And if I take a house as collateral, that's shitty. It might take 3 months in a really bad bearish market—like when that house is plummeting in price. It might take a year to sell. I can't actually liquidate this guy.

So then um, you know, like that's that's the the best collateral if you're borrowing is the shittiest collateral, right? And real estate is that. And so um, that's why people don't get foreclosed.

Let's just expand on that for let's just expand on that formula because you touched upon something really interesting in the evolution of Bitcoin because quite often uh, as Bitcoin is we talk about Bitcoin as if the future has already arrived, right, and it hasn't, right? Bitcoin will be pristine collateral, but and and the Apex asset and all the rest of that, but as you alluded to, so at the moment if you're if you're a borrower, you can't really borrow all that much against Bitcoin and it's not going to be at a very good interest rate either, right? That doesn't sound like the lender uh really loves giving money against uh against Bitcoin right now, but we're we we think we're projecting sometime future that's change.

Yeah. Well, and it's actually well, it seems like that, Archie, but um, I think the lender would love to do this, but remember we had SA 121 where the bank could not custody the Bitcoin, therefore they couldn't take it as collateral to lend against. Now that's been repealed and now we've got um Santa Fitzgerald, I think, have committed a billion dollars to lending. Um, we've got Zapo Bank offering up to a million dollars now.

Oh, so that is changing very quickly. They always wanted to do it. They just weren't allowed to.

What are their rates on their lending? I haven't checked, but I imagine it's higher because I'm guessing it's going to be at a higher rate than if you're borrowing.

Absolutely. Because the currently the borrower rates are what 12% or something. That's what the market's supporting. But now that we've got Trafi money coming in, um, that's going to come down to 6% very, very quickly.

Oh, you think so?

Yes, absolutely. I'm borrowing I'm borrowing at 6% on my Bitcoin. Um, because my Bitcoin is my Bitcoin is in a rapper. My Bitcoin is in a rapper. And that rapper is called Micro Strategy. And Micro Strategy has had decades on the stock exchange for a good balance sheet. And you know, you get a very good LTV and it's a standard um equity. It's I'm borrowing as equity as my collateral. You know, like people have been doing for s eons, you here's my stock in Microsoft, here's my stock in Google, you can take that as collateral, it's very good collateral, you can liquidate it within a minute, you know um, and you think that that situation will come to direct lending against bitcoin soon?

Yeah, it'll take some time because um, until that 1 billion turns into tens hundreds a trillion wanting to get that kind of yield. Um, until that comes in then you know, the like I would say within crypto markets today there is probably north of $10 billion of um US dollars that is in there looking for yields. Um, it could be 20 billion, but I think it's about in at least in the hedge fund world, there's there's $10 billion being put to work is my estimation to get yield on US dollars. Um, and um, and the way it looks is that this money is being lent into and these the lenders are kind of more cryptonative um lenders and they're lending their liquidity into um prime brokers who are then lending it to hedge funds so they can leverage up their arbitrage trades. He's $10 billion of capital in there and then so can fits and you're used if you're doing that you're getting I think the the PBS will be getting um those guys probably getting 10 to to 14%, don't I don't know for sure cuz it's all kind of dark money but it's roughly that um, and then the hedge funds are getting anything from 10% of your shitty hedge fund 50% annualized if you're a good hedge fund. Um, like as in you really know how to get the the alpha in the trades. Um, so they're happy to borrow at 10 12% if they're going to make say 30% um in their trades.

So anyway, all of that to say there's let's say there's 10 billion of money that's being lent into the space um, and then counterfeit serial allocated a billion. Well, the interest rates aren't going to drop by much, but say $10 billion comes in, then that's going to make a difference. And say hundred billion dollars comes in, and then well, the rates going to plummet because they're all going to be a race down to the the risk-free rate of US dollars. So, it'll take, you know, some time, maybe, you know, 18 months. Let's see.

That's an interesting that's a really interesting uh potential development because we saw essentially the last bare market was a catastrophe of rehop hypothecation of bitcoin, right, you know, with and there's there was really no accountability, it was a wild wild west and uh, we saw a whole bunch of I guess fraudulent activity happening and uh lack of risk controls and all the rest of that, so basically anything that could go wrong essentially did. And so, are we just going to now see traditional finance, Wall Street, come employ those same practices in Bitcoin? How can how can we mitigate those risks this time around?

I'm glad you asked, right? Because that's what I'm investing in. Um Okay. Oh, interesting. Go ahead.

Right. Because right now um, I'm what I'm interested in is is investing in the next generation of um Bitcoin infrastructure providers, right? Um, and that I think that's a very good business to be in um to invest in Bitcoin infrastructure. Um, what what constitutes Bitcoin infrastructure? Well, back in the day, like so I invested in um, you know, like uh, I think my first investment in the space was Exodus wallet um, which was that was the first really good user. It was like the Mac experience, you know, back in 2015 the wallets were terrible, but then Exodus came along and they were like this is like a Mac experience. It's like everything works great and it's user friendly and the co-founder worked for Apple and so they made the wallet experience and you know, they turned into you know a multi-asset wallet. I think there's hundreds of assets now. Um, but that was my first that was an infrastructure investment. Um, but uh, I've also invested into Debify which is um using Multisig um to broker these loans right and so the lender has a signature, they have a signature, there's another your third party signature and then the the one that's um borrowing has a signature so those the bitcoins when they get posted um if that those bitcoins are rehop hypothecated meaning it's being sent off to someone else to trade or and then that person is sending it to another person and ends up in Alamator's hand, right? Or whatever and just doing DGN shitcoining, you know, that stops because you would need your signature or you'd probably need like at least um three you need the the lender to sign off on it. You'd need Debify and a third party um to circumvent your signature, you know. So, those coins aren't moving anywhere. And if they move, you know that something's happening with it, right? And someone's and if it's not a liquidation event, that's a legal thing you can take um, you know, you you can see immediately cuz that's not in our contract.

When we were in 2020 cycle to 2022 where it collapsed. People like BlockFi, all these guys, you you read you you can read these websites and what they say they're going to do and they tell you exactly nothing on what they're going to do. There's no promises. Um, and they were absolutely basically they were um, they were uh, when you're entering a securities contract um where they can just um take the coins and like so what what they were doing is um, they were selling you securities um, they were promising a yield um, they would then ship that off to third parties and they didn't have a brokerage license um which is very illegal. You can't just sell securities like, you know, hey Archie, I've got this company. It's going to do great. It's going to be a billion dollar company. I'm selling to you for $1 million today. You want to buy it?

I Right. That's what it is like to sell securities. Anyone can sell securities. You got You can't You have There's They worked this out a century ago, right? You can't just go up the street and sell securities. And that's what um, you know, BlockFi was doing. Um, and the the security law is that these are the rules you play by. Oh, if you're going to rehypothecate, you got to do disclosure. You got to disclose to the person who owns that security every single thing that you will and will not do. And it's on public record. Massive disclosure. This is why publicly traded companies. It's like everything. Just download off the SEC website. Every single thing they do. If if Micro Strategy is going to buy Bitcoin, it's not it's it's going to tell you beforehand. They can't just buy it. They basically have to tell you so the whole market can frontr run them. But that's because they um uh have to these rules stop people from scamming. Um, and so anyway um, like this next generation of lending products will be um absolutely you know the like the Debify way that infrastructure will be and I believe will be used by banks um and also banks will use you know institutional grades custody to hold and they have to abide by the regulations but of custodians and banks and so it's it's different it's become um tradefi levels of um you know disclosure um we've been told oh tradefi is really bad after 2008 um but um actually as we've seen um crypto is worse um actually there's a lot of crypto that poses to be you know decentralized but it's not it's It's unregulated entities behind it doing whatever they want. There not even regulations. What happened in 2008 was a dismantling of very good regulations so that people you know bad actors could make a lot of money as those regulations got dismantled. Um, and so but there's you know custody you know is is pretty tight.

So anyway, so I I yeah you I think that the 2022 certainly with Bitcoin it's not going to happen. Um, we've you know we've got multisig um and and tradefi you know going to come in in a rush to to lend well if the rates are like you know first the rates are like 12 14% right now and they're happy to lend at that because right now they're lending at 6%. And then um after that they're going to be happy to lend because it's such great collateral for them to liquidate you. Um, you know it's like and and like when you're a house is is shitty. It's very shitty collateral. Um I I I think the mortgage rates must be higher because of that. Um I don't I I have you know I don't I'm not in real estate but is is would you know what's what's the rate of real estate loans versus say a Lombard loan against equity?

I haven't I haven't looked into any kind of financing for at least at least 10 years.

Yeah. Yeah. I I I um my whole point right now is to just generate cash and live on that basis. Um I don't really have a need for owning anything, but that that will change. Um so I haven't really looked into finance and I'm happy to to do this for a little while yet. But um there will there will come a time when finance will play a bigger role in my life and hopefully we're better positioned to take advantage of that.

I think it will be a thing though, you know, that um Bitcoiners will be heavily using banks and financing ironically because they'll want to put their Bitcoin to work. Like yes, you know, say you've got a million dollars or $10 million of Bitcoin, you know, you're stacked for five, 10 years and you know, you can I think Bitcoins Bitcoin backed loans are lower risk when used to buy a property that also acts as a collateral because you've got the benefits of both. Yeah. You use you use your Bitcoin appreciation uh but basically you're shorting fiat in a non-gambling way where like not like putting in an exchange you're you're fronting collateral to the to borrow dollars to buy assets that are appreciating um against fiat which is going down. So you you're basically shorting fiat. You're buying something that's going up against you've got exposure you've got double the exposure to the upside, right? So, from a borrower's point of view, you've you still hold on to ownership of your Bitcoin and you acquire ownership of a house for the debt of the price of the house, right? So, let's say you've got a million dollar house and a million dollars of Bitcoin today, right? If the bank, let's just say, it's just hypothetical. The bank says, "Okay, we will take both the house and the Bitcoin as collateral and we'll give you a million dollars." So, they've got $2 million worth of collateral. Now, if you don't make a payment, they will say, "We will liquidate Bitcoin at that at the price of your mortgage payment at the date, sorry, the price of the date of your mortgage payment to bring you up to balance." And you're like, "Okay, great. What's the downside, right? There's no downside to that. Literally, while you're holding your Bitcoin, which you're doing anyway, you've also got a house.

Yeah. What I'm think is uh a pretty good product to do is um I'm kind of working on it. Um is, you know, how you can get yield on your Bitcoin. I don't know how you can get yield on your Bitcoin, but I've heard of people getting yield on their Bitcoin, but I don't know how it's done.

Well, these earn products are really kind of like securities. They are securities. Let's be real. These. So when you know Gemini did their earn product, they would send the US dollars or the Bitcoin um to um undisclosed um undisclosed entities um you know Gemini went to Genesis Trading which was you know the big the big you know multi-billion dollar trading house and then they ended up sending it to Alamator and then boom they lost the money right um so that was selling to retail securities ities without disclosure, without brokerage license, without all this sort of stuff. Um, so if you're really wanting to do a interesting Bitcoin product, um, like to buy a house and so you're going to have a lot of Bitcoin, therefore you're going to be, um, a qualified investor, um, then they would be eligible to buy into a hedge fund. Now um hedge funds are compliant to all manner of regulations and um they have now you know do a hedge fund this was all worked out in the '90s right with when hedge funds you know like the days of maid off and all this there's there's there's all right number one the accountant accounting is done by third party admin fund administrator they are overseeing every single trade that the hedge fund is doing so that they the reporting comes from someone else and then every year you get an audit over everything. Um, and then um the whole thing is open to due diligence. You can send in a OD provider operation due diligence provider then go through a fine tooth comb of how every single thing is done. How do you value these assets? um who has the keys or signatures, bank accounts, who are the independent directors. Um which jurisdictions um you can just go down down down all the ways in which through malice or incompetence this hedge fund can lose money and that is fully you can fully diligence a hedge fund like that and they like it's not like you can go to BlockFi say can I want to I send a guy in and um I'm going to see all your operations. I want to see you don't do that, right? Um so there's all this regulations around these hedge funds and um and so the thing is um you can you know we run hedge funds that that generate yield right and the the trade the trade is arbitrage right it's like mispricing the market you take that one trade and you make a tiny fraction of a percent um but you do that over enough minutes of the year and then adds up to a 30% yield or whatever or a 10% yield For Bitcoin, you should be able to get a um pretty much 10% yield annually doing that trade. You wrap that into well hedge fund is a share. You know, you buy a share in a hedge fund. That's a that's an equity. Now, the trick is can you make that equity um collateral with a bank? You achieve that, then you're basically buying Bitcoin shares. Um, now you're a Bitcoin OG or Maxi hodddler and you say, "I don't want to ever give my keys out." But if you're going to borrow money, you're basically signing off your house to the bank. They can take claim of it. So if you actually want to borrow money, you would then sign it off to the bank and let the bank custody the shares in this hedge fund which is now generating 10% return. Um and then you're borrowing um Lombard loan rates around 6%. You're borrowing 6%. And the LTV of maybe 3 to one. So very, you know, so say you got a million bucks um that you want to borrow. You front, you have to front $3 million of Bitcoin. You're making 10%. So you're making 300,000 per year of gains in the yield of that in your security, which they have as collateral. And you've got to pay an interest rate of 6% on 1 million. to 60,000. $60,000 is your interest bill and you're making 300,000 per year. This is putting your Bitcoin to work.

Work it all out. 3 to 4 years, that $1 million you bought a house with it is paid by your Bitcoin. That's the cool product.

It does sound complicated though. I mean, you know, a lot of people they they want to they want a twoclick solution. I'm clicking to give my Bitcoin as collateral and then another click to get to get the cash that I want to borrow. Right? You know what I mean? It's like and and what's under the hood as you've described it.

Okay. If it generates those yields, everything's secure, audited, everything, you know, people will be interested in that. But how do you present it to a user in a way or a borrower in a way that they can understand through the traditional paradigm of borrowing and lending?

I mean it's it's not really a retail product right for start you know like you cannot do you cannot sell a security um like this um to retail and the bank that's going to take his collateral bank it'll be a private bank. So, it's very much for this generation of bitcoins. Um, it's the like if you're stacking bitcoins, you wait another cycle until it grows enough to a point where you can put it to work to buy a house. Um, you think another four years before the industry matures enough such that they're offering retail products?

No, it's not about retail. I think it's it's really predicated on the the the bit the Bitcoiners that are buying now in four years the the amount amount of net worth that they amass will be able to be put to use in these products um that their bitcoins today will buy them a house tomorrow without ever having to sell all their bitcoins. And and um any person that comes to me and says that's way too complicated for me is like sure then you don't want this to have a free house.

Yeah. All right. And it's actually a lot easier than working out all the DeFi. You tried DeFi farming and doing all that stuff. I stayed away from all of that. Completely complicated. It's completely complicated and every step of the way you can get rugged. Um, this is like you you ring up your bank. I want to buy this share and I want to borrow against it. Okay, done. You talk to someone, you send them a WhatsApp message, you you know that's how banks work, right? Um, it's it's very human and very easy. It's actually

Well, we've got two things happening at the moment, right? So Caner Fitzgerald with their $2 billion fund which is essentially a starter right so Howard Latnik has said this is just a taste of what's to come right and then the other one which is the I don't know if you call it a repeal but SA 121 is that is that the um there was a there was a 121 was repeal 122 has replaced it.

Yeah. So and that was preventing banks from custodying holding Bitcoin for their customers.

Right. Mhm. So now we've got the seed of a lending fund and we've got banks who can now custody that like what what are we waiting for do you think before banks say we'll not only hold it for you but we will lend against that. Do you think that's like an imminent thing about to happen?

What's happening? All right. So, the Zapo came out. Well, you posted it actually. Zapo came out. So, I know I I know, but they're they're a Bitcoin financial institution, right? So, I'm thinking more main.

Oh, they're a bank. They are a bank. Zapo Bank, right? So, of course, the the ones that are like most comfortable with it will do it first. Um, you can do it with Signnum Bank. You can I think you can do it with Amina Bank in Switzerland. Um I mean you've been able to do that for a while with those banks and Switzerland the Swiss regulations. The question is when does it happen for US banks um and it started and a billion's been set aside by can Fitzgerald. Um so it'll just take two billion. Well, then it's going to take as as soon as they build all their infrastructure um their like internal how quickly does um a financial institute how quickly can they gear up for this you know um and so I give that starting now I'd say next year we're going to accelerate into this um you know I I started u this account in 2021 on early January and going I I was going back and having a look at some of the tweets, you know, because a lot of the financial institutions are getting back in the game now and I see some some of them had already set up teams back then, but I'm guessing that a lot of what they started in 2021 was sort of stopped because of the bare market. Was scared off from the bad market and then from the ramp up in I guess the antagonistic um posture that the Democratic party took up after 2022. They really ramped up that once their golden boy was uh was taken away in handcuffs in uh SBF. I think the um the hostility from the Democratic party ramped up significantly and it's only with the new administration that they've been unsha unshackled and they feel free again to pursue what they started in 2021. So I'm not sure that a lot of the initiatives that were started in the last bull market cycle by banks were seen through. I know Commonwealth Bank for example that you would know in Australia that's Australia's largest bank. um they were going to make it available through internet banking. You know, you could buy Bitcoin and then the bare market started and they recanted said, "Sorry, we're not doing that."

Um yeah, I mean it was, you know, checkpoint 2.0, you know, like you remember Silvergate Signature Bank, they were the two banks that banked um euthanized. They were euthanized.

Yeah. They were they were viable banks and they were put down because of their um friendliness to Bitcoin and and crypto industry.

Yep. Yep. There has to be legal consequences to that, right? You can't you can't just run a viable business out through reg, you know, I guess the regulators did that, but it was a concerted effort.

Yeah. To really do, you know, a one-two punch for the crypto industry.

Yep. Yep. And I would like to see I would like to see people how to account. I mean, they destroyed a very successful bank. Um, two of them. Um, and so, and you know what? None of none of that makes sense to me. I've I've thought about it and I'm like, why were a Democrat so hostile to Bitcoin and crypto, the industry? Why were they so hostile? And it doesn't make sense. They had nothing to gain from it because Wall Street wanted in on the game, right? So, it's not like Wall Street was saying, "Hey, we don't want this other industry on the side here getting away." They wanted in on the game and they were prevented from getting in on the game. It doesn't Their hostility just doesn't make sense to me. The only thing I can think of is there's there was a cultural antipathy towards, you know, of the crypto bros sort of thing, right? And you know that culturally there was just there was a bit of a clash between the Democratic Party and crypto in general because otherwise I can't see anything that they stood to gain.

Well the Democratic Party of recent decade of the recent decade has been um like a control communist state. Um and so they had blanket control over the media.

They had blanket control over social network until it got transformed into X under Elon Musk. And then with that, you saw all the [ __ ] that would they could literally just post an order, you know, to Twitter and then they would censor.

And if you think about money, money as a censorship um mechanism and they were absolutely weaponizing the banks and debanking people that were um they were that weren't um they were a danger to the Democratic party, they would do so. So what do you think they would do to Bitcoin and allow that industry to prosper? You know, why would a communist um party, the Democratic party being communist in the last 10 years, be pro- Bitcoin?

Well, well, their leaders were happily capitalists in trading the market on inside information. Yeah. Yeah. I don't call that capitalism. Cromy capitalism. What's that called? There's a term for it, right? It is crony capitalism. It's a form of capitalism as well, right? It's raping and pillaging financially um the the nation state, which is um somewhat communist. Um it's the aminal animal farm, right? It's the the ones that lead the farm are farming the whole country. So, yeah. No, I can see why they'd be against it. Absolutely.

Okay. I I still think um it it doesn't make sense. They shot themselves in the foot. I I think prior to 18 months ago, the industry was disorganized and they didn't count on foolishly they didn't count on a very wealthy industry being able to make such an impact politically in such a short time because um what was it? Was it what's the pack called? I can't remember the pack. But you know the entire industry united behind that and I'm not sure I've seen such a huge swing in political momentum affected by a pack that was just formed such a short time very very effective. So whoever whoever put that together and the entire industry ought to um be very proud of them.

I think uh it was, you know, I was one of the one of the maybe few predictions I did well was um three years ago before the Trump um election was winning the election was saying that 3 years from now um [ __ ] on Bitcoin will be political suicide. And that that was actually um not from anything other than the adoption trend. And you you could see the rate in which it was adopting and compounding users not dollars. How many users of Bitcoin were how that was compounding and it got to um I figured the next US elections this is going to be a significant vote. Um yeah and then absolutely and Trump said I'll take those votes. He did and um that was one of the reasons you know it it struck me as really strange because they couldn't see it happening right before their eyes like every time Trump spoke about Bitcoin crypto there was an enormous traction for him and they didn't look at that and think hey why don't we get a piece of that action for ourselves they didn't think that and didn't make the calculus like what are we getting out of being antagonistic to this entire industry and 80 or 100 million holders. What are we getting out of that? Nothing.

Well, they it disarms one of their weapons. Um they've got two major weapons. One is um the banking, the targeted banking and like debanking, let's say, and the other one is the media. Those are the two two ones, the two big ones. Um, so you know, if you've got if you got a doublebarreled shotgun and now you only got one barrel, it probably means a lot to them. Um, I don't know. I mean, I don't think I mean, my view of Democrat party is is it's the way it was run was absolutely malicious. there was just a control grab and um yeah I mean if you think from that that mindset then absolutely it makes sense. It does make sense.

Yeah. I I I think they got very complacent and arrogant because ever since probably the George W. Bush years, the um demographic swings in America in the political spectrum was pushing heavily in their favor. And I just think they took a lot of things for granted um in that time. I don't think it was complacency. I think it was ambition. I think that they got really ambitious after co it's like [ __ ] we can do a lot of things. Look at these people. They just do anything. you know, like governments started to get really huge control and then they're like, you realize the amount of power that governments can leverage and then um they had already proven in the state of California. Um that the they could have blanket control over a state no matter how badly it was governed. Look at San Francisco, right? Um so they they were like, well, we can expand this technique to the whole US. Man, it's it's ambitious, right? You can get the whole country and they've had control over California for so long despite how badly you do as long as you control the airwaves. Um, you Yeah. So, I think they just went for it. They're like, "Let's go for it." They were maybe working very hard and not complacent. They were just like, "Yeah, look at this. Look at the state of the world. the way no one really pushed back with co um so that's interesting that's an interesting way of looking at it because when I say complacent I meant um with respect to accountability for their policies not that they didn't have the ambition but it just felt like we could do whatever we want we don't really need to heed any kind of uh warning signals or feedback loop from the electorate we could just do whatever we want and so they became complacent in their dominance of Yeah. Or ambitious. I was saying something like they were really really starting to think they were the people in charge.

Um I think I think I think that's that's that's part of it as well and it's just they've spiraled into I mean the absolute nonsense that that was happen. It felt like when Elon Musk bought X when Twitter at the time, I felt like the bubble had just been popped and the pressure was, you know, I I I felt like I I have sympathies with the left side of politics, right? Um, but I felt it suffocating on Twitter and social media. People were walking on eggshells and my account numerous times was suppressed. For what reason? God knows why. And you just can't have a free and healthy society like that where there are words you can't say. There are there are positions you're not even allowed to doubt, let alone oppose. And it was like that. And they were quite proud of their ability to suppress any kind of dissenting voice. and the shame they used as a tactic, the dog piling, the cancellations, these were not hallmarks of a free and open society. Um, and I found that absolutely suffocating when Elon Musk took over Twitter. It was like that entire bubble was popped and suddenly it was like we had a breath of fresh air. And look, I got to put my hand up. Like, there's a lot of things on the timeline now that are deeply objectionable, but I want to see them there. And, you know, I I also got to confess that I find quite a lot of it humorous as well. Like, you know, it's not I'm not going to uh advocate for its uh incorporation into policy, for example, but just some [ __ ] [ __ ] posting a racist meme or whatever. But I don't want the guy canled or put in jail or or to lose his job or anything like that. Like um there has to be space for the offensive. Um even at the risk of f you know me being offended as well. Um I'm happy to see that there's more space for people to be offended and for the most obnoxious elements of society to also be able to express themselves. And I think through this whole experience, having experienced the censorship on my account, it's probably brought me much closer towards being a free speech absolutist. I'm not sure that I would say that entirely, but much much closer uh than I was. Absolutely.

And um I'm I'm I'm very happy with um the movement away from that culture of censorship online. I think we still got a long way to go. Like YouTube is still very heavy-handed. Instagram is very heavy-handed. Um I'm not on I'm not on Facebook at all, so I don't know what that's like or LinkedIn. Uh but YouTube is incredibly heavy-handed with its censorship. So we've got a long way to go, but at least he's now, you know, he's broken the ice and I think we've started to see Mark Zuckerberg at least signal um that he wants to move in that direction and he's starting to say, "Hey, hey, it wasn't me. I was just sort of led astray by the culture of my organization that I founded.

Yeah. Well, I think he has to given who's in charge now, right? Um well, he's a shape shifter, isn't he? He I'm not I'm not I can't confidently say that he has any convictions about anything except for the perpetuation of his empire. Yeah. I mean, I I I don't know actually like um having listened to um Mark Adrien, I think he he says that he's, you know, he's one of the few people that um what he says behind closed doors is what he says in public. So, I don't know. Um like I do think that um sorry, Mark says that that's how he speaks or that Mark Zuckerberg says the same walks what he talks behind closed doors. He does that in public. Um, so he believed all that nonsense then before uh before um Elon Musk bought Twitter and Trump won the election. All that nonsense that he was pushing in his organization and yeah, he he was he apparently he was gearing up to sort of unshackle or something. But um you know um I think that I think it's the long form podcasts that has been really shaping um I mean I I reckon it was X and Joe Rogan that won the election for Trump because Trump got on Joe Rogan people because for a lot of the world Trump is just a Nazi crazy person out for world domination. H Like I didn't realize this because I live on Twitter, social media, long form podcasts and but like you you talk to people. I talk to Canadians. I talk to New York Kiwis. Um the the general average is Trump is an Nazi um control. is going for control of the world and it's a war odd when I sort of I don't really um I don't really talk to too many people from from Australia anymore but when I do I am um taken aback at how entrenched the mainstream corporate media view is in the general population. And so when I dip back into the media from Australia or when I speak to some friends, the points of views that they um that they reflect back are exactly what you would take from, you know, MSNBC, CNN, that sort of thing. Um it's I don't know if you'd call it indoctrination, but they're pretty much in lock step there. And I think it's called propaganda, right? We termed it a long time ago. Um, it's all just propaganda now. Like media's gone from, you know, the fourth estate, which is a backbone of holding up a democracy, to actually propaganda. Um, yeah.

Do you think it's easier to propagandize a smaller country than a large one? No, I think the opposite. I think a small country is um harder to propagandize because people talk to each other. Well, when it's local, you know, if but it's very easy to propagandize a um another country where the people aren't there, right? like um you could say, you know, all Germans are evil and all Japanese, you know, or whatever post World War II and it's easy to dehuman dehumanize someone or another country or other people. Um but when it's hard to propagandize a small country about what's happening at home um that's an important distinction. I think you're right there. I hadn't I hadn't thought about that. um yeah to to other an entire nation. Definitely the bigger the bigger the nation the easier it is to propagandize cuz there's stuff happening in you know 49 other states or that you don't know about. Um so like you know there is that talk is maybe democracy doesn't work at a particular scale because you can't really you know the propaganda just overwhelms you. You can't really get down to the bottom of what's happening on the other side of the country. Yeah. I I guess depends it does depend on which powers you invest at different levels of government, right? Yeah. So, you know, I think I guess at the federal level it should be as little as possible, more at the state, most at the um the local municipality city. Exactly. for example um because that's that's the order of um impact and importance to you you know and it's uh the United States is a really strong case where you know it was decentralized from design you know the states had the power and so it was a local environment that that had self-determinism around their own policies and laws and um and so you know I guess the last I don't know how long, probably 50 years, the the federal government's been pulling more and more control into into you know a central centralized sort of control structure. So um but it's been able to resist um quite well with the with the um the the foundation of the country. So yeah, so far so far.

Yeah. Yeah, but they they've got a really strong history of almost like an antagonistic relationship between uh the federal and the states, right? Like the states are quite proud of retaining the rights that they have. Whereas I find for example in Australia it's much more malleable. Like I remember when we introduced a um a consumption tax um what do we call it? It's a GST, right? which is you know consumption tax and there was hardly a fight. It was just more of a negotiation about how the revenue was going to be split between the between the states but they were quite willing to do it once it had the legislation right um because it effectively went it was the main issue at an election. Am I remembering correctly? I think that no because John Howard was a bit of bit of a sneaky politician. I think he said at the election he would never implement it and then when he won and he was still riding high in the polls like a year into his term, he said, "I'm just going to go for it." I think that's what happened. Um but it was a long time ago. So my point was that um I think in the states uh these states um are much more um sort of strident about what their rights are and they even fight to take more rights whereas in Australia I think it's been the other way around. Um and maybe that's it might have something to do with the nature of the size. You know Australia is not quite as uh as big a country in terms of population. So it doesn't really matter too much. We're culturally much more similar to each other than than for example Americans, right? Like you're telling me a Texan and a Californian are really from the same country. They're so different. I mean what the the I think well Americans are very individualistic and um the culturally they're very different as well. So I think um that individualism really shows up between the state and the federal government. The there's a there's a strong drive to be quite distinct. Um each state wants to be very distinct. Um they're all just Americans to me. I mean, I'm not I'm not American, so I don't know the the deep Yeah. Someone who's got a appreciation of, you know, their history and their culture to be able to explain it to us, right? Yeah. But it does seems like the way in which it it works is that it was, you know, there's a massive distrust of government and so at the state level that probably they inherit that as well as a massive distrust of C, you know, federal government. Um, and I it's kind of a nice setup, right? It's like you empower the people to overturn the government at that you you vote with your guns if the vote with at the polls fail. Um, it's it's really interesting. I'm not sure what the best way is because, you know, you have a look at you have a look at a country like Denmark and Sweden, whatever, and they are very collectivists compared to basically any state in the United States. and and definitely as compared to the country as a whole, right? And yet they're happier, right? Have they don't quite have the poverty or Okay. They don't have the high level wealth, but overall they're very wealthy per capita. Per capita. Sure. Sure. And they're very happy. But uh I mean if you look really falls, you know, between the cracks. Yeah. Whereas in America that's that's quite common and becoming more so, right? So it's like I guess a nation's got to live true to its values in order to be content, right? Yeah. I mean, you can, you know, broadly speaking, you just need to run um the metric on corruption and the corruption in these Scandinavian countries and Switzerland, all these people are wealthy and rich. there's a correlation between lack of corruption and wealth and there's also unhappiness and community fabric. Um and the thing is you know you on one one end of the spectrum you've got Scandinavia and the other one other end you've got you know some of these countries like Congo and South Africa where it's just rampant corruption and then the United States is still pretty not corrupt but still a lot of corruption as we've seen with Doge pulling out there's a lot of so it's really comes down to um individuals in power that have been corrupt um And um the US system is effectively a system in which it empowers the people to um have weapons against corruption if it gets to that point. Whereas the Scandinavian countries don't have the corruption. The question is if you did have the corruption, what do you do? Right? And Switzerland is interesting because it doesn't have the corruption, but it's also got in place the um the power of the individual to to be in control. Um so that's they got a lot of guns in Switzerland. They got a lot of guns, but there's direct democracy. They can veto the government um and back it up with their guns, but it hasn't turned bad. Um whereas you know so we can say this system works but it hasn't been tested you know we haven't had a leader come in to um corrupt it. Yeah. Yeah. I I just I wonder about that. You know like if if I was in America I'd want a gun, right? Like I'd want I'd be a gun owner if I was in America. in the UK, in Australia, absolutely not. Right. And um there there are all sorts of reasons for that. Um but I just wonder like a lot of people say is it the second amendment which is the the um the right to bear arms in case the first one doesn't work. I'm like, but what are you really going to do if the state turns violent against you with your gun or or a 100,000 people with guns compared to the United States military or even the United States police force which is militarized? What are you going to be able to do? I think quite a lot. I would say quite a lot. Um yeah.

Yeah, I think so. Here's the thing. You've got your guns, right? But they're not going to come after you with guns. And you might have your militia, 100,000 militia, but they're not going to come with you, come at you with the guns and whatever that you have, whatever positions that you have. They're just going to, you know, just use their air force on you or their tanks or whatever. And what's a gun to do? If they really want to come at you, what resistance are you going to have? Well, I think um you know like you think about the freedom of speech, right? It's the freedom of thinking independently, the freedom to speak those thoughts, but then there's the freedom to assemble, which is um an ability to um expand um your thinking and get buy in from your community. And then you got the freedom to bear arms. And so um so say that the country, you know, we should probably talk about countries where um there's been an uprising against the corrupt government and see where, you know, difference between guns or not. But um I would say when you've got millions of people with guns that are resisting um corruption who might be in charge of the military um ultimately the military ain't going to drop bomb carpet bomb a city, you know, or is a special forces going to take out surgically um 150,000 people, you know. So, um, and would they even would they even comply with those orders? I I think they would, um, you know, how many people died in the American Civil War, right? Because what I'm saying is like it's not necessarily if if something happened like that, it's not just going to be civil war, be civil war. And I've heard that said that if if Trump was shot, that would be the fastest way to create a civil war. um that that he was if he was killed. Um but the you know um the US is I was listening to an old TED talk where she was a adviser to the CIA and they built him a quantitative model on risks to civil war and it needed certain key elements um to be um to be there. um things like um divide between races, divide between religions, um wealth disparity and c certain things around the social fabric of the whole country and um you know named all these countries and actually um and now she was an adviser um not in the the CIA. the CIA can't run the stuff on um can't run it on their own people. But because she's an adviser outside of her consultant to the CIA, she ran the numbers on the US and the US was also very close to civil war based on their prediction model. And so um yeah, I I'll get a name from you later on because I want to look that up. That's fascinating. Yeah, you probably just Google it or rci t civil war CIA model, you know. All right, I'll look that up.

Hey, let's um let's talk let's talk some Bitcoin because um it's 85,000 as I look today. That means it's all over, isn't it? It's going to zero, man. It's going to zero. I love I absolutely love the antagonistic [ __ ] posters. Whenever Bitcoin dips 5% or 10% it's over and you're like, "Mate, it's 5x from the bottom. What are you talking about?" Right? And they never miss an opportunity. And um I think Jason from the Allin is getting in on on the act because he's realized it gets him a whole bunch of attention. So he's he's he's playing the Peter Schiff card. Jason, who it's Jason? Jason Calcanis, right? Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. He's like he's basically Silicon Valley's Peter Schiff now. Did he sell his Bitcoin? I think he is a bit he never had any. His wife bought he his wife bought the Bitcoin. He doesn't have any. So, you know, like he tries to um he tries to ride high off that decision and say our Bitcoin, but mate, it's your wife's. Is there a tax advantage over that or anything? I'm just thinking it's I don't know. I don't know. But that crew, Chimath, um Jason, I think a few others, maybe maybe Sachs, not sure. Um but there's a bunch of them and they I think at one point they were sort of skiting. They owned 5% of the supply back in the 2011 period. Shimath owned a lot at one point. Yeah. very early on he said he bought a million dollars worth and that was when Bitcoin was peanuts. Yeah. So, no, I think I see it in the blockchain. I think I saw on the blockchain at the bottom at the B there was a run up from just a few bucks all the way up to something like 1,200 bucks, right? And they would create this mess because there was so much that was soaked up at this one point. I think it was the Silicon Valley crews, you know, more than the air crew, but the whole lot they just bought right there for a few bucks. Um, and some reason has been rebalancing out apparently ever since he bought that big batch and it just doesn't make any you do you do tend to diversify a bit. Um and yeah just I think the different investors different different ideas you know um what is it you invested four years ago you get 13% per year right now something like that yeah so um remember he's a venture capitalist he's he likes to get the th00and 10,000x with all his new investments and so Um the average good venture capital firm would make around 20 to 25% annualized across the entire capital base. Um so Bitcoin now oscillates between or the low which is around

13% to 80%. And if you go back the last two years and look at the annualized rate of holding for four years, it's oscillated from 13% all the way up to 80%. And um, if you're venture capitalists, it's 20, 25, sometimes 30%. Um, yeah, so that's if you're looking at the raw numbers, um, there are investments that can beat it. Um, but it's very hard to, and the average person can't.

Um, I think if you can forgive anybody for um, for just treating Bitcoin as a mere hedge, it's probably the Silicon Valley guys, cuz the returns that you've just outlined that, you know, that they're chasing are very realistic for them. It kind of makes sense for them because the other thing is they've got to be building things, right? That's their whole point. It's not just a financial exercise. Um, they need to be investing in things that absolutely change the world. So, and we are too with Bitcoin. We're investing in the future and bringing that to because it needs as more people invest, it becomes more real as a store of value asset. They're investing in the infrastructure of the future too. So it's the same stuff. Um, I would say Bitcoin is the first um venture investment that retail could buy, and they front ran the institutions because they weren't allowed to buy it.

On a risk scale of 1 to 10, where do you think Bitcoin sits right now compared to its past? It's too broad a question because I have to understand what you mean by risk. Are you talking about um, draw-down risk? Are you talking about counterparty? No, it's something that persists into the future. Will it be around in 10, 100, a thousand years? Um, let's say 20, 30 years. Okay. So that is um the risk of failure. Okay. And if Bitcoin is around in a hundred years and it's worth $2 in 100 years, is that a risk? See what I'm saying? Is it if Yeah, but it won't. It won't be, I don't think. Yeah. Like, so when we look at risk, you know, I just that's my day job is I have to look at not only returns but risk. One risk is the trade or the investment goes badly, me, you make a loss. The other risk is um, the other risk is does the whole thing fail? Do you lose it? You know, so here's what so the mere existence of the protocol does not mean that it hasn't failed. Okay? Because if in a hundred years it's it's $2, I think the protocol has failed its purpose, and its purpose is to be a sponge for global liquidity in excess, right? So the price should reflect that at some point in the future as well. If it's $2, then it's obviously failed to me, right? So just its mere existence that someone is running the software somewhere and there's two nodes connecting or speaking, you know, like let's say if Bitcoin continues to continues to maintain its current size of users, trajectory. Yeah, not trajectory but can maintains its um, you know, whatever 10, 20,000 nodes has um 400,000 users or 500,000 users and has the same market cap in 100 years. Has it failed? Stagnation is not the same as failure, but um, I would say it has failed. It failed as an investment for sure. Fear it has failed would have outperformed it. Yeah. Yeah. I think I think it has to be a sponge for liquidity and financial excess, and if it doesn't if it doesn't do that it's it's failed to the extent that it's supposed to do that, that's as a um, as a store of value. The means of exchange thing is is another question, but I think there will be many, many alternatives. Okay. So the question is on a scale of 1 to 10, what's the risk of it not winning as a store of value? Yeah, let's let's I think you've narrowed that down nicely. Okay. Uh, like the risk. So 10 is it's absolutely going to fail. Zero is it's absolutely going to win. Um, I think it's I think it's it was a store of value. I mean, it's already winning. Um, it could get completely rugged if we don't handle quantum. It could get rugged by AI. Um, I don't think governments can stop it anymore. Well, it's it could get rugged by a mishap within the the core devs, um, the core development. Um, it could get rugged financially through market instruments. It could get rugged by a speculative attack. I'd give it a a risk of zero to 10 on risk. I'd give it um a risk score of three. Potentially four, maybe four. Three or four. Four.

How far back in the past would you have given it an eight? I never gave it an eight. I I I I had I mean when when was Oh, eight. Okay. Eight. A risk score of eight would have been would have been in the first risk score of um eight would have been in the first two years. Absolutely. In the first two years, maybe the first 3 to 3 years. Wow. Okay. Yeah. I I think people are way too um too sure about Bitcoin. I think that um Michael S is way too sure about it. I think most people are way too sure about it. You talk to any core dev um, well not any, but like they're always grappling with all the problems that they're dealing with in in the in the tech, the technical underpinnings. Um, I mean, even right now I think um there's there's a real split in where to go with um covenants and so forth, the best technology, you know, it's it's and like if we implement this then what are the implications and then does it open up um an intact vector into it, you know, remember the Bitcoin code base is not set, it's constantly being developed. Um, I asked Adam back are we going to get to um code freeze on the base layer and everything gets up there so this doesn't get messed with, and he says we're trying to get to that, but then you go you go you've got quantum coming in that is going to be breaking it. And so, you know, we thought that was um another 20 years away or something like that. Now, it turns out it might be 5 to 10 years away. And so, there's a lot of risks in transitioning between u where we are now into the um into the quantum-resistant ledger, right? We have to we'd have everyone would need to send their coins to the new if it's softwalk to the new wallet that supports the quantum-resistant ledger, and then suddenly the 3.7 million coins that can be grabbed because the private key is lost is now going to whoever gets access to that quantum computer. It's probably going to be a nation-state or a very large corporate like Google. I don't think it's going to be individual. And then if they control the coin, then what are the economic and social ramifications when we think, oh, let's say it's Google now Google owns 3.7 million Bitcoin. What are they going to do? Oh, there's there's one CEO, you know, it's publicly traded. Imagine if it's a maybe it's China. What is China? Like what are they like now? Is Bitcoin geographically um neutral? China owns 3.7 million bitcoins. There's all sorts of risks, right? Like it's not for sure and we've got all these things to get through, let alone um a break in the codebase right now. So people are way too sure about Bitcoin.

Um, but then also you you know, you got to compare that to what would you invest your money in with zero risk? Nothing. Nothing has zero risk. Yeah. Not even like everything's got a risk to it. And it's like I didn't expect it before. Well, we were talking about whether it wins, whether it wins. And what that means is in 100 years it wins or a thousand years it wins. If I make a bet on holding, you know, Tesla stock or Google stock or Apple stock and will it win in a 100 years? Do you just run the numbers? A tiny fraction of companies are around after a hundred years. The hundred-year company is a thing. Very few companies make it. Very few. This is a very hard test. Will this hedge fund survive for a hundred years? Zero have survived, right? Cuz none that old yet, but very few things survive 100 years.

What's the longest-running protocol? uh English or something like that, a language maybe Sanskrit. Sanskrit Sanskrit I'd say I mean 20,000 years I didn't expect you to go to languages as protocols, but they are protocols aren't they? I was thinking more from a technical uh protocol. Yeah, been around for 40 years the internet was it 60s right? So um 50, 50 60 is um yeah, what's this telephone is uh I mean I I think I've changed the protocol a few times right, have they? I don't know, but it would have to be a protocol is a messaging um system. All right, that's it. A messaging system to transmit information. That would be Sanskrit. Um, it's gone tens of thousands of years. Um, so um written written text um of some form is the oldest that we have on record and that's pretty much for sure. Um, this leads us on to is um is is Ethereum you know a protocol and it's not that Ethereum is not a Ethereum's not a protocol actually. Um, Bitcoin is a protocol because all you're doing is messaging. You're sending coins across a ledger. Um, Ethereum is is a is um it's a it's in computers. It's a it's a language compute environment, you know, and so um that's different. It's very complicated. It's you notice that we have an internet TCP IP that's protocol. One thing wins. Everyone conforms to that language to send ones and zeros to each other. Um, when you have a compute environment and you need a computer language for that, you don't have one winner, you have you know in and we have how many stacks do we have in not in you know, you got JavaScript, you've got you know C, you've got lisp, you've got you know Python, you've got blah blah blah blah blah and it goes for um and you have layers and layers right so these hundreds maybe thousands of these environments um and so Ethereum Salana blah blah blah only this cycle as the market started to cotton on through market dynamics that these things are not protocols that the whole world's not going to jump on Ethereum or Salana like finally now Ethereum has had the share market cap with Salana is getting traction and then happen right because there's there's no there's no moat and and whenever I spoke to anybody who was defending Ethereum they'd say yeah but they've got all the devs and whatever you go yeah but think about the people who spend money to buy things that are on Ethereum. It's transactional, right? They don't Ethereum doesn't have a moat around those customers. Those people are interested in the transaction and they can transact anywhere for the thing that they want and it makes no difference what the underlying protocol is. It wasn't um it wasn't clear actually. It wasn't clear because there was such a thing as network effects of um DeFi um applications where you could one DeFi application could talk to another DeFi application on the same platform. Um, and so it's like you're on the same network. And so I could, you know, so you could, you know, have your little Metamask um wallet, which is interacting with, you know, one site and then it go to another site and interact and it could, you know, this site might show you all the investment um returns you're getting across your entire wallet. This thing would then now and then you could interact between different DeFi apps. So it was there was something to see be said would that be the reason for a lock-in but now we're in the age of bridges and bridging across the networks and that's very clear that um and people are building on across and moving to different different um you know, particularly when Ethereum's gotten very congested it's like and and I can't build on this platform I have to build on Salana because it's got the speed or the cheapness Um and so yeah and that's always going to happen right with these um well it's clear now that it it was going to happen like just I think it's very clear it's happening just like um development environments outside of crypto just for computers um so um they will continue to cannibalize each other over the market share that is not Bitcoin. Yeah, I mean the like what should Bitcoin dominance be? Well, at a very, very basic world of only crypto it should be um 50%. But if Bitcoin becomes a dominant store of value across the entire world um it's going to be one half Bitcoin and then on the other side you know it's going to have to share it with real-world assets like stop stocks and real estate and all that stuff. So, Bitcoin dominance has got to be higher than 50%, and it could be 90 something 95 99% I don't know um for 100 years.

Let's talk about um market cycles because um I think the one that the the theory that's um stood the test of time so far has been the liquidity cycle. I think that matches closest to it, and you know, people seem to have abandoned the idea that um halvings drive the cycles. Have have you made a conclusion one way or the other? Well, I said um last time um at four years ago that that would be the last cycle and then after that it would be a random walk based on the adoption and that there was um two impacts. One was global liquidity and the other one was a hardening, and they were superimposed, and halving's halving every four years um it it's impact and so um gi given enough cycles the hardening won't make an impact and now it's just global liquidity and so um the question is like what will that do to the price pattern of Bitcoin in the future? Will we get massive runups and will we get massive pullbacks according to those four years, and um I think it's pretty clear that the cycles are becoming less strong and that's because of halving um it's also because the um Bitcoin's no longer small and it's you don't get you know with a big asset you don't move as as as violently Um so you know that that's how I think about it. It's not is it hardening is it global military which is you know I think it's two superimposed demand supply um impulses and um one is weakening over time and then that's where I came up with the idea that um we eventually have a random walk but and it'll look a little bit more like equities um equity markets you'd say um where those things tend too. It's sort of like a uh you know a beline upwards and then every so often you get a a correction um when the liquidity drops out and then it comes back up again. So well we saw that with the stock like Amazon you know where the growth of its business the adoption by consumers everything like that led to pretty secular 10 15-year run. I I think I posted the um the chart and I said if you're wondering what Bitcoin looks like post cycles, this is this is the Amazon share price over like 10 15 years. And it's essentially it looks like a straight line on a log, but there are also like some serious corrections along the way. It's just that they don't they're not prolonged corrections like we've had in Bitcoin where you could almost you know well not almost we do call them cycles. They're just pronounced four-year um cycles whereas they're just they have a dip and it barely lasts six or nine months and it's away they go again you know 20% compounded per year and that was that was a phenomenal thing to watch because the thing I remember all the way through that was um the mainstream media narrative was constantly but but Amazon's not profitable Amazon is not profitable and it just kept they just kept repeating that for about seven years until it became profitable and then all the g all the gain in Amazon were basically baked in until 2020 um where the pandemic saw a huge boost in their in their business again. But I think the same thing could could happen with Bitcoin where you know corporate media narrative doesn't change all the way through this prolonged five six seven-year upswing in the price that you know gives that the cycle sort of fade into the background and all the way through they're going to be talking about volatility because of a 20% dip here and there uh maybe more um that won't that won't last as long as the previous cycles that we've been conditioned to expect. And you know, we we already see as soon as there's a little bit of blood on the floor um that the media kicks in with the narrative and people get scared to venture into Bitcoin, the price recovers, but the narrative does not shift and it's almost like they're waiting for every dip and they just take out the old articles, the old narratives, come back again. And we see the same trolls on Twitter pushing the same lines. Um, so I I think by the time that narrative changes, Bitcoin will be well and truly mature. It will be accepted. Most of the gains baked in and it could be well north of a million. Most nation states will have some allocation. Every corporate will have an allocation. It will be just something that you do. Even if it's, you know, a little bit of your liquid assets, just one or two percent, they will all say so. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I agree. I agree. I think that um the way it will look is like, you know, every so often by the dip opportunities and then it keeps running. Um, I would also say most people have exposure without even knowing it cuz they own the S&P 500, which includes Tesla, which owns Bitcoin. And more and more of that it's going to happen. Like they don't even know they're a citizen of a country and the country owns Bitcoin, you know, that's just everywhere. Even if they haven't bought it themselves, it's um it's uh it's there because it's part of every portfolio that they have.

You mentioned Tesla and something happened last night. Some guy was posting um when a significant company buys Bitcoin then then we'll know it's it's a serious asset. I'm like why do people keep forgetting that Tesla and SpaceX have an allocation to Bitcoin? You know Tesla's a significant company right at one point it was was it over a trillion dollar market cap. There aren't many of those in the world. You know, it's definitely one of the top. It's part of the Magnificent Seven, isn't it? So, um, Yep. Yeah. I just I just wonder is it because they're not constantly buying and hitting the headlines or was did the shine come off uh Elon Musk's um sell-off during the last bare market and people who just want to forget about that. Yeah, I think um whoever posted that forgot or didn't know. It seems to be quite quite a common thing that people forget that.

The other thing I wanted to ask you is like si since we hit the bottom of the the bare market in 2022, was it November 2022 and uh yeah it was like 15 and a half we've you know we saw a bounce and a bit of a consolidation period of about 8 months and then in the anticipation of ETF um approvals we saw quite a strong run-up and then essentially two more legs after that driven I don't know if I was to speculate primarily by um inflows into ETFs which were really strong and also um MicroStrategy as well not insignificant but where do you where do you how do you read that journey from the bottom and where do you think we are right now? Uh well the I mean it's really interesting and good to see the spot ETF come in and and company like MicroStrategy come in and buy it spot right it's they're buying spot the underlying asset instead of buying exposure to the futures market and so we have had a spot driven bull market um and that's usually a pretty safe place to Um, and I mean I think people I mean my friend Samson Mau is always talking about the God candle and of course he's always talking about nation states. Um he's talking to nation states so he's super bullish and maybe he's right. Um I would just say you know cuz I'm more of the quant guy. You just have to work out how much capital needs to be put into the network to push it up. Okay. And so, you know, it's a it's a um what is it is a 1.6 trillion today? You know, it's it's a you know, it's getting on a multi-trillion dollar asset. It trades like macro. Um if you if we want to um you know push push up the you know we want to double the if we want to go one say 1.5 trillion to 3 trillion. So doubling doubling the price um that's a significant amount of capital that needs to go into um the network. And so, um, yeah, like it's not like um Chimath and his buddies buy Bitcoin at $3 and goes wee all the way up to $1,200 anymore. It's got to soak up decent nation-state money and you might get a doubling or a tripling or and so forth. It's going to take time. So, I'm with you on that sort of steady like the picture you painted with Amazon stock with dip opportunities. It's going to be like that. Um, it's not going to be this reflexive boom up like this exponential curve that you saw in 2017. Um, yeah, it's different nowadays. Um, so yeah, I mean that's how I see it. Um, how underlying structure wise, you know, that's how I see it. Um, and also we're very highly correlated to to macro. We're another just another macro asset. Bitcoin is just another macro asset these days. Well, that's where we want it to be, right? That's what we've been saying for for many years, right? Yep. Yep. And it it is now. And so on my Bitcoin um charts, like when I have my trading view up, I have, you know, all the the the signals I use. And on the right-hand pane is is the other Bitcoin chart, which is the S&P 500. And I'm looking at where that's sitting and whether it's overpriced, underpriced, you know, whether there's, you know, divergences in the price and it has to correct and it's oversold or overbought. Um, and then let that inform Bitcoin. Um, and so, you know, like Bitcoin's pulled back and they're like, why the hell is it pulled back when Trump's announcing strategic reserves, repealing SA, there's all these things that are like super bullish. Is pulling back and it's it's because the S&P's diving in price and it's highly correlated and um we didn't pull back as hard as the S&P cuz that pulled back to you know um so like June last year or some price June May or June last year that price levels and we haven't pulled back that far in Bitcoin. Um so there's underlying strength in it. Um and we have to see where we go cuz we're not an independent market right now. And is the S&P climbing right now just because a technical divergence that was oversold and is it going to come back up and then it's a dead cat and coming back down into a recession? If that's the case, then Bitcoin's going to go down. Um never mind that, you know, everyone's the, you know, the nation states are planning to buy it or stacking it. The the price is going to be traded down. Um when when you mentioned about um the flow of funds and what Bitcoin will need to reach, you know, to add trillions and trillions in market cap, I I find that people mention the flow of funds required to take Bitcoin to say 10 trillion almost as though it's some kind of insurmountable um barrier for it to do so. But then you have a look at what happened to gold in the last 12 18 months and it's added something like 5 6 7 trillion in market cap which is like 4x bitcoins right so the money is out there um for people it's a question of is the allocation going to come it made a 50% gain over how many years when you say that $5 trillion and but over a relatively short period when it broke 2,000 to get to 2,500 cuz it was 2,000 the top of the last cycle. Uh four years ago was 2,000. Now it's what? What is it now? Today 2000 what? Gold. Gold is 3,000. We made a 50% gain in four four years. Good on you. I mean actually it beat Bitcoin because Bitcoin was $60,000 or 70,000 and now we're back at 80. I'm just trying to look up what the gold um that post that I made um if I can even remember what it was. No, I can't. Oh, here we go. Gold, are you joining? Okay. No, can't find it. Um here

we go. Here you go.

What happens when global adoption hits Bitcoin? Gold's market cap has surged 4.9 trillion. I posted this in November of 2024, right? Gold's market cap surged 4.9 trillion this year. So in 2024, it's almost—it added five trillion in market cap, which at the time was three times Bitcoin's market cap. It's slightly more than that now, right? So the—what I'm saying is like—was 10 times more than Bitcoin's market cap. No, no, no. So the difference that it added. Oh, I'm saying it added 4.9 trillion, right? That increase in gold's market cap alone just increase. But you have to do percentage gains, right? You don't—be—you have to do percentage. You can't—you can't say—you can't just pull—you know—you can't just say like, you know, my buddy's startup, um, you know, the latest round of valuation, he's only added, you know, $5 million to his market cap when yesterday Apple went up by 5 billion, you know, it's like—because remember gold is the largest asset on the planet—there's not an asset that's larger than gold on the planet. So, it's 10x Bitcoin more or less. It's a little bit more than 10x, right? It's about 12. So, it'll take—it'll take time. It'll just take time.

Um, but—but here's the thing that I would say to that, right? I think the assumption was always that the adoption would go on an increasing scale, right? First, it was, you know, the ideological people, technically interested people, and then it was kind of like Silk Road ushered in a bunch of misfits and people experimenting with all sorts of things, right? It brought a lot of people in. And then it kind of went along from the outsiders of society, you know, people who are just thinking differently, individualistic to becoming more and more mainstream, right? That's on the retail side. But then when we have a look at the institutional, corporate, government side, we always thought it would probably follow a similar path. But what we've seen in the last 4 months is a leapfrog to the final boss, which is the United States government saying, "We're given the green light to this. We're going to buy it." And I'm—I'm hypothesizing that perhaps that accelerates everything—that suddenly you have the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia looking to buy. Michael Sailor said he presented to an investment forum that had over 150 billionaires, sovereign wealth fund managers all about Bitcoin. Right? I'm thinking that we've leapfrogged that adoption scale, right? That spectrum that we thought would be on a sliding increasing scale over time. I think what's happened with the political action committee in the states from the crypto industry to push or pull Trump over the line has accelerated everything by probably four, five, maybe even 10 years—and that suddenly every company in America is allowed to own Bitcoin now. Whereas, you know, on a different timeline, had Trump lost, it was going to be the opposite of that. We were looking at a stranglehold by the Democratic Party on the industry, and now it's—it's just gone completely the opposite direction. And I guess I'm wondering whether or not we've just leapfrogged 10 years and it hasn't hit the price yet because the allocations haven't come, but the groundwork is being done—whereas before—four months before Trump won—no one even thought that was possible, and now everyone is looking at it like this is inevitable—we need to move and make our plans for it—and the allocation might come at the end of this year, you know, because some of these organizations—they—they move slowly—so 12 months would be quite quick.

Right. Um, yeah. So I mean, I don't disagree. I don't disagree um that the floodgates are opening, but it's not a floodgate of fast-moving damn water, right? It's floodgates of a slow-moving glacier, right? It's like it takes time, right? Do you know it's taken four years for Micro Strategy to actually gear up and really buy Bitcoin? Um, four years, right? What do you mean by that? You look at their balance sheet. How much Bitcoin did they really stack? It's all been in the last year—that—right—first thing he's got to do is like—he's got to convince the board—that was before they even bought their first Bitcoin. Right. And then um, you know, they needed to inform their shareholders—that provided a way in which the shareholders that were against it that they can sell their shares. By the way, this is because Michael Sailor owned by far the vast majority of Mike's stock. It's a little bit like Musk where he controls so much company—what he says he can leverage. Um, even that took 4 years for them to really gear up and buy Bitcoin. If you look at the US government's um strategic reserve, probably take 18 months. Um, 6 months if miracles happen—um—like it take 18 months. And um, you look at a publicly traded company that is not like Elon Musk or Michael Sailor where there's a founder with massive control. The board can't buy—they—that they can buy a little bit—like a little test, you know, fraction of a percentage point that won't change the day-to-day operations for the company. um, do a bit of this—eventually they have to take it to a full vote of all shareholders—and even then there's—there's this massive stuff you have to do to get the company in line where they can start to bring it on board—that it takes years—as Micro Strategy has shown you—um—so when you think about nation-state adopting it, it's going to take time—right—like we talked about institutions—the company—the spot ETFs come in and they thought they were going to pile in—no—they—like—it'll take 6 months to years before the operational due diligence of these very large institutions, mutual funds have completed the full due diligence of all the underlying custody and how the ETF works and so forth. It—it takes time before—and so you know—was—when was the ETF? It's—you know—what a—what—when did it launch? How many months into it? Are we 18 months? It was January last year. It was January last year. Yeah. January 11. Not even 18 months into it, right? And this is around the time where some of the institutions can come in, right? And so it's just all these taps turning on, but it's going to take a while for it to get the flow up.

Like I'm going to ask you today, how much do you think is um being put into the Bitcoin network? I—I don't know. I haven't looked at—$482 billion in the last 16 years, right? And how much has Micro Strategy put in and the ETFs? You know, big chunk of that. Yeah. No, 35. Oh, the ETFs as well. Yeah. So, the only thing I would say is Micro Strategy since they started buying have consistently bought. But what's happened is that the market um has embraced them and shown an appetite—an increased appetite for um their willingness to borrow, you know, with various securities. So I don't think it was um four years of micro strategy preparing to buy more and accelerate that. I think it was just the market took four years um to facilitate their purchases—and I think Michael Sailor said something like we sort of stumbled into this opportunity. So it was like it wasn't their lack of preparedness to buy more. It was the market was not prepared. Um, it took four years before these opportunities would arise. Yeah. It—it took for the next bull market such that there was an M&V that was above. And so when they announced their $42 billion plan for the next three years, 21 million of debt, 21 million of equity, everyone thought that was ridiculous, right? And within 3 months, they—they'd bought something like 20 billion worth of um Bitcoin. It was just crazy. And that was only in I think October—they announced that—October, November. And then suddenly there was just a massive appetite for the securities they were offering. And um, they've reissued a new plant. Now, I would say that's no different from any—I would say that's no different. Like if you have a nation-state buying it and you enter a bear market, the politicians that instigate it ain't going to be too—too popular until the next bull market. Um, there are like a lot of—you know—it's a nation-state—there's political um dynamics that are happening and there's bull market cycles happening there too—um—and you know—I think—was—was it—UAE was thinking adding a sovereign wealth fund back in 2019—that was definitely the case—and um, they already said it's going to take a year of figuring out how to do it—um—And yeah, like this takes time. And then they—when they turn it on, they—they—they test it with little trickles and then they, you know—and so $842 billion people, that's—that's how much been put into the network. Um, even though the market cap's doubled that. So we got a two—2:1 ratio. So if we want another trillion growth to two and a half—to two and a half—um—billion dollars—trillion—trillion dollars, we got to find another um 500 billion. There's 842 billion that's been put in. These are the numbers. Okay, these are the bull numbers. That's pretty easy when you consider that Micro Strategy alone has got like 35 billion. They—their—their cost basis is I think 35 billion for—Yeah. So we cool—we just need another I don't know—13—14 more micro strategies and we're going to get the—our $1 trillion—which is going to push price up 66%. These are the numbers, right? We're not going to get 10x in um in the next 3 months, right? It's—we're not going to get $150 to $20,000 in one year. It's a big moving ship and people don't grapple. That's the type of capital we're—we're talking—large trillion-dollar assets. JPAL is going to come to the party and prove you wrong, mate. Don't worry about that.

Hey, let me—Yeah. Yeah. Let me ask you about—so you said we need, you know, another 10 or 12 um micro strategies. Well, we've got one new micro strategy and that's GameStop. They've got 4.6 billion in cash, right? They've already issued 1.3 billion after announcing that they're adding Bitcoin as a Treasury reserve asset. They've issued 1.3 billion in convertible notes. They are 10 times the size of Micro Strategy when they started buying Bitcoin and have 10 times the cash. So I—I wonder if their strategy is to hold on to their cash and use that as a means of servicing any debt that they might have and then borrow as much as they can. So their 1.3 billion I think is a zero coupon, but you know—so it's pretty interesting what public companies can do—h—so what—yeah—and they've been publicly listed and audited for how long—right—more than a decade—so they—they've got a lot of transparency there to inspire some level of confidence uh for lenders such that they can borrow 1.3 billion in two days after announcing a new investment strate—or investment policy. So, how—how do you think—do—do you think they will use their cash to just buy Bitcoin or do you think they'll continue to issue convertible notes? What would you do in that instance? Would you just hold on to the cash as much as possible and—and borrow to give confidence that you could service the debt if you had to?

Oh, I mean—I—I look—I—I'm not—I haven't been following it too closely, but I think that—I think the dynamics is that—um—when you have a like a—a kind of a MNAV that's close to the one you use—convertible notes to—to kind of—um—you know—get the leverage up—so the MNAV drops and then you—you—um—you like the—you do the ATMs on the other side—and so there's a kind of like a straddle play—like at one end you do convertible notes then you do ATMs—and it just keeps the yield machine going. Um, I know I have to look into that a bit deeper, but like I think that's a general dynamic. So there is—there is a method around how you do it and what timing and based on your market cap and how much bitcoin you have in your treasury and—um—mic strategy is playing that—that game as well. So, um, it's not—it's not one or the other, but both at the right time. Um, what do—Yeah. How much do you think they're capable of borrowing? Because I—I made a post in Jess, right? I—I said at four with 4.6 million cash, they could—they could finance 100 billion at 1% for like almost 5 years, right? Um, it's—it's half joking, but it's half sort of like—well, you know, the possibilities are quite large. Yeah—they're tapping into the same capital base as Micro Strategy. So like—now—now you've got two on-ramps—the same on-ramps—same—same capital coming in—now you've got two to choose from. Right. So can we see—you know—is—is there anything stopping them from raising 20—30 billion in the next six months? Depends on the appetite—on what's sitting on the other side of the on-ramp. Um, but the appetite—if that's not being serviced by Micro Strategy and they want more—then sure—that's going to help. But if Micros actually capable of delivering the total on-ramps—um—but I don't know what that answer is. Has anyone researched like what is the appetite that is out there—is—is Michael Sail—is probably the one that knows—and maybe he is issuing just that the appetite is right now—apart from—um—the one in Japan. What's the name of it? Um, it's a meta planet. Metanet has a different market; it's a Japanese, you know, it's a—the yen—and so they—that's a different, you know, there's a different appetite there in that country. But if we're talking about the US stock market and US equities and the bond markets there, like I—I think—um—it's good question, right? If—if it—the appetite is not being serviced by just Micro Strategy, then it could be significant. Um, otherwise, maybe not.

Well, we're starting—From the charts, we can see there's an uptick in the liquidity cycle, right? So that money's got to go somewhere. I mean, if there's an excess, it's got to go somewhere, right? So, who's to say that this is not just the beginning, right, of more micro strategies and GameStops, right? Or even if it's just those two just doing it at a larger scale, if it's—if that's even, you know, imag—hard to imagine. I know given what Micro Strategy did in the last four months, but this—that scale of that game plan, it could double and triple, right? You could double and triple because that's—we're still talking—we're still talking 10—maximum in the tens of trillion—billions—and the 10 billion is equal to 1% of a trillion—and we need a trillion to get—of influxes to get us a third of the way to gold or something. Yeah. So you can put it in perspective is—um—if we want to get to exceeding gold's market cap, um, we need roughly 10% of world equity valuation going into Bitcoin—or we need—um—you know—one-tenth of world GDP going into Bitcoin. Um, do you think that's going to happen? So that's—um—so where—where are we? That's kind of—to get the—to get the next 10 to 20x, we need 10% of—of world GDP to go into Bitcoin. And do you think that's going to happen this year? No. How many? It might happen in the next—um—in the next 5—10—15 years, but that's a time horizon. So that's—Do we get a God candle to um a million dollars? Uh, you can have that in markets because these imbalances—like how GameStop just ran all the shorts—that's how you get to it—but it's not—well—when I'm talking—these numbers—I'm talking about sustained—um—you know—rational—not rational valuation—but fear value—r—based on the actual capital in the network—sure—it can go way up and—and squeeze everyone out—but it'll come back—it'll come back down—yeah—I mean—even if we got another parabolic run. Let's just say that this year ended up with a parabolic run, right? The expectation is that it would still come back down to, you know, I guess under 150,000, right? At least it will always come back to the realized cap, the amount of money that's stored in Bitcoin. It always comes back at par or below because it—it—once it gets under that, then it's just—it's—it's absolutely undervalued. But it's always trading at—at a premium above—mainly it's—you know—let's say—or three and a half to three and 3/4 years out of the four of the cycle—it's trading above that—how much is stored in the network—and—and it can run really high—it can go five times higher than what's stored in the network at the peaks—and—um—that's when you get the exponential run. I would also say the last cycle was not an exponential run. It was like a linear run, and then it got—it—it rolled over. It felt—it. Yeah. It just—it just stopped on it. I wasn't expecting that. You know why? Because that cycle was the first cycle that um some dude can sell Bitcoin without owning it. In 2017, the only—Yeah. the only person that could sell Bitcoin um to the—the—the—the frothy masses were um people that—the few people that owned it. Um, and you know, they need to be coaxed to sell it at $20,000 when the prior week it was 10—and—I—okay—I'll sell it back. That's when it topped. So you—this—that's when you see it exponential—and you saw it in all of these crypto markets when there were no derivatives—and so I don't think we're going to get um those exponential runs anymore because the market will naturally correct—'cause Wall Street people have lots of models that says this is overheated—we can—we can sell a derivative into this market. So—will—I guess the two questions that um people are always asking you and—and thinking about when it comes to Bitcoin is—um—where are we in the cycle? Do you see any sort of—can we just negate the cycle? No, no, no. I don't mean cycle, but—um—um—do you see any overexuberance? Is there froth in the market? What's the situation with—with leverage—um—and also like looking out for the rest of the year? Do you think that no longer matters? Like because a lot of people are saying, "Yeah, yeah, by the end of the year that'll still be a cycle." I am leaning probably 60/40 that there aren't any more cycles and it'll just be what we discussed a moment ago. Um, but do you think that plays out?

Yeah, I think that—I'm waiting for a correction. Maybe we've started—I think—because of what Macro is doing. Um, you don't remember like—like we had CO—and it was, you know, whipping along around 10,000 up and down—and it went to 14—it came back down to six—it was coming up to 10—and then CO happened. It went down to four or something. Yeah, I think V-shaped recovery—10—and then it went up. It's very choppy—sort of reaccumulation phase before the real bull market happens. Well, technically we're in that timing signature, right, where—um—it's normally like the 2017 version was 2016 was the version of that where it was just gradually choppy but upwards—and then it—it goes off on the bull run. Um, we're in that. So, um, I—I'm still waiting for that correction—and I'm thinking of that around macro. I think the S&P's um may be dead catting. It might recover from its overselling. Uh, maybe it hits 6,000 or—or not, but I think it will kill over again. um, 'cause I don't—not seeing enough strength in it. Um, I'm not seeing much strength in Bitcoin either. Um, and so—whether or not if that happens—then I think it's going to creep down lower—might revisit the 70s and—and—um—then we enter the summer months. Remember summer months is—go away in May, come back in the summer—um—come back in spring. So I looked into that. I looked into that. It's kind of like three and four years. It's kind of like that, but there's always that one year that's an exception. Yeah. Did you look into for the S&P 500 like—No, just—you can't count the years where Bitcoin was like a tiny startup where like if you—few—you guys could push the price up infinitely. Um, now remember we're highly correlated to S&P—with—it's a multi-trillion dollar asset class. So—um—that has a lot more sway now. Certainly the summer months last year were terrible—um—amongst—and the year before—amongst the buying of the spot and—of—of micro strategy and all this. So—um—yeah. So we're going to come—like we've got April and then we've got May, right? And I'm not seeing much strength in March. Um, and when I say strength, I don't just mean price. I mean—um—the capital flows are being out of the network—that's all measured on-chain—with—that includes the spot ETF—mic strategy and all the stuff. So—um—the way I'm measuring it—it's—it's out—the—sort of the—the shorter-term speculative money is moving out. Um, and so—um—I want to see that climb—and if you know it's climbing right now—the last—you know—half week to a week—but if that goes exponentially higher—then sure—maybe we're getting—seeing some strength—but—um—I'm just cautious—we're in that—remember CO—right—remember the last reaccumulation—it's like going all over the place—and then it really comes down harder—lower than anyone thinks—and—and it's off—and we're in—trade wars and tariffs and a lot of confidence being knocked out of the market. And then—um—you're also seeing signs of liquidity injection, but—um—liquidity injection—if you look at it—they inject also when there's going to be hard times coming ahead—trying to soften it. And we got tariffs and a whole lot of—you know—investors getting pretty skittish and uncertain about the impacts—and at the same time they're injecting liquidity—which is hopefully going to soften that blow—doesn't mean that we won't get like a CO thing—as they're injecting liquidity—um—and so I think the whole crypto world right now is on opium—u—or too bullish—I think that—um—like until the whole market turns really bearish—I—I think right now—given how price is behaving to—the fundamentals of what's happening. It's—I think everyone's too bullish. I think that we're going to correct. Um, we have been correcting. Um, we might be dead catting, but maybe we get some cheap Bitcoin, which be good for the true maxis that want to stack some cheap coins—'cause I was really pissed off when it ran to 100—'cause I felt like I wanted more time to buy at 60 or 50. Um, and so—um—yeah, there you have it. That's me. Um, I'm like cautious. Anything can happen, but right now I'm not seeing signs to be elated. I'm not seeing God candles. And—um—yeah—yeah, I—I mean—we're—we're far from euphoria at 85,000, which I find incredible. Um, very encouraging actually. Um, because it does give us more time to stack at levels that we've become accustomed to now. So now 85,000—when we were two years ago in the bare market—was a bit of a dream, right? We thought it would take quite some time to recover from what was a catastrophic industry meltdown. And so here we are sitting at 85—down from 100. Was it 109 or 107? I just think it's fantastic. Like bearish at 85. Fantastic. I see the timeline from an engagement point of view is—is really quite dead. I don't see any exuberance whatsoever. um, putting aside the few—you know—bull posters who are bull tards like me—um—given—but—but like—um—you know—like it's not serious analysis, for example—and I don't think it's reflective of the general mood on the timeline either. I think people are quite circumspect at the moment. Um, and I wonder if we're just going to repeat what happened last year where we're just chopping for 9 months before we gradually inch up and break out again for another step, which would be amazing. Wouldn't that be amazing? Like we just get a 30 or 40% run up and then we just chill out for about six or eight months rather than having that deep 30—40% correction. Um, I think that shows signs of maturity as a market and asset class, even though opportunistically it's uh not quite the same. I—I actually think that's exactly what happens is that we—we'll chop around, maybe we get a little bit—

More pain than last year, and and then we come back up again, right? And maybe we get our full bore, um, sort of bullish face. Um, it'll be and and I think it's going to screw with the timing, like cuz we're thinking these cycles aren't really going to be so exact anymore. I think, you know, I think of it as last cycle—it's just random walks of like, like your Amazon case. So everyone's thinking, "Oh, it's tail end of this year. We're just going exponential cuz every December, every fourth year, every fourth December, you know, one, you know, one last thing.

I mean, I really appreciate your time. We've we've—I can't believe how long we've been talking for, actually.

Yeah, we need to cut this down. We need to like—How long is this podcast? I don't know. I mean, it's almost 3 hours that we've just had a chat for, right?

And?

Yeah, but you booked it for three. I I thought you were just kidding.

Yeah, but I didn't—I booked for three thinking we'll talk for two and, you know, plus minus whatever, right? Cuz like, you know, to demand more than 3 hours of someone's time is a bit, you know, it's a bit obnoxious, right? It's like, come in for four hours. No, no one's going to do that, right?

Um, you know, last cycle, um, as well as, you know, being a huge commercial success, I thought it was incred—of incredible service to the community as well. You—I want to talk about your newsletter and onchain, right? And your decision to stop that. Um, because at the time I just thought it was um incredibly classy thing to do at the time because not many people would have done what you did. Um, and so the reasoning behind that and how you continue to use onchain, if you do, in your decision-making process.

Yeah. Well, it's ultimately the method I use is onchain. Obviously, I've measured demand and supply onchain. Um, that I was measuring—it was 83% predictive um at the start of it and then near the end of it it was 50/50. So it was no edge at all, and and I was thinking—so it's also an arms race, right? So you you think about being on Wall Street and being like 83% of the time like you—if you're a good trader—if you're 51% of the time and you got good risk management, you'll make money—even 49% of the time if you got good risk management you'll make money cuz your wins will beat the losses. So, um, the writing was always going to be on the wall, and I felt like um while Bitcoin was early, I wanted to write a letter for retail to um to have, you know, and then as the as as the accuracy started dropping and also bear in mind the subscriber base is retail—they weren't very sophisticated managing risk. Um, I didn't think it was going to—I thought it was going to be damaging than helping, whereas originally I think it was helping because the accuracy—so you couldn't go that far wrong. Um, and also I was encouraging people to trade, and I just didn't think that, you know, people were saying, "But I get this letter, I could trade," and the trade is is, you know, it takes a long time to um understand risk and mitigate it. And so I felt like near the end of it wasn't adding value. So I quit it. I I I shut it down.

And um, you know, I still, you know, I still do my thing, and it's a—my models are way different now. They're much more—the part of the problem with the accuracy was because um the onchain does not account for the whole market. Um, as derivatives came very very dominantly at the top of last cycle, this became less accurate because a lot of activity was happening with derivatives. Um, there were a lot of shorts that came in. Um, I was really out of bounds near the end, and I wasn't picking up on the derivatives data, and so these days I'm like—it's a combo of a lot of different impacts um and the models are completely different and they're working quite well, but um I don't want to do a big letter again, and so, you know, that's why I just opened up a subscriber um button on my Twitter and um it's just like a hobby—it's not big. And um, but it keeps me on the tools and um, you know, I enjoy that. And also I've also stopped posting on Twitter about markets as well cuz when you've got like, you know, what was it—1.1 um followers—it's just not fun to post things on on the market because you're going to get trolls. You're going to get like a bunch of stuff thrown at you, and then you're going to get press articles written about Willy Woo predicts this or that, and half the articles mistranslate what you said. Um, other people then pick up on that, and the next thing you know, there's this—it's just all manner of crap, right? So, um, I don't even post about markets on on my Twitter anymore. Seldom do I do it anyway. And so I use the um sort of small subscriber bases where I think markets are going, and I've changed my lingo as well. I was like—I always say probabilistically it'll do this, and so I'm much more careful about it. Um, and yeah, so that that yeah, that but that was a, you know, I think it was a pretty easy decision um to shut down the letter.

Um, I think a lot of people—No, no, no, no. Most—I I'm 100% sure most people, given the success of that newsletter, would have milked that. I think a lot of people would have milked it.

Um, yeah, just not me. Just no. Easy. That's why I said it was a classy thing to do because it's based on principle, not commercials, right? A lot of people would have said, "Hey, I'm still making money. I'll just um I'll just uh pivot my message," and and I saw many people—large accounts—do that. So yeah.

Yeah. I think it was definitely the right decision to make for me and my happiness. And you know, obvious time horizon. That's what we should be doing as Bitcoiners. And I think um everything's about compounding, and compounding is just not money. It's also your time and your reputation. And um ultimately it's happiness. And so um yeah, it's it's, you know, it was crazy for me to see um Donald Trump launch a um a meme coin cuz I thought, gee, that that's the worst you could do to—if you're trying to compound your credibility, your reputation—you're saying to the world, I'm a grifter, you know, and because, you know—

Yeah.

So it just seemed—and also given his um, you know, his age—I don't think it was him doing that. It's well and truly his sons. I think it's Eric and um and Baron driving that cuz the youngest one was like 8 foot—8 foot tall—and I think Eric is pretty strong into into all the [ __ ] coinery stuff then, but he would have still needed his dad's approval.

I would have said it's family name. It's family office actually. It's a family office.

Yeah. But I think the older boys are well and truly into—sort of—they're sitting on the driver's seat, and dad pretty much says yes or no to things. And it's not the sort of thing that I would imagine Trump would have said no to. You you do you think it was out of character for him to do? Like, I would have thought—I would have—I would have predicted that. I don't think he's very um well—well um educated on exactly how all these markets work, and so, you know, I think he's much better on negotiations and even geopolitics—strategic—that sort of stuff—I think this sort of new-fangled crypto thing—go for it, you know, you guys—you see him in the speeches—you guys do this innovation—he's always sort of not exact about what he—you can say he's like—"You guys are having fun. You're doing good stuff, I'm sure." And he's, you know, but he's not into it. And so, you're probably right. He probably says, "Sure, kids. Go for it."

They sold um $500 million worth of tokens. So, they launched a coin. It went to billions, and they sold down $500 million worth, right? So, that's 500 million in cash into the Trump family's pockets. That's more money than they would have made on god knows how many ventures over—

Right.

Yeah. So like, up until the apprentice—I think the apprentice really catapulted the family fortune and brand. I mean, he was obviously very well known before, but in terms of the size of the fortune and the the opportunities that they had to leverage the brand, I think that just took him to a level. That's because those other things they did was actually building something. This thing is just stealing money off other people because it's a financial fraud. They just haven't figured that out yet. Um, the regulators are um yeah—this pump and dump—come. It's um—yeah—and here's the thing, right? If you know it and you and you're gambling on the rise and hoping to get out beforehand, good luck to you. It's just like, you know, I look at meme coins like gambling in a casino or the horse races and whatever. Just don't count it as an investment proposition for the love of God, because it's just not. And if you're going to—if you—if you want to gamble, you do it, right? Like you don't go tell your friends and try to encourage them to put—send your kids to college. No one says that, right? But you know, if you're doing that, you're a bit of a scumbag, right?

Yeah.

Most people don't realize—they just—they don't know what they're doing actually.

No, no, it's out of desperation that—and that's the thing that I find—like—it it's sad to see it, and on the timeline you do see it. Um, there's there's so much desperation, and people look at it as—"I could put 50 quid on a meme coin, and I can get 10 grand out," and you're like—"Mate, you need to put 50 quid on a 100 meme coins, and maybe—maybe one of them will pay you back," you know—like—it's just the odds are so against you, and there's so many—so many people out there desperately thinking that it's going to save them or make their year or whatever it is, and that saddens me. But, you know, if you got a bit of money and you're like, "Hey, I I want to take a punt," I couldn't give a [ __ ]—Like, you know, I have no moral, ethical objection to that. It's the other things that surround it.

There's very few Bitcoiners or any accounts on Twitter that is or X telling people how the whole um memecoin or or altcoin gets bought into existence. And um, you know, like—who who's telling that story? They're just saying they're [ __ ] coins. You know, like—"Oh, you mean"—like—summarily dismissing everything but not telling people—not explaining to people. Well, who—which accounts are telling you—um, sorry—this going on a bit—like—we're most getting into the fourth—third—fourth hour. We're cool if you're cool, mate. So you know, I'm conscious of your time.

Okay, I'll I'll end in after this.

Um, who who is saying that this is how you create a coin, right? You get a team together, you create with a story, a technology, a meme, whatever. You go to your seed level investors. You're going to need the seed level investors. If it's an altcoin, you you want to get a Vigname VC in because it's going to really get the the confidence game up, right? But you need the capital. Why do you need the capital? Because you're going to list on a an exchange. Binance ain't doing it for free. So, you're going to pay them—maybe it's $2 million. You take that from your seed capital. All those guys are investing to get, you know, 10% or whatever the percentage of the token. Binance used to—I don't know what the deal is now, but they will say, "Yeah, we're going to need to take um a slice of your tokens as well to list." And then now you've got listing, but like part of that deal is—well, once you float the token, where's the liquidity coming from? Oh, you need market makers. Oh, so you're going to go to the market makers. Market makers come in and they go, "All right, I will market make—I'll provide liquidity." But the market making in crypto is not market making in regulated trade exchange where you're you're providing both sides of liquidity. These guys come in, they take—they take um tokens and cash and then they get paid a lot, and then they they have a thing called a call option, which is fancy speak for—"If I can get this price up to the strike price of my call option. Um, I um I fulfill—I I get these tokens, and I can dump on it," and then so what you see is on launch day on an exchange the price gets market made upwards to the strike price of their incentive—right—once they hit that incentive—thing's going to dump—right—whilst this is being market made up—your job as launching a token is to talk to the influencers, and you get the shitty ones to start with a small sphere of influence in the early circles, and you go bigger and bigger and bigger until you get the big guys that you're going to pay a lot of tokens to. Um, and as this price is running up, each one fires to pump this coin, and the community is going wild, right? While all the insiders, the seed investors, the VCs, the um exchange, the market makers, all dumping into this pump, and then once they hit the strike price, boom. That is how it works. Um, that is how it works. That is a financial fraud.

Really, I really appreciate you coming on, man. Um, I've had an absolute ball. Conversations flow. I've been wanting to interview you ever since I started, to be honest, but we just didn't get a chance during the spaces interviews to um to bring you on. I don't think—Did we ever have a chat on spaces?

No, I was—that was my sort of three years of being off um voice interviews and stream. I didn't think so.

Yeah. But I was like, "Yeah, I got to get a chance to interview Will." But um and I'm like, "Okay, when I when I do a podcast and I dox myself and everything, um we'll get him on board." Like, you were one of the first names that I really wanted to interview. I didn't think you'd be—you'd be available um so quickly. So, thank you for that—to—for making yourself available. Quite a few people I've got to sort of interview after like 10 days, two weeks, three weeks.

Yeah, I I'm not really making a habit of jumping on interviews, but um you know, it's a testament to your account. Um, Chio follow you, and you know, it's a good—you do a good—good service to the Bitcoin world. I appreciate your your support, man. I I know that amongst the biggest accounts, here's the other thing, like um Max and Stacy were one of the first—no, they were the first big accounts to retweet and follow me like when I was barely 5,000 followers. That's the other thing. So, there's kind of a thing there, you know, like—but I remember when you followed me, I was—I was almost beside myself because, you know, when I started the account, I didn't know that it was actually going to become anything, right? And then slowly you start getting validation from uh followers that you're actually putting out worthwhile content. And then you get to like 50,000 and you're like—"Is is this going to become something?" And you get to 100—200,000—you're like—"Holy [ __ ]—this is going to grow exponentially. I just need to grind every single day," and it—

Yeah.

One—maybe one day I'll talk about it on a podcast, but it was—it was hell for about 18 months. So—

Oh, really?

Yeah. I mean, yeah, it was—it was—Talk about being locked in.

Um, yeah, it was. So, thank you so much, brother. I I'd love to meet you one day in person. I know you got a young family, so you you're probably not traveling my way anytime soon, but if you're ever in London, please look me up because I I'd love to have a coffee, if not—if not a chat in the studio.

You're welcome anytime.

Absolutely. I I'll I'll do that—a photo down your way, Archie. And thanks for the the, you know, the interview. It's been fun. I'm talking to Daniel uh when when he's coming to London soon, so I'm talking to him as well.

Yeah, he's going to come in studio thankfully. So, I'm really looking forward to that.

Yeah, he'll enjoy that. Thanks, bro. I I'll speak to you soon hopefully.

All right.

All right. Cheers.