Uptober, Q4, and Bitcoin’s Next Leg with Mark Moss

I think what we're witnessing is a reverse crash. And so it's a crash up and not a crash down. So right now what we're seeing is prices running away from us. Bitcoin's going higher. Gold's going higher. Homes are going higher. Meat, milk, eggs, vacation, all that is going higher, but the results the same. I still can't afford the same quality of life I had before. So an inflationary crash. It's an inflationary standard of living.

[Music] Hey everyone, welcome back to the show. Joining me this week is the one and only Mark Moss. So many of you request another show from him. So here we are. We're in person. Mark, how you doing?

I'm doing awesome, Natalie. Always a pleasure. First of all, I'm just kind of curious because you have a lot of experience in with markets and in the investing world. Why is there such a pattern with October being an up month for Bitcoin? Like what happens in Q4 that's so good for us?

Well, there's a couple things. So number one, I would say Bitcoin specifically, um, we sort of have these four-year cycles that Bitcoin's been moving in. And so it's like the end of that four-year cycle. So it's sort of like this like parabolic move before the blowoff top. Um, I would say overall though, I don't really believe that the four-year cycle in Bitcoin is what most people think it is. I think it's about a four-year global liquidity cycle, but it's also having that blowoff top moment. Um, but I would also say it's because of the annual cycle. So like, uh, it's uh, what is it? Sell in May and go away, right? So, it's like the summer is usually dead. So, people are coming back after the end of the year. Um, they're kind of making their moves and that's why we typically see that. Now, Q4, we have October and Q4 is historically the best time for Bitcoin. November is not. So, so November is a crapshoot. November is very volatile. I just want people to be aware of that. And then December typically ends up pretty high. November was pretty great for us last year uh when the red wave swept.

Yeah, it was pretty good. It was pretty good. But, uh, yeah. So, so far this month is is certainly planned out that way. Uh there's a lot of indicators that say that this could start running away pretty quickly, like trying to catch up with gold's price and stuff like that. So, uh, yeah, it's exciting. So, people are starting to recognize the success of the debasement trade, which not just includes Bitcoin, but also gold. Um we had JP Morgan saying that Bitcoin is actually undervalued, that the f fair value price is about $165,000 per Bitcoin. I would just love to get your take because it seems like the growing consensus is actually to move toward these hard scarce but inert assets like gold and bitcoin.

Yeah. Yeah. So last week I believe JPA Morgan put that out the debasement trade and I think it was someone asked me earlier today um when will Bitcoin move from like this riskon asset to like this riskoff asset? When will it be deemed like a safety trade? And I said, I think a lot of people have already seen it like that for a while, but I think if you look at JP Morgan's announcement last week calling the debasement trade that maybe put the pin in it. And so what JP Morgan is basically saying is that governments will always debase their currency. They will continue to print forever. And so the trade, the obvious trade is to leave the fiat currency and go to a hard asset. And the hard assets are gold and Bitcoin. Now JP Morgan has been talking about Bitcoin for a long time. they they put out years ago that they thought they they projected Bitcoin to overtake gold. So they've been projecting that for a while. And so for them to now lump those two together and basically consider it a riskoff move, like a safety haven asset. Um and then you combine that with their guidance of it passing gold, then it does look way undervalued, right? So gold is, you know, what is it 21 trillion or so right now today. So it's about a 10x move for Bitcoin to be able to catch up to gold. And so a lot of times people want to know like is is it too late for Bitcoin? Which I think is an interesting question because typically you buy stocks based off of the future valuation of those stocks, but people think about Bitcoin based off the past performance, which is kind of weird. But when you look at these like forward guidance like JP Morgan saying it's going to um surpass gold, when you look at them put out this announcement last week of the debasement trade, um it looks super undervalued. And I would say that for Bitcoiners specifically and for gold people, uh, they've understood this for a long time and they understand that when you print more dollars, the existing dollars buy less goods and services, but most of the world still doesn't understand that basic concept and they they still think of things getting more expensive. Um, but so anyway, for them to put that guidance out there, I think people are waking up to it and yeah, it's taking off.

Coin Stories is proudly brought to you by Gemini. Start your Bitcoin savings account today. Plus, investing in Bitcoin has never been easier than with Gemini's Orange Bitcoin credit card. Earn up to 4% back in Bitcoin on everyday purchases like gas, dining, groceries, and more with no annual fee, no foreign transaction fees, and no exchange fees on your rewards. Plus, sign up today and get a $200 Bitcoin bonus when you spend 3,000 in your first 90 days. Apply now at gemini.com/natalie.

If you want to stay on top of Bitcoin without getting lost in all the noise, check out the weekly CIO memo from Bitwise Asset Management. CIO Matt Hogan puts together a quick five minute memo that breaks the biggest stories in digital assets each week. Bitwise has been around since 2017 and manages more than 10 billion across 30 plus strategies. The weekly CIO memo is bold, sharp, and totally free. Just go to bitweisinvestments.com/cio memo. And always of course carefully consider the extreme risks associated with crypto.

Coin stories is also brought to you by Bit Deer, a global leader in disruptive technology for Bitcoin mining and high performance computing for AI. Biter trades under the stock ticker BTDR and is working on advanced technologies to dramatically improve Bitcoin mining efficiency. Bitier also boasts a massive 2.7 gawatts of electrical capacity across four continents, positioning Bitier as one of the most diversified and power dense computing companies in the world. Learn more at bitier.com.

And finally, make sure to get your copy of my upcoming Bitcoin 101 book, Bitcoin is for Everyone. The book explains why money is broken and how Bitcoin can help you build lasting wealth and freedom. It makes the perfect gift for those new to Bitcoin. Just visit the link in my show notes. The book comes out November 18th.

Paul Tudtor Jones, who I believe holds Bitcoin. Yeah. Was on CNBC recently and he made it sound like there's a blowoff top coming or like a meltup. Do you also believe that we're going to see more momentum in stocks, Bitcoin, gold, and do you think that will ultimately lead to some sort of a crash? Because I feel like when I speak to the average investor, there's almost like it's it's it's one of two mentalities. We're either going through um like a meltup parabolic move, bull bull market on steroids, or oh wait, we're about to crash. All the economic data is weakening. We're we're going to have one of the biggest crashes we've seen in terms of financial crisis.

Yeah. So, I'm somewhere in the middle of that, but it's different than what most people consider. So, in October of 2022, I put out a YouTube video saying that there is no market crash coming and here's why. And then December, January, I said, "Hey, here's what the Fed did. It's time to go back in." August of 2023, I said, "The bare markets canled." December of 2023, I made a video titled reverse market crash. Since that time, I think Bitcoin's up 180%, right? S&P 500's up like 80%, gold's up, you know, 90%. So, I called it a reverse market crash. So, let's just first uh get clear on the terms. So if we think about a crash and most people are still afraid of a crash, the doomers are out there in the crash. So what is a crash? I would call a crash when my standard of living goes down. Mhm. So in 2008, we had a deflationary crash. Home prices cratered 30 to 50% across the United States. You know, the S&P 500 crashed 50%, gold was down, I think S&P 500 was 65%, gold was down 30 40%. And so we had this deflationary crash. And what happened in is then businesses went out of business. People lost their job. People took new lowpaying jobs. Businesses didn't do as well. And so what happened ultimately is that I had less money. So I didn't have the same quality of life I had before. That was the crash. My stock account dropped. My home account dropped. I felt poor. I lost my job. My business didn't make as much. And my lifestyle went down. My lifestyle crashed. My standard of living crashed. I couldn't buy as much vacation, as much food, as much house as I did before. Now that's when a deflationary crash happened. But what I've been pred projecting and I think what we're witnessing is a reverse crash. And so it's a crash up and not a crash down. So the same can also result or we can get the same result but from a different way. So right now what we're seeing is prices running away from us. So the S&P 500 is not crashing. It's continued to go higher. Bitcoin's going higher. Gold's going higher. Homes are going higher. Meat, you know, milk, eggs, uh vacation, all that is going higher. But the results the same. I still can't afford the same quality of life I had before. So an inflationary crash. It's an inflationary crash. Your standard of living, right? So I'm calling a reverse crash. And I think it's actually much worse. And the reason why I say it's much much worse is uh worse is in like 2008 there was a reset. So for a lot of people who were priced out of the market, they were able to get in the market. Now there was good deals on homes, there was good deals on stocks, things like that. Um and so it sort of gives you this reset. People can buy in. If you still have money left over, you can ride the wave. the recovery back up. But in a market like we have today, there's no reset. And so what happens is since I started making these videos, 2022 23, one of my one of my friends, a really big macro channel on YouTube, we had dinner in LA and in August of 2023 after I made the video, bare markets canceled, and he said, "How dare you make a video like that? Don't you understand that the markets are alltime high? Don't you see that the yield curve is inverted and like all these things?" And I said, "Yeah, but that's not how I see it." Right? So, we have uh Harry Dent's been calling for a 90% market crash for 12 years. You have all these doomers that are out there and a lot of people are have been scared and they've been sitting on the sidelines and they're waiting for that 2008 moment. They can buy back in. This time I'm going to have cash. This time I'm going to be able to get back in. But the problem is they're just getting further and further behind. And so I think to answer your question, I guess the meltup thesis, but I don't think a meltup thesis into a blowoff top. It's just like a continued runaway. And I think really the crash, the bubble is not in homes. It's not in stocks, it's in US treasuries. Yeah, it's in US dollars. So the crash that we're seeing is in US dollars. And so there was a chart that was going around, I'm sure you saw a couple days ago, and it showed a bunch of different asset prices both in dollars, in gold, and Bitcoin. And so when you change the unit of account, you just start to see the world a little bit differently. So when you see that the cliff that assets are falling off of is the dollar cliff, right? So um that's the blowoff top, um I project that, uh prices are going to continue to run away and people are going to be further and further behind.

Yeah, it's so true. You really have to change your yard stick to hard money to see the real value and the real price of things. But it's also interesting what you said because I recently spoke with someone who's a longtime investor, actually loves Bitcoin. Yeah. but said they sold all of their Bitcoin in the 90,000 range because they're anticipating this massive crash because we're going to go over a cliff and oh, he'll buy back in when it's like 70k or something. I'm like, I don't know. Good luck with that. I mean, we could always crash, right? I think we get a little excited when we hit a new all-time high, but we've seen some aggressive pullbacks with Bitcoin. Um yet, I don't know. It feels like it's going to be less volatile and the downturns are not going to be 80% pullback like it used to be.

Yeah. What I would say to that first of all is actually you gave me this word on an interview we did together, the fiat maxi. Yeah. So when I was in Puerto Rico in 2021, one of my good friends there was a a really well-known hedge fund manager and he makes a lot of money. Super super smart and uh he doesn't believe in Bitcoin and no matter how many nights we had dinner together, I just couldn't get him to believe in it. U but he loves Bitcoin to trade it. He loves to trade it and he'll buy it at 20 and sell it at 50 and then he'll buy it at 60 and sell it at 80 and he loves it and he's made a lot of money with it. But he's willing to buy it at 40 and sell it for 65 and then buy it again at 70 and sell it at 90 because he's not trying to get more Bitcoin. He's trying to make more dollars. But I want to get more Bitcoin. And so that strategy that he's doing doesn't get you more of it. So, like this guy that you're referencing, uh, this trader, I mean, certainly he can sell it at 90, but he'll probably buy back in higher than he sold it for. And if he's just trying to get more dollars, that that will work, right? Um, I don't think that's going to work for us. Now, back to the draw downs. So, there's a couple things. Number one, since the ETFs have come out, the volatility on Bitcoin has completely collapsed. So, I've been dealing with this firsthand. I've been working with some treasury companies, and there's a lot of Bitcoin sitting there. And so a lot of people are trying to figure out how to monetize that Bitcoin. And we've met with some of the top trading firms around the world that can trade, you know, roll options on Bitcoin or whatever you can do to uh generate yield. And the numbers that they're showing year to date are not good, right? So the volatility is completely compressed. I think so number one, I think that big draw down that a lot of people are expecting is probably not going to happen. And I think another reason why I would also say that is well there's I think there's two really good other reasons. So number one, if you look at Bitcoin, if you believe the four-year having cycle um story of that we have the supply supply shock every four years, right? Right now you have ETFs and treasury companies buying about 10 times more Bitcoin than the new supply that's being created. So there's a massive supply demand imbalance there. The demand has been has been being met by OG whales unlocking giant wallets, but it's not about the new supply. And so if you cut the supply in half from here, it's really inconsequential to the demand that's there.

You recently did a video that I found really interesting. I think it went viral about what the Russian uh advisor said and the crypto cloud that we're trying to push all of our debt into to essentially do a reset. I wanted to get more of your take on that because we're seeing some massive geopolitical shifts on the monetary level happen. Um more net settlement in gold. Yeah. And yet we are pushing stable coins more and more. We had the Genius Act, now they're working on the Clarity Act. So what do you think the strategy is? Because we have not created I mean we've established the strategic Bitcoin reserve, but there's no audit of how much Bitcoin we have and no official plan of how we're going to accumulate more yet. Yeah. But they're they're pushing into these stable coins and I think they're going to want those to be uh buyers for short-term treasuries, right? Since we no longer have as much foreign demand. So what do you think are the chess pieces at play here? because it seems like bricks is moving to gold. Are we going to move to gold or are we going to move to Bitcoin?

So, over what time frame? And that's always the question to ask. So, you're going to hear for the audience, you'll hear like this guy says bonds are terrible. This guy says bonds are great. And typically there's a mismatch on time frame. Yeah. Um there's a big mismatch on time frame on Bitcoin on Bitcoin treasury companies like Micro Strategy. Like Sailor always talks in 10year or 20-year time frames, but then you have option traders trying to trade it quarterly, right? So, back to this question. And so I think there's several of things going on. Number one, um the Biden administration and Anthony Blinken killed the dollar when they basically seized Russia's bank accounts, right? During the invasion of Ukraine. But really, it started way before that. So in 2013, Russia and China had announced ddollarization efforts. So it had been it had been going on for a long time. So the world's been trying to move away from the dollar for a really long time and mostly because well, two reasons. Number one, the US continues to print more dollars. Um and so if you're holding the bond, you're just getting liquidated. two, um, the weaponization of the US dollar. And so that really culminated with that, you know, with when Russia took in moved into Ukraine and the US and NATO basically seized their bank accounts. Three superpowers in the world with nuclear weapons, one of which was Russia. And so all the nations of the world thought, shoot, if it happens to them, what what, you know, what chance do we have? Okay, so we'll come back to that in a second. But um, there's two other things. So then the dollar, there's the dollar's reserve status in the world and that's being threatened because nations don't want to hold it and so there's been a move to gold. So the bricks have been moving to gold. China's been moving to gold. Russia's been moving to gold, right? Uh we can see the central banks around the world have been buying, they're net buyers of gold. But then we have the dollar and so I think it's a interesting move. I think it's a genius move of what the Trump administration is doing. So they've passed uh many executive orders this year. uh one of which is the genius act, right? And so using the dollar, I did a video talking about you mentioned the chessboard. I the cliche term of the 40 chess move, but I talked about the 40 chess game that Trump is playing in the Mara Lago Accords. And there's a a few key things that Trump wanted to achieve. One of which was keeping the US dollar at 60% of global um FX of global exchange and it had dipped down to about 59%. So, right 60% is where he wants it to be. And so, one of the ways that they can do that is by putting stable coins out across the world. And so, there's a couple ways that reasons why we want to do that. Number one, he wants to keep it at about 60% of global trade. So, we need people to continue to use that. The people around the world, not the governments, but the people are dying for the dollar. And that's because I should say dying to get in, dying to use the dollar. They want to exchange their failing currencies. So, we have currencies collapsing all around the world, experiencing really high double-digit inflation. you know, Lebanon, Turkey, Argentina, Venezuela, etc. And so those pe people need to get out of the currency that they're in. And so they want to get into the dollar, but the nations put capital control laws in. So they can't really get out into the dollar. And so the stable coins allow them to do that very easily, right? So that's number one. Number two, what the Trump administration did through the Genius Act is then make the stable coin issuers buy US treasuries. So now you have this demand for US treasuries, which is great, right? Um, in that video you're referencing about Russia, what what Russia was saying is basically the US wants to put all the debt, the 37 trillion into the crypto cloud, put it all into stable coins, and then inflate it away. And I was saying that's not really how it works because stable coins require $1 in to generate a dollar coin back in return. So, it's not like it was like gold and they they created more paper IOU certificates based off of that, right? the g the banks the crypto institutions that are doing stable coins aren't just creating those from thin air. So that's not really how it works and that's kind of what I was trying to explain. But I do think what's interesting is that uh Scott Bent, head of the US Treasury, if you think his job is to sell US treasuries, that's his job. He's got to get someone to buy the debt. Yeah. And his job has been getting harder and harder because governments around the world know that they're getting debased, right? The IMF and the BIS both put out a white paper and it's titled the liquidation of government debt. And the liquidation of government debt, the white paper that they reference is using something called financial repression. And it's the playbook that both the the UK and the US ran after World War II. Yep. Yield curve control. Yeah. Which is basically to liquidate bond holders. And they liquidate bond holders by by paying less than inflation, right? And so all the bond holders around the world know they're being liquidated. Yeah. Literally, right? So stealing 3 to 4% per year. What does that say about percent? So his job is to sell treasuries. Now he said that he predicts uh stable coins should reach 3.7 trillion by 2030. But what's interesting and I draw to I drew to in this video is that after 2008 we had this quantitative easing and so the Fed increased the monetary base and they gave the banks all this money and the banks are sitting on something called sterilized reserves and so they have money that's sitting aside and they're getting interest I from the Fed to leave it there but it's not allowed to get back into the retail into the public and that's why a lot of analysts will tell you that 2008 wasn't really inflationary because the money stayed at the banks. I have a beef with that because asset prices were highly inflationary, but they don't call that inflation. They call that appreciation. Yeah. Whatever. You got to buy a home. The home went up. Anyway, uh so they have they have 3.2 trillion sitting there. And I think what's interesting from my research, and I'm maybe reaching or making some speculation here, but it looks like the banks are sitting on that money and they could create stable coins against that because it's still set aside. So that's $3.2 two trillion dollars that could become stable coins and could get into the economy. And so that's what Trump wants. Obviously, he's been fighting with the Fed, right? He's calling Jerome Pal all kinds of names, too late, etc. And so they want to be able to have the Fed, which controls fiscal policy, have more um control over the monetary policy. And so they're trying to kind of control the Fed, but this is a way they could monetize that 3.2 trillion, which is pretty close to what Bent said of 3.7 trillion. And so based off the rate of stable uh stable coin growth right now, if you project that out, it looks like they'll hit that number by like 2027. So it's happening pretty quickly. And that's how they'll get the inflation that they need to grow the economy. Trump wants to let it run hot. When Musk left, he said that there's no hope. We have to grow a way out of it. But Sen said we have to grow way out of it, and that's how they'll do it. Yeah. And that is highly inflationary.

Coin Stories is brought to you by Speed Wallet. Want to win 1 million SATs just by answering Bitcoin trivia? The top 50 players win free SATs every week and one lucky winner gets a million SATs at the end of the month. Speed Wallet makes Bitcoin simple. It is the fastest growing, most loved wallet that allows you to send and receive instantly. Swap to stable coins, shop gift cards, play games to earn, and explore many apps to pay with Bitcoin or stable coins. Speed is also driving real adoption. Stake and Shake now accepts Bitcoin nationwide via Speed payments. Earn cash back and rewards when you pay with SpeedWallet. Head to speed.app/cointories or download the app via the QR code on the screen and use code coin stories 10 for 5,000 free sats.

Bitkey is a Bitcoin hardware wallet with multi-yix security, inheritance, and a recovery system designed for real life. No complex setup and no seed phrases, just true self-custody without the stress. It was named one of Time's best inventions in 2024. Use code stories for 20% off at bitkey.org.

world. Up next, the Bitcoin way. There's only one way to protect your Bitcoin from government, politicians, and third-party risk, and that is 100% self-custody. My friends at the Bitcoin Way will train you how to do this the right way the first time. No compromises. Go to the bitcoinway.com/natalie to speak with the experts about making sure your Bitcoin is secure and private.

And finally, Coins Stories is brought to you by Genius Group, a Bitcoin treasury company listed on the NYC American undertaker GNS. Genius is building a 10,000 Bitcoin treasury and just launched the Genius Academy featuring free courses from Safeina Moose, myself, and more. Start learning today at GeniusAcademy.ai. Genius Group. Genius isn't measured in IQ, it's measured in Bitcoin. And again, don't forget to pre-order my upcoming book, Bitcoin is for Everyone.

Back to the show. It's really interesting because both Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant, before he went into office, has been writing about the fact that there needs to be a monetary reset. And to your point, if you look at the speeches even 10, 15 years ago from Xiinping and Putin, they're talking about kind of the parasitic dollar system and how they want to move away from it because they're tired of us just racking up all the debt and then they're left holding the bag. They don't want to do that anymore. And now they have the leverage because frankly they're the net producers of the world and they have the commodities which are now going to be increasingly priced in gold whereas we're just handing out paper promises and praying that someone wants to buy them. So these dynamics are fascinating to me because I feel like so many people are still not paying attention. And my next question actually leads into this because from a public standpoint, nobody's talking about this, right? The average person is watching the news and fighting over these political and social issues and we've become so divided. I mean, more so just in the last few months than than I've felt even in the last couple of years. And it worries me. It worries a lot of people. And I know that you recently have been talking about this idea of radicalization and the source for that radicalization. And I agree with you that a lot of it is rooted in economic resentment and economic disenfranchisement. And so that begs the question, what is the solution? So I would love for your your take on this because you feel like the individual should probably be empowered in order to fix some of this radicalization, right?

Yep. Yeah. um a mutual friend of ours, Alex Fetszky, him and I co-authored a book called The Uncommunist Manifesto. And we did that, I think it was 2021, because at that time we had the rise of BLM. And I remembered specifically what created the inspiration for that book was the head of BLM was on TV saying, "Oh, we're trained Marxists." Like, what does that mean, trained Marxist? So, we dug deep and uh went through Marxism and all his books. And so, we wrote a counter to that called the Uncommunist Manifesto. And and when you look at Marxism specifically, it's trying to create that that gap. It's trying to create that fight between two different classes, the rich and the poor, the boogeoisi and the proletariat. Marxism today now tries to pit everybody, black and white, and men and women and gay and straight, everybody against each other. But they try to use that angst. But the original way to do that was class warfare, rich and poor. And really when you dig into Marxism, what you find out is that they want everyone to be poor and they want everyone to be deprived. Not because what most people think then everyone's equal. The reason why they really want that is because when you're deprived of everything, you're unhappy. That's what they really want. And when you're unhappy, they can get you to do things like turn on your neighbor, turn to violence, control you. That's specifically what they're looking for. Not because they think everyone can be happy in its utopia, specifically because everyone's unhappy and angry and envious and own nothing, right? And so that's the that's the that's the goal. That's what they want. And so the way that we combat that obviously would be the opposite of having everybody own private property. When you look at um Karl Marx wrote 10 points of a communist nation. And in the in the Communist Manifesto, when I read it, there was a line that just stood out to me and I thought, if everybody would just read this book, they wouldn't want Marxism. And he says, to summarize communism in one statement is the abolition of private property. That's it. To summarize it all, that's end of private property. And so the opposite is then to have property, right? And so Bitcoin is property rights for people all around the world. And really what it is is more than just property rights. Why do we want the property rights? Because if we can build property rights, we can build property. And if we build property, then that gives us hope of a better future. Because now I can have property that's pushing value into the future. I can have like this battery that's growing energy that can buy me goods and services in the future. And if I have that, I have hope. And if I have hope, hope is what gives us energy to then continue to push for that better life. And so that's why they want to take it away. And we want to fight for that. And I think, you know, it's one reason why I've when I started making content, well, really when I started digging deep into macroeconomics, it was after 2008 when I got smacked down. And I had built two different tech businesses, had big exits on both of those. I built multiple eight figures of real estate. I was did really well in business. I wasn't paying attention to the macroeconomic scene. And when I got, you know, smackdown 2008, I was like, "Wow, what happened?" Like, I'm really good with making money, but I don't understand this macro environment. And I understood then it's fiat currency and it's endless debasement and it's leverage built up in the system. And so once I understood the problem then I became a gold bug. Okay, that's the solution. And then I just dove deep. And at at first it was very selfish. It was like that's never going to happen to me again. I vowed to my wife like I'm going to figure this out. Like it was very selfish. Um but then it was like no no no no. We need to help other people solve this. And and the reason why back to this political radicalism that we have is because we can see when you go back through the bullshik revolution in Russia or I mean any any of these if you look at what happened Ma's revolution in China or if you look at you know Germany it always starts from that place of poor people and using that greed that they have the unhappiness that they have and so I think we have a real chance to change that right we have Bitcoin and the beauty of Bitcoin the cheat code of Bitcoin is that you can just buy Bitcoin and you can outperform every single hedge fund every single venture fund, every single Wall Street analyst, every portfolio manager, every financial adviser, and you can just buy that and you can just win and you can just keep that private property and you can push that value into the future and then you can have the hope and it seems so simple um but yet profound and you can look at how societyy's breaking apart without having that hope of a better future.

Yeah. Yeah. We have the solution right here. You know, I've been trying to get Zoran Mdani on my show because I record so many of my podcasts in New York City and I just find it so fascinating that his platform is essentially what you just said. I mean, the abolition of private property. He's literally talked about that. Yeah. Um and yet he's really he's really mesmerized so many people in the New York public that he's winning these polls by a landslide. And of course, polls have been wrong before. Yeah. But it's just fascinating to see that we are at this point where our society and our economy is bifurcated and we have a few people at the tippy top that have so so much. It's so topheavy with their wealth and everyone else saying that's not fair. I want some of what he has. He should give it to me. You need to redistribute this. You need to give me some help because it's no longer affordable. And I would imagine that New York's probably the least affordable city. Um, so can you maybe expand on that just a little bit more because it seems like the easy way is to believe that someone is just going to get you out of this by taxing the rich or, you know, shifting something as important as your basic property rights which give you everything. It's this warm and fuzzy collectivism that's actually tyranny in disguise in my opinion as opposed to protecting individual rights, property rights, human rights at the end of the day. And that's what Bitcoin represents. Yeah. is the latter. It starts with education. And the problem is that most people don't realize how the world works. Nor do they even understand how humanity works. Nor do they even understand how their own mental psyche works. So what we want as humans, as I said, we want hope and we want to feel like we matter. We want to understand that we have purpose. And so we need to be working on things that give us meaning and we have this hope of a better future. And so if you think that I just want to do nothing and I want to steal wealth and give it to me, that's not going to make us happy. That's not going to bring any fulfillment, right? And so the paradox that I see right now today is that for the average person, they went they went on this pre-program. Go to school, get good grades, get a good job, save for retirement, and 40 years later, maybe you'll have that. And the problem is is they were trained in an industrial era school system, given an industrial era lens with industrial era tools, and they're now in a world that no longer exists. And so for the average person who follows that pre-program track and they get the college degree in some liberal or arts and they owe a hundred or $200,000 of student loan debt, they can't get a job that pays them enough living wages to keep up with the rising costs to live a good life anymore. Yeah, that's the problem. But the paradox is that on the other side, it's never been easier to make money than it is right now. That's the paradox. But the problem is it's not in the way that you were trained because that era is dead. And so we have two economies really in the world right now or in the United States specifically. We have one economy and it's not just the tippy top making a lot of money. There's a lot of people making a lot of money. The asset holders. the asset holders, but also people that understand we're in a new world and I'm going to use the new tools in the new world that we're in to make money. And so when you look at luxury brand sales like Louis Vuitton, their sales are off the chart, right? Right here in Orange County, there's a luxury car dealer, a Euro car dealer, um you know, three 400, $500,000 supercars. They're selling 250 cars a month. But on the other side, you have this other economy who are again, they went to the school system. they came out with this liberal arts degree and they're gonna get a job for $50,000 a year and that's just not going to cut it. Yeah. And so anyway, that's the paradox. Um and the the the Marxists are appealing to that person. And to your point, they use greed, they use envy, sins against them, right? And they think that they can just take from somebody else and that will get them what they want. But that's the paradox. And I would just encourage everybody. So what Marxism does is they want it they want to give you a victim mentality and then it's a defeated mentality rather than taking ownership. And so what I would just encourage everyone is like reject the defeated mentality. And even you see it uh there's so much like angst or hatred or whatever you want to call towards boomers. These boomers, they ruin the economy. Look at the boomers, they got rich off of doing nothing. Look at the boomers now. They hold all this wealth. how much do you think a house is going to be worth in 30 years from now? People will be saying the same thing about you. And so all of that creates this this uh victim mentality rather as opposed to taking responsibility for where we're at. And if you can just learn a few new skills and take advantage of the opportunities that we have today, the greatest opportunity is still in front of us.

Yeah, completely. And it's the mentality of oppression when right now we're luckier than so many generations that came before us. It's not it's not just that. I mean, I just want to push on this for a second. I mean, look what you're doing for work. Here we are recording a podcast, right? Um, that's just one of many avenues that weren't even there. When I started my first business, like my first actual real business, and I got this office, this was like in the late 90s, and I got this office. I I was uh I was servicing high-tech medical equipment. I had this medical equipment company, digital x-rays, digital software. And um I set up this office and uh like there was no internet. Like I couldn't go on YouTube and watch videos on how to start a business. I couldn't go on YouTube to learn about marketing. I couldn't learn I couldn't learn anything. Yeah. And then who do I even market to? There wasn't even no one even to advertise. How do you advertise your services when there's no internet? Mhm. Like it was so hard. And now you can just go on YouTube in about four hours you can become about a 75% subject matter expert on anything. Oh yeah. And reach out to anybody and with an Instagram account make six figures. Yeah. And so anyway, I I I think it's a message of empowerment that matters.

No, absolutely. I mean, you could you could do so much more than people could just with this device that you have in your phone. You have more knowledge than kings and queens did a few centuries ago. Um, well, let's talk a little bit about the hope of Bitcoin for all those who don't have it maybe because you just wrote a book, retire off of Bitcoin and and sometimes when I talk to newbies, they say to me, well, it's over six figures. I'm too late. And even if I were to acquire, what's a little, you know, what's 0.1 Bitcoin? That's not going to do anything for me. um what's your message of hope for people that haven't been in our community for years and are trying to build wealth and retire and help their families?

So, I think it just if we just break it down super simple. So, number one, we don't want dollars that are losing value because of the end enlistment. And so, we have to move our money into something else. Most people just get that. Most people know you don't save in dollars. So, then they're taking money out of their paychecks to go in 401ks or mutual funds or whatever. Okay. So now we're going to take money out of dollars into assets. And then those assets have return profiles. So your S&P 500 or your mutual funds are going to do four to 6%, your S&P 500 will do 8 to 15%. Different assets do different. Gold right now is on a tear. It's up uh you know 80% in the last couple years. But Bitcoin has been outperforming all those other assets. So then we have a return profile of assets. Now, whether I can afford $1 of Bitcoin or an entire Bitcoin, that's whatever $125,000 or 10 million of Bitcoin. It's the percentage of gain that I make. So, I have to put away money and then I get a return profile. So, forget if you can get 0.1 or whatever, it's still a return profile. So, for most people, they're putting away their paycheck, but it's not earning the return. It's not keeping up with the rate of monetary debasement. So government tells you that CPI is 2 to 3%. Mhm. So they think that's the hurdle rate that they have to beat. But it's really the rate of monetary debasement which is about 10% a year. That's the number you have to beat. So really Bitcoin is the only one to do that. Now why do I I made this book uh wrote this book retire off Bitcoin because Bitcoin is this cheat code. And the reason it's a cheat code is longer than we can discuss in this podcast. But let's just say for right now, it's averaging about a 60% per year compounded annual growth rate just over the last few years. Mhm. And it's that extraordinary high rate of return that gives us opportunities that we don't have otherwise. Now, Michael Sailor projects it will stay at least 30% compound growth rate over the next 21 years. Mhm. So, whatever number you want to take a look at, but this but but the premise of this is that the pre-program check that you've been living is to go to school, get good grades, save for retirement, and then one day you could quit and do nothing and live off of your savings. You could spend down your account. You could sell 4% of your stocks per year like Dave Ramsey would tell you. And hopefully, if you time it right and there's no market crashes, you'll die before you run out of money.

Well, so what what do you project in terms of the Bitcoin price that is needed or or you know, how much Bitcoin does someone need to have in order to feel like they can be financially free at maybe a younger age than 65 or 70, right?

So, I'm going to I'm going to explain that, but most people look at Bitcoin and retirement through that lens because that's all they've ever known. So, then the debate comes in the Bitcoin community is, well, how much Bitcoin do I need to retire then? Which is the wrong question. So again, so the primary method today is to save for retirement and then live off my savings and hopefully I die with zero, which I think is terrible. We should not do that. And why would I want to die with zero? Why wouldn't I want my heirs to start at a higher level than I had to start from? So what the wealthy do is the wealthy play a different game. And the game of wealth is one where I earn fiat and I buy assets because assets are wealth. I don't sell assets for fiat currency. So when someone says, "Mark, when are you going to sell your Bitcoin?" I'm like, "You don't even know the game that we're playing."

The game is to get assets. Always get assets. And what we do is we can leverage those assets. I call it we can harvest the appreciation with debt. So rather than selling the asset and no longer having the asset that's compounding at 30 to 50% per year and then paying taxes on that, I can keep the asset but pull some of it off with with debt. Yeah.

So the real number is as long as the asset is appreciating faster than the rate of debt. So if I'm borrowing at 10% and the asset's going up at 20%, I could do that forever. Yeah. Forever.

So uh the way that I've broken this down, I call it the five-year retirement plan. I expect Bitcoin to hit a million dollars by 2030. You do? That's about a Yeah. Uh a million dollars by 2030, 14 million by 2040, and 40 million by 2050. I have a whole video breaking this down with the exact math as how I got to that number. The government, the CBO, Congressional Budget Office, they project out the debt, the deficit through 50 trillion through 204 for the next 30 years. So, you just take the rate of monetary debasement and then project that over the last, you know, decade, two decades, and then project it out through 204, and you can see the growth of the of the store value assets.

So, anyway, uh sidetracking, but uh a million dollars by 2030. Okay, so that's about a 10x. Not not quite from here now. We're a little bit higher. But so if I had, let's say, $100,000 in Bitcoin. So let's say let's say you're an average middle-aged, you know, uh, professional and let's say that you've managed to save two or 30 hundred grand, right? That's not enough to retire. Yeah. You're going to sell 4% of those assets. You're going to be good for a,000 bucks a month. Yeah. You're not going to live on that.

But if I took, let's say I had two or 30 hund grand. If I took a hundred of that and put it into Bitcoin today, in five years from now, that could be five or six years from now, that could be a million dollars. Now, at the rate of Bitcoin's compounding annual growth rate and harvesting with debt, I could safely pull off about 10 to 15% of that principle every year in debt. So, I put a h 100,000 into into Bitcoin today. In five or six years from now, that's a million dollars. I that's five years, five year retirement. I could pull out a hundred to $150,000 of debt against the million dollars in perpetuity, never paying taxes on the money because it's debt I'm pulling out, not income. And the asset is growing faster than the debt is accumulating. So then in, you know, whatever in uh 10 years from there, you owe whatever $2 million, but against like 20 million in assets. And then when you die and your kids are your age, they're going to owe like $20 million against like a hund00 million of assets, right? And so the asset will continue to grow faster than the debt. And that's what wealthy people do in a credit-based economy. You know, they they take on debt in an intelligent way, intelligent leverage, and they buy assets that outperform that debt. And that's how they've been doing it. And so many people don't get that. Um it's it's because it hasn't been available to average people like us. It's only been available to the ultra rich because the ultra because typically you have your S&P 500 going up at 8% or your house is going up at 6%. So you need hundreds of millions of dollars of assets to be able to do this. But today Bitcoin makes it available to everybody like us. It's true. It's so true.

And I love something that you said um a couple years to me, but it's a couple years ago you said this to me and it stuck with me. You talked about just the importance of compounding, but you made it very relatable in that, you know, we might not get taught about financial compounding in school like we really should, but think about just compounding in general when it comes to anything like fitness, right? Like every day matters. Every time you go to the gym, it matters. Every time you open up a book, like every little bit helps and gets you one step closer. And so I I I just think it's an important message because anyone can start and the compounding makes a huge difference when you especially when you step back and zoom out and it doesn't take that long.

Um on that real quick uh Einstein called the eighth wonder of the world but he says that those who know it receive it and those who don't pay it. Yeah, it's true. And I think to your point, I say compounded in every area of life. Friendships, relationships, fitness, everything. But it's also if you don't understand it, you also pay it. So, for example, I built this house down in Mexico and I wanted this whole home automation and this guy bid me on it and he hadn't really done houses like this before, but he was trying to kind of get into that that area. And uh if he had done a really good job, I would have told all my neighbors to use them. Yeah, he did a terrible job. And now I have to tell my neighbors not to use him, right? Not because I'm mean, but if they ask me for a referral, I'm going to be like, "No, you can't use that guy." And so, if he would have done good, it would have compounded. He got five, six, seven more jobs. but instead he did a terrible job and now he probably won't get any more jobs. Right? It's the same. If I make a if I make a good YouTube video, someone's more likely to watch it. A bad YouTube video, someone's less likely. If we have a good business interaction, you'll tell people more people to do business with me and etc. So, it's important for people to understand that. Yeah, it is.

Okay. Well, we're running out of time, but I do want to ask you a little bit about corporate treasuries since you're very involved in one. I would love for you to share with uh my audience and just get give me your overview of the market in general because some of them have really struggled recently. I know the price is picking back up, so we're getting some new momentum. Um, but they've underperformed some of the expectations when they were coming out of the gate strong and uh I'm I'm sure we'll see more corporate treasuries, but give me your take.

Yeah, so first of all, I'd say that there's a massive duration mismatch with everybody. So, most people in the Bitcoin space have now sort of realized Bitcoin moves in this like four-year cycle. So, we understand that there's a high and a low and depending on where you're in the cycle, you know, kind of what you can expect. Of course, there's volatility between that. So, it's about a four-year cycle, longer than the S&P 500, and it's more volatile. But treasury companies are even longer duration and even more volatile. What What do I mean by that? A real corporate treasury is like what strategy is today. So, they have a big Bitcoin asset base and they're creating credit and debt instruments off of the Bitcoin asset base. So far, they're the only one doing that. It's taken them five years to get there. Mhm.

So I think of the treasury companies are more like almost like a a startup. It's almost like a venture capital. Now I'm a partner in a venture fund with James Lavish and Larry Leard. And when you think about venture, it's typically like a 7 to 10year lockup. So most venture capital funds that would invest into Uber, Airbnb, it's like give me your money in 10 years, I'll give you something back because it takes time to build out Uber or whatever, right? And so these treasury companies are like a long-term uh company that needs to be built like a venture capital company. Stage one is get enough Bitcoin. That's step one. Now how much Bitcoin? It depends on the company but a billion dollars maybe 8,000 10,000 Bitcoin. Then I can go to phase two which is then I can start creating credit debt instruments securitizing the Bitcoin. Now as of now as I said only one company has gotten their micro strategy. Um, MetaPlanet has announced they're going to start doing it and asset also announced they're going to start doing it. So now Stripe. Yeah. So now there will be three companies there will be, but most other companies are still building. So that's number one. There's a duration mismatch. And what happens is a lot of Bitcoiners got into these things and said, "Hey, they're supposed to outperform Bitcoin." And I believe they will. I believe they'll at least two to 3x Bitcoin. Some good ones should do better than that, but not on a one for one daily basis. If we look at MetaPlanet, which is the longest lasting one that's duplicated the strategy, in the last 16 months, they've had 12 mini bare markets of 20% or more. 12. Um, the deepest one last year was 79% draw down. The longest lasting one was 119 days and they still went on to return thousands of percent. So, we have to understand these are longer duration and they're even more volatile. So, I've seen and I've seen some really smart Bitcoiners that just don't seem to understand this and like, "So, you think that they were going to outperform Bitcoin? How's that turned out for you so far?" It's like over the last 90 days. Yeah. And I tell people all the time, if you're measuring your portfolio in quarters, you're never going to make it. You're just never going to make it. So, that's what I would say.

Um, I think these companies, there's a lot of very promising ones through my fund. We've invested into many of them. So, I've had a front row seat to a lot of them. I've been working with two of them. Uh, Satsuma is one I'm working with in the UK right now. And, um, what I've seen is, uh, I haven't seen a lot of risk being built up yet. A lot of people are afraid of the risk and the leverage that's there. Um, but I just think they're going to take a lot longer to to really mature and get to that level. Um, they've been underperforming like you said, for since about June 15th is when they this bare market started to kind of collapse on on the treasury companies. In the last week or two, many of them are up 30 40% already, right? Right. So, it's bouncing back and they're just more volatile.

Well, and to your point, I mean, you have to have a longer time horizon. Sometimes when they've been raising capital, there might be, you know, pipe investors and they're not Bitcoiners. Maybe it's a hedge fund. They sell when the lockup period is over, but that doesn't that doesn't mean that the company's not going to go on to do amazing things and grow and scale. So, most companies, most tradition trad companies would raise money through an IPO. Yeah. Right. Well, they'd have all ti all from from friends and family all the way to pre-IPO, different investors all along the way. And then hopefully one day they go public. Yeah. And all those people that bought all along the way, they sell. Yeah. And it's very common for tradi companies once they go public for the stock price to drop. And this is exactly what happened in the space. But most most of what I see in the space are people who don't understand how Trady works. They've never really been involved in that before. Um so I would just say that's just kind of part for the course. But I would expect them all to outperform, not all, the good ones to outperform Bitcoin. And it's very simple. If you use leverage on Bitcoin, you will outperform Bitcoin. If you buy one Bitcoin and I have one Bitcoin, I borrow half of my Bitcoin's value and buy more Bitcoin with it. I'll outperform you because I have more Bitcoin than you. It's just simple. So, a company that can use intelligent leverage will outperform companies that don't. Yeah. Yeah.

And and there are some advantages, especially in these global markets, right, where they have tax advantages like Japan and in other places. episode. It'll be interesting to see how it all plays out. Mark, it's always great to talk to you. I know why you're a fan favorite. Uh, anything you want to share that maybe you haven't touched on before we wrap.

Man, I think we've covered so much ground. I would just say it's it's always a message of empowerment for me. I believe that the greatest air of prosperity and hope is in front of us, not behind us. Um, I believe that we can all change our unit of account. We can all use the new tools. we can go live the life that we want right now regardless of any circumstances. So, Bitcoin is hope. It's a tool that allows us to do this, but all the rest is in your mindset and your work. So, that's what I'd leave everybody with.

That's very well said. I think there's a million reasons to believe why the future might not be better than the past or the present, but I think there's 21 million reasons to believe it is. So, that's right. Thanks so much, Mark.

Yep. Thank you so much for checking out this episode of Coin Stories. Make sure you're subscribed to the show so you don't miss any new episodes. And if you can turn on those notifications and leave us a positive review. They really help the show grow organically with new listeners. We have a free weekly newsletter. You can sign up at the newsblock.substack.com. This show is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing should constitute as official investment advice, and you should always do your own research. I'm always open to feedback and guest suggestions, so please feel free to reach out at info@talkingbitcoin.com.