Transcription
Sit down, bucko. I got to tell you how money works. Bitcoin doesn't need you. You need Bitcoin. If I own Bitcoin because of what a president said or didn't say, then you know, I'd be poor. What if Satoshi Nakamoto comes out, takes his million dollars, our million bitcoins, and sells it all? Wow, this is unbelievably exciting.
The conversations I'm having on Wall Street is these guys are like, "Hey, Jack, don't tell my boss I said this, but the 6040 portfolio dead." Dead. Bitcoin doesn't need governments, institutions, or even you. But you institutions and governments all need Bitcoin. This is according to Jack Mer, the CEO of Strike and of course the new Bitcoin treasury company 21. Jack knows more about Bitcoin financial services than almost anyone on the planet. He broke down everything that's coming in the future and why Bitcoin will be the global reserve asset. You don't want to miss this in-person conversation from Bitcoin Vegas. That's dope. [Music]
So, another Bitcoin conference, but this time Vegas and 50,000 people. But is this beyond kind of your wildest dreams of where this space would have arrived this quickly or is this basically in line with what you anticipated? No. Anyone that said that this what they anticipated is a liar. Uh, I I just told the story actually. My first Bitcoin meetup was in my living room. My stepmom created the first meetup in Chicago. I came home from school and Andreas Antonopoulos was on my couch like, "Sit down, bucko, I got to tell you how money works." And so to think that I went from that to Las Vegas and giving keynotes. No, this is the coolest thing in the world. Um, you know, in other respects, uh, nothing about Bitcoin surprises me at this point. It feels manifest, uh, unstoppable technology that's destined to push humanity forward. So, I it's probably split, split emotions I would say, but we wouldn't have arrived here, I don't think, unless the administrative, legislative, regulatory situation had shifted right, so this could have been a very different conference. I'm not saying it any of it would have stopped Bitcoin per se, but we have this sort of Goldilocks moment right now where it feels like you can do all the things you want to do.
Yeah, I mean, listen, I like I don't think anyone owns Bitcoin because of what someone in the White House is tweeting. I I right, if if I own Bitcoin because of what a president said or didn't say, then you know, I'd be poor. So, I mean, we all own it because it's apolitical. It's been successful no matter what a government has has done or not done for it. But I do think what is bipartisan is we're living through probably the most fascinating macroeconomic time of our era. Uh, I think we're living through a monetary regime change. Um, I'd be shocked if the dollar, the current iteration of the dollar as the world reserve currency were to remain. So, I do find this administration support for Bitcoin to be very interestingly timed. And then now we're in trade wars and what's going on with China. I think it is as cool a time to be working on Bitcoin as I've ever seen in my 13 years.
So, we used to be the crazy people when we talked about that monetary shift and Bitcoin becoming the global reserve currency. And uh, a few months ago, Larry Frink, the CEO of the largest asset manager in the world, said, "If the dollar continues in its path, it will hyperinflate, our debt will explode, and Bitcoin will become the global reserve currency." Yeah. Our new CMO. I mean, it's wild. Yeah. But I mean, what do you make of people like that now seemingly understanding? I think a lot of people were skeptical of the Black Rocks of the world coming in, but when you hear someone like him talk, it sounds like he's legitimately orangepilled.
Well, for me, it's validating, right? Like Bitcoin doesn't need you. You need Bitcoin. The first step of adopting Bitcoin is humbling yourself. And you know, you are not the main character. That was my advice to El Salvador. That's my advice to anyone that cares to listen is that, uh, this thing is bigger than all of us. Uh, which I think is one of the most important parts of having a neutral reserve asset. I mean, money is our time and our energy in an abstracted form. It's the market good that we all exchange our effort and our labor and our work for to then go out and get the things that we want in life. And so to have that be a neutral asset that no one is bigger than is critically important. So I think Larry Frink has realized like I'm not bigger than this thing. Um, the ego has has reduced and he's just become a part of it and contributed to it. Um, and I think it's paying dividends. It is his most successful product ever. So that's the Bitcoin story is you think you're smarter than it, you think you're bigger than it, you think you're more successful than it, and then you realize you're not, and it's in your best interest to just be a part of it, and then you live the best version of yourself uh thereafter. So congrats to Mr. Frink. Welcome to the show.
You talked about, Let me give it applause. You talked about El Salvador, right? Sort of there in passing. And I don't know if I've ever asked you for an El Salvador update. Obviously, for those who don't know or maybe weren't here, you were you made the announcement right at a much smaller Bitcoin conference at man at Mana Winwood that they were adopting Bitcoin as legal tender. It was still one of the most surreal moments even for me and I think for anyone in the space that happened, but talk about where they're at now years later and what Bitcoin's done in your opinion for El Salvador.
I'm proud of El Salvador. uh, when I was having the meetings with the government, this was uh, Allah February, January even of 2021, they wanted to not it wasn't only about Bitcoin. It was let's be tough on crime. Let's be clean. What are innovative policies that would invite I mean El Salvador was never the home of Google engineers, MIT professors, the most brilliant financial minds in Wall Street. It never attracted that level of talent and it was how can we become a beautifully aesthetic place for humanity to prosper and turn our story around. And Bitcoin became a core nucleus of that because guess what? If you buy Bitcoin and you become a Bitcoiner, it's an open network. You're all of a sudden on Michael Sailor's team. You're on Larry Frink's team. You're on Jack Dorsey's team. Now you're on President Trump's team. And El Salvador got that early and they understood lean into the network effects and the economy scale of an open network that is all empowering to all of us that buy into it and it's paid dividends. I mean, I think their Bitcoin treasury is almost worth a billion dollars. They've been able to renegotiate deals with the IMF they would have never in a million years. I mean their credit rating has just gone up and up. I mean they might be I mean Moody's just downgraded the US. They might be more creditworthy than us. Um, so I I couldn't be more proud of them re-engineering their story. And I think it goes to show just how inclusive and empowering Bitcoin is. I mean, name me another technology that could empower in 180 an emerging market that was devastated after a civil war like that. I mean, they all had access to iPhones. They've had access to television, the radio. Nothing could have done that except Bitcoin in my opinion. So, I'm proud of them and I'm thankful for their contribution to the story.
But it begs the natural question, if the entire world has seen this, which they have, why haven't we seen a second El Salvador yet? Well, I think El Salvador was I think we're about to see a second El Salvador in the United States. But um, in the United States, that's why I was like, we're getting another announcement. No, I I think um I I I think what made El Salvador unique is at at the time they didn't have their own currency. So what people don't understand about El Salvador, at least widely, is they went through a devastating civil war, lost their own currency. And so again, if money is not only just a piece of paper that you use to get pizza, but it is your life's contribution stored in a market good for you to either save or exchange later. It is a representation of your work, your effort, your labor, who you are, your life's work. And so for people that have the luxury to print that, you know, forgiving that luxury is something that no central bank or government is interested in doing. So El Salvador was unique in that they could not print their own money. They were using the US dollar. They were looking for new life, a way to build a better future. And Bitcoin was a bit more natural because they didn't have to forgive the superpower of printing time and energy. Argentina, you know, going through austerity, all sorts of terrible times, but they get to print money. They get to print money and they get to use the military and force and jail time and the courts and judicial system to force you to use it. And that is a superpower. And so I've actually thought I I kid you not after El Salvador to me what made most sense was eventually America because America is prided on being technologically forward. I mean what we did with the internet was astounding and pioneered open communication globally. All of the internet powerhouses were founded in the United States. Leader of democracy, leader of property rights, leader of the free world. Bitcoin felt right for us. Now, also, we're the world reserve currency issuer, which means we have the most debt, which means we run the most fiscal deficits, which means naturally we're going to start to have an interest in not being the world reserve currency and to owning and and stockpiling and eventually transitioning into some world reserve asset status. And so, it made a lot of sense to me. I felt Bitcoin is very American and that it is inevitably going to solve our problem of like this Triffin's dilemma that is compounding right in our face.
Yeah. I think there's a more cynical or sinister side too to why El Salvador was so successful, which is that the United States couldn't attack their currency. So you saw Argentina start to talk about actually some level of Bitcoin adoption. The IMF came in and and World Bank and said no, no, no. and they could attack their currency and yeah, which we've seen also had like such a I mean Bukele as far as innovating, younger, his appeal to his population, I mean he's the most popular politician in the world, so it was in many ways a perfect storm to be an innovative first mover. It was like a Michael Sailoresque moment for those that weren't around back then of perfect leader, perfect moment, perfect time, perfect country and how replicable that was. I think people got ahead of their skis a little bit, but I do think the next iteration of that is the world reserve currency issuer is destined to have really catastrophic problems. It doesn't matter who you are or where you are. It's a function of policy and how the system is designed. And so very naturally, reserve assets are going to become appealing at a rapid rate. And so I think it makes all the sense in the world that the United States has stumbled into the position they're in now, which is, hey, um, this world reserve currency status thing, this sucks. And this Bitcoin thing is pretty cool.
Yeah, it doesn't surprise me. "Bitcoin thing is pretty cool," obviously. And we're seeing major institutional adoption as a result of that. And you're leading in that uh, in that arena, stacking sats, right? So obviously everybody's seen what Sailor's done. uh, you guys were second, right, to say we're going to be a Bitcoin treasury company obviously with 21. I think what was so impactful about that announcement obviously was the partners that were a part of it. Caner Fitzgerald, Tether, SoftBank. So, by the way, to me, I was like, SoftBank has hundreds of millions of dollars in Bitcoin. Where'd that come from? So, I don't know if they had to buy it or they already had it, but that was a huge signal to me. Obviously, US CEO. So, Bitcoin treasury companies. Really excited about what Sailor did. Really excited about what you did. Really excited when Nakamoto came in. I've been pitched 30 of them since I got here in the last three hours.
Yeah. Do we need How many do we need? Well, again, we'll talk about what you're doing first, but you know, is it is this infinite uh, you know, scale? No. Again, I think you know, you need Bitcoin. Bitcoin doesn't need you. And you know, um, you look in the mirror and you realize I'm better off as an individual, as a family, as a business, as a country with a harder money. I think society has a direct correlation to the hardness of its money. Hardness is, by the way, it's a direct reference in how hard is it to produce more. When you have a hard money that's bound to the physical constraints of mother nature, it allows you to prioritize the future, lower your time preference, to coordinate effectively and efficiently in a free marketplace. And so everyone is better off with Bitcoin in their life because Bitcoin is the hardest money we've ever conceived of. So again, I I know people love to get all wound up and oh I'm treasury. Yeah, it it it's very logical that every company naturally has capital to store and they're going to store it and the you know, Sailor loves thermodynamic but it's you know, it's bound to the physical realities of the universe. You physically cannot make any more of it, which makes it the safest place for me to store my work. So, it doesn't surprise me whatsoever. I think at 21, you know, one of the reasons I I co-founded it with Tether. I've known these guys forever. We've been in Bitcoin for both of us a long time, way over 10 years. We This isn't a pivot um from some other operating business. You know, we didn't get into Bitcoin recently. This isn't uh anything to do with the White House or the administration. These are Bitcoiners that thought there was not a hole in the market, but there was we thought Bitcoin could be represented in a in a way that we were interested in and we saw demand from folks like SoftBank. And so, um, we think we're very different, which I can explain, but it doesn't surprise me that the capital markets has a big appetite for Bitcoin.
Go go ahead and explain. I would love to hear the the nuance. I think you know Tether and I I would say four or five years ago when Sailor was getting started with his pivot as Bitcoiners were like, wow, this is unbelievably exciting. Also, by the way, Bitcoin inspires the most clever creative thinking I've ever seen because I do think it's the most free market of all time. There is no central rulemaker or intermediary or governor or regulator that gets in your way of ideas. And so this idea was so clever and so brilliant. We're just cheering them on. I would say maybe one to two years ago um the amount of institutional demand has far exceeded I think any Bitcoin I mean these ETFs and this administration and the amount of demand in the capital markets and especially now we're seeing whether it's tariffs or capital controls is this American first investment policy which is hey China take your money and go home, you know the $150 trillion market of global equities like all these companies trading at 50 times earnings people are trying to look for like real value, real returns, companies with a real balance balance sheet and that level of demand. We were like, "Okay, um, a lot of these other treasury companies, there's nothing wrong with them. They're just a bit small. These are companies, small cap, midsize businesses that can't don't have the skeleton to actually absorb institutional demand and growth. And then for the Micro Strategies of the world, which there's only one, um, we thought there was an opportunity to actually build technology with access to the capital markets and access to such a big balance sheet filled with Bitcoin. And you know, Paulo and I before we were CEOs, we were technologists. Like we both were engineers. And so over the last few years, we were like, man, you know, for the smaller companies that are doing maybe innovative, you know, product building things, um, a SoftBank can't write them a billion dollar check. This market cap's hundred million, right? Uh, and for Micro Strategy, we we're very interested in building financial services and extending the Treasury story beyond just buying Bitcoin. And so that's where, you know, our tagline when I was on Wall Street pitching the product. It's, you know, we want to bring blue-chip credibility with startup upside to the capital market. SoftBank wasn't a founding partner. They're actually a first outside investor. And that was what was attractive to them is blue-chip credibility. I mean, Tether's the most profitable per employee company in the history of mankind, the most successful business running today. We're very credible. Our background, what we've been able to achieve. I mean, Strike as well when it comes to gross or net profit per employee. I mean, we got to be up there in the Bitcoin space with the startup upside with the fact that we only have or expected to have upon closing 42,000 coins. We think we're going to be able to add that dramatically. We think we're going to be able to build high-margin, high-growth, cash-producing products that actually add to our ability to buy Bitcoin and influence the world with the tech. So, it's that we're big enough to win, we're small enough to grow. We have blue-chip credibility. We have startup upside. That's what we thought. Someone that was built by Bitcoiners for Bitcoiners, people that understand the tech and understand how to build successful businesses in this space. That's what we thought was missing. This is a Bitcoin natives. We're not pivoting, you know, we're not taking a, you know, an ancillary business that was total didn't know how to spell Bitcoin and now all of a sudden is buying it. Not that there's anything wrong with that. We just think we're different in that concrete way.
Where does the demand for the actual convertible notes or the debt or whatever strategy you take, where does that generally come from? And does a lot of it come from still places where perhaps this is the only way they can gain exposure to Bitcoin like insurance company or such as you still can't go buy?
Well, I think to understand the demand we're seeing at 21 is to understand this macro environment we're living through again, you know, you've got the Treasury, the secretary coming out on CNN and saying real negative rates for the 10-year. Yeah, it's crazy. He's saying like, "I'm going to focus on the GDP growth faster than the debt." It's like, "Wait, what? You out of your mind?" Now, then yields the next day go skyrocket. And it and it's so okay, uh, fixed income 10-year dead, right? You're talking about privatizing, uh, Freddy Mac, Freddy Mack, uh, to buy MBS and provide liquidity that way. Then you've got capital controls. So all the trillions of dollars of trade surplus from foreign trading partners, they're saying no more bidding up the NASDAQ. No more bidding up the NA the MAG7. Goodbye your 50 times all your favorite tech companies that are trading at 50 times earnings irrationally. Well, those got to come down because you're not getting a persistent bid from China anymore. All of these amazing beautiful penthouses that are selling for hundreds of millions of dollars. Well, you don't have the foreign Russian and Chinese capital anymore. All the beautiful farmland that isn't actually producing any food, well those aren't getting bid up anymore. So you're having assets, you know, the dollar is artificially strong. Dollar assets are artificially strong because of the world reserve currency status. And so if we're going to start to balance that, then fixed income, then the equities market, they need real returns. They need a real balance sheet. They need real growth. Well, Bitcoin's compounding at 60% a year. And if you add a little bit of leverage to it and you add cash flow generating products and you add a little bit of Tether and a little bit of Strike, that's a very powerful equity in a world that's reorchestrating capital flows. And so when we go to the fixed income market and say, "Hey, the conversations I'm having on Wall Street is these guys are like," "Hey Jack, don't tell my boss I said this, but the 6040 portfolio dead. Dead. Dead. So here, check this out. I just modeled out the 55540 or the 60355. Help me understand where the alpha is." And I say, "Cool." And I order up over $500 million of cash in a week on Wall Street. Boom. And that's where the demand is coming from is because we, you know, American exceptionalism was largely funded by foreign trading partners, trade surplus. And so all of these, you know, tech stocks can't go down, real estates gets a perpetual bid. I mean, that's going to
Be questions. We're going to see capital rotation. I think Bitcoin's a great place for that capital, and we think 21 is going to be, in our opinion, one of the best ways to do Bitcoin in the capital markets.
I 100% agree. My concern is that when Bitcoin's cycle top, if we believe there is one, irrelevant. Bitcoin hits a certain level, we get the normal FOMO that we do, and a hundred companies who have no idea what they're doing come in and try to do what you're doing. They raise debt. They say, "Oh, you're 7% yield. I'm going to do 8, 9, 10, 27%." Bitcoin goes down 20%. They're forced to sell. And here we are in yet another leverage cascade of selloff. Nothing to do with what you're doing, but there's people are going to see it successfully. Great. And try to, you know, imitate it at the wrong time with zero structure.
No, I love it. I mean, listen, I love when, you know, a childhood friend says, "Well, what if Satoshi Nakamoto comes out, takes his million dollars or million bitcoins, and sells it all?" I'd be like, "Oh, I'll buy it." Yeah. Everyone in this room will buy. Everyone in this room will buy it. I'm I'm a buyer. I'm a buyer. So if you've levered yourself up to your neck and you're puking Bitcoin at discounts, I'm buying. So you know, you know, Bitcoin is the best money to transfer wealth from the impatient to the patient, from the irresponsible to the responsible.
So uh, again, we're very confident between the founding group and the executive team. We've been in Bitcoin a very long time. We've built lots of successful businesses, and we know exactly what we're doing. Um, we've I've lived through many cycles. I missed one having. I I was not there for the 2020. You were like three. No, not quite. But I I I missed the first having any other every other ever having I was there. So, um, I've lived through these cycles, and so we feel prepared and yeah, listen, it's a free market, and if uh there's a lot of impatient, irresponsible capital that needs um a better home, uh I got plenty of space. So, I leave it.
So, what's exciting you the most? I mean, we're kind of like running out of time obviously, but outside of the things that we've discussed as you see this sort of Goldilocks moment as we talked about, which I think will be continuing, what's the most exciting thing you're seeing in the Bitcoin space?
I think for both 21 and Strike, separate businesses, shout out my lawyers, shout out the SEC, separate companies. Um, you know, what I I think is uh interesting to us is uh focusing on utility within the asset class. We've seen a lot of the innovation be offering more cryptos or more speculative ways, you know, options, leverage, or list 300 tokens. Um, we're really interested, we mentioned in the 21 business plan and public filing and at Strike, we've launched and continue to to scale out lending, credit markets, making Bitcoin like you can get a home equity loan. If you have a scarce, desirable asset, why would you ever sell it? And by the way, the hodler's dilemma that we all face is I've been able to build wealth in Bitcoin, but I don't want to sell it. And money is a means like, you know, do you know the miser and his gold story? Is that the miser would stack a bunch of gold and he and he buried it in his backyard and every day he'd go out and look at the gold and look at the gold and just admire that he had all this gold. And one day his neighbor realized what was underground. His neighbor went in, stole the gold. He went and looked out. The gold was gone. And he's crying. And his friend comes and says, "What's wrong?" He says, "My gold, it's stolen." He said, 'Well, all you did was look at it. You might as well just put a rock there. It'll serve the same purpose. And so, same thing with Bitcoiners, right? Is that we all have amassed this wealth and this hard, scarce asset, but you need a house to live in, you need food to buy, you want to get married, you want to have kids, you want to travel. And the fact that we haven't had credible utility built on top of the asset class to allow you to get liquidity out of the asset, responsibly borrow against it, credit markets, different financial services and innovation that's necessity to solve the hodler's dilemma, to solve this problem for this new wealth class that's worth over $2 trillion. And so I think both my businesses independently are focused not on other cryptos, not on further speculation, but on making the asset more useful and allowing you to actually allow you allow it to change your life more. And that's what I think is coming and what excites me outside of, you know, both companies buy a lot of Bitcoin. We're excited about the price, too. But
So what company are you going to be the third CEO of?
Uh, none. My girlfriend. We're done. We maxed out at two.
Yeah. Yeah, I know that feeling, man. Thank you so much for everything you do, man. I really appreciate it. This incredible conversation was recorded live in the Arch Public Lounge at Bitcoin Las Vegas. To dollar cost average into Bitcoin efficiently and to check out all the other algorithms, go to archpub.com.
That's dope. [Music] That's dope.