Transcription
I think it's really, really important for people in Bitcoin to actually understand how a market works and who and what you need for that market to be to work effectively.
Today I sit down with investing legend Gary Cardone. I think it's $300 billion that's going to come out of the crypto market as he sounds the alarm for Bitcoin holders.
You know, we had a slight chance of actually bringing in some really major hitters on sovereign level, and I think we've blown that. And what comes next? I mean, I'll bet somebody $100 grand right now. Okay, we see 50 before we see 100. I'm having to reassess it, man. Where does this go? And where are the buyers?
Highly recommend you watch today's entire conversation. Your top three catalysts that would change your mind to the upside. If you saw these three things happen, you would rethink and say, "Oh, this is a more bullish future."
That's a great question, actually. So, you understand everything? I think you're going to have the biggest bull market in the history of mankind.
Click the like button right now if you appreciate conversations like this. It truly does help me grow as a channel. And let's start. Altcoin Daily. Now people know you, but Altcoin Daily has had a lot of new subscribers in the last six months. So maybe just for those new folks, remind them what is your experience before crypto and then how'd you find Bitcoin?
Yeah, so I am Gary Cardone, not the real estate guy. Uh, came into crypto and started looking at it in '13. I have an energy background. Uh, about 25 years in energy, reforming the way energy, the way energy is traded today, was created by a bunch of people, a couple hundred people, I was part of that gang. So having gone through a market transition from monopolies to really a free market, and I think crude oil, just through the harm situation, crude oil really showed you how effective that market is. Um, you know, that we didn't get much over $120, $120 was really, really impressive to me. Um, so then I got a fintech background, spent 15 years building a fraud payment solution, and then kind of ran into Bitcoin as a, uh, saw Bitcoin in '13, turned away from it, '16, turned away from it, '18, bought some, and then 20 really kind of got into it pretty heavy in 2020.
So, did from your energy background, was it Bitcoin mining that drew you in or the self-sovereignty or what?
No, the, the Bitcoin mining actually, uh, my background in energy really helped me stay away from the miners. I never saw that as a, I, I, I, uh, understood within a week of being here that it was cheaper to buy Bitcoin on an exchange than it was to mine Bitcoin. And I think that is proving to be true. Uh, people talk about there's an average mining cost. Well, there is if you blend it all together. But the truth is, there's $37,000 Bitcoin that is mined, uh, cheaply with sovereign energy or free energy, and then there's $118,000 Bitcoin that Mara mines, and you manage those two together and you have $79,000. That is not the way to look at a commodity, okay? To to say, hey, it's an average of $79. Like, there's half the people are losing a load of money. Are you kidding me? And a half of the people are making a lot of money. Um, so commodities are very different. I don't think if you've ever, and I think this has a lot of characteristics of a commodity. That's what attracts me. Uh, but they're not the easiest things to own because they go, they have all these characteristics like we're experiencing right now. What happens when you have three million coins priced at $300 and you have three million coins priced at $85,000, and both of them have very, very different agendas? And that is basically all the coins that are really available.
Everything else is pretty much, you know, locked up a bit.
Yeah. And we've seen minor capitulation though, every bear cycle. So it's nothing new.
Correct. No, it doesn't work. Scaling, scale miners at scale will not work in Bitcoin. It's a really weird thing. I, I don't think, I think you will only be able to be decentralized or have zero cost input energy and zero cost of money, which would mean sovereigns, right? If I'm sitting on top of a geothermal stack and I've owned this land for a thousand years, I have zero cost. So, all I have to do is put some equipment up, and then I'm competing with Mara, who's paying seven cents a kilowatt to an exchange, to a utility company. Come on, man. You can't be at the very end of the supply chain of energy and expect to compete when someone has zero input. And I've said since I first met you, these successful Bitcoin miners will be zero input Bitcoiners. You will not make any money above zero for input costs. I don't think so. Uh, because that would drive, that will drive the behavior to take stranded energy and turn it into something, monetize it. And this is a big trick with this, is a big, big deal between energy and every other commodity and Bitcoin. Bitcoin has no handling storage cost. I can sit on Bitcoin for a century and pay nothing. That is really up. It is really, really, really messed up. Okay, I'm not blaming anyone. I'm just saying, hey, there's a dynamic in Bitcoin for a $300 holder. By the way, holder means they hold. They don't buy. They just hold. And they're, they're actually non-participants. They may get on spaces and blab a lot to get the price up, but they're not really buying Bitcoin at $75, $80, $85,000. They want you and me to buy it. So, this is stranded 3 million Bitcoins. I think these have to get repriced at some point because they're creating a cost $5 a barrel to store a barrel of crude oil a month. So you have a $60 print on crude oil. $5 a month, $60 to store a $60 product. Bitcoin, I have a $3 million, $20 million coin that requires no storage costs. Therefore, there are no incentives to ever move. Just you're just going to do this. Yap, yap. Then you got three or four million coins being bought by Wall Street guys like me. I, I would not have come here if this was not going to be a Wall Street product because I'm not really interested in the peer-to-peer anarchy, Mad Max. You know, I've got a million of the 21 million. Like, I don't want to live in that world. I don't care how many Bitcoin I have. That is a bad trade for me. So there's just some really fundamental interesting dynamics in Bitcoin. I think we're undergoing it. This is what all this price movement right now is about. People are trying to figure out how deep is this market? Is there too much control and too few hands? Does it move like a real commodity? What happens when there's stress in the system? And we're doing this right now. So I think it's actually very, very healthy for the industry. But it's put off a lot. I think it's delayed new entrants. And boy, do we need new entrants because the old entrants are not buying Bitcoin anymore. Okay? I mean, all you got to do, you've interviewed them all, dude. Every OG you know here, okay? They're exhausted. From Scaramucci to Dan, dude, all of them are exhausted. It's been 14, 15, 16 years. Their families are exhausted. The founders of every crypto project are trapped. Imagine being a founder worth mill billions of dollars and you can't even get out of your own foundation program. If you leave, you collapse the program. I mean, I could list six guys who just like, if you, if you listen to the interviews, you're like, "Bro, you're out of this. Your head's in SpaceX. Your head's in where you're going to retire? Your head is not into trying to go the next 10 years with with crypto." So it's to me, it's a fascinating time. Um, and I have gotten so much grief from having this viewpoint. But my understanding of how markets structurally work, I think is really, really important for people in Bitcoin to actually understand how a market works and who and what you need for that market to be to work effectively.
Um, you know, we had a slight chance of actually bringing in some really major hitters on sovereign level, and I think we've blown that. I think you most certainly have blown that.
Why?
Well, it was never going to be the case where anything other than Bitcoin would have any even chance of sitting on a reserve, you know, because they're too small. And now I'm afraid Bitcoin might be too small. The MSTR package, you know, I mean, I actually don't think strategy is a problem. I think the 150 companies that followed strategy and bought 350,000 Bitcoin, not having a clue what they're doing. Not like, literally no clue. And I would take them from the top, uh, top two guys, take the top two guys out. Everybody beneath them has no clue what they're doing, and they won't survive there. There's no real reason to have 180 strategic Bitcoin companies that don't create any yield. My brother, on the other hand, he's not public, so you can't even buy into this. So, I'm not pumping it. But my thought when I saw these strategy companies, I called them up and broke that there is no yield in these companies. Like, you have an organic yielding machine. This will be a no-brainer. It, it'll be, it'll be the best strategic reserve entity, and he's not pressured to do anything. Uh, if he looks at that, just like real estate, [ __ ] sometimes I don't know what our real estate's worth, dude. Our real estate's worth nothing today, right? Because the whole market's down. It's not, not worth nothing, but we have no intention on selling it, just like we have no intention on selling the Bitcoin.
But you have cash flow with the real estate.
Correct. So that's what you're saying is the difference?
It's organic cash flow. You're not creating a financial product to create yield. Yield, you have, you, you own the farm, you own the land, you own the water, you own everything, and you're creating bushels of corn and you're selling those corn every month, and you're converting that corn into Bitcoin.
So Gary, what signs generally speaking would you look for for like a capitulation-like moment with Bitcoin?
Well, this is my nickname in Bitcoin. You know, you're hated every six to 12 months in Bitcoin, no matter what you say. But my name is now Capitulation Cardone. Seemingly the MBAs in Bitcoin did not study this word. Capitulation. It has one definition. Doesn't have 32 definitions. Like we have most certainly not seen capitulation this cycle. D. We're so far away from capitulation. Right now, we're at $62,000 and we're people, people are having parties as if it's a $100,000 party. We've lost $38,000 off 100 grand, and people are like, "Okay, here we go." We have not turned the corner yet. Not a chance. Um, and and look, I hold a lot of Bitcoin, so there's no reason for me to say this. However, I'm, I've kind of made it my decision that as I stack more fiat, I am not going to buy above my average price anymore. Now, how did I get to this decision? Well, I've got the, the, the gang of Bitcoiners who say Bitcoin is going to solve every problem. That means it's going to be worth $20 million. Probably 20 or 30 Bitcoin is probably enough for me. Now, now look at what happened. The marketing on Bitcoin is so awful. You've taken a guy who really is a hoarder. I'm a hoarder. I love buying [ __ ]. I've got a thousand weapons, dude. I got all kinds of crap, right? And I never sell any of it. I'm going to have all my art. I'm not going to sell it. I might give some of it away. Um, but when someone tells me it's going to $20 million, why am I trying to get to a thousand? Okay, you should be saying, "Hey, dude, you, you can buy a thousand. Oh my god, bro." So, if it's going to, and if it's not going to do that, why, why am I spending so much time on this? You see, it's, it's a, it's a really weird loop. Instead of just saying, "Hey, look, 11 or 12% return a year over 5 to 10, 15 years, that is an unbelievable return." I don't need sailor doing 35% and throwing these big numbers out. These numbers are stupid. Okay, 35%. There is no 35% return constantly every day, all day. Hell, there's barely 11.
But it has been 35 for the last 10 years.
Well, when you, when you mold it out, but if you can't, you know, let me pick a period like, let's go back to the very beginning. 30,000% return. Okay. Well, it's not the best performing asset on the planet. Okay, we have to confront that. We have said things about Bitcoin that aren't true. And, and like you kind of led with your chin. The whole Bitcoin community said, this is the solution to mankind, and it's not. Okay. Like, it's, it, it's a form of money. It's not perfect, but it's really cool. Um, and I still think that there's, look, there's 4,400 multi-multi-millionaires made one company going public last week. These people, their lives have changed, okay? And, you know, you start stacking up a se several million dollars and getting a little bit of degravity, your life does change. Everybody says it won't. Damn right it changes, right? Um, it becomes more complicated and becomes simpler in many ways. So, I just think the next money coming here is a very, very, very different buyer. It's not the crypto bro. And the problem is the crypto bros make it a little difficult and unenjoyable for people like me to be here. I mean, if I went to SpaceX and did this kind of volume, dude, I'd get first ring seats to every launch, you know? I'd be treated decently. I wouldn't be, "Why do you, you know, continue to belittle people that come here with a frame of reference?" I'm not tired. Anthony Scaramucci and these guys are tired, dude. They're saying it online. I ain't got no more energy for Bitcoin. Hey, and I'm not making fun of these guys. I think it's a very honest statement. Thank God.
I agree.
Adults are finally, dude, this is.
When I first met you, dude, six or seven years ago, I said, "Hey, this, this is a long haul, dude. People have, they will underestimate how long this takes, and then they will underestimate the impact it makes, but they'll be wrong on both things and they'll give up early. Most people give up early."
So what's your?
Years is not long, dude. It's a short period of time.
What is your, you know, rock bottom realistic price for Bitcoin, and does it happen in the next 12 months?
I don't know about rock bottom forever ever price.
Just low cycle low.
I think, I think, I think, uh, we have to test $55,000.
We haven't tested it yet, dude. We tested the lower low. So why would we not test another lower low? So test it, touch it, you know, do the, I don't care. If we touch $55,000, we probably go check out $52 and a half. And if we check out $52, we go in the 40s. So, I, I think I will see 40 this year. In fact, I think I'll see 40 before November in the 40s, you know, but that could be for one tick of a trade. I, I'm not saying it's going to go and stay there. I don't know. And I will say, I also would like to see that because I like price capitulation over time. Capitulation. Price capitulation doesn't impact me. I'm not going to get a phone call. Y'all may get a phone call, but I'm not. And if I do get a phone call, I know what to do, right? So that doesn't scare me. What scares me is the time decay. Another six months of just sitting here with the money is just dead money, right? Um, the cool thing is though, I mean, I do think there's a really cool lesson behind this. When I first came in here, I was told, "Hey, this thing run away from you, you'll never catch it again." That has also proven to be not true by a factor of a thousand. Okay? Like, I am literally buying Bitcoin cheaper than I bought it three years ago, two years ago, whatever, right? Um, so it's this, this curve. I need to prepare more now. Like I would say to people, hey, don't buy right here. Huddle up. Huddle up your fiat. Stack a bunch of nuts and then deploy it when the market's weak. And if it runs away from you by 10 grand, if I'm at $72,000 in a week, I'll go, "Hey, man, maybe we're not going to see it." But we need to sweep through a bunch of, right? 68 and like push through 68, 72, 78, 82. I mean, you got a lot of wood to chop, man. Don't you agree? A lot of wood to chop. It's easier to go to 48 than it is 100. I mean, I'll bet somebody $100 grand right now. Okay. We see 50 before we see 100.
If anybody in the audience would like to take Gary Cardone up on that bet, please reply to him on X.
You, you'll escrow it. Okay.
Okay. All right.
But like I don't, you know, these guys all talking [ __ ]. Like, hey, stick some money behind your mouth, man. And [clears throat] let the audience see, oh, okay, that's a real guy. Okay. He's really, he's not just yakking. Well, speaking of that, Gary, you're being real about Bitcoin short-term outlook, your thesis, but I don't want the audience to get it twisted. You are a bull. You're still holding. And?
I, dude, I hold hundreds of Bitcoin at $57,000. Okay? I haven't sold any Bitcoin. Don't listen to these people, dude. I, I heard a guy earlier go, "Hey, I, I have seven half million dollars worth of STRC, dude. STRC." And guy, oh, he sold it. I haven't sold any STRC. I haven't even worried about the price. Y'all are confusing us with y'all. We don't think this way, man. I have literally never even looked at the STRC price. I'm like, "Oh, well, I got my yield, dude. I don't care." And I will continue to get my yield. If I don't get my yield, you might as well sell Bitcoin. If you think bit the yield on STRC is going away, you should dump your Bitcoin. It is going to nothing. Like, it's crazy. What needs to happen is 150 companies that copycatted Sailor not knowing what the [ __ ] he was they were doing, they have to go away to 300,000 Bitcoin. 300,000 Bitcoin and they're all under stress. Not a one of them has a business plan. Not a one. To like, like I'm just sorry. This is true. Okay. And I've owned some of them, like, like, but I think they're all Naka. I think every one of them, they've run out of money, dude. You don't have any money. What are you going to do? I mean, I looked at at them. There is absolutely zero interest for me to go cobble up 30 of those companies. What, what would I get from it? A discount on the Bitcoin? Dude, I can buy it for 60 grand right now. I'm going to have lawsuits. People, I got David Bailey to manage. They're going to, their incentives are all cocked up. I, it's a really, if you had 150 oil companies imploding right now, you'd have one guy, I'll buy them all right now. That's not going to happen here. It's also not going to happen in the alt market. Can you imagine Solana and Ethereum merging? That's not even possible. That's really a problem, dude, when you can't even merge with your competitors. So I don't know where that market goes. If that market doesn't do something magical, ical. What does it do to Bitcoin? Is that good for Bitcoin or is it a drag on Bitcoin? I think it's $300 billion that's going to come out of the crypto market, and I don't think it's going into Bitcoin.
And that would take it down to in the 40s.
Well, you know, if you keep telling Sailor he can't buy any Bitcoin, and you tell the, and the Ether, the alt markets don't do something spectacular, and you got 300,000 Bitcoin that can't get bought by some magic buyer, I just see us kind of having a lot of issues to deal with. Like every 36 months, we're dealing with another wall of, "Oh, what happened? What happened to Ethereum?" I mean, do you think Vitalik's got 10 more years in? I don't think so, dude. Not a chance. He'll, he'll destroy his life if he does.
Tom Lee might.
Tom Lee might have 10 years.
I bet you he does.
He has.
Because this thing, this thing has to perform now, right? Like, you can't keep making these predictions and it doesn't do something.
That's true. Gary, let's switch top. Let's alter the topic a little bit. Um, it's, it's possible Bitcoin going up could bail everybody out. I know it's unlikely, but what is your realization?
That's the only thing that happened. That, that the only problem here is Bitcoin's price. MSTR is a Bitcoin issue. All of it's a Bitcoin issue. People got in over their skis, man.
So, what is the outlook for like 2030? Like, what's realistic?
You mean in, in terms of price structure of the market or?
Yes, Bitcoin price, which would dict.
Four years from now. I mean, I'm having to reassess it, man. I, I, I actually am having to reassess, um, where does this go and where are the buyers? Where, like, who are they? Are they people like me? Are they people like you? I, I don't know. Um, I'm, I'm really struggling with who the buyers are because our message is really bad right now. Okay. Our message is all over the place. Uh, is the Clarity Act going to really get us over the hump? If you know anything about the Clarity Act, there's a reason 150 companies all gathered together in a meeting the other day. Okay, they're getting ready to, in the face, excuse my language, but like, this is the enemy, and it's being applauded. Yeah. Can't wait for Visa, Mastercard to come in. Like, you guys are hilarious, man. You don't know an enemy yet. So, they're going to get their piece. I don't know how the Solanas of the world get their piece because I don't think Visa, Mastercard have given up their 350 basis points and all the rules. Okay? Like, if you think Bitcoin is going to be used as a consumer product payment system for merchants, um, maybe you have, because and tax is the big holdup. Um, I don't know why a consumer is going to just give up his refund rights and his dispute rights. When you put a human being together and, uh, money, and you, like, there is going to be a dispute. Okay, every bet I make on this thing, 30% of the people don't want to pay. Okay? So, like, and thousand people heard somebody make a bet. Now, I'm not going to go chase somebody for a grand. No, I'm not. Um, but I don't see anybody walking in buying TVs and saying, "I'm going to give up all my rights." And by the way, I get 30 days of float. As a consumer, I buy TV. I get to float it for 10, 30 days. I'm going to go use Bitcoin. Really? I'm going to use Bitcoin? Oo, that seems like a really bad decision when my float cost me zero. And I would also have to give up my dispute rights. What happens if the TV breaks? So.
Wouldn't wouldn't Visa and Mastercard use stablecoins and a L2 of Ethereum that's permissioned?
They just use stablecoins, too. But why, why they need to use L2?
I mean, this is stable. Why would the stablecoins will be pure fiat? They will have all the rights, refunds, chargebacks, disputes. It's a, you know, very large business. People don't, oh, what if it's a business? Dude, it's a real income these people make. I mean, I was doing 80 million a year, handling 1% of the clients just on their fraud, making $80 million a year for for disputes. Wow. One company, there's 40 of them. So, there's 650 million chargeback disputes on credit cards. That's before all the phone calls, dude. Okay. There's a billion phone calls. Okay. Like, Solana, can you please answer your telephone? I have a dispute. Who, who's Coinbase? Oh, all the stablecoin holders are going to have the largest disputes problem. They, it'll be my ex-partner's best business will be the crypto guys. So, you got to get that piece figured out. Nobody really bothered to think about, hey, the consumer, um, has rights that they have been given by the system, and they like them, and it costs you and me money. That's the sad part. So 2030, um, you know, I would hope you'd have a triple from here, 180. I think you have to go into this really conservative now and and look at this mostly as like, I'm looking at this as rare art. There's not 21 million either. There's maybe 16, maybe. Uh, so, yeah, I, I, I, I think, you know, I, I have to look at Bitcoin as an investment. Go, hey, am I cool with a triple every four to eight years? And if it outperforms that, awesome. Um, now, what, what's the good news? The good news is that Bitcoiners don't talk about is Fanny May and Freddy Mac have done a deal with Coinbase to allow people to borrow, uh, use Bitcoin as part of the mortgage, uh, the down payment of the mortgage, and there is no margin call. It's 100 basis points more than a normal, say, normal is 5 and a half percent, it's going to cost you 6 and a half percent to use Bitcoin. Now, why do I bring this up? One, I don't hear any Bitcoiners talking about it. This is Freddy and Fanny, dude. This is like God. And, and, and people go, "Well, it's no big deal. They just did a sleeve deal with Coinbase." They could have called Kitco and done the same deal on silver and gold the last 30 years, and nobody made that phone call. They're doing it on Bitcoin, dude, for a reason. The collateral is excellent. And I think we need to get back to that. Hey, the collateral is pristine. It is pristine collateral. It allows me to move on a, I can do transactions on a Saturday, man. All this other stuff about, you know, can't stop confiscated. I will put your ass in jail and your family members until you give me my seed phrase. Okay. I, I think you're going to give it up. Like, there, if somebody wants to attack me, they're going to attack me. We have to quit selling this is the magic money. I, I don't think it's that valuable to people like me to think, okay, I'm going to leave my house, my helicopter, my plane, all my, and I'm going to escape. Like, I don't want to live in that world. So, we need, we need, we need a bunch of rich people. I think, uh, diversifying. I, I think that's what we need to do. And some of these paper products, some of these IBMs that are just moving 20 and 30% a day, I mean, this cannot continue. And if Bitcoin was ever primed up, like, we have a market that is perfectly set up for Bitcoin to perform well. And quite frankly, if it doesn't in the next 12 months, I'll probably relook at my position. And the, the question will be not necessarily, hey, do I offload some of my Bitcoin? It'll, the first question will be, do I need to buy anymore? Now, this is another problem because I am a hoarder too. I have a thousand weapons. I bought four the other day. Okay, I didn't need them. I knew I didn't need them, but I liked them, so I bought them anyway. Um, I think that's the kind of buyer you need. Some rich guy that says, "Dude, half a billion dollars on some Bitcoin. Done. I'm done for 10 years. Let's see what happens. 10 million here, 5 million there, 10 million there, 6 million there." Now, I've always said this. I've always believed this was the buyer, not Joe Retail. If we were already at a million dollars, Joe Retail would be participating because they'd be buying SATs. Um, I'm still surprised somebody hadn't sold SATs, man. It's a product. Like, like the other thing, where's the Bitcoin merchant, uh, hub? Like, why hasn't anybody ever set up a marketing hub for Bitcoin? Hey, you can use Bitcoin. I talked to a guy the other day. I'm creating one. That was a good idea. Are you taking fiat? No. Well, that's a mistake, dude. Take fiat, bro. Take it all. Why? Make it friendly to everyone. We're not there yet, you know, and we've been talking about it. We're just not there yet. It's so hard to do things in Bitcoin sometimes.
Gary, a big cloud to the normal person hanging over crypto right now is it was just disclosed Donald Trump made over $1.4 billion in crypto. While the market, while the average person probably didn't make any money, you were a big supporter. Does that sit well with you?
Doesn't bother me in the least. I don't, I, I don't care. Okay. Look, uh, these people are going to make money. They're, they're insiders. Uh, look, also, I'm not even sure if any of this information is correct, but does it sit well with me? Uh, nothing about our government sits well with me, either past or prior performance or current performance. It's disgusting. Um, I, I don't even, I don't. But it's most certainly not about the money, dude. I mean, I would be one that just would say, "Hey, look, if you raise the GDP, let's pay you a trillion dollars." I mean, to me, it would be just a lot easier. Bring in an administration, treat them exactly like an executive team, and you hope they walk out filthy rich. And if that, that was the incentives instead of all these backdoor deals, we actually might have a better country. So, I don't know, man. Um, but it seems like the United States government is going to take a position in every company on the planet of any significance. And that also has changed the whole game for Bitcoin because it's going to be hard to buy, like it's going to be hard to pitch that story on Bitcoin. But IBM, uh, Tesla, all these AI companies, I think, you know, the genie's out of the bottle now. Trump will buy or acquire interest in companies instead of just buying them out or, you know, doing a bunch of QE and saving a bunch of companies. This is a much better trade for America to own an interest in the company rather than bailing them out. Now, it is a bailout, okay? Because you're being assured of business in the future. Uh, I think that's, if I was running this, this country, I would do exactly the same thing. I, I would become, I'm, because let's face it, we are not a free market. We haven't been a free market since I've been alive. I've never participated in a free market ever in my whole life.
It's a, and America is no longer competing in a free market. They are competing with sovereigns. And every sovereign nation owns most of their corporations, if not all of them.
Or have an interest in.
In a global market that's not really free. Maybe that is Bitcoin's, Bitcoin can be that shining light. It's its utility 10 years from now.
Yeah. I mean, listen, I think I think America could have, could have really done a cool trade here, but they just couldn't get out of their own way. Um, there's so many committees, man. I mean, and, and S. Lumis is leaving, you know, she's announced. So, like, nobody has any more energy for this. It's exhausting. This kind of, uh, transformation is absolutely exhausting. And I think what we're learning is if you're decentralized, you really are going to have a problem doing it because you're playing against centralized players.
Who move faster.
Well, who move with more force. I don't think they actually move faster. I think Bitcoin moves too fast. Crypto bros move way too fast, man. They don't think it out. Like I've been asking one question, hey, why do you think it took 52 years for Visa, Mastercard to get seven credit cards in your pocket? And everybody's like, "Oh, global adoption, global adoption." I'm like, "Took them 52 years, dude. People don't change their habit, habits easily. They do not change their habits easily." Okay. And, and you're asking them to do something that's really complicated. And then you constantly tell me how uncomplicated it is. Yet four million people lost coins doing it the uncomplicated way. Four million coins were lost. They're gone. Are they? Or are they gone? Quantum compute should go attack all of those coins first. Not Satoshi's, not the entire Bitcoin system. Go find the lost ones, right? Was that imputed into the supply and demand system? I, I mean, is it, it's a weird, it's weird. Like I know how much crude oil flows every day. Oh, by the way, I can't, this is the other thing we learned. Crude oil may be the best currency on planet Earth. It can't be encrypted. It can't be tracked. It can't be tacked. It can't be, uh, stopped. It has all kind of runarounds. Stick it in a pipe. Stick it on a ship. It can be destroyed. But that's expensive. You know, I mean, it's quite interesting, but the encryption piece, I started thinking about, wow, you know, if this was, if Hormuz was all Bitcoin, it would be shut down and shut down, but it was never shut down. There were bar, there were barrels moving the whole time because you can't track and trace them. Now, that's interesting.
Gary, give me your top three catalysts that would change your mind to the upside. If you saw these three things happen, you would rethink and say, "Oh, this is a more bullish future."
That's a great question, actually. Uh, $10,000 print that holds like, you know, 70 to 80. I was talking to my brother and I. He said, "Hey, retail is going to come in when it's $100 grand." I'm like, "Yeah, but we don't get to $100 grand till we puke, dude." He, he, you know, he's not, he doesn't follow this kind of a commodity market. Just needs to puke now. It really does. So, I'd like to see a $50,000 print. I'd then like to see like, hey, there aren't any sellers. Okay. And the buying like was just, you know, frenzied up. Um, that would be, and you know that kind of, you know, you can feel it. I mean, you can almost hear all the gears fall in place. Now, typically when that happens, people are all fried. They're dry. They're out of capital. So, this is why I said, "Hey, I've been planning for this now. Last time I didn't plan for it. I was just buying." So, I'd like to see a $50,000 print really heavy. I'd like to see a $10,000 reversal. And I don't need to hear [ __ ] for narrative. I think the narrative around Bitcoin needs to go to absolute zero. It's a store of value, man, that has no handling cost. It's an option that has no termination date. And it's on both sides. It's a put to, uh, of the, the old world, and it's a call option on the new world. And, and the new world, the old world doesn't have to fail for me to even win. Okay? Like, these are binary kind of bets, but I don't get pushed out either way as long as I get to hold on to my Bitcoin. And I think one day it will be superior collateral. And superior collateral should get me cost of money that's cheaper than other people. One thing I have learned though, there's no way this ever becomes 100% of my position. Okay? Because there's just like that. I think that's the other story that's going to go away. This is just a part of a pool of your investments.
So, you need to see.
I think those things, man.
$50,000 Bitcoin, a puke, uh, V-shaped recovery type moment, a $10,000 print to the other way.
And the most, it really holds. You know, you know, it holds too. It gets tested and it holds. Um, and the, the stories, I don't think we need to hear stories. The Clarity Act, no Clarity Act. I, I don't think anybody cares that.
Not anymore.
I don't think anybody cares about, I mean, are we going to get a $2,000 pump because of the Clarity Act? I hope not. If we do, we should sell it because that's, you know, just it's kind of weird. Um, and by the way, we're not getting that in the next month. I mean, we're going to get it sometime in the summer. You know, it's four months, man. Three, three or four months. So, I'd be surprised if this thing runs away. What do you think? I mean, do you, what, what would you need to see other than those two things? I think those are two really good indicators that has to happen. What would be the third or fourth thing?
Things? Yeah, the things that I would like to see. I totally agree. I would love if we took another substantial leg down and then we saw the buyers step in because right now I'm still not seeing a sufficient volume step up and pick it up. I would love that. Um, you know, short-term things that would cause a pump. I could see like Trump offering some goodies to the crypto community into midterms because he wooed them in the first time. He'll probably woo them again. Um, honestly, the only thing I think we need though is a price and time capitulation. I think I would rather see the price as well. But if we just have that, then that's totally normal what we've seen every four-year bare markets because because the fundamentals didn't change and the and the debasement trade is still on even though that's not in the news. So does that mean that there's still a future for Bitcoin? 100%. What's the correct price in the moment? Who knows? But the future is still there. So we just need, uh, this, you know, total exhaustion from the sellers.
Yeah. And you need some buyers, man.
Yeah.
I mean, I think really the buyers is like, we need buyers. Um, but I think this period, you know, I think a lot of whales are rethinking their position now. Um, I mean, they're 17 years into this. If they started when they were 22, they're 39 years old now. They have a wife, they've got a divorce, they've got kids, they, you know, tired of living here, want to go somewhere. I mean, there's, you know, [ __ ] changes. Things change over time. Um, and, and what concerns me is the tiredness I hear in some of the OG whales. And having built businesses, like I really do understand like this is why I move every 15 years. I get bored, dude. Like it would have been easier for me to just stay in one industry, right, and just become the OG of that industry. But like, I, I find boredom more difficult than, uh, accomplishments. It's just, it, it drives me crazy being, okay, I know what's going to happen next week. That's, uh, I can't believe Jamie Diamond staying the same job that long. It's like, wow, dude. You know, you know exactly what's going to happen tomorrow morning. So those guys probably have to go, and it's a lot of people, bro. Okay. It's a lot of people. It's a lot of money. There's $700 billion sitting in the crypto space. And I got to tell you, I don't see any reason for any of it. I mean, seriously, like, you're going to have a really difficult time pitching to me any of these companies have any value.
You're talking about all coins and crypto companies.
C- all crypto, Solana, Ethereum. Look, if those two guys don't have a story, like you just wiped out a chunk.
Tokenization.
Isn't that a story for one of them?
Where, where you gonna? It's a story, but how you make money?
You know, somebody told me once about Jack Mer, one of their investors, and, uh, he said, "Hey, Jack's a good guy, dude. He just hadn't figured out how to make revenue." I included Jack Mer in that story. Like, what? Where is the story, dude? Is it a can or financial project product, or are we doing something, and I haven't heard any activity? So I just, and again, I'm not doing this to people, right? Like, I'm just looking at what's happening, and I don't see any business there. Like the NFT and the real estate and the RWA. By the RWA is a bull story, okay? It's just like stable coins. There is no real world asset. It's a piece of paper, man. Real world asset is a refining station, a real world asset is a, an oil reserve, like, you know, that you can point gold.
But don't you think like luxury watches, for example, or art, they, the certificate is passed around on pieces of paper that could get tokenized for faster settlement and around the world settlement?
Yeah. Like one of these, see, I like this though. This is a certificate for a $10,000 painting. I like. Why do I not want this? Okay. Like, seriously though, what value do I have of having a token other than I have a, I have, you know, certificate of authority. It's got the artist name. It's got a signature. I mean, is what's wrong with this, man? Like, what are we fixing?
But I guess wouldn't you say stocks, to trade stocks, you used to have tra settle in pieces of paper. Now it's all.
Agreed. Okay. But how do you make money? Because I don't think Fidelity is going to give Ethereum a piece of the action, dude. Because they're able to do it right now, man. Like, it's on a blockchain. It's just theirs. It's, it's, I get my searchs. Like, what problem are we really, really trying to solve? I mean, I don't even get my CS. They don't give you the QIPS anymore. Um, look, I can, I could send you $100,000 today, right now, from my bank account, $100 grand, without touching the bank, without calling the bank, without any approvals whatsoever. And I can do it on a wire, and they charge me zero. Cheaper than my Bitcoin. I've been doing this for two years now. Like, what's the big deal with digital assets? I'm already doing it, dude. I guess one day the banks could cancel you.
They could. And I've had a credit card since 1986 from American Express, and I've never ever had a problem. Uh, in fact, I think they probably would treat me pretty well. Um, I've got a bank account with a couple of banks, and one of them's known me for 30 years. Like, they give me float, dude. Hey man, I'm in a little margin call. Can you give me five days? Sure, Gary. No problem. $3 million. Do I really want to give that up? Because I can't get that from Bitcoiners. I need a little float, right? That's an advantage, dude. Okay. I don't get margin called on my real estate deals. I, I gave them STR. I bought STRC instead of treasuries. And they don't call me and go, "Hey, man, the price is down." They don't care. They, you're going to get your yield, dude. 11 and a half% yield. That's awesome. I moved my pension. So they had me set up in four, five, $6 million worth of treasuries. I'm like, "Dude, move it all over to STRC. Let's call your risk management team. I'm getting 3 and a half% here. Let's move it to STRC. I know you're going to approve it because it's in the stack above MSDR. It's in a preferred." 12 hours later. Yes, no problem. That's a no-brainer, dude. I moved from 3 and a half to 11 and a half%. Now these wanker MBA wannabes are sitting there going, "Cardone lost all his money." Dude, I'm getting my dividends. Y'all don't think about like, we don't think that, oh wow, the, the stock crashed. I had no intention on selling the stock. Okay, I wanted to park it in something that was going to create some yield for me until I could figure out what's going on in this market. When I see AI and IBM and all these companies doing things, I'm like, my god, what's happening in the market here? It seems like everything that Trump touches or gets near, it explodes in price 30%. Um, most certainly that has gotten everyone's attention. Okay? Like everyone, Nvidia, all these companies, the, the market is doing something that has not done before. You're having megabillion dollar corporations move 20 and 30% in a day, in a year. Uh, even in a year is a spectacular movement. Why would I invest in something that doesn't have a story? Doesn't have a real story, a foundational story that you and I can understand, like, oh yeah, Ethereum makes their money on art. Solana makes their money on this.
XRP makes their money on gambling. This guy makes their money on porn. Those are the four targeted areas that I would target. Okay? And I would go after and the adult business first because they pay 20% in credit card fees all in. And there's a massive arbitrage. I'm stunned that Ripple didn't go into the the the I tried to get them to go into the porn space. You know, the OnlyFans, that whole space, dude, it's perfect for this. All the gaming.
>> You pitched you pitched Ripple.
>> Yeah. Um, I I mean, because somebody's going to have to go take that business, right? That business is ripe for the taking. All the art business, all the microtransactions, like what they're trying to do is I'm going to do everything instead of I'm going to be the guy.
>> And what the porn payments exploiter guy, right? Because it's a it's a it's a there's this massive gap between what a credit card user merchant pays relative to what he could do on crypto. And this is the piece that crypto hasn't really, hey, where are the gaps that I can exploit in the payment system? All they look at is instant settlements. Like, well, maybe that's not the the bee's knees. Okay, maybe no refunds is maybe the fee. Maybe not having your payment processing shut down. You talk about me losing my bank account. There are merchants all over the world that wake up and go, "Hey, all your money is reserved. You can't access access it for refunds. You can't access it for anything and we put you on freeze." And they have no way to accept a payment. Now, if those people were already set up with crypto, they they would be able to bridge, right?
Gary, in our final eight minutes, I want to get off of Bitcoin and just talk about investing advice from a guy who's done it, who's been there. Before that, can you just give final thoughts to Bitcoin holders? Maybe end with some hope.
I think the hope is is uh this has to get worked out. Okay, we're just working through a maturity spot here. It's happened in every space I've ever been in. Um, I still think Bitcoin is the perfect private equity investment for a family. Okay. I don't take money from outsiders. I uh only interested in my investment and my freedom of my voice. Okay. So I look at Bitcoin and go, okay, um, if I if I assume that it has some rare art value over a long term, if my investment is not such that I'm having to look at the price every day. If you're looking at the price every day, there's something wrong with your investment. Now, I may look at it and you may look at it because this is what you do for a living. I can't really talk about price if I haven't looked at the chart in 32 years. Um, but that's the only reason I look at it. I mean, I was being teased the other day on SGC. I'm like, bro, I I was shooting guns in North Hampshire for the last five days. I have no idea what the price is. What is it? They told me. I'm like, oh, okay, cool. Well, but I mean, these people have been like sitting on the toilet for for a week worrying about Bitcoin and SDRC.
I look at the other investments as the same way. Quite frankly, I I look at this as what is the world doing? Um, and make investments that I understand. If I don't understand something, Aaron, I don't start looking at it and going, "Oh, wow. I missed an opportunity there." No, I don't understand that industry, and I'm not going to go chase it. I mean, there's only so many things I can understand. Right. So, and really understand. Well, I understand supply and demand. I mean, who's the guy that said, you know, if you spent 14 minutes studying economics, you spent 12 minutes too many. That is my case, dude. When supply exceeds demand, prices go up. Oh, it go down. And when demand exceeds supply, prices go up. Period. Like, it doesn't ever change. And with Bitcoin, I think I have a good handle on there is a limited supply and should be at some point an unlimited amount of buying for people that just want to protect 10, 15, 20, 30% of their, you know, asset value, which is eroding by the moment in US dollar terms for sure. Okay, you can see M2 in May exploded, dude. Wait till you see M2 June. It's going to be [snorts] stupid. Why? Because if you filled a balloon up once with helium, you know, birthday balloon, you fill it up this big and then you use it for the next year, you have to put a little bit more helium in it than the prior year. This is we're hundred years, dude. We got a balloon that's been stretched so many times now. Okay. For six years ago, we print we put 40% more helium in this balloon. That's how it got here. Now, what are we going to have to do for the next move? Bro, it ain't 40. It's probably more like 65, 80. We have to do more money printing and everything else. Buying companies, putting positions in companies. I think you're going to have the biggest bull market in the history of mankind. And and that could be good or bad for Bitcoin because I think fiat's just going to just explode. I do not think this is the the the moment of fiat dying. I think this is the moment where we get we have the most superinflated not inflated in values but money printing and money manipulation and money management than than ever before, otherwise we go into a massive depression. I think these are very binary. There is no such thing as a recession anymore. You might as well just get it out of your dictionary. It's either, you know, America, America for another 250 years or, you know, find a shovel, dig a ditch, plant plant some corn.
I And I don't think that's I I would not be I hope I'm not being massively negative. I think there are massive opportunities here and if you don't get shaken out of your boots over this, you're going to do extremely well. But a lot of people are going to get shaken.
Well, massive opportunities is exactly what I want to talk to you about in the last eight minutes. Um, I want to have you back on also in about six months, revisit some of this. So, make sure you subscribe to the channel and links for all your stuff, Gary, down below. Give Gary a follow. You're already huge on X. Um, but these last eight minutes, I just want to move to our member section where we can get a little more specific because these are more uh qualified investors.