LIVE: Bitcoin Bottom Is In? Macro Outlook with Jack Mallers

Yo, welcome back to another episode of the Money Matters podcast. I am your host, Jack, and this is the show of all signal, no noise, my dear friends. I'm dialing into the worldwide web with a Bitcoin price of $88,030. That gives Bitcoin a market cap of a clean $1.75 trillion. Our all-time high is $19,300, so Bitcoin is down just about 20% from its all-time high today, on January 20th, 2025.

For those that don't know, this is a podcast hosted by myself, Jack, founder and CEO of Strike, and sponsored by myself, Jack, founder and CEO of Strike. We got no ads; this is just a daily—excuse me, not daily—weekly Mailbag Monday, where every single Monday at 6:00 PM Eastern, 5:00 PM Central, 3:00 PM Pacific, we go live. We cover one topic that's top of mind for me; we do live Q&A, and then we are out of here. I appreciate all the support; I appreciate all the feedback. Hopefully, the show continues to get better and better and better and better because you guys continue to support and give me feedback on what you want. What you guys have wanted is for me to get started right away and not shoot the [ __ ] and [ __ ] you. So, with that, I think we do so.

What's top of mind for me is continuing the conversation on the macroeconomic environment in the world today. So, the last two episodes I've had over the last few weeks have been about the macro environment, the lack of liquidity in financial markets, falling asset prices, Bitcoin down 30% from its highs, and then shortly after that, the S&P 500 followed. This seems to be a particular strategy by the new Trump administration, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant and Lutnik has had certain comments, and we've had this conversation where I have said I think in the shorter term, Bitcoin will be volatile and probably to the downside because of some of these macro decisions that folks like the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, the United States of America, the president of the United States of America—because of decisions they've made. And then last week, I said, "You know, I think Bitcoin might be bottoming out. Um, I do expect some positive words from the Federal Reserve, and I think the volatility to the downside will likely be ending, and I think Bitcoin might make new highs as soon as April and as late as June."

To continue that conversation, um, I think, guys, those of us that tune in to the Money Matters podcast and Mailbag Mondays, I think we might have been right. Since I last talked to you guys, the Federal Reserve has come out and said it's ending QT. QT stands for quantitative tightening; tightening meaning tightening monetary policy, strengthening the dollar. They came out and said, "We are putting a stop to QT starting April 1st." That's a big, big, big deal. That's a sign from the Fed that they are easing monetary policy; easing meaning they're making it easier to get money, easier to trade, easier to get a loan, easing access to capital. That, of course, is better for the economy. Why were they in quantitative tightening, in QT? Well, because they're trying to fight inflation. The less money, the less dollars there are in the economy, then the less you can bid up prices of eggs, right? The more dollars there are in the economy, the higher the prices of stuff will go. So, they had enacted quantitative tightening to fight inflation, and they are starting the resignation of that battle—really big deal.

And on the show, we've covered that the Trump administration has been demanding cheaper dollars; they've been aggressively attacking the Fed and Jerome Powell. Stop QT, stop QT, stop QT; lower rates, lower rates, lower rates. And we just saw the beginning of that, which I think the tide is very slowly turning in favor of Bitcoin and global liquidity and debasing the dollar. We also, since I last talked to you guys, saw two podcast appearances: one from the treasure—Treasury Secretary and Scott Bessant; the other from the commerce secretary and Howard Glutnick. Um, this is the focus of the show today; is I just want to go over what they're saying and again analyzing what exactly is going on in the world from a macroeconomic standpoint, monetary policy, global trade, and what it means for Bitcoin.

So, first of all, I highly recommend listening to the podcast. There, it's on the Allin podcast; it's Scott Bessant, the Treasury Secretary of the United States, and Howard Lutnik, the Commerce Secretary of the United States, and they talk very openly about their plans for monetary policy, managing the balance sheet, revenue streams for the United States. You know, guys, I think the biggest takeaway, which confirms a lot of what we've been saying on the show, is that we're entering a new era—a new era in world trade, in the global alignment. I put out a tweet storm, some maybe a month or six weeks back, and it talked about how what we're living through today is the unwind from the world wars. Okay, after the world wars, the world was absolutely decimated, right? We couldn't really conduct global trade with anybody—with Germany, with Japan, with China—because they were all bombed to death, economies decimated, ability to produce raw goods and materials absolutely decimated. And so what did we decide as the United States of America? We struck these deals with these countries that effectively said, "You guys produce stuff for us because you need to bootstrap yourself, get yourself back on your feet. We can't really trade with you because you don't have any money; your crush, you lost. So you produce stuff, get back on your feet; we'll be the customer, we'll be the buyer of the stuff. So you need a customer; you need to produce stuff for someone; we'll purchase your stuff. And in so—in return for the stuff that you're producing, we'll import the raw goods from you; we'll export the US dollar; we'll give you strength." So we're basically exporting the strength of our local economy, the strength of our industrial infrastructure in the United States of America. Okay, we have the strong economy; we're on the other—the good side, the other side of the world wars, so we'll export you the dollar, the new world reserve currency, and we'll import real goods and services. And this was a tactic to just get the world back on its feet, okay, and it did exactly that. Japan had some of the biggest growth that economies have seen in recent memory; China totally re-industrialized, now produces all the stuff for the world; the German economy incredibly strong; Germany is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, right? It worked, but inevitably, over a long enough time frame, you cannot export pieces of paper that you print out of thin air and import real goods and services—real stuff. You know, often times people make the economy and macroeconomic ideas and policy way too complicated. Would you give someone real stuff for a piece of paper they print? The answer is probably not. So this is never a long-term sustainable plan, and over the last decade it started to fall apart because China, for example, has decided not to be buying US treasuries and US debt anymore, not to be reinvesting their profits of trade into the US debt market, into the US economy anymore, not sustaining this. They're like, "You know what? We're going to invest in gold; we're not going to take all of our excess profits; it's been a long time since the World Wars; we're going to kind of roll off of this idea."

And so what I've said on this show for many months is we're starting to unwind from relationships built decades ago—almost a century ago—of helping everyone get on their feet because realistically, people aren't going to want a dollar that's printed out of thin air in return for oil, in return for gas, in return for food, in return for metals. Why would they? And so this—what we were starting to see. And if you listen to Howard Lutnik on the All-In podcast, he says exactly that; he says exactly that. If you listen to Scott Bessant, he talks exactly about a new regime, a new America First program. And I think the main thing I want to spend my time on my podcast talking about today is just highlighting the fact that I think in America we get too caught up in the left versus the right, the blue versus the red. Trump said this; the Dems said this. Take a step back for a second; what our American leaders are campaigning on, saying on podcast, going on television and saying is we are architecting something entirely new, okay? Trump is Make America Great Again, changing really big things—this whole America First, America First, America First, right? We're going to reshore production here; we don't want all of the things we use in our life to have a Made in China tag on it; we want it made in America, right? We're going to reimpose tariffs. By the way, we had tariffs before the world wars; we got rid of the tariffs again because the world was decimated; we're exporting our economic strength, our stability. Okay, so they're talking about rearchitecting the relationships globally, rearchitecting the way we trade, and everyone else around the world is rearchitecting the reserve capital asset of planet Earth. It used to be the dollar in dollar-denominated assets like treasuries, and now all of these countries are realigning, and you're hearing American leaders literally say that. And so I think sometimes people get too caught up in the—the disses, and you know, Trump is orange and the Dems are that. It's just like, "Put down the guns; let's not pick sides; let's listen to what they're saying." What are they actually saying? They're saying that the current economic system is not sustainable. If you listen to the podcast, Scott Bessant was on; he said, "The reason I am Treasury Secretary right now is because I saw what was happening over the last four years and realized our country was going to collapse; we're going to enter a sovereign debt crisis; we're going to go into a Great Depression." And I reached out to President Trump and asked if I could help. Guys, saying it on a podcast—what is that like? How am I interpreting this? The current financial system, the current relationships globally in trade is falling apart; it's breaking. The idea that other countries would give us real goods and services and we would give them fake printed pieces of paper doesn't work anymore, and we need a new system; we need new global trade; we need new financial alignment. That's what—like, literally the people that run our country are saying this on a podcast on YouTube, and it's what we've been talking about on this—on this podcast, on my podcast for months. I just found it so fascinating. And you know, my main takeaway for one is we are entering a new era, okay? I would say post-World War II, definitely post-1971, we've been in this fiat currency era. The US exports the dollar and imports goods, services, and debt implied in being the world reserve currency issuer. We have to run in a deficit because we're ultimately giving other people the dollar and importing debt and stuff to consume, so everyone else operates in a surplus; we operate in a deficit, okay? These guys are saying, "This system is falling apart; this system is dead; the system is not going to last; we're in trouble; we need a new system; we need to operate in a surplus; we need to focus on revenues; we need to focus on local production." That's a huge deal; is that the world is slowly moving away from a strong reserve currency where you're exporting the strength of a local economy that survived a world war to more of a neutral reserve monetary system, like gold, like Bitcoin, where the dollar is going to be debased and is going to be the escape valve for all this debt that the US has built up over a hundred years. Does that make sense? Because, you know, listen, the reality of the situation is the US has to choose between an inflationary recession or a deflationary depression. Okay, I'll say that again: The United States has to choose between an inflationary recession or a deflationary depression. We have too much debt; the world doesn't—isn't interested in our debt anymore. They're saying, "We got back up on our feet; we're good; we don't want your printed dollars for food, for oil, for gas anymore; we're going to sell you the gas we produce, the food we farm, and we're going to buy gold instead; we're going to buy Bitcoin instead; we're going to buy a hard money that no one can debase, no one can make more of, no one can control, no one can sanction like what you did to Russia." And so we've lost buyers of our debt; we're trapped, and we somehow need to rotate to an entirely new system, and our—our government is literally saying this on a podcast on YouTube. It's crazy; it's just crazy how obvious it all seems to be unfolding. And so, like, when I say an inflationary recession, what I mean is you'll have both inflation and real interest—negative real interest rates. Let me break that down. Um, inflation is obviously both the cost of goods and services rising, but also another way to put it is a weakening of the currency, a debasing of the currency, the dollar going down in value. So you'll have that going on while real interest rates are negative. Real interest rates being negative means the amount of money you're making on rates does not compensate you for the amount of money—the inflation—the amount of money that they're printing. Does that make sense? So if you're—let me put it to you this way: If your savings account pays 2% interest, but inflation is 5%, then you're actually losing 3%, and really having inflation running hot and negative real interest rates just means that the savers of the US dollar are the suckers at the table. Like, the US government has to dissolve of the debt somehow; the—the value—the money—someone at the table has to be losing. That make sense? And that's kind of, you know, one of my big predictions on this podcast is, um, I think this year, from what I'm seeing and what I'm hearing on all these podcasts, I think this year we'll see Bitcoin and the stock market uh diverge. Right now they're very correlated; I think they'll become uncorrelated. I do; I do. Because listen, the Federal Reserve is coming out and saying, "We're ending QT; we're ending our war on inflation; we never hit our target, by the way, but we're ending our war on inflation; we don't care about it anymore, and we're going to stop quantitative tightening and presumably start quantitative easing soon." Right? So the war on inflation is stopping; inflation will pick back up; it has to. Meanwhile, I think negative real rates will continue, and in an environment where there's negative real rates and inflation, you're running out of the currency and you're running into hard money. I think Bitcoin—I think that the stock market will continue to have volatility. I mean, Trump issued a policy that basically said, "Hey, foreigners, take your money and get the [ __ ] out of our financial markets." Again, because it's this American First—like, listen, China operates at—in a surplus, right? Like they're profitable is another way to say it; we operate in a deficit, right? They operate in a surplus, and they take their excess profits of world trade and they do stuff with it. They used to buy US treasuries; they're not interested anymore. A lot of that money goes into our stock market, right? I mean, they're buying Facebook stock, Nvidia stock, Google stock. Trump wrote a policy that—or updated a policy rather—that said basically like, "Take your money out of our stock market—market and get the [ __ ] out." And again, it's this American First policy, but that's going to make the stock market go down. Where's that money going to go? Probably gold, probably Bitcoin, amongst other things, and real estate maybe. I don't know where. So I actually think that the stock market will continue to have an interesting journey in this new administration and this kind of like American First type of policy where they're kicking out—there's foreign capital leaving, demand for our debt declining, the war on inflation is over, so you're going to get inflation, negative real rates; I think a choppy, volatile stock market; and I think Bitcoin's gonna separate from that because Bitcoin's not a risky stock; it's a hard asset. And if you live in an—if you live in an econ—listen, inflation plus negative real rates—that is emerging market [ __ ]—that is Argentina, that is Turkey, that is Nigeria. You know, when I—when—when people are like, "You know, Americans don't seem to really value Bitcoin," you know who really understands Bitcoin? People in Argentina. Why are they saying that? Because an asset that no one can debase and print more of, that you can hold in your pocket for free or in your brain at no cost, that you can move around the world and make instantaneous payments with is worth everything in an economy that has inflation and negative real rates. And I think that the US—like we're going to live through that weirdly; we're going to live through highly inflationary times where real rates are negative, and Bitcoin should not be treated like Tesla stock. And I think this is the year it uncorrelates. I fundamentally believe that; I think that we—I mean, listen, I don't—I don't like speculating on the price because it's not what the show is about, nor do I think I'm—I'm gonna be right, but I fundamentally believe that we have a much better chance of going to 250,000 than making lower than whatever the local low was—78. I think Trump is getting what he wants out of the Fed. I think these guys are running out of time, by the way. The debt is too high; the debt is too high. You can't have rates this high when the debt is this high. Bessant's bill is going to be trillions of dollars; the debt is too high; we're trapped. The only way out is through currency debasement. Whose time and energy are you stealing? You're stealing those holding the dollar. How are you going to do that? Inflation and negative real rates. Sure, keep your dollars in a savings account; we'll give you 2% interest and inflate it at 5%; we'll take 3% of the world's time and energy stored in dollars to cover our ass for all the debt we've accrued.

So I mean, this—this week's episode, I just highly encourage you guys to watch Secretary Lutnik and Secretary Bessant's podcast. It—it's—I say often, you'd be surprised at how often financial leaders tell you exactly what's going to happen. And you know, one of the reasons they're doing that is because this version of an economy, this version of economics relies on you trusting them. They don't like to surprise markets; they don't like to keep secrets because if you surprise markets—chaos and markets—you lose trust. So they're coming out and they're telling you verbatim what's going to happen—the All-In podcast. Yes, they're coming out and they're saying, "We are interested in rearchitecting global relationships; we are interested in changing everything; we are interested in an American First policy where we're telling the Chinese, 'Take your money out of our stock market and get the [ __ ] out.'" That's a huge change. So taking the excess profits of China's industrial power and dumping it into the S&P 500—that's no longer a thing; that's a huge change. Saying we're going to reshore production in America—that's a big [ __ ] deal; that means we have to have a severely weaker dollar to have competitive exports; that means we got to tariff other countries, moving away from a strong reserve currency to a severely weak inflation plus negative real rates reserve currency. I mean, that gold and Bitcoin are going to fly. The only reason Bitcoin is not flying and gold is is because Bitcoin is—is bucketed as a risk-on asset. I think this is the year that changes. If—if these guys keep this up—if they keep this up—the Fed ends QT—I—I literally think Bitcoin is going to decouple from its correlation to the S&P 500, and it's going to go race with gold and outperform it. That's my prediction. I think 250K this year is still very, very much on—very much on. I mean, we've been talking about all the stuff on this podcast for weeks or for months, and to hear these guys get on a podcast and literally say it—I mean, I thought Lutnik was saying my tweet storm—literally crazy. Um, so that's—that's what's top of mind for me—kind of a continuation of our macroeconomic conversation on this show. Um, listen, I think we got validation from financial authorities—everything we've been thinking—the Fed stopping QT; they're easing up monetary policy; this administration is committed to change—to real change—like since 1971 level of change—rearchitecting global relationships, rearchitecting global trade, rearchitecting where goods and services are produced, rearchitecting neutral reserve currency status, rearchitecting everything. I think they're going to choose the path which is inflation plus negative real rates, and I think all roads lead to Bitcoin in that scenario—all roads lead to Bitcoin. Putting your dollars in a savings account will be letting money melt because these guys don't have a choice, and now we basically got that type of admission on podcasts on YouTube.com. Crazy, crazy. So I mean, listen, I think also just, you know, commenting on the—on the price action for a little bit—I don't think we're going to—Yeah, someone—someone's commenting they're reducing QT, not entirely stopping it. That's true; that's true. Um, the price action—we're not going straight to 250. I actually think chop is very healthy. Listen, you don't want to be teleporting to prices. You know, we want—my—for me personally, I want the market to be sustainable. You know, dropping 30% from a local high and chopping around is great; I don't mind it at all. I expect a slight grind higher to 100. If we start breaking and closing above 100 again, this thing is going to fly. See you. So I think Q2 we grind higher and potentially make new highs, and Q3, Q4 of this year—I mean, one of the things Howard Lutnik literally verbatim said on this podcast is in Q4 of this year the economy is going to be gangbusters, and it's like the guy's telling you literally—like he can't make it any more simple. It's like they're frontloading all of the pain now and blaming it on Biden, and they're saying this thing's going to go be gangbusters going into midterms. So like, I—it doesn't get any more legit than the guys running the country telling you on a podcast for free on YouTube, right? So my predictions remain the same; I think the local bottom is probably in. I think easing monetary policy—listen, the only uncertainty that the market needs to get figured out is tariffs. We're supposedly going to get clarity on tariffs April 2nd. Nobody has any idea. I mean, based on Trump's Twitter account, it could be this way, that way, left, right, up, down; no one has any idea. As soon as the market gets clarity on that, um, I think it gets a little bit more stable. I think Bitcoin separates from the S&P 500; I think we're going into an inflation plus negative real rates; um, I think these guys are committed to rearchitecting global relationships; um, the current fiat currency regime is over; it's ending; it's not sustainable; it's not—it's not—Bessant talked all about long and long and long and long and long and long end. What's the guy do? He issues at the short end. Listen, sometimes it's this simple. If he could issue at the long end, he would issue at the long end. He talked a big game when he stepped up to the plate; he issued at the short end. "Nobody wants our debt; nobody's willing to finance this game anymore; this is not World War II anymore; it's over; it's over. Issuing a World Reserve currency isn't sustainable; you cannot give the rest of the world a piece of paper you pooped out of your butt in exchange for real stuff like metals, like food, like oil, like gas, like energy. The world is fed up with it; they don't want your stupid stinky dollars anymore; they don't want your debt; it's over, and we're rearchitecting an entire new system." Bitcoin to a 100-red trillion—that simple; that simple. And if you've been a listener of the Money Matters podcast, we've been spot on. I mean, we've been following this trend for a while. Near-term volatility—we saw Bitcoin dip into the 70s; we're already back to 87. I think we'll chop around, but I think we grind higher from here on out. And one more thing: I think the people that—I think there's too much comparing the timing of prior cycles. I mean, guys, this administration is talking about changing the way the world works. I think this bull market hasn't started yet. I know a lot of people are like, "According to this website, the bull market only has 37 more days in it." In my opinion, no, it doesn't; no, it doesn't; no, it doesn't. So, um, yeah, all-time highs this year; I think we got to chop around a little bit, and you know, 85 to 90, then back to 85, 93, 87—chop, chop, chop, chop, grind, grind, grind. Once we start closing above 100, and a lot of what I'm saying becomes real—all gas, no breaks—we're catching up to gold; we're going to blast through gold. Um, this bull market has not even started, and uh, we got all confirmation from our financial authores. That's my humble opinion—macro 101 and the Money Matters podcast. Um, all right, let me do some Q&A, and uh, you guys like the shorter episodes; we'll keep it short and we'll keep it pushing. Hopefully that stuff made sense. Um, what is soon for you for QE? They haven't stopped QT yet, and they're not going to switch straight to QE without a big increase in job losses. Great question. So QT again is quantitative tightening; QE is quantitative easing. Um, you know what's funny is I, you know, direct QE—like definition QE—uh, maybe never, but indirect QE probably soon, right? There's all sorts of levers to effectively provide QE without technical QE. Um, I don't think these guys have much time; there's just too much debt at the end of the day, right? Like, you know, people love drawing like, "Oh, but what about in the 1970s? What about uh, the Volcker Fed?" Well, it's like, yeah, but they didn't have $36 trillion of debt. So I don't think these guys have that much time; I think they got to start pulling levers; they need liquidity; they need a weaker dollar; they need real rates negative. And so, um, I think we'll get some form of QE immediately—like classic—like Jerome Powell coming out and saying QE—I don't know if we'll ever get that, or especially not in the near term, but engineered inflation, engineered currency debasement soon—they don't have time. I mean, the debt to GDP has to come down. I mean, one of the—one of the interesting things Bessant said on this podcast of his, he said straight up, "Uh, I like Elon's got to chill out; Elon's got to slow down." I mean, he didn't—those are my words; what he—what he did say though is like, "In order for me to land this plane safely, our timing has to be right," I think is what he said. You know, but we cannot cut this many jobs without lowering the debt to GDP. He's like, so anyway, I think that there's no time. What do you think about the potential of repricing of gold as basically another form of QE? That's a great option. Bessant did say on this podcast that they're not thinking about that, but he said now, and everyone took that as like, "Oh, they're never going to do it." For the listeners that don't understand, gold is priced at $42 an ounce on the government's balance sheet; they could just say, "Well, gold today is actually $3,000 an ounce, so we're going to update that." It gets updated—boom—there's like a trillion new dollars on the balance sheet of the government. So yeah, that's an option. Like, listen, I think that these forms of QE are real, and they're not technical QE; it's not like Jerome Powell is gonna come out and say it's QE, but it's QE, right? Effectively QE. Uh, do you think Trump will fail then on all his policies if you see this hyperinflation and negative rates? Um, no, I think that these—I think that this is what these guys want. Everything I'm saying—like, listen, what is Trump saying at the end of the day? What is his whole Make America Great Again thing? He's saying we should not be operating in a deficit; he says he doesn't like the deficit; the deficit is implied in being the world reserve currency; having a strong dollar—Trump wants a weaker dollar; he wants to reshore production here; he wants to put America first. Now, whether he's right or wrong is totally separate. Last week I made some political comments; the comment section did not like the political comments. Guys, listen, I've never…

Voted in my life. This is not a political podcast, but I have to give my opinion on the economics. Whether you agree with Trump or not, this is what he's saying: Post-World War II, America was strong; it exported its strength to the rest of the world to get it back on its feet. But that comes at a cost. We're doing everyone favors; the favors are over; we're done giving favors. We need to focus on ourselves. We need to stop letting China produce all the goods and services for the world and living in a surplus and growing in wealth, and we need to develop our own stuff. We need to have a weaker dollar so that we can compete in the exports business. We need to kick all this foreign capital out of our stock market.

So I think Trump—he wants a lot of these things. Listen, I mean, what these guys are trying to do is balance the budget, weaken the—do like, okay, if what Trump—Let me let me say another thing: If if inflation runs a little bit, but Trump combats it and says, "Well, I removed your taxes and replaced it with tariffs, and I also brought an unlimited amount of jobs back to this country because we're producing all the goods and services that you're consuming." They're trying to even it out. They're trying to say, "Yes, you're going to get negative real rates; you're going to get inflation, but hopefully you're going to get jobs; you're going to get no taxes." Right? I mean, the whole plan—like Lutnick went on the podcast and said it—the whole plan is: Can Elon get rid of all the waste, and can Lutnik provide revenue so they balance the budget, like decrease the spend, increase the revenue? They're trying, but I don't think that—I don't think that what I'm telling you guys is is a contradiction to Trump's plan. I think I'm just putting it in language that you can understand, but this is what these guys are saying: They're saying, "We want a weaker dollar; we want to reshore production."

Guys, in order for them to reshore all this stuff, who's paying for that? With what money? We're broke; we don't have any money. We're going to give people tax cuts; we're going to give people incentives. So anyway, do you think the only way the US can stay the financial leader of the world is by printing money and buying Bitcoin to reserve their financial purchasing power? Um, do I think that's the only way the US can stay the financial leader? No. I mean, at the end of the day, I don't know what—like, what does financial leader mean, you know? Can the US retain the world reserve currency status? Um, yeah, but I like—not they don't—they don't need to be buying Bitcoin, printing dollars to buy Bitcoin to do that. I think it's about the military, the strength of the military, um, the strength of your economy. There's a lot of other factors that go into the world reserve currency status, if I'm being totally honest. Um, I do think that other nations have frontrun the United States on some of what I'm talking about. Like, I—Yeah, listen, do China and Russia own no gold and no Bitcoin? Doubt it. Doubt it. Doubt it. Surely they're stacking some sats, surely, because again, I—it's obvious to everybody that, at the very least, neutral reserve assets are very important, because what else are you going to own if you have negative real rates and inflation? That means the things around you are increasingly getting more expensive, and putting your money in a savings account is bleeding your savings to death. You have to own something else. What do you want to own? Probably the best-performing asset of all time, probably the only truly fixed-supply asset the world has ever seen, probably an asset that you can store in your brain privately for free, probably an asset that is free and trivial to take with you anywhere in the world anytime. But the reality is, you have to own something else; the capital, the money, has to go somewhere.

Uh, what do you think about the trade after the trade in the context of the interview with uh, Bessant? Um, yeah, I don't know, honestly. So, so this question is in reference—Bessant told a story of Soros, Bessant, Drunken Miller, and uh, the Bank of England, that whole trade, and Bessant referenced the trade after the trade where they made 20% on the trade, but they made another 20% on the back end, and uh, he called it the trade after the trade, and um, yeah, I mean, I like—I think Bessant and these guys—like, there's no secret that they're trying to rearchitect the global monetary order, and they're thinking longer term. They view this current setup as unsustainable. They—all these business guys were terrified of what was going on in the last administration. They're open about that. They're like, "The only reason we're here and working for the US government is because we, as businessmen, saw what was happening in the last administration, and we're heading for an utter and complete collapse." And so—but I have—I have no comment on what the trade after the trade after the trade would mean for him in this administration. I don't know. I—I mean, I think the trade after the trade after the trade after the trade after the trade—it's Bitcoin, right? Like, at the end of the day, you want to own a money no one else can make. You want to own a money that's free and instant to transact. You want to own a money that doesn't know any borders. You want to own a money that is—is free to hold, easy to hold. You want to own a money that's accessible to everyone. Like, again, the—the lack of common sense and first principles thinking is astounding. It's like, what do you think the US government is going to do? I don't know. Should probably listen to the podcast they just did, and then you listen to it, and you're like, "Oh, they just said exactly what they're going to do."

Make America great again, to them, is bringing us back to pre-World Wars, where we had tariffs, we had revenue income, we were producing stuff locally, we were focusing on America first. That means a weaker dollar, competing in the export market; that means inflating away our debt. They said that on YouTube.com. Lots of focus on the US and the dollar for obvious reasons, but what's your take on the rest of the world's macro environment as it relates to Bitcoin? That's a good question. You know, one of the things that I think is pretty interesting, and this reminds me of the 2017 cycle—2017 cycle meaning Bitcoin—um, is that a lot of the monetary stimulus and liquidity could come from not the US. Like, China is in a world of hurt of its own, and I think we could—we could legitimately see more liquidity come from not the US than the US. One very interesting thing that you guys have to note: Listen, everyone is in the business of having a strong, competitive exports, right? People, you want to produce local goods and services, and you want to trade; you want to export them somewhere else, bring in something, operate in a surplus, right? Like, that's the goal. Uh, and in order for you to be competitive, you have to have a weak local currency. And so, as the US starts to weaken its currency, everyone else has to also weaken theirs. If other currencies get relative strength against the US too much, it's going to give us an advantage, the United States. So I think as the US weakens the currency, everyone else will weaken the currency. I think there's stimulus needed in a lot of other places around the world. We could see more stimulus come from not the US than the US, which is a really, really big deal. And again, like, don't overcomplicate it. A lot of money needs to go somewhere else. Neutral reserve current—neutral reserve assets are the hot topic; it's where the world is trending towards. No reserve currency has ever held its status for very long; it's naturally unsustainable. You are exporting something printed out of thin air to import debt in real stuff; that is [ __ ] stupid. You should never do that for too long.

With the demand for US debt declining from BRICS nations, does Tether's adoption somewhat play a role in the other direction, seemingly increasing the demand in more impoverished nations? 100%. 100%. Listen, what China is basically saying is, "We're not that interested in the dollar anymore," and everyone takes that as a like, "[ __ ] those guys." It's because they're—it's because they're CCP authoritarians. That's true; that's true. But that's probably not why they're not interested in the dollar. They're not interested in the dollar for the same reason you're not interested in the dollar, bro, because it just goes down. So who is interested in the dollar? An Argentine cab driver? A fisherman in Uganda? These are the people interested in the dollar. So the US is shifting who can we dump debt in the dollar on, from massive countries that are producing the world's goods and services to hundreds of millions of individual consumers around the world. Absolutely. Absolutely. But just think logically about it: China doesn't want US dollars in large sizes, just like the listeners on my podcast don't. We're all out here stacking sats; we're all out here trying to own the best money.

Uh, do you think there's a chance that Senator Lummis' plan to sell gold for Bitcoin will happen? I absolutely think there's a chance. Um, yes. I will say—I mean, the answer to that question is yes. Do I have any specific view on the SBR, which stands for strategic Bitcoin reserve, the current holdings of the US government, methods of acquisition, and timelines? Um, I think the biggest timeline that we should all be watching for is the fact that Secretary Bessett and Secretary Lutnik have to come up with a plan to acquire Bitcoin. They have a mandate from President Trump to come up with a plan to buy Bitcoin in what they call budget-neutral ways, and we heard—excuse me—a statement directly from the White House that said, when they were asked, "How much Bitcoin does the White House want?" they said, "As much as we can possibly get our hands on." So we know that they're bullish on it; we know that they're actively thinking about how to buy it in budget-neutral ways. And I think the next milestone is hearing from those two secretaries on what their plan is, because there's a ton of—you know, what's a budget-neutral way? Selling gold to buy Bitcoin, right? Budget-neutral way: Accepting tax payments in Bitcoin. If you were to say, "Hey, Jack, you can pay your taxes in Bitcoin, and you won't get charged a capital gain for it." Budget neutral. So, um, that's the next big timeline for me is uh, seeing—one, we got to audit: How much Bitcoin do we actually have? There are rumors that the Democrats sold all of our Bitcoin. I don't know if that's true or not, so we got to see: What is our current position? Where are the keys? Who owns them? How many sites do we have? And then we got to hear from those that were tasked to build a plan, what the plan is.

Okay, financial markets: Will the four-year cycles change too? So November 2025 is not the projected bottom, looking at historic trends. Listen, I think Bitcoin is the best expression of currency debasement. I think Bitcoin equals fiat liquidity plus technology. So, at the end of the day, you're—you're asking me to price Bitcoin in dollars, so it's—it's very meaningful what's going on with the dollar. If you want its price in Bitcoin, you know—if you want to say, "[ __ ] the dollar," Bitcoin's its own thing. You're right: One Bitcoin equals one Bitcoin. No—no need to speculate on its price. But if you want to speculate on its price in dollars, then yeah, what's going—the fact that the current new administration of the United States of America is rearchitecting global relationships to go back to a prior World Wars scenario, that matters. That's going to change when the highs and the bottoms are. So yeah, I—I listen, I don't want to make this show fully about speculating on price; it's not what I want to do. But I mean, yeah, like—I—I think—I think this cycle is different. I do—this isn't like a—that's going to get taken out of context. This isn't a—"this time is different." This is a—you know, the context around the dollar, its liquidity, the US debt, the decisions these guys are making—like, that's different this time. And so I don't expect it to follow the same timeline as other cycles. I don't think the bull run has really, really, really started, if I'm being honest.

Do you think the classic uh, four-year cycles with a massive drawdown are over, of 70 to 80%? Um, I still think we're going to get a massive drawdown. No, no, no, no, no—super cycle. I'm seeing in the chat: super cycle. No, no, no, no, no, no. Listen, think about a massive drawdown as—think about it the other way. Um, think about a massive drawdown requires the thing going really, really, really high. Like, if I were to say, ah, like, "I fell and really hurt my head, but I must have fallen from way up." If I like fell out of my office chair, it wouldn't hurt that bad. Weird analogy, but my point in saying all this is that like, I expect Bitcoin to go way hyperbolically up. Price discovery in this asset is aggressive. If Bitcoin kind of gradually grinds up—no, I don't expect a 70% drop, but if we go from 100 to 250 to 500, could it come all the way back down to 250? Yeah. So I—I think Bitcoin's price discovery will remain violent because you can't print any more of it. I don't think humans have wrapped their head around how to price this asset, how to realize how truly scarce it is. And so I expect a big drawdown because I think it's going to go hyperbolically high. It's just—if you go up so—so fast, the reality is you can also go down so—so fast. So again, if Bitcoin just $5 up every day, just grinds up, beep beep beep beep, then no. But if this administration starts drastically weakening the dollar, we start seeing inflation, China's printing money out of the wazoo, the government comes out, starts buying a bunch of [ __ ] Bitcoin, and this thing goes from—teleports from 100 to 500, yeah, it might come down to 200. It's just a reality.

Um, do you think OTC sales are good or bad for the present price of Bitcoin? Are we oversold? I'm not sure what that question means. Um, I mean, OTC—it's another way to buy or sell Bitcoin. It's not good or bad; it's just buying Bitcoin. Um, listen, at the end of the day, a market is defined by supply and demand, right? How many people want to sell? How many people want to buy? If more people want to buy than people want to sell, the price got to go higher. More people need to sell Bitcoin than there are buyers; price got to go lower. Doesn't matter OTC, schmootc—supply and demand. Where would you like to see Bitcoin's liquidity, average daily trading volume, long-term? Right now it seems thinly traded. It's impossible to understand the liquidity of Bitcoin. I mean, how much volume is in Telegram chats in Africa? A lot. So I don't know. I—I—I don't pay too much attention to the liquidity. I mean, who's—how are people even tracking this? There's like 10,000 exchanges. It's not like the S&P 500 where there's only so many exchanges and those that can like legally sell stocks and broker that—Would you personally prefer more real people buying Bitcoin or Sailor in the USA or other large actors buying up all the supply? Listen, I think Bitcoin's money for the people. I think Bitcoin's for everybody. Um, I think—I—I would prefer Bitcoin being distributed to everyone. I don't want anyone owning too much Bitcoin. Uh, however, that's like—I'd say one side of me—sure, like, when I see people like—"I don't want this person owning all of it; everyone should get Bitcoin." Yeah, sure, true. Do I disagree with that? No, of course not. The other side of that is like, what is Bitcoin promising the world? A free market. So look, everyone's gonna get Bitcoin at the price they deserve, straight up. So one of the things I'm most thankful to Satoshi for—listen, Satoshi Nakamoto found a way to distribute Bitcoin to the people before the corporations and the governments. That's a really, really, really hard thing to do—leaked it on a mailing list, used proof of work, and by the time the Michael Sailors and the US governments really figured out how this thing works and that it's valuable, the people own it. People are saying Sailor is trying—no, he's not. I mean, listen, he's trying, but I'm saying he's not getting close. Like, guys, if there's 21 million Bitcoin and some company owns 500,000, that's not—you're not talking about someone that owns 20, 30, 40, 50% of the supply. You're not—like, Sailor bought—in order for Sailor to double his stack and own 2% to then 4% of the total supply, which these are tiny little numbers, he'd have to stack another 500,000 coins. I mean, he's buying $500 million at a time. He's—he's grown his stack by like, whatever. Anyway, um, not worried about it.

I've seen it said that Strategy will become the world's biggest Bitcoin bank. What are your thoughts on that, and what type of products and services could they offer? Um, I'll have more thoughts on that uh, later. Is there a specific reason why Sailor hasn't revealed the Bitcoin wallet address for Strategy to confirm the ownership of 56,000 Bitcoin? Wouldn't that enhance his credibility by increased transparency? Yeah, it would. Uh, if I were Sailor, I would work on proof of reserves. I don't know why he doesn't. Probably working on it with the relationship he has with his custodian. I know they don't hold the keys themselves, so—well, I don't know that. I assume that. I think he's hinted at that and potentially even confirmed that. So, um, I'm not sure why, um, but yeah, I do think it would—it would improve his credibility. Do you think MSTR's premium is justified? Um, yeah, I mean, listen, they're selling levered Bitcoin, so um, it shouldn't be traded at par. There has to be some premium on it. Now, what that premium is—eye of the beholder. Um, what is it now? I mean, I'm sure now it's fine. At one point it was crazy, but you knew it was crazy because Sailor was selling his own stock. So, um, but yeah, no, it should—a premium should exist because it's levered. Uh, what happens when all the coins are mined? How is Sailor or Satoshi not going to crash the price? Strategy is a dumpster fire; it's bad for all Bitcoin. Hilarious question. Um, I don't understand the question. What happens when all the coins are mined? Um, how is Sailor, Satoshi not going to crash the price? What do you mean by that? Uh, listen, like, once all the—all the coins are mined, nothing changes; Bitcoin continues to work how it's working today. Uh, I don't know why they would crash the price of Bitcoin. And by the way, if anyone sold an obnoxious amount of Bitcoin and quote-unquote crashed the price, then like, how many people want Bitcoin? Because if there's enough demand—listen, if Sailor crashed the price and put Bitcoin to $1,000 tomorrow, I'd love that, and I'd buy as much as I possibly could, and so would a lot of other people, and it would probably very quickly go back up to 80 something thousand. So, at the end of the day, either people value Bitcoin as a $1.75 trillion asset or they don't. But like, if someone crashes the price, great—I'm getting an asset for cheaper than I think it's worth. So I—I don't know. There's no—there's no fear of me crashing the price. Yes, if someone is outrageously selling Bitcoin where there's more sellers than buyers in a market, the price will go down, but probably not for long, because I think the world values a money that no one can print.

Uh, why do BTC tech heads say there's no such thing as one Bitcoin, only one Satoshi, when they say Bitcoin is not divisible and neither are Satoshis? Hold on, I got to read that again. Why do BTC tech heads say there is no such thing as one Bitcoin, only one Satoshi, then they say Bitcoin Levvenia—was that pasted incorrectly? What is that? What is that asking? Do you know? Might have to skip it; don't understand that one. Okay, we'll come back to it if uh, I'm misunderstanding, but uh, I don't know what that means. Any suggestions for beginning the process of putting Bitcoin on the balance sheet of a small business? Do—do we need a special business Strike account or just use personal? Good question. You can use either. For those that don't know Strike, we have personal and business accounts. We have tons of businesses on our platform—thousands, I believe—that stack sats every single day and build their own treasury. I mean, what do you need? You don't need anything other than the decision that you're going to do it. I can speak for myself; I'm a business owner. The way I run my company, we hold pretty much all of our balance sheet on Bitcoin, and we're a profitable business, and as every single day we stack sats, and so we sweep cash flows into Bitcoin; we hold the majority of our balance sheet in Bitcoin—more than majority—large majority of our balance sheet in Bitcoin, and so that's how I do it. Strike has a Strike business account; we're a customer of our own product. You can do it on a personal account as well if you want, but uh, totally up to you.

Lending question: Last question. Would just like to know all the deets you can share on Strike's Bitcoin-backed loans rollout timeline, terms. Will all states be included immediately? Um, can't share everything, but I'll share as much as I can right now. Rollout timeline: Um, we're giving out loans now. Many of you—and I mean many of you—DM me on Twitter. If I haven't responded yet, it's because I got way more DMs than I thought, which is great. I think Bitcoin-backed loans are going to be a big deal for a—for a lot of reasons, and so we're rolling out access to the product now. Uh, we are giving out loans selectively now, um, as a form of like external beta testing, and um, we plan on—what is it?—March 24th. I talked to the team this morning; we're probably looking at a more formal public announcement maybe the first or second week of April. So in, you know, one to two weeks, we'll make a more formal announcement. And the way we roll out all of our products now is we probably go from like 5 to 10% of our user base to 100% of our user base over about a month because we're just—we're operating at a scale now that's just too big to flip a switch, um, and turn something on for everybody. So we're just going to go from 5%, then the next day 10%, then the next day 15%, then the next day 20%; we'll just gradually grow and grow it and grow it and grow until all of our customers have access. Now, I said on the last show, and I'll say it again on this show: We're going to start with a minimum; that minimum is going to be $100,000 uh, for a loan. We also are going to start with not all the states. We're also going to start only in the US now. This is just a start. Listen, guys, operating this lending product—the thing I care most about is that we do everything the right way. That's the Strike way for all of our products, but obviously particularly this one. This is a very, very big product for us. I'm very excited about it; I think this is going to change the world. It really makes Bitcoin so much more useful for the Bitcoiner, for those that hold this asset as savings, and I care a lot that we do it all the right way. You know, we're not going to be in a rush, and so the decision we made is we're going to come to the market with some minimum so that we're not getting loans for a dollar, and right, we're—come out with some minimum; we're going to come out in specific states, and we're just going to get it right, and then we'll expand, and we'll lower the minimums, and then we'll open it up in Europe, and then we'll open—right, we'll just—So I always—what I'll promise you guys—always transparency, honesty, authenticity. I—I'll get on every single week and do live Q&A like I'm doing now—always, always, always, always, always—and hopefully, in return, you guys can give us the patience that you've always given us and the support to get these products out. But I want to be upfront that we're not going to be slinging any size loan to anyone in the world on day one. Very rarely will we roll a product out like that, because think about it—think about all the customer support that comes in and all the things we'll need to improve on, and all—it's just going to be unsustainable. We want to make sure—like, this segment of customers we're going to give access to first, we're going to kill it, make sure it's amazing for them, and then we're going to grow it, and then we're going to grow it, and over the course of a few months, like, should be in a really, really, really, really good spot. Does that make sense? And that's about as much transparency as I can give for now. Another thing, um, without giving away too much, you know, we plan on working as hard as we can to get lower and lower rates um, with time. Like, we're constantly working on capital partners, finding access to dollars that's cheaper and cheaper and cheaper and cheaper and allowing our customers, at no cost, to go from certain rates to lower to lower. So I hope like every week we're tweeting out like, "Our rates just came down; our rates just came down," because we've got a lot of momentum with capital partners. This industry is really maturing very fast, and so that's going to be another thing too is that the launch of our product is not the end-all be-all. If anything, it's just the start; it's just the start. So I want to be upfront about that; I don't want people to be disappointed. It's kind of the way we've rolled out all of our products—like, we had US first, and all the Europeans like, "Europe, Europe, Europe," then we got it, then UK, and then—then—then. So we'll get there; we'll get there. But uh, you got to start one step at a time, and you gotta—you got to build an amazing product that does the job it's supposed to do first, and then expand. If you go too broad, too ambitious at first, no one's happy. Cool.

Um, all right, I'm out of questions. Episode's a little over an hour, so I'll cut it here. Um, guys, thank you for your support. Last two episodes—ton of views—like all-time high views. I think it seems like you guys like the macro; you like the shorter episodes; you like the Q&A. Keep giving me the feedback; it's not going to hurt my feelings. This is more of a passion project for me, as I've said. We're getting like 500 to 1,000 YouTube subscribers per episode, which is—I'm just so humbled by that. I love this stuff, man; it's really like just such a blast. Um, you know, I think I'm very different than maybe some of the other corporate CEOs. Um, I like getting on the internet and shooting the [ __ ]. So uh, just thanks. If uh, if you guys want to do me a favor, subscribe to the YouTube channel. Um, it's a goal of mine to hit 100,000 subscribers by the end of the year. We're at over 20,000 now, so if you haven't, um, please hit subscribe and keep leaving me feedback. You know, I think, you know, in my career in Bitcoin, the biggest form of growth that I've experienced is when the internet's honest with me and said like, "Yo, you [ __ ] up this announcement," or "Yo, this product sucks," or "Yo, this part of your podcast is stupid." And so it doesn't hurt my feelings; it's part of my job. I want to be valuable to you guys; I want to be part of the Bitcoin story and play my small role in hopefully helping the world through Bitcoin. So let me know in the comments what you guys like, what you don't, what you want to see more of, and uh, as always, stay humble and stack sats. I think the lows are in; I think we're going to 250k this year. Everyone's asking what shirt this is; I think it's Abercrombie and Fitch. Everyone's saying, "Change my shirt." I do change my shirt.

Have a lot of these shirts, just black Abercrombie & Fitch TEs. I don't know, they fit well; they're loose. I don't like tight clothing.

Uh, all right, ladies and gentlemen. Much love. I appreciate you guys. I'll see you in exactly one week minus an hour. Peace.