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Why Bitcoin’s Price Isn’t Pumping! | CJ Konstantinos Explains

Simply Bitcoin39:20

Transcription

Yo, day two mining disrupt Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I'm here with the one, the only CJ in the house. One of some of the most amazing macro takes on X and uh, Bitcoin Twitter, and just saw your panel. We're here backstage. Saw your panel with uh, the legendary Lair Leard. You have his book in your hands. Beautiful book. This, this one actually has the power to do it. It really does. It's, it's worked really well. I've given it to like 10 or 15 out so far.

And just to let everybody know the type of person Larry is, of course I brought a couple books for him to sign. The second I saw him, CJ, I got something for you. Pulls out the book and you know, gives me his signature on the book without even me providing it. Just a great guy and uh, I highly recommend you got to go buy this book. Is the goat. He's the man. He's the myth. He's the legend. And uh, yeah, he's a definitely amazing dude. Great takes, incredibly intelligent. Um, be on a panel with them. That was, that was good, right? That must have been an experience. I think the miners were a little bit like, oh, we got a couple extra things to think about here. It's a tough crowd. It's a tough crowd out there.

So CJ, I mean, look, we're in March, bro. Um, you know, if you compare this cycle with all the other cycles uh, from a news perspective, it's been overperforming, right? Like the news is gnarly, like this election. I know a lot of people are like, pol- politics don't matter, they totally do; that's BS. But this election, resounding victory for Bitcoiners, like u, end of operation choke point 2.0, the um, repeal of SAB 121, the freedom of Ross Ulbricht, uh, a more favorable regulatory environment, and just the SPR, the freedom of Ross. So, so much bullish news, but and then from a cycle perspective, I can't remember any other cycle that's had news like this, but from a price perspective, dude, like it's been terrible, bro. And like, honestly, I blame OPI, but you know, like what is the, like from your take, your position, you've been in Bitcoin a minute, like what's going on? Why is the number not going up?

Yeah, that's, that is the, the big question, right? And uh, I actually wrote a tweet on this uh, not too long ago, and Max Kaiser retweeted it because I think he sees this too. And what's happening is the institutions are not getting in Bitcoin to go long. And that's, that's really what the confusion's about. Like when you buy Bitcoin, it creates positive price pressure. But when you sell Bitcoin short, it creates negative price pressure, right? So this, this basic dynamic of price discovery is ignored. And most of the institutions getting into Bitcoin are not like strategy. They're not like um, MetaPlanet. They're not accumulating for the long term. They're actually just looking to create yield from the volatility in the marketplace. And one of the ways that they do that is you'll buy spot Bitcoin long, but then you sell it short. And you can even set yourself up so that you're delta neutral, which means that regardless of the price change in Bitcoin, the value of your position, the nominal value of position doesn't change. But the reason you've deployed the position is because your short position actually collects funding fees. So you could either sell the puts and collect a yield if you're in the traditional markets, or you if you're in perp, you can go short and collect the funding rate. But most institutions are doing this exact strategy. They're buying Bitcoin to get their long position, offsetting the long position with their short position, and then doing what we call yield farming, collecting the funding rates or collecting the premiums paid to protect the downside. And that's why that we're having an underperforming in terms of price. Now, in terms of volume, it's, it's actually doing really well, which is why I think that's, that validates this theory that the volumes are there. It's just that the, the price action isn't there. And it's because the positive price action is being nipped in the bud with the corresponding negative price action from the short selling. And what's left over for these institutions are yields that you're not getting in the traditional market. I mean, I don't care if you write call options and put options all day in Trady, you are not going to get the volatility that Bitcoin produces. And it's the volatility of Bitcoin, the most volatile asset in the world, that creates premiums. Volatility creates premiums. And premiums are what's being harvested as profit. So that's why they're here. The big institutions are here not to get long. We're still early. Only the strategies and, and the meta planets are here to get long. Very few are getting long. Most are here as market makers. Most are here as yield farmers. And that's a good first step. It's kind of like getting into mining. Sometimes you get into making markets, sometimes you get into mining, sometimes you do both, but you just dip your toe in. And then as you start to understand the asset class more and more, you, you understand why you should be taking those profits not in dollars, but actually in Bitcoin. And I think this is a great first step. So, and you know the other thing is, is that Bitcoin is actually maturing. I think these previous cycles were commodity cycles. In other words, it was the price of Bitcoin relative to its cost of production, like I was speaking out on the stage, that creates this commodity cycle where you go from fair value to premium, back to fair value, down to discount. And this is a natural cycle that we see in all commodities. But with the announcement of SPR and all the bullish news that you mentioned earlier, it's, it, it's very clear that Bitcoin's been monetized. Like at this point, it is digital gold. However, we're now moving into the financialization of Bitcoin, and, and, and this is what happened to real estate. Real estate was financialized, and that's what built a monetary premium into it. The fact that you could use it to create leverage and, and take debt out against it created the value, created the premium that we see in it. And Bitcoin is going to go through the same thing. Its financialization will lead to a massive premium into the asset class. But we're just not there yet. But companies like People's Reserve and other companies that you see popping up like Battery Finance, these companies are going to provide the tools that are necessary for the everyday person to have access to the financialization of Bitcoin. And when we get to that point, when you can start to be empowered by your Bitcoin and say, like a Bitcoin powered mortgage, and all of a sudden integrating Bitcoin into your mortgage reduces your monthly payment, now you're saving $4500 a month. That's $4 or $500 a month that now increases your quality of life and standard of living. Now this guy has it. He's happy. He tells his neighbor. His neighbor says, "Well, I need to get that." And it just compounds on itself. But for the everyday person, they don't understand financialization. They don't understand monetization. They don't understand how these processes work. And I think that's where, that's where we are right now. We're in that, we're in that weird twilight zone where we've been monetized, but now we're going to be financialized. And once it becomes clear to these big market makers that Bitcoin is not just this yield farming tool from volatility, that there's a, there's a greater force at play here, there's a, there's an equity foundation that is emerging for the entire system, then we're going to get the type of price action that you and I and everybody else in this marketplace were expecting from such bullish news. But that, that would be my take on, on why we're kind of lagging behind.

And then the final, the final detail I'll add to that is when we move out of the commodity cycle through financialization, I believe we're going to move into a money cycle. And money cycles are always based on credit. So the, the, the old cycles that were based on the having and the supply shock and then the premiums to the cost and then they're bear markets where you even go to a discount to cost, that's, that's going to be, that's going to disappear. We're going to be going into a monetary cycle, and those monetary cycles are not going to last the same amount of time as a commodity cycle. So we're, so we're seeing the maturation of the marketplace, and therefore the cycles are starting to mature themselves, and I think that's why everybody's caught a little bit off guard, are looking at a commodity cycle and trying to figure out how a money cycle is going to work. But one of these days it's going to become evident. And when it does, we're going to get the type of price performance that I think puts this um, what do they call it? Diminishing returns. That theory is going to be put to rest. Right now that theory looks really good. But eventually that theory is going to be completely decimated and destroyed. And the people who are caught off sides aren't going to be the ones who hold Bitcoin and stack Bitcoin like us. It's going to be the ones who waited in the treasuries for 4% or four and a half percent or 3% as they start to lower rates. Those are the guys who are going to be off sides, and they're the ones who are going to have to act quick with their capital and the, and the rush of that capital into the marketplace is what's going to produce the performance that we're all waiting for.

Dude, first of all, that's fascinating. I completely agree. It is OPI's fault. Um, and so, so okay, so lots, so much to unpack there, and that was pure signal. Now I understand why Kaiser retweeted it or reposted it. It's not Twitter anymore. Reposted it. Um, okay. So commodity cycle done. The previous four-year cycle, it's over. That's what, that's your, that's your main case. And you're talking essentially about the financialization of Bitcoin. When I hear financialization of that, I feel like there's like a, there's like a bad taste in my mouth when I hear that. Is that, is that like a, you know, is that, is that a good thing that it's being financialized? Like, I mean, you know, like, doesn't that mean that it's captured by institution? Like, wasn't gold financialized and look at what happened with gold's price action, like, you know, why wouldn't Bitcoin kind of end up with the same uh, you know, same end result? And that is a fantastic question, a very astute question, and I think the main difference is that gold is still a trust-based system, and Bitcoin eliminates the need for trust.

Yeah, but what about all the Bitcoin that's custody right now? Yeah, I mean, it's like MicroStrategy has 500,000. No, no, no. Brian Armstrong has 500,000 Bitcoin in his nightstand on a ledger. Okay, let's be real. And then it's a trust me bro, right? Type of situation, and then the ETFs have their Bitcoin and OPI's nightstand on a ledger, right? Actually on a cold card because that's a good hardware wallet. Don't buy Ledger. Cold card, simply 5% off. So okay, all jokes aside, um, all jokes aside, CJ, like seriously, you know, we have this centralization of large amounts of custody of Bitcoin. And I actually had Caitlin Long and Larry Leard and I was like bringing it up to them because this was when the ETFs were first announced, and they were essentially talking about the rehypothecation of Bitcoin. So when you, when you bring up the word financialization, there's like this, like voice in the back of my head like, I kind of like the whole commodity cycle thing. That was a lot more fun, a lot more predictable, you know, like number go up. So I want to talk about that, and then I want to talk about the money, money cycle aspect of it, which I've never heard before. So that sounds fascinating to me.

Yeah. And that, and those are great points, and I think the number one thing is through the financialization it's about building different tools around the asset class. So do we have problems with custody centralization? Absolutely. And that's ultimately a risk for the people who are involved in that setup. So I think, you know, what I'd like to say at People's Reserve is choose your counterparty wisely. Make sure that whoever you're going to financialize your Bitcoin with, if you're going to borrow against it or get a financial product like a Bitcoin powered mortgage or invest in a Bitcoin bond, make sure that you read the fine print and you understand that that company is a Bitcoin maxi mindset company. Meaning that there is going to be no rehypothecation of the Bitcoin. I mean, that is paper Bitcoin. So we don't want to create paper Bitcoin. Uh, and then also make sure there's multisig, right? You have to protect the key. And I think that's the, that's the trade-off here. When we get, when we move into financialization, it requires counterparty. And even if you're in a decentralized uh, finance situation, the counterparty risk is now the smart contract. So you're not escaping counterparty risk when it comes with financialization. And I think that the trapi people, they just feel much more comfortable with the system that they set up for custody. And I'm not saying that's actually less risky. I mean, I think in some cases a fully audited smart contract is way less risky because you can read it line by line, and there's no human behavior involved. So if there's any exploit that comes on, it's going to come through one of those lines of code. It's not going to come through somebody running off or making a bad decision or hitting a fat finger. So I think, yeah, there, there definitely needs to be an upgrade in how we custody Bitcoin, especially when it comes to financialization. And if you're not using a financial product around your Bitcoin, my god, you should be, be your own bank, right? Embrace freedom and self-custody. I mean, it's not that hard to do. It's, it's actually empowers you. It's an amazing characteristic of Bitcoin. So the, the, the default of like letting the ETFs go and, and 500,000 on the nightstand, like, yeah, that is absolutely an issue. And, and those guys should find a way to, to mitigate that risk. But as it stands right now, the traditional world thinks of Bitcoin as a risk-on tech stock.

Yes. And it's behaving like that. Yeah. It's a risk-on tech stock. It's not engineered money. It's not pristine collateral. I think when that becomes more evident, and that's what you mean about the money cycle, right? Yeah, I mean, uh, that, yeah, absolutely. The money cycle is about evolving Bitcoin from digital gold. So digital gold is the commodity cycle, and the money cycle is now pristine collateral. Okay. It's, it's, it's evolving from dig- digital gold is how you store value. Pristine collateral is how you leverage your balance sheet to get ahead. And what's magic about Bitcoin, the magic internet money, what makes it so great is that when you borrow inflating currency units that lose value over time against deflating engineered money that accrues value or gains value over time, yeah, the burden of your debt is reduced. People don't understand that mechanism. I don't know why they don't get it, but eventually they will. And then that's what's going to kick off the credit cycle. So I think we're in that weird, like I said, that twilight zone.

How long is this going to last, CJ? Tell me, tell me, man. You know, People's Reserve, we're going to go, we're going to be going live late this summer. So I think these financialized products are going to be hitting the market a lot faster than people anticipate. And if some of the, some of the strategies that the US government is using right now, especially with Doge, attacking the liability side of the balance sheet, if it's not evident that those cuts to spending actually do what they need to do, which unfortunately I don't think they're going to do what they need to do because we're running two to three trillion deficits. So even if you cut a trillion dollars, you still have a $1 to $2 trillion dollar deficit. So you still have to print money; that still creates inflationary pressure. So when that becomes more evident and focus turns towards the asset side of the balance sheet, we know we can't invest it in the economy to get the return we need. We know we can't unlock uh, natural assets within a, a timely manner to the extent that it can reduce the burden of the debt. We sure as hell can't put it in real estate because you're going to have even more of an affordability crisis. There really is one option, and it's Bitcoin. And then when you take that and you put it on your balance sheet, that will buy us the time to fix the real problems we have in the economy. And it's, and, and unfortunately, I think we're in a zombie economy. And I know, remember the last time I was on with OPI, we talked about CPI and the manipulations, like the, it's amazing that the government can collect all this economic data. It's probably the only thing they're able to successfully do. But then they take this accurate raw data and they plug it into a manipulated equation, and then they pretend that the output of that equation is the reality. But big players in the space, high net worth individuals, sovereigns, they're looking at the, the treasury market, and I've talked with Byron Donalds about this, who sits on the financial services committee. They are actually talking about a lack of demand for treasuries. Like that is a real conversation at the highest national level. That is a national economic security concern. And that's why this stable coin legislation is getting pushed so hard because they, they see it as a, as a, as a part solution. We're like, "Hey, these stable coin issuers, they need to buy treasuries, and we need people who are going to buy treasuries," and they're so desperate for demand that they're just willing to, to do it. So there is a lack of demand on United States treasuries because even at 4% and four and a half percent, the real rate of price increases, now it'll change from your person to your business, but the real rate in price increases is just around 10%. So, and especially in business because as interest rates are raised, that's an input cost for a business. Businesses use credit all the time to expand supply. And when your credit costs go up, that's an inflationary price pressure. So all of these inflationary price pressures are increasing your cost of production, lowering your profit margin. Meanwhile, stocks are kind of staying at the same level but getting more and more unhealthy. I mean, this is the, this is a recipe for disaster. And I think the, the realization that we can't take any traditional steps to fix this, there are, there's nothing that's been done in the past that we can mimic or copy to fix this. This is a problem that's never been faced before because it's 36, 37 trillion of debt plus another 220 trillion of unfunded liabilities. No other generation has, has faced this problem. Therefore, we must adopt a solution that's never been used before, or else we're just, it's a definition of insanity, right? Doing the same thing and expecting different results, of course. And then there's the unintended consequences that I think society is starting to feel, right? And now I understand why you and Larry were on the same panel because you guys, in your own way, are, have been literally said, have the same thing, right? Um, it's fascinating that you guys have both reached uh, the same conclusion, and then you guys are describing it from, you know, your different lived experiences and your life experiences, but you're saying the same thing, which is fascinating to me. um, you know, consequences are going to accelerate. We're seeing increased gambling, right? Like uh, the, the meme mania, fiat degradation of society. People just want to, they want to gamble, and that, and they wouldn't have to gamble if they were able to save their money. And that's what the M Bitcoin is, savings technology. It's the pro, it's the solution to your problem. And if you can just adopt that solution, you, you can, you can sleep easy. You can not worry about it. And I, that's why I love this book. I think this book is a very powerful orange pill to help people understand what's coming, why it's coming, and how do I protect myself. Then when you can sleep easy at night, you can start to actually deliver value to the economy. Everybody's trying to figure out how to suck value out of the system just to get by. We need to flip that so that we deliver value to each other. And that's the bright orange future that I'm so excited about.

Love that. Love that. Speaking of gambling, I had to take away OPI's company credit card. They went to the Hard Rock yesterday. It was terrible. $20,000 gone. Um, just kidding. Kind of. Um, but okay. So you buried the lead earlier on, right? Because you said something that is not popular consensus, right? You said that uh, this diminishing returns theory is going to break. I want to hear a whole lot about that.

Yeah, absolutely. So what's amazing about diminishing returns is, let me try to explain why I think that this happens. And this comes from my mining experience. In the early days of mining, we're talking about the OG miners. Like nobody knew what the heck was going to happen. Nobody knew that this would be a trillion dollar, multi-trillion dollar asset class, but you could plug some machines into the wall and earn some money. It was pretty cool. There was no real business model around it. Very few people, very few actors in the industry developed a business model. And those that did dominate the industry today. You see the Bitmain uh, booth out there, I mean, with a lot of hash rate, they developed a business model early on and built the picks and shovels for the people who were playing around. Now they've become an entire institution within themselves. But the difference was is back then there was no fiduciary responsibility of the company to deliver to shareholders. It was probably just a group of friends or even just a solo miner, and, and maybe you pulled together, you know, and, and that was the way it worked. And it wasn't really about making money. It was like learning the system and, and it became a little bit about making money once we started to jump up above $1,000. It was like, whoa, you know, this, this hobby just might have just paid my whole year's salary. Maybe I should take some money here. But it was never a money-profit driven industry. But as the asset class matured, and especially as we saw public mining companies start to be traded, the difference between an OG miner and a public miner is that a public miner has a fiduciary responsibility to lock in profits. So that's why when you look at the Bitcoin fair value algorithm, the premiums to cost of production in the early cycles were significantly higher than what we've seen in the, in the following cycles. In the first cycle was upwards of 600%, the price would go above the average cost of production. In the second cycle, it came down to like 300%. And then in this last cycle, it came down to like 100%. Why? Well, because the, the actors within the industry, a, a publicly traded mining company cannot be producing Bitcoin as a good and then having a 100% profit margin and not locking that margin in. They cannot do that. They are forced sellers of the Bitcoin to lock in the profit. They have fiduciary responsibility. Now, some miners have avoided this responsibility by putting into their prospectus that we have a hodl strategy, right? So they, they have to be upfront about that and let investors know, look, if you're investing in our company, you know, we're not interested in selling the Bitcoin in the short term. It's a long-term thing. So you're going to have to deal with share dilution and all this other stuff to get to the end goal. But a lot of companies don't do that, and they, and they lock in those profits, and that led to the diminishing returns.

Why? Why do you think, you know, why do you think the? Okay, so that very well explained, and you're blowing my mind like you always do when you come on the show. Um, what is going to lead to that diminishing return thing breaking?

Yes. Yes. Great, great. Next question leads right into it. So what breaks this diminishing return? And I think ultimately, it, it, it's going to bend first, right? It's going to bend before it breaks because the same actors are still there. The public, the publicly traded mining companies aren't failing, and they have access to US capital markets, so they can even raise money and dilute and stay alive. When I was in mining, when I got crushed during the 2016 halving, I didn't have access to US capital markets. I got, I had to sell everything, and I, I lost, like, that's, that's the end of it. Like, I'm out. Can't, can't do it. We lost. Um, they don't really come to that decision; they, they can borrow more money; they

Can dilute, and they can stay alive. So I think we're going to see it bend first, and it bends because as price goes up, through the financialization, the financialization of Bitcoin is going to create significant demand. That's what's going to happen: significant demand because when it gets—when we start talking about Bitcoin-powered mortgages—and recently I sent out a tweet about not only Bitcoin-powered mortgages but Bitcoin-powered mortgage-backed securities. So when we start building the foundations of finance on debt products that integrate Bitcoin, the levels of demand are going to be insane because just look at the demand for debt. The demand for debt is the largest—debt is the largest demanded good or service, whatever you want to call it, in the world. The United States alone has demanded 37 trillion plus another 220 trillion of unfunded liabilities. What is an unfunded liability? It's a demand for debt. So debt is the largest demanded good or service in the world.

Now, when you take Bitcoin and you plug it into debt products, it now piggybacks on that demand. And that's the demand we're not seeing today. We see demand today from people like Strategy and Michael Sailor buying to accumulate and accumulate and accumulate. But they're limited in what they can do. Debt is not limited because debt can be extended at that infinite rate. And that's—that's part of the problem. But when you integrate Bitcoin as a solution to that problem, it's going to create infinite demand on Bitcoin. And the infinite demand on Bitcoin will bend the market first because when those—when—when we start getting up to 150, 250, 300, the price of a single-family home, these—these board meetings of these miners, they're going to be sweating like I am right now from these whites. They're going to be like, "Oh my gosh, we need to—if we don't sell this, like we're going to get sued." Like there's going to be LPs who sue us because we went from 400 back down to 100 and we didn't lock in any profits. So it will—it will bend, but when it breaks is when that—when that sell pressure is finally gone. When that sell pressure is finally gone and we get—we get to this extent, you know Michael talks about it all the time. The—the inflation schedule of Bitcoin, it—or I shouldn't say inflation schedule, but the releasing of Bitcoin into the ecosystem. Once we get to that 1% mark, it's going to take a significant amount of time to—to get rid of that rest of that 1% of Bitcoin. So the amount of pressure that's going to be created by the miners is limited in the amount of coins they can buy now, plus the existing treasuries they have. That's the bend point. Once those miners finally sell to lock in their profits, there is nothing there. The sell pressure will—it'll be far less than the buy pressure, and the—and the buy pressure is going to be coming from the financialization. So it—right now maybe it's like this: We're about to be like this, and when we get to that—that breaks it.

What—what's your timeline here? Right? What's your timeline for all these series of events? Like, of course, like you know, we send OPI far away. Um, what—what's your timeline for this stuff to happen? OPI is not involved. I think, well, without OPI it's looking much better. Yeah. But no, um, you know, companies like People's Reserve going live this summer, I think, play—play a big role in getting that—that process started. And there's going to be other people who come out and launch products like this. But when you see regular people—it's not going to be regular people at the grocery store who come up and say, you know, you're always afraid when you go to the grocery store and the—and the bagger is like, "Hey, you—you uh, I see your orange glasses. Have you heard about Bitcoin?" Yeah. Right. And you're like, "Oh my god." The pit of your stomach's like, "Oh my god, I got to get excited." Now I'm like, "God, exactly." Well, they're not going to be asking you about Bitcoin. They're going to be asking you about, "Hey, do you have a Bitcoin-powered mortgage?" Like, are you paying a lower monthly mortgage because Bitcoin has been integrated into your—into your loan? Okay. So let's talk about that. That's your company, right? Okay.

So as a Bitcoiner, you don't want to sell your Bitcoin, right? And it is a great collateral. Um, and I have used it as—as you know, as collateral for loans. I've had great experiences so far. Um, and yeah, I mean, you see the power of it. The downside is you have to be careful with, you know, just that the loan-to-value and just, you know, exactly over-extending the liquidation risk in the future as we go through this transition from commodity cycle to money cycle. The largest risk for us Bitcoiners is liquidation risk because at a certain point in time when you—when you understand that you can borrow currency against money, there is no price that can convince you to sell. None. There's no price that can con—because the higher the price goes, the stronger your LTV. So you're not forced to sell. There's no way to force you to sell. But when price goes down, now you have liquidation risk, and they can force you to sell. So in my opinion, the big—the big players in the game, they're not going to be able to convince you with price to buy your Bitcoin. They're going to have to force you to sell through—through the structure of their financialization products. And at People's Reserve, you know, I didn't build a product that I wouldn't use. So I want to eliminate liquidation risk. And how we eliminate liquidation risk is that if you get a Bitcoin-powered mortgage with People's Reserve, the only way that you can get liquidated is if you default on your mortgage. That's the only way. If the price of Bitcoin goes down, you don't—you don't lose your Bitcoin. You do not get liquidated on your Bitcoin.

That is very, very interesting. Yeah, that is not a Bitcoin company. That has been the regulatory hurdles that you've had to go through. That must have been—that must be a nightmare. I think you're a threat to uh, traditional mortgages—mortgage offer. Uh, and yeah, I mean, we would even have to rechange the name of the word mortgage because I think it means like, correct death contract or something, right? That's right. Um, I would—I—I would call it Optimus. That would be the new name of the mortgage. And—and—and the reason I use that language now is because it helps people relate. You know, if you—you always try to relate something in your brain. Come up with the term for the new Abs. If there's anybody who can do it, it's the Simply Bitcoin community, right? I mean, you guys come on, post your ideas, and we'll—we'll run with it. I'll—I'll throw you something too for if you—if we pick it because uh, you deserve a reward for it. But it's true. It's not a mortgage. It's actually—it's a—it's a revolutionary financial product that has never been offered in a marketplace before. It's brand new. And when we remove that liquidation risk, we secure you. That's what we want to do. We don't want to liquidate you. We want to empower you through your Bitcoin. Now the amazing thing is—well, you say, "Well, but you can still liquidate us if you default." Yeah, but here's the magic part. We actually allow you to sell between zero and 100% of your mortgage payment directly from your collateral. So if you lose your job or if you're building a company and things are slow, you can actually make your monthly mortgage payment from your—from your collateral stash. So you're not going to default on the mortgage um, unless you—unless you really want to. But why would you want to? Because you want to keep your Bitcoin, right? And that's what the product is designed to do: to empower responsible savers of Bitcoin and to take advantage of having the most pristine form of collateral. And I think you're right, we are going to shake up the foundations of finance. And integrating Bitcoin into debt products is going to redefine the risk-free borrower and the risk-free rate of return. That's what this—this is not just about free market money. This is about free market interest rates and free market yield curve. And when that happens, now we go into the monetization. Now we're looking at a yield curve. Who cares what a group of 12 guys say the yield curve should look like? Yeah. And what the anchor rate should be doing? Nobody cares. We're at a true free market money with free market interest rates, free market yield curve in live time pricing 24/7. Now we're in the monetary cycle. Now you're going to see the type of demand that just outstrips any type of possible supply that could hit the market. And—and these are the types of tools that I think are going to lead to that transition and lead to a—a more fair, a more equitable, and—and a truth-based money system and market versus like this price-controlled market, right? When you state the price of interest rates, that's a price control. Of course, what the hell's the difference? I think as long as there's a central bank there, it's there—like they might not be price controls, but it's price controls. Absolutely. Because the—because interest rates are the regulated economy. It's a central—it's a top-down economy. Like, without a shadow of a doubt. There's no difference between naming the price of eggs and naming the price of milk versus naming the price of money. And what it does is it eliminates the free market price signal. This is what has made capitalism win. This is what makes the United States so great. We don't depend on a centralized authority to allocate resources. We allow free market price signal to allocate resources. And when the price of a good or service goes up, it creates profit. And profit is the invisible hand that drives the marketplace. So entrepreneurs look at that free market price signal and say, "Well, you know what? I should not allocate resources into creating this good or service because I can capture more profit by allocating resources over here." Yeah. And when they capture that profit, they expand supply, which pushes prices down and shrinks the profit, which then allows a different price signal to take the lead and demand that allocation of resources. So when you—when you name the price of money, you are basically taking away the free market price signal, and therefore you don't know what the hell's going on. And that—doesn't that describe what's going on right now? Half the people think that a recession's coming. Some people who know it's gone know that we're in the middle of a real recession. Other people think that there is no recession, everything is good, and there's nothing to worry about, and the whole market is divided because there's no clear free market price signal on the most important good in the entire economy, which is money, because it's 50% of every single transaction. So you are now controlling 50% of every single transaction with a price control. No wonder everybody's confused. Yeah. No. And—and—and the detrimental effects it has on society. Like, I would even—you can make—and I've spent so much time thinking about this—like I think that if you're a human being and you're not using sound money, it's detrimental to your ability to accurately comprehend what is happening in the world. Um, I think it's something very integral to the human experience. Um, if you go back thousands of years, money has always been around, um, you know, we went off the barter system a very long time ago. And that money, you know, we've had periods of sound money, but nothing compares to the sound money characteristics of Bitcoin. So I—I 100% agree with you, man. I think, you know, the world hasn't woken up to this yet. I think it—you know, I—I really enjoyed your perspective about uh, how the diminishing returns aspect was going to break. I think your theory on as to why we haven't, you know, pumped yet, I think is uh, is—is very accurate from what I—what I was—what I heard from you. And I would say that like, I think it's going to be a—a tough pill to swallow for—for a lot of Bitcoiners, like um, but it also—it's—it's good in the sense that, you know, the—the days of 80% drops, you know, uh, it could always happen, but you know, like I don't see that happening um, anymore, especially just because, you know, again, it's—it's—it's a totally different—it's a—it's a totally different money—commodity, whatever you want to call it, than it was, you know, 5 years ago or 8 years ago. Um, and I think that's for the better, you know. So I'm—I hope that what you're saying plays out sooner rather than later, but if it does play out later, we have more time to stack. So yeah, man. Um, where can people find out more about your company? Uh, you told me that it was going to launch in two months. Yeah. Yeah. This summer. So we've been working on it for two years. For almost four years now. Four years. And that's just the regulatory hurdle that you've had to—we'd be live if we built off—and you've—you've bootstrapped a lot of this. Is that correct? Yes. Yeah. Pretty much everything. So uh, and that's just because, you know, as a lender, you know, one of the biggest things we do is we connect lenders with borrowers and then borrowers with lenders. So People's Reserve kind of plays that middleman. But the type of lenders and borrowers that we connect are not traditional because, you know, traditional is based on credit—debt-to-income ratios. Um, we don't care about any of that. Money talks. Bitcoin talks. Put your Bitcoin up. I don't care what your credit score is. If you've been a responsible saver in Bitcoin, that's all I need to know about you. And then what that does is it creates a scenario where—do you want to lend your money to an entity that has zero—sure—zero credit risk because they can just print the money and give it to you? But now you have—if something really goes wrong, like we know that they're soft defaulting right now through the continuous printing, but if they hard default and something really goes wrong, you're just going to get back printed dollars. Yeah, if we're in a rare circumstance where someone defaults on one of our products, you're defaulting into Bitcoin, you're defaulting into real estate, which is going to accrue value as that problem fers. So it—it's actually a—a more risk-free rate than just having the printer. It's no longer about the credit risk. It's also about the default risk. And when you lend to Bitcoiners where the loan is securitized through Bitcoin and through real estate, you're not only eliminating credit risk, you're also eliminating default risk. And that's—that's a really important concept. But yeah, it has—it has been a long hard fight, especially during the last administration where there was a war. There was an absolute war on this industry. And that's why I kept my mouth shut. Yeah, I kept my m—I'm like, you know, I'm not going to make a—put it—how stupid can you be? Keep my mouth shut. Work hard. Keep the Bitcoin mindset. Produce results. And then as soon as that turned around, you know, I started talking aggressively about it 'cause I got the green light. You know, we could talk about these things without someone coming and trying to nick—nick it in the butt and—and take it out. And I couldn't be more excited. I think that we—we really do have a chance to turn things around. And uh, Bitcoiners are going to be at the forefront of turning this ship and—and really making a better future for our kids, which is the most important thing that we can do. Love that. Well, CJ, always a pleasure and honor coming on the show. Need liquidity without having to sell your Bitcoin? For more than 6 years now, Lein has been the trusted choice for Bitcoin-backed lending with transparency, security, and trust at their core. I absolutely love these guys, and I personally have not only an account with them but also a loan. And some of the key features that I love about Letin is the fact that there are no monthly payments—you pay at the end of the term. You also have the ability to roll over the loan as well, and you could pay it back whenever you want. Essentially what they do is that they help their clients unlock the liquidity of their BTC, allowing you to huddle while still accessing the wealth of your Bitcoin. 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