Transcription
Welcome back to the Bitcoin Treasuries podcast. I'm Tim Cotsman. We're one year later with Tad Smith. Tad, thanks for joining us.
Tim, great to be here. Last time we were here in these very seats was November 5th in the evening, the night that Donald Trump got elected.
Yeah, we didn't know the outcome yet. But
Right.
But we were here.
But we were here.
So the first question is, do you still like the stock? And we're referring to MSTR.
Yeah. Which, by the way, has since had a name change, right?
Mhm.
Yeah. So, what was formerly called Micro Strategy, I'll call it strategy, has had a rough year. I mean, year-to-date performance is 5%. Uh, I think the last uh 12 months performance is 38 or 39%, plus or minus. Um, and um uh I I do own the stock. Um, interestingly, the other day I bought Strike, which is the convertible preferred share, and I bought it because um, I like the Bitcoin-backed 9% yield on it, and yet it's convertible into Micro Strategy, which now strategy shares. Um, and so I sat there and thought about I'm getting paid 9% to wait and have the opportunity for Micro Strategy to um get through its current doldrums, get through the sentiment, see Bitcoin reverse, and also begin to think about creative ways to leverage its balance sheet both on the asset side, a lot of the Bitcoin, as well as the very innovative things they're doing on the liabilities. side of the balance sheet. So, I bought some of that. I also bought, by the way, Stretch. This is STRC as a money market. I think that one's yielding I don't know, it's like 10 and a half% or something. It's pretty nice. Um, for my cash account. So, I'm going to amend I like the stock and say I like the stocks. How's that?
Okay. I like
And yes, I still own MSTR, the common shares. They I you know, the performance hasn't been great this year. Uh, but I I think that'll turn around. Uh, one probably has to be patient.
Got it. Are we in a bare market? And has this turned from a four-year cycle to a three or four month cycle?
Well, there are two questions in there. They're both good ones. Um, first one, are we in a bare market? No. It's hard to say that we're in a bare market when we're, you know, I don't know, we're at 113 as we as we sit here and talk about it, which is 13,000 off the the all-time peak. Um and um we did, you know, have a little correction last week. We tested underneath 105 um and bounced back. Um but um it's possible that we could roll into a bare market. I I it's not my base case. Uh I'm optimistic that we will continue uh some robust growth for a lot of macro reasons. Now, when you talk about a four-year cycle, I assume you're talking about the four-year Bitcoin having cycle.
Um, on that, um, I I have to say I don't really completely understand the rationale of the four-year having cycle. Um, now it's possible that if enough people and particularly the OGs believe in the four-year having cycle or think there's a possibility of it, we can create one by a lot of selling. Um but I I think the cycles that are more interesting to me are actually liquidity flows and capital market cycles. And on that uh there's no question that we are long in the tooth on this particular capital cycle um or liquidity cycle. But it's also true that the Fed is on the sort of early part of its easing and also China needs to do a lot of liquidity and we need to refinance trillions of dollars of debt. And so I I'm reasonably optimistic that on balance the Fed is going to remain relatively favorable um for a while. Uh but it is liquidity conditions, you know, they're they're on the cusp at the moment. So one has to be a little careful. So I I guess I sound warmly disposed to I I I guess I sound optimistic but cautious. I'm careful. I'm watching the markets.
How would you describe sentiment right now and in particular maybe the Bitcoin Alpha conference that we both attended?
Oh, the Bitcoin Alpha conference. It's hard. I mean, this was amazing. It was in Santa Monica. There was one a year ago which was uh sensational. This one was very good again. And it's very hard to leave that conference and not be bullish. All the structural macro factors are in favor of Bitcoin. Now, let's make a subtle distinction between people who trade Bitcoin and people who are long-term either dollar cost averaging or hodlers, for lack of a better way to say it. And in the category of traders, I'm I'm talking about uh I'm I'm excluding the people that are concerned about taking some lifestyle chips off the table because they're trying to time a cycle. Let's set let's leave them out. If you have a long-term or even a medium-term thesis on Bitcoin, um, as I do, uh, you can't help but be insanely bullish. I mean, it's just everywhere you almost every single piece of data you look at is just bullish. And the Bitcoin Alpha Conference was literally well named. It was Bitcoin Alpha. It was great.
Yeah. How do you enjoy that format versus sitting in a large crowd? So for those who for for the vast majority who didn't attend, it was almost like a a sort of roving living room situation where you there each of four different groups would be doing a topic uh, you know, um, uh, quantum does that threaten Bitcoin, um, liquidity up or down, all these different things were going on all and you could sort of float around among them and it was all there weren't it it wasn't so much uh a single speaker broadcasting and everybody else listening. It was very curated. It was almost there was a person who was responsible to facilitate a conversation. There was a dialogue and the group of individuals there were lots of people that we could learn a lot from. So from my perspective, I learned a lot and uh I came way bullish. It was great.
Awesome. What's the relationship right now and maybe a few years out or even less than a few years out between AI and Bitcoin?
You know, interestingly, the AI Bitcoin connection was discussed actually Bitcoin Alpha and of of course there are lots of people in that space that are are breaking great ground on it. One of my very favorites is Jordi Visser. I think he's done a great deal on that too. But if we step back and we think about it um from the perspective of AI, AI everything else being equal should expand the knowledge um of pretty much all things. All human knowledge should be expanded which means that anyone that has a moat driven by scarcity either scarcity of knowledge or scarcity of resources or things like that should face competitive intensity and erosion. In other words, AI makes it possible for the replication of goods and services very fast and particularly scarce knowledge resources that's going to turn the economy upside down given long enough time to do it. And so when I look at that I say well um what is it that's truly scarce and truly digital and that's Bitcoin. So, um, setting aside whether Bitcoin is the best set of rails for an agentic AI economy, we can debate that, but I certainly think it's better than the current system by far. Setting aside whether Bitcoin evolves or faces tech threats such as quantum or other things, which I think um, you know, I it's too soon to opine on that now. There's a lot of good research on it that suggests there needs to be some people looking at it pretty carefully and thinking about it. But by the way, AI is going to help that too, both on the pro, both on the defense and the offense side. So I look at and I say, you know, Bitcoin is a very, very constructive asset for my portfolio in a world that looks like that. And what's interesting is it's easy to say that out there sort of in the ether, it's what's really interesting is what isn't a particularly great asset. Um for one thing I'll point out um and again hat tip to Jordi Visser and others on this particular point and also uh Julian Battel and Rahul Powell um software businesses the traditional software businesses are driven by essentially knowledge scarcity in effect and AI should significantly erode those barriers and very quickly and when you think about how much of the S&P 500 is driven by fundamental software returns. It's not small. So, not to mention the Qs, the NASDAQ 100. So, I sit there and I think, well, you know, uh the SPY and the QQQs have been performing very well recently and uh I am thrilled with that. Um, but if I look five years in the future or 10 years in the future and I say where do I want to put uh money for the next five or 10 years in my portfolio uh I think Bitcoin with both the secular technology adoption the debasement trade on top of it but also the scarce digital quality of it as a store of value to me um is a really attractive proposition and that's all within an AI context. I like the stock. In this case, it's not a stock commodity.
What has the last year been like at NYU Stern? You've brought in some AI.
I've had a great time in NYU Stern. Yeah. No, I I I had taken a a couple of years of hiatus after 22 years of teaching and uh I've taught a new class this year on AI and it was really AI and art. And I'm using art not because it's it's a business school. It's for second year MBA students. The reason I chose art is because that is the ultimate province of human beings. The creative the literally the creation of of things that are expressions of humanity and emotion and authenticity, all these different things. And so if we could talk um if we could if I could go on this learning journey with the students that uh credibly connects all the really big questions about AI in that um I thought we would stir it up and indeed we have and by the way lots of things have occur have sort of been news flashes for me. One is when you not only don't ban students from using AI, you require that they use AI and you yourself teaching it use AI and then by the way you have to grade. How do you grade papers that have you know an IQ floor of 160 and are experts at answering any possible question? It presents a radical proposition. And so I think you know we talk a lot about how work will change in a world of AI. Education is going to change even more radically. And that to me is an incredibly positive thing um uh for the democratization of knowledge and the abundance of education. So I'm excited about it.
How do you grade papers or exams or
It's funny you mentioned that tonight is the last class and uh the the essays are due at six o'clock and I will confess to saying that I use ChatGPT to help design ChatGPT resistant take-home essays.
Because I knew they were all going to use they were all going to use ChatGPT or Claude or any of them, Calla, any of them. So, I actually got AI to help create essay questions that were resistant to answers by AI.
And um I don't have the exams in tonight yet. They're coming in at 6:00 tonight. Uh, but um, I'm can't wait to read them. Hard questions, questions that left me sort of floored. And I of course curated them and I picked ones I liked and I tweaked them here or there, but it was AI versus AI in this. And um, and the objective of the test was to get people, our students um to use AI in a constructive way that brings the most out of them as human beings using the most powerful technology human beings have ever created. And that's Bitcoin.
On a scale from uh Bernie Sanders to Tom Lee, where where on that?
First of all, is that even a scale? I don't know how many dimensions would that scale. First of all, I guess you'd have to map universes, right?
Yeah.
I don't know. A few a few you're
You asked because they were just here in the studio. I guess
You're here in the cap somewhere in the capitalist region.
Oh, I'm I'm a great friend to uh capitalism. Yes. Enthusiastic fan.
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What is going on with Bitcoin treasury companies?
You have uh pipe unlocks. You have some stocks down a lot.
We'll just leave it at that. 90 plus percent. I still have conversations with private companies that are still planning to go public.
Yep.
Bitcoin-only sort of treasury companies. Um
Is there anything that is like an obvious oh well in the moving forward you could pivot and do this or you could have done this differently or I mean there's a lot of sharp people in the space. Very, very bright people are in the space.
But uh yeah, interesting times to navigate. Any like yeah, this would make sense to me as far as maybe doing things differently or um any aha moments, any, you know, what are your takeaways?
Well, if I step back um and survey the field, the questions I would ask are age-old questions in business, which is how do you differentiate company A from company B? What is the competitive access of company A versus company B? How do you think about company A has a moat versus company B? These are all basic things. I mean, this is Michael Porter and predecessor stuff. This is early 20th century stuff. And um the idea that the number of Bitcoin treasury companies would multiply, I mean, by more than an order of magnitude, by two orders of magnitude in a very short period of time and there would not be a glut of them versus the desire on the part of investors to put money into them, confusion among investors about where to put their money and how A, B, and C are different, meaning what's the moat, what's the differentiation, what's the competitive intensity. Um, all of that to me, it's to be expected that we would have um a uh collapse in the multiple of net asset value. So um I think what you're experiencing is the supply curve for these things has shifted way out and there is not yet a narrative that defines how a company 1, company 2 or company 3, company A, B or C is different. Now there are some significant standouts. Um obviously we tal we started our chat about talking about strategy. Um strategy, listen, I it's hard to say never or ever. I mean, those are such long time zones. But it's hard for me to see anyone catching up to strategy's treasury bank of Bitcoin. It's just phenomenal. And whether you are a fan of Michael Saylor's, count me in that list or not, you have to admire the fact he moved quickly and decisively to create um a hoard of Bitcoin that is um literally a force of itself, but also an asset on which the optionality about what he can do with it has gigantically multiplied. Now, he's demonstrating that with by issuing securities against it, but I wouldn't rule out all sorts of other interesting pivots. He's pivoted multiple times in the past. And in so far as other kinds of Bitcoin treasury companies can find specific niches or countries that are have unusual characteristics or particular qualities that make them uh unique and differentiated and competitively exciting to investors, I think they will do better. That said, what would be generally helpful is a little bit more um enthusiasm for Bitcoin overall. This has been a tough year for Bitcoin. I mean, really, it has. When when you step back, look, it's had, you know, sort of 20 plus% um uh returns, which are respectable um but not to Bitcoiners. I mean, they they seem like h. And moreover, it's been a painful chop consolidation for I love that James Czech word, chop consolidation. I think a hat tip to James Czech for that. It really it really describes it. And so we're both frustrated and bored and tired and we were expecting October and we got I don't know what last week was, but it was not great. And um so, you know, we might we're entering the seasonal excited part of a long tiring year and we want to see some fireworks and we haven't seen any fireworks. If we saw any fireworks, it was a flash crash two Fridays ago and that wasn't much fun.
Do you want to talk about that a little bit? The flash crash and also just
Yeah, it was good to be in Bitcoin rather than the others.
Yeah.
Better to be in gold, but good to be in Bitcoin.
Let's talk about gold and the outperformance versus Bitcoin. And Voltober.
Voltober. I like that. Voltober.
Is that we drop October and add in Voltober. Okay. Voltober.
Is that bullish in your mind to have the V increasing? Very good to have the volatility return. It doesn't feel great when it goes down. It never does. But you the the death of these assets from the investment perspective is volatility because we all know the volatility is vitality. You want to talk about gold? Yeah, let's talk about gold up. Gold is up. It's rolling over today. It's actually off. It's off 6% a few minutes ago, but that that's to in my mind that's to be expected. Um, it's had a parabolic run and gold gold has had parabolic runs in the last 30 years. Once I think twice maybe one certainly once but maybe twice if you go back 50 years and you know it gets kind of tired at the top and uh it needs to take a healthy break and uh to see it rolling over 6%. Uh Bitcoin as we came into the studio today was up 2 and a half%. Um, so maybe some portion of that is is benefiting Bitcoin, but gold has a lot of its independent. I mean, it's a much larger asset and it's got a lot of its own dynamics going on, but not at all surprising to see some portion of it coming off the top because it's had a run.
Is it fair or appropriate to make the comparison between gold and Bitcoin? Gold is such a higher market cap, call it 10 times huge.
10 times bigger, and it's up more than Bitcoin on the year. I mean, what does that even say? May up more than all of Bitcoin's size on the year. For sure. Yeah, that's what you mean.
It's just incredible.
Yeah. So, what does that say?
Is it Is it appropriate to compare the two if you have this asset that's 10 times bigger?
Of course.
With more
Well, you can compare anything to anything, but you should recognize the differences. I mean, Bitcoin, as I said earlier in a different context, has a strong secular tailwind driven by technological adoption. And um sure it it it helps with debasement. It's kind of a nice thing with debasement. It helps with um uh it's certainly liquidity dependent in the short term. You know, what percentage of it is liquidity dependent versus technological secular adoption is an interesting question. Um, it's got a lot of other dynamics going on, but um, it has and and gold by contrast um has its own use. It has a much lower level of volatility. It tends to have a strong risk-off basis. It's got a floor from central bank buying. Um, so they're they're different assets, but they both have qualities of stores of value that make it possible for people to link them in their mind. Um, uh, from an analytical perspective. Um, and and by the way, in in my I have both gold and Bitcoin in my own portfolio and, uh, they work out very well. Today, my gold is down and my Bitcoin's up. Um, and when you step back and look at it from a finance perspective, um, if you get the mix right, you can actually improve your overall Sharpe ratio, which of course, as you know, is the unit return per unit risk. So, um, I I I think they're a nice mix.
Do you hold any S&P or MAG 7?
I'm not holding the SPY at the moment. Um, and I really haven't actually this cycle much in the last couple of years. Um, and uh, no, I I I do own one of the Mag 7. I I do own Tesla. I'm um, I I like that stock, too. Um, I think he's got a lot of really really interesting narratives that have yet to play out in the stock price. I know it's had it's been was in the low 280s and it's now mid 44 400s. So, it's had a nice move already. But when you look into the future between um energy, when you look at autonomous driving and you look at the promise of um humanoid robots, um I I I get very excited about it. And what's particularly interesting and I did I did a lot of work over this on the weekend. Interesting. Funny you asked this about how to add how much Tesla should I add to Bitcoin, how much Tesla should I add to gold, how much Tesla should I add to other uh other things in my portfolio. Strike, for example, which I talked about a minute ago, to get the right balance of risk and return. And it turns out Tesla's really quite was for my portfolio really quite healthy addition both in narrative, AI, humanoid, robotics, that sort of thing. But also, it had a really nice uh uh mathematical and financial quality in terms of expected return and improved my Sharpe ratio while very slightly improving the return overall of my portfolio. So it had a beneficial effect to get into the wonky finance of it.
Would you say that Tesla having that Bitcoin on its balance sheet was a a significant contributor?
No, I I just think I mean to me like you know I try to separate leverage Bitcoin equity plays which are really about the financial markets from you know what makes sense to put in your treasury and Bitcoin to me is a very reasonable thing to put in your treasury if you think it's going to perform better than um for long-term treasury. I mean, not short-term. Uh, if you think it's going to perform better than T-bills, um, and Tesla had a lot of extra cash and I think they put it in Bitcoin. And, um, and by the way, I'm uh, I think they're not unhappy with that, although they've, you know, made some adjustments to it over time. This episode is brought to you by Arch Lending, the premier provider of crypto-backed loans designed for both individual and institutional investors. At Arch, your digital assets work for you without selling them. Arch offers flexible loan options tailored to your needs. Backed by industry leaders like Morgan Creek Digital, Castle Island Ventures, and Galaxy Ventures, Arch Lending is setting a new standard in crypto-backed lending. Are you ready to unlock the potential of your crypto assets? Visit archlending.com to learn more and configure your loan today. Are you looking for comprehensive analytics on corporate Bitcoin adoption? Strategy Tracker delivers real-time insights into how companies are executing their Bitcoin strategies completely free. Monitor NAV premiums, cost basis performance, and track how corporate Bitcoin treasuries perform against the market. Upgrade to premium for just $3.99 a month and unlock exclusive benefits like detailed market rankings, real-time trading volume analysis, and advanced performance metrics for corporations embracing Bitcoin. Apply code KOTZ at checkout for 100% off your first month of premium. Strategy Tracker is your essential tool for measuring the effectiveness of corporate Bitcoin strategies. Visit strategytracker.com and gain the analytical edge in understanding the Bitcoin treasury phenomenon.
When we were talking earlier, you pulled up a chart and we were talking about OGs selling Bitcoin. Yeah, this really belongs in the are we in a bear question.
Yeah. Where we're skipping around a little bit.
So, this back this goes back to my favorite analyst from down under, James Czech. Done a lot of work on this and um you can go on and find him on Twitter and he looked at and did some great analysis and basically what he concluded was uh at the most recent snapshot which I think is just a few days old we were selling about $2.7 billion a day. It doesn't sound quite right. It was a heck of a lot of sales per day.
Maybe around three, three and a half.
Yeah, it was a lot. It was a whole lot. At any rate, it's on Twitter. I strongly encourage you to check it out. And he put the charts right out there. They're super. First chart shows um that the amount of daily selling is significant. The second chart shows that the average holding period of the people who are selling, meaning at the time Tad sells his coins, how long on average did he hold them? And if my number my memory serves me correctly, in 2023 or two years ago or two and a half years ago, it was 23 days. and now it's over a 100 days, which was fascinating. Again, my numbers might be quite right. I I can't remember exactly his charts, so you just have to go look at them. And then um what it really said was uh and the realized profits on long-held were pretty strong too. So bottom line, uh there is a lot of truth to the fact OGs are providing a a pretty constant high level of selling in this market. And who can blame them? It's at 113,000 and these guys. Some of these guys got in at like very, very, very low rates. They're sitting on billions of dollars or hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars. And um why wouldn't they take a little money off the table?
Why wouldn't they move it somewhere where they could take a loan out against it or wrap it in an insurance policy or or do something to mitigate just paying all sorts of
Well, this is a theoretical exercise at least for me, but maybe not for you. Um, if you're sitting on $2 billion worth of Bitcoin
Mhm.
Moving half a billion dollars into cash or to do something, you know, do something lifestyle chips. I don't know what lifestyle chips means. Buy a sports team, whatever it is you're doing.
Um, that's understandable. And and if you're sitting on $2 billion and you see the price get up well over $100,000 up to an all-time high to look at that and say, "I'm sitting on $2 billion. It could go down to I don't know what price, you know, quantum's looming if I want to be concerned about that. What do I do?" Well, maybe take a few chips off the table and do something else with it. Who can blame them?
Well, why not just take out a loan and not have that tax liability?
Well, because you still have the exposure.
Got it. Got it. Got it.
Yeah. Meaning borrowing against your Bitcoin increases the volatility. Got it. Meaning of your personal net worth.
Yeah.
And and if you're sitting on $2 billion and it's all Bitcoin, you already have a very high net worth and you have a lot of volatility in your net worth. So,
So OGs, not surprising, they'd sell a little bit. And by the way, when you're sitting on a billion dollars worth of Bitcoin or $2 billion worth of Bitcoin or most recently, what what was Galaxy's great deal? Nova did an amazing deal of eight. He didn't he transact $8 billion or something in whatever it was. If you're sitting on $8 billion worth of Bitcoin and you're selling it, my guess is you have more than that.
Right?
A lot more than that. Yeah.
It's not suddenly you woke up in July and decided time to sell.
Yeah.
Something else is going on and my guess is you have a lot more. And so you're taking some you're you're diversifying or you're taking chips lifestyle chips off the table. Whatever $8 billion buys you. I don't know a sports team maybe. Who knows?
Are you concerned about quantum?
Well, here's the thing. Quantum in all of its versions, including by the way, there there's a different version which is that agentic or recursive AI becomes so good irrespective of quantum that they can begin eroding some of the security of the math. To me is a metaphor for technology, which is to say, do I believe that where there's a high economic incentive for someone very clever to deploy the world's greatest technologies to try to erode the security of financial assets, and there's a very high incentive to do that, by the way, among criminals and bad actors, that it won't be possible at the parabolic move that technologies advancing for someone at some point to do it? I think it's very possible. So whether it's quantum or whether it's something else that we're not talking about, I do believe that the security parameters of Bitcoin and others are going to have to get better with time. The good news is we have technology on our side too. The good guys have technology, the bad guys also have technology. So I think um to talk about um a Bitcoin that doesn't change and evolve as the threats grow is essentially going short on technology. Isn't that ironic? Isn't it ironic? One way to view that is if you believe that Bitcoin should remain completely unchanged because as it is, it does not need any adjustment irrespective of the technology, essentially you're you're writing you're you're going short on the human ingenuity to be able to break it. I wouldn't want to take that bet. I go long on human ingenuity and I go long on Bitcoin. Carefully thinking through how to grow and develop and make what is a pristine money even shinier.
Speaking of art and jewelry.
Were we speaking of art and jewelry? Speaking of jewelry, they got swiped at the Louvre last week.
I was about to ask. Oh, yeah.
What What's your take on that? I was reading about it this morning. A ladder truck and carving out a window on the second floor and they and in 8 minutes they're gone. Obviously tragic in in a real sense. What's your take on it? Maybe not like get more security at the museums, but like what what is Yeah. Any any what's your takeaway and what's what's the impact of that when those things are never stole?
Um, it was uh mainly jewels and it was a series of pieces of jewelry that had um uh significant gems in them. And so, you know, the speculation I was reading was that um they could pop out the gems and melt down whatever substance it is, gold presumably, uh or platinum or something, and um just sell sell the pieces off for parts. And that that's a way not to have it necessarily identifiable. But, um, I hope they get caught and, um, I'm I'm hopeful that, uh, it gets returned to the Louvre, which is, in my opinion, right up there with the Met, one of the greatest, um, uh, human treasure vaults in the world.
How does that work on that level? Would it have to be like a board of directors saying, "Hey, we need to allocate more capital to addressing some of these issues to make it at least more challenging to for criminals or
I wouldn't want to opine on that necessarily. I I will point out that the the Louvre is um uh controlled I think by the French state.
Mhm.
Um, and uh I have met the director of the Louvre and she's an incredibly impressive person and the chief of staff is I'm friendly with and he's also a very thoughtful and very bright guy and so I'm confident that they will sort it out. Um, I I will also say that there's one other thing to keep in mind. Um, in things like this, uh often there is um, you know, an unwitting security failure of some sort, but very often it's a failure of imagination, right? Isn't it? Oh, don't all these things seem to be ultimately failures of imagination? Some bold, clever set of uh thieves came in, highly motivated, and had an innovative new idea and thought nobody would notice and nobody did. It's too bad. Um, but I'm I'm optimistic that they'll get caught and I'm optimistic that it'll work out well.
You said a bit earlier that maybe you never really subscribe to the four-year Bitcoin halving cycle.
Well, I said I didn't understand why there would be one.
Yeah. How about the power law?
Oh, yeah. Power law.
Liquidity, things of that nature.
Well, I am I am a fan of liquidity. I
I think we all are.
Well, I'm a fan of liquidity and I, you know, I understand there's some very good um uh thinking that it doesn't matter. Um, but I have to say I'm going to sit with the liquidity folks. But I do believe one cannot underestimate the secular adoption which is often modeled by the power law. Secular adoption is a very powerful theme and it is crucially secular but waxing and waning in between. Maybe you get a little fluctuations up and down with liquidity. Sure. So call me. I subscribe to both happily.
So we're here one year later. Where are we going to be one year from now?
Well um one year from now we're going to be maybe across a few.
Yeah. One year from now, we're going to be in a very interesting election in the United States, right? We're going to be at the midterms. And um I don't know where we're going to be. I I am hopeful that the noise around tariffs and rare earths and the situation with China will resolve in a win-win. Uh both sides have strong incentives to fix that. I'm hopeful that Bitcoin will be higher. I'm hopeful that risk assets will uh not be bubbly, but in fact solid. I'm hopeful that um the economy will remain strong and I'm particularly hopeful that we are beginning to wrestle society with some of the many issues that are going to crop up as uh AI the impact of AI begins to diversify and intensify. Hopeful.
Any closing thoughts?
No, it's great to be back. It's great to be back one year later. Um and uh I appreciated the invitation. Thank you.
Thanks for being here.