“$MSTR & Bitcoin Is Just Getting Started!” - Adrian Morris Full Interview

Welcome back to the channel! A little bit of a different video today: a full-length interview. We had the opportunity to interview Adrian Morris, a key figure over on Twitter talking about MicroStrategy and Bitcoin. I highly recommend you guys watch this interview all the way through. Adrian has a lot of knowledge when it comes to Bitcoin and MicroStrategy; he talks about a lot of that in today's video. Let us know if you guys want to see more of this long-form interview content in the comments section below. But let's go ahead and get into this interview. I'm really excited for today's conversation, so thank you for coming on today, Adrian. Looking forward to our conversation here.

"Oh, my pleasure! I'm happy to be here. I'm always interested in meeting new people, and you guys are new in the space, so I took up the opportunity to meet you."

Yeah, man, really appreciate that! Let's just start off, man. How did you get into Bitcoin? How did you get into MicroStrategy? Kind of tell us a little bit about your story. I know some of our subscribers have probably seen you on our channel because we do show some of your tweets sometimes. So, yeah, just give us some insight on how you got into Bitcoin and MicroStrategy.

"Sure! So my Bitcoin journey started off, you know, stereotypically like anyone else. When I first heard about it, I think it was in 2011 when I first heard about it for the very first time. I didn't buy it then because I thought it was a scam. You know, I didn't quite put two and two together with regards to what the overall investment thesis and purpose of investing in Bitcoin was. I was very fortunate that I had someone that I went to college with who was living close by at the time. You know, in those times, there wasn't a lot of information about Bitcoin; you really had to search for it. He started talking to me about it, and he didn't win me over initially, but over time he did because he went into such a level of detail with it. It wasn't just about the mining or the technical aspects of it; he went into the overall conceptual aspect of it being a better form of money, it being digital gold, it being a more pristine asset than fiat currency. He just really broke it down, and that kind of won me over over time. I would say that I bought my first Bitcoin. I was actually fortunate that I had some Bitcoin that was mined. So my first Bitcoin actually got into through mining, and not because I understand mining thoroughly; it's just because I listened to people that were smarter than me, and they said, 'Do this,' so I did it, and that's how I got it. I started buying Bitcoin after that, and you know, I've made every mistake there is. I've sent Bitcoin to the wrong addresses, I have sold Bitcoin when I shouldn't have sold it, I have lost my keys on a couple of occasions early on, just thinking about it. It's just kind of frustrating knowing what I know now, but that's all part of the journey. I don't think there's anyone that has ever said, 'Oh, I got into Bitcoin that early, and I made no mistakes.' I call BS if they say that. So, yeah, I made all those mistakes. The biggest ones were selling when I shouldn't have sold, but we could talk about that another day. I've just been in ever since. I've gone through the ups, I've gone through the downs. I've seen, you know, Mt. Gox, I've seen Bitconnect, I've seen BlockFi, I've seen Celsius, I've seen Terra Luna, I've seen all of the big crashes and the big blowups that were part of the process. I'm proud to say that I haven't been shaken out fully because of those, and I just became more and more—I wouldn't say dedicated to Bitcoin; I would say I became more of a Bitcoin maximalist in the sense that I thought that it was the best and essentially only form of money that we really should be considering. If you're talking about cryptocurrencies, I have invested in altcoins in the past because I would invest in altcoins to buy more Bitcoin—that's how I built my holdings. But over time, that just didn't hold the same appeal to me. When you really sit down and do the math on it, if people just really focus on Bitcoin only and don't try to ride those waves of the altcoins, you end up better off long-term. So that's a very short version of my Bitcoin story.

Now, MicroStrategy is a different story. Obviously, I remember when Saylor made the announcement back in 2020. Back then, there was a lot more skepticism than people want to admit. When he made that first announcement, it wasn't just like, 'Oh, Saylor, great! Bitcoin on the balance sheet.' That's not how it was. A lot of Bitcoiners were skeptical, myself included. You had some early ones like, I want to say, Dylan LeClair was probably one of the earliest ones I can recall that said positive things about MicroStrategy back then, and a few others. But I say that to say this: I invested in MicroStrategy back then, but that was part of the overall mania that was going on after COVID. You had the altcoins that were blowing up. You know, the big one back then, I think, had one of the craziest runs with Solana, if I remember correctly. It had a crazy run between 2021 and 2022. I had altcoins back then; still, I had some MicroStrategy. I actually sold the MicroStrategy; I shouldn't have done that, but that's again another story for another time. That was only because I was still thinking in my mind, 'I'm trying to accumulate as much Bitcoin as possible.' I was thinking I sold when I shouldn't have sold. I could never get back to what I had, but the goal is to get, you know, as much Bitcoin as possible in as short a time as possible. So that's why I sold my MicroStrategy. But what really got me back into it, I would say, is around 2022. If I don't hold me to this, but I think it was either February or March of 2022, more conversation around MicroStrategy started taking place. You had more people talking about an investment thesis. You had early people saying kind of what you mentioned in our earlier brief chat that, 'Oh, it's just going to be essentially a Bitcoin ETF.' You had people that were saying, 'Oh, it's going to be a Ponzi.' You had people saying, 'It's not going to work.' You had people saying, 'Oh, Saylor is just going to sell.' Also, because people were bringing up the fact that Saylor had said early, like years before, 'Bitcoin's days are numbered,' blah blah blah blah blah. All that early negative talk was coming up. But what caught me onto it was—I forget who it was—I was exchanging messages with someone, and he said, 'Well, think about it this way. Just simplify it. If Bitcoin is going to be on their balance sheet and Bitcoin is going to be accreting in value, that means that their overall value as a company is going to accrete in value. If Saylor keeps buying Bitcoin, that effect compounds. Imagine what happens when Bitcoin hits $75,000. What happens when Bitcoin hits $85,000? What happens when Bitcoin hits $100,000?' Now we're here, and we see MicroStrategy has had an incredible run that entire time. Then you have individuals like, you know, you have Jeff from the Quant Bros, you have Ryan from the Quant Bros, you have Dylan LeClair, you have Ben Workman, and then you have other entrants into the space that are becoming more vocal now, like you have Jeff Park from Bitwise. You have all of these people coming in with their knowledge, really flushing out the investment thesis of MicroStrategy. It's not just buying Bitcoin; it's convertible debt. It is the fact that he has essentially found a way to Trojan horse the entire Wall Street system. Now that they have QQQ inclusion, they're going to have S&P 500 inclusion, which means by default all of the passive flows from all of those companies are going to be going into Bitcoin, whether we want to or not. Oh, sorry, not the passive companies—the passive flows from investments are going to be going into Bitcoin, whether they want it to or not. He's essentially found a way to cement Bitcoin through his corporation into the financial system, and he's using the financial system to buy more Bitcoin, which increases his value, which allows him to buy more Bitcoin, and so on and so forth. That's where the whole flywheel concept comes into play. For me, long-term, especially seeing what he's been able to do, what Saylor's been able to do up until this point, if I project it forward—and I have, and a lot of us in the MicroStrategy True North group have as well—this thing is just getting started. We may have the ups and downs from the market crashes; we may have the ups and downs from whatever unforeseen events may come up in Bitcoin because Bitcoin is going to Bitcoin. You know there's always going to be something that comes up. But long-term, this corporation, this Bitcoin equity, this Bitcoin security is a way that we can get outsized returns from the Bitcoin exposure, and it should theoretically long-term consistently outperform Bitcoin. That doesn't make it better than Bitcoin because it could not do this without Bitcoin. So it is something that is benefiting from Bitcoin. It is the ultimate, I think, Bitcoin security and equity, and I think that this investment thesis is only going to grow as Saylor finds more ways to monetize the Bitcoin on the balance sheet and finds more ways to infiltrate the traditional financial system. I'm sorry that was a very, very long answer."

Oh, no worries, man! I think what you said there with how you started in—you know, there's a lot you said there. We're going to get more into MicroStrategy in a second, but what you said there was, you know, you started in crypto, and then you kind of transitioned more to get into Bitcoin and then also with MicroStrategy. I think that's something even like on our channel. We've done in 2021; we were talking more about individual cryptos, and like we started talking more about Bitcoin, and now we're just kind of like Bitcoin and MicroStrategy. We know we dabble in the altcoins and stuff, but you know, we're mainly focused on Bitcoin. So, like, we have a lot of new people coming to our channel, so they're learning about Bitcoin; they're learning about MicroStrategy. What do you say to new people that are coming into the space? Should they be investing in BTC first, or should they be beginning MicroStrategy first? What are your thoughts on that?

"Just like—just for new people coming in that are just trying to get a grasp of, you know, Bitcoin, MicroStrategy, and you know, just an investment thesis. So, not financial advice, of course, but I believe that to invest in MicroStrategy and to truly understand MicroStrategy and the benefit that MicroStrategy can bring, you have to have a thorough understanding of Bitcoin. That's just me. But again, remember, I'm someone that started in Bitcoin and only got into altcoins because I was trying to buy more Bitcoin, right? It wasn't necessarily because I was really, really invested in the altcoins and thought they were going to be revolutionary, whether it be Ethereum, whether it be Solana, whether it be whatever. I've held a lot of altcoins in the past because it allowed me to get more Bitcoin, right? So, with that said, understanding Bitcoin and understanding the entirety of what the Bitcoin investment thesis is and also what Bitcoin is—so having a thorough understanding of the digital property aspect of it, right? The uncensorable, unconfiscatable money part of it, right? That it being a better version of money, it being gold 2.0, it being all of these other things, I think helps you have a very, very strong foundation of understanding why Bitcoin is a good investment and why you should hold Bitcoin for the long term. Now, if you have that understanding and you have that understanding firmly entrenched, you will then firmly understand what MicroStrategy is doing because it is not just them finding Bitcoin on their balance sheet, number go up, and then MicroStrategy go up. That's not what Saylor is doing. If you listen to what he is saying, he is saying that he firmly believes that Bitcoin is the apex asset of the 21st century, right? He firmly believes it is digital gold; he firmly believes this digital property. He uses the examples of, you know, comparing it to a city in cyberspace. He says, 'If you had New York property in the 16th or 1700s, would you ever sell it?' No! Knowing what you know now, would you have sold it? No, of course not, because it's a pristine asset; it's going to appreciate in value in perpetuity. His understanding of Bitcoin is that it's something that's going to appreciate in perpetuity. He's got it going to $13 million by the middle of the century. If you do that math, and let's say MicroStrategy eventually gets up to a million Bitcoin, you do a million times $13 million, and then you have the fact that they are an actual company. Because they're a company, they will trade at a multiple. Because they're a company, they will be able to leverage their Bitcoin in ways that you and I can't. There's just so many different ways that Bitcoin will benefit them, and there's so many different ways that they can leverage Bitcoin that the investment thesis for MicroStrategy not only is it bolstered by Bitcoin, not only is it centered around Bitcoin, but it further enhances Bitcoin's value, not just in terms of the amount of Bitcoin they're buying, but in terms of perception, in terms of other corporations like Silvergate, for instance, and like Meta Platforms, and so on and so forth. Now the Bitcoin miners, like Marathon, Riot, and others, are starting to put Bitcoin on the balance sheet and try to leverage it in a similar way because it's such a supreme asset. The corporations that do it early and do it well are positioned very, very well for the 21st century. That understanding does not come unless you have a thorough understanding of what Bitcoin is, in my mind, because it's almost like you're getting it after the fact if you just say MicroStrategy first and you're not really well-versed on Bitcoin. So if it were up to me, not financial advice, I would say that a person should have a Bitcoin allocation; they should learn about Bitcoin; they should educate themselves about Bitcoin thoroughly, and then once they understand that, get into MicroStrategy. Now, I understand fully that people are going to see number go up, right? And they're going to say, 'Well, MicroStrategy is going up; I'm just going to buy MicroStrategy; I'm going to hold it.' That works too, right? I'm not saying that anything is right or wrong; I'm just saying ideal path: Bitcoin, then MicroStrategy."

Gotcha! Thanks for that. And that's one thing I wanted to ask about with the other Bitcoin proxies. Do you see any one of those catching up at all, like Marathon or Silvergate? Do you think any one of those will catch up to MicroStrategy, or are they worth investing in, or should you just focus all on MicroStrategy? Obviously, not financial advice, like you said.

"Right. So when you say catch up to MicroStrategy, are you talking about in performance or in the number of Bitcoin held or anything specific?"

We could talk about the performance because I think most people want, you know, they want the gain. So in terms of performance, do you think some of the smaller companies could, you know, outperform MicroStrategy?

"So when it comes to Silvergate, I've spoken to Eric Silvergate on several occasions, and full disclosure, I have a sizable position in Silvergate. I believe that they're going to do very, very well. Right now, the challenge with that is you can't just compare these companies and say, 'Okay, are they going to outperform MicroStrategy?' Silvergate in the last three months has outperformed MicroStrategy in percentage terms, right? That does not mean that's going to continue, but that also does not mean that's not going to continue. What it means is, from your own personal vantage point, does it make sense to invest in Silvergate? Do you understand what Silvergate is doing? Do you understand Silvergate's core business? Do you understand how they've adapted the Bitcoin strategy? They're following MicroStrategy's playbook very, very well, but that's not to say that there won't be avenues of growth that they can leverage long-term because, you know, their core business is extraordinarily strong. That will make them seem more attractive than MicroStrategy. There are so many different things you can look at that would make it very, very difficult to say firmly, 'Nope, only MicroStrategy.' Now, that being said, I think Silvergate is a good investment—again, not financial advice. With the miners adopting the strategy, like you have with Marathon and with Riot, here's the thing with that: are they adopting the strategy because they firmly believe that having Bitcoin on the balance sheet and trying to leverage it in a way that MicroStrategy is leveraging it is a good plan, or are they doing it in a reactionary move because they see how MicroStrategy performs and they're trying to ride that train? That's, I think, the real question to ask. If these miners find a way—and whichever miner they are—if these miners find a way to take the MicroStrategy playbook and adapt it to Bitcoin mining, could that be a very, very powerful tool for their price appreciation? Yes. However, you also have to take into account that miners are extraordinarily volatile in and of themselves, and they tend to have massive run-ups followed by massive crashes. I invest; I have Bitcoin miners right now, more AI-adjacent Bitcoin miners. But the reason why I mention that is because one of the reasons why people invest in Bitcoin miners is because of that rapid price appreciation potential, right? You can see over the course of three weeks, you can get a 2X, sometimes 3X, sometimes 4X when there's a real mania in the cycle. So that's what makes them very, very attractive. However, if you now have the volatility of a miner, the cyclical nature of Bitcoin mining, on top of them doing convertible debt offerings and things of that nature, what's the investment thesis for the miner? Like with MicroStrategy, you understand that you're investing in it because they can do convertible debt; they can do all these other plays on Bitcoin. Even though they quote-unquote dilute shares, it's not dilutive; it's accretive in certain ways. You can wrap your head around that. Okay, now a Bitcoin miner, they mine Bitcoin, but they're also buying Bitcoin, and they're also buying Bitcoin at a premium to what they mine it to issue debt against it. Do you see what I'm saying? So there's too many different ways that that can potentially confuse the market and end up working against them. This isn't me saying miners are a bad investment; this is me saying if you have a miner, let's say they're one of the AI miners, so they have the HPC and AI vertical, then they have the mining vertical. Now they also have convertible debt offerings, and they're also buying Bitcoin, even though they mine Bitcoin. They're doing too many things at once, and I think the market might sniff that out as, 'Do they know what they're doing, or are they doing this because this is in vogue at the time?' Is this a long-term plan? Is Marathon or Riot going to be buying Bitcoin in 2025, 2026, 2027, 2028 into the next run, or is this going to be a long-term plan? Do you see what I'm saying? There's a lot that goes into that. So without telling people what to invest in, I'm telling people to learn what you're investing in. MicroStrategy and Silvergate are different categories for Bitcoin equities and proxies than Bitcoin miners."

Yeah, so I'm going to get back to MicroStrategy here in a second. Silvergate, correct me if I'm wrong, but they don't have options yet. I know you've been plugged into them. I've followed you on Twitter. When do you think options could come for Silvergate, and what's holding them back from having options right now?

"So the only thing holding them back from having options—well, the thing that was holding them back most recently was the fact that the insider shares weren't being counted, right? So it comes down to public float and whatnot. Now all those barriers have been cleared, so it is essentially up to the options exchanges whether they want to give Silvergate options or not. Silvergate is being very proactive about that, and they should get options soon. But every official roadblock that they had has been cleared, so the only thing right now that's left is for the options exchanges—whether it be, you know, Robinhood or whoever—to say they want to enable options on Silvergate. The thing with them is that they're a very, very small company still, so it could be a little bit of bias against, you know, smaller companies. Maybe that's the reason why they don't have options yet, but they don't have any official limitations for it. Once the options come into play, that, in my mind, is going to drive a lot more interest for Silvergate because most of the questions I get regarding Silvergate are the ones you just asked me: 'When are they going to have options?' So there are a lot of people that are very, very interested in options for Silvergate."

Got interesting! Okay, so something to watch out for definitely with Silvergate. One thing that we've seen, like in the comment section on our channel and also on Twitter, some people believe with MicroStrategy that Saylor could be like hitting the ATM too hard, and the premium could potentially come down and even go negative. Do you think a scenario like that could become possible where actually the NAV premium is negative? He's not able to hit the ATM anymore, and kind of like his infinite money glitch they call it now? Do you think that something like that is possible to happen, or is that not something that you think could happen at all?

"Well, Saylor himself doesn't like the infinite money glitch term, so I'll try to not use that one. How do I give a very, very simple answer here? I think that people are too caught up in the whole NAV conversation, so that's the first piece I'll touch on. NAV is a calculation; it's not a commandment. Okay? So the NAV multiple can expand and contract for a variety of reasons. It's not just a matter of the market saying they only have a 2X or 3X premium to the Bitcoin holdings. Also, people still—even though people invest in MicroStrategy, I think a lot of them are almost negating the fact that they have an operating business, and businesses trade on multiples. MicroStrategy's multiple right now is actually rather low. You have businesses right now that are trading at multiples for 20, 25, 30X of what their NAV is, and no one bats an eye, right? So I bring that up for the fact that don't assume that just because right now the NAV is hovering between 2 and 3X, occasionally touching on 4, and then Saylor hits the ATM and it drops down, that that's always going to be the case. When the bull market really kicks off, I don't anticipate the NAV staying between 2.5 to 4X. I expect it to expand even further. Last cycle, I think the top was 6.3, if I'm not mistaken, in terms of a multiple. Now, to the ATM question, I don't see a situation in the near term where Saylor is sitting in the ATM and the NAV just automatically retraces so violently. I don't see that happening. I think MicroStrategy is being very, very prescriptive with what they're doing with regards to the ATM purchases, and I think what Saylor is doing right now is front-running. The reason why he's hitting it so violently now, the reason why he's trying to accumulate so much Bitcoin right now, is because I think he's anticipating positive developments, of course, in price, legislation, potentially the U.S. having a strategic reserve—all of those positive tailwinds. I think he's trying to get in front of it so that when they actually do hit, you have that larger price accretion in the stock, which will likely allow them to buy even more Bitcoin, do a larger offering, do a larger ATM. So I don't really worry about it, and I don't think people should be worried about it right now because I think people have gotten so used to the number going up that they're getting somewhat disconnected from reality. The price adjusted right now was over $4,400 a share because if you think about it, we had a 10-for-1 stock split, right? So just in March, when we hit $2,000, everyone was happy. Okay, now that we're essentially at $4,500, now people are saying, 'Oh, Saylor hit the ATM too much; the numbers not going up; the price has been retracing.' It's like I think a lot of that is new players in the market, honestly. No offense to the new players in the market; I'm just saying, guys, relax! We're fine; we're fine!"

Yeah, talk a little bit about that. We get a lot of comments, and people are mad because, you know, we peaked, I think it was like $540 or $530, and now we went down to like $320. We get a lot of comments like, you know, MicroStrategy is performing so well—I mean, so bad—and it's like, where—like, what are you looking at? You know, what do you say to people that have these short-term kind of time horizons and aren't looking at the big picture? What do you say to those people? Because, I mean, I'm sure you see it on Twitter as well.

"Listen, I see it on Twitter. I get DMs. If I showed you my DMs, you'd be shocked. Okay? I get it all day, all day. Jeff gets it; Ben gets it; all of us get it. Okay? So the thing is, again, no offense to newer players in the market. We can tell by how people are reacting, and also we know who's been here for a while because there have been people we've been talking to for quite a while, right? Going on a year now about this. We know who's newer and probably bought right at $535, $545, and now they're mad that it's gone down. We can tell who's been here since, you know, when it dropped down to almost $1,000 before the stock split in the summer. What I want to tell people, whether they're longer-term or shorter-term, is: What is your goal? Do you want to have life-changing gains, or do you want to say that I have $1,000 to my name? I'm trying to turn that $1,000 into $3,000, which will then allow me to do something that can turn $3,000 into $5,000, and you know, so on and so forth. You have to have a goal in mind. If your goal in mind is money gains, so on and so forth, you got to ride that up and down. You do, okay? If you can't handle the volatility, look into another investment opportunity. Look into perhaps being a shorter-term trader. If you can have that, look into something that aligns with what you are trying to do because it's not just a matter of buying something and holding it, right? You have to understand what you're buying; you have to understand why you're holding it, and you have to make the decision about how long you want to hold it. If you're expecting it to go from, you know, $300 to $3,000 in a month, you're not only setting yourself up for failure, but you're setting yourself up for stress, and you're setting yourself up to make bad decisions because you're going to end up jumping in and out of positions. That's what I see in my inbox a lot. People are like, 'I sold because it went down,' but then the next week it went right back up, and then I bought back in, then it went down. I'm just like, you can't do that! You need to have a plan. You need to understand what you're doing, otherwise, I don't care if it's Bitcoin; I don't care if it's MicroStrategy; you should not be investing in it."

So, yeah, I definitely agree with you there. And there's a lot of people who are more high-risk, and they want to make a lot of money in a short amount of time. So what are your thoughts on, like, the options, you know, doing calls and then also some of the leverage trading products of MSTX and things like that? What are your thoughts there?

"Okay, so the leverage products—listen, I'm not—not financial advice. I'm not telling people what they should or shouldn't do; just want to get that out there again. Now, I get messages all the time; I see posts all the time about people saying, 'Oh, MSTX, MSTU, it's been outperforming; I've made so much money with it, da da da da.' Okay, that's all fine and good. Understand that you've been lucky, and you've been in a larger uptrend cycle, what you've been experiencing right now, okay? Do not confuse that with them being good products to hold long-term. I have bought those products; I have made a lot of money with those products, but I have also held them at the most for three to seven trading days at a time. Over the course of—so the longest period I had was about 21 days, and during that 21 days, I held it for between three to seven trading days. What I mean by that is at one point I held it for three trading days, and I sold. Then there was a good week, and I bought back in, went up some more, then I sold, you know what I mean? So on and so forth. Those are in-and-out products. Those are products you get in when you can confirm an uptrend, and then you get out. That is not something you say, 'Oh, if I hold MicroStrategy, you can do a 2X over the course of three months or six months, maybe then I should just buy MSTU, and then it can do a 6X in the same time period.' That's not how it's going to work because, one, those are targeted 2X markers; they're not guaranteed. So when it says targeted, what that means is on a daily basis, they are trying to target double MicroStrategy's performance. They don't guarantee it; that's the first thing. Second thing, you need to learn about volatility decay; you need to learn about slippage; you need to learn about all of these other things. All what that means is because of how they rebalance, because they're attempting to target performance without getting too technical, there are going to be times when they overshoot that. So they're going to overshoot it to the upside sometimes and then try to rebalance down. But what you really have to worry about is on the downside, right? You're going to get a lot more on the downside than you're aware of. Plus, a certain percentage—and I've done posts on this where I've shown, let's say that you have, you know, X amount of price action for MicroStrategy over 20 trading days, and this will be the equivalent for MSTX and MSTU. But look what happens when it is just a half a percent or 1% off on a given day, and the loss is how they accrue. Or, as people saw about three weeks—I want to say three weeks to a month ago when MicroStrategy took a dip, MicroStrategy was down like 6%, but MSTU and MSTX were down 14%, 15%, 16%, 17%, sometimes 18% at different points, right? There's too many things that go into how those rebalance to say they are a safe long-term holding or opportunity to get outsized returns. Those are in-and-out plays. Again, not telling people what to do, but I want to ask three—want you to answer three questions before you buy into these things: Do you know what volatility decay is? Do you know how they balance? They rebalance on a daily basis or weekly basis? Have you read the prospectus? Because I've DM'd people DM me about them, and I said, 'Well, have you read the prospectus?' and they say, 'Well, what's the prospectus?' and I say, 'Aha! You should not buy it then!' So that's my overall feeling about them."

I definitely agree with you on the leveraged traded products. People want to make that quick money, but they don't understand that MSTX is actually not a 2X to MicroStrategy always. You know, in the down, you can lose a lot on the downside. So, yeah, I definitely agree with you there. In terms of like the QQQ inclusion that we just had, what are your thoughts there? I mean, that's a huge announcement. Describe—make people understand, like, why is that so big for MicroStrategy? And also, to follow up on that, are we going to see the same thing with the S&P? Do you think we're going to see that next year? How long do you think the S&P takes for MicroStrategy to be included there?

"So, let's talk about S&P really quickly. So for S&P, they need four positive quarters, and right now, because of how the FASB economy has been going on, MicroStrategy hasn't had that. They've actually been taking an impairment loss on all their Bitcoin holdings. So once FASB takes effect—and I think that you can take effect—you have to take effect in Q1 of 2025. You then have now the opportunity that MicroStrategy is now going to be taking those impairment losses, and then they're going to be showing positive earnings, which will then allow them to be qualified for S&P 500 listing. Do I think it's going to happen? Yes. Do I think it's going to happen first quarter next year? No, because it's not possible, plain and simple. Do I think it can happen by the end of next year or that we can get an inkling that, okay, MicroStrategy is going to be listed in the S&P 500 based on feedback and based on noise and rumblings in the market? Yes, I think they're eventually going to get in. The reason why I think that is because, in my mind, QQQ inclusion made that more likely. You have to think about things in terms of what goes into these indices and what goes into listing of these indices. The QQQ is very formulaic; you have these rules and these guidelines you must meet. If you meet them, you get in, right? It's very, very straightforward. The S&P 500, however, they have a committee; they have a lot more nuance that goes into considerations. I'm by no means the expert on this. I think Jeff from the Quant Bros is probably the expert on what's going to go into S&P 500 inclusion, followed closely by Ben Workman. But the reason why I say that is because with the S&P 500 listing, there are so many things like politics that can even come into play. And I don't mean politics like Democrat and Republican; I mean politics in terms of the market. Does the market really want to legitimize MicroStrategy? Are they—or is there going to be a lot of pushback for putting in MicroStrategy? Are the committee members going to be against it for whatever reason? Are there going to be some headwinds with regards to Bitcoin's—oh, sorry, headwinds with regards to Bitcoin's price action? Right? We take a dip now; people are saying, 'Oh, MicroStrategy was barely profitable; we shouldn't include them.' There's just so many different things that can go into it with the S&P 500 listing. However, the QQQ inclusion, I think, bolsters the case because it has shown that, one, Saylor's plan works; two, any rumblings about MicroStrategy now not being a financial—being a financial company and not being a technology company, I think, don't make sense because Bitcoin is technology, and they're using a technological asset to bolster their balance sheet. So they're still very much a technology-driven company. Also, in terms of overall perception and market sentiment, seeing MicroStrategy in the QQQ, seeing MicroStrategy in the QQQ getting those—I think it's like $2 billion of passive flows that will go into MicroStrategy now as being a member of QQQ—all of that is only going to bolster the stock price, and all of that is only going to add more cachet to the company, which will make it very difficult to be excluded from the S&P 500 for something very, very arbitrary or capricious. So I think that the QQQ, in my mind, was a bigger deal than the S&P, and I think that the QQQ was the precursor to the S&P listing. Now people and the market just have to be patient. We need to go through—we just see how the FASB rules affect MicroStrategy. We have to understand the tax applications, so on and so forth. And then once the S&P listing happens, I think all the detractors at that point have to go and throw away the key because I think that fully legitimizes what Saylor's done."

Yeah, that would definitely be like endgame for MicroStrategy. S&P—that would be game, set, match. Like, what are you going to say at that point? What are you going to be like? Is it a Ponzi scheme? What angle are you going to use here to really detract it? And, you know, in the True North group, we hear this stuff on a daily basis. We get messages on a daily basis; we see the trolls and the comments on a daily basis. It's the same talking points. No one has come up with anything new or original in terms of the conversation. So I think at this point right now, it's a patience game: allocate, hold, and just wait for the listing to happen because when the S&P 500 listing happens, I think that's going to be truly monumental.

Yeah, definitely! One thing I want to ask you about—I remember seeing from Saylor that something about a Bitcoin bank. Do you have any thoughts on that? Do you think MicroStrategy goes down that route at all? What do you think about that?

"So he's made comments about being a Bitcoin bank. How do I—I don't really have too much of an opinion on that. Here's why: at this current point in time, I can't really say how a Bitcoin bank will operate through MicroStrategy, right? I think he is saying that in terms of like a five-year goal or by next cycle goal; that's nothing near term. Right now, they have the convertible debt market, and that's been making the money hand over fist. They have no incentive to move away from that model to try to complicate things with regards to being a Bitcoin bank. Also, there are several kinds of banks. There's a non-investing bank; there's an investing bank. What does that really mean? I think when he says that, he's talking more long-term and potential, right? I don't think he's really saying anything to where people need to say, 'Oh, so MicroStrategy is going to be a Bitcoin bank in X amount of years?' That's just really all I think about it. Like, oh, that's great; they're great talking points, but me personally, I can't speak for anyone else. I don't pay that much mind."

Gotcha! Cool. So I want to touch a little bit on something you said earlier. You said MicroStrategy is just getting started. So in terms of market cap, I think we're around what, $90 billion right now?

"Yep."

Where do you see MicroStrategy going, like a year from now, five years from now, ten years from now? Like, how high? Like, is this the top five company in the world? Where do you see this going?

"Well, I think it was British HODL that originally coined the term 'the Magnificent 8,' and then someone else—I forget who—said the 'Elite 8.' Do I think that MicroStrategy could be a trillion-dollar company? Yeah, I do. I think by this cycle, it is not impossible for us to see them be between a quarter of a trillion to a half trillion dollars at peak. Right? Now, is it going to stay there? No, because obviously everything ebbs and flows. But do I think it's possible for them to hit a half trillion market cap by the end of this cycle? Yeah, I do. Do I think it's possible for them to be a trillion-dollar company by the time the next cycle rolls around, so like 2028? Yes, I do. Do I think that they could be a multi-trillion-dollar company? Yes, I do. And I think that because people grossly underestimate two things: one, the price appreciation of Bitcoin, and two, the convertible debt market. I think they're going to find a lot of ways to leverage that that people can't anticipate. Also, creditworthiness—and this is something that Jeff Park from Bitwise really got me thinking about—the more success that MicroStrategy has with their convertible debt offerings, the more creditworthy they become, and the more likely they'll be able to find other streams of revenue to this plan. So I think that we are just getting started. This by no means is over. I know that it's a heady number. I do think that MicroStrategy can get to a million Bitcoin at some point in the future, by 2032 perhaps. Now, again, this is assuming that either Saylor is still involved or that the individuals that remain at MicroStrategy still have the laser focus on maintaining the plan. Right? Now, that said, if everything remains in play and everything keeps going along those lines, do I think that it's possible that they can get a million Bitcoin? Absolutely! Now, when Bitcoin's $13 million and they have a million, like, Lord knows what's going to happen then. But near term, we have just gotten started. I think this cycle has a lot more juice. I think we can see prices—now, don't hold me to this—but I think we're probably going to crack $1,000; we can maybe even crack $2,000 if things get really, really crazy for a peak. And of course, when we hit $2,000, people will be saying we're going to hit $5,000. So, you know, there's always that. But if we keep our wits about us and if we keep our investment thesis aligned—and when I say we, I'm talking about the investors—if we really stay focused and don't allow ourselves to get caught up in all the ups and downs, by the end of this cycle, a lot of us should have pretty significant holdings in terms of our return on investment. So whether you have 10 shares or whether you have 10,000, you're going to be in a better position six to nine months from now than you are now."

Totally agree! So $2,000 MicroStrategy—where does that put Bitcoin? Do you see Bitcoin peaking next year? Do you think we're going to have these four-year cycles that we've been having? Does the strategic reserve that's potentially coming, does that change everything? What are your thoughts on Bitcoin's price with all that?

"With regards to the $2,000 MicroStrategy, where's that put Bitcoin? I can't say. Here's why: I think the multiple is going to expand as the cycle goes on, right? So even though the price is $2,000, I don't think that's just going to be determined by its holdings relative to Bitcoin. I think there's going to be a lot of market sentiment that comes into play, especially after QQQ inclusion, and then as we start to see how FASB plays in and how the books look after FASB. Now, that being said, where I think Bitcoin can go—I put out a chart, and I think I'll update it with some updated timeline because I did it in the beginning of November. I think I'll do it for the end of December. Now, if we just repeat what we did between 2021 and 2021, last cycle for 2024 and 2025, this cycle, we're looking at a price anywhere between $250,000 to $400,000 for Bitcoin at a peak. Okay? So that's what we're looking at. Now, I know people say diminishing returns, and when the bigger a number, the harder it is to push it up. I get all that. But I think that, to some of the points you just mentioned, we have a lot of tailwinds now. If we have a strategic reserve and that actually kicks off—and when I say kick off, I don't mean like Trump says, 'Okay, yeah, we're going to do a strategic reserve,' and the first 200,000 Bitcoin are just the 200,000 Bitcoin they already have from the U.S. government. Right? If the U.S. government's buying Bitcoin, okay, that sends a signal to everyone else, every other sovereign nation. And when I say a sovereign nation, I mean a nation that can print their own currency that is not completely dependent on being pegged to the U.S. dollar. Okay? So that's the first thing that sends a signal to them that, okay, if the United States is doing this, this Bitcoin thing has a lot more room to run; we need to get ourselves involved in this market at scale. Right? And then I think that if America does it, it's only a matter of time before the next nation-state does it. If that kicks off, if that really does happen, if the United States next year says, 'We are buying Bitcoin in size; we're going to buy X amount of Bitcoin over this period of time in addition to the holdings we already have from, you know, Silk Road and all these other places,' that $400,000 price point becomes a lot more achievable a lot more quickly than people realize because the kind of buying pressure that puts on the exchanges is going to be rather profound. There's another thing with regards to your question about do I think we're going to have the same kind of cycles, the same four-year cycles and whatnot. With that, I just say, what is the more likely outcome? That BlackRock, Fidelity, all of these large institutional players got into Bitcoin with the ETFs? Now we might have nations, whether it be the United States or others, buying Bitcoin and putting it into a strategic reserve. Is it still likely that we see 80% drawdowns in that case? I don't think so because where is—how are we going to offset the buying pressure with the selling pressure? We could say that, you know, long-term holders see the price go to $200,000, and they decide to start cashing out, right? And they're collecting their gains, and the price is going down, and we see a drawdown from that maybe, or maybe larger economic forces at play force a drawdown, maybe. But we have a perpetually deflationary asset with a perpetually deflationary issuance with a perpetually inflating buyer base. At some point, what Bitcoin has been talking about—that suddenly, that gradually, then suddenly—is going to hit where we have a supply crunch. That's where I think we're heading. We're finally going to hit the supply crunch. Now, does that happen this year or next year? I can't say. But my thesis is that I think the 80% drawdowns or those cycles are done. I think 30%, 40%? Yes, that's still possible. And if you really think about it, a 30% drawdown from $100,000 to $70,000, right? So a 30% drawdown from $200,000 is what, $160,000 or $140,000, something like that? So everything's relative. If you are a person that's been holding Bitcoin since $70K, it goes up to $200K, then it comes down to $160K or $140K, is that cause for panic? It might be for some, but for most, for like BlackRock, for Fidelity, I don't think they're going to be telling their clients it's time to sell. Right? So we have so many larger institutional players in the market right now. Then we also have options on top of BitNow and other ETFs probably soon. There are too many positives now for a change for Bitcoin for me to see that 80% drawdown coming."

Yeah, it's hard to say sometimes this time is different, but there's a lot of positives this time around. But I guess time will tell. But yeah, we're getting close to time here, Adrian. Do you have any closing thoughts that you just want to leave the audience with? Anything you want to just touch on?

"The only thing I would say is, you know, I understand that there are many investors, whether they be in Bitcoin or whether they be in MicroStrategy or the Bitcoin miners or whatever, that are very, very excited and getting, you know, somewhat caught up in mania. Right? And when I say in mania, I mean that positively or negatively. Right? When the price goes up, they're ecstatic; when the price goes down, they're in the dirt. Right? I think that keeping a vision for your long-term goals is what's going to save you. Right? So to anyone watching this, understand that whether you are rich or whether you are poor, you still have skin in the game. Don't allow yourself to be caught up in the moment. Keep focused on a long-term goal, and I think you would do very, very well. As part of the True North crew, I know what we are trying to do is we're trying to be good stewards of information, and we're trying to be good stewards of just bringing a sense of calm to the community. Right? So we are hyper-bullish, obviously, but we are also individuals that have been in the trade for a while. We understand the investment thesis, and we have all of our own very unique things we bring to play. So I think that we're in for a very, very good ride here in the next 9 to 12 months. All we have to do is hold on and have a goal in mind that once you hit that goal, there's no shame in walking away from the table and see what happens next time. There's no shame in walking away if you make life-changing money. There's no shame in saying that, you know what, I've got too much skin in the game here; maybe this isn't for me. And there's also no shame in saying, 'I'm bullish; I'm going to hold this till it goes to zero.' You have to find out what works for you, and once you do, stick to it. Don't let anyone talk you out of it. Be willing to learn, but don't be willing to be bullied out of your thought process by someone else because they claim that they're an expert or not. I'm not an expert; none of us are experts. We're just a bunch of dudes that know some stuff, and we're sharing what we know with the community."

So that's how you do things!

Well said! Where can people find you? The True North group—where can they find them? If you just want to go ahead and say that real quick.

"Sure! So you can find me at my handle, so @AdrianRoRMorris on Twitter. That's pretty much the only social media I have. I'm not a big social media guy, actually. And with the True North crew, we do live streams on Monday and Wednesday nights at 7 PM PST, so that's going to be about 10 PM EST. We can be found at MicroStrategy—at MSTRTrueNorth on Twitter as well. So MSTRTrueNorth on Twitter—that's the main page, and all of us are going to be on there, and you should be able to follow all of us via our handles there as well. And yeah, we love having those live streams; we love the live commentary. I tried giving a walkthrough to the community the other night, so the comments were so ridiculous we just couldn't make it through because we kept laughing. So we have a very, very good community there; we welcome all to join."

Gotcha! Cool. Well, thank you, Adrian. Hopefully, we can have you on again in the future, man. Great interview, and yeah, man, appreciate all the time!

"Oh, thank you for having me! It was my pleasure."