When the Music Stops: Why Bitcoin Is Next

[0:00] Yo, welcome back to another episode of
[0:04] the Jack Mallers Show. I am your host
[0:08] Jack and you are listening to yet
[0:10] another episode of mailbag Monday,
[0:14] ladies and gentlemen. All signal, no
[0:16] noise,
[0:18] no ads.
[0:19] I go live every single Monday at
[0:22] Eastern, 5:00 p.m. Central, 3:00 p.m.
[0:24] Pacific, uh just to speak my mind, which
[0:28] generally consists of Bitcoin,
[0:29] macroeconomics, and culture.
[0:33] Without further ado, let's get this show
[0:35] on the road.
[0:37] Ladies and gentlemen, I'm talking to you
[0:39] all at a Bitcoin price of 70,810.
[0:43] That puts Bitcoin's market cap at 1.42
[0:47] trillion US dollars. Our all-time high
[0:51] remains at 126,160.
[0:55] We are 43.9%
[0:58] down from our all-time high that was
[1:01] made on October 6th, 2025, 168
[1:05] days ago.
[1:07] The last Bitcoin block mined
[1:11] before I hit stream was Bitcoin block
[1:14] height 941,924.
[1:20] You guys are upset with my mic.
[1:23] Hold on, not a professional podcaster.
[1:26] How does it sound now? Am I louder?
[1:31] Oh, wrong mic input. Sure, sure, sure.
[1:36] Sure, sure, sure.
[1:39] Hold on, guys. Hang with me.
[1:43] Here we go.
[1:45] Now I should be coming through loud and
[1:48] clear.
[1:50] Boom! Boo!
[1:51] I'm back. Your boy is back as the world
[1:55] is falling apart. We live in the best
[1:58] timeline, the best timeline. Uh sorry
[2:01] about that, not a professional
[2:03] podcaster, guys. For those that don't
[2:04] know, I'm a professional CEO, not a
[2:06] professional podcaster. Uh this show is
[2:09] not for the faint of heart, it's for the
[2:10] brave.
[2:13] It's for the daring. It's for the
[2:14] curious. This is the weirdest corner of
[2:16] the internet, but you might learn a
[2:18] thing or two.
[2:19] The title of today's show is when the
[2:21] music stops, why Bitcoin is next. This
[2:24] is one of the craziest times I've ever
[2:26] lived through. I'm 31, that may be old
[2:29] to you, that may be young to you, I
[2:30] don't know, but in my 31 years, this is
[2:32] easily one of the craziest times I can
[2:34] remember. We have a jam-packed episode
[2:37] for you all today, so without further
[2:39] ado, let's get into it.
[2:42] Uh breaking news.
[2:44] Okay, so you know the funny thing about
[2:45] making this show is uh
[2:48] >> [laughter]
[2:48] >> is
[2:50] every single day where I feel like I've
[2:52] finished the slides, you know, so I'll
[2:53] start this I'll start making the
[2:54] slideshow, I don't know, Friday,
[2:56] Saturday, when I have some time, but
[2:59] this was one of those weeks where every
[3:00] single hour I refreshed the internet, I
[3:02] was like, "Shit, this show's outdated. I
[3:05] got to update my slides. I got to update
[3:06] my slides. I got to update my slides."
[3:08] And that was up until about an hour ago.
[3:11] Okay, as of this morning, when I woke up
[3:13] this morning,
[3:14] we had a Truth Social post from the
[3:16] president of the United States, Donald
[3:18] J. Trump. He wrote, "I am pleased to
[3:21] report that the United States of America
[3:23] and the country of Iran have had over
[3:26] the last 2 days very good and productive
[3:28] conversations regarding a complete and
[3:30] total resolution of our hostilities in
[3:32] the Middle East. Based on the tenure and
[3:34] the tone of these in-depth, detailed,
[3:36] and constructive conversations, which
[3:38] will continue throughout the week, I
[3:39] have instructed the Department of War to
[3:41] postpone any and all military strikes
[3:43] against the Iranian power plants and
[3:47] energy infrastructure for a 5-day period
[3:49] subject to the success of the ongoing
[3:51] meetings and discussions. Thank you for
[3:53] your attention to this matter. Now,
[3:57] Donald Trump is very savvy. He knows
[4:00] when markets open, he knows when markets
[4:01] close. He's very aware of the price of
[4:04] the stock market, the S&P 500, oil
[4:06] markets, the bond markets. I mean, if
[4:08] you look at his administration, you've
[4:11] got Donald Trump who calls himself a
[4:14] businessman. Now,
[4:16] the validity validity validity validity
[4:19] validity of that is to be debated. Um
[4:22] but Scott Bessent is no joke, okay?
[4:24] Scott Bessent, uh very fluent in
[4:26] financial markets, probably one of the
[4:28] greater hedge fund managers and traders
[4:30] of our time, is the Treasury Secretary,
[4:33] and then you've got Howard Lutnick,
[4:35] who's the what is it? The business,
[4:37] commerce, or something? Whatever.
[4:39] These guys understand financial markets.
[4:41] So Trump posts this
[4:44] very intently right before markets open.
[4:47] Markets open, oil goes down, stock
[4:50] market goes up. I think Bitcoin was up
[4:52] 5% on this Truth Social post. When I
[4:55] tell you guys within the hour within the
[5:00] hour, Iran responds.
[5:03] By the way, the fact that I have to
[5:07] use Twitter to check the validity of
[5:11] what my president is saying
[5:13] is
[5:14] nuts.
[5:15] This is absolutely I mean, I feel like
[5:19] I'm in a video game. I'll I get wind of
[5:21] something Trump is saying and not know
[5:23] if it's serious enough or not, so I have
[5:25] to go to Twitter
[5:27] and translate some Iranian post. But
[5:30] sure enough,
[5:32] Iran says, "The Iranian people demand
[5:35] complete and remorseful punishment of
[5:37] the aggressors. All Iranian officials
[5:40] stand firmly behind their supreme leader
[5:42] and people until this goal is achieved.
[5:44] No negotiations have been held with the
[5:46] United States and fake news is used to
[5:49] manipulate the financial and oil markets
[5:51] and escape the quagmire in which the US
[5:54] and Israel are trapped."
[5:57] Holy moly. You cannot make this up.
[6:02] Trump tries to calm markets, which we'll
[6:04] get into in a second.
[6:06] Tries to calm markets, he doesn't want
[6:07] the bond market to get out of hand, he
[6:09] doesn't want the stock market to track
[6:10] crash, he doesn't want the oil market to
[6:12] get out of hand.
[6:14] And Iran comes on twitter.com and calls
[6:17] his bluff.
[6:19] This is spoken by a man and a country
[6:22] that doesn't really seem to be in the
[6:24] mood to negotiate.
[6:26] They further added on Twitter, "Our
[6:29] people demand the complete and
[6:31] humiliating punishment of the
[6:33] aggressors.
[6:34] All officials stand firmly behind their
[6:37] leader."
[6:39] Israel and America are in a quagmire.
[6:41] This guy does not sound like he wants to
[6:43] negotiate, doesn't sound like he's up
[6:46] for a deal, doesn't sound like he feels
[6:49] like he's dispositioned. He doesn't
[6:51] sound like he feels like he's losing a
[6:54] war.
[6:55] Am I right or am I right?
[6:57] And later on in the day, this was a few
[7:00] hours ago, we learned that Iran says the
[7:02] war will continue until all sanctions
[7:05] are lifted and war damages are paid for
[7:09] in full by the United States of America.
[7:14] So unless they get reparations from the
[7:17] US and full sanction relief, they're
[7:20] going to keep the Strait of Hormuz
[7:21] closed. And
[7:24] let's just be clear about what's
[7:25] happening here.
[7:28] This meme from Luke says it all. Who's
[7:30] your daddy, Gary? Who's your daddy?
[7:35] And it's the financial markets. If I go
[7:38] back, I say, "What have I said over the
[7:40] last few weeks, guys? Iran is not going
[7:42] to use nuclear to fight back against the
[7:44] United States." How are they going to
[7:45] fight back? They're going to use
[7:46] markets.
[7:47] When people say, "Oh, this reminds me of
[7:50] the '70s. Oh, this reminds me of the
[7:52] '90s." No, it doesn't.
[7:54] Because debt-to-GDP wasn't 125%.
[7:58] Real interest expense wasn't 130% of
[8:01] receipts.
[8:03] You guys have to you you have to
[8:05] understand what's different this time.
[8:07] You know, cuz it's very hard to say, you
[8:09] know, no one loves the guy that says
[8:11] this time is different. But this time is
[8:13] different mathematically. Why is this
[8:15] time different? Well, because we have
[8:17] almost 40 trillion dollars of debt.
[8:22] We're coming off the back half of COVID
[8:24] with the highest recorded inflation in
[8:27] US history.
[8:30] And so this fiat regime
[8:34] has reached its dead end, it's
[8:35] inevitable dead end.
[8:38] You're either going to have to face some
[8:39] form of hyperinflation and yield curve
[8:42] control or the whole system collapses.
[8:45] But the United States can't perpetually
[8:47] borrow money forever anymore.
[8:50] The bond markets are demanding higher
[8:52] yield.
[8:55] People are not willing to finance wars
[8:57] like this.
[8:58] And
[9:00] Iran and everyone around the world knows
[9:02] this.
[9:04] This is a known weakness.
[9:06] And so the reality of the situation is
[9:08] who's your daddy?
[9:11] Why did Trump tweet this? Iran's exactly
[9:14] right. Trump was Trump is trying to calm
[9:17] markets and buy himself some time.
[9:20] Isre- Israel comes out and says, "I have
[9:22] no idea what Trump's talking about."
[9:24] Iran comes out and says, "I have no This
[9:26] guy's full of shit."
[9:28] This is the craziest timeline I've ever
[9:31] lived through.
[9:32] I have no idea if my country's lying to
[9:34] me or not. I have no idea why we're in
[9:37] this war. I have no I have no idea about
[9:39] anything. It used to be we're taking out
[9:42] the regime, then it turned to nuclear. I
[9:45] I I I still I don't I have no idea
[9:47] what's going on, but I do know one
[9:48] thing. And
[9:50] that's the other thing, too, we're not
[9:52] in the situation room.
[9:54] You know, as a CEO, sometimes, like for
[9:57] my companies, I'll I'll try and make a
[9:59] comparison to my businesses. Sometimes
[10:02] there's an incident, you're getting a
[10:03] DDoS attack or something, and you're
[10:05] privy to information that the rest of
[10:07] the world isn't. And so, you, you know,
[10:09] take a certain feature of your app down
[10:11] or something, and everyone gets super
[10:13] upset, but they don't understand what's
[10:16] actually going on internally. And, you
[10:18] know, obviously, at my businesses at
[10:20] least, we strive for transparency and
[10:23] the relationship that we have with the
[10:24] community customers. And so, we end up
[10:26] allowing everyone to know as much as we
[10:28] possibly can. But, my point is there are
[10:31] sometimes there's, you know, dispersed
[10:33] information where executives or internal
[10:36] teams know more than the public,
[10:37] obviously. And so, I will say I don't
[10:40] know I'm not in the situation room. I've
[10:42] no idea what Trump and his
[10:45] administration knows that we don't, and
[10:47] why this feels like such a pressing
[10:49] threat. Is it really all about ego? Is
[10:52] it really all about I have no idea. I
[10:56] have no idea, but I'll tell you this,
[10:58] this time is different because we're so
[11:01] indebted, the bond market is so fragile,
[11:04] and the US is so reliant on folks like
[11:08] China. The United States cannot engage
[11:11] in a large-scale conflict without China.
[11:13] It The United States has relied on fiat
[11:17] and the ability to print money out of
[11:19] thin air for decades and decades and
[11:21] decades and decades. And despite warning
[11:24] after warning after warning after
[11:25] warning, and every rational
[11:28] any anyone with a brain saying this
[11:31] isn't going to work, this is dangerous,
[11:33] this is destructive, you're hollowing
[11:34] out the middle class, you're hollowing
[11:36] out your industrial base.
[11:37] You are pushing your smartest minds
[11:40] to be high-frequency arbitrage traders
[11:44] instead of developing productive things
[11:47] for the market, real physical things for
[11:49] the market.
[11:50] In order to make it in the United
[11:52] States, you have to go get a university
[11:54] degree and become either a hedge fund
[11:57] manager, high-frequency trader, or
[11:58] Silicon Valley venture capitalist.
[12:02] That's the system we've designed and
[12:04] created. There's no market to make
[12:06] things with your hands. There's no
[12:07] market to make things of physical value.
[12:09] We print money, we ship it overseas, we
[12:11] import all the things that we actually
[12:13] consume.
[12:14] And you build you build a world where
[12:17] how productive are you actually? How
[12:19] productive are your people?
[12:22] How do you engage in a large-scale
[12:25] conflict? How do you protect yourself?
[12:27] What happens if Iran says, "We're going
[12:29] to close the Strait of Hormuz?" If
[12:31] you're the strongest military in the
[12:32] world, why don't you open it?
[12:38] So, the United States is falling victim
[12:40] to
[12:41] policy decisions made over the decades
[12:44] prior.
[12:46] You don't do proof of work, you print
[12:48] money out of thin air, this is what
[12:50] happens. So, let's dig into some of the
[12:52] details of the conflict. So,
[12:55] the Strait of Hormuz, um
[12:57] this is all that matters, okay?
[13:00] To make a long story short, this is a
[13:03] very sensitive choke point for the oil
[13:07] market, obviously. We're all learning
[13:08] that in real time. Now, what's the
[13:11] scoreboard of this war? How do we know
[13:12] who's winning or losing? It's the In my
[13:14] opinion, as Luke Gromen has mentioned
[13:16] many times, it's this us had the
[13:18] strongest military in the world and
[13:20] could enforce things like the
[13:21] petrodollar and our monetary system and
[13:25] our desires for the world through
[13:27] physical force,
[13:29] guys, we'd be talking about something
[13:30] else on the podcast. That I mean, that's
[13:32] the unfortunate reality here is it
[13:33] doesn't take anything other than just
[13:36] basic common sense
[13:38] to understand what's going on. We can't
[13:41] force them to do what we want them to
[13:43] do. This visual shows that.
[13:47] Clearly, very clearly, very, very
[13:50] clearly.
[13:53] This to me is the scoreboard.
[13:55] And this to me shows that the United
[13:57] States is losing.
[13:59] And I I've said this on the show for the
[14:01] last like three or four weeks. I said,
[14:04] "Man,
[14:05] this conflict doesn't make sense to me.
[14:07] I couldn't believe the US would be this
[14:09] stupid. I don't see how this ends well.
[14:13] I see how it ends, but Trump is used to
[14:16] taco. He's used his negotiating tactics.
[14:19] He thinks that this is like negotiating
[14:20] a new Trump Tower in Las Vegas. No, this
[14:24] is war. This is about oil and energy
[14:27] markets. There is no tacoing this.
[14:30] It takes two to taco.
[14:33] Iran's not going to say, "Ah, you got
[14:35] us. Jokes on us. You just obliterated
[14:37] our regime, killed our family members,
[14:40] bombed innocent civilians." The US, we
[14:43] learned, was part of bombing a school.
[14:46] Can you imagine if Iran wiped out and
[14:49] obliterated an elementary school in
[14:51] America?
[14:53] So, no, the joke's not on them.
[14:57] I like I So, I said I just don't know
[15:00] how this ends cleanly. I don't know how
[15:02] this ends well. I don't understand the
[15:04] strategy. None of this makes any sense
[15:07] to me. I can't believe the US could be
[15:09] this galactically stupid.
[15:12] And lo and behold, it takes two to taco.
[15:15] Trump comes out this morning, clearly
[15:18] trying to get a foot out, clearly trying
[15:22] to signal that he's willing to
[15:23] negotiate, and Iran tells him to go [ __ ]
[15:25] himself and that he's a liar.
[15:28] Scoreboard. Scoreboard is that the US
[15:31] military is not able to enforce itself
[15:33] on the Strait of Hormuz. We're clearly
[15:35] behind in drone technology. And so many
[15:37] people in my comments are like, "Dude,
[15:39] you're not American. Dude, you don't
[15:41] believe in Trump. Dude, you got to be
[15:42] patient." Okay, fine. Sure. Okay. It's
[15:46] been four weeks now.
[15:49] It's been four weeks now.
[15:52] Nothing's changed. Look at this chart,
[15:54] scoreboard. Nothing's changed.
[15:57] Trump comes out, makes a claim, everyone
[16:00] in the world calls him a big fat liar
[16:01] that's manipulating markets.
[16:04] What do you guys want? You want to wait
[16:05] for the fifth week, the sixth week, the
[16:07] seventh week?
[16:08] I call a spade a spade here. I told you
[16:10] guys a million times.
[16:11] You want to feel good? Don't listen to
[16:13] the show if you want to feel good. This
[16:15] is where you get the truth. You want to
[16:17] feel good? Go read, I don't know, CNN
[16:20] or whatever. Go go find your own
[16:22] political Go find your political biases
[16:23] somewhere else. I'm telling you guys the
[16:25] truth.
[16:26] So, anyways, as we take a deeper look
[16:28] into the oil market itself, it's
[16:30] diverged. So, this is Brent crude
[16:33] diverging from all the other benchmarks.
[16:35] And
[16:36] this is just very clear evidence that
[16:39] the market itself is breaking. And all
[16:41] that matters is physical delivery.
[16:44] And what's really fascinating is the
[16:46] implications that this has on the
[16:48] petrodollar system, which we'll get into
[16:49] in a second. The petrodollar system is
[16:51] that people sell oil for dollars, they
[16:53] take the dollars, and they buy US bonds
[16:55] with them. And we've talked about this
[16:57] on the show. The whole fiat system is a
[16:59] giant Ponzi scheme because the US
[17:02] imports real stuff like oil, they print
[17:04] dollars out of thin air to finance it,
[17:06] and then it's effectively implied that
[17:09] people get those dollars and buy bonds,
[17:11] which is lending the money right back to
[17:13] the United States. So, United States
[17:15] prints dollars, ships them out, that get
[17:16] lent back to it in the form of Treasury
[17:19] bonds. And in return, they get a bunch
[17:21] of real stuff. And that system is
[17:23] breaking. It's obviously a giant Ponzi
[17:25] scheme. Now, the most fragile part of
[17:26] the Ponzi scheme is everyone else around
[17:28] the world is the one lending to the
[17:30] United States of America. In order for
[17:31] this system to continue to perpetuate,
[17:33] the United States needs infinite more
[17:35] lenders to it. Reminder, the US runs a
[17:38] $2 trillion annual deficit. That means
[17:40] they're not a productive country. On
[17:42] net, the US is not productive. They
[17:44] consume more than they produce. And so,
[17:47] in order to sustain themselves, they
[17:48] need people to continually lend to it.
[17:50] Now, the more debt you pile up and the
[17:52] worse your fiscal position is, the less
[17:54] likely people are willing to lend. If I
[17:56] have a buddy that makes $10 billion a
[17:58] year, I have no problem lending him $5.
[18:01] Here, beer's on me. I know you're good
[18:02] for it. I know you'll pay me back. If I
[18:04] have a money that loses a buddy that
[18:06] loses $2 trillion a year and that's
[18:08] already $40 trillion in debt, why the
[18:10] [ __ ] would I lend to him? He's not good
[18:12] for it. He's not good for it. And so,
[18:15] we're starting to see the petrodollar
[18:16] system come apart. And by the way,
[18:19] the reason that the Strait of Hormuz and
[18:22] oil and energy markets are very
[18:23] different. Like, when I say uncle, not
[18:26] taco, Trump cannot taco this. He can't
[18:29] be like, "Aha, got you. I'm such a good
[18:31] negotiator. Have you ever been to one of
[18:32] my hotels?" This isn't that. Okay? I I
[18:36] don't know how el And and I can't tell
[18:39] if he's just that galactically stupid or
[18:41] if there's something deeper going on
[18:43] that again, I'm not privy to cuz I'm not
[18:45] in the situation room.
[18:47] But, when I tell you guys that oil and
[18:50] energy markets and the geopolitical game
[18:54] of chess that's going on,
[18:56] yeah, this is not a hotel chain. This is
[18:59] not fake tariff negotiations. Remember
[19:02] when Elon said he was going to dodge our
[19:04] country and run it like a startup and
[19:06] fix our fiscal problem? It was like,
[19:08] "Oh, yeah, we can fix decades and
[19:10] decades and decades of printing money
[19:12] out of thin air and faking productivity
[19:15] just by appointing this egotistical
[19:18] [ __ ] entrepreneur dude." Like,
[19:20] remember all of that? Yeah, this isn't
[19:22] that. This isn't a joke. This isn't
[19:25] abstract. This isn't PR. This isn't
[19:27] politics. This is real [ __ ] life.
[19:30] Sorry, people are catching strays on the
[19:32] episode. Elon just caught a stray.
[19:34] Elon's a great entrepreneur, but that
[19:35] was absolutely insane. It was insane
[19:39] to have to have the ego to think that
[19:42] you can reverse decades of printing
[19:46] money out of thin air and faking
[19:48] productivity and faking proof of work
[19:50] just by running a tighter ship.
[19:55] So anyways, the point of this slide is
[19:56] this isn't a [ __ ] joke. And And I've
[19:58] been saying this for weeks now. I don't
[20:01] know what the United States thinks this
[20:02] is. This is not a [ __ ] joke.
[20:06] China, it's very clear the leverage
[20:09] China has on us. Anytime we do anything
[20:11] they don't like, they just take the rare
[20:13] earths away from us. They take the
[20:14] actual commodities away. We don't have
[20:17] the ability to produce rare earths. We
[20:18] don't have the ability to produce
[20:19] anything on our own. We've entirely
[20:21] hollowed out our middle class, the
[20:25] central of America, the the blue collar,
[20:28] the ability to produce anything.
[20:30] So, when you think about countries like
[20:34] China, Russia, Iran,
[20:36] I mean,
[20:37] this is not a joke. This is going to be
[20:39] a large-scale conflict that's going to
[20:41] last a very long time. Every time I
[20:43] hear, "Oh, this conflict's going to end
[20:45] soon." No, it's not. He's lying to you.
[20:48] He's trying to buy time so the markets
[20:50] don't blow him up. Look at this.
[20:53] Thailand's out of fuel.
[20:56] The government's trying to subsidize for
[20:57] as long as they can, but that ad
[20:59] actually ended today, I believe.
[21:00] Thailand is completely out of fuel.
[21:03] Like lines at the gas station are like
[21:05] American lines, TSA lines.
[21:08] And this Iran said the Strait of Hormuz
[21:11] situation won't return to its pre-war
[21:12] status.
[21:14] This is not a joke. This is not doge.
[21:17] This is not a hotel chain.
[21:20] You're talking about oil, energy prices,
[21:22] geopolitics, the next monetary order.
[21:29] So,
[21:31] when a when a
[21:32] I consider Scott Bessent to be a really
[21:35] bright guy. Now, this is before he was
[21:37] into politics in the Treasury Secretary.
[21:40] I think he's a smart guy. I think he's a
[21:41] bright guy. I think he's probably one of
[21:43] the smartest politicians of my time in
[21:46] regards to financial markets, monetary
[21:49] policy,
[21:50] the things that I care about or that I'm
[21:52] interested in, I'll say.
[21:54] Um
[21:55] When Scott Bessent does [ __ ] like this,
[22:00] it's concerning.
[22:02] Okay?
[22:04] Um
[22:05] Scott Bessent has now unsanctioned
[22:10] Iranian oil and Russian oil.
[22:14] Why would he do that? Well, he's trying
[22:16] to drown the market in more supply to
[22:19] control the prices.
[22:21] By sanctioning oil from the market,
[22:24] you're making it more scarce.
[22:27] All right? And scarcity is driving
[22:29] prices higher.
[22:31] So, one way that they're trying to buy
[22:33] themselves more time, again, the United
[22:35] States' weakness is not necessarily
[22:37] military. I'm saying the United States'
[22:40] military is not nearly as impressive as
[22:42] they advertise, or else the strait would
[22:43] be open. I don't know what the [ __ ] we
[22:45] we're talking about. It's super simple.
[22:49] It's like, yeah, I have the best
[22:50] basketball team in the world. Well, why
[22:53] aren't you winning?
[22:54] >> [laughter]
[22:55] >> Like, what? Why aren't you scoring?
[22:58] It's entirely contradictory to the
[23:00] scoreboard.
[23:01] But, I wouldn't say that the military's
[23:03] necessarily their weakness. What's their
[23:05] weakness? Their weakness is financial.
[23:09] If the bond market blows up, if the
[23:11] stock market blows up,
[23:13] if the oil market blows up, that's when
[23:15] the US has to bring troops home. Or
[23:17] that's when the US has to print an un-
[23:20] godly amount of money, which they're
[23:22] going to have to anyway. Creates more
[23:23] problems. That's the weakness. So, how
[23:25] does Scott Bessent
[23:28] attempt to buy more time?
[23:30] Unsanctioning
[23:32] Iran and Russia is insane.
[23:36] It's really concerning. I mean, this is
[23:37] a bright guy. This is not an idiot.
[23:40] Um for him to already be stooping to
[23:43] these levels
[23:44] is concerning.
[23:47] And by the way, it doesn't work.
[23:49] Now, on top of all of this,
[23:51] the job market looks terrible.
[23:54] Okay? So, if you take nonfarm payrolls
[23:57] and you exclude health care and social
[23:59] assistance,
[24:01] it's been negative since the COVID boom.
[24:06] And on the right, if you look at US job
[24:08] openings versus the S&P 500, look at the
[24:11] divergence.
[24:16] Um so, another week, another Monday from
[24:19] me saying that I am generally concerned
[24:24] in the position America's in. I'm not
[24:26] saying we're all going to die. I'm not
[24:27] saying you should be frightened. You
[24:29] should lose any sleep. Again,
[24:32] this is my corner of the internet, my
[24:34] journal entries. You take them for what
[24:36] they're worth. You could value them, you
[24:38] could not. I don't give a [ __ ]
[24:41] I'm worried.
[24:46] Don't know how this conflict conflict
[24:48] ends well.
[24:51] I don't know how we get ourselves out of
[24:53] this.
[24:56] I'm really worried about
[24:59] Let's say let's say we do get ourselves
[25:01] out of this.
[25:02] I'm worried about
[25:06] Again, I mean, this is the uh dilemma
[25:08] Bitcoiners face. This is everything that
[25:10] we predicted. This is everything we knew
[25:12] were going to was going to happen. We're
[25:13] well positioned for it. So, half
[25:17] of me is like, well, I've been stacking
[25:19] sats for almost 15 years. I've built
[25:22] businesses here. I am ready for the
[25:24] world to seek out new money and provide
[25:26] services and for Bitcoin to reprice
[25:28] against a worthless p- But the other
[25:30] side of me, you know, goes to the
[25:31] grocery store and looks around and these
[25:32] people have no idea what's coming. Zero.
[25:36] Terrifying.
[25:37] You know, the the graphic on the right
[25:39] to me is fascinating because obviously
[25:41] so you're seeing the S&P 500
[25:44] uh diverge from job openings. And what's
[25:46] implied there is really fascinating. So,
[25:48] I've talked about this concept a lot
[25:50] where to me being profitable as a
[25:52] company
[25:54] is a moral imperative.
[25:57] Okay? What do I mean by that?
[25:59] Well, if money is a reflection of the
[26:02] value you've created,
[26:05] right? So, money is your time, energy,
[26:07] effort, labor.
[26:09] When I produce a product and someone
[26:10] gives me money for it, the money
[26:13] represents the value I've created in the
[26:15] marketplace. So, being profit
[26:17] profitable, excuse me, being profitable
[26:19] means that I've created more value
[26:22] than it took me to produce, right? I'm
[26:25] producing more value than I'm consuming.
[26:28] That means on net, I'm productive.
[26:31] And you know, that's how the free market
[26:33] governs is that something that isn't
[26:34] profitable isn't sustainable.
[26:36] Eventually, you run out of money to be
[26:38] producing something that on net isn't
[26:41] valuable.
[26:42] And in theory, in a totally free market,
[26:45] the only products that are left for all
[26:47] of us to consume are productive
[26:49] products, are great products. And to me,
[26:51] being profitable is the financial
[26:54] expression of making the world a better
[26:56] place because financially, you are quite
[26:58] literally producing more than you're
[27:00] consuming. You're giving more value to
[27:02] the market than you're taking from the
[27:04] market. And so, not only do I think
[27:06] being profitable is important for
[27:07] shareholder value and because I like
[27:11] having more money than less money,
[27:14] but I think it's morally and ethically
[27:18] the right thing to do because you are
[27:20] quite literally to the penny technically
[27:23] making the world a better place, at
[27:25] least economically.
[27:28] Now, to see the value of equity in
[27:31] companies go up
[27:34] without jobs has a really strong
[27:37] implication. It means that these
[27:39] companies have an opportunity
[27:41] to be producing more value for the
[27:44] market without needing more human
[27:46] capital.
[27:48] Really fascinating.
[27:51] Now, there's probably implications of
[27:53] AI, but just software generally
[27:57] a company like Meta, like Block,
[28:01] they could produce more value for the
[28:03] marketplace, produce more software
[28:05] without needing more human beings to do
[28:07] so.
[28:09] Now, the other thing that I think is
[28:11] very relevant here
[28:13] is that
[28:15] how productive were people
[28:19] before AI can't So, do you guys remember
[28:21] when you'd watch these TikToks or these
[28:23] social media uh videos where someone
[28:25] would be like, "Day in the life working
[28:27] at Google."
[28:28] And they go, they walk in late, they're
[28:31] at the food bar the whole day, they're
[28:33] playing like uh virtual car games, and
[28:36] then they go home.
[28:38] And it was like outrage on the internet.
[28:40] It's like, these people aren't even
[28:41] [ __ ] working.
[28:44] And a another thing that you have to ask
[28:47] yourself without humans,
[28:51] and that's like it the social contract
[28:54] change is tremendously profound there.
[28:58] Because what is the known social
[29:00] contract in the United States? Well, as
[29:03] long as I do my homework well enough as
[29:05] a kid,
[29:07] I will be admitted to a prestigious
[29:09] university, which to me within itself is
[29:12] absolutely insane. Who Whoever likes
[29:15] Shakespeare more or tortures themselves
[29:18] to do something that they aren't
[29:19] actually enjoying gets a prestigious
[29:22] honor. It's [ __ ] stupid. It's the
[29:25] dumbest thing. But okay, fine. Once I
[29:28] get into this prestigious university,
[29:30] then I will have the credentials to get
[29:33] a high-paying job. And that high-paying
[29:35] job, again, my point is none of this is
[29:38] forcing any of these people to be
[29:40] productive.
[29:41] So, you have people that work in big
[29:43] tech, that work at hedge funds,
[29:45] and they think they're inclined to the
[29:48] bigger house. They think they're
[29:49] inclined to have more family, to have
[29:51] more vacations, to have more food. They
[29:53] think they deserve a two-car garage
[29:56] that's guzzling oil and guzzling energy.
[30:00] Right? They are energy consumers to the
[30:02] max. These people want to take the
[30:04] nicest flights, have the nicest
[30:05] vacations, the nicest cars, the nicest
[30:08] houses, the nicest everything. That's
[30:10] the social contract. Why? Well, they did
[30:12] their Shake- Shakespeare homework as a
[30:14] kid. They got admitted to do prestigious
[30:16] university. They work at Google. That's
[30:18] why. But what if that doesn't imply that
[30:21] you're productive to people? Because you
[30:24] go to work and you just eat food bars
[30:27] and take TikToks all day. You don't do
[30:28] [ __ ] all. What if the world has to
[30:31] actually change the social contract
[30:33] because we can't just print money out of
[30:35] thin air forever and keep up this facade
[30:38] that the United States is super
[30:39] productive? What if
[30:42] you're not What if a Claude model can do
[30:45] your job?
[30:46] You then go from the most prestigious
[30:49] Cornell-educated
[30:51] hedge fund manager in your high school
[30:53] class to being worthless.
[30:56] You default on your mortgage. You
[30:57] default on your credit card. You default
[30:59] on your car note.
[31:01] Then what?
[31:04] I genuinely think that's what we're
[31:06] seeing. Not only
[31:08] jobs declining, potential recession, all
[31:11] these technicalities that you'll read.
[31:13] I think we're seeing a change in the
[31:15] social contract.
[31:17] Who deserves
[31:19] to consume more energy than their
[31:21] neighbor?
[31:22] Who deserves the bigger house? Who
[31:24] deserves the first-class flight? Who
[31:27] deserves the car that's guzzling gas
[31:31] every single day just to take their kids
[31:33] to school?
[31:36] Product The people that are producing
[31:37] the most value for society. I think
[31:39] that's going to change dramatically.
[31:42] And I think in that change in social
[31:44] contract, you'll also see a lot of
[31:46] violence. Because the guy that feels
[31:48] like he did everything he was supposed
[31:50] to do to live the life that he feels
[31:52] like he deserves, and he feels as if
[31:54] that's taken from him because the social
[31:56] contract is changing right before his
[31:57] eyes. What do you mean
[31:59] being an investment banker that's
[32:01] working on Excel spreadsheets all day
[32:03] isn't actually productive?
[32:05] What do you mean a Claude agent can do
[32:08] what I did? I went to Harvard.
[32:10] Yeah, buddy. It doesn't [ __ ] matter.
[32:13] You're making spreadsheets all day. Like
[32:15] snap out of it. That's not a productive
[32:17] use of human capital and artistry and
[32:20] creativity. You [ __ ] cog.
[32:25] Does that person pick up a weapon?
[32:28] Whose fault is it in their eyes? Do they
[32:30] pick up a weapon? Do they protest? Do
[32:32] they
[32:33] Do they vote in a politician that's
[32:35] going to violate the property rights of
[32:37] other Americans and steal their [ __ ]
[32:40] Are they going to vote in someone that
[32:41] says, "It's Bitcoiners' fault. It's
[32:43] Jack's fault. We're going to take all
[32:44] Jack's Bitcoin and distribute it evenly
[32:46] to make it all fair."
[32:50] So anyways,
[32:53] a long way of saying I think being
[32:56] productive that that's the social
[32:58] contract of what it means to be valuable
[33:00] to the market, what it means to be
[33:01] valuable to society, what it means to be
[33:03] healthy, what it means to be righteous,
[33:04] what it means to be moral and ethical,
[33:08] and hardworking is all changing.
[33:11] I think we are repricing. We're going
[33:14] back to basics. I've said before a
[33:16] million times, I think we're destined to
[33:18] be governed by Mother Nature in a in a
[33:21] way. We are a product of Mother Nature
[33:23] in a in a very fundamental way. We're a
[33:26] product of the universe. And whenever we
[33:28] stray too far away into these abstract
[33:31] realities that we have built ourselves,
[33:33] where monetary policy is built by humans
[33:36] and social contract is just made up out
[33:38] of thin air by humans, we lose ourselves
[33:41] and we end up really violently, almost
[33:43] like
[33:44] repricing back to what's real.
[33:47] Real money, hard money, real
[33:49] productivity, real things, real value,
[33:52] real profits. You're not judging your
[33:53] company based on revenue. What good is a
[33:56] company that does all the revenue in the
[33:58] world but loses money?
[34:00] It's [ __ ] stupid. How was that ever
[34:02] valuable in the first place? Insane.
[34:05] How just because you were you
[34:07] uh
[34:08] suffered and put yourself through
[34:09] torture studying Shakespeare when you
[34:12] were 13 years old and cuz you work at
[34:14] Google and bagels with cream cheese all
[34:16] day, why does that make you productive?
[34:18] It doesn't.
[34:20] I think the United States is in for a
[34:21] very rude awakening from everything from
[34:24] energy consumption
[34:26] to military enforcement to bond markets
[34:30] to social contracts.
[34:32] The job markets look bad. The conflict
[34:34] in the Middle East looks bad. The oil
[34:36] prices look bad. The bond market looks
[34:38] bad. It all looks bad.
[34:42] The good news, well,
[34:46] the positive spin in my eyes
[34:49] is that
[34:57] tough times create strong men.
[35:00] Strong men
[35:02] create good times.
[35:04] Good times create weak men.
[35:06] Weak men create hard times.
[35:08] And I feel as if that's the cycle of
[35:10] life.
[35:12] And
[35:13] I think that that's very applicable to
[35:15] the US over the last 100 years.
[35:18] I think some very hard times on the back
[35:20] half of the Great Depression created
[35:22] tremendously strong men.
[35:24] We cleared out all the debt and all the
[35:27] leverage in our economy on the back half
[35:29] of the Great Depression. We built the
[35:30] strongest manufacturing base in the
[35:33] world.
[35:35] We came out half standing after the
[35:38] World Wars.
[35:40] And you know, there were some great
[35:42] times. The founding fathers of this
[35:44] country, America, what it meant to be
[35:47] American. You see some of the founding
[35:48] fathers talk about the dangers of things
[35:51] like banking and central banking and
[35:53] destructive currency manipulation. Those
[35:56] were strong men that were born out of
[35:58] hard times. And those strong men created
[36:00] great times for America.
[36:03] Now, unfortunately, I think those great
[36:06] times
[36:07] bred a lot of weak men.
[36:09] Right? Strong times
[36:12] or hard times, excuse me. Hard times
[36:14] create strong men. Strong men create
[36:16] good times. Those good times create weak
[36:17] men, weak leaders, selfish leaders,
[36:20] liars,
[36:23] These people are live lying,
[36:25] self-interested, blackmailed by guys
[36:27] like Epstein, disgusting child rapists,
[36:30] murderers, killers, warmongers,
[36:33] thieves stealing either outright or via
[36:38] things like inflation. Weak leadership,
[36:40] weak men, no backbone,
[36:42] no morals, no principles, no vision,
[36:45] unethical scumbag.
[36:48] That's I mean, that's the leadership I
[36:50] was born into as an American.
[36:53] There's no leader
[36:55] for me. Like the leaders I look up to
[36:56] are like basketball coaches. There's no
[36:59] leader I look up to that's like, "That
[37:00] is a moral, righteous, ethical badass."
[37:03] None.
[37:06] So unfortunately, what happens with weak
[37:08] men? Weak men create hard times. And
[37:10] that's what we're in right now. Some
[37:12] hard times.
[37:13] Social contracts are changing. Inflation
[37:16] is real in the United States. Currency
[37:18] manipulation and debasement. Everyone's
[37:20] a speculator. Bond markets are fragile.
[37:23] Debt GDP is 120 plus percent. True
[37:26] interest expense is well over 100% of
[37:28] receipts. Everything across the board
[37:30] bleak.
[37:32] We have this highly leveraged, indebted
[37:34] financial system that's running full
[37:37] speed into a highly deflationary
[37:40] AI technology that is like head-to-head,
[37:44] mano y mano.
[37:45] AI is going to win.
[37:47] Terrifying.
[37:49] But hard times create strong men.
[37:52] And it is an opportunity I I I believe.
[37:55] Um I'm I'm ranting. I'll go to the next
[37:57] slide in a second. Because the last
[37:59] thing I'll say is some people be like,
[38:00] "Why are you working on Bitcoin, man?
[38:01] Like do you think it's actually going to
[38:03] work?"
[38:05] And my answer is
[38:07] what the [ __ ] else do you want me to do?
[38:14] I'm working on Bitcoin
[38:16] because I'm a tough [ __ ]
[38:20] And
[38:22] a lot of strong men are being bred in
[38:24] these hard times. That's why I'm working
[38:26] on Bitcoin. And when I say strong men,
[38:29] I'm not talking about a gladiator on a
[38:31] horse with a shield and a [ __ ] uh
[38:34] spear.
[38:36] I'm talking about Satoshi Nakamoto.
[38:38] That's a strong man. That man didn't
[38:41] want any award. That man didn't want any
[38:43] recognition. That man didn't want any
[38:45] wealth. That man wanted positive change.
[38:48] That's how great Great times are born
[38:50] out of strong men that resisted the urge
[38:53] and the desire
[38:54] for fame, for fortune,
[38:58] and put the betterment of others before
[38:59] him. That's a strong [ __ ]
[39:02] People like Satoshi Nakamoto are only
[39:04] born out of hard times, only born out of
[39:06] the 2008 financial crisis. So why am I
[39:09] working on Bitcoin? What the [ __ ] do you
[39:10] expect me to do?
[39:13] Look around.
[39:16] It's our only way out.
[39:20] So, the glass half full, I wrote this on
[39:23] Nostr. I'm lucky to be alive
[39:27] and healthy and building right now. But
[39:29] man, is this a wild timeline, concerning
[39:32] timeline.
[39:35] So anyways, we move on.
[39:37] >> [sighs]
[39:37] >> How does an oil shock break our
[39:39] financial system? Well, this visual is
[39:42] meant for you guys to screenshot and and
[39:43] share with your friends.
[39:45] The Strait of Hormuz closes
[39:47] like what
[39:49] it's estimated a fifth, a fourth, some
[39:52] high percentage of global oil is just
[39:54] shut off.
[39:56] Uh the petrodollar system breaks. So,
[39:58] all of a sudden oil producers stop
[40:00] recycling the oil for dollars and those
[40:02] dollars go to treasuries, those
[40:03] treasuries are lending to the US.
[40:06] So, a big source of demand for
[40:09] treasuries stops.
[40:12] Yields go up, which means the bond
[40:13] prices fall.
[40:15] The collateral in the financial system
[40:17] gets destroyed. People start selling
[40:19] their treasuries to finance like when
[40:21] countries like Thailand are running out
[40:23] of fuel.
[40:25] How do you think they get their country
[40:27] and their people gas? How do you think
[40:29] they get their country and their people
[40:30] food?
[40:32] They're going to sell all their
[40:33] collateral. They're going to sell
[40:34] treasuries. They're going to sell stuff.
[40:37] And inevitably it forces either an utter
[40:39] and complete collapse of the financial
[40:40] system or it forces the Fed to print
[40:44] money.
[40:46] And
[40:47] that's going to bring us into chapter
[40:48] two, which is the plumbing. So,
[40:52] uh Michael Howell, I've referenced him a
[40:53] few times. By the way, guys,
[40:55] jms.jackmallers.com/110.
[40:58] I post I I uh publish all of my
[41:01] slideshows here. I make these uh from
[41:03] scratch and I publish them on the
[41:05] internet so that you guys can access
[41:06] them and every single slide is linked
[41:08] with a source.
[41:10] So, I tell you guys I uh read a lot of
[41:13] macro research. I'm a customer to Luke
[41:16] Gromen, Michael Howell, Lyn Alden had a
[41:18] piece recently. Uh Arthur Hayes. And so,
[41:22] uh
[41:23] all of my slides will either link to
[41:25] their research, their Substack, to a
[41:28] tweet I'm quoting. So, if you guys do
[41:31] want to get this presentation,
[41:33] jms.jackmallers.com/
[41:36] and then the episode number. So, this is
[41:37] episode 110.
[41:39] So, Michael Howell, highly recommend
[41:42] subscribing to his stuff. I've learned a
[41:43] lot. He has something called the GLI,
[41:46] the global liquidity index. And what
[41:48] he's trying to do is estimate global
[41:50] liquidity. And as I've talked about on
[41:52] the show, Bitcoin for all intents and
[41:55] purposes is a reflection of global
[41:57] liquidity. It's priced almost primarily
[42:00] and entirely on the expectation of
[42:02] future fiat. So, as liquidity gets
[42:05] tight, Bitcoin tends to sell off. At
[42:07] least for now, you know, obviously as it
[42:08] gets big enough and becomes a viable
[42:10] gold competitor, that will change. But
[42:12] today it's about the size of Tesla. It
[42:15] trades more like liquidity plus
[42:17] technology. It's like a hybrid of tech
[42:21] and liquidity. It's like macro
[42:23] technology. And
[42:25] so, understanding global liquidity and
[42:28] the trends are
[42:31] really important if you want to
[42:32] understand the general outlook and pulse
[42:35] for Bitcoin.
[42:36] Uh Michael wrote a really terrifying
[42:39] piece actually where he said his global
[42:41] liquidity index projects a 28% decline.
[42:46] And he cites oil, the MOVE index, which
[42:49] we'll get into in a second, and the US
[42:50] dollar. But he says it's his global
[42:53] liquidity index
[42:54] is projecting levels that scream
[42:57] financial crisis.
[42:58] So, levels that scream things like 2008,
[43:01] levels that scream things like COVID.
[43:03] Levels that scream credit crisis.
[43:06] And so, a lot of my sentiment is not
[43:09] only coming from myself, but a lot of
[43:10] the folks that I respect. Again,
[43:13] concerned. I don't want to fearmonger.
[43:15] Concerned like I'm not like packing my
[43:16] bags and like fleeing to a bunker. Just
[43:20] saying like markets could fall apart.
[43:23] I don't know if this conflict in the
[43:24] Middle East is going to end anytime
[43:25] soon. You just have to change, you know,
[43:28] the social contracts that you are
[43:30] expecting and uh some of your
[43:32] expectations on a go-forward basis. So,
[43:34] this is something to, you know, be aware
[43:37] of is that
[43:39] whatever the US is doing in the Middle
[43:41] East, it is greatly
[43:44] exaggerating what was already a problem,
[43:46] which was global liquidity, the bond
[43:48] market, the marginal lender to the US
[43:50] government,
[43:52] potential inflation. I mean, gold
[43:55] going on the tear that it was implied
[43:58] commodity inflation intensely. So, these
[44:01] were all problems, real problems before
[44:04] this conflict. Now this conflict is
[44:05] greatly greatly exaggerating them. You
[44:08] know, you can see markets chop around
[44:09] for many many many quarters until they
[44:11] find an inevitable bottom and you have
[44:13] to have money printing and some form of
[44:15] stimulus. At this point, you know, if
[44:18] the Strait of Hormuz is closed for
[44:19] another week or two,
[44:21] everything's going to blow up financial
[44:23] markets wise. Excuse me, I can't mince
[44:25] words here on this show given all the
[44:26] context. So,
[44:28] anyways, what is the MOVE index? We've
[44:30] talked about it a lot on the show.
[44:32] Uh just to
[44:33] uh
[44:35] remind you guys, the MOVE index it it's
[44:37] measuring uh bond volatility.
[44:40] Uh and so,
[44:42] the reason the MOVE index is so
[44:44] sensitive is because
[44:47] right now the marginal lender to the
[44:49] United States is actually leveraged
[44:51] hedge funds.
[44:53] And so, what hedge funds do is called,
[44:54] you know, uh carry trade, basis trade.
[44:57] And so, they are doing a tiny tiny tiny
[44:59] little arbitrage, but, you know,
[45:02] they're say they're making less than a
[45:04] penny on an arbitrage trade. You're
[45:07] like, well, what's the good in that?
[45:08] What am I supposed to do with less than
[45:09] a penny? I can't even get a piece of gum
[45:10] for that nowadays.
[45:12] Yeah, but what if I can leverage it
[45:14] times a billion? Then, you know, less
[45:17] than a penny times a billion
[45:19] every second all of a sudden turns into
[45:21] a lot of money. But the reason that
[45:23] you're able to
[45:24] do it at such a scale is because of
[45:26] leverage, cuz you're borrowing capital.
[45:28] Now, what is the enemy of leverage?
[45:31] Volatility. Right? And so, when the MOVE
[45:34] index gets higher and higher and higher,
[45:36] which measures more and more and more
[45:38] and more bond market volatility, that
[45:40] creates more instability for the bond
[45:42] market because the higher the leverage
[45:44] or excuse me, the higher the volatility,
[45:46] then the unwinding of the leverage
[45:49] that's supporting ultimately supporting
[45:50] the bond market. And so, when you see
[45:52] the MOVE index go up like this, usually
[45:55] a MOVE index of like 150, 160 is
[45:58] financial dis- crisis and they have to
[46:01] print the money. This happened during
[46:02] Liberation Day actually.
[46:05] Last time the MOVE index got to crisis
[46:07] levels was Liberation Day. When the
[46:09] stock market was down 20%, the MOVE
[46:11] index I think hit 168 intraday and we
[46:14] saw Trump entirely taco and reverse his
[46:17] position. Again though, my warning is
[46:19] this is not a tariff Liberation Day
[46:22] bluff. This is not a hotel chain. This
[46:25] is not um dodging America with Vivek
[46:30] Ramaswamy and Elon Musk. That's not what
[46:32] this is.
[46:33] We have started a conflict in the Middle
[46:36] East
[46:37] effectively forcing
[46:39] one of the most sensitive and important
[46:43] energy corridors in the world to shut
[46:45] off.
[46:47] That like
[46:48] I that that's not like a
[46:51] we're just [ __ ] with you guys, never
[46:52] mind. That's not what this is. So, I
[46:54] don't know how this ends, but the MOVE
[46:56] index is now above 100.
[46:59] You know, uh before the conflict it was
[47:01] below 50. So, it has more than doubled
[47:05] and is well on its way back to crisis
[47:07] levels.
[47:08] Uh
[47:09] let's take a look at the bond markets in
[47:12] the West. The UK two-year yield was up
[47:15] another 16 basis points. This was last
[47:18] week. It's up 49 basis points in two-day
[47:22] trading. It's biggest jump since
[47:24] September of 2022.
[47:26] Mind you, that was FTX blow up right
[47:29] before Silicon Valley blew up.
[47:31] The UK two-year yields are up over 100
[47:34] basis points, meaning over 1% in the
[47:37] last two weeks.
[47:40] The western bond markets are in trouble.
[47:43] They're in trouble. Who is lending to
[47:46] these people? And by the way, everyone
[47:48] that has lent to them, that owns these
[47:50] bonds, needs to sell these bonds because
[47:54] energy markets are a mess. If you need
[47:56] to finance food, oil, energy, you sell
[48:01] your treasuries so that you can eat, so
[48:04] that you can stay warm. I mean, this is
[48:06] just basic common sense. The more the
[48:08] strait gets closed, we are accelerating
[48:11] towards some very very very very serious
[48:14] crisis.
[48:16] Credit spreads.
[48:18] The bond market is getting twitchy. Over
[48:19] the past 20 years, when credit spreads
[48:22] blew out, but the S&P 500 wasn't even
[48:24] beyond a pullback yet, it was three for
[48:26] three in bear markets. So, now credit
[48:29] spreads are also telling us in plain
[48:31] English that there's a crisis a brewing.
[48:34] The stock market is on its way way
[48:36] lower, very likely, especially when you
[48:39] pair it with the oil market, with the
[48:42] energy market, with the conflict in the
[48:44] Middle East. All of this is spelling out
[48:48] that markets are twitchy, global
[48:49] liquidity is going to come down. There
[48:51] is the potential for a very very very
[48:54] serious credit crisis. So, now, if there
[48:56] is a credit crisis, which I'll get to in
[48:58] a second, what's going to happen?
[49:00] They're going to print a [ __ ] ton of
[49:01] money. And so, my message to you guys,
[49:03] again, don't freak out. Don't get all
[49:05] doomsday. I'm not trying to fearmonger.
[49:08] Trying to be honest. You know, I think
[49:10] that
[49:11] society lacks candid, transparent
[49:14] conversation, open dialogue. So, I'm
[49:16] just trying to be a different form of
[49:18] media that hopefully
[49:20] is relatable and educational in a very
[49:24] piercing and honest way.
[49:26] But I'm not trying to scare you. What
[49:28] will happen is
[49:30] there'll be a lack of liquidity that
[49:32] supports this highly leveraged system.
[49:34] There'll be some form of a crisis.
[49:36] and the financial authorities will bail
[49:40] it all out and then everything's going
[49:42] to go up a ton at the expense of the
[49:45] fiat currency going down a lot. So, what
[49:48] is my advice?
[49:50] Do not hold financial assets
[49:53] at other institutions. You do not want
[49:56] to have your life savings in the bank
[49:58] that goes down and needs a bailout. You
[50:00] do not want to, you know, hold your
[50:01] assets at the FTX. There's a credit
[50:04] crisis and there's run on the bank for
[50:06] all the institutions. Make sure that you
[50:08] hold physical value like Bitcoin and you
[50:11] if you can and you feel confident
[50:13] enough, hold it
[50:15] uh self-sovereignly. Hold your own keys.
[50:17] Not your keys, not your coins. Other
[50:19] things, do not have non-productive debt.
[50:23] Okay?
[50:24] Make sure that you aren't over-leveraged
[50:27] in any serious way. Make sure you are
[50:29] earning more than you are consuming.
[50:31] Leave yourselves with net excess cash.
[50:34] You do not want to be in a position
[50:36] where you are reliant on some form of
[50:38] credit to sustain your lifestyle, to
[50:41] meet rent, to meet everyday expenses.
[50:44] That would be a not good situation and
[50:46] you just need to find a way to survive
[50:49] the other side of it. You do not want to
[50:51] be a victim of it, you want to be a
[50:52] beneficiary of it because there'll be
[50:54] some incredible opportunities likely to
[50:56] buy the dip. There'll be some incredible
[50:58] opportunities likely for those that
[51:01] uh are solvent and those that are
[51:03] holding their own keys. And so, that's
[51:05] all I'm saying. It's not doomsday. They
[51:07] They're going to print the money anyway.
[51:09] I guess this is just how it's going to
[51:10] happen. At least that's my prediction.
[51:11] So,
[51:12] on to the money printing.
[51:14] Uh the Fed
[51:16] Take this all with a grain of salt
[51:17] because again
[51:19] in order for me to understand what's the
[51:20] truth or not nowadays, it's an extreme
[51:23] amount of work. I can't just like read
[51:26] uh what the President of the United
[51:27] States is saying and assume it to be
[51:29] honest anymore, unfortunately. So, I
[51:32] couldn't help but notice this this
[51:34] morning. The Fed's Mester says that they
[51:37] have revised plans and now expect to
[51:39] make four rate cuts down from previous
[51:41] projections. Pulled back to pencil in
[51:43] four rate cuts.
[51:45] So,
[51:47] it's confusing to me what the Fed's plan
[51:49] is.
[51:51] Bond markets were actually implying a
[51:53] Fed hike
[51:54] because of the oil market and energy
[51:56] prices. Can you imagine
[51:59] if the new Fed chair gets in, if Warsh
[52:01] gets in, and after Trump's been kicking
[52:03] and screaming for rates to get cut, he
[52:05] hikes. That would be absolutely
[52:08] hilarious. Um but the point is, the Fed
[52:12] very slowly, but very surely, actually
[52:15] not so slowly, uh very quietly, very
[52:18] unassumingly,
[52:20] uh they've been expanding their balance
[52:22] sheet. So, on an annualized basis, so
[52:24] this is from Lynn's latest uh
[52:26] newsletter. Currently, the balance sheet
[52:27] is up $120 billion from its low point in
[52:30] early December, which would be $420
[52:33] billion annually if sustained at this
[52:35] rate all year.
[52:37] Okay? And so, the point is, the Fed,
[52:39] through its repurchase program,
[52:41] has slowly, but surely, quietly,
[52:44] unassumingly, been expanding its balance
[52:46] sheet. At at some point, the Fed is
[52:49] going to have to participate in a bigger
[52:51] way.
[52:52] And there's [snorts] different you know,
[52:54] like Larry Lepard has said there's going
[52:56] to be a massive print. It's going to be
[52:58] like flipping a switch. This is going to
[52:59] be a bigger print than COVID and 2008
[53:02] combined. Uh you know, I know Luke Roman
[53:05] feels similarly and Lynn is on the
[53:07] opposite side of the spectrum. She
[53:08] thinks it'll be consistent and more
[53:10] gradual. There will be no like oh my
[53:11] gosh moment. The Fed will just like
[53:14] methodically pad the balance sheet to
[53:16] higher and higher and higher levels to
[53:18] manage any form of credit crisis. Now,
[53:20] obviously, a conflict in the Middle
[53:21] East, that's that's the wildcard. If
[53:25] this can I'm telling you guys now,
[53:27] if the strait remains closed for 1 to 2
[53:30] more weeks,
[53:32] we will probably see fireworks and I
[53:34] think that's what Trump is worried
[53:36] about. I think that's why he posted that
[53:38] this morning. It is pretty crazy to see
[53:40] everyone call him the United States
[53:42] president a big fat liar.
[53:45] Um but we'll see. But the US Fed working
[53:49] its way up to $420 billion of annual
[53:52] liquidity already is not anything to
[53:54] ignore.
[53:55] So, let's talk about the end game
[53:57] quickly.
[53:58] Um
[53:59] the petrogold thesis. So, the thesis, I
[54:03] don't know if this caught you I should
[54:04] have put this headline in here, but Iran
[54:07] asked for oil settlement in Chinese
[54:11] yuan,
[54:12] which is fascinating.
[54:14] Now, why would they do that?
[54:17] Well, no one has the yuan. Why? Well,
[54:20] why does everyone have dollars? Because
[54:22] we run deficits. Remember, that's the
[54:24] role of the world reserve currency. You
[54:27] run deficits, meaning you print more
[54:29] dollars than you import stuff, so that
[54:31] there's an excess amount of dollars that
[54:33] get shipped out into the world. The job
[54:36] of the world reserve currency issuer is
[54:38] to just print money and ship it out. How
[54:40] else would you distribute the money? How
[54:42] else would people get dollars? When you
[54:43] are the world reserve currency,
[54:46] there's a default demand for your
[54:49] currency. In order to meet that demand,
[54:51] you have to run a deficit, right? So,
[54:53] who's running a deficit with China?
[54:56] Newsflash, nobody. They're the most
[54:58] productive country in the history of
[55:00] mankind. They're running trillion-dollar
[55:01] trade surpluses annually. [ __ ] crazy.
[55:04] They're like the world's factory. It's
[55:06] insane. And so, no one has the Chinese
[55:09] yuan.
[55:10] Think about that for a second. Think
[55:12] about the chess that's being played.
[55:14] Nobody has the Chinese currency. So,
[55:17] when Iran's saying you need to give us
[55:18] the Chinese currency
[55:20] in order to get oil,
[55:22] why are they saying that? Well, the only
[55:24] way, the only real practical way to get
[55:27] the Chinese currency is in exchange for
[55:32] gold.
[55:34] It's an exchange for gold.
[55:36] Because no one's running a deficit
[55:37] against China.
[55:39] Or excuse me, a surplus.
[55:41] Right? China's not running in a deficit
[55:43] against any country.
[55:45] Which would mean they're printing more
[55:47] yuan than right, they're importing. So,
[55:50] so it's a de facto way of going from
[55:52] petrodollar to petrogold.
[55:55] Fascinating chess. Fascinating chess
[55:57] being played. Rotating out of dollar and
[56:00] treasuries and into a system that's
[56:02] backed by hard money.
[56:04] And so, as you see, I think the gold-oil
[56:07] ratio will be something to watch. And
[56:09] just a reminder, this from the Wall
[56:10] Street Journal recently, US trade
[56:12] deficit shrinks 25% driven by its gold
[56:15] exports. So, the second largest
[56:17] non-monetary export for the United
[56:19] States last year in 2025 was gold.
[56:22] We know gold's price has been catching a
[56:24] huge bid over the last 18 months and
[56:26] that's driven by China.
[56:29] And when I read, oh, Iran's willing
[56:32] to accept oil uh trade with some
[56:35] selective countries that it considers
[56:37] allies. So, not the US, obviously.
[56:40] But you need to give it Chinese
[56:42] currency. I was like, what? Who has
[56:44] Chinese currency? No one has Chinese
[56:45] currency. How would they get Chinese
[56:47] currency?
[56:48] And you realize, oh,
[56:51] the way the flow of funds, as they say
[56:53] in fintech world, the flow of funds
[56:56] would be your local currency, you have
[56:58] to buy gold with it,
[57:00] and then the gold gets shipped out east
[57:02] and they'll give you little paper
[57:04] Chinese notes in return. Again, all of
[57:08] the world's gold is going east, all of
[57:11] it.
[57:12] Again, slightly terrifying me.
[57:15] What's actually in Fort Knox? Are we
[57:17] ever going to know?
[57:18] Is that gold still there?
[57:20] Because
[57:21] China and everyone out east has been
[57:24] very slowly and tactically engineering
[57:27] markets to get physical gold out of the
[57:30] west and east.
[57:34] So, something to keep an eye on. Really
[57:37] fascinating chess being played.
[57:39] Um and
[57:41] the these charts again are just more
[57:43] proof. So, the east is buying
[57:44] everything. Gold flowing to Saudi
[57:46] Arabia, Chinese exports to the Gulf is
[57:48] going parabolic.
[57:50] So, keep in mind, guys,
[57:52] throughout the course of this show over
[57:54] the last 6 months,
[57:56] China's been engineering physical gold.
[57:59] So, there's a squeeze on
[58:01] commodity markets because
[58:04] China's effectively saying
[58:06] what's going to matter is actual
[58:08] physical commodity. These paper claims
[58:11] that live on the CME are worthless. You
[58:13] can't You can't build AI infrastructure
[58:16] with a futures contract.
[58:18] You need the physical metal. You need
[58:20] the physical silver.
[58:24] And so, China's been
[58:26] rotating to a gold standard,
[58:29] debasing their own currency against
[58:30] gold, and trying to get physical gold
[58:34] out east.
[58:36] And I remember Elon said, "Hey, let's
[58:38] check on Fort Knox while we're at it."
[58:40] And Trump said, "Sounds like a good
[58:41] idea." And we never heard a peep. I I'm
[58:43] concerned about that, too. How much gold
[58:46] is actually here?
[58:49] I don't know.
[58:54] Uh and then
[58:56] more on the fiscal math. Uh I hinted at
[58:58] this earlier.
[58:59] So,
[59:00] interest expense is 130% of receipts.
[59:03] And if tariffs disappear, which we know
[59:06] the court ruled, then that jumps to
[59:08] 140%. So, I know that this is small font
[59:12] here. Let me zoom in. And this is from
[59:14] Luke. Uh so, I'll read it verbatim.
[59:17] The US fiscal position in February
[59:19] deteriorated notably with true interest
[59:21] expense,
[59:23] true interest expense is social
[59:25] security, health, net interest,
[59:26] Medicare, and VA, totaling $408 billion
[59:30] dollars only $313 billion dollars of
[59:32] receipts.
[59:34] So, it
[59:35] just to try and simplifying this uh for
[59:37] the common man out there.
[59:39] What this is saying is our interest
[59:41] expense, the amount of money that we're
[59:43] paying, what Luke calls true interest
[59:45] expense, so on interest,
[59:48] that is
[59:49] 408 billion. And the amount of revenue
[59:52] we're bringing in, which the US calls
[59:54] receipts, like tax receipts, is only 313
[59:57] billion. So, our true interest expense
[59:59] alone is already way more than our
[60:02] revenue. And that's not factoring in the
[60:04] other expenses that we have. So, when
[60:06] your true interest expense is more than
[60:08] the revenue you're generating, you're in
[60:10] some serious [ __ ] trouble. So, I
[60:12] continue, totaling 408 billion versus
[60:13] 313 billion of receipts. So, true
[60:15] interest expense was 130% of receipts.
[60:18] And if 80% of tariffs went away due to
[60:20] the Supreme Court ruling, true interest
[60:22] expense would be at 140% of receipts,
[60:25] which is a big problem.
[60:28] I continue, fiscal year to date through
[60:30] February, true interest expense is 104%
[60:33] of receipts. And if 80% of tariffs went
[60:34] away, true interest expense would be
[60:36] 110% of our receipts. Again, big
[60:39] problem, crisis levels before the likely
[60:41] recession due to an energy shock.
[60:44] So, just to give you guys an insight on
[60:46] to the math, again, and that's
[60:48] February's numbers. We're talking like
[60:51] pre-conflict in the Middle East.
[60:54] So, don't get it twisted. When these
[60:55] politicians are saying, "Oh, this is
[60:58] short-term pain. We just need to make
[61:00] sure Iran doesn't have nuclear
[61:01] capabilities." The pain was here before
[61:04] Iran, like before. The Iran is like two
[61:07] more weeks of this and I don't know
[61:09] what's going to happen. Something really
[61:11] drastic and dramatic is going to happen.
[61:13] And then lastly,
[61:15] this website is just crazy. I linked it
[61:18] here in my tools, so if you guys want to
[61:19] go check it out, but this is a live
[61:21] dashboard that tries to track what US
[61:24] jobs are exposed to being disrupted by
[61:27] AI. It's a crazy dashboard.
[61:30] But, it claims that there's 143 million
[61:33] US jobs that are exposed to being
[61:35] disrupted by AI.
[61:37] Mind you, what the US population is.
[61:41] So,
[61:43] pretty nuts.
[61:45] Uh the point is,
[61:47] you take our fiscal position, you take
[61:49] the fact that we're now a self-induced
[61:51] energy shock with the conflict in the
[61:52] Middle East, and then you take on the
[61:54] fact that AI is a deflationary
[61:56] technology force that's going headfirst
[61:59] into a highly leveraged system. And when
[62:00] I say highly leveraged system, what I'm
[62:02] saying is
[62:03] everyone you know has a mortgage, has a
[62:06] car note, has a credit card. They're
[62:08] living their life on leverage. And if
[62:10] people start defaulting on these loans,
[62:13] then the whole system goes kapoof.
[62:15] Like JP Morgan stock goes to zero if
[62:17] delinquencies start to go up. Who wants
[62:19] to own equity of someone that's lent out
[62:22] a ton of money to finance the American
[62:24] lifestyle and the Americans can't pay it
[62:25] back anymore cuz a new cloud model took
[62:27] their job.
[62:29] So, all of that combined,
[62:32] again,
[62:33] to me, it's a matter of when, not if
[62:37] they print the money. And if the Strait
[62:38] of Hormuz continues to stay closed for
[62:43] I don't know, a week, two more weeks? If
[62:45] we get into the middle of April and that
[62:46] thing's still closed, which it I have no
[62:48] reason to believe it's not going to stay
[62:51] closed,
[62:52] yikes.
[62:54] Yikes.
[62:55] Um
[62:56] the last thing I'll end it with before
[62:58] we get into grind my gears,
[63:00] is uh just interestingly,
[63:02] I wanted to uh give a little bit of
[63:04] context here. So, very interestingly,
[63:07] Bitcoin has outperformed gold
[63:09] tremendously since the beginning of the
[63:10] conflict in the Middle East, beginning.
[63:13] Really interesting. Really interesting.
[63:15] Um I continue to believe Bitcoin's just
[63:17] too small to be the world's store of
[63:20] value at the sovereign level.
[63:23] I said earlier in the introduction,
[63:24] Bitcoin's market cap is 1.4 trillion
[63:26] dollars. China's trade surplus on an
[63:29] annual basis is about that size.
[63:32] So, it can't be yet the asset that these
[63:35] sovereigns pile into. It's just a little
[63:37] small.
[63:39] Um it'll get there.
[63:41] You're right. I I This is just
[63:43] It's actually one of the cool things
[63:44] about Bitcoin is that it allows the
[63:47] little man an advantage um cuz the
[63:50] larger folks, like when I first got into
[63:53] Bitcoin, it was too small for anyone
[63:55] like Saylor and strategy to be doing
[63:57] what they were doing, right? So, it Over
[63:59] time, it scales and grows into different
[64:01] use cases. So, it's still too small to
[64:04] be competing at a sovereign level with
[64:06] gold.
[64:07] But, it is interesting that since the
[64:09] conflict started, it's been the de facto
[64:12] safe haven. And I think it's very
[64:14] telling because of the properties of the
[64:16] money. If I was in the Middle East or I
[64:18] was in some conflict area,
[64:21] and I needed to get money and take it
[64:23] with me, or I need to get money out,
[64:25] I would not have gold. How the [ __ ]
[64:28] would I travel with a bunch of gold? How
[64:29] would I keep a bunch of gold safe?
[64:32] Again, I can take Bitcoin, I could put
[64:33] it on a USB stick, I could put it in my
[64:36] backpack, nobody knows I have it. That's
[64:38] the other thing.
[64:40] It's hard to It's hard to hide that you
[64:42] own a [ __ ] ton of gold.
[64:44] I don't people come over to your house,
[64:46] people see your vault. I mean, you'd
[64:48] have to register with a bank if you
[64:50] wanted to store it with them. With
[64:51] Bitcoin, I could put it on a USB stick,
[64:53] nobody knows how much money I have,
[64:55] nobody knows that I even have it on me.
[64:57] I could put I could put 12 words in my
[64:58] brain, memorize it.
[65:01] So, I find it interesting when people
[65:03] say, "Oh, gold's the de facto safe
[65:05] haven." Gold Gold is what China's using
[65:07] to rotate out of the US dollar and bonds
[65:11] in the current, you know, uh 1971
[65:15] fiat system
[65:17] and into something else. That they're
[65:20] just use But, when there's real conflict
[65:23] and real danger,
[65:25] Bitcoin seems to be the better money cuz
[65:28] it has better properties. It's more
[65:29] divisible, it's easily transportable. Uh
[65:32] it's easy to store. It's It's
[65:34] weightless. I don't have to lug it
[65:35] around in a truck.
[65:38] It's invisible. Nobody knows that I have
[65:40] it on me.
[65:42] It's better It's better at being money
[65:44] at the end of the day.
[65:46] And the other thing that I will say
[65:48] is, guys, if you zoom out long enough,
[65:50] Bitcoin's been chopping around for like
[65:54] almost 2 years now.
[65:56] Just been around this, you know, 70 to
[65:58] 100 to 60 to 80.
[66:01] When this thing does When they print the
[66:03] money and this thing moves, this thing
[66:04] is going to rip.
[66:06] It's been It's been build like it
[66:09] I Bitcoin's been impressing me.
[66:12] Through all of the like the US uh
[66:14] president comes out and says something,
[66:17] the world's calling him a big fat liar,
[66:19] there's more conflict, there's more war
[66:21] threats, Israel doesn't seem to give a
[66:23] [ __ ] about what anyone's saying, they're
[66:25] just bombing the [ __ ] out of Iran no
[66:26] matter what.
[66:27] Bitcoin's hanging in there at 70. It's
[66:29] hanging the [ __ ] in there. Since the
[66:31] conflict started, it's greatly
[66:32] outperformed the stock market, it's
[66:34] greatly outperformed gold. Really
[66:36] impressive.
[66:38] Really impressive. And as someone that
[66:40] works on a protocol, builds companies, I
[66:42] don't care for the near-term price
[66:44] action. I don't give a [ __ ] If In fact,
[66:46] the the near-term with Bitcoin going
[66:48] down, it's great opportunity for me to
[66:49] buy dips, for my companies to buy dips.
[66:51] So,
[66:52] I pay it little to no mind. It's the
[66:54] long-term. Does Bitcoin have the
[66:56] properties that make it the best money?
[66:58] If not, I'm going to work on something
[66:59] else. And this is super inspiring cuz it
[67:01] just does.
[67:02] If I have to get capital out, if I have
[67:05] to hide the fact that I have capital, if
[67:06] I need privacy, if I need mobility, like
[67:10] I mean, Bitcoin there's just nothing
[67:12] better. There really is nothing better.
[67:16] Okay, with that,
[67:18] everyone's favorite uh
[67:21] Oh, I didn't even remember I have this
[67:22] slide.
[67:24] Oh, this is just what I think's going to
[67:25] happen. It's my prediction.
[67:27] Uh Strait of Hormuz closed.
[67:29] Uh Global liquidity is going to cause a
[67:31] crisis and they're going to print money.
[67:33] And I I I would say, you know, before
[67:36] all of this Iran stuff, I was like, "Eh,
[67:39] it could be
[67:41] could be a month, could be 6 months,
[67:42] could be 9 months. I don't really know
[67:45] when credit is going to become such a
[67:47] problem." With this crisis, if the
[67:49] strait doesn't open in 1 to 2 weeks,
[67:54] I don't know. Latest May.
[67:58] That's my prediction. I'm wrong all the
[68:00] time, take it for what it's worth.
[68:02] All right, let me get some water.
[68:08] Time for grind my gears. You guys liked
[68:11] the Vegas one.
[68:17] Except the people in Las Vegas.
[68:19] So sensitive. Like, bro, you're the one
[68:22] to talk.
[68:23] Have you seen seen Chicago lately?
[68:26] >> [laughter]
[68:26] >> Shut the [ __ ] up.
[68:28] Nobody likes the strip of Las Vegas.
[68:31] Unless you're [ __ ] fat and like
[68:33] snorting cinnamon.
[68:35] Nobody likes the strip of Las Vegas.
[68:38] All right.
[68:40] Here we go.
[68:43] >> [cough and clears throat]
[68:44] >> You know what really grinds my gears?
[68:49] Coinbase and these
[68:52] fake pretend financial freedom
[68:54] platforms.
[68:56] Let me tell you guys something, okay?
[69:00] We're living in an era of currency
[69:02] debasement.
[69:04] Right? Doesn't matter where you are, it
[69:06] doesn't matter who you are.
[69:09] Your currency
[69:11] is being engineered to be worth less,
[69:13] and I mean worth less in how much food
[69:15] you can buy, how many vacations you can
[69:17] take, how much housing you get access
[69:19] to, how many kids you can afford to
[69:20] raise.
[69:22] We're living through currency
[69:23] debasement. When you're living through
[69:25] currency debasement, everyone is a
[69:28] speculator, whether you know it or not.
[69:33] You're getting paid in something
[69:36] that by the day
[69:38] is worth less stuff. So, whether you
[69:42] know it or not, you have to speculate.
[69:44] You have to take your hard-earned
[69:46] earnings and invest it into something
[69:49] else just to get by, just to have the
[69:52] right to the same amount of housing,
[69:54] food, vacations, energy, everything that
[69:58] you were yesterday. You have to
[70:00] speculate. One way to monetize that era
[70:04] is to create a casino.
[70:08] So, this tweet from Brian Armstrong, we
[70:10] live in an incredible time where this is
[70:12] all you need to access decentralized
[70:14] financial services accessible anywhere
[70:16] in the world, and it's a cell phone.
[70:19] And the thing is, that's the vision I
[70:21] share as well. As long as you have an
[70:24] internet connection or some way to relay
[70:27] messaging digitally,
[70:30] you can have property rights. You can
[70:32] have hard money. You can participate in
[70:35] this global market of labor and effort
[70:37] and value exchange.
[70:40] Bitcoin is the is it's the best
[70:42] invention of my lifetime.
[70:47] But, this is what Coinbase is.
[70:49] So, you go from we live in an incredible
[70:51] time where this is all you need to
[70:53] access access decentralized finance
[70:56] to this.
[71:01] Trade the madness. Gamble on sports.
[71:07] This is when when Bitcoin maximalists
[71:12] call everyone else a scammer,
[71:14] and people go,
[71:15] "Oh, don't be so
[71:17] My impressions during these segments.
[71:19] Oh, don't be so harsh. Not everything's
[71:21] a scam. You Bitcoin maximalists, you
[71:24] guys are so angry." This is what the
[71:27] [ __ ] we're talking about.
[71:29] How is this not a deceiving scam?
[71:32] Financial freedom is betting on March
[71:34] Madness?
[71:37] Seriously.
[71:39] Coinbase, I read their uh
[71:41] I read their shareholder letter cuz they
[71:43] just had earnings recently.
[71:46] Coinbase
[71:48] holds $10 billion of fiat on their
[71:51] balance sheet.
[71:52] They own only a billion dollars of
[71:54] Bitcoin. Do they even believe in what
[71:57] they claim to be working on?
[71:59] This is financial freedom, sending
[72:01] people push notifications to bet on
[72:04] basketball.
[72:06] This is [ __ ] And coming off the
[72:08] back of Las Vegas, Coinbase is Las
[72:11] Vegas, just less cinnamon churro
[72:14] cocktails and more Silicon Valley
[72:16] [ __ ] These guys have no problem
[72:20] being in a front to everything they
[72:21] claim to stand for. No problem. This is
[72:24] financial freedom? On what planet is
[72:27] this financial freedom in democratizing
[72:29] access to property rights, telling
[72:31] people to bet on Michigan?
[72:34] It Guys, it [ __ ] drives me nuts, and
[72:38] I'm about to I'm about to explode. I you
[72:40] know, I sometimes I watch back at the
[72:41] Grimey Gear segments, I'm like, "Man, I
[72:43] got fired up. This time I'll be a little
[72:45] bit more even-keeled." I just can't help
[72:47] myself. My personality's my personality.
[72:48] I'll die this way. I can't stand this
[72:51] [ __ ] because here's the thing, I think
[72:53] that Coinbase, Robinhood, Polymarket,
[72:56] and DraftKings are all going to look the
[72:58] same in 12 months. They're all going to
[73:01] have crypto, equities, prediction
[73:04] markets, and sports gambling. Why?
[73:06] Because they don't give a [ __ ] about
[73:08] what the They are the casino. As long as
[73:11] everyone's drunk and having a good time,
[73:14] they make money. Why doesn't Coinbase
[73:16] hold more Bitcoin on their balance
[73:17] sheet? Why do they hold more fiat than
[73:19] Bitcoin?
[73:23] My guess, I don't know the answer. I'd
[73:25] love to hear a literal answer. But, I
[73:27] think the answer, because literally, if
[73:29] you believe in what you're building and
[73:31] what you're claiming, your money speaks
[73:34] louder than words ever could. That's the
[73:36] point of money.
[73:39] The money is the time and energy. Words,
[73:42] everyone has words.
[73:44] Words aren't scarce. Words aren't hard
[73:47] to acquire.
[73:52] This is financial freedom? This is
[73:54] [ __ ] Let me go to my next slide
[73:56] because you know what else is hilarious,
[73:58] and I won't just pick on Coinbase.
[74:00] I'll pick on all of them.
[74:03] You can go look at Robinhood's
[74:04] shareholder letter. So, I read I read
[74:06] all their earnings. I read the
[74:07] shareholder letter.
[74:09] And because Robinhood is trying to
[74:11] promote itself as assets under custody
[74:13] and look at our balances are growing,
[74:15] you can actually engineer how much money
[74:18] Robinhood customers are losing because
[74:20] their deposits are up.
[74:22] So, Robinhood Guys, check this.
[74:23] Robinhood will say, "Our We grew in our
[74:25] deposits,
[74:27] but our assets under custody is down."
[74:30] How? Because the customers are losing
[74:32] [ __ ] money.
[74:35] That's how. It's statistically proven
[74:37] that over time, when retail gambles,
[74:40] they lose money. So, this from James
[74:42] Chanos, "It looks like Hood customers
[74:44] lost almost 5% in February. Total
[74:46] platform assets dropped 10.2 billion
[74:48] dollars in the month to 314.2 billion,
[74:52] and that includes 5.6 in net deposits.
[74:54] So, the implied loss of 15.8 billion
[74:57] dollars was 5% end of January total
[75:00] platform." The S&P 500 was only down a
[75:03] percent.
[75:05] This is financial freedom.
[75:07] Gamble on sports, punch shitcoins,
[75:10] speculate on the weather.
[75:14] And people get mad at guys like me,
[75:16] they're like, "Yo, don't be so hard. You
[75:18] can never build anything like what what
[75:20] Coinbase has built. Don't be so hard on
[75:22] them."
[75:23] Yo.
[75:25] What type of guy would I be to watch
[75:27] tweets like this and not call [ __ ]
[75:30] On what planet is this financial
[75:32] freedom?
[75:33] It's not financial freedom. And my best
[75:35] guess of why Coinbase doesn't have a
[75:37] balance sheet of Bitcoin is because they
[75:39] have to be a neutral platform.
[75:41] If Coinbase only held Ethereum cuz
[75:43] that's what they actually believed in,
[75:47] then all the Dogecoiners and Solana
[75:49] coiners and shitcoiners and this coiners
[75:50] and that coiners are upset. Coinbase's
[75:53] position is neutrality. They don't have
[75:55] a stance in anything. They don't have a
[75:56] backbone for [ __ ]
[76:02] I'm not trying to be a dick. I'm calling
[76:04] it how I see it.
[76:07] They claim they want a new financial
[76:10] future, but they own dollars instead of
[76:12] Bitcoin.
[76:15] And this is financial freedom?
[76:19] And here's the other thing. Gambling's
[76:21] fine.
[76:23] Go ahead and gamble.
[76:25] Like all the all the people all the
[76:26] Coinbase guys are going to be in my
[76:28] comments or someone's going to clip this
[76:30] and tweet it, and Coinbase employees are
[76:31] going to be like, "Ah, have you seen
[76:32] this [ __ ] kids hoodies, loser?"
[76:34] Here's the thing, Coinbase employee,
[76:37] you can gamble.
[76:39] Be honest about it.
[76:44] I'll tell you what I do respect about
[76:46] Vegas,
[76:47] they don't pretend that it's financial
[76:50] freedom. No hooker came up to me at Las
[76:54] Vegas and was like, "Hey, sweetie, you
[76:55] want to know how much I am for a good
[76:57] time?"
[76:58] It's financial freedom. No hooker said
[77:00] that.
[77:02] They know that they are scum of the
[77:04] earth, filth, degenerate, obesity,
[77:07] gambling. That's what Vegas is, and they
[77:09] know it, and they're proud of it. They
[77:11] don't lie to you about it.
[77:13] The problem that I have is just just
[77:16] admit it. If Coinbase said, "We are a
[77:19] Silicon Valley casino. We've taken Las
[77:21] Vegas and we've digitized it," I'd have
[77:24] 10 times the respect.
[77:26] 10 times.
[77:29] Because I I personally I talk about this
[77:31] all the time. I will not build a product
[77:34] that I don't use myself. I am a customer
[77:36] of what I build.
[77:38] I would never use all these degenerate
[77:41] options and futures and prediction this.
[77:43] You just lose money. It's the same
[77:45] reason that when I go to Vegas, I don't
[77:47] really gamble.
[77:50] I don't play slot machines. What the
[77:52] [ __ ] do I look like? You crazy?
[77:55] So, guess what? I don't sell slot
[77:57] machines to other people. I find that
[77:59] highly unethical. I find that gross. I
[78:02] find that scummy.
[78:08] So, when people say, "Oh, these Bitcoin
[78:09] maxis are douchebags."
[78:12] That makes me a douchebag for saying,
[78:14] "Can you be a little bit more honest
[78:15] with your customers that they're all
[78:17] losing money month over month?" All you
[78:19] have to do is track the earnings calls
[78:21] to realize, "Holy [ __ ] Robinhood
[78:23] customers are getting murdered."
[78:30] Is the Is Is easy access to speculating
[78:33] your your wage away? Is that financial
[78:37] freedom?
[78:40] Why don't we just call it because that's
[78:41] a thing. Nobody would deposit all of
[78:44] their paycheck into Vegas and just go
[78:46] gamble all day every day. No sane person
[78:49] was Robinhood have 25 million daily
[78:52] active users? Like that level of scale
[78:54] of slot machine.
[78:56] That's what we're experiencing.
[79:03] You want to You want to sell gambling,
[79:05] sell gambling. That's fine. Be honest
[79:07] about it.
[79:09] On what planet is that financial
[79:11] freedom?
[79:12] Gambling on March Madness. Oh, and by
[79:14] the way, this uh screenshot here, look
[79:17] at the middle here. So, on the far left,
[79:19] madness is in full swing. Howard just
[79:21] won their first ever tournament game on
[79:22] Tuesday, but are now facing a 1% chance
[79:24] to beat Michigan. The tweet below it
[79:27] goes, Coinbase Financial Markets is
[79:29] registered Futures Commission's merchant
[79:31] with the CFTC.
[79:36] Guys,
[79:38] >> [laughter]
[79:40] >> that's the commodity
[79:43] Coinbase spends all their energy
[79:45] lobbying in Washington, D.C. to be
[79:47] regulated by the CFTC to avoid proper
[79:50] regula- So, they're claiming that this
[79:53] is not gambling cuz they're regulated by
[79:55] the CFTC. So, get this. This financial
[79:57] freedom platform that's supposed to
[79:59] embrace and embody Bitcoin
[80:01] actually owns 10 billion of US dollars
[80:05] and 1 billion dollars of Bitcoin. Like I
[80:08] said, I would never You guys know I
[80:10] don't own any fiat.
[80:14] Like, practice what you preach. Be
[80:16] honest. Be transparent. Be one with the
[80:19] mission. What the [ __ ] is this?
[80:22] You guys claim to believe in something,
[80:24] you don't actually own it. You guys
[80:25] claim financial freedom, and you are out
[80:28] promoting gambling. And then you spend
[80:29] all your time in Washington, D.C.
[80:33] campaigning to be regulated by the CFTC
[80:36] just to say that this isn't technically
[80:38] gambling.
[80:40] And I'm an [ __ ] for calling that out?
[80:42] Is this not absolutely insane to anybody
[80:45] else? Of course this is gambling. What
[80:47] are we talking about? Because it's
[80:49] technically right because they lobbied
[80:50] in Washington, D.C. to be regulated by
[80:52] the CFTC, it's not actually gambling.
[80:54] It's not actually a security. What the
[80:56] [ __ ] are we talk- Like, is this where
[80:58] society's gotten to? I'm like, well, I
[81:00] can't I can't actually speak my mind
[81:02] about Coinbase because although you can
[81:05] bet on March Madness and degenerately
[81:07] experience Vegas from the palm of your
[81:09] hand. I mean, they are regulated by the
[81:11] CFTC. What the [ __ ] That's the world
[81:14] you guys want to live in?
[81:18] I don't know, man. And I I already know
[81:21] all the [ __ ] that's going to like, this
[81:23] is going to get clipped, go on Twitter,
[81:24] I'm going to get blasted.
[81:26] Whatever, man. I I
[81:30] I stand for what I believe in, and when
[81:32] I'm wrong,
[81:33] always the first one to put my hand up.
[81:35] I've no problem admitting I'm wrong.
[81:38] It's the It's
[81:40] Be honest. This is not financial
[81:43] freedom. This is not property rights.
[81:45] This is nothing to do with Bitcoin. All
[81:48] these platforms are going to look the
[81:49] same. The difference between Robinhood
[81:51] and Coinbase and Polymarket and all
[81:52] these Bet on sports. Bet on the weather.
[81:55] Bet on shitcoins. Bet on penny stocks.
[81:58] That's not financial freedom. That's not
[82:00] a new monetary system.
[82:02] What is the difference? Let me ask you
[82:03] guys a question. Do you think that
[82:05] Coinbase is closer to the Vegas Strip or
[82:07] to Strike?
[82:10] Because you let them tell it, they're a
[82:12] Bitcoin company.
[82:14] What?
[82:16] If Strike had
[82:18] less than 10% of its balance sheet
[82:19] invested in Bitcoin,
[82:22] I would want someone
[82:24] to hit me over the head with a baseball
[82:26] bat.
[82:27] What do you mean? We believe in what
[82:30] we're doing.
[82:34] In my opinion, this is closer to the
[82:37] Vegas Strip that I just ragged on last
[82:38] week.
[82:41] But the difference is Vegas was honest
[82:43] about it. They're like, "Hey, welcome.
[82:46] Snort [ __ ] cinnamon churros up your
[82:49] nose, and over there are hookers, over
[82:51] there sports gambling, and right here's
[82:52] a slot machine. Either way, you're going
[82:54] to feel horrible, you're going to get
[82:56] sick, you're going to lose money. But
[82:58] that's who we are.
[83:00] At least they're honest."
[83:13] It's [ __ ] man. And the problem is
[83:17] all these
[83:18] all the
[83:20] People ask like, "What's the hardest
[83:21] part of my job?" It's being associated
[83:24] with the shitcoins.
[83:26] And all all this stuff.
[83:31] That's because
[83:33] Yeah.
[83:34] We move on. That's my problem. That's
[83:36] what grinds my gears.
[83:39] Now Now I'm preparing for the war on
[83:40] Twitter when that gets clipped. Uh
[83:43] Strike. Um
[83:45] I love So, every Monday now we tweet
[83:47] what we launched the week prior. I love
[83:50] this. Do you guys remember um the UPS
[83:52] commercials? Like, uh what was it? What
[83:55] would What is Brown do for you? Or what
[83:57] has Brown done for you? Or something
[83:58] like that? I love that. Like, what has
[84:00] your Bitcoin exchange done for you
[84:02] lately? Cuz one of the things I'm most
[84:04] proud of at Strike is we ship products
[84:07] nonstop. We are a machine that just gets
[84:10] stronger with time and with feedback and
[84:12] with learnings and constantly engaging
[84:14] with customers, constantly engaging with
[84:16] you guys, whether it's on Reddit or on
[84:18] Twitter or here on the show. And we
[84:20] build and we build and we build and we
[84:21] build. One of our greatest products is
[84:24] the velocity of the team. We have the
[84:28] licenses and technology and everything
[84:31] required to distribute anything you want
[84:33] when it comes to Bitcoin. And so, you
[84:36] know, Strike can serve any Bitcoin
[84:37] product at this point, and inevitably
[84:39] we'll have every Bitcoin product ever.
[84:41] It's just a matter of how we get there,
[84:43] what should we build next. And so,
[84:46] I Every Every Monday I'm going to walk
[84:48] you guys through what we built last
[84:49] week. You can follow us on Twitter, and
[84:51] you can see it there. But I love this
[84:52] tagline. What has your Bitcoin company
[84:54] or your Bitcoin exchange or your Bitcoin
[84:55] app done for you lately? Because pound
[84:58] for pound, I think Strike ships the
[84:59] most.
[85:01] So, uh I read March has been an
[85:03] incredible month for us. Last week
[85:05] alone, we expanded our Bitcoin line of
[85:07] credit product for individuals uh in
[85:10] about half the United States. Uh you can
[85:12] go on our website and see if your state
[85:13] is in there. Um but I know we started
[85:15] with two states, and I told you guys I
[85:17] would just wanted to make sure things go
[85:19] well. We're going to continue to test.
[85:20] We're not going to go full zero to 100
[85:22] like we would with other products. So,
[85:24] big leap. Expanded it a lot. A lot of
[85:27] you guys opened a ton of lines of
[85:29] credit, which a line of credit, by the
[85:30] way, is like a HELOC for your Bitcoin.
[85:32] Uh only only uh get charged for the
[85:35] capital that you actually use. It's not
[85:37] like a fixed-term loan. Uh there's no uh
[85:39] due date. Really really great product.
[85:42] Um so, check that. If you guys want to
[85:44] see where it's available, you can go on
[85:45] our website and check it. Uh term loan
[85:48] minimums. So, Utah, we dropped uh the
[85:50] minimum from 74K to 10K for everyone in
[85:53] Utah, and in Maine we dropped from 250K
[85:55] to 74K. This is just again about
[85:58] regulations. The more licenses we get,
[86:00] the more comfortable we get with
[86:01] regulators. For people that don't know,
[86:03] our products are regulated both at the
[86:05] federal level, so the entire country,
[86:08] and then at the state level. We're
[86:09] regulated by both. And so, we do have to
[86:11] go state by state and work with
[86:12] regulators. Sometimes some state
[86:14] requires multiple licenses or certain
[86:16] restrictions. And so, the minimums are
[86:19] almost always not imposed by us, but by
[86:21] our regulators. And so, when you see us
[86:23] drop these minimums, it means we worked
[86:25] actively with a specific state to drop
[86:28] the minimums and expand our product. Uh
[86:31] and then the last one is business loan
[86:33] minimums. So, in most US states, almost
[86:36] all, we dropped the minimum down to 5K.
[86:38] So, if you're a business and you want a
[86:40] loan, you can get it as low as $5,000
[86:42] loan. So, we continue to ship, and this
[86:45] was just the top three of We ship about,
[86:48] I don't know,
[86:49] half a dozen to a dozen things a week,
[86:51] at least one a day. Really exciting. So,
[86:54] what has your Bitcoin company done for
[86:57] you lately? That's Strike's new tagline.
[86:59] I love it.
[87:00] Um okay, 21.
[87:02] Um
[87:03] I wanted to just spend a little bit of
[87:06] uh time here on this one um because, you
[87:09] know,
[87:10] sometimes I get questions about 21
[87:12] online, and I can never tell if they're
[87:16] genuine
[87:17] or if people are just upset with me.
[87:21] And again, like I said, both are valid.
[87:23] I'm not going to argue against either
[87:25] intent. But obviously, if they're
[87:27] genuine and people don't know the
[87:29] answer,
[87:30] I would love to provide the answer. So,
[87:33] I think one of the things that people
[87:35] ask me all the time is, "Why aren't you
[87:37] buying Bitcoin? Why haven't you bought
[87:39] Bitcoin? Hey, here's an idea. Buy
[87:41] Bitcoin." And
[87:43] >> [laughter]
[87:43] >> obviously,
[87:45] um that's not a new idea. Buying
[87:48] Bitcoin, if I could just buy Bitcoin all
[87:51] day, every day,
[87:53] uh
[87:55] that and it made sense, and we would.
[87:57] So, I want to answer the question why
[88:00] we
[88:02] aren't buying
[88:03] loads and loads and loads of Bitcoin. Um
[88:07] And ultimately, this comes down to who's
[88:10] funding our Bitcoin conviction at 21
[88:13] versus other Bitcoin treasury companies,
[88:15] for example. And here's my normal
[88:17] disclaimer before I get into it.
[88:20] I'm not saying any Bitcoin company or
[88:23] Bitcoin treasury strategy. I'm not
[88:24] saying any of it's bad. They're
[88:25] different than what we want to do. I
[88:28] I think 21
[88:30] is aiming to be fairly unique. We'll see
[88:33] how that goes, as I said.
[88:36] We're either going to build a really
[88:37] valuable company or we're not. Proof of
[88:39] work. Time will tell. Very I'm very
[88:41] confident, but I'm biased, obviously.
[88:43] You guys know that.
[88:44] Um but we're very different in our
[88:46] intent than other businesses. And let me
[88:48] explain uh why. So,
[88:51] I pulled the screenshot. Let me zoom in
[88:52] here.
[88:53] So, the reason I have the screenshot
[88:55] displayed is because Do you guys see the
[88:59] little number on the right of each row
[89:02] here that is in gray and is
[89:06] uh bracketed?
[89:08] That is what the industry calls the
[89:10] MNAV. So, what is the company's market
[89:13] cap relative to the amount of or the
[89:16] value of the Bitcoin on the balance
[89:18] sheet.
[89:19] So, Strategies market cap
[89:22] is a little bit lower than the Bitcoin
[89:25] on their balance sheet. Okay? Now, we
[89:27] see 21. So, Strategies trading at
[89:30] at 93% of the Bitcoin on their balance
[89:32] sheet. So, they're trading at less.
[89:34] 21 is at 80%.
[89:37] Uh where other Strive 68%. Okay? Now,
[89:43] why is 21 not Why don't you just buy
[89:46] Bitcoin? Why don't you just buy Bitcoin?
[89:48] That's the questions we get. Well,
[89:50] my response to you would be, how do you
[89:52] want me to buy the Bitcoin?
[89:54] With what?
[89:56] And if what you want
[89:58] 21 to do is what other Bitcoin treasury
[90:01] companies are doing, which I'm saying is
[90:02] not necessarily a bad thing, it's just
[90:04] different than our approach.
[90:07] Sometimes companies are selling shares
[90:10] to buy the Bitcoin. That's how they're
[90:11] raising the cash to buy the Bitcoin.
[90:13] Obviously, no one's going to give you
[90:14] Bitcoin in exchange for nothing. So, you
[90:16] got to come up with cash somehow. How
[90:17] are they getting the cash? They're
[90:18] selling shares.
[90:20] But, they're selling shares sometimes
[90:22] under the value of the Bitcoin on the
[90:24] balance sheet.
[90:26] And that is uh
[90:27] diluted. And so, the reason that we at
[90:29] 21 aren't
[90:31] doing it primarily is because we're
[90:34] trading at 80% of our balance sheet. So,
[90:37] I could sell a share, but I'm only
[90:40] getting The way to think about it
[90:41] without spending too much time here is
[90:43] I'd get 80 cents for every dollar I
[90:46] sold. Who wants that deal? I don't want
[90:48] 80 I don't want to be selling dollars
[90:49] for 80 cents.
[90:51] Doesn't make any sense. That would be
[90:53] bad business in our opinion.
[90:56] Okay? Now, I think the ultimate question
[90:59] that for those interested in 21 should
[91:01] conceptualize is who's funding our
[91:04] Bitcoin conviction?
[91:06] This is kind of how I would phrase it.
[91:08] Um if people are interested in how our
[91:10] strategy differs from others. Because
[91:13] what I would say is as a company,
[91:16] you know,
[91:17] I like I've said before, I believe in
[91:19] building profitable businesses.
[91:22] And the reason I believe in that is
[91:24] philosophical before it's economical.
[91:27] Because I believe in building something
[91:29] productive that has products and that
[91:32] has customers and that is growing and
[91:34] has a vision and is working towards some
[91:37] productive future it's contributing to.
[91:39] That's fundamentally I I believe in
[91:41] building those types of businesses. And
[91:44] so, in our version of the future that
[91:47] we're working towards, our Bitcoin
[91:49] conviction is funded by our customers,
[91:52] where we make more money from our
[91:54] customers than we consume from the
[91:56] market. So, let's say it costs us 80
[91:58] cents to build our product and we're
[92:00] able to sell that product for a dollar.
[92:02] We have 20 cents of net productivity
[92:04] left over for every unit sold that we
[92:06] can then pile into Bitcoin or finance
[92:09] leverage to buy Bitcoin. But, the point
[92:11] is
[92:12] we want to finance our Bitcoin
[92:15] conviction
[92:16] via the productive output of our
[92:18] business.
[92:21] Now, Bitcoin treasury companies have an
[92:22] entirely different strategy. Or and I
[92:25] don't know if we're a Bitcoin treasury
[92:26] company necessarily. I don't know what
[92:28] the definition is and where the lines
[92:30] are drawn.
[92:31] But, I would say, you know,
[92:33] uh MicroStrategy or a Strive or I'm not
[92:36] sure how many other ones are doing these
[92:39] type of preferred um high yield
[92:42] instruments and stuff.
[92:44] But, the question is who is financing
[92:46] their Bitcoin conviction? Because
[92:48] ultimately that's what they're selling,
[92:49] right? They're selling Bitcoin
[92:50] conviction. They're saying, we believe
[92:52] in Bitcoin, we believe in getting
[92:53] exposure to Bitcoin via our equity.
[92:56] That's my interpretation of what they're
[92:57] selling. And again, it's not a good or
[92:59] bad thing, it's it's their strategy. I'm
[93:00] not
[93:01] I'm not talking trash. People accuse me
[93:03] of talking trash. I'm not talking trash.
[93:06] Um Now, the question is, these companies
[93:09] are not focused on building and
[93:12] operating business with
[93:14] cash flow and growth.
[93:16] And so, who's financing their Bitcoin
[93:18] conviction?
[93:19] And it's just materially different than
[93:23] what 21 wants to be. 21 wants to build
[93:26] Bitcoin products, grow them, make a
[93:29] bunch of profit which we're we'd be
[93:31] proud of, which is we're providing value
[93:34] to the world on a net basis. We are
[93:36] productive as a company and we're going
[93:37] to take our productivity and we're going
[93:39] to finance our conviction. Like, for
[93:41] example, Google finances their
[93:44] uh vision of AI and they finance their
[93:46] vision of space and all of the crazy
[93:49] cool projects they're working on via
[93:51] their profits.
[93:52] Right? Google builds a product for
[93:54] customers. Customers enjoy their product
[93:56] and in exchange, you know, they monetize
[93:58] that and they take the excess
[94:00] productivity that they're generating as
[94:02] a company and they finance their future
[94:05] convictions with that. And that's who we
[94:07] want to be. We think that that is that
[94:09] doesn't necessarily exist in the market.
[94:12] You know, you have
[94:13] a Coinbase, for example. Coinbase is a
[94:17] business. It's a real business, you
[94:18] know? I can talk all the trash I want
[94:20] and say, you know, they're
[94:23] a casino hiding as a financial services
[94:26] platform. But, they're a business and
[94:27] they make money and they have customers
[94:29] and they operate at a huge scale. But, I
[94:31] would say Coinbase lacks the Bitcoin
[94:32] conviction. As I said, they own way more
[94:35] cash than Bitcoin. They don't seem to be
[94:36] focused on Bitcoin. It's hard to tell
[94:38] how much they actually believe in
[94:39] Bitcoin. So, they're a business without
[94:42] any conviction. And then I think
[94:43] existing Bitcoin treasury companies have
[94:46] a lot of conviction. There's no doubt
[94:47] they believe in Bitcoin.
[94:49] But, they don't have an operating
[94:51] business that they're focused on or that
[94:52] they're invested in or that they're
[94:53] proud of or that they care much about.
[94:56] And the question is then, who's funding
[94:59] their Bitcoin conviction? And I think
[95:01] it's iterated and changed. There's
[95:02] convertible debt market, now there's a
[95:03] preferred market. But, at the end of the
[95:04] day, who's financing their conviction
[95:07] and their ability to buy Bitcoin? Um who
[95:10] who's the one paying for that?
[95:13] Uh
[95:14] and
[95:15] um for us, we want to be different in
[95:17] that way, where we think we can both
[95:18] have a company
[95:20] and also have conviction. Believe in
[95:22] something. Believe in Bitcoin. Go all
[95:25] out and acquire as much Bitcoin as we
[95:27] possibly can. Not get distracted by
[95:28] anything else. But, build you know, be a
[95:31] productive business alongside that that
[95:33] has customers and products and margins.
[95:37] Uh and so, that is we think that's
[95:40] really hard to do. Um it's you know,
[95:44] I would say it's easier
[95:46] to raise a bunch of money, D SPAC a
[95:50] company to go public and come out with
[95:54] some
[95:55] convertible product. I think not
[95:58] everyone can do that, but a lot of
[95:59] people can do that. As we've seen, how
[96:01] many Bitcoin treasury companies have
[96:03] sprouted up over the last 12 months?
[96:05] It's not that hard to go to Wall Street,
[96:08] raise a PIPE transaction, D SPAC into
[96:10] the public markets and then come out
[96:12] with
[96:13] some financial product. And it might
[96:16] work. I have no idea. And I'm not I'm
[96:18] not saying they shouldn't do that. But,
[96:20] I think it's actually much harder
[96:23] to build a productive product that
[96:27] serves customers and generates profit.
[96:30] Because in the event that we have an
[96:33] operating company that's financing our
[96:36] leverage or our purchases without having
[96:40] to sell shares, um then we're financing
[96:43] our Bitcoin conviction with the
[96:46] productivity that we're producing in the
[96:48] marketplace via the profits we're
[96:50] earning from customers. And to me,
[96:52] that's like
[96:53] and it's just my opinion and we'll see
[96:55] how much of the market agrees with me.
[96:57] Maybe everyone's like, well, that vision
[96:59] for a company is [ __ ] stupid. I don't
[97:01] think it is. I think that that's
[97:04] peak
[97:05] company.
[97:06] That's that's the peak is that you're
[97:08] building things that people value and
[97:10] people are willing to pay for and you're
[97:12] producing profit, which means you're
[97:14] productive because you're producing more
[97:16] value than you're consuming from the
[97:17] world and you're able to take your
[97:18] excess productivity and invest it more
[97:21] into the future you believe in. And I
[97:23] think that is really hard. Not anyone
[97:25] can raise money on Wall Street and do
[97:27] that. That is really it's really
[97:29] difficult to execute, build products,
[97:31] build technology, be licensed,
[97:33] distribute, market. It is not easy to do
[97:37] that,
[97:38] especially at scale and then pair that
[97:41] with serious conviction.
[97:43] You know, whether it's Robinhood or
[97:44] Coinbase or any of these companies, I
[97:46] don't think they have the conviction
[97:48] that we have at 21 that I have as a
[97:50] Bitcoiner. And then I think some of the
[97:52] other Bitcoin companies that have the
[97:54] conviction, like these treasury
[97:55] companies, you know, I don't think that
[97:57] they're as focused on building an actual
[98:00] business or maybe they don't believe
[98:02] they can do it or whatever. So, Teather
[98:04] and I have always viewed ourselves as
[98:06] you know, that's the difference. And so,
[98:08] why are we not buying Bitcoin?
[98:11] Well, because
[98:12] we we want to launch our businesses
[98:14] first. Um there's no I don't want to
[98:16] sell dollar bills for 80 cents.
[98:19] It's not It's not what we're about.
[98:24] I don't know. If that didn't make sense,
[98:25] you guys can ask me questions in Q&A.
[98:30] Um okay.
[98:31] Cool.
[98:33] Uh let's see. Let me pull up uh
[98:36] Dylan's questions.
[98:38] We'll get this show on the road.
[98:49] >> [snorts]
[98:56] >> Okay.
[99:03] Uh question for Jack today. We chat
[99:05] about AI disrupting software. Do you see
[99:06] it also disrupting other industries like
[99:08] accounting? I do.
[99:11] Yeah, I do.
[99:13] Um but I've uh I've talked about this uh
[99:16] plenty of times before.
[99:18] I think I think AI's a great thing. I
[99:21] know it'll be challenging as the social
[99:23] contract changes a little bit and
[99:25] people's expectations on being
[99:27] productive and
[99:29] what the way I think about being
[99:31] productive and having wealth is really
[99:33] just like how much access to energy
[99:35] consumption do you have. Like someone
[99:37] who's really rich and can fly a private
[99:40] jet.
[99:41] That just means they have access to more
[99:43] energy consumption than their neighbor.
[99:45] They can guzzle more energy.
[99:47] And you know
[99:49] the correlation between your quality of
[99:51] life
[99:52] and energy consumption is direct.
[99:55] You know, like the more access you have
[99:57] to energy consumption. Oh, I don't have
[99:58] to take an Uber to the airport. I can
[99:59] take a helicopter. That's just
[100:02] an ability to consume more energy than
[100:03] the next guy, you know?
[100:05] And so I think the social contract of
[100:08] who has the right to be consuming more
[100:10] energy is going to change.
[100:13] And that'll be disruptive and that'll be
[100:14] painful for a little bit. But on the
[100:17] other side of that I think what's
[100:19] happening is humans shouldn't be doing
[100:23] the type of labor that can be automated
[100:26] by AI anyway. I would say over the
[100:28] longer arc of history humans are
[100:31] creatives. We're champions of culture.
[100:34] We're artists.
[100:35] And
[100:37] I think that we'll all get back into the
[100:40] artistry that is human. And I don't mean
[100:42] literal art like music or painting,
[100:46] although that's obviously included.
[100:49] But being a founder is a form of
[100:52] artistry. Being a podcaster, right? Like
[100:55] I Like I think I'm really bullish on
[100:57] content creators because AI has to
[101:00] consume
[101:02] something in order to get smarter. And
[101:05] so AI is eating
[101:07] like my podcast. Like it's getting
[101:10] information from people like me. And so
[101:13] people that are in the artistry of
[101:16] creating, creating products, creating
[101:18] content, creating ideas, creating
[101:20] visuals, creating music, creating
[101:22] sounds.
[101:24] I think
[101:25] those are the people that will be more
[101:27] rewarded in the marketplace and
[101:28] everything that can be automated by a
[101:30] machine. What do machines lack? Machines
[101:32] lack character. They lack taste. They
[101:35] lack touch. They lack feel. They lack
[101:37] intuition.
[101:39] They are programs. And so
[101:42] I think it will disrupt accounting. I
[101:43] think it'll eat everything it possibly
[101:45] can. But if it can eat it
[101:49] that means I don't think humans were
[101:50] destined to do it forever.
[101:52] Cuz we're best
[101:54] as champions of culture.
[101:56] In my opinion. And so I think that AI
[101:58] will actually bring about an art
[102:00] renaissance, like a new aged art
[102:02] renaissance because I think the
[102:04] combination of Bitcoin and AI because if
[102:06] we have a hard money where we don't have
[102:08] to gamble on March Madness, we don't
[102:10] have to gamble on equities, we don't
[102:11] have to gamble on shitcoins, we don't
[102:13] have to gamble on the weather just to
[102:15] get by.
[102:16] All you have to do
[102:18] is save.
[102:19] Earn more than we consume and save.
[102:22] And so if you have a money that can
[102:23] actually protect your property rights,
[102:25] protect your rights to the future
[102:27] and then you have a technology that can
[102:28] automate all the mundane tasks
[102:31] then what's left for you to do?
[102:33] And the answer is create.
[102:35] The answer is art. The answer is
[102:38] culture.
[102:40] And so I think we'll see like a huge
[102:43] rush of creativity
[102:45] and innovation and artistry
[102:48] on the other half of what will be like
[102:50] obviously some dark times cuz when that
[102:52] social contract changes and the guy that
[102:55] you know, his expectation for the rest
[102:56] of his life is he's going to be a top
[102:57] energy consumer, right? I'm going to get
[102:59] the first class flight. I'm going to
[103:01] have a two car garage. I'm going to have
[103:03] I'm going to have I'm going to have and
[103:04] that changes
[103:06] you know, I it's no telling how these
[103:08] people are going to
[103:10] react in that world. Are they going to
[103:12] be violent? Who are they going to vote
[103:14] in? Um
[103:15] how is society change or how does
[103:18] society
[103:19] react to the change in social contract
[103:22] there?
[103:23] I'm not sure.
[103:25] Hey Jackie.
[103:29] Pause.
[103:30] Uh what is going to be the settlement
[103:32] layer the world banking institutions are
[103:34] going to use soon? I'll give you a hint,
[103:36] it's not Bitcoin.
[103:40] Is that a question? Um
[103:44] I guess it's stablecoins.
[103:46] Uh
[103:48] I don't really know.
[103:49] I think in that inevitably it's Bitcoin.
[103:52] The problem is
[103:54] like especially now trust is entirely
[103:58] gone.
[103:59] So like you think Russia wants to use
[104:02] the US stablecoin to settle with the US
[104:05] Treasury?
[104:06] No, because the US took their treasury,
[104:09] said your property is now our property,
[104:11] get lost.
[104:12] And so
[104:14] at a certain point physical
[104:16] commodity, physical value, physical
[104:18] money is the only thing that you can
[104:20] trust. I think that's a large reason why
[104:22] China's been getting as much physical
[104:24] gold out there as possible. Can't trust
[104:27] can't trust anybody anymore. One day
[104:28] you're going to wake up and
[104:30] all of your money is gone.
[104:32] So
[104:34] uh stablecoins don't solve that problem.
[104:36] Are stablecoins better than the Fedwire?
[104:38] Sure.
[104:40] I But I don't know. It that doesn't
[104:42] matter to me.
[104:45] It might matter more to someone in
[104:46] Nigeria and I mean that genuinely. Like
[104:48] Strike serves USDT to our Latin American
[104:52] and African markets and people love it
[104:54] and I'm not taking that away from them.
[104:55] It's hard for me to relate to that, but
[104:57] I don't think that that's the inevitable
[104:58] frontier we're going to have to to fight
[105:01] and change. I
[105:02] At the end of the day
[105:04] trusting some central authority
[105:07] with your right to property is a dubious
[105:10] proposition. And that is the core issue
[105:13] of what's happening. Like think about
[105:15] it. Even me and my relationship with the
[105:17] Fed and the US Treasury. I'm trusting
[105:20] them with the right I have to a certain
[105:23] amount of food, to a certain amount of
[105:24] housing, to a certain amount of energy
[105:26] consumption.
[105:27] And they violate that trust all the
[105:29] time. One day I wake up and they printed
[105:31] more money and now due to inflation my
[105:33] right to uh consume from the market has
[105:37] been greatly lessened.
[105:39] And so I just think the issue is the
[105:41] trust factor. Stablecoins don't solve
[105:43] that. Um gold solves that, but gold
[105:47] doesn't solve a host of other things,
[105:48] which is like how do I move it? How do I
[105:50] store it? How do I get privacy? Like you
[105:52] know, if we go on to a gold standard and
[105:54] everything's rioting in the streets,
[105:56] they're going to point, "Hey, that guy
[105:57] has gold." Like how how do I hide? How
[106:00] do I Hey,
[106:01] you know who knows how much I have,
[106:02] what's on me, what's in my brain?
[106:05] So inevitably I think the frontier is
[106:07] Bitcoin. Um cuz it solves fundamentally
[106:10] the issues. If stablecoins are
[106:12] marginally better than the Fedwire
[106:15] sure.
[106:16] I just I don't find it interesting. I
[106:17] don't think it solves the real problem.
[106:20] Um I think it says more about how bad
[106:22] the Fedwire is than
[106:24] anything else.
[106:26] Um Bitcoin markets. Do you think KYC is
[106:28] a threat to the future of Bitcoin? Will
[106:30] people prefer a ledger that is hidden
[106:32] from the government? Um
[106:34] I don't think KYC is a threat to
[106:36] Bitcoin. I think it's a severe
[106:38] inconvenience to society.
[106:40] My personal opinion, I've been very
[106:42] vocal about this.
[106:45] Like at Strike we perform KYC cuz it is
[106:49] imposed on us by the law and
[106:53] we
[106:54] still have to like implement fraud
[106:56] controls and stuff.
[106:58] So
[106:59] I guess KYC doesn't eliminate all crime.
[107:02] KYC also doesn't eliminate all fraud. In
[107:06] fact, it's kind of the opposite. So
[107:09] at least in our experience.
[107:11] So I would say it's more a severe
[107:14] inconvenience to society that you have
[107:16] to turn over your data
[107:19] to these central uh parties that are
[107:22] providing you services.
[107:24] Um and I think it does far more harm to
[107:27] good people than it does inconvenience
[107:29] bad people. Again, in my experience.
[107:32] Um I think that's widely That's a widely
[107:35] shared opinion throughout the financial
[107:37] technology space. I don't know if
[107:39] there's too many people that would
[107:40] disagree with me there. But would I say
[107:42] it's a threat to Bitcoin? I would not
[107:44] say that. Bitcoin's going to succeed
[107:47] with or without KYC. KYC can remain
[107:49] forever. Bitcoin's going to go on to be
[107:50] the world's money.
[107:51] But uh I do think that society is
[107:54] inconvenienced by KYC. I think society
[107:57] would be better off without it with We
[107:59] should take a look at the Bank Secrecy
[108:01] Act and all of the related regulations
[108:04] and just try and apply something that
[108:07] makes more sense for the world we're in
[108:09] today.
[108:10] Uh that I will say and I will stand by,
[108:13] but a threat to Bitcoin?
[108:17] Nah. You're going to threaten Bitcoin's
[108:18] future, you're going to have to come
[108:20] with a lot more than an old banking
[108:22] regulation.
[108:24] Question, do you think MicroStrategy is
[108:25] a centralization concern? If they are
[108:27] successful, wouldn't this harm be
[108:29] harmful for hyperbitcoinization and
[108:31] moving away from fiat?
[108:34] I I'm not concerned about the
[108:36] centralization aspect of strategy.
[108:39] I've said this a few times before. My
[108:41] opinion here is
[108:43] you know, in order to corner a market
[108:44] and be of grave concern you have to be
[108:47] substantial in size relative to the rest
[108:49] of the market. I'm talking 25, 35, 50%
[108:53] of outstanding supply. Like when the
[108:54] Hunt brothers tried to corner the silver
[108:56] market. Like they were
[108:58] seriously outsized the rest of the
[109:00] market. Strategy, I mean if you look at
[109:02] the amount of Bitcoin that's been sold
[109:05] in the open market over the last 2 years
[109:07] by whales. It's way bigger than
[109:09] MicroStrategy stack.
[109:11] Um so
[109:13] granted, like what Saylor's achieved is
[109:15] unbelievable. And uh
[109:17] and he owns or not him, strategy owns
[109:21] the most Bitcoin by far of any other
[109:24] corporate or individual holder as far as
[109:26] I'm aware.
[109:27] Uh
[109:28] it's still such a small percentage of
[109:31] the outstanding Bitcoin
[109:33] that there's not much they can do. Like
[109:35] if they had to sell all of it in a day,
[109:38] sure, the Bitcoin price would go down,
[109:39] but for
[109:41] a few months, for a year,
[109:43] it'd be fine like
[109:45] Bitcoin would be fine. It's nothing to
[109:46] do with the protocol, nothing to do with
[109:47] the monetary policy, nothing to do with
[109:48] their nodes, nothing. It's fine. And if
[109:51] Saylor wanted to impose, not accusing
[109:54] him of this, but in some hypothetical
[109:56] future, wanted to impose some consensus
[109:59] change to Bitcoin or change the protocol
[110:01] or change the rules, uh say it's not 21
[110:03] million anymore, it's 42 million. He
[110:05] can't do that either cuz the Bitcoin
[110:06] protocol doesn't rely on how much you
[110:08] own, right? It's that's proof of stake.
[110:10] Proof of work is
[110:12] you know, it doesn't matter who you are
[110:13] and how much you have. So both from a
[110:15] protocol level,
[110:17] not a concern.
[110:19] And then I don't know.
[110:21] Could set like if he had to sell all of
[110:23] his Bitcoin, the market would absorb it.
[110:25] Now it depends how fast and how he'd do
[110:26] it, but the market's absorbed far more
[110:29] over the last few years alone. So just
[110:31] not a not a concern to be honest. I mean
[110:34] it's a 1.4 trillion-dollar asset and
[110:36] their holdings are what? Like 40 billion
[110:38] or something like that?
[110:40] Again, it's like
[110:43] it's not not a huge deal. Uh and so
[110:47] that's my
[110:49] opinion and
[110:50] it goes to show one of the geniuses of
[110:52] Satoshi Nakamoto is somehow he
[110:55] distributed
[110:56] Bitcoin to the individual before
[110:59] corporations. I say this all the time.
[111:02] If Satoshi went to Goldman Sachs and
[111:04] said, "Hey, I solved the Byzantine
[111:05] generals problem. I have a new concept
[111:07] for money. I want to IPO it on Wall
[111:08] Street." Well, Goldman Sachs would have
[111:10] had like an early investment banking
[111:12] allocation of 20% and right? But he used
[111:15] proof of work and leaked it on a mailing
[111:18] address. Anyone could run a node, mine,
[111:21] and for that reason
[111:23] individuals own the vast majority of
[111:26] Bitcoin. And you know, that may
[111:28] re-level,
[111:30] but um let me rant here a little bit cuz
[111:32] it's actually really interesting.
[111:34] Conceptually, the way I think about
[111:35] individuals owning the vast majority of
[111:37] Bitcoin, but we're seeing these whales
[111:38] start to sell, start to take profit,
[111:40] is because
[111:42] legacy wealth has all the equities, all
[111:46] the real estate, all the private planes,
[111:49] all the legacy wealth.
[111:51] And individuals like Bitcoiners, we have
[111:54] all of the new found wealth.
[111:56] And there needs to be some exchange in
[111:58] the future that rebalances everything.
[112:01] Where like Bitcoiners get, "Oh, we'll
[112:03] take a few private planes, we'll take a
[112:04] sports team, we'll take some more real
[112:06] estate, we'll take some more farmland,
[112:07] we'll take some more stuff." And in
[112:09] return, a lot of this legacy wealth has
[112:11] to get some Bitcoin exposure. And so
[112:13] it's like a very natural exchange. And
[112:14] so, you know, inevitably it'll even out
[112:17] a little bit.
[112:19] But anyway, Satoshi's a genius for that
[112:22] because somehow he found a way to
[112:23] distribute the money evenly and fairly
[112:26] to the people. It was not biased towards
[112:28] any group, towards any country, towards
[112:30] any race, wasn't biased towards anyone.
[112:33] And by the time the world kind of caught
[112:35] on to it and we got ETFs and nation
[112:38] states and stuff, the individuals
[112:40] already own all of it. All of it's
[112:41] distributed.
[112:43] Pretty amazing achievement. So by the
[112:44] time someone like Saylor goes on an
[112:45] absolute tear of buying Bitcoin,
[112:48] I mean, he can't corner this market.
[112:49] How's he going to get 50% of the
[112:51] outstanding Bitcoin?
[112:53] There's just no way at this point. I
[112:54] think that that opportunity's long gone.
[112:58] Uh Dylan, question for Jack to pick his
[113:00] brain. If Bitcoin removes trust from
[113:01] money, what does that expose about
[113:04] everything?
[113:06] I'm already running on 2 hours of this
[113:08] episode, so I don't know how much time I
[113:09] have for that one. Um
[113:13] But
[113:14] uh
[113:16] what I would say, what is my short
[113:18] answer to that?
[113:20] Um money is supposed to be a technology
[113:24] that allows humans to price and exchange
[113:27] their efforts.
[113:29] Like, "Hey, I'm going to go out and
[113:30] build a lemonade stand." Well, how much
[113:32] is that worth in the world? How many
[113:34] cars is that worth? How many houses is
[113:37] that worth? How many meals is that
[113:39] worth? How many dinners is that worth?
[113:40] How many bottles of water is that worth?
[113:42] It's a really complicated conceptual
[113:44] problem, right?
[113:45] Now money solves that. It's a market
[113:48] good that abstracts value into a unit of
[113:51] itself so that we can start to price and
[113:53] exchange our collective efforts.
[113:57] You don't want trust involved in that. I
[113:59] shouldn't have to trust anyone to be a
[114:02] valuable contributor to this world. That
[114:04] should be a native right that I have. Is
[114:07] that I can go out there and I can try
[114:09] things and if people value it, then I
[114:11] will have the right to consume from the
[114:13] market. And if people don't, then I
[114:14] won't. And it's the best judge and the
[114:17] best ruler to determine
[114:20] who has right to consume and who has
[114:22] value and who has an ability to invest
[114:24] more in the future and who doesn't.
[114:26] That's all money is. And so the notion
[114:28] that money has involved trust at all, it
[114:32] to me is blasphemous. Should never Like
[114:35] I trust my girlfriend. Like
[114:39] uh cuz you know, whatever. She has keys
[114:41] to the house and I trust that she locked
[114:43] the door
[114:44] uh when she was on her way out,
[114:46] whatever. Like that is a reasonable
[114:49] you're building relationship and family.
[114:52] Like
[114:53] time, energy, effort, labor, fact that I
[114:55] would need to trust a central banker
[114:58] with my ability to contribute and be
[115:01] valued in society is outrageous. Should
[115:04] have never been it a thing in the first
[115:06] place.
[115:07] Um
[115:09] Okay, Strike questions. Dylan, uh why
[115:11] can't uh
[115:13] we link Strike via Plaid to other
[115:14] platforms? Um it's because Strike's not
[115:17] a bank. Uh we are built on top of other
[115:20] banks like Cross River or Lead Bank or
[115:24] Column Bank. We work with a lot of
[115:26] banks.
[115:27] But uh we we can work with Plaid. Maybe
[115:30] we're big enough at this point where
[115:31] Plaid will allow us to do that
[115:33] integration, but it isn't natively in
[115:34] there cuz we're not a bank.
[115:36] We sit on top of the banks.
[115:39] Uh Dylan, when is Michigan uh going to
[115:41] get Bitcoin line of credit?
[115:43] Uh probably within the next few months.
[115:47] I think we're waiting on a license.
[115:49] Uh hey Dylan, when Strike in
[115:52] Switzerland? I can't wait to drop my
[115:54] bank relationship. As a US dual citizen,
[115:57] there's only one bank left that is
[115:58] willing to bank me and I don't want
[115:59] their business.
[116:02] Um
[116:03] it is a 2026 milestone for us. So it is
[116:06] within this year.
[116:08] Uh I know we're doing we're focusing on
[116:10] a lot of Europe stuff in Q2, which
[116:12] starts in a week. So uh
[116:16] yeah.
[116:17] Is the Strike logo a middle finger?
[116:20] Dylan wrote in his notes, "No, it is
[116:22] not." Is Twitter back up?
[116:25] If it is, ah it is. Okay, let me show
[116:26] you guys this real quick.
[116:29] Cuz I think it's funny.
[116:32] Uh
[116:37] >> [sighs]
[116:41] >> So I tweeted this recently.
[116:51] Oh man, where was it? Oh, here it is.
[116:55] Okay.
[116:57] Let me show this to you guys.
[117:01] So if you rotate our logo exactly 69°,
[117:07] it does present something that can be
[117:09] interpreted as a middle finger.
[117:12] I don't know if Dylan's going to be
[117:13] upset by this, but it's the truth. It's
[117:15] a little Easter egg for the kids at
[117:17] home.
[117:18] But
[117:20] uh our logo obviously without rotating
[117:23] it uh
[117:24] is not a middle finger. No. It is
[117:28] maybe we'll do uh some history one day.
[117:31] Um it's like a comet crashing into the
[117:34] legacy fiat system.
[117:36] Uh
[117:37] pew, like a meteor.
[117:41] [ __ ] the banks. Uh
[117:45] But if you rotate it exactly 69°,
[117:49] hey, get your head out of the gutter.
[117:51] Uh why does Bitcoin line of credit
[117:53] require 1.5 BTC minimum as collateral?
[117:55] That's too much. Uh it varies by state.
[117:58] So it definitely does not require that.
[118:01] Um like in my state, at least it didn't.
[118:04] Um so I don't know what state you're in.
[118:07] But we're we're trying to lower it. If
[118:09] if you have a really high minimum,
[118:11] it's not our intent. We're working on
[118:13] it. Best believe that. But there are I
[118:15] mean, there are states that have a
[118:16] minimum of like two grand, I think,
[118:18] 2,500. So it's certainly not 1.5
[118:21] Bitcoin. So if you're in a state that
[118:23] has tighter uh rules for now,
[118:25] uh I apologize for that. We're working
[118:27] on it. Um only so much we can do at the
[118:29] moment.
[118:31] Uh Dylan, question for Jack. Can we get
[118:33] a function on the Strike app to toggle
[118:35] between our personal and our business
[118:36] accounts? Uh we are
[118:39] uh talking internally about it. So yes,
[118:42] it is it is within our lexicon of things
[118:44] that you guys would find valuable. So
[118:45] it'll inevitably get built. My guess
[118:47] would be sooner rather than later. But
[118:49] thanks for the feedback. Uh hope you
[118:51] guys know that when you do request stuff
[118:53] and give us feedback, you know, myself,
[118:55] the presidents of the company, Dylan,
[118:57] we're all very active on social media um
[119:00] and take your guys feedback and we bring
[119:02] it straight to the team. You guys
[119:03] heavily, heavily, heavily drive our
[119:05] strategy cuz
[119:07] we work for you at the end of the day.
[119:09] I'd much rather build stuff I know you
[119:10] guys are going to want than just guess.
[119:12] Like, hey, hope they like this. I'd
[119:14] rather just say, hey, we're the Bitcoin
[119:16] distribution platform for the world.
[119:18] What do Bitcoiners want? And you guys
[119:20] tell me, we build it. So, keep it
[119:22] coming.
[119:23] Uh, okay, question for Jack. Are we ever
[119:25] going to get another dollar bill
[119:26] segment? I miss your dad being on the
[119:27] podcast. Yeah, for sure. I I don't know
[119:30] if he loved on the podcast. He uh
[119:33] he's a much more behind the scenes guy.
[119:35] Um
[119:37] but I will ask him.
[119:39] I mean, I love him on the podcast, too.
[119:42] Uh, question for Jack. Who you got in uh
[119:44] the NCAA men's basketball championship?
[119:46] Uh, Duke. I'm a die hard Duke fan.
[119:48] Speaking of my father,
[119:50] uh, that's where my dad went to school.
[119:52] And I didn't go to school.
[119:54] Uh, so I'm a Duke fan. Die hard. Die
[119:56] hard. Being a Duke fan, everyone hates
[119:59] Duke. Hate us cuz they ain't us.
[120:01] And by the time you're 18 years old,
[120:04] it is
[120:05] war being a Duke fan.
[120:07] So, uh
[120:09] I I bleed Duke blue.
[120:12] Um
[120:13] and that's who I have every year, no
[120:15] matter what.
[120:17] Oh, Dylan just added a new question in
[120:19] real time. How do you keep your mental
[120:21] with work, travel, and everything else?
[120:23] How do you chill?
[120:25] Hmm.
[120:26] I don't know if I chill.
[120:29] That's a question for Dylan, honestly.
[120:31] I'd be curious his answer to that
[120:33] question.
[120:34] I don't know if the people around me
[120:35] would describe me as a very chill guy.
[120:38] I'm a very intense dude.
[120:40] Um
[120:42] but
[120:45] how do I
[120:47] I mean, I'll I
[120:49] there's all sorts of stuff that I do,
[120:51] uh, like I I told you guys I um
[120:55] super into like health tracking and
[120:57] stuff.
[120:58] Um
[120:59] so
[121:01] whether it's
[121:02] like before the show started, I did this
[121:04] like breathing exercise. I'm like
[121:07] carnivore-ish.
[121:09] Um, so
[121:11] I I think that diet has like my
[121:15] respiratory system, my heart health, all
[121:17] of that is really good shape according
[121:20] to the data. Um, and so uh, I do a lot
[121:24] of that to take care of myself and allow
[121:27] myself to perform and travel and work
[121:29] many hours and all that good stuff.
[121:32] Uh,
[121:33] I see a note uh from Who was that? Dylan
[121:36] or Manuel? I'll get to that in a second.
[121:38] Uh, I play a lot of chess.
[121:41] Um, but I don't really chill. I would
[121:44] say I was at the uh PubKey event,
[121:46] obviously, in New York. And people were
[121:48] asking about my girlfriend. And they
[121:50] were asking if she is a Bitcoiner.
[121:53] And my answer all the time
[121:56] is she's a Jack Coiner.
[122:00] She's not necessarily a Bitcoiner. She's
[122:01] a Bitcoiner cuz I'm a Bitcoiner.
[122:04] But her favorite thing is Jack.
[122:06] And I would say that is also probably
[122:10] where I get my chill from. I've told you
[122:12] guys before, as much as I love you all
[122:15] and I love Bitcoin,
[122:17] the ultimate peak of the mountain tops
[122:19] for me
[122:20] will be the day
[122:22] uh
[122:23] I get married and uh have a child. What
[122:27] the day I became become a father.
[122:30] That'll be
[122:31] that'll be peak for me. That'll be uh
[122:35] that'll be a big deal. So,
[122:37] um yeah, the fact that I met someone
[122:39] that
[122:41] cares about me so much, no matter what.
[122:43] Um
[122:45] that also
[122:46] has been invaluable to my development as
[122:49] a person.
[122:50] It's allowed me to probably be like
[122:53] super
[122:54] crazy intense on everything else.
[122:57] Like I'll get off this show, she's
[122:59] probably making food.
[123:01] And if I want to talk about Bitcoin,
[123:03] she's happy to talk about it, but she
[123:05] doesn't give a [ __ ] She just wants to
[123:07] eat dinner with me.
[123:08] And so that's pretty relaxing. She
[123:10] doesn't need to talk about
[123:12] Iran or macroeconomics or Bitcoin or any
[123:15] of that stuff.
[123:18] Um and with that,
[123:21] I think we're out of questions. But I
[123:23] would be curious to get Dylan's answer
[123:25] cuz I I just don't think I'm a I don't
[123:27] think I'm a chill uh
[123:29] Oh, he just wrote hanging out with
[123:30] Dylan. Dylan's obviously very helpful.
[123:33] But I wouldn't describe myself as chill.
[123:36] I think I'm fairly intense. Uh,
[123:39] which just kind of comes with being a
[123:40] leader, though.
[123:45] Oh.
[123:47] Dylan answered in the chat. Let's see
[123:48] what he said.
[123:55] I don't know what he said.
[123:59] Whatever. All right.
[124:00] 2-hour show.
[124:02] Give me, as always, feedback. I
[124:04] appreciate it. I saw some of you say the
[124:06] Grandma Gears are getting too long. Uh,
[124:08] any feedback on the show, let me know.
[124:10] You guys like the longer ones, we made
[124:12] it longer.
[124:13] Uh, do you like the longer? Do you like
[124:16] the sections? Uh
[124:19] I don't know. Whatever. You guys will
[124:20] figure it out. You're smart and you're
[124:21] not shy. Give me feedback. Can't hurt my
[124:23] feelings. Uh
[124:25] try and be better each week. And with
[124:26] that, I'll see you next week. I expect
[124:28] the Strait of Hormuz to continue to be
[124:30] closed and chaos to continue
[124:33] to unfold. So, fasten your seat belt,
[124:35] take care of yourselves, be healthy, be
[124:37] sane, and uh I'll see you in 7 days.
[124:40] Much love. Peace.