Is This Bitcoin Treasury Company Different?

[00:00:00]The largest US goldback ETF has recorded $14.4 [music] billion in outflows. Lynn Alden is launching a fund, a treasury company fund.

[00:00:11]>> It's not about every treasury company being digital credit. What it is about though is whether or not companies who have Bitcoin on the balance sheet have business case to either add more or give up shares in the company to Lynn or some combination of the two. People began to once again just look at companies as a are they creating value? Do they have positive cash flow? Are they making money?

[00:00:37]Lynn Alden is launching a fund, a treasury company fund, it would seem.

[00:00:43]Um, I'm going to I'm I'm going to be the contrarian to myself and say I don't hate the idea of what she's doing here.

[00:00:52]uh comparatively to other offerings.

[00:00:55]I'll let her chat here, but uh on the other side of it, I'll I'll give my general thoughts, I suppose. Not that I'm an expert in treasury companies.

[00:01:04]Here we go.

[00:01:06]>> But in your June newsletter, you introduce Orange Juice, which is a company combining cash flowing businesses with a Bitcoin treasury position as the anti- strategy. Can you tell us more about that? Should treasury companies have been like that from the beginning?

[00:01:19]>> Uh well, it's a good question. And I I wouldn't call it an anti- strategy. Um it's just a different model than strategy. It's not a pure play or closer to pure play like the like the pure Bitcoin treasuries are. Uh you know, we have a view that um cash flow combined with a a a treasury strategy, a Bitcoin treasury strategy, uh uh creates that more permanent capital instead of having to constantly issue securities. Um uh you have more optional security issuance on top of that more operational foundation.

[00:01:46]>> All right. So the long and the short of it is hey uh instead of having companies whose main goal is to buy a bunch of Bitcoin and then sell a bunch of stock based upon that. Let's have uh like a an in what? Like an index fund of companies that are just regular operating businesses that have positive cash flow that are using their additional cash flow to stack in Bitcoin. Am I is that an accurate representation of what I'm hearing here, guys? I don't know. What do you think? I I think it is. But I think that Okay, so maybe the start uh you know, we talked about this like a week ago or two weeks ago that the other I don't know if you want to call this treasury company, maybe not, but I think the the market will view it as something like that. These guys are like truly fox in the hen house now. Lynn Alden, Jeff Walton, these guys are on the strategy earnings call and now Lyn Alden is basically saying like, "We're trying to take your capital." Walton has been saying that for a while. Whether he's saying it explicitly or not is a different story, but um you know, I like I'd like >> Yeah.

[00:03:00]>> We're not fighting you, but we're fighting you, but we're not >> exactly [laughter] like there's only it's it's it's much the same way that like YouTubers are fighting each other, right? like you know we we are not in competition but we are in competition for eyeballs and time and attention and all this stuff and so you know it's it's it's difficult for me to really understand like what what what is the point then of being like a strategy enthusiast like Lynn has been over the last two or three years um to the point where you get an invitation like I said to the quarterly call and then starting your own company and saying it's a different model and trying to to get capital out of uh out of that vehicle. Now, she's a a very small fish.

[00:03:39]I think they raised about $40 million, which really is, in my view. Like, is that a failure? Maybe. I don't know.

[00:03:47]Like, there's there's people in the chat saying that um yeah, there's people in the chat saying uh Jeff Booth, which which I assume is Ego Death, is involved and some other stuff um other players, right? So, >> you know, the long and short is it really feels to me like >> to see more of that.

[00:04:03]>> Yeah. I You know what though, Brandon?

[00:04:05]It feels to me like this thing has run its course. Like people don't want just like the treasury company thing. The Jeff Booth stuff. I'd like to see more.

[00:04:15]>> Yeah. I mean Booth has been um you know he's he's been like a ghost for the last year or so, right? Um he only posts via his uh his AI, I think, on Twitter and maybe on Nostra as well. I'm not sure.

[00:04:26]But the the thing is like this treasury company play was so popular a year or two years ago when MSTR was 400 a share, 500 a share, whatever it was. And everyone was kind of saying like digital credits the future and we want ways to um you know express the view that Bitcoin is the the future of finance and the future settlement asset in tax efficient accounts and MSTR did did serve that function I think fairly well for a long time. But the the decline of the the decline of the quality of the investment really has I think at this point become too much to to to to get ahead of for new entrance. Like even if you think about something like Metaplanet which had some like you know bakedin advantages like geographic advantages you couldn't invest in MSTR if you were Japanese for example. you had to be in Metaplan if you wanted that that vehicle, that angle. So, you know, they failed and MSTR now ostensibly, you know, I don't want to say failing. I know I know Jooko Joe Consorti is an MSTR guy, STRC guy, and I'd like I'd like to talk to him about this on this show at some point, but you know, they they're putting out statements now at the at the closing bell saying, "Yeah, we want the stock to trade at 100."

[00:05:41]Okay. Well, it's [ __ ] not trading at 100 and everything else is kind of moving in a different direction than your stock, including spot now at this point. Uh, you know, h how do you how do you bring investment in? What is the differentiator?

[00:05:57]Lynn is saying that they want to buy companies that are cash flow positive and put Bitcoin on the balance sheet.

[00:06:05]Like, all right, I guess. But like >> is she saying that or is she saying that they want to include like is this a basket of companies that already were putting Bitcoin on their balance sheet like I think she's probably going to wind up doing both Ben because how many companies are are interested in having you take a significant share if they you know what I mean like what are you adding to the the value of the company to the to the board to whatever you know and that's another thing that like does Orange Juice want board seats do they want like what are after I haven't I don't I don't know. I haven't read or seen a perspectus on this, but like generally when you buy shares of a company to the point where you're on Bloomberg TV talking about how you're going to be taking shares of companies and putting them into Bitcoin positions, like a board seat is is table stakes. Like a board seat is what you would expect to get. If you're not getting a board seat, then what are you what are you getting?

[00:07:00]Like are you presenting a deck? Well, [ __ ] I mean, there's a lot of people who present decks to boards who who don't get on Bloomberg. I I I I I think probably, if I had to guess, this is gonna be very shortlived. And I think Lynn is making a mistake. Um she's she's a great macro thinker, great Bitcoiner, but I'm having trouble seeing where the value ad is here. And you know, maybe she'll see this and tell me I'm wrong, but um there's other people with more capital who could do this better and have decided not to. There's other people with more Bitcoin who could do this better and have decided not to. And so my question is what is it in your mind that makes you think that you present a competitive advantage for those companies that would be targets? I don't see it is all >> I I think my and may maybe I'm just thinking in the context of uh in a world where you people began to once again just look at companies as a hey is this a good company and are they creating value? Do they have positive cash flow? Are they making money? If everybody uh who had a cash reserve was stocking it away in money nobody could print, then people would once again be and and if people were on a Bitcoin standard, I guess I'm I'm getting ahead of myself in my thinking like the world on a Bitcoin standard.

[00:08:20]>> You're there already, Ben. Like you're thinking about this, you know, 10 years ahead, right?

[00:08:24]>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's >> and and don't forget like you like when when Ben Parn decides you know Ben and Lisa Parin decide they're sitting at the kitchen table. Okay, they're they're in a third world country. They're you know you know [laughter] navigating the the sandy table >> sandy dunes of the third world. Okay, the building next to them is collapsing highway.

[00:08:44]>> What you know like are they talking about how do we add shareholder value?

[00:08:48]How do we uh appeal to the SV500? How do we do these things? If if Lynn is buying companies that are going that direction, that's a question that has to be asked.

[00:08:57]And I realize not every company's going that direction, but most companies have like one thing in common. There are investors looking for exit liquidity.

[00:09:05]And the S&P is where you get that, you know, like like when you go public, that's where you get that exit liquidity. And so if if you're trying to do that, it adds another layer of complication to the whole thing. And I see people in the chat, you know, saying that, you know, I have this wrong about uh treasury companies and digital credit. It's not it's not about every treasury company being digital credit.

[00:09:24]What it is about though is whether or not companies who have Bitcoin on the balance sheet have a a business case to either add more or give up shares in the company to Lynn or some combination of the two. Again, maybe I'm crazy, but I just don't see it. And it's not like this is conjecture. We've seen this attempted a number of times over the last what 5 years dating back to Long Island blockchain and now we're talking about MetaPlanet and MSTR and you know you name it. We talked on uh CBP on Monday like Len uh finds basically two or three stories a week of of Bitcoin treasury companies that are selling their treasury and going into AI, pivoting to uh autonomous driving, pivoting to whatever, right? It it it is an uphill battle I think in the best of times and I'm you know if anyone can do it Lynn can but I just don't know what the angle is and maybe she's not sharing it on purpose. Cedor is the most robust steel [music] Bitcoin backup system on the market today. Their starter set comes with everything [music] you need to keep your keys safe from the elements. So if you're serious about Bitcoin security, [music] grab a Seedor today at the website in the show notes down below or scanning the QR code on the screen. If you're glued to a screen all day under fluorescent lights, [music] your body is starving for the light it actually needs. Chroma's red light therapy devices give your cells the wavelengths they [music] were built to absorb, boosting energy, recovery, and sleep. Give your body back what the indoor world took [music] away. Check out Chroma at the link in the show notes or by scanning the QR code on the screen. Bitcoin Well is the best place to be [music] buying and selling Bitcoin in Canada and the US. And now with Bitcoin Well [music] Infinite, it's also the best place to be making large buys at their OTC desk [music] of over $50,000.

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[00:11:36]Yeah, Brandon, what do you think?

[00:11:37]>> Yeah, I mean, it's tough because like you just kind of mentioned, Joey, to to Ben, like Ben lives in that world. A lot of a lot of Bitcoiners are maybe not to Ben's level of living in that world, but a lot of people are on that spectrum somewhere. And that's what's like really it's really tough. We talked about this earlier of like bridging this this world, this gap, because most people just aren't there yet. And and then on top of that, you have the entire world.

[00:11:59]We've talked about the Christine Lagards. talk about all these things where like they know they know there's an escape hatch there and now they didn't have that before. We talked about the information arbitrage of like you didn't know what the king was doing for thousands of years and now we know. So they they've done everything they can like it it's my in my opinion there's no way to verify any but in my opinion pretty much all the FUD we've ever seen against Bitcoin for 17 years has been promulgated from the top some way shape or fashion. You know we haven't heard a city of London yet today. So I'm going to say city of London.

[00:12:30]drink really quick. It's it's emanated from some type of intelligence apparatus because who who for 17 years has been able to FUD it for that long. I mean, we know we know there's intelligence agencies that have come up with their own alt ship coins, their own altcoins.

[00:12:42]We know that verified fact. US agencies that have come up with their own scam coins to just to find other scammers. Of course, that's why. But that's that's the world that we're living in. So, you have this world where like the AI we just talked about government being in bed with AI like in America and they're pushing it hard. Bend, all these guys, SpaceX, it's a military operation. All this stuff, the one thing in the world that you have basically everyone going against you, especially all the biggest players in the world going against you is Bitcoin. Bitcoin is the the the attack surface of the world. It is the thing that everyone has their their guns pointed against. And that's the thing that I think that again, God love Lynn, a lot of us Bitcoiners, it's hard because we're in that world of we we we can see it. It is the the biggest supercomputer on earth. It has the least the smallest attack surface itself to to actually get penetrated. But because of that, everyone else has their guns pointed against. So they're doing everything they can to go against that.

[00:13:34]Part of it to me is, you know, the market, we see this the last couple cycles, but we have people trying to shake sailor out, right? The market trying to shake sale. Perception is reality. Trying to shake these treasury companies out. We saw, you know, four years ago with FTX and Teral Luna and Voyager and BlockFi and all this stuff.

[00:13:48]All this stuff. Not saying that they're going to go bankrupt or they're not they're all going to fail or something like that, but we just the market wants to see some of these things because they don't believe it. The average person does not believe in Bitcoin like we believe in Bitcoin. And that's this this hard gap that we're we're trying to traverse somehow and get through without us having to go to MadMax scenarios and have a thousand more Canadian trucker scenarios or Dutch farmers or get welded into our homes again. And then all of a sudden people say, "Oh yeah, Ben, Joey, you know, you guys were right. I should have listened to you." You know, we're you know, you're sitting there saying, "Well, I told you so." Like I that to me is like it feels like we're in that scenario and that's what's so hard for us to show up here every single day as a Bitcoiner and be like it's coming guys.

[00:14:26]It's coming. Like I'm telling you it's coming. And then again like Lynn can do what she can do. She's she's in that world. She's an engineer like in your financial engineering. Like I like I was saying with the Joey with the Jeff Booing, I would love to see more people invest. I would love to see Sailor and strategy investing in the goods and services of of the Bitcoin economy. I don't want more financial engineering. I get that there has to be some of that the whole bomb the village to save the village thing and some people are going to have to do that that that's the role they're going to have to play that but I see a lot of these things it's like gosh dang like another one like it makes me want to just like just get away from all the technology and just like go start a a trades company and just go start a contracting company and just save in bitcoin like all right adios you know so >> I mean that's not a bad approach man honestly like being being good at something and saving it in a money that nobody else can print is you know that's a that's not a bad path to success and there's a question in the chat from Oscar. Question for the panel. Do you think companies should uh should buy Bitcoin? I I I would say depends which companies because if you are uh constantly spinning your wheels and you're not cash flow cash flow positive, uh a Bitcoin standard will kill you.

[00:15:33]Like like stacking Bitcoin and relying on market cycles is going to [ __ ] you entirely. Uh but if you oh and maybe and and maybe actually my answer is blanket yes because then it'll point out the people that are not providing value faster. Maybe maybe that. Yeah. So, so maybe my answer is just yes. Uh in in a way that's uh positive for everybody because then it points out the successes faster uh in some instances or at least kills uh the the lack of innovation sooner.

[00:16:10]>> Oh, that's right. Yeah.

[00:16:11]>> Yeah.

[00:16:11]>> It's it's the pest.com thing, you know, like again a lot of the Bitcoiners the last 17 years it's pest.com a little bit. It's like, yeah, you're right, but the timing and that you have to make it to the end and this is not going to happen tomorrow. So, I think that's the important thing for all Bitcoiners. It's the this the tutorials you've done for 10 years, Ben, the sovereign sessions.

[00:16:27]That's what we talk about the privacy stack and the sovereign stack, all this stuff, the the sovereign uh individual.

[00:16:32]These things are so important because we're living through it. So, you have to build these things now in the bear like you guys mentioned earlier, too. That's the time to do these things because they're going to happen. We just don't know when they're going to happen and it might take longer than than we hope it does. And that's the thing we need to we need to bridge that.

[00:16:45]>> Yeah. Yeah. Jent, I want to I want to touch on something quick before we go to our uh second break here. Uh [laughter] uh really quick, I just want to contrast and compare what's going on in broader markets versus Bitcoin right now because it's kind of interesting. We haven't seen this a little bit, but we talked the first segment about tech selloff and how fragile the whole semiconductor propping up [ __ ] everything is. Uh, and as soon as anything gets thrown, a wrench gets thrown in there, then everybody's, you know, I didn't bring up the fear and greed index for the the general markets, but it's now back to fear. Um, and so we and all it takes is uh, you know, a couple of bombs and uh and and an open AI model uh that is matching the the US uh performance of their closed models. Um while we also see uh precious metals also tanking here, gold below 4,000 an ounce. Uh the largest US goldback ETF has recorded a uh 14 uh sorry 14.4 billion in outflows since March 1st. Uh this is 50% more than the 9.6 billion in outflows seen across all Bitcoin ETFs since October.

[00:18:05]Uh so in a shorter time frame March alone investors withdrew 8.5 billion from GLD the largest monthly withdrawal on record. Uh this was followed by 1.7 billion in April, 872 million in May and 3.2 billion again with a B in June.

[00:18:24]Meanwhile outflows have eased in July withdrawals tracking at 46 million month to date. Uh on top of this um we also have uh Bitcoin is now positive for the year against silver. Uh so so I remember we called the local top when all the [clears throat] all the silver bugs were in the chat.

[00:18:48]>> I think the chat >> whoever whoever the detractors are in the chat uh that tends to be a a signal of some sort marketwise. So when when the gold bugs and the silver bugs are in there uh gloating on a Bitcoin podcast, uh it's probably an indication that >> you know it's interesting too today I had a little back and forth with Luke Groman um friend of your show, maybe both your shows actually about like how he he's he's on some clip talking about how gold can go to $10,000 and not do any damage to the economy. And I replied like buddy it will do damage to the economy. It drags the industrial metals up with it. and he sent me back this thing about how industrial metals measured in gold don't matter. And you know, I tried to explain to him that people don't save in gold or Bitcoin or anything else. They save in cash. And so if you have if you drag the cost of living up via the industrial metals and you're in cash, like gold is not going to go to 10,000. And he agreed. And I'm looking at this I'm looking at the chart you just showed about gold and I'm thinking this is this is exactly what we were talking about. Is that the clip, Joey, where he like made it was making the case for Bitcoin in essence without him even knowing it?

[00:19:55]>> I mean, he's making the case for $10,000 gold. Like, you're [ __ ] dreaming, dude, if you think it's going to 10,000.

[00:20:01]Are you kidding me?

[00:20:02]>> Great reason why it doesn't work for money.

[00:20:04]>> Yeah. in the in the age of like industrial metals being so important and so overused in basically every facet of modern life, you think that it's not going to And by the way, like I realized since like 23 or 24 depending on where you look, yeah, gold is kind of accelerated against something like copper, but copper is still up almost 100%. That translates to real life costs, not you know what's in my safety deposit box or around my neck or whatever, you know, my known as Italian jewelry. That's not that's not what people should be looking at when they look at gold. They should be looking at whether or not it drags the industrial metals up, right? And I >> surprised to have >> Yeah. That's your house. 10 grand more instead of five grand more.

[00:20:43]>> You know what I mean? Like it's not not that hard to see. And I I was surprised that he took a, you know, two-step jump to get there. But anyway, yeah.

[00:20:50]>> Yeah. I just wanted to show again this heat map here. Uh again, uh general markets uh versus well, I mean crypto as a whole. So, this is the this is the thing that it's it's it's always exhausting because the short term it's like, "Oh, yeah, Bitcoin's up 4%." And then you get the the Ethereum shills crawling out of their hole saying, "Ah, Ethereum's pumping." And then you look you look like three years >> volatile path to less sats over the past decade and uh and change here and it's just like and the XRP people coming out and it's just like how how many times how long are we and it's just no matter where you are in the market as a Bitcoiner somebody's going to be calling you an idiot. If you're on the upswing it's a bubble. you're an idiot.

[00:21:47]>> If it's on a down swing and actually and and actually if you're on the upswing, you get your chance to be like, "Hey, you know, called it." But then the other problem is that you have chirping in your ear is all the shitcoin [ __ ] again crawl out of their basement and they're like, "Oh, but I'm up this percent." It's like, "Yeah, but you're going to get [ __ ] later." Like, this is this is you, as is tradition, it's going to happen. And so like on on the upside you have all the shitcoiners calling you an idiot for not owning their shitcoin. On the downside you have all the no coiners calling you an idiot for still holding on to Bitcoin. And so it's just >> Ben how like like riddle you know everyone's got to riddle themselves this Charles Hoskinson's over here crashing out saying I'm buying Bitcoin. It's a like basically a project. Yeah.

[00:22:40]>> And as a top five crypto top five you know make sure I'm in here. Top five crypto or top 10. How do you not as a crypto investor in the other 30 million tokens? How do you not then just re-examine your entire life at that point? Like, huh? Like, maybe I should do some more work on the thing I'm in because if this guy, a top five guy, is saying that about his shitcoin and maybe we should look into Bitcoin more and then the rest. It's like, it's so mind-blowing. Gosh dang. Yes, you watching the Bitcoin price movements and the latest exciting [music] news. It's awesome to stay informed, but the real power of Bitcoin comes from taking control. Don't just watch, take action.

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