Mallers provides a visionary blueprint for integrating Bitcoin into the very core of corporate operations and treasury management. This "full-stack" approach effectively bridges the gap between traditional business profitability and the long-term potential of digital assets.
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Wall Street Is Rebuilding Around Bitcoin | Jack MallersHinzugefügt:
Money is property and is a fundamental right. Human value exchange should not be governed and operated by a single entity. They can debase the money. They can debase you. The world is moving more multipolar. And I don't think anything is positioned to benefit from that as much as Bitcoin in terms of like global money.
>> There is no president, there's no government, there's no corporation that is bigger than Bitcoin. Bitcoin can change the world because the world can't change Bitcoin. Where wealth exists today will transfer into where wealth is going tomorrow. Do you think fiat can survive this? How many more cycles can we go through? Your food prices are going to go up. Your rent's going to go up. So you want to print money into that. That's when the opposite of fix the money fix the world. Break the money break society. Bitcoin's going to win no matter what. And unfortunately, it might take time.
>> We're back, Jack.
>> We're back.
>> Back in the closet. I can uh I can confirm for everyone who's asking online, it's still empty.
>> Still empty. Well, oh, are we recording?
>> We're recording. Oh, great.
>> The Ninja launch. Um, big week though, ma'am.
>> Yeah, totally.
>> How you feeling?
>> I feel good. I'm happy to be home.
>> And uh the announcement went down well.
>> Um, yeah, I would say so. I mean, Tether proposed something that they support.
Uh, I outlined my vision. There's a lot of alignment there. So, I'm excited about this potential future for 21.
personally.
>> See, the thing that I think is cool about this is for so many months now, I've been banging on about like these Bitcoin treasury companies and like some of them have done really well and it's awesome. And I just have never been totally convinced that these like smaller pure play treasury companies were ever going to kind of make it. And I think we spoke about this last time, but you're clearly not building a like quote unquote pure play treasury company. You're building a Bitcoin business, right? Um, do you want to let's just start because for anyone who might not have seen the announcement, do you want to explain what's actually happening?
>> Yeah. So, I had a keynote at Bitcoin 2026 and it was fun because uh, everyone says online, I wear two hats. So, for those that don't know, I'm the founder and CEO of Strike, which you can think of as like a Bitcoin bank of sorts.
We're not an actual bank, but we provide Bitcoin financial services, buy and sell, custody, credit, lending, all sorts of stuff. And then the other hat I wear is I'm co-founder and CEO of 21.
And 21 owns 42,514 Bitcoin. That's the second largest corporate holding in the world behind Strategy. And we're a public business traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker XXI. And as I became increasingly confident that I would be talking about both of my businesses, I was like, should I just pack both my hats and make the whole meme that I wear two hats real? And so I did and I got on stage and the first half of the presentation was about new future strike launch predominantly in our credit products and some of them partnered with Tether. And then for the 21 section, I outlined my vision as you described for a Bitcoin business that isn't necessarily a treasury company or a crypto exchange and tried to counterposition 21 in a way that makes us unique because ultimately that's why Tether and I started the business with this vision in mind. Now the order of operations and how we got to where we are we can discuss and potential mistakes we made and things in hindsight we would have done differently but nonetheless that's why we started the company and finally communicating that vision was really exciting. So I think that's what you're referencing and uh the vision itself um we can get into but uh the way I see the crypto bitcoin space at large is on one side of the spectrum you have what I called crypto exchanges um but it's not even limited to that. I would say you have companies that are monetizing speculation. So, one way that you can monetize and build a business around currency debasement and this current era of fiat that we're in is provide a place for people to speculate because the reality is whether people know it or not, they're all speculators because the currency that they're getting paid in and that they're forced to use via their government is being debased. And so, you can't actually just save in the money that you're forced to use via law. you have to turn that money into something that can actually preserve purchasing power and that you can save in. And so whether everyone knows it or not, we're all speculators.
And so a great business during this little window of human history will be a place for people to speculate. And we're starting to see all these businesses form into this same thing. Um Coinbase, which was a crypto business, is now offering equities and sports gambling.
Robin Hood, which was an equities business, is now offering crypto and sports gambling. Sports gambling companies are now interested in offering crypto and equities. Prediction markets which are a new phenomenon are now offering crypto and want to list equities. And so that side of the spectrum as I define it is monetizing rampant speculation. And I would say on the total opposite side of the spectrum as I view it are treasury companies. and they're the opposite because they have very much conviction in Bitcoin, but they don't actually focus on and invest in and build operating business. So, on one side, you have Coinbase and Robin Hood. These are great companies economically. I'm not saying that they're good or bad. I'm defining them as what I view them as, which are businesses that make a lot of money, experience a lot of growth, but don't necessarily have conviction in Bitcoin or anything for that matter.
When you look at Coinbase's balance sheet, they have over $10 billion of fiat and a billion dollars of Bitcoin.
And you're like, well, wait, do you guys even believe in what we're all working on here? And I think Coinbase's my interpretation of Coinbase's position as a company is neutrality. They can't say what their favorite altcoin is. They can't say what their favorite equities are because that would turn off all the other customers that are there to list their own token and their own project.
They have to be neutral as long as everyone's there and depositing money and placing bets. They don't care who they don't care the future of the world.
So you have a very successful business without a convicting vision of Bitcoin and a sound money future. And then treasury companies on the totally opposite side of the spectrum. I mean, Michael Sailor, Metaplanet, they sell Bitcoin conviction. That's their product, right? They never sell. We're going to buy as much as possible. So, they have all the conviction in the world. You can make the argument that no one's more convicted, but they don't have operating cash flow to finance that conviction. And so, then philosophically, you ask the question, well, who's financing their conviction ultimately? How can they afford to be so convicted in Bitcoin? Because the operating business is not what I describe as productive. Productive meaning it produces more value for the world than it consumes from the world.
That's a profitable business. And so what I outlaid is 21 would like to be in the middle of those two where we take the best of what a Coinbase or Robin Hood is, which is a cash generating high growth business whilst also displaying high Bitcoin conviction while owning Bitcoin on our balance sheet. firmly believing in a Bitcoin future and you know expressing economically via you know potential leverage and accumulation that you know Bitcoin is the future we want to see.
Does that make sense?
>> It does make sense and there's not many companies doing this. Um the the obvious one would be block but they're not really focused on the treasury side.
They're building amazing Bitcoin products but like not so much on the treasury side. Maybe another one that would be somewhat comparable be clean spark, but again they're very focused just on their mining and and power generation. So this is like the full suite. Is that what you're trying to build? You want to be like the full sweet Bitcoin company.
>> Totally. Yeah. And I mean obviously Tether is my co-founders. We knew that this was going to be hard.
>> I think there's a reason it doesn't exist. Uh I view it as a great idea and something that the market would value tremendously. It's my opinion. and that's why I started it. Um, but it's hard and I think if it were easy a lot of these would exist. Um, so yeah, our our vision is to be more specific um to have multiple divisions within the business. So financial services and distribution so that we can build brokerage products, lending products, custody products, uh payment products, prime products, potential banking services. So cards uh I mean there's a full yield on assets on the platform like yield on cash. I mean there's so much we can do to distribute Bitcoin economic financial services. Another division I call Bitcoin infrastructure.
So there is a physical layer to the Bitcoin economy. We're talking about power generation. We're talking about energy markets. I view the story of humanity as commercializing energy from the sun. And the better we have access to energy, the more prosperous our lives are and our species is. And I think Bitcoin is going to play and already has played an important story or important chapter, excuse me, in that story. And I think that 21 should be a participants in that. And then we have the more treasury side of the business, which is capital markets and mergers and acquisitions. And that is exploring opportunities and potential leverage.
Like I don't think leverage is a bad thing. I would ideally like to be able to finance it with things like cash flow instead of implied dilution. Uh and mergers and acquisitions where um we can look at other assets that would be viewed as strategic or other companies that we think would be better off joining us in building this network effect and economy to scale and almost this Bitcoin conglomerate of sorts. And even on the capital market stuff, man, there's so much we can do. Um, so far what's been displayed as Bitcoin has interfaced with capital markets are convertible bonds, preferred equities, but as a business that potentially also has lending and mining, we can securitize our loan book. We can securitize our mining revenue and we can try and aim to have these things AAA rated. And there's so much innovation that we view as bringing operating businesses and cash flow to the capital markets as well. So that's some more detail on the vision. And you know, I think Dorsey is one of Bitcoin's unsung heroes and Block is like one of my favorite companies personally that exists today.
>> But yeah, they started as a merchant acquiring platform and so much of their business continues to be both serving the underserved in America with Cash App and serving merchant acquirers with Square. Um, Bitcoin is a growing part of their business, but I don't think it's the whole company. And what I want XXI to be when someone buys a share and owns that equity is a very unique expression of Bitcoin and hopefully all the cool waste. If you hold Bitcoin, your phone number is one of your biggest vulnerabilities. SIM swap attacks are one of the most common attack vectors targeting Bitcoiners. Somebody socially engineers an employee at your carrier, moves your number to a new device, and they're into your account. It happens because traditional carriers put a human in control of your phone number. Someone who can be bribed or tricked. But Cape is a US mobile carrier built from the ground up with privacy and security at the core. They don't ask for your name or social security number when you sign up. They collect the minimum data required, delete it as fast as possible, and never sell it. When you sign up, you receive a 24-word passphrase, just like a Bitcoin wallet. That's the only way to move your number. Not a customer service rep, not even Cape's own staff can do it. You're the only person who controls your number. If you hold your own keys, you should hold your own phone number, too. So, head over to cape.co/wbd and use code WBD at checkout for 33% off your first 6 months. That's cape.co/wbd and use code WBD. Bitcoiners, as you know, with fiat money constantly debasing, wealth preservation isn't optional. That's why I recommend Swan Bitcoin, a team of dedicated Bitcoiners who work with families and businesses to build and secure generational wealth with Bitcoin. Strong relationships with clients are at the center of everything Swan does. A dedicated Swan private wealth representative, which is a real person that you can text and call, will help you build a Bitcoin wealth strategy using Swan's comprehensive platform of Bitcoin services, including tax advantage retirement accounts, advanced Bitcoin cold storage using collaborative self-custody, inheritance planning with both trust and entity accounts, tax loss harvesting, asset back loans, and more.
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You said before that there's there's things that you would have maybe done differently in hindsight, mistakes you might have made. What are some of those?
Um, well, I I wouldn't go so far as to make that like declarative statement that like, oh, we screwed up. I don't think we screwed up at all. I think 21, the second largest corporate holder of Bitcoin in the world listed on the New York Stock Exchange, I'm tremendously proud of.
>> Yeah. But I think in everything in my life, if I could rewind time, I would like yesterday, if I could rewind time, I would have booked a different seat on my flight because the guy that was sitting next to me was really obnoxious and right. Like, so with the benefit of hindsight, we'd all be >> wouldn't have gone out with Dylan the night before.
>> Yeah. You, you and uh Dylan, my chief of staff, uh, when he wants to have a good time, it's a tax on the liver for sure.
>> That's for sure.
>> Yeah. Um, so no, I just more meant with the benefit of hindsight, I think we'd all do stuff differently. And you know 21 was super interesting founding story where initially it was just Tether and myself and um SoftBank approached us with an interest in not only 21 but just Bitcoin >> and uh incorporating them as a minority but important partner and they sit on the board uh was fun and then trying to list the business publicly whilst you had uh the election and a change in administration in the United States and at one point the government shut down if you guys remember that and so the government is inclusive of the SEC and the SEC approves us going public and approve our merger and so then we had delays and by the time we had gotten approved the entire market had changed mind you when we founded 21 you know companies were trading at five times MNAV and we were like whoa we should probably get public as fast as we possibly can and there is value in being in the capital markets and we have ourselves a ton of capital and a ton of assets. I mean, I would argue Chather's one of the most, if not the most successful financial services firms in the world today. We're like, "All right, let's go attack the public markets." And then by the time we did get approved, because of delays and government shutdowns and changes in the administration, the market was changed entirely. Bitcoin treasury companies weren't selling common equity at a premium to MNAV, and they weren't that uh interested in the convertible markets, and the convertible markets weren't that attractive anymore. And there was this whole new thing which was preferred equities and you know Bitcoin treasury companies were trading below MNAV and all of a sudden the ultimate vision in the second chapter the 21 2.0 if you want to call it I've seen people reference it that of building up an operating business and further extending this whole strategic vision. All of a sudden that became the focus. So maybe in hindsight, if I knew that we would get approved when we did and that the governments were going to be shut down and stuff, maybe we would have started off with 21 2.0 as opposed to just going with our Bitcoin treasury and seeing what opportunities we had in the markets. But like I said, I wouldn't describe that as a mistake. Uh I I think what we've achieved so far is awesome and the strategy that I outlined is exciting. Um but yeah, I mean knowing what I know now, I probably would have made a few strategic decisions differently, but in the same way that I would have picked a different seat on my flight.
>> Yeah, I think the the idea of running like a really strong operating business is I think it's really important to these for the longevity and cuz like your other option we when we spoke last time, we were talking about how you catch Sailor cuz like you guys already have a big Bitcoin balance sheet, but it's like very small compared to Sailor.
And I think if you were going to go out in the market and try and do what Sailor does, do you think that gives you kind of no shot and doing this something completely different, you actually may have an opportunity to do something there?
>> No, not necessarily. I um so for one, I don't think uh the ideal Bitcoin company or the best Bitcoin company necessarily means the company that owns the most Bitcoin, >> right? Like I think uh Block One, what was the uh ICO business?
>> EOS.
>> Yeah, EOS. Like they own a ton of Bitcoin. Yeah.
>> But I wouldn't necessarily say like I would love to be a customer of theirs or I would want to work there or I would I'm interested in their products. So I don't necessarily equate like I'll put it another way. If Sailor like owns 800,000 Bitcoin or 900,000 or 700,000, I don't know if that like changes dramatically how I feel about Micro Strategy. Like they own a lot of Bitcoin and they do what they do. And I think for us it was more about a strategic direction and who we want to be as a business and where we think we can deliver the most value both towards Bitcoin and our vision and to investors and our shareholders, right? Like I mean there are plenty of companies that have a higher capital capitalization than Micro Strategy and own far less Bitcoin.
So it's not necessarily implied that um like Nvidia owns zero Bitcoin, but I don't think anyone would swap onetoone equity strategy in Nvidia, right? So anyway, I think our our reasoning for our strategic direction has more to do with the type of company we want to be, how we want to contribute to Bitcoin and its story, how we want to change the world, and then ultimately how we think we can uniquely drive value to investors and shareholders. We think it's going to be very difficult to compete in with us in building operating businesses and having access to capital and building a large treasury and taking advantage of capital markets. So, I would say we're just not that interested in the preferred strategy that other Bitcoin treasury companies have deployed as of now. And if we ever become convinced, then we can do that. But we're more interested in the direction I outlined.
Um, to be candid.
>> So, do you care then about the metrics that these other companies use? Things like, well, MNAV seems like an obvious one, but like when you go further out, things like Bitcoin yield and talk, whatever, like I don't really know what that means, but like do you care about these things? I mean, I laugh uh at that all the time. I mean, my dad, for example, has been involved in markets for over 40 years, and he'll call me and joke and be like, "How's your torque this morning?" And cuz these are these are and not that they're bad or good.
These are just like recently invented financial things. The these are not previously defined existing financial metrics. And so, uh, no, I I would I would say I also don't know too much about like what my torque is, uh, what I initially was telling investors, you know, um, about these things, they're like, is that a dance move or so? No, I mean, not um, not that the that torque is a bad or good thing. I'm sure whoever invented it had a reason and a purpose for it and it and it suits them well.
But no, for us uh so I guess I'll I'll more speak philosophically as a business. I think you have a moral obligation to be profitable in my opinion before even an economic obligation because theoretically in free markets if you run an unprofitable business there's a form of Darwinism where it's going to go extinct and it shouldn't have a right to exist. Mhm.
But you have to explore the moral lens of this idea because I if money is the market representation of the value that we create and store and exchange, well then by being profitable is the economic expression of making the world a better place, right? Because you are in theory creating more value for the world than it takes from you to consume from the world, right? And so you're doing more for others than you're taking from others. And the economic expression of that is net profit at the end of the day. And so I view money as the best, most efficient tool and technology we've built to both store, exchange, and transmit information around the value that we're creating for each other. How much is a Coca-Cola worth? How much is a flight worth? How valuable is the things I did today for others? We use money to transmit that level of information and to store that value. And so being profitable to me is like is a moral obligation. And so that's how we feel at 21 is we want to make the world a better place through Bitcoin financial services and Bitcoin physical infrastructure. Uh and we feel deeply that that is our responsibility as entrepreneurs and business owners. Uh and that's a tremendous asset to the company because also again if you have all the conviction in the world about Bitcoin and you have no business then ultimately how are you financing that conviction?
Who's footing the bill to finance your belief in Bitcoin if it's not your proof of work and it's not your net contributions to society via profit. And so we don't want to be in a position where we create a lot of debt and a lot of leverage and are reliant on others to finance that conviction. We would love to produce enough value for society and that be realized in cash profit to then go out and finance the future of the world that we want to see which might be a convertible bond which might be preferred stocks which might be more products or more licenses or more opportunities. So I guess not only do I think it's economically viable to be profitable but we feel it's morally responsible. Um, or else I saw Adam back tweet this morning that he he said something along the lines of Bitcoin treasury companies are a trade on the present value of fiat versus the future value of Bitcoin. And I think that's 100% right. They're a trade, but trades have a start and an end. At some point, you have to close the trade. Um, trades can't be indefinitely open. Uh now that doesn't mean that a Bitcoin treasury trade can't last hundreds of years or thousands of years or decades. Um but they're very path dependent, right? It's an arbitrage. Uh, if bananas on the west side of town are a dollar and on east side of town are $10, then you buy the bananas that are a dollar on the west side and you drive over to the east side and you sell them for 10 and you cash out on $9 of profit until the bananas are efficiently priced at $5 on both the west and the east side and the trade's over. And that's not how Tether and I view Bitcoin and the opportunities. We think that this isn't only a trade but is also a business opportunity, an opportunity for us to provide value to the world, which economically means profit. Does that make sense?
>> Yeah, it does make sense. It's more just like a not only to be different and not only I I don't I don't necessarily view myself and my job is to catch sailor.
And unfortunately, like the way the internet works is I get clipped from interviews I've done years ago where I've said things like, "I want to own as much Bitcoin as I possibly can. Of course, I want to be the top owner of Bitcoin in the world." But like, who wouldn't? I believe in >> I want to be that, >> right? I believe in Bitcoin. And if it were up to me and I can just like snap my finger, I would own like a million bitcoins. And I would also like there's a ton of things if I could snap my finger I'd love to be the point guard of the Chicago Bulls as a another job, right? But like so but like I also don't view that as like my job isn't to catch anyone else. I view my job is to execute on the vision that I have as the CEO and ensure that I'm both benefiting the world and progressing forward towards a society that I believe in which is hard money and you know Bitcoin based whilst also producing value for my shareholders and my investors. I don't I don't I don't know my greatest competition is always my ability to execute and see forward on my ideas not necessarily what someone else is doing. Yeah, I want to come back to the like bits of hate that you're getting online now. But before we do that, I think there's one interesting about the two companies that you are potentially acquiring. Is that the right way of saying it right now?
>> Yeah, it is worth saying. Uh Tether proposed an idea.
>> Yeah.
>> Um the CEO of the company for you know more or less agrees with the idea. I mean, there are things that I, as a CEO, want to make sure of and there's a process, but there's been no formal offer. Like, as the CEO of Strike, changing my hat, uh, we have not received a formal offer. Is Strike interested in being acquired?
Potentially, Strike is interested in furthering our mission, helping Bitcoin, helping our customers, doing right by our investors, and doing right by my colleagues and my employees. And that goes for a potential offer from 21 or any other business for that matter.
Strike's been offered to be acquired many times. I mean, that's never been a public thing discussed on stage, but there's lots of companies that have historically wanted to buy Strike. And my answers have always been no because of those things I listed. It just didn't foot the bill for me. Um, but no, I mean, as the CEO of 21, I think this is a tremendously exciting idea for Bitcoin, for our investors, for our employees. It's something that I would want to work for and work on, something I would want to own equity in. It's something I would want to be a customer of. So, the idea to me is interesting and aligns with my worldview and my vision, but there's been no formal offer. And so, people should know I I I really don't want people to say, "Oh, I did something because I thought this."
you know, there's been no formal offer.
The largest shareholder and board control uh uh board member proposed an idea and the CEO of the company said, "Now, this sounds cool. This is my vision as well." But that's to the extent of it as I'm talking to you now.
>> Okay. So, can we go to a theoretical world where let's say those acquisitions happen?
>> Sure.
>> Um you then have Strike and this mining arm of the company. Yeah. Um the thing that's interesting there to me is like Strike as a business is dollars in Bitcoin out in like to oversimplify it essentially whereas on the mining side it's energy in Bitcoin out and so does that having like a company in there that generates actual Bitcoin not dollars does that change how you can look at the Treasury does that give you kind of another leg up? Yeah, theoretically I mean from what I know about Electron the business and I think what's been publicly disclosed as well is they produce a lot of bitcoins a day. Uh so that's cool. our treasury would be going up every day just by waking up and doing our jobs.
>> Yeah.
>> Um, strike in the same way produces bitcoins every single day.
>> Does it produce bitcoin or does it produce dollars that you can turn into bitcoin?
>> Uh, both actually. So another way to ask your question is what is your revenue and profit ultimately generated in? Uh, and it's both. So we generate revenue in bitcoin. We also generate revenue in cash. And then we actually have built out internally that like how insane I am as a CEO. One of the things we've done at the company is, you know, run it like as lean as we possibly can all in on Bitcoin. So every single day we do actually go about the process of sweeping net profits into Bitcoin. So Strike is like a fiat Bitcoin miner. Uh a potential mining arm of 21 uh is like a to your point energy Bitcoin miner.
the the classical definition of a Bitcoin miner. The capital markets arm of the business would be like a capital markets Bitcoin miner. Hey, what's the convertible market look like? Are there preferred opportunities for us? Can we securitize some of the assets at the other part of the business? And then the M&A part of the arm is like a mergers and acquisition Bitcoin miner. What are accreative opportunities? There may be an incredible Bitcoin startup that is a bit smaller and not necessarily as profitable, but by joining us like we create something even bigger. Like the sum of the parts, as the famous saying, uh is better than everyone living independently. And so everyone's job ultimately is to build something great.
And when we have excess profit, no matter what that's in, energy, fiat, Bitcoin, the best way for us to save that value we're creating and that wealth we're creating in our opinion is in Bitcoin. And and so we'll always likely optimize to to store Bitcoin on the balance sheet and have that value acrew to our sharers. You know, the way that Block have set themselves up. So they have spiral as one of the arms of their business, which I'm sure if you look at it pure purely on profit isn't like the greatest arm of the business, but it's really important to Bitcoin because it's doing amazing work. Would you ever look at doing something similar to that where it's like directly giving back to Bitcoin developers and people working on this?
>> Oh, of course. Yeah. I mean, listen, you know, Taylor and I, and I've I've been referencing them a lot, like, uh, Paulo, John Carlo, like, these guys um are my like we're very aligned on the long-term vision of Bitcoin and how we think it can help the world. And so we think in decades, now it doesn't mean that we're not also trying to provide value today, but I think that that makes us potentially very different. Like for a lot of these crypto casinos, it's a dubious long-term strategy to be selling products to your customers that make them poorer.
>> At some point, they're going to be like, I don't want to do this anymore.
>> We've got no customers left.
>> Right? Like if you're going to have your customers and encourage them to bet on sports, bet on the weather, like I, you know, there are products out there where like is it going to rain tomorrow in Chicago? And when you view the financials of these businesses, you can actually account for how much money their customers are losing on a month-over-month basis by understanding how many new deposits versus the total value of customer deposits. and you're like, "Oh man, like customers of this business lost 10% on average in the last 30 days." And so that's I don't know how I don't know how much these businesses are thinking long term and that well we're enabling our customers to be poorer over time. And so, yes, that's making a lot of money now, but is that like is having people hold Dogecoin for the next 30 years like a viable business idea? I don't know about that. And so anyway, to get back to the initial question, like we think long term and we think that in order to support customers and shareholders long term is to service them Bitcoin. And there's many derivatives of Bitcoin. There's turning energy into Bitcoin. There's producing financial services. There's also contributing to the development side of this project and that is either supporting existing developers, hiring developers that aren't in Bitcoin that we think are talented enough to contribute like maybe some quantum stuff. Um, but yeah, I mean, our business is worthless if Bitcoin isn't successful. And so, we think long term about that and the different ways that we can express that and support that.
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One of the things that uh there's a portion of the internet that like to question this idea of like Wall Street coming to Bitcoin and like I think when you when you look back like it's always clearly been the case like it's going to happen. That's that's part of us winning as Bitcoiners. But there's still people that think there's a threat back to there. like the incentives change and maybe the people that are involved change. Like do you see that as any potential conflict?
>> No. I mean my one word answer that's no.
You know a few things. One, if Wall Street getting into Bitcoin kills it, it was never going to be successful in the first place. Yeah. You know, Bitcoin's in my opinion is predicated on this idea that it is money for all and the all part should be explored. Uh, that means your enemies, too. That means, you know, the ex-wife that cheated on you. That means your neighbor that's a fan of the opposing football club. Like, that's everybody.
>> That means nation states that are your enemies, nation states you're at war with. That means for all. And and the philosophical idea for me is that money is property uh and is a fundamental right. Again, it's your time and energy in an abstracted form. And if that responsibility is ever delegated to a person or a government or a company, they can debase the money. They can debase you.
And and so I think that that needs to be an independent property that has property rights. And and so yeah, anyone should be able to get into Bitcoin and Bitcoin should succeed no matter their intentions or their usage. And if that's not the case, then we built and designed a product that is flawed. And so I don't believe that to be the case. And I believe that Iran and Russia and China and the United States and Wall Street and cipher punks can all use this thing and work on this thing and it's going to succeed no matter what. And that's still my foundational belief. And then the other point is um listen, Bitcoin is a wealth transfer. It's arguably the greatest wealth transfer in human history. We are actively monetizing a new thing. And what I mean by monetizing is you know the world is the total ownership of uh assets of things by humans today is about $900 trillion.
Half of that is we're using it as a money. So you know $900 trillion is made up of currency and government debt and real estate and equities and precious metals like gold and bitcoin and fine art and all the stuff that we have.
Okay. And about half of it, so 400 to500 trillion dollars worth, we're monetizing. So people are owning real estate not because they sleep in it, not because they live in it, but because they're trying to save money. People own art not because it's hanging on the kitchen wall where their toddler can throw spaghetti at it and ruin it, but it's in a vault. So like Ken Griffin's art is in a vault and he's storing it cuz he paid $10 million for a painting and he thinks it'll be worth at least $10 million in the future. And so these are we are humans are actively trying to monetize things that perform best for them in a monetary sense and Bitcoin is competing for that. It's actively being monetized. But what that implies is that where wealth exists today will transfer into where wealth is going tomorrow. And in our opinion collectively it's Bitcoin. So that means Wall Street and art collectors and real estate portfolio managers like what's uh the two brothers the Cardone. Oh yeah, >> I don't know much about them, but they seem to be real estate guys that are turning that wealth. They monetized real estate and now now they're monetizing Bitcoin. So it has like our vision has the implication that where wealth exists today, those things will be demonetized like real estate will be demonetized, fine art will be demonetized, government debt will be demonetized, and Bitcoin will be monetized. So it it has the obvious implication that these people will be involved at some point. So I find it a little contradictory that like people are like Bitcoin's going to be the money, but like why is Wall Street interested in that? It's like well I mean I don't know if that's a serious question.
>> Well, I agree with you, but do you think that's part of the reason why you have been starting to get a little bit like people chirping at you online and stuff because you were like the golden child of Bitcoin who was like started on was that the first thing you did?
I I mean I guess um I mean no the first thing I did uh was play chess when I was four, right? It you know you when when you when you uh build in the public like this you know people feel like they know you and know your life. So it I guess it depends on who you ask what the first thing I did but the first >> publicly in Bitcoin.
>> Yeah. I mean maybe um I my parents started the first Bitcoin meetup in Chicago and I helped them with that.
That was the Bob O meetup here in Chicago and that was 2014.
Um, that was publicly. I wasn't hiding.
I wasn't under a nim. But yeah, I think what you mean is the first thing that I got recognized for and that people associate with my story. Yeah, probably Zap was uh the earliest lightning wallet and that was 2016. And then but so from then it seems like like I see as a sign of success by the way but like after 21 like it feels like every time you do something someone's like chirping at you online. Does that ever get you down? Um it certainly uh used to and um it's definitely not easy. Uh or or it hasn't been easy. Uh but I would say no it doesn't anymore. my like just how I think about the world and myself has just matured and changed quite a bit. Um I used to as a kid I used to think that the goal was to be happy. Duh, right?
Like I'd rather be happy than sad. But my opinion on that has changed. I strive to be at peace now. and things like happiness or sadness, uh anger or euphoria, um those are emotions and ultimately for me that's information. Um I I don't think that you can avoid being sad or being disappointed or being angry or being frustrated and I don't think you can always optimize to be happy and content and euphoric. Um, I think a good life and life generally involves all of those things and they're useful information, right? Like when I do something and it makes me happy, the information is, oh man, I should try and make that happen more often.
>> And when I do something and it makes me sad, I'm like, "Oof, you know, my lived experience, I'd rather have less of that." Um, but no matter what, across all of the emotions I feel, I strive to be at peace and I've been able to achieve more peace um, in working on other things in my life that aren't Bitcoin. Like I recently got engaged and congratulations. Thank you. And it was the best feeling in the world coming home yesterday from the Bitcoin conference to my fiance. And so anyway, does do does it get me down? No. It it's information, right? When I do something and people are really upset, that's useful knowledge for me. And I'm like, dang, I want to be a helpful participant in changing the world for the better.
And the feedback I'm getting is I'm not doing that. And maybe I need to reconsider or maybe I need to do something differently or maybe I need to clarify something. And if I do something and people are like, "Dude, that was awesome. Thank you so much." I'm like, "Awesome. Cool. That's good feedback. I should probably understand why that was awesome and try and do more of it." And then there are things that people say like cut your hair or why'd you wear that? And you know >> that's the stuff you can just ignore.
>> Yeah. You know people are like wow you went on stage and you weren't wearing a hoodie. You were wearing a shirt. And the truth is I was wearing that shirt cuz that's my fian like my fiance thinks I looks look best in that. And ultimately all you guys on Bitcoin Twitter, as much as I value your opinions, like you know that's my lady.
And if I care more about what my lady uh likes me in than what you you guys like me in uh at the end of the day. So yeah, I don't know if that answers your question, but um I've certainly matured.
It was it was not easy. I mean um some of the most painful years of my life have been, you know, the last four or five years of trying to build and find myself and find my relationship with the world. And the other thing I'll say is I do think that what I'm building is not only products or not only a company. Um my approach to being a founder and a Bitcoiner is also very different. I see people say like, "Wow, this guy's replying to tweets online. Like Sailor doesn't do that. Brian Armstrong doesn't do that." Um that's what I want to be. I want to be >> approachable, authentic, real. I think the world is kind of sick of politicians which many businessmen are just not in the government sense but you know they are limited in in their ability and they make decisions based on legal risk and I don't think the world wants another one of those. I think the I I think the world wants more real and I think the world is dying for something authentic that they can relate to and that they can believe in. And uh I I view that as what I'm building as well.
And when I, you know, go on TV or leave the empty the empty closet empty, um, I think it's about being funny and honest and, you know, not building this social separation of like an elite person that absolutely >> needs security and stuff. And what comes with that though, there's a price to pay for that. Um, because I don't want to turn off notifications and have someone else manage my social media accounts. I want to be vulnerable in the crowd of the people. I want to be like I I I I I want to be different in that way. I think it's important, but it's not easy, right? Cuz that means that when I open my phone uh on a given night when I'm having room service and everyone's tearing me apart and saying I suck and that uh like I'm, you know, making up rumors about my family. Uh, yeah. I mean, it's not like the easiest part of my job, but I think it's worth it. Um, some people may disagree. Some people may rather have a Larry think character.
I'm okay with that, but that's not what I'm building. And if that makes sense, too. So, >> it definitely makes sense. Is there anything that does particularly frustrate you that you think is just wrong that you've not really had a chance to address?
>> Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. Of course. I mean, you know what's been interesting for me? So, first of all, I think that um in my experience, it's all about bull and bare markets. Uh so, when when Bitcoin's 40 to 50% off its highs, it doesn't m matter what I do. People have an easier time blaming someone that isn't them.
>> Yeah.
>> And I'm and I'm not giving myself excuses, by the way. And in fact, I want to be very clear. I enjoy the relationship I have with the public.
It's a very spiritual one, and it's been fun, and it's made me a better person.
And I like when people are critical of me because it again it's information and if I could be doing something better I shouldn't prioritize my feelings and my emotions over betterment of the world in Bitcoin. So I'm willing to take the brunt of that to be a better founder, be a better leader, be a better Bitcoiner.
So with that being said, in my experience, when prices go down and people get poorer, it's hard to look in the mirror and be like, "Dang, I screwed up. I owned too much Bitcoin or had too much leverage or was irresponsible with my finances." It's much easier to say that 32-year-old in the empty closet is such an is idiot and why is it empty and I heard his dad is an evil banker and he's a liar and he's a scammer and Tether has his arms tied behind his back. Like it's much easier to do that and go to bed thinking none of this is my fault, it's his fault. And then conversely in the bull run it's the opposite is like people are like that guy's a genius. I don't think I'm a genius at all like that guy. And so I think it's more correlated to that. And the things that um that I find the most fascinating are the the lies. And I don't like I don't think people are purposely lying. Maybe they believe in what they're saying, but the false that it's just not true. Um so yeah, that is I guess the part that bothers me. Like when people talk about my father, like that's always that's always a weird thing. Like when your dad calls you, you know, he's my dad, right? And he sees his son getting torn down in public on the internet. And it doesn't really matter who you are, what you believe in, what you're working on, like when you see your kid getting unfairly like like that. It's your father. And when he calls me and he's worried about me, like that's always hard. or when I see people like lying about my family and saying like my family like supported Jeffrey Epstein like that's crazy man like so like those type of things uh are like >> yeah that sucks >> that yeah I but again like what I tell Dylan and my employees all the time is some of the most painful times of my life are the best thing that's ever happened to me like I didn't understand how valuable it was and what it meant to build a profitable business or to not make big announcements that didn't have like actual uh like follow through. I mean, how can I say like when I tried to do all the merchant stuff and the markets fell apart and NCR and that relationship didn't come through like I had to learn these things as a kid out in the open and that was really hard for me and really painful. Um, but I acquired such valuable experience and such valuable knowledge and such valuable lessons. You can think of these things like assets. Like I acquired assets for about as cheap as I could have ever imagined if I didn't acquire them that way. I mean, how expensive would I have had to acquire them? Maybe I would have had to lose what is now my fiance or maybe I would have had to compromise on my health. I mean, I still have my business. I still have my family. I still have my friends. And so, yes, these things suck, but like I said, like being sad isn't necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes it's the best thing that can happen to you. Um, it's information. So, I don't know. It's okay. But, no, I mean, having my friends text me and say, "Dude, I just want to be clear like you don't like support Epstein, do you?" Like, I've like that's not the best use of my time. I hate having to spend my time telling people like, "Yo, when Epstein was on his island doing awful, terrible things like I was in kindergarten like in Chicago like I don't know.
>> You weren't pulling the strings from kindergarten."
>> No, I mean obviously or like I don't know like my dad being this powerful banker, no one in my family has ever worked in banking ever. Uh, so I always we we joke with each other like I'll text him sometimes like what's the most powerful banker in the world up to today and he's like on the beach retired in California like we joke but no I mean there's so much of uh you know I don't know I was I was on our flight uh back home cuz I know we were in the same flight back from Vegas to Chicago and >> I wasn't the obnoxious person sitting next to him just for not was not but uh I was you know I get out and I'm on Twitter and I'm replying to folks this guy's like you know uh Jaxa Silver Spoon uh trust fund baby who just had a lot of communications classes. I'm like I've never been to a I don't even know what a class. So there's so much like madeup stuff but yeah I don't know.
>> Well it sounds like you're in a good place man. Um >> can we switch it up a little bit?
>> Can we do some macro? Cuz I know on your podcast you do a lot of macro stuff and you probably get the same comments I do where it's like this is a Bitcoin show.
Why are you talking so much about I don't know the straight of moves or whatever.
>> Yeah. But the thing that I think is interesting there is that like we're trying to kind of figure out where Bitcoin is going to fit into the world.
I think the world is more uncertain as to what it's going to look like in the future than ever. So like I think these are important topics. Yeah. And like how do you take in all the uh the stuff that is happening in Iran? Like why do we start on the fact that they were taking Bitcoin as payment for ships traveling through the straight? Because I thought that was a pretty huge thing to um and the fact that they were doing that and stable coins and then the stable coins got frozen again. And it's like all just showing the value of Bitcoin. Y >> like what's your read on the whole situation?
>> Yeah. I mean firstly, why is macro important? At least the things that I like talking about. Well, it's because Bitcoin is a solution to a problem.
What's the problem? Well, that's what we're talking about. The problem is people have really powerful uh guns and weapons that are murdering people and we're constantly at war and people are debasing human time and energy via currency. Like those are the problems.
And whilst we're working on the solution and we like talking about the solution, I find understanding the problem relevant. So personally, and you don't have to listen to my show if you don't want.
>> I also just enjoy those conversations.
>> Yeah. Super. Obviously. And and and you know what government is doing like what the United States is doing has implications on my life, right? Like the city of Chicago is broke. Uh and that matters to me because one of their solutions is to raise my taxes and I don't like that. And so, you know, these things are relevant inevitably. And again, we're building a solution to a problem. Understanding the problem and what's going on I find relevant. Uh, and yeah, in regards to Bitcoin's role in this conflict in the Middle East, it's been so validating because listen, ultimately this, what is money? Money is money is the market good that you use not to consume. So, a cheeseburger. I acquire a cheeseburger not to save it and later exchange it. I acquire to eat it because I'm hungry.
And that eating it is consuming it. An airplane. I'm acquiring an airplane to travel. A car, the same thing. A house.
Ideally, I'm acquiring real estate to live in it and to raise my kids in it and to watch movies with my fiance in it, right? Like, so money is the unique thing where you when you acquire it, your intent is actually to save and later exchange for the things that you need. So money is not defined as the dollar or not defined as gold. That's what money is. And all of us elect what we want to use as money. You can use uh rubles as money. You can use dollars as money. You can use cheeseburgers as money. If you want to take your paycheck, convert them all into cheeseburgers, and store those in a vault, you can. It's just maybe not the best decision. So when in a conflict, when in a pressure situation, a central bank or a government or enemies at war elect to use Bitcoin as money, I think that's unbelievably validating. In the same way that when Micro Strategy elected to use Bitcoin as money in the situation they were in in 2020, that was validating. When El Salvador elected to use Bitcoin as money in 2021, that was validating. When Iran is saying we are in in a situation where one of the most valuable pieces of the global supply chain is under strain is shut down where enemies at war are needing to trustlessly trade time, energy, effort, labor and value to ensure that the global econ economy keeps humming along whilst there is conflict that involves human death. And they were like what should we use? Should we use cheeseburgers? No. And they picked Bitcoin. Yeah. Super validating. Super validating for the thing we're working on. Now, it's confusing and complicated because I don't I'm not a fan of war.
I'm not a fan of human death. I'm American, so what's my political bias in all of this? I'm far less interested in that. Yeah.
>> You know, it it reminds me of during the El Salvador stuff when I was in is people were like, "Oh, so that means that you promote Buchelly's political agenda." I was like, "No, no, you know, there's nuance in that. I promote Bitcoin." And so yeah, the Bitcoin piece of the macro stuff I think is awesome.
>> But it is funny like because obviously you were on the ground in El Salvador.
Uh before they made the Bitcoin announcement on like a global scale, they were kind of insignificant. We're not a big country, not a very rich country. Um but they saw like an asymmetric bet they could make and they made it and that's really cool. And then like Bhutan I think is one of the most interesting of all the nation states who just had a ton of energy and started mining a load of Bitcoin. But like is it do you have any issue with the idea that as Bitcoin becomes like a a a money that these global states want that it's being the pariah nations that are doing it?
Like I'm sure Russia are mining Bitcoin.
I'm sure China are um Iran and potentially mining Bitcoin and accepting Bitcoin. Like it's not happening in sort of the western liberal democracies. It's happening elsewhere. Do you see that as an issue?
>> Uh an issue. What do you mean by that?
because because it like potentially taints how people view Bitcoin, I guess. Like does it stop the US or the UK or Australia from taking such a good stance on Bitcoin when they see like Iran and North Korea using it?
>> Yeah. Um, no. I mean, listen, it uh I want everyone to understand Bitcoin and view it uh in the brightest light. Uh, and so if they don't and there are things that are contributing to that, then yeah, I would rather them not. Like I would rather mainstream media not write a bunch of FUD and uh paint Bitcoin in a negative light. But with that being said, um what I've always uh wrestled with is, you know, we're on Bitcoin's time. Bitcoin is not on our time. Meaning Bitcoin is going to be around and humming along with the block expected on average in the next 10 minutes, hopefully thousands of years from now. And at some point I'm very likely to exit this world and this life. And uh so I don't know. I I give that context to say Bitcoin is going to win no matter what. It's going to be successful no matter what. And unfortunately it might take time and it might take more time than I'm given in my own personal capacity. And uh I've come to terms with being okay with that. And so if Iran and Russia adopt it first for whatever X Y and Zed reason um and that taints a negative this or that, you know, my focus is just making sure that Bitcoin is still built correctly and engineered properly and is going to survive like from a protocol level and from a consensus real level and these other things will get sorted out like eventually people will understand Bitcoin for what it is. Eventually people will find themselves monetizing it and saving in it and using it as money and eventually eventually eventually. And yeah, would my preference be everyone understand Bitcoin today? Yeah, cuz I only have so much time to live. Uh I would love to experience hyper Bitcoinization while I'm alive, but I know I'm not guaranteed it. So, does that make sense? I mean, >> it does because that's essentially you're just saying you got to focus on things that you have some control over and and and as like people who are into Bitcoin that they are the things you have control over.
>> Yeah. I I honestly think that um so much of becoming a Bitcoiner for me and you know because people will make fun of us and say it's a religion or a cult. It kind of is.
>> Yeah. I mean it depends. Uh and even defining it in that way isn't interesting to me. I don't care. You think it's a sports team, you think it's a religion, you think it's a cult, you think it's a protocol, I don't care.
Call what you want. It don't matter to me. Um but it has certainly changed my worldview and how I view myself and how I view the world and and and my my role and my place here. And so people will say, "Oh, that's a religious cult member speaking." I don't know. May maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I don't care. Uh but uh it's it's yeah, like I guess I view what it means to be human is uh and these are the sort the sort of things that Bitcoin has encouraged me to think about and philosophize about. What it means to be human is uh two things at least I think we all innately want. One is to be part of something bigger than ourselves. I think as a human being we all innately desire to be part of family be part of community. I don't think any of us uh desire and are built to spend our experience uh that is life alone.
And the other is to be part of something and work on something that will last longer than we will. Um and whether that's family and having children or whether that's working on the great pyramids that have lasted longer in great architecture. Um, and I I find Bitcoin a wonderful expression of what it means to be human because you are working on something that is bigger than you. There is no president, there's no government, there's no corporation that is bigger than Bitcoin. You know, Bitcoin outlives and outgrows like any of what you could describe as US. It's bigger than you. And the other is you're working on something that will outlive you. like we all have an end and and Bitcoin hopefully never does and so it puts you in this philosophical state that I think all Bitcoiners go through which is a sense of ego death >> which is like this isn't about me and I've gone through that now just in life generally like um this is about I want to build family I want to have kids this is about them I want to work on Bitcoin I want to contribute this is about the greater project and the greater world and the future of our species So yeah, that's what I mean is that you go through a sense of ego death and you realize like you know yes I wish we get to hyper Bitcoinization while I'm alive but this isn't about me and uh you know where I find myself at peace and happiest and um spending my time the most is to your point controlling what I can control trying to uh produce value and and um for whatever extent I can push the world in the direction that I see fit like working on that. So, no, I don't I don't know, dude. Like, people are going to flood Bitcoin. You know, you can't control that. I think Bitcoin will win and I'm better off, you know, hey, what does the developer community need? Do they need me to dispel quantum FUD? Um, what do the capital markets need? Are there with people I can orange pill? What is Twitter saying? Are there is there feedback that is warranted that I'm not doing the best job and I can be a better man or a better Bitcoiner? And then just doing that like but I you know the story of Bitcoin being adopted is it's on a it's on a need to know basis like you know uh people that don't need Bitcoin typically aren't that interested and so does it surprise me that um initially criminals were interested in Bitcoin? Not really because they were debanked and they couldn't use anything else. So does it surprise me that countries that got sanctioned by the United States and basically said your property is not your property and you can't use the global financial system.
Does it shock me that they're interested in Bitcoin? No. But yeah, I don't know.
>> Yeah, I mean that answers the question.
And because the one thing that I found really hard about this whole conflict is that like I did a show I recorded a show with Luke Groman and when we recorded the show it seemed like everything was cooling down and maybe the war was going to be over and then by the time I released it that completely changed and then I did the same with Lynn but in the inverse and it's like I don't know what's happening. Um like it changes every day. It changes so quickly. But the one thing that I think is clear is that the world is moving more multipolar. And I don't think anything is positioned to benefit from that as much as Bitcoin in terms of like global money. Everything's good for Bitcoin.
Uh I I think Bitcoin can change the world because the world can't change Bitcoin.
So it's all good for Bitcoin. Uh in my opinion, um when the US government prints money, it's good for Bitcoin.
When the US government tries not to print money and things collapse, it's good for Bitcoin. When people are at peace, it's good for Bitcoin. When people are at war, somehow it's good for Bitcoin. Um because Bitcoin is good for the world. Because the world can't change Bitcoin. You know, some of the greatest innovations in human history are innovations that protect us humans from the worst versions of ourselves.
And Bitcoin is one of those. It's engineered in a way that it can't bend to accommodate the worst versions of ourselves because we're not perfect.
Ultimately, at the end of the day, we all have flaws and us as a species collectively have flaws. If we were perfect, we wouldn't be murdering each other while we disagree. But Bitcoin somehow was engineered in such a way that it can't bend to accommodate our flaws. We have to become better to accommodate Bitcoin. And so, everything's good for Bitcoin. and Bitcoin can change the world because we can't change it. So again, it's it's a a really like beautiful ride. It's volatile. It's bumpy. It's vulnerable.
It's scary. It's euphoric, but like I said earlier, these are all useful emotion. Um but I've come to peace with it and I just hope to contribute positively to it. Um so everything's good for Bitcoin. But yeah, and I mean, as far as I don't know if you actually want to talk in detail about the macro stuff. As far as the macro stuff, I mean, um, I've I've been very consistent. I don't think this conflict's ending anytime soon. I don't think the strait is opening anytime soon. Uh, to me, this is an accelerator towards this inevitable, which is, you know, a lot of currency debasement, monetizing of the debt, things like yield curve control. Uh ultimately the United States has been short real things producing real stuff and long credit debt and paper. And uh there's a repricing of what that means. Uh you know you cannot build AI infrastructure with silver futures contracts. You need the actual silver, right? Um, you cannot finance the military with infinite amounts of US treasuries. Like at at the end of the day, you need actual productive humans. People will stop lending you money. They say, "Okay, you want me to finance the next $2 trillion of US shenanigans. You're going to have to pay me 10% 20% 10-year yield, not 4%." And, you know, that's where you get yield curve control and the Fed printing money and monetizing that debt. So I think this is all an accelerant. The notion that the strait is about to open or the conflict's about to close. I mean what it's been, you know, over 2 months at this point, that doesn't seem very likely. And uh it it feels to me that uh a chapter of fiat has has reached this inevitable conclusion and uh things are going to get real. We have stagflation.
What do you do if you're a central planner? one side is um the new jobs, new job creation is struggling tremendously. Um the a lot of economic activity in certain parts of the economy are struggling and slowing down. Um what if unemployment rises to scary rates? So one part there's you know economy stagnating and the other part you have inflation. I mean Danny what I think is if people aren't appreciating is the last time we turned on the money bazooka printer was co right? Well, remember during COVID oil was negative $40 a barrel.
>> You got paid to take oil, >> right? Like it you would get money if you could receive physical oil.
>> Okay. Oil's hundred. I don't know. I mean, I'd have to check my phone. $100 a barrel, $120 a barrel, $150 a barrel.
You want to print money into that? We're already experiencing at least commodity inflation, at least energy inflation, at least oil inflation. And we know that that is the tip of the iceberg. That inflation will now realize itself. The world as we know it is a derivative of energy. Like I said, the world as we know it is a derivative of energy from the sun. That's our experience as humans. This big orange thing beams energy onto us and we found ways to commercialize it and benefit our lives from it. So everything's a derivative of energy. If the price of oil is going to go up, well then all of a sudden your food prices are going to go up, your rent's going to go up, your travel's going to go up. So you want to print money into that? No way. But if you raise rates into that to try and tame inflation, then the deflationary force of AI is only going to grow stronger.
It's going to wipe uh it's going to send unemployment to rates that are uneconomical for such an indebted system. So yeah, I mean this is just an accelerant to this inevitable which way western man. Um in my opinion, which as we talked about is good for Bitcoin. But so this is the thing that's scary is that like so we've had these type of events before although obviously slightly different with 2008 co and it seems like like you say they're kind of trapped right now. They don't know what to do but they're going to do something.
Do you think fiat can survive this? Like how how many more cycles can we go through? Yeah. The the market uh can remain irrational longer than you can remain uh solvent, right? So things usually take longer than I mean we've been in the industry for long enough to know that shouldn't all these shitcoins be worth zero? Even the ones like that haven't been brought up or mentioned or used in years if you go on to coinarketcap.com they're actually still worth something I guess. So I think things take a while to play out. So um what define survive? Uh can the dollar survive? Yeah. I mean, right now I use the dollar by force. The US government will literally show up to my house with a weapon on their hip and say, "You aren't paying taxes in our currency. You're going to spend a decent amount of your life locked in a box."
So, I use the dollar because, you know, I'm forced to via weapons. Uh, so can they continue to force fiat via weapons?
Sure. But does survive mean people use it as money, save in it, and that it retains purchasing power? No, probably not. That that version of survive is likely entering a new chapter where these currencies are worth significantly less in energy terms. You know, ultimately that's what we all care about is is our money doing a good job at preserving our right to consume energy.
That's again, my life is a derivative of energy consumption. I want to fly a plane. I want to go to dinner. Like all of this is a derivative of energy. And so I value how good my money is is how good it's doing at allowing and preserving my ability to later exchange it for a derivative of energy. And so is fiat going to enter a new chapter and how much energy it's ultimately worth?
Yeah, you're seeing that. I mean, oil prices up, gold prices up, Bitcoin prices up over the last 15 years. So, you know, that chapter of fiat is is entering a new phase of rapid collapse.
But does it mean that the US government can still show up to my house if I am not paying my taxes and dollars and say and point a gun at my head and say, "You're coming with me, buddy, unless you pay the IRS." Like, I mean, what when is that going to when is that phase of this going to change? I don't know.
Uh, but I don't know if it matters much.
Is it's interesting because like one of the things I I think about is like people say this is going to be people have said this is going to be happening for a long time. like the gold bugs before us have been saying like fiat is going to die.
>> Yeah.
>> And my question is always like it will Bitcoin be ready when it kind of does.
And and that's like kind of an open-ended question. I don't know what we need to do to get to that point like is it just is it more adoption of Bitcoin? Is that it? Cuz like if we move to a world where the dollar is less and less relevant, then I need people to be able to accept Bitcoin and and exchange Bitcoin with me because I still need goods and services. And I think the stuff that Square have done has been really cool recently in terms of turning on every merchant in America. Like do you think we're getting to the point where Bitcoin can go from being what most people use it as as a store of value to being used as the media exchange and actually like money?
>> Totally. Yeah. I I think the free market does such a good job at governing how we focus our time and our energy. And the problem with a free market becoming not free and centrally planned is that you're distorting uh the the proper uh governance on how we should all collectively, you know, push forward, right? Like um people shouldn't work on things that aren't valuable right now.
Ideally, like if you're coaching and managing team humanity, ideally we're all focusing on where value is today.
Not theoretically in the future, not something that was valuable in the past, but like what's the most valuable thing we can all be working on now? And the free market does a great job at identifying that. I tried to work on Bitcoin payment stuff 10 years ago. And turns out not as many people cared as I thought. And that was like the free market telling me like, "Yo, dude, you should probably focus on other things in the meantime." Which I did, right? And so, and the and the problem when markets become unfree is you're distorting that level of feedback with humans is if people are doing something wrong and they're not being told by their surroundings that it's not good because people are printing money, bailing things out. Then you get that's when society that's when the opposite of fix the money, fix the world, break the money, break society is humans aren't properly understanding what's valuable, what's not, what's good or not, what I should work on or not, who I should be or not. So I think the free market will do a tremendous job at guiding us in building Bitcoin for what the world's world needs it to be today. If tomorrow the US government said the dollar is no longer we're ceasing everything about it and we must all use other things. Strike as a business would probably go from investing X in payments which we do today to X plus a lot more because the world in the free market is going to demand that of us as a Bitcoin company.
Um, and so I think Bitcoin will progress very naturally because it is one of the rare and only free markets we have left.
And we will get very active feedback from the world as what it needs from Bitcoin today. Um, like the ETFs, the Winklvi, I'll never forget when I got into Bitcoin, they were working on a Bitcoin ETF that was in >> 2014, right, was their first >> 13 was like rumblings of it. Okay.
>> Yeah. 2014 I think was the first rejection and I mean they have been rejected more from the uh from the government and the SEC on ETFs than you know I've been rejected by women in my life and I was I was not I was not the most womenizer ever. I mean, they've got piles and piles of rejections, but it turns out at some point the world needed an ETF from Bitcoin, and we as a community figured that out. And so, right, like I I think u the free market will guide Bitcoin and guide us. So far, Bitcoin's needed to be a store of value for now what's over a trillion dollars.
And we've needed different ways of doing that. Different exchanges, different products, different interfaces with Wall Street and the payments aspect of Bitcoin. people haven't needed as much.
You know, at the end of the day, and a lot of my life, Apple Pay works, and it works in a way that people get paid to use their credit card. The way that these credit card networks work is they charge merchants 3 4%. And merchants can't say no because if I walk in and I don't have a way to buy the good or service the merchant is selling, they can't get my business. And so the credit card networks have this duopoly where everyone's holding their cards. So the they can charge the merchants whatever the merchants can't say no so call 3 4% and they take the 3 4% and they incentivize the people to keep using their products by paying them. They take the 3 4% they take 75% of that and they say hey here's free Napa Valley wine.
Hey here's free flights. Here's access to an airport lounge. Here's cash back.
Here's points. And so they have this loop where they're paying people to use the cards which holds merchants hostage to not be able to say no and not accept the cards. And so Bitcoin payments haven't been adopted in my opinion not for lack of technology or or lack of entrepreneurial desire, but because of human behavior and because Apple Pay isn't broken. And in fact, even where Bitcoin is accepted, you're probably more incentivized to use your uh Visa, Mastercard, or MX because you're going to get paid to use them. you're going to get a free flight to use them. And when all of a sudden that, you know, human desire and human behavior changes, then I see see Bitcoin payments taking off.
Is that >> It does make sense. It makes me think I'm a hypocrite because that's what I do essentially. Like I I spend everything on an MX through the month and then I'll pay it off at the end of the month and put whatever that's left into Bitcoin.
Like should should I be using Bitcoin more than I am? Should I be trying to use it everywhere I go and spend money?
if you want. I mean, that's to be clear, that's how I live my life. Like, I could live my life where I'm spending my Bitcoin via Bitrefill and I'm living I used to do this and like I go to Whole Foods and I got to get my phone out and like activate a gift card and like here I am in Chicago. I've had relative success in my career and I'm like managing gift cards. Like what the like as if I'm a te like a video game Xbox teenager. Um, and the way I live my life now is credit cards plus Strike, where I have credit cards like you do. I live my life on credit cards. Strike actually has a line of credit product. So, I don't even need to take out like a 12-month termed loan where I can get liquidated and stuff. Like, Strike pays my fiat bills by taking just extending a tiny little line of credit. So, let's say my credit card bill is a couple grand. like when that bill comes in, Strike pays it with a couple grand and creates a little bit of, you know, it's like a heliloc, like a little bit more credit extension. And so I'm living my life constantly stacking Bitcoin, never selling Bitcoin on marginal amounts of credit that I can actively manage that isn't posing giant risk of getting liquidated over a 12-month datation, like this perpetual rolling loan. And these credit cards are giving me all these points and free stuff and ideally cash back that allows me to stack more Bitcoin. Am I living my life incorrectly? Am I immoral? Well, I think Bitcoin is all about property rights.
Like, I can't I can't imagine a Bitcoiner saying, "Bitcoin is property rights for all and then saying you're using your property wrong. It's my property." And so, should you be behaving a certain way? I don't believe in me telling you how to behave.
maybe marginally um like what Square is doing or block I don't know how they want it to be described but what they're doing is awesome. I think it's awesome because ultimately I think that human value exchange should not be governed and operated by a single entity. I think that we should all have one open interoperable network that does the job of getting value from A to B and that we should all have equal access to compete and build on that standard. Not everyone has access to compete and build on the Visa standard or the Mastercard standard. And ultimately that's what's best for merchants and for consumers.
Like if everyone could build, I'm sure someone would say, "Hey, I'll charge you less than 4%." So prices would come down. And for consumers, I think there'd be tons of innovation. There'd be thousands of wallets. depending on who you are and what you like. So, I think that that's cool. What they're doing is they're bringing an open thing that they don't control that everyone can interface and interoperate with to do the job of getting value from A to B, from consumer to merchant. But is it making the world a better place by you foregoing your cash back to use it?
Maybe. Uh I don't know though like that that's the the whole point of the free market is the answer lives within the feedback that society gives you like is that barber shop a good barberh shop?
Well do people like getting their haircut there? If it's too expensive and people don't go because of the price then the barber shop isn't good enough to survive. Right? If the haircuts aren't good enough quality, right? So is it good? Let's let the market decide.
So, I don't know, dude. Like, yeah.
Like, like, was it a good thing for me to spend some of my life in El Salvador and inevitably help a country adopt it as legal tender? I thought so. But there were plenty of other Bitcoiners that didn't and wanted to stay in their penthouse in New York City. It's your decision. Like, well, the cool thing is like now it actually can be a decision.
Like there's so much cool stuff that's been built over the last few years that that if you want to go and spend Bitcoin at every single Square merchant in America, you can. Like that's awesome.
Um and it's funny like when you look on Twitter like sentiment's bad. Like everyone's fighting at the conference.
Vibes are high and the stuff that's happening is truly impressive. Like I think this the stuff that David Marcus came out with Lightspark is really cool.
It's not exactly the product that I would have wanted to see, but it's al it's like it's awesome. It allows people to use Bitcoin in a real way. It's like it's built on Bitcoin. Um, I don't know.
I just think Bitcoin is in a really good spot right now.
>> Yeah. I mean, this is uh I I've talked throughout my career about how open networks win. Like, who's stronger and better than team Bitcoin? Like, is PayPal have better engineers than us, making more progress than us, working on more products at once than us, team Bitcoin?
>> Absolutely not.
>> You can't compete with an open network because as El Salvador makes progress, I benefit. As Dorsy builds a new feature, I benefit. As Sailor stacks more Bitcoin, I benefit. It's impossible for closed networks to beat open networks.
And so, the collective effort on Bitcoin is going to out compete every competitor. And you know, even something like gold, like I can't submit a gold poll request. It is what it is. We can't make it better. Like, we can't we can't build lightning on top of it. Like Bitcoin is so unique in an open network that is technology that will be getting better forever. Now the human emotions involved in the journey are complex as I said like I don't you know I I find the trend people are more upset with me as a founder in Bitcoin depending on the Bitcoin price more than what I'm doing.
Yeah. Doesn't matter what I do right now. People are like dude four years ago you said this thing would be worth 200,000 and it's not. [ __ ] you. Oh whoops. That was my first curse word. uh screw you and uh you know the the human emotion along the along the adoption of course it's not going to go up in a straight line in an organized fashion and and humans are complicated and how we relate to that and how that makes us feel will be complicated but Bitcoin goes on and it goes on faster stronger better than everything else because it is an open shared project for all humans to be a part of and collaborate with there's there's not many others like that I mean the internet It was like that, but it wasn't money. Um, right?
Like we have such an intimate relationship with money. Money is it's it's human dignity. Like when when governments print money, it's an affront to human dignity. And so it is the market good abstracted to represent human dignity, time, effort, energy, value. It's such an intimate and important relationship we have with this thing. And we all now get to share and work on it together. Even something like gold everyone had equal access to theoretically, but you can't work on it.
You can't make it better. You can't really evangelize it. Um, it's not necessarily a revolution. So, yeah, Bitcoin's always getting better. You know what? Whether it's getting better through a bear or bull market. Again, that's the human emotion aspect to it.
And I, you know, what's been valuable for me and I would encourage people to find peace, fall in love, get married.
I'm super I I'm planning my wedding and stuff like you know that that that has helped me be a better Bitcoiner uh to be honest.
>> You just got kids tracking.
>> I can't wait. I mean I've said before I'm so proud of uh what I've built so far despite all the mistakes and stuff and um I'm so grateful and thankful for my colleagues and my partners and my investors. However, the biggest competitor to strike in 21 will be my son or my daughter, God willing. Uh, and my dream ultimately is to be a dad and be a husband and and be part of uh my family. And so, you know, people always ask me, "What's the biggest competitor to strike?" And it's like, it's going to be my kid. Uh, totally. That that's that is the time where I I might not be able to make it to the conference if he's got a soccer game.
>> Yeah.
>> So, yeah, dude. I can't wait. Um, and uh, you know, grateful for how Bitcoin has uh, improved me as a man, but ultimately my goal goal goal of all goals is is to have family.
>> Before we close out, you were talking before about the HELOC.
>> Mhm.
>> So, you had a big announcement with Strike as well at the conference, which was Tether have invested 2.1 billion.
>> Not quite invested. Um, they it's a facility. So, you know, the the biggest um hurdle for Bitcoin to solve when it comes to lending and credit products generally is who's financing them.
>> Yeah.
>> So, someone has Bitcoin and they want a loan against it. Well, someone has to come up with the dollars or the pounds or the euros or the stable coin or whatever. And who's going to do that?
And that's been difficult because legacy institutions and governments either don't understand Bitcoin or aren't allowed to do it or aren't interested in doing it. And coming up with the cash to finance people's lives against Bitcoin as collateral has been challenging. And Tether has effectively stepped up to the plate in partnership with me to make sure that people have the money to finance their lives and finance what they want to do collateralized by their Bitcoin. And so we're starting with a $2.1 billion facility, but that number was picked just for the memes, >> of course.
>> Um, obviously when we run out of that, we'll just reup. But, um, it's it's a really valuable partnership and Tether deserves a lot of credit because, you know, we had talked about on our panel, people say, why isn't the pricing cheaper? Well, you know, Tether can do a lot with their money. They could buy Nvidia, they could buy more Bitcoin, they could buy more gold, they could build a bigger house for the founders.
like the the opportunities are endless when you have capital and you know being able and being willing to say we're willing to finance Bitcoiners lives collateralize against their Bitcoin and you know I know everyone wants prices lower so do I wish everything in my life was free but you know I think that the pricing on this is great and it's approachable uh and it's it's actually I mean as long as you think Bitcoin is going to outgrow whatever the interest you're being charged it's a no-brainer.
So that's was part of the we announced I think it was six things in total and and the 2.1 billion wasn't an investment. It was just a pool of dollars that you know we can continue to finance um across our product suite. And so what does that allow you to do? Cuz like I think of the big lenders I think most of them now have a rate that is like in the single digit percent. Like how low did you manage to go?
>> Uh 7.49%.
>> Damn. So like is that are we kind of reaching the limit with that then?
Because like you say, you're competing against like the Treasury market, the the most risk-free version, >> right? Yeah. I mean, when people say, "Why isn't it 1%, Jack?" Well, think of it as the people giving the dollars, why would they give me the dollars where they're making 1% versus buy a T bill or put it in a money market fund or buy a US Treasury? That's the same risk-free and they're getting 3%, 3 and 1 half%, 4%, 4 and a.5%. So ultimately the risk-free rate is set by the US government because they can print these things. And so if the Fed funds rate is 3 and a half% the US Treasury tenure is 4 and a.5%.
>> I think it just went over five yesterday.
>> 5% right? Like then these are the things that are ultimately governing how much I can charge you guys. Um I can't I can't print money out of thin air. And you know when people and people say, "Well, I can get a 30-year mortgage. Where's my 30-year fixedterm Bitcoin loan?" It's like, "Well, mortgages have a governmentbacked implicit guarantee."
You know, Bitcoinbacked loans don't have that yet. And so ultimately, who we're competing with is people that have lots of dollars and are willing to finance Bitcoin backed loans, but they have to we have to be competitive against the other opportunities they have. Like, why would they give someone uh a loan against their Bitcoin instead of buy Bitcoin themselves? Bitcoin, we we talk about it's a 30 kg or 40 kg or 50 kag or asset. What are you doing getting like 7.49%.
And and so that's what we're competing with ultimately. And so for now, I think Strike is, you know, the cheapest, if not one of the cheapest in the world.
And if you believe that Bitcoin can outperform 7, 8, 9, 10%, then these are no-brainer products. And I I personally use the Bitcoin line of credit product.
It's changed my life. Um but and and and the price of these things will come down ultimately as the US Treasury 10-year comes down, as the Fed funds rate comes down, as money markets come down. Um but we'll see. Is that going to happen?
Because oil's at over $100 a barrel, right? So, you know, we're we're competing with where capital can ultimately go. And I understand that Bitcoin's pristine collateral and you can view this as risk-free, but uh that's why I will say I don't want to extend this too long, but I will say an innovative thing we're working on at Strike that has a direct impact here. I >> I know what you're going to say, I think, but let me just ask you one more question before that, cuz the way that most of lenders will do it now is it's weighted on how big the loan you want to take is.
>> Yeah. Um or how much collateral you want to put up, I should say. Like, is there a way that you could get down to, you know, 7 and a half% with smaller loans?
>> Yeah. I mean, that's what I'm working on. Can't make any promises, but that's the goal. I mean, listen, like my goal is to make our products as easy, accessible, trusted, and good as I possibly can because I think they make our customers lives better. Uh, and why would I not want that? But, you know, there are physical realities to those desires. Like when I call partners and say, "Hey, give me the dollars for free." They say, "No."
And so, that's the goal. And I think it's totally possible. I actually have I I want to uh tell you about this idea that and how I think we actually get there at strike. Um or at least something I'm really excited about and I want to test the idea on the internet as this gets published and I'll I'll be in the YouTube comments seeing what people think. Um it's uh giving yield on our customers cash deposits. So you know one way we can try and solve this is let's say a lender is giving me money at 6% and then strike gives it at 7% because we want to make a little bit of money to so I can pay my employee salaries and and that's how we get to the 7%. So the question is is there anyone out there that's willing to give me money at less than 6%. and it starts to get a little dicey because you've got the US 10-year Treasury and you're starting to get into like these other risk-free high way more liquid markets and stuff. And one way to approach that is let individuals put up the capital. So Strike has a global deposit base all over the world.
So we have depositors in the United States, in Europe, in the UK, in Latin America, in Africa. And what if we said as a business, hey, if you want yield on your cash that is 5%, click this button. And when they click it, that capital we use to help distribute our loans. And then when you say, I want my money back, then we just like we're we're just managing with all the pools of capital that we have. But the cheapest lender is usually John Doe.
It's usually the guy standing in line next to you at the coffee shop because you have these large investors that are like, "Well, our model says if the 10 years here, we can't go cheaper than this or that." But the guy standing next to you who's getting yield on his cash at 3% on some other financial app is like, "Would I get 5%?" Yeah. Wow. Well, [ __ ] it. Why not? And so what what we're doing ultimately I find fascinating is we're redefining banking in a way because when you see yield on cash from other platforms uh what they're doing is they're sweeping your cash uh it's called a cash sweep program where overnight they're lending it to the Fed and they're getting the Fed funds rate which is called three and a half% minus whatever their banking partner is taking from them. So let's say Fed funds rate minus 50 basis points. So that's 3% and they're giving 3% to the customer. But you know the problem with that product is the US government can't afford these rates because they're so broke. And over time the rates will inevitably have to come down because the US government has so much debt. You know interest their interest payments are the third biggest expense after health and human services uh and uh military budget like it's their interest expense. And so ultimately you are lending money to someone that can't afford its interest payments. So the rate you're going to get is going to go down. Conversely, with Bitcoiners, Bitcoiners are by definition net producers, right? To own Bitcoin is to have done something productive where you have leftover cash and you can change that cash into Bitcoin. So by definition, if you own Bitcoin, you did something that was net productive. You had leftover profit and you turned it into Bitcoin. So these are by definition productive people and they can afford 5% 6% 7% 8% 9%. Ultimately also because they're saving in an asset that is outperforming that rate. Yeah.
And so now you're all of a sudden talking about lending to people in a in an overcolateralized way. Our loan to value is 50%. So the loan starts out at twice over collateralized. So you're you're changing who like the market of who you're financing. You're no longer financing the US government for a yield on cash product at 3% that will probably go down. All of a sudden, you're financing a community of productive people all over the world, which yield can be 5%, 6%. If my customers are comfortable taking 7 12% and the cash depositors depositors on my platform are comfortable getting paid 5 6%. All of a sudden, Bitcoiners are financing Bitcoiners. Strike plays a critical role of facilitating that market and that's how I can get our pricing down is if I let people that aren't these large institutions participate in the market.
And I find it fascinating if someone in Brazil or someone in Argentina says I'd like 5% yield on my USDT and that USDT is ultimately helping finance someone in Manhattan borrowing against their Bitcoin to start a restaurant. Like how cool is that?
It's kind of like the Debify model. You end up becoming just like a matching engine putting people in touch essentially.
>> Yeah. But that is what we are today.
>> Yeah.
>> What we are today is there are fixed income investors that want to put capital to work and get a relatively risk-free return. That's what Tedar is.
Ted >> just democratize.
>> Yeah. We're we're willing to give you $2.1 billion. We're going to charge you X amount for that as you lend it out.
And like so we're doing that like we have a network of Bitcoiners all over the world that are saying I have wealth in Bitcoin. I want that liquidity to change my life without having to sell it. And we build different products for that. We have a 12-month fixedterm loan.
We have a a Bitcoin line of credit which is like a rolling you could think of it like a heliloc or almost like a credit card like it's an in real time uh loan and credit product. And we we we're going to build all sorts of different things. And my job is I have all these people that want all this money against their Bitcoin and I have to turn around and find the money that are in the right terms and allow me to build the product.
That's what I'm already doing. But it's can I give more access to the market of that cuz more competition will bring the price down. If some institution says no deal unless it's 10%. But depositors on our app say I mean my other apps give me 3%. If you give me 4% sold then I can tell the institutions screw you. Yeah, that's awesome.
>> And we like reinvent the other thing is like we reinvent like how productive capital allocation is. Like I think the people that should be getting loans should be net producers, people that are productive doing productive things. You have to put up real collateral and real capital that you have in a collateralized way to take out a loan to do something productive as opposed to like governments just printing money.
And ultimately, I can probably outpay our depositors more than the Fed can because the US government can't afford rates that high. If I say everyone in the world, like I'll give you guys 5%.
In order for the US government to compete with me, they'd have to raise the interest rate to 5%. And they can't afford that. And so, you know, now us build we're working on this product and uh we hope to get it out soon. doesn't exist yet, but uh it's one of the more exciting ideas at Strike because, you know, Strike is becoming, you know, people mclassify us as a payments app because that's what I initially founded it as, but it's like a global Bitcoin bank. It's not actually a bank because that requires a specific license, but you know, with brokerage and lending and custody and payments, you know, we're able to we're one of the rare apps in in Bitcoin uh financial services firm that has a depth of product suite across it all. Like there are a lot of companies that allow you to buy and sell. There are a lot of companies that allow you to take out a loan. There are a lot of companies that have payment APIs and stuff. And we do it all. And I'm really I have so many ideas on how we can actually like crossbenefit some of these product suites now that we are like we we do serve all these ver uh verticals and and I'm really excited about what that means for us in in the near-term future.
>> Yeah, that's awesome. Um I want to also ask you you announced a product that I don't understand how it's going to work.
The loan that cannot be called.
>> Yeah.
>> Like how does that work?
>> Yeah. Yeah. So okay uh what we announced I'll just go through it quickly. Uh, one is just more access. So, the number one request we get from customers when I launch something is why can't I have it?
>> Yeah.
>> And ultimately, if I could launch all my co all my products to everyone in the world, I would. Obviously, I don't wake up and launch something and say, >> "Not for you, New York.
>> Not for Germany." Yeah. So, uh, it's all about licensing and working with regulators and the world is so fractured uh, that it just takes us time. So, we offer these credit products for businesses, for individuals, and we all also offer fixedterm loans and now Bitcoin line of credit. Um, it's my favorite product. Uh, and that is pretty much throughout the entire United States. There's some version of our product in every single state, which is super exciting. We just got our Bit License, very rare accomplishment for a regulated business. So, that was announcement one. Announcement two, cheaper pricing. Talked about that as low as 7.49%.
Uh, announcement three, our first iteration of lending proof of reserves.
um that'll continue to get better. I find that interesting because you know uh when you're just buying Bitcoin and you have it on the platform ultimately like the best guarantee and what you should do is withdraw it. Yeah.
>> I mean it's your money you should withdraw to cold storage. We have free onchain withdrawals anytime no matter what unlimited. And we've put in a lot of work to finance the ability for people to acquire Bitcoin with no fees and withdraw to cold storage for no fees. But with lending, it's an interesting relationship because you're putting up collateral and I can't let you withdraw that because that's what's financing the loan. And so people say, well, like I need some guarantees that that's going to be there. And so we have this external audit proof of reserves.
We'll do it once a quarter and we'll continue to I mean it's our first iteration, but we'll continue to improve that, get community feedback. Then after that is segregated collateral. So, you know, our customers say, "If I'm giving you a ton of Bitcoin, 100 Bitcoin, a thousand Bitcoin, can you just put it in a separate address so that I can just look at it all day and make sure because obviously >> makes sense."
>> Yeah. The Bitcoin blockchain works in a way where you'd be able to observe that.
And so, uh, we are providing that. We're going to start it out as a private client service. You know, doing this for like $10 loans would be not I don't think the bang for buck would be worth it. So, we're trying to find the right threshold of, you know, what customers should be eligible for that because we don't want to manage, you know, tens of thousands of UTXOs that are tiny. Um, so right now, you can reach out to private at strike.mme and ask for the feature and and likely get it of having your collateral, set an address. You can stare at it all day. No, it's not rehypothecated. It's just sitting there.
And then the liquidity proof is well liquidation proof uh is you know customers say I'm scared of wicks like I have more collater here's the interesting thing when you know people usually have more Bitcoin more collateral but they don't want to post it all in a centralized entity I wouldn't either like there's value of Bitcoin in cold storage I don't want to take all my Bitcoin put it on strike just to make sure that my liquidation threshold is negative $10, right? Like I want to make sure that like as much as I can keep in my own custody is possible.
>> Yeah.
>> And so people say I'm really scared of these overnight wicks. Like I'm not awake all the time. I'm not able to always get my Bitcoin out of the platform. So is there a fee I can pay to make sure I never get liquidated? And how it works and how it scales is we're it took a lot of work, but we're able to hedge that. So for example, we charge an upfront fee for this product and we take the money and we buy some puts or something like that. There's there's many different ways. It's far more complex than you know I can say in a sentence, but we take the risk on ourselves and we do what's necessary to hedge that risk. And also having Tether as a partner here is super valuable because they have so much money. And so imagine the backs stop that gives us. So like Tether and I basically saying, you know, we are willing to navigate how complex it is to manage the risk of these wicks and financing the Bitcoin economy in a collateralized lending way.
Don't worry about it. As long as you're cool with an upfront fee, like we'll take it from here, you're never going to get liquidated. And that's like awesome.
And then the last announcement was that we'll start by doing 2.1 billion and and as soon as you guys use all that up, we'll grow from there. But so how you you're hedging that in the options market, but um so if if it's not a wick and it's like a continual draw down, what how does that actually play out?
>> The same way. So >> you still just get liquidated for the Bitcoin and you >> No, no, no. So, uh let's say you know it's 50% LTV. So if you post $100,000 worth of Bitcoin, you get a $50,000 loan or up to. You don't have to do 50% LTV, but let's say they max that out. So, you get $100,000 worth of Bitcoin and a $50,000 loan. And that $100,000 worth of Bitcoin turns into $75,000 worth of Bitcoin and then $65,000 with that the price is crashing. Ultimately, how the product traditionally works is once it gets to close to 50,000 and at 50,000 then I have to sell the Bitcoin because I owe Tether or whoever 50 grand. Right?
You posted the Bitcoin. I said, "Hey, they posted the Bitcoin. Give me the cash. I get the cash. I lend it out, but I have to owe that cash back. And so if we don't liquidate you and the price then goes to $40,000, your collateral is worth $30,000 and we're on the hook for 50,000. But with Bitcoin going down, the way we've hedged it is going up. So our puts are worth more. So ultimately, what matters is that our balance sheet is remaining intact. That there's never like a hole in our balance sheet. If I were to offer this with no upfront fee, everyone should be highly dubious cuz like whoa. like how are they like is there gonna be a hole? Yeah. Which no one wants, right?
>> And so that's how it works is we are making up the difference by taking the fee money that we're getting for the for the luxurious feature of this and protecting ourselves in that way. Um and so then ultimately uh if the 12-month expires and you owe us 50 grand but the Bitcoin is only worth 30 grand, then you might just default and say like I'm not paying you guys that back. You're like screw you. But we're all good because we had taken the capital and we had protected ourselves. And again, that's not easy like um like cap not not every Bitcoin company has like an options desk that um is behind the scenes like doing all of this. But that's what Strike and you know the vision I outlayed at 21.
These are the type of things that we want to do is take Bitcoin products and a Bitcoin company to the next level.
like um having a Bitcoin only business that also has really deep capital markets experience has op has an options desk that is able to lay risk off like how cool is that you you get to realize itself in a product offering like yo you can get a loan and never get liquidated like that's cool right that's cool >> how much does it cost or are you still working on pricing >> still still working so we're so you can reach out to private strike me that's just by the way that's just our private client desk we h we have at strike this private client service where real like you can call us anytime, real humans.
It's usually for high net worth or anything fairly custom or large or sensitive. We want to make sure that there's like white glove service. And so you can reach out there and I would say um right now I think the last one we did was at a 3% origination fee. So if you want to take a million dollar loan and never get liquidated no matter what um you owe us 30 grand and then you're good. here's here's your million dollars and um go have fun. Uh and I think I can get that significantly down but again with more volume price comes down and as we learn uh how how we want to do it price comes down. Um so but call it you know 1 2 3% something like that.
>> I mean it's not extortion at all. That's really cool. No, no, no. And I think it'll come down again like if I'm only putting on like you because I'm work we have like a you can think of it like a capital markets desk like a a you know prime services desk and the more volume then like the cheaper this comes down and and it also depends right like it you know options are priced ultimately on volatility and so it bitcoins like if if someone calls us and wants this product while Trump just said he's going to drop a nuclear bomb I might say I can't offer right now like in the app when when we put it in the app and make it available for everyone it might not be we might say like currently unavailable if Bitcoin is like if the world's going through turmoil but you know recently Bitcoin has not been very volatile as of recent and options are fairly cheap uh and and other not strictly options other derivatives and forms of hedging um and so it it I I also have debated should it be fixed pricing or or should we just let people test the market because I'm I I don't want to charge you 3% if I could charge you 2%. Like, why would I want that? So, we'll see. Um, you know, it's it's something that we'll refine. I like building in the open. I like taking less guesses than necessary cuz ultimately I work for the people and the people tell me what they want and people don't benefit from me just guessing. So, I try to get products to market that I think are valuable and reasonable and letting the world drive them to their inevitable destiny. So, we'll see what people use it for and and how they like it and we'll just make it better.
>> That's awesome, man. I mean, you're crushing it. It's going to be cool to see how this all plays out.
>> Totally.
>> Thank you for doing this, Jack. This is cool. Back in the closet.
>> Thanks for having me, dude. You're the best. Uh, you're the best. I know Dylan and I love hanging out with you. I'm excited to go get some dinner. So, thank you for all you do, man.
>> And the week is over. Vegas is over. We can relax now. Yeah, >> I'm exhausted.
>> No, we all are. Those things are they're fun. They're worth it. Um but they're a lot. So, we'll have a good weekend in Chicago.
>> Let's go. Thank you, Jack.
>> Yep.
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