Folks in the market don't want six different Bitcoin companies, right?
They want one where they can do everything they need, whether that's hold for the long term, have liquidity out of that cold storage, being able to buy or sell, which I'm pretty sure there's still very few places in the market that you can do that, buy and sell directly out of cold storage.
And then we can touch further on kind of the unique account types, right?
To my knowledge, this is still the only place where you can have an IRA, where you retain majority key control, Roth, traditional SEP, and then also those trust accounts to go further on the inheritance side and helping folks avoid probate.
And again, to the tradeoffs, making sure that that Bitcoin stays private and pass away.
Bitcoin is a currency on the Internet.
If you don't trust any other currency, this is where you go.
It's going to outperform everything.
Bitcoin could eventually be worthless.
Every day is a good day to buy Bitcoin.
Bitcoin reached its highest price to date.
Bitcoin hitting a new high.
It really has reached escape velocity.
There is no second best.
Who cares about Bitcoin?
It's the only secure database that's ever been invented.
Antisocial.
Bitcoin is the real deal.
Stupid.
Everything is bullish for Bitcoin.
Immoral.
It's going up forever, Laura.
Fix the money.
Fix the world.
Thank you.
Welcome to Bitcoin for Financial Services Media, the podcast where sound money meets professional services.
We explore how to build the financial services industry within the principles, values, and ethos of Bitcoin.
Today, we're joined by Ben Brila, Director of Sales at Unchain.
Let's get started.
Welcome back to Bitcoin for Financial Services Media.
We're stoked. Great guest today. Veteran of the Bitcoin for Financial Services ecosystem, Ben Brela, Director of Sales at Unchained. How are you doing, Ben?
Doing great, Wyatt. Thanks a lot for having me. I'm really excited about what you guys are doing. So grateful for the chance to be on and contribute.
Of course. Now, it's always fun to bring friends on the pod. You and I both work out of the space. We've gotten to know each other well over the last couple of years. You guys are doing great work at Unchained.
And so we're going to have a fruitful conversation.
You know, partner of Basilic, so I've gotten to know you guys well over the years, too.
You know, we're recording on St. Patrick's Day here.
I got my green on.
Doesn't look like you're supporting the cause.
Well, that's the thing about recording from home, Wyatt, is you can't see what I'm wearing underneath.
So I am on the low.
Well, we'll take it.
We'll take it.
Ben, why don't you give the audience a little bit about how you got into Bitcoin, how you got into Bitcoin professionally and what you're doing now?
Sure.
So my Bitcoin story is a bit of a sly roundabout way into Bitcoin.
I grew up in the D.C. area and I saw my mother, who leads a team of research nurses at NIH, working with late stage cancer patients.
And, you know, these folks, I think more than anyone else in the world recognizes the scarcity of our time, the fact that time is truly our scarce asset.
And, you know, from there, what naturally comes to come is, you know, how are we going to utilize our time?
Right. And so my personal goal became how can I improve quality of life for as many folks as I can?
And so I thought about going to medical school and PA school, ended up going into the free market and studied engineering and ended up working in medical sales.
And what I found from that was that while the splints I was selling were helping folks with a immediate injury or temporary solution, the problem was that a lot of these folks were living check to check and still had no understanding of money and how it has such an outsized effect on quality of life.
And so, you know, shout out to Seb Bunny. I read his book, The Hidden Cost of Money, where he argues that everything is really downstream of money. And so from there, a bit of a self-taught investor coming out of college realized that Bitcoin is truly the best tool that I have in my toolbox to help improve quality of life for as many folks as I can.
The concept, the Japanese concept of Ikigai kind of helped me get there.
But for all intents and purposes, that's why I'm here is because I believe that educating folks, individuals, institutions on Bitcoin is really the best way for me to help improve their quality of life and help them make the most of our time, our scarce asset.
No, it's beautiful.
We love those personal connections.
I think it makes you coming to Bitcoin that much more real, that much more purposeful.
So you're kind of going down this Bitcoin rabbit hole.
What gave you the conviction to jump into it professionally?
Yeah.
One of those situations where you have to go really low to go high and to figure out, you know, your true mission.
And part of that was, unfortunately, through a severe fracture of my leg.
I was playing soccer and fractured my tibial plateau, had to go in for a surgery that I never wanted with a bunch of screws and hardware.
And the surgeon described it as a career remodeling injury.
So what that gave me was a ton of time to think about how I'm using my time.
And it also gave me a lot more time to continue down the never ending rabbit hole to learn more and more about Bitcoin.
And I think over the years, my conviction grew.
And then that was kind of the nail in the coffin where I realized, look, I have to get up every day and work on, you know, what is most important back to the Ikigai concept so that I am fulfilled and can also ensure that I'm helping others and doing something that I think is meaningful.
And after transitioning from medical sales to software sales, I think a lot of that meaning wasn't there, right?
Because I don't know, we've all spent time in and around SaaS and it's a very cutthroat environment.
Whereas when I wake up and get to help folks secure Bitcoin for the long haul and potentially affect their bloodline and generations to come, that I know is worthwhile.
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Yeah, very cool. Appreciate the background. That's great for you to share. So let's get into what you do at Unchained, what Unchained is, and we'll kind of jump off from there.
Sure thing. So Unchained provides a full suite of financial services for Bitcoiners. So we've been around for close to a decade at this point.
um and you guys started in 2016 we did we did yeah so we're coming to your anniversary this year
you know this year exactly kidding and i you know i feel like in the bitcoin space those are like
dog years or something right like it feels like yeah for real um and so the core of unchained
is collaborative custody so um i know you know a lot of your folks are experienced bitcoiners but
you know for those that don't know i think maybe let's level set a little bit right so they're 21
million Bitcoin, all of them live on addresses. And each of those addresses is secured by either
a single or multiple private keys. Now, most individuals start buying Bitcoin on an exchange,
and that's fine, right? There's little friction. The issue there is that as you accumulate more
Bitcoin, you understand who's holding the private keys. And when you're holding Bitcoin on an
exchange or with a custodian, they are typically holding the private key or private keys.
And so over time, as you start to secure more and more Bitcoin, that tends to become an unacceptable level of risk.
And Bitcoiners, as they understand the ethos of not your keys, not your coins, tend to want to secure those keys on their own.
And so they might go to a single signature setup where they have a device and a backup seed phrase under the bed or in the safe.
But the issue there is that if that C phrase is compromised, your Bitcoin is as good as gone.
And so for high net worth individuals and institutions who are stacking very material amounts of Bitcoin, that type of risk doesn't make sense and is unacceptable.
So folks start to consider collaborative custody built on multi-signature custody.
So imagine instead of a single key securing your Bitcoin, there are three.
And with our clients, they're typically holding the majority. So they're holding, let's say, two keys and Unchain holds the third. What this provides for our clients is really the best of both worlds because they know that they retain key control. They're the only party in the world that can unilaterally move their Bitcoin. But at the same time, they now have some room for error.
So if something happens to one of those keys, if a house burns down, something that's out of your control, it's not the end of the world.
You can come back to Unchained. We can help you re-secure that third key and continue to secure your Bitcoin.
And what we find is that as folks grow their Bitcoin conviction and the amount of Bitcoin they hold in turn, they want to work with a group that they can trust, but they don't have to.
And that's the beauty of this model is that you kind of have your cake and eat it too in terms of the client retaining key control.
But Unchained being here in the event that something happens to one of those keys or to take it a step further, and I'm sure we'll get into this, this type of model lends itself really well to things like inheritance.
And I know a lot of Bitcoiners see Bitcoin as a generational asset.
So, you know, it doesn't make sense to spend all this time and energy stacking if you're not going to be sure that it's going to officially pass on to your heirs.
A hundred percent. And that's a great level setting point.
And so we have Unchained. I love working with you guys.
I refer to you guys as like the premier Bitcoin financial services company in the country.
I mean it with every word. And so we have this custody solution to through multi-sig core.
your guys' core business. And then as you guys have grown, have added your additional financial
services on top of that, you know, we got, we got loans, we got IRAs, we got, you know, OTC desk,
inheritance protocol. And for my seat, it's just been so easy to onboard to you guys. My clients
have like a one-stop shop. You know, I think it's fairly easy for, you know, traditional RIAs to
think of, you know, Unchained as kind of like their, their pseudo like Bitcoin custodian.
Obviously you guys don't take full custody of people's coins. You're, you're a partner in that,
but your setup is so flexible. I love like this two or three base because it just provides us so
many different opportunities. And, you know, one thing we really focus on with our clientele,
you know, especially with, you know, Bitcoin still be kind of at store value phase, you know,
moving to medium of exchange here, you know, quickly is making sure, you know, we have a
rock solid foundation for our custody solution. And there is no silver bullet when it comes to
Bitcoin self custody. It's a series of trade-offs and you kind of touched on some of those. And you
guys have made it tremendously easy for a client to hold two keys in the quorum. You know, your
connections feature is awesome. That's why I utilize my client. If I'm holding, you know,
key in the form are able to geographically distribute three keys now. So, you know,
if they lose their key and myself and Unchank and how, you know, set up a new wallet,
obviously, you know, inheritance planning as well. Why don't you kind of get in the nuts of bolts
of how connections work? Because I really feel like that is like the most pivotal
tool for advisors or folks in my seat. And I really do. My kind of my prediction for the future
is it's going to be much more commonplace for Bitcoin holders to have their financial advisor,
to have their CPA, to have their state planning attorney hold a key for them.
It's really not too intimidating from the service provider point of view
because you guys made it super easy on your platform.
So walk us through how that actually works.
Absolutely.
This goes to the roots of Unchained,
which is thinking about e-control as establishing a network of keys.
And because we've created the Unchained platform built natively into the Bitcoin network, it allows for these type of connections.
So I think, you know, in a story form, this might make a little more sense to folks, right?
So imagine, you know, you are the Bitcoiner in your family, you get set up with Unchained, and then you have some relatives who, you know, would benefit from this type of service.
but maybe they're not ready to hold multiple keys, right?
Maybe you kind of want to help them dip their toes into the water
and become comfortable before, you know, assuming
the majority key control or maybe they never have to do that And so you can imagine you have your unchained account you can send a connection request to someone else to help them create an
account. And then their account is actually connected to yours on the backend through our
platform. And so this allows for a few things, right? At the core, it could be that they are
able to create a multi-signature account with Unchained where they only have to deal with
controlling one device. So now you have the benefits of multi-sig, but they don't have the
complexity there. So that's, I think, the first use case where, you know, let's say you have an
older relative and you want them to have this setup available to them. You create that connections,
they upload one key, then you're able to then build a vault constructed of their key,
one key that you already have on the platform, and then the unchained key.
And so now they have the benefit of this two out of three multi-sig quorum.
And what it does is it lends itself very well to things like inheritance.
So if you're already connected to that account on our platform,
it's going to make the inheritance even more seamless.
Um, whereas typically, you know, you're going to set up that inheritance protocol and keep that with your, um, estate planning, uh, attorney or your, or your trustee.
Um, but the point is we want to meet folks where they are, right?
And we understand that, you know, there may be folks in your family who never go down the rabbit hole as far as you, and they don't want to understand multi-stignature custody and that's okay, right?
They can still benefit.
it, they don't need to be in a situation where they are vulnerable to single points of failure.
We've seen the rise in scammers and fraudulent folks trying to steal Bitcoin.
And I would say that utilizing these checks and balances goes a long way for those who
are not as technically Bitcoin inclined.
Well, it really does.
And I give you guys a huge tip of the cap for your game theory when designing the platform.
I think it gives people a lot of confidence and trust.
You know, myself, you know, using connections, clients can determine how much information they want to share with me.
So they're comfortable with that.
You know, I can sign a transaction after the client initiates it.
You know, I can't initiate a transaction myself.
You know, the account owner has to be the one to actually broadcast the transaction to the network.
And so there's a lot of safeguards that you guys have intentionally built in, which I think is really great.
And especially when you're working with a more Bitcoin-focused, you know, individual,
they get extremely scrupled about their custody solution, as they should.
And they ask a lot of questions like, how do I not get rugged in this scenario?
And it's, you know, physically impossible with the way you guys have set things up, which, you know, provides myself with a lot of comfort, provides my clients with a lot of comfort.
And so it just works, which is, you know, an issue we find a lot in Bitcoin land is like, does this does this actually work?
And so that's fantastic.
And, you know, it helps a lot, too.
I was honestly kind of nervous when I was first getting started.
It's like, oh, man, my compliance consultant is not going to like this.
And, you know, I walked into the platform, my role in holding one of the three keys in Quorum is like, no, this is fine.
Like you don't have custody. You can't unilaterally move your client's Bitcoin.
It's a bunch of other things I have to take into account.
If I have custody of clients' assets and you guys just make it very easy to help provide folks with some custody solutions.
A hundred percent. And I think something that you said stuck out there in terms of, you know, how how early we really are, because a lot of individuals come to Bitcoin on their own.
But others just, you know, hear it through the grapevine. And so when we serve both both individuals and institutions, and I was talking to a business leader the other day who just thought that, you know, holding Bitcoin on behalf of an enterprise was a nonstarter.
because, you know, one person, he thought one person had to hold the keys.
And so when we had a, you know, basic conversation around the ability for multiple keys,
you know, you could immediately see the light bulb go on in his head
and the ability to, you know, set up a business account with us
and then create perhaps a flexible forum where it's maybe two out of three
or it's three out of five.
Or, you know, maybe it's two out of three with some additional approver levels, right?
Maybe you have a board of five folks and only two are prepared or able to hold keys, but you'd like approval from the other three when a transaction is broadcast.
We have that flexibility.
And I think simplicity is also key to Unchain at its core.
Folks in the market don't want six different Bitcoin companies, right?
They want one where they can do everything they need, whether that's hold for the long term, have liquidity out of that cold storage, being able to buy or sell, which I'm pretty sure there's still very few places on the market that you can do that, buy and sell directly out of cold storage.
And then we can touch further on kind of the unique account types, right?
To my knowledge, this is still the only place where you can have an IRA, where you retain majority key control, you know, Roth, traditional SEP, and then also those trust accounts to go further on the inheritance side and helping folks avoid probate.
And again, to the tradeoffs, right, making sure that that Bitcoin stays private when you pass away.
totally it maybe was one of the biggest decision-making criteria when i was trying to figure
out who like my bitcoin partner was going to be in this practice and i mean yeah you obviously want
to reduce as much friction as possible for onboarding clients you know you want a seamless
user interface like a one-stop shop and so just the fact that you guys are able to accommodate
all those different account types that's obviously what a you know traditional
your brokerage service or custodian is going to offer. So, you know, we don't have to go
here for IRA. We don't have to go there for our trust. We don't have to go, you know,
XYZ for our loan. You know, it's all built in natively in the platform. And in that vein,
what have you guys seen, you know, actual boots on the ground for, you know, future requests,
whether that be from, you know, RIAs like myself, accountants, estate plan attorneys,
but on the professional side. And then also from, you know, the end client user perspective,
of how do you envision this platform growing and if you guys have any plans to add on the additional
features and services? Yeah, I think that's a great question. We're always trying to stay on
top of what folks in the market are looking for. And I would say it's a balancing act between,
and I think this is a testament to why we've been around for close to a decade, between
staying in your lane, right, knowing what you do really well and leaning into those aspects,
which, you know, currently right now with us is custody, trading, and then commercial lending,
and making sure that you're the best in the business at those things, while also
continuing to grow and listening to our clients and hearing, you know, what they have to say. And so
So I would say, you know, one limitation you could argue of our platform right now is that we have a $2,000 minimum trade size.
That's because these Bitcoin buys are being deposited directly into cold storage.
So we're, you know, we're cognizant of UTXO sizing on that front.
But in terms of, you know, perhaps ease of use or ability for you to kind of even consolidate all your Bitcoin needs even further, you know, I would love to see something like a like a DCA function, right, to support smaller buys and perhaps, you know, a custodial type account where, you know, you can accumulate small amounts of Bitcoin.
And then when it's a certain UTXO size that could migrate into cold storage.
Um, but I think another component that we've heard loud and clear from our clients is, is how important the human aspect is, right? You can't assemble a team like this overnight. That's, you know, part of the reason why it's, it's taken close to a decade. Um, I, I encourage everybody to go check out our blog and our knowledge base because we have some of the, the, the top thought leaders in the space.
And so whenever there's a tricky Bitcoin topic that I'm trying to dig deeper on, that's typically where I'll go.
But on the human note, I would say knowing that you can actually meet the Unchained team in person is huge.
So we do as much as we can in terms of boots on the ground.
You know, you and I spend a lot of time and, you know, labor of love here at the space in Denver.
I run the local Boulder Bitcoin meetup.
So, you know, shout out to all my folks here in Colorado. We're always growing and looking to improve there. And I would say that through our signature service, which is more of our private client experience, those folks are getting invited to private client events around the country.
And it goes a long way when you're that, you know, weird Bitcoin guy in your friends or family circle that, you know, has hopefully not quite been totally ostracized yet, that you can actually go out and, you know, have a nice dinner with other folks who are on the same page as you.
Or, you know, I know we're working on an event down in Nashville where they're going to go out and, you know, shoot some guns.
And we have a wine tasting coming up here at the space with Ben Justman.
Shout out Peony Lane.
So I think that emphasis as well. Obviously, we have the best technical infrastructure in Bitcoin, but I think the team that backs it up and being able to interact with that team is huge for a lot of our folks.
it's actually massive um i'm happy you brought that up because yeah something you know you and
i have discussed you know offline obviously in our own you know ventures like the community
aspect of bitcoin is super important i think it's one of the best investments you can make
it's just getting no other bitcoiners learning from other bitcoiners in real life obviously
the internet's great but nothing needs those those in-person interactions unchained i can attest
those great parties um so it's always it's always a good time getting together with the unchained
folks. And even in my personal experience, I've reached out to you. I've reached out to Rocky.
I am having this issue. What do you think about this? I know you guys, I know I'm talking to a
human on the other end. If you guys have been sure, like directed me to support, I had this
one issue and like four support guys jumped on to try to help me solve it with my client. It was
just really reassuring to know, you know, we were getting good advice. There were real humans
based in, you know, North America that were ready, willing, and able to help us. Gave my client a
huge peace of mind. And so I really do give you guys props for not skimping on that. I think it's,
you know, fairly easy once you get to a big scalable business like Unchained to, you know,
kind of cut corners and you haven't. Like the support is tremendous. And especially from,
you know professional services too it's like i'm used to being able to my track five providers
you know call somebody and talk to people on the phone i feel like bitcoin companies a lot of times
they won't lean into like the tech angle here's your chat bot and it's like no i don't want to
talk to the ai i want to talk to a real guy right are you guys like it's like are you even in the us
like where do you guys where are like do you have a location so i always joke too i'm trying to catch
all my unchained Pokemon. I'm, I'm getting working through them. You know, I've met quite a few guys,
you guys are growing fast. It's making it harder on me. But, um, you, another thing, you, I want to
discuss with you, you know, your boots on the ground guy talking to real Bitcoiners every day.
And you and I have talked about it too. It's like this instant, interesting, you know,
conundrum. I really like talking about price, but we definitely notice that our pipeline fills up
when price goes up. You got to do a little bit more legwork to get leads and talk to folks when
price goes down. So I'm just really curious, what are your just general perspective strategies,
you know, folks sitting in a professional services role, how you're talking to clients
about Bitcoin and good and bad markets, what the feedback is like, you know, how you're converting
them and still trying to emphasize like the importance of your services, even when it may
not seem obvious to them with the price action of the day? Yeah. So I think there's a few different
ways we do that. I think part of it is that, you know, we always stick with the ethos that bear
markets are for building, right? And so what you're going to see, yeah, what you see more out of
Unchained in these times is more content, right? So we've been doing more work to put out more
research, we just put out a piece on quantum as that seems like kind of the, the FUD du jour
lately. Um, and it's just, I paused a little bit because, you know, just to quickly flip back to
the community side, right. We're, we're around the guys who are the lead developers at the space
for these quantum resistant proposals. So when you're, when you're seeing that on a day-to-day
basis, it helps you deal with that FUD. And you're also able to speak to it truthfully, right? It's
not like, hey, I just heard this thing X and Y. It's like, hey, I actually got to talk to Hunter
and Jeff and these guys who are actually authoring the BIPs. So you get to see, one, the level of
urgency in terms of that particular FUD. And then just the beautiful anti-fragility of the Bitcoin
network in terms of, hey, there's this attack. We're going to reinforce ourselves and make
ourselves stronger so that we can defend against it I would also say that you know from a just from a sales perspective it almost impossible to do like cold Bitcoin outbound right Because you just come off like a scammer So a lot of times it it those warm relationships
It's it's working with folks who are already using the product.
And hey, you know, how can we is there anybody else in your network who we can help, you know, who might benefit from this because it's been so helpful to you.
and, you know, always beating the drum on education, right?
So how many Bitcoin lending companies have we seen go down in the last decade, right?
It's almost countless at this point.
I'm pretty sure BlockFill's filed for bankruptcy in the last couple of weeks.
And so I would implore, without providing any sort of financial advice,
said, for anyone who's looking at commercial Bitcoin-backed loans, to do your extreme due
diligence on your relationship to your collateral. Because that's what we pride ourselves on here at
Unchained, is that you are closer to your collateral than you are anywhere else, because
it's held in a multi-signature vault where instead of you holding two keys, you hold one. So Unchained
holds a second and then a third party arbiter holds a third, meaning that all three parties
have constant visibility into the Bitcoin on chain, ensuring that it's not being rehypothecated
at all or sent to any sort of third party during the life of the loan, but also ensuring
that none of the three parties has unilateral ability to access that collateral during the
life of that loan.
So I think during these lulls in price action, it's a time to continue to hone and refine your knowledge so that you're ready to take opportunity going forward.
And then, you know, from a personal experience, when folks are, you know, hey, Ben, I thought, you know, Bitcoin, I thought Bitcoin wasn't going to be as volatile anymore, et cetera, et cetera.
So, you know, I hear you. But at the same time, what I can tell you from experience is, one, the best time to plant a tree is 10 years ago.
If you can't do that, you should plant that thing today.
And two, you know, most of us Bitcoiners have way more Bitcoin now than we ever would have without those significant drawdowns in the past.
So see it as an opportunity back to basics, produce more than you consume.
And then you have the ability to accumulate Bitcoin with the excess.
Totally. I think that's a that's a great answer.
And it's also a great example of that core two, three multisig, you know, at work in the loan product.
I have a lot of interest from clients in Bitcoin collateralized loans.
I think it's like a great tool, but, you know, even some of the work I'm doing with my private credit fund evaluating like these loan servicers and originators, it honestly gives me so much more respect and thankfulness for Unchained because things can get a little dicey behind the scenes.
Are you pooling collateral?
Is that collateral pledge to a different party?
Or is like, if everything is core, two, three, multi-state, like the exact address, your Bitcoin collateral is held, exactly under what circumstances it can move or not.
And so it's just crucially IRA product functions similarly.
And it is really important.
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consultation. Absolutely. Um, not sure if, um, you know, this was on your list of stuff to cover,
but, you know, happy to go further into the IRA if, uh, if that's relevant. Yeah, let's do it.
Awesome. So that is one of my favorite products at Unchain. So I have to give it some airtime.
Oh yeah. And I mean, you know, when you sit down, I'm sure when you sit down with your clients,
Like oftentimes what we see is kind of like the low hanging fruit, right, is like the old 401k or the old IRA that, you know, they may or may not have even checked out in years.
And who knows if it's invested, what it's invested in, you know, how it's performing.
So that was, you know, the immediate wake up call to me a few years ago when I learned that this was even an option was, hey, you know, been stacking up a 401k through medical sales and, you know, sure enough, can't buy Bitcoin in there.
So the ability to, you know, seamlessly create an IRA to IRA transfer or a 401k to IRA rollover through our platform is really efficient.
And I know in the past, you know, those types of transfers have typically taken like weeks, but we have a really smooth integration in there.
And, you know, we often see the funds come over in one to three or four days now, depending on the current custodian.
But, you know, for anyone out there listening, if you're thinking you kind of racking your brain on ways to get more Bitcoin exposure, this is one way that maybe a lot of folks haven't considered.
And so a couple of unique advantages there would be one, because it's true spot Bitcoin and you retain key control in retirement, you can actually take distribution in kind.
So you don't necessarily need to sell that Bitcoin to dollars when you're when you're taking a distribution.
So I think that's one of the critical advantages.
And then also, obviously, pairing that with the liquidity portion makes it simple.
Totally.
And one of the things, I mean, you see, even like Bitcoinira.com, it's like a centrally held crypto company.
It's like pretty unflattering.
There's a lot of unflattering crypto IRA products out there.
I think the key innovation at Unchained is like this tri-party agreement.
So all tax-qualified accounts in the U.S. need a qualified custodian, right?
It's like, well, when Bitcoin or alarm bells go off, it's like, I don't want somebody else casting my Bitcoin.
You guys work with Fortis Bank, which is fun enough, out of Denver, and they agree to sign the keys back over to you,
all seamlessly done in the background of Unchained platform.
And so you essentially have this unchained vault and this IRS paper wrapper.
That's your IRA, and you still get to control your keys.
And so it really is, I think, extremely clever and very unique product offering in the market.
On product offerings, and then I kind of want to switch to your guys' outreach initiatives,
but let's walk through the inheritance planning protocol.
This is, you know, I would say very hot topic when we're talking custody solutions with clients is, yeah, I mean, you may have like this sick treasure map and, you know, your seed phrase is buried in, you know, Africa and then got assigned advice in the Antarctic circle.
You know, and it's like, nobody's getting my Bitcoin, especially maybe your heirs.
And so I think you guys, again, have thought out a really good protocol that nearly anybody can implement.
Walk us through the details of that and how you arrived on this specific procedure.
Yeah.
So the core of this, like everything we do, is no single points of failure.
And so as you illustrated, we hear about these exotic multisignatures.
And like you said, no one's going to access the Bitcoin, right?
Arguably not even your heirs, because unfortunately, oftentimes the Bitcoiner is the single point of failure.
And so, yes, I hear you, hardcore Bitcoiner.
You don't want anybody in the world to know how much Bitcoin you have.
And I get that.
And as Wyatt noted, you know, every single setup has tradeoffs.
And so what we find is the majority of our clients see that the small tradeoff in terms of privacy or knowledge of account on the Unchained side is well worth the massive benefits of the peace of mind and clarity that come with knowing you have a robust inheritance setup that you getting hit by a bus does not derail.
And so there's really two ways to set that up with us.
So you can either set it up on your own in a DIY fashion,
or the majority of our clients who are seeing Bitcoin as a generational asset
and perhaps have a lot more moving parts might use our signature service for one year,
which is going to be that private client white glove experience
where you're actually going to be working directly with the team
and have a dedicated account manager to first, you know, look at your Bitcoin picture in a holistic manner, right?
Get you set up operationally and then look at the inheritance component.
And so if you have a trust, we can help you title Bitcoin to that trust.
You know, if you have a will, you can also look at it on an intent with appropriating it into the will.
But the beauty of this is basically it boils down to a packet of information that's inclusive of a copy of one of your feed phrases, as well as two executor letters that explain the process.
That gets stored in a tamper evident bag and is given to your trustee or your heir.
And so now, you know, heir or trustee doesn't have to be a Bitcoin wizard or guru.
they have to understand that if so-and-so passes away,
I'm going to approach and work with Unchain,
proving that they're no longer around,
and then use the combination of this protocol
with the third key that Unchain's already securing
to then accomplish the wishes of the trust of the will
in terms of moving Bitcoin.
Totally.
And, yeah, I'm sure you guys have heard some gripes from Maximus.
I think it's a pretty genius, like, bulletproof way to go about custody in the most, you know, seamless way possible if you don't already have a professional service provider that is, you know, a key agent.
Yes, you know, it's another copy to Z phrase, but like we talked about earlier in the conversation, you don't have your account log in.
They can initiate a transaction.
You know, they can't collude with Unchained.
so it is fairly seamless.
And even in the protocol, you guys urge clients to call this person every six months,
make sure the bag isn't tampered with, make sure they know where the bag is,
and so we reduce any of that potential human error.
So I think it's like the best off-the-shelf inheritance protocol I've seen,
and it really helps me get peace of mind, giving my clients good advice on how to handle this.
Really appreciate that.
why glad that it's it's working as intended and um you know one note on that you know checking in
every six months right if uh if the bag has been tampered with you you probably need a new trustee
right yeah yeah that's totally fair um
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So I think an interesting conundrum for folks building businesses in the Bitcoin space, obviously, like you're loving for target markets, like probably going to be Bitcoiners.
But after you reach a certain amount of scale and as Bitcoin, you know, kind of just does its thing and continues to grow and reach new people, your target market expands.
expands. And so Unchain has been super supportive of the Bitcoin community, the Bitcoin ecosystem.
You guys sponsor a ton of events, meetups, conferences, like really the whole gamut.
You know, I think you guys make a great effort. If you are represented somewhere, put boots on the
ground. You know, you have like an Unchain representative to talk to the product. And then
recently, and correct me if I'm wrong, if it's more than recently, you guys are kind of moving,
out of Bitcoin events or Bitcoin-specific things into energy or broader finance conferences and
meetups. How have you guys kind of thought about tapping the Bitcoin community, continue to support
sponsor conferences, and then also extending an olive branch to different industries and
potentially onboarding them? Sure. I think it's a two-pronged approach where we're not going to let
go what we've already been doing well, which is the presence at the Bitcoin-only events.
You'll see us at Big Block Boom in a couple weeks down in Texas. And then, of course,
the majority of the team will be out in Vegas there a couple more weeks.
But the second prong of that is the tangential networks and marketing, right? And so I've been
to a couple events recently, like, for instance, with the Colorado Technology Association,
as well as some other local networking events.
But the point being there is that I think Bitcoiners often fall into this trap
of thinking that, you know, it's been around for 15 or 16 years, right?
Like you had to have like if you weren living under a rock and you have any inclination like you should get Bitcoin by now Right And I guess what I would say is what we found is I don believe that that actually the case
I believe that you actually have a lot of smart folks out there who are in their own lane, whatever their craft might be.
And they're trying to provide for their family and they're getting hit on both sides by inflation and taxation.
And they just haven't had the time. And that's what I what I pulled from a couple of these recent events.
is that, you know, I still believe the biggest danger to Bitcoin is apathy, is that we have a
whole society of NPCs and sheeple who don't care, right, enough to, and, you know, we devolve into
the movie Idiocracy, if you've ever seen that, where we have, you know, Powerade coming out of
the water fountains and stuff. I've never seen that movie, no. It's worth a watch. But the point
there being is that I still believe that there's a ton of opportunity, but it's going to take,
you know, twice as much work as we've already put in. And it's going to be, you know, person by
person if we don't want to wait for the whole, you know, change happens one funeral at a time,
morbid outlook, right? And that's, you know, boots on the ground at these Bitcoin only events,
or, you know, go to your local tech networking event, right? Go to your, there's tons of stuff
on Eventbrite, on meetup.com that, you know, there's other folks out there looking to learn.
And most folks who aren't in the financial space kind of have an inkling of, you know,
something's wrong. I just can't figure out quite what it is. Like, I know I feel like I'm on a
treadmill. I get the extra job and things don't really change. So when you can kind of pull that
veil up them for a little bit and let them know that there are, you know, tons of intelligent
of people working on this. And you complement that with something like a physical space,
like the space in Denver, where, you know, you now have the world's first hot tub heated with
Bitcoin mining, right? Like, if, you know, if that doesn't, you know, perk your ear up a little bit,
okay, maybe we're not gonna, you know, you're not gonna eventually figure this out. But I think for
anybody who has an inkling of curiosity, and I think a little bit of pain, those are two,
usually the, the prereqs, um, knowing that there's folks out here like us and, and, and you guys at
Basilic and Jordan with Bitment, um, I think there's, there's plenty of work to be done. So,
you know, let's not rest on our laurels. Um, of course we can sit back, but like, I'm all,
I'm in the camp of, of let's accelerate this so that, you know, we can see the benefit of
living on a hard money standard. Um, ideally while, while you and I are, you know, healthy.
Yeah, right, right. No, I appreciate that. That's something I go back and forth with a lot, like is my time and efforts better spent targeting Bitcoiners? You know, should you reach outside of that, try to get more people in the fold? Obviously, you know, you mentioned too, it's like time is, you know, the most scarce resource. So, you know, allocating that efficiently. And, you know, something I want to end with here that you mentioned, obviously, you know, our audience is more, you know, financial services focused, RIAs, CPAs, state plan attorneys, capital allocators, etc.
What have you guys done in exchange to specifically reach out to those folks?
Is that kind of like a growth cohort you see is servicing?
You know, you get one of me on, you get additional, you know, 10, 20, 30 clients like that are now using the Unchained platform, you know, whatever it may be.
How are you specifically thinking about marketing and reaching out to these kind of folks?
Yeah.
So in the past, there's definitely been some friction there with, you know, product requirements,
et cetera.
And I think we've come a long way on the reporting side of things, the visibility side, the
permissions, right?
So you might be able to view an account and not necessarily take any action.
And, you know, this is a space that we are really excited for meeting folks.
and helping them. And we want to be a resource. I think it's part of that issue where there's still
a lot of advisors and RIAs and financial folks who, you know, this thing was a career risk for
the better part of the last decade, right? So that is definitely going to take time.
But what I would say to those folks, if this is a, you know, little thing at the bottom of
your checklist, like, hey, I got to have some sort of Bitcoin strategy or I have to look deeper into
this, like, come talk to us. Like, we'll, you know, we have, I would argue, you know, the best
sales team in the world and we're distributed across the country. So, you know, no matter where
you are, one of our folks is going to be happy to come, you know, meet you for a coffee or meet with
your firm. Like, right, for instance, this example I used earlier where it was a, you know, business
leader who just hadn't had much education on Bitcoin keys and never thought that a business
could hold it because of that issue with concentrating the risk in terms of one person.
I had a call with him. And then from there, we were able to meet with his entire group
because he works with a bunch of CFOs and controllers who probably make the final say
for their business in terms of whether or not they could even have a Bitcoin approach.
So being able to come at it from there, almost a more top-down approach, I think is beautiful because, you know, after a career in software sales as well, like you can do everything right from a sales perspective.
And then you get chopped down by the CFO, right, because he wasn't aware of what's going on or you didn't really fit into his budget.
So we want to work more with these type of folks.
And I think as the toolkit gets built out with things like BitMint and Satoshi Pacioli, it's just going to make it easier for us to all collaborate.
But please, you know, see Unchained as the Bitcoin infrastructure in your toolkit, along with a team who will teach you whatever you and your clients need to know about Bitcoin.
Yeah, that's fantastic.
I can personally vouch for that.
actual last thing, because you just saved me from the wrath of Jordan. One of the things he wanted
us to talk about, it's like you guys have added a lot of reporting features and stuff. 1099 DA is
a big talking point right now. They're specifically addressing it at Satoshi Patchouli and Bitman
just to make Bitcointer's life easier, especially when it comes from a tax perspective.
You guys are kind of unique. I know a lot of my clients, at least anecdotally, they're still
buying exchanges and then moving Bitcoin over, as you mentioned earlier, in larger UTXO chunks.
But a few clients that utilize the trade desk.
So how are you guys kind of handling that?
Because you're kind of in a unique situation where a lot of, I imagine, Bitcoin secured
through Unchained isn't natively bought at Unchained.
And so it leaves you guys in maybe a little bit of a predicament from a reporting perspective.
So I want you to shed some insight on what you guys have done recently on that.
Yeah, absolutely.
And so, you know, I am obviously far from a tax expert and can provide no, you know, tax, finance or legal advice, but could definitely provide my two stats here.
And where we stand with that is that we are, you know, by law going to provide those forms to all of our clients.
And then, you know, they will be, to my knowledge, as as complete as possible.
Obviously, for any Bitcoin that wasn't purchased through Unchained, there's not going to be a cost basis for that.
So that's going to be up to the individual and the folks that they're filing with to extrapolate that based on their previous records.
um and and so from a general approach there you know we are of the stance that we're obviously
going to comply with any sort of requests like legal requests for information but to the minimum
you know that that we can so we you know stand here with bitcoiners with um with you know privacy
and security at our core.
Given that, you know,
these reporting requirements
are changing over time,
we will stay up to date with them,
you know, as they develop.
Yeah, I think that's really
kind of like the best of both worlds,
you know, take responsibility
for knowing your cost basis.
There are a lot of tools coming out
like BitPen to make that easier.
You know, Unchained as a service provider,
they'll help you,
but ultimately not your responsibility.
And I don't even mean that in like a bad way.
Like you guys are dodging it.
Like you literally don't know my cost basis of Bitcoin.
I bought a river and moved into a chain.
Actual last thing, I promise,
but I think we would be remiss not to talk about this.
I had an intention to earlier, but, you know,
questions I get, I'm sure you get as well.
I think are specifically important for folks in the, you know,
financial services industry is you guys have kind of architectured and constructed Unchained.
You know, it's like, well, what if Unchained goes out of business tomorrow? Like what happens to my
Bitcoin? You know, you have this open source, you know, caravan wallet, you know, very similar to,
you know, Sparrows. You, you know, can actually recreate the wall and still move your Bitcoin,
you know, very sound. Why don't you kind of just walk us mechanically through how that works,
how you guys address that concern? Absolutely. So again, on the ethos of
no single points of failure, right? If Unchained was to disappear overnight, you as a client are
fine as long as you have the knowledge of how to interact with your wallet configuration file.
That's the, you know, kind of map file that's generated for each multi-sig vault, if you will,
and it lives directly in our platform. And then our best practices is that you download a couple
copies for this exact instance. But simply what's required is that you utilize free and open source
multi-sig coordinator software such as Caravan or Electrum or Sparrow. These are different options
that you could utilize where those coordinators will basically take the combination of your config
file and then allow you to sign with your two keys to move the Bitcoin completely independent
of Unchained.
So that also gives clients a lot of extra peace of mind in terms of, hey, yes, like I
know there's these small tradeoffs in terms of you guys know my balance, et cetera.
But knowing that I can't go down with the Unchained ship is huge for me after every,
you know, Celsius, BlockFi type of blow up I've seen over the last 10 years.
Totally.
Yeah, and just personally, I generally instruct clients, if they're holding both keys, download the configuration file, keep that on encrypted, flash drive, like you said, a couple of copies.
And we're able to pretty much weather any storm that can come our way.
And so just another crucial piece of building a quality Bitcoin financial services company I think you guys have taken upon yourself.
A hundred percent. And one more follow through with that is if you're the type of person that's like, hey, man, like you just said a bunch of words salad and said, like, if I know what I need to know, I can get my Bitcoin.
If you don't feel like that, that's fine. Like I would I would welcome you to come work with our team, use our signature service for a year and have that account management to walk you through this.
And you and your family can get on a call and you can do a mock recovery process. Right. So it's not just theoretical. It's like, hey, we see how it actually works.
And now we've removed the uncertainty from what it looks like if something happens to Unchained.
We have a concrete path forward.
Totally.
That's tremendous.
This has been a tremendous conversation.
Where can folks find you, Ben?
They can find me.
So I am our director of sales for Unchained in Colorado.
And shortly I'll be handling more of the Mountain West here.
So if you're in Colorado or this general area, you know, feel free to reach out to me, just Benjamin at Unchained.com.
I'm also on X at Bitcoin Benji, B-E-N-J-I-I-I, three I's.
And then I do as much as I can on the ground.
So I'm on the board of directors here of the space Denver.
So if you're ever in town, you know, feel free to give me a ring and we could set up some time there.
And then I live in Boulder, Colorado, and I run the local meetup up here.
So we have a small, thriving community of Bitcoiners.
And, you know, our mission this year is to increase merchant adoption.
So, you know, if you're out in Boulder and Denver, open up your cash app map and see where you can spend Bitcoin.
and let's get this thing going in rotation
because it starts as a store of value,
then we go to medium of exchange
and eventually unit of account.
That's right, man.
Thanks so much, brother.
It was a pleasure.
Absolutely.
Thank you, Wyatt.
Take care.
We appreciate you joining us.
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