1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,660 Something we really do is obsess about the client as a whole, right? 2 00:00:03,680 --> 00:00:04,520 We don't have users. 3 00:00:04,700 --> 00:00:05,400 We don't have customers. 4 00:00:05,540 --> 00:00:06,120 We have clients. 5 00:00:06,360 --> 00:00:10,900 They're real people that have family, that have friends, that have real lives, and we're 6 00:00:10,900 --> 00:00:12,140 helping them build their Bitcoin wealth. 7 00:00:12,240 --> 00:00:14,740 It's not something we take lightly and that responsibility lightly. 8 00:00:15,400 --> 00:00:19,420 I think hopefully that shows through proof of reserves, public financials, force field, 9 00:00:19,480 --> 00:00:21,740 as you mentioned earlier, in terms of helping people protect their Bitcoin. 10 00:00:22,740 --> 00:00:26,680 So I guess long-winded way of saying focused on building the best Bitcoin and Bitcoin-only 11 00:00:26,680 --> 00:00:31,720 exchange in the world and also being and building the most trusted financial institution in the world 12 00:00:31,720 --> 00:00:37,480 like that evolves in that sense bitcoin is a currency on the internet if you don't trust any 13 00:00:37,480 --> 00:00:41,640 other currency this is where you go it's going to outperform everything bitcoin could eventually be 14 00:00:41,640 --> 00:00:47,080 worthless every day is a good day to buy bitcoin bitcoin reached its highest price to date bitcoin 15 00:00:47,080 --> 00:00:52,360 a new high it really has reached escape a lot there's no second best who cares about bitcoin 16 00:00:52,360 --> 00:00:54,760 It's the only secure database that's been invented. 17 00:00:55,400 --> 00:00:55,880 Antisocial. 18 00:00:56,100 --> 00:00:57,720 Bitcoin is the real deal. 19 00:00:57,920 --> 00:00:58,280 Stupid. 20 00:00:58,660 --> 00:01:00,400 Everything is bullish for Bitcoin. 21 00:01:00,800 --> 00:01:01,240 Immoral. 22 00:01:01,500 --> 00:01:02,940 It's going up forever, Warren. 23 00:01:03,460 --> 00:01:04,300 Fix the money. 24 00:01:04,860 --> 00:01:05,640 Fix the world. 25 00:01:22,360 --> 00:01:24,700 risk and almost otherwise stated are not guaranteed. Information expressed is not taking into account 26 00:01:24,700 --> 00:01:27,120 your specific situation or objectives is not intended as a recommendation appropriate for 27 00:01:27,120 --> 00:01:29,500 any individual. Listeners are encouraged to seek advice from a qualified tax legal or investment 28 00:01:29,500 --> 00:01:31,620 advisor to determine whether any information presented may be suitable for their specific 29 00:01:31,620 --> 00:01:33,860 situation. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Any statements are 30 00:01:33,860 --> 00:01:42,800 painted as subject to change without notice. Welcome to Bitcoin for Financial Services Media, 31 00:01:43,120 --> 00:01:48,140 the podcast where sound money means professional services. We explore how to build the Bitcoin 32 00:01:48,140 --> 00:01:52,420 financial services industry within the principles, values, and ethos of Bitcoin. 33 00:01:52,820 --> 00:01:55,900 Today we're joined by Ben Epling, Relationship Manager at River. 34 00:01:56,400 --> 00:01:57,420 You're not going to want to miss it. 35 00:02:02,180 --> 00:02:03,300 All righty, guys. 36 00:02:03,460 --> 00:02:05,180 We are guys and gals. 37 00:02:05,320 --> 00:02:08,940 We are back with another episode of Bitcoin for Financial Services. 38 00:02:09,240 --> 00:02:10,400 So thanks for joining us again. 39 00:02:10,960 --> 00:02:14,120 We're quickly approaching episode 20. 40 00:02:14,740 --> 00:02:18,940 I think today is 18, 17, 18, 19, somewhere in that range. 41 00:02:19,040 --> 00:02:25,920 So we're right there on the cusp of getting to the episodes that many podcasts die before ever getting to. 42 00:02:26,400 --> 00:02:35,000 And today we have the pleasure of welcoming Ben Epling from River, one of our favorite partners in the entire Bitcoin space. 43 00:02:35,300 --> 00:02:37,740 So Ben, thanks so much for joining us today. 44 00:02:38,600 --> 00:02:40,720 Yeah, thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be on. 45 00:02:41,520 --> 00:02:42,100 Yeah, absolutely. 46 00:02:42,100 --> 00:02:46,540 We met, I think we met at our summit in October last year. 47 00:02:46,580 --> 00:02:46,900 Is that right? 48 00:02:47,400 --> 00:02:47,700 Yes. 49 00:02:47,720 --> 00:02:49,600 I believe that was the first time that we met in person. 50 00:02:49,740 --> 00:02:52,420 We probably had exchanged some emails at some point before, but yeah, I think that was the 51 00:02:52,420 --> 00:02:53,620 first face-to-face meeting. 52 00:02:55,100 --> 00:02:55,460 Beautiful. 53 00:02:55,960 --> 00:03:00,380 Well, I'm sorry it took so long to get you on the podcast since it's, you know, beginning 54 00:03:00,380 --> 00:03:03,260 of March here, but better late than never, right? 55 00:03:03,460 --> 00:03:05,580 I made it within the first 20, so that's a feat. 56 00:03:05,660 --> 00:03:06,120 That's true. 57 00:03:06,300 --> 00:03:06,980 That's very true. 58 00:03:06,980 --> 00:03:07,140 That's true. 59 00:03:08,540 --> 00:03:09,620 It was a very cool. 60 00:03:09,800 --> 00:03:11,980 BFFS, your favorite summit you went to in 2025. 61 00:03:12,700 --> 00:03:13,720 It genuinely was. 62 00:03:13,860 --> 00:03:14,960 I'm not exaggerating. 63 00:03:15,180 --> 00:03:16,100 I'm not just blowing smoke. 64 00:03:16,280 --> 00:03:16,660 I swear. 65 00:03:16,920 --> 00:03:24,260 It actually, it was one of the definitely top, it was up there because the intimacy of it, the small crowd, I love that type of environment. 66 00:03:24,380 --> 00:03:25,960 The space is perfect, obviously, for that. 67 00:03:26,800 --> 00:03:28,400 So, yeah, it was my first time at the space as well. 68 00:03:28,520 --> 00:03:31,400 So that was also part of the benefit of seeing the space as a whole. 69 00:03:31,700 --> 00:03:33,560 But, yeah, it was amazing overall. 70 00:03:33,640 --> 00:03:35,660 So props to you guys for putting that on. 71 00:03:36,560 --> 00:03:36,880 Absolutely. 72 00:03:37,140 --> 00:03:38,800 Thanks for having, yeah, thanks for coming out. 73 00:03:38,800 --> 00:03:43,340 And so last time I saw you in person was actually a Bitcoin park. 74 00:03:43,640 --> 00:03:51,000 And so we've got to ask the question, are you and your local, I know, to to you don't have to disclose which one if you don't want to. 75 00:03:51,000 --> 00:03:58,200 But to a Bitcoin park hub, do you have a strong opinion on the park versus space question? 76 00:03:58,760 --> 00:04:04,800 This is why this is always one of why it has to ask this question is he has a very strong opinion. 77 00:04:05,080 --> 00:04:08,600 I'm non-biased about it, but I'm curious about your your take. 78 00:04:08,800 --> 00:04:11,640 Uh, I'm unbiased and I'm not biased towards either. 79 00:04:11,800 --> 00:04:18,440 I will say since I'm physically close to one of the parks, I think that somewhat has to sway me a little bit just because it's harder to get to, uh, to Denver. 80 00:04:18,600 --> 00:04:23,500 It includes an aircraft, whereas I can typically walk or take a car, you know, to one of the parks. 81 00:04:23,800 --> 00:04:26,380 So, but yeah, no, no, uh, no strong opinions there. 82 00:04:27,700 --> 00:04:28,600 That's weak, Ben. 83 00:04:28,680 --> 00:04:30,760 I expect stronger takes on you the rest of the episode. 84 00:04:32,520 --> 00:04:34,320 I'm assuming you're biased towards the space, right? 85 00:04:34,400 --> 00:04:35,620 Is that, is that, is that what I'm hearing here? 86 00:04:36,080 --> 00:04:36,360 Yeah. 87 00:04:36,360 --> 00:04:40,020 Well, and it's just like I find that most people are after they've been to the space. 88 00:04:40,260 --> 00:04:40,720 That's fair. 89 00:04:40,720 --> 00:04:42,140 I haven't heard too many. 90 00:04:42,300 --> 00:04:42,700 Oh, wow. 91 00:04:42,760 --> 00:04:44,460 Bitcoin Park's actually better, you know. 92 00:04:44,460 --> 00:04:46,780 So I'm open to hearing that. 93 00:04:46,840 --> 00:04:47,580 It just hasn't happened. 94 00:04:48,140 --> 00:04:48,780 Yeah, that's fair. 95 00:04:48,860 --> 00:04:49,320 I'm Switzerland. 96 00:04:49,700 --> 00:04:50,920 I'm unbiased. 97 00:04:52,680 --> 00:04:53,560 I don't know, dude. 98 00:04:53,660 --> 00:05:00,220 I'm going to take the side, the strong side of, I mean, I go to the park much more than I go to the space. 99 00:05:00,680 --> 00:05:02,120 And half of the team works out. 100 00:05:02,180 --> 00:05:02,620 I don't know. 101 00:05:02,700 --> 00:05:04,780 I guess we have one guy who works out of the space. 102 00:05:04,780 --> 00:05:10,480 and then we have we have three people who work out of the park so i don't know rod if you're 103 00:05:10,480 --> 00:05:18,220 listening man i'm a park guy at heart but i love the space too obviously so all right cool well 104 00:05:18,220 --> 00:05:23,120 we've got a lot honestly we've got a long list of things that uh i want to make sure we get to so 105 00:05:23,120 --> 00:05:28,860 uh ben tell us tell us how you got into bitcoin originally i just checked your linkedin just to 106 00:05:28,860 --> 00:05:33,980 make sure you've been at river since it seems like i don't know if it's the exact beginning but 107 00:05:33,980 --> 00:05:40,060 for a long time since 2021 now. So just walk us through your Bitcoin journey. And then how did you 108 00:05:40,060 --> 00:05:45,560 get involved with Alex at River? Yeah, for sure. Bitcoin journey to start with that. It's actually 109 00:05:45,560 --> 00:05:50,960 pretty unconventional in the sense that one of my college professors, so I went to The Ohio State 110 00:05:50,960 --> 00:05:57,400 University. So I studied economics and finance. And one of my econ professors back in 2017, 111 00:05:58,060 --> 00:06:01,740 my macroeconomics professor, she actually was the one who orange-filled me. So it was pretty 112 00:06:01,740 --> 00:06:06,240 fascinating um in her public lectures were a big public university obviously it's not somebody you 113 00:06:06,240 --> 00:06:10,400 would anticipate kind of orange filling um in her lectures which she wouldn't but if you went to her 114 00:06:10,400 --> 00:06:15,700 office hours she was kind of like a speakeasy for like for Austrian economics like uh she wouldn't 115 00:06:15,700 --> 00:06:19,540 put that by any means again in the presentations but if you would go speak to her one-on-one she 116 00:06:19,540 --> 00:06:24,700 was very much so an Austrian economist um and I didn't know what that was at the time but I 117 00:06:24,700 --> 00:06:28,960 obviously learned from her in that sense and this was during the bull run of 2017 so she was 118 00:06:28,960 --> 00:06:33,860 mentioning Bitcoin. She was from abroad. So she actually had used Bitcoin to send 119 00:06:33,860 --> 00:06:38,980 values and money to her family members who lived abroad as well. So it was one of the use cases she 120 00:06:38,980 --> 00:06:43,160 had. But yeah, that's how I initially kind of got down the rabbit hole. The first time she 121 00:06:43,160 --> 00:06:47,480 mentioned it in one of our office hours, I went back to my dorm at the time in Columbus and 122 00:06:47,480 --> 00:06:51,500 something about it just kind of flipped a switch and I just dove down the rabbit hole. And obviously 123 00:06:51,500 --> 00:06:56,300 I'm still in that rabbit hole ever since. So I'm a class 2017-er in that sense, thanks to my 124 00:06:56,300 --> 00:07:01,740 college professor, which funny enough, one of our one of my colleagues at River, who's our director 125 00:07:01,740 --> 00:07:06,200 of finance, he actually the same professor two years before that was actually the one who orange 126 00:07:06,200 --> 00:07:11,380 pilled him as well. So come to find out she's been orange pilling people for generations here. 127 00:07:11,580 --> 00:07:15,740 Basically, his classes come through her econ classes at Ohio State. So pretty interesting, 128 00:07:16,180 --> 00:07:21,880 interesting take there. And yeah, from River's perspective, I've been with the team for over 129 00:07:21,880 --> 00:07:26,520 five years now, approaching five and a half-ish years. So yeah, we didn't have a mobile app at 130 00:07:26,520 --> 00:07:30,300 the time or anything when I had joined. So I've been with the team for quite a while, 131 00:07:30,740 --> 00:07:34,120 for a variety of different roles. Right now, I serve in a relationship management capacity. So I 132 00:07:34,120 --> 00:07:38,620 work a lot with our private clients, our business clients who are adopting Bitcoin on their treasury, 133 00:07:39,140 --> 00:07:43,580 work a lot with financial advisors, family offices, some of our partners as well. So 134 00:07:43,580 --> 00:07:47,180 pretty wide variety in that sense, but currently that relationship management capacity. 135 00:07:47,180 --> 00:07:53,940 i love it man that's a great story so did you have any uh any strong reaction i guess when 136 00:07:53,940 --> 00:07:59,900 what one or two years ago where the the keynote at the ohio state like graduation got all the 137 00:07:59,900 --> 00:08:05,240 booze remember that yes i 100 did have some strong reactions to that because i was in columbus at 138 00:08:05,240 --> 00:08:10,680 the time actually um and yeah it was pretty it's it's it'll be a good uh it'll be a good clip to 139 00:08:10,680 --> 00:08:16,100 have here in about uh five ten years so it's just more more ammo in the tool belt but but yeah it 140 00:08:16,100 --> 00:08:24,140 Definitely was not a great look because, yeah, hopefully we'll see some more commencement speakers like that mention it. 141 00:08:24,220 --> 00:08:26,660 Hopefully the attitude increases over time. 142 00:08:27,380 --> 00:08:28,460 That was funny. 143 00:08:28,720 --> 00:08:29,920 It's a real shame. 144 00:08:30,020 --> 00:08:33,540 I don't know who that guy was, but I thought he gave a good talk. 145 00:08:33,540 --> 00:08:40,400 And I'm not surprised the student body at the Ohio State would react in such a way. 146 00:08:40,600 --> 00:08:42,520 Now it's a different kind of show. 147 00:08:42,520 --> 00:08:44,040 What do you have against the Ohio State? 148 00:08:44,160 --> 00:08:45,960 Are you going to pick a fight about the Ohio State? 149 00:08:46,100 --> 00:08:51,040 university are you a michigan guy or something preface to you preface it with the we sure we 150 00:08:51,040 --> 00:08:55,120 trademarked the word so you almost have to you know what i mean hey you know that's that's my 151 00:08:55,120 --> 00:09:00,400 problem jordan i just win friends i win friends that's what i do here you know 152 00:09:00,400 --> 00:09:06,280 what does it cost me to say the ohio state university you know all right why are you a 153 00:09:06,280 --> 00:09:11,800 michigan guy i didn't know this no no i'm a wisconsin guy so big 10 you know a little 154 00:09:11,800 --> 00:09:17,720 contention um they're not quite in the same league uh right now as a house state so i gotta 155 00:09:17,720 --> 00:09:24,060 take my medicine there but a healthy healthy rivalry as long as the big 10's winning we're 156 00:09:24,060 --> 00:09:31,260 happy true conference over everything i mean i'm just i'm really excited to have you on because 157 00:09:31,260 --> 00:09:37,840 i think a lot of bitcoiners at least the ones we deal with in our firm are they just love river 158 00:09:37,840 --> 00:09:44,140 you know there's obviously a lot of options out there uh there's even a handful of bitcoin only 159 00:09:44,140 --> 00:09:51,480 options at this point uh to acquire bitcoin and um and yeah i just a lot of our a lot of our 160 00:09:51,480 --> 00:09:57,360 customers prefer to use river and uh you know we see we get we get the insight to kind of see their 161 00:09:57,360 --> 00:10:01,920 journey especially as we're building out people's cost basis schedules and all that kind of stuff 162 00:10:01,920 --> 00:10:06,580 and end up having to pull CSV files from all the sources, 163 00:10:06,960 --> 00:10:10,640 but ends up being a lot of them 164 00:10:10,640 --> 00:10:13,120 that they're currently living on your all's platform. 165 00:10:13,340 --> 00:10:14,160 So hats off to you. 166 00:10:14,240 --> 00:10:16,960 I know River is one of the most highly respected 167 00:10:16,960 --> 00:10:19,220 just companies in all of the Bitcoin space. 168 00:10:19,480 --> 00:10:22,780 So seriously, you guys have built a really amazing product 169 00:10:22,780 --> 00:10:24,940 and you offer a great service to your customers as well. 170 00:10:25,400 --> 00:10:28,360 So not a question there, just a hats off. 171 00:10:29,020 --> 00:10:29,860 No, we appreciate that. 172 00:10:29,860 --> 00:10:31,620 And hopefully when they're pulling the CSV files, 173 00:10:31,620 --> 00:10:36,220 hopefully there's some good data for you to to uh input there so if there's any feedback on that 174 00:10:36,220 --> 00:10:42,300 make it make it easier for you let us know well i'll reiterate reiterate that to you ben just in 175 00:10:42,300 --> 00:10:48,000 case you're not tired of of winning yet but i always recommend river to you know all my clients 176 00:10:48,000 --> 00:10:54,160 i use it personally i think you guys have done like a phenomenal job just with like the i would 177 00:10:54,160 --> 00:10:58,540 say maybe just like the core platform bitcoin only proof of reserves you know those are things i 178 00:10:58,540 --> 00:11:02,780 always you know touch on but then just you know even new features i've noticed since i've been a 179 00:11:02,780 --> 00:11:08,060 user um you'll have to remind me of like the do you call it force field or vault or something 180 00:11:08,060 --> 00:11:13,100 force field yep yep yeah so just new features like that you know try to help people you know 181 00:11:13,100 --> 00:11:18,700 keep their bitcoin safe it's it really is awesome and you know always my first recommendation yeah 182 00:11:18,700 --> 00:11:24,300 well we appreciate that very cool well one of the other big pieces that you guys are working on is 183 00:11:24,300 --> 00:11:27,760 like the data you're just pushing out. I feel like you're pushing out reports. 184 00:11:28,340 --> 00:11:32,680 Are you all like, is that, I guess, a big vertical for you all at this point is the research component? 185 00:11:34,000 --> 00:11:37,980 Yeah, research is definitely huge. And that's a huge shout out to Sam Baker, who's our research 186 00:11:37,980 --> 00:11:42,080 analyst and pushes a lot of that data out there and does a lot of the data and research reports. 187 00:11:42,620 --> 00:11:47,160 But yeah, research is definitely something we're focused on. And I think at the core of that also 188 00:11:47,160 --> 00:11:51,900 is education, right? There's a lot of education and research is the core of that education. So 189 00:11:51,900 --> 00:11:55,160 So definitely a priority of ours in terms of getting different research reports out, 190 00:11:55,260 --> 00:11:58,400 educating about Bitcoin, Bitcoin adoption, what's driving it, things of that nature. 191 00:11:58,840 --> 00:12:00,080 So definitely a focus of ours. 192 00:12:03,320 --> 00:12:05,280 Your wealth deserves intention. 193 00:12:05,680 --> 00:12:09,380 Basilic Financial is a Bitcoin-focused wealth management firm built to help our clients 194 00:12:09,380 --> 00:12:11,160 find balance between money and meaning. 195 00:12:11,160 --> 00:12:15,560 We integrate sound money strategies across four distinct personalized services, financial 196 00:12:15,560 --> 00:12:20,820 planning, individual wealth management, retirement services for SMBs, and Bitcoin financial services. 197 00:12:20,820 --> 00:12:25,340 Your prosperity, your purpose, intentionally guided at Bacillic Financial. 198 00:12:25,740 --> 00:12:29,100 Visit our website at bacillic.io to schedule free consultation. 199 00:12:30,920 --> 00:12:37,240 Well, and again, I want to thank you for those because I have continuously cited them and the work I've done. 200 00:12:37,360 --> 00:12:40,800 I know you guys just dropped your most recent report a week or two ago. 201 00:12:41,380 --> 00:12:44,140 What were some of your big takeaways from that? 202 00:12:45,340 --> 00:12:49,200 Yeah, I think in terms of takeaways from that, it's interesting. 203 00:12:49,200 --> 00:12:55,260 something I think a lot of people have seen and know, but the numbers behind it of kind of with 204 00:12:55,260 --> 00:13:00,240 this cycle, where has adoption gone? And obviously it's skewed towards institutions. I don't think 205 00:13:00,240 --> 00:13:04,540 that's a super, I don't think it's a big surprise to most people in that sense, but the actual data 206 00:13:04,540 --> 00:13:08,880 behind it of basically individuals being net sellers of Bitcoin and institutions being net 207 00:13:08,880 --> 00:13:13,900 buyers of Bitcoin over this last cycle is something that's, it's overwhelming the institutions, I 208 00:13:13,900 --> 00:13:18,800 guess, is kind of what was fascinating about that. Right. I think it's also interesting to see a lot 209 00:13:18,800 --> 00:13:23,880 of the banks now are getting involved, as we saw, obviously, in news this week in that sense. But 210 00:13:23,880 --> 00:13:29,000 60% of the top U.S. banks are building Bitcoin products. 52% of the top U.S. hedge funds have 211 00:13:29,000 --> 00:13:34,420 a Bitcoin allocation. Just some of these actual kind of granular stats on the adoption on the 212 00:13:34,420 --> 00:13:40,080 institutional side is very fascinating. Even though 52% of U.S. hedge funds have a Bitcoin 213 00:13:40,080 --> 00:13:47,940 allocation, 90% of the top 50 RAs have a Bitcoin allocation, only 0.006%, I believe, was the number 214 00:13:47,940 --> 00:13:53,380 of assets managed by those advisors are allocated to Bitcoin. So it's obviously a minuscule number. 215 00:13:54,780 --> 00:13:59,260 And also at the same time to getting outside of kind of the Wall Street and more to the Main 216 00:13:59,260 --> 00:14:02,760 Street side of things, which is a lot of what we see and what we have kind of interesting, 217 00:14:02,960 --> 00:14:08,600 unique data on. We more than doubled our business account last year in terms of business accounts 218 00:14:08,600 --> 00:14:12,520 and businesses that are buying Bitcoin on river. So it's a huge growth area for us. We're seeing 219 00:14:12,520 --> 00:14:19,220 huge adoption on the business side of things as a whole. Anything from a hot dog stand to a 220 00:14:19,220 --> 00:14:25,480 cleaning business, to churches, to nonprofits, to publicly traded companies, and really everything 221 00:14:25,480 --> 00:14:30,400 in between. So it's not only kind of these large Wall Street institutions everyone sees in the news, 222 00:14:30,400 --> 00:14:34,060 but it's also these everyday businesses that people use every day, services, products, 223 00:14:34,580 --> 00:14:39,780 these Main Street businesses that are adopting in mass and in numbers that you would ever see in 224 00:14:39,780 --> 00:14:58,029 the public headlines because they private businesses but it is happening that snowball is only getting bigger and bigger which is super bullish in my opinion and super fascinating as well Yeah I guess because I looking at the report that you all put out or at least a graphic two weeks ago where it said the 2025 change in Bitcoin ownership 225 00:14:58,969 --> 00:15:02,589 I guess tell us more about that story of the individuals. 226 00:15:02,589 --> 00:15:10,829 Because obviously that's a drop, a pretty substantial drop, and then governments are up, funds, ETFs are up, businesses are up. 227 00:15:11,589 --> 00:15:20,309 Is that just, you know, signs of the economy where people are having to exit positions to cover liabilities? 228 00:15:20,529 --> 00:15:28,709 Did people get out over their skis based off the research where they had to liquidate things because they didn't listen to Matt O'Dell and stay humble? 229 00:15:28,709 --> 00:15:32,489 I'm just curious what your all stance on. 230 00:15:32,489 --> 00:15:43,829 Because a lot of Bitcoiners, I think, see that chart and they think through, you know, what everyone like the hardcore Bitcoiners believe the use case of Bitcoin. 231 00:15:44,089 --> 00:15:52,309 And some people might see that as as bearish just because individuals are exiting and and institutions are coming in, even though it's kind of built for peer to peer. 232 00:15:52,789 --> 00:15:58,349 I'd just be curious, like how you all are kind of seeing that play out behind the scenes. 233 00:15:59,049 --> 00:15:59,569 Yeah, yeah. 234 00:15:59,649 --> 00:16:01,349 That chart is pretty drastic, right, 235 00:16:01,389 --> 00:16:03,649 in terms of the drop of the amount of individuals 236 00:16:03,649 --> 00:16:04,729 that are holding Bitcoin, 237 00:16:04,829 --> 00:16:06,309 aka that were not sellers of Bitcoin. 238 00:16:07,589 --> 00:16:10,949 And I guess if you take the summation of 2024 and 2025 239 00:16:10,949 --> 00:16:12,429 together in that chart, 240 00:16:12,469 --> 00:16:14,069 it's more than a million Bitcoin 241 00:16:14,069 --> 00:16:15,649 across individuals who are sold, 242 00:16:16,129 --> 00:16:18,749 or effectively a net loss or net kind of drop 243 00:16:18,749 --> 00:16:20,709 of one million Bitcoin across individuals. 244 00:16:20,709 --> 00:16:23,309 And those one million went towards institutions. 245 00:16:23,989 --> 00:16:26,209 So no surprise there in that sense from, 246 00:16:26,209 --> 00:16:32,409 I guess why the individual selling or selling across individuals to a certain extent. 247 00:16:32,909 --> 00:16:42,009 What kind of one theory is that a large portion of that million across the two years is individuals moving away from holding spot Bitcoin, from holding actual Bitcoin themselves. 248 00:16:42,529 --> 00:16:51,789 And either just liquidating early whales or taking profit sharing, who are buying businesses or whatever it may be with the funds that they or the profits that they have from those kind of early whale positions. 249 00:16:51,789 --> 00:16:56,149 but then also at the same time moving it towards ETFs and towards stocks. 250 00:16:56,269 --> 00:17:00,629 And I know that's obviously opposite of what we see a lot of times as Bitcoiners in the industry. 251 00:17:01,009 --> 00:17:07,109 But some of these early whales who shift from holding Bitcoin to now they hold ETFs, hold stocks, 252 00:17:07,509 --> 00:17:11,809 a lot of it has to do with tax considerations, security preferences, estate planning, 253 00:17:12,009 --> 00:17:16,729 heritage planning, different positioning of their whole kind of entire portfolio. 254 00:17:16,729 --> 00:17:33,129 So both selling and kind of profit-taking from early whales and also different tax considerations, security preferences, things of that nature from moving from actual Bitcoin and selling that and then obviously holding ETFs or stocks or buying businesses or whatever other assets they may be buying. 255 00:17:33,129 --> 00:17:38,689 now to note obviously these institutions are have been net buyers of bitcoin over the last few years 256 00:17:38,689 --> 00:17:43,929 institutions at their core are still individuals right a lot of these funds and etfs they're buying 257 00:17:43,929 --> 00:17:47,809 because individuals are buying for their their iras and things of that nature so when you kind 258 00:17:47,809 --> 00:17:51,269 of break it down at a certain at a base level there's obviously individuals that are driving 259 00:17:51,269 --> 00:17:54,709 the growth on the institutional adoption side it's just shifting of how they are buying it 260 00:17:54,709 --> 00:17:59,209 um so pretty interesting kind of uh i guess dynamic there but yeah i think most individuals 261 00:17:59,209 --> 00:18:06,009 The take is that most individuals have been selling either early whales or for different reasons, for taxes, businesses, different assets, things of that nature. 262 00:18:08,089 --> 00:18:10,989 Yeah, it really is interesting. 263 00:18:11,330 --> 00:18:18,969 I think we have been kind of able to identify a lot of the individual sales are coming from whales. 264 00:18:19,469 --> 00:18:23,929 You know, I think Galaxy, shoot, maybe it's three or four months ago now, you know, they posted. 265 00:18:23,929 --> 00:18:28,649 I think it was like an absurd transaction was like 80,000 Bitcoin or something that they, 266 00:18:28,989 --> 00:18:33,309 you know, help facilitate. And, you know, part of me is kind of like, okay, man, like you've 267 00:18:33,309 --> 00:18:39,809 earned it, like go get that ranch in Montana, you know. But then I think it's slightly concerning. 268 00:18:40,089 --> 00:18:44,089 So it's like, I don't know, concerning is probably too strong of a word. But, you know, 269 00:18:44,109 --> 00:18:47,949 if these whales and your folks who have like the most conviction are exiting a position, 270 00:18:47,949 --> 00:18:50,589 I just think that's interesting. 271 00:18:51,189 --> 00:18:55,429 And I'm curious if you guys had looked at this because, you know, I was looking at the report. 272 00:18:55,509 --> 00:19:01,669 I could be wrong, but older reports, like the estimate for lost coins was larger. 273 00:19:01,789 --> 00:19:08,949 And so are we seeing it's like, OK, older wallets where we had no activity, maybe had some activity, you know, this cycle. 274 00:19:08,949 --> 00:19:18,309 And so just given, you know, public blockchain, we're kind of constantly reassessing like what we know about it as things happen. 275 00:19:18,429 --> 00:19:19,689 Could you add like some color to that? 276 00:19:20,909 --> 00:19:26,309 Yeah, in terms of the lost Bitcoin number, I mean, it's just remains the same in that sense. 277 00:19:26,349 --> 00:19:35,729 I guess from our perspective in that report, we also have a chart that kind of breaks down individual Bitcoin ownership and how that looks across lost coins, Satoshi, individuals, governments, all that good stuff. 278 00:19:35,729 --> 00:19:42,089 and I think a lot of from what we've seen what I've seen as well the lost coin number hasn't 279 00:19:42,089 --> 00:19:46,089 really changed much a lot of these early whales were they may have had dormant wallets but a lot 280 00:19:46,089 --> 00:19:50,189 of times that actually wasn't included in some of those larger lost coin projections and if so 281 00:19:50,189 --> 00:19:55,709 it wasn't it wasn't a large enough amount to really move that that projection to a certain 282 00:19:55,709 --> 00:20:02,209 extent so not too much of a material take on there on that and if you were I guess to kind of zoom 283 00:20:02,209 --> 00:20:08,729 back a little bit too from a projection standpoint if we were to take that 2025 number right of 284 00:20:08,729 --> 00:20:13,549 individuals being net sellers institutions being net buyers um if you were to extrapolate that out 285 00:20:13,549 --> 00:20:18,809 by 2036 i believe it is um institutions will actually be the majority holder of bitcoin 286 00:20:18,809 --> 00:20:25,689 um across the entire uh kind of asset class um so just interesting again that's very fixed 287 00:20:25,689 --> 00:20:29,729 assuming 2025 continues exactly and we extrapolate that out obviously we know that's not the case 288 00:20:29,729 --> 00:20:33,369 but just kind of a thought experiment there that if it were to continue at its current pace, 289 00:20:33,489 --> 00:20:39,369 not slow down, not speed up, 2036, the majority of Bitcoin being held would actually be by businesses, 290 00:20:39,689 --> 00:20:44,049 governments, funds, ETFs, and things of that nature, which is pretty interesting to think about. 291 00:20:44,589 --> 00:20:49,289 And obviously, what implications that may have, who knows, but just kind of an interesting timeline there in that sense. 292 00:20:50,570 --> 00:20:54,309 Yeah. One question I have on the business versus individuals. 293 00:20:54,309 --> 00:21:09,729 I mean, I assume, and you tell me if this is the correct assumption, that a business owner coming to you all that says, hey, I want to open up a business river account was previously just a river individual. 294 00:21:10,070 --> 00:21:12,789 Is that a good assumption or no? 295 00:21:13,689 --> 00:21:19,149 So it's a fair assumption for a solid percent, but it's not the case all the time. 296 00:21:19,149 --> 00:21:25,749 But now, most of the time, the scenario here is the business owner is a Bitcoiner. 297 00:21:25,929 --> 00:21:29,469 And now the business owner is basically wanting to buy Bitcoin on behalf of their business. 298 00:21:29,570 --> 00:21:30,729 So they are a personal Bitcoiner. 299 00:21:30,969 --> 00:21:32,229 They own Bitcoin for themselves. 300 00:21:32,669 --> 00:21:34,769 And they're basically like, hey, I have this cash-flowing business. 301 00:21:35,169 --> 00:21:37,929 Why don't I just buy Bitcoin and hold Bitcoin on my balance sheet of my business? 302 00:21:38,449 --> 00:21:39,849 And why am I just buying it personally? 303 00:21:40,269 --> 00:21:41,949 That's a very traditional scenario. 304 00:21:41,949 --> 00:21:49,309 So they both are a personal Bitcoiner and also are now wanting to be a Bitcoiner on behalf of their business. 305 00:21:50,469 --> 00:21:55,289 And that's the really core common thread across business accounts that we onboard at River. 306 00:21:55,729 --> 00:22:00,089 97% of businesses on River have concentrated ownership. 307 00:22:00,570 --> 00:22:01,349 And what does that exactly mean? 308 00:22:01,409 --> 00:22:04,869 It means basically the decisions can be made by one to five stakeholders. 309 00:22:05,149 --> 00:22:07,129 So approval is only needed from one to five stakeholders. 310 00:22:07,129 --> 00:22:14,809 They don't have to really incorporate a massive board or a kind of intricate stakeholder kind of pyramid to get approval to add Bitcoin to the balance sheet. 311 00:22:14,909 --> 00:22:26,269 It's typically businesses that are closely held that one, two, three people can make a kind of decision, come to the conclusion that they should buy Bitcoin on behalf of the business, and they go ahead and do so. 312 00:22:26,369 --> 00:22:27,649 But you're exactly correct. 313 00:22:27,649 --> 00:22:35,909 Most of the time, it is a personal Bitcoiner who owns a business, started a business, is operating a business, who now wants to add Bitcoin to that balance sheet of that business. 314 00:22:37,129 --> 00:23:05,369 Okay. And so I guess, are you all seeing, it sounds like there's a mix of partnerships in there, corporations, as well as just sole proprietorships, not-for-profits, right? It's a general mix. I'm just trying to, I guess, see, are you seeing it as flows are coming out of a River individual account and actually just making a transfer over into a newly created River business account? Is it something like that or is it more? 315 00:23:05,369 --> 00:23:07,789 Or maybe they're coming from a different platform. 316 00:23:08,329 --> 00:23:09,849 Yeah, typically in addition to. 317 00:23:09,969 --> 00:23:14,389 So typically the individual would still, the founder would still have obviously a personal position, 318 00:23:14,529 --> 00:23:16,789 but they would then start to add to a business one as well. 319 00:23:16,889 --> 00:23:19,589 So typically it's not mutually exclusive in that sense. 320 00:23:20,509 --> 00:23:22,189 And yeah, they would buy for both. 321 00:23:22,189 --> 00:23:25,149 We also, they definitely skew long term. 322 00:23:25,769 --> 00:23:32,109 We polled some of our clients and business clients and 63% of businesses on River plan to hold their Bitcoin indefinitely. 323 00:23:32,829 --> 00:23:33,829 So that's a pretty high number. 324 00:23:33,829 --> 00:23:38,329 Obviously, the majority percent of businesses have no exit kind of in mind. 325 00:23:38,469 --> 00:23:39,349 They don't want to sell their Bitcoin. 326 00:23:39,509 --> 00:23:43,729 They just plan on buying and continuing to buy over the long run and don't plan to ever sell it. 327 00:23:44,169 --> 00:23:48,269 So 63% of them kind of had that indefinite timeline, kind of low time preference in that sense. 328 00:23:50,949 --> 00:23:55,469 And on the report, I mean, I love the page on EO Investment Advisors. 329 00:23:55,469 --> 00:24:02,909 I think there's some interesting insights in there because, okay, 90% of the top 50 IRAs have a Bitcoin allocation. 330 00:24:03,449 --> 00:24:11,849 Next page, you guys are kind of displaying the proposed position sizing of said firms. 331 00:24:12,069 --> 00:24:17,949 Obviously, position sizing, very intimate to like the individual and goals trying to, you know, achieve. 332 00:24:17,949 --> 00:24:24,469 but also on that page you have overall allocation or you know how advisors are putting together the 333 00:24:24,469 --> 00:24:29,269 portfolio and you have bitcoins you know less than one percent if we're pulling on that thread 334 00:24:29,269 --> 00:24:34,489 do you think this is just kind of more of like a marketing play for these larger firms who is like 335 00:24:34,489 --> 00:24:39,529 look we recommend a bitcoin allocation like let me take your business and then in reality 336 00:24:39,529 --> 00:24:45,149 you know they're kind of more dismissive of the asset class in general yeah i think uh to a 337 00:24:45,149 --> 00:24:49,369 certain extent it could be the case for some firms but i think a lot of it is is just demand driven 338 00:24:49,369 --> 00:24:52,589 right i think they're there some of them are waking up to the fact that their clients have 339 00:24:52,589 --> 00:24:58,249 been pushing for them to allow them to buy bitcoin at least bitcoin etfs through their platform for 340 00:24:58,249 --> 00:25:02,489 years and they're finally waking up to the fact that okay we have this demand for our client base 341 00:25:02,489 --> 00:25:08,529 we see clients leaving these rias to go to others because they can't get access to bitcoin or to 342 00:25:08,529 --> 00:25:14,229 bitcoin etfs um so i think that it's somewhat probably of their team trying to yeah as you 343 00:25:14,229 --> 00:25:19,809 mentioned say face to a certain extent of signaling that they're open to the idea now how much do they 344 00:25:19,809 --> 00:25:23,109 actually push that to their clients i'm not sure because i've never actually obviously been inside 345 00:25:23,109 --> 00:25:26,989 the doors or seen how they how they do it um but i think to a certain extent it is yeah they're 346 00:25:26,989 --> 00:25:32,069 they're listening to the demand they're they're somewhat they don't want to miss the sailing ship 347 00:25:32,069 --> 00:25:36,069 in that sense of the prior years where they haven't allowed it um they've lost some they've 348 00:25:36,069 --> 00:25:39,589 obviously lost funds and asked in their management because of that um so they want to signal that 349 00:25:39,589 --> 00:25:43,609 they're at least somewhat open-minded to allowing spot Bitcoin ETF access. 350 00:25:44,389 --> 00:25:48,069 And once kind of one of them does it, the kind of snowball continues to roll. 351 00:25:48,849 --> 00:25:51,529 So, yeah, and I think it's somewhat of a signal. 352 00:25:51,729 --> 00:25:55,809 Again, I think it's somewhat up to the specific advisors as well. 353 00:25:55,969 --> 00:26:01,249 I think the firms have kind of locked the specific individual advisors from, obviously, 354 00:26:01,769 --> 00:26:04,449 recommending Bitcoin ETFs previously. 355 00:26:04,709 --> 00:26:07,809 I think some of the advisors have been pretty noisy internally to some of these firms, 356 00:26:07,809 --> 00:26:09,569 that even ones that I had talked to before too 357 00:26:09,569 --> 00:26:12,709 of like, hey, like give me access basically 358 00:26:12,709 --> 00:26:14,189 to be able to at least give access 359 00:26:14,189 --> 00:26:15,169 to my clients for this. 360 00:26:15,689 --> 00:26:17,089 So I think it's a very advisor 361 00:26:17,089 --> 00:26:18,869 by advisor case basis as well. 362 00:26:19,029 --> 00:26:21,409 But yeah, it's pretty interesting to see 363 00:26:21,409 --> 00:26:23,209 the recommended portfolio allocation Bitcoin. 364 00:26:23,349 --> 00:26:24,529 Obviously it's very small percentages 365 00:26:24,529 --> 00:26:26,829 across that entire graphic by all means 366 00:26:26,829 --> 00:26:28,029 with Fidelity being the highest, 367 00:26:28,429 --> 00:26:30,029 but it's still a pretty small percent 368 00:26:30,029 --> 00:26:31,929 across the entire kind of base. 369 00:26:33,229 --> 00:26:36,409 And as you guys are obviously doing research 370 00:26:36,409 --> 00:26:38,689 on this, witnessing this trend in real time. 371 00:26:39,009 --> 00:26:42,089 Have you guys had any thoughts or conversations internally 372 00:26:42,089 --> 00:26:45,189 about building tools to support these folks? 373 00:26:46,729 --> 00:26:48,569 Yeah, in terms of internal tools, 374 00:26:48,629 --> 00:26:51,329 we don't have anything on the docket explicitly right now. 375 00:26:51,429 --> 00:26:53,569 In that sense, we support a lot of advisors 376 00:26:53,569 --> 00:26:57,009 and a lot of their clients in current form with buying Bitcoin. 377 00:26:57,009 --> 00:27:00,869 So we do support a ton of family offices, RAs, 378 00:27:01,109 --> 00:27:04,449 all that good stuff when it comes to assisting their clients 379 00:27:04,449 --> 00:27:07,569 with getting Bitcoin and making sure that the experience is as smooth as possible 380 00:27:07,569 --> 00:27:10,169 and actually owning that Bitcoin through River accounts. 381 00:27:10,269 --> 00:27:13,629 But we don't have any kind of API plugins, at least in the current form. 382 00:27:14,009 --> 00:27:16,089 Obviously, they could be coming soon. 383 00:27:16,409 --> 00:27:19,249 We don't have anything explicitly to launch here shortly, 384 00:27:19,409 --> 00:27:22,489 but there definitely is a case to be made in that sense to make it easier 385 00:27:22,489 --> 00:27:26,029 for advisors and other service providers to be able to have access 386 00:27:26,029 --> 00:27:30,409 to kind of different features that we could offer as well. 387 00:27:30,409 --> 00:27:33,829 So definitely explicitly currently, but definitely wouldn't write it off for the future. 388 00:27:34,449 --> 00:27:40,669 Ben, I think you promised Wyatt a huge announcement on the episode. 389 00:27:41,249 --> 00:27:50,529 I think that's what he's searching for is the big announcement that he can go all caps back onto Twitter. 390 00:27:51,629 --> 00:27:55,629 We need the all caps announcements to pump the price. 391 00:27:56,489 --> 00:27:57,069 Pump the price. 392 00:27:58,249 --> 00:27:59,169 I'm kidding. 393 00:27:59,169 --> 00:28:08,109 okay let's let's pivot over to why um why you all see business owners say uh i love bitcoin 394 00:28:08,109 --> 00:28:15,289 or i'm interested in bitcoin but it's a no for me on the business side for xyz reason because i 395 00:28:15,289 --> 00:28:21,669 assume you get those conversations as well right yes we we certainly do um and again we also pulled 396 00:28:21,669 --> 00:28:27,869 our clients on this similar to the uh the 63 about kind of holding perpetuity we also pulled on what 397 00:28:27,869 --> 00:28:33,929 kind of stops businesses from buying Bitcoin or onboarding deliver. And by far, I think this is 398 00:28:33,929 --> 00:28:39,249 also no surprise, by far it is the accounting implications, the CPA implications, it's basically 399 00:28:39,249 --> 00:28:45,269 the CFO, the bookkeeper, whoever, the finance employee internally saying, hey, this is, I think 400 00:28:45,269 --> 00:28:49,569 that this is going to make my life five times harder for basically no net benefit to the business. 401 00:28:49,709 --> 00:28:54,149 It's not part of our operations. It's not key to our business as a whole, but it's going to make 402 00:28:54,149 --> 00:28:59,469 my job so much worse. So it's typically the accountant or the CPA or whoever may be internally 403 00:28:59,469 --> 00:29:04,309 the firm and the finance side of things that is typically the one pushing back against adopting 404 00:29:04,309 --> 00:29:08,469 Bitcoin because of that exact kind of notion where they think it's going to make their life harder. 405 00:29:08,909 --> 00:29:13,949 But again, it's not core to their business in their view. So they're pretty pushed back against 406 00:29:13,949 --> 00:29:18,649 that pretty hard. But it typically almost always comes down to the accounting bookkeeping side of 407 00:29:18,649 --> 00:29:21,229 things. Okay, interesting. 408 00:29:24,149 --> 00:29:39,359 If you a financial professional working with Bitcoin you know the pain of messy CSVs broken cost basis and accounting tools that were never built for this asset Bitment fixes that Bitment is the Bitcoin native accounting platform built for CPAs 409 00:29:39,579 --> 00:29:45,979 bookkeepers, advisors, miners, and serious Bitcoin investors. You get clean Bitcoin bank statements, 410 00:29:46,299 --> 00:29:52,139 reliable cost basis tracking, full reporting, and fiat integration through Plaid. No crypto talk, 411 00:29:52,139 --> 00:29:57,099 no workarounds, just proper accounting for the hardest money on earth. Create a free account or 412 00:29:57,099 --> 00:30:05,859 book a demo at bitment.co today well and and uh if i could jump in here jordan i would kind of like 413 00:30:05,859 --> 00:30:10,219 to maybe double click on why we think uh cpas in the account industry are holding back bitcoin 414 00:30:10,219 --> 00:30:20,519 adoption just kidding i saw you over there salivating um and maybe we just throw the bit 415 00:30:20,519 --> 00:30:26,839 that add in like right here? I mean, well, it's funny because it's a, it's a, it is a true thing. 416 00:30:26,839 --> 00:30:34,379 It's a problem that we've identified in the firm probably back in 2020. So it is, uh, it's still, 417 00:30:34,539 --> 00:30:39,979 I would say in at scale unsolved, I would be curious how you all normally try to counter that 418 00:30:39,979 --> 00:30:45,839 argument, uh, or how do you generally try to work with, cause it is really a difficult problem. 419 00:30:45,839 --> 00:31:03,059 Someone who, especially if they're bringing history with them, maybe they started on name whatever other exchange that you'd like to, or they jumped to several different exchanges before landing on river, uh, as like their one that they're going to stick with for the longterm. 420 00:31:03,059 --> 00:31:10,239 there's a whole history back there there's all kinds of lots and you all don't have any insight 421 00:31:10,239 --> 00:31:15,559 into that I assume unless the client gives it to you and if you ask the client to give it to you 422 00:31:15,559 --> 00:31:19,479 they're going to be like I don't know how to get I don't know how to configure that. 423 00:31:20,879 --> 00:31:26,379 Yeah yeah so the counter to that and honestly one of my favorite parts of River actually is our 424 00:31:26,379 --> 00:31:31,399 performance reporting so you mentioned earlier in the the show the CSV downloads so we give 425 00:31:31,399 --> 00:31:35,719 basically a detailed CSV download of all account activity in River accounts. We give a monthly 426 00:31:35,719 --> 00:31:40,319 account statement PDF that looks very similar to what you see at a bank or traditional equities 427 00:31:40,319 --> 00:31:44,379 brokerage. It breaks down kind of in a much more pretty format. Everything that's gone on the 428 00:31:44,379 --> 00:31:49,339 account, buys, sells, deposits, transfers, all that good stuff. And also at the same time, 429 00:31:49,459 --> 00:31:54,279 we provide all tax documents at the end of the year, which sounds so basic, but in this industry, 430 00:31:54,359 --> 00:31:59,219 it's pretty hard to come by to get an actual clean 1099 that has gained and lost data calculated for 431 00:31:59,219 --> 00:32:04,419 you short-term and long-term denoted all that listed out line by line for you um so we will 432 00:32:04,419 --> 00:32:09,259 kind of do all that legwork do all that kind of hard work to make it as easy as possible 433 00:32:09,259 --> 00:32:13,699 when it comes to the accounting side of things now as you mentioned it gets a little more complex 434 00:32:13,699 --> 00:32:17,279 when you have bitcoin that you've acquired elsewhere outside of river we can only legally 435 00:32:17,279 --> 00:32:21,019 attest to the bitcoin that you acquired on river because we know that cost basis and we can attest 436 00:32:21,019 --> 00:32:25,679 that cost basis therefore we can calculate the 1099 for you generate that make it so much easier 437 00:32:25,679 --> 00:32:29,499 for you. But if you bought Bitcoin elsewhere, that's where, as you mentioned, Jordan, it gets 438 00:32:29,499 --> 00:32:34,879 a little bit messier. You can essentially, when you deposit Bitcoin to the river, it's an unknown 439 00:32:34,879 --> 00:32:40,539 tax lot. You can go in and manually input unknown tax slots, their cost basis. So if you had data 440 00:32:40,539 --> 00:32:45,579 from a different exchange and you knew what the cost basis is, you can break that deposit down 441 00:32:45,579 --> 00:32:49,519 to as many rows as you want, as many chunks and tranches as you want, assign the cost basis 442 00:32:49,519 --> 00:32:53,759 manually. And now our performance dashboard will calculate that for you and show you and display 443 00:32:53,759 --> 00:32:55,959 that performance data based on that input and information. 444 00:32:56,599 --> 00:33:00,719 But say you have 1,000 lots you acquired over seven years, right? 445 00:33:00,859 --> 00:33:03,879 Going through and doing that is obviously a bit painful and manual. 446 00:33:04,859 --> 00:33:07,159 And we're actually, that kind of problem there, 447 00:33:07,259 --> 00:33:09,899 we're working on some unique ways to hopefully solve that in the future 448 00:33:09,899 --> 00:33:14,779 of being able to in bulk or in mass kind of be able to backfill 449 00:33:14,779 --> 00:33:18,099 some of that data for clients if they did have, say, 450 00:33:18,159 --> 00:33:20,179 a CSV from a different exchange or whatever it may be 451 00:33:20,179 --> 00:33:21,759 and have that data at least available 452 00:33:21,759 --> 00:33:23,519 instead of having to manually go through 453 00:33:23,519 --> 00:33:26,979 and hopefully be able to kind of, again, in mass update that. 454 00:33:27,419 --> 00:33:29,139 Because then our system can calculate that, 455 00:33:29,479 --> 00:33:31,819 can show you that, display that in account statements 456 00:33:31,819 --> 00:33:35,259 and the CSV downloads and make it as easy as possible to share that, 457 00:33:35,479 --> 00:33:37,959 not just obviously to the client, but also to the business, 458 00:33:38,159 --> 00:33:40,999 to the stakeholders, to the CPAs internally, to the firms, 459 00:33:41,419 --> 00:33:43,999 just to make it as easy as possible to actually account for that 460 00:33:43,999 --> 00:33:45,439 when it comes time for that. 461 00:33:46,399 --> 00:33:47,599 Yeah, no, it's huge. 462 00:33:47,679 --> 00:33:48,859 I mean, especially right now, 463 00:33:48,859 --> 00:33:52,939 I'm sure you all are getting some inquiries on tax loss harvesting. 464 00:33:53,379 --> 00:33:55,899 I mean, better to have done it last week than this week. 465 00:33:56,059 --> 00:34:01,539 But, you know, there's no time like the present. 466 00:34:01,739 --> 00:34:09,399 I mean, but we're working with clients right now that are like, you know, I know that I've got some lots that are in gain positions long term. 467 00:34:09,399 --> 00:34:11,639 I know I've got some lots that are short term losses. 468 00:34:11,999 --> 00:34:16,899 And, you know, can we, you know, can we go in and tax loss harvest? 469 00:34:16,899 --> 00:34:36,339 And even though it's only February, March, like go ahead and just lock that in, lock in a smaller gain, lock in a larger loss and take that to a financial advisor like Wyatt and say, hey, what other positions do we have in the portfolio that we could harvest some gains potentially and not have to pay taxes on those because we've got losses elsewhere. 470 00:34:36,339 --> 00:34:42,079 So it's a very interesting time for definitely for all of that. 471 00:34:42,179 --> 00:34:52,479 But to your point, it's like if you don't have that data locked in, then it's kind of like it's a mess for all the practitioners, be it Wyatt trying to do financial planning or for us trying to do tax planning. 472 00:34:52,999 --> 00:34:58,439 So, yeah, I'm sure you've seen seen some messy, some messy reports and things of that nature. 473 00:34:58,439 --> 00:35:00,499 I'm sure, Jordan, when it comes to when it comes to that. 474 00:35:01,099 --> 00:35:03,879 Not a river one, but yes, there's there's been some other ones. 475 00:35:04,579 --> 00:35:04,939 Thankfully. 476 00:35:04,939 --> 00:35:08,059 Yeah, no, you're always reporting it should. 477 00:35:08,199 --> 00:35:13,419 I know this is like turning into we're just fanboys, but we are, you know. 478 00:35:15,699 --> 00:35:26,539 But yeah, especially some of the ones that didn't do proof of reserves and lost clients money and, you know, went out of business or they went offshore. 479 00:35:26,839 --> 00:35:32,239 And now clients are like, I literally I don't have a way to go into my BlockFi account and grab old CSV. 480 00:35:32,239 --> 00:35:38,899 We have to work with their bank statements to reconstruct cost-based schedule best way we can. 481 00:35:39,199 --> 00:35:41,019 So it can get very messy for sure. 482 00:35:41,639 --> 00:35:42,179 That's insane. 483 00:35:42,179 --> 00:36:01,399 I mean, for newer Bitcoiners that are coming in, be it an individual or a business, there is a really good argument to be made to say, really do your due diligence on what exchange you would like to work with and just pick that long-term partner and stick with them because it will just make your life so much easier. 484 00:36:01,399 --> 00:36:06,299 and it'll make our lives easier on on when it comes to tax filings and planning out your 485 00:36:06,299 --> 00:36:16,399 doing your financial plan as well so and yeah no it's really interesting um then something i'm 486 00:36:16,399 --> 00:36:20,319 curious you know kind of zooming up to like the macro view here i was a bitcoin answer dan and 487 00:36:20,319 --> 00:36:25,959 jack ballast gave a talk there and he was talking about those four um profitable business models and 488 00:36:25,959 --> 00:36:32,699 Bitcoin said or you said crypto but we don't like to use that word on the show um it was stable coins 489 00:36:32,699 --> 00:36:40,799 exchanges lending and treasury companies you guys are obviously in exchange how do you first you 490 00:36:40,799 --> 00:36:45,239 question on that it's like what do you think of that statement and second are there opportunities 491 00:36:45,239 --> 00:36:51,359 for river to grow in to other verticals are you thinking you just want to be like the best exchange 492 00:36:51,359 --> 00:36:56,499 known to man we're going to do this and we're going to do it really well yeah to kind of hit 493 00:36:56,499 --> 00:37:00,359 on that point you somewhat hit the nail on the head on the on the ladder there in terms of being 494 00:37:00,359 --> 00:37:05,119 the best exchange doing one thing and doing it very well that's kind of been our focus since day 495 00:37:05,119 --> 00:37:10,499 one and alex has said this plenty of times as well uh plenty of places right it's it's big believer 496 00:37:10,499 --> 00:37:14,999 in focus right it's kind of do one thing do it very well it's it's like the the raising canes 497 00:37:14,999 --> 00:37:18,379 right they make chicken fingers they do it very well they stick to chicken fingers like don't get 498 00:37:18,379 --> 00:37:22,519 distracted and don't get kind of get carried away with some of the products. And we've seen plenty 499 00:37:22,519 --> 00:37:27,299 of businesses that Jordan mentioned a name of a few during bull runs, right, that they that they 500 00:37:27,299 --> 00:37:32,579 get into these kind of hyper scaling, hiring a lot of employees, launching credit card products, 501 00:37:32,659 --> 00:37:36,959 launching lending products, getting into areas that they're not focused on, because they're trying 502 00:37:36,959 --> 00:37:41,879 to take advantage of the market movement. Whereas with River, we're Bitcoin only, we're very focused 503 00:37:41,879 --> 00:37:45,459 on being Bitcoin only, we're very focused on being the best Bitcoin only exchange in the world. 504 00:37:45,459 --> 00:37:47,419 We don't want to get distracted with other products. 505 00:37:47,559 --> 00:37:51,819 We don't have any plans to have lending or anything of that nature in current form. 506 00:37:52,259 --> 00:38:01,999 When you kind of remove and extract complexity, it really increases a lot of things, not just operationally, but also from a product perspective. 507 00:38:02,339 --> 00:38:06,659 We try to make our product, our user interface, our user experience as intuitive as possible. 508 00:38:07,859 --> 00:38:09,519 We touched on reporting. 509 00:38:09,519 --> 00:38:14,119 reporting is a lot easier to build when you have one asset and one asset class as opposed to getting 510 00:38:14,119 --> 00:38:18,099 distracted with even even if you build money on top of that asset it also introduces some 511 00:38:18,099 --> 00:38:23,819 complexities things of that nature as well but i think also zooming out from just pure those kind 512 00:38:23,819 --> 00:38:28,019 of four models that you mentioned just bitcoin as a whole right and different companies in the 513 00:38:28,019 --> 00:38:33,079 industry um alex has a good a good way of describing this too it's like you have to build 514 00:38:33,079 --> 00:38:37,159 in the bear markets right because it's somewhat like operating a hotel in a beach town but you 515 00:38:37,159 --> 00:38:40,959 don't know when summer is so you're basically running a hotel where you have tourists coming 516 00:38:40,959 --> 00:38:43,559 but you don't know when summer is you don't know when winter is you don't know when the seasons 517 00:38:43,559 --> 00:38:48,419 are going to come so it's all about kind of being hyper focused on building the best products um we 518 00:38:48,419 --> 00:38:53,539 really focus on our perspective on kind of a few different pillars um you mentioned proof of 519 00:38:53,539 --> 00:38:59,879 reserves that's key and core to our culture we also have our financials that are public 520 00:38:59,879 --> 00:39:03,539 that some people don't know about so we're a private company but we publish our financials 521 00:39:03,539 --> 00:39:09,159 to be public to the world so that people can feel comfortable and safe with River as an organization, 522 00:39:09,759 --> 00:39:14,099 as a company, as a financial services business, and kind of trust us in that sense. 523 00:39:14,099 --> 00:39:19,519 Because we really want to build around core pillars of transparency, trust, security, and then also service. 524 00:39:19,899 --> 00:39:23,779 Something we really do is obsess about the client as a whole, right? 525 00:39:23,799 --> 00:39:26,239 We don't have users. We don't have customers. We have clients. 526 00:39:26,479 --> 00:39:30,779 They're real people that have family, that have friends, that have real lives, 527 00:39:30,779 --> 00:39:32,259 and we're helping them build their Bitcoin wealth. 528 00:39:32,259 --> 00:39:34,859 It's not something we take lightly and responsibility lightly. 529 00:39:35,479 --> 00:39:41,859 I think hopefully that shows through proof of reserves, public financials, force field, as you mentioned earlier, in terms of helping people protect their Bitcoin. 530 00:39:42,859 --> 00:39:51,639 So I guess long-winded way of saying focused on building the best Bitcoin and Bitcoin-only exchange in the world and also being and building the most trusted financial institution in the world. 531 00:39:51,759 --> 00:39:53,539 I think that evolves in that sense. 532 00:39:54,239 --> 00:39:56,499 Whereas Bitcoin grows in asset class, right? 533 00:39:56,499 --> 00:40:02,279 We want to be that most trusted financial institution in the world as opposed to just Bitcoin exchange in the world. 534 00:40:03,599 --> 00:40:06,379 Yeah, I think that makes a ton of sense. 535 00:40:06,879 --> 00:40:08,839 And, you know, I don't fault you guys at all. 536 00:40:08,939 --> 00:40:14,399 As, you know, working in professional services industry, I'm just bummed to hear that because I love working with you guys. 537 00:40:14,479 --> 00:40:21,459 And I was like, oh, man, it'd be sweet if my clients would get Bitcoin collateralized loans at River because, you know, we know they do things like the right way. 538 00:40:21,459 --> 00:40:21,899 Yeah. 539 00:40:21,899 --> 00:40:27,879 Yeah. In the future, who knows what may come in terms of products. 540 00:40:28,179 --> 00:40:30,859 So wouldn't write it off, fully write it off, I guess. 541 00:40:30,939 --> 00:40:34,579 But yeah, definitely no explicit plans in the current form. 542 00:40:35,519 --> 00:40:37,179 Thinking through unique ways and unique products, 543 00:40:37,339 --> 00:40:39,279 and obviously Bitcoin Institute on Cash is one of those, right? 544 00:40:39,699 --> 00:40:44,079 Every business earns interest on cash that clients hold in their accounts for them. 545 00:40:44,459 --> 00:40:47,639 We were one of them, and we're like, hey, why can't we just pass this to our clients? 546 00:40:48,239 --> 00:40:50,179 So now we pass Bitcoin Institute on Cash. 547 00:40:50,179 --> 00:40:55,459 show any cash clients hold with us, earn 3.3% interest paid in Bitcoin on those US dollars, 548 00:40:55,639 --> 00:41:00,319 FDIC insured, all that good stuff. So definitely we'll have more unique products like that in the 549 00:41:00,319 --> 00:41:05,179 future. Don't explicitly have insight into what those may be right now, but yeah, definitely, 550 00:41:05,279 --> 00:41:10,379 definitely more to come on that. But it's a call. It's honestly like a callback in my head to just 551 00:41:10,379 --> 00:41:17,699 a simpler, more traditional time where you just, you weren't bailed out if you made a bad decision 552 00:41:17,699 --> 00:41:19,759 or a string of bad decisions over time, right? 553 00:41:19,879 --> 00:41:23,379 You had to set up a profitable business. 554 00:41:23,659 --> 00:41:26,079 You had to manage what you had coming through the door. 555 00:41:26,299 --> 00:41:28,399 If you need to make a big purchase, 556 00:41:28,799 --> 00:41:30,439 you just, you had to save for that. 557 00:41:31,359 --> 00:41:34,779 And so in some ways I see it as like, 558 00:41:34,919 --> 00:41:37,659 yes, there's all these products out there, 559 00:41:37,659 --> 00:41:40,359 but really they're just coming in 560 00:41:40,359 --> 00:41:42,079 from the traditional world 561 00:41:42,079 --> 00:41:43,639 and that's what everyone's used to. 562 00:41:44,219 --> 00:41:46,879 But I think honestly, all those products 563 00:41:46,879 --> 00:41:55,399 are what has gotten us into this extremely broad macro scenario where we're just in a mess, right? 564 00:41:55,459 --> 00:42:01,079 At all levels, if you look at consumer debt or you look at business debt or you look at sovereign debt. 565 00:42:01,679 --> 00:42:04,299 So I don't know. I'm kind of torn on the subject. 566 00:42:04,839 --> 00:42:11,159 And I would say, yeah, I mean, the other reason is like I want to jump the line 567 00:42:11,159 --> 00:42:14,719 and I want you guys to put out your API ASAP this year. 568 00:42:14,719 --> 00:42:21,379 That's my big ask, which I know you all are, well, I don't know if I'm supposed to say anything publicly about it. 569 00:42:21,419 --> 00:42:23,059 We'll see what happens this year. 570 00:42:23,399 --> 00:42:25,119 We'll see what's coming on the API front. 571 00:42:25,239 --> 00:42:25,579 Yeah, yeah. 572 00:42:26,299 --> 00:42:26,579 Yeah. 573 00:42:27,119 --> 00:42:34,179 Okay, talk to us about, I know you said before we went on air, your February was a big month for you all. 574 00:42:34,179 --> 00:42:36,559 Kind of talk through how that looked. 575 00:42:36,559 --> 00:42:43,799 Because I think it's encouraging for folks who are either listening in and they're like, what is this Bitcoin thing? 576 00:42:43,879 --> 00:42:47,639 Clients are asking about it or they're hardcore Bitcoin or they've been in the space for a while. 577 00:42:48,499 --> 00:42:53,739 Give us a behind the scenes look at what happened at River in February in terms of volume. 578 00:42:54,559 --> 00:43:01,239 Yeah, it's very interesting because, yeah, if you were to kind of look externally, people, the price obviously has stayed down this week. 579 00:43:01,239 --> 00:43:08,519 It hasn't risen, but if you look to look in February, price was down, sentiment was low, fear was probably pretty high across the entire market. 580 00:43:08,759 --> 00:43:11,779 But February was our highest volume month ever at River. 581 00:43:12,579 --> 00:43:18,559 So we definitely, even though the price is down, adoption is not slowing by any means across both businesses and individuals. 582 00:43:19,239 --> 00:43:22,199 So we've had our highest volume month ever in February. 583 00:43:22,199 --> 00:43:25,139 We've crossed over 25,000 Bitcoin under custody. 584 00:43:25,579 --> 00:43:29,659 That's currently in our cold storage full reserve that has proof of reserves we mentioned. 585 00:43:29,659 --> 00:43:34,539 And 7.7 Bitcoin were earned in interest on cash balances. 586 00:43:34,539 --> 00:43:37,619 So just for clients holding effectively their savings at River, 587 00:43:38,099 --> 00:43:40,999 again, if they're insured, they earned 7.7 Bitcoin in total 588 00:43:40,999 --> 00:43:43,499 across those balances at River as well. 589 00:43:43,599 --> 00:43:45,439 So we're definitely seeing the accumulation continue, 590 00:43:45,819 --> 00:43:46,659 the adoption continue. 591 00:43:46,999 --> 00:43:49,099 Obviously, price has remained somewhat stagnant 592 00:43:49,099 --> 00:43:50,319 with a little bit of increase here. 593 00:43:50,459 --> 00:43:52,539 But yeah, by no means is the adoption slowing. 594 00:43:52,639 --> 00:43:55,319 And we definitely see that increasing pretty steadily 595 00:43:55,319 --> 00:43:57,939 and heavily internally to River as well. 596 00:43:59,659 --> 00:44:04,499 Yeah, I think that's that's super like bullish sentiment. 597 00:44:04,499 --> 00:44:09,419 Yeah, everybody's down in the dumps about the price of Bitcoin is like, sure, it's not fun necessarily. 598 00:44:09,419 --> 00:44:24,768 But you know if you in greed index which I not totally sure how it calculated has been you know like extreme fear And it feels like everybody you know down and negative where the fundamentals themselves have never been better And to me that just another data point 100 Could not agree more 599 00:44:44,768 --> 00:44:47,088 for Bitcoin-focused companies and individuals. 600 00:44:47,468 --> 00:44:48,868 They speak the language of Bitcoiners 601 00:44:48,868 --> 00:44:51,268 and help you stay compliant while building for the long term. 602 00:44:51,628 --> 00:44:53,308 To learn more or book a consultation, 603 00:44:53,748 --> 00:44:55,728 visit satoshipacioli.com. 604 00:44:58,048 --> 00:45:00,488 Ben, one of my favorite tweets of all time, 605 00:45:00,568 --> 00:45:01,748 I hope I never forget it, 606 00:45:01,968 --> 00:45:06,248 was Mr. Alex Leishman absolutely dunking on 607 00:45:06,248 --> 00:45:10,128 Brian Armstrong after the Coinbase leak. 608 00:45:10,828 --> 00:45:12,968 What was that, like six months ago or something like that? 609 00:45:13,868 --> 00:45:14,688 Who's Brian Armstrong? 610 00:45:14,768 --> 00:45:20,768 wrong um I was gonna say the bald guy but I don't like if bald guy's a bad name 611 00:45:20,768 --> 00:45:28,628 uh just search him I guess if you're in the audience just search search his name I guess 612 00:45:28,628 --> 00:45:34,148 yeah yeah he shall not be named you know he's like Voldemort around here around BFFs but 613 00:45:34,148 --> 00:45:40,268 um you know so that was obviously you know it wasn't even really a hack I guess it was more 614 00:45:40,268 --> 00:45:44,588 of a data breach is like a better you know term for an offshore employee like getting bribed is 615 00:45:44,588 --> 00:45:48,988 my understanding how the situation played out so they got access to like those customer data you 616 00:45:48,988 --> 00:45:53,268 know client funds were never at risk but obviously like way more personal information out on the black 617 00:45:53,268 --> 00:45:58,308 market than you know anybody should feel comfortable with and you know alex is talking about how 618 00:45:58,308 --> 00:46:04,988 rivers made the conscious decision to invest in u.s talent uh invest in quality services something 619 00:46:04,988 --> 00:46:09,688 jordan i've been kind of talking about off the camera is just you know ai as you know small 620 00:46:09,688 --> 00:46:14,008 business owners like it's getting so powerful we're creating apps to you know automate a lot 621 00:46:14,008 --> 00:46:15,048 of our back-end compliances. 622 00:46:15,328 --> 00:46:17,188 And we almost feel fortunate 623 00:46:17,188 --> 00:46:18,428 that we're in the services business 624 00:46:18,428 --> 00:46:20,068 because it's like rise of the services, 625 00:46:20,288 --> 00:46:20,688 you know, again, 626 00:46:20,748 --> 00:46:21,768 and like actually having 627 00:46:21,768 --> 00:46:23,228 that intimate client experience. 628 00:46:23,228 --> 00:46:25,768 And I'd just like you to kind of walk through 629 00:46:25,768 --> 00:46:27,548 maybe like some of your roles specifically, 630 00:46:28,088 --> 00:46:30,408 your guys' kind of like white glove services 631 00:46:30,408 --> 00:46:32,388 and how you interact with clients. 632 00:46:32,388 --> 00:46:33,308 And then specifically, 633 00:46:33,308 --> 00:46:35,988 if you're working in tandem with the CPA, 634 00:46:36,168 --> 00:46:37,228 with a financial advisor, 635 00:46:37,548 --> 00:46:39,088 you know, I always try to be very cognizant 636 00:46:39,088 --> 00:46:40,148 when I'm working with outside, 637 00:46:40,268 --> 00:46:41,228 you know, partners, 638 00:46:41,328 --> 00:46:42,988 like I want to own and control 639 00:46:42,988 --> 00:46:45,648 the communication with my clients. 640 00:46:45,928 --> 00:46:48,128 And so how are you guys working with professionals? 641 00:46:48,668 --> 00:46:51,048 What kind of changes or advancements 642 00:46:51,048 --> 00:46:52,808 or efforts have you put into 643 00:46:52,808 --> 00:46:54,148 like the services side of business? 644 00:46:55,368 --> 00:46:55,868 Yeah, for sure. 645 00:46:55,988 --> 00:46:58,088 On the former piece on the security side, 646 00:46:58,208 --> 00:46:59,808 first and foremost, from River's perspective, 647 00:47:00,128 --> 00:47:03,388 everyone at River is a security employee, right? 648 00:47:03,748 --> 00:47:05,748 Not just our security engineers that we have 649 00:47:05,748 --> 00:47:07,148 that are working full-time on security, 650 00:47:07,648 --> 00:47:09,328 but even our client services team, 651 00:47:09,468 --> 00:47:10,668 our relationship management team, 652 00:47:11,488 --> 00:47:15,728 Everybody basically, before we do anything, the first thought is from a security perspective. 653 00:47:16,828 --> 00:47:23,048 So definitely Alex has instilled that culture across everyone at River because like we saw in the Coinbase breach, right? 654 00:47:23,108 --> 00:47:26,148 Humans are sometimes the biggest fault and biggest failure. 655 00:47:26,448 --> 00:47:31,928 So thinking through security, being top of mind no matter what is always a kind of top of mind priority for us. 656 00:47:32,048 --> 00:47:39,948 In terms of working with kind of advisors, service-based individuals, we've seen actually, we've seen an increase in the amount of advisors that we work with. 657 00:47:39,948 --> 00:47:49,668 CPAs we work with, family offices, just because as it kind of continues, Bitcoin continues its kind of growth as an asset class. 658 00:47:49,708 --> 00:47:51,028 And we obviously see the Wall Street adoption. 659 00:47:51,688 --> 00:47:55,328 More and more advisors have hopped on the train and the wave of Bitcoin. 660 00:47:55,828 --> 00:47:57,948 So we've been working directly with them more often. 661 00:47:58,688 --> 00:48:04,308 Now, from a client perspective, right, we are just a, we're the Bitcoin portion of their entire wealth, right? 662 00:48:04,308 --> 00:48:09,328 So a lot of the clients have obviously their advisors help them with other portions of their wealth and tax savings and things of that nature. 663 00:48:09,948 --> 00:48:26,788 So we can work tandem and work hand in hand with those advisors to help them with everything and anything from the Bitcoin perspective, whether it's tax loss harvesting, whether it's optimizing different kind of tax loss strategies, HIFO, LIFO, FIFO, all that good stuff, whether it's just obviously buying, selling, Bitcoin interest on cash, whatever it may be. 664 00:48:26,788 --> 00:48:31,208 estate planning. We have account beneficiaries so we can help clients with and also their advisors 665 00:48:31,208 --> 00:48:36,648 or lawyers with TOD plans and transfer on death plans. Onboarding family trusts has been a big 666 00:48:36,648 --> 00:48:41,448 growth area with advisors specifically in their clients is onboarding their estate plans, their 667 00:48:41,448 --> 00:48:47,168 trusts, evocable, irrevocable, all that good stuff to get on board and to hold Bitcoin on behalf of. 668 00:48:47,328 --> 00:48:51,228 So I would say honestly, the trust side of things has been a huge growth area where we're specifically 669 00:48:51,228 --> 00:48:55,088 talking about just advisors and RIAs. 670 00:48:56,088 --> 00:48:57,148 And there's been a lot of clients 671 00:48:57,148 --> 00:48:58,268 who've been taking advantage of that 672 00:48:58,268 --> 00:49:00,308 to kind of add Bitcoin to their estate plan 673 00:49:00,308 --> 00:49:01,448 and to that existing estate plan. 674 00:49:01,528 --> 00:49:03,488 We can easily onboard that existing trust, 675 00:49:03,988 --> 00:49:05,728 add Bitcoin to that trust for them on River 676 00:49:05,728 --> 00:49:08,128 and make it easy to report that 677 00:49:08,128 --> 00:49:09,828 and provide that to any lawyer, advisor, 678 00:49:09,968 --> 00:49:12,348 whoever may have or need info on that as well. 679 00:49:13,668 --> 00:49:13,748 Yeah. 680 00:49:14,548 --> 00:49:16,068 Yeah, I just want to call out too 681 00:49:16,068 --> 00:49:19,008 how good the service is. 682 00:49:19,008 --> 00:49:23,688 It's like the support, you know, you send an email to a support at whatever domain. 683 00:49:24,208 --> 00:49:28,308 And I don't know, 90 plus percent of the time, you're just like, I don't know. 684 00:49:28,408 --> 00:49:33,408 I got no idea where that's going or if I'm ever going to hear back on on that email. 685 00:49:33,868 --> 00:49:37,148 I onboarded. There's a local guy here in Louisville. 686 00:49:37,148 --> 00:49:45,288 He runs he runs. It's actually the largest American whiskey bar in the world, but it's a really popular restaurant and bar here. 687 00:49:45,288 --> 00:49:50,408 and um and actually he came out to he came out and did our bourbon tasting i don't know ben i 688 00:49:50,408 --> 00:49:56,948 don't know if you picked the wine or the bourbon but it was tommy um so i onboarded tommy to river 689 00:49:56,948 --> 00:50:02,008 i orange pilled him like right after the election i didn't even know he owned the the whole restaurant 690 00:50:02,008 --> 00:50:06,908 uh it was so funny and and we've become friends since but anyways he's you know he's a little bit 691 00:50:06,908 --> 00:50:14,708 older guy like 50s late 50s probably and something happened you know and all older people they just 692 00:50:14,708 --> 00:50:19,648 sometimes they make mistakes. And, and so I onboard him. Then I think he like did like some 693 00:50:19,648 --> 00:50:24,568 kind of chargeback or something. Like he didn't have originally understand, he didn't recognize 694 00:50:24,568 --> 00:50:31,188 in his bank or something. And he like disputed it. And then he sees it come out of river and he's 695 00:50:31,188 --> 00:50:35,508 texting me. He's like, dude, what the heck did my account get hacked? Or like, what is this? 696 00:50:35,508 --> 00:50:40,508 Cause then he, like he forgot or whatever. I don't know. All. And I'm like, I don't know. I was like, 697 00:50:40,508 --> 00:50:47,508 dude, I mean, I'm just going to, I'll push you to, to email support river. And you guys emailed 698 00:50:47,508 --> 00:50:53,648 back, like immediately got, someone got on the phone with him and sorted it all out. Um, and he 699 00:50:53,648 --> 00:50:58,348 was an early customer. It wasn't like he was a, you know, a whale or anything like that. Um, so 700 00:50:58,348 --> 00:51:04,288 again, just hats off. It was, uh, it was a good story, uh, and a good like example in my head of 701 00:51:04,288 --> 00:51:10,808 like wow you could never expect that level of service with really any other exchange that's out 702 00:51:10,808 --> 00:51:17,648 there uh every other exchange out there really is like a black box um yeah in terms of support 703 00:51:17,648 --> 00:51:21,888 yeah no we we truly pride ourselves on the server side of things so i'm glad you got to 704 00:51:21,888 --> 00:51:26,628 see that in action because yeah you can call our support team monday through friday 9 a.m to 8 p.m 705 00:51:26,628 --> 00:51:30,548 eastern um someone's always gonna answer the phone you have a real human to talk to based here in the 706 00:51:30,548 --> 00:51:35,388 U.S. who knows everything in and outs about River. They're not kind of offshore. They're not 707 00:51:35,388 --> 00:51:41,768 employees of River. They're full-time email within a few minutes, typically, 708 00:51:42,308 --> 00:51:45,188 in terms of getting email support back within those hours as well. So definitely, 709 00:51:45,428 --> 00:51:50,028 truly pride ourselves on the White Glove service. Obviously, we're relationship managers like myself 710 00:51:50,028 --> 00:51:55,808 as well, who worked a lot with advisors and other partners and businesses and private clients and 711 00:51:55,808 --> 00:51:59,548 high-net-worth individuals to be a personal point of contact. They can text, call us seven days a 712 00:51:59,548 --> 00:52:04,268 week. So yeah, being that kind of high-touch service is something we definitely pride ourselves 713 00:52:04,268 --> 00:52:08,208 on. And as you mentioned, it's pretty hard to come by in this industry as a whole. A lot of companies 714 00:52:08,208 --> 00:52:13,368 kind of set up an app and they say, hey, whoever comes and uses the app, that's fine. But we really 715 00:52:13,368 --> 00:52:17,528 pride ourselves, as I mentioned before, right? We have clients we don't have users. Other apps have 716 00:52:17,528 --> 00:52:22,388 users. We truly treat it as such. They're real humans that are, again, building Bitcoin wealth 717 00:52:22,388 --> 00:52:26,348 on river. And we want to make sure we provide them with the highest level of service possible. 718 00:52:26,348 --> 00:52:30,628 and hopefully that shows itself to the emails, the calls, all that good stuff as well. 719 00:52:32,028 --> 00:52:36,108 Yeah. All right. I know we're getting close on time. I do want to make sure the last thing on 720 00:52:36,108 --> 00:52:41,448 my list that we probably spend five or 10 minutes on maybe is like the banking direct deposit bill 721 00:52:41,448 --> 00:52:46,528 pay piece. I know that I just know it sounds like, you know, onboarding a lot of businesses, 722 00:52:46,948 --> 00:52:51,348 some businesses it's a buy and hold. Some businesses are integrating it into their payments 723 00:52:51,348 --> 00:52:56,048 or how they're paying employees or contractors. I'm just curious if you could kind of go down 724 00:52:56,048 --> 00:53:00,268 that rabbit hole a little bit about what that looks like at River over the course of the next 725 00:53:00,268 --> 00:53:04,688 two to three years. Yeah, for sure. Over the next two to three years from that time frame, 726 00:53:04,828 --> 00:53:09,268 definitely want to build more out in that regard when it comes to kind of what ushering in what we 727 00:53:09,268 --> 00:53:13,108 call the dual currency era, which there was a prior report actually that we put out on that as well 728 00:53:13,108 --> 00:53:18,568 in terms of spending in dollars, but saving in Bitcoin, right? By no means from a transactional 729 00:53:18,568 --> 00:53:22,768 basis, do we think Bitcoin is going to replace the dollar tomorrow? There's obviously a lot of 730 00:53:22,768 --> 00:53:26,448 systems and legacy thoughts and things of that nature that need to change in order for that to 731 00:53:26,448 --> 00:53:31,908 happen in the future. So right now we want to help usher that dual currency era of saving in Bitcoin, 732 00:53:32,368 --> 00:53:36,408 spending in dollars in. So that's why we launched things like direct deposit, as you mentioned. 733 00:53:36,868 --> 00:53:40,568 You can now receive payroll directly to your River account. So you can go to your payroll provider 734 00:53:40,568 --> 00:53:46,128 and push whatever amount of dollars to your River account. You can auto convert that into Bitcoin 735 00:53:46,128 --> 00:53:50,328 at time of deposit for free. So you effectively can get paid in Bitcoin. You can set that 736 00:53:50,328 --> 00:53:55,588 percentage you can define what percent of your payroll you get in bitcoin effectively when it 737 00:53:55,588 --> 00:54:00,248 gets deposited to your river accounts obviously that's in addition to our bitcoin interest on cash 738 00:54:00,248 --> 00:54:05,088 as we've we've mentioned before so you do have any idle cash your river cash balance it accrues 739 00:54:05,088 --> 00:54:09,748 daily that interest so you only need to keep in the account for one day or longer it'll pay you 740 00:54:09,748 --> 00:54:14,348 out that interest at the end of the month for that as well so it kind of works in tandem with our 741 00:54:14,348 --> 00:54:19,308 direct deposit support and then coming here soon as well we're at bill pay so kind of rounding out 742 00:54:19,308 --> 00:54:20,988 some of the more fiat kind of rails 743 00:54:20,988 --> 00:54:22,628 and kind of increase 744 00:54:22,628 --> 00:54:24,148 some of the usability there. 745 00:54:24,508 --> 00:54:25,608 You'll be able to pay bills 746 00:54:25,608 --> 00:54:27,028 directly from your River account. 747 00:54:27,188 --> 00:54:28,728 So pay your rents, 748 00:54:28,928 --> 00:54:29,808 pay your gym membership, 749 00:54:30,288 --> 00:54:30,988 whatever it is, 750 00:54:31,008 --> 00:54:31,648 you can pay directly 751 00:54:31,648 --> 00:54:32,888 from your credit card bill 752 00:54:32,888 --> 00:54:34,528 directly from a River account. 753 00:54:34,528 --> 00:54:36,308 So you can hold that cash balance, 754 00:54:36,508 --> 00:54:37,688 earn that interest in the meantime, 755 00:54:38,088 --> 00:54:38,968 then be able to pay bills 756 00:54:38,968 --> 00:54:40,008 directly from there as well. 757 00:54:40,428 --> 00:54:41,568 So really just increasing 758 00:54:41,568 --> 00:54:42,808 some of those features 759 00:54:42,808 --> 00:54:43,968 on the US dollar side of things 760 00:54:43,968 --> 00:54:45,388 to make it easier to kind of 761 00:54:45,388 --> 00:54:46,628 the interoperability 762 00:54:46,628 --> 00:54:47,608 between Bitcoin and dollars 763 00:54:47,608 --> 00:54:48,928 as you need in order 764 00:54:48,928 --> 00:54:50,408 to kind of live on a Bitcoin standard 765 00:54:50,408 --> 00:54:52,548 and also usher some of that dual currency area as well. 766 00:54:56,988 --> 00:54:57,868 And that's awesome. 767 00:54:58,268 --> 00:55:01,408 I think that's, you know, really important features. 768 00:55:01,568 --> 00:55:02,808 You know, clients ask me all the time, 769 00:55:02,888 --> 00:55:05,568 it's like, hey, I want to live more on like a Bitcoin standard. 770 00:55:05,748 --> 00:55:07,248 Like, how do I do this? 771 00:55:07,248 --> 00:55:10,028 And, you know, it's things like you just described 772 00:55:10,028 --> 00:55:11,388 that make that much easier. 773 00:55:12,168 --> 00:55:15,048 My last question, Ben, and this has been, you know, fantastic. 774 00:55:15,248 --> 00:55:18,268 I just kind of want to get your thoughts or opinion. 775 00:55:18,268 --> 00:55:21,648 when you're talking about you're working with advisors and stuff do you just kind of like pitch 776 00:55:21,648 --> 00:55:26,708 it to them as like I'm like your bitcoin arm I'm like your bitcoin guy like what's that some of 777 00:55:26,708 --> 00:55:32,408 that like communication like yeah so in terms of I guess from an advisor perspective the landscape 778 00:55:32,408 --> 00:55:36,828 is pretty pretty wide in terms I'm sure as you know right there's advisors who are very bitcoin 779 00:55:36,828 --> 00:55:41,628 friendly and there's advisors who uh treat bitcoin like the black flag um and it's still kind of in 780 00:55:41,628 --> 00:55:46,748 that that that very wide spectrum so it really depends on where the advisor and their clients 781 00:55:46,748 --> 00:55:51,648 are and kind of mean what mean them where they're at right there are some advisors and their clients 782 00:55:51,648 --> 00:55:56,988 who um use this only for bitcoin on cash they will deposit basically a rainy day fund or whatever it 783 00:55:56,988 --> 00:56:02,828 may be get the fdse insurance and just begin accruing some bitcoin balance on that cash so 784 00:56:02,828 --> 00:56:06,568 they don't have an actual they don't have to buy bitcoin directly but they deposit dollars earn 785 00:56:06,568 --> 00:56:10,308 bitcoin they're off of zero now and getting off of zero as we all know is the biggest kind of 786 00:56:10,308 --> 00:56:14,208 educational step you can take because it forces you to learn about the asset class about bitcoin 787 00:56:14,208 --> 00:56:16,848 as a whole and take that kind of deep dive down the rabbit hole. 788 00:56:17,188 --> 00:56:21,528 But there's some advisors as well where they're fully orange-pilled, they're kind of fully 789 00:56:21,528 --> 00:56:24,828 Bitcoiners, and their clients are majority percent in Bitcoin. 790 00:56:25,508 --> 00:56:29,308 So we work with all advisors, and we work with them in different capacities. 791 00:56:29,768 --> 00:56:33,708 In most capacities, as you mentioned, right, we are their Bitcoin bank, for lack of better 792 00:56:33,708 --> 00:56:34,048 terms. 793 00:56:34,148 --> 00:56:37,948 So when it comes to anything Bitcoin-related, not only are we helping their clients buy 794 00:56:37,948 --> 00:56:40,028 and sell, but we also serve as an educational resource. 795 00:56:40,128 --> 00:56:41,128 So we've done lunch and learns. 796 00:56:41,708 --> 00:56:42,828 We've done different things like that 797 00:56:42,828 --> 00:56:43,968 for firms that are looking 798 00:56:43,968 --> 00:56:45,508 to kind of upskill advisors, 799 00:56:45,748 --> 00:56:46,928 their employees, their CPAs, 800 00:56:46,968 --> 00:56:48,768 their accountants on Bitcoin as a whole, 801 00:56:48,868 --> 00:56:50,008 aside from just explicitly 802 00:56:50,008 --> 00:56:50,988 serving their clients. 803 00:56:51,308 --> 00:56:52,228 So we try to push some of that 804 00:56:52,228 --> 00:56:54,008 educational first type content 805 00:56:54,008 --> 00:56:54,808 out there as well 806 00:56:54,808 --> 00:56:56,748 when it comes to working with advisors 807 00:56:56,748 --> 00:56:58,828 because there is a big educational gap 808 00:56:58,828 --> 00:57:00,328 where we are in that spectrum 809 00:57:00,328 --> 00:57:01,588 for the advisors who skew 810 00:57:01,588 --> 00:57:02,548 towards non-Bitcoiners. 811 00:57:02,828 --> 00:57:03,588 It's typically just because 812 00:57:03,588 --> 00:57:04,488 they haven't taken the time, 813 00:57:04,568 --> 00:57:05,748 the hours that we all have 814 00:57:05,748 --> 00:57:07,188 to learn about the asset class 815 00:57:07,188 --> 00:57:08,328 and learn about Bitcoin as a whole. 816 00:57:08,848 --> 00:57:10,848 So we definitely kind of 817 00:57:11,128 --> 00:57:17,108 Lean into that education piece as well, aside from just explicitly serving advisors and their clients from a buy-sell perspective as well. 818 00:57:18,628 --> 00:57:19,448 I love it. 819 00:57:20,008 --> 00:57:20,668 Man, it's been great. 820 00:57:20,788 --> 00:57:23,508 As Wyatt said, Ben, thank you so much for coming on. 821 00:57:24,348 --> 00:57:31,368 Been looking forward to having this conversation for a long time and glad we finally got it on the calendar and executed. 822 00:57:31,368 --> 00:57:40,048 So any advisor or small business owner that's listening to this, how do they contact you or River? 823 00:57:40,168 --> 00:57:45,868 How do they get involved so that they can start partnering with you all to serve their clients better? 824 00:57:46,788 --> 00:57:49,508 Yeah, in terms of learning more, super easy domains, river.com. 825 00:57:49,768 --> 00:57:56,948 If they ever want to reach out, I'm on Twitter as well, at Ben Epling, or my email is ben.epling, E-P-L-I-N-G, at river.com. 826 00:57:56,948 --> 00:58:00,628 So happy to chat with anyone who's interested or has questions or anything of that nature. 827 00:58:00,628 --> 00:58:01,608 always available. 828 00:58:03,208 --> 00:58:03,568 Beautiful. 829 00:58:04,108 --> 00:58:05,068 Well, thank you so much. 830 00:58:05,168 --> 00:58:06,468 Wyatt, anything else from your side? 831 00:58:07,188 --> 00:58:08,748 No, dude, it was great catching up. 832 00:58:08,868 --> 00:58:09,608 Thanks for coming on. 833 00:58:09,668 --> 00:58:10,328 This was great, Rob. 834 00:58:10,968 --> 00:58:12,288 Yeah, thank you guys for having me. 835 00:58:13,028 --> 00:58:13,348 Beautiful. 836 00:58:13,688 --> 00:58:14,488 All right, thanks so much, guys. 837 00:58:14,548 --> 00:58:15,208 We'll talk to you all soon. 838 00:58:16,088 --> 00:58:16,468 All right, bye. 839 00:58:21,548 --> 00:58:22,928 We appreciate you joining us. 840 00:58:23,268 --> 00:58:24,568 If you want to help build the future 841 00:58:24,568 --> 00:58:26,288 Bitcoin and financial services, 842 00:58:26,528 --> 00:58:28,008 hit subscribe, leave a review, 843 00:58:28,388 --> 00:58:29,288 sign up for our newsletter, 844 00:58:29,288 --> 00:58:31,288 and share this with someone in your network 845 00:58:31,288 --> 00:58:33,428 who's integrating Bitcoin into their practice. 846 00:58:33,428 --> 00:58:35,288 The more professionals we reach, 847 00:58:35,448 --> 00:58:37,248 the stronger this ecosystem becomes 848 00:58:37,248 --> 00:58:38,748 and our clients are better served. 849 00:58:39,208 --> 00:58:40,668 Stay sharp, stay sovereign, 850 00:58:41,008 --> 00:58:41,808 keep learning from the front. 851 00:58:59,288 --> 00:59:07,388 Music