We're really encouraging businesses, just be profitable, store your money in Bitcoin,
and just have a low time preference.
Look five years down the road, 10 years down the road.
You want to be operating a business that's providing something that's productive,
and then storing your time and energy in a better form of money.
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 can 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, Lauren.
Fix the money.
Fix the world.
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Joining us as a CPA and the opinions expressed on the show
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Welcome to Bitcoin for Financial Services Media, the podcast where some money means professional services.
We explore how to build a financial services industry within the principles, ethos, and values of Bitcoin.
Today, we're honored to be joined by Bitcoin for Financial Services Summit veteran and CEO of Sovereign, Brandon Capellas.
we dig into building a Bitcoin business. Let's get started.
All righty, welcome back to another episode of the Bitcoin for Financial Services podcast.
We've got Brandon Karpelis from Sovereign visiting with us today and talking about
what he's been up to in the Bitcoin ecosystem. And this is our Christmas week episode. So
very excited for that. I know we're probably working today, maybe tomorrow, and then
looking forward to maybe a very long holiday weekend. So Brandon, how's it going, man? It's
been a little while since we've talked. Awesome, man. Yeah, I think since the Financial Services
Summit actually was probably the last time we've formally talked other than some back and forth on
emails and things like that. So looking forward to catching up. Absolutely. Wyatt, how are you
doing sir i'm good man like you said a big christmas week uh it's funny it's like this
combination of nobody works from like here till the end of the year but a lot of people want a
lot of work done from here till the end of year so it's like a balancing that is always fun yes
yeah this is the first first year of my life i'm gonna get the end of the year to actually enjoy
uh look at that in fiat land it was end of year quarter end and any deal that didn't get done
this year obviously got pushed in the next year and so that affects the numbers and so
you know always have the c-suite call in what's going on with this deal are we closing this year
are we going to get it booked or what are we going to have to charge off blah blah blah and so
it's going to be nice and then and then of course you would need to get something done and there's
nobody around absolutely no one's work every single you go in the voip system every single
person unavailable on vacation and it's just like uh i'm i'm uh i'm glad i'm not gonna miss that
this year so well it's a it's a great segue brandon i i actually i want to get into you have
an extensive background in fiat world i want you to talk to the audience about what that
looked like. And, uh, and then I'd love to get into, you know, what made you jump ship. Uh,
and now you work in Bitcoin full time so we can get into that as well.
Yeah. So without the full Epic saga, I spent almost two decades in fiat land and really,
as I started going down the Bitcoin rabbit hole, just found it harder and harder to go into my
job every day and be doing something else that wasn't involved with Bitcoin. And specifically,
as I learned more and more about sort of the predatory nature of the fiat system and commercial
lending and creating money out of thin air and what that did to people that didn't understand
the system and weren't able to protect themselves against the system and insulate themselves against
the system. All the rich people understand the game and they're very good at playing it and
they buy assets and they, they know market cycles and they know how to use debt well and, um, never
pay it back. And that's something that I was watching business owners really struggle with.
And obviously the amount of money that was printed in 2020, 2021 for COVID. And then the subsequent
rate hike a relatively high you know rates only went up to like five and a half percent i think
was the peak maybe it was five and a quarter which is a very reasonable interest rate but it compared
to zero or 0.25 basis points that it was a few months before that it just it relatively it was a
very high uh rate hike and a lot of businesses and people were over levered and had become accustomed
And some of them, yes, you should have understood what you were doing.
You should have some financial literacy around debt and interest rates and how levered your business is and all sorts of stuff like that.
But at the same time, they kind of just got accustomed to cheap money.
And it was almost a decade of rates being down there.
And no one imagined the day when they would tick up even a little bit.
And so people maxed out leverage, spent as much as they could with debt and really got burned.
And a lot of them just don't even understand the system they were operating in.
They just knew money was cheap.
Their banker would always give it to them.
And that's how they kind of ran their business.
And I got to a point where I really wanted to go help educate businesses about this problem, help them understand it.
And the businesses I was dealing with were distressed businesses, troubled businesses.
and a lot of them, not all of them, but a lot of them were just kind of caught in the financial leverage gears of taking on too much debt,
not understand what they were doing, low interest rate environment, etc.
And then watching their input cost explode as they were grappling with supply chain shutdowns from all the COVID lockdowns
And then all the money that was printed also led to a massive increase in the cost of everything.
And they just got burned and ultimately ended up on my desk.
And then we had to work them out.
And I think, you know, we had a couple turnaround success stories, but most of them were liquidations or business sales or the bank had to take a loss.
And I just wanted to go out and help business owners figure this out.
And that's when I came across the opportunity at Sovereign. Our founder was assembling a team of consultants to basically go out and educate businesses about this problem, help explain Bitcoin to them. And I thought, what a great opportunity this was.
And then a few things unfolded over the next few months where something happened at my job where I just, it was kind of a sign from God of, hey, I think it's time to move on, time to take a step in this new direction.
Coupled with the fact that our founder was looking for some serious help running the company.
And it all kind of just coalesced in March of this year.
And I decided to take the leap, start helping to run Sovereign.
And over the course of the next few months after that, I've effectively, uh, been CEO
and running the company with, um, uh, you know, sole decision maker, but with the help
of a couple other guys who effectively make up the C-suite at our organization and have
been doing that probably for the past six months or so is in that sort of arrangement.
So a bit of a long-winded answer.
Apologies.
But that is actually the abridged version.
No, it's great, Matt.
I noticed you left out HOA president.
Oh, yeah.
Well, that's on my resume.
That's first and foremost.
HOA president.
And then I have 19 and a half years in traditional finance below that.
I think that background is very pertinent.
is obviously, you know, our podcast audience skews towards, you know, traditional kind of
finance land. We're trying to bring these folks into Bitcoin. So I think it's very important for
these folks to hear from, you know, guys like yourself who spent a lot of time in that world,
saw the light and you decided to do something to get out of it. And I think you're a perfect
guest for us to have on because we really want to be almost kind of intentionally speaking to
like the pre-Bitcoin businesses
in the financial services space
and help give them the tools
to move into servicing Bitcoiners,
accepting Bitcoin.
Why don't you just kind of give us
an overview of what Sovereign does?
And then I kind of want to dig
into each of those individual pieces.
Yeah, so I like to say Sovereign
has three different categories.
We have the education category,
the integration category,
and then the operational category.
And so we kind of see education
is step one integration is step two and then operational is step three and we come in any
part of whatever whatever part of the bitcoin journey the business owner is on we can come in
and step in for a lot of business owners they get the value proposition of bitcoin maybe they
understand it a little bit but they really just want some help getting set up hey how do i how do
I accept payments. You'd actually be surprised how many Bitcoiners are running businesses and
they don't know how to accept lightning payments or they don't, they don't know what tools are out
there available for them. And they listen, they're busy. They're working 10 hour days. They're
trying to watch their margins and they're running a business. And they kind of,
even if they may know how to do all of this stuff, they may just want some help with it.
So that's one part of it. And then the education piece, I'm sorry, I'm kind of jumping around steps
here, but the education piece is really for an organization that is like, I know I need to do
something about Bitcoin, but I don't know what to do. And I need some help with that. Please come in
and do that. And that's been less of our focus. We've done some webinars, we've talked to CPAs,
We've provided some services like that, but the majority of what we're doing now is helping do the actual hardware and software setup for these businesses, getting treasury, being able to buy Bitcoin at reputable exchanges.
As we've all known, the quote unquote crypto world is littered with failed exchanges and scams and Ponzi schemes and all sorts of stuff.
And so really directing people to trusted names in the space, making sure they're buying their Bitcoin from reputable exchanges and then moving it into cold storage.
however they want to have that set up is really important to us along with appropriate platforms
for accepting payments and understanding the difference between custodial which is fine if
you want to use a custodial service to accept payments in bitcoin that's fine you just need to
have a program where you're moving that into your own custody and eventually taking your own custody
and not leaving it in there for extended periods of time or high dollar amounts in there as well or
high sat amounts, if you will, in there as well. And then the last part is we have a lot of business
professionals on our team. We have extensive experience in the, in the banking world and the
business world, um, all, all sorts of different, um, places of expertise and business. And we'll
actually come in with you and talk about how we start implementing this Bitcoin into the operations.
You know, do you want to start a long-term financing program?
Do you have capital projects coming up that you would like to spend this money on?
Do you have benefits you would like to offer your employees?
How do you see this playing out?
And sometimes it's just, no, I want to hold it and use it as a capital asset and just
give out higher distributions in the future.
And that's fine too, but we will talk through all of that with you, help you plan through
that.
what are your needs and wants with the asset and really lay out a plan for them and be there along
the way too. We have packages where you can put us on retainer and we'll talk through, we'll sit
down, we'll block out five hours a month, 10 hours a month, whatever you want. We'll sit down and we'll
do this planning with you and go through all this stuff with you. So that's sort of the full suite
services, I'd be remiss with Jordan on here, not to mention that we have other
partnerships like with CPAs and that sort of thing uh as well for people that need specific tax or legal advice That really the one thing we can sort of advise and coach and directionally show you but getting into the actual nitty gritty
of putting your books together or doing true tax planning or estate planning or wanting to draw up
contracts or something like that, that's really not our expertise. That's kind of the one area we
farm out and partner with other people as well.
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free consultation. Brandon, the first time we met in person was a little bit earlier this year.
I potentially want to take the conversation a little bit, a different direction just to spice
things up a touch. And you guys tell me, you guys feel free to shoot this down. But if I had to sum
up 2025 for Bitcoin, it's kind of like we have been in this weird treasury, Bitcoin treasury thing.
And I think especially for a lot of the guys and gals in our audience, when I talk to someone who's in the traditional financial advisor world, they're like, yeah, but this whole thing with MicroStrategy and all these other companies springing up, they just seem, it just seems like it's not legit.
And so I'll throw it to you, Brandon, first.
I want to get your thoughts.
Again, we met at that Sailor, or I guess the MicroStrategy event back in, I guess that was in April or I don't know when it was.
It was earlier in the year.
May, I think actually early May. Yeah. Okay. And I just, so obviously strategy is, is one thing,
but then there's been all of these other companies that have sprung up and have tried
to do something similar. Uh, we don't have to name any of them. We could, if we wanted to,
to make it real spicy, but, um, I'm just curious if you had one of those come across your desk,
this is just, as you were kind of talking in your background, if you had a company come across your
desk in your previous seat, what would your reaction have been? Or maybe what is your reaction
today on these companies that tried to go out and raise a lot of money? Now they're trading well
below their MNAV. And does that pose a big risk to the overall system? I want to maybe go off on
this tangent. We don't have to. And then of course, I want to make sure we get back to,
you know, because I think it does roll into your all's, your thesis on how you deal with companies
and it's sovereign and how you're pushing more business first and treasury, you know,
that comes later once you make a profit, right? Yeah. So I'm happy to talk about this topic. I
have tons of thoughts. I talked with Robin Sayre. I went on his podcast and we actually talked for
a while about this. So I, but it's, I actually went back and listened to, I think I recorded
the episode back in like September and, and, uh, I must say it aged very well. I think the,
the points I made then sort of when we were still in kind of the hype part of it. And I think it
played out sort of as I, uh, had cautioned people that we actually had a company come to us and they
did very well. They had 10 Bitcoin on their balance sheet already. And so the owner was
trying to have us go in, convince his board that they should convert to a Bitcoin treasury company,
and then ultimately help him become that, tap the capital markets, get even more Bitcoin on his
balance sheet. And we actually advised him against that. We said, this is not a good plan. You've
built a great business here. Your entire life's work is in this thing. You've built up a nice
little cushion here, a nice little nest egg. It's sitting on your balance sheet. You run a very
effective business, just keep taking your profits, keep buying Bitcoin. You don't
want to go out and tap these capital markets because that's not what you do. You're not a
company full of financial professionals trying to go out and game the market, for lack of a better
term. And as you said, Jordan, strategy is a whole different animal. They're light years ahead on this.
They've figured it out. They have really, really low leverage. I know everyone thinks that if
Bitcoin goes down to like $60,000 that the whole micro strategy is going to get like liquidated.
Like people have people, they have such low leverage and such an insane amount of Bitcoin.
Like it's just, they're not even worth the conversation.
And the only way micro strategy really or strategy gets, gets burned as if they go too
far out on the leverage curve and they start adding a bunch of debt and start levering
up way more than they are, which brings me to my next point was one of the things Jordan, I think
I remember talking to you about it and Jeff Newman from sovereign as well, our, our chief sales
officer, we were talking about it. One of the companies that went up there was bragging that
they were, they had 65% leverage and against their Bitcoin. And like, that's how they were adding more
Bitcoin. And I was like, this sounds like a terrible idea. If basically if there's a 35%
or somewhere in the neighborhood drawdown on Bitcoin,
your whole stack gets liquidated.
Like, what are we doing here?
This does not sound like a good idea.
But it was interesting to hear them pitching this,
basically saying we're going to go farther and farther out on the leverage curve,
and that's why we'll be attractive.
That's why you want to buy our stock.
Don't take the safe equity play if you're looking to buy stock.
And obviously our advice is everyone buy Bitcoin, put it in cold storage,
And that's the safest, best bet. You're not going to get burned. But for people trying to quote unquote, find more yield or find more return and get more dollars, the way to do that is to buy more, buy stock of company that's going to take on more and more leverage.
And then obviously, as those companies take on more and more leverage, they get riskier and riskier and riskier.
And so the idea I was talking with Rob and Sarah about was like, you can effectively play this game where your Bitcoin, if it's if the tagger of the Bitcoin, if the annual growth is more than the is more than the your debt.
So if you're adding less debt than the amount Bitcoin grew, so Bitcoin grew 40%, but you only added 20% more debt, you could effectively do this forever, right?
Like that's the sort of promise of these treasury companies that you're going to be able to run this.
They literally had a slide at that conference, Jordan, and it said flywheel strategy on it.
I'm like, that's what FTX did.
That's flywheel strategies end in pain because eventually you have a drawdown and then you
can no longer fly or do the wheel.
And that's when you get liquidated.
And that's when you go bankrupt.
Yeah.
That's the problem with all these treasury companies.
And by the way, this isn't a 30% drawdown from all time highs.
Like this is not some sort of cataclysmic bear market we've entered.
This is like a minor hiccup along the way.
And these companies are getting absolutely massacred.
And so if we do go down another 20% or another 30% and have a more sort of traditional bear market, these companies are all done.
They're all done.
So because you can't run the flywheel anymore, the value of your Bitcoin is decreased.
So you can't lever it up anymore.
And that's when you get liquidated.
that's when you have to sell and that's when your penny stock goes to an actual penny and you
that the whole idea that was sold was bitcoin's kaggers 40 to 50 percent and we're just going to
take on 20 percent more debt or 30 percent more debt and we're just going to keep doing this well
the problem is bitcoin's kaggers 40 50 but it's up 200 percent one year 300 another year and then
it's down 80 so like at some point you're going to get caught off sides in this trade and that's
when you get liquidated and i think there are some companies that understand this concept and will
manage their balance sheet micro strategy is doing this they manage their balance sheet very
conservatively and they're able to stomach a huge drawdown and they know that and they position the
company in a position where they can stomach that huge drawdown. The problem is strategy is the
benefactor of being at Bitcoin for five years, putting profits on their balance sheet, and now
they're doing these sort of financial alchemy. Whereas these other companies don't have an
operational business, don't have any profits, didn't put anything into Bitcoin, and they're
jumping straight to the financial alchemy part, and they're getting over levered, and they're
going to get over their skis and they're going to get wiped out. And at the end of the day,
the ones that do survive, it will either be prudence. Like they actually understood this
concept. They took on very low leverage and they just decided, Hey, we're happy with small gains
and a little extra juicing of our profits. And that's how we're going to manage it.
Or it'll just be sheer dumb luck. Like, okay, we levered up to this level, but Bitcoin only came
down this level and we basically skated by luckily not not by any sort of planning or understanding
of what was going on and and they may make it till the next cycle or maybe we're done with cycles
maybe they'll just make it to to live to fight another day basically so that's kind of what's
going on with these it's sovereign we're really encouraging businesses just be profitable store
your money in Bitcoin and look and just have a low time preference. Look five years down the road,
10 years down the road. You want to be operating a business that's providing something that's
productive and then storing your time and energy in a better form of money as opposed to just
trying to game a system, put a bunch of Bitcoin on the balance. I mean, I even asked these companies
like, now what? Okay, it's, you got all this Bitcoin, it's five years from now, we just,
all take our dollars and go like, what did we do? I mean, it just, it doesn't seem very exciting to
me. It's, um, I don't know. It's, it's just more of the same game, right? Like we were talking
about at the beginning that, that rich people understand how to lever the system. They understand
how to get assets, but you're not, you're not doing anything. You're just, you're just taking
advantage of us. You're no different than, um, you know, the, the mom that's cheating the welfare
system with eight kids and no dad to like, you're no different. You're the same thing. You're just
fleecing a system where you didn't add any value. You're actually extracting value because as you
borrow more and more money, you're causing inflation for everyone else holding dollars.
So you're, you're actually a net negative on the system. And it's like, great. You won the game,
But can you do you go to bed at night feeling good about yourself or, you know, what are we proud of?
Like, what did we do here?
Yeah.
Well, and I like I kind of go back to like even Pierre's talk at our conference, you know, as maybe the counter argument.
I think he was mainly arguing on behalf of strategy, if I had to guess.
But this whole trade of, you know, you're short the dollar, you're long Bitcoin.
and I think that's really at the core of what all of these companies are trying to do right
but he's right by the way Pierre is right but it's like does that make you feel good is this
some sort of I are you happy with what you're doing in your life I mean I don't know it seems
wholly unfulfilling to me to be like I figured out I can short the dollar and long bitcoin
and yay, I have one life.
It just seems wholly unrewarding to me.
Yeah.
Well, and I guess, but even you have to be a very special,
honestly, type of person to really do it well.
And to your point, I mean, yeah, Sailor got into the game
and everyone threw at his head for how many years?
Probably two, three years.
I mean, even still, even now, people are like,
oh my gosh, it's drawn down.
And it's like, dude, he took a $1 billion market cap to $45 billion.
That's pretty impressive in my book, at least.
But I think all the copycats, yeah, it's just tough sledding.
And I think for Bitcoin plebs and businesses that are trying to build their business using Bitcoin as one of the main tools to do so,
I think they're the real potential losers in the end if these treasure companies go under, they get liquidated,
that sense of price in this kind of like a bit of a death spiral until it can find its footing.
And at the end of the day, what it really does is it keeps us in this part of the conversation
where Bitcoin's unserious. And I think that's what everyone on this call, like what we're trying to
really push forward, right, is have Bitcoin be taken seriously amongst all parties, you know,
be it small businesses, high net worth, individuals, governments, the whole list. So anyways, I don't
know if you why don't do you have any thoughts on any of that as from the
advisor standpoint yeah I fairly agnostic on Bitcoin Treasury companies they probably come you know somewhere in the middle of youtube the high level i think this is a bitcoinization of
finance playing out so this is creating instruments financial instruments to get
dollars into bitcoin and ultimately i think that's a good thing i think it's a serious thing
and i do think you appear also says that you know these bitcoin treasury companies will be
able to recapitalize the market i think he does have a a leg to to stand on there that being said
i don't think the equity markets is necessarily the most appropriate instrument to use and and
get dollars into bitcoin and i think it will be a winner take most market um yeah i think very
highly of you know michael saylor and strategy i think he'll go down as a captive industry for what
he's done for corporate finance. I do think it's interesting and how some of these other companies
are developing in markets, you know, their own kind of individual stock markets where,
you know, those investors may not be able to easily get access to U.S. capital markets. I've
talked to companies in Thailand, Brazil, Hong Kong that are more or less, you know, copying the
strategy and deploying them in their local markets. I think those companies more than likely will be
successful in the u.s at least i'm worried about yeah the 20th 25th treasury company that's your
copycat and the strategy to your point granted that doesn't have as good as debt terms and
i do think if i'm disappointed in one aspect of this it was just kind of the i can go to market
and do this without an operating business i think that was pretty foolish and i was in
bitcoin amsterdam and listened to you know mauler sit down with peter mccormick that you know really
stuck with me and you know this isn't i don't have any inside knowledge on this i don't know
those guys i'm just reading between the lines here jack and his talk was like there's four
profitable business models in crypto it's exchanges lending treasury companies and stable coins
well if i'm reading between the lines here you know they just launched 21 they're backed by
tether stable coin they launched a bitcoin treasury company strike does exchange and lending
like if 21 is successful it's more than likely going to be because they acquire strike and they
have this well-functioning operating business getting back to your base point brandon that
stacks bitcoin on their balance sheet they just happen to be in the public markets and can
use some additional tools available to them that private companies don't have but yeah i do think
it was too much hubris just to think i can put bitcoin on my balance sheet my stock will rip
that's what i think happened with game stop you know they announced at the bitcoin conference last
year they bought x amount of bitcoin their stock didn't do anything and if you are doing this
strategy like you really have to commit to it yeah i think game stops like the perfect example it's
like you can't just put bitcoin in your balance sheet and expect your stock to perform well they
i mean that's a whole separate issue he i i seem to recall he said he like might buy ethereum too
and he still wasn't really a Bitcoin believer.
And so, I mean, he definitely shot himself in the foot.
But I agree with you 100%.
That's the problem.
You nailed it, Wyatt, when you said
they didn't come in with an operating business.
They just thought they were going to build some shell
to raise money.
And then it's like, okay, well, at the end of the day,
if you do that, this is a trade for you.
So who's your exit liquidity?
so who are who are you dumping on to get your more dollars back when bitcoin appreciates and
you're not actually selling any more bitcoin you're selling shares of a company that doesn't
do anything before the music you know so it's yeah that that's what rubs me the wrong way too
is you didn't come in making anything doing anything valuable and you were basically just
trying to raise a bunch of money, pump it up, and then dump on someone. And you never really
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Well, I think where we could go from this part of the conversation is, okay, so if we're,
If we're skeptical of that part of the Bitcoin ecosystem and how it's been playing out, if you move over to operational businesses having the opportunity to dip their toe into Bitcoin, whether it's the Treasury sweeping profits into the Treasury or taking Bitcoin as payment.
And Brandon, I guess, tell us what you're seeing on the ground with the business owners
you've spoken with.
Of course, we can talk about some of the point of sale implementations that have come out
this year that's making things a lot easier for businesses to onboard into Bitcoin.
But I think that that honestly is the most bullish story of this whole year is honestly
the work that you all have been doing on the ground, speaking with business owners and
trying to help them solve a core problem within their business and personal financial life that
is inflation and how Bitcoin helps to offset that. Yeah. And this square rollout has been amazing.
I mean, that's to even be able to say, do you just have a, I actually talked to a guy, he owns a
wine shop up by me and he's a really cool shop. It's all organic, biodynamic, natural. And Ben
justman would be very proud of this place i was gonna say did i sell perry lane yeah well i've
talked i have actually talked to him about that and he went to the website and he said that's very
cool and so i'm actually gonna bring a bottle buy for him and just be like sample this let me know
uh i asked ben if he wanted if he would be willing to go into other markets and get some other stores
but he he didn't uh he didn't respond to me on that one so anyways i went in and he had a point
of sales it's called like light speed or light something i'm i'm actually or lightning speed or
something i'm actually forgetting the name was one of the ones i actually hadn't heard of but i started
talking to him about it and he said yeah and he i said would you ever think about switching over to
a different point of sale and i started talking to him because peony lane was brought up and i
mentioned how i met him through bitcoin and would you think about switching over he's like yeah i
guess I really wouldn't care. And I would just accept whatever people just wave their card in
front of this thing. Anyways, Square has been trying to get ahold of me. They're willing to
offer me a 25% discount to get set up with them. I'm like, okay, well, so there's a year one
savings for you. I'm guessing it's probably similar in cost. It's not going to be a,
it's not that hard to switch infrastructure here. And he said, no, absolutely not. And so
that's been a really cool development to even be able to go into stores and be like here's here's
a merchant option for you i mean you could do it at bars restaurants that was always a hard part
and that's sort of what pub key had figured out that they were running all their own infrastructure
and doing lots and lots of transactions and it's all only inbound there's no outbound transactions
so and flash made things easier and unchained had ways you could do it but it then it was a
custodial wallet. So there's all these tools being built out to solve these problems of business
owners getting it, um, getting it through payments. And then the treasury option as well is super
easy. There's so many great exchanges. There's so many great self-custody options. There's great
multi-sig options. There's business concierge options as well out there. And that's, that's
really who we've been dealing with so far is profitable companies who have actually done quite
well and they're they're sitting there going i have this cash i have these reserves but it's a
melting ice cube i i don't have some massive capital project i don't want to go hire 10 more
people just to have more headcount i you know i don't want to do all this stuff like what do i do
Where do I put this money? How do I save it? And these are people who understand that they're profitable, the value of hard money, or at least the lack of value in soft money.
They, they understand that, that they just can't store their, their time and energy in fiat. And so they'll come to us. And so it's been really cool so far. We're in 2026. We're going to try to branch out a little more and maybe get into some bigger institutions or companies where we're kind of pushing them like, Hey, you need to understand that. Why this, why don't you, why don't you bring us on?
we'll get you set up, blah, blah, blah. But this year has been a lot more of people who have,
they've taken a step or two into their Bitcoin journey already and are looking for help. And
so we're going to try, obviously we'd love to keep doing that. And it's been exciting working
with those people and we're going to continue to work with those people. And those are our best
customers, by the way, is people who wanted help, came to us, got the help and have just been
eternally grateful. They're super happy with everything. And we have great relationships with
those people. I imagine they're going to be customers for life. And we're not even, we didn't
even have a full year of operation last year. And so to have that already is super cool.
But we are also going to be trying to get out there and say, and push those people into their
first couple steps of their Bitcoin journey as well to explain that to them. And that's been a
tougher hurdle, but I do think we're going to, we have some good plans and good people to make
that happen. And I think we're going to do it. So. Yeah, that's awesome. And one of the things I
talk about a lot is just like, I'm so bullish on the development within the Bitcoin ecosystem,
and then specifically in like the subject of Bitcoin financial services of what entrepreneurs
are doing in the space.
Brandon, do you think Sovereign was possible five years ago?
And you want to like list out some specific tools and products like you recommend to your
clients for the audience and just kind of elaborate on like the development in this
space and how it makes, you know, our jobs easier.
Well, I would say that Sovereign five years ago, just from a just from a culture and sort
of zeitgeist standpoint would have been impossible.
no i mean i used to try to talk to people about bitcoin four or five years ago and i laughed out
of the room i mean just i one in 20 i would get some sort of favorable response or even like a
willingness to talk about it and today everyone's heard of bitcoin and they're at least like okay
they'll at least start asking questions even if it's like well i heard it uses a lot of energy
or I heard only criminals use it.
Like you even get FUD responses back
before they would just be like just nothing,
just a zero.
And so I don't even think it would,
I don't even think businesses
would have even considered the possibility
of doing anything with Bitcoin five years ago.
So just from a mission standpoint of the company,
I don't even think we would be able to exist five years ago.
But in terms of the tools,
companies like Unchained, they now have, you can get, you can get multi-institution custody
through them if people don't want to hold their own keys where they'll effectively be your Bitcoin
bank for you. And, but via separated keys. So it's not, you don't have concentration at one
institution. That tool exists. We've had people ask us for that. Unfortunately, one of the people
that asked us for that was not in the U.S. and unable to take advantage of it, but I'm sure
services will expand globally. Stuff like Flash, stuff like ZapRite, even BTC Pay Server,
way easier to use now, way more user-friendly, and the UX of BTC Pay Server has gotten so much
better, the ability to, and also just the liquidity on the Lightning Network as well, just the amount
of money that's available on the lightning network to be able to facilitate a lot of these channels.
I mean, lightning payments, I don't know if you guys remember, but lightning payments used to fail
all the time. I mean, if, and you're talking a hundred, a hundred bucks, 80 bucks, stuff like
that, you couldn't get it. It was hard. Now it's seamless. It works like 99% of the time. So even
just the ability of completing payments and the liquidity of the lightning network has improved
so much and the channel routing the ability to get to other channels and accept payment has
increased dramatically so those are a lot of the tools and then just having having an array of
really good bitcoin only exchanges out there strike unchained um companies like that or um Yeah strike river unchained um just even having a really good stable of competitive exchanges that are bitcoin only to go to as opposed to four to five years ago a lot
of these companies were sort of in their nascent stages we didn't know who they were and it was
kind of like you know there's coinbase or some of these other places have been around but no one
wants to deal with them and they have the crypto casino going on there as well. And so even those
options, having trusted people, you feel good about sending people to as well has proliferated
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one thing that you touched on just a little bit ago that i know even wide and i are trying to
figure out ourselves is trying to get this message out to a more uh traditional audience a more just
like an audience it's like they're just not they're not following you know the filter versus
quantum debate on on x or something like that right that's probably for the best actually but
yeah sure yeah yeah definitely for the best for their mental health and and everything else but
But I guess, does Sovereign have any strategies going into the new year that you'd be willing to share about trying to get the word out to someone who's like, they're not even looking to get into it, but we're trying to explain to them why they should care about Bitcoin.
Again, not from a price action standpoint, but from a, hey, this is why your life feels so hard right now standpoint.
And we have a solution that we think is a really good idea.
I'm just curious, any channels that you guys are potentially going through on getting that message across?
And then making sure that that message is like really dialed in so that, you know, new customer kind of understands exactly the problem you're solving.
yeah we've thought about this a lot actually and there's a couple things we're gonna be doing we've
started doing them already but we're gonna start getting out on the for lack of a better term the
normie business circuit we're gonna um we're gonna start applying for speaker positions panel
positions at um business expos small business expos financial um expos and conferences and that
sort of thing. So we're, we, we actually hired a media guy who is helping us with that, just source
a bunch of different stuff. And so if there's something, for example, there's one in Iowa,
I'm in Chicago, I'm going to, I'll drive out to that one and do it. So I'm going to apply to that
one. And we have people in New York, people in DC, people in Vegas. We found a couple in Vegas,
the conference capital of the world out there. So we'll have our Vegas guy, try to get on that one
and just try to infiltrate that.
And then at the same time,
we're going to start joining some networks,
some business networks,
especially if we're in big cities like Chicago
has tons of different options.
There's tech stuff, there's finance stuff,
there's middle market business stuff.
And try to just join that network with people that way
and be sort of the Bitcoin guy there,
be the only person that knows about Bitcoin.
Who is this?
What is that?
Pique some curiosity.
And then lastly, we're going to start trying to get on or have on people in the normal finance world or the normal business world that aren't Bitcoiners and see if we can talk to them about Bitcoin, see if they'll be open to that.
And so really continuing a focus in the Bitcoin community with Bitcoiners and all that, but really going hard into the non-Bitcoin community and putting our time and effort there, saying if we can ingratiate ourselves to people, build trust.
And given all of us have extensive backgrounds and, you know, multi-decade backgrounds and doing other things. And so hopefully that provides us some, some credibility and at least a willingness to listen to what we have to say that, okay, these people aren't totally crazy. They, they left a lucrative career of a very long time to go do something else, to go do this. Maybe they're not nuts.
um and so that's those are going to be our avenues of focus and i i think i think it's
going to be awesome i think it's going to be really cool and i think it's going to be a
great opportunity but we'll we'll see how all of this goes next year that's awesome uh
are most of folks you guys talk to would you kind of like predominantly say they're like
services business you know is it like the one shop down the street gives them insight of that
um i would say so far generally speaking it's owner operators with sole decision making authority
that really understand sort of the proof of work idea maybe they're not fully orange pill or
whatever but they get it like hey i'm doing something productive here i'm making something
but i can't keep up with the rising costs and i i heard a bitcoin is a potential solution
explain it to me why and I would say that's been much more the mix and then we've had like I said
we've had a good deal of Bitcoiners who just want some extra help like hey maybe I have my own cold
storage set up or I have my business and I just take my salary and I buy Bitcoin on my own but I
really haven't set it up for the company I don't have a good setup will you guys help me come do
that. And that's actually been, uh, maybe, maybe like half of, uh, our clientele so far as well
as it's been that kind of Bitcoiner, give me some extra help and expertise as well.
Yeah. I mean, even on the individual side, I mean, I know I hired, uh, someone, uh, if anyone
knows Armin De Parman, uh, yeah. I mean, I, I, yeah, legend. I engaged him, uh, and I'm, it was
all through. I met a guy. We had known each other on, on X or Twitter at the time we met at the
conference in Miami in person. So I was like, okay, you're, you're a real guy. And then he actually,
uh, put me in contact with, with, uh, Parman and, um, and yeah, I mean, I paid Parman some sats
that honestly that, you know, I paid a lot of money for that consulting now. Um, but you know,
it's, it was one of those things that it was very necessary in my learning journey, even though I was
very willing to like put in the hours myself but it's it's just so helpful to have somebody kind of
hold your hand especially if you don't have you know someone in your family or close to you that's
willing to do it uh you know for free so i love that you guys are doing that so um well jord just
just something i want to add to that point just because i think a part of this is something we
talk about a lot you know it's like oh i have bitcoin like what i need financial services and
to speak kind of like more to your line of business, Brandon, or if you're a business owner,
it's like crucially important you make data driven decisions and the amount of due diligence
and intentionality you have to make or put into those decisions is paramount to the future success
of your business. And it's valuable just getting a second opinion on that, right? And like leaning
into, you know, folks like yourselves who have done the work that can add a different perspective
that you can bounce ideas off of.
That's something that I think crosses Bitcoin,
that Bitcoiners should ignore.
It's important that we build out this ecosystem.
So I just love that point, Jordan.
I think that's very pertinent.
Yeah, there's so much that goes on in running a business
that, listen, some businesses,
you might be fine holding all your Bitcoin.
And if you need to sell a little, you'll sell it,
you'll get the dollars, whatever.
Other businesses have incredible seasonality.
And it's like, hey, I need a line of credit for this season and then I pay it back then. And so there's all sorts of different factors that come into running businesses and thinking about these things beyond even even the companies we like to work with, the profitable businesses that are, hey, here's my profits.
I like to take my profits, store some or all of it in Bitcoin.
That's great.
But there's also like running a business that happens all the time.
And there's other financial considerations you have to have along the way.
Unfortunately, you may need to put a new roof on your building.
Well, guess what?
I don't know too many roofing companies taking Bitcoin.
So it's like you may need some dollar reserves for that.
Let's at least think through this.
And are you going to be comfortable, uh, in 30 days from now selling $25,000 worth of Bitcoin?
If the price drops 20%, will you be happy with that decision?
If so, great.
Okay.
You know, some people can live with that and that's cool.
But other people are like, no, let's just, I know the roof's going to be 25 K let's just
set aside the 25 K and do it.
So that's a super simple example, but that's just one of hundreds of decisions business
owners are making every single day.
So, yeah. Well, Brandon, it's always so good. I mean, there's so many topics we could go,
you know, on and on for, but you know, for better or worse, this is, uh, we're not at the Joe Rogan
level of like the three, four hour, uh, not with that attitude. Well, not, well, not with that.
And then why it was like, Oh, well, I got a hard stop. And to his credit, I actually do have a hard
stop as well. I've got a little mining, uh, mining webinar. I've got to hop on and talk to all the
people who are like last very last minute planning trying to get some bitcoin miners plugged in
before year end so should i be going long asics here jordan is that what you're telling me
um i'd be long tax planning for bitcoin mining companies there's a little bit of planning that's
going into with all the big beautiful bill stuff uh so that's been uh fun but also a lot of a lot
of work so um brand i'm excited for us to continue working together and just sharing
clients back and forth. It's been just a true pleasure to get to work with you and Jeff and
the whole team. So this is great. And we'll have to bring you back on very soon. What's the handoff
if there's an advisor out there who has some clients, either they want to do it themselves
or they have clients they want to send your way, what's the best way for them to get in contact
with you? Yeah, the easiest way is just go to the website, Sovereign, S-O-V-E-R-E-I-G-N,
sovereignwithoutthefirste.io and just reach out to us. There's a contact us form there,
or we also have a referral program. So we will pay 10% of the first year's billings that we have
to you if you refer someone in and we close business with them. So that's a great opportunity
as well. If you do have an actual referral, someone you want to send over to us,
check out the referral tab on the website and then Sovereign has accounts on LinkedIn
X we're sovereign at Sovereign X again that's S-O-V-E-R-E-I-G-N and we're on Noster but I run
the Noster Sovereign account and I suck at running social media accounts so um it if you if you do
reach out to me I will respond but I will probably move us over to a different platform to chat so
that being said yeah and we might have an instagram account i know we were talking about
bringing it back but i don't know so just go to go to the website sovereign.io or x or linkedin
or uh naster those are those are the four best places beautiful all right well this is fun why
any last words from you yeah thanks so much for coming on brandon it's always good to have a
Bacorn for Financial Services Summit veteran on.
We're looking forward to having you out next year.
Yeah.
And looking forward to staying in touch.
Absolutely.
I appreciate all you guys did with that, by the way.
It was incredible.
I know I told you guys separately,
but you guys really knocked it out of the ballpark with that thing.
So well done on that.
And I always love chatting with both of you.
It's never enough time.
So maybe next time we do this,
we will have to do like a Rogan-style episode.
Maybe in person.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Maybe in person.
That would be fun.
That would be great.
All right, cool.
Well, Merry Christmas, everyone.
And Merry Christmas, Brandon and Wyatt.
I will talk to you guys soon, okay?
Thanks.
Merry Christmas, guys.
Thanks.
Okay.
See you, Johns.
We appreciate you joining us.
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