1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,240 Bitcoin is one of the most liquid assets in the world. 2 00:00:03,700 --> 00:00:06,260 Yes, the volatility historically has been super high. 3 00:00:06,740 --> 00:00:08,560 We know what the returns have been historically. 4 00:00:09,200 --> 00:00:15,120 There is more transparency in Bitcoin than with virtually any other asset for a variety of reasons. 5 00:00:15,740 --> 00:00:19,220 And that's an interesting conversation that we've been having with clients is saying, 6 00:00:19,340 --> 00:00:24,200 hey, you're interested in private or alternative investments. 7 00:00:24,700 --> 00:00:26,180 This is another thing to think about. 8 00:00:26,180 --> 00:00:31,200 And from a risk-adjusted perspective, we propose that Bitcoin is superior. 9 00:00:56,180 --> 00:00:56,540 Deal. 10 00:00:56,740 --> 00:00:57,140 Stupid. 11 00:00:57,480 --> 00:00:59,400 Everything is bullish for Bitcoin. 12 00:00:59,640 --> 00:01:00,040 Immoral. 13 00:01:00,320 --> 00:01:01,740 It's going up forever, Laura. 14 00:01:02,240 --> 00:01:03,100 Fix the money. 15 00:01:03,700 --> 00:01:04,460 Fix the world. 16 00:01:07,400 --> 00:01:09,720 Waterwork is a registered investment advisor, and the opinions expressed on the show are 17 00:01:09,720 --> 00:01:11,320 their own and do not reflect the opinions of the Silk LLC. 18 00:01:11,560 --> 00:01:13,780 Joining us as a CPA, and the opinions expressed on the show are their own and do not reflect 19 00:01:13,780 --> 00:01:15,320 the opinions of trusted CPA or other affiliated firms. 20 00:01:15,620 --> 00:01:18,060 Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or 21 00:01:18,060 --> 00:01:20,360 solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment 22 00:01:20,360 --> 00:01:20,620 strategies. 23 00:01:20,780 --> 00:01:22,340 Investments of all risk and almost otherwise stated are not guaranteed. 24 00:01:22,500 --> 00:01:24,540 Information expressed is not taking into account your specific situation or objectives 25 00:01:24,540 --> 00:01:26,300 is not intended as a recommendation appropriate for any individual. 26 00:01:26,480 --> 00:01:28,540 Listeners are encouraged to seek advice from a qualified tax, legal, or investment advisor 27 00:01:28,540 --> 00:01:30,780 to determine whether any information presented may be suitable for their specific situation. 28 00:01:30,940 --> 00:01:32,200 Past performance is not indicative of future performance. 29 00:01:32,320 --> 00:01:33,700 Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice. 30 00:01:37,040 --> 00:01:39,720 Welcome to Bitcoin for Financial Services Media, 31 00:01:40,200 --> 00:01:42,860 the podcast where somebody meets professional services. 32 00:01:43,340 --> 00:01:45,820 We explore how to build a financial services industry 33 00:01:45,820 --> 00:01:48,820 within the principles, values, and ethos of Bitcoin. 34 00:01:49,460 --> 00:01:52,820 Today, we're joined by Gerard, co-founder of Citrine Capital Advisors. 35 00:01:52,820 --> 00:01:59,900 We're discussing Bitcoin's role in wealth management and our fiduciary duty to serve our clients using Bitcoin. 36 00:02:00,380 --> 00:02:01,460 Let's get started. 37 00:02:05,860 --> 00:02:09,780 Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Bitcoin for Financial Services podcast. 38 00:02:10,080 --> 00:02:16,860 We're honored to be with Gerard, founder, co-founder of Citrine Advisors. 39 00:02:17,140 --> 00:02:17,860 Welcome to the show, Gerard. 40 00:02:18,480 --> 00:02:19,720 Thank you. Pleasure to be here. 41 00:02:19,720 --> 00:02:25,940 we got to know each other through the bitcoin financial advisors network i mentioned them on 42 00:02:25,940 --> 00:02:31,940 the show a handful of times i've just gotten so grateful for that group one i think it's 43 00:02:31,940 --> 00:02:38,400 awesome just being able to form a collaborative brain trust of you know folks that in the advisory 44 00:02:38,400 --> 00:02:43,880 space are talking about bitcoin why don't you just give the audience a little background on 45 00:02:43,880 --> 00:02:48,780 yourself background on your firm how you stumbled upon bitcoin financial advisors network and how 46 00:02:48,780 --> 00:02:56,540 you started, you know, working in this space. Sure. So I'm co-founder of Citroen Capital. We're a 47 00:02:56,540 --> 00:03:02,180 San Francisco based wealth management firm and tax preparation firm. Historically and primarily, 48 00:03:02,180 --> 00:03:07,040 we have served tech professionals with company equity conversation and startup founders and 49 00:03:07,040 --> 00:03:12,080 business owners. And we've been specializing and just dealing with the complexities of 50 00:03:12,080 --> 00:03:19,540 equity compensation and private investments. And over time, that also has shifted to more of a 51 00:03:19,540 --> 00:03:29,280 Bitcoin focus as well. That's exciting, man. One of the things that I would love your insight on, 52 00:03:29,340 --> 00:03:35,140 and so it's a little easier to integrate Bitcoin, I think, into your business if you're kind of like 53 00:03:35,140 --> 00:03:40,540 the sole shock caller. I know you have a partner. What have those conversations been like? 54 00:03:40,540 --> 00:03:45,360 uh yeah i know he uh maybe orange filled you if you want to share that with the audience and just 55 00:03:45,360 --> 00:03:49,880 what it's working like what it looks like working collaboratively with a partner to bring bitcoin 56 00:03:49,880 --> 00:03:54,940 to the business to service bitcoiners or if you've advised uh businesses that you know are interested 57 00:03:54,940 --> 00:04:00,420 in bitcoin but you know maybe one of the partners is you know unsure definitely yeah happy to dive in 58 00:04:00,420 --> 00:04:08,980 so our bitcoin journey started in let's say 2014 approximately um no surprise because we are in the 59 00:04:08,980 --> 00:04:15,020 San Francisco Bay Area, there was clients essentially more interested in Bitcoin than 60 00:04:15,020 --> 00:04:20,660 we were at the time. Absolutely. That's fair to say. So clients were bringing up Bitcoin to us. 61 00:04:20,740 --> 00:04:26,320 They're saying, hey, we have this or should we get into this thing? And no surprise, as the 62 00:04:26,320 --> 00:04:31,720 traditional financial planner, we brushed it off as being super speculative. We said, hey, there 63 00:04:31,720 --> 00:04:36,360 really isn't a place in the portfolio. Maybe we think about it in the speculative bucket, 64 00:04:36,360 --> 00:04:41,900 but we shouldn't go outside of that traditional five or 10% maximum, let's say. And we truthfully 65 00:04:41,900 --> 00:04:47,440 didn't really understand it at the time. And it was also admittedly quite a bit different than 66 00:04:47,440 --> 00:04:52,700 Bitcoin is today, right? There's just so much more momentum, regulatory clarity, et cetera, behind it. 67 00:04:53,260 --> 00:05:02,740 But that was kind of the experience that we had 2014, 2015. And we fast forward until maybe about 68 00:05:02,740 --> 00:05:09,700 late 2018, I would say, and my business partner, Ryan, he's like, hey, we really should take 69 00:05:09,700 --> 00:05:15,660 another deep dive into this. We feel like it's our fiduciary duty to our clients. We need to 70 00:05:15,660 --> 00:05:21,140 really understand it far better. It's not going away clearly, and potentially it's going to become 71 00:05:21,140 --> 00:05:31,100 even more of a important asset. So we really took a very, very deep dive into this and took the time 72 00:05:31,100 --> 00:05:39,600 to go through books and podcasts and everything we can literally get our hands on and as of 2020 we 73 00:05:39,600 --> 00:05:45,240 implemented bitcoin exposure in all client portfolios unless they opted out which was a 74 00:05:45,240 --> 00:05:51,020 very small percentage that opted out so since 2020 we have had bitcoin exposure in the portfolio 75 00:05:51,020 --> 00:05:57,840 so as i mentioned it was ryan that initially orange-pilled me and encouraged me to really 76 00:05:57,840 --> 00:06:05,200 think about this in a much different way than we historically had. And that's been our journey. 77 00:06:05,320 --> 00:06:10,900 And it's been an interesting one. And since then, we've really been obsessively researching about it 78 00:06:10,900 --> 00:06:15,700 on a pretty much daily basis as many Bitcoiners go down the rabbit hole. 79 00:06:16,980 --> 00:06:18,620 40 hours of Bitcoin podcasts a week. 80 00:06:18,900 --> 00:06:25,120 Yeah, you have to. That's just a baseline. So I guess talk us through what were some of the 81 00:06:25,120 --> 00:06:33,000 resources that you all pulled off the shelf to actually dive deep into this. And I know that 82 00:06:33,000 --> 00:06:38,300 things have changed a lot. And I guess my real question is like, are we talking about 2016, 83 00:06:38,460 --> 00:06:45,180 17, 18, or was it more 19, 20 when there was quite a bit more in terms of books, podcasts, 84 00:06:45,180 --> 00:06:50,760 and resources to learn? Yeah, our research started definitely in the 18, 19 period, 85 00:06:50,760 --> 00:06:56,920 and hasn't stopped. There definitely wasn't as many resources as there are today, of course, 86 00:06:57,020 --> 00:07:04,180 it's progressed significantly. But we really just tried to listen to as many podcasts as possible. 87 00:07:05,100 --> 00:07:11,760 Unfortunately, at the time, the space was a little bit cluttered by altcoins, right? So 88 00:07:11,760 --> 00:07:18,340 there was some of that going on in our early research. And fortunately, we didn't really get 89 00:07:18,340 --> 00:07:24,340 involved in that aspect. And we were pretty focused very early on in the Bitcoin sense. 90 00:07:25,660 --> 00:07:31,860 And it was just a lot of podcasts that we were listening to. Rick Edelman was very early in the 91 00:07:31,860 --> 00:07:40,660 space, even though he's since somewhat migrated to other crypto, if you will. But yeah, we've been 92 00:07:40,660 --> 00:07:43,660 pretty hyper-focused on Bitcoin only almost from the beginning. 93 00:07:45,340 --> 00:07:47,360 What year were clients approaching you about it? 94 00:07:48,340 --> 00:07:51,680 That was even before we were knowledgeable about it. 95 00:07:51,720 --> 00:07:57,060 So that was probably 2014 was the first time that we really started to see about it. 96 00:07:57,060 --> 00:08:07,000 And then we were trying to build frameworks around that without ultimately having much knowledge about how powerful this thing can become. 97 00:08:11,560 --> 00:08:12,340 Yeah, man. 98 00:08:12,440 --> 00:08:14,460 Well, a huge tip of the cap for you. 99 00:08:14,540 --> 00:08:16,860 I was in kind of largely the same boat. 100 00:08:16,860 --> 00:08:20,180 your basilic hadn't been you know founded that time but you know i'm traditionally trained in 101 00:08:20,180 --> 00:08:25,460 finance and i was just like so easy to to brush off if you're in that world so uh you're having 102 00:08:25,460 --> 00:08:30,940 a humility to you know listen to your your clients you get an idea of what direction they would like 103 00:08:30,940 --> 00:08:35,340 to go with uh you know with their wealth uh is super important and you know i think it's important 104 00:08:35,340 --> 00:08:40,040 for advisors to have your humility to to hear them out and and you know kind of embrace their ideas 105 00:08:40,040 --> 00:08:44,600 and see how you could be you know helpful and so i think you know a lot of advisors will find 106 00:08:44,600 --> 00:08:49,720 themselves in that seat, you know, where you've probably talked crap on Bitcoin, guilty. And it's 107 00:08:49,720 --> 00:08:54,520 okay to like admit, it's like, you know, I was wrong about this is actually pretty sweet. So I 108 00:08:54,520 --> 00:09:00,020 think that's awesome that you guys were able to do that. Yeah, I've kind of gauged the sentiment 109 00:09:00,020 --> 00:09:06,960 over time, especially at financial planning conferences, I'll somewhat quickly steer 110 00:09:06,960 --> 00:09:15,360 conversations towards Bitcoin to really see how they react towards it. And it was as recently as 111 00:09:15,360 --> 00:09:22,300 2023, I want to say, where the majority were still laughing, saying, oh, wow, you guys have 112 00:09:22,300 --> 00:09:27,120 Bitcoin exposure in your portfolios. Aren't you guys worried about that from the reputational risk 113 00:09:27,120 --> 00:09:34,500 or isn't it too volatile or all the FUD, historical FUD that always gets thrown around? And I have 114 00:09:34,500 --> 00:09:43,920 been tracking that. And even one year after that, 2024, it almost went to a 50-50 sentiment in terms 115 00:09:43,920 --> 00:09:48,580 of who I was talking to. And then more recently this year, when I was at those same conferences, 116 00:09:49,240 --> 00:09:56,840 it was almost the exact opposite of 2023. So in not that many years, things have shifted so quickly. 117 00:09:57,520 --> 00:10:02,660 Yet I still feel we're still super early on, especially in the financial services industry. 118 00:10:02,660 --> 00:10:10,660 Yeah. I'm curious how you all navigate the whole broader crypto conversation. 119 00:10:11,540 --> 00:10:20,920 I speak with a good amount of financial advisors, even the ones in TradFi world that are at least open to the conversation. 120 00:10:20,920 --> 00:10:26,440 They still group everything in this dirty C-word crypto. 121 00:10:26,440 --> 00:10:34,420 And I'm just curious how you approach that with planners and advisors that you speak with at these conferences. 122 00:10:34,840 --> 00:10:42,580 And if you've ever gotten any pushback from clients to want to broaden out that portfolio and how you've reacted to that. 123 00:10:43,400 --> 00:10:44,660 Yeah, great question. 124 00:10:44,660 --> 00:10:49,460 And so for the advisor lens, I will often get that question, right? 125 00:10:49,460 --> 00:10:54,340 Saying, hey, I have started to think about this or maybe even believe in it. 126 00:10:54,440 --> 00:10:57,980 But how do I know that Bitcoin is the right one and the only one? 127 00:10:58,340 --> 00:10:58,520 Right. 128 00:10:59,220 --> 00:11:03,420 And those are just conversations that you need to bring back to the to the basics, just first 129 00:11:03,420 --> 00:11:03,840 principles. 130 00:11:04,360 --> 00:11:04,520 Right. 131 00:11:04,520 --> 00:11:09,200 You go back to why Bitcoin is why I'm so optimistic about Bitcoin. 132 00:11:09,200 --> 00:11:30,360 So from the decentralized perspective, from the cap perspective for the supply and a variety of other things, I try not to get super technical because there's just so many different coins to begin with and you can't summarize all of them in just a couple sentences, which is usually you're not going to be able to have an hour long conversation with a lot of these folks. 133 00:11:30,360 --> 00:11:44,460 So really just diving into the basics on what Bitcoin is, why we believe it's so different than everything else in the crypto casino world, and really distinguishing it as a superior asset. 134 00:11:45,060 --> 00:11:52,080 What's also interesting to note is historically, we've also had crypto clients coming into our firm. 135 00:11:52,620 --> 00:11:58,160 And from the very beginning, we want to disclose that and say, hey, we are knowledgeable about this space. 136 00:11:58,160 --> 00:11:59,260 We can definitely help you. 137 00:11:59,260 --> 00:12:07,140 However, we are extremely optimistic about Bitcoin and really nothing else from the crypto perspective. 138 00:12:07,900 --> 00:12:21,460 And that also really relates pretty significantly to our core specialty in company equity conversation, where we see a ton of stock concentration in one or a handful of companies. 139 00:12:21,460 --> 00:12:26,640 and that's really how we go about the planning and those conversations as well saying hey 140 00:12:26,640 --> 00:12:34,060 this may do well right we don't know it may do well but this really from a planning perspective 141 00:12:34,060 --> 00:12:39,020 we're going to treat this as any other concentrated risky position for the crypto lens 142 00:12:39,020 --> 00:12:44,360 and this is why you should consider the riskation plus bitcoin exposure for example 143 00:12:44,360 --> 00:12:52,220 yes i love it i love it we should be boldly bitcoin only uh and i imagine just being you 144 00:12:52,220 --> 00:12:58,220 know in you know san francisco and the silicon valley you probably had more pressure than 145 00:12:58,220 --> 00:13:02,500 most of buyers just kind of being uh you know a tech forward you know ecosystem out there 146 00:13:02,500 --> 00:13:06,900 were there a lot of clients obviously they're coming to you with bitcoin or were you seeing 147 00:13:06,900 --> 00:13:11,760 you know a lot of these other you know altcoins that they had interest in and you know were they 148 00:13:11,760 --> 00:13:15,600 When you told them, it's like, yeah, we really kind of work with Bitcoin only. 149 00:13:15,600 --> 00:13:19,960 I'm sure they kind of get a light in their eyes, finally somebody that understands. 150 00:13:19,960 --> 00:13:23,020 But then you drop the hammer on them and it's like, by the way, yeah, Bitcoin only. 151 00:13:23,020 --> 00:13:26,720 Did you see it diminish or they still weren't willing to work with you because you understood 152 00:13:26,720 --> 00:13:38,700 the space broadly Or how did you kind of navigate that kind of questions fortunately we didn see a ton outside of bitcoin for those who did have uh exposure so we didn have to have a ton of those 153 00:13:38,700 --> 00:13:45,700 conversations um definitely some and obviously uh in hindsight if we've been working together for 154 00:13:45,700 --> 00:13:51,540 maybe a decade plus at this point you've also seen how bitcoin has done against some of these other 155 00:13:51,540 --> 00:13:57,840 ones. And also sometimes over that same period, they might have gotten rug pulled. They might 156 00:13:57,840 --> 00:14:04,500 have seen different situations happen in the space. So even without our guidance and advice, 157 00:14:04,500 --> 00:14:08,480 that was probably something that they were going towards as well. 158 00:14:11,300 --> 00:14:16,780 Your wealth deserves attention. Basilic Financial is a Bitcoin-focused wealth management firm built 159 00:14:16,780 --> 00:14:21,120 to help our clients find balance between money and meaning. We integrate sound money strategies 160 00:14:21,120 --> 00:14:25,420 across four distinct personalized services, financial planning, individual wealth management, 161 00:14:25,820 --> 00:14:31,140 retirement services for SMBs, and Bitcoin financial services. Your prosperity, your purpose, 162 00:14:31,500 --> 00:14:36,460 intentionally guided at Bacillac Financial. Visit our website at bacillac.io to schedule 163 00:14:36,460 --> 00:14:41,980 free consultation. I'm curious, you know, you mentioned it kind of at the top briefly. 164 00:14:42,520 --> 00:14:48,720 Sounds like you all are a kind of a one-stop shop in terms of financial planning, as well as the tax 165 00:14:48,720 --> 00:14:54,840 planning, tax prep, maybe highlight that. I think that it's a very, very strategic move. You know, 166 00:14:54,880 --> 00:15:00,280 we've, we've actually even explored that within our firm as, you know, finding really good 167 00:15:00,280 --> 00:15:07,500 partnerships to kind of keep all of it more or less under one roof. Just curious to understand 168 00:15:07,500 --> 00:15:14,560 how long have you all been at the tax side of things? And I guess, have you seen a ton of value 169 00:15:14,560 --> 00:15:20,280 add and stickiness with clients where they're coming to you for both of those? Yeah, great 170 00:15:20,280 --> 00:15:24,380 question, Jordan. So maybe I should take a step back and just give you a little bit of history of 171 00:15:24,380 --> 00:15:29,300 the firm because that kind of goes along with that question as well. Our firm was launched in 2014 172 00:15:29,300 --> 00:15:35,880 and almost from the very beginning when we were on intro meetings with prospective clients, 173 00:15:35,880 --> 00:15:41,660 they would say, hey, who is the CPA that you guys can refer to or partner with? So even before they 174 00:15:41,660 --> 00:15:48,540 hiring us they were asking hey who's the tax partner that you'll utilize because equity comp 175 00:15:49,340 --> 00:15:55,260 often is not super straightforward not everyone really understands it and they want to make sure 176 00:15:55,260 --> 00:16:00,780 that yes we have the expertise in that space but we also want to complement that with on the tax 177 00:16:00,780 --> 00:16:07,900 side so almost immediately we started getting those questions and we started to initially 178 00:16:07,900 --> 00:16:15,020 develop a partnership with a local CPA and over time that quickly morphed into a white label 179 00:16:15,020 --> 00:16:20,220 solution that we were able to bring in-house through one of our financial planning organization 180 00:16:20,220 --> 00:16:25,020 memberships and that lasted for about three years and then I want to say it was 181 00:16:27,020 --> 00:16:35,260 2021 or 2022 where we officially bit the bullet in and officially hired Todd our CPA as a 182 00:16:35,260 --> 00:16:42,580 official employee of the firm. So we've actually had tax prep offered to our clients more years 183 00:16:42,580 --> 00:16:50,020 than not over our existence, but it's looked so different over time. And that's definitely been 184 00:16:50,020 --> 00:16:58,380 a huge driver of our growth. I would say enter cautiously, Jordan, if you are considering this, 185 00:16:58,380 --> 00:17:04,420 because, well, you come from a CPA background, not a financial advisor background, but nonetheless, 186 00:17:04,420 --> 00:17:09,160 there are still a lot of things that we need to consider when incorporating these two somewhat 187 00:17:09,160 --> 00:17:15,380 related but somewhat different services into one umbrella if you will but for us it definitely has 188 00:17:15,380 --> 00:17:21,380 been a huge driver of our growth looking back I wish we did it sooner but there's also been a ton 189 00:17:21,380 --> 00:17:30,500 of growing pains over the years yeah that's that's great insight your why don't you highlight 190 00:17:30,500 --> 00:17:37,260 some of those things to consider? Yeah. So if you are a financial advisor, right? And you're 191 00:17:37,260 --> 00:17:43,900 trying to incorporate a CPA purely from a business owner perspective, you have to think of, hey, 192 00:17:43,940 --> 00:17:51,320 we're going to be paying the CPA a salary, right? And initially I was concerned that a CPA that we 193 00:17:51,320 --> 00:17:57,220 would hire would be super busy during tax season and kind of not doing a ton outside of that. 194 00:17:57,220 --> 00:18:00,760 The reality is 100% the opposite, right? 195 00:18:01,240 --> 00:18:07,840 Todd has been one of the most significant benefits in having on our team. 196 00:18:07,960 --> 00:18:10,220 He's busy, too busy sometimes. 197 00:18:10,740 --> 00:18:16,320 So it's great to think about from that perspective where we're utilizing him to the best of his capabilities. 198 00:18:17,140 --> 00:18:22,240 There are all kinds of compliance, operational things that we need to think about. 199 00:18:22,240 --> 00:18:28,920 it was way more annoying than I thought it was going to be to find an E&O insurance for example 200 00:18:28,920 --> 00:18:33,800 that was the last thing on my agenda saying hey errors and emissions insurance we can just add tax 201 00:18:33,800 --> 00:18:38,860 prep on our existing E&O insurance and that definitely was not the case so that took up 202 00:18:38,860 --> 00:18:46,340 months of my time to try to figure out that and get that all sorted so it was little things like 203 00:18:46,340 --> 00:18:50,780 that over time and then I mentioned previously that the white label solution that we had 204 00:18:50,780 --> 00:18:56,940 previously before we hired in-house that had significant growing pains as well, 205 00:18:57,380 --> 00:19:03,080 where ultimately that was the catalyst for us hiring someone because we no longer felt like 206 00:19:03,080 --> 00:19:07,820 that was the best fit for our clients. Yeah, it's really interesting. I mean, 207 00:19:07,820 --> 00:19:16,500 the tax industry itself is just changing a whole lot. And I think it makes a lot of sense to pair 208 00:19:16,500 --> 00:19:23,920 of the two just because clients need both, right? And even Bitcoiners, they need that tax planning 209 00:19:23,920 --> 00:19:30,480 for their normal comp for any kind of capital gain loss harvesting conversations. And I'm sure 210 00:19:30,480 --> 00:19:37,360 you all have seen it. Clients are happy to be able to go to one place and have one conversation 211 00:19:37,360 --> 00:19:43,640 versus two conversations and then have to bring everybody up to speed all the time and things get 212 00:19:43,640 --> 00:19:48,040 missed in between. So that's really interesting. I'm really glad to hear that it's going well. I 213 00:19:48,040 --> 00:19:55,080 guess one final question maybe on that subject would just be, are you all seeing enough demand 214 00:19:55,080 --> 00:20:01,320 on the tax front side that you are thinking you need to expand that part of the business? Or are 215 00:20:01,320 --> 00:20:09,340 you all pricing it at a place where you feel good about keeping that specific client list tight and 216 00:20:09,340 --> 00:20:15,200 not needing to hire too much more on top of that? Inevitably, we will need to, right? There will 217 00:20:15,200 --> 00:20:23,060 be a natural maximum limit for that, but we're good with where we are now. We actually did hire 218 00:20:23,060 --> 00:20:28,300 a new team member who is partially going to help on the tax side, depending on what time of the year 219 00:20:28,300 --> 00:20:33,860 it is as well. So, Atok can get a little bit more help. We've also brought on additional software on 220 00:20:33,860 --> 00:20:39,260 the tax side to make things much more efficient and streamlined than ever before. So we're 221 00:20:39,260 --> 00:20:45,720 continuing to invest in that. I don't feel like we need to hire a second full-time person 222 00:20:45,720 --> 00:20:50,260 on the tax side, but that can change pretty quickly, I suppose. 223 00:20:53,440 --> 00:20:58,000 Yeah, that's interesting. Gerard, I want to circle back to, you know, when you're going to these, 224 00:20:58,000 --> 00:21:02,720 you know, traditional financial conferences, talking to, you know, financial planners, 225 00:21:02,720 --> 00:21:07,880 etc. What do you think has kind of been the catalyst for their change in tone about Bitcoin? 226 00:21:09,780 --> 00:21:15,120 A lot of them is simply because they were forced to. They were forced to probably from their own 227 00:21:15,120 --> 00:21:24,820 clients or other advisors. That's what I'm seeing is I see less and less people who are not interested 228 00:21:24,820 --> 00:21:29,480 in Bitcoin, even if they're still opposed to it. They're still a little bit more interested, 229 00:21:29,480 --> 00:21:31,820 a little bit less closed off to that. 230 00:21:31,920 --> 00:21:33,460 So I would just say the natural forces 231 00:21:33,460 --> 00:21:37,880 of either peers or their clients 232 00:21:37,880 --> 00:21:38,820 really pushing that. 233 00:21:38,920 --> 00:21:41,920 And obviously the media and momentum in general 234 00:21:41,920 --> 00:21:43,220 is really in favor, 235 00:21:43,500 --> 00:21:45,320 especially recently of Bitcoin. 236 00:21:45,580 --> 00:21:47,500 So I think all of these things 237 00:21:47,500 --> 00:21:49,800 really have just been a reason for that. 238 00:21:51,600 --> 00:21:52,560 Can you also, 239 00:21:52,780 --> 00:21:54,320 so I've been in the room 240 00:21:54,320 --> 00:21:56,940 and some of these financial advisor events 241 00:21:56,940 --> 00:22:11,480 And, you know, it seems like private investments, private credit, kind of like the advisor being able to say to their clients, hey, we've got access to, you know, different types of investments that aren't open to everyone. 242 00:22:11,480 --> 00:22:13,160 It's like a really good driver. 243 00:22:13,340 --> 00:22:25,880 It seems like how do you see Bitcoin fitting into, you know, the Blackstones of the world or or whomever it might be that come in, they pitch at these different events and they kind of talk through their their product. 244 00:22:25,880 --> 00:22:31,580 obviously bitcoin is its own animal we don't necessarily we are a decentralized network of 245 00:22:31,580 --> 00:22:37,980 users but i'm just curious how you see the two comparing and if you are seeing any products 246 00:22:37,980 --> 00:22:42,680 that are coming to market that you all are recommending to your clients that are bitcoin 247 00:22:42,680 --> 00:22:50,220 native maybe that fit into that private investment category yeah great question so we've had 248 00:22:50,220 --> 00:22:59,180 many questions from clients, especially asking about, hey, when and if is it appropriate to 249 00:22:59,960 --> 00:23:06,000 incorporate private or alternative investments in their portfolio, whether they're private equity 250 00:23:06,000 --> 00:23:13,840 or VC. And a couple of years ago, we took a pretty deep dive into this and it really 251 00:23:13,840 --> 00:23:20,480 confirmed what our thoughts were. And ultimately, as you go down the rabbit hole, you really start 252 00:23:20,480 --> 00:23:26,180 to think about a lot of things in comparison or from a Bitcoin lens. So that's also how I was 253 00:23:26,180 --> 00:23:33,980 looking at that with, but from a alternative or private asset perspective, there are numerous 254 00:23:33,980 --> 00:23:38,840 problems that we found. And ultimately, this is what our clients wanted to hear from us. 255 00:23:38,840 --> 00:23:47,840 number one is the space is just opaque so there isn't transparency they don't mark the assets 256 00:23:47,840 --> 00:23:58,360 to their market value which hugely distorts the theoretical volatility or returns 257 00:23:58,360 --> 00:24:06,240 so from that perspective there's all kinds of things going on but that ultimately is because 258 00:24:06,240 --> 00:24:11,560 the assets are not being updated the values are not being updated on a regular basis and even if 259 00:24:11,560 --> 00:24:19,020 you're lagging by a couple days or a week or a month versus the benchmark that you may be tracking 260 00:24:19,020 --> 00:24:27,340 that really influences and manipulates those numbers significantly number two is from the 261 00:24:27,340 --> 00:24:33,700 just total cost perspective usually a lot of these funds are doing a two and twenty percent 262 00:24:33,700 --> 00:24:42,160 framework so super expensive and that's a really high bar for how much you need to perform simply 263 00:24:42,160 --> 00:24:49,220 to kind of get to square one if you will so that was a big one and that's also something that i'll 264 00:24:49,220 --> 00:24:54,900 tie into my previous comments is a lot of these conferences are also promoting alternative 265 00:24:54,900 --> 00:24:59,440 investments and they have a lot of vendors in that space that come to those and a lot of them 266 00:24:59,440 --> 00:25:05,360 are saying, hey, we have access to the top funds. And if literally 100% of the people are saying, 267 00:25:05,460 --> 00:25:09,860 hey, we have access to the top funds, then by definition, that just doesn't make sense, right? 268 00:25:09,900 --> 00:25:14,200 You can't have every single person there saying, hey, we have access to the top funds. 269 00:25:14,640 --> 00:25:21,180 What about the bottom funds? Does anyone have access to those? So, but that's the reality is 270 00:25:21,180 --> 00:25:27,900 the top quartile, if you will, definitely can and should outperform significantly and have 271 00:25:27,900 --> 00:25:34,520 outsized returns but the middle or even the bottom tiers especially when you're factoring in the risk 272 00:25:34,520 --> 00:25:41,600 or illiquidity of these really have major disadvantages and to tie in the bitcoin piece 273 00:25:41,600 --> 00:25:47,720 there i'm looking at this where bitcoin is one of the most liquid assets in the world yes the 274 00:25:47,720 --> 00:25:52,120 volatility historically has been super high we know what the returns have been historically 275 00:25:52,120 --> 00:25:58,660 there is more transparency in Bitcoin than with virtually any other asset for a variety of reasons. 276 00:25:59,380 --> 00:26:03,060 And that's an interesting conversation that we've been having with clients is saying, hey, 277 00:26:03,420 --> 00:26:09,440 you're interested in private or alternative investments. This is another thing to think 278 00:26:09,440 --> 00:26:14,780 about. And from a risk adjusted perspective, we propose that Bitcoin is superior. 279 00:26:14,780 --> 00:26:24,600 mic drop oh i love that um well i i think that's really smart but it's interesting too because to 280 00:26:24,600 --> 00:26:29,540 me you know so it's like okay when we're looking at clients your entire portfolio what's your your 281 00:26:29,540 --> 00:26:34,660 risk appetite what do you want exposure to um and this ultimately kind of correlates you know to 282 00:26:34,660 --> 00:26:39,960 position sizing across different asset classes and that's just one of the most common questions 283 00:26:39,960 --> 00:26:41,720 I get from my peers, 284 00:26:42,240 --> 00:26:43,500 friends, family, 285 00:26:43,740 --> 00:26:45,920 my clients is when it comes to Bitcoin, 286 00:26:46,220 --> 00:26:47,960 especially if they're new, 287 00:26:48,520 --> 00:26:49,880 how big a position 288 00:26:49,880 --> 00:26:51,240 do we take? 289 00:26:51,240 --> 00:26:53,360 And I always kind of default to the 290 00:26:53,360 --> 00:26:54,940 company line. 291 00:26:55,080 --> 00:26:57,020 My client specifically is like, well, as a fiduciary, 292 00:26:57,060 --> 00:26:59,220 we actually have a lot of flexibility to 293 00:26:59,220 --> 00:27:11,100 determine that I know you have some really smart thoughts on that Why don you kind of take us through how you view Bitcoin through a fiduciary lens Definitely So a lot of our investment 294 00:27:11,100 --> 00:27:16,320 philosophy is around, let's say, passive or index-based strategies, right? Super, super common 295 00:27:16,320 --> 00:27:23,100 in the advisory community. So if you believe in that, by definition, we know the market cap 296 00:27:23,100 --> 00:27:27,000 approximately for Bitcoin. Obviously, it varies, but we know approximately the market cap for 297 00:27:27,000 --> 00:27:32,440 Bitcoin. We also know the market cap for global equities. And that, just by pure mathematics, 298 00:27:32,640 --> 00:27:38,440 gives you approximately a 2% or 3% allocation in Bitcoin. Now, if you believe in the index or 299 00:27:38,440 --> 00:27:43,020 market-based market cap weighted approach, that's really what you should have in the portfolio. 300 00:27:43,840 --> 00:27:49,760 And to go further, if you are more optimistic, then we definitely want to have more than that 301 00:27:49,760 --> 00:27:55,520 in the portfolio, which is, of course, where we land. If you're pessimistic about Bitcoin, 302 00:27:55,520 --> 00:28:03,680 then yeah potentially you have less uh but it's also kind of a uh if you if you think of it from 303 00:28:03,680 --> 00:28:07,740 a shorting strategy where if you were to short or be pessimistic about bitcoin then you have less 304 00:28:07,740 --> 00:28:14,740 than two percent that's a very scary position for me to be in so i would think at the uh at the core 305 00:28:14,740 --> 00:28:20,340 you want to have some minimal exposure two or three percent and depending on the client's comfort 306 00:28:20,340 --> 00:28:23,360 and the advisor's comfort, you might want to dial it up from there. 307 00:28:26,260 --> 00:28:31,380 If you're a financial professional working with Bitcoin, you know the pain of messy CSVs, 308 00:28:31,540 --> 00:28:35,880 broken cost basis, and accounting tools that were never built for this asset. 309 00:28:36,300 --> 00:28:41,540 Bitment fixes that. Bitment is the Bitcoin native accounting platform built for CPAs, 310 00:28:41,760 --> 00:28:47,720 bookkeepers, advisors, miners, and serious Bitcoin investors. You get clean Bitcoin bank 311 00:28:47,720 --> 00:28:52,960 statements, reliable cost basis tracking, full reporting and fiat integration through Plaid. 312 00:28:53,320 --> 00:28:57,820 No crypto talk, no workarounds, just proper accounting for the hardest money on earth. 313 00:28:58,240 --> 00:29:01,480 Create a free account or book a demo at bitment.co today. 314 00:29:02,580 --> 00:29:08,940 I mean, honestly, a pretty natural place that we could take the conversation from there is 315 00:29:08,940 --> 00:29:16,240 all this concentration in AI and, you know, where people are like, oh yeah, I'm invested 316 00:29:16,240 --> 00:29:21,380 in a balanced portfolio, but then you go look at the weighting in the S&P, right? 317 00:29:21,480 --> 00:29:22,920 And I mean, I'm no expert, right? 318 00:29:22,940 --> 00:29:24,200 So you guys correct me here. 319 00:29:24,560 --> 00:29:28,700 But it seems to me that everyone's making the same bet on AI. 320 00:29:30,540 --> 00:29:36,400 Gerard, I know we could go a lot of different directions on AI, but maybe we start with just 321 00:29:36,400 --> 00:29:40,260 position, you know, portfolio positioning with AI. 322 00:29:40,660 --> 00:29:45,840 And then I would love for us to get into the conversation of your thoughts on how Bitcoin 323 00:29:45,840 --> 00:29:50,000 and AI actually will end up working together in the coming years. 324 00:29:51,080 --> 00:29:57,160 Yeah, so for us, so many of our clients already are at those companies, whether it's 325 00:29:57,760 --> 00:30:01,180 Microsoft or Google or OpenAI or Anthopic. 326 00:30:01,180 --> 00:30:07,660 So they already have direct or indirect exposure to AI from the company equity perspective. 327 00:30:07,660 --> 00:30:16,980 then we also have some of those clients who say hey what if my company doesn't pan out but i'm 328 00:30:16,980 --> 00:30:23,640 still super optimistic about ai in general so they may be at a open or anthropic but they'll say hey 329 00:30:23,640 --> 00:30:29,100 can i get ai exposure kind of across the board so then we'll talk about of course you do have 330 00:30:29,680 --> 00:30:33,800 some ai exposure already through all the public companies in the portfolio 331 00:30:33,800 --> 00:30:40,320 right and then we'll also have clients on the opposite end of that to say hey we actually have 332 00:30:40,320 --> 00:30:43,880 no exposure to these companies because we don't work there we don't have company equity 333 00:30:43,880 --> 00:30:50,860 so what can we have from from that lens to be able to have some exposure in addition to what 334 00:30:50,860 --> 00:30:57,360 we have in the private company portfolios so this is something that I've been it hasn't been 335 00:30:57,360 --> 00:31:01,420 published yet actually but something that I've been researching and and starting to write on 336 00:31:01,420 --> 00:31:07,240 is the overlap, the synergy between AI and Bitcoin, which I'm sometimes hearing being 337 00:31:07,240 --> 00:31:15,120 discussed, but not as often as it maybe should be. So with my thoughts, I really focus on three 338 00:31:15,120 --> 00:31:23,040 different things. So number one is the energy demand that is needed from an AI company or 339 00:31:23,040 --> 00:31:29,020 data center, let's say, right, which is significant. And that's only going to grow realistically as AI 340 00:31:29,020 --> 00:31:36,740 continues to gain momentum. So where Bitcoin comes in from that perspective is they're basically the 341 00:31:36,740 --> 00:31:44,560 exact opposite in terms of the profile for how much energy they need or can use over time. So 342 00:31:44,560 --> 00:31:50,880 with an AI data center, it has to be online 100% of the time, right? You can't go on your open 343 00:31:50,880 --> 00:31:56,400 at your chat GPT, you'll enter a query and it'll say, hey, let me get back to you tomorrow morning. 344 00:31:56,400 --> 00:32:01,380 that's just not how it works right it has to be online and it has to have power 100% of the time 345 00:32:01,380 --> 00:32:08,640 that's non-negotiable bitcoin is the exact opposite where it can come on with a ai data 346 00:32:08,640 --> 00:32:17,820 center and be able to soak up power when it's not in demand or it's inexpensive or it can 347 00:32:17,820 --> 00:32:24,660 essentially stabilize the energy system that the ai data center is running on 348 00:32:24,660 --> 00:32:30,140 whether or not you're pairing that with solar or wind energy, and whether or not you have battery 349 00:32:30,140 --> 00:32:37,020 capacity to back that up. There's been tremendous, just a lot of different studies on what happens 350 00:32:37,020 --> 00:32:44,600 when you introduce a Bitcoin miner to that kind of flexible flexibility on the grid and the demand 351 00:32:44,600 --> 00:32:54,000 it requires for that. So that's number one. Number two is all the AI agents that are starting to be 352 00:32:54,000 --> 00:32:59,860 developed and as they progress and become more advanced they're going to need some kind of 353 00:32:59,860 --> 00:33:04,640 internet money quote-unquote which is kind of the funny thing that a lot of people refer to 354 00:33:04,640 --> 00:33:11,460 bitcoin as but that's where i believe we're going in that topic is internet money where 355 00:33:11,460 --> 00:33:17,920 these ai agents will be able to transact with each other seamlessly without human intervention 356 00:33:17,920 --> 00:33:21,760 and they'll need a money to be able to do that. 357 00:33:22,260 --> 00:33:24,780 And this is also an interesting conversation 358 00:33:24,780 --> 00:33:27,260 in regards to what we previously discussed 359 00:33:27,260 --> 00:33:28,820 with Bitcoin versus crypto 360 00:33:28,820 --> 00:33:32,180 is crypto can't do this for a variety of reasons. 361 00:33:32,460 --> 00:33:34,060 They are permissioned. 362 00:33:34,080 --> 00:33:34,880 They're not transparent. 363 00:33:34,880 --> 00:33:36,840 Variety of other things you might want to say, 364 00:33:37,200 --> 00:33:39,540 but Bitcoin is the only one 365 00:33:39,540 --> 00:33:42,740 that can make this work for AI agents. 366 00:33:43,400 --> 00:33:44,900 So really fascinating to think about 367 00:33:44,900 --> 00:33:46,320 from that perspective. 368 00:33:46,320 --> 00:34:08,740 And number three is looking at all the AI content that almost is believable for real, right? You can make videos and images and it's getting very, very close to becoming impossible to understand what is real, what is not, what has been authorized and so on. 369 00:34:08,740 --> 00:34:13,740 So similar to how when you're holding Bitcoin in self-custody, 370 00:34:13,740 --> 00:34:18,480 you are cryptographically signing on that transaction 371 00:34:18,480 --> 00:34:23,480 with your device, I believe that that same concept 372 00:34:23,920 --> 00:34:27,160 will be applicable to future AI content. 373 00:34:27,160 --> 00:34:30,840 So you'll be able to sign cryptographically and say, 374 00:34:30,840 --> 00:34:32,940 hey, this is something I created. 375 00:34:32,940 --> 00:34:35,580 It's on the blockchain with a timestamp. 376 00:34:35,580 --> 00:34:36,800 This is when I created it. 377 00:34:36,800 --> 00:34:48,700 I did create this and anyone will be able to similar with the Bitcoin blockchain, be able to go on there and easily and transparently verify that to see if it's original or if anything has been changed. 378 00:34:48,700 --> 00:34:59,840 so three somewhat futuristic ideas on how i believe ai will supercharge bitcoin uh and to 379 00:34:59,840 --> 00:35:05,540 take a step back uh i think this is really important because it applies to those clients 380 00:35:05,540 --> 00:35:10,480 we're asking questions about hey how can i participate in ai even though i don't have 381 00:35:10,480 --> 00:35:16,260 company equity directly in this one company or how can i potentially hedge against this with ai 382 00:35:16,260 --> 00:35:22,820 doing super well. And this is one area that I've been focusing on, and I think it is going to be 383 00:35:22,820 --> 00:35:28,200 very powerful in the future. Yeah, that's fascinating, man. And yeah, it's kind of our 384 00:35:28,200 --> 00:35:33,080 investment thesis is we want exposure to real world hard assets predominantly, but 385 00:35:33,080 --> 00:35:39,460 we really kind of view the two macro trends as Bitcoin and AI. And if you don't have exposure to 386 00:35:39,460 --> 00:35:44,120 that, or you're not investing in companies that are actively building in this space, like to 387 00:35:44,120 --> 00:35:50,540 probably be left behind, like pretty bearish SP, you know, 493. I'm particularly interested in this, 388 00:35:50,660 --> 00:35:56,260 you know, the AI agent component, I've done some, some research on that. And we can kind of, you 389 00:35:56,260 --> 00:36:00,960 know, parlay this into how you, you talk to Bitcoin about your clients, but the, the custody 390 00:36:00,960 --> 00:36:07,900 aspect of giving, you know, an AI agent permission to spend out of a wallet. How do you think that 391 00:36:07,900 --> 00:36:13,800 actually ends up working? That's a great question. I think that all of these things are 392 00:36:13,800 --> 00:36:21,740 in its infancy and we're simply just going to see. It's really tough to predict how that happens. I 393 00:36:21,740 --> 00:36:28,160 am quite confident that AI agents in general will be able to transact across the board, 394 00:36:28,640 --> 00:36:35,760 but specifically what permissions they have and so on is tough to say. What I will say, 395 00:36:35,940 --> 00:36:41,560 and tying in the Bitcoin lens is if they have to jump through hoops, if they have to 396 00:36:41,560 --> 00:36:51,320 work with a either a fiat or or a crypto that doesn't have final settlement all these very 397 00:36:51,320 --> 00:36:58,340 very important things the the framework very quickly falls apart and is no longer possible 398 00:36:58,340 --> 00:37:04,920 so i think with bitcoin we're able to build on that especially with second layer tools like 399 00:37:04,920 --> 00:37:11,280 lightning and and so on um and i think those are the the ways that we can navigate that 400 00:37:11,280 --> 00:37:18,740 yeah i can almost think like i could think about seeing even utilizing open ai's you know existing 401 00:37:18,740 --> 00:37:27,100 api right you just top it up uh and then it uses those credits as you're pushing you know api calls 402 00:37:27,100 --> 00:37:34,580 through and i'm i'm honestly not super uh you know up to speed on the whole ai agent in terms 403 00:37:34,580 --> 00:37:39,660 of like being able to make its own decisions. My understanding is that, you know, I can run 404 00:37:39,660 --> 00:37:47,240 things through like a Zapier or an N8N type of tool and then plug ChatGVT in as one of the steps, 405 00:37:47,240 --> 00:37:52,320 right? Is how I'm basically understanding. But Gerard, you're kind of talking more so 406 00:37:52,320 --> 00:37:59,140 these agents that are in some ways, they are making decisions based on a knowledge base that 407 00:37:59,140 --> 00:38:06,180 you've given them autonomously and potentially they have budgets set for, you know, okay, we need 408 00:38:06,180 --> 00:38:11,580 to get this done. We need to find either a person or an agent that can do this for us at the lowest 409 00:38:11,580 --> 00:38:18,480 cost. Up to this level, you have the permission to spend out of this wallet. Sure. Is that how 410 00:38:18,480 --> 00:38:25,740 you're thinking about it? Absolutely. And I think we can only begin to be curious about all the 411 00:38:25,740 --> 00:38:27,700 different ways that this might play out. 412 00:38:28,200 --> 00:38:30,700 But essentially, you touched on APIs already. 413 00:38:31,160 --> 00:38:33,880 They might be buying compute resources in the future. 414 00:38:34,380 --> 00:38:40,040 They might be buying just additional capabilities and services. 415 00:38:40,040 --> 00:38:49,520 They might be also factoring in how Nostre with streaming and everything on that platform. 416 00:38:49,680 --> 00:38:55,140 So there's just so many different varieties of utility that we can bring to this. 417 00:38:55,140 --> 00:39:02,100 But I'm extremely excited about it. And yeah, just continuing to think about all those different frameworks. 418 00:39:03,820 --> 00:39:21,000 Very nice. All right. Well, I think maybe we take the conversation. I know right before we got started, you had mentioned that you're wanting to really hit the hit the ground running this coming year and speaking at a bunch of different conferences, be it more traditional finance conferences for financial planners, as well as the Bitcoin conferences. 419 00:39:21,000 --> 00:39:27,260 um you know it's something that i know wyatt and i have spoken about at length about just this 420 00:39:27,260 --> 00:39:34,680 fiduciary duty i'd want to give you the opportunity to talk through how you see you know how financial 421 00:39:34,680 --> 00:39:39,920 advisors specifically i guess since they are driving investment decisions should be thinking 422 00:39:39,920 --> 00:39:44,820 about bitcoin and if they're not thinking about bitcoin you know what are the risks there as well 423 00:39:44,820 --> 00:39:50,420 yeah definitely so definitely something that i'm very interested in to continue to 424 00:39:50,420 --> 00:39:56,280 promote in the advisory and financial services space um i i really do feel like we have a fiduciary 425 00:39:56,280 --> 00:40:03,700 responsibility to not only understand what bitcoin is but also be able to apply the framework from an 426 00:40:03,700 --> 00:40:09,900 advising or tax lens or what have you um and the reality is the numbers uh kind of speak for 427 00:40:09,900 --> 00:40:15,460 themselves where we're at approximately one in seven uh americans that have bitcoin exposure now 428 00:40:15,460 --> 00:40:22,020 so um purely from the business owner perspective if you're not able to or willing to advise on 429 00:40:22,020 --> 00:40:27,200 bitcoin they're probably going to fire you so hopefully that's incentive enough um to be able 430 00:40:27,200 --> 00:40:44,640 to learn about it um and it no longer in my opinion really appropriate to say hey uh bitcoin is no longer for you It too volatile you can really ignore it from that lens you really have to take a deep dive and if you believe in those 431 00:40:44,640 --> 00:40:49,820 things you need to now back up and say hey this is why i believe it's too volatile or this is why 432 00:40:49,820 --> 00:40:58,440 i believe it's not for you right it's okay to uh to non-incorporate it my challenge is that you 433 00:40:58,440 --> 00:41:05,380 need to understand it to the point where you can make those make those points um but from from 434 00:41:05,380 --> 00:41:11,900 to continue the conversation um as many bitcoiners will probably say we believe that money is broken 435 00:41:11,900 --> 00:41:18,440 right so we need a system and asset that's designed to be able to help them navigate the 436 00:41:18,440 --> 00:41:26,180 world going forward where their fiat currency is is just a melting ice cube if you will right it's 437 00:41:26,180 --> 00:41:30,860 It's not able to uphold their purchasing power over time. 438 00:41:32,480 --> 00:41:36,020 And as Lynn Alden famously says, nothing stops this train. 439 00:41:36,600 --> 00:41:41,500 And I think it's really important to understand what the problem is and going from there. 440 00:41:41,500 --> 00:41:53,340 So the challenge that I'll have for advisors is to, number one, simply understand what money is, which hasn't really been taught in financial advisory training, if you will. 441 00:41:53,340 --> 00:42:12,940 So I think that's where we start is what is money? What are the ideal properties of money that you would want to have, regardless of if it's Bitcoin or not? If you're using fiat or gold or whatever else, there are pretty universally agreed upon metrics on what you would want sound money to be. 442 00:42:12,940 --> 00:42:21,880 and from there we can talk about the differences between fiat and bitcoin and crypto as well can 443 00:42:21,880 --> 00:42:28,400 be baked into that conversation and ultimately going back to the scarcity and security of bitcoin 444 00:42:28,400 --> 00:42:35,460 and whatnot so that's how i would think about that and then ultimately because we are talking 445 00:42:35,460 --> 00:42:42,040 with financial advisors we're going to be talking about how it fits into the portfolio are you going 446 00:42:42,040 --> 00:42:46,040 to be taking self-custody? Are you going to be implementing one of the ETFs? Hopefully, 447 00:42:46,040 --> 00:42:53,820 you're not leaving your coins on a exchange, especially a non-Bitcoin only exchange. 448 00:42:54,400 --> 00:42:59,880 So those are the different things that we're going to be chatting through. And that's 449 00:42:59,880 --> 00:43:04,100 what my conversations with fellow advisors usually look like. 450 00:43:12,040 --> 00:43:16,500 for the Bitcoin economy. If you run a Bitcoin business, mine Bitcoin, or invest in it, you need 451 00:43:16,500 --> 00:43:21,320 advisors who actually understand how this industry works. Satoshi Pacioli handles bookkeeping, 452 00:43:21,540 --> 00:43:26,020 financial reporting, tax compliance, and strategic planning for Bitcoin-focused companies and 453 00:43:26,020 --> 00:43:30,220 individuals. They speak the language of Bitcoiners and help you stay compliant while building for the 454 00:43:30,220 --> 00:43:35,120 long term. To learn more or book a consultation, visit satoshipacioli.com. 455 00:43:35,120 --> 00:43:44,560 One of kind of my pet theses is why the wealth management industry has been slow to adopt 456 00:43:44,560 --> 00:43:48,800 Bitcoin is because it really kind of threatens their business model. 457 00:43:49,580 --> 00:43:51,720 Do you think I have a leg to stand on there? 458 00:43:51,960 --> 00:43:52,960 How do you think about this? 459 00:43:54,120 --> 00:43:57,740 I would modify your claim a little bit, Wyatt. 460 00:43:57,820 --> 00:44:04,200 I would say that financial advisors have big egos, and that's a large part of it. 461 00:44:04,200 --> 00:44:12,680 I don't think that threatens the business model is accurate or even appropriate to claim because 462 00:44:12,680 --> 00:44:18,900 let's say most advisors are on the AUM. We're not, but most advisors are on the AUM model. 463 00:44:19,360 --> 00:44:25,540 And if you're on the AUM model, you have the ability to incorporate those Bitcoin ETFs into 464 00:44:25,540 --> 00:44:31,000 the portfolio and charge on them just like you would any other asset. There are also 465 00:44:31,000 --> 00:44:39,340 spot Bitcoin platforms that you can implement if you don't want to do the ETF. You have the spot 466 00:44:39,340 --> 00:44:45,620 Bitcoin platforms directly that you also can bill on as well as part of your advisor practice. So I 467 00:44:45,620 --> 00:44:52,020 would say in most cases, you have the ability to as an advisor be able to add that into your 468 00:44:52,020 --> 00:44:56,320 lineup, your framework and still be able to be compensated for it. And you should be able to 469 00:44:56,320 --> 00:45:02,740 be compensated for. Bitcoiners really need financial advice. And there are definitely 470 00:45:02,740 --> 00:45:10,020 tools to be able to navigate that cleanly. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. I know we're 471 00:45:10,020 --> 00:45:14,560 getting close to our time. One quick thing, I actually just ran across a client that is in a 472 00:45:14,560 --> 00:45:22,160 situation, it sounds like you run across very often, which is very heavily invested in Bitcoin 473 00:45:22,160 --> 00:45:30,920 and then also having a lot of stock options in a Bitcoin-related company as part of compensation. 474 00:45:31,460 --> 00:45:34,460 I'm just curious how you normally would go about, 475 00:45:35,280 --> 00:45:38,880 I know that's probably more concentration than you would normally see, 476 00:45:39,420 --> 00:45:45,120 but just curious to get your thoughts on how you would approach a conversation with a client like that 477 00:45:45,120 --> 00:45:47,960 who's obviously not an investment advisor, 478 00:45:47,960 --> 00:45:55,460 But just curious to get your thoughts on how you potentially de-risk that portfolio into other positions. 479 00:45:56,460 --> 00:46:05,860 Sure. Yeah, we do see definitely some what we'll call real Bitcoiners, which are folks who have been holding for years and decades sometimes. 480 00:46:06,420 --> 00:46:12,400 And often because we are on the barrier, they also have company equity exposure and concentration risks and so on. 481 00:46:12,420 --> 00:46:17,100 And often some of those are also illiquid or private assets as well. 482 00:46:17,960 --> 00:46:20,720 Ultimately, everything comes back to the client's goals. 483 00:46:20,720 --> 00:46:24,200 So we really need to deeply understand what their goals and objectives are. 484 00:46:24,860 --> 00:46:34,060 But ultimately, once we do understand what they're looking for and wanting to do, there's really only so many ways to de-risk, right? 485 00:46:34,360 --> 00:46:38,620 You can potentially divest from the company equity if you have the ability to. 486 00:46:39,140 --> 00:46:45,860 Maybe there is no market for that, or maybe it's private and you can't and you'll be blocked for that. 487 00:46:45,860 --> 00:46:50,200 So then you move on to, hey, what other liquid assets do we have? 488 00:46:50,280 --> 00:46:54,840 So we have seen those situations as well, where they basically have illiquid assets and they have Bitcoin. 489 00:46:55,320 --> 00:46:58,820 And I really don't want to sell Bitcoin and don't want to recommend that. 490 00:46:58,900 --> 00:47:03,520 But ultimately, that might be the only recommendation that we have and the only strategy that we have. 491 00:47:03,960 --> 00:47:06,520 You could also, I suppose, take debt against the Bitcoin. 492 00:47:07,500 --> 00:47:08,600 Everything has its tradeoffs. 493 00:47:08,600 --> 00:47:13,460 But yeah, that's one thing that we're seeing is needing to solve for simply cash flow, 494 00:47:13,460 --> 00:47:18,180 not even a bigger thing like a house purchase or whatever but simply solving for cash flow 495 00:47:18,180 --> 00:47:24,240 to be able to live their lives and it's great to have a huge net worth on paper but if you don't 496 00:47:24,240 --> 00:47:31,100 have funds to at least live your life on a daily basis and potentially enjoy it to go further than 497 00:47:31,100 --> 00:47:36,980 that we're kind of missing the point as well right so we need to really use bitcoin as a tool 498 00:47:36,980 --> 00:47:41,900 yes in a lot of those cases we might need to sell the bitcoin if we have no other options 499 00:47:41,900 --> 00:47:49,300 it also really comes back to how comfortable they are with bitcoin as an asset versus something else 500 00:47:49,300 --> 00:47:55,080 that really goes into our framework as if they're extremely comfortable with the potential volatility 501 00:47:55,080 --> 00:48:02,060 and really understand what it is that's something we'll definitely incorporate as well into the mix 502 00:48:02,060 --> 00:48:09,380 ideally we're able to divest from the company equity because they can probably get more of that 503 00:48:09,380 --> 00:48:13,220 over their careers versus Bitcoin is going to be, 504 00:48:13,220 --> 00:48:15,680 in our opinion, more and more difficult to attain 505 00:48:15,680 --> 00:48:18,960 over time just based on price momentum. 506 00:48:23,000 --> 00:48:25,160 Yeah, that's interesting. 507 00:48:25,160 --> 00:48:27,560 One of my last questions for you, Gerard, 508 00:48:27,560 --> 00:48:30,040 how do you talk to your clients about custody? 509 00:48:31,560 --> 00:48:33,580 Custody is a really interesting one. 510 00:48:33,580 --> 00:48:36,440 We've actually started exploring that more 511 00:48:36,440 --> 00:48:44,140 And we've been very transparent from the very beginning that Bitcoin in self-custody is the superior form of ownership. 512 00:48:44,140 --> 00:48:53,460 Yet it's not appropriate for so many of our clients, especially because they were not Bitcoiners when we first started incorporating Bitcoin in their portfolios. 513 00:48:53,980 --> 00:49:04,980 And many of them don't have the desire or even skills or just detail-oriented mindset to be able to take self-custody. 514 00:49:04,980 --> 00:49:21,300 So we will talk about self-custody versus the ETF. What are the trade-offs on doing this versus that? We do feel that self-custody is superior, but historically, the majority of our Bitcoin exposure, especially from the client's lens, has been through the ETF. 515 00:49:21,300 --> 00:49:26,380 I would say that's been great because it allowed us to have that exposure. 516 00:49:27,240 --> 00:49:31,720 We didn't need to rely on them to buy the Bitcoin, set up a wallet, etc. 517 00:49:32,760 --> 00:49:37,360 But we're having more and more of those conversations over time to say, hey, we've had this thing. 518 00:49:37,920 --> 00:49:40,060 There is also self-custody Bitcoin. 519 00:49:40,400 --> 00:49:41,340 This is how it's different. 520 00:49:41,640 --> 00:49:43,380 This is why you might want to consider it. 521 00:49:43,840 --> 00:49:50,640 And once they want to move forward in those conversations, advising them on wallet setup, 522 00:49:50,640 --> 00:49:55,200 best practices, how we incorporate that into the estate strategy and a variety of other 523 00:49:55,200 --> 00:50:03,240 implications from a planning perspective. Yeah. And I assume, so I assume you're not 524 00:50:03,240 --> 00:50:08,900 normally advising folks to go straight up from the ETF into cold storage. Is it kind of like, 525 00:50:09,000 --> 00:50:14,540 we're going to draw a line in the sand, assuming they're, I guess, DCAing into it and okay, 526 00:50:14,800 --> 00:50:19,340 post this date, now we're going to acquire Bitcoin into this other. So we don't trigger 527 00:50:19,340 --> 00:50:23,460 a taxable event is that generally how you're doing it yeah we're definitely taking it on a 528 00:50:23,460 --> 00:50:29,580 case-by-case basis but in some cases we'll say hey we have a very healthy amount sitting in the 529 00:50:29,580 --> 00:50:37,340 bitcoin etf let's also consider just starting to accumulate spot bitcoin and then this is 530 00:50:37,340 --> 00:50:42,560 once you start doing that these are the recommendations and best practices around 531 00:50:42,560 --> 00:50:49,000 wallet in custody setup and we'll talk through all those different details there's depending on 532 00:50:49,000 --> 00:50:57,580 their sophistication level and comfort with those self-custody frameworks that will really dictate 533 00:50:57,580 --> 00:51:02,200 what we might recommend and what services we might want to bring in in addition to that 534 00:51:02,200 --> 00:51:08,360 and really just going from there. So it's really been a super customized solution based on what 535 00:51:08,360 --> 00:51:14,460 the client wants or needs and we're happy to just talk about Bitcoin. 536 00:51:14,460 --> 00:51:20,220 aren't we all that's beautifully said 537 00:51:20,220 --> 00:51:25,740 cool well this has been great gerard i really appreciate you coming on 538 00:51:25,740 --> 00:51:31,060 and um yeah i think more and more financial advisors need to be listening to 539 00:51:31,060 --> 00:51:37,660 uh guys like you and guys like wyatt and just getting the perspectives of you know a couple 540 00:51:37,660 --> 00:51:44,400 folks who have been in this space for a long time now and very very excited to hear uh you know 541 00:51:44,400 --> 00:51:48,060 we could talk offline, but about some of the conferences you're planning to go to this coming 542 00:51:48,060 --> 00:51:54,040 year and speak at. I think that that's actually a big part of this podcast as well as trying to 543 00:51:54,040 --> 00:52:00,420 get out into the years of as many, uh, normal advisors, traditional financial advisors as 544 00:52:00,420 --> 00:52:05,680 possible, uh, to kind of spread the, uh, spread the news kind of thing so that everyone kind of 545 00:52:05,680 --> 00:52:10,460 gets up to speed as quickly as possible. So really appreciate you coming on. I'll let Wyatt, uh, 546 00:52:10,460 --> 00:52:14,860 close out with any of his thoughts that he can hand off with any, you know, any closing thoughts 547 00:52:14,860 --> 00:52:20,520 for you and where people can find you if they want to work with you. Yeah, definitely, Matt. No, 548 00:52:20,540 --> 00:52:25,080 this is a great conversation. It's always a pleasure to have a Bitcoin for Financial Services 549 00:52:25,080 --> 00:52:30,780 Summit veteran and speaker on the pod. So we're looking forward to having you back out again in 550 00:52:30,780 --> 00:52:37,340 October of 26. We're workshopping, doing some cool things just to make it, you know, bigger and 551 00:52:37,340 --> 00:52:41,500 better. And, you know, like Jordan said, we just want to want to grow the pot. Like we want more 552 00:52:41,500 --> 00:52:46,960 folks being able to speak confidently to their clients about Bitcoin and the prowess of Bitcoin 553 00:52:46,960 --> 00:52:51,680 and what that can do for them. And yeah, we believe here rising tide lifts all boats and 554 00:52:51,680 --> 00:52:56,860 we're super thankful for the work Gerard is doing in that space. Thank you. Yeah, it's been a pleasure 555 00:52:56,860 --> 00:53:02,540 to be here. Looking forward to potentially being involved in the Bitcoin summit as well later this 556 00:53:02,540 --> 00:53:08,660 year or later next year. And where folks can find me is citraincapitaladvisors.com. So if you want 557 00:53:08,660 --> 00:53:15,020 to work together, happy to have a conversation and see if we're a good fit. Lovely. Alrighty. 558 00:53:15,020 --> 00:53:16,860 Thanks so much. And we will talk to you all soon. 559 00:53:32,540 --> 00:53:37,480 Bitcoin into their practice. The more professionals we reach, the stronger this ecosystem becomes, 560 00:53:37,480 --> 00:53:42,620 and our clients are better served. Stay sharp, stay sovereign, and keep leading from the front. 561 00:54:02,540 --> 00:54:03,040 you