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We officially have destroyed environmental FUD.

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And that took like three years of data intensive,

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systematic, cooperative Bitcoiners

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like coming together and shitting on that FUD.

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But with like the quantum stuff,

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we kind of FUD ourselves.

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So we're kind of shooting ourselves in the foot a bit.

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Okay, well, I feel pretty confident

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Bitcoin is going to take the market of gold.

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Like it has all these properties that are just so much better.

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A lot of people have probably been rotating

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out of Bitcoin into other assets.

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And that eventually there's going to be

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some sort of rotation back into Bitcoin.

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That's what we think can really start to spike things sometime this year.

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And there's plenty of room within just that specific market of rotation to move Bitcoin's price, you know, to a thousand and beyond.

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Bitcoin's gradual now.

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And gradual is what leads to a suddenly moment.

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Over the next few years, we'll look back on 2026 and be like, OK, that's when it started.

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Noster is interesting because it's one of those things where I think that a lot of people just purely aren't going to end up using it until they really need to.

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Or they're going to use it without realizing they're using it.

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Like that's what we're seeing with BitChat right now.

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Where it's like Noster is on the back end of BitChat to enable like the non-local side of the comms.

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And like, you know, BitChat's got like a million monthly active users right now, which is wild.

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Yeah.

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But it's like it's a sign of the times, right?

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Like you have to wonder, like did Jack, like, so Jack built it, then Callie ported it over to Android.

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But like you have to wonder, like Jack clearly saw the writing on the wall.

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Like it's been insane to see that kind of rapid adoption for that, just for a totally free, not harvesting your data app.

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Like it's kind of like a, it's a, it's a beautiful thing really.

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No, yeah, it's amazing.

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And like a few points on that.

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I hit on this point in our annual report when I'm talking about different forms of adoption and, you know,

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where eCash could have like a strong distribution channel through something like that's a great

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great um it's a great platform for it in our like protocol section of the report like that's one of

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the key takeaways that we put out and like one of the things that I think a lot of the you know more

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either like well-intentioned technologists of the crypto world believed in of like this fat

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protocol thesis where you're gonna have a token and it's gonna earn fees because people need the

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gas to use your infrastructure. And, you know, Chris Dixon, the partner at AE16Z kind of,

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you know, pushed out like the read, write, own thesis around a lot of that. And it's like,

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we're not seeing that happening. And now the data is kind of on our side. And, you know,

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Bitcoiners for a long time just assume this intuitively because we think from a very

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different perspective about the industry. And it just seems like some extra layer of

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intermediation to have some new token. It's like, why use a new token? Why not use money?

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and they're just like forcing you into an alternative form of money

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that you otherwise would not use in the same way that like,

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you know, airlines do that too with points

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and all these companies that do it with points.

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It's like, okay, so at best maybe these things are like point systems,

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but you can really only do that if you're like an oligopoly

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and crypto is just like too commoditized.

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So we've seen like this race to the bottom in terms of like people using

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the other crypto blockchains for settlement of different applications.

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And what everybody's realizing now is, oh, wait,

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it's really like the applications that matter

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and nobody really cares about what blockchain it's on

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and whatever is cheapest in terms of fees

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and nobody gives a shit about any of that.

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And if you have a good application that needs it as infrastructure

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for whatever reason, then that's what we're going to see.

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And that's a key point that we try to make to a lot of technical founders

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is that in a variety of ways,

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of like nobody really gives a shit about the infrastructure.

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You need to make applications that are leveraging your infrastructure

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in some sort of novel way.

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And that's what's going to attract the users.

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And that's what BitChat was.

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And that's a huge form of adoption for Nostra's infrastructure.

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And that's a really good thing.

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So many things come at the app layer and like so much of the value

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is coming at the app layer.

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And it's like if we want to get that, if you want to have like other Bitcoin

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layers be used then we need to have applications that are using it in a novel way that are going

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to attract people without even knowing like oh this was the lightning network or we used arc or

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we used something else um but yeah we wrote about bid chat in that form of adoption and and that was

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one thing that surprised me as well um it was funny because like i remember when it was first

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popping up like i i i love how much the human rights use case for it has made it go viral and

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take off because when it was first popping up i was like oh like what's the most obvious reason

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that i could see in like you know at least more developed economies for people to want to hop on

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a bluetooth mesh network and connect with a bunch of people locally it's like finding drugs at

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concerts i was like that would be a very viral use case for something like bit chat and and i

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expect that that'll probably still happen but i love that it's not making its foray into something

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that's more like you know socially critical and into something that's like very socially defensible

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for why an application that provides freedom technology for people you know is needed around

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the world in a very serious way no i mean first of all well said and i think it is it's a it's an

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interesting kind of larger point here and this is i was talking with david marcus uh from light

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spark maybe I think right before the kind of holiday break there and that was one of the things

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that he was really focused on was like and that's I mean as you know you mentioned it you know that's

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really what they're doing over there he's trying to figure out okay like we're using we're thinking

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of bitcoin and bitcoin layer 2 networks as rails versus thinking about like we just want to make

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stuff that people like it works better because it's using better technology it's using technology

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on top of Bitcoin versus, hey, like we need people to quote adopt Bitcoin.

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It's like they're going to adopt it whether they like it or not.

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They're going to adopt it just because we're using the rails behind the scenes.

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They don't even know about it.

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But it's just a better experience with lower fees or faster settlements or whatever it is.

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And I think this is just a really interesting point to be at because so much of the focus

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on Bitcoin is on just, at least in the Western world, is on the store of value side of things,

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right, is on, you know, just like looking at it as just an investable asset.

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there's a lot less focus in the Western world, again, not so much in the global South,

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on the medium of exchange side of things or on the payment rail side of things.

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But these developments are happening. They're very much happening.

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I just feel like a lot of people really aren't paying attention to it.

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Is that kind of what your vibe is as well?

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Yeah, yeah. So much of it comes down to like, what sources are you following?

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What part of the media is it coming through?

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But like these types of concepts, I agree, they really only come through in like the technical community.

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and that was another big thing that we hit on in the report we had this whole section

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called bitcoin media and we did that with fernando who's running marketing at blockstream

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formerly now he has this new website called perception that's really really cool and he's

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just doing a ton of meta analysis on like every form of bitcoin attention that exists and what

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it's like across different media channels and how how can we think and like have creative ideas

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around that. Like in the report, we hit in how massive the gap is between like the Bitcoin or

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demographic who goes to Bitcoin conferences and listens to Bitcoin podcasts and what their current

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perception is of Bitcoin based on that versus like some investor in New York who reads about Bitcoin

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through like a BlackRock blog post or through general financial media and what their current

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perception of Bitcoin is. And there's like this massive gap between people's perceptions based

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off of that. And yeah, so like in the media section, when we're getting into a lot of these

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things, that's like one of the narratives that we pulled out of it for the technical community is

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when people talk about like layer two or lightning, it's like, that's just like this huge GTM trap.

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Nobody knows what that means. Nobody cares what that means. If you're talking in those terms,

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your market of visibility is the technical community. And that's not what's going to,

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build your app for you. You need to be reaching out to general consumers or institutions that are

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actually using this. And that's kind of the problem is because a lot of thinking around

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these things has originated from us building the infrastructure, everybody still holds that frame

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of talking about it from the point of view of the infrastructure. And I feel like we're going

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through a shift where the market's forcing everybody to realize, well, here's what we

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actually care about. And don't talk about things in terms of what your infrastructure you're using.

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You know, nobody says like no guy is downloading Instagram because he wants to use HTTPS.

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And like, you know, it's it's then that sounds ridiculous to us now because now we have this whole app layer built out and we know exactly why a guy downloads Instagram, probably because he wants to scroll through like cars and boobs and stuff.

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And like that's the consumer motivation that you're looking at.

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And and that needs to be applied more to Bitcoin companies is really thinking from that framework.

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And yeah, I definitely agree with David's perspective on a lot of this because he brings kind of like the broader like tech learnings and culture into our industry.

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And I think that's valuable.

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Yeah.

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So I was thinking about the way to structure this conversation just because I think there's so much stuff in this report to be able to cover.

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And I was kind of wondering, you let me know what you think on this.

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but I almost want to go through kind of some of the predictions that you guys put forward in the

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report and use that as kind of the jumping off point for us in the larger conversations because

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they're like it's a really I like that you started out the report with that it's like a nice way to

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kind of okay the TLDR here here's what we think is going to happen now you can get into the meat

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and potatoes what that actually means yeah first of all for people who want to maybe download the

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report and read along if they're listening to this uh where where should they find this to be

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to download it? Yeah, it's just on our website, epochvc.io. So that's E-P-O-C-H-V-C.io. You go to

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the writing section in there, it's the one at the top. Okay, awesome. So yeah, if that sounds good

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with you, let's start there because the very first line in that prediction section has a nice little

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kind of tongue-in-cheek joke in it too for Bitcoiners. But the price of Bitcoin reaches at least

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150,000 Federal Reserve notes, backed by the full faith and declining credit of the US government.

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So starting off with the price prediction, bold, this is 2026 predictions overall,

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there's quite a wide swath of them. But let's talk about that from a Vibes perspective,

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because a lot of people right now seem to think they're watching gold run, they're watching silver

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run. And I think people have two different reactions to this. One is like me, I'm saying,

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boy, can you believe how many people are piling into gold and silver at what is going to probably

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be a local top and you know wow uh shocking and the other people saying boy i'm about to pile into

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gold and silver because look bitcoin's not doing anything what what's your read on this 150k i'd

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say that's a i mean it's almost doubling from here uh but that puts you it's a pretty like

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it's conservative to strong in terms of the prediction how did you guys arrive at that

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so well what's helpful is for me to give the audience like context on my framework of thinking

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around this and you know coming from like the traditional finance world um you know there's

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like the saying that you know the only certainty you get from using any sort of model is that it's

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wrong and and that's the case for like any sort of you know financial projection prediction about

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the future in most things in traditional finance that are often viewed by people as a form of

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science, like very fundamental forms of modeling, like capital asset pricing model or discounted

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cash flow evaluations and all these different tools that are used by Wall Street guys to determine

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like what the fundamental value of some sort of asset is worth. They're just an aggregation of a

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ton of assumptions about the future. And it really like brings and I think what like the Bitcoin

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community is called into question about a lot of things when we have these new assets trading that

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have been so heavily criticized over the years. It calls these models that are viewed as a science

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into question because for the first time we have very novel assets to now value. And then the

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question becomes, well, what really is speculative? When people would criticize Bitcoin as being a

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speculative asset, it's like, well, what is speculative? And speculative, I think, really

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means in modern parlance to people what they're intending it to mean is it has a lot of speculation.

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in it by some, you know, arbitrary consideration. Like we know that if a company has been producing

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a significant amount of cashflow for decades on end, I'm much more certain that they'll do it

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again next year than a company that's never done it before. And so like one might actually still

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produce the same amount of cashflow in a year as like a startup and it'll blow up.

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But it's hard based on the historical precedent to like, look at that. And, and I think that like

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that type of framing of like what truly is something speculative is, I think it's important

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to understand because in Bitcoin, when I was first introduced to it, I took my background in finance

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with my undergraduate education. I was a CFA charter holder. So I got, you know, deepest into

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this. And then on top of that, you know, with kind of like the deepest financial education outside of

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like going into like PhDs or something that don't really matter in finance. But when I viewed

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something like Bitcoin, I had this large background in my prior job in like valuation,

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like valuing really esoteric things for like you're in like a litigation or something. And

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you need to say in front of like a judge in a court, this is what the value of it is. And that's

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like very precise and technical based on like the very precise technical theory. And I had a lot of

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experience with that. And when I would think through all of that, and I first heard about

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Bitcoin, like my first reaction wasn't like, oh, I hate Bitcoin, this thing's stupid.

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I didn't understand it because it was pitched to me as like a blockchain technology.

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And I was just like, I don't know, it's a speculative investment. Like it doesn't

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produce cash flow. I don't, that's not the type of investing I do. I don't, I don't know how to,

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you know, come up with a framework of assessing what it's actually worth,

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and then whether or not it's over or undervalued. And that caused me to like write Bitcoin off for

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years. And what gave me a good framework for doing that is really, I think it's, well, you need to get

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deep into understanding the fundamental characteristics of Bitcoin. And when you do that,

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and when you understand here are the fundamental properties that make it good, it is scarce,

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it is, you know, highly portable, it's highly divisible, it's all these different monetary

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properties that make something a good money. And when you get deep into that, you realize,

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okay well what is the size of the market of money and then we've had a bunch of people in the

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industry put out different versions of what those sizes are and if it you know consumes the market

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of gold if it consumes the market of you know real estate to some percentage if it starts to

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take a lot of share from stock stocks and bonds you know we can get into these really really big

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numbers and all of a sudden the numbers just become so big when you think about it that it's

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not even worth talking about. It's just like me deciding whether it's worth $80 trillion or $200

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trillion really doesn't make a difference from here. All that tells you is buy it and hold it

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for a long time until that happens. And once you get to that framework of thinking, which is for

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the more technical crowd, that's a top-down analysis. You take a top-down perspective of

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what's the total size? Let's think through these little details. Okay, we can get down to a smaller

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version of that of like, okay, well, I feel pretty confident Bitcoin is going to take the market of

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gold. Like it has all these properties that are just so much better. Sure. There's some segments

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of the gold market that are distinct from Bitcoin. They are used in like electronics or for some sort

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of utility, or it's used in jewelry, you know, and there's, it's not going to take all of gold,

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but it's going to take some very large percentage of the monetary premium of gold of people holding

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gold simply because it's scarce and they think it'll go up. And so that's like a pretty easy

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bet to make. And it's just like, okay, let's make that. Okay. What are we looking at now on that?

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We're looking at like a, what is that? Like a, you know, 10, 20 X here. I don't even know. And

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now the gold's across 5,000, it's way up there. So it's like, cool. 10, 20 X just to take the

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market of gold. And then there's a lot more to run after that easy decision. So that's the

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fundamental framework. That's how I think about Bitcoin. And then what a lot of people in the

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community do is they'll, you know, create these models where they say it must follow some sort of

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law. And we've, you know, been through different versions of this over time. We had stock to flow

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model and then people watch that break. And then, you know, people look at power law distributions

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and, and it's not to say that there isn't like some sort of truth or indication towards it.

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But I think a lot of people start to view these things as like a causal model. And just like,

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know Bitcoin has like some characteristic that is tied to this variable. And it's probably tracked

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it to a degree because of that. And if enough people start to believe that for a period of time,

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then it starts to become this self-fulfilling prophecy. And then eventually that breaks.

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Like you watch, that's like Robert Schiller wrote this book, who's like a Nobel Prize winning PhD

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type economist guy, and narrative economics. And you kind of go into that of like narratives,

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you kind of get this like fun time in the sun with a narrative and then eventually it will break

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once it starts to become circular and people are aware that it's like this narrative and um

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and that's kind of how i think about it with a lot of these models so like in the report

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to like tie all that back to this you know question of how did we get to this prediction

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um like i i never like believed in we have these like four-year cycles that are just going to

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continue. At best, it's a self-fulfilling narrative. And eventually that's going to break

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at some point. So we could say either it was at one end of the spectrum, spurious correlation,

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it was just completely by chance that it started to follow halving cycles with its price. And

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if you go to this website that we have flagged in the report, it's like spuriouscorrelations.com.

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It's a really funny website to go to. You can look at all the different spurious correlations

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that exist in the world.

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And you wouldn't believe how many things

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very closely track completely unrelated variables.

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So like that's one end of the spectrum of thinking.

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And then I think at the other end of the spectrum,

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it's like, okay,

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maybe there was a self-fulfilling prophecy in the narrative.

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And then, well, okay, that's broken now.

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So whether it's cycles never happened

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or cycles are officially broken,

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like the way that we're thinking about it now is

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we're going to have this macro backdrop that's always going to be impacting things.

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There's, you know, Luke Roman's making a case for certain like legitimate variables that could have happened.

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It's not something that I view as primarily causal despite the historical liquidity correlation.

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And like the reason I'll explain that is kind of based on our second prediction in the report after this $150,000 price prediction.

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And that said, we predict that we'll look back on 2026 and say that was probably the year that Bitcoin started decoupling from either, you could think about it as its correlation with liquidity or just equities in general, how most people think about it, and risk assets broadly.

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So that won't be obvious because it takes time. But sometime around like 2027, 2028, I think we'll end up looking back and be like, okay, 2026 was the year that that happened. And like the short version in the report is, I think that we have this shift happening right now, or that we've seen building over the years, and, you know, commodity adoption.

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And we've had a variety of short-term forces that have been negatively impacting the price of Bitcoin. It's too hard to attribute what came when. But when you look at just how much mean reversion can ultimately happen, how much the analogy said in the industry is Bitcoin's a ball that's with air in it or a balloon underwater.

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You know, like, yeah, it's eventually going to return to a certain balance.

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If you kind of look at Bitcoin denominated in gold that story starts to look pretty clear And it looks like we just been in a bear market for a period of time And that the reality is if you believe in some sort of cycle coming out of this

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we're getting close to about 400 days on this bear market when Bitcoin is denominated in gold.

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And if you look at the historical cycles, it starts going up a lot after that. It's not really

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the way I think about it. People want to look at it directly on a chart like that, but I think

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about it from the perspective of commodities are getting a very strong allocation. Bitcoin has these

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fundamental properties. A lot of people have probably been rotating out of Bitcoin into other

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assets because of this. And that eventually there's going to be some sort of rotation back

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into Bitcoin as they start to view those as maturing or they've reached the top of their run

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or they start to say like, okay, we want to take a little bit of money off the table and start to

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reallocate as like an institution. So like, I think like the gold rotation is going to be one

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of the first dominoes where it's like gold's flying past 5,000 right now. There's going to

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be a lot of people that look and they say like, everybody's going to be asking this question,

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why is Bitcoin still down when we see the case of commodities increasing so significantly and

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becoming so strong? And we have over a decade worth of data to look at that structural shift.

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Like we know that this is a persistent trend in markets at this point.

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So that'll be like the first shift.

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And like, I think that that's what we think can really start to spike things sometime this year.

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And there's plenty of room within just that specific market of rotation to move Bitcoin's price, you know, to $150,000 and beyond.

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And then what we do after that is we go into, okay, what are like these pools of capital that are large and exist around the world that are also able to flow into Bitcoin for a specific reason like that?

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So we go into ETF flows, we go into nation state adoption, we go into wealth management firms, we go into broader asset management firms, and we look at if they had certain percentages of allocation that started moving into it, what do those numbers look like?

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And to the point I was making earlier about the market sizing of Bitcoin, the numbers are so large that it doesn't really merit discussion.

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Like these things are big and people like to see them in charts.

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Here you go, here's a chart.

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and I think that

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tying all that together

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it's like okay

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so what is like

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the fundamental characteristic

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that starts to make that happen

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and the key thing we call out

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in the report

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is Bitcoin's declining volatility

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that's this very persistent trend

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where we can witness it

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continuing to decline

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and we're at a point now

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where you know

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Bitcoin is less volatile

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than some of these major equities

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that a lot of people own

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you know like nvidia and tesla and like we have this chart kind of laying that out of how you know

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the 2025 volatility of bitcoin was much less than those even despite its poor price performance

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during that period and um you know and it's owned by like 12 percent of people within the u.s

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we're estimating and like um and then you look at these other stocks and it's like that's like

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that stock ownership is closer to like 60 percent within the u.s and it's like okay so people all

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think like if you were to ask anybody like you would ask very serious institutional investors

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um is bitcoin riskier than nvidia stock and they'll be like yes like the you know they'll

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far and away believe that there's kind of like this perception gap where i think the data is

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changing and bitcoin's volatility is lowering and it's actually starting to become a bit more of like

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a safer asset than it once was uh from just like a pure volatility standpoint there's a bunch of

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For people listening that want to give me a gotcha, there's a million other reasons why Bitcoin can't go bankrupt.

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So it's actually way safer than companies that can go bankrupt.

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But putting all that aside, just looking at the volatility of its price, I think that that shift will start to change things.

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So what does that mean?

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that means once people start to correctly assess the risk profile of Bitcoin as an asset,

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that that's when I think that decoupling moment starts to happen. And I think we're going to see

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a lot lower volatility. So this is the narrative in the report. We say Bitcoin's gradual now.

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And gradual is what leads to a suddenly moment. That's the thing. Bitcoin's price getting boring

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is exactly what sets it up for people to say,

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oh shit, Bitcoin's really boring now.

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Its volatility is a lot lower.

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And well, we should be allocating

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more of our portfolios to this.

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And you look at the sizes of these pools of capital

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where a nation state says,

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if you're a nation state and you say,

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why do I want to have gold over Bitcoin?

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It's because it's got,

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the capital markets for gold

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are the deepest in the world

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outside of treasury denominated assets.

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And so if I want to go move $200 billion,

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I can feel very confident that moving that

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in a gold-structured product of some sort

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is not going to move the market.

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Whereas you go try to move $200 billion in Bitcoin today,

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we're talking about 10% of the market capitalization on that move.

336
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So that makes it a lot less attractive to these guys to put it in.

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And so lowering the volatility of it,

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I think, is something that actually comes from

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it just simply gradually growing over time,

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having lower volatility, saying,

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okay, this is a bit safer, it starts to get bigger.

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okay, now we're not going to move the market as much. And this is something that can actually

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serve as more of an alternative of gold to like large sizes of money. And that's like the

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inflection point, I think. Like I think if Bitcoin gradually grinds up, say, 2 to 4x,

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and we get into the like, you know, 150,000, 250,000 range, now we're talking about a capital

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pool that the addressable market for people who own gold has just probably not just doubled,

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but because it's a long tail, like the market of like who owns gold, it's like the biggest

348
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guys own vast majority of it.

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But quantity wise, most people own much smaller amounts of gold, most nation states, etc.

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So when you double the liquidity of Bitcoin, now there's a bunch of people who are like

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expecting, oh, well, I want to sell 10 billion or 20 billion.

352
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And when Bitcoin was a $2 trillion asset, that didn't make sense.

353
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Now that it's a $5 trillion asset, it's starting to make a little bit more sense.

354
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So I think that there's like multiples in the market size that it can actually increase that are like now addressable for it as a reserve asset.

355
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And that's what leads to this like decorrelation and decoupling and like a suddenly moment over time.

356
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So like that's kind of our prediction.

357
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And we kind of see like we see it moving up in 2026 and it's probably just going to be like a boring gradual.

358
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Like it just starts to continue to move up.

359
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Maybe it hits that inflection point then, but I think that whenever it does hit its suddenly moment over the next few years, that we'll look back on 2026 and be like, okay, that's when it started.

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And it was because it was so boring that it actually started to make sense for a lot more people to put money into it.

361
00:27:54,038 --> 00:27:57,218
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390
00:30:57,678 --> 00:31:00,678
Okay, so, and I appreciate that background.

391
00:31:01,178 --> 00:31:06,118
So to make sure I understand this, you're actually saying basically like the gradually leads to the suddenly.

392
00:31:06,438 --> 00:31:11,298
You're not necessarily saying that Bitcoin is going to have diminishing returns in the long run.

393
00:31:11,298 --> 00:31:16,878
more so that its volatility has been decreased to a point now where it looks like, quote, stable,

394
00:31:17,238 --> 00:31:22,718
right, to a lot of investors. And that that, in fact, then leads to, okay, it actually has

395
00:31:22,718 --> 00:31:27,358
incredible upside potential, because now more capital is flowing into it, because more capital

396
00:31:27,358 --> 00:31:32,098
feels comfortable flowing into it, the liquidity increases in the total market. And that sort of

397
00:31:32,098 --> 00:31:36,538
is just this self-perpetuating cycle that eventually just leads to like that suddenly moment. Is that

398
00:31:36,538 --> 00:31:47,478
Is that fair to say? And so you're not on the diminishing returns thesis. You're just saying it may look like that in the short term. And then you get that point where it's that inflection point. Is that my understanding correctly?

399
00:31:47,478 --> 00:32:03,618
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that's right. It's like, I think Bitcoin is having diminishing returns within the current perception of it, of like, if you think of the entire universe of investors that are focused on Bitcoin today, which is a very small percentage of the total like investor world, within that it's having diminishing returns.

400
00:32:03,618 --> 00:32:09,118
by becoming more gradual, becoming more boring and having more like stability in price,

401
00:32:09,398 --> 00:32:14,218
then it starts to open up what other like investors are looking at it and why.

402
00:32:14,918 --> 00:32:18,398
And maybe not even the investor themselves, but what bucket they're putting it into.

403
00:32:18,518 --> 00:32:20,938
Because like so much of this is driven by narrative.

404
00:32:20,938 --> 00:32:26,138
Like you go to an asset management summit or you go talk with family offices and you

405
00:32:26,138 --> 00:32:28,678
learn how a lot of these investors are thinking.

406
00:32:28,898 --> 00:32:31,278
It's just the reality is nobody has time to know everything.

407
00:32:31,278 --> 00:32:34,398
and most of what they're doing is they're listening to narratives

408
00:32:34,398 --> 00:32:35,678
that they hear in different places.

409
00:32:36,298 --> 00:32:39,238
And the second, a bunch of data, we have like a consistent amount of data

410
00:32:39,238 --> 00:32:41,238
that says like, well, look at Bitcoin.

411
00:32:41,378 --> 00:32:45,058
It's starting to, you know, its volatility is significantly lower.

412
00:32:45,058 --> 00:32:49,198
It's, you know, up 100%, 150% over the past year or two,

413
00:32:49,698 --> 00:32:53,238
$3 trillion market cap asset.

414
00:32:53,438 --> 00:32:56,078
If you were just like, oh, interesting, is this thing a risk hedge?

415
00:32:56,198 --> 00:32:59,978
I mean, the second Bitcoin is viewed as a risk-off asset, like truly,

416
00:32:59,978 --> 00:33:04,118
that's when I think things really start to change.

417
00:33:04,158 --> 00:33:05,138
And that's when a lot of people are like,

418
00:33:05,598 --> 00:33:07,118
well, we should at least put like 2%

419
00:33:07,118 --> 00:33:08,678
into something like this

420
00:33:08,678 --> 00:33:10,638
because that's what we do with gold.

421
00:33:10,638 --> 00:33:12,138
And Bitcoin is probably just like

422
00:33:12,138 --> 00:33:13,598
a higher return version of gold.

423
00:33:14,858 --> 00:33:16,278
So that kind of brings us

424
00:33:16,278 --> 00:33:17,598
into the next couple of points here,

425
00:33:17,638 --> 00:33:19,598
which is one or point number three

426
00:33:19,598 --> 00:33:22,818
is Bitcoin rises at least 50% in gold terms

427
00:33:22,818 --> 00:33:24,818
from a Bitcoin rotation trade.

428
00:33:24,898 --> 00:33:27,178
And then the next one is a major asset manager

429
00:33:27,178 --> 00:33:31,258
adds a 2% allocation to Bitcoin in its model portfolio.

430
00:33:31,738 --> 00:33:33,278
So do you think those kind of go,

431
00:33:33,558 --> 00:33:35,198
I mean, do they go hand in hand a little bit

432
00:33:35,198 --> 00:33:37,338
where it's like people start to realize

433
00:33:37,338 --> 00:33:38,638
as Bitcoin catches a bid,

434
00:33:38,878 --> 00:33:42,238
like I guess does the Bitcoin price movement versus gold,

435
00:33:42,798 --> 00:33:44,658
do you kind of see gold moving a bit stagnant?

436
00:33:44,718 --> 00:33:46,698
Like, do you think this is as high as gold goes for a while?

437
00:33:46,758 --> 00:33:47,798
And then it kind of levels out,

438
00:33:47,878 --> 00:33:49,078
Bitcoin starts doing the moving

439
00:33:49,078 --> 00:33:50,518
and then people realize,

440
00:33:50,638 --> 00:33:51,918
huh, there's a rotation,

441
00:33:52,198 --> 00:33:53,638
again, like self-fulfilling prophecy.

442
00:33:53,778 --> 00:33:55,018
It's like rotation trade is happening.

443
00:33:55,258 --> 00:33:56,318
We should get in on this.

444
00:33:56,318 --> 00:34:00,398
We should add this to our model portfolio because we've seen what it's done in other model portfolios.

445
00:34:00,578 --> 00:34:05,998
You know, if you added just like a one to five percent allocation over five years, like it helps your portfolio drastically.

446
00:34:05,998 --> 00:34:07,478
Is that kind of how you see that playing out?

447
00:34:08,058 --> 00:34:11,558
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Like, you know, I think gold's going up.

448
00:34:11,998 --> 00:34:16,918
I think gold is a good asset for the reasons I just described and people are going to continue to view it that way.

449
00:34:16,918 --> 00:34:28,638
I just think that if you like when you view a market from the perspective of there's a market is the aggregation of, you know, millions of different perspectives.

450
00:34:29,218 --> 00:34:35,238
When you view it from that perspective, it's like, OK, so with any market, with any owner of something, there's some there's some marginal group.

451
00:34:35,338 --> 00:34:37,378
There's some group that's like right on the edge of that market.

452
00:34:37,378 --> 00:34:44,058
They're like, yeah, we own this. But like, if Bitcoin was just, you know, a little bit bigger or a little bit less volatile, we would shift out of it.

453
00:34:44,058 --> 00:34:50,058
You know, when you think about it from that perspective, there's some marginal group of sellers that could move out of one market and into another.

454
00:34:51,838 --> 00:34:53,358
That's kind of how we're viewing it.

455
00:34:54,018 --> 00:35:01,478
And to your point on like the model portfolios, like, you know, we put this chart in there that's showing the market sizing of some of that.

456
00:35:01,478 --> 00:35:13,338
And it's like if you look at, you know, some of these like major large wealth management firms, Morgan Stanley and the like, they have like a range of recommendation around Bitcoin allocations.

457
00:35:13,338 --> 00:35:16,918
it kind of varies across all of them. And we put this chart and says, if you took all the low ones

458
00:35:16,918 --> 00:35:20,718
and then you took all the high ones for each one, here's kind of based on how much they're managing,

459
00:35:20,838 --> 00:35:24,278
what that would look like across their client groups and how much would flow into it.

460
00:35:25,198 --> 00:35:29,498
And even on the low allocation, it's like 400 billion. So we're talking about multiples greater

461
00:35:29,498 --> 00:35:35,918
than ETF AUM. And that's just a recommendation. But if some of these large firms put it into

462
00:35:35,918 --> 00:35:40,338
what's structurally a model portfolio where they say, you're a new client onboarding,

463
00:35:40,338 --> 00:35:44,758
here's where we're going to start you off with in this structured portfolio it's like the default

464
00:35:44,758 --> 00:35:49,358
template and then based on what we talked to you about you know we'll finagle what we actually

465
00:35:49,358 --> 00:35:54,818
want to do with it and um so like i think having that shift of like bitcoin moving from just

466
00:35:54,818 --> 00:35:59,198
recommendations within these firms to being in like a modern portfolio that's that's going to

467
00:35:59,198 --> 00:36:06,678
be a very major shift and like the capital size of that's massive no no i mean it like when you

468
00:36:06,678 --> 00:36:12,438
look at the actual amount of money that is sloshing around out there like bitcoins now

469
00:36:12,438 --> 00:36:17,478
under two trillion dollar market cap starts to look comically small when you also understand what

470
00:36:17,478 --> 00:36:22,558
bitcoin is like it's and to me eric where i'm at with this right now is it and this is like a drum

471
00:36:22,558 --> 00:36:26,518
i've been beating is just that it seems that there's a huge information asymmetry right now

472
00:36:26,518 --> 00:36:30,358
for those that get their 40 hours per week of bitcoin podcasts and are and are paying attention

473
00:36:30,358 --> 00:36:33,418
and are in the know you know and have been following this closely maybe you're a little

474
00:36:33,418 --> 00:36:36,658
bit disappointed by bitcoin's price action right now especially when you watch the gold bugs and

475
00:36:36,658 --> 00:36:39,438
and the silver simps dancing on Bitcoin's grave.

476
00:36:39,438 --> 00:36:41,958
But at the same time, the fact that that is happening

477
00:36:41,958 --> 00:36:44,878
and the fact that Bitcoin is kind of languishing right now

478
00:36:44,878 --> 00:36:48,158
a little bit in this 90 to 100K zone,

479
00:36:48,158 --> 00:36:49,918
to me that just signals that like,

480
00:36:49,918 --> 00:36:52,098
wow, we are still so crazy early

481
00:36:52,098 --> 00:36:53,818
because the vast, vast majority of people

482
00:36:53,818 --> 00:36:56,198
have no idea what we're talking about here.

483
00:36:56,198 --> 00:36:58,518
They have no idea because if they did,

484
00:36:58,518 --> 00:37:00,398
they'd be piling into Bitcoin, but they're not,

485
00:37:00,398 --> 00:37:01,438
so they don't.

486
00:37:01,438 --> 00:37:04,338
And so to me, this just seems like,

487
00:37:04,338 --> 00:37:06,458
whether you're managing a ton of money

488
00:37:06,458 --> 00:37:08,358
or you're just a pleb stacking for yourself and your family.

489
00:37:08,858 --> 00:37:10,698
To me, this just feels like one of those opportunities

490
00:37:10,698 --> 00:37:15,378
that you're going to look back on in four years, five years, 10 years, 20 years,

491
00:37:15,398 --> 00:37:19,098
and you're going to be like, wow, either thank God I was stacking like a psychopath

492
00:37:19,098 --> 00:37:22,078
or dang, I wish I would have been stacking like a psychopath.

493
00:37:22,718 --> 00:37:23,398
Oh, totally.

494
00:37:23,598 --> 00:37:27,218
Yeah, I mean, you think about, I remember in like the depths of the last bear market

495
00:37:27,218 --> 00:37:31,338
and when we were getting close to like 20 to 15K,

496
00:37:31,398 --> 00:37:34,618
and that was like really the first time when I was just like gung-ho,

497
00:37:34,618 --> 00:37:40,438
like, yeah, like, thank God it's this low. I can't even believe it's this low. And then you look back

498
00:37:40,438 --> 00:37:45,858
on that and it's just like, thank God I, you know, put my money into Bitcoin at that point in time.

499
00:37:45,938 --> 00:37:50,178
That was huge. That impacted my life significantly. And yeah, I don't think it's that long until we're

500
00:37:50,178 --> 00:37:55,218
just like, remember Bitcoin at 90K? Like those are fun times.

501
00:37:56,238 --> 00:38:00,098
No, it's true. And I want to get into a couple of these other points too, because the next two are

502
00:38:00,098 --> 00:38:04,838
kind of related. And it's around treasury companies, which have been a, let's say,

503
00:38:04,898 --> 00:38:09,858
contentious topic. So the first part here, point number five, is about MetaPlanet achieving its

504
00:38:09,858 --> 00:38:15,718
highest MNAV among other Bitcoin treasury companies. And you're going to see market

505
00:38:15,718 --> 00:38:20,638
cap greater than a billion. And then after that, an activist investor or competitor liquidating a

506
00:38:20,638 --> 00:38:24,538
Bitcoin treasury company, capturing the spread between its MNAV discount and the value of its

507
00:38:24,538 --> 00:38:29,158
Bitcoin. So can we talk about that a little bit? Because the first point around MetaPlanet,

508
00:38:29,158 --> 00:38:33,118
I think is interesting. The second point is perhaps even more so because it's been one that

509
00:38:33,118 --> 00:38:37,318
people have been kind of theorizing about a lot, like, okay, now that these companies are trading

510
00:38:37,318 --> 00:38:43,198
at a discount to MNAV, wouldn't it make sense to somehow, you know, be able to extract that Bitcoin

511
00:38:43,198 --> 00:38:47,038
from there that you're basically getting on sale? So how are you guys thinking about this? What,

512
00:38:47,258 --> 00:38:51,198
you know, maybe we can start in the meta planet point and then kind of get into the larger, like,

513
00:38:51,258 --> 00:38:55,158
hey, which company's getting, or maybe not which, but why would a company get liquidated at this

514
00:38:55,158 --> 00:39:04,258
stage. Yeah, yeah. So we had the I think the quickest way to describe the MetaPlanet one is

515
00:39:04,258 --> 00:39:12,158
just MetaPlanet is the only Bitcoin treasury company right now that has like an operating

516
00:39:12,158 --> 00:39:18,438
income. When you think about like the pure play Bitcoin treasury companies, all the other ones

517
00:39:18,438 --> 00:39:23,798
have expenses because they're paying people. Strategy does too. Strategy, it's so big that

518
00:39:23,798 --> 00:39:30,018
Its expenses are like a very small percentage, you know, a few basis points of, you know, the amount of Bitcoin they have every year.

519
00:39:30,158 --> 00:39:36,978
But MetaPlanet's been consistently applying a strategy that actually earns like a direct Bitcoin yield on their stack.

520
00:39:36,998 --> 00:39:39,458
And they're doing different derivative strategies and things to do that.

521
00:39:39,498 --> 00:39:41,318
And they're generating a large amount of income from it.

522
00:39:41,358 --> 00:39:44,498
So that offsets the cost of all the people they're paying to run it.

523
00:39:44,858 --> 00:39:48,138
And not only that, it actually grows the amount of Bitcoin that exists.

524
00:39:48,578 --> 00:39:50,378
And it's the only one doing that.

525
00:39:50,378 --> 00:39:52,738
Some of the other ones like Nakamoto and Striva.

526
00:39:52,738 --> 00:39:53,298
Besides strategy.

527
00:39:53,298 --> 00:40:01,518
right um well strategy is not generating like a direct yield yeah like strategy is not like

528
00:40:01,518 --> 00:40:05,298
like they're not selling like covered calls on their bitcoin stack or anything like that

529
00:40:05,298 --> 00:40:09,098
they do have their obviously they're still operating business like in the traditional

530
00:40:09,098 --> 00:40:15,218
sense though where yeah i see what you're saying yeah yeah yeah and i i i would presume i haven't

531
00:40:15,218 --> 00:40:21,538
looked at that number but i would presume that their operating business income would still

532
00:40:21,538 --> 00:40:26,498
probably not offset these costs, but I could be wrong about that. Because the operating business

533
00:40:26,498 --> 00:40:32,898
is like so small within the company that it doesn't really move the needle. But maybe it does.

534
00:40:32,978 --> 00:40:38,118
I'm not sure. But I guess like, so of like the pure play characteristics, though, earning a Bitcoin

535
00:40:38,118 --> 00:40:43,638
yield is what MetaPlanet did. And not only that, but if you look at like who started with X amount

536
00:40:43,638 --> 00:40:49,178
of Bitcoin and then how much they grew it over the past year, like strategy, you know, on an

537
00:40:49,178 --> 00:40:55,778
absolute basis, obviously got the most Bitcoin. But like Metaplan on a relative basis year over

538
00:40:55,778 --> 00:41:00,358
year grew its Bitcoin stack so significantly. So like they just, they just crushed 2025.

539
00:41:01,138 --> 00:41:04,918
And, and I think that it's like, if you're running a pure play treasury company, there's just like a

540
00:41:04,918 --> 00:41:08,478
lot of things that they've got going for them that make sense with like the tax environment,

541
00:41:08,618 --> 00:41:12,618
et cetera. It's like, okay, I see the model making sense here. They're offsetting their operating

542
00:41:12,618 --> 00:41:18,278
income. Some of these other treasury companies like NACA and Strive are spending like a ton

543
00:41:18,278 --> 00:41:25,178
of money and their operating costs are really cutting into the Bitcoin.

544
00:41:25,178 --> 00:41:26,178
So we'll see if that changes.

545
00:41:26,178 --> 00:41:27,178
We'll see what happens.

546
00:41:27,178 --> 00:41:31,838
You know, I'm sure that they have a ton of different plans, but yeah, we were like, okay,

547
00:41:31,838 --> 00:41:32,998
Metaplan is kind of crushing it.

548
00:41:32,998 --> 00:41:45,616
They doing a good job with that So then I guess the next question there would be and I appreciate the explanation the next question would be just around a company getting liquidated by either

549
00:41:45,616 --> 00:41:50,796
investors or a competitor yeah yeah so okay so like um

550
00:41:50,796 --> 00:42:03,216
the the theory the you know like there there's a difference between like as an investor of any

551
00:42:03,216 --> 00:42:08,276
strategy between like what theoretically makes sense on paper and then what you can actually

552
00:42:08,276 --> 00:42:16,356
execute in a market. And that's because markets are dynamic. They change based on new information

553
00:42:16,356 --> 00:42:26,676
at any point in time. So if like an activist investor, for example, they want to be really

554
00:42:26,676 --> 00:42:32,296
quiet about what they're doing until it's time for them to do it because they don't want to start

555
00:42:32,296 --> 00:42:36,736
signaling markets and doing different things that are going to change it. So if, for example,

556
00:42:37,356 --> 00:42:44,376
an active investor wanted to get a position in a treasury company and accumulate that gradually

557
00:42:44,376 --> 00:42:52,236
over time, and then they wanted to signal to the market that they're going to have some sort of

558
00:42:52,236 --> 00:42:57,476
hostile takeover of it, and they're going to run a public campaign to get shareholders to vote on

559
00:42:57,476 --> 00:43:02,716
behalf of what they're doing to just liquidate the Bitcoin. They'd have to be very quiet about

560
00:43:02,716 --> 00:43:05,996
like not signaling the market and like the actual execution of it's something that's just like,

561
00:43:06,076 --> 00:43:10,256
you know, it's something that billionaires do and it's a hard thing to do. And like,

562
00:43:10,436 --> 00:43:16,916
so, you know, we'll see. It can also be something that is just simply an acquisition by one of the

563
00:43:16,916 --> 00:43:22,736
other treasury companies. But to really capture the spread from what you're doing, you need to

564
00:43:22,736 --> 00:43:27,856
have your position before the market's aware of your position, or you need to have some sort of

565
00:43:27,856 --> 00:43:33,076
agreements like off-market terms that shareholders are voting for. So that just all gets like really

566
00:43:33,076 --> 00:43:37,276
complicated from like a governance and execution standpoint. So like that's kind of my caveat with

567
00:43:37,276 --> 00:43:44,236
it is we think it's probably going to happen, but we do need to see depressed discounted

568
00:43:44,936 --> 00:43:49,156
valuations of the equity relative to the Bitcoin stack for a period of time and somebody's actually

569
00:43:49,156 --> 00:43:55,516
got to execute on it right um we could have bitcoin rally in the next month 40 and all of a

570
00:43:55,516 --> 00:43:59,116
sudden expectations of the market changes and everybody's like okay these bitcoin treasury

571
00:43:59,116 --> 00:44:03,696
companies are going to be you know moving into a much easier environment for capital raising now

572
00:44:03,696 --> 00:44:10,616
and uh maybe some of the treasury companies that haven't been able to issue a form of like credit

573
00:44:10,616 --> 00:44:15,236
or a preferred equity structure that allows them to fix their cost of capital because that's a key

574
00:44:15,236 --> 00:44:19,956
variable, right? Like if you can't fix your cost of capital, then it's just like a circular machine

575
00:44:19,956 --> 00:44:24,536
of equity raising and diluting. So you need to be able to fix some portion of your cost of capital.

576
00:44:24,976 --> 00:44:29,776
And there's like only a handful have been able to do that and nobody else really has. So

577
00:44:29,776 --> 00:44:35,156
for the companies, the market might start assuming, okay, now that it's moving back up,

578
00:44:35,236 --> 00:44:37,956
I bet these guys who weren't able to do it last year, they're going to do it this year.

579
00:44:37,956 --> 00:44:41,876
and then maybe it goes back up to a premium because of that.

580
00:44:42,616 --> 00:44:46,336
But so I think it's like it needs to,

581
00:44:46,596 --> 00:44:49,016
the price of Bitcoin will need to be low enough, long enough.

582
00:44:49,456 --> 00:44:51,496
And I expect that if that were to happen,

583
00:44:51,556 --> 00:44:53,596
it would probably happen like early in the year

584
00:44:53,596 --> 00:44:54,896
because I think Bitcoin's going up.

585
00:44:56,756 --> 00:44:58,216
Me too, for what it's worth.

586
00:44:59,176 --> 00:45:00,996
Okay, no, I mean, it's going to be interesting to see

587
00:45:00,996 --> 00:45:03,876
because obviously these, the treasury companies,

588
00:45:04,176 --> 00:45:07,456
and I was just talking to someone today about this,

589
00:45:07,456 --> 00:45:11,436
just this idea that maybe the blow off top was actually in treasury companies.

590
00:45:11,436 --> 00:45:12,816
I was talking with Nico on Bitcoin.

591
00:45:13,196 --> 00:45:15,076
He was talking to Mauricio DiBio about it.

592
00:45:15,076 --> 00:45:24,456
And I thought that's actually an interesting thesis that like we didn't get the same kind of blow off top from retail in Bitcoin because there was a blow off top in equities.

593
00:45:24,596 --> 00:45:26,116
I don't know if you have a take on that.

594
00:45:27,356 --> 00:45:27,576
Yeah.

595
00:45:27,576 --> 00:45:52,256
Yeah. Okay. So the way I think that it did happen, saying to what degree it happened is another question. But the fact that companies are able to raise capital on a premium to their MNAV and buy Bitcoin with it means that people are paying more potentially per unit of Bitcoin.

596
00:45:52,256 --> 00:45:57,436
and like we've kind of witnessed that there there was like a bit of you know it was like a bit of

597
00:45:57,436 --> 00:46:02,756
like a dumping on retail effectively through raising on a mnav premium so like that's people

598
00:46:02,756 --> 00:46:08,156
got less bitcoin for their money and that probably drove less relative demand into bitcoin and more

599
00:46:08,156 --> 00:46:12,136
of that kind of either went into the pockets or is earmarked for future bitcoin capital

600
00:46:12,136 --> 00:46:18,836
deployment within some of these treasury companies um and you know i i don't know what to say like

601
00:46:18,836 --> 00:46:23,276
which one it was or to what proportion. But yeah, so there is theoretical justification that like

602
00:46:23,276 --> 00:46:30,676
buying paper Bitcoin that is more expensive than Bitcoin itself did cause less demand for Bitcoin,

603
00:46:30,856 --> 00:46:36,436
had it all flown through like spot markets. Right. Now, I thought it was an interesting

604
00:46:36,436 --> 00:46:41,576
kind of thesis around that. So I wanted to get your opinion on it. The next point here is number

605
00:46:41,576 --> 00:46:46,716
seven, which is that a Bitcoin company receives conditional approval for a federal bank charter.

606
00:46:47,116 --> 00:46:48,556
This would actually be a huge deal.

607
00:46:48,696 --> 00:46:49,976
Can you talk about that a little bit?

608
00:46:50,036 --> 00:46:57,076
Because I think this is something that maybe if folks haven't been paying attention, they're not aware of kind of like some of the history here and some of the just like shenanigans in general.

609
00:46:57,196 --> 00:46:59,336
Can you talk about why this would be so kind of impactful?

610
00:47:00,216 --> 00:47:00,796
Yeah, yeah.

611
00:47:00,876 --> 00:47:08,096
I mean, there's a long history and it kind of depends on there's a ton of nuance.

612
00:47:08,096 --> 00:47:15,216
And with, you know, my operating partner at EPOC, he has a law degree and he does most of our legal research on everything.

613
00:47:15,216 --> 00:47:25,036
And if there's one thing I've kind of learned over the past year working with them directly on a lot of these regulatory questions is that things are much grayer.

614
00:47:25,396 --> 00:47:32,076
There's a lot of gray area in terms of what could happen and when it could happen and how to interpret the law, et cetera.

615
00:47:32,076 --> 00:47:39,836
um so i i think that like the the big thing that we're getting at with this prediction is um

616
00:47:40,956 --> 00:47:47,476
conditional approval isn't like you're going to get a bank charter it's a nod that

617
00:47:47,476 --> 00:47:53,096
directionally speaking uh we want to give you a bank charter and we need to do more work and

618
00:47:53,096 --> 00:47:58,276
research and let's move forward on next steps because of it so it's like uh what happened

619
00:47:58,276 --> 00:48:12,476
And last year was there is a Peter Thiel-backed company, Erebor, that is trying to become like a modern bank for tech companies with a federal bank charter.

620
00:48:13,376 --> 00:48:20,976
And that receives conditional approval from submission, from the point of submission within about, I think it was like three or four months.

621
00:48:21,936 --> 00:48:22,976
So that was big.

622
00:48:23,076 --> 00:48:24,116
That was a really big news.

623
00:48:24,116 --> 00:48:29,096
And it's more like we see that Bitcoin company, there's a lot of Bitcoin companies that are going to start thinking this angle.

624
00:48:29,196 --> 00:48:35,236
And it's like, OK, well, if some are reasonably backed with enough capital, then they can pursue something like this.

625
00:48:35,716 --> 00:48:43,016
And it makes sense that from the point at which they would submit for a federal bank charter that they could see a conditional approval for it.

626
00:48:43,796 --> 00:48:53,156
And a lot of the history at like front and center was like Caitlin Long fighting the Biden administration to get a Federal Reserve master account.

627
00:48:53,156 --> 00:48:59,816
and um and and you know there's a ton of history and lore around all of that but it's like i mean

628
00:48:59,816 --> 00:49:05,376
the whole view i think right now is get well again is good because the current trump administration

629
00:49:05,376 --> 00:49:08,936
is creating a favorable environment for things like this to happen and i think that that really

630
00:49:08,936 --> 00:49:13,616
greases the wheels on whether uh that'll happen within the next year but i i think we're kind of

631
00:49:13,616 --> 00:49:20,476
on the edge of it okay and yeah that uh that leads into a little bit of a couple other points

632
00:49:20,476 --> 00:49:25,496
down the line here, but I will keep going in order just to feed my mild autism here to

633
00:49:25,496 --> 00:49:30,676
jump out of order. So the next one is around stable coins. I think this is an interesting one.

634
00:49:30,776 --> 00:49:37,596
So a stable coin uses Bitcoin as a reserve asset to pay interest to its holders offshore. And I

635
00:49:37,596 --> 00:49:41,536
think that offshore part is probably key because that also feeds into one of the later points there.

636
00:49:41,976 --> 00:49:47,076
But can you talk about that a little bit? Is the reason for the offshore because in relation to

637
00:49:47,076 --> 00:49:49,836
the Clarity Act not passing, which is a couple of points down the list.

638
00:49:50,356 --> 00:49:54,276
Yeah. Yeah. So I'm a little bit more familiar with like some of the details around it. And like,

639
00:49:54,696 --> 00:50:01,216
basically, we had the Genius Act pass, which was stablecoin specific back in the fall of 2025.

640
00:50:01,876 --> 00:50:08,196
And the two key things that I really viewed this as, and this has become, we wrote this banking

641
00:50:08,196 --> 00:50:12,176
report deep diving into a lot of this stuff back in the fall. You can find that on our website as

642
00:50:12,176 --> 00:50:20,216
well. But the now this is since Brian Armstrong went public on his disagreement with the Clarity

643
00:50:20,216 --> 00:50:24,436
Act, that has brought a lot. It's like it kind of illuminated in a lot more people's minds what

644
00:50:24,436 --> 00:50:28,976
happened with Genius, et cetera. And really like what Genius did is it just created this regulatory

645
00:50:28,976 --> 00:50:33,096
ring fencing for banks. And, you know, there's like public letters that were written. There's

646
00:50:33,096 --> 00:50:38,136
like a and you kind of feel bad because like community banks are like kind of like the good

647
00:50:38,136 --> 00:50:42,336
guys, I guess, in the banking world. They're not like the JP Morgans and, you know,

648
00:50:42,816 --> 00:50:49,196
bulge bracket type guys that are, you know, run by reptile people, et cetera. So like the community

649
00:50:49,196 --> 00:50:52,676
banking association like sent this letter and they're just like, look, like if you allow stable

650
00:50:52,676 --> 00:50:59,736
coins to get a Fedmaster account, then our business is done. So don't do that. And that was

651
00:50:59,736 --> 00:51:05,196
kind of like this regulatory ring is an example of like their internal thinking of this is a better

652
00:51:05,196 --> 00:51:09,376
technology and creative destruction from it's going to put us out of business and we finance

653
00:51:09,376 --> 00:51:14,456
so much of your political campaigns like you know you owe us and uh and we're going to give you more

654
00:51:14,456 --> 00:51:19,436
if you keep it this way so there's that conflict of interest that i think is driving a lot of it

655
00:51:19,436 --> 00:51:25,056
but like genius said stable coins are not allowed to pay interest to their holders and um they have

656
00:51:25,056 --> 00:51:31,036
to hold like short duration government treasury assets as reserves and nothing else and um and

657
00:51:31,036 --> 00:51:43,396
And one of the areas that Clarity from that wanted to provide clarity on is if you look at a company like Circle that has USDC as their stablecoin they're issuing.

658
00:51:45,916 --> 00:51:47,516
Circle isn't even like a company.

659
00:51:47,756 --> 00:51:50,836
They're just like Coinbase's little bitch, basically.

660
00:51:51,076 --> 00:51:52,276
That's the best way to think about them.

661
00:51:53,556 --> 00:52:00,796
And they really just do all the boring stuff so that Coinbase can then be like, okay, Circle is going to have a stablecoin.

662
00:52:00,796 --> 00:52:08,036
It's not going to pay interest on it, but we can pay interest on the stablecoin and we can have that passed.

663
00:52:08,156 --> 00:52:18,096
And like that's kind of how the market was planning on structuring everything is the exchanges are going to end up distributing it through their own interest.

664
00:52:18,256 --> 00:52:25,416
So it's like if you read the regulatory section of this report, which is one of the best sections, particularly for people that are a lot deeper into this industry.

665
00:52:26,376 --> 00:52:28,216
My operating partner, Vijay, wrote it.

666
00:52:28,256 --> 00:52:28,936
He's a brilliant guy.

667
00:52:28,936 --> 00:52:43,636
And he goes into these details. But we have this little graphic where we basically took when we wrote our banking report last fall, we had, you know, we start the report talking about our banking system structured is a two tier banking system.

668
00:52:43,636 --> 00:52:53,876
And, you know, that's the conventional way that people think about having a central bank that is pushing reserves into the banking system.

669
00:52:53,956 --> 00:53:00,416
Then you have regional banks that are also plugged into the banks that have Fedmaster accounts that are plugged into the Federal Reserve.

670
00:53:00,676 --> 00:53:05,976
And it's this like multi-tiered system that allows money to like kind of get pushed through all of it.

671
00:53:05,976 --> 00:53:13,556
we like took this graphic and we're like, okay, so if we have this two-tier banking system

672
00:53:13,556 --> 00:53:18,796
and you think about how the distribution of money works through it today,

673
00:53:19,116 --> 00:53:23,276
and then you say, oh, well, crypto is like this new future.

674
00:53:23,876 --> 00:53:29,436
And it's like, really what Coinbase is trying to create is at the top, you have the central bank,

675
00:53:29,436 --> 00:53:31,256
and then that's tier one.

676
00:53:31,256 --> 00:53:34,876
and then tier two is you have all of the commercial banks

677
00:53:34,876 --> 00:53:36,296
that plug into it with a Fedmaster account

678
00:53:36,296 --> 00:53:38,796
and we like scratch out central bank at the top

679
00:53:38,796 --> 00:53:39,636
and write circle.

680
00:53:39,876 --> 00:53:41,176
And then in tier two banks,

681
00:53:41,216 --> 00:53:43,656
you scratch out like bank A, we put in Coinbase.

682
00:53:43,936 --> 00:53:47,056
And it's like, all they're doing is taking stable coins

683
00:53:47,056 --> 00:53:49,056
and recreating a multi-tiered structure

684
00:53:49,056 --> 00:53:51,136
that's arbitrarily intermediated

685
00:53:51,136 --> 00:53:53,616
because of some form of regulation within the system.

686
00:53:54,816 --> 00:53:56,936
So, and it's like, welcome to the future.

687
00:53:57,096 --> 00:53:59,136
And like, we kind of are facetious in the graphic about it,

688
00:53:59,136 --> 00:54:03,816
But it's just like we are very directly kind of recreating it because of arbitrary regulation.

689
00:54:04,876 --> 00:54:17,776
And yeah, so I think like that's kind of like the background on what I guess is like really happening with all of this.

690
00:54:17,776 --> 00:54:23,496
And then it like came into question around the confidence of like, okay, well, you know, are these things going to pass, et cetera.

691
00:54:23,596 --> 00:54:25,036
But like not going into any of that.

692
00:54:25,036 --> 00:54:38,496
But, you know, I think that like the way that we're viewing this is like, and we wrote about this in the banking paper is, you know, everybody knows that stable coins are better.

693
00:54:38,616 --> 00:54:40,556
Like that's like the elephant in the room with everybody.

694
00:54:40,736 --> 00:54:44,336
And everybody knows that the bank lobby is preventing this from happening.

695
00:54:45,016 --> 00:54:51,156
And the question's like, OK, well, if it doesn't happen in the US, then where is it going to happen?

696
00:54:51,156 --> 00:55:04,436
And I think that's like when Saylor was hitting home on his Stretch product and he's down in Abu Dhabi and he's telling all the sheiks, he's like, hey, somebody should do this.

697
00:55:04,796 --> 00:55:08,616
And if you want to lead the world, there's a huge, huge opportunity here.

698
00:55:09,516 --> 00:55:19,396
And we completely agree that the concept of using Bitcoin as reserve capital to have an interest bearing product that's lower risk for people.

699
00:55:19,396 --> 00:55:24,696
it's it's like it's a very marginal way of getting more people into the industry and like stretch is

700
00:55:24,696 --> 00:55:29,236
like this proof of concept that's kind of proving it out but it's limited right because stretch

701
00:55:29,236 --> 00:55:34,636
exists within a brokerage account um now there's a reason for that and there's a reason it was very

702
00:55:34,636 --> 00:55:38,536
successful to do that but like a stable coin something that has a lot more utility than just

703
00:55:38,536 --> 00:55:43,816
an account that sits in your brokerage account and and like that big idea of like okay well

704
00:55:43,816 --> 00:55:49,956
if I am a stable coin company, if I'm Tether and I have X amount of reserves that are in treasuries

705
00:55:49,956 --> 00:55:56,036
and I earned, you know, four or 5% on that. Um, and I could pass some along, some of that along

706
00:55:56,036 --> 00:55:59,696
to people. And like, if, if Tether just owned treasury securities and did that,

707
00:56:00,336 --> 00:56:04,956
now we're talking about like what banks should be doing. Now we're talking about,

708
00:56:04,996 --> 00:56:09,596
you know, like that's what a bank should be. That would be a healthy banking system where you

709
00:56:09,596 --> 00:56:15,536
actually got like three or four percent from your money that you have in the bank and but that's not

710
00:56:15,536 --> 00:56:19,536
what they're doing to actually have like you know other you know uh reserve assets in there and like

711
00:56:19,536 --> 00:56:26,936
we definitely see a world where like bitcoin is going to move into the capital markets through

712
00:56:26,936 --> 00:56:32,116
the reserves of other products that are meeting people where they're at today and and that's what

713
00:56:32,116 --> 00:56:35,856
sailor did is he took it to the other extreme very immediately and he said no let's just like put way

714
00:56:35,856 --> 00:56:40,336
too much Bitcoin backing some sort of product that's paying interest. And it's very easy for

715
00:56:40,336 --> 00:56:44,116
us to do that. And now we have a product that everybody wants because it's very low risk. It's

716
00:56:44,116 --> 00:56:47,436
paying a higher yield. And that's the belief. It's just like, okay, so Bitcoin is going to grow

717
00:56:47,436 --> 00:56:53,216
at whatever, 30, 40, 50% compound annual growth rate every year. And you can guarantee people's

718
00:56:53,216 --> 00:56:57,996
10% yield over time from having a reserve construction that supports that. Now we're

719
00:56:57,996 --> 00:57:05,056
talking about a systematically superior form of savings to a treasury security, to which Bitcoin

720
00:57:05,056 --> 00:57:08,076
would respond, well, why wouldn't you just own Bitcoin directly? It's like, well, because people

721
00:57:08,076 --> 00:57:14,396
are too stupid to own Bitcoin directly. They need this. You have to like, if you want to feed your

722
00:57:14,396 --> 00:57:21,276
dog some sort of healthy thing, you got to wrap it in a treat that it is familiar with. And that's

723
00:57:21,276 --> 00:57:25,516
literally what we're doing. We're like force feeding Bitcoin through financial products that

724
00:57:25,516 --> 00:57:30,396
people are familiar with. So that's kind of our prediction around that is the US regulatory

725
00:57:30,396 --> 00:57:36,136
environment isn't doesn't like doesn't provide the ability to really do this effectively um and

726
00:57:36,136 --> 00:57:40,476
it's going to emerge somewhere else in the world and tether doesn't because tether is so dominant

727
00:57:40,476 --> 00:57:44,536
doesn't necessarily have an incentive to do it yet they just get to pocket all the money good for

728
00:57:44,536 --> 00:57:49,916
them i hope they invest in us one day and um but at some point they probably will as the competitive

729
00:57:49,916 --> 00:57:56,816
environment starts to emerge i love that analogy with the dog that's yeah it just came to me so i

730
00:57:56,816 --> 00:57:57,496
I haven't used that yet.

731
00:57:57,616 --> 00:57:57,796
Yeah.

732
00:57:58,036 --> 00:57:59,176
No, no, it's good.

733
00:57:59,256 --> 00:58:00,576
I mean, it makes a lot of sense.

734
00:58:00,636 --> 00:58:01,756
Like that's the reality too.

735
00:58:01,776 --> 00:58:04,056
And I think we talk about this as Bitcoiners a lot.

736
00:58:04,116 --> 00:58:07,296
It may not always be the most popular viewpoint,

737
00:58:07,296 --> 00:58:11,776
but it's like most people aren't going to do self-custody Bitcoin.

738
00:58:12,356 --> 00:58:12,456
Yeah.

739
00:58:12,656 --> 00:58:15,176
It's just, you know, I'm not saying that that's a good thing.

740
00:58:15,216 --> 00:58:16,496
I'm just saying that that's the reality.

741
00:58:16,816 --> 00:58:19,156
Like, and they don't necessarily need to.

742
00:58:19,416 --> 00:58:21,396
Like that can be for us.

743
00:58:21,496 --> 00:58:22,676
Like I'm going to keep doing it.

744
00:58:23,016 --> 00:58:23,876
You're going to keep doing it.

745
00:58:23,936 --> 00:58:25,156
A lot of us are going to keep doing it.

746
00:58:25,216 --> 00:58:26,456
And a lot more people will do it.

747
00:58:26,816 --> 00:58:30,316
But to think that like, you know, the majority of people are going to do that.

748
00:58:30,776 --> 00:58:31,476
I don't know.

749
00:58:31,536 --> 00:58:34,676
Like, I don't even think it matters how easy you make that process.

750
00:58:34,976 --> 00:58:35,376
Yeah.

751
00:58:35,416 --> 00:58:43,476
I think still just most people don't want to have that kind of radical ownership and responsibility for what that also implies.

752
00:58:43,576 --> 00:58:44,016
You know what I mean?

753
00:58:44,456 --> 00:58:44,676
Yep.

754
00:58:44,936 --> 00:58:45,216
Yep.

755
00:58:45,456 --> 00:58:46,496
Yeah, I agree.

756
00:58:46,496 --> 00:59:04,096
And like the framework that I've kind of written about in the past around it is just like the when you people participate in something when like the marginal cost of participation hits some sort of threshold relative to its benefit.

757
00:59:04,216 --> 00:59:14,176
It's like there are certain things that people have spent a lot of time getting good at or learning or, you know, becoming part of their life because of how they view the benefit of it happening.

758
00:59:14,176 --> 00:59:21,136
So like personal computing for people to learn how to type on keyboards, how to operate in a computing system.

759
00:59:21,296 --> 00:59:22,876
Like there's so much education we all have.

760
00:59:23,036 --> 00:59:26,856
And, you know, and like our generation have had since a young age to be able to do that well.

761
00:59:27,256 --> 00:59:31,356
And and that was because participating in the Internet was such a valuable thing.

762
00:59:31,876 --> 00:59:40,956
I think that the reality is today for the vast majority of people, it just doesn't matter as much.

763
00:59:40,956 --> 00:59:54,476
But what I think is like they don't they don't see the reasons to do it because they don't know or they aren't, you know, being tracked by the FBI or being, you know, they're just not even aware of it.

764
00:59:54,576 --> 00:59:59,136
And like. So it's just like, but who is going to do it?

765
00:59:59,136 --> 01:00:06,856
And I think I think when you think if you think about it in terms of like the volume of people, it's going to be a lot less in the near term.

766
01:00:06,856 --> 01:00:18,136
But what I think when you think about it in terms of the volume of capital, self-custody is actually going to be a lot higher because people who have a lot of money spend a lot of time thinking about these things.

767
01:00:18,216 --> 01:00:19,796
How do I keep control over it?

768
01:00:20,016 --> 01:00:21,276
How do I keep it private?

769
01:00:21,276 --> 01:00:27,756
it. And I think that when Bitcoin is a $20 trillion asset class, the proportion of actual

770
01:00:27,756 --> 01:00:33,376
capital of it that will be held in a self-custodial private manner at that point, especially when

771
01:00:33,376 --> 01:00:37,816
we have much simpler tools, I think that that's going to end up being a lot higher than people

772
01:00:37,816 --> 01:00:42,716
expect. I think nation states are going to want to control it for themselves. It makes sense to

773
01:00:42,716 --> 01:00:48,636
pay for an in-house operations team to manage that through. And you can see a lot of other

774
01:00:48,636 --> 01:00:53,676
large scale institutions where they stand to gain quite a bit from actually learning and bringing

775
01:00:53,676 --> 01:00:59,476
these things in internally for their own control. I agree with that. And I think it's actually a,

776
01:00:59,536 --> 01:01:04,676
it's a good point that like the people who are power users aren't necessarily just going to be

777
01:01:04,676 --> 01:01:09,356
individuals, right? People who really want to benefit from the radical properties that Bitcoin

778
01:01:09,356 --> 01:01:13,436
has in terms of it's like truly being unconfiscatable private property. Like that's

779
01:01:13,436 --> 01:01:17,676
going to especially be people who have a lot of, you know, property that they want to keep to

780
01:01:17,676 --> 01:01:22,256
themselves. So I think that makes perfect sense. It's like, you know, Swiss bank accounts are

781
01:01:22,256 --> 01:01:26,576
viewed as this luxury because it's like something that like fancy rich people do, you know, and

782
01:01:26,576 --> 01:01:31,796
that's kind of the idea of a Swiss bank account. And like, and that was because it provided them

783
01:01:31,796 --> 01:01:36,036
certain properties. They were the power users that were like, okay, well, I want to have as

784
01:01:36,036 --> 01:01:41,336
much anonymity and control over my assets without, you know, whatever risks that could be occurring

785
01:01:41,336 --> 01:01:45,636
for people trying to control my assets. And I think a similar thing's going to end up happening

786
01:01:45,636 --> 01:01:52,056
with Bitcoin. So I want to keep moving down this list here because there are a bunch of really good

787
01:01:52,056 --> 01:01:54,856
ones to get to. Some of them we sort of covered already a little bit, but one that we haven't.

788
01:01:55,436 --> 01:01:59,976
You're mentioning Tether a little bit, and they're obviously working with Jack Mallers with 21 Capital.

789
01:02:00,456 --> 01:02:04,976
Your number nine prediction is 21 Capital acquires Strike. Do you think that happens?

790
01:02:05,976 --> 01:02:12,336
Does Strike go public before that? Or do you think that that's like I can see that happening,

791
01:02:12,336 --> 01:02:20,196
but I want to know does strike go public first um hmm I hadn't thought about that I don't

792
01:02:20,196 --> 01:02:36,334
I don see why I think they should buy it and um because Jack I just from what I seen Jack say publicly on 21 it just like oh okay yeah he gonna buy strike it would make a ton of sense for them to do it like one of the things

793
01:02:36,334 --> 01:02:42,594
that we wrote about uh a bit more in depth in our report from last year not our annual report from

794
01:02:42,594 --> 01:02:50,094
this year was just like the fundamental reasons for uh what is like good or strategic for a treasury

795
01:02:50,094 --> 01:02:55,014
company. And one of the big things we wrote about is like, treasury companies that are like, okay,

796
01:02:55,014 --> 01:02:58,094
we want to build out an operating business. And it's like, okay, well, what business?

797
01:02:58,794 --> 01:03:04,454
An operating business is just any sort of business, right? So it's anything other than

798
01:03:04,454 --> 01:03:10,094
managing assets, really. And do you want to make ice cream? Do you want to open up a pet shop?

799
01:03:10,214 --> 01:03:12,874
There's a million things that you could do. How do you choose? What's the best one?

800
01:03:13,474 --> 01:03:19,254
And I think that the best way to think about it is, well, what business, what type of business

801
01:03:19,254 --> 01:03:22,334
needs Bitcoin? Because you're already something that has a lot of Bitcoin.

802
01:03:22,854 --> 01:03:29,874
So what type of business needs Bitcoin more so than others? And that's mostly a financial

803
01:03:29,874 --> 01:03:35,734
service business that requires liquidity. Because what they have to do today when they don't have a

804
01:03:35,734 --> 01:03:39,194
lot of Bitcoin and they say, okay, well, we need some other person who has a lot of Bitcoin to

805
01:03:39,194 --> 01:03:43,594
fulfill that. And oh, that other person is going to charge us X percent fee to say like one of our

806
01:03:43,594 --> 01:03:50,674
customers wants to, you know, move the, they want to move a million dollars cross border in Bitcoin.

807
01:03:50,674 --> 01:03:55,374
And we'll say, okay, that customer just wired to a bank account that the company controls a million

808
01:03:55,374 --> 01:04:00,314
dollars. And then what we're going to do is we're going to swap it for Bitcoin. So we need some sort

809
01:04:00,314 --> 01:04:04,614
of liquidity provider who's going to come in and give the Bitcoin, send that Bitcoin to another

810
01:04:04,614 --> 01:04:08,334
country where there are immense payments going. And then on the other end, somebody has got to say,

811
01:04:08,394 --> 01:04:13,034
okay, we'll buy that Bitcoin back, swap it into a bank account at the other end, and then you get

812
01:04:13,034 --> 01:04:18,214
the foreign currency or the domestic currency in the foreign country on the other end.

813
01:04:18,234 --> 01:04:21,534
So you have like these different components of people that are providing Bitcoin liquidity

814
01:04:21,534 --> 01:04:23,474
within a lot of financial service businesses.

815
01:04:23,474 --> 01:04:26,174
And that's just like one example for a remittance payment company.

816
01:04:27,854 --> 01:04:29,794
And, you know, Strike does things like that.

817
01:04:30,414 --> 01:04:33,974
And I'm sure that they could do quite a bit of other things.

818
01:04:34,594 --> 01:04:39,614
And I think that that seems like a very natural thing, obviously, with Jack being at the head

819
01:04:39,614 --> 01:04:42,634
of both, which would be sweet.

820
01:04:42,634 --> 01:04:44,714
I think that that would be really good for our industry too,

821
01:04:44,834 --> 01:04:46,634
particularly for us being in venture capital,

822
01:04:46,634 --> 01:04:48,794
because it shows that there's,

823
01:04:48,794 --> 01:04:52,994
there's value and we'll see just like what the value is of a lot of these

824
01:04:52,994 --> 01:04:53,954
Bitcoin businesses.

825
01:04:55,194 --> 01:04:56,194
Because those are very young.

826
01:04:56,274 --> 01:04:59,494
We have a whole like venture capital section going into like Bitcoin

827
01:04:59,494 --> 01:05:00,934
businesses and what that kind of means.

828
01:05:00,934 --> 01:05:02,074
And I think one of the,

829
01:05:02,074 --> 01:05:03,314
the interesting things is like,

830
01:05:03,334 --> 01:05:06,154
there was actually a lot more like financing and crypto businesses.

831
01:05:06,154 --> 01:05:10,834
It started a long time ago and the Bitcoin ones are all like much younger.

832
01:05:10,834 --> 01:05:14,194
So like right now it's kind of like the value of these businesses is still being proven out.

833
01:05:14,314 --> 01:05:17,794
Most of them emerged like 2021 and onward.

834
01:05:18,494 --> 01:05:22,594
And yeah, so I think it'd be really cool for the industry too.

835
01:05:22,874 --> 01:05:28,294
And we were being a bit like kind of like calling it out directly was just kind of like a fun thing.

836
01:05:28,434 --> 01:05:30,194
But I see it happening.

837
01:05:31,334 --> 01:05:32,034
I like it.

838
01:05:32,054 --> 01:05:34,334
You're kind of forcing the hand a little bit, right?

839
01:05:34,454 --> 01:05:35,334
Just making it self-affirmacy.

840
01:05:35,334 --> 01:05:35,854
Do it, Jack.

841
01:05:36,094 --> 01:05:36,474
Do it.

842
01:05:36,594 --> 01:05:37,534
Yeah, do it.

843
01:05:38,314 --> 01:05:46,734
Okay, so the next couple points here, we've sort of touched on them already, so maybe we can just – we'll just go over them lightly, but it's point 10 and point 11.

844
01:05:46,734 --> 01:05:54,014
The first one is the Clarity Act does not pass, but even if it does pass, it's not going to be the end of the fight over stablecoin yield.

845
01:05:54,194 --> 01:06:05,274
And 11 is then the substance of the Clarity Act, which is asset taxonomy and allocating authority to the SEC and CFTC, will be accomplished via SEC rulemaking and guidance in 2026.

846
01:06:05,274 --> 01:06:10,314
so I mean you touched on this a little bit already this is basically saying I

847
01:06:10,314 --> 01:06:17,214
mean even if it does go through like most of any meaningful kind of movements

848
01:06:17,214 --> 01:06:20,634
here are gonna be done just by SEC rulemaking at the end of the day anyway

849
01:06:20,634 --> 01:06:24,554
yeah yeah that's that's kind of what he's getting at and like by these two

850
01:06:24,554 --> 01:06:29,994
predictions are from like our regulatory section that BJ wrote and but yeah yeah

851
01:06:29,994 --> 01:06:34,554
that's that's the gist of it is that a lot of these things can be accomplished

852
01:06:34,554 --> 01:06:36,794
via other regulatory bodies.

853
01:06:36,994 --> 01:06:39,994
And there's just so much gray area within all of this.

854
01:06:40,694 --> 01:06:42,694
Yeah, we don't have to dig into those two duplics.

855
01:06:42,774 --> 01:06:43,874
We did kind of cover them already.

856
01:06:43,994 --> 01:06:45,134
And I do want to get to the next one,

857
01:06:45,214 --> 01:06:48,954
which is a juicier verging into the political realm

858
01:06:48,954 --> 01:06:49,854
a little bit more here,

859
01:06:49,934 --> 01:06:52,494
which is that Republicans, this is point number 12,

860
01:06:52,694 --> 01:06:54,314
Republicans will lose the midterms

861
01:06:54,314 --> 01:06:56,894
and there will be meaningful anti-crypto regulation

862
01:06:56,894 --> 01:06:58,714
or regulatory blowback,

863
01:06:58,954 --> 01:07:02,134
most likely in the form of consumer protection.

864
01:07:02,134 --> 01:07:06,874
so i mean this is something that we like we've all been kind of talking about too it's like okay

865
01:07:06,874 --> 01:07:12,054
yeah the trump administration is favorable towards bitcoin and crypto very favorable towards crypto

866
01:07:12,054 --> 01:07:18,614
as we all know but obviously the pendulum swings back right so is this basically you think this is

867
01:07:18,614 --> 01:07:23,214
going to be primarily just a kind of reactionary thing for the left to sort of distance themselves

868
01:07:23,214 --> 01:07:28,574
from what they see as sort of the let's say the impropriety of the trump administration's stance

869
01:07:28,574 --> 01:07:30,514
on Bitcoin and quote crypto.

870
01:07:31,114 --> 01:07:33,354
Can I call Vijay right now and have him answer that?

871
01:07:33,434 --> 01:07:34,834
I think he'll have a really good answer for it.

872
01:07:35,054 --> 01:07:35,734
Sure, why not?

873
01:07:36,294 --> 01:07:36,994
Yeah, okay.

874
01:07:37,594 --> 01:07:38,214
I love it.

875
01:07:38,614 --> 01:07:41,394
I've never had a live phone a friend on the show before.

876
01:07:41,534 --> 01:07:44,314
This is the Bitcoin podcast first.

877
01:07:46,934 --> 01:07:47,734
I love it.

878
01:07:51,314 --> 01:07:53,074
It's going to be super awkward if he doesn't answer.

879
01:07:53,214 --> 01:07:53,914
Yeah, I know.

880
01:07:54,034 --> 01:07:54,314
I know.

881
01:07:54,394 --> 01:07:55,294
He shouldn't be on a call.

882
01:07:56,174 --> 01:07:56,894
Come on.

883
01:07:58,574 --> 01:08:01,354
oh man

884
01:08:01,354 --> 01:08:05,294
suspense is killing me

885
01:08:05,294 --> 01:08:06,494
I don't know

886
01:08:06,494 --> 01:08:08,214
um

887
01:08:08,214 --> 01:08:11,534
okay let me let me message him and see

888
01:08:11,534 --> 01:08:13,194
but uh yeah so like

889
01:08:13,194 --> 01:08:15,734
that that's pretty much how

890
01:08:15,734 --> 01:08:17,594
we're viewing it but I think oh here he's calling back

891
01:08:17,594 --> 01:08:19,134
here we go amazing

892
01:08:19,134 --> 01:08:21,414
Vijay

893
01:08:21,414 --> 01:08:25,734
I'm on a podcast right now we're live

894
01:08:25,734 --> 01:08:27,114
and we're going through the predictions

895
01:08:27,114 --> 01:08:29,474
that you put into the report,

896
01:08:29,734 --> 01:08:33,914
and we just got into the Republicans losing the midterms

897
01:08:33,914 --> 01:08:34,814
and all of that one.

898
01:08:35,274 --> 01:08:36,834
So I've got you on the mic.

899
01:08:36,834 --> 01:08:40,014
Give the 101 on what you're thinking about that.

900
01:08:41,974 --> 01:08:45,414
Yeah, I mean, so I guess them losing the midterms,

901
01:08:45,534 --> 01:08:49,194
I think, is probably driven by non-Bitcoin,

902
01:08:49,354 --> 01:08:50,454
crypto-related things,

903
01:08:50,554 --> 01:08:52,854
but just you can see their popularity slipping.

904
01:08:53,474 --> 01:08:56,174
I guess the only hedge on that is like Democratic,

905
01:08:56,174 --> 01:09:01,054
Democrat popularity doesn't seem to be picking up in tandem, but, you know, there's so much chaos.

906
01:09:01,054 --> 01:09:11,814
It feels like that, you know, at the very least losing the size of their majority or their kind of dominant sway at the moment.

907
01:09:13,414 --> 01:09:21,494
And I think the likelihood, I guess the main prediction we had in there on this was that there would be some kind of backlash

908
01:09:21,494 --> 01:09:30,914
against, you know, the Bitcoin crypto voters that I think some of the Democratic Party sees as part

909
01:09:30,914 --> 01:09:35,554
of the Trump coalition. And I think, you know, some of the Trump administration's activities

910
01:09:35,554 --> 01:09:41,394
since he's been inaugurated haven't really helped in that regard. I think some of the, you know,

911
01:09:41,394 --> 01:09:51,314
Trump coin scammer seeming stuff, I think will invite, invites back in a lot of skepticism and

912
01:09:51,314 --> 01:09:59,914
potential, you know, regulatory scrutiny that we may have moved beyond as an industry.

913
01:09:59,914 --> 01:10:07,914
I think the mitigating factor will be that a lot of the right now folks that Trump has

914
01:10:07,914 --> 01:10:13,234
installed and the agencies and the kind of administrative strategy of most of the enforcement

915
01:10:13,234 --> 01:10:15,834
arms of the government has shifted to a more positive one.

916
01:10:15,914 --> 01:10:17,514
I think that will be hard to pivot.

917
01:10:17,514 --> 01:10:32,194
But I suspect at least like in Congress, you know, as we have a new class of representatives and senators coming in after the midterms, I think it really the kind of pro Bitcoin, pro crypto momentum will stall.

918
01:10:32,194 --> 01:11:02,034
And there's likely to be. I don't know who or what will be leading the charge, but I suspect, you know, some kind of backlash, probably from the consumer protection angle, which seems to be the the flag that some of the Democrats that are a little more opposed to the Clarity Act are carrying right now, which which would involve, you know, in trying to impose a lot more scrutiny on and obligations.

919
01:11:02,194 --> 01:11:09,274
on people building self-custody stuff or like ATM providers,

920
01:11:09,414 --> 01:11:11,454
that kind of stuff, where, you know,

921
01:11:11,494 --> 01:11:14,934
there's existing consumer protections regulations

922
01:11:14,934 --> 01:11:18,054
that impose a lot of costs on those kinds of businesses

923
01:11:18,054 --> 01:11:22,094
that I think Bitcoin has rightly avoided

924
01:11:22,094 --> 01:11:26,134
because of the non-custodial nature of a lot of those products.

925
01:11:27,314 --> 01:11:29,834
I think there'll be a stronger push from the Democrats

926
01:11:29,834 --> 01:11:33,154
that come in to try to impose some of those regulations

927
01:11:33,154 --> 01:11:35,094
on that part of the industry.

928
01:11:36,394 --> 01:11:37,794
That's exactly what I was going to say.

929
01:11:39,054 --> 01:11:40,334
That was awesome, man.

930
01:11:40,374 --> 01:11:41,034
Thanks for jumping in.

931
01:11:41,234 --> 01:11:42,694
You've never done this before on the show,

932
01:11:42,794 --> 01:11:43,514
so this was great.

933
01:11:44,454 --> 01:11:44,954
All right.

934
01:11:44,974 --> 01:11:45,594
Thanks, Vijay.

935
01:11:46,254 --> 01:11:47,514
Yeah, of course.

936
01:11:48,174 --> 01:11:48,414
Later.

937
01:11:49,414 --> 01:11:51,674
That was a very successful phone-a-friend,

938
01:11:51,814 --> 01:11:52,194
I've got to say.

939
01:11:52,194 --> 01:11:52,674
Yeah, that worked.

940
01:11:53,114 --> 01:11:53,994
Very impressed there.

941
01:11:54,114 --> 01:11:56,554
Okay, well, okay, that covered that one super well.

942
01:11:57,014 --> 01:11:58,274
And I want to be conscious of your time, too,

943
01:11:58,274 --> 01:12:01,154
So we're going to go through some of the next ones a little bit quickly here.

944
01:12:01,214 --> 01:12:07,234
But the next one, I think, is one that definitely bears jumping into, which is just the Samurai Wallet Tornado Cash founders is point number 13.

945
01:12:07,754 --> 01:12:14,894
They will not be pardoned this year, but there will be likely be future criminal cases or appeals that vindicate them.

946
01:12:15,294 --> 01:12:20,374
So you don't think there's much of a chance of the Trump admin actually stepping forward to give pardons?

947
01:12:21,534 --> 01:12:24,014
Yeah, this is also Vijay's perspective.

948
01:12:24,014 --> 01:12:38,254
But yeah, it's probably something that will take more critical mass around it is kind of the expectations and that over time, more things will happen that will ultimately lead to an outcome similar to that, whether it's not them and like the immediate term.

949
01:12:39,374 --> 01:12:49,034
In the meantime, people should go to Bill and Keone dot org and and do sign that petition and continue making noise on social media because you never know what might move the needle.

950
01:12:49,674 --> 01:12:52,254
And again, that is Bill and Keone dot org.

951
01:12:52,254 --> 01:12:57,994
uh point number 14 bit chat goes mainstream for local p2p discovery driving over 200 known e-cash

952
01:12:57,994 --> 01:13:02,634
mints you touched on this a bit earlier at the start and i think the e-cash proliferation is

953
01:13:02,634 --> 01:13:06,614
such a key point to this is there anything else you wanted to add to that based yeah yeah it's

954
01:13:06,614 --> 01:13:13,314
like right now there's around like 30 uh on the on cashew and then through fediment i think it's

955
01:13:13,314 --> 01:13:20,814
i think it's like 16 or something because those are larger but like um the uh so like that's that's

956
01:13:20,814 --> 01:13:24,054
the way it works and it could be a lot more you know i didn't really know how to put like a number

957
01:13:24,054 --> 01:13:29,254
but i was like yeah like 200 that's that that's a lot of growth um but yeah to the point i was

958
01:13:29,254 --> 01:13:33,714
making earlier about like the p2p discovery and all of that i think that i think it's a valuable

959
01:13:33,714 --> 01:13:39,174
app you know i our office is at the space denver our bitcoin citadel out here and you know we'll

960
01:13:39,174 --> 01:13:42,834
just be like chatting with each other on it a lot of times in the middle of the day and like i see a

961
01:13:42,834 --> 01:13:47,914
lot more use cases like a concert so like anywhere you go publicly where it makes sense to like

962
01:13:47,914 --> 01:13:52,954
figure out some information that can be crowdsourced within a group in your immediate region.

963
01:13:53,134 --> 01:13:57,094
Like I see it being used a lot more for that once he gets more eyeballs on it.

964
01:13:58,354 --> 01:13:58,794
100%.

965
01:13:58,794 --> 01:14:03,114
The next one here, and I apologize for the speed fire, but again, I like to be conscious of the time.

966
01:14:03,114 --> 01:14:03,554
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

967
01:14:03,634 --> 01:14:08,394
At least 100, this is point number 15, at least 100 small businesses begin offering discounts

968
01:14:08,394 --> 01:14:11,714
for payment in Bitcoin instead of dollars through Square.

969
01:14:12,174 --> 01:14:16,434
I mean, we've got what, 4 million plus merchants that just got the ability to be turned online.

970
01:14:16,434 --> 01:14:19,374
I mean, that was one of the, I think, the most bullish developments this year.

971
01:14:19,454 --> 01:14:20,054
I don't know about you.

972
01:14:20,674 --> 01:14:32,234
Yeah, I think that the Square announcement is arguably the best thing that's happened for medium exchange use of Bitcoin, like in its history, outside of it existing.

973
01:14:32,494 --> 01:14:44,234
But like, I think that, yeah, it getting turned on within this is it's going to change one, just like even from a branding perspective, it's going to change people's perception of it significantly.

974
01:14:45,074 --> 01:14:58,454
But like the biggest thing is one of the things that I always try to hit home is that when, you know, for Bitcoin being used as a medium exchange, people be like, well, nobody's ever going to want to spend their own Bitcoin.

975
01:14:58,774 --> 01:15:02,834
It's just like, dude, I don't want to spend anything that's valuable to me.

976
01:15:02,954 --> 01:15:09,854
If I could get something from you and give you my toilet paper, I would be happy to, you know, but nobody's going to want that.

977
01:15:10,094 --> 01:15:12,914
It comes from people demanding it in a transaction.

978
01:15:12,914 --> 01:15:16,414
People are going to say, no, no, I want you to pay me in Bitcoin.

979
01:15:16,894 --> 01:15:19,774
And I think that that's where we're going to start seeing a lot of growth through this

980
01:15:19,774 --> 01:15:20,714
vector within Square.

981
01:15:20,874 --> 01:15:25,154
And the reason isn't as much because people are like, I own a scarce, durable, portable

982
01:15:25,154 --> 01:15:27,554
store of value that I can be self-sovereign with.

983
01:15:27,794 --> 01:15:34,074
It's going to be because, oh, these are better rails than the encroachment of the banking

984
01:15:34,074 --> 01:15:37,754
industry, which makes it so expensive for anybody to operate within it.

985
01:15:37,834 --> 01:15:40,794
So credit card companies have to create a layer over it and then they have to charge X amount

986
01:15:40,794 --> 01:15:46,074
of fees because it's an oligopolistic network as well. And all the merchants are the ones paying

987
01:15:46,074 --> 01:15:51,474
for that right now. We don't want to do that. We would like to settle over something cheaper.

988
01:15:52,054 --> 01:15:56,034
Okay, so Square's designed a system where we don't get a 2.5% credit card fee.

989
01:15:56,994 --> 01:16:01,734
All right, well, let's offer people a discount to pay in Bitcoin. That's 2.5% that goes to our

990
01:16:01,734 --> 01:16:08,274
margin. Bottom line, every year, you make a million dollars through your business in profit

991
01:16:08,274 --> 01:16:10,934
every year, tack another 2.5% on it.

992
01:16:11,074 --> 01:16:12,554
Like that's a lot of money.

993
01:16:14,194 --> 01:16:15,314
People are going to want that.

994
01:16:15,414 --> 01:16:17,574
And I think stores are going to start incentivizing Bitcoin

995
01:16:17,574 --> 01:16:19,014
so that they can keep some of that.

996
01:16:20,014 --> 01:16:22,494
Yeah, I think especially in lower margin businesses

997
01:16:22,494 --> 01:16:25,754
where those fees really hit them like right in the gut,

998
01:16:25,874 --> 01:16:27,294
we're absolutely going to see that.

999
01:16:27,394 --> 01:16:29,814
And I think, again, just super bullish announcement.

1000
01:16:29,914 --> 01:16:30,334
I would agree.

1001
01:16:30,414 --> 01:16:33,674
It's just like it was massive news this year that, again,

1002
01:16:33,754 --> 01:16:35,854
just like didn't apparently move the needle price-wise,

1003
01:16:35,854 --> 01:16:40,074
but like very much moved the needle, I think, overall MOE adoption wise, which was great.

1004
01:16:40,854 --> 01:16:52,634
The next point, 16, no top 10 public Bitcoin mining company achieves more than 30% of revenue from AI compute for 2026 fiscal year driven by significant development delays.

1005
01:16:52,734 --> 01:16:58,014
So this is an interesting one given a lot of the pivots toward AI compute in a lot of these mining companies.

1006
01:16:58,234 --> 01:17:03,454
You're saying that I'm not sure what kind of some of the numbers are right now in terms of percentage of revenue,

1007
01:17:03,454 --> 01:17:07,574
But you're saying basically it's not going to – it won't go above 30% for any of these.

1008
01:17:07,694 --> 01:17:08,454
Yeah, that was –

1009
01:17:08,454 --> 01:17:08,954
It's still predominantly miners.

1010
01:17:09,294 --> 01:17:13,954
That was the biggest surprise to me when I looked into this question because I was writing this section in our business models.

1011
01:17:14,574 --> 01:17:15,194
And I was like, okay.

1012
01:17:15,414 --> 01:17:19,694
I was like, huh, I wonder how big these mining pivots have been so far.

1013
01:17:19,954 --> 01:17:25,134
And I started to look at the publicly available numbers that we could see, and I assumed they would be much larger.

1014
01:17:25,294 --> 01:17:25,594
Why?

1015
01:17:25,714 --> 01:17:30,494
All these guys want to have that premium in their stock price because of how much it's being valued right now.

1016
01:17:30,494 --> 01:17:33,674
So the narratives say we're an AI compute company.

1017
01:17:34,614 --> 01:17:44,654
The reality is, is that I think the largest in terms of like operating AI compute revenue generation, that's core scientific.

1018
01:17:45,054 --> 01:17:47,154
And they're at like 18% right now.

1019
01:17:48,674 --> 01:17:51,874
And most of the other ones, I'm pretty sure all like sub 10%.

1020
01:17:51,874 --> 01:17:54,034
There's a table in our report that covers all of that.

1021
01:17:54,034 --> 01:18:07,474
But I bet in 20, like, I think the problem is, is there's just, there's a lot of assets that exist out there to build more AI compute and repurpose some of these operations for it.

1022
01:18:08,694 --> 01:18:22,934
But there is a lot of development delays that are starting to occur within this side of the industry and actually being able to build out, get these sites developed or get them repurposed and operating and generating revenue.

1023
01:18:22,934 --> 01:18:30,014
I don't think that anybody is going to get higher than 30% of their total annualized revenue for 2026.

1024
01:18:31,774 --> 01:18:39,254
That's a bit of a cocky estimate, I'd say, but probably somewhere around that range.

1025
01:18:39,354 --> 01:18:41,274
I would be surprised if they get much higher than that.

1026
01:18:42,254 --> 01:18:43,094
I mean, it's interesting.

1027
01:18:43,194 --> 01:18:49,254
I assumed that some of them were already higher than that, so that's quite interesting given the amount of hype around it.

1028
01:18:49,254 --> 01:19:04,534
Yeah. So next piece, number 17, a federally chartered bank begins offering Bitcoin collateralized loans. Do you think that this ends up being a bank that kind of like acquires one of the existing companies that it's doing this in the space or building out their own products around this?

1029
01:19:04,534 --> 01:19:34,514
That's a great question.

1030
01:19:34,534 --> 01:19:38,154
for, you know, managing our ledger internally within the bank.

1031
01:19:38,174 --> 01:19:40,954
And that's kind of being outsourced to this like tech company that does that for a lot

1032
01:19:40,954 --> 01:19:41,514
of different banks.

1033
01:19:41,514 --> 01:19:45,514
And, you know, we have like a payments hub and it's a very similar story to how they're

1034
01:19:45,514 --> 01:19:46,934
using their core ledger system.

1035
01:19:47,434 --> 01:19:51,114
Any sort of functionality that they're doing, they either have like a third party service

1036
01:19:51,114 --> 01:19:54,554
provider or they're acquiring into it from some like separate division.

1037
01:19:54,814 --> 01:19:57,674
So it might be like owned by them, but it's really like a very separate thing from like

1038
01:19:57,674 --> 01:19:58,434
the overarching bank.

1039
01:19:59,194 --> 01:20:05,974
And yeah, so I think the history of banking is if banks want to do something, they acquire

1040
01:20:05,974 --> 01:20:08,394
into it, broadly speaking.

1041
01:20:08,574 --> 01:20:10,674
They don't have the expertise to build a lot of this stuff out.

1042
01:20:10,674 --> 01:20:16,634
Now, I think that we will have banks that, which are kind of starting off as like, we

1043
01:20:16,634 --> 01:20:21,354
have this new, like the term we use for it internally at Epoch is neo-neobanks.

1044
01:20:22,294 --> 01:20:27,834
The term neobank kind of came around when fintech was like, okay, banks suck.

1045
01:20:27,834 --> 01:20:32,694
Let's put a layer of lipstick over it so people have a better UX for everything and integrate into some more things.

1046
01:20:33,134 --> 01:20:36,334
And then now we have this world of like, okay, fintechs kind of suck.

1047
01:20:36,694 --> 01:20:44,394
Let's give them stable coins and Bitcoin and hook them into prediction markets and do all this other shit that the Neo Neo version wants to do.

1048
01:20:44,714 --> 01:20:45,874
So that's kind of what we call it.

1049
01:20:46,874 --> 01:20:52,274
There's going to be these very new financial institutions that are going to be purpose built for Bitcoin banking.

1050
01:20:53,554 --> 01:20:57,694
And those will probably be more organic in building things in-house.

1051
01:20:57,834 --> 01:21:01,054
And then maybe they're actually selling some of what they built to the other banks.

1052
01:21:01,694 --> 01:21:06,294
But yeah, I think that if it's like a larger bank in this prediction, adopting something

1053
01:21:06,294 --> 01:21:12,274
like that, it's hard to do everything because there's a lot of software that needs to get

1054
01:21:12,274 --> 01:21:13,734
built to make it easy for them.

1055
01:21:13,774 --> 01:21:19,274
And the reason is, to my point earlier, banks offer it on like this old legacy technology

1056
01:21:19,274 --> 01:21:23,214
with like an old core ledger system and an old payments hub.

1057
01:21:23,214 --> 01:21:27,394
And like, yeah, the CTO is just like, well, I don't really care how cool the new thing

1058
01:21:27,394 --> 01:21:31,794
is that you have, I'm not going to convert our entire bank over a new set of software.

1059
01:21:32,014 --> 01:21:34,734
Like you need to have something that plugs into this shitty old software.

1060
01:21:35,194 --> 01:21:37,994
And that's kind of what they need right now are businesses that are building the right

1061
01:21:37,994 --> 01:21:42,174
middleware that speaks the same language of what they work on, what they use internally.

1062
01:21:42,814 --> 01:21:45,894
And there's a pretty big void in that market right now.

1063
01:21:45,954 --> 01:21:50,394
So we kind of wrote our banking report around that thesis with like the Silvergate, former

1064
01:21:50,394 --> 01:21:51,654
Silvergate banking team.

1065
01:21:52,414 --> 01:21:56,594
And yeah, I think that those things are going to get built.

1066
01:21:56,594 --> 01:22:02,314
And then it comes down to a regulatory question as to how big that can get within a bank's total revenue, et cetera.

1067
01:22:04,134 --> 01:22:05,614
It's going to be interesting to see.

1068
01:22:06,134 --> 01:22:08,274
18, and I'm going to speed run here again.

1069
01:22:08,854 --> 01:22:14,434
But quantum preparedness continues to happen around tradeoffs among various key and signature schemes.

1070
01:22:14,594 --> 01:22:20,574
Code is written for BIP 360, but no concrete soft fork is in the works by the end of 2026.

1071
01:22:20,574 --> 01:22:26,934
do you think a lot of the quantum stuff is being uh uh how much of an immediate concern do you think

1072
01:22:26,934 --> 01:22:30,894
this is i see a lot of stuff around it but then it's also like a lot of the conversation around

1073
01:22:30,894 --> 01:22:35,714
that's fighting the quantum stuff a lot seems to ignore all the conversations that are happening

1074
01:22:35,714 --> 01:22:40,074
already and kind of being like hey we need to do this right now also i've got a quantum resistant

1075
01:22:40,074 --> 01:22:44,914
you know shit coin on solana or ethereum you know what i mean like is that your vibe on this too

1076
01:22:44,914 --> 01:22:50,994
yeah there was just like a weird i i like what what i'll say is i like what nick carter did

1077
01:22:50,994 --> 01:22:56,374
um i think he drew attention to things that educated me educated other people in the industry

1078
01:22:56,374 --> 01:23:02,834
um and and i you know i i don't know if he responded to everything in the perfect way on

1079
01:23:02,834 --> 01:23:08,994
twitter um and you know a few people always do but um i i do think his paper was a good paper

1080
01:23:08,994 --> 01:23:09,994
and it added value.

1081
01:23:09,994 --> 01:23:12,654
I, I, yeah, I'm, I'm in the camp of just like,

1082
01:23:12,654 --> 01:23:14,754
well, one I'll start with saying,

1083
01:23:14,754 --> 01:23:17,334
I wrote this quantum section in the report

1084
01:23:17,334 --> 01:23:19,934
and that's probably been like the most like clear

1085
01:23:19,992 --> 01:23:21,732
and shared thing from it so far.

1086
01:23:23,932 --> 01:23:25,152
That's not my intelligence.

1087
01:23:25,332 --> 01:23:26,352
That's the intelligence of me

1088
01:23:26,352 --> 01:23:28,512
interpreting other people's interpretations of quantum.

1089
01:23:28,932 --> 01:23:31,532
I think Reardon Code is probably the best podcast

1090
01:23:31,532 --> 01:23:33,092
I've heard on the quantum summary.

1091
01:23:34,012 --> 01:23:36,692
Hunter Beast is, who's writing BIP360

1092
01:23:36,692 --> 01:23:37,472
and started all that.

1093
01:23:37,532 --> 01:23:38,252
He's a member at the space.

1094
01:23:38,332 --> 01:23:39,072
I talk to him a lot.

1095
01:23:40,332 --> 01:23:46,712
I think that like the quantum is something

1096
01:23:46,712 --> 01:23:48,092
where I'm at is like,

1097
01:23:48,152 --> 01:23:49,892
it's a legitimate conversation to be having

1098
01:23:49,892 --> 01:23:56,292
and to your point exactly people have been having this conversation if you don't read it

1099
01:23:56,292 --> 01:24:00,272
bitcoin optech which very few people do particularly the types of people that are

1100
01:24:00,272 --> 01:24:06,292
commenting on quantum and the type of investors i talk to but um like bitcoin optech gave a great

1101
01:24:06,292 --> 01:24:10,812
summary of a lot of the progress in there and your report a few months ago on what's been happening

1102
01:24:10,812 --> 01:24:16,212
within quantum there's a good amount of research i'm not hurt i'm not trying to put people down for

1103
01:24:16,212 --> 01:24:19,852
wanting to have a discussion and try to, you know, put focus on something that's valuable.

1104
01:24:20,812 --> 01:24:26,032
But what we wrote about in our media section of the report is that like when you look at how

1105
01:24:26,032 --> 01:24:30,932
certain narratives spread for FUD, usually it's like they start within mainstream media and then

1106
01:24:30,932 --> 01:24:35,492
they like trickle down into our circles and then we have to like go combat them. And like one thing

1107
01:24:35,492 --> 01:24:47,920
that section is where like we officially have destroyed environmental FUD And that took like three years of data intensive systematic cooperative Bitcoiners like coming together and shitting on that FUD And it dead now and we won

1108
01:24:48,060 --> 01:24:49,640
And it ended up being one of the best narratives

1109
01:24:49,640 --> 01:24:51,120
for Bitcoin too that came out of it.

1110
01:24:51,940 --> 01:24:52,940
So that's cool.

1111
01:24:53,240 --> 01:24:54,620
But with like the quantum stuff,

1112
01:24:54,720 --> 01:24:55,900
we kind of FUD ourselves

1113
01:24:55,900 --> 01:24:58,820
and then it gets in because of us.

1114
01:24:58,900 --> 01:25:00,740
So we're kind of shooting ourselves in the foot a bit.

1115
01:25:01,080 --> 01:25:03,200
And it's like, maybe let the nerds talk about it

1116
01:25:03,200 --> 01:25:04,340
for a little bit longer.

1117
01:25:04,340 --> 01:25:07,720
and until it really becomes something to get worried about,

1118
01:25:07,720 --> 01:25:10,740
like just let them handle it in their forums

1119
01:25:10,740 --> 01:25:12,560
that other people aren't ever reading.

1120
01:25:13,540 --> 01:25:15,020
Fair enough on that one.

1121
01:25:16,080 --> 01:25:19,440
19, Bitcoin perception gap closes 50%.

1122
01:25:19,440 --> 01:25:20,720
What does that mean?

1123
01:25:21,640 --> 01:25:23,960
Yeah, so read the Bitcoin media section.

1124
01:25:24,340 --> 01:25:26,100
The perception metrics are like,

1125
01:25:26,760 --> 01:25:27,640
they're really cool.

1126
01:25:28,420 --> 01:25:32,660
Fernando of perception.to is his website,

1127
01:25:32,660 --> 01:25:37,700
but he um he's come up with just like a methodology of like putting a point system

1128
01:25:37,700 --> 01:25:41,900
and quantification around narratives from different media channels and the perception

1129
01:25:41,900 --> 01:25:50,480
gap is something that um is that gap i was initially talking about between how bitcoiners

1130
01:25:50,480 --> 01:25:57,840
perceive bitcoin and how like mainstream perceives bitcoin and he quantifies that as like a 125 point

1131
01:25:57,840 --> 01:26:08,828
gap which is like very large when you start to get baselined and see how that compared across sell new things But I think that over this year we going to start to see a lot more alignment across both

1132
01:26:08,928 --> 01:26:12,948
I feel like I've kind of witnessed that over the past year and I'm excited to

1133
01:26:12,948 --> 01:26:15,028
see how he measures it going into next year and what,

1134
01:26:15,128 --> 01:26:16,268
what the numbers come out to.

1135
01:26:16,388 --> 01:26:21,308
But I think that we're going to start to see cross pollination across media

1136
01:26:21,308 --> 01:26:21,808
channels.

1137
01:26:22,788 --> 01:26:25,388
Bitcoin's moving into like more of the foray and the,

1138
01:26:25,388 --> 01:26:26,288
the,

1139
01:26:26,368 --> 01:26:27,328
the big boy world.

1140
01:26:27,328 --> 01:26:31,988
And I think that that gap is not going to exist to the same extremes that it has.

1141
01:26:33,008 --> 01:26:38,988
Bitcoin podcasts go absolutely parabolic as we completely subsume the TradFi market.

1142
01:26:39,388 --> 01:26:44,528
So, yeah, people should check out the media section for that on the report.

1143
01:26:45,048 --> 01:26:50,608
Number 20, Bitcoin Core maintains dominance over alternative implementations.

1144
01:26:51,388 --> 01:26:53,268
Is there anything you'd like to say on that one?

1145
01:26:53,888 --> 01:26:55,968
No, I think that says it all.

1146
01:26:57,328 --> 01:26:59,608
And just like that, we're out of time.

1147
01:27:00,748 --> 01:27:02,768
Last one, I want to give you a chance to talk about this too,

1148
01:27:02,828 --> 01:27:03,688
and then I'll get you out of here.

1149
01:27:04,068 --> 01:27:06,968
But Epoch Ventures begins raising its fund too.

1150
01:27:07,048 --> 01:27:07,888
So you guys are raising, yeah?

1151
01:27:08,748 --> 01:27:11,928
Yeah, not yet, but we're predicting that we might be by the end of the year.

1152
01:27:12,388 --> 01:27:13,228
Ah, okay.

1153
01:27:13,928 --> 01:27:16,768
It's like an announcement of an announcement, but it's a prediction.

1154
01:27:16,948 --> 01:27:18,208
It's a prediction of an announcement.

1155
01:27:19,388 --> 01:27:31,296
Well dude I getting you out of here a little bit late Where do you again maybe just remind people where they can go to get this report anywhere else you want to send them Appreciate you running through this whole thing We got this was an awesome session here

1156
01:27:31,776 --> 01:27:32,756
Yeah, this was great, man.

1157
01:27:33,096 --> 01:27:34,276
Yeah, if you want to check out the report,

1158
01:27:34,396 --> 01:27:38,636
it's epoch, E-P-O-C-H-D-C.io.

1159
01:27:38,756 --> 01:27:39,516
That's our website.

1160
01:27:40,016 --> 01:27:40,976
Go to the writing section.

1161
01:27:41,176 --> 01:27:42,536
It's in there as a PDF to download.

1162
01:27:42,996 --> 01:27:45,356
We don't do like an email or anything, ask on it,

1163
01:27:45,356 --> 01:27:46,936
because that should always annoy me,

1164
01:27:47,056 --> 01:27:48,436
and I don't ever want to do that to people.

1165
01:27:48,436 --> 01:27:52,096
So just download the PDF and do something nice for me one day,

1166
01:27:52,156 --> 01:27:52,696
but,

1167
01:27:52,756 --> 01:27:54,156
or people on my team,

1168
01:27:54,336 --> 01:27:55,136
they're all tagged in it.

1169
01:27:55,656 --> 01:27:56,556
And yeah,

1170
01:27:56,796 --> 01:27:57,656
check us out on Twitter.

1171
01:27:57,816 --> 01:28:00,236
You'll see all of our handles in the report and my,

1172
01:28:00,316 --> 01:28:01,636
my handle on X is just my name.

1173
01:28:02,756 --> 01:28:03,156
Awesome,

1174
01:28:03,236 --> 01:28:03,316
dude.

1175
01:28:03,356 --> 01:28:03,496
Well,

1176
01:28:03,496 --> 01:28:04,276
this was a,

1177
01:28:04,276 --> 01:28:06,276
a blast doing this.

1178
01:28:06,316 --> 01:28:08,356
We made it through all 21 predictions.

1179
01:28:08,496 --> 01:28:11,136
Can't imagine why you chose the number 21 seems super random,

1180
01:28:11,136 --> 01:28:12,136
but this,

1181
01:28:12,216 --> 01:28:12,836
this was great.

1182
01:28:12,956 --> 01:28:14,276
Want people to check this report out.

1183
01:28:14,296 --> 01:28:14,596
Cause it's,

1184
01:28:14,676 --> 01:28:14,936
it is,

1185
01:28:15,096 --> 01:28:15,676
it is dense,

1186
01:28:15,796 --> 01:28:16,356
but it's a,

1187
01:28:16,356 --> 01:28:17,276
it's dense in a good way.

1188
01:28:17,276 --> 01:28:23,556
she's a beast yeah yeah no doubt well dude eric great catching up with you man we'll have to do

1189
01:28:23,556 --> 01:28:27,856
this again next time i won't nail you with 21 questions right off the bat i will keep it you

1190
01:28:27,856 --> 01:28:32,016
know we'll have we'll do a question having or something like that yeah yeah we'll do more of

1191
01:28:32,016 --> 01:28:36,196
like a vibes episode at some point yeah this there was just if i didn't go through this with you i

1192
01:28:36,196 --> 01:28:40,016
would have i would have uh i would have felt like i was missing out you know we had to give the people

1193
01:28:40,016 --> 01:28:44,496
give the people these 21 right right right well thanks man i appreciate it was a blast

1194
01:28:44,496 --> 01:28:46,156
likewise man