1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,780
I see Bitcoin as a life raft for the United States.

2
00:00:03,920 --> 00:00:05,700
I've talked to some senators and such who go,

3
00:00:05,820 --> 00:00:07,460
well, isn't Bitcoin attacking the dollar?

4
00:00:07,600 --> 00:00:10,140
And isn't the dollar what makes America powerful in the world?

5
00:00:10,300 --> 00:00:12,560
And my response to that is always, well, no.

6
00:00:12,780 --> 00:00:14,100
The U.S. government is destroying the dollar.

7
00:00:14,500 --> 00:00:16,780
Bitcoin is going to be the life raft for Americans

8
00:00:16,780 --> 00:00:18,740
so that we don't get totally wrecked

9
00:00:18,740 --> 00:00:22,360
once the math of the fiscal situation of the U.S.

10
00:00:22,360 --> 00:00:23,740
just inevitably plays out.

11
00:00:24,240 --> 00:00:25,140
You might look at this and go,

12
00:00:25,280 --> 00:00:26,720
well, America is the richest country in the world.

13
00:00:26,920 --> 00:00:29,680
Isn't it unfair that Bitcoin just making America richer?

14
00:00:29,680 --> 00:00:32,500
And maybe my hot take is fairness doesn't matter.

15
00:00:32,700 --> 00:00:33,500
I care about my country.

16
00:00:34,140 --> 00:00:37,080
I want America to disproportionately benefit from Bitcoin.

17
00:00:37,360 --> 00:00:41,440
I actually don't agree that Bitcoin is going to like save the poor masses of the world.

18
00:00:41,580 --> 00:00:42,440
That doesn't make any sense.

19
00:00:42,840 --> 00:00:46,420
The economic problems in the third world are not due to money.

20
00:00:46,520 --> 00:00:49,860
They're due to culture and other deeper issues that Bitcoin can't fix.

21
00:00:50,040 --> 00:00:55,320
And so I actually view Bitcoin as a way to keep the crown jewels of our civilization,

22
00:00:55,800 --> 00:00:58,100
the West, you know, like shining.

23
00:00:58,100 --> 00:01:00,280
and that's the most important thing.

24
00:01:00,620 --> 00:01:02,860
If that goes out, then the whole world goes dark.

25
00:01:03,320 --> 00:01:06,020
And so that's what I think is the most important thing.

26
00:01:06,440 --> 00:01:09,120
I think Bitcoin is going to help save Western civilization.

27
00:01:09,620 --> 00:01:11,900
Our mission is to build the world's most trusted financial institution.

28
00:01:11,900 --> 00:01:16,280
And I think the world's most trusted financial institution is going to be built on Bitcoin.

29
00:01:23,220 --> 00:01:25,620
Greetings and salutations, my fellow plebs.

30
00:01:25,620 --> 00:01:28,360
My name is Walker and this is the Bitcoin podcast.

31
00:01:28,720 --> 00:01:34,180
Bitcoin continues to make new blocks every 10 minutes and the value of one Bitcoin is still one Bitcoin.

32
00:01:34,380 --> 00:01:37,960
If you are listening to this right now, remember, you're still early.

33
00:01:38,300 --> 00:01:40,160
This episode is brought to you by Blockware.

34
00:01:40,460 --> 00:01:44,180
What if you could lower your tax bill and stack Bitcoin at the same time?

35
00:01:44,280 --> 00:01:45,780
Well, with Blockware, you can.

36
00:01:46,040 --> 00:01:50,860
New U.S. tax rules let miners write off 100% of their mining hardware in a single year.

37
00:01:51,020 --> 00:01:54,200
So earn Bitcoin daily while saving big come tax season.

38
00:01:54,200 --> 00:01:58,360
Get started at mining.blockwarsolutions.com slash titcoin.

39
00:01:58,720 --> 00:02:04,060
Use the code titcoin to get $100 off your first miner when using the Blockware marketplace.

40
00:02:04,560 --> 00:02:08,120
This is not tax advice, so go speak to the team at Blockware to learn more.

41
00:02:08,560 --> 00:02:12,180
That's mining.blockwarsolutions.com slash titcoin.

42
00:02:12,440 --> 00:02:16,760
Head to the show notes for links to find the show on centralized social media platforms and on Noster,

43
00:02:16,920 --> 00:02:19,380
or just go directly to bitcoinpodcast.net.

44
00:02:19,420 --> 00:02:20,300
You'll find it all there.

45
00:02:20,300 --> 00:02:25,020
And kind reminder that you can support this show by becoming a paid subscriber on Fountain.

46
00:02:25,220 --> 00:02:28,500
Or don't, Bitcoin doesn't care, but I sure do appreciate it.

47
00:02:28,680 --> 00:02:31,720
Without further ado, let's get into this Bitcoin talk.

48
00:02:38,440 --> 00:02:40,500
Well, dude, it's good to have you on here.

49
00:02:41,060 --> 00:02:44,580
I think we met at the Bitcoin Policy Summit.

50
00:02:44,580 --> 00:02:50,220
You had just given a really awesome presentation to lawmakers and staffers and everything else.

51
00:02:50,300 --> 00:02:54,580
And I was like, man, I really it's about time to get you on the show here.

52
00:02:54,640 --> 00:02:56,780
So I'm glad we made this happen. I'm stoked to have you here, man.

53
00:02:57,500 --> 00:03:02,980
Thanks. I'm excited to be here. Yeah, I think my highlight of that event was it was great to meet you.

54
00:03:03,040 --> 00:03:08,540
But I think I really enjoyed meeting Jim Justice's dog, baby dog.

55
00:03:09,700 --> 00:03:13,880
That was probably my the highlight of my of my BPI conference.

56
00:03:13,880 --> 00:03:19,700
that when that was happening and baby dog came up on stage it was like just like a what what is

57
00:03:19,700 --> 00:03:25,260
going on moment like this kind of like beautiful thing like you've got the you know you've got a

58
00:03:25,260 --> 00:03:31,060
political leader sitting up there with his just big old big old dog called baby dog putting on

59
00:03:31,060 --> 00:03:37,480
bitcoin hats like it was it was quite surreal uh but honestly very cool it's it's cool to see the

60
00:03:37,480 --> 00:03:43,140
bitcoinization of washington like we're we're trojan horsing them not the other way around you

61
00:03:43,140 --> 00:03:47,460
Yeah, exactly. It was fun. It was fun.

62
00:03:48,980 --> 00:03:50,340
Great. It's great to be on.

63
00:03:50,340 --> 00:03:59,960
I've got to say, illuminating to – maybe you probably do this a lot more than I do, but talking to lawmakers and staffers was kind of an eye-opening experience for me.

64
00:04:00,360 --> 00:04:08,420
Just in that I sort of realized I was like, oh, wow, most of our lawmakers are like very on the older side, to put it kindly.

65
00:04:08,420 --> 00:04:14,140
but like all of their staffers seem to just be like fresh out of college and you've got this

66
00:04:14,140 --> 00:04:19,920
just kind of giant like multiple generational gap between the people who are actually kind of doing

67
00:04:19,920 --> 00:04:25,160
the behind the scenes work and then the people who are out there talking about that work and it just

68
00:04:25,160 --> 00:04:29,600
it struck me as as very odd i guess i shouldn't be surprised that that's the way it is but

69
00:04:29,600 --> 00:04:34,580
something about it was just very like so this is how the sausage is made kind of moment i don't know

70
00:04:34,580 --> 00:04:53,800
Yeah. Yeah. And one of the interesting things about politics, and I've had my share of interactions in the mix of things, but unlike the business world where there's a lot of young business leaders, because you can be successful at business and then stop and you keep your money.

71
00:04:53,800 --> 00:04:55,980
whereas in politics

72
00:04:55,980 --> 00:04:58,100
if you're successful and you stop

73
00:04:58,100 --> 00:04:59,180
you lose all your power

74
00:04:59,180 --> 00:05:02,360
and so there's an interesting

75
00:05:02,360 --> 00:05:03,700
dynamic in politics especially

76
00:05:03,700 --> 00:05:05,340
where it's like

77
00:05:05,340 --> 00:05:08,200
people just stay forever

78
00:05:08,200 --> 00:05:09,640
because if they leave then

79
00:05:09,640 --> 00:05:12,140
they lose everything they built

80
00:05:12,140 --> 00:05:13,660
yeah

81
00:05:13,660 --> 00:05:15,480
that's honestly quite

82
00:05:15,480 --> 00:05:17,580
an interesting observation

83
00:05:17,580 --> 00:05:19,460
then you've got the folks like Nancy Pelosi

84
00:05:19,460 --> 00:05:21,300
where it's like boy

85
00:05:21,300 --> 00:05:23,480
she's also built up quite a lot of money

86
00:05:23,480 --> 00:05:27,640
So at least she's leaving politics with like an obscene amount of money.

87
00:05:27,760 --> 00:05:31,740
I guess, you know, she really played the game, uh, the game well, so to speak.

88
00:05:31,740 --> 00:05:35,840
But man, yeah, for the most part, it's like your, your position is your power.

89
00:05:35,840 --> 00:05:40,760
Like you don't necessarily have the monetary or financial power that a business leader would

90
00:05:40,760 --> 00:05:41,080
have.

91
00:05:41,320 --> 00:05:45,300
But then in some of those rare cases, it's like, you just happen to be a really shockingly

92
00:05:45,300 --> 00:05:50,680
great stock trader, not an insider information, of course, not an insider information, but

93
00:05:50,680 --> 00:05:51,780
you just have to be really good at it.

94
00:05:51,780 --> 00:05:55,100
So then you get to leave and, you know, retire with a couple hundred million dollars.

95
00:05:55,200 --> 00:05:56,780
Like that's really, you know.

96
00:05:56,900 --> 00:06:02,580
Well, I think with Pelosi, it was the combination of her political power and her husband's hedge fund.

97
00:06:03,040 --> 00:06:03,280
Yeah.

98
00:06:03,500 --> 00:06:08,300
You know, the sum is the whole is greater than the sum of the parts in that in that combo.

99
00:06:09,340 --> 00:06:10,080
Yeah. Yeah.

100
00:06:10,200 --> 00:06:17,840
No, I mean, really, it is like the ultimate the ultimate kind of, I guess, political economic coupling there.

101
00:06:17,840 --> 00:06:22,320
You just marry someone with a hedge fund and then get in political office.

102
00:06:22,480 --> 00:06:26,100
And that is like, that is your ticket to infinite vacation homes, I guess.

103
00:06:26,160 --> 00:06:26,860
Yeah, exactly.

104
00:06:27,020 --> 00:06:28,120
But, but I digress.

105
00:06:29,020 --> 00:06:30,080
Stoked to have you here.

106
00:06:30,200 --> 00:06:36,280
Got a bunch of things I want to talk with you about for, as a full disclaimer, you guys in no way sponsor the show.

107
00:06:36,400 --> 00:06:44,620
I'm just a really happy customer of river have been for a while, have used multiple different exchanges before river, like a bunch of different ones.

108
00:06:44,620 --> 00:06:52,180
and now river is the only one that i recommend to people to like friends and family because it's the

109
00:06:52,180 --> 00:06:56,640
only one that has proof of reserves maybe i don't know if some others have started now you can correct

110
00:06:56,640 --> 00:07:00,860
me there but i think you guys were like the first to really publicly do it and make that a cornerstone

111
00:07:00,860 --> 00:07:09,260
but then also like it's it's bitcoin only and uh you guys seem extremely mission and vision aligned

112
00:07:09,260 --> 00:07:14,960
with what I believe, you know, the Bitcoin ethos can have many components, but there are some core

113
00:07:14,960 --> 00:07:19,020
things, I think. And I feel like you guys really embody that. So yeah, just want to, again, clarify,

114
00:07:19,480 --> 00:07:23,560
nobody's paying me to say this. I just really like your product and I'm super grateful that

115
00:07:23,560 --> 00:07:28,540
you guys have built it. I know a shitload of work went into it. Well, I really appreciate hearing

116
00:07:28,540 --> 00:07:32,200
that. It feels good. It's been, you know, yeah, almost seven years of hard work now.

117
00:07:33,040 --> 00:07:38,040
And the proof of reserves thing was definitely big. There have been other exchanges that have had

118
00:07:38,040 --> 00:07:43,700
proof of reserves in some capacity. Kraken has had it for a while and they've done it sort of

119
00:07:43,700 --> 00:07:52,020
directionally on an annual basis. Bitnex has done it for a while and other exchanges do it to some

120
00:07:52,020 --> 00:07:57,400
degree, but it's, they're all kind of like, there's varying levels of how good it is. We really just

121
00:07:57,400 --> 00:08:04,380
said, okay, how do we make this super, super easy to understand and validate? And I do, I think we're

122
00:08:04,380 --> 00:08:09,200
the only Bitcoin-only company that has proof of reserves as well.

123
00:08:10,320 --> 00:08:11,540
So that's an interesting thing.

124
00:08:11,660 --> 00:08:14,420
I want to get into kind of some of the history of River as well.

125
00:08:14,520 --> 00:08:17,760
But from the perspective of Bitcoin-only,

126
00:08:17,940 --> 00:08:23,700
maybe this is a silly question for people who are Bitcoin-only themselves.

127
00:08:23,700 --> 00:08:27,820
But just for anybody who stumbles across this, who perhaps is not Bitcoin-only,

128
00:08:27,820 --> 00:08:35,820
Can you explain why you guys only offer Bitcoin and you don't offer every, you know, fart coin under the sun?

129
00:08:36,100 --> 00:08:40,800
Like, why do that when you can probably make more money if you also sell shit coins?

130
00:08:41,460 --> 00:08:45,480
What if you could lower your tax bill and stack Bitcoin at the same time?

131
00:08:45,640 --> 00:08:48,460
Well, by mining Bitcoin with blockware, you can.

132
00:08:48,460 --> 00:08:57,620
New tax guidelines from the big, beautiful bill allow American miners to write off 100% of the cost of their mining hardware in a single tax year.

133
00:08:57,820 --> 00:09:00,400
That is right, a 100% write-off.

134
00:09:00,400 --> 00:09:08,500
So if you have $100,000 in capital gains or income, you can purchase $100,000 worth of miners and offset it entirely.

135
00:09:08,780 --> 00:09:13,480
Blockware's mining as a service enables you to start mining right now without lifting a finger.

136
00:09:13,760 --> 00:09:20,060
Blockware handles everything from securing the miners to sourcing low-cost power to configuring the mining pool.

137
00:09:20,240 --> 00:09:21,140
They do it all.

138
00:09:21,560 --> 00:09:27,660
You get to stack Bitcoin at a discount every single day while also saving big come tax season.

139
00:09:27,660 --> 00:09:34,660
Get started today by going to mining.blockwaresolutions.com slash titcoin.

140
00:09:34,980 --> 00:09:40,540
Again, that's mining.blockwaresolutions.com slash titcoin.

141
00:09:40,900 --> 00:09:46,320
Use the code titcoin to get $100 off your first miner when using the Blockware marketplace.

142
00:09:47,060 --> 00:09:49,000
Of course, none of this is tax advice from me.

143
00:09:49,300 --> 00:09:51,480
Go speak with the team at Blockware to learn more.

144
00:09:51,760 --> 00:09:56,660
One more time, that is mining.blockwaresolutions.com slash titcoin.

145
00:09:56,660 --> 00:10:00,420
Wish you could access cash without selling your Bitcoin?

146
00:10:00,980 --> 00:10:02,280
Ledin makes that possible.

147
00:10:02,600 --> 00:10:04,500
The global leader in Bitcoin-backed lending,

148
00:10:04,900 --> 00:10:08,900
Ledin has issued over $10 billion in loans since 2018

149
00:10:08,900 --> 00:10:12,560
and has a perfect record of protecting client assets.

150
00:10:13,020 --> 00:10:14,680
Why is a Ledin loan different?

151
00:10:15,020 --> 00:10:19,160
Well, with custodied loans, collateral is not lent out to generate interest.

152
00:10:19,160 --> 00:10:21,640
No credit checks, no monthly payments.

153
00:10:22,060 --> 00:10:26,140
Apply in minutes and repay whenever you want with zero penalties.

154
00:10:26,660 --> 00:10:33,000
And proof of reserves reports verified by a top accounting firm are published every six months.

155
00:10:33,000 --> 00:10:39,700
Ledin gives Bitcoin holders a secure, transparent way to unlock liquidity without selling.

156
00:10:40,380 --> 00:10:44,260
Learn more at ledin.io slash walker.

157
00:10:44,840 --> 00:10:50,360
That's L-E-D-N dot I-O forward slash walker.

158
00:10:50,840 --> 00:10:52,140
It's a great question.

159
00:10:52,600 --> 00:10:55,700
And really, there's two answers.

160
00:10:55,700 --> 00:11:14,540
One is economics. I think like there is just room in the market for a product that focuses on bringing Bitcoin to the world as money and not just an asset to trade more of.

161
00:11:14,540 --> 00:11:39,980
And so, you know, when you look at what River is able to build and compare it to like a Coinbase, well, there's just a fundamental challenge you have once you add multiple assets where your product now has this degree of freedom and this level of complexity that prevents you from building a super streamlined, simple, elegant app to focus on doing one thing and doing it really, really well.

162
00:11:39,980 --> 00:11:45,240
And so sort of like the grug brain is like Bitcoin is the most important.

163
00:11:45,920 --> 00:11:48,040
Build the best Bitcoin app, only do Bitcoin.

164
00:11:48,200 --> 00:11:50,280
If we focus on that, it will just be better than everyone else.

165
00:11:50,360 --> 00:11:56,500
And so we can eat, you know, Coinbase's lunch eventually when people realize that, well, really, they just want Bitcoin.

166
00:11:56,620 --> 00:11:59,140
They don't want all these long tails of speculative assets.

167
00:11:59,260 --> 00:12:01,200
And to the extent they do, that's a very different customer base.

168
00:12:01,260 --> 00:12:03,620
That's more of just a gam, you know, it's more of a casino.

169
00:12:04,100 --> 00:12:06,120
So and then there's the spiritual component.

170
00:12:06,200 --> 00:12:07,400
Like, I don't want to run a casino.

171
00:12:07,400 --> 00:12:18,140
You know, I want to run a business where I can say the vast majority, you know, 99 plus percent of the clients that have ever used my service are wealthier because of it.

172
00:12:20,080 --> 00:12:25,140
And I don't think that the multi-coin exchanges can say the same.

173
00:12:26,580 --> 00:12:30,440
That is definitely and very sadly true.

174
00:12:30,440 --> 00:12:50,860
I mean, I really, I do applaud that because I think that it's one of the hard things about getting people like friends and family, especially into Bitcoin is like often, you know, in the past, if I would send somebody to Coinbase, let's say, they would, okay, they finally decide I'm going to go on Coinbase and maybe I'll listen to Walker and I'll finally get a little bit of Bitcoin.

175
00:12:50,860 --> 00:12:55,220
But they get on there and then they see literally hundreds of other shiny coins.

176
00:12:55,600 --> 00:12:57,040
Unit bias is very real.

177
00:12:57,620 --> 00:13:02,880
I myself suffered from it when I first got into, well, I didn't even get into Bitcoin at this point.

178
00:13:02,960 --> 00:13:09,020
It was after ignoring Bitcoin for several years in 2017 when things were, you know, right at the blow off top, basically.

179
00:13:09,160 --> 00:13:10,780
I bought it the worst possible time.

180
00:13:11,220 --> 00:13:12,520
But I didn't buy Bitcoin.

181
00:13:12,620 --> 00:13:16,980
I bought Litecoin because I thought I don't have enough, like I'm not wealthy enough to buy Bitcoin right now.

182
00:13:17,220 --> 00:13:19,360
Didn't know I could buy Satoshi's worth.

183
00:13:19,360 --> 00:13:20,400
I didn't know I could buy a fraction.

184
00:13:20,860 --> 00:13:26,060
bought a couple of Litecoins. Those, I mean, never even, I sold them in a loss years later

185
00:13:26,060 --> 00:13:29,960
when I remembered I had them and then started buying Bitcoin again or buying Bitcoin for the

186
00:13:29,960 --> 00:13:33,660
first time. But like, that's a real challenge when you're trying to onboard people to Bitcoin

187
00:13:33,660 --> 00:13:38,180
and they're bombarded then with all of this gambling, all of these tokens.

188
00:13:39,120 --> 00:13:43,700
And then you need to go like, it's like, dang, I already got them to kind of put my foot in the

189
00:13:43,700 --> 00:13:47,620
door there to get them to try Bitcoin. And now I've got to go in and explain to them, no, listen,

190
00:13:47,620 --> 00:13:50,760
And here's why all of these are scams, which is a good conversation to have.

191
00:13:50,760 --> 00:13:59,540
But it's just like it's another layer of friction that prevents people from just going into Bitcoin, saving in Bitcoin and preserving their wealth through that.

192
00:13:59,540 --> 00:14:11,260
So it's like, I mean, I get why these other guys do it, you know, but I'm glad that there are folks like you out there who are, I think, who are pursuing a more clear cut path.

193
00:14:11,440 --> 00:14:13,880
And I think that's ultimately going to serve you guys better. Right.

194
00:14:13,920 --> 00:14:17,560
I mean, that's part of your thesis is, look, this is a better business decision for us.

195
00:14:17,620 --> 00:14:35,440
Yes. You know, there's two ways to think about running a business, right? One is how much can you extract from your customers, right? That's how you frame your thinking. How much can I get out of these customers? And that will make you money, right?

196
00:14:35,440 --> 00:14:45,940
But then there's the other way of thinking about it and which I think Henry Ford does a really good job of describing in his autobiography, which is actually you should be obsessing about how much value can I deliver to my clients.

197
00:14:46,480 --> 00:14:51,300
And the company that obsesses about that will make the most money in the long term.

198
00:14:52,420 --> 00:14:57,780
And so you can only wring your clients dry and get them gambling in the casino for so long.

199
00:14:59,100 --> 00:15:02,800
And so that I do think has an expiration date.

200
00:15:04,160 --> 00:15:04,180
Yeah.

201
00:15:04,180 --> 00:15:22,400
No, I mean, it definitely doesn't. I think you will, you'll end up putting so many more people off of crypto, of Bitcoin specifically, like so many people get wrecked by shit coins, and then say, well, this whole thing is a scam, Bitcoin included, because they lump it all in.

202
00:15:22,400 --> 00:15:27,620
And I think that's actually been incredibly detrimental to Bitcoin adoption more broadly.

203
00:15:28,000 --> 00:15:32,960
This is why we tell people, you know, Bitcoin only, like don't shit coin, it's bad for you.

204
00:15:33,680 --> 00:15:35,740
Because ultimately people just get hurt, people get burned.

205
00:15:36,100 --> 00:15:40,640
Maybe they're up for a few weeks or a couple of months or even a year and they feel like a genius.

206
00:15:41,320 --> 00:15:44,220
But then inevitably, like it all trends to zero versus Bitcoin.

207
00:15:44,340 --> 00:15:45,880
You should have just stacked in Bitcoin.

208
00:15:46,040 --> 00:15:50,560
You're probably not a good trader, like unless you're one of like a very small percentage of people.

209
00:15:50,560 --> 00:15:52,580
And so like just focus on Bitcoin.

210
00:15:52,840 --> 00:15:58,300
But shit coins aside, I'd love to know – OK, you said you started River seven years ago.

211
00:15:58,380 --> 00:16:01,200
You are both the CEO and the CTO, correct?

212
00:16:02,200 --> 00:16:02,300
Yeah.

213
00:16:02,900 --> 00:16:06,540
I just run – I'm sort of the dictator.

214
00:16:09,680 --> 00:16:13,520
About six and a half, seven years, February 2019 is when we started.

215
00:16:13,960 --> 00:16:16,020
And yeah, I wear both hats.

216
00:16:16,020 --> 00:16:21,120
And the reason for that is, you know, River is, first and foremost, a technology business.

217
00:16:21,540 --> 00:16:35,360
And, you know, by having strong opinions about the technical direction and the business strategy in one brain, you know, those things can be much more seamlessly merged and executed on.

218
00:16:35,520 --> 00:16:40,360
And in the modern era, like, you know, most businesses are technology businesses.

219
00:16:40,360 --> 00:16:47,740
And so this concept of like CTO and CEO, I think is, you know, it will still exist, but it's not as like distinct as it used to be.

220
00:16:48,980 --> 00:16:52,140
No, I think that makes perfect sense.

221
00:16:52,220 --> 00:16:56,080
And like it's like every business is an Internet business ultimately, right?

222
00:16:56,160 --> 00:16:59,620
You know, like every business is a technology business when it comes down to it.

223
00:16:59,820 --> 00:17:02,180
How did you actually start?

224
00:17:02,440 --> 00:17:04,160
Like was it just you?

225
00:17:04,260 --> 00:17:05,140
Did you have co-founders?

226
00:17:05,140 --> 00:17:11,500
Because you've done actually a lot of the actual building, developing of it from the software side, correct?

227
00:17:12,400 --> 00:17:13,800
Yeah, I wrote a good amount of the early code.

228
00:17:14,140 --> 00:17:19,280
But, you know, when building a business, right, you can only do that job so much.

229
00:17:19,600 --> 00:17:28,220
I've leaned very heavily on my engineering team who's done the vast majority of the actual implementation work from the early days.

230
00:17:28,500 --> 00:17:33,660
I wrote more code much more in the first year than I have since.

231
00:17:33,660 --> 00:17:59,480
So really kind of the back story is I built my career in the Bitcoin industry. I started going back to 2013. I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area to pursue a career in Bitcoin. I really loved Bitcoin and came into Bitcoin because I was really interested in alternate money and building a currency and a money that the federal government couldn't print more of and control.

232
00:17:59,480 --> 00:18:07,660
I heard stories growing up of my great grandfather, you know, having his gold confiscated under, you know, by Franklin Roosevelt and things like this.

233
00:18:07,780 --> 00:18:11,560
And so, you know, I had and I, you know, I was always a very sort of like liberty minded.

234
00:18:11,560 --> 00:18:17,140
And so I kind of had like the sort of the pieces in my head to make me interested in this kind of thing.

235
00:18:18,140 --> 00:18:20,960
But I was an engineer as well. I studied aerospace engineering in college.

236
00:18:20,960 --> 00:18:29,560
And so anyways, I sort of fell in love with this a year after I graduated and decided to move to the Bay Area to pursue a career as a software engineer and work on Bitcoin.

237
00:18:30,100 --> 00:18:32,580
So I have mostly been doing that ever since.

238
00:18:32,940 --> 00:18:34,360
Went back to grad school out there.

239
00:18:34,460 --> 00:18:39,820
I helped teach the first Bitcoin class at Stanford in the computer science department as a teaching assistant.

240
00:18:40,020 --> 00:18:45,720
And then eventually was working at an investment fund, a crypto investment fund called Polychain.

241
00:18:45,820 --> 00:18:59,720
And I was mostly focused on the Bitcoin side of things And it was fun I had a good time saw it met a lot of different people a lot of different companies and investors And that gave me a lot of exposure to the investor world

242
00:19:00,120 --> 00:19:04,380
And I had always wanted to start this kind of Bitcoin bank sort of company. And I finally

243
00:19:04,380 --> 00:19:07,340
realized, okay, I finally had what I needed to get this thing off the ground. And so I left

244
00:19:07,340 --> 00:19:16,340
Polychain and they led the fundraising round for River. Early on, my cousin Andrew was a co-founder

245
00:19:16,340 --> 00:19:22,460
of the business. He handled the operations side of things for the first two years. But

246
00:19:22,460 --> 00:19:30,460
we've come a long way since then. We're about 70 people now. We have about $2.5 billion of

247
00:19:30,460 --> 00:19:39,500
assets under custody. And our mission is to build the world's most trusted financial institution.

248
00:19:40,160 --> 00:19:44,260
And I think the world's most trusted financial institution is going to be built on Bitcoin.

249
00:19:44,260 --> 00:19:51,320
And our vision for the world is that people and businesses will increasingly save in Bitcoin.

250
00:19:51,520 --> 00:19:54,860
But for the foreseeable future, they'll keep spending and earning in dollars largely.

251
00:19:55,140 --> 00:19:56,640
I don't think the dollar is going away tomorrow.

252
00:19:57,540 --> 00:20:07,920
And so we're really leaning into the kind of the pragmatic reality too and to build what is best for consumers that fits into their life.

253
00:20:08,260 --> 00:20:09,280
So I'll stop there.

254
00:20:09,740 --> 00:20:11,820
Hopefully that answers the question.

255
00:20:11,820 --> 00:20:13,400
No, I love it.

256
00:20:13,400 --> 00:20:26,720
I mean, one of the interesting things that – I forget exactly when you guys introduced it, but you started offering like very attractive interest rates on any cash like USD that was kept in River.

257
00:20:27,280 --> 00:20:33,400
It's very attractive by itself, but it's really attractive compared to what you can get at basically any normal bank.

258
00:20:33,400 --> 00:20:36,080
Like this is just far and away.

259
00:20:36,460 --> 00:20:41,440
Like I mean interest rates on a savings account in a bank have honestly just become a joke.

260
00:20:41,620 --> 00:20:43,100
Like you're not getting anything.

261
00:20:43,100 --> 00:20:49,200
I mean, it's been like fractions of a percent at most banks, certain banks, you know, you can get a little bit more.

262
00:20:49,300 --> 00:20:56,860
But it's, again, jokingly small, like not even coming close to keeping up with stated inflation, let alone real inflation.

263
00:20:57,760 --> 00:21:04,020
So, I mean, when I saw that, like my first thought was, oh, like this is like a Bitcoin bank.

264
00:21:04,260 --> 00:21:09,160
But it's, you know, like it's better at being a normal bank than a regular bank is to.

265
00:21:09,160 --> 00:21:19,940
Like, is that kind of where you guys see this going? Like Bitcoin enabling you as a business to not only do the Bitcoin side of things, yes, but like to do the, let's say the fiat side of things better than the fiat institutions currently are?

266
00:21:20,880 --> 00:21:27,900
Well, you know, we want to be the financial app for your life, for your savings. Right. And today that means Bitcoin and dollars. Right.

267
00:21:27,900 --> 00:21:37,800
And so in order to do the dollar side of things, we do have to partner with an actual real bank. We're not actually a chartered bank. Like we don't have an account at the Federal Reserve.

268
00:21:37,800 --> 00:21:59,160
So we partner with a bank who does and we work very closely with them, a bank called Lead Bank. And our client's cash is FDIC insured through that partnership with Lead. And the cash there is managed very conservatively, right? They don't lend out crypto deposits is the policy.

269
00:21:59,160 --> 00:22:25,820
And so basically our client's cash is just kept at the Fed. And we just pass through as much as we can because our business model isn't lending cash to earn interest and taking a cut. Our business model is Bitcoin brokerage. So we can really just give all that back to our clients, whereas banks are just keeping it. And so that's kind of the behind the scenes of that, the cash side of things for River.

270
00:22:25,820 --> 00:22:29,400
So that's where the yield comes from, for anyone wondering.

271
00:22:29,420 --> 00:22:30,200
That's where the yield comes from.

272
00:22:30,260 --> 00:22:35,140
Basically, the Fed overnight rate is where the yield's coming from.

273
00:22:36,200 --> 00:22:48,220
And now, you know, one of the insights was, well, one, pretty much all exchanges are just keeping the interest from cash deposits.

274
00:22:48,220 --> 00:22:56,560
two so I was thinking well it'd be really cool if we paid back any interest for on cash people had

275
00:22:56,560 --> 00:22:59,920
and this is back to that that mindset of how to run a business how do you provide as much value

276
00:22:59,920 --> 00:23:04,080
to your clients as you can right if that's your mindset you come up with ideas like this

277
00:23:04,080 --> 00:23:10,840
and and then really well it'd be even cooler if the interest was paid in bitcoin and so that's

278
00:23:10,840 --> 00:23:16,780
that's where how this idea came up and so that's so now you know the product we call bitcoin interest

279
00:23:16,780 --> 00:23:22,060
on cash. Your cash at River just earns interest and it's paid in Bitcoin and you accrue Bitcoin

280
00:23:22,060 --> 00:23:27,240
every day. And so let's say you say, you know, I always want to have $10,000 in cash savings,

281
00:23:27,640 --> 00:23:33,280
right? You can have that $10,000 FDIC insured. You're not, you're not putting it, you're not

282
00:23:33,280 --> 00:23:38,760
investing in Bitcoin or anything or risking it and just earns you Bitcoin every day. And that's

283
00:23:38,760 --> 00:23:46,700
kind of cool. And yeah, so it's been a popular product. We have over $200 million of deposits

284
00:23:46,700 --> 00:23:51,880
for that. Wow. I mean, was that pretty, I mean, did you see that ramp up to where you're at right

285
00:23:51,880 --> 00:23:56,420
now with 200 million? Did you see that happen pretty, pretty quickly? Like was, was the response

286
00:23:56,420 --> 00:24:01,700
generally just like, yes? Well, yeah. I mean, it, it, it started growing very quickly. Um,

287
00:24:02,060 --> 00:24:05,800
I mean, before people really had no major reason to keep dollars on river unless they had like a

288
00:24:05,800 --> 00:24:11,220
target price order or, you know, just needed it there temporarily. But, um, well, once,

289
00:24:11,320 --> 00:24:15,300
once we started paying this interest, yeah, it grew very quickly and it's, I mean, it continues

290
00:24:15,300 --> 00:24:23,500
to grow. So it's really just, you know, just been an upward, upward trajectory. And, and we launched

291
00:24:23,500 --> 00:24:28,500
today, we just launched direct deposit to make it even easier to get cash to river, you can auto

292
00:24:28,500 --> 00:24:37,140
convert it for zero fees to Bitcoin to that was my MacBook magic. And then, and then we'll, you

293
00:24:37,140 --> 00:24:41,900
know, we're, we're, like, we're moving towards is we want to be able to just be a full, you know,

294
00:24:41,900 --> 00:24:46,940
like a fully a full bank replacement for you uh we want you to be able to get paid to river

295
00:24:46,940 --> 00:24:51,740
pay your bills from river do everything you need for your with your savings your bitcoin and your

296
00:24:51,740 --> 00:25:00,500
dollars on river i think it's a it's a really nice goal because again this idea of like the dollar

297
00:25:00,500 --> 00:25:06,600
isn't going away tomorrow right like i'm it's it's just it's it's not going to happen tomorrow

298
00:25:06,600 --> 00:25:11,120
i don't know like eventually i think that it will i also think that if the dollar if and when the

299
00:25:11,120 --> 00:25:15,440
dollar falls and eventually like every fiat currency is doomed right but when the dollar

300
00:25:15,440 --> 00:25:20,340
falls that will probably mean most other fiat currencies in the world have already fallen

301
00:25:20,340 --> 00:25:25,000
maybe fallen multiple times like like the dollar is the prettiest horse at the glue factory it's

302
00:25:25,000 --> 00:25:29,480
the skinniest kid at fat camp like like it or not this is the reality like it's going to be

303
00:25:29,480 --> 00:25:35,560
around longer than most other fiats and who knows how long that is but like until then sadly we do

304
00:25:35,560 --> 00:25:40,220
need to interact in many times in dollars and so it's like you know the idea of meeting people where

305
00:25:40,220 --> 00:25:43,480
they are, right? But at least giving them something that's a little bit of a better tool

306
00:25:43,480 --> 00:25:50,200
than the current joke of like keeping your money in, you know, JPMorgan Chase checking accounts

307
00:25:50,200 --> 00:25:54,180
and savings accounts, which is just like, you're just not getting anything.

308
00:25:54,720 --> 00:26:02,460
0.01 is what Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America pay. We pay 3.5. Our interest rate is 3.5 instead

309
00:26:02,460 --> 00:26:09,840
of 0.01. So even if you don't care about Bitcoin, it's actually way better. And

310
00:26:09,840 --> 00:26:24,520
And yeah, and to your point about the dollars are prettiest horse in the glue factory or whatever, really one of the insights I've had is I've spent a lot of time in Argentina over the last few years.

311
00:26:24,520 --> 00:26:26,040
I just really love it down there.

312
00:26:26,580 --> 00:26:29,620
And the inflation has ebbed and flowed.

313
00:26:29,780 --> 00:26:37,260
It's chilling out recently with Millay, but it was really picked up a lot five years ago or so.

314
00:26:37,260 --> 00:26:48,520
But the one thing I noticed was even when the inflation was crazy, inflation beyond anything Americans have ever experienced, people still transacted in pesos.

315
00:26:49,120 --> 00:27:00,960
They didn't hold on to the pesos, but they still transacted in them because the network effect for the payment system is just so insanely sticky that your currency can be trash and everyone knows it's trash.

316
00:27:00,960 --> 00:27:07,360
and so they're saving in dollars or saving in something you know harder but they're still

317
00:27:07,360 --> 00:27:12,640
transacting in the in the fiat you know even though it's really crappy and so that's one of

318
00:27:12,640 --> 00:27:15,680
those things that goes you know what that made me realize like the dollar is not going away anytime

319
00:27:15,680 --> 00:27:22,620
soon uh for for transactions and so we should we can't run away from that i mean yeah like network

320
00:27:22,620 --> 00:27:29,140
effects are are very real uh and and again like it's it's true i spent a decent amount of time

321
00:27:29,140 --> 00:27:34,100
in Turkey. And it's a similar thing over there where inflation has been absolutely brutal,

322
00:27:34,100 --> 00:27:42,060
not quite on the level of Argentina, but really, really horribly bad. And people still like they,

323
00:27:42,160 --> 00:27:47,820
they certainly don't keep any money in, you know, in the Turkish lira, but they still,

324
00:27:47,920 --> 00:27:52,540
you know, use it because it's like, that's what most people accept as a medium machine.

325
00:27:52,620 --> 00:27:57,260
They will happily take dollars. If you go to the bazaar, they will happily take dollars, euros,

326
00:27:57,260 --> 00:28:02,060
Bitcoin, you know, anything, you see a lot more of those signs, you know, we accept Bitcoin starting

327
00:28:02,060 --> 00:28:07,500
to pop up because they are really happy to take it and hold on to it because it actually, you know,

328
00:28:07,500 --> 00:28:11,400
will preserve the value of their wealth. And people in Argentina and Turkey and any other

329
00:28:11,400 --> 00:28:16,600
country experiencing inflation, severe inflation or hyperinflation, like they end up adopting

330
00:28:16,600 --> 00:28:21,320
Bitcoin, you know, out of that necessity versus like, well, this is nice. This is a good investment

331
00:28:21,320 --> 00:28:26,340
for me. It's like, no, this is a lifeline for me to actually be able to save something for my future

332
00:28:26,340 --> 00:28:27,860
that just can't be inflated away.

333
00:28:28,020 --> 00:28:30,740
And like in the U.S., we're very, you know,

334
00:28:30,760 --> 00:28:32,560
Gladstein said you have like check your financial privilege.

335
00:28:32,660 --> 00:28:33,240
Like it's very true.

336
00:28:33,340 --> 00:28:35,520
A lot of people view this still as Bitcoin.

337
00:28:35,640 --> 00:28:36,980
It's like, well, it's a speculative investment.

338
00:28:37,180 --> 00:28:39,680
It's, you know, that hyperinflation won't happen here.

339
00:28:39,740 --> 00:28:40,780
We don't need to think about that.

340
00:28:40,780 --> 00:28:43,340
But it's like it happens everywhere eventually.

341
00:28:44,000 --> 00:28:45,920
And, you know, hyperinflation is here.

342
00:28:46,020 --> 00:28:48,040
It's just not evenly distributed yet, I guess,

343
00:28:48,100 --> 00:28:49,320
would be another way to say that.

344
00:28:49,580 --> 00:28:49,920
But yeah.

345
00:28:50,200 --> 00:28:50,420
Yeah.

346
00:28:50,840 --> 00:28:51,120
True.

347
00:28:52,520 --> 00:28:54,980
Well, so another thing I wanted to kind of talk to you about

348
00:28:54,980 --> 00:29:01,540
is just generally like you guys see a lot of the behind the scenes of people's behaviors

349
00:29:01,540 --> 00:29:03,080
when it comes to times like this.

350
00:29:03,140 --> 00:29:05,660
We were just talking before we got on about, let's see,

351
00:29:05,720 --> 00:29:10,660
what's current Bitcoin fiat exchange rate is just above $100,000.

352
00:29:10,880 --> 00:29:12,440
It's like $100,800.

353
00:29:14,100 --> 00:29:17,840
The meme of Bitcoin crashes to $100,000 is officially real.

354
00:29:18,900 --> 00:29:21,960
But there's a lot of fear right now.

355
00:29:22,040 --> 00:29:23,580
There's a lot of, I think, anxiety.

356
00:29:23,580 --> 00:29:28,700
people wondering like, is this, you know, is this bull run already over before it began?

357
00:29:29,240 --> 00:29:33,840
I'd love if you can talk a little bit about like, what are you guys seeing behind the scenes in

358
00:29:33,840 --> 00:29:39,040
terms of your customers' behavior? What is that showing you and what do you think that says about

359
00:29:39,040 --> 00:29:43,940
the larger state of the market? Yeah, that's a great question. And, you know, we do a lot of

360
00:29:43,940 --> 00:29:50,860
aggregate analysis internally to see high level trends, like what's happening. And what we've

361
00:29:50,860 --> 00:29:58,180
seen is that one throughout this whole price crash down to 100k we haven't had a single day

362
00:29:58,180 --> 00:30:03,940
where there wasn't net buying on river right so every day there's been net buying the lowest it

363
00:30:03,940 --> 00:30:12,520
got was like 60 percent sort of buy sell ratio um but river clients for every day for the past

364
00:30:12,520 --> 00:30:18,780
month have been net buyers additionally um we did some analysis of like how many people

365
00:30:18,780 --> 00:30:22,380
you know like we did like a paper hands analysis.

366
00:30:22,940 --> 00:30:25,580
We said okay how many people just totally

367
00:30:25,580 --> 00:30:28,000
were like freaked out and sold everything

368
00:30:28,000 --> 00:30:31,260
because what we want to know is

369
00:30:31,260 --> 00:30:32,420
well we don't want our clients

370
00:30:32,420 --> 00:30:34,200
that to happen to our clients right.

371
00:30:34,240 --> 00:30:35,720
We don't want anyone to have used River

372
00:30:35,720 --> 00:30:37,900
and then like at the end of the day

373
00:30:37,900 --> 00:30:40,600
they just like quit and like lost wealth

374
00:30:40,600 --> 00:30:42,860
and it was a very small number.

375
00:30:42,860 --> 00:30:43,760
Very small number.

376
00:30:44,700 --> 00:30:48,140
Like handful of people

377
00:30:48,140 --> 00:30:50,520
kind of ran away and sold everything.

378
00:30:51,620 --> 00:30:54,680
So what we're seeing is anecdotally as well,

379
00:30:55,120 --> 00:30:56,040
people buying a dip.

380
00:30:56,320 --> 00:30:58,920
People are like, I actually do believe in this long term.

381
00:30:59,540 --> 00:31:02,400
I've seen, they've been on the sidelines

382
00:31:02,400 --> 00:31:07,100
and seen, and maybe last cycle were the ones who said,

383
00:31:07,180 --> 00:31:08,580
oh, look at these dumb Bitcoin people.

384
00:31:08,820 --> 00:31:11,540
They're just going to lose everything.

385
00:31:11,980 --> 00:31:13,540
And I think that has kind of played out.

386
00:31:13,880 --> 00:31:15,380
No one says that anymore, right?

387
00:31:15,380 --> 00:31:21,420
And I think we're now at sort of like this critical mass of like actually people are just buying the dip now.

388
00:31:21,500 --> 00:31:22,680
They're seeing this as an opportunity.

389
00:31:23,240 --> 00:31:25,640
And then the question is, OK, well, if that's happening, then why is it dipping?

390
00:31:26,040 --> 00:31:28,020
Right. Why is the price going down?

391
00:31:28,160 --> 00:31:29,540
And no one knows for sure.

392
00:31:29,640 --> 00:31:34,280
These are complex market dynamics with lots of information that people don't have access to.

393
00:31:35,180 --> 00:31:41,360
But I think it's a combination of one whales who have been holding Bitcoin for like 15 years going, you know what?

394
00:31:41,360 --> 00:31:45,080
I kind of want to like just start allocating some of this wealth to other things.

395
00:31:45,080 --> 00:31:52,820
using it, who knows, starting new businesses, buying estates, buying private jets, things like

396
00:31:52,820 --> 00:32:03,760
this. And then there's also just sort of the macro uncertainty. But I do think a lot of it is just

397
00:32:03,760 --> 00:32:09,360
big whales selling. And then, you know, some people will say, well, there's paper Bitcoin,

398
00:32:09,360 --> 00:32:11,200
You know, there's a lot of funny business happening.

399
00:32:12,060 --> 00:32:16,760
Like the challenge with that claim is there's no proof.

400
00:32:18,860 --> 00:32:20,800
It's hard to prove it's not happening.

401
00:32:21,920 --> 00:32:26,320
But, you know, we try to at least prove it can't happen on River because we do proof of reserves.

402
00:32:26,320 --> 00:32:28,260
So we can prove to you we're not selling paper Bitcoin.

403
00:32:29,340 --> 00:32:30,960
Other people can't prove that.

404
00:32:31,140 --> 00:32:34,260
And so maybe, but it's not the simplest explanation.

405
00:32:35,720 --> 00:32:38,780
I would agree with you on the OG whales thing.

406
00:32:38,780 --> 00:32:47,800
I think that's, I mean, there's been a couple of very public cases of this, right, where it was like the galaxy processing like 80,000 Bitcoin for that one whale.

407
00:32:47,900 --> 00:32:52,780
I mean like an unfathomable amount of Bitcoin for the average person.

408
00:32:53,300 --> 00:32:57,360
Like, I mean, heck, for the average country, you know, that's a shocking amount of Bitcoin.

409
00:32:57,440 --> 00:33:00,600
But like that was like one whale moving that, right?

410
00:33:01,180 --> 00:33:03,080
There was the other one with I think 20,000 Bitcoin.

411
00:33:03,200 --> 00:33:04,940
There's certainly many others of those.

412
00:33:05,020 --> 00:33:07,240
There are people that have been around for a very long time.

413
00:33:07,240 --> 00:33:12,880
they have held Bitcoin through the ups and the downs and multiple cycles like and maybe they

414
00:33:12,880 --> 00:33:17,320
mined it on their laptop and now they're like yeah okay a hundred thousand you know fiat cuck bucks

415
00:33:17,320 --> 00:33:22,340
for one of these coins that I essentially got for just the power that it took to you know power my

416
00:33:22,340 --> 00:33:27,860
CPU yeah I'll take that I'll you know I'll get myself a Jeff Bezos mega yacht now I deserve it

417
00:33:27,860 --> 00:33:32,960
and like more power to him do whatever you want with your money but it is interesting I feel the

418
00:33:32,960 --> 00:33:36,200
the narratives around paper Bitcoin,

419
00:33:36,780 --> 00:33:39,860
they never really creep in when the price is going up.

420
00:33:39,900 --> 00:33:41,900
It's typically, you know, when the price is going down

421
00:33:41,900 --> 00:33:44,540
that a lot of these narratives, it seems, creep in there.

422
00:33:44,900 --> 00:33:48,520
And it just feels like probably the simpler explanation is

423
00:33:48,520 --> 00:33:51,340
there are a ton of OGs with a ton of Bitcoin

424
00:33:51,340 --> 00:33:54,320
and they've held since effectively zero.

425
00:33:54,940 --> 00:33:56,720
And now they're selling.

426
00:33:56,720 --> 00:34:00,400
And maybe it is just that simple,

427
00:34:00,400 --> 00:34:08,220
But like people love to like hindsight 2020, you know, reverse attribute things to I feel like various narratives.

428
00:34:08,400 --> 00:34:10,240
But it's amazing that you're seeing.

429
00:34:10,480 --> 00:34:14,780
So, I mean, do you think you guys are unique in that regard, though, because you are a Bitcoin only exchange?

430
00:34:15,220 --> 00:34:18,760
Because people that are coming to you are perhaps more laser focused on Bitcoins?

431
00:34:18,880 --> 00:34:20,320
There's less paper handedness.

432
00:34:20,320 --> 00:34:25,360
Like I know you don't have any necessarily data from these other exchanges, but like do you have a gut feeling about that?

433
00:34:25,360 --> 00:34:53,760
Yeah, I mean, I think that maybe it's more just that retail is actually less paper handed than the big money is really what's moving things right now. And so, you know, arguably what we're seeing is actually and so, you know, for context, we serve sort of that that middle, right, sort of retail, you know, got folks with a good job and and and up to, you know, wealthy individuals.

434
00:34:53,760 --> 00:34:58,140
But we're not serving like the very – we're not serving the hedge funds.

435
00:34:58,320 --> 00:35:00,560
We're not serving the like super sophisticated.

436
00:35:00,840 --> 00:35:05,780
You know, you have $10 billion of Bitcoin and you're trying to like do advanced trading things to sell it super optimally.

437
00:35:05,900 --> 00:35:09,440
Like we don't serve like that tier of the market.

438
00:35:09,580 --> 00:35:20,380
And so I think our user base is just buying and that the sell pressure is coming from this like this bigger money.

439
00:35:20,380 --> 00:35:28,880
And so arguably we're seeing like a redistribution of coins and that's probably a great thing for the long-term health of Bitcoin.

440
00:35:30,260 --> 00:35:36,120
I was going to say like it's a better thing to have a more – like to have the market be more spread out, right?

441
00:35:36,200 --> 00:35:36,880
You want that.

442
00:35:37,320 --> 00:35:46,580
You want those coins to cycle from the whales, from the people who took the biggest risks to people who are now – yeah, they're buying Bitcoin at 100K.

443
00:35:46,580 --> 00:35:50,540
maybe they're going to sell it at a million but like that's that just and so it goes right like

444
00:35:50,540 --> 00:35:57,260
we're still at just very early levels of adoption it feels like yes extremely early you know yes

445
00:35:57,260 --> 00:36:03,220
exactly i'm curious too because i know you guys you do service like you put out a report as well

446
00:36:03,220 --> 00:36:07,300
just on like business adoption of bitcoin and because a lot of the i feel like a lot of the

447
00:36:07,300 --> 00:36:13,440
focus this um in these you know this past year has been on the etfs understandably um it was

448
00:36:13,440 --> 00:36:18,080
historically good, great ETF launch, you know, and then also on the Bitcoin treasury companies.

449
00:36:18,080 --> 00:36:25,320
But there's this kind of other cohort of just businesses who are buying Bitcoin. Can you speak

450
00:36:25,320 --> 00:36:29,660
to that a little bit? Because when I saw the report, it was actually a larger than I thought

451
00:36:29,660 --> 00:36:34,820
it was going to be, like shockingly so. Yeah. And I think this is the most exciting trend we've seen.

452
00:36:34,900 --> 00:36:41,100
We've seen a major growth in the amount of just normal main street businesses buying Bitcoin. And

453
00:36:41,100 --> 00:36:44,160
And I kind of joke, these are the real Bitcoin treasury companies, right?

454
00:36:45,200 --> 00:36:51,960
These are, you know, it's a profitable business run by an entrepreneur who themselves believes in Bitcoin.

455
00:36:52,440 --> 00:36:55,880
And typically, you know, they realize they're buying Bitcoin for themselves.

456
00:36:56,040 --> 00:36:58,520
Like, well, the next logical thing is to do it for my business.

457
00:36:59,100 --> 00:37:03,880
And so we're seeing, and so we don't serve, you know, the ETFs and stuff like that.

458
00:37:03,880 --> 00:37:04,560
That's Coinbase.

459
00:37:04,760 --> 00:37:07,520
You know, they're doing very sophisticated, you know, things.

460
00:37:07,520 --> 00:37:13,880
Um, we're serving, uh, we're serving people running restaurants, running plumbing businesses,

461
00:37:14,160 --> 00:37:19,760
running, uh, one of my favorite ones is a hot dog stand, uh, um, up, up to large businesses,

462
00:37:19,880 --> 00:37:22,960
large food services companies, um, large IT firms.

463
00:37:22,960 --> 00:37:29,200
Uh, but the, the, the sort of core underlying underpinning theme here is these are real

464
00:37:29,200 --> 00:37:32,400
businesses with real profits that they're allocating into Bitcoin.

465
00:37:32,400 --> 00:37:35,360
and we serve thousands of them

466
00:37:35,360 --> 00:37:37,760
and that's grown a lot this year.

467
00:37:38,120 --> 00:37:40,600
And so it's a really, really cool development.

468
00:37:41,880 --> 00:37:54,440
But what I was going to maybe pull up on the screen here is just to share that piece from that report just this chart which I thought was really cool So basically showing these buyers here and this is kind of wild when you look at it

469
00:37:54,440 --> 00:38:02,060
Like the conventional businesses were, again, this high as it relates to funds and ETFs, Bitcoin treasury companies.

470
00:38:02,500 --> 00:38:04,560
Conventional businesses are fully holding their own.

471
00:38:04,720 --> 00:38:06,080
Like that's a pretty incredible thing.

472
00:38:07,400 --> 00:38:08,000
Yes.

473
00:38:08,000 --> 00:38:14,140
it's been a great trend

474
00:38:14,140 --> 00:38:16,200
you're talking about

475
00:38:16,200 --> 00:38:18,480
are you talking about them just sort of like

476
00:38:18,480 --> 00:38:20,000
buying for their own treasury or

477
00:38:20,000 --> 00:38:21,360
self custody or what

478
00:38:21,360 --> 00:38:23,260
well yeah I mean just

479
00:38:23,260 --> 00:38:25,140
generally it's like

480
00:38:25,140 --> 00:38:28,120
I feel like people discount

481
00:38:28,120 --> 00:38:30,020
perhaps the fact that there are

482
00:38:30,020 --> 00:38:32,360
while there may be not a ton

483
00:38:32,360 --> 00:38:34,480
of Bitcoiners out there relative to the total population

484
00:38:34,480 --> 00:38:36,400
the people out there that

485
00:38:36,400 --> 00:38:41,000
our Bitcoiners tend to be a lot like a high concentration of entrepreneurs. I would say,

486
00:38:41,100 --> 00:38:45,200
again, this is anecdotal, but just like from personal experience, a lot of entrepreneurs,

487
00:38:45,420 --> 00:38:48,180
a lot of people who are, you know, maybe they have a family business, something else.

488
00:38:48,740 --> 00:38:52,840
But as you said earlier, like there is that natural tendency to say, okay, I'm buying Bitcoin

489
00:38:52,840 --> 00:38:57,720
for myself. Why wouldn't I also buy it for my business? Like if I actually believe that this

490
00:38:57,720 --> 00:39:03,660
thing is, is, is what it is, I would be silly not to. Right. And I feel like we're going to

491
00:39:03,660 --> 00:39:09,880
see that accelerate because again, we're just, we're so darn early in this cycle. Like I think,

492
00:39:09,980 --> 00:39:14,160
or not just in the cycle, but overall, like if you look at it, I mean, I don't know if you guys

493
00:39:14,160 --> 00:39:19,260
have better data on this, but I'm guessing like total ownership of Bitcoin, like as part of the,

494
00:39:19,260 --> 00:39:24,340
you know, worldwide population, it's like, it's less than a percent. Like it's still a tiny,

495
00:39:24,440 --> 00:39:30,120
tiny fraction, right? So it's, we have a lot of room to go. And I think seeing businesses do this

496
00:39:30,120 --> 00:39:31,400
is a super heartening sign.

497
00:39:31,500 --> 00:39:33,680
Seeing individuals do it is also heartening.

498
00:39:33,780 --> 00:39:36,300
But like for a business, like this makes sense.

499
00:39:36,380 --> 00:39:37,360
It's just kind of like that thesis

500
00:39:37,360 --> 00:39:41,140
that eventually every business is a Bitcoin business.

501
00:39:41,260 --> 00:39:42,640
Every business is a technology business.

502
00:39:42,800 --> 00:39:43,980
Like you're going to hold Bitcoin

503
00:39:43,980 --> 00:39:46,440
if you don't want to keep getting debased, right?

504
00:39:47,180 --> 00:39:48,040
Yes, exactly.

505
00:39:48,260 --> 00:39:50,760
And we did some analysis of like,

506
00:39:50,780 --> 00:39:54,540
what if Apple had put one or 2% of their treasury in Bitcoin?

507
00:39:55,680 --> 00:39:57,560
I don't know if that's on, maybe that's on page three.

508
00:39:57,560 --> 00:40:01,640
I can't remember which chart it was.

509
00:40:02,900 --> 00:40:04,120
Ownership distribution there.

510
00:40:04,180 --> 00:40:05,440
Oh, no, that's a different one.

511
00:40:05,660 --> 00:40:09,300
But, you know, if you go through the report, you'll find some interesting things.

512
00:40:09,420 --> 00:40:14,520
We show sort of like what's the impact of Bitcoin in a treasury and protecting against inflation.

513
00:40:14,760 --> 00:40:15,380
We did the analysis.

514
00:40:15,560 --> 00:40:20,660
The applet allocated like one or two percent of Bitcoin to their treasury.

515
00:40:21,740 --> 00:40:24,840
Five years ago, they would have not lost any.

516
00:40:24,840 --> 00:40:31,260
They would have maintained their purchasing power as opposed to having lost purchasing power.

517
00:40:32,500 --> 00:40:36,960
We also show the breakdown of the different industries buying Bitcoin on River.

518
00:40:37,900 --> 00:40:38,840
And so –

519
00:40:39,680 --> 00:40:41,780
I think I got this one somewhere.

520
00:40:42,140 --> 00:40:43,320
I'll find it here.

521
00:40:44,400 --> 00:40:44,700
Yeah.

522
00:40:45,000 --> 00:40:45,840
This is –

523
00:40:45,840 --> 00:40:46,940
Here we go.

524
00:40:47,560 --> 00:40:47,860
Oh, yeah.

525
00:40:47,860 --> 00:40:48,280
There we go.

526
00:40:49,860 --> 00:40:51,760
Real estate up at the top, huh?

527
00:40:51,980 --> 00:40:54,340
Yeah, because it's interesting.

528
00:40:54,840 --> 00:41:02,900
If you think about it, it makes a lot of sense because real estate people really like hard assets.

529
00:41:03,360 --> 00:41:04,900
They like something that's scarce.

530
00:41:05,660 --> 00:41:09,300
But they also know that real estate is really annoying.

531
00:41:10,940 --> 00:41:14,480
And they look at Bitcoin's performance and go, wait, hold on a second.

532
00:41:14,480 --> 00:41:23,320
You're telling me I can beat my returns from real estate and not have to deal with tenants and plumbing and all of this nonsense?

533
00:41:23,320 --> 00:41:26,160
like why wouldn't I do that?

534
00:41:28,420 --> 00:41:29,760
It is super interesting.

535
00:41:31,900 --> 00:41:33,420
Construction is another one.

536
00:41:34,040 --> 00:41:35,480
Construction, you know,

537
00:41:35,640 --> 00:41:38,140
but it's really across the board.

538
00:41:39,120 --> 00:41:40,720
We also see a lot of non-profits.

539
00:41:40,960 --> 00:41:41,660
We see a lot of churches.

540
00:41:42,940 --> 00:41:48,100
We see a lot of software firms

541
00:41:48,100 --> 00:41:50,280
like IT consulting firms

542
00:41:50,280 --> 00:41:51,020
or things like this.

543
00:41:51,020 --> 00:41:55,360
It's like, you know, industries where people would know sort of know about Bitcoin.

544
00:41:56,860 --> 00:42:00,300
And yeah, healthcare is also another one.

545
00:42:00,360 --> 00:42:02,120
Lots of doctor's offices, dentists.

546
00:42:04,140 --> 00:42:10,980
It's not actually like super obvious why some of these are so popular.

547
00:42:11,640 --> 00:42:14,460
Maybe we're just plugged into certain networks and we get a lot of referrals.

548
00:42:14,460 --> 00:42:16,000
But I think there's something else.

549
00:42:16,000 --> 00:42:22,120
like i don't know why there's so many more doctors than sort of agriculture you know buying bitcoin

550
00:42:22,120 --> 00:42:26,040
um maybe it's the doctors just have more wealth to allocate somewhere else not sure

551
00:42:26,040 --> 00:42:32,400
no it's i mean it's it's really interesting the real estate one honestly like makes that makes a

552
00:42:32,400 --> 00:42:37,160
ton of sense and i think you you've seen that like i've seen this from some like bigger name

553
00:42:37,160 --> 00:42:41,520
people in real estate like start to start to really talk about this as like now we're going

554
00:42:41,520 --> 00:42:47,420
of structure deals with Bitcoin incorporated into them because this just makes sense going

555
00:42:47,420 --> 00:42:47,820
forward.

556
00:42:48,520 --> 00:42:52,900
And I mean, honestly, the other side from the if you're renting out, you know, you got a

557
00:42:52,900 --> 00:42:58,640
bunch of tenants like, man, Bitcoin is a lot easier to manage than tenants and a rental

558
00:42:58,640 --> 00:42:59,080
property.

559
00:42:59,080 --> 00:43:01,740
So I can definitely see the need for diversification there.

560
00:43:03,220 --> 00:43:06,720
It's also very heartening to see, I guess, that a lot of, you know, the second highest

561
00:43:06,720 --> 00:43:08,720
one there is just, I assume Bitcoin

562
00:43:08,720 --> 00:43:10,740
services is just other Bitcoin

563
00:43:10,740 --> 00:43:12,620
like Bitcoin companies, right, who are taking

564
00:43:12,620 --> 00:43:14,560
a portion of their proceeds and

565
00:43:14,560 --> 00:43:16,140
putting them into their own treasury, correct?

566
00:43:16,680 --> 00:43:18,640
Yeah, and you know, there's a lot

567
00:43:18,640 --> 00:43:20,040
of different kinds, right? There's

568
00:43:20,040 --> 00:43:21,260
miners,

569
00:43:22,000 --> 00:43:24,360
there's like mining

570
00:43:24,360 --> 00:43:26,240
repair firms, there's

571
00:43:26,240 --> 00:43:27,340
software businesses,

572
00:43:27,900 --> 00:43:30,200
there's a lot of different types of things

573
00:43:30,200 --> 00:43:31,380
in Bitcoin services.

574
00:43:33,360 --> 00:43:33,840
Yeah.

575
00:43:34,280 --> 00:43:36,380
I love to see

576
00:43:36,380 --> 00:43:40,420
the other chart here that is just kind of like, uh, kind of mind blowing.

577
00:43:40,580 --> 00:43:44,400
Whereas it was just like total, uh, total, uh, corporate treasury adoption.

578
00:43:44,400 --> 00:43:47,100
I think, uh, where was this somewhere along here?

579
00:43:47,120 --> 00:43:48,160
I just skipped over it earlier.

580
00:43:48,240 --> 00:43:50,000
I'll find it again, but just, oh, here it is.

581
00:43:50,000 --> 00:43:56,040
The like number of Bitcoin treasury companies, uh, with at least 10 Bitcoin like that.

582
00:43:56,140 --> 00:43:57,420
I mean, talk about going parabolic.

583
00:43:57,420 --> 00:43:59,000
Like that's just kind of wild.

584
00:43:59,000 --> 00:44:00,680
And it's like, it starts with one, right?

585
00:44:00,700 --> 00:44:01,680
It starts with strategy.

586
00:44:01,680 --> 00:44:12,500
And I mean, I guess you could, you know, there were Bitcoin companies with more than 10 Bitcoin, but like we're talking, this is specifically about like explicit Bitcoin treasury companies, correct?

587
00:44:13,980 --> 00:44:17,860
Yes, this is like, because if you look at the y-axis is, you know, hitting about 50.

588
00:44:18,040 --> 00:44:23,860
So this is, you know, these Bitcoin treasury companies that are trying to go public and financialize.

589
00:44:23,940 --> 00:44:27,940
And, you know, we're not taking a stance on whether that's good or bad.

590
00:44:27,940 --> 00:44:32,940
I am personally skeptical that the vast majority of these make sense.

591
00:44:33,780 --> 00:44:37,180
But that's just that's not that maybe that's a different conversation.

592
00:44:37,440 --> 00:44:37,620
Yeah.

593
00:44:37,900 --> 00:44:40,640
No, I feel I share the skepticism there.

594
00:44:40,820 --> 00:44:44,800
I think there are there will emerge a couple of key players.

595
00:44:44,800 --> 00:44:47,440
And I think it's getting fairly clear who those are.

596
00:44:47,600 --> 00:44:57,100
I also think that a lot of this, it's like skepticism aside, like this was kind of an inevitable inevitable results of Bitcoin being successful.

597
00:44:57,100 --> 00:44:57,420
Right.

598
00:44:57,420 --> 00:45:02,000
Of course you were going to see this. Of course you're going to see nation states jumping into this as well.

599
00:45:02,180 --> 00:45:08,640
Like it just makes sense. If Bitcoin was winning, if Bitcoin is winning, everyone is going to want it.

600
00:45:08,840 --> 00:45:13,580
Like that's just kind of the reality of the situation. It doesn't have to be good or bad.

601
00:45:13,620 --> 00:45:16,960
You don't have to like it or not like it. It's just like that's just the way it works.

602
00:45:17,040 --> 00:45:22,120
Like people want harder money. They want a better way to save the value of their time and energy.

603
00:45:22,140 --> 00:45:25,600
And they're going to find it. And they happen to find a really good one in Bitcoin.

604
00:45:26,180 --> 00:45:27,320
Yep, exactly.

605
00:45:28,500 --> 00:45:42,140
Another thing I wanted to talk to you about, and oh, I did actually just find maybe it's worthwhile for me to pop this one up on screen since you mentioned it, just to show folks the Apple side of things, which is pretty interesting.

606
00:45:43,300 --> 00:45:48,420
So pulling this up here, yeah, big tech treasury performances since 2020.

607
00:45:48,420 --> 00:45:59,100
So that's pretty remarkable when you see basically this is kind of like real terms would actually happen and what would have happened with just a 1% allocation.

608
00:45:59,320 --> 00:45:59,820
Is that correct?

609
00:46:00,220 --> 00:46:00,380
Okay.

610
00:46:01,100 --> 00:46:02,260
I mean that's wild.

611
00:46:02,760 --> 00:46:11,100
So you end up losing tens of billions in purchasing power if you're just holding dollars and gaining tens of billions in purchasing power if you just do a 1% allocation to Bitcoin.

612
00:46:11,100 --> 00:46:17,300
That's just kind of crazy that with that small of an allocation it has such an outsized impact.

613
00:46:18,420 --> 00:46:20,020
Yep. Yep.

614
00:46:21,040 --> 00:46:22,440
That is, yeah, that is just wild.

615
00:46:23,040 --> 00:46:32,440
Okay. So another thing I wanted to talk to you about was, and this was the topic of your presentation at the Bitcoin Policy Summit, was sort of Bitcoin in America.

616
00:46:32,440 --> 00:46:37,520
And you guys did another great report on this. I can maybe pull some charts up from that as well in a little bit.

617
00:46:37,620 --> 00:46:41,320
But can you talk about this like more broadly?

618
00:46:41,420 --> 00:46:47,020
Because it's a pretty cool thing for you to be able to go and speak in front of these lawmakers and talk about this American Bitcoin advantage.

619
00:46:47,820 --> 00:46:53,080
But, you know, you guys are obviously like you're based in America, American company.

620
00:46:53,160 --> 00:46:56,820
I don't know if you service any other jurisdictions besides America currently or is it just USA?

621
00:46:57,120 --> 00:46:58,300
It's pretty much the U.S.

622
00:46:58,320 --> 00:47:00,760
We serve some select international individuals.

623
00:47:01,560 --> 00:47:03,940
And that's something we'll probably scale up a bit next year.

624
00:47:04,120 --> 00:47:12,360
But we're not entering like the consumer, you know, like we're not like entering Europe, you know, supporting the euro or like the pound or anything like that.

625
00:47:12,360 --> 00:47:13,720
So we're pretty much an American company.

626
00:47:13,720 --> 00:47:17,500
We operate here to the extent that anyone in other countries is using us.

627
00:47:17,660 --> 00:47:18,920
They're like, we're still operating here.

628
00:47:19,000 --> 00:47:22,280
They're just like opening accounts here and using dollars and Bitcoin.

629
00:47:23,300 --> 00:47:24,040
So, yes.

630
00:47:24,300 --> 00:47:29,800
And I think like sort of my own, you know, I think for anyone who follows me, they know like I'm deeply American.

631
00:47:30,080 --> 00:47:34,660
My, you know, my family goes back to the 1630s in the United States.

632
00:47:34,760 --> 00:47:35,620
Like this is my country.

633
00:47:36,500 --> 00:47:42,600
I feel very deeply in protecting the United States and ensuring it can continue to thrive and prosper.

634
00:47:42,600 --> 00:48:01,540
I think Bitcoin plays an important role there. And so, you know, we did an analysis, we did a whole report on, you know, what is Bitcoin done for the United States? What, you know, how does the US compare to other countries in the world in terms of Bitcoin holdings, businesses, things like that?

635
00:48:01,540 --> 00:48:10,940
I mean, really what we saw was America's, unsurprisingly, like the Bitcoin country, you know, about 40% of Bitcoin is held by American people or businesses.

636
00:48:11,660 --> 00:48:15,260
And it's by far sort of the biggest market.

637
00:48:16,780 --> 00:48:20,580
It's also very culturally aligned, right?

638
00:48:20,580 --> 00:48:30,420
Bitcoin is this idea of freedom, distrust of government, and economic independence.

639
00:48:30,420 --> 00:48:41,220
And that's something that is, you know, downstream of the ideals of the American Revolution and the culture that sort of built that.

640
00:48:41,680 --> 00:48:46,180
So it makes sense that it's very popular here.

641
00:48:47,640 --> 00:48:59,000
No, it doesn't. I mean, seeing some of the data in this report is kind of wild because, again, I mean, this isn't just about who has the most in their Bitcoin strategic reserve.

642
00:48:59,000 --> 00:49:02,520
if they even have a Bitcoin strategic reserve in terms of the other countries.

643
00:49:02,640 --> 00:49:05,480
Basically, the countries that own Bitcoin, by and large,

644
00:49:05,700 --> 00:49:08,640
own it because they have confiscated it through law enforcement action.

645
00:49:08,980 --> 00:49:11,380
And so far, the U.S., that's what they have it from, too.

646
00:49:11,780 --> 00:49:14,220
Notable exceptions, El Salvador, Kingdom of Bhutan,

647
00:49:14,720 --> 00:49:19,020
I think a couple others who are actively mining Bitcoin or buying Bitcoin.

648
00:49:19,840 --> 00:49:21,480
But mostly it's these confiscation efforts.

649
00:49:21,480 --> 00:49:27,420
But even the other part of that is just what do the citizens themselves own?

650
00:49:27,420 --> 00:49:46,480
And at a time where there's like, you know, central banks are stockpiling gold, allegedly, who knows if it's just, you know, tungsten wrapped in gold leafing. We don't really know. I haven't said it personally. But it's really interesting to see just what individuals are doing across the world and how actually dominant America is in that regard.

651
00:49:46,480 --> 00:49:51,080
Like you look at some of these numbers and it's just like it's I mean, it's it's kind of shocking.

652
00:49:51,080 --> 00:49:59,580
Like just what a huge percentage of this is held by Americans, American businesses like it's it's very much dominant.

653
00:50:00,960 --> 00:50:12,000
Yes. And, you know, maybe I can say a few spicy things that will, you know, that maybe my hot takes.

654
00:50:12,000 --> 00:50:20,740
I think Bitcoin is, I see Bitcoin as a life raft for the United States.

655
00:50:20,740 --> 00:50:27,920
I think, you know, I've talked to some senators and such who go, well, is Bitcoin, you know, isn't Bitcoin attacking the dollar?

656
00:50:28,040 --> 00:50:31,200
And isn't the dollar what makes, you know, America powerful in the world?

657
00:50:31,740 --> 00:50:36,620
And my response to that is always, well, no, the U.S. government is destroying the dollar.

658
00:50:37,000 --> 00:50:46,820
Bitcoin is going to be the life raft for Americans so that we don't get totally wrecked once the math of the fiscal situation of the U.S. just inevitably plays out.

659
00:50:48,120 --> 00:50:49,720
And then, sure, there's this other thing.

660
00:50:49,780 --> 00:50:52,720
Well, you might look at this and go, well, America is the richest country in the world.

661
00:50:54,400 --> 00:50:57,480
Isn't it unfair that Bitcoin is just making America richer?

662
00:50:58,560 --> 00:51:02,720
And maybe my hot take is fairness doesn't matter.

663
00:51:03,500 --> 00:51:04,680
I care about my country.

664
00:51:04,680 --> 00:51:08,280
I want America to disproportionately benefit from Bitcoin.

665
00:51:09,300 --> 00:51:13,820
I actually don't agree that Bitcoin is going to save the poor masses of the world.

666
00:51:13,980 --> 00:51:14,840
That doesn't make any sense.

667
00:51:15,220 --> 00:51:17,840
I don't think – or save the unbanked.

668
00:51:18,380 --> 00:51:20,260
People don't have banks because they're poor.

669
00:51:21,780 --> 00:51:24,480
Giving someone a bank doesn't make someone rich.

670
00:51:25,980 --> 00:51:30,460
The economic problems in the third world are not due to money.

671
00:51:30,660 --> 00:51:33,940
They're due to culture and other deeper issues that Bitcoin can't fix.

672
00:51:34,680 --> 00:51:44,360
And so I actually view Bitcoin as a way to keep the crown jewels of our civilization, the West, you know, like shining.

673
00:51:45,100 --> 00:51:46,600
And that's the most important thing.

674
00:51:46,780 --> 00:51:49,180
If that goes out, then the whole world goes dark.

675
00:51:49,660 --> 00:51:52,340
And so that's what I think is the most important thing.

676
00:51:52,780 --> 00:51:55,340
Bitcoin isn't going to help Uganda.

677
00:51:56,060 --> 00:51:57,680
I just don't believe that.

678
00:51:58,260 --> 00:52:01,000
I think Bitcoin is going to help save Western civilization.

679
00:52:02,600 --> 00:52:04,480
That is indeed spicy.

680
00:52:04,480 --> 00:52:06,920
because let's unpack that a little bit more

681
00:52:06,920 --> 00:52:10,540
because you've got the store of value side of this, right?

682
00:52:10,860 --> 00:52:13,420
And then you also obviously have the medium of exchange side.

683
00:52:14,100 --> 00:52:19,260
And it is, I think, probably pretty demonstrably true

684
00:52:19,260 --> 00:52:21,220
that from a medium of exchange standpoint,

685
00:52:21,460 --> 00:52:26,500
if you don't have access to banks and you have to use cash

686
00:52:26,500 --> 00:52:27,620
or you have to use gold,

687
00:52:28,020 --> 00:52:31,180
those both suck in terms of being able to transact

688
00:52:31,180 --> 00:52:34,440
in any meaningful way outside of just a very small local,

689
00:52:34,480 --> 00:52:38,800
circle, right? Like you can't send physical cash around the world. I mean, you could use

690
00:52:38,800 --> 00:52:45,500
Western Union as a go-between, but that's just terrible. Gold, even worse. Like, so Bitcoin is

691
00:52:45,500 --> 00:52:50,880
useful there. But I absolutely see what you're saying in terms of like, there are other underlying

692
00:52:50,880 --> 00:52:56,080
problems that need to be addressed. Why wasn't there a bank? Why isn't there a bank?

693
00:52:57,140 --> 00:52:57,460
Yeah.

694
00:52:57,460 --> 00:53:04,360
Right? Like, that's asking a question like halfway into a story. Well, it's like, well,

695
00:53:04,480 --> 00:53:12,060
You know, and I kind of came to these opinions a long time ago in life when I did some development work in various countries and was like, well, hold on a second.

696
00:53:12,200 --> 00:53:14,080
Like, why am I building this water tank?

697
00:53:15,080 --> 00:53:16,480
Why aren't they building the water tank?

698
00:53:17,720 --> 00:53:29,000
And, you know, I kind of came to the conclusion that it's a lot more complicated than like the West can just give technology to these countries and they'll just, you know, thrive.

699
00:53:29,160 --> 00:53:30,840
Like, I fundamentally don't believe that.

700
00:53:30,840 --> 00:53:37,280
well yeah that's uh the whole concept of like foreign aid right and whether or not that is

701
00:53:37,280 --> 00:53:42,000
actually an effective means of lifting up countries like it kind of it gets back to that

702
00:53:42,000 --> 00:53:47,560
like if if foreign aid was effective foreign aid would have been effective but it's so many times

703
00:53:47,560 --> 00:53:52,400
like you know where i would be able to bring it back to the money is like so much of the foreign

704
00:53:52,400 --> 00:53:57,680
aid that comes is first of all just through these you know rampantly corrupt uh shell companies and

705
00:53:57,680 --> 00:54:01,040
NGOs that are actually just completely full of shit and don't actually, you know, like

706
00:54:01,040 --> 00:54:03,940
whatever, 5% of it actually gets to its intended destination.

707
00:54:04,080 --> 00:54:07,460
The rest is just grift by people, you know, operating at higher levels.

708
00:54:07,640 --> 00:54:09,420
And then you've got the whole IMF, right?

709
00:54:09,500 --> 00:54:19,020
And the World Bank and those very fiat epitomizing organizations that are just very obviously

710
00:54:19,020 --> 00:54:19,700
harmful.

711
00:54:20,120 --> 00:54:25,160
Like they haven't left any country better than they have found it and they didn't find

712
00:54:25,160 --> 00:54:29,760
them in good spaces, you know, in a good place to begin with. And so it's like, yeah, I mean,

713
00:54:29,840 --> 00:54:36,140
I guess my point of hope here is that, you know, I'm of the same opinion that like, I'm an American.

714
00:54:36,880 --> 00:54:42,080
I love America. I want America to continue to be the greatest country in the world. And I believe

715
00:54:42,080 --> 00:54:46,620
that it is. And I believe that it still can continue to be. I got to say, spending a little

716
00:54:46,620 --> 00:54:50,520
bit of time in Switzerland, I am like, boy, some, we feel like a third world country sometimes

717
00:54:50,520 --> 00:54:54,880
compared to Switzerland, but that's a different story. That's a very small, incredibly, yeah,

718
00:54:55,160 --> 00:54:59,220
Different story there, a whole other rabbit hole to unpack about why that's so successful.

719
00:55:00,380 --> 00:55:10,140
But like I want America to continue to be the greatest country in the world because the American ideas are infectious in the best possible way, right?

720
00:55:10,380 --> 00:55:14,940
And American pseudo-capitalism, I think we've gotten about as close as anyone.

721
00:55:15,220 --> 00:55:17,460
I don't think real capitalism has ever been tried.

722
00:55:17,620 --> 00:55:20,720
They say that communism hasn't been tried, but like it's been tried.

723
00:55:20,840 --> 00:55:24,140
It's been tried a lot, and it resulted in hundreds of millions of deaths.

724
00:55:25,160 --> 00:55:29,740
But I think we've gotten pretty close to capitalism here.

725
00:55:29,960 --> 00:55:31,020
We can still do better.

726
00:55:31,300 --> 00:55:34,160
And I think that Bitcoin does help us fix that.

727
00:55:34,240 --> 00:55:37,360
And capitalism is what lifts the world out of poverty, right?

728
00:55:37,360 --> 00:55:41,540
It's not us throwing more money at problems.

729
00:55:41,820 --> 00:55:44,080
It's fixing that money at the base level.

730
00:55:44,220 --> 00:55:45,700
Dare I say, fix the money, fix the world.

731
00:55:45,900 --> 00:55:48,640
But, you know, fix the money, fix capitalism first.

732
00:55:48,820 --> 00:55:52,360
And then I think a lot of that is just downstream from fixing those incentives.

733
00:55:54,180 --> 00:55:55,140
Yeah, I think that's mostly true.

734
00:55:55,160 --> 00:55:57,940
I think there's a layer above that though

735
00:55:57,940 --> 00:55:59,880
I think like capitalism works

736
00:55:59,880 --> 00:56:01,920
Because of

737
00:56:01,920 --> 00:56:04,100
The type of people

738
00:56:04,100 --> 00:56:06,020
In the capitalist system

739
00:56:06,020 --> 00:56:07,540
And their values and their virtues

740
00:56:07,540 --> 00:56:10,140
And so I actually don't think

741
00:56:10,140 --> 00:56:12,100
Like capitalism just like blindly works

742
00:56:12,100 --> 00:56:13,140
For like all cultures

743
00:56:13,140 --> 00:56:15,020
Like in the same way it works for the US

744
00:56:15,020 --> 00:56:17,320
Sure, communism doesn't work

745
00:56:17,320 --> 00:56:17,640
But

746
00:56:17,640 --> 00:56:21,660
Anyways, I generally

747
00:56:21,660 --> 00:56:22,520
Directionally agree

748
00:56:22,520 --> 00:56:29,100
I do think it's a bit more coupled to culture too.

749
00:56:30,220 --> 00:56:31,600
I do not disagree with that.

750
00:56:31,760 --> 00:56:35,440
And I'm being slightly reductionist with my portrayal.

751
00:56:35,620 --> 00:56:46,380
Like I am in agreement because like obviously not all cultures are the same And I know it not like a popular thing to say that but it like they not the same

752
00:56:46,460 --> 00:56:47,600
And, like, that's okay, too.

753
00:56:47,740 --> 00:56:48,920
They're not going to be the same.

754
00:56:48,980 --> 00:56:49,980
Like, not all people are the same.

755
00:56:50,080 --> 00:56:51,080
People don't have the same values.

756
00:56:51,180 --> 00:56:53,760
People don't have the same cultural and religious beliefs.

757
00:56:54,140 --> 00:56:57,740
This is not to pass judgment on whether one should hold said beliefs.

758
00:56:57,740 --> 00:57:03,820
It's just to state a fact that, like, those societal structures, those cultural institutions are different.

759
00:57:03,820 --> 00:57:09,060
and they result in different outcomes and different desires amongst the people who inhabit those territories.

760
00:57:09,380 --> 00:57:13,660
And it is primarily territorially based, at least it started that way.

761
00:57:13,840 --> 00:57:20,560
But then that spreads out and you've got different microcosms of those same cultures throughout the world now.

762
00:57:20,560 --> 00:57:27,400
But like there are Western values and people that self-select by coming to America

763
00:57:27,400 --> 00:57:29,480
and that have self-selected by coming to America.

764
00:57:29,480 --> 00:57:34,180
you're naturally self-selecting for risk-taking entrepreneurs and people who are,

765
00:57:34,680 --> 00:57:39,180
want, believe in a meritocracy and believe in the ability of you to work hard.

766
00:57:39,480 --> 00:57:42,940
And as long as you get a, you know, reasonably fair shake to get ahead.

767
00:57:43,000 --> 00:57:45,220
And like, that's why America is what it is, right?

768
00:57:45,320 --> 00:57:51,260
Because we are a nation of people who wanted something a little bit better

769
00:57:51,260 --> 00:57:53,860
than what the current status quo offered them.

770
00:57:53,860 --> 00:57:56,000
I mean, that's why we overthrew our, you know,

771
00:57:56,100 --> 00:57:58,140
tyrannical British overlords at the end of the day, right?

772
00:57:58,140 --> 00:58:02,940
yeah i mean i think that all that cultural thing is true before we had a welfare state and then

773
00:58:02,940 --> 00:58:09,920
after that yes it did not filter for risk takers yes that's for economic opportunity you know i can

774
00:58:09,920 --> 00:58:14,800
get more free stuff yeah no that's that's we you know as we're gonna have to do a we're gonna have

775
00:58:14,800 --> 00:58:19,340
to do a whole nother podcast where we just go deep down this rabbit hole because like this this is

776
00:58:19,340 --> 00:58:24,700
one that i i think is so important to discuss because it's uncomfortable for people i think

777
00:58:24,700 --> 00:58:26,380
to talk about this.

778
00:58:26,780 --> 00:58:28,820
And especially now, like we just, I mean, we just saw like a

779
00:58:28,820 --> 00:58:31,060
literal like self-proclaimed socialist

780
00:58:31,060 --> 00:58:33,140
who's actually just kind of like a dumb

781
00:58:33,140 --> 00:58:35,140
communist, elected

782
00:58:35,140 --> 00:58:36,960
mayor of New York City, the financial

783
00:58:36,960 --> 00:58:39,040
capital, allegedly, of the world.

784
00:58:39,580 --> 00:58:40,860
That's just kind of insane

785
00:58:40,860 --> 00:58:43,180
to me. Like genuinely

786
00:58:43,180 --> 00:58:45,180
insane. I don't know if we want to go down this rabbit

787
00:58:45,180 --> 00:58:46,640
hole. We can go back to talking

788
00:58:46,640 --> 00:58:48,960
more river because I've got more questions there too.

789
00:58:49,140 --> 00:58:51,200
But I don't know. That was nuts

790
00:58:51,200 --> 00:58:53,100
to me. Yeah, but it's

791
00:58:53,100 --> 00:58:54,460
unsurprising to me. Of course.

792
00:58:54,700 --> 00:59:02,180
That's unsurprising. And frankly, you know, we don't have to dwell on this topic, but like really, really, it's just a demographics question.

793
00:59:03,180 --> 00:59:14,100
If you look at the if you look at sort of the breakdown, it's like in a multi-ethnic society, politics is just an ethnic like is mostly an ethnic thing.

794
00:59:14,540 --> 00:59:18,100
Now, that's not really the case in this election. It's like that's half explanatory.

795
00:59:18,100 --> 00:59:29,520
The other half is sort of just like new transplants to New York also voting for him, which is like a little odd.

796
00:59:30,420 --> 00:59:40,540
But it's mostly like Gen Z women and recent immigrants voting for Mandami, which is – there's a lot to unpack there.

797
00:59:41,080 --> 00:59:42,320
But maybe we should just move on.

798
00:59:42,320 --> 00:59:49,580
Yeah, we're going to need to – okay, we're going to have to do a whole different show on that because it is quite a lot to unpack.

799
00:59:49,580 --> 00:59:57,340
Okay, so – but I – obviously this shows this very safe space for rants and tangents and digressions, so I'm glad that we got to go on one here.

800
00:59:57,920 --> 01:00:07,760
So, okay, something I would like to talk about, we'll bring this back to more, let's say, easily palatable conversations for the vast majority of people.

801
01:00:07,760 --> 01:00:12,420
But I'd love to hear about what you envision for the future.

802
01:00:12,500 --> 01:00:22,280
You talked about building this idea of being a bank, of being a Bitcoin bank, of being the most trusted financial institution because of Bitcoin.

803
01:00:22,880 --> 01:00:24,080
Can we talk about that a little bit more?

804
01:00:24,080 --> 01:00:25,720
How do you see this?

805
01:00:26,800 --> 01:00:37,500
In terms of all of these legacy players, you're playing in a very big arena filled with very big players.

806
01:00:37,760 --> 01:00:42,040
like that have been around for a long time, hold all the power, do all the lobbying.

807
01:00:42,920 --> 01:00:45,200
Like, how do you see this playing out?

808
01:00:45,520 --> 01:00:51,140
I mean, is this something where it's like, does Bitcoin and do Bitcoin incentives and

809
01:00:51,140 --> 01:00:52,380
Bitcoin companies like yours?

810
01:00:52,580 --> 01:00:57,160
Are you guys able to affect meaningful change amongst the rest of these institutions?

811
01:00:57,520 --> 01:01:02,860
Or is it just about completely like just beating them, just being better?

812
01:01:02,920 --> 01:01:03,780
They don't have to change.

813
01:01:03,880 --> 01:01:05,020
Just like let them die off.

814
01:01:05,420 --> 01:01:06,300
You'll just do it better.

815
01:01:06,300 --> 01:01:07,800
And that's how the change will happen.

816
01:01:09,020 --> 01:01:10,480
Yeah, it's a good question.

817
01:01:11,460 --> 01:01:15,600
You know, I think our competitive advantage is that they just don't believe we're right.

818
01:01:16,860 --> 01:01:17,300
Right.

819
01:01:17,460 --> 01:01:22,100
So that's actually like the biggest competitive advantage we have is they think we're just not right.

820
01:01:22,460 --> 01:01:25,600
If they believed we were right, they would be changing how they act.

821
01:01:27,180 --> 01:01:30,540
So given that, let's say we are.

822
01:01:30,660 --> 01:01:34,440
I mean, I'm not arrogant to the sense like we could always be wrong.

823
01:01:34,760 --> 01:01:35,200
Right.

824
01:01:35,200 --> 01:01:53,920
That's possible, in which case none of this works. Okay, fine. Back up, do something else. Go back to, I don't know, go back to aerospace engineering or something. But if we're right, then River will hit like a trajectory of growth and momentum that they won't be able to react to, I don't think.

825
01:01:53,920 --> 01:02:03,100
um and now the thing is there's a lot of money made on things that river doesn't do like we're

826
01:02:03,100 --> 01:02:09,300
focusing on the consumer small medium-sized business you know like savings these banks they

827
01:02:09,300 --> 01:02:14,060
do all sorts of stuff so it's not like it's not like we're eating their lunch completely like

828
01:02:14,060 --> 01:02:21,240
it's not like um real estate loans are disappearing or uh big corporate m&a deals and stuff like that

829
01:02:21,240 --> 01:02:23,700
It's not like we're going to eat that lunch anytime soon.

830
01:02:24,240 --> 01:02:25,560
Maybe never, right?

831
01:02:25,660 --> 01:02:34,040
Like what happened – like a lot of – there's a lot of money made in finance and banking that isn't, you know, retail focused.

832
01:02:34,040 --> 01:02:39,200
And so I don't really know exactly how this all plays out because finance is a huge industry.

833
01:02:40,160 --> 01:02:50,920
And I don't think they're going to like – I don't think JP Morgan is going to, you know, like die because River is successful in the next 10 years.

834
01:02:51,200 --> 01:02:52,580
I think they'll figure something out.

835
01:02:53,120 --> 01:03:00,100
So, you know, I don't know how it plays out is basically what I'm saying because it's all very complicated.

836
01:03:00,100 --> 01:03:07,220
it it is interesting just on the jp morgan thing to see jamie diamond's kind of uh arc as it really

837
01:03:07,220 --> 01:03:11,460
like he still really won't say anything positive about bitcoin but now at least he's in his his

838
01:03:11,460 --> 01:03:17,540
phase of like blockchain technology and uh you know like we have our own you know we have our

839
01:03:17,540 --> 01:03:22,360
own jpm coin and jpm blockchain like it's it's interesting for him to go from like all of this

840
01:03:22,360 --> 01:03:26,220
is garbage and smoke and mirrors to like hey well the stuff that we're doing with it is good like

841
01:03:26,220 --> 01:03:32,140
do you obviously they think that we're wrong still these these types maybe jamie diamond

842
01:03:32,140 --> 01:03:36,700
doesn't maybe this is actually like i always wonder this like do you think those types of

843
01:03:36,700 --> 01:03:40,580
guys the jamie diamonds they're actually just full of shit and they're like they're personally

844
01:03:40,580 --> 01:03:45,200
buying bitcoin and they are just like they're specifically just not wanting this to rattle

845
01:03:45,200 --> 01:03:48,540
their cage too much and that or do you think they just really just don't get it still

846
01:03:48,540 --> 01:03:56,560
i mean i think he doesn't get it i also think he doesn't care and i also think and maybe this is

847
01:03:56,560 --> 01:04:04,080
another hot take he's not wrong to not care right if you actually put yourself in jamie diamond's

848
01:04:04,080 --> 01:04:10,900
shoes um sure like like if you really really really really care about the long term you know

849
01:04:10,900 --> 01:04:26,180
You should – he should probably like see this. But J.P. Morgan controls and has controlled like the – is the most powerful financial institution in the United States and has been since World War I, right?

850
01:04:26,180 --> 01:04:29,680
And so – and it still is.

851
01:04:29,820 --> 01:04:38,380
And frankly, that's not going to change in the next 10 years because there's a – here's the thing, right?

852
01:04:38,520 --> 01:04:50,960
And like is that maybe the world – like there's maybe even a world where like everything just transitions to Bitcoin and then JPMorgan just starts using it because they have already the network effect of like all of these relationships.

853
01:04:51,180 --> 01:04:52,760
The government trusts them to do financing.

854
01:04:53,400 --> 01:04:54,580
All of the money is there.

855
01:04:54,580 --> 01:04:58,020
Like once it's big enough and it's just not big enough for JP Morgan to carry it.

856
01:04:58,080 --> 01:04:59,060
Like it's not.

857
01:04:59,380 --> 01:05:05,440
And then you could argue once it is, they'll do like they'll start serving the big money and do things with it that the market demands.

858
01:05:05,540 --> 01:05:07,280
And they won't be any worse off.

859
01:05:07,640 --> 01:05:10,980
Maybe the retail banking will take a hit.

860
01:05:12,220 --> 01:05:13,540
Maybe that will take a hit.

861
01:05:14,840 --> 01:05:16,360
And we'll eat some of that lunch.

862
01:05:17,300 --> 01:05:21,180
But maybe the big money actually is just going to convert to Bitcoin over time.

863
01:05:21,240 --> 01:05:22,360
And they start doing finance with that.

864
01:05:24,580 --> 01:05:28,080
I think that, I mean, that's kind of fair.

865
01:05:28,200 --> 01:05:31,700
It's like to the question of like, are we still early to Bitcoin?

866
01:05:31,860 --> 01:05:36,980
It's like, and you're saying to Jamie Dimon, like Bitcoin is still just like not relevant to him.

867
01:05:37,020 --> 01:05:39,460
Like it's a $2 trillion asset, which is a lot.

868
01:05:39,540 --> 01:05:42,740
But then it's like a thousand trillion of global assets.

869
01:05:43,220 --> 01:05:46,220
Like, you know, yeah, Bitcoin is growing, but it's like.

870
01:05:46,620 --> 01:05:51,760
Well, and also being an asset, being a big asset doesn't mean it's like that useful for them.

871
01:05:51,760 --> 01:05:52,040
Right.

872
01:05:52,040 --> 01:05:53,360
But there's a lot of gold.

873
01:05:54,540 --> 01:06:01,920
Like J.P. Morgan doesn't really care because they can't really make a lot of money holding gold in vaults, right?

874
01:06:03,060 --> 01:06:05,060
And so really they care about finance.

875
01:06:05,200 --> 01:06:06,580
They care about like things moving.

876
01:06:06,700 --> 01:06:07,520
They care about loans.

877
01:06:07,620 --> 01:06:12,100
They care about like the dynamic part of all of this, not just like something sitting there.

878
01:06:12,640 --> 01:06:15,980
And so the question is like will that part of – like that's what makes money.

879
01:06:16,680 --> 01:06:18,980
And so will that actually take a hit?

880
01:06:18,980 --> 01:06:28,040
And I think maybe like the argument against that this is going to be harmful to them is if Bitcoin does actually continue to definancialize things, right?

881
01:06:28,140 --> 01:06:30,200
There's just less they can take cuts of.

882
01:06:31,460 --> 01:06:34,400
And that might be what like shrinks their business.

883
01:06:35,780 --> 01:06:39,480
Not that the business they have moves somewhere else.

884
01:06:39,600 --> 01:06:46,940
It's more like it just goes away because all of this funny – these financial shenanigans just aren't as popular.

885
01:06:46,940 --> 01:06:53,280
that's fair on the gold piece i think to be play devil's advocate i think jp morgan does have like

886
01:06:53,280 --> 01:06:56,700
between their new york and their like london and maybe singapore

887
01:06:56,700 --> 01:07:02,580
vaults they do have like they do hold a lot of gold i mean again allegedly because they don't

888
01:07:02,580 --> 01:07:07,320
actually disclose this stuff like so who knows and like how much return they're actually making

889
01:07:07,320 --> 01:07:11,240
on holding that and for whom like what percent yeah but what percentage of their business is it

890
01:07:11,240 --> 01:07:15,100
right probably it's like super like they do it to just keep probably some rich customers happy

891
01:07:15,100 --> 01:07:28,700
Yeah. And so it's like, you know, they're making money on credit cards a lot. Right. And so like that, like that's, you know, and like our industry is not eating that lunch anytime soon.

892
01:07:28,700 --> 01:07:56,580
Yeah. No, that's fair. I am curious too. What are you guys, I mean, you've been rolling out a lot of new features recently between the, I was saying this before, I don't know if we've actually touched on it on air, but the supercharged buys for the DCAs, like when Bitcoin dips, you DCA more. Like I thought that was brilliant. I'm currently using it. Again, nobody's paying me to say this. I'm just saying what features I like here. And I think it's a genius feature because then I just automatically am stacking more when Bitcoin dips. It's perfect.

893
01:07:56,580 --> 01:07:59,900
You got that, the direct deposit buys.

894
01:08:00,340 --> 01:08:02,400
What else are you guys kind of like looking at?

895
01:08:02,440 --> 01:08:03,980
Like what's next on the horizon for you?

896
01:08:04,080 --> 01:08:07,960
What do you think is the next kind of set of tools that you need to build out?

897
01:08:08,120 --> 01:08:11,040
Or are you feeling pretty comfortable with your tool set as it is?

898
01:08:11,060 --> 01:08:14,680
And it's just about kind of refining it, making sure, you know, you guys have solid uptime,

899
01:08:14,740 --> 01:08:18,420
that you don't go down like Coinbase every time Bitcoin rips, those sorts of things.

900
01:08:19,360 --> 01:08:20,400
I mean, it's all of the above.

901
01:08:20,480 --> 01:08:21,540
There's so much left to build.

902
01:08:21,540 --> 01:08:26,760
In fact, if you're an engineer and you're looking for a job and you're good, apply river.com slash careers.

903
01:08:27,300 --> 01:08:31,920
Our biggest bottleneck right now is getting the smart people in to help us move faster.

904
01:08:32,440 --> 01:08:36,540
We have a long list of things we know everyone wants, and some of them are obvious.

905
01:08:37,020 --> 01:08:39,400
Like, for example, we launched direct deposit today.

906
01:08:39,580 --> 01:08:42,240
Okay, people want to be able to also pay their bills from River, right?

907
01:08:42,320 --> 01:08:43,800
So we're like, we're building that.

908
01:08:44,540 --> 01:08:50,540
So there's this whole category of things that makes River a much better place to have your savings.

909
01:08:50,540 --> 01:08:56,040
and a long list of just kind of relatively maybe obvious things there.

910
01:08:56,900 --> 01:08:58,000
So that's one bucket.

911
01:08:58,300 --> 01:09:00,540
Then there's a bucket of like perfection and polish

912
01:09:00,540 --> 01:09:04,640
and making sure it is just like the best designed,

913
01:09:04,780 --> 01:09:06,900
highest quality experience we can possibly deliver

914
01:09:06,900 --> 01:09:10,660
and maintain that as we scale, right?

915
01:09:10,720 --> 01:09:12,480
And so a lot of the investment is behind the scenes

916
01:09:12,480 --> 01:09:17,840
and automation, things that help our service team serve you like faster

917
01:09:17,840 --> 01:09:21,160
and can provide you a really high quality service experience

918
01:09:21,160 --> 01:09:23,000
as we continue to grow the client base.

919
01:09:23,560 --> 01:09:25,700
And then the other category, which is always my favorite,

920
01:09:26,380 --> 01:09:30,460
is the cool new stuff, like the stuff no one's really done before.

921
01:09:30,460 --> 01:09:33,000
And so we don't leak those ideas.

922
01:09:33,640 --> 01:09:39,340
And so we're already like plotting some of the next things,

923
01:09:39,640 --> 01:09:43,340
like the supercharged, that people go, wow,

924
01:09:43,600 --> 01:09:46,140
like I've never seen that before, but I really want that.

925
01:09:46,140 --> 01:09:52,460
and so yeah, those are like the kinds of buckets of stuff we have in the works.

926
01:09:56,320 --> 01:09:58,980
The supercharged thing was seriously like very cool.

927
01:09:59,080 --> 01:10:02,640
Like as soon as I saw that, I was like, yep, turning that on immediately.

928
01:10:03,000 --> 01:10:04,440
That's a no-brainer way.

929
01:10:04,800 --> 01:10:06,860
And I'm glad because then Bitcoin started dipping more.

930
01:10:06,860 --> 01:10:09,960
So like been able to take advantage of the future right off the bat.

931
01:10:10,060 --> 01:10:11,380
It's like, bam, that's perfect.

932
01:10:12,000 --> 01:10:13,400
Go ahead.

933
01:10:14,340 --> 01:10:18,600
No, I was going to say it was kind of funny because when we launched it, like for the next like two days, the price just went up.

934
01:10:18,920 --> 01:10:22,540
And so we were like, oh, you know, like, you're welcome, I guess.

935
01:10:22,720 --> 01:10:25,020
You know, we launched this thing and nothing supercharges.

936
01:10:25,160 --> 01:10:26,340
But now it's in the last week.

937
01:10:26,380 --> 01:10:26,820
It's been great.

938
01:10:28,160 --> 01:10:36,480
Yeah, it's certainly sitting just above 100,000 U.S., infinitely printable U.S. dollars per Bitcoin.

939
01:10:36,480 --> 01:10:39,100
Like it's perfect to be able to buy some more down here.

940
01:10:39,100 --> 01:10:43,340
I think I snagged some just under $100,000, which I was like, yes.

941
01:10:43,900 --> 01:10:45,160
That feels good.

942
01:10:45,240 --> 01:10:47,000
It's crazy that that feels good, but it feels good.

943
01:10:47,680 --> 01:10:51,620
I want to be conscious of your time because we're running up onto it a little bit.

944
01:10:52,060 --> 01:10:57,960
I do want to ask you kind of before we close out, and then I'll just give you a chance to send people wherever you want to.

945
01:10:57,960 --> 01:11:07,860
But as it relates to Bitcoin four-year cycles, overall adoption, where do you stand on this?

946
01:11:07,860 --> 01:11:13,920
Like, do you think that we're at this place where four-year cycles are like kind of, kind of dead?

947
01:11:14,040 --> 01:11:21,420
Like, is this, are we, you know, or are you of like, you know, yeah, maybe we've already topped in this particular cycle or is it something completely different?

948
01:11:21,500 --> 01:11:22,500
How are you looking at this?

949
01:11:22,540 --> 01:11:23,500
How are you thinking about it?

950
01:11:24,160 --> 01:11:26,180
I mean, honestly, the short answer is I have no idea.

951
01:11:26,180 --> 01:11:40,660
I've never really, like, I've never really, um, I have no insight, um, that I can give somebody as to, like, what Bitcoin will do in the next four years.

952
01:11:40,660 --> 01:11:45,540
Like, the macro analysis, I kind of generally believe most of that is just, like, tarot cards.

953
01:11:46,340 --> 01:11:47,940
It's an extremely complex system.

954
01:11:48,780 --> 01:11:55,400
Like, none of that stuff can predict the whale that no one knows who he is woke up one day and was like, you know what?

955
01:11:55,400 --> 01:12:00,520
I'm like kind of ready to just like, I just got married and now I want to like build a

956
01:12:00,520 --> 01:12:00,840
castle.

957
01:12:01,140 --> 01:12:04,840
Like no macro analysis can like predict that, like in the chain reaction of that.

958
01:12:04,980 --> 01:12:05,120
Right.

959
01:12:05,200 --> 01:12:06,380
So like, I don't know.

960
01:12:06,800 --> 01:12:07,920
I really don't.

961
01:12:07,920 --> 01:12:14,060
I just know like the first principles make sense long term and that hasn't changed and

962
01:12:14,060 --> 01:12:15,400
I don't see it changing anytime soon.

963
01:12:17,320 --> 01:12:18,200
Amen to that.

964
01:12:18,300 --> 01:12:18,540
What is it?

965
01:12:18,540 --> 01:12:21,060
Technical analysis is just astrology for men, right?

966
01:12:21,580 --> 01:12:21,740
Yeah.

967
01:12:21,780 --> 01:12:22,840
As they say.

968
01:12:23,120 --> 01:12:24,900
Well, I really enjoyed this, man.

969
01:12:25,400 --> 01:12:34,540
Anything you want to leave people with or wherever you want to send people, anything they should be on the lookout for coming out from you guys, feel free to go in any way you want with that.

970
01:12:35,400 --> 01:12:36,900
I mean, we have some cool things coming out.

971
01:12:37,540 --> 01:12:40,080
Maybe in the next month we will have a big update.

972
01:12:40,420 --> 01:12:41,800
So stay tuned for that.

973
01:12:42,480 --> 01:12:52,420
And then, no, I mean, just, you know, the advice I like to give people is just keep focusing on leveling up your life, right?

974
01:12:52,480 --> 01:12:53,220
Bitcoin is a tool.

975
01:12:53,220 --> 01:13:00,420
the vast majority of people whose lives are improved by Bitcoin are just getting really

976
01:13:00,420 --> 01:13:03,540
good at something in their life and they're focusing on their career they're focusing on

977
01:13:03,540 --> 01:13:07,680
their family and they're saving in Bitcoin they don't need to all always work in Bitcoin right

978
01:13:07,680 --> 01:13:12,360
go be a really good doctor go be a really good carpenter go be a really good

979
01:13:12,360 --> 01:13:20,880
you know farmer that and and save save save in Bitcoin right and and you use that proof of work

980
01:13:20,880 --> 01:13:26,000
to stack sats. And so I think some people like kind of find Bitcoin and they kind of get like,

981
01:13:26,120 --> 01:13:32,780
oh, should I, should I do this? And maybe the answer is yes, but like the ROI of just investing

982
01:13:32,780 --> 01:13:38,020
in yourself and getting really, really good at something you care about is, is very high. And so

983
01:13:38,020 --> 01:13:46,060
that's the thing to focus on. So it's a great piece of advice to end with. Well, yeah, again,

984
01:13:46,060 --> 01:13:51,460
And I highly recommend people check out River if you're sick of Coinbase or wherever else.

985
01:13:52,500 --> 01:13:53,360
It's awesome.

986
01:13:53,520 --> 01:13:54,800
Really grateful that you guys built it.

987
01:13:54,880 --> 01:13:59,900
Really happy about the proof of reserves because it makes it a lot easier when I send it to friends or family and say,

988
01:13:59,960 --> 01:14:02,760
look, you can literally see that they've got you.

989
01:14:03,060 --> 01:14:04,780
You're not going to get rugged by them.

990
01:14:04,940 --> 01:14:07,360
So glad that you guys have built that out.

991
01:14:07,520 --> 01:14:09,940
Hope we see more people adopting that.

992
01:14:09,940 --> 01:14:14,140
And yeah, cheers to, I guess, the Bitcoin banks of the future, right?

993
01:14:14,920 --> 01:14:15,360
Yeah.

994
01:14:16,060 --> 01:14:19,880
we have a bright future ahead. We're just getting started. So stay tuned.

995
01:14:20,560 --> 01:14:23,860
I love it. Alex, thanks so much, man. It's been a pleasure. Looking forward to going down

996
01:14:23,860 --> 01:14:26,420
a couple of different rabbit holes again another time.

997
01:14:26,420 --> 01:14:27,600
Thanks, Walker. Me too.

998
01:14:46,060 --> 01:14:52,720
family and strangers on the internet. Find me on Noster at primal.net slash Walker and this podcast

999
01:14:52,720 --> 01:14:59,780
at primal.net slash titcoin. On X, YouTube and Rumble, just search at Walker America and find

1000
01:14:59,780 --> 01:15:06,340
this podcast on X and Instagram at titcoin podcast. Head to the show notes to grab sponsor links,

1001
01:15:06,340 --> 01:15:12,000
head to substack.com slash at Walker America to get episodes emailed to you and head to

1002
01:15:12,000 --> 01:15:14,960
Bitcoin podcast.net for everything else.

1003
01:15:15,500 --> 01:15:16,940
Bitcoin is scarce,

1004
01:15:17,300 --> 01:15:19,060
but podcasts are abundant.

1005
01:15:19,380 --> 01:15:24,680
So thank you for spending your scarce time listening to the Bitcoin podcast.

1006
01:15:24,680 --> 01:15:26,480
Until next time,

1007
01:15:26,940 --> 01:15:27,720
stay free.