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It's all nonsense. It's all air. And, you know, speaking in simple heuristics, right?

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You tell children, don't take candy from strangers. There might be a lot of great strangers with

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a lot of fine candy. All right. It might taste great. It might be very safe, but you tell

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children that, right? So when you're investing, whether it's in crypto, quote unquote, or

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any of these startups like just have Bitcoin, like that's the heuristic, you know, you might

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miss out on a little bit of candy, but you won't die.

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Greetings and salutations, my fellow plebs. My name is Walker, and this is the Bitcoin

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podcast. Bitcoin blockade is 820060. And the value of one Bitcoin is still one Bitcoin.

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Today's episode is Bitcoin talk, where I talk with my guest about Bitcoin and many other

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things as well. Today, that guest is Mike Yarmuths. Mike is Lightning Ventures, managing partner and

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co-founder from punk rock to venture capital. This dude's got some stories. We go deep down the

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Bitcoin venture capital rabbit hole in this episode. So whether you're a Bitcoin founder or aspiring

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founder looking for advice and investor looking to put some money in Bitcoin only companies,

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or just a pleb who likes to hear Bitcoiners talk shit about shitcoiners, this episode has

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something for you. Mike also digs into some of the Bitcoin companies he's really passionate about.

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And these are definitely names you should pay attention to. You're going to be hearing a lot

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more about them in the years to come. As always, you can watch the video version of this episode

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on rumble, YouTube or X by searching at Walker America or listen on fountain.fm or wherever

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you get your podcast by searching for the Bitcoin podcast. If you listen to the Bitcoin podcast

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on fountain, consider giving this show a boost or making a clip of something you found interesting.

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If you haven't checked out fountain yet, I highly recommend it. You can send Bitcoin your

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favorite podcasters and earn Bitcoin just for listening to this show. And if you are a Bitcoin

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only company interested in sponsoring another fucking Bitcoin podcast, hit me up on social media

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or through the website, Bitcoin podcast.net. Without further ado, let's get into this Bitcoin talk

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with Mike Yarmuths. Well, hey there. Well, hey there, buddy. How are you? Dude, I'm doing great,

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man. It's good to see it's been way too long. It's good to see you too. It has been too long.

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I'm upset that I'm going to miss you next week. Everyone's going to miss you. But

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you got bigger things going on, literally bigger things. Carla has an impressive belly on her.

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She is definitely ready to pop. We'll see if the little guy waits until he's supposed to,

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but you never know. He might be born two weeks late or two weeks early. I was actually two weeks

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late. What about yourself? Were you right on time? I think I was right on time. As far as I know,

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I guess I haven't asked my mom if I was a surprise in that sense at all. But yeah, we're bummed. We

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were looking forward to Unconfiscatable. I mean, that's where Unconfiscatable is where we first

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met you in the flesh. I remember being a bit intimidated by you at first because I was like,

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damn, this guy's running shit right now. He has not taken anyone's bullshit. We ran a tight ship.

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That was our first Bitcoin conference. That was what? It's like February 2021 now? Is that

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Sunright? I think it was last year. Was it only last year? Oh, yeah, shit. It was 2022.

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Yeah. It was our third one. Yeah. That was the first that I had heard of the crypto couple.

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That was really cool. That was a tone discovery. He's like, hey, they're going to host the

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Scammys and they're super funny. I was like, I never heard of them. You guys not only are all of

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those things, you are actually lovely people. Which is always a nice surprise, right? I still

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remember the first time Tone hit us up and we obviously knew who Tone was. We're like, oh,

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damn, Tone Vase is wanting us to come and do something called the Scammy Awards. Then we get on

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a Google Meet or whatever with him. He's like, hey, so basically I love what you guys are doing.

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And I think it would be great if you hosted the Scammy Awards. My Tone impression is a little

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bit rusty though. I got to work on it. It's actually great. It's actually probably one of the best.

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In fact, that would be a good side event to have at a conference is your best Tone Vase

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impersonation. It's just me giving advice in Tone's voice, but I'm giving really bad advice.

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Not quality Tone advice. I think we might have something there. We might have a little niche.

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I love it. I think that you might even be reigning champion. You're certainly going to be in the

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finale in the top few. Well, I would hope so. But I'm glad that we got a chance to do this.

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You could also say that that was your big break. Honestly, Tone Vase was our big break.

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Yeah. Yeah. It wasn't Michael Saylor retweeting you. It was that Scammy Award show.

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The best thing about Unconfiscatable though was one room for everything. So you don't miss anything.

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It's not, oh, do I go between these two stages? It's like, no, everything's in here. Just chill in

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this room. The booze was flowing. That helped. Vegas, baby. But also because it was so much

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more intimate. I think what maybe was like 500 people somewhere, maybe a little more. Is that

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sound right? No, less. It's usually between three and 400. Yeah. Okay. Well, it was amazing because

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that's where we literally met all these people who have now, like yourself, who have now become

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good friends and doing it in... That's the only kind of conference where you could have that level

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of personal experience with people, I think, because it's just people hanging out, listening to great

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talks and getting into some shenanigans. Man, I lost very quickly in that poker tournament though.

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That I was... I had no business sitting at the table and turns out, Tone was sitting next to me.

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And as soon as that happened, I was like, oh, I'm so fucked. It's over before it had even begun.

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Cool, man. Well, it's your Bitcoin fam.

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And now look, now here we are. I wish there wasn't so much distance separating us. However,

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I will still drink to closing that distance at some point in the near future. We will have another

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Bitcoin or in tow though with our little man coming soon. You got it. You got to find that

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first block, buddy. You got to mine that first block in your own way. Oh, yeah. I think I'm debating,

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like, man, should I... Do I set this kid up with like a Noster and Pub and Ensec right from the

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start? Just get him... Get it out there. So it's like, maybe back... Like, you look 15 years in the

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future, he's like, oh, don't worry, son, you don't need to set up your own Noster. I've been saving

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you a pair of keys that are ancient now and they're ready for you. I don't know. We'll see.

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Yeah. I mean, that would go right along. I mean, you're naming the child Asik, right?

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Yeah. Yeah. Asik. Exactly. Yeah. Asik Block Clock. It's gonna be his middle name.

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Oh, man. It's gonna be a wild ride. The crazy thing is there's a lot of pregnant

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Bitcoiners right now, which is cool. Like, Bitcoin baby number go up. I think that's a good thing.

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You know? Knock them out. Yeah. I'm hoping I'm right there behind you.

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All right. And maybe they can all play in the kids area of the country that Bitcoiners will

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start together. Do you think like before too long, it's just like Bitcoiners end up just

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establishing like one state where they're like, okay, all of us autists did the appropriate research.

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We determined this was the optimal state for all these reasons. Now we've overtaken all of the

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legislative assemblies in the state and have made it much more libertarian. And now we are just

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expanding a Citadel on a state by state basis or are Bitcoiners too perhaps too much of individualists

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for that? I don't know. Well, maybe they won't have to do that if one of these sort of territories

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and countries makes it kind of Bitcoin friendly, you know, like maybe Madeira or even El Salvador,

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which it's still not really super easy to get an El Salvador passport or to do that process.

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You know, it's easy to get residency. There's a lot of restrictions on how many days you have to

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be in El Salvador and some other things. But if a country was like straight up, sign a message in

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your wallet that has three bitcoins in it, we're going to give you a passport, come here. You know,

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I'd probably get a lot of wealthy UTXOs up in there. Honestly, I still have yet to make it to

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Madeira. But I look forward to going there because man, that looks like just a little slice of heaven.

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Well, clearly, you're going to be packing up Carla and the newborn and flying out to a small island

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for in March, right? Oh, man, I think it's going to be too soon. We were honestly, yeah, we were

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debated it for like a second. And then we're like, you know what, that's going to be a very,

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very small baby to be going on planes, trains and automobiles with. But there will come another time.

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But again, we'll have to send our love from afar for a little bit. Absolutely. From the cold northern

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climates here, we won't get any of that delightful sun and sea air for a while. Yeah, what happened

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now? You're in the cold north. I thought you guys were desert rats. I thought you were going in

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Nevada and that was going to be the place. I pictured you with like a mullet going to like the

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QT Phillyn station to get like a 64 ounce like Pepsi and just like, I thought you were going to

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embrace it, man. I'm just kind of a little bit offended that you pegged me as a Pepsi guy. I

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don't know that for for some, the mullet is not at all offensive. That's pretty par for the course.

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Like my hair is short right now, but we so we were, we honestly, we were out there. We were

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planning on moving there after spending like five months or so there, we're going to move full time.

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And then Carla was pregnant. And so we were like, huh, you know, maybe better to move back to the

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Midwest. We've got family here, be a little closer to both sets of grandparents while the kid is,

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all the kid is young and also be closer to a couple sets of hands to assist us. That was a,

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that was another big determining factor. So closer to grandmas and grandpas,

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because I got to say, I do miss that Vegas sunshine. It's, it's just nice. It's fucking,

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it's cold here in the North woods now. It's, but hey, what can you do, right?

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Yeah, well, you got family and you got other things there.

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Yeah, yeah. But hey, I can't complain, you know, what a beautiful time to be alive.

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What a beautiful time to be able to spend an afternoon chatting with a friend about Bitcoin

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and about Bitcoin venture capital. So I'm, if you're good with it, let's, let's dive into this bad

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boy. You want to, I've got some questions for you, but we'll keep it loose. We'll, we'll keep it fuzzy,

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mushy, if that's an expression and we'll just go with it. Yeah, man. Yeah, man. Yeah, I've been rolling

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this whole time also. So I'll, I'll cut out anything incriminating, but all about that

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pre-roll amount, the pre-embols, what, what makes it, you know? Yeah, I have a suspicion that there's

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some good stuff that comes out early before you, you hit the button. A little, yeah. And I'm just

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stoked to have you here, man. So let's just, let's just fucking dive in. So greetings and salutations

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to all of my fellow clubs. My name is Walker and this is the Bitcoin podcast. I am joined today

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for a Bitcoin talk episode by Mike Yarmuz and I still always struggle. I'm saying Yarmuz correctly,

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right? Or Yarmuz. I am never, I'm never entirely sure. Yeah. Well, I'm never entirely sure,

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actually. And, you know, I went through my whole life as Jar Muzz. I was the Muzz man. My friends

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called me Muzz. I've been Muzz my whole life and I used to drive a yellow taxi in New York City

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for a brief hot minute. And I was getting the keys to this yellow cab and this crazy dude,

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like he was like 300 feet tall bald. He was screaming at me and he screams Yarmuz. And I'm like,

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it's Jar Muzz. And he's like, I'm from Poland. You don't even know how to say your fucking last

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name. It's Yarmuz, cab 48. And throws the keys at me or whatever. But so then it's like, okay,

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well, now what am I going to do? I'm going to change my name now. I'm going to say

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it a whole different way. Man, that's a, that's an identity crisis if I've ever heard one.

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But you are also, it's always easier to call you Muzz or the Muzz man. It just rolls off the

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tongue. Well, it feels velvety, but you are a co-founder and a managing partner at Lightning

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Ventures. And today we are going to just dive in to the world of Bitcoin VCs. I think it's

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something that people are starting to pay more attention to, even, even those who may not be

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VCs themselves, but there's a lot of Bitcoin businesses popping up all over. If you're on

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Twitter, you're on Noster, you're seeing this stuff really start to take off. You're seeing a lot

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more chatter about it now that price is moving upwards of Bitcoin, I suppose. So it goes. But

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throughout this whole bear market, VCs like Lightning Ventures, like some others have been

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doing a lot of work behind the scenes with these companies, both bringing them capital,

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but also coaching them, trying to get them ready for this coming wave of adoption that I think we

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all know is right on the cusp, head and right down the pipeline. So I want to, I want to start out

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by going back to the beginning. So you mentioned you drove a taxi, but I want to know who is the

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Muzman, who is Mike Yarmouche. However, I'm still going to keep messing this up. And how the fuck

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did you get here today, man? Wow. Okay. So, jeez, good. So I was born in Arizona. I'm from Phoenix,

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so not too far from you, the Desert Rat being out there. And I was really passionate my whole

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life about the music business in every possible way. So I was a concert promoter and had a record

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label in high school and putting out some friends. There were these little discs, okay? They were

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called CDs, CD roms, and releasing friends records on a record label as a kid. And eventually started

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promoting concerts. We were one of the largest independent concert promoters in the Southwest.

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We did 35 concerts a month in Phoenix, Tucson and Albuquerque from say 50 people up to, I believe

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our largest show was like 5,000 people. So a lot of bands, artist development, it's kind of similar

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to venture and early stage investing because when you invest in a company early and you maintain a

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good relationship with them, you can invest again later. And that's kind of how it is in music in

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terms of a concert promoter, right? You establish a relationship when there's 50 people and you

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maintain that relationship all the way as far as you can before someone takes them. So there's a lot

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of parallels there with that. So I also tour managed bands. I traveled around the country and

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some parts of the world in everything from a van and trailer with hotel rooms every night to an RV

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to a tour bus, something similar to like an almost famous kind of deal. Nobody actually drove the

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bus through a chain link fence or anything like that. But pretty much lived that for a long time.

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I was a tour manager and I also did lights. I can do sound, but did that. I also lived above and

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ran a famous punk rock venue called the Nile Theater in Mesa, Arizona. That was also a crazy

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experience. Had an art gallery in downtown Phoenix where we did shows as well and did a

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whole bunch of things. And I had a retail store in Tempe, Arizona, which was also a concert ticket

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outlet. It was kind of like a hot topic. We sold belt buckles and weasel cell phone covers and

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crap like that. So did a lot of different things in life. And then I managed a band that got signed

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to Electra Records. That was before the Warner Electra merger. So that was like a million dollar

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deal. We were all in our very early 20s. We all bought some houses, had a great time. And that

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was the real tail end before the music industry really fully changed digitally. So that was a

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great experience going out to New York and them making their record, which was an awesome record.

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Unfortunately, it didn't do that great. But the band toured and just like us bit coiners, when you

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put in the real work, the real work might not be what gets you there. You're grinding it out on

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YouTube. You're grinding out this new podcast, right? You put in the real work and then it happens.

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And the bands that do that too, and the companies, I guess, are really anyone, that's when you are

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sustainable. So even though according to the record label, it wasn't a huge success, the band

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could still sell out theaters across the country, right? 1500 cap rooms or so and have a very successful

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career. So I managed them for a while. And then after that, I put everything I owned in storage

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and I went and lived on a Mississippi plantation farm. And I wrote 200 pages about being in the

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South. I went to a place called the Crossroads, which is a mystical place where Robert Johnson

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sold his soul to the devil at this place to become the greatest blues guitarist of all time. If you

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know about the Crossroads is about an hour south of Memphis or so. And I lived on a place called

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the shack up in. It was a B and B, which stood for bed and beer. And it was a hell of a lot of fun.

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And I ran the place and there were these authentic sharecropper shacks that they brought in on this

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old plantation farm and they rented it out to people and it was a ball. And I wrote a bunch

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about that. And I thought, you know what, I'm going to move to New York City and start a real

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life and start over. So that's what I did. And that's when I started doing a whole bunch of

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other things. And I know I've been talking to someone be quiet, but in that process, in that

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process after after the New York chapter started, which is where I briefly drove a yellow cab in

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the city. I'll never forget that. That's where I really discovered private markets and investing

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in companies that were not traded. I've been interested in finance and stocks and all of those

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things my whole life, certainly very entrepreneur. I had a ton of businesses. I had a bar in New

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York City. We had the second Bitcoin ATM. I had a cafe there too. Thank God we sold it.

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And post COVID we sold it. Thank God. So love business. Love all that. And I was convinced

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that investing in companies before they went private was really where everyone made money.

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And that's true. That's pretty much how it works. So I didn't want to lose all my money. So I started

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investing in later stage secondary deals. So these companies before they went public like Uber,

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Airbnb or Robinhood or wish.com. And by the way, they don't all go great. But you won't get a zero.

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You know what I mean? You can, of course, you know, BlockFi, FTX. I mean, things do go, we work,

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maybe now they file for bankruptcy. Things do go to badness. But you don't keep your money tied

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up for too long. And you're lucky to maybe get two to 10X your money. Right. And if you put

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$10,000 into DraftKings, for example, DraftKings was one of my exits. And then 16 months later,

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you get to 4X out of it, right? You put in 10 grand, you get back 40. I'll do that all day.

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So and I also wasn't like really investing in dangerous early stage things. You know, it was

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good building up that. And then through that process, because you can tell clearly that I'm,

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you know, a Columbia MBA, you know, I mean, that just oozes out. Becoming up step.

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Are you?

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Yes, of course. No, I'm just kidding.

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Okay, I was like, damn, I can never tell if you're entirely kidding. I mean, it's a good thing.

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You know, you keep me on the edge of my seat here. But you had me going with that for a little while.

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Are you kidding me? Come on, look at me. I don't know what college would take me.

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But I never judge a book by its cover.

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Well, that's how you're going to judge a book then, damn it.

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By reading the damn thing.

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That takes forever, man. I want to see a good cover on a book.

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Maybe I'll just watch the movie version.

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So yeah, so then I started just really becoming obsessed with learning about angel investing,

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because oh my God, we'll look at what there is to learn. And that never, and that never stops.

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So becoming obsessed with that. And I met somebody actually coincidentally at one of Tone's events.

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It was a financial summit. And I was showing him what I was doing and some of my exits.

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And he said, if you really want to do this, you got to do the early stage stuff.

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You know, this is great, but you really have to do it. And it was like, well, I don't want to lose all my money.

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And it's like, well, continue with the education and invest small amounts of money.

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And he really dialed me up, got me into deal flow, we call it, right?

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From some of the best people that I respect a ton. And when they're sending you deals,

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right, just like how we send deals and lightning ventures, you know that some work has went into it,

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right? There's a due diligence process. There's a process that we're going through.

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We're looking at things that we specialize at. We don't have a deal for clothes that block

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waves in your house or drugs that make your dog live longer. I wouldn't feel comfortable

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sending Walker a deal for a new hip replacement therapy, okay? Because that's not really what I know.

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So anyway, so I started investing small checks into these companies, everything, everything you

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can imagine, flying cars and robotic groceries and all of these kinds of things, small checks,

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reading the updates from the founders, learning as much as I could through that process and

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continually learning. And occasionally there were some Bitcoin deals. I was a Bitcoin long

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before this point, but there wasn't like a ton, right? So maybe fold. I got the deal for fold

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sent to me. Or, you know, I, Kraken doesn't count, right? But I picked up some Kraken shares on a

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secondary earlier. Or, you know, there, there weren't that many put that where swan Bitcoin,

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for example, you know, there were a few, but there wasn't a ton and invested psychotically into way

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too many of these things. And then some good friends of mine basically motivated me and said,

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hey, why don't you start your own shop, right? And I'm really passionate about providing these

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investments to people, right? To getting the light bulb going off on this is an asset class and how

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much money you can make when it goes right with angel investing and early stage tech investing

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as a whole. And how that can compares to Bitcoin and can complement your portfolio. And even,

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even without just investing in Bitcoin startups, which is all that I think about and deal with,

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investing period in a lot of these companies, you know, where else do you get, you know,

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100 to a 4000 X return that's not a useless token or some type of thing like that, right? Like,

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these are real equities and real deals. And, and making sure that there's some education,

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keeping the minimums low and getting people started, right? So that's the syndicate part of

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lightning ventures. And we raised a very small friends and family fund that is now almost deployed

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that's no fees, no carry, right? I'm running it for free. And that was a great pilot fund to kind

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of get started on that side of things, as well as building out the syndicate, which I love.

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And that's pretty much where we're at now is is on a deal by deal basis, you can invest in startups

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for as little as $1000. You can be impactful, you can read the updates from the founders,

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you could maybe find sponsors, right? Like, I can't wait somebody today. I don't want to say the

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name. Somebody today was like, Hey, we want, you know, we're trying to like go live. And it's like,

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Hey, well, how about some sponsorships on podcasts that maybe aren't owned, right? Maybe it's like,

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not maybe it's like, not the swan Bitcoin crew, or it's not, you know, the unchanged crew. But

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maybe there's like, we call it moneyball, right? If you ever saw the Brad Pitt movie,

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it's a baseball movie where you're trying to spend the perfect amount of money on like the

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best player that's like underrated, right? So if you wanted to spend some money in the podcast

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space, maybe you would, you would throw a little money at something like this, right? Which I'm

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sure you could use it. So that's why it's great having awesome people in the syndicate is because

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when we send out an email being like, does can anyone help with that? And maybe someone had

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invested in that deal, they can say, yeah, I know someone or yell, hop on the phone with them,

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you know, and that's really what it's all about. It's not just about cutting a check and saying

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adios, it's about being as proactive as you can be with what resources you have and what's available.

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So I really try to do that. That's what we're all about as much as we can in our capacity.

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Man, that was a righteous intro. I loved it. And yeah, hey, I'm always open to sponsorships for

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another fucking Bitcoin podcast. So I think for a lot of people, the world of VC funding like

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is completely opaque. Like maybe, you know, until I started talking with you, I've really had no idea.

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I still kind of have no idea, but I'm starting to. But I think for a lot of people, it's just like

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this other area. And when you hear VC's, you think of the, you know, the Silicon Valley vest

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wearing, you know, tight European soccer player haircut type people. And, and it just seems like

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it's this big money pumping scheme into this, you know, and I'm speaking Silicon Valley style,

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not let's say Bitcoin startups, but pumping a lot of money into vaporware, driving up the price in

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various rounds and taking a sweet exit and then kind of, you know, what comes of it? Obviously,

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there are some that are incredibly useful and also genuinely profitable companies,

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but there's a lot of junk out there, right? And a lot of that is driven by the fact that

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there has been so much money just soaking in the system for so long that people are like, okay,

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I need more and more speculative investments to just try and stay above of the rampant inflation

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that we have. And I want to get into that a little bit into the kind of the, the differences between

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what you guys are doing and what, you know, funds like ego death are doing versus the kind of

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traditional VC route. But first, I kind of want to set a baseline. So maybe if you can just walk

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through a little bit, what is your investment thesis at Lightning Ventures? What are you guys

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looking for in companies? What are you out there scouting for? And, you know, what, what excites

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you guys as investors? Okay, well, first, I mean, man, I'd love to talk about, you know,

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traditional VC versus Bitcoin VC and, you know, the, the, let's start there with stigma, the stigma

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that VCs have. Start with it. There's no rules here, Muzz. No rules. No rules. You know, just

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like everything though, they get a bad name, right? Just like lawyers get a bad name and

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insurance people get a bad name. That's very good insurance people out there, right? That are like

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really cool to deal with. There's used car salesmen who are actually lovely people and great fathers

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and they don't are pushy. But as a whole, you kind of had that reputation as, you know, Jimmy

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Song likes to say rent seeking, you know, they don't add any value. They're just useless. And

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there is that there are funds that perform terribly. And a lot of times they don't get to

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perform again because there's a scorecard at the end of it that we all kind of have to live by.

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And a lot of these Bitcoin funds that maybe started deploying around the same time,

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we're all going to have to look back when the dust settles on how we did. And what we did,

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because we're in an industry where not everything is safe with an underlying asset that's secured

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like real estate, right? If you and I bought a four unit apartment complex, like we have the

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land, we have the building, I mean, you and I can screw up all sorts of things, but there's like

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something there, it's not going to go to zero. You know, and in the startup world, it's a whole

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different story where many things do. And the ones that don't are so big of outsized returns

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that it makes up for it. And, you know, VCs are in need, you know, they're necessary,

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especially good ones, you know, even good angel investors, somebody that can be there for you,

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whether it's an emotional support animal that's just there to listen or for, you know, vision

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shaping or, you know, talking strategy or intros or, you know, whatever the lowest hanging fruit

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is, whatever the biggest problem that you're trying to solve, they are your team, they are on your

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side, they are not meant to give you friction and resistance and make you have all sorts of

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governance and control. They are there to literally support you. So I think the biggest mistake that

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founders make is they don't utilize their VCs and their cap table, right? If you have 10 people who've

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invested in your company and maybe there's two VCs and a couple of angels and Aunt Betty and

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whatever you have on there, you know, and you're looking to raise your margins, okay,

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reaching out to them and talking about how maybe a better deal on your credit card processing or

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warehouse fulfillment or, you know, a better node management tool or whatever you're doing, right?

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There's just a lot of ways to leverage them and the founders that do leverage them, I think that

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they do the best. So we're not evil people, especially at our level, right? I mean, we're not

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taking board seats and we're not, we're not at that level. And later on, it's a whole other story.

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So we're not all bad, I promise you. And the people who are really good, man, they make a lot of

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money. And, you know, having investing $100,000 into someone's venture fund and over the next

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10 years being paid $3 million is pretty cool, you know, that these that they're able to do that on

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a consistent basis, right? Or have vintage years that obviously do better, right? 2013 was a great

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year. You have you have these waves of the door dashes and coin base and all these kind of things

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that come out of the Instacarts or whatever from that very early stage. And then you have periods

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where there wasn't a lot like right now, it's kind of a kind of another year. And maybe if you invested

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towards the top, that fund won't do quite as well as some of the funds that are about to be

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investing now. So, you know, we're not all bad. Well, well, I like that. And I appreciate the

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context there because I think it is it is often lost on many that all, you know, companies need

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money, they need capital to be able to function. If you are a capitalist, as I believe anyone who has

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gone down the Bitcoin rabbit hole likely is, then you should be encouraging the effective

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deployment of that capital. Now, one could make the argument that maybe, you know, VCs don't always

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deploy that capital correctly, but it's their fucking money, right? Well, or their money and

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others money, but you need capital to be able to scale businesses. And this is why I really wanted

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to talk to you because I think at this time right now, it's such an important thing to have VCs that

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are specifically focused on helping Bitcoin businesses scale. Because there's a lot of

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there's a lot of malinvestment out there in the world. This is not something new. This is, you

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know, it will probably always be the case. But Bitcoin businesses and ones that are actually

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trying to build on top of Bitcoin, build on top of lightning. These are ones that actually have a

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chance at being not just good investments for the investors, but good companies that do well by their

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customers and hopefully make a really positive impact on the world. Like these are companies

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that help drive Bitcoin adoption. And so I think it's so important to highlight those companies

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to have investors who are focused and saying, we're just going to look at companies that are

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Bitcoin only, we're not going to look at any of this crypto shit, we don't care if you're building

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a blockchain with a new token, like it's Bitcoin or it's nothing. And so that's probably a good

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kind of transition into what do you guys look for in your in companies that you end up, you know,

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rolling forward with? What's your thesis? How do you make those decisions? Where are the lines in

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the sand for you guys? Well, first off, because you know, I'm impossible to work with and I'll

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go through partners like, you know, nobody's business. I am kind of able to make those decisions

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myself. And I hope that one day, like my report card, it'll be able to say does work well with

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others. So some people in their thesis, they're very specific, like for example, ego death does no

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mining. Okay, so that's just not for them. All right, firms like 1031 have done much, much mining.

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Okay. So some really focus on infrastructure, maybe one doesn't do games, you know, just no

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matter what, it could be the greatest game that there's out there and has something to do with

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Bitcoin, but we don't want anything to do with it, right? I don't have a lot of those rules. It's

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all things Bitcoin. But some rules are no stacks projects. Okay. That's a rule. And, you know, nothing

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that nothing shit coinery, right? So like even something like, for example, like out of, let's

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just say that there was an exchange in another part of the world and they were selling other things.

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That at this point in time is not something that we would risk a reputational risk from rolling out

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in lightning ventures, right? And that kills a lot of things, you know? So, you know, there's no

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movies. Okay. No movies. That is one hard no. Is anyone who is looking to raise funds for their

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movie, that is not something that we can do. Go to Geyser, maybe other people invest in movies or

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plays or things like that. So that's a no. And then there's something called an uncapped note,

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which is a certain type of financing terms. And that is a hard no. Anyone who is raising on an

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uncapped note is something that I wouldn't be interested in. But that leaves pretty much everything

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else, right? You that's something like Thunder games or even something like crowd health, right?

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Which was a was a healthcare company with a large Bitcoin component, you know, something like iBECs

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with infrastructure or strike or, you know, Amber in Australia or coin corner in the UK.

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Those type of companies Osmo down in five Central America companies, those those type of companies

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were are all in play, right? Something like relay, which didn't have lightning when we first

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invested, right? Everyone thinks like, Oh, you just invest in lightning stuff. I get that a lot.

370
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Could it be the name? I'm just wondering. We didn't think about it. We didn't think about it early on.

371
00:38:38,640 --> 00:38:44,720
But something like relay didn't didn't have lightning and now has added it, right? Same

372
00:38:44,720 --> 00:38:50,640
thing with Amber in Australia, they're going to be adding it, right? Swan is testing it right now.

373
00:38:50,640 --> 00:38:55,520
You know, so lightning is kind of where everything's everything's going. That's certainly a focus,

374
00:38:55,520 --> 00:39:06,000
but that's not like a deal breaker, you know? So as far as the stage goes, personally, I like to

375
00:39:06,000 --> 00:39:13,040
invest after there is some sort of traction, some sort of measurable traction, right? Even if it's

376
00:39:13,040 --> 00:39:19,600
just a few weeks or a couple of months, just something. The investments that we've made in the

377
00:39:19,600 --> 00:39:27,440
very early pre product stages, pre revenue stages, those are the hardest ones. They're probably the

378
00:39:27,440 --> 00:39:33,280
ones right now that are having the toughest time. They still had very successful rounds. There's a

379
00:39:33,280 --> 00:39:38,960
lot of very more prominent big name VCs that invested a heck of a lot more money than we did.

380
00:39:39,760 --> 00:39:46,720
In those deals, it's not it's you. I wouldn't say that we we miss saw it. But they're having the

381
00:39:46,720 --> 00:39:52,160
hardest time, you know, launching and then the products where they have a live product and the

382
00:39:52,160 --> 00:39:58,560
KPIs are going up. I mean, if you had 40 customers a week ago and you have 65 this week, you might

383
00:39:58,560 --> 00:40:04,880
not think that's great. But once you start putting that on a chart, it starts looking incredible.

384
00:40:04,880 --> 00:40:10,880
And those are the type of things, right? Getting somewhere with little as little funding as possible,

385
00:40:10,880 --> 00:40:18,640
actually executing is very important. Question for you. How long has it been since you tried a

386
00:40:18,640 --> 00:40:23,520
new hardware wallet? Or maybe you've never had one and want to try one for the first time or need

387
00:40:23,520 --> 00:40:29,120
to get some Christmas presents for friends and family? Either way, head to bitbox.swiss

388
00:40:29,120 --> 00:40:36,720
slash Walker and use promo code Walker for 5% off the Bitcoin only bitbox to hardware wallet.

389
00:40:36,720 --> 00:40:42,320
It is super easy to use. It's Bitcoin only and it's fully open source. So you can check out the

390
00:40:42,320 --> 00:40:48,720
firmware, check out the app, even x-rays of the hardware and other schematics if you are so inclined.

391
00:40:48,720 --> 00:40:53,680
Just go to their GitHub and verify it for yourself. You don't have to trust me. Hell,

392
00:40:53,680 --> 00:40:59,520
go ahead and build one for yourself if you feel like it. Or do what I did. Go to bitbox.swiss

393
00:40:59,520 --> 00:41:06,480
slash Walker and use promo code Walker for 5% off. The choice is yours. Yeah, actually getting

394
00:41:06,480 --> 00:41:14,000
something done. That's a it's always a good place to start. You know, you, you mentioned just in terms

395
00:41:14,000 --> 00:41:20,160
of lightning, lightning companies and listed off a few that are currently implementing lightning or

396
00:41:20,160 --> 00:41:26,880
have implemented. We also have seen lately a well maybe not just lately, but consistently,

397
00:41:26,880 --> 00:41:33,600
a lot of lightning fud, let's say, and maybe, maybe it's not fud, some would argue, maybe it's the

398
00:41:33,600 --> 00:41:39,600
reality of the limitations of lightning. What are your, what are your thoughts on that? Just in terms

399
00:41:39,600 --> 00:41:46,000
of a lot of people go back and forth between, okay, yeah, lightning works, but only when you're

400
00:41:46,000 --> 00:41:51,520
running it in a more custodial sense, and you have, you know, big nodes with, you know, massive

401
00:41:51,520 --> 00:41:57,520
channel capacity, and it's really only going to be something that is working well in a custodial

402
00:41:57,520 --> 00:42:03,520
sense. And otherwise, it's just, you know, it's just like larping. Like what's your, what's your

403
00:42:03,520 --> 00:42:09,520
take on that being in the chair that you're in seeing these companies who are actively building

404
00:42:09,520 --> 00:42:16,880
on this right now? I mean, lightning is working fine for me. How's it working for you? It's working

405
00:42:16,880 --> 00:42:25,520
fine for me. So I really don't know what everyone's up in a tizzy about. Honestly, like, there's only

406
00:42:25,520 --> 00:42:34,480
so much time in the day, right? And what I can focus on is really not that, you know, I just,

407
00:42:34,480 --> 00:42:42,560
I just don't really see any issues, maybe some regulation, right? I mean, Wallace, Satoshi leaving.

408
00:42:42,560 --> 00:42:48,400
Yeah. But I haven't had a payment fail. And I don't even remember the last time.

409
00:42:49,840 --> 00:42:55,280
And there's just, I just, I can't see, I can't see any of these negative arguments, you know,

410
00:42:55,280 --> 00:43:02,880
people want to talk about, you know, non custodial, you know, is the key and is the way and, you

411
00:43:02,880 --> 00:43:08,000
know, I was at a conference one time and this lady, right, we were like in Asia, okay, we're

412
00:43:08,000 --> 00:43:12,640
like getting ready to download her first wallet. And it was like, Wallace Satoshi real quick,

413
00:43:12,640 --> 00:43:17,680
back it up. Here's the two words, boom, I sent her $5. And this guy next to me, like after she

414
00:43:17,680 --> 00:43:22,720
left, from what I thought was a pleasant interaction, this guy is like reading me the riot

415
00:43:22,720 --> 00:43:28,160
act of like, you should have got her on Phoenix. What is wrong with you? We are bad practices.

416
00:43:28,160 --> 00:43:33,360
And it's like, dude, she's like 50. All right, I'm going to like terrify her right now. It's like,

417
00:43:33,360 --> 00:43:38,240
you're going to say these words, don't take a picture of it with my no, no, don't do that. What

418
00:43:38,240 --> 00:43:42,880
if I lose the words, you say it's non custodial, but non custodial means I actually, yes, yes,

419
00:43:42,880 --> 00:43:46,400
yes, just trust me, just like, how are we going to possibly go through that? You know,

420
00:43:47,040 --> 00:43:52,880
well, it's something I, I definitely agree with, because especially when it comes to, let's say,

421
00:43:54,560 --> 00:44:00,720
in person interactions that you have a limited amount of time to show somebody a little bit

422
00:44:00,720 --> 00:44:09,280
of the magic of Bitcoin, are you, when you have two to five minutes, are you really going to go

423
00:44:09,280 --> 00:44:17,120
through all of the aspects of self custody, right? And explain hardware wallets and explain

424
00:44:17,120 --> 00:44:22,000
best practices for storing that seed phrase and explain that, you know, listen, by the way,

425
00:44:22,000 --> 00:44:27,120
I want to send you a test transaction. You'll see it can, you'll know, you'll know that it's real

426
00:44:27,120 --> 00:44:32,880
once there's been six block confirmations. Why six? Well, because that's when we know the amount of,

427
00:44:32,880 --> 00:44:38,720
it was just, just take my word for it. It's six. But most of the time, when you want to show somebody

428
00:44:38,720 --> 00:44:42,880
the magic of Bitcoin, and you only have a few minutes, you're going to show them lightning.

429
00:44:43,600 --> 00:44:49,840
And the easiest way to do that right now is with custodial solutions. Phoenix wallet's doing some

430
00:44:49,840 --> 00:44:57,600
great stuff, right? But it's still easier to show somebody on a custodial solution right now. Now,

431
00:44:58,640 --> 00:45:04,400
it's also the fact that you can still during that conversation say, by the way, what I'm showing you

432
00:45:04,400 --> 00:45:09,360
right now is what we call a custodial wallet. You don't really need to worry about what that means.

433
00:45:09,360 --> 00:45:14,880
But what it means for you is that if you're going to start learning more about Bitcoin and start

434
00:45:14,880 --> 00:45:19,360
saving more of your money in Bitcoin, once you reach a certain amount that you feel like is a

435
00:45:19,360 --> 00:45:24,160
good amount of money, you should move that into a self custody solution. And you can look that up.

436
00:45:24,160 --> 00:45:30,320
And by the way, here's my telegram. Here's my WhatsApp. Here's my signal. Hit me up. And I'm

437
00:45:30,320 --> 00:45:36,080
happy to answer any questions or go on BTC sessions YouTube and literally all of your questions will

438
00:45:36,080 --> 00:45:42,560
be answered. Those quick interactions can be really, really positive for people if they just see that

439
00:45:42,560 --> 00:45:48,800
it works and it works right away. And the most reliable way to do that with lightning is in a

440
00:45:48,800 --> 00:45:56,080
custodial way, especially when you only have two to five minutes. So I agree that self custody is

441
00:45:56,080 --> 00:46:02,160
incredibly important. That's how you can actually achieve a degree of sovereignty, which and sovereignty

442
00:46:02,160 --> 00:46:08,480
is a big spectrum, right? But we also have to be practical about showing people things that are

443
00:46:08,480 --> 00:46:13,440
going to have some wow factor right away, and then encouraging them to do more research, right?

444
00:46:13,440 --> 00:46:18,240
Because you can't teach somebody everything that you've learned through thousands of hours of

445
00:46:18,240 --> 00:46:23,200
studying Bitcoin in a two minute conversation. It's just not going to happen. And you'll drive

446
00:46:23,200 --> 00:46:31,200
yourself crazy. But that's a fair, a fair answer to my initial question about the lightning FUD.

447
00:46:32,160 --> 00:46:39,120
So let's, let's, let's switch gears a little bit because perhaps we have some entrepreneurs out

448
00:46:39,120 --> 00:46:44,080
there who want to build on Bitcoin. Maybe they're already working on something. Maybe they're working

449
00:46:44,080 --> 00:46:48,960
by themselves right now. And you know what, they would love to bring on some more people.

450
00:46:48,960 --> 00:46:52,960
They would love to turn this into a business, you know, turn this passion project into a business.

451
00:46:53,920 --> 00:46:59,360
What advice do you have for early stage entrepreneurs? Maybe they just have an idea. Maybe

452
00:46:59,360 --> 00:47:04,080
they have some code written, maybe they've got a product that's, you know, on almost ready to go.

453
00:47:05,200 --> 00:47:10,160
What advice do you have for them as far as when should they start looking and, you know, talking

454
00:47:10,160 --> 00:47:17,280
to VCs? Maybe also what questions should they expect from VCs and what questions should they

455
00:47:17,280 --> 00:47:22,000
themselves ask to those VCs to make sure they've got a good partner in this journey?

456
00:47:23,680 --> 00:47:27,920
Man, that's, that's a whole lot of questions there. I know. I like to load them up though,

457
00:47:27,920 --> 00:47:35,520
because I know that you flow with it. Well, so I have a presentation called Founders in Funding

458
00:47:35,520 --> 00:47:40,560
where we chat about some of those things. It's a great presentation. No, you saw the other one.

459
00:47:40,560 --> 00:47:48,000
You didn't see this one. Oh, well, damn it. Now I feel left out. But yeah, so what do you do? Right?

460
00:47:48,000 --> 00:47:53,280
The first thing is you're working on your project. Okay. And you're maybe finding somebody to help

461
00:47:53,280 --> 00:48:03,200
you. All right. And that's what cannot be copied. Okay. Your passion, okay. And executing. You do

462
00:48:03,200 --> 00:48:12,640
not need to patent. That is for you. Okay. The ideas are cheap. The idea is nothing. Nobody is

463
00:48:12,640 --> 00:48:21,680
going to steal your idea, right? In nearly every case. All right. You have to build it. And I think

464
00:48:21,680 --> 00:48:29,760
when you get to a point where you need a certain amount of money to get to a next level, to do

465
00:48:29,760 --> 00:48:37,520
something, whatever that is, maybe it's hire your first engineer, maybe it's a liquidity thing,

466
00:48:38,080 --> 00:48:44,160
maybe it's a user acquisition campaign, some advertising, whatever you're doing,

467
00:48:44,160 --> 00:48:53,840
you need that money. That is when you should really start preparing to raise it in a serious

468
00:48:53,840 --> 00:49:02,560
manner. Best practices, yeah, have a data room, incorporate properly, create an options pool

469
00:49:02,560 --> 00:49:08,880
for the future. A Delaware C is the weapon of choice. That's don't reinvent the wheel and think

470
00:49:08,880 --> 00:49:16,880
my neighbor's attorney says a Wyoming LLC is going to be like, don't, it's a Delaware C and

471
00:49:16,880 --> 00:49:24,000
doing it properly. Having those docs in a drive, having your wire instructions. Why do I need to

472
00:49:24,000 --> 00:49:29,760
put my wire instructions in a drive after you've opened a bank account? You will need them. And

473
00:49:29,760 --> 00:49:35,760
you look really smart when you can send that one link to a VC and it has everything in there. Maybe

474
00:49:35,760 --> 00:49:40,880
it has a short executive summary. Maybe it has whatever you're working on with a pitch deck

475
00:49:40,880 --> 00:49:48,080
that's in there or some bios of people that are on the team, maybe a very small cap table,

476
00:49:48,080 --> 00:49:54,320
even though no one's on it yet. Maybe you have something in there. Have all these things and

477
00:49:54,320 --> 00:50:00,880
be incorporated properly before you reach out to any VC. And you can start that process from the

478
00:50:00,880 --> 00:50:07,760
beginning, but why would you ever detract from building to do these other things? If you have

479
00:50:07,760 --> 00:50:14,240
the capacity for it, if it is, but certainly do those things before you reach out to any VCs

480
00:50:14,240 --> 00:50:20,720
about getting funding. And then maybe you get to a point where you have an MVP, you have something

481
00:50:21,840 --> 00:50:31,360
and you want to raise $400,000. And then at that point, you really need to think about what that

482
00:50:31,360 --> 00:50:37,680
$400,000 is going to do. Is that going to get you your first 3000 downloads? Is it going to

483
00:50:37,680 --> 00:50:46,000
get you your first 500 customers? Is what will it do? And how will you spend it? And really try to

484
00:50:46,000 --> 00:50:52,880
get into some kind of forecast. See what happened before coming out of a hot market is you could

485
00:50:52,880 --> 00:50:59,040
just raise to extend the runway. Oh, well, we'll just kick out another safe note and raise another

486
00:50:59,040 --> 00:51:03,920
two or three million. And yeah, that'll extend at 18 months or however many months. And then

487
00:51:03,920 --> 00:51:11,360
eventually when the money is not there, you have to like build a real business. So it's cool now

488
00:51:11,360 --> 00:51:16,720
because all of these entrepreneurs are coming into this world. You can only build a real business.

489
00:51:16,720 --> 00:51:21,360
You know, maybe in crypto land, you can still build a fake business. I don't know. Maybe there's

490
00:51:21,360 --> 00:51:26,160
still fake things getting fun. I'm not an expert over there in that world. But in Bitcoin land,

491
00:51:26,160 --> 00:51:34,080
you have to be a real business. So, you know, I mean, there's so many tips here. You know, don't

492
00:51:34,080 --> 00:51:40,880
send a 50 page deck. Don't send a generic email that's like, you know, three pages of a block of

493
00:51:40,880 --> 00:51:46,400
text. You know what I mean? Just like a short one paragraph. What do you do and why should they

494
00:51:46,400 --> 00:51:50,560
care? I mean, that's ultimately what matters. If you can get across what we're doing and why you

495
00:51:50,560 --> 00:51:55,760
should care, you'll probably get a good response. The double opt-ins. If you know somebody who

496
00:51:55,760 --> 00:52:02,800
knows that person, you know, having them do an intro, it works wonders. You know, you're so much

497
00:52:02,800 --> 00:52:07,280
more likely. And then the double intro from two people that know that person, both saying, hey,

498
00:52:07,280 --> 00:52:12,160
have you checked out so-and-so and his project? It's a great thing to do, right? A lot of people,

499
00:52:12,160 --> 00:52:18,400
they go online, they buy a list of like 10,000 people and it's like, dear investor comma. My

500
00:52:18,400 --> 00:52:25,120
name is Walker and this is my podcast. I'm not looking for investment in this bad boy,

501
00:52:25,120 --> 00:52:31,520
but I'll keep that in mind if I do. We're not going to run the Bitcoin. We're not going to have an

502
00:52:31,520 --> 00:52:37,600
allocation for this next week. Well, I mean, I know you don't do movies. Do you do podcasts? Is

503
00:52:37,600 --> 00:52:44,880
that an investable entity? I suppose anything is, but I think Joe Rogans was acquired for like a whole

504
00:52:44,880 --> 00:52:51,840
lot of money. Yeah. I don't think I'm just like a couple orders of magnitude below that. Actually,

505
00:52:51,840 --> 00:52:57,840
many orders of magnitude. But I appreciate the comparison nonetheless. You're grinding out.

506
00:52:57,840 --> 00:52:59,120
You're grinding it out. I don't know too much here.

507
00:53:02,560 --> 00:53:11,920
Yeah. Maybe one day, but no, podcasts are not really investable for what we're doing. But there

508
00:53:11,920 --> 00:53:16,800
are a lot of good investments that are not necessarily suited for venture. And that's

509
00:53:16,800 --> 00:53:22,320
important to know. It's important to know that let's just say, and I don't want to get any

510
00:53:22,320 --> 00:53:31,840
shift for it, but let's just say that metal seed plates, things that are like super necessary

511
00:53:31,840 --> 00:53:38,240
that we all love is Bitcoiners. These indestructible, that Jameson Loppa blog post where he blows it up

512
00:53:38,240 --> 00:53:42,960
with nitrogen or something. He's like, B minus. I lost one word or whatever it was.

513
00:53:42,960 --> 00:53:50,640
Those type of things are great. They're necessary tools. They're not like venture

514
00:53:51,600 --> 00:53:59,440
investments. They're not the type of things that we'd invest in. It's like a hardware,

515
00:54:00,000 --> 00:54:08,320
pretty niche thing. So there are things that need to exist and are probably still great

516
00:54:08,320 --> 00:54:15,200
investments. That founder, those teams that are making any seed plates, they could probably run

517
00:54:15,200 --> 00:54:21,520
a very profitable business and pay dividends and have a set of investors with different

518
00:54:21,520 --> 00:54:27,120
expectations who are focused on different things and still raise money. It's not that it's not

519
00:54:27,120 --> 00:54:34,080
investable. It's just you're in a field, in venture where you're trying to return the fund.

520
00:54:34,080 --> 00:54:39,280
That's what they call it, return the fund, which is when just one investment in your portfolio

521
00:54:39,280 --> 00:54:47,200
returns the entire investment. So if you make $100,000 investment into a company and your fund

522
00:54:47,200 --> 00:54:53,200
size is 10 million, a lot of people's thesis is, will it be to only invest in things that could

523
00:54:53,200 --> 00:55:01,600
potentially return that entire $10 million, at least once over? And that might not be obscure

524
00:55:01,600 --> 00:55:08,000
node management software. That doesn't mean that it's a waste of time and you shouldn't do this

525
00:55:08,000 --> 00:55:13,360
or whatever. And if anything, it might be able to help that team think about, how do we make this

526
00:55:13,360 --> 00:55:21,680
more commercial? How do we make this make more money? How do we change it a bit? So there's

527
00:55:21,680 --> 00:55:27,120
just a lot of great things to invest in, but they might not all be one size fits all.

528
00:55:27,120 --> 00:55:33,840
No, I think that's pretty good advice. You got to know yourself and know what

529
00:55:35,120 --> 00:55:39,680
kind of lane you're actually going to be operating in. I'm curious if you see just in

530
00:55:39,680 --> 00:55:46,960
terms of general trends. So if we're talking about fiat price of Bitcoin, things are heating up.

531
00:55:47,840 --> 00:55:54,320
We got a halving around the corner. I know you guys are likely not, you're not basing your

532
00:55:54,320 --> 00:55:58,960
investments on, oh, is this going to blow up during the halving? And then we'll forget about it

533
00:55:58,960 --> 00:56:04,400
afterwards. It's you're thinking more long term. But I'm curious, in terms of, let's say, more

534
00:56:04,400 --> 00:56:11,840
generalist VCs, if that's the correct term, do you see more of them, more appetite from those

535
00:56:11,840 --> 00:56:18,160
traditional or generalist VCs, moving in and trying to get some allocations to Bitcoin only

536
00:56:18,160 --> 00:56:22,000
companies? Are you seeing that landscape shifting at all or what's it look like for you?

537
00:56:22,000 --> 00:56:32,240
Definitely a lot of renewed excitement. Granted, some of that, maybe pretty decent amount of that

538
00:56:32,240 --> 00:56:39,520
is really due to ordinals and these other types of things, right? Love them or hate them. And

539
00:56:39,520 --> 00:56:47,520
there's so many, right? There's RGB and ordinals and stacks, right? And I know which ones I hate,

540
00:56:47,520 --> 00:56:53,120
but I'm just mean as a whole, as a whole, it drives and brings a narrative back to Bitcoin.

541
00:56:53,120 --> 00:57:00,400
And that's the number one thing that I'm getting from crypto VCs, right, is along the lines of,

542
00:57:00,400 --> 00:57:06,240
we weren't looking at Bitcoin and now the narrative has changed. Now we're paying close attention to

543
00:57:06,240 --> 00:57:13,360
BRC 20 tokens and these type of things. And that's bringing them in. And the only hope is that they

544
00:57:13,360 --> 00:57:20,240
come in and realize like there's so much more. There's so much more than locking up your NFTs,

545
00:57:21,040 --> 00:57:26,160
locking up your ordinals and borrowing against it. I can tell you right now that is something that

546
00:57:26,160 --> 00:57:32,400
like I have 0% interest in and want nothing to do with. And it may even be a good investment. I

547
00:57:32,400 --> 00:57:38,720
don't know. They clothe like these type of things are closing over subscribed venture rounds of not

548
00:57:38,720 --> 00:57:45,760
the Bitcoin VCs that we all know and love, but another group of people, right, or the tap root

549
00:57:45,760 --> 00:57:50,560
wizards. What was their tagline? Is it something like we're going to make Bitcoin something again?

550
00:57:50,560 --> 00:57:55,840
I believe it was fun again. Make Bitcoin fun again. I mean, I didn't get that pitch deck and I don't

551
00:57:55,840 --> 00:58:00,720
think they would dare ever approach lightning ventures. So I didn't know. I just read the press

552
00:58:00,720 --> 00:58:08,720
release, but like, you know, who knows who knows what's going to happen. And the crypto VCs are

553
00:58:08,720 --> 00:58:14,000
certainly more focused on Bitcoin. I even get the we were solely focused on Bitcoin and now we're

554
00:58:14,000 --> 00:58:21,440
looking to really solely be focused on Bitcoin. So there's a big shift in that and the traditional

555
00:58:21,440 --> 00:58:28,480
VCs, the FinTech VCs, they're all kind of coming around. But it's still not like a main focus.

556
00:58:28,480 --> 00:58:32,720
You know, you see their name on some deals, they're starting to participate, they're starting to talk

557
00:58:32,720 --> 00:58:39,600
to companies more, but we have a long way to go because you can pretty much name the Bitcoin VCs

558
00:58:39,600 --> 00:58:46,720
on maybe two hands at the most. Now, that's that's interesting. And I know I'm curious then, given

559
00:58:46,720 --> 00:58:55,920
that perspective that there is less attention being paid to Bitcoin focused Bitcoin only startups

560
00:58:55,920 --> 00:59:02,880
than is due to it. I mean, much like Bitcoin itself, right? Still the vast majority of people,

561
00:59:02,880 --> 00:59:09,840
even if they've heard of Bitcoin, don't think about it nearly as often as folks like we do,

562
00:59:09,840 --> 00:59:15,840
right? And probably don't own any, you know, not high 90s percent of the world has no exposure to

563
00:59:15,840 --> 00:59:22,400
Bitcoin. So we're still early. And it sounds like we're still very early in terms of the Bitcoin

564
00:59:22,400 --> 00:59:31,360
VC space. And I'm curious, you know, with that, do you think that a lot of these Bitcoin companies

565
00:59:31,360 --> 00:59:37,760
are, are they undervalued or are they are they just fairly valued because maybe Bitcoin VCs

566
00:59:38,480 --> 00:59:43,920
take the concept of money and funding a little more seriously than the traditional ones? What's

567
00:59:43,920 --> 00:59:48,960
your take on just valuations that you're seeing in general? What's the appetite for the rounds that

568
00:59:48,960 --> 00:59:54,240
you guys are participating in? And has that been shifting over, you know, the last six months?

569
00:59:55,520 --> 01:00:02,240
Well, I think it's actually quite the opposite. I think that traditional VCs definitely more

570
01:00:02,240 --> 01:00:11,520
fairly value negotiate and are much shrewder with investing than the Bitcoin VCs and in Bitcoin

571
01:00:11,520 --> 01:00:16,720
land in general. And like, I don't want to, you know, I don't want to get in trouble or say the

572
01:00:16,720 --> 01:00:23,040
wrong thing. But, you know, like, if you are, if you looked at, think about this, all right, if

573
01:00:23,040 --> 01:00:28,400
I've invested in over 2000 deals, think about how many deals I didn't invest in. Think about how many

574
01:00:28,400 --> 01:00:37,680
that I saw. Okay. And when you see a company that has 800K in ARR, and it's up 5x from last year,

575
01:00:37,680 --> 01:00:44,480
and they're raising at, you know, a 16 million post money valuation, and they have like quality

576
01:00:44,480 --> 01:00:51,120
co investors. Okay. And it's like a wallet in Africa that does a payment or something, whatever,

577
01:00:51,120 --> 01:00:57,280
whatever it is. Okay. And then you come to Bitcoin land and it's like, doodadoo, like, yeah, we've

578
01:00:57,280 --> 01:01:04,400
got 1800 in revenue, but it's sats, man. And we're thinking 21 post million valuation, no discount,

579
01:01:04,400 --> 01:01:09,200
like we like the number 21, man. All right. And it's just like, well, hold on a second here.

580
01:01:09,200 --> 01:01:16,000
Take a knee and like, I'm like old man yells at startup valuation, you know, that's me and that's

581
01:01:16,000 --> 01:01:23,120
fine. But there are some others, right, that also we talk as Bitcoin VCs and we're like,

582
01:01:23,680 --> 01:01:29,360
yo, that guy is high, you know, or whatever. No, I'm just kidding. But, but yeah, in Bitcoin land,

583
01:01:29,920 --> 01:01:37,760
in Bitcoin land, it's, it's a little different than traditional venture. Like if they actually went

584
01:01:37,760 --> 01:01:45,520
to a real VC and they told them what they were trying to do, I think the VC would just politely

585
01:01:45,520 --> 01:01:52,640
say, you know, we can't really justify this at that valuation pretty much most of the time.

586
01:01:53,200 --> 01:01:58,480
And in the Bitcoin land, there's a lot of real companies. There's a lot of profitable companies.

587
01:01:59,200 --> 01:02:04,960
I mean, a lot of our companies are having record months. Now, when the price is terrible,

588
01:02:04,960 --> 01:02:11,680
and I can't wait to see what's going to happen in a bull market. Okay. Every on ramp off ramp

589
01:02:11,680 --> 01:02:17,680
exchanges, the, the, the sat's back type of companies, you know, the Bitcoin company,

590
01:02:17,680 --> 01:02:24,720
the gift card companies, everything that you can imagine, many of them are having absolute record

591
01:02:24,720 --> 01:02:29,280
quarters, record months, we're getting the updates, they batten down the hatches through

592
01:02:29,280 --> 01:02:35,280
SVB and FTX and Celsius and everything that just happened, batten down the hatches,

593
01:02:36,160 --> 01:02:41,680
made it through this time. And on the other side, my Lord, you know, I can't wait to see what's

594
01:02:41,680 --> 01:02:48,640
going to happen. Well, it's interesting too, because, you know, maybe some of these companies,

595
01:02:48,640 --> 01:02:55,840
especially ones that have Bitcoin treasuries, are more fairly valued than one might think,

596
01:02:55,840 --> 01:03:00,000
even if we're saying, okay, a lot, you know, maybe there's a lot of exuberance in general

597
01:03:00,000 --> 01:03:04,640
about these companies, right? And like, Bitcoiners love seeing other Bitcoiners building stuff and

598
01:03:04,640 --> 01:03:09,440
maybe get overly exuberant and, you know, the Bitcoiners themselves are like, you know, we're

599
01:03:09,440 --> 01:03:15,760
worth this much. But for companies that have Bitcoin treasuries, which I think is a lot,

600
01:03:15,760 --> 01:03:21,200
I mean, is it fair to say if it's most of the companies you guys are investing in, or is it,

601
01:03:21,200 --> 01:03:25,040
what's kind of the percentage there? I'm curious, but I mean, they're going to see a massive

602
01:03:25,040 --> 01:03:32,160
appreciation in the value of their cash on hand when Bitcoin starts doing its thing in fiat terms.

603
01:03:32,960 --> 01:03:38,400
So I love that. It's one of my favorite concepts to like, you know, smoke a joint and think about

604
01:03:38,400 --> 01:03:44,720
in my private life. But you know, but if you if you if your revenue is in SATs, right, and you're

605
01:03:44,720 --> 01:03:51,920
looking back in the past four or five, six months, okay, in your Excel spreadsheet, okay, your US dollar

606
01:03:51,920 --> 01:03:58,880
revenue in SATs for those months is literally you're rewriting the past. You're literally with every

607
01:03:58,880 --> 01:04:03,840
10% move higher or whatever. It's just it's unbelievable. It's unbelievable to think about,

608
01:04:03,840 --> 01:04:09,280
right? And then you have two ends of the spectrum. You have the end that conservative, you know, you

609
01:04:09,280 --> 01:04:17,120
cannot keep 100% of your treasury in Bitcoin. Okay. And you have that mindset of like, at least a

610
01:04:17,120 --> 01:04:25,200
small amount, I believe every company that we've invested in that has a Bitcoin treasury. I mean,

611
01:04:25,200 --> 01:04:30,000
I want to say I know it, I know it, but I don't know it, but I'm pretty sure of it. I can't think

612
01:04:30,000 --> 01:04:35,840
of one that doesn't. Okay. And they have revenue in Bitcoin and they keep Bitcoin and they distribute

613
01:04:35,840 --> 01:04:40,800
Bitcoin. All right. So certainly it's going to be great when the price moves higher. Okay. But

614
01:04:40,800 --> 01:04:46,240
they're responsible. And you kind of have to be because look what we just went through. Okay.

615
01:04:46,240 --> 01:04:54,000
If you yoloed 100% as a startup of your corporate treasury in Bitcoin at 65,000 and just rode that

616
01:04:54,000 --> 01:05:01,840
the whole way, you're probably not in business now really. Sorry. I mean, you have to pay bills.

617
01:05:01,840 --> 01:05:05,040
There are things that you have to do, you know, you're living on a Bitcoin standard. Well, like

618
01:05:05,040 --> 01:05:14,080
that works, but you know, your Bitcoin standard in fiat terms of measurement can kill you, right?

619
01:05:14,080 --> 01:05:20,080
And then there's the other side of that spectrum, right? Scarcity. I love Scarcity. They're such a

620
01:05:20,080 --> 01:05:25,440
fun company. They don't take themselves seriously. They have satscraft.com, which would be a great

621
01:05:25,440 --> 01:05:32,560
sponsor for you by the way. Satscraft.com and the Pepe Flyers and all this fun stuff. They are 100%

622
01:05:32,560 --> 01:05:40,960
Bitcoin treasury. 100%, 100% of their income is in Bitcoin, 100% of their treasury is in Bitcoin.

623
01:05:40,960 --> 01:05:47,120
And like you can tell, like they feel it. Like we're sitting around 17,000 Bitcoin price. Like

624
01:05:47,120 --> 01:05:51,680
they're not spending. You know what I mean? They're batting down the hat. You know, they're just

625
01:05:51,680 --> 01:05:57,920
like surviving. And then all of a sudden we have that move now, you know, and we're pushing 38,000

626
01:05:57,920 --> 01:06:03,440
or whatever. And it just, it looks so good on their balance sheet. But that's a yolo mindset,

627
01:06:03,440 --> 01:06:07,600
right? You have to be a yolo mindset. If you're yoloing your life savings into an

628
01:06:07,600 --> 01:06:13,280
operaturn on some of the things that they sell in their Sotheby's like auctions.

629
01:06:14,240 --> 01:06:18,560
But yeah, I mean, and everything in between, right? And everything in between. But to your

630
01:06:18,560 --> 01:06:23,760
answer, yes, I believe everyone has a Bitcoin treasury and moving forward their previous

631
01:06:23,760 --> 01:06:28,560
month's income as well as their current balance sheet and runways just going to extend with every

632
01:06:28,560 --> 01:06:35,840
move higher. And that's just kind of a, it's a beautiful thing, right? Like, and it's also,

633
01:06:35,840 --> 01:06:41,440
I feel probably a good incentive for businesses to obviously you need to think about how am I,

634
01:06:41,440 --> 01:06:46,320
you know, paying the bills in the immediate future that need to be paid in fiat. But you're also

635
01:06:46,320 --> 01:06:54,400
thinking in a more low time preference way as Bitcoiners are wants to do to think longer term

636
01:06:54,400 --> 01:06:59,840
ahead and think, okay, how, you know, what's this going to look like for us in the next one to

637
01:06:59,840 --> 01:07:06,960
five years, 10 years? Like, I think it's a good mentality shift to have that treasury and clearly,

638
01:07:07,520 --> 01:07:14,000
you know, when we're seeing it now, and I'm sure leading up to and following the next having,

639
01:07:14,640 --> 01:07:20,000
it's going to look really brilliant that all of these companies have Bitcoin treasuries.

640
01:07:20,000 --> 01:07:24,000
They're going to be again, like the idea of, you know, going back and rewriting the history

641
01:07:24,560 --> 01:07:28,960
of your cash flow at these times and saying like, oh, wow, like, look at this, if you're

642
01:07:28,960 --> 01:07:34,160
denominating in fiat, we have a lot more on hand than we did, you know, six months ago.

643
01:07:34,160 --> 01:07:41,280
It's a, it's a powerful thing, I think. I'm, you know, I'm curious because I think one of the

644
01:07:42,320 --> 01:07:50,400
critiques that you see from maybe folks more so in crypto land is that, you know, Bitcoin is boring.

645
01:07:51,440 --> 01:07:57,440
Nobody's building on Bitcoin. Bitcoin's not exciting. Bitcoin's not fun. That's why I'm in

646
01:07:57,440 --> 01:08:02,640
crypto because crypto, that's where the builders are. And that's where the fun is. Do you have a,

647
01:08:02,640 --> 01:08:08,160
like, do you have a message to those folks? Because you actually see the building that's

648
01:08:08,160 --> 01:08:14,560
happening on this. You see it in real time and you help boost it. So like, what is your message to

649
01:08:14,560 --> 01:08:20,160
the crypto folks who look over at Bitcoin and say, hmm, it's just not fun. It's boring. It's not,

650
01:08:20,160 --> 01:08:25,840
there's no, nothing happening. You know, you know, when you watch like mainstream news and

651
01:08:25,840 --> 01:08:31,760
literally they say the exact opposite of what's happening, they're like, meets bad for you.

652
01:08:32,400 --> 01:08:38,240
You know, Bitcoin's a terrible savings, you know, or whatever they say is just like the opposite.

653
01:08:39,120 --> 01:08:45,120
It's amazing to me that people really say that like nothing's happening on Bitcoin and that all

654
01:08:45,120 --> 01:08:51,360
of this innovation and all of this real work is happening outside of Bitcoin. Because even if you

655
01:08:51,360 --> 01:08:58,720
look at these other projects, nothing is going on. Like, like actually nothing is happening on these

656
01:08:58,720 --> 01:09:04,800
other projects. Like I've never, I don't even know like who's, I've never met one Bitcoin cash startup.

657
01:09:04,800 --> 01:09:10,080
Let's just say that I have no idea. Like nobody's ever been like, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, just a strictly

658
01:09:10,080 --> 01:09:17,360
a Solana VC. I'm looking at startups that are building on this. Like I don't even know who these

659
01:09:17,360 --> 01:09:24,160
companies are, you know, or if they are real companies or there are real, there's nothing there.

660
01:09:24,160 --> 01:09:28,880
And then you look at the actual transactions and the volume and like what's going on there.

661
01:09:28,880 --> 01:09:33,920
It's absolutely meaningless. You know, it's absolutely meaningless. And they push this

662
01:09:33,920 --> 01:09:38,560
narrative that nothing's going on in Bitcoin. Everything's going on in Bitcoin. Everything

663
01:09:38,560 --> 01:09:45,040
that's going on in your shit coin will come to Bitcoin. If it didn't start on Bitcoin, right,

664
01:09:45,040 --> 01:09:49,760
but Bitcoin is just too busy to like, you know, be like the answer to the world's problems to like,

665
01:09:49,760 --> 01:09:55,520
you know, deal with the slick NFT wallet, but like it'll come like it'll be here just takes time,

666
01:09:55,520 --> 01:10:02,800
you know. And there's, you know, we say like no one's using Bitcoin, right? No one is using Bitcoin.

667
01:10:02,800 --> 01:10:07,200
I mean, in reality, like in the big scheme of things of like how many people like no one's using

668
01:10:07,200 --> 01:10:13,520
Bitcoin, really no one is using, oh, it's the internet computer protocol. Like the guy was in

669
01:10:13,520 --> 01:10:19,440
the blockchain lab. He helped invent Watson. They always come like they send you this email.

670
01:10:19,440 --> 01:10:24,240
And it's like this guy helped work on Watson. Like that's what they all say. I don't know.

671
01:10:27,120 --> 01:10:32,960
And yeah, and like there's it's all nonsense. It's all air. And you know, speaking in simple

672
01:10:32,960 --> 01:10:38,560
heuristics, right? You tell children don't take candy from strangers. There might be a lot of

673
01:10:38,560 --> 01:10:42,960
great strangers with a lot of fine candy. All right. It might taste great. It might be very

674
01:10:42,960 --> 01:10:49,680
safe, but you tell children that, right? So when you're investing, whether it's in crypto, quote,

675
01:10:49,680 --> 01:10:55,920
unquote, or any of these startups like just have Bitcoin, like that's the heuristic, you know, you

676
01:10:55,920 --> 01:11:03,520
might miss out on a little bit of candy, but you won't die. You won't end up in a crypto van

677
01:11:03,520 --> 01:11:13,440
somewhere. Oh man, I mean, I think that that's it's very fair because it's so often that that critique

678
01:11:13,440 --> 01:11:21,680
is just cope anyway. Right? It's like, well, sure, we might be running essentially a Ponzi scheme over

679
01:11:21,680 --> 01:11:28,640
here with, you know, but token, but at least we're having fun, right? Look at it. Look at all the fun

680
01:11:28,640 --> 01:11:35,280
we're having. And it's like, I don't know. I've met a lot of Bitcoiners now and Bitcoiners that

681
01:11:35,280 --> 01:11:41,120
are starting companies. And I got to say, it's a lot of fun to be around that and to be around people

682
01:11:41,120 --> 01:11:46,000
that are actually building things that aren't just vaporware, like to see people building things that

683
01:11:46,000 --> 01:11:53,120
actually have a mission where they say, I want to, yeah, I want to make money. Obviously, that's

684
01:11:53,120 --> 01:11:58,400
why I'm doing this. But in order to make money, I want to have made the world a little bit of

685
01:11:58,400 --> 01:12:04,960
a better place. Like I want to actually create value and have that be why I am accruing capital

686
01:12:04,960 --> 01:12:11,040
for that value creation as I should. Because when you put value out there, that like, that's the

687
01:12:11,040 --> 01:12:16,480
point like making money is a good thing. Like that is that is great. And when you're doing that in

688
01:12:16,480 --> 01:12:22,080
an ethical way by providing real products and services that actually make people's lives better.

689
01:12:22,080 --> 01:12:28,000
And don't just promise them, you know, like some fucking hexakin Richard Hart scam of like,

690
01:12:28,000 --> 01:12:33,680
well, you know, you're going to make, you know, 3000% and it's risk free and it's so much better

691
01:12:33,680 --> 01:12:41,280
than Bitcoin. And it's like, what are you building? Like, you're, yeah, you might have built a really

692
01:12:41,280 --> 01:12:51,280
clever scheme. But it's just that. And, you know, at least Bitcoin founders, Bitcoin VCs can hopefully

693
01:12:51,280 --> 01:12:57,040
sleep relatively soundly in the knowledge that at least they're bringing some products and services

694
01:12:57,040 --> 01:13:01,200
to the world that are actually going to do a little bit of good and not just rug a bunch of people,

695
01:13:01,200 --> 01:13:09,280
but enrich a couple. So, hey, I don't know. So every company that we've invested in and every

696
01:13:09,280 --> 01:13:17,200
Bitcoin company that we look at, like they are real companies. Okay. And that's what I think a lot

697
01:13:17,200 --> 01:13:24,480
of people don't understand yet about the Bitcoin funding ecosystem is we're still like grouped in

698
01:13:24,480 --> 01:13:30,560
with this whole crypto world, right? Where people aren't really separating that these are actual

699
01:13:30,560 --> 01:13:37,120
companies. These are actual real companies. Okay. And they just, they lump it in with that we're

700
01:13:37,120 --> 01:13:43,120
crypto and I do calls with crypto VCs. And to be honest with you, I mean, the joke's on me because

701
01:13:43,120 --> 01:13:47,920
these people have a ton of money. I mean, I talked to a kid the other day. I mean, he must have been

702
01:13:47,920 --> 01:13:51,920
23 years old. He's got like a hundred million dollars in asset under management. I looked at

703
01:13:51,920 --> 01:13:57,360
his portfolio. I couldn't tell you one of these things. I don't even know what they are. And I

704
01:13:57,360 --> 01:14:03,120
don't know how he's performing or what he's doing, but he basically wants the best Bitcoin deals.

705
01:14:03,120 --> 01:14:07,680
He reached out to me because he wants to invest in the best Bitcoin startups. And I was flattered

706
01:14:07,680 --> 01:14:13,120
because he has money and I don't know, just kidding. So yeah, like, let's get on a call. Let's find

707
01:14:13,120 --> 01:14:20,320
out about what you're doing. And he couldn't get over the fact that no deal that I have invested in

708
01:14:20,320 --> 01:14:27,520
and no deal that I will ever send him will ever have a token. It doesn't register in his brain

709
01:14:27,520 --> 01:14:35,040
that there's a way to invest in a company and have equity and like what venture investing is.

710
01:14:36,080 --> 01:14:43,840
It's all about like, when's the token and when do I, when can I dump? And that is such a shitty

711
01:14:43,840 --> 01:14:49,840
investor. Like the kind of investor you get from, like, I'm in it to win it with all these companies.

712
01:14:49,840 --> 01:14:57,280
I am here the whole way. It's you, it's us versus the world. I am on your team. There is no like,

713
01:14:57,280 --> 01:15:04,080
oh, I can dump my Ivex token in six months from now. And like, it doesn't work that way. Like,

714
01:15:04,080 --> 01:15:09,520
we are building a company. And it's just a whole nother mindset in these worlds. And he basically

715
01:15:09,520 --> 01:15:16,000
said there is not one deal that he's invested, that he can invest in that doesn't have some kind of

716
01:15:16,000 --> 01:15:22,960
token liquidity component. That's like his like, I'm not allowed to invest like our fund is structured

717
01:15:22,960 --> 01:15:30,880
to where I cannot invest in in a crypto project that has a token or whatever, like, it's not allowed.

718
01:15:31,520 --> 01:15:40,080
Okay, his is the opposite. He can only invest in these type of things. And I mean, all these people

719
01:15:40,080 --> 01:15:45,600
have so much money. I mean, the people who did well during all of this, God bless them, you know,

720
01:15:45,600 --> 01:15:56,560
and we're sitting here, look at us. If if that story is not just indicative of the entire

721
01:15:57,520 --> 01:16:06,160
crypto land ethos, I don't know what is that idea that, oh, I'm I can't invest in anything that

722
01:16:06,160 --> 01:16:10,480
doesn't have a token that I can dump on retail. Like, because that's what it comes down to, right?

723
01:16:10,480 --> 01:16:17,200
Yeah, they're not going to invest in anything that they cannot before the general public, you know,

724
01:16:17,200 --> 01:16:21,360
or as the general public starts to get in because they pump it up with bots on Twitter,

725
01:16:21,360 --> 01:16:27,680
and in their telegram channels and with their chili influencers, pump it up, pump it up. And

726
01:16:27,680 --> 01:16:33,440
then just as soon as it starts taking off and, you know, go into the moon, all the initial big

727
01:16:33,440 --> 01:16:40,800
bag holders dump it all and, you know, get some insane returns. Wow, great. Good for them. But like,

728
01:16:40,800 --> 01:16:48,080
what a piece of shit. You know, I just I don't know. I guess it comes down to a question of like,

729
01:16:49,280 --> 01:16:55,040
how much are your morals worth? And I'm sure people have a number for that. A lot of people

730
01:16:55,040 --> 01:17:01,760
clearly have a number for that. But I just don't think he knows. I don't think he knows that that's

731
01:17:01,760 --> 01:17:10,560
like not cool. I think he just thinks that that's the game. Like he doesn't know that shilling vapor

732
01:17:10,560 --> 01:17:18,880
wear and dumping on retail is maybe, maybe not a great thing to do. Or you think his perspective

733
01:17:18,880 --> 01:17:24,640
is like, well, as long as maybe looks at it very analytically, like if I'm making money in my fund,

734
01:17:24,640 --> 01:17:29,680
that's my job. It doesn't matter how I make the money. It doesn't matter if it's ethical or not.

735
01:17:29,680 --> 01:17:33,360
It's just whether I make a return. You think that's what it comes down to?

736
01:17:33,360 --> 01:17:40,640
Well, I'm old enough to be his father. So I wanted to say, son, let me tell you something

737
01:17:41,280 --> 01:17:47,360
about investing. Okay. No, but like, okay, so here's an example, right? The need for liquidity.

738
01:17:47,360 --> 01:17:51,920
It's not just like if it's about the need for liquidity, here's what happens, right? We invest

739
01:17:51,920 --> 01:17:58,400
in Walker Bitcoin. All right, Walker Bitcoin is a new startup. I know the founder. He's a great man.

740
01:17:58,400 --> 01:18:06,960
He's expecting. Okay. We invest 100K. And let's say that Walker Bitcoin gets to a series B level.

741
01:18:07,520 --> 01:18:17,120
Okay. And let's say that our, our investment is marked up 30X. Okay. So if we invested 100,000,

742
01:18:17,120 --> 01:18:23,920
okay, and we're up 30X, now we're sitting on $3 million of equity. Okay. No token. Now at that

743
01:18:23,920 --> 01:18:30,400
point in time, right? When you get later on in the company, a lot of the early investors, okay,

744
01:18:30,400 --> 01:18:36,960
would like to distribute some capital, okay, to their investors, okay? But then also at that later

745
01:18:36,960 --> 01:18:42,640
stage, you have a lot of new investors that want to come in, okay? That want to come in and just

746
01:18:42,640 --> 01:18:48,240
start there because these investors that invest in later stage rounds, they specialize. That's

747
01:18:48,240 --> 01:18:53,280
when they come in. They're not in the early preceding seed rounds. Okay. So that's what they look for.

748
01:18:53,280 --> 01:19:04,480
So if we went and we sold 20% of our $3 million to a new investor, okay? And then we're able to

749
01:19:04,480 --> 01:19:12,080
distribute 5X to all of those investors that were in that early round for a couple of years,

750
01:19:12,080 --> 01:19:19,280
give them 5X their money. We still have 80% of our money. You get to approve that share transfer

751
01:19:19,280 --> 01:19:25,200
and say, yes, I like these guys, okay? And you get to all hug and talk and all of that good stuff.

752
01:19:25,200 --> 01:19:31,440
Okay. That's the proper way, all right? That would happen. And by the way, we're still in it for 80%

753
01:19:31,440 --> 01:19:35,840
and love you and want to support the hell out of you. And that's how it goes, right? That's how

754
01:19:35,840 --> 01:19:42,720
it would happen. But this in the YOLO generation, this is too much work. We can't do this. I want

755
01:19:42,720 --> 01:19:51,680
to dump. Yeah. I mean, and it's such a fundamental difference too between going through rounds of

756
01:19:52,640 --> 01:20:02,320
financing and offloading some of your early round shares to new institutional investors

757
01:20:02,320 --> 01:20:08,240
that want exposure. And as you said, who specialize in that later stage financing versus

758
01:20:08,240 --> 01:20:15,680
investors, we're going to buy up 60% of this new shitcoin supply. And as soon as it launches on

759
01:20:15,680 --> 01:20:23,520
two exchanges, we're dumping 99% or 100% of it and we're moving on to the next one. And because

760
01:20:23,520 --> 01:20:30,400
it's one is dumping on retail for dumping vaporware on retail and then watching that vaporware token

761
01:20:30,400 --> 01:20:38,400
go to zero, one is financing an actual business and then taking some of those proceeds, returning to

762
01:20:38,400 --> 01:20:43,840
your investors while still maintaining a position in that company. Because presumably you also think

763
01:20:44,480 --> 01:20:51,840
this company's not stopping here. They've got a good revenue model, not just a revenue extraction

764
01:20:51,840 --> 01:20:57,680
model or a money extraction model. Because that's what these shitcoins are, right? It's just

765
01:20:57,680 --> 01:21:04,000
extraction. And the sad thing is that it's like so many of these crypto projects pitch themselves

766
01:21:04,000 --> 01:21:10,160
as super cipherpunk, right? And they're so like, we want to give money back to the little guys and

767
01:21:10,160 --> 01:21:15,120
not just to Wall Street, but it's like, you're just doing a hyper condensed hyper accelerated

768
01:21:15,120 --> 01:21:20,800
version of the Wall Street rug pull on dumb money. That's exactly what you're doing. You're just doing

769
01:21:20,800 --> 01:21:28,320
it much faster and with a little slicker marketing, maybe and more apes. I don't know. It just seems

770
01:21:29,680 --> 01:21:37,680
seems just really shitty. So I'm glad that there are Bitcoin VCs out there, like yourself, like the

771
01:21:37,680 --> 01:21:44,400
folks at Ego death that are actually looking for good companies that are trying to make a difference

772
01:21:44,400 --> 01:21:51,120
and are providing capital to them because you need capital, right? I'm curious because I want to be

773
01:21:51,120 --> 01:21:58,000
also conscious of your scarce time in this role. I know you are a busy man. You are helping these

774
01:21:58,000 --> 01:22:03,120
companies. But is there anything you can say about anything that's like public, just about companies

775
01:22:03,120 --> 01:22:09,280
that you're really excited about right now that you're like, man, I'm like, they're, they're kicking

776
01:22:09,280 --> 01:22:14,640
ass right now. They're doing, you know, bringing in solid numbers. They're, they're growing their

777
01:22:14,640 --> 01:22:19,200
user base. They're growing their revenue or maybe just one that's, that's still a little bit early,

778
01:22:19,200 --> 01:22:24,000
but you're really stoked about because they've got a great idea. Can you, can you share any of that

779
01:22:24,000 --> 01:22:31,440
any specific or not too specific, but specific enough? Yeah, why not? Worst that could happen is

780
01:22:31,440 --> 01:22:41,760
you can't tell that by them. So I am so excited about every Bitcoin startup that has not died.

781
01:22:43,040 --> 01:22:49,600
That is just incredible to have gotten through this and I've been through some bear markets. You've,

782
01:22:49,600 --> 01:22:54,160
you've been through some too. Okay. After this is actually my first technically, I'm still

783
01:22:54,160 --> 01:22:59,840
new here. I got this one brutal, bro. Yeah. After Mt. Docs, after Silk Road. I mean, that was a tough

784
01:22:59,840 --> 01:23:05,760
one. That felt like that. I thought that was bad. That is nothing compared to this. Okay. And, and,

785
01:23:05,760 --> 01:23:13,360
and then in 2017 after ICOs, nothing, this is, this has been tough. Everything from the blockfies

786
01:23:13,360 --> 01:23:21,600
and the failures, SVB and just so much. It's just been brutal. If you survived this, you should get

787
01:23:21,600 --> 01:23:27,440
a medal of honor. I mean, you have survived such a hard time, especially if you're in exchange.

788
01:23:27,440 --> 01:23:33,840
If you're in exchange, the trust, the trust level for exchanges in their business is just,

789
01:23:33,840 --> 01:23:41,200
couldn't be worse. Right. And I think nearly every exchange that we've invested in is having record

790
01:23:41,200 --> 01:23:47,600
months. And in every, in every way, in a lot of republic about it, Relay is not very shy about it,

791
01:23:48,320 --> 01:23:54,960
having month after month of records. Right. And, you know, we've only had a couple of,

792
01:23:54,960 --> 01:24:03,520
a couple of companies that didn't make it. And if you look at how many are supposed to fail,

793
01:24:04,400 --> 01:24:11,920
they haven't failed yet. They have survived through the hardest possible conditions

794
01:24:12,880 --> 01:24:17,040
to be a Bitcoin company. And then you got chokepoint 2.0. And then you can't get a freaking bank

795
01:24:17,040 --> 01:24:21,760
account. And then you can't even do normal things. Right. It's hard enough to just survive. You're

796
01:24:21,760 --> 01:24:27,680
like getting debanked in your operating account goes missing for 22 days till you get a paper check

797
01:24:27,680 --> 01:24:33,280
in the mail. Okay. And having to deal with those type of things. And yeah, there's a few that didn't

798
01:24:33,280 --> 01:24:41,600
make it, you know, really one actually, you know, in reality, and I would, I would just love to just

799
01:24:41,600 --> 01:24:46,960
talk a whole bunch of shit. Because he's not even, he's not even a Bitcoin or he's not even in the

800
01:24:46,960 --> 01:24:53,440
space. But this guy, man, oh my God, I actually want to write something about it. Oh my God.

801
01:24:53,440 --> 01:25:00,000
But anyway, no, seriously, every company is doing great. I mean, you want to pick them out. I mean,

802
01:25:01,120 --> 01:25:08,400
every exchange, you know, Amber, you know, Australia, you know, Beaver Bitcoin in Canada,

803
01:25:09,200 --> 01:25:14,240
Swan Bitcoin here, adding different products, Strike, you've seen their news lately.

804
01:25:14,240 --> 01:25:18,800
You know, we have a couple of companies that are in Wolf, you know, it's top secret, right? The Wolf

805
01:25:18,800 --> 01:25:25,120
Accelerator is going on for their third cohort right now. Two companies that Lightning Ventures

806
01:25:25,120 --> 01:25:30,240
had already invested in prior to them getting accepted to Wolf makes me look like I know what

807
01:25:30,240 --> 01:25:37,360
I'm doing, at least a little bit. So that's kind of nice. You know, and they're having record months,

808
01:25:37,360 --> 01:25:45,200
they're having record months, you know, Slice, for example, I love Slice, 500,000 downloads, records,

809
01:25:45,200 --> 01:25:51,040
shattering records, you know, I believe even companies that we're not invested in like Albee,

810
01:25:51,040 --> 01:25:57,600
I think are having record months, you know, some companies, you know, it takes a little while to

811
01:25:58,960 --> 01:26:06,320
find, to pivot, you know, Vita, Lyle Pratt, super accomplished team, like they've pivoted a couple

812
01:26:06,320 --> 01:26:11,600
of times into different, different areas, you know, and they've built a ton of shit that works.

813
01:26:11,600 --> 01:26:16,880
And you're kind of involved a little bit to see that process, to see it start to happen, you know,

814
01:26:17,680 --> 01:26:22,480
to have an AI agent that's going to stand in front of your spam, you know, to be paid for every

815
01:26:22,480 --> 01:26:27,840
message that comes into your box, you know, to start to implement these things, to have an AI person

816
01:26:27,840 --> 01:26:33,280
answer your phone for you and be like Walker's phone. And then you're like, give him a, give him

817
01:26:33,280 --> 01:26:39,680
a British accent, you know, blah, blah, blah, you know, and to like get some of these things that

818
01:26:39,680 --> 01:26:45,040
are, that are pivoting and coming together through teams that have done it before, and they know

819
01:26:45,040 --> 01:26:52,240
how to save money, and they're not out there yoloing. Every, every company is doing great.

820
01:26:52,240 --> 01:26:58,160
Zaprite, you know, Zaprite was interesting because they went so long without an update,

821
01:26:58,160 --> 01:27:02,960
you know, and just a few calls here and there checking in on the founder and then bam, Parker,

822
01:27:02,960 --> 01:27:09,600
Lewis joins, bam, Will joins, bam, no longer free subscription only, you know what I mean? And it's

823
01:27:09,600 --> 01:27:16,240
like bam, partnership with Unchained for, you know, corporate accounts and like everything

824
01:27:16,240 --> 01:27:21,680
starts happening, you know, the Bitcoin company, Ben Price, you know, I believe he had a record

825
01:27:21,680 --> 01:27:28,640
month this month, just killing it. That's gift cards. That's gift cards, you know, when you hit

826
01:27:28,640 --> 01:27:34,800
a profitable moment. Okay, forget about all the Neobank stuff, forget about card linked offers

827
01:27:34,800 --> 01:27:40,400
and everything else that you want to roll out down the roadmap. But like, when you can get your

828
01:27:40,400 --> 01:27:45,840
company to a point where you finally hit that cashflow break even, like, that's a huge moment.

829
01:27:45,840 --> 01:27:51,600
Look at Jan three for crying out loud, Jan three is all over the world meeting with world leaders,

830
01:27:51,600 --> 01:27:57,680
we were lucky to even get in that round. Trust me, they did not need our pittance. Okay, but they

831
01:27:57,680 --> 01:28:04,320
liked us. And you know, we make up for in heart what we lack and check size. And they're all over

832
01:28:04,320 --> 01:28:09,440
it right now. How are they going to make money? I mean, we'll see your DCA nation states, let's

833
01:28:09,440 --> 01:28:14,160
see what comes of it, you know, and they were heavily involved with the volcano bonds, I believe

834
01:28:14,160 --> 01:28:20,560
that's that's shifted now, volcano energy. But I mean, every company man, and they're they're

835
01:28:20,560 --> 01:28:25,920
bringing Bitcoin to every end of the world. And it's just so exciting, right? This the lightning

836
01:28:25,920 --> 01:28:32,240
network connecting every country on the earth. Okay, I mean, like, remember those early like,

837
01:28:32,960 --> 01:28:38,000
lightning network graphs, you know, where you'd see this like visualization, now it's like a

838
01:28:38,000 --> 01:28:43,920
freaking ball of yarn, right? But you know, early on, there, there weren't that many, you know,

839
01:28:43,920 --> 01:28:48,480
and I picture the world that way when I think about a lot of our portfolio companies, I picture

840
01:28:48,480 --> 01:28:54,320
this map. Okay, and you can see in every one of these companies, you can see them, you can see

841
01:28:54,320 --> 01:29:00,560
them connected, right? You can see that strikes send globally network is connecting the entire world,

842
01:29:00,560 --> 01:29:08,080
right? And then you have pouch in Philippines with Ethan, and you have Osmo, and you have all of them

843
01:29:08,080 --> 01:29:14,480
all over the world, okay, neutron pay in Vietnam, okay, and you all connect through these rails.

844
01:29:14,480 --> 01:29:24,000
And now you can start to send money from fiat, over lightning into fiat in their native country,

845
01:29:24,000 --> 01:29:30,640
and both the people have no idea that Bitcoin was even involved. And that just gives me goosebumps

846
01:29:30,640 --> 01:29:35,600
to just think about, you know, I was on a call yesterday, this guy in India, and he was like

847
01:29:35,600 --> 01:29:41,840
some crypto guy, and I'm like talking to him about we just invested in Indian remittance Bitcoin

848
01:29:41,840 --> 01:29:45,280
startup. And he's like, there's no way that works. And I'm like, what's your phone number?

849
01:29:45,840 --> 01:29:52,160
And I plug in his Indian number and boom, a dollar from my Chase account lands in our in his account.

850
01:29:52,160 --> 01:29:58,320
You know what I mean? That is incredible. And that type of stuff just gets me super excited.

851
01:29:59,440 --> 01:30:07,760
Man, that that just got me pumped up. I mean, because because I love I love to hear about this.

852
01:30:07,760 --> 01:30:14,880
And I think that the more people that hear about all of the incredible companies that are and these

853
01:30:14,880 --> 01:30:24,400
teams to that are just building out incredibly useful real world solution solving tech on top

854
01:30:24,400 --> 01:30:29,040
of Bitcoin in and around Bitcoin and the Lightning Network, even I think you've got a couple of

855
01:30:29,040 --> 01:30:35,200
companies that are utilizing Noster as well and building on Noster, like, that's incredible.

856
01:30:35,760 --> 01:30:43,040
And they're solving real problems. They are being they're forced to be probably

857
01:30:43,040 --> 01:30:51,440
more frugal because of recent bear marketiness. But now you're seeing this kind of explosion, right?

858
01:30:51,440 --> 01:30:55,520
And people are starting to become profitable. They're having a positive cash flow. Like,

859
01:30:56,640 --> 01:31:01,760
it's amazing to see that. And especially getting to just, you know, you meet some of these folks

860
01:31:01,760 --> 01:31:06,240
at Bitcoin conferences and you're like, man, couldn't happen to a better guy or gal.

861
01:31:06,240 --> 01:31:12,640
You love to see these people succeed because their hearts in the right place. And I think that that,

862
01:31:12,640 --> 01:31:16,960
you know, not to sound too mushy, but I think that that genuinely matters. And if you want to

863
01:31:16,960 --> 01:31:22,240
build something that's lasting and that is going to have a positive impact, you need to have founders

864
01:31:22,240 --> 01:31:27,920
and a founding team and also VCs, whose hearts are in the right place. And so I think that's a

865
01:31:27,920 --> 01:31:33,600
beautiful kind of alignment of values. And I'm just glad that it's happening out there, you know,

866
01:31:33,600 --> 01:31:41,120
but, Maz, this has been awesome. Last question off topic, but anything you're reading right now

867
01:31:41,120 --> 01:31:48,080
that when you're not, you know, giving advice and doing that or anything that you would recommend

868
01:31:48,080 --> 01:31:55,840
book wise, I like to ask this question just to, to mellow it out at the end. Okay, so outside of like,

869
01:31:55,840 --> 01:32:01,920
all the boring venture capital books and all outside of all that stuff. Yeah, well, I think

870
01:32:01,920 --> 01:32:09,520
that's a good question. Yeah, well, anything you want really. Okay. So yeah, there's just too many

871
01:32:09,520 --> 01:32:15,120
VC books that no one cares about. All right, there's a, there's a really cool spiritual book. It's

872
01:32:15,120 --> 01:32:24,640
called Living Untethered. And my wife, Anna runs a Bitcoin and spirituality all women's book club.

873
01:32:25,280 --> 01:32:30,080
Okay, so it's very big. Carla would be a great candidate. I might be able to get her in, but

874
01:32:30,080 --> 01:32:34,720
you know, where we have that distance problem. But anyway, the book is called Living Untethered.

875
01:32:34,720 --> 01:32:42,720
It's by Michael Singer. And it's really, it's a lot. It's a lot to take in. The audio book is not

876
01:32:42,720 --> 01:32:47,360
as good. Because it's one of those things where you read like three sentences and you just have to

877
01:32:47,360 --> 01:32:52,320
like stop and just like, think about like everything I've done in my entire life and who I am as a

878
01:32:52,320 --> 01:32:58,000
person and like, why am I here and like, am I an asshole and whatever. And then, and then you like,

879
01:32:58,000 --> 01:33:02,160
you know, highlight that part and then you read like another half a page and you're just like, wow,

880
01:33:02,160 --> 01:33:05,840
I'm never going to get through this book. But yeah, it's really cool.

881
01:33:06,960 --> 01:33:13,040
Well, nice. Appreciate the recommendation. And then I'll, I will link lightning ventures and you

882
01:33:13,920 --> 01:33:18,320
in the show notes. I'll also link your podcast as well for folks that want to check that out,

883
01:33:18,320 --> 01:33:23,840
because you're talking to founders, you're talking other VCs all the time, anywhere else that people

884
01:33:23,840 --> 01:33:31,200
should go to check out more or website best. What do you say? Well, you have a podcast. We

885
01:33:32,240 --> 01:33:37,600
do a few little interviews with founders when we invest and try to get something into the archives.

886
01:33:37,600 --> 01:33:45,680
Okay. So, you know, if anyone is interested in investing in Bitcoin startups, you can click

887
01:33:45,680 --> 01:33:53,520
the join button on our website, LTNG.Ventures. And if you just fill that out, we will send you

888
01:33:53,520 --> 01:34:00,880
an invitation to join our group that bypasses some wait period and paperwork and other things.

889
01:34:01,440 --> 01:34:06,400
You can just fill that out and you can click what kind of Bitcoin or you are. And maybe if you have

890
01:34:06,400 --> 01:34:11,200
some special skills or something that you want to note, because that's what it's all about, right?

891
01:34:11,200 --> 01:34:16,400
And it's great for networking also. It's not just about whether you're investing or not. It's about

892
01:34:16,400 --> 01:34:22,240
just being a part of the network. We've had people who are in our syndicate who didn't invest in a

893
01:34:22,240 --> 01:34:29,360
deal and ended up becoming advisors with companies because they have specialized knowledge in ad tech

894
01:34:29,360 --> 01:34:34,640
or whatever. And they ended up and that's all them, right? And that's all great. And it doesn't

895
01:34:34,640 --> 01:34:38,960
benefit me. It just benefits the companies, which I guess benefits me, right? Because they're beloved

896
01:34:38,960 --> 01:34:46,720
portfolio companies. So just getting quality people in the group is great. I meet people sometimes

897
01:34:46,720 --> 01:34:50,880
and they're like, oh, I'm not really investing, you know, I mean, like, that doesn't matter. You

898
01:34:50,880 --> 01:34:56,080
know what I mean? You're seeing deals, you know, you're putting together, you're getting your brain

899
01:34:56,080 --> 01:35:00,640
around some of the best opportunities that are out there. So that's the way you can get started

900
01:35:00,640 --> 01:35:07,760
investing. If you are a founder, if you're building something, if you are raising around or getting

901
01:35:07,760 --> 01:35:15,680
ready to raise around, we're a great vehicle for that. Everything from early stuff that maybe

902
01:35:15,680 --> 01:35:21,040
doesn't have a VC, but certainly are incorporated and everything else to later stuff like strike

903
01:35:21,040 --> 01:35:28,240
series B, we had a little allocation in that round too. And we can often help fill out your

904
01:35:28,240 --> 01:35:33,840
fund raise. So if you were raising $2 million and you had one and a half million, you know,

905
01:35:33,840 --> 01:35:41,920
maybe we can help you with that and bring some of the true Bitcoin community on involved. And

906
01:35:41,920 --> 01:35:46,560
you never know what you're going to get out of there. So that's really what we're all about.

907
01:35:47,200 --> 01:35:52,480
And that's, we're just going to keep trucking on. We're going to do the best that we can,

908
01:35:52,480 --> 01:35:56,720
Walker. And for Christ's sake, man, I can't believe that we got through this bear market.

909
01:35:56,720 --> 01:36:00,640
Like it was, it was very hard for us, just like everyone else.

910
01:36:01,680 --> 01:36:07,920
And well, you're, you're coming out of the tunnel now. I lied, I have one more very short question,

911
01:36:07,920 --> 01:36:15,600
because I want to just hear your elevator pitch for why should people invest in Bitcoin companies

912
01:36:15,600 --> 01:36:23,440
instead of just putting their money in Bitcoin? Ah, the number one question that Bitcoin VCs get

913
01:36:23,440 --> 01:36:28,000
asked. That's what we have to throw it, right? And you know, it's interesting because Bitcoin,

914
01:36:28,800 --> 01:36:36,320
because LPs and investors in Bitcoin funds are smarter than the average person. Okay. Anyone

915
01:36:36,320 --> 01:36:41,840
who's investing in a Bitcoin venture fund is way smarter than somebody who's investing in a

916
01:36:41,840 --> 01:36:51,040
generalist VCs next fund, because that person that invests in is not comparing his investment to

917
01:36:51,040 --> 01:36:58,960
Bitcoin. Okay. That person is like, Oh, this is the guy he's going to invest in electric sneakers and

918
01:36:59,840 --> 01:37:05,040
you know, blah, blah, blah. And they don't compare it with like Bitcoin because they're not even like

919
01:37:05,040 --> 01:37:11,680
cool like that. Right. So LPs in the Bitcoin land, yes. Right. We have to outperform Bitcoin. We have

920
01:37:11,680 --> 01:37:19,840
to outperform the best performing asset over the last 10 year period. Okay. And it has been the best

921
01:37:19,840 --> 01:37:27,760
performing asset over a 10 year period, but not for that entire 10 year period. And when you look at

922
01:37:27,760 --> 01:37:36,480
that smaller timeframes in there of years, there are many, many Bitcoin startups or early stage

923
01:37:36,480 --> 01:37:44,800
venture startups that have outperformed Bitcoin as a whole over that time. There's two real ones

924
01:37:44,800 --> 01:37:51,440
because there's not many public comps to use. We have to use like Coinbase and Kraken, you know,

925
01:37:51,440 --> 01:37:57,840
and Coinbase is like a 4000X from their early round to when they went public. And then the stock

926
01:37:57,840 --> 01:38:02,560
probably cratered from there. I mean, I, but I just mean you get the idea, right? And Bitcoin

927
01:38:02,560 --> 01:38:13,040
didn't do that. And there were times over that period where Kraken had returned 115X and Bitcoin

928
01:38:13,040 --> 01:38:22,000
had returned, you know, 45 to 50X. Okay. So they both did very well. But, you know, it should outpace

929
01:38:22,000 --> 01:38:27,920
it. Right. Now, the difference is this is if you were investing in, pick a company, right, like

930
01:38:27,920 --> 01:38:35,520
start nine, okay, the chances of something like start nine going from pick evaluation, right,

931
01:38:35,520 --> 01:38:40,880
let's just use round numbers. The chances of a start nine going from 10 million to 100 million,

932
01:38:40,880 --> 01:38:48,160
okay, in like a year and a half. Okay. I've seen those things happen. I have personal angel

933
01:38:48,160 --> 01:38:55,520
investments that are up 80X. Okay. In less than three years. That's going to be very hard for

934
01:38:55,520 --> 01:39:02,080
Bitcoin to do at this point in time. It's going to be really hard for Bitcoin to just 10X from here

935
01:39:02,080 --> 01:39:07,760
to 360,000. Now, sure it can happen, right? Because it's Bitcoin and nobody has any Bitcoin and it's

936
01:39:07,760 --> 01:39:14,640
a big world and it's Bitcoin, right? So it could happen. But at the same time, it can happen with

937
01:39:14,640 --> 01:39:20,720
these startups a lot faster and can go a lot more. So I like to think about it as it's a way to

938
01:39:20,720 --> 01:39:27,680
diversify your hotel position. Okay. And no, I wouldn't come into three angel investments for

939
01:39:27,680 --> 01:39:33,920
six figures each and do that. I would just invest small amounts, right? I would read the updates.

940
01:39:33,920 --> 01:39:39,840
I would follow along and I would just get my teeth, you know, before I went out there and really did

941
01:39:39,840 --> 01:39:47,760
anything substantial. Now, conversely, what are the odds of start nine failing and going to zero?

942
01:39:48,560 --> 01:39:54,640
And what are the odds of Bitcoin failing and going to zero? So there's certainly another risk that

943
01:39:54,640 --> 01:40:00,960
needs to be considered there. It's not likely that Bitcoin's going to fail and go to zero, right?

944
01:40:00,960 --> 01:40:05,920
And with a lot of these startups, no matter how great they're doing, there is certainly

945
01:40:07,920 --> 01:40:18,320
a significant risk, okay, that they may never achieve traction or substantial exit, okay? Or

946
01:40:18,320 --> 01:40:22,480
maybe you only get three times your money back. Okay, that's a lot of people don't talk about that.

947
01:40:22,480 --> 01:40:26,560
It's like it's either to the moon or zero, you know, there are many exits where you just get

948
01:40:26,560 --> 01:40:33,040
your money back. Hey, guys, we invested $100,000 13 months ago. It wasn't the best outcome. Maybe

949
01:40:33,040 --> 01:40:38,640
you saw the story. Here's a note from the founder. We got $100,000 back and we're going to wish him

950
01:40:38,640 --> 01:40:44,800
well. Okay, now your money was tied up for 13 months. Okay, what did Bitcoin do in that 13 months?

951
01:40:46,400 --> 01:40:52,960
It could have went down. It just did for a really long time. It went down. Okay, and now you're

952
01:40:52,960 --> 01:40:59,280
going to look at that and be like, Oh, that sucks, man, you know, I got my $1,000 back and Bitcoin's

953
01:40:59,280 --> 01:41:07,520
now 30% higher. Well, like, you know, it goes the other way too, you know, so it's all about timing.

954
01:41:08,480 --> 01:41:14,560
Our first fund, you could have sold less than half of Bitcoin or half of Bitcoin, let's call it,

955
01:41:14,560 --> 01:41:21,440
and you could have invested $25,000 at like a $60,000 Bitcoin price. Okay, the Bitcoin price,

956
01:41:21,440 --> 01:41:27,600
if you're measuring your wealth in dollars, sorry, if I'm like dumb, but if you are keeping score in

957
01:41:27,600 --> 01:41:33,840
dollars, you're down 50% right now. Actually, less than that, we rallied a little bit, right? We're

958
01:41:33,840 --> 01:41:41,360
38, but you haven't done great. And like our fund, especially after these next markups happen,

959
01:41:41,360 --> 01:41:47,600
has a positive IRR. So I don't know, but I don't know what's going to happen next, you know? And then

960
01:41:47,600 --> 01:41:56,560
that timing aspect of it is a crapshoot wherever you're at, right? Because right now, if you have

961
01:41:56,560 --> 01:42:04,880
$38,000, is it a better bet to invest $38,000 into any fund or a Bitcoin venture fund or any

962
01:42:04,880 --> 01:42:10,880
BC fund or anything, right? Or is it just better to buy one Bitcoin, stick it in your cold wallet,

963
01:42:10,880 --> 01:42:20,880
and fucking forget about it? You know, that's $38,000, might want to stack one, you know?

964
01:42:20,880 --> 01:42:24,880
And when you're like Walker, and you already have hundreds and thousands of Bitcoins,

965
01:42:24,880 --> 01:42:27,840
you know, you put in $30,000 into a venture fund to call it.

966
01:42:27,840 --> 01:42:36,240
This is, for anyone listening, I got into this space in 2020. I am a recent adopter,

967
01:42:36,240 --> 01:42:42,160
but I appreciate that context, Muzz, because I think it's important, right? And it's a question

968
01:42:42,160 --> 01:42:48,640
that people obviously ask you a lot. And I think, for me, at least the one other side that I'll add

969
01:42:48,640 --> 01:42:55,600
is just, it's a cool thing, even if it's not with very much money, but to invest in Bitcoin

970
01:42:55,600 --> 01:43:01,920
companies, if you believe in what they're doing, and just from a, I think that what you're doing is

971
01:43:01,920 --> 01:43:06,960
great, I think it's going to be a valuable product service. And I think it's going to make the world

972
01:43:06,960 --> 01:43:14,320
a little bit better. Like, investing in Bitcoin companies is actually effective altruism,

973
01:43:14,320 --> 01:43:19,600
but you actually might make some money off it, and you're not just a masquerading piece of shit,

974
01:43:19,600 --> 01:43:25,600
like most effective altruists. But yeah, with that, Muzz, unless there was something else

975
01:43:25,600 --> 01:43:28,960
you wanted to toss on top. I can't, we'll never get out of here, right?

976
01:43:28,960 --> 01:43:32,640
I know, I know. We'll just have to do it again then. That's the only solution.

977
01:43:33,280 --> 01:43:34,400
All right, you got it.

978
01:43:34,400 --> 01:43:39,920
We'll do a market update leading up to the having. How about that? See where things are.

979
01:43:39,920 --> 01:43:44,480
But then, Muzz, thank you so much. I'll link everything in the show notes. I appreciate your

980
01:43:44,480 --> 01:43:49,280
time and all you're doing for the Bitcoin space. I hope people listen to this and go,

981
01:43:49,280 --> 01:43:53,120
if nothing else, just check out these companies that you mentioned that are building really cool

982
01:43:53,120 --> 01:43:55,600
shit, because that's what it's all about, right?

983
01:43:55,600 --> 01:43:59,920
Yeah, thanks, Walker. You're the best, man. Give my love to Carla.

984
01:43:59,920 --> 01:44:01,120
I will, man. Cheers.

985
01:44:06,880 --> 01:44:13,520
And that's a wrap on this Bitcoin Talk episode of the Bitcoin Podcast. If you are a Bitcoin

986
01:44:13,520 --> 01:44:17,440
only company interested in sponsoring another fucking Bitcoin podcast,

987
01:44:17,440 --> 01:44:20,880
head to bitcoinpodcast.net or hit me up on social media.

988
01:44:20,880 --> 01:44:28,240
On Noster, head to primal.net slash Walker and on Twitter, search for at Walker America or at

989
01:44:28,240 --> 01:44:34,640
TITCOIN podcast. You can also watch the video version of this show on X or on YouTube by going

990
01:44:34,640 --> 01:44:41,840
to youtube.com slash at Walker America or rumble by searching for at Walker America. Bitcoin is

991
01:44:41,840 --> 01:44:48,880
scarce. There will only ever be 21 million, but Bitcoin podcasts are abundant. So thank you for

992
01:44:48,880 --> 01:45:04,800
spending your scarce time to listen to another fucking Bitcoin podcast. Until next time, stay free.