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Let's be super clear. So a treasury company really doesn't mean shit.

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How this started was a bunch of many sailors and only one company actually achieved it.

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That's basically what I think kneecapped the rally in 2025.

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I do think over the long haul, it's very possible to likely that it outperforms Bitcoin,

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but you're taking on excess risk to deliver those returns.

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They're not bedrock. They're not Bitcoin.

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One BTC equals one BTC. Everything else is a trade.

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And that doesn't stop just because there's some pretty good financial engineering going on.

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As it relates to AI and Bitcoin, where do you think, I guess, the common narratives fall short and where do you think they hit the mark?

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I think the much stronger use case that will suck up significantly more piles of Bitcoin is going to be humans that are censored that want to be able to pay for things, not agents.

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Corey, good to see you, man.

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It's been a while.

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We were just talking off camera here, well, on camera, off air.

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You've been on quite a content creation binge,

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and so I feel like I've been seeing you a lot,

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but it's just been through my interwebs.

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It's an interesting time to be in media, I think,

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because you're at this point where I've seen a lot of people make the arguments. It's like,

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well, I can just have AI generate my podcast for me and I can make AI talking heads that can,

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you know, say what you and I are saying. I can clone myself and make it AI. And I think that,

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and I'm curious of your take on this, because you've been in, you know, working with media

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more broadly a lot longer than I have, but I find that kind of approach to be very, or that analysis

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us to be very reductive in that I think that actually, uh, real people, uh, whether or not

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it's in person or transmitting, you know, over the, over the airwaves, I think that that gets,

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becomes a stronger and stronger, let's say currency in the age of AI, because everything

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is so fake and having the audience that trusts the actual person versus like, yeah, any sure,

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you can spin up any number of AI generated talking heads and they can say exactly what

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I'm saying, but they're not me or they're not you or they're not whomever. I'm curious of your,

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your take on that though, because I do think that it's, it's harder and harder to stand out amidst

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noise because the, the noise has just gotten as, has exploded. Right. But at the same time,

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if you are an authentic creator, if you are a real person, I do think you are, uh, you know,

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you're well positioned now. If you start creating content now versus if you start creating it in a

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couple of years, it's going to be hard to prove you're human, you know?

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You know, maybe, but I also think we're pretty well attuned to it. And, you know, your choices

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of what to do and to make something, you know, just obviously human, like getting outside and

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walking with a different background every single time, like I do on outside money. I mean,

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that right there is a pretty good indication that it's probably real.

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allowing for fuck-ups and not going back and correcting them.

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So I do all my videos in one take.

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I probably, I don't know, I think I had to do a second take

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because my mic cut out like once last week.

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And before that, it had been three weeks since I did a second take.

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You know, so I just think, you know, putting it out there,

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foibles and all, just makes it extremely real.

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You know, and being opinionated too.

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You know, I certainly adhere to journalistic standards the way that I was taught, you know, growing up and being a journalist in the early days.

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And some of you out there maybe know that I was a local NBC TV reporter in the late 90s and wrote for an early joint venture between Microsoft and NBC that we shall not combine into an acronym.

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But way before it became super lefty, it was just kind of like new media.

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And, you know, I think it's just really important to know what you know and know what you don't know and clearly delineate between the two and just put caveats around things that you're opining about or that you're wondering about and not stated as fact.

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And I think there's just so much out there in the Bitcoin space and in kind of the macro space around it where there's just like a lot of really confident bombast because that plays and that sells.

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but I think it plays and sells for eyeballs.

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And I think that people that are discerning

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and that actually have good judgment,

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which thankfully for a business like Swan

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that mostly serves kind of like the high end of affluent

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and high net worth,

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that correlates with having money generally.

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And those people don't like people

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who are out there talking out of their ass all the time

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and making shit up.

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And so we have just found over the years

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that you know really being stringent not putting out false narratives not putting out you know fake price models and bullshit price targets and you know claiming that you know the dollar

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is going to go way more Republic next year and all this kind of stuff that gets a lot

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of clicks.

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If you avoid all the bullshit, there's plenty to talk about that's real and that's interesting

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that actually educates people.

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And you're differentiating yourself and your company from all the noise very easily just

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by not chasing views and clicks and knowing that there are people in the audience that

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typically are the smarter ones and typically have more money that are going to appreciate it.

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I think that, I mean, I hear that and I think that it's, it's very difficult for people

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to take that, like to have that perspective and to actually stick to it these days, just because,

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especially if you're trying to kind of break out like if you don't have a company behind you if

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you're just starting out with some sort of uh with with journalism with content creation whatever it

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might be and the beauty is that like anybody like it's very very easy you can film on you know an

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iphone and get 4k video quality right like it's never been and with a set of airpods that provide

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really excellent audio it's never been easier to create content but at the same time i think that

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people feel that they if they're not being sort of like the loudest and most bombastic and most

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over the top and most sensationalist that people aren't going to pay attention, which there is some

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truth to it, you know, because people's attention spans are shorter than goldfish these days. I think

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like short form scrolling video content has just rotted so many brains. But I agree with,

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I agree with the point that, and this kind of goes back to this idea that like,

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it's better to have a very like a very dedicated core audience than it is to try and cast too wide

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the net and just, you know, appeal with sensationalism and see how far you can spread it.

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Because ultimately those, those types of subscribers, viewers, uh, followers, whatever

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you want to say, they're, they're not very sticky and they're not, they're people that

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are just going to go to the next sensationalist then, you know what I mean?

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Yeah.

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Well, you know, I, I do have to say, I think it's, it is a little bit apples and oranges

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because pure media is actually just an attention and eyeballs and it's, it's an attention game,

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right?

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And so that's who is successful if it's pure media.

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So there are pluses and minuses to putting out media as a company that sells something else where we don't monetize the media.

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It allows us to be selective about who our audience is.

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Because it doesn't matter to me if I get 50,000 views and it's the right kind of people.

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it doesn't matter if I get another 450,000 views

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if they were never going to buy anything from us anyway.

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Where there's a downside is like

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selling other things besides your product.

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So like, you know, throwing a conference,

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putting on Pacific Bitcoin, for instance.

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That's a lot easier to do

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as an kind of agnostic, nonpartisan media organization

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of some kind or like a meetup that grows into,

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you know, a meetup organizer

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and ends up doing a regional conference,

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something like that, it's a little harder to get a lot of people from the Bitcoin industry to come

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sponsor a company's conference, which is why most company conferences end up kind of like Dreamforce,

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where, you know, Salesforce foots the bill, essentially, for a lot of it. They may sell

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tickets, but, you know, the actual cost for somebody to attend is dramatically larger

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than what they actually pay for the ticket. So that's kind of where you're disadvantaged to some

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degree um is probably like merch and events and there's just kind of like a ceiling on it that's

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that's fairly low but i do like the degrees of freedom around uh putting out content and knowing

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that you can just seek to tell exactly what you want to say and not actually worry much about how

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many people watch it like it'll find its audience i i agree with i agree with that and i think your

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the videos you've been putting out i think are are nice they're very uh very digestible uh it's

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also encouraging people to walk which as a walker you know i'm very uh i'm very on board with i did

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want to ask you about the one you just put out today too because i think it's a i mean it kind

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of bleeds into what's about ai and bitcoin basically and you're kind of i won't i'll let

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you take this a little bit but to set the stage you talk about how kind of the uh let's say the

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maybe the main narratives that we've seen around the let's say the ai bull case for bitcoin or the

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ai powered bull case for bitcoin however you want to say it are maybe missing the mark a little bit

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can can you go can you go into that a bit because there's obviously a lot of talk about

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bitcoin is going to be you know is the preferred money for uh you know for agentic commerce let's

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say uh there's a lot of talk about how okay generally in a you know a deflationary world

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that in that I should usher in Bitcoin also tends to is, you know, is going to be the money

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built for that world. But where, you know, where do you think I guess the common narratives

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fall short And where do you think they hit the mark as it relates to AI and Bitcoin So I way more into the second narrative which is a store value narrative where i think is where i think kind of the it doesn hold water there no real logical case to be made

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for bitcoin exploding as a method of payment just because there's ai agents making payments

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that's what today's video was about and and the second one that i think is you know kind of a new

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myth that was really just posted by Jason Lowery, who I love his efforts to try to draw

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analogies between things and try to, you know, posit the way things might work in the future.

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And obviously he's eloquent and is a great writer.

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But I don't think that one hunts at all about using Bitcoin to, you know, basically kind

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of like proof of work and anti-spam and kind of charging agents extra so that we can have

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kind of a human-only internet.

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And it's like none of that works either.

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So I don't see either of those things happening or being a reasonable bull case for Bitcoin.

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You can push on either of them.

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Why do you think that doesn't work in terms of, because you're talking about like what he's talked about is proof of compute, basically, that you're going to need something to basically, you know, you're going to have to show energy expenditure, essentially, you're going to have to show compute that Bitcoin is naturally suited for that, basically.

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But you're saying you don't think that works for enforcing a human internet?

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No, it's just kind of ass backwards with regards to how the economy actually works and how e-com works.

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I mean, obviously, you're going to want agents to be parsing your website and finding solutions.

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Everything's going to be open.

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And then if humans are charging and you have some reason to try to distinguish and charge for some reason,

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if it's worth it for the agent to pay, the agent's going to pay.

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you know they're humans aren't the only ones that are going to be able to pay

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uh and then to kind of dovetail back to the first i think false narrative around that you know the

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payments are going to be in whatever the payment medium is today which is digital dollars basically

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for the most part i mean that's that's what that's what agents are paying and now stripe is exploding

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uh circles thing with arch or whatever is exploding i mean they're just going to be

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paying in dollars for a long time. What I think is going to be potentially interesting is if there

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could be in the not too distant future that agents will actually persist and will actually

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store value over periods of time. And because they don't have kind of the hangups that us meat

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sacks do, not being able to learn fast and having to get used to things and trying to listen to what

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Jamie Dimon says, you know, they should be able to make the choice fairly easily to store value

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in Bitcoin if they persist over time.

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So there actually could be kind of value sinks

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of agents actually sitting on decent-sized piles of Bitcoin

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and lots of them over time.

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But again, that's store of value first,

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medium of exchange, and unit of account trail.

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And I just don't see any reason

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why AI is going to be any different than that.

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I think that I would buy that

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in terms of the adoption of,

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like if we're saying the agentic adoption

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of Bitcoin at scale.

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I think it stands to reason that it, you know, you can make the case that you're sure that would probably follow what generally the human path of adoption is, which is store of value necessarily comes first.

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Medium of exchange, unitive accounts sort of happen.

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You know, the future is here at any given time.

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It's just not evenly distributed yet in terms of usage.

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And you can see that in terms of just Bitcoin behavior in the global south versus in the United States, for example, right?

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Different needs in different jurisdictions.

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one thing i do want to ask about though is okay i i can see the point you're making that like look

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they're just going to use stable coins right uh where i think there's a little bit of a wrench in

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that not just stable coins digital dollars like there's no reason it's even stable coins what do

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you need a stable coin sure like they'll just have bank accounts and they'll rack up micro

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payments and once you get like a few hundred grand you settle between the companies this is not a big

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deal this is fair but i think where you run into problems is when you start trying to pay for things

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cross-border with like what happens when chinese models get banned but people still want their you

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know they still want to use kimmy k3 right uh and and you know because uh because open ai and

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anthropic won't let them red team their own code base you know so that this is where i think that

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fiat generally and any you know any sort of uh even any centrally controlled you know crypto

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runs into the exact same problem when the ai world that it does in the human world which is

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there's a trusted third party. And so if somebody can stop you from making that payment,

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if the stablecoin issuer, if the digital dollar issuer, you know, if the bank, the correspondent

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bank, if the shitcoin issuer can stop you from making that payment as an AI agent trying to

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get things done as effectively as possible, would you not want the money that can't be stopped?

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So first off, it's hard for me to imagine a scenario where you would have access to a model,

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but not be able to pay for it It seems like the model access would be shut down along with that Second I do allow for in the video which I sure has been turned into an article by now as

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well by Philip on my team. He takes the scripts and turns them into articles every day as well.

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You know, I do allow for, obviously, if censorship resistance is important, then you'll choose

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Bitcoin. So if you have to make a payment or, you know, I think, but even that, I think the

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much stronger use case that will suck up significantly more piles of Bitcoin is going

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to be humans that are censored that want to be able to pay for things, not agents.

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So it'll be us, you know, some of us that are blocked from doing things we want to do

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and want to be able to pay for it. And the other payment rails are, are blocked from us,

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which I guess dovetails with what you were talking about.

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Like if I really want access to a model

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and there's no way for me to pay for that

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through Stripe or Circle or JP Morgan,

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then I'm going to use Bitcoin.

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Yeah.

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But the model still has to be available to me somehow.

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Right.

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Well, I mean, luckily with a lot of these things,

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the genie's sort of out of the bottle

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or out of the lamp, however,

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monkey's out of the bottle.

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But I think the other piece here is actually the,

211
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Okay, so you've got the, you have the no trusted third party thing, right?

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The uncensurability of it.

213
00:16:57,950 --> 00:17:02,870
But I think also the final settlement piece is very important for this because when we're

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talking about actually purchasing compute, we are talking about something that is directly

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00:17:08,430 --> 00:17:11,350
tied to real world energy expenditure as is Bitcoin.

216
00:17:11,950 --> 00:17:15,890
And so you have this, you have this dynamic where you don't want to pay for real world

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00:17:15,890 --> 00:17:16,150
energy.

218
00:17:16,270 --> 00:17:20,270
Well, I should say you'd like to pay for real world energy expenditure on credit.

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the receiver who is the one, you know, generating those tokens, expending the energy,

220
00:17:24,630 --> 00:17:28,910
they do not want to receive something that can potentially be, you know, walked back that can be

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00:17:28,910 --> 00:17:32,830
reversed, right? Either by the bank, the credit card processor, whatever. Now, I don't think

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00:17:32,830 --> 00:17:38,530
that's, again, a huge issue right now for these things. But I think that that's the other sort of

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angle that I'm tracking where I say, look, like the final settlement piece matters, like not being

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able to walk back when you've already paid for the compute, you've already used the tokens,

225
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and then you reverse the charge, you report the fraud, the quote fraud, and you end up never

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footing the bill. That's where I think final settlement becomes an interesting layer in this.

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But I think with all of these things, they're going to take time because right now it's like,

228
00:18:02,250 --> 00:18:09,170
again, just like with us humans, the convenient thing is just to use the existing system that's

229
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out there, right? And until it stops working or until it starts giving you enough problems,

230
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I don't think most people or agents make the switch, but maybe the agents are, you know,

231
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maybe they're a little bit, as you said, you know, faster to evolve than us meatbags.

232
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But who knows? Who knows? It's an interesting time. It's an interesting time.

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No, it is absolutely fascinating. And during my warmup, I can't listen to podcasts when I

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actually work out. But during the warmup, I was listening to an old friend of mine from Chicago

235
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is the inventor of Ruby on Rails,

236
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Dave Hennemeyer Hansen.

237
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And they had a big Rails conference

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somewhere in Europe.

239
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Oh no, actually I think it was in Austin

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a few days ago.

241
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And he gave a keynote

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and he's just going through all this stuff.

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And I have never seen him that hyper

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in my entire life.

245
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He was just kind of,

246
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and it does that to you.

247
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It is really exciting.

248
00:19:04,730 --> 00:19:07,290
I kind of had a couple of months

249
00:19:07,290 --> 00:19:11,050
of just breathing AI around the clock,

250
00:19:11,490 --> 00:19:14,030
probably like mid-December through mid-February

251
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until I was like, okay, this is not sustainable.

252
00:19:16,930 --> 00:19:19,990
Built two Swan products by myself.

253
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Obviously they weren't secure

254
00:19:21,830 --> 00:19:23,130
and had to be taken over and fixed

255
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by Jan and the security team.

256
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But the UI was basically what I came up with,

257
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which is crazy.

258
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And then I built another app just for myself as well.

259
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And I hadn't coded since 1999,

260
00:19:36,070 --> 00:19:45,390
which is insane so yeah it is it is super fun uh there's so much you can do uh it gets a lot harder

261
00:19:45,390 --> 00:19:51,730
when you get into you know personal you know pii personally identifiable information and obviously

262
00:19:51,730 --> 00:19:56,870
anything around money and a bearer asset like bitcoin like that shit better not just be vibe

263
00:19:56,870 --> 00:20:02,690
coded but um you know for little tools and utilities i mean the things you can do just

264
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not even being a coder. It's just off the charts. It's so fun.

265
00:20:05,630 --> 00:20:11,610
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It is a really kind of exciting time because I've been doing the same sort of thing.

299
00:22:35,591 --> 00:22:45,251
And obviously there's some differences and I've used both for the same purpose of deploying various sites or building something out for myself.

300
00:22:45,271 --> 00:22:52,511
but you know between chat gpt and and claude but it's just like it's just so good like it's it's

301
00:22:52,511 --> 00:22:57,831
crazy how little manual things you need to do like sometimes there's there's still some stuff

302
00:22:57,831 --> 00:23:02,871
but like the fact that you can kind of one shot a lot of this is just nuts like it's nuts from a

303
00:23:02,871 --> 00:23:07,191
productivity standpoint where it's like you can go from hey i kind of like need to whatever put

304
00:23:07,191 --> 00:23:10,491
together this data in a particular way and i you know i need to explain a site and i wanted to also

305
00:23:10,491 --> 00:23:15,471
you know do x y and z and like instead of needing to like go to somebody who knows you know either

306
00:23:15,471 --> 00:23:19,671
learn to code yourself or go to somebody who knows how to code you can just say what you want

307
00:23:19,671 --> 00:23:25,711
you can just talk to this you know this this machine and it can do it pretty well for you

308
00:23:25,711 --> 00:23:32,451
i think that that's like that's pretty fucking wild it's it's pretty crazy that we're at that

309
00:23:32,451 --> 00:23:38,051
point now i'm curious if you think this starts to because it feels like the pace has been breakneck

310
00:23:38,051 --> 00:23:45,371
And yes, you know, the big boys are calling for a pacing and a slowdown as they ship new models and as they raise more money.

311
00:23:45,771 --> 00:23:48,051
So, you know, two sides of their mouth that they're talking out of.

312
00:23:48,491 --> 00:23:55,091
But I'm curious if you think in terms of like hitting a plateau, are we anywhere close to that?

313
00:23:55,791 --> 00:23:57,591
Or has that already happened?

314
00:23:58,151 --> 00:23:58,731
Do you know what I mean?

315
00:23:58,771 --> 00:24:05,531
Like where are we at in terms of, let's say, usefulness for the average person and just capabilities more broadly?

316
00:24:05,531 --> 00:24:11,791
And do you think on the valuation side of things, there's some trouble brewing?

317
00:24:13,351 --> 00:24:21,031
So every time you think you might be hitting some kind of plateau, just wait a few weeks and something else comes through.

318
00:24:21,591 --> 00:24:24,971
I think in this case, so two things.

319
00:24:24,971 --> 00:24:27,451
one, Jev, which came out

320
00:24:27,451 --> 00:24:29,351
10 days ago, maybe

321
00:24:29,351 --> 00:24:31,451
which basically had the

322
00:24:31,451 --> 00:24:33,571
unbelievable insight that you didn't

323
00:24:33,571 --> 00:24:35,651
need a frontier model to do a lot of the functions

324
00:24:35,651 --> 00:24:37,131
that we were all spending tokens on

325
00:24:37,131 --> 00:24:39,451
and so, you know, as our team has started to

326
00:24:39,451 --> 00:24:41,271
integrate Jev into all our

327
00:24:41,271 --> 00:24:43,471
workflows, I mean, the token spend is just down

328
00:24:43,471 --> 00:24:45,171
tremendously, it's like a

329
00:24:45,171 --> 00:24:47,451
you know, it can be a massive

330
00:24:47,451 --> 00:24:49,451
cost reducer, like 50 to 90%

331
00:24:49,451 --> 00:24:51,191
productivity goes up again

332
00:24:51,191 --> 00:24:53,391
and he named it Jev for a reason because it was

333
00:24:53,391 --> 00:24:54,671
you know, Jeevan's paradox

334
00:24:54,671 --> 00:24:58,131
that the cheaper something gets,

335
00:24:58,211 --> 00:25:00,791
the more you spend on it or that kind of thing.

336
00:25:00,831 --> 00:25:04,511
Or like the more you reduce the work of computer engineers,

337
00:25:04,631 --> 00:25:06,251
the more computer engineers you'll have.

338
00:25:07,011 --> 00:25:07,151
Yeah.

339
00:25:07,631 --> 00:25:08,671
You know, that kind of thing.

340
00:25:08,791 --> 00:25:10,271
So that's Steven's paradox

341
00:25:10,271 --> 00:25:11,491
and that's why he named it Jev.

342
00:25:11,931 --> 00:25:13,651
And that's been exploding on the scene.

343
00:25:14,271 --> 00:25:16,871
I guess the other thing that I just keep noticing is,

344
00:25:17,491 --> 00:25:19,791
you know, I'd say the open weight,

345
00:25:20,331 --> 00:25:21,711
you know, kind of Chinese models,

346
00:25:21,711 --> 00:25:27,471
It felt like they were always reaching parity about six months lag.

347
00:25:27,931 --> 00:25:34,771
Like a year and a half ago, it was like they'd kind of be where Claude and OpenAI were six months before.

348
00:25:35,311 --> 00:25:38,891
And now it just seems like that window is down to maybe two months.

349
00:25:39,711 --> 00:25:46,391
So they're just right behind the curve of the extremely expensive trillion dollar valuation, U.S. behemoths.

350
00:25:46,391 --> 00:26:10,665
And then the other thing you brought up is you know they have been shooting their shot begging the government to come own part of them and guarantee and entrench them so that they the two winners and nobody else can afford to comply with the regulation And I think enough people have seen through that to call bullshit

351
00:26:10,665 --> 00:26:19,105
and be like, you know, fuck off commie, basically, to Dario in particular, which is amazingly that

352
00:26:19,105 --> 00:26:25,745
there's somebody less likable right now than Sam Altman, who's just loathsome. But, you know,

353
00:26:25,745 --> 00:26:30,705
The two of them, oh my God, we're like seeking alignment with those two guys at the helm.

354
00:26:31,105 --> 00:26:32,885
It's horrific.

355
00:26:33,305 --> 00:26:39,725
So no matter what they do, there's no way we can trust the future of humanity with super

356
00:26:39,725 --> 00:26:41,625
intelligence to those two guys.

357
00:26:41,925 --> 00:26:46,325
And so the lesser evil by far is open competition in my view.

358
00:26:46,885 --> 00:26:49,425
And I think the administration has seen through that shit.

359
00:26:49,425 --> 00:26:57,965
But I think that every centrist and right-leaning person has seen through the kind of attempted capture through the Democrats.

360
00:26:59,245 --> 00:27:01,905
We'll see because I think they'll come back out.

361
00:27:02,045 --> 00:27:07,705
They made a big push a couple of weeks ago with, you know, oh, my God, the agents got loose.

362
00:27:08,005 --> 00:27:11,665
Not really. I did a video on that, too, by the way, probably a month ago.

363
00:27:11,665 --> 00:27:25,765
So I do think after the midterms, you'll see them with a new PR plan that's fully coordinated and, you know, mystery accounts that come out of nowhere and confess the horrible things going on and that you have to come regulate us and all these things.

364
00:27:26,705 --> 00:27:33,605
But I have a feeling it's just, you know, like you said, the monkey's out of the bottle, cat's out of the bag.

365
00:27:34,105 --> 00:27:35,945
I don't know, all those things, you know.

366
00:27:36,645 --> 00:27:38,365
I just don't think you put it back in.

367
00:27:38,365 --> 00:27:46,945
And again, it's partially because the open-weight models are just so closely trailing the best capabilities of the big, valuable frontier models.

368
00:27:47,725 --> 00:27:48,905
This ain't going nowhere.

369
00:27:49,165 --> 00:27:51,045
We're just going to keep on pushing and pushing and pushing.

370
00:27:51,225 --> 00:27:53,685
And I don't think there's anything the government can do one way or the other.

371
00:27:53,805 --> 00:27:58,045
The game theory around this is, you know, it's pretty easy to understand.

372
00:27:58,285 --> 00:28:05,085
It's certainly not as complicated as the game theory, the six great games of Bitcoin video that I put out yesterday.

373
00:28:05,665 --> 00:28:06,305
That was a beast.

374
00:28:06,305 --> 00:28:07,745
That took the entire weekend to write.

375
00:28:07,745 --> 00:28:11,685
I have not, I did not have a chance to watch that one beforehand.

376
00:28:11,945 --> 00:28:13,945
I wanted to, so I need to.

377
00:28:14,205 --> 00:28:14,445
It's okay.

378
00:28:15,645 --> 00:28:21,065
But I do want to ask you, there are too many fascinating things to talk about these days.

379
00:28:21,165 --> 00:28:22,025
That's the problem.

380
00:28:22,085 --> 00:28:26,405
It's a good problem for us podcasters like myself to have.

381
00:28:26,405 --> 00:28:33,145
I did want to ask you on kind of the Bitcoin side of things, just where you see us right now.

382
00:28:33,405 --> 00:28:36,905
I think that the vibes were very weird for a while.

383
00:28:36,905 --> 00:28:52,205
I think, I don't know if you saw the piece and the analysis that Checkmate and Michael Sullivan put out on just peak apathy a couple months back, right around the bottom, basically saying nobody cares about Bitcoin and it looks like we bottomed.

384
00:28:53,205 --> 00:29:01,525
I think the treasury company, let's say, Arena, took a pretty hearty beating.

385
00:29:01,525 --> 00:29:08,105
people were once again calling you know announcing sailors demise far too early this seems to be

386
00:29:08,105 --> 00:29:13,545
still doing just fine stacking more sats I'm just kind of curious like zooming out a bit where

387
00:29:13,545 --> 00:29:21,085
where you see us right now from both like a a perception standpoint from let's say a vibes

388
00:29:21,085 --> 00:29:26,605
based standpoint how like do people still just not really care about bitcoin outside of our

389
00:29:26,605 --> 00:29:31,365
little niches even though we've got ETFs even though we've got treasury companies is this still

390
00:29:31,365 --> 00:29:36,925
very much a niche asset and then on the other side sort of where do you think we're at structurally

391
00:29:36,925 --> 00:29:42,865
in terms of okay is this is this starting to look like the moment that bitcoin was really

392
00:29:42,865 --> 00:29:47,965
made for you know or or do uh does the fiat system keep kicking the can down the road

393
00:29:47,965 --> 00:29:55,425
indefinitely and you know it just stays kind of stays kind of boring well obviously you may know

394
00:29:55,425 --> 00:30:00,705
that was one of my banger videos that did like four or five hundred k use was you know we can

395
00:30:00,705 --> 00:30:05,145
kicked this can down the road for decades. And it was basically just steel manning the thesis of how

396
00:30:05,145 --> 00:30:09,785
we could actually do that and just keep the Western system going and have kind of treasury

397
00:30:09,785 --> 00:30:13,645
as the store of value and the dollar monetary network, et cetera, and just keep on rolling

398
00:30:13,645 --> 00:30:19,805
the debt. And it is possible. It's not outside the realm of possibility. There is no guarantee

399
00:30:19,805 --> 00:30:24,325
that they're not going to be able to kind of chart a soft landing and keep it going.

400
00:30:24,325 --> 00:30:31,665
I think somebody pointed out hilariously that the chart we always see,

401
00:30:31,885 --> 00:30:33,125
let's try to draw it for the audience.

402
00:30:33,285 --> 00:30:36,965
Yeah, so this chart we always see with M2 money supply going up,

403
00:30:37,765 --> 00:30:39,785
that's also M2 money demand.

404
00:30:41,745 --> 00:30:43,005
That's a demand chart.

405
00:30:43,545 --> 00:30:44,005
They meet.

406
00:30:44,345 --> 00:30:45,105
It's the same line.

407
00:30:45,885 --> 00:30:49,585
So there's plenty of demand for trees and dollars globally,

408
00:30:49,845 --> 00:30:51,125
and that's not going anywhere.

409
00:30:51,125 --> 00:30:54,925
Not to mention that all of the other fiat currencies

410
00:30:54,925 --> 00:30:57,845
in the Western system maintain essentially a peg

411
00:30:57,845 --> 00:31:00,305
within a small range that goes from the pound,

412
00:31:00,425 --> 00:31:01,485
the euro, the yen, the yuan,

413
00:31:02,045 --> 00:31:04,845
basically anything other than a relative

414
00:31:04,845 --> 00:31:08,985
or actual autocrat or just like a busted economy

415
00:31:08,985 --> 00:31:23,638
like Argentina or Turkey or something like that Everything else basically just trades to the dollar pretty closely I do like this kind of I guess it a theory

416
00:31:23,758 --> 00:31:29,758
but it feels like it's starting to have more empirical facts coming in,

417
00:31:29,818 --> 00:31:33,698
which is that because we got the ETFs when we did,

418
00:31:34,518 --> 00:31:38,638
and we've known since May of 2023 that BlackRock applied

419
00:31:38,638 --> 00:31:40,558
and, you know, was going to get their ATF

420
00:31:40,558 --> 00:31:42,078
and everybody else would get dragged along.

421
00:31:44,518 --> 00:31:47,038
From then and from the launch of those,

422
00:31:47,138 --> 00:31:50,318
I think it was Jan 10 or 11 of 24,

423
00:31:51,418 --> 00:31:54,378
for me, that was like four or five years earlier

424
00:31:54,378 --> 00:31:55,218
than I was expecting.

425
00:31:55,758 --> 00:31:59,218
And I really thought coming out of, you know,

426
00:31:59,218 --> 00:32:02,678
all the crypto scamming and collapses of 22,

427
00:32:03,078 --> 00:32:05,198
that we could have really taken advantage

428
00:32:05,198 --> 00:32:08,558
of that next four or five years to hammer home

429
00:32:08,558 --> 00:32:14,898
really solid, good Bitcoin education when it was still jumping through a hoop to own the real thing.

430
00:32:16,158 --> 00:32:22,318
Now, instead, we got the ETFs when we did, and that made it extremely easy for institutions

431
00:32:22,318 --> 00:32:27,878
and retail individuals, families, whatever, to load up on Bitcoin price exposure

432
00:32:27,878 --> 00:32:33,398
without having to learn shit about Bitcoin. And they did. And they're paper-handed,

433
00:32:33,398 --> 00:32:40,378
both the institutions and the retail and you know individuals whatever and uh sorry i got dark in

434
00:32:40,378 --> 00:32:47,498
here i guess that camera doesn't last or that light doesn't last very long um so that's basically

435
00:32:47,498 --> 00:32:55,338
what i think kneecapped the rally in 2025 was just that there were a lot of paper-handed holders that

436
00:32:55,338 --> 00:33:01,318
that you know piled in because you know larry and abby did you know black rock and fidelity whether

437
00:33:01,318 --> 00:33:05,978
they were buying real Bitcoin through Coinbase or buying an ETF. It was the last thing in their

438
00:33:05,978 --> 00:33:11,978
portfolio was the thing they understand the least well. And I think the analogy in Bitcoin's history

439
00:33:11,978 --> 00:33:21,118
that sounds the same to me is in 2014, after Bitcoin peaked in December of 13 at like 1100,

440
00:33:21,738 --> 00:33:27,338
you know, crashed down to 300, eventually bottomed out, you know, 180 was the worst daily close. I

441
00:33:27,338 --> 00:33:29,618
I think it was like 159 intraday at some point.

442
00:33:30,318 --> 00:33:32,758
And a lot of people just took a flyer on it.

443
00:33:32,918 --> 00:33:35,458
So this is when a lot of my options traders,

444
00:33:35,598 --> 00:33:38,178
homies from Chicago and hedge fund guys in New York,

445
00:33:38,238 --> 00:33:39,798
like just bought a big bag of Bitcoin

446
00:33:39,798 --> 00:33:42,798
because the chart looked like that was a good gamble.

447
00:33:43,098 --> 00:33:44,918
And they bought fat stacks

448
00:33:44,918 --> 00:33:47,118
and some of them held by accident.

449
00:33:47,418 --> 00:33:49,558
Most of them traded out of it

450
00:33:49,558 --> 00:33:51,358
when it got to like 600 or a thousand

451
00:33:51,358 --> 00:33:54,358
because it was a good trade and they got out of it.

452
00:33:54,858 --> 00:33:56,678
And I think that's what happened with the ETFs.

453
00:33:56,678 --> 00:33:59,198
we got the ETFs when Bitcoin was in the high 30s.

454
00:33:59,638 --> 00:34:04,658
And when you started to see, you know, 80K, 100K, 125K,

455
00:34:04,838 --> 00:34:06,198
they were like, oh, good trade.

456
00:34:06,418 --> 00:34:08,438
You know, it's just another asset in my portfolio.

457
00:34:08,878 --> 00:34:11,798
I made my bag and they never learned much

458
00:34:11,798 --> 00:34:13,238
about Bitcoin in the first place.

459
00:34:13,818 --> 00:34:16,558
And I think that's why we had such a kind of muted cycle.

460
00:34:16,758 --> 00:34:18,738
And I think it's also, you know,

461
00:34:18,738 --> 00:34:22,098
they basically adopted an inferior form of Bitcoin

462
00:34:22,098 --> 00:34:23,858
and didn't have to learn anything about it.

463
00:34:23,858 --> 00:34:35,578
And so I just think that education around Bitcoin has not been much in demand for the last few years since the launch of the ETFs.

464
00:34:35,858 --> 00:34:47,818
And of course, just like we kind of fought the shitcoin wars, the great shitcoin wars of 2017 to 2023, where they're all saying, you know, we've got a better Bitcoin.

465
00:34:47,818 --> 00:34:49,758
And we're like, no, you don't.

466
00:34:49,758 --> 00:35:01,038
You know, basically now people inside and outside of Bitcoin are, you know, marketing securities for the most part, you know, ETFs or stonks or whatever.

467
00:35:02,598 --> 00:35:08,238
And then, you know, because so many, like, it's hard to run a Bitcoin business and actually make it profitable.

468
00:35:08,398 --> 00:35:09,398
Like, that's not easy.

469
00:35:09,538 --> 00:35:13,478
And so a lot of people just get into lending because, you know, a loan shark always makes money.

470
00:35:13,478 --> 00:35:18,078
So that's kind of where you see most of the Bitcoin fintech work just goes to lending.

471
00:35:18,078 --> 00:35:31,218
And again, that's where most of that capital is provided by Tether because they're willing to come in under everybody else in the market and lend to Bitcoiners and custody the coins ultimately at Bitfinex to provide that capital.

472
00:35:32,158 --> 00:35:36,178
So, you know, there's a, it's a weird little situation.

473
00:35:36,178 --> 00:35:48,178
I think the other thing that's kind of weird in the space right now is, you know, I did a video called the dollar merchants a few weeks ago, which was just kind of pointing out like you see it.

474
00:35:48,638 --> 00:35:54,318
Stablecoin, stablecoin, stablecoin, like, and it's half the damn Bitcoin companies to have essentially just become dollar merchants.

475
00:35:54,698 --> 00:36:02,278
And they're all trying to jam dollars onto Bitcoin or they just, you know, end up and they basically have an app that allegedly has Bitcoin.

476
00:36:02,278 --> 00:36:06,138
But for the most part, most of their volumes in these countries around the world is just selling dollars.

477
00:36:06,178 --> 00:36:09,678
And that's just been a theme for quite some time now.

478
00:36:09,678 --> 00:36:13,938
And so the dollar monetary network is extremely strong.

479
00:36:13,938 --> 00:36:19,478
It's obviously part of having a strong monetary network for for a money or a currency

480
00:36:19,478 --> 00:36:34,611
is it a lot easier to make money in and around that as you know what at the top is the interest on treasuries and that can be split up and trickled down to lots of little startups that can you know start working on dollars instead of bitcoin you

481
00:36:34,611 --> 00:36:40,371
know there's nobody paying interest on bitcoin so there's no there's no good way to to hit size

482
00:36:40,371 --> 00:36:45,931
and make feces happy unless i think cash app did actually just start sorry to interrupt i think

483
00:36:45,931 --> 00:36:49,911
cash app i just literally saw this because i've got i've got like a uh you know a little bit of

484
00:36:49,911 --> 00:36:57,431
spending coin in uh some sats in cash app uh and like i said it's a nice like clean uh user

485
00:36:57,431 --> 00:37:01,531
interface and everything and good experience but they started like they started giving you some

486
00:37:01,531 --> 00:37:07,211
sats and interest like which i i don't remember seeing any announcement about it but i just

487
00:37:07,211 --> 00:37:11,991
noticed that i got that i got paid some so i actually like this just happened a couple days

488
00:37:11,991 --> 00:37:15,131
ago that i noticed so i need to actually look into like i probably just missed the announcement

489
00:37:15,131 --> 00:37:17,051
or something. But you are correct

490
00:37:17,051 --> 00:37:18,651
that for, by and large,

491
00:37:18,791 --> 00:37:21,211
the last people to kind of do that

492
00:37:21,211 --> 00:37:22,491
was like a block fight.

493
00:37:23,331 --> 00:37:24,491
But is that on your dollars?

494
00:37:25,511 --> 00:37:26,831
No, no, on my Bitcoin balance.

495
00:37:27,091 --> 00:37:29,031
It's on your Bitcoin. On my Bitcoin balance

496
00:37:29,031 --> 00:37:29,671
paid in Bitcoin.

497
00:37:31,631 --> 00:37:33,131
I mean, that's just

498
00:37:33,131 --> 00:37:35,011
a gift, obviously. That's marketing.

499
00:37:35,811 --> 00:37:37,131
Because they're not putting your

500
00:37:37,131 --> 00:37:37,951
Bitcoin to work.

501
00:37:39,111 --> 00:37:40,971
And lending it out to shorts, which is what

502
00:37:40,971 --> 00:37:42,691
Celsius and BlockFi did. Unless they are, because I know

503
00:37:42,691 --> 00:37:44,351
Squared, they do a lot of lightning routing.

504
00:37:45,131 --> 00:37:49,731
uh through you know square which is also underneath block so that's how i could see

505
00:37:49,731 --> 00:37:54,811
that i know that they're making you know they're making some transaction like

506
00:37:54,811 --> 00:37:59,831
they might be able to pay you out like one basis point per month or something

507
00:37:59,831 --> 00:38:06,431
like you don't make much money doing lightning routing no no no but i mean it is uh let me see

508
00:38:06,431 --> 00:38:12,231
what they i'll have to i'll have to dig deeper into exactly how they're doing this but that would

509
00:38:12,231 --> 00:38:16,511
I don't know if that's the case, if that's actually how they're doing it, but that would just be,

510
00:38:16,631 --> 00:38:23,151
that would be my assumption. But I could be wrong. I do want to ask you too,

511
00:38:23,391 --> 00:38:29,751
in terms of this last cycle, how big of a factor do you think treasury companies were

512
00:38:29,751 --> 00:38:36,191
in either the, you know, the price rise or the price fall? I've heard it posited that, you know,

513
00:38:36,571 --> 00:38:41,991
one of the reasons we sort of had a bit of a muted top is because a lot of the froth was actually

514
00:38:41,991 --> 00:38:46,711
the treasury companies um and so a lot of the you know the really the really frothiness was

515
00:38:46,711 --> 00:38:54,131
happening sort of uh you know via a proxy and a lot of that capital flowed into there that would

516
00:38:54,131 --> 00:38:58,731
have maybe otherwise flown into spot you know float into spot a lot of these uh you know companies

517
00:38:58,731 --> 00:39:05,431
have have hung around a lot have not a lot of you know a lot of struggled um strategy obviously

518
00:39:05,431 --> 00:39:11,171
remains uh quite strong and very well capitalized not the case across the board but i'm curious

519
00:39:11,171 --> 00:39:15,751
how you think the treasury companies sort of what role they played in this last

520
00:39:15,751 --> 00:39:19,431
bull and bear and what role you think they'll play in the upcoming

521
00:39:19,431 --> 00:39:23,691
bull and then you know we will have another bear eventually like i hate to break it to people but

522
00:39:23,691 --> 00:39:28,211
you know it will happen again but where are you at with that look so let's be let's be super clear

523
00:39:28,211 --> 00:39:33,231
so a treasury company broadly just means like having some bitcoin on your balance sheet

524
00:39:33,231 --> 00:39:39,211
really doesn't mean shit i mean it's great we should have more like tesla and spacex and you

525
00:39:39,211 --> 00:39:46,991
Swan and hopefully your little LLC, hopefully in Wyoming or something, has a little Bitcoin in the company or whatever.

526
00:39:48,131 --> 00:39:48,871
Those are great.

527
00:39:49,531 --> 00:39:57,291
What the point of strategy is, is to provide leveraged access to Bitcoin through a ticker and a brokerage account.

528
00:39:58,111 --> 00:40:05,771
So that actually is a subset of Bitcoin treasury companies that I think is accurately referred to as a leveraged Bitcoin equity in LBE.

529
00:40:05,771 --> 00:40:13,751
and there's only one other company that has actually achieved that which is strive all the

530
00:40:13,751 --> 00:40:19,931
rest either failed or are still attempting to get there or have given up and turned back into just

531
00:40:19,931 --> 00:40:26,051
operating companies with a bitcoin treasury but they're not doing the thing that was hoped for

532
00:40:26,051 --> 00:40:33,571
and sold back in 25 and 24 so there's only two horses in the race and whether anybody else ever

533
00:40:33,571 --> 00:40:40,111
gets over the hump and can actually do the thing. We'll see. I know NACA says they're not doing it.

534
00:40:42,071 --> 00:40:48,811
Pomp's thing is not going to do it. XXI said they're not going to do it. I don't know what

535
00:40:48,811 --> 00:40:52,571
else is still out there, but there's basically only two companies actually doing the thing.

536
00:40:52,651 --> 00:40:57,311
And the only reason that Strive was able to do it is because they cut a deal with Similar,

537
00:40:58,011 --> 00:41:02,531
which got them enough Bitcoin unencumbered by a convertible debt to be able to issue a

538
00:41:02,531 --> 00:41:07,451
pref in the first place, which is how you provide that perpetual leverage, which theoretically,

539
00:41:07,451 --> 00:41:12,431
if you keep your expenses low and you do a good job with marketing, you should be able to stack

540
00:41:12,431 --> 00:41:22,211
more Bitcoin over time per share because you have the leverage. What I think we won't see

541
00:41:22,211 --> 00:41:29,531
going forward is a higher sharp ratio for strategy than Bitcoin. So I do think over the long haul,

542
00:41:29,531 --> 00:41:34,531
It's very possible to likely that it outperforms Bitcoin,

543
00:41:34,731 --> 00:41:38,171
but you're taking on excess risk to deliver those returns.

544
00:41:38,571 --> 00:41:39,991
So I think it's a very popular trade

545
00:41:39,997 --> 00:41:44,917
instrument and people like going, you know, long with leaps and doing covered calls and trading

546
00:41:44,917 --> 00:41:49,597
it against Bitcoin and all kinds of other shit. And I think it'll be a very popular trading

547
00:41:49,597 --> 00:41:55,197
instrument for a long time. And if you have the stomach for massive volatility over like a decade,

548
00:41:55,197 --> 00:42:00,657
then, you know, I think that's totally fine. I probably the only thing that's changed for me is

549
00:42:00,657 --> 00:42:08,277
I would say in, you know, 2024, I gave the personal advice to clients and asked, you know,

550
00:42:08,277 --> 00:42:09,477
as much as they were comfortable,

551
00:42:10,157 --> 00:42:11,397
the Swan private team,

552
00:42:11,577 --> 00:42:14,677
like John and Steven and the whole crew back then,

553
00:42:14,797 --> 00:42:17,557
like just try really hard to tell these people

554
00:42:17,557 --> 00:42:19,357
of whatever you think your bucket

555
00:42:19,357 --> 00:42:21,137
of Bitcoin price exposure is,

556
00:42:21,237 --> 00:42:23,597
make sure at least 80% of it is the real thing

557
00:42:23,597 --> 00:42:26,137
and consider the rest your trading pile.

558
00:42:26,517 --> 00:42:28,017
And I'd say the only thing that's changed for me

559
00:42:28,017 --> 00:42:29,917
from 24 to 26 is that number

560
00:42:29,917 --> 00:42:32,317
for my recommendation is 90% plus.

561
00:42:33,397 --> 00:42:35,597
So less exposure to the stocks

562
00:42:35,597 --> 00:42:37,417
and all of that stuff

563
00:42:37,417 --> 00:42:39,837
than you would otherwise have.

564
00:42:41,537 --> 00:42:44,417
I don't think that the...

565
00:42:44,417 --> 00:42:45,657
There wasn't...

566
00:42:47,277 --> 00:42:50,097
So when you look at like Sequans,

567
00:42:50,197 --> 00:42:51,877
which I tried to help get off the ground,

568
00:42:51,877 --> 00:42:53,797
when you look at Empory,

569
00:42:54,477 --> 00:42:56,517
which is basically wrapping up

570
00:42:56,517 --> 00:42:59,077
and gave it the college try back in 24 as well,

571
00:42:59,597 --> 00:43:02,137
Procap, which was Pomp's thing,

572
00:43:02,777 --> 00:43:06,817
and then I guess Strive got out of the gate

573
00:43:06,817 --> 00:43:07,797
a little bit earlier.

574
00:43:07,997 --> 00:43:08,737
I'm missing one.

575
00:43:08,837 --> 00:43:10,617
There were like four that actually launched

576
00:43:10,617 --> 00:43:11,657
in summer of 25.

577
00:43:13,197 --> 00:43:14,397
Yeah, summer of 25.

578
00:43:14,517 --> 00:43:15,697
Out of hundreds that tried,

579
00:43:15,817 --> 00:43:17,137
there were four that actually raised,

580
00:43:17,397 --> 00:43:18,097
you know, big rounds.

581
00:43:18,357 --> 00:43:20,137
That wasn't capital that otherwise

582
00:43:20,137 --> 00:43:21,137
would have gone into Bitcoin.

583
00:43:22,217 --> 00:43:23,857
Across the board, for the most part,

584
00:43:23,937 --> 00:43:25,397
that money was coming from institutions

585
00:43:25,397 --> 00:43:26,737
that had, you know,

586
00:43:27,477 --> 00:43:28,557
a lock on the Bitcoin

587
00:43:28,557 --> 00:43:30,217
if something bad happened, whatever.

588
00:43:30,397 --> 00:43:31,197
Kind of like what you've seen

589
00:43:31,197 --> 00:43:32,337
with the unwind of BSTR.

590
00:43:32,637 --> 00:43:34,317
Like, they don't get to keep the Bitcoin

591
00:43:34,317 --> 00:43:35,797
if they don't do the thing.

592
00:43:35,797 --> 00:43:46,677
And, you know, wherever that Bitcoin came from, the 25,000 coins that sit in the Cayman entity from God knows who, like they're getting their coins back until VSTR figures out what it's going to do.

593
00:43:46,677 --> 00:43:50,417
Right. And I think that's, you know, total conjecture.

594
00:43:50,517 --> 00:43:52,477
It's probably the case with XXI as well.

595
00:43:53,037 --> 00:44:01,997
Like, I don't think it's logical that Tether would put their own coins in a U.S. public company.

596
00:44:01,997 --> 00:44:07,517
it makes a lot more sense that they would use some offshore entity and gather coins from like

597
00:44:07,517 --> 00:44:13,157
their old you know non-KYC Bitfinex clients and have this as a way to kind of like clean the coins

598
00:44:13,157 --> 00:44:19,857
and if the stock does well at some point they can sell the stock and now they finally got their

599
00:44:19,857 --> 00:44:24,857
their cash from back in the day into the system I think that probably makes a lot more sense for

600
00:44:24,857 --> 00:44:29,337
what's going on there again pure conjecture but it's kind of the only thing that logically makes

601
00:44:29,337 --> 00:44:34,797
sense to me. So again, I don't think there was much, you know, and then if there was some retail

602
00:44:34,797 --> 00:44:39,517
that tried to come in and, you know, NACA was shilling, like, I got to share, you got to share,

603
00:44:39,677 --> 00:44:44,497
Cardone's got to share. Like there was somebody selling on each side of those. So I just don't,

604
00:44:44,577 --> 00:44:49,397
I just don't know that there was that much demand that got sucked up there. And then strategy,

605
00:44:49,497 --> 00:44:57,397
I don't think really can get blamed for 25 because their peak was 24. Like they, they popped off and

606
00:44:57,397 --> 00:45:01,297
hit 400 or whatever in right after the election, right?

607
00:45:01,317 --> 00:45:06,797
It was in the mid-November of 24 and it was already way down, kind of front ran the bear

608
00:45:06,797 --> 00:45:13,717
or the end of the bull, I guess, at least in 25 by a long shot, kind of shot its shot

609
00:45:13,717 --> 00:45:14,217
in 24.

610
00:45:14,757 --> 00:45:16,257
So I don't think it was that.

611
00:45:16,477 --> 00:45:22,757
I think it was much more, you know, a lot of people that piled into ETFs or bought Bitcoin

612
00:45:22,757 --> 00:45:39,567
or maybe bought some treasury stocks or whatever that didn understand what they owned and were just playing a trade And that was always inevitable when you had the institutions come or you had like the institutional adoption of Bitcoin or as they always say like we building pipes

613
00:45:39,647 --> 00:45:40,227
we're building pipes.

614
00:45:40,307 --> 00:45:41,927
Well, if you build pipes and you make it easy

615
00:45:41,927 --> 00:45:43,407
to get Bitcoin price exposure,

616
00:45:43,547 --> 00:45:44,887
it's easy to sell that Bitcoin

617
00:45:44,887 --> 00:45:46,327
and you've got a bunch of people

618
00:45:46,327 --> 00:45:47,467
that don't understand what they hold.

619
00:45:48,847 --> 00:45:51,527
Do you think, is your thesis now different

620
00:45:51,527 --> 00:45:54,987
than what it was when you guys were sort of

621
00:45:54,987 --> 00:45:56,027
helping out and advising?

622
00:45:56,147 --> 00:45:57,027
And I don't know what the official,

623
00:45:57,027 --> 00:45:59,867
like Capacitamos, you know, you can let me know.

624
00:45:59,987 --> 00:46:03,327
But when you guys were working with or on Sequens,

625
00:46:03,707 --> 00:46:06,467
was your thesis at that point different than it is now?

626
00:46:06,547 --> 00:46:08,107
Has that informed your current thesis

627
00:46:08,107 --> 00:46:11,647
just based on that experience of kind of what worked and what didn't?

628
00:46:11,667 --> 00:46:13,827
No, I still had the same thesis.

629
00:46:14,027 --> 00:46:17,707
I thought you needed to have enough unencumbered Bitcoin nav

630
00:46:17,707 --> 00:46:18,887
to be able to lever up

631
00:46:18,887 --> 00:46:20,787
so that you could become a leveraged Bitcoin equity

632
00:46:20,787 --> 00:46:23,487
because otherwise you're just an operating company

633
00:46:23,487 --> 00:46:24,767
with Bitcoin on your balance sheet.

634
00:46:24,767 --> 00:46:35,407
But Sequan's basically, like, I was excited about it because it looked like we had, you know, how long ago is this now?

635
00:46:35,647 --> 00:46:37,527
I mean, this is more than a year later.

636
00:46:37,627 --> 00:46:40,387
I don't know what my confidentiality agreement is there, but whatever.

637
00:46:41,687 --> 00:46:46,147
You know, at some point, they had like 1.3 billion circled for that raise.

638
00:46:47,487 --> 00:46:54,487
And unfortunately, like two or three days before it closed, the Trump media deal, like, shit the bed.

639
00:46:54,767 --> 00:47:06,587
And I think it was, I don't know which one of those dummies, Eric and Don Jr. came out and were like, Bitcoin and crypto, you know, and it was like, oh my God, and everybody sold it off. And it just kind of shit the bed. That was kind of the end of the market there.

640
00:47:06,587 --> 00:47:10,507
and I think that raise ended up

641
00:47:10,507 --> 00:47:11,347
and this is all public

642
00:47:11,347 --> 00:47:13,987
I think the raise ended up being like 385

643
00:47:13,987 --> 00:47:16,327
instead of like 1.2 or 1.3 billion

644
00:47:16,327 --> 00:47:21,667
and so if Bitcoin had continued to rip

645
00:47:21,667 --> 00:47:24,267
and you could have done another private deal

646
00:47:24,267 --> 00:47:26,467
you would have had to like combine with Empree

647
00:47:26,467 --> 00:47:28,127
or similar or something like that

648
00:47:28,127 --> 00:47:30,907
but these firms were mostly encumbered

649
00:47:30,907 --> 00:47:31,987
the reason you could do similar

650
00:47:31,987 --> 00:47:33,527
is because they didn't have a convert

651
00:47:33,527 --> 00:47:35,947
so their Bitcoin was sitting there unencumbered

652
00:47:35,947 --> 00:47:48,067
And so, you know, a little inside baseball that I'm just aware of secondhand, it was actually NACA that had structured the deal with Semler and I'd been working on it for like two or three weeks and we're about to sign.

653
00:47:48,607 --> 00:47:55,547
And at the last second, I think, you know, my understanding is Semler, you know, Peng Strive and they were like, we're about to do this deal.

654
00:47:55,647 --> 00:47:56,707
Do you want to give us a better deal?

655
00:47:57,247 --> 00:48:02,667
And that happened over like two days at the end and they, you know, did it instead of NACA.

656
00:48:02,667 --> 00:48:14,447
So, you know, we can sit here and like, I have all kinds of gripes with, you know, crypto mag, with all the crypto conferences under the Bitcoin brand over the years.

657
00:48:14,647 --> 00:48:19,607
And, you know, David lives in Puerto Rico and considers himself part of the crypto industry, et cetera, et cetera.

658
00:48:19,827 --> 00:48:21,167
They also do good things.

659
00:48:21,467 --> 00:48:22,647
They do bad things, whatever.

660
00:48:23,047 --> 00:48:25,307
Nobody's 100% pro, 100% con.

661
00:48:27,287 --> 00:48:28,727
They almost made it.

662
00:48:28,727 --> 00:48:36,367
like what I would say the worst managed and worst executed of those companies actually is the one

663
00:48:36,367 --> 00:48:44,227
that almost made it, but Strive did instead. You know, so these things were, they were bets.

664
00:48:44,227 --> 00:48:51,867
I would say the number one thing that I wanted to do as an advisor to Sequans was market

665
00:48:51,867 --> 00:48:56,947
exclusively to institutional investors. That's what I really think these things should do.

666
00:48:56,947 --> 00:49:01,187
and I do think it's sad that they haven't been able to kind of get the smart money

667
00:49:01,187 --> 00:49:04,127
on board with it because I don't think it's that hard of a sale.

668
00:49:04,727 --> 00:49:07,487
I do think MicroStrategy does a lot of that in the background

669
00:49:07,487 --> 00:49:10,107
but because we're on Twitter and YouTube we kind of only see

670
00:49:10,107 --> 00:49:13,927
what they're doing for retail but like they do have institutional meetings

671
00:49:13,927 --> 00:49:17,307
and they do have a lot of institutions on their cap table

672
00:49:17,307 --> 00:49:33,977
and you see the announcements of institutions picking up 1 picking up 4 Like it does happen that institutions build And that who I think these things are largely for It shouldn be just a retail story It should be marketed to institutions

673
00:49:34,237 --> 00:49:39,657
And if retail people are savvy enough, again, hopefully capping their exposure to a treasury

674
00:49:39,657 --> 00:49:46,157
stock to like 10% of their total Bitcoin price exposure pile, then I don't have a quibble

675
00:49:46,157 --> 00:49:46,777
with it.

676
00:49:46,777 --> 00:50:04,277
So again, I just think that it's going to be, you're going to be taking excess risk. So like more volatility than is worth it going forward. So I just, you know, I recommend either not playing the game. If you are, make sure it's for the very long term.

677
00:50:04,277 --> 00:50:08,357
and, you know, that you pick one of the ones that's well run and has a good team,

678
00:50:08,437 --> 00:50:12,817
which, you know, as far as I'm looking at it right now is just strategy and strive in the U.S.

679
00:50:12,817 --> 00:50:17,317
And I don't look at anything else as having, they're not even in the game at all.

680
00:50:19,397 --> 00:50:26,757
And you may outperform in the long run, but it'll be a lot of excess risk that you take there.

681
00:50:26,757 --> 00:50:33,217
Key man risk, regulatory risk, you know, what happens if Sailor, Vivek and Matt, like, you know,

682
00:50:33,217 --> 00:50:38,237
get bored and don't want to do this anymore and you know all kinds of other things plus all your

683
00:50:38,237 --> 00:50:42,957
prefs can get hunted at the same time you know that's what we saw starting to happen with with

684
00:50:42,957 --> 00:50:48,937
strategies you know basically there was very low bids for any of their securities which kind of

685
00:50:48,937 --> 00:50:53,617
reminded me of how long-term capital management went under in 98 and i think if bitcoin had

686
00:50:53,617 --> 00:50:58,617
continued to drop you might have just seen all of the prices of all the securities that they sell

687
00:50:58,617 --> 00:51:00,357
just plummet at the same time

688
00:51:00,357 --> 00:51:01,837
and kind of become a spiral.

689
00:51:02,117 --> 00:51:05,577
So, you know, I don't think that they're...

690
00:51:05,577 --> 00:51:07,357
They're not bedrock.

691
00:51:07,557 --> 00:51:08,417
They're not Bitcoin.

692
00:51:08,777 --> 00:51:10,277
One BTC equals one BTC.

693
00:51:10,457 --> 00:51:11,477
Everything else is a trade.

694
00:51:11,477 --> 00:51:13,557
And that doesn't stop just because

695
00:51:13,557 --> 00:51:16,657
there's some pretty good financial engineering going on.

696
00:51:18,177 --> 00:51:20,437
I take it then you would not get involved

697
00:51:20,437 --> 00:51:22,677
in another treasury company at this point?

698
00:51:25,297 --> 00:51:26,677
No, I mean...

699
00:51:28,617 --> 00:51:37,357
I mean, it would have to be something that was already at size, you know, where you kind of just stepped in and was already at the thing.

700
00:51:37,877 --> 00:51:40,657
But I do think a lot of people will do that again.

701
00:51:40,957 --> 00:51:46,057
What I don't think is, I don't think it ever makes sense for Swan to do it.

702
00:51:47,337 --> 00:51:51,577
I just think that people don't want to see operating companies next to that strategy.

703
00:51:51,577 --> 00:51:57,017
They want to see you completely focused on just the Bitcoin leverage machine and just be a pure LBE.

704
00:51:57,017 --> 00:52:00,117
and I don't think there's any institutional investor

705
00:52:00,117 --> 00:52:02,137
with a thesis around an operating company

706
00:52:02,137 --> 00:52:03,357
that sits on a bunch of Bitcoin.

707
00:52:03,937 --> 00:52:06,277
I've not heard a single person have a thesis

708
00:52:06,277 --> 00:52:08,657
around what kind of the leftovers

709
00:52:08,657 --> 00:52:11,057
that didn't make it are doing still.

710
00:52:11,377 --> 00:52:14,217
I don't think anybody has a bull case for that.

711
00:52:15,437 --> 00:52:17,237
Well, and I know we're short on time here,

712
00:52:17,317 --> 00:52:17,837
but I would say-

713
00:52:17,837 --> 00:52:19,377
It would make for a very boring conference

714
00:52:19,377 --> 00:52:21,557
if you only have strategy and strive there,

715
00:52:21,817 --> 00:52:23,297
but that's basically what's going on.

716
00:52:23,357 --> 00:52:25,117
So I think you really have to make that

717
00:52:25,117 --> 00:52:27,697
just about businesses that want to stack Bitcoin.

718
00:52:28,697 --> 00:52:29,937
And that's fine.

719
00:52:30,057 --> 00:52:30,577
That's cool.

720
00:52:30,637 --> 00:52:31,717
I can get behind that.

721
00:52:31,837 --> 00:52:34,397
I think it's awesome to use, you know, SwanSafe, SwanVault.

722
00:52:34,497 --> 00:52:35,497
We're building Swan Trinity.

723
00:52:35,497 --> 00:52:38,677
I have thousands and thousands of business customers.

724
00:52:38,977 --> 00:52:41,817
And if that's what BTC Treasuries is about,

725
00:52:41,917 --> 00:52:47,057
is just businesses that stack enterprise clients of Bitcoin merchants,

726
00:52:47,677 --> 00:52:48,537
awesome.

727
00:52:48,777 --> 00:52:49,317
That's great.

728
00:52:49,817 --> 00:52:51,037
But let's be realistic.

729
00:52:51,037 --> 00:52:57,957
how this started was a bunch of many sailors and only one company actually achieved it

730
00:52:57,957 --> 00:53:05,257
i do like what uh what orange juice is doing because i think that's at least like that that's

731
00:53:05,257 --> 00:53:08,857
that's taking what you said you know it's not just it's not bitcoin treasury companies it's

732
00:53:08,857 --> 00:53:12,937
companies that have an operating business and also have a bitcoin treasury but in this case

733
00:53:12,937 --> 00:53:27,227
there long capital going into them that being sort of managed at scale and in a consolidated way I think that that thesis makes a lot of sense just because it is so far removed from everything else in the treasury company space

734
00:53:27,447 --> 00:53:28,587
And you're actually looking at, you know,

735
00:53:29,147 --> 00:53:32,247
the classic, you know, the HVAC business

736
00:53:32,247 --> 00:53:34,127
or the vet clinic, whatever it might be.

737
00:53:34,527 --> 00:53:36,187
I know we ran over time here,

738
00:53:36,247 --> 00:53:37,167
so I do want to thank you, Corey.

739
00:53:37,787 --> 00:53:39,587
Glad we got a chance to catch up a little bit.

740
00:53:39,667 --> 00:53:40,687
Where do you want to send folks?

741
00:53:40,967 --> 00:53:43,767
And, you know, so they can check out the videos

742
00:53:43,767 --> 00:53:45,187
that you've been putting out so prolifically.

743
00:53:45,467 --> 00:53:50,107
I appreciate it. Well, first off, uh, my email address is out there,

744
00:53:50,227 --> 00:53:53,687
Corey at swan.com. So if you want to talk to me about it,

745
00:53:53,687 --> 00:53:58,947
Oh, it's fine. Dude, the, the, the filters are insane at this point. It's fine. You get a little

746
00:53:58,947 --> 00:54:02,487
bit more spam, but it's totally worth it. I mean, I'm, I'm hearing from like a couple dozen people

747
00:54:02,487 --> 00:54:07,327
a day and it's just, it's awesome. And I've done multiple videos based on topics that people have

748
00:54:07,327 --> 00:54:14,967
sent in. And of course we get a ton of business. So, um, so first I would say, uh, I'm super

749
00:54:14,967 --> 00:54:18,627
excited about the most recent product that we launched a couple of months ago, which is called

750
00:54:18,627 --> 00:54:26,027
Real Bitcoin Exchange. So I would say if you have any old GBTC that's like well in the black and you

751
00:54:26,027 --> 00:54:32,787
don't want to pay that 1.5% a year anymore to Barry, we can get that into Real Bitcoin for you

752
00:54:32,787 --> 00:54:39,127
with no cap gains tax. So swan.com slash RBX or email me, Corey, at swan.com. That's probably our,

753
00:54:39,347 --> 00:54:43,407
I mean, that's probably the most novel new product in the history of Bitcoin fintech in the US. So

754
00:54:43,407 --> 00:54:46,547
I love seeing that explode. Our pipeline's insane.

755
00:54:47,487 --> 00:54:50,187
Otherwise, just get in touch, coryetswan.com.

756
00:54:50,667 --> 00:54:54,467
Corey Swan, my pinned post is always the new video of the day.

757
00:54:55,047 --> 00:54:57,967
There's a playlist on our YouTube as well. You can see it there.

758
00:54:58,687 --> 00:55:01,447
And then there's an archive of all of them at

759
00:55:01,447 --> 00:55:06,747
cory.substack.com. So you can see the articles and the videos

760
00:55:06,747 --> 00:55:09,647
there as well. But yeah, I'd love to hear from you guys.

761
00:55:09,647 --> 00:55:12,087
amazing to see

762
00:55:12,087 --> 00:55:13,907
Walker, one of the

763
00:55:13,907 --> 00:55:16,427
four horsemen of the Blonde Apocalypse

764
00:55:16,427 --> 00:55:17,927
along with me and Quidham

765
00:55:17,927 --> 00:55:20,447
and Lubka, the originals.

766
00:55:21,007 --> 00:55:22,147
I guess we gotta throw

767
00:55:22,147 --> 00:55:24,187
maybe Joe Nakamoto in there as

768
00:55:24,187 --> 00:55:25,687
the fifth of the starting five.

769
00:55:26,207 --> 00:55:27,867
He is British and a brunette, but

770
00:55:27,867 --> 00:55:29,667
he can join, I think.

771
00:55:29,667 --> 00:55:31,767
But he's got the neck

772
00:55:31,767 --> 00:55:33,587
and the nose and the long face.

773
00:55:33,807 --> 00:55:35,067
He's kind of part of the crew.

774
00:55:35,687 --> 00:55:37,647
And then, of course, coming off the bench is

775
00:55:37,647 --> 00:55:39,507
the waterboy, Tatum Turnup.

776
00:55:39,647 --> 00:55:40,967
He's just going to be a mascot for the crew.

777
00:55:42,147 --> 00:55:43,847
I'm going to clip that and send it to Tatum.

778
00:55:44,967 --> 00:55:45,887
Yeah, he knows.

779
00:55:46,607 --> 00:55:47,507
It'll make his day.

780
00:55:47,967 --> 00:55:49,667
Well, Corey, I appreciate your time, man.

781
00:55:49,987 --> 00:55:52,987
Appreciate everyone who joined in on NOS during the live stream as well.

782
00:55:53,647 --> 00:55:55,367
Corey, I hope we get to this in person soon.

783
00:55:56,487 --> 00:55:57,587
Yes, would love that, man.

784
00:55:57,647 --> 00:55:58,367
It's great to see you.

785
00:55:58,367 --> 00:56:02,707
And please say hi to Carla from me and from the Swan crew.

786
00:56:03,007 --> 00:56:05,187
We miss you guys, and hopefully we'll all hang out soon.

787
00:56:06,087 --> 00:56:06,647
Cheers, man.

788
00:56:09,647 --> 00:56:18,507
And that's a wrap on this Bitcoin Talk episode of The Bitcoin Podcast.

789
00:56:19,147 --> 00:56:23,127
Remember to subscribe to this podcast wherever you're watching or listening,

790
00:56:23,547 --> 00:56:27,427
and share it with your friends, family, and strangers on the internet.

791
00:56:27,427 --> 00:56:34,127
Find me on Noster at primal.net slash walker and this podcast at primal.net slash titcoin.

792
00:56:34,707 --> 00:56:37,987
On X, YouTube, and Rumble, just search at Walker America.

793
00:56:37,987 --> 00:56:42,827
and find this podcast on X and Instagram at titcoinpodcast.

794
00:56:43,267 --> 00:56:45,507
Head to the show notes to grab sponsor links,

795
00:56:45,607 --> 00:56:50,327
head to substack.com slash atwalkeramerica to get episodes emailed to you

796
00:56:50,327 --> 00:56:54,127
and head to bitcoinpodcast.net for everything else.

797
00:56:54,667 --> 00:56:58,227
Bitcoin is scarce, but podcasts are abundant.

798
00:56:58,727 --> 00:57:03,847
So thank you for spending your scarce time listening to the Bitcoin podcast.

799
00:57:03,847 --> 00:57:06,907
Until next time, stay free.

800
00:57:07,987 --> 00:57:09,987
.