1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:09,340 Alex Leishman, CEO and CTO of River, one of the best and most focused Bitcoin financial institution now. 2 00:00:09,360 --> 00:00:10,380 How are we describing ourselves? 3 00:00:10,960 --> 00:00:12,540 Yeah, you call us a financial institution. 4 00:00:12,920 --> 00:00:14,260 Can't say bank yet, but. 5 00:00:16,000 --> 00:00:20,780 Yet, interesting, interesting characterization there, but one of the best in the world. 6 00:00:21,160 --> 00:00:22,000 Good friend. 7 00:00:23,080 --> 00:00:25,960 Been on the show many times, but it's time to catch up. 8 00:00:25,980 --> 00:00:27,160 The world is chaotic out there. 9 00:00:28,080 --> 00:00:30,500 Many people are worried Bitcoin's at $67,000. 10 00:00:31,520 --> 00:00:34,280 It's detached from the NASDAQ. 11 00:00:34,480 --> 00:00:35,620 Gold and silver are pumping. 12 00:00:37,560 --> 00:00:39,160 Epstein files have been released. 13 00:00:39,380 --> 00:00:40,440 It's all over, sir. 14 00:00:41,400 --> 00:00:43,860 Yeah, you know, apparently Epstein's Satoshi. 15 00:00:47,720 --> 00:00:51,080 It's been a combination of hilarious and tiresome, 16 00:00:51,240 --> 00:00:54,220 watching the narrative slow through over the last few weeks. 17 00:00:54,220 --> 00:00:58,920 But yeah, there's been a lot of new information. 18 00:01:00,460 --> 00:01:07,900 You know, I think one of the problems with the whole Epstein thing is sort of, you know, it's like the ultimate boogeyman. 19 00:01:08,240 --> 00:01:16,780 Right. And this guy who is very rich and connected for a long time emailed people in all walks of life all over the world. 20 00:01:16,780 --> 00:01:19,600 And unfortunately, some of those people were working on Bitcoin. 21 00:01:20,180 --> 00:01:23,840 And so everything seems to get sucked into his orbit. 22 00:01:24,220 --> 00:01:32,740 unfortunately. It's sort of like Wikipedia. How many hops does it take to connect two things? 23 00:01:32,920 --> 00:01:36,020 It's sort of like, what's the hop between anything important and Jeffrey Epstein? It's basically 24 00:01:36,020 --> 00:01:43,940 like one or two. And so I think everything, not just Bitcoin, is getting pulled into all of that. 25 00:01:44,800 --> 00:01:49,380 Yeah. It's almost like it was a concerted effort to wrap almost everything in his web. 26 00:01:49,380 --> 00:01:56,020 yeah exactly but we don't have to uh belabor the epstein files i think uh 27 00:01:56,740 --> 00:02:03,200 why i love catching up with you is because you have some deep behind the scene knowledge 28 00:02:03,200 --> 00:02:09,320 of what's actually happened happening uh in terms of adoption of bitcoin i mean you interact with 29 00:02:09,320 --> 00:02:15,580 your clients with individuals and businesses every day uh your research team shout out to sam 30 00:02:15,580 --> 00:02:21,820 and everybody putting putting a lot of effort into your research reports trying to figure out 31 00:02:21,820 --> 00:02:28,960 what's actually happening on the network and this morning you released your uh your basically state 32 00:02:28,960 --> 00:02:34,980 of bitcoin adoption light and uh reports and there was a lightning network report that went out 33 00:02:34,980 --> 00:02:40,900 yesterday um and so i think it'll be good to start there like what what are you guys seeing 34 00:02:40,900 --> 00:02:46,340 behind the scenes in terms of bitcoin adoption in this are we calling it a bear market or is this a 35 00:02:46,340 --> 00:02:51,780 bull market correction right now i'm i would call it a bear market i think it's a bear market um 36 00:02:51,780 --> 00:02:56,100 yeah we gave a little taste of our adoption research and we're going to have a much more 37 00:02:56,100 --> 00:03:03,460 thorough report coming out uh next next week um but but really i would call this a bear market um 38 00:03:03,460 --> 00:03:10,500 you know the price is down over the last year when you know tech stocks gold other things have rallied 39 00:03:10,500 --> 00:03:17,580 a lot. But what's different in this bear market, and we've been through a lot of bear markets at 40 00:03:17,580 --> 00:03:23,280 River, I've been through even more just personally, at this point, 13 years working on Bitcoin, 41 00:03:24,240 --> 00:03:31,980 adoption hasn't really been slowing down in this bear market. Historically, we saw capital flee, 42 00:03:32,540 --> 00:03:38,960 we saw adoption really come to a halt during previous bear markets when Bitcoin was in a much 43 00:03:38,960 --> 00:03:46,460 smaller era of its life. And that's not really happening right now. Business adoption of Bitcoin 44 00:03:46,460 --> 00:03:51,820 continues to grow. Individual adoption of Bitcoin continues to grow. The smart money continues to 45 00:03:51,820 --> 00:03:58,520 allocate to Bitcoin. And so that's, you know, happy to dig into that. But I think that's like, 46 00:03:58,520 --> 00:04:06,080 what's really interesting here. And so, you know, we detail a lot of those findings 47 00:04:06,080 --> 00:04:11,160 in this report we're going to put out well that's that's one of my favorite uh 48 00:04:11,160 --> 00:04:16,740 periodic updates you give is the type of businesses that are uh onboarding to river 49 00:04:16,740 --> 00:04:25,020 and adopting bitcoin i think that is high signal and i think this could dovetail into um the adoption 50 00:04:25,020 --> 00:04:29,640 and distribution of ownership charts that you guys have been putting out uh over the last week 51 00:04:29,640 --> 00:04:37,760 but this is a signal that I always look for is somebody runs a business yes we're a media 52 00:04:37,760 --> 00:04:44,380 business focused on Bitcoin specifically so it makes sense that we would invest in Bitcoin as 53 00:04:44,380 --> 00:04:51,680 a treasury asset and use it for payroll and other things as well but I think I've always been waiting 54 00:04:51,680 --> 00:04:57,020 for that sort of mainstream breakthrough for business owners who have nothing to do with 55 00:04:57,020 --> 00:05:03,120 Bitcoin, recognizing that it's worthwhile for them to hold some on their business balance sheet. 56 00:05:03,240 --> 00:05:07,460 And it seems like that's accelerating. Yeah. What we've seen in the last year is 57 00:05:07,460 --> 00:05:15,000 that the individual ownership of Bitcoin has decreased or, you know, the net sort of the 58 00:05:15,000 --> 00:05:21,020 amount of Bitcoin in existence, the percent held by individuals has gone down and the percent 59 00:05:21,020 --> 00:05:30,040 held by businesses has increased substantially. So yeah, if you look at this chart, you can see that 60 00:05:30,040 --> 00:05:37,860 basically the Bitcoin held by individuals has been eaten up by businesses. Now, it's important 61 00:05:37,860 --> 00:05:44,240 to point out, individuals at the end of the day are still the owners of businesses and DTFs and 62 00:05:44,240 --> 00:05:53,460 things like this. But I think what this is showing is Bitcoin is maturing. It's now like, 63 00:05:53,720 --> 00:05:58,160 this never would have happened in a previous bear market, right? In previous bear markets, 64 00:05:58,160 --> 00:06:03,360 who would have thought that, you know, the transfer of Bitcoin would be happening from 65 00:06:03,360 --> 00:06:10,080 individuals to businesses and Wall Street. And on the business side, what we're seeing is this 66 00:06:10,080 --> 00:06:13,000 isn't all just financial institutions. 67 00:06:13,000 --> 00:06:15,520 This is also Main Street businesses. 68 00:06:16,720 --> 00:06:18,160 The businesses at River... 69 00:06:18,160 --> 00:06:19,580 So in the last year, right, 70 00:06:19,620 --> 00:06:21,440 the Bitcoin prices went down 71 00:06:21,440 --> 00:06:22,960 and the amount of businesses 72 00:06:22,960 --> 00:06:27,580 that accumulated Bitcoin at River doubled. 73 00:06:28,180 --> 00:06:31,000 So, you know, we saw record growth 74 00:06:31,000 --> 00:06:33,300 in the amount of businesses buying Bitcoin 75 00:06:33,300 --> 00:06:37,540 despite the flat and down market. 76 00:06:38,400 --> 00:06:39,620 So, you know, 77 00:06:40,080 --> 00:06:47,560 So, you know, so then you could ask, then the obvious question is, well, if all of this is happening, then why is the price dropping? 78 00:06:48,140 --> 00:06:51,880 And I think that is actually like, you know, the most interesting question there is. 79 00:06:52,740 --> 00:06:54,660 And I don't think anyone knows the full answer. 80 00:06:54,840 --> 00:06:58,460 It's obviously a market full of millions of actors, each making their own decisions. 81 00:06:58,460 --> 00:07:16,380 But I think what we're seeing is while this transition is happening, there's some short-term price, you know, downward price movement because some of the individual Bitcoin being transferred is like early whales selling. 82 00:07:16,540 --> 00:07:25,480 We're definitely seeing some of the early big holders selling and sort of establishing, diversifying their wealth after holding Bitcoin for over a decade. 83 00:07:25,480 --> 00:07:33,440 um and but then we're also seeing i think the result of some of some more sophisticated uh 84 00:07:33,440 --> 00:07:41,980 maybe less ideological instant large institutions own bitcoin um using using it for leverage 85 00:07:41,980 --> 00:07:46,220 trading it when needed selling it because it's the most liquid asset out there on their balance 86 00:07:46,220 --> 00:07:54,420 sheet to sell when there's any sort of um scare or or fear in the market and so um i think this 87 00:07:54,420 --> 00:08:00,480 basically like the price downturn is the result also of the institutional adoption of bitcoin 88 00:08:00,480 --> 00:08:08,260 for various reasons but i think long term this is bullish yeah as you see here on the chart too 89 00:08:08,260 --> 00:08:16,360 you have the 2024 figure of net bitcoin moving from individuals and it was negative i think 525 90 00:08:16,360 --> 00:08:25,320 000 bitcoin around there if i recall correctly so around 1.25 well let's just say one and a quarter 91 00:08:25,320 --> 00:08:31,480 million bitcoin moving out of the hands of individuals towards the sort of entities on the 92 00:08:31,480 --> 00:08:36,520 left side of this uh chart here you know that's what i think i think a lot of people look at 93 00:08:37,240 --> 00:08:43,560 businesses c plus 489 000 and they think oh this is the digital asset treasury company is scooping 94 00:08:43,560 --> 00:08:48,280 up all the bitcoin but and they're certainly getting a large amount of it but it's not just 95 00:08:48,280 --> 00:08:54,360 these types of businesses right yeah absolutely and you know we're also beyond just operating 96 00:08:54,360 --> 00:08:58,640 businesses well actually just to give you a taste of like who's buying you know bitcoin at river we 97 00:08:58,640 --> 00:09:06,140 really see it all we see uh summer camps um you know putting their excess cash in bitcoin or using 98 00:09:06,140 --> 00:09:10,820 our bitcoin interest on cash product to earn to hold some cash but also earn bitcoin on the interest 99 00:09:10,820 --> 00:09:17,980 We see construction companies, real estate companies, restaurant change, food manufacturers. 100 00:09:17,980 --> 00:09:37,800 There's a cool one, a really cool one is that there is this there's a an order of I won't be too specific, but sort of a a a Christian group, a Catholic group that has been saving in Bitcoin for a long time. 101 00:09:37,800 --> 00:09:44,320 And they're there. They use the capital gains on that to finance construction of new buildings. 102 00:09:44,320 --> 00:09:53,020 um and uh so we see we really see like a really broad array of uh of uh institutions and businesses 103 00:09:53,020 --> 00:09:57,640 buying and using bitcoin and it's really really cool to see because all the news on twitter you 104 00:09:57,640 --> 00:10:03,160 see is like this bitcoin treasury company blackrock and everything we see behind the scenes is real 105 00:10:03,160 --> 00:10:10,260 main street institutions uh allocating to bitcoin yeah and i think the um the pumping of the treasury 106 00:10:10,260 --> 00:10:15,140 companies and blackrock and all that and the blackrock stuff really drives my gears because 107 00:10:15,140 --> 00:10:19,460 everybody's like blackrock bought this amount of bitcoin today or blackrock sold that amount of 108 00:10:19,460 --> 00:10:23,540 bitcoin today and said well actually like they have customers that are buying their etf and then 109 00:10:23,540 --> 00:10:29,300 they have to go out there so i think the um the i mean blackrock is buying it on behalf their 110 00:10:29,300 --> 00:10:34,740 customers so technically they are buying it but there's a bunch of individuals um driving those 111 00:10:34,740 --> 00:10:41,140 flows in and out of that ibit etf but i think one thing because we did it was funny you guys dropped 112 00:10:41,140 --> 00:10:47,540 this chart last week the same day here at tftc we made this um ownership distribution sort of 113 00:10:49,380 --> 00:10:55,860 infographic video for lack of a better description on the go here and many people are looking at this 114 00:10:55,860 --> 00:11:00,580 chart watch that video and said oh my gosh like the individuals are giving up their sovereignty 115 00:11:00,580 --> 00:11:06,880 and it's true obviously to an extent it's undeniable from the chart more individuals 116 00:11:06,880 --> 00:11:13,980 are selling their bitcoin as you said earlier a lot of whales um but i think getting into the 117 00:11:13,980 --> 00:11:23,600 sort of the the nature of this rotation and is it okay is bitcoin losing its ethos this is peer-to-peer 118 00:11:23,600 --> 00:11:32,280 digital cash system for individuals to leverage? Or is this just the product of maturation? And 119 00:11:32,280 --> 00:11:39,640 should this be expected? I think that it's to be expected. If you look at any mature asset, 120 00:11:40,300 --> 00:11:47,060 there's a lot of institutional involvement, right? No asset can hit maturity and be globally 121 00:11:47,060 --> 00:11:51,840 important and have no major institutional involvement. I don't see how that could 122 00:11:51,840 --> 00:12:00,300 possibly work. But that said, I do think it's important that as actors in the Bitcoin community, 123 00:12:00,300 --> 00:12:07,620 if you want to call it a community or just in the Bitcoin network, we recognize that there's an 124 00:12:07,620 --> 00:12:17,120 increasing amount of actors in this network who are less principled and don't really share the 125 00:12:17,120 --> 00:12:25,760 early ethos of Bitcoin. And so we need to make sure that the governance and the governance of 126 00:12:25,760 --> 00:12:32,160 the protocol can't, doesn't get taken over too much by people who don't actually follow the ethos. 127 00:12:32,660 --> 00:12:38,560 So, you know, exactly how to accomplish that. I think it's, you know, it's going to be something 128 00:12:38,560 --> 00:12:43,580 we have to sort out over the coming years. And I'm not actually too worried about it, 129 00:12:43,580 --> 00:12:44,920 but it is something we should be thoughtful about. 130 00:12:45,980 --> 00:12:46,140 Yeah. 131 00:12:46,860 --> 00:12:49,120 No, I think people look at this chart right here. 132 00:12:49,300 --> 00:12:53,120 Institutions may own a majority of Bitcoin within a decade and shriek. 133 00:12:53,120 --> 00:12:57,100 I think MVK made this clear to me many years ago. 134 00:12:57,260 --> 00:12:59,560 It's like, hey, if Bitcoin's successful, everybody's going to want a piece. 135 00:12:59,980 --> 00:13:01,460 And whether we like it or not, 136 00:13:01,500 --> 00:13:07,000 these institutions have way more firepower in terms of capital to deploy into this. 137 00:13:07,160 --> 00:13:08,260 And as I was mentioning earlier, 138 00:13:08,340 --> 00:13:12,340 I think it's also important to recognize that many of these institutions 139 00:13:12,340 --> 00:13:16,700 represent thousands, sometimes millions of people as well. 140 00:13:17,360 --> 00:13:17,520 Yep. 141 00:13:18,680 --> 00:13:19,720 Yeah, exactly. 142 00:13:20,120 --> 00:13:24,700 And so this chart is really just like if we linearly extrapolate what we're seeing, 143 00:13:24,800 --> 00:13:29,920 which may or may not happen, but I do think it's illustrative of if this trend continues, 144 00:13:30,160 --> 00:13:31,600 here's what it looks like in 10 years. 145 00:13:32,800 --> 00:13:35,640 Yeah, which is wild to think. 146 00:13:35,640 --> 00:13:38,300 And I think I'm a big fan. 147 00:13:38,300 --> 00:13:43,780 of been reading a lot of scott adams books and a big uh big fan of reframing and i think 148 00:13:43,780 --> 00:13:49,920 reframing this is like wow it's been incredible that individuals have been the largest adopters 149 00:13:49,920 --> 00:13:56,880 up to this point 17 years in i think we should be incredibly thankful um that we were crazy 150 00:13:56,880 --> 00:14:03,380 enough to take the risk before any of these institutions did yeah um i mean this is you 151 00:14:03,380 --> 00:14:15,580 You had a lot of pioneering, crazy individuals driving this thing forward and risking, sometimes risking it all for over a decade to make this thing and to make Bitcoin important. 152 00:14:16,340 --> 00:14:17,700 And yeah, I love that reframing. 153 00:14:18,160 --> 00:14:19,280 Wow, how incredible. 154 00:14:20,520 --> 00:14:21,920 Yeah, we're going to win. 155 00:14:22,180 --> 00:14:22,680 We're going to win. 156 00:14:23,140 --> 00:14:27,220 And then, I mean, it's again, going back to like we're in a bear market, price is down. 157 00:14:27,220 --> 00:14:31,020 People are freaking out, wondering, oh, are we going to lower? 158 00:14:31,160 --> 00:14:31,720 Is it over? 159 00:14:31,720 --> 00:14:46,046 stuff that both you and I have seen throughout our more than a decade of experience in Bitcoin I find it funny when we get to these points especially now that we above a trillion dollar market cap and we 160 00:14:46,046 --> 00:14:52,166 have all these institutions adopting Bitcoin. It's never been more de-risked. And if the price goes 161 00:14:52,166 --> 00:14:56,806 to these levels, you should view it as an incredible opportunity. But this is just on the 162 00:14:56,806 --> 00:15:02,886 sort of adoption of Bitcoin as a store value asset. 163 00:15:03,046 --> 00:15:07,366 But the other research that you guys released yesterday 164 00:15:07,366 --> 00:15:10,206 that I was mentioning earlier on Lightning Network too, 165 00:15:10,286 --> 00:15:13,186 and Lightning's had this, 166 00:15:13,706 --> 00:15:15,866 I think Lightning has been besmirched 167 00:15:15,866 --> 00:15:17,646 and sort of thrown to the wayside, 168 00:15:17,766 --> 00:15:20,726 particularly by those in broader crypto 169 00:15:20,726 --> 00:15:23,086 who think there's better ways to do things. 170 00:15:23,086 --> 00:15:26,926 But last year was a banner year for Lightning. 171 00:15:27,206 --> 00:15:41,286 I think in November alone, Sam's data, and again, you have to sort of guesstimate because you guys think it would be helpful for you to describe how you guys actually go about that Lightning research specifically. 172 00:15:42,346 --> 00:15:47,006 But it was a $1.1 billion in volume in November 2025 alone. 173 00:15:47,846 --> 00:15:49,086 Yeah, exactly. 174 00:15:49,086 --> 00:15:55,246 Exactly. And, you know, one of the cool things about Lightning is, you know, it's built the Bitcoin way. 175 00:15:55,546 --> 00:15:59,206 It's built in a decentralized, it's a decentralized L2. 176 00:15:59,366 --> 00:16:08,546 So unlike a lot of the, you know, Ethereum or other L2 networks that just are basically just databases, centralized databases, 177 00:16:09,926 --> 00:16:15,306 the Lightning Network has no central place where you can observe all of the payments happening. 178 00:16:15,806 --> 00:16:18,146 So you have to kind of triangulate the metrics. 179 00:16:18,146 --> 00:16:29,146 And we're in a pretty good place to do this because we've been a pretty sizable node on the Lightning Network since we started, really, for almost seven years now. 180 00:16:29,886 --> 00:16:41,186 And what we do is we look at our own data, and then we partner with other big participants in the Lightning Network, other node providers, other exchanges and node operators. 181 00:16:41,626 --> 00:16:44,786 And we info share with them. 182 00:16:44,946 --> 00:16:45,966 We have them share their data. 183 00:16:45,966 --> 00:16:56,686 And then from that, we sort of extrapolate and make an estimate of what we think at least a lower bound is on the transaction volumes happening in the network. 184 00:16:57,766 --> 00:17:01,346 So, yeah, it's great to see. 185 00:17:01,706 --> 00:17:02,706 It's nice to see the growth. 186 00:17:03,206 --> 00:17:09,266 And I think what we're seeing is a lot of this is driven by more and more exchanges having adopted Bitcoin. 187 00:17:09,266 --> 00:17:11,366 I mean Coinbase, sorry, having adopted Lightning. 188 00:17:12,046 --> 00:17:21,706 Coinbase, I believe the latest is like around 10% of their Bitcoin transactions are on the Lightning network, which is pretty good. 189 00:17:21,706 --> 00:17:30,186 I think where we see where the challenge still is for Lightning is self-custody consumer Lightning wallets. 190 00:17:30,646 --> 00:17:35,566 Because of the way the Lightning network works, it's challenging to get those functioning really effectively. 191 00:17:35,566 --> 00:17:42,726 there's some cool companies really trying to you know level things up there um and you know i think 192 00:17:42,726 --> 00:17:46,906 like let's see it's a hard technical problem it's a hard economic problem so let's see what progress 193 00:17:46,906 --> 00:17:53,986 those companies can make in the coming years companies like moon wallet um async uh light 194 00:17:53,986 --> 00:18:01,406 sparks kind of got its own l2 lightning hybrid uh called spark so well pulling on that thread i think 195 00:18:01,406 --> 00:18:03,226 2025 was another 196 00:18:03,226 --> 00:18:05,786 banner year for Lightning in terms of 197 00:18:06,566 --> 00:18:07,766 having a 198 00:18:07,766 --> 00:18:09,306 clear product market fit. 199 00:18:09,646 --> 00:18:10,746 The meme 200 00:18:10,746 --> 00:18:13,446 has been its best 201 00:18:13,446 --> 00:18:15,666 product market fit is this connective tissue 202 00:18:15,666 --> 00:18:17,826 between all these disparate 203 00:18:17,826 --> 00:18:19,746 sub-protocols that exist outside 204 00:18:19,746 --> 00:18:21,906 of Lightning like Spark, Liquid, 205 00:18:23,086 --> 00:18:23,466 Chomian, 206 00:18:24,146 --> 00:18:25,786 Mint's ARC, the ARC protocol 207 00:18:25,786 --> 00:18:26,146 now. 208 00:18:27,466 --> 00:18:29,086 What are your ideas about 209 00:18:29,086 --> 00:18:31,366 around that and 210 00:18:31,366 --> 00:18:37,766 particularly when it comes to like scaling and creating these um consumer consumer apps to make 211 00:18:37,766 --> 00:18:47,806 it easy to use bitcoin like you have bull bitcoin with their um liquid uh liquid to lightning sort 212 00:18:47,806 --> 00:18:54,386 of up uh functionality breeze i believe they're leveraging spark in their sdk and so you're 213 00:18:54,386 --> 00:19:02,546 beginning to see all these different sort of implementations of um of a wallet infrastructure 214 00:19:03,186 --> 00:19:10,386 uh that that leverages multiple protocols to provide a different trade-offs for end users 215 00:19:11,906 --> 00:19:22,706 yeah um i think i think really the the the bigger question is um what is bitcoin's 216 00:19:22,706 --> 00:19:27,926 short to medium term potential as a medium of exchange. 217 00:19:29,346 --> 00:19:35,966 Because I think that if Bitcoin is highly desired as a medium of exchange, 218 00:19:35,966 --> 00:19:40,906 that economic force will pull forward all of this innovation and we'll just figure it out. 219 00:19:41,786 --> 00:19:48,706 I think the actual biggest headwind to these technologies really getting in the hands of 220 00:19:48,706 --> 00:19:55,006 consumers, the self-custody payment network type scaling technologies is just there isn't that big 221 00:19:55,006 --> 00:20:03,326 of a demand for Bitcoin as a medium of exchange today. It's growing, but it's not like, you know, 222 00:20:03,886 --> 00:20:07,946 Tether is still far more popular than Bitcoin, for example, right? The global demand for a 223 00:20:07,946 --> 00:20:14,646 medium of exchange is still overwhelmingly dollars. And I think that's actually like the 224 00:20:14,646 --> 00:20:20,746 biggest thing and i don't know that any technological innovation solves that i think you could say let's 225 00:20:20,746 --> 00:20:24,846 say we develop the perfect scaling technology that was perfectly decentralized perfectly 226 00:20:24,846 --> 00:20:31,066 censorship resistant perfectly private infinitely scalable for bitcoin tomorrow um i don't know how 227 00:20:31,066 --> 00:20:35,726 much that actually moves the needle on people using bitcoin as money um i think that's like 228 00:20:35,726 --> 00:20:42,506 the right thought experiment and so i think like there's a you know until like the inflation really 229 00:20:42,506 --> 00:20:47,946 starts getting crazy with the dollar i don't think we'll see bitcoin widely used as a medium of 230 00:20:47,946 --> 00:20:55,626 exchange i think i would agree there unless you're like die hard like living on a bitcoin standard 231 00:20:55,626 --> 00:21:00,186 okay or demand it like the other thing like merchants need to demand it employees need to 232 00:21:00,186 --> 00:21:06,586 demand it um we have many tftc that do and so this would be a nature of those demands that get paid 233 00:21:06,586 --> 00:21:11,146 in bitcoin we have to use it as a medium of exchange to make sure we can make payroll for 234 00:21:11,146 --> 00:21:17,786 them uh but yeah i mean bring this to stable coins like and obviously i think we can combine 235 00:21:17,786 --> 00:21:22,666 a bunch of things here you got stable coins you've got the political environment here in the united 236 00:21:22,666 --> 00:21:28,906 states particularly around crypto and the very specific focus on stable coins and at the same 237 00:21:28,906 --> 00:21:35,386 time we've got this emergence of this ai agentic economy and everybody's racing to give these agents 238 00:21:35,386 --> 00:21:42,746 different types of wallets and um it seems like this administration has been overly favorable 239 00:21:42,746 --> 00:21:48,906 towards the uh crypto lobby because they threw a lot of money at the administration during the 240 00:21:49,786 --> 00:21:55,466 election uh and now they're getting a lot of influence on on capitol hill how do you how do you 241 00:21:57,866 --> 00:22:03,866 what are your thoughts on this sort of nature of we're sort of in the room now but crypto's in the 242 00:22:03,866 --> 00:22:11,146 the room as well and a lot of what i would deem to be idiotic ideas are being taken seriously and 243 00:22:11,146 --> 00:22:19,506 maybe some distractions away from the signal that is bitcoin yeah i think um you know the 244 00:22:19,506 --> 00:22:26,786 unfortunate reality is you know the confluence of politics and capitalism is that sort of short-term 245 00:22:26,786 --> 00:22:33,546 money even if it's coming from bad ideas or scammy things can get a lot of influence in politics 246 00:22:33,546 --> 00:22:37,446 and I think that's what we're seeing a lot of. 247 00:22:39,066 --> 00:22:44,386 And, you know, I think that it's overall probably good 248 00:22:44,386 --> 00:22:46,266 that they're just like chilling out a bit 249 00:22:46,266 --> 00:22:48,106 from a regulatory perspective. 250 00:22:48,266 --> 00:22:50,646 The real challenge for all of us was getting debanked 251 00:22:50,646 --> 00:22:53,206 and the fact that that risk is basically, 252 00:22:53,926 --> 00:22:55,706 is a fraction of what it was, 253 00:22:55,706 --> 00:22:59,286 is, you know, better for everybody in this industry. 254 00:23:00,986 --> 00:23:03,346 I also, yeah, so, you know, 255 00:23:03,346 --> 00:23:07,566 As it relates to all the legislation being debated, yeah, it is kind of interesting, right? 256 00:23:07,566 --> 00:23:16,906 Because you have a small group of the Bitcoin crowd like us that are just sitting there watching all these other people debate in D.C. about things we really don't care about. 257 00:23:17,906 --> 00:23:24,146 All the debates are around the things that are going to make the big guys, the big crypto casinos, a lot of money. 258 00:23:24,146 --> 00:23:33,606 And that's stable coins and moving tokens away from the SEC as the regulator into the CFTC. 259 00:23:35,126 --> 00:23:38,186 And so, yeah, it's kind of like I watch it. 260 00:23:38,306 --> 00:23:46,486 I watch the debates, but I also don't really care about what they're talking about because it just like, you know, it's just none of it's about Bitcoin. 261 00:23:46,486 --> 00:23:56,046 So that's how I feel. I think stable coins are like, I think they're interesting if you live in a country that has capital controls and you want dollars. 262 00:23:56,426 --> 00:23:59,566 Other than that, I have a hard time seeing where they're really going to take off. 263 00:24:00,086 --> 00:24:09,266 I could be totally wrong, but it just doesn't seem like for a domestic use case in the United States, stable coins just don't seem that compelling. 264 00:24:10,226 --> 00:24:12,306 Well, hey, they're going to get this yield on their savings now. 265 00:24:12,306 --> 00:24:20,286 yeah it's like i mean i could already have get that right uh so it's it's kind of just like this 266 00:24:20,286 --> 00:24:26,806 weird abstraction in a bank account that is unclear anyone really needs uh well it seems to 267 00:24:26,806 --> 00:24:32,166 be a big uh big topic of contention right now on capitol hill between the banks and queen base 268 00:24:32,166 --> 00:24:38,606 specifically i mean this whole and then that's another interesting sort of sub theme this 269 00:24:38,606 --> 00:24:45,126 sort of clash or intersection who knows ultimately what it will prove to be but it seems like the 270 00:24:45,126 --> 00:24:52,886 trad fi guys are looking at um bitcoin and crypto becoming more prominent and um clutching their 271 00:24:52,886 --> 00:24:58,006 pearls a bit this this fight over sharing the yield on stablecoin is very interesting 272 00:24:58,006 --> 00:25:04,526 yes the banks don't want the stablecoin issuers to be able to pay back interest to the holders 273 00:25:04,526 --> 00:25:06,386 because then they're worried that that will put, 274 00:25:07,206 --> 00:25:09,406 that will give them competition 275 00:25:09,406 --> 00:25:11,546 because these big banks are scamming everyone, basically. 276 00:25:11,746 --> 00:25:14,906 Like you're checking in savings accounts. 277 00:25:15,386 --> 00:25:17,106 If you just have like the default ones 278 00:25:17,106 --> 00:25:20,326 at the largest banks, JP Morgan, Chase, 279 00:25:20,706 --> 00:25:21,786 Bank of America, Wells Fargo, 280 00:25:21,886 --> 00:25:23,486 they're paying like 0.01%, 281 00:25:23,486 --> 00:25:25,746 like most of their account holders. 282 00:25:26,186 --> 00:25:28,366 And they're just eating all of that money for free. 283 00:25:29,326 --> 00:25:33,726 And so they don't really want super consumer friendly ways 284 00:25:33,726 --> 00:25:36,946 to earn actual market interest rates. 285 00:25:38,766 --> 00:25:42,486 So, you know, they're fighting that. 286 00:25:43,606 --> 00:25:46,526 But, I mean, we already offer a high-yield interest rate at River. 287 00:25:46,666 --> 00:25:49,446 Like, if you have cash from River, you earn 3.3% and you earn it in Bitcoin. 288 00:25:50,186 --> 00:25:52,846 So, you know, fintechs are already competing with them. 289 00:25:54,446 --> 00:25:57,806 But I think, like, just bank accounts are so sticky in general 290 00:25:57,806 --> 00:26:01,706 that, you know, you get so many people that they've just had to chase the account 291 00:26:01,706 --> 00:26:02,266 their whole life. 292 00:26:02,266 --> 00:26:10,426 and they're okay just with chase basically taking all of their interest um yeah taking it putting it 293 00:26:10,426 --> 00:26:16,106 in a carry trade levering it up like 10x more so they can profit yeah that's the interesting i 294 00:26:16,106 --> 00:26:21,306 talked to some guys at a treasury i was at a bpi event in dc and they're saying the banks are worried 295 00:26:21,306 --> 00:26:27,226 because they have to unwind all that it makes them have to have a much more narrow focus but to your 296 00:26:27,226 --> 00:26:36,586 point these um alternatives already exist exist at river when cash in uh get yield it's automatically 297 00:26:36,586 --> 00:26:43,306 converted into bitcoin and i think this gets to an interesting point because like um the again the 298 00:26:43,306 --> 00:26:47,306 big clash right now on capitol hill is coinbase for us the banks like we want to share the yield 299 00:26:47,866 --> 00:26:53,146 and the market's treating this like the banks are withholding this innovation from the market like 300 00:26:53,146 --> 00:26:57,146 if coinbase wins we'll be able to get our yield it's like hey it already exists which points to 301 00:26:57,786 --> 00:27:02,666 maybe a positioning and narrative problem that we have in bitcoin like these these things already 302 00:27:02,666 --> 00:27:07,066 exist you just need to find you just need to go out and find them yeah you know i do wonder if 303 00:27:07,066 --> 00:27:13,306 the stablecoin debate is more around the international uh like opportunity um but 304 00:27:13,866 --> 00:27:19,066 it's also like coinbase and circle see what tether's doing they're like i want to box them out 305 00:27:19,066 --> 00:27:45,106 Totally. I do think that really, you know, we're still in this build mode. And then when the economic forces that are basically set in stone really start to hit inflation and continue to devalue people's saving, the dollar savings, we'll see – like in the future, we'll see a large exodus from these big banks. 306 00:27:45,106 --> 00:27:51,786 um you know wherever we're building the financial institution for a future that's where the dollar 307 00:27:51,786 --> 00:27:56,666 is still um you know you're still stuck using the dollar as a medium of exchange because of 308 00:27:56,666 --> 00:28:02,446 the network effect but you it's not something you want to be saving in and so um you know we we 309 00:28:02,446 --> 00:28:06,506 envision a future we call it like a dual money future where people save in bitcoin but they 310 00:28:06,506 --> 00:28:11,866 continue to primarily still spend and earn in dollars and we think that that type of account 311 00:28:11,866 --> 00:28:15,066 is going to replace the traditional bank accounts. 312 00:28:15,766 --> 00:28:17,186 And that's what we're building towards. 313 00:28:17,646 --> 00:28:20,326 And it's pretty compelling today 314 00:28:20,326 --> 00:28:22,226 for people who actually believe in Bitcoin. 315 00:28:22,886 --> 00:28:26,586 But the real unlock is when people really start to see 316 00:28:26,586 --> 00:28:28,946 that saving in dollars just isn't going to work. 317 00:28:29,806 --> 00:28:29,826 Yeah. 318 00:28:30,566 --> 00:28:31,746 Well, what would you say to people 319 00:28:31,746 --> 00:28:34,426 who are looking at the banks racing 320 00:28:34,426 --> 00:28:36,746 to integrate Bitcoin and crypto 321 00:28:36,746 --> 00:28:39,846 and saying that all these Bitcoin startups 322 00:28:39,846 --> 00:28:41,846 that are Bitcoin first, Bitcoin only, 323 00:28:41,866 --> 00:28:44,826 they're going to get blown out by these institutions because they're going to have 324 00:28:44,826 --> 00:28:51,266 the capital, the scale, the network effect of a client base already to just implement this overnight. 325 00:28:52,686 --> 00:29:00,226 Yeah, I think that I'm not really worried at all about that because I don't see a future where 326 00:29:00,226 --> 00:29:06,986 JP Morgan is putting Bitcoin side by side in your checking account in the near future. They just 327 00:29:06,986 --> 00:29:10,906 don't actually, they don't believe that. They don't believe in that future. It'll always be 328 00:29:10,906 --> 00:29:27,812 this like side thing that uses a third party That kind of a crappy user experience And like we get some people using it but like you not they not actually going to build a competitive product because the organization and its dna does not believe this is the future um and so and if it 329 00:29:27,812 --> 00:29:33,292 is and if they eventually like realize that and they catch up well you know the markets move like 330 00:29:33,292 --> 00:29:37,652 you know a rising tide lifts all ships if jp morgan eventually integrates bitcoin as a first 331 00:29:37,652 --> 00:29:44,432 class citizen, we will have grown tremendously as a business as well. And it's, it will because 332 00:29:44,432 --> 00:29:47,812 like a company like river has taken market share. That's why they would start doing it. 333 00:29:48,492 --> 00:29:54,952 And the, the inertia that they have is so large. It's, it's, it's not like they're going to die, 334 00:29:54,952 --> 00:30:00,552 but we also, it's, it wouldn't be like a, they would just be trying to catch up with us. 335 00:30:01,272 --> 00:30:07,072 Yeah. I'm a big believer in that too. This is like a big quater and you knows we're early adopters 336 00:30:07,072 --> 00:30:14,392 And who knows if the later waves, the later adoption waves and the people come on those waves will care at all. 337 00:30:14,612 --> 00:30:19,052 But I would find it very hard to believe to trust JP Morgan with my Bitcoin. 338 00:30:19,952 --> 00:30:24,232 Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, they'll care about user experience and they'll care about what they're getting. 339 00:30:24,472 --> 00:30:27,732 Right. And I think that that's where you compete. 340 00:30:28,112 --> 00:30:30,712 They care about service, user experience and economics. 341 00:30:30,932 --> 00:30:36,932 Yeah. I think the upstarts definitely be on UX and it's easier. 342 00:30:37,072 --> 00:31:05,072 Yeah. Well, that's like, that's another interesting topic we dive into, like with this wave of AI tools coming to market. I don't think I've talked to you directly about this. Like, are you guys leveraging these tools at River? And if so, has it changed perspective on what the future trajectory of the growth of your business from a revenue profitability standpoint, but more importantly, from a headcount standpoint? 343 00:31:05,072 --> 00:31:13,152 standpoint uh has it has it affected your views on this at all i have kind of a two competing 344 00:31:13,152 --> 00:31:20,272 thoughts in my head at the same time about these things um on one hand i do believe that as these 345 00:31:20,272 --> 00:31:26,672 tools continue to accelerate in their capabilities it'll unlock tremendous potential to move faster 346 00:31:27,392 --> 00:31:33,872 for our business um it's already you know pretty heavily improved the productivity 347 00:31:33,872 --> 00:31:38,772 for our engineering team in a, in a number of places, but not every place. 348 00:31:38,772 --> 00:31:44,112 And I think that really what a lot of these tools are surfacing to people is 349 00:31:44,112 --> 00:31:48,332 the hard part was never really writing the code for most things. 350 00:31:48,332 --> 00:31:54,672 Anyways, there are certain like tasks and aspects of building an application 351 00:31:54,672 --> 00:31:58,632 or a tech company where just like writing the code and getting this thing done 352 00:31:58,632 --> 00:32:01,192 is like just a lot easier now, 353 00:32:01,192 --> 00:32:21,232 But all of the consequential things that you do are usually not that. The consequential things that you do are usually require humans to synthesize complexity and apply taste and their understanding of their client base to prioritize and make changes to the product. 354 00:32:21,232 --> 00:32:28,512 and ai is accelerating like subsets of tasks that allow you to do that but it doesn't really 355 00:32:28,512 --> 00:32:33,912 accelerate a lot of our human decision-making bottleneck there and i'm i don't see a short-term 356 00:32:33,912 --> 00:32:39,752 future where it does so but there are some areas where it really accelerates things like yesterday 357 00:32:39,752 --> 00:32:44,612 for example like when we generate account statements for uh for our customers right we 358 00:32:44,612 --> 00:32:49,352 we have historically we had to use this like pdf tool where we like generate the data and then like 359 00:32:49,352 --> 00:32:52,412 we use this other system that like generates the PDFs, 360 00:32:52,412 --> 00:32:55,572 PDFs are like super complicated to understand how to make them. 361 00:32:56,012 --> 00:32:58,972 But with AI, I, I, you know, I was like, Hey guys, 362 00:32:58,972 --> 00:33:01,552 like try and just make the PDF directly now from, 363 00:33:01,872 --> 00:33:04,032 and write the code to just generate the PDF directly. 364 00:33:04,192 --> 00:33:07,612 Cause these AIs understand how to make PDFs, you know, 365 00:33:07,692 --> 00:33:10,452 and they have all that information. And they were like, you know, 366 00:33:10,452 --> 00:33:12,252 they were like a little hesitant cause like no one ever, 367 00:33:12,352 --> 00:33:13,472 no one really does this. 368 00:33:13,672 --> 00:33:16,232 It's very unusual to do something like this. And I was like, Hey guys, 369 00:33:16,272 --> 00:33:18,392 like, look, it's a different world right now. Let's just try it. 370 00:33:18,392 --> 00:33:22,452 and we experimented for like half a day yesterday and it actually worked beautifully. 371 00:33:22,792 --> 00:33:27,852 And so we're able to delete like this whole, you know, subsystem that we just don't need anymore. 372 00:33:29,132 --> 00:33:31,732 And so there are things like that where it's really like magical. 373 00:33:32,472 --> 00:33:39,152 But I don't think like it isn't unlocking us like making better product decisions or it's not prevent. 374 00:33:39,152 --> 00:33:44,592 It's not like saving us time sitting in a room and debating like the right, you know, design decisions. 375 00:33:44,592 --> 00:33:51,372 uh so that those are like my two sort of competing takes no and i i would completely agree i mean 376 00:33:51,372 --> 00:33:57,132 it's been we've been leaning in heavily over the last month and a half i mean we've been leaning in 377 00:33:57,132 --> 00:34:05,152 heavily for the last two years really but now like the the open claw um phenomena we've been using 378 00:34:05,152 --> 00:34:11,972 that for like six weeks now or five or six weeks and it's really extended what we can do and to 379 00:34:11,972 --> 00:34:17,132 your point about taste like there's a ton of ideas i've had it was like okay i would love to do this 380 00:34:17,132 --> 00:34:22,712 but we're bootstrapped we run lean we only have so much capacity to try these things and now 381 00:34:22,712 --> 00:34:29,292 with open claw like it's allowing us to like sprint towards a lot of the the goals but taste 382 00:34:29,292 --> 00:34:37,172 is like we revamped our uh morning newsletter five days a week and it's pretty much not automated but 383 00:34:37,172 --> 00:34:41,352 the AI or a little clanker builds it. 384 00:34:41,752 --> 00:34:45,052 But there's a lot of taste and it's collaborative 385 00:34:45,052 --> 00:34:49,112 sort of endeavor between myself and my agent 386 00:34:49,112 --> 00:34:53,452 Martin, who's a more sophisticated version of Marty, throughout the day 387 00:34:53,452 --> 00:34:56,432 to sort of just get the 388 00:34:56,432 --> 00:35:00,592 stories that we're going to include in the newsletter and the structure. 389 00:35:01,032 --> 00:35:05,532 But there's a lot of taste. It's like curating. But now I have the ability, instead of spending 390 00:35:05,532 --> 00:35:12,912 two or three hours actually formatting and putting putting things into the newsletter i can just 391 00:35:12,912 --> 00:35:18,212 throughout the day put links in a google sheet with some notes voice the text notes about what 392 00:35:18,212 --> 00:35:22,512 i want to touch on with a particular topic and then at the end of the day hit up martin be like 393 00:35:22,512 --> 00:35:26,472 okay go to the google sheet look at what i put in there and let's put together the newsletter and 394 00:35:26,472 --> 00:35:33,012 30 minutes later it's ready to go um like that the taste is extremely important but 395 00:35:33,012 --> 00:35:39,232 But in terms of being able to get stuff done, particularly with small teams, it's accelerating that. 396 00:35:39,372 --> 00:35:45,312 And I think there's a misnomer going around out there, too, which is you're not going to have to work more. 397 00:35:45,312 --> 00:35:55,992 But if you have eye agency and willpower, it's just like I've had more 1 a.m. nights over the last four weeks than I have in the last two years because I'm just like, oh, we can go after these ideas now. 398 00:35:55,992 --> 00:36:06,552 Absolutely. And I think what it does, and from a hiring perspective and headcount perspective is it honestly hasn't changed our headcount projections. 399 00:36:07,512 --> 00:36:13,912 It's just solidified and hammered home the qualifiers that we have for who we hire. 400 00:36:15,312 --> 00:36:22,612 Like we just will only hire people we think are high agency, who have taste, who can synthesize and understand the business problems. 401 00:36:22,612 --> 00:36:24,452 and 402 00:36:24,452 --> 00:36:28,852 hire people who have the qualities that we need 403 00:36:28,852 --> 00:36:32,852 to solve the real human bottlenecks that still exist, that these AIs aren't 404 00:36:32,852 --> 00:36:36,872 solving. And you can still get more done by 405 00:36:36,872 --> 00:36:40,752 hiring more of those people. You just don't need the people who are doing busy work 406 00:36:40,752 --> 00:36:44,872 and the code monkeys who aren't thinking from first principles and understanding the 407 00:36:44,872 --> 00:36:47,372 business. So that's my take. 408 00:36:48,252 --> 00:36:51,752 Yeah. It's a brave new world. It's so funny because 409 00:36:51,752 --> 00:36:55,132 I get the sense that we're just like teetering. 410 00:36:55,292 --> 00:37:02,992 The world right now is like equally exhilarating and completely unnerving. 411 00:37:03,192 --> 00:37:07,652 Because it's like we can go many different directions, obviously geopolitically. 412 00:37:08,272 --> 00:37:11,752 Everybody's meeting the straight-hand moves right now to figure out what we're going to do with Iran. 413 00:37:12,392 --> 00:37:14,952 We got, like we said, the Epstein files here. 414 00:37:15,052 --> 00:37:16,352 We got this AI explosion. 415 00:37:17,272 --> 00:37:20,972 You've got the high-velocity trash economy just accelerating. 416 00:37:21,752 --> 00:37:28,392 at a crazy pace with prediction markets uh now we have attention markets that just dropped on zora 417 00:37:28,392 --> 00:37:32,552 but it's a 10 markets oh yeah yeah remember zora was like a 418 00:37:33,992 --> 00:37:39,112 base they they pivoted and they're on salada now but you can coin your content kind of thing it's 419 00:37:39,112 --> 00:37:44,152 like well not only that but people can um can bet on trends can and basically ride trends and 420 00:37:44,152 --> 00:37:48,552 monetize it somehow i don't understand how it works or why you would want to do it but 421 00:37:48,552 --> 00:37:55,052 it well i think i think there is this thing where you know what we've seen in the last 10 years 422 00:37:55,052 --> 00:37:59,452 especially in our industry um and what we're seeing now leaving crypto and just moving elsewhere 423 00:37:59,452 --> 00:38:06,192 with prediction markets is um you just have this like class of people that chases financialization 424 00:38:06,192 --> 00:38:13,652 and new games they can convince normies to to play because they can just extract um and i think 425 00:38:13,652 --> 00:38:18,712 that's like we're just seeing that now i think prediction markets is a big example of that it 426 00:38:18,712 --> 00:38:22,732 has like some really legitimate cool use cases like trying to just understand what's going to 427 00:38:22,732 --> 00:38:28,652 happen with the truth um which i think is actually very cool and innovative um but actually like 90 428 00:38:28,652 --> 00:38:35,032 something percent of the volume just sports betting um so it's like you know uh at the end 429 00:38:35,032 --> 00:38:39,132 of the day like you take these this technology and then it's just like oh let's just yeah like 430 00:38:39,132 --> 00:38:44,892 extract from a subset of the population who we can farm well i will say 431 00:38:48,172 --> 00:38:53,212 this is like sports betting is um especially if you're spending all your money on it or all your 432 00:38:53,212 --> 00:38:57,372 time on it you shouldn't be doing that but if you're trying to compare it to like draft kings 433 00:38:57,372 --> 00:39:03,372 or like the big books it's like okay i can see the argument like prediction markets um make more 434 00:39:03,372 --> 00:39:08,092 sense because there's no house to take a big and to play both sides like it's peer-to-peer if you 435 00:39:08,092 --> 00:39:13,532 you want to take that risk uh you can also trade in and out of a position uh which is interesting 436 00:39:13,532 --> 00:39:19,692 you can only get out right yeah so like compared to the status quo i think it is net benefit for 437 00:39:19,692 --> 00:39:26,252 consumers from a fairness perspective but if you don't have impulse control you can still lose all 438 00:39:26,252 --> 00:39:32,652 your money um in these prediction markets i mean the real fight is the state the state level where 439 00:39:32,652 --> 00:39:37,612 you had texas and california had just swords betting was illegal and now the prediction 440 00:39:37,612 --> 00:39:44,292 markets are going oh we're federally you know regulated everywhere and then all of a sudden 441 00:39:44,292 --> 00:39:49,292 everyone in california and texas can now sports bet when they couldn't before and it's like this 442 00:39:49,292 --> 00:39:54,212 big states rights question uh which is also like kind of an interesting thing we'll see how that 443 00:39:54,212 --> 00:40:00,112 might end up in the supreme court yeah i feel like we're fighting all these battles i think the core 444 00:40:00,112 --> 00:40:06,412 of the battle is the uh the essence of our humanity as we transition to the digital age 445 00:40:06,412 --> 00:40:14,432 Like, what are we going to get? Are we going to get like a Bitcoin standard with lower time preference and better capital allocation and better incentive alignment? 446 00:40:14,432 --> 00:40:20,232 Or do we just steamroll into Weimar version two for the 21st century? 447 00:40:21,472 --> 00:40:35,912 It's unclear. It's unclear. I mean, we might get it. It might allow us to go back to focusing on real things like, I don't know, a bulkhead, you know, a white pill scenario would be these AIs. 448 00:40:35,912 --> 00:40:40,872 allow us to get out of the email jobs, like the email jobs go away and everyone actually has to 449 00:40:40,872 --> 00:40:48,712 go back to doing real things. Um, and, uh, this like, you know, the last few decades where 450 00:40:48,712 --> 00:40:57,192 everything was just a financial abstraction and, um, um, you know, like fewer and fewer people 451 00:40:57,192 --> 00:41:02,992 did like real things, uh, in the real world. Um, you know, maybe that gets reversed because 452 00:41:02,992 --> 00:41:07,492 like a lot of that can just be done by AIs and we all go back to, you know, 453 00:41:07,592 --> 00:41:09,652 manufacturing or farming or, I don't know. 454 00:41:09,752 --> 00:41:12,572 Or maybe all of that just also gets automated with robotics because the AI 455 00:41:12,572 --> 00:41:14,992 advances so fast that, and then we're all like, well, 456 00:41:14,992 --> 00:41:15,912 what do we even do now? 457 00:41:17,192 --> 00:41:20,552 And there's actually just like a thousand people who are like high agency and 458 00:41:20,552 --> 00:41:24,952 high IQ enough to actually be valuable. And everyone else is just like, you know, 459 00:41:25,292 --> 00:41:28,312 permanent underclass. Right. Exactly. Like, I don't know. 460 00:41:28,572 --> 00:41:29,572 I honestly don't know. 461 00:41:29,572 --> 00:41:35,532 I had a conversation with Justin Moon last week about this, and it's something I've been trying to grapple with in my head. 462 00:41:36,572 --> 00:41:46,972 I think particularly our generation, I think we broke out of it, but there's kind of like preconceived notions of how the world works and how humans operate. 463 00:41:47,112 --> 00:41:56,592 And I think one of those is that there's just like a natural distribution of people who are high agency and those who have the fluoride stare, if you will. 464 00:41:56,592 --> 00:42:00,912 and I don't know I've been trying to think like is there a way that you can instill 465 00:42:00,912 --> 00:42:04,292 and engender a culture of high agency 466 00:42:04,292 --> 00:42:09,172 if we recognize it is what you're going to need 467 00:42:09,172 --> 00:42:12,992 to have to be successful in this new age I go back and forth 468 00:42:12,992 --> 00:42:17,112 like I can totally and I probably lean actually towards there's just a natural 469 00:42:17,112 --> 00:42:21,192 distribution of people who have it and people who don't but I'm curious 470 00:42:21,192 --> 00:42:24,732 like is there like a Spartan like culture you could 471 00:42:24,732 --> 00:42:30,112 you could put out there to convince people that you need to develop the skills to have agency. 472 00:42:31,112 --> 00:42:37,172 I think, I think there'll also, you know, be it more and more interesting conversations around 473 00:42:37,172 --> 00:42:42,892 collectivism, or I think, I think people like might start thinking about collectivism a little 474 00:42:42,892 --> 00:42:47,132 bit differently as the technology progresses, if it really does truly begin to advance. 475 00:42:47,132 --> 00:42:55,952 um and and you know i think there is like this is like in the last sort of 30 years or or so or 476 00:42:55,952 --> 00:43:00,692 maybe in 50 years you could say like americans like frowned upon collectivism because everything 477 00:43:00,692 --> 00:43:05,112 was just working really well for us and like being individual being independent and high agency 478 00:43:05,112 --> 00:43:11,332 this like made you wealthy um and if that stops being the case then all of a sudden collectivism 479 00:43:11,332 --> 00:43:14,512 might start being viewed differently like hold on a second like we need to all like 480 00:43:14,512 --> 00:43:21,952 who is my group who I band together with to make sure that like we all benefit and we protect 481 00:43:21,952 --> 00:43:28,512 ourselves and put ourselves our group first because being a being alone you know just doesn't 482 00:43:28,512 --> 00:43:35,192 work anymore and maybe like the fact that you know we were able to be have this ethos at all 483 00:43:35,192 --> 00:43:42,032 was just because the U.S. just worked so well and you know what's the future of that there's some 484 00:43:42,032 --> 00:43:42,872 informed thoughts. 485 00:43:44,312 --> 00:43:44,732 Yeah. 486 00:43:46,832 --> 00:43:59,858 Because it all I mean I seen it up close and personal like it definitely massively beneficial but it still It still not perfect Like I have to slap my clanker around every once in a while Like Hey 487 00:43:59,858 --> 00:44:02,418 you did that wrong. You're not autonomous yet. 488 00:44:03,738 --> 00:44:06,758 They don't learn. And I think there's still some major, 489 00:44:06,758 --> 00:44:11,918 like break there's some major breakthroughs before these things are actually 490 00:44:11,918 --> 00:44:13,678 changing everything. 491 00:44:15,118 --> 00:44:16,918 Well, that's the other thing I wonder, like how much, 492 00:44:16,918 --> 00:44:22,198 how much of like what's being put out there by sam altman by dario others is just like them 493 00:44:22,198 --> 00:44:26,058 pushing their book and like trying to get their valuations up raise another hundred bill 494 00:44:26,058 --> 00:44:32,958 exactly it's hard to say um it's hard to really because obviously these things are revolutionary 495 00:44:32,958 --> 00:44:40,818 but at the same time um there's obviously something missing with them right um you know 496 00:44:40,818 --> 00:44:45,778 it's it's like that classical conversation of why does why do we need to train these things 497 00:44:45,778 --> 00:44:50,318 with gigawatts of compute or hundreds of megawatts of compute 498 00:44:50,318 --> 00:44:52,078 and all of the information on the internet 499 00:44:52,078 --> 00:44:58,218 when a human doesn't need any of that. 500 00:45:00,278 --> 00:45:03,558 A human doesn't need to tell the information on the internet 501 00:45:03,558 --> 00:45:04,758 to be able to be useful. 502 00:45:05,518 --> 00:45:07,578 So there's something fundamental missing 503 00:45:07,578 --> 00:45:11,758 in our understanding of building intelligence. 504 00:45:11,758 --> 00:45:16,218 and the real maybe scary thing is if we figure that out 505 00:45:16,218 --> 00:45:19,838 that's when it gets scary and until then maybe it's actually just kind of like 506 00:45:19,838 --> 00:45:24,398 I don't know these things are just really smart but dumb at the same time 507 00:45:24,398 --> 00:45:27,778 yeah that's the I mean I think 508 00:45:27,778 --> 00:45:29,458 there's been more discussion 509 00:45:29,458 --> 00:45:35,718 arising around this too I mean the just separating intelligence and consciousness 510 00:45:35,718 --> 00:45:39,598 like can you actually be genuinely 511 00:45:39,598 --> 00:45:44,038 intelligent in the sense that you can learn new things and have creative thought if you're not 512 00:45:44,038 --> 00:45:51,618 conscious and can these things ever be conscious i think the answer is probably at some point 513 00:45:51,618 --> 00:45:56,598 we can get we'll get there but i'm also not convinced it's like gonna happen in the next 514 00:45:56,598 --> 00:46:04,478 few years yeah i'm not convinced it's like i could be wrong i i don't have like you know i 515 00:46:04,478 --> 00:46:10,138 wouldn't have predicted how good these things are today um five years ago so i want to like you know 516 00:46:10,138 --> 00:46:15,378 i i do think we should consider a world where extrapolating these things getting smarter and 517 00:46:15,378 --> 00:46:20,398 smarter and accelerating pace does happen but at the same time i just like from the first 518 00:46:20,398 --> 00:46:24,738 principles perspective i have a hard time seeing how throwing more energy a compute 519 00:46:24,738 --> 00:46:31,878 solves that fundamental problem of these things aren't learning um these things can't aren't like 520 00:46:31,878 --> 00:46:33,938 aren't handling novel tasks. 521 00:46:36,578 --> 00:46:38,358 And, you know, every time you send it something, 522 00:46:38,478 --> 00:46:40,898 like it has a context window, it doesn't remember anything, right? 523 00:46:41,078 --> 00:46:42,898 And those are problems that they're working on. 524 00:46:42,958 --> 00:46:46,078 The question is, like, how will they actually be solved 525 00:46:46,078 --> 00:46:47,758 in any near-term future? I don't know. 526 00:46:48,458 --> 00:46:51,438 Yeah. Is there a problem as insurmountable 527 00:46:51,438 --> 00:46:54,558 as scaling logical qubits for quantum computers? 528 00:46:54,738 --> 00:46:55,138 Who knows? 529 00:46:55,898 --> 00:46:59,278 Yeah. That's been a big... 530 00:46:59,278 --> 00:47:01,858 What are your thoughts on... 531 00:47:01,878 --> 00:47:11,998 whole quantum debate? You know, I hate, I hate being in a position where you're, where, where 532 00:47:11,998 --> 00:47:21,038 my argument is betting against humans figuring something out. Right. So like, I hate sort of 533 00:47:21,038 --> 00:47:27,198 being somebody who sits there and says quantum computing will never work. And here's why. 534 00:47:27,198 --> 00:47:32,058 And the problem, I hate being in that position because it's non-falsifiable, right? 535 00:47:32,118 --> 00:47:36,358 You can't prove they won't figure something out. 536 00:47:38,778 --> 00:47:42,978 But at the same time, there is some truth to it. 537 00:47:43,398 --> 00:47:44,718 It's a really hard problem. 538 00:47:45,418 --> 00:47:49,058 I think it's probably overblown. 539 00:47:49,178 --> 00:47:50,838 But also, what if it's not, right? 540 00:47:51,418 --> 00:47:53,458 There's a lot of information asymmetry here. 541 00:47:53,458 --> 00:47:56,898 Like understanding quantum computing is not easy. 542 00:47:56,898 --> 00:48:03,258 It's a highly specialized field. And from what I can tell, there is real progress happening. 543 00:48:04,538 --> 00:48:13,098 And I don't think, and if the, you know, what makes Bitcoin great is that I know, 544 00:48:13,638 --> 00:48:19,538 I have high confidence that it's going to be functioning effectively 10, 20, 30 years into 545 00:48:19,538 --> 00:48:26,178 the future. And so we always want that to be true. We always want people to believe that Bitcoin will 546 00:48:26,178 --> 00:48:30,678 always function and be secure many, many years into the future. So because of that, 547 00:48:31,218 --> 00:48:36,738 I do think we do need to care about this. I do think we need to, we are, I mean, there is a lot 548 00:48:36,738 --> 00:48:42,798 of development effort already going into post-quantum signature algorithms for Bitcoin 549 00:48:42,798 --> 00:48:46,958 and what transitioning to that could look like. And I think that's important work. And I think 550 00:48:46,958 --> 00:48:54,658 it should be done with conservatively, but with some urgency. But we also don't want to rush 551 00:48:54,658 --> 00:48:58,658 something that creates a vulnerability. So that's 552 00:48:58,658 --> 00:49:02,618 my take. I completely agree. I think that's been the most 553 00:49:02,618 --> 00:49:06,578 frustrating thing about the whole narrative around Bitcoin and its 554 00:49:06,578 --> 00:49:10,718 relationship with potential quantum breakthroughs at some 555 00:49:10,718 --> 00:49:14,678 point in the future is that people are saying, you're not doing anything. Will the devs 556 00:49:14,678 --> 00:49:18,338 do something? It's like, well, this has been an ongoing discussion for over a decade. 557 00:49:18,558 --> 00:49:22,538 There's a lot of research being done. There's a BIP out there that 558 00:49:22,538 --> 00:49:32,158 could potentially be merged if you want to put your Bitcoin in an address that's nested in a 559 00:49:32,158 --> 00:49:36,338 tap leaf that is quantum resistant. You may be able to do that at some point soon. 560 00:49:37,078 --> 00:49:40,038 But then to your point, I mean, you don't want to rush it because you could 561 00:49:40,038 --> 00:49:48,118 introduce some sort of critical vulnerability that destroys the network itself. But I think 562 00:49:48,118 --> 00:49:52,438 another interesting perspective that somebody like you could provide like what what would the 563 00:49:52,438 --> 00:49:58,578 logistics of your business like the transition to this for your business look like like how many 564 00:49:58,578 --> 00:50:04,998 different sort of things would you have to change um if we were to transition to this 565 00:50:04,998 --> 00:50:12,898 so there's a few components here one is cold storage one is a hot wallet which is where you 566 00:50:12,898 --> 00:50:19,758 know most transactions are going in and out of every day what we would probably do is um so let's 567 00:50:19,758 --> 00:50:26,198 like let's just put totally aside how do we handle like the lost coins or you know the coins that 568 00:50:26,198 --> 00:50:32,218 don't get moved over to a new quantum secure signature um let's just assume you know okay 569 00:50:32,218 --> 00:50:39,958 we have a soft fork it introduces a quantum secure signature um like sphinx plus like something like 570 00:50:39,958 --> 00:50:46,438 you know, Jonas Nick is working on. What we would probably do is move all cold storage coins over to 571 00:50:46,438 --> 00:50:52,198 that once it was, you know, once we felt really, really confident about it. We wouldn't do it like 572 00:50:52,198 --> 00:50:57,838 right away because presumably this would be, this upgrade would happen many years before a viable 573 00:50:57,838 --> 00:51:03,418 quantum computer actually existed. So we would, you know, let it run its course, you know, test, 574 00:51:03,618 --> 00:51:08,138 do a lot of testing, have it live on the network for hopefully a year or two. We'd move all cold 575 00:51:08,138 --> 00:51:16,738 storage coins over to this new signature scheme. And the hot wallet, we probably still keep running 576 00:51:16,738 --> 00:51:23,478 with the old signature scheme, but we'd start building and getting things in place to support 577 00:51:23,478 --> 00:51:29,298 this new signature scheme. Now, there's a lot of open questions from a wallet experience perspective 578 00:51:29,298 --> 00:51:36,738 for both consumer self-custody and also businesses where some of the things that make operating 579 00:51:36,738 --> 00:51:43,678 while it's very convenient today might not work. For example, like BIP32 derivation, right? Being 580 00:51:43,678 --> 00:51:56,538 able to derive addresses from a public key, those tools probably won't exist for post-quantum 581 00:51:56,538 --> 00:52:06,098 algorithms. And so things might get a little clunkier. We might see longer, or just a transaction 582 00:52:06,098 --> 00:52:12,978 might be bigger right the um you know that might be more expensive and so it would be a it would be a 583 00:52:12,978 --> 00:52:23,058 um a hit to uh self-custody usability unfortunately but you know if that's if that's where the tech 584 00:52:23,058 --> 00:52:29,618 goes it's we don't really have choice yeah yeah i had jonas and uh mikhail on we talked about this 585 00:52:29,618 --> 00:52:34,498 that's like what i think uh many people are like pushing a rush to this don't realize it's like hey 586 00:52:34,498 --> 00:52:38,618 we have a bunch of standards, partially signed Bitcoin transactions, 587 00:52:38,878 --> 00:52:41,118 the Lightning Network, you have the HTLCs, 588 00:52:41,178 --> 00:52:43,958 you have all these things you can't just upgrade now 589 00:52:43,958 --> 00:52:48,418 and bork all this stuff that's been built over the course of 17 years. 590 00:52:48,598 --> 00:52:51,398 You have to think through this, strategically coordinate 591 00:52:51,398 --> 00:52:56,878 across the Bitcoin network and all the individual actors within it 592 00:52:56,878 --> 00:52:58,618 and put a concerted effort forth. 593 00:53:00,538 --> 00:53:01,818 And then on the hardware wallets, 594 00:53:01,818 --> 00:53:06,898 that's actually a business opportunity for somebody who can build a beefy hardware wallet 595 00:53:06,898 --> 00:53:11,778 that is high power and can actually sign the signatures in a timely manner. 596 00:53:12,118 --> 00:53:14,178 I would think as well. 597 00:53:15,218 --> 00:53:15,398 Yeah. 598 00:53:16,018 --> 00:53:17,518 It will lead to opportunities. 599 00:53:18,778 --> 00:53:26,218 Like you said, it's hard to suss out the economic opportunists pushing the quantum fear 600 00:53:26,218 --> 00:53:28,638 versus the actual technical reality. 601 00:53:28,638 --> 00:53:39,478 And I think that at the end of the day, really no one knows, right? You can't, you don't know what's going to come out of the mind of some guy in the lab at Google. 602 00:53:40,858 --> 00:53:45,418 Or some model. Maybe the models figure out how to learn actually. And they're like, hey, guess what? 603 00:53:45,978 --> 00:53:54,498 I think what we do know for sure, and we've known for Bitcoin's lifetime, is theoretically, like the laws of physics do not prohibit this. 604 00:53:54,498 --> 00:53:57,298 it is an engineering problem 605 00:53:57,298 --> 00:53:59,198 it does not require 606 00:53:59,198 --> 00:54:01,138 breaking the laws of physics 607 00:54:01,138 --> 00:54:03,398 and at the end of the day 608 00:54:03,398 --> 00:54:05,498 that's the scary thing 609 00:54:05,498 --> 00:54:06,958 about cryptography in general 610 00:54:06,958 --> 00:54:09,958 is there's no law of physics 611 00:54:09,958 --> 00:54:12,058 that says a certain cryptographic 612 00:54:12,058 --> 00:54:13,478 primitive is secure 613 00:54:13,478 --> 00:54:14,858 it's more like 614 00:54:14,858 --> 00:54:17,938 we haven't been able to prove 615 00:54:17,938 --> 00:54:20,438 it's not hard but we can't prove it is 616 00:54:20,438 --> 00:54:21,978 so 617 00:54:21,978 --> 00:54:23,538 you know 618 00:54:23,538 --> 00:54:28,178 that's the that's kind of the scary thing about math in general is it's not really constrained by 619 00:54:28,178 --> 00:54:38,898 physics yeah um just gave the 2025 retrospective we're almost two months into 2026 what are you 620 00:54:38,898 --> 00:54:46,358 um excited about what are you looking forward to what are you focused on uh yeah whether it's 621 00:54:46,358 --> 00:54:53,258 that river or bitcoin generally right now we're focused a river we're focused on uh this dual 622 00:54:53,258 --> 00:54:59,258 money vision. We want to, you know, historically, we were this place where people came to buy Bitcoin. 623 00:55:00,498 --> 00:55:05,318 We want to be the central hub for people's money. We want to be that place where you bank. 624 00:55:06,698 --> 00:55:13,358 And so, you know, the future for us is this year, like focusing on building the future of Bitcoin 625 00:55:13,358 --> 00:55:19,238 banking, having dollars and Bitcoin in one place. We're not a chartered bank. We partner with a 626 00:55:19,238 --> 00:55:26,958 a bank to provide dollar functionality. But, you know, I do believe that this is the future 627 00:55:26,958 --> 00:55:32,338 of money. And so that's our focus. So we're working on things like bill pay, you know, 628 00:55:32,338 --> 00:55:37,158 being able to pay your bills from your river account, making it just more and more compelling 629 00:55:37,158 --> 00:55:41,918 and easy to use Bitcoin and dollars in one place. For Bitcoin more broadly, I think the quantum 630 00:55:41,918 --> 00:55:48,258 stuff is going to be a big focus of conversation. I think that we have a big opportunity there to 631 00:55:48,258 --> 00:55:54,438 show people that again bitcoin is the most secure and certain chain in the world and we think about 632 00:55:54,438 --> 00:56:00,298 the long tail risks so i do think that conversation will dominate over the over the coming year and i 633 00:56:00,298 --> 00:56:05,998 think every time a new blog post comes out from a quantum lab it'll reflame you know re reignite 634 00:56:05,998 --> 00:56:11,818 these conversations about bitcoin and quantum and i think every month that happens we'll have better 635 00:56:11,818 --> 00:56:12,978 and better answers for people. 636 00:56:13,998 --> 00:56:14,118 Yeah. 637 00:56:14,998 --> 00:56:15,918 That's funny too. 638 00:56:16,078 --> 00:56:20,418 I think we caught at least some of the grifters yesterday 639 00:56:20,418 --> 00:56:24,758 because two weeks ago we had a large downward difficulty adjustment. 640 00:56:25,058 --> 00:56:28,018 There were many people on the quantum side saying, 641 00:56:28,018 --> 00:56:30,798 look, the miners recognize the quantum risk. 642 00:56:30,918 --> 00:56:31,558 They're unplugging. 643 00:56:31,718 --> 00:56:32,998 They're giving up on their investment. 644 00:56:34,338 --> 00:56:38,978 This was happening while a winter storm was taking over most of the United States. 645 00:56:38,978 --> 00:56:52,538 And hash rate was either turning off because they were involved in demand response programs or the actual data center had some disruptions due to inches of ice falling from the sky. 646 00:56:53,578 --> 00:56:59,098 And then yesterday we had an upwards adjustment of 14.7% or above where we were before that. 647 00:56:59,298 --> 00:57:00,318 It's like, well, it wasn't quantum. 648 00:57:01,098 --> 00:57:01,818 Yeah, exactly. 649 00:57:01,818 --> 00:57:08,218 there's always someone who's got a bad take that goes viral and all of a sudden you know 650 00:57:08,218 --> 00:57:13,198 everyone's texting you about it unfortunately yeah just wait two weeks wait two weeks well 651 00:57:13,198 --> 00:57:19,278 it's always great catching up sir thanks for having me on honored to call you a friend and 652 00:57:19,278 --> 00:57:23,958 a colleague in this bitcoin network are we colleagues colleagues in the network is that 653 00:57:23,958 --> 00:57:28,818 what we're gonna call it i don't like community either i don't think yeah we're actors yeah 654 00:57:28,818 --> 00:57:31,658 acting in the network is more of the mathematical term, I guess. 655 00:57:32,558 --> 00:57:34,258 Colleague is, yeah, I like colleague. 656 00:57:34,918 --> 00:57:35,358 Brothers. 657 00:57:36,438 --> 00:57:37,318 Brothers, brothers. 658 00:57:37,998 --> 00:57:39,758 Brothers in arms here. 659 00:57:41,258 --> 00:57:44,178 We'll link to these reports in the show notes. 660 00:57:44,718 --> 00:57:45,758 Keep crushing the research. 661 00:57:45,918 --> 00:57:46,718 It's highly valuable. 662 00:57:47,498 --> 00:57:52,018 And I think it's great to be able to have this research to point to, 663 00:57:52,178 --> 00:57:54,018 to be like, hey, lightning's not dead. 664 00:57:54,138 --> 00:57:55,178 Actually, it's better than ever. 665 00:57:55,878 --> 00:57:57,298 Yes, individuals are losing. 666 00:57:57,298 --> 00:58:04,778 their share Bitcoin overall, but businesses are adopting it alongside governments and 667 00:58:04,778 --> 00:58:12,038 institutions. It's not just these large actors that people don't like coming in. It's mom and 668 00:58:12,038 --> 00:58:17,358 pop mainstream businesses as well. I think it's very beneficial for the pitch to people who are 669 00:58:17,358 --> 00:58:23,298 skeptical. Absolutely. Yeah. Excited to share more there. All right. Well, all right. A little 670 00:58:23,298 --> 00:58:28,438 tease, a little tease to end it. We'll, uh, we'll, uh, we'll catch up again at some point soon. 671 00:58:28,858 --> 00:58:31,418 All right. Looking forward. All right. Peace. Love freaks.