Welcome to the Bitcoin Playbook, where we discuss proven strategies for using Bitcoin
in your business. This week, we have another roundup episode with John Gordon and Trey
Sellers. We talk about Elon's new America party, the big, beautiful bill, and how you
can now use Bitcoin to help you buy a house. Here are John and Trey. Gentlemen, welcome
to another roundup episode. This week, we got news that Elon Musk is starting a new
party called the America party. And he seems like he's interested in Bitcoin. We'll see about whether
or not he follows through with that. He's called fiat hopeless when people have been asking him
about, you know, what, what role Bitcoin will play in this new party. But let's, let's have a little
conversation to start off the podcast about Elon Musk, the America party and the role that Bitcoin
can, and maybe what you think it will play in the future when it comes to political conversations.
Well, I don't trust Elon at all when it comes to anything related to Bitcoin. I guess he has
earned some stripes in that he hasn't sold all of the Bitcoin that he had bought for Tesla. And it
sounded like they actually acquired a little bit more at some point in the past and maybe he has
changed his mind but it does seem like he's got something to say about literally everything under
the sun except for bitcoin so make of that what you will i don't understand it at all it plays
perfectly into the narrative that he's kind of trying to construct around america's need for
fiscal austerity and transparency and you know just changing the way that the old guard has run
things for so many decades and you would think that if you are challenging the two-party duopoly
the two-party system, then you probably need to embrace something that challenges the underpinnings
or the underflow of what funds those two-party system and really embrace the culture that Bitcoin
brings, which is one that kind of carves its own path. And he's really going to have to carve his
own path because going against the two-party system is nearly impossible. I mean, it's codified
essentially that there's no way to really make too much headway or progress. The Libertarian Party
has been trying for years and years and years to no avail. And I think we're going to see the same
type of result coming from the America party that we saw coming from the efforts of Doge,
which was just hitting an absolute brick wall and a buzzsaw.
You know, I don't know.
Maybe I'm just being very cynical here, but I just don't see anything lasting coming out
of this.
But at least it'll provide some fun things for us to talk about on a weekly basis.
Sure.
John, are you any more optimistic or do you feel similarly?
Yeah, I think having more voices and potential of a third party is definitely better than
the two-party system we have now.
But I agree with Trey that it remains to be seen how successful that can really be.
But given Elon's arsenal of businesses and X and being able to be really dominate a lot of the narrative, I think if anyone's going to be able to pull it off, it might be him.
And I think from a Bitcoin perspective, it's interesting to see that despite potential now challenges between the American Party and the Republican Party, you have two parties that have embraced Bitcoin or potentially will embrace Bitcoin.
As Elon said, fiat is hopeless. We'll see to the degree it's actually integrated in it.
And I think a lot of Democrats coming around to and realizing that they need to also be more open to Bitcoin if they want to turn things around in the next midterm elections.
And that Bitcoiners continue to be a bigger and bigger, have a bigger seat at the table.
And in our vocal political advocacy group, as we saw, I was out in D.C. a couple weeks ago for the Bitcoin Policy Institute Summit.
Over a thousand Bitcoiners advocating and talking about Bitcoin in business and as it relates to regulation, educating regulators and their policymakers from their states.
So that type of grassroots movement, as you see with a whole host of different issues, Bitcoin matters the way it's regulated matters.
And so we'll see if Tesla was accepting Bitcoin directly for payment a few years ago.
They turned that off and said they'd turn it back on.
If we saw more renewable mining, well, we have seen more renewable Bitcoin mining.
They haven't turned payments back on.
So certainly, I think remains to be seen how much they'd integrate Bitcoin.
And third parties have a challenging time.
And we get into the big, beautiful bill next.
But I think, as Lynn Alden says, nothing stops this train.
And we saw from either side, there's going to continue to be money printing, continue
to be an expansion on a fiscal side.
And as you said, Trey, running into a brick wall, the limited impact Doge was able to make
or they really dug in and I think found a lot early on.
But we saw that even with those potentially hundreds of billions of gains,
it's still dropping the bucket to the trillions in debt that we're facing as a country.
Yeah, all those same things were said about Elon and that group of people in Vivek Ramaswamy
about like, oh, if anybody's going to be able to do it, these are the guys, right?
Like this is the guy you want in charge of eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government.
And he just got basically nowhere.
I mean, there was not even like a scratch or a dent on the surface.
There was a whole lot of like hoopla as you're referring to up front.
A lot of that seemed to be inflated.
And the overall impact of all this is that they just passed a bill that raises the debt ceiling by $5 trillion, which we all know that the debt ceiling is kind of a facade and, you know, not actually meaningful in any real way anyway.
So that was always going to be raised.
But it is a pretty big symbol of exactly just how unstoppable that train actually is.
You know, Josh, what do you think?
Like, do you think that they're going to make any meaningful impact with the America Party?
Do you think that, like, Bitcoin is going to continue to be roped into these political conversations that we're having?
I mean, it definitely seems like there's an in everywhere for Bitcoin as part of the conversation.
The short answer is no, I don't think the American Party or the America Party will go anywhere.
But that said, I think that Elon is smarter now about how how much the government relies on status quo than he was before.
I think a lot of us who maybe were a little more optimistic are a little wiser.
So we'll see what happens. I think that there's some potential for sure.
As far as getting maybe a few people in. I wonder, for instance, if Thomas Massey will get connected with Elon.
It seems like, you know, depending on who you are in the Republican Party, Thomas Massey seems to always be on the outside.
I think he's one of the most valuable members of Congress that we have.
But I can see someone like him or in kind of a similar situation where you're a little bit on the outside, being interested in kind of teaming up with Elon potentially to hopefully bring some more fiscal conservatism into the government.
I don't know if that will happen or not.
It also seems like Elon has the opportunity to incorporate Bitcoin into a variety of different things that he's involved with.
And he has at times, but not ever to the level where he really could have.
So it does seem like if he is talking about Bitcoin, it might just be lip service and not anything that meaningful.
So it doesn't really talk about it, right?
Like it was a surprise to everybody over the past week or yesterday or whenever it was.
He was talking about Fiat is hopeless in response to a question about Bitcoin.
But there's been no mention of Bitcoin basically at all from him since back in 2020 or whenever it was that he first adopted it as part of Tesla's balance sheet.
And so, you know, it's really like so confounding to me.
I don't really understand it.
I really don't.
Is it just trolling with Dogecoin?
Like it's ridiculous.
There's some kind of strange thing.
Like I said, he's got an opinion
about literally everything except for Bitcoin.
If there were an opportunity
to really start a strong third party,
it would be essentially the Orange Party, right?
People who are Bitcoiners
and who care more about sound money
and the good that they believe
that will bring to the world.
And it seems like if you want to create a third party,
that's the way to go.
So I think Elon might see that
and he might start saying pro-Bitcoin things.
But to your point,
he hasn't been talking about it.
Moving forward, if he does,
Yeah.
Can you trust it or not?
Is he just trying to get a conversation going?
Is he just trolling?
And that's the difficult thing about Elon Musk.
You don't actually know what he thinks or what he believes, what he actually wants to
do.
Is he saying something meaningful or is he just trying to get clicks and get people riled
up?
Yeah, there's definitely a strong precedent that was set in this last election with Trump
being elected with like kind of largely putting him over the edge by embracing Bitcoin and
crypto more broadly and getting all of this upswell of support coming from this group of
passionate people like us who are, you know, kind of willing to support anybody who is
going to embrace bitcoin and the world that it represents so if he is smart about doing this you
would think that he would embrace it but there's like technical and procedural issues to a new
party any party even if it is led by elon musk to making any kind of progress like you have to go
state by state and get on the ballot just getting on the ballot costs hundreds of millions of dollars
or whatever and all kinds of political lobbying and there's all kinds of procedural ways that
the democrats and republicans can stop that from happening um i got a buddy brian jackato who a election attorney so i be curious to to hear his thoughts on that um we should we should maybe bring him on to talk about it at some point but um it it definitely going to be an uphill battle for elon and i think he going to
come out with another metaphorical black eye to go along with the one that he that he actually got
who knows where that came from uh to go along with like the doge black eye that that he already
walked away with and he's going to get even more jaded and then who knows who knows where it goes
from there yep well so john just a second ago you talked about the big beautiful bill or maybe the
The better term is the alleged big, beautiful bill.
We were hopeful for a brief moment in time that it would strip away capital gains taxes
for smaller purchases with Bitcoin.
That didn't end up happening.
But I'd love to hear your thoughts on the big, beautiful bill and anything else maybe
that I'm missing because I wasn't paying too much attention to it in the last few days.
You know, so much was changing all the time with it.
Is there anything positive for Bitcoin in there?
Should we hope that positive things come from the government when it comes to Bitcoin?
A lot of people have been hopeful about the legislative changes that are more positive
for Bitcoin.
but it seems like we've kind of hit a wall, at least in recent days, as far as what the government's
willing to do connected to Bitcoin. So any thoughts? Am I missing anything from the big,
beautiful bill or was it a wash for Bitcoiners? I think even having the capital gains discussion
on Bitcoin being a part of the conversation is really important. It's something Bitcoiners have
talked about for years and I think it's still a key friction point for many people when it comes to
spending their Bitcoin in the US or as an American anywhere. So they introduced the bill, which would,
for any transactions up to $600, be capital gains tax free up to $5,000 a year. At some point,
They lowered that to $300, and then it fully got scrapped at the end, the final discussions.
Cynthia Lemus has now resubmitted that bill with the $300 mark.
And as we've seen, any other bill outside of single large bills have difficulty getting
passed.
So I think that it's probably a few years until this is seriously revisited.
But the fact that it was on the table, again, that senators, representatives in the House
are hearing this as a key talking point in the crunch time of a bill being passed when
they're really paying attention, I think is really important, movement of that Overton
window even further.
Something actually positive on the health side for our business at SoundHSA are some
of the expansions around health savings accounts, actually. So you're able to, you're seeing an
expansion now, you can pair those with bronze or catastrophic ACA plans, you can spend your,
more importantly, your HSA or health savings directly with direct primary care providers,
which for some reason hadn't been allowed before, as well as extending some COVID provisions around
being able to spend it on telehealth directly too. So I think there's a lot in the bill,
of course, 900 pages, it's going to add to the deficit, it's going to add, for Bitcoiners,
just underlying of really having to monetize the debt as a country. A lot in there on PAC,
but I think again the de minimis transactions if anything it's not enough right I think as
Bitcoiners though we should still be pushing for a full Bitcoin as money it's valid currency around
the world and there shouldn't be any capital gains tax we're not having capital gains tax when we go
to Europe and we're going in and out of the euro and as we've seen the dollar is having its worst
year in decades but even still we're not getting to write off a capital loss on our transactions
that we make in other currencies so I think Bitcoin should really be treated as money and
something we're going to try to do on the healthcare side at least where within the HSA for example you
don't have capital gains tax being able to create more of that circular economy for Bitcoin and
healthcare is one example where we don't have that friction point. But overall, the bill just
adds to the deficit. And yeah, it's a train's left the station for sure. What do you think, Trey?
Yeah, I'm gonna start off with positive, right? Because I feel like I come across negative
sometimes. It's very positive that this discussion is even being had. It's a testament to the fact
that we've got people in positions of power that actually care about the issues that we
Bitcoiners care about. I agree with you, it should be treated the same as other currencies. But at
the same time, we have a lot of people advocating that Bitcoin is not a currency, that it's just a
store value that's just an asset uh and that we shouldn't even think about it as a currency even
though it can operate in both in both arenas simultaneously so um i'm not surprised to see
it be stripped out i was cautiously optimistic thinking oh yeah maybe this thing will sneak in
along with the other pork or whatever that's that's out there that's going into this massive
thing um but it didn't happen i agree with you that you know it has a much lower chance of being
passed um on as a standalone bill because you know you can get more broad support if everybody's
getting their pork you know included or their their special issues included into a big omnibus
bill like this. But as soon as you start carving out an issue that only certain people care about,
it's very difficult to garner the support for that particular piece, which is why we end up
in this situation where you get these big bills. I also, I never saw an answer and probably should
have done a little bit more research to figure this out. But do you guys know if that $600 that
was being proposed or the drop to $300 was inflation adjusted at all? Or was it just a
hard dollar amount? Because obviously we've been burned over and over again in the past from other
types of like dollar denominated fixed amounts that uh turn out to you know come back to bite us
as the inevitable debasement of the dollar uh you know continues on decade after decade right
um did you guys see anything about that well so what i'll say is i don't know if that's changed
i've heard that 600 number for some years so um i mean obviously that'll be 600 of bitcoin today
in five years is going to be a whole lot different um but i imagine they're just thinking in dollar
denominated terms i don't know if the de minimis rules like if they ramp up that amount over time
or not yeah i don't think it was i'm guessing it's just 600 in perpetuity or even if yeah even
if you're just thinking about it in like normal dollar denominated inflation adjusted terms okay
whatever cpi is on a yearly basis it's three percent which is where around about where it's
been now so you know starting in year one six hundred dollar exemption then in year two it's
six hundred dollars plus three percent or whatever right like that should be anchored to something
like cpi at least at the very least if you're at all serious about what the essence of the bill is
supposed to be. But it's similar to these BSA or other compliance-oriented or regulatory numbers
where we have to disclose information about putting money into a bank account or whatever
the case is, or withdrawing cash. And they're anchored to dollar numbers that used to be about
$70,000 in 1971 or whenever it was passed. And now it's still anchored at $10,000, which buys a
lot less than what it used to. The real win would be getting it in sats. I'd love the 300,000 sats
or less, no taxes on it.
That would be a major win.
That would be really cool.
That would grow.
Nobody understands that.
We can buy more and more over time.
Yeah, I think being anchored in
Sats' unit of account
is definitely the next step,
maybe even the next bill.
Who knows?
I don't think it's in the current bill.
But yeah, I think when you consider
that Bank Secrecy Act
you're referring to
and now $10,000,
okay, if you're traveling
another country,
you're supposed to disclose
and so on,
becomes more and more cumbersome
for individuals, businesses,
absolutely from a regulatory perspective
and we know the debasement
is going to continue.
So we'll continue to,
I think, see how that bill
progresses or at least
the conversation around it. I know there's some other kind of initial report cards due here in a
couple weeks in July around what the initial crypto task force was set out to do. So we'll
continue to hear more and more, I think, of Bitcoin and digital assets more broadly coming out of the
White House in DC. Yeah, look, maybe it's just our echo chamber, but it does feel like Bitcoin is
part of the conversation in a lot more realms, or at least it's like when it's injected into the
conversation, people don't just automatically reject its relevance to the situation. And you'll
see a lot more of that as there's more adoption and more people hold it and more people are
thinking about it um but you know i i'm still i'm still continuing to be surprised just by how
the price just hasn't gotten out and running yet you know just based off of all the actual
bullishness that's happening right like we we know for a fact that we're at least adding five
trillion dollars to the national debt that's like over you know what's the national debt now
three points you know 37 trillion uh so we're adding five trillion to that until we hit the
next the next debt ceiling we'll probably get there in you know what three years or something
like that. I don't know how long this is supposed to last. And so, you know, that's at the very
least, if you just look at the national debt as a measurement of dollar debasement, which I think
that's an interesting proxy, you're at least looking at, you know, this like 15% type of a
number of debasement that is just guaranteed to be happening over the next couple of years.
Yeah So on a more positive note recently I guess this would be the FHA I forget who exactly was saying this but the FHA head whoever it is was saying that you can now or maybe now or soon I not sure which it is consider Bitcoin as part of your total assets whenever you applying for a mortgage It once again adds credibility to Bitcoin as this
is an asset that people that the government considers worth considering when it comes to
your mortgage. So I think it's I think it's a pretty cool thing. I don't know if you guys have
any thoughts on it. I'll also be interested to know if it actually affects, you know, who can
buy a home. But any thoughts on this or, you know, reflections from looking at some of these changes?
i'm gonna take a very small victory lap on this one just because it was like two or three episodes
that we did ago and it was like just before that announcement came and i said i think the the
biggest uh you know policy of bank adoption will come when they just start offering credit based
off of bitcoin being included in the asset base that you are that you're disclosing to them um
that that is collateralized so it's not like you're they're doing loans that are directly
backed by bitcoin or something like that but just the fact that they're acknowledging this as an
actual asset that is on people's personal balance sheets to get a mortgage is a huge, huge win.
Because think about all of the process that needs to be in place for them to do that, right? Like
they've got to have some way of verifying that they've got to have some way of just putting that
in their paperwork. It requires some education from the underwriter standpoint as to what this
is and how to value it. And you know, what the market structure looks like. The pronouncement
was about crypto at large, but you know, really the only thing that is viable in this scenario is
Bitcoin, because it's the only thing that actually has any staying power or depth in terms of
liquidity such that like from an underwriter standpoint um the most important thing is like
okay what assets do you have to liquidate in the event that you lose your job and you can no longer
actually service this loan right that's essentially what it is um it is a secondary consideration for
for loan loan applications or mortgage applications so just keep that in mind that like what they're
underwriting is your ability to service that loan um and that the primary thing that people that
banks are looking at or mortgage lenders are looking at is your income or your ability to
provide some type of cash flow to cover the interest payment and the principal payment on
that loan the asset value piece of this is secondary but it's still an important piece of
this and so it's just like starting to creep its way in to these institutions that control a lot of
capital that uh control a lot of the credit infrastructure and part of that process is that
these people that are around that that procedure for initiating a mortgage uh they now have to
understand bitcoin a little bit better and that goes into their psyche and now they're like oh
well maybe this thing is more uh has more staying power than i thought and maybe i'll pick up a
little bit on my own um you know just for their personal balance sheet so this is this is how
adoption happens just a little bit at a time a little bit under the radar and we end up in a
situation where Bitcoin is just ubiquitous. Yeah, I agree. I think this can't be overstated. It's a
massive, massive win for Bitcoiners in the US. Credit to Bill Pulte and the Federal Housing
Association. And really to see the speed and the engagement that they had on X was really
interesting and the feedback they're getting from Bitcoiners. They got this, they raised it and got
the letter signed relatively quickly. And yeah, we've spoken about this on previous shows. And I
think having Bitcoin recognized in your personal balance sheet when you go to get a mortgage really
opens up your optionality as an individual. You don't have to necessarily sell your Bitcoin right
now to get the liquidity to even show that you can get a mortgage, right? And Vannie Mae and Freddie
Mac are backing or buying essentially like half of all mortgages that come out. I mean, this is the
U.S. government backstopping a lot of these loans that are being written, which of course is part of
the money printing process. When a home is sold and you write a mortgage, they're creating new
money as a bank to pay the seller, right? Ultimately, right? And so having Bitcoin recognized
as part of that equation, I think, again, just gives more power to Bitcoiners in deciding when
and how they utilize their Bitcoin to improve their life, you know, your life into the future.
And so whether that's enabling a purchase that wouldn't have been enabled at all and having that
primary dwelling place. I think you have a massive monetary premium placed on homes right now in
certain places around the country. Prices are falling a little bit, but particularly in outer
areas where there's just no inventory or zoning considerations, there's not enough supply that's
being built. And when you have an average housing price, seven times average income,
when it used to be two or three, there's just more and more difficulty for younger people in
being able to get a home. So for Bitcoiners now, knowing that, hey, if I'm stacking Bitcoin,
I'm saving in Bitcoin when the time comes to go get a mortgage, this will be used as part of that
equation alongside other investments, really legitimizes Bitcoin and I think further incentivizes
people to take a look at bitcoin as being an option for just personal holdings and a benefit
it can have of ultimately getting some credit based on that bitcoin that you have yeah you're
kind of you're kind of touching on like a tangential point that i want to make and been
thinking about recently which is that as bitcoin grows and as the value of it increases bitcoin
holders like us who have been around for a while the people who are coming into the space who are
building their bitcoin balance sheet for themselves and for their businesses and all that
several years from now like we end up in a very strong economic position such that we are going
have a lot more purchasing power for the actual real goods and businesses and assets around the
economy and um you know i hosted this panel at bitcoin 2025 on bitcoin and financial independence
retire early and all that and brian herrington was one of the panelists there and he made a point
that i kind of joked about as part of the panel that um he he was basically saying look the coiners
should buy real estate we should buy businesses we should own these assets because if we don't then
the people who don't own Bitcoin, who don't believe in it will. And it kind of like leaves
all of that to the fiat maxi, so to speak. And I laughed that off and I was like, oh, so buying
real estate is a moral argument now, you know, and all that. But it actually stuck with me.
And I've been thinking a little bit more about this, that he might be right there, right? Like
it's actually important for us to, obviously we're going to recognize the opportunity cost of owning
anything other than Bitcoin. And there's an economic calculation that we all go through
as Bitcoiners once you understand what that opportunity cost is of not owning Bitcoin in
favor of something else. But at the same time, he's right. Like, and at some point in the future,
we will have the economic powerhouses on our side that can own all of these other assets that
actually control things in meat space. And we should be people like the people with our value
sets, the people who understand the promise that Bitcoin brings to the world. Like we're all going
to be better served if we actually own all these assets. So my message to Bitcoiners out there is
be thinking about this in the next five years, 10 years, 15 years, whatever, there will be another
big crisis, another big opportunity for Bitcoiners who have accumulated all this purchasing power
to come in and start scooping up some of these distressed assets that other people are kind of
forced to sell because they're financing them with so much leverage that they have to cover
that they have to sell it down. We should actually make sure that we're mentally, psychologically
in a position to scoop those things up, even if it means parting with some portion of our stack,
because we need to start balancing out the ownership of assets across the economy and getting
more and more Bitcoiners in positions where they control the means of production, so to speak.
Yep. Yep. Yeah. And so I think that Bitcoin just holding it is 100% a valid use case. At the same
time, there's a certain point where you might want to think about moving away from just accumulating
and beginning to build with it. And to that end, the last episode of the podcast was with Wyatt
O'Rourke. And he is, I think, the CMO at The Space in Denver. We didn't talk too much about
the space. I got a white book right here. Perfect. Yeah. So we talked about the Bitcoinization of
finance. We talked about that on the podcast. We didn't talk about The Space too much. We did talk
in a bonus episode a little bit about urbanism, but it's something to consider. Brian's been a
voice on this. Bobby Schell from Voltage as well. And I think there'll be a lot more people talking
about whether it's business or some people are talking about thinking about how to build Bitcoin
urbanism, building structures that raise the human spirit and that last for generations. So I think
there's a lot of opportunity in the future for Bitcoiners as their wealth increases because
they've held Bitcoin and benefited from that for so long. But then it's like, once you've held it,
what can you do to build with it and build a world that reflects hard money values and lasting values?
And we're going to want to, and there's goods and services we're going to need, right? And so I think
as the population demographics in the U.S.
We have a larger boomer population that's aging,
that's looking to sell their businesses.
They want to retire.
Maybe they don't have kids to hand it off to
or their kids are doing something else.
There's certainly opportunities out there.
I think if you're to that SMB point,
small, medium-sized businesses,
that big corners can go out there,
cash-flowing businesses where you can get some stats flow,
serve your local community.
And rather than those types of businesses
being bought up by private equity or larger entities,
and certainly have seen this trend play out massively in healthcare where you have a ton of M and very smaller numbers of independent providers and practices out there getting bought up in bigger and bigger health systems and worse service worse quality playing out the more we have Bitcoin doctors
and or Bitcoin business owners in general providing different needs.
I think that definitely to your point, Trey, is going to continue to play a bigger and bigger
role.
And having that primary dwelling space is part of the American dream and being able to attain
that, I think, through and via Bitcoin over the next few years as we move into the now
we're actually closer to 2050 than we are to 2000. So, you know, moving to the back half of
this decade too, it's just going to be, I think, more and more clear. So people are hopefully going
to be waking up and learning and studying Bitcoin, or at least listening to some podcasts and start
reading all the material that have accumulated now, particularly over the last half decade,
I think, you know, since COVID and really that money printing. So we'll see what the next number
is and how many trillions get added. But it's getting to the point and already is at the point
numbers that we have a hard time comprehending as humans. I mean, it's just unbelievable.
So we say trillion. It feels like the only people, the way the real estate is going,
like for primary residences the only people who are going to be able to afford their first home
are like young people who own bitcoin already i mean it might actually play out that way and for
large swaths of the population where it's like oh this thing is like totally out of reach for me now
i'm still living in my parents basement when i'm 35 but look at my buddy who bought bitcoin 10 years
ago and he's got this nice you know single family home the yard and everything that i'm looking to
get to and just can't you know that's exactly kind of like the the path i'm talking about and and
it's it's definitely gonna be uh definitely gonna be fun or maybe not fun if it causes some animosity
to watch all that play out.
Yeah, and one last piece about the bill.
They did say you need to have your cryptocurrency
or Bitcoin in our case on a centralized exchange
in order for them to recognize it.
And I think with the stepping stones, it makes sense.
Obviously, hopefully we get to a point
where they as the FHA have confidence in verifying
maybe using Hoseki or other kind of proof of reserves
at an individual level and signing your own keys
and showing maybe working with an institution like Unchained
and saying, this is my Bitcoin here
held in collaborative custody should be counted as well
versus having to send it to an exchange
and have it recognized.
But it doesn't need to sit on an exchange necessarily
for the duration of the loan.
But just to the point, there will still be ways
to improve even this announcement, but I think is really a step in the right direction.
So the last thing, I'd like to get your thoughts on this. There's an article from CNBC that said,
I think it was for the third quarter, that corporations have accumulated more Bitcoin
than the ETFs. I'm curious to know if you guys think this will be a continual trend. Will
corporations for the next 30 quarters be accumulating more Bitcoin than the ETFs? Or do
you feel like retail will catch up? And once again, obviously, we're talking about ETFs as
opposed to spot Bitcoin. So you're just buying and holding it, whether it's on a centralized
exchange, like we just talked about, or in cold storage. Do you think that corporations will
continuously beat out retail moving forward i think corporations sit at a privileged position
in terms of their access to capital using the the capital markets so they can add leverage and
therefore bring purchasing power into the present where individuals are not able to do that i think
the majority of this corporations buying bitcoin is just coming from the coiners who are starting
corporations or spacking into corporations to buy bitcoin so i don't know that that really represents
like the the true adoption that we're all hoping to see on the corporate front and you know in
mind there's there probably is some kind of upward limit to how far out of our bubble that can
actually expand um so like it remains to be seen as to whether or not we see more organic adoption
of bitcoin onto corporate balance sheets in the way that i think we on this call all would like
to see it which is that half the s p 500 has some portion of bitcoin as part of a like primary
treasury reserve asset or maybe just a secondary treasury reserve assets like some portion of their
cash holdings is held uh you know as like a long duration view with bitcoin and uh but then they're
carrying on their business and they're still trying to grow and add to their retained earnings
some portion of which then goes back into bitcoin that's what we really want to see and i think over
time like that uh that flywheel or that snowball continues to roll downhill and picks up more
momentum and it does does become you know easier for corporations to buy larger amounts of bitcoin
but i i don't know how long like the bitcoin treasury company phenomenon is going to last
but i i definitely think we're going to see some bodies um floating by on on that trend and um and
there is some kind of an upward limit, I think, to like the number of these things that can exist,
especially in any given jurisdiction or market, but even across the world. We'll see. I don't
know. What do you think, John? Yeah, I agree. I think we're, Lynn Alden wrote a great piece on
this. I highly recommend everyone reading her July newsletter, but given Bitcoin's growth to
this point and being a $2 trillion asset and being solidly there now for at least a couple months
and quick monetization relatively over 16 years, Bitcoin's on the path that it should be if it is
going to be adopted as global money that nation states and policymakers, as we've already talked
about, but now businesses are getting interested and wanting to add it to their balance sheet.
We're actually seeing a lot of those traders and people out there that are seeking maybe higher volatility and higher short-term returns that they previously sought in altcoins or shitcoins in previous ICOs.
And in recent years, you're seeing a lot of that activity happening in the capital markets via Bitcoin treasury companies.
And so it's just a sign as well, I think, where you haven't had an alt season that I think a lot of other, you know, more on the crypto side might have expected as we've seen Bitcoin's price rise over the last two years.
And a lot of that activity is happening with Bitcoin treasury companies.
So I agree there certainly could be the place where there's a deleveraging at some point because it's hard to say exactly how much leverage these companies are taking on.
is a varying degree in individual companies that have now more access to investing in stocks than
they did in getting into altcoins. Definitely haven't hit its peak yet. But to your point,
Trey, on more organic, where that feels maybe inorganic, where Bitcoiners jumping in and just
doing this thing, there definitely has been some organic Bitcoin adoption from solid companies,
such as Figma, for example, which offers great software tools for UX and design.
In their S1 filing, looking to go public, have bought $70 million of a Bitcoin ETF, too,
which is notable now that we're a year and a half into the ETFs. It made that easy for them to buy
Bitcoin with a possible allocation of another $30 million into Bitcoin as well. So I think those
types of headlines to me really strike a chord because it's a company that's just building,
growing, scaling, serving a really important use for startups and other companies that have
recognized the importance of just adding Bitcoin to their balance sheet. They don't even make a
big deal about it. But as they go public, I think that makes them that much more attractive and would
put them on those rankings of Bitcoin treasury companies. Yeah, we'll still see these kind of
strong leaders of companies that just get orange-pilled and decide to start stacking Bitcoin
personally. And then for their company, like I know one in particular that I'm thinking of that
is looking to go public later this year is a very successful uh commercial uh like serves commercial
grade type um customers and has like you know 100 million dollars a year in revenue and is just a
very profitable high growth company and the ceo is just fully down the rabbit hole orange pilled
has his own personal stack and is stacking for the business and um he's looking to you know take
advantage of the opportunity the arbitrage that exists in the capital markets by taking his company
public so that he can stack more sats there so that is a very like that is the story that i love
hearing right because it is um very much organic it's very much a hey we've got a business in the
real world that provides real services that's actually profitable and we're adopting bitcoin
and we're going to arbitrage the capital markets to like you know amplify the speculative attack
that we can on the dollar those are the stories that i love love hearing and it's going to be fun
to watch that when it comes when it comes to light and comes to market absolutely well another thing
people might love hearing is where to hear more from each of you so if you don't mind guys sharing
where people can go to keep up with your work yeah you can follow me on x at ts underscore hodl
and my newsletter is FireBTC,
firebtc.substack.com.
Go give it a read and subscribe for free.
Yeah, and you can follow me on X and Oster
at TheBitcoinYogi.
You can check out some of my consulting work
at satoshihelf.com.
And if you're interested in Bitcoin HSA,
check out soundhsa.com
and see what we've got in the works.
Excited to connect with you all.
Great.
Thank you guys for your time today.
It's been a pleasure.
Yeah, good conversation.
Thanks, guys.
Well, friends, it's a wrap.
Thanks so much for listening to this episode
of the Bitcoin Playbook.
If you want to reach out to either me, Trey, or John,
you can find those links down in the show notes.
and be sure to check out both Sound HSA and the Fire BTC sub stack.
As always, keep building, keep growing.
Until next time, keep living and living well.