Welcome to the Bitcoin Playbook, where we discuss proven strategies for using Bitcoin
in your business. I'm your host, Josh Friedemann, and our guests today are John Gordon and Trey
Sellers, who are joining me for another roundup episode. Today, we're talking about strategy,
a recent preferred stock offering that is giving high yield savings accounts a run for their money,
how CFOs are thinking about Bitcoin, and some recent changes that suggest you might need to
be saving more Bitcoin for retirement. Here are John and Trey. Guys, I think probably the most
interesting thing from a popular perspective is strategy's recent earnings. They blew out
expectations by about 32,000% if my math is correct. Reflections from you guys on what Michael
Saylor is continuing to do at strategy. Well, I thought that it was pretty funny that a lot of
people somehow expected that these earnings numbers, which are very interesting in and of
themselves, just being 32,000% above the expectation, would actually move the stock in some meaningful
way, as if the people on Wall Street are just so dumb that they wouldn't have figured out that this
was, you know, needed to be taken into account in the valuation of the stock. It just, you know,
I don't know. I came from Wall Street. These are very smart people. There is much wider coverage
for MSTR than there used to be. And the thought that, oh, they're just going to have these surprise
earnings based on the Bitcoin price moving and the amount that they've been able to accumulate,
and that's just going to send a jolt through the stock was kind of funny to me.
The other thing that I think is a little strange, I don't know if this is strange or what,
But I love your guys' opinion on this.
Like, I understand that they're kind of trailblazing in making these earnings calls more interesting, attracting more investors, having them more transparent and more widely available by streaming on X and all that kind of thing.
I thought it was a little strange that they invited Preston Pysh and Lynn Alden and Samson Mao there to basically, you know, provide like, I guess the Bitcoiner side of the questioning thing.
It just looks a little bit too contrived on in my mind. And I get it. Like, I understand what you're doing. You're wanting to more broadly appeal to the Bitcoin community. And that part of it is really cool. But I just don't know that it necessarily comes across as a great look from the rest of Wall Street and the analyst world. Curious what you guys think.
Yeah. John, any thoughts?
Yeah, it's an interesting approach.
And I think we have a lot of great educators in the Bitcoin space.
So maybe it's somewhat of trying to get more exposure also to TradFi and kind of the Bitcoin macro take on where things stand right now.
But it definitely looked like, yeah, a bit more of a crowded room or Zoom call out there.
So we'll see if they continue that, maybe what the feedback is moving forward.
But I think overall strategy is definitely in a league of its own.
And from a Bitcoin treasury perspective, having almost 3% of the Bitcoin supply and taking
advantage of the FASB changes that from really early on, I remember hearing Saylor talk three,
four, five years ago saying, hey, we need to change the accounting rules.
And when we can mark to market the Bitcoin price, we're really going to show massive
net income gains when the Bitcoin makes price movements upwards.
So yeah, it seems like that was already sort of priced into the stock and it didn't really
change things.
and they talked a bit more about how they're going to be buying more Bitcoin and what MNAV
levels are going to do that with strategy stock versus some of the other more preferred stocks now,
Stretch and others that they've come out with. So they're building a yield curve on
MSTR stock. And I think the rest of the market is starting to wake up and you can't knock those
performances of the stock over the last, I think we're coming up right now on five years,
pretty much exactly from when they started buying Bitcoin. So we'll see if it's more theater on the
earnings calls or it really is an opportunity when people are tuning in to things that generally have
been tuned out because you get these automatic feeds and sort of the alpha may be stripped out
of any earnings reports happening right away and kind of by bots, you actually can have more genuine
learning. So I think we'll see. Yeah, it's definitely like they view these earnings calls
as an opportunity for wider education on what they're doing and what these different instruments
are that they have been releasing all of these different preferred equities. You know, they
definitely have kind of an intricate structure that especially to the retail community is a little
bit complex and difficult to understand. And then to the actual professional investment community
and the analysts who are looking at MSTR stock and looking at the company as a whole, I think
it's helpful for them to educate them using the language that they want to provide around the
things that they're doing, right? It's like you don't want to leave too much guesswork up to the
investment community or the analyst community because they can start drawing conclusions that
may not be aligned with what the actual reality is, especially when you get into some of this
complexity here. The one thing that I thought was a little strange, and maybe I'm just not smart
enough to understand why this is a good thing versus a bad thing. But this MNAV targeting that
they had out there, they're basically saying that, you know, we're going to not sell any ATM
or common equity below 2.5 MNAV and will really ratchet it up at 4x MNAV or something like that.
And they're kind of targeting this range, almost like the Fed funds range, right? We're going to
target to keep the MNAV between these ranges. And the way that I see this is, doesn't this take
some of the some of the juice or the punch out of the stock from people who now know what to expect.
Like part of the premium that MSTR has enjoyed in the past, I think, is just driven from the fact
that you kind of don't know what's coming next. But if you know that above two and a half or
closing in on four, especially that they're going to come in hot and heavy with the ATM and with this
equity issuance, then the rational thing to do, I think, as an investor who owns MSTR is to one,
not buy any more of it at those levels, and two, potentially trim some and move it back into
Bitcoin, right? If you're using Bitcoin as your denomination unit. And if you're going to front
run that, then it's not ever going to quite get there. And you lose some of the volatility there
and you lose the ability to perhaps see some of these big swings that you could take advantage of
if it were to go to five or six or seven X MNAV. Just because, you know, it's not just,
I think a lot of people, especially in the retail Bitcoin community, they look at strategy and
sailor in a little bit of a vacuum as if he's the one who kind of controls the market for strategy.
And then there's all of us retail people who are just buying it and hoping that it pumps.
But the reality is that there's a whole market out there that sailor is trading against as well,
trying to manage the premium that is on the stock so that it can be harvested. And when you start
putting out this type of guidance here, I'm concerned that it might actually kill some of
the momentum that they have, some of the ability for them to actually get some extra juice out of
that squeeze. Yeah, it was it was interesting. I think that a lot of people are happy to know
that it's possible for MSTR to at least grow a little bit because whether or not it was always
the common stock ATM, there are a lot of people that were frustrated because sailors seem to be
preferring preferred shares. And maybe that's the whole point over common stock. So I think
it's it's useful for mstr holders to know that sailor sees them and still wants that side of the
business to have a lot of upward volatility it is weird i agree to know kind of the range that you
have to work with because if it ever gets over forex you start selling because you know sailor
is going to be hitting the atm and i'll be interested to know how long that lasts i wonder
this is a strategy for now to let the common stockholders know they're seen and heard.
But at some point, you know, they could change their strategy once again. So we'll just have to
see. It also it also gets harder and harder for you to maintain a higher level of premium
on the stock because of the natural dynamics of BTC yield and the ability to generate higher
levels of BTC yield relative to the amount of Bitcoin that you already hold. And we see this
across all the other Bitcoin treasury companies that when you're very small, you have a small
balance of Bitcoin, it's much easier, of course, to generate a higher BTC yield. And MetaPlanet has
done a really good job, it seems, of kind of managing that BTC yield to stay high enough where
it, at least for a time, was able to keep them at a higher level of premium that they could then
harvest. That has come in quite drastically, actually. I think it's like closing in on 2 to
3x or something right now. But for a while, it was kind of defying gravity to some extent.
And that's because people are, if you're able to continue that BTC yield over a long period of time,
people can discount in that extra juice that you're getting from adding more Bitcoin to the
balance sheet and justify a higher premium for the stock. And the window that you need to cover
that amount for the premium that you're paying stays at a smaller timeframe. But strategy is in
a totally different realm there in relative terms, because they've got over 600,000 Bitcoin.
and to produce a BTC yield of 25% or 10% means you have to add 60,000 Bitcoin, right?
At there.
And it only gets harder and harder going forward.
And by the way, there's still a 21 million cap on Bitcoin.
So that hasn't changed.
It is impossible to maintain.
It's literally mathematically impossible to maintain that type of exponential growth.
Now the one other thing that I add and John I let you get in here is that the dollar premium that strategy is trading at has kind of never been higher right So you can talk about it in terms of MNAV in this relative term and a smaller BTC yield However
if you have a $50 billion premium on the stock in notional, like absolute terms,
that does mean that there's $50 billion worth of premium available to harvest to buy more Bitcoin.
And so it's not necessarily just this, you know, kind of relative term that could be
make things comparable across the different Bitcoin treasury companies. Because as you said,
John, like strategy is in its own complete stratosphere or world. It is totally different
than these other like small upstart things that are really just trying to get off the ground.
It's like you have to build up enough momentum to get out of the atmosphere before you can
actually do some of the things that strategy is able to do now and going to be able to
do in the future.
Yeah.
And they're still smash buying like a 21,000 Bitcoin, just more than most treasury companies
hold by themselves.
And they're doing that in a one week purchase.
So yeah, it's still, you know, magnitudes higher.
And I think as it continues to grow, the drum beats, and I would love to see something around
a proof of reserves or releasing a bit more and knowing, hey, there is actual Bitcoin under here.
We know that we're following the processes, but ultimately, it's still a major risk for the market.
And as you have more froth in the general Bitcoin treasury ecosystem, where the Bitcoin's held,
who's actually holding the keys that really matters the most versus having to have these
layers of trust that are reintroduced through security vehicles.
And that's ultimately what Bitcoin eliminates is the need for a third party trust, don't
trust, verify.
So the amount of verification there, if you already know the balances of the company,
it really, like his Zaylor's main argument, it's been it's a security concern to kind
of show the address.
But generally, you're already listing how much Bitcoin you say you have.
You don't have to release the whole setup, obviously, from a security perspective.
That's really important for a company and how you set up, whether it's your own multi-sig or multi-institutional multi-sig or how you're kind of managing your keys becomes extremely important.
But verifying the addresses and knowing, hey, this is our actual Bitcoin here versus Coinbase holding a huge amount of all this Bitcoin.
just introduces more opportunity and for companies ultimately get way over levered and see a bit of
an unraveling, especially at the lower rungs that are trying to grow quicker from that VTC yield
perspective, as you mentioned, Trey. So I think it's a good spot here to kind of reflect and see
where we've come in five years of this strategy taking place and see where it goes for the rest
the decade, because I think it's only, especially over the next 6, 12, 18 months, and as the
interest rates, which they've now continued to remain steady and relatively high compared
to early in the decade, as the drumbeats get louder for that to come down from a short-term
Fed funds rate, you're only going to see more liquidity pumping in the system, meaning more
and more bets being made and freer money relatively flowing into these types of vehicles.
So we're not at that point, I think, of the market cycle yet, but it's sort of what everybody's waiting for, to your point, Trey, around the telegraphing that the Fed does around their plans.
And now we're seeing that from the new kids on the block here in strategy.
I think Saylor has changed his tone a little bit on the security question around proof of funds and has recently been talking less about that piece of it and more about like, hey, we don't want the movement of our Bitcoin to give away our strategy or our ability to accumulate in a way that is beneficial to, you know, accumulating as much as possible and to our shareholders, which does make sense, right?
Like it is a little bit strange that you might be able to see what somebody is doing as they're accumulating.
That's not the way that it happens, typically speaking, in like big block trades on Wall Street, right?
Like there's these dark pools and these market makers that are playing in there where they're really acting in a very stealth manner.
It's not as transparent.
And so it does make sense in my mind from a strategic standpoint to keep that as close to the vest as possible.
that said i mean i think it's very much expected from the wider bitcoin community that you're going
to provide some kind of transparency that you actually do own the the bitcoin that you control
and bitcoin allows for this so we might you should be taking advantage of that and by the way some of
your quote-unquote competitors in the in the form of xxi and some of these others are going to be
doing that so like it becomes table stakes at some point the last thing that i would you know
maybe have to say about the strategy earnings call is that this is still a bull market and
they're reporting a massive, whatever it was, $20 billion or $40 billion of a gain
over the quarter. That at some point in the future is going to be in reverse
where there's going to, they're going to be reporting a massive loss. And the question in
my mind is how are they going to talk about that? What is the way that they're going to frame it?
how is the question line of questioning from analysts who are not handpicked by strategy,
but like actually coverage analysts on Wall Street going to react to something like that?
And, you know, what is that? Is that going to have an effect on the stock in the opposite
direction that is similar to the way that people were expecting it to happen going up? It might
it might actually still work against them in that regard. Well, I think they announced earnings and
the stock went down. So maybe they'll announce a loss and the stock will actually go up. Today's
episode of business Bitcoinization is proudly brought to you by Veles Commerce, where the
future of business technology meets Bitcoin. As we journey through the era of Bitcoin and its
transformational impact on businesses, there's one name that stands out, Veles Commerce. Whether
you're looking to build a cutting edge website, a seamless mobile app or custom software,
Veles is your go-to team. They've been diving deep into the world of Bitcoin since 2014,
making them one of the most experienced groups for integrating Bitcoin and Lightning payments
into a variety of digital platforms. But here's what truly sets them apart.
Veles Commerce doesn't just build. They bring a wealth of knowledge to ensure your project success
from day one. Their team understands the nuances of Bitcoin, ensuring that your business stays ahead
of the curve. And for all business Bitcoinization listeners out there, Veles Commerce is offering a
free consultation to kickstart your project the right way. So if you're ready to future proof
your business in the coming age of hyper Bitcoinization, head over to velluscommerce.com
or reach out on Twitter at velluscommerce. Let's make sure your business thrives in the Bitcoin era.
But there is another element of strategy that we need to discuss, which is STRC or
John, as you called it earlier, stretch. I'm curious to know, is this something that,
And just a quick overview for anyone who maybe isn't aware of this, but essentially it's a preferred stock that is meant to not move really in price.
And they have some ways they can help to make that the case.
But essentially, as of right now, it's a 9% dividend across the year paid out a little bit every single month.
And they'll raise that lower it depending on the interest so that they can keep the stock in that.
I think it's like a $94 to $101 range.
But do you guys see the benefit of this for people?
Would you recommend this to people that you know, as opposed to, for instance, a high yield savings account or CDs, things like that?
Yeah, I mean, this isn't financial advice, you know, so I think everyone's got to do their own research to an extent.
But I do think that offering a more money market-like account that you can access, a 9% annual return is going to be very attractive.
I think they had an outsized interest over a couple billion of initial capital that wants to come in to this vehicle.
So I think, again, it plays to the yield curve they're able to generate.
And by keeping the stock price relatively stable, it's almost like their own stable coin in a way.
Not exactly, but you're able to get a 9% payout there, double basically the Fed funds rate right now, and just keeping things more on the bank side, or security and certificate CDs and whatnot.
So I think you'll see this vehicle, I would think, grow a decent amount.
If you want to have the steady income and aren't going to speculate as much on the price of a stock, that's what you can do with strategy stock or the other preferreds, potentially.
It makes sense.
I think you're playing with the duration there.
What do you think, Trey?
Yeah.
So if it's successful over time, then the price will move up.
And that provides an opportunity for strategy to sell more of that preferred into the market, assuming there's still more demand.
And you would expect that there is more demand if the price is trading up above par.
And so they can push it down toward par by issuing more preferred equity for stretch and then buying Bitcoin with that.
That's great.
On the reverse side, if it goes below their target there, which I think is like 99 and a half, right?
They're basically trying to keep it within a 100 basis point range around par.
And if it goes below that, then they can adjust the yield that they're paying to a higher level such that it entices more capital to come in and purchase that.
Obviously, this has potentially has some bounds within they have to work, you know, in kind of extreme market scenarios.
But there's such a high coverage ratio for the amount that they have out there that, you know, in terms of like a collateral perspective, that it really doesn't throw off a whole lot of risk in my mind for people to expect that that dividend payout or that yield is going to continue.
you. My expectation is that if it's successful, though, that the yield is going to continue to
drop closer and closer to where, you know, SOFR is or kind of a risk free rate, it'll have some
type of credit spread on top of that, as does any other corporate bond type issuance, just based on
whatever, you know, perceived credit risk is there with strategy. But, but I do expect that if it's
successful that there's going to be a tightening of that spread. And so right now it does seem
very very attractive if you understand what they doing if you are bullish on MSTR to get 9 versus the risk rate of four and a half percent or whatever it is um but i do expect that that that spread going to come in over time and
it will make it a little bit less attractive but that that is the process of of the market working
um and uh this whole like building out a yield curve thing i'm not really sure i understand
exactly the corollary there i see what they're saying basically it's like hey we've got a
series of issuances that have various durations, similar to a yield curve. And, you know, we've got
now a basically like an overnight type thing or a one, sorry, one month point on this curve.
We also have things that are, you know, more perpetual and longer duration. And now we can
start to craft things that hit the three, three year point and the five year point and the seven
your point and anywhere in between there to find other investors who are interested in trading that
type of duration. So they'll continue to evolve and see where these different pockets of liquidity
are. And, you know, the question does remain like, is there going to continue to be liquidity out
there that will want to seek Bitcoin exposure via these, these issuances? And if there is,
how big can they get? And if there's not, like what happens then? Another thing that's very
interesting is how other organizations are beginning to think about Bitcoin. And Trey,
you've just talked with a group of CFOs. I want to hear how that went. Deloitte just came out with
some results from a survey they recently did. And overall CFOs were very positive on Bitcoin. We
might cover some of that in just a moment. But what was your overall experience from actually
being face to face with CEOs sharing about Bitcoin? Yeah, I was asked to help to orange
pill essentially a CEO and CFO pair of a very large S&P 500 company, public company that is
considering putting Bitcoin on the balance sheet. And this is very different than the strategy of
strategy and these other Bitcoin treasury companies. This is like really what we want to see
in my mind is businesses that are building a Bitcoin treasury as opposed to Bitcoin treasury
companies. And essentially it went like this, right? I sit down, have a presentation prepared
And immediately the CEO, who is an engineer by background, very smart guy, he's got experience actually working with the Fed.
He understands Bitcoin for the most part, but he's still trying to wrap his head around some of the key questions that a lot of people have, which is what is quantum mechanics or quantum computing going to be able to do to Bitcoin?
And is that a threat?
Yes, I understand, you know, basically verbatim, right?
I understand that this doesn't just affect Bitcoin, but I still want to get a good answer
to what this what this looks like for Bitcoin in a quantum world, because we kind of never
know when that light switch is going to flip.
It feels like it's 10 years out or whatever, but you kind of never know what the pace things
are going, right?
I think that's a valid concern.
The other one is, is there going to be a Bitcoin 2.0?
I think there's a lot more firepower that we have to be able to address that, right?
There's kind of a long history of all these other shit coins and whatnot that go to zero.
It's very difficult to compete with Bitcoin from a monetary use case.
But this is still something that weighs in a lot of very smart people's minds.
And it was weighing on this person's mind as well.
And then I think part of the concern from the CFO side of things is, look, we were put here by the board to manage these assets from our regular business and do no harm on the balance sheet side.
And that is the mandate that we have here, right?
Which is also a very valid question and concern, which is that, hey, is it actually the right thing for us to kind of be investing, so to speak, this cash that we have on our balance sheet?
as opposed to just trying to have the least amount of damage to it there while we strategically look
for ways to deploy it, investing in the actual business itself and generating P&L, which is what
the board has mandated us to do. Long story short here now, just to wrap it up, which is that I
actually think this company is going to get there. I think they are going to purchase a fairly large
amount of Bitcoin, it's going to take a little bit more work. And ultimately, it's going to have
to come down to the board giving these guys this mandate to pursue it as an appropriate tool in
their tool chest. Luckily for this particular company, for us anyway, there's a very strong
Bitcoiner on the board. He has a lot of influence and it sounds like he may actually push in that
direction. He's also a member on several other boards, right? And so this is the way that people
get orange billed within these organizations. And the final observation here is that, man,
it's amazing. There are Bitcoiners everywhere. They are embedded in these institutions.
And what you really need for these larger institutions to start adopting Bitcoin as
a treasury reserve asset and embracing Bitcoin in a very wide way is you need those people who
are already orange-pilled, who already understand the value proposition, and who are in positions of
influence within these companies to be able to push in that direction and help other people come
up the learning curve so that they don't feel like their career is being risked by doing something
that other people are going to disapprove of.
So it was an incredible experience.
Really, really loved it.
I'm hopeful that there's a lot more of those things to come,
and I think there will be.
But, you know, we'll see how that shakes out
and what the timeline is for other companies like this
to continue to come our way.
If you were hit by a bus right now,
could your family access your Bitcoin?
When's the right time to stop hot link
and use Bitcoin to impact your family's lives,
not just yours?
What if Bitcoin doesn't reach the value you expect or it takes longer to reach that value?
Do you have a plan?
Do you have the proper trust structure to avoid probate, maintain your privacy, and minimize taxes?
Do you want to avoid taxes to stack more sats or leverage your stack without selling?
Should you add Bitcoin to your business's balance sheet?
Are you truly confident in your self-custody setup?
If any of those questions made you stop and think,
you probably realize that simply buying and holding Bitcoin is not a complete financial plan.
That's where Strong Wealth comes in.
Orange-pilled advisors blending traditional financial planning with deep Bitcoin expertise,
giving you the best of both worlds,
so you can sleep peacefully knowing you're making the right moves for your family no matter what happens.
Schedule a free call at strongwealth.net.
That's strongwealth.net.
Strong Wealth. Wealth Management for Bitcoiners by Bitcoiners.
So, John, I'm curious.
I know you've worked with a lot of business owners,
helping them to incorporate Bitcoin into what they're doing.
Have you ever had the opportunity to sit down with a board or these usually organizations where you can talk to, you know, the owner or maybe the two co-owners and share with them about Bitcoin, help them to understand the benefits.
And really, they're the only decision makers who need to be brought into it.
Yeah, so far in my experience, I've generally worked with smaller businesses, business owners that have that control, whether it's single or double or dual ownership.
to go and make that decision to integrate a Bitcoin strategy, whether that's taking their
cash and buying Bitcoin, accepting it directly for payment, and ultimately marketing to Bitcoiners
that are out there. So I certainly hope to have the opportunity. And it's awesome, Trey, that you
were able to get in front of an S&P 500 company that's considering this at this time, because I
think it's really important for them to ask those questions and to think critically about Bitcoin.
And I think the pendulum will flip where it is right now still maybe feeling risky for some of these people in positions of CEO, CFO of major companies to get into Bitcoin.
Well, it's going to flip to if you are not in Bitcoin and you're not seeing the appreciation of 60% year over year for the last decade, and you have a melting ice cube of a lot of cash, and you're not able to have these strategic deployments to really grow the business.
Well, then why aren't you buying Bitcoin?
That's really becoming the hurdle rate.
So, we're seeing it in all different industries, and particularly here in healthcare, for example, where I've worked with doctors, dentists, other e-commerce businesses that are more customer-facing.
They're working with people day in, day out.
They shouldn't have to earn their money twice.
That's how it is right now when you're a doctor and you're earning, making decent income.
But now what do you do with that savings?
Do you put it in a passive index fund?
What do you do with that?
And that's where I see Bitcoin really supercharging a lot of the independent practices.
but it would be great to see more healthcare companies that are sitting on a lot of cash,
and whether that's the big providers or even insurers or others that have no exposure to
Bitcoin whatsoever, and this is 20% of our economy, $5 trillion a year in spend.
So I think as healthcare, at least in my industry, is typically slower to adopt change, and Bitcoin
certainly as a new technology is a change and in a way to consider the business. But I think to your
point, Trey, we definitely want to see more businesses that are profitable that are just
incorporating Bitcoin into their everyday operations. And I think a prime example of that,
we talked about them a little while ago when they made the announcement, but it's Figma,
right? And Figma, which has $70 million worth of Ibit, of Bitcoin stock on their ETF, on their
balance sheet with the opportunity to buy another 30 million in Bitcoin, they've raised about 300
million to date. So about a third of what they've raised in their profitable business
at this point, right? The kind of merger with Adobe got shut down. Now they're preparing for
the IPO. So more of this information is public. But to have very much a Silicon Valley darling
taking this strategy and clearly getting the go ahead from the board. I think that's your
spot on trade that that's going to be where the onus comes from. And I think that socialization of
Bitcoiners on these boards that are going to different companies, being in the room,
and CEOs, CFOs have a lot on their mind.
There's a lot of fiduciary responsibility
that comes with being a publicly traded company.
So to be able to speed up that orange billing
by instead of needing to read all the books yourself,
okay, bring in Trey, bring in someone else
that really knows Bitcoin and can address the concerns
and also point you in the right direction
for when you do have that time
and you're out for a walk or going for a run,
you can listen to something
or read something before going to bed find opportunities to just keep educating yourself about Bitcoin because we approaching the point now 16 plus years in it not going away We getting towards that Lindy
point, 20 years. And Bitcoin is really showing that anti-fragility, showing that resilience.
And you'll see the difference of companies that have integrated Bitcoin in their operations,
using it as some of their operating capital. And we're seeing this even right now with my company,
on HSA. As we're getting investment in Bitcoin, you're holding it in Bitcoin, you can get some
of the appreciation of being on this part of the cycle when Bitcoin's price is appreciating,
and you have an opportunity to do more with that capital than if you had just held it in cash or
in fiat. I think where Bitcoin's at, we're going to see more of it. A lot of opportunity,
you're seeing more, I think, Bitcoin consulting companies and others that are out there. Look
Look how big some of the tech consulting firms have gotten in sort of our fiat world.
There's going to be more and more of that in Bitcoin and helping businesses who know their industry, who know how they can really utilize it to its extent.
Because it's not just something that's only holding on your balance sheet.
It's something where you can seriously reduce your transaction costs.
If you're seeing a significant amount of credit card costs, at least 3%, if not more, which we see in health care, 6% to 10% of transactions go to middlemen.
And well, why don't you start putting it out there that you'll accept Bitcoin and Lightning
payments?
Now the user pays the fee and it's extremely low and you get instant settlement.
And if you have cash on hand issues and settlement issues, that goes away.
So a lot to get into with these business owners.
But absolutely, I think the conversations are happening and good to hear that across
different levels.
One thing that I thought was really interesting is that they fully understood the fact that
they have this big cash balance sitting on their balance sheet and that's being debased at seven
percent a year or pick your number right like they're fully aware of this melting ice cube
problem that they have and the question is okay well what do you do about it the the other thing
i thought was was interesting is that you know they're like well what should we just buy gold
right and then of course that was almost a rhetorical question in their minds which is that
no, we're not buying gold. Like gold doesn't work in the digital economy. You know, uh, it's,
it's not something that we want to consider because it's just, it, it, they value like
owning the actual asset if they can. And, um, you, you can't really do that in large amounts of gold
and it just doesn't work in the modern economy. And I think they fully understand that part of it
as well. And then just one other anecdote here is that I have just had a few conversations with a
guy who is kind of a serial entrepreneur. He's had a lot of success and his newest company
is about to close on $50 million of a raise. And he has got the board on board with buying a million
dollars worth of Bitcoin out of that 50. So they're going to have 49 million to invest in
growing the business, and they're going to have another million that is buying Bitcoin and being
in a position to grow a Bitcoin treasury. So these types of stories are happening all over the place,
and it just takes time for it to work through. And it's going to become more and more common to
hear people talk about these kind of things. So just a couple quick stats from this Deloitte CFO
report. First of all, they were asked, what are the biggest concerns about investing in
cryptocurrency, which is more what the focus was here. And they could select up the three answers.
The top three are price volatility, complexities around accounting and controls, and lack of
industry regulation. There's also security right below that, kind of to your point with the actual
conversation you had with the S&P 500 executives. And then one other very interesting thing
is there's this question, what benefits do you see from accepting cryptocurrency as a method of
payment, select up to three? And there was only 1%, and it doesn't say out of how many, but only
1% of people saw no benefits, which is sort of interesting. That doesn't mean that CFOs are
about to begin accepting Bitcoin in mass, but I think it's an interesting signal to see where
things could be headed. And the last thing I want to talk about today are these two well-known
people in the traditional finance or maybe financial advising space, Ray Dalio, Rick Edelman.
They've both recently recommended the people up their allocation to Bitcoin. And once again,
I think they've probably said, at least Rick said crypto, but I think it sounds like he's very much
in favor of prioritizing Bitcoin over everything else.
But Ray Dalio, I think, said 15%.
And then Rick said from 15% to 40%, depending on how conservative or aggressive you are.
And I think that 15% to 40% is for the risk asset portion of retirement.
But guys, do you think this is going to move the needle at all when it comes to
people who are planning for retirement investing in Bitcoin?
Yeah, there's a lot of people that follow Ray Dalio, follow Rick Edelman,
And these guys that have been writing, particularly Ray, on the larger debt cycles where we stand, really having a deeper understanding of the macro and where we are later on in this debt cycle.
So seeing the poor performance of bonds and likely continued poor performance of bonds, it's saying, no, the 60-40 portfolio is dead and we need to have more and more Bitcoin.
So moving from, say, 1% and 5% to 15% or 40%, it's, I think, a natural growth of, hey, we need to have hard assets in our portfolio because when the monetization of the debt comes, which it's already coming and continues to accelerate as the Fed and Treasury get more inextricably linked, you're going to need to hold hard assets.
And I think Ray mentioned gold, he mentioned Bitcoin.
And so these are things where we have a limited supply with Bitcoin's case, perfectly fixed supply, where as there's more demand, you can't just create more supply of it.
And so if you don't have enough of it in your portfolio, you're not going to have the savings for retirement.
And so I think it's a clear message there.
And I think wake up call for someone that's certainly at zero and not saying, OK, it's not like I'm not at 3 percent or 5 percent.
I'm at zero. But OK, now I'm not at 15 percent and I'm at zero.
I'm going to be way behind my peers. Yeah. One just little correction there, right? Is that
what Dalio said was 15% in gold and Bitcoin. Yeah. And he very much emphasized that most of that
should be gold or the way that he thinks about it in his own portfolio is that most of that is gold
and that there's a little bit of Bitcoin that he still doesn't own that much Bitcoin.
And so, you know, like, I think that makes sense, given what he's written about in the past and that kind of thing. Like, he's definitely an old guard type of guy. He's been around for a very long time. And so it just takes a little bit longer for some of these people to actually go, go a little bit further along the the line of thinking that Bitcoin actually is so much better than gold.
and that it should actually occupy the majority of that 15% instead of the opposite direction of that.
But it obviously is still a very bullish type of sentiment that he's expressing toward hard assets,
toward neutral money in a world of shakeups, essentially, right?
Like the globe is being shooken up and there's a reordering that's happening.
There's a lot of different geopolitical dynamics there and a recognition that the U.S. dollar and U.S. treasuries don't carry as much weight as they used to within the geopolitical realm and that there are people who are looking for alternatives.
and Ray and his writings in the past and the way that he thinks about this is looking into the
future as saying, we're in this fourth turning type of world. There will be this reordering.
And in that type of world, you need to like, people will move naturally toward more neutral
money as opposed to money that requires trust in the issuer. And that's exactly what the dollar
system is. And so I don't think he expects there to be some kind of like, you know, overnight
explosion or demolition of the dollar system. But I think his longer term view is that there's
going to continue to be pressure toward gold, toward Bitcoin to some degree, and away from the,
you know, global hegemony that the US has enjoyed alongside the dollar and US treasuries.
Trey is a case in point here in Russia, where US froze the assets, hundreds of billions
of dollars worth of treasuries in 2022 when the war with Ukraine started.
And now their amount of US treasuries is approaching zero.
And they're saying, oh, this isn't our money.
We thought it was.
We'd rather hold gold, for example, or we'd rather mine Bitcoin and regulate our exchanges
and do the things they're doing on the Bitcoin side.
So I think it's absolutely happening in the countries you're looking at.
And you have one in six, one in seven countries having some exposure to Bitcoin in different ways.
So, yeah, I think that's going to continue to accelerate.
And absolutely, you're spot on with where we're at in this fourth turning in the crisis zone and kind of a shakeup in the geopolitical standing.
So having a neutral money, especially one that's digital.
And once you come to realize, OK, gold is valuable and has been for this reason.
And now we have something in Bitcoin that you can send around the world without permission very quickly.
and it's still 10 times smaller than gold from a value holding perspective.
So a lot of ways to grow in that, but certainly bullish to see these guys speaking more out and about about gold and Bitcoin.
Well, guys, thanks for your time today.
As we're finishing up, John, if you could start off, share with people where they can go to keep up with you and the work that you're doing,
then Trey, finish this out.
Yeah, you can follow me at TheBitcoinYogi on X and Noster.
head to satoshihealth.com or soundhsa.com to learn more about what I'm doing at the intersection of
Bitcoin and healthcare. Yeah, and you can find me on x at ts underscore hodl. And I write a lot about
financial independence and Bitcoin and incorporating Bitcoin into a FIRE plan. That is at
firebtc.substack.com. Go check it out and subscribe for free. Great. Thanks for your time today, guys.
Cheers Josh
Thanks John
Thanks
Well friends
This is a wrap
Thanks so much for listening
To this episode
Of the Bitcoin Playbook
If you want to reach out
To either me
John or Trey
You can find those links
Down in the show notes
And be sure to check out
Sound HSA
And the Fire VTC Substack
As always
Keep building
Keep growing
And until next time
Keep living
And leading well