Let's say Bitcoin goes to a million dollars in five years from now, with two options.
Option one, sell Bitcoin at a million a coin. Now, I've had Bitcoin since 2013. I'm a low-cost
basis Bitcoin holder. I've had a long track record in the crypto space. It kept me up at night. Whether
your cost base is a hundred bucks, a thousand bucks, or a hundred thousand dollars, you're
going to pay a very big tax relative to that a million dollar price you're selling at in five
years. Or, as we all know who've been around in the Bitcoin space for a long time, there's an
approximately 15 to 25 percent of all Bitcoin that's ever been mined is permanently lost forever.
That's a lot of Bitcoin that's worth a ton of money.
It's a big risk.
I now have a wife and two young kids,
and it kept me up at night with my Bitcoin and self-custody.
What's up, guys?
Before we get started, I've realized that over 50,000 of you guys
keep coming back for every single episode.
And while I'm eternally grateful for you guys to keep coming back,
I've realized that 79% of you guys are not subscribed.
So I have one small ask before we get started.
If you guys could hit that subscribe button and hit that like button to help send this interview and many more to the stratosphere, it would be greatly appreciated.
All right, enough from me. Let's get into the show.
Bing bong. I am back with another edition of the State of Bitcoin podcast where I've got the man, the myth, the legend, Jason from Meanwhile here in the house.
But Jason, there is so much talk right now about all of these corporations and treasuries putting Bitcoin on the balance sheet, and it's seemingly the new craze.
But people don't have access to billions of dollars, or maybe the average person can't raise billions of dollars like many of these corporations have.
So I wanted to get you on here to talk about some different ways that an individual can potentially
use that infinite money glitch that Michael Saylor has coined to now scoop up and get as much Bitcoin
as they want for their own personal balance sheet. So what are some ways that you are seeing that are
unique and starting to pop up for the ways that individuals, not just businesses, can utilize
this infinite money glitch.
I love the term being able to borrow money to infinity
and in his case, converting it into Bitcoin.
We're a life insurance company denominated fully in Bitcoin.
And actually what we have termed is a version of infinite banking.
So similar concept where with infinite banking,
it's this life insurance term where you become your own banker
and you get a whole life insurance and you can borrow money tax-free from your policy.
But money is devaluing.
Inflation is real.
Not only are corporations taking advantage of the infinite money glitch,
but governments are printing money to infinity.
We saw it in the pandemic, modern monetary theory,
which is take your deficit and just keep moving the decimal point over to the right
and keep borrowing more and more and more money.
and what that does obviously is it makes a dozen eggs worth 10 bucks at the grocery store instead
of what it used to be much less and everything is getting more and more expensive but wages aren't
going up so how do you combat that well you need a harder money you need a more sound monetary
system and obviously we all agree that bitcoin solves that problem but it's still not globally
adopted the way that you know we believe it will be one day and there's a lot of different challenges
to getting Bitcoin and acquiring Bitcoin.
And then how do you hold Bitcoin for the long term?
And how do you pass it down to your children
to create this generational wealth?
And I think we figured it out at Meanwhile.
Yeah, and so this is very unique.
So, I mean, it is kind of almost a grim topic, right,
of life insurance.
But I think people just think of the average ways.
Hey, let me go try to get a loan,
um you know whether it's just a personal loan or some other other ways uh you know what is unique
about life insurance that you know maybe the the average person doesn't really know uh about it
because i mean i've heard this infinite banking and you mentioned maybe some potential of the tax
benefits i'd love to hear you dive in a little bit more of you know some of the the ways that
these policies can work and you know how it can benefit uh you know these these hodlers here
Yeah, no, definitely.
Life insurance is one of those unique topics that most people don't understand.
But when you're high net worth or a family office, they love life insurance because it has all these tax advantages.
Basically, in a whole life insurance, assets grow tax-free.
You can borrow money out of your life insurance policy tax-free.
Your heirs of your estate, your beneficiaries, whether it's a spouse or partner or family or children, they get whatever assets are in your life insurance policy tax-free.
So it's a pretty powerful financial vehicle to grow money tax-free, grow assets tax-free, and transfer it to your family tax-free.
Now, it's always been in dollars.
I mean, life insurance, I think it was first invented in the 1600s.
It's a very old financial product.
And the problem, as I alluded to earlier, in today's day and age, is that everything is dollar denominated and the dollar is inflating.
And pretty much every fiat currency is inflating, is losing value.
And so while the concept of life insurance is sound, this concept of infinite banking using life insurance to grow tax-free and borrow tax-free, et cetera, is sound, unfortunately, the asset growing tax-free is losing value.
It's like if you're in a boat and you're trying – and the boat's taken on water and you have a bucket and you're trying to bail water out of the boat to make sure it doesn't capsize, it's like having a bucket with a hole in it.
So you're trying to get water out, but you're not doing a good job because in this analogy, you have inflation that's just eating away at the growing value of your policy.
So the way we solved it is, well, what if you took life insurance, which is great with all these tax benefits, and had it all be in Bitcoin, on the Bitcoin standard?
And that's meanwhile in a nutshell.
We were founded in 2022, backed by a bunch of well-known companies, Northwestern Mutual, Google's Gradient Ventures, Sam Altman from OpenAI.
we had a bunch of investors in our seed round in 2022 we are domiciled in bermuda just like a lot
of life insurance and reinsurance companies today we're in bermuda for a good reason because they
are a very credible and legitimate regulator of life insurance companies and insurance companies
in general and then earlier this year we raised a series a from fulger ventures framework ventures
and Wences Cesarius from ZappoBank.
And depending on when we announce it,
I think there might be some Series B news
coming out right around now
or maybe in previous days or in the coming days.
But you're going to hear some pretty interesting new names
that are getting behind us as well for Series B.
So we're a venture-funded life insurance company
fully on the Bitcoin standard.
Now, what does that mean?
And it means that unlike with traditional life insurance where you pay your premiums in dollars, you're paying your premiums in Bitcoin.
Your death benefits paid out in Bitcoin.
And when you get policy loans, it's also in Bitcoin.
So it's a pretty unique take on life insurance.
And the reason we do it in Bitcoin is because we think Bitcoin is going to go up in value.
that everything on the Bitcoin standard gets less and less expensive globally,
as opposed to on the dollar standard and the fiat standard,
everything gets more and more expensive.
Yeah, and I mean, it seems like that's just the way to go.
I mean, a common topic is how much Bitcoin do you need to retire,
but a little denominator out of there that not too many people bring up
is just how much you're going to be able to pass on to your heirs,
the potential tax advantages, disadvantages, these different ways, how long you're going to live.
I mean, all of these different factors, you know, kind of take into play. But, you know, you guys have coined the term infinite banking,
you know, and I've heard that from multiple other life insurance companies, not just ones in the Bitcoin space.
So go into a little bit more of what that means, I guess, for the average person here,
because obviously being denominated in Bitcoin,
it's going to help you guys out tremendously.
And shout out to all those great VC firms
in the Bitcoin space that are backing you guys.
I mean, obviously this means that the Bitcoiners
see what you guys are building
and see it as something that is of need of the market.
But just back from the generic of a life insurance policy,
what is infinite banking, I guess, at basic terms?
Yeah, infinite banking has actually been around for decades. And it was coined, I think, by Nelson Nash, who's an old life insurance guru. But basically, it's a way to be your own banker by using whole life insurance, the whole life insurance policies cash value as your personal source of liquidity.
The pitch is pretty compelling. Your money compounds on a tax-deferred basis inside the policy while you borrow against it tax-free to fund opportunities, investments, emergencies, without having to ask a bank for permission.
But you set it up in dollars. It feels safe, steady, and smart, but fast forward 15 years and the dollar you've been compounding has quietly lost a third of its purchasing power.
So while the policy still works in a mechanical sense, any withdrawals or loans you take in a currency that buys less every year is kind of defeating the point.
So the concept of infinite banking remains, but the challenge is the monetary environment around it.
And so when you do infinite banking in Bitcoin, that solves the problem of inflation.
Yeah, so, okay, so that makes a lot of sense.
And so, I mean, basically, instead of, you know, using this tool and just having to keep on borrowing, keep on borrowing, keep on borrowing, because you have Bitcoin that is going to appreciate over time, you know, theoretically, I mean, obviously, this is what we all believe here.
But I mean, when you have the fixed supply of this asset, just being able to hold on to it longer time, you know, perceives it as more value as more people come on to online.
line. But with the life insurance aspect of it too, you mentioned being able to pass it on to
the heirs and how that works. I'm curious, how do you guys store the Bitcoin? And how do you make
sure that it's secured in a sense where, hey, maybe one of my kids that I don't know that is
around that's maybe running around here. Maybe Brandon Jr. is running around here in some other
place. But either way, tongue in cheek joke, if you had some kids and you wanted to pass it all down,
how would you know that they would be able to get it securely? And how does that process work?
I doubt she named him Brandon.
I mean, come on, look at this guy, dude. I mean, I don't have the gel in, but the haircut,
the mustache, I mean, the Brandon Jr. Yeah, I don't mind Brandon Jr., but it sounds like
you ghosted her. No, I'm kidding. So let me explain how everything works. And I'll use an
analogy for traditional life insurance, because I think it's important to understand. Most people
don't understand how traditional life insurance works. So with traditional life insurance,
generally, you go to a life insurance carrier, pick any of the big ones that you know, and you
ask them for coverage. You say, I'd like a whole life insurance policy. I'd like, let's say, a
million dollars in death benefit coverage. They'll say, great. They'll crunch some numbers based on
your age and health and sex, and they'll dictate to you an amount of premium that you have to pay
in dollars either each month or each year. And in that premium are baked in fees and expenses.
And because it's whole life insurance, not term, there's an investment account component to it.
Term life, it's just you pay dollars, and if you die, your family member gets a cash payout.
whole life is that plus an investment account that grows tax-free it's more expensive and the reason
that it has all these tax benefits that it grows tax-free and you can get policy loans tax-free
and the death benefits tax-free is because the government has incentive is trying to incentivize
people to have life insurance because it protects them protects their family their loved ones and it
creates less dependency on the state less dependency on the government for handouts for help for
welfare. So you have these incentives, and if you can afford it, they want you to get it.
And so you ask this, you know, a life insurance carrier for a million dollars in death benefit,
you're told based on your age and everything, how much you have to pay in premium, either each month
or each year in dollars. And that premium goes into like a mutual fund, essentially.
And that mutual fund grows at a guaranteed growth rate, generally around 4%. Regardless of market's
performance, you're going to get 4% growth every year for the remainder of your life. Now, after
two decades, let's say it's up 30%, you can borrow money out of that portfolio, that investment
account tax-free. So while any other investment you might have that's up 30% and you want cash,
you most likely have to pay capital gains tax on that 30% appreciation. But in life insurance,
It's zero tax, no capital gains tax.
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All right, enough from me.
Let's get back to the show.
You get all the cash that you can to borrow out of it.
Generally, you can borrow up to a certain percentage of what's called the surrender
value, which is a life insurance calculation determined by the amount of premiums you've
paid, the amount of years that it's been accruing, compound interest, etc.
And so you borrow that cash you don pay a dime in capital gains tax and you don have to pay back the loan It nets out of your death benefit So if you borrow 100K and your death benefit was originally a million dollars then your new death benefit is
You don't have to repay the loan.
And the interest rate on that loan is about 7%, which also gets netted out of your investment account, of your death benefit, of the dividends it might be paying.
And that's how traditional life insurance works.
Now, meanwhile, I had to kind of flip the script upside down for our product because our product operates in Bitcoin, which is a scarce asset, whereas fiat is not a scarce asset.
And so to operate in a scarce asset, we can't dictate to anybody how much Bitcoin they have to pay in premium because everyone has a different amount of Bitcoin.
So we can't tell you, Brandon, when you get a policy that you have to pay 10 Bitcoin premium because you might say, hold on, I only got nine Bitcoin.
What are you talking about?
So instead, the way it works is potential clients come to Meanwell with the amount of Bitcoin, spot Bitcoin, not the ETF or anything else, but actual spot Bitcoin that they want to use as premium.
The way we've constructed the whole life policy is you pay those premiums over 10 years in equal annual installments.
So let's say you have 10 Bitcoin that you want to use as premium.
You're going to come to Meanwell saying, hey, I have 10 Bitcoin.
What do I get with that?
We will then crunch numbers based on your age, your health, your sex, your smoking status, and give you a death benefit ratio that you get relative to the amount of premium that you're paying.
So as an example, a 35-year-old healthy non-smoking male, 10 Bitcoin in premium yields about 18 or so Bitcoin in death benefit.
So you pay the premium over 10 years.
That's one Bitcoin a year for 10 years.
Then you're done for life.
and instead of going into a mutual fund and you know tracking the market at four percent a year
growth rate your bitcoin is going to grow at two percent per year that's our guaranteed growth rate
to every policyholder we're giving you two percent yield in bitcoin terms not in dollar terms everything
we do is in bitcoin terms there's no dollarization we don't realize there's no realization of any
Bitcoin into dollars. We don't index against the dollar. Everything's in Bitcoin. So in this example
I gave before, your premium is going to be 10 Bitcoin over 10 years, one Bitcoin a year,
regardless of the price of Bitcoin. Even if Bitcoin doubles next year and you say, hey,
last year my Bitcoin, my premium was $100,000 because that's where Bitcoin is trading. And
this year it's $200,000. That's not fair. Well, no, that's not how it works. We operate in Bitcoin.
Last year, your premium was one Bitcoin. This year, your premium is one Bitcoin.
And yeah, while it might have doubled, your 18 Bitcoin payout, which last year was worth $1.8 million, this year is worth $3.6 million because one Bitcoin equals one Bitcoin.
And so as long as you're following that Michael Saylor approach of thinking in Bitcoin, Jack Mahlers, whoever started to coin it, think in Bitcoin.
It's a very important concept that we embody and that you have to do in order to understand how our product works is think in Bitcoin.
One Bitcoin always equals one Bitcoin.
And so you're paying your premium in Bitcoin, your death benefits in Bitcoin.
It's guaranteed.
It's fixed.
Even if you die tomorrow after paying only one Bitcoin in premium, you still get 18 Bitcoin paid out to your beneficiaries.
We're going to underwrite people that we believe are healthy and going to live long, healthy lives.
We're not going to underwrite anyone that has a terminal illness, for example.
We do everything in-house.
We have an internal insurance underwriting team.
And so we have about a 70% approval rating of applicants.
So we're very conservative.
We actually have employees that have applied for policies that were rejected for health reasons.
So we're not just going to approve out anyone.
We're a very conservative, risk-averse life insurance company.
And so what gets interesting about how everything works is when we get into the policy loans.
Now, the policy loans, they sell policies in and of themselves, people that don't even have families,
who don't even think they need life insurance realize the benefit of a policy loan and they
sign up. And here's how that works. Let's say Bitcoin goes to a million dollars and five years
from now. If you have a policy with us, you have two options. Option one, sell Bitcoin at a million
a coin and pay a very big capital gains tax relative to your cost basis. Whether your cost
base is a hundred bucks, a thousand bucks, or a hundred thousand dollars, you're going to pay a
very big tax relative to that $1 million price you're selling at in five years. Or if you have
a policy, you originate a policy loan. And the way that works is you can borrow up to 90% of the
surrender value of your policy at meanwhile. You're borrowing in Bitcoin. Remember, everything's
Bitcoin. You're not borrowing dollars. You're not borrowing dollars against your Bitcoin.
You're not borrowing from a lending desk or an exchange or even an insurance company. You're
borrowing out of your own policy, which in essence is you're borrowing from your beneficiaries. If
it's a spouse or your children, you're basically borrowing from them. And in the example I gave
earlier, 18 Bitcoin death benefit, it's going to get netted out of that. So let's say five years
from now, you want to borrow two Bitcoin out of your policy. You've been paying one Bitcoin a year
for five years so far, and you're going to borrow two Bitcoin, which is under that 90% of the
surrender value threshold. So you go to meanwhile, you go into your account, you click policy loan,
You do two Bitcoin.
And meanwhile, so it's great.
What wallet do you want it sent to?
You give us a wallet, a Bitcoin wallet address.
We're then going to screen it, make sure it's not going to North Korea.
And we're going to send you two Bitcoin.
At that point, meanwhile, it's done.
What do you do with the two Bitcoin?
Presumably, you want cash.
So how are you going to get cash?
You're going to go to an exchange or a broker.
And you're going to say, I got two Bitcoin to sell.
And you want to sell it at a million a coin because that's where Bitcoin's trading.
they're going to say, great, but hold on.
Where did this Bitcoin come from and what's the cost basis?
Well, it comes from your regulated whole life insurance policy at Meanwhile.
And the cost basis is established on the day you originate the loan.
In this case, the cost basis is a million a coin.
Now, while your cost basis on your original Bitcoin might be $100,000 a coin or $100 a coin,
you're not selling that Bitcoin.
You are borrowing new Bitcoin at a new cost basis.
Think back to the other example where the portfolio was up 30%.
You borrowed, you don't have to pay a dime in capital gains on that 30% appreciation.
This is the same concept, except Bitcoin is a highly convex asset and is up 1,000% here.
And you don't have to pay a dime in capital gains tax on that 1,000%.
And this is how that mechanically works.
This assumes new stepped-up cost basis.
So the exchange says, oh, great.
they say your cost base is a million a coin you limit order sell a million a coin your cost basis
equals your sale price there's no delta there's no difference in those prices you have no taxes
no 1099 two bitcoin at a million a coin that's two million cash gets wired when you withdraw to
your bank account you never have to repay that loan your new death benefit nets down from 18
Bitcoin to 16 Bitcoin. Just like with the traditional life insurance, you borrowed 100k,
it went from a million death benefit to 900k. Similar concept, except we're in Bitcoin. So
it went from 18 to 16. It's a low interest rate loan. You pay 3% interest on the loan outstanding
on the two Bitcoin, which is also in Bitcoin terms and gets netted out of your death benefit.
So really what you have left is 16 Bitcoin and then minus the 3% per year on the two Bitcoin until you either repay the loan.
You don't have to repay the loan, but you have this opportunity where if Bitcoin does have another bear market winter, let's say it crashes from a million to 200,000, 80% drawdown.
You have the option of repaying your loan.
Why would you do that?
Well, by repaying the loan at 200K a coin, so 400K total, you free up more loan capacity for yourself in the future if you think Bitcoin in the next bull market is going to go to 5 million a coin.
But you don't have to repay the loan.
You still have 16 Bitcoin, which you can draw against.
And that's how the policy loans work.
It's a pretty clever way to use life insurance and all the tax benefits and tax-free policy loans and life insurance for your Bitcoin.
Yeah, I mean, it sounds like a huge hack here, and I think everybody should jump on it to say the very least.
But you mentioned the tax benefits.
Now, when I hear tax benefits, I always think IRAs, right?
Everybody always talks about these retirement accounts.
You know, these are the quote unquote, like the stereotypical tax advantage ways.
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What is the difference between or maybe some of the tax advantages that a life insurance policy would have that are benefits over maybe, say, an IRA?
and is there a limit after you start paying this down
of when you can start taking out this life insurance policy?
Because obviously retirement accounts have a certain age
and all of that stuff.
So yeah, I'd love to hear kind of the differences
between the two and some of the advantages
that life insurance has over these retirement accounts.
Yeah, no, for sure.
And I get that question a lot as well.
So with IRAs or Roth IRAs,
which are after-tax dollars, and so you don't have to pay tax on the way out.
You have to wait until you're 59 and a half years old
before you can access any of them without penalties.
With life insurance, you don't have to wait until you're 59 and a half or any age.
With our policies, the only time you have to wait is from onset of a new policy.
You can't get policy loans for two years.
So after a two-year incubation period,
you can start borrowing up to 90% of the surrender value of your policy.
In year one of whole life insurance, there is no surrender value.
It really starts after year one.
And then there's an additional year built in for AML purposes with our regulator.
So two years after your policy is bound and active with meanwhile, you can then begin borrowing against it tax free.
Now, there are tax advantages to having a Roth IRA because you are investing after-tax dollars into the market or into Bitcoin.
And when you hit 59.5, you can draw against that Roth IRA without paying any taxes.
But it's a long time to wait.
And the average age of Bitcoiners is much younger.
And while we all believe that Bitcoin will go up a lot in our lifetime, to be able to get liquidity at a younger age through life insurance is a huge advantage.
yeah i i mean i feel like the timing on all of it is basically the big unlock here is like you know
as as somebody that you know is a 20-ish years away from that 59 and a half or 30 years or so
you know it seems like that that's a long time to wait of course you know maybe there's benefits
that forces me to hodl but um you know being able to utilize some of that uh you know spending power
and everything like that right now seems to be more of the way.
Now, why do you think that this isn't as popular of a strategy?
Is there some limitations for somebody to get in
outside of maybe the just traditional health-related aspects?
But is there some sort of monetary figure that you have to get above
or a minimum account that you have to have
in order to gain a policy like this or obtain a policy like this?
Our minimum policy size is 0.25 Bitcoin over 10 years.
So if you do the math, that's 0.025 Bitcoin a year for 10 years.
That's the minimum.
Today's price is that's $25,000 over 10 years or $2,500 per year.
It's pretty affordable by everyone.
We actually recently lowered our minimum from one Bitcoin over 10 years down to 0.25.
And the reason we did that is because when we started our company in 2022,
Bitcoin was trading around $30,000 a coin.
And one Bitcoin was the minimum policy size.
Bitcoin has quadrupled since then.
And as a result, we've slashed the minimums by a quarter.
So we really want to democratize access to our product,
to anyone and everyone with Bitcoin,
by not making it prohibitively expensive
or by having the minimums be so expensive.
The maximum policy size we do is 50 Bitcoin per a single life. So the premiums relative to the death benefit of 50 depend on age and everything. But we want to reach a billion people across the globe over the next decade.
That's really been our stated mission if you Google us.
Our CEO and our co-founders have said many times that our goal is to be the largest life insurer in the world.
The way we're going to get there is by covering as many people as possible.
And with the help of Bitcoin going up by a lot, which we all are Bitcoin bulls, we think that we're going to get there.
it's really an unbelievable product because it's accessible by lots of people. All you have to do
is own Bitcoin, apply for a policy. If you're healthy, well, you'll probably get a policy with
us. And what do you get from it? You get 2% annual compounded growth rate in Bitcoin terms. That's
how in the example I gave earlier, 10 Bitcoin premium becomes 18 Bitcoin death benefit. For
For that 35 that 2 a year amortized out to age 100 compounded If you do the math it approximately 2 So you get yield Bitcoin yield not dollar yield
You get these tax-free policy loans.
And the last benefit that you get is when you pass away, your family, your loved ones,
whoever your beneficiaries are stated in your policy, they get the death benefit in Bitcoin
at a new cost basis as well.
So think about it this way.
You have Bitcoin in a ledger, some USB key in a safe or safety deposit box somewhere.
Do your loved ones A, know the location, B, know how to access it, C, know how to use a USB key or a ledger or a stick, D, know where to go to liquidate it if that's what they want to do?
I mean, we're talking about a treasure map that you have to leave for your family of ledgers, of passwords, of private keys, of safes, of safety deposit boxes, Google authenticators, YubiKeys, you name it, just to be able to move Bitcoin or liquidate Bitcoin.
Otherwise, your Bitcoin dies with you.
And as we all know, who've been around in the Bitcoin space for a long time, there's an approximately 15 to 25% of all Bitcoin that's ever been mined is permanently lost forever.
That's a lot of Bitcoin that's worth a ton of money.
That would be such a shame for any person like you or me or lots of people we know if they tragically suddenly died tomorrow, if their Bitcoin died with them and they had a family that they left behind that couldn't access that Bitcoin.
I mean, what a tragedy that would be.
It's worth a lot of money and it could take care of families and people with a lot of Bitcoin.
It could take care of families for generations.
This bull run, I think everybody should focus on getting their Bitcoin in self-custody and off exchanges.
We all saw what happened last time with the huge blowoffs.
We had Celsius, FTX, all of the big dogs blowing up.
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Enough from me. Let's get back to the show.
And for you to risk your Bitcoin dying with you, I mean, it's a big risk.
And it hit me most when I came across Meanwhile last year.
Now, I've had Bitcoin since 2013.
I'm a low-cost basis Bitcoin holder.
I've had a long track record in the crypto space, a bunch of different businesses.
And I now have a wife and two young kids.
and it kept me up at night with my Bitcoin in self-custody.
Does my wife know how to access my Bitcoin?
She's been with me since 2014.
She has her own wallet.
My kids have their own wallets that we manage.
But she's never opened my wallet before.
And every time she's opened her wallet,
it's been with me over her shoulder.
And if I were to disappear tomorrow,
could she open my wallet?
And the truth is I'm not so sure.
So having a policy that, meanwhile, protects my family against the worst-case scenarios because we custody at Anchorage, one of the best custodians on the planet.
They're a federally chartered trust company, which means that all the crypto they have in custody is bankruptcy remote.
Plus they have insurance for PNC insurance and also for protection.
they're as regulated and licensed as they come, as protected and covered as they come from an
insurance, from a custody perspective. We love working with Anchorage and they've done really
well by us. And we feel very confident that Bitcoin custody to Anchorage is going to be there for many,
many generations to come. So what you get with us beyond yield, beyond tax-free policy loans, beyond
the seamless death benefit where your family gets more Bitcoin than you ever had. I mean,
you attend Bitcoin to your name, 18 Bitcoin in death benefit goes to your family, is the protection
of Bitcoin and one of the best custodians on the planet, where you, your loved ones don't even need
to know how to use passwords, private keys, and Bitcoin wallets to access the Bitcoin. Because
when there is a claim, when the insured passes away, and a beneficiary files a claim with
Meanwhile, they have the option of working with Meanwhile in Anchorage to do whatever they need to do, where they will have white glove concierge service to help them liquidate the Bitcoin if that's what they want to do.
Transfer the Bitcoin to a new wallet if that's what they want to do.
It assumes a new cost basis on the day the claim is filed, so it's tax-free Bitcoin.
And they don't need to know how to use a wallet to have the help of this white glove service.
And that's an important concept because I know I'd want that for my wife. I know a lot of people would want that for their family, where you might be the Bitcoin expert and know everything there is to know about wallets. Your family members are not necessarily. And to have them be in good hands is really important as well.
So what we're thinking about here is generational wealth, is passing on your Bitcoin to your family seamlessly without any stress.
I mean, we're talking about like a grieving family member just lost their loved one.
Now having to figure out where's the password?
What is stress?
And it's worth a lot of money.
Like how that would weigh on a lot of people.
So we take that risk away as well.
and you know how else are you going to hold your bitcoin for the long term in a ledger
in a safety deposit box i mean if it's in a safe in your house there's a lot of risks there i mean
look at the palisades fire for example in california there are there is anecdotes of a lot
of ledgers getting burnt to the ground even though they were in quote unquote fireproof safes
the heat was so massively high that a lot of those safes turned into rubble and the ledgers
disappeared with them. And if you didn't have your private keys backed up, then more Bitcoin was lost
in that 15 to 25% number of Bitcoin that's ever been mined being lost. So where is your Bitcoin
really safe for the long term? It's hard to know. But when you use a trusted custodian like an
Anchorage, I think you have to pick someone. You're either going to self-insure, self-custody,
or you're going to trust a third party that does it right.
Yeah.
And I mean, I think like, you know,
the combination of using you guys in Anchorage,
it is very interesting too,
because obviously Anchorage got, you know,
one of the biggest backings as like an insurance policy.
And they're kind of on the cutting edge of all of this newer,
I guess, implementations of Bitcoin.
And, you know, I think Bitcoiners kind of have the, you know,
hey, I don't want to let anybody know where my Bitcoin is
and all of that stuff.
But, you know, it's definitely something
that I think everybody should be thinking about
like here going forward with, you know,
just the different strategies.
I mean, you know, I wouldn't trust my mom
or, you know, even my siblings who are younger than me
to operate Bitcoin and, you know, be able to access it
even if they had my private keys and all of that stuff.
So it's definitely, you know,
something that would take a lot of, I guess,
stress away from these families to say the very least but uh i mean you mentioned something
interesting there jason you've been in bitcoin for quite some time man so uh tell us a little
bit about how you're seeing the overall space develop um not only just with like meanwhile
and some of these other companies like anchor watch and others coming on but um you know how
do you see this like space transforming and is it coming a little faster than you thought it would
no uh for sure um but it also this conversation just reminded me of one one last thing that i
think is super interesting before i get into you know my overall view on growth over the last 12
years um remember that story a few months ago of some guy i think it was from italy in new york city
who was held you know captive in an apartment because he had bitcoin or crypto and the these
you know bad guys were trying to like they were torturing him to get his private keys
yeah so those actually stories are kind of like spiking up here recently so i don't know if you
follow like jameson lop on on x yeah he's been always like detailing these that they're they're
just starting to pop up a lot more so gun to the head scenarios with your bitcoin well if you have
it in a life insurance policy with meanwhile no one can get your bitcoin you can only borrow up
to 90% of the surrender value of your policy at any given time.
And it's a whole process in order to do so.
And so if you have all your Bitcoin in a life insurance policy,
even someone with a gun to your head can't get it.
They literally cannot get it.
It is a safe place to put your Bitcoin for the long term for you and for your family.
and it's really this you know that that's another advantage that's very rarely discussed because
like you said these cases are starting to pop up more and more and it's it's scary man i mean
listen you and i are in a podcast now like hopefully going viral and people are gonna
know like oh i'm jason i'm gonna track this guy down brandon or whatever like i don't want that
shit to happen to me but i know that i'm protected because my bitcoin is in a policy and no one could
get it even if they did whatever they needed to do to me it just you can't get it and so i feel
protected from that perspective um and it's an added bonus yeah 100 and i mean uh yeah speaking
of that i went to jameson lop's x profile like during this and he tweeted out three hours ago
yesterday former crypto trader was kidnapped near paris and strangled until he passed out
he was released presumably after his wife paid a 10 000 euro ransom so it still is not not even
like a big amount it was just 10 000 euros and you know like these you know it's not like we're
talking millions and millions of dollars euros whatever it's you know things like that that are
just seemingly popping up everywhere around and you know they always joke the eight dollar wrench
attack is always the biggest threat to bitcoin and it seems like you know those are just starting to
to pop up more and more and more um because the average person is just being a little bit
uh i guess let's call it like frivolous or you know a little like uh a little dangerous with
their uh their overall uh stack so yeah i mean definitely is a worry and having something like
this would would definitely help me at least personally sleep a little bit better at night
for sure exactly it helps me sleep much better at night um it's been a scary you know 12 years
in the space in the beginning it was you know a couple hundred bucks and who knew where it was
going to go people thought i was a psychopath telling them to buy bitcoin in 2013 and 14 15
and 16 but then 2017 bitcoin you know went from a thousand twenty thousand 2018 the ico bubble popped
and then 2020 covid was really good for for bitcoin with microstrategy and tesla buying
and everyone getting involved.
And obviously FTX was the straw that broke the camel's back in 2022
and caused that bear market.
But man, BlackRock saved the day, in my opinion.
BlackRock in 2023 filed for the Bitcoin ETF,
spot Bitcoin ETF, out of nowhere.
I mean, two months after, three months after Elizabeth Warren
and that posse did Operation Chokepoint 2.5
and tried to shut out all the crypto companies in the US
from the banking system.
And it was one of the darkest days
for anyone in the crypto space
because you had these crypto assets
that you couldn't monetize,
you couldn't sell if you needed cash instantly,
whereas previously you could.
And while it was short-lived,
for BlackRock to come a couple months later
and save the day by falling for that spot Bitcoin ETF
and then having it go live in January of 24
and then some getting elected.
And like, here we are, $112,000 down from 125-ish.
I mean, man, it's been quite the journey.
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All right, enough from me.
Back to the show.
And I will say this.
In 2013, when I first got involved and in 2014, when I launched a crypto fund and I was super,
you know high level conviction that crypto was the next huge you know internet um asset that was
super important and was so under adopted it was a time back then where things went viral quickly
on the internet videos youtube videos whatever and i thought like oh this is digital internet
money like it's going to go viral it'll be adopted like that well i thought it would have been
more mass adopted in a quicker time frame than it has been.
And I kept for years, I'd say, oh, we're in the second or third inning,
to use a baseball analogy in Bitcoin's life cycle.
And I was wrong.
Like we were, the first inning was a long first inning.
I mean, I would say that right now,
I would say the biggest macro like zoom out cycles were like 2009,
the first Bitcoin was mined up till 2013 when it peaked at 1200.
That was like the top of the first inning.
And then there was bear market after that until 2017 when the second inning
started.
And 2017 Bitcoin went from a thousand to 20,000 ICOs and altcoins.
That was the second inning.
And then the ICO bubble popped the bottom of the second inning.
And then COVID was the top of the third inning.
And it ended with FTX.
And that started the bottom of the third inning with that bear market.
And then BlackRock started the top of the fourth inning And we still in the top of the fourth inning to use this baseball analogy on where we are in Bitcoin life cycle I would have thought if you asked me in 2013 or 14 what inning we be in in 2025 I would have said probably the sixth inning
I don't know.
But slower adoption than I thought, but it's still on this up and to the right trajectory.
And it's been a fascinating adventure.
Yeah, it's interesting that you say it like that because majority of people when I talk about this to them who have been in this space for a while always say, oh, it's happening a lot faster.
But it's interesting that you're like, hey, you know what?
It was on the internet.
Internet videos go viral.
This thing should go viral, which is I think I feel like a lot of the pain of the Bitcoiners now who start to feel this, hey, why aren't we at $250,000 or whatever it is right now, right this second?
And why we see all this buying coming in and, you know, all of this buy pressure.
And, you know, now the, you know, the policies are becoming more friendly, all this and that.
And we still aren't getting the run ups that we, you know, maybe are accustomed to from the older cycles or that, you know, maybe some of these guys haven't even seen before.
So, you know, with that, right, I mean, I know you think the adoption maybe should have been a little bit quicker.
But when you were first getting into it, were you kind of thinking of it as, hey, this is going to end banking systems, going to revitalize and change all of the traditional financial system?
Or were you just kind of like, hey, you know what?
This is a fixed asset.
It's a supply.
Number go up is going to be nice.
And all I got to do is hold on.
How did you come at it when you were first learning about Bitcoin?
I always thought it was digital gold.
And even today, I still use that digital gold analogy.
It can be a currency that you spend Bitcoin on things if, you know, side change, a lightning network really develop and catch on.
I think that what Bitcoin represents is this granite layer foundation of the most decentralized digital asset out there.
It's slow compared to Visa's payments and Solana's TPS, but it doesn't need to be fast
because it works and it's decentralized.
It's immutable.
It has all these features.
And while people like to say gold has value because it's tangible and you can see it and
melt it and use it, I actually think that a lot of what people have historically referred
features of gold are actually bugs because it's heavy.
That's not a good thing. You can touch it.
You don't need to touch anything anymore. Everything's cashless these days.
The fact that Bitcoin you can't touch, that it's digital,
that it moves at tech speed, speed of light or whatever,
those are all features.
And so I think that you take that frame of mind and you also,
like I said, I have two young kids.
They are as tech savvy as a two and a four-year-old can be.
I mean, they take my phone, they open it up, they use different apps.
They have iPads.
They can scroll between apps and videos and games and turn it on and volume up.
I mean, two years old, using a touchscreen $1,000 piece of technology.
Everything to them as they grow up and that generation grows up is going to be digital.
Why will heavy metal gold, physical clunky gold, or any tangible rock have value to that generation and future generations beyond them?
I think everything is going digital and that Bitcoin is setting the standard for digital gold.
And therefore, I'm a proponent of that analogy where it doesn't need to be the fastest thing.
It needs to work and do what it does well, which is have zero downtime and be able to be accessible in self-custody, in third-party custody, on a hot wallet, on a web wallet, on a cold wallet, on exchange, on your phone, on your computer.
And it does all that.
And therefore, the adoption, I think, is going to continue to increase as more and more people globally, there's eight plus billion people on the planet.
Many of them have access to the internet via smartphones or computers.
All you need is a device to access Bitcoin.
You can't get banked, but you can get Bitcoin.
And I think the one thing that always annoys me is still to this day is when people say, oh, Bitcoin is too expensive.
I can't afford it.
I'd rather buy Litecoin or Solana.
And I'm like, you really don't get it, man.
You could buy a fraction of a Bitcoin.
It goes out to eight decimals.
Like, you just got to put a dollar amount into Bitcoin and it fractionalizes to whatever you need.
And if it doubles, then your dollar amount doubles.
I mean, for you to feel priced out of Bitcoin, you don't have to have a full Bitcoin.
Most people obviously will not have a full Bitcoin 50 years from now.
You just need a fraction of a Bitcoin to be in the system.
Yeah, and one of my favorite statistics that I love to tell people when they come at me from that perspective is that if you look around globally, at least maybe 10, 15, 20 years ago, $1 million was a lot of money.
But if you look around globally, there's 59 million millionaires.
Now, because Bitcoin is like a public ledger, you can see all the wallets, how much they're holding.
There's only 13 million wallets with 1 million sats or more, which is $1,100 basically around the time of this recording in Bitcoin.
So you can be in a class more exclusive than millionaires for just buying $1,100 worth of Bitcoin.
And there's very few other assets out there that you can buy this amount.
But what you're saying, the comparisons to gold, I really resonate with too.
Because granted, I don't have the kids, like I said a little bit earlier.
But we have places now that a lot of places just don't even accept cash.
They're strictly just cashless.
And so to think that we're not going this direction is crazy.
And, you know, I don't know how many times I've walked in recently and I've seen somebody try to pay in cash and they either get rejected or they don't have change for them, you know, because they're just like people are just not carrying it and getting away from, you know, that paper and the physical aspect of money.
this bull run i'm looking for ways to stack bitcoin in my sleep and mining has always caught
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potential tax benefits that you can get from mining with Simple Mining. All right, enough
from me. Let's get back to the show. But I think the development in the Bitcoin space is very unique.
Now, we've been talking about the individual Bitcoin corporations, these kind of things, but
there's some other things on the horizon when it comes to the overall policies. The Bitcoin
strategic reserve is obviously a hot button topic. And we start to see some of these other sovereign
wealth funds and all these other big nation states start to talk about Bitcoin. Now, obviously,
Bitcoin is going to do what Bitcoin does. But I know you said you were a little, I guess,
surprised on how slow it's moving. But from like a nation state perspective, do you think this stuff
is going to start to, I guess, accelerate the adoption? Or do you think like, you know, when
we get into more of this nation state adoption, it's just going to be slower because, you know,
governments just move like snails these days.
Yeah, that's a good point.
I was in Jackson Hole, Wyoming last week for the Wyoming Blockchain Symposium.
And I saw Eric Trump on a panel.
You know, he's behind American Bitcoin, the miner, the Bitcoin mining company in Texas
with, you know, the hot eight guys.
and he said that a sovereign wealth fund that remains nameless quietly bought 200,000 Bitcoin
and nobody was talking about and nobody knew about.
And we could probably guess using game theory, which, you know,
down to like three or five sovereign wealth funds that could afford that and did that.
But that adoption is continuing.
And I think that there's going to be a race for Bitcoin amongst nation states because they can afford it.
And if they believe that it's going to be an important asset to own, they'd rather buy it today than at a future price much higher.
What are the numbers?
Is it, maybe you have it in front of you, but I think the US has 200,000 Bitcoin.
China has 190,000 Bitcoin.
You know, it's 200,000 is this magic number.
MicroStrategy is 600 plus thousand Bitcoin, but they're a corporation.
But from a nation state perspective, 200,000 seems to be like the big behemoths who are
owning Bitcoin.
That being said, I want to say I heard a rumor that Biden sold a lot of Bitcoin before he left office.
And so we have less than 200,000 Bitcoin, which was previously thought.
I don't know.
Maybe you have more info on that.
Yeah.
So, I mean, it's a lot of like mixed reports on that.
So we did sell a little bit.
I think we had a little bit over 200,000.
But right now we have like 198,021, allegedly, the US.
And then China has 190,000.
And then the next step after that is the UK who has 61,000 all seized Bitcoin.
So, I mean, it is this interesting game theory because we have seen countries sell off their Bitcoin.
I mean, we had Germany sell off all of their holdings.
We had Bulgaria sell off all of their holdings as well.
But obviously, you know, as these things kind of come along, you always see the tweets.
If Germany would have held on to their Bitcoin, it'd be worth this much right now, you know,
Yeah, what a cut of sugar.
Yeah, exactly.
You can't look back and rue decisions.
I have a saying I live by, which is decisions, not results.
Keep making good decisions.
Don't worry about the results.
If you continue to make good decisions, the results will follow.
But yeah, when you sell Bitcoin, you always hate not having more Bitcoin because it keeps going up to the right.
Yeah, exactly. And I mean, I think that that's going to continue going here. And I wouldn't be surprised if, you know, by the end of this year, especially when we get like fire or get some of these interest rate cuts coming.
and the development of more of these companies
that we start to see some potential fireworks here.
But Jason, you've been very generous with your time
and you've been a great guest coming on
explaining some of the ways that the individual
can use the sailor quote unquote infinite money glitch
to obtain more Bitcoin.
Why don't you tell people where they can find out
more about you and more about Meanwhile
and potentially sign up for a policy
or at least get screened to see
meet the health requirements and everything for a policy.
Yeah. No, no, I appreciate it. Visit our website, meanwhile.bm. BM as in Bermuda,
since we're a Bermuda-based life insurance carrier. You could find me on the website,
or you can email me directly, jason at meanwhile.bm. I'd be happy to talk to anyone who wants
to learn more about our company, our background, how our product works, the benefits, who it's for,
And you can sign up directly on our website.
It's very easy.
Everything's online.
Everything's automated.
In the US and Canada, you sign up.
You don't have to visit a doctor.
You don't have to pee in a cup or submit blood samples, get a blood test.
Everything's online.
So we make that part of getting a life insurance policy much easier.
from the day you apply
to if you're healthy
to the day you get approved
and send in your first
Bitcoin premium payment
can be as little as four business days.
Life insurance probably takes
closer to a month traditionally,
but we've cut that down by a lot.
So go online, check us out, apply,
reach out to me if you need any help.
And yeah, no, it's been a pleasure, man.
Really, always good talking to you.
And I hope to see you soon.
Yeah, man, 100%. And I forgot to ask real quick, I mean, you mentioned it in the US, but is this available to everywhere? Like, can you kind of go through a little bit of the areas that, you know, some of the listeners maybe be listening to are listening to this conversation where it is accessible and where it might not be just yet?
Yeah, but we are primarily in the US and Canada right now. That being said, we have raised money to go global. UK, Hong Kong, I mean, we're going to go everywhere. But the difficulty is the health underwriting component is we have a very conservative way of approving individuals for a policy.
and in other countries outside the u.s it's a lot harder to get their medical records
to make sure that they are healthy and so as we figure that out country by country
we will keep it expanding but eventually we'll be everywhere all right well be sure to put all
those details in the show notes you guys should be be rushing to check out meanwhile and see how
you can get your hands on one of these policies.
And Jason, thanks so much.
Thanks, man. Talk soon.
Thank you guys all for tuning in to another great episode
of the State of Bitcoin podcast.
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