One of the misconceptions is like, you don't have to buy a full Bitcoin.
How do I borrow against my Bitcoin to buy real estate?
How do I borrow against my Bitcoin to buy income producing bonds or stock?
We're seeing Bitcoin getting taken off exchanges at an all time rate.
2.25 million Bitcoin left on exchanges and they're not selling.
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Bing bong. I am back with another edition of the State of Bitcoin podcast where I've got the man,
the myth, the legend, Hunter Albright here in the house, CRO of Salt Lending, a great sponsor of the
show. But Hunter, we've got a lot of craziness going on in the Bitcoin space, specifically
with a lot of the treasury companies coming online. But I think the unique aspect is what
Jack Mauler's had to say here not too long ago about the Hodler's dilemma. Now we're seeing
Bitcoin getting taken off exchanges at an all-time rate with 2.25 million Bitcoin left on exchanges
and 155,000 left on OTC desk. So we're seeing that rapidly being taken off. And it seems like
the amount that treasury companies and everybody's buying up, they're not selling. So do you see this
And what you guys are seeing, just the rapid adoption of these loans, really contributing to potentially a longer bull run that we're seeing and how we can potentially see the coveted Bitcoin supply shock maybe here in the next few months.
Well, first of all, Brandon, it's great to be here.
Looking forward to the conversation today.
And I'm not going to get into predicting where the run's going to go or how high it's going to go or a number.
But I can tell you we're super excited about the outlook and agree with the sentiment of sort of never selling.
And, you know, at Salt, we've long had a saying that we've sort of talked about is sort of stay long, stay liquid, stay salty.
And I think within that is really embedded this opportunity that I think Bitcoin is presenting individuals and businesses, and we're even seeing countries jump on the bandwagon about being able to build wealth and build financial stability and flexibility because of the asset class and the attention it's getting and the interest and ultimately the investment that it's getting.
And one of the things that I think is really exciting about Bitcoin in particular as an asset class is how it's democratizing wealth building.
I've been given a lot of talks lately and in a lot of different conferences and really talking to people about how Bitcoin is opening up the strategies and tactics that the ultra wealthy have been using for centuries, but allowing all of us to be able to participate.
And I think that is a testament to the asset, to the technology and to the ecosystem that those capabilities are sort of being made available.
But one of the one of the still gaps is just education, helping people learn more about the asset, but also the the strategies and tactics that can be applied.
Yeah, it's interesting that you bring up the education aspect because, I mean, we just had Michael Saylor kind of give a nice keynote here not too long ago about even though the MSTR got denied from being in the S&P 500, he's very optimistic on the outlook and part of the optimism is just the regulatory clarity.
Now, Bitcoiners have hated the regulations here, but as somebody that's operating in the Bitcoin space, running a company through it, what is the change that you've noticed basically in the past, what, nine-ish months that you've seen in this space here since this new regime has come in?
Well, I mean, the new administration in the United States has definitely helped, one, provide clarity, which has increased, I think, the interest in the space from an investment, from a building perspective, and then ultimately from sort of a consumer perspective, whether that's on a retail individual basis or whether it's companies.
And so that clarity is really helpful. I think it's accelerated the innovation, it's accelerated sort of the capital investment and the amount of players in it. And I think it's going to benefit, you know, everybody that's participating as an example. And it's having a greater impact even outside the United States.
So I just got back from Hong Kong, where I attended sort of the Bitcoin Asia Pacific conference in Hong Kong a couple of weeks ago.
And there were over 20,000 people that attended the two day conference.
And that was the size of, you know, BTC sort of Las Vegas, you know, two or three years ago.
And so the enthusiasm and the interest is spreading globally because of some of the momentum that we're seeing happening in the United States.
yeah and it definitely seems like you know even though the u.s has been the the quote-unquote
leader that these other countries are starting to come on very strong of course we've got
prog that has a very large conference in europe i mean there's bitcoin amsterdam coming up that's
probably going to be another very large conference then we see you know the meta planets all these
companies across the globe really starting to try to become you know the the corporation that is
you know, the true Bitcoin holder in that country. But, you know, with this new regulation and
businesses starting to come on, you know, from, I mean, you don't have to disclose like everybody's,
you know, numbers, so to speak, but have you seen an increase more so on the individual side or more
on the business side of things to, you know, use these financial products, whether it's utilizing
Bitcoin as collateral, but to kind of help their business or help somebody individually,
have you seen an increase in both? And if so, which one have you seen, I guess, maybe a greater
demand for? So I would say, I mean, we're seeing an increased demand. So we serve three primary
segments at Salt. We traditionally have been a retail lender, really helping individuals
with their Bitcoin, getting the liquidity out of the value of the asset that they have
accumulated. We are seeing greater increase in terms of larger companies that are putting
Bitcoin on the treasury, even if it's just from an educational perspective, but wanting to
understand how that asset helps them manage their business. And one of the great things about at
at least our historical customers and the experience that Salt has, you know, we really
started out doing corporate lending by backing miners and helping mining companies take
advantage of the Bitcoin that they were mining.
But they needed to pay the power bills.
They needed to pay for maintenance.
They needed to think about how they could get capital to buy more machines.
And so we've really been helping out, especially small and medium sized businesses, you know,
for the for the last, you know, eight plus years.
And I think that's going to continue to grow. And one of the one of the opportunities that I think is important in the U.S., but more globally, is the power of a Bitcoin reserve for small and medium sized businesses.
I think it can help really empower them, give them more financial flexibility and more financial resiliency without having to go through a process of applying to a regional or a local bank for a loan.
And just as for individuals where you can get loans without credit checks, having a credit score, really getting a loan just on the value of the assets that you actually own will be empowering across the board for that commercial ecosystem.
him. Yeah. And it's interesting you say that kind of like the revolutionary aspect of small and
medium sized businesses. You know, in Saylor's recent talk, you talk about the Bitcoin 100,
which is just the top 100 Bitcoin holding companies or companies with Bitcoin on the
balance sheet, ranging from as much as 640,000 about with micro strategy or now strategy to
just about 78 on the low end. But either way, I mean, that can change a business drastically.
I mean, you're describing it for small and medium-sized businesses. But I mean,
on the large scale of things, I mean, we saw strategy go from basically a zombie company
four or five years ago to now one of the more profitable companies in the world. In fact,
I think it was like one of 10 that had its revenue over $10 billion for a quarter.
Of course, a lot of that being the change of the FASB ruling.
But with some of these new accounting principles and the regulatory clarity that we're seeing
with all of this, what's been the interest level and the educational questions that maybe
some of these small to medium-sized businesses, what has made them most curious and maybe
the biggest pain point or fear around maybe developing this type of strategy that you've
noticed?
Well, I think Bitcoin can be daunting for people and even just for individuals or for businesses. I think there's just basic education that has to take place. I mean, we have conversations with both businesses and individuals about how to get started. And one of the misconceptions is like, you know, you just don't have you don't have to buy a full Bitcoin.
And so even some of the basics about helping people understand that you can daily cost average your way in with $10, $100 a week or whatever is appropriate for your budget and your investment strategy becomes really empowering.
uh you know and and i think one of the things that's interesting in terms of the trends from
a company perspective and the same applies to an individual with your income is starting to think
about what amount of your revenue would you want to put into bitcoin on sort of just a daily habit
a weekly habit a monthly habit to be able to start to accumulate that reserve uh and not only
in that reserve are you helping sort of fight against potential inflation, fight against sort of,
you know, the, you know, sort of the degradation of a fiat currency. You're also you're exposing
yourself to the upside of Bitcoin and then having that value stack that you can tap into and you can
access when you need it. And whether that's to cover expenses for a month when revenues are
dropped or you're making a proactive investment in new business opportunities to grow your business
and build your wealth in that direction. Yeah. So, I mean, obviously we've got Bitcoin as like
one of the most pristine collaterals on the planet and there's still, you know, that education
aspect of it. But, you know, you brought up the whole unit bias. Obviously we've got that,
But have you had anybody maybe really come at some worries about the volatility?
Because I think it's kind of peculiar how, you know, we've kind of seen maybe a little bit of a shift of the narrative of Bitcoin,
where, you know, I think, you know, I'm not asking you for a price prediction necessarily,
but it seems like majority of people are saying, hey, you know what, we're not got the days of, you know,
seeing Bitcoin moon from, you know, a dollar to 10, 20, $30 in a day, we're not going to see those
anymore just because of the level of scale. So maybe that volatility has gone down a little bit.
And is that that seems like it's not as big of a fear with more of the Black Rocks, the MSTRs,
and some of these big players coming in. But I'm curious kind of what maybe the perception is
around that you're hearing? Are you still hearing that Bitcoin is too volatile or is those,
I guess, whispers quieted down a little bit? I do think the sentiment is changing, right?
So the total amount of capital that's being invested and being brought into the sort of
market cap of Bitcoin, it does have a stabilizing effect in terms of the volatility. I think we have
to wait more to sort of understand the impact on the cycles and sort of the real trends in terms of,
you know, how does that manifest sort of over sort of a multi-year period compared to what we've seen
before. But the volatility has decreased. And I think that is making Bitcoin as an asset class
more investable for more people. I would say the other thing that we are seeing specifically in sort
of the lending related space is early on and at different points through sort of at least salt's
history you know we lend up to a 70 percent ltv which stands for loan to value ratio right so if
you have a one bitcoin let's say it's worth a hundred thousand dollars you could borrow up to
seventy thousand dollars and there were periods where there were people borrowing much more highly
leveraged on sort of their bitcoin either because they were using it as cash and they were getting
the cash out to sort of leverage it or making other investments. But we're seeing now with this
mentality of never sell and really sort of buy, borrow, die with your Bitcoin, people having
sort of stacks of Bitcoin and having maintaining lower LTVs to one, absorb any volatility,
but just be more conservative about how they're tapping into it. And so I think we are starting
to see one the impact of education and also more responsible borrowing as it comes into people strategies for how do they take advantage of their assets Yeah now let dive into that a little bit more because I think you know
you described the Bitcoin miners, you know, which last cycle we saw kind of the boom in the bust
of that, you know, where, you know, a lot of miners kind of went belly up because they were,
you know, just borrowing a bunch with this, I guess, approach with Bitcoin going way up,
way up, way up. Now, obviously, you know, we, like we said, there, the volatility has gone down a
little bit, but you know, with this cycle, have you noticed everybody being a little bit more,
I'll say like conservative when they're, you know, borrowing or has there still been,
you know, the demand for, for the higher LTVs? Because I think, you know, when you get,
when you look at borrowing in a cycle, right? I mean, human nature is to kind of borrow at the top
and when everything's skyrocketing
and you think you have a lot more money.
But I actually think right now where we're sitting,
obviously not financial advice or anything,
but just under that all-time high that we just hit,
I think this is probably a pretty safe spot
to start to look into this product
because with what we usually see in Q4,
Bitcoin has a lot of ways to go up.
So that LTV could be decently high now,
but we've spent so many, I think it's like over a hundred days now, straight over a hundred K or
maybe a little bit less, but we've seen a lot of consecutive days over that a hundred K mark.
So I think we have a ways to go up in this bull market. But anyway, it's a long winded way of
saying, have you seen anybody or any differences in the, I guess, the behavior of the loan or the
loanees or people taking loans this cycle? Yeah, I would say, you know, the SALT's customers,
the borrowers, the strategies do really range. But I do think people are getting a better
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Salt Lending, secure, trusted, proven. I mean, the first, in my opinion, right,
one of the first perspectives is to understand your own risk profile and how you want to be
thinking about your loan. And, you know, and also really understanding and doing your research on
how a loan works. And so understanding sort of the margin calls and what the liquidation points
are if you're taking out the loan. So at Salt, and we were very cognizant of this risk and the
issues around borrowers about not wanting to lose their assets. We have a firm belief,
it's your Bitcoin and we want to do everything we can to help it stay your Bitcoin. And so I think
about 2019, I believe, is Salt came up with an innovation referred to as stabilization.
And that innovation really allowed people to convert, automatically convert their Bitcoin into stablecoin at the liquidation threshold, which for sold is just below 91% LTV.
be. And the benefit of that is that you don't end up losing all of your assets, right? It gets
converted into stable coin. You can then add more collateral to the platform to bring your account
into good standing and then be able to buy back in to the asset. And so in some cases, people were
able to buy back in at a lower point because it got converted and they buy back in. And so it gives
people some additional control and flexibility, especially in times of volatility. Now, earlier
this year, we had another innovation that the team has worked on, which we refer to as Salt Shield.
And this is a fee-based program where until the maturity date of your existing loan, you can enroll
into the program and you are protected from any liquidation at all. And so your collateral,
your Bitcoin collateral doesn't even get converted into stablecoin. And so I think,
you know, one, we want people to be aware of sort of the volatility and how LTV can be used
strategically. But in parallel with that, the team is definitely we're working on really helping
eliminate as much of that downside risk as possible. Because we realized I think the sentiment
been about Bitcoin and how people are using Bitcoin is changing, right? It's a long-term asset.
And the key thing we hear from customers and borrowers over and again, like, I don't want
to lose my Bitcoin, right? I don't want to get liquidated. And continuing to try to innovate in
that space and provide new products and services is important, right? As I said, it's your Bitcoin
and we want to do everything we can to help make sure it stays your Bitcoin.
Sorry, I was muted there for a second.
But obviously, yeah, we've seen the development of all of this industry.
And I think as we sit here today, in this past six months, we've probably seen some of the quickest development with all of this.
So, I mean, the fact that you guys are continuing to innovate is outstanding.
And I think it's great.
You're listening to the customers.
But, you know, as we are continuing to grow with this, you know, how do you see this industry starting to develop?
And, you know, like the partnerships that you guys are building with various businesses, are you starting to see some more businesses outside of the Bitcoin space?
I know you mentioned a lot of these Bitcoin miners, but have you seen any others?
You know, we were talking a little pre-show about potentially a restaurant.
I mean, Tahini's up in Canada has made it.
I think they're trickling down now into the United States, but they were one of the few companies that really started to put Bitcoin on the balance sheet early.
Have you seen some more developments of various companies start to put Bitcoin on the balance sheet or really look at it as a viable, I guess, way forward?
Yeah, yes.
We have seen, I would say two segments for us that we're seeing more interest in having
more conversations around getting into Bitcoin are business owners of all different sizes,
you know, being able to accumulate Bitcoin and leverage it as we've talked about.
I think the other area that we're getting a lot of interest is in private client or sort
of private wealth and family offices.
A lot of people that have USD or fiat-based assets looking to diversify and now feeling more comfortable with Bitcoin because of the level of visibility, the level of investment, and clarity on regulation.
We have people coming to us with, hey, I have dollars.
I want to be able to, one, own Bitcoin, and then, two, tap into its value.
How do I do that?
And so we often walk people through the cycle, right?
I feel like it's a three-step process that either as an individual or business, you've
got to go through.
The first step is believe.
You've got to start to understand and believe in Bitcoin as an asset class, understand why
people are so excited by it, by the technology, by the value, by the potential of it.
The second one is you got to buy it.
You got to learn how to buy it, understand what you want sort of your purchase strategy
to be as part of your overall portfolio and your overall investment strategy. And then the third is
borrowing, understanding how to use borrowing as a strategic tool to be able to tap into that value.
What we are seeing as the predominant use cases is that people are using loans to borrow against
their Bitcoin to just live their life. They're using it for expenses to buy things. It might be
an emergency expense. We have a number of customers that are very successful and have
made a transition of getting out of debt by buying Bitcoin and then borrowing against their Bitcoin
to pay off unsecured loans that are at higher rates, that are damaging to their credit score,
and so really helping turn around their own financial stability. We have people that are
then using borrowing against their Bitcoin as an income replacement. And it might be partial
income replacement or it might be full income replacement for retirement. And then we have a
group of customers and sort of a set of use cases where they're borrowing against their Bitcoin
for other investment opportunities. So we're now thinking about how do I put my dollars to work in
multiple ways. How do I borrow against my Bitcoin to buy income producing bonds or stocks? Or how
do I borrow against my Bitcoin to buy real estate to further improve or change or develop their own
strategy for wealth building? Yeah, and that's interesting where they're utilizing their own,
I mean, they're essentially doing what the rich have been doing this entire time, right? Borrowing
against assets in order to obtain more assets. And that seems like kind of, you know, the development.
So I mean, it's interesting now we're starting to see, I guess, you know, sailors, infinite money
glitch is what he's coined it, but individuals be able to utilize that with borrowing against
their Bitcoin. Now with this industry kind of, you know, it seems like it's rapidly popping up,
more and more companies are starting to come up and, you know,
more innovation has come in, you know, to these products now.
And you guys are obviously, you know,
at the forefront of trying to innovate with all of these things like
development of salt shield and whatnot. But is there like, you know,
I guess any hurdles that have come about while trying to develop some of
these, you know, I guess recent developments just,
Or has like all the roadblocks with this new administration essentially been been lifted where, you know, with what you guys are building, there's just that regulatory clarity is allowing you guys to kind of operate.
And now it's just the education piece that really is is coming forward.
Well, I mean, I think education is still a key piece and the regulatory clarity. And I think the energy going towards additional regulatory clarity is extremely helpful.
But that progress doesn't mitigate still some of the challenges that are needed in terms of improving broader, I guess I would say more bridges and integration between traditional finance and what's happening in sort of the Bitcoin space and sort of call it sort of the CeFi sort of world.
I think there's more that still needs to happen in terms of how the different financial entities can collaborate and build platforms that are more seamless than they are today.
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Enough from me. Let's get back to the show.
You know, wallets are still hard for most people and sort of understanding how that process works.
And so I think the advancements in stablecoin actually is really helpful because I think if people become more comfortable making payments, making purchases with stablecoin,
it's a smaller jump to then think about buying Bitcoin and managing Bitcoin.
and sort of accumulating.
And so the more that stable coins sort of permeate our daily lives,
then I think that is beneficial.
And that will lead into more people becoming interested in Bitcoin
and starting to integrate it into their assets
and how they sort of build and manage their wealth.
Yeah, and it's definitely something that I think is going to develop.
I mean, this education aspect, I think it's just a matter of time with the amount of attention we have around Bitcoin these days.
But we were speaking a little bit pre-show that you're writing a book currently to kind of help with some of that Bitcoin education.
Why don't you get into a little bit about this book and kind of the mission behind it?
Yeah, so Sean Owen and I, and Sean is the co-founder of Salt and the CEO.
And so we have been out talking and really interacting with a lot of people about why
are we excited about Bitcoin?
Why are we excited about salt?
And a lot of that comes down to really helping provide as I would say more sort of financial stability and resiliency for individuals and businesses And so in the book The Bitcoin Advantage we really talk about one why we excited about Bitcoin as an asset class and two what it starts to mean for people in terms
of building their own personal reserve or building a corporate reserve.
Both, it's a really sort of practical book in terms of providing strategies and tactics
to do that and how to help sort of manage the risks that are associated with it.
And so, you know, I, you know, as I've been traveling around talking with people about
how Bitcoin has changed their life or what are the use cases and the challenges that
they find globally, there's a lot of trends.
While there are definite differences, sort of culture to culture, you know, I think globally
we're seeing some of the same challenges like 20 and 30 year olds globally are having a
hard time buying homes, right? And home equity investment and buying a home and learning about
finances through that vehicle has really been sort of a traditional process. In fact, I was speaking
with somebody that for boomers, right, the comment was made that home equity investing or home
investing was the gold standard for building wealth. And I think as we look forward that
Bitcoin is becoming more of that gold standard for how people build wealth. Because if you can't,
like in the United States, the average age of a first-time home buyer has gone from 25 to above 35.
And in Hong Kong, where I was, it's above 40. And so you look globally about people not being
able to buy their first home until they're in their mid-30s. What are they doing for 10 to 15
years of income generation to accumulate assets that can both appreciate and where you if you need
the leverage, you can take the leverage. And so my hope is with the book is that, you know,
we're educating people on one Bitcoin as an asset class and to the strategies and tactics that they
can start to leverage as they are potentially getting shut out of different aspects of the
financial system. Yeah. And I mean, it's funny you bring up housing because I talk about that a lot
because, you know, I think I saw a stat here about this past year or this year, 2025,
and more homebuyers over the age of 70 have bought in homes than under the age of 35 this year.
And that seems to be a growing trend. It's the first time this has ever happened.
So it's exactly like you're saying. It's like boomers have had all these assets and everything else. And that's how they still look at the gold standard of building wealth is through home buying. And so they're continuing to do it. But the average home in the United States is like $450,000 right now. And for a starter home, that ain't cheap.
You know, I mean, nearly half a million dollars.
But if you price that in Bitcoin, the average home price has been going down.
And, you know, I think over time, we're going to start to see that become really the real sign of wealth.
You know, I've got one graphic.
Maybe I'll have the guys stick it in here.
But the average home in 2017 was $337,900, which was about 24 Bitcoin at that time.
Here in 2025, it's $410,800.
And that's around four Bitcoin at the time that Bitcoin mag made this.
So you just see the drastic drop if you price everything in Bitcoin.
and uh you know as we get through this development right i mean it seems like
you know right now everything's still priced in dollars but have you seen a you know a growing
trend where people are starting to look at more uh i guess pricing things in bitcoin and kind of
saving for homes almost in bitcoin because to be honest when i was buying my first house that's
i was kind of using the s&p 500 just to save into it because that was a little less volatile i mean
looking back, I wish I would have put it in Bitcoin. But, you know, I think that's going
to be a growing trend. And do you see that as well, like some more young people starting to get
in to Bitcoin just because they see real estate as unattainable? I think so. Before I jump to the
question real quickly, I think you can't identify yourself as a true Bitcoiner if you don't have a
story of regret of either having lost Bitcoin, like not purchased it when you had the thought
of buying it or sold it in the past. And so I think, you know, all of us have those stories
to relate. And I think, you know, which is part of the journey. I think actually any one of those
items is a bit of the learning curve and understanding how precious and valuable the
asset is, both in terms of thinking about what your accumulation strategy is and then how,
what do you do to sort of hold on to it for for as long as you can and we do know that right we're
having more conversations with people and there's more people out educating about building a legacy
and thinking about how do you pass on your bitcoin and and the strategies to do that so it's it's not
only personal wealth or corporate wealth but it's multi-generational wealth um and in going back to
to your sort of question in terms of getting priced out and sort of not having access to
sort of real estate. I think that's true. I think people are looking for those investment vehicles
where, you know, they can start to build wealth and really learn the basics of financial management.
I get, you know, going back, I sort of, I think that's home buying, the home buying process and
being responsible for paying your mortgage every month, ensuring that you learn that discipline
has to be replaced for generations of people now about learning, one, the technical aspects of
financial management, but also the discipline. And so hopefully with education efforts from
yourself, what we're doing with the Bitcoin Advantage and many others in the space,
that people start to understand what they need to learn and then start to practice the habits
and even just the process of going through and buying Bitcoin, understanding its volatility,
getting comfortable with managing a loan and doing it at small amounts. So you're not nervous
and you're not sort of afraid as you start to accumulate larger amounts and greater wealth.
yeah i mean i i actually just spoke at uh you know a local college here the university of
tampa so shout out to them they just got a bitcoin education uh course as well but uh you know when
i was talking to a lot of them yeah when you start talking into the nitty-gritties of bitcoin
they it kind of just glazes over their head you know you like the nodes the miners all that kind
of stuff but i think you know when you kind of break it down you know you could buy a dollar's
worth, a quarter's worth. You could buy a penny's worth of Bitcoin and just kind of start sacking
sats that way. And then on top of it, you know, it's the best performing asset there is.
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All right, enough from me.
Back to the show.
And you don't need to have this big overhead.
And the simple supply and demand of it, I think, is what people just kind of don't really understand
because we've never had anything as scarce as Bitcoin.
Of course, there's time. But outside of that, I mean, you know, people have talked about gold, have talked about real estate. But when you're talking to all of these and like educating people about the comparisons, how do you navigate that question? Are you usually kind of talking about it as the digital gold aspect? Or is there some other way that you've found that that really resonates with people?
So, I mean, I think the digital gold is, for me, one of the best sort of metaphors and sort of stories to tell about, you know, how, you know, why there's value in Bitcoin, why there's so much interest and how to think about it as one, right?
I mean, there's a couple aspects that make Bitcoin really unique, right?
There's 21 million.
There never will be any more than that.
In fact, I think the number is probably closer to 17 to 18 million that are actually out in the world that haven't been sort of lost forever, right?
So it is a scarce asset by design.
And in addition to that, it is one that your ability to buy it and your ability to sell it is ungated.
You know, there is not a government, there's not an individual, there's not a company that can stop you from doing it.
So for a lot of people globally, that's super empowering to be able to put them in control of the movement of their assets, the choice to invest in the asset class, and then the choice of how to take advantage of it.
You know, the sort of the mobility of the asset of Bitcoin, right, is dramatically different.
Like if you had your wealth in gold, great.
But if you ever had to move it, that's a pain in the S if you could even do it.
And so, you know, I think we're starting to see a combination of things that stack in terms of its value.
And then, you know, for, you know, I have had a career in traditional finance and really understand sort of credit as well as the payment systems.
And one of the things that for people that I talk to that are more skeptical about the value of Bitcoin, I just sort of, if you think about comparing Bitcoin, the network, which has never been compromised since it was sort of launched, to the networks and the value of Visa and MasterCard combined.
You can get a little bit of framing that even in the worst case scenario that we value Bitcoin based on a technology and the ability to make payments, it has tremendous value in and of itself.
But what we're seeing more globally is that the scarcity is driving up the value and the optionality that that sort of asset gives is attracting more people and more capital into the asset as a whole.
yeah and it's definitely seeing it seems like the the amount of capital getting dumped into bitcoin
is just astonishing these days i mean if you look at the amount that a bitcoin that's being mined
every single day 450 uh you know just on a daily basis and the amount that's being bought i mean
it seems like the fundamentals here are uh you know primed for you know a big a big quarter and
big things ahead. And, you know, I think a lot of people in Bitcoin come in for the number go up or
the money, as I like to say, some people come in for the money and then stay for the money because,
you know, just the freedom technology of that Bitcoin kind of resonates with.
But, you know, with your travels, I mean, I travel around and speak at a lot of these different
conferences as well. I'm curious, what are some of the main differences you see globally between
how people are grasping Bitcoin and, you know, how would you describe it differently and
similarities to how people view it in the United States? So I think that in some communities,
people are gravitating towards Bitcoin, you know, because they're more concerned about their local,
you know, sort of their regional economy. It could be sort of, you know, inflation,
hyperinflation in the area you're in and they're also more concerned with remittance so the movement
of money from one country to another and so those are use cases that are i think more prevalent
outside of the us in the us a lot of the use cases have been more around wealth building investment
and then there's also sort of the the trading or the day trading type aspect which is prevalent
i think globally but in some countries especially most recently in asia pacific less of a thing
right there there's been more issue more emphasis on remittance more instances and actually
investment because in some of the countries in asia pacific they have less confidence in their
low in their national stock markets so they don't really have any other vehicles to take any
income generated and putting it in sort of appreciating assets. And they're, like in China,
overly invested in real estate. So they're looking for options to divest out of real estate and have
sort of more diversity. And there's commonalities in other countries in sort of the Asia Pacific
region. But I think this whole idea of like 20-year-olds and 30-year-olds struggling to
figure out how they're going to learn about finance, how they're going to build wealth.
And I often sort of talk about it as like for stability and resiliency, whether you're a
business or you're an individual, you want to be making that shift from sort of labor-based income
or revenue to asset-based income and asset-based value. And you can't do that. You can't make that
transition if you don't have an asset class to be investing in and you don't and then you don't know
what to be buying or how to be doing that and so I think that that that is a common transformation that people are looking to make around the world And if in fact you can be buying an asset class that you then can move it more easily you can leverage it more
easily, you don't have to rely on sort of traditional banks and traditional systems,
it becomes attractive to a lot of people more globally. This bull run, I'm looking for ways to
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Yeah, I mean, I think the narrative that we saw last cycle was kind of like bank the unbanked.
And I think that it's interesting.
But the global expansion is something that I think is very unique.
I mean, we see the likes of Latin America is a good example, right?
You see a lot of them unbanked, have very unstable currencies.
Then I think Europe, it's somewhat of a freedom push for certain countries,
maybe some it's similar to the US.
but I haven't been over to Asia, but how was that experience?
Because they always talk about MetaPlanet and obviously Hong Kong
is kind of the two countries, one system is paired with China.
So we've got a lot of unique views of that area of the world
from the United States perspective, but their monetary policy
and their differences and kind of, I guess, aversion away from Bitcoin, at least in China,
seems like they're starting to dip their toe in Hong Kong to say the very least. So
how would you describe the adoption that you saw when you were over in Hong Kong and just
in that side of the world? Yeah, I definitely think it's going through
you know, a transition in terms of greater interest and greater understanding.
They're, you know, as we were talking about, you know, even in the US, right, they have
a high barrier to get into real estate, both in terms of availability as well as price point.
And there is not as much confidence in a lot of the national stock markets. And so people are
looking for an asset class and places to put their money. And from conversations I had, there's a lot
of sort of fiat that's sitting on the sidelines that they want to invest in other assets and
diversify away from real estate if they even have real estate. And I think part of that context was
driving the interest, the size of the conference, and sort of the ongoing sort of push to start to
understand Bitcoin more and the demand for buying it. And I think that's showing up not only in
terms of the number of people, but there were so many more exchanges and wallet companies
and other partners within the ecosystem that were present at the conference. You could see
from sort of South Korea.
You know, I spoke with people from South Korea,
from Malaysia, from Vietnam, from China, from Hong Kong.
People traveled in from Australia, New Zealand, Japan,
you know, and Singapore.
And so it was an amazing experience
just in terms of just how many people traveled
from such distances to come be a part of the show.
Because there is a movement, right?
You get people in because they believe in the philosophies.
You get people attracted because they believe in the technology and you get people interested in believing because of the value and the potential.
And so I think it's fascinating to see how the experience of the conferences are changing because of the diversity of the people that are coming in.
But I think that's it's exciting for one, the different points of view, but the opportunities I believe it will create.
yeah and it's interesting too because you know i mean of course we have like the best kind of
financial system that they line out here in the united states but um you know when you listen to
michael saylor even on his like investor calls and and everything else he always brings up japan
as like one of the best uh markets to invest in and they just haven't really had necessarily a big
bond market push so he's always talked about meta planet as potentially the only company that
could surpass strategy. Now they're so far behind. I don't know if they'll ever be able to do that,
but it is interesting that we see that and, you know, kind of parlaying that into what we see with
some of these different companies start to come on, you know, how is SALT looking at these types
of strategies and, you know, maybe putting Bitcoin on the balance sheet or, you know, let's dive into
maybe like how you guys view that and, you know, just as a company internally. Yeah, I mean,
We're really excited by the opportunity. I think the meta planets and the strategy bees are getting a lot of the attention in terms of treasury management and building Bitcoin sort of on the balance sheet.
And how we think we're different and excited about the opportunity to the head is that we look at ourselves and we're a Bitcoin native company.
I tell the story a lot of times when you, if you understand McDonald's from an overall business model, right? McDonald's basically is a real estate company that has a profitable business on top of the real estate.
and you know we're super excited looking forward is that we are a bitcoin company
and we have a profitable business on the bitcoin that we own and we can continually sort of
acquire more bitcoin because of the profits as well as the revenue that we're generating
and so that's an exciting opportunity not only can we be of tremendous service and value to people
that own, appreciate, and want to hodl Bitcoin. But we think from an investment perspective,
SALT is a great opportunity because not only are we looking to grow revenues, grow profit,
but we're acquiring more Bitcoin per share in terms of how we think about providing value back
to shareholders. Yeah, that's great. Yeah. I mean, everybody always, like you said,
it it's interesting how people look at uh bitcoin companies and i mean just in mcdonald's and in
general right i mean if you think of mcdonald's you think oh it's a burger company but yeah you're
you're 100 right it's actually more of a real estate company and nobody really uh unless you
kind of dive into the business nobody really understands that so uh it's it's great that you
guys are lining it out like that and i think that's a a really unique way of putting it now
Now, let's get back to the book because you were talking about a lot of the education with all of that.
Have you guys already released it, one?
And if not, when are you guys planning on putting it all out?
So we are in the process of writing it.
We are doing the book.
BTC Media will be publishing it.
So we will build up and have a launch event at sort of BTC Las Vegas in 2026.
In the meantime, we're continuing to collect more information, talk to people about their stories, about how Bitcoin has impacted their lives and what they're excited about and even what the challenges are.
And so that both we can make changes at SALT, but also share more information to the ecosystem about what do we collectively have to do better to lower the barriers to entry and make it easier and more flexible to take advantage of what we clearly all see as a great asset class and one that has great potential for individuals and companies.
Yeah, and I mean, I think it's great.
So, you know, with this, who would you say maybe the target audience is for this?
Because you're kind of, you know, interviewing, it sounds like a lot of these Bitcoiners talking about some of the challenges maybe that they have to living in a Bitcoinized world or, you know, maybe doing it just individually.
Like who are you?
Who would you guys say your target audience is for this book?
Yeah, I mean, the audience for the book is really more the Bitcoin curious or the people that are early in their Bitcoin journey.
We have laid it out and really sort of talking about some of the fundamental sort of philosophies and principles about how to think about, first of all, why is a Bitcoin reserve a powerful sort of concept and a powerful way of thinking about building and protecting your wealth over time?
but then giving really practical strategies to help people understand you know how do you get
started how do you what is what is daily cost averaging and why is it useful and valuable how
do you think about what are the companies like river and fold and strike where you can go buy
bitcoin to sort of accumulate it to begin with and then how do you think about living this bitcoin
powered life right i mean we have you know the idea of converting income into bitcoin if you
wanted to do that, you know, we're not at a place. And I think we're interesting enough moving away
from a place where people even want to use Bitcoin as a means of exchange as much. And so if you
don't want to do that, how do you live your life being able to sort of never sell and huddle your
Bitcoin and sort of on the principle of, you know, stay long, stay liquid?
oh i like that phrase stay long stay liquid um so yeah i mean it makes all the sense in the world
and i think you know we're we're not really there in the u.s for uh the medium of exchange i mean i i
i think you know you're 100 right people are looking at it more as the digital gold at least
how it stands right now um you know and uh we've got a bunch of different yeah controversial takes
let's say back and forth on that. But I think, you know, Mark Moss, I reference my talk with him
quite a bit, because the way he lined it out was pretty interesting to me. He, he said the first
10 years is more of, you know, there's a 50 year cycle, first 10 years, there's more, you know,
retail adoption, second 10 years, which is what we're in right now, you kind of start to see the
institutional, the not, the denominator, institutional adoption, third 10 years, you
you start to see governmental adoption.
Then fourth 10 years, you start to see,
maybe some people starting using it
as a medium of exchange.
And then the last 10 years
and this 50-year adoption cycle
will be the unit of account.
So I still think we got a long way to go with this.
But last cycle, we actually did see some companies
get involved with some governments
and governmental adoption.
I mean, obviously you guys don't have to disclose
if you've had any of that,
But, you know, what has been your take on, you know, this governmental adoption?
And, you know, if you have, you don't have to disclose who.
Have you had any conversations with potential governments about, you know, either obtaining or utilizing Bitcoin in some way, shape or form here going forward?
Yeah, I mean, we, you know, we have definitely seen, right, as being publicized and even in conversations, right,
more governments wanting to be educated on Bitcoin and starting to look at it. A lot of the Bitcoin
ownership, especially in the US, has been sort of acquired or sort of been confiscated through
different means. It's how it's come to be, at least from a US perspective. But what you are
seeing is you're seeing a lot of states. In the US, I think it's up to sort of close to 20 states
If they haven't enacted a law, they are in the process of moving towards the ability to accumulate Bitcoin at the state level.
And so, I mean, I think the evolutionary cycle of the asset, it will take sort of states and governments and sort of, you know, institutions of that like more time to get comfortable for both acquiring it and then leveraging it.
if you just think about sort of the amount of governance that would need to be changed
in order to do that. But the fact that they're trying to lay the groundwork in terms of any of
the laws or any of the sort of regulatory aspects, you know, is encouraging and they see value in it.
And so I think that's encouraging and bullish in terms of the outlook for the amount of interest
and then ultimately the amount of demand that there would be for Bitcoin.
yeah and i definitely think that that demand is starting to increase and we'll potentially see
some more governments i think i think the united states i mean this is just my theory and maybe i'm
basing it a lot off of what my conversation with mark was but i think it's going to be a little bit
slower of a development than than people may think so i think we need to maybe pump the brakes on the
u.s developing it or even buying bitcoin i bet we don't see it until 28 or later at least that's
my theory. I hope I'm wrong, but I think it's definitely an asset that people are going to
start being, I guess, more curious about. We're seeing more and more Bitcoin bulls get into
the Oval Office and some of these old, bigger congressional chairs and everything else.
But we're sitting here and recording this with about three-ish months left in the year.
So what are you looking forward to in the rest of this year, this last quarter?
And any big things or predictions you want to throw out there for Bitcoin?
I'd love to hear it in this last quarter.
Well, I mean, I think we're super excited just about sort of the continued momentum and spreading the word about Bitcoin.
We will be going both to the Bitcoin.
the Bitcoin conference in Amsterdam, as well as the one in Mania in December,
and sort of lots of events in between in terms of, one, engaging with people that are looking to buy,
have Bitcoin and are looking to leverage it, but continuing to sort of really beat the educational
drum so people understand sort of, you know, why we believe in the asset, how they can start to buy
the asset, and why it's important, you know, to be honest, whether it's with salt or anybody else,
like how they can borrow against it to get the leverage.
I think, you know, as a lending community,
it's important for us to have, one, options for customers
and two, the trust of people that are, you know,
borrowing against their Bitcoin.
It is an asset that they want to hold.
And as I said, we believe it's your Bitcoin.
We do everything we can to make sure it stays your Bitcoin.
And the more trust that we can bring back to the community,
I think it's super important.
And so we'll continue to, you know, be out talking, engaging and educating
and sort of meeting as many people as we can.
There we go.
Awesome stuff And I will be at Amsterdam as well I don know if it officially been announced so uh i don know i mean maybe i jumping the roll here a little bit earlier but uh i i see you guys
in amsterdam and uh i'm excited to maybe share a share a beer with you overseas and uh and hang
out over there but uh you've been very generous with your time so thank you so much for coming
on the show hunter why don't you tell people more about where uh they can find out about you
and find out more about salt.
Yeah, so they would love to engage with people.
Find me on X and LinkedIn
are sort of the two main platforms for me.
And then for all Green Candle listeners,
if you go to saltlending.com forward slash green dash candle,
we have resources on there as well as special offers
for people to take advantage of.
Yeah, 100%.
And that's all linked in the show notes.
You guys know and love salt.
And I couldn't recommend these guys more.
So Hunter, thanks so much.
It's been a pleasure.
Thanks, Brendan.
Thank you guys all for tuning in to another great episode of the State of Bitcoin podcast.
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