← Coin Stories with Natalie Brunell
Coin Stories with Natalie Brunell
Jack Mallers: Corporate Lobbying Threatens U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and Why Bitcoin is Honest Money
00:48:10
In this episode with Strike CEO Jack Mallers, we discuss: Corporate lobbying threatening a U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Should the U.S. embrace a reserve of digital assets? Jack's viral comments about $XRP and Ripple The future of regulation in...
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- [00:02]
A
What is IT? Ripple printed 100 billion XRP tokens, gave it to themselves. And the distribution to the people is by them selling it. Ripple has never bought Ripple. They've only sold it.
- [00:18]
B
Welcome back to the show, everyone. This is a great week to be talking to Strike CEO Jack Mallers. Thank you so much for joining me, Jack, it's been a while and you're in a very beautiful, sunny place. I wish we could be doing this in person. How are you doing?
- [00:31]
A
What's going on, Natalie? I'm good. I'm good. Thanks for having me. It's always a pleasure. And by the way, I'm a fan. You know this, but the world should know this. I'm a fan of your work, your media appearances are. You knock it out of the park. So good job. Keep fighting the good fight.
- [00:46]
B
Oh, well, thank you so much. I'm a big fan of yours. There's no one that can talk on CNBC like you do, so we have a lot to discuss. I feel like there's so much happening. This is really great timing. And I have to start off with your viral post, your impromptu press conference that you held, because we got some news lately about this strategic reserve, and it might not just be bitcoin. So I just want to get your. Your take and your message for the community.
- [01:13]
A
Yeah, well, I think that a bitcoin strategic reserve. So firstly, this concept, this idea that's been floated around and it seems like we're making political progress, I think it would be one of the most important economic announcements in U.S. history. Important meaning, I think on par with something like Nixon's announcement in 1971. However, I think the big difference that no one's talking about enough is it would be one of the first positive economic announcements. So important doesn't bias positive or negative. It means it's meaningful to the public. But meaningful to the public has usually been negative with economic US announcements. 1933 was a really big one, and it was the confiscation of gold. 1971, Nixon, the one I keep referencing, was a really big one. It was divorcing ourselves from the gold standard, which, the way I like to think about it, is divorcing our monetary policy from the immutable laws of Mother Nature and the ability for the government to print currency, debase currency, and inflate the goods and services of the people and the public. And then 2008 was another very important, I would say, economic announcement and string of decisions from financial authorities. But was it positive? No, it was that financial authorities took the side of Wall street banks and private corporations and burdened the cost of the mistakes on the people, on the public. And I think a bitcoin strategic reserve would be as important and the caliber of those type of financial announcements, but positive. And I think there's a lot of insights in that idea because this is an asset that's owned. Only 2, 3, 4% of the Bitcoin network is owned by governments. Who owns it, Natalie? The people, the public. This is an asset where its monetary policy cannot be changed, it cannot be forced seizure. It's global, it's inclusive. You could buy a penny worth of bitcoin. So you're talking about a financial instrument that can measure a grain of sand or, or a professional sports team. Right. And so this is in the best interest of the people, it's in the best interest of the public. And we're reaching an inflection point. Where is the future of the money? One of the people or one of corporations? And so I think it's as important but positive. And when I see something like Ripple lobbying privately as a for profit corporation to undermine this idea of a positive announcement that's in the best interest of the people, in the best interest of the public, that's changing the tide of the last century of American economic announcements in monetary policy. Against the public, against the people, and really changing the momentum in our direction as a country and the leader of the free world. Ripple is bringing us back to all of the awful announcements that are against the best interest of the public that I just walked us through. Right? It's, this is, this is private lobbying acting as innovation, acting as a public good in service. But what is IT? Ripple printed 100 billion XRP tokens, gave it to themselves and the distribution to the people is by them selling it. People say, well, Michael Saylor's lobbying for bitcoin. Why can't Ripple lobby for Ripple? Well, Michael Saylor has bought $30 billion worth of Bitcoin. He thinks bitcoin's a good idea for him and he wants America to think the same. Ripple has never bought Ripple, they've only sold it. If Ripple is, if XRP is so good, why don't you buy any? Why you keep selling it? So this is a private corporation that's created money out of thin air, that biases themselves, that wants to burden the American public to promote their self interest. It's the same as 1933, it's the same as 1971, it's the same as 2008, hidden as a public good. Riding the coattails of bitcoin. So my announcement was trying to give that context, give the American history of that. The people and the public have been the burden and the brunt of all of the unfortunate mistakes when it comes to monetary policy and economics in this country. And this is our opportunity through technological innovation, where bitcoin's a public utility for us and there's corporate lobbying that's trying to take that away and prioritize their interest. So that was my message and I'm glad that it got some attention. And, you know, Ripple, in my opinion, crossed the line and I'm, I'm willing to die on this hill, that's for sure.
- [05:41]
B
I want to dig a little bit more into Ripple in a moment, but what do you think is happening behind the scenes? Because I know you've had high level talks with politicians, people of influence, Wall street, when you've been trying to expand adoption of bitcoin. Do you think it's just a matter of people at the top and people surrounding Trump aren't educated? I mean, you have to argue that with the release of the latest meme coins that he clearly doesn't understand all of crypto yet. So is it, is it bad advice? Do you think that there, that the lobbying arms are so powerful of these crypto companies, like what's actually happening?
- [06:18]
A
I do. I think, I think all of the above. I think people understand bitcoin when they need to. That's a Michael Saylor ideas. It's. You really deeply understand this concept when it's out of necessity, whether your company's failing, your family needs help, you can't make progress towards owning a home because inflation is too burdening to you. That's when you deeply understand these concepts. And I'm not sure Donald Trump needs to understand bitcoin out of necessity, yet eventually the US Government will. I don't know if they've gotten there quite yet. We're clearly getting closer. But I think that's the delta between where they are today and inevitably where they understand bitcoin like you and I do, and on the political process. I mean, I would not consider myself a lover of politics. If anything, I'd be a libertarian. But to be totally honest, I'm barely a millennial. Many think of me more as, you know, Gen Z. And I mean, politics in my generation is so far gone. We know change is through writing code, open source code, proof of work. That's a lot of my generation. So I give that context to say, unfortunately, I think this is politics and Political lobbying and getting things through Congress as people stroke checks to career politicians. And unfortunately, that's a lot of what government has been about and will continue to be about. I mean, the incentive structure is entirely broken. These politicians don't think, they don't have a low time preference. They're not afforded that opportunity. They have to think very high time preference, very short term. I mean, practically speaking, Donald Trump has 12 months to affect the change that he's promised to people because once you get close to midterms, it's over. And so I think they have to act extremely quickly, they have to learn extremely fast, and there's dollars being thrown at them every which way. So you're talking about short term, high time preference, decision making. And we know as bitcoiners, that's the opposite of what you want. Building a sound, scalable foundation to build a prosperous life for society. So I think we're caught in the political game, which I don't love playing, but I will play if it's the best interest of humanity and bitcoin, because I want bitcoin to have the best chance to win, because I think it's the best thing for our species.
- [08:40]
B
Well, in your video online, you talked about the amount of money that companies like Ripple have to throw around to influence people in power. So I want to talk a little bit about that because obviously, obviously bitcoin has been attacked. A couple years ago it was Greenpeace with the energy use of bitcoin, Ripple being this like, clean alternative. But before we dig into that, I just want to zoom out a little bit because people watch my show who are hardcore bitcoiners, but also those who are new who are sort of on the margin, they don't know if they want to invest. And I remember being new, I remember 2017, looking at the space being very confused, kind of conflating all of it, because I didn't understand the foundation and the proof of work, consensus mechanism, how important energy was to that. And I saw the other cryptocurrencies as cheaper, as more accessible. Right? Like we're all struggling financially. If we're getting into crypto, a lot of us are at least. And it's like, oh, maybe I'll make something on this and I'll trade it at the right time and I won't have to stress so much. So there are people that are watching this that might be in that boat. So can you kind of explain why? And we don't have to pick on necessarily one cryptocurrency unless you want to, but, like, why is Bitcoin so special and so different? And why should people have the kind of red alarm buzzing when they hear a digital asset stockpile rather than bitcoin stockpile?
- [10:10]
A
Yeah. So I think if the listener that is a little overwhelmed by some of these concepts, just give me a few minutes and bear with me here and trust me to the end. To understand Bitcoin is to understand money, which is a really overwhelming concept and seems very abstract, but we're going to do it together, right here, right now. Money, in my opinion, Natalie, is your time and your energy in an abstracted form. That's what I like to say. Is that meaning that we get up every day, all of us, and we contribute our time and our energy to do value for the world. Whether you're mowing lawns, cleaning windshields, founding a company, podcaster, whatever that is to you, you're contributing. What are you natal? You are the time you have in this life and the energy in which your life is expressed, right? So your work, your labor, your effort, and in exchange for all of that, you get up, you go to work, you get money, right? And so money, in theory, is a reflection of your contributions to society, is the goal of it. Right before money, we had barter, where, let's say there's five of us in a village, and I say, all right, Natalie, you go do the hunting, I'll go get the water, our friend is going to build the homes, and at the end of the night, we'll share where you can sleep in the homes they built. You could drink the water I fetched, and we can eat the food that you hunted. And that way, we're directly exchanging our contributions with each other. But, Natalie, if you were to go to Whole Foods today and say, hey, I recorded a podcast. I'll take two rib eyes, they'd say, I don't know you, and I don't care about your podcast. What am I supposed to do with that? So the way we solve that is we invented money, where we can all contribute to each other, and in exchange for our time, energy, effort, work, labor, we get money now. So all of that to say money should reflect your contributions to this world. And it's a way for you to take the time, energy, work, effort, labor that you contribute and store it to exchange for the things you need later so you can record a podcast, Natalie, get money for it, and then go to Whole Foods and get your two sticks. Now, if the money can be printed and controlled by whether it's a Government, a corporation, someone else, they can debase it. They can make it worth less. The more they print of it, the more that they're weakening the actual money itself, right? And another way to think about all this, given all this context, is if a government can print money, they're printing time and energy, right? You had to work really hard for your money. They didn't have to work at all. And when a government can print currency and debase the currency and make the currency weaker by proxy, my main point is they're making you weaker, right? Because if your money is a reflection of all your life's work and they're able to make your money worth less, they're able to make you worth less and your life worth less, you get less housing, less gas, less clothes, less vacations, less education. You're going to be able to afford to have less children, less family. So by them making. It's not. It's one thing to say, yeah, my government's been printing a lot of money, but they said it's because of war, they're making you worthless.
- [13:13]
B
Okay?
- [13:13]
A
So the objective, if you're a human that understands this, is how can I own something that no one can debase effectively? I want to contribute to this world, and I don't want anyone to take that value away from me. I don't want anyone to make me worth less. I want to make sure that the work I put into this world and the value I contribute to people around me, I want to make sure that I can get the same amount of housing and the same amount of clothes and the same amount of education. And if I want to have 10 kids, I can finance my ability to have 10 kids. And to me, that's what Bitcoin solves for. And we can get into the proof of work and all of the nuances involved in that, but from the highest level possible. Bitcoin's the only monetary unit in the history of our species that is literally fixed, finite. You cannot make more of it. If we wanted to find more gold, we can. If McDonald's wanted to make 8 billion cheeseburgers for everyone in the world, they can. If Apple wanted to make 8 billion iPhones for everyone in the world, they can. With more demand comes more supply. And so the really difficult thing as humans is how can we engineer something that is fixed, finite, you can't make any more. And if we're able to do so, the main use case for it is making it money. Because we all want to contribute value to those around us and make sure that no one can take it from us. And so when I see something like Ripple, this is a company that prints it at will and that allocates it to themselves. Natalie, everyone that owns Bitcoin has had to contribute time and energy to get it. Whether it's just through mining literally, or whether it's through doing real work in the real world and providing real value to people like Michael Saylor, in my opinion, has done some form of synthetic mining. That guy's contributed his whole life, his whole life to building microstrategy, becoming an expert in his craft, understanding financial engineering. He's put in how many hours do you think to be the man he is today? And so the bitcoin he's earning earned has been a lot of time and energy. Now it's not bitcoin mining time and energy, but it's still time and energy that the world can consume in value from him. Now let's take Ripple for example. When they printed 100 billion XRP and gave it to themselves, how much time and energy and value did they give to you and I? 0. And that's the fundamental problem I have now. Whether you value Ripple for some smart contract settlement layer thing is entirely different and we won't get into that.
- [15:38]
B
But.
- [15:39]
A
But the mere point of like a neutral money that requires time and energy to own and that no one can make more of is what we all want. And that in my opinion is the highest level difference in why anyone that's like wait, what is bitcoin? Why would I value it? It's the thing that you can trade your time, energy, work effort and labor for that no one can make more of.
- [16:00]
B
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- [18:41]
A
Yeah, I mean I've always considered altcoins. So every crypto that isn't bitcoin, I've called it an arbitrage on the trend, an arbitrage trade. Let's take this glass of water I have here for example. If I can buy a bottle of water on the north side of town for a dollar and I can sell that bottle of water on the south side of town for $10. In finance and trading, we call that arbitrage where I'm taking advantage of the inefficiency in a market and arbing the spread. I'm making $9 a trade. So what am I going to do? I'm going to spend all day buying $1 water bottles north and traveling down south and selling them for 10. Eventually what happens is the market gets efficient and the north water bottle will find itself at $5 because all the demand of me buying it at one will push the price up and all the sell pressure at $10 will bring these two to an equilibrium of about 5. And then the market will be efficient and I've monetized the inefficiency. Now, what do I mean? Arbitrage on the trend of altcoins. Well, here you have a new technological trend in Bitcoin. New technology, new innovation, a computer science problem. And the Byzantine general's problem is fundamentally solved, which was previously inconceivably impossible. So Satoshi had a breakthrough. Now, what's the arbitrage opportunity? I think it's been both regulatory and informational. One is traditionally you're not allowed to just make money in your basement and pay Justin Bieber to sell it to a bunch of 18 year olds. That's previously immoral, unethical and therefore illegal in the United States of America. But we hadn't totally figured out the regulatory environment for this new technology. So it almost allowed you to be your own central bank where previously that was both obviously immoral, unethical and not very principled, but also would put you in prison. Also, there's an informational arbitrage where I don't totally understand Bitcoin. What's the difference between bitcoin and Jack coin and Natalie coin and woodcoin and pink coin. So what's the arbitrage opportunity, Natalie? What's the $1 water bottle you can buy and the 10 you can sell? Well, I can create my own coin and I can lobby politicians and I can pay influencers and I can pay bot armies to convince the confused, the uneducated and take advantage of a regulatory environment that isn't as mature. And so the way I've been in Bitcoin for 12 years, creating an altcoin and selling an altcoin to the uneducated was a lot easier when I got involved in early 2013, late 2012, it's a lot harder today. You got to have a lot of money, a lot of lobbying, a lot of power because. Because the market's getting more efficient. I would say if I were carrying my analogy, initially the water bottle was $1 and you're selling it for 10. It was really easy to make money there. I would say the market's closing a little bit. And I think whether it's 1 year, 5 years, 10 years, eventually the market will be plenty educated and there'll be proper regulations where this opportunity isn't so easy to make money. But what I see with all of these coins, trump coin, whatever, is, it's an arbitrage trade. Right. They're taking advantage of inefficiencies in the market as people aren't educated and regulators aren't up to speed on how to prevent ethical immoral behavior in robbing the American public. Is that that makes any sense?
- [22:01]
B
No, that absolutely does. Do you think having a regulatory framework will help at least with, with clarity, so that investors better understand these? Because I do think that we're going to see a future where Bitcoin is at the core, it is the deep store of value, it is increasingly used, but that we will have digital securities and that maybe these cryptocurrencies or these other projects, they aren't going to have to necessarily go through the hurdles that it takes for a company today to go public, which is like $40 million and, and a team of lawyers and all that. I mean, do you, do you kind of side with crypto in the sense that, yes, these rules need to be updated and we, we can make it clear that we are issuing a security. It's a digital form and we're going to have tokens and all that. Or, or what do you think?
- [22:48]
A
I mean, I've seen Michael Saylor's proposal, which I think is reasonable, which is let's. There's a digital security and a digital commodity and a digital token. And I think his intention is a lot of what I'm saying, which is it's really immoral to allow people to get robbed in broad daylight, which is, I'm going to print a token, I'm going to pay Dua, Lipa, Justin Bieber, I don't know who do kids like these days and convince them via Instagram and TikTok that they're going to get rich and just steal from uneducated people. That sucks to see. And I think Saylor's intention is to hopefully create an environment where we get a little bit more transparency and support for the public to get engaged in this industry. Now, do I think government regulation actually solves fundamental problems? No, probably not. In my opinion, the core problem is everyone is a speculator. That's what I don't think is talked about enough is when you are constantly printing money, a doctor is not just a doctor. They're 50% a doctor and the other 50% of their time is trying to understand Japanese central bank monetary policy and the yen carry trade and the bond yields because doing your job isn't enough to defeat inflation. You also have to manage a portfolio. You also have to open a Robinhood account. You also have to have a Coinbase account. And that to me is the problem is, when you turn everyone into a speculator, what are you going to get? You're going to get speculation on Trump Coin and Ripple Coin and a lot of this nonsense. So listen, can regulations help? Maybe. Are they going to happen? Probably, because that's what people vote for. People believe that, hey, I voted for you, so why am I losing money? Why can't I afford a college education? Why am I sick? Why am I fat? Right. I mean, people subscribe all of the quality of their life to their politicians. So I think there will be efforts and attempts and can they be helpful? Potentially. But I think the fundamental problem is solved is when not everyone is a speculator. And if you're a doctor or a librarian or a researcher, you can just focus on that. And that job alone will allow you to afford food and gas and housing. And you don't need to constantly speculate on a bunch of crap because if you turn the population into a bunch of speculators, people are going to find a way to monetize that and make money on it and they're going to give them stuff to speculate on and it's going to be a disaster.
- [25:12]
B
Well, and that's kind of what we already have with the stock market. I mean, people are really disillusioned. The companies, I mean, what is anything worth today? And Bitcoin simplifies all of this. Yet these powerful companies with very, very smart people, like, it's like, no Bitcoin, let's push that aside. It's too old, it's too boring, it's whatever. It's crazy sometimes how the simple answer can make things so much easier. But people still overcomplicate things and then end up gambling.
- [25:43]
A
Yeah, I mean, just real quickly. Sorry. I think people say, well, altcoins have to die soon. Right? Because once you fundamentally understand these things, they're dumb and they're stupid and there's no value accrual. There's no reason Ethereum should be worth anything. But once you understand everyone's a speculator, I think people are going to continue to sell speculators, things to speculate on until we solve that fundamental problem. And that could take a very long time, which I think is when bitcoin is widely distributed, understood, maybe even in some instances used as a unit of account. So until people aren't inherently needing to speculate to survive and to live, then there's going to be an opportunity for folks to sell them things to speculate on. And that is both the problem and the opportunity. Because as an early bitcoiner, there's a lot of opportunity in accumulating sats, buying dips, building products and services, and doing podcasts like yours, Natalie, and the great job you do at educating and fighting the good fight. So my. The line I'm drawing when it comes to the strategic reserve is, Listen, I'm 30 years old, Natalie. My dream is to be a dad. I'm an American. I want to raise kids in America. And I think that this is an inflection point that, you know, really pivotal, where we can make the future of money about the people and the public and restore a lot of ethics and morals and American principles in the future of this country, start addressing deficits. I mean, I want to be pro industry, pro energy, pro technology, pro growth. And to me, all of that is bitcoin. Bitcoin. And if something like Ripple is able to successfully lobby, then I lose a lot of confidence in the future I want my kids to have. So I see this as a very unique opportunity. I don't think there's going to be many bitcoins invented in our lifetime. Usually there's one technological innovation that drives future generations that we all rally behind and build foundations on. I think the story of humanity is engineering a better world in many ways. And to me, that is bitcoin. So that, to me, that. That's like the big narrative. And a lot of my voice here is like, this is more important than benefiting a private company here. I get lobbying. I get that. But this is an inflection point for our country. And, you know, I plan on being a dad someday, and I don't want my kids to have, you know, my version of 2008 or 1971 or 1933. I think we can make change here uniquely. And, you know, you don't want to screw up these type of opportunities.
- [28:09]
B
Yeah, I relate to what you just said so, so much, which is why I think this mission is so, so powerful and important. Two truths that I think people should really, really focus on is all of these altcoins priced in bitcoin, because that reveals something and also the fact that we're even hearing from some of these crypto exchange leaders. And I would I would be curious about, Brad, how much they actually own of bitcoin versus some of these other tokens and what they're. Are they buying bitcoin or are they buying these other tokens? Because I would argue the majority of their portfolio is actually bitcoin. To circle back on the strategic reserve, we saw Senator Lummis, who has been a staunch proponent of bitcoin. Bitcoin only laser eyes. She's now the chair of the Senate banking subcommittee on Digital assets. Do you think that her bitcoin acts will get approved? Will we see a strategic reserve of bitcoin and potentially the country buying bitcoin, or are you no longer as bullish on that?
- [29:11]
A
I would say I've always been hopeful. I'm a proponent of truth and good ideas win in the end. Nothing defeats Father Time. And so pushing lies. As I run a company and we think about scalability and efficiency and profit per employee, these type of metrics. And I always tell internally, lies aren't efficient and they're very hard to scale. They may work short term, but long term, low time preference. Building anything on lies or bad ideas will never work. And so I think fundamentally the US Owning bitcoin is a good idea and it solves some of our biggest problems. So from that vantage point, I've always been hopeful. The unfortunate reality of my country owning bitcoin is it involves a lot of politics and politics, if anything, are not efficient. Bad incentives, terrible structure riddled with bad history of mistakes and deceitful lies and hidden information. So I, I will say El Salvador, I think, I think that the world is now seeing just how incredible their bitcoin journey is relative to now watching the United States try and replicate some version of it. So I think we got very lucky in El Salvador and the example they've given. So I'm hopeful and I do think it's a good idea. And so eventually it will happen. And it's built on truth and sound engineering and sound ethics and sound principles. And that will prevail with time. But are they going to be able to get it, you know, through Congress before midterms politics? I, I mean, who. That's a world I haven't invested any of my. We talk about time and energy. None of my time and energy has really gone invested into the political world. I, I'm not a fan.
- [31:09]
B
Well, that's the part that's so confusing. I mean, we saw the Trumps visit El Salvador and see what naive Bukele is doing, and people like Matt Gaetz and Then all of a sudden they're tweeting about these meme coins. And then the fact that there was no vote on being bitcoin, only in the strategic reserve. And it's like, what are they really thinking? That's why so many people are disillusioned by politics, because it's like sometimes you hear one thing, they do something completely different and you don't know who to trust. And that goes on both sides, unfortunately, no matter what your team is. Let's talk a little bit just out of curiosity about Deep Seq, just because it's been in the news and I think AI, there will be a lot of implications when it comes to bitcoin. So what's your take on this Deep Seek thing and the market sort of selling off and hit bitcoin's price? I'm happy about it because I always like bitcoin's price dipping.
- [31:57]
A
But what do you think as far as bitcoin price action? I've been pretty vocal that I expect volatility in the short term and I'm very bullish in the long term. My logic behind that is the dollar has to get weaker. It's math. And I think a year from now the dollar will be tremendously weaker than it is today. And I think bitcoin is the best expression of currency debasement of a weaker dollar, of more fiat liquidity. And I expect bitcoin to be the highest performer again, as it always is, because it's the only fixed thing you can own in the face of a weaker dollar. However, in the short term, I expect volatility. There's been a lot of promises made, a lot of new folks coming into power, coming into financial authority. I mean, Jerome Powell, we're recording this on a Tuesday, Natalie. Jerome Powell gets a mic tomorrow. What if he comes out and says, screw Donald Trump. I'm an independent central bank and I'm not listening to that guy. Financial markets are probably going to be volatile. They have to sort out. I think markets love certainty. And when there's uncertainty, there's volatility. So in the near term, it doesn't surprise me that bitcoin is hugging this psychological 100k number. I wouldn't be surprised if bitcoin dipped. I also volatility could be to the upside as well. But I expect a lot of uncertainty in the next month or two and I expect a lot of bullishness in the next year. That's my bitcoin outlook on things like Deep Seek. I mean, you know, what's Hilarious. I was having a conversation with Jack Dorsey and we were kind of laughing a little bit like, what a good thing. Fundamentally, if you zoom out and abstract yourself from the highest level possible, it's like there's efficiency and artificial intelligence which benefits us all. This is open source software. This is progress. God forbid that humans are making things cheaper, faster, more accessible, more powerful, open sourcing it, making it more inclusive to everybody. All of that, to me, is great news. Now, if you layer in, you know, hot wars and cyberspace and China versus us, then it gets complicated. But in my opinion, this is a good thing. We should open source everything that's really, really cool that humans are being more efficient in developing the future and engineering a better world for each other. And I think the path forward inevitably is open sour everything. Decentralize as much as you possibly can. Which doesn't mean launch a token. But technologies like Nostr to me resonate with what's going on is I don't want to have to register my information in my private conversations with a government or a corporation. I'm pro open source, open source, all of the models, open source, all of the algorithms. Let's get back to individuals owning their data and acting more sovereignly. So I don't want to subscribe to the Screw China. Let's all give our information to Sam Altman. I mean, I don't think that's any better. In some ways, I don't know the guy, but in some ways he seems as bad as some of the worst people I've ever met. So anyway, and Nvidia's tanking, by the way, goes to. Everything you and I have been talking about on this podcast is that the world is forced to monetize other things. And when you have to pour all of your capital into something like Nvidia, which is impossible to value because you don't know a lot of the transparency and the truth, then it's subject to all of a sudden dropping 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70%. So none of it's surprising to me. I expect more volatility like this in the near term and in the next year or so. I think bitcoin is going to be at least $250,000.
- [35:32]
B
Yeah. It makes me think of those lists that Saylor puts up in his presentations of all the risks that actually come with investing in companies or investing in real estate that we don't necessarily think about because it's just normalized that, you know, you. You've put all your money in real estate or equities but there are all these downsides, including Nvidia, the, the Holy Child suddenly like falling from grace. And to your earlier point, I completely agree with you on open source everything. I think there should be more competition globally and, and let the market figure out the prices and, and allow the value to really come forward. Because closing ourselves off, becoming more isolationist, I think that that represents an inherent contradictory stance within the current leadership and the current political environment because it's like you're for freedom and you're for, you know, changing some of the things we've seen over the last four years. But now you want to make all these countries enemies and export controls and this and that and it's like these things are contradicting each other.
- [36:30]
A
I just, I couldn't believe it. It was like someone made AI cheaper, better, more accessible, more inclusive, faster. Aren't you pissed? Like no. Why would I be upset by that? Well, it was China. Okay, well then how about let's open source everything and build technologies that don't force a reliance on corporations, countries and you know, we have the ability to do that. And I think that's where the world will trend. Unfortunately it's going slower than some of us will want it, but it's going in the right direction in my opinion. So I don't think the answer is don't give your information to China, give it to Zuckerberg and Sam Altman. I think it's let's open source things. Return sovereignty to the individual, enable people to own their own data and over time I, I expect that trend to grow. And I think on net it's a good thing that Nvidia isn't acting as the savings account for everyone in the world because to your point, it shouldn't, it's not money. And so I think that's a good thing that it's being priced as a business that has counterparty risk and the future of, of their products is uncertain and that we are all forced with the engineering challenge of, you know, not building things with such a reliance and trust model with people that can act against their best interests. It's all, I don't know, I, I don't, I don't buy you. The media's, the Western media is not going to get me all enraged about that.
- [37:51]
B
So I'm a big believer that the Bitcoin standard will help fix the crony capitalism that we have today and it will reduce the amount of monopolies that we see. And I think that it's our current system of broken Money that has led to like big pharma, big tech, big food, all the things that eventually harm us and harm the middle class. But those, those CEOs and those companies, they're very, very powerful. So why would they want to adopt something that ultimately checks their power and potentially reduces it?
- [38:24]
A
I think you adopt bitcoin when you have to. We kind of talked about this out of necessity. To your point point. If you have more net benefit by not adopting bitcoin than adopting bitcoin, then you probably aren't going to do it. But I think so. There's a safety in a moose quote where bitcoin adoption is more like gunpowder is that if you're in back in the day, if you were going to war with someone and you didn't adopt gunpowder, it wasn't a matter of beliefs or it was like, then you lost the war, then you died. And I think it's very similar is that, you know, this thing is I consider risk free, 60 to 100% depending on when you want to start to measure year over year returns on average. And it's out competing everything. Right. Like what Michael Saylor has taken a $500 million company turned into a $100 billion company could very well be a trillion dollar company. And eventually someone like Facebook will have to buy bitcoin and compete with Michael Saylor. Right now though, to your point, point, it's probably net benefit that they don't for reasons. So anyways, I think eventually people will have to and that's when they will adopt it. It'll be out of necessity and it'll be out of need. And similar to the gunpowder analogy, if you don't adopt it, you die. And that's when you will. And then before then is all the more opportunity, I think for you and I. Yeah.
- [39:51]
B
Let's talk a little bit about Strike Strike and the global bitcoin app that it is and the payments layers. Because I think that right now there's also a strong debate in the online community with bitcoin about whether it's a store of value or a medium of exchange or both. Can I get your thoughts on all that?
- [40:11]
A
Yeah, I mean, Stripe, we initially started as a company focused on a lightning network. I would say we've grown into bitcoin financial services without disclosing our numbers. Our biggest revenue stream and the majority of our volume is selling bitcoin to our customers. And we move hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars worth of bitcoin on chain a month, sometimes a week. So I think lightning is much smaller than those types of numbers that I just disclosed there. And so I think the medium of exchange is smaller today and it's going to have a longer tail, it's going to take a longer time. I think bitcoin's biggest product market fit is the store of value because the most in demand product in the world is a money that can't be debased right now. I mean a lot of what we talk about, we allow you to pay your bills with bitcoin, get your paychecks in bitcoin and sometimes how I sell it is it's a bank account that's resistant to inflation and when you put it that way, that's a financial account and a bank account that everyone in the world wants. And so that's where I think majority of bitcoin's product market fit is today. And we still are very bullish lightning, very bullish payments. And those products for us are still growing and doing well. But I would say they're orders of magnitude small than some of our other product lines, which I think is okay. You know, we build Strike as a profitable company that is effectively on the bitcoin standard. And the reason I say that is very low time preference. I'm 30, I plan on being the CEO of Strike Forever. I plan on making it my life's work. And so if you know, medium of exchange wants to take a year, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 50, I'll be here and we'll be here to serve customers for it.
- [42:08]
B
So that's great to hear. So any reaction to the SAB 121 resendence by the SEC and, and will that provide more competition for the bitcoin company? Since a lot of people might arguably want to just use one of these too big to fail banks if they custody bitcoin and offer services.
- [42:26]
A
I think that it's a net positive for everybody. You know, fundamental thesis I had when I started Strike is that this open network, there's a lot of network effects in economies to scale. It's not a winner take all market and it's not even a winner take most market is that I think that there's tens of trillions of dollars worth of value that's meant to be captured by businesses and those that own bitcoin. And that's a lot of opportunity where I don't, you know, as a company that's now five years old, we don't feel threatened by Jack Dorsey selling bitcoin. We actually it all, you know, rising tide lifts all Boats. And so if JP Morgan Chase is going to compete with me on selling bitcoin and using the Lightning Network, I think that's going to do a lot more for our vision, the work we've already done and the work we'll continue to do than detract from us. Because, like I said, I think There's. Natalie, there's $900 trillion worth of stuff people own in the world. World. And about half of that people are using it as money to save and persist their wealth, which means the monetary opportunity is 4,500 trillion dollars in today's purchasing power. And that number will continue to go up as the dollar gets weaker. And Bitcoin's, what, 2 trillion? So I think that there's $500 trillion worth of opportunity in what I'm working on over the next, I don't know, 50 years. And Chase can work on it too, and I think we can all win. So at strike, we just hold ourselves to being extremely customer focused and extremely mission oriented and extremely principled. We want to run. We think being profitable is a moral imperative. We want to produce more value for the world than we consume from the world. And we want to be principled, ethical, and focused on the bitcoiner. And we think if we just do that, that it's, you know, everyone can win.
- [44:22]
B
Yeah, I love that. Well, we've covered a lot of ground, Jack. We've talked about a lot. I loved your explanation of why bitcoin and not. And not these other altcoins. Anything else that you want to share or you want people to really be paying attention to or focusing on?
- [44:38]
A
No, not necessarily. I mean, I. I subscribe to the idea that if we can fix the money, we can fix the world. And I think fixing the money to me is bitcoin. I think bitcoin's the only money within the cryptocurrency space. I would make the argument that everything else, at best, are technologies. And my life's mission is to help fix the money, because if we do, I think we can solve some of the world's hardest problems. So I appreciate all the support that people give me, and I feel just honored and grateful to be alongside the rest of the world. And the mission to fix the money through bitcoin.
- [45:15]
B
Bitcoin, Yeah, I agree. That's why I wore that message at the crypto ball.
- [45:21]
A
You looked great, by the way. Killed it. Killed it.
- [45:25]
B
Well, it was a subtle message to everyone. The politicians, the crypto industry, all of that. Only bitcoin, the money. Okay, cool. Thank You. And do you think that people should contact their local representatives? Do you think that that call to action matters when it comes to the strategic reserve? Do you believe in that kind of advocacy?
- [45:43]
A
Yes. I'm in contact with folks in D.C. that are pro Bitcoin and have been trying to get a Bitcoin strategic reserve and feel frustrated and threatened by a lot of the private lobbying from Altcoins and from Ripple. And they've told me straight up that everyone's voice matters, is that politicians in D.C. does read Twitter, especially now that Elon is a part of D.C. and Trump. So all of your tweets, all of your public messaging, all of your requests, I think that we should demand some transparency into Ripple's lobbying efforts. I think it should be a requirement that we understand the wires that they're sending to politicians and where that capital is going so that we know if the future of our country and the future of our reserves and the future of our money is predicated on the interests of a company. At least we have transparency as the American public into that, because this is a decision that a company is trying to make and lobby our government into that's going to affect not only us, but our kids and their kids. And we should at the very least have some transparency into it. So call your local politician, demand that of them. And all of your tweets and all of your posts are being read by Washington D.C. and shared in group chats and shown in presentations. So your voice is being heard. I think if we've understood anything from this election is that your opinion matters and we all voted for serious government reform and change and that we should not stop now and keep vocalizing yourself and keep sticking to principles, because I think that's the most effective way we can make change in politics if we're going to at least try.
- [47:11]
B
Yeah, every voice matters. We really can bring about change. We saw that with Ross Ulbricht. I know that you were. You were an advocate of that, too. So it does matter and it does make a difference. Thank you so much, Jack. This has been great. I will link your work and your company in the show notes. So everyone check that out. Also your. Your Twitter page where you share videos and your updates. Thank you so much for taking the time. Hope to see you in person so soon.
- [47:34]
A
Thank you. Absolutely.
- [47:36]
B
Thank you so much for checking out this episode of Coin Stories. Make sure you're subscribed to the show. Also, check out our weekly free newsletter@the newsblock.substack.com this show is for entertainment and educational purposes only. Nothing should constitute as investment advice and you should always do your own research. I'm always open to feedback and guest suggestions, so please feel free to reach out@infoalking bitcoin.com I'll see you next time.