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- [00:00]
Josh Fair
So one of, one of the guys that got me into the precious metals during that decade was a guy named Jim Sinclair. And he was the one of the largest traders in the 70s. Predicted when gold was a hundred bucks an ounce, roughly that gold was going to go to 900 by the end of the decade. 88750. He went on the news the next day, sold out. He's done. Paul Volcker raised interest rate 4 full percentage points and basically overted the crisis. Paul Volcker ended up hiring him to liquidate the silver of the Hunt brothers. So it was really well known out of the gold market till 911 came back on the scene and said, the government's doing it all over again. Here comes the money printer. Gold's going to go to 1650. Gold's like in the 200s. So this is like an 8x. And Jim was like, you guys don't remember my ratio in the 70s, do you? You take, you take the amount of holdings of gold, of the reserve currency of the world, and you take its foreign debt, and at what price does gold need to be to balance? He says during times of extreme financial crisis, this is how foreign central banks value gold. So I'm kind of revitalizing his old ratio. And it would say that we're right around 35,000 in gold based on those similar ratios. So now that we've kind of pushed, we've, you know, we're 5ish thousand. You're like, okay, I can kind of wrap my head around this now.
- [01:16]
Brian
What you're telling me is that music
- [01:19]
Josh Fair
is about to stop and we're going to be left holding the biggest bag of odorous excrement ever assembled in the history of darkness.
- [01:30]
Michael
1974-1987-9297-2000, whatever we want to call this. It's all just the same thing over and over. We can't help ourselves.
- [01:40]
Josh Fair
I say when we sell.
- [01:42]
Michael
Hey.
- [01:44]
Josh Fair
I say when we sell.
- [01:49]
Michael
Ladies and gentlemen, we are back. Welcome back to the Last Trade. It's our pleasure to welcome Josh Fair to the Last Trade for the first time, but was formerly on Scarce Assets. And Brian and Michael, co hosts. Nice to see you, gentlemen. Josh, how are you doing today? Thank you for joining us.
- [02:06]
Josh Fair
Doing well. Glad to be back with you guys again.
- [02:10]
Michael
Yeah, appreciate your time. Looking forward to this conversation. Michael is the resident gold bug at onramp, so I'm sure he's going to be very excited about a lot of the topics we discussed today. Josh, for those who are not familiar, is the founder and CEO of Scottsdale Mint and the CEO of the Wyoming Reserve Opportunity Zone Fund. There's some exciting news we're going to touch on and probably the back half of the episode as it relates to Josh and his involvement in the state of Wyoming and what he's doing on the physical gold vaulted side. Some pretty exciting news since the last time we had him on the show last summer. So Josh, I think a great place to start because we were talking before we record bitcoin space, digital asset space has been a little bit lackluster this year in the past 12 months, quite frankly. But what has been exciting has been gold and precious metals. And so last time you were on the show, gold was trading around $3,300 an ounce. Today it's trading around 4,700 and we did see an all time high of 5,600 just a few months ago. And so I'd be curious before we get into all the other topics we're going to discuss today, catch us up just really quick on what's happened in the past. Call it nine to 12 months. Was, did things play out as you expected? Was it any different than you expected? And where do we sit today, loyal listeners of the last trade? Before we get into this week's episode, I have a quick favor to ask of you. If you haven't already, please like and subscribe to the channel. And if you have a question or any feedback, please drop it in the comment section below and I will do my best to respond to every single one of them. Thank you for being here and enjoy this week's episode.
- [03:43]
Josh Fair
You know, it it, yeah, things have been playing well. I barely had a social media account up. I didn't start on X until January of last year. So just over a year and that's really grown. And I think people just wanted to kind of hear my, my opinion. Not that I'm, I'm always correct, but I would say my macro thesis of what's going to happen this decade continues to unfold And I've literally put my money where my mouth is and moved move one of my companies, Scottsdale Mint, to the state of Wyoming and started this during COVID lockdowns and then, and then started, you know, a vaulting company in a foreign trade zone well before we really knew how to spell tariff. Is it two Rs, two Fs? You know how we, how do we spell this thing? Exactly. So I would say the world definitely is, it's unpredictable, which is, it's predictable to predict chaos and then within the chaos to me, it feels like a controlled demolition. And having been in the, I'd say I, oh gosh, it's approaching almost 10 years now that I've personally been involved in the digital asset space such as Bitcoin. And I feel like when ETFs kind of came into the gold arena and the banks created sophisticated products, that was done as a, you can kind of think of it as a gatekeeping control mechanism. I think we could probably look back on it and say, what's the difference between Bitcoin and the industry today versus five, ten years ago is we now have institutions involved as opposed to just the retail sector. And perhaps some of that is almost too heavy handed and somewhat manipulative and kind of controls based on all kinds of mechanisms. It's morphed into something new. And yeah, I'd say since Trump took office, bitcoin in particular has been very underwhelming. The whole entire defi space has been underwhelming. And you could say that not much building was taking place during the Biden administration. So you would have thought, hey, let's go. Our politicians aren't doing us any favors. They're hamstringing just about any kind of progress and I would say now jeopardizing the future of the United States as it relates to the digital asset space. So, you know, hopefully, obviously we're waiting. You know, last year was the genius act in the House and now we're trying to push the Clarity act across the finish line. And you know, just, just this morning, you know, we wake up to the news that the banking lobby has what, a hundred plus changes that, that are going to go into, you know, they're going to battle and duke out in the Senate tomorrow. So, and if this doesn't get signed today or like right now, you know, what, what's going to happen is in my opinion is capital flight. It's, it's going to go, you know, capitals always goes where it's treated best. We've seen this, we've seen this with El Salvador. You know, kind of early on, you know, other, other countries were looking at, you know, trying to create, you know, regulatory environments for, for know, bitcoin and crypto. And I would say my hope would be is that Trump's administration is somehow going to figure out how to get this done because if not, the US will could, could potentially be left behind in, in, in that segment and I, where I'm kind of rounding this out and we can cover more of this is I would say what has Changed in the gold market. What was very much controlled by Western banks, Western governments has been decentralized and now you've got governments that aren't necessarily friendly with the United States, such as China and some of the brics nations who are acquiring hard assets such as gold at such a pace where they're literally printing fiat currency and buying gold every month, every quarter. And that's just what's reported. You have unreported buying and you know, I've been calling this the metal wars. So I think we can kind of look at the Iran situation and what's happening there. You kind of, you can see the choke points on, on oil and gas and a lot of different things. What, what the public really hasn't seen is the United States has taken a really strong approach. They're, they're choke pointing metal flow out of, in particular Latin America. And this, this triggered, you know, started last year, Trump's first year, and I saw it. And he's got the banks involved. The banks are now doing mercantile banking on behalf of the government. So they're, when governments don't trade well together, they hire banks and the banks do the trading. And now you've got, you know, governments literally fighting over assets quietly. They're just buying it. You know, I think we've seen China, China is the longest People's bank of China, their central bank has been the longest running continuous purchaser of gold of any other central bank out there. Just what just was published, I think last night is silver. The month of March was the last published results for China. It was the largest import of silver in 20 years in one month. So I, you know, they're, they're stockpiling resources in my opinion monetarily, they're building gold as, as an asset backed for whatever calamity is coming as we de$ize. And then they're securing critical minerals. The United States included is, it's on the critical mineral list. And right now they're negotiating what will be price floors. We're gonna, we should hear more right now. And that's actually causing some disruption even in the, in the pricing that's going. So I think I would say at a high level, whoever holds the most gold makes the rules. And, but you also have to have a military to protect it and defend it. And what do you need for a military is a lot of technology. It's AI you need computer chips, drones, satellites. So we hear a lot about rare earth minerals. You know, we're starting to hear more about silver in particular and that's, that's now on the critical mineral list. So yeah, it's, it's, it's been a pretty big environment where, you know, even the bankers, a lot of them that I work with, they can't talk, they can't even go on the news channels. That's kind of opened up other discussions. But some of these guys have orders in for their clients. Their clients are nation states. And so some of them have, and I think, you know, including my prediction was the US contracted with JP Morgan right around Thanksgiving and basically said anytime it dips below 70, we want you to buy. And so that's kind of been my floor price. It seems like we barely can ever go below that since that moment. And then the Chinese were fighting over it. We had a big squeeze. Silver ran up, gold ran up. Also the timing, I, I feel like the timing was right before the war broke out and I ran. We kind of cooled off and now we're running, we're chugging back up. Now we show. And I think gold too has been hit in price because some of the Gulf states have had to liquidate some gold holdings to meet obligations, which is, that's what an insurance asset is there for, is during tough times, hey, it's there. And so some of these states have sold off. Now we're finding out, guess who's been buying all of it up? China. So, and then you have other countries like Poland announcing they're going to go to a 37% gold backed of their assets this year, 37% of which one third is held at the New York Fed. So you kind of watch, you're watching the chips play. I would say Poland is way more US centric than the rest of Europe. They're also kind of on the front lines of future war outbreaks. So gold is a nice escrow for war financing. That's just historical. We're watching his, I feel like we're watching slow motion of a World War three that's been going on for a while. And we're seeing, and I would say the kinetic level is increasing. You know, my personal take is I don't think Iran is a short term thing. I don't think they want it opened up in two seconds because they're, they're squeezing every port around the world. If you're, if you're paying attention to these things. You mean to tell me the most the strongest military is kind of getting laughed at right now. It's not really asserting itself. It's now blockading anything that's going through. So it's really putting pressure on nations that aren't, well, don't have reserves in oil and gas. And frankly, Europe is going to be at the table soon. And I feel like Trump's setting up for a NATO, perhaps a NATO renegotiation of terms, costs. I mean, who knows? Greenland could end up being on the table, you know, months from now.
- [13:10]
Brian
So there was a lot there. I'm gonna try to. It was. It was great. I think it's interesting because the world is very chaotic and complex, but then I feel like you can distill it down to the point you made. Whoever has a goal makes the rules. Or Paul Tudor Jones had a great quote the other day about you're only good as the check you can cash tomorrow. And there's effectively this grand monetary reordering happening. And it's funny you mentioned getting on social because that's when you came across my radar. I think you were on flights with your camera. Like, I don't know if it was you. Maybe somebody had shared with you that they were moving gold behind the scenes before this big run up. I think it was like last year.
- [13:52]
Josh Fair
Yeah.
- [13:53]
Brian
And I think it was interesting. I don't know if you thought about it this way, but it's like a big. Like, it's inverted the market structure that's happening between bitcoin and then gold, because you reference how gold went from. From kind of this centralized sovereign asset that's getting a little bit more decentralized. And the price broke out the machine, like, it broke out where bitcoin has been, this monetary good that was emergent, and now it's trying to wrap the arms and the apparatus. And my take is kind of similar to yours, is that there's a machine behind the scenes managing this and that. There's an order of operations to it. And that's why anybody in the industry, you see all this activity and you know where it's heading, but the market doesn't feel it because the price of bitcoin's been stuck in a band and gold's kind of oscillated. But this is only going in one direction because it all goes back to resources and there's too much debt, not enough dollars. And when you need resources, the market, like China, is demanding gold right now. And then theoretically bitcoin in the future because of its transport ability.
- [14:50]
Josh Fair
Well, and I would say some people have said, hey, if the Clarity act passes, that's a sell. Could be a sell. The news. I'm like, well, what bear? What Bull market. Has the entire space been in? Yeah, Bitcoin's had a few moments but I feel like this has been a grand flush out. Like there's, there's like the crypto influencers, all the channels are dead. The viewership is, is, is terrible. Most of the money is on the sideline. They're all predicting Bitcoin. 40, 30, 50,000. They're not in it. And to me I would say this is the setup for the biggest bull run yet potentially could, could come 100,
- [15:36]
Brian
any, any real quick. Anybody paying attention saw this even post the FTX collapse because when you look at all independent of that was engineered or not, all of those offshore derivative exchanges were effectively brought into the apparatus. You look at Coinbase that bought Deribit, you see the ETFs are right off the back of that because we talked about this before but being in this space, Wall street and institutional capital allocators hated Coinbase. They called it a Web3 company. And on a dime, within six to 12 months that all changed. GBTC had a, you know, open up. They won that lawsuit. They points of the lawsuit is why the ETFs got approved. But the amount of capital flows that just deemed Coinbase as okay. And then you just look at that trajectory. Morgan Stanley Schwab just literally turned on trading. It's like the institutions needed those vehicles and plumbing turned on before. To your point, this was allowed to run and we're like right on that moment. But the reality is this is where the guys like to joke with me being objective about gold and where it sits is, you know, I'm the elder statesman here. And so they like, you know, bitcoin's going to moon. It's like it will. But gold is a $35 trillion asset. It's been money for 5,000 plus years. The market is going to absorb it. And where I personally get excited, I'm sure you do as well as like to your point, we talk, you know, similar institutions, they can't talk about the 6040 being broken. Like their whole business model is reliant on that but behind the scenes. And so they can't even really push these like proper gold vehicles like you offer or proper bitcoin vehicles. They need to push it into these other external or at like smaller sizes versus what a portfolio should have to offset debasement. Which brings a huge opportunity for emergent, you know, challenger players.
- [17:10]
Josh Fair
Yeah, yeah, the banks were, you know what JP Morgan said they were not in it, they hated it. And then suddenly we find out. They've been developing for years. Yeah, this is definitely the. They've got the tentacles in. Obviously it started kind of with the on the off ramps. And then now we have programmable money. I think the Iran seizure of tether, you know, it totally makes sense why they did it. And then it turns out, I don't know if it was not in the news a whole lot, apparently they seized some of the wrong assets. That was an Iranian. The question is, that was your tether. You're like, what court this is? It's just entering a whole new world. And I watched. I haven't done the whole thing, but I watched some of these, some of his recent interviews. He's talking about the need. We need more decentralization. Again, we've gotten away from. And I would say some of the Bitcoin OGs, some of them sold their soul for the institutions that they. And I would say the original ethos, somewhat has been lost of what this truly was created for, which was sovereignty, freedom. He was. CZ was talking about freedom of speech again, which is wonderful. You know, freedom of movement, freedom of, freedom of finance is what this place was really meant to be. And so it's, it's been concerning, you know, as these institutions have grown, because it's, it's really. And you're seeing probably, you know, central bank digital currencies is a negative word in the United States, but they're just kind of backdooring it into a new form. Europe will be probably the first to roll it out. I think King, King, King Charles just had a speech with his crown on it. It was very symbolic. He was talking about that we need to have basically censorable money. And so we've slid down the hill that I think we were trying to go away from. This is kind of where we're at. It won't shock me with technology
- [19:18]
Brian
if
- [19:18]
Josh Fair
there isn't some really smart people out there that have thought ahead of us. So government's usually slow, slow to the game. And I'm going to go with. I'm going to actually make a prediction and say it's kind of like when a new tax regulation comes out of which it's asinine how much law there is around taxation. But the moment they pass a law, what do the finest accounting firms do? They come out with great solutions to optimize their client's portfolio. So once you figure out the rules, what are the rules set up? And I think we've been in that uncertainty around, is it, you know, what regulatory environment Is it sec, is it the cftc? You know, who, who do we report to? How do we tax this stuff? Is it a property? Is it, is it a commodity? And so some of this regulation needs to just be buttoned up and then hopefully I think from there maybe we'll see the free market emerge again and we can, you know, go forth, you know, and definitely I would say the synergy with gold is I've been one of those that have been, I'm pro both. I'm the opposite of Peter Schiff of which, you know, perhaps he bashes bitcoin just to get on the podcast. I'm not sure. But I would say is to me you can live in a world where you can still have a classical asset. It's in my opinion it's not going away. If anything, I think we've been watching the last year plus the governments are fighting over this stuff. It's not going to go away. But you also have to pay attention to the new school and, and you know, and so I think it's a, to me it's, it's a blend which is why, but my companies have, and I've been doing treasury assets with, with Bitcoin longer than Michael Saylor has without debt. And, and so even though even my fund which is a vaulting operation and we're in opportunity zone, so we have special capital gains treatments for our investors, we can go up to 10% of our treasury management portfolio in Bitcoin. So I can tell you our, our signal has recently fired. So, so we're in a, we kind of use an endowment strategy model as it relates to our assets. And so when based on some moving averages that we're watching. So if you're familiar with how the Harvards of the world manage their, their large endowments which are obviously being challenged now with their tax status, they, they basically saying hey, when it's, when it is at or above a certain moving average, they're long, they're long equities. When it drops below, they sell out completely and they go into bonds. So we've kind of taking that approach with our, some of our treasury management as it relates to Bitcoin. So I'm kind of optimistic. I think we're setting up for what, what could be, you know, a long term play in, in. I think, you know, the printing press is going to be turned on soon and owning. I'm a big fan of halo investing. So that's been very popularized through, through technology which is hard asset, low obsolescence. So that's why I'm not maxi anything. So, you know, I've held my gold and there's been times where it was kind of embarrassing to hold it because it was, it felt like the old, the old dog and now it's beating bonds at every price interval. And it's challenging, I would say a lot of the equities market at various intervals, especially when you look at how they play the basket game of ownership. So it's a, it's, it's an alpha class, it's an alpha class item. And I think a lot of the other assets, you know, I'm, I'm involved in rare earth minerals and we've got a lot of new initiatives there and you know, these critical minerals there are if you can own things. And this is why I do believe there was such a lobby to get the US Government to start up a bitcoin reserve and to start buying it. Because if, if you can convince, if you can convince an entity who has unlimited funds or access to funds and it's almost as if we don't even care about all the fraud that the United States is going on, that's going on in the United States, it's kind of sad. But if you can convince those groups to print out of their budget or print fiat out of thin air and buy an asset class, you want to own those things. So that's, that's where we're at at least as of right now. On the gold side, India, India's in the mix, China's in the mix. My personal hunch, I think we just heard a little whiff again. Should we look at Fort Knox again? Does the United States have its gold? And you know, to me it really signaled even before Trump took office. It was around Christmas time when he took office, you know, just about a year and a half ago, he put out a tweet and said warning to the brics countries, don't create a competing currency to the US Dollar and don't back it. And a lot of people weren't. It didn't get coverage in the news. What does he mean by back it? Well, it's gold. Absolutely, it's gold. And so yeah, the players that be that are pulling the strings behind the scenes, what are they in and how do they use nation states to achieve their. And that's where we're headed. We're headed into the technocrat realm. Even was very if you just pay attention to who's on the plane today, Air Force One flying a, flying to meet China, it's All our big tech dudes, right? Nvidia, Elon, Tim Cook, Tim Apple. So yeah, it's, it's somebody from Palantir
- [24:56]
Brian
had to be there.
- [24:58]
Josh Fair
And if not, they, well, yeah, they
- [25:01]
Brian
were listening even if they weren't there.
- [25:02]
Josh Fair
That's right, that's right. They're all. Yeah, I mean that's Elon. Yeah. You know, his past. So yeah, it's, it's definitely, it's interesting to watch and unfortunately I feel like the common person on the street, you know, and then they start buying meme coins and then they lose it all. Like, it's just, I, I feel like the casino, the casino kind of existed for the last number of years because people, people are like, how do I get ahead? And the reality is is if they just stayed the basics, keep your job. Stack Satoshi, stack some gold, some silver, have some hard assets and just build, you know, hopefully we can get through whatever transformation you know, we're going to see. And it's, I also say it's not too late. No way, no way. Long term.
- [25:51]
Michael
I spent my morning placing some wagers on Polymarket on who would be on that plane to China this morning. So we'll see, we'll see how I do there. But in all seriousness, I want to get your take on this. You've hit on a little bit of what you're paying attention to and some of the catalysts that you see on Ramp finance is live and the Genesis program just launched. Over half the spots are already gone and once they are claimed they are gone for good. The first 210 signups get one year free of multi institution custody. Highest on ramp rewards tier earn up to 5% 1 1/2% cash back on every swipe assigned copy of gradually then Suddenly by Parker Lewis 21,000 sats deposited into your account upon activation. Sign up in 5 minutes on ramp Bitcoin.com, use the code TLT and do not wait. Once these spots are claimed, the genesis program closes for good. But I wonder if there is any sort of catalyst that you would point to. Let me make this a little bit bigger here, specifically on this take here. So I'm going to just call it out for people who are not on video. The world remains under allocated to gold. People that understand what's happening this decade continue to raise the percentage allocation value of above ground gold is greater than the value of U.S. treasuries. It was the opposite for 40 years. Most financial advisors who were not managing capital the last time this was true. Which is why only the well studied are understanding this decade. So I think it's incredibly prescient just in terms of where this is going. You've made a lot of great calls already on this past 20 minutes or so. But we talked about the Clarity act on the Bitcoin side and how things are kind of setting up in a perfect storm to allow for the regulation, allow for these financial institutions to kind of get everything buttoned up before that gets passed and it's kind of off to the races. You mentioned as well, some sort of liquidity event or some sort of print that you kind of foresee coming. So I do want to get your take in terms of like this is obviously true, right? I mean, Brian and I in particular, we come from traditional finance and almost nobody in that world, at least in my world, ever allocated to gold. It was maybe like a percent allocation. If you were concerned about this or that type of macro event, it was definitely not a strategic asset allocation. And this was like five or six years ago. So I'm curious if there's like a specific catalyst that you see similar to 2020 and 2021 with the fiscal monetary coordination. Is there something like that scale need to happen for there to be a more widespread appreciation and recognition of gold and sound money assets in the portfolio, or do you think it's just going to continue to be kind of a steady grind higher and people realize realizing this over time?
- [28:28]
Josh Fair
Well, I would say it's fairly steady. Like if we go back, if we go back like two years, let's take away some of the big moving in in metals, just the last like 12, 16 months or so. If we go back, it averaged over 15 years, about 7% a year, which is pretty attractive. And 7% was a blend between gold and silver. I think it was somewhere on in that zone. So that's not a bad return. That sounds very steady to me. And we're starting to see outsized returns and that's going to continue. So that under allocation is you're 100% right. I'd say the average financial advisor maybe if you have any, you're like maybe 5%. Is 5% going to save your portfolio when we're in a monetary reset decade environment? And the answer is probably not so depending on where your asset class are. So the only firm that I've seen take a more a stronger opinion now. The banks who are normally very benign in their metal predictions have become increasingly bullish and I can hint as to why they know they've got the clientele who are buying and they're on accumulation mode like every, like regardless of price. So they have not seen this before. So some of them are making higher predictions. But you had Morgan Stanley last fall, barely got covered. They introduced their c. Their chief investment officer introduced a new portfolio, 60, 2020, which is 60 equities, 20 bonds, 20% gold. And now you're like, wait a minute. Most people couldn't even dream to figure out how to get up to there. And so, you know, I've also seen, because I work with our product, the Wyman Reserve, we have a stock offering. We've raised roughly 50 million. Right now we're in the midst of $130 million raise. We just got on the Charles Schwab custodial platform for the stock. So we're different financial advisors. They're trying to scratch their head around this. And then a lot of the question is, well, it's moved up too much. This is similar to how people go, well, well, when bitcoin crossed, I mean everyone was there around Thanksgiving. Was it Thanksgiving when we crossed like 10,000 for the first time? I feel like, I feel like there was a Thanksgiving.
- [30:44]
Michael
Yeah, it was, that was in 2017.
- [30:45]
Josh Fair
Like, I remember that moment. And everyone's sitting at the table and they go, is it too late? And, and so a lot of people don't, they're not looking at it. And so I think they're, they're taking, they're taking just nibbles in it. When, if you look at what central banks are doing, they're not nibbling, they're increasing rapidly. And I would say just pay attention to what the giants are doing. Walk in their footsteps. That is an easy way to look at it. So sometimes you need to run and reallocate your portfolio when it's under pressure. And there were times where gold was a boring asset in, in most of the 80s and 90s. And then I would say is when did it change was 9, 11. And that was because the way governments changed the world's economy after this, we started spending and the Next one was the 08 financial crisis. And so just creating new, new products. And then the next one was the COVID reaction. So we're in, we're now in another. If you look at those, we're in, we're in a multi, multi decade money printing scenario. And so that's when I think, you know, if governments feel under allocated and they're, they're wanting to own more, more gold, you kind of look at the other players that are doing it and And I kind of sit at an interesting. Because I, I do work with governments, I work with now states that, that are looking at allocating gold. And some of them are actively doing it, doing so. And I'm working with, you know, companies all over the world. And you know, I've had. Scottsdale Mint's been in business, it's almost two decades now. So I have clients that we supply bullion. Taiwan, Korea, Japan, those guys are on fire. And I. And so this is not just a US thing. And I would say, as the rest of the world, let's even take mainland China. Ten years ago, the middle class was very small, whereas now it's very vibrant. They're buying. So I'm watching the trends that are happening and you look at how they're allocating their portfolios. And these, I would say in other countries, a lot of these people have gone through lots of currency crisis. And in the United States, we really haven't. We've just seen a slow erosion of our currency. But you know, we look at it and say, well, it's still pretty strong, right? Not when you're looking at what it buys. You know, if you look at a house, you look at a car, Is anyone done a remodel in your home? You're like, it can't really cost us. Like, it's just. Things just don't make sense.
- [33:23]
Brian
Yeah, I mean the, the crazy one that I know everyone here feels and listening is you go to the grocery store. We have a good friend, Parker, that he has like every three, six months he does the annual bitcoin inflation or the inflation for like he uses the benchmark. It's a. I forget the cut. It's a ribeye, but it's like a dry age at Whole Foods. And I think it's like 18 to 20% annualized. Um, but I'm curious a few quick things to get your thoughts on. One is you referenced the financial advisors. It's like the, the quote of money's the bubble that never pops. It's like there's no, there's no top for gold because where else are people are going to park their assets if we're going to this world? And similar to bitcoin. But how do you think about like the market structure? Because this ties into like what you're building in the sense of these. The notion of 7% gets lost on people because there's actually the downside of zero depending on what asset you're in. So as we get further out with, you know, risk curve, there's the air pockets that people may actually just have no money depending on where they're putting their capital versus like hard assets. But then you're ultimately going to have this new market where counterparties, they're not familiar with who the mint is or where they're storing it. And then they're going to start to naturally, I think Switzerland's one of the most sophisticated. Right. Lets you lend against it to get exposure and then maybe you can go cross collateralize. That's going to naturally grow as gold appreciates. But then there's going to be these, you know, bad actors, people stepping into the space. There's going to be, you know, sovereigns that get taken over. So how do you just think about that? Because I think of it in the same thing. Like what we build with Bitcoin is you're going to just have people pull other assets into these pooled, pooled vehicles like the ETFs of the world. And ideally they're fine, but they're sitting at these centralized custodians and they're these huge honeypots. We've never seen a digital bearer asset worth six figures. And in the same time that nation states are sanctioning, you know, the like, I think it's 5% of North Korea's GDP to hack people digital wallets. At the same time, AI is proliferating. So like just tell me, help us think through how you just think about market structure growing in an asset that people are so unsophisticated with. And you naturally need this to coordinate economic activity. If this, these, both these assets are going to grow.
- [35:29]
Josh Fair
Yeah. So we'll do digital first. And the, the best part of digital is a self custodial wallet. You have your own seed phrases, you're in control, there's no middleman. But that obviously comes with a certain IQ level. Like there's a security level, there's, there's a sophistication level and sometimes you have to kind of mess up a little bit to really understand it. So I call it trial wallets. Those types of things as we've professionalized now we have, you know, some institutions will use a third party custodian. Well there's some good ones and there's been some bad ones we've seen too. And so you're like, hey, how do I, you know, making sure you're in the right company, the right jurisdiction, the right regs, are they being audited. Those types of things are incredibly important. And then oftentimes I think we saw this over the Last decade some of the ones that had the best yield products were the wor. Like the adage of you're picking up pennies in front of freight trains. That was probably not, not the way to do it. So I do feel like the digital world, we've come, we're in a much better state I believe today. I know Michael, you've got a product, a custody product that is in the United States. So I think jurisdiction matters on the digital side. It also matters on the physical side. So my vault in Wyoming were third party audited physically, counted every quarter. We're also foreign trade zones, we're audited by US Customs audits us as well. So we're winning international business from overseas, we're winning government business. We were just selected by the state of Wyoming recently for their first physical gold trade. We were selected by Wells Fargo to be for some of their institutional customers. And you know, obviously we're not open to the public for tours, but we're in, I think right now our facilities are a little over 60,000 square feet now. Armed guards, metal detection in and out. We do things the right way. You know, we have the insurance in place, we have the, you know, everything in place to go win that business. And that's allowing now, now banks are fighting over our clients because they want to lend gold, lend against the gold because they know it's been perfected. So it's, it's, it's, they trust on it, they're even lending against the Wyoming reserve stock. So someone wants to put in, you know, a large, to say more well heeled, you know, family or institution that wants to just keep it seasoned and not pay because after, after a 10 year hold where an opportunity zone, it appreciates tax free. So being able to have you know, liquidity against that is very interesting. I think that's what we're seeing on the institutional side. You know, with, with Bitcoin as well. You're like hey, I've got this nest egg that's growing over time and I, I know I have a pretty good idea where it's going to be 5, 10 years plus but I don't want to sell it, but I may need access to that liquidity. And so I think that's where creating, you know, have no different than you know, custody of digital. You need to be in the right institution. I was just visited by a huge trust company that works heavily in about half their clientele is, is bitcoin like ogs, like mega and they, they structure a lot of interesting products and they're now looking at an omnibus account for those same type of clientele that want gold holdings and same same types of things. So it's a very, I'd say this, we're, we're very similar. One of the things that was asked say is, is saying hey, can you hold, you know, some, some
- [39:14]
Brian
hardware devices? Yes.
- [39:16]
Josh Fair
And so we're actually looking at, you know, getting that deployed. So at the end of the day, you know, we're in the right jurisdiction, you know, in Wyoming. Wyoming is fantastic for property rights both physical and digital. You know, you're going to see more and more large custodians cracking bank. I think there's going to be a large announcement at some point this year of something I think could be earth shattering. So I think Wyoming is definitely a wonderful place from a regulatory environment. Clients that work here live here. Your coins are. I was. It breaks all lien claims after for third party custody in the state of Wyoming after two years. No other state has that. So you know, being in the right jurisdiction is key, Michael. You know, and I think, you know, regardless of what you're doing and I think that's why we're attracting also foreign capital where a foreign investment is, is looking to, you know, we're, we're not, we're not New York City. I think a lot of, a lot of things are being stored in Dubai. How's that working out? You can't, you're not moving gold in and out of there very, very well right now.
- [40:16]
Brian
A lot of hardware, devices and safes in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
- [40:20]
Josh Fair
Yeah. And so I, I kind of view it like, hey, I'm a flyover state. Most people, unless you've visited Yellowstone or Jackson lately, you may not even ever been here. So wonderful. Not a lot of people. We have more antelope than humans in my county. So it's, it's, it's, it's a good place to do it.
- [40:41]
Brian
Yeah. It's truly a fascinating time because everything you're describing makes sense, but the reality is it's, it's not obvious to most people that are in financial services. So I'm, I'm assuming you feel like you're in open water because you have the expertise for being in this space for a very long time while also knowing where the market's headed and you have everyone else playing, they're just dipping their toes in, you know, and they're, they don't either. And a lot of it comes down to incentives. Right. The market forces want and want that inertia of the 60:40 the traditional portfolio to persist. So that's what everyone's passing. So to just go against the grain and the math is on your side and your clients values on your side. There's just a huge opportunity for all this stuff happening.
- [41:21]
Josh Fair
It's. Yeah, I would say you know having been, you know I did, I did corporate risk manager for mining companies. You know I was fortunate enough when I was like I think I was 22 years old and I listened to, to this old timer guy tell me about copper when it was like 30 cents a pound. Now it's 650 and and you know I, I kind of did my quick economics learn and I went out and bought some like quasi bankrupt copper mining stocks in 2002. Did pretty well got into gold and silver in 04. Started learning like what was a fiat currency. Was listening at that time. Ron Paul kind of became a big, a big name. I didn't think he was going to win anything but I was huge into like he is going to red pill a lot of people and I, and I think he did an excellent job of that. I would say somewhat. He was maybe a savant as it comes to geopolitics and finance but we kind of shunned him as a, as a media. We all understand why. But you know, as we, as we kind of look at what's going on. I've just been in the space. I did not. I thought this would have happened a long time ago. So this has just been like a slow journey. And so I, to me it often feels like things happen overnight but it is not. It is a journey. Bitcoin's been what is it, 16 years now? Something like that. Since, since the, you know. And I remember and I will say this, I'm not the smartest guy. I should have. I think I mentioned this on the last podcast. I was on a bitcoin site when it was like a dollar or something and I looked at it and said this just looks like magic. The gathering. This isn't, this isn't me. So I didn't, I didn't, I didn't buy any of them. So I will, I will eat my humble pie there. But I did have some friends that did and wow, so good, good, good, good for those that did. But it's still again, that was an asymmetric time. It still is a fantastic time to, to buy these assets up in front of you know, I think if people really understood what was coming. So one, one of the guys that got me into the precious metals during that decade and why I kind of focused on mining comp. So I did risk management till about 2008 with with large publicly traded gold, silver and copper mining companies was a guy named Jim Sinclair. And he was the one of the largest traders in the 70s predicted when gold was a hundred bucks an ounce roughly that gold was going to go to 900 by the end of the decade. He hit it, hate it, hit 887 50. He went on the news the next day, sold out. He's done. Paul Volcker raised interest rate 4 full percentage points and kick, you know, basically overted the crisis. Paul Volcker ended up hiring him to liquidate Jim Sinclair to liquidate the silver of the Hunt brothers. So it was really well known cover of Fortune magazine dubbed Mr. Gold was out out of the gold market till 911 came back on the scene and said the government's doing it all over again. Here comes the money printer. Gold's gonna go to 1650. Gold's like in the 200. So this is like an 8x and again for gold which is kind of fuddy duddy. That sounds crazy. But then Jim was like you guys don't remember my ratio in the 70s, do you? You take, you take the amount of holdings of gold of the reserve currency of the world and you take its foreign debt and at what price does gold need to be to balance? He says during times of extreme financial crisis this is how foreign central banks value gold. So 10 years later he was pretty darn accurate. We hit 1650 and we, we, we blew right above it around 1800. And the, the, you know, if you remember the Fed I think was hammering Hank Paulson created all this kind of derivative quantitative this, that and the other kind of kicked the can down the curb. Well so I've, Jim has since passed, he's no longer with us. He was in his 80s and I started doing the, the math again. So I'm kind of revitalizing his old ratio and now call it the fair Sinclair ratio. So you can ask, ask Chat, GPT or Grok about the Ferris Sinclair ratio. Now I'm not predicting that we're going to hit that number. It's not 100% but it's hit it twice. So I'm in my 40s, it's hit it twice in my lifetime. Is it going to hit it a third? And if it hits it a third, if you ask it would say that we're right around 35,000 in gold based on those similar ratios. So that sounds now had I said this two years ago. You would have been like, Josh is on, on something. There's no way now that we've kind of pushed, We've, you know, we're 5ish thousand. You're like, okay, that's a, I can kind of wrap my head around this now. But I would say for most people, like they, they don't, they don't, they don't see or understand truly what's going on now, that the world may be a scary place. But again, was it that scary?
- [46:29]
Brian
Well, just to add, because I know Jackson probably has some other thoughts to add, but just to add some validity or context to that, I'm sure you're closer to this stat that's been thrown out the past like 30 to 60 days. The, the number one net export in the US has been gold and specifically I believe maybe through Switzerland, but to China for rare earths. Like they're not accepting dollars for the things we need. So playing that out helps. And see, like goes back to the point you're only as good as a check you can write or cash the next day. Is what people will accept, is what you will naturally need to hold to preserve your wealth, restore your value as a sovereign or an individual.
- [47:04]
Michael
Whether you've been in Bitcoin for 10 months or 10 years, managing your Bitcoin wealth has been a fragmented experience. One place to buy, another to custody. A patchwork of providers for your ira, your loans, your estate plan and everything in between. Every additional platform is another point of failure. And that is why we built Onramp Finance, a unified platform for your entire Bitcoin life. Enhanced brokerage cash bearing accounts with earn rates up to 5%. A card that earns cash back that you can use to stack more Bitcoin. Multi institution custody IRAs and built in inheritance planning, all under one roof. The genesis program is live and spots are filling up fast. You can sign up in five minutes at onrampbitcoin.com and use the code TLT to lock in one year free of multi institution custody and our highest earn rate. The other thing that came to mind as well, Josh, when you were speaking about Paul volcker and the 80s and that twin peak inflation which we're experiencing right now, by the way, it's kind of mapping almost perfectly in terms of the second ring up of inflation. So in the 70s there was the first peak came down and then the second peak into the 80s when interest rates were hiked up to whatever it was like 20% or 15%. I forget the Fed funds rate. But point being was there was a lot of inflation. And at the time, in 1980, gold and global equities are at $2.5 trillion each. They were at parity. And in 2026, you have $150 trillion in global equities, $1.6 trillion in Bitcoin, $30 trillion in gold. And so when I think you throw out a $35,000 an ounce price target or just, I don't even know if we want to call it a target, but just the idea that that could materialize at some point, it doesn't seem that outlandish in the context of where we currently sit today and how far away we've moved from actually just preserving our wealth in hard assets.
- [49:01]
Brian
Right.
- [49:01]
Michael
I mean, it wouldn't be hard to imagine that this isn't even showing global bonds or global currencies, but it's not hard to imagine that out of these hundreds of trillions of dollars, that it starts to flow and it already is flowing back into gold, and then eventually and alongside that, bitcoin as well. And so I'm curious, like, as you kind of thought about that 35,000 number, the Fair Sinclair number that you threw out there, I'm sure you're also kind of thinking about it in the context of just where global asset allocation sits today, too.
- [49:28]
Josh Fair
Yeah. And we're not stopping the money printer at this stage, so, you know that. What a great graphic that is. And so, yeah, I think you could say global equities could grow. Obviously, we could see a flash crash. You know, some of us could imagine where the, the numbers maybe even feel a little fictitious. So, yeah, I think the opportunity is definitely there. And at the end of the day, it's, it's, it comes down to a metric of is there more buyers than sellers of something? So, you know, bitcoin has had adoption, you know, year after year after year, and every time they've said it's been dead or dying, it makes a, a resurgence. So I think gold, gold kind of has done that as well. And it was, it was like, again, I wasn't popping my head up as much. Gold was definitely, you know, in the shadow of everything else, including real estate, especially during Trump's first term. It was kind of a boring. I was not telling my friends and family, hey, go buy more. At this very moment,
- [50:33]
Colin
Josh, I am, I have a question for you. Sort of just maybe zooming out a little bit and a little bit more philosophically around what you reference, like being in the gold and Precious metal space. For a long time you always thought this was going to happen. It was always going to play out like this that people would catch on to. There's a very simple way to preserve and grow your wealth. You save in hard assets, you go out and produce value, go about your life. And I think about a year ago, probably the last time we had you on the show, the quote unquote debasement trade became very popularized in sort of financial media for the first time that I can ever remember where people are actually starting to talk about these things in that way in terms of fiat monetary debasement, sound assets as a hedge against that. And I'm curious, like, what do you attribute, I guess most to this revitalized trade or at least recognition of hard money? Because I think there's a few different ways you could look at it. There's certainly a self referential component to it that when the price goes up, people start talking about it. Right. Like there is an element there. So via central banks accumulating and the price ripping. I think there was a natural reflex for the talking heads and even retail to start talking about it in that way. I think you could also look at what Jackson referenced just a minute ago around where inflation is today and has been for the past five years, really post Covid. And the revitalization of that as a talking point of like, okay, well what do you do? What do you own in this environment? And then what you just referenced in terms of like overvalued equity markets, it's like, well, do I want to add more to equities here? I know bonds are negative, real yields. Like I don't really want to add equities at these valuations. Like, what else is there? Maybe I'll go into gold. So I guess my question is like, it could be a confluence of all those things, but is there anything that you pinpoint as to what contributed most to sort of the revitalization of the debasement trade and just the recognition of hard money being a thing. Yeah.
- [52:31]
Josh Fair
And I'm going to go with is distrust? Like right now, find a pick, any country you want. Do the citizens trust their politicians? Do they trust their banks? And then you start thinking about, does each government trust the other government? Do we even trust the stats anymore? And this is, I would say that distrust has been there. Frankly, I'm really big into critical thinking. I wish our universities were teaching this in an education system. They're not. So it's up to families to teach the next generation critical thinking. And we kind of lost that. And then I'd say during the response to Covid was a great example. The world failed. But then I also think there's a like the amount of people that now question things that they're told or told to do is. And I hope that continues because you know they're doing. I feel like now we're just being overloaded with content and fear and things to like look over here, look over there. It's just non stop. Where do you, where do you look? So I think what I believe is the people that are controlling the purses or, or you know, or clicking what buttons to buy or sell, they're paying attention to some critical thinking as, as well. And because we don't they're going to. Trustless assets is in it. Real estate. Real estate would probably be in that bucket. The problem with real estate is it's attached to the credit market. So if the credit market's not easily accessible. Right. You see pricing come down. It's kind of where we're at right now. Cap rates aren't always the most attractive at the moment.
- [54:09]
Michael
The thing that you mentioned earlier about the Iranian seizure of the, of the stable coins and then kind of how you would compare that naturally to Bitcoin as a permissionless asset and most of the digital assets exist as permissioned. Right. It's kind of decentralization theater. So I'm not sure if there's any other thoughts you wanted to share as it relates to the stablecoin seizure. And then Michael had a thought as well.
- [54:30]
Josh Fair
Yeah. And that, that, that I think was also, you know, that's what I think the banking institutions wanted in the government wanted to put in place all around the world I would say to programmable money, they, they don't like. They, you know even the DAI founder, which was probably one of the better decentralized stable coins at the time, you know, he drowned in one inch of water in Puerto Rico, you know, a few years ago. So they don't want challengers to the status quo. And now you know, the sample coins are, is essentially a liquidity sponge for a lot of US debt US Treasuries. So you know, I think, I do think it's a, it's a, it's a mechanism. They'll allow it, but they want to make sure they can, they can create that, that safety net. So yeah, permissionless, which is, which is Bitcoin is, is, is one of those assets and they're going to do their best to try to control the, on the off Ramp or to, you know, they've, at times they've, you know, they've said that anyone, Elizabeth Warren is a great example. Anyone that owns this stuff, you know, a couple of years ago was a criminal, you know, and anyone that, anyone that does anything or wants privacy, even having a wallet, you know, this is where, you know, we do need privacy. Imagine you're, you're spending Bitcoin at a gas station and you're buying, you're buying your $50 tank. Now it's way more money than that. You're buying your tank of gas. And then they, they realize, whoa, look at this guy's wallet address. So we need privacy mechanisms. Privacy is not. This kind of goes back to my original point of what I kind of praising recent mantra around, around freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of privacy, and we need it. They're trying to take that away from us. And you know, I, I would say we could see a scenario where we have another crisis and the only way out of that crisis is some handout. But you got to sign up for this new system. They're not going to hand you a Bitcoin, right? They're not. They're going to hand you something else that's on their system. So I do think, yeah, being sovereign as, as a person, as much as possible, obviously follow the laws and the regs and whatever jurisdiction you are in. But I do think taking, taking measures now is probably quite wise. And I think we're seeing, you know, institutions, you know, even, even publicly traded companies are now wanting to hold assets, you know, kind of outside, call it the system, you know, wherever they can. And, you know, I'm, I'm having people fly in, checking out what we do that have nothing to do with, with our industry, but they're interested in gold and you know, and, and putting that on their balance sheets, publicly traded companies. So this is, I think it's a, it's a wonderful time for people to think before a crisis or before, you know, I, I'm, I'm an optimistic person. Right. I want to think the best because it's not in a great place to be. But I do think that it, there's a couple scenarios where it's very dystopian future. So that's, yeah, it's great.
- [57:44]
Brian
I mean, it's a good call out. It sounds, you know, sometimes taboo to talk about the things you reference, but I think like that should have logged out the window after Covid and the, you know, basically the design service for draconian or crazy measures from Government or anything's possible. And you, you kind of see this, we get some slack, or I personally do, because of a lot of the constructs that are coming into Bitcoin. And you hear the way that they're marketed. It's like, oh, you can't handle holding Bitcoin. You can't handle the volatility by this paper exposure. You can see how that direction goes similar to like I would imagine, some gold marketing and in the future how that'll grow. The thing I wanted to ask because it kind of ties into, you can see that writing on the wall around this ubi, this notion of permission. And that's how we do it in the US right? Externally they're a lot easier to do. The CBDC role, I think they're testing it like India and some other countries where in the US we have the natural, public, private. So it's not the guise of, oh, this is a free market. In reality, it's not that. Whether it's the utilitary nature of all of this like data center AI stuff proliferating and becoming kind of like a utility like water that you need to be operating in the society and you need these tokens for it or inflation and people just really being hungry, be able to put gas, feed, feed their family, they're going to demand that and there's going to come with a lot of requirements. But where that ties into the Iran and straight to Hormuz stuff, because I've been like you, that a lot of this stuff feels designed that, you know, the, the regulatory state apparatus didn't just go into this, you know, not understanding that this would be a possibility and having a plan for it. And it's kind of gone to the back burner. I think it was a discussion point
- [59:23]
Colin
three to six weeks ago.
- [59:24]
Brian
But those things don't stop when it comes to choke points and everything related to petroleum derivatives all the way to fertilizers. And so I feel like that's this like elephant in the room that people know, some people know, others don't. And then it hasn't been talked about as much in the sphere. So just curious how you see that tying into all of this.
- [59:43]
Josh Fair
Oh, I think it all is tied in, you know, I, you know, I. There is an element of a stick of dynamite is placed on a pillar and they just let it explode and see what happens. And then the, you know, the structure becomes wobbly and I kind of, that's. But that's where it's somewhat of a controlled demolition and our politicians have have taught us and told us, never let you know a crisis go to waste. So sometimes with those crisis you can imagine was that created? And you know, I think if you're studied in history and I think this is where. And then the question is history books are always. Could be written with slants. So I think it's just understanding motives of people. Whether you're going back to the Roman days or Alexander the Great. You just look what made people tick. What was conquest look like? And you know, I think we have been living through a lot of stressful history and I don't think we're out of it. I don't think so. We've maybe had a little bit of reprieve the last couple years. It feels like we're entering something new. I mean, again, we've got a virus on a cruise ship. Does anyone feel really comfortable with that? Especially when the item is listed on page 33 of the Pfizer report as a, as a possible side effect. I mean, you can't make this stuff up. You don't know what to believe anymore. So I think going back to critical thinking, you know, and I think, you know, central banks are decentralizing their jurisdiction of where their gold is held. Again, don't have all your eggs in one basket. Hope, prepare for the worst and hope for the best.
- [61:37]
Brian
Well said. We'll save the alien dynamic for. Or the false alien dynamic for a different conversation, maybe.
- [61:44]
Josh Fair
Gosh, yes. Yeah. Yeah.
- [61:47]
Michael
Josh, just to give it some airtime before we wrap up here, would love to just pull up this article that actually we covered two months ago when it, when it came out. But for those who are not on the video, it's a Wall Street Journal publication about Josh's business here, Wyoming Reserve. And the title is inside an old newspaper building. Wyoming is stashing 2,300 ounces of gold. And so, Josh, when we spoke last, I think you were in the process of. Or you were in the process of being considered to vault and manage the state of Wyoming's gold allocation that they were considering making. And then of course, you ended up winning. And now you are currently managing the state's treasury as it relates to their gold allocation. Would love to just hear in a few minutes before we wrap up here just what that process was like. What could you share in terms of why state ultimately decided to work with you? I think you mentioned J.P. morgan. I'm not sure if there are others that were being considered as well. And how do you kind of think, like tying that back into the Theme here. How do you think states may, other states may look to Wyoming as a, to, to develop a similar playbook for physical gold allocations?
- [62:58]
Josh Fair
Yeah, so I gave, I think my first testimony was three years ago. And so the state, and I wasn't telling the state, hey, this is what you need to do. I'm just telling you what my clients are doing and what's going around the world. And if you don't do it now, you're going to do it later. But it's up to you to pass laws and figure out how to make these things happen. Obviously you can go back in time and figure out where gold was almost three and a half years ago. So the state, the state of Wyoming is a little unique. It's the fifth wealthiest state in the union and so it manages roughly 50 billion in liquid assets. It has 33 billion in a mineral trust and only 550,000 people. So it runs that mineral trust like a hedge fund and it manages that money to the best, you know, for its, for its citizens. And you know, they did pass a law that it needed to start buying physical gold, so they made their initial purchase. Now I can't tell you exactly what they're going to do. You could look up their pension plan and you could probably see a lot of gold in the pension via an etf. I'm just telling you publicly, public information. So physical gold ownership at that level is actually less, you can do it for, well, less than the load fee of the etf. So and if they go, and I think publicly in that article, the treasurer mentioned the possibility of gold acquisition. So I'm going to talk in generality here, but if states are looking to go to a percentage allocation and let's say you go like central banks are going, if they had almost nothing, they're going to a 1 to 3%. So you can kind of do the math and you figure out, okay, if the pension's got several hundred million in gold and then if the mineral trust does it, in theory, they could be a half billion to a billion type of, type of player in the arena. The state of Texas selected my other company, Scottsdale Mint, to make its gold and silver coins. So State of Texas has announced they're going to be issuing their own, they're called commemorative coins because they cannot compete with the US Fed to issue a monetary instrument that has a dollar on it. But it's a 1 ounce gold, 1 ounce silver, and I think there's some fractional gold as well coming. So they selected, actually I think I believe the state's going to be here in about 45 days. So it's been definitely interesting. There are other states that have reached out. They're looking at it. And you know, we were, as you mentioned, we got named down as a finalist with the, with, with J.P. morgan. I didn't think we were going to win. And I'll tell you why. Because sometimes the hometown favorite, it totally makes sense to put them in as a finalist. But, you know, JP Morgan has been around probably they started probably before the state of Wyoming or they've probably been banking together quite some time. If you're the treasurer managing this kind of capital, it's more likely it's David versus Goliath. You're going to pick. You're going to pick the Goliath, right? And so we won. But I think, you know, I think transparency, how we do business, the structure of our security, the way we audit, we do things, we're actually. There were some benefits to them that JP Morgan did have. Great institution, huge institution, obviously. So that was, that was really big. And there are other states. I've been, I've done, I've been on some panels on stage with World Gold Council. The World Gold Council manages, I think they have in excess of 10 billion on their own balance sheets as a nonprofit. And then they launched the GLD ETF with State street, which is, I don't know, $100 billion there or 80 billion. So an awful lot of gold. And one of those topics was in the future, and I've made a prediction. I think US States are going to start managing the amount of gold to rival some of the European nations. So that's where a lot of the states are more sovereign in most things with their economy, except their currency. And so obviously some of them are looking at Bitcoin as well. It was interesting. Three years ago, I was, was going to testify and there was a guy in there that did. He ran a. I won't say what company he was with, but he's in the bitcoin community. Well, well versed. I talked to him for about 20 minutes before he went. He switched from being negative gold to being positive because I said we should work together. Because once you understand that you can have a Treasury asset that's not attached to what the US Dollar and the Federal Reserve is and the fiat currency, it's think of it as like it's an easier, it's an easier model to go to a basket of holdings. And so this guy ended up going in and switched his testimony to saying he's pro. He obviously threw in some things on bitcoin. But you know, I do think that the regulatory environment is changing. It takes a lot. You know, they have to pass laws, they have to figure out where they're going to spend. And a lot of people go, well gold doesn't make money. Well either does bitcoin, but either. And so people kind of get away from the, you know and right now that's what's happening. Bonds, bonds have been replaced at certain institutional levels with gold. And a lot of people don't realize that because if you have an income provision in there but you're underperforming on a percentage basis that's well beyond it almost becomes meaningless. So that's where I think states are now looking at, you know, how do we, how do we solidify our capital base to some degree. So yeah that's, that trend is, is, is, is growing. And we're, we're, we're often doing tours is a good way to put it.
- [68:45]
Brian
So he's open for business. I think there was a lot of really bullish indicators there and positive indicators there. It's something we've talked about a lot. I think one just thing to notice or Colin like Wyoming in Texas or Varia. I'm a native Texan, very like similar, you know, compete in a good way right into big brother, little brother, the sovereignty level. And I remember, I think there's like we forget this is all a big experiment when it comes to dollars and bonds. And like I have a older friend, his father ran a multi generational construction company down in San Antonio. And he told me loosely like his father talked about his funny money back in the day, like this is 30, 40 years ago. It's like people of certain stature have been around understand like these dollars have been printed, they're purchasing power and they were always stacking gold and bitcoin or gold and now bitcoin. But the bullish part, and this is something we've been talking about is at the end of the day like the market will go where. And we say retail. Retail can span a million, you know, 100,000 million, $100 million allocation to where the market is going, sophisticated clients. And so I don't necessarily know how familiar you are with our product but it's multi institutional where you can have different custodians participate in that like underarching architecture across the US or world. And so our thesis has always been that in the same way Schwab, Fidelity, Morgan Stanley are yet in this Space because their retail clients are demanding it over time, as they get sophisticated, they're going to demand this solution. They either have to plug in or partner with us. Is the same thing you just played out when JP Morgan's looking at you, because I've talked to those private bankers and other bankers that are managing these exposures between 10 to 100 million plus in GLD or BTC and their sophisticated clients that have to go meet them under a tree with secret codes and all that stuff are looking for what you're offering because they understand that funny money is not going to, they can't, maybe it works till they die, but their daughter is not, it may not be there for them. And so the rational economic decision is to go to the thing that offers you the most trust minimized. Because we live in a society, we still have to trust people. And that's really where you're stepping in. And I think that's how we get out of all this. A lot of money is going to be lost. So it's not all roses, but on the other side of that, the market forces are going to dictate you have to offer better products.
- [70:56]
Josh Fair
Yeah, totally. And I think banks, banks know the world is changing and what, what is that? What is it going to look like and are they going to be able to participate? You know, and I think that's why they're fighting the Clarity Act. They, they could be left in the dust, maybe rightfully so, or they're going to have to morph into something new. So I would say the potential kingpins of the financial world are going to look a lot different in, in a decade. There's, then, I think this, this is the decade in particular that we're going to see the most change. And so, you know, whether that's 20, 30ish, give or take a little bit, I don't know exactly. But you know, what does it look like beyond then? And you know, there's no doubt that there's opportunities for people now to kind of position in advance. And now, now watching the big banks and the big institutions and they're trying to figure out how to stake their, their flag in it and make sure they're part of the future.
- [72:00]
Michael
Excellent conversation, Josh, really appreciate it. Thank you for your time. And for anyone who wants to follow you, pay attention to the work that you're doing, where's the best place to hand them off to?
- [72:10]
Josh Fair
Yeah, you can check me on X at Josh Philip with one L Fair. You can, you can check me out there and then the two companies that I'm, that I'm with, that I founded, Scottsdale Mint is on the physical metal side, and then the Wyoming Reserve, which is the storage company. So I appreciate your time. It was kind of fun to kind of talk, especially talk. I enjoy talking with people that are kind of multi dimensional. Michael and your, your team, your guys are awesome. So appreciate it, Josh.
- [72:41]
Colin
Appreciate it.
- [72:42]
Brian
Some people feel the opposite, but we, we're trying to focus on the other. So
- [72:48]
Josh Fair
love it. Love it.
- [72:50]
Michael
Can't please everyone. Thank you, Josh.
- [72:52]
Josh Fair
Thanks, guys.
- [72:53]
Colin
Thanks for listening to this week's episode of the show. If you found the information valuable, please share the episode with a friend or leave a rating on your favorite podcast app. All the links we discussed in today's show will be in the show notes inside your podcast app. Before we finish, a quick reminder that On Ramp Media is for informational and entertainment purposes only and nothing should be construed as investment or legal advice. Regardless of where you are on your bitcoin journey, we'd love to hear from you. Visit onrampbitcoin.com contact to schedule a consultation with one of our private client advisors.