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- [00:07]
Jethro
You've had a dynamic where money's become freer than free. If you talk about a Fed just gone nuts, all. All the central banks going nuts. So it's all acting like safe haven. I believe that in a world where.
- [00:21]
Marty
Central bankers are tripping over themselves to.
- [00:23]
Jethro
Devalue their currency, Bitcoin wins. In the world of fiat currencies, Bitcoin is the victor. I mean, that's part of the bull case for bitcoin. If you're not paying attention, you probably should be.
- [00:34]
Marty
Probably should be doing very well. A little tired of south by Southwest here in Austin. So the city's bumbling. As I was mentioning in DMs, the traffic is heavy, but all things considered, doing well. It seems like the world is a bit chaotic right now. But trying to find Zen, I love.
- [00:53]
Jethro
That that could be the theme of this podcast is chaos, because that's what we've got here. It's incredible, but it really is.
- [01:00]
Marty
It's astonishing how quickly things are accelerating. And before we hop into the meat of the conversation, I know you were talking about the sort of intersection of the power law, viruses and bitcoin and DMS a few weeks ago and your thoughts on the similarities between those three themes and those topics. But before we jump into that one, we get a little background on yourself, George, how you came to bitcoin. It seems like you got. Almost became like a monk to study bitcoin and really understand it and jumped full bore into what we're doing.
- [01:42]
Jethro
Yeah, that is a funny story, isn't it? I mean, I don't quite understand why that happened. I just. You know, it's funny because my background is just all over the damn place, and I don't have a degree in marketing. I mean, I. I didn't even get through high school. And I'm lucky. It took me two times to go back to college just to graduate. But, you know, I follow really smart people and I read like a son of a bitch. I mean, I just am. I'm plugged in to study. I mean, I don't know how many hours. I must be north of. I Bet I'm approaching 3000 hours right now in study of bitcoin. And I found out when I got down here, the rabbit hole, it really doesn't end. It just keeps going. In fact, you never get out of the rabbit hole.
- [02:32]
Marty
You really don't. As somebody who's been in it for almost 12 years now, there's so many different rabbit holes to fall down. It's not even one rabbit Hole. It's multiple rabbit holes. Monetary economics, geopolitical incentives, energy distributed systems, software, layered solutions. It's a deep rabbit hole of many rabbit holes.
- [02:58]
Jethro
I agree.
- [03:02]
Marty
What was the first impetus that pushed you to really explore Bitcoin and take the time to spend thousands of hours studying?
- [03:13]
Jethro
I've been that guy that's been in charge of my finances for years. I went through a. You know, I got hired by Delta when I got out of the Navy. I. I was flying as a top gun adversary pilot at the time. And I got out of there and I got into Delta and flew all over the world, including as a captain, international, flying everything. But, you know, they went through a bankruptcy in 2005, I think it was. And, you know, I. I suddenly realized that I was in charge of my finances. And so I just started studying everything about finance and how to invest, how to store my wealth. You know, it's funny, but, you know, as you do that and you become more aware of the system, you kind of get disenfranchised or you don't feel like you're really part of the financial system. You know, you realize that you're an outsider and you're never going to be close to the money source. And it's very frustrating. I mean, just. You're on a constant hamster wheel. You know, everybody and their mothers working. I mean, you'd put your kids out to work, as some people would if they could, because we're all just trying to stay with our head above water. And my goal was to increase my wealth. But at some time, you know, you know, you look at the screen, you can tell I'm a boomer. At some point, you want to store wealth, you want to keep that wealth across time and space. That's really tough to do. And, you know, I. I heard about Bitcoin in 2012, I think it was, and I remember. And you know, the thing is, I don't know why it was like this. I mean, I just dismissed it. I thought it was just so stup. And, you know, at the time I was building computers. I mean, really building them, like for all the hardware, you know, you have to flash the BIOS board and, you know, put the little pins in the right direction to get the electricity to flow through the circuits. And, you know, I was just having a blast doing that. I mean, I was very. I mean, was into technology and stuff, but, man, I just did not get it. And I didn't get it even in 2017. I was re exposed to it. And I don't know why that is. You know, some people just. I think maybe it was my age or maybe it was just my background. But finally, in early 2020, it was another article by Lyn Alden that kind of piqued my curiosity. And once I started going down there, I bought bitcoin. And, you know what's funny is, I bought bitcoin and I held it for a little while. It went way up. And I sold it. You know, I mean, I just couldn't handle the volatility. And so I sold the bitcoin. And I tell people I've never sold bitcoin, but that's not tr. I mean, I did. And then, you know, I've mentioned this before. I was sitting like this. I was just staring at the screen, like, two days later. And I remember thinking, you know, why the fuck did I sell that bitcoin? What? I don't understand. And once I realized that I didn't know what I held, I mean, I just started. And it's never stopped. I mean, I'm reading this morning. I was reading about, you know, tether circle, the battle that's going on in Washington right now behind the scenes that a lot of bitcoiners don't really know about. Just things like this. It never stops. And I'm having the best time of my life. And, you know, look at me now. I've got all my wealth in bitcoin. I mean, everything. And so, you know, I'm just sitting here. I'm very relaxed. I know what I hold. I don't really give a shit what goes on. You know, the Fed can meet all they want. I really don't care what they do anymore. I mean, I'm just. Once you understand bitcoin, it's like the royal flush. You just push your chips in. I've got mine in there. I'm very relaxed. I'm having a great time. I'm in the studio today, as you can see. In fact, if you look over my window there or my shoulder in the back there, you can see that I'm mining bitcoin right now. Marty, while we're talking, it's in that painting back there.
- [06:55]
Marty
The. What was it? Norian Nakamoto. Dorian Nakamoto.
- [07:01]
Jethro
Exactly. The CEO of bitcoin.
- [07:07]
Marty
Do you remember? Do you have a moment? We're getting back to Old School. TFTC or Tales from the Crypt. The first 200 episodes were People's bitcoin stories. But for the first time in a while, I'm genuinely curious. Was there one piece of content or one concept relating to bitcoin that once you discovered it or read it, was the aha moment. Like, oh, this is completely different. This is something I feel confident pushing all of my chips into.
- [07:41]
Jethro
Well, yeah, that's a good question, because that kind of touches on the heart of some of what we should discuss in life, because what this cycle is to me, you know how every cycle seems like it has a theme. For me, this cycle seems like I'm late, I'm late to bitcoin, the meme coins, the gambling. There's a psyche to this, this cycle that's really weird. But it kind of almost brought me back to what it was like. You know, I didn't go all in at first. You know, I'm just like the typical bitcoiner. You buy some, then you buy some more, you buy some more, you buy. And then next thing you know, you're buying on the way up, then you're buying on the way down. But my problem was that, you know, I put a lot of my wealth into bitcoin. By the time we went through the last cycle in 22, and I'm sure you are familiar with that year and the crypto winter, it was a very, very difficult time. And I lost confidence. I mean, at one point, you know, I mean, I was down on paper like 50, 60%. And, you know, I come from kind of a. I don't know, maybe old school mentality, but, you know, my wife just. I mean, she just treats me like a king. I mean, like I'm unbelievable. I mean, I am the master of our house and the master of many things. And I remember thinking, boy, you know, she's put a lot of faith in me and a lot of trust. And, you know, I had her account into bitcoin too. You know, I was managing that and I just. I kept finding myself. I was laying awake. I'm sure you've done this too. You know, it's 3 o' clock in the morning, I'm staring at the ceiling and in bed going, man, this. I don't know about this. And it seemed like that week was the pivot for me. And the reason I say that is I started, you know, we talked about this already. I just started studying more. I went back to all the old podcasts. I reread books, like Safe's Books, Broken Money again. I mean, I just read everything that I could and I got deeper into it. And, you know, funny thing is, while I was in this crisis mode and I was struggling is when bitcoin crashed. You remember it went down. It was bouncing around down there, 19, 20,000 for a long time and then it crashed. Went down to like 16 something. And you know what I did, Marty? I bought like a drunken sailor. And at that point I just, I kept buying. I was all in after a while. I mean, I have no, you know, no dry powder. I mean, I've got all the bitcoin in the world that I need, but sometimes, you know, it's hard to spend money on a sandwich. But I'm really happy right now.
- [10:23]
Marty
Yeah, it's funny, you mentioned going through the typical cycles of a Bitcoiner's hero's journey, if you will. And one of them that you mentioned, and maybe it wasn't back in the 2020-2022 area, but you feel it now is the feeling of, oh, I'm late. Because even in 2013, 2017, 2021, like that, that feeling of, oh my gosh, maybe I'm not late, but I'm missing out and stack enough always creeps in.
- [10:57]
Jethro
Yeah, exactly. I think the difference, though, on this, the reason I mentioned on this cycle, I think the difference, Marty, is that it's the unit by. It's the price point, people. You know, I actually had this happen on the deck of my porch not long ago with one of the kids, you know, and I remember talking to her and she said, well, she asked me the price and I said, well, it's up to 100,000 now. And she said, I'm late. I'm too late now. And, you know, I haven't done these podcasts and one of the reasons I'm doing them now is because I just think we have a very narrow window here for people to get this right and to understand where bitcoin's going. Because this is, this is just the beginning. You know, I don't know if you've looked at the 2016, 17 cycle and compared it to this one. If you go from the trough to the peak on those cycles, you lay them over the top of each other, they're very close. I mean, I won't say they're a mirror, but they're pretty damn close. And I think you probably remember, you know, the end of 16, it was like 900 and something, a coin, that that next year it ended, it went up almost to 20 grand. Now, I'm not saying we're going to have a 20x or a 10x in this cycle, but what's weird is that on this cycle, everything is so volatile, everything's so uncertain right now. I really don't know where we're going in this next cycle. My base case, I don't know about you, but my base case was around 225 to 285. Just using past models, I follow a lot of models. I do a lot of on chain and I really thought that would be the case. But I don't know where it's going right now. Do you have any idea yourself? I mean, do you have a feel for it?
- [12:47]
Marty
No, I don't. You were mentioning the staring at the ceiling nights that many bitcoiners had. I had a few of those in the last couple of weeks. Is just looking back to the 12 years I've been in the space and trying to compare what's happening outside of bitcoin to any other period of time throughout my holding experience. It is very unique. Obviously we had Covid. Covid was the big, big driver 2017. That, that whole, that whole realm was pure retail speculative fervor. 2020 Covid, big print or the first big print. And this time around, particularly like in the last 24 hours, looking at what's happened in European markets with the saber rattling over there and their bond yields screaming and it looks like they're going to be in a pretty precarious situation. You have the Japanese yen having a situation right now. And then here in the US we're going through this extremely volatile period of tectonic shifts in policy and how we're posturing internally and externally to the world. And bitcoin has been marketed as this long term sort of uncorrelated asset when juxtaposed to traditional markets. And that was another big meme, particularly around 2020, is Bitcoin's never gone through a true recession or even a depression. Many people throughout the last century haven't gone through a depression. But I think one can make the case that things are not all and well in the global economy. And that to your point, I don't know what's going to happen. Is bitcoin perceived as this risk off flight to safety asset this cycle, I could certainly see it materializing, but I could also see general turmoil in global markets. Suppress the price for a little bit.
- [14:58]
Jethro
Yeah, you know, that's the thing. Anybody that's trying to time the market or trade right now, I don't know what to tell you except pull your head out of your ass. You know, a funny story is about that is when I was in the navy flying, I was flying F18s on the carrier deck. And you know, on the carrier, there's no. You're not. There's no fooling around here. I mean, you got to be really alert to what you're doing. I mean, and I'm an officer in my little. My jet, you know, I'm on the deck there, and I might think I'm really something. But, you know, those enlisted troops down there, if you stop. You stop paying attention for a minute, you start, like, gazing off, or you let your attention drift, or you don't follow one of their signals when they're telling you to move your nose wheel or something, they're going to come up to you and they're going to go like this. And anybody that's not watching, what I did is I just put my fist up against my palm and pulled it out quick. And what they're telling you, these enlisted troops down there, is pull your head out of your ass, Lieutenant, and start looking around these people that are. That are even in the meme coins right now, that are trying to score so that they can have enough money for a big bitcoin stock. You know, that's not how this works. I mean, it's just not. You've got to put the work in. You got to hunker down, you know, understand what you own, grab it, you got to hold onto it like a son of a bitch, and you can't lose it. There's only three things. It's those three things. That's all you have to do. I was talking to some. I was at an art gallery. I just had a show not long ago down in Sarasota, an art show, and I haven't had one of those in a long time. But it's a great show. But these three young guys show up, three of them all together, and the owner knew. Knew these guys. And one of them said, well, you know, they're also into, like, crypto or some other crap. He said, and so right there in the gallery, and it was full of customers. I said, oh, my God, shitcoiners are in here. And they looked around at me, these kids. So I got talking to them, and you know what? That was their profile. They, you know, they had some bitcoin that they had, like, almost like a savings, if you will. And one of them said, I'm not touching that. But their whole mindset, their whole thought process was all about this score. And they were doing, you know, shitcoin trading and stuff to score. And it was so that. And one of them told me this specifically. I want to score big now. So that I can get a big bitcoin stack. I want to, you know. Well, you don't teleport yourself to an og. I mean, you have to work at it. It takes work and that's turning into a rant. So I'll stop for a minute.
- [17:38]
Marty
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- [19:41]
Jethro
Boy, that is. That is just a yeah, that's a great way to look at it. Exactly. We're in that hysteria stage. And, you know, when you look at the Weimer Republic, you know, it was 4 marks to the dollar, 4 marks to the dollar in 2013. Ten years later, it was like 600 billion or something. And then it went to trillions before it totally collapsed. And, you know, we talk about Gresham's Law all the time, but most people don't know there's another law, a counterpart to that. It's called Thier's Law. Albert Thier, I think he wrote this in the. Maybe the early 1800s. And basically what it says is that when money really dies, just like you mentioned in the book, when money really dies, guess what? It's good money that's left. It's good money that drives out bad money because nobody is going to take it anymore. You know, you look at Argentina, they had like, I think it was 125% inflation last year. You can't live in a world like that. You know, again, you can see that I'm older. Well, I lived through inflation in this kind. I was there in the late 70s, early 80s. I mean, I got to see it up close and personal, and it's an ugly event. And that was not that bad. I mean, interest rates got really high, but it wasn't insurmountable. I mean, you could still live, but it changed people. The mindsets were very different then.
- [21:02]
Marty
Could you dive into that a little bit?
- [21:03]
Jethro
What.
- [21:04]
Marty
From what you recall, you mentioned it got really bad. Some concrete examples.
- [21:09]
Jethro
So here's the thing, okay? You know, gas, the lowest I ever paid for gas was like maybe 19 cents a gallon. And we talk about the oil crisis, but. And what happened was oil just shot up. And I mean, you know, think about paying 19 cents and then a year later paying like $2 a gallon and rationing and people in line and hoarding people with gas tanks. Now, part of that whole transition was because of our move to the petrodollar in the background. By that time, 73 Kissinger, he was on the road, he was gathering the nations together, and we had to revalue. If we were going to make oil the new backing of the dollar, we had to revalue it and we had to inflate it. And they did. But it was also. It's everything from like, you'd get a paycheck, you know, as a young man, I'd get a paycheck. First thing I'd do is I'd get gas because I never knew when the hell it was going to be gone or, you know, if it was going to be like a lot more expensive. And you know, as a young kid I was flipping burgers so I'd get a paycheck, I'd get gas right away. And if you wanted to buy something, you just bought it. I mean, that idea of savings started to just drift now. You know, a lot of people made money in those days by purchasing long term bonds and it paid off for them. But for all the rest of us out there and housing and transportation, as everything began to inflate around this, it changed your attitude about money. And you know, there's a lot of difference between money and currency, but it just, it made it like a really difficult time. And I hope that we don't ever see, you know, those levels of inflation again. But, I don't know.
- [22:55]
Marty
Suffreaks. Bitcoin is the ultimate scarce asset. Join bitcoin macro expert Nick Bhatia at a live online event on March 17th. For death taxes and 21 million. Learn how to shield your wealth, leverage tax advantaged accounts and secure your bitcoin for future generations. Your financial advisor, accountant or attorney might not be up to speed on bitcoin, so invite them. Join too. Register now@ Unchained.com TFTC that's Unchained.com TFTC March 17th. Be there. Again, going back to staring at the ceiling moments in the last couple weeks, that's the big question in my mind, does inflation reappear? And I think in the last 24 hours, I think there was a period of time post inauguration, Trump's making all these moves. Obviously tariffs could be inflationary, but their doge is trying to cut spending and that could cut into the economy, lead to a deflationary crisis. But then you look at what's going over in Europe and you starkly reminded that there are so many variables at play in the global economy. If you find yourself focusing on one aspect or one variable or a couple variables and trying to draw a conclusion of forward looking guidance, if you will, from those variables, inevitably some other variable in some other part of the world pops up and says, hey, Leroy Jenkins, like I know you're thinking about this, but now the Japanese yield curve's blowing out, the European yield curves are blowing out and you have to deal with this.
- [24:33]
Jethro
Yeah, it's, you know, if we just stay focused, if we just zoom out here and look at, you know, look at what Dalio said here, you know, less than two weeks ago. I mean, all Roads lead to inflation. And this is, I get pushback from some bitcoiners, but I follow this guy. I mean, he's smart and I've read some of his books. I mean, Again, I'm an 80 IQ pleb. I am just basically a working stiff. I've worked all my life. I've driven cabs at night in Denver. I worked underground, deep underground oil fields. I was an oil field worker and a cop. And all these are just jobs. You go out there, you collect a paycheck. You know, I'm not a builder like yourself. I mean, you know, there are a lot of people in here that are very smart and they do things and so I just follow them and I read what they say and I listen. And I may not agree with some of the things, but you know what, just listen to what they're saying. And I mean, he's painting a pretty clear picture. What's he holding? Look at, look at Ricardo Salinas this week. He just told us the guy, this is a multi billionaire. Where's he got his wealth? He's got 70% of his wealth Bitcoin. Imagine that. You know, here's another smart, okay, Howard Lutnick, Cantor Fitzgerald, Gerald. Where do they have 40% of all their holdings right now? One company, MicroStrategy. Now, strategy. So these are smart people and what they're telling me is that we may be in a period of very, very volatile, with sticky inflation that's come back and forth, and that at some point we are going to see a capitulation by the Fed. And they. In my mind, and I could be wrong again, I'm a village idiot sometimes, but in my mind they're going to print. And when I say print money, I don't mean they're going to roll any shit off of those presses. What I'm talking about, there are so many different ways that they can inject liquidity into our system. Whether it's the BTFP program after the Silicon Valley bank crisis followed by Silvergate and Signature, although I think those were foreclosures. But what I'm trying to say is people are telling you that this is a time maybe not to be fearful, but to protect yourself. And again, I'll just go back to what I said. Pull your head out of your ass, look around, do the reading, do the research, and you only have three things to do. Get bitcoin stacked like a smart psychopath. Hold onto the bitcoin, whatever it takes, and then you can't lose the damn thing. And it's easy to lose bitcoin if you screw up. I think that's another rant, so I better stop.
- [27:14]
Marty
Don't worry about ranting. We love rants on the show. But to your point and going back to something you said earlier in terms of being working in your word stiff and watching the financial system do its thing and feeling like you can't participate this time around, is that something that really appeals to you with bitcoin is you feel like there is something that can allow the working stiff to participate in.
- [27:40]
Jethro
Man, I love that. I just love that. Yeah, exactly. Right? Yeah. Guess what? Guess what? I am front running these bastards. If you looked at the 13F filings over the last two weeks from all the major corporations with over 100 million AUM, guess what they showed us. These people are here. We set up the trip wires, the flares are in the air. They're inside our perimeter now. They're with us. But you know what? These, these little chicken shits, they're putting in the tiniest percent even. You know, you saw, I'm sure the UAE put in $436 million in Bitcoin in their sovereign wealth fund. Do you know what that represents out of their holdings? It's like I think it's 4, 100 of 1%. It's some infinitesimal small amount. Even the pension funds up there in Michigan, I mean these are small numbers. So they're with us. They're starting to accumulate. But it's so small that we still have an opportunity to front run these people. And you know what? It's a powerful feeling. I know that I can't be rug pulled. I own bitcoin. I'm not worried about. Hell, I'm not worried about a damn thing. If you want the truth. I never think about bitcoin failing anymore. And I can explain about that later. But I'm not concerned about that. I know what I hold and I hold it like a son of a bitch. I mean, I've said this before. I've got that bitcoin in that fist and it's not coming out. I mean, you're going to have to pry that I don't know what it's going to take. A million? A coin? I might. I don't know what it's going to take because it is my most precious asset. And someday going forward, I'm not going to ever have to sell a sat. You know, I may not be here. It may be, you know, I don't have a real distant horizon out there like People, a lot of people listening to this. If you're younger than 45 and you're stacking bitcoin, you've got it made, man. If you ever looked at compound interest, the eighth wonder of the world, and really did some research into it, it would just water your eyes. So getting back to your question, I know what I hold. I'm not concerned about anything. I feel like I'm in front of these people. I'm still in front of them. I'm not saying that's going to last much longer. I mean, the train is leaving the station, kids. But right now you still have an opportunity to front run these people.
- [30:08]
Marty
So let's dive into that eighth wonder of the world because there are a lot of. I'm a millennial in my early 30s.
- [30:14]
Jethro
Oh, man.
- [30:15]
Marty
And I put the show out there. A lot of people comment. You read the YouTube comments, and there's a lot of people that are skeptical. Bitcoin is too good to be true. It's so volatile. Is it really worth it? I'm just going to get my pants ripped off from accumulating to this asset. I think giving people the long term perspective and really bringing in compound interest into the discussion, when we say compound interest, really sort of trying to draw analogies to bitcoin's compound annual growth rate and purchasing power is pretty.
- [31:00]
Jethro
Exactly.
- [31:01]
Marty
And so how do you think people in their mid-20s, early-30s, up to mid-40s, should be approaching this?
- [31:10]
Jethro
Oh, my God, you guys, you're going to have the greatest life. I mean, you just can't imagine what's coming. I mean, I'm envious. You know, I work out every day and although I'm older, you know, I intend to be around here for a long time, kicking ass, taking names and watching this unfolding. And I'm going to have the best time watching everything from millennials and younger just kicking ass and basically the greatest transfer of wealth we may ever see. I got a lot of pushback on this, and I'll give you a quote so that maybe you can use it for clickbait if you want. But I said not long ago, Bitcoin's about 100, let's just say 100 grand, you get $10,000. Now Bitcoin has got. And you've been in the space a long time. You know, the return, it's been like 225% over its lifetime. In the last five years, it's been about 50, a little bit less than 55 now. And you know, you can cherry pick and do whatever you want. But I'm just talking five full years. And so, you know, if you look at. Here's what's so important about compound interest cagr, by the way, if anybody's listening, just go to Google or go to Grok, type in reverse CAGR calculator and start having some fun. You got three things to fill in. Put in the 10,000 like I said. And if you're really, if you think that you're going to be able to get up to half a bitcoin or a bitcoin, stick the damn thing in there, okay? Then put in the years. Now, the minimum year that you should use is 20 years. And I can tell you why that's. I think it's a quadratic function, but it, it doesn't matter. What's important here is that as time goes by, it just starts to grow not quite exponentially, but really powerfully. You can put in. Hold on just a minute here. I think I got it up when you were talking. So you can put in that 40,000 or 55 CAGR and you know, if you go to 20 years, it's $64 million. Now, the pushback that I got, you know, when I first said that, what I was trying to explain to people was two things. Two things. One, bitcoin's got the greatest compound interest or return of any asset out there. Nothing compares to it, okay? So you've made it, you got it, you've got the asset. Secondly, it's time. And what I was trying to explain to people is the time aspect. So let's just say that you think, well, that's stupid, because if you follow the power law, it's true, you know, that volatility and returns are probably decreasing. So pick a number. I mean, if we have an explosive move in bitcoin and it gets up to where I was talking about earlier, you know, you're going to have a massive CAGR over the next six. If you go back six years, seven years, whatever. But as it decreases, put in a different number. Go 10 years at, you know, 45% and the next 10 at 30%. Wherever you think it's going to go. Saylor's model, he's got it down at about 20%. Flatlining after 18 years. You know, I think that's too damn low. He's using about twice the cost of capital. Cost of capital now is about 10.8. So anyway, let's look at a number here. Put in, just put in 40% CAGR and go 20 years as an average, just an average comes out to about eight and a half million dollars. That's pretty amazing, isn't it? I mean, you think about that. Wow, that's pretty incredible. And then if you continue, you go out to 30 years, it's like, oh, I don't even want to say this number Almost it's like $240 million and it's only 10 difference. So if you want go down to 30% CAGR at the end of 30 years, you're going to have more wealth than a human being could possibly accumulate in any way, shape or form. And why is that? You know, why is that important? You know, when you start getting up into those numbers, what the hell are you going to do with all that money? You're going to sit around and eat a bunch of donuts? You're going to, you know, buy eight Lambos? You know, I have a really nice sports car and it's not a Lambo, it's I mean a real muscle car. But how many of those muscle cars do I need? I really only need one. Everything that you own possesses a part of you. So what are you going to do with that money? In my mind, you should create generational wealth. And when I say that, that term is used a lot, but most people don't understand that you're talking about wealth that will go on for decades, even hundreds of years. Look at the Rothschild. That's probably the best example. Meyer Rothschild in 1700 started his first bank. Then he sent all of his kids out there, his sons, all to the major capitals of the world at the time and they started their own bank. He taught them about assets and also how to try to get a rate of return that was beyond normal rate of return and beyond inflation. And there are many ways to do that. But as a bitcoiner you have the asset to do it. You got it, it's yours. All you have to do is hold on to the damn thing and eventually you will get to a point with products that are coming that you will never have to sell a sat you'll be able to just buy borrow die Dynasty as a technique.
- [36:34]
Marty
Yeah, the Rothschilds story obviously a lot of people, there's a lot of conspiracies around the Rothschilds and all that, but if you go read like House of Rothschild and that was, that was the interesting thing, particularly about the early generations of the family is not only they go all around the world, but they had to work their way into the business as well. They had to prove that they could actually competently understand the, the. The concepts that you were just describing about outperforming the inflation rate and a market benchmark. And then they were allowed in the family and like, okay, you. You've proven yourself competent. You can, you can be trusted with this bank.
- [37:19]
Jethro
And I, I love the way you said that. Prove yourself competent. Because it's not just them. I just pick them. But there are all kinds of these families. The Arnott family, you know, Louis Vuitton and Hennessy, or the Rockefellers, Vanderbilts. It's just endless that families that have possessed wealth over long periods of time have also done something that bitcoiners are going to be good at. I mean, what are bitcoiners? You go to these conferences, you talk to bitcoiners. They're the smartest, brightest, usually the most ethical, moral people you're going to meet. And they're going to be raising kids. So young bitcoiners, get off your ass and start procreating because it's up to you. You're going to change the world and you're going to have enough wealth if you do what we're talking about here, that you're going to raise those kids. And it's up to you. Those families I'm talking about, they did educate their kids in money. And not currency, but money and how to create generational wealth and hang onto it through trust, charitable trust, capital gains maneuvers. And you can do the same thing.
- [38:26]
Marty
Yeah, that's what somebody. My oldest son is five years now. Youngest is two and a half.
- [38:35]
Jethro
Oh, that's awesome.
- [38:35]
Marty
There will be more. It's something I think about a lot. And we're starting there's any bitcoiner out there. Props for props are due to the team at Tuttle Twins. It's incredible early programming for the children to get them to understand concepts of bitcoin. And funnily enough, with our oldest, we found, like, we. We got the angel studio subscription, we became guild members, and then just put Tuttle Twins on season one and let them watch some of the cartoons. Like one of the shows that we feel comfortable putting in front of them because we watch it with them and it gives a good lesson. And without even trying to influence the oldest son. His favorite episode is the bitcoin episode in season one, so. Or might have been season two. But it's funny how you'll find that it's natural. The concept of money, even at a young age, is fascinating to kids and they're naturally drawn to it.
- [39:33]
Jethro
That's a neat story. Hey. Because of my different jobs in life and stuff, especially working underground as a minor. I swear a lot. But there's no kids in your studio or anything or.
- [39:45]
Marty
No.
- [39:46]
Jethro
Okay, that's fine.
- [39:48]
Marty
Yeah, you can swear on the podcast.
- [39:52]
Jethro
Okay.
- [39:53]
Marty
The. We do get yelled at if there is a. In agreement. You are, you are a Navy man, so you were in the air, but technically a sailor, I guess, to some. Some extent. But there are some sailor mouths on the show that people, people reach out and say, too much cursing. But it's been good.
- [40:10]
Jethro
You know, the sailors on the ship, they didn't really like us. I mean, that's real Navy there. Those are blue water Navy people. And they didn't like us. In fact, you know, when we came on board the carrier, we were like an invading species almost. You know, the carrier usually doesn't have any planes on it until it's getting ready to deploy. And then we'd go out and do our workouts. We'd make the carrier would have to go out into the ocean a little ways and then we'd do our workups, you know, practice to make sure we could still land on the damn thing. And so they didn't like that. And then they'd come back and once we started steaming, you know, the captain, I mean, he is in charge of the ship. It doesn't matter how many, you know, air bosses or pilots or whoever they think they are, the captain's in charge of the ship and he's got a mission. I mean, he's got orders. And I'm not saying he was breaking them out in an envelope, but he's got orders. He has to be somewhere. So every time we wanted to go flying, you know, those sailors would get pissy because they'd have to turn the ship into the wind so they couldn't go where they wanted to go. It put them behind schedule. They'd launch us. And then sometimes we had trouble getting on board or something, any delay like that. So, you know, if there are any sailors out, they, they probably wouldn't say. He's a. He's one of those aviators. He's. He's not really a sailor.
- [41:24]
Marty
It's. I worked for a naval captain for eight summers down the shore and learned a lot about the dynamics of the Navy and warships and discipline. So it's an interesting life. And particularly now with how volatile the geopolitical system is and how complacent many believe our military has gotten in recent years. Like the thought of, of going to war and whether or not you're Confident in the ability of the armed forces, being disciplined. If you're in the armed forces, the people next to you. Obviously there was a lot of recruiting problems during the Biden administration and it'll be interesting to see if the armed forces are able to recover and get back to that mentality of extreme discipline.
- [42:20]
Jethro
Yeah, you know, when I went through, when I, so I was just a college kid, you know, I finally got back to college, graduated and, you know, I thought I was pretty special or whatever and I was in a special program, so. To become an officer and a gentleman, they called it. We're going to turn you into an officer and a gentleman. And they made a movie about it, in fact. And so you show up down there, you know, you might think that you're something, but you know, it's 5:00am in the morning and some Marine DI throws this big garbage can, aluminum garbage, down a linoleum line hallway and you get to hear language that you didn't think anybody could speak. And you get to be, you know, physically challenged to the point where you either throw up or sometimes or you just about pass out. And yeah, they, you know, they, they get up close and personal and they realize, they make you realize that you've got a lot to learn and a lot to do here. And you know, we're, you know, Marty, human beings, you know, homo sapiens, we've been on this planet. I just posted something this morning about this. We've been on the planet over 200,000 years. And for 2 to 300,000 years we have had a brutal existence. I mean, you know, did you see the Colosso Company? They just put out some information. They cloned the woolly mammoth gene into a mouse. And it got really, it grew real long hair. And their goal is to reproduce extinct animals, including the woolly mammoth. Well, you know, those were real animals. Saber toothed tigers were real. I mean, we fought them up close and personal. And human beings have been in close in combat with these animals for hundreds of thousands of years. And we, because we like meat. And it's interesting to see how the narrative has changed. You know, we've only been farmers for 10,000 years and that's why we're here today. In fact, it's really why you and I are having a conversation about money. Because, you know, that's been the, that's what we've been looking for for 10,000 years after we were done chasing animals around and plants and insects and anything else, you know, for 10,000 years. And you can see it in the history. You can look in the clay tablets in Mesopotamia, written in cuneiform, that try to document who owes who, like a ledger. They're just trying to say who owes who what. So we've been looking for money for 10,000 years. In my mind, we found it, and it's bitcoin.
- [44:51]
Marty
And does that play into your idea that power law viruses and bitcoin have similar sort of trajectories or dynamics at play?
- [45:02]
Jethro
That's it. Yeah, that is. Let's talk about that for a minute. And this might be a little controversial with people. I really don't care whether you agree or not. It doesn't matter to me. I mean, I listen to anything. If somebody has disagrees with me, I'll just listen to whatever they got to say. But unlike some of the people that I follow and that I really like their content, I think there are people that are really discounting the power law and not giving it a strong enough look. And the reason I say that, I think is because I believe they're probably suffering from PTSD from Plan B and that shit model he had. And I think I can. And you know, so many people got hurt in that cycle. I'm sure you remember it, that. That previous cycle. A lot of it seemed like it was the leverage, you know, a lot of people on margin leverage, getting wiped out because they were sure using that model, they knew exactly where bitcoin was going. I'm going to tell you right now, if you're listening. Nobody knows where bitcoin's going. It is a beast. It's like an apex predator. Hey, you know, I use that term a lot. Apex predator. And I always think of almost like a dinosaur, like a T. Rex. And, you know, again, I think it falls back to that. You know, I'm just a pleb. I'm a warrior. I'm a guy in the trenches. And I think it falls back to that idea that in my ideal world, I'd be back in Rome, it'd be Roman times and there'd be dinosaurs around. I'd be chasing dinosaurs and stuff with my buddies. But let me ask you something before I go down that road. Have you ever used. Have you ever said that bitcoin is like a beast or bitcoin's like a living organism? Bitcoin is. Yeah.
- [46:44]
Marty
I think Ralph Merkel, funnily enough, the inventor of, or the discoverer of merkle trees. Inventor, I guess, is the better term. He said this a while ago. One of my first newsletters I ever wrote was on this quote from Ralph, basically identifying Bitcoin as this living organism because it finds a way to somewhat contract humans out, to plug machines in, to expend energy, to make sure that it has the ability to assist and continue moving on and growing. And via the full node topography, it's found a way for people to sort of ensure that the ledger, this living organism, as Ralph Merkel explained it, survives. And so the fact that it's copied on tens of thousands of machines around the world, and it is this sort of living ledger that is adding a block of transactions on 10 minutes on average every 10 minutes, I have used that before. And I think Ralph Merkel's description of it is something that really opened my eyes to that. And obviously you have Brandon Quiddam's Bitcoin is Mycelium, which I really love. I love that piece and that whole train of thought that is this emergent network that's growing pretty naturally.
- [48:06]
Jethro
I think it's a common theme. And I listened. I don't know if you're familiar with Jeff Parks. He's a very. This is a deep guy. I mean, when he talks, I usually have to have Grok3 there to translate what he's saying. But his analysis is really deep. And yet this is a very technical guy. And the other day he called it a living beast. I mean, he said that or a living organism. And what did Saylor even Saylor the other day called it? A virus. Well, let me ask you this. If you were to look at power laws, and I don't want to go down the power law, it's been beat up enough. But again, I think that as time goes by, you'll see that there's validity behind the power law theory. Because if you look at power laws, Bitcoin and viruses, three things, they have something in common and it's a network effect and especially applies to social networks. So I don't know how you think about Bitcoin and its adoption, but I often think of it as almost like a social network that's expanding and we are familiar with Metcalfe's law and the value of a network. And you can see how in my mind, bitcoin almost exhibits those. It co shares that with virus like behavior. And power laws are used to describe viruses and they can describe them accurately too. So when I think of bitcoin, I actually do think of it almost as a living organism that was in search of a host. And if you think about it deeper, you'll realize that, boy, what would be if I were A bitcoin virus. And I wanted to spread throughout the world. What would my host be? Well, it would be the Internet. And, you know, we often compare. If we look at the graph of adoption and we compare bitcoin to the Internet, we can see there's a pattern there. And we're, in my mind, we are growing on the back of the Internet. And what's great about that is just think about what I just said. It gives a resilience and a power to Bitcoin that is like a virus. And viruses are powerful. They're not. They're weird because they're not alive. That's another thing. They're not alive and they're not dead. They're in between, almost like bitcoin. So when you think about it, what I'm trying to say is that it's picked the perfect host. Right now, Internet access is present for about four and a half billion people on the planet, and growing. Smartphones, about three and a half billion and growing. And it's something that can't be stopped. That's another thing that's so important about this. Just think about what I just said there. If the Internet is its host, bitcoin is adapting to that and growing and expanding, and that host can't be killed. You know, the ideal viruses, the influenza virus, we didn't even know it was a virus, the flu virus, until like 33, 1933. It's been with us for millennia. Now they're finding out, and it's that perfect virus because it makes us sick. It has a fun time and, you know, it propagates but doesn't go away. It adapts, it mutates. And I know this is getting kind of long. I'll wrap it up here in a second.
- [51:35]
Marty
You have to wrap it up. Keep going.
- [51:37]
Jethro
Well, so the thing is, just. Just take it. You know, just think about it from that viewpoint. How do you stop the Internet? Imagine, imagine the United States if it came out tomorrow and says, we're going to stop the Internet for three days. The world would explode. And you can't do it. And here's another thing, too, because bitcoin's using that as a host. You can't kill it. You could, you know, China could say, we're banning the, you know, like, we're going to ban bitcoin, we're going to ban the Internet. Well, no country is going to ban the Internet for any length of time. And then when they do ban the Internet, it's soon as they come online, some node's Going to propagate again, the full blockchain, and everything's going to be updated. You know, you could kill the Internet across the planet for a day. And now with satellites, soon as the bitcoin system came back online, it would update and keep right on chugging away just like nothing happened. So bitcoin is like a beast. Now, it may not be that beast that I want in Rome where I'm out there fighting it with a sword, but you know what it's like. It's in between alive and dead. And I think it's the network, it's the network effect that ties these ideas of power law, bitcoin and viruses together.
- [52:51]
Marty
Yeah. And going back to Ralph Merkel's example and Satoshi's design, Satoshi designed something so incredibly beautiful, the incentives, particularly about how each stakeholder interacts with each other. And the network has this bounty, which is the block subsidy plus the transaction fees. So it has this bounty, which is the reward that a miner can receive for propagating the network and making sure that it grows. And just this code that has this bounty out there, it's like, hey, if somebody helps me produce a block of transactions that nodes are trying to send between each other, I'm going to reward you with this monetary good. And then us and meatspace are literally working extremely hard to lock down massive amounts of energy, massive amounts of hardware infrastructure, just to get the bounty that this bitcoin network, this digital monetary system running on the back of the Internet has just introduced to the world. And all it was was satoshi designing the incentives, writing the code, and hitting launch. And here we are 16 years later, and it's almost $2 trillion market, and people are only getting more aggressive in terms of trying to figure out ways to get that bounty as efficiently as possible.
- [54:25]
Jethro
And just like a beast, bitcoin will fight you if you try to circumnavigate it. Look at the difficulty adjustment. It's like a living thing. I mean, you try to think that you're going to overcome the hash rate and you're going to somehow generate a tremendous amount of hash rate, and you're going to get ahead of the system. Cheating in some way. I do claw it right back. I mean, that difficulty adjustment is a beautiful piece of work. It's like a part of that whole organism.
- [54:57]
Marty
Oh, yeah. It's almost like an immune response to the amount of attention that humans are paying to the network. If it's too much attention, it's like, all right, you guys are getting a little crazy. We're going to make it harder to find this bounty that I've set out there. There's not enough attention. It's like, all right, I'm going to make it easier to draw attention back to the network. It's really a marvel. I mean, you mentioned compound interest as the eighth wonder of the world. I think bitcoin's design may have to be the ninth.
- [55:28]
Jethro
Oh, I love that. I have never thought of that. I mean, I've never even. I just love that. Yeah, that's really, you know, just think about that for a minute, what you said there. Maybe. Yeah, maybe someday, looking back here, it will be described that way because again, we haven't seen anything yet. I figure I was saying that we're about 5 or 6% adoption rate right now. But you know what? That report that just came out from river, it was a really in depth report and I'm a big fan of River. Great, great company. But you know, some of their figures kind of gave me pause. I mean, their adoption rate, they put it at like maybe 2 or 3% as I remember, and like 1991 or 2 on the Internet adoption rate and stuff. So I don't know where we really set right now, but I do know it's still early. And for all of you out there, again, if you're uptight, you're having, you know, if you're, if you're just not resting at ease because you think you're too late. Everybody's thought that. I mean, you know, I've thought the same thing. There is no too late to bitcoin. You just need to start stacking and you know, you can stack smartly. I mean, you can do that. I do follow James. Check. Big fan of Checkmatey on X. And you know, he's got a good enough handle on the analysis. And I feel like I do too now that I kind of know there are certain times when I would not buy if I were still buying. And I don't buy anymore. I mean, I'm just, I'm all in. And it's kind of a peaceful feeling, you know, I mean, you got your assets allocated to bitcoin. I'm just very peaceful right now.
- [57:12]
Marty
Same love, James. His analysis is invaluable, particularly for those who are hyper emotional when it comes to the intraday movements of the price going. And reading James's newsletter is really a good way to find peace of mind and try to figure out where we are in the market. And again, going back to the adoption rate, I think we Just released an episode with Parker Lewis yesterday and I'm beginning in A lot of the discussion that I had with Parker this week was around using Bitcoin as money. And we didn't directly talk about it, but I think I'm beginning to see it here at the business at tftc. Granted, we're early adopters of bitcoin as a business, both using it as a Treasury asset, accepting it for payments and paying contractors in it. However, I do think there is some signal to glean from what's happening here and the amount of invoices that I'm receiving to pay for contractors or services that are vital to our business, that are coming from Zaprite, which give us the opportunity to pay in Fiat or Bitcoin, are going up pretty dramatically and have specifically in the last six months when it comes to network effects and power laws and viruses spreading. I think internally at this business, that's something I'm certainly beginning to notice. For the first time, it seems like people are demanding bitcoin in our world. And again, granted, this is a bitcoin company, we interact with a lot of other bitcoin companies. But having been doing this for eight years, it seems like even in the bitcoin space, people are finally coming around to, all right, we should really be dogfooding this and making sure that we are accepting bitcoin as payment or using Bitcoin as a means to pay for other goods and services that we're interacting with. And I think that progression is going to break out of our bubble and you're going to begin seeing bitcoiners who aren't running a bitcoin focused business, but have their own small, medium, large sized business that they want to begin accumulating and they're going to start doing the same thing. It's like, hey, if you want to pay for this good and service, you can pay me in Fiat or Bitcoin.
- [59:30]
Jethro
That's interesting. And going back to something I said earlier, I told you that the bitcoin that I have worked hard to gather and scratch out of the earth, so to speak, I mean, I said it's in my fist and I meant that, but doesn't mean that I don't spend bitcoin. If I want to use a circular economy with Bitcoin, what I do is I just do a fill and spend and wallet. And you know, really when you think about it, for capital gains purposes, IRS tax purposes, that's the way to do it. You know, just buy bitcoin that day and just buy something. I just bought one of those satisferes. I should get it here pretty soon. I don't know if you know what that is, but I'll send you a DM with it later. Or if not, it's really cool. So I don't mind spending bitcoin and I think people are going to have to you already. I think you're spot on because I think people are going to have to earn, earn bitcoin. They're going to have to come out there and go, you know what? I've got to put something of value out there in order to get bitcoin. There will come a point where again, whether it's unit bias or however you view, you know, adoption and where we're going here or this cycle, the next cycle, I don't know when. But I am absolutely convinced. There's no doubt in my mind that bitcoin's going to a million a coin. And if you look at the history of bitcoin and where, where it is in any analysis, it's only going to continue to go up and to the right. I don't know what rate and I don't know when we'll see that. I used to think it was like 20, 30, maybe 32, I don't know anymore. But when it gets to these points, people are going to want to get bitcoin and they're going to have to offer something. There's going to have to be something of value in order to get bitcoin. And then we will truly start to turn into this economy that all of us want. I mean, you know, I don't want this. I am so sick of the fiat world and what it has done all the way from that period that I was telling you in the 70s to today and the endless wars. And you know, I'm a military member and I, you know, I just, I'm very tired of the fiat world. And so I'm hopeful. I really am, Marty.
- [61:37]
Marty
I am too. I think the zeitgeist has certainly shifted in recent years where people are recognizing that the big nanny state governments of the world and large corporations that feed the politicians that enter that nanny state do not have the people's best interests at heart. And then even that recognition is driven by the fact that it's becoming impossible to get off the hamster wheel and the hamster wheels getting so fast that people can't even stay on it. And it's a push comes to shove moment for humanity right now where people are throwing their Hands up and saying, wait a second, we need, we need to change things drastically at the core of our society. And most have not recognized it yet. But I think that's why I do what I do and that's why I think I'm here speaking with you today. Because you believe the same things, that fixing the core of the problem means fixing the money in Bitcoin is the only way to do that in today's day and age.
- [62:39]
Jethro
Yeah, 2010, when Bernanke decided they were going to go all in on qe, it changed our world forever. I mean, those pricks. And they knew they were going to blow an asset bubble, but they thought it was worth it. If you read the Lords of Easy Money, it will give you a really good background in that particular period. They knew they were going to cause an asset bubble, but they thought, oh, we need to spike employment up just a little bit more. And I mean, look at the consequences today. Yeah, we're all on a hamster wheel. Those people that are in the fiat world, they're running their ass off. And as I mentioned earlier, both people are working. I mean, that sucks. And they have to work. Some people have. Not only are both people working, often they've got side gigs, you know, that they're just trying to keep going. You can't front run these people if you're in the fiat system. I mean, with this, you know, mouse click money, no matter how hard you save, no matter how hard you work, they can cut, you know, the rug or pull the rug up from under you overnight. And look at the housing prices. Look at that. What a bunch of nonsense. You know, you got all these jackasses out there using houses as a store of value. And then you have people that, you know, just want to, you know, they've got kids or a young family like Carla and Walker, they just want to, they just want to have a place to stay. They're not looking to try. And they just want to live in a house, which is a novel concept. I don't know if you're familiar with the DSCR loans that have gone on in financing VRBOs across the country and how that's distorted the market. You know, those are loans that are made just based upon the owner saying, you know, projecting, well, I'm going to get this much income over the next 20 years, this much rental income. And so they're just buying up properties that often aren't making that. And they're just sitting around. It's so distorted right now. And it kind of goes back to what you started this podcast with, which is things seem very uncertain and volatile, and I really don't know where things are going. I'm very interested to see what comes out tomorrow. This is Thursday the 6th, and tomorrow on the 7th, they're going to have the crypto. What's it going to be? The Crystal Asset Conference or something?
- [65:00]
Marty
Yeah, the first crypto summit in Capitol Hill.
- [65:04]
Jethro
And hopefully I want, unlike some people, and I've read some good articles, counter articles, including Nick Carter's, and I have no issue. I want to see the United States establish a strategic bitcoin reserve. Bitcoin reserve, Bitcoin only. I want that. I think it could be something that really helps our country as the years unfold. I mean, why do we have gold in reserves? I mean, why are other nation states collecting gold? Bitcoin runs circles around gold. Gold can't handle. What is money? Think about that for a minute. It's portable, fungible, durable, divisible, verifiable, scarce, resistant to seizure. That's money. And bitcoin runs circles around that gold. So why wouldn't we have bitcoin as a strategic reserve? I want to see that. I really do. And I don't know if you've been following Senator Lummis. She's getting a lot of flack right now from bitcoiners, and I'm kind of surprised at it because she's been pretty clear. She just had an interview about a week ago, and she's been very clear where things are going. She just said back in Congress and her Bitcoin act, she was surprised at how many people did not understand bitcoin but came to her office or she approached them and they wanted to learn more, but they just were clueless. Even with all the new congressional members that are. And I've got air quotes here, crypto friendly. And she said their first, that new subcommittee, the Digital Assets subcommittee that she's chairman of, she said our first goal is to get stablecoin regulation out there. And then the second goal is digital asset regulation. And then the third would be to try and get the Bitcoin act passed, which I would like to see passed also. But I think that that's a step where some of the arguments, as I mentioned earlier, could have validity regarding the dollar, But I don't see why that is with the. I mean, how do you feel about the sovereign bitcoin or the bitcoin fund strategic bitcoin?
- [67:18]
Marty
I don't want to say more neutral. I think a lot of bitcoiners have put a lot of weight on the bitcoin reserve because they think that's going to lead to the nation state sort of scramble for bitcoin that's going to drive the price up. And I think a lot of bitcoiners have been pumping the strategic reserve, have made a framing mistake in terms of this may not be their intention, but I think it's being perceived by many people in the broader public who don't really understand bitcoin, that bitcoin going up is dependent on a strategic bitcoin reserve here in the United States that sets off that race by other nation states. And I just think that framing is a miscalculation because people think that bitcoiners are really pushing for this to drive the price up to pump their own bags. I just have a disagreement with the framing of how some people, not all, but some, have been framing it. God, candle, all that because the nation states are coming. And not to say that if the nation states did come, that wouldn't happen. But I think I'm a semantics whore and really want it to be clear to people that I, as an American agree with you. I think it would be incredibly beneficial for the American people if the government were to accumulate a strategic bitcoin reserve. But I think we need to be clear that the government needs bitcoin more than bitcoin needs the government and frame it that way and almost be blase about it. We don't care if you do the strategic reserve. Bitcoin is going to be fine. However, we think it would be massively beneficial for the country if you were to do that.
- [69:07]
Jethro
Yeah. And the thing is that it doesn't really matter whether they do or not, because it's going to happen one way or the other. In fact, the cat's out of the bag. We cross the Rubicon. That's another good Roman story. Why do guys like Rome? So, you know, that's another great story, though. I mean, really, we did cross the Rubicon. And what I'm talking about there is in Nashville, I mean, the nation states are on notice. You saw Belarus and what they just came out with. I mean, they're going to start mining bitcoin as a nation state. And their leader, Lukashenko, he clearly said on air, why are we doing this? Well, the United States is going to start doing this. So I'm paraphrasing him, but basically that's what he's saying. And I already believe there's no doubt in my mind that nation states are already doing this. The Russian finance minister on Christmas Day last year came right out. I've never heard anybody say this before in Russia. And he just said right on air, he said, we have made global trade settlement now in Bitcoin. I mean, why wouldn't you want to accumulate as much Bitcoin as you can and especially get hash rate? And if you look at the UAE and their hash rate and then Oman, which just wants to double the hash rate for a reason, and that's to control the blocks, it makes a lot of sense. This is going to happen. We are in a race. I mean, we may not acknowledge it. And when I say crossing the Rubicon, I mean there's no going back. You know, that's the whole key to that story. You know, it's January 9th, the night of that evening, and it's 49 BC, and Julius Caesar, he's on the north shore of the Rubicon River. He's got to make a decision. His troops love him. They're all behind him. They've come out of the north, out of Gaul, and. And if he crosses that river in the morning, he has basically committed treason with a standing army, and he's going to march on Rome. And when he does, on the other side, he famously says, the die is cast, meaning, this is it. I'm not going back. I will either be hung, or the Romans had many different ways to kill you, but I will be deceased at the end of this campaign, or I will end the Republic and we will start an empire. And I think that when, actually, I know in my mind, after I'm not. I am convinced after Nashville and those three speeches, I think we're in a new world now.
- [71:35]
Marty
Marty, I completely agree. And as it pertains to Cynthia Lummis, I think I agree with you. People need to show her an immense amount of grace. Take a step back and recognize the massive win that is squabbling over the priority of a stablecoin bill, a market structure bill, or the Bitcoin strategic reserve, and recognize that the Overton window has been shifted so far in our favor that that's what we're squabbling about. It's not, can we get bank accounts? Can you please stop arresting developers? It's what's going to go first. It's an incredible win, and we should appreciate that. For Cynthia, I think a lot of bitcoiners have to imagine she lives in the swamp of D.C. and whether we like it or not, politicking exists. And sometimes you just have to play within the framework of the incentives that exist on Capitol Hill. And I think she's doing that. And if you look at the strategic Bitcoin reserve bill, it is Bitcoin only. It protects self custody. It lays out things very well. And it's bitcoin only. And again, the overto window has shifted so far that we're squabbling over things that you would have told. If you would have told us we were squabbling over these things only two years ago, people would have said you were nuts.
- [72:55]
Jethro
Yeah, there's a big battle going on right now in Washington over stablecoins. And I don't think a lot of bitcoiners are aware of it, but really the two combatants, and I'll use that word, are tether and USDC. And they're like this right now. And they're USDC's CEO. I think it's Jeremy O'.
- [73:21]
Marty
Leary.
- [73:22]
Jethro
O'. Learin. Yeah, rat. So he's US based, fully compliant. I mean, basically very close to CBDC. And tether right now is kicking their ass. I mean, they are. Tether is an incredible company. $13 billion in. Do you know BlackRock? BlackRock is an $11.5 trillion company. They've got their fingers in every pie in the world. They were there for the rebuilding of Iraq as a contractor. Was BlackRock in there sucking up money? But what I was going to say is they had twice the profit of blackrock last year and at least recently they had less than 100 employees. They're moving down to El Salvador, building a new office headquarters down there. It's going to be a big building, doubling their employees. They're huge holders of U.S. treasuries. And who manages that forum? It's Cantor Fitzgerald. And Howard Lutnick is closely aligned with them. And Saylor himself said that we should bring these people back on board. I think he even mentioned Tether, you know, to get them back into the US or into the US and be US based. But, you know, this battle is being fought behind the closed doors. And in fact, Senator Lummis did come up with some, I won't say disconcerting statements, but when she was talking about Tether, she's really toeing the line to a lot of spokespeople that are, you know, calling it a money laundering, sponsoring terrorism type thing. That's why they didn't get approved in mica, the European Union's new framework, and are not being, you know, are not working within that EU system. So this is a big battle and there's going to be A lot of bitcoiners say, I don't give a shit, it's a shitcoin. Well, you know, I disagree and I'll just tell you, if you look at where Bitcoin and lightning in particular Lightning is going, I think Tether is going to try to be a really big part of that new Taproot assets protocol. And it's probably going to happen and we're going to see a major change going forward.
- [75:34]
Marty
Are you referencing the Wall Street Journal article that was written?
- [75:38]
Jethro
Yeah, that's a good article. Did you read that?
- [75:39]
Marty
Yeah, I did. Somebody who's been in the space and Tether, there's a lot of Tether truthers out there outside of Bitcoin and then within Bitcoin, many who believe that Tether is some nefarious actor. But having been around a while, Tether spun out a Bitfinex. And to your point about Lightning, Bitfinex first exchange to implement Lightning actually saw right before we hit record, it looks like Paolo Androino is on Capitol Hill today, so maybe he's participating tomorrow. But when it comes to Circle versus Tether, and I will recognize and acknowledge there may be some discomfort in how big Tether is and how much influence it has on the space, but I have a lot of respect for Bitfinex and Tether personally because for the longest time they've been the pirates of the industry in terms of big players that have really driven a lot of innovation forward and done it in a way where they operate in this gray market and try, I believe, to stay as aligned with cypherpunk, the cypherpunk ethos, as closely as possible. I was actually in Abu Dhabi for Bitcoin Maina and then stuck around for a day. They had Abu Dhabi Finance Week and I was there in the room when Circle and Binance announced their partnership. And Jeremy Lair and this new CEO of Binance were on stage talking about it. And the moves that Circle is moving to try to force Tether out of the market are extremely slimy. And I think they're coming from a place of resentment because Tether found product market fit and has had immense amounts of success over the years and Circle simply has not been able to keep up. And this whole, I think those two companies juxtaposed to each other really paint two starkly different futures. One where the pirates are trying to stay true to the cypherpunk ethos and really enable the ability for individuals around the world to gain access to these financial world rails and then Circle is the digital Panopticon sort of pencil pusher. Suck up to the nanny state, Jeremy Allaire. Like, let's regulate everything and I'll do whatever you want. Daddy government.
- [78:07]
Jethro
Yeah, and that's really well framed. Better than I put it out there, because that puts it. That's the real framing of this battle, is just what you said. And maybe we need somebody to pose our viewpoints because I'm very closely aligned with what you just said. And if you follow Tether, and I'm trying to remember the CFO's name, it's Giancarlo. Yeah, I love that pirate analogy because that's probably very true. In fact, I think that was in the article too. They discussed that and I thought, you know, that rings true, what you know of him. And he's going to be the CEO pretty soon. And so, yeah, this is a big battle and it's an important battle for bitcoin because you aren't going to. Again, there's going to be bitcoiners that. If you had poop emojis on this screen right now, they'd be throwing them on Jethro. That was my call sign in the Navy. And you have call signs because when you're dog fighting, you just need one word that kind of gets your, you know, will get your attention. You always fight with a wingman, and so you know your wingman's call sign and you kind of know your buddies and stuff. And you know, if somebody calls out your name and you know, you recognize his call sign and you just. You work together really well that way. You know, there's a. You know how in that last Top Gun movie, they say you never leave your wingman? Right. Well, you know, I will tell you something. Sometimes when this shit hits the fan and there's just two of you and you're both getting overwhelmed, there's a call that comes out over the radio and it says, you know, Viper 1 is Jethro yo yo. And what it means is, guess what, buddy, we're done. We're not friends anymore. We're not really wingman. Yo yo means you're on your own and I'll see you later. But just. Just getting back to this, what I wanted to say is after you throw the poop emojis, you know, just if there's any bitcoiner out there that can tell me how you're going to stop Tether from doing what it wants to do, like on the Lightning Network over the next year or two, you tell me how you're going to do it because I don't know. And you know they're going to be able to issue and manage tokens on lightning. And if you just read some of the recent reports, that Fidelity report that just came out on the lightning network, what did it tell you? Lightning is changing. I mean it's getting more efficient, less channels, less, you know, less of it, the nodes, but much more efficient. And the bigger nodes are carrying most of the traffic. If you can hop between one node to the next node, your Lightning transaction is almost at the speed of light and it's 99% likely to go through. Every time you skip, you go to another node, you decrease that chance maybe 4 to 8%. So if we want lightning to be what it was envisioned to be, and Hal Finney talks about this, if we want it to be almost like a tokenized financial system based on bitcoin backed by bitcoin, then we should, I won't say we should encourage the success other than I want to see how this pans out. I want Lightning to succeed. I want it to be that payment network. I want it so that every poor shit down there in South America or Central America who is just trying to get ahead, I mean some guy In Argentina, 120% inflation, this poor bastard, he just gets a couple bucks or enough of his stupid pesos that he can convert them into dollars and he's going to want to do that. And am I going to be my privileged self sitting here in my nice beautiful studio with all my paintings? Am I going to be the guy that says no, you can't do that? Well, no, you know what, for next to nothing he can convert that into either tether or onto the lightning network and just at least keep something that stores his value. And you know, I want to see that succeed. I want to have rails for everybody across the planet if they can get on one of those channels.
- [82:13]
Marty
Yeah, and I honestly don't get the kaveching over tappered assets. Personally, I don't see myself, I've never used tether and like I said though, like I really appreciate what they've done and am able to recognize that it has been a massive success and there's obviously demand for the utility that they're providing the market. Who am I to say that it's stupid? Like it's, it's inarguable. It's. The proof is in the pudding and the numbers and the volume and the market cap of tether. And I don't get the confetti. I can see People like, oh, they're gonna like. That's the beauty of bitcoin at every layer, like lightning. I just had Lisa Nigat on Nifty, who runs Bitcoin plus plus, and she highlighted something that I really hadn't internalized yet, which is this whole L2 narrative that has not only taken over Bitcoin with Bitcoin season two, but altcoins, they're all moving to layer twos as well. Lightning is inarguably, objectively the most distributed layer 2 technology on top of a blockchain in the world. And the kaveching I don't get. Because you have the ability to opt out, you can spin up your own node on the lightning network, inject capacity, connect with other nodes, and you don't have to play the taproot asset game if you don't want to. It's an open, permissionless system. And as long as you have the ability to exit and do what you want with your sats and use Bitcoin the way that you want to, I don't get why you should get so perturbed over others bringing things to market.
- [83:51]
Jethro
Yeah, bitcoin is permissionless. It's for our enemies. And again, if you know how to stop some of the things, ETFs, options, futures, lightning with tether, stablecoins. If you know how to fix this, write a one page letter over to Bitcoin magazine, magazine in the take section with your opinion. Because, you know, opinions are like, you know, assholes. Everybody's got one and I've got mine. And, you know, at least I'm willing to admit I'm often wrong and I have to come back. Sometimes I say I'm sorry or I've learned new things. You know, that's just part of, you know, as a, you know, by the time I got out of the Navy and by the time I was done flying for Delta before I had an accident and a traumatic brain injury. And so that's another reason not to listen to anything I'm saying. But, you know, and I'm kind of laughing, but I tell you something, I really got an appreciation for what it's like for all the veterans over in Iraq and Afghanistan and some of the other outlying countries that were subjected to these TBIs, traumatic brain injuries. It's a horrible experience. Changes your personality. You know, your. You go through a really rough time.
- [85:03]
Marty
I've had one as well, so I know, I know what you're talking about.
- [85:06]
Jethro
Yeah, exactly. You know, after mine, I carried a little pocket, one of those Little notepads. And why? Because sometimes I'd be talking to somebody at a coffee shop or something and when they left and they were gone, I'd pull it out and I'd write down who I had just talked to because I was going to forget it the next day and what we had talked about. And that's a pretty difficult place to be in. As a man, you look in the mirror and you go, gee, am I even the person I used to be? But you know what? It's so good to be humbled in life. You carry around your ego and the ego is getting in front of everything, man. Your ego is probably your worst enemy. If you can just humble yourself and then you just start looking around, you go, once you're humble, you can learn all kinds of shit.
- [85:54]
Marty
Yeah, agree. That's my apologies or admitting that I'm wrong. Here is hand up. We say hand up a lot on this podcast. Hand up. I was wrong. I said something and it didn't turn out to be true. And I think to your point, having the humility to be able to put the hand up and say that is a very important trait to have not only in bitcoin but just in life generally. The last thing I wanted to talk about, you said, wrap it up with this. You're not sure how the cycle is going to go, but in your mind, do you think there's a tipping point that when something happens, whether it's nation state adoption or some blow up in global debt markets that. Do you believe in the concept of hyper bitcoinization or a tipping point where, as SAMHSA would say, you have this God candle where people wake up in a hurried rush into bitcoin and it changes the dynamics of the market drastically, maybe not overnight, but in a relatively short period of time.
- [87:03]
Jethro
Well, that is probably one of the deeper subjects we'll talk about because I said earlier I'm kind of clueless. Let's start that discussion and let's just look at the power law. We talked about that before, if you're familiar with the power law. And by the way, folks, you know, just as a general overview of it, it's an attempt to look at past behavior, like all models do, and then maybe be able to tell where something's going in the future. But you know, what is it based on? It's based on bitcoin. So how many cycles does it really have to look at it now? Giovanni Santostasi's power law goes all the back, way back to the genesis block. Okay, so he is looking at all the blocks going forward. But you're basing that model on probably one of the most volatile nascent technologies. That is less than 15. It's 15 years old. So think about what you're doing. You're attempting to build on that model. Now the funny thing is, if you look at his model and you do a regression analysis on it, the damn thing is, is uncanny accurate. Now, it has a wide variation, standard deviations by about two to the upside, one to the downside. Downside is like almost a floor. But even though it is so accurate. And he says, for instance, I know how to put this, okay, The ETF last year, in January, those, their arrival was a major change in the bitcoin market. Major. We have seen an underlying bid on bitcoin that will water your eyes. And it has been ongoing for like 1.2 million coins. That's massive. And yet if you go from today back that power line, that regression line on the power law analysis still is a straight line. How is that possible? Why shouldn't it have changed? Giovanni will tell you, because these things in the future are already built into this system, which is very difficult to get your head around. So every time that I say, I think that this cycle is going to break, like, again, let's raise my hand. I was wrong on the last cycle, by the way. How do you back up your thought process? You can look at an S curve and you can say, well, you know, at somewhere like, usually the chasm is 14 to 16%. We get to the chasm, we're going to take off with adoption. We can look at Metcalfe's Law. But the thing is that some of these models take into something called time decadence, and they allow for this, this reducing volatility and returns. You know, Marty, I. Here's what I can say, okay, Because I really don't know where things are going. Like if Samson was back there, he was looking at my little painting back there mining bitcoin, and he said, hey, you just won a block. First off, I would cut this conversation short right now. He and I. I've got a bottle of whiskey somewhere. There it is. Big nose Kate. She used to be Doc Holliday's girlfriend and she was quite a character. I'll tell you right now, that's the, you know, the part where he didn't know if she was trying to kill him or not, that that was probably accurate with her. But if he was back there, we, you know, we'd have a shot. And if he Said to me, well, you know, it's too bad you got it now because it's going to be a million a coin next year. I just look at him and say, you know what? You could be right. I can't argue against that, is what I'm trying to say. But to wrap up my thought process on this, this is what I will tell you. Back in 22, when I was laying there in bed and I was wondering what the hell I had done to my life, and bitcoin crashed and I bought like a drunken sailor. I'm not ever going to buy bitcoin again at that price. I don't know if people today are ever going to buy Bitcoin at 60,000 again. And I can back that up with on chain analysis. So your time is limited. It's limited to keep stacking. And you really just have one thing to do now, and that is to stack bitcoin like a smart psychopath. Hold on to the bitcoin. Don't lose the bitcoin. Think about what you hold. Start looking at a reverse CAGR calculator. Realize that, like Marty said, if you're younger out there and you're not some old fart like me, you are going to have the most incredible life in front of you. All you got to do is just be patient and live your life. You know, let's just say that you're young. Let's say you're 30 years old, okay? What the hell are you going to do for the next 20, 30 years? You should keep working even, you know, even if you're at a point where you don't have to work, you still should be doing stuff. And again, you're not going to sit around eating donuts for the next 20, 30 years. You're going to work. You're going to do something. And it's true that someday in the future, you're going to have so much generational wealth, you'll be able to think about inheritance. But you know what else you'll be able to do? You'll be able to think about the things you want to do in life. You know, I just took up scuba diving. I mean, what a blast. You'll be able to do something creative. You know, you can look around my studio here. These pieces will be around for hundreds of years, and they're done well enough that people are going to look at them and go, hey, you know, I really like that piece. They're not just going to throw it in the garbage, maybe learn a musical instrument, maybe do woodworking gardening, something, you know, as the world continues and AI takes over every job. So I guess I just would say I don't know if we're going to break the cycle. I don't even know what the cycle is anymore since, you know, the having is de minimis, means nothing really anymore. Is it tied to presidential cycles, global liquidity, like some, you know, Sam Callahan and Lyn Alden were discussing? I just don't know anymore. I think. You know what, let's tie it back to what you said. You started this out. We are in an uncertain time. And that's what I'll leave you with. This is an uncertain time.
- [93:42]
Marty
Prepare, freaks. Bitcoin is maybe the only certain thing that we have in this world in these uncertain times. Jethro.
- [93:53]
Jethro
Yeah.
- [93:54]
Marty
Thank you for coming on. This was a great pleasure. I hope we can do this in person one day. I feel like it'd be great to have you in studio for conversation.
- [94:02]
Jethro
Yeah, that sounds like fun. And if I'm ever down there, I used to do a lot of layovers in your part of the country there with Delta. Loved it too. Great area of the country, great people, just awesome. And yeah, I've had fun. This has been a kind of a different conversation, very deep and I, I appreciate that. It's kind of nice to have a more wide ranging conversation like this. And you know, again, just remember kids, if you're listening out there, I'm just trying to get the word out to you, trying to help as much as I can. If you want to find me, you can type my name into Google. I'm like the first thing that comes up. And if you're looking for me on X, it's Jethro. Capital J E T h r o e 11 1. I don't know why I put that 111 on the end, but I did. And so thank you, Marty. I hope to see you in person too.
- [94:50]
Marty
Thank you. Enjoy your day, freaks. Peace and love.