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- [00:07]
A
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 central bankers are tripping over themselves to 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. Probably should be. Probably should be.
- [00:37]
B
Eric, welcome to the show. It's great to have you here. For those who are unaware, Eric Balchunas is covering ETFs at Bloomberg and has become rather popular on bitcoin Twitter over the last few years, covering the explosion of the Bitcoin ETFs. But before we get to that topic specifically, I think jumping into the strategy investor call that happened yesterday, which Eric was a part of, I think we should open with that, considering we've got somebody who was one of the few that was on the call. What were your thoughts and why was the question that you asked so controversial?
- [01:22]
A
Yeah, I mean, I didn't see it as controversial, but there was. Someone gave me a hard time about it on Twitter, but I had a good reason for it. Basically, I'm not a stock analyst. They asked me to come on. They said they had a couple stock analysts and a couple bitcoin analysts. I'm assuming I'm a bitcoin analyst, but I'm really an ETF analyst. And one thing that I knew they were going to get asked about, the yield, the dividend, will you ever sell bitcoin? I was like, these other guys are going to cover that, right? So after they went through the whole thing, you know, there's about 30% of MicroStrategy where I get confused, to be honest with you. And I'm also a little. How was I going to, like, ask a question that was out of my depths about, like, some financial structure, part of the company? So I left that for other people. What I asked about was, you know, he had slides of all of the government people who are into it, like the SEC commissioner, the Trump this, that, and the other. And there was like, it was like a Brady bunch of pictures. Then he went over all the banks that are getting involved. And obviously this is bullish generally, but it's all happening very quickly. And I know from going to the bitcoin conference where I was interviewing Eric Trump and this guy John Kadunis from Calamos. I could tell from some of the replies to the tweet that had me in there. And just in general over the past six months, I like to keep my ear to the ground and I've noticed there's generally a little hesitation to how fast the suit types are coming in, how fast the government is involved. The bitcoin conference had the FBI director. I mean, it was a lot, very quickly, government wise, just after a lot quickly happened, Wall street wise. And I think generally people are okay with it, but the speed is really fast. And here's my question to him was, how important is it to keep the base of original cypherpunk? I'm here because it's a way to subvert the banks and the government. And if you go and you team up with the banks and government too quickly, do you lose some of that core? The reason that matters, and it's not just some philosophical question, is I just believe in bases. I was just reading about Star wars and how it's just gone down that shitter. Star wars was the greatest thing and Kathleen Kennedy made all these sort of un. Star Warsian sequels and they lost the base and now the whole franchise is lost. I just think that with anything, you want to have the base as much as you can. Those are the people that are really passionate about it. They understand the technology. And if you bring them along, it really helps because then the ETF people, A, feel more comfortable, I think, B, they get educated more. Whereas if the base is like, oh, screw this, I'm going to go find something else, then you only have sort of newbies who are using it through like an ETF vehicle. And I wonder, does that make the commitment to it a little less strong and secure? And so that, to me is an important question. Could almost be paramount. It would be like asking Kathleen Kennedy, do you think that you're losing the base by making the main character of the sequels someone nobody knows, who has to go through no training and has more powers than Luke Skywalker in like two seconds? Do you think that might be a little much for the base? You know, yada yada. And that is the question. And he had a good answer. I thought he got it and he answered it. I don't know if it went over that well with everybody else. The other question seemed a little more Wall Streety, but to me, maybe I should have explained why that's important. But I also a phrase that does it even matter? Like, you know, again, I use Facebook as a metaphor. Facebook has grown by 2 billion users since it became like, uncool, you know, and some of the millennials left because all their parents joined. And I Googled this, by the way. If you Google millennials leaving Facebook because parents, there's all kinds of articles that are like, I'm leaving, I'm leaving. It wasn't the political stuff. That was 2020. Forget that. It was just their parents came on the network and they were like, oh, this is not cool anymore. And that's what's going on with bitcoin right now. And how do you keep that cypherpunk edge while also cheering on Morgan Stanley and such? That's, to me, maybe the most primary question right now. But it's weird. That was so. I don't know if it was mistaken, but Saylor probably spent as much time on that question as anybody else's, so I think he got it. He was a little defensive, but he probably should be. And some of his comments I thought were good. I. I didn't realize a couple things he said, I thought were. Were really good at addressing it.
- [06:21]
B
What particularly?
- [06:23]
A
Well, one thing is, you have to understand, like, all the bitcoin owned, a lot of it isn't like the cool guy, OG sitting, you know, sitting there with his, you know, bunker, you know, and like, all into this. Like, there's people in China who own it. There's people in the emerging markets. He brought in the people in Iran. And I suppose there are a ton of people who own it who don't even care about the cypherpunk. They like a currency you can move without borders, like using it. There is no cool thing with them. They're not annoyed that Eric Trump is in it. So I think that's part of it. The second thing is that the price has appreciated and he was talking about how valuable that is. Because if you want it to be more ubiquitous and use as a currency, you need it to hang around and have a decent price and get more users. So the volatility drops. And I get that as well. I think generally he talked about the concentration issue, which was part of my question, which is, what if only a couple people own half the bitcoin? Is that a problem? And he also said, which I've also made this argument, some of the things he said, I already knew. I sort of just wanted to get his take on him. But the microstrategy shares are many different people. It's a lot of individuals. Same with the bitcoin etf. So there's millions and millions of regular people owning it. That way. So it's not like there's one entity who owns it. Like Larry Fink doesn't really own all those bitcoin and Michael's strategy does own the bitcoin, but it's really the shareholders do. And so there's a lot of just. It's actually potentially even increasing the retail adoption through these other vehicles. So those were all pretty good answers and I just thought I wanted to get his take on them. What I wanted to hear really was what I find a lot going on is that whether it's seller or Larry Fink or anybody else, they are generally talking to people who aren't in bitcoin or in the media who still need to be convinced. What I wanted to hear was these people Talking to the OGs about why you want to come along and make into this marriage with Wall street and the government. I haven't heard that a lot, but I hear them complain on Twitter where a lot of people speak their mind, they're anonymous. So you get that's why I like Twitter better than other platforms is that there's people who are anonymous and they tell you what they really think, whereas in other platforms they're like attached to a company and they can't really say anything. So there's no fear of any consequences. And you do get maniacs, that's the downside of that. But you also get just people telling you the truth. So I felt that there were some of these concerns from the people who were originally into it. And like I said, I just think anything that's such a, that is going to be cool and remain cool and interesting. I think you need the base to be part of it.
- [09:33]
B
I completely agree and I think you're highlighting something. I think like I was telling you, I've been in Bitcoin for 13 years now. A lot of, excuse me, all that time it's been on Twitter. That's where I built. My conviction was building a bitcoin Twitter list in the early days, 2013, 2014. That list has grown significantly over the years. But I think there's certainly been a face shift change in the last five or six years with new entrants. I think Michael Saylor and Strategy being the first of the big new entrants in 2020. And I think there is certainly a new crowd, particularly those that are more fascinated with the equities exposure, particularly Strategy and other treasury companies that have popped up both publicly and behind the scenes. I think a lot of people that have been around for a while are looking at People really fanboying these treasury strategies. It's like, hey, do you actually understand what's going on here? But to your point, I do think the, the base is strong and stronger than ever. And actually I was in Vegas too, and on one of the panels that I was on the Human Rights foundation stage, Matt O', Dell, who's a partner of mine at 1031 and we host another show, Rabbit Hole Recap weekly. We've been doing that for eight years now. He made a really good point where it's like, yes, the amount of suits that are in the space is probably in terms of new entrants over the last four years and net larger amount of people than those who have come for the cypherpunk ideals. However, at the same time, the cypherpunk tech and those who are in it for the cypherpunk ideals have also gone up. Maybe not as much as the quote unquote suit coiners, but it's still a relatively strong and growing base. And it's not something that, that I am too worried about, but it is something to have on the radar and, and well, try to gauge.
- [11:43]
A
What I didn't mention is that the data I used to start the question was that in the past 16 months there's been about a million bitcoin bought by corporations, government and ETFs, but there's been about 750 million, sorry, 750,000 Bitcoin sold by individuals. So that individual selling was really part of the source of the question. And to me that's a silent IPO. That's why the price went down 45%. And I think it confused people because like, everything's going fine. Why is the price crashing? And so that's part of it. I was like, wait, are all these early individuals just going to cash out? Was it a Ponzi scheme all along? To them?
- [12:31]
B
I mean, you hear, I'm sure you've heard the stories of, well, these people have held since 2012, 2011.
- [12:39]
A
If you, if you sell some to go buy a house and stuff, I get that. But if somebody's like, oh, I don't like just because of their politics or they're just too cypher punk for like to be like, I was, I'm a Gen Xer. And I remember when bands, if a band went major label and like was on mtv, like a lot of core fans were like, I'm not listening to them anymore. They were like that cool that they couldn't be bothered or like be. It's a snobby attitude, frankly. But that's just how it was. Selling out was like, like a sin basically in the 90s. And even bands that sold out felt bad about was a whole thing, you know, and there's something like that. If a person takes all their money out of bitcoin because they don't like that. I really would like to find out more about that because, well, where are you going to put your money? Like, weren't you in it because of the scarcity and the debasement hedge and that concept and of course the censorship, resistance. But like, what aren't those important things still, even if boomers are in it? Like, don't those things still exist? Or is it really just a Ponzi scheme and. Or something that was cool for a while, but you're like bored now.
- [13:54]
B
Yeah, no, that's funny because I think
- [13:57]
A
it's more money out for people who sold a little because they've been in it. They deserve that. They should take 20%, cash out, get their $2 million, buy a house. I think they stay. They've been through hell. You know, it is no joke to survive like multiple 70% drawdowns there. You should get rewarded. So. But at that point, at a price point of 100 grand, when people started selling, or 125, I'm sure they didn't sell all their bitcoin to have a ton of money. So I don't know, maybe you have a better feel for this. Were those individuals cashing out completely or partially? What do you think was going on there?
- [14:39]
B
I've heard. I think it's a mixture of everything. There are definitely. I think it would be naive to say that nobody sold out because their favorite band went. Went mainstream. I'm sure there was at least a handful of those people. I've heard rumors behind the scenes that some OGs were convinced via a tax strategy to convert their original bitcoin into shares of some of these treasury companies for the tax treatment that is preferable in the long term. Obviously. We know through Galaxy that they sold an 80,000 Bitcoin slug that was part of an estate sale. It was just part of somebody passing away and the estate mandated that they liquidate all the bitcoin. So yeah, I think it's a mixture of everything. There definitely are some jaded early bitcoiners who don't like the entrance of the suits. And on that note, I mean, you mentioned when you were describing why you asked the question that it's important for ETF people when you say ETF people. Do you mean the issuers of the ETFs or individuals buying?
- [15:52]
A
No, no, both. Well, the users too. Because if you're new to this thing and you're like, okay, I get it, it's a debasement hedge and it's an asset you want to maybe have in your portfolio for a while having, like again, remember, this came from the retail and it went institutional. Normally things go the opposite way. Wall street democratizes institutional investments. For the little guy, this came the other way. So as these people who use ETFs, advisors and such, I just think that generally speaking, having the base there, or at least a lot of them, it's good for educational and just, you know, strength for an asset, especially one that doesn't have cash flows, you know, you kind of need that strength because you know, somebody, a stock could be deemed like not cool anymore or whatever, but if it just pumps out cash flows, it's still going to be very valuable. That's very black and white to people. But this is a little more of an asset that does have a little bit of faith involved. It's just true. I don't think it's full faith, but I think part of it is. But yeah, and again, I've just seen things where they abandon their base or betray their base or forget about their base and it usually doesn't end that well.
- [17:14]
B
It's boring for everybody.
- [17:16]
A
Yeah, I mean, well, Facebook might be the one where it did end well because it went from 1 billion to 3 billion in the past 10 years. The only thing about face. And so this is what I think could happen where you could lose some of the base. But the ETFs and the exchanges like Schwab and all these brokerages, it's just so powerful that as all the boomers come in, it just totally overwhelms those few OGs that sold. Maybe that's potentially what we're going to be dealing with here. But what's interesting about Bitcoin is the underlying thing is exactly the same. In my view. All that happened was the intermediaries got a little cheaper and arguably a little safer. You can trust these ETFs in particular because they're regulated under the 40 act, which is a pretty strict regulation law. And then they have a 35 year track record of treating investors really well and not losing anything. Nobody's lost stocks. The gold has never been lost in gld. It's a good clean industry. And so I think you're going to have a lot more people Come in. So that's all. It's not the end of the world. It's just something I've been thinking about because I'm from the ETF world. And I defend the boomers coming in as being really good, smart money, in my opinion. But on the flip side, I sense a touch of snobbery from some of the people about that, and I don't like it. I wouldn't do it. But I also can understand that the speed at which this is happening is a little fast. It went from, again, FTX was what, four years ago?
- [19:01]
B
Not even.
- [19:02]
A
Yeah, and now we're already here. It all is happening very quickly. But one thing interesting about the. I interviewed Eric Trump and John Koudunas on stage and they both had a story about getting unbanked and debanked or having a problem with banks. And so it's interesting. I think some of these suits might have more direct understanding or be able to relate to bitcoin's purpose than people think, too. I think a lot of them, just because they dress a certain way or whatever, they have money or whatever, I don't think it's fair to judge them like a book by its cover. On the flip side, I have found that some people in tradfi really write off crypto as just being like, gambling a bunch of bros, all that stuff. I think that's misguided too. So I have been going back and forth between these two worlds and I've just found myself in a spot where there's misconceptions from both, but they're in a marriage, they really should stay married. It'll benefit both of them, frankly. And, you know, I also would just say to the people who got in early, like, you were right. Like, they should take it as a compliment. You know, I personally, when I was into a band early and they blew up, I was like, I felt a little pride that I had that taste to get there before. I remember, we were. I got into Smashing Pumpkins early and I bought tickets to Roseland concert. And it was just before Siamese Dream came out. Siamese Dream comes out, they blow up. And we bought the tickets for. I don't know, this is back in the 90s, probably like $35. I could have sold them for quadruple the price. So, like, I actually have seen this happen in short order with a couple different bands back then. And I frankly was like, nah, I'm not going to sell, I'm going to the concert because I love them. But I think it's kind of cool. My friend and I were like, wow, we could make a lot of money selling these. And we just thought it was kind of cool to see that moment where somebody goes from the sort of more underground into the mainstream. It didn't bother me that much. Occasionally it would, I guess, but it's sort of something that just happens. The things that are kind of cool or good, they get discovered and they get, you know, exploited a little bit maybe, but they also are able to reach more people and you bring in competitive elements and usually all that competition and professionalism helps people at the end of the day. Yeah.
- [21:40]
B
I mean, as somebody who had a Gen X father and unfortunately passed away, but going down memory lane, I can remember the bands that he would say went through this transition. To him it was Stone Temple Pilots, Alice in Chainsaw, Pearl Jam, even Guns N roses in the 80s when they were coming up, Guns N Roses was
- [22:03]
A
the bridge between the 80s and the 90s. Like they were 88 to 92, but they really just didn't fit in with the grunge people. But they bridged that gap between Michael Jackson and grunge was Guns N Roses. But all those bands were really good. Like if you grew up in that area, you feel spoiled today. They were all struggling with shit. And so the music was so good, you know, they were not. They were always swimming upstream. And that's when you get some really good writing and, you know, a more emotive kind of sound versus when someone's like. Has everything going on that's like had like completely like has life figured out, which. It feels like some of the music now was just like. There's no. Nobody's really like battling anything, so it just comes off as a little dead. But back then everybody was like dealing with shit, man. And it was the music. And you know, I wouldn't say the. A lot of the art was. Was, I thought, pretty good. But the music in particular was a little bit of a golden age, looking back.
- [23:04]
B
Yeah, I was actually listening to some STP acoustic sessions in the car this
- [23:08]
A
morning and I was reading they came out and they were viewed as derivative of Pearl Jam, like rip offs of Pearl Jam. But over time I actually prefer them to Pearl Jam. I don't know why. I think there's a touch more art and mystery in their stuff. Pearl Jam's just a little straight up, like classic rock and I like that edge, that little more edge. But they're both good. But I think STP actually aged really well, surprisingly. Yeah.
- [23:45]
B
Rest in peace, Scott Weiland.
- [23:47]
A
Yeah, yeah. But one thing, by the way, let me recommend a book for you. There's a book that I just read that has Scott Weiland in it. It's not his book, but it's called. I forget what it's called. It Ain't Easy or It's so Easy by Duff McKagan. He's the bassist from Guns N Roses. He's seen it all. So he was with Motley Crue, but then also with STP and the Alice in Chains. He played with them, too. So this guy was literally in that bridge area and he tried to help Scott Weiland get clean. And there's so many good stories in that book because he also talks about Axl Rose coming on, like, two hours late and, like, pissing everybody off and how they got started. And, like, that band was like. They got started in, like, one of those storage units in a back alley in la, just all living in, like, squalor. And, like, that's what sounds.
- [24:38]
B
Well, the Batman. Navarro, too, towards the end, Right.
- [24:41]
A
Dave Navarro was with Jane's Addiction, and then he went with Red Hot Chili Peppers. I don't think he did with Guns N Roses, but I thought Duff and
- [24:50]
B
him started a band after that.
- [24:52]
A
Oh, yeah, you're right. They. Duff was in, I think, Velvet Underground.
- [24:55]
B
Velvet Underground. That's.
- [24:57]
A
Yeah. So anyway, it's for anybody out there who's like, you know, still listening, he's like, that is a very good book if you want to get a picture for, like, that era, that period of time suffreaks.
- [25:10]
B
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- [27:01]
A
to quell
- [27:03]
B
maybe not your fears, but to answer your question and maybe the tide in the Facebook to put the case forward that this could be a Facebook situation where the millennials left because their parents came on. I'm one of those millennials who left. Facebook has been on in over a decade. And the early OGs left because the soup corners came again last week in Vegas. Human Rights foundation track two activists, one from former Yugoslavia and another from, I believe, Zimbabwe. I was at a dinner at the HRF and they talked about this on stage. I feel comfortable sharing the story, but they basically said, hey, everybody in this room that's building on bitcoin, keep going. Because I know there's times when it doesn't seem like anybody's really using what you're building. But I can assure you, we can assure you that in parts of the world where bitcoin is desperately needed for its properties of being censorship, resistance and money that lives outside of dictatorships, people are using it and they need the tech. So keep building. So the at least anecdotally, the demand seems to be there on the ground in areas that desperately need digital money for the digital age outside of States and central banks.
- [28:28]
A
Yeah, and I think there's, at least in my research on this, there's two main properties that are very attractive. Censorship resistance and debasement hedge. The censorship resistance in the US doesn't resonate as much, especially now that the government's like, oh, we think this is cool, we're going to get into it. But governments change. That could come in handy someday. We don't know. The debasement hedge works everywhere. Nothing stops. This train phrase from Lyn Alden I find is so perfect it might be the phrase of the decade because it's political but apolitical. It really doesn't matter who's in power. It's not even the politicians fault. The people will never vote for like to cut their own benefits or entitlements. And it's hard to also tax people. So inflation is like a silent tax. So the idea of actually just using money printing, it's such an easy button to solve for things if you're in the government. And so the incentive system is just to just keep increasing the money supply. Like it really does seem like an unstoppable train. And that's to me one of the most powerful pitches for bitcoin is that there's only 21 million. And if people do deem it valuable, it becomes like a gold in that regard. The censorship resistant. Oh by the way, could come in handy someday maybe. The only thing is the people who buy the ETFs, they're probably not getting that. So I think most of the ETF people are buying it for that. And maybe the tech, it is really interesting tech and if it does sort of take off as a currency then maybe you get some of that. So it's sort of like half tech, half gold in terms of investment. But for portfolios that's interesting to people because a lot of stuff is correlated to these days. People are looking for different things. So I think for the most part those investors don't really care about the censorship resistance. They might someday, but not now. But to your point, it's very useful elsewhere. There's a lot of stories I read about and it's something that some people, I just did a year long book project on this and some people we spoke to, they would say it's ironic the US is probably the least needed for bitcoin because the inflation is bad. It's like I'd say it's happening but it's not as really bad. Some countries the inflation is horrible and there's horrible censorship. It's Just like it's so bad on both fronts. And in the US those two things aren't really that bad. They could be and they're definitely not great. So I don't know, it's interesting. It's almost like you could have a world map of the level of censorship and debasement and then the more red you get, the more that's where bitcoin would be needed. I bet the US would be low on that list. Not that it's not needed, but I think in the US a lot of people are intrigued by its ability as a performing asset, but it doesn't matter. People buy assets for all different things, but certainly that censorship resistant is. If you read about bitcoin, it is fascinating that they were able to build something that's truly decentralized, where the computers, the nodes and the people running them don't even have to know each other or like each other. And it can last 17 years. I mean, it's not just building it, it's that it lasted and has just operates every day for 17 years as like a headless system. There's nobody running it and it works. It's hard to believe, honestly, when you really think about it. I wonder how many of the ETF people really lock into that. I think for a lot of them it's, well, it's digital gold. I've seen it really do some interesting things. I think it'll be good for my portfolio and they just move on. But I think if you go down the rabbit hole, you definitely, I think, might find yourself more convicted because of those properties. But those properties I think are why again, back to the original base, they were so into it. They were like, wow, this really is something. So we'll see how the ETF people kind of educated themselves and get more into it over time. I think the environment, whether that's more money printing and inflation shock, some kind of new government where they do censor you, I don't know those things. I think there's a catalyst down the road that could be, you know, pretty powerful. You know, I think Covid was one of those. Covid, I think your work, Bitcoin, really, I know from talking to people in, you know, around blackrock, that was one big step for them to go closer to it. They saw what happened during COVID especially the performance. So, you know, we don't know what's going to happen macro wise, what the state of play right now is not going to last. It's. Everything's temporary. So those properties could obviously come and go depending on what's going on in the country you live in.
- [33:48]
B
Yeah, it's funny, Matt Alborg, he did. I mean, this had to be six or seven years ago now, this point. But he was doing research for bit refill at the time and he actually made a map indexing per capita for bitcoin adoption. And at the time, back in 2019, Venezuela was number one in terms of adoption per capita, with a GDP per capita lens layered on top of that as well.
- [34:21]
A
Yeah, the per capita is an interesting list. I think the US might not have been in the top 10. I mean, it's down there. It's all really mismanaged countries. But they. There was some. There was a study. I think you might be talking about the same study. I can't remember what the study was called, but it was one where they did also point out that it also helps to have like some decent, like young people who know tech. Like it can't be too remote. There's this sweet spot of like totally mismanaged country, but enough tech that young people are like able to like kind of use their phones correctly for this. That's like that sweet spot where you get a high per capita.
- [35:04]
B
Yeah, I mean, and just building on this because you tweeted it yesterday and I mean, I think you've gone through the sort of tradfi reasons why they don't get it, but you said the crypto natives underestimate tradfi and tradfi natives underestimate crypto and that the two worlds will slowly merge. What does that look like? I mean, like keeping on this thread. What are the catalysts that will get the two sides to understand each other? I think.
- [35:33]
A
Yeah, I think generally, first of all, this is a battle for intermediaries. It doesn't really impact bitcoin. Bitcoin's still doing its thing, but the people who are going to get it for you because you're too lazy to get it on your own, to be honest, it is full of friction. That's where the battle is. So what I'm really saying is that bitcoin itself is a little too complicated and frictiony for an old person to use. They got to work on interfaces that are better, that are seamless, and don't cost anything. Like I can use fantasy football. It doesn't cost me anything. I just put my email into Yahoo and it's very easy. I can change my lineup. I taught like my 11 year old, he's now 15, but I taught him when he was 11. It was very easy. They need that for bitcoin. They have developed that these crypto exchanges have developed something that's somewhat fantasy football easy, but they charged like 1% per trade. So I think what's going to happen is tradfi is going to come along and do the fantasy football easy, but for almost no fee. And that's going to take over, but the access is still to the underlying crypto. So you going to be bringing in probably more money. So in a way, the golden goose is the crypto, but the way to get it is going to be more tradfi, I think, than the tip, the intermediaries. Now the only thing I think is, should be people who really want people to be more on chain is just to look at how easy the ETFs are and say, how can we match this? You know, because I, I'm pretty with it. I work with James on this book and I was like, okay, if I'm going to write a book on this, I've got to try to get bitcoin myself. And it was clunky. Probably took me three or four hours to get the bank statement or the bank account, transfer the money, get the Ledger wallet. The Ledger app, by the way, gives you some choices, but they're all 1.5% or more just to move your money over. And then I was confused on like sending it from the, from the exchange to the Ledger app. And then on the app it doesn't even. It's not even that clear what I'm doing. The app could be the thing itself, this hard digital wallet. It's kind of cool, but it's like, I don't know, like my ipod back in the day was way more intuitive. So like, I just, I feel like all of that has to be way easier. So I think TradFi could actually help with that. We'll see. But they're certainly going to play the intermediary role better. They've done it with stocks, they've done it with bonds. This is what they do.
- [38:25]
B
Yeah, I mean, shameless plug for bitkey here. But they just launched their new wallet. It's like, okay, this is a ux. I'm happy to have designers and hardware developers like those at Square to.
- [38:37]
A
I have this wallet. I don't know if you can see that. Can you see the picture? Yeah, yeah, that's the image I got for boomers. So when I go to these crypto conferences, I'm like, I have this chart where I'm like, the boomers are going to be better Hodlers than you think. And then I flash this chart and I'm like, do we look like we cans to you, sonny? Because I'm like, they've seen some shit. They've lived through a lot of cycles of stocks and oil and all this stuff and wars and they've seen it all, you know, not only that, but their allocation is smaller so they can probably handle more volume given it's not their whole nest egg. But anyway, I do think they enjoy getting trolled over that because they. On one hand they're a little. A little too cool for school. Assuming everybody who uses an ETF is an old person. It's not. I just play into that and so I like that. That's. Anyway just some backstory on that picture because I just like that. Hardened looking boomers.
- [39:47]
B
All right, freaks.
- [39:48]
A
You know me.
- [39:49]
B
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- [42:38]
A
Yeah, it's very rare to be. I mean, unless you're Vanguard. Vanguard is special. They just get the money no matter what's happening. Their investors are like Hodlers on steroids. In fact, they're probably. I mean from what I've seen, they're better than the bitcoin people. But. And the reason why, by the way, the reason why Vanguard people are so good about never panicking is they they feel like they're married to their fund and they've got the best partner. So imagine like pick up your dream partner, Sydney Sweeney, whatever.
- [43:22]
B
My wife.
- [43:22]
A
There you go. Good answer. Anyway, you feel like I couldn't do any better if I wanted. And they are married to V, they are married to vti. They don't think there's a better deal out there. And that's powerful and that really helps. And to me, that's a little bit about ibit for bitcoin. I think people like, this is a really good deal. Bitcoin people, I think might mean they're pretty good, obviously, and they've seen drawdowns that are really bad. And the fact that it's come back all those times is really impressive. So I can't knock them at all. But I bet taking in money, even though it's down, is rare. Normally only Vanguard does that and only areas that are quote beta, which would be like a market cap weighted index of stocks or bonds. Those would be like stuff to be in your core of your portfolio. The hot sauce bucket, which people used to decorate with some speculative stuff. Those tend to be more flighty. So for example, I don't know, 10 years ago, there was this huge craze for currency hedging. A lot of people piled in. It worked to buy international stocks, but short the dollar or hedge it out. And then it stopped working. The unhedged ones started to outperform and a lot of people left. That ark, had a little of that ark, went wild. People bought it. And then like half the people left, ESG was a little bit. So there's always these, like, flavors of the month, hot sauce stuff. Bitcoin did not really have the same experience. It seems more permanent. Yes, 9% of people left, but for a 50% drawdown, that's really good. And so that 9%, there's only one number that really matters. It's like the equivalent of like batting average in baseball. Basically. It's the cumulative net flows lifetime. So over the years, they've gone up and up 30, 40, 50. They got to 62 billion of net net. The reason that number is hard is because it's net of people leaving. And they went down to 52 or 53, something like that. Well, they're now back up to 60. They've almost completely filled that hole. And couple more days like this or a week, they're going to break through to the 62 point and start breaking new ground in what is the most hard number. And to do that refresh off a 50% drawdown, it's not like it's gone up another 100% or 80%. It's gone up 20%. It's pretty good, but that's very impressive. The key to ETF category growth is not how much you take in when the times are good. That's Important, but it's how much do you retain when the times are bad over time. This is a very, very strong showing here. I think you're in good shape if you're a bitcoiner worried about this. I think most of these people, you can tell from the flows, have decided to allocate and not trade. This to me is much more of a debasement hedge and a portfolio diversifier than it is a FOMO trade like it might have been five, ten years ago.
- [46:31]
B
Yeah. How much of that do you think is driven? I mean, just to steel, man, this Is there potential that it's coincidental that this is happening? Because around the same time you have Morgan Stanley coming out launching their ETF, you have portfolio recommendations coming out increasing from 1% to 2% to 5% depending on the RIA or bank that you ask. There seems to be new entrants and obviously stuff going on in D.C. in terms of the. Seems like we may be on the cusp of another sort of regulatory go signal here. How much of that is being driven by just a validation via these new products and what may be a stamp of approval from the government?
- [47:29]
A
A little. I think those are catalysts that are helpful. I think. I just think the bigger fundamental reason to buy it is those two things I mentioned. For ETF people. It's a scarce asset that can hedge to basement. Almost everybody is onto this. They're like, yeah, the government loves to spend money. It's an easy way out of problems to deal with problems. So that's pretty powerful fundamentally and that's not going away. So the other idea is that people generally like to have things in their portfolio that are different. And so those two things combined are why people are buying them. The traders might be, you know, trading around these narratives of the, you know, the legislation. But what I think generally happened is I don't know how much any catalyst news wise is going to move the needle. You know how it seems like it does go up in like inches, but nothing's giving a God candles like back in the day. And I think the reason for that is in 2022 and 2023, that's 24 months, the price went up 450% on ETF excitement. But really a lot of narratives that played out were baked in. People were like, wait, if blackrock does it, then Fidelity does it. One of Morgan Stanley. And they really went all the way down the line. They're like, this could be, this is it, we're finally arriving into mainstream America. Well, over the next it got a little ahead of its skis at 450%. That's way above normalcy. And so I think some people sold because they wanted to sort of like front run the cycle or whatever. But as the narratives came out they didn't move the needle because it would already priced in I think. So now I think you're at 80, 83 and it seems like from here I don't think there'll be any crazy runs up. I think it'll be a grind up based on the slow spreading of the ETFs, the brokerage platforms. It would have to be something like, I don't know, maybe the US government announces a huge strategic reserve bigger than what we thought and China matches. That might move the needle because that's not really baked into the narrative of Wall street adoption. But all of this stuff like government and Wall street adoption is pretty baked in. I think you would have to take something that's maybe completely different. So I think maybe you might see like a little bit day to day of the price movement. But I don't know, that's just my read on it. I don't think headlines are just going to move it that much when it comes to these like you know, so and so company doing this or the government putting this. I just, I don't know, it just seems like you already got the returns for that frankly. I mean IBIT still is up 75% since launching or something like that. It might be 80 and it's also up, I don't know, like 200% since BlackRock filed. That's a nice run for like three or four years, right? That's like what is that around 40, 50% annualized with the drawdown. So in a sense all that was rewarded. It just happened to be so high and there was a Kingda ka roller coaster in great adventure. It went up too high. When it comes down, people are pissed because it came from up here. But honestly you're still like this. And so I always tell people and the media is like oh my God, it's over. I'm like not really like if you, if you draw a line from where it was to here, even though it went like this, it's still like this. But you know how everybody gets like has recency bias and compares everything to like the last month and it's short sighted stock investors don't do this as much. I mean a little, but I don't know it. I just, I try to tell some of the crypto people who seem like upset about it. I'm like, would you. Let's say I can go back in time and take 200% of the 450% and take it out of those two years and like, spread it around the next two years. Would you rather have that? A lot of them say, no, they'd rather have that exciting move up. And I'm like, either way, you're getting in the same spot.
- [51:41]
B
Adrenaline junkies. No, again, I wanted to steal mana because I wanted to see if there's a different perspective. I agree with you. In fact, earlier today, somebody tweeted out question for anyone bullish on bitcoin here, Name the catalyst, the specific event, the market is front running. And I quote, tweeted, like, imagine waiting for a catalyst when you understand the fundamental value prop, which aligns with what you just said in terms of. Once you see it and it's a debasement hedge in your mind, you're just going to allocate and hold.
- [52:07]
A
Yeah. There's something about this asset that it pisses a certain kind of person off. Like I call them high priests. This asset pisses off high priests. And that's a positive thing, in my opinion. I didn't know much about it, but I definitely saw it irking the right people. And I was like, oh. I felt like some camaraderie with it. Even though I had no idea what it was. I was like, it just bothered real, you know? You know who I'm talking about? Like certain buddy duddies, like, it just really got into their skin and like, I don't think they'll ever get it. I'm not sure what else you need to see, but, you know, you. To be fair, most of them probably have the same view of gold too. But this gets them even worse because it's like new kid on the block. It's getting a lot of tension. It's taking away from their. They're high priest preaching, you know what I mean? And so they don't like it. It's like, who? What's this thing down the block getting all the attention? I'm here trying to give you all a sermon. And I don't like that. And I like that. I think anything that does that is good, it tends to be good and lasting. So I definitely understand that idea of people just throwing out these random questions. But if you look at the money supply, it's gone from 11 trillion to like 23 in like 10 years. And it's hard. And when Doge came out, the Elon thing and here you Had a new elected president with like a lot of, you know, once you win an election you have like a lot of like, what do you call that? Not goodwill, but like you have a little extra power because you just got in so you can start doing things quickly that are a little abrupt. So they had that going on and Elon, who's obviously richest guy in the world and very smart and they couldn't really do much to make the government more efficient. And this was like people who wanted to do it. And so I'm like, wow, if that didn't work, I just don't see anything stopping this gigantic huge flow of money. I'm not sure how this plays out, but Bitcoin feels like as this guy, he's an author, but he's just a regular investor who wrote a book, Ben Hart, he calls it the second amendment of money. Basically it's the similar concept to the second Amendment. It's protection from your own government. In this case protecting yourself from their debasement. To me that's a very clear message that is totally intact. It doesn't need any more catalysts. That's why I don't really get carried away with short term price movements or the latest headlines or trying to decipher it all. But I do, like I said, I do think some of the people who were early, having them stick to that is useful because just to remind people that we're not just buying this because of some headline that might happen. It's really this all that's gravy, right? The main purpose is this thing. So anyway, that's a. I think that's probably the right answer. That's what I would think. But the media also has to write stories. So they're going to write like when it goes up, it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. When it goes down, it has no purpose. Just. I don't know if there's any way to stop that whole thing. But yeah, we'll see. Maybe. I mean ETFs went through a little of this same process. They also, a lot of they were pirate ship at first suits came in. Some ETFs had issues like this one Vix. ETF had a problem. It kind of tainted. I've seen this happen with this industry, similar fashion. But ultimately things that are cool, things that are good, things that people believe in, tend to just grow over time. It's not that complicated. You know, we, we like to use that midwit meme, you know the guy, the bell curve who's like, you know he's in like a, he's a fit. He's all these, he's got like this whole essay written about how, how all this is wrong. And then like the Jedi and the dummy are like US stocks are good. US stocks are good. Like it's just not that complicated. Like there are certain investments that if you, you know, if they're good and you like them, like don't, don't go midwit. It's like overthinking things. It's almost a total investment killer simply because it takes a lot of patience to win. Right. So you're going to just not over overthink it sometimes. That's generally from my experience in this industry has been my philosophy is overthinking can be really lethal.
- [57:12]
B
Yeah, completely agree and it is curious. Like don't mid curve it and but the, the question has lingered in my mind for, for many years now. Like at what point thinking of the media, naysayers and those in tradfi and precious metals, like you mentioned that people still view gold this way. Like why hold it? Why hold it? I'm giving a sermon over here, but part of me like there has to be a threshold out there whether it's time bitcoin's been up and running and sustained a trajectory of price growth or market cap that people have to recognize like okay, this thing's not going anywhere. It doesn't make sense to, to try to try to besmirch it and convince people from turning away from it because where X amount of years in and that hasn't come true.
- [58:07]
A
Yeah, I'm not sure about that. I Gold. The one thing you have to respect about gold is how long it's lasted. You know it, it's been around since before dirt basically. I mean it's mentioned the Bible 400 times. You know, literally like Jesus is like basically throwing gold coins. You know, I mean it's very. It's actually anything that's been able to last through that many cycles, I got to tip my hat now. I think gold and bitcoin will probably just exist together. There's plenty of big stocks that can exist together. There's also international stocks which can exist with US stocks. It's ok. I also have this. I catch vibes from the gold and bitcoin crowd. Very, very similar to the movie Step Brothers. You know when they first meet and they're like obviously they don't like each other because they're in competition for the same parents affection. So they're like constantly like crapping on each other and sabotaging each other. But then there's a moment in the movie where they're like, wait a second, we actually have a lot in common. And he's like, did we become best friends? And it's like, yeah, let's go do karate in the basement. I just feel like gold and bitcoin, there could be some day where they just, they actually align because they have almost the same fundamental message. They're just competing for the same slug of the portfolio to a degree. I don't know if that'll happen, but it's possible. And I don't see gold going away. I just see bitcoin living alongside of it. There could be some catalyst that shows everybody why not having to gold is tricky to move around borders and whatnot. There could be some catalyst where people like really see the sort of transport ability of bitcoin that those catalysts have happened in other countries. People who are in countries with dictators know exactly why you can't really just leave the border with your money. But for developed market people, I don't think they have any. Like, something will need to happen that will show people that that trait is really that important. Until then, I think what we're going to have is just like maybe some of the more conservative institutional types lean on gold still and then you have people using bitcoin or both. I just don't know. I don't know if gold, like I said, it's just hard for me to bet against gold given it's got like a 5,000 year track record. I've just,
- [60:43]
B
hey, I have my gold holdings, you know. And here at tftc, we recognize that we are ideologically aligned with the gold bugs and we welcome the gold bugs and have good conversations with them. Because to your point, we're simpatico on most issues as it pertains to monetary policy and the thoughts behind sound money in general. We're stronger together than fighting over the slug of the portfolio.
- [61:11]
A
But
- [61:14]
B
with that said, I know we're coming up on an hour here. I want to be respectful of your time, but with the emergence of Morgan Stanley, other players, obviously Vanguard hasn't released their own etf, but last year they allowed their customer to access other Bitcoin ETFs outside of their own products. What are you looking forward to? Or what are some, I don't want to say predictions, but what are you looking out for between now and the end of the year as it pertains to Bitcoin ETFs specifically now that the competition seems to be increasing.
- [61:50]
A
Yeah, I think first thing that comes to mind is Goldman Sachs and BlackRock are rolling out Bitcoin Premium Income ETFs. Both of these should be definitely watched. These are the most interesting potentially potent new launches since Morgan Stanley. And Morgan Stanley was the most interesting one since BlackRock. So I think the guy running Goldman, the ETF business, he built Equity Premium Income ETFs while at JP Morgan into a, you know, it's now a $200 billion thing. This is basically writing call options on your equities. The big ETF he built was called Jeppy and Jeff. He's like 40, 50 billion, something like that. And then Jeff Q, which is on the Qs, that's like another 30 billion. He's the one who filed for this. So can this guy Jeppy eyes bitcoin. At the same time you have BlackRock who only filed for Ethereum Bitcoin. They filed for a bitcoin equity premium income. And we know how big IBIT is. So you have both of those people entering this category that up to this point exists, but it only has a billion dollars because all the other issuers are pretty small like Neos and Roundhill. These are two heavyweights coming in with very good track records of raising assets. And the idea of having Bitcoin with like guardrails and income is going to appeal to certain people. So that's probably the biggest thing that's going on. The other one might be just some of these other coins are coming out like hyper liquid and I can't remember the other ones, but there's new coins of course. Will one of these coins catch fire and like have this shiny object moment where everyone's like oh actually that's, that's interesting. For now, all the coins that have come out after Bitcoin and Ether and Solana, they're slowly diminishing returns and interest. But is there some new coin in the sort of like second level tier that is going to have like a major breakout? I don't know. Those are two things I'm watching I guess. But there's 150 Bitcoin or crypto ETFs filed, but those are the ones that I'm most interested in monitoring. The other thing would just be watching these brokerages get into a fee war back in the day, five years ago, seven years ago, geez. Fidelity and Schwab were in a little tiff over like commission free and Vanguard was involved. I won't go into details but like basically they used to charge you like certain amount of money for a trade for a stock. And then Schwab was like, you know what, screw it, we'll go commission free. And then Fidelity, who has real problems with Schwab, they're like, certain people are like heated competitors. So Schwab went free and then Phillip's like, okay, we gotta go free now. Fidelity makes money by selling you active management. Schwab makes money by taking your cash on hand and investing it in a higher earning money market fund by only giving you a little bit. That's interest income. So these firms figured out other ways to make money, but they can give you stock trading for free. And then I think it was TD at the time. They all went zero. And it all happened within about six months. It was like a shot, then a month later another shot. And then the shot started coming quicker. And then when the dust settled, it was like free trading for everybody, for all stocks and ETFs. It was like, I'm going to try to find. I made a timeline of this and it kind of starts slow, but then it turns into a full on brawl. This is going to be interesting. Morgan Stanley just said they're doing 50bps for trade. Schwab said 75. Coinbase obviously higher than that. Who's next? And Schwab tends to like to be cheapest. So Schwab may come in at 40 just to like. It's like price is right where they just try to come in $1 less because they want to go around and say we've got the cheapest crypto trading. So this is going to be interesting. By the time December hits, it could be like, I'm not sure, free, but it's probably going to be like dirt cheap all around.
- [65:58]
B
That's crazy.
- [66:00]
A
It's positive. But I say 95% chance what I just described is going to happen.
- [66:05]
B
Well, that's what. When it comes to Schwab trading, I'm interested to see if they'll let people take Bitcoin in kind if it's simple spot trading. I haven't looked into the details of that.
- [66:15]
A
Yeah, somebody asked me that, will they let you transfer the Bitcoin to your own wallet? I assume yes, because Coinbase allows that. Right. But I'd have to double check. The other question is how many people who use Schwab care? Yeah, I think a crypto person who might want to join like a, you know, mainstream brokerage, they might care, but they probably, again, they've probably got their own system set up, but I don't know. Yeah, there's a, there's a portion of people that will matter for, but I don't think it's that big. But I'll come back to you on that. That's. It's a good question somebody asked and I was like I definitely should know that. But I my hunch is yes.
- [66:57]
B
Yeah. And that actually brings up another point, bringing it back to the beginning of the conversation about the OGs. I think another catalyst was people recognizing that they could get cheaper leverage. Vit and if you're living on bitcoin and you just want to use a margin loan to live your life, I think a lot of people sold to or to give the bitcoin in kind to an ETF to actually I don't think they could do that anyway. They wanted to get cheaper margin loans. One catalyst and one comment about something you said about the bitcoin guardrails. With income, it will be interesting to see if that sucks some of the wind out of the sails A stretch. If you get pure or maybe limited upside exposure to spot bitcoin but also income on top of it, with stretch being the hottest thing on the block in the last couple of months, it will be interesting to see if people like the combo of limited upside plus income more than principal at par plus high income.
- [68:07]
A
Yeah, that will be interesting. I think there's probably room for both to succeed, but I would, I just would never bet against the etf. I mean the Jeppy and Jeff Q. Just the two of them, let alone the rest of the category, are over 100 billion. There's a whole group of ETFs which include equity, premium income and buffers. We call Boomer Candy because if you're an older investor, you have a ton of money but not a lot of time and you don't want to be in cash. So these ETFs come along and they say hey look, trade in some upside for downside protection. And a lot of them like that deal. It's a sleep at night anxiety killer. And so I think these will be pretty big. I don't know if stretch will be probably a little, I don't know. Microstrategy certainly has or strategy has been pretty resilient. Even though the ETFs have been big, they've been done fine. I don't know how many room there is, how many DATs there's room for, but they're certainly not going away and doing fine. They're also very creative about it. It's Very what they're doing. And it's just very artistic really. I mean they're very using the financial levers they have to make interesting ways to get Bitcoin. And obviously some clients appreciate that. And there's also some clients, like for example, who cannot use ETFs. Like in the institutional world there's mandates, but they might be able to use a fixed income instrument. And so I think strategy will serve some of them because even if in that particular case the equity premium income ETF could not be used because it would be seen as an equity. So the idea of turning Bitcoin into an actual fixed income instrument is pretty ingenious and a way to get to certain investors who have these rules and limitations. But the existing ETFs that are premium income, I looked at some of them. Some yield like 10 to 20%, but some yield like 100. And there's going to be a whole spectrum. The one I looked at that came out the same day as the Bitcoin 11 on January 2024 was the Roundhill one. And looked at the two years since it came out, the numbers are pretty good. It's yielded 80% and given you 11% total return per year. So that to me it's about the same of what Jeppy gave you. But Jeppy's yield is only 9%. Again, that total return honestly is all you're getting. So in a way those are equal. But some people just like to get the total return given to them in these bigger chunks. It feels good to have income. So I don't know where Goldman and Blackrock will come out. My guess is a little more conservative than 80. Like they'll give you more upside, you know what I mean? That way they're not giving, you know, I don't know. It's an interesting question to see where they come out. My guess is they would be, I don't know if I had to guess, 20, 30%. That way you get a little more of that potential melt up. We'll see.
- [71:03]
B
Yeah, will be fascinating. We'll be looking out and maybe later this year we can hop back on the mics and do a retrospective on their launches. This was a very fun conversation. It's always a fun conversation when you get to delve into the world of 90s grande bands. So I want to thank you for tickling that fancy for me and everything else. I think you're doing an incredible job. I think in terms of, for lack of a better term, tradfi entrance covering the space in the last five years. I think you and Jeff have been incredible bridges between the tradfi world and bitcoin and doing a great job with your analysis and your coverage and I'm certainly watching it like a hawk and get a lot of value from it. So thank you for that.
- [71:56]
A
Yeah, no thank you. This has helped us build our audience for our analysis, so it's a win win. So appreciate that and thank you for having me on today.
- [72:07]
B
Awesome. We'll do it again at some point in the future. Peace and Love Freaks thank you for listening to this episode of tftc. If you've made it this far, I imagine you got some value out of the episode. If so, please share it far and wide with your friends and family. We're looking to get the word out there also, wherever you're listening, whether that's YouTube, Apple, Spotify, make sure you like and subscribe to the show. And if you can leave a rating on the podcasting platforms, that goes a long way. Last but not least, if you want to get these episodes a day early and ad free, make sure you download the Fountain podcasting app. You can go to Fountain FM to find that $5 a month get you every episode a day early ad free helps. The show gives you incredible value, so please consider subscribing via Fountain as well. Thank you for your time and until next time.