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- [00:00]
Eric
We officially have destroyed environmental fud. And that took like three years of data intensive, systematic, cooperative bitcoiners like coming together and shitting on that fud.
- [00:10]
Co-host / Analyst
But with like the quantum stuff, we.
- [00:11]
Eric
Kind of FUD ourselves.
- [00:13]
Co-host / Analyst
So we're kind of shooting ourselves in the foot a bit. Okay, well, I feel pretty confident bitcoin's.
- [00:17]
Eric
Gonna take the market of gold. Like it has all these properties that are just so much better.
- [00:21]
Co-host / Analyst
A lot of people have probably been.
- [00:23]
Eric
Rotating out of bitcoin into other assets.
- [00:25]
Co-host / Analyst
And that eventually there's gonna be some.
- [00:27]
Eric
Sort of rotation back into bitcoin.
- [00:29]
Co-host / Analyst
That's what we think can really start.
- [00:30]
Eric
To spike things sometime this year.
- [00:33]
Co-host / Analyst
And there's plenty of room within just.
- [00:36]
Eric
That specific market of rotation to move bitcoin's price, you know, to thousand and beyond Bitcoin's Gradual now, and gradual is what leads to a suddenly moment over the next few years. We'll look back on 20, 26 and be like, okay, that's when it started.
- [00:59]
Podcast Host
NOSTR is interesting because it's one of those things where I think that a lot of people just purely aren't going to end up using it until they really need to, or they're going to use it without realizing they're using it. Like, that's what we're seeing with Bitchat right now, where it's like NOSTR is on the back end of Bitchat to enable like the non, the non local side of the comms. And like, you know, bitchat's got like a million monthly active users right now, which is wild. Yeah, but it's like, it's a sign of the times, right? Like, you have to wonder like, did Jack, like, so Jack built it, then Cali ported it over to Android. But like, you have to wonder like, Jack clearly saw the writing on the wall. Like it's been insane to see that kind of like rapid adoption for that just for a totally free, not harvesting your data app. Like, it's kind of like a, it's a, it's a beautiful thing. Really.
- [01:46]
Co-host / Analyst
No, yeah, it's amazing.
- [01:47]
Eric
And like a few points on that.
- [01:50]
Co-host / Analyst
I hit on this point in our.
- [01:51]
Eric
Annual report when I'm talking about different forms of adoption and you know, where Ecash could have like a strong distribution channel through something that's a great, great.
- [02:00]
Co-host / Analyst
It's a great platform for it in.
- [02:01]
Eric
Our like protocol section of the report.
- [02:04]
Co-host / Analyst
Like, that's one of the key takeaways that we put out and like one of the things that I think a.
- [02:09]
Eric
Lot of the, you know, More either like well intentioned technologists of the crypto world believed in of like this fat protocol thesis where you're going to have a token and it's going to earn fees because people need the gas to use your infrastructure. And you know, Chris Dixon, the partner at 18A 16Z, kind of pushed out the read, write own thesis around a.
- [02:32]
Co-host / Analyst
Lot of that and it's like we're.
- [02:33]
Eric
Not seeing that happening and now the.
- [02:35]
Co-host / Analyst
Data is kind of on our side.
- [02:36]
Eric
And Bitcoiners for a long time just assume this intuitively because we think from a very different perspective about the industry.
- [02:43]
Co-host / Analyst
And it just seemed like some extra.
- [02:44]
Eric
Layer of intermediation to have some new token.
- [02:47]
Co-host / Analyst
It's like why use a new token?
- [02:48]
Eric
Why not use money? And, and they're just like forcing you into an alternative form of money that you otherwise would not use. In the same way that like, you know, airlines do that too with points.
- [03:00]
Co-host / Analyst
And, and all these companies that deal with points, it's like, okay, so at best maybe these things are like point systems, but you can really only do that if you're like an oligopoly.
- [03:11]
Eric
And crypto is just like too commoditized. So we've seen like this race to the bottom in terms of like people using the other crypto blockchains for settlement of different applications.
- [03:21]
Co-host / Analyst
And what everybody's realizing now is, oh.
- [03:23]
Eric
It'S really like the applications that matter and nobody really cares about what blockchain it's on and whatever is cheapest in.
- [03:30]
Co-host / Analyst
Terms of fees and nobody gives a.
- [03:31]
Eric
Shit about any of that.
- [03:33]
Co-host / Analyst
And if you have a good application.
- [03:34]
Eric
That needs it as infrastructure for whatever.
- [03:36]
Co-host / Analyst
Reason, then that's what we're going to see. And that's a key point that we.
- [03:40]
Eric
Try to make to a lot of technical founders is that in a variety.
- [03:45]
Co-host / Analyst
Of ways of nobody really gives a shit about the infrastructure.
- [03:49]
Eric
You need to make applications that are leveraging your infrastructure in some sort of novel way and that's what's going to attract the users. And that's what Bitchat was. And that's a huge form of adoption for Nostr's infrastructure. And that's a really good thing.
- [04:05]
Co-host / Analyst
So many things come at the app layer and so much of the value.
- [04:08]
Eric
Is coming at the app layer. And it's like, if we want to.
- [04:10]
Co-host / Analyst
Get that, if you want to have other bitcoin layers be used, then we need to have applications that are using.
- [04:16]
Eric
It in a novel way that are going to attract people without even knowing like, oh, this was the lightning network or, or we used ARC or we used something else.
- [04:24]
Co-host / Analyst
But yeah, we wrote about bitch and.
- [04:26]
Eric
That form of adoption. And that was one thing that surprised me as well.
- [04:34]
Co-host / Analyst
It was funny because I remember when it was first popping up, I love.
- [04:39]
Eric
How much the human rights use case for it has made it go viral and take off.
- [04:45]
Co-host / Analyst
Because when it was first popping up, I was like, oh, what's the most.
- [04:48]
Eric
Obvious reason that I could see in, like, you know, at least more developed economies for people to want to hop on a Bluetooth mesh network and connect with a bunch of people locally? It's like finding drugs at concerts. I was like, that would be a very viral use case for something like bitchat. And I expect that that'll probably still happen. But I love that it's not making its foray into something that's more like, you know, socially critical and into something that's like, very socially defensible for why an application that provides freedom, technology for people, you know, is needed around the world in a very serious way.
- [05:22]
Podcast Host
No, I mean, first of all, well said. And I think it is. It's a. It's an interesting kind of larger point here. And this is. I was talking with David Marcus from lightspark maybe I think right before the kind of holiday break there. And that was one of the things that he was really focused on was like. And that's. I mean, as, you know, you mentioned it, you know, that's really what they're doing over there is trying to figure out, okay, like, we're using. We're thinking of Bitcoin and bitcoin layer two networks as Rails versus thinking about, like, we just want to make stuff that people like. It works better because it's using better technology. It's using technology on top of bitcoin versus, hey, like, we need people to, quote, adopt Bitcoin. It's like they're going to adopt it. Whether they like it or not, they're going to adopt it just because we're using the rails behind the scenes. They don't even know about it. But it's just a better experience with lower fees or faster settlements or whatever it is. And I think this is. This is just a really interesting point to be at because so much of the focus on bitcoin is on just, at least in the Western world is on the store of value side of things. Right? Is on, you know, just protect, like, looking at it as just an investable asset. There's a lot less focus in the Western world, again, not so much in the global south on the medium of exchange side of things or on the payment rail side of things. But, like, these developments are happening. They're very much happening. I just feel like a lot of people really aren't paying attention to it. Is that kind of what your vibe is as well?
- [06:44]
Co-host / Analyst
Yeah, yeah. And so much of it comes down.
- [06:46]
Eric
To, like, what sources are you following? What part of the media is it coming through?
- [06:50]
Co-host / Analyst
But, like, like, these types of concepts, I agree, they, they really only come.
- [06:53]
Eric
Through in, like, the technical community.
- [06:54]
Co-host / Analyst
And, and that was another big thing.
- [06:56]
Eric
That we hit on in the report. We had this whole section called Bitcoin Media, and we did that with Fernando, who's running marketing at Blockstream formerly. Now he has this new website called Perception. That's really, really cool.
- [07:08]
Co-host / Analyst
And, and he's just doing a ton.
- [07:10]
Eric
Of meta analysis on, like, every form.
- [07:13]
Co-host / Analyst
Of bitcoin attention that exists and what it's like across different media channels and.
- [07:20]
Eric
How, how, how can we think and, like, have creative ideas around that. Like in the report, we hid in how massive the gap is between, like.
- [07:26]
Co-host / Analyst
The bitcoiner demographic who goes to bitcoin.
- [07:30]
Eric
Conferences and listens to bitcoin podcasts, and what their current perception is of bitcoin.
- [07:34]
Co-host / Analyst
Based on that, versus, like, some investor.
- [07:38]
Eric
In New York who reads about bitcoin.
- [07:41]
Co-host / Analyst
Through, like, a BlackRock blog post or.
- [07:43]
Eric
Through general financial media and what their current perception of bitcoin is. And there's like this massive gap between people's perceptions based off of that.
- [07:53]
Co-host / Analyst
And, and yeah, so, like in, in.
- [07:55]
Eric
The media section, when we're getting into a lot of these things, that's.
- [07:58]
Co-host / Analyst
That's like one of the narratives that.
- [08:00]
Eric
We pulled out of it for the technical community is when people talk about, like, layer two or Lightning, it's like, that's just like this huge GTM trap.
- [08:10]
Co-host / Analyst
Nobody knows what that means.
- [08:11]
Eric
Nobody cares what that means. If you're talking in those terms, your market of visibility is the technical community. And that's not what's going to, you know, build your app for you. You need to be reaching out to general consumers, that, or, you know, institutions that are actually using this.
- [08:27]
Co-host / Analyst
And, and that's kind of the problem is because a lot of thinking around.
- [08:31]
Eric
These things has originated from us building the infrastructure. Everybody still holds that frame of talking about it from the point of view of the infrastructure.
- [08:39]
Co-host / Analyst
And I feel like we're going through a shift where the market's forcing everybody.
- [08:42]
Eric
To realize, well, here's what we actually care about. And don't talk about things in terms of what your infrastructure, you're Using.
- [08:50]
Co-host / Analyst
Nobody says no guy is downloading Instagram because he, it wants to use HTTPs and like, you know, it's, it's. Then that sounds ridiculous to us now.
- [09:02]
Eric
Because now we have this whole app layer built out and we know exactly why a guy downloads Instagram, probably because he wants to scroll through like cars and booms and stuff. And like that's the consumer motivation that you're looking at.
- [09:13]
Co-host / Analyst
And, and that needs to be applied.
- [09:15]
Eric
More to bitcoin companies. Just really thinking from that framework. And yeah, I definitely agree with David's perspective on a lot of this because he brings kind of like the broader like tech learnings and culture into our industry and I think that's valuable. Yeah.
- [09:28]
Podcast Host
You know, so I was thinking about the way to, best way to structure this conversation just because I think there's so much stuff in this report to be able to cover. And I was kind of wondering, you let me know what you think on this. But I almost want to go through kind of some of the predictions that you guys put forward in the report and use that as kind of the jumping off point for us in the larger conversations because they're like, it's a really. I like that you started out the report with that. It's like a nice way to kind of okay the tldr. Here, here's what we think is going to happen. Now you can get into the meat and potatoes, what that actually means.
- [09:58]
Co-host / Analyst
Yeah.
- [09:58]
Podcast Host
First of all, for people who want to maybe download the report and read along if they're listening to this, where, where should they find this to be able to download it?
- [10:05]
Co-host / Analyst
Yeah, just on our website.
- [10:06]
Eric
Epoch VC IO. So that's EpochVC IO.
- [10:10]
Co-host / Analyst
You go to the writing section in there.
- [10:12]
Eric
It's the one at the top.
- [10:14]
Podcast Host
Okay, awesome. So, so yeah, let's, if that sounds good with you, let's, let's start there because the very, the very first line in that, in that prediction section has a nice little, you know, kind of tongue in cheek joke in it too for bitcoiners. But the one, the price of bitcoin reaches at least 150,000 Federal Reserve notes backed by the full faith and declining credit of the US government. So starting off with the price prediction, bold. This is, you know, 2026 predictions. Overall there's a quite a wide swath of them. But let's talk about that from a vibes perspective because a lot of people right now seem to think they're watching.
- [10:50]
Sponsor / Advertiser
Gold Run, they're watching Silver Run.
- [10:52]
Podcast Host
And I think people have two different reactions to this One is like me, I'm saying, boy, can you believe how many people are piling into gold and silver at what is going to probably be a local top? And you know, wow, shocking. And the other people saying, boy, I'm about to pile into gold and silver because, look, bitcoin's not doing anything. What, what's your read on this? 150k? I'd say that's. I mean it's almost doubling from here, but that puts you. It's a pretty like it's conservative to strong in terms of the prediction. How did you guys arrive at that?
- [11:21]
Co-host / Analyst
So what's helpful is for me to.
- [11:24]
Eric
Give the audience like context on my framework of thinking around this. And you know, coming from like the traditional finance world.
- [11:34]
Co-host / Analyst
You know, there's like.
- [11:35]
Eric
The saying that, you know, the only certainty you get from using any sort of model is that it's wrong.
- [11:41]
Co-host / Analyst
And that's the case for like any.
- [11:43]
Eric
Sort of financial projection prediction about the.
- [11:46]
Co-host / Analyst
Future in most things in traditional finance that are often viewed by people as.
- [11:51]
Eric
A form of science, very fundamental forms of modeling like capital asset pricing model or discounted cash flow valuations, and all these different tools that are used by Wall street guys to determine what the fundamental value of some sort of asset is worth.
- [12:07]
Co-host / Analyst
They'Re just an aggregation of.
- [12:08]
Eric
A ton of assumptions about the future.
- [12:11]
Co-host / Analyst
And it really brings, and I think.
- [12:12]
Eric
What the bitcoin community is called into question about a of things when we have these new assets trading that have been so heavily criticized over the years.
- [12:19]
Co-host / Analyst
It calls these, you know, thing, these.
- [12:22]
Eric
Models that are viewed as a science.
- [12:24]
Co-host / Analyst
Into question because for the first time.
- [12:26]
Eric
We have new, very novel assets to now value.
- [12:29]
Co-host / Analyst
And then the question becomes, well, what, what really is speculative?
- [12:33]
Eric
When people would, you know, criticize bitcoin as being a speculative asset, it's like.
- [12:37]
Co-host / Analyst
Well, what is speculative? And speculative, I think really means in.
- [12:40]
Eric
Like modern parlance to people what they're.
- [12:42]
Co-host / Analyst
Intending it to mean is it, it.
- [12:44]
Eric
Has a lot of speculation in it by some, you know, arbitrary consideration.
- [12:49]
Co-host / Analyst
Like, we know that if a company.
- [12:51]
Eric
Has been producing a significant amount of cash flow for decades on end, I'm much more certain that they'll do it again next year than a company that's never done it before.
- [13:00]
Co-host / Analyst
And so like one might actually still.
- [13:02]
Eric
Produce the same amount of cash flow in a year as like a startup.
- [13:05]
Co-host / Analyst
And it'll blow up. But it's hard based on the historical.
- [13:10]
Eric
Precedent to like look at that.
- [13:12]
Co-host / Analyst
And I think that like, that type.
- [13:14]
Eric
Of framing of like, what truly is.
- [13:15]
Co-host / Analyst
Something speculative is I think it's important to understand because in bitcoin, when I.
- [13:21]
Eric
Was first introduced to it, I took my background in finance with my, you know, undergraduate education. I was a CFA charter holder.
- [13:30]
Co-host / Analyst
So I got, you know, deepest into this and then on top of that, you know, with kind of like the.
- [13:36]
Eric
Deepest financial education outside of like going into like PhDs or something that don't really matter in finance.
- [13:40]
Co-host / Analyst
But I, When I viewed something like bitcoin, it's. I had this large background in my.
- [13:48]
Eric
Prior job in like valuation, like valuing really esoteric things for like, you're in like a litigation or something, and you need to say in front of like a judge in a court, this is what the value of it is. And that's like very precise and technical based on like the very precise technical theory. And I had a lot of experience with that.
- [14:06]
Co-host / Analyst
And when I would think through all of that and I first heard about.
- [14:09]
Eric
Bitcoin, like, my first reaction wasn't like, oh, I hate bitcoin.
- [14:11]
Co-host / Analyst
This thing's stupid. I didn't understand it because it was.
- [14:14]
Eric
Pitched to me as like a blockchain technology.
- [14:15]
Co-host / Analyst
And I was just like, I don't know, it's a speculative investment.
- [14:19]
Eric
Like, it doesn't produce cash flow. I don't. That's not the type of investing I do. I don't. I don't know how to, you know, come up with a framework of assessing what it's actually worth and then whether or not it's over undervalued.
- [14:29]
Co-host / Analyst
And that caused me to like, write.
- [14:31]
Eric
Bitcoin off for years.
- [14:33]
Co-host / Analyst
And what gave me a good framework.
- [14:35]
Eric
For doing that is really, I think it's.
- [14:38]
Co-host / Analyst
Well, you need to get deep into.
- [14:40]
Eric
Understanding the fundamental characteristics of Bitcoin. And when you do that and when you understand, here are the fundamental properties that make it good. It is scarce. It is, you know, highly portable. It's highly divisible. It's all these different monetary properties that make something a good money.
- [14:55]
Co-host / Analyst
And when you get deep into that, you realize, okay, well, what is the.
- [14:58]
Eric
Size of the market of money? And then we've had a bunch of people in the industry put out different versions of what those sizes are. And if it, you know, consumes the.
- [15:08]
Co-host / Analyst
Market of gold, if it consumes.
- [15:10]
Eric
Consumes the market of real estate to some percentage, if it starts to take a lot of share from stocks and bonds, we can get into these really, really big numbers.
- [15:19]
Co-host / Analyst
And all of a sudden the numbers just become so big when you think about it, that it's not even worth talking about. It's just like me deciding whether it's worth 80 trillion or 200 trillion really.
- [15:29]
Eric
Doesn'T make a difference from here. All that tells you is buy it and hold it for a long time until that happens.
- [15:36]
Co-host / Analyst
And that's once you get to that.
- [15:38]
Eric
Framework of thinking which is like, for.
- [15:39]
Co-host / Analyst
Like the, you know, more technical crowd.
- [15:41]
Eric
That's a top down analysis. Like you take a top down perspective.
- [15:44]
Co-host / Analyst
Of what's the total size. Let's think through these little details.
- [15:48]
Eric
Okay. We can get down to like a.
- [15:49]
Co-host / Analyst
Smaller version of that of like, okay, well I feel pretty confident bitcoin's going.
- [15:53]
Eric
To take the market of gold. Like it has all these properties that are just so much better.
- [15:57]
Co-host / Analyst
Sure, there's some segments of the gold market that are distinct from bitcoin.
- [16:02]
Eric
They are used in like electronics or for some sort of utility or it's.
- [16:05]
Co-host / Analyst
Used in jewelry, you know, and there's, it's not going to take all of gold but it's going to take some.
- [16:09]
Eric
Very large percentage of the monetary premium of gold of people holding gold simply because it's scarce and they think it'll go up.
- [16:16]
Co-host / Analyst
And so that's like a pretty easy bet to make.
- [16:19]
Eric
And it's just like, okay, let's make that. Okay, what are we looking at now on that? We're looking at like what is that like a, you know, 1020x here? I don't even know. Now the gold's across 5000, right?
- [16:30]
Co-host / Analyst
It's way up there. So it's like cool, 1020x just to take the market of gold.
- [16:33]
Eric
And then there's a lot more to run after that easy decision.
- [16:38]
Co-host / Analyst
So that's the fundamental framework.
- [16:40]
Eric
That's how I think about bitcoin.
- [16:42]
Co-host / Analyst
And then what a lot of people in the community do is they'll create.
- [16:47]
Eric
These models where they say it must follow some sort of law.
- [16:49]
Co-host / Analyst
And we've been through different versions of this over time.
- [16:53]
Eric
We had stock to flow model and then people watch that break and then.
- [16:57]
Co-host / Analyst
People look at power law distributions and it's not to say that there isn't some sort of truth or indication towards it, but I think a lot of people start to view these things as.
- [17:08]
Eric
Like a causal model.
- [17:09]
Co-host / Analyst
And it's just like no, bitcoin has like some characteristic that is tied to.
- [17:13]
Eric
This variable and it's probably tracked it.
- [17:15]
Co-host / Analyst
To a degree because of that. And if enough people start to believe.
- [17:18]
Eric
That for a period of time, then it starts to become this self fulfilling.
- [17:22]
Co-host / Analyst
Prophecy and then eventually that breaks. Like you watch, that's like Robert Shiller.
- [17:28]
Eric
Wrote this book who was like a Nobel Prize winning PhD type economist Guy and narrative economics.
- [17:35]
Co-host / Analyst
And you kind of go into that of like narratives. You kind of get this like fun.
- [17:38]
Eric
Time in the sun with a narrative.
- [17:40]
Co-host / Analyst
And then eventually it will break once.
- [17:41]
Eric
It starts to become circular and people are aware that it's like this narrative.
- [17:45]
Co-host / Analyst
And, and that's kind of how I.
- [17:48]
Eric
Think about it with a lot of these models.
- [17:49]
Co-host / Analyst
So like in the report to like tie all that back to this, you.
- [17:53]
Eric
Know, question of how did we get to this prediction?
- [17:57]
Co-host / Analyst
Like I, I never like believed in.
- [18:00]
Eric
We have these like four year cycles that are just going to continue at best it's a self fulfilling narrative and, and, and eventually that's going to break at some point.
- [18:09]
Co-host / Analyst
So we could say either it was at one end of the spectrum spurious correlation, it was just completely by chance.
- [18:18]
Eric
That it started to follow halving cycles with its price.
- [18:21]
Co-host / Analyst
And, and like if you go to.
- [18:24]
Eric
This website that we have flagged in the report, it's like spurious correlations.com it's a really funny website to go to. You can look at all the different spurious corre that exists in the world.
- [18:33]
Co-host / Analyst
And you, you wouldn't believe how many.
- [18:34]
Eric
Things very closely track completely unrelated variables. So like that's one end of the spectrum of thinking. And then I think at the other.
- [18:41]
Co-host / Analyst
End of the spectrum it's like okay, maybe there was a self fulfilling prophecy in the narrative.
- [18:47]
Eric
And then well okay, that's broken now.
- [18:49]
Co-host / Analyst
So whether it's cycles never happened or cycles are officially broken, like the way.
- [18:57]
Eric
That we're thinking about it now is.
- [19:00]
Co-host / Analyst
We'Re going to have this macro backdrop.
- [19:02]
Eric
That'S always going to be impacting things. There's you know, Luke Roman's making a case for certain like legitimate variables that could have happened.
- [19:10]
Co-host / Analyst
It's not something that I view as.
- [19:12]
Eric
Primarily causal despite the historical liquidity correlation.
- [19:16]
Co-host / Analyst
And like the reason I'll explain that.
- [19:19]
Eric
Is kind of based on our second prediction in the report after this 150,000 price prediction.
- [19:25]
Co-host / Analyst
And that said, you know, we predict that we'll look back on 2026 and say that was probably the year that.
- [19:33]
Eric
Bitcoin started decoupling from. Either you could think about it as it's correlation with liquidity or just equities in general, how most people think about it and risk assets broadly.
- [19:44]
Co-host / Analyst
So that won't be obvious because it takes time. But sometime around 2027, 2028, I think.
- [19:50]
Eric
We'Ll end up looking back and be like okay, 2026 was the year that that happened.
- [19:54]
Co-host / Analyst
And the, the short version in the report is I think that we have.
- [20:04]
Eric
This shift happening right now or that.
- [20:06]
Co-host / Analyst
We'Ve seen building over the years and.
- [20:09]
Eric
You know, commodity adoption and we've had.
- [20:12]
Co-host / Analyst
A variety of short term forces that.
- [20:14]
Eric
Have been negatively impacting the price of bitcoin. It's too hard to attribute what came when.
- [20:21]
Co-host / Analyst
But when you look at just how much like mean reversion can ultimately happen, how much like the analogy said, in the industries, bitcoin's a, it's like a ball that's with Aaron at hell or.
- [20:36]
Eric
Like a balloon underwater, you know, like.
- [20:38]
Co-host / Analyst
Yeah, it's eventually going to return to a certain balance. If you kind of look at bitcoin.
- [20:42]
Eric
Denominated in gold, that story starts to look pretty clear. And it looks like we've just been in a bear market for a period of time. And that the reality is, if you believe in some sort of cycle coming.
- [20:57]
Co-host / Analyst
Out of this, we're getting close to.
- [21:00]
Eric
About 400 days on this bear market when bitcoin's denominated in gold. And that if you look at the.
- [21:08]
Co-host / Analyst
Historical cycles, it starts going up a lot after that. It's not really the way I think about it. People want to look at it directly.
- [21:13]
Eric
On a chart like that. But I think about it from the perspective of commodities are getting a very strong allocation. Bitcoin has these fundamental properties.
- [21:22]
Co-host / Analyst
A lot of people have probably been.
- [21:24]
Eric
Rotating out of bitcoin into other assets.
- [21:26]
Co-host / Analyst
Because of this and that eventually there's.
- [21:29]
Eric
Going to be some sort of rotation back into bitcoin as they start to view those as maturing or they've reached the top of their run, or they start to say, okay, we want to take a little bit of money off the table and start to reallocate as an institution.
- [21:44]
Co-host / Analyst
So I think the gold rotation is.
- [21:46]
Eric
Going to be one of the first dominoes where it's like gold's flying past 5,000 right now.
- [21:51]
Co-host / Analyst
There's going to be a lot of people that look and they say, like, everybody's going to be asking this question.
- [21:55]
Eric
Why is bitcoin still down? When we see the case of commodities increasing so significantly and becoming so strong.
- [22:04]
Co-host / Analyst
And we have over a decade worth.
- [22:06]
Eric
Of data to look at that structural shift. Like, we know that this is a persistent trend in markets at this point.
- [22:12]
Co-host / Analyst
So that'll be like the first shift. And like, I think that that's what.
- [22:17]
Eric
We think can really start to spike things sometime this year.
- [22:20]
Co-host / Analyst
And there's plenty of room within just.
- [22:23]
Eric
That specific market of Rotation to move bitcoin's price, you know, to 150,000 and beyond.
- [22:28]
Co-host / Analyst
And then what we do after that is we go into, okay, what are like these pools of capital that are.
- [22:38]
Eric
Large and exist around the world that are also able to flow into bitcoin for a specific reason like that. So we, you know, we go into ETF flows, we go into nation state adoption, we go into wealth management firms, we go into, you know, broader asset.
- [22:55]
Co-host / Analyst
Management firms, and we look at if they had certain percentages of allocation that.
- [22:59]
Eric
Started moving into it, what do those numbers look like?
- [23:01]
Co-host / Analyst
And to the point I was making earlier about the market sizing of bitcoin, the numbers are so large that it.
- [23:08]
Eric
Doesn'T really merit discussion.
- [23:09]
Co-host / Analyst
Like, these things are big and people.
- [23:11]
Eric
Like to see them in charts. Here you go, here's a chart.
- [23:15]
Co-host / Analyst
And I think that tying all that together, it's like, okay, so what is.
- [23:22]
Eric
The fundamental characteristic that starts to make that happen?
- [23:25]
Co-host / Analyst
And the key thing we call out.
- [23:26]
Eric
In the report is bitcoin's declining volatility. That's this very persistent trend where we can witness it continuing to decline.
- [23:35]
Co-host / Analyst
And we're at a point now where, you know, bitcoin is less volatile than.
- [23:39]
Eric
Some of these major equities that a lot of people own, you know, like Nvidia and Tesla.
- [23:44]
Co-host / Analyst
And like, we have this chart kind.
- [23:46]
Eric
Of laying that out of how, you know, the 2025 volatility of Bitcoin was much less than those even despite its poor price performance during that period. And, you know, and it's owned by like 12% of people within the US were estimating. And like.
- [24:01]
Co-host / Analyst
And then you look at these other stocks and it's like, that's.
- [24:04]
Eric
Like, that stock ownership is closer to like 60% within the US and it's.
- [24:08]
Co-host / Analyst
Like, okay, so people all think, like.
- [24:11]
Eric
If you were to ask anybody, like, you would ask very serious institutional investors, is bitcoin riskier than Nvidia stock?
- [24:21]
Co-host / Analyst
And they'll be like, yes.
- [24:22]
Eric
Like, you know, they'll far and away.
- [24:24]
Co-host / Analyst
Believe that there's kind of like this.
- [24:25]
Eric
Perception gap where I think the data is changing and bitcoin's volatility is lowering, and it's actually starting to become a bit more of like a safer asset than it once was. From just like a pure volatility standpoint.
- [24:37]
Co-host / Analyst
There's a bunch of other, for people.
- [24:39]
Eric
Listening that want to, you know, give me a gotcha.
- [24:40]
Co-host / Analyst
Like, there's a million other reasons why.
- [24:42]
Eric
Like, bitcoin can't go bankrupt. So it's actually Way safer than companies that can go bankrupt.
- [24:47]
Co-host / Analyst
But putting all that aside, just looking.
- [24:49]
Eric
At the volatility of its price, I think that that shift will start to change things.
- [24:54]
Co-host / Analyst
So what does that mean? That means once people start to correctly.
- [24:59]
Eric
Assess the risk profile of bitcoin as.
- [25:03]
Co-host / Analyst
An asset, that that's when I think.
- [25:07]
Eric
That decoupling moment starts to happen. And I think we're gonna see a lot lower volatility. So this is the narrative in the report. We say, bitcoin's gradual now, and gradual is what leads to a suddenly moment. Like, that's the thing. Bitcoin's price getting boring is exactly what.
- [25:22]
Co-host / Analyst
Sets it up for people to say.
- [25:23]
Eric
Oh, shit, bitcoin's really boring now. Its volatility's a lot lower.
- [25:28]
Co-host / Analyst
And, well, we should be allocating more.
- [25:30]
Eric
Of our portfolios to this.
- [25:31]
Co-host / Analyst
And you look at the sizes of.
- [25:33]
Eric
These pools of capital where a nation.
- [25:34]
Co-host / Analyst
State says, you know, if you're a nation state, and you say, why do I want to have gold over bitcoin? It's because it's got, you know, the capital markets for gold are the deepest.
- [25:44]
Eric
In the world outside of, like, you know, treasury denominated assets.
- [25:48]
Co-host / Analyst
And so if I want to go.
- [25:49]
Eric
Move $200 billion, I can feel very confident that, like, moving that and like, a gold structured product of some sort is not going to move the market.
- [25:57]
Co-host / Analyst
Whereas you go try to move 200.
- [25:58]
Eric
Billion in Bitcoin today, you know, we're talking about 10% of the market capitalization on that move.
- [26:03]
Co-host / Analyst
So that makes it a lot less.
- [26:04]
Eric
Attractive to these guys, to put it.
- [26:07]
Co-host / Analyst
And so lowering the volatility of it.
- [26:10]
Eric
I think, is something that actually comes from it just simply gradually growing over time, having lower volatility, saying, okay, this.
- [26:15]
Co-host / Analyst
Is a bit safer, it starts to get bigger. Okay, now we're not going to move the market as much. And this is something that can actually serve as more of an alternative of.
- [26:26]
Eric
Gold to large sizes of money. And that's like the inflection point, I think.
- [26:31]
Co-host / Analyst
I think if bitcoin gradually grinds up, say, 2 to 4x and we get.
- [26:37]
Eric
Into the, like, you know, 150,000, 250,000.
- [26:40]
Co-host / Analyst
Range, now we're talking about a capital pool that the addressable market for people.
- [26:45]
Eric
Who own gold has just probably not.
- [26:47]
Co-host / Analyst
Just doubled, but because it's a long tail, like the market of, like, who owns gold. It's like the biggest guys own vast majority of it, but quantity wise, most.
- [27:00]
Eric
People own much smaller amounts of gold. Most nations, states, et cetera.
- [27:04]
Co-host / Analyst
So when you double the liquidity of Bitcoin. Now there's a bunch of people who.
- [27:07]
Eric
Are like expecting, oh well, I want to sell 10 billion or 20 billion.
- [27:10]
Co-host / Analyst
When Bitcoin was a $2 trillion asset.
- [27:12]
Eric
That didn't make sense.
- [27:14]
Co-host / Analyst
Now that it's a $5 trillion asset.
- [27:15]
Eric
It'S starting to make a little bit more sense.
- [27:18]
Co-host / Analyst
So I think that there's like multiples.
- [27:20]
Eric
In the market size that it can actually increase that are like now addressable for it as a reserve asset. And that's what leads to this decorrelation and decoupling and like a suddenly moment over time.
- [27:30]
Co-host / Analyst
So like that's kind of our prediction and we kind of see like, we see it moving up in 2026 and it's probably just going to be like.
- [27:36]
Eric
A boring gradual, like it just starts to continue to move up.
- [27:38]
Co-host / Analyst
Maybe it hits that inflection point then. But I think that whenever it does.
- [27:42]
Eric
Hit its suddenly moment over the next few years, that we'll look back on 2026 and be like, okay, that's, that's when it started. And it was because it was so boring that it actually started to make sense for a lot more people to put money into it.
- [27:54]
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- [30:56]
Podcast Host
Stack harder okay, so so and I appreciate that background. So to make sure I understand this, you're actually saying basically like the gradually leads to the suddenly you're not necessarily saying that Bitcoin is going to have diminishing returns in the long run, more so that its volatility has been decreased.
- [31:14]
Sponsor / Advertiser
To a point now where it looks.
- [31:16]
Podcast Host
Like quote stable right to to a lot of investors and that that in fact then leads to okay, it actually has incredible upside potential because now more capital is flowing into it because more capital feels comfortable flowing into it, the liquidity increases in the total market and that sort of is just this self perpetuating cycle that eventually just leads to like that suddenly moment. Is that.
- [31:37]
Co-host / Analyst
Yeah.
- [31:37]
Podcast Host
Is that fair to say? And so so you're not on on the diminishing returns thesis. You're just saying it may look like that in the short term and then you get that point where it's that inflection point. Is that my understanding correctly?
- [31:48]
Co-host / Analyst
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that's right. It's like I think Bitcoin's having diminishing.
- [31:51]
Eric
Returns within the current perception of it of like if you think of the entire universe of investors that are focused on Bitcoin today, which is a very small percentage of the total like investor world within that it's having diminishing returns.
- [32:05]
Co-host / Analyst
By becoming more gradual, becoming more boring.
- [32:07]
Eric
And having more like stability in price, then it starts to open up what other investors are looking at it and.
- [32:14]
Co-host / Analyst
Why and maybe not even the investor.
- [32:16]
Eric
Themselves, but what bucket they're putting it into.
- [32:18]
Co-host / Analyst
Because like so much of this is.
- [32:20]
Eric
Driven by Narrative, like you go to an asset management summit or you go talk with family offices and you learn how a lot of these investors are thinking. It's just the reality is nobody has time to know everything.
- [32:32]
Co-host / Analyst
And most of what they're doing is.
- [32:34]
Eric
They'Re listening to narratives that they hear in different places.
- [32:36]
Co-host / Analyst
And the second, a bunch of data.
- [32:38]
Eric
We have like a consistent amount of data that says like, well, look at bitcoin. It's starting to, you know, its volatility is significantly lower. It's you know, up 100%, 150% over the past year or two, $3 trillion market cap asset.
- [32:53]
Co-host / Analyst
And people were just like, oh, interesting.
- [32:55]
Eric
Is this thing a risk hedge? I mean the second bitcoin is viewed as a risk off asset.
- [32:59]
Co-host / Analyst
Like truly.
- [33:02]
Eric
That'S when I think things really start to change. And that's when a lot of people.
- [33:05]
Co-host / Analyst
Are like, well we should at least.
- [33:06]
Eric
Put like 2% into something like this because that's what we do with gold. And bitcoin's probably just like a higher return version of gold.
- [33:15]
Podcast Host
So. So that kind of brings us into the next couple of points here, which is one or point number three is Bitcoin rises at least 50% in gold terms from a bitcoin rotation trade. And then the next one is a major asset manager adds a 2% allocation to Bitcoin in its model portfolio. So do you think those kind of go, I mean they go hand in hand a little bit where it's like, yeah, people start to realize as bitcoin catches a bid, like I guess does the bitcoin price movement versus gold. Do you kind of see gold moving a bit stagnant? Like do you think this is as high as gold goes for a while and then it kind of levels out. Bitcoin starts doing the moving and then people realize, huh, there's a rotary again, like self fulfilling prophecy. It's like rotation trade is happening. We should get in on this, we should add this to our model portfolio because we've seen what it's done in other model portfolios. You know, if you added just like a 1 to 5% allocation over five years, like it, it helps your portfolio drastically. Is that kind of how you see that playing out?
- [34:08]
Eric
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
- [34:09]
Co-host / Analyst
Like, you know, I, I think gold's going up.
- [34:12]
Eric
I think gold is a good asset for the reasons that I just described and people are going to continue to view it that way.
- [34:17]
Co-host / Analyst
I just think that there, if you like, when you view a market from the perspective of there's a market, is.
- [34:25]
Eric
The aggregation of, you know, millions of different perspectives.
- [34:29]
Co-host / Analyst
When you view it from that perspective, it's like, okay, so with any market.
- [34:32]
Eric
With any owner of something, there's some.
- [34:34]
Co-host / Analyst
There'S some marginal group, there's some group.
- [34:36]
Eric
That'S like right on the edge of.
- [34:37]
Co-host / Analyst
That market and they're like, yeah, we own this. But like, if bitcoin was just a little bit bigger or a little bit.
- [34:43]
Eric
Less volatile, we would shift out of it. You know, when you think about it from that perspective, there's some marginal group.
- [34:47]
Co-host / Analyst
Of sellers that could move out of.
- [34:49]
Eric
One market and into another. That's kind of how we're viewing it. And to your point, on like the.
- [34:57]
Co-host / Analyst
Model portfolios, like we, you know, we put this chart in there that's showing.
- [35:00]
Eric
The market sizing of some of that.
- [35:01]
Co-host / Analyst
And it's like if you look at, you know, some of these, like major.
- [35:05]
Eric
Large wealth management firms, Morgan Stanley and the like.
- [35:10]
Co-host / Analyst
They have like a range.
- [35:11]
Eric
Of recommendation around bitcoin allocations. It kind of varies across all of them. And we put this chart that says.
- [35:16]
Co-host / Analyst
If you took all the low ones.
- [35:17]
Eric
And then you took all the high ones for each one, here's kind of based on how much they're managing, what that would look like across their client groups and how much would flow into it.
- [35:25]
Co-host / Analyst
And even on the low allocation, it's like 400 billion.
- [35:28]
Eric
So we're talking about multiples greater than ETF, AUM, and that's just a recommendation.
- [35:34]
Co-host / Analyst
But if some of these large firms.
- [35:35]
Eric
Put it into what's structurally a model.
- [35:37]
Co-host / Analyst
Portfolio where they say you're a new client onboarding, here's where we're going to start you off with.
- [35:43]
Eric
In this structured portfolio, it's like the default template.
- [35:46]
Co-host / Analyst
And then based on what we talked.
- [35:47]
Eric
To you about, we'll finagle what we actually want to do with it.
- [35:52]
Co-host / Analyst
So like, I think having that shift.
- [35:53]
Eric
Of like bitcoin moving from just recommendations within these firms to being in like a modern portfolio, that's, that's going to be a very major shift. And like the capital size of that's massive.
- [36:04]
Podcast Host
No, no, I, I mean it. Like when you look at the actual amount of money that is sloshing around out there, like Bitcoin's now under 2 trillion dollar market cap starts to look comically small when you also understand what, what bitcoin is like, it starts.
- [36:19]
Sponsor / Advertiser
And to me, Eric, where I'm at.
- [36:20]
Podcast Host
With this right now is that, and this is like a drum I've been beating is just that it seems that there's A huge information asymmetry right now for those that get their 40 hours per week of bitcoin podcasts and are paying attention and are in the know, you know, and have been following this closely. Maybe you're a little bit disappointed by bitcoin's price action right now, especially when you watch the gold bugs and the silver simps dancing on bitcoin's grave. But at the same time, the fact that that is happening and the fact that bitcoin is kind of languishing right now a little bit in this, you know, 90 to 100k zone, to me, that just signals that, like, wow, we are still so crazy early because the vast, vast majority of people have no idea what we're talking about here. They have no idea because if they did, they'd be piling into bitcoin. But they're not, so they don't. And so to me, this just seems like, you know, whether you're, you know, managing a ton of money or you're just a pleb stacking for yourself and your family, to me this just feels like one of those opportunities that you're going to look back on in four years, five years, 10 years, 20 years, and you're gonna be like, wow, either thank God I was stacking like a psychopath, or, dang, I wish I would've been stacking like a psychopath.
- [37:23]
Co-host / Analyst
Oh, totally.
- [37:24]
Eric
Yeah.
- [37:24]
Co-host / Analyst
I mean, you think about, I remember.
- [37:25]
Eric
In like, the depths of the last bear market and when we were getting close to like 20 to 15k and.
- [37:32]
Co-host / Analyst
That was like, really the first time.
- [37:33]
Eric
When I was just like, gung ho, like, yeah, like, thank God it's this low. I can't even believe it's this low. And then you look back on that and it's just like, thank God I, you know, put my money into bitcoin at that point in time. That was huge. That, that impacted my life significantly. And, yeah, I don't think it's that long until we're just like, remember Bitcoin at 90k? Like, those are fun times.
- [37:56]
Podcast Host
No, it's true. And I want to get into a couple of these other points too, because the next two are kind of related and it's around treasury companies, which have been a, let's say, contentious topic. So the first part here, point number five, is about Meta Planet achieving its highest M nav other bitcoin treasury companies, and you're going to see market cap greater than a billion. And then after that, an activist investor or competitor liquidating a bitcoin treasury company, capturing the spread between its M nav discount and the value of its bitcoin. So can we talk about that a little bit? Because the first point around Meta Planet, I think, is interesting. The second point is perhaps even more so because it's been one that people have been kind of theorizing about a lot. Like, okay, now these companies are trading at a discount to M Navigation. Wouldn't it make sense to somehow, you know, be, you know, be able to extract that bitcoin from there that you're basically getting on sale? So how are you guys thinking about this? What? You know, maybe we can start in the Meta Planet point and then kind of get into the larger, like, hey, which company's getting. Or maybe not which. But why would a company get liquidated at this stage?
- [38:56]
Co-host / Analyst
Yeah, yeah. So we, we had the, I think the, the quickest way to describe the Meta Planet one is just Meta Planet is the only bitcoin treasury company right.
- [39:09]
Eric
Now that has, like, an operating income. When you think about, like, the pure.
- [39:15]
Co-host / Analyst
Play Bitcoin treasury companies, all the other.
- [39:18]
Eric
Ones have expenses because they're paying people.
- [39:21]
Co-host / Analyst
Strategy does, too. It's strategy. It's so big that its expenses are.
- [39:25]
Eric
Like a very small percentage, you know, a few basis points of, you know, the amount of bitcoin they have every year.
- [39:30]
Co-host / Analyst
But Metaplan, it's been consistently applying a.
- [39:33]
Eric
Strategy that actually earns, like, a direct bitcoin yield on their stack. And they're doing different derivative strategies and things to do that, and they're generating a large amount of income from it. So that offsets the cost of all the people they're paying to run it. And not only that, it actually grows the amount of bitcoin that exists, and it's the only one doing that.
- [39:50]
Co-host / Analyst
Some of the other ones, like Nakamoto strategy. Right. Well, strategy is not generating, like, a direct yield.
- [40:00]
Podcast Host
Yeah.
- [40:00]
Co-host / Analyst
Like, strategy is not like, like, they're.
- [40:03]
Eric
Not selling, like, covered calls on their bitcoin stack or anything like that.
- [40:05]
Podcast Host
Okay. I, I, they do have their. Obviously they're still operating business, like, in the traditional sense, though, where.
- [40:10]
Co-host / Analyst
Yeah, I see what you're saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I, I would presume. I haven't looked at that number, but I would presume that their operating business.
- [40:21]
Eric
Income would still probably not offset these costs. But I could be wrong about that.
- [40:25]
Co-host / Analyst
Because the operating business is, like, so.
- [40:27]
Eric
Small within the company that it doesn't really move the needle.
- [40:32]
Co-host / Analyst
But maybe it does. I'm not sure, but I guess so. Of the pure play characteristics, though, earning.
- [40:38]
Eric
A Bitcoin yield is what Metaplanet did.
- [40:41]
Co-host / Analyst
And not only that, but if you look at who started with X amount.
- [40:44]
Eric
Of Bitcoin and then how much they.
- [40:46]
Co-host / Analyst
Grew it over the past year, strategy.
- [40:49]
Eric
On an absolute basis obviously got the most Bitcoin, but Metaplan on a relative basis, year over year, grew its bitcoin stack so significantly so they just crush 20, 25.
- [41:01]
Co-host / Analyst
And, and I think that it's like, if you're running a pure play treasury company, there's just like a lot of.
- [41:05]
Eric
Things that they've got going for them that make sense with like the tax environment, et cetera.
- [41:09]
Co-host / Analyst
It's like, okay, I see the model making sense here.
- [41:11]
Eric
They're offsetting their operating income.
- [41:14]
Co-host / Analyst
Some of these other treasury companies like.
- [41:16]
Eric
NACA and Strive are spending like a ton of money and their operating costs are really cutting into the bitcoin.
- [41:25]
Co-host / Analyst
So we'll see if that changes.
- [41:26]
Eric
We'll see what happens. You know, I'm sure that they have a ton of different plans, but yeah.
- [41:31]
Co-host / Analyst
We, we're like, okay, metal plan is.
- [41:32]
Eric
Kind of crushing it. They're doing a good job with that.
- [41:38]
Podcast Host
So then I guess the, the next question there would be, and I appreciate the explanation, the next question would be just around a company getting liquidated by activist investors or competitor. Yeah.
- [41:48]
Co-host / Analyst
Yeah. So, okay, so like the, the theory, the, you know, like there, there's a difference between like as an investor of.
- [42:03]
Eric
Any strategy, between like what theoretically makes sense on paper and, and then what you can actually execute in a market.
- [42:10]
Co-host / Analyst
And that's because markets are dynamic.
- [42:15]
Eric
They change based on new information at, you know, any point in time.
- [42:19]
Co-host / Analyst
So if like a good, like a.
- [42:22]
Eric
An activist investor, for example.
- [42:26]
Co-host / Analyst
They want to be really quiet about what they're.
- [42:29]
Eric
Doing until it's time for them to do it, because they don't want to start signaling markets and doing different things that are going to change it.
- [42:35]
Co-host / Analyst
So if, for example, an active investor.
- [42:39]
Eric
Wanted to get a position in a Treasury company and accumulate that gradually over time, and then they wanted to signal to the market that, you know, they're going to, you know, have some sort of hostile takeover of it, and they're going to run a public campaign to get shareholders to vote on behalf of what they're doing to just liquidate the.
- [43:00]
Co-host / Analyst
Bitcoin, they'd have to be very quiet.
- [43:03]
Eric
About like, not signaling the market and like the actual execution of it's something that's just like, you know, it's something.
- [43:07]
Co-host / Analyst
That billionaires do and it's a hard thing to do. And like so, you know, we'll, we'll see. It can also be something that is.
- [43:15]
Eric
Just simply an acquisition by one of the other treasury companies.
- [43:19]
Co-host / Analyst
But to really capture the spread from what you're doing, you need to have.
- [43:23]
Eric
Your position before the market's aware of your position or you need to have some sort of agreement to like, off market terms that shareholders are voting for.
- [43:31]
Co-host / Analyst
So that just all gets like really.
- [43:33]
Eric
Complicated from like a governance and execution standpoint.
- [43:36]
Co-host / Analyst
So, like, that's kind of my caveat with it is we think it's probably going to happen, but we do need.
- [43:43]
Eric
To see depressed discounted valuations of the equity relative to the bitcoin stack for a period of time. Somebody's actually got to execute on it. Right?
- [43:51]
Co-host / Analyst
We could have bitcoin rallied in the next month, 40%. And all of a sudden expectations of the market changes and everybody's like, okay, these bitcoin treasury companies are going to.
- [44:00]
Eric
Be moving into a much easier environment.
- [44:03]
Co-host / Analyst
For capital raising now. And maybe some of the treasury companies.
- [44:07]
Eric
That haven't been able to issue form.
- [44:10]
Co-host / Analyst
Of credit or a preferred equity structure.
- [44:13]
Eric
That allows them to fix their cost.
- [44:14]
Co-host / Analyst
Of capital, because that's a key variable, right? Like if you can't fix your cost.
- [44:18]
Eric
Of capital, then it's just like a circular machine of equity raising and diluting.
- [44:22]
Co-host / Analyst
So you need to fix some portion.
- [44:24]
Eric
Of your cost of capital.
- [44:25]
Co-host / Analyst
And there's like only, only a handful.
- [44:27]
Eric
Have been able to do that and, and nobody else really has.
- [44:30]
Co-host / Analyst
So for the companies, they, people might, the market might start assuming, okay, now that it's moving back up.
- [44:35]
Eric
I bet these guys who weren't able to do it last year, they're going to do it this year and, and then maybe it goes back up to a premium because of that.
- [44:42]
Co-host / Analyst
But I, so I think it's like it needs to. The price of bitcoin will need to.
- [44:48]
Eric
Be low enough long enough.
- [44:49]
Co-host / Analyst
And, and I expect that if that.
- [44:51]
Eric
Were to happen, it would probably happen like early in the year because I think bitco up.
- [44:57]
Podcast Host
Me too, for what it's worth. Okay. No, I mean, it's going to be interesting to see because obviously these, the treasury companies. And I was just, just talking to someone today about this, just this idea that maybe the blowoff top was actually in treasury companies. I was talking with Nico on simply Bitcoin. He was talking to Mauricio de Baro about it. I thought that's actually an interesting thesis that like, we didn't get the same kind of blowoff top from retail in bitcoin because there was a blow off top in equities. I don't know if you have a take on that.
- [45:27]
Co-host / Analyst
Yeah, there. Okay, so the way I. I think that it did happen.
- [45:37]
Eric
Saying to what degree it happened is another question.
- [45:40]
Co-host / Analyst
But the fact that companies are able.
- [45:42]
Eric
To raise capital on a premium to their M Nav and buy bitcoin with.
- [45:46]
Co-host / Analyst
It, it means that people are paying.
- [45:48]
Eric
More potentially per unit of bitcoin.
- [45:53]
Co-host / Analyst
And we've kind of witnessed that there was like a bit of, you know, it was like it was a bit.
- [45:57]
Eric
Of like a dumping on retail effectively through raising on a M Nav premium.
- [46:02]
Co-host / Analyst
So like that's.
- [46:03]
Eric
People got less bitcoin for their money and that probably drove less relative demand into bitcoin and more of that kind of either went into the pockets or is earmarked for future bitcoin capital deployment within some of these treasury companies. And you know, I don't know what to say, like which one it was or to what proportion.
- [46:20]
Co-host / Analyst
But yeah, so like there, there is.
- [46:22]
Eric
Theoretical justification that like buying paper bitcoin that is more expensive than bitcoin itself did cause less demand for bitcoin. Had it all flown through like spot markets.
- [46:34]
Podcast Host
Right. No, I thought it was an interesting kind of thesis around that. So I wanted to get your opinion on it. The next point here is number seven, which is that a bitcoin company receives conditional approval for a federal bank charter. This would actually be a huge deal. Can you talk about that a little bit? Because I think this is something that maybe if folks haven't been paying attention, they're not aware of kind of like some of the history here and some of the just like shenanigans in general. Can you talk about why this would be so kind of impactful?
- [47:00]
Co-host / Analyst
Yeah, yeah. There's. I mean, there's. There's a long history and. And it kind of depends on. There's a ton of nuance. And with my operating partner at Epoch, he has a law degree and he.
- [47:13]
Eric
Does most of our legal research on everything.
- [47:16]
Co-host / Analyst
And if there's one thing I've kind.
- [47:18]
Eric
Of learned over the past year working with him directly on a lot of these regulatory questions, is that things are much grayer. There's a lot of gray area in terms of what could happen and when it could happen and how to interpret the law, et cetera.
- [47:34]
Co-host / Analyst
So I think that the big thing.
- [47:37]
Eric
That we're getting at with this prediction is.
- [47:43]
Co-host / Analyst
Conditional approval isn't like you're going.
- [47:45]
Eric
To get a bank charter. It's a nod that directionally speaking, we want to Give you a bank charter and we need to do more work and research and let's move forward on next steps because of it.
- [47:56]
Co-host / Analyst
So it's like what happened and last year was there is a Peter Thiel backed company, Erebor, that is trying to.
- [48:07]
Eric
Become like a modern bank for tech companies with a federal bank charter and that received conditional approval from submission from the point of submission within about, I think it was like three or four months.
- [48:22]
Co-host / Analyst
So that was big.
- [48:23]
Eric
That was a really big news.
- [48:24]
Co-host / Analyst
And it's more like we see that.
- [48:26]
Eric
That bitcoin company, there's a lot of bitcoin companies that are going to start thinking this angle and it's like, okay.
- [48:30]
Co-host / Analyst
Well if, if some are reasonably backed.
- [48:33]
Eric
With enough capital then they can pursue something like this. And, and it makes sense that from the point at which they would submit for a federal bank charter that they could see a conditional approval for it.
- [48:44]
Co-host / Analyst
And a lot of the history at.
- [48:46]
Eric
Like front and center was like Caitlin Long fighting the Biden administration to get a Federal Reserve master account. And.
- [48:56]
Co-host / Analyst
And you know, there's a ton.
- [48:57]
Eric
Of history and lore around all of that, but it's like, I mean the whole view I think right now is.
- [49:02]
Co-host / Analyst
Get while the getting's good because the.
- [49:04]
Eric
Current Trump administration is creating a favorable environment for things like this to happen. And I think that that really greases the wheels on whether that'll happen within the next year. But I think we're kind of on the edge of it.
- [49:16]
Podcast Host
Okay. And yeah, that leads into a little bit of a couple other points down the line here. But I will keep going in order just to, to feed my, my mild autism here to jump out of order. So the next one is around stablecoins. I think this is an interesting one. So a stablecoin uses Bitcoin as a reserve asset to pay interest to its holders offshore. And I think that offshore part is probably key because that also feeds into one of the later points there. But can you, can you talk about that a little bit is the reason for the offshore. Because in relation to the Clarity act not passing, which is a couple points down the list.
- [49:50]
Co-host / Analyst
Yeah, yeah. So I'm a little bit more familiar with like some of the details around it. And like, basically we had the Genius.
- [49:57]
Eric
Act pass, which was stablecoin specific back in the fall of 2025.
- [50:02]
Co-host / Analyst
And the two key things that I.
- [50:04]
Eric
Really viewed this as, and this has become, we wrote this banking report deep diving into a lot of this stuff back in the fall. You can find that on our website as well.
- [50:13]
Co-host / Analyst
But the now this is since Brian.
- [50:17]
Eric
Armstrong went public on his disagreement with the Clarity Act. That has brought a lot.
- [50:22]
Co-host / Analyst
It's like it kind of illuminated in.
- [50:23]
Eric
A lot more people's minds what happened with Genius, et cetera.
- [50:26]
Co-host / Analyst
And really like what Genius did is.
- [50:28]
Eric
It just created this regulatory ring fencing for banks. And you know there's like public letters that were written. There was like a.
- [50:34]
Co-host / Analyst
And you kind of feel bad because like community banks are like kind of like the good guys I guess in the banking world.
- [50:40]
Eric
They're not like the JP Morgans and you know, bulge bracket type guys that are, you know, run by reptile people, et cetera.
- [50:48]
Co-host / Analyst
So like the Community Banking association like.
- [50:50]
Eric
Sent this letter and they're just like look like if you allow stablecoins to get a Fed Master account then our business is done, so don't do that.
- [50:59]
Co-host / Analyst
And that was kind of like this regulatory ring fence is an example of like their internal thinking of this is.
- [51:05]
Eric
A better technology and creative destruction from it's going to put us out of business and we finance so much of your political campaigns like you know, you owe us and we're going to give you more if you keep it this way.
- [51:16]
Co-host / Analyst
So there's that conflict of interest that.
- [51:18]
Eric
I think is driving a lot of it.
- [51:19]
Co-host / Analyst
But like Genius said, stablecoins are not.
- [51:22]
Eric
Allowed to pay interest to their holders.
- [51:24]
Co-host / Analyst
And they have to hold like short.
- [51:26]
Eric
Duration government treasury assets as reserves and nothing else.
- [51:31]
Co-host / Analyst
And one of like the areas that.
- [51:33]
Eric
Clarity from, that wanted to provide clarity.
- [51:36]
Co-host / Analyst
On is like if you look at a company like Circle that has USDC as their stable coin, they're issuing like I don't like Circle isn't even like.
- [51:47]
Eric
A company, they're just like, they're like coinbase's little bitch. Basically. Like that's the best way to think about them.
- [51:53]
Co-host / Analyst
And they really just do all the boring stuff. So that Coinbase can then be like, okay, Circle is going to have this stable coin.
- [52:01]
Eric
It's not going to pay interest on it, but we can pay interest on the stable coin and we can have that pass.
- [52:08]
Co-host / Analyst
And like that's kind of how the.
- [52:09]
Eric
Market was planning on structuring everything is.
- [52:12]
Co-host / Analyst
The exchanges are going to end up distributing it through their own interest. So it's like, and if you read the regulatory section of this report, which is one of the best sections, particularly.
- [52:24]
Eric
For people that are a lot deeper into this industry, my operating partner Vijay wrote it. He's a brilliant guy and he goes.
- [52:30]
Co-host / Analyst
Into these details but we have this whole graphic where we basically took bank when we wrote Our banking report last fall we had, you know, we, we start the report talking about our banking.
- [52:41]
Eric
System structured as a two tier banking system. And you know, that's, that's the conventional way that people think about having a central bank that is pushing reserves into the banking system. Then you have regional banks that are also plugged into the banks that have Fed master accounts that are plugged into.
- [52:59]
Co-host / Analyst
The, the Federal Reserve. And it's this multi tiered system that.
- [53:04]
Eric
Allows money to kind of get pushed through all of it. We took this graphic and we're like.
- [53:10]
Co-host / Analyst
Okay, so if we have this two tier banking system and you think about.
- [53:16]
Eric
How the distribution of money works through.
- [53:18]
Co-host / Analyst
It today, and then you say, oh, well, crypto is like this new future. And it's like really what Coinbase is trying to create is at the top you have the central bank and then that's tier one. And then tier two is you have.
- [53:34]
Eric
All of the commercial banks that plug.
- [53:35]
Co-host / Analyst
Into it with the Fed master account. And we like scratch out central bank at the top and write circle. And then in tier two banks, you.
- [53:41]
Eric
Scratch out like bank A. We put in Coinbase and it's like.
- [53:45]
Co-host / Analyst
All they're doing is taking stable coins.
- [53:47]
Eric
And recreating a multi tiered structure that's arbitrarily intermediated because of some form of regulation within the system.
- [53:55]
Co-host / Analyst
So, and it's like, welcome to the future future.
- [53:57]
Eric
And like, we kind of are facetious in the graphic about it, but it's.
- [53:59]
Co-host / Analyst
Just like we are very directly kind.
- [54:02]
Eric
Of recreating it because of arbitrary regulation. And.
- [54:07]
Co-host / Analyst
And yeah, so I think like, that's kind of, that's kind of like.
- [54:10]
Eric
The background on what.
- [54:15]
Co-host / Analyst
I guess is like really happening with all of this. And, and then it like came into.
- [54:20]
Eric
Question around the confidence of like, okay, well, you know, are these things going to pass, et cetera. But like not going into any of.
- [54:25]
Co-host / Analyst
That, you know, I think that like, like the way that we're viewing this is like, and we wrote about this.
- [54:33]
Eric
In the banking paper is, you know.
- [54:35]
Co-host / Analyst
We, everybody knows that stable coins are better.
- [54:39]
Eric
Like, that's like the elephant in the room with everybody. And everybody knows that the bank lobby is preventing this from happening.
- [54:45]
Co-host / Analyst
And the question's like, okay, well, if it doesn't happen in the US then.
- [54:50]
Eric
Where is it going to happen?
- [54:52]
Co-host / Analyst
And, and I think that's like when.
- [54:53]
Eric
Sailor was hitting home on his stretch product and he's down in Abu Dhabi.
- [54:59]
Co-host / Analyst
And he's telling all the sheiks, he's like, hey, somebody should do this. And if you Want to lead the world. There's a huge, huge opportunity here. We completely agree that the concept of using Bitcoin as reserve capital to have.
- [55:17]
Eric
An interest bearing product that's lower risk.
- [55:19]
Co-host / Analyst
For people, it's a very marginal way.
- [55:22]
Eric
Of getting more people into the industry. And Stretch is this proof of concept.
- [55:26]
Co-host / Analyst
That'S kind of proving it out. It, it's, it's limited. Right, because stretch exists within a brokerage account. Now there's a reason for that and there's a reason it was very successful to do that. But like a stable coin is something.
- [55:37]
Eric
That has a lot more utility than just an account that sits in your brokerage account.
- [55:41]
Co-host / Analyst
And, and like that big idea of like, okay, well if I am a stablecoin company, if I'm tether and I.
- [55:48]
Eric
Have X amount of reserves that are in Treasuries and I earned, you know, 4 or 5% on that and I could pass some along, some of that along to people.
- [55:57]
Co-host / Analyst
And like if, if tether just owned.
- [55:58]
Eric
Treasury securities and did that.
- [56:00]
Co-host / Analyst
Now we're talking about like what banks should be doing. Now we're talking about, you know, like that's what a bank should be. That would be a healthy banking system.
- [56:09]
Eric
Where you actually got like 3 or 4% from your money that you have in the bank.
- [56:14]
Co-host / Analyst
And but that's not what they're doing to actually have like, you know, other.
- [56:17]
Eric
You know, reserve assets in there.
- [56:19]
Co-host / Analyst
And like we, we definitely see a world where like Bitcoin is going to move into the capital markets through the.
- [56:27]
Eric
Reserves of other products that are meeting people where they're at today. And that's what Saylor did, is he took it to the other extreme very immediately and he said, no, let's just like put way too much Bitcoin backing some sort of product that's paying interest. And it's very easy for us to do that. And now we have a product that everybody wants because it's very low risk and it's paying a higher yield.
- [56:45]
Co-host / Analyst
And that's the belief. It's just like, okay, so if Bitcoin.
- [56:47]
Eric
Is going to grow at whatever 30, 40, 50% compound annual growth rate every year and you can guarantee people's 10% yield over time from having a reserve construction that supports that. Now we're talking about a systematically superior form of savings to a Treasury security to which Bitcoiners would respond, well, why wouldn't you just own Bitcoin directly?
- [57:07]
Co-host / Analyst
It's like, well, because people are too.
- [57:08]
Eric
Stupid to own Bitcoin directly.
- [57:11]
Co-host / Analyst
They need this. You have to if you want to.
- [57:14]
Eric
Feed your dog some sort of healthy thing, you got to wrap it in a treat that it is familiar with.
- [57:21]
Co-host / Analyst
And that's literally what we're doing.
- [57:22]
Eric
We're force feeding bitcoin through financial products that people are familiar with.
- [57:28]
Co-host / Analyst
So like that's kind of our prediction around that is the US regulatory environment isn't. Doesn't, like, doesn't provide the ability to really do this effectively and it's going.
- [57:37]
Eric
To emerge somewhere else in the world.
- [57:38]
Co-host / Analyst
And tether doesn't, because tether's so dominant.
- [57:41]
Eric
Doesn'T necessarily have an incentive to do it yet. They just get to pocket all the money.
- [57:44]
Co-host / Analyst
Good for them.
- [57:45]
Eric
I hope they invest in us one day.
- [57:48]
Co-host / Analyst
But at some point they probably will.
- [57:49]
Eric
As the competitive environment starts to emerge.
- [57:53]
Podcast Host
I love that analogy with the dog. That's.
- [57:56]
Co-host / Analyst
Yeah, it just came to me too. I haven't used that yet. Yeah, no, no, it's, it's good.
- [57:59]
Podcast Host
I mean it makes a lot of sense. Like that's the reality too. And I think we talk about this as bitcoiners a lot. It may not always be the most popular viewpoint, but it's like most people aren't going to do self custody bitcoin. I'm not saying that that's a good thing. I'm just saying that that's the reality like at. And they don't necessarily need to like that can be for us. Like I'm going to keep doing it, you're going to keep doing it. A lot of us are going to keep doing it and a lot more people will do it. But to think that like, you know, the majority of people are going to do that. I don't know, like I don't even think it matters how easy you make that process. Yeah, I think still just most people don't want to have that kind of radical ownership and responsibility for what that also implies. You know what I mean?
- [58:44]
Co-host / Analyst
Yep, yep. Yeah, I agree. And like the, the, the framework that.
- [58:51]
Eric
I've kind of written about in the.
- [58:52]
Co-host / Analyst
Past around it is just like the, when you people participate in something when.
- [58:59]
Eric
Like the, the, the marginal cost of participation hits some sort of threshold relative to its benefit.
- [59:04]
Co-host / Analyst
It's like there, there are certain things.
- [59:06]
Eric
That people have spent a lot of time getting good at or learning or you know, becoming part of their life because of how they view the benefit of it happening.
- [59:14]
Co-host / Analyst
So like personal computing for people to.
- [59:17]
Eric
Learn how to type on keyboards, how to operate in a computing system. Like there's so much education we all have and like our generation have had since a young age to be able to do that well, and that was because participating in the Internet was such a valuable thing.
- [59:32]
Co-host / Analyst
I think that the reality is today for the vast majority of people it.
- [59:39]
Eric
Just doesn't matter as much.
- [59:41]
Co-host / Analyst
But what I think is like they don't, they don't see the reasons to do it because they don't know or.
- [59:49]
Eric
They aren't, you know, being tracked by the FBI or being, you know, they're just not even aware of it.
- [59:55]
Co-host / Analyst
And like, so it's just like, but who is going to do it? And I think, I think when you think, if you think about it in terms of like the volume of people, it's going to be a lot less.
- [60:06]
Eric
In the near term.
- [60:07]
Co-host / Analyst
But what I think when you think.
- [60:08]
Eric
About it in terms of the volume of capital, self custody is actually going to be a lot higher because people who have a lot of money spend a lot of time thinking about these things. How do I keep control over it? How do I keep it private? And I think that When Bitcoin's a $20 trillion asset class, the proportion of.
- [60:27]
Co-host / Analyst
Actual capital of it that will be.
- [60:30]
Eric
Held in a self custodial, private manner at that point, especially when we have much simpler tools, I think that, that to end up being a lot higher than people expect, I think nation states are going to want to control it for themselves. It makes sense to pay for an in house operations team to manage that through. And, and you can see a lot of other large scale institutions where they stand to gain quite a bit from actually learning and bringing these things in internally for their own control.
- [60:57]
Podcast Host
No, I, I, I agree with that and I think it's actually a, it's a good point that like the people who are power users aren't necessarily just going to be individuals. Right, right. People who really want to benefit from the radical properties that Bitcoin has in terms of its like truly being unconfiscatable private property.
- [61:13]
Vijay
Like Right.
- [61:13]
Podcast Host
That's going to especially be people who have a lot of, you know, property that they want to keep to themselves. Right. So I think that that, that makes perfect sense.
- [61:21]
Co-host / Analyst
It's like, you know, Swiss bank accounts.
- [61:22]
Eric
Are viewed as this luxury because, and it's like something that like fancy rich people do, you know, and that's kind.
- [61:27]
Co-host / Analyst
Of, it's the idea of a Swiss bank account and like, and that was.
- [61:31]
Eric
Because it provided them certain properties. They were the power users that were.
- [61:35]
Co-host / Analyst
Like, okay, well I want to have.
- [61:36]
Eric
As much anonymity, control over my assets without, you know, whatever risk that could be occurring for people trying to control my assets.
- [61:43]
Co-host / Analyst
And, and I think a similar thing.
- [61:45]
Eric
Is going to end up happening with bitcoin.
- [61:49]
Podcast Host
So I want to keep moving down this list here because there are a bunch of really good ones to get to. Some of them we've sort of covered already a little bit, but one that we haven't. You're mentioning tether a little bit and they're obviously working with Jack Mallers with 21 capital. Your number nine prediction is 21 capital acquires strike. Strike. Do you think that happens? Does Strike go public before that? Or do you think that, that. So that's, that's part, like, I can see that happening, but I want to know, does Strike go public first?
- [62:18]
Co-host / Analyst
Hmm. I hadn't thought about that. I don't, I don't see why. I think they should buy it. And because Jack, I just, from what I've seen Jack say publicly on 21, it's just like, oh, okay, yeah, he's.
- [62:33]
Eric
Going to buy Strike. It would make a ton of sense.
- [62:35]
Co-host / Analyst
For them to do like, one of the things that we wrote about a bit more in depth in our report.
- [62:40]
Eric
From last year, not our annual report.
- [62:42]
Co-host / Analyst
From this year, was just like the fundamental reasons for what is like good.
- [62:49]
Eric
Or strategic for a Treasury company.
- [62:51]
Co-host / Analyst
And one of the big things we wrote about is like treasury companies that are like, okay, we want to build.
- [62:56]
Eric
Out an operating business.
- [62:57]
Co-host / Analyst
And it's like, okay, well, what business, what an operating business is just any sort of business, right?
- [63:03]
Eric
So it's anything other than managing assets really. And do you want to make ice cream game?
- [63:08]
Co-host / Analyst
Like, do you want to open up a pet shop? Like, there's a million things that you could do. How do you choose?
- [63:12]
Eric
What's the best one?
- [63:13]
Co-host / Analyst
And, and I think that the, the best way to think about it is, well, what business, what type of business needs bitcoin?
- [63:21]
Eric
Because you're already something that has a lot of bitcoin.
- [63:23]
Co-host / Analyst
So what type of business needs bitcoin.
- [63:25]
Eric
More so than others?
- [63:27]
Co-host / Analyst
And, and that's mostly a financial service business that requires liquidity because what they have to do today when they don't.
- [63:36]
Eric
Have a lot of bitcoin and they.
- [63:36]
Co-host / Analyst
Say, okay, well, we need some other.
- [63:38]
Eric
Person who has a lot of bitcoin to fulfill that.
- [63:40]
Co-host / Analyst
And, oh, that other person's going to.
- [63:41]
Eric
Charge us x percent fee to say.
- [63:43]
Co-host / Analyst
Like one of our customers wants to, you know, move the, they want to.
- [63:49]
Eric
Move a million dollars cross border in bitcoin. And we'll say, okay, that customer just wired to A bank account that the company controls, a million dollars. And then what we're going to do is we're going to swap it for Bitcoin. So we need some sort of liquidity provider who's going to come in and give the bitcoin, send that bitcoin to another reminiscence payments going. And then on the other end somebody's got to say, okay, we'll buy that bitcoin back, swap it into a bank account at the other end and then you get the foreign currency or the domestic currency in the foreign country on the other end.
- [64:18]
Co-host / Analyst
So you have like these different components.
- [64:20]
Eric
Of people that are providing bitcoin liquidity within a lot of financial service businesses. And that's just like one example for a remittance payment company.
- [64:28]
Co-host / Analyst
And you know.
- [64:29]
Eric
Strike those things like that. And, and, and I'm sure that they could do quite a bit of other things and I think that that seems like a very natural thing. Obviously with Jack being at the head.
- [64:40]
Co-host / Analyst
Of both, which would be sweet. I think that that would be really good for our industry too, particularly for.
- [64:46]
Eric
Us being in venture capital because it shows that there's value and we'll see just like what the value is of a lot of these bitcoin businesses because those are very young. We have a whole venture capital section going into bitcoin businesses and what that kind of means.
- [65:01]
Co-host / Analyst
And I think one of the interesting things is there's actually a lot more.
- [65:05]
Eric
Financing and crypt businesses that started a.
- [65:07]
Co-host / Analyst
Long time ago and the bitcoin ones.
- [65:10]
Eric
Are all like much younger.
- [65:11]
Co-host / Analyst
So right now it's kind of like.
- [65:12]
Eric
The value of these businesses is still being proven out. Most of them emerged like 20, 21 and onward.
- [65:18]
Co-host / Analyst
And yeah, so I think it'd be really cool for the industry too. And we're being a bit like kind.
- [65:25]
Eric
Of like calling it out directly was just kind of like a fun thing. But I see it happening.
- [65:31]
Podcast Host
I like it. You're kind of forcing the hand a little bit, right? Just make it self.
- [65:35]
Eric
Do it, Jack.
- [65:36]
Co-host / Analyst
Do it.
- [65:37]
Podcast Host
Yeah, do it. Okay, so the, the next couple points here, we've sort of touched on them already so maybe we can just, we'll just go over them lightly. But It's a point 10 and 0.1. The first one is the Clarity act does not pass. But even if it does pass, it's not going to be the end of the fight over Stablecoin yield and 11 is then the substance of the Clarity act, which is asset taxonomy and allocating authority to the SEC and CFTC. Will be accomplished via SEC rulemaking and guidance in 20, 20, 26. So, I mean, you touched on this a little bit already. This is basically saying, I mean, even if it does go through, like, most of any meaningful kind of movements here are going to be done just by SEC rulemaking at the end of the day anyway.
- [66:21]
Co-host / Analyst
Yeah, yeah, that's, that's kind of what he's getting at. And like, my. These two predictions are from like our.
- [66:26]
Eric
Regulatory section that VJ wrote.
- [66:28]
Co-host / Analyst
And. But yeah, yeah, that's, that's the gist.
- [66:31]
Eric
Of it is that a lot of these things can be accomplished via other regulatory bodies. And there's just there, there's just so much gray area within all of this.
- [66:41]
Podcast Host
Yeah, we, we don't have to dig into those two duplicates. We did kind of COVID them already. And I do want to get to the next one, which is a, A juicier verging into the political realm a little bit more here, which is that Republicans, this is point number 12, Republicans will lose the midterms and there will be meaningful anti crypto regulation or regulatory blowback back, most likely in the form of consumer protection. So, I mean, this is something that we, like, we've all been kind of talking about too. It's like, okay, yeah, the Trump administration is favorable towards bitcoin and crypto, very favorable towards crypto, as we all know. But obviously the pendulum swings back. Right, so is this basically, you think this is going to be primarily just a kind of reactionary thing for the left to sort of distance themselves from what they see as sort of the, let's say, the impropriety of the Trump administration's stance on bitcoin and, quote, crypto.
- [67:31]
Co-host / Analyst
Can I call Vijay right now and have him answer that?
- [67:33]
Eric
I think he'll have a really good answer for it.
- [67:35]
Podcast Host
Sure.
- [67:35]
Co-host / Analyst
Why? Plug it into the mic. Yeah. Okay.
- [67:38]
Podcast Host
I love it. I've never had a live phone or friend on the show before. This is the bitcoin podcast first. I love it. Gonna be super awkward if he doesn't answer.
- [67:53]
Eric
Yeah, I know, I know. He shouldn't be on a call. Come on.
- [68:01]
Podcast Host
Oh, man.
- [68:04]
Eric
This is killing. I don't know.
- [68:06]
Co-host / Analyst
I don't know. Okay, let me, let me message him and see. But yeah, so like that. That's pretty much how we're viewing it, but I think.
- [68:17]
Eric
Oh, here he's calling back. Here we go. Go.
- [68:19]
Podcast Host
Amazing.
- [68:21]
Co-host / Analyst
Vj, I'm on a podcast right now.
- [68:25]
Eric
We're live and we're going through the predictions of that you put into the report. And we just got into the Republicans losing the midterms and all of that one.
- [68:35]
Co-host / Analyst
So I, I've got you on the mic, give, give the 101 on what you're thinking with that.
- [68:42]
Vijay
Yeah, I mean, so I guess the, the, them losing the midterms I think is probably, you know, driven by non bitcoin crypto related things. But just you could see their popularity slipping. I guess the only hedge on that is like Democrat, Democrat popularity doesn't seem to be picking up in tandem but you know, there's so much chaos. It feels like that, that you know, at the very least losing the size of their majority or their kind of dominant sway at the moment. And I think the likelihood, I guess that the, the main prediction we had in there around this was that there would be some kind of backlash against, you know, the bitcoin crypto voters that I think some of the Democratic Party sees as part of the, the Trump coalition. And I think, you know, some of the Trump administration's activities since these, since he's been inaugurated haven't really helped in that regard. I think some of the, you know, Trump coin scammy or seeming stuff I think will invite, invites back in a lot of skepticism and potential, you know.
- [69:53]
Co-host / Analyst
Regulatory.
- [69:58]
Vijay
Scrutiny that, that we may have moved beyond as an industry. I think the, the mitigating factor will be that a lot of the right now folks that Trump has installed and the agencies and the kind of administrative of strategy of most of the enforcement arms of the government has shifted to a more positive one. I think that will be hard to pivot, but I suspect at least like in Congress, you know, as we have a new class of representatives and senators coming in after the midterms, I think at the very least the kind of pro bitcoin, pro crypto momentum will stall and there's likely to be, I don't know who or what, what will be leading the charge, but I suspect, you know, some kind of backlash probably from the consumer protection angle, which seems to be the, the flag that some of the Democrats that are a little more opposed to the Clarity act are carrying right now, which would, which would involve, you know, trying to impose a lot more scrutiny on and obligations on people building self custody stuff or like ATM providers, that kind of stuff where you know, there's existing consumer protections regulations that impose a lot of costs on those kinds of businesses that I think bitcoin has rightly avoided because of the non custodial nature of a lot of those products. I, I think there'll be a stronger push from the Democrats that come in to try to, to, you know, impose some of those regulations on that part of the industry.
- [71:36]
Co-host / Analyst
That's exactly what I was going to say.
- [71:39]
Podcast Host
Yeah, that, that was awesome, man. Thanks for jumping in. We've never done this before on the show, so this was great.
- [71:45]
Co-host / Analyst
All right, thanks, V.J.
- [71:46]
Vijay
Yeah, of course.
- [71:48]
Co-host / Analyst
Later.
- [71:49]
Podcast Host
All right. That was a very successful phone a friend, I've got to say.
- [71:52]
Co-host / Analyst
Yeah, that worked. That worked.
- [71:53]
Podcast Host
Very impressed there. Okay, well, okay, that, that covered that one super well. And I want to be conscious of your time, too. So we're going to go through some of the next ones a little bit quickly here. But the next one, I think is one that definitely bears jumping into, which is just the Samurai Wallet Tornado Cash founders is point number 13. They will not be pardoned this year, but there will be likely be future criminal cases or appeals that vindicate them. So do you don't think there's much of a chance of the Trump admin actually stepping forward to give pardons?
- [72:21]
Co-host / Analyst
Yeah, this is also Vijay's perspective, but yeah, it's probably something that will take.
- [72:27]
Eric
More critical mass around. It is kind of the expectations and that over time more things will happen that will ultimately lead to an outcome similar to that, whether it's not them in like, the immediate term.
- [72:39]
Podcast Host
Well, I, in the meantime, people should go to billandkeone.org and do sign that petition and continue making noise on social media because you never know what might move the needle. And Again, that is billandkione.orgorg.number 14. Bitch goes mainstream for local P2P discovery, driving over 200 known ecash mints. You touched on this a bit earlier at the start, and I think the ecash proliferation is such a key point to this. Is there anything else you wanted to add to that based on?
- [73:06]
Co-host / Analyst
Yeah, yeah. It's like right now there's around like 30 on the, on Cashew and then through Fetty Mint. I think it's.
- [73:14]
Eric
I think it's like 16 or something because those are larger.
- [73:17]
Co-host / Analyst
But like the. So, like, that's, that's the way it works and it could be a lot more.
- [73:22]
Eric
You know, I, I didn't really know how to put like a number, but I was like, yeah, like 200. That's, that, that, that, that's a lot of growth.
- [73:28]
Co-host / Analyst
But yeah, to the point I was.
- [73:29]
Eric
Making earlier about like the P2P discovery and all of that, I think that, I think it's a valuable app. You know, I, Our office is at the space Denver. Our bitcoin Citadel out here and you know, we'll just be like chatting with each other on it a lot of times in the middle of the day. And like I see a lot more use cases like at concerts or like.
- [73:45]
Co-host / Analyst
Anywhere you go publicly where it makes.
- [73:47]
Eric
Sense to like figure out some information that can be crowdsourced within a group in your immediate region. Like I see it being used a lot more for that once it gets more eyeballs on it.
- [73:58]
Podcast Host
100% the next one here. And apologies for the speed fire, but again I like to be conscious of the time. Yeah, yeah, at least a hundred. This is point number 15. At least 100 small businesses begin offering discounts for payment in bitcoin instead of dollars through Square. I mean we've got what, 4 million plus merchants that just got the ability to be turned online. I mean that was one of the, I think the most bullish developments this year. I don't know about you.
- [74:21]
Co-host / Analyst
Yeah, I think that the Square announcement is arguably the best thing that's happened.
- [74:28]
Eric
For medium exchange use of bitcoin like in its history outside of it existing.
- [74:32]
Co-host / Analyst
But like I think that yeah, it getting turned on within this is, it's going to change one just like even.
- [74:41]
Eric
From a branding perspective it's going to change people's perception of it significantly.
- [74:45]
Co-host / Analyst
But like the biggest thing is one of the things that I like I always try to hit home is that when you know, for bitcoin being used as a medium exchange and people be like, well nobody's ever going to want.
- [74:58]
Eric
To spend their own bitcoin.
- [74:59]
Co-host / Analyst
It's just like, dude, I don't want.
- [75:01]
Eric
To spend anything that's valuable to me.
- [75:03]
Co-host / Analyst
If I could get something from you and give you my toilet paper, I would be happy to, you know, but, but nobody's going to want that.
- [75:10]
Eric
It comes from people demanding it in a transaction.
- [75:13]
Co-host / Analyst
People are going to say no, no.
- [75:15]
Eric
I want you to pay me in bitcoin.
- [75:17]
Co-host / Analyst
And I think that that's where we're.
- [75:18]
Eric
Going to start seeing a lot of growth through this vector within Square.
- [75:21]
Co-host / Analyst
And the reason isn't as much because people are like, I own a scarce, durable, portable store of value that I.
- [75:26]
Eric
Can be self sovereign with.
- [75:28]
Co-host / Analyst
It's going to be because oh, these.
- [75:30]
Eric
Are better rails than the encroachment of the banking industry which makes it so expensive for anybody to operate within it. So credit card companies have to create a layer over it and then they have to charge X amount of fees because it's an oligopolistic network and all the merchants are the ones Paying for that right now. We don't want to do that. We would like to settle over something cheaper.
- [75:52]
Co-host / Analyst
Okay.
- [75:53]
Eric
So Square's designed a system where we don't get a 2 1/2% credit card fee.
- [75:57]
Co-host / Analyst
All right, well, let's offer people a.
- [75:59]
Eric
Discount to pay in Bitcoin.
- [76:00]
Co-host / Analyst
That's two and a half percent that.
- [76:01]
Eric
Goes to our margin. Bottom line, every year you make a.
- [76:06]
Co-host / Analyst
Million dollars through your business in profit.
- [76:08]
Eric
Every year, tack another two and a half percent on it.
- [76:12]
Co-host / Analyst
That's a lot of money.
- [76:15]
Eric
People are going to want that.
- [76:15]
Co-host / Analyst
And I think stores are going to.
- [76:17]
Eric
Start incentivizing bitcoin so that they can keep some of that.
- [76:20]
Podcast Host
Yeah, I think especially in lower margin businesses where those fees really hit them like right in the gut. We're absolutely going to see that. And I think again, just super bullish announcement. I would agree. It's just like it was massive news this year that again just like didn't apparently move the needle price wise, but like very much move the needle. I think overall MOE adoption wise, which was great.
- [76:40]
Co-host / Analyst
Yep.
- [76:41]
Podcast Host
The next point. 16, no top 10 public Bitcoin mining company achieves more than 30% of revenue from AI compute for 2026 fiscal year driven by significant development delays. So this is an interesting one. Given a lot of the pivots toward AI Compute in a lot of these mining companies. You're saying that I'm not sure what, you know, kind of some of the numbers are right now in terms of percentage of revenue, but you're saying basically it's not going to, it won't go above 30% for any of these miners.
- [77:09]
Co-host / Analyst
That was the biggest surprise to me.
- [77:11]
Eric
When I looked into this question because.
- [77:12]
Co-host / Analyst
I was, I was writing this section in our business models and I was like, okay. I was like, huh, I wonder how big these mining pivots have been so far. And I started to look at the.
- [77:21]
Eric
Publicly available numbers that we could, could see and I, I assumed they would be much larger. Why all these guys want to have that premium in their stock price because of how much it's being valued right now.
- [77:31]
Co-host / Analyst
So the narrative says, hey, we're an AI compute company. The reality is, is that I think the largest in terms of like operating.
- [77:39]
Eric
AI Compute revenue generation, that's core scientific. And they're at like 18% right now.
- [77:49]
Co-host / Analyst
And most of the other ones I'm.
- [77:50]
Eric
Pretty sure are all like sub 10%. There's a table in our report that covers all of that.
- [77:56]
Co-host / Analyst
I bet in 20, like, I think the problem is is there's Just there, there's a lot of assets that exist out there to build more AI, compute.
- [78:05]
Eric
And repurpose some of these operations for it.
- [78:09]
Co-host / Analyst
But there is a lot of development.
- [78:11]
Eric
Delays that are starting to occur within this side of the industry and actually being able to build out, get these sites developed or get them repurposed and operating and generating revenue. I don't think that anybody's going to get higher than 30% of their total, you know, annualized revenue for 2026.
- [78:31]
Co-host / Analyst
You know, may maybe that, that's a bit of a cocky estimate, I'd say.
- [78:36]
Eric
But probably somewhere around that range. I, I would be surprised if they get much higher than that.
- [78:42]
Podcast Host
No, it's, I mean it's interesting. I assumed that some of them were already higher than that. So that's, that, that's quite interesting given the amount of hype around it.
- [78:50]
Eric
Yeah.
- [78:51]
Podcast Host
So Next piece number 17, a federally chartered bank begins offering Bitcoin collateralized loans. Loans. Do you think that this ends up being a bank that kind of like acquires one of the existing companies, that it's doing this in the space or building out their own products around this?
- [79:05]
Eric
That's a great question.
- [79:09]
Co-host / Analyst
So in our banking report back in.
- [79:10]
Eric
The fall, we hit on this.
- [79:13]
Co-host / Analyst
If you look at banks, what, what are banks? Banks are really just like when you think about it from like a business like legal entity standpoint, they're really just.
- [79:22]
Eric
This like compliance apparatus.
- [79:24]
Co-host / Analyst
Like you have just like this company.
- [79:25]
Eric
That does this and everything that they do is technically outsourced in most ways in some way shape or form.
- [79:31]
Co-host / Analyst
And we have this core ledger system.
- [79:34]
Eric
That we're using for managing our ledger internally within the bank. And that's kind of being outsourced to this tech company that does that for a lot of different banks.
- [79:42]
Co-host / Analyst
And we have a payments hub.
- [79:44]
Eric
And it's a very similar story to how they're using their core ledger system.
- [79:48]
Co-host / Analyst
Any sort of functionality that they're doing.
- [79:50]
Eric
They either have a third party service provider or they're acquiring intuit from some separate division.
- [79:55]
Co-host / Analyst
So it might be like owned by.
- [79:56]
Eric
Them, but it's really like a very separate thing from like the overarching bank.
- [79:59]
Co-host / Analyst
And, and yeah, so we, we, I, I think like the history of banking.
- [80:04]
Eric
Is if banks want to do something, they acquire into it broadly speaking, like they don't have the expertise to build a lot of this stuff out.
- [80:11]
Co-host / Analyst
Now I think that we will have.
- [80:12]
Eric
Banks that, which are kind of starting off as like the, we have this.
- [80:17]
Co-host / Analyst
New, like the, the term we use.
- [80:19]
Eric
For it internally at Epoch Is Neo Neo banks. The term neobank kind of came around when fintech was like okay banks suck.
- [80:28]
Co-host / Analyst
Let'S put a layer of lipstick over.
- [80:29]
Eric
It so people have a better UX for everything and integrate into some more things.
- [80:33]
Co-host / Analyst
And then now we have this world of like okay fintechs kind of suck.
- [80:37]
Eric
Let's give them stablecoins and bitcoin and hook them into prediction markets and like do all this other shit that like the neo Neo version wants to do.
- [80:45]
Co-host / Analyst
So that's kind of what we call it. There's going to be like these very.
- [80:48]
Eric
New financial institutions that are going to be like purpose built for bitcoin banking and in those will probably be, you know, those will be more organic in building things in house and then maybe they're actually selling some of what they built to the other banks.
- [81:02]
Co-host / Analyst
But yeah, I think that if it's a large like a larger bank in.
- [81:05]
Eric
This prediction adopting something like that there's.
- [81:08]
Co-host / Analyst
It'S hard to do everything because there's.
- [81:11]
Eric
A lot of software that needs to get built to make it easy for them. And the reason is, is to my point earlier banks operate on like this old legacy technology with like an old core ledger system and an old payments hub and like you have the ctos.
- [81:25]
Co-host / Analyst
Just like I don't really care how.
- [81:27]
Eric
Cool the new thing is that you have. I'm not gonna convert our entire bank over a new set of software. Like you need to have something that plugs into this shitty old software.
- [81:35]
Co-host / Analyst
And that's kind of what they need right now are businesses that are building.
- [81:38]
Eric
The right middleware that speaks the same language of what they work on, what they use internally.
- [81:43]
Co-host / Analyst
And there's a, there's a pretty big.
- [81:44]
Eric
Void in that market right now.
- [81:46]
Co-host / Analyst
So we, we kind of wrote our.
- [81:47]
Eric
Banking report around that thesis with like the Silvergate former Silvergate bank team and, and, and yeah, I think that you know those things are going to get built and then it comes down to a regulatory question as to how like big that can get within a bank's like total revenue etc.
- [82:04]
Podcast Host
No, it's going to be interesting to see 18 and I'm going to, I'm going to speedrun here again. But quantum preparedness continues to happen around trade offs among various key and signature schemes. Code is written for BIP360 but no concrete solid fork in is in the works by the end of 2026. Do you think a lot of the quantum stuff is being, how much of an immediate concern do you think this is? I see a lot of stuff around it, but then it's also like a lot of the conversation around that's fighting the quantum, fighting Quantum stuff a lot seems to ignore all the conversations that are happening already and kind of being like, hey, we need to do this right now. Also, I've got a quantum resistant, you know, shitcoin on Solana, by the way, or Ethereum, you know what I mean? Like, is that your vibe on this too?
- [82:46]
Co-host / Analyst
Yeah, there was just like a weird. I, I like what, what I'll say is I like what Nick Carter did. I think he drew attention to things that educated me, educated other people in the industry.
- [82:58]
Eric
And, and I, you know, I, I don't know if he responded to everything in the perfect way on Twitter and, you know, few, few people always do, but I, I do think his paper was a good paper and it added value.
- [83:10]
Co-host / Analyst
You, I, I, yeah, I'm, I'm in the camp of just like, well, one, I'll start with saying I wrote this.
- [83:16]
Eric
Quantum section in the report and that's probably been like the most like, clipped and shared thing from it so far.
- [83:24]
Co-host / Analyst
I that's not my intelligence.
- [83:25]
Eric
That's the intelligence of me interpreting other people's interpretations of Quantum. I think Rearding Code is probably the best podcast I've heard on the Quantum summary. Hunter Beast is who's writing bip360 and started all that. He's a member at the space. I talk to him a lot.
- [83:41]
Co-host / Analyst
I think that. Quantum is something where I'm at is like, it's a legitimate conversation to be having. And to your point, exactly.
- [83:52]
Eric
People have been having this conversation. If you don't read bitcoin op tech, which very few people do, particularly the types of people that are commenting on Quantum and the type of investors I talk to. But Bitcoin Optech gave a great summary of a lot of the progress in their annual report a few months ago on what's been happening within Quantum. There's a good amount of research.
- [84:14]
Co-host / Analyst
I'm not hurt. I'm not trying to put people down.
- [84:16]
Eric
For wanting to have a discussion and try to put focus on something that's valuable.
- [84:21]
Co-host / Analyst
But what we wrote about in our media section of the report is that when you look at how certain narratives.
- [84:27]
Eric
Spread for fud, usually it's like they start within mainstream media and then they trickle down into our circles and then we have to go combat them. And one thing, that section is where we officially have destroyed environmental fud. And that took three years of data intensive, systematic, cooperative bitcoin pointers coming together and shitting on that fud and it's dead now. And we won and it ended up being one of the best narratives for bitcoin too. That came out of it.
- [84:52]
Co-host / Analyst
So that's cool. But with like the quantum stuff, we kind of FUD ourselves and then it gets in the stream because of us. So we're kind of shooting ourselves in the foot a bit and it's like, maybe let the nerds talk about it.
- [85:03]
Eric
For a little bit longer and until it really becomes something to get worried.
- [85:08]
Co-host / Analyst
About, like, just let them handle it.
- [85:10]
Eric
In their forums that other people aren't ever reading.
- [85:14]
Podcast Host
Fair enough on that one. 19. Bitcoin perception gap closes 50%. What does that mean?
- [85:22]
Co-host / Analyst
Yeah, so read the bitcoin media section. The perception metrics are like the really cool. Fernando of Perception to is his website, but he's come up with just like a methodology of like putting a point.
- [85:38]
Eric
System and quantification around narratives from different media channels.
- [85:41]
Co-host / Analyst
And the perception of gap is something that is that gap I was initially talking about between how bitcoiners perceive bitcoin and how like mainstream perceives bitcoin. And he quantifies that as like a.
- [85:57]
Eric
125 point gap, which is like very large when you start to get baselined and see how that's compared across other things.
- [86:03]
Co-host / Analyst
But I think that over this year.
- [86:05]
Eric
We'Re going to start to see a lot more alignment across both.
- [86:09]
Co-host / Analyst
I feel like I've kind of witnessed that over the past year and I'm.
- [86:13]
Eric
Excited to see how he measures it going into next year and what the numbers come out to. But I think that we're going to start to see cross pollination across media channels. Bitcoin's moving into like more of the foray and the big boy world, and I think that that gap is not going to exist to the same extremes that it has.
- [86:33]
Podcast Host
Bitcoin podcasts go absolutely parabolic as we completely subsume the tradfi market, so. So yeah, people should check out the media section for that. On the report number 20. Bitcoin Core maintains dominance over alternative implementations. Is there anything you'd like to say on that one?
- [86:54]
Co-host / Analyst
No, I think that that that says it all. That's what I believe.
- [86:58]
Podcast Host
And just like that, we're out of time. Last one. I want to give you a chance to talk about this too, and then I will get you out of here. But Epoch Ventures begins raising its fund too. So you guys are raising. Amazing.
- [87:08]
Co-host / Analyst
Yeah, yeah, not yet, but we're predicting.
- [87:11]
Eric
That we might be by the end of the year. Okay.
- [87:14]
Podcast Host
It's like an announcement of an announcement.
- [87:16]
Co-host / Analyst
But it's a, it's an a prediction. It's a prediction of an announcement.
- [87:20]
Podcast Host
Well, dude, I, I, I'm getting you out of here a little bit late. Where do you again maybe just remind people where they can go to get this report. Anywhere else you want to send them. Appreciate you running through this whole thing. We got. This was a, an awesome session here.
- [87:32]
Co-host / Analyst
Yeah, this was great, man. Yeah. If you want to check out the report, it's Epoch. Epoch.
- [87:39]
Eric
That's our website.
- [87:40]
Co-host / Analyst
Go to the writing section.
- [87:41]
Eric
It's in there as a PDF to download.
- [87:43]
Co-host / Analyst
We don't do like an email or anything.
- [87:45]
Eric
Ask on it because that always annoyed me and I don't ever want to do that to people. So just download the PDF and do something nice for me one day. But, or people on my team, they're all tagged in it and yeah, check.
- [87:57]
Co-host / Analyst
Us out on Twitter.
- [87:58]
Eric
You'll see all of our handles in the report. And my, my handle on X is just my name.
- [88:03]
Podcast Host
Awesome, dude. Well, this was a, a blast doing this. We made it through all 21 predictions. Can't imagine why you chose the number 21. Seems super random, but this, this was great. Want people to check this report out because it's, it is, it is dense, but it's, it's dense in a good way.
- [88:18]
Eric
She's a beast.
- [88:19]
Podcast Host
Yeah. Yeah, no doubt. Well, dude, Eric, great catching up with you, man. We'll have to do this again next time. I won't nail you with 21 questions.
- [88:27]
Eric
Right off the bat.
- [88:27]
Podcast Host
I will keep it. We'll do a question having or something like that.
- [88:31]
Co-host / Analyst
Yeah, we'll do more of like a.
- [88:32]
Eric
Vibes episode at some point.
- [88:34]
Podcast Host
Yeah. If I didn't go through this with you, I would have felt like I was missing out. We had to give the people, give the people these 21.
- [88:42]
Co-host / Analyst
Right. Well, thanks man. I appreciate it. It was a blast.
- [88:46]
Podcast Host
Likewise, man.