← The Bitcoin Treasuries Podcast with Tim Kotzman
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- [00:00]
A
Welcome back to the Bitcoin Treasuries podcast. I'm Tim Kotsman. I'm here with Konstantin Kogan in the studio. Thanks for joining us.
- [00:07]
B
Thank you for having me.
- [00:08]
A
Tim, what are these stats that you were pulling up before we started rolling that you wanted to start with?
- [00:14]
B
Oh, I was not planning to start with them, but since you're bringing that up, I might as well. I was just posting today on my channel that in 2025 BTC ownership structure significantly changed and it was a structural change. We are in a sort of bare market. Right. You know, and it's a, it's unusual bear market. So what was interesting, 829,000 BTC was added by institutions out of which 696, like thousands like they were sold by the retail. And it's a very interesting stats to me personally because basically we're talking about like about 84% of institutions, like they're changing hands from retail. So you know those narrative of weak hands, you know, diamond hands. Right. And, and before we, we actually knew that in the beginning of 2025 when I was pulling up the stats, it was about 68, 69% of retailers still holding it and it was rather decentralized. And now there is this narrative about the concern of whether bitcoin is losing its like values as a decentralized asset. Right. And whether it's actually great that institutions are coming more and more. The one camp is saying, well, it's great because we're adding new liquidity and the black cross of the world. They're adding more reputation. You know, like other sovereign wealth funds are coming, the countries are adding it to their treasury balance. Other people are saying, well, we don't care about this. The maximalists are saying, well, we're losing our values. And that's the most important. Like you know, the cyberpunk, the libertarian values like, and, and some people are extremely upset and there is like someone like me who's in the middle, who's like, I try not to see is like you know, black and white. And I, I'm just trying to analyze the market and understand what it really means. Whether we're like it's, it's going to help us and propel bitcoin as an asset class and as a payment system or it's going to damage it. I don't have a definitive answer. I'm just going to throw this number.
- [02:20]
A
Sure. How do you view, like, is there a reason that's reasonable in reality for this? As Jordy Visser has said, Kind of the IPO moment for Bitcoin of is it that $100,000 number where retail, which I assume you mean and include OGs that have been holding for a long, long time. They're like, I, I'm going to move on with my life and do something else. Kind of like satoshi at that $100,000 number or is it completely different or are there 10,000 different reasons and we'll never know. It's like shards of glass. Like just pick a reason and you know, shout about it on Twitter.
- [03:04]
B
There's many research institutes and firms like Arkaim, like they track the OG's like wallets. And we did see that some of the OGs sold at a mark around 100k. So I think that was just like a psychological mark when I thought, okay, well like six figures again, cashing out, just safe bet. And then maybe they did it because they want to buy back somewhere at around, I don't know, 60, 50 or if it's going to go even below the level, we don't know. Some people do it by the way for tax purposes, right? You know, to, you know, optimize their taxes, so to speak. So it's really hard to give a definitive answer. But what we're seeing for sure that the, the institutions are common and there is a very clear reason for that, by the way. Like we, we've passed this mark when bitcoin was for five years like best performing asset class in the world. So what happened? The CFOs, the gatekeepers, the decision makers and a lot of like wealth management firms, big family offices, like endowments, seven wealth funds. They realize they cannot ignore it completely or they're going to lose their job. They have to allocate at least like a small portion, maybe 1%, half a percent, but they have to, it's no longer an optionality. So I think once that happened and you know, bear in mind that they have much stronger skin, right? You know, this chagrin skin is like, you know, one of the French classics, like say so they can hold this for five, 10 years. They look at a very long term horizon. It's like this wealth preservation narrative that is very clear for them, for retail as we know. We're humans, we're intrinsically flawed, we're emotional. So whenever you see on your portfolio red numbers and your, let's say girlfriend is saying like I told you so, like you know, you, you used all your savings, like, and now we're, we're losing our money. Like sometimes you panic sale and that's the reality of what I think is really happening. Some people just fix their losses not because they want to, but and sometimes not because, you know, they believe in it or not, don't stop believing in it. It's just because there is like a pressure of life, like, of people who cannot have this billions of dollars and just sit and watch and just like, not care about the price, action and volatility.
- [05:30]
A
So you mentioned humans being emotional, panic selling and having their girlfriends tell them that they're idiots. But there's one person that is exempt from that. His name is Michael Saylor. You interviewed him in 2021. Yeah, and so I guess one. What was that experience like, especially back then? What's your view of his journey and strategy's journey to now? And. Yeah, maybe we'll start there.
- [06:00]
B
It's a great question because, you know, for me, back in the days, I didn't know him, like, a lot. I, I didn't, I didn't hear anything about Microstrategy. For, for whatever reason, it just completely skipped my attention. You know, I was, back in the days, I was already in a deep rabbit hole of Bitcoin, so I did not follow a lot of stocks. And you know, as we know, MSTR was not the best performing stock at the, at the time. Right. So, but when I've, when I talked to him and I've learned what they're doing in adding bitcoin as a treasury, and I started to be curious about, like, oh, that's very unusual and it's very innovative. Let me, you know, let me try to understand it more and more. I, I remember that day I was in Miami when I met him at some of the private parties. I think it was, I, I think it's Alec Monopoly. Like, he was even DJing then. Like, he, he's an artist. It was like one of those mentioned parties, like. And I met him, he was very calm, you know, very, like, as always, you know, Taylor is not a very emotional person. I'm sure you've noticed that crisis. And you know, he told me like, briefly about what he's doing and I was mesmerized. Like, I think I got it in 20 minutes. One thing I should say, he's an amazing evangelist. The way he articulates, like, thoughts is very straight to the point. And I respect him for that a lot. And I was like, I mean, I, I need to help you promote this. Like, I want to learn more from you. And we did this episode and my only mistake was I back in the Days I was with Way Financial as a big asset asset management firm. We had like seven different sub funds, VC funds, derivative funds, index fund, and then we even tokenized the first whiskey distiller in Kentucky. So I was still more in my trading mode. So ask him about derivatives and why he's not taking advantage of like you know, let's say he has his oldest holdings. He can also let's say do market neutral strategies. Because back in the days I was running market neutral strategies and I thought to myself, I mean it's so like easy, it's no brainer to add 15 to 20% on your holdings. And basically you don't, you don't even follow the narrative of Bitcoin. You don't care if it's bear market or bull market. You do spot, let's say Binance or Coinbase and then let's say perpetual futures and okx and you fix your, you know, additional. And he gave me a 10 minute lesson of long term investments. It was very harsh and I learned the hard way that he is committed similar to Warren Buffett, like a ten year horizon. He doesn't look short term gains, he doesn't care about it. He's very committed to his vision. To me it was a bit like strange, right? But then the more I studied his strategy and now in five years we know that it worked out pretty well. I mean I even went to, I think it was 2024. I was invited into MBA program in Tel Aviv University. I've showed MSTR as an example of a successful treasury management strategy. I showed them how in 5 years you can 500% increase your stock by just adding like a small portion of Bitcoin. Now again, to be fair, Saylor is, is a maximalist, it's not a short like a small like portion. But even if you add 5 to 10% like statistically you will increase your performance of any stock by a margin of 50 to 60% over years. So yes, highly respect him. I think he's an amazing evangelist. He speaks to the audience that I wouldn't be able to speak to. And I'm very honest about it. I'm happy to acknowledge it.
- [10:07]
A
So what is his audience versus what is your audience?
- [10:11]
B
Well, I would say it's, it's. He's a CEO of a publicly traded company. Right. I, I've never, I've never ran a publicly traded company before. So there is this small, like maybe it's even a few thousand people of executives who's very uniquely positioned to control a lot of Capital. They look upon him, they look like at him and they say, wow, if he managed to go at top S&P 500 companies in five years. And some of them don't even know what MicroStrategy stands for. They don't even know what's the underlying business. All they know that he somehow engineered and added Bitcoin to the treasury management and he succeeded and they're like I won this. So I think that is a very unique position to be in. Right you are. I mean there's no secret that he was basically consulting Elon Musk when he was adding Bitcoin treasury to Tesla and then Dorsey when he was doing it for Square. Right. There's a reason why they consult with him.
- [11:17]
A
Even Larry Fink is on video saying we brought in Michael Saylor to talk about what we should do before we launched ibit.
- [11:24]
B
Correct. But he has a case study, very simple and you can have an opinion of him. You can say he's over leveraged. There's a.
- [11:31]
A
Or under leveraged.
- [11:33]
B
Yes. Or under leverage of according to him. But like some people who were criticizing Will say, oh there's a like cascading risk of like you know, credit default, etc, but, but one thing no one can take away from him that he has at least for now as we recording this episode. Right. You know, in, you know like in, in February 2026, he has a positive successful case study. What's going to happen in one year and two years we don't know. But for now I think he has a pretty unique case study and there is a reason why even some of the countries with their sovereign wealth funds are consulting with him.
- [12:10]
A
Today there's a clip going around about David Solomon, the CEO of Goldman Sachs saying that he owns a small amount of Bitcoin and that he's an observer of Bitcoin or something to that effect. Do you think there's a reason and I didn't look if the statement was for him personally or of course he was saying it in public, why someone in that sort of a public role may say something like that instead of being more bullish or encouraging of the asset with being the head of Goldman Sachs. What's your take on that?
- [12:45]
B
It's a very simple reason. Protect their investments for the same reason as Larry Fink would change his position and admitted publicly that he was wrong about Blockchain this for the same reason as Jamie Dimon like called it also similar like Red Poison or a big mistake and then retracted it. And now so he's just A little
- [13:04]
A
bit behind where Larry Fink is now. It's like I don't like it, I don't like it. It's okay 1%, 2%, 5%, 6%.
- [13:12]
B
And again coming back to my early point when a lot of ultra high net worth individuals, not just saying like you know, they're demanding that there would be a small percentage of their portfolio in Bitcoin whether it's going to be in ETFs or like other forms. Again not bringing this kind of maximalist, like not your keys, not your coin but like for them, the institutional guys, right, they think that okay well I need some exposure, it's no longer an option. They have to talk about it otherwise they're going to start losing clients to the people who either custody Bitcoin or service bitcoin investors.
- [13:51]
A
And I guess just anything in life you're going to stair step it up over time. You're not going to go from it's for criminals to you should make it 5% of your portfolio. Oh yeah, necessarily, obviously. Unless you're really fomoing in at the corporate and institutional level.
- [14:10]
B
Yeah, look they are big holders, you know like of many digital asset treasuries like you know, directly or indirectly through their, you know, vehicles. They have you know also trading desks who are speculating on Bitcoin whether like we know it or not. Like you know, Goldman Sachs people think it's an investment firm. It's actually like systematic like you know, software engineering firm in my opinion. They have the people don't realize Goldman Sachs have more software engineers than Google. Did you know that?
- [14:43]
A
No idea.
- [14:43]
B
It is insane. Now I'm focusing high frequency trading so I'm learning more and more because at the end of the day it's code, right? You're running a fast code that trades in one microsecond. How can you do that? You have to have experience, you have to have incredible coders, you to have servers, let's say hardware and some of the collocations and some of the like biggest places in the world like you know, geographically covering 24 7. You have to have a lot of risk control, etc. Etc. They are masters of this, right? This is one of the big portion of their revenue coming from there. Now you have others like folks like Citadel, Susquehanna, you have like the Renaissance capitals of the world. That is incredibly successful medallion funds. I'm sure you like your listeners heard of it but if you haven't I would remind them that Jim Simons is still to me is one of my heroes. And he was a mathematician. And then all of a sudden decided like, I want to make money and this is more fun. And he created the most sophisticated algo, collected a team of about 60 PhDs that took him about 10 years. And then I think in 30 years they haven't, not only they haven't lost money, they outperformed every single trading fund in the world. And it was impossible to get in. At some point. I think the medallion fund from some of my friends who are in family offices, they said that you had to pay something like 4 and 40, like 4% management fee and 40% success fee just to get in. Or you have to know a member of the family of one of the employees who get privileged to get in because they're already part of the team.
- [16:32]
A
And for those unfamiliar, the Wall street standard is like 2 and 20, 2 and 20 a lot. If someone's trying to start something new, maybe it's 1 in 10 or they're trying to be competitive. Yeah, something in that range.
- [16:46]
B
Yeah, something. I mean, depends on the fund. Maybe fund the funds, it will be 1 in 10. Like, you know, some people who are extremely successful, they will charge you maybe two and a half and 25. But it's. Yeah, standard is 2 and 20. And, and by the way, because of recession, because of what we're seeing of lack of liquidity and a lot of challenges in the world on the macro level, the fees are going down, like globally. A lot of fund managers who I talk to, they're lowering their fees actually. So only the high performers, they have the audacity to raise the fees. Because guess what, it's the same principle as in bitcoin, in a way. Scarcity, like, you don't want it, it's okay. We have hundred other allocators who would love to get in. So it's either you or them, yes or no. Very simple. I think, coming back to the bitcoin world, right? And I think that's also what attracted me, that the design is so elegant, it's incredibly sophisticated. It's a decentralized network of trust. It's not only peer to peer system, it's also an ability to transfer any amount of money equivalent of money, right. Globally. And you, you don't have to ask a question. You, you cannot be. Your, your wire transfer cannot be frozen, right? And it's cheaper, faster, better. That would. When I understood this concept, I'm like, wow, this is mind blowing. It took me four years, by the way. I bought my First Bitcoin in 2012, isn't.
- [18:20]
A
Isn't Bitcoin kind of like the medallion fund? Because bitcoin's like, hey, there can only ever be 21 million investors if everybody has one coin. It's probably not the best way to put it, but something to that, the scarcity aspect. Not invite only, but there's going to be a waiting list in effect. When you see the price ripping.
- [18:44]
B
I think soon is going to get to invite only the demand is going to be so high. If you think about a deflationary nature, as you mentioned, 21 million, we already know that the last block will be mired in what, 2140, right?
- [18:55]
A
2140. Y.
- [18:56]
B
There's a guarantee that you and me probably going to be stardust by the time. Right. So.
- [19:02]
A
Or there'll be medical advances and we'll be here somehow.
- [19:06]
B
Maybe the consciousness will be here. Right. So not physically.
- [19:09]
A
We'll still be talking. Yeah, our AIs will be talking. Perfect.
- [19:14]
B
Tim and Konstantin LLMs will continue this conversation.
- [19:17]
A
Yes. Just ping pong back and forth 100 years after.
- [19:21]
B
But yeah, the mathematical elegance of supersedes any other convention. You know, like all those people who like still argue that, oh well, we have gold for this. Like, yeah, come on, like, you know, you're not actually buying gold. How many people hold physical gold bars or even coins in their house? Very, very few. Most of them buy the same ETFs, the same derivatives, like, you know, and they have the perception that this is something safe. But in reality someone in Fort Knox holds for them and they don't even know if it's audited or not. They just trust the system. A bank or a custodian. Right. What's. So if you understand that it's a plutocratic, like, you know, Vanity Fair, the entire market, it's a big casino. So the question becomes like, what's the alternative? What's the. Where a person who is not a huge institutional investor can have the edge. And that's only when there's an emergent technology. Historically, every time we have an emerging technology where it's very early and you can make some moves which are sometimes crazy, they sound. Especially to the girlfriends in the beginning, they sound inattractive, they sound unreasonable. But you do apply the resilience. You study, you learn the reason why and you clearly understand and you show the commitment. I think that's where you can win big without anyone's help.
- [20:53]
A
I think it's just a journey from people thinking that Bitcoin is unattractive and unreasonable to understanding that the girlfriends are unattractive and unreasonable.
- [21:04]
B
They might be attractive, but at the same time, I mean, attractive and unreasonable. Yes, that's a possible combination.
- [21:12]
A
You were asking before we started rolling if we could make it spicy. So that was my attempt at humor.
- [21:15]
B
No, we're going. It can be both, by the way. Sometimes they can be shifting or they have mood swings, but yeah, kind of like bitcoin.
- [21:26]
A
Just volatile.
- [21:27]
B
Very volatile. Very much exactly. So, yes. You're against the world sometimes. We're saying that there's like what I. According to last statistics I was looking at, There was about 580 million people in the world. So about what we're talking about, what, like less than 7% of the population of the world right now is holding some form of crypto assets. So that doesn't mean Bitcoin, by the way, very important. They can hold Ethereum, they can hold NFT or Meme Coin. And only around 102 million, roughly, give or take wallets are actually holding bitcoin. Now we have 8 billion people on planet Earth. And if that doesn't tell you that it's very early, like, I don't know what can. And we already have a trillion dollar assets, over a trillion slightly, but you know, again, very volatile. So tomorrow it can be 1 to 2 trillion. Yes, but in what period of time? I think the velocity, the exponential growth is important to understand. There has never been in the history of finance something that so meteorically went up just by the sheer trust of human beings. And again, the reason why we're not all desperate, we're not all crazy. And there are a lot of incredibly successful, incredibly smart people who not only believe in that, they vote and they buy this asset class with the money they made and they would never sell. I'm sure you know this. There's like a class of people like miners that would never ever sell a coin unless they need it for basic operational costs.
- [23:15]
A
Yeah, miners and sailors.
- [23:17]
B
Yes, I love it.
- [23:19]
A
Never selling.
- [23:20]
B
Yes, miners and sailors. That's a good one. And also if you think about it, they are the one who are still making money. To come back to the rationale that it's very tough at this market. Most of the firms who are making money is exchanges, market makers, miners and give or take, few other incumbents of the market, but those are the biggest three. And now digital asset treasury firms and structured finance, you know, guys who are launching the ETFs of the world. Right. But again, not many others. So it's all about resilience. If you truly Believe that. Let's say there's a 10 year horizon in every investment. Forget about crypto for a second. Doesn't matter if you invested in stock or bond, but you or real estate is very easy because they're all long term, they don't have a choice.
- [24:19]
A
I mean a lot of people don't understand or don't realize that. Even financial advisors would tell you well if you can stay in your home for 10 years, then you should probably buy the home.
- [24:30]
B
Yeah.
- [24:30]
A
If you're not, you should probably rent. Not financial advice, but something to that, to that effect.
- [24:36]
B
I think Saylor was, was given this example like of his home in Miami. Right. You know that it appreciated like some, a gazillion access. Like. Right. And all that stuff and that I think on the flip side it shows also the inflation rate. I mean the inflation rate is insane. So if you do believe that okay, you hold your dollar, but it's not only the fact that okay, will you save money? Would you save money? But you lose the, the purchasing power of money. And, and, and, and sadly print, I mean printing of trillion of dollars and you know, the debt of United States is not helping. We have already examples of how the dollar is just losing. We don't know the exact numbers. Officially it's 1 to 2% inflation rate but unofficially people say it might be even up to 7%. Now I don't want to debate different economists, but just assume for a second that your purchasing power in 10 years will go down further for sure. More than 10% like a guarantee. The question is like you know, what's going to be the offset like treasury bills, gold. Okay, but what if, like what if it's more. There's this dystopian novels right now like you know, gaining popularity like you know like with Bancorp as a currency. You remember like Lionel Shriver, if you, if you remember her, her works like you know so. And you know I, I'm a big fan. You know like I was reading and she describes, she wrote in 2016 by the way, not too long and describes the events of, of a family that is losing everything and two between the period of 2029 and 2000, what 40, 47, something like that, that the dollar collapses as a global currency and the aftermath and describes like, like in a very dystopian satirical way what happens. And to me when I was reading it, I was like, you know, I actually remember this, this happened to me. You know, I'm originally from Ukraine, you know, when, when I was a child and Soviet Union collapsed. I've seen my grandmother and my grand grandmother in the kitchen in a studio having a conversation about like that they lost all their savings, like everything. They didn't do anything wrong. Imagine they were working class people saving all their lives to take care of their, you know, children, grandchildren. All of a sudden everything is nulled just because of the regime change. Right. So I've experienced it. People in Venezuela experienced it.
- [27:20]
A
Can we experience it here? You hear a lot of talk about the Fed and the treasury and all these things aligning within like literally the next couple of months. And you think about what the current administration might be willing to do ahead of the midterms, not as a political thing, but as a gotta get out there and get the votes. And they've just literally said this is going to be the golden age for America and America first. And we're going to have the stock market go to some very high number by the end of the presidential term. I mean, the rhetoric is maybe rhetoric, but what's your view on what could happen here? Maybe not in the next couple weeks or months, but in a shorter period of time. When you're talking about decades or hundreds
- [28:06]
B
of years in a shorter period of time. I'm actually very positive regardless of the political stance. I'm trying to be very, very careful because right now it's so polar, it's radical views. People don't try to hear each other. Right. You know, that's like the saddest part to me. But I would say from what I'm seeing from economical perspective and specifically in digital assets, I mean like the, when you hear the chairman of cftc, he was speaking early this week, I mean, that's like music to our ears. Like we've never had, I think the head of sec, head of cftc, the people in the IRS and overall the biggest regulators and like, you know that they are so in tune with the digital assets. I don't think it's ever in the history, in the 16 years of, history of, of bitcoin, Right. It ever happened. So I'm very positive of what's going to happen with crypto regardless of, you know, the short term bear market right now, the global economy, I don't know, that's much more challenging because I think the AI, it plays a huge role into this. Whoever gets access to quantum computing, forget about bitcoin, they would have access to breaking the codes, the security systems of the defense agencies. Right. That can be triggering a lot of unpredictable things.
- [29:40]
A
Isn't this all kind of very binary either something really bad is going to happen or all the tech is going to be upgraded. Is that kind of the TLDR on it or am I being too binary? Well look, and again not bitcoin but
- [29:56]
B
like everything I'm trying to be positive irrespective, you know, like as a coming from again coming from a country at war where we've seen like horrific things like I don't think people in us can even imagine like you know what people, what the real war is and the current state. Right. And it's still happening by the way in like massively hundreds of thousands of people are dying. Right. So I've seen the reality of poor decision making. Right. And guarantees that never fulfilled again because of irrationality of human beings has nothing to do with lack of resources or lack of like will. It's just pure ego and like complete irrational things that has a consequences of millions of people can die. If we extrapolate this experience, sadly to the economical decisions or geopolitical decisions, sadly because of the particular ego of particular leaders, not to name them. Right. That can trigger unpredictable results that can also like you know, have very, very dire consequences. I hope again hope is not a strategy. My mentor used to say it. I hope it's not going to happen. I do hope that we will have enough willpower, enough consciousness that will get to the level that we are understanding that we are one. There is no need to fight. It's much more productive to coexist. Create an incredible economic wealth for everyone. Realize that we have all the resources in the world to and all like opportunities right now. Especially with decentralized economy and ability to share this like it like in an instance. All we need is just desire to understand that this unity is not an option. Again it's an inevitability. That's what I hope. Now the reality I don't know and I really hope whoever is going to use the AI tools in their hands is going to do it ethically us so far it's not a perfect example but I think because of the councils and because of a lot of open conversations and a proper dialogue so far gives me more hope. Other countries not so much like we don't know the consequences are going to be real. Like you know what's the consequences of China gets like, you know to the. You know like I would say AGI like first we honestly don't know and I, I don't want to. I. I'm afraid to even predict these consequences because I have my theories. Reading a lot of fiction Novels like, I know nothing good will happen from there because you immediately have incredible leverage knowing the human nature. Like, would you use this leverage in negotiations, in pressuring your opponent? For sure.
- [33:01]
A
The US still has the largest, most powerful military, right?
- [33:06]
B
For now.
- [33:07]
A
For now. Okay.
- [33:08]
B
But again, like military when we're talking about like, you know, brute force, the budgets and the like, you know, the bases. Great. Now imagine it can become obsolete in one day when you control all the, like, you know, all the communication systems and all the like ability to like, like turn off all the electricity in a country. Again, I don't want to bring this doom and gloom scenario, but I'm saying that there are pretty unpredictable scenarios. I, I really hope that like the. We will learn to coexist. That's my only hope. Everything else, I don't really care whether it's AI conversation or economics and bitcoin, right. You know, like I'm, I'm for pluralism of thoughts. I do believe that. I, I don't want you to agree with me. You can support any sides. You can be, let's say you can be like against capitalism. Right. And I can be pro capitalism. Totally fine. As, as long as we can sit like this and, and just able to hear each other. I think that is the most important part. And I'm, what, I'm really concerned that in the United States I feel like this ability, this skill is slowly becoming not really attractive. That's what really scares me. There's like siloed like chambers where people lost the ability to even hear each other. And if you don't agree with me, I will, I will go after you. I will cancel you. That is a very dangerous path. And I would really hope that we will heal from this and start coming to the center and, and learn from each other and hear each other, even if it's very uncomfortable.
- [34:48]
A
Saylor has said that basically retail has taken Bitcoin from zero to $100,000 roughly, and that the big banks entering the picture is really going to take Bitcoin the next 10x from $100,000 to a million dollars a coin. Do you agree with that? What sort of like macro or other factors do you think is going to kind of propel this forward? And does that include like needing a little revamp on the narrative over the next couple years, three to five years?
- [35:21]
B
I agree with that. I do believe that right now one of the hottest topics, if you hear it, most of the panels are stablecoins. Why? Because they're the fuel, right? You know, like they, their Dollarize equivalent of how you can move money. And it's actually pretty, pretty efficient. Right. I was just talking. I had an episode on my podcast Holistic Investments on Monday, wrote with chairman of Signature bank. Right. I mean X Signature bank, sadly that was slaughtered by the government and I couldn't talk about it deeply, which I wanted to, but I was asked politely not to escalate the topic because they didn't want to have a legal repercussions with particular, you know, fractions of very radical people who actually caused them to die. They were not supposed to die. Nick Carter wrote about it, a great article. I'm sure you did the research. But what they're doing is like right now, T plus 0, you know, settlement and clearing houses. So what it means in, in the global terms, right. Eventually a lot of banks will start using blockchain technology to settle money, whether it's dollars or euro or yens or any other currencies. And that is very powerful. It's going to change the way we think about finance. It's already digital. We missed a lot of the people like the generations, they missed this analog transition to digital. I was just thinking to myself what was the last time I went to a bank to actually fulfill the paper to withdraw or send some funds. We don't do it. We have our app. We can, I mean you can demand right now to withdraw let's say $1 million. Right. And the question whether you're going to have the ability to do it, let's say on Saturday or Sunday. In a traditional banking that's pretty challenging. You have correspondent banking like I coming from Europe, you know, every time you process dollars you have to go through New York, most likely JP Morgan or someone else. Right? To 56% of all the money movements people don't realize are processed in US dollars. And you need to have a correspondent bank in New York somewhere who's processing this. You're not allowed to go directly. That means you have several intermediaries on your way to control whether your transaction is fulfilled or settled or cleared. Okay. And that is a huge blocker. It doesn't have to be. We already have so much like more advanced technology, number one. So coming back, stablecoin number one, narrative, number two narrative that will bring few trillion dollars in my opinion is real, real world assets. The fact that this tokenization or whatever we call like of real assets, whether it's rare earth, oil or like, I mean gold obviously is the biggest example, right? Or traditional assets, even stocks, bonds or other, I think it's inevitable trend. Also you cannot stop it anymore. It's more efficient. Again, whatever is historically faster, better, cheaper wins. Before we had this huge opposing forces, the legacy systems who did not want that to happen. Because what they realize if that happens, they will lose control. And think about it, there is like about 150 to 300 families who control 99% of the money movements of the world. They don't want to lose control. Why would they? Now when the technological rails are going to shift, what's going to happen? Not only they will losing money, they will lose power. And if you think about the hierarchy of needs, power is always more important than money because that gives you leverage to control the decision making. If you need to push some bill or if you need to make some treaty, that's a very, very, very different instrument. So that was a blocker. Now when they realize, okay, there's a very strong lobby and in the face of the strongest economy, I mean we can still say US is at least in 2026, still the strongest economy in the world arguably. Right. And when the number one economy in the world started to push heavily, everyone else looked at it and said, okay, well we want to, we want to follow the trend. And now I think it's real, it's inevitable that in the coming five years, I mean you can read all the JP Morgan's, Goldman Sachs reports, DTCC reports of the world that are predicting that around 3 to 5 trillion dollars in real world assets that will be tokenized will come on chain and that will bring new liquidity. And as we know, let's imagine it happens in three to four years, right? What happens, there is more money, there's more liquidity, there's more marketing budgets. That means we can attract newcomers, not the old people who are already holding, they're already believers. Right. And that brings more excitement to the markets. Right. People are saying, oh wow, Bitcoin is now let's speculate 200,000. Okay, well one of my friends who's like extremely reputable investor, very traditional, when I first told him about bitcoin, he was laughing at me. Last year, bought his first etf. And you want to know why? Because three of his other friends did the same. Not because he really wanted to, because he, he started to feel left out. You know, it's a club. Exactly. So, so I think it will happen like gradually, but it will be like inevitable trend that people will start diversify their portfolio. I mean hopefully bitcoin will still remain this digital gold status. Right? But other like other worldwide assets Will also help to bring more liquidity, which will strengthen further the position of bitcoin.
- [41:48]
A
That was kind of. My next question is what parts of this are good for bitcoin or not? Because on one hand you have Cathie Wood and others saying that stablecoins are taking some of the shine away from bitcoin. But if you look at Tether and other instruments, their treasuries are in gold and bitcoin and US Treasuries. So it's like almost like a circular economy. Like, okay, yeah, sure, stablecoins, but then the stable coins own bitcoin. So isn't that good for bitcoin? But the whole tokenizing aspect of it does that liquidity, that has nothing to do with bitcoin. Is everything good for bitcoin or is that an overstatement?
- [42:33]
B
Not everything is good for bitcoin for sure. At the same time, look, the entire money movement is, you know, very cyclical if you think about it. You mentioned Tether. You know, I'm sure your listeners already know about it. But just as a reminder, tether is the sixth biggest holder of U.S. treasury bonds. Like, think about it. Some of the countries deploy less capital than one private company that is established with headquarters in El Salvador. Also very ironic. Like a small country in Central Latin. Latin America. Like, you know, Central America, sorry. And you know, it's, it's, it's operating like a huge bank. So that tells us that this experiments, even though they are opaque to some people and completely like irrational. Now Tether is buying stakes in traditional businesses, in agricultural businesses. They even bought some shares in one of my favorite youth countries, Juventus and soccer club in the Italian league. I mean it's becoming like a private equity slash banking business. Also they hold some bitcoin on their treasury, right? So we're going to see these movements where the companies who are becoming rich because of digital assets, I think it's kind of in their best interest to maintain bitcoin position in goodwill. I mean, think about also like even let's talk a little bit about Trump. I mean again, not personalities. I want to analyze his Persona, but like as his family now they have personal interests in promoting bitcoin business interest. And whether people like it or not, this is the reality. Which means when like powerful people, not only him, obviously there's a lot of other clans who are interested in bitcoin to win. And it was by the way, Jensen who mentioned in an interview, like when they were asking like how why do you think Nvidia became successful? He said, and he thought about it for about 30 seconds and he's like, I was able to unite about 10,000 smartest people in the world together to make this company great. Now imagine bitcoin is uniting millions of smart people together. So as a. If you think about, like, if you believe in this noosphere, you know, in our Ukrainian scientific culture, there was the scientist Vernadsky who talked about the neurosphere, and he explained the logic of how. How come, like the radio was invented in two separately places in the world simultaneously without the scientists talking to each other. Right. And many inventions he. He made as parallel. Many inventions were invented at the same time by different people without communicating to each other. Now think about it. When millions of people want something to succeed wholeheartedly, they're invested. That is a very powerful, energetic movement in my opinion, irrespective of the markets. Like, if you want something to succeed with all your heart and you're also making efforts, people invest, you know, hundreds of millions, if not billions in marketing. I mean, look what Saylor did. Like, he actually pushed a lot of people who were on the trenches, were not sure to come in by an mstr. Again, not an investment advice. I don't want to say if it's a good investment or not, but that brought a lot of newcomers. So this is to meet for me to say that. Yeah, in. As a side effect, I think it will be also positive for bitcoin. To what extent, I don't know.
- [46:31]
A
We have a couple of minutes left. Super appreciate your time. Any closing thoughts, any events coming up that you want to shout out or where people can find you online or what your favorite ice cream is or anything else you want to share.
- [46:46]
B
My favorite. I have to think about my favorite ice cream. That was like, unexpected. No, I just want to, you know, first of all, thank you for. For having me. It was like incredible conversation. My. I mean, I've never talked about the name of the company that I run to like. So just remind people, like, the firm I'm running is Holistic Capital. Right. You know, so can find holisticcapital.com the podcast and the show that I'm running is Holistic Investments. And some point, I'll hope to have Tim also as a guest. And to me, holistic is the word that means a lot to me. It's about integrity. It's about, you know, the values of, you know, the oneness, you know, like that we are. We have to treat each other with respect and with understanding that no matter what, we can all play the financial markets and a lot of other games that we play in our life. But at the end, we have to understand that this, there's much more important purposes in life. And I just had a friend, a call before our interview where an investor who was supposed to come into a business just found out that he has terminal cancer and he canceled all his events. And he said, you know what? This, whatever, one month, two months in my life that I have, I will spend with my family. And if you think about this, right, that's what we do as humans, right? We work hard, crazy hours, we don't sleep, we're doing everything we can to succeed, but when the question is of life and death, we focus on the most important things, which is our family, maybe some other, like, you know, work, work of our life, maybe some scientific achievement or, like, athletic achievement, right? So I would just advise to, like, remember that at some point. And I try to remind myself every day about this to being grateful for every second. I don't take it, you know, for granted. And, yeah, I just appreciate, you know, you having me here.
- [48:46]
A
Awesome. Thanks so much for joining and we'll have to have you back as things progress.
- [48:52]
B
Thank you so much.
- [48:53]
A
Thanks.