← The Wolf Of All Streets
The Wolf Of All Streets
BITCOIN BOTTOM IS IN? Tom Lee Calls It As Global Uncertainty Spikes | Mark Yusko
00:40:05
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- [00:01]
A
It's all happening, guys. Tom Lee says with conviction that the bitcoin and crypto bottom is in and he's actually putting his money where his mouth is once again by buying a whole lot of Ethereum this week, which is something that he's been doing almost every single week. But one of the reasons that he's saying he thinks that the bottom is in is because of the ceasefire in Iran. And if you're watching the news, it seems like people over there are having trouble defining the world word cease and that they maybe don't know exactly what fire means either. I'm going to dive into all of this today, hopefully with Mark Yusco. We're waiting for him to show up, but I decided to just go ahead and yolo into the stream without him. Let's go.
- [00:47]
B
Let's do.
- [01:02]
A
Good morning, everybody. Happy Thursday. I hope that you're having a wonderful day because I know that I am. Originally we had Eric Baltunas joining from Bloomberg. I told you guys about that yesterday. But guess what? Apparently I'm not important and I don't matter and he decided to cancel on us. Love you, Eric, but come on, man. Leaving me dangling here. And then we got Mark Yusko to join and last time I checked he hasn't, but I think he's going to join right now. I see him. Mark, we're going to test you in real time. I hope it works. Good morning.
- [01:33]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry.
- [01:35]
A
No, you nailed it, dude. We asked you like 12 minutes ago to show up.
- [01:39]
B
Well, no, I was having. I couldn't get my. Anyway, Microsoft wasn't giving me the link in my email, so.
- [01:44]
A
You're a real American hero. You're here and that's what matters to us. So listen, we got a lot to talk about today as usual. The lead in here because it's great for clicks. We got our good friend Tom Lee here. Bob's in no way why? Tom Lee says the Iran ceasefire is the starting gun for a massive bitcoin rally. Okay, so last I checked, it didn't seem like we were ceasing and that we were still firing. Maybe not us, but other people.
- [02:14]
B
Yeah, exactly.
- [02:15]
A
But I've been kind of on board long before the ceasefire with the idea that we could be bottoming. Right. You always have an idea of what season we're in. Right. So where do you think we stand right now?
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B
Yeah, I, I don't disagree with that sentiment. Bottom ing right through.
- [02:33]
A
That's where I'm at.
- [02:34]
B
I think summer is all w. So summer, like physical Summer is always a different period. Intra crypto. I still think we're in crypto winter and the summer is normally a kind of, you know, meandering time because people go away and there's just not as much action. So I think, you know, the fall of this year is when we start, you know, moving into crypto spring and, and have a lot more enthusiasm and activity. So. Right.
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A
I like the bottoming idea, like I said. So like bottoming could mean we go visit like 57 and then we chop around a little more.
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B
I actually think 63 was our low, but, but that's just me.
- [03:18]
A
I think so too. I think we chop around, but I'm just saying I don't think like my conviction would be reduced by like one sweep of the lows or something like that.
- [03:26]
B
No, no, not at all. Nope. Nope.
- [03:28]
A
Yeah. And meanwhile, you know, we are actually seeing a little bit of an uptick in interest here. Markets are recovering. We had 224 million in inflows last week. You know, there's, there's clearly some institutional interest. I mean we had Matt Hogan on the other day and anyone who's actually talking to institutions and is on the ground here is like these guys don't care about the price and they're not shaken at all. And you see these cards, it's like institutions buying retail dumping.
- [03:55]
B
Exactly. And then again it's always the trading activity that gets quote, you know, called retailing. People who are speculating or gambling. I mean that's gonna happen. It's like I see all this, you know, oh, record retail flows into, you know, the S and P. Like yeah, that's 401k money and speculators. Okay, nice. They're, they're gambling. That's fine.
- [04:23]
A
Yeah, I'm trying to find the article. I know that I, I had it, but maybe not in the notes, but there was a story today about hyper liquid. Oh yeah, brought up. But hyper liquid traders wiped out in oil collapse. Like oh my gosh, who could have foreseen this? I just laugh when you talk about speculators. You always tell the story about your brother in law who they stole my money and actually you were just trading with leverage and you're an idiot. But now all of the oil traders are just a bunch of dudes who used to flip memes or trade all coins on leverage and now they're on hyper liquid yoloing into oil as if they're global, as if they're experts in geopolitics in the straits of Hormuz. Of course they got wiped out. Did we think everyone was going to use high leverage perps on oil and become Warren Buffett?
- [05:15]
B
It's like the people who got quote unquote wiped out in the silver and gold crashes. You mean you were suddenly a mineral and mining expert because, you know, gold gotten a short squeeze or silver got in a short squeeze? Come on.
- [05:31]
A
It's so wild to me. But in the meantime, you know, I think we can agree that whether for better or for worse, institutions are ramping up here, right? I mean, Morgan Stanley Bitcoin ETF draws in 31 million on first trading day. So you can look at the chart there. They're far from the top. BlackRock did 2 billion, they did 33 billion. Right? I mean, they're like sixth on the list here. But still isn't the signal that Morgan Stanley, who's not really an ETF issuer, has decided to undercut everybody by 10 bips and launch their own ETF.
- [06:05]
B
It's a huge, and it's a huge signal for lots of different reasons that we, again, we can talk about in sense that they were like, you know, this along with UBS and Merrill lynch and, and a bunch of others, and now that they have flipped that, if that's nothing but signal, right? It's not noise, it's, it's literally signal.
- [06:27]
A
So I mean, how, how do you, like just in your mind right now, and I know you, we kind of set the table at the winter coming into a potential spring. But do you think that bitcoin right now is trading where it is because of everything that's happening around it? Or do you think that it's trading this way because it's trading this way? And it would have been regardless. We're so good now at assigning so many narratives and I just don't think the Straits of Hormuz are the reason for bitcoin price.
- [06:59]
B
I think it has very, very little to do. And that's actually a little bit of happenstance in the sense of the drop, the crash, whatever you want to call it, the drop, the end of crypto fall and the move into crypto winter happened from October of last year kind of into January. So pretty all the Iran war issues. And so normally if a, if a macro event like the Strait of Hormuz were to happen, clearly bitcoin, gold, bonds, anything that was used as collateral in someone's account that they were speculating with margin on stocks or, or futures or whatever it is, and you get a big drop, you get a margin Call. People don't sell what they can. I mean, what they want to sell, they sell what they can sell. And so that's why if you go back to lockdowns, right, you know, Bitcoin dropped 50% in like 13 hours. People are like, whoa, why? Well, gold dropped, bonds dropped. It's because when your stocks drop and you've got margin call, you can't sell the stock to cover the margin call. That's the whole problem. And so you sell what you have left. And so that isn't happening right now. So we don't have that downward pressure on Bitcoin like we're seeing in other markets because the leverage got flushed out.
- [08:38]
A
Those people sold.
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B
Yeah, people sold in the fourth quarter and into, into early January. But more importantly, the leverage, the forced selling. And you've, you've talked about this many, many times in your stream. Like when did people actually think it was a good idea to buy, you know, an 80 Vol asset on 50 times leverage or 25 times leverage? I mean, it used to be a hundred times leverage and it was worse. But that's, that's never been a good idea. And you know, your question earlier about, you know, why are people, you know, going into this, this oil trade, you know, at $117, like, well, because humans are going to, human, humans do two things. We buy what we wish we would have bought and we are spec spectacular at that. I mean, look at all the flow data on any asset in the history of time and you will always see more coming in literally right at the peak of anything. And that's just because, because it feels good to buy something that everyone else has already bought. Now you're part of the club, you're in the herd. And the second thing we do is we sell what we're about to need. And, and that, that's, that's the most frustrating part is like you watch people, they have an asset that they believe in and it corrects for, for whatever reason, right? Can be lots of reasons. It could be technical reasons, it can be fundamental reasons, but the asset corrects and they sell it. And there was a tweet this morning as I was reading, having my coffee says, you know, I really wish I, I wouldn't have sold my Bitcoin at, you know, at 8 cents down from 30 cents. I, yeah, you probably shouldn't have sold it at 8 cents. But that's the problem is back then the volatility wasn't 80. I mean, it was a ginormous number. And people get shaken out because they're paying attention to the movement instead of paying attention to the. Again, the signal versus the noise.
- [11:06]
A
I mean, every time in.
- [11:09]
B
Every time and every time in every
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A
bitcoin meme, it's like there's the two doors, like the two booths.
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B
Oh, my gosh. Yes.
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A
Bitcoin at 50 grand, Bitcoin at 125. And everybody's lined up at 125 and nobody wants to buy it. We'll say 60. Right.
- [11:25]
B
Because it at. It's 71K. Right? Oh, my God, it's going to zero. Like, what do you mean it's going to zero? And based on. Well, it was 126 and now 71. Like, right, but a year ago it was 75, and two years ago it was 45. And so if. And again, we've talked about this is the difference between an accumulation pattern and a distribution pattern. Right. An accumulation pattern is one where you're making higher highs and higher lows. It doesn't mean there's no volatility. There's still volatility. But each successive wave, you're accumulating the asset. I mean, accumulating the. The group.
- [12:18]
A
Yeah.
- [12:19]
B
Distribution is the opposite. Right. You're making lower lows and lower highs. Is like a rubber ball bouncing down a set of stairs. Again, doesn't mean the volatility is not high. That's literally the kinetic energy. The rubber ball bounces each time it hits a step. End of the trip is a bad place. And you can say, well, bitcoin's being distributed. You know, people are selling. Well, let's actually look at the data. Who is selling? Small traders are selling. People who bought in October are definitely selling. There's. There's no question that data is incontrovertible.
- [12:58]
A
Yeah, I'm done here. I tried.
- [13:00]
B
Yeah. And. And I lost money and I'm out. Yeah, but who's buying whales? Interesting, right? I mean, I thought the whales were selling well, but there is one whale that did sell a big bag. But most of the data shows that the whales are actually continuing to accumulate. And more importantly, you said it. Morgan Stanley and other institutions are fine. Like, okay, fine. You know what? I resisted. I resisted. My clients are saying they're going to fire me. Fine. We'll actually create a way that you can do it so that we can control it and get some fees so that accumulation is. Is easily seeable. I don't know if that's even a word. Visible. It's easily visible if you just look at the data. Right. We. We are making now higher highs, we're making lows, but they're higher lows. And you know, you said it at the very beginning, what happens if we get one more shakeout down to the 63 or 57? 58. And why do 57 and 58 matter right now? That's depending on who you talk to. The electricity cost of a bitcoin. And the interesting thing is, and this is, this is actually pretty interesting, Bitcoin has never, and I hate saying those words, ever and never, but, but it actually is true. It's never. It's a fact. It's never traded below the cost of electricity. It's traded below the cost of production. Cause you got computers and you know, space and cooling. But the actual cost of electricity, it's never traded below that. And that is logical because if it cost me that much, the incremental marginal cost to produce it, I probably won't sell it for a price lower than that unless I'm forced. And miners, the nice thing is they're mostly not forced. They can choose when they sell and they can sell in the futures market and hedge, which is a whole nother story. But I like the accumulation pattern. I think we're in crypto winter and the crypto winter ends in September. Now, how do you say September? Well, it's 364 days after the peak. That's what it's been.
- [15:27]
A
If we really did put it a bottom around 60. We have also a lot of data in the past that, you know, you just kind of sit here for six to eight months. Like you get the. First, you get the price capitulation, then you shake everyone out, not by price going lower, but by making them think it's never going to go up again. Because it's been a long time.
- [15:44]
B
Yeah, I mean there is one, there's one thing that, that concerns me and, and it's not a huge concern, but it does concern me. And now Tom Lee, as usual, is concerning me. Because anytime people say we're going straight to the moon, I'm like, oh God, that's. That, that's a bad, that's a bad thing. So I don't think the ceasefire is the starting gun. I don't one, I don't think we ceased firing. I think there's stuff still happening. But more importantly, the thing that bothers me is Tim Peterson. I love Tim. Tim is one of the smartest guys in our space. He's very logical, he's very practical, very focused on the numbers and he tracks a bunch of different things. So he's where I get my Metcalfe's law fair value model. And that says, you know, high 70s, low 80s, that's a pretty good place. That means we're below fair value, which means people who are investors, long term accumulators of assets below fair value should be buying it. And we are, so. But he also showed a chart where the mempool is empty. And the only other times that has happened has been in the middle of crypto winter and we went down another 50%. So I'm not, again, I'm not predicting that and I'm not, but I, I can't ignore that piece of data and I can't ignore that low activity in the MEM pool is real. But I, I had this conversation with, you know, I'm, I'm partners with, with Pomp and Jason on our, our first two funds and then I have two new partners for my, my later funds, but we still are running the first two funds. So I meet with those guys every Monday. And Jason made a good point this, this the other day. He said, yeah, I hear you, but most of the transactions now aren't happening at the base layer. Right. And that is a good point in the sense that we, we, we haven't achieved what you and I hope for, which is, you know, the full L2 and L3 and L4. So that we have a system of money that works at the base layer, Bitcoin, the way money today is the base layer of gold. And then you've got, you know, aca, I mean fedwire and ACH and Visa, mastercard. So we're not quite there. We're pretty close, but we're not quite there. So I, I, I'll accept that over the past 12 years that has changed a lot. And so there are now more people with Coinbase accounts or Kraken accounts, and those don't show up immediately as mempool numbers. So I, I'm willing to accept that, but it still bugs me a little bit.
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A
Okay, fair enough. I think it's good to look at, look at all angles. I would really hate to be just chilling in the 30 thousands at the bottom of all this.
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B
I don't think it's going really don't, I mean, no, I mean, because I really think the electricity cost number, I hate to use the word trumps, right, because it's been perverted by, you know, but, but it, it over, it overcomes the, it overcomes this, this issue on the mempool. And again, it's Just one indicator and I think there are, there are more solid indicator saying we bottomed at 63 and maybe we wicked down to 60 that day.
- [19:36]
A
I can't remember like 59, 9 or something.
- [19:38]
B
59.9. Yeah, so, so that was the wick down but the closing price was 63. I think that was it. And what's interesting about that 63 number, you know, Peter Brandt, who again I love the guy, I mean he's one of the old school, you know, ta guys and he grudgingly kind of came along to the party but he's, he's just a guy that looks at lines on charts and that's what he's done for his whole life because oh, that's just witchcraft. Like, you know, it's really interesting that people who say it's witchcraft are usually people who aren't professional investors who kind of dabble. And every professional investor that I've had the privilege, right, because I had this great job for 20 plus years. I got paid to talk to the smartest people in the world and see if I wanted to give them money, other people's money that I was a fiduciary for. But I met with some of the most amazing people ever. Just super lucky. And people like Paul Tudor Jones and you know, Stan Druckenmiller, they actually use this stuff now it's not the only thing they use, but they actually use it. And they're better investors than everyone I've ever met who says it's just witchcraft. So what Peter says is 63 looked like the, you know, the banana zone because you got banana markets which, you know, gives you that parabolic move at the top and that's when all the speculators come in and then you drop and then you get another banana. And there are some that said, you know, no, no, no, we're in a cucumber market. We're in a what? Like, well, the institutions are here. So the banana is now going to be just straight line number go up forever.
- [21:33]
A
Yeah, I called that the flat banana, but yeah, the flat banana, much better. It's like we have a banana but it's.
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B
Yeah, somebody else used a cucumber and
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A
you know, I like the cucumbers better.
- [21:44]
B
Oh, it was a great scene in Animal House right at the grocery store. So. But I, I, I, I, I.
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A
When the Germans bomb Pearl Harbor.
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B
Mark. I do, I do. Don't, hey, don't, don't, don't worry. He's on a roll. Don't stop him. He's on A roll. Don't interrupt him. He's on a roll. 0.0. Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life. And that is, that is kind of how I feel about most of the noise on Twitter. And, and particularly crypto. Twitter is, you know, fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life. And so let's not, let's not fat,
- [22:23]
A
drunk, stupid, and yoloing into perpetual swaps on oil. But speaking of oil, by the way, this could be the biggest story, story of the day that I almost forgot to bring up. Iran demands $1 per barrel of oil passing through state of Hormuz, paid in crypto. Okay? So now we do that thing where it's like we cope because we probably don't want like, you know, North Korea using bitcoin or maybe Iran. But we've always said bitcoin is for everyone. Which means. Also
- [22:56]
B
here's the thing, right? When we say we don't, what we're really saying is Washington doesn't want these, you know, enemies of the, you know, Rothschild banking cartel. And then there's a list, right? There's like nine countries that, if you look at those nine countries that don't have a central bank, they're all the, quote, enemies. And so, okay, what do we do? Well, we sanction them because starving women and children sounds less good than saying we're going to sanction them. You know, if you said you were going to starve women and children, people would say that, that sounds bad. Why, why would I want to do that? Oh, when we say sanction that, that, that's a very good thing. So we say, you can't use our money. Oh, okay.
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A
So stealing that. Yeah. Okay, go ahead.
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B
These are, these are women and children that, that would like to, to eat. So they're like, well, I, I, I could use other things. I could use gold, I could use silver, I could use these rubles, I could use these renminbi. Maybe I could use this bitcoin thing. No, no, no, that makes you evil. That makes you, that makes you a drug trafficker and a terrorist, like. Well, okay, fine, propaganda aside, hyperbole aside, if I'm in one of these countries where I've been sanctioned and they've cut off my access to dollar funding and swift, I'm probably going to do whatever it takes not to starve. I'm just saying. And now what we're talking about is actually a pretty advanced, pretty interesting place that has been building bitcoin mining infrastructure for a while because they have a Lot of excess electricity, because turns out, you know, they flare a lot of gas when they produce a lot of oil, and they can use that to recapture to, you know, basically do bitcoin for way less than 58,000. So it's been pretty good. And so they have the infrastructure to transfer. And now it's like, well, if you use bitcoin, that gets me away from them being able to sanction and stopping those transactions. And you want to go through my straight, maybe you got to pay a toll. And I tell you, the one thing that I am nervous about, Scott, and I don't want this to be, but everything that I read or see pushes me in this direction. We've seen this movie before, and I'm just old, right? I mean, I live. I did. I. I wasn't old enough to go because I was still a little kid, but I was there, and I watched friends, uncles, and brothers go to Vietnam and. And all the things that are happening with this. Oh, it'll just be a couple weeks. Skirmish, and they'll give up. And I'm like, really? Okay, but how are we gonna fight against an entrenched group of people that they love their country as much as we love ours, and they're there, and they know the infrastructure and they know the topography, and actually, they've built tunnels. And so I worry about, oh, we're just gonna drop some troops on the ground. K Pop Demon Hunters, Haja Boy's breakfast Meal and Hunt Trick's meal have just dropped at McDonald's. They're calling this a battle for the fans. What do you say to that, Rumi? It's not a battle. So glad the Saja boys could take
- [26:45]
A
breakfast and give our meal the rest of the day.
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B
It is an honor to share. No, it's our honor.
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A
It is our larger honor.
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B
No, really, stop. You can really feel the respect in this battle. Pick a meal to pick a side.
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A
Participating McDonald's while supplies last.
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B
Okay, but we've tried that, and it doesn't work very well ever. Ever. Yeah.
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A
I mean, the 40s. Yeah. Yeah.
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B
Well, yeah, there were a couple times. Yeah. In. Where there was a. And. And. And that's the other thing. The only time it worked was when there was a WW tied to it, and I don't really want that. And that's. You know, there's some that say, oh, that's. The whole plan is to get us into World War iii. Like, well, yeah, let's avoid that at all costs. I mean, that's a bad one.
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A
First of All. Do you have a hard stop at 9:30?
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B
No, I'm good.
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A
Okay.
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B
I was late.
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A
No, a friend of mine sent me this substack, a normie friend, a guy actually worked at Citadel for the years. That was really interesting because I'm a crypto guy. And he forwarded this. Here's the Twitter thread about it, but just to summarize. And then there's a substack here as well, but it basically makes the claim, and this was before Iran's Strait of Hormuz bitcoin argument, that there's a single guy, basically Zanjani, who is a part of the Iranian government, and he's the guy behind all their sanctions of Asians and using crypto and setting up mining in Iran, you know, selling oil to China using both the yuan, which we've seen, and crypto to circumvent the United States. And basically this makes the argument very deeply, if you read it, that taking out this guy would probably take out the Iranian regime more than any other single character. And the entire thing is about how Iran has and can use crypto, and it's all through this guy's wallets and oil trade with China.
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B
Wow.
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A
Pretty fascinating stuff.
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B
It is fascinating. And I, I look, you know, you, you, you say it very casually because unfortunately we, We've done it. I. And this idea that, that we just do take people out. And again, it's been going on for decades. I don't love that part of it. Like the fact that he's smart and he's doing something for his country, that's not enough reason to, to do bad things to, to humans. But, but, but we do. So I don't, I hope he's safe and protected. And my guess is he probably is highly protected. But I look, oh, yeah, you score. You're an Iran sympathizer. I'm like, I, I'm a humanist. I, I just think everything that's going on right now is kind of crazy in terms of the conflict, and I have no time for it. But here's the thing that's interesting. We went down this path in 1971, right? We cut a deal with Saudi Arabia and we said, here's the deal. You price oil in dollars and we will protect you, full stop. No matter what happens. No matter. Some of your guys do bad stuff. We don't care. You price oil and dollars all over the world, and we're good. Anyone who threatened that, gone. Gaddafi said, nope, we're doing it in gold. Gone. Hussein, we're going to do it in euros. Gone again. We made up rationalizations why those were bad guys and they needed to be gone. I'm a humanist. I don't think that's really a good thing. But anyone who threatened that. Now here's the thing. Both Russia and China have threatened US Dollar hegemony through the petrodollar by pricing oil transactions globally in euros. I mean, in. In renminbi and rubles. Bowden take out XI or Putin nukes. If you got them, you're safe.
- [31:12]
A
Yeah, we can't really.
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B
If you don't got them, then you're not safe. And so I. I think it is a masterclass. And they're saying, oh, you're a sympathizer. I think it's a masterclass in macroeconomic. Again, I say they're playing Go, which is a different game in China, in Russia and other parts of the world, and we're arguing about how to set up the checkerboard.
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A
Are Chinese checkers actually Chinese?
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B
Yeah, they're made in China. That's one of my favorite memes, you know, Trump saying, I hold all the cards. And she's like, but the cards are made in China, dude. So. But they have built, you know, with this Belt and Road initiative, basically a swath of about three quarters of the world's population from Southeast Asia up to Russia, including parts of Europe and all of India and Africa that basically has migrated to a non dollar standard. Now, it's not 100% pure yet, but it's been a masterclass. And that's why Tether had to become one of the largest holders of treasuries in the world. And so we could go down a whole nother rabbit hole of genius act and clarity and, you know, which I hope doesn't pass because it would be a disaster in its current form, but, you know, we got genius, which is bad enough.
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A
And, you know, stablecoin trading volume could skyrocket to 1.5 quadrillion by 2555. Right. Doesn't.
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B
Not even could it will. I mean, look, stablecoins flipped ACH this past week. Okay? It's unbelievable. Six years. Ish. Six years we flipped ACH. Been around 100 plus years. It's bad technology. Swift is bad. It's old, you know, uses fax machines. Stablecoins are better. And stablecoins is going to quadrillions. Remember, quadrillions is a big number. I mean, it's a. It's a ginormous number, which is another reason companies, like, figure which one of our investments and Mike Cagney, the Beast is so important because the other quadrillion number is the $1.8 quadrillion that, sorry, my phone somehow still connected to my.
- [33:48]
A
Happens every time.
- [33:50]
B
I don't understand how to stop it from connecting to my computer, but I'm just technologically illiterate. But the, the $1.8 million a year of transactions occur in the stock market, okay. And bond market. And it goes through DTCC, 1.8 quadrillion, which is again 15 zeros. I mean it's a big number. And here's the problem. Who owns that? Well, the banks and they kind of like it, but we, it's 800 year old technology. It's physical pieces of paper and electronic Q SIPS that should all be on chain and will all be on chain. And what Mike and others are building is, is, is addressing that. But when you start talking about these big numbers, quadrillions, it, it gets super interesting. And, and you and I have talked about this. The first time you use a stablecoin to do anything, right? And it doesn't matter what it is, whether it's to buy a ticket or, or buy an NFT or whatever. The first time you use it, I always say on a Sunday in my pajamas, it's amazing. It's instant settlement. There's no waiting for the bank to open. There's no, oh, I'm sorry Sir, that'll take two days to get your money to Japan. Like two, two days.
- [35:17]
A
Like you push a button for 15 bucks.
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B
Yeah, yeah, for, yeah, for 15 bucks. And you know, it's a, my. Well, and it's worse. My. I, I told the story before. You know, I, I debanked myself from bank of America because they wouldn't refinance my mortgage because I'm self employed.
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A
Could have been there.
- [35:39]
B
What are you talking about? And, and, but so I debanked myself and I went to this local bank and but the problem is my local bank, God love them, they won't let me transfer money online. I have to go into the bank.
- [35:57]
A
That's true of even TV bank, which is one of the largest, who I have a bank account with. And you have to physically go in there.
- [36:02]
B
I have to physically go in. And I, they're very nice people, but when they ask, well, what are you doing with it? Like none of your business. And I know you have to ask, and I know, but in theory it's my money and I know it's not because I put it in the bank and it's their Money. But it's kind of a funny dance. And it's funny. There are two. There's a very nice woman who does it and then there's this guy. The woman's like, I hate to bother you, but I have to ask this question. The guy's like, I really need to know. Nope, I'm not telling you. It's. It's kind of an interesting dance.
- [36:41]
A
Next time they ask me, I'm going to tell them that I'm evading Iranian sanctions.
- [36:45]
B
Ah, there you go. Yeah, see what happened?
- [36:48]
A
You know, buying crack, meth and hookers.
- [36:52]
B
And now I'm going to say to you what I said to my friend. You know, there was a time back in the first period of jihad stuff that was going on 15 plus years ago, someone sent me an email saying, hey, what's with all this jihad stuff down in, in unc? Because there was a big skirmish. My. Hey, dude, don't put that in my email that word, because I'm going to be. Now that.
- [37:13]
A
And there was one time at tsa. Yeah, take off your shoes, sir.
- [37:20]
B
I was doing a show like this and I was going down the rabbit hole on Sam and FTX and all the links to Deltec bank and all this stuff and, and literally the lights went dark and I got cut off and people, oh my God, are you okay? Did the black hats come for you? I'm like, no, I'm fine. It's just, you know, they cut the power when they were doing some construction downstairs. But so, so far we're good. Even though we said the word Iran
- [37:48]
A
multiple times today, I think now, you know, it's just part of the daily vernacular. I'm going to let you go, man. I appreciate you taking the time to run over it. Always fun to unpack this. I do know.
- [37:59]
B
Fun to riff. And I, I love the fact that we get to talk about, you know, things beyond just bitcoin and crypto and altcoins because, you know, I'm a self described omg, right? You know, old macro guy. And it's interesting, there's so many of us, you know, Novogratz and, and Morehead and, and John Burbank and just a whole swath of us that we came from the macro world. And it just became so clear that this evolution of, of monetary technology was the biggest macro trade of our lifetimes. And so. But it's not independent of all the other stuff that goes on in the world. In fact, it's very dependent. And so it's fun to unpack the macro stuff. So thanks for. For having me.
- [38:54]
A
All right, man. Well, we'll do it again very, very soon. Everybody else, I will be back, of course, tomorrow. And. Oh, and I don't have it pulled up, but I do have that webinar this afternoon. I'm doing a webinar with. With Bill Barheit over at Abra later this afternoon.
- [39:08]
B
Oh, tell Billy. Tell Billy I said hi. He's one of my favorite people. And tell Billy I said hello.
- [39:14]
A
All right. Thanks, Mark. See you guys soon. Bye.
- [39:18]
B
That's dope.