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Bitcoin can't break 82,000. It continues to struggle here at resistance. But there are some potential catalysts on the horizon, none potentially bigger than the Clarity act, which is officially getting marked up on Thursday. But the update today is that they released all 309 pages of what's getting marked up. And there is quite a bit of incredible language in there. But for and against the industry, we're going to dig into all of that and more right now with Andrew and Tillman. We're going back to the basics. Just the fearsome threesome here. Let's go, let's do.
B
Let's dope.
A
What is up, everybody? Welcome to the show. Like subscribe and play with yourself. I literally don't care what you do, whatever. Hey, Tillman. Hey, Andrew. How'd you like that intro? Welcome.
C
Not a better way to jump on the show this morning, are we starting
B
with the UFO files.
A
We were just pre show, we were talking about your basement, how it's done, and there's no longer any gimps down there. So I had to do something awkward.
C
Well, I mean, that's not entirely untrue. My, my father is handicapped, so I don't know if that falls into the gift deal. And we moved them in about a month ago. They're doing really well. They're old and elderly and thus the point of moving in. But yeah, I wouldn't.
A
No, No, I wouldn't.
C
No, no. You don't think so? My dad has a unique sense of humor, so he probably.
A
I'm happy for you. Hey, did you guys want to hear the coolest news I think about the Clarity act yesterday just before we get started, because I found this hilarious. In case you're wondering how this all works, right? You had 309 pages of actually a hell of a lot on what the crypto industry will be able to do. What the banking industry will be able to do. The last nine pages are a housing act.
C
Yeah.
A
Build now act like just slipped it in. Last nine pages. They didn't even like weave it in.
B
I wish I could say I was shocked, Scott. I mean, I wish I could say I was shocked. I think at the end of the day, the ulterior motives that are attached to these bills, I, I heard somebody say the other day, and I don't know really what side of the aisle they stand on, but it resonated with me as being wise, which is like, let's go back to single bills. I mean, you can't even make sense of all the stuff that they try to cram in these things. And there's. To your point, there's no reason to muddy the waters when the water is plenty muddy as it is. I mean, it's not like we need any additional talking points or points of contention to be attached to any crypto acts, but, yeah, it makes no sense to me. It's indicative though, of the days in which we live.
C
I've lived through I don't know how many cycles in the world of finance. And generally speaking, you know, legislation makes an initial dent in whatever is the issue of the day in the world of finance. But I've seen no industry that's better at finding its way around things than the world of finance. So whatever the Clarity act is or does or does not do, or does do, three years from now, the idea of yield will be a real thing. They'll find a way around it. You know, if you make two trades every quarter on Coinbase, okay, now you get your four and a half percent on usdc. Like, the amount of wasted time on this is truly extraordinary.
A
What's the reward activity for yield? Move your USDC from this wallet to this wallet.
C
Yeah, I mean, seriously, I'm not passively holding.
A
I moved it.
C
Yeah. It really is nonsensical and it's why I hear a couple times people mentioning Clarity act yesterday and I just replied with that, you know, picture of Roger Sterling from Mad Men where he's taking a drink and it just says, who cares underneath it. Like, like, honestly.
B
Well, I would just say that I think that the banks care. I, I shifted my stance.
A
I see why they're mad. Yeah, Yeah.
B
I mean, they have to, they have to have this thing go through because left unattended, it's, the consequences for them are much, much worse. And the landscape right now is wide open. I mean, what, what the Clarity act really does is put some rules in place that help them catch up to their newfound competitors. Which, you know, I think redefining banks is what this is all about. It's like, who is a bank who gets to act like a bank, who gets to do the things that banks do? And here's the, the cat's out of the bag. I mean, they've already given cracking bank status as high bank status in the United States as bank status gets direct Fed access, direct window access. Well, you know, that's going to be tough to, to, to renounce. That's going to be that, that's, that's the direction that we're headed is like more of that, not less of that. And so the question then becomes, you know, how quickly can both sides adapt to the Clarity act? I think that's going to be kind of the. The. The major talk here is, is legacy firms are getting into crypto through M A that's just starting. And it's starting behind the scenes that you've never even heard of before. But they're massive. And even companies that are mainstay parts of our financial system, like ICE, right. Most people don't know what ICE is, but ICE has done a deal with OkX. Right. There's these, there's these major moves that are being played on the board and it's only a matter of time before the minor moves get played. And it's for the masses and everybody sees the rails and the full integration has been unveiled. And, you know, that's exciting. The question is, is how clear can the message be to the world? That's my. In my opinion, because we do a great job up like we have muddying this message up so much that people are almost like. It's almost a bad word now. Clarity act like people grimace when they, when they hear it. Why? Well, because it's not. It doesn't have to be that. Why? Way. Especially around something as exciting about as this. Like a future of finance. Finally it's here. We've been talking about that for a decade. Is like the Rails are changing instant settlements here. You know, no counterparty risk. All these cool qualities that we now acclaim to be the Bitcoin standard we've been looking at from a North Star perspective for a long time. And you know, it's good and, and bad when a nation state starts to adopt it systematically inside of, you know, its financial rails and with Fannie Mae accepting it as collateral. Just, Just get ready. It's. It's only beginning. Like this is. This is going to be a fully interconnected ecosystem of digital payments up to the Fed level. Which is, which is exciting. You know, it brings its own problems and challenges too.
A
Yeah, two things for clarification. So I just did a deep dive here, which I've been doing just to clarify. So banks, this is the actual language in section 401 and it says, amends the Bank Holding Company Act, National bank act and other banking laws to clarify that financial holding companies, national banks, state banks and certain credit unions can use digital assets and blockchain technology for any activity they're already allowed to do. Here's the take. Banks have been legally forbidden from doing what Coinbase has been doing for a decade. Clarity is the law that finally unlocks them. And then to your point, Kraken actually is going for a bigger, they're going for a trust charter now. So they don't have everything they have. But Anchorage has it. Morgan Stanley has filed for it. Kraken just filed. So basically banks are racing for federal authority to custody digital assets at like Anchorage already has. And if you saw the story of the Anchorage CEO at Consensus last week, he said, without saying this, he said all 20, I think stablecoins launched in the United States since the Genius act have been with us because they're the only ones that have this charter. And he said that there's like 30. He said 30 of them or something and then 20 were in line or the reverse either way now crack and has even filed for that. So yeah, the banks are completely screwed here. They've been sitting on the sidelines and before that they had SAB121, if you remember where they couldn't see these assets at all under the Gensler. And so Coinbase just ended up as the custodian for every etf. So I think it's a very clear argument, at least in some of these sections that the banks are screwed. I mean they're also watching like their payment rails get their lunch is getting eaten by crypto companies, BlackRock, PayPal, literally everyone. They can't even participate in the stablecoin payments. So yeah, I can see why they're fuming at every piece of language here.
B
Well, and you, you look at the other deals that are being announced while this is taking place. Like I think Ripple just did a big deal with OkX2 as it pertains to putting their stable coin at, in using it as liquidity on okx. Don't get me that. Google it, you'll see the, the headlines. But the point is, is like these partnerships are happening at a fever pitch pace inside the crypto space and then you look across the aisle at the banking space and it's still at a standstill. Well that's, that's because of the Clarity act and needing to pass and that's what ultimately shifted my opinion as to the likelihood of it passing because they need it badly. And, and the quicker we can get them armed with these types of competitive advantages, the quicker we look attractive for foreign money to make deposits in America, which is ultimately what we want. Right? We want to be the hub of, of liquidity of markets which this, this, this is the best opportunity to stay in that spot that, that it, you know, exists right now.
A
Yeah, I, I think that this is happening so incredibly fast. I think Andrew's point is just so poignant. It's like, good luck stopping it. It's always been that way. Right. I think the Clarity act is kind of important. You know, the most notable thing maybe in the Clarity Act. I don't know if anybody who is surprised by this. Not me, September, there was a full ethics clause in the Senate Banking Committee version. It got watered down in January. There's literally not a mention of the ethics clause in the 309 pages yesterday. So we know that Republicans can vote on party lines and get this out of committee. But when it goes back to reconciliation with Senate Ag, you hit like Schiff and Gillibrand who are saying no bill without it. I think Elizabeth Warren today said it would like turbocharged the Trump grift. I don't want to misquote her or something. I think actually their grift is more turbocharged without the Clarity Act. So I don't really, I don't buy that. But this still has to go back. They have to create one unified bill with agriculture where they're going to run into the ethics fight. And then this has to hit the Senate floor and then seven Democratic senators have to vote for it, assuming you don't lose any Republicans. And when you see things like this housing act in there, you wonder what other concessions are people looking for to get this thing through. And you have the banks up the Republicans ass. Like, you know, like just so all
B
you just told me were the other teams that the bankers are playing against. But my money is still lies on the bankers. They're gonna win that battle. I don't know how, but I know that they're, you know, they're, yeah, to
C
your point, Scott, the, the whole ethics stuff, we haven't even gotten to that yet. Right, but this is the quote, unquote, Republican markup version, right? Like this is the, this is the version that they're now going to again, the language even on social media with this is so breathless. Oh, the Clarity act is heading to markup. Like that doesn't mean anything. That just means that they're going to go talk about it some more in a public forum. Right. That it doesn't have nothing to do with votes, has nothing to do with passage, has nothing to do with, again, the meaningful obstacles that still exist. And if you think that, you know, the Elizabeth Warrens of the world, the shifts of the world are going to be cool with this stuff going through without ethics teeth again, I, I, I, I just, I just don't see it happening. And, and again, you know, one way or another.
B
What if it's though a tit for tat?
A
I mean, yeah, I mean, that's the way it happens is I, I talked to Patrick Witt last week who's, you know, basically like took Bill Hines, David Sacks, jobs kind of, kind of moved up and we had a very long recorded conversation which will probably come out Sunday. But then we had a very long private conversation right afterwards and he was more confident on ethics. He said, right now it's not there, but exactly for the reason you just said. Tillman. I think as these bills get closer, that's when people start saying the quiet parts out loud to each other and putting in the things they need. And, you know, it just could happen.
B
Apparently we're defending things that already exist that keep, like there's no, there's no bill that's keeping Congress from insider trading on financial information that they are privy to. Like, that we know, we all know that happens. It's been reported on. There's actual ETFs that I think are like, or there's financial products that represent those decisions. And so if you, if you look at like the likelihood of that going away, you know, there's just a lot of counterweights. You know, at the end of the day, unfortunately, politics and profit go hand in hand these days. And there's lots of ways that people have levers and mechanisms and markets are one of them. And so the crypto markets, the way that, you know, it's taxed, the way that it's deployed, you know, the way that the liquidity flows, all of those things are, are things that, you know, the cat's out of the bag. Like we, the markets are going to move forward with or without us. So the politicians can slow it down as much as they can to get ahead of it so that they can, you know, understand it and build, you know, responsible rails around it. But at the end of the day, you cannot stop this train. It's, it's already left the station long, long time ago. Internationally speaking. Like all we are going to do is just leave ourselves behind in, in that whole.
C
Yeah. And I appreciate, I appreciate Patrick Wits, you know, Stan, and I appreciate his, you know, all that he has to say. But it's literally his job.
A
Yeah.
C
Positive as he possibly can about this and find a way to make this happen. But again, I, I, I, I'll, I believe it when I see it. So we'll see. But again, to, to my point, to start out this conversation legislation or legislation, this, this will keep moving forward. I mean look at the fastest growing banks like over the past five years. None of them have meaningful branch operations. They're all online. They're the sofas of the world or the chimes of the world. They're the capital ones of the world. It started out as a credit card company and turn themselves into a bank and blah blah, blah. So it's, that trend is not going to slow down. Crypto exchanges have to jump on that trend in a meaningful way or else, you know, three years from now when commissions are nearly or at zero for crypto trading, which by the way has, you know, nearly disappeared in and of itself, you know, they, they can't be a meaningful operation if they're not able to make money. Well how do they make money? They've got to offer banking type products to induce people to stay there. Because if you're not trading crypto, which a lot of people are not, then you, you're not an operation that's sustainable. So we're headed that way. And yeah, I, I, to, to Tillman's point and to Lynn Alden's point, you know, nothing stops the direction that we're headed with all of this stuff. And I always fall back to, you know, what is, what is BlackRock talking about? Is BlackRock talking about the Clarity Act? Nope. Yeah.
A
Circles new blockchain arc in a token presale.
C
That's correct. That's correct. So they're just, they're blackrock is action. They're like, hey, politicians, do whatever it is that you do. We're gonna build products, we're gonna move the industry forward. And you know what you guys figured out in, in three years when everybody, everything's tokenized and we just ignored whatever it is you were talking about?
B
Well, as much as we don't want to admit it, BlackRock is not a domestic company. BlackRock represents the top of the heap as it pertains to international wealth. And so they, they have a unique ability to be a leader in, in this and I, I think they're just evidence of, you know, what we're talking about, which is eventually the, the sl, the slippery slope is faced towards crypto. It, it's going to continue that way. And so the longer you resist, the more you stay out of it. But BlackRock's already down there. But to your point, BlackRock is full pedal to the metal. We know this cat is out of the bag and so we're going to make as much money on this being out of the bag as we possibly can. We're going to be a leader in this space. And you know, that again, is not going to stop. Whether it's domestically legislated against or whether it's internationally done, it's going to continue. And even our corporations that we, you know, acclaim as American, they're going to be able to participate in this. They just won't do it in America. Like that's the nature of international business at this point is like they're all, they're all going to be on the bleeding edge of this technology, whether it's
C
here or there is another marker. Has to do with the fact that, for example, Morgan Stanley is hiring blockchain slash crypto slash digital asset staff by the droves right now. Like they're hiring tons and tons of people. And they're also out there talking about it, constantly talking about it.
A
They're leading on the, I think on the consumer side and the product side. They all of a sudden in the last month have just come out and said, listen, they're not worried about BlackRock, I think they're worried about BlackRock fees on the ETF, which is why they launched their own. But they want to be Schwab and they want to be Coinbase and they want to be Robinhood. I mean, this broke weeks ago, but it's launching now. But I mean they're doing 50 bips crypto trading that's cheaper than Coinbase, Robinhood, Schwab, literally everyone. So they come in with the cheapest ETF in a crowded space and now they come into crypto trading and actually clearly are not just trying to roll this out for their 8 million e trade customers, but they're using it as a way to woo customers from other places with cheaper fees. I mean, this is a race to the bottom, right?
C
I mean, for sure. By the way, that's also in response because again, there are smart people that work at Morgan Stanley. I don't know if anybody noticed, but all the crypto exchanges, at least 80 to 90% of them increase their prices on commissions over the past six months.
B
Well, especially when the, you know, all the prediction market stuff came out that was their excuse to raise prices is now they've got new products to offer and you know, it's commoditizing it. The biggest, the biggest financial firms, and this would be, you know, the competitive advantage that Saylor would have and everyone else that has large either liquidity and or holdings is that they can subsidize all of that. They could, they can go to zero, they can go negative if they want to acquire the customers. And therein lies the question of like, what does bitcoin's rate look like in the credit markets? And we're yet to find that out. I mean, you're seeing it firsthand. Be discovered with stride. I think it is with Michael Saylor is like, he's pressing it. I think it started at 11, you know, dividend paid out monthly, and now it's like 12.5 paid out bimonthly. So he's pressing like, how much credit can this thing absorb and take on its shoulders from a modeling perspective? And if, if you are Morgan Stanley, you can create a competitive advantage. You can jump right into that game. And the. It'll be interesting to see where people decide to take their bets across what line. You know, is it 15 risk? Is it 20 risk? You know, Michael Saylor's been famous for a long saying that, you know, bitcoin eventually settles at 18 plus S&P. Well, we're, I think we're gonna, we're gonna find out.
A
It's the stretch tracker. So that I just watch this now. So like, you obviously like it. Nothing happens when it's below 100. You know, like you come into the middle of the month. So they, they're, they've filed to do this bot twice a month, but it hasn't happened yet. Tillman. And which is interesting. I had my conversation with Sailor and because they're proposing that we had to submit the transcript to the sec.
B
Oh really?
A
Our conversation last week. Because. Which tells you exactly why he would be out there saying we'd be willing to sell bitcoin. Because the SEC is probably requiring him to say, I've launched a security and the thing backing it is on the table in case I need to protect this security. Right. He even said it, he was like, I can't have all this bitcoin on my balance sheet and say I would never sell it. He basically without saying it because then it's a useless asset that can't be put to work. And the sec, for all their faults, one thing they are in charge of is consumer protection. And when you're saying that this is like a money market fund for retirees at 11.5%, they need to know that you're going to protect that at all costs. But once it gets above 100, above par, now we're at 100.01, the machine kicks in. He's going to buy billions of dollars of bitcoin in the next few days. Which by the way, is why I think it pushed 82. Because smart money now knows you can within a week ahead of whatever seller's gonna smash by a couple billion. You should just probably buy and trade around it.
B
Well, what this is proving is it's capable of absorbing more debt. That, that is what this is. It's collateral.
A
Right?
B
It's being used as collateral. And I agree with you. I think that they're based upon the wide breadth of products that they offer now having a mechanism that allows you to take profits off the table. When Bitcoin has asymmetric move mandatory from a risk perspective, like, not from a, like it works from a narrative perspective, sailor saying I'm never going to sell. And that's what's got him to this point. But he's outgrown that. He's become so large that sophisticated mechanisms of risk avoidance have to be deployed. And he's getting a lesson in that, probably like you said, from the sec, or at least being forced in in that regard. And that's a good thing, right? He does have a way in which, if he plays it correctly, he's pretty much bulletproof. You know, he, I, for the, for a hundred years, you know, if he, if he does things in a prudent way. So why wouldn't we want that stability in our markets? I, you know, I, I do think he's kind of at a point where he, if he doesn't play by the rules, government intervention is probably mandatory or necessary.
A
Five seconds, huh? Within like five seconds.
B
Yeah.
A
Yeah. He's got to be the most heavily scrutinized person on Wall Street. His products have to be the most heavily scrutinized securities that exist.
C
Yeah, a couple points. Harken, back to the Morgan Stanley deal. You know, it's not a surprise. Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, if, if they're nothing else, they have a hundred years of experience at acquiring customers.
A
Okay?
C
So whatever they do in any way, shape or form, they now see Bitcoin slash the crypto space as additional high net worth, ultra high net worth people that we need to market to and bring into our ecosystem. So that's effectively what they're doing across the board with any type of product offering or conversation on top of that too. I think it's very, very notable that consensus and most crypto conferences at this point have changed so much in the last three years. Why? Because what are we, what are we seeing and what are we talking about now in the bitcoin space? We're talking about collateral. We're talking about debt, type of, of, of entities. We're, we're talking about all of this stuff that is, you know, traditional financial type of language. And that's the place where it's gone to, and the scale at which we're going to see this stuff traded has started to really move in ways that we've talked about for two years. We talked two years ago that at some point there'll be bitcoin mortgages. Well, Fannie Mae and, and collateral associated with bitcoin. JP Morgan talking about bitcoin as collateral. Saylor doing everything that he's doing. Two years ago he was just buying spot bitcoin. Now it's all levels of financial engineering associated with debt. All sorts of stuff that is going to be copied across these other organizations. Like without question, it's going to be copied. And so what ends up happening in the crypto space, you have Pomp saying things like crypto is dead. And what he really means is there's not going to be, you know, at some point that the word crypto is just going to go away. They're just companies, they're just organizations trying to be banks and generate revenue based on customers that they've acquired that have meaningful capital. And so at conferences now, per your point, Scott, you wore a suit the whole time you were at consensus. Now maybe that's because, you know, you were. Well, maybe that's because you're on camera a bit.
A
My wife convinced me.
C
You know, I noticed, I also noticed that Adam Back was wearing a sport jacket while he was there. So the industry has changed, right? And the reason why the industry has changed is because bitcoin has been meaningfully accepted as collateral in a bunch of different places, which absolutely mushroom clouds the spread of it and the entirety of the capital that exists around it, right? Like we're only seeing about 10 of what quote, unquote collateral and, and let's just call it transactions that exist with IBIT options, which by the way, are some of the high highest traded options and biggest market in the world. Forget about just bitcoin and crypto just in the world, right? That's going to be replicated a bunch of times and it will grow and grow and grow. So remember when everybody thought it was crazy, like you know, a year ago when, when, when Larry Fink said, you know, bitcoin could end up, you know, in some way shape or form rivaling the mortgage market. Now think about everything that I just said. Why did the mortgage market get so big? Because it was on bet on bet, on bet with debt and options. And debt and options, right. That's where Bitcoin is headed. We're seeing it right now.
A
And so now it's bundling and, and
B
all, all because once you introduce it as collateral, you have to rate it right, A plus F. You know, you have to give it some sort of rating scale as it pertains to credit worthiness. Well in Bitcoin that, that collateral is, there is no credit worthiness. It's either in the smart contract and collateralized dual signature on the smart contract terms or it's not. And so if you talk about lending at scale, where's the, where's the failure point of lending at scale? The repossession of collateral. That's where the failure point is. So every model fails at that point if you're a lender. And so overcoming that and getting infinite lending out on the back of digital collateral, it changes the entire rules of the game and set not just a little way, it completely changes the paradigm. And so as a, as a lender going forward, if, if what's easier, me repossessing your Bitcoin when you miss a payment and me having the Bitcoin in a smart contract, that you're getting the benefit of ownership, you're getting benefit of the yield, you're getting benefit of all the stuff. But I'm getting the benefit of the instant repossessible qualities of Bitcoin in lending you money. The second you don't make those payments, smart contract starts bleeding off. Penalties and fees, interest and everything else. According to this, like where's the failure point on a lending model like that? It doesn't exist. So the value of Bitcoin or the value of the digital commodity that's offsetting the loan, as long as it can grow infinitely, the risk model can grow infinitely. And that is, that's, that's, that's amazing. That is like breaking math. That's the, in the, in the, in the world of finance, nothing has ever given us that type of an ability. And so if you look at even like big banks that have failed, what is it the failure on it's catastrophic risk taken in the housing market and the housing market fails or the debt behind it is deemed to be lower rated than they thought when they acquired it. Thus the value of it gets stripped out and they're underwater. And the, you know that it's basically the same thing that's happening across every level right now. The collateral is hard to repossess and a lot of banks don't want to repossess it. It's like the age old adage of like if, if I owe the bank a million dollars it's my problem. If I owe the bank a billion dollars, it's their problem. Well what about a billion dollars of real estate? Whose problem is that? I mean that is the stickiest, you know, who wants to manage a billion dollars of real estate as a bank?
A
Take it off your hands if you need. I want to kind of transition but quickly. I just wanted to pin this because I know that it'll lead into the conversation about arch public but this broke and I mean when you look at how fast the agentic economy moving, it's absolutely insane. Like we've talked about each of the platforms it's launching but I mean okx, this is from them but agents can now do real business, not just make payments. And when you look at what it could do, I mean the bottleneck shifted from intelligence commerce, not just paying but the full cycle of doing business, quoting, negotiating, escrowing, funds, metering usage, settling and resolving disputes, Escrow, dispute resolution coming soon. I mean we went in like a week and even with them with their agent payments protocol and their tools, like I feel like in a month we went from hey, like agents will be making payments for us to like agents have access to the full suite of financial services and negotiation and we'll literally just do everything for you.
B
Yes, we're gonna find out short shortly that agents are really good at some things and really bad at other things and we're right in the throes.
C
Yeah, it is what I will tell you. You know, listen, we crossed the 25000 user mark a couple weeks ago so we have a meaningful amount of, of let's just call it data via conversations, interactions with, with our customers and you know, the, the agent stuff associated with exchanges. It, it, it's interesting as a headline. It's, it moves the needle for that organization, for whatever they're trying to get accomplished with their investors, yada, yada yada. But users don't have any idea how to do this stuff. They're, they're thinking if I push the wrong button I'm gonna, I'm gonna, you know, set on fire my capital here. I don't want to make a mistake. This, this confuses me. And so 99% of people that have meaningful capital, which by the way those are folks that are 40 to like 65 years old and they've worked really, really hard for it. They just simply want somebody to talk to about it.
A
So for developers, just to be clear, like you know, these tools, I don't think it's like I don't need an escrow agent maybe on a daily day, day to day basis. But for developers cross chain to do adjusting payments and build tools, right?
C
Yeah.
B
To build apps specifically like the app development craze, you have not seen anything yet. Imagine like you know, the whole world. Up until this point it's taken years and millions of dollars to develop apps and now it takes one guy, some AI agents and 50 grand basically to launch it. To fully, you know, get social media, engage all of the whole package. It's just, you know, it's down to like a two week incubation period now. That's only going to get better. And, but again it's like AI agents can't solve first world principle problems. Like first, first principle problems are the markets are a zero sum game. It doesn't matter how smart your AI agent is, it's not going to only win in a market that is a zero sum game, you're going to be a loser. So the question then becomes who wins the most. And you're in the same boat, I would argue even in a worse boat from a technological disadvantage perspective than you are from a human perspective in approaching those markets. And so it doesn't, it's not going to solve all of the problems. What it will do is solve the mundane management issues. It's going to defrictionize, it's going to lubricate the, the rails, if you will, of the mundane payment of bills and those types of, you know, kind of.
C
Yeah, it is. Listen, this is the cutting edge of, of technology, right? So agents/AI, slash agentic. All buzzwords, right? And they're needed and they're useful and they're here. And you know, from a productivity standpoint, they've, they've shifted the Overton window. But again, I come back to when, when you're a guy that's got $242,000 in your Coinbase account, you say, well, how can I use this to my advantage? You just don't know. You don't know the answer to that. You feel like, hey, I got to, I got to, you know, I kind of want to stay on the, the dance floor here. But I, I don't know, I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know where to put one foot, you know, in front of the other. So arch public. Right. And what do I mean by that? So, yes, we're on the cutting edge. Yes, we have algorithmic, automated, agentic type tools, but we have people. Right. And those people are there to walk you through the process of you're on the cutting edge here. You're going to take trades in your Coinbase account based on the setups here that, that we provide, that you can choose in our recipe lab. And you're going to take trades at 2 in the morning, 3 in the morning, 3:30 in the morning and you're going to wake up to them, but you're also going to be able to talk to us about it. You're going to say, yeah, I like that one. Maybe I need to change this strategy or move this here. Can I make an adjustment this way? And instead of just having that conversation with yourself or having it with, let's say ChatGPT, who has no context as to why you're asking the question or what it has to do with, you're actually having it with humans like this on a call. Heck, we're having a zoom meeting with a bunch of our customers tomorrow from 12:30 to 1:15 where they engage with our team. They can ask all these questions. We're showing off another new innovative product that's going to be talked about tomorrow. Yeah. And point being though is if you don't have a human or somebody to guide you through this process, you absolutely are going to stumble all over yourself. And when you stumble, you skin up a knee or an elbow and most people don't want to do that financially. Yeah.
B
The execution piece of the AI movement is the most, the most difficult one because it can cost you the most from a repercussions perspective. And you know, I, I, it's reminiscent of an article I read the other day about a company who was selling, you know, basically an intermediary between two AI models and they were selling their SaaS model at $30 a month and the average customer was drawing $1,000 of value of tokens out of their subscription each month. So they were losing quite a bit of money very quickly on those token purchases. It's just an example of like this, this, this, this movement is exciting, it has incredible potential. There's a lot of execution that you can deploy, but doing it in a very prudent way. That is an extension of your will, that is the most important thing and that's what we've been doing for over five years now, is building software for people so that their will could be represented in that software. And, and that extension of them is now available at 2:30 in the morning and doesn't have emotion attached to it or mathematical computations that are needed to be done in the moment, or all the things that, you know, traditional trading is kind of, you know, fraught with this. This solves those problems and makes that execution piece incredibly stressless, incredibly exciting. It's like seeing behind the curtain and, and then having this new set of tools that you can dig into and the wide array, the, the tens of thousands of outcomes and strategies that you can create with these tools will get you to whatever your objective is. If you own a lot of these assets and you want to divest of them in a manner that's prudent and risk adverse, there's a way to do that. If you want to acquire a lot of these assets, if you want to trade the volatility on these assets like it, pick whatever you want out of the markets and have a conversation with our folks and they'll show you how to use these tools to accomplish that.
C
Exhibit A, by the way, is the guy that actually hosts this show, right. I've watched in real time, right? So he is using our tools. And at least 50 times there's emails that go back and forth to our team and say, oh, wait a minute, I think I want to change this, or aggressive on Solana or there's too much here. Change this. Can you guys change this? What do, what do I need to do? Literally, the expert in the innovative space of crypto that's been here for a decade is saying, hey, how can I, how can I make some shifts here that make the most sense? So if that guy has questions, as these tools continue to evolve and develop, everybody else has questions. They're just looking for an organization that's open to saying, hey, we're, we're, we're thrilled that you have questions. Yeah, we want to spend the time with you. We just created an entire service division that has nothing to do with sales, has nothing to do with anything other than answering questions, making sure you're comfortable with how you're set up, and it doesn't matter what the question is, they're there to make you feel better about, hey, you know what? There are no dumb questions.
B
Well, it's indicative of, you know, when you grow and you acquire customers and those customers fly across the United States to make effort, to come face to face with you and to break bread with you and to tell you how great the software has changed their lives. It really is powerful. And the community that we have has really floored me over the last year. I Mean being up in New York at the Bitcoin Investor week and having 100 plus customers fly in for that to essentially just fellowship with us and to talk about how excited they were and how well they had been served. All of that stuff speaks to the fact that you know, to Yalls point, the more technologically driven we as a society become, the more valuable human interaction and human guidance do that technology is going to be, be. And we, we pride ourselves in that. And you, you know, I put you to the challenge. Our, our software is free to use.
A
Yeah.
B
And you will, if you call in and you schedule an appointment with one of our guys, they will spend as much time teaching you about the software whether you're a paid user or a free user or an enterprise user or a Treasury company looking for help. On the treasury management front. Like we serve a very wide array of customers from people who have never bought a crypto before and want to invest a couple hundred dollars a into it all the way to people who are, are trying to create yield on large treasury balances and create complex layering strategies. So we, we pride ourselves in, in serving you where you are in that journey. And, and we'll, we take good care of you as it pertains to getting you eased into this new phase of automated execution. It's, it's very exciting.
A
Well, I mean do you want to talk about tax harvesting and all the things because it's, I really could have used that when we were at 60. Here we are almost even down 7%. Great. Thanks. Thanks. Tools.
B
The, the crypto has been given a unique status. We are not accountants. We, we develop software that help you as tools. But crypto specifically has something that you can do with it called the wash sale rule that doesn't apply to it. And what it allows you to do is to take losses and then reacquire those assets at the new cost basis so that you have those losses within the taxable year. To apply to other things, obviously consult your cpa, but we have a very useful tool that will help. As long as you have good information and you use it with your cpa, it will help you accomplish that very easily. And it's a pretty arduous. You know, most people don't take advantage of this because of how big of a pain it is and software makes that pain go away. So that's, that's essentially the nuts and bolts of it.
C
Yeah, it is a tool that goes directly to a pain point in most people's lives. Taxes are a pain point in most people's lives. So if you have the ability to reduce that particular pain and you can do it with a tool that is, you know, decision making on your behalf, probably a good idea to take a look at it. And I don't know, you know, I don't know if there's anything else out there like this that is quote unquote agentic, that is automated, that will do this on your behalf. And by the way, it's a tool that isn't just a one time tool, like hey, it's November, let me, let me use this tool once blip. And then we're good. No, it's something that can be used on an ongoing basis associated with, you know, all sorts of different crypto assets because of the rules associated with it. And again, so like anything else, you can set it up as part of your overall strategy and it's worth having the conversation with us, of course. But a tax loss harvesting type of tool like this is super innovative, doesn't exist anywhere else.
B
And I think the best thing to do is, you know, talk to your CPA and ask them, you know, I'm a crypto guy, do you know about the, you know, tax harvesting or tax loss harvesting that can be applied to crypto and see what they say and then this can be a great, you know, impetus to start that conversation.
A
I mean, sailors doing it like that was part of the selling conversation. It's like I can take high tax cost basis Bitcoin and sell it.
B
Well, listen, if you Google tax loss harvesting, every major financial firm on the planet has written white papers about it and you know, integrated into their high net worth division of strategy. It's just again, software's making it more personalized and bringing the threshold down to where these types of strategies can be applied down to the normal person versus, you know, just the super high net worth that traditionally take advantage of this stuff.
C
Yeah, and again, it's, there's a uniqueness to the crypto part of it. Right. So you can, you can sell an asset, buy it back in the next nine seconds and that's legal, that's allowed. Whereas on the equity side of things, that's not the case. Yeah, so it's just a, it's a strategy, it's a tool that allows you to either use it in a very targeted way or set up different, you know, let's call it strategies that are working in the background where on a quarterly basis you're intentionally generating some types of sorts of losses, again with the volatility associated with you Know all digital assets, all crypto. The opportunity to do this is effectively always there.
B
Well, volatility to the upside can be harvested in yield, and volatility to the downside can be harvested in credits. And so both sides cut effectively towards your benefit. If, if you have tools in place, right. If you know how to. Know how to harvest that volatility.
C
You know, I can't stress enough when we talk about this. I get so fired up. People that are listening to us that haven't tried out our products, please do. If. If you haven't, you're. You're falling behind. I'm serious. You're falling behind. Two years from now, everything in your world is going to trade 24 7. And you will be forced in some way, shape or form to begin learning these tools. And people that are learning it now are going to be meaningfully ahead of you. Meaningfully ahead of you.
B
You.
C
So. So please engage. I'm serious. Please engage. If you never use anything but our free version at a hundred dollars every three months, because you're just trying to learn, just do that. We want people to learn this and stay ahead of the curve because the curve is coming very, very fast. Very.
B
Just ask yourself these questions. You know, it starts with simple queries, right? The simple query that, that started it for me was, am I trying to trade based upon my availability? And does the market care about my availability? And when you get to the answers of those questions, you realize that you should never trade based upon anything, you know, involving you being available in the moment to respond to volatility, because volatility creates emotion and you never know when it's coming. So how do you prepare for that without just sitting in front of your keyboard 24 7. Well, to Andrew's point, most of the volatility, or a lot of it's going to start in the overnight sessions when these markets go 24 7. Why? Well, because it's when everyone's asleep and it's the thin, thinnest traded period. And volatility occurs when volume dries. And so having tools in place that monitor that market's volatility and act on your behalf when it fits the bill for you, that is something you will need to address here in the short order. And I don't know of an easier on ramp to address it than a free product with a lot of human guidance and attention along the way, we're trying to tackle it in the easiest way possible.
A
Can't believe we're up to 25,000 customers. Yeah. Number for customer Service.
B
Yeah, well, and I think the, the exchanges that we've been able to integrate with and the excitement that we've seen in their eyes as it pertains to these tools sparking customers excitement about markets. Again, I think we're on the bleeding edge of that. And I think that as prediction markets and as Kashi and all these different things have proven to us that people have a desire to have their money work for them in markets. This new digital age of instant settlement built on the back of cryptology or blockchain. It is like we said at the beginning of the show, the cat's out of the bag. It's happening at breakneck speed and it's only a matter of time before you're using it and you don't even know you're using it and it's already happening. Like, if you had told me a year and a half ago that people were going to be using DeFi natively integrated into central exchanges and there was going to be this holy marriage of centralized exchanges with decentralized exchanges, I would have told you no way. But it's happened and it's here and it's only going to happen at a quicker rate.
A
Yeah, agree. And I mean any of the other of the algorithms that you want to specifically sort of highlight before we go, I know that they've developed some new ones.
B
Yeah, we have a wave strategy that is a new way to monitor the, the markets. Andrew. I know, I'm gonna let you chime in. The. The wave strategy has gotten a lot of great reviews from the people who have been kind of implemented it so far. So if you want to look at that and have a conversation about that, we'll be happy to demo it for you.
C
Yeah, we, last week we did a concierge sort of zoom call with a few hundred people and we, we specifically went over the release of the market wave setup and algorithm, which again, you can set up a thousand different versions of it based on the inputs and all that stuff. And, but the stock version that we talked about, you know, we had our highest end clients just basically reaching out saying, hey, can you have so and so reach out to me and just do that? I, I just want to do what you guys just showed. Can you just do that? Because the, the difference is especially in, in bear markets or sideways markets, that that's where, you know, our, our strategies really shine because the deltas between what's happening to people that are just buy and hold versus what our, our strategies do is truly significant. Like really, really significant. Very, very big variances and differences. There are case studies on our website that, that show, that show the actual inputs for the algorithms that are being used for the case studies and what the outcomes are. And so, yeah, it's, it's, it's meaningful. Of Vandalay Industries. Yes, that is correct, Jojo. And you want to be my latex salesman. Okay. I mean, you know. Yeah.
A
And hit Seinfeld in the last few minutes.
B
Speaking of volatility, I bet you guys have, I bet Scott, you like that suey pop that we've seen here in the last.
A
Holy. A little, yeah. I, I'm enjoying that.
B
He's one of those things that, you know, a lot of people were introduced to. I, I think there's some major influencers here over the last few years. And it just shot way up and it came way back down. But, you know, I think it was up 51 in the last week or something pretty major.
C
By the way, the, the adjustment in quote unquote influencers over the past three to five years in the crypto space. You know, I don't know if we've noticed that, but those influencers now wear suits and work at corporations and those that are at consensus. Right. So, you know, the Kobe's of the world, the Ansomes of the world, they're.
A
They've basically gone a product to Coinbase that never got used for like 400 and something million dollars.
C
Right. But, but who's listening to those people?
A
I wouldn't influence anything after that.
C
That's true. I just go away.
A
You'll influence a yacht.
C
But to that point though, the suits bought Kobe's influence effectively, right?
B
Listen, nothing.
A
And he stopped him.
B
Ask anybody. Any billionaire that has a big yacht like that. Nothing will make you feel poorer than owning a yacht if you don't have substantial future cash flows to count on the maintenance.
A
Rent it.
B
You better have some good interest rate coming in. I'll just say that those things.
A
Yeah. The most famous Wall street adage, I do not ascribe to this. It flies, floats or the other F word.
C
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lease it. Right? Yeah.
A
All right. Vandalay Industries, aka I was just, I was just watching STRC up to 740 Bitcoin today. It's like am archpublic.com. yeah, check it out. Go do all the things because I've decided to start harvesting some losses while I got them.
C
Yeah, we'll get you set up on
A
that gains very soon. If this market keeps going, I'm gonna have a gains problem.
B
Yeah, yeah, we're pretty excited. Also, I will mention this and we're gonna talk about trying to highlight this more on air, but we have been serving a lot of enterprise clients with our software and specifically corporations, small businesses that just want to systematically add Bitcoin to their balance sheet and do it in a way that's risk adverse and, you know, that sets them up for success in the future. And we've seen such a growth in that area and such, you know, such success stories that we want to kind of highlight these small businesses because I think it's meaningful for, for the bitcoin community to see small businesses adopt this because it sets a good precedent, sets a good example. I think, honestly, if I was going to be truthful, it's the only way we rebuild our middle class, or it's the quickest way we rebuild it is by having small businesses and entrepreneurs invest systematically in Bitcoin. And so we're going to start bringing more attention to those people because we think they're pioneers, we think they are forced to thinking, we think they're great examples to, to set for the rest of us. And we get to see behind the curtain as to what their convictions look like because those convictions are then being prescribed in our software. And so it's, it's incredibly exciting. We love it. And so we're going to talk about bringing some business highlight time to our podcasting efforts so that we can highlight some of these businesses and kind of show you what it, what it's doing.
A
Love it. 753 Bitcoin for sailor so far. I would love someone to just put some music to this so I could just vibe out to it like. Well, you take a look at the spikes, right? I mean, this is mid month in March. All of a sudden, a massive spike. You know, this trades around when it goes from below 100 to above 100. Obviously there's massive volatility. People try to get in for the dividend by the end of the month. Look at April. I can't even imagine. I mean, April's right here. That was 13th to 17th. Now I checked May 12th. I did the same part of the month. This thing's.
B
Well, it's. It's exactly. You could play this game exactly the way you could go to onto Gemini right now and play their prediction markets. Where is Bitcoin's price going to be in the next five minutes? It's the same game. It's just a different, different field and everybody's moving to that. The volatility is is a feature there.
C
Yeah, it's gamification of. Of finance. It's not slowing down. There's no question it's not slowing down. Like, Scott, you're intrigued by that. You know that that quote unquote game version of. Of what Sailor's doing, right? And that, that website, that, that screen that you're looking at is effectively the gamification of what he's playing out with Stretch and bitcoin. And you know what? Probably a lot of people watching it because it's interesting. It's more interesting than just listening to another podcast with Sailor talk about it.
B
Well, it feels like. It feels like alpha. It feels like you're getting inside scoop or like it's an indicator or predictor of future events. It really does feel that way for me.
A
I mean, yeah, I watch it. And you're like, well, I guess I should have bought bitcoin right before he telegraphed the fact. I don't know that that'll actually affect price, but it's wild that you could just kind of see it in real time.
C
Yeah. Very cool.
A
How many bitcoin? I wish I had bought 757 bitcoin since we started this conversation. What am I doing here with you guys?
B
What are you doing with your life, buddy?
A
All right, well, thank. We've made it to 1001. Tillman and Andrew. Thank you, everybody. Check out Arch Public follow. Try Arch Public on X. And yeah, I'm gonna be launching some new portfolios soon too. I've just been. Been lazy. But now with all the new products, it's time to. To showcase all these other strategies. So it really gives us something to. To do with a second portfolio that's not at all redundant. So love it. It's gonna be awesome. All right, guys, thank you, everybody. Give Andrew Tillman a follow. Check out Arch Public and I'll be back tomorrow. Bye.
C
Let's do.
B
That's dope.
Podcast: The Wolf Of All Streets
Host: Scott Melker
Guests: Andrew, Tillman
Date: May 12, 2026
In this episode, Scott Melker reunites with Andrew and Tillman to dissect the most pressing issue in the Bitcoin world: the persistent $82K price ceiling and whether the upcoming “Clarity Act” will finally act as the catalyst for a breakout. The trio delves into the details of the Clarity Act, its implications for banks and crypto companies, the evolving landscape of digital finance, and the rise of agentic (“AI agent-driven”) economy and tools for modern financial management. With their blend of humor, industry insight, and first-hand experience, they present a comprehensive view of where the industry stands and where it’s headed.
This episode captures a watershed moment: crypto and traditional finance are colliding in the open, with legislation potentially shifting the entire field. Listeners are reminded that technology, tools, and regulation are accelerating—and adapting is no longer optional, it’s essential.
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