A (8:07)

Congratulations. Yeah, it's amazing. I've watched a lot of it. I think we've collectively watched each other's evolutions over time, I think it would be fair to say. And so to see it actually launching. I definitely wanted to give the opportunity to discuss that here and it's really, really exciting. I love that that's what you're going to tell your kids. I'm going to tell my kids I djed once.

B (8:27)

Well, much. But because I djed once, it only happened once.

A (8:35)

You never, you never djed again. So.

B (8:38)

No.

A (8:41)

I've been there too, so I could. Should, is there any final thoughts on that or you want to pivot to everything that's happening in the market here?

B (8:49)

Well, let's, let's, let's. I mean if you, if you, let's pivot and let's.

A (8:55)

We'Ll do a more.

B (8:56)

Proper conversation because I think it all connects together.

A (9:00)

Yeah, well, it definitely all connects to why we need to build these systems on Bitcoin where they can't be utterly manipulated by idiots like the Fed. The Fed, we obviously have the quarter 25 bip rate cut by the Fed yesterday. Many people saying, hey, they're going to cut, market should go up. But anyone who actually watches these things knows that everybody knew that they were going to cut. Of course the bigger story maybe is what Powell says during the meetings, but what's going to happen next? Because everybody knew this one was going to happen. And now there's a lot of debate over whether they should do it again because they're ending quantitative tightening certainly sort of as we speak, and may saying that if they're going to end qt, they're going to have to also stop cutting rates to avoid inflation. Oh man, I'm so tired of talking about this stuff because when I actually say it out loud, I realize how manipulated and fake it is. It's so dumb.

B (10:01)

Look, I think there used to be this thing where funk day, right, when the Fed was going to cut or not cut was a big question. And if they did cut, it was big news and markets would ready, prediction markets for example, had a 98 chance like days before that there was going to be a cut. Everyone knew it was coming. There wasn't even an opportunity for sort of buy the rumor, sell the news because it wasn't even a rumor. It was basically a certainty. And so that's one reason that it's had less impact the, at least in the, in the immediate term. The other aspect here is that the dominance of the Fed has been reduced a great deal. The government debt is so high right now that more capital comes into the market as sort of newly printed dollars, so to speak, in the form of, of interest payments by treasury. Then these relatively marginal changes that the Fed is making. However, I think we, we should address sort of like the elephant in the room, right? The elephant in the room is that while we've been, I think, fairly level headed, considered conservative, both you and I were anticipating bitcoin prices to be well above where they are right now.

A (11:43)

That's fair.

B (11:43)

Bitcoin volatility has gone to zero. Its price has been moving between, you know, mostly in a range of, you know, 50 cents, but you know, within that. And, and, and we were talking months ago that we anticipated that as the summer ended, bitcoin, which seemed to be like a coiled spring, would start to spring. And so there is something weird about all the assets in the world basically being on a substantial run and bitcoin not. And that this is happening also at a time of the Fed easing. And, and I think that, you know, I don't know to Explain this. I'm not sure anyone does. We've been talking about like the great rotation with sort of a huge amount over the last 18 months of Bitcoin has moved into institutional hands. But what that means is that it's also moved out, in other words, has been sold by long term holders. But I think the thing is there is a big risk in this market that we're in for bitcoin and for every other asset. Assets just generally are overbought. Gold recently took a tumble, the stock market is doing very well, economic fundamentals are possibly lagging behind and everyone's talking about a bubble. And so you, you have to, looking at this market kind of be worried about when does this bubble pop. And I think that the fact the Fed is still in an easing phase should at least, you know, under normal circumstances. And I, I think probably not enough is like the world is weird, but not that weird. I think under, what this means is that we're still in a phase where sort of the macro backdrop is that the mark, the, the bottom of the market is not going to drop out. And that means for bitcoin as well. And so it's going to be interesting to see what happens here. But it, it feels to me like everything is still in play for prices, appreciating, especially in bitcoin because it has been like the one asset class of the last six months since sort of the tariff drop that hasn't really appreciated.

A (14:14)

The tariff drop. So good pivot because man, are we talking about tariffs all the time. Trump went over to China, Joina apparently had the greatest meeting in the history of all meetings. And no meeting has been better than this meeting because it was the greatest meeting. But yeah, they're reducing tariffs on fentanyl. They apparently cleared up the restriction and obstacles on rare earths. Go talk about Ukraine reduce tariffs from 57 to 47, which is still a ton of. But still no official trade deal. But then we get breaking US and China declare one year trade truce after Trump Z talks. Oh man, it's exhausting. It's exhausting. Like I'm not even. This is not a political comment. Like Maybe he's playing quintuple 17D chess. I have no idea. Like I actually want to talk about exhausting. Like I, I asked a legitimate question about XRP on Twitter and got into it with those guys and they're playing 47d chess and I just don't understand, I don't understand anything. But why at this point do we listen to news about trade deals when it changes every week and knowing that markets hate uncertainty, how is everything else still going up when we have this much uncertainty?

B (15:34)

Yes, but not everything is going up. Right. So it's true, we said like all of the asset classes are going up. But actually if you look at asset classes with gold, it has been going up because of the uncertainty. With stocks or equities, it's been going up because, because it's been driven by tech. Right. So value stocks, mid cap stocks, they've not been outperforming in the US Market where stocks, the only stocks outside of tech that have outperformed are outside of the U.S. markets. Right. So Japan's done had a phenomenal year, Turkey's had a phenomenal year, Switzerland's had a phenomenal year, Israel's had a phenomenal year. But it's global stock markets that are sort of catching up and overtaking US markets outside of tech. And then debt again, it's the uncertainty. And then with Bitcoin we sort of have this thing where it's appreciated massively over the last year. But all of that was in the first six months, you know, since effectively Trump was, you know, President elect and then since April has been treading water.

A (16:51)

I mean. Yeah, you want the answer to that question? I guess as I'm digging through the news right here, while you're talking, Nvidia is now 16% of US GDP.

B (17:01)

Yeah. So there you go.

A (17:03)

The stock market might just be a few stocks, right?

B (17:06)

It is only a few stocks, Right. Like the, the magnificent seven are what, 40% of the US market. That's not wild.

A (17:14)

Did you see this? OpenAI IPO looking for a trillion dollar valuation at IPO. That's a big number.

B (17:26)

It is a very big number. One of the reasons that tech can continue to do so well is because it doesn't rely on profits, customers or, or, or, or macro. Right. I mean it's just, It's a truly U.S. homegrown. You're building the, the data centers in the U.S. the chips are being sold to companies in the U.S. the, the only sort of real macro risk to, to the AI industry is Taiwan. Something terrible goes wrong. I can't imagine who would attack Taiwan, but such a friendly country. But, but not only that, it also doesn't rely on profits. Right. So it's not profitable right now. Lots of revenue, but no profits. So it can defy gravity and I think it can continue to defy gravity so long as interest rates are relatively low, continue to get lower and liquidity in the market seems to be available.

A (18:33)

Yeah, I mean maybe that'll pop the AI bubble. Little trillion dollar IPO from chat gbt. And I don't mean AI as a technology, I just mean the, the market. And while all this is happening, we have this just endless narrative of stablecoins effectively eating the world. Mastercard poised to acquire crypto startup 0hash for nearly 2 billion sources say. 2 billion. I mean these companies are just out there buying anything they can to give them stablecoin exposure and to help them catch up. We obviously talked about it, but we have the Western Union news yesterday that they're going to be building their own stablecoin on Solana. It's called W USD Wu USD. Like literally they named Wu Tang Coin which is the coolest thing that I think I've ever seen. Metamask gonna go public here potentially. And of course in the same time that stable coins are eating the world, we're getting ETF Palooza with Altcoin ETFs across the board. The Solana ETF has done actually exceptionally well. The best launch of 2025. I mean there's so much happening. I mean, should we just stick to the stable coins first? I mean every single major payment network has a stable coin plan. Now Western Union was, if there was somebody who was going to be a holdout, it was Western Union. And they're going to build a stable coin on Solana. Yeah.

B (19:56)

So, you know, we discussed this last week and I, you know, proposed my theory that the big winners in the public markets from stablecoins are going to be MasterCard and Visa. And that's because they already own the last mile to the retailer and to the, you know, customer, to the, the person who's making purchases both for online and physical retail. And so for, you know, with stablecoins, yes, you can settle transactions on chain, but you need to get them into the hands of customers and you need to be able to get retailers to accept them. And MasterCard and Visa both have those rails and so I, I think that they are very well positioned and are making acquisitions to continue to, to capitalize on their positioning as primary sort of last mile providers to stablecoins point.

A (20:55)

Yeah, I mean it's like there's no way we're building this in time. So.

B (20:59)

Yeah, yeah. So this is a very big deal because what this means is that as more and more companies begin to use stable coins and more and basically stable coins become a practical means of payment everywhere. And that's what we're going to see over the next couple of years. Basically everyone ends up with a crypto wallet. And not only that, crypto wallets are going to inevitably merge with, you know, traditional bank accounts, traditional sort of neo banks. And, and the, and this is the first step, right, the first step, reaching maturity of a broader trend that we are seeing where we're basically all assets are migrating to having web two front ends and last mile interfaces, but are using crypto as settlement rails. And, and for high value assets. The demand that we're seeing for bitcoin to be utilized as a settlement layer is growing all the time. It's remarkable. So I think, you know, we're, we're well into like the first year now of a decade long period where basically bitcoin and crypto become the settlement rails for all financial assets and in particular for payments.

A (22:48)

Yeah, it's just crazy. I was at Money20 20, which is a fintech conference, not a crypto conference, and everywhere I turned I just heard the word stablecoin, stablecoin, stablecoin, stableCoin, stablecoin. It is the narrative right now that is not only because we got the genius act and we have some regulatory clarity, it's just because it's literally a better way to all the things that they're trying to do. Yeah, I still don't understand why we don't have a huge stable coin that's been popular on bitcoin.

B (23:19)

Well, up until now, up until yesterday. Right.

A (23:22)

But, but you know, we got to get that up to a couple hundred billion market cap, you know what I'm saying? Like, I'm not saying it can't be. I'm just, it's very surprising to me that that hasn't happened or gained traction. But then, you know, you talk to the people who've built them. Like I sat down with David Marcus in Vegas, obviously, you know, light spark. And he basically said, listen, I tried to do this on lightning for two years and I gave up. He said, I thought we could do it and we couldn't do it. And now I'm building it, you know, something more purpose fit.

B (23:53)

Yes.

A (23:54)

Months. Months ago. Six months ago. Yeah.

B (23:57)

I didn't realize that they'd fully pivoted away from lightning.

A (24:00)

Oh yeah.

B (24:01)

Do you know what they've pivoted to?

A (24:03)

I think their own layer two. You know, I would love to tell you that I actually remember the details of every conversation that I've had, but I think I'm trying to remember what it was called. I just don't. Like, now we're gonna do this because I don't want to be the idiot who quoted someone and then here you go. Yeah, I mean there's a lot of millions there.

B (24:29)

That is a lot of millions. Yeah.

A (24:31)

Lightspark Grid is a global payment network built on Bitcoin's open, decentralized foundation. Lightspark Grid. I don't even think we were talking about Grid back then, so I think it's changed. But yeah, clearly everybody understands at the top end why Bitcoin would be a great base layer for these things.

B (24:52)

Yeah, I think just because of the integrations that Bitcoin has and the amount of assets that Bitcoin has, like, I think, you know, most of the people who we're talking to that are interested in using Bitcoin for other kinds of assets and utilizing, you know, bosses, you know, what, what we've made possible with our technology are, are interested because of the heft of Bitcoin.

A (25:24)

Right.

B (25:24)

I mean it's got the largest user base, it's got the largest asset base. That's the primary thing that they're interested in. But then also when talking to institutions, it's about the brand, the understanding of reliability and the fact that if you're going to have long duration assets, basically Bitcoin is purpose built for it. BTC for example, is, is the perfect example of a long duration asset with perfect property rights. So I think stablecoins are a fit for Bitcoin but they're not the biggest fit for Bitcoin. The more urgent fit for Bitcoin are sort of longer duration assets like equities, corporate debt. And that's what we're going to start seeing probably as the biggest movers and I think also the biggest space of growth over the next few years. Just in the last year that type of real world asset in the crypto space has, has exploded by 10x in terms of, of the value right now, exceeding $32 billion in such in, in, in equities and debt instruments on crypto rails. That's like a drop in the bucket.

A (26:40)

I mean what you said was my entire 30 minute fireside with Sailor, he talked about digital credit. Exactly the things that you just said, those are the priorities and that's where it really shines right now. And that's I think kind of the Trojan horse into the financial system.

B (26:57)

Yep.

A (26:59)

Yeah. I mean the last thing we had obviously was these ETFs. And it's worth mentioning JP Morgan upcoming. All 20 ETFs could draw 14 billion in inflows. Banksy's XRP ETFs topping 8 billion and slot ETFs near 6 billion within 12 months as whatever you think of XRP, the arguments with them, their army is going to buy the hell out of this thing.

B (27:22)

It's very possible.

A (27:23)

Yeah. So I mean ETF palooza is upon us. All right, I gotta go run and be on serious Iago. We're gonna do a proper longer conversation but congratulations. Just really quickly, you know, kind of put a bookend on this. Where can people go, you know, find out more about what you're doing and participate since you're officially launched.

B (27:42)

Check out the website Bitcoin OS build or check out the Twitter BTCoreOS and Scott, I think I'll see you in half an hour in Crypto Town hall. I'm going to be trading today.

A (27:55)

Oh nice. Perfect. Awesome. Yeah, see you there. We can talk more about this there. Everybody come to Crypto Town all on X. We'll break it down even further. Thanks man. See you soon.