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- [00:00]
Interviewer
Matt Cole believes Bitcoin treasury companies are evolving into something far bigger. Entirely new financial products built around Bitcoin itself. In this interview, the Strive CEO explains why digital credit could become a multitrillion dollar market.
- [00:14]
Matt Cole
I look at the credit market, it's $300 trillion. The overall credit market, conservatively, digital credit will at least be 1% of that. So $3 trillion.
- [00:23]
Interviewer
While products like SATA and Stretch are gaining traction faster than expected. And now firms are rethinking yield volatility
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Matt Cole
and bitcoin backed finance it through products like Stretch and SATA are perfect retail products. I think they're great corporate balance sheet products. In a big sell off for Bitcoin, they showed substantially less volatility than Bitcoin and then also rebounded back to par while Bitcoin was still down kind of in the dumps in a bear market.
- [00:52]
Interviewer
We also discussed the coming consolidation in the treasury company space, why many firms launched without a real strategy, and how Michael Saylor's playbook is already evolving. Matt breaks down why preferred equity may outperform convertible debt long term, why institutions may actually want more volatility, and why most investors still misunderstand Bitcoin's role in the financial system. Plus, Matt shares the moment he became
- [01:15]
Matt Cole
fully Convinced on Bitcoin 2011 through 2016, I was a Bitcoin skeptic. 2016. I did a deep dive. Late 2016 into 2017. I put my entire net worth into
- [01:25]
Interviewer
Bitcoin while managing a $70 billion bond portfolio and speaking directly with the Fed and during qe. Let's go, let's do, Let's do.
- [01:48]
Co-Host or Interviewer
You, you were on stage today. What was the key hits from your, from your, from your talk and what were you talking about? What are you focused on right now?
- [01:57]
Matt Cole
Yeah, so we had a panel on Bitcoin treasury companies and it was really focused on digital credit. I think it's pretty clear that the market opportunity for how big digital credit could be is exceeding everyone's expectations, including myself as an issuer of digital credit through SEDA and including strategy through scratch. I mean we had big expectations, but what we're seeing is exponential growth faster than expected. So I was expecting kind of call it linear growth. Like most asset management products for three years build a track record and then once a track record's built, maybe exponential growth in years three through six. And we're seeing that now. And so where do we go? I look at the credit market, it's $300 trillion. The overall credit market, I think conservatively digital Credit will at least be 1% of that. So 3 trillion, which is bigger than bitcoin's market cap today. And, and, and, and, and I think that's just because I've been a bitcoiner for a long time. Talk about bitcoin and people like, they look at you like you're crazy still. And then they buy the top. Yeah, you know, just like family, friends. But you talk about digital credit and it's like 13% yield. Look at how stable it's been. Like, I want that. And so those conversations happening over and over again make me very bullish on kind of the idea and how big of an idea it is.
- [03:24]
Co-Host or Interviewer
I had a conversation with Saylor this morning and we talked right when Stretch launched as well. But he made almost the same point you just did. He said, when I walk in and pitch a bitcoin to some board, he's like, it's 15 conversations. Eventually, maybe the CEO, they have to, if I come in and say, hey, 11.5% yield on this product, they don't even have to make a call to the CEO. Right. The chief financial officer can make a decision and buy this thing. It's just a simpler sale.
- [03:53]
Matt Cole
It's a simpler sell. You realize with the retirement crisis in the United States and really around the globe, but I'm most focused on the United States, that most people don't have enough money saved for retirement. They're risk adverse. They just want income. And so that's why you see a lot of baby boomers invest in real estate to try to get income. And when you invest in real estate, and one of the interesting things is a lot of real estate investors are starting to move toward digital credit. Right. It's, I think we're at the beginning of that, but you're seeing it time and time again. And why do they. We get more yield, less work. Right. When you actually manage a real estate investment portfolio, like as an, as an individual, it's a lot of work. And a lot of them are, I would say, cautiously bullish on bitcoin, where they may not want all the volatility of bitcoin, but they also, because they're in real estate, likely see the debt crisis in the United States. And, and they're comfortable that bitcoin, gold, real estate, hard assets, commodities will have a future. And if you can, you know, invest in that future and earn a double digit yield, that's good enough for them.
- [04:59]
Co-Host or Interviewer
What are the challenges to explaining the risk to people when they're analyzing digital credit? Because you still have the Peter Schiffs of the world screaming about Ponzi schemes and that's not going anywhere.
- [05:11]
Matt Cole
Yeah, so, so those conversations are evolving. So when we launched SATA, it was in November of last year. In, in November it was, what's going to happen when bitcoin goes down? Bitcoin was over $100,000. Then we saw bitcoin go down more than 50% and with both Stretch and SATA, you saw a little bit north of a 10% decline, but then a quick rebound. So what that means is that in a big sell off for bitcoin, they showed substantially less volatility than bitcoin and then also rebounded back to par while bitcoin was still down kind of in the dumps in a bear market. And so that gave a lot of confidence that these are doing what they were intended to do, which is provide substantially less volatility and risk than bitcoin itself with a good deal. Now I think the biggest questions that we get are really on the institutional side. Actually a lot of them are like, well, this has no volatility. We actually want more volatility. And so I think what's evolving in kind of my mind is that I think digital credit through products like Stretch and SATA are perfect retail products. I think they're great corporate balance sheet products and they may not be great institutional products because they might want more volatility. And so I think what's emerging, what's going to emerge is an ecosystem of digital credit products. And Stretch and SATA are more like money market like that, people that just want yield and minimal volatility. And how big is that? Trillions of dollars? How big could more volatile versions of digital credit be? Also trillions of dollars with different buyer bases. And I think that should not be surprising. Right. Different investors have different risk requirements. But, but the idea is obviously massive.
- [07:02]
Co-Host or Interviewer
What do those products look like? And will you be the ones building them? I mean, because obviously I think to most of those people you'd say, well, just buy bitcoin. Yeah, put bitcoin on your balance sheet. Come on. Like what are we doing here? Right. If you want more volatility.
- [07:13]
Matt Cole
Yeah. And so I think for now it's laser focus on SEDA and growing seda. And we also benefit from doing this with strategy. So you'll see Michael Saylor, Fong myself kind of go out there and kind of tackle the tradify world and the retail world together over the rest of this year at several kind of more TradFi, high net worth conferences. I think the idea for us is that SATA could be so large that it's really going to come down to our amplification ratio and how, like if we get up to, as an example, 50, 60% amplification through SEDA growth, which I think is a real possibility and we feel very comfortable with the risk there. We may or may not be in a position to raise, you know, half a billion, a billion dollars through a second preferred equity instrument. We might, we might be. I think it's just these, you know, that would be, you know, towards the end of this year if we ever were to do it. So I think we'll just have to see how these evolve. And really for us, it's growing these in a major way, which I think will support our common in providing great amplified bitcoin exposure. But if, you know, if bitcoin doubled or more than doubled, then obviously that reduces our amplification. So it gives us increased capacity to launch more digital credit. So it could be us, it could not be us. We'll keep our options open and just focus on kind of continuing to grow SATA for now.
- [08:38]
Co-Host or Interviewer
How can I, as you said, SEDA I think in stretch are primarily retail products great for balance sheets. How do people differentiate between the two?
- [08:46]
Matt Cole
So I think the way that people would frame it generally would be that stretch is slightly less risky and a little bit lower volatility, lower yield. SATA has a little bit higher volatility, but still low volatility, higher yield. I think when the people that kind of go deep in the weeds of the math, what, what we hear a lot is you've been heard the strategy were had their earnings call yesterday and you heard Fong Li say they want to retire their convertible notes. Once they retire their convertible notes, they're comfortable taking their amplification ratio from right now around 35% to 50, 60%. Well, Strive effectively has no debt. We have $1.1 billion of Bitcoin and we have $10 million of convertible notes. So that's less than a 1% debt ratio and potentially that could go down in the near term even further to basically zero. So we have that capital structure in place and their, their view of why when they retire that convertible debt, they can take more amplification is cause they viewed it as less risky, a less risky form of financing through digital credit for them. And so I think the market's still evaluating what is risk in this space. Is it the bitcoin rating which is like how much bitcoin relative to how much amplification combining both the convertible notes and the preferred equity? Or should you differentiate between convertible notes of preferred equity? Because in which I think you should do. Because one of the reasons that strategy is shifting towards preferred equity is not because they could not issue more convertible notes with 0% interest. It's actually a convexity issue. So convexity meaning how does that convertible note perform on the downside and then on the upside? So on the downside, you got to repay the principal and you got to repay the principal at the worst time, right? Preferred equity, you just have that interest obligation. You don't have to repay the principal ever. Right. So, so better on the downside from a risk management perspective, on the upside, the convertible note transforms into equity. So when the equity is, is, you know, doing well, your equity dilutes at a time that you would not want it to delete. So it's that negative convexity in both directions on the convertible note and that is why you have zero percent interest. The people that are, that are, that are investing in these convertible notes, they're not stupid. They're institutions, they understand risk adjusted return. And you get zero percent for that convexity, that protection to the downside and that equity conversion to the upside. And so digital credit, you pay a higher interest rate, but you have no negative convexity in either direction. It's actually a cheaper form of financing even though the interest rate is substantially higher.
- [11:27]
Co-Host or Interviewer
So interesting. I think if you asked Sailor the question, he would say he did the convertible notes because that's the tool he had in his box at that time, right? So like, I think regardless of the reason he's now you guys and him have created a better instrument. So shut down the old ones and focus on the, on the new ones, right?
- [11:45]
Matt Cole
Yeah, exactly. And so strive going after strategy. We also, we obviously are watching them extremely closely. I mean, they're the goats in the space, right? Like, I mean, they're going to be the largest holder of bitcoin. I think we're going to have a strategy 1 million bitcoin buy party, you
- [12:02]
Co-Host or Interviewer
know, this year, sooner than we would have had to.
- [12:05]
Matt Cole
And it's crazy, right? But because we went second, we were able to see how the capital markets were evolving and not take a convertible note when everybody else was and put ourselves in a position to launch SATA, which is how we were able to get that out there. Right. It was very intentional and intentionally trying to make it very simple capital markets strategy. And so that's, that's where we are. And I think strategy on their earnings call yesterday, they talked about wanting to also go that direction, start to work to retire their convertible notes early because they view it as an expensive form of financing. It sounds like it might take them 3ish years to do that, but I think it's clearly going the direction of digital credit.
- [12:44]
Co-Host or Interviewer
It's funny that it's viewed as a more expensive way of financing when you're basically saying cost of capital to buy bitcoin with a Stretch or a SATA is 11.5 12, 12.5%. Which I think to people who don't understand bitcoin, think sounds very high.
- [13:00]
Matt Cole
Yeah. So what you're underwriting as a bitcoin bull is what happens if bitcoin over the next 10 or 15 years averages somewhere between a 20% annual compounded growth rate to a 40%. Our view tends to be in, in the realm of 30%, especially with Bitcoin down here, maybe 30% plus. And so you look at cost of capital is if that assumption is true, what does that mean? If the convertible notes continually convert into equity, what does that mean from a cost of capital perspective relative to paying 11.5% or paying 13%? And when you do the math, if you're actually a bitcoin bull, and you truly believe that, and we truly believe that, then you would rather pay 10%, 12 and a half percent, 13%, 15%. Like, like you rather pay any of those, because that would be more accretive if that bitcoin bull thesis plays out. And so if you don't believe that, if you think that bitcoin's going to stay flat for the next 10 years, well, then a convertible note at 0% is a cheaper form of financing than preferred equity. Right. It really is path dependent, but not path dependent in a year. It's path dependent over the course of 5, 10, 15 years. And when you look out that, I think a lot of bitcoin goals, myself included, feel very confident that bitcoin is going to be way higher.
- [14:21]
Co-Host or Interviewer
So for you, it's still about adding more bitcoin to the balance sheet and doing it with products that people want.
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Matt Cole
Yeah. And I think when you say products, I appreciate you saying that because a lot of times I think people look at Stretch and SATA and they look at them as just securities and not products. Where, you know, you hear Michael say, he's like, this is our iPhone moment. Stretch is a product. If you go to strive.com, the first thing you see is SEDA. It is our product. Right. It is A product that we're going out there and really what you're trying to do is provide a win win. Anything in business is about providing a win win. And the win win is you have a lot of people that want income. You also have a lot of people that want amplified bitcoin exposure because they're massive bitcoin bulls. And so by taking core bitcoin you can slice and dice it and create both of those products. And on the amplified bitcoin side, if our bull thesis is right, that carry trade right cost of capital relative to the future return of bitcoin is more accretive than almost anything you could do in as an operating useless. If the, if the return of bitcoin is lower, then it starts to become more competitive between an operating business and a pure play like strategy or strife.
- [15:27]
Co-Host or Interviewer
How much do you have to trust the operator? How much are you saying trust me, I'm Matt, I've got your best interests in mind. I'm never going to just let this thing fall or continue to pay these yields because that seems to be the sticking point for a lot of people.
- [15:43]
Matt Cole
Is it? Yeah, you have to trust and verify to the best extent you can. Right. And so I think one way to start to verify kind of still in the early stages to say bitcoin just had a bear market. How did these issuers behave? We launched SATA with a 12 month dividend reserve. Bitcoin crashes. Did we just go hide in a corner and start using our dividend reserve? No, we actually grew it from 12 months to 18 months and we issued more SEDA and we bought more bitcoin. We haven't sold a single bitcoin yet. And I think that that starts to give confidence that these guys will go out there and they'll say whatever crazy bullish things. Digital credit is going to be a trillion dollars or three trillion dol. But yet they actually back these things up with actions. Right. And as you start to build that track record through actions of going out there and saying that you're going to do something and then you go do it, then I think that trust starts to grow. And the last thing I'll say is we come from institutional backgrounds. I used to manage a $70 billion bond and so managing a billion dollar balance sheet, although it's bitcoin, it's, it's actually really small versus the capital.
- [16:56]
Co-Host or Interviewer
That's a casual Tuesday.
- [16:58]
Matt Cole
Yeah, I mean when I, when I managed the bond portfolio, I mean minimum trade size for us was in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Right. Like, and, and, and so obviously now I'm managing a billion, it's like, okay, like in a certain sense it feels easy and is like, you know, I look forward to the day that we're a $70 billion portfolio again.
- [17:19]
Co-Host or Interviewer
I correct me if I'm wrong. I believe I read about you once that you never underperformed your benchmark in all of your years as a portfolio manager for like multiple decades.
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Matt Cole
Not multiple decades.
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Co-Host or Interviewer
11 years into an extra, into a second decade.
- [17:34]
Matt Cole
Look, I think the reality is, you know, if I would have ran a portfolio for 40 years, I probably would not have outperformed 40 years. I probably would have outperformed 80 to 90% of the years. I kind of ran a little hot, but not quite crazy hot. And I think fixed income markets are markets where outperformance is expected and the average fixed income portfolio manager outperforms to call it like 60, 70% of fixed income portfolios outperform on a given year. Great ones outperform 80%. Plus the average equity active portfolio manager underperforms their benchmark. I think equity space is much harder. Right, but yeah, no, I mean, you have definitely, you know, used to managing risk and you know, the. Also the focus there is how do you outperform for 11 years straight? You have to be very sharp, return focused. So risk relative to return. Right. And you think about digital credit, you hear Saylor talk about the Sharpe ratio of stretch. It's early, right? Yeah, but it's like a crazy sharp ratio, right. And you get that by being maniacally focused on minimizing that risk. Right. Because if the denominator decreases, then obviously the, you know, the return divided by the risk, if the dominator is going down, the Sharpe ratio expands upward massively. And I think digital credit can maintain a very impressive Sharpe ratio.
- [18:54]
Co-Host or Interviewer
Does that mean, I mean, does, you know, eliminating that risk or basically diminishing the risk basically mean finding ways to diminish the volatility.
- [19:01]
Matt Cole
Yeah, yeah. So different ways you can do that. So obviously one of them is that the interest rate's variable, right? So raising it or lowering it to keep that right around 100. But there's other ways. Like if in the early days of, of SEDA when, you know, we did the IPO and it was, it was dragging a little bit, we were raising the interest rate, but we were also issuing more shares at slightly below what MNAV of one, something that was not accretive to the common in the short term. And we were very open about this. We said over the long Run like we are long term investors over the long term. We believe minimizing this volatility for SATA, showing that we can improve the balance sheet when we need to, even if it's not accretive, will drive investor confidence that Seita will have minimal volatility, grow the potential market size of that as we increase the confidence in the security which will over the long term invest, increase the returns for the common equity investors.
- [19:54]
Co-Host or Interviewer
So let's talk more generally about the treasury space. Right. So obviously I would say it's fair to say we had a hype cycle a year ago. Right. I remember walking into bitcoin Vegas and I was pitched like seven treasury companies in the first five minutes. I was sort of skeptical. I think your strategy is proving to have longevity. What happens to everybody else? Where, where's this, where is the treasury company, you know, space headed? Is it consolidation? I've actually been. You, you, you did consume similar, right.
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Matt Cole
So you were the first.
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Co-Host or Interviewer
And that was actually to me was the signal that the merger or acquisition market seems to be the most rational place for this. Like why wouldn't one treasury company that actually has capital buy one that's trading at a 40% discount to NAV? That's really cheap Bitcoin. Right. But we haven't seen that to any large degree. And that wasn't even necessarily the case with Semler. Right. I mean it wasn't really about their discount to nav. I mean, I guess you can give me more clarity.
- [20:50]
Matt Cole
But yeah, so starting with, with Semler, Semler also saw the future of bitcoin treasury companies in the biggest opportunity being digital credit. Their shareholders turned down their ability to issue digital credit. Part of the reason, I think is because they had the convert. They were concerned about leverage ratios. And so combining the two companies allowed us obviously to have a much bigger bitcoin stack, allowed their shareholders to feel comfortable that together we could issue digital credit, which is how we were able to retire 90% of the convert one week after we closed that transaction. Right. We were very clear that we were going to be digital credit focused. And, and I think for us that first transaction made sense to kind of elevate us up another level in bitcoin holdings. I think at this point though, for us, I would say M and A is not off the table. The bar is much higher because we're finding such success in digital credit that, that, that flywheel is kind of working. Right. And so M and A is not a hobby. It's like it's a full time job. Right. And so as long as that flywheel is going for us with, with Seda and digital credit, which I think it will, I would say unlikely, but not impossible that we will be an acquirer. But I do think that much more M and A should happen in aspics. I think there was clearly too many companies that, that launched and I mean they didn't have.
- [22:09]
Co-Host or Interviewer
With no plan.
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Matt Cole
With no plan, no full teams. Obviously big bitcoin bulls. Right. And. And so I think for them that some consolidation would make sense. Building up real teams that can run a public company. I think there are abilities to have different strategies. So I think that you could have an operating company that holds bitcoin that stacks more bitcoin over time. Do I think that in a bitcoin bull market that that will be the best performing company in bitcoin? I. I absolutely do not. But do I think that that could, that could work as a strategy, like profitable business plus buying bitcoin? I do. I just think it's a different risk return profile. It's actually a substantially lower risk, may not even be amplified bitcoin. Because if the operating business has a bunch of value in the company, then the company's not pure play Bitcoin beta. It's like operating company beta, bitcoin beta, and kind of probably is a. Almost like a. I would expect it to underperform bitcoin because the operating company has value. But know could be somewhere between bitcoin's returns and like The S&P 500 returns. Like something like that is possible.
- [23:18]
Co-Host or Interviewer
Yeah. It just seems that there's multiple approaches. Right. You guys have created digital credit and focused heavily on that. Then there's all the tweeners who have bought bitcoin and I guess are praying.
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Matt Cole
Yeah.
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Co-Host or Interviewer
And then the other side is what I think any of us who are bitcoiners believe is that just like an individual should put a percentage of their money into bitcoin because it's a superior asset to hold on your own balance sheet or investment. Operating companies with cash flow should just buy bitcoin. Those aren't bitcoin treasury companies to me. And I think it's funny that they're kind of viewed in the same. Those are just companies that own bitcoin.
- [23:51]
Matt Cole
Yeah. And I think that makes all the sense in the world. And for those companies, their goal probably is not to outperform bitcoin itself, it's to manage a balance sheet.
- [24:03]
Co-Host or Interviewer
Outperform the dollar.
- [24:04]
Matt Cole
Outperform the dollar. Right. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Which is debased about 7% every single year. Right. And so I think that's smart. I think we've seen that a lot of the companies that put bitcoin in the balance sheet did not have long term conviction. Which is why you've seen a lot of treasury companies already selling in a fairly mild bitcoin winter. Right. Yeah. And so I think that there was some kind of, you know, the hype, the get rich quick scheme and I think you saw kind of more of the like the true believers versus the ones that maybe were in it for different purposes maybe start to get washed out in ways that I think will impair investor confidence in them forever. And then I think we'll ultimately see some consolidation from them. Probably just won't be from the strive or probably from strategy.
- [24:51]
Co-Host or Interviewer
Yeah, I wonder if somebody's just going to raise a whole bunch of capital and go buy these things up.
- [24:55]
Matt Cole
Yeah, the activist investors are coming.
- [24:57]
Co-Host or Interviewer
Yeah, it feels like that's inevitable.
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Interviewer
And then I guess we've also seen
- [25:00]
Co-Host or Interviewer
some sort of other strategies with Tether obviously coming in and proposing 21 and strike and with Electron coming in and consolidating those three to build a company that mines bitcoin, offers the full suite of financial services, but is also a bitcoin treasury company. I mean, do you think that that's another viable potential model?
- [25:24]
Matt Cole
It's definitely viable as a business model. I mean they're controlling kind of the whole vertical stack of bitcoin. But my guess would be that operating business probably has a lot of value in and of itself and so same idea. Yeah. Right. And so it's like can you put that operating company together with bitcoin and will it outperform bitcoin when we don't know yet what the valuation of Strike is or Electron and like how much that's going to dilute 21. Do I think they will succeed? Absolutely. I mean I think they'll succeed. I think they create a great company. What the risk return profile of that mixture is, I think is, is to be determined and I think it's probably going to be in the sense of more of an operating company that holds bitcoin versus a amplified bitcoin story.
- [26:07]
Co-Host or Interviewer
If you're retail, this could be pretty confusing.
- [26:10]
Matt Cole
Yes.
- [26:10]
Co-Host or Interviewer
Like how do you choose? I mean we flooded the market last year obviously, but now I think, you know, you sort of see the phoenix's rise from the ashes or seeing what's quality and, and what was just sort of an awful idea. But you know, how do you choose say to stretch Or I'm going to buy 20. You know, like, there's so many options.
- [26:26]
Matt Cole
Yeah. I think the first question people have to ask is, do you understand what type of risk return profile you want? Like, do you want something that has more volatility and more potential return than Bitcoin? If you do strive or strategy or great options. Right. We have amplification to Bitcoin. If Bitcoin rips, we should likely outperform. In that scenario, do you want bitcoin minus returns with more stability? If you do, then SATA and stretch pay double digit returns. Operating companies that hold bitcoin, the equity value of the operating company could grow. But I think those are all likely bitcoin minus returns. And I think the kind of money market like opportunity is probably the biggest cam would be my guess. Or should you just want to own bitcoin? Everyone should own Bitcoin. And I think sometimes people think that we're attacking that or we don't believe that. No. The first thing I always say is you should hold some Bitcoin in cold storage. It should be your kind of insurance policy. And then you build portfolio from there.
- [27:25]
Co-Host or Interviewer
To be honest though, that should be the first thing you do just to be comfortable enough with Bitcoin to even consider products that are bitcoin backed. Yeah, but just get like, just buy a little bit, send it to someone,
- [27:36]
Matt Cole
put it in cold storage. See how it works. Yeah, send it. It actually works.
- [27:40]
Co-Host or Interviewer
Yeah. I mean, what got you into Bitcoin
- [27:42]
Matt Cole
in the first place?
- [27:43]
Co-Host or Interviewer
I know we don't have much time, but like what you, you clearly had a moment where you said, this is the thing I want to, you know, spit. Spend my life building.
- [27:51]
Matt Cole
Yeah, yeah. So it started by. It's the thing I wanted to have all my portfolio into when I was at Calpers. So one of the portfolios I managed was their U.S. treasury portfolio. And so we were. I was one of the largest buyers of U.S. treasuries in the United States, which means that I have direct access to the treasury and the Fed. And I was not a bitcoiner. Actually, this is like I started as a PM in 2011. Call it like 2011 through 2016. I was a bitcoin skeptic. But talking to the treasury and the Fed, I became completely convicted that the things that they were telling me were not true. The things that they're telling me, we are not printing money, we are not monetizing the debt. We are just doing quantitative ease. So what they were saying was that the treasury would issue new securities. This is during the era of qe. They would sell those treasury securities to Wall street. So like Goldman Sachs, and then Goldman Sachs one day later would sell them to the Fed. So you have this like triangle. If you remove Goldman Sachs and you just say treasury issues debt, Fed buys debt. Everyone, including them, would agree that it's monetization. But they were adamant that because it wasn't directly going from treasury to the Fed, that it wasn't monetization. Like, this is literally the United States money loan. Like, like you, you have one intermediary and it changed the definition of what you're doing. It's like, no, you're clearly monetizing the debt. And so I became so convicted that this debt crisis was not going to go away. All it was going to be is continually kick the can down the road, grow the debt, a relative basis to GDP over time until it breaks. And when it breaks, obviously we don't know. So I saw that problem extremely clearly. I was a bitcoin skeptic. Eventually, when bitcoin didn't die, it just kept not dying. Good job.
- [29:25]
Co-Host or Interviewer
Not dying.
- [29:25]
Matt Cole
I was like, okay, okay, maybe I need to look into this thing and actually understand it. So 2016, I did a deep dive. Late 2016 into 2017, I put my entire net worth into Bitcoin and obviously was a good financial decision because it's binary. It's like bitcoin's either Ponzi scheme going to zero or it's going to like millions.
- [29:45]
Co-Host or Interviewer
Yeah.
- [29:45]
Matt Cole
It's not view at the same rate. And so then it was like, okay, like I'm going to go all in. That went out, went well. And then with strive, we know we started as kind of more of an anti ESG asset manager. Vivek founded. I was part of the Day One team and when he ran for president, I helped orange peel him. So he was the first president to speak at a bitcoin conference in 2013. And we kind of felt like we had kind of won our anti ESG battle in a lot of ways. And so we felt bitcoin was the next contrarian thing that we could do really well. So we went in that direction, became a bitcoin treasury company and it's been far from there.
- [30:18]
Co-Host or Interviewer
I know we're done here, but like, people should listen because you were there, you saw it. You know, like, I think we all have this idea of what the Fed and the treasury are doing and everybody like loosely can feel the inflation. But if you don't deeply understand it, you literally were having a conversation with them and called bullshit.
- [30:36]
Matt Cole
I mean, I was a big client
- [30:37]
Co-Host or Interviewer
of theirs, so you called bullshit, like, to their face, like you're lying?
- [30:42]
Matt Cole
Yeah, I did.
- [30:42]
Co-Host or Interviewer
I did.
- [30:43]
Matt Cole
It was crazy.
- [30:44]
Co-Host or Interviewer
Unbelievable, man. Well, I'm glad we have people with your conviction. My view personally is I own bitcoin first, and I own SATA and I own Stretch, and I own a couple other things. And I have my account that's yield bearing and it's.
- [30:56]
Matt Cole
And I also have a whole lot
- [30:57]
Co-Host or Interviewer
of bitcoin that I want to hold forever as it's like my savings and
- [31:00]
Matt Cole
checking account, you know, makes a lot of sense.
- [31:02]
Co-Host or Interviewer
Or my. My savings and money market, I guess, is a better one. And thank you so much. I'm glad we finally got to sit down.
- [31:07]
Matt Cole
Yeah. Appreciate it.
- [31:08]
Interviewer
This podcast is sponsored by Weeks and was recorded live at Consensus 2026. You can find out more about what they have to offer by clicking on the link down below in the description. Thanks to Weeks for sponsoring.