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- [00:03]
A
Does Vanguard finally offering bitcoin ETF signal the then they fight you phase being over? Are we cleared for takeoff now? Or are we stuck in the same kind of trading range and every rally is to be sold? We're going to discuss all that and more with Andrew and Tillman from Arch and Josh Frank from the tie. Let's go.
- [00:24]
B
Let's do. Let's do.
- [00:39]
A
Okay, let's get everyone started. I don't know who wants to take this first. Andrew, Tillman, Josh. I think that then they fight you is always the, the, the, the point, and then you win is the next point. Vanguard, are they capitulating at, you know, kind of the wrong time or, or does this actually mean something in your opinion?
- [01:02]
C
Just follow the leader, right? I mean, you can't, you can't look at your, your prime competitor, which is Blackrock, and see that Ibid is their most successful product that makes them the most money and say, well, maybe it's just a bit of a trend and we should not, you know, maybe we shouldn't be involved here. Really, really stupid, dumb decision in the first place. And it should be noted that they're not offering their own bitcoin spot fund as well. But I would imagine as how these things go, there was a meaningful outcome. Outcry from their customers saying, hey, you know, all my friends are involved.
- [01:47]
A
Yep, I think we lost Andrew there for a second. I mean, look, you know, from my perspective, it is just more of the same. I mean, there is a increased demand, more talking, but it's really slow.
- [02:02]
D
I lost audio.
- [02:04]
A
Can you guys hear me?
- [02:05]
B
I hear you. I can hear you.
- [02:06]
A
Okay, Tillman, you, you got me or not. He can't. Well, I don't know.
- [02:12]
B
We'll tell him and Andrew by the end of the call.
- [02:16]
D
I lost audio. I'm gonna jump back in.
- [02:18]
A
Okay, well, whatever. Anyway, you know, that's what's going on. I mean, overnight we saw a little bit of stabilization. I mean, look, Josh, I don't know what your clients or what you, what you're looking at. I, I got on Macro Monday yesterday and I made the point that, you know, for all the histrionics and all the pain and people, I don't think I've ever seen the mood as bad as this. It almost felt worse than it did the day after FTX exploded. And yet you.
- [02:44]
B
Look, I don't, I don't, I don't think you remember how that felt. I do want to crash down to $8. I, I remember exactly where I was. I got I got a screen share if somebody can pull this up.
- [02:54]
A
Okay, cool. There we go.
- [02:58]
B
I don't know. I don't want Grok to explain this post. We can explain it. This is a post yesterday from Eric, from Bloomberg on the back of Bitcoin dropping 6%. There's still inflows into the Bitcoin ETFs, right. And so there's still demand. So I think that's worth noting as well. And so I think it's worth noting that sentiment. I think we also need to separate sentiment on Twitter, where all of us sit and all of us live the rest of crypto, because if you looked at Twitter, then XRP would never be where it is. Cardano would never be where it is. There are so many assets that are in the top 10, top 20 by market cap that have incredibly negative sentiment on Twitter, but have retail communities and interests that exist outside of X. Right. And so I think it's important to kind of take a step back. But I do agree with you, Dave, that the sentiment is incredibly negative. I mean, like, the sentiment around Monad's ICO to me, shocked me on how negative it was given the fact that it was trading at $0.05 pre market and they gave people the opportunity to buy it without a lockup for two and a half cents, which is something that people should be excited and thankful for, giving them an opportunity to buy below where it was trading at the same exact time. Right. And so, look, I think people are negative, but I think it also shows there's no, you know, there's bitcoin and there's everything else. Right. And for the everything else, right now, there's not a net new buyer. Right. We're not seeing, you know, one of the things that we track at the TIE is how much capital funds raise. And I can actually share my screen here. So we track, you know, every form D and D A filing with the sec. So what a Form D and D A is. These are basically filings that us reporting funds make. And you can basically see over time how much capital funds are raising in crypto. And the answer is not very much capital relative to what they were raising in 21 and 22. And so, you know, when the funds struggle to raise capital, they struggle to deploy in the space. And I think something that's really unique to crypto is the fact that the capital that is being raised is often being raised by venture funds, not hedge funds, which is why you see all of these new projects raising a ton of money, going to launch and Then the chart kind of just looking like a, you know, a roller coaster when you start at the top and you go straight down and, and so I think that's worth noting as well.
- [05:27]
A
Yeah, I think it matters. I mean, till then, what, what are you guys seeing? You guys got a lot of users on your platform.
- [05:33]
D
Yeah. I just think it's honestly the buying opportunities that we all we look for at the beginning of the bull markets. We know they're going to present themselves to us. We've seen the pullbacks before. This isn't some, an percentage pullback. This is right in line with, with what we've seen before. We've got three more just like it this cycle. And so I just look at it as buying opportunities. I don't, you know, the, the fact that the, the institutions continue to build out their infrastructure so that they can, you know, utilize this technology is I, I think, you know, it's going to take years to realize what is started based upon this administration and the new regulatory framework that everybody's working within. And I think the innovation can't be put back in its bag. I think it's such a disruptor. If I hearken back to the original days, like when I was first learning about crypto, I will never forget this feeling. It was like Christmas Eve and I was sending my relatives Bitcoin on Christmas Eve and I was calling them going, see, you couldn't do that with the banking system. I mean that's the most novel attribute that is disruptive to bitcoin. But having something that has proven to the world that instant settlement and decentralized governance can exist and coincide at the same time. I think that cat's out of the bag and I think we're going to see every institution adopt it integrated at a systems level. And I think that's gonna, you know, the rising tide floats all ships. Money follows those institutions. So yeah, I, I just look at these opportunities as, as excellent buying opportunities and you're not going to nail the bottom. So stop, stop being over, you know, overzealous as it pertains to any one certain dip. You know, $100,000 mark for Bitcoin was a, a milestone that I think if you've been in get bitcoin long enough, you, I think we glazed over it. I mean we had multiple parties as it bounced back and forth. We kind of treated it like it was a no big deal thing. You know, that's something that we've been waiting for for a decade plus. You know, that's like that was the Holy Grail number. And to think that we wouldn't go back and forth and yo, yo, at that price level just to drip every last drop of retail FOMO out of the market before it goes parabolic like, that's the classic market, you know, that, that I look for, honestly. So I'm looking at these opportunities as buying opportunities, but at the same time, be prudent. Don't overextend yourself on any one dip. Keep powder dry, as they say. And, and, you know, but when things go on sale and when they go on sale, disproportionate to what's really going on with them. There's nothing material that's changed with the technology, for example, then, you know, that's, that's, that's, that's when you buy. That's, that's a great opportunity.
- [08:47]
A
If only there was a technology platform that let you do that.
- [08:50]
D
Yeah, exactly, Archbishop.
- [08:52]
A
I mean, gee, that would be, that would make a lot of sense. That's so funny that they dropped. But you know, the funny thing, Josh, is I think that the story that I find the most amusing is the microstrategy story. I mean, I was just looking and I probably should have screenshotted it, you know, at, at two tweets and I could screenshot it, I suppose. You know, one from Samson Mao talking about Saylor has built an unassailable Bitcoin fortress and being the bull case for MicroStrategy. And another sailor is the eggman. A trader thinks the price of egg is going to increase and goes on. And others are talking about it. The amount of ignorant takes because people don't like what MicroStrategy is doing on the one hand are just astounding. It is astounding how dumb.
- [09:40]
B
I would, I would, and I'm not grouping them together, but I'd also throw tether in there too. I mean, some of.
- [09:45]
A
Yeah, I was going to go there. Those are two separate stories. But my point on MicroStrategy, and I'm curious what you guys both think is MicroStrategy is effectively positioned in the short term. And as, and I say short term, I mean, next couple of years, as effectively a managed, a managed call option strategy would on Bitcoin because effectively, because they're paying a dividend, there's some time decay based in they lose money. It will underperform in sideways, it will underperform in down, and it will outperform in upside markets. There's no, there's no way around it. That is literally what will happen if there's any rationality in people following the stock at the same time in the long run, which I think is going to take a couple years, but it's certain there will be Bitcoin available for use as collateral in the financial system once Basel changes their rules. Given the fact that the chair of the Basel community came out a couple weeks ago and said they're reevaluating their crypto rules, what that means is that just like equities, just like corporate bonds can be used as marginal securities and can be used as collateral and unique and innovative products, Bitcoin will be at that point having a critical mass of Bitcoin will allow MicroStrategy to generate cash flow from its horde, you know, from you know, what they have and they could become a Bitcoin bank. You could call it whatever you want to call it.
- [11:16]
B
There's already, I mean, there's already some of that, I mean, Goldman Sachs has done Bitcoin back lending already.
- [11:21]
A
So.
- [11:23]
D
Bitcoin back.
- [11:23]
B
Yes.
- [11:24]
D
Oh, Bitcoin back lending is literally a one click away on your Coinbase. 1.
- [11:29]
B
Well, I think his point is through your traditional prime broker. Yeah.
- [11:34]
A
Brokerage offering to a full range of communities, products that incorporate like for example. Let's think of it this way, Tillman, you want to do a Bitcoin backed loan. There are people like Leaden and, and others. I mean, I, I, you know, happen to know, you know, Mauricio, who runs that you, you can do a Bitcoin backed loan but you cannot use Bitcoin as collateral or use Bitcoin to get your, to do the, you know, your down payment on a traditional loan. Yeah, but you could, once the Basel rules change, right. You know, you can do things, you will be able to do all sorts of innovative new products and that will allow MicroStrategy to leverage something that is, people don't understand. If you set out to accumulate half a billion, you know, half a billion, 500,000 Bitcoin, right. In order to seed a major bank, you know, book, you couldn't do so for anything close to the current price. There's no way.
- [12:34]
C
Right.
- [12:35]
A
So, you know, there is a major premium or should be involved in being able to have critical mass. I don't know what, what critical mass is for the big banks and the big financial institutions, but it's certainly not zero. And so if you wonder, that's, that's, that's the reason why banks trade on average at about one and a half price to book. So when you look at MicroStrategy and people talk about, call it a Ponzi scheme. I mean, that's just stupid. And, and look, there are some very smart people who, who for some reason have a bug up their ass about, about Sailor. I mean, look, I don't like his video, I don't like his, his cartoon posts or any of the other stuff, but when you actually sit and listen to him, it's very different. So it's, it's really interesting. Cognitive dissonance. Curious what you guys think because you talk to a lot of people about it.
- [13:23]
D
Go ahead, Josh.
- [13:25]
B
Yeah, I mean, I don't know if I, I mean, Dave, I think you think about this more than I do, so.
- [13:33]
D
Well said, Josh.
- [13:37]
B
I, I, I, look, you know, they've built up a cash balance, right. They have the ability to cover their dividends. I don't think they're going anywhere. Right. They have a gigantic balance sheet. I think, you know, look, the reality is crypto is so sentiment driven that if we hit a place where they now needed to sell some of their bitcoin, which is the thing that they said publicly for the first time ever, that they would consider doing. And I think that's partially, people were reacting before that, and now people are partially reacting to that. I think the market could get spooked. Right. I mean, the reality is crypto is still, and bitcoin in particular, given that there are no quote, unquote, fundamentals around, it is naturally going to be very, very sentiment driven. Right. It's, it's, regardless of whether or not you think there are fundamentals, you can agree that it's driven by investor sentiment. Right.
- [14:22]
A
And 100%.
- [14:23]
B
And, and so, and so the reality is, you know, when sentiment is negative, people latch on to whatever else and it gets more negative and more negative and more negative. And, and if you can catch, you know, if you can, if you can catch the bottom of that negativity, you can obviously make a tremendous amount of money. Right. And so I think it's just, you know, people are depressed. People in crypto don't have dry powder right now. They're not sitting on cash, and they're latching on to anything that they can latch onto and they're being negative about anything that they can be negative. I mean, I've seen people negative on tether, as an example, that were never negative on tether before, which makes no sense given the state of their balance sheet and their assets and their ability to raise capital. Yeah. Arthur is a trader. I don't trust a word he's saying, I think Arthur is moving markets and is trying to move markets for his own personal sake. Arthur obviously is a long term believer in crypto. Was an incredible part of the crypto story building bitmax. But he's a trader. He's been a trader his entire life and so I wouldn't be surprised if he short the market while he's making this post.
- [15:32]
D
Yeah, I look at it, Dave. I would echo Josh's sentiment in the fact that I think most people don't even know this exists. This universe is so esoteric for most people. And I would, you know, the analogy I would give is most people know what a hammer is, that's pretty easy. But if I take them some unique tool from the oil patch in Odessa, Texas, they won't have a clue what that tool is used for. But somebody who works on an oil rig knows exactly what that tool is for. And so I just think that MicroStrategy started as this Frankenstein Wall street bitcoin experiment that came to life and it was the first of its kind and everybody had to pay attention to it because no one had ever seen it before. I mean there were two terms on Wall street that now get thrown around like everybody knows what they are and they didn't even exist like a year and a half ago, which was a bitcoin treasury company in mnav. And now it's like, oh yeah. So here's my point. It's good that people are creating tools around bitcoin. That's a good thing. We want as many tools we want in the bitcoin Walmart tool warehouse for you to go, yeah, I want the most esoteric, hard to understand use case and then go, yeah, we've got one of those. And go get it off the shelf. Because that's the sign of a full fledged ecosystem, right? That's the sign of a market. And when you have those types of levers, even if you don't understand what one of those tools is for, it's meaningful to the people who do. And a lot of the tools that he's creating are hedging tools. So you have no reason to use them unless you have some massive position that you want to hedge against. And so, you know, it's just, it's.
- [17:32]
B
I will, I just argue against that a little bit, which is the fact that retail investors have lost a lot of money in the last year, right? Believing that, believing that MicroStrategy is going to always trade at a premium to M Nav and then it's going to go up, and they're going to accumulate more Bitcoin per share. I think Bitcoin is down something like 8 or 9% this year. MicroStrategy is down about 50% this year. The one thing that I really don't like in this space is that retail seems to always lose or loses a lot of the time. Right. And so I think one thing that's important for us as those that are deep in the space is to figure out how we can make sure retail doesn't lose. Because at the end of the day, you need a retail bid, right? And if the way that retail gets exposure to Bitcoin or increases their exposure to Crypto is through MicroStrategy, and they lose a ton, and they lose more than they would have lost purchasing Bitcoin directly. I also think that's a problem. I think that's also a problem with the DAX and how much they were promoted.
- [18:31]
A
Right.
- [18:31]
B
And the fact that, and I think I've talked about this before, all of the DAT sponsors made a shit ton of money on these things. Retail bought the bag and they lost. Right. And my point with all of this is just that I think education is incredibly important and I think empowering retail. And I think the problem is, you know, products like MicroStrategy can move more than the underlying right. For a variety of reasons. Right. In this case, you know, when they're, you know, you know, when the market's going down, they have an inability to raise additional capital to purchase more Bitcoin. Right. And so I think it's just important, you know, to keep that perspective in mind, which is who's losing? Because somebody is usually losing.
- [19:10]
D
Well, I wouldn't argue that. I mean, obviously, I support that retail not get beat down, but markets tend to, you know, retail drives initial adoption because it is the riskiest time. And with risk comes reward. And there's, you know, I agree. I didn't play the microstrategy thing.
- [19:33]
A
I didn't lose.
- [19:34]
D
So I didn't play the Nakamoto thing. I didn't lose. You know, I, I, I appreciate innovation, and I've gotten spanked enough to know where not to get spanked. But I agree that there is a lot of promotion and a lot of misunderstanding and a lot of people playing the game that should not be playing the game and the education. And I've spoken to that. I'm not a proponent. I've never pumped MicroStrategy. I have, in fact, started.
- [20:02]
B
I wasn't, I was not. No, no.
- [20:04]
D
To, to your point, though, There is a lot of change at a very quick pace in this community. And so I, I started my own fund in response to Micro Strategy and what they're doing. Because I don't believe you should ever buy Bitcoin with debt, period. I don't care what the mechanism looks like. I don't think you should buy it with debt. That's just my own personal opinion. I think a much more prudent way.
- [20:28]
B
I'm gonna go more broad than that. Okay. Part of the reason crypto moves so much is because retail uses way too much leverage in this space.
- [20:35]
D
Couldn't agree more.
- [20:37]
A
Right.
- [20:37]
D
And I think it's very, very irresponsible to allow these exchanges to offer 100x leverage because the, you even ask the, the retail investor that's ever traded with 100x leverage what that means, they don't even know. They don't even know what 100x is. It just looks good to them, like it's at the top of a casino, honestly. Because they don't. They don'.
- [21:03]
B
Anything above 10x leverage is even gambling. But really, anything we could. Let's start it.
- [21:09]
D
Josh. It's more nefarious than even that. The rules are they take all your upside. Like they have a liquidation price on the downside, they have a list of liquidation price on the upside. They're betting on volatility and you get screwed either way.
- [21:24]
B
Right.
- [21:25]
D
And so you're taking disproportionate risk thinking you have unlimited upside against 100x leverage. But there is no hundred x leverage to infinity. It's 100x leverage until we feel like we're going to go bust. Because a lot of people don't realize that those trades that you place at 100x are no different than parlay bets against the house in the casino. The house has to pay them if they lose. And so if you get a. If you get an exchange that's allowing 100x bets on the price of Bitcoin and they get over leveraged in those positions, they are your counter trade and they control the markets.
- [22:04]
A
Let's be, let's be clear here. I don't want to focus on the mechanics. You're talking about automated deleveraging, which happened with finance. It did happen. It is extremely infrequent. I mean, look, anyone who wants to go back and read an old classic book. This has all happened before. If you read Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, which was literally written about trading in the 1800s, I kid you not. There were things called Bucket shops in the United States all up and down the Eastern seaboard where you could get 98, you could get 50x leverage trading equities and you could do so you know, it it. So this has happened before and in fact was one of the reasons why in all after the Great Depression when they came up with new rules here, they got rid of it and they said okay, only 50% leverage, which is probably too extreme and then professionals could get more. But I didn't want to go there. The point on leverage is interesting. There are probably people using your platform who have home equity loans at very cheap interest rates that say I would rather be you, I would rather deploy that in Bitcoin and have a loan against, at a low interest rate against my house. There are people who have done that. You can do that. I hate it though.
- [23:20]
D
I don't like that's just horrible.
- [23:23]
A
You have clients doing it.
- [23:25]
D
Well of course in the law of averages you've got clients doing all sorts. You know what I mean? If you got enough clients there, there's a unique snowflake in that bunch.
- [23:35]
A
Oh absolutely. But yeah, I get it. I, I rail about leverage almost every day. I think people don't understand it. You know, they think, you know, like Josh just made a statement which is, which is so true. Even 10x leverage is gambling. 10x leverage is. It means a 10 move at the extreme and you're wiped out. When you see a 6% down move the odds that there wasn't a wick down eight to nine maybe 10% on one exchange or slim because generally there is and that is where they get you. It always goes farther than you expect on the individual exchange and you get wiped. So there is a lot of risk when you do that. But I did want to point out one thing about microstrategy relative. I did a little bit of research on Grok yesterday and Scott has always called the digital asset treasury companies this cycles altcoins. I don't believe in a four year cycle anymore by the way. I think a bunch of crap but for a lot of reasons. But if you look microstrategy when I look down Yesterday was down 40% year on the year and, and the average altcoin in the top, you know, 20 I actually specifically picked on because Tushar Jane from from Multicoin made a, made a, made a snarky post about, about strategy. I then asked Gro to show me their top 20 coins x bit x Ethereum and Salana that they've invested in or led investments in and their average performance of those coins was down 60% on the year. So I kind of find I, I hate it's a people in class houses kind of thing. I mean if you're going to be snarky you better be ready to defend what you've done. So if you look, people retail which has been primarily in altcoins expecting to see the rotation from bitcoin to altcoins as part of a four year cycle which did not happen on average are down somewhere in the neighborhood of 60%. Micro strategy is down 40. Now as far as microstrategy, just to be truth and advertising, I am in the game. I, if it wasn't for tax purposes would have sold when it was at a high, a higher M nav as it were. Instead I just waited and recently I just bought more because I think that it's dramatically underpriced. I think that you know, I like buying things at the bottom of ranges and I might be wrong, you know.
- [25:55]
D
Well listen, can I interrupt and just say I had a really interesting conversation with my father in law and he's a traditional guy, he doesn't trade crypto but he trades specifically he, he deals with covered calls, buys or sells covered calls and we were having this conversation and it just hit me in the conversation like I wonder where microstrategy falls on like the you know, out of the money premium yield on a covered call strategy and it's surprisingly good. It's like the fourth highest in the market, like between 4 to 6, 6%. So again if it doesn't look like a tool to you, you just don't know how to use it. But if you're a big covered call guy and you're out there looking at your stack of money as the sole way in which you generate your, your retirement income. Doing my using micro strategies volatility against itself to produce yield is a, it's a, it's, it's, you know, fourth best in the entire market behind Tesla, Nvidia and Palantir. I mean those are pretty, pretty big, pretty big players ahead of them.
- [27:09]
A
Yeah, no that's true. Well you, you brought up Tether as well, you know, from Arthur which by the way the math on Arthur's post makes no sense. I mean a 30 drop in something that's covering you know, what 10, 15 of your reserves is just not that big of a deal. In fact the math, it would actually have to drop by my reading the math, 60 to 70% for it to be even an issue. And that doesn't count their equity and you know, in on the balance sheet. So I, I didn't understand it. All I will say is this, and you guys have seen this before whenever you see Tether FUD, China FUD, Quantum FUD and now and MicroStrategy FUD. And I'm calling it FUD because all the various things are all what if the worst thing happens scenario at the same time? Is that reminiscent of a top or a bottom?
- [28:02]
C
Bottom.
- [28:04]
B
Agreed.
- [28:05]
A
And that, that's my point by the way.
- [28:07]
B
Bitcoin is only 5.4% of their, their holdings. So even if it drops 90% right.
- [28:15]
A
If it goes to zero, it doesn't impact it.
- [28:18]
B
Yeah, I mean they have, they have the, I mean they're earning, they're earning pretty much 5% in treasury yield every single, you know, every single yield year with, with the rest of the holdings that they have. Right. So yeah, I mean they couldn't cover this gap if they needed to. Is, is kind of crazy to me.
- [28:32]
D
Well, and if you had appropriated that type of discipline into your microstrategy, then you wouldn't have been burned. I mean that, that is just disciplined investing.
- [28:41]
A
Right.
- [28:41]
D
That you, you diversify your interest so that you're not over overweighted in any one category. That's where the risk lies, especially in an asset like Bitcoin where we have seen 90% dips historically like happen. Like I'm not saying this is, you know, we're the four year cycle and it'll happen again, but we definitely have lived through many of those in the past.
- [29:02]
B
And I'd also add, I mean Tether is also, you know, we should. Whether or not Tether was fully back in 2016, 2017, when there was a lot of FUD is, is a different question to what the company looks like today. I think it's really important to say that as well because who knows. There was really no transparency 8, 9 years ago during the last bull market where there'd be a well alert that additional Tether was created and then Bitcoin would go crazy every single time, which was a different story. But at this point in time they're one of the most profitable companies in the world. I think they might be the most profitable company in the world per employee. And they're taking 15% of that net profit and buying bitcoin. And so I mean I think that's the thing that as an industry we should appreciate is that they are creating, I mean any of these vehicles that are sustainably creating buy pressure for this Space are generally helpful. Not all of them in their designs. Right. Some of their designs are bad. But generally speaking, we should be happy when somebody is going out and buying more of a token and just buying it and not selling it.
- [30:09]
D
Well, I truly believe this with all my heart, that if every small business in America took that approach or even a more modest 1, 5, 10% of their net profits and put it in Bitcoin, that we would rebuild the middle class faster than we could rebuild it any other way. The core of America has always been small businesses. And the dollar that you used to spend at small businesses, that is the most competitive dollar that corporations go after. And you could rebalance the power with this dynamic if you took that type of approach. That's honestly, you know, what we're trying to do with our fund is appropriate. Every soda that gets filled, you know, 12 cents of every dollar trying to go into the purchase of Bitcoin. That type of a rising tide is like corporate 401k contributions to the buy bid on bitcoin, to Josh's point, like it would be the most powerful force on a daily basis. I think the last time I checked, the. The average volume of 401k automatic buys in the traditional S P is like 1 to 2%. I mean, that's, that's a, that's a hell of a buy bid every day to wake up to. That's really good. If we could get something like that on bitcoin that would be consistent, then I think it would be against. It would be resistance against manipulation, which is what we all ultimately want to see.
- [31:34]
B
I mean, I do think, I do think there is some of that already. Right. Do I think people are putting a percent of their paycheck into Bitcoin directly through their retirement plan?
- [31:43]
A
No.
- [31:44]
B
But if you do look at a lot of the bid, I mean, Fidelity's Bitcoin etf, that's primarily retail investors. That's not primarily institutions. A lot of the other ETFs as well are primarily retail investors. It's obviously institutions in them and a huge amount or people talk about RIAs, that's just retail investors behind the scenes. And so I do think we are getting to that point where there is that constant buy activity, that constant pressure. And I think that's what's keeping us, you know, despite all of this FUD and all of this negativity and, and, and Dave, you know, Dave's comment, that sentiment is worse than the day after FTX collapsed. No. Yeah. 86K Bitcoin, 87K Bitcoin right now.
- [32:29]
A
So how about 88?
- [32:32]
B
88, exactly.
- [32:35]
A
Yeah.
- [32:35]
B
I mean, look, Andrew and Tobin, were you guys here for that or was that when you hopped off?
- [32:40]
D
I didn't hear that.
- [32:42]
A
You got, you got to say the cut.
- [32:44]
B
Look, obviously I hope that gets clipped.
- [32:48]
A
It is not, it's obviously not worse than that, but. And in fact, that's kind of the point.
- [32:55]
C
After FTX1 of the, the whole FTX thing to go back there. I'm just sad that we've switched out Bitboy for the Choose Rich guy. That just, you know, that seems like a huge downgrade. You know what I mean? I mean, Bitboy at least knew what he was talking about. The Choose Rich guy is about the lamest dude in, in all of crypto. So, you know, for what it's worth, we're in a different period and I'm not sure I, I'm enjoying it, to be honest.
- [33:21]
A
Yeah, well, I mean, look, I, I think that when you talk about sentiment and you, you understand there's a hot ball of money out there that are the price setters and have been the price setters in crypto for a long time. That hot ball of money is rotated to gold and actually silver. And so there are a lot of people who are playing and for those that don't know this, there's a market that is not legal in the United States or at least is not really, you know, really. It's called contracts for differences. That is a effectively swap markets that you can use in the FX world. And they do the same. They have gold and silver in there and other commodities. That market is enormous and allows also enormous leverage because FX isn't very volatile, so the leverage is huge. Now gold and silver in particular is crazy volatile. It's like an altcoin and it's a big market. And that market has been driving gold and silver both up and down on the back of central bank buying, etc. Etc. And so when that hot bowl of money isn't in crypto, crypto languishes, right? You know, I'm not talking about bitcoin. Bitcoin has had a structural bid. I mean, the, the dichotomy between bitcoin down in, in a, in what feels like crypto winter down, what is it? Probably 6% now on the year maybe, give or take. And the average altcoin being down somewhere, when you get down past, you know, ethereum, you know, being down 60%, you know, that's just massive, right? And that's showing you the difference between you know, what are alts and what are bit. What is bitcoin?
- [34:56]
D
I think is going to change that, that. Go ahead, Andrew.
- [35:00]
C
I just really wanted to go back to, to Tether real quick because this wasn't, I don't think it was mentioned. We're talking about Tether. I mean tether has between 500 and 600 million users. It's almost as if people that are critics of it, for example, Jason Calacanis who came out and said some things about it by the way, that' bottom signal. In any time he comes out and says anything about crypto again critic, critical mass like that, it's, you know, be careful what you, you know, what you say here. But it's almost impossible for them to have the kind of outcomes that, you know, whether it's Calacanis or whether it's Arthur talking about with that type of user base you're, you're in almost an unassailable position unless you do something that's just otherworldly stupid. So it's, you know, it's, it's throw the kitchen sink at crypto for some reason. So I haven't been here for a bit but the JP Morgan stuff with MicroStrategy and then just crypto overall again is a, you know, let's just call it a bottom signal as well. You know, the, the, the inner workings of that, them changing the securities based lending requirements on MicroStrategy just basically overnight and then them taking, you know, people wanting to move their microstrategy position to other brokerages after they did that took them months to give people their shares and to move their shares. So you know, it's a, it's a shadow war to some degree because JP Morgan is feeling the heat on a, on a couple different, in a couple of different. It's a compelling time where both Bitcoin and then crypto at large are really begin to find a footing and a position in the larger global traditional financial system. And how are different folks sort of reacting and what are they doing in response to it? You know, we've talked a lot about Coinbase's position and, and what they're doing from a banking standpoint. That's pressure. Even though, you know, most traditional financial commentators would say give me a break, like, you know, JP Morgan doesn't care about Coinbase. That's not true. I mean Coinbase has to almost 2x the amount of customers that, that JP Morgan does, not the assets that JP Morgan does. But that can change over time. As long as you have the customers and they own something and that something keeps going up in perpetuity, then those asset numbers change quicker than you think. And so.
- [37:51]
D
And I would also say death approaches everyone's doorstep and JP Morgan has a much different age bracket in terms of their average customer than, than Robin Hood, for example.
- [38:04]
B
Yeah.
- [38:04]
C
And where do those assets go when they're handed off and a third of it is handed off to a 29 to 33 year old? You know, do they stay on JP Morgan's, you know, in their coffers, or are they split up and do they go somewhere else where they're more comfortable and don't feel like they have to kiss the ring anytime they want to get something done with their money? So it's a, it's an interesting position that we find ourselves in crypto, where it's a more serious place. And so you find out who the serious people are when you get to this moment and. Yeah, so it's, it's interesting.
- [38:43]
A
Yeah.
- [38:44]
D
Can I ask Josh and Dave, we talked last week with Scott about the Monad launch. And I was really specifically geeking out on it because I just think it's the first ICO that we've seen in a long time, number one. And I think the way they're going about it looks as sustainable as anyone's approach yet. I would love to hear yalls take. I'm sure you've gotten, you know, different vantage points than us. Do you see it as, as being as big of a deal as it pertains to raising capital for companies? And do you, you know, what do you see different based upon what coinbase has done versus the old 2017 ICO craze days?
- [39:30]
A
Go ahead, Josh.
- [39:31]
B
Yeah, yeah, sure. So, I mean, I think it's really cool. I mean, I think, you know, the, the ICO days, you know, were not. They were accessible to US investors, even though they weren't supposed to be accessible to U.S. investors. But it was, it was more difficult for a U.S. investor to participate in ICO. You know, there's a lot more scams. There was a tremendous amount of garbage. I mean, I, I actually, I did something back in the day on my Twitter account, probably in 2020 or 2021, that I need to restart, which was shitcoin of the day. And I basically went back, did like a. I did like a postmortem on a bunch of just different ICOs. Like, I was, remember. I remember, you know, you know, there was, I mean, there was just so, I mean, denta coin hit a 2 billion dollar market cap, you know, the blockchain for the industry or something. I mean, there was just so much garbage. And I think, you know, now I think, you know, Coinbase is going to sift through that garbage and present significantly better opportunity. Does that mean all of them are going to make money? No. Does that mean all of them are the best opportunities in the world? No. Does that mean they're overpriced? They could be. Right. But I think, you know, the cool thing about this is it really opens the market to a US investor participation, retail investor participation. I really like that they did the fill from the bottom up approach. So the largest order that was filled on the Monad ICO was $57,000, which is, you know, relatively insignificant. That's a, that's an angel check for a lot of people, right? I mean, that's a really relatively insignificant amount. It was also fully unlocked on day one while their investors were locked. And so I think they did a lot of things that were really novel and cool. I mean, I think the reality is in crypto because the industry is so sentiment driven, you need to build this base of support and people that believe in your project and that want to build with you and you need to align incentives. And when projects come out that massive market caps, and I'm not saying that the two and a half billion they sold at wasn't already a very large market cap, but when projects come out at massive market caps and there's all of these unlock overhangs that are out there and eventually those tokens are going to be dumped and they're going to be sold to retail. You know, I think that's not the best approach. And I think what Monad did, by trying to incentivize retail by allowing them to buy it 50% below where it was trading OTC at the time the sale was below their last round valuation, while their investors are locked, retail isn't. I think they did a lot of really cool and novel things and I think they're trying to take the right approach. I think a lot of the FUD is incredibly misguided. You know, that doesn't mean that they're going to be successful. I mean, they have, you know, they have great tech, but great tech doesn't mean everything in crypto, right? They still have to continue to build up that community. There have to be apps built on that. There's also a lot of questions in crypto now as to whether or not Layer one should accrue as much value as they have historically. Or applications that are generating revenue should. Right. There's all of those questions that are still out there. Right. But I think the approach that Monad and Coinbase took together is very cool. And I think the idea of hopefully getting, you know, going out earlier and giving the investors opportunities to participate in these things is a good thing. And I think the way that people need to view any of these things, it's like writing seed checks in your friends businesses. 90% of them are probably not going to be successful. In my case, probably more than 90% of the seed checks that I wrote. But you know, it's venture investing. Right. You know, it's, you know, you know, it's, it's. These are early stage businesses. They don't have giving investors the opportunity, you know, there's no reason a US investor shouldn't have the same opportunity to invest in something as any anyone else, as long as they have proper disclosures and you know, relevant amounts of information on those assets.
- [43:17]
A
Yeah, I mean my opinion is, is straightforward. I mean, Josh, I think that was a great summary. The only thing I would add is that US investors are screwed by something called the accredited investor rule, which basically is a, a gate that allows retail to be turned into exit liquidity by venture capitalists. I mean it started in a world where retail didn't have access to information. But the truth is is retail has as much access to information as institutions if they want to go get it. And there is a lot of information. And the one thing about Monad that's different because it's Coinbase is there's a lot more information about it and they've been much more transparent. I mean there are a lot of ICOs that are, that were completely dumped on and in fact the opposite. So they had investors.
- [44:01]
B
The cool thing in this case is just the fact that non accredited investors could participate. Right. Anybody.
- [44:06]
A
Right, Exactly. And so, you know, there was news out, you know, Paul Atkins talking about in a month that there's going to be a regulatory exemption for innovation in the crypto space. Now I'm not exactly sure what that's going to mean. It could be a very, very big deal. But things like this are the kinds of things he's talking about. I mean, look, we had four years where if you tried to figure out a way to have a coin that passed revenue from the network through to investors, Gensler would call it a security and therefore illegal and subject to rules that were written in the 1930s and 40s and you would, you basically would be gone and, and Though that being changed is a big deal. And I think that's the most important thing here because there is something real here and then there's. In crypto, we have a lot of stuff that's not.
- [44:53]
B
You know, I would add one more thing to that, which is the fact that Coinbase and Monad would have never done this sale unless they had the thumbs. Thumbs up from the SEC behind.
- [45:02]
A
100. 100.
- [45:04]
D
So this is the first ICO SEC approved or mon.
- [45:08]
B
I mean, I don't know if I wouldn't call it.
- [45:17]
C
To me, the story is Coinbase, though it's not a Monad story, it's a Coinbase story. Coinbase is effectively the investment bank, the exchange, to some degree, even the regulator. They're everything all in one for this type of transaction. And if you know anything about IPOs, there's like seven different entities that want their hands into that proverbial pie when.
- [45:39]
B
You'Re doing different book runners alone.
- [45:42]
C
Exactly. Right.
- [45:43]
A
You know, and they don't want to go into the details. Details, dudes. Yeah, yeah. And then, you know, my background. So, yeah.
- [45:49]
C
And the top three are the only ones that are talked about. But to me, the story is Coinbase. They are a juggernaut that, you know, unless again, they fear.
- [46:00]
B
I would, I would, I would argue against that. I think this story is also the approach that Monat took is being underappreciated, which is the fact that they sold below their last round valuation. They sold below what it was actually actively trading on pre listing markets and they're trying to do something different. You know, I, I think that's worth. Whether or not it's successful. I think that's also worth pointing out where this is. Yes, it's a Coinbase story, 100,000%. The fact that Coinbase is, is doing this right. The fact that they bought Echo, right. They're taking this approach of allowing us, you know, you know, non accredited retail investors to purchase, you know, tokens at launch or pre launch. But I think there's also a Monad story, which is how they've approached this. The fact that they're not letting their investors sell staked tokens before they vest, which thing that different than other people have done. And so regardless of what you think of Monad as a protocol and whether or not it's valuable, I think they've done a lot of novel things that people in crypto aren't appreciating that they're trying to do things differently and they are trying to do right by.
- [47:04]
C
Yeah, my Point is, is that I've had enough conversations with dudes in their 40s that are like, well, I basically use Coinbase as my bank now. I mean, I, I, that's basically what I do. And that's where we're headed, that's where Coinbase is headed. And it's only going to get bigger and stronger. So think about this. You know, Coinbase is on a path where they're effectively unacquirable. So then the question becomes who do they acquire to continue to grow and get bigger? Because that, that, that's where we, we're headed in this industry. You know, this, the same path that that was, you know, tread in the world of the growth of the Internet, right? It's growth, growth, growth and then wait a minute, I can't grow much more. So what do I acquire, where do I acquire it and how do I acquire it? I think that's what we're going to see. And so again, two years from now, we're going to be having very different conversations about crypto than we are today. It's, to me, it's just fascinating the pace and speed at which these things are happening. If you'd have told me, if anybody on this panel would have said two years from now JP Morgan would be offering a quote unquote bitcoin structured product, product associated with a spot Bitcoin ETF from BlackRock, all of our heads would have exploded and we would have thought Bitcoin would be significantly higher than 88,000 do. So, you know, this is again, this is just the beginning of, of that quote unquote movement. And Coinbase, for all intents and purposes, is the base layer for all of it.
- [48:45]
D
Well, I think, I think both of you are right. I think it probably took a collaborative effort between the two groups to push a narrative forward that would make ICOs change, you know, their reputation or try to attempt to change the reputation of ICOs. What's interesting to me are some of the mechanics that are disruptive to the current industries you got. Coinbase isn't just saying, hey, we're going to be your bank, which now they offer $250,000 insurance depository coverage just like a bank does. They offer 4.25% yield on USDC deposits like a bank does. They beat the pants off of a bank. And when you then say, okay, tokenized stocks are the next iteration of this industry, they're going to be a one stop shop where you're going to be able to trade anything you want, hold your deposits and make lending on defi protocols available to you. Push button 8% returns. You're going to be able to play arbitrage of all sorts, because you already can in. They've already initiated this. And what's pretty interesting is like you got five times the allocation or you got advantage for being a Coinbase one customer, which, think about it, they just took like the IPO invitation only party black tie event and they sold it for 29 bucks a month. And they, they're trying to get all the, all 100 million plus of their customers to pay them 29amonth for perks of being a better bank, essentially and a better opportunity for, for your money to be held than anywhere else. And I think, you know, Monad could have been the, the company that came to them and said, hey, we want to be the launching pad. Here are the things that we're willing to do. And that could have been the impetus or it could have been a collaborative effort. But in the spirit, spirit of what they did. I couldn't agree more. It's good for retail, it's good for the U.S. it's good for Coinbase, it's good for everybody. And when you have a good for good for good scenario, you know, it sounds like it's gonna, they're gonna do it again. And I saw, I was watching yesterday as the prices crashed in the markets and I was interested and I went over and Mona had had a great bounce at their IPO or ICO launch price. And you know, I'm, I'm hoping that's indicative of some strong sentiment. Right? Like that you've got a, like you've got the beginnings of what Josh said earlier, a strong base that you've built up and you've democratized it to such a level where, you know, even if you requested, even if you were Coinbase's best customer and you had hundreds of millions in crypto in there and you requested the maximum allocation, which was 500k, you only got $57,000 for it. That's, that's really good. Bravo. They didn't capitulate to the greed of this industry. That's kind of the first ICO I've ever seen, like, ever that hasn't. So I love it.
- [51:49]
A
I think democratization is a big deal. Let's, let's huge. Let's call it what it is. The IPO calendar for people who don't understand is treated like a currency C. So what happens is, is if you have access to an ipo, which generally are priced well below the demand so that it can get a pop on the first day. They tr. They give allocations to the, the investment banks are involved give allocations their best customers, meaning the ones who pay them the most commissions for totally unrelated reasons get the allocations. That is it is treated like a currency all on Wall street and in fact a large amount of trading a lot, a lot of businesses done at higher prices than would otherwise be done because of it. That never made sense to anybody who wasn't part of the cartel ever. Crypto. And by the way, there have been multiple attempts in the industry, I mean Bill Hambrecht 20 some odd years ago tried to break this. Now the direct listing does break this model, but only real, I mean only companies like Coinbase are capable of, of doing that. I mean they just happen to be one of the ones that did it.
- [52:59]
D
Well Dave, you know, if you read the fine, if you read the fine print in Coinbase's listing verbiage, they gave a very interesting take on what you just articulated, which is it said something in there that was like you will be rewarded based upon how long you hold. Like there's no lockup agreement. You can sell these day one but.
- [53:24]
B
For future launches for the Monad purchase.
- [53:27]
D
For the Monad thing, they basically said like a wink, wink, nod, nod. We're going to be looking at your cell history and if you hold it then you may get more allocation in the future. They didn't articulate what the rules would be. But I'm sure the value system that you just articulated is going to play out in this market in the same way.
- [53:45]
A
Right?
- [53:46]
D
If you're a stable buyer that is looking at, you know, not selling day, you know, 14 into a launch, you're a more valuable.
- [53:57]
A
Now think about what that means filming what they're basically doing. And, and look, I know some of the people at Coinbase and I understand where they're coming from. It's tilting the market from the investment banks, early venture capital investors towards the actual longer term investors and the issuers. Right? It's, and that is, that is a, a different approach. And what, it's what happens when I'm, when a cartel is broken.
- [54:25]
D
Right?
- [54:26]
A
And a large part of, of crypto in many respects Bitcoin as well. I mean we talk about, I mean Andrew's great diatribe about JP Morgan from, you know, a few minutes ago is, is reminiscent of the fact that there's a cartel in the banking industry. Look, I worked in that cartel From Morgan Stanley 10 years and 14 years Solomon Brothers Who? Citigroup. I know the cartel. You know, at Two Sigma we understood and tried to break at it because we had enough power to kind of, you know, chip away at the edges. But crypto is a wholesale assault on that cartel. And if you, you need to understand what that means. And that's going to mean that the banks are going to fight a multi front war. They're going to, on the one hand, understand that they can't afford to ignore it and therefore build products on it. Right. So, and everyone in crypto says, oh, look, they're capitulating. No, at the same time, on the other hand, what you don't see is their lobbyists are doing everything they can to write rules, push, push, push, push, push to give them an advantage and create competitive barriers. And you'll never see that. And in the middle you have their public facing things or other things that they're doing to try to kind of undermine or push to give them an advantage there. And that's the kind of stuff that Andrew was talking about.
- [55:39]
D
And that's, or at least slow down the adoption rate.
- [55:42]
B
Right.
- [55:42]
D
So that they can accumulate more and buys them time. Time is value to them. Right, exactly.
- [55:46]
A
And so understanding and looking at these, at these companies, there are so many people in crypto, particularly on crypto Twitter, who call, you know, they say BlackRock and they think BlackRock is a monolith. And BlackRock, being an asset manager, is more monolithic. JP Morgan, I mean, there are probably 15 groups at JP Morgan all with slightly different agendas that are as relates to Bitcoin or crypto. And so, you know, I don't know what the number is. It's a large number of different groups and individuals. They're not acting in concert. They don't necessarily even know what they're all doing. Right. You know, and so when you look at all this stuff, it's a morass.
- [56:23]
D
Well, they'll kill each other if one of them gets wounded badly enough. You know what I mean?
- [56:27]
A
Like, but just to get back to it, I mean, we didn't mention part of the title was Fed QT Ending and Liquidity. I mean, is that what we're seeing today? Is that why bitcoin's at 89,000 or is this just a relief rally off the bottom? I mean, I personally think it's both. It feels like the fact that we're up on the weekly, so where we were last Tuesday, we're now up to me, is symptomatic of the liquidity situation improving and a very low Volume craft this weekend is basically now being absorbed well.
- [57:01]
D
And I think that people, I think relative percentage returns become more important the deeper we go below a hundred thousand. Again, I wouldn't underplay the psychological barrier of a hundred. To not want to buy bitcoin right now, in my opinion is no different than not wanting to invest in a Treasury company that's trading for below mnav. It doesn't make sense because there's no. I don't think anyone thinks this is the highest point that bitcoin will ever reach. I don't, I don't know anyone that believes that. And so to not want to buy at a 12% discount when you could see an, an instant rally back to 100k, that's a lot of meat on the bone. That's a big enough chunk of money that can be harvested and made with almost a relative certainty that big money starts moving into those types of opportunities in those positions. And look at how much money was extracted to the point earlier. I can't remember whether Dave made it or Josh, but the liquidity, you know, events that can take place on leverage. When we cracked 126 and then we broke down, I think there was $18 billion of leverage that was extracted in.
- [58:16]
A
That October 10th was like October 10th.
- [58:18]
C
Yeah.
- [58:18]
D
I mean, that's a lot of money to go after. I think that, you know, when the cheese gets too big for the trap, it's obvious what's going to happen. And I think the lower we get from the 100k mark, people with big money are going, it's going back to 100, it's 100 certainty. So why shouldn't I accumulate some now and that becomes a structure stronger buy floor and that becomes the very nature of a rounding bottom right. That's where you see price start to build a foundation on.
- [58:49]
A
I think that's fair. Josh, closing thoughts.
- [58:53]
B
Oh, man, I don't closing thoughts.
- [58:58]
A
We're at time, basically.
- [59:00]
B
Yeah, I know, I know, I know. I'm trying to think, I'm trying to come up with something intelligent to say, but struggling. I mean, my closing thought is, you know, we've been here before. You know, I, you know, we saw bitcoin go from 20k to 3k between 2017 and 2018. We saw, you know, bitcoin run up to, you know, 10 to 15k ish when Facebook was building Libra and crash all the way back down. We saw bitcoin run all the way back up to 67k and then crash back down to 12ishk. You know, you know, we've been here before. If you liked Bitcoin at 125k, you should like Bitcoin at 88k. You're buying at a discount. It's impossible to time bottoms. And as it relates to the alt market, you know, you have to look at it as early stage venture investing. Right. And I think the really cool thing that people are not appreciating right now is the fact that some of these altcoins are really generating revenue. Not so much the L1s and L2s yet, but a lot of the applications are. There's a lot of conversation now about Etherfi and their credit card and doing consistent buybacks of millions of dollars a week in a month using their revenue. As an example, you see Pump fund doing a lot of buybacks. I'm not calling out any specific protocol or saying to buy anyone in particular, but I think one thing I'm excited about is this movement towards appreciating utility.
- [60:25]
D
Yeah, utility, actual use.
- [60:28]
A
And, and that is the key. The key is it's not just only utility, it's utility and a path for holders to benefit from said utility.
- [60:37]
B
Yes, yes.
- [60:38]
A
And understanding that, and that's something that it is a trend that the market is actually doing in slow motion. What I talked about a year ago, which is that the people involved in this administration, particularly at the sec, or we knew who was going to be at the sec, want investors to under be able to understand what they own and if they can do so, and they should have no barriers to entry into that. And that's what we're seeing. So you know, I think that's a, that's a big deal. Now look, there's a lot of excess still in the crypto market. There's no doubt. There's also a lot of value in the crypto market and that's new, relatively speaking. You know, when you talk about bitcoin, I think it's different. I mean, you said there's no fundamentals. I will continue to scream from the rooftops that we have never seen. You know, two days ago we hit an absolute bottom in price to hash rate. And every other time we've seen price to hash rate look this cheap, it's bounced. Right now, price to hash rate, fair value is somewhere around 130, 140 give or take. This would be the only time in a bitcoin bull market, if there ever was one, that it peaked at price to hash rate or below it and fell back below. The answer is we have this dynamic and people can, you could talk about it from a geopolitical point of view. There's all sorts of reasons. But the fact is the smart money is still investing in hash rate and that is going to drive the price. So to me, I've never been more bullish than, you know, these sorts of levels. And, and, and, and it makes me so much happier to see so much bearishness. This, the problem is that the script is going to flip, right? You know, I, I hate it when I get on Twitter spaces, and I'm the only one who's bullish. I mean, I hate it, I love it, I hate it when everyone is more bullish than me. Then at that point I'm like, okay, wait a minute, who's. It's like kind of like when you're at the poker table and you don't know who is the fish. Generally it's you.
- [62:35]
B
And I'm like, oh, I, I have to hop. But I want to add one more thing. We're at about 90K right now, you know, about 3% on the call. So I think we should take full credit for that 100.
- [62:46]
A
Well done. And, and, and just, just because our hosts are here. Think of all the people who had their, their level set on your platform and bought the dip and are probably lightening up a little bit now because they're just, you know, in order to order to, to reload for the next one. You know, it's just the volatility in bitcoin. We were talking over the summer. I can remember, guys, when, when, when bitcoin's volatility was so low, it was hitting in August, it was hitting, you know, like multi. It actually hit on a 30 day or 60, I can't remember which one hit like an all time low in terms of predicted volatility. And so it wasn't, you know, and we're looking at it and it's like, well, look, this is going to flip. And of course, if you look now we're back slightly above the middle of the range. And, and if there's one thing that's certain, it's volatility. Therefore having a, a disciplined approach to monetizing that volatility and using it matters. So that's your intro. So any, any last words you guys wanted to say about that?
- [63:45]
D
I lost audio on you guys again. I don't know if you guys can hear me, but I can't hear y'. All, right. When Josh left it, it dropped off. So see you guys next week.
- [63:53]
A
Did you hear what I just said, Andrew.
- [63:55]
C
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I gotcha. I, I listen. Our clients on the 12 hour and 6 hour ended up buying Bitcoin at 86.87. They ended up buying Solana at 124. And again, most of our, most of our clients are, you know, sort of volatility and yield, farming Solana and putting that back into Bitcoin. So you know what, Salana at 133 right now and Bitcoin, you know, almost 3,434. So you know, listen, you just, if you have a programmatic type of approach, you know, it's, it's the age old adage, you know, plan your work, work your plan. Doesn't much matter what the plan is to some degree. You're going to get some outcomes if you have some sort of plan. But so with us both, you know, the simplicity of it is you decide on a, you know, a couple of strategies. You allow those strategies to work for you and then whether it's the middle of the night, the middle of dinner during a kids game or whatever happens to be, you're not the one that's pulling the trigger. The setups that you've conscripted to do it for you are doing it for you. And so the outcomes are clearly going to be better than your emotional decisions one way or the other to do so. So yeah, it's, we've seen it happen time and time and time again. The interesting thing for us is we've watched Scott go through the process of being a concierge program client in the same way all of our clients do. Initially, I'm excited. I want to do this, this and this. Wait a minute. Maybe I want to also do this. And wait a minute. This is all working so well. I want to put more money in. Okay. I've bought him now I'm gonna put. So he's gone from 100k to 250 to now 400k in our strategies because they do what we say that they do and. Pretty extraordinary stuff.
- [65:53]
A
Yeah, no, it, it, look, it's just, it's nice to be able to talk about it and actually use the exact examples and seeing it in the market. And the one thing you know is there's going to be volatility. I, I've constantly had the wonder of if, if instead of Sailor doing what he does, if he used a platform like yours to deploy the cash that he raises. Yeah. How much better would the performance? And I'm not joking about that. Yeah. Nobody who's Working a microstrategy, they may want to be calling you guys because.
- [66:22]
C
Yeah, so again, to give you an idea, like when the markets were down, you know, to the tune of, between Solana and Ethereum and Bitcoin, I think collectively, because between those three, maybe a week or so ago, you're talking down, let's call it 30, 31%. And Scott's portfolio was only down 9%. So there's your delta. You and I know this, Dave. That's when people really evaluate their hedge funds. Right. So you know, hedge fund people, the smartest, you know, smart money. Right. Not the done money, the smart money, they don't get evaluated when the market's going up like crazy.
- [67:03]
A
No, they get evaluated.
- [67:05]
C
They get evaluated when things are down.
- [67:07]
A
You could phrase it differently. Trading matters. Execution of your strategy matters. Whether it's the slippage cost on an individual trade or the, the entry and exit timing that matters to performance. And you know, as the market gets more and more competitive, it becomes more, more and more important. So yeah, I mean it's, it's exactly what people should care about.
- [67:30]
C
Yeah.
- [67:30]
B
So.
- [67:30]
C
So if you've got a, you know, a meaningful variance just in year to date numbers, we put out a case study that showed on Solana with our Oracle protocol, basically it's nearly a 50 variance.
- [67:43]
B
Wow.
- [67:45]
C
But up, you know, up 27 or down 33. If you just bought and hold with Bitcoin it was down 9% versus up 16%. With Ethereum it was, it was nearly a 100 variance. Right. So the numbers speak very, very loudly. And for us, the interesting thing is, is our products are uniquely awesome at all times, but they're super awesome. They're super awesome in down markets and our latest case study showed that.
- [68:18]
B
So.
- [68:18]
A
Yeah. Okay, great. Well, we are at time and Scott, I think is back next week, but for now, take care everyone stay safe and I'll see some of you or hear some, listen to some of you on Crypto Town hall in about five or six minutes.
- [68:34]
B
See you, Dave.
- [68:35]
C
Thanks.
- [68:37]
B
Let's do. Let's dope.