← The Wolf Of All Streets
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- [00:00]
A
Good morning everybody. Welcome to crypto town hall every weekday here on X at 10:15am Eastern Standard Time. Unfortunately I am on Pacific standard time, which means it's really, really early. But that's what you get for traveling around to do conferences. We've got pretty nice move here on bitcoin to start the day obviously kind of trading around the 115,000 zone, give or take a bit while gold has been dropping, leading many to wonder if this is the actual gold to bitcoin rotation that many have been discussing. In my opinion, we're still kind of ranging and trading sideways, but encouraging that things are looking a little better today. October actually officially just moved into the green. Not yet the October that many were expecting, but also not a down month at the moment. Somewhat wild is Dave and I discussed a bit on macro Monday this morning that bitcoin is effectively trading at the same exact price as it was when the month opened on October 1st. Right now we're at 114.7. It opened around 114 6, 114.5 depending on the exchange. The candle right now that means is basically a humongous doji for those who look at them with a wick up to 126 and a wick down to 102 and price being exactly the same. And in that time 20 plus billion far more actually has been liquidated while price remains effectively exactly the same. Which I think should be a cautionary tale about using excessive leverage in this market. Dave, 115,000 Bitcoin does not seem like a terrible price to me.
- [01:54]
B
I mean, it isn't. But, you know, look, the real. There are two questions. You know, we are almost through October. This is the month that everyone panics about. Doesn't look like there's any reason to panic, you know, and you know, we'll see. This particular move comes because of the a story that drives us all insane saying, you know, the will they or won't they? I mean, it feels like an episode of, you know, Ross and Rachel on Friends between Trump and xi. You know, will we end up with a amicable, you know, trade arrangement? You know, given what the United States is trying to do and what they're trying to do or not. And this one is on the will they. And so yeah, okay, the markets are up, so whatever. But the truth is gold, we talked about it, had this massive run. The last piece of that run was clearly driven by speculators in the derivative complex that we known as cfds contracts for differences. It doesn't exist in the US but it's very big elsewhere, particularly in Asia and the Middle East. And the hypothesis was that if in fact the top was in and it formed into a new range and cooled off, that that money would start looking to go someplace else. And that might go into Bitcoin. That has not happened yet, but is looking more and more likely. And so that as we enter November, December from a seasonality perspective does lead one towards bullishness. But still most of the technicians will tell you that we're either in a range or likely to test, you know, lower, whether that's the CME gap at 111 or down, if you believe James Wynn, which why anyone would I can't fathom. But you know, we go lower, you know, whatever. I mean, it is what it is. Nothing is confirmed. What is confirmed is that Bitcoin's odds of 10xing from here dramatically improved over the last few days and that that matters. And you know, and the reason for that is JP Morgan's, you know, talking about Bitcoin entering the financial system as valid collateral. And what happens when that becomes institutionalized? So that is a huge story. Then there was another huge story on Friday. It's too bad Carlo's not here because I'm sure he'd be all over this one, which is Zelle, which is for those who don't know it, that's inside the United States. That's the banking system's own free payments app that everyone uses. You know, Parry, you know, it competes with Venmo, but it's right directly linked into your checking accounts. Zelle is adopting stablecoins to expand internationally. And that tells you an awful lot about tokenization and how you're going to be able to buy and sell assets on bank, on your bank account. And that's another massively bullish thing for all of crypto, particularly including bitcoin. And I don't know that that matters to anybody trading these days, but it should certainly, if you're a long term investor, it should. Did we lose Scott? Looks like we lost Scott.
- [04:51]
A
Yep.
- [04:52]
B
I love the glitch. Mark, go ahead.
- [04:55]
C
Yeah, let's just hold on folks on the call here once while we gotta roll the tape back. Dave Weisberger. You know, you think of Dave as a guy behind the computer. Two Sigma doing code and quantitative analysis. Pulling out Ross.
- [05:12]
A
That might be back.
- [05:14]
C
Yeah, no, we got you now, Scott. Pulling out a friends reference and comparing to Trump and Z. That's just, I won't say it's off brand, but it's an indication of it's awesome. Just so good.
- [05:28]
B
It's not anyone who knows me knows I like to be whimsical. So. But, but it is true, right? You know, it's like that's what we're looking at. But anyway, what do you think? Will they or won't they? Mark?
- [05:38]
C
Yeah, I think they will. And I don't know what episode it was when they did, but they will. And, and there'll be a bit of egg on face for both to save, you know, face at home. And I just, I mean what's going on with the rare earths is I would say not out is outside of my area of expertise, but anything. I don't know if what happens now would change our defense. I don't know how the, what the immediacy is on that. So that's one thing. So I just want to touch on, on the breadth of your, I don't know if it's a liberal arts education you had that you were able to make that connection. But I also want to go broader onto where we are in the equity market with Qualcomm. You know, talk about a 2000 stock is up 20% because guess what, just like Caterpillar, they are an AI play again. So what's noticeable about that is that it's about accelerating. We have such a tough economy. Banks are in a tough spot. They're looking for any incremental advancement in margin or in hope. And that's all the Qualcomm news is that they're going to accelerate. It's not a zero to one, but they're going to help people achieve agency processes quicker, which is obviously what people need because they've laid the AI groundwork at whether it be grok or open or others. So I'm going back to the AI story about how we there's no end to this rally in AI in the near future and how that relates to Bitcoin. Jamie Dimon added Bitcoin because he needs a new product because he's dying on the vine. All back to Bitcoin.
- [07:25]
B
Yeah, I mean we know what I think about this, but I'd rather not listen to myself talk again like I just did on Macro Monday. Amateo, you're throwing up the 100%. Obviously you agree with that.
- [07:36]
D
Yeah, I mean I was really throwing the 100% up to the AI trade and good morning, Scott. Good morning, Dave. Good morning, everybody else. Hope everyone had a good weekend and ready for an exciting week. But when it comes to the rare Earths. This deal is going to kick off the next trend that comes after the AI trend, which is the most logical one, which is robotics. And I think that robotics are getting much, much closer and is going to actually surprise people. Just the way that ChatGPT kind of shocked the world. And we're still trading, investing, and living in the afterglow of the launch of that years later. So that's something that's often underappreciated. So I think that maybe eyes go towards robotics as this next leg of where we start to see value accrual. There was also quite a few other interesting news stories that happened over the weekend, but I'll let anyone else jump into kind of the initial topics at hand before I get into that.
- [08:49]
B
Scott, which way you want to go?
- [08:53]
A
I would like to go in the direction where my mic and account work because I keep losing sound and Amateo is not a speaker for me. So there you go.
- [09:03]
B
Well, you know, that, that I couldn't.
- [09:04]
A
Hear him, but I, he cut out halfway, but I assumed he was still talking and didn't interrupt.
- [09:09]
B
Oh, you know, perhaps, you know, Elon will get, what do you say, three analysts to the three engineers.
- [09:16]
A
If they hired fourth, imagine the incredible gains they could get. And they can all use Grok, So they're all 10x engineers.
- [09:23]
B
It's, it could be great somehow.
- [09:26]
E
We have Grok in the, in the long press on the Tesla already, but we can't get 20 Twitter spaces to work.
- [09:33]
B
Yeah, it's, it is, it's a, it's a crazy platform, but, you know, whatever.
- [09:37]
A
Joe, I didn't even know that was you, the robot, because I just see Joe and I couldn't see your last name.
- [09:42]
E
Yeah, well, we also have trash Internet here on the best coast, Scott. So if you are in California, that's maybe part of it.
- [09:48]
A
I'm in. I'm. I'm in. I'm in the bustling metropolis of Las Vegas this morning. I have a fireside with Sailor at 4pm today at Money 20 20.
- [09:59]
E
All you and Dave do is talk. I don't even know how your, your voices are even intact anymore. I could just real quick, like I just for fun, I was, you know, we've got, I've got this like, integration now where I can ask, you know, Claude, give me like the top like hot topics from social media in the last like five hours. And it's just such a juxtaposition from where we were. Like, I'm just thinking back like five or six years ago, like some of these headlines and some of these topics which aren't even hitting the wire are just so incredible. Maybe some of the stuff isn't even correct. But American Bitcoin acquired 1400 more Bitcoin. A Korean company called Bit Planet has launched a 10,000 bitcoin treasury plan with its first purchase. Dave mentioned that JP Morgan now accepting BTC and ETH as institutional collateral, which is crazy. I saw Mt. Gox postponed credit, creditor repayments to October of next year. You know, the gold, the gold to bitcoin. Gold down 6.86% of last week. Bitcoin up 6.7%. Pantera Capital CEO predicting China will buy 1 million bitcoin. Yeah. Then the James Win short, like there's just, so there's like micro strategy bought, you know, 390 Bitcoin.
- [11:15]
A
Wait, James Win short. He got, did he get liquidated again?
- [11:18]
E
No, no. It says he opened a short that liquidates at 117,465. So $110 million short with 40x leverage. Is that true?
- [11:27]
A
But I wonder how much money he's making on the affiliate fees from shilling Hyper Liquid.
- [11:32]
E
It can't be 110 million.
- [11:35]
A
No, no. Yeah. I don't get it. I think he's running his spaces right now. If anybody wants to leave here and go get all the real Alpha.
- [11:47]
B
Yeah, Alpha. Well, you know, whatever. It's. Yeah, I, I posted last week something very simple, which is it's hard to believe that somebody who, you know, could pick up that much notoriety for effectively betting on red or black on a roulette wheel and continuing to double down because that's basically what he's doing. And, and who knows? The thing is, is that people don't know. I mean, for all you know, he's doing this on Hyper Liquid and on other exchanges doing, you know, other things on the hedge side. Although with 40x leverage, it's pretty hard to hedge. So hard to understand. But you know, if you're right half the time and you're worth an enormous amount of money, you can get away with it. So whatever. Anyway, it, it is. It is what it is. Lawyered.
- [12:32]
E
Yeah.
- [12:32]
F
I mean the way what we just.
- [12:34]
G
Saw happen with that perps washout, kind of throw some water on that whole idea. I mean, can you really hedge when the entire market just gets randomly liquidated? I mean, like that if you were hedged there, you'd all, you'd just be wiped out, right?
- [12:51]
B
Yeah, I mean it's, well, it's a longer, longer story and We've kind of talked about it, to use your word. We've litigated it multiple times, but different markets have different mechanisms, and depending on the mechanism, you are more or less likely to get liquidated anyway when the exchange is under threat because they can't liquidate fast enough and the collateral value drops faster than their liquidation engine wants to do. There's no magic there, but so be it. The more interesting thing before we go to Dan is that we're now a couple of weeks out from this massive liquidation event with so many people thinking that there would be major firms being forced to dump their treasuries of Bitcoin, Ethereum, et cetera, into the market to cover the damage that they took. And here we are two weeks later, and we haven't seen anything. Now, is it still possible that it's being negotiated? Maybe, but it feels like this event wasn't even close to the impact that a lot of doomsayers were saying it would have. Anyway, I guess we'll see. Dan.
- [13:58]
H
Hey, morning, fellas. Yeah, all good here. Been in Abu Dhabi for three weeks. Went to the UFC this weekend. Saw CZ there. I put my hand up because I want to say I can't wait for maybe two months from now when James Wynn is just a history note in our. In our crypto books. I'm insane, but I think the market's holding up quite well. To say we had, I believe, it was the largest liquidation event in crypto history.
- [14:22]
A
Right?
- [14:22]
H
I think it was the largest in history. And we're still sitting at 115. I think it's holding very well. And I think November setting up.
- [14:32]
D
I agree.
- [14:32]
H
What you said earlier, Dave, I think it's tilting bullish. I just want to echo those sentiments, really. I think we are doing very well. The candle looks insane. The large wicks up and large. Just another reminder. Don't fuck with leverage.
- [14:44]
A
Really.
- [14:45]
H
I didn't get liquidated. I'm still kind of sitting about where I was the start of the month. You know, everyone. Everyone loses money on leverage. Usually you use do it early in your career and you get blown out, and it teaches you not to do it again. But there are some stories of this big liquidation of, like, prominent accounts that got blown out big time and lost everything. I don't know how many times this story has to be repeated for people to learn it, but the temptation is always. Is always there.
- [15:12]
A
I guess Gamblers rarely learn not to gamble, Dan. Unfortunately. Yeah, I was thinking that's what I was gonna say.
- [15:19]
H
James Wynn might Be the most famous guy to blow that much money since Nick Leeson, maybe.
- [15:26]
B
Well, but Nick Leon, it wasn't his money. Nick Leathon, for those who don't know, he's the trader who put tickets in a drawer in Singapore and literally caused one of the largest, oldest, not largest, but oldest banks, Barings bank in the United Kingdom. It was from the 1700s, it dated to go belly up and have to get bought. So, yeah, and he was speculating on the Tokyo stock market, which in those days was as volatile, actually arguably more volatile than bitcoin was. But anyway, I saw Steve had his hand up first and then Amateo.
- [16:03]
A
I just want to bring up something.
- [16:04]
I
I saw this morning.
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A
It looks like $31 billion in crypto options are going to expire on this Friday. So if you think like possible rate.
- [16:12]
H
Cut, possible China deal, plus 31 billion in options expiring, I feel like we're.
- [16:17]
B
Definitely going to see a lot of volatility this week. Yeah, that's actually a good point. Options in crypto are smaller than, than they are in other markets. But options have a tendency, and people should always know this when you read about where maximum pain is, it's not necessarily going to always go there. But what happens is market makers in the options themselves have incentive, particularly the closer you get to expiration to pin the price to a round number. There's all sorts of reasons why they would want to do that. And we'd be willing even to lose money on trades that might move in, into that direction. It depends on the positioning. So it creates both volatility. It also creates. It also kind of tends to freeze things in amber in a way towards certain numbers, except in those exceedingly rare circumstances when they try to do it and there's a major market moving news and they get overwhelmed, in which case then it accentuates volatility. But most of the time, by the time we get to Thursday, you would expect volatility to somewhat compress. It's just, it's compressed with that reason. But you should understand the mechanics. But that, yeah, it's a pretty large expiration. It does matter. It's a good point, Steve. Anyway, I'm a Teo. I think you're next.
- [17:37]
D
Yeah, I was just gonna wrap up the. The wind thread. I don't actually know what's going on with James and listen to a few spaces with him. He's pretty obscure around certain things in terms of hedging, but I don't know if this is the case. But the question I have is has he inked a deal that's sort of similar to these Twitch or Kick streamers that do these gambling streams? And if you watch some of these big guys, I mean, they're burning through millions and millions of dollars in gambling and we know the hit rate on that is way, way lower. I think that the volume on one of the biggest ones for XQC was like well over a billion dollars just in pure gambling volume. So I don't know if that's the case. I mean, I can imagine that if James Wynn is getting attention for what he's doing, it's a law of diminishing returns because people obviously care less and less the more attention that's had. But we're just sort of wrapping up that thought there.
- [18:40]
A
Yeah, I mean, that's what I'm saying. It might not even be real.
- [18:44]
B
Yeah, but what is real is I made the joke this morning. And when you look at the price of Ethereum today, based on what we saw this weekend, is Tom Lee Atlas holding up the price of Ethereum or is he the smart guy who's smarter than the market and buying as it's getting ready to break out?
- [19:08]
A
Yeah, Dave, really quickly, BMNR bit mine just announced crypto and cash holdings totaling $14.2 billion, including 3.31 million ETH. I think it's fair to say he's helping buoy that market.
- [19:19]
B
Oh, buoy it for sure. The question is the problem is if he's the only one or the main source of it, at some point he runs out of capital and it implodes. That's the bear case. The bull case is he's the smart early one and other people are going to come in behind him and he will be one of the richest people around. That's really interesting question because I obviously have no idea. When I look at the news that we see, the Bitcoin narrative is extremely strong, the stablecoin narrative is extremely strong.
- [19:55]
D
But.
- [19:56]
B
But are any of these stable coins going to actually use Ethereum and how much tokenized assets will actually be on Ethereum to where you need the Ethereum token? That's a really interesting question. We don't have Gaurav up here or he would probably talk about that, but that generally gets people's juices going.
- [20:16]
A
I saw Mark's hand and then Tony.
- [20:20]
C
Yeah, I was going to. Thanks, Scott. I was going to go back with. Dave was talking about Tom Lee. You know, we. On the space, we talk about markets and assets and people. The options part, you Mentioned Dave is spot on. Things can migrate and volatility can narrow to a certain strike and it's important for near term direction of travel. But I think the call it weekly, maybe price performance, but the quarterly one over the next three months I think is by the players, whether it be diamond or Tom Lee. And to the crowd here, I'll say I think Lee's embracement of crypto Ethereum is eight times more than it has been before. He has gone from Advocate to Sailor 2. And I mention it because it's a thing a lot of folks have left, say bitcoin only companies and gone to BTC's. You know who's a guy that joined Pomp, some guy from Unchained left and I think joined Semler so that it almost seems like a gold rush. That seems to me to be the biggest in our industry. The biggest potential short game with not the same spoils as people may expect. So that, that, that to me I think is the most important thing. Stables will happen. Tokenized assets are much later. But Tom Lee is worth watching because I agree he's either going to be a billionaire or it's going to go bust. I don't see any middle ground.
- [21:58]
A
He'll probably be a billionaire either way.
- [22:00]
C
And it's a departure from his very measured approach. What's that, Scott?
- [22:04]
A
He probably ends up a billionaire either way. I think he was doing just fine before Bitbind, but.
- [22:08]
I
Yeah.
- [22:11]
C
Yeah. And I like them. I just think. But don't you think his, his embrace is, is so different than his measured approach like in 2017 when he's just sort of nudging bitcoin and, and, and now it's, you know, he's the CEO of a, of a Ethereum treasury company. Not bad. But you know, maybe it's a sign of the times that that's the direction of travel, but I think that's a huge marker, the biggest in Sailor in my opinion.
- [22:42]
B
Tony.
- [22:44]
H
Hey Scott, can you hear me?
- [22:45]
A
Yeah. You're good?
- [22:47]
H
Okay, perfect. Just adding to the bitcoin conversation. As far as outlook for November, it feels like there's a confluence of factors that are aligning here as narratives to follow. The price, obviously you got bitcoin rallying a bit. You got the S&P 500 hitting new highs, the Russell, even a Nikkei. So those are all good, great factors for crypto even with gold correcting. But you know, these catalysts that are on the table, certainly the tariff situation with that potentially resolving government reopening, you got the Fed continuing To cut. I think it's. The market is expecting a cut this week or the announcement of that I think is around 98% or so. Plus Jerome Powell recently signaled the end of qt. So I think all of these things bode well for the crypto market and maybe a strong rally and seasonality wise. November has always been really great. And plus you got the market structure bill in the Senate and I think again, a confluence of factors that could.
- [23:49]
I
Really.
- [23:51]
H
Send us into a strong rally towards the end of the year for November and December.
- [23:58]
A
Yeah, I agree with all of that. There's so many positive catalysts still. It's hard to wrap my head around the extreme bearishness that many have just because Bitcoin is 115. It's like I started the conversation today. $115,000 is a. I sometimes need to pinch myself level for bitcoin, but somehow that's bearish for others.
- [24:21]
B
Well, but it is. I mean, if you think about it, I mean there's two things here, right? The fact that you say that tells you that if you were one of those people that had most of your wealth in bitcoin and you could literally get off the Ferris wheel or off the merry go round and say, well you know what? I can buy the house of my dreams, the yacht of my dreams, the plane of my dreams and I don't need this shit anymore and I just want to retire then that price. If you're feeling that, then that's why a lot of OGs are selling and we're in what I call the great distribution which we need to happen, which is if you want bitcoin to become a, the world's financial asset, the denominator, this, it needs to broaden to, you know, and move into the financial system away from the early cadre of holders. And the very fact that you say I want to pinch myself and I'm not blaming you, Scott, because I totally understand it is, it tells you something about that. And it's basically the point is bitcoin, like any other asset on the planet, is elastic to. Is elastic to price. Bitcoiners convince themselves because there's a limited supply. That doesn't make it so. But that's not true. It is so. So that's what you're seeing. And the technicians and the Chartists all tell you that, well, you know, it looks like. And you start getting into that's where the bearishness is coming from. That will work itself out. And all those bullish catalysts are not priced into the market. You notice now we're not even talking about the US Having a strategic bitcoin reserve and have. Which, by the way, they're a third of the way there to the level. Assuming that the amount that they've seized can actually.
- [25:57]
A
300. Where are we at 300?
- [25:59]
B
We're not even talking about that fact. We're not even talking about the fact that other countries out there are probably looking at this and saying they want more and that's why the hash rate is so high, et cetera, et cetera. We're not even talking about those things. What we're talking about is a change to the banking system where bitcoin literally will become part of the banking system. And that's what J.P. morgan signaled. Those are very big deals. But so you're seeing fundamentals to get us on the path to what bitcoiners always said would happen happening, yet short term disbelief and pinching yourself because you know, the price is already high enough and you could step off. And so it really is that. Is that question mean, Gary, you must care about this. I don't know if you're actually behind the mic now or not, but, you know, you guys talk about this all the time. You know, you and Grant are. And you're not late, I think. I think we're all still relatively early, you know, but you're not. But you don't hold Bitcoin from $10. Are you there?
- [26:59]
I
Yeah, I'm here.
- [27:00]
B
Yeah.
- [27:01]
I
Yeah, no, we're. We're definitely 20, you know, 20. 20, 20, 23, four vintage. Look, I just saw an interview or a conversation between Dan Morehead of Pantera and Raul. And like, Dan's like, hey, it's just a matter of time before China has to buy a million bitcoin and then another country and just takes two or three. So these conversations are starting to happen a lot more frequently than they were.
- [27:33]
A
I wonder how much bitcoin China has.
- [27:36]
I
I don't think it matters. I think it just matters that, you know, this is. There's 21 million of this, and you. You have Game Theory enacted. Dude, we have Game Theory full on. The fuse is lit. There's no. You know, that was a great conversation you and I had Friday, Scott, because I walk away going, God dang, dude, this thing's just starting.
- [27:56]
C
Really.
- [27:56]
I
When you think of it, think about it.
- [27:59]
A
Yeah, I. Listen, I don't obviously push my own show too often, but Gary came over to. To my house and we sat down and recorded a conversation. And Gary's one Of, you know, I think we all certainly in this space have people that we just bounce our ideas back and forth with, and Gary's obviously one of those for me. But the way you broke down the mentality that an adult in the United States should approach bitcoin with you, that was the first time that I saw a completely different window into how to view this asset. Where you broke down, viewing bitcoin as your business versus all of the other options that you could pursue with that money to make more money. Really, really opened my. Opened my mind.
- [28:47]
I
Very simple. Like, I mean, it's just so simple. It's stupid, right?
- [28:53]
A
It is so simple. It's stupid. But I never thought about it. I mean, we can rerun it here, but you guys should just watch it. But effectively, Gary just broke down. Hey, you know, if you had a million bucks right now sitting on the sidelines is a number you could round number to throw out. Would you rather own a Popeyes franchise or just buy, you know, eight or nine bitcoin, and there's zero headaches, and you'll probably make more per year moving forward, just simply buying bitcoin and doing nothing. But your business is sitting on your hands, which is the most difficult thing in the world, Gary, dude, it's like.
- [29:26]
I
You know, hey, you know, let's say Weisberg calls me up and says, hey, Gary, I know you're running this SAS business. Why don't you fly up to New Jersey and show me your thing? So I spent a day and a half getting my deck ready, fly up there, spend ten grand in a hotel, buy them dinner, airport, two days in my life. Why would I go take that trip if my goal and my primary thing is to acquire bitcoin? I will not take that trip. I'll reduce my expenses. I'll only focus on my core business. My core business is how many bit. I need a thousand, bitcoin, whatever the number is for you. And then you just approached that. You know, you guys would be telling me I was an awesome human being. If I'd found a gold mine and I destroyed my body, mining it out over 30 years, you would say, oh, that's an obsessive guy. He owns all the gold. He killed his body. I have the ability to own goal and not do. And it defies logic. And we are all fighting the system. It's like, hey, I want less friction, not more.
- [30:39]
A
The only problem with your theory. The only problem with your theory, Gary, is that I had you, like, 75 into coming to Vegas with me.
- [30:47]
I
Yeah, exactly. Dude, like, I have said notice because.
- [30:50]
A
You'Re like, I'd rather buy bitcoin.
- [30:51]
D
Forget it.
- [30:52]
C
Totally.
- [30:55]
A
You were there. We were all the way there. But yeah, I think it's just an incredible approach when you zoom out how easy this is. And that's sort of what the takeaway is for me. Every time we have a conversation about.
- [31:08]
B
This stuff, I don't know if you can see. Lawyer's hand is up.
- [31:12]
A
Yeah, I just saw.
- [31:15]
G
Yeah. I mean, a lot of people are getting into bitcoin now.
- [31:18]
A
Right?
- [31:19]
G
So even if it was much lower for a long time, there's still, I mean, even more reason to be just mortified as opposed to related.
- [31:25]
A
Right.
- [31:26]
G
Like, or if you're trading or for every reason, you just like, doesn't matter that many of us got in earlier and feel comfortable. I think that's what. That's what sucks sort of about these sorts of assets is that as they go higher, retail is more or less is less likely to get in because of sort of A, unit bias and B, having seen it lower and then you. That's what we're seeing now is we're seeing, you know, much of the capture from institutions as opposed to. It's not like your friends that weren't into bitcoin are now all of a sudden saying, hey, look, I made some money. They're just thinking of buying the top, if anything.
- [32:04]
D
Right.
- [32:04]
A
Which shows you that the sailor approach is the only real approach. If you want to treat it as a business. I get money, I buy it, I'll be buying the top forever. Who cares, right? People should look at him and say, well, if he's willing to do that, why am I not if I haven't missed the boat, if he's still buying 100 million plus clips every week.
- [32:24]
G
Yeah. I mean, the problem is that most of the clips of him talking about it look like he's on meth and he's like, really religious. I think it would. Admittedly he would. The math.
- [32:35]
C
He would.
- [32:35]
G
He would admit that he's religious about it.
- [32:37]
H
Right.
- [32:39]
C
He.
- [32:40]
G
He sees Satoshi as a religious figure. He's really. He's spiritual about it, which is great. I see where he's coming from. In a time where, you know, we've sort of lost the plot on money. But I think it might make it less. It makes it all feel less like someone you should follow when you're just some guy looking for.
- [32:58]
A
Yeah, I think he's pivoting, I can tell you that. Just kind of inside baseball. As I said, I'M in Vegas right now. He and I are doing a fireside this afternoon and it's at Money20 20. So this is not a bitcoin conference, it's a fintech payments conference. I think one of the biggest ones in the world.
- [33:17]
H
Invasive in the world.
- [33:19]
A
Yeah, the biggest. Yeah. So we sat down on Friday, obviously and I kind of said, hey, what do you want to talk about? You know, and his response was, I don't really want to get so deeply into bitcoin anymore. He's like, I definitely don't want to talk about MicroStrategy stock. It's volatile actually. Like, I think my AI note taker recorded the conversation. So maybe I'll ask him if I can just put it out because I think it's really interesting. Along these lines, he said, we're creating digital credit and our fireside will kind of discuss that. And when you look at a chart of strd, strc, strk, all the things he's basically created, they're just different levels of risk and volatility with higher or lower yield based on the way they're structured. And he said the new conversation, the one that we're going to be having is would you rather own something that's stable and earns you 10 to 15% or would you rather buy Treasuries? You know, So I think he's transitioning into the digital credit narrative. There's a better way here for long term investors to make stable yield and less about buy MicroStrategy or buy Bitcoin.
- [34:31]
I
Yo, you have to ask him. Okay, I'm really, I think this is a really great question. Why did he go to 10 plus percent? I didn't think he needed to do that.
- [34:42]
A
Yeah, you and I talked about that.
- [34:45]
I
Yeah. Why did he stretch it to 10? I thought he was trying to take all that money from the money market. Right. Really get the attention of the 7 trillion in money markets at 4 minus, minus 4% or less. Then there's tons of cash sitting on the sidelines doing nothing. I just don't know why he had to go to 10. It just seemed a little. You know what I mean?
- [35:07]
A
I think it's a really interesting conversation because I think that there's always a really difficult needle to thread.
- [35:13]
D
Gary.
- [35:14]
A
And I was thinking about this since you and I talked about it. Like actually when you go back to the last cycle, it's almost like even if you can safely offer the higher yield, there's a point at which people assume that yield is a scam because it's too high. Like, there's actually institutional people who would probably rather get 6% than 10% because they emotionally actually feels like it makes sense.
- [35:36]
I
That is exactly my point. I thought the 10 was too much. I'm like, well, hey, you could have done nine, dude. People would have been tickled pink. That's. That's 50% better than Grant's cap rate.
- [35:48]
A
I think if you look at. But he showed it to me on a chart, though, of all of his products and sort of like there's a bar chart with it which has descending volatility, obviously with the rates and risk on each of his products. If you look at it, it's almost measured equally down from one to the next. And I think it was just the next step down, which makes me believe there may be another one coming. That's like 7%, right?
- [36:14]
I
Right.
- [36:15]
A
I don't know. I can't speak to that. He didn't say that to me, but it's pretty.
- [36:18]
I
It would be the worst question to ask, you know, hey, why did you start with 10? Just, you know, it's. Because it's interesting. He had to look at the other addressable markets. He most certainly did it to attract capital. And maybe he raised the rates so that other. The other firms would also have to offer 10 or 11 or 12.
- [36:37]
A
Right. Well, listen, we can question it, but it was the biggest IPO of the year, right? Like two or three times bigger. 3.1 billion or something. I mean, three times bigger than the circles and all those that get so much attention. So there was clearly an appetite for it.
- [36:53]
I
Yeah. My point though, like, could. Could he have shaved off 50, 50 points, 50 bips and still gotten the same amount of traction?
- [37:00]
A
Right. And at the end of the day, he's saying his. He's willing to pay 10% plus cost of capital just to buy more bitcoin. Right. And you can like. And we all know lending rates are. What. What are they? Now, Gary, you and I talked about it. I know you found like five, six. But most people who are lending bitcoin are getting anywhere from 8 to 12.
- [37:21]
I
Yeah, I mean, I hear people paying 15, 10, 12. Big, big players too. Now I'm. I'm at 8 or below because I'm not going to borrow money above 8%. But to your point, wow. Saylor is. But Sailor is, you know, that money is a little different than mine. His 10%, he gets to decide whether he's going to pay it on a monthly basis. I have to pay it.
- [37:45]
A
Right.
- [37:45]
I
So I have a cash Flow expense on that, you know, that interest. So he's got a lot of room that people, people are comparing his debt to your debt or my debt, and.
- [37:54]
A
It'S definitely not the same.
- [37:56]
I
Some of it's Coinbase is calling me every day I'm late on a payment. Right. So.
- [38:03]
A
Mark.
- [38:05]
C
Yeah, I think you guys are in the right neighborhood, that he did it by design to keep it at 10. He's many things. He's not dumb or uninformed. And I think the other part that we all realize he's on, whether it be financial or spiritual or otherwise, he's on a mission and he is going to create the cap table and the entire capital structure or risk framework for capital markets. For Bitcoin, he started with equity, he went to debt, he went to the middle with preferred, and he's going to go down to that substructure, whether it be senior securities, you know, he's going to keep going down and fill in the whole spectrum so that people can pick and choose. That's what I think he's going to do. And he's going to. He's going to gain a shitload of attention for doing that.
- [38:53]
A
I agree. I think just what's interesting, though is, you know, you. If you listen to early Sailor, the pitch was always buy Bitcoin. Or, you know, people, maybe not out of his mouth, but people saying buy MicroStrategy as a proxy for Bitcoin. Maybe that narrative had some water poured on it, Obviously when the ETFs were approved and there was a forced pivot. But now he's saying digital credit. He's not even saying Bitcoin when he talks about these things. Mark, there's a very different pitch that the guy who people you guys are describing as a religious leader of whatever, he's actually saying, hey, buy my credit product. You don't even need to know there's Bitcoin. I mean, you have to believe that bitcoin's not going to crash, right? Massively. But that's his narrative right now on these products is credit. He doesn't even need to mention Bitcoin.
- [39:36]
C
Yeah. And back to what Dave was saying about distribution. I mean, you know, World War II, Bretton woods, it was a forced distribution of dollars no one had. They were shoved down the throat. In 71, gold was. And then gold before that obviously was everywhere. In 71, you know, we invited or incentivized treasuries to be distributed. Now how do we get bitcoin distributed? And maybe Saylor realizes that and he wants to have his own financial Bretton woods and distribute it through collateral. And so that. That's a potential.
- [40:08]
B
Well, hold on. I mean, you just open up a. A big rabbit hole. Before I jump down that lawyer, what were you going to talk about? Because that's a total other direction.
- [40:20]
I
Yeah, I know.
- [40:21]
G
Before you go in that direction, I was just going to say that it's really what's been on my mind is so fascinating. And one of the things that I always liked about the old sailor speeches was, you know, you compare it to, you know, the best thing to own being Manhattan real estate, but that can be taxed and all this. And right now you have the main talk in that in New York is, you know, rent controls and things that may not be great for landholders there. And at the same time you have Bitcoin, you know, sort of fulfilling its side of the bargain on the prophecy. So I don't know, I thought that was all timing.
- [40:53]
A
Well, yeah, that Manhattan real estate thing was first actually discussed on my podcast and it was like the most mind blowing concept to me ever at the time. Which was funny because then I had Haseeb Qureshi on from Dragonfly and I think he called Ethereum Manhattan or something and we had this great debate. But it is an interesting point lawyer, that now there's a question about that. But I do think that's still the way that Taylor frames it. Yeah. The most valuable real estate in the world, long term, and you're never going to sell it.
- [41:27]
E
Scott, you also have this idea that strategy keeps kind of getting denied for the S and P. Right. And there is some sort of signal there around the acceptance and then to easily kind of be in whatever funds just to kind of buy the S and P. And it's like I feel like that's kind of the last little mainstream piece for them. And the stock kind of fell and continues to fall after some of those exclusions kind of keep happening. I would wonder how important that is to him.
- [41:58]
B
Right.
- [41:58]
E
And getting into the S and P and kind of having that little final. It's not like it doesn't have the stamp from everyone in the buying, but it's kind of like the stamp from Wall street in a way.
- [42:06]
A
There's also such massive passive flows if that happens. Right. Even just non nego perspective, just like forced money that goes into it.
- [42:15]
G
Yeah.
- [42:18]
B
Having dealt with the S and P and traded inclusions, I mean, I ran, you know, program trading. Right. So, you know, we did that a lot. The S and P has their own, their own stuff and their own shtick. And I thought that it was insane that anybody would have thought that they would have put it in then. I think that it's a total for the S and P to put strategy into it will require them to understand a very simple concept, that he is building a bitcoin capital stack and that they would be the only representative of that. Right now they view it probably as a crypto company and they figure, well, we already have Coinbase, why do we need anything else? Now? Obviously their view is silly and his view makes sense. So what I just said is true. He has the first mover advantage, not so much as a Treasury company, but as building a bitcoin capital, you know, basically a new capital structure based on bitcoin. And once they get to that, it'll be there. My guess is they'll include it on the next rally, next major rally for bitcoin when it's pretty damn obvious what he's been doing and how he's monetizing. And then, yes, you will get a higher M nav just simply because you take 20% of the supply and you lock it in index funds. It's the same reason banks that are in the S and P trade at higher price to books on average than the ones that are not. You know, it's similar stuff and you can, you can go and look at it. Right. But you know, I think the S and P thing was just one of those catalysts that people naively trade, not really understanding it, but it is a supply demand dynamic when it happens, and it will happen. It's just a question of when do they understand that it has a unique niche in the market because their goal, when they're sitting in the, around that table, what they're talking about isn't the size of companies as we want to be the most representative index. That's what they're talking about.
- [44:11]
A
And Coinbase is there, right?
- [44:13]
B
Right. Well, Coinbase and Coinbase is there. Right. So, you know, but strategy and Coinbase are, I mean, they're as related as. Well, I don't want to try to come up with analogies.
- [44:23]
A
I'm not, I'm not going to say that we don't understand that. But I would imagine if you're sitting in that room where they're thinking, we just got the crypto guys in here.
- [44:31]
B
Yeah, and that's my point. My point is, and you know, it's funny because I'm going tomorrow, I'll be at a conference of, you know, effectively Think one level below CEO, you know, you know, basically the senior, senior managing directors at a lot of firms around Wall street and in, you know, in fintech, etc. Etc. And that same organization, you know, two years ago, used to, I was that whenever someone mentioned crack crypto, the whole audience would turn to me. You know, it's like four or five hundred people. Oh, there's the crypto guy. He's, he's the token guy. And they always make fun of me for moving into it now they routinely talk about tokenization, routinely talking about these things. And so yeah, it is changing. When you get an opportunity to make money, that's when Wall street cares. I see Jason with his hand up.
- [45:22]
A
Welcome Jason. We're probably invited 7,000 times.
- [45:26]
B
Man up.
- [45:27]
H
Yeah, no worries. I just wanted to comment on the interest. I've got enough PTSD here for all of us when it comes to CEFI and interest bearing accounts. My, my experience is that a lot of it was a marketing scheme and the high interest rates were teasers to get people onboarded. And then those rates collapse through, you know, a number of different mechanisms that aren't, they're just not capable of being supported long term. So I saw for example, Gemini's stablecoin getting 8.6% APY paid in Bitcoin, which was a very attractive marketing stunt. And then that started to collapse over time when the different strategies that the CEFI agents deployed just, they, they didn't work. So you know, I really do look at that whole, you know, yield bearing opportunity. The introduction sometimes is, is interesting. The 10% plus returns, those may not be, you know, something that's going to be around a long time. You just have to manage your risk because again, it didn't, it didn't turn out well. V1 well, I know that BlackRock has on the end of October their ETF yield bearing Ethereum deal closing. So I'm really interested to see how that performs.
- [47:06]
D
Scott.
- [47:07]
B
I think it is important, Jason, to understand the difference between the great triumvirate of Blockfi and versus Voyager and Celsius and what's going on now. I mean, there's two huge differences, huge difference. Number one is all of them got started in a world where you could make money and market makers could print money by arbitraging between different exchanges in Bitcoin that would take 40 minutes to move. And so they would pay a lot to borrow it because they could make hundreds of dollars multiple times a week on the flip. And so, you know, they were annualizing over 100% a year for them to pay 10, 15, 20% to borrow was not a big deal. As soon as fireblocks convinced all the exchanges to be able to allow movement of bitcoin from exchange to exchange sub minute, that opportunity went poof. And so then they all did different things. In the case of Celsius, they became prop traders. And you're right, it was 100% unsustainable. In the case of Voyager, they lent to three arrows at etc. Etc. And we all understand that the difference is with STRC is you don't get to keep your bitcoin, right? This isn't a lend it out sort of deal. This is your. They, they are paying you interest in the capital stack of a corporation. And if bitcoin does in fact fail, you're going to lose. But, but at the end of the day, if bitcoin does not fail, then your bet is that, that it's a stable way for people to get an above market interest rate for, you know, on the basis of bitcoin not failing, which is a totally different bet than, you know, a bitcoin holder saying, well, wait a minute, you know, I want to, I want to lend it. Now if you put your, your bitcoin in, if you would put, if you actually exchange your bitcoin for sdrc, I think you're an idiot. But that would be disputed. The same thing. This is exchanging dollars.
- [49:00]
A
Yeah, he's not saying to do that. Dave, can you hear me now? I got kicked.
- [49:03]
B
Yeah, I can hear you again. And I see.
- [49:04]
A
Joe, I was going to say when Jason was talking that like, some of my deepest partners in PTSD are all on stage with me right now. Jason, I remember our endless DMS about, hey, how, how are you at Voyager? How are you at Celsius? What are we doing here? And Amateo, of course, you and I, we, we were both lit on fire collectively over at Voyager together. So it's a point well taken. And anyone who does not at least have their spidey senses tingle when they see high interest rates. Not to say there's anything wrong with, structurally with, with some of these, but, I mean, that's a lesson learned. And chasing yield, Dave, I think the difference there, like you said, is you're, you're giving up your actual bitcoin, et cetera. But chasing that yield is a very, very dangerous game.
- [49:54]
B
And by the way, that is. And before Joe goes, chasing yield is literally what happens when you, when you cut rates significantly because everybody starts doing it, particularly pension Funds that have absolutely no choice but to, because they actuarial assumptions.
- [50:11]
A
The biggest problem, arguably in cefi, outside of the fraud, potentially depending on which product you're talking about, though, is that they didn't cut the rates. What they did was try to remain competitive with the high rates, which meant taking increasingly more risk with your money to compete and not lose their customers. That was the biggest problem there, I think. But go ahead, Joe.
- [50:34]
F
Yeah, so I just want to go back for a second to the discussion about the inclusion in the S&P 500. And one of the things I frequently hear that is overlooked is this. They always point to Coinbase is like the Coinbase, the native crypto company. Coinbase obviously holds a small amount of Bitcoin on its balance sheet, but it made the S&P 500. But the overlooked company is Block. I mean, Block made it in. They've got, I think 20, was it 20 billion in annual revenue and they hold Bitcoin in the balance sheet. And what the JP Morgan note on this subject speculated about was that, you know, really, that's the key distinction. It's not, it's not. MST is not ours and being kept out because of the fact that it has bitcoin on its balance sheet because they let in Block in July. The distinction is that block's got 20 billion in revenue and MSTR has like 100 million. Okay, not even a billion. That is the. That's going to be the significant impediment to MSTR making it in the 500. They have to reevaluate that because from their perspective, from the committee's perspective, which again, is, you know, qualitative model, it's all mushy in the room, sort of backhanded dealings. They look at earnings and profitability from equality and. And unless Sailor has some route where he's going to be able to substantially include increase the revenue and profitability of the business, I don't see how anything changes in the next several years. To get MSTR in, they're going to have to redo the entire idea. They're going to have to redo the entire idea by like. Well, you don't actually have to have any revenue or profitability to be included. All you need to be is a holding company. That, to me, that's a. That's a bigger hurdle than most expect.
- [52:09]
B
Well, it's not an interesting point, Joe. It's it. They have to believe that having a capital structure based upon Bitcoin and a credit vehicle like a bank, they have to classify It, I don't like the word bitcoin bank because it's just, it's not, it's too imprecise. But they have to believe that there is a new form of, of financial vehicle that's been created.
- [52:38]
F
Banks make money. They have revenue stream. Banks have revenue.
- [52:43]
B
It's a question of denominator.
- [52:44]
F
Yes, they do. Dave, how can you argue this? They have revenue.
- [52:46]
B
Of course they have revenue.
- [52:47]
F
Taylor's going to make money off his Bitcoin stack. Then he needs to be able to tell. Explain that to the.
- [52:52]
B
But if you believe.
- [52:54]
A
Joe.
- [52:56]
B
Joe, the issue is, and you're right, it's a leap of logic. I'm not going to argue. But it's not a leap of faith. It's not stupid. If by, you know, when he. There's a reason that that sailor focuses, obsesses over the word Bitcoin yield, it's because he's making money. He's just making it in bitcoin as opposed to making it in dollars. And, and I believe that's why I, we end up in the same place. I think it's going to be a while before it gets included, but it's going to take that, it's going to take the understanding that earning Bitcoin is actual earning money, not just dollars. And I think you're right. Ultimately that is the issue.
- [53:36]
F
But I think you're increasing the enterprise value, but you're doing that through mechanisms that require you to pay out additional obligations. And unless you reverse course on his, his own statement, which is we're never going to sell Bitcoin, that quote, unquote, Bitcoin yield you keep saying you're earning is illusory. It's not a real yield unless you sell it. That's the, that's the flaw in the logic you have. You can't say I'm earning all this bitcoin yield if I'm never going to sell it.
- [54:04]
B
If you, okay, if you define money is exclusively dollars, you're 100% correct and you do fine, no problem. Understood.
- [54:17]
F
No, I don't, I don't think. I'm just saying that's what the committee.
- [54:20]
B
And I agree with that and that's that to me that's almost exactly what I'm saying, is that they need to understand or decide that that the, the novel approach of measuring in Bitcoin and earning Bitcoin is a viable business and makes sense. And once they do that, then they'll include it. And that could.
- [54:39]
F
But it's only a viable business. If you sell, it's only because then you can't, you can't actually, you can't actually ever use that to offset your obligations. If you don't.
- [54:48]
B
Well, maybe, maybe you should, you know. Well, that's actually not true. I mean, the instant JP Morgan, you know, said what they did last week, it set the wheels in motion for a re, you know, for, for Basel and the bank capital rules to consider bitcoin as real collateral and to lend and monetize.
- [55:05]
F
If Sailor's going to lend, I agree with you. If he's going to actually lend his bitcoin in the marketplace, you're 100 correct. But what you just referenced would be a lending out of it of the Sailor mstr.
- [55:14]
B
It's not possible right now because of the capital, because of the way it's structured. Was not possible, but it's not terribly economic.
- [55:20]
F
But yeah, so, so to, to, to, to round it out, you were 100 correct. When Sailor starts lending out his bitcoin stack, and you don't want to use the word bank, but if he actually functions as a bank, he has a captured revenue stream where he can monetize it.
- [55:34]
D
Right.
- [55:34]
F
That's 100 agree with that. But he's got to lend out the bitcoin. And that's curious. What, what the bitcoin maxis are going to say when you're lending out bitcoin. When Sailors lending out his bitcoin stack.
- [55:44]
B
Well, as long as he keeps. Look, it's hard to speculate about a world that doesn't exist when. When. Right now, you take the other side of a bitcoin swap and you have to capitalize it at 100%. None of this stuff makes sense. But the world will change. And we got a pretty good indication this past week that the world is going to change. But I don't believe that he gets into the S P until the world actually changes. So we'll see how, we'll see how that works. But that's kind of the point. I think you and I land sort of in the same place though, I think.
- [56:18]
A
Yeah, that's the same point.
- [56:20]
F
Yeah, it's exactly it. I mean, like, you're 100 correct. If he becomes the quote, unquote bitcoin bank and lends out the bitcoin, now he says he's not going to do that though. So that, that, that's curious.
- [56:33]
B
Okay. Well, anyway, as far as that goes, I, I think we're up against Todd Scott. Unless there's other things.
- [56:39]
A
Yeah, we are. Yeah.
- [56:39]
I
I think Can I just clarify? The world is changing.
- [56:42]
B
Yep.
- [56:43]
I
Is that what that we understood from that?
- [56:46]
A
Yes. But it hasn't changed enough for him to be in this in the S P500 yet.
- [56:52]
B
But the likelihood of it happening is dramatically higher now than it was a couple of weeks ago.
- [56:57]
D
Ago?
- [56:59]
A
Yeah, I don't think that's debatable. All right, guys, great conversation. Awesome panel. Some of you haven't been here in quite a while. Jason, Joe, you guys come back soon. It's nice to have some fresh faces with the with the familiar ones. Great conversation today. And we will run it back, of course, tomorrow at 10:15am Eastern Standard Time here. Thank you, everybody, for joining Crypto Town Hall. Give everybody on stage a follow, and we'll see you tomorrow. Facebook.