← The Wolf Of All Streets
The Wolf Of All Streets
"I Sold Everything For Bitcoin” — What They Don’t Want You To Know | Gary Cardone
01:09:39
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- [00:00]
A
I was saying to you before we were recording that the United States government somehow added $127,000 to their strategic. 127,000 bitcoin to their strategic bitcoin reserve because of a scam like that, which just blows my mind.
- [00:14]
B
Better us than someone else.
- [00:15]
A
Yeah. I don't understand how a Chinese like national scamming people from Cambodia is our money. But I guess it's good to be America.
- [00:25]
B
We're here. It's good to be American.
- [00:27]
A
I think so. To be American.
- [00:28]
B
I think so.
- [00:29]
A
So listen, I has a lot of.
- [00:31]
B
Issues, but I think it's the best option right now. Yeah, we could go to France. You could, you could.
- [00:35]
A
You fit in.
- [00:36]
B
You would do awesome.
- [00:37]
A
I would do great there. Need tighter pants, but otherwise I think I'd be fine. So when I just want to bounce shit around, I call you and this time we can actually do it in.
- [00:45]
B
Person, which is much better than Zoom.
- [00:48]
A
Yeah. So much better than.
- [00:49]
B
Dude, your new digs are awesome.
- [00:51]
A
Thank you. So what is, what do you think of the market here? Let's just start there. I want to talk about treasury companies. I want to talk about the market. Talk about microstrategy, all the things we talk about on spaces and kick around, like behind closed doors. Like, as we're recording, It's Friday, 110ish, I think. I haven't. Haven't really looked in a few hours. Obviously had that massive liquidation event a couple of weeks ago, but stocks are gapping up. Gold still after one retrace pretty good. I mean, it's an everything bull market.
- [01:22]
B
Yeah. Silver strong. The market wants hard assets now. I mean, for sure, you'd have to be blind not to see it. And I think bitcoin's just following it.
- [01:33]
A
Do you think that people view it as that yet?
- [01:35]
B
No, I don't think they understand that narrative. But the retail player isn't really driving any of this anyway. It's institutional players, huge families, sovereigns. Where are they going to take look, all that money needs a yield, man. And it's sitting in assets that aren't generating anything, are there, in businesses that look like they're dying? Like, you know, do you really want a bunch of access to retail when you know retail is changing? Do you want access to the pharmaceutical industry when you know there's all the DOJ exposures and problems? And, you know, it just seems to me people are looking for safe places to hold their wealth and hopefully get some appreciation.
- [02:18]
A
That's interesting when you say people are looking for safe Places to hold their wealth. You don't usually think of bitcoin as far as the narrative.
- [02:23]
B
Funny that, huh?
- [02:24]
A
Right. So that's the opposite of the speculative excess you usually see at market tops. So if you think people are looking for safe places to put their money that doesn't feel like we're anywhere near a top. When people start yolo Gambling on NFTs and meme coins is usually kind of a top signal. Although I guess gold was being treated that way around the world of fleet.
- [02:45]
B
But you know, I think there's a lot of markets that if you look at them, all that behavior is going on, the immature behavior. I mean I driving over here, 28 minute drive and I'm listening to some people that are heavy, heavy, heavy into crypto and they're all talking about the losses and how they've suffered. And I'm sitting here going, I've been in this space five years, I have been able to multiply my wealth. Basically look at bitcoin as a business. Don't look at it as a savings plan. Like my option is I can go invest a million or 2 million or $100,000 into a new business with an idea and then run that business and hire a bunch of people. And if I'm successful I'm going to have a thousand headaches and I'll exit in 10 years if I'm lucky. And then I look at bitcoin and I go, I can buy Bitcoin at 2700-0370-0011-0000. 110,000 wouldn't buy me a tenth of a Popeyes fried chicken franchise. Yet I can buy a whole bitcoin, have no requirements for insurance, which is escalating. Like I just cancel my insurance on my house. I'm like, I'm not paying you $100,000 a year for a six million dollar deductible. Come on, that's ridiculous. Okay, I might as well just waive the insurance and take my risk. So I think there's a lot of industries that are getting so pricey that it's a part of the market that's just going to break that people are going to stop consuming so much stuff. I think we have met max consumption on this planet at the super wealthy and the very poor. That is the thing that we all share in common. The super poor and the super rich. We have maxed out consumption.
- [04:38]
A
Isn't there always another yacht?
- [04:40]
B
No. Throughout, no. Like go talk to. And the moment we see more jet, you know, second term jets available for sale New jets available for jet fuel prices and the charters available. This is a huge indicator. I look at three things. How many brokers are calling me to sell me a plane, talk to cab drivers, hey, are you getting tips in Vegas? And go to a casino. And that's the best indicator of any economy in the world. This economy is weird, man. Right now it's broken. It's broken at that. The poor end. And I think it's broken at the high end because I don't think the high end can buy any more. Rolex watches, villas, countries, yachts, these all come with headaches and they all come with people to manage. I have back to bitcoin as a business, not just an investment vehicle. I look at and go, well I get a 30%, let's cut that in half. I get a 15% CAGR. I have no HR department, I have no legal documents, I have no K1s, I have no people whatsoever. I have zero human error risk for the first time in my life and a great idea and all I have to do is execute. I am the risk. I just have to execute. Keep adding to a four year stack and no human being on the planet has ever bought the top of bitcoin, held it for four years and lost any money whatsoever. That is a great trade. That is a great business, dude. And It'll cost you $2 million to buy Popeyes Fried Chicken franchise 1 to 1 to 2 million. But then you have to run it and you have to deal with the snotty nosed, greasy dirty kids that are coming in your store. You've got to deal with the consumers who are only going to bitch. You've got to handle all the glass when it gets broken through the junior high school football game that they had a fight at the Popeyes and over and over and over and you've got to pay Popeyes the juice whether you made any margin or not. And you're in the deal for 10 or 15 years. I know a guy that owns 42 subways got crushed. Just absolutely got crushed. Okay, 42 subways could not make a dollar. I think a lot of those businesses are going to no longer exist in the future. We're moving to a high speed planet and you can't. Here's two kilos of silver, man. Let's do a transaction. That's not the world we're going to. We're going to super speed. You know, I came out here, drove 28 minutes. We could have done this digitally of course. Right now we wanted to see each other Have a coffee, whatever. But we have options today we did not have 10 years ago. I mean, tremendously different options. Like I'm reading three books a day, three books a week. I've never read three books a week. If I had to do it with a physical book, I probably couldn't do the three books a week.
- [07:35]
A
Are you 2xing it on audio? I mean, that's what I just.
- [07:38]
B
In every form, visual audio, YouTube, listening to you people can poo poo all they want on this, the space. There is tremendous amount of intelligence in there. If you can scatter through all the bullshit and the pumps and the motivations that may have some kind of nefarious or motivation. But that's true about every meeting I've ever had.
- [08:05]
A
That's the first time I've heard you talk about bitcoin as a business. I don't think I've ever talked about that comparison.
- [08:10]
B
Well, this is all I've ever done is build businesses by myself, fund the whole thing. And then I'm looking around going, wow, I'm risking my thing to John and John got a better job. Now I don't have. John's my business development guy or my partner decides I can sell the business for half a billion dollars. And she decides, well, I don't want to sell it. What? We just made half a billion dollars, dude. Yeah, but I don't want to get out yet. I'm not done. Well, then buy my 2 mine for 250. Nah, I don't want to do that. Well, I have a liquidity problem now. See, no entrepreneurs ever talk about the failures they had in building businesses and exiting. No one ever talks about the exit. Okay? And you get chewed up in the exit. That's the truth. And that's true of exiting a bitcoin or a Solana or any. No one ever talks about investing in crypto and then exiting. You can make a whole weekly show on it. Yeah, okay.
- [09:05]
A
Selling is a lot harder than buying.
- [09:06]
B
It is planning an exit. Oh, selling and getting out and walking out the door of anything is much.
- [09:11]
A
Much more difficult than getting in with the bitcoin. As a business analogy you kind of alluded to though, there has to be. If you're going to treat it as a business, there's got to be some profit.
- [09:19]
B
Does it? Does it?
- [09:20]
A
Yeah, you got to sell or Amazon.
- [09:22]
B
The greatest companies in the world and didn't have profit.
- [09:24]
A
I mean, for you individually, like if you say, hey, my business is buying bitcoin, still got to discuss how to.
- [09:29]
B
Live a Life, dude, that's a great, that is a great, great conversation. Show me a business that you build that tomorrow generates positive income. I've never built one of those. Now if I'm speculating, okay, let me pick heads or tails. Oh, wow. Profit I may. Is that sustainable business? I have to build a business. Usually, you know, in order for me to get over here, I had to put fuel in my car first. And then I came over here. So I've made an investment of $20. I'm not going to get my return on investment, Scott. I need $22. That's a horrible way to look at things. Right, right. My business is my brand. Me, Gary Cardone. Right. So it makes a lot of sense for me to spend $22, develop a relationship with you, hopefully increase my brand a little bit, learn something. These are all investments for the business. Right. And so for me to invest $100,000 into Bitcoin and say, okay, I'm just gonna do nothing. I'm gonna do this. You're gonna say, yeah, but you need some income. No, I don't need any income. I don't want any income. I don't get income from my businesses that I build immediately. Positive income. I usually have to keep writing checks with bitcoin. All I have to do is sit on my hands, Okay, I don't want the income because you know what I'm going to do with the income? I'm going to spend it. And spending it isn't going to help me make get more bitcoin. So that's why I think I love the non yielding bitcoin point. Because I'm only interested in this. It will take me eight to 12 years to build a business and exit it. Four years, I can exit Bitcoin and make a 45% return. I cannot do with zero headaches. By the way, I get to decide to run this business from Asia or the Bahamas or Tiraverde, Florida. I get to come over and see you anytime I want. Somebody wants to take me bird shooting, I get to go do that too. And like, I just don't know better business. Like, I'm looking for a great business. I'm not looking for an ego trophy or Look, I managed 12,000 people. Once you get past 150 people, you can't manage them anyway. And if you're like you and me, once you get past 15, you can't.
- [11:46]
A
Manage it because we're 1.5.
- [11:49]
B
That's about me too. Yeah. So that, that's. And if you really think about it. Logically, it does make sense to just look at it as business because no business pays income. Most entrepreneurs, when they. How much do you get paid in your salary? Nothing, dude. You get nothing. Most founders get zero. Like, I have never made a salary ever. Like, I made a salary at the fraud company for a little while. I'm like, I don't want a salary, dude. If we make positive income, the company's paying for all my private jet travel. When we make positive income, company pays for all my private jet travel. I like that because it's great for the company. They get to net it off their expense, off their profits. I get to fly private when I'm big enough to float the company when it gets revenue positive. But it's an awful fucking lot of work. When I could buy bitcoin over the last four years for probably average, if I just did it monthly, 57, 50, 60, I'm up 100% and now I.
- [12:49]
A
Can borrow against that was my next question.
- [12:51]
B
Boom. I get a big enough stack. I can now go to the, you know, people and go, hey, look at my stack. I've taken my stack to my bank who does not do anything in bitcoin. It impressed the out of them. They love me.
- [13:06]
A
Now you can go JP Morgan. Now as of today, they made the announcement, it's not, not available by the, by the end of the year, you'll be able to use Bitcoin. Ethereum is collateral. How nuts is that?
- [13:15]
B
It's great.
- [13:15]
A
Well, I mean, not, not that it's happening, but J.P. morgan, Jamie Dimon even, I think, made a comment this morning. I didn't see the exact quote. I just heard people talking about it. You know, I'm still cool on the industry, but I mean, he's a businessman and knows what the, what the people want. But I would say that Jamie Dimon is one of our most outspoken critics. J.P. morgan's doing it. Ken Griffin from Citadel, I mean, just saying that this is bitcoin for the debasement trade. Vanguard now, potentially Vanguard. Vanguard potentially coming. So if you've got Citibank is going to be cussing the assets. Bank of New York, Mellon, State Street. So they should be treating it like any other asset in someone's portfolio. Right. So we shouldn't be paying the 9, 10, 11, 12% interest rates on bitcoin borrowing in a year. It might be that now. But once everybody's there and it's a competitive market again, even though it's volatile, a, it's less volatile than the securities they'll give you loans against at this point, right? Like, meta stock can have a 20% day. So what are we talking about?
- [14:13]
B
People talk about bitcoin volatility. I'm like, what are you talking.
- [14:15]
A
Not anymore. Right.
- [14:16]
B
I mean, the big look at United health Care.
- [14:19]
A
If the largest asset in the world, gold, can drop 7, 8% in a day, then what are we talking about? But. So you should have 5, 6, 7% rates. 4, 3. As rates come down in the future. Like, well, this is that to me. Then you're like, bitcoin's a business because I can pay my rent with the.
- [14:35]
B
Yeah, well, this is what's happening, right? 18 months ago, you could not borrow against bitcoin like you could in the black market. But a year ago, a couple of guys came out and said, if we custody, I'm not going to name them because they pissed me off. But if we custody your bitcoin. Well, I thought, look, you can't be a bitcoiner and then tell me you're going to charge me 15% to hold the best collateral on planet Earth. It just irritated me. It's like, dude, come on, man. This is the best collateral on planet Earth. Second to a Glock 17 when you need it. I mean, seriously. And it's right near you, right? And I'm like, there is no chance of me ever paying 15%, and I won't pay 10. If I can get below 8, I will do it. And I'm below 8 from major, major institutions. I could get 5 from people that we know. Yeah, it's just a big, heavy lift for me to move it. But, you know, you start getting fairly large numbers. I mean, I've added 30% to my stack, dude.
- [15:33]
A
So you're using your loans to buy more bitcoin?
- [15:35]
B
Of course. Oh, well, I'm not. I'm not flying to Las Vegas. You ask. Hey, you want to go to Las Vegas? You know, I don't think I really need to go to another show.
- [15:43]
A
Dude, fly spirit, man. Come on. We could have done it for 200 bucks. Vegas is cheap if you don't do it your way.
- [15:48]
B
Why don't you take John with you? I'll pay for John's ticket, and y' all can videotape the whole thing. And I'll watch.
- [15:54]
A
To say it's possible.
- [15:55]
B
You know, I didn't do all this work on bitcoin. Flash.
- [15:57]
A
Yeah, it's funny that, like, the bitcoiners have a billion dollars and drive like, an 85, you know, accord, because they don't want to spend a penny of it.
- [16:04]
B
Well, I'm not driving an Accord, but if I think about this as a business, I mean, I've probably been invited to five things to speak at in the last two months. No, no, no. And it's not. It's not because I don't want to go. But if I'm looking at bitcoin now as a core business of mine, like I have, I can do this now for 15, 20 years because I don't have to grind myself into the ground going to meetings that are absolutely useless to all you guys that work at big companies. Like, once you walk into a room with more than six people, you're just talking about stuff that's general knowledge.
- [16:40]
A
And you leave your soul at the.
- [16:41]
B
Door because you're dying in there, dude. And you don't say anything. You want to die. They're not. It dawned on me one day, I'm like, wow, all the important decisions get made between one or two people. And when you want to announce when the Christmas party is, you invite everybody and it's complete waste of time. So I look at this and go, well, do I want to spend 100 grand going to Vegas for three days, or could I buy another bitcoin and people go 100 grand to Vegas? Well, it's just three days. I mean, just look, you can say it's not 100 grand, but then I'll do three trips and then sooner or later, these are expenses I am paying to go to meetings. Just like I drove over here to you, okay? I need a return on investment at some point, and it's not going to give me a return. All people are going to do is, hey, you want to invest in my fund now? Yeah, dude. If it can outdo bitcoin like a mother, I'll help. I'll do your fun. But right now I have the ability by $110,000 bitcoin. Why would I do a fund with.
- [17:38]
A
2 and 20 and be locked up for years? The problem is, to me, it's a lockup. It's performance.
- [17:43]
B
Like, most people don't know the lockups. 10 plus on these trades, man. 10 plus.
- [17:48]
A
I don't even know where I'll be.
- [17:49]
B
In Grant Grant's 10 plus 10 on the real estate. 10 plus 10 at his discretion. And I don't know what the ego deaths and the, you know, all the funds are. And look, some of those funds are awesome, but if I don't have to get locked up, why would I? And if I don't have to pay 2 and 20. Why would I? And if this is a better return than running a Popeyes franchise or a dick sporting store. And most certainly it's safer than me buying Intel.
- [18:19]
A
And by the way, market, if the market completely collapses, like the economy generally, even if bitcoin goes down, your Popeyes is totally.
- [18:26]
B
Oh, my God.
- [18:27]
A
So at least you saw your bitcoin and can wait it out that Popeyes is done. You remember you actually have less exposure to like downside in the economy by holding bitcoin that goes down than you do by having a business that depends on people having money in the economy.
- [18:40]
B
Correct, man. And if, if, if we're now going to use this double D word. Like I've never heard this word before. Okay. Dollar debasement is being used now. It is becoming nomenclature in the finance. This has not been done before. Recessions you could talk about. Dude, you never talked about dollar deflation. It was almost heresy. And this word is being used by the largest players on the planet. You just mentioned them. You should be listening to that. I mean, that is a serious message. In this case, bitcoin's a monster play in dollar debate.
- [19:18]
A
That's the only answer. Gold and bitcoin, where everyone who named, they all say, hey, there's a basement trade, but what should you actually do for it? Every other asset was shuffled around silver. Some said nasdaq. Paul Tudor Jones said, which I thought was interesting. He's the only one who included stocks in the debasement trade. But it does make sense, actually. But otherwise everybody said bitcoin and gold. I wouldn't do it. But I see where he's coming from when he made the argument.
- [19:43]
B
His theory is if analog goes to.
- [19:45]
A
Shit and if rich, if you're betting on a divide of the rich and the poor, the rich just find new shit to buy. That's going to go up and be a hedge. And maybe the NASDAQ is a part of that. I'd rather just buy bitcoin, obviously. It's funny, you talk about bitcoin as a business and all these businessmen like yourself, the few who get it, really get it, and you see the light bulb come on. With a lot of people. We were talking about Ricardo Salinas. Your day, I think you're going to El Salvador soon and this guy's a billionaire, like one of the richest men in Mexico and has run all these businesses. And you talked about what happens when he talks about bitcoin.
- [20:23]
B
Yeah, I mean, it's fascinating. I can't remember it Was you or someone else that was interviewing him. And the guy just like I observe people pretty well. It's a gift of mine. And when I see a 70 year old billionaire get extremely excited when he was talking about his business, right. And he's got all these businesses here and then he's got this small little bitcoin thing and all his big businesses are awesome. But when he started talking about his liquid position, the image I had was a 14 year old, a 13 year old little boy finding his first pen.
- [20:57]
A
First Playboy, man.
- [20:57]
B
Yeah, first Playboy, dude. This guy was like, dude, he was so excited. I'm like, oh, that's a monster indicator. That's a man who's fallen in love with an idea. And like when you, when you're an entrepreneur and you see an idea and you fall in love with it, you surrendered almost your entire life to really, it's almost like a marriage. And an entrepreneur will really understand like you surrender everything to a business and it's got all these operating risk in it. Surrendering to bitcoin is so easy. It's just so easy. I mean I would actually be lying to anyone if I didn't really express the value of looking at bitcoin as a business. And everyone wants to own their own business. Everybody wants to be the CEO of their own business. And it's easy. Do your day job, start stacking bitcoin if it's good enough. Michael Saylor, that's a business for him, dude. He's not having to add thousands of people to add bitcoin. He will be one of the most profitable per employee businesses in the world. He could stack another 100,000 bitcoin and add three staff members.
- [22:07]
A
Yep.
- [22:08]
B
I mean that is a beautiful business model.
- [22:11]
A
Yeah. I talked to him this morning in prep for the Vegas the Vegas conversation and his narrative right now is heavily on the digital credit side. All these, this layered products that he's been able to offer, the offerings, you can get 16% effective yield here, 12 different risk, different volatility for every single person. I wonder how a JP Morgan announcement like today ends up affecting someone like a strategy like he's created all these products, but now we're really talking about being able to put the bitcoin directly to work or people being able to put their bitcoin directly to work. Kind of new era.
- [22:46]
B
This is why I think we're underpriced because it's really, really, really what?
- [22:52]
A
We have a broken vent and nobody can get into the vent to figure it out from the inside. Or the outside. So when the wind blows the wrong way, we get the drummer boy. So curious to hear that. Perfect timing. Didn't think about that. Back to Saylor. Yeah, you can keep that in.
- [23:08]
B
So it's been really hard to buy bitcoin. It's still hard to buy bitcoin. I mean, and it's hard to listen to some of the stuff about bitcoin because it's so confusing. This is a part of bitcoin no one ever confronts, is that decentralization. With decentralization comes a lot of issues that aren't good, by the way. They are not positive attributes to a market. I was with Mark Yusko one day in Miami three or four years ago. We were pounding on a bottle of tequila, pretty well having dinner. And he was like, decentralization, you know? I said, because I know he's a good Catholic.
- [23:46]
A
And he'll get going, huh? And he'll get going.
- [23:48]
B
Oh, yeah. And I said, mark, let's be honest. You and I are good Catholic boys. I don't know if that's true. And if we believe that our God at the very central of our church is honest and honorable and trustworthy, let's admit that centralization is perfect. Like, we would not have an issue with that. And he's like, well, you're right about that. It's the human nature of this that's the problem. Okay. On the centralization, but the truth is, why did I come here? This is a central location. If we get bombed today, we're both going to die. Ooh, risky. Risky, right? Yeah, but it's more valuable. It's a very different connection to have with another human being than on zoom. So to me, this the problem with bitcoin. I was so excited about Wall street coming in because we will get a common message. We're going to get little videos from JP Morgan with stick figures and show.
- [24:46]
A
You how BlackRock's already done it.
- [24:47]
B
Yeah, exactly. Because you've never had a common message about bitcoin. One's been anarchy, one's been freedom, one's been perfect money. It is not perfect money. This comment about bitcoin being perfect money in an imperfect world is just the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
- [25:03]
A
It's.
- [25:04]
B
It's hyperbolic.
- [25:05]
A
It's ridiculous because nobody wants to spend it.
- [25:07]
B
It puts people off, too. These. These comments. So this product is getting ready to get sold. No one's going to even know they have bitcoin. I've heard you say this. So many do. When you. When you got bitcoin, you didn't even know you got it. That's when. That's exactly right. You should not have to carry the bitcoin logo all over the place. Who cares if it's invading the entire financial organism at every level, from every crack and crevice? Who gives a toss what we call it? You just need to get impregnated in the system.
- [25:39]
A
I always found it so funny when people were so like emotionally angry at an Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or something like that. I would never invest in their company. I would never buy Meta, I would never buy Tesla. And then you say to that person, what's your 401k and spy, by the way? You own a shit ton of Tesla, a lot of matter.
- [26:00]
B
And by the way, MicroStrategy, General Dynamics.
- [26:02]
A
MicroStrategy and Coin, you know, Coinbase. Are you in the NASDAQ, in the S and P? And if you're indexing, you own all that shit. And it's the flip side of that is the stupidity of people saying BlackRock owns 15% of MicroStrategy or things like that, when you know that they're just passively indexing and they're not taking any active position. They own the miners. Of course they do, because they own literally everything that they're putting into indexes. But everybody is going to own everything and everybody already probably has exposure to this and all the other things they hate.
- [26:32]
B
I don't know that everybody does.
- [26:34]
A
Oh, excuse me, but the, the invest. The investing public, whoever that. Yeah, yeah, the 5% of people have enough money to buy something, whatever it is.
- [26:42]
B
Yeah, but we're still way, way, way under adopted. Yeah, I mean people, I think people overestimate our adoption. I personally don't think we're over 2%. Not, not a chance.
- [26:54]
A
2% adoption. As far as usage or just have any exposure to the asset.
- [26:58]
B
Any exposure in total dollar terms, you know. Yeah, it's just not a big number yet. I mean, that's why it should be exciting because I look at it and go, wow, we're early, man. You know, Google took 30 years to become a trillion dollar business. 27 years. I think Google, okay. And they're basically a country U.S. cIA operation. I mean, it took 30 years. Amazon lost money forever and had so many drawdowns, it was stupid.
- [27:27]
A
Ibit has 100 billion. It's 10th of the way there in year and a half.
- [27:32]
B
Yeah, I mean that's staggering. And people are like, hey, wow, why hasn't it moved the market, I think it has.
- [27:40]
A
We were in the 40s when it was approved. Right.
- [27:42]
B
This market is a different market than was when I came in 40s years ago.
- [27:45]
A
But you were the person who beat the drum from the day I met you that this was the inevitable conclusion of how it would go. You always said it would be Wall Street. The suits in the room, the major institutions are coming and all the libertarians yelled at you and said, fuck the government and fuck me.
- [28:01]
B
They called me suit. I don't know why people would call me a suit just because I came from that world. I commend bitcoin community for really understanding their product. But you did. You all need to go out and get the art of War because you do not study the competition at all or the marketplace or the addressable market or even the terminology like bitcoin is a settlement system. Quit talking to Visa about a transaction system. You're not even, you're not even in the same category. Visa, MasterCard, do not settle for 180 days. I can settle in 10 minutes. Which system do you want?
- [28:37]
A
I don't know if you saw this stat.
- [28:39]
B
I mean it's not even close, man. 24, 7.
- [28:41]
A
I'm going to misquote the numbers, but actually I think it was stablecoins did 46 trillion in transactions last year, three times Visa and about half of ACH. I think ACH was 91, 92. Maybe it was 48 and 92. But stablecoins are literally eating the world while nobody's looking. Correct.
- [29:03]
B
And that's where the credit card companies are going to. They're going to stick their nose hard in that space. They have to, they have to, they have to.
- [29:10]
A
Is there any thing as you sort of risk manage the idea of bitcoin being a business or bitcoin in general, is there any signal you could have where you would say, shit, I was wrong? Is there a price it can go to? Is there, you know, a nation state level attack or something that could happen to it that would actually like shake your conviction? Because I know you're a guy who's willing to change his opinion.
- [29:33]
B
Yeah, look, I, you know, I've made enough mistakes that, you know, the more confident I am, the more I ask myself, hey, how could this be wrong? I remember meeting scaramucci 5 years ago maybe and I asked him how much bitcoin he had. I didn't know that was a thing. I still ask people, but actually I asked him what their average price is. He. And he told me, he said, he told Me how many he had. He said hey man. And he knew that I was seriously long like stupid. And he said hey, do you think this is when we were at 30 grand? Hey man, do you think this is stupid? You know being so consolidated. And I looked at him. My answer was look, I have a 15 and 18 year old kid. If I'm wrong and if you're wrong, Anthony, his cost basis is much cheaper than mine. I figured that our children are going to grow up exactly the way you and I did. And if I'm right, my kids have a massive problem to deal with. They're going to be billionaires and like who is prepared to deal with that? 0 human beings are prepared to deal with that kind of wealth. So to me he loved the answer man. He thought that was an awesome answer. And I think it is a good answer if the whole world goes to shit and it will one day because it's built on matches and gasoline man. Okay. And a small little fire extinguisher called the Fed who I think is totally out of control. Not. Not even on. He's on the stage but it's not even like you're a puppet, you're a paper. If China decides to do something different, he's done it. We have a timing tick ticking bomb just moving from country to country right now. Like who's going to blow up first? Japan.
- [31:21]
A
Yeah.
- [31:21]
B
Japan like has a problem. So what would I don't think I get off this trade. And I've been here before. I've been like I've. This is how I built my. I retired when I was 40 years old making decisions like this. And this is what this. I am so much more sure on this one than I was on the one when at 40 this one no one can with me. No one Like I used to go up against ExxonMobil, Shell, Conoco man and they hated my guts. I was trying to commoditize energy. What do we have today? Oh we the energy market is the best market in the world. The least manipulated cannot interrupt the son of a. Including blowing pipelines up. Shit just flows up it figures out how to water no want exactly stick it on the water and they pay a dollar for storage. So I don't. The other thing Scott that I did not understand I was going to have a lot of opportunity to invest my trapped money in the legacy world into the crypto space the miners. Wow. Like I've gotten access to the miners. It's given me just a monster upside that's going to convert more Bitcoin, now this is a challenge. I have to know when to do that. I have a position in naca. Not really happy about it, but I talk about it because I think that people should make people like me that get on TV screens like you and me and say, hey, dude, I don't always make right decisions. I mean, I lost half. I bought half a million shares at 117,120and it's $0.72. It's a fucking broken company. What else? Strategy, right? I've been in strategy for two and a half years. I had no idea I was going to have access to do all of this. So it's, you know, my allocation to this industry is probably in the 89, 90% range.
- [33:14]
A
But do you view it as you have to get those investments back to Bitcoin at some point like you said, or do you view them as investments in bitcoin or just high beta bitcoin investments?
- [33:25]
B
I think they're high beta. I hate to use these words because I don't think most of the audience, but look, these mining companies are extremely risky, okay? The mining companies make bitcoin look like a walk in the park. There's only been a few.
- [33:40]
A
Are you still holding them all after this move?
- [33:42]
B
Oh, I'm still here.
- [33:43]
A
Me too. I'm just curious.
- [33:44]
B
Oh yeah.
- [33:44]
A
Where'd you buy iron? Where'd you buy iron?
- [33:47]
B
Oh, remember stupidly cheap, man.
- [33:49]
A
Yeah, I was thinking I was three bucks.
- [33:50]
B
I haven't. I'm not in it for four years though. I bought it a year and a half.
- [33:54]
A
Yeah, same. Some of these guys chirping on my.
- [33:56]
B
Show about five years ago, it's like, bro, I mean that's just too long for me to hold and get a 50x. I mean it's just like, it's a long time to hold those losses because there's a lot you could have done. Look, you could invest in the miners five months ago and had had almost as good of a return as you. And I've had Iron Wolf, Cipher, Clean Spark. I did 80,000 shares of Clean Spark. I thought Clean Spark would be the beast because of its cost. So worse performer. So you never know. But I will, will not stay in those miners for forever. I'll be out of those miners sometime this cycle, probably within the next six. I don't think there's cycle. I think you guys made up a cycle. But in the next six months, I think I'll probably be out of that trade.
- [34:41]
A
I think they have a cycle.
- [34:42]
B
Who does?
- [34:43]
A
The miners. I'm not talking about. I'm not. Right. I'm not talking about the. I also don't ascribe to the four year cycle thing anymore. I did, but there's a cycle.
- [34:52]
B
But if Trump gets into office again, It'll be an eight year cycle. Is this really a president?
- [34:56]
A
15 years, 20 years.
- [34:59]
B
I wonder what kind of odds I.
- [35:00]
A
Could get on Trump being president again. Yeah, we go hit polymarket.
- [35:04]
B
Hey, somebody tell me what kind of odds you give me. But I gotta bet. I gotta bet that Donald trump's our president. 26 to 30. If he's alive.
- [35:13]
A
Well, they'll impeach him in a year when the Democrats take one of them. But he won't go out. He'll do the symbolic impeachment thing. Yeah.
- [35:21]
B
You know, the reason I say that is because I don't know how we. This market is going to get obliterated if the Democrats come into office. It'll get obliterated. No one wants that, even the Democrats. Okay? This market will get obliterated. We're going through a really bizarre, I think, civilization moment, like globally. And America is not in a position where it can just look around and go, okay, I've been doing all this stuff this way. It's not working. But it also isn't on the world stage the way it used to be. It's not framed the same way. The world's not the same. We're not going to be a globalized market. We're going to be a competitive poly market. I love that. I think that's awesome. Go bricks. Go. Another currency market center. Go big market centers are good. Yes, exactly. Because we'll end up with gold, silver and Bitcoin and some type of reserve, some type of banking, some type of, hey, I can invest in real assets that don't get dissolved by political idiocy, just dissolve like acid, which is what.
- [36:31]
A
The system is built to do. It's not like an accident.
- [36:34]
B
Exactly.
- [36:35]
A
Yeah, it's not mismanagement.
- [36:37]
B
Yeah, but look, all you guys can complain about why it's there. All I got to do is, hey, how do I protect myself, right? How do I get my family in a position where I'm elevated above all the problems? If I can get enough altitude and watch the war from down there, then I don't get hit. Right? I'm just trying to take care of my family or my position relative to where I am. And people go, well, I'll never become rich. Hey, look, why are you thinking about becoming a billionaire when you've only made A million dollars this year. Why don't you think about becoming a 2 millionaire? Elevating yourself above where you are now. Because you don't just elevate above all billionaires. You elevate gradually above. You know your. The town you grew up in. Then you know, you expand. Your world has expanded. You don't do that if you're just throwing craps up against the wall and crazy ideas. I just can't invest in some of these paper companies.
- [37:32]
A
They.
- [37:33]
B
They don't make sense to me. The old analog companies like the Netflixes of the world. I'm like, wow, how they look like broken business.
- [37:41]
A
You mentioned Nakamoto being a broken business. We got to talk about it. Because you and I both were buying at the same time. You know, it went from 20 something dollars. 4 back to 8. They bought a major stake in Metal Planet. I think now they're trading probably at a discount to just the value of their Bitcoin. Not even counting debt. I'm not sure. But we've had a lot of conversations about it. We both said, listen, we're back to where the pipe investors got in. Buck 12, buck 10. I can buy it at the same as the early investors. It's already gone down 90%, whatever it is.
- [38:12]
B
I had a feeling when you said that. I'm like, oh, I know you wouldn't have said that.
- [38:16]
A
We can feel our mistakes of. It was a very long time ago. I felt that way three weeks ago. You kind of. And something I really like about you and you touched on it before. You're very vocal about what you view as your mistakes and very vocal about your decisions. Whether you view them to be mistakes or not. We run spaces and it was about 90ish cents. 92. 93. And you're like the investor part of me says, double down on my position. I'm not going to this time. I made a mistake.
- [38:43]
B
Yep. Yep. Well, the ego. You know my ego when I make a mistake like that. I bought two wedges of it. And then when it went down to 92, I'm like, okay. The first thing I thought was. I think it was in the 80s actually. I was like, okay, I should just go grab another half a million dollars and smash it. Lower my average cost. And I'm like, why would I do that? The management's fucked up right now. Okay? Why would I go and try to double my position on something that the management's making? Just fundamental mistakes? I'm sorry, David. You're acting like a child, dude. You got to get Off Twitter. I did not invest in this kind of management. You don't raise $750 million and then go, oh, gosh, the convertibles that Michael launched, there's some risk on those. Like, dude, don't tell me that post facto that you're just learning, okay? Like, I did not. I'm not interested in paying somebody who's been in Bitcoin 13 years to learn. So, look, but that's on me. I'm not really blaming them. I am the one making them made the mistake. I do. I do think people are going to differentiate. The stock prices most certainly said, we do not approve. So if you don't like me and want to unfollow me, awesome. But every shareholder is telling you we do not approve. I think the management probably gets, you know, changed and. Or somebody picks them up for 6, 7, $800 million that were 300 to $400 million right now, and they've got 5,700 bitcoin, which should be worth 700 million bucks. So they're trading at a deep discount. They own 15% of Meta. You should ask Sailor Sailors got to be looking at going, how many Salivating. Well, for me, he doesn't need to pay a premium for bitcoin, but Japan access to the Japanese market would be very interesting for Micro. As a shareholder of strategy, I would love him to have access to Japan. You can't just go launch in Japan.
- [40:49]
A
That's why Meta Planet's done so well. Because they're the only one. Well, they haven't really done that well. Hadn't done so well, I should say. But they were the only game. They were the only game in town. They were. They were. They were strategy. 2020 or 2021 or even 2022. You choose your year. But they. And this is why Nakamoto, I think, identified the let's go into markets that don't have exposure and create a microstrategy type vehicle. I get why they did Meta Planet, but that's very unique situation.
- [41:16]
B
I see why Meta did it.
- [41:17]
A
Yeah. Because they have. You can't buy an ETF there. And if you buy Spot Bitcoin, the taxes for selling are way worse than the taxes for selling the equity. So you're getting huge. Right. A huge tax arbitrage by doing it. And there's no other game in town. No ETFs. Right. So your MicroStrategy Pre ETF, with all the lessons learned, it does make sense to me intellectually that you should go do that in every country in the world that doesn't have exposure, but every market's getting smaller and smaller and small.
- [41:43]
B
Well, you just can't do an issue either. I mean, it's not like you can just go to Japan and hey, I'm here.
- [41:49]
A
I mean, I'm talking to sailor in Vegas. So right before you came over, we did the prep call, which basically is just like free college education. Right said. So there's a Fireside Chat. What are we going to talk about? That's totally my decision, but he laid out for me basically a deck on digital credit. And when he put it in a chart like strk, strc. And then versus currencies and versus mutual funds and versus all the yield.
- [42:17]
B
Beautiful.
- [42:19]
A
And when you eliminate the taxes and I mean, he's just created a bunch of products for people who actually shouldn't care so deeply about bitcoin to earn a much better yield than they're getting in other markets that can be exited much earlier. And I feel like he's just opened this massive flood of money and continues to find ways to do that. Nobody else is competing with that. So like, I think if you asked him, he would say treasury companies can do this. They can. But I'm not sure that there's an appetite for anyone else beyond him. Like, you don't want some random dude doing that. Where's your appetite for buying that instead of Saylor's SD? STRC. STRC, like the volatility. I think he says 50 bits like you can counting and going, you know, 50 bips above 100 or below, you're earning a 10% yield. It's extremely safe. I think it's backed 4 or 5 to 1, whatever it was by bitcoin, wildly over collateralized. So a, you can just earn 10% instead of 2% in your bank account. You kind of have bitcoin exposure and you can exit it and enter it.
- [43:25]
B
No, you don't have any bitcoin exposure. You have 2% yield.
- [43:28]
A
Emotionally you do. I'm participating in the Michael Saylor, but.
- [43:33]
B
I think, I think that investor doesn't want exposure to bitcoin. They just want the 10% yield. They don't care. They don't care, man. My sister doesn't care where she's getting it, you know, once she's in it. Hey, how's it going?
- [43:44]
A
But the more interesting conversation there maybe is that he's willing to give a 10% yield, which means he has a very. He's willing to pay more than you're willing to pay to one of Those companies to his interest rate. That means he's paying more than 10% on his money to get bitcoin.
- [43:58]
B
Okay, but I think this is the difference. I would pay 10 if I could borrow a trillion dollars. And, and his. His 10% isn't because most of what he borrowed was at zero. So, like, think about this. And he probably isn't thinking about this. This may be the wrong way to think about it, but my weighted average cost of interest across that whole company, even if I do equal amount at 10%, is less than 6%. If you. Yeah, whoa. I can. I'll most certainly do that with you.
- [44:32]
A
Do you own strcr? Do you own all of that?
- [44:34]
B
No, no, no, no. I don't want. Yield. Why do you want any income? You got to pay taxes on it. I do not want any income whatsoever. Not. Do not pay me anything, please. Like, I've got some income I'd like to give away, you know, I mean, I take any income I have and smash it into bitcoin.
- [44:53]
A
If you're one of the fortunate people who can live like that. If you're a check every week.
- [44:58]
B
Well, if you want to get into that conversation, okay, the truth is no one's working 80 hours a week. If you're not working 80 hours a week, you own nothing. You know that? Dude, we give all you people that are bitching about like, not making enough money. No one walks up to my front door and says, what can I do to earn $1,000? This cat's been in my house a bunch. Done, dude. There are 10 jobs to do for 1000 bucks each. No one. I got a boat. Sit $55,000 boat sitting on the back of my goddamn rack. Come take it from me. Do you make 15 grand on it? Just get rid of it. Pay me something. Clean it. No one. Not whites, not blacks, not teenagers, not old people. No one is working 80 hour weeks.
- [45:46]
A
Sold.
- [45:48]
B
And I can buy bitcoin and work 20 hour week. Now you see what I'm saying, though? I just don't believe this is true. Okay, like, if you're at Popeyes Fried Chicken and you're working there, you should be working two jobs. That's what I did. Geez, man. Football players, baseball players, and people on Wall street work 100 hours every fucking week. Professional ball player, golfer is training on Saturdays and Sundays to play on Monday. Business salespeople show up Monday to prepare for Tuesday, get into their CRM, figure out who their top 10 clients are. Like, I. Dude, I do not need an automated program. Or a blockchain or a CRM to tell me who my top 10 clients are. You know who they are. Bitcoin. Bitcoin, Bitcoin. Those are my top 10 clients. Wow. I don't even get any complaints from my clients. They love me.
- [46:39]
A
It's such a.
- [46:40]
B
No refunds, dude. No lawsuits.
- [46:43]
A
Did you, like, save this for today, or have you just. Have you been saying this business thing.
- [46:47]
B
Over and over again?
- [46:48]
A
I feel like I haven't, like, heard that. I feel like I haven't heard the pitch of bitcoin. Treat bitcoin as a business.
- [46:53]
B
I listen.
- [46:53]
A
I talk to you every day.
- [46:54]
B
We should go on a roll. Because I listen to all these guys, my brother, and all these people borrowing money. I'm like, that's awesome, dude. I bought 31 bitcoin last week. I bought 300 bitcoin. I bought 3,000, dude. I bought 31. And nobody else but me owns them. I like it. And I did it with debt. Debt that I can afford to pay every. Every month. That's where my income goes. Pay the debt off 8 or 8 or 9%. How is that different than paying 8% for a mortgage? How is it different, right? This house is going to cost you a fortune. You know that, right? It's going to be worth a hundred bitcoin one day.
- [47:35]
A
The stories of people who paid, like.
- [47:37]
B
You know, $120 million for my house. Dude, I put $8.6 million in that house. And if I'd have bought a thousand Bitcoin, it's $112 million today.
- [47:46]
A
It's a nice house.
- [47:47]
B
It's a nice house. Okay. My insurance just went up 50%. Now I have a house, it's a business, and my insurance just went up 50%.
- [47:56]
A
Is that because of the flood risk?
- [47:59]
B
There's one offer. Yeah, there's only one offer. And then there was Chubb. 350 went from 56 to 96. And Chubb's out there at 350. Okay, so, like, hoa fees are gonna jack. Real estate's gonna get destroyed. This area, like, it's gonna be a problem. HOA fees are problematic. And if now, if Desantis does. It's a favor and does no tax.
- [48:26]
A
Is that real?
- [48:27]
B
I think it is real.
- [48:28]
A
Or is that just like a. This sounds awesome. Soundbite. How do you do that? Like, how did the municipalities. I mean, this is. How does Tampa survive without property taxes? This is literally like how. This is how we pay for schools.
- [48:40]
B
Yeah, but it is.
- [48:41]
A
I love the idea of not paying property taxes, but, like, it's not like that money's going to be replaced.
- [48:47]
B
Yeah. I don't know.
- [48:48]
A
Schools, firemen, you know, important things. Maybe schools aren't that important, but.
- [48:55]
B
Well, based on the product we're getting, I would say that perhaps not.
- [49:01]
A
I think you should, like, create a whole deck. A speech or a deck that bitcoin business. And I think you can go on the sailor road show. I'm not kidding. I think it's one of the more brilliant framings of it that I've heard.
- [49:13]
B
But you can see what I've been. I mean, look, you saw when I came in the industry, I started investing in companies. Yeah, Right. And I started buying bitcoin. I saw node 40. I stuck 8 mil into node 40. It's a great business. Okay? But the more I looked at it, the more I'm like. I think we were about 75,000. I called Perry. I said, perry, I think I own half the company. I said, perry, you got to find another investor, dude, okay? Because I. I don't want. I don't want to go to any more meetings and talk about accounting. This is a huge. This is a beautiful tool, okay? It's a great business. But I have spent my whole life building these things, flying around, meeting people, doing biz dev. And the more I looked at it, I'm like, $70,000 Bitcoin. I got seven and a half million in this business. The business is going to be worth a few hundred million dollars easily one day. So are some of the biggest players in the world. But it has noise.
- [50:10]
A
You just buy bitcoin with all the money you put into that.
- [50:13]
B
I just like, hey, dude, I'm just gonna buy bitcoin because it has no noise. The only noise it has is it does this, and it allows me. Me and Grant bought $108,000 Bitcoin today. We just put bids in. Hey, man, fill me. Fill me when you're ready. Boom. Grant picks up 300. I pick up 30 Bitcoin. And this is.
- [50:32]
A
You think he's gonna stop working? He's just gonna finally give out, give up on all of it and say, I'm working my ass off? No, he's.
- [50:38]
B
No, no, no.
- [50:40]
A
He's a bull. Because he could just buy bitcoin, too. Yeah, he's got enough money that he could just buy bitcoin and be fine forever and not have to do anything else.
- [50:46]
B
He's got 42 funds. See, see, here's. Here's another thing that's a lot of work. He couldn't just stop.
- [50:52]
A
Oh, he can't now.
- [50:54]
B
See, no, he couldn't do. Like you just don't unwind 42 funds. So yes, he's. But I have ultimate freedom here. And I can decide to go anywhere. He's got 42. Like this was his problem getting into bitcoin because the bitcoin people were going, you need to sell everything. You don't just sell 42 fucking assets. 42, 100,000 investors.
- [51:18]
A
I was gonna say. Yeah.
- [51:19]
B
I mean, right. He's got something going there. He likes the real estate business. I don't really find it that interesting. But it's his whole business, it's been his whole life. And he's the right guy to bring bitcoin to it. I knew that for sure.
- [51:34]
A
Clearly.
- [51:34]
B
Like, I knew. I knew. I knew when to hit the guy. Me and. Me and Saylor just.
- [51:42]
A
You had told me the story about him. Saylor calling him a pussy. And then Grant told me this.
- [51:45]
B
I brought.
- [51:46]
A
Grant was like, yeah, he called me a pussy, dude.
- [51:48]
B
I brought Grant into Sailor's house. And I'm like. And Grant. Grant, you know, knows everything. And we're going into there and I'm just like, dude, your pig. And led to the slaughter.
- [52:00]
A
Okay.
- [52:00]
B
He. I was trying to help my brother. But in order to help certain people, you gotta really understand them and do it a different way.
- [52:07]
A
I think I told you, but I brought. We were at the Bitcoin conference. 22.
- [52:11]
B
Yeah.
- [52:12]
A
And this guy, Richard Byworth, I don't know if you remember him, he came up to me, he's like, I'm with Milei, the ex president of Argentina. I really think we can orange pill him. Can you set up a meeting with Saylor? And I text Eric Weiss. You know, Sailor's like, buddy, And I'm like, I've got the Argentinian president. Can we come over and we'll. Sailor meet with him? He's like, yeah, but he's not going to speak. Like, I know he's a president, but like. And went over there and for one hour, Sailor said everything. And Melee didn't say a word. And he left thinking that he had just met the high priest of the future religion of the world.
- [52:45]
B
It's just probably.
- [52:46]
A
But he doesn't. Yeah, he doesn't. Like, Sailor is not hearing it. He's speaking it right. And it's impressive enough that there's not a person on the planet who walks out of there and says, that was dumb. He breaks it down, man.
- [53:01]
B
I think some people have no, he does break it down.
- [53:08]
A
But.
- [53:08]
B
But what got. I think what got Grant was, hey, look, you're not going to do. You're not going to double your real estate position in the next 10 years unless you do something spectacular. And you know his allocation. I think the first one was 15%. That's what Saylor said. Yeah, but look, that's the right way to communicate with Grant because it got his attention. With fair. With due respect to everyone, everyone has their own way of transitioning and coming into something. I mean, I'm a little crazy, okay? Like, or maybe I had more pain or maybe I had an issue I was trying to solve. I think bitcoin is for people who have an open mind because there's some scratch or itch or problem they have. Most people that come in here, they're trying to solve a problem that really come in hard. And I think I'm actually have a safer investment thesis today than I ever have in my entire life. Safer. Much, much, much safer. Much better safeguarded and allowing me to have a better life, which is. I don't know how you value that. Oh, by the way, I also met you and at least five dozen. Five dozen high quality people from an industry I knew nothing about.
- [54:25]
A
Yeah, it's great.
- [54:26]
B
Zero value in the $110,000. Literally five dozen really high quality people.
- [54:32]
A
Some serious big brains in this industry.
- [54:34]
B
Well, and quality. Dude, like. Like if I came. Hey, I need to. I need some place to stay, you guys. You'd be like, stay here tonight. Gary's awesome. I mean, seriously, that, that is not. I've been in five industries. That has not happened to me.
- [54:47]
A
Emmy told you. Just, she was like, if you're still unpacking, just sleep here. Fine. There's a room over there.
- [54:51]
B
Yeah, but it's. It's a. It's an interesting collection of people that are all coming together. That is also one of the things I look at, not just the price. Who's coming in?
- [55:05]
A
Well, it's like Betty Radio. Yeah, Betty on the jockey instead of the horse. If you meet enough. Great job.
- [55:09]
B
Yeah, correct.
- [55:10]
A
But you mean enough good people. You're like, they're on to something.
- [55:13]
B
Oh, and many of these people have serious track records, right? Serious. I mean, Paul Tudor Jones is one of the greatest traders in history, man.
- [55:23]
A
I mean, he might have sparked the last bull run with that fastest horse in the race comment, guys. Well, you've been on board for a.
- [55:31]
B
Long time, you know, and then look at the guys that were on board and they misunderstood it and now they're back on board. Chamath. Can you imagine owning 5% of all the supply of bitcoin and then selling it?
- [55:48]
A
But he's back. He's doing fine.
- [55:50]
B
Oh, yeah, but he'd be in the Oval Office today, dude. If he held all that, he'd be.
- [55:57]
A
In David be buying the Oval Office.
- [55:58]
B
He would be in David's job.
- [56:01]
A
Did you see the, like, the building, the White House ballroom and, like, the leader and the, like, lead donations were like.
- [56:06]
B
What was it?
- [56:07]
A
Coinbase? Yeah, Ripple, maybe. I don't want to misquote, but like three huge crypto companies, they're going to get, like gold bitcoins all over the presidential. Did you get a Coinbase logo on the ceiling of the White House with.
- [56:21]
B
A Trump signature on it?
- [56:23]
A
You were very political for a while. You seem to have fallen off the political train.
- [56:29]
B
I've never been political. Yeah, I don't.
- [56:33]
A
Let me say you were dabbling for a while.
- [56:35]
B
Well, I gave 12.8 Bitcoin to Trump through bitcoin community. I didn't give it directly to Trump. Maybe I should have, but I wanted to do it through bitcoin because I thought the message was more. Well, I thought the message was. And I did that with Bailey. Bailey made one phone call to me.
- [56:52]
A
I'm like, sure, dude, I literally was there with you.
- [56:54]
B
Took me 12 hours or so, you know, And I thought it was a good way for me to tell the bitcoin community that I'm fully in. And also a message to the administration. And it gave me a seat at the table with the Winklevoss guys and all the miners and some of the senators and congressmen to get. Look, I knew I was putting a big wedge into this thing and I just wanted to. I've been.
- [57:17]
A
It's like due diligence.
- [57:18]
B
Yeah, exactly. And I've done some reforms like this before. What I don't like about the politics is all the people in between the leaders. It's a parasitic.
- [57:30]
A
Yeah, it's an unbelievable.
- [57:31]
B
And I just. I'm not getting on my knees to pay homage to anyone and I'm not going to get regged all the time for money. And I think the political system is just extremely toxic and broken. So I'm just going to buy my bitcoin, mind my own business and. Well, I'm not going to really mind my own business. I mean, if I need to be. I want to remain neutral. Bitcoin's allowed me to be independent and speak my peace. And the more I get close to being affiliated with some group. I'm just not the guy that's not gonna say, hey, foul, dude, foul, foul, foul. You know, it's not cool just because I'm in a group.
- [58:15]
A
How much bitcoin is enough then? If bitcoin is your business, it's your opt out from politics. It's your fuck you, leave me alone money. And I'm not. Listen, you're operating at a different level than most people, but is there a point where it's like, okay, I've bought enough of this stuff. I know you're not there yet.
- [58:34]
B
I bought more than I thought I could do. By this point. I'm, I'm, I'm 28% of the way where I want to be. And that's the way I think about it. I think about adding bitcoin. Not, not, not dollar volume, just adding how much bitcoin. You know, look, this is a game that doesn't really. When you say that I don't. It doesn't require massive amounts of my time and energy. I mean, when would I be done buying the best real estate on the planet if I have excess cash and I can buy Manhattan, if you're going to sell me Manhattan over and over and over again and I can't buy anything better than Manhattan or at a monster discount that, you know, why would I stop buying this stuff? Dude, this is a $2 trillion industry. Going to a 200 trillion dollar industry. None of you guys understand how big this is going to be. It started so small. Y' all are looking at it going, oh yeah. But it can't get. This thing can eat everything, everything.
- [59:37]
A
And 2 trillion is nothing.
- [59:39]
B
Nothing. $2 trillion.
- [59:40]
A
I'm old enough to remember when a trillion like was in.
- [59:43]
B
Two trillion dollar industries do not fail. That is a maxim, dude. Like, it's got too much inertia. It has escape velocity. It ain't coming down. So all the money that's sitting in real estate, 330 trillion, $7 trillion sit making 4%. It's going to move into instruments that have access to bitcoin and the people don't even know it. Strc. They don't know it. Good man. Paying my 10% yield, it's going to go into people like my brother whose entrepreneurship is going to be like, whoa, I can double my cap rate. I can get better collateral. I have access to an audience. You know, his first raise, dude, most of his new. They were all new customers for some reason. The real estate bitcoin pitch brought in new players. Not Real estate and not bitcoin players. He was shocked the advertising for him. And I told him this was gonna happen. Dude, it's worth $5 million in advertising. He laughed at me. I bet you it's worth 15 to.
- [60:46]
A
Look what saying bitcoin did for Donald Trump.
- [60:50]
B
Exactly. That's what I tell them, bro, this.
- [60:54]
A
People will pour money at you if you just become one of us. You can even be the most hated person on the planet. Just buy a bitcoin and publicly talk about it and all of a sudden you're hero. Used to be that way. Politicians people hated. Well, it's point one bitcoin disclosure. I love that guy. So I talked about briefly before we go. I got to get you more coffee. I don't want to shut your engine.
- [61:16]
B
Off.
- [61:18]
A
To the upside. How fast and furious do you think it continues up and what are the factors? I mean before I know we got to go but before we stop that get it there. A million in. We both agree bitcoin's going to a million bucks, right? Although I think that a million dollars is going to buy you a lot less if that happens.
- [61:36]
B
A million dollars. A million dollars would be a 21. No $210 trillion market, there's only 16 million Bitcoin because 5 million are lost. Yeah, I think. I mean, look, I don't need it to go to a million dollars.
- [61:55]
A
No.
- [61:55]
B
Either, you know, I'm okay with 110 this year, 120 next year, 130 next year, 140 the following year. If that's all I get, man.
- [62:06]
A
That's because we're guys who grew up being told, hey, if you make 10% in the stock market, you double your money every seven years. Great.
- [62:12]
B
No, that's.
- [62:13]
A
That. That was the everything's a lottery ticket days.
- [62:15]
B
That's not why I'm saying that. What I'm saying is that I have a business that doesn't require any fuel whatsoever. And as long as I'm willing to wait, I know that 10% every year, that $10,000 increase every year. One year it's going to be 50 or 100, and it's going to be a step change. Like, you know when an airplane or a rocket. When a rocket lifts off, it uses all this fuel to get up there. And as soon as it hits atmosphere. What does it do? Jettisons everything, dude. It jettisons everything that got it there. And what does it do? And I think we're going to. We will have this moment. And you can't sit on the sidelines and wait for that moment to show up and go, oh, I'm going to go now. We already know, dude, you can't buy these drops. These drops are very difficult to buy. And the accelerators are hard to buy. Like you can get ripped. It's just hard to place bids in. You know, people are chasing 105 when it's 108 and it's like this.
- [63:20]
A
105 and 108 are the same price.
- [63:22]
B
Exactly. And, and why are they doing that? Like real business people don't do that. This is what I love about Saylor. He's always been right at the market.
- [63:31]
A
Just buying, dude.
- [63:32]
B
Just buying. Doesn't care, dude. Okay, then knock. Goes and buys 118 at once. And like, dude, like all at one.
- [63:39]
A
Time with no way to get more capital right now.
- [63:42]
B
Hello. Empty fuel tanks empty. You didn't, you know, you and I were talking about that the other day. I'm like, hey, where's. Got any more cash?
- [63:49]
A
Yeah, that's the part that didn't quite. You gave me the light bulb moment.
- [63:53]
B
The problem, dude, I mean, you can't run out of fuel in these games, so. Doesn't require any fuel. Have no human error risk. And I'm making 40% a year, but I'm assuming I'm only going to make five or six or eight. Okay. If I assume I'm only going to make five or six or seven or eight, then I live like, I'm only making five or six or seven. Eight. I'm not buying airplanes.
- [64:17]
A
Well, what's a two million dollar Popeyes franchise make you? One hundred and fifty grand for the owner operator. One hundred.
- [64:22]
B
You know what? It, it makes you a slave to a business.
- [64:26]
A
And to make 5%. Yeah, 10% maybe. And that's why you got to own 46 of them.
- [64:30]
B
Pray to God you're not in Tampa when, when a hurricane comes.
- [64:33]
A
It's never happening again. Once in 100 years, buddy.
- [64:36]
B
Right out.
- [64:37]
A
Can't happen. It's science.
- [64:38]
B
The problem is in St. Pete, 18 months later, they still don't have hotels open. Yeah, so that guy's getting crushed and try to collect from the insurance company.
- [64:49]
A
Bitcoin is a business. I'm telling you, man, you like it, you hit it.
- [64:52]
B
Well, let's, let's do something on your show one day and just talk about it. Because to me it's very, very logical.
- [64:58]
A
No, but you need to. I mean, I know you don't want to put in more effort, but you need to like go on a Road show with that concept.
- [65:03]
B
That's got to put that together. I don't know.
- [65:05]
A
I'm just saying it's got legs. Not for profit. I think, like, you just. Even for me, like, you unlocked another. This is avenue for marketing bitcoin that.
- [65:13]
B
People might get when I start investing in some of these. When I listen to the pepys of the world. See, I think about it that way. Hey, wait, wait. Am I going to break my trend? I'm going to violate. Look, see, I came in. Oh, wow. This is the business I'm running. It's a business, dude. Not selling is a business, okay? Like you. And continuing to acquire. Figuring out, hey, where can I get some more cash? Back to the 80 hours. What can I sell, man? See, I have things. Oh, sell that house. Sell those guns. I don't think I'm going to buy that. I'm not going to buy that Range Rover. I don't need that Range Rover, dude. Like, I can make decisions not to do things. And if that makes me incredibly wealthy, it just means I ran my business correctly where my revenues were greater than my operating expenses. Hello, Economics 101, man.
- [66:08]
A
It's making me think I shouldn't have built a studio and I should have just streamed from my bathroom.
- [66:12]
B
Well, I don't.
- [66:15]
A
Get the message out.
- [66:15]
B
Maybe you don't need four studios.
- [66:17]
A
I only got one so far. I got dreams, man.
- [66:21]
B
You should have dreams. But this is the beauty of bitcoin. How old are you? 42? 50.
- [66:27]
A
I'll be 40. I'll be 49 next.
- [66:28]
B
Yeah. So you're a young guy, man.
- [66:31]
A
Feels that way. Well, I feel young, actually. Yeah.
- [66:35]
B
You're probably mentally 12. Yeah, well, that's a fact.
- [66:40]
A
20. Can't wait to drink.
- [66:43]
B
What I was going to say was, you know. John, how old are you? 44, 49. A little bit older. This scenario of running bitcoin as a business works for absolutely every age. I'm sold absolutely every age. And every time I invest in something like knock and it goes down 40%, I'm like, gosh, Bitcoin, I mean, that was $500,000. Okay, that's five Bitcoin that I've just turned into two and a half. Five Bitcoin now. I recovered, okay? I'm not going to die.
- [67:13]
A
I think you might recover it, naka, to be quite honest.
- [67:15]
B
Oh, I think I will probably too. But I wouldn't double down. Most certainly would not double down. And not all these companies gonna make it. No, but it will stolidate.
- [67:26]
A
I think they're gonna consolidate.
- [67:27]
B
It's gonna bring on an M and A play.
- [67:29]
A
Yeah.
- [67:29]
B
Huge. Hey, can I. But just before we end, I want to just do one thing. I do something on Sundays. Church called I am. Well it's not really church. I mean people call it church. I don't want to offend anyone, but one of the things I've learned from some of the greatest traders in the world is they are some of the most introspection, introspective people I've ever known. Really not. They look at all their areas where they're blind to that could lead to a catastrophic risk play. I have found doing this work called what I call I am. I think the two most important words in the human vocabulary just to like you learn early on in your life, hey, I know who I am. Not right and not. And knowing who you're not. Like I will never run another large company. I don't want to do it. I'm not like that anymore. And it's really important for me to know because if I got driven into a role like that, I would hate it. Right. And now I'm no longer on purpose. So I just wanted to tell your audience if you guys are struggling, if you're looking for direction, I have a little thing. I brought you a book and it's called the I am book. And this is your way. This is just for you and for you to. I just drove down the store and grabbed the book but just to like, hey, I am Scott Melker. Today I think people really are confused as to who they're supposed to be and who they're supposed to operate like. And we've never taken any time. We were talking about your kids are social media but. Yeah, yeah but we were talking earlier about your kids and like imagine if you're a 6 year old. Their first course is I am Bobby and I am a. You know, whatever they are. But they begin envisaging who they are and we just spend very, very little time on that. So anyway, I just found it helpful. Thought I'd bring you a book. Appreciate it. Start doing your IMs.
- [69:28]
A
I will.
- [69:29]
B
Ain't gonna hurt you as always. Promise you that.
- [69:31]
A
Thank you so much.
- [69:38]
B
Let's dope.