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The Wolf Of All Streets
Is Bitcoin The Ultimate Winner? USA Hits $36 Trillion Debt Bomb!
01:00:44
Is Bitcoin The Ultimate Winner? USA Hits $36 Trillion Debt Bomb!
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- [00:00]
Scott Melker
The United States will reportedly hit the debt ceiling today, reminding us once again why bitcoin is such an important asset. Will controversy over the debt ceiling send bitcoin soaring? Or will it be yet another victim of risk assets going down, as Michael Bloem loves to tell us about on Monday? We also have a slew of executive orders coming today. The crypto community very disappointed that we were not the number one priority on the planet earth for Donald Trump's executive orders on day one. He didn't mention us. We're going to have fun staying poor. He hates us. It was all a scam. No, guys, I don't think that's what's happening here. We're going to unpack it all with the team from Arch Public, of course got Tillman and Andrew and then very special now repeated guest Paget Staco from Gemini. Let's go, let's, let's do what is up everybody. I'm Scott Melker, also known as the Wolf of all streets. Before we get started, please subscribe the channel and hit that like button. Gonna go ahead and bring on our amazing panel of Tuesday guests. Good morning everybody. Donald Trump hates you. Hate you because he did not prioritize your executive orders. I'm looking at the three of you bitcoin and crypto people myself too. You know, got 47 of them out, apparently 200 total coming. He didn't mention bitcoin of all things in his inauguration speech. He was too busy mocking his opponents and shaming them. Shame, shame. But here we are, David Bailey here saying got confirmation tonight that our executive orders are coming among the first 200. I have no idea what made it but good news cover. So these are coming apparently, right. So should we be disappointed that it Wasn't the first 47 or it didn't happen in the first day? I mean Ross Ulbricht still in jail, right? A lot of first day promises awaiting fulfillment here. I mean Padgett, what do you think? Are you, did you cry when you're sleep?
- [02:09]
Paget Staco
No tears shed. I definitely think I expected at least some sort of mention yesterday. So was a little disappointed to not hear anything at all. But that being said, you know, focusing on what decisions were made. So some of the individuals that you know have been appointed at least in the interim that are pro crypto, I think we're heading in the right direction and excited to see what, what gets signed potentially today and this week.
- [02:35]
Scott Melker
And Andrew, our boy Gensler, it's official, he's gone.
- [02:39]
Andrew
He's gone. So that's one Christmas present that was unwrapped.
- [02:42]
Scott Melker
I feel like we did that, by the way. I know there was a whole election and everything, but I did get fire. Gary Gens are trending first.
- [02:50]
Andrew
That's true.
- [02:50]
Scott Melker
He's resigning. He got fired. Right.
- [02:54]
Andrew
I will say that, that most of crypto Twitter sounded like a bunch of spoiled children that didn't get the presents they wanted on Christmas. You know, there's a movie about that, the Christmas Story, where he wants a red, red, you know, river rifle or whatever it is. You'll shoot your eye out, so be careful what you have, kid. And, and then at the same time, you know, that, well, there's another present over there, Ralphie, what do you think? And so he pulls it out from behind the tree. I think that's what we'll get over the next few days and weeks, is that we'll, we'll get our, our rifle, you know, and probably a few folks will shoot their eye out meme, coins included. So it, it, it's a, you know, it's a mixed bag. But at the same time, you know, new news moves at the speed of light these days, especially on, on crypto Twitter, people want immediate satisfaction. That's kind of the whole point. And the ethos and the underbelly of crypto, we want to buy something and it 10x immediately. So why would that be any different in terms of our expectations politically? But the reality is, is that, you know, when you're dealing with nation states and the takeover of the world's largest government and superpower and somebody is, you know, on essentially on stage for 18 hours straight. Yeah. You know, maybe, maybe there are secondary priorities that are yet to come.
- [04:23]
Scott Melker
It was a Red Rider. Really quickly, Tobin. It was a red rider carbine action, 200 shot range model. And I'm wondering who's going to stick their tongue to the pole and freeze their tongue to the pole for the Christmas. Go ahead, Tillman, jump in. Did you get your red rider?
- [04:39]
Tillman
Yeah, I did, because I love the shakeup. Just stir the pot. Listen, at the end of the day, if you haven't figured out that Donald Trump is unpredictable, you haven't figured anything out. And he's not going to play by anybody's script other than his own script. He knows what he wants to do and he's targeted those things. And bitcoin, I think, is a large part of his agenda and his priority. I still don't think, based upon the recent events, that he or his family understand it. And that's just a natural evolution of the markets. And so, yeah, I don't think we're going to have the immediate satisfaction that we've been thinking about since the bitcoin conference of the next bitcoin president. I don't think that's going to be the case. But I do think if you want to talk about less regulation versus more regulation, we're at 10x of what I thought it was going to be. I mean, him doing the meme coin three days before his election, I, I don't see that you could make a bigger statement towards regulation than that. I don't think even if he came out day one and signed all the executive orders that we wanted, talked about bitcoin, all those things, you know, it looks like a pretty blue sky in front of us as it pertains to innovation coming number one and regulation, then they're supporting it and not regulation first and then kind of find out what innovation you can within that box. So I, you know, I took it as a net, net positive for, for the entire industry, for sure.
- [06:18]
Scott Melker
Structurally, nothing has changed. We got all the appointments that we wanted. Chevron was overturned before he was even there. We're going to get the deregulation. We're going to have a friendly sec. Carolyn Pham, now CFTC chairman, very crypto friendly. Ujeda now is the acting chairman in the sort of interim before Atkins. I mean, we definitely got everything we wanted. I think the problem is that bitcoin maximalists are being forced to cope with the first crypto president and not the first president. And I don't say that sarcastically. I think that that's, you know, you had him at the bitcoin conference and people thought that, you know, we were talking about strategic bitcoin reserve and then he's firing off multiple meme coins a day before. I mean, I don't know if you guys saw this. Pastor Zoe, the guy who literally, like prayed for him at the inauguration. This dude comes out like, the minute he gets off stage. The crypto community was kind of Lorenzo and then like, as if he was ignorant to what this is. So I permanently locked my tokens into a liquidity pool. I mean, come on, bro. We know that somebody wrote this tweet knows exactly. But yes, glory to God for the meme coin that has pump at the end of the title. The governor is off. It's going to be buck wild but not bitcoin focused.
- [07:30]
Andrew
Well, if you, if you lived at all through about 1996 through early 2000, this is not all that different than the IPO craze associated with dot coms. Right. All you had to do was put.com on your, your industrial business and you were immediately taken public and your, your, your stock pumped like crazy, even though it had nothing to do with the business or the business was garbage. It's literally the same thing. And so there's this, there's this shift that's happened from a capital standpoint. Right. I don't know if anybody's noticed, but the IPO market in the United States and globally is nearly zero and has been for over the last five years. Right. All of that speculation and has moved into the crypto space. Right. So if you're going to do anything having to do with capital, you want less restriction, nothing, no regulation on you, that's going to move into that space. And by the way, the case could be made that underneath all this, and I don't think this is well thought out by anybody in the, in the Trump world, but this is kind of like, hey, traditional finance, if I want to raise 50 billion or 60 billion or 80 billion, I can just do it with the flick of a wrist. Right.
- [08:52]
Scott Melker
Casual.
- [08:53]
Andrew
So there's, there's, yeah, there's also that concept. And then a third concept is, is you just showed that chart, that chart isn't all that different than the traditional finance stock of DJT when it first actually came out and went public. So this has happened before, right? The Trump family, the Trump name that. The Trump idea of raising capital through different means. This has happened before. It's not something that's new. It's not something that's surprising. Maybe the timing is surprising, I guess, because as you said, bitcoin Maxis expected the focus to be on bitcoin. I had the thought yesterday because as you said, bitcoin Maxis were, you know, up in arms about this didn't happen. That didn't happen. That didn't happen. And I, I had thought to myself, I'm like, hey, guys, this is an inauguration. This is not the bitcoin conference. What are we talking about?
- [09:51]
Scott Melker
He didn't even say fire Gary Gensler twice in his inauguration.
- [09:55]
Andrew
Yeah. I mean, the whole point is that again, as a nation, as he's talking to the nation, 97 of the nation doesn't know who Gary Gensler is. They have no idea who that person is. So why would there be much commentary at all about it? Of course there wouldn't be. Now, what follows on, we'll see. But I, I was not all that surprised. And, and I kind of sat Back all weekend and watched what happened and what went down and everybody's reactions to it. And I'm like, again, there's a pattern in history here of leveraging all the levers and pulleys associated with finance. And again, I'm surprised by this. Both with Trump and Elon Musk, for example, people continue to radically underestimate these guys abilities to do things in different spaces. And I, I just like to watch and listen and. And then six months later go back and say, hmm, how'd that work out, Patrick?
- [10:56]
Scott Melker
Did the meme coins surprise you? Like, listen, like, this is Trump Stakes, Trump Water Trump University Trump. Like, the guy's been launching some sort of meme with his name on it that he's endorsing forever.
- [11:06]
Paget Staco
Yeah, right.
- [11:07]
Scott Melker
This is like, this is the digital on meth version of all the things that he's done before. And to be quite frank, my feeling is that he just kind of told his team, do what you want and send the tweet.
- [11:20]
Paget Staco
Yeah, I. I agree. I mean, I don't think it was totally unexpected. You had the first ever crypto ball Friday night. Why not stick with the theme launch? Launch some sort of merch or commemorative memorabilia. Right. In this case, came in the form of a meme coin. I think, again, you know, Andrew, kind of to harp on what you're touching on here. Not everyone even knows what that is. Right. So those who are benefiting from this meme coin from, you know, the initial pump here, are those who are already in kind of the deep waters of the meme coin space. Right. This was not net new, you know, crypto players coming in here by any means. So, yeah, I think not unexpected, I think. Definitely interesting tactic for sure. You know, we've seen the entire family be pro crypto involved more broadly in the space. I think it's really about the team that's surrounding them that actually knows much more.
- [12:14]
Scott Melker
Right. I mean, is this like the natural evolution that we've seen of most people who come into the space? Right. You kind of. You come in through. You see Elon Musk talking about Doge, and you get really excited and sign up for an exchange, then, you know, you have to watch it go down. Eventually you find bitcoin and become more mature. I mean, are they just like literally going through the. The crypto process, like live in real time in front of the. In front of us, or. I lean towards what we both said, which is kind of like there's a team behind this that knows exactly what they're trying to do here, and they're doing it with his name kind of on it.
- [12:50]
Tillman
I think the culprit, Solana, to be honest with you, if you want to pin the tail on the donkey, the people that he has surrounding him right now have, in my opinion, been some of the major forces behind Solana's success. It's not a, it's not new to anybody that Solana is backed more than any other coin by VCs and kind of started by the VCs. And you know, if you look at the, the bitcoin maximalists that we would have thought would have surrounded him, those are the people that would have had to have been in his ear to make it a bitcoin centric, you know, candidacy. And I think right now you, like you said, there's an education that's being done and if you have seen anything, I think that the error of his ways was launch, launching Melania token. I think the bitcoin, I think the Trump token, to Andrew's point, probably would have had a lot of success. I think you, you kind of, you, you ruined it by launching the Melania Token, in my opinion. But nonetheless, it may still, you know, thrive and, and continue the, you know, the trajectory that it kind of started with. I don't, I don't know what the future holds. I can just tell you from my vantage point, you're going to run into the same problems that everybody else runs into when they try to scale through Solana. You're going to have crashes, you're going to have network outages. You're going to have this. So the markets should be what we trust to educate people. And that's not a straight line. And it doesn't happen overnight. It's something that, you know, you have to use the technology for a long time really, before you start understanding what the differences are and why one's better than the other, how fair and equitable distribution looks through proof of work versus, you know, minting a token and managing the, the, the allocation from day one. Like all of those things are complex things that, To Andrew's point, 99% of the people out there don't think about, don't know about. They put crypto, including bitcoin, in just this basket of, oh, yeah, it's crypto. And, you know, I was at a hockey tournament this weekend and it was surprising to me how many people were talking about xrp. And so that if that shows you anything like, you know, it's education for everybody is the point.
- [15:15]
Scott Melker
The lovely woman who cleans My house last Tuesday, asked me about xrp. She came out, she said, I love what you do. My husband watches your stuff. He's really interested in xrp, you know, should he buy it or not? I just kind of like swallowed my drink casually and said, do your own research. But if we're talking about sort of the team behind him, I understand your point on Solana. This is another sort of funny, funny example, right? They, they bought a ton of crypto yesterday. World Liberty Finance. This is the team behind all of it. 47 million. 47 million. WBTC, which is the part that I want to unpack, right. Even Taylor said, hey, the president just bought $47 million in Bitcoin to commemorate his inauguration day pageant. He bought $47 million in a tokenized version of bitcoin on the Ethereum blockchain.
- [16:08]
Paget Staco
Yeah, I think really interesting, right? I. I guess, you know, trying to think about all this, right? Even on this XRB topic, we're still seeing that herd mentality, right? Like people in your ecosystem are asking about XRP because it made normal news headlines. It came out of crypto Twitter last week, I was getting text messages of all friends and family members who don't have Gemini accounts, right. Who are skeptical about bitcoin for years now, yet are seeing XRP come up on headlines, on their TV channels and on their social media networks where they're actually starting to ask about it. I think this is really interesting for, again, those not in this space, they're not able to differentiate what the wrapped bitcoin versus actual bitcoin means. That being said, you know, I'm just watching my Twitter feed pop up right now, and we're just seeing Elon Vivek. All these guys are pretty constant and, and active right now. So I'm waiting for some more crypto tweets to come out, I think. You know, we saw Sailor again make another big purchase this morning.
- [17:12]
Scott Melker
So yeah, yesterday I was actually. That was interesting because I saw, I was thinking about that. I didn't look today, but there was Sailor Tracker on Sunday, so we're gonna have to update the dots. The usual. How much did he buy today?
- [17:22]
Paget Staco
I guess I can bought 11,000 this morning.
- [17:25]
Scott Melker
Casual billion.
- [17:26]
Andrew
Casual billion dollars.
- [17:27]
Paget Staco
Casual billion dollars. Yeah. I think he's got almost 30 billion total, right? If we're looking at the past 10 months.
- [17:34]
Tillman
Well, to me, the force that we should be trusting is Larry Fink's force. Like there. The Wall Street's not going to stop innovating around bitcoin. Wall street understands the crypto landscape much better than the, you know, Donald Trump and his, you know, advisors.
- [17:53]
Andrew
Yeah, that's the proof in the pudding here is that all this, you know, every, the gnashing of teeth on, on crypto Twitter over the weekend and coin could care less. Yeah. Reason why bitcoin could care less. Last time we had Padgett on the show it was at 108. That was a month ago. It's currently at 100.
- [18:09]
Scott Melker
Oh, now we're poor.
- [18:12]
Andrew
Heading to, heading to 105. Meaning that no matter what's going on with Trump and what everybody wants to talk about, the real action is on, you know, when the markets are open on Tuesday morning or Monday morning on any given week and where are the flows, where are the nation states, where are the, you know, corporate bitcoin strategic reserves on corporate balance sheets? That's where the action, that's literally where the action is on Bitcoin. Everything else is just going to continue to be noise. You know, the XRPs of the world, the meme coins of the world. The truth of the matter is is that, that that road has gone from 2 lanes to 12 lanes at this point. But at the same time, that's where the real action is. It's proven by the price action. No question.
- [19:02]
Tillman
Couldn't agree more. And I, I would even say like, that that's more tradfi now, like that's almost being talked about by the tradfi community on a daily basis, like their main punchline. Whereas if you look at what they World Financial bought yesterday. Scott, you talk about this all the time. Ethereum has a lot to catch up. I mean there's, if you're a pure trader and you're just looking for the safest multiplier that you can get, Ethereum looks really good right now, in my opinion. If you're not cognizant of the, you know, what's going on behind the scenes on Wall street with Bitcoin. But if you're just looking to make a quick buck, I wouldn't argue that they're making a pretty serious commitment to Ethereum through those purchases. And the fact that, you know, it's wrapped BTC on probably going to just.
- [19:53]
Scott Melker
Provide liquidity for Trump to launch on Ethereum. Let's be real, right? Come on, man.
- [20:00]
Paget Staco
That'S harping on your corporate point, right? So we're, we saw kind of obviously the Bitcoin maximalist. We're seeing some of these corporations, microstrategy come in now. We've got government that we're kind of waiting. We're seeing wrapped bitcoin, et cetera. You know, I'm just again, watching kind of what's coming in through Twitter feeds this morning. You've got pool who's in the space. Right. Industry. They've just purchased 500 Bitcoin. So I think we're going to start to see a lot of that this week, actually, and see a lot more of the corporate commitment in the space of kind of some of the biggest donors and backers of kind of this new regime there.
- [20:35]
Andrew
There were some points made by a couple of bitwise folks over the last, let's call it 10 days. One on the corporate side is Matt Haugen talking about there's going to be a super cycle associated with corporates buying bitcoin. Bitcoin. And then last week on the show, Jeff park talking about why that's a very meaningful thing. Right. So you get upside to the stock and you get protection from short sellers because they don't want to short what they don't know. They don't, what they don't understand. They're not gonna, they're not gonna short that. The other thing that Jeff said, yes, kind of in the midst of all this, you know, crypto Twitter drama over the weekend is, you know, meme coins. The ship's already sailed on whether or not this is a real thing and a movement is going to continue. It is going to continue, continue because the gamification of overall markets is already. That ship has already sailed. Right. We have the Robin Hoods of the world, by the way, Trump being listed on Coinbase and Robin hood within about 15 minutes of it coming out. That wasn't that, that wasn't a mistake. That wasn't a, oh, how'd this happen? And so the gamification of markets, and he made some points about some products, you know, like 2X, you know, Nvidia options, ETF or something like that was the most traded ETF all year last year. Right. So the gamification of markets is, you know, started back when Renaissance Tech started high frequency trading, you know, pennies on the dollar associated with companies. They don't care what companies do. They're extracting returns based on the gamification of how markets work. So same thing here, same thing with meme coins. And so you're getting the whole macro movement with Matt associated with corporations putting bitcoin on their balance sheet. And then with Jeff, you're getting the gamification of markets and alpha that's going to continue to exist. Out there. And so if you want to play in the, in the meme world, there's real alpha out there. There's no doubt about it. Like, even if you got in at 20, 25 or 30 on Trump's, you know, mean token and you wrote it to 50 or 60, you made serious money. Same thing with Melania. If you got in, you're like, oh, yeah, this is actually real. And you got it at 30 and it went a little bit. Whatever the numbers were, you made money. So it's interesting again, the noise associated on crypto Twitter, but then there's the reality that none of, none of this stuff is going away.
- [22:59]
Scott Melker
Go ahead.
- [23:00]
Tillman
I just was gonna say none of it's going away, but I actually think we're evolving into something more material than what we have been. Look at what meme coins have been in the past. It's been pictures of animals and, you know, horrific words that with coin behind it. You know, if we can, if we can look at this as like, I'd rather buy a meme coin that's attached to a real brand or a real personality. I think that's a level up from the, where we sit today with fart coin, for example. I mean, what are we complaining about in the sense that, you know, this is going to open up. Will there be infinitely more failures and scams attached to people like the pastor that you showed? You know, yeah, there will be, but there also will be.
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Scott Melker
That's God.
- [23:47]
Tillman
But they're also. But there also will be legitimate ones that survive and thrive and that are attached to real world access and, you know, neat things. I actually said this a couple years ago. If Taylor Swift wanted even, you know, five years ago, wanted to make her entire fan base rich, she would do a meme coin and she would just give the supply away to all of her, you know, VIP followers. And that would be an incredible way to pump liquidity into a specific market that she could affect and target. Trump did the exact same thing. You know, I think his fatal flaw was he didn't stop at Trump and went into the Melania token. But, you know, I think this is going to be a trend. I think you can't stop it. Like Andrew said.
- [24:31]
Scott Melker
Yeah, Padgett. But I want to ask you, obviously, like, you don't decide what gets listed or not on Gemini, right? But when, when you guys see something like this, first of all, FTX would have had 100x leveraged futures on Trump 30 seconds after it existed. Right? It would have. Right. And I know a number of exchanges. I literally just chat tpc. Okay. X, Kucoin, Gate, Bitget, Kraken Finance. I think quite. How do you guys decide when something like this launches? Because it's kind of a meme and a joke. But then all of a sudden it's like a. Almost a top 10 token.
- [25:05]
Paget Staco
Right.
- [25:06]
Scott Melker
How do you approach that when you want to be the adult in the room? I guess is the real question.
- [25:10]
Paget Staco
Yeah, I think a few different ways in this case. Definitely an interesting one. I would say generally speaking, Ray, any assets that Gemini is looking at go through quite an extensive token review process before they actually get listed on the exchange and or for support and customers. That being said, you know, we've got an OTC desk, we've got some international products outside of the US where we can, you know, be a little bit more flexible. I use that word and kind of say it that way. Right. Actually, Gemini yesterday launched support for Trump gusd in perps. Right. So our derivatives product outside of the US that's now available. So comes a little bit want to be the adult in the room. Also, we are a regulated entity and we kind of have to abide by what those rules and regulations are and the process that we have in place. So quite frankly not available in some of those jurisdictions, but we try to react and try to make that available.
- [26:04]
Scott Melker
For sure. Yeah, I think that's the right approach. Listen, like, we all have our emotional feelings about this. I very seriously doubt it fully. Rug pulls. I don't think that like they're going to do that.
- [26:14]
Andrew
Right.
- [26:14]
Scott Melker
The optics of that would be horrible. There's way more money to be made by not doing that. And I do believe that they want this to succeed over time, it's probably going to remain a top 20, 30, if not 10 market cap token and should effectively be listed everywhere at some point. Right. But it's a really. I would just imagine it's a very strange position to be in where you're like, is this a meme? At first it was like, is this even. Is it a scam? Like, was it even really being tweeted from him? I think now it's settling in. Yeah, it's pretty clear.
- [26:43]
Andrew
It's. I mean, listen, you know, there are differences in terms of the token economics. That's a different conversation. But you know, Pepe exists. You know, Doge has existed for forever. I mean, what are the actual value propositions of those quote unquote assets? Basically nothing other than they exist. Right?
- [27:03]
Tillman
Yeah.
- [27:04]
Andrew
So other than they exist. I would also say that you know, tradfi or Tradfi. Guys, you know, again, like to talk down to crypto, but hey, remember that pink sheet stocks actually still exist, okay?
- [27:19]
Scott Melker
So.
- [27:19]
Andrew
And if you don't know what pink sheets are, they're basically scams run amok. Go watch Wolf of Wall Street. Shout out to Wolf of all streets on this show.
- [27:27]
Scott Melker
I'm not trying to emulate him.
- [27:29]
Andrew
Go watch that. And it's a cute name. Yeah, that. That's the whole point is that. Is that this. This stuff exists on all shapes and sizes. Tradfi and crypto, that there are scams on both sides. And so, you know, I like to talk about both sides and I like to tell people that pink sheets are the equivalent of a quote unquote rug. Pull of a meme coin on Pump Fun. Pump Fun is not a silo onto its own. That stuff exists on the other side of the ledger.
- [28:04]
Scott Melker
We've just supercharged it. I mean, listen, crypto, we know, listen, this is the messy process of the maturation of a new technology to some degree. But we supercharge. Supercharged the good and we supercharge the bad.
- [28:18]
Tillman
What was that EV company, though, that literally made it public and raised billions of dollars and it was all fake. And it was found out that they actually coasted the semi truck down a hill.
- [28:32]
Scott Melker
We got Thanos and Enron. I mean, there's no. No lack.
- [28:35]
Tillman
There's no shortage of scams at every size level on the tradfi side and the crypto side. You can't avoid that. That's no different than the Internet was used for a lot of bad things in the beginning, Nikola.
- [28:51]
Andrew
You're right, Nikola. There you go.
- [28:54]
Scott Melker
We're getting that from the comments from our geniuses over there, because obviously none of us knew the answer. So I want to listen. Shifting from the meme coin and from all that, we kind of have these fundamental structural issues with the economy and with the world that bitcoin solves. I want to talk about that a bit more. Is bitcoin the ultimate winner? USA hits 36 trillion debt bomb. Right. That's our. That's our title. I love to bring this guy up now. Bloomberg's like, we're about to hit 36 trillion. Ish. We're at 36 trillion. 3. 78 million according to this. I think we may have been on this show when it hit 36 trillion and we celebrated, but, I mean, this is the train that's not stopping. Even outside of all the politicians we're hoping to pump our bags or to give us clarity, whatever. Bitcoin's never needed any of that because we have problems like this. I mean, hitting the debt ceiling, debating what that means, how much more money can we print? I mean, we should have a, just huge spotlight right now on why bitcoin matters even outside of all of this. Right. I mean, Padgett, you could take that first, but I feel like we talk about the bitcoin algorithm. You should be dollar cost averaging, watching what Michael Saylor is doing. We still need bitcoin. Forget all the memes, forget all this. Like it's really matters.
- [30:12]
Paget Staco
Yeah, I mean, I think. Right. Last time I was on. And generally speaking, always view bitcoin as kind of this inflation hedge. And so I think having, you know, Trump come in and potentially having, you know, people like Senator Cynthia Loomis with this Bitcoin act. Right. Being able to have U.S. strategic reserves that are in bitcoin, show everyone that we as a government are believing in this, are implementing this, I think it can have a big impact. Obviously. I believe in it. We all do. So I think that's what I'm waiting on. I think being able to contribute that and stockpile some bitcoin in the next five years or however much they end up actually doing it signals the significance here in the US But I think it's actually going to start the snowball effect internationally as well.
- [31:02]
Scott Melker
Yeah. As you look at the takes that they have here about what has happened in the past, the U.S. the treasury will implement extraordinary measures. James Lavish kind of unpacked this yesterday here. That might include running down the treasury general account. Previous TGA drawdowns have supported risk assets, including bitcoin. Is that because at the end of the day it's just liquidity.
- [31:21]
Andrew
I mean, I can speak. This is. The Treasury Secretary left a turd on her desk when she left. And this is part and parcel of that. I mean that, that's just the, the fact of the matter. And it's, and it's politics. You know, the, the, the debt ceiling has, has and always will be politics. It'll get solved either at the last minute or 15 minutes after it lapses or something stupid like that. This has been happening for five, 10 years. It's a political football. While at the same time, the overall issue associated with, you know, the, the, the ballooning debt, not just here in the United States, but globally. Bitcoin is the answer, no question, as an anti inflationary tool. So, yeah, there are issues associated with it that are going to keep bitcoin not Only inflated, but continuing to go higher. And so if we're wanting to connect the two right, the, the debt ceiling issue will be solved sooner rather than later. It always gets solved. But at the same time, the overall debt load associated. Yeah, yeah, the overall debt load. You know, Bitcoin is the answer. And that's a, that's another macro continued tailwind associated with Bitcoin and bitcoin price. And again, putting Bitcoin on corporate balance sheets again is another, is another answer to, you know, global debt loads.
- [32:57]
Tillman
I have a different take on the inflation. I've lived with my dad, who's been a gold bug since the 80s, and he's been talking about the inflationary crack for a very long time. And that was before computers were in every home in America. I think we have an innate ability to innovate beyond the inflationary curve that we have inherited from the politicians. I think what would be interesting is to show a clock that shows the accrued value in crypto and in AI that we are building right now and see which clock's going faster. I would argue that the clock value on the AI side and the crypto side is ripping, and I mean ripping compared to that debt clock. And so, you know, does it catch it? I don't know. I don't know whether we just manage debt like we do individually, where it's.
- [33:53]
Scott Melker
Grow our way through it.
- [33:54]
Tillman
We grow our way through it is what I say. And I think bitcoin though, has a unique capability that we've never seen before in the fact that all other markets are controlled against that inflationary rate, the silver markets, very, very manipulated, very controlled to kind of hide what the true inflation rate is. It's very hard to do that with Bitcoin because of the way that it's structured and because you have on network versus off network buys. But what will be interesting to me is to see whether the executive orders and whether the governmental support it comes through Bitcoin itself or whether it comes through an etf? If you just look at the years past, how do we float money into the economy? Through the banks. So why wouldn't we do the same thing through the banks that are now in a position to sell crypto or sell bitcoin to the government and make it really easy on them. So time will tell. But I think if you look at what we're doing on a technological basis alone, it looks pretty bright from a future perspective. AI is going to change the world in ways that we can't even start to fathom at this point going to.
- [35:03]
Scott Melker
Launch meme coins just like by itself. Yeah, it's kind of already happening actually. And listen, I think I talked about this a bit yesterday, but as bitcoin becomes more mature, it's added to balance sheets, going to be added at some point as a stockpile for a state or more countries. We still don't have the mature financial services on Bitcoin that we want, which are yet to come. You know, like the lending side is what's going to really, I think also just be a massive catalyst. Like if you know anyone who's holding a ton of bitcoin to be able to take a 25, 30% LTV loan, I mean, if bitcoin continues to even go up 6, 7, 8% a year, those are loans you literally never pay back and you ride into the sunset and never sell Bitcoin. Like the tailwind that comes from financial services maturing on this asset should not be like they have to be considered. I mean, even the lack of options and ways to trade this and hedge, they don't exist. I mean Paget, you guys have to be thinking about all of that for the future. You guys have been through the multiple iterations of what was available in previous cycles. But I think that's the Michael Saylor's playbook. Right. He's not just dollar cost averaging into bitcoin. He wants to own enough to be the biggest bitcoin financial services company on the planet.
- [36:22]
Paget Staco
Yeah, I definitely think access to some of those additional capabilities is top of mind for Gemini. Again, kind of seeing where and from a regulatory standpoint, licensing allows us to do such things. Hence, you know, certain capabilities overseas in more the APAC region versus us today. But I think, you know, hopefully seeing that change in the, you know, coming months, year. Right. And making that more available for sure.
- [36:47]
Scott Melker
But I mean as long as the counterparty risk is understood, as long as your custodian's not going to rug pull you. But if this is bank of New York Mellon and State street and Gemini, the ones who have survived and lasted, those big names alongside the crypto natives, if you take a 25% or 30% loan against 25% of your Bitcoin and you literally need a 50% drawdown to even start getting liquidated, at which case if you add more collateral, you are Michael Saylor and you need bitcoin to go down 90% before you even see any liquidation, and then it rises and you just pay back your loan. They're the same rates as mortgages right now. I Mean, nobody's going to be selling bitcoin. Nobody of meaningful size is going to have a reason to sell Bitcoin. When these things exist and are viewed as regulatorily compliant and safe.
- [37:38]
Tillman
Money gets cheaper every day and bitcoin gets more expensive.
- [37:42]
Scott Melker
That's right. I mean, you're effectively loaning a deflationary asset to get a bunch of, of inflationary paper that you want to spend. I think Bill Barheit, when I talked to him about it, he has opera, obviously, and they do this. He was like, it's like, I've been doing it since the beginning. He's like, I call it my lifestyle loan. It's like bitcoin's going to go up 6% a year. So I don't care, you know. But Andrew, that's what's coming, right? I mean, this is.
- [38:09]
Andrew
Yeah.
- [38:10]
Scott Melker
Now if you, like, want to take some off the table, you got to sell, you know, on Saturday.
- [38:15]
Andrew
You know, it's coming and it's coming in so many iterations that, that we haven't thought of them yet. So, for example, I talked about the gamification of markets. Like, oh, by the way, MicroStrategy and Sailor has figured out their own version of gamification using all the poison levers to affect significant upside. You know, that has to do with everything. MicroStrategy. Right. So versions of that will come to other corporates and then because of the benefits of, and the success of that, banks will figure out there's got to be new ways that, that we can benefit from this by lending money, accepting certain things as collateral, not only bitcoin, but equity associated with firms that have Bitcoin on their balance sheet. It will get bigger and bigger. Bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger. Right. So mortgages became a, a leverage point, you know, 50, 60 years ago. Right. And it started like this, and then it became this and this and this. And now it's completely out of the frame. And then of course, we ended up in 2008, but that's another.
- [39:21]
Scott Melker
But it's the only leverage. It's the only leverage that your average. Per leverage, your average person can take on with a relatively low interest rate, which is.
- [39:30]
Andrew
Yeah, but we're in the, the infant stage of, of being able to take the hardest asset that's ever existed and be able to benefit from it in more ways than just holding it in your cold storage wallet. Like, like there is going to be a million ways that it's going to leverage or benefit or yield whatever the, the, the moniker is of the day over Time again. It's going to be a much, much, much, much bigger part of the overall financial, traditional financial markets. We've talked about that on this show ad nauseum. And so products and levels will be built on it and you'll be able to benefit from it and tap into those however you wish.
- [40:18]
Scott Melker
Yeah. And for wealthier people who either trade or invest, once this is Schwab and Morgan Stanley or the rest of them, if you even can just put your bitcoin in that portfolio and use it as a part of your overall margin or part of your overall portfolio, just huge.
- [40:35]
Tillman
Well, it's like adding seasoning to food that's unsalted. It changes the dynamic of any industry, any asset class. Add it to real estate, you've got a differentiator. You've got something that's anti inflationary, you've got these base core values that are attached to bitcoin that are meaningful to every single industry. And so to think that corporations, I think we talked about this last show but you know, six months ago there was 30 corporations that had it on their balance sheet, publicly traded and now there's over 125. That trend is not going to stop. Why? Because people who are struggling need the differentiator to grow their top line. Because they know that, you know, if I'm a, if I sell beef over the Internet and then all of a sudden I accept bitcoin, bam, my sales go up. People are loyal to bitcoin. You get that top line value that you're seeking by attaching your name to the bitcoin brand. But you're also, if you're a publicly traded company, getting a lot of benefit to the downside as well. Because like Andrew said and Jeff pointed out last week, it's hard to short something that you don't understand. And it's harder. It's, there's easier ways to make money. If you love shorting stocks and why would you, why would you gamble with something that has such upside potential with, with very little downside risk? It doesn't make sense.
- [41:58]
Andrew
Short selling firms have been going out of business. I don't know if anybody noticed that.
- [42:01]
Scott Melker
Just ask Heisenberg.
- [42:04]
Andrew
Eisenberg Research shut down last week. Yeah, it's been a good run. We'll see everybody later.
- [42:11]
Scott Melker
So Hindenburg, did I say Heisenberg, which is like the most apt name? Like yes, it was funny the whole time and it was appropriate. But when they shut down, like the short, you know, the crashing of the blimp. Yeah, Hindenburg I don't know why I said Heisenberg had bat. Isn't that bad? Breaking Bad, breaking down the mines. Yeah. But I think once we have this full suite of financial services, things are going to massively change. How do you guys view, like, taking the election out of it and the debt ceiling and all this, that backdrop, like, short term. Do you think that people are viewing bitcoin yet as the answer to these things, or do you think that's still a part of this maturing process? Like, a bunch of us on this show are like, buy bitcoin, the debt ceiling's blown up. But like, how many times is the debt ceiling? You know, but bitcoin has gone up the whole time. To be fair.
- [43:01]
Andrew
It's, it's. I mean, listen, Bitcoin Tillman has made this point a few times. It's a really great analogy. So for 15 years, all the growth of bitcoin has been below the surface. It's been subterranean. Right. The Bitcoin ETFs come to market a year ago and now you've got these little green shoots of bitcoin that people are noticing across the rest of the financial spectrum. And so we're. Even though all of us here on this show have been bitcoin native for at minimum five, some of us, 10 years, the rest of the world is not in any way, shape or form. And they're now seeing these small green shoots and they're like, what is this? What am I looking at here? So we're still, still at a very, very early inning. And no. So the answer to that is no. People, the, the 99 of people have not made the connection associated with, you know, it being an answer to really anything.
- [44:03]
Tillman
Well, especially retail, because retail is only focused on getting 100x gains, really. You know, bitcoin has moved into the position of being something that Warren Buffett, you know, would talk about this kind of boring wealth protection mechanism more than like the upside. But if you understand, I'll tell you, I don't think retail will ever get it, to be honest with you. I think retail will participate in the same way they participate every single paycheck in buying the index. Yeah, yeah, exactly. They're going to participate. But unless you understand compound interest, unless you understand the time value of money and what bitcoin really is as a, as a protection mechanism, it's going to be lost on 99% of people out there, I would think.
- [44:52]
Paget Staco
Yeah, I think that's all fair. You know, quick little plug. I think something really proud on The Gemini front is kind of, you know, our credit card and that ability to give a retail investor, right, normal process action that we're all used to. Go pay for your gas, pay for your groceries, whatever's needed for your household. And instead of just collecting those points and paying, you know, a traditional credit card, company fees and using that into airlines or whatever, it may be. Right. Being able to start earning back in those cryptos of your choice, start having exposure to Bitcoin more passively through the actions that you're already taking. Right. I think it's a really cool feature. I think it's a great access point. And again, kind of that introductory education level, they're not really sure of what they're doing. From a retail perspective, though, they're getting that access and making some sort of investment. So, you know.
- [45:42]
Tillman
Well, they're getting that they're getting to participate and tell everyone that they're participating. I've said this to Jeff last week, and I think you're spot on, Paget. I think product development is the most important part of the bitcoin ecosystem right now, both from a tradfi side and from a crypto side. I think the more products that are out there that retail can engage with, it's a rising tide. It floats all ships and everyone eventually will participate in Bitcoin through the indexes, like you said, Scott. But right now it's few and far between just because people don't understand really the value behind it.
- [46:18]
Scott Melker
It's already happening. If you own the nasdaq, any exposure and microstrategy is getting added. Right. Whether you like it or not, it's coming. Jeff has a Gemini card and is the thickest, heaviest card he's ever had.
- [46:31]
Paget Staco
Let's go.
- [46:32]
Scott Melker
Good insight, good insight there.
- [46:35]
Andrew
Yeah.
- [46:35]
Scott Melker
Dude, you can't shred a credit card anyway anymore. It's like you need a blowtorch to destroy a credit card. So listen, speaking of products, because we've only got 10 minutes left, I want to talk about, obviously, the partnership between Arch Public and Gemini that sort of brings all four of us in some way together. The Bitcoin algorithm by Arch Public maybe give us the quick tldr. Anyone who wants to jump in can do it and why this is so compelling and powerful.
- [47:02]
Tillman
Yeah. Again, product development is, I think, at the forefront of making it easy. And this allows somebody with. With very little knowledge or experience to. To use a tool that puts them at the cutting edge of technology and gives them the ability to set it and forget it out of sight, out of mind, not ride the roller coasters of trying to pick a price or pick a specific date or time the market, but gives them a very passive, easy way to accumulate Bitcoin. Not only accumulate, but to trade it. So the algorithm is essentially a means for people who don't have the time to sit at their computer every day and figure out what they want to do to start using it as a savings account essentially and seeing the benefit over long periods of time. And that is the secret, as boring as that sounds, you accumulating Bitcoin over a large period of time is why we are all here. Because that's been the story for the last 16 years. There's really nothing that beats doing that. And so our algorithm not only allows you to accumulate, but it buys systematically on the dips so that you're not having to wait until Sunday night at 2am to see the dip and be at your computer to make those purchases.
- [48:23]
Scott Melker
There was a 48 hour period last week where it was like 10289 5. 100.
- [48:31]
Andrew
Yeah, right.
- [48:32]
Scott Melker
And so if you're passively dollar cost averaging, which is great, totally encourage it. Like imagine if you bought at 98 all three of those days instead of buying at 90 on the day. It's a meaningful difference.
- [48:44]
Tillman
Well, that's the benefit to the retail side. And then if you're a more sophisticated trader, there are feature sets that allow you to choose what the percentage drop looks like when you purchase, what percentage rise looks like when you sell, and allows you both entry and exit capabilities to play arbitrage in those in dips and rises. And the volatility then starts producing cash flow for you while you're buying bitcoin and accumulating. For example, if I enter a position of bitcoin, let's say it's a short term trade and Bitcoin drops. Well, the algo won't sell that because it's a loss. What it will do is it will put it in your long term accumulation so that you have kind of two piles, you have a trading pile and then you have a long term accumulation pile. By doing so, you're getting kind of the best of both worlds. When you have a trending market that's just bouncing up and down, it's producing cash flow on those, on that trend or in that channel. But when you have the parabolic rises that happen every four years or every three years, you're getting to ride the wave of accumulation and the long term potential. So you have short term gains and long term gains. And productizing that functionality for consumers, both retail and institutional, in a way that makes it very simple, very transparent. They can print out the schedule, the purchasing schedule or the sell schedule and actually have a vote inside of their boardroom on which path they want to choose, put it to rest and not have some, you know, human being responsible for the execution of that. That's a lot of execution risk algorithms do all of that for you. And they don't do it based upon emotion or, you know, scheduling or anything else that, you know, real world people have to contend with.
- [50:31]
Andrew
If you can scroll just a little bit further, there's a, there's a new chart on our home page that I just, I just want it to sit there and people look at it right there, that chart, that chart you just scrolled by. So, so that's the, that's the arbitrage strategy for our bitcoin algorithm. And I'll let Tillman's, you know, statement stand and, and, but I'll just, I just want everybody to understand what that chart is and what it looks like, buys and sells at different intervals essentially over the past, let's call it, year or so. The bitcoin algorithm, its arbitrage strategy and all of its other capabilities are truly, truly a unique tool for retail. Doesn't exist in many other spots. And so our relationship with Gemini, your ability to use this tool on Gemini gives you just a leg up versus everybody else. And that chart and what that looks like is a pretty good piece of art associated with, with what's available to you.
- [51:36]
Scott Melker
I mean, Padgett, just quickly from the Gemini side, now that you see that's obvious successful, it's working, it's popular. Can we do this on, I mean, bitcoin's unique and wanting to. Can we do this on everything? And there's people who are very equally passionate. I mean, look, we got news right here. I don't know if there's real breaking Trump bonked doge ETFs filed with the SEC. So, like, guys, we're getting our asset class, very serious stuff here. And the things that people actually want a dollar do we see on other assets, are people going to want that as a demand?
- [52:09]
Paget Staco
Yeah, I mean, I definitely think I'll let Andrew and Tillman speak to that a little bit further. But as this continues to expand beyond bitcoin, the want is definitely there. The access to it is also already there via arch public. So I'll let you guys, I guess, make that plug. But yeah, I think we're going to See, this transfer across many other assets. Again, Bitcoin kind of being toes in the water, get things wet, get exposure to the space. You know, again, being able to utilize something like Gemini from the qualified custodian standpoint, work with Arch Public, give access to that, set it and forget it. You know, there's a lot of options directly on the Gemini exchange, of course, that everyone does have access to, but why not, you know, again, pay for a service where you're getting that extra mile, you're getting those additional functionality and access to kind of these capabilities. So Andrew and Tillman, I don't know if either of you want to speak to kind of some of the assets in the hopper for sure. Right. Just so people listening know what's currently available.
- [53:06]
Scott Melker
For sure.
- [53:07]
Tillman
Yeah, We've built the algorithm to work with any of the assets that Gemini offers. We trust Gemini's due diligence process. We think that they've handled the last five years better than any other exchange. And we want everything that they offer to be offered to our consumers as well. And so, yes, the algorithm will be across all cryptos that are available through Gemini. We had started with Bitcoin, Sol and Etherium. They're obviously the biggest by market cap so far other than XRP now. And we'll, we'll be soon adding those as well. There's not much development needs that we have to do in order to add those. So, yeah, bright future as it pertains to getting access to everything that they offer.
- [53:55]
Scott Melker
I know we only got a couple minutes and Patrick probably has to run, but. Andrew, I'm just gonna let you talk about this real quick because it's not just the, the dollar cost averaging.
- [54:04]
Andrew
Yeah. So, you know, we've talked.
- [54:05]
Scott Melker
Do I need to let you go before I let Andrew talk? Because.
- [54:08]
Paget Staco
Yeah, if you don't mind.
- [54:09]
Scott Melker
I don't.
- [54:11]
Paget Staco
As always, pleasure to be here. Definitely speak to you guys soon.
- [54:15]
Scott Melker
Awesome, thank you.
- [54:16]
Tillman
See you, Padgett.
- [54:17]
Andrew
So, you know, the, the numbers speak for themselves. So last Friday, you know, our NASDAQ swing trade alos, the N.N.Q. and the MNQ finished off trades to the tune of the numbers you see there. 15.98% on the NQ, which is the larger futures contracts, the MNQ, the smaller futures contracts, 12.57. You know, over the past 120 days, this particular algorithm, 67%, 61%. These are just massive numbers that are, are a testament to algorithmic capabilities. Right. And it's interesting, you know, if you, if you scroll down a little bit there and you show the chart, right? The chart oftentimes does such a great job of telling the story. Look at the entry down there, right? The entry near the bottom of that particular move and then the exit near the top. The reason why we believe in algorithmic trading so much is because that is so hard to pull off as a human being, not only from a timing standpoint, but from an emotional standpoint. That particular chart, bottoms and tops, it's just. It's nearly impossible to pull off. So listen, our. Our NASDAQ algorithms exist inside of our concierge program, so we encourage folks to reach out to us and get more information about our concierge program. People benefit in a significant way from not only the work that we do on our algorithms, but also the incredible service that we provide people.
- [55:55]
Tillman
Well, and it's interesting to note too, while you have that graph up, if you'll go back to it, the. The same dip technology or DIP programming that we've built into the by the dips on the Bitcoin side is exactly what you see on that dip where the entry was. It's. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see a bunch of red candles and know that, man, there's a major dip going on. But to Andrew's point, emotionally buying that dip is. Is very hard, and it doesn't mean it's not going to continue to go down. But there's a lot of math that should be being done in order to take that position. And the hardest time to do that math is when you're emotional about it. And so dips and rises are the peaks and the troughs of emotion and trading. So by removing that and just making it all about math, it really makes your life a lot easier, the emotional roller coaster easier and really takes it more to a. Once you've decided what you want out of it, you can determine the settings, you can change the settings. We'll help guide you through learning how to use the tool. But, boy, does it make it a lot less emotional, a lot less stressful when. When you. When you're doing it outside of the moment is, I guess, the point.
- [57:14]
Scott Melker
So trading Trump ETFs.
- [57:18]
Tillman
We don't have a marshmallow yet.
- [57:22]
Andrew
Well, again, remember, you know, the Trump meme coin was added to Coinbase and Robin Hood very quickly. So my guess is, is there's nobody's.
- [57:34]
Scott Melker
Afraid of what to listen.
- [57:36]
Andrew
Maybe a little more of a road map there than we give people credit for.
- [57:40]
Scott Melker
By the way, this is the actual website right now for doge.com. an official website of the United States government. Simply a picture of our beloved.
- [57:54]
Andrew
That's right.
- [57:55]
Scott Melker
I mean, if that doesn't tell you everything you need to know about what's coming, I really don't know what does. It's.
- [58:00]
Andrew
It's really something. It's hard to even grasp the paradigm shift, even inside of crypto. Twitter. Like, we're so kind of conditioned in this silo that to do this and kind of, you know, fight or flight that we've had for so long to now be in this space where things are just wide open. It's like, I don't know if I'm super comfortable. What are we doing here? What. What should we do? And so, you know, it's a new. It's a new day, no doubt.
- [58:31]
Tillman
Well, I'll tell you just a. I think it's a blessing in disguise. Would you rather the contributions in the future, you know, presidential races go through super PACs where it's all hidden, or do you want it all on a blockchain? I'd rather have it all on a blockchain, to be honest with you.
- [58:46]
Scott Melker
Like, as long as the grift is public and you have proper disclosures which are listening. The disclosures are coming. Like, that's what Atkins and Purse are going to focus on. So everybody's going to at least have a quick paragraph there to read exactly what you're buying, I would imagine. And then, you know, that's up to you. I know we got to go here. 10:03am Andrew, you looked like you had a final thought.
- [59:08]
Andrew
My final thought is, is simply stay, Stay invested. You know, I. I think that the economy at large, I think crypto at large is going to continue to move up into the right. There are no, you know, there are no locked doors anymore. And so, you know, we're in for quite a ride. Stay invested.
- [59:32]
Scott Melker
Totally agree. Guys, check out Arch Public. We'll go back up to the top really, really fast. Seriously, just check it out. Archpublic.com you might get a conversation with one of these guys not on YouTube to discuss it. And that's all we got. We'll be back, obviously, on spaces in 10 minutes, 10:15am Eastern Standard Time, but back tomorrow, not sure who the guest is. I'm. Now I'm curious. I'm gonna look. I know we got Chris Inks, obviously. Oh, Sujit Roy. We'll get into that tomorrow. This, if you want to talk about AI and crypto, tomorrow is going to be the show, what they're building. So he's the head AI guy at NASA. And there's built like a competitor to the Aura ring. It's insane. I just want. Literally I heard about it. I don't have. There's no token yet. There's no nothing, no investment. It's just so cool. I had to bring the guy in the show. So that's happen tomorrow. All right guys, that's all I got. Andrew Tillman Paget. Thank you guys so much. See you later. Let's do.