JPMorgan Opening Bitcoin Trading to 90M Customers | Crypto Town Hall

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Wolf Of All Streets – JPMorgan Opening Bitcoin Trading to 90M Customers | Crypto Town Hall

Host: Scott Melker
Release Date: May 20, 2025

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I. Introduction to JPMorgan’s Move

Scott Melker kicked off the episode by highlighting a groundbreaking development in the cryptocurrency space: JPMorgan Chase has opened Bitcoin trading services to 90 million customers. Historically, JPMorgan's Bitcoin exposure was limited to its wealthy clientele through its wealth management services. This shift signifies a broader institutional embrace of Bitcoin, signaling a pivotal moment for mainstream adoption.

“Jamie Dimon has long been a critic of the crypto industry... effectively bowing to the inevitable here and giving his customers what they want because he wants to make money.” [00:00]

Scott emphasized JPMorgan's deep involvement in the crypto ecosystem, mentioning their creation of the JPMorgan Coin and their initiatives to settle tokenized real-world assets on the blockchain.

II. Panel Reactions and Initial Analysis

Dwayne responded positively to the news, highlighting the importance of institutional participation in Bitcoin's growth.

“The more institutional participation you can get, the better... giving their customers access to buying Bitcoin ETFs is definitely a step in the right direction.” [01:29]

Dave offered a more critical perspective, likening banks to "rent seekers" and suggesting that JPMorgan's move is not a monumental shift but part of their profit-driven nature.

“They see the alarm bells going off... they're king of the hill, they're the world’s largest bank.” [03:07]

Tony and Gary echoed the sentiment that JPMorgan's entry into Bitcoin trading is a significant domino in a larger chain of institutional moves, pointing out that even long-standing Bitcoin critics like JPMorgan are recognizing the asset's value.

“This is significant... it's essentially the largest domino following here.” [05:52]

III. Impact on Bitcoin Adoption and Price Prospects

The panelists delved into how JPMorgan's move could influence Bitcoin's price and adoption trajectory. Gary expressed optimism, suggesting that the current environment presents a low-risk entry point for Bitcoin investors.

“I actually think the absolute lowest risk adjusted entry into bitcoin is right this second... the price is doing what it's doing right now with all the buying.” [07:32]

In contrast, Ryan maintained a more cautious stance, predicting that Bitcoin's price may not reach the lofty targets some anticipate.

“I don't see the price going to this 200, 250, 300 this cycle... I just don't see it topping 130 or 140.” [11:23]

Dave countered by emphasizing the robustness of Bitcoin demand from diverse sources, asserting that supply constraints are likely to sustain price levels.

“The demand just doesn't show any signs of slowing down... and the demand is coming from such a large multitude of sources from around the world.” [26:29]

IV. Bitcoin Mining: Costs and Sustainability

A substantial portion of the discussion focused on the costs of Bitcoin mining and its sustainability. Gary presented data on the average cost of mining a Bitcoin, citing figures ranging from $80,000 to $180,000, depending on the miner's efficiency and operational costs.

“The average cost is 47,000... $2 trillion. It's very, very impressive.” [09:00]

Ryan highlighted that highly optimized miners with low electricity costs can mine Bitcoin at approximately $25,000 to $30,000 per coin, but scaling up presents significant challenges unless miners control their power infrastructure.

“If you're paying $0.03 a kilowatt, you're not going to survive bitcoin.” [25:50]

Dave emphasized the inefficiency and high costs associated with publicly traded mining companies, arguing that only miners with direct control over energy resources can remain profitable in the long term.

“Mining is a horrific business... the future is pretty clear. For better or for worse.” [29:13]

V. Stablecoin Legislation and Potential Acquisitions

The conversation shifted to the potential acquisition of Circle by Coinbase and Ripple, a move that could reshape the stablecoin landscape. Scott shared reports indicating that Ripple's bid for Circle was rejected by Coinbase, raising questions about the motives and implications for the market.

“Circle is reportedly in talks with Coinbase and Ripple for a potential acquisition... This would obviously be the private sale.” [36:10]

Dwayne questioned why Circle would seek an exit despite the booming stablecoin market, suggesting financial struggles as a possible reason.

“Why would Circle be looking for an exit and an acquisition here?... their revenue over the years has not been great.” [37:25]

Gary speculated that Ripple might leverage this acquisition to bolster its position in the stablecoin market, potentially leading to extensive mergers and acquisitions within the crypto industry.

“This is gonna be the biggest M and A cycle in crypto history.” [40:52]

VI. Quantum Computing Threat and Post-Quantum Security

A critical segment featured David Kraval, CEO and founder of Neoris Protocol, who unveiled the impending threat of quantum computing to blockchain security. David elaborated on his company's efforts to create a post-quantum infrastructure that secures blockchain transactions against future quantum attacks.

“We have created the first decentralized infrastructure from centralized spaces... dealing with nation state level events.” [45:10]

David explained that current blockchain cryptography is vulnerable to quantum attacks, which could compromise the integrity of transactions and the overall consensus mechanism.

“There's no way... they have to get something like 1,500 qubits to break Bitcoin cryptography as it stands.” [50:19]

He introduced Norris Protocol as a solution, a meta-layer designed to overlay existing blockchains without requiring disruptive hard forks, thereby enhancing security without compromising scalability or speed.

“Knowledge Protocol as a solution to this problem... it doesn't alter underlying protocols, it doesn't change any consensus.” [50:54]

VII. Conclusion and Final Thoughts

As the discussion wrapped up, the panelists reflected on the multifaceted impacts of institutional moves, mining economics, and emerging security threats. Scott highlighted the need for the crypto community to stay vigilant and adaptable in the face of these evolving challenges.

“You must control the land and the energy... stay sovereign and stay quantum.” [31:10]

David concluded by emphasizing the critical nature of adopting post-quantum solutions to safeguard the future of blockchain technologies.

“There's nothing you can do it's actually prepare yourself now... to protect your wallet later.” [59:40]

Scott thanked all participants, underscoring the importance of informed dialogue in navigating the dynamic crypto landscape.

“Have a great day.” [62:37]

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Key Takeaways:

1. JPMorgan’s Inclusion of 90M Customers in Bitcoin Trading: A significant institutional endorsement that could accelerate Bitcoin’s mainstream adoption and influence its market dynamics.

2. Divergent Views on Bitcoin’s Price Trajectory: While some panelists are optimistic about Bitcoin’s growth fueled by institutional backing, others caution against overly bullish price expectations due to underlying mining economics.

3. Sustainability Concerns in Bitcoin Mining: High operational costs and inefficiencies pose challenges, with potential shifts towards miners who control their energy resources or rely on nation-state support.

4. Stablecoin Market Consolidation: Potential acquisitions like Ripple’s bid for Circle could lead to a reshaped stablecoin ecosystem, impacting market competition and regulatory landscapes.

5. Emerging Threat of Quantum Computing: The crypto community must proactively adopt post-quantum cryptographic measures to protect blockchain integrity against future quantum-enabled breaches.

6. Future of Crypto Infrastructure: Innovations like Neoris Protocol aim to enhance blockchain security without compromising on scalability, highlighting the ongoing evolution of crypto technologies to meet emerging challenges.

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Notable Quotes:

• “Jamie Dimon has long been a critic of the crypto industry... effectively bowing to the inevitable here and giving his customers what they want because he wants to make money.” — Scott Melker [00:00]

• “The more institutional participation you can get, the better.” — Dwayne [01:29]

• “This is a great trade for them... This is gonna be the biggest M and A cycle in crypto history.” — Gary [40:52]

• “You must control the land and the energy... stay sovereign and stay quantum.” — Tony [31:10]

• “We have to be post quantum now because your data is in transit on the Internet and it's feasible.” — Matthew (Neoris Protocol) [59:40]

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This episode of Crypto Town Hall delves deep into the evolving landscape of Bitcoin trading, institutional involvement, mining economics, stablecoin dynamics, and the looming quantum computing threat, offering listeners a comprehensive analysis of the current and future state of the cryptocurrency ecosystem.

Transcript

[Scott]

What's up, everybody happy? What day is it today? Tuesday. And welcome to Crypto Town Hall. We do the show every single weekday, 10:15am Eastern Standard Time. I hope that all of you are doing well. We've got quite a bit to cover today, so we're going to start to dive right into it here. The main story, JP Morgan opening Bitcoin trading to $90 million customers. Now, we know that in the past, JP Morgan Morgan's wealthy clients had the ability to gain exposure to Bitcoin through their wealth management. But now opening the doors to everyone. We know that Jamie Dimon has long been a critic of the crypto industry of Bitcoin as an asset, but effectively bowing to the inevitable here and giving his customers what they want because he wants to make money. With J. Jamie Dimon and JP Morgan, it's always been a watch what I do and not what I say. JP Morgan very deep in the crypto space. They have JP Morgan coin, they've settled tokenized real world assets on chain. So this kind of was the final move, but still really huge. We've seen Morgan Stanley unlock of late. Now we're going to be getting J.P. morgan. So a lot to talk about here. Just kind of dive into the panel here. Dwayne, you're, you're, you're immediately over there off to my side. What do you think of this news?

[Dwayne]

Hey, good morning. Yeah, well, this is obviously positive news. The more institutional participation you can get, the better. So, you know, this isn't, you know, this doesn't necessarily completely open the floodgates here because, you know, obviously US banks are still constrained with, you know, not being able to directly invest into crypto firms, but giving their, giving their customers. We're talking on the upwards of 90 million customers here. Access to buying Bitcoin ETFs is definitely a step in the right direction here because, you know, we've seen a lot of inflows here. We've seen a surge of bitcoin inflows and that's something that I've been paying attention to. So, you know, we've had the highest inflows I think since the beginning of the month here, you know, so this is definitely positive news in that respect. I think overall with, you know, some other things that we could take a look at, like even the confusion with the government in regards to tax cutting and some of the issues with the House. I think this is all in general bullish for Bitcoin. So if we have adoption from institutions on one side, we still have Confusion in regards to what's happening with the economy. I think that's pretty positive overall. But we'll see what happens here.

[Scott]

Yeah, Dave, I accidentally rubbed you, I went to add you to the space and kicked you from the space. So I'm glad you found your way back in here. What do you think of this J.P. morgan news?

[Dave]

First they fight you.

[Scott]

Exactly.

[Dave]

Look, banks are the ultimate profit seekers. Many of us would call them rent seekers, but that's a different story. There is no way that they were going to stand on ceremony. The only company that will stand on ceremony until they're forced kicking and screaming is Vanguard. But they've always been that way. Right. So you know, to me it's, to me that's, it's not that big of a deal. I think the bigger deal, there are two bigger deals. Probably the biggest deal for bitcoin is the fact that, and you posted it that Trump is more or less giving up on spending cuts in order to get his tax cuts done. And you know, that to me is huge for bitcoin and gold and huge for the, you know, for, you know, in every sense. And I think people are just underestimate. I also think people are completely underestimating the knock on effects of having the stablecoin bill moving forward. I think that it's a much bigger deal than people realize because, you know, it's just not well understood. People don't understand how accelerating and making more efficient the plumbing in the financial system will make it so much easier. So take the bitcoin news of JP Morgan and now look, let's play two or three moves down the chessboard. So JP Morgan allows you to buy Bitcoin. JP Morgan doesn't want to lose all their deposits. JP Morgan now has access to stablecoin Rails which can move and transfer and swap between, you know, tokenized assets very quickly. Why are people going to keep money in checking accounts that pay nothing when if JP Morgan's competitors are all going to offer sweep accounts that are going to allow them to pick an investment account, pick a savings, pick a checking account and have it automatically debit the savings account when they need to make, make when they need to make payments, you know, the amount of money that's going to be kept sitting idle in anticipation of payments because of the risk that they won't be able to move the money is going to dramatically drop. Some of that is going to find itself into things like bitcoin. In addition to the fact that the more stable coins you have as opposed to checking accounts, the more of that will get reinvested, the profits at least from treasury will get reinvested into bitcoin. So to me, it's a pretty bullish news, but even more so when you take it all together.

[Scott]

Hey, Tony, you're showing to me as a listener, but I think I saw your hand go up. Are you on stage?

[Dwayne]

Yeah, I think there's a bit of bug going on here. I got from Western speaker to listen.

[Scott]

Yeah. So guys, I have no idea who is and isn't on stage, but Tony, go ahead. At least I saw your hand go up.

[Dwayne]

Yeah, for sure.

[Scott]

I think this is significant news.

[Dwayne]

Bitcoin's biggest critic, I mean, we're talking to final boss here who has bashed bitcoin over the years, is capitulating.

[Tony]

This is significant.

[Dwayne]

And you know, it's essentially the largest domino following here.

[Scott]

And, you know, I look at the landscape and what's coming and what we.

[Dwayne]

Heard from bank of America's CEO in February, that once stablecoin legislation is passed, they're going to launch their own stablecoin. So I think Jamie Dimon and The folks at J.P. morgan, they see the alarm bells going on here, going off here. They're king of the hill, they're the.

[Scott]

World'S largest bank, but if they don't.

[Dwayne]

Move, they're going to lose market share. And, you know, Jamie doesn't, Jamie doesn't.

[Scott]

Want that to happen. And then you have, of course, the.

[Dwayne]

United States looking to set up a strategic bitcoin reserve. And if Jamie's going to play, continue.

[Scott]

To play ball with, you know, U.S. government, with the Fed, treasury and so.

[Dwayne]

Forth, and how they're plugged in, they got to get on board or they're going to have a blockbuster moment eventually.

[Dave]

But Kramer said bitcoin's going up, so aren't we doomed?

[Scott]

Insane is going up. He said you should buy it as a hedge against like monetary, against inflation or something. So, yes, we're going to like 10, maybe 5 bitcoin's dead. Sorry. Jim Cramer killed us once again. No, but he did kind of come around to the bitcoin is a hedge narrative today, apparently, or yesterday, which is just unbelievable. So, yeah, a lot of people obviously pointing to his comments, but I think that this J.P. morgan news was just somewhat inevitable. I mean, Gary, man, you told me before we had ETFs, before we had any institutional adoption that all these guys were coming. You've been saying it to me for literally since the day we met.

[Gary]

They're here, bro. They are Absolutely. Here. I remember earlier today, I think Dan Hill made a comment, he said best time to buy Bitcoin was 15 years ago. And today I actually, I love Dan. I think he's got some really good points. I actually think the absolute lowest risk adjusted entry into bitcoin is right this second. Like I'm hearing these people complain about not being able to buy bitcoin. I'm like, dude, you guys have no idea what this is going to look like in a year. Like you're going to probably be at 160, 180, 200. And if you thought it was expensive today, this is going to be really cheap, man. $2 trillion. It's very, very impressive to have the entire world bending their knee here. My God, man. To me, Scott, the bigger news is the news we're not really hearing a lot of, but we're hearing little tweaks about is Saudi, it's Qatar. It's like these giants, right, they are not going to take the same process that a JP Morgan will do, which is announce it, release a product. These guys are buying chunks of bitcoin right now. I'm stunned. The price is doing what it's doing right now with all the buying.

[Scott]

Yeah, I mean we've seen it very transparently from sovereign wealth fund in Abu Dhabi. I think we've had multiple, you know, four or $500 million purchases. But I agree with you. I think that's just the tip of the iceberg. And we keep hearing these whispers, especially about Qatar. As you mentioned, Qatar, Qatar, however we're pronouncing it today, it's all coming. I wonder if any of these will be the announcements at the bitcoin conference. Anybody have any color on what we're expected to see as the biggest announcements next week? A lot of politicians speaking, quite a few sovereigns, quite a few institutions. There's got to be. There's always a huge, huge announcement there, Gary. I wonder if that would be one of them.

[Gary]

You know, I don't know, man. I hate the whole announcement thing and the convention, pump and dump. I don't. I built like. If you're making an announcement for the, for the bitcoin show, I. It's a little bit like Klarna saying or. Or XRP saying they've done another deal with some ancient dinosaur bank that has zero revenue attached to it. It's a partnership deal. We'll hear a bunch of those, bro. Show me the money, show me the revenue. Show me what you're actually doing. Otherwise you wouldn't have waited till May 27 to launch your idea. It's just. I've seen this for, like, 20 years. Visa, MasterCard, love doing this. It's a payments thing. I. I would pay zero attention to it.

[Scott]

It's also. It's just different now. Right? I mean, in 2021, when naive Bukele, you know, when they did the announcement with Jack Mahler of El Salvador making bitcoin legal tender, that was at a time when you've never seen anything like that. Even that same announcement today has minimal impact, in my opinion. Just because it's. Which is good because the asset class has matured and there's no unicorn announcements left to be made.

[Gary]

Yeah. You know, then you brought the convention up. I will tell you, I will predict most bitcoiners are not going to like this convention.

[Scott]

I mean, Peter Schiff speaking.

[Gary]

Yeah, there's going to be a lot of people speaking that the bitcoiners don't even want to hear. Like, it's becoming a big, big show now, so it'll be interesting.

[Scott]

Yeah, it's. It's a little, little bit more Coachella than conference, but I think that, you know, for the mainstream, that. That serves the industry probably well. Ryan and then Amateo, I think you had your hand up, but Go, Ryan. Then I'm a tail.

[Ryan]

Yeah, it's. I hate to be the naysayer, guys. I. I don't see the price going to this 200, 250, 300 this cycle. And I mean, I hope I'm wrong, like, six months from now. I really hope I'm wrong. And hey, Coachella, bitcoin, or Vegas this year, I hope they just blow the roof off and all the announcements and the price goes sky high. But I just don't see the price topping 130 or 140 the cycle. I just don't see it.

[Scott]

Well, the conference, even with the biggest.

[Gary]

Increase from here, man, there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, people should. Sorry, Scott, but people like Ryan, I like. I'm just saying, it just seems like an awful lot of players with monster amounts of money, and they have very solid hands that we could see this get to 120, 130. That's a 30 move. That's awesome.

[Scott]

Especially after.

[Ryan]

Yeah.

[Scott]

Below 20.

[Ryan]

But I think a lot of these big moves are happening otc. So they don't like a lot of these big moves of crypto going into the nation states and stuff. They're not moving the general markets because, like, people are doing these OTC deals specifically not to move the general markets.

[Dave]

Dude, dude, stop that narrative. Please do. I can't take it. Look, look, I ran a firm that literally, you know, trades, you know, algorithmically trades this stuff. We know all the market makers. There is no such thing as. This is OTC phantom liquidity. What there is, our OTC brokers are smart. They use intelligent trading methods that aggregate liquidity. When derivatives are cheap, they'll use derivatives and move it into spot later. But the fact is, there's no magic bullet here of OTC liquidity. What you're seeing, and have been seeing for months, are OG crypto folks selling bitcoin to finance their life and to take some money off the table. And people that I always joke that look more like me, although I don't look necessarily as old as I am. But the fact is it's where boomers are buying it and new investors are buying it and sovereign funds are buying it, and eventually that supply will run out. The supply demand dynamic is not definitively not changed by trading otc. This is not a hill I need to die on because I know I'm right about it. I just told you, two plus two equals four. Please, dear God. If a market maker tells you that they have magic liquidity, all that means is that there's a seller that's talked to them that is willing to trade with them and that they may have orders to trade across other markets. But OTC brokers use sophisticated tools to trade. They don't manufacture liquidity. I'm sorry, this PSA was brought to you by an by. By an angry boomer.

[Scott]

Hey, Ryan. Ryan, I'm curious what metrics or signals are using Elliot Wave Fibonacci to, you.

[Dwayne]

Know, as far as your price target.

[Ryan]

Of that range, I'm. I'm. Yeah, I'm not like Dave said. Dave is, like, experienced in capital markets and all this stuff. I'm. I'm literally looking at mining profitability and looking at how fast we can produce the hardware versus the difficulty of the network versus how we ROI on this equipment. And if the price goes to, you know, half a million dollars, you know, $600,000, whatever. It means, all the publicly traded min miners are instantly some of the most profitable companies on the face of the planet. And we have a crunch.

[Gary]

I don't think they'd be the most profitable companies, but they for once would be profitable.

[Ryan]

Correct? Correct. Yeah, it was a grand statement. They be very profitable. When you have some of these miners where they're minting Bitcoin for 70 to $80,000 a coin. Their margins are very, very nice.

[Scott]

What is the average cost of mining a bitcoin right now? Do you know?

[Ryan]

I don't know what the average is at this point. I know some of the miners that are running around $0.02 a kilowatt hour, $0.03 a kilowatt hour with low opex are probably in the 80,000 range.

[Scott]

I mean, that's profitable, but still in the danger zone, depending on what price action does. Right? Go ahead. Can you guys hear Amateo? Because I cannot.

[Gary]

Negative.

[Scott]

Okay, Amateo, you got to come back. Come. Go down and come back up because your. Your mic's not working.

[Dave]

Panos's hand was up a while ago.

[Scott]

I. I don't know. He's a listener to me. I didn't know he was on stage.

[Dave]

Yeah, that's what I'm telling you. I'm here is Marshall.

[Scott]

Who else? Yeah, I can't tell who's on stage. So if you see somebody, Dave, you can feel free. If you see someone, by the way, at the hand, and I'm clearly not calling them, just go ahead and take over.

[Dave]

I'm not sure Scott can hear me.

[Scott]

I can hear you. I just couldn't see you.

[Ryan]

Okay.

[Dave]

Okay.

[Matthew]

Yeah.

[Dave]

I was going to say, when it comes to the J.P. morgan news, I do think it is significant news, but I think also the timing of it is important because typically with these markets, if we was in like the euphoria stage for bitcoin and this news come out, I would say that's a top signal. If you think back to like 2017, when we was at 20K and they announced the bitcoin futures trading news, that marks the top for, for btc. The fact that this news is out now when we're in a bit of a weird range in a weird part of the cycle, I do see it being bullish and significant. So I, I don't think it is a top signal at all. I think this is probably going to boost the price of bitcoin in the, in the midterm to long term. But, yeah, I just wanted to point out these kinds of news. I. I'm very skeptical about depending on the time that the news is released. So right now I think it is a bullish news event. But yeah, if it was like later on in. In this year and JP Morgan announced that I would be selling my btc. Yeah, I did something this morning, Scott, which was interesting. People were. And it was funny because John Har from Swan meant something different than the way it was taken out of context by somebody else's post was talking about comparing now to 2021. So I just went back and looked at funding rates and et cetera and it's really stark. In 2021 when we were at 60k and it was clear, clear euphoria and you know that I criticize Mike and others for picking that as their time start. The funding rate to buy, to get long Bitcoin was approaching and in many cases exceeding 100% annual. At the same time T bills back then were paying zero. So it was just an incredible amount of speculation. It's almost unfathomable that you could have weeks of time that people are willing to pay that much to do it today, right now. And it has been this way for weeks, months actually. The average funding rate is roughly five and a half percent per year and T bills are four and a quarter, meaning you're only paying a percent more as an, as an individual speculator than the risk free rate. That's insanely low and effectively there's zero speculation. So make of this what you will. I make of this basically shows me that to say that we don't have euphoria may be a great grand understatement. Usually you see this sort of stuff when you're consolidating in a range, you know, when everyone thinks the market's dead. And you know, I like to be contrarian, as I've said many times, so to me that's an extremely important signal.

[Scott]

Yeah, interesting. Dave, Another one that kind of crossed the tape today that is in line with that is that we're seeing the basis trade come back. Right. We talked about outflows for quite a while with ibit specifically. But ETFs in general now we're seeing once again massive inflows and the basis trade is up to 9%, I think it was 4 in, in April. So we're seeing this kind of historic run once again of inflows into the ETFs. More than 50% of that is going into BlackRock, which makes a lot of sense. They have options available on BlackRock and well, it's BlackRock and a 9% basically guaranteed yield by simply shorting the futures and buying the etf.

[Dave]

Yeah, that might have been at a point yesterday, but right now I'm staring at it. And right now the June futures are offered. You can't, you can. It's 105, 575 and spot is 104725. So I, I mean not the spot. The May future is 10 4, 9 something over there. So it's like 600 bucks. I could do that math off of a hundred thousand. That's not 9%. That's, you know, that's under 6%.

[Scott]

I'm assuming it's a longer dated future. Right.

[Dwayne]

Weird.

[Dave]

But the, but the volume is in right now is the roll period. Right now it's May to June. June is the highest volume and that's the one I'm looking at. Yeah, it might have spiked yesterday. I wasn't watching so I don't know. I'm just looking at it right now.

[Scott]

Go ahead while I look this up.

[Gary]

Yeah, I wanted to get to back to the mining thing and I think this relates to the current price and what you guys are looking at on futures. Scott, you said hey, what are miners cost? I just grok this thing so don't hold me responsible but it looks close. Marathon Digital, the estimates are $166,000 all in. Now I'm asking all in cost of capital, everything right per bitcoin? Yep, all in cost. The Average cost is 47,000. 69,000 for the Bitcoin. But with depreciation and all you Roll Riot Platforms Q1, 2025, 131300. Now I've seen this before, okay? When producers are under performing relative to their cost base and Wall street starts buying the paper or the underlying which I think is what's happening, they're like shit, I'll buy 104. The producers can't make it. Riot platforms 90 to 110,000. Clean sparks the best at 99. Average 80 to $100,000 cost over Q1 2025. Excuse me, 2025 in toto. And then Iris or Iron Energy is 87,000 with three year depreciation estimate 70 to 90,101 573.

[Tony]

I think it's a little high. I don't think it's that. I don't think it's that far off even.

[Scott]

I mean 85 Marshall's a minor.

[Ryan]

Oh yeah, Marshall got in here.

[Tony]

I mean Gary, you and I talked about this last year at the Dallas conference, but yeah, I mean I don't think it's that far off. And Ryan, you probably know maybe a little bit more than me, but look, the. There is a stark difference between these Popco guys who are just tapping ATMs left and right, diluting everybody stick taking cash and then just buying equipment that they can do accelerated depreciation on. So there's that side of it. But there's a growing Mid scale size. There's a good example. You guys probably seen this guy online, his name's Bob Burnett and the way he runs is the way in this sector is growing. It's smaller pockets of mining and this is the way I mine in Africa. Community impact based. And I can tell you my cost is well under 40,000. So you know the, the, the guys that are pushing a lot of hash rate. My concern is how sustainable is this because these guys have gotten away with murder diluting their investors and they're now trading under nav. Effectively are pretty close to nav, no multiple. So what's the point of even being penetrated and climbing. Right, Exactly. And so I don't know how sustainable this stuff is. You know there are larger private guys like the, the guys from Electron, they're doing a good job. But the overwhelming majority are if not way underwater, are definitely underwater. And there is no end in sight. They've been growing at all costs.

[Scott]

Yeah, so you say growing at all costs. Listen, we saw a lot of them literally buy the most expensive miners possible at the dead top of the last bull market. Right. So they're not geniuses clearly. But so how are they continuing to exist? Are you saying that literally it's like tax, tax efficiency by depreciating the equipment and then raising these convertible notes like sailor. I mean I don't know what's the business that. That's how it's happening.

[Tony]

Yeah. So the, you know the. For a long time in mining you would get punished for making bad business choices right at every halving cycle. But now these guys were able to tap an ATM at the right time and, and it's become a game where they're not getting punished for these bad business moves as quickly as people used to be because they have cash to kind of float along. And now everybody's turned into this micro strategy kind of hybrid vehicle where we don't really have to be good at mining bitcoin because we've got 10,000 bitcoin on the balance sheet and as long as bitcoin keeps running then we're good. But I don't know how long this kind of lasts because the music's going to stop.

[Scott]

They got to be selling everything then.

[Tony]

I mean I would say that's my biggest concern going into this next wave is miners pub codes have been. And look, I, I consult for almost everybody that you list and I can tell you right now they all run suboptimal deployments period in a story. But that's not their game. Their game is playing this public market stuff. Yeah, they're, they're, they're doing a different game and I don't even consider a minors at this point.

[Scott]

Ryan and then Amateo.

[Ryan]

Yeah. I'm glad Marshall jumped in. He's exactly right. So I ran the calcs in the background real fast.

[Scott]

So.

[Ryan]

Miners, if highly optimized, low electricity rates, can mine bitcoin between 25,000 and 30,000 a coin with the latest hardware. And that's like just electricity costs. And I'm just running it in my garage. When you get to Bob Burnett and his size, he has OPEX layered on top of that. But Marshall's dead on. Exactly right. It's the public markets game. And if we're going to see the next big pullback or crash in bitcoin, it might just happen with the publicly traded miners.

[Scott]

Matteo.

[Dwayne]

Yeah. Can you hear me now?

[Scott]

We can.

[Dwayne]

All right. I went to Macro Micro. I don't think this is precise either. I definitely trust Marshall since he's got his hands in the mix here. But it's looking at like between 90 and 105,000 average costs. So, I mean, it is not insignificant. It makes me wonder if we're going to start to see bitcoin mining be sort of re migrated to cheap power sources, if we're going to see China start to become a bigger, more dominant player in the space as a result of all of the energy output that they're delivering. But I think that to the conversation of can it actually hit 140,000, 150,000? I think to Dave's point, the demand just doesn't show any signs of slowing down. And the demand is coming from such a large multitude of sources from around the world. Every day we get more news of demand, we get more onboarding effects from JP Morgan or other countries embracing crypto and bitcoin. It's definitely looking like, how long can we get these sorts of headlines that are so dramatic. I think that that's a valid question. I think as the headlines start to slow down, that will start to sort of mark the top. But I don't see any signs of demand starting to slip and outstrip supply here. I think supply constraints just keep continuing.

[Scott]

Marshall, what do you think? Then you kind of jumped in after we were discussing it, but Ryan had, I guess, a lower kind of bull market target than some others as a result of what he's seeing in the miners. How much do you think that this will affect price moving forward?

[Tony]

Oh, man, I don't know. I, I stopped trying to read the tea leaves long ago. I mean, there. Look, there is. It's just nice to not be called a drug dealer these days, to be honest with you. The, you know, the. For a long time, the narrative was, oh, this is just for nerds. It's really cool to be able to have meetings with heads of state, you know, and so at that point, it's, it's gone well beyond my wildest dreams. And at this point, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if it hit 200 and I wouldn't be surprised if it hit 50.

[Scott]

Yeah, that. That's my general approach. Never be surprised. But I mean, Gary, I mean, you look at this on the public markets, not that this is now the topic we were intending to discuss, but I mean, you look at any of these and say, yeah, I need to own mining stocks.

[Gary]

Well, I do own mining stocks. I've made a 50% return. It's been a whole horrible investment. I should have just bought bitcoin, but I tried to be all clever and I just.

[Scott]

Leverage bitcoin is what we viewed it at.

[Gary]

Yeah, but, but, but, but it's, it's not leveraged bitcoin. It's, it's, it's grossly inefficient Bitcoin. This is like being a farmer, okay? Like, why would you want to go to the bank, draw out a note to own some land, Your parents might have given it to you. Then you have to go to the bank and borrow money, I mean fucking borrow money to buy the seed and buy the fertilizer and buy the water and then buy the equipment or rent the equipment and then hire people to only have corn prices go into the shitter and you get to sell at a loss of 13% only to be able to enjoy 2 out of 10 years of some kind of bull run that you were not able to expect. And in fact, the insects probably took over your fucking acreage that year and you didn't even enjoy it. And your neighbor made all the money. I mean, mining is a horrific business. And I think what bitcoin mining shows you is that trying to do it on scale is actually too expensive. And that micro farming is going to be the only survivor of this because they can literally source energy at zero. If you're paying $0.03 a kilowatt, you're not going to survive bitcoin. I don't. I do not. But I've said this since day one. You must control the land and the energy. And it has to sit on your balance sheet such that it is not a cost. And that you can hold the underlying commodity on your balance sheet just like an oil producer does.

[Scott]

Wow. Marshall and Ryan, you guys were just hitting the emojis hard on that. So I guess, Marshall, you agree there?

[Tony]

Yeah. Look, man, a big, big credit to Gary. Gary's put in a ton of work over the past couple years that I've known him to really study this, and he hit the nail on the head. This is the most brutal capitalistic endeavor anything I've personally done. And you know, Gary's done a lot more business than I.

[Scott]

So, like, did it change? It wasn't always that way. Right.

[Tony]

Well, it started being this way in 2013, just being so hard with new hardware coming out left, right and center. But the people who haven't adapted their models and strategies, they're getting smoked. And the people who have, who are doing literally what Gary just said, people are making deals with people who own the power infrastructure and where it can sit on your balance sheet and you don't have a floor or maybe a ceiling of power price and, and allows you to custody the bitcoin. That's the, that's, that's the current paradigm that people should be doing at smaller scale, impact focused. You know, all the stuff we're doing in Africa is just that, you know, it's a community endeavor and it's wildly profitable. But I mean, it is like running on a treadmill made out of sandpaper. You don't do it right, you're going to get smoke.

[Scott]

My God, you guys, the analogies today are just crashing.

[Ryan]

Can I jump in here on this? Like, I. Between Gary and Marshall, this would be one of the most entertaining spaces I think I've been on in a while. I need to reiterate, like entertaining like.

[Gary]

A cartoon or entertaining like good education? I mean, I don't know if this is a, a compliment or a slap in the face, Marshall.

[Ryan]

No, but both, both. I say this has been educational and entertaining.

[Tony]

Hey, look, all personal press is good press, Gary. Just make sure they spell our name right.

[Ryan]

There you go. But let me reiterate. If, if an individual buys one of the latest miners right now and just plugs it in and runs it with basically no opex, they're just paying electricity. They're minting bitcoin for about $30,000 a coin. If you try to scale that, and this is to Marshall's point, if you try to scale that, Gary's point, it does not scale. Well, unless you are the power producer or partnered with power producer, this is where we're going to see nation states getting involved in mining. This is where we're going to see nation states getting involved in mining pools. And they will outperform any publicly traded miner. I think over the next several years there is going to be a huge shift to nation states controlling their own power infrastructure and mining infrastructure. And it's going to parallel their AI.

[Scott]

Infrastructure or it'll be the same. Right? The same infrastructure.

[Ryan]

Yep.

[Scott]

Yeah.

[Gary]

I totally agree with that by the way.

[Ryan]

Yeah.

[Scott]

How is a publicly traded miner going to compete with a, you know, nation state that can mine with free energy basically and using, you know, public resources to do so? Seems like the future is pretty clear. For better or for worse.

[Gary]

I guess it's actually a little mind boggling because it's more complicated than that. The sovereigns have an edge over somebody trying to buy third party energy. And that is most of the energy the sovereign is going to be producing with bitcoin or producing bitcoin isn't actually hitting the system right now. Literally it's stranded, it's trapped. It has nowhere to go. Alaska, Dakotas, Saudi Arabia, all over the place, Russia. Why would somebody pay A$50 to transport gas? It's worth 350. They'll just put a Genco right there on the platform and mine bitcoin. And remember, energy doesn't have constant demand. It's up and down, up and down, up and down. This fits so many scenarios for the sovereign so much better than the grid used to be able to turn up and down that quite frankly the miners aren't really benefiting from. The miners are basically a phone call from a call option that the electric company has. They're not actually able to exploit the greatest margin and if they are, they're going to get clocked because they're trading the most violent commodity in the world, which is electricity. So we've already seen one miner have to write down a whole quarter because he up his hedge.

[Scott]

What was that? I must have missed it.

[Gary]

I can't remember. It was last year sometimes, I mean.

[Scott]

I know Core Scientific had the bankruptcy scare.

[Gary]

Yeah, no, this was, this was a big miner. This is one of the top four miners that had to just rewrite. It was, I can't remember which one it was iron or one of the ones I own actually. Well, for somebody just. They miss their numbers, you know, they, they missed happens. Yeah, it does.

[Scott]

One other story I wanted to make sure that we highlight, because I thought that this was really interesting is the potential acquisition of Circle and apparently Ripple. It's being reported Coinbase has not confirmed, but I'll just read the headline. Circle is reportedly in talks with Coinbase and Ripple for a potential acquisition. According to banking and private equity sources, Ripple's 4 to 5 billion bid, which was likely to include XRP and cash, was rejected. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong stated there's nothing to announce at this time regarding a potential deal. This seems like a massive news considering Circle is kind of one of the next up for a public listing and going public. And this would obviously be the private sale. And knowing that Ripple is making a bid here against Coinbase, when Coinbase. I don't know the numbers, but doesn't Coinbase make as much or more money from USDC at Circle? Can anybody. I don't want to speak out of turn, but isn't that effectively true? Does anybody know? Well, then I'm going to just speak out of turn, but what do we make of a potential private deal here for usdc, especially in the context of stablecoin legislation hitting. I mean, what is. What does this mean for the market? Amateo, go ahead.

[Dwayne]

Yeah, I don't actually necessarily have an answer for that. I have a bigger question for the rest of the panel, which is why would Circle be looking for an exit and an acquisition here? I mean, exactly to your point, they're on the heels of going public. We've got stablecoin legislation going live. Stablecoins moved over 6 trillion in the first quarter of this year. I mean, that's just a staggering number. So I guess I just am kind of scratching my head as to why this would even be a consideration when they had the ability to print with interest rates and their reserves. Yeah, I have just a big looming question is why this would occur. I think I saw something recently, and don't quote me on this, but their revenue over the years has not been great with their operating costs and so forth. I think it has something to do with that.

[Scott]

But I think I'm going to tell.

[Dwayne]

You to your point.

[Matthew]

This is the year that things could.

[Dwayne]

Really change for them as stablecoin legislation gets passed.

[Scott]

Matthew, you were about to jump in. I know you've been watching this.

[Dwayne]

Yeah. No, it just feels kind of like Circle might be an engine without a car in this respect. Right. So they need an organization and a company to really scale all their efforts from a stablecoin perspective, and they don't really want to do it in reverse. Like Circle's not going to become an exchange, it's not going to become a payment Processor in the same sense that Ripple might be, or a custodian like Coinbase might be. So it makes a ton of sense that they would put themselves up for, for some, you know, for some sale opportunity and. Or IPO if they really need to. If they really need the cash, as Tony pointed out. But I think if anything, people should really be focused on the fact that the stablecoin business is still probably one of the best businesses on earth at the moment in terms of the. Just the opportunity. And as we see the genius bill gets pushed further and further into potential law. There's just so much opportunity here. So it's a great, great way for companies like Ripple and Coinbase to continue making acquisitions and continue to bolster themselves and try to even corner the market from a stablecoin perspective and take as much as they can away from tether, which is really the other contender here in this case.

[Scott]

I mean, there is also. Listen, this is a story that's being reported. I haven't heard an actual comment from any of the three parties. So this could be literally Ripple just saying, hey, we'll give you four to five billion dollars for Circle and not Circle actually soliciting bids. Right. So I think there could be some nuance there. Amateo. To answer your point, it's possible they didn't go out and say, hey, we're for sale, you know, and we know that Ripple is launching their own state, has already launched their own stablecoin. Excuse me. And so this would probably just be a move further in that direction for them. And they're flush with cash. Gary, go ahead. Yeah, Matthew. And then Gary. Yeah, either one.

[Gary]

Sorry, I just wanted to. Sorry. The reason they would do this is the IPO was slotted to do 4 billion, 4 to 5 billion. And then Ripple came in and said, we'll give you 4 billion. Now it's 20. Look, I think Ripple, if they could raise the money, they will pay whatever they have to to survive.

[Scott]

100% agree with that.

[Gary]

Now, Coinbase, I don't know how much Coinbase funding is available, but when you look at the people, there's been 1.4 billion invested in Circle, like, and you look at the people that are owning it, like, you could easily see them get out for 18 to 20 billion. It's a, it's a 15X. I mean, it's a great trade for them.

[Scott]

Yeah. And even if Ripple, I mean, this is just conjecture, but even if Ripple bought Coinbase, wouldn't Coinbase still profit from it, since they already do?

[Gary]

I Think they brought Circle?

[Scott]

Not quite. If Ripple bought Circle, Coinbase profits massively from Circle. So it'd still be a win for Coinbase.

[Gary]

Coinbase isn't gonna lose here.

[Scott]

Yeah. So there's no such, like, there's no real reason for them to outbid themselves on something that's gonna be wildly profitable for them either way.

[Gary]

Well, Scott, they should outbid for this, though. Like, to me, Coinbase wins this while the regulators allow them to do it. They buy everything they can. This is gonna be the biggest M and A cycle in crypto history. This is what could extend this cycle, I think, to the gentleman's point about, hey, we're not going to see $200,000 bitcoin. If you see a bunch of merger activity, which I think we're going to see, I think that could change. That could accelerate things faster than we're expecting.

[Scott]

New Coinbase just fought there, but for almost $3 billion. Right. Or was it over three? 2.9, something. I can't remember the number now. 2.9, I think, was the ballpark. I mean, that's the biggest acquisition in history, so you don't have to look far for evidence of what you're saying.

[Dwayne]

Sorry, Scott, just one quick point about your question about or your note that Circle didn't say they were necessarily up for sale. I would make the argument that anybody going through the IPO process is technically saying they're for sale, just in a different way.

[Scott]

Yeah, definitely. Entertaining all comers, because at that point, it's just about raising capital.

[Dwayne]

So if anything, it sets a floor.

[Scott]

Right? Yeah, that's right.

[Dwayne]

It sets a floor for.

[Scott]

Yeah, yeah, exactly right. Like a stalking horse. Matteo, go ahead.

[Dwayne]

Yeah. Curious your perspective on this, Gary and Scott, which is, if Coinbase was to move forward with this, do we think that there's any concerns for antitrust that come down the line as they sort of corner the market and all these products, we're obviously seeing that with Google.

[Gary]

And, man, I got to tell you, like, like, like, to me, Coinbase could quadruple itself size. They're, they're still like so small compared to JP Morgan or. So I think they get away with a lot right now, man. There's no regulator that's going to block them from, like, this is the time you do it, right? Like, if I was on their board, I'd be buy everything you can. If you're going to use your balance sheet, do it now because you're going to have bigger players behind you. Once they catch on, they're going to want a piece of the action and they'll pay whatever they've got to. I mean, 4 billion, 8 billion. It's not really any big numbers anymore.

[Scott]

Yeah. The more I think about it, as you talk about it, the mergers and acquisitions, it's just going to be insane. Along with the actual public listings. I mean, everybody's going to try to jump on securing the bag in the next six months to a year because nothing, you know, especially if we start to have the threat of like regime change or, you know, like losing the House, the Senate. I think everybody views right now as the time to strike while the iron taught to. To really kind of get the big payoff that they've been waiting for in this industry for so long now.

[Tony]

I see.

[Scott]

Kind of as we're moving on from this topic, this is going to be a great one for all you guys, who we were, we were talking about mining and everything. I see David Carvalho joined. What's up, man? How are you? I'm glad you joined.

[Matthew]

Hey, cheers guys. Pleasure to be here. Awesome conversation.

[Scott]

Yes. So David and I, I was going to have you jump in in general. So David and I had a talk. I think we're publishing it this week. And you, you scared the shit out of me so bad that I had to have you on Crypto Town hall too.

[Matthew]

I didn't even try, man.

[Scott]

So. So listen, so I actually, I see Neoris on, on the stage as well, but maybe you could like, tell us what you do because, you know, I've been one of those people, I told you this when we met, that was kind of dismissive of the threat of Quantum for a very long time and you made me see the light otherwise. So maybe you could talk about like kind of your backward ground in cyber security, what you do and why I have you on stage.

[Matthew]

Yeah, cheers. You know, tell the truth, it's not just you, it's, you know, you and everybody else and nation states and so on. It seems that every year it's like 50% closer and it's not getting to a point where it's like smaller increments of 50%. So I'll tell you a little bit about myself. So my name is David kraval. I'm the CEO and founder of Norris Protocol. We are a native Web3 infrastructure layer that acts also as meta layer so it can embrace other layers that's designed to secure the various stacks of blockchain from pure infrastructure all the way to transaction level against future Quantum threats. So it's a completely Revamp of the fundamental backbone of cryptography, of current chains and also of the infrastructure that supports them and allows them to tick a little bit about my background so my background is in cryptography. I'm a cryptographer. I published a number of papers on post quantum cryptography with universities in both sides of the Atlantic and also with the IEEE foundation and also in other areas related to cyber mainly around nation states related cyber and critical infrastructure. I've been global super security for a number of multibillion dollar companies in Europe and also in the uk. I've been also running a cyber SWAT team that deals with nation state level events mainly cyber war related for close to 15 years and been advising a group of countries under the NATO umbrella and European Union umbrella on cyber war, cyber terrorism, cyber espionage in other areas like this data protection and stu. Currently we are in charge of knowledge protocols that we have created under kind of like an ethos that was very kind of like real world focus. We have a number of NATO level use cases and mandates from former NATO leaders that are also part of the project in order to really use decentralization as a source of post quantum backed truth and trust about everything that runs everywhere from you know, hardware to software and proving its state in a decentralized environment. Right.

[Scott]

So yeah that was kind of my like the reason I was dismissive of it before which is kind of an immature excuse now I think about it more was always that well if Bitcoin screwed because of you know, quantum computing, imagine the nuclear codes and the DOJ and the banks and literally everything else. Right. So my, my attitud was we have much bigger problems. But this is actually you've, you and I have spoken. This is a legitimate problem problem for Bitcoin but. And for crypto in general, correct?

[Matthew]

Yeah, yeah. I mean it's a global security risk. There's no way, no two ways about it. It's the impact is going to be on global systems. Blockchain is or web3 is one of them. Web3 is not special necessarily. It's used, it uses elite based the cryptography which is in the back of everything it does. And it's you know I would say, you know the backbone of digital infrastructure that as I see it in the future is web three. But we need to be ready for whatever comes next. So right now as I mentioned, beyond blockchains, critical infrastructure, banking, healthcare, telecoms, you name it all, it's on the verge of being compromised. And as you mentioned the nuclear codes and insert troubling, you know Data point here. Yeah, yeah. So nation states, nation states are very aware of this. They all have like 2030 plans that include quantum or quantum related defense measures, mainly around quantum safer, quantum post quantum cryptographic standards and kind of like, you know, step by step implementations. There's a number of governments that you could quantum technology as a strategic priority for them offensively, of course. But there is an urgent, let's say, drive for quantum safe solutions. Even the US has passed a number of pieces of legislation that publicly mandate this to 2030 for all agencies and environments that deal with critical infrastructure.

[Scott]

Is that soon enough? Is that soon enough?

[Matthew]

Yeah. So that's on the, that's on the public side. In private, it's probably a lot earlier. So we are very much embedded with cyber commands here in Europe and also with other environments that are. Yeah, they're running a lot faster. So I assume in the other side, the Atlantic, it's the same. I mean, even today there was just you know, kind of like sort of like quote, quote, breaking news of like a 504qubit, you know, quantum computer in China. And I want to remind everybody that, you know, theoretically, and this is with Shore's algorithm, so there might be others that we don't know about that are better. You only need 1,500 qubits to break. Bitcoin cryptography as it stands, or any other, you know, cryptography that's existing in any chain because they're all 32 bits, 32 bytes based, or 256 bits long.

[Scott]

So, yeah, okay, so my question, I guess here, since I happen to bring you to crypto town hall, we know that this question is maybe relevant to all technology, but you've talked about obviously being quantum resistant or post quantum. How do you prepare for that? If you're an existing project app staying, you know, layer one, can you retrofit effectively what already exists to be quantum resistant, or do you have to start building something that's quantum safe from the ground up? You have both, right?

[Matthew]

Yeah, yeah, that's a pretty good question. And you know, obviously a lot of people have been asking this and there's, you know, we had a conversation also with the Ethereum foundation on the same problem. So as it, as it stands right now, post quantum cryptographic algorithms are not compatible at all with current blockchain use elliptical cryptography algorithms. So most of the work that we have done and the research that we have done in the papers we have published, etcetera, or in the direction of actually creating, let's say, a metal layer and that's really what Norris protocol is, meta layer overlay. Let's say that doesn't require any hard forks to be implemented and for you to rehash and remake every transaction that you have made since the beginning of time, just imagine that with DeFi it would be crazy. But yeah, think of Knowledge Protocol as a solution to this problem. So it's an overlay or a meta layer that runs alongside existing blockchains, it doesn't alter underlying protocols, it doesn't change any consensus, there's no need for hard forks, it doesn't function like a typical L2 or L1. It observes instead kind of like and manages the security logic around the chain without forcing structural modifications. And then it uplifts the transactions under a post quantum context. So it basically ends up resigning the broadcasting that exists at post quantum level from existing broadcasters, let's say. And that brings that back to the chain again. And that's on the transaction side of things. Because actually one of the riskiest parts right now of blockchain from a quantum risk perspective are the transactions themselves. Because the hashes are public and quantum computers can also directly attack hashes, not just cryptography, but also hashing. So unlike private keys, let's say that are private hashes are actually public. So with the quantum computer can actually attack it, break it and do double spend or broadcast it again since it has been signed already with a different address of destination or a different amount. Which basically bypasses the whole principle of consensus. Right, so you don't need to dominate the consensus, just need to dominate the cryptography. That's why it's pretty scary. On the other side of things, the focus on scalability and speed right now by chains is I think what we believe. It's going to continue to happen. But the objective for us to integrate with them is for them, as you say, to integrate with us and offload the security to us.

[Scott]

Yeah, that's interesting. That sort of solves the trilemma to some degree, right? Because we always, for those who don't know, there's the blockchain trilemma, which is speed and cheap. Fast and cheap usually comes at the expense of security. So you can basically be a third party and offer the security, is that fair to say?

[Matthew]

Absolutely fair to say. So cheap and fast, as you say. So speed and scalability in the last vertical is security, which is probably the hardest one computationally to achieve and in a provable way so that projects can actually prioritize performance and user growth, increasing the confidence on the space but the way that we have achieved this is we have done that on top of a custom PPFT Ethereum virtual compatible space. So the integration with Ethereum based chains is really, really fast. So we're talking like 24, 48 hours. And for other chains it's also possible, just needs more custom work, even if they are not. But I would say, as you said, kind of like echoing that a little bit in a different way, we remove the heavy lifting of these post quantum security approaches that would need hard forks, allowing you to build faster, safer, more efficiently while preserving the immutability that you know, blockchains are, you know, it's the backbone of everything. Quantum technology threatens that, the immutability that promise. Let's say unless we act now and we migrate.

[Scott]

So we're in the process of this being reality. I don't mean the quantum side but the actually the quantum resistant, the quantum proofing side. Where, where are you in that process? I know that you were testnetting like it's a testnet mainnet, how many transactions and you know, where are you at providing this to other chains effectively?

[Matthew]

Yeah, actually you know, I could give you the live numbers. So we have had a crazy quote, quote mainnet slash testnet is kind of like our first, I'll call it a better mainnet, let's say because it's our own cryptographic standard, it's our own consensus, it's our own, our own everything, our infrastructure. But we have done more than 60 million post quantum transactions already. Two months, actually almost 70 million. We have more than 2.1 million wallets currently on the environment in about 862,000 nodes. And because of the use case that we have, it's actually looking at cyber risks at the same time. We ended up mitigating about 353 million threats between all these nodes because they all violate each other.

[Scott]

Wait, that's an insane number. What kind of threats are though? I didn't even know that there were 300 million-plus cyber threats on this level.

[Matthew]

This is actually the same kind of level that you would see from major companies in cybersecurity space, but in a decentralized context. So what we have done is actually we have created the first decentralized infrastructure from centralized spaces. So we just grabbed people's computers and their browsers and and so on and we made, actually it's one of the use cases that we made public. We have more than 30 use cases that we built on top of our post quantum chain. But the one that we have built is what we call a decentralized browser security node. So you download it to your browser, it acts as kind of like a mini node light node on your browser that then analyzes every page that you visit and checks if there's deanonymizing scripts there that will deanonymize you or steal your crypto information or your credit card information, or sell your data or spread malware or ransomware or whatever. And then that gets blacklisted and shared with every other participant. So it's kind of like a hive mind of trust really. That's as a consequence of this infrastructure being created. And those are the things that actually got locked on this specific use case. But this was just to give people kind of like a taste of how we can actually with this kind of like NATO backed principle built or from former NATO leaders, let's say, under these mandates, build these infrastructures in the real world that leverage decentralization in a post quantum context. So it's ready for the future for any sort of use case. This is just a very direct kind of like cyber infrastructure use case. But you can apply this to any validator group, any piece of hardware. So you can actually for the first time prove state for everything that runs everywhere at the same time under a decentralized consensus.

[Scott]

Okay, what have I missed here? Because I know we kind of, we just cooked through like 15 minutes, but how is this available to the public? How can people participate, follow, get involved?

[Matthew]

Yeah man. So right now of course our public sale is live. We actually just went into public sale today which is super exciting. People can participate and take a chunk of this and have the capability to join us as well. We create other more exciting things like post quantum peer to peer VPNs and things on top of our cryptography and on top of our chain. They will be able to stake and have lifetime ownership of it in a number of other things. So people can go to our website, nor is norge protocol.com or norwich.com and just click go to public sale and you know, participate. And they can also still participate in our quote testnet or let's say mainnet Beta and go to our explorer and see post quantum hashes which if you never saw one, you can go there and see them on the transactions and really participate however they would like. We're more than happy to have people join in. Super excited with the community that we've created in such a short time. Definitely didn't expect that on our side.

[Scott]

Do you have like two more minutes? So I'm just curious as this becomes a bigger threat, do you think that what you're building, what others will build, can actually like fully protect systems from this or is it going to be is a situation where it has to be solved now and you have to adopt the technology now or you're going to be in big trouble?

[Matthew]

Yeah, it's unfortunately the second option. So it's almost irrelevant if in the next year because for example, you know, I talk to cyber commands all the time, we partner with them and also with agencies, etc. There was a very well known cryptography cryptographer from the NSA that I was speaking to, a former one that believes it's going to be in the next 12 months that quote, quote Q day is going to start breaking things. Of course we would never know if that happened because the threat actor that would be leveraging it wouldn't make itself known. Things probably looked like hacks, but they weren't. So it's almost irrelevant when that happens. If it's like next year or tomorrow, you need to be post quantum now because your data is in transit on the Internet and it's feasible. Your hashes, your signatures, your keys and they can actually be derived from one another. So they're being harvested in what's called harvest now, the crypt layer by mainly nation states right now, I would say in agencies that have interest in shaking the status quo and harvesting and keeping them in their hard drives. And there's nothing you can do. I mean as soon as that happens and that's happening right now. So the only thing you can do it's actually prepare yourself now, be postponed to now so that you don't get your wallet raped later or anything else that actually you're protecting behind those keys. Because it's the same for the whole know, global economy and everything that matters in the world really. That's a secret.

[Scott]

Crazy, crazy everybody there. I encourage you to follow David obviously if you want more insight in this, but Neoris protocol is on stage as well. So I would say follow them, check out everything that they're doing. Dave, we're going to go ahead and wrap any final thoughts before I let you go.

[Matthew]

Yeah, you know, first of all I would like to thank you guys for, for the good questions and the time here and always great discussions in this group. Obviously there's a massive market need. We're currently the only in production post quantum infrastructure in operation. There's I think a maximum upside potential for people to come in. There's real world validation from NATO level standards to former Microsoft presidents that are part of the team and things like, things like that. Some of the people that created the Internet, etc, just come to our website, take a look and. Yeah, man. So guys, stay, you know, stay safe. Stay, stay sovereign and stay quantum. And we'll talk next time.

[Scott]

Thank you so much, man. I really appreciate it. Thank you to everybody else. Obviously it was a speaker today. It was a great unintended conversation on mining. I actually learned quite a bit. I had no idea it was such a bad business otherwise. Give everyone a follow. We'll see you guys tomorrow. 10:15am Eastern Standard Time for Crypto Town Hall. Thanks, David. Thanks, panel. Thank you, all of you for listening. Have a great day.

[Matthew]

Cheers.

[Ryan]

All.