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Bitcoin believers love to say just buy the dip. But what if the real advantage isn't how early you get in, it's how disciplined you are right now. Today I sat down with Gary Cardone and this conversation went way beyond price. We got into the mindset shift that separates speculators from long term builders.
B
Everyone that I hear says, I want to be in control of my own destiny. I want to be the CEO, I want to be the captain of my, my shit. All right, buy bitcoin. It's the only business you can buy. Point 1, 1 bitcoin, 10 bitcoin or 100 bitcoin. And then keep adding, why?
A
Gary calls bitcoin the best business he's ever seen.
B
I have never had in my lifetime the opportunity to invest in something that had no human error. That's like getting married to a woman who is never going to have a. Okay, like, wow, I'm paying premiums for that.
A
Why he believes old money is the real new money entering the market.
B
The flood of money from not the young people, but the flood of. What did I call it this morning? Old, new money. Yeah, it's the old money that hasn't really come into bitcoin. All your friends are crypto, crypto, crypto centric. But the money that's coming into bitcoin is not crypto centric money. It is old money. Now that money is very different.
A
And my trading options and chasing narratives is exactly how people get absolutely wrecked.
B
The young man just said here, hey, I'm out, I'm out of crypto. He got out of crypto because he's trading too many options. He should be out of options, not bitcoin. Like don't confuse options in bitcoin. You're probably going to get your head torn off. Trading options. On the video, we also hit on.
A
Something you almost never hear discussed anymore. The idea of clean versus dirty Bitcoin.
B
US suspect some of these SBRs, you know, dirty bitcoin moved in and now it's all nice and pristine, clean. The stuff that's moved into NACA has probably been cleaned. You know, some of that had to be old. And I think all bitcoin's got some Taino, just like all money's got cocaine traces.
A
If you've ever wondered how to keep stacking without losing your mind and what it looks like to treat bitcoin like a multi year strategy instead of a daily emotion, you're going to want to watch this one all the way through.
B
That's dope. That's dope. We're rolling everywhere. Picture me rolling.
A
We're in Vegas again. Tupacy, your favorite artist.
B
Picture me rolling.
A
I didn't think that we'd start with Gary. Th me roll.
B
If I put this. Oh, you sure you can.
A
He can drink the coffee.
B
Take it all, man. Take a sip by the dip.
A
I. I've got that mug especially for you.
B
I like that.
A
Take a sip by the dip. Have you been buying the dip?
B
I haven't bought in at least two weeks.
A
Two weeks?
B
Yeah. No, I'm working on something that I'm grabbing some. Some more Fiat.
A
Okay, wait, let's talk about that, because obviously your intention from our last conversation is just to buy as much bitcoin as you can. Yeah, right. So. So that means you might have to actually do something with your life to get that Fiat to buy us a bitcoin.
B
This is the amazing thing, right? Like, all these young guys that are in here, they're like, oh, you have an advantage over me because you already are rich. And I'm like, look, I need to buy another 500 bitcoin. Okay? And you're trying to get to one bitcoin. You're going to get to one bitcoin quicker than I'm going to get to 500. Because unlike your imagination, I do not have stacks of money sitting in my house just waiting to be deployed. I carry it in my Range Rover. I don't keep it in the house. Stacks and stacks of money.
A
I've gone to Vegas with you. I know where.
B
Right? So. Well, you and I in Vegas, that depletes my Fiat storage. It doesn't increase the storage. But the point I'm trying to make is, like, I'm on empty. I have just like you do. I have to go create new money to deploy into this, what I think is one of the greatest investment opportunities in a lifetime. But it means I have to do something. I have to either convert my old stuff to Fiat and get it out of the system that it's in, or I go create new money. You know, I go sell some art. Maybe that's. I got. You know, people tell me, hey, sell your art and turn it into bitcoin. So my only point is I don't think people. People that are already in bitcoin don't have an advantage over people that are just getting into bitcoin. They have to still go do something to acquire bitcoin.
A
And now you're an all in kind of guy, Obviously. I know that certainly at this point, when you have Assets and houses and everything. The only thing you're interested in is buying bitcoin. But for someone who is new maybe, and is younger and is looking to get that half a bitcoin or one bitcoin.
B
Who could possibly be younger than me?
A
Nobody is younger than me.
B
Okay, that's right.
A
But what percentage of their income at this point, if you were young, would you consider putting in? Would you still be all in if you didn't own assets and you were working a job that, you know, paid a decent wage, but because maybe your approach is different now because you have all the other stuff?
B
Well, I would do exactly what I did when I didn't have anything, which is every dollar I make, I grab 10 or 20 cents first and second, store it first. Money goes into storage or savings. If I get a big Bonus, I take 90% of the bonus. Most people take 10% of the bonus and put it in savings. I would take 80, 90% of my bonus and put it into an investment vehicle. The same thing is true for the 27 year old. In fact, I think the 27 year old has an advantage over me because they have more time, the time value for them that they're going to enjoy if they just are disciplined. You're very disciplined. You don't need to be doing this every morning. You're like here every day, dang, bang, bang. And you make investments in, in this kind of thing in your studio, which is awesome, by the way. Thank you. So you could charge for people to be here. Such a nice place. The Johnny Carson of crypto.
A
I haven't charged anyone.
B
Yeah, yeah, I kind of think that's probably the right way, but yeah. So I would, I would keep scraping funds and deploying it into an investment vehicle. Not by the way, houses, not cars, not girls, but like literally scraping the first 10 cents off every dollar minimally. Because look, what's the worst that's going to happen? You are never going to go broke. If you're scraping 10% and you're 27 years old and you wake up at 47 one day, 20 years later, it will be near impossible for you to go broke. And the more fuel I have in my car, the further I can go, the less emergencies I'm going to have to do emergency stops. I don't have to do any emergency stops. So this is just a strategy about deploying nuts, right? Like, just like a squirrel does. He hammers himself all through spring and summer and fall and then he goes into a sub hibernation, you know, and, but he's got. He's there, he's safe. I don't think people, people overcomplicate making money, I think.
A
Yeah. I guess the next question then, though, you say put it into an investment vehicle. At this point, if you, you were that young, could you just put that 10, 20 cents into Bitcoin and nothing else? I could.
B
You could not.
A
I could, yeah. I could only because I look at the valuations of everything else and it seems insane. It's the only thing to me that I look at and I feel like you could make an argument for it being underpriced. I can't look at silver and think.
B
Wow, it looks underpriced to me. It's the only thing that looks underpriced to me. Mispriced.
A
Mispriced.
B
Grossly mispriced. Misunderstood. Like, I think it's a misunderstood product because it's been miss sold. The marketing on this has been horrible. You know, listening to Matt this morning, Matt Hogan from. I bit. I bet. Right, sorry, who? I really like Matt quite a bit. You know, he's a sensible human being. The flood of money from. Not the young people, but the flood of. What did I call it this morning? Old, new money. Yeah. It's the old money that hasn't really come into bitcoin yet. Like. Like this. Really. All your friends are crypto. Crypto. Crypto centric. But the money that's coming into bitcoin is not crypto centric money. It is old money. And that money is very different. It's coming in methodical. I'm buying at 88 to 92. It waits to hit the 88 and 90 twos. I've seen my brother buy 3,000 Bitcoin. Just my thought. 88, 90, 88, 98. I hope it goes to 84. I hope this retraces. I am begging for. I always hope it goes down and freaks people out. Like, you see all these liquidations and I'm like, why are people getting liquidated over this? Because they're stretching their buying options. Like the young man just said here, hey, I'm out. I'm out of crypto. He got out of crypto because he's trading too many options. He should be out of options, not bitcoin. Like, don't confuse options and bitcoin. Like, you're probably going to get your head torn off trading options on the video. So I think all of these.
A
I don't think people should be trading bitcoin.
B
Oh, I agree with that. I think you should Store it just like the bloody squirrel, and you're going to wake up several seasons from now being extremely rich unless you think, this is it. It's a $2 trillion asset class and it's not going to do more. That has never happened to a $2 trillion asset class ever. It always goes up after 2 trillion. Never. You don't lose $2 trillion asset classes. Never in history has a $2 trillion asset class expired. And we get silver at what silver's market cap is.5 trillion. Is silver 5 trillion now? Now that that 5 trillion dollar market was $3 trillion three months ago.
A
Right. And people say 2 trillion, it's now. It's so big it can't move quickly.
B
Well, there has never been an asset class at 2 trillion that failed.
A
Right.
B
You get momentum once you get, you know, the old rule about inertia. A object in motion tends to stay in motion unless it's, you know, hammered with another force countering it. Clearly, I didn't go to the physics class many times, but the bitcoin momentum, like to think that it's going to $57,000, which I would love. That would be awesome.
A
200 moving average on the weekly.
B
Exactly.
A
Sitting there.
B
Exactly. Well, I mean, everybody says it's got to get retested. I don't think it gets retested that low, but it would be an awesome experience to do so. And I think that's the difference between the more serious buyers, which I see the people that are coming in here. What did Matt say? You got a Billionous dollars? Yes. $900,900 million.
A
I had to jump off the spaces. I had a call with a $100 billion asset manager. Something. I don't know, some ludicrous number. But yeah. So I like the idea of old money being the new money. Maybe we should drill in on that, because I think you could talk about people putting 100% of their paycheck into bitcoin all day. That's a drop in the bucket in the notion. If you're talking about the hundreds of trillions of dollars of investable assets, even a tiny portion of that coming into bitcoin, what happens when everybody, every institution says 3%? We've been talking about it forever. Seems like more of them are talking about it. But that's the old money being the new money in bitcoin.
B
I mean, bank of America just came out and said, we approve all of our advisors to go up to 4%.
A
I love that people were reporting that, by the way, that bank of America says 4% of your portfolio in bitcoin. No, they didn't. But it's nice that you can.
B
Yeah, yeah, but even that they made that statement, you're talking about the most ultra conservative bank in the world. Like, this is a hyper, hyper conservative bank, bank of America. And two years ago we would have said, hey, bank of America is approving 1%. We'd have been like, oh my God, that is like nirvana. It's four. And I've seen banks with allocations that are 20 times higher than that. Like when the analysts go in and do the study and they go, hey, we think the allocation should be 76%. They erased the document, the memo, because they're like, we cannot have anybody seeing this. And they, they reduce it to 30, 35%. There was a time, just years, a couple of years ago where 1% was going to be. That makes bitcoin.
A
We used to, we probably talked about it. We used to sit on shows and be like, what happens when BlackRock says 1%? They're up to like 3 or 4 already at least as their recommendations. Right. So. But it didn't send it yet. You would have thought in those years that if we were sitting at 80, $90,000, which we probably were a year ago when we were talking about this, if BlackRock says 1%, we're at 250 overnight.
B
Nope, nope.
A
Nothing moves this market right now on the news side, which to me means it's a coiled spring.
B
Yeah, I mean, I actually think I'll get a lot of hate for this, but I actually think it's the look. Three or four million bitcoin need. Need capital, Ned, real capital. Bold letters, italicized and underlined. We need 30 and $300 bitcoin to get out of those old hands. Have to. Until that happens, this market is not going anywhere. It's going to go 90 to 120. 90 to 120. It has to get. Satoshi made a mistake. I think Satoshi made a mistake.
A
Now you're gonna get.
B
Yeah, but, but and the mistake was that the issuance of a short term mistake, maybe the issuance, the way it was pushed into the market, like you know, 12 million coins within the first six years or so. Eight years. Don't hold me exactly that. That. That's what happened. But they were priced so low. One, we know they were mispriced because 3 or 4 million coins were lost. When you misprice things, you mishandle them, you mistreat them. Most certainly that did not get lost at Fidelity by The way that got lost in self custody and it wasn't respected. And when you don't respect the price, usually it's lost. I do not hear anyone losing $90,000 bitcoin. Okay, I do not hear that. But this price Delta between 30 and $300 and 90,000, it's too big. You have 12 million coins that are priced under, you know, I mean, it's, they're deep in the money. And there's no incentive for these people, especially with their political mindset, there's not a lot of incentive for them to move into the market. This is, was my fear about, oh, you guys quit asking for no taxes on bitcoin because you'll see the biggest sell of bitcoin in the history of mankind. Like, we'll get to $57,000 and it's not right. You can't, you don't treat crude oil that way. So don't treat bitcoin that way. If it's a commodity, it has to get taxed. If you tax normal things, if there's truly a tax or a reason for tax. So I just think that we're going through this, this big gap between 300 bucks, 3,000 bucks, whatever you call it, and 90 and this, these old coins just have to come into the market.
A
They have been, I mean, a lot of people looking at, on chain analytics, I guess you can't necessarily prove they've been sold, but they've certainly moved, right? Coins that hadn't moved in a decade, 15 years.
B
Well, I think they did move. They moved from the SBRs.
A
Yeah. And that might be it. Right. But it looks like hundreds of thousands of those coins at least have been sold. So you can make the argument that at least that process has started. And those were all people that you would have looked at their wallets and said, these guys are never selling. Like, if they got it at a buck, why didn't they sell it at 20 grand or 50 grand? What was the magic, you know, bullet here at 100 that finally said, you know what, screw it, I'm out. Or are they just selling 10% of it for estate planning and to buy their yacht and they're still holding a ton and it's irrelevant.
B
Maybe, maybe. But I think a lot of this actually went into, they went into these treasury companies, treasury companies and the NACA of the world. And because they thought, okay, one, it's tax efficient and they're going to be able to take $30, $300, $3,000 Bitcoin, no tax event, and move it into a shell and it was going to explode. Well, that has not worked at all.
A
Went pretty bad.
B
It has not worked at all.
A
Yeah, I mean, the first investors in Nakamoto, I think. What was it? $1.12 trading? You know, I don't want to date us, but I've got to imagine 50 cents. Ish. You know, so even the guys who were early watched it go from a buck to 28. And by the time they got their shares, it was three bucks. And now if they didn't sell, they're at 50 cents. So that was not a very tax efficient way to exit bitcoin, if that's what they were doing. And I don't want to pick on them specifically. Obviously, it's kind of emblematic of everything in the treasury space, but still, it has not worked out well.
B
We're not picking on anybody. We're just picking the loser. I mean, we're picking the most poorly performing treasury company. And I don't like, if I was running the company, you would have the right to go, dude, you just blew it. I mean, I, you know, I, the, the point I'm trying to make, I think that's not going to happen again.
A
I agree.
B
The bitcoin guys are going to be like, oh, I don't think I want to do that anymore there. Maybe I just pay my taxes. It would have been cheaper. Like they've lost 75% of what they did.
A
Or just take a loan and I.
B
Don'T think or, or take a loan. That's the really weird part. The other part that I keep wondering about, and I wanted to ask you because you've been in the space so much longer than I have, is what about those coins that aren't garnished with U.S. approval? Because I think there's. Bitcoin is a world of two markets. The dirty coins and the clean coins.
A
That was a big narrative a few years ago before we had regulatory approval. I remember even actually, Mr. Wonderful, Kevin O' Leary kind of made the argument to me on the show that he basically viewed it as. He called them either clean or green. Bitcoin versus everything else. If it's been through the Silk Road, nobody's going to want to touch it. But if it's newly mined and minted, that they would. I just haven't. I mean, you're bringing it up and it's a good point. I just haven't heard that narrative. But there was a time when people believed that coins that you could basically identify the provenance and see where they'd been would be worth more that there'd actually be a bifurcated market. Like they would trade at a higher premium.
B
I don't think so. I think they trade at a discount for sure. To have approved, valid. Anything that's been through Coinbase or Binance, it's cleaned up now. Right. And you can say that's right or wrong. But for instance, every now and then I see a deal, somebody will call me and go, hey, I have 100,000 coins, but they're all on wallets and I can't get them out. The guy's dead broke, can't move around, doesn't want the. I'm like, well, they must be dirty then. Like if you can't get them out. Well, they don't want to pay taxes. Okay, that's one thing. But why? I think there's a lot of coins, dude, that are dirty, that are trying to find a way into the market and they don't want to go through the system either. The person holding them is dirty, which could happen.
A
Yeah. The biggest problem for bitcoiners is that eventually if you want to go to Fiat, you got to go through some centralized exchange where you're going to pay taxes. There's really not many ways to exit 90 something or $100,000 bitcoin into cash with a suitcase. It's not like the local bitcoins days where that's literally how this stuff traded.
B
Yeah, yeah, but you, you know, those guys cannot borrow against that bitcoin. You got a hundred thousand bitcoin you can't borrow against because you have to.
A
Show somebody that you have it correct. To be able to borrow against it.
B
Correct. I mean, I'm, I don't know about you. I'm not loan.
A
I mean, Roger Veer, I don't remember the like, explicit circumstances, but he sort of claimed that he paid the taxes when he left and when he gave up his citizenship. And then they pointed at these other huge stacks of bitcoin. I like, once again, I don't remember the specifics but. But clearly he had on the books bitcoin and off the books bitcoin or that's what they were trying to argue, whether that was true or not. I think a lot of these guys probably have that. Whether it was through nefarious purposes or they just never reported it. And you can't just show up with it in 2025.
B
Yeah.
A
If you've been holding 100,000 Bitcoin for 10 years and then all of a sudden you start selling it, the IRS is going to start wondering what you bought it at or where you got it, whether it's dirty or not.
B
Yeah, yeah. So it's just a real question, you know, how much of that's still out there? You know, can I buy? If a Russian calls me up tomorrow and he's got a thousand bitcoin, I want to buy a thousand bitcoin one. Why is he offering me a discount? What? Why does it come with a discount?
A
I used to see those deals all the time, and it was always a scam. When you got to the finish line, it was like a game of chicken. We would find, like, we tried to do this for a while. There'd be somebody who was anonymous that had a broker that had a bunch of bitcoin. They have a buyer give you a 5% discount or whatever. But when it came time to, okay, you send the money, you send the bitcoin, there was no escrow strong enough that anybody was willing to send their money first. Yeah, I think they were all scams.
B
Yeah, I've heard discounts much bigger than that. I'm talking about people that have locked up bitcoin. They might not know how to get to it. They're looking for expertise to get to it. They want it cleaned. I just don't know why anything should have a discount to it. On bitcoin, I can see crude oil that's got some funk on it. You know, it's got an Iranian label on it. Or it's got sour. You know, it's a different quality. But bitcoin's bitcoin, there's no sour bitcoin. There's sour natural gas. There's sour crude oil. It trades at a discount. But to me, like, would you be comfortable talking to an Iranian today? He's got 500 Bitcoin. He wants to sell it to you for $75,000. Would you buy 1,000 Bitcoin from an Iranian, someone you don't know? It got moved to your wallet and you get a 20% discount. Would you be cool with that?
A
Probably not.
B
See, is that bizarre? You're validating that there is clean bitcoin and bitcoin, that's got noise on it. That means that not all bitcoin's the same.
A
You just have to wonder how you would explain it to the authorities. That's the only reason I would love to theoretically buy a lot of bitcoin at a massive discount.
B
Yeah. The problem is, when it gets transferred to you, you're only going to know whether that's classified as clean or not. When you go to sell it, when you get it, there's nothing to do with. So if this bitcoin was involved in.
A
Some nefarious taking in a North Korean.
B
Hack, you're not going to know it.
A
Right.
B
Can you imagine? You're buying this for your kids and 20 years you die and 20 years later they open it up and they're like, wow, I can't even use it.
A
This wasn't yours. This was stolen. Going back to its rightful owner.
B
Yeah. I mean you've seen, you've seen the US government dude, Roger Vere, they stopped him in Spain. Okay. He does not have a blue passport and they. You're not going anywhere. So this theory about, hey you, your keys, not your coins and nobody's gonna take it from you. If the US government, the Russian government or the French or the UK want to incarcerate you, they will incarcerate you.
A
The bitcoin in UK they'll incarcerate you.
B
For, for saying something about your meme. Yes.
A
And then take your bitcoin.
B
Yeah. So I don't, I think if a government wants to take your, they're going to take your. I don't know how we got off on that, but it's just a world of two products and people keep talking about bitcoin is bitcoin. I'm like, is it really? Is it because you just told me you would be uncomfortable buying from a anonymous person from another country. You'd probably buy a bitcoin from me.
A
Yeah.
B
But the truth is, how do you know where I got it? You're just making a decision on. You don't know if it came through a coinbase or binance. What if it came through one of these? Yeah.
A
I guess the question is what discount is enough to handicap the risk.
B
I don't think there's any discount worth selling.
A
I think you're selling because you don't.
B
Know till you sell it. Right.
A
Yeah. The bigger question is just, I think.
B
You just said that you would pay.
A
What do you do with it? Where do you put it? Because bitcoin in this future institutionalized world, Listen, unless you think we're going Mad Max and bitcoin becomes the global currency of the future and great, then your self custody Bitcoin is great. But let's just assume that you're a normal person. If you're buying that many bitcoin, you're wealthy, you're going to want to take a loan against it. You don't want to go to Jail for tax evasion or something because you're wealthy. You're not going to take that risk because you can't do anything with that bitcoin.
B
If we go mad.
A
If you sell it, you have to buy.
B
Bitcoin's the last thing I want to buy.
A
You want guns and I want ammo.
B
I want a million rounds of ammo. I want food, I want seeds, I want water. I don't want bitcoin. I don't need bitcoin. I need weapons and I need. I'll steal your bitcoin. I'll steal everything you have. And by the way, I can barter.22 long rifles a lot easier than I can bitcoin. I don't need electricity to make 22 long rifles or 30 odd sixes to work. Like I can trade that for food. I can trade it for other things. This. And who the hell wants to live in a Mad Max world, man? Okay, this is crazy. That's the anarchist wet dream. But it's like I think bitcoin's worth zero.
A
Yeah, when Ology did that, remember bitcoin will be a million dollars in three months. Whatever his bet was. Yeah, yeah, I talked to him about it. He was like, I was just, you know, got it burning a million dollars to show people the problems with inflation. And I respect that. In any world where bitcoin goes up remotely, that high in a short period of time is not a world you want to live in, period. I've said that repeatedly. I don't care if I've got my bitcoin. If it's like you and our army going to Gastown, protecting our rig, it's not that fun.
B
That's exactly right, man.
A
Yeah, it's interesting. I hadn't really given thought to the dirty versus clean bitcoin idea in years, but it's going to come back around.
B
It's the only thing that explains to me why we have the pricing where we have it. Because someone was selling bitcoin, right?
A
But they're doing it through like reputable OTC desk. Hence why it's affecting the price. Because that transaction wouldn't affect the price.
B
Well that exactly. But that's the way this bitcoin's gotten cleaned. Like, I don't us suspect some of these sb, you know, dirty bitcoin moved in and now it's all nice and pristine clean. The stuff that's moved into NACA has probably been cleaned. I, you know, some of that had to be old Bitcoin has to be. And I think all bitcoin's got some taint on it. Just like all money's got cocaine traces on it. Most all bitcoin was involved in some nefarious activity between the years 2013ish. Come on. Yeah.
A
It all went through the Silk Road one way or another.
B
Yeah. It's a marketplace, so it doesn't make it bad today. Just was used at one time for something. Doesn't mean the dollars I have in my pocket are bad right now. No.
A
Let me ask you this then. So I know that you've, like, me, bought some naca. I know you're a strategy bull. I'm back in strategy now. It looks really good. But all of what you've seen over the past six months to a year, is there any reason for us to touch any of this and not just buy bitcoin?
B
No. Absolutely no. I know we do it. It's a bit of a freaky thing that goes on in my head because I should, like, I own a lot of microstrategy. I should have just sold my. I should sell my Naka today and buy bitcoin. Okay, Now I lost $7,000. I could have bought it at 88, sold it, and I could take the loss. I chose not to take my losses last year.
A
Me too. Because I think this is going to be a better year, dude.
B
Me too. I called my accountants on the 30th. I said, I'm not dumping anything.
A
I did exactly the same thing.
B
I'll take my loss this year. I think it's going to be more important for me to have half a million dollar loss here, half a million dollar loss there instead of taking it last year. I don't. I hope we're right. Look, silver and gold are telling us everything we need to know. I can. I understand why people are investing in silver and gold and not bitcoin. It's the old money, man. It's the old money. It's the way they think. They're not going to think about bitcoin. They watch this run up on silver and go, oh, wow, that's smart. Okay. I'm going to do that for my family. What happens when that stops? I think they start rotating into this. Oh, wow, look at this thing. It's cheap. Bitcoin's cheap, man. It's just sat there, done nothing.
A
But that's what I'm saying. If someone handed you say that you a meaningful amount of money as a percentage of your net worth and said, but you need to buy something with it, maybe I'm too deep down the rabbit hole. But there's no other asset that I look at and say, I confidently want to buy and hold this thing for the next five, ten years with this huge amount of money that somebody just handed me. I would buy bitcoin, but if you sell a house, you're buying bitcoin.
B
I would suggest to anybody and everybody that they look at their portfolio right now. Every investment they have, like I have an investment in something that I have offered is a private deal. Right. It's one of these companies I've offered the owner of the company. I'm like, hey, look, two years. You owe me all this money. I'll let you out for 50 cents on the dollar. As long as Bitcoin's under 100 grand, I'll offer you 50 cents on the dollar. You need to hit this deal real quick. And I would literally take all of.
A
It and move it into a 50% discount on money owed to get into bitcoin.
B
Now it's owed to me in two years. That's. That's saying, wow, Gary. Saying the time value, that money is at a 50% discount in two years, which is crazy. It's probably around 8%. Right. Gets 8% on the money. And I think the bitcoin will grossly outperform that. Plus the risk I have with this deal is two years. A lot of things can go wrong.
A
Yeah.
B
Okay. The people can die. The business could go away. They could make a mistake, they could get sued. They could get a class action. They could get so many things, they could lose their staff. The AI, the, you know, the. The industry they're in, the rules could change. Whereas bitcoin, I'm looking at it going, wow, no human era. I have never had in my lifetime the opportunity to invest in something that had no human era. That's like getting married to a woman who is never going to have a period. Okay. Like, wow, I'm paying premiums for that. Or, you know, they're never going to have an emotional upset moment. Right. Come on, man. That's awesome. Okay. It's no human error. I'm sorry.
A
It's.
B
It's. I come up with analogies that I think other people can understand. Scott, no offense to all the women.
A
None of them watch this.
B
Yeah, that is true.
A
There's, like, not a single person.
B
The girls that watch this don't have periods.
A
I'm sorry. To the three. Three women out there who are all postmenopausal who are watching this content.
B
Yeah. Oh, so embarrassing. Anyway, it's the best I could do right off the top of my head.
A
If that was off the top of your head, that was high quality.
B
Thank you, man.
A
Good stuff. That's why you get the big bucks.
B
That's why I get the big bucks.
A
Yeah. And now I just wonder why I am so bullish Microstrategy again when I can just buy Bitcoin. Because Microstrategy is not going up unless Bitcoin goes up, I think.
B
Okay, so while we're talking about the strategy company, this M Nav thing, which I have always been a huge detester of, I think it's the dumbest thing. I think PE multiples are dumb too. I think they're all bull. All these metrics are made up. There's no reason for any of these companies traded a premium. I mean, maybe a slight premium for operational and I could see strategy. Okay, dude, you're. But it's not because he's got 700,000. Like just because you have a lot does not mean you're going to be able to do more. I don't get it. He is never going to be a bank. If he is a bank, I'm selling all my strategy. He does not have the culture to be a trading bank. A J.P. morgan. All these Bitcoin guys are going to turn into an options desk and. Oh, he's not. He doesn't have the culture for an options desk. You need an Enron for that. You need. I could see any kind of trade, maybe lending, but even that, it's not really the core. It's not his core business and it's not his mindset. I just don't see where the premium comes from. So I look at it back, back to this conversation. I think all of it was a mistake. I should have just bought Bitcoin. I would have less headaches, less worry, less concern. The cool thing is I. The money that went into strategy was never going to go into bitcoin because the ETFs weren't around then.
A
Right?
B
Well, that's coming on now. He no longer has that edge. I think the edge he does have is large. Pensions will go into MSTR and they won't go into naca. They're going to go into MSTR and they're not going to go into bmnr.
A
Well, this was always my argument against all the treasury companies. If strategy is already there, what the hell are you going to do? And I've heard eloquent, well articulated arguments for why they should all exist. I had a long conversation With Mark Moss, who I'm sure you know, and he explained all the different debt instruments and when you start to open the world to all of the different kind of bonds that exist and all the different kind. Yeah. Then maybe each of these companies can focus on something the strategy's not doing. I just don't feel like we're there quite yet. He's doing enough. And, and he's now offering a 10% almost risk free yield on STRC that appeals to that huge wall of institutional money. What other product is somebody going to come out with right now that's more compelling than something he's doing?
B
I, I don't know. And now I don't know why he offered 10 and 11. I thought that was like a high cost of capital. Why did you do that?
A
You said that we talked about that in our last conversation.
B
I never understood that. You could have done eight. Yeah, you could have done eight. It's double, it's double the money market accounts. There's $7 trillion in money market accounts. It. There's what, how many, how much money is in multi dwelling real estate? It's double what my brother pays out. Right. So I, I was very surprised he went to that level. It was kind of an. Now maybe he wanted to destroy the other ones just right.
A
Just put a nail higher than this. It's over worth 2% to not see any composition. Maybe in his mind.
B
Yeah, I don't think it was necessary. But you see the flows into strc. I mean the guy on your show today was going, hey, just another million dollars.
A
He's like 3 million more. 10 million.
B
But like all the money market money should go that all 7 trillion should move into 11%. Why are you getting four and a half? My lawyer told me the other day he's about 800 years old. 50% of his wealth is still in bonds. And I can't imagine what the rest of it's in. Okay, but like not one bitcoin. And he knows everything about what I've done for the last six years. I'm like, wow.
A
And he's watched you do it?
B
I mean he's, every time he sees me, hey, what's bitcoin doing? Every time he sees me. I saw him this weekend, he moved 300 weapons for me. And he was like, on the way out he's like, hey, what's bitcoin? He's seeing a million rounds of ammo moving. And he's like, damn, this guy collects a bunch of shit, you know. And it's like it's just the same. I'm collecting something that I think is going to have extreme value one day. There's only 16 million of these units. There's not 21 million. 16 million units.
A
Yeah. Because five are lost, probably more.
B
And some of those 16 are tainted. I think they're tainted. So I look at this and go, wow.
A
I.
B
It's like the property owned in Tiraverde. I'm like, man, there's only four. 24 of these.
A
I was gonna say your house is pretty scarce.
B
Yeah.
A
I don't think there's a person on the view on the planet with a sunset view like yours, certainly in the continental United States.
B
It's staggering, man. Like. Like, what's that worth? The house is worth less than the view, really. The quiet. But so to me, I like those kind of things. I don't need 14 houses like that. I need like one. But the truth is, I would love to rent it. Anybody that wants to take that note, I'll rent it from 50 to 70 to 100 grand a month. Yeah. All day long. Oh, totally, man. That house has cost me a lot of money, man. I. I could have bought, I think, $8,000 Bitcoin. That house cost me 8 million. That's a thousand. 10,000 Bitcoin.
A
$80 million house.
B
Okay, more. Dude, it's 110. Ish. It's a nice house, but it is not worth $110 million, right? Not a chance.
A
Memories, man.
B
You know, I got some bad memories of that house. That house saw a war fall.
A
Let me ask you this, though. This guy, 50% in bonds, right? And we know that they've been recommending a 60, 40 portfolio forever. And it's slowly, you know, as you get older, obviously more bonds, less risk. Where does bitcoin fit into that? If you're a new entrant and a conservative investor who's listening to their RIA, like, is it 5% of the bond side? Is it 5% of the stock side? Is it 5% out of each? And you own 10%, right. That guy, if he's holding 50% bonds, let's say the other 50% is just like broadly indexed to the stock market or something. And you're telling him to buy bitcoin? What's he selling?
B
I'm not sure he's going to make.
A
The move at all, theoretically, you know, like what?
B
Yeah, but I think this is really important because it. I think we're going through this. We have a weird.
A
Don't make the move when it's 200,000.
B
Yes, yes. But it may extend the roadway, the road for all of us. Because this money is going to be really, really hard to move. It's. Even though he saw everything, he looks at me and goes, yeah, but you're Gary Cardone. You're take risk, dude. You. I don't do that. You do that. And he's okay with me doing it. And he'll, hey, I know this guy. He's going to be okay because he's wealthy. He's not super wealthy, but he's wealthy. So I think these people don't do until their kids get their money. And that says, oh my God, man, 10 years from now, we're still going to be running. That to me, is very, very, very positive. So let me answer your question. If they, if he takes some of his stocks down, he probably won't do that because he's, you know, it's almost like they're married. They're married to these things. I mean, my sister had Philip Marsh. Like, yeah, but I've owned Philip Marsh forever. You don't even smoke anymore, man. Okay. Like, it's a bad company. You're getting a 4%. I had to offer six. I said, look, I'll give you six. Do you trust me or bank of America? I trust you more. Good. Send me the 300 grand. I'll give you 6% and I'm gonna turn it into bitcoin. If you're not gonna do it, I think everybody in their family should do that. Like, if you're a bitcoiner, offer your family a better deal than they have with their equities and then you turn it into bitcoin and, and maybe give them some upside. I'll give her some upside with no downside risk. It's a great way for me to get more bitcoin and help my family and probably help the lawyer. I just don't think these guys move in. But if they do move in, they'll. They'll start with the bonds, they'll cut some of their bonds and maybe buy some ETFs. They're never gonna. These people will never. Self custody. So the bitcoin community that talks about self custody, this old money is never going to do this except maybe years in the future when they go, oh, I'm going to save my trust in self custody. I could see that. But we're talking a long time.
A
Yeah, they're all coming in through ETFs.
B
Yeah. And these MSTR products. See, I could, I can see that. I could See where he would go, I'm going to do this 11% thing. That'd be a great trade.
A
He's not buying bitcoin. He's buying bitcoin exposure. And that maybe that's like the gateway drug.
B
Yeah, it is the gateway drug, but I mean, it's a hell of a lot better than 4.5% on his bonds. Right.
A
Which is going lower. Right.
B
Which is going lower. I mean, he's getting triple. And somebody's not talking. His investment advisor is not saying, hey, you can triple your distributions through mstr. You don't even need to understand anything about bitcoin. But my brother's real estate program, the biggest thing about that program is that no one has to read the white paper. No one has to talk about self custody. Is that a bitcoin product? I think it's a hybrid. It's, it's. Bitcoin is moving into the system, man. Guys like, it's coming, but it's moving in the system and it looks a little different. It's not pure bitcoin.
A
Well, I was going to say that's the actual answer to how those guys get exposure. And it's passive. They don't do it on purpose. And maybe that's a cop out, but I remember having a conversation with a friend from college who was like, I would never buy Meta stock. Zuckerberg, I hate that guy. Hated Elon Musk. Right. I would never buy Tesla. And then I jokingly say, what's in your 401k? Well, it's the NASDAQ and the SPY and broad exposure. I was like, guess what? You own a lot of Meta exposure and a lot of Tesla exposure. So if you're going to be broadly indexed to the market in any way, shape or form by any product, then all these companies you hate, led by all these guys you hate, are a meaningful part of your portfolio.
B
Absolutely.
A
Good luck getting rid of that.
B
Well, it's easy to get rid of it.
A
Well, buy bitcoin.
B
Yeah, yeah, buy bitcoin. Like you have an opportunity you didn't have five years ago.
A
Let me ask you this, and you don't have to answer necessarily. I know you've had like ebb and flows in politics, right. There was a period where you definitely thought it might be worthwhile to get much more deeply involved in politics. Obviously, you gave very publicly a lot of bitcoin to Trump when we went to Nashville. Do you think that your position on bitcoin has changed your politics at all? Because it seems to me, as A friend that you've become slightly more apolitical in that time, as I have, by the way, when I tweet something about, you know, like, man, I'm really proud to be an unaffiliated voter right now because I want to be opted out of all this. For me, bitcoin and going down that rabbit hole is actually what eventually made me more disillusioned with all of the systems, not the opposite way. I didn't find bitcoin because I hated politics. I started to hate politics because I found bitcoin.
B
Yeah, well, I've always hated the politics because I think anybody that's a professional politician, they're, they're a professional politician. It has nothing to do with being Republican or blue or independent. Look, I, I'd never really been involved in politics, but when I saw Trump come on, I knew that I could help the bitcoin community and that was why I gave him 12.8. I could have given bitcoin, I could have given the money directly to Trump and had a better relationship with him, but I chose to go through the bitcoin community. One, I wanted to show the bitcoin community, hey, my allegiance is to bitcoin and the industry. It's not to this group of people that are trying to do politics. But I thought the leverage that, and I think it was, I think it was very useful. I have no regrets over given the 12.8 Bitcoin. My job was, hey, I gotta replace it. Now it's my job to replace it. What I saw was that that 12.8 Bitcoin, one, got liquidated instantly. Two, I'm pretty sure that half of it might have gotten to Trump or less by the time everybody took their fee in their little MLM multi level marketing program. I mean, the amount of people Amway, dude, I looked at it and went, wow, this is awful. So that's first thing. Second thing is I've given up. I was right before. Professional politicians don't do anything but do professional politician things. I will never give any money to anyone. I'll do the thing with Deaton, I'll provide my house, but I'm not supporting the political process anymore. I'm going to support getting super rich, super, super, obnoxiously, disgustingly wealthy. So I can say off and I will say I'm really disappointed in the people that have off money who are not saying off. Like, shame on you, dude. You have you money and you're not saying you. And we need some real men to stand up. We have 3,500 billionaires on this planet and very few of them are saying shit.
A
I would argue. I would argue there's another thousand that nobody knows that are just from bitcoin.
B
I agree. Dude, I agree.
A
3,500 billionaires that we know about. How many guys do you know that have got to be close who are not on any list? Yeah, quite a few.
B
Yeah, I agree. I mean, I don't know if it's a thousand, but few hundred. Yeah, I mean, look, you most certainly have some players, and I don't see any of them. And if you're not standing up and pushing back, I'm talking to you. Okay. Like, I'm really disappointed in what I see from men that have stacks and stacks of cash. They're so scared to lose it.
A
Doesn't that just kind of prove the point of bitcoin? Well, I know you're not the biggest fan of self custody, and we've talked about this a lot, just because it's a single point of failure, but, well.
B
You and I, if you have money.
A
And somebody else has to hold it for you, they can take it away just as easily. That's the fear. If it's sitting in a bank. Look.
B
Oh, on self custody, I'm just talking about in general. I have children. You have children. Okay. If I did self custody, I would tell you. I never do, of course. And. But if you come to my house, you're not going to get anything but a bullet in your face. Okay.
A
Or.
B
And two dogs. Sorry. You come into my home armed, unarmed, whatever, dude. You're going down. But the self custody thing has always been a really bizarre thing to me because I'm like, why are y' all even talking about. Seems so weird to me that you would even discuss it. It would be like, me, hey, I'm. I have $40 million in cash, gold and silver at my house. Wow. Why would I do that? I'm self custody, right? So it's not that I love the idea. I love. I love the idea of being able to carry a weapon, but I'm not carrying all of my weapons. And none of these banks have ever stolen money from me. Like, the experiences I hear. I'm not saying that it hasn't happened to other people, but I have never had a bank steal money from me.
A
I've heard stories of people being debanked, but then you just switch banks. It's not like your money disappears. They just say they don't want to do business with you anymore. It's a wildly different thing than having your money stolen. But you're right, you don't hear about. In the United States at least.
B
Correct.
A
Now, I can see if you live in Lebanon or something.
B
Well, I can see that too. I can see where. If I lived in Greece, I mean. Yeah, if you're in the Eurozone, you're going to get ripped off. I mean, their money is failing. Their whole country, their whole continent is failing. So I just. I've been around a while. I've just never had a bank rip me off like that. So maybe it'll happen one day. And I banked in the uk. I banked here. Funny enough, the banks that I'm dealing with today, I've shown them my positions that they don't actually have. They've seen money move from the bank somewhere else. Well, they know where it's going. It's going to Binance, Coinbase and the other exchanges. And no one's ever complained.
A
Which is interesting because there's so many people who have said they got debanked the minute their money touched on crypto adjacent. That didn't happen to me either.
B
Have I ever had the bank go, hey, I'm going to slow this trade down. You can't move it. I have stuff on automatic. I wire bitcoin. I don't know who you bank with, but bitcoin is giving me the. The bank called me up one day, said, we're gonna let you do your own wires. I said, finally, dude, I can do a wire for a hundred grand without touching the bank. Boom. Hit some. Just like Zelle. Just like Zelle do. Bang, bang, wire, no fees. Every year I call my bankers up and go, wipe every fee you've ever charged me this year. Every fee, every wire transfer, every little small fee. I'm like, I'm not paying any of them, dude, don't. And you shouldn't do it to other people. But nobody ever makes this phone call, call your banker and say, wipe my fees out for the year or I'm leaving. I don't even say that. I just go, hey, man. But I'm a. I'm a decent client. They make 70 bips on me, which is fine for me. The point I'm trying to make, once I showed him what my position was in bitcoin, they have treated me better. I mean, like appreciably better. Like, bank president calling, hey, I'm in Tampa. You want to have lunch in three weeks? They want to know, right? And they literally see the money come in the system and move out to Binance or whoever, and they don't complain. Now, two years ago, they weren't treating me like that. They were treating me like, ooh, what's the next question? What's this?
A
How much is that changed?
B
Yeah. In the last two years, especially when I showed them by now, I mean, I just opened up some, hey, man, let me show you what I'm doing over here. Because all they see is what I have in the bank and they started seeing this other thing and it moved. They saw move from 16 to 90. They are bending over backwards to help because they're not. They know their management and the board isn't there, ready. They're not ready to go into crypto. But they know that one day that's going to happen for them. They see bank of America make that move. Right. They don't want to irritate me.
A
So last time we were talking, we don't need to revisit it. But the bitcoin as a business obviously resonated with me massively, but certainly with everyone else. But the beginning of this conversation, you also said, well, bitcoin's a great business, but I want that business to grow. And for that business to grow, we still need to go find Fiat elsewhere. So how do you balance the passivity of bitcoin being a business? It's totally passive. I get my money in, it, it grows. I have no employees. All of that with. I want to grow this business beyond just the appreciation of the bitcoin, to go get more bitcoin. What's the balance?
B
Well, maybe you misunderstood me, but for me, that, that is the business, like the show that you're doing. You're going to blow this show up, right? So you're going to put more and more and more energy into it. Once you start doing something successful, you don't stop, Right? Okay, I'm successful now. I'm going to stop now. I hear people say that, hey, you've had a lot of, look, you're up for, you know, 400%, dude. Well, yeah. Why wouldn't I keep playing this game? So my job, bitcoin is a business. Everyone that I hear says, I want to be in control of my own destiny. I want to be the CEO, I want to be the captain of my, my ship, all right? By bitcoin, it's the only business you can buy. Point 1, 1 bitcoin, 10 bitcoin or 100 bitcoin, and then keep adding. And all you do is just keep adding to. If. If I said to you, hey, look, you're going to do these podcast shows and. And then you're going to go mine gold between 9pm and 9am People be like, wow, he's a superstar. He's got three jobs. And we would give you kudos for mining bitcoin, for mining gold. All you're doing is mining bitcoin by really mining Fiat and converting it.
A
Convert to bitcoin.
B
Right. I don't. It's just. If it's good for strategy, if it's good for my twin brother, if it's good sitting in a bmnr, it must be good. I call it the family Bitcoin reserve. The fbr. It's awesome, dude. If it's good for all these companies, if they. He raised what, $40 billion, dude. If it's. If he can raise 40 billion, how's it not good for me? Like, I don't need strategy. I need to do this on my own. And then I can do some strategy if I want to. But it's really making me question, hey, why do I have any of this stuff in other. In other products? Right. I could just have it all in bitcoin and all of that sitting there just because the bitcoin wasn't ready at the time. Yeah. So I just think it's an awesome business because I reduce all human error. I have no legal documents to sign. This is a big problem for me. You call me up and go, hey, I got a deal to give you. I want to show you a deal. And the first thing you have to do is send me an NDA, which, by the way, I don't really understand. Really? You do not. There's a comma. One little comma goes missing, and you're gonna argue in a courtroom? So I just, like, I'm working on a deal right now. The paperwork is, like, crazy. I can do bitcoin without any of that noise whatsoever. I don't need a lawyer. I don't need an accountant. I can buy my own node 40 software for $5,000 a year, and I can run rings around the IRS forever. I bury the IRS, okay, with this technology. So I've never had a business that didn't require salesmen, didn't require a human resource department. Every time I do something, it gets so big, I have to have an HR department. And that's the curse. That is the. I'm out. Gary's out. Once HR shows up, I need to go home because all the rules start showing up.
A
He was hr.
B
No, he. He's. He is human Human management You know what I'm saying? I mean, it's just, it's. I don't need any people. I don't need any headaches. I don't have any lawyers. I don't have any documents to sign. No NDAs. I don't have to create big files. And, ooh, what did I do? I was with Kathy woods one day and, you know, I carry notepads with me all the time.
A
She's like, you have the red one you gave me in my bag.
B
Well, you should be writing on it. Right? So. And I make. She. She said, you. You keep notes of everything. Yeah. And I could just see, like, legal. Legal. Oh, not. I'm Like, I did. I'm. I buy bitcoin. I have nothing to hide. I can. I can write all my stuff down. And it's. It's the greatest. Like, I've been in a lot of businesses. This is the greatest business I've ever seen in my life. It's only subject to me.
A
Yeah, you mentioned a few times, obviously.
B
And by the way, I share none of the upside with anybody.
A
Yeah, you don't have to.
B
Not that I don't want to share.
A
No shareholders?
B
No. No shareholders.
A
Investors.
B
No. Nobody calling. I called Grant up one day and said, hey, I've got a problem. I'm in the seven of your deals. I want you to liquidate me. Dude, I can't. I can't liquidate you. You're in. He's got 42 funds. I'm in seven of them. So I couldn't get out of. At a 90% discount. Now, he would have got me out at 90, but you know what I'm saying, anytime I have a problem, if somebody said, hey, Gary, you have full on cancer, I can liquidate all my bitcoin tomorrow morning. I don't have to wait. That's a superpower, dude. That is a superpower that nobody talks about. Now, if you're just in equities, cool, you can do that with equities. But if you're into these big businesses, see, I have two choices. I either go create a big business and work my ass off, or create a big monster business and have more time to myself to do some other things, which may be, oh, I want to mine more bitcoin, mine more Fiat for bitcoin, or I want to study, I want to learn something. I want to build a new. Yeah, I want to do something new, you know, which I think that makes. That makes for a great life. Right? It's. It's not. I Had a bunch of zeros. If it's simply a game for me at this point, but if I add a bunch of zeros and it comes with a bunch of headaches, was it really worth it? Because I know people that have a lot of zeros, man, and they are literally on a plane every day.
A
Every day seems like your brother's on the same trajectory. So many headaches. And now that he's found bitcoin, I just watch it in real time and watch you talk about it. It seems like one day it's just all those funds are just going to be bitcoin.
B
Yeah. He's a funny cat, though. He likes the game, of course, and he's on that. You know, I have to be a little careful. It's just not what I like. For me, I would not want all that noise. Like, I wouldn't go public. I'm glad he's taking my seven things public. Yeah. Because I'll get a premium and I'll be able to get out of the real estate. Like, I don't want to be in the real estate.
A
Right.
B
I want to be in bitcoin. Yeah. And I think it's, you know, the strategy he's deploying is great. He'll have a. A lot of customers, but that is not liquid assets. They're very difficult, and I don't need more income.
A
Do you think adding bitcoin to those products for him has been a net positive? Yeah, as far as marketing, I know it's a net positive as far as the actual structure making marketing for him, but it's opened.
B
It's opened up a huge $15 million worth of value in marketing alone.
A
He laughed at me just by saying I like bitcoin. We saw. Listen, look, when Trump said I like bitcoin won an election, he told me.
B
The first deal he did, most every one of the customers that came into that fund had never bought bitcoin, had never bought real estate with him. They were all brand new customers. They just liked the story. So the marketing buzz on it is awesome. I mean, he has reached more people through this tool than all the family office work he's been doing, which is really painful. You know, going see all these families. So he's going to probably build an investment fund and, you know, go crazy. It's just not. It's not the life I want to live. I've been in so many meetings, like, wow, I just don't want to go to any more of them, so. But he's doing the groundwork. But I Don't think bitcoin is going to get him in a position of what I'm doing, which is, oh, I'm reducing the noise in my universe and I don't want any shareholders.
A
I mean there's people who just live for the hustle.
B
Yeah, he likes the game. He digs the game.
A
He doesn't want to sit around and paint, study.
B
Yeah, well, it would be impossible for him. Actually.
A
I feel like it would have been impossible for you not so long ago.
B
Oh yeah, that's true. That is true. And bitcoin helped me in this way. Like bitcoin really has helped me become a better person. I hate, I hate to say it that way, but it has helped me become a better person. I think about things very differently today than, than I used to. I, I did not know that I had an option to get off the treadmill. I didn't, I really didn't know. I actually would probably have been ashamed to get off the treadmill. And so bitcoins allowed me to not be on the treadmill but still do something meaningful. And I am certain I will be right. I've done this my whole life. And like, this is a no brainer for me. If I am wrong, which knock on glass, I could be wrong. If I am wrong, I will have so much fun doing it.
A
That's right. Be worth it anyways.
B
It would be. And if I'm wrong, my thesis is correct, doesn't mean that it plays out exactly right. I mean, I could die tomorrow morning. Okay. And I won't see the true benefits of this. But from everything I can see, just being in this for five years, just the war I went through, which we won't go into the. Owning bitcoin helped me win a war. And it was because no one understood bitcoin and it, and they made a bunch of stuff up about it. It really helped me. It helped me actually settle something that was not going to get settled. So I've just learned so much from having how the world works in fiat, which is just make as much of this stuff as possible. Print, print, print. And this, you know, 16 or 20 million units, finite algorithm code, it's just made me look at the world a little differently.
A
Same. I just wish I found it earlier. It still pisses me off that There were the 2010 guys, the 2013 guys.
B
You and I wouldn't be here right now. You would be somewhere else. Who knows what would have happened to you. So you're at. What's your average cost? It's low Yeah, I mean, much lower than mine.
A
Sub 30.
B
Yeah, that's what I was figuring of 27. So my average cost. And I always ask people, hey, what's your average cost? Because to me, it really is important.
A
Yeah.
B
Now you're still buying bitcoin every day. See, see, that's. He's 37 going up. I'm 57 going up. And I'm proud to go up now. I'd love to double my position at 57 or triple it. I'd be awesome. And that's the only reason that I watch price, the only reason I watch price and listen to all these things is, oh, wow, is this thing going to melt down? Because if it is going to melt down, it's not. I'm not getting freaked out. I'm. I'm developing strategies to go, okay, if this thing goes tits down, like, it just goes like, you know, peters out, what am I going to do? I'm most certainly not selling. I am deploying strategies to figure out, okay, dude, see, one thing that I think bitcoin community did poorly is they sold the pump too much.
A
Yeah.
B
Hey, man, you're going to miss it. You could miss bitcoin. You get bitcoin at the price, you deserve it. Such a shaming thing.
A
I deserve a lot lower. I don't know what the hell I'm talking about.
B
I deserve a lot more. I don't care lower. I just deserve to have a lot more. But bitcoin, showing me that it gives me a lot of opportunities about it has this, man. Okay, it does this. And, like, I think I'll still be able to buy $88,000 bitcoin.
A
I said that to you on, on the plane to Vegas.
B
I know.
A
In May, we were over 100, and I was like, I'm buying 88.
B
Yeah.
A
And you're like, I don't know if it's soon, but it's. I'm going to buy 88 too. And people thought we were nuts when I mentioned that that was peak digital asset, Treasury.
B
But if you think, if you think that, like, then you get. You have some time to go build your fiat nest, to deploy it. And to me, that's the thing people aren't doing. Hey, go out and hustle, man. Go out and make some money while you still have this opportunity to convert, because this is not expensive.
A
But is there a price where you stop buying it if it goes 250, 300, 500, like, is there anything that makes you a seller?
B
Well, I mean, I don't even know I wouldn't sell.
A
I would just say at that point, you're going to be able to get a 3% loan against it and you're just going to cruise.
B
I mean, I'm in the sevens right now, borrowing against like, and that's the highest rate I'm paying.
A
Which makes you wonder, like, you said the 10 to 11 that a sailor is willing to get when you can get 7 by just comparison shopping and calling it. Right. I think Coinbase will give you that.
B
Right, Exactly. Small volume, they'll give you five. Yeah, I can go to my bank and get five. So I'm, I'm working on that right now. Hey, man, I've. The tax man just told me my house was worth 14 million. I've got 5, 6, 7, $8 million worth of equity in my house. Give it to me, dude. At 5%, I'll move that into bitcoin, like in a flash. So to me, borrowing money, anything under 8% and deploying it into an asset, as long as I can pay the bills.
A
Yeah, that's.
B
But you have to be cool with, hey, man, here's a $60,000 bill. Now you see me travel less in the last year because, hey, yeah, dude, I got a $60,000 bill to pay Coinbase. I got a $30,000 bill to pay this guy to borrow, to hold onto my borrow of the bitcoin. So when do I stop? I mean, one, I don't even know if I'm going to be here tomorrow. Okay. So I don't have to worry about. I get to worry about 250. When 250 comes, I don't know what I'm going to do. But if it goes to 250, it's probably going to go to 500.
A
If it goes to 500, we know it's going to a million.
B
Obviously, I don't know what. But now I'm able to borrow so much. Now we're at 200. It's, you know, you just got to be comfortable with these swings. Anyone that's in real estate has no clue what their portfolio is worth today. Not.
A
Imagine if you could watch it. I always joked about this. Imagine if you had to deal with watching, like people watch the bitcoin chart every day. If you were watching your house value on a chart.
B
Yeah.
A
How panicked people would be. But nobody thinks of their house that way.
B
Most certainly, man. And that, to me is the magic.
A
You should think about bitcoin the same way you think about your house. That's the point.
B
Totally.
A
Why are you looking at a deal with the price of bitcoin today?
B
I think the reason people do that, they have not set how long they're holding bitcoin.
A
Well, that's why I asked you. Like, ask any investment professional. They'll say, what's your exit plan?
B
Yeah, well, I'll look at my exit plan in four to eight years. I think it's a four to eight year hole, which, by the way, real estate is 10 plus 10. If I go into a fund with Dan Tapiro, I'm eight years plus. If I go into a fund with Mark Yusko, eight years plus. Bitcoin allows me one to. I don't have nobody to talk to. There's no 2 and 20. Not, not offensive to any 2 and 20s. It's cool. But I don't have any of those. I don't have to read any of these complex documents. I don't understand. I really don't. And most of those deals, by the way, require you to commit to 500 grand. Then you got to give them a hundred, and then you got to give them another 100. And then so you're having to squirt.
A
Calls that you forget.
B
And there's nothing wrong with those businesses until, oh, wow, I can just buy bitcoin. But the thing is, you have to have a plan. And my plan was, I need this many bitcoin to be meaningful.
A
You have a number in mind.
B
And you're not, I think a bond. I think I want to buy 1500 Bitcoin. I think 1500 Bitcoin is like, it will keep me in the 1/10 of 1% of the worth of all nations. People go, hey, why are you doing all this, dude? I want to stay in the 1%. I have no interest in falling outside of the 1% band. Why would I want to get anywhere outside the 1%? I got here? I am most certainly going to stay here. And it's comfortable up here. No offense to anybody, but it is much more comfortable on this end of the bell curve.
A
It's just funny because, you know, people always say these cliche things. You know, you buy. You don't buy bitcoin get rich. You buy bitcoin to get slow, poorer, you know, or I mean, get poor slower. Get slower. Get poor slower. Right, but that's the idea. You're actually buying bitcoin to preserve wealth, not to create it. Both.
B
Yeah, both. I think, to create super wealth without destroying my mind and without destroying my ethics and without destroying my life. I can get massively wealthy and have an awesome life. Like, I have done this six or seven times, and it's a lot of work, man. The amount of miles I have flown, the countries I've lived in, I've rented. My children have lived in at least 20 homes. They're 18 years old. At least 20 homes. We rented most of them but didn't own them. And I enjoyed that journey. I did enjoy most of the journey, but I don't have to do that. If I would have found that 20 years ago or 15 years ago, I would have pulled out of these businesses much faster. Because for me, it is about is my energy turning into something valuable. I have a limited amount of energy. And this is why I look at bitcoin as a. I did a post the other day, I said, hey, bitcoin is a storage facility for energy. And people like, you're an idiot. Well, it costs 30 cents a decotherm to store for one month a unit of natural gas. 30 cents. That is worth $3.
A
Okay, most people a month.
B
Yeah, dude. And most people will store nat gas for three to four months to get the peak market. So they store at 250, 30 cents for four months. That's $1.20. $2.50 plus $1.50 is $4 to sell at $4.50. And by the way, that 30 cents every month went to another company. I can buy bitcoin from energy that's created from energy, that the energy complex has not moved. They're up 10% this year. Oil companies. And I'm Howard Ham, who's one of the biggest independent oil producers in the United States. He stores gas every year. Dude, that guy, one day is going to wake up and go, I'm not doing this. I'm buying bitcoin with all this summer gas, I'm going to sell it. Or in the winter, when he's going to sell it, he converts it to bitcoin, put bitcoin on his balance sheet, which he has oil, gas, and electricity sitting on his balance sheet. And no, 30 cents moving out to Columbia. Okay, $1.50. It costs $5 a barrel to store oil on a floating container. At 15 bucks, $60 product, you're at 75 bucks. Who's making money? The storage units. And they're hiding oil all over the place. I can store energy, convert it to bitcoin, and pay zero. And I get to decide when I'm out. These people that are storing all this, they're having to get out because you pay these storage fees every month.
A
Just like Miners need to sell Bitcoin to.
B
That's right. So I look at that and go, wow, I get to store this stuff. I can store it for 2, 4, 5, 6 years and decide when I want to get out on the commodity ride. Right when it hits a peak, I can decide later. But I'm not paying anything to store it. I pay Apple every month to store all my data.
A
Of course.
B
I'm literally buying money and storing it on a device or storing it with Coinbase or whoever. And I have no fees.
A
Wow.
B
Wow, that's cool. I think that's cool. And I think we have not even seen. We haven't seen any energy players do this yet. And they will do. I think they do that before my lawyer buys bitcoin. No, no, because they will get it. And every energy company right now, they have divisions now looking at this. This is. No, because I could build a billion dollar business pitching this.
A
But it's funny, a few years ago we would have said that they were looking at mining bitcoin. Now you're just saying they just buy it.
B
Yeah, I think they will look at.
A
Well, just take the money and buy it.
B
It's cheaper to buy Bitcoin than it is to mine it. Okay. Fred Thiel has $137,500 cost to mine bitcoin while you've got guys that are doing it in decentralized micro spaces for 30.
A
Yeah, it's crazy, right? So is it really their cost to.
B
Oh yeah, 30 grand. 30. 40 grand. Now see, this is another problem. Like to me, bitcoin mining is not a scalable. It's not scalable.
A
It only became scalable when they became AI data centers.
B
Well, it's scalable. If you want to make $137,000 product in a $90,000 market, it's not working. And this is what's, this is what Saylor understood very, very early on. First time I saw a sailor was when I came into this market. It was like, it's cheaper to. It's cheaper to mine Fiat convert it to bitcoin than it is to mine bitcoin by an appreciable. Like, you don't have any people, man. There's no staff. There's no human error. There's no funding facilities. There's nothing. There's no operational risk. There's no story to tell about HPCs and high computer. There's no necessity for the Alfreds to come on and go, hey, this is going to be super like, dude, it's so simple. Okay, it's cheaper to buy bitcoin. You can't mine it for this.
A
Every time I talk to you, I just want to sell everything and buy bitcoin.
B
I know, dude.
A
And I don't do it.
B
Why?
A
I mean, I do buy bitcoin. I do buy bitcoin all the time. Sometimes I wonder why I own anything else.
B
When you articulate it well, because we have it. We have it and we're like the lawyer, hey, man, I'm in it. Do I really want to move it? But it's a great question. Hey, why are we still in these products? I don't know, really. I mean, it's a bit of a. I mean, it's. It's a great question, actually. I'm a. I'm on the way home. I'm like, why am I still. Because I got millions sitting in these other products that.
A
Yeah.
B
You know, minimally. I mean, it's sitting there and I'm paying 8% or 7% to somebody to borrow. So it's a great question. I think it's down to inertia, though. You know, like, once you put something in place, you tend to want to keep it there.
A
I just think we need to all buy more bitcoin.
B
Yeah, I agree.
A
Put bookends on it.
B
Tell me, I saw some of your quotes. If you don't mind me asking you a question. Tell me, how has it been with the arch public? Because I have done that. I just didn't do it. It was with Gemini at the time and I've got a small position with Gemini, but they're moving now. They're going to all those exchanges.
A
Gemini, Kraken, Coinbase, Robinhood, OkX coming immediately. I did it with Robinhood, but that's because one of my best friends sold his company to Robinhood and I was like, look good for him, look good for me. We'll do it with Robinhood. They actually just lowered it to three bips. Trading fees for the API, which is huge because there was a pretty big spread. It's been incredible. I started literally at the dead top of the market, throwing 50 grand. Started as a test portfolio, 10x that now because I just kept putting money in and I'm even. So I started. I deployed literally 30 of the 50 at 125 just to get in and show it working. And I've just let it run all the way down. And now at Bitcoin, at 96, 97, it's buying Ethan Solana as well and trading them, but it sells those to buy More bitcoin. That portfolio is flat and I started 27% above the market.
B
That's amazing.
A
It's pretty incredible.
B
Yeah, that's really amazing. It worked well for me. I just didn't have the. I don't know why I didn't. Maybe I just ran out of steam on the Gemini thing.
A
I just keep saying it's like 50. 50, 50.
B
Yeah.
A
But it's just a much more brainless way to do what we're talking about. I don't think about it. I just put money in there and if there's a dip, it buys it. So it just. It's much better than I would have done. Because, listen, if it was you or if you had said to me, hey, you have this amount of money and this is the price of bitcoin, I would have just bought it.
B
Right.
A
I would have pulled a sailor.
B
Yeah.
A
I got this. Cash, is it. So I'd be, you know, I'm probably up 25, 30% even at flat than I would be if I had just deployed it all at that time.
B
Yeah. A few people have made comments that, like, Saylor always buys the tops. And I'm like, that's just not true, man.
A
It's such a stupid comment. He buys every week. How can you always be buying the tops?
B
Exactly. I mean, he did really well this week. So I think it was 88 or 89 or 90, but that's the way I do it, too. If I get cash, I'm not sitting there trying.
A
So now I just put the cash into this thing and let it happen. Now, given, like, if we had gone from 125 to 150 the next month, instead of 125 to 80, it would look very different and people would be like, you're an idiot for not just buying it all at 125. Right. So, I mean, the market kind of went my way as far as being able to dollar cost average down. But, like, I was buying a significant amount of bitcoin in the low 80s, right. When I could have been firing it off at 125.
B
And that's the trick, right, is, hey, when it's going down and everybody's negative.
A
And I manually bought a lot on top of that at 88, which I told you, but those bids were sitting there for eight months, seven months, just waiting.
B
Yeah.
A
Woke up one day, I was like.
B
Wow, that was a.
A
You know, it's like 89, 5. And I'm like, should I just pull it and do it?
B
And then that that is the professional investor, though. Yeah. Like, and I don't think we've really seen those guys here yet.
A
Yeah, I waited.
B
They. They're going to just sit the bid there and they're going to, hey, you come to me and that's going to prove to be.
A
I know I did. You know, like, I would love to buy at 55, but, like, the. It wasn't that long ago that I could have. And it wasn't that long ago that it was at 75 on a dip or that it was at 80 on a dip. So those dips seem to be getting higher, not lower.
B
Yeah. Do you think the volatility is increasing or decreasing?
A
Decreasing?
B
I think so.
A
I definitely think it's getting smoothed out by the players that are in the market right now. I mean, until it started moving a little bit here, I think the implied volatility of bitcoin was at basically historic low and way lower than any tech stock.
B
Now, why would that continue?
A
Maybe just because it's an institutionalized product. I don't know. Maybe it doesn't. I think it might be one of those notions that you get just because of recency bias. It's been not volatile for a while, so it will remain not volatile. We know what bitcoin always does when you think, I can't move anymore. Puts in a $30,000 candle to the upside in a week or down.
B
Can you explain why silver and gold have moved so well and bitcoin just sat here like a beach whale?
A
I asked. I asked people that question. I asked people that question all the time. Dave Weisberger calls it the hot ball of money. He thinks that just the FOMO money that would have been in crypto or altcoins at this period in time. Saw silver on the news and it was an easy story, as you said before, and FOMO in. And we know how that ends for those people, right? Hell, not well, like the person who buys silver waiting in line at a store at a 15% premium doesn't usually make money or anything. Or who buys a. Who buys a bored ape for $3 million?
B
Yeah.
A
Because it can never go down.
B
See, to me, gold and silver are like leading indicators that bitcoin, it should be.
A
Has been.
B
Historically, it really, like, if gold and silver can do what it's doing, it's doing this because it fears war and it fears currency debasement.
A
That's the only reason they're actually doing what we think bitcoin should be doing.
B
Bingo. And you can say, well, no, this is about High compute and all that stuff. Hey, we're getting to a price where we, we have artificial intelligence and robotics. We've never had robotics and AI that could alchemize, if that's the correct word. But like, do you really think we're not going to figure out how to turn, how to build a synthetic silver if it gets to a certain price, dude, you'll start figuring out other fake diamonds.
A
They're perfect.
B
This is great example, okay, the diamond market.
A
Excuse me, not fake.
B
It's broken engineered. De Beers, Monopoly has been absolutely slaughtered. Nobody talks about it. This was a product. You can't make diamonds. Well, guess what? We're making diamonds that are more flawless. Like if I got married again, I would not buy a $200,000 perfect diamond. I'd go buy a diamond that looks better than that. And it's fake.
A
Who cares?
B
Which I mean really, who cares? You can't tell the difference now? Not really. I mean, and by the way, why would you want to be walk you girl walking around with a $200,000 real diamond? Like that's crazy. So I just think we're getting to a point where what country said, hey, we just found, you know, 5 million ounces of gold somewhere. Every time gold and silver do this, you hear this feel that's found. Every time oil does this at 100 bucks, I just don't think oil can sit here at 60 bucks. And we see silver and gold just keep going up and up and up.
A
I'm like, none of what's happening makes any sense.
B
None of it, man.
A
Everything can't be at an all time high at the same time.
B
And gasoline prices and energy prices just collapse is really bizarre to me because energy to me is King Kong. There is nothing without energy. There is no Bitcoin without energy. And $60 barrel there is no seven $75. The whole world is going to sell oil. $75 they are making in the United States. It's $45 to make a good return on crude oil in this country. Maybe 55 in, in the Arabian countries, maybe 60. Okay, I don't think it's anywhere close to that. But that's the numbers they report. These are great returns for a product that you don't have failure on anymore. There's no dry holes, dude. There hadn't been a dry hole in 20 years in energy. Like this science now it's just total science. It's not an art farm. It's not like it was in the Landman movie, okay? Billy Bob Thornton, which is A great show.
A
What a good show.
B
But. But it's not. You don't have these failure rates like you used to, and therefore you're not going to have the return like you. If there's no risk. A 10% yield on finding oil is going to be awesome. And I think we're going to see technology figure out how to do this better, faster and cheaper. And we're going to be at 30 or $40 crude oil in my lifetime, we most certainly won't hit 100. And if we do, it's because we're at war. And that lasts three or four days. And then we go back down to where the real numbers are. In fact, a war will destroy demand and we'll see a low, low print. So I just don't. This is a really weird world where I see hyper deflation occurring. Hyper, hyper, hyper deflation. I can go to school today. I can get an MBA in AI from Stanford for zero.
A
Yeah, Online.
B
Wow. I can go study at Stanford. Well, I stuck both of my kids in this program. Yeah, dude, go get an AI program. Right? 400, $500,000 MBAs. Now I can get from next to zero because I can learn anything I want online today. Like, really, really. I can learn almost anything I want. So I look at that and go, wow. People will be greater educated at cheaper cost. That seems like a good trade.
A
Yeah, a lot to think about. Somebody in this room asked me the other day, said, if you went back to college, what would you study? I was like, I wouldn't go back to college. No, James, just go do it on YouTube.
B
I wouldn't spend a day in college. There's not one college that I would spend a dollar. Like, I'm gonna do everything I can to talk my kids.
A
You're just buying the certificate at this point if you can learn it elsewhere. Not that you weren't always just buying the certificate, but at least you know.
B
Nobody'S going to give you any value for it either. I don't. In fact, I think you could be like, I won't, won't hire those people. I want to hire somebody that I can give data to. And it's, it's not having to go through all these filters. It's all the college does. It creates all these filters instead of good old basics, man, you know, I know you're going to be successful. I was telling Lyndon on the way, oh, this guy will be monster successful. Why? Because you're disciplined, dude. You are consistently showing up. You don't. I'm going on Holiday now for three months. See you guys. Very, very, very consistent. And when you're not here for a week because you went and did something, you're, hey, I'm sorry I wasn't here. Like, you will be massively successful. Yeah. But you will be because you show up and you make commitments. You and you came here, you invested, you didn't buy bitcoin, you invested in this facility so you could do buy more bitcoin. That's great reason to invest in. That's the greatest investment, by the way. Not bitcoin. Invest in yourself, man. Yeah. Reading books, people poo poo on this. Like Bill Gates. Like him or not, he takes like weeks off every year and goes just reads. And I'm not a big fan of the guy, but anyone that's read lots of books seem to be very knowledgeable. That, that's. You can't. I can't read a book If I'm grinding 18 hour days and building a business, which is by the way, the way you build businesses, 16, 18 hours. It's not an eight hour a day job. If you want to work eight hours a day, you are going to work for someone. You will never own your own business. Owning your own business is hard. It's hard, it's lonely, it's hard. And it rarely pays you a big premium on the actual time.
A
Yeah.
B
And then when you do get out, it's 12 years later again. This is bitcoin. I'm like, wow, I just got to hang for four to eight and then I get to review. Four to eight, Four to eight, Four to eight years. No one, I know not a human being has built a business and exited it in under six years. Not a human being. I know no one. Not one human being. If you do exit, you have so many hooks in you. You have a consulting arrangement with the firm. You can't compete. You have an NDA. I have an NDA on me right now. Like people don't even know this about people. Like, oh, wow, yeah, I got hooks in me. I can't go do that business. I can't say certain things right. I can't compete in a particular area of business. And I'm like, oh, cool, dude. Somebody owes me quarter of a billion dollars. It's cool. You know, I won't talk for $250 million. It's cool. But most people aren't going to create that kind of an exit anyway. It's going to be 20 million and you're still going to have the hooks and you can't compete in the field that you're really an expert in. So bitcoin has none of these requirements, which I find to be just a super. That's why I call it a businessman. Because when I compare the two, I'm like, wow, I have no lawyers. This is awesome.
A
Love it, man. Well, the moral of the story is, buy a hell of a lot more bitcoin. I could talk to you for. I think we just knocked an hour and a half out.
B
Did we?
A
Yeah, I just saw the clock.
B
Maybe 20 minutes of good product.
A
Hope you didn't have anywhere to go.
B
No, I didn't. I'm going to lunch.
A
Thank you, man.
B
How you lunch?
A
Appreciate it, as always.
B
That's dope.
Date: January 25, 2026 • Host: Scott Melker • Guest: Gary Cardone
In this deep-dive episode, Scott Melker sits down with entrepreneur and investor Gary Cardone for an unfiltered conversation that traverses far beyond bitcoin price action. Together, they examine what it means to build long-term wealth with bitcoin, delve into the emerging old-money influx, confront the under-discussed “dirty bitcoin” dilemma, and reflect on the discipline and mindset required for lasting financial success. Candid, bold, and laced with real-life analogies, this episode is a must-listen for anyone seeking to understand not only how to accumulate bitcoin, but how to approach it as a generational strategy.
“I have never had in my lifetime the opportunity to invest in something that had no human error. That's like getting married to a woman who is never going to have a... Okay, like, wow, I'm paying premiums for that.” — Gary (00:40)
“The money that's coming into bitcoin is not crypto centric money. It is old money. Now that money is very different, it's coming in methodical...” — Gary (01:00)
“They’re all coming in through ETFs... and these MSTR products. It’s the gateway drug.” — Gary (41:42)
This passive, indirect entry is seen as inevitable; “old money” won’t self-custody but will seek exposure via familiar financial vehicles.
“I think there’s a lot of coins, dude, that are dirty... trying to find a way into the market and they don’t want to go through the system.” — Gary (19:15) “Not all bitcoin’s the same.” — Gary (23:00)
“All bitcoin's got some taint, just like all money's got cocaine traces on it.” — Gary (27:26)
“Don’t confuse options and bitcoin. You’re probably going to get your head torn off trading options... I think you should store it just like the bloody squirrel, and you’re going to wake up several seasons from now being extremely rich unless you think this is it.” — Gary (09:39)
“I should have just bought bitcoin. I would have less headaches, less worry, less concern.” — Gary (33:34)
“Bitcoin really has helped me become a better person. I think about things very differently... I did not know that I had an option to get off the treadmill.” — Gary (60:56)
“You have to have a plan. And my plan was, I need this many bitcoin to be meaningful.” — Gary (68:44) He targets accumulation (e.g., 1,500 BTC) to remain in “the 1%,” viewing bitcoin as a multi-year, even decades-long, play.
“Satoshi made a mistake... the issuance... pushed 12 million coins into the market so early and at such low price, which led to mishandling. When you don’t respect the price, you usually lose it.” — Gary (14:17)
“Bitcoin is a storage facility for energy... I can buy bitcoin from energy that’s created from energy... and pay zero [storage fees].” — Gary (70:55)
“If we go Mad Max, bitcoin's the last thing I want to buy. I need weapons and ammo. You can barter .22 long rifles a lot easier than bitcoin.” — Gary (25:51)
“The volatility is decreasing... it’s getting smoothed out by the players that are in the market right now.” — Scott (79:35)
Moral of the Story:
“Buy a hell of a lot more bitcoin.” — Gary (89:16)
This summary captures the heart, humor, and wit of a wide-ranging, high-value discussion—perfect for new and veteran bitcoiners alike.