
CJ Konstantinos, founder of People’s Reserve, shares his journey into Bitcoin, the philosophy behind his company, and groundbreaking products like self-paying mortgages.
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Preston Pysh
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Hey, everyone.
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Welcome to this Wednesday's release of the Bitcoin Fundamentals podcast. Boy, do I have a banger of a discussion this week with CJ Constantinos. CJ Is the founder of the company People's Reserve, where he's getting ready to launch a loan product for people interested in buying a home, posting some of their bitcoin as collateral, in addition to the collateral that the home already provides. But by doing this, you're able to significantly lower the interest rate on the loan because you pose less risk to the lending provider. This is a fascinating topic, and no one does a better job of explaining the mechanics behind it all than CJ So without further delay, here's my chat with the thoughtful CJ Konstantinos.
Preston Pysh
Celebrating 10 years. You are listening to Bitcoin Fundamentals by the Investors Podcast Network. Now for your host, Preston Pysh.
Hey, everyone. Welcome to the show. I'm here with CJ and I'm pretty excited about this conversation because you're doing some pretty neat things, sir. So welcome to the show.
CJ Constantinos
Well, thank you so much for having me. It's great to be here. I've been a long time fan of your work and I've learned a lot. So it's kind of surreal for me to be on the other side of the screen here.
Preston Pysh
Oh, my goodness. Thank you for that, C.J. i want to start off where we always start off these conversations. Tell us your bitcoin story because before we get into these incredible things that you're working on and building, sometimes it's helpful for people just to kind of hear, like, your story. How did you find it? As like, a side note, I literally had a conversation with a gentleman today that. This is just so funny. I have to share this story. He was telling me that back when bitcoin was in the pennies, he looked like a DEA agent and, like, nobody would sell him marijuana. So he went out and bought a couple hundred bitcoin to go buy marijuana on the dark Web. And that's how he became Orange Pill. So everybody's got their crazy, like, bitcoin orange pill story. Let's hear yours. Hopefully. I don't know, let's. Let's hear what your story is.
CJ Constantinos
Yeah, well, mine wasn't that lucky, but I mean, what a crazy story that is. Found out about Bitcoin in 2013. And I learned from Jeff Berwick, calls himself the Dollar Vigilante. So I subscribed to his content and listened to all of his things learned from him. And. And it was really interesting because around that time in school, I was. I had done accounting and moved on to finance. So I was learning things that I'd pay to learn and it was capturing my attention. It was very intriguing. But of course, just like most people who start in bitcoin, I thought, you know, this volatility is going to be amazing because I can buy and sell and I just click the buttons and I'm going to be rich, right? I mean, I'm going to be the best trader in the world. And of course, you know, I get absolutely just demolished and smashed. I watch bitcoin go from a hundred bucks up to a thousand bucks and then all the way back down. And I'm like, okay, I have no idea what this is. I have no idea why these things are happening. I better find out what's going on here. So I started to take a deeper dive. And that's where the fun really began for me because it became more of a passion. I got into mining. So I started building my own rigs. And I'd never built a computer before. I actually built like wooden frames. Like, how silly and stupid of me to do that. But I was just so eager to like build, get hands on and kind of learn how it worked. And I started plugging machines in the wall and they started making money and I was like, well, time to scale this puppy up. That time I lived in a townhouse with my girlfriend and I broke our air conditioner from all the heat. She's like, that's it, you're done, get out of here. You know, so it's. It was like one of those learning experiences. But I think the real value I got from that though, to this day I still recommend people pick up hobby mining not to make money, but to learn how the network works, to learn how price discovery works with a proof of work consensus protocol. With the cost of production of bitcoin being the starting point for price discovery in the marketplace, that has just delivered an immense amount of knowledge and understanding to me, which I was able to transform into the bitcoin fair value algorithm, which miners use to properly manage their treasury through this commodity cycle. So that was like my first real big orange pill. And then I want to go back.
Preston Pysh
To that, but keep going. You're gonna say no, you were gonna say something else. Finish up that thought and then we'll go back to that.
CJ Constantinos
So the harshness about getting into the industry was that I had no idea what the difficulty adjustment was. I had no idea what the having was. And you know, I'M sitting there doing calculations on my computer, like, oh, if I get this many machines, I'm gonna make this much. And I've. If I order these new machines, then I'm really gonna be cranking. But you don't account for difficulty with everybody else getting those machines delivered. Hash rate increasing, block times going less than 10 minutes, difficulty going up every 20, 16 blocks. And then you get hit with the halving, where your profitability gets cut in half in one day with no mercy. So that was like, wow, you know, that was my next big orange pill. That really made me fall in love with the protocol and understand that it was an engineered money. It was strategically designed to leverage these natural laws of economics and commodity cycles and price discovery to empower its holders. And I've been hooked ever since.
Preston Pysh
Yeah, I think people that are new often misunderstand the having. What it does by cutting everybody's profits in half like the snap of a finger. I personally try to explain it using like a gold. Like if I was going to mine gold and you just take any gold miner in the world and the having happens, you snap your fingers. And now all of that equipment that used to find 100 ounces a day now is finding 50 ounces a day, and there's nothing you can do about it. Do you have. You know, you said that that was kind of a pivotal moment for yourself to really kind of deeply understand how this all works. I'm curious if there's other things about bitcoin that were these kind of like, aha moments or that really solidified your belief in it. If they are, tell us what that is. And then if you have any examples to help people really kind of synthesize it or visualize it so that it makes more sense. Because here we are talking about the having. But without a real world example for people to kind of visualize it and see it, sometimes it's difficult.
CJ Constantinos
Yeah, I love that gold example because that's how I linked it in my brain as well. And I always tell people. Actually, one of my best Twitter posts in my highlights is about what they call the all in sustaining cost in the gold marketplace. And this is the cost that it takes a miner to rip the gold from the ground and sell it into the marketplace. And we know the natural laws of economics and price discovery work with that free market price signal where profit is the invisible hand that drives the market. So the cost of production is really the beginning of the margin, because if the price goes below the cost, there's no profit to be made so there's no incentive to expand supply. And that dynamic then allows you to start to understand, okay, hey, when I go into the grocery store, I'm not making a bid on what I want to pay for the item. The producer is responsible for setting the price point. And when he's looking at his balance sheet, he needs to understand that all in sustaining cost so that he can ask for a price above the cost because that's why he's in business, to make a profit. And what's amazing is if you become too greedy, then the competition within the rest of the marketplace is going to undercut your price. So it's like a natural mechanism to balance the marketplace. And Bitcoin takes that mechanism and leverages it to drive value into the network itself. So I always say, you know, gold has an all in sustaining cost. And as they devalue the dollars, the cost of production is going to continue to rise because the labor, the land, the materials are going to rise as the dollars are diluted. Which means that cost needs to be passed on to the consumer. So if you want to access the value proposition of gold, you have to pay a price above the cost. Well, it's the same thing for Bitcoin. If you want to access the value proposition of Bitcoin, which in today's world of lies, a truth ledger happens to be probably one of the best value propositions that exist, then you're going to need to pay a price above the cost. The magic happens that Bitcoin is the only commodity in the world because of its strategic engineering, that it can actually raise its own cost of production. Imagine if gold, I mean we talked about how the having could double the price of your equipment. Imagine if gold just decided, eh, you know what, I'm going to make myself harder to find today. It's alive, it's breathing, and it's a mechanism built into the money itself. Which is why I like to refer to Bitcoin as engineered money. And perhaps the, in my opinion, probably the first form of true money because of absolute digital scarcity.
Preston Pysh
I want to pull on that thread where you said that it makes itself more difficult to find because that's another interesting analogy for people that don't understand what the difficulty adjustment is. So I'm going to put my own spin then. I'm curious to hear your admonishment to this. But the way I would describe it to people in the gold space, it'd be like collectively, globally. And it's important that you look at it globally. If everybody would hire Twice as many people and have twice as much capex to mine more gold tomorrow. The gold in the ground would sense this and make itself twice as hard to be found if you did it. And there's no way to like physically represent this other than digitally that. And that's what bitcoin has done. And for people that have never studied it or never, you know, really kind of dug into how the protocol works, I think this point is lost on them as to how the scarcity of it keeps ratcheting up every four years. And this is like a key component, this difficulty adjustment, which is different than the having, is a core component that enables the speed at which the bitcoin are coming onto the market. I'm curious to hear your take on this and whether you see it as the having and the difficulty adjustment kind of working hand in hand. Do you see them as separate things or just your general thoughts on it?
CJ Constantinos
I think you said that beautifully. And I would like to add that it's not that complex of a process. So for people who haven't don't understand the difficulty adjustment, every 2016 blocks, which is roughly every two weeks, the protocol will look at block times, and if the average block time is less than 10 minutes, then the difficulty will increase and that increases the cost of production. Now, what's amazing is, and this is, it reminds me of the Fed. It reminds me of the central bank. Like, is the difficulty adjustment the central bank of bitcoin? I love that question. Because, you know, when the economy gets too hot, you raise those interest rates, try to slow it down, economy gets cool, you lower the interest rates, try to heat it up. Well, we have this mechanism in Bitcoin too. When the hash rate gets too hot, you raise that difficulty and that decreases profitability. And some machines will be forced to turn off though, because they won't be profitable anymore, vice versa, if the hash rate is slowing down, blocks take longer than 10 minutes, difficulty can decrease, increasing profitability and then re incentivizing growth of the network. It's absolutely amazing. It is literally alive and breathing. And there's no other asset in the world that we've ever seen like it ever before.
Preston Pysh
I love this point. I've never heard that before, that it's basically acting like the intention of a central bank. The intention of the central bank is to make those adjustments and never put more units. The intent is to never put more units into the system that is absorbing the blow. Basically, the difference here that you're talking about is the frequency at which that absorption and release is happening is every 10 minutes, which is, you know, way different than what a central bank does. I would argue they're doing it every five years or you know, whatever a standard credit cycle is. Some people would probably argue eight years somewhere in that ballpark. But this is happening every 10 minutes. And it's happening programmatically where it doesn't matter what your opinion is, whether it should be looser or tighter. It's just math and it's. And there's no one person making that decision, right?
CJ Constantinos
Absolutely. I mean you're spot on. Look, let's remove the human element. Let's remove politics and emotion. You want to talk about data dependent. Bitcoin is the ultimate form of data dependency because it's, it's simple mathematics. So it's not that complex of a, a process to understand. And then when you and I do consider it separate from the having, because the having immediately reduces that block reward by 50%, there is no mercy on that. There's no metric to gauge. It's just every time we get to that point we hit a having block reward down by 50%. But the difficulty adjustment has a little bit more of a breath of life in it and to where it can adjust up, it can adjust down and it does it over that two week period. It's basically the optimization of a mechanism to help regulate and control growth of a network. It's beautiful. Mechanism.
Preston Pysh
I love that example. That's so good. Okay, so you became orange peel. You deeply understand this. And so you're like, hey, I want to build in the space. You start People's Reserve. Talk to us about what was the motivation behind this. Tell us everything you got. Let's hear it.
CJ Constantinos
Yeah, so unfortunately I paid a lot of the research and development costs that went into this through my really bad decisions of letting go of Bitcoin. So People's Reserve is a company that is designed to empower we the people, to empower US holders who have been responsibly saving in bitcoin. I think the biggest problem us bitcoiners have right now is we have a lot of wealth trapped in what I like to call the Internet economy. And the Internet economy is this amazing domain. No one country can control it and no one country can out compete it. And we actually have a free market yield curve in the Internet economy on its reserve asset, Bitcoin. So it's the only economy in the world that is number one debt free and number two offers a free market interest rate on its reserve asset. So as a Bitcoiner. My first question was, okay, well, I have a lot of this wealth tied in the Internet economy. How do I access it? How can I unlock this wealth? It's trapped equity. And one of the first solutions is that you can borrow against it. Unfortunately, with the mechanisms that are set up right now, absurd interest rates are required in order for you to tap into that equity. So it kind of mitigates any reason to actually take out the loan, unless you're going to have investments in something that are going to produce at a really high cagr that you're extremely confident in. It's a bad carry trade, if you will. The other thing is we have bitcoin and we want to figure out how do we create cash flow. That old fiat mind disease I like to call cash flow. 60% CAGR somehow isn't good enough, right? We need cash flow. But for me personally, I bought my first house and right now the damages are up to 9 million. So if I had just kept that bitcoin, I'd be $9 million richer. And it's going to get worse as time goes on, especially as we're viewing the monetization of bitcoin right now with our own eyes. But being forced to sell the bitcoin to buy the house, which was a decision that me and my wife made, we were having a kid, like people need a home. It's part of the hierarchy of needs. And you want a nice home, to be able to raise your family and make memories, I mean, it's way worth it. But I say I'm alive on the outside, but I'm dead on the inside because I know this house is. I have no chance of getting anywhere near the amount of bitcoin that I paid for it. Real estate is absolutely crashing against bitcoin. So that was a big motivation for our bitcoin powered mortgage product, which we call self repaying mortgage. And then on the flip side of that, our bitcoin bond product is about the cash flow. You know, at some point in time, you want to escape the rat race. You want to not have to go work for the man and clock hours. And you want your equity to be able to produce that cashflow for you. And I think that's why real estate became so popular, because it is that source of cash flow. And what do we want to do? You know, I don't want to sell my bitcoin. I don't want to sell my. There's nothing that can convince me to sell my bitcoin. I think if you Sell your bitcoin. You, you're a fool and you need to study it a little bit more. And trust me, I was a fool, so I had to study it a little bit more. You know, I'm saying that because I made those mistakes and I want to help you not make those mistakes. And the bitcoin bond allows you to get the cash flows that you would get from a Treasury product, but also at the same time, it maintains exposure to Bitcoin's upside. So you see, some of these products are starting to come out now. But the bitcoin bond offers 100% downside risk with infinite upside potential. The upside potential is not cap, it's actually the price performance of Bitcoin that produces the yield on the bitcoin bond. So these are the products that we've developed at People's Reserve and we have a plethora of them where we've taken bitcoin and we fused them into credit and debt products. But these two products are held close to my heart because like I said, I had to pay for the R and D that went into these. Let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors.
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Preston Pysh
I mean, it's so hard. I was having another conversation with a person today and people just don't know. Back 10 years ago when you were in this space, we had no scaling solution, right? Like lightning was talked about, it wasn't a thing and nobody had a clue whether that would scale or anybody would start running a node and opening channels or any of these things. It's been so de risked that when people come to it today and they're talking about like some of these risks, it's very smirk worthy for people that have seen where this was, was a long time ago where there really was like deep technical risk in whether it was going to actually become something. And so these decisions that you're. The reason I say all that is the decisions that you're talking about, you definitely need to be cut some slack because I think most people would have, you know, bought the house too. And you just never know what it's going to turn into. So I love this. So just to recap three things. Bitcoin backed loan, self paying mortgages and bitcoin bonds. The one I want to talk about is in more detail is self paying mortgages. Explain this as if I have a house that I want to buy in one year from now. This is theoretical or anything and I would love to utilize a product like this. So walk me through it from the user's perspective, from the person who's wanting to buy that house. Walk me through what this would look like, what this would feel like after I would initiate the product. What would the month to month feel like and look like. Just go through some of that with us with a lot of detail.
CJ Constantinos
Yeah, sure, absolutely. Happy to. So the first thing is there's a couple of issues and before I dive into the product, I want to make this issue clear because we talked about earlier how price can go up and it creates profit and that incentivizes supply. Well, what's really interesting is when that we have the proper borrowing tools and products and services like we see coming from people's reserve. There is no price the marketplace can offer to incentivize selling. So typically the market would incentivize you to sell by raising the value of your bitcoin. But look no further than Michael Saylor to understand when you're borrowing money and the value of bitcoin goes up, you don't sell your bitcoin, you borrow more money and buy more bitcoin. So there's a really interesting dynamic here where we're getting into a time where I think it's going to become clear, and I think this is the marketplace's next big orange pill really, that there is no economic way to incentivize selling of bitcoin. The raising of the price to the person who has access to the property, products and services to borrow against their Bitcoin, there is no price that can incentivize selling. That introduces a new risk. It's called the liquidation risk. And I think you know, we're going to see the banks, with the repeal of SAP121 and that amazing article that you wrote with rehypothecation, the banks are going to play these games and liquidation is how they're going to get your Bitcoin. You have to be really careful on who you choose as your counterparty and why you're choosing them as your counterparty. Because it's not just about non fractional reserve banking practices with no rehypothecation, it's also about liquidation risk. Because Bitcoin is volatile, we know that it's a positive characteristic of the asset class. Well, at People's Reserve our mission is to remove that liquidation risk for you. So this product is. You're not directly borrowing against your Bitcoin. That needs to be well understood. Every other product in this industry, you are borrowing directly against your Bitcoin. And if the price of the Bitcoin goes down, you can get liquidated. I think that's the biggest risk for losing your Bitcoin in the near future. So how do we avoid the liquidation risk? We create contracts that don't require the Bitcoin to serve as the main form of collateral on which upon margin has to be called. So when you sign up for a Bitcoin self repaying mortgage, it's really like a traditional mortgage in that there's a lien against the home and that we are very biased lenders and we want to lend to qualified borrowers. However, you can post your Bitcoin as an extra component to the contract. And what we do is we take the value of your Bitcoin and we take it relative to the value of the debt and we form your ltv. The LTV is always going to be based on the Bitcoin value relative to the value of the debt. But that's not the only thing securing the loan, it's also the lien on the property. So what happens is we can say to you, you will not lose your Bitcoin if the price goes down. And that's a really important concept because I don't want people to lose their Bitcoin for any reason, including volatility. So what do we do is as the price goes down, what happens is the risk for the lender goes up. So we have to adjust your interest rate up to compensate for the additional risk. And if the price of bitcoin goes up, vice versa, our risk goes down. We can lower that interest rate for you. And then there's a few other options that go in there as well. Like maybe you don't want to sell all of your bitcoin so you can sell a portion between 0 and 100% of your monthly payment. And since you asked for a specific example, let's just say that our interest rate would start at like prime plus one. But the more and more Bitcoin that you post as collateral, the lower and lower your interest rate can go. So I can't, I'm not going to share the exact details. We don't want to lose our first market mover advantage. But there are specific thresholds that when you move to the next threshold, your interest rate will adjust upwards or downwards. You could actually secure interest rate with people's reserve, that is prime up towards of minus of 50%. So if prime is at 6, you can get 3. If prime is at 3, you can get 1 1/2. And we're able to do this because of different mechanisms within our system. But the other important aspect to this is BTC collateral is held in multisig and there's no rehypothecation. And if there is repothecation, we would be in breach of contract. We're Bitcoin Maxis building for Bitcoin Maxis. So we want to make sure that we hit all of these important points in this product to make sure that bitcoiners understand wow. People's Reserve knows that Bitcoin is the most pristine form of collateral in the world. People's Reserve knows that the Bitcoin that I've been responsible to save up plays an important role for the plans of my family and the future generations. And we want to build tools and services that empower you as responsible savers of Bitcoin, where you can sleep easy at night, not have to worry about the volatility of Bitcoin ending up leading to a margin call on your home or your property or your rental property or whatever it may be. So that's the idea, that's the focus behind our products, to make sure that we can empower Bitcoiners with products that remove liquidation risk, which is going to be the largest risk in the near future.
Preston Pysh
All I can say is, wow, this is super exciting. What you just described is super, super exciting. And it was very crystal clear. I don't even really have any follow on questions for you because you made it super clear. I think people often forget how important Collateralization is when you're buying a house, let's say you only put 20% down. From the bank's perspective, they're looking at the value of the home. And as long as you have an insurance policy for like a low amount of down payment that you put on it, that pretty much covers a majority of their risk. And so if you're adding a kicker of this pristine collateral that keeps going up in value against the house, it should get cheaper and cheaper from an interest rate standpoint, just thinking through it, because the bank doesn't have that risk anymore. Especially if you post a lot of collateral in Bitcoin to basically offset the cost of the entire house. Like it's completely de risked at that point. Very, very exciting. I'm curious with respect to getting some type of fixed rate based on a certain threshold of Bitcoin collateral that might be posted. Let's say I post 60 or 70% of the home's value in Bitcoin, can I get some type of fixed rate terms or does it seem like it's always going to be some type of ARM component that's below prime based on how much is being posted?
CJ Constantinos
Yeah. Unfortunately the trade off is the adjustable rate, which allows for the liquidation risk to be removed. So if we go back to fixed rate now, you have to reintroduce the margin call and liquidation risk to balance out that factor, you have to adjust the rate because that's how you compensate for risk. Which what's so amazing about this marketplace and the Internet economy is that interest rates are not just going to be based on the supply of money and the demand for loans, but the perception of counterparty risk. So it's not going to be a price control stated rate based on anchor rates like we see today. And even now the Fed is lowering the front end of the curve by stating the federal funds rate lower. But the ten year, which is an anchor rate for mortgages, is not listening. It's doing its own thing. So whenever you try to mess with a yield curve, you can get in trouble. And a fixed rate is actually a price control. I think that's something that's actually come to fruition because of fractional reserve banking, because of the ability to create circulating credit that's not backed by reserves, whereas Bitcoin credit is a commodity credit that's fully backed by reserves. So it's a different set of rules and laws based on free market mechanisms versus this fake world that they've kind of created entitled finance.
Preston Pysh
God, I agree with you like that statement. Was so profound. The foot stomp. For me. Folks, I just want to say this again because I think you are so right. I think this fixed rate mortgage situation that everybody's experienced for the last four decades being commonplace is a function of the manipulated fiat, fractional reserve, unpegged currency debacle that has played out over that period of time. And I think that you're exactly right that I think moving into the coming two decades, three decades, this is going to change drastically. And I think this product that you just explained in great detail to everybody is going to be one of the main reasons why. And I think fixed rate products, although that's what I personally want to lock in, of course. And one of the main reasons why I haven't moved out of my house is because I locked in at an incredible rate, practically nothing down on my house, kept my bitcoin and didn't use that at that time. And of course I never want to give up this thing and of course I want to get another fixed. But I think we're moving away from this world. I don't think that this is going to be the norm for all the reasons that you just described. I think this was a temporary, kind of weird dynamic. Do you think that. Sorry to go. This is such a profound. Yeah, go ahead.
CJ Constantinos
Okay, go ahead. Good.
Preston Pysh
No, no, I want to hear what you have.
CJ Constantinos
I was going to say, I was going to say. Because there's so many things popping in my head. You said it perfectly. You look at your debt as an asset.
Preston Pysh
Yeah.
CJ Constantinos
But if you talk to most people, they look at it as a liability. They want you to pay off your debt or you're in bad shape. Not today. Not when the rate that you're borrowing at is lower than the rate and the increases in prices you're actually getting paid in terms of purchasing power to borrow. And that creates the problem because you want to keep your low rate debt and God forbid, but maybe 15, 20 years, if you have a $2,000 mortgage payment, you might be able to pick those $2,000 up off the ground and then walk into the bank and make that payment. That is an asset to the borrower and a liability to the lender. And that's why the banks don't even hold these loans on their books. People's reserve is going to be happy to hold a self repaying mortgage loan on our book because we've eliminated risk and we're getting a good yield on secure cash flow backed by a fully reserved asset and a real world asset. The banks, they Take their fees and then package all these mortgages together in a mortgage backed security and then sell it off as a cash flow product because it's too risky, it's not an asset, it's too risky to keep on their book. It's actually in real terms it's a liability. Sorry to cut you off, but that's what triggered my mind.
Preston Pysh
God, you're exactly right. And it's only becoming more risky with the way that inflation has been playing out since COVID And I think that some of that is only going to persist and maybe even get stronger. I'm curious to hear your thoughts on. So we've had President Trump made a statement just I think last week as he became president and he was talking about how interest rates need to come down. So it almost seems like he's trying to reinvigorate this idea that if we can drop the interest rate on property, property values will pop. But again, we're doing this manipulated false cost of capital for home purchases. Do you think that they're going to be able to do that moving forward or. And if they do, the impacts. I'm kind of curious what you think the impacts of something like that would be. I have an opinion, but I'm curious what your opinion is.
CJ Constantinos
Yeah, and that's a great question because I think that is the number one most important thing going on right now besides the monetization of btc. So when you look at the yield curve, right now they're trying to do that, right now they are lowering the federal funds rate and the free market. The bond vigilantes are saying no, I don't really care what headline CPI says because prior to 2020 I believed you. But since 2020 I don't believe you because I'm looking at the cost of my business going up. My long term plans are being absolutely decimated. I should have been able to build three more factories and now I have to finance just one factory because my savings in that treasury note isn't paying the yield that it needs to pay to keep up with those prices. And that's why we're getting that sell off pressure where yields are getting pushed up on the long end of the curve because lenders are not being compensated and real rates of return, in other words, when you take the APY that you're getting on your debt note and you subtract the price increases, real rates of return are negative. We're going right back to free market incentives when real rates of return are positive. That makes sense that you would not spend or invest and that you would save your money and lend it to the government because at the maturation of that note, you're going to be able to buy more goods and services. But when real rates are negative, it does not make sense to save your money and lend it. It makes sense to spend it and invest it immediately because you're going to get more for it that day, even if you get the yield at the maturation, prices have increased beyond the yield and you're getting less goods and services. And this is the problem that the Federal Reserve faces right now and the United States treasury and Donald Trump. So you can lower the front end of the yield curve all you want. You're not going to be able to convince businesses and other entities that are using Treasuries or trying to use Treasuries as a store of value to lend you money with a more negative real rate of return. Because that's what you're asking them to do. You're asking them to swallow and accept a greater loss of purchasing power over that duration. It's getting to the point now where they're saying, no, we refuse to do that.
Preston Pysh
We don't.
CJ Constantinos
Flip side of it. Yeah, yeah, we don't. We simply don't believe you.
Preston Pysh
Yeah.
CJ Constantinos
And you know, on the flip side of it, if that rate gets too high, then we see what we see. The US treasury is stuck issuing on the front end of the curve because if they issue on the long end of the curve, the interest expense is going to go up. And the higher the interest expense goes, the greater the deficit. Well, the greater the deficit, the worst inflation is going to get. So I think right now we're kind of in that sweet spot where it's like not too negative and just enough of the long term people to say, well, you know, if I'm losing a couple of percentage points, then so be it. At least I know I'm going to get paid my money. But if they lower interest rates and all of that money on the sidelines goes rushing back in like they lower the Fed funds rate down and they forced all that money back into the marketplace, you're going to get the price increases anyway, which is going to create the deeper negative real rate of return. So we're stuck between a rock and a hard place. And at People's Reserve, we believe that the future of finance is going to be built around Bitcoin equity. We're going to see a rumbling, a shaking in money markets and in the foundations of finance. And if you want sustainably Lower interest rates. Well, maybe it's not based on supply and demand and price controls. Maybe we go to that variable, that is risk and you can incorporate Bitcoin into that product, into that debt issuance to mitigate risk, allowing for sustainably lower interest rates. And that's the magic of the People's Reserve Bitcoin bond.
Preston Pysh
Love this. Okay, let's talk about. So you have a Bitcoin backed loan product. SAB121 was just rescinded by the SEC. There's a little bit more work to happen with some of the other agencies before I think the banks are going to be able to start custodying Bitcoin and treating it as this pristine collateral that you're talking about. I'm curious your take on over collateralization for loan products with Bitcoin being the core of the collateral, whether you agree that it should only be over collateralized for borrowing and lending. And then I'm curious to hear just kind of your thoughts on like how some of this is going to unfold with the SAB121 being changed.
CJ Constantinos
Yeah, so this is a huge thing for Bitcoin. I don't think people really understand it and they don't want you to understand it because it goes to the balance sheet, it goes to what's actually happening at the banks.
Preston Pysh
Right.
CJ Constantinos
So when you make a deposit at the bank, they're not putting your money in a vault and like putting armed guards next to it. Technically you're lending them your money, which is why they pay you interest. Well, when you lend them your money, that deposit to you is your asset, but to the bank, it's their liability. Now we have different reserve requirements and ratios. The Federal Reserve says 0% reserve requirement. But you also have Basil banking. And then you have banks who make up their own protocols and policies to stay within that gray area. And with every liability, there needs to be a corresponding asset. Well, in fractional reserve banking, that corresponding asset can represent multiple liabilities. And the problem is when Bitcoin is that circulating liability, you can't print more of it. So if you're going to fractionally reserve it at some point in time in that credit cycle where there's a destructive part of that credit cycle, which is a natural and healthy part of the credit cycle, which we don't get right now, by the way. It's too big to fail. Right. So just print over it. And that's the source of the problem. If we were allowed to have some creative destruction, if we were allowed to have the mismanaged and the over leveraged destroyed like we saw with FTX and other lenders who chose to use rehypothecation schemes. Well then they get destroyed and you build from a stronger base and the economy right now we're so far beyond zombie companies, we're literally in a zombie economy. That's how far we've come. So we need to get back to the natural credit cycle and accept that creative destruction is a good thing to have. And if we integrate Bitcoin, we can see that happen. I agree with you in that fantastic article you wrote that this is there's an extreme amount of risk behind rehypothecating and using fractional reserve banking practices when bitcoin is the customer liability. And what's going to happen is people are going to get hurt because they're going to settle with you on the US dollar value of bitcoin at the time of the crisis. So much like the people in FTX had bitcoin at $16,000 and then they went through this whole big process. A couple months later, bitcoin's up at 30, 40,000 do. A lot of people are like this is great, if I can just get my bitcoin back, I'm sitting pretty here. But then they found out, well, you're going to get the US dollar denominated value of bitcoin at the time of the crisis. So I see that transitioning perfectly into the eventual fractional reserve rehypothecation scheme crash that comes from banks having to learn the hard way, because we all have to learn the hard way. And unfortunately, I don't think they're going to listen to people like you and I and they're going to take that calculated risk in order to increase their profitability. And that risk, unfortunately, just like mortgage backed securities gets passed on to the marketplace and the marketplace will have to print and make up for it. So that's why I said earlier, you just want to make sure you're choosing your counterparty correctly. And something that's really interesting here, and we have some legal interest here in the state of Florida about this with some parties that we're working with. There's a thing called health care sharing ministries and if you're a healthcare sharing ministry, you are actually a nonprofit ministry that separates yourself and then is no longer under the Affordable Care act because you're signing a statement of faith that you want to segregate your medical cost from the other people who are not of your faith and do certain things with that medical money that you don't believe in and that you wouldn't do with your money. So there's a special designation for health share that separates them and regulates them in a different way than a typical health insurance company. Well, at People's Reserve we believe there's a future where there should be some type of financial share or what we call thin share. And people sign a statement of faith where we do not believe in fractional reserve banking, we do not believe in rehypothecation, we do not believe in usury, and because of that we want to deposit our monies at an institution where the my deposit liability is going to be backed one to one. So forget about FDIC insurance. You don't need it because you're one to one back and you're not going to have to worry about rehypothecation, meaning you're the only person who's going to have the claim on your asset. That asset remains your asset, it can't be pledged to another party on your behalf. And then finally you're going to be able to get into a situation where you say, look, I don't believe in lending people money on a credit card at 30%. I don't believe in that. We can come up with different types of programs to help people who need access to credit, who are low income with low credit score. We can do things in a voluntary way and we can come up with programs that support those voluntary movements to help lift people up and get them a head start. And we can separate ourselves in a financial share structure that isn't regulated by the same laws that are used to regulated fractional reserve banks who practice rehypothecation and commit usury and have no problem doing it. Let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors.
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CJ Constantinos
Right, back to the show.
Preston Pysh
I think that the point you made earlier in the show, which is the way that large players are going to get Bitcoin in the future, is really through this liquidation risk and the everyday retail person not understanding what their counterparties are actually doing with their bitcoin. And so my Concern on the article that I wrote for the SAB121 suggesting that under collateralization should be illegal. Unfortunately, I don't think it is going to play out that way. And the reason why I don't think it's going to play out that way is because the apex predators in finance and Wall street deeply understand this. And they know that if they can play this game and they can create situations where under collateralized borrower lenders are swimming naked, they can basically take those coins and then they're just going to have to shove dollars down the throat of the people that lost their Bitcoin through choosing a poor custodian. That's my concern. And I think that anybody, I don't know, I'll leave it at that, but hopefully I'm wrong. I would love to see, you know, this be a fair set of rules. I think there's also going to be countries that get this very right that will set up laws like that and then their citizens are going to be in a much better stable environment than the ones that are playing these games for the apex predator financiers that are trying to create situations that basically take advantage of the people that truly don't have time or know these complex financial games that are played. But yeah, sorry to.
CJ Constantinos
I mean, I think. No, no, no, you're spot on. And you know, World War 3 is being fought in the field of finance. We see Donald Trump coming out and talking about tariffs, getting rid of the income tax. You know, these are all really exciting ideas, but it's the income tax that actually secures the bonds, our United States Treasuries. So if we were going to take that production off of our own selves and then put it into the spending of what we do into other countries, it's kind of like doubling down on the existing problem. Right? Because we print all these dollars and we send these worthless paper dollars to these people and they send us real stuff and okay, well, what's the promise that I'm going to get these dollars plus interest back? We enjoy that stuff because we're very productive on the financial side of things. We're the most financialized economy in the world. We have a lot of value driven to us through the stock market and we're able to collect those taxes to secure the cash flow required to finance a portion of the bonds. But if we could do it fully, then the Fed wouldn't hold $7 trillion worth of Treasur even with the current setup. We can't do that. I think it's an interesting concept and I think it's really exciting because if Trump is willing to talk about these things and make moves this big, there's no doubt in my mind the money markets are going to be rewired and we are going to see a complete rocking and shifting in the foundations of finance. And I think the solution to this is our Bitcoin bond. It's so simple that when you hear it you're like, this is crazy. Why haven't they already done this? Because the problem is the U.S. treasury market has a lack of demand. I was at the Bitcoin Energy Summit last year. I got a chance to talk with Byron Donalds, who's actually my local representative. He sits on the Financial Services Committee. He told me, he said, C.J. you're not going to believe this. I said, what's going on? He goes, when I was on the Financial Services Committee, we were talking about Stablecoins and how they create demand on Treasuries. And I said, well, Byron, that's cool. But what concerns me a little bit more is that the Financial Service Committee is talking about demand on Treasuries. So tell me more about this demand on Treasuries conversation versus the stablecoin thing. I get the stablecoin thing, but how much lack of demand is there? How much of a concern is the liquidity in the US treasury marketplace? Because if there's little red flags and they're looking for solutions, that tells you that we have a really big problem in the United States treasury market and it's a lack of demand and it's a lack of liquidity. So how can you generate demand? Easy. You combine Bitcoin, you fuse Bitcoin into the treasury product itself. And at People's Reserve, our Bitcoin bond product, typically it's like an 80, 20 split. So let's say you raise like $100 million. 80 million would go into a five year U.S. treasury note, around four and a half percentage points. And then 20 million would go directly into spot Bitcoin. And it's a principal protected note structured with that ratio. What happens is over the course of five years, the 80 million at four and a half percent matures at a value of 100 million. So the principal you invested into the product, even if bitcoin goes to zero, which is not, but even if it went to zero, the principal invested into the product is protected by the full faith and credit of the United States government and the power of their printer. They're going to print that money and they're going to give it to you. The problem is what the hell are you going to be able to buy? Well, every other debt product says you're going to be able to buy less goods and services because the real rate of return is negative. Bitcoin bonds create a positive rate of return by turning the best performing asset in the world, Bitcoin, into the source of yield on the debt note. So if Bitcoin just stays at the price it is, when you issue the note you get 4% APY. If Bitcoin price goes down 50%, you get 2% APY. But the five year is already paying four and a half percentage points. So for 50 basis points you are basically getting infinite upside. Because if bitcoin does what people like you, and I think it's going to do because of the monetization of the asset class and because of its evolution from digital gold to pristine collateral, it's going to blow the socks off of everybody. And if you get like a 30% CAGR, you're talking about a 5x which would produce a 20% APY. And if you get a 10x and you maintain 60% CAGR, you get 40% APY. So a Bitcoin bond can produce between 20 and 40% APY when the 1982 non substitution based CPI is around 10%. So you're talking about positive real rates of 10 and 20%. So if you want to create demand on your Treasuries, you have to create a positive real rate of return. There's no better way to do that than to fuse Bitcoin directly into the product.
Preston Pysh
You know, at the Nashville conference this past summer, you had RFK and Donald Trump that went on stage and announced that they had an interest in creating a strategic reserve. They both had very different numbers that they were talking about, but RFK also talked about the need and the desire to take about 2% of Bitcoin in each one of the Treasury's issuance and make it a part of the bond. This was really glossed over. A lot of people didn't talk about this coming out in his speech. And I think it was just as important, maybe more important, important than the strategic reserve is this idea of taking some bitcoin and tying it with U.S. treasury issuance. Because you're right, look at what Janet Yellen this past six months to the past year, everything that's been issued has been short duration paper. It's been like three month paper that has basically funded everything. If she tried to issue a 30 year bond I think it would be totally disastrous. So absolutely they've had to go to nothing duration in all of the issuance. And I think until they insert bitcoin with the product, I don't think they can go out on longer duration. I don't think it's going to be possible for there to actually be natural market demand for it.
CJ Constantinos
Yeah, they would bankrupt the banks and insurance companies who were forced out the yield curve from the zero interest rate policies that we have for all of those years, forced all of those companies out the yield curve to get the yield to finance their business model, especially banking and insurance. And if they issued, they pushed the rates up tremendously. And the unmarked to market losses on banks and insurance companies would go through the roof. I mean, they're already through the roof, but it could create potentially an economic emergency, which of course would get the printers running again, which would then spark up inflation. But another thing that's happening, I think we got a little bit of an inside track here at People's Reserve is a lot of the focus is on the federal government strategic bitcoin reserve. But there's over 15 states that have already introduced strategic bitcoin reserve for the state level. Now, going beyond that, what's really interesting is that the city's balance sheet is not the state's balance sheet and the municipality's balance sheet is not the city's balance sheet. So it's not just going to be the federal government that has a strategic bitcoin reserve. It's going to be the state government, then it's going to be the city government and it's going to be the municipal governments. So I think we start from the bottom up and we'll see municipal bitcoin bond issuances first. And these politicians that are more local and can move faster will be able to attract demand and liquidity that they've never been able to attract before so that they can reinvest in infrastructure and benefit their constituents. You want to talk about build back the United States and make America great again? Well, bitcoin bonds on a municipal and city level is how you attract massive amounts of investment to build out infrastructure. So we can stop looking like a third world and start looking like the first world countries.
Preston Pysh
Guys, is he just shooting arrows straight into the heart of the target or what? Good Lord. I totally agree, totally agree. And like everything we've seen in bitcoin, it's grassroots first and then percolates up instead of it being at the top and being pushed down. Like all the policy and regulatory approach has been for decades and decades. Right. It seems so organic and so in harmony with how nature functions that when I see things and I hear like points that you just made, it's really hard for me not to be super bullish on bitcoin and what it's doing, because you're exactly right. This is going to happen at a city level or a municipality level first you're going to see them test it out. It's going to work spectacularly and it's just going to kind of percolate from there.
CJ Constantinos
It's going to kick off a flywheel. I can make you a little bit more bullish if you can handle it. It starts a flywheel that we've never seen before, which is when the US treasury wants to increase demand on their debt notes, they'll raise interest rates because higher yields equals more demand. Well, when the bitcoin bond produces a high yield, it's going to create more demand. Well, when you have more demand, you need to have more issuances. When you create more issuances, you're going to get the allocation that goes directly into bitcoin. And with absolute digital scarcity, the laws of economics tell us the price is going to be forced up, which then actually creates a higher yield on the note. So you get a positive feedback loop that feeds itself, that drives immense value into this product.
Preston Pysh
To your point, this is, this is MicroStrategy's convertible debt issuance through and through. Like best performing fixed income instrument on the planet. And of course the market wants to buy more. Right. So what's he doing? He's creating more. And now you have him doing it in the preferred space. So I think it's really an example of what you're talking about, of what can happen in municipalities that want to do similar, like things.
CJ Constantinos
Yeah. Michael Saylor has led the way and the financial engineering that he's done will go down in history as one of the smartest moves that's ever been made. I think what's interesting about these municipal bitcoin bonds and even sovereign and corporate bitcoin bonds is that they settle in USD. So you get, Michael can borrow at zero, but with a bitcoin bond, you're actually getting four and a half percent cash flow. You know, Michael settles in equity. These settle in dollars, so you remove a little bit of potential liquidity issues if somebody wants to liquidate into dollars rather than equity. So I think there's room for both.
Unknown Sponsor
Right.
CJ Constantinos
I mean, look at how many banks there are in the world. There's not one banks to serve them all. In a true free market, there are many different problems that need to be solved. And each product solves that problem in a different way. And that's why Michael continues to expand his offering and find new products and services to offer to the marketplace. Because there's nuance within each one of these problems. And these products are going to solve those problems on a global scale. And no one company can handle it. So once people swallow the pill that Michael's cooked up for us, this is going to accelerate.
Preston Pysh
You know, if you're a comptroller in one of these cities, municipalities or whatever, there's tons and tons of financial mandates that various entities have to own munis, municipal bonds and fixed income. If you're listening to this and you're not thinking about somehow doing something like this to just drive massive. Could you imagine the demand for a muni that incorporates this? The first one to do it, I think it'd be through the freaking roof.
CJ Constantinos
Yeah, they actually have a higher credit rating than the federal government. You're going to get AAA pluses in Florida, the beautiful city of Naples. Naples has a very wealthy constituency. Very. There's a lot of tourism here. There's a lot of stuff that goes on down here where the city is in a very healthy position. So you're talking about a AAA credit rating paired with bitcoin. So you're backed by the government. And this muni bond, this municipal bitcoin bond, is going to attract billions of dollars of demand not only from other sovereigns and corporations, but also from the small and medium sized businesses who have been looking and trying to figure out how do I get bitcoin on my balance sheet. You cannot have a small and medium sized business that needs to reinvest its revenues to expand its business, lock equity in bitcoin and then have to deal with the volatility. Imagine if your business is up and you're expanding your services but your balance sheet is down because of the volatility of bitcoin. That is a big blocker. Not only that, but locking up that equity and not having it to deploy and expand. Those are big blockers to small and medium sized businesses adopting bitcoin treasuries. While the bitcoin bond removes downside volatility, you can have exposure to bitcoin with cash flow on your balance sheet. And when you bring people's reserve bitcoin bond to people's reserve, we treat it as pristine collateral. You can borrow against that and access the equity on your balance sheet to expand your business without giving up the equity value. The applications of these tools are just like bitcoin. They're so expansive that I think even myself, I haven't been able to comprehend it all yet.
Preston Pysh
We got to shut this thing down. I'm raging over here with bullish sentiment.
Unknown Sponsor
Good Lord, C.J.
Preston Pysh
We need to have you back on the show, that's for sure. If people want to learn more about you, tell them where they can go.
CJ Constantinos
Well, thank you so much for having me. Like I said, I'm a longtime fan sitting on the other side of the screen. I, too, my heart is beating. It's been a great conversation. And you guys can follow me on X, at CJ Constantinos and at People's Reserve.
Preston Pysh
All right. We'll have links to that in the show. Notes C.J. wow. You're a wealth of knowledge and man, you paint a very bullish and exciting future. So thank you for making time and coming on the show, sir.
CJ Constantinos
Thank you so much. See you next time.
Preston Pysh
Thank you for listening to tip. Make sure to follow Bitcoin fundamentals on your favorite podcast app and never miss out on episodes. To access our show notes, transcripts or courses, go to theinvestorspodcast.com this show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any decision, consult a professional. This show is copyrighted by the Investors Podcast Network. Written permission must be granted before syndication or rebroadcasting.
Podcast Summary: BTC221 – Bitcoin Self-Repaying Mortgage Products with CJ Constantinos
Podcast Information:
In this enlightening episode of the Bitcoin Fundamentals podcast, host Preston Pysh engages in a deep conversation with CJ Constantinos, the visionary founder of People's Reserve. The discussion centers around innovative financial products that integrate Bitcoin as collateral, specifically focusing on self-repaying mortgages and Bitcoin bonds. These products aim to empower Bitcoin holders by providing them with tools to leverage their cryptocurrency holdings without succumbing to liquidation risks.
CJ Constantinos shares his personal journey into the world of Bitcoin, highlighting his initial exposure in 2013 through Jeff Berwick, known as the Dollar Vigilante. With a background in accounting and finance, CJ delved into Bitcoin with the initial belief that its volatility would make him a successful trader. However, facing significant losses, he pivoted to a deeper understanding of Bitcoin's mechanics, ultimately fostering a passion that led him to Bitcoin mining.
Notable Quote:
"I started plugging machines in the wall and they started making money... That was like my first real big orange pill."
— CJ Constantinos [04:10]
CJ elaborates on the critical aspects of Bitcoin's protocol, particularly the halving and difficulty adjustment mechanisms. He compares Bitcoin's difficulty adjustment to the role of a central bank, explaining how it autonomously regulates the network's growth by adjusting the mining difficulty approximately every two weeks based on the network's hash rate.
Notable Quote:
"The difficulty adjustment has a little bit more of a breath of life in it and to where it can adjust up, it can adjust down and it does it over that two week period. It's basically the optimization of a mechanism to help regulate and control growth of a network."
— CJ Constantinos [09:42]
Preston adds to this by likening the difficulty adjustment to natural economic laws, emphasizing its role in maintaining Bitcoin's scarcity and value.
CJ discusses the inception of People's Reserve, driven by the challenge of immobilized wealth within the internet economy. He identifies a significant issue: high borrowing costs that deter Bitcoin holders from accessing their equity without selling their assets. This dilemma inspired the creation of innovative financial products designed to mitigate risks and provide sustainable cash flow without necessitating the sale of Bitcoin.
Notable Quote:
"People's Reserve is a company that is designed to empower us the people, to empower Bitcoin holders who have been responsibly saving in Bitcoin."
— CJ Constantinos [12:39]
One of the flagship products discussed is the Bitcoin self-repaying mortgage. CJ explains that unlike traditional loans where Bitcoin is directly used as collateral—posing liquidation risks if the cryptocurrency's value drops—People's Reserve structures the mortgage to adjust interest rates based on Bitcoin's market performance. This approach ensures that borrowers retain their Bitcoin holdings without the threat of forced liquidation during market downturns.
Key Features:
Notable Quote:
"You will not lose your Bitcoin if the price goes down. And that's a really important concept because I don't want people to lose their Bitcoin for any reason, including volatility."
— CJ Constantinos [21:34]
Expanding on financial innovation, CJ introduces the Bitcoin bond—a debt instrument that offers cash flow while maintaining exposure to Bitcoin's appreciation. Unlike traditional bonds that might offer fixed returns, Bitcoin bonds integrate Bitcoin's performance to potentially increase yields, providing both downside protection and unlimited upside potential tied to Bitcoin's market value.
Advantages:
Notable Quote:
"The upside potential is not capped, it's actually the price performance of Bitcoin that produces the yield on the Bitcoin bond."
— CJ Constantinos [27:36]
CJ offers a critical analysis of existing financial systems, particularly the pitfalls of fractional reserve banking and the associated risks of rehypothecation. He underscores the importance of integrating Bitcoin into financial products to establish a more transparent and secure financial ecosystem. By doing so, People's Reserve aims to eliminate common risks such as liquidation and margin calls, fostering trust and stability among Bitcoin holders.
Notable Quote:
"World War 3 is being fought in the field of finance... the solution to this is our Bitcoin bond."
— CJ Constantinos [45:40]
Preston echoes these sentiments, emphasizing the transformative potential of Bitcoin-integrated financial products in reshaping traditional banking and lending paradigms.
The episode culminates with enthusiastic endorsements of People's Reserve's groundbreaking products. CJ Constantinos expresses optimism about the future of finance, where Bitcoin-based instruments become mainstream tools for wealth management and real estate acquisition. Preston Pysh conveys a bullish outlook on Bitcoin's integration into financial systems, highlighting the grassroots-driven adoption that is set to influence broader economic structures.
Notable Quote:
"This is going to kick off a flywheel that we've never seen before... It drives immense value into this product."
— CJ Constantinos [53:23]
Episode BTC221 of the Bitcoin Fundamentals podcast offers an in-depth exploration of innovative financial products that marry traditional real estate financing with Bitcoin's unique value propositions. Through CJ Constantinos' expert insights, listeners gain a comprehensive understanding of how Bitcoin can be leveraged to create sustainable, risk-mitigated financial solutions, heralding a new era in wealth management and real estate investment.
For more information on the topics discussed, listeners are encouraged to visit People's Reserve and follow CJ Constantinos on X (formerly Twitter) at @CJConstantinos.