← The Investor's Podcast (We Study Billionaires) - The Investor’s Podcast Network
The Investor's Podcast (We Study Billionaires) - The Investor’s Podcast Network
BTC244: Bitcoin Mastermind Discussion Q2 2025 w/ Joe Carlasare, HODL, and Jeff Ross (Bitcoin Podcast)
01:29:47
Exploring Bitcoin’s latest rally, Treasury company strategies, stablecoin regulations, and the macroeconomic forces shaping markets in 2025 and beyond.
Loading summary
Transcript346 lines
- [00:01]
Preston Pish
You are listening to tip. Hey everyone. Welcome to this Wednesday's release of the Bitcoin Fundamentals podcast. So on today's show we got the Bitcoin Mastermind for the third quarter of 2025. And in this episode, we dive into the current state of the bitcoin market, unpacking the key macro forces driving price from global liquidity to the evolving role of stablecoins and treasury strategies. Jeff introduces this idea of three burners and understanding market cycles. And we dig into the growing divergence between spot price and the ETF driven flows. We also explore the rise of Bitcoin treasury companies, the shifting capital structures they're using, from convertibles to perpetual preferreds, and how these firms may be outperforming miners over the long run. On the regulatory front, the team breaks down the Genius act and the potential to reshape stablecoin issuance in the US Especially for non bank players. There's a friendly back and forth on the future of the US dollar, AI's impact moving forward, what tokenized gold and JP Morgan's stablecoin mean for bitcoin adoption. And of course, we wrap it all up with bold predictions from bitcoin's price targets to whether Powell survives another term at the Fed. So let's dive into this. This was a really fun conversation. I'm sure you guys are going to love it. Celebrating 10 years, you are listening to Bitcoin Fundamentals by the Podcast Network now for your host, Preston Pish. Hey everyone, welcome to the show. I'm here with the Mastermind discussion. Everybody is smiling and laughing because they were all here waiting and I thought this show was happening in an hour from now. So we are literally on the fly, making this up as we go. Just a very candid conversation. This is how this usually done. Anyway, I come up with questions and we don't even go to them. We just talk. So where do you guys want to start off? I think I know where you want to start off, but where do you guys want to start off?
- [02:03]
Jeff
New all time high, all time high day?
- [02:05]
Preston Pish
Yeah, you guys told me that when we like first met and I didn't even realize. Any thoughts on that? Any thoughts on the all time high?
- [02:13]
Jeff
You know what's great about an all time high day is it's just this special moment in time where nobody has ever been wrong about bitcoin. No, nobody ever in the history of bitcoin has ever been wrong about bitcoin. Now that's going to change. We know that. But like for right now, we can savor the moment.
- [02:28]
Joe
Yeah, I mean the thing that's exciting about it for me is that bitcoin, since really the launch of the ETFs, it makes new to all time high, goes on a run, it goes up to a new level and then it's consolidated for several months before breaking to a new level. And for as long as I've been in bitcoin, I think it's trading very differently. I think it's trading in this massive range where there just aren't a lot of sellers are people steadily and in a very persistent way accumulating bitcoin and then we launch higher and then we'll probably consolidate there for three, four months and then launch higher. We talked about one of the prior podcasts, like whether the cycle theory will die at some extent the having cycle. Obviously we can have drawdowns that can happen. But that's really interesting. We're getting to that point here. We're in Q3 now of 2025, so it's interesting.
- [03:11]
Jeff
It looks kind of dead, doesn't it? The cycle theory. We're trading like Nvidia or something.
- [03:15]
Joe
Yeah, we could pull back of course, anytime, right? All markets pull back over time. Just the question of like this predictable four year cycle.
- [03:23]
Preston Pish
I've got a theory on why. I think that's why we're seeing these ranges kind of take place. But before we go there, Jeff, any thoughts on the all time high?
- [03:30]
Hodl
Let's go all time high. More to come. I don't know how much we want to get in here, but you know, I want to hear your theory first, Preston, but I'm very bullish so I'll tell you why. But let's hear.
- [03:41]
Preston Pish
I just think the trading ranges that we're seeing, like it just hung around this 110 to call it 90k range for what feels like what, six months or so. If we've been here, I think it's the ETFs causing this. I think you got a lot of options that get constructed over. You know, you get a big ramp and then all the ETF owners that are here that are much more tourist like than like long term holders or whatever and then you have all the options on top of it that are just kind of building these resistance levels or bands kind of around where it just moved to. So like let's say this thing would run and I'm just going to throw out numbers here. Let's just say it would run to like 140 pretty aggressively. You might have some bands that kind of get set up maybe around 150, 160, and then maybe down at 130 or whatever. And it just kind of goes sideways in that range for a few months before it kind of pops through maybe another level. I don't know if this is the new norm or not. I just, I suspect it has something to do with the ETFs though, because they're so big. I mean, these things are growing like crazy way beyond what I think anybody anticipated when they launched what, a year and a half ago now.
- [04:48]
Jeff
Yeah, well, the other thing too here is just to piggyback your point, Preston, is I think that Wall street traders, institutional money, has a totally different view of the RSI than people who are crypto traders or bitcoin traders. And in bitcoin we're used to the RSI running really hot during bull markets. And I think that the Wall street guys see that getting up into the 70 range and they start getting pretty squeamish and they want to take off, trim their position. Right. And so I think that's a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy because those guys are the big money sitting at the table right now. And so it's trading a little differently.
- [05:19]
Preston Pish
Than it used to just for people. The RSI is your relative strength index. This is a technical, you know, astrology for men. This is a technical metric that is really popular especially for fast money on Wall Street. And they're just looking at it and saying, hey, this thing's getting overheated. So let's go ahead and start lighting up on the position. And that's to Hoddle's point there. Anything else that you guys basically, like.
- [05:43]
Jeff
Preston said, it's a measure of how overheated the market is. And they believe that a market is overheated much sooner than the typical bitcoiner believes. The typical bitcoiners, like, what do you mean it can't be overheated? We haven't even seen a bajillion percent this year. Still, many, many multiples to go.
- [05:58]
Hodl
So you guys clearly haven't heard my three burner theory about how the bitcoin price works in a bull market. So I'll just lay it out here. I talked to Danny Knowles about this a little bit, so. But here it is. So imagine, if you will, the price of bitcoin is a pot of soup on the stove. And underneath that pot you have three burners. Okay? Burner number one is global liquidity. Everybody knows about this now. Everybody literally. And their grandma is talking about global liquidity now like it nobody knew about it a year ago. Now everybody talks about it. Burner number two that affects the price is the economy. You got to have economy that's revving up and when that starts to heat up, that's a second burner to get the pot boiling. Burner number three, which comes towards the end of a bull market is leverage. So when everybody is just filling wild and animal spirits are going, everybody starts applying leverage. So so far all we've had is burner number one going at a pretty good rate. The economy, as you guys probably know, has been stuck in kind of muddling since 2022. We haven't really recovered. Manufacturing has basically been below 50 at or below 50 since 2022. Services have held us higher and we're a services economy. So that's been sitting kind of in the 50 to 55 range for a couple of years and that's been propping it up, but it's still weak. And this is still a very unusual economy, which I still think goes all the way back to Covid in the response to Covid, what happened there and all these kind of things that these interplays with the central intervention. So anyways, what I think is going to happen. Okay, and Joe, I see your smile, so I want to get your response to this. Liquidity is rising. I think that in the second half of this year, so basically starting July through December, we are finally going to see the American economy take off and it's going to start ripping. And I think the global economy will follow actually and it will be a strong second half. And when the economy is booming, that means businesses are booming and are flush with cash. It means people are employed and making decent money and have money to save and invest and speculate with. That gets burner number two going and then the animal spirits start to pick up. And I still think there is a chance that we have this rip higher where we have that exponential hockey stick higher now. And then. One interesting thing that I'm still waiting for, there's a chance it can still happen like it has in the past where we have these traditional kind of four year economic cycles and we get this by the fourth quarter of this year and it kind of melts everybody's face off. That's possible. But what it's looking to me more like is the economy is actually going to stretch into the first half of 2026 and we're actually going to have an ext extended cycle. So that's based on the forward metrics I look at I think that's what's going to happen and this. So we're probably going to be talking about all time highs somewhere in Q2 of 2026 now, which is a surprise to me.
- [08:37]
Jeff
Yeah, that sounds about right.
- [08:39]
Preston Pish
Joe.
- [08:39]
Joe
I couldn't agree more of the latter part. Like I think there are signs here of green shoots all over the place with the real economy. And I think that the yield curve is telling you that in particular particularly the 30 year like with it we're rising I think very down at 1.5% now with 30 yields are crisis across the board. And to me I think what you're seeing is you're seeing structurally higher nominal GDP and consistent inflation risks across services. I think the inflation swaps are starting to rise. I think you see crude and copper starting to rise and recession fear is completely still. I was looking at the Goldman's index. There's 35% probability of recession. That's way overblown. There's just no evidence of that. It's nowhere in sight. And for whatever reason we've had this risk off atmosphere. And I think the rise structurally in yields personally right here I think is a reaction function to the big beautiful bill, to the stimulus that's coming into the system, to the fact that the recession risks were overblown. You got to remember if you flashback six months ago, people were talking about Doge somehow magically cutting $2 trillion. I know where that was coming from. But seemingly smart individuals on Finit were talking about that actually being real. It's not. I think it's was completely fabricated. I don't know why people got that in their mind. You were talking about there being a massive reduction in government spending overall outside of Doge. And what do we see? We saw the fact that that was largely abandoned at a failed effort on Doge and we see now the big beautiful bill which is going to continue to drive consumption and potentially cause this boon in the economy that we've been waiting for some catalyst. Now is this a problem that it's being driven by the sugar eye of additional spending? Yes, but it's not a problem now and it's not a problem in early 2026. And to me the just point, right, if you're an investor, you're positioned. I fail to see the bear case here. Obviously any black swan can arise. There can be something totally off the radar that's going to have to get priced into the market. But you know this idea that we were just going to collapse the economy and that it was all Going to be take your medicine with tariffs and attack on the consumer and reduction spending and none of that's really materialized. The tariff is largely a negotiation tactic and it's been walked back. And even now the market like today, new tariff headlines, the boogeyman terror. It's like just shrugging it off. It's not just bitcoin. Guys like NASDAQ has made a new all time high today. The s and P500 all time high today. Bitcoin breaking out. And the most interesting thing about it to me is that we know that when bitcoin runs, it runs hard. And you had this whole year, basically we were just consolidating over the inauguration day high of what was it, 110 somewhere there we're going to break here and we're going to go higher. And I think this persistent services inflation, which there's signs of it picking up again, is going to keep us closer to 3% than 2. And what is the Fed going to do in that environment? Is the Fed really going to cut in the face of that? I know they're getting browbeat, but that in some ways makes the problem worse. So really fascinating here. I think the overall TLDR is that the recession risks are totally overblown based on the current data.
- [11:29]
Preston Pish
The holy bull in the house.
- [11:32]
Joe
Yeah, I mean, listen, I think this is an absolutely exciting time to be long risk assets across the board, but especially with bitcoin because we've got every catalyst in the world. We got massive bitcoin treasury companies which I'm sure we'll get into sucking up bitcoin, planning to buy bitcoin, getting in the marketplace. We got a frenzy on that. We got bitcoin, I think structurally undervalued here. We look at all time high and sometimes we get this natural ptsd like oh, this seems a little weak. I think it's the opposite. I would be curious. Jeff, your thoughts or Preston Huddle, like, do you really feel like there's leverage in the bitcoin space right now? I feel like there's a complete lack.
- [12:05]
Hodl
Of leverage right now. That's what I'm saying. It hasn't. That burner hasn't even turned on yet. Yeah, so yeah, we're not even close to exciting part yet of a bull market. And I think to you guys point just a few days ago, I don't post very much on social media, but noster, I post a little thing of a reverse head and shoulders pattern that I've been watching play out on with bitcoin. And we're pretty much there right now. So with the price at about 112 to 113, I think it taps on the door, and then it shoots higher, and I think we'll be at 140 to 160 before people can blink. And so people who are sitting on the sideline waiting for it to pull back again, I think they're out of luck, personally.
- [12:38]
Preston Pish
So I want to talk about a point that Joe brought up about how there's been this massive policy shift. You started off the beginning of the year. Elon was supposed to go out and trim 2. What was it, 2 trillion. He backed it down to 1.5. And Bassett was supposed to raise a bunch of revenue through the tax adjustment to the tariffs and all this. That was the plan. And all along, we had a conversation early in the year, and we were like, there's no way they can do this without offsetting it and still printing the money and inserting it into the system. Like, if they p pull out $2 trillion worth of liquidity in the system, they have to still print it somehow and get it in there, regardless of, like, how much they're saving the government and doing all these things. And sure enough, that's exactly where I think the Trump Organization found themselves. And I had a conversation with Luke Roman. He was like, this is the biggest pivot I've ever seen in an administration, where they're basically saying, look at this bill they passed. I heard rumors that Elon and Bassett came to blows in the hallway. I'm sure that there's. I don't know if you guys heard any of that or what you've heard, because that Elon was just. He was given a fool's errand. At the end of the day, he was given a fool's errand. And it's so ironic to me. This guy's the richest person on the planet, and yet he doesn't realize that this entire game is rigged. It doesn't matter who's in office, which party's in office. They're going to juice the numbers because they have to to keep the economy flowing and that you don't get credit impairment. So, guys, what are your thoughts on the pivot? And I know you. You think it's going to just rip into the end of the year, and I agree. Any comments on that or the pivot and maybe the implications of it anymore?
- [14:17]
Joe
Well, I'll just say I don't think it was just rumors. It was like there were published articles about how Elon hurled his Body into Besson's rib cage and body checked him like hockey style.
- [14:28]
Hodl
So.
- [14:28]
Joe
But yeah, this is the, this is good intentioned people, well intentioned, going into a situation, hoping they could fight the institutional inertia to spend more money and just running up against the wall. You take in some of the most successful, innovative people currently alive across many different domains and subject matters, and they're just running into realizing this, how incredibly difficult it is. And then the administration who desperately wants to make a deal and acknowledging, like, look, name a better deal that we can get through the Congress. This is how screwed up the system is. Congress is so broken. We have to make all these sacrifices when what we're doing it is effectively just agreeing to what we had before with slight incremental changes, the slightest change in the world, even with the best of intentions. So to me, it's got to be frustrating for those guys because I do think they went in there thinking they could cut out a lot of fat. But unfortunately, it's just, it's a tall order.
- [15:18]
Preston Pish
But it seems like they're looking at, okay, we have to print. We have to print in style. We got midterms coming up and they're looking at bitcoin. And I think they're. I think they're all in, man. I think that they're looking at bitcoin as the thing that the only thing that actually solves all of this and they're loading their personal bags is my impression. Do you guys disagree with this?
- [15:38]
Jeff
No, I think that's 100% accurate. It seems to me like everyone on Wall street, everyone in a powerful position is like, exactly like you said, just simply loading their bags. I had a friend call me. I had orange. This guy's a pretty wealthy guy. I used to work for him back in the day in my 20s. And he called me, I convinced him to buy five bitcoin back in 2018. And he had gone from. He put in $20,000. It's like a half million dollars, right? And he called me and he goes, hey, we were sitting around talking about Trump and everything that's going on. And we decided finally, after all these years, you're right. And we put 25% of our net worth into bitcoin. And they're like, they're eight figure people. So that's a significant position. Right? And I think that everybody has now, Once Bitcoin crossed $100,000, the psychological phenomenon or effect that occurred was everyone now default believes the bitcoin story. Everybody believes that bitcoin is going to millions of dollars a coin. That's a very recent and new phenomenon.
- [16:33]
Joe
I don't think everybody believes that.
- [16:35]
Jeff
No, I think that. I think they do.
- [16:36]
Preston Pish
Many, many people, they just don't admit it.
- [16:38]
Jeff
I think everyone believes it. Like deep in their heart they know it's about to happen.
- [16:42]
Joe
Even the critics, even Peter Schiff knows.
- [16:44]
Jeff
That he's on the board. Dude, we, it's an open secret. Peter Schiff has got positions on the board of the different crypto companies. And like, like everyone knows it. It's like the iron shake, right? Like he's playing the heel. Schiff is out there playing the heel. Like America, you know, like that's howl's.
- [17:01]
Preston Pish
Point, Joe, to Hodl's point. I've heard a lot of like hardcore critics that will say something to the effect of well, it might go to a million, but that doesn't mean that it's going to end up being successful or something. Like they just acknowledge that it's possible that it's going to a million but that it's somehow going to fail at a million. Which, what is the, what are we at 20 trillion at that point?
- [17:23]
Joe
Yeah, yeah, but don't you think that's just like, you know, saving face? Because they've been wrong for freaking forever. They still want to, they don't want to try to call a cop anymore. There's. Yeah, yeah. I mean I've heard Michael Green say something like this. Like he's like, oh, it could go higher. I'm not going to bet against it. I'm not going to short it. But it'll, you know, I think that's just saving face. I don't think they actually believe it because they would position for that. They actually thought it was going to a million dollars. They would put more money in, take.
- [17:46]
Jeff
The most staunch critics in the world out. Right. Because that's a very small portion of the population, the intolerant minority. Right. I think that the average person believes that bitcoin is going to millions of dollars a coin. And that is something that obviously we were all laughed at and called insane for saying things like that. And now that is like a default assumption. So everybody believes that the bitcoin story is going to happen. The only thing going on in the minds of retail participants is they don't believe that they are going to be a participant in that story for whatever reason.
- [18:15]
Preston Pish
I miss that.
- [18:16]
Jeff
I miss.
- [18:17]
Preston Pish
Yeah, I missed it. It's too expensive. It's for other people that are more well off and they just write it off as I missed that boat.
- [18:25]
Jeff
And then that brings us to the treasury companies.
- [18:28]
Preston Pish
Yes.
- [18:28]
Jeff
Because the treasury companies say to the person who has this psychological effect where they go, I missed it. No, hey, here's another opportunity. This is a time machine to 2017. Step in, young man. Let's go get you your bitcoin.
- [18:44]
Preston Pish
I think the comments that I see online in reference to the treasury companies is just asinine.
- [18:50]
Jeff
Like all of it, all of it.
- [18:52]
Preston Pish
This person that people really don't understand security analysis. Now, are there. Is everybody going to be like MicroStrategy? Absolutely not. But there's going to be some companies that exercise this strategy that are going to crush it, they're going to absolutely murder it. And to something, to Jeff's point that you made earlier in the show about these three burners, I would maybe even make the argument that there's a fourth burner which is just liquidity pipes into Bitcoin. Right. The plumbing that is now being wired up into bitcoin in one in particular is just preferred stock. So this is a market that was just really small in the grand scheme of things relative to debt markets, to credit markets. And I think that this, the plumbing on this is just getting opened up and I think it's going to become a massive market in the coming 10 years. Like massive. One of the reasons why is convertible debt creates this situation where it puts resistance levels into the common stock based on assuming this whole treasury strategy thing kind of gets way bigger than it is right now. That's what I think is going to happen. I think it's going to get way bigger, like monumental in size in the coming 10 years. And when you're looking at how convertible debt sets up like this delta hedge situation on the common stock, you put these resistance bands in that make it hard for the M Nav on the company to run. But when you do it with preferred stock, perpetual preferred stock, where there's no end date for the call on the principle of the initial issuance, you don't get that. And I think MicroStrategy has figured this out and I would be really surprised to see them do much more convertible debt issuance because of the issues that it kind of creates in the options and everything. And all basically it sucks all the volatility out of the common stock every time they issue this. And they don't want that. They don't want that at all. So I see this market, this preferred market, getting so much bigger. And I don't think you're everyday. I think most people don't even understand preferred stock. If I have a conversation with a hundred people off the street, I think there might be one or two that actually even understand what preferred stock is. And I think this market's about to get really big.
- [21:09]
Hodl
Yeah.
- [21:10]
Jeff
I think, in fact, you can kind of look at what Saylor is doing as him building out his own yield curve. And he can go up to. I believe this is speculation, but I think he can potentially go up to the kegger of bitcoin, which means there's a lot of room there to build that out using those preferred structures. And then you're right about the treasury companies. Like, not all of them are going to. Here's the nuanced opinion because you're right, like people are out here. There's all this paper bitcoin discourse on Twitter and everything, which is very fun and colorful. But I'll give you a bit of a nuanced opinion slash prediction, which is, I think the treasury companies are a real thing. They're a real phenomenon, and they're going to live large in the world over the next 10, 15, 20 years. I also think that we're in the infancy of a very large bubble, a bubble that could be like.com in nature.
- [21:53]
Preston Pish
In the short term. In the short.
- [21:54]
Jeff
In the short term, yeah.
- [21:55]
Hodl
And that's.
- [21:55]
Jeff
That's over the course of like maybe three, four years.
- [21:58]
Preston Pish
Totally.
- [21:58]
Joe
Here's the distinction in my mind. So largely, I would say the companies that have begun and grown and had traction as a bitcoin treasury company, I would say they've done it in a responsible way with both their debt issuance, with their share issuance, I would say. So what tends to happen in frenzies and in the short term, you know, things that attract a lot of attention, flavor of the month type strategies. And not saying this is, but I think at the beginning, you could have entrance into the marketplace that move out on the risk curve. They start to do riskier things to acquire bitcoin. And that's where it really gets introduced. I don't think we've even seen that yet, but somebody come along and say, well, they're having such success. If we just tweak a little bit, if we just take on a little bit of debt, that said, a higher rate, or, you know, play a mildly different strategy, that's where you introduce the real contagion risk. So that's to me, what I'm on the lookout for. That's the point, Joe.
- [22:48]
Preston Pish
To this point, I think that a lot of the amateurs that come in and try to do this, they're going to think that they've got a. To provide better value in the issuance than MicroStrategy. But what I think is going to be discovered with enough time is that the smaller the company is that's implementing this without a whole bunch of operational risk behind it, is actually more desirable to the market participants because as a percentage of how much more Bitcoin they can stack relative to the treasury that they have, it's going to yield way bigger and better results than the behemoths. And what's fascinating about this is it's almost like the laws in nature where the animal can only, like an elephant can only get so big, right. And then it has a disadvantage because it's too big. You have the same dynamic, I think that's going to play out for these treasury companies. And so I guess what I'm saying is you don't have to. I don't think that the people implementing this strategy really need to go out there and offer way better dividend yields on, let's say they're doing a preferred issuance. I don't think it has to be all that much better than micro strategy for it to be desirable to the market because especially if there's a callability piece to it, they're going to have a lot of buyers, I think, that are going to want the issuance because I think that the yields at that the underlying will perform at is going to be pretty good. And I see. Jeff, you're nodding. You seem like you agree with me on this.
- [24:20]
Hodl
Yeah, yeah, and I agree with that. And I have like, multiple points about this is I think that several of these newer ones probably, I'm sure there's some we haven't even heard of yet that are coming to the market soon, too. They. I think they have great potential to outperform MicroStrategy, who is the founding father of this strategy in the bull market. But I will be watching very closely as a fund manager for who is putting on the most leverage late in the cycle, who is hyping up on Twitter and all the social media accounts and talking about how awesome they are. I will be watching them closely because they will get absolutely wrecked in a bear market if we get a bear market, if liquidity pulls away, if the economy turns. I mean, these are like basically the same thing that happened to miners in 2020, 2021. We saw some of these miners that were the best performers during that cycle that they put leverage late, put leverage on late in the cycle and they paid and lots of them went bankrupt because of that. And I think that same thing is going to happen this cycle.
- [25:14]
Preston Pish
So.
- [25:14]
Joe
Well, the tell is the bond issuance. It's not the equities. You're going to look at the bonds. I mean, that's going to be the tell. I think those bonds will trade pretty ugly before equity collapses, I think.
- [25:23]
Jeff
Yeah.
- [25:24]
Hodl
Let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors.
- [25:27]
Preston Pish
Have you ever been interested in mining Bitcoin? As a miner myself, I've been using Simple Mining for the past few months and the experience has been nothing short of seamless. I mine with the pool of my choice and the bitcoin is sent directly to my wallet. Simple Mining, based in Cedar Falls, Iowa, offers a premium white glove service designed for everyone from individual enthusiasts to large scale miners. They've been in business for three and a half years and currently operate more than 10,000 bitcoin miners based in Iowa. Their electricity is over 65% renewable thanks to the abundance of wind energy. Not only do they simplify mining with their top notch hosting and on site repair services, but they also help you benefit financially by running your operations as a business. This approach offers significant tax advantages and enhances the profitability of your investment. Do you ever worry about the complexities of maintaining your mining equipment? They've got you covered for the first 12 months. All repairs are included at no extra cost. If you experience any downtime, they'll credit you for it. And if your miners aren't profitable at the moment, simply pause them with no penalties. When you're ready to upgrade or adjust your setup, their exclusive marketplace provides a seamless way to resell your equipment. Join me and many satisfied miners who have simplified their Bitcoin mining journey. Visit SimpleMining IO Preston to get started today. That's SimpleMining IO Preston to get started today With Simple Mining. They make it simple. Ever notice how smart investors hedge against tail risk, but almost never talk about financial repression? Here's the uncomfortable truth. It doesn't matter how careful you build your portfolio, because if the rules around your money can change overnight, you're vulnerable. Just ask the Canadian truckers whose bank accounts were frozen, or Cuban families whose remittances were hijacked by state banks or citizens in dozens of authoritarian countries watching their life savings evaporate under hyperinflation. These aren't isolated incidents, they're part of a global pattern. That's why the Human Rights foundation publishes the Financial Freedom Report, a weekly newsletter that tracks how governments Weaponize money to control people and how Bitcoin is helping individuals resist financial repression. If you care about sound money, personal sovereignty and Financial Freedom, HRF's Financial Freedom Report is essential reading. This is a report that I'm personally subscribed to and learn a ton from. Sign up for free at Financial Freedom Report.org that's Financial FreedomReport.org Smart investors don't just watch the Fed, they watch the world.
- [28:05]
N/A
One of the biggest takeaways from studying billionaires is this long term wealth isn't just built through investing. It's built by building expertise, leveraging opportunities at scale and aligning yourself with platforms that help you grow. That's why we're excited to tell you about an opportunity with Intuit. The maker of TurboTax and QuickBooks. Intuit's expanding its best in class network of tax and bookkeeping experts. This is a chance to be a part of a platform that's redefining how expertise and technology come together to power prosperity. As an Intuit expert, you can work on site or virtually on a flexible schedule and build a personalized career path. Whether you want to work full time, part time or just supplement your income, you'll get support from a seasoned tax team and access to Intuit Academy, a free, self paced program that helps you unlock new opportunities in the tax and bookkeeping industry. It's a rare combination of flexibility, community and career growth. All backed by a brand that's trusted by millions. For a smart move with long term upside, head to intuit.comexpert to apply now or learn more. That's I N t u I t.com expert all right, back to the show.
- [29:19]
Preston Pish
Another interesting dynamic with all this is when you look at Meta Planet and you look at the M nav that it's trading, where is it at right now? Like eight times it's charging nuts? Something like that?
- [29:28]
Hodl
Yeah, I'm not sure.
- [29:29]
Preston Pish
Let's just for simplicity just say that it's like eight times. So if they go out there and they raise a hundred million dollars, they can basically go buy the bitcoin as if it's on sale for call it $30,000 right now.
- [29:42]
Joe
Right.
- [29:43]
Preston Pish
Instead of it being $110,000, it's real ballpark numbers, right? And if you're buying it for 30,000 and today in the market it's worth 110 and let's say we have an 80% drawdown. They basically bought the bitcoin at the drawdown level. And so from a risk standpoint, these companies that have the really high M Nav that are exercising and buying all this spot, they seem like they're going to be able to weather the downturns more easily. I see Joe, Literally it depends on.
- [30:13]
Joe
What they have to pay. Right. I mean what obligations they're writing. Yeah, so.
- [30:17]
Preston Pish
Well you're saying, you're saying that is encumbered. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course.
- [30:21]
Joe
Because they've all, they're all adopting question this strategy. They're like well we're never going to sell the bitcoin. Well yeah, well we'll see about that. Like you know, once you have to meet your obligations like microstrategy. I think one of the reasons why I think the just point. Right. It trades where it trades is because he's put in place a system where it's very. I think it would be very unlikely that he's a forced seller. It almost to me I can't even envision a circumstance even if bitcoin were to fall 50, you wouldn't be a fourth seller.
- [30:45]
Preston Pish
No.
- [30:46]
Joe
Look at what they got out there. I don't know. Do you disagree, Jeff?
- [30:49]
Hodl
No, I don't think they will ever have to sell. Not during sailors tenure.
- [30:53]
Preston Pish
I mean if you add up his interest, expense and all of the dividends, even the ones that he doesn't have to pay because they're non cumulative, I think it's 200 million a year. Like it's a pittance compared to like what Even if you have an 80% drawdown he can continue to do that. Not to mention he can just do more issuance and come up with more cash to make the payments.
- [31:13]
Joe
Anybody on here?
- [31:14]
Preston Pish
In here.
- [31:14]
Joe
I think it's going to make the S P500 right now. Hot take.
- [31:17]
Preston Pish
Yeah, I think this year.
- [31:20]
Jeff
Yeah, I think so too.
- [31:21]
Preston Pish
I think you. I think the S P is in a situation where if they don't include it, they're at risk of being undesirable from. Just because you got such a fast rising star in the mix. If they don't include it, people are going to be like well I'm not owning that. I want to own whatever else that.
- [31:38]
Joe
They shut out Tesla for far too long. Yeah, we know that. Right, like that. I don't know Jeff, you didn't weigh in.
- [31:44]
Hodl
I'm 50. 50 don't have a. I don't have a strong opinion on it. I don't and I don't know anybody on the panel. So I don't, I can't.
- [31:53]
Jeff
This is the point of indexation, right? Like the indexers in some sense win again because eventually it will get into the S P500. Now, if it gets in this year or not, I don't know. But eventually we even. You agree, right, Joe?
- [32:04]
Joe
Oh, yeah. Eventually.
- [32:05]
Jeff
It's just, yeah, the bitcoin is going to come to where you are if you're an indexer and you're not going to get the same returns that the early guys like, like us got, but you're going to do okay. Like, you're going to be all right. Right. And I think that's, I think that's very important for, you know, not just bitcoin, but the markets broadly and MSTR stock. But, you know, the markets broadly are going to be buoyed by the amount of bitcoin that Michael Saylor is holding.
- [32:26]
Preston Pish
Good Lord.
- [32:27]
Hodl
Do you guys think that. So slight switch of subject, but because I brought it up, do you think bitcoin miners are going to catch any sort of a bid? This bull market?
- [32:35]
Jeff
I'm still bagged, but I'm not that hopeful.
- [32:37]
Preston Pish
So I.
- [32:41]
Jeff
Think a lot of the miners are becoming treasury companies is really what's going on, you know.
- [32:45]
Joe
Well, if you spend any amount of time on Twitter spaces with Mike Alfred, he. He'll tell you they already have. And he'll cite his favorite example of a stock which I'm not going to name for obvious reasons. I mean, you know, there have been a few of them who in recent weeks, looking at one here, it has pumped 300%. That's not a bad bid.
- [33:03]
Jeff
I have a diversified portfolio of miners, which means that some of them are up 300% and others are down 99%. Right. It's diversified.
- [33:12]
Preston Pish
I don't like, I don't like the miners. I don't own any miners. The main reason that I like, when I'm looking at it, can they implement the same, the ones that are public, can they implement the same thing that Michael's doing? They can. The issue is, is they have this operational business with extreme risk relative to the treasury in addition to the other risks that we were talking about as just far as meeting interest rate or interest expense and dividend payments if you're issuing them in a cumulative way. So why would I own that versus something that doesn't have all that operational execution, risk and liability. Especially when you look at how much of a cutthroat business, all of that.
- [33:53]
Hodl
Is so hugely capital intensive. By the way, I like Mike Alfred a lot, so I'm not, I'm not knocking him at all, but I just feel like miners were the flavor of the last cycle. And I just, it's hard for me to see how they catch a sustained bid this time around, personally.
- [34:07]
Jeff
Yeah, it's good. It's going to be treasury companies this time around like so too. I actually personally believe the treasury company bubble can get like I said dot com level large, which was $11 trillion in that era. Because basically when you have this big type of bubble, it's like around an, an idea. The dot com bubble was around the Internet and every. It was like the thing I said earlier. Everybody now believes in the bitcoin story. Well, in 1996 everybody believed in the Internet story. They just weren't really participating. And then the fever caught them at some point between 97 and 2000. Suddenly everybody and their mother was in on, on the thing. Right? And like every idea that was possibly going to happen on the Internet had a company that was associated with it doing a rudimentary or crappy or fake version of that idea in 1996. Right. Like Broadcast.com. yeah, it's a big deal that we all watch on the Internet, right? But we don't watch any of Mark Cuban, but Mark Cuban got paid a lot of money for that idea. And I think same thing with the treasury companies now is that the big idea is bitcoin. Everybody goes, bitcoin's going to happen. I missed it. But it's going to happen. Right? And we're in the infancy of this bubble. And what's going to happen I think is that the treasury companies need to differentiate themselves. Because if you look at XYZ treasury versus what's the difference between Nakamoto and CP or sorry, Jack Maller's 21 or the meta Planet or this or that or whatever, you need to have a credible story about how you're differentiated from your competitors. That credible story is going to have something about sats flow, bitcoin specific businesses, how you generate bitcoin capital. You know, we're doing on the Lightning network. Oh, we're doing it over here with insurance. Oh, we're doing it over here with this. We're doing it over here with that. Right? And like pets.com before it in the dot com bubble, a lot of these ideas are going to be real ideas that will happen in the future. Pets.com later became Chewy, which sold the Petsmart for $3 billion. But in the interim, we have no ability in 1997 to ship giant bags of dog food through the mail through the U.S. postal Service. Right? So like there's missing infrastructure that's going to cause some of these ideas not to come to fruition. But people are going to want to bet on them now. And that's the thing that's going to cause the bubble, I think, because everyone's going to get really excited about the Internet of money, Bitcoin, the future of where this is happening. And that's why I think, like Jeff was saying, we could expand into Q2 of 26. Dude. I think we. I think this could be a three or four year run with like a slight lull in between that takes us up to beyond $1 million.
- [36:29]
Hodl
Well, another. Yeah.
- [36:30]
Preston Pish
Because of the dynamic of if these shelves that we're talking about, like it gets a run up and then it goes sideways for six months and it gets another run up. Maybe the derivatives market is preventing this euphoria from really kind of creating the 80% drawdown and the massive run up. I mean, when you look at the just using power law, and I'm not saying I'm like a huge promoter of this power law stuff, but when you look at the price action, it is just going right down the center of that model. It's not going out to the extremes now. Whether it stays there or not, I don't know. But it's. I find it interesting that it's just running like this really clean path right down the middle of the model right now.
- [37:07]
Hodl
Yeah. And for me, I think the deciding factor will be if the Trump administration is able to successfully rev up the economy and especially if they can overheat it, then I think we see it start to rise significantly above that line where it can go exponential at that point. That's my take.
- [37:21]
Jeff
I also think there's a potential future where you could have a massive bubble in Treasuries with a more stable, steady power law, like climb in Bitcoin itself. And I'm not sure which of those.
- [37:32]
Hodl
Features plays out a bubble in Treasuries.
- [37:34]
Jeff
Yeah. In Bitcoin treasury companies.
- [37:36]
Hodl
Bitcoin. I thought you meant Treasuries. Us.
- [37:38]
Jeff
Sorry, sorry. No, sorry. Bitcoin Treasury. I have a very bitcoin centric world.
- [37:42]
Joe
I had the same reaction.
- [37:43]
Jeff
Regular Treasuries don't mean anything to me.
- [37:45]
Joe
Like there's a bubble in Treasuries right now. What are you talking about?
- [37:49]
Hodl
Huddle's all in on Treasuries.
- [37:50]
Jeff
I'm like, why would you guys invest in that? We talking about boomer money. Like, what the hell?
- [37:54]
Hodl
Love it.
- [37:55]
Preston Pish
Joe, do you have any policy or up like Washington D.C. update with the genius act and all that kind of stuff.
- [38:01]
Joe
I promised Hodl before we got on that I would ask him about his thoughts on Stablecoins, which I was at the Stablecoin conference back in Vegas and I wanted to make sure that we had sufficient attention paid to the Stablecoin massive move. We also have to talk about our good friend Tom Lee and his new comment that Ethereum is the new Bitcoin. Preston, I really want to get your.
- [38:23]
Jeff
Take on that, but I didn't even hear this from.
- [38:26]
Joe
Oh yeah, did you? You didn't hear. He said on CNBC that Ethereum is the new Bitcoin. So your reaction.
- [38:34]
Jeff
That's just that don't make a lot of sense, Joe.
- [38:36]
Joe
Well, here, here's his thesis. Okay, I don't, don't yell at me in the comments, but I'm just gonna give you his thesis. Okay, so his thesis is as follows. He has started a Ethereum treasury company and his thought process is that Ethereum as the second largest adopted quote unquote blockchain, is going to be ripe for massive transaction usage as all these companies and financial institutions implement Stablecoins. Though for those that aren't familiar, we have a massive piece of legislation that looks like it's going to be signed by the President, the Genius act for stable coins. It's going to make non financial institutions have a clear regulatory path to issuing stable coins. Some market participants are really excited about this. A lot of crypto companies are excited about this. And the bet that Tom Lee is making is that he thinks there's going to be this huge demand for Ethereum and he thinks that if he launches this Ethereum treasury company, he's going to be able to adopt the sailor strategy and then he's going to continue to increase his returns because not only is he going to continue to borrow and buy Ethereum, which will be needed for transactions, but he can stake the Ethereum, Preston. And when he stakes the Ethereum, it will only in this perpetual money machine advance his returns. So any commentary on that reaction to that?
- [39:54]
Jeff
Does anything prove how dead Ethereum is more than the fact that they don't even have their own narrative this cycle? They had to steal our narrative. Like what? You know, NFT is again like, what happened to monkey pictures, man? You know, at least that that was your narrative.
- [40:09]
Preston Pish
Can you believe that?
- [40:10]
Joe
The.
- [40:11]
Preston Pish
I mean they were literally making pictures of JPEGs of rocks in different shapes and selling them for 100,000. Like how did that even.
- [40:21]
Jeff
And it may have. And here's the crazy part, it may have been a better investment than an Ethereum treasury company. You know.
- [40:28]
Preston Pish
Here'S the power law chart that I was saying that it seems like it's just kind of like running up the middle. There's a lot more time that would have to play out with it continuing to do that for that to kind.
- [40:38]
Jeff
Of looks kind of good.
- [40:40]
Preston Pish
Warrant the comment. But anyway, just throwing it out there.
- [40:43]
Joe
So do you guys think, is there any situation, Jeff, where stable coins have any impact in the bitcoin market? Do you see any positive callous for bitcoin in the stable coin? Or is that just totally at the periphery, not even on our radar, not worthy of discussion?
- [40:55]
Hodl
Well, I think. Well, a couple things. I think that it's expected from where we are right now in history. I think we're at a transition point right, where we're phasing from analog to digital. We're facing from fiat to bitcoin. And I think that stable coins are the perfect sort of segue to get into bitcoin from the analog world. So it's getting everybody digital, right? Get everybody on programmable money. And then you have the people, like, you can't deny, like, tether those dudes. Like, first of all, that's the best business model that's ever existed. I think that's inarguable at this point, at least to date. And they're buying a ton of bitcoin and they're putting on their balance sheet. So they're not stupid. They're sort of fundamentally bitcoiners to some degree at least, and they get bitcoin. If I could create that business model, I would do that in a heartbeat, right? If I could give somebody a token for a dollar and then buy Treasuries and then just collect the interest and not have to pay anybody and then buy bitcoin with that, I would do that all day, every day. So it's a great business model. So I think it's a natural segue into where we're going. I don't think that they'll like. I think bitcoin is built to last. These will have a limited lifespan, probably of a few decades or so. That's my guess. Let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors.
- [42:03]
N/A
Picture this. It's midnight. You're lying in bed, scrolling through this new website you found and hitting the add to cart button on that item you've been looking for. Once you're ready to check out, you remember that your wallet is in your living room and you don't want to get out of bed to go get it just as you're getting ready to abandon your cart, that's when you see it. That purple shop button. That shop button has all of your payment and shipping info saved, saving you time while in the comfort of your own bed. That's Shopify. And there's a reason so many businesses, including mine, sell with it. Because Shopify makes everything easier from checkout to creating your own storefront. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses all around the world and 10% of all e commerce in the US from household names like Mattel and Gymshark to brands like mine that are still getting started. And Shopify gives you access to the best converting checkout on the planet. Turn your big business idea into reality with Shopify on your side and thank me later. Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today@shopify.com WSB that's shopify.com WSB As a founder, you're moving fast, whether that's towards product market fit, your next round or your first big enterprise deal. But with AI accelerating how quickly startups build and ship, security expectations are higher than ever. Getting security and compliance right can unlock growth or stall it if you wait too long. With deep integrations and automated workflows built for fast moving teams, Vanta gets you audit ready fast and keeps you secure with continuous monitoring as your models and customers evolve. I love Vanta's commitment to saving companies time and money as a recent IDC white paper found that Vanta customers achieve $535,000 per year in benefits and the platform pays for itself in just three months. Go to vanta.com billionaires to save $1,000 today through the Vanta for Startups program and join over 10,000ambitious companies already scaling with Vanta. That's v a n t a dot com billionaires to save $1,000 for a limited time Are you struggling to stay focused with all the digital distractions these days? I know I was, and that was until I started using the remarkable Paper Pro. It's a paper tablet that feels just like writing on real paper, but with the power of modern technology. I use my remarkable Paper Pro every day to jot down ideas, plan my week, and keep all my notes organized in one place. The writing experience is so natural and there are no apps or social media to pull me away from my work. I love how thin and lightweight it is and I can take it anywhere and the battery lasts for weeks. The new Remarkable Paper Pro features a spacious color display built in reading, light and productivity templates that help me stay on top of my tasks. It's perfect for meetings, creative sessions, or just clearing my mind. Plus, everything is organized and searchable, so I never lose track of important notes. If you value focus, creativity and a clutter free workspace, I highly recommend trying the Remarkable Paper Pro. There's even a 100 day satisfaction guarantee, so you can try it risk free. Head over to remarkable.com and see for yourself how it can change the way you work. That's remarkable dot com.
- [45:35]
Hodl
All right, back to the show.
- [45:36]
Preston Pish
Joe, don't you think that the US messed up on the Genius act with the part where they're saying that the issuers can't pay the interest of the coupons to the holders of the token?
- [45:48]
Joe
No. Well, mess up in the sense that they're going to be shut out of many markets abroad. Yes, yes, I think that's true. So just for the benefit. And again, I'm sorry, this is not cool in the bitcoin podcast, but I think it's fascinating because what's showing is this. The massive lobbying power of banks because the banks fought very hard to prevent the yields being transferred in any way given to customers. Because keep in mind the stablecoin applies to non financial institution. What does that mean? That means if you're not a bank and you're launching a stablecoin, you have to abide by the Genius Act. It does not apply to banks issuing stablecoins. So you may have noticed in the news about JPM and do you have a question? But JPM for example, could launch their stablecoin and pay yield. No way on that. Yes.
- [46:31]
Jeff
Right.
- [46:31]
Preston Pish
That's crazy.
- [46:32]
Joe
That's why I'm here. Dropping the alpha.
- [46:35]
Preston Pish
Wow. Now what's going to be interesting is that's going to be a bloodbath of competition for the incumbent banks. And if you're not a bank and you're being forced to sweep the yield, the, the coupons and you sweep them in the bitcoin, you're a way safer institution to use the coin. Like if you're not and nobody's using these things for the yield right now, they're using them to get in and out of all their degenerate gambling in the crypto economy. So I don't think that the typical person that's using these coins are using it for the yield.
- [47:08]
Joe
Correct. And then you also will have a bifurcated market because under the Genius act that becomes law. Entities outside the United States. So foreign issuers. Yeah. For example, Heather, they basically have to subject themselves to a comparable US Regulator. They have to prove and get a permission to do the issuance. They have to abide by most of the major banking regulations and laws, which I am skeptical they will ever do. And the big one, they have to subject their entire organization to safety and soundness. Reviews from the Washington Stablecoin Review Board. So because of that, right, you're going to have these entities outside the United States that have to pick and choose. Do you want to access United States capital markets and play in the sandbox and know that your organization is now subject to US Jurisdiction or do you want to stay outside? So my prediction is you're going to have this bifurcated market where you have tether that largely stays outside of the United States. Right. They're going to be continuing to be out there and trying to have penetration and both the trading vehicles, the finances and these different trading desks. But also locally. Right. And to me, if the goal is we want emerging markets to adopt stablecoins, I think that this is just my view. I'd be curious, Jeff and Hodl and you Preston, what you think about it, but I don't know why you would be more encouraged to adopt a stablecoin that somehow has Washington regulation behind it. To me, if anything, you're outside the United States. You want something that isn't subject to Washington, where they can't freeze the accounts very easily, they won't freeze the tether. You want to get far away from the reach of Washington, outside the United States as possible. That's just my read. But I'd be curious if you think that regulation Washington would cause emerging markets to adopt it.
- [48:43]
Preston Pish
Well, what I find interesting is because I didn't understand that Joe, what you just said, but I find it interesting that tether made the decision to start tokenizing gold in the face of what you just said. Think about it. Instead of buying Treasuries, they're saying, okay, well gold's kind of better than the dollar anyway, so why don't we just tokenize that for people that want dollar like stability and performance, Is that why they started tokenizing gold?
- [49:12]
Joe
I think it's definitely an effort to potentially still have access to US Markets. Yeah, I mean that's, that's a key thing because it's not, it's not dollars. Stable coins are supplying to dollar backed or purported peg tokens.
- [49:23]
Preston Pish
Yeah.
- [49:24]
Joe
So it's fascinating.
- [49:25]
Preston Pish
Wow, what a play. But I think they messed up by. Well, maybe I Don't know, like, well.
- [49:31]
Joe
It depends on who, who messed up, right? If you're the banks.
- [49:34]
Preston Pish
Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Banks.
- [49:36]
Joe
Yeah, banks. Why would the banks want there to be stable coins that can pay yield? I mean think about it. Think about the effect that would have on money markets. Money markets have systemic risk factors in our society. Right. If money markets are just disrupted, that causes financial stability. The Fed is going to be on that very closely watching if money markets get disrupted. And money markets have had issues before historically. So I think there was an impetus to try to keep the yield part of it out. These can be rails and peg tokens and, and these types of things. But once you start playing with yield, that really threatens the model of the banking sector.
- [50:09]
Hodl
So I got a question or a couple for you, Joe. So to me, so based on this, it looks to me like tether is going to remain ex US it's going to be the international option. And I think they're going to pivot to gold. And I think that gold stablecoin concept is actually going to rise and be very popular in the coming five to ten years in like relatively it's going to rise in popularity. Dollar will still stay popular, but gold will quickly rise. Here in the US it's basically circle now, which is outside of the banks versus like the JPMD and the other bank stable coins. How do you see that playing out? Circle versus the bank coins? Like who wins that in the longer run?
- [50:46]
Joe
I think it's going to be fascinating. I mean to me it's not just those two because I think we track at our firm. I think there's a hundred stables that are had plans to launch or already launching. I mean most of the major exchanges have some version of a stable coin now Kraken has a stable 100. Joe. Yeah, but it's going to be like the ETFs, right? You're going to have this massive flood of a bunch of vehicles and then it'll consolidate down to the few winners, right? It's like think of it like a sport, right? You have to get market penetration and to do that you're going to have to figure out how do I get this into the hands of customers? And ideally what you'd want is you want merchants to somehow incentivize people to accept the stables. Right? Because stables are great for peer to peer transactions. But we know that a lot of people, they're going to take that and they want us buy things at Amazon or they want to buy things at other Retailers. So the key thing for me is how do you get this to get outside of the crypto trading apparatus and used as medium of exchange? Credit card companies would have a very easy path to doing that. I have not heard credit card companies doing that. I'd be curious though. I don't really see an avenue. Like I have a JPM account. I don't know why I would use the JPM Stablecoin.
- [51:51]
Hodl
See, what I think is going to happen is I think they're going to introduce them through, they're going to talk about they're finally going to take on bitcoin custody and they're going to be like, okay, you want us to custody your Bitcoin first? You know, send your cash in here, convert it to the JPMD and then convert some of that into Bitcoin and then why not have a little bit of yield over here in the JPMD coin and hold Bitcoin and we'll custody all of it for you. I think that's how they're going to introduce it.
- [52:15]
Jeff
Oh God.
- [52:16]
Preston Pish
Are they doing this on Solana Tron? Like what are they using to gtm?
- [52:21]
Joe
I think I just want to confirm this. I think they just, they selected base. This base network, which I am by no means an expert on. Hodl probably is all over that. He's probably got a ton of based up in.
- [52:30]
Preston Pish
He's based on Hodl's base.
- [52:33]
Hodl
Totally bags of base.
- [52:35]
Preston Pish
Hold on, I got to figure this out. Go ahead, Toddle, what were you going to say? I'm going to do a little research.
- [52:39]
Jeff
No, you know what I was going to say is one thing I've heard about the tether guys is that they sort of have this worldview that China is going to be this perfected version of communism, that America is sliding into feudalism and that they're building. They're essentially going to be the iron bank for the new emerging network state which respects sovereigns. And that's a very large worldview. And it's kind of crazy that they're actually in a position to do something of that nature. They could actually do that. They could actually pull it off.
- [53:08]
Joe
So.
- [53:08]
Jeff
Oh, another thing on the Stablecoin thing is the reason, one reason, Joe, you tell me what you think about this. But I've heard that there might be a proliferation of smaller stable coins under 10 billion. Because under 10 billion they're state regulated and not federal.
- [53:21]
Joe
That's correct.
- [53:21]
Jeff
There's a reg arbitrage there.
- [53:23]
Joe
Absolutely. And that's where, where you get this massive number Right. You're going to have these effective regional banks.
- [53:28]
Jeff
There will be big winners. But you have these small regional banks that they're on.
- [53:32]
Joe
You've got a great read on like the consumer, like if a local bank is issuing and pumping up a stablecoin, do you really think that is a product market fit? You think people are going to be like, you know, I'll give you a.
- [53:42]
Jeff
I'll give you a consumer perspective. I was thinking about a little bit in regards to this, which is an expansion of the gift card industry essentially in a way that like, let's say I'm a, you know, normal family in the Midwest. I do a lot of my shopping at Walmart and Walmart has a stable that they offer me, right. And so I park X portion of my check direct deposit with Walmart into this stable coin with the money I know I'm going to spend at Walmart. And Walmart gives me huge discounts and incentives for doing so because they can't offer me yield but they can offer me crazy discounts and incentives.
- [54:11]
Joe
That makes a ton of sense. But don't you need the, you need the merchants, you need the merchant buy in and this is the problem. I don't, maybe they get that through. I don't, I don't know. That seems like it has to be merchant driven. It has to be, you know, Amazon, Walmart, major retailers saying you have to use.
- [54:27]
Jeff
I think so too. Yeah, you need the, you need Amazon, you need Walmart, Starbucks, etc.
- [54:30]
Preston Pish
You guys ready for this?
- [54:32]
Joe
Yeah.
- [54:32]
Preston Pish
Okay, so Base is an Ethereum layer 2 chain developed by Coinbase. I asked it, okay, so who runs the nodes of Base? And the answer came back. Coinbase is currently the sole sequencer node on Base.
- [54:50]
Joe
Wow.
- [54:51]
Jeff
There you go. You only need one. You only need one. This is nuts.
- [54:56]
Preston Pish
This is so funny.
- [54:57]
Hodl
Coinbase is just taking over the world.
- [55:00]
Preston Pish
I mean the non bitcoin world.
- [55:01]
Hodl
Yeah, Coinbase is like, basically they're like the Lex Luthor of the government exchange.
- [55:06]
Jeff
Brian Armstrong has been respecting Bitcoin lately. He started Bitcoin again.
- [55:12]
Joe
The quote Preston, we're thrilled to see one of the nation's most prominent banks come on chain said Jesse Pollock, creator of Base and VP Engineering Coinbase. Base offers sub second sub24.7 settlement which makes fund transfers between JPM institutional clients. Instant. We're proud to partner with JPM and this pilot combines the credibility of JPM to help us bring institutional money into a global economy.
- [55:34]
Preston Pish
I mean one sequencer, of course, it's instant.
- [55:36]
Jeff
Hey, question. What's what's the point of Ripple? Isn't this Ripple Soul, Emma?
- [55:44]
Preston Pish
Yeah, he's on the hill a bit, huh?
- [55:46]
Jeff
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
- [55:48]
Preston Pish
Oh, my God, this is such a. But you know what, I'm just thinking about all this through the lens of your typical person who doesn't care about finance at all. They see all of this, all this fancy language and terminology. Oh, it's a sequencer on top of the layer 2 of Ethereum. And just like, what a dis. What a Rube Goldberg machine disaster of just, you know, terminology and nonsense. Total nonsense.
- [56:15]
Joe
Well, and the big problem is, okay, you have one chain that. This base chain that's got one coin running on it. There's no interoperability because it's not across protocol. So you got like entire ecosystem, like. Well, I've got stables on Solana and Ethereum. Yes. And all this. That's a mess that the consumer experience there is terrible. It's just absolutely awful.
- [56:36]
Preston Pish
Well, it's going to be. Yeah, it's going to be such a walled garden that either you're a JPM client and they force feed you that you're now using their blockchain, but nobody's taking. Taking that thing outside of their ecosystem. There's no. To your point, there's no interoperability whatsoever. And like, where this is all going is the one that's the most interoperable, Bitcoin wins. Right. And is actually backed and has tens of thousands of people running nodes because they want to, not because they're being forced to. Like, I just don't know how people can't see this, man.
- [57:08]
Joe
You think we get stable coins on some sort of layer two or some sort of derivative of Bitcoin? I mean.
- [57:14]
Preston Pish
Well, I think Tether's already said they're doing it. Yeah, Tether's already made that announcement in.
- [57:18]
Joe
January that they're doing stables on bitcoin.
- [57:20]
Preston Pish
Yeah.
- [57:20]
Joe
Is that going to be. Not in the United States. Right, because they're.
- [57:23]
Preston Pish
Well, I mean, they're doing it on layer two lightning. So. And you don't need a token to run it on lightning. So. Yeah, I don't know. It's. This is really interesting. And that was just J.P. morgan. I can't imagine what the other. What you're seeing. The others are using it for their quote unquote tech to run these things.
- [57:41]
Jeff
Peter. Sorry, go ahead, Jeff.
- [57:44]
Hodl
I was just gonna say some of you guys are too young probably, but like in the 90s, the Internet phase took over for a very long time. Several Years. And that's what I think is going to happen with these stable coins, right? They're going to spend tons and tons and tons of marketing dollars and like what you're talking about Honda with, you know, trying to get you to Walmart here, give you all these discounts. Here's a Disney stablecoin park your money here, we'll give you cheaper tickets. And I think they're going to really push hard for about three, four, five years and then it's just going to fizzle because they're going to realize it's not worth the effort and then. Yeah, because all roads do eventually lead to bitcoin for sure. This is just this transition period that we're in completely.
- [58:21]
Jeff
I think that the Internet is very analogous to private blockchains and it will likely meet the same fate. And we've seen that with many different private blockchain projects over the 15 year history of bitcoin. So yeah, all roads lead to bitcoin, man. All roads lead to bitcoin.
- [58:37]
Hodl
Can I change the subject?
- [58:38]
Preston Pish
Yeah, of course.
- [58:39]
Hodl
And Preston, are you able to put to. I don't know if you have trader view or something, if you can get in something up. Yeah, an XPX divided by gold.
- [58:46]
Preston Pish
XPX divided by gold. Okay, let me.
- [58:48]
Hodl
And. And as long as like the longest term possible, 100 years. Hit the hole.
- [58:53]
Preston Pish
Let's see here.
- [58:54]
Hodl
This is what I can't stop thinking about now. It's. I've been going on this for a couple months now and my leading question.
- [58:59]
Preston Pish
To you guys, divided by gold. Is that what you said?
- [59:02]
Hodl
Yeah.
- [59:02]
Joe
Okay.
- [59:03]
Hodl
And if you do it on trading, you can go back to like the 1920s.
- [59:06]
Preston Pish
Oh really?
- [59:07]
Hodl
And my question I'd pose to you guys is do you think that the period of American exceptionalism as people talk about, is it over for now?
- [59:15]
Joe
No.
- [59:15]
Hodl
Are we? And yes or no. And I'm. And I'll take the other side of that, Joe. I think it is, I think we're in a period and I think this chart is very helpful in showing this that I think that we've reached the point where the dollar strength, it's strengthened enough that investment in US assets, financial assets, has reached a peak. And we're now rolling over similar to 1929 and then into the 30s, similar to the late 1960s and through the 70s and similar to basically the dot com bust through about 2011. And I think it's sort of shocking to me at least how well you can see these huge secular trends when you have like the S&P 500 divided by gold. And it looks very clear to me at least that we're at the start of that now. We may reverse that and go back again. And I wish I had the chart up to show you.
- [60:07]
Joe
I can show. I have it right here if you want to see.
- [60:09]
Preston Pish
Yeah, go ahead and pull it up.
- [60:10]
Joe
Okay.
- [60:10]
Hodl
Sorry to put you guys up.
- [60:11]
Joe
This is. No, no, it's no problem. This is the SBX over gold. This is a charge of the 18. 1884.
- [60:19]
Hodl
Yeah. So, and so the bars are monthly. Oh yeah, Yearly bars. Can you do monthly?
- [60:24]
Joe
You don't like the yearly? That's too big.
- [60:26]
Hodl
That's fine. But it shows the same thing. But I feel like you can see the, the waves a little better.
- [60:31]
Joe
Okay.
- [60:32]
Hodl
Either way. But you guys can see it anyways. So where that first peak is, I'm.
- [60:36]
Joe
Going to go, I'm going to go to monthly. Here's monthly. Okay, There we go.
- [60:39]
Hodl
Okay. So. And you can see. So that first peak, that's 1929. That hump number two, that's about 1968. Ish peak number three, that's the, that's the dot com bubble.
- [60:51]
Joe
Bubble. Yep.
- [60:52]
Hodl
Okay. I think that we're at the almost the exact same period right now as we were kind of in the early 70s. And I will be very surprised if gold does not outperform US stocks and if emerging markets and international stocks don't outperform most U S stocks for the next five to 10 years.
- [61:12]
Joe
Okay.
- [61:12]
Hodl
And I think global assets are the place to be and I think US assets in general are not the place to be, except with a few exceptions, mainly AI. The tech stocks I think can still do well. AI, robotics, semiconductors I think still can outperform. But I think in general U.S. investors who are only in U.S. stocks and U.S. bonds are going to get decimated as an inflation adjusted returns over the next five to ten years or so. And tell me why I'm wrong.
- [61:40]
Joe
Well, my response is going to be look at VTI vs VX US which is what you're looking at. This is the. Actually let's look at it the other way. The vxus is the vanguard Total International Stock market excluding US stocks. And then there's a total US stock market, vti. This is the chart. Okay. And we're going to zoom out as they say. This is the path. This thing to me, this tells the whole story. Look, you see, repeatedly you could have made the same argument going back. This is 2011. Here, here.
- [62:12]
Preston Pish
It'd be awesome if you were Able to see it back with the timelines that Jeff was.
- [62:16]
Hodl
Yeah, no, but you can. So 2011, notice that's when this starts. That's when the last bubble started. So gold Last peaked in 2011 relative to stocks and then it's been free falling since then.
- [62:29]
Joe
It's rolling over here yet again.
- [62:31]
Hodl
Yeah.
- [62:32]
Joe
Okay. I expect it to make a lower low. And the reason is very simple. And you're going into an age where the companies that are dominating the artificial intelligence space are based in the United States. They're part of the US Capital markets. I personally expect a massive productivity burst. I think nominal GDP is going to run a lot hotter than we expect. I think we can't even measure it correctly because of the technologies that are a little rodent brains can't wrap our heads around. And because those are largely domiciled and have access to US capital markets, you're going to have to own those things. Those things are going to print cash over the next 20 years. And the majority of the world's companies, although meaningful and having competitive advantage on raw materials, they will need the AI, they will need features and the AI resources that will be based in the United States. So I find it very difficult that people actually, I don't understand it at all how people make the argument that we're going to have this massive boon, economic boon, where AI companies are going to drive productivity and just print cash effectively. And then they also think that we have the end of American exceptionalism. Those two things seem completely at odds with one another. Either the AI narrative is total fluff and that's not going to transform and cause a productivity burst. Or alternatively it is, and American equities and American investments, American stocks are going to do fantastic.
- [63:45]
Hodl
So can I counter that? So I think that I totally agree actually with almost everything you said, but I think the difference is AI will become commoditized and will diffuse throughout all markets, global markets, and I think all companies around the world. Because. Right, because you can be in Sri Lanka and you can subscribe to OpenAI if you want to or whatever. And I think we're going to see the benefits and operating margins of all companies are going to massively improve. And then we also have robotics, right? Robotics is going to replace lots of human workers. It's going to create companies, cause companies to be more efficient, improve margins even further. But I think because of where the US valuations are currently, that we're going to see more margin expansion and margin improvement across the globe and throughout value based companies. And so it's not just the AI companies that are going to make money, it's the AI tech itself is going to diffuse throughout the world and actually cause all companies across the world to do well.
- [64:44]
Joe
Well, it'll diffuse but the, I mean the data centers. If we're going to spend trillions of dollars over the next 10 years with data centers in the United States.
- [64:50]
Hodl
Massive, Massive, massive capex.
- [64:53]
Joe
Yep, in the United States and yes.
- [64:55]
Hodl
Which is terrible for margins.
- [64:56]
Joe
Sure it's terrible for margins. Assuming there isn't huge amounts of stimulus coming from the US government running structural deficits of 6 to 7% GDP and potentially getting bigger. So to me that's going to be a non stop cash investments and you can do that as long as nominal GDP is running hot. They're telling you the strategy bessant came out and he told you we're going to run this economy hot. How do you run an economy hot? You run it hot by effectively borrowing a lot of money and pumping out a huge fiscal impulse. That is the. Nothing stops this train. That is the massive. Go ahead.
- [65:28]
Hodl
Totally agree, but so is the rest of the world doing that. They're, everyone is.
- [65:33]
Joe
They're not going to be able to compete it.
- [65:35]
Hodl
Compete in what? Just AI tech.
- [65:37]
Joe
You mean because we're behind on the data center front?
- [65:39]
Hodl
I'm saying they're going to compete by. They're going to be doing even more relative stimulus. They're going to be pumping more currency into their markets which will be converted to dollars.
- [65:49]
Joe
That's the dollar milkshake theory.
- [65:50]
Hodl
So yeah, so I disagree with that. I think we already are have reached the period where we're going to have basically 10 years ish of declining dollar value. I think the dollar is going to get weaker over the next 10 years, not stronger. So this remains to be seen.
- [66:04]
Joe
Well, just to be clear, when we're talking about the dollar for the audience, we're not talking about the consumer prices that are people paying the cost of goods and services. What we're talking about is the relative foreign exchange value as measured. I think most people use the DXY as a proxy for currencies. And the problem I have with the argument is that most of the major lending still to this day, even after the Russian sanctions where people says oh everybody's going to flee the dollar, we have more transactions going through dollars, we have more credit creation that's denominating dollars regardless of the settlement mechanism. And I fail to see how that structural dynamic is going to change unless you're going to get the Entire euro dollar system to start issuing more denominations of credit in other currencies, which I can't. I can't really find one other than maybe bitcoin, which maybe that comes, maybe that transforms things and disrupts it. But are they going to do it in the ruble? Are they going to do it in the gold? Remember gold?
- [66:56]
Hodl
I think gold and then bitcoin are coming and I think gold is already rising quickly as a reserve asset. It's the second largest credit creation. Not for credit creation, but I think that's also coming. I think the world is shifting from US Dominance to global hard asset dominance. And we're just at the early days of that and that's going to continue for the next ten years or so. Yeah, my view is this is very esoteric. Sorry, guys.
- [67:20]
Joe
No, no, my view is it's a weakening of U. S. Hegemony. You have more regionalization. I totally buy that argument, but you framed it as the end of American exceptionalism. And I fail to see a country out there that can truly rival the United States in terms of its relative power. I could see regional blocks, of course, but that's, but, but they're not one country, one entities.
- [67:41]
Preston Pish
Jeff, to your, to the two charts that you threw up there. As far as gold outperforming, call it the S P, I would agree with that. I don't know how long it runs though, before kind of this whole AI I think everything's getting rewired for levels of efficiency that we can't even comprehend. So I don't understand how long that would run. But I think in the coming five years, I think you're going to be right about that. On the second one, the chart that Joe threw up there was amazing and it was showing that there has been no trend line that has broken with respect to the US Economy getting weaker versus relatively everybody else. So you might be right.
- [68:19]
Hodl
That was since 2011. That only went back to.
- [68:21]
Preston Pish
Yeah, no, I know that. But I'm saying, like right now, as we're looking at it, I'm looking at that trend. I'm saying that has definitely not been broken in any type of average true range or any type of like momentum metric that you want to use. So I think it's yet to be seen whether your thesis, the second thesis there is demonstrating any type of performance or validity.
- [68:43]
Hodl
Yeah. So a couple of points I'll just throw out there and then I'll stop. I think that the amount of debasement that's going to happen in the US as we globalize and ramp up. Manufacturing here is going to be like it's the nothing stops the strain, it's legit and we are going to debase the crap out of our currency and that's going to cause the globe to lose confidence in US Dollars relatively, not completely. I'm not saying hyperinflation, I'm not one of those people. I'm saying relatively speaking we're going to increase the pace of people losing confidence in the dollar. The dollar is going to weaken. Treasuries on an inflation adjusted term are going to get absolutely decimated. The amount of money we have to spend to do the things that we're going to do are just going to cause a huge amount of debasement. And to your point Preston, I think yes, we haven't seen a definitive change yet. But if you look back just year to date, emerging markets, European stocks, Asian stocks have all significantly outperformed US Stocks to date, as has gold. And I think I'm. What I'm saying is this is the beginning. So six months. The trend does not make. But I think we're going to be Talking about this five years from now and even 10 years from now and we're going to look back at this as this was the pivot period right around this time.
- [69:57]
Joe
The only thing I'll say is that the debasement of the dollar, letting the economy run hot is a direct. It's a coordinated strategy to manage U S Debt.
- [70:06]
Hodl
Yes.
- [70:07]
Joe
And to me, long run. If you use that strategy, you're going to hurt your people. You're going to make the cost of living increase. It's going to have very pernicious effects for society, potentially societal instability. But it makes your debt situation far more manageable.
- [70:21]
Hodl
Yeah.
- [70:22]
Joe
Which means that the plates can keep spinning in the air.
- [70:24]
Hodl
And so I'm agreeing with you and I'm saying that's what we're going to do and that's why that's going. This is why this is going to. Because smart people and nations are realizing this and they're going to pull their capital out and let us do. We're going to inflate our debt away and get our debt to GDP under control. Yeah, but nobody's going to want to own our assets because of that is my kind of my point. So Americans were like the 70s. They're going to think they're doing okay, but they're actually going to get decimated in risk adjusted returns. Excuse me, real returns, inflation adjusted returns.
- [70:53]
Preston Pish
I threw up this chart real fast to talk because we've been mentioning gold quite a bit during the conversation, and I think this chart is totally not amazing chart.
- [71:03]
Jeff
I think about this chart all the time.
- [71:05]
Preston Pish
Like based on the trend line.
- [71:07]
Joe
Like as you lie awake at night, you think, I do.
- [71:10]
Jeff
I literally do. Because it looks like the Weimar chart. Right.
- [71:13]
Preston Pish
It's crazy. For people that are just listening, we're showing all of the gold ETP, the ETFs and all that stuff that's holding gold, the performance, and mostly just the total value. If you add it all up relative to the bitcoin vehicles that, the ETFs and the ibits and all that kind of stuff. And what you see is this chart where bitcoin is just like a rocket ship quickly approaching the levels that the gold value is at. So whether the trend continues, who knows? We, obviously, we're hardcore bitcoiners, we think it is. But if you interpolate some of these lines out, it's getting really interesting here in the coming five years. Like, really interesting.
- [71:55]
Hodl
Yeah.
- [71:56]
Preston Pish
So I don't know. I find the whole pivot with tether doing tokenizing gold really interesting.
- [72:03]
Hodl
I think it's going to catch on, personally.
- [72:04]
Jeff
Why would anyone want to own gold, though? Why would you want to own gold? I think because you're too stupid to understand bitcoin or.
- [72:10]
Preston Pish
Well, I think most people that are older, they just. They understand gold, they understand the dollar, and they. That's the end of their. Their level of thinking and caring about any of this stuff.
- [72:21]
Hodl
Yeah, it's for the boomers and some Gen Xers, but yeah, most people just.
- [72:26]
Preston Pish
Want to just join a political party and then just blame the other side for all the woes in their life. And that's the end of the analysis. Like that's percent of the population, whatever.
- [72:36]
Jeff
Friend told me this thing today that I've been chewing on ever since where he said, when you grow up and you become incurious, all kids are curious. Then you become incurious. You stop having a true false framework run in your head and you start having an us, them framework run in your head.
- [72:50]
Hodl
Huh.
- [72:51]
Jeff
I think that's. I think that's what it is, is like, you know, bitcoin people are people who are searching for truth and everybody else is us versus them.
- [72:57]
Preston Pish
Yeah, I would agree with that. All right. Any other topics? You guys are satisfied? It's all that preparation.
- [73:04]
Joe
No, I. Well, we have. We have to give the red meat to the audience. So we have to talk about price. Right going forward here. Okay. Jeff is very bullish. I think everybody's bullish on this podcast. Where do we see this going? Do we think it's going to stair step up, crawl higher through the end of the year? Do we expect any pullbacks during the fall? I know we've kind of alluded to it going higher next year. I think that's generally the consensus view of the panel here. Let's see if we're right about that. Where are we at in Christmas time?
- [73:31]
Preston Pish
Where we.
- [73:32]
Joe
Or what's our next. This is our Q2 or Q3. I forgot. This is Q2.
- [73:37]
Jeff
I, I think I'm staring at this chart. I think I'm a power law believer. Look at it, it looks real. I'm in power law, babe. No, I, I think that the most likely, the most likely thing is that we get this Q2, 26 expansion. I agree with Jeff. I think that's sort of like a consensus view at the moment amongst bitcoiners who've been here for a while. But again, we could easily go into. I don't know, man, it's so hard to pick because it's like that. We could get the diminished returns narrative where we go to like 180 and then we go to have a 50% correction or something, or we could just keep going. So here's my prediction. My prediction is going to be, I think that the bull run is going to go on for four years. I'm just going to go out there. I haven't heard other people saying, wow, I think we're going from here to 20, 28. I think it takes us beyond a million dollars. I think it's on the back of this dot com style treasury bitcoin, treasury company bubble. And I think that there will be a probably a lull period in there or one or two lull periods where, you know, it climbs up, it grabs onto a new all time high and then we have a 30, 40, 50 correction. There's a lull. But in the meantime, the treasury companies keep going, you know, hockey, sticking up into the right. Because if you look at, if you check bitcoin treasuries.com NVK site every week there are more and more and more treasury companies and they are not going to stop being added. And every single person I was talking to in Las Vegas was telling me that they were gearing up to start a Treasury company. And again, a lot of these people are rank amateur who have no clue what they're doing. And there are podcasters on the board, by the way, are you guys on any Boards you're not telling me about, but like, you know, you can't. The excesses are going to be there, the leverage is going to be there. The amateurs are going to do all the wrong things and we're going to get this collapse. Yes, but this idea is so big, this narrative is so big it can carry us through. And I think there's, you know, an inherent reflexivity here to this big idea that now everybody has figured out, which is like, yes, bitcoin is going to millions. I mean, just think of it. Just take a step back here, just pause for a second and think to yourself, the President of the United States believes that Bitcoin's 20 millions of dollars. The Treasury Secretary believes that, okay? Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, believes that and thinks fiat money is hopeless. We all believe that, right? Your friend who you met at the bar for drinks When Bitcoin crossed $100,000, he now believes that everyone believes, Wall street believes, everyone believes, China believes it, everyone believes it. Ok? And the only logical thing to do when everybody believes in a big new idea, whether it's AI or the Internet or bitcoin, is to have a super massive dot com style bubble about the whole thing. So I think that's what's going to happen and I think it's going to take us to the million dollar range over the course of three, four years.
- [76:24]
Joe
I appreciate that narrative response, but we're looking for a number for the price prediction by the end of the year.
- [76:29]
Preston Pish
For the end of the year.
- [76:30]
Joe
It's like when I'm taking a deposition, nobody answers the question, what is the price at the end of the year?
- [76:35]
Jeff
At the end of this year?
- [76:36]
Joe
Yes. 20, 25, like 160.
- [76:39]
Jeff
Pretty low. Yeah.
- [76:40]
Hodl
Jeff, I will be watching closely what the economy is doing and what leverage is doing. And if they're both ripping, I think bitcoin could go very high by the end of the year.
- [76:50]
Joe
I thought we were going to 400. Isn't that still happening?
- [76:53]
Hodl
475K has been my call based on past cycles, but the economy is so weird right now. Like we talked about, it's been muddling along since 2022, so I'm still waiting for the economy to pick up. So I use that as my excuse. First of all, I'm planning on being wrong with that call, but so many people have used it as clickbait on their YouTube things. So I feel like I'm like, it's like tattooed on my forehead. I think that we're going to extend. I don't know if we go three or four years like Hodl says, but I think we at least extend into, you know, the second quarter of 2026. Now that just kind of changes everything. So if maybe we hockey stick in the second quarter of 2026, then I would actually have a higher price target. So here's what I'll say. If we hockey stick, if the economy is booming in the second quarter of 2026, then I'll raise my price target to 525,000.
- [77:43]
Preston Pish
He wants an Austin.
- [77:44]
Joe
Honestly, what's your target?
- [77:45]
Preston Pish
I'm kind of with Hodl. I bought some options today.
- [77:49]
Joe
Oh, man.
- [77:50]
Preston Pish
And I priced when I was looking at what I think, you know, the conservative estimate of where it's going to be by the end of the year. Because normally when I buy an option, I always do two years. I always give myself enough Runway. But these ones I bought are due in January. And I don't want to say too much because I don't want people, you.
- [78:08]
Joe
Know, to all follow you into the trade.
- [78:09]
Preston Pish
I don't want people. Yeah, but I bought these. They're out of the money by a decent amount. Like, they're pretty levered, but I got the timeline. So they come due in January of 2026. And I was using a base bitcoin price of about 160, 170 for like a planning factor of, like, where I thought the underlying was going to go when I priced them. So do I think it can go more than that? I do think it can go more than that, but I. I guess I felt pretty confident that we could get to those price levels by call it Christmas of this year. So we'll see if I'm right. If not, it's going to be a painful situation, but I obviously didn't do it with a whole lot of capital. I mean, this is not a very high conviction position. This is more like ashtray money. I'm gonna have a little fun money.
- [79:00]
Hodl
I'd take that bet, though, Preston. I think that's a good one.
- [79:02]
Preston Pish
We'll see.
- [79:02]
Hodl
What about you, Joe?
- [79:03]
Preston Pish
And by the way. Hold on, Joe. This is important. I bought it this morning and it closed the day up 20%.
- [79:10]
Hodl
See?
- [79:11]
Joe
Hey, huge.
- [79:12]
Hodl
Nailed it.
- [79:13]
Preston Pish
So we'll see tomorrow. It'll be down 30. Go ahead, Joe.
- [79:17]
Joe
I had the same target all year. I think we end the year between 130, 140. But I also think we go a lot higher next year because to your point, I think the economy is going to heat Up. Before we go real quick, can we do like a lightning round? I want, like three things. Three answers very quickly can be yes. No. Number one, huddle and everybody. Does Powell finish his term? Number two, answer about do we get any rate cuts this year? And number three, no. Sorry, what was that?
- [79:41]
Jeff
No and no. I'm no.
- [79:42]
Joe
1 now. No rate cuts the entire year. Okay. And then the third one, which is just. Just kind of for fun. Do we get any other major pieces of legislation out of the administration this year also?
- [79:52]
Jeff
No. I'm going no. Across the board.
- [79:53]
Joe
No.
- [79:54]
Hodl
No. What do you mean by major?
- [79:55]
Joe
Well, I mean, I wouldn't consider like.
- [79:57]
Jeff
The Bitcoin act or something like a. Yeah.
- [79:59]
Joe
Strategic Reserve act, something. Cynthia Lummis, Anything. You know, we were talking about these things getting passed and anything major on the bitcoin front other than the stablecoin, which is not really bitcoin, but. Okay, you know my point. So those three. Go ahead. Go ahead.
- [80:11]
Hodl
I'll take the exact opposite of huddle. Yes, yes, and yes. And number four, I think the four of us should start a mastermind treasury company. Jump on board with everybody. Let's go.
- [80:20]
Joe
You think Paul's done? Hang on a sec. I gotta. You think Powell gets out this year? You think he's out?
- [80:25]
Hodl
No. Hle said that?
- [80:26]
Jeff
Yeah. There's a lot of talk about him resigning.
- [80:28]
Joe
Oh, I'm sorry.
- [80:30]
Hodl
I think he stays.
- [80:31]
Jeff
Powell's pretty stubborn, but there's a lot of pressure politically.
- [80:35]
Hodl
So I think he stays. And I think we get rate cuts and I think we pass major legislation.
- [80:40]
Joe
What piece of legislation you think?
- [80:41]
Hodl
I don't know. Something major.
- [80:42]
Joe
Okay.
- [80:43]
Preston Pish
So I don't think Preston, I don't think Powell's going anywhere. And if true, then I don't think we're going to get any rate cuts, and I think they are going to pass the Bitcoin act, so.
- [80:55]
Joe
Wow, that's huge.
- [80:58]
Preston Pish
I guess that's more me just being optimistic because I really. I honestly don't have a beat or have even heard a rumor as to what the probability on that is. I'm actually really curious what you think on that one, Joe.
- [81:08]
Joe
Yeah, again, that's one of those things where I really wish we would get it through. It's just going to be challenging. I think that. That they used up a lot of political capital on this big, beautiful bill. And I just think it's gonna be hard to get anything through the Congress. And you gotta remember with the window, basically, once you get into the fall, there's the holidays, there's not a whole lot of work going. And then trum we're into midterm elections and there's going to be, I think I expect a very heated midterm election. And not to get into some of the Recent headlines last 48 hours here, but even it seems like conservatives and people in the MAGA world are upset and frustrated. So. So we'll see how that.
- [81:41]
Preston Pish
Do you think Elon's new party is going to actually be a thing or is this just all talk?
- [81:47]
Joe
It's all talk. And the simple reason is this, there aren't national elections. There are 435 congressional districts, right. That have local elections and you got to get on the ballots in those specific areas. And to get on as a third party, the system is rigged to prevent that. It's so difficult. Some congressional districts you have to get like between 5 to 10% of registered voters in the actual district to get on the ballot. They make it prohibitive so that third parties can't. This is the big secret, right? Like the two party monopoly is built at the state and local level so people can't get on the ballot. In some ways the easiest office to run for as a third party is the president. Aside from that, it's very challenging. And then just coordinate candidates, Internet all across the whole country in individual congressional districts, it's going to be very difficult. Now can you recruit a handful of people to go after some of his enemies on the Hill? Absolutely, he can do that and I expect him to do that. Right. But the notion that's going to be in, you know, the majority of the congressional districts, I just don't see it.
- [82:44]
Preston Pish
Interesting. Well, what are you, what's your response, Joe, what's your response?
- [82:48]
Joe
So I think that Paul's not going anywhere. I completely agree with that. I do think we get a rate cut for two simple reasons. Number one, the reason we thought that he is ostensibly was not going to do rate cuts was because he wanted to wait and see in his own words about the tariffs. So that's a huge reason. Right. We wait and see. We haven't seen inflation manifest itself yet to a degree that would cause him to hold back in the rate cuts. But the bigger reason is he's an institutionalist and I think he's being attacked. And the only way to ease off that pressure is to do the cut. So I don't think a 25 bip cut, a face saving cut is going to amount to a hill of anything. I don't think it changes really anything in the real Economy. But it's very easy for him to take the heat off him politically because if he doesn't, he's going to face this, this shadow Fed chair that they're dangling over him like this, like, you know, a chair waiting. I think all this is, again, posturing to try to get him to do some modest face saving cut, and then they're hoping the entire yield curve reacts to it. That's a hope and a prayer. I don't know. I don't think it will given the. The state of the economy, but okay is what it is.
- [83:45]
Hodl
My one thought, Joe, to your midterm election being contentious is, I would say a booming economy covers a multitude of sins. And so if they can truly get it up and running by then, which I actually think there's a good chance that they do, finally, that could sway the elections pretty significantly.
- [84:01]
Joe
I completely agree. And that's what the strategy is.
- [84:03]
Hodl
Yep.
- [84:04]
Joe
So that's why they're pounding the table on cuts. They're pounding the table on all this stuff.
- [84:07]
Hodl
Yep. I agree.
- [84:09]
Preston Pish
All right, gentlemen, what a pleasure. I look forward to the next one. Thank you for always making time. Let's go around the horn starting off with Jeff. Give people a handoff where they can learn more about you.
- [84:18]
Hodl
First of all, Preston, I want to thank you for preparing for this so hard and being ready for it when disaster. It was awesome. Ad lib. I run a little friends and family hedge fund and that's about it. Go, go touch grass. You should follow Hoddle, Joe and Preston. Don't follow me.
- [84:34]
Preston Pish
We'll have a link in the show notes to Jeff's.
- [84:36]
Hodl
Oh, I'm sorry, can I say one more thing?
- [84:37]
Joe
Yeah.
- [84:38]
Hodl
Public service announcement. I am not on any other social media and I know you guys probably have this problem too. If you see anybody that looks like me on anywhere on social media other than nostr, it is not me. So do not click any links. Don't send anybody any money. Please don't do that. It's an imposter.
- [84:53]
Preston Pish
Thank you, Joe.
- [84:54]
Joe
Joe Carlasari. I'm at Joe Carlisari on Twitter where I'm quite active talking about financial things. I do have a day job that I work as litigator. So if you have a litigated dispute, please contact me. If I can't help you, someone else will. We handle a representation for a variety of bitcoin miners, complex commercial disputes, fraud claims, some securities work, and really anything in the courtroom, litigation. So we do have a regulatory practice for crypto businesses, Bitcoin businesses as well, so look forward to trying to help you if you do. If you're an innovator in the space, definitely reach out because I'd like to help.
- [85:24]
Preston Pish
Best lawyer in America right there.
- [85:26]
Hodl
Hodl.
- [85:27]
Preston Pish
Go ahead.
- [85:28]
Jeff
I don't have anything to show. I don't care if you follow me, but these homies of mine on Noster, they make this ghee called Great Ghee. Check it out. It says, highest quality animal fat for the hardest money on earth.
- [85:40]
Hodl
Nice.
- [85:40]
Jeff
And it's made from raw Jersey cow milk. It's really delicious. It's really good. So you can only buy it on Nostr. It's a Nostr only business. Check them out. Great key. Great key. Everybody available on nostr.
- [85:54]
Preston Pish
All right, gentlemen, gentlemen. Really appreciate your time. This is always such a pleasure, and I really do look forward to the next one. So thank you, guys.
- [86:02]
Hodl
Thanks. Present.
- [86:03]
Jeff
Thanks for having me, man.
- [86:04]
Preston Pish
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.