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- [00:03]
Jack Mallers
Money is property and is a fundamental right. Human value exchange should not be governed and operated by a single entity. They can debase the money, they can debase you.
- [00:14]
Danny
The world is moving more multipolar, and I don't think anything is positioned to benefit from that as much as Bitcoin in terms of, like, global money.
- [00:22]
Jack Mallers
There is no president, there's no government, there's no corporation that is bigger than bitcoin. Bitcoin can change the world because the world can't change. Bitcoin, where wealth exists today, will transfer into where wealth is going tomorrow.
- [00:37]
Danny
Do you think Fiat can survive this? How many more cycles can we go through?
- [00:42]
Jack Mallers
Your food prices are going to go up, your rent's going to go up. So you want to print money into that. That's when the opposite of fix the money, fix the world, break the money, break society. Bitcoin is going to win no matter what. And unfortunately, it might take time.
- [00:58]
Danny
We're back, Jack.
- [00:59]
Jack Mallers
We're back.
- [01:00]
Danny
Back in the closet. I can. I can confirm for everyone who's asking online, it's still empty.
- [01:04]
Jack Mallers
Still empty. What? Oh, are we recording?
- [01:06]
Danny
We're recording.
- [01:06]
Jack Mallers
Oh, great.
- [01:07]
Danny
Ninja launch. Big week, though, man.
- [01:10]
Jack Mallers
Yeah, totally.
- [01:11]
Danny
How are you feeling?
- [01:12]
Jack Mallers
I feel good. I'm happy to be home.
- [01:14]
Danny
And the announcement went down well?
- [01:18]
Jack Mallers
Yeah, I would say so. I mean, Tether proposed something that they support. Uh, I outline my vision. There's a lot of alignment there. So I'm excited about this potential future for 21, personally.
- [01:33]
Danny
See, the thing that I think is cool about this is for so many months now, I've been banging on about, like, these bitcoin treasury companies, and, like, some of them have done really well, and it's awesome. And I just have never been totally convinced that these, like, smaller, Pure Play treasury companies were ever going to kind of make it. And I think we spoke about this last time, but you're clearly not building a, like, quote, unquote, Pure Play treasury company. You're building a bitcoin business. Right. Um, do you want to. Let's just start, because for anyone who might not have seen the announcement. Do you want to explain what's actually happening?
- [02:06]
Jack Mallers
Yeah. So I had a keynote at Bitcoin 2026 and it was fun because everyone says online, I wear two hats. So for those that don't know, I'm the founder and CEO of Strike, which you can think of as like a bitcoin bank of sorts. We're not an actual bank, but we provide bitcoin financial services. Buy and sell custody, credit, lending all sorts of stuff. And then the other hat I wear is I'm co founder and CEO of 21 and 21 owns 42,514 bitcoin. That's the second largest corporate holding in the world behind strategy. And we are a public business traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker xxi. And as I became increasingly confident that I would be talking about both of my businesses, I was like, should I just pack both my hats and make the whole meme that I wear two hats real? And so I did and I got on stage and the first half of the presentation was about new features, strike launch predominantly in our credit products. And some of them partnered with Tether. And then for the 21 section, I outlined my vision as you described, for a bitcoin business that isn't necessarily a Treasury company or a crypto exchange, and tried to counter position 21 in a way that makes us unique because ultimately that's why Tether and I started the business with this vision in mind. Now, the order of operations and how we got to where we are, we can discuss and potential mistakes we made and things in hindsight we would have done differently, but nonetheless that's why we started the company. And finally communicating that vision was really exciting. So I think that's what you're referencing and the vision itself we can get into. But the way I see the crypto bitcoin space at large is on one side of the spectrum. You have what I called crypto exchanges, but it's not even limited to that. I would say you have companies that are monetizing speculation. So one way that you can monetize and build a business around currency debasement and this current era of fiat that we're in is provide a place for people to speculate. Because the reality is, whether people know it or not, they're all speculators. Because the currency that they're getting paid in and that they're forced to use via their government is being debased. And so you can't actually just save in the money that you're forced to use via law. You have to turn that money into something that can actually preserve purchasing power and that you can save in. And so whether everyone knows it or not, we're all speculators. And so a great business during this little window of human history will be a place for people to speculate. And we're starting to see all these businesses form into this same thing. Coinbase, which was a crypto business, is now offering equities and sports gambling. Robinhood, which was an equities business, is now offering crypto and sports gambling. Sports gambling companies are now interested in offering crypto and equities. Prediction markets, which are a new phenomenon, are now offering crypto and want to list equities. And so that side of the spectrum, as I define it, is monetizing rampant speculation. And I would say on the total opposite side of the spectrum, as I view it, are treasury companies. And they're the opposite because they have very much conviction in Bitcoin, but they don't actually focus on and invest in and build operating business. So on one side you have Coinbase and Robinhood. These are great companies economically. I'm not saying that they're good or bad. I'm defining them as what I view them as, which are businesses that make a lot of money, experience a lot of growth, but don't necessarily have conviction in bitcoin or anything for that matter. When you look at Coinbase's balance sheet, they have over $10 billion of fiat and $1 billion of bitcoin. And you're like, well, wait, do you guys even believe in what we're all working on here? And I think Coinbase's. My interpretation of Coinbase's position as a company is neutrality. They can't say what their favorite altcoin is. They can't say what their favorite equities are. But because that would turn off all the other customers that are there to list their own token and their own project, they have to be neutral. As long as everyone's there and depositing money and placing bets, they don't care who, they don't care the future of the world. So you have a very successful business without a convicted vision of bitcoin and a sound money future. And then treasury companies, on the totally opposite side of the spectrum, I mean. Michael Sailor, Metaplanet, they sell Bitcoin conviction. That's their product, right? They, they never sell. We're going to buy as much as possible. So they have all the conviction in the world. You can make the argument that no one's more convicted, but they don't have operating cash flow to finance that conviction. And so then philosophically, you ask the question, well, who's financing their conviction ultimately? How can they afford to be so convicted in bitcoin? Because the operating business is not what I describe as productive, productive, meaning it produces more value for the world than it consumes from the world. And that's a profitable business. And so what I outlaid is 21 would like to be in the middle of those two, where we take the best of what a Coinbase or Robinhood is, which is a cash generating, high growth business, whilst also displaying high bitcoin conviction. While owning bitcoin on our balance sheet, firmly believing in a bitcoin future and, you know, expressing economically via, you know, potential leverage and accumulation that, you know, bitcoin is the future we want to see. Does that make sense?
- [07:57]
Danny
It does make sense and there's not many companies doing this. The obvious one would be block, but they're not really focused on the treasury side. They're building amazing bitcoin products, but like not so much on the treasury side. Maybe another one that would be somewhat comparable, be CleanSpark, but again they're very focused just on their mining and power generation. So this is like the full suite. Is that what you're trying to build? You want to be like the full suite bitcoin company?
- [08:22]
Jack Mallers
Totally, yeah. And I mean, obviously Tether, as my co founders, we knew that this was going to be hard. I think there's a reason it doesn't exist. I view it as a great idea and something that the market would value tremendously. It's my opinion. That's why I started it. But it's hard and I think if it were easy, a lot of these would exist. So yeah, our vision is to be more specific, to have multiple divisions within the business, so financial services and distribution, so that we can build brokerage products, lending products, custody products, payment products, prime products, potential banking services, so cards, uh, I mean there's a full yield on assets on the platform, like yield on cash. I mean there's so much we can do to distribute Bitcoin. Economic financial services, another division I call Bitcoin infrastructure. So there is a physical layer to the bitcoin economy. We're talking about power generation, we're talking about energy markets. I view the story of humanity as commercializing energy from the sun. And the better we have access to energy, the more prosperous our lives are and our species is. And I think bitcoin is going to play and already has played an important story or important chapter, excuse me, in that story. And I think that 21 should be a participant in that. And then we have the more treasury side of the business, which is capital markets and mergers and acquisitions, and that is exploring opportunities and potential leverage. Like I don't think leverage is a bad thing. I would ideally like to be able to finance it with things like cash flow instead of implied dilution and mergers and acquisitions where we can look at other assets that would be viewed as strategic or other companies that we think would be better off joining us in building this network effect and economy to scale. And almost this bitcoin conglomerate of sorts. And even on the capital market stuff, man, there's so much we can do. So far what's been displayed as bitcoin has interfaced with capital markets are convertible bonds, preferred equities. But as a business that potentially also has lending and mining, we can securitize our loan book, we can securitize our mining revenue and we can try and aim to have these things AAA rated. And there's so much innovation that we view as bringing operating businesses and cash flow to the capital markets as well. So that's some more detail on the vision. And I think Dorsey is one of Bitcoin's unsung heroes. And Block is one of my favorite companies personally that exists today. But yeah, they started as a merchant acquiring platform and so much of their business continues to be both serving the underserved in America with cash app and serving merchant acquirers with Square. Bitcoin is a growing part of their business, but I don't think it's the whole company. And what I want XXI to be when someone buys a share and owns that equity is a very unique expression of Bitcoin and hopefully all the cool ways.
- [11:32]
Danny
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- [14:09]
Jack Mallers
Um, well I, I wouldn't go so far as to make that like declarative statement that like we screwed up. I don't think we screwed up at all. I think 21, the second largest corporate holder of bitcoin in the world, listed on the New York Stock Exchange. I'm tremendously proud of. Yeah, but I think in everything in my life, if I could rewind time, I would. Like yesterday, if I could rewind time, I would have booked a different seat on my flight because the guy that was sitting next to me was really obnoxious. Right. Like so with the benefit of hindsight,
- [14:44]
Danny
we'd all wouldn't have gone out with Dylan the night before.
- [14:46]
Jack Mallers
Yeah, you wouldn't have. Dylan, my chief of staff, when he wants to have a good Time. It's a tax on the liver for sure. That's for sure. Yeah. So, no, I just more meant with the benefit of hindsight, I think we'd all do stuff differently. And, you know, 21 was super interesting founding story, where initially it was just Tether and myself and SoftBank approached us with an interest in not only 21, but just Bitcoin and incorporating them as a minority but important partner and they sit on the board was fun. And then trying to list the business publicly whilst you had the election and a change in administration in the United States. And at one point the government shut down, if you guys remember that. And so the government is inclusive of the sec and the SEC approves us going public and approved our merger. And so then we had delays and by the time we had gotten approved, the entire market had changed. Mind you, when we founded 21, you know, companies were trading at five times MVav and we were like, whoa, we should probably get public as fast as we possibly can. And there is value in being in the capital markets and we have ourselves a ton of capital and a ton of assets. I mean, I would argue Tether's one of the most, if not the most successful financial services firms in the world today. We're like, all right, let's go attack the public markets. And then by the time we did get approved, because of delays and government shutdowns and changes in the administration, the market was changed entirely. Bitcoin treasury companies weren't selling common equity at a premium to M Nav and they weren't that interested in the convertible markets. And the convertible markets weren't that attractive anymore. And there was this whole new thing which was preferred equities. And, you know, Bitcoin treasury companies were trading below mnav. And all of a sudden, the ultimate vision in the second chapter, the 21.2.0, if you want to call it, I've seen people reference it, that of building up an operating business and further extending this whole strategic vision, all of a sudden that became the focus. So maybe in hindsight, if I knew that we would get approved when we did and that the governments were going to be shut down and stuff, maybe we would have started off with 21.2.0, as opposed to just going with our Bitcoin treasury and seeing what opportunities we had in the markets. But like I said, I wouldn't describe that as a mistake. I think what we've achieved so far is awesome and the strategy that I outlined is exciting. But, yeah, I mean, knowing what I know now, I probably would have made a few strategic decisions differently, but in the same way that I would have picked a different seat on my flight.
- [17:23]
Danny
Yeah, I think the, the idea of running like a really strong operating business is, I think is really important to these for the longevity and because, like your other option, we, when we spoke last time, we were talking about how you catch sailor, because, like, you guys already have a big bitcoin balance sheet, but it's like very small compared to sailors. And I think if you were going to go out in the market and try and do what Saylor does, do you think that gives you kind of no shot and doing this something completely different, you actually may have an opportunity to do something that.
- [17:51]
Jack Mallers
No, not necessarily. I. So for one, I don't think the ideal bitcoin company or the best bitcoin company necessarily means the company that owns the most bitcoin.
- [18:05]
Danny
Right.
- [18:06]
Jack Mallers
Like, I think Block Dot one. What was the ICO business?
- [18:10]
Danny
Eos.
- [18:11]
Jack Mallers
Yeah, eos like, they own a ton of bitcoin. But I wouldn't necessarily say, like, I would love to be a customer of theirs or I would want to work there or I would. I'm interested in their products. So I don't necessarily equate, like, I'll put it another way. If saylor, like, owns 800,000 bitcoin or 900,000 or 700,000, I don't know if that changes dramatically how I feel about MicroStrategy. They own a lot of bitcoin and they do what they do. And I think for us, it was more about a strategic direction and who we want to be as a business and where we think we can deliver the most value, both towards bitcoin and our vision and to investors and our shareholders. Right. There are plenty of companies that have a higher capitalization than MicroStrategy and own FAR less Bitcoin. So it's not necessarily implied that like Nvidia owns zero bitcoin, but I don't think anyone would swap one to one equity strategy in Nvidia. Right. So anyway, I think our, our reasoning for our strategic direction has more to do with the type of company we want to be, how we want to contribute to Bitcoin and its story, how we want to change the world, and then ultimately how we think we can uniquely drive value to investors and shareholders. We think it's going to be very difficult to compete and with us in building operating businesses and having access to capital and building a large treasury and taking advantage of capital markets. So I would say we're just not that interested in the preferred strategy that other Bitcoin treasury companies have deployed as of now. And if we ever become convinced, then we can do that. But we are more interested in the direction I outlined, to be candid.
- [19:52]
Danny
So do you care then about the metrics that these other companies use? Things like. And, well, M. Nav seems like an obvious one, but like, when you go further out, things like bitcoin, yield and talk, whatever. Like, I don't really know what that means, but like, do you care about these things?
- [20:05]
Jack Mallers
I mean, I laugh at that all the time. I mean, my dad, for example, has been involved in markets for over 40 years and he'll call me and joke and be like, how's your torque this morning? Because these are. These are. And not that they're bad or good. These are just like recently invented financial things. These are not previously defined existing financial metrics. And so no, I would, I would say I also don't know too much about like, what my torque is. What I initially was telling investors, you know, about these things. They're like, is that a dance move or so? No, I mean, not. Not that that torque is a bad or good thing. I'm sure whoever invented it had a reason and a purpose for it and it suits them well. But no for us. So I guess I'll more speak philosophically. As a business, I think you have a moral obligation to be profitable, in my opinion, before even an economic obligation. Because theoretically, in free markets, if you run an unprofitable business, there's a form of Darwinism where it's going to go extinct and it shouldn't have a right to exist. But you have to explore the moral lens of this idea because I. If money is the market representation of the value that we create in store and exchange, well, then by being profitable is the economic expression of making the world a better place. Right? Because you are, in theory, creating more value for the world than it takes from you to consume from the world. Right? And so you're doing more for others than you're taking from others. And the economic expression of that is net profit at the end of the day. And so I view money as the best, most efficient tool and technology we've built to both store, exchange and transmit information around the value that we're creating for each other. How much is a Coca Cola worth? How much is a flight worth? How valuable is the things I did today for others? We use money to transmit that level of information and to store that value. Value. And so being profitable to me is like, is A moral obligation. And so that's how we feel at 21 is we want to make the world a better place through bitcoin financial services and bitcoin physical infrastructure. And we feel deeply that that is our responsibility as entrepreneurs and business owners. And that's a tremendous asset to the company. Because also again, if you have all the conviction in the world about bitcoin and you have no business, then ultimately how are you financing that conviction? Who's footing the bill to finance your belief in bitcoin if it's not your proof of work and it's not your net contributions to society via profit? And so we don't want to be in a position where we create a lot of debt and a lot of leverage and are reliant on others to finance that conviction. We would love to produce enough value for society and that be realized in cash profit to then go out and finance the future of the world that we want to see. Which might be a convertible bond, which might be preferred stocks, which might be more products or more licenses or more opportunities. So I guess not only do I think it's economically viable to be profitable, but we feel it's morally responsible or else. I saw Adam back tweet this morning that he, he said something along the lines of Bitcoin. Treasury companies are a trade on the present value of fiat versus the future value of bitcoin. And I think that's a hundred percent right. They're a trade but trades have a start and an end. At some point you have to close the trade. Trades can't be indefinitely open. Now that doesn't mean that a bitcoin treasury trade can't last hundreds of years or thousands of years or decades. But they're very path dependent, right? It's an arbitrage. If bananas on the west side of town are a dollar and on east side of town are $10, then you buy the bananas that are a dollar on the west side and you drive over to the east side and you sell em for 10 and you cash out on $9 of profit until the bananas are efficiently priced at $5 on both the west and the east side and the trade's over. And that's not how tether and I view bitcoin and the opportunities. We think that this isn't only a trade but is also a business opportunity, an opportunity for us to provide value to the world, which economically means profit. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does make sense. It's more just like not only to be different and not only, I don't necessarily view myself and my job as to catch Sailor. And unfortunately, like, the way the Internet works is I get clipped from interviews I've done years ago where I've said things like, I want to own as much bitcoin as I possibly can. Of course I want to be the top owner of bitcoin in the world, but like, who wouldn't I believe in?
- [25:16]
Danny
I want to be that.
- [25:17]
Jack Mallers
Right. I believe in bitcoin and if it were up to me and I can just like snap my finger, I would own like a million bitcoins. And I would also, like, there's a ton of things. If I could snap my finger, I'd love to be the point guard of the Chicago Bull. As another job. Right. But like, so, but like, I also don't view that as like, my job isn't to catch anyone else. I view my job is to execute on the vision that I have as the CEO and ensure that I'm both benefiting the world and progressing forward towards a society that I believe in, which is hard money and, you know, bitcoin based, whilst also producing value for my shareholders and my investors. I don't, I don't, I don't know. My greatest competition is always my ability to execute and see forward on my ideas, not necessarily what someone else is doing.
- [26:09]
Danny
Yeah, I want to come back to the like bits of hate that you're getting online now. But before we do that, I think there's one interesting about the two companies that you are potentially acquiring. Is that the right way of saying it right now?
- [26:19]
Jack Mallers
Yeah, it is worth saying. Tether proposed an idea.
- [26:23]
Danny
Yeah.
- [26:25]
Jack Mallers
The CEO of the company for, you know, more or less agrees with the idea. I mean, there are things that I as a CEO want to make sure of and there's a process, but there's been no formal offer like as the CEO of Strike. Changing my hat. We have not received a formal offer. Is Strike interested in being acquired? Potentially. Strike is interested in furthering our mission, helping bitcoin, helping our customers, doing right by our investors and doing right by my colleagues and my employees. And that goes for a potential offer from 21, or any other business for that matter. Strike's been offered to be acquired many times. I mean, it's never been a public thing discussed on stage, but there's lots of companies that have historically wanted to buy Strike. And my answers have always been no because of those things I listed. It just didn't foot the bill for me. But no, I mean, as the CEO of 21, I think this is a tremendously exciting idea for bitcoin, for our investors, for our employees. It's something that I would want to work for and work on, something I would want to own equity in. It's something I would want to be a customer of. So the idea to me is interesting and aligns with my worldview and my vision. But there's been no formal offer. And so people should know. I really don't want people to say, oh, I did something to. Because I thought this. There's been no formal offer. The largest shareholder and board control board member proposed an idea and the CEO of the company said, now this sounds cool. This is my vision as well. But that's to the extent of it, as I'm talking to you now.
- [28:02]
Danny
Okay, so can we go to a theoretical world where, let's say those acquisitions happen?
- [28:06]
Jack Mallers
Sure.
- [28:07]
Danny
You then have Strike and this mining arm of the company.
- [28:10]
Jack Mallers
Yeah.
- [28:11]
Danny
The thing that's interesting, that to me is like Strike as a business is dollars in bitcoin out and like, to oversimplify it, essentially, whereas on the mining side, it's energy in bitcoin out.
- [28:21]
Jack Mallers
Yeah.
- [28:21]
Danny
And so does that having like a company in there that generates actual bitcoin, not dollars, does that change how you can look at the Treasury? Does that give you kind of another leg up?
- [28:30]
Jack Mallers
Yeah, theoretically. I mean, from what I know about Electron, the business, and I think what's been publicly disclosed as well is they produce a lot of bitcoins a day. So that's cool. Our treasury would be going up every day just by waking up and doing our jobs.
- [28:43]
Danny
Yep.
- [28:44]
Jack Mallers
Um, Strike in the same way produces bitcoins every single day.
- [28:47]
Danny
Does it produce bitcoin or does it produce dollars that you can turn into bitcoin?
- [28:50]
Jack Mallers
Uh, both, actually. So I. Another way to ask your question is what is your revenue and profit ultimately generated in? Uh, and it's both. So we generate revenue in bitcoin. We also generate revenue in cash. And then we actually have built out internally that, like, how insane I am as a CEO. One of the things we've done at the company is run it as lean as we possibly can. All in on bitcoin. So every single day we do actually go about the process of sweeping net profits into bitcoin. So strike is like a fiat bitcoin miner. A potential mining arm of 21 is like a. To your point, energy bitcoin miner. The classical definition of a bitcoin miner, the capital markets arm of the business would be like a capital markets bitcoin miner. Hey, what's the convertible market look like? Are there preferred opportunities for, for us, can we securitize some of the assets at the other part of the business and then the M and a part of the arm is like a mergers and acquisition bitcoin miner. What are accretive opportunities? There may be an incredible bitcoin startup that is a bit smaller and not necessarily as profitable. But by joining us like we create something even bigger. Like the sum of the parts as the famous saying is better than everyone living independently. And so everyone's job ultimately is to build something great. And when we have excess profit, no matter what, that's in energy, fiat, Bitcoin, the best way for us to save that value we're creating and that wealth we're creating in our opinion is in bitcoin. And so we'll always likely optimize to store bitcoin on the balance sheet and have that value accrue to our shareholders.
- [30:36]
Danny
You know the way that block have set themselves up so they have spiral as one of the arms of their business, which I'm sure if you look at it pure purely on profit isn't like the greatest arm of the business. But it's really important to bitcoin because it's doing amazing work. Would you ever look at doing something similar to that where it's like directly giving back to bitcoin developers and people working on this?
- [30:54]
Jack Mallers
Oh, of course, yeah. I mean listen, you know Taylor and I and I've, I've been referencing them a lot like Paulo Giancarlo, like these guys are my, like we're very aligned on the long term vision of bitcoin and how we think it can help the world. And so we think in decades now, it doesn't mean that we're not also trying to provide value today. But I think that that makes us potentially very different. Like for a lot of these crypto casinos, it's a dubious long term strategy to be selling products to your customers that make them poorer. At some point they're going to be like, I don't want to do this anymore.
- [31:40]
Danny
We've got no customers left.
- [31:41]
Jack Mallers
Right. Like if you're going to have your customers and encourage them to bet on sports, bet on the weather, like I, you know there are products out there where like is it going to rain tomorrow in Chicago? And when you view the financials of these businesses, you can actually account for how much money their customers are losing on a month over month basis by understanding how many new deposits versus the total value of customer deposits. And you're like, oh man, like, customers of this business lost 10% on average in the last 30 days. And so that's. I don't know how, I don't know how much these businesses are thinking long term in that. Well, we're enabling our customers to be poorer over time. And so, yes, that's making a lot of money now. But is that like, is having people hold dogecoin for the next 30 years like a viable business idea? I don't know about that. And so anyway, to get back to the initial question, like, we think long term and we think that in order to support customers and shareholders long term is to service them. Bitcoin. And there's many derivatives of bitcoin. There's turning energy into bitcoin, there's producing financial services. There's also contributing to the development side of this project. And that is either supporting existing developers, hiring developers that aren't in bitcoin that we think are talented enough to contribute, like maybe some quantum stuff. But yeah, I mean, our business is worthless if bitcoin isn't successful. And so we think long term about that and the different ways that we can express that and support that totally.
- [33:22]
Danny
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- [36:09]
Jack Mallers
No. I mean my one word answer, that's no. You know, a few things. One, if Wall street getting into bitcoin kills it, it was never going to be successful in the first place. Bitcoin in my opinion is predicated on this idea that it is money for all and the all part should be explored. That means your enemies too. That means you know, the ex wife that cheated on you. That means your neighbor that's a fan of the opposing football club. Like that's everybody. That means nation states that are your enemies. Nation states you're at war with that means for all. And the philosophical idea for me is that money is property and is a fundamental right. Again, it's your time and energy in an abstracted form. And if that responsibility is ever delegated to a person or a government or a company, they can debase the money, they can debase you. And, and so I think that that needs to be an independent property that has property rights. And, and so, yeah, anyone should be able to get into Bitcoin, and bitcoin should succeed, no matter their intentions or their usage. And if that's not the case, then we built and designed a product that is flawed. And so I don't believe that to be the case. And I believe that Iran and Russia and China and the United States and Wall street and cypherpunks can all use this thing and work on this thing, and it's going to succeed no matter what. And that's still my foundational belief. And then the other point is, listen, Bitcoin is a wealth transfer. It's arguably the greatest wealth transfer in human history. We are actively monetizing a new thing. And what I mean by monetizing is, you know, the world. It. The total ownership of assets, of things by humans today is about $900 trillion. Half of that is we're using it as money. So, you know, $900 trillion is made up of currency and government debt and real estate and equities and precious metals like gold and bitcoin and fine art and all the stuff that we have, okay? And about half of it, so 400 to $500 trillion worth, we're monetizing. So people are owning real estate not because they sleep in it, not because they live in it, but because they're trying to save money. People own art not because it's hanging on the kitchen wall where their toddler can throw spaghetti at it and ruin it, but it's in a vault. So, like Ken Griffin's art is in a vault, and he's storing it because he paid $10 million for a painting, and he thinks it'll be worth at least $10 million in the future. And so these are. We are humans are actively trying to monetize things that perform best for them in a monetary sense. And bitcoin is competing for that. It's actively being monetized. But what that implies is that where wealth exists today will transfer into where wealth is going tomorrow. And in our opinion, collectively, it's bitcoin. So that means Wall street and art collectors and real estate portfolio managers like what's the two brothers, the Cardone.
- [39:19]
Danny
Oh, yeah, Grant Cardone.
- [39:20]
Jack Mallers
I don't know much about them, but they seem to be real estate guys that are turning that wealth. They monetized real estate, and now they're monetizing bitcoin. So it has, like, our vision has the implication that where wealth exists today, those things will be demonetized. Like, real estate will be demonetized, fine art will be demonetized, government debt will be demonetized, and bitcoin will be monetized. So it has the obvious implication that these people will be involved at some point. So I find it a little contradictory that, like, people are like, bitcoin's gonna be the money. But, like, why is Wall street interested in that? It's like. Well, I mean, I don't know if that's a serious question.
- [40:00]
Danny
Well, I agree with you, but do you think that's part of the reason why you have been starting to get a little bit, like, people chirping at you online and stuff? Because you were, like, the golden child of bitcoin who was, like, started on. Was that the first thing you did?
- [40:14]
Jack Mallers
I. I mean, I guess. I mean, no, the first thing I did was play chess when I was four. Right. You know, you. When. When you. When you build in the public like this, you know, people feel like they know you and know your life. So it. I guess it depends on who you ask what the first thing I did. But the first publicly in bitcoin, I mean, maybe I. My parents started the first bitcoin meetup in Chicago, and I helped them with that. That was the Bob meetup here in Chicago, and that was2014. That was publicly. I wasn't hiding. I wasn't under a nim. But yeah, I think what you mean is the first thing that I got recognized for and that people associate with my story. Yeah, probably Zap was the earliest Lightning wallet, and that was 2016 and then.
- [41:05]
Danny
But so from then, it seems like, like, I see as a sign of success, by the way, but, like, after 21, like, it feels like every time you do something, someone's, like, chirping at you online. Does that ever get you down?
- [41:17]
Jack Mallers
It certainly used to. And it's definitely not easy or. Or it hasn't been easy, but I would say no, it doesn't anymore. My. Like, just how I think about the world and myself has just matured and changed quite a bit. I used to. As a kid, I used to think that the goal was to be happy. Duh. Right. Like, I'd rather be happy than sad. But my opinion on that has changed. I strive to be at peace now. And things like happiness or sadness, anger or euphoria, those are emotions. And ultimately, for me, that's information. Um, I. I don't think that you can avoid being sad or being disappointed or being angry or being frustrated. And I don't think you can always optimize to be happy and content and euphoric. Um, I think a good life, and life generally involves all of those things, and they're useful information. Right. Like, when I do something and it makes me happy, the information is, oh, man, I should try and make that happen more often. And when I do something and it makes me sad, I'm like, oof. You know, my lived experience, I'd rather have less of that. But no matter what, across all of the emotions I feel, I strive to be at peace. And I've been able to achieve more peace in working on other things in my life that aren't bitcoin. Like, I recently got engaged and. Congratulations. Thank you. And it was the best feeling in the world coming home yesterday from the bitcoin conference to my fiance. And so anyway, does it get me down? No, it. It's information. Right. When I do something and people are really upset, that's useful knowledge for me. And I'm like, dang, I want to be a helpful participant in changing the world for the better. And the feedback I'm getting is, I'm not doing that. And maybe I need to reconsider or maybe I need to do something differently, or maybe I need to clarify something. And if I do something and people are like, dude, that was awesome. Thank you so much. I'm like, awesome. Cool. That's good feedback. I should prob understand why that was awesome and try and do more of it. And then there are things that people say like, cut your hair or why'd you wear that?
- [43:41]
Danny
And, you know, that's the stuff you can just ignore.
- [43:44]
Jack Mallers
Yeah. You know, people are like, wow, you went on stage and you weren't wearing a hoodie. You were wearing a shirt. And the truth is, I was wearing that shirt because that's my fiance. Like, my fiance thinks I looks look best in that. And ultimately, all you guys on bitcoin Twitter, as much as I value your opinions, like, you know, that's my lady. And if I care more about what my lady likes me in than what you. You guys like me in at the end of the day. So, yeah, I don't know if that answers your question, but I've certainly matured. It was. It was not easy. I mean, some of the most painful years of my life have been, you know, the last four or five years of trying to build and find myself and find my relationship with the world. And the other thing I'll say is, I do think that what I'm building is not only products or not only a company. My approach to being a founder and a bitcoiner is also very different. I see people say, like, wow, this guy's replying to tweets online like, Saylor doesn't do that. Brian Armstrong doesn't do that. That's what I want to be. I want to be approachable, authentic, real. I think the world is kind of sick of politicians, which many businessmen are, just not in the government sense. But, you know, they are limited in their ability, and they make decisions based on legal risk. And I don't think the world wants another one of those. I think the I. I think the world wants more real. And I think the world is dying for something authentic that they can relate to and that they can believe in. And I view that as what I'm building as well. And when I, you know, go on TV or leave the empty. The empty closet empty, I think it's about being funny and honest and, you know, not building this social separation of, like, an elite person that absolutely needs security and stuff. And what comes with that, though, there's a price to pay for that. Um, because I don't want to turn off notifications and have someone else manage my social media accounts. I want to be vulnerable in the crowd of the people I want to be like. I want to be different in that way. I think it's important, but it's not easy. Right. Because that means that when I open my phone on a given night, when I'm having room service and everyone's tearing me apart and saying I suck and that, like, I'm, you know, making up rumors about my family. Yeah. I mean, it's not, like, the easiest part of my job, but I think it's worth it. Some people may disagree. Some people may rather have a Larry Fink character. I'm okay with that, but that's not what I'm building, and if that makes sense, too.
- [46:33]
Danny
So it definitely makes sense. Is there anything that does particularly frustrate you that you think is just wrong that you've not really had a chance to address?
- [46:41]
Jack Mallers
Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Yeah, of course. I mean, you know what's been interesting for me? So, first of all, I think that in My experience, it's all about bull and bear markets. So when, when Bitcoin's 40 to 50% off its highs, doesn't matter what I do, people have an easier time blaming someone that isn't them.
- [47:02]
Danny
Yeah.
- [47:03]
Jack Mallers
And I'm, and I'm not giving myself excuses, by the way. And in fact, I want to be very clear. I enjoy the relationship I have with the public. It's a very spiritual one and it's been fun and it's made me a better person. And I like when people are critical of me because again, it's information and if I could be doing something better, I shouldn't prioritize my feelings and my emotions over betterment of the world in bitcoin. So I'm willing to take the brunt of that to be a better founder, be a better leader, be a better bitcoiner. So with that being said, in my experience, when prices go down and people get poorer, it's hard to look in the mirror and be like, dang, I screwed up, I own too much bitcoin, or had too much leverage or was irresponsible with my finances. It's much easier to say that 32 year old in the empty closet is such an idiot. And why is it empty? And I heard his dad is an evil banker and he's a liar and he's a scammer and tether has his arms tied behind his back. Like it's much easier to do that and go to bed thinking none of this is my fault, it's his fault. And, and then conversely, in the bull run, it's the opposite. Is there like people like, that guy's a genius. I don't think I'm a genius at all like that guy. And so I think it's more correlated to that. And the things that, that I find the most fascinating are the, the lies. And I don't, like, I don't think people are, are purposefully lying. Maybe they believe in what they're saying, but the false, it's just not true. Um, so yeah, that is, I guess, the part that bothers me. Like when people talk about my father, like that's always, that's always a weird thing. Like when your dad calls you, you know he's my dad, right. And he sees his son getting torn down in public on the Internet. And it doesn't really matter who you are, what you believe in, what you're working on. Like when you see your kid getting unfairly like, like that it's your father. And when he calls me and he's worried about me. Like, that's always hard. Or when I see people, like, lying about my family and say, like, my family, like, supported Jeffrey Epstein. Like, that's crazy, man. Like, so, like, those type of things are like, yeah, that sucks. Yeah, I. But again, like, what I tell Dylan and my employees all the time is some of the most painful times in my life are the best thing that's ever happened to me. Like, I didn't understand how valuable it was and what it meant to build a profitable business or to not make big announcements that didn't have, like, actual, like, follow through. I mean, how can I say? Like, when I tried to do all the merchant stuff and the markets fell apart and NCR and that relationship didn't come through. Like, I had to learn these things as a kid out in the open. And that was really hard for me and really painful. But I acquired such valuable experience and such valuable knowledge and such valuable lessons. You can think of these things, like assets. Like, I acquired assets for about as cheap as I could have ever imagined. If I didn't acquire them that way, I mean, how expensive would I have had to acquire them? Maybe I would have had to lose what is now my fiance. Or maybe I would have had to compromise on my health. I mean, I still have my business, I still have my family, I saw my friends. And so, yes, these things suck. But like I said, like, being sad isn't necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes it's the best thing that can happen to you. It's information. So I don't know, it's okay. But no, I mean, having my friends text me and say, dude, I just want to be clear. Like, you don't, like, support Epstein, do you? Like, I've always, like, that's not the best use of my time. I hate having to spend my time telling people, like, yo, when Epstein was on his island doing awful, terrible things, I was in kindergarten, like, in Chicago. Like, I don't know.
- [51:03]
Danny
You weren't pulling the strings from kindergarten?
- [51:05]
Jack Mallers
No, I mean, obviously. Or like, I don't know, like, my dad being this powerful banker. No one in my family has ever worked in banking ever. So I always. We. We joke with each other. Like, I'll text him sometimes. Like, what's the most powerful banker in the world up to today? And he's like, on the beach, retired in California. Like, we joke. But no, I mean, there's so much of, you know, I. I don't know. I was, I was on our flight back home because I know we were on the same flight back from Vegas to Chicago.
- [51:35]
Danny
And I wasn't the obnoxious person sitting next to him just running on.
- [51:38]
Jack Mallers
It's not. Was not. But I was. You know, I get out and I'm on Twitter and I'm replying to folks. This guy's like, you know, Jax, a silver spoon trust fund baby who just had a lot of communications classes. I'm like, I've never been to a community. I don't even know what accused class. So there's so much, like made up stuff. But yeah, I don't know.
- [51:58]
Danny
Well, it sounds like you're in a good place, mom, can we switch it
- [52:02]
Jack Mallers
up a little bit?
- [52:03]
Danny
Can we do some macro? Because I know on your podcast you do a lot of macro stuff and you probably get the same comments I do where it's like, this is a bitcoin show. Why are you talking so much about, I don't know, the straight of hormoose or whatever. But the thing that I think is interesting there is that we're trying to kind of figure out where bitcoin's going to fit into the world. I think the world is more uncertain as to what it's going to look like in the future than ever. So I think these are important topics. And how do you take in all the. The stuff that is happening in Iran? Like, why do we start on the fact that they were taking bitcoin as payment for ships traveling through the Strait? Because I thought that was a pretty huge thing. And the fact that they were doing that in stablecoins and then the stable coins got frozen again. It's like all just showing the value of bitcoin.
- [52:44]
Jack Mallers
Yep.
- [52:45]
Danny
Like, what's your read on the whole situation?
- [52:47]
Jack Mallers
Yeah, I mean, firstly, why is macro important, at least the things that I like talking about? Well, it's because bitcoin is a solution to a problem. What's the problem? Well, that's what we're talking about. The problem is people have really powerful guns and weapons that are murdering people and we're constantly at war and people are debasing human time and energy via currency. Like, those are the problems. And whilst we're working on the solution and we like talking about the solution, I find understanding the problem relevant so personally. And you don't have to listen to my show if you don't want.
- [53:19]
Danny
I also just enjoy those conversations.
- [53:20]
Jack Mallers
Yeah, super. Obviously. And you know, what government is doing, like, what the United States is doing has implications on my life. Right. Like the city of Chicago is broke and that matters. To me, because one of their solutions is to raise my taxes. And I don't like that. And so, you know, these things are relevant inevitably. And again, we're building a solution to a problem. Understanding the problem and what's going on, I find relevant. And yeah, in regards to Bitcoin's role in this conflict in the Middle east. And it's been so validating because, listen, ultimately this. What is money? Money is money is the market good that you use not to consume. So a cheeseburger. I acquire a cheeseburger not to save it and later exchange it. I acquire to eat it because I'm hungry and that eating it is consuming it. An airplane. I'm acquiring an airplane to travel. A car, the same thing, a house. Ideally, I'm acquiring real estate to live in it and to raise my kids in it and to watch movies with my fiance in it. Right. Like. So money is the unique thing where you, when you acquire it, your intent is actually to save and later exchange for the things that you need. So money is not defined as the dollar or not defined as gold. That's what money is. And all of us elect what we want to use as money. You can use rubles as money. You can use dollars as money. You can use cheeseburgers as money. If you want to take your paycheck, convert into cheeseburgers, and store those in a vault, you can. It's just maybe not the best decision. So when in a conflict, when in a pressure situation, a central bank or a government or enemies at war elect to use Bitcoin as money, I think that's unbelievably validating. In the same way that when MicroStrategy elected to use Bitcoin as money in the situation they were in in 2020, that was validating. When El Salvador elected to use Bitcoin as money in 2021, that was validating. When Iran is saying, we are in. In a situation where one of the most valuable pieces of the global supply chain is under strain, is shut down, where enemies at war are needing to trustlessly trade time, energy, effort, labor and value to ensure that the global economy keeps humming along whilst there is conflict that involves human death. And they're like, what should we use? Should we use cheeseburgers? No. And they picked Bitcoin. Yeah. Super validating. Super validating for the thing we're working on now. It's confusing and complicated because I don't. I'm not a fan of war. I'm not a fan of human death. I'm American So what's my political bias in all of this? I'm far less interested in that. Yeah, you know, it reminds me of during the El Salvador stuff when I was in is people who were like, oh, so that means that you promote Bukele's political agenda? I was like, no. You know, there's nuance in that. I promote bitcoin. And so, yeah, the bitcoin piece of the macro stuff I think is awesome.
- [56:22]
Danny
But it is funny, like, because obviously you were on the ground in El Salvador before they made the bitcoin announcement on like a global scale. They were kind of insignificant, were not a big country, not a very rich country, but they saw, like an asymmetric bet they could make and they made it. And that's really cool. And then like, Bhutan, I think, is one of the most interesting of all the nation states who just had a ton of energy and started mining a load of bitcoin. But, like, is it. Do you have any issue with the idea that as bitcoin becomes, like a money that these global states want, that it's being the pariah nations that are doing it? Like, I'm sure Russia are mining bitcoin, I'm sure China are Iran and potentially mining bitcoin and accepting bitcoin, like, it's not happening in sort of the Western liberal democracies. It's happening elsewhere. Do you see that as an issue?
- [57:09]
Jack Mallers
An issue? What do you mean by that?
- [57:12]
Danny
Because. Because it, like, potentially taints how people view bitcoin, I guess. Like, does it stop the US or the UK or Australia from taking such a good stance on bitcoin when they see, like, Iran and North Korea using it?
- [57:25]
Jack Mallers
Yeah, no, I mean, listen, I want everyone to understand bitcoin and view it in the brightest light. And so if they don't, and there are things that are contributing to that, then, yeah, I would rather them not. Like, I would rather mainstream media not write a bunch of fud and paint bitcoin in a negative light. But with that being said, what I've always wrestled with is, you know, we're on bitcoin's time, bitcoin's not on our time. Meaning bitcoin is going to be around and humming along with the block, expected on average in the next 10 minutes, hopefully thousands of years from now. And at some point, I'm very likely to exit this world and this life. And so, I don't know, I give that context to say bitcoin's going to win no matter what, it's going to be successful. No matter what. And unfortunately, it might take time, and it might take more time than I'm given in my own personal capacity. And I've come to terms with being okay with that. And so if Iran and Russia adopt it first for whatever X, Y and Z reason, and that taints a negative this or that. You know, my focus is just making sure that bitcoin is still built correctly and engineered properly and is going to survive, like from a protocol level and from a consensus rule level. And these other things will get sorted out. Like, eventually people will understand bitcoin for what it is. Eventually people will find themselves monetizing it and saving in it and using it as money. And eventually, eventually, eventually. And yeah, would my preference be everyone understand bitcoin today? Yeah, because I only have so much time to live. I would love to experience hyper bitcoinization while I'm alive, but I know I'm not guaranteed it. So does that make sense?
- [59:20]
Danny
I mean, it does, because that's essentially you're just saying you got to focus on things that you have some control over. And as like people who are into bitcoin, they are the things you have control over.
- [59:29]
Jack Mallers
Yeah. I honestly think that so much of becoming a bitcoiner for me and, you know, because people will make fun of us and say it's a religion or a cult. It kind of is, yeah. I mean, it depends. Even defining it in that way isn't interesting to me. I don't care. You think it's a sports team, you think it's religion, you think it's a cult, you think it's a protocol. I don't care. Call what you want. I don't matter to me. But it has certainly changed my worldview and how I view myself and how I view the world and my. My role and my place here. And so people will say, oh, that's a religious cult member speaking. I don't know, may. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, I don't care. But it's. It's. Yeah. Like, I guess I view what it means to be human is. And these are the sort of. The sort of things that bitcoin has encouraged me to think about and philosophize about. What it means to be human is two things, at least I think we all innately want. One is to be part of something bigger than ourselves. I think as a human being, we all innately desire to be part of family, be part of community. I don't think any of us desire and are built to spend our experience that is life alone. And the other is to be part of something and work on something that will last longer than we will. And whether that's family and having children or whether that's working on the great pyramids that have lasted longer and great architecture. And I find bitcoin a wonderful expression of what it means to be human because you are working on something that is bigger than you. There is no president, there's no government, there's no corporation that is bigger than bitcoin. Bitcoin outlives and outgrows any of the what you could describe as awesome. It's bigger than you. And the other is you're working on something that will outlive you. Like, we all have an end and bitcoin hopefully never does. And so it puts you in this philosophical state that I think all bitcoiners go through, which is a sense of ego death, which is like, this isn't about me. And I've gone through that now just in life generally, like, this is about, I want to build family, I want to have kids. This is about them. I want to work on bitcoin, I want to contribute. This is about the greater project and the greater world and the future of our species. So, yeah, that's what I mean is that you go through a sense of ego death and you realize like, you know, yes, I wish we get to hyper bitcoinization while I'm alive, but this isn't about me. And, you know, where I find myself at peace and happiest and spending my time the most is, to your point, controlling what I can control, trying to produce value, and for whatever extent I can push the world in the direction that I see fit. Like, working on that. So, no, I don't know, dude. Like, people are going to fud bitcoin. You can't control that. I think bitcoin will win and I'm better off, you know, hey, what does the developer community need? Do they need me to dispel quantum fud? What do the capital markets need? Are there with people I can orange pill? What is Twitter saying? Is there feedback that is warranted, that I'm not doing the best job and I can be a better man or a better bitcoiner? And then just doing that, like, I, you know, the story of bitcoin being adopted is it's on a. It's on a need to know basis. Like, you know, people that don't need bitcoin typically aren't that interested. And so does it surprise me that initially criminals were interested in Bitcoin? Not really, because they were debanked and they couldn't use anything else. So does it surprise me that countries that got sanctioned by the United States and basically said, your property is not your property and you can't use the global financial system, does it shock me that they're interested in bitcoin? No, but, you know, I don't know.
- [63:11]
Danny
Yeah, I mean, that answers the question.
- [63:13]
Jack Mallers
And.
- [63:13]
Danny
Because the one thing that I found really hard about this whole conflict is that, like, I did a show. I recorded a show with Luke Roman. And when we recorded the show, it seemed like everything was cooling down and maybe the war was going to be over. And then by the time I released it, that completely changed. And then I did the same with Lyn, but in the inverse. And it's like, I don't know what's happening. Like, it changes every day. It changes so quickly. But the one thing that I think is clear is that the world is moving more multipolar. And I don't think anything is positioned to benefit from that as much as bitcoin. In terms of, like, global money, everything's good for bitcoin.
- [63:46]
Jack Mallers
I think bitcoin can change the world because the world can't change bitcoin. So it's all good for bitcoin, in my opinion. When the US Government prints money, it's good for bitcoin. When the US Government tries not to print money and things collapse, it's good for bitcoin. When people are at peace, it's good for bitcoin. When people are at war, somehow, it's good for bitcoin because bitcoin is good for the world, because the world can't change Bitcoin, you know, some of the greatest innovations in human history are innovations that protect us humans from the worst versions of ourselves. And bitcoin is one of those. It's engineered in a way that it can't bend to accommodate the worst versions of ourselves because we're not perfect. Ultimately, at the end of the day, we all have flaws, and us as a species collectively have flaws. If we were perfect, we wouldn't be murdering each other while we disagree. But bitcoin somehow was engineered in such a way that it can't bend to accommodate our flaws. We have to become better to accommodate bitcoin. And so everything's good for bitcoin. And bitcoin can change the world because we can't change it. So, again, it's a really beautiful ride. It's volatile, it's bumpy, it's vulnerable. It's scary, it's euphoric. But like I said earlier, these are all useful emotion, but I've come to peace with it and just hope to contribute positively to it. So everything's good for Bitcoin. But yeah, and I mean as far as, I don't know if you actually want to talk in detail about the macro stuff. As far as the macro stuff, I mean, I've been very consistent. I don't think this conflict's ending anytime soon. I don't think the strait is opening anytime soon. To me, this is an accelerator towards this inevitable, which is a lot of currency debasement, monetizing of the debt, things like yield curve control. Ultimately the United States has been short real things, producing real stuff and long credit debt and paper. And there's a repricing of what that means. You know, you cannot build AI infrastructure with silver futures contracts. You need the actual silver, right. You cannot finance the military with infinite amounts of US Treasuries. Like at the end of the day you need actual productive humans because people will stop lending you money. They'll say, okay, if you want me to finance the next $2 trillion of US shenanigans, you're going to have to pay me 10%, 20%, 10 year yield, not 4%. And that's where you get yield curve control and the Fed printing money and monetizing that debt. So I think this is all an accelerant. The notion that the strait is about to open or the conflict's about to close. I mean, what, it's been over two months at this point? That doesn't seem very likely. And it feels to me that a chapter of Fiat has reached this inevitable conclusion and things are going to get real. We have stagflation. What do you do? If you're a central planner? One side is new jobs, new job creation is struggling tremendously. A lot of economic activity in certain parts of the economy are struggling and slowing down. What if unemployment rises to scary rates? So one part there's, you know, economy stagnating. On the other part you have inflation. I mean, Danny, what I think is if people aren't appreciating is the last time we turned on the money bazooka printer was Covid, right? Well remember during COVID oil was negative, $40 a barrel.
- [67:28]
Danny
You got paid to take oil, right?
- [67:30]
Jack Mallers
Like you would get money if you could receive physical oil. Okay, now oil's 100. I don't know, I mean, I'd have to check my phone. $100 a barrel. $120 a barrel, $150 a barrel. You want to print money into that? We're already experiencing at least commodity inflation, at least energy inflation, at least oil inflation. And we know that that is the tip of the iceberg, that inflation will now realize itself. The world as we know it is a derivative of energy. Like I said, the world as we know it is a derivative of energy from the sun. That's our experience as humans. This big orange thing beams energy onto us and we found ways to commercialize it and benefit our lives from it. So everything's a derivative of energy. If the price of oil is going to go up, well, then all of a sudden your food prices are going to go up, your rent's going to go up, your travel is going to go up. So you want to print money into that? No way. But if you raise rates into that to try and tame inflation, then the deflationary force of AI is only going to grow stronger. It's going to wipe, it's going to send unemployment to rates that are uneconomical for such an indebted system. So, yeah, I mean, this is just an accelerant to this inevitable which way Western man, in my opinion, which, as we talked about, is good for Bitcoin, but.
- [68:46]
Danny
So this is the thing that's scary is that like, so we've had these type of events before, although obviously slightly different with 2008 Covid. And it seems like, like you say, they're kind of trapped right now. They don't know what to do, but they're going to do something. Do you think Fiat can survive this? Like how, how many more cycles can we go through?
- [69:05]
Jack Mallers
Yeah, the, the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent. Right. So things usually take longer than. I mean, we've been in the industry for long enough to know that. Shouldn't all these shitcoins be worth zero? Even the ones like that haven't been brought up or mentioned or used in years. If you go onto coinmarketcap.com they're worth something, I guess. So I think things take a while to play out. So what? Define survive. Can the dollar survive? Yeah, I mean, right now I use the dollar by force. The US government will literally show up to my house with a weapon on their hip and say, you aren't paying taxes in our currency. You're going to spend a decent amount of your life locked in a box. So I use the dollar because, you know, I'm forced to via weapons. So can they continue to force Fiat Via weapons, sure. But does survive mean people use it as money, save in it, and that it retains purchasing power? No, probably not. That that version of survive is likely entering a new chapter where these currencies are worth significantly less in energy terms. You know, ultimately that's what we all care about is, is our money doing a good job at preserving our right to consume energy. That's again, my life is a derivative of energy consumption. I want to fly a plane, I want to go to dinner. Like, all of this is a derivative of energy. And so I value how good my money is, is how good it's doing at allowing and preserving my ability to later exchange it for a derivative of energy. And so is Fiat going to enter a new chapter and how much energy it's ultimately worth? Yeah, you're seeing that. I mean, oil prices up, gold prices up, bitcoin prices up over the last 15 years. So, you know, that chapter of Fiat is, is entering a new phase of rapid collapse. But does it mean that the US government can still show up to my house if I am not paying my taxes in dollars and sit and point a gun at my head and say, you're coming with me, buddy, unless you pay the irs. Like, I mean, what. When is that gonna, when is that phase of this gonna change? I don't know, but I don't know if it matters much.
- [71:24]
Danny
It's interesting because one of the things I think about is people say this is going to be. People have said this is going to be happening for a long time. The gold bugs before us have been saying Fiat is going to die. And my question is always, will bitcoin be ready when it does? And that's kind of an open ended question. I don't know what we need to do to get to that point. Is it more adoption of Bitcoin? Is that it? If we move to a world where the dollar is less and less relevant, then I need people to be able to accept Bitcoin and exchange Bitcoin with me because I still need goods and services. And I think the stuff that Square have done has been really cool recently in terms of turning on every merchant in America. Do you think we're getting to the point where Bitcoin can go from being what most people use it as, a store of value to being used as the meme of exchange? And I actually like money totally.
- [72:13]
Jack Mallers
Yeah. I think the free market does such a good job at governing how we focus our time and our energy. And the problem with the free market becoming not free and centrally planned is that you're distorting the proper governance on how we should all collectively push forward. Right. Like, people shouldn't work on things that aren't valuable right now. Ideally, like if you're coaching and managing team humanity, ideally, we're all focusing on where value is today, not theoretically in the future, not something that was valuable in the past, but like, what's the most valuable thing we can all be working on now. And the free market does a great job at identifying that. I tried to work on bitcoin payment stuff 10 years ago and turns out not as many people cared as I thought. And that was like the free market telling me, like, yo, dude, you should probably focus on other things in the meantime. Which I did. Right. And so. And the. And the problem when markets become unfree is you're distorting that level of feedback with humans is if people are doing something wrong and they're not being told by their surroundings that it's not good because people are printing money, bailing things out, then you get. That's when society. That's when the opposite of fix the money, fix the world, break the money, break society is humans aren't properly understanding what's valuable, what's not, what's good or not, what I should work on or not, who I should be or not. So I think the free market will do a tremendous job at guiding us in building Bitcoin for what the world's world needs it to be today, if tomorrow the US government said the dollar is no longer, we're ceasing everything about it and we must all use other things. Strike as a business would probably go from investing X in payments, which we do today, to X plus a lot more. Because the world in the free market's going to demand that of us as a bitcoin company. And so I think Bitcoin will progress very naturally because it is one of the rare and only free markets we have left. And we will get very active feedback from the world as what it needs from bitcoin today. Like the ETFs, the Winklevi. I'll never forget when I got into Bitcoin, they were working on a Bitcoin ETF that was in 2000.
- [74:20]
Danny
2014. Right.
- [74:20]
Jack Mallers
Was their first 13 was like rumblings of it. Okay. Yeah, 2014 I think was the first rejection. And I mean, they have been rejected more from the, from the government and the SEC on ETFs than, you know, I've been rejected by women in my life and I was not the most womenizer ever. I mean, they've got piles and piles of rejections. But it turns out at some point the world needed an ETF from bitcoin. And we as a community figured that out. And so, right. Like, I think the free market will guide bitcoin and guide us. So far, bitcoins needed to be a store of value for now, what's over a trillion dollars. And we've needed different ways of doing that, different exchanges, different products, different interfaces with Wall Street. And the payments aspect of bitcoin, people haven't needed as much. You know, at the end of the day, and a lot of my life, Apple pay works, and it works in a way that people get paid to use their credit card. The way that these credit card networks work is they charge merchants 3, 4%. And merchants can't say no because if I walk in and I don't have a way to buy the good or service the merchant is selling, they can't get my business. And so the credit card networks have this duopoly where everyone's holding their cards so they can charge the merchants whatever. The merchants can't say no. So call 3, 4%. And they take the 3, 4%. And they incentivize the people to keep using their products by paying them. They take the 3, 4%, they take 75% of that, and they say, hey, here's free Napa Valley wine. Hey, here's free flights, here's access to an airport lounge, here's cash back, here's points. And so they have this loop where they're paying people to use the cards, which holds merchants hostage to not be able to say no and not accept the cards. And so bitcoin payments haven't been adopted in my opinion, not for lack of technology or lack of entrepreneurial desire, but because of human behavior and because Apple pay isn't broken. And in fact, even where Bitcoin is accepted, you're probably more incentivized to use your Visa, MasterCard or Amex because you're going to get paid to use them. You're going to get a free flight to use them. And when all of a sudden that, you know, human desire and human behavior changes, then I see see Bitcoin payments
- [76:36]
Danny
taking off is that it does make sense. It makes me think I'm a hypocrite because that's what I do essentially. Like I, I spend everything on Amex through the month, and then I'll pay off at the end of the month and put whatever that's left into Bitcoin. Like should, should I be using Bitcoin more than I am? Should I be trying to use it everywhere I go and spend money?
- [76:54]
Jack Mallers
If you want. I mean that's to be clear, that's how I live my life. Like I could live my life where I'm spending my bitcoin via bit refill and I'm living. I used to do this and like I go to Whole Foods and I got to get my phone out and like activate a gift card and like here I am in Chicago. I've had relative success in my career and I'm like managing gift cards. Like what the. Like guys, if I'm a, like a video game, Xbox teenager, um, and the way I live my life now is credit cards plus Strike, where I have credit cards like you do. I live my life on credit cards. Strike actually has a line of credit product. So I don't even need to take out like a 12 month termed loan where I can get liquidated and stuff. Like Strike pays my fiat bills by taking, just extending a tiny little line of credit. So let's say my credit card bill is a couple grand. Like when that bill comes in, Strike pays it with a couple grand and creates a little bit of, you know, it's like a heloc, like a little bit more credit extension. And so I'm living my life constantly stacking bitcoin, never selling bitcoin on marginal amounts of credit that I can actively manage that isn't posing me giant risk of getting liquidated over a 12 month duration like this perpetual rolling loan. And these credit cards are giving me all these points and free stuff and ideally cash back that allows me to stack more bitcoin. Am I living my life incorrectly? Am I immoral? Well, I think Bitcoin is all about property rights. Like I can't, I can't imagine a bitcoiner saying Bitcoin is property rights for all and then saying you're using your property wrong. It's my property, so should you be behaving a certain way? I don't believe in me telling you how to behave. Maybe marginally like what Square is doing or block. I don't know how they want it to be described, but what they're doing is awesome. I think it's awesome because ultimately I think that human value exchange should not be governed and operated by a single entity. I think that we should all have one open interoperable network that does the job of getting value from A to B. And then we should all have equal access to compete and build on that standard. Not everyone has access to compete and build on the Visa standard or the MasterCard standard. And ultimately, that's what's best for merchants and for consumers. Like, if everyone could build, I'm sure someone would say, hey, I'll charge you less than 4%. So prices would come down. And for consumers, I think there'd be tons of innovation. There'd be thousands of wallets depending on who you are and what you like. So I think that that's cool. What they're doing is they're bringing an open thing that they don't control that everyone can interface and interoperate with to do the job of getting value from A to B, from consumer to merchant. But is it making the world a better place by you foregoing your cash back to use it? Maybe. I don't know, though. Like, that. That's the. The whole point of the free market is the answer lives within the feedback that society gives you. Like, is that barbershop a good barber shop? Well, do people like getting their haircut there? If it's too expensive and people don't go because of the price, then the barbershop isn't good enough to survive. Right. If the haircuts aren't good enough quality. Right. So is it good? Let's let the market decide. So. I don't know, dude. Like, yeah, like, I. Like, was it a good thing for me to spend some of my life in El Salvador and inevitably help a country adopt it as legal tender? I thought so. But there were plenty of other bitcoiners that didn't and wanted to stay in their penthouse in New York City. It's your decision.
- [80:35]
Danny
Like, the cool thing is, now it actually can be a decision. There's so much cool stuff that's been built over the last few years that if you want to go and spend bitcoin, every single square merchant in America, you can. That's awesome. And it's funny when you look on Twitter, sentiment's bad. Everyone's fighting at the conference, Vibes are high, and the stuff that's happening is truly impressive. I think the stuff that David Marcus came out with, lightspark, is really cool. It's not exactly the product that I would have wanted to see, but it's awesome. It allows people to use bitcoin in a real way. It's like, it's built on bitcoin. I don't know. I just think bitcoin's in a really good spot right now.
- [81:11]
Jack Mallers
Yeah, I mean, this is a. I talked throughout my career about how Open networks win. Like, who's stronger and better than team bitcoin? Like, is PayPal have better engineers than us? Making more progress than us. Working on more products at once than us. Team Bitcoin, absolutely not. You can't compete with an open network because as El Salvador makes progress, I benefit. As Dorsey builds a new feature, I benefit. As Saylor stacks more bitcoin, I benefit. It's impossible for closed networks to beat open networks. And so the collective effort on bitcoin is going to outcompete every competitor. And, you know, even something like gold, like, I can't submit a gold pull request. It is what it is. We can't make it better. Like, we can't. We can't build lightning on top of it. Like, bitcoin is so unique in an open network. That is technology that will be getting better forever now. The human emotions involved in the journey are complex, as I said. Like, I don't, you know, I. I find the trend. People are more upset with me as a founder in bitcoin depending on the bitcoin price more than what I'm doing. Yeah, it doesn't matter what I do right now. People are like, dude, four years ago you said this thing would be worth 200,000, and it's not. Fuck you. Whoops. That was my first curse word. Screw you. And, you know, the human emotion along the, along the adoption, of course it's not going to go up in a straight line in an organized fashion. And humans are complicated, and how we relate to that and how that makes us feel will be complicated. But bitcoin goes on. And it goes on faster, stronger, better than everything else, because it is an open, shared project for all humans to be a part of and collaborate with. There's. There's not many others like that. I mean, the Internet was like that, but it wasn't money. Right? Like, we have such an intimate relationship with money. Money is, it's. It's human dignity. Like when, when governments print money, it's an affront to human dignity. And so it is the market good abstracted to represent human dignity. Time, effort, energy, value. It's such an intimate and important relationship we have with this thing, and we all now get to share and work on it together. Even something like gold, everyone had equal access to theoretically. But you can't work on it. You can't make it better. You can't really evangelize it. It's not necessarily a revolution. So, yeah, bitcoin's always getting better. Whether it's getting better through A bearable market. Again, that's the human emotion aspect to it. And I, you know what's been valuable for me. And I would encourage people to find peace, fall in love, get married. I'm super. I'm planning my wedding and stuff. Like, you know, that. That has helped me be a better bitcoiner, to be honest.
- [84:05]
Danny
You just gotta have kids, Jack.
- [84:06]
Jack Mallers
I can't wait, man. I mean, I've said before, I'm so proud of what I've built so far, despite all the mistakes and stuff. And I'm so grateful and thankful for my colleagues and my partners and my investors. However, the biggest competitor to strike in 21 will be my son or my daughter, God willing. And my dream ultimately is to be a dad and be a husband and be part of my family. And so, you know, people always ask me, what's the biggest competitor to Strike? And it's like, it's going to be my kid, totally. That, that's, that is the time where I, I might not be able to make it to the conference. If he's got a soccer game.
- [84:44]
Danny
Yeah.
- [84:45]
Jack Mallers
So yeah, dude, I can't wait. And you know, grateful for how bitcoin has improved me as a man. But ultimately my goal, goal, goal of all goals is, is to have family
- [84:57]
Danny
before we close out. You were talking before about the heloc. So you had a big announcement with Strike as well at the conference, which was Tether invested 2.1 billion.
- [85:06]
Jack Mallers
Not quite invested. They. It's a facility. So, you know, the, the biggest hurdle for bitcoin to solve when it comes to lending and credit products generally is who's financing them.
- [85:20]
Danny
Yeah.
- [85:21]
Jack Mallers
So someone has bitcoin and they want a loan against it. Well, someone has to come up with the dollars or the pounds or the euros or the stablecoin or whatever, and who's going to do that. And that's been difficult because legacy institutions and governments either don't understand bitcoin or aren't allowed to do it or aren't interested in doing it. And coming up with the cash to finance people's lives against bitcoin as collateral has been challenging. And Tether has effectively stepped up to the plate in partnership with me to make sure that people have the money to finance their lives and finance what they want to do collateralized by their bitcoin. And so we're starting with a $2.1 billion facility, but that number was picked just for the memes. Obviously when we run out of that will just re up. But it's a really valuable Partnership And Tether deserves a lot of credit because we had talked about on our panel people say why isn't the pricing cheaper? Well Tether can do a lot with their money. They could buy Nvidia, they could buy more bitcoin, they could buy more gold, they could build a bigger house for the founders. The opportunities are endless. When you have capital and being able and being willing to say we're willing to finance bitcoiners lives collateralized against their bitcoin. And you know, I know everyone wants prices lower, so do I. I wish everything in my life was free. But you know I think that the pricing on this is great and it's approachable and it's, it's actually, I mean as long as you think bitcoin's going to outgrow whatever the interest you're being charged, it's a no brainer. So that's was part of the, we announced, I think it was six things in total. And the 2.1 billion wasn't an investment. It was just a pool of dollars that you know we can continue to finance across our product suite.
- [87:06]
Danny
And so what does that allow you to do? Because like I think of the big lenders, I think most of them now have a rate that is like in the single digit percent. Like how low did you manage to go?
- [87:16]
Jack Mallers
7.49%. Damn.
- [87:19]
Danny
So like is that, are we kind of reaching the limit with that then? Because like you say you compete against like the treasury market, the, the most risk free version.
- [87:27]
Jack Mallers
Right? Yeah. I mean when people say why isn't it 1% jack? Well think of it as the people giving the dollars. Why would they give me the dollars where they're making 1% versus buy a T bill or put it in a money market fund or buy a US treasury that's the same risk free and they're getting 3%, 3 and a half percent, 4%, 4 and a half percent. So ultimately the risk free rate is set by the US government because they can print these things. And so if the fed funds rate is three and a half percent, the U.S. treasury ten year is four and a half percent.
- [88:05]
Danny
I think it just went over five yesterday.
- [88:07]
Jack Mallers
Five percent. Right. Like then these are the things that are ultimately governing how much I can charge you guys. I can't, I can't print money out of thin air. And you know when people, and people say well I can get a 30 year mortgage, where's my 30 year fixed term bitcoin loan? It's like well mortgages have a government backed implicit Guarantee, you know, bitcoin backed loans don't have that yet. And so ultimately who we're competing with is people that have lots of dollars and are willing to finance bitcoin backed loans. But they have to, we have to be competitive against the other opportunities they have. Like why would they give someone a loan against their bitcoin instead of buy bitcoin themselves? Bitcoin, we, we talk about it's a 30 CAGR, 40 CAG or 50 CAGR asset. What are you doing getting like 7.49% and so that's what we're competing with ultimately. And so for now I think Strike is the cheapest, if not one of the cheapest in the world. And if you believe that Bitcoin can outperform 7, 8, 9, 10% then these are no brainer products. And I personally use the bitcoin line of credit product. It's changed my life. And the price of these things will come down ultimately as the US Treasury 10 year comes down, as the fed funds rate comes down, as money markets come down. But we'll see is that going to happen because oil's at over a hundred dollars a barrel, right. So you know we're, we're competing with where capital can ultimately go. And I understand that Bitcoin's pristine collateral and you can view this as risk free. But that's why I will say I don't want to extend this too long but I will say an innovative thing we're working on at Strike that has a direct impact here.
- [89:52]
Danny
I know what you're going to say, I think, but let me just ask you one more question before that. Because the way that most of lenders will do it now is it's weighted on how big the loan you want to take is.
- [90:01]
Jack Mallers
Yeah.
- [90:02]
Danny
Or how much collateral you want to put up. I should say, like is there a way that you could get down to, you know, seven and a half percent with smaller loans?
- [90:08]
Jack Mallers
Yeah, I mean that's what I'm working on. Can't make any promises but that's the goal. I mean listen, like my goal is to make our products as easy, accessible, trusted and good as I possibly can because I think they make our customers lives better. And why would I not want that? But you know there are physical realities to those desires. Like when I call partners and say hey, give me the dollars for free, they say no. And so that's the goal and I think it's totally possible. I actually have, I want to tell you about this idea and how I think we actually get there at Strike or at least something I'm really excited about. And I want to test the idea on the Internet as this gets published. And I'll, I'll be in the YouTube comments seeing what people think it's giving yield on our customers cash deposits. So you know, one way we can try and solve this is let's say a lender is giving me money at 6% and then strike gives it at 7% because we want to make a little bit of money to, so I can pay my employee salaries and, and that's how we get to the 7%. So the question is, is there anyone out there that's willing to give me money at less than 6%? And it starts to get a little dicey because you've got the US 10 year treasury and you're starting to get into like these other risk free, high way more liquid markets and stuff. And one way to approach that is let individuals put up the capital. So Strike has a global deposit base all over the world. So we have depositors in the United States, in Europe, in the uk, in Latin America, in Africa. And what if we said as a business, hey, if you want yield on your cash, that is 5%, click this button and when they click it, that capital we use to help distribute our loans. And then when you say I want my money back, then we just like we're, we're just managing with all the pools of capital that we have. But the cheapest lender is usually John Doe. It's usually the guy standing in line next to you at the coffee shop. Because you have these large investors that are like, well our model says if the 10 years here, we can't go cheaper than this or that. But the guy standing next to you who's getting yield on his cash at 3% on some other financial app is like, would I get 5%? Yeah. Wow. Well fuck it, why not? And so what what we're doing ultimately I find fascinating is we're redefining banking in a way because when you see yield on cash from other platforms, what they're doing is they're sweeping your cash. It's called a cash sweep program, where overnight they're lending it to the Fed and they're getting the fed funds rate, which is called three and a half percent, minus whatever their banking partner is taking from them. So let's say fed funds rate minus 50 basis points. So that's 3% and they're giving 3% to the customer. But you know, the problem with that product is the US Government can't afford these rates because they're so broke. And over time the rates will inevitably have to come down because the US government has so much debt. You know, interest, their interest payments are the third biggest expense after health and human services and military budget. Like it's their interest expense. And so ultimately you are lending money to someone that can't afford its interest payments. So the rate you're going to get is going to go down. Conversely, with bitcoiners, bitcoiners are by definition net producers. Right. To own Bitcoin is to have done something productive where you have leftover cash and you can change that cash into Bitcoin. So by definition, if you own bitcoin, you did something that was net productive, you had leftover profit and you turn it into bitcoin. So these are by definition productive people and they can afford 5%, 6%, 7%, 8%, 9% ultimately also because they're saving in an asset that is outperforming that rate.
- [93:55]
Danny
Yeah.
- [93:55]
Jack Mallers
And so now you're all of a sudden talking about lending to people in a, in an over collateralized way. Our loan to value is 50%. So the loan starts out at twice over collateralized. So you're changing who like the market of who you're financing. You're no longer financing the U.S. government for a yield on cash product at 3% that will probably go down. All of a sudden you're financing a community of productive people all over the world, which Yield can be 5%, 6% if my customers are comfortable taking 7 and a half percent and the cash depositors on my platform are comfortable getting paid 5, 6%. All of a sudden bitcoiners are financing. Bitcoiners Strike plays a critical role of facilitating that market. And that's how I can get our pricing down is if I let people that aren't these large institutions participate in the market. And I find it fascinating if someone in Brazil or someone in Argentina says I'd like 5% yield on my USDT. And that USDT is ultimately helping finance someone in Manhattan borrowing against their Bitcoin to start a restaurant. Like, how cool is that?
- [95:00]
Danny
It's kind of like the deify model. You end up becoming just like a matching engine, putting people in touch essentially.
- [95:06]
Jack Mallers
Yeah, but that is what we are today. Yeah. What we are today is there are fixed income investors that want to put capital to work and get a relatively risk free return. That's what tether is just democratizing me. Yeah, we're willing to give you $2.1 billion. We're going to charge you X amount for that as you lend it out. And like so we're doing that. Like we have a network of bitcoiners all over the world that are saying, I have wealth in bitcoin, I want that liquidity to change my life without having to sell it. And we build different products for that. We have a 12 month fixed term loan. We have a bitcoin line of credit which is like a rolling, you could think of it like a HELOC or almost like a credit card. Like it's an in real time loan and credit product. And we're going to build all sorts of different things. And my job is I have all these people that want all this money against their bitcoin and I have to turn around and find the money that are in the right terms and allow me to build a product. That's what I'm already doing. But it's, can I give more access to the market of that? Because more competition will bring the price down. If some institution says no deal unless it's 10%. But depositors on our app say, I mean my other apps give me 3%. If you give me 4% sold, then I can tell the institutions screw you.
- [96:19]
Danny
Yeah, that's awesome.
- [96:21]
Jack Mallers
And we like reinvent. The other thing is like we reinvent like how productive capital allocation is. Like I think the people that should be getting loans should be net producers, people that are productive, doing productive things. You have to put up real collateral and real capital that you have in a collateralized way to take out a loan to do something productive as opposed to like governments just printing money. And ultimately I can probably outpay our depositors more than the Fed can because the US government can't afford rates that high. If I say everyone in the world like, I'll give you guys 5%. In order for the US government to compete with me, they'd have to raise the interest rate to 5% and they can't afford that. And so, you know, now us built, we're working on this product and we hope to get it out soon. It doesn't exist yet, but it's one of the more exciting ideas at Strike because you know, Strike is becoming, you know, people misclassify us as a payments app because that's what I initially founded it as. But it's like a global bitcoin bank. It's not actually a bank because that requires a specific license. But you know, with brokerage and lending and custody and payments, you know, we're able to we're one of the rare apps in Bitcoin financial services firm that has a depth of product suite across it all. Like there are a lot of companies that allow you to buy and sell. There are a lot of companies that allow you to take out a loan. There are a lot of of companies that have payment APIs and stuff and we do it all. And I'm really, I have so many ideas on how we can actually like cross benefit some of these product suites now that we are like, we, we do serve all these ver verticals and, and I'm really excited about what that means for us in, in the near term future.
- [98:02]
Danny
Yeah, that's awesome. I want to also ask you, you announced a product that I don't understand how it's going to work.
- [98:08]
Jack Mallers
Yeah.
- [98:08]
Danny
The loan that cannot be called.
- [98:10]
Jack Mallers
Yeah.
- [98:11]
Danny
Like how does that work?
- [98:12]
Jack Mallers
Yeah, yeah. So okay, what we announced, I'll just go through it quickly. One is just more access. So the number one request we get from customers when I launch something is why can't I have it?
- [98:21]
Danny
Yeah.
- [98:23]
Jack Mallers
And ultimately if I could launch all my cut all my products to everyone in the world, I would obviously I don't wake up and launch something and say not for you, New York, not for Germany. Yeah. So it's all about licensing and working with regulators. And the world is so fractured that it just takes us time. So we offer these credit products for businesses, for individuals and we also offer fixed term loans. And now bitcoin line of credit, which is my favorite product and that is pretty much throughout the entire United States. There's some version of our product in every single state which is super exciting. We just got our bit license. Very rare accomplishment for a regulated business. So that was announcement one, announcement two, cheaper pricing. Talked about that as low as 7.49%. Announcement three, our first iteration of lending proof of reserves that'll continue to get better. I find that interesting because when you're just buying bitcoin and you have it on the platform, ultimately the best guarantee and what you should do is withdraw it. It's your money. You should withdraw it to cold storage. We have free on chain withdrawals anytime, no matter what, unlimited. And we've put in a lot of work to finance the ability for people to acquire bitcoin with no fees and withdraw it to cold storage for no fees. But with lending it's an interesting relationship because you're putting up collateral and I can't let you withdraw that because that's what's financing the loan. And so people Say, well like I need some guarantees that that's going to be there. And so we have this external audit proof of reserves. We'll do it once a quarter and we'll continue to, I mean it's our first iteration but we'll continue to improve that, get community feedback. Then after that is segregated collateral. So you know, our customers say if I'm giving you a ton of bitcoin, a hundred bitcoin, a thousand bitcoin, can you just put it in a separate address so that I can just, just look at it all day and make sure. Because obviously makes sense. Yeah, the bitcoin blockchain works in a way where you'd be able to observe that. And so we are providing that we're going to start it out as a private client service. You know, doing this for like $10 loans would be not. I don't think the bang for buck would be worth it. So we're trying to find the right threshold of you know what customers should be eligible for that because we don't want to manage, you know, tens of thousands of UTXOs that are tiny. So right now you can reach out to private at strike me and ask for the feature and likely get it of having your collateral set in address. You could stare at it all day. No, it's not rehypothecated. It's just sitting there. And then the liquidity proof is liquidation proof is customers say I'm scared of wicks, like I have more collateral. Here's the interesting thing when you know, people usually have more bitcoin, more collateral, but they don't want to post it all in a centralized entity. I wouldn't either. Like there's value of bitcoin and cold storage. I don't want to take all my bitcoin, put it on strike just to make sure that my liquidation threshold is negative 10. Right. Like I want to make sure that like as much as I can keep in my own custody is possible. And so people say I'm really scared of these overnight wicks. Like I'm not awake all the time. I'm not able to always get my bitcoin onto the platform. So is there a fee I can pay to make sure I never get liquidated? And how it works and how it scales is where it took a lot of work, but we're able to hedge that. So for example, we charge an upfront fee for this product and we take the money and we buy some puts or something like that. There's, there's many different ways it's far more complex than, you know, I can say in a sentence. But we take the risk on ourselves and we do what's necessary to hedge that risk. And also, having Tether as a partner here is super valuable because they have so much money. And so imagine the backstop that gives us so like tether. And I basically saying, you know, we are willing to navigate how complex it is to manage the risk of these wicks and financing the bitcoin economy in a collateralized lending way. Don't worry about it. As long as you're cool with an upfront fee, like, we'll take it from here, you're never going to get liquidated. And that's like, awesome. And then the last announcement was that we'll start by doing 2.1 billion. And, and as soon as you guys use all that up, we'll grow from there.
- [102:29]
Danny
But so how you. You're hedging that in the options market.
- [102:32]
Jack Mallers
But
- [102:34]
Danny
so if, if it's not a wick and it's like a continual drawdown, what, how does that actually play out?
- [102:40]
Jack Mallers
The same way.
- [102:41]
Danny
So you still just get liquidated for the bitcoin and you.
- [102:43]
Jack Mallers
No, no, no. So let's say, you know, it's 50% LTV. So if you post a hundred thousand dollars worth of bitcoin, you get a $50,000 loan or up to. You don't have to do 50% LTV. But let's say they max that out. So you give a hundred thousand dollars worth of bitcoin and a $50,000 loan and that a hundred thousand dollars worth of bitcoin turns into $75,000 worth of bitcoin and then $65,000 worth, that the price is crashing. Ultimately, how the product traditionally works is once it gets to close to 50,000, and at 50,000, then I have to sell the bitcoin because I owe tether or whoever 50 grand, right? You posted the bitcoin. I said, hey, they posted the bitcoin. Give me the cash. I get the cash, I lend it out, but I have to owe that cash back. And so if we don't liquidate you and the price then goes to $40,000, your collaterals were 30,000 and we're on the hook for 50,000. But with Bitcoin going down, the way we've hedged it is going up, so our puts are worth more. So ultimately what matters is that our balance sheet is remaining intact, that there's never like a hole in our balance sheet. If I were to offer this with no upfront fee, everyone should be highly dubious is like, whoa, like how are they? Like, is there going to be a hole? Yeah. Which no one wants. Right. And so that's how it works is we are making up the difference by taking the fee money that we're getting for the, for the luxurious feature of this and protecting ourselves in that way. And so then ultimately if the 12 month expires and you owe us 50 grand, but the Bitcoin's only worth 30 grand, then you might just default and say like, I'm not paying you guys that back. You're like, screw you, but we're all good. Because we had taken the capital and we had protected ourselves. And again, that's not easy. Like not every bitcoin company has like an options desk that is behind the scenes like doing all of this. But that's what strike and you know, the vision I outlaid at 21, these are the type of things that we want to do is take bitcoin products and a bitcoin company to the next level. Like having a bitcoin only business that also has really deep capital markets experience, has an options desk that is able to lay risk off. Like, how cool is that? You get to realize itself in a product offering. Like, yo, you can get a loan and never get liquidated. Like that's cool, right? Cool. That's cool.
- [105:03]
Danny
How much does it cost? Or are you still working on pricing?
- [105:06]
Jack Mallers
Still, still working. So we're. So you can reach out to private me. That's just, by the way, that's just our private client desk. We have, we have at Strike this private client service where real, like you can call us anytime. Real humans, it's usually for high net worth or anything fairly custom or large or sensitive. We want to make sure that there's like white glove service and so you can reach out there. And I would say right now I think the last one we did was at a 3% origination fee. So if you want to take a million dollar loan and never get liquidated, no matter what, you owe us 30 grand and then you're good. Here's, here's your million dollars and go have fun. And I think I can get that significantly down. But again with more volume, price comes down. And as we learn how we want to do it, price comes down. So but call it, you know, 1, 2, 3%, something like that.
- [106:02]
Danny
I mean it's not extortion at all. That's really cool.
- [106:04]
Jack Mallers
No, no, no. And I think it'll come down again, like if I'm only Putting on, like, you know, because I'm work. We have like a. You can think of it like a capital markets desk, like a, you know, prime services desk. And the more volume, then, like, the cheaper this comes down. And. And it also depends, right? Like it. You know, options are priced ultimately on volatility. And so if Bitcoin's like, if. If someone calls us and wants this product, while Trump just said he's going to drop a nuclear bomb, I might say, I can't. Offers right now, like, in the app. When. When we put it in the app and make it available for everyone. It might not be. We might say, like, currently unavailable. If Bitcoin is like, if the world's going through turmoil. But, you know, recently, Bitcoin has not been very volatile as of recent. And options are fairly cheap and other. Not strictly options, other derivatives and forms of hedging. And so I also have debated, should it be fixed pricing or should we just let people test the market? Because I'm not. I don't want to charge you 3%. If I could charge you 2%, like, why would I want it that? So we'll see. It's something that will refine. I like building in the open. I like taking less guesses than necessary because ultimately I work for the people, and the people tell me what they want, and people don't benefit from me just guessing. So I try to get products to market that I think are valuable and reasonable and letting the world drive them to their inevitable destiny. So we'll see what people use it for and how they like it, and we'll just make it better.
- [107:37]
Danny
That's awesome, man. I mean, you're crushing it. It's gonna be cool to see how this all plays out. Thank you for doing this, Jack.
- [107:42]
Jack Mallers
This is cool.
- [107:43]
Danny
Back in the closet.
- [107:44]
Jack Mallers
Thanks for having me. Dude, you're the best. You're the best. I know Dylan and I love hanging out with you. I'm excited to go get some dinner. So thank you for all you do, man.
- [107:51]
Danny
And the week's over. Vegas is over. We can relax now. Yeah, I'm exhausted.
- [107:55]
Jack Mallers
No, we all are. Those things are. They're fun, they're worth it, but they're a lot. So we'll have a good weekend in Chicago.
- [108:01]
Danny
Let's go. Thank you, Jack.
- [108:03]
Jack Mallers
Yep.