Transcript+
It all comes down to computers communicating. The information superhighway can be a confusing mix of on ramps and off ramps. Bitcoin is worthless artificial gold. Is it still rat poison? Probably rat poison squared. We need to get into the world of OK, this is actually foundational. Technology. What the Internet of Money does is it creates a single network which can do a microtransaction to a giga transaction. The Internet is going to be one of the major forces for reducing the role of gun. The one thing that's missing that that will soon be developed is a reliable E cash. All righty, gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of Final Settlement. Today is Monday, December 22nd, 10:22 AM Eastern Time. Last show of the year, boys, We're going to do something a little a little special, a little different for the last, last show of the year. We're going to do some, I don't know if you want to call them awards, but top moments of the year, top deals, top pieces of signal, top pieces of noise, some predictions for 2026 and some businesses that we want to see created. So we're going to sort of do a round Robin through a lot of these different topics for the year. So I think let's start with top deals of the year could be sort of the largest deal in your mind, the most important, the most impactful could really span a few different areas. But Liam, we're going to start with you. What is your top most notable deal of the year of 2025? Well. First of all, Merry Christmas to everybody. It's definitely MGX investing $2 billion into. That was mine all right. I got to find the second one. With without a doubt that was the most impactful Abu Dhabi backed sovereign wealth fund paying the business and stable coins is a little bit of noise, but not quite as much as you might think. It shows that, you know, sovereign backed, you know, asset managers and wealth funds are thinking about doing massive settlements in stable coins in particular. And they likely are seeing the signal of I'm sure that finance holds a Bitcoin treasury in addition to BNB treasury. But without a doubt it, they're getting deeper into the digital asset space, thinking about stable coins in a deeper way and really showing that this this market is in super nascent, you know, for just hobbyists anymore. It really is something that sovereigns are paying attention to in a really big way. I love it. Yeah. Like I said, you, you stole mine. That was going to be my deal of the year. I will pivot to my, to my second choice. But what I was going to say about this particular deal was, you know, why it struck me as notable or, or, you know, very important is just sort of like, you know, it's it's sort of akin to is as if, you know, you know, Lutnick and Bessen are trying to set up the sovereign wealth fund in the US. It's similar to as if that sovereign wealth fund in the US had like taken a massive stake in Coinbase. And so, you know, I think that would be a pretty big deal if something like that were to happen. And so I think it's sort of the East or or Middle East version of that where Abu Dhabi is, you know, making an infrastructure play as well as just a statement around, you know, they believe in this asset class and they need to make inroads with various crypto native partners. And so I think this was a, a, a large deal to your point, Liam, paying in stablecoin was sort of an interesting little fanfare aspect of it. But but really just the, the notional amount and then just, you know, Binance being this long established player, which, you know, historically has has more so served, you know, more of the East as opposed to to US clients. Now obviously, Binance is trying to enter the US as well, but very notable deal. So I would agree with that one. Michael, any thoughts on that one before we go to yours? No, you see you're, you're going to throw it to me before you have to come up with your that I was going to, I was going to, I was going to offer that up. No, I think that's good additional color in the contextualizing A sovereign taking a position in finance. I think the thing I didn't really realize, and a lot of people I don't think do is finance is trading volume. This is just calling out just to make Brian even throw him even off more. He's looking up deals right now while we're actually talking, you know. But really Binance's trading volume globally I think is over 40%. It's crazy. So it's a good point in like a sovereign. It's really smart when you think about historically the UAE being at the forefront of mining, potentially even mining with nuclear and then the CZ relocating to the GCC. And really kind of from a strategic perspective, really smart to sit on the same side of the table as where you're going to be domiciled and where, you know, your headquarters and potentially other strategic assets are sitting. So if anything happens in your disrupting, you know, geopolitical capital flows, you, you kind of have the, the right team on your side. The the deal I looked at that I think personally is even bigger than this. It's just personally is the, the MasterCard deal while it's not closed, I think it was the second largest deal of the year. Darabit was 2.9 billion. I believe this one's reward at 2.1 billion. And the main reason why is because at the end of the day, all capital flows come from and start from the West, from the regulation that's happening or continuing to happen with the new administration to stable coins, Bitcoin ETFs. And when you see a large company like MasterCard effectively have to put chips on the table and make a very sizable BAT across stable coins and then payment infrastructure along with wallets, it's just a huge signal of what's to come. I think you're seeing it right now with Visa and the the crazy momentum they have with Circle and then some of the advisory work and net settling, I believe between banks now. And I think this MasterCard exposure is like also a Canary in the coal mine for capital markets in the US because historically the payment firms have already had crypto vehicles or like Skunk Works Labs already set up. So Visa had been a while, Kyle Sheffield been, you know, writing to that group since like, I think 2018. They've been doing a lot of stuff in Visa, crypto, even last bull run, and then MasterCard was on their heels. The point being is like a lot of these firms have already had different versions of what they're doing in the space where the banks have been a little historically behind. So if you look and see a MasterCard buying a wallet, technology infrastructure provider for 2.1 billion, I think that sets us up to what's going to come in 2026 across the board. Yeah, that's a good one. OK. So I had a few, I had a few backup options. One is kind of not really a deal, but like I think Square and Block finally turning on payments at terminals, I think it was a big moment just in terms of the history of that company. And I think that's something that they've been working towards for a number of years. And so I think that that was a a big deal, but not necessarily a, a quote UN quote deal. What I will say on the actual deal front, and this is sort of a, a broader group of deals. There was one that sort of exemplified it, but all of the convergence of basically AI infrastructure and Bitcoin mining companies. So there was a number of deals whether it was Google sort of backstopping an investment from fluid stack into HUD eight. I think there was a couple others related to Cipher mining and, and Terra Wolf, but basically this convergence that we've seen over this past year of basically, you know, people recognizing that there are effectively synergies between Bitcoin miners and the build out of AI infrastructure that's required for, you know, all of the CapEx and spend that's going on in the AI world. And I think this is a it's interesting from the standpoint of basically opening up investors eyes to, you know, I think there's, there's often this notion that, you know, Bitcoin isn't backed by anything. There's no intrinsic value to it because most people don't understand how Bitcoin mining works or that, you know, there is physical infrastructure that's supporting the security and strength of the network. And so I think this convergence that we've seen between these two industries, I think is basically an, an educational sort of forefront for, for people to better understand what actually backs up Bitcoin. Like what is Bitcoin backed by? Well, it's backed by, you know, a ton of infrastructure that is actually going to be pretty critical for at least, you know, in this country, the build out of various energy resources and infrastructure. And so I think, you know, it's it's shines a light on, you know, some of the fundamentals of Bitcoin that that don't get really talked about in terms of the mining side of things. And so I think it was an important sort of broader convergence. And, you know, there was a number of deal of deals that fell within this sort of theme, But I think that that's that's important going forward that people recognize Bitcoin is more than just a number on a screen and more than just number go up. It's actually, you know, the mining side of things is, is going to be very critical for us as a as a nation, as we work to build out all of these energy resources and infrastructure to whether it's, you know, going back to reindustrialization or, or that whole topic of of, you know, that we've really hollowed out a manufacturing base. A lot of this stuff is going to be re short and a big part of that is going to be energy infrastructure in particular. And, and so I think the synergies between what's happening in the AI world and what Bitcoin miners can provide on that on that side is, is very interesting as well. Yeah, I think it's a, it's a good call out the overarching confluence of energy, what you're referencing and and re shoring and then Bitcoin and AI because I think historically the market's been pretty unsophisticated around energy production, right. When you think about individuals around solar and Tesla's don't really fundamentally understand what the inputs are to make those. But then also the narrative around Bitcoin mining being bad for the the universe or bad for the world and energy production. And so with the proliferation of AI and data centers, there's and then also the new administration and trying to bring and reassure you have like the right mix of people, understand you're getting educated on energy production. And then ultimately Bitcoin has a multifaceted layer to that. So there's the Bitcoin miners that were out there and then I don't want to say Co opted, but they've been there's been collaboration from the AI infrastructure providers to Co locate and potentially take over. But then the reality is it's just better for the whole ecosystem if you have multiple use cases and you can spin up different, different effective use cases for that energy based on whatever it is, whether it's the Bitcoin price, whether it's, you know, what's needed from an AI perspective that that didn't all exist before. And so it's been a very interesting year to see like that narrative change all the way to like fusion scientists, you know, getting whacked of like what's going on. So it's it's it's a fascinating topic for the year to come in where I would say in 2024, most people probably wouldn't have that on their bingo card. And a lot of people got educated about energy this year. Yeah, that that's a great way to frame it, sort of broader education around energy. And then also if you just compare it and contrast it to sort of, you know, what the perception of the Bitcoin mining space was prior to, you know, this year or even the year prior was, you know, all the ESG concerns, the environmental concerns. And those sort of went by the wayside as, as I think partly, you know, people realize that, you know, one Bitcoin is actually good in, in the sense of sort of incentivizing the build out of renewable energy sources. But even more than that, it was this recognition that, you know, however, you know, people want to quote Bitcoin using all this energy, well, AI is going to use way more energy than that. So there was kind of this flipping in terms of like, well, we're OK with the energy because everybody wants all these AI tools and all this infrastructure to be built out. So there was less discussion around like the energy usage and more just around, well, how do we actually be as efficient as possible with all this infrastructure? And it already does. This is, it's funny, this is like direct. I mean, it might as well be apples to apples and nobody cared or everyone cared about energy production or use for Bitcoin and AI. Nobody talks about it, very few in the same way that nobody's worried about Quantum for anything else. But for Bitcoin, it's like the thing that kills everything. They're they're very similar. There's a like, there's probably multiple things. We don't have to psychoanalyze why people have their issues with Bitcoin, but that's what it stems from. It's not the fundamentals. So yeah. All right. So those were the deals of the year. I was surprised that nobody brought up the Citadel $200 million investment into Kraken, though that was another one that I did think about that honorable mention. Honorable mention. Yeah, that was a good one. And the the other interesting aspect too. Back to. Whoa, whoa. Is he just changing the? Are we just? Are we just the? Oh, sorry, no. No, go ahead, go. I was just saying we're, I thought we had three topics each where where you got an honor bonus, honorable. Mentions. OK, Well, I was just going to, I was just going to go back to your MasterCard point and and say I thought that was particularly interesting too, because out of the rest of the deals, they're essentially like one or a few decision makers who can really drive those across like Citadel, you know, everything that you know, MGX did, but MasterCard is not necessarily founder owned, not, you know, like Stripe did with BB and K. It's essentially a larger group of people and getting the administrative buy in from the board. Everybody there to really go out and buy a digital asset native firm that many may be seeing as like competing with their existing business really shows just kind of how Nate how developed the industry has become and how there really can't be ignored. And it's not just necessarily the first movers who can be decision makers of one like an individual buying Bitcoin. It's still larger companies in in general too that are getting the buy in from their entire board still which is interesting. It's a it's a great call. It hit me mid, mid show. This will be a good recap to put in like written blog form. We can take exactly. So two things to think about. 1 is we can have the honorable mentions as they come up, but then also we should come up with one extra honorable mention for predictions because we're going to have to hold ourselves because they're being written form. So just keep that in mind at least 2, because I'm trying to work through some predictions. I want to make sure they're credible because we're going to have to stand behind them a year. You just want, you just want multiple. So you you've got more than one chance to be right. Well. I was thinking, no, no, I was thinking like, if this is these, this was already a good segment and in a written form, it'll make a good, just a good it'll. Hold us to our predictions. That's. It'll be a good report to put back out as well, like so people can read it and just skim through it because some people don't have time to to listen to us. OK, on to the next. The next segment is top market update or notable market update of the year. This could be sort of the top signal of the year, if you will from either a market structure perspective or or otherwise I will start since I went last, last round, I'm going to go with ETF flows generally speaking. So this was from Eric Paul Kunis late last week. Just looking at the top, top flows for for ETFs broadly. So you can see I bit Blackrock's Bitcoin ETF here is number six on the list in terms of year to date flows. And it's the only, it's the only fund on this list that has a negative return for the year. So it's, you know, as of this screenshot, it was down about 10% on the year, whereas, you know, everything else in this top flows chart is materially positive anywhere from sort of like 7 to to 60% on the year. And so to me, this is a strong signal just in the sense of, you know, given a a, you know, roughly flat to down year, there's still been incredible uptake of these new ETF products. I say new they've been on, they've been around for almost 2 years now. But as we know, sort of the access to these things, the solicitation from a brokerage perspective is, is still in the process of opening up and widening. So these are pretty remarkable numbers given one, the sort of access that is still opening and then two, the return of Bitcoin on the year being sort of suboptimal or at least lower than people's expectations. And Despite that, there's been strong positive inflows to to this product and and more broadly the Bitcoin ETF products. And I think this also says something about, you know, if, if you're thinking about sort of, you know, why has the price done what it's done this year? And, and you know, Jordy Visser had the piece a few weeks ago around sort of this IPO moment and this hand off in terms of distribution from longer, longer term holders. I think that's, that's part of what's going on here. And, and you can look at some of this data as supportive of that in the sense that new buyers, you know, coming through the ETFs, whether it's institutional allocators or just individuals in their brokerage accounts that may be net new to the asset. You know, they don't have some of the same baggage that a lot of existing holders had in terms of, you know, thinking about four year Bitcoin cycles or, you know, just thinking that, you know, they want to sort of preempt so many any, any sort of sell off that was expected after a blow off top. Because I think there was a lot of that happening in the market this year where people were anchoring to those historical patterns on the chart. And I think the new entrants, whether it's institutions or just individuals in their brokerage account, like they don't have those same anchoring biases. And so I think, you know, people are establishing positions here and they're buying on weakness and they're lugging into this this asset. And I think that's this data is, is reflective of that. So I thought this was a pretty strong signal despite the the price performance, which is under underwhelming to folks. I think this is a super strong and positive signal Despite that. Thoughts. I think it's an this is the closest I've been able to come at this exact moment of like the capital inflows for the past year in the price action. And it's ultimately it's three things happening in my view. 1 is we've still been in a quasi or what we would think of as historical market bear market, meaning net new like retail buyers not stepping in. The ETF brought in flows from people that have heard about Bitcoin for 15 years and couldn't get exposure outside of the traditional brokerage. And that's what the ETF flows are. And then with the cherry on top of institutional buying, I think that very similar to the gold flows, lot of gold was sovereign and institutions mainly sovereigns, not necessarily retail capital. So you take that, you take the heavy selling that we've seen on chain. Coupled with not net new buyers that have historically existed in a Bitcoin market and that sets us up for where we're at in price point today. But then if everything goes as planned, 2026 should be expected and we can talk about that in the prediction markets. But anyway, I think that's to apps like DOVSI think that two things can happen at once is that net new buyers are coming in via ETF because they never had exposure. But to your point, like the people that are traditionally speculating interested in markets, that reflexivity hasn't been there because of the tampered volatility. And when that comes back, that's when we'll really see a bull run. Agreed. All right, Mike, we're going to you. What do you got top signal there? Top signal to your point like more thematic, we can call out one because there's no shortage of examples. But really the banks and stable coins, I think that whether it's the OCCI feel like there's a new letter coming out every week, banks around custody, what just happened around the bank charters and then the proliferation of stable coins with those banks and everyone trying to make a play there. It's still early. I still don't think most people will know how to utilize. They will they'll create. There'll be one part design surface just being implemented and entrepreneurs and use cases that come. There'll be other time just taking inertia. You know, it's just like turning on the Internet. People have to figure out what to do with it. But that is insanely bullish for this whole industry because as dollars become digitized, you just reduce that friction by believe in my opinion, order magnitude into BTC because of whether it's the products that'll be created or just the mental awareness or understanding that money can be digital and you'll see more products with Bitcoin next to stable coins. And so I think of that as just a huge Boone that will set up for 2026, especially like the banks. Like in my view, this is like the Trojan horse for banks and Bitcoin because they're all focused on stable coins. I think most don't believe Bitcoin goes to the numbers we believe or can be a global financial asset like we believe it can be. But they believe stable coins can do that. And so by layering in stable coins, they're already setting up wallet infrastructure and just that aperture internally from an organizational perspective. And so it's not that they forgot about Bitcoin, but they prioritize stable coins. And as Bitcoin's price rises, that will naturally accelerate and incentivize them to have a strategic Bitcoin plan. Yeah, it's a good one. Maybe not the the sexiest or most interesting. I think stable coins are kind of boring. And I think there's also some noise that's associated with it too. Like did you see this last week Coinbase launched custom stable coin. So anyone can create a stable coin for your business or you know, just you as a person. We're going to do Mikey USD Liam USD. So there, there is some noise, but I, I would say you're, you're spot on in the sense that I think stable coins, as we've discussed on this show, it's a, it's a natural path or sort of evolution of getting people comfortable with digital assets effectively and, and normalizing them to the point of, you know, you have your, your U.S. dollar stablecoin right next to your Bitcoin, right next to your stocks. Like that's the world we're headed towards. And so I think, you know, stablecoins generally speaking, you know, if you, if you're thinking about the US government and, and why they've gotten so excited about this passing the Genius Act, you know, but I had up earlier on the screen of FDIC allowing basically any banks to issue their own stable coins as well, which I think was a question for a while whether that would be the case. So they're really opening the floodgates for this. And, and, you know, I think it's part of a larger plan to extend dollar dominance and, and basically continue to kick the can down the road in terms of one, just sort of greater distribution, right, of allowing people to access digital dollars from anywhere in the world. But also, you know, filling a gap that there is that's been growing in terms of basically U.S. Treasury demand. So it's, it's part of a broader plan. And I think it's to your point, whether they know it or not, it's part of a broader story that will familiarize people with digital assets and ultimately get people to the understanding of, you know, spending dollars and saving Bitcoin is is kind of where we're headed. Yeah. And one just thing to add to that, I don't even think it has to be fully looked at as theoretical. It's not the biggest leap to reference that every $100 billion that comes in a stablecoins adds 5% to Bitcoins market cap. And the way I'm back into that is just looking at what tethers total stable coin, let's call it 200 billion roughly. And the in the total crypto market caps like 2.5 trillion. So that's 10% coin being is like you can make the case that Bitcoin couldn't get to this market cap without a trading pair that had a global reach. And so that's at a very micro level, right? When you think about total, you know, trillions of dollars in in bonds and dollars. So I think that's the overarching essence of it is like you look at what tethers done in a very small world that has been digital assets and what happens with the global financial system has stable coins. 100%, especially when there are hedge funds and other asset managers who need to trade Bitcoin or digital assets in general and there's no way to wire dollars on the weekend. And so having that stable coin pair there. And it's going to be crucial for those who don't necessarily they can't get their compliance board or the compliance team on board with Tether and, and just say have established relationships with JP Morgan or Citi or whoever else. So as they offer stable coins, they're just going to naturally be more familiar with those teams and able to turn on those products prior to any digital asset native firm, whether you know that's the right move or not. Well said. All right, Liam, what do you got? Top signal of the year or market update? Harvard holding 100 or $500,000 worth of Bitcoin, as well as I think it was $100,000 worth of gold. I mean, gold's price in itself too could be a signal of the year too. But it's just the two of the asset classes going in tandem, endowments starting to put on meaningful positions in Bitcoin and them being OK with signaling that to the market too. If they wanted to, they could have, you know, held Bitcoin spot and not had to disclose that because it's a ETF. They they wouldn't have had to disclose spot Bitcoin, but they were comfortable with, you know, any negative sentiment that Bitcoin had and and gold in general too. And so I think that is just a sign of how far we've come and to signal that, you know, the most well respected like and all this university in America is willing to put on fairly large positions of both Bitcoin and gold in general, you know, showing that some money is is kind of making a comeback. I love it. I that's a great one. It's funny, we had Ted Smith on the last trade a few weeks ago and we were talking a bit about that and he initially, you know, thought maybe that they were just doing some sort of basis trade and they didn't actually have a long term fundamental view on it. I think I kind of talked him off that by the end of the conversation. And part of my rationale was to your point that when they disclosed this, it was in tandem with a gold allocation. So it did really feel like they had sort of a, a sound money thesis in implementing both of those exposures. And so I, I, I guess it's possible that they are doing some basis trade, but my, my sort of base assumption is that, you know, they do have a long term view on the asset and I think that would also be supported by an adding to the exposure. So I think the first disclosure was sometime over the summer and then at the end of the third quarter they had tripled the position. So you know, I, I think that's a great one Liam. I think that's a massive signal for the year. You know, whether it's, you know, talking about who's selling, whether it's the OG whales or, you know, just retail participants who, who don't understand what they own. There's been more talk about who's selling. But the real signal is, well, who's buying, who's stepping into these positions in the absence of of those people. And so I would agree, I think that that's a big one for this year. Yeah, it's a great call. I mean, it further underpins the debasement trade was really just, it feels like a two week driven narrative. But the sophisticated investors have historically understand commodities are what you want in a inflationary environment. And that's what Harvard is, a sophisticated investor. And so I think them putting their, you know, money where their mouth is is setting up for other investors to naturally step into that trade in 2026. When it comes to holding Bitcoin securely, Peace of Mind starts with architecture. Onramp's Multi institution Custody distributes control across three independent regulated key holders in a two of three quorum. No single point of failure, no pooled or omnibus exposure. Segregated client titled faults. You retain full legal ownership while Onramp coordinates security, compliance and operational workflows behind the scenes. It's strength of many delivered through the simplicity of 1 multi institution custody is the foundation for everything. We build sound infrastructure that distributes counterparty risk and provides fault tolerant resilience with clear audits and institutional controls. And now on Ramp is piloting flat predictable pricing, making best in class Bitcoin custody and financial services more accessible now than ever. On Ramp strengthen many simplicity in one. To learn more, check out on rampbitcoin.com. Agreed. OK, moving on top piece of noise for the year. And Mike, we're going to start with you. Let's make it spicy. Well, you know. We have such great comments in the YouTube channel, so I have to just stay true to to the comments of it could. Without a. Question unequivocally is digital asset treasury companies, it's so much noise because the the big problem was that we talked about it so much and I feel like part of it was being forced from the general market sentiment. So having to address it. And then the other part is, you know, ultimately this is a very long game we're playing. I'm personally playing. And so when I think about what we do as you know, whether it's regulated or unregulated, fiduciaries of individuals, capital specifically, and what truly is the Wild West of a digital bearer asset, What do you do with it? How do you manage it? How do you secure it? Because I've seen this, I've been around long enough to understand it's very easy to buy Bitcoin. It's hard to hold it long term. And every few years there's a net new thing that comes in and takes people's Bitcoin. And even if it doesn't necessarily take exactly your Bitcoin, if you're parking dollars and something versus DTC because you believe it's close to Bitcoin or you're going to get more Bitcoin, it's the same thing in my view. And so that's why on the other side is forced to discuss it and really discuss from a first principle perspective on how on a long a time horizon, it looks like the time horizon was this year, they don't actually make much sense. And so yeah, that's my view. The the easiest noise is the digital asset treasury companies. And then maybe the last part is like, I think everyone would agree Dats for crypto don't make sense. But then when it's or the in the beauty, and this is how you always know you're in a Ponzi or scam. And this is how crypto people feel because when they sit in a room with other crypto people, they will generally say, well, you're unregistered security is a, you know, that's unregistered security. But mine is a registered security or a tokenized equity or a a meme, a meme coin or whatever it is but not. Collectible. It's a collectible, not a security. Not a security, it's a commodity. And so it's very similar in the digital asset treasury space, whether it's an Ethereum, Solana or let's go to Bitcoin digitalized, the treasury company, it's like, no, no, but mine is better, the one that I am exposed to, the other ones aren't. And so you really got to take a step back. And if that is the logic, well, then it might be the case that they all don't make sense, not that the the others are the ones at fault. And so, yeah. It's a good one. I didn't even think about that one because I knew you were going to use it. So Liam, what do you got? Biggest noise of the year? No, I mean, I knew that one would definitely come off and agreed there. I mean it was definitely Doge and I'm just going to do Doge itself because there's another one. But I might save that for you, Brian. There was never any meaningful buy in from different parts of the government in order to cut spending significantly. Thinking that we would be able to have like 3% deficit to GDP is, you know, absolutely unreasonable. There is no interest from anybody in the federal government or at least, you know, getting the bureaucratic ideal like machine on to cutting significantly, especially when there are things that are quote UN quote untouchable. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, as well as National Defense. So I would say that that was definitely the noise of the year in my deal. It's a good one. I am going to go with broadly just cycle theory like cycle brain, four year cycle thinking I think was the biggest noise of this year. I think it LED a lot of people probably to to sell their position when you know, I think if you're considering the broader market structure, the macro liquidity environment and where, you know, that is all headed that trajectory. I just think the the sort of Bitcoin centric cycle thinking is is dead. And I think that would be supported by like, you know, as we sit here today, I think we're a little under 90K. We started the year at, you know, 9395, whatever it was. So unless we run through the end of the year, this is going to be a red year. So if that is the case, then the cycle theory is over. Because if you're, you know, ascribing to that historical pattern, then this year, 2025 should have been a green year and 2026 would set up to be a red year. And I think we're just past that. Now. I would say broadly speaking, market participants do not seem like they're past that. I think there's and that's why I call it out as the noise of the year, because I think there's just been too much focus on it, generally speaking. And you know, the, the sort of oldest phrase in in investing or finances, like, you know, past performance is not indicative of, of future results. And I think nothing could be more apartment or true in the sense that, you know, just looking at the chart and drawing lines on it, doing some TA and just saying, well, this is when we need to sell because this is when it sells off. It's just, it's, it's not based on anything fundamental at this point, at this stage of a Bitcoin maturity as a macro asset being integrated into institutional portfolios, sovereign portfolios, the market structure has fundamentally changed. And so I think people that are still sort of holding on to, to that mental model of thinking around, you know, trading around this asset, I think they're going to get, are going to get hurt basically into next year. If they thought that, you know, 2026 was guaranteed, guaranteed to be a a down year and and they sold their position. So I think there's going to be a lot of that and it's going to be a very heated rally in 2026. Yeah, it's it's a great call out. So it goes back to the whole when the facts change, I changed my view. What do you do? I think, you know, I won't even try to pontificate if cycles existed or didn't, I think you could probably make the case that they they did previously because of the size of the asset and inflows and liquidity and halvings. But end of day, I like the call for noise because there's a lot of really well-intentioned and thoughtful individuals that sit on the macro side of things that are calling for end of a cycle or end of a bull run or whatever you want to call it. But they only have one piece of the picture or they have multiple pieces, but they don't have the full picture because they don't understand whether it's on the liquidity side, but also really around the market structure side, which is fundamentally changed. And that's changed from a geopolitical perspective with what gold's doing is a big thing that like should signal that, you know, this notion of a commodity and sound assets might be running a lot longer than anybody expects. But then also from a administration and regulatory and traditional financial markets and what's happening there. And all those things don't get turned on and then capital doesn't come into the system. And so it's like a fool's errand just to like map a legacy or old mental model of Bitcoin cycles and map it to where we sit today because it doesn't exist in a vacuum. So I think that is a a good one. Liam, I know you have some thoughts, but we got to go to the honorable mention after for quantum because I don't know how that didn't come up. Yeah, late entry, late entry to noise of the year. Well, very noisy over the. Let's let. Liam, go I I also was going to say the strategic Bitcoin reserve. Do you guys remember? We're going to revalue our goal, yeah. I mean, that's, that was like even more, you know, out there. But to your to your point on cycles, no, I, I agree, I agree that four year cycles, just looking at that in a vacuum doesn't make sense. I do think that cycles for Bitcoin or bubbles forming and then getting deflated to some degree are still going to be, you know, are still going to exist as the asset monetizes. Any time that there is a truly transform transformative asset or new technology or invention, it attracts both a lot of serious interest as well as a lot of speculation, A lot of misinformed or people who think that the asset will evolve one way and it doesn't actually end up going to that degree. And then you know that capital will be destroyed by misinformed ways of how the asset will actually monetize and and differing opinions on timelines but agree that having a four year cycle in itself doesn't make any sense moving forward. Here's the conversation no one wants to have. If something happened to you tomorrow, could your family access your Bitcoin? Really think about it. The seed freeze hidden in your house, the hardware wallet and the safe. That complex multi 6 setup? You understand it, but does your spouse do Your children? Billions in Bitcoin are already lost forever because people did not plan for this moment. On ramps inheritance solution is built into our multi institution custody from day 1/3 institutions. Clear beneficiary designation and professional succession planning. No technical knowledge required from your heirs. And with our new flat tier pricing starting at $250 monthly, your family won't face surprise custody costs just because Bitcoin. Appreciate it. The same predictable fee whether Bitcoin hits 200K or 2 million. Don't leave your family's future to chance. There's strength in many. Visit on rampbitcoin.com/inheritance. That is on rampbitcoin.com/inheritance. Well said. All right, I think. We're. We're passing noise, so now we're on to predictions. Can we just do a little quantum noise just to make sure? I think tomorrow we're going to do a bigger, bigger quantum. Here's some special guests tomorrow for the last trade. But the the quantum stuff, I don't necessarily know how to ascribe how much the cell pressure has happened from quantum, but the, the like just how insane the concern and fear mongering around quantum just has to be called out. I think mainly there's a number of reasons, but one of them is just because this has always been a concern for Bitcoin. Nothing changed like AI as a as a meme has helped accelerate the notion that like somehow, even though they're kind of inter interrelated or interdependent. But either way, honorable mention simply because there is a lot of people worried about quantum. And I think probably my main call it is there's a whole slew of 10 other things in their life that would be much greater impact than their Bitcoin position. And that's if they're all in Bitcoin. So if they have a 2% position and it's just all probability waiting, like do you, is it greater than 2%? You know, like why worry about it? Why be concerned? So anyway, it's a, it's a very fascinating thing and it feels very narrative driven and honestly more of like you got Ray Dalio coming out and talking about quantum and it really since the beginning has felt like middle of this year when it's picking up steam. Felt more of like a a psyop than anything to be honest. It feels like the last real thing that they have against Bitcoin, like Bitcoins almost defeated every other timeline or or reason why it would potentially fail. And so I think that's honestly the only thing that detractors, people who have missed out haters, just no coiners really want to push to a high degree because it's the only real thing that that you can really have against Bitcoin at this point. I think it's pretty much like almost one other than that. That's that is a good point. It is sort of the the last remaining FUD. The other thing I would say is, you know the the reason why I find the discourse particularly noisy on this topic is just given the incentives at play. So basically the people who are fear mongering the most have some exposure to either quantum companies or they are a researcher in the field that benefits from these things progressing on a faster time scale. And so it, it becomes very hard to distinguish the signal from the noise when the sort of quote UN quote, experts are financially incentivized to tell a certain story. And so I think that that needs to be taken into account when assessing any of this stuff. Because you know, I think there's, there's just one way of looking at this in the sense of like, to your point, Michael, like this has been a, a known potential risk sort of forever. And like, you know, to put it simply, like the devs are deving, like we, you know, there are bit proposals, there are various white papers and thoughts around what would need to be done if this risk materializes. And so, you know, I don't think there's any really cause for concern or like, you know, arguing with Adam back on Twitter Like it, it's, it's very misplaced. And I think it it does more harm than good in terms of having a constructive conversation around, you know, what a potential path looks like if and when it's ever needed. So yeah, I, I think that's, it's certainly very noisy right now. And, and to your point, Lee, I'm like, it's kind of the last remaining thing that people can, can hang their hats on in terms of fighting Bitcoin. And, and, you know, I think there's also a, a component of like people want to explain the price action by something. So it's to your point, Michael, like, I don't know how much of selling actually was a, a result of people being fearful about quantum or if it was just, you know, normal price volatility and then people trying to attach an explanation to it, as often happens in markets. So that that could be sort of the other side of it as well. All right, that's a lot of noise. There was a lot of noise this year, I will say, but let's go to predictions. I guess I'll go first. I think it's my turn to go first here. I had a couple. The, the one I'll say is is certainly more bullish than the other one, which I'll save for honorable mention. But I think I think the US government buys Bitcoin in a budget neutral way in 26. I think Lutnick and Besant figure it out, figure out a way to do it, whether it's in the sovereign wealth fund, whether you know, they just attach it to some executive order around the existing sort of Bitcoin reserve or if it's in some other vehicle. I think they figure out a way to to buy Bitcoin. I think if you listen to anything, this is going to be one of my honorable mentions for for signal of the year was just basically anything that Besant said this year. I think was was very high signal in terms of wanting to basically run the economy hot. You better own assets. Gold going up is good for America. Him loving, you know, Bitcoin on white paper day and sending out tweets around, you know why Bitcoin is so resilient. I think they're going to figure out how to, how to buy Bitcoin next year. I think it was probably too much enthusiasm and anticipation sort of post selection and thinking it was going to happen overnight. But I I I am remaining bullish and confident that that estimate let Nick figure out how to buy Bitcoin next year. Yeah, I like, I like that. I don't, I don't think, well, I think Doge was noise. I don't think the SBR was noise. I think that these things just take time and a lot of this year was setting the stage for what's going to ensue in 2026. And again, I don't think of Bitcoin and vacuum in these discussions. I think of them from a geopolitical perspective. I think of them from the notion of we have to onshore, I think of inflation and gold and there's a big opportunity for the US to really wrap their arms around Bitcoin. And some of these things maybe from a game theory perspective, not the best when you think about digital asset treasury company centralizing here and then also ETF flows an SBR. But at the end of the day, it doesn't necessarily matter what we think. It's just about what the market incentives are. And I think the market incentives for the US is to to have that and then really be the capital market leader for this space. And so I think it's a good call that we see something like that or some traction in the SBR stage in the US next year. All right. Do you want me to go or do you have anything? Who wants to go next? I'm happy to go. Let's leave me. You want to go. Go for it, Michael. So I think, I think we get the triples, you get triple directionally because I think it's a little bullish. But I think directionally we see a triple and BTC price from where we're at today, triple and gold price that we're at today and also triple and M&A action. So M and AI believe for this year is about $8.6 billion for 2025, which is like far and away more than we've seen in the in the historical markets on an annualized basis. Is that that, Is that crypto specific I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nice. So I think we get, you know, roughly 24 billion next year. I think gold sits in the directional. You know, I I wanted to go double, but it's not that's not sexy enough. So you go triple. So in the 11:50 KA triumph range and then Bitcoin does its thing and we get the, you know, 200 to $250,000 dude, if gold, if gold triples, you think bitcoins only tripling. I think it's a good it's a good point. I think that in the same lens, not necessarily I believe this, but it's worth bringing up in the same lens of like gold running and then Bitcoin running. We saw that happen once and then everyone says like now Bitcoin has to to follow suit. I think at a certain point that may be true, but gold is 30 trillion and bitcoins 2 trillion. So those flows, you know, it's the whole like it's not directly correlated per SE. They just may have been it ran and then there's other flow coming in. It could have been tied to ETS, liquidity, whatever. But to your point, I don't necessarily would bet on that. I think that, yeah, if gold's going to triple, then you might see a greater performance from BTC. The problem with that, though, it still ties back to liquidity. You have trillions of dollars that sovereigns are sitting into in bonds and if they're looking at gold as a stable unit to replace some of that bond exposure, that makes a lot more sense than the lead to go into Bitcoin. That's the thing I think we all forget about. It's like it's very easy for an individual to take out of the equity or bond market to go into Bitcoin in in a heavy size, but for a sovereign and somebody's managing and if Quantum is a thing or if they're concerned with it, that was the whole point about like the education around Bitcoin. It's like the hardcore people can't even realize if Quantum's a thing or not. So how are nation states supposed to and others? And so that's the idea again, behind speculative exposures, most people haven't been able to do the work to de risk the ASSAC. I like it. I like it. What? Do you got Liam? Mine is fairly similar on a two-part basis. It's. It's not exactly the same for sure. What can be? You have to pick something different. It's only to one of your points. It's the banks that are coming into the space, they're going to push back all their timelines of when they actually launched stable coins and crypto native products lending against Bitcoin. And I think we're going to see acquisitions from banks of the large digital asset exchanges like either Kraken, Gemini, etcetera, just like an entire acquisition because they don't want any other B to B to C offerings. And even I can see a hostile takeover of interest of of something like Coinbase just to own the entire consumer experience. I think that these banks are going to going to realize that they really want to control the the flows and know that the first mover advantage is going to be really, really significant, especially as most young people interact directly with, you know, fintechs and neo banks rather than banks in particular. So I would imagine we see almost in if it what was M and a 24 billion this year. I think we could see that. I was saying 24 next year. OK. Yeah, I think we could see 24 or something just in in one deal. And yeah, so I think that's kind of going to be what happens next year. I like, I like that a lot. It's a great call because I think we fully really under appreciate maybe not here, but like in the market how crazy the transaction and integration of stable coins and digital assets that's happened this past year. When you think about half of it more than likely was just the pent up demand, but all of the regulatory concerns. But then also the other half is, you know, powers that be signaling pre administration. Because I, I know of some very large firms that, you know, they saw the new administration coming and they realized they had to get their very core stuff in place, call it stablecoins as an example, that slowed down some of the Bitcoin products that they were going to launch. And if we saw that this, this hot and heavy, this early, what happens in 2026 and the, the, the cousin or like the relationship that I think we can see play out. What you're describing is basically what happened to AI this year, as we see happens to digital assets next year where everyone has to have a position, everything gets digitized, right. If like that's the notion of this second-half of 2025 was all stable coins that it's setting up for that narrative in 2026. And to your point, these things get overbought, overpaid for, which makes it really interesting what we're working on because what people realize multi institution is it differentiated. They don't have to believe it's the end all be all. But if they're looking for firms that are building on a differentiated form of custody that's more robust. That's what's exciting about what we're building and investing in because a lot of these companies will naturally have huge opportunities to integrate, be acquired by these large firms. I would 100% agree. I I also one other thing that I forgot to mention that I do think is key to all of this. Whether we we see it or not is just the market structure bills. They want to see what ends up being the final wording and and nomenclature around all of that. Because I'm sure that all those banks are at least doing the preliminary due diligence, even if they're not having conversations with a number of these types of firms and they're trying to decide what actually makes sense. But I think that they're trying to wait on what exactly the legislation will be prior to going out and doing like going full speed ahead on either building in house or acquisitions. Agreed. My my honorable mention for prediction was a little bit more on the bearish side, but I, I do think that both physical and digital attack risk is going to continue to accelerate. I think Jameson Lopp, who's done a very good job of cataloging a lot of the whether it's physical attacks or digital phishing attacks over the over the past several years, he basically, he tweeted the other day, like I, I give up like there's too much. So he's not even going to be maintaining that going forward. So maybe on ramp or or us at early riders picks up the mantle of tracking that stuff because I do think it's only going to accelerate from here as one, Bitcoin continues to monetize, but two, really, you know, more and more criminal networks unfortunately wake up to the realities of a digital bearer asset and realize that a lot of people, you know, 70% of Bitcoin still sits in some form of hardware device and you know, another huge chunk sits on exchanges that could be digitally manipulated as well. So sort of unfortunate, but I do I expect that stuff to accelerate in 26. Damn, you got my honorable mention. So I was going to go the the triples again and I do think we get we basically get triple hacks losses and unfortunately the kidnappings because as the price rises, you see that occur and this kind of is supported when you think about I'll pull it up here. It just came out chain analysis put out a report around this year record 2 billion in crypto theft just from North Korea. And I believe it pushes the all time high from North Korea, 6.75 billion. Again, these numbers are, are are insane when you think about $6.575 billion from 1 nation state, 51% year over year. And this is again just in the hacks. That's not to talk about physical threats. And I do fully expect to see next year part of that prediction. Maybe this one's spicier. You'll see a digital asset treasury company lose the funds because they're very unsophisticated. Talk to a lot of them. When you think about historically the time it takes to understand Bitcoin from a personal perspective, just to put, you know, a personal sizing for your balance sheet and you have to learn keys and multi sick and all the things. And a lot of these digital asset treasury companies have focused solely on the capital market side and a lot of their treasures and CF OS have never set up a Bitcoin wallet before. And so when you think about social engineering and all the different things that come along with the asset appreciation means that there's more risk out there. Fully expect to see that happen. And it's just, it's just a reality of a new form of money interacting online that can be taken from anywhere, whether it's physically or digitally. So, yeah, yeah. Agreed. All right. I think we're, I think we're to the last segment boys, the business we want to see created in 2026. Liam, maybe we'll start with you. What do you got? Yeah, this one, I think that there is a really interesting opportunity to start small from the stable coin banking layer essentially being a, there needs to be folks who are in college and start a local community bank. Get start off with very small targets of local community folks who are younger and and more open to stablecoin banking accounts and offer them essentially all financial services and banking services. Starting off on a localized level. Know a lot of differentiation really comes from distribution and I think that that's a real opportunity to just because a lot of local banking relationships still happen, but they are extremely slow and upgrading that with stablecoins can be, you know, significantly valuable as well as offering is just this checking account of stablecoins in particular and then savings accounts in Bitcoin is something that is definitely sorely needed out there. And by starting small and having low customer acquisition costs through, you know, local universities where you have young people who are digitally native and willing to try out and use stable coins in Bitcoin in particular is an easy way to start into that and then have a fairly easy way to just get acquired. So that was one thing that I think just needs to be, needs to exist. I like it, Mike, what do you got? Yeah, I have something somewhat similar. I think that finance is digitizing. The world's changing. And I think that there's a lot of narrative going on. And we've talked a little bit about this, that this notion of like crypto investing in a vacuum is probably a fool's errand moving forward. And Bitcoin only investing moving forward is also kind of a fool's errand in the sense that when you think about Tradfi and user adoption is multifaceted. Most people, we can't expect them to get to 100% BTC overnight and they don't even get there over the course of a decade, let alone overnight. And so I think building best in class financial service businesses wrapped around some of these core trading pairs, which is stable coins from an easy movement of capital BTC specifically Bitcoin on multi institution custody because you naturally give the underlying user more assurances on whatever allocation they decide. And then gold and equities because I regardless of equity specifically being a overpriced people still have their exposure and will naturally, I think in our view, we'll cycle out of them, but they still want to see those assets. And then gold, but again, gold and Bitcoin in particular in best in class ways because gold as another example, historically the only way for retail to really get their exposure is via GLD. Most people don't know how to get spot. They wouldn't even know where to buy it from if they had to go. You have to call it, you know, your local bullion dealers figure out, you know, what's the over the cost over spot, What are your fees versus being able to buy it via like a digital broker know that you can take delivery if you decided to. That could be part of the solution or you at least have better assurances whether it's the bullion vault that it's sitting at. I think the in the these products doesn't even necessarily have to have all four of those. I think that there's going to be nice opportunities with stablecoins and Bitcoin together and then any of those other two that don't really take a lot about cost in a 2026. When you think about these products and services from a rails perspective already been created, whether it's multi institution, a lot of B to B to C creation around money transmission to get exposure from dollars to BTC, you don't have to go with those money transmission licenses. Multi institutions been set up and now there's a lot of different opportunities, whether it's like Paxos, Tether, Argo, developing gold products where you can potentially take delivery still early, but those are coming about. I think the number of Bitcoin, I'm sorry, gold stable coins is like at all time high like close to $4 billion. So I think that those products and services will be right to what Liam was touching on for acquisition. Some will just be amazing business models. Others individuals might want to just exit because they'll also get increased distribution by being at larger firms, whether it's regional banks, Oregon, larger Triadfy firms. They just don't have the acuity and the the sophistication to build these products because I think that's a big part. Then people discount is it's one thing to integrate and build a a product like this or anything related to what we're talking about. It's a completely other thing to market it because you have to be able to have the the level of tact and sophistication to explain to the market how you can insert these other assets into a modern portfolio that doesn't completely like squash or, you know, just talk down to the other products that these large institutions are selling while still being able to evangelize and explain why you would want gold or Bitcoin in a modern portfolio. I like it. I thought you were going to go with the SAT stacking app, Michael. Well, that that can be part of that. I think there's different flavors, that's the media of traditional like financial services is everyone interacts with their banking partner in a different way and there's different segments of the market and that's what makes this opportunity. It's all the money in the world, it's up for grabs. So I think different implementations, that's what matters more than honestly all of that. It's like what's your area of the market you're going to go and kind of target from a distribution perspective and then grow from there? Yeah, yeah, that's super. It's a really good point. I'm I'm going to go with it's a little self-serving in terms of, you know, what we're doing at on ramp and and sort of the proliferation of of multi institution custody. But I would like to see a neutral Switzerland based key agent that is designed specifically to participate in multi institution custody quorums. And so the the real value prop and key would be its neutrality and reliability, always fulfilling the obligation to sign while participating in in some sort of multi state quorum. And I think that this will be very important just for the maturation and proliferation of of MIC as a standard. So being able to have basically an external quorum participant that sits in Switzerland, so you can add, you know, add this to quorums and you know, increase the sort of geographical diversification in terms of of key holders. I think that that would be a, a very powerful business model that, you know, ultimately if we're right about MIC being a standard that those types of businesses will have to exist all around the world. I just think Switzerland feels like a, a natural sort of first order for this sort of neutral key signer to exist. So that's something I would like to see. Let us know if anyone is building that. There's, there's like entities in Switzerland that could pivot to this pretty easily. But I, I do think that there's an opportunity for a net new business to, to drive towards this. All right, had a great conversation this week with Matthew Montgomery of Maidlow. Matthew's the founder and managing director. He brings 20 plus years of oil and gas experience and his fund strategy focuses on the mineral royalty space. Now, listeners of the show may be more familiar with Bitcoin than they are the mineral and royalty space. And don't worry, we covered both. We discussed how Matthew is pioneering Bitcoin as part of his fund investment strategy and why both energy prices and Bitcoin will go much higher. Excited for this and for Matthew and the Maevo team because I ultimately think that Bitcoin will get in the hands of many investors through investment strategies like this. And so excited for you to check out this episode, get perspectives that maybe are different from you. I think you'll learn from it as I did as well. So enjoy this one and thanks for tuning in to Scarce Assets. Yeah, definitely. I think there's something and been on the radar for a while, there's a lot of gaps in other Bitcoin companies adopting multi institution. A big part of it is anybody that would want to participate has its own. I always call them warts. Probably the better the better way to phrase it. But every company has its own competitive forces and so sometimes you can preclude somebody from partnering where if you naturally have an agnostic T signer similar to like AWS with T set up in different parts of the regulatory regimes can sit there. I was randomly just talking to somebody well known in the space about this in general and all of these things that we brought up to Bryant's point, like reach out because these are the things that, you know, we know people that are looking at it interested and that's part of our build program. And early riders is looking at, you know, seeding and getting these things off the ground could be an interesting opportunity for next year's stables inaugural round for somebody coming down to Texas to build to get something set up. So I think we're going to try to do this, you know, every other week is talk about different products and services. Maybe we'll even go deeper here because I think as we grow our following and and viewership, these will be really great ways to at least put out in the discourse. And even if they if they don't, you don't come to us for finding like these things just need to exist. So yeah, it's a great call. Very well said. All right, boys, I think that was a pretty good recap show. Is there anything we should call out for the audience to reply in in the comments? Maybe prediction of the year if if audience members have predictions for 2026. Yeah, I'd love to hear predictions. If you think we're off base on on our predictions to call them out, we'd love to hear any other feedback. And yeah, any any other segments that you think we should be talking about in the future would be great to hear as well. I don't have it in front of me but I'll I'll I'll do a end of year Christmas gift. Whoever has the best startup idea in the comments. I have a nice honor and vest that I will ship. Rare, Rare vest. Rare on ramp vest. So yeah, I don't know if it'd make more sense if I had to share it to give people interest. I can go grab it. But if not, yeah, honor and vest limited edition for the best. And the way will, because it'll be objective is whichever business idea that gets the most likes by January 1 or by the next episode, whenever we're recording the next episode. I like that. So it'll have about two weeks to to run. All right, you heard it here first boys sound sound off in the comments. Win a Vest win potentially win a a very rare limited edition on Rantfest. Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and we'll see everybody in the New Year 2026. Big, big year for everyone. Thanks boys, Appreciate it. Merry Christmas. Thanks. Thanks for listening to this week's episode of the show. If you found the information valuable, please share the episode with a friend or leave a rating on your favorite podcast app. All the links we discussed in today's show will be in the show notes inside your podcast app. Before we finish, a quick reminder that On Ramp Media is for informational and entertainment purposes only, and nothing should be construed as investment or legal advice. Regardless of where you are on your Bitcoin journey, we'd love to hear from you. Visit onrampbitcoin.com/contact to schedule a consultation with one of our private Client Advisors.
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