Transcript+
Let's be clear, Bitcoin is an international asset. We are spending like drunken sailors. Bitcoin is the only economic entity where the supply is unaffected by the demand. If you want to preserve your wealth, you have to convert that currency into an asset that's scarce, desirable, portable, durable, and maintainable. Stu Bradley, a wealth advisor at Hightower who serves high net worth and ultra high net worth families, joins me today for Scarce Assets. We get into what actually made Bitcoin click for him. It was not a podcast or a chart, but rather a moment at Smoothie King with his family when he realized how quickly purchasing power was deteriorating. From there we dig into inflation, longevity risk, the K shaped economy cycle theory, long term holder behavior, and why 2025 has looked nothing like the euphoric blow off top most people expected. If you're interested in macro financial planning and how it financial advisors are thinking about Bitcoin today, this is a conversation worth listening to. Hope you enjoyed this one. All right, welcome back to Scarce assets. We have a special episode for you this week. I'm joined by Stu Bradley. Stu is a wealth advisor at Hightower, which is one of the largest registered investment advisors in the United States, managing over 300 billion and also the owner of J Stuart Bradley Consulting, a career coaching business. Stu and I first connected back in, I want to say February this year, Stu, back at the Bitcoin Investor Week in New York, which was a great event. I know that's coming up in 26 as well. And so Stu, it's been nice getting to know you over the course of the year. And thank you for joining the podcast. How are you doing? Doing great. Privileged to be here. Thanks for having me, Jackson. You bet. Yeah, I'm looking forward to this one. So, Stu, I think a great place to level set is just if you could give the audience a better sense of your professional background. I know you've worn a lot of hats in your career. You started as an institutional investor. Could you speak to the experiences that you've had over the course of your career and ultimately get us to the present moment? Sure I'll I'll start with the present moment and and work backwards. I like that OK yeah I'm currently in the Saint Louis practice of Hightower Wealth Advisors. So Hightower wealth Advisors nationally manages over 300 billion worth of of client assets. And then this thing was practice is one of those practices. We here in Saint Louis manage about a billion 6 for about 400 families and this practice serves the high net worth and ultra high net worth segment of families. So generally those families with 5 million or more in investable assets. And then our work is about how to simplify the complexities of wealth. Most people think that having more money makes life easier. It actually makes things more complicated in some regards because the stakes are higher. Before Hightower, I was full time running my own youth coaching practice. This was a niche focused on helping youth land top internships and full time roles even without prior experience and especially in this age of AI with that changing so much so I was working as a full time career coach. I still do that and on a part time basis with just a handful of families. You know, moving to Hightower was a chance to continue to serve as a coach, but then also build on that finance background that I had developed prior. And I can I can talk more about kind of how I got into finance. Yeah, Why don't we do that? I think it's interesting, you know, certainly makes a lot of sense in terms of the career coaching and the advisor. You know, you're sitting in a seat of being an expert advising on a domain expertise that you understand very deeply and are able to kind of shed insights and guide in a similar manner. And if you could just make me walk us back a little bit further on the institutional investment side, what did that look like? What type of roles did you have there? Yeah. So I got into finance by earning my International Studies master's degree at the Lauder Institute at Upenn and earning my MBA at the same time at the Wharton School. And so that was kind of my intro into finance and after Wharton, I moved into investment banking and then later fund management. And my area of interest at the time was Asia that so my acts, my scope of activities in investment banking and fund management was highly connected to activity and investment in Hong Kong and in Mainland China. And maybe my openness to Bitcoin as a new form of money, you know, came from having earned salaries in different currencies, not just the dollar. You know, in some years I was earning Hong Kong dollars, in other years I was earning Chinese yuan. And along the way, I earned both the CFA charter or the charter and then earned the CFP marks. And that gave me a foundation in both investments and planning. As an investment banker, I had been with HSBC full time and then with UBS in mainland China working on traditional IPOMNA types of transactions and then subsequently, subsequently working in fund management with a hedge fund known as Vision Capital Advisors. This was the business of merger arbitrage primarily working with in my area that I focused on. So I was running, inherited a portfolio of a bunch of direct investments that had then crossed over to become public companies. So kind of managing that portfolio that I inherited was the the chunk of the main chunk of my experience at Vision and then moved, eventually moved into retail brokerage. I was a head of international for Scottrade, which was subsequently sold to TD and now it's part of Schwab. And that was an interesting experience. And then with my focus at that point, not just in China but back in Saint Louis, I was working with some local private equity teams here doing transactions prior to starting my coaching business when I was really just looking for something different outside of institutional investing. So for me, joining Hightower kind of brought everything together. So it was that investment banking background, my interest in planning, my passion for working closely with families, that's what led me to working here at Hightower. That's fascinating. So yeah, that's a bit of a different angle than most people cite in terms of initial maybe starting to grasp the value of Bitcoin, right. So you mentioned that you had that international experience, China and Hong Kong build a career out there. And when Bitcoin popped up on your radar, that lens gave you perspective to appreciate maybe some of the challenges that come with foreign currency, you know, FX and just the ability of maybe managing bank accounts in different currencies and and earning to your point in different currencies. So I'm curious between that and then also other exposures that you've had to Bitcoin, what ultimately was really the click for you? Because I think we discussed just very briefly before we hit record here, they're not, you know, there's still a big lack of understanding as it relates to Bitcoin in wealth management and institutional finance. And so I'm curious why Stu was able to understand Bitcoin may be ahead of the curve, right? We're still very early in terms of understanding and adoption of the asset. Yeah, I'd like to think so. I I actually first heard about Bitcoin in 2017 and didn't really spend any time with it. So when something, when this particular interest in Bitcoin clicked or something clicked about it, it was actually a trip to my local Smoothie King. So we were driving. This is I'm, I mean, I consider myself fairly late to the game in the sense that I really only started to pay attention to this in 2024. So I'm a newbie, I would say by most, most standards. So my kids wanted to stop by Smoothie King and I'm thinking, well, why not? Why don't we go in there? I've been a long time since I've been to a Smoothie King and I remember distinctly barely getting out of there with any change from a $20 bill. And I'm thinking, what the heck just happened here sitting in my car wondering how did I barely get out of Smoothie King with any change? And it was around so that this experience of, wow, things that I'm purchasing seem to be a lot more expensive than I recall. So really visceral experience. OK, so around that time, I had also been studying the work produced by Kiril Sokoloff and his team over at 13D Research. And Kiril is not a crypto evangelist. He is a long standing macro investor, So what stood out from that research was that his team had been doing years of serious sober analysis and his team has been looking into blockchain, digital assets and the broader geopolitical and monetary landscape, namely, you know, what we were going through at that time as regards inflation. So I'm looking at buying a smoothie, you know, post COVID when you know, as I've seen reported, you know, 40% of today's supply of currency was printed in that very short period of time. And I'm starting to put some things together. I'm thinking about money and investments in the context of why am I paying so much for these things that I didn't think would cost this much. And that's all couched in the question of, well, what what is my purpose? What am I working for? And I thought, well, I'm working to take care of my family. And I'm wondering what it might mean in the future if I can't get out of a smoothie can for less than $20 today. So that's when things kind of clicked for me. Yeah, I saw I started to learn about how Bitcoin wasn't simply, you know, number go up. It was part of a much bigger conversation about inflation, debt cycles, trust and institutions and technological change. So the moment it clicked, I started seeing Bitcoin in that lens of long term stewardship of purchasing power and that non crypto focused macro investors were also taking these developments in digitally native currencies quite seriously. So that's that's how it clicked. It was this question about how do you manage risk in this uncertain world? And so that's when Bitcoin went from kind of ignoring it to being curious to then something worth understanding, deeply interesting. When was that trip to Smoothie King did you say? Yeah, I was a trip to Smoothie King, you know, toward, you know, toward the in the fall of 2024. 2024 OK, yeah, so there's a number of things that we want to cover in today's episode, but I I want to at least stop on this point for just a second because still you're not the first person who has lived post COVID and taken a pause at the receipt or at the bill that lands in your mailbox and said, well what's going on here right Why are things so expensive? Do you think it was just a matter of having the the background that you have and reading the macro research that allowed you to really pull these things together? Because you know, where I'm coming from is I see this in my own life. Let me see this out a little bit further. I see this in my own life where everyone is experiencing inflation one way or another, right? There's no denying that home prices, utilities, insurance, food, everything is far more expensive than it was 5 or 10 years ago here in the United States. But I still think there are very few people that actually come to the conclusion, put Bitcoin aside for a second, but come to the conclusion of, well, what is actually driving this inflation? Why do you think that is? What's the disconnect between the top of funnel, everyone experiencing inflation, bottom of funnel understanding what is driving inflation? You know, everyone is experiencing inflation, but I think very few people actually sit with that. And we'll get to the root cause as to why this, why there, why inflation is happening, why is the purchasing power of the dollar decreasing? Well, I, I think, you know, why, why would I have taken time to sit with that? It, you know, it's, it's maybe a different answer for different people. In my case. I'll, I'll start with a brief story. So a couple weeks ago here at the CFA Society in Saint Louis, we welcome Doctor Todd Frisch. Doctor Todd Frisch and his wife Linda are pioneers in the area of face reading. And so as part of the CFA presentation, I volunteered to have my face read by this renowned face reading expert. And one thing he pointed out was that my earlobes are closely attached to the side of my face, whereas they don't hang as opposed to hanging out attached closely to the face and closely to the side of the head. And apparently from the expert face reading perspective, that means that I'm a very family focused person. So I am all about family. And I would say that's true. That's consistent with my own lived experience. That's just kind of in my DNA. So interestingly, apparently a lot of these things are expressed in our facial features and the shape of our face. So for me, why would I pause and spend time on that topic and as opposed to just say brushing it off and saying, well, I'm not going to buy that anymore or geez, that's really expensive anyway, I still want it. And why would I be looking for an answer beyond that? And I think a lot of it has to do with the connection to family and to realize that I'm going to work every day and it's not about me. It's about who I'm providing for and the future that they're going to have. So when I'm sitting with that, when I'm sitting with a purchase decision, I'm making it in the context of that frame, OK. And so I also take that frame into the macro research I'm doing. It's what gives it meaning, you know, otherwise these things are just words on paper or just intellectual exercises. The question is, you know, what does it actually mean for me, for my family when I'm paying this for this thing or I'm reading this research? So I think that's probably the connective tissue that brings it all together. And apparently, according to Doctor Todd Fresh, you can just read it in my face if you're looking closely enough. Yeah, wasn't, I was not a familiar that that was a profession. But it makes a lot of sense. I'm sure that a lot can be gleaned from from looking at one's face. So it comes back to meaning and you know, I'm experiencing this myself as, as you know, as being a new father and, and thinking through things a little bit more deeply in terms of, you know, my lived experiences and having to now provide for not just my wife, but also for our baby. And so I, I certainly can appreciate where you're coming from there, although you have have me beat in terms of more experience doing so, but I'll catch up there one day. So in terms of what's connect meaning then to Bitcoin, right? So we talked about some of the lived experiences that kind of came to a head between the macro research. You know, thinking about your family orientation, experiencing inflation got you to be primed to start to understand the problem and then search for a solution. You spoke about Bitcoin and some other crypto assets, but what really clicked for you in terms of understanding why Bitcoin could be a potential solution to the problems that you were experiencing? And why couldn't it have been other assets or other crypto assets? Yeah, well, I also own gold, so you know why, why I own Bitcoin when with. I would say now that I've been exposed to this broader conversation again, the years of research that the 13D team had been doing, that's just kind of my entry point there. I came to learn that there are new asset classes now being built on top of the Internet. Call them digitally native assets, call it crypto. Some are designed to be a better form of storing value and means of exchange. Others are designed to do other things. And I would say that, you know, the interest as a wealth advisor is that one of the real risks for people today, especially retirees, executives, business owners, is longevity risk. Rick Edelman talks about this a lot. To hear him explain it, he says, well, if you're alive in 20-30, there's a good chance you're going to live much longer than financial planning models have historically, you know, historically assume. So we are, you know, in our modeling, we are modeling out to very ripe old ages, right. And so naturally we're interested in in having those asset allocations that are going to be performing for clients in that what we call the deaccumulation phase. So you're not accumulating through owning businesses necessarily or say earning a salary, you may continue to own a business, but you're in that retirement phase, you're deaccumulating, you're using your you're living off of your investments. So the natural question becomes, you know, what are the assets that might continue to hold value in a world where technology, demographics, what money itself, when these things are all evolving? And if you add in say SEC Chairman Atkins announcing project crypto, whereby financial markets will all be quote moving on chain UN quote. If we look at the Genius Act, which is the first legislation supporting cryptocurrency, right, then we're starting to get very interested in, OK, what is this stuff? What is what is a digitally native cryptocurrency? And then the question is, what is crypto and which crypto? So I personally started playing around with all types of different crypto projects. For me, Bitcoin represents optionality into that future where things are moving on chain, where we are evolving in terms of our demographics, the way money is changing. Bitcoin is the oldest cryptocurrency, it is the most battle tested, It is survived multiple cycles, regulatory scrutiny, significant adoption challenges. So. So This is why it emerges as the most interesting of all the options that are out there. If I were to paraphrase the research I've read, it represents the next best iteration on money in terms of scarcity, divisibility, portability, durability, fungibility, all of those things that define sound money. Other crypto projects can be great, but none of them all check the those boxes like Bitcoin does. So then the question emerges as a wealth advisor, does that mean that everyone should own it? I would say not. Any allocation should be tied to a person's financial plan and to their ability to sleep at night. So if owning Bitcoin causes anxiety, even if it goes to the moon, right, it may not be serving the client. So when I think about the broader questions, I'm thinking, OK, in an era where AI reshapes productivity, in an era where AI agents are transacting automatically, is it really the 1970s banking rails that are a fit for that job? Probably not. So having a small exposure to the most proven digitally made of asset is probably just good risk management. So it's not about speculation, it's it's more about diversification, preparing for a future that may look different from the past, and getting optionality in how to preserve savings, large or small over that longer time frame. When it comes to holding Bitcoin securely, Peace of Mind starts with architecture on ramps. 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 On Ramp coordinates security, compliance and operational workflows behind the scenes. It's strength of money 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. Yeah, you know what, the longevity aspect is interesting because if I juxtaposed the two, Bitcoin in terms of its longevity as an asset is quite short, especially relative to another asset. You mentioned that you own gold, very long track record in gold. Bitcoin hasn't even existed yet for two decades. Yet you started to pull out in that early response to the question that the fact that people are going to live longer, perhaps outlive retirement in terms of how frameworks have been set up over the past several decades. And Bitcoin in your opinion, it sounds like plays a role in extending the longevity of retirement of investments, if I understood that correctly. Could you explain a little bit further in terms of how you'd think about this personally, if that's like, if that's the context you're comfortable sharing, could you explain how you personally think about Bitcoins role in extending the runway of your personal retirement and your investments? That's a very good question. So I think it ultimately it has to do with this is where I want to do more research, the exponential nature of things. So if we are going to see exponential increases in productivity due to say the introduction of artificial general intelligence or artificial intelligence, no exponential increases in anything need to be balanced by our ability to potentially save on an exponential basis. So what is that going to be is the question where have we seen, you know, if we look at the performance of different asset classes? So I was recently at one of our well wasn't that recent, it was the beginning of 2025. We were at our January internal team meeting and we were having this as as an it was an off site event. One of the trivia questions was what has been the best performing asset class in 20 over the last year. And the answer was Bitcoin. And if you look at say Black Rocks research, they have this periodic table of the elements type of analysis where you can look at every asset class across every year. You do see that this asset class has been the best performer out of in eight out of the 10 years from 2014 to 2024. And so in thinking about what is it, what is the right combination of investments that will allow us to live longer, we should be thinking about where technology demographics, where our fiscal position, where all those are coming together and what those are going to look like in the future. And so if you are looking at a type of asset that is inflation resistant, tamper resistant, isn't controlled by anyone particular government, isn't burdened by weighing a certain amount of, you know, pounds or kilograms or oz and allowing you to move that without respect to borders, you're probably going to start getting interested in that particular asset class. And so that is my current thinking on the optionality that holding some amount of Bitcoin in a portfolio can offer. And of course there are gradations of that kind of ownership, whether it would be owner owned on an exchange through, through on ramp through a multi sig type of solution or you know, in cold storage on your own, you know, cold wallet, for example, those those are gradations of understanding and involvement. I think when it comes to where we sit right now as a traditional financial advisor, wealth advisor, we are looking at allocations. We are not stock pickers. We are looking at allocations. So what is the type of allocation that is going to allow people to enjoy a longer life? And I think it's in that context that we need to be thinking about answers to that question. And so Bitcoin cryptocurrency naturally enters into that conversation. It's Yeah, that makes sense. You know what else, Stu, has been increasing exponentially is the the debt of the, the federal debt of the US government. It's been 4. There was $400 billion of debt in 1971, which of course is when the United States moved away from the pegging of the dollar to gold. And since then we've seen the debt exponentially increase to, I think we're roughly ballpark $38 trillion in federal debt. So could you walk us through a lot of the frameworks you talked about are in the context of just thinking since like just thinking strategically about long term optionality and also to your point, having Peace of Mind. I think that's really a focal point of our business as well at On Ramp in some ways similar, in some ways different, but people need to have Peace of Mind. And I think it's probably hard to have Peace of Mind if you are worried about outliving your retirement, you know, worrying about your finances on a daily basis. It's just not a comfortable way to live. And I'm curious to get your thoughts in terms of, you know, Bitcoin going forward. How do you try to articulate this to your colleagues at Hightower or in the wealth management industry to clients around the idea of owning Bitcoin as a strategic allocation? Is is the debt one of the first things that you may point to, or are there other places you like to go first in terms of that education? Yeah, I think we can meet people where they are. So, you know, how do I speak to colleagues and clients about Bitcoin? What resonates, what doesn't? How do you communicate on it? Right now we're seeing clients coming in with questions and that's probably the most attractive selling point when it comes to speaking with my colleagues is if the clients are asking about it. And so I think that's the place to start. And clients may be asking about it for different reasons. Business owners report, you know, you know, and what why you know, what are these hackers out there in, you know, in the, in the healthcare industry doing when they are, you know, demanding, you know, ransoms in Bitcoin. Can you explain that to me? What's going on? So where I I listen to a podcast and the podcaster said this. So clients come in with questions and it could be from any particular angle and rather than trying to preach about Bitcoin or crypto, which I don't think will go well, having a, a personal, you know, mission to convert anybody, I don't think that's the, the approach. I think that the market and clients will, will raise the question in turn. So it could come from any angle. And, and maybe the conversation to your question is about the national debt or about inflation, or it's my son or daughter buying Bitcoin. Why are they doing this? So meeting people where they are internally within a wealth advisory practice, it's good for advisors to speak about it, if only so that when someone asks, we don't have some sort of knee jerk reaction or stare blindly at the person or just outright say, hey, this is a scam, you know, you shouldn't even be looking at it. Now, I, I think it's good idea to have a, a well informed take. So then if clients, so where we sit at Hightower, if clients want to have an allocation to that, This is something that during our, with our current compliance set up, this is something where we, we can currently offer access to Bitcoin through an unlevered ETF. That's one way to gain exposure. And then recently Hightower across all of its practices has, has revealed, has ruled out a the deepening of the collaboration that we have with Fidelity as a custodian. Where we are allowed, we are we're on a non discretionary basis. Clients can tap into the resources of Fidelity crypto. So where we custody majority of client assets already now they have access to these crypto specific types of accounts and Hightower is now is is now making that available on a non discretionary basis to clients. And that's in the service of potentially offering, you know, offering services in that regard in the future. It's all about if it strengthens the overall financial plan and if it helps clients sleep at night, other clients are going to possibly see this whole crypto thing as something being just pumped by a particular political administration, you know, and, and there's just going to be no way, no way to even engage on that as far as diversification is concerned. And that's, you know, that's fine. It's just not something to explore further. So it's not really about being pro Bitcoin or anti Bitcoin when you speak to advisors, your colleagues or clients, It's about being really focused on what's a pro planning stance, What's a pro risk management stance? What gives you more optionality for the people that we serve? That's that's how I like to approach it. Right. It's a balance and nuance perspective that I think this industry misses in a lot of ways in in many different topics. Because some people may hear this show and hear Stu say, well, not everyone should own Bitcoin because a lot of people think that everyone should own Bitcoin in this industry has this industry tends to over allocate to Bitcoin. I would say that rather than under allocate. But the important thing that you just teased out is couple of aspects meeting people where they're at, right? People aren't going to necessarily understand the merits of owning Bitcoin unless they want to understand the merits of owning Bitcoin, right? Because it is such a radical technology. You describe it as a as a competing emerging form of money. And those topics may take quite a while for someone to understand. And so I certainly can resonate with the fact that it needs to be client driven in many cases, otherwise it may fall on deaf ears. The other critical thing about this as well as Peace of Mind. So I think some people will go back and point at the data and say, well, you know, a 1% or 3%, five, 10% allocation to Bitcoin in most cases increases the risk adjusted return of a portfolio. But what you're saying is, yes, that's true. But if the client is up at night because they see the Bitcoin price crash 30% like we've seen in the past month, and that's causing them all sorts of banks and discomfort and concern and maybe ends up wanting to sell and liquidate at the worst time possible, then maybe it's not the best idea to have an allocation of Bitcoin or maybe not as the size that people expect them to be at, if I'm understanding that correctly. And if so, one thing I wanted to get your thoughts on as well, Stu, I just wanted to at least capture a lot of what you said there because I think it's important to highlight there is nuance particularly in the wealth spaces relates to Bitcoin. So you mentioned, you mentioned a little bit earlier that at the retreat, I forget if it was a retreat or how you describe it in in January of 2025, earlier this year, the question, one of the trivia questions was what was the best performing asset in 2024 and it was Bitcoin. But now we are almost in the 12th month of this year, we're just about wrapping up November and Bitcoin is the worst performing asset class of 2025. And I think if you were to ask just about any industry participant at the start of 2025, where did you expect the Bitcoin price to be at the end of this year? 99 out of 100 people would say higher, right? People who participate in this industry, yeah, we're lagging just about every other major asset class that's positive year to date. And Bitcoin is sitting somewhere, I think around 8 or 9% down for the year. I'm curious too, is this, was this a contrast to your expectations to start the year in terms of performance and how things have developed over 2025? And are you able to speak to from your perspective why Bitcoin is underperformed in this calendar year? Well, there's, there's, there's, there's a wise saying by my friend who has since entered a monastery, who has said that expectations are suffering under construction. Expectations are suffering under construction. So with that said, I would say we all did expect that 2025 was going to be the year when we had some sort sort of euphoric blow off top. If you listen to the YouTube influencers who make their money off of ads, I would say notably, they are very happy to make all those prognostications. And it's, it's worth, you know, it's worth surveying what, what, what the, you know, the Internet has to say about price action. There's also a saying that price action drives narrative and not the other way around. So narrative is not driving price action in this year. So you know what, what can we say about it? Well, one, we can look at the the behavior of Bitcoin from a number of different takes right on chain perspective, the four year cycle theory, we can look at a macro backdrop. These are all interesting takes. So, you know, I would say yes, 2025 everyone was thinking, hey, this is going to be much a great year. We did see a new high. So from the perspective of the four year cycle theory, I think we can all agree that the four year cycle theory in some regards has played out. We have achieved a a new all time high in the fourth quarter of the year after the having. So what's the deal right? Well, we also expect according to that theory that there will be a bear market to follow. So there is a very good chance that the peak was reached 125,000. And if so, it was an odd experience for those who have been in Bitcoin for a while because there was no euphoria. Retail interest has been muted. And so this can be related to these other reasons as well, like the macro backdrop. If you look at the on chain perspective, what's happened, you can see that the Ogs, right, the old guard, they've been those who've been holding Bitcoin say for longer than five years have been selling. Why? Well, one spin on this is credit to Jordy Vesser who commented that this is Bitcoins IPO moment so the long term holders can finally cash out. You no longer move the market when you sell a billion dollars worth of Bitcoin. So again, here we are seeing the price action and looking for a narrative to describe it so we could talk about the on chain perspective, cycle theory, the macro backdrop. 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 one, 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 appreciated 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. I would love to talk about the macro backdrop because I mean there's all sorts of things we can discuss here, right, Stu? Because to your point, if we were to look at the cycle theory, perhaps things are playing out as they have every four year cycle. We reached an all time high in the fourth quarter and things have since started to draw down. I think there's a little bit of a disbelief in the industry right now because to your point, there was no blow off top euphoric moment. We didn't really set that much of an all time high relative to the previous all time high in 2021, especially inflation adjusted. So I think we could talk more about that. But I also think importantly, given your background and some of the things you shared today, owning gold and viewing or or following independent macro research like 13 DI think I came across them as well at some point in the COVID era when I was really starting to dig more into some of the independent macro voices out there, no pun intended, macro voices as a podcast as well that I would tune into. So I'm curious to like on the macro side, if we start there, what are your thoughts? Because we're, you know, QT is coming to an end, quantitative tightening to to not use jargon is coming to an end. Interest rates seem to be consensus lower next year. So do you think that the macro is going to, how do you think the macro impacts the price? Is it possible in 26 that we do see a disconnect from the four year cycle? We are in a period of fiscal dominance, so large, persistent deficits and debt essentially force the central Bank of the United States to prioritize government financing needs over its primary mandate of maintaining price stability. So we are likely to see prices rise. We are also a period of stagflation. So with prices rising and going higher, unemployment is rising and going higher. The only thing that's missing at this point from the stagflation thesis right now is a severe breakdown of the US dollar. But the setup is positioned for a drop. So the DXY that U.S. dollar index is trading right at the top of its uptrend line. So you know, what does that mean for for Bitcoin QT ending like you talked about in December? OK, That is the sign that someone somewhere sees something isn't right in the economy and they want to get out ahead of that. So QT ending, we might think, oh, Hooray, there's going to be more liquidity and that's going to support bitcoin's price. On the other hand, that's also a signal that, oh, actually something isn't going quite right. So what are we looking at right now on the macro side? Well, economists are using the letter K to describe the diverging fortunes of segments in the economy that are doing well. You know, in this version of AK, it's the upper arm of that K versus segments of the economy that are doing poorly. That's the lower arm of the letter K. And that divergent is showing up in numerous instances in markets and the economy. We, you know, we're concerning, it's concerning that these diverging trends are symptoms of some underlying problems that may not end well. So that if you look at the consumer, we're looking at 10% of households driving the majority of consumption that drives the economy, not good for the economy and not particularly a boon for the Bitcoin price. If we need a broad sustained interest from retail. If we look at market cap, that K shaped feature is also there. The top 10 mega cap stocks moving typically had been moving higher right and that at a time when another metric the equal weighted S&P 500 against capitalization weighted S&P 500 is declining. So we got the top 10 mega caps with as of October, the combined enterprise value was more than 75% of USGDP. And around the end of October, when I last checked, according to JP Morgan, 41 AI related stocks accounted for almost half of the S&P 500 market cap, whereas 459 stocks accounted for 53%. So if we let that sink in for a moment, we're thinking, you know, this, this this is a problem. So long term, I would say it's bullish both for for gold and for Bitcoin in the sense that, you know, the Fed faces very difficult choice, which will probably end in more currency, you know, the money printer being printed, more money sloshing around the economy. It's the nature of of the way governance works today to to typically just to kind of shy away from austerity. And so we probably are going to see significant inflation, in which case gold and Bitcoin should do well. So in 2025, we, we, we were underwhelmed by, by bitcoins price movement. The year isn't over yet. We are asking a lot of questions for those of us, you know, I'm not specifically, you know, a a on chain Bitcoin specialist, but there are people who are doing that looking at right now, OK, is, you know, where, where are we going to land? Is it going to be, you know, somewhere, you know, near the average, you know, cost for the ETFs? Is it going to be somewhere north of that, South of that? Not probably not South of that, but is, you know, where is it going to land? And, and, and so that's causing us to ask a lot of questions, but I would also say that if you're in Bitcoin for that kind of long, for that short term kind of benefit, I would say you, you might end up being disappointed. So you know, we, we, we see Bitcoin from my research, I understand that if you're holding time is five years or greater, there is never a time when you have lost money owning Bitcoin. So having been the top performing asset over the last 10 years, being a long term holder of it, resulting in you never losing money given the data that we currently have. You know, there, there is a, there are signals in the market here or potentially, you know, owning those inflation resistant types of assets like gold like Bitcoin is, is a good place to be given the data that we have. So yeah, that's just a little bit of a, you know, my take on the macro picture. You know what we're what we've been seeing on chain the, you know, 4-4 years, four year cycle theory involved there. Do we think the four year cycle is going to going to end? I don't know. You know where does that four year cycle come from to begin with, right. Probably very little at this point having to do with the having cycle where it might have been much more important, the having events having a much bigger impact on bitcoins inflation earlier in its life versus now with the inflation being around, you know, 0.87% per year at the moment, which is lower than gold's historical inflation would seem to think that Bitcoin would be a good place to be. So 2025, if you've just entered the market, you know you might not be particularly happy. Hopefully you are a long term holder and you see what's happening in the macro backdrop and you're thinking, OK, what would be a tamper free scarce asset to hold on to that would preserve purchasing power no matter what happens? Yeah, Fairpoint. I mean, like any, any imprudent investor should be thinking long term, right, as relates to a financial plan or investing. And so the same should be said about Bitcoin. If your expectations were that you're going to get rich by owning Bitcoin in 2025, well, you actually invested in the most underwhelming bull market or bull cycle to date. But that doesn't mean that the thesis behind Bitcoin is invalidated going forward. And so that's really what people need to pay more attention to and think about is this really is a test of patience. It really is due to your earlier point. It's a store hold of wealth. And so like anything that should be thought of as a long term oriented investment. And I'm curious too as well. You, you mentioned some things that I think are particularly interesting and, and seem to be only getting worse in terms of the K shaped economy as you, you know, as you described it, but as media outlets and, and many people have described it. But it's not just the economy. It's also to your point, the financial markets. And I think at one point the financial markets and the economy were a little bit more intrinsically related. And now, you know, you could have a weak economy, but you could have financial markets that are ripping higher. That point aside, I am really curious just to hear your thoughts as an advisor about the K shaped economy, about, you know, some of the job losses that we've seen this year. I think October of this year in particular was one of the worst, was the worst month of layoffs since October of 2003, if I interpreted that data correctly. And to your point, the concentration in equity markets in the United States is only getting, it's only getting more concentrated over time. So how do you think about that personally in financial plans? How does that the concentration we're experiencing currently, how does that actually tie into some of the points that you made around inflation going higher in 26? Are they connected or are they 2 separate? Thoughts. Siri, repeat that question for me one more time. I was hoping to get your. I was hoping for you to go into more detail on the K shaped economy, K shaped financial markets, the implications for investors who want to preserve their wealth. And also you mentioned inflation going higher. Likely you know, your perspective is fiscal dominance, inflation goes higher in 26. Are those two, are those two connected or are they 2 separate? Thoughts of yours in terms of thinking about the AI concentration, the K shaped economy, but also inflation going higher because plumbing is getting wonky. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's some, that's a complex question, right? The relationship between the K shaped economy and inflation, I mean a lot of it. It's not something that I've put a lot of thought into in terms of how do I square those things. I can see them coexisting. How one informs the other. I'm not sure anybody really knows. I think, I think there are we have something known as initial conditions. So people who households who have the initial conditions to have been in possession of wealth leading up to this point are going to fare well, probably continue to fare well. And the impact of inflation isn't going to be as severe on that, that segment of society and the, you know, how does that tie into inflation? Well, you know, for, for those, for those organizations that have been able to, to, given the initial conditions to organizations, households that have been able to take advantage of, you know, the printing of, you know, of more money, you know, they, they are getting out on the front end of, of the impacts of inflation. So as that money, you know, gets released into the economy through, through the banking system, you know, the beneficiaries of that new money, so to speak, are able to act on it before it moves on to other hands. And the cost of things has had a chance to catch up, meaning that the people who ultimately are then transacting in that newly created money are facing higher prices. So it would seem like these are reinforcing each other. It would seem that the K shaped economy is reinforced by the presence of inflation and that inflation is somehow reinforced in some ways by the K shaped economy in the sense that at these sustained at these sustained higher prices, there is still significant demand. So the question that everyone's exploring and trying to ask is at what point will the consumer capitulate? And so that is when inflation and the case of the economy collide in some ways where the, the net impact is that consumers aren't spending. And that is when governments are going to need to take more aggressive, aggressive stances to whether it's through an additional printing or, you know, other mechanisms. Again, I'm, it's hard for me to, to speculate and I don't want to speculate as to what else would happen. But the that is the main question is how long can the consumer hold out and, and more immediately, for example, if you look at tariffs, for example, how much longer will companies absorb the cost of tariffs in order to allow the consumer to consume or be willing to consume. So there are a lot of moving parts in that specifically as to how that would play out. But if we see a situation where the, the consumer is capitulating, then we know that it's time to, to take much stronger action. And because we, what we don't want is this to spiral into something that, you know, we're leading into, you know, a situation that we, we're, we're desperately hoping to avoid where, you know, consumers can't, we can't, you know, we can't achieve the goals that we want to achieve. So when it comes to making an allocation to, you know, what kind of portfolio works for you, again, that's a very personal situation, depending on your risk tolerance, depending on where you are at your stage of life. So if you're younger, by all means, you know, be taking more equity type risk with a high degree of human capital yet to be expended. If you are later in in your years than, you know, the human capital, the, the, the amount of years that you can go out and work and earn a salary are on the lower side. So you're hoping that your allocation to various investments will, you know, will be more stable and be sufficient. So we have to just look at this, you know, day by day, of course when we're making allocations, we are we are making allocations at Hightower. We do not pick stocks in this practice. We're looking for strategic allocations. So we are thinking about these questions, we're thinking about the macro picture, we're thinking about the strength of the consumer and all that we do with the intended outcome being what is the allocation that we can buy and hold for long term benefit. So it's that's a really great question and something that, you know, we are exploring every, you know, everyday as a society, you know, what is this K shaped economy? Where is it headed? What is, what is, you know, what is the impact of inflation on that and vice versa. Certainly something that we can read a lot about. And at the end of the day, we need to find the allocations that people are comfortable with that we think anticipates the to our best, you know, best estimate based on research. What is, you know, the, the best allocation that's going to help people navigate, you know, whatever it is, you know, based on the thousands of statistical, you know, hypothetical Monte Carlo simulations that we can make and preparing plans. What what is that going to be? And so great question. And we are here to make sure that people are allocated as the best, best way possible given, you know, all of that uncertainty. Here's what keeps bitcoiners awake. You're still securing millions of dollars the same way you secured thousands. That hardware wallet in your drawer. Your family's entire future depends on you not losing it for getting the PIN or something happening to you on ramps. Multi institution custody removes that burden. Three independent institutions hold your keys. No single point of failure. No seed phrases to protect, no explaining complex recovery processes to your spouse. And now we're offering flat tier pricing. One predictable monthly fee starting at $250. Other Bitcoin is at 100K or 500K plus with on right buyer raise. You get the same institutional security with tax advantage growth. This is how smart investors protect generational wealth without the weight on their shoulders. There's strength in many. Learn more at on rampbitcoin.com. Well, Stu, you did a nice job there. I know that was a complex topic and bringing together a few different ideas and thought you answered it well, you know, I know we're coming up on time here. I was hoping to get your thoughts on another topic just briefly, But the transfer of wealth, I think it does just tie into what you mentioned around concentration of consumption in the economy, concentration of asset ownership. And there's the transfer of wealth from baby boomers to millennials, Gen. Z. That is going to be happening and is happening at the moment. But for the next one to two decades, I'm curious how that'll impact allocating to Bitcoin in your opinion? And maybe if you want to share just more broadly how you think the wealth management industry will evolve in this transfer of wealth? Well, the majority of, I would say the average high net worth wealth advisory practice today is mainly serving baby boomers. And these tend these, these groups, these households tend to be allocators, excuse me, delegators. So they're happy to delegate their, their finances to a professional advisor and help them navigate all the complexities. The, the, the next generations may look very different. And I think it's, I think people understand that. With the rails of the Internet being available to us, that with, with the SEC and its commitment to bring financial assets on chain, we are entering in a very new space, both in terms of the types of investable assets that exist, but also the, the behaviors and proclivities of the clientele of a wealth management practice. So I think to be well prepared, I think it's wise for advisors to be open to this idea that more and more of, of our, you know, investable asset classes are going to look, you know, are going to look different and that our clients are likely going to have different interests. Not today, not next year per SE, but you know, the next generation as it transitions to as wealth transitions to new hands, they're going to have different ideas. They're not necessarily going to work with their parents advisors, although I know many who are very much wedded to their parents advisors because of that familiarity and family connection. So I think it's, it's good to walk into this new era without a lot of expectation, right? To be open to how things may shift and to be prepared. And that means developing your wealth advisory team so that you have a blend of age groups, you have a blend of interests and personalities. And it's good that you are looking out on the investment landscape and considering the the broadest possible ways to allocate investments so that you are well prepared for whatever this future brings us. Yeah, it makes sense. Well, Stu, I do want to be respectful of your time. I think we covered a lot of what we wanted to today in wrapping up this conversation. Is there anywhere that you would like to send people who would want to get in touch with you? Oh, sure. I think one, couple things, if you're, if you're new, completely new to Bitcoin and cryptocurrency and and so on and so forth, I do recommend the the presentation that now lives on the Saint Louis County Library website and maybe you can put a link to that in the show notes. I think that's a nice introduction to some of the concepts we're talking about today. And it's very shareable. It's shareable in the sense that Saint Louis County Library has made that their first ever presentation on Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. It's also something that the high Tower compliance team has taken a look at and has given a pass on. So that's a good place to just learn more about Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. And then our firm, Hightower Wealth Advisor Saint Louis. This particular practice, we, we are, we are here in Saint Louis, We work and I would recommend checking out our website. There you can see the team. We are an ensemble practice, so we pair up advisors with households, with clients. So we have a very redundant team based approach to serving clients. We are very high touch. If you were to call up the Hightower office, you would not get a phone tree, you would get a human on the line speaking to you. So perhaps you could leave our web address, maybe our main phone number in the show notes I can share here. It is area code 3145984060. We serve clients all over the country. So yes, we have a strong contingent of Midwestern clients, but we serve clients. This particular practice in Saint Louis serves people all over the United States. So look forward to to having more conversations. You know, one of the things that we like to do that we least think is most helpful to people is to give them a second opinion on their allocation. Are they well positioned for what's to come? And so one thing we sometimes do is if someone gears about Hightower and wants to learn more, of course, you're welcome to do a general meet and greet. The next step after that is to take a look at your statements, take a look at your tax returns, your investment account, and give you what we like to call in Saint Louis, a show me meeting because this is after all, the show me state. So giving you some observations which you can work on your own to you know to inform your your next steps. Or you could consider entering into a relationship with Hightower to help you implement some of those observations. Excellent. Well, thank you, Stu. And I will say the presentation that you did for the Saint Louis County Library was excellent. So we'll include all those resources that you refer to in the show notes. So Stu, thanks again. It was a pleasure to have you on scarce assets. Appreciate your time. Yeah, my pleasure. 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 Rat 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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