Transcript+
All right everyone, welcome to the broadcast. This is where Bitcoin culture meets business and finance. We catch up on news, tweets, videos, charts, trends, and any other Bitcoin and macro related content that stood out to us in the past two weeks. Usually I'm here with Michael and Brian, but now we have a special guest, Joe Consorti. Welcome to the. Stream Yeah, thank you for having me. Excited to be here. Thanks for joining. Yeah. We're happy. We're happy you're here. We don't have a lot of time, so let's just kick off immediately with a link of yours. Joe Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know the the gist here. And I actually have a video going live later tonight. It's live right now for channel members, by the way, but going live tonight, sort of explaining and breaking down what just happened. So for those who are not aware, who are for some reason watching this on Twitter but haven't seen this on Twitter, Jerome Powell yesterday was his last day as Fed chair. It was his last Fed meeting. And it was historic for a number of reasons. Number one, when he's stepping down, he's deciding to stay on the board, which is the first time this has happened in 113 years. The second time it's happened in history. And the last time it happened, the president asked the Fed chair to stay. And, of course, Trump is doing the opposite of asking Powell to stay. And so this is unprecedented. In his press conference, Powell said he's going to be neutral. This is not because he's trying to undermine Kevin Wash. But a lot of skeptics are raising the alarm that that might actually not be the case. And he might be trying to throw a wrench into the new regime with Kevin Wirsh being nominated and going through the Senate and becoming the new Fed chair. And the reason people are thinking that is because the number of disagreements or dissenting opinions at this Fed meeting was the highest that it's been since 1982. So we had four different descents, 3 in One Direction, who said that we should raise rates? One in the direction of cutting rates. Stephen Myron, who actually follows me on Twitter, maybe he's watching this right now. He wanted to cut rates. And so basically, like Powell left the Fed in absolute chaos. And he's also staying behind it as governor. And now we have Kevin Horsch coming in, right? So a lot of crazy stuff happening. But the TLDR and the implications for this on Bitcoin in my mind are Kevin Wash from the reason he was nominated, the reason any of Trump's nominees would have made it is because he basically promised to cut rates for one reason or another. Now explicitly, he's saying that he's going to remain neutral, he's not going to remain politically motivated. But he has said two different things over the last couple of weeks that that lead me to think otherwise. Number one, he's spoken about the fact that we're entering into a new world where AI productivity gains is going to make the inflation that we're currently experiencing massively deflationary. So as a result, the Fed will have more room to cut rates. He has said this explicitly. The second thing he has said, and he said this during his Senate written Senate testimony before the Banking Committee, he said that he believes the metric we're using for inflation is inaccurate. Now us as bitcoiners, we say the same thing. We say inflation is actually way higher, 78910 percent. But he said it in the other direction. He said, oh, inflation is actually closer to 1% or 2%. So he just gave 2 reasons despite all the headline data right now as to why we should cut rates. So yeah, that's basically what's on my mind as far as how this will impact Bitcoin. I mean, it's going to be massively inflationary for one, but either way, lots of chaos at the Fed. So that's why I chose this as #1 Sorry for rambling so long I. Don't know. I love it. I love it. I mean, I, I, I always tell other people I love how you talk. So I'm happy that this is the intro for me. It kind of feels like this is kind of like a fog of war or like the fog of, of, you know, some sort of of, of power struggle because, you know, him, him saying that inflation is actually lower, you know, doesn't make any sense, but it doesn't really matter because he's just, you know, creating an argument for the policy he wants to follow. At least that's kind of how I'm receiving that. And I want to ask you guys a question because and, and I think you both can explain it better than me. But but the federal, the, the Fed is kind of in this conundrum, right? Like you, you have runaway debt, you have runaway inflation right there is there there are only bad things they can do essentially, right, Like either turn on the printer or not and and keep on raising rates and then combined with this deflationary force of AI MM and I talked about this recently. I find it interesting that he actually mentions it because a lot of like Fiat economist and finance people don't, right? Because then they they get lured into this discussion where they would say like, you know, deflation is bad, but they never finished the sentence, right? Like deflation is bad in a field, you know, in a field money system, right? So in a debt based monetary system that that's when deflation is bad. So they, they always kind of like stay away from this discussion. And I find it interesting that he actually acknowledges the fact that, you know, this is happening and that that AI brings this massive deflationary force. So, you know, for me, it's kind of like he's slowly like lifting up little pieces to see who reacts to what or kind of like how it lands because there is kind of this inevitability that the debt will keep on growing, that this conundrum will be bigger also. While at, you know, the same time the deflationary force of AI also speeds up, I would say. So I just wonder what you guys think about that? So maybe taking a step back to respond to some of the stuff that Joe said. I think there's there's two like there's a meta more fascinating thing I want to bring up here because I think ultimately all the different positions they have to eventually cut rates in print. Like we know this, this inevitability, almost like they're going to let the market collapse. What I think I'm more fascinated in is that this really feels not like political theater, but real, like dissension between what you reference all the data you shared, Joe, around the boats. And it goes back to this like notion of, I don't know how much, Joe, you've gone down this rabbit hole like intercobal squabble or this the idea behind the technocrats versus like when you think about really like Trump and Biden and ultimately the JP Morgan side and the pals versus where you've seen Warsh and Besant come in. And there's they're fundamental, like real like posturing on where we're going. And what led me to bring this up is because when you look at we're sitting at, which is pretty wild that he was sitting at Anchorage, which was the last the bank to get a charter before Trump left. And then he was there as an advisor. He comes in, we know we're going to this world around dollar movement. There was some discussions around SBR again, picking back up. We know where Besant sits on the Bitcoin side that I can't help but feel like for the one of the first times we're seeing a glimpse into actual real, not political theater, but real like maneuvering of money movement and capital. I think that's like interesting to take. We can touch on what Brahm said, but I feel like the second part is we know it eventually has to happen because things break and then there's only one move. But I'm fascinated that we're seeing in real time. It feels like real, like maneuvering on the political side in front of US versus just theater. For sure. I mean, it's like it's, it's instead of the posturing, you see where like Trump gets invited to the Bitcoin conference, then he talks about Bitcoin, Bitcoin, Bitcoin and then everybody claps and then, you know, that we we really don't see much of it. Like this is the first time where the highest ranking official that is now going to be sworn into government previously worked at a Bitcoin adjacent company. It's pretty major, right? And so, you know, for me, like, not only is is that true that he worked at Anchorage, but also, you know, he's spoken very fondly of Bitcoin in the past. And he actually criticized the host of the interview that he was doing. I think it was 60 minutes. I'm not sure where basically, you know, he was saying, like, look, people scoff at Bitcoin, but the reality is that young people are using this to hedge against inflation and uncertainty. And so heading into his job, mathematically speaking, like #1 he's a pro Bitcoin. He's a pro Bitcoin individual. But #2 and perhaps most importantly, he has to guide policy based on the mathematical reality that the United States is facing. Regardless of whatever people think about the separation of the Fed and the US Treasury, the reality is right now our interest expense. Bree, I think we talked about this on the show, Michael, that you and I did 2 weeks ago, $0.20 of every dollar that gets issued by the US Treasury has to go to servicing the debt. That's not sustainable. Five years ago, it was $0.10. Five years before that, it was like a cent and a half. So it's 20X in terms of it being a major issue for the US. And so you can't really have monetary policy that's separate from fiscal policy when that's the reality you're facing. So in a way, also deflationary forces of AI could be a huge benefit for the Fed because the Treasury needs rates low. But if we bring rates low in the environment we're in right now, that's terrible for price inflation. However, if we do get, you know, AI massively putting a damper on prices everywhere, then that could allow the Fed to cut rates to 00 in real terms so that the Treasury has an easier time servicing its debt without as big of an inflation problem. So that'll be interesting to watch. I mean, I certainly hope for other reasons that AI is deflationary, but that's one of the ways that that it could help. I know we have to transition, but I can't help but I think the stock market hit an all time high right before we started this, and it just feels like that's the playbook no matter what. It's like inflation runs hot. Everyone feels like they're getting richer in nominal terms, but in real times they're just going backwards. Incredible. Yeah, SMP 572 O 7 and climbing as we're speaking. Unbelievable. Four years or six years ago, rather, we were under 2000 points, shower 7200 points. Just can't believe it. It's gone great. Nominally, everything is going up, right? Yeah, I once, once. You know the word nominally nominal growth was etched into my brain like you cannot Unsee it anymore, right? Like it's, it's just, it's just all fake basically. It's a whole terrain, all of the GDPGDP. You look at where all the growth in the US is coming from. But this is a nice bridge to your link probably. Yeah. I mean, we, we keep talking about this, the air pockets and I think very often it's hard to put like a finger on an exact. There's a lot of times we'll talk about this Joe, where the restaurant is a great example. They extend it alone. Consumers aren't spending. It gets a little bit easier to discern, but this is a real world example of like AI deflation showing this chart for anybody listening is down 99%. Their valuation at its peak was 14.7 billion. Now I use that to. Cheat all throughout college. Yeah, there was the books and then I guess they rolled out some other stuff, but now valued at 114 million, just completely killed by AI. But the idea is this not only it's not really an equity story, it's who owns the debt and where the capitalization structure, because there's a lot of people that are going to have to mark that to market. And that exists across all portfolios, all asset classes, and the market's just not prepared for it. And this is where we keep talking about gold and Bitcoin, seeing it as outside money because those are direct assets that you can hold or hold at least outside of the financial system. It's also why I've always been that the ETFs are a nice stepping stone, but the reality is the economic forces will push sophisticated investors to get out of those positions because it's a, it's a contradictory trade because you're ultimately long BTC. It doesn't matter if it's implicit or explicit that the dollar is cooked. And if that's the case, that means there's a lot of second and third over effects. And so it's just contradictory to be long the asset put it back in the system that has all these liabilities tied to too much debt. And so we'll continue to see these kind of charts. Yeah. No, it's this is the first of many. And I find it interesting because you mentioned Bitcoin being outside money. One of the reasons Bitcoin's going to thrive in, you know, a world where AI is so dominant and it's disrupting every other corner of financial markets is because obviously what you just mentioned, it's not going to be killed by AI like software will be. But if you think about the second order effect of artificial intelligence and the ostensibly deflationary impact, it's going to have, you know, what we just sort of highlighted in the prior, prior answer, you know, the 2nd order effect is going to be massive money printing on the other side, because the credit based global economy requires inflation in order to, in order for all of our economic models to work, this notion that spending equals prosperity. So in order to keep people spending and we're, we're going to be, you know, maintaining this 2% inflation target deflation from AI requires a lot more money printing. And so sort of on both sides of the coin, Bitcoin becomes an extremely enticing investment because it is the, you know, this apex hedge against monetary debasement. And it's also uniquely positioned to not be disrupted by artificial intelligence. It's an amazing, amazing asset. In in Brom right before you go the the quote but was your only worth what you can write a check for tomorrow. You know, it's from the most recent Paul Tudor Jones episode that he had learned early on and tied it a little bit of it back to the silver cornering of the market corner in the silver market. And how that, you know, once the Fed stepped in, they drastically reduced that cost. He was, you know, wiped out Hunt. But the point is that if you have these paper gains, it goes, it's a more elegant way of saying you can't eat, you know, your socks. So you can't eat these other assets that you think you have exposure to. And tomorrow you're only as valuable as the check you can cash. And that's really where the outside money comes in, from a sovereign all the way to the individual. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I love Joe, what you said and and, and ties into what Mike said. You know, this is my entire thesis. You know when when you also what we just said, right? Like when you know that it's it's fundamentally flawed and everything that you can do to mitigate, you know, that flaw for your individual prosperity is also just a rigged, fake, fake game, right? And these games are tied together. You just need to exit to a, a, a parallel thing, right? And that is, I think on my journey, you know, was one of these moments where I was like, holy shit, I can just store my wealth in this parallel system that I can actually verify, right? And can actually understand where I have actual ownership. And it's also, and it's and it's portable and I can use it as money. And you know what, Mike, what you just said, like I, I use that example so much with people, you know, when they are like, yeah, about stocks and this and that. And scrolling further, it's like, dude, a stock is the same, is the same thing as your bank account, right? It's just like, it just shows a number in the database permissioned by some other party where you have an account. But it's it's nothing like it's, it is nothing. It is a made-up concoction of, you know, whatever, whatever story there is and there are people that are playing a game where they, they are the players and you are, you are the pawn basically, right. And so I eventually for me, I go from like super complex to, to super basic Chrysler just like, what is it retard maxing? We talked about that like this is like, yeah, it's just another system. Like 1 system is rigged and one system is like super pure. OK, So you know like it it it is a very binary. I like how we've renamed first principles to retard maxing in 2012. I like how you guys are pitching Bitcoin versus MSTR without me having to say anything, but that's a different story. We'll get to that. We'll get to that. Not for everyone, but we'll get to that. All right. If something happened to you tomorrow, could your family access your Bitcoin? Not, probably not. They would figure it out with certainty. I thought about this a lot. You may feel confident managing your own keys, but are your loved ones? Billions and Bitcoin have been lost already because someone died without a plan. With on Ramp inheritance planning is built in directly into your custody setup. Your Bitcoin stays segregated and in your control, insured through Lloyds of London and accessible to the people you choose when they need it. Get started in 15 minutes. Book a free consultation at on rampbitcoin.com on ramp secured by three controlled by me. Next one, yeah, I just, I, yeah, I don't know if you guys saw this. I'm not going to play the whole 3 minutes, but this is the governor of the Czech Central Bank who I don't know how long ago, I would say 18 months ago ish, like a year, 18 months ago ish. He was really advocating in his board, right, for investigating Bitcoin as a way and, and I think something else to right to diversify away from gold. This was sort of big news, you know, because of because of his position. But now they've actually run this experiment. They allocated, I don't know, it was just a million or 10 million or something like that from their balance sheet into Bitcoin. But the cool part is just, you know, something that that that we all know is that even with 1% in Bitcoin, expected return goes up and overall risk stays about the same. I'm not going to play it is English is, is, is Moi, but I find it super interesting. Also, you know, Czechoslovakia is, is outside of the EU. So they don't, they don't have the euro. So it's very interesting that you know, they're Euro adjacent obviously, but that they are moving towards this direction. My overall idea with this is, and you see that I think in Poland too, right? Like there's, there are some nations that are euro adjacent, but they're more, more to the east that are starting to understand that, you know, also their, their neighbor is, is on some sort of route down, right? And that they, they, well, they, they would look at it as a hedge, right? But they really see a Bitcoin and when you hear him talk about Bitcoins, like, yeah, this dude, he he just gets it. It's the same as Palter Jones type level, I would say, right? Like he just understands what this is that he needs to pay attention. But obviously, you know, with the central bank, it goes a bit slower than with, with, with, with us 3 in our personal lives. But I, I thought it was super interesting to to hear that he had a positive conclusion and him just going here, having this story. I just want to highlight because I think it's, it's very interesting. Yeah, the only thing I got is it kind of dawn on me it makes a lot of sense why a lot of sovereigns in an emerging markets haven't adopted Bitcoin because when the last discussion it's really a beautiful thing and it's truly asymmetric like not only to the upside because everyone I think I was thinking back to when I got involved, you're looking for the gains, but then you learn about all the air pockets that so it protects you on the downside like true asymmetry. And for these sovereigns, it makes a lot of sense, right? If you can hedge against currency wars, debasement, then it makes it makes complete sense logically to put an allocation on. But why it actually does and we don't see more of it is, Joe, you can probably speak better to this, but it's all the crazy muckiness that goes into like IMF swap lines, dollar currency. Like we saw this with El Salvador that if you do something like this, you're effectively putting a target on your back and your currencies either implicitly or explicitly tied to the dollar. And you end up in this weird situation where you may need a bailout and they may just like hang it over. So they're all kind of like trapped because I think that's the reason why a lot of these sovereigns haven't done it. And it also makes sense where hash rate has gone crazy because what's the best way to do it without actually explicitly buying it? It's just to leverage your natural resources to mines and Bitcoin and stack like Bhutan. Remember the only reason they came out that they had BTC was because of the Celsius. Celsius like debriefs or whatever with the bankruptcy and it showed that like Bhutan was somewhere in there with their BTC. You're on mute. You see, I do this to avoid so the viewers don't hear the clickety clack and then I make a fool myself by talking when I'm muted. Anyway, Yeah, I know you bring up a really good point. And this kind of plays into the 40 chess almost of what we just saw with Iran. US exports of oil all time high, I'm pretty sure. Obviously oil prices soaring, not necessarily good for the global economy. But now Iran is forced to open up U.S. dollar swap lines with the nation that they're at war with specifically because even when you're at war with us, you still need U.S. dollars. And so it's this interesting for DHS. The IMF can withhold funds from El Salvador because they adopt it as currency. The king of Bhutan obviously having to sell their Bitcoin it it, it's very interesting. And it sort of puts the US in a very unique position where because everybody needs U.S. dollars, if they try allocating to Bitcoin before us or, you know, in any way, shape or form, we can sort of withhold U.S. dollars from them. We can make it more difficult for them to operate in global markets. We sort of have this tremendous chess piece on the board and that is our status as the world's reserve currency, where obviously Fiat is eroding trust and confidence and value globally. And the the fiscal deterioration we have here in the United States is a fraction of what other central banks might be facing. But it also puts us in a position. And so basically everybody's in this mad dash for allocating the hard assets, but at the same time to the US best interest to maintain dollar hegemity. So what does it do? Perhaps it restricts the flow of U.S. dollars or it seizes U.S. Treasuries from some countries that are allocating Bitcoin a little too quickly, you know, and it, it, it puts us in a position where we can allocate to Bitcoin before that. And I, I think you know, this, this almost also ties into like the geopolitical importance and new found geopolitical importance of Bitcoin. The Jason Lowry's boss, I believe it was going before Congress and then speaking about Bitcoin. I had a couple of comments on my video saying like he was totally incoherent, like, but either way, regardless of whether or not he was coherent, he was speaking to the geopolitical importance of Bitcoin before Congress. That's a welcome change from what it was five years ago. So it's, it's very interesting. And if one thing is clear, it's that Bitcoin is a, a massive geopolitical pawn right now. And I think the US is in the best position to execute on a massive buying program if it wants to. Yeah, I have AI have a rumor for you. I I see people talk about, you know, how Saylor was talking about the conference and then he was talking about May and June and then July and there went there. There were a lot of people talking about, you know, you have the 250 year anniversary, you know, Independence Day and this whole idea of like Mar a Lago accords, like Bretton Woods 3 point O, but then it's called Mar a Lago, obviously, because, you know, then Trump can solidify the name in in in history. Do you do you guys feel that also also, you know, like you said, you know, the, the testimony for Congress hexet also talked about Bitcoin, by the way, the importance of, of Bitcoin. So whether or not they are fed talking points, which you know, is obviously the case when you heard the general talk, you know, it's just literally Jason Lowry talking points and he, he, he just kept on repeating them. Whatever the question was. I I thought it was interesting, but I always feel like when there's like these little tidbits of information, certain people in certain positions start talking about the subject in a certain way. It always acts kind of like as this foundation for a further thing down the road. Now that combined with, you know, Independence Day, like really becoming independent of, you know, global central bank cabal, blah, blah, blah. However, the angle, however, whatever angle you want to take, do you think like that is an actual like possibility? Because I'll add one thing on the other side, all these people understand that there is, you know, a certain haste, I would say with just the deficit running away etcetera. Like before treasury buying really implodes like they have to, they have to move. So again, you know, I'm not on your side of the of the ocean. So I just wonder what you guys think like how, how are you looking at that? Were you referring to aliens or Bitcoin? You maybe think of like they start, they start teasing out the stuff from Oh yeah. Same. I mean the Steven Spielberg Steven. Spielberg yeah, that's a different. Conversation. I mean, I'd be curious. Joe's thought, I don't necessarily think like this is a 250 year anniversary of independence in the sense like we it's the dollars are. So I don't know why we would call it independence. I don't necessarily buy into that, but I do think tying all this back, it's interesting, like what we talked about with IMF and why these countries haven't actually. So I'd never thought about that. Maybe that's me being naive, that that's why they haven't adopted it. And I do think that there's a direct tie into the progression we've seen. I mean, I've been saying this for years at this point because being around in 22 and seeing the stigma the digital assets in Coinbase had with the citadels and Black rocks changed on a dime once the ETFs came about. And what we've seen with like Garibit and onshore, you know, or offshore derivatives getting swallowed up by the state apparatus. You know, stable coins have a strategic importance for treasuries. You know, Morgan Stanley, Fidelity, Schwa, the US is turning this thing on. So and then there's a conversation that I don't know if we'll get into, but this past week about SPR coming back and PPI putting out some hints that it feels like this is of strategic importance and there's just a lot of things to get in place. It's not just you're moving, it's not a speed boat, it's a, you know, warship or whatever. So it takes time to get all these things. And the other, the last thing I'll say is when Joe was referencing the Treasury market and seizing assets, we've already seen people move off the dollar, which is China and gold. We've seen gold do its thing. And so we talked about, well, what better way for the US to play that than to move into another asset that's universally available. So I think this is all kind of just been working in the background. And I like Matthew Pines mental model of maybe it's not all intentional, but what Bitcoin effectively was was like the revolver on the table that you may need to pull up in a negotiation just in case. And you know, we're we're probably at that just in case moment because we're in a unsustainable path. Yeah, I think to your point about what they're doing over, you know, in Washington and and rumblings about the SBR again, Connor Brown is now he heads up BPI, he's the managing director over there. He tweeted out three days ago American Reserve Modernization Act, you'll be hearing a bit more about this soon. And he used the Bitcoin B when he said bits. What that signals to me is obviously a reserve composition is dust. We have a lot of U.S. Treasuries, we have some cash, we have a lot of gold. And here and there we have a couple of equity holdings maybe that we've seized and we have a whole lot of Bitcoin that we've stolen from folks. So, you know, in my mind, like if you think of reserve modernization that like what, what sort of modern reserve composition would we be considering? And I always feel like much more heavily weighted toward Bitcoin, less so than gold. And this could take the form of maybe some of the gold that we hold in Fort Knox, which cannot be used in international trade because of its impurity. Maybe we take all of that, melt it down, sell it and use those proceeds to buy Bitcoin. I think that's something that Congress can get behind. So it'll be interesting to to hear what happens and how this thing gets funded. And but yeah, no time. Only time will tell. Yeah, I do want to move on, but but maybe one thought about this is something I thought before and it connects to what you said. What is the signal if they say we sold some gold and we bought Bitcoin? Like for me that has always kind of been like global game theory kick off type type thing. You know, if it's actually proven or shown in a certain way that there was actual gold, right? That it was felt that that sold and whatnot. But yeah, for, for I, I, I honestly think there couldn't be any bigger news than that. Well, here's a, here's a that's very fascinating. You bring that up because I don't think they would ever do it in the sense of they would actually do the action. But I think they would do what you said because it doesn't make any sense to sell the gold if you need to like import. I think Luke Roman reported gold's been our largest exports the past like 60 days because China is demanding for any rare earths like actual gold. They're not taking dollars. So they wouldn't get rid of the gold that was all sick. But the kicker is what better way to play into getting people into Bitcoin because this was the whole idea straight like bitcoins, gold heart to just wrap your arm, your physical arms around a material allocation. Are you going to bring it in your house? This is why the self custody was always going to be hard for a lot of people. It's like people do not want to own. They want to bring it next to their kid. In the same way, they're not going to bring 20% of portfolio in gold and put it underneath their kids mattress and put them at risk. So what would they do? Go into BlackRock ETF going to MSTR, whatever it is. It's a lot easier to wrap your heads around a digital gold, click on a clicking a button so that can and then also it sends off the signal that what you're really driving at that the US is dumping gold for for BTC. So it's very interesting. Like I could see that happen. I don't think they would actually do the action, but I could see them saying it, and what that signals is almost more important than the action. Yeah, but there's there's another interesting thing there, right? Because if you. Keep. You know a a majority fast majority part of your your treasury basically in gold. If you create a signal that, you know, selling gold and buying Bitcoin is actually a valid thing to do, you could expect an, an effect on the price of gold, right? Which, which would be dumb if your vast majority is still, is still in gold. So I, I also just find that in interesting because I can also imagine that there are countries that have never talked about Bitcoin that have Bitcoin. That's always my assumption, right? Like, you know, if you were in charge of this stuff for a country and you're not into Bitcoin, then I don't really know what you're doing. So this was similar as to when the US went out of the World Health Organization and then like in four days, six countries solved cancer, right? Like they all had the cancer treatment just in the drawer for a certain point in time and then they were tada, you know, like we don't really need you. So I, I do feel that it is a big, it is a big signal, but it, it, it would even trigger something, something bigger. But yeah, you know, fun to speculate about. And that's just my general take on Bitcoin. It's just entertaining, right? Like if this happens, I think we're all going to laugh and just be like super entertained following whatever, whatever is going to happen. So, yeah, Mike, you had two links and you said Wall Street packing their bags. Yeah, two things. A good deal. Two things I realized that after. So the quick 2 two hits were rotting from incrementum. His headline was Speaking of unsolved assets Bitcoin and then it was effectively City's internal take around Bitcoin and portfolios and just highlighting the resilience that it's had relative to gold and equities. And then the other piece was I believe Bank of America referring to the sleep like a baby portfolio and how it's performed. And it references 25% stocks, 25% bonds, commodities and cash all equal weighted. And there's been some other reports or rumblings out there. I think it was, I think Deutsche Bank came out with something else related to gold. But the core idea from calling us out was Wall Street packing their bags in the sense of they're putting out to your point that those little bread crumbs around where things are going, signalling to commodities. Some are explicitly calling out gold, others are explicitly calling out Bitcoin. They're showing the trade in the portfolio. And I think a couple of things are implied. 1 is the individual portfolio managers are probably already putting on the trade, meaning they're already allocated to gold and BTC. And you just have the inertia that exists at these large organizations that are predominantly 6040 that it takes time for them to do that. But then the other side is they're packing their bags in, you know, they're migrating. They're already thinking about how do they get out of this, like situation they're in and where are they going to put their clients. And so I think we're still early because this is just going to take time. But it's fascinating to see some of the largest institutions already calling out commodities as the safe haven. Moving forward, yeah, Joe, any thoughts? Yeah, it's, to me, it's, it's a no brainer, right? Jeff Park has spoken about previously the death of the 6040 portfolio. Typically you've got stocks and bonds which are inversely correlated, but now they're not, right? They're positively correlated. And so, you know, it's it's not necessarily ideal anymore. You see more than ever people dumping the 6040 portfolio. And so really the rise in commodities is a no brainer. Like at the same time that the 6040 portfolio is being challenged and there's this scramble, there's this mad dash to figure out something else that works. You also have a world order that is shifting and changing where inflation is coming again to the forefront. And obviously growth, as per usual, is one of the key focuses. But purchasing power preservation is in the in the limelight, in the spotlight more than ever. So to me, it's no surprise that institutional capital, commodities more than ever, particularly right, notwithstanding the major rally in gold and silver that we saw last year. A bit late to the. Party to begin allocating to commodities, but I have to think at least part of that was due to clients bringing their bringing their manager and saying why on earth didn't you have me in this thing put me in this thing now. So a couple of late companies, but I do think they're they're positioning for what's next. Yeah, I'll, I'll share my link because it kind of ties into it. And I something you just said, Mike had had me thinking like there there's just a lag, right? There's a lag between people that have always done things in a certain way and we're just thought, you know, 6040 and, you know, I'm going to execute my thing. And they never really look outside of, you know, however they think the the financial game is created and then this Bitcoin thing comes in, you know, and and you see that some people actually understand what this is, that there's actually a new, you know, entrance into into the market, a new option, etcetera. But that's combined with this is your favorite subject, Mike stretch combined with and I'll, I'll explain my thoughts here. Right. So I think what whatever. So my my simple thesis around stretch is, you know, not everyone can buy Bitcoin directly, apparently. I have no clue why, you know, but that's fine. So if you can strip away the direction. But is that true? You can't start. You can't start on that if you did, if that's whatever. Let me finish. Let me finish. I I. Who can't buy it though, if you're really going to establish everything. Because there is, I will, I will share you at least my fault. I'm not saying I'm 100% right, but my fault is because they're this lag exists. There's this lag where on one side every, everyone has the same problem, right? Like the 6040 is dying because the, the at least the treasury part of it is it, you know, it's being uncovered that it's just extremely fake, right? Like it's, it's literally a Ponzi. You're just paying off old debt with new debt, etcetera. And that I think is proliferating also just because the US debt is just expanding, expanding, expanding, right? So even if you weren't paying attention and you were just, you know, 60406040, the actual reality is telling you that something is breaking, right? So you have to do something else. But because there's this lag between all these different kinds of groups of people, whether it's their job or their intellect or risk appetite or whatever, it doesn't really matter. Some understand you can buy spot Bitcoin. Some are still following the rules or whatever the, the, the playing field that that they're in. And so I think the sailor, but that's why I wanted to show this, because Joe is also here. I think I would love to hear what Joe thinks. If you think Bitcoin is going to be, you know, 40 million in in 40 years, and that is your base thesis and you're acting upon that. You're you're just trying to get as as much dying money as possible today, you know, to buy the better money off tomorrow. That's, you know, the very simplistic thesis I have. If more people figure out that there's a vehicle to do that that is built on top of this Bitcoin thing that you can buy with, you know, even if it's going from 11.5% yield of stretch down to 7% or 6, whatever, it's still higher than treasuries. Treasuries are are and currencies. I said that here and I explained it below like they're based on nothing, right? It's it's literally like join, join my Ponzi because I can just print this money forever. I can just keep on adding debt to my country forever. I don't even need to pay it off, right? So as long as you are playing my treasury game, I can just get money for my country and and do whatever I want. So that, yeah, that's my point here. Like they can be created infinitely. So the basis of these types of products is structurally flawed. Like down the road you have the army, right? That's the meme. Like the the American dollar is protected by by the army. Like if it really, really goes down, there's probably a war. Like that's the last thing they can do and they can exist infinitely at any amount or rate, but not too high, right? Because then it shows it's it's all a fake game. So my point is that once more people that are in this, these lag buckets wake up to the fact that treasuries are broken and there's something that gives them a better Fiat return because there's some Bitcoin thing below that under under underpinning it without them fully understanding Bitcoin and that they can buy it in a spot way. I think that is the market that is opening up that eventually stretch. Just appeals to so just two quick things and then Joe, you can respond to his it might like 1 is it's it's a fallacy like it's built in empirically that stretch has 82% retail buyers so they can buy Bitcoin. The second part is from first principles. It makes zero sense why somebody would not underwrite Bitcoin if they bought Stretch. It's not how people allocate. You have to understand what the credit is if you're going to buy it. So it just doesn't align. And then the last part, we talked about it on the beginning of the pod. You can't have your cake. You'd eat it too. There was a good tweet from a guy that retweeted the article from this week. You said Stretch carries A counterparty risk of a bake, the custody risk of an exchange in the opacity of a hedge fund attached an asset whose entire purpose was to eliminate all three. So it just doesn't track. Everyone that says it's for these fixed income or whatever pools aren't buying it. And if you were going to buy it, you'd have to underwrite Bitcoin because why would you attach the credit to that? And then if you do that, then you would be like, why don't I just own it and not have 30% of the upside with 100% of the downside? It just doesn't track. One thing here about the point of you have to underwrite the Bitcoin strategy has AB minus credit rating, but Bitcoin has a 12150% risk weight. So actually, even though it is owned by retail, a lot of the entities that actually physically can't buy Bitcoin can buy strategy because of its rating. And then #2 to your point, it is owned 82% by retail, but it is in a way designed. And I know, you know, this is, this is a stretch. It's, it is designed and it can be held by a lot of the folks who are precluded from owning it because of fixed income mandate. So like whether we're talking about banks, Oregon pensions or insurance, a lot of these entities have to own assets like in their investment policy statements that have a contractual obligation to pay, you know, whatever dividend every month or whatever interest and principal every month. And so even though it is owned 82% by retail now, I think it is appealing to those entities who can't own Bitcoin because of their mandate, but can own an asset that's paying them a fraction of what Bitcoin is off. Well, 50%, but it it's not at 50% return is attractive, 100% return, 11% attractive. But the point still stands. They can't actually underwrite the BTC component. I'm not talking about the credit, I'm talking about actually underwriting the asset that it's based upon. That's the point. It's not. About as in, but it's because. As in, like Harvard as an example. Harvard doesn't own any of Stretch, but they own BTC. They went and had to get comfortable with owning the underline and they put on .03% position. They don't even fundamentally own it because they or understand it. They cut that and have to go to eat. But the point being is that it's the same concept of where it came out a lot very like about people were going to insert Bitcoin and like real estate and you were going to go to institutional allocators and all this stuff. It's like it doesn't track because when you have to support the credit for a fund like that, it's the notion of you're taking like a steak and then you you take the credit that they understand and then you're putting like poison on top because now you're attaching this thing that this stigmatized and there's a reason why they don't own it. And then if they went and had to get comfortable with the underline and what you're talking about, by the time they did that, they would say, why would I give away the upside if they and they would be able to figure out how to buy the underline like a Harvard? That's the whole point. It just doesn't work from first principles. I get that they have a mandate and they may want 11% like they may want 15 or 50%, but there's a point why they don't own it. The doula is here, so I do have to jump. We'll finish. Bad timing. We'll we'll finish the last one or if you have a one sentence about your link, then that is your your. Yeah, that's the one sentence on my link. And before I do, thank you guys so much for having me on. I appreciate it. I know it's not typical to invite guests on the broadcast, so I do appreciate it. But the one sentence about my link, and then I'll let you guys get back to stretch, is that this is crazy. So what I mentioned at the start of the show was that Powell sort of left the Fed in total chaos. The final meeting of him as chair was the most dissent, not only with him as chair, but since, like, you know, the the nineties, 1992. So what happened was because so many members were dissenting in the opposite direction. And now you have ISM and expansion, you have headline CPI threatening to move higher. All rate cuts have been thrown off the table. So markets have totally flipped now. And in my mind, this is the wrong call specifically because of the situation in Iran. I think that things have not ended over there quite yet. And I think markets are under pricing the impact of $120.00 oil. And also for folks reference, this is much longer than one sentence, but because of the inflationary impact of $120.00 oil, obviously rate hikes, you know, makes sense if you just think about it from an inflation perspective. But raising the cost of capital doesn't do anything to the price of oil. What what markets are pricing? And by saying, oh, the feds are going to raise the cost of capital is saying, OK, they're going to destroy demand, therefore $120.00 oil won't matter. But the reality is that you can't destroy like you can't legislate away $120.00 a barrel oil, right? It's inflation that isn't caused by people spending too much. It's structural inflation because of a war that's going on and the unavailability of commodity. So I think it's interesting like the the physical world and the monetary MMT pseudoscience world are colliding in a really big way right now. Anyway, that's the. That's the post. Love it Joe, Thanks for joining us of. Course, I appreciate it guys. Cheers. All right, please don't make me talk about Stretch anymore. No, no, we don't have to talk about. But there's one thing. Well, I also wonder what you think here, right So. If the Bitcoin price doubled tomorrow, would you feel good about how it's being secured right now? Most people have not really pressure tested that and I get it. I have talked to people who have self custody for over a decade and others who stayed on exchanges because they could never get comfortable managing their own keys. Both camps have real concerns. That is why we built on ramp multi institution custody so no single company can lose it, move it or use it. Lloyd's of London Insurance inheritance planning built in and a team that can walk you through the entire setup. Get started in 15 minutes. Book a free consultation at on rampbitcoin.com On ramp secured by three controlled by me. I find it so fascinating that, you know, there's this this this press conference by Jerome Powell and there's trillions of dollars and all these money allocator people and whatever, like they're watching this one guy talk, right? And then, you know, speculating about what what what we also did about wars, etcetera. And I always think like the contrast with Bitcoin is so stark, right? Like there are no press conferences, there is no board, there's no dissent, there are no decisions, right? It is just what it is and it's kind of flows with the natural interest and understanding and needs of the, of the people that own it, right. And, you know, central bank and, and Fiat central banks and Fiat money, they kind of try to, to, to manipulate the organic course, if the, if that makes sense, right? Like they, they, they manipulate it with policy and this, that, and things can never really blow up or go bad, etcetera. You know, there's always this, this intervention. And I think for Bitcoin, the beauty is that it literally doesn't care. It is just, it is just what it is, right? And if you want to, if you want to use it, you can adopt it. And if you don't, you don't, you know, and, and, and, and that's just it. And I, I always find that the fascinating. That's kind of what I, what I took away also from this, this kind of like last, you know, press conference. I agree. I mean, this reminds me of a few things. We had one of the last layer of the part episodes. We had asked him like, what are you looking forward to most when you kind of have a hard, hard based economy at the base level? And I think we said the same thing that the thing I was attached to was this notion of accountability, because when you think about you can paper over, you know, a true Fiat, you end up as you have seniors over the money, so you can dictate resources. That's really why it's such an aberration is because people are effectively are inflated. And you see this across the the spectrum, whether it's the stock markets, people going out and, and managing monetary policy in a board room that where billions of people are potentially affected. And it's not right, it's not organic. And that, you know, gold and Bitcoin has these neutral assets. You can't gain them. And they're just, they just exist. And then they, you kind of revolve around them. And why I'm bringing this up because it tied back to two parts of game theory where you are referencing, you know, the US dropping gold or not, it doesn't really matter because other sovereigns are going to act independently. And if they see an opportunity to buy because you're going to this world, they will buy it. But the corollary is the same thing with BTC. When we talk about any kind of fork, the reason why it works if like Wall Street decided to do it is because on the other side of that fork, when other people are dumping, they will be buying and dumping the opposite coin, meaning if you're Russia, if you're China, if you're in another country. So it's in the last place, it's the last free market. And I think gold had been stuck in a non free market being pegged and all the things that we talked about IMF not being able to, you know, either allocate or move it. But now in this new world that it's kind of like free floating against all other currencies. I think it's just going to be a very interesting time. And it ties back to the Larry Leopard deal around. We're just going to end up in a world that you're you're going to be held accountable in the sense of you can try to buy and play these other, you know, assets and think that they're going to perform. But at the end of the day, it goes back to being able to eat, you know, the money or write the check. You're only as good as like, what are you holding when this hold them on the chairs, the music stops and what assets are you going to be into? And it feels like gold and Bitcoin sit outside of this whole apparatus and not being made. In the short term they're tied to it, but the long term, they're fundamentally not affected and affected to the positive because as trust breaks down, you need the things that you don't have to rely on the trust. Yeah, for sure. And, and I think this, this is something we talked about before, right in this, in this stream, but also I'll, I'll tie it back to what I said about this lag, right? You and I see this and you also see where, where it is going, right? And the interesting part, at least for me, is that, well, this lag just exists. So you're spot on saying like some people, maybe the Czech central bank, right, they will see it too at some point and just figure out like, holy shit, you know, we're really one of the first like we, we can really have an, have an edge. So I, I always thought that the kind of like the, the, the, the, the, the border from, you know, or the border, like the separation between, you know, no state action, global game theory, etcetera. And like full on Bitcoin accumulation, like that line is extremely thin in, in my opinion, because if, if a small country, a small but more serious country than, you know, El Salvador, which was down and out right, like could, couldn't, couldn't be worse than that, you know, So it's like like Czechoslovakia or Poland, or, you know, like, like a country like that, like a mid tier, but serious country would say, like, you know, we're going to do a 10% allocation or A8 or 10% allocation and we're going to sell some gold for it or, or whatever. I, I think that is honestly already serious enough because you cannot have a mid tier country out a Bitcoin you right when, when you're an even more serious country. So I'm, I'm, I'm super intrigued by that. And it seems like it is very slow, but everything that we've been talking about for years is actually happening, but also combined with kind of like this, the, the these dying centralized struggles and push towards, you know, more, more control CBDC and stuff like that. So it's going to be, it's going to be very interesting because that argument for Bitcoin as a country is really easy to make and also publicly, if that makes sense, right. And the argument for centrally controlled CBDCS with spending limits and, you know, timed amounts and whatever you can have on your card, it's just, you know, the, the biggest argument I hear the European Commission is like. It's digital and it's. Easy to use, right? Like they, they don't get any further than that. Whereas, you know, if you have a pro Bitcoin argument for your country, it's going to be like super sophisticated and philosophical and way more than you know, it's digital. It's it's. It's easy to use. Yeah, 100%. I mean, maybe this ties into the the Stripe deal I had because I think like for better or worse, it's hard to like, it's hard to hold these two things inside your brain and they're true stripes just absolutely crushing it. If you go, I don't know, I know you're on Twitter and you pay attention to attack, but I guess it's 288. I wanted a deep dive into this before final settlement. It shows that 288 updates and if you Scroll down, there's the like quote, UN quote crypto side. They show a lot of the agentic like wallet the the level of different things from like the types of markets to the different countries to the big one that they release is if you're familiar with like Stripe online, when you go into check out and it pulls up that quick 6 characters and it pops up on your phone because it is your SMS. Yeah. That's effective. Agents can use that. Yeah, your agent can use that, but you can use that for money movement. And so why I'm calling this out is because there was another tweet and we don't have to pull it up, but I'll just read it. It was from Anthony Roni, Good, good guy. He was formerly at Mutiny and I think now he's CTO at I don't even remember it's a Maple, but he had his tweet said all the great banking products are incorporated agent native payment experience. Experience is completely defeating the argument that we need some alternative digital currency that nobody accept accepts for them to transact. He's a bitcoiner and he's basically calling out like it was always going to go this way in a similar fashion that I, I do think this is where ETF and MSTR play their role is that the individual is going to naturally go to the path of least resistance and the easiest thing. It's the same concept and it's really sad around CBD CS or stable coins and when you need to go get your health checked and you have AID and a card and the, you know, insurance pays you in it and the doctor takes it, right. We see this already in the States. If anybody has healthcare that you want to go and take your child that to a school or to a paediatrician that isn't vaccinated, you effectively have to go like out of pocket because they make it really hard for you to go via the insurance. So you can see where this goes. And so you get these efficiencies that will look good and they are good, but they're, if you don't, if you're not able to like contrast where it's going or at least be prepared for it by sweeping into BTC, you end up in this like parallel world that you're referring to. So. It's not good or fake money, right? Still fake money, still fake money. But if you think about like if you're a bank or you're even a Bitcoin company, this opens up so much opportunity because like for the first time, you know, something we do that you could have never done before is somebody can come in on board dollars, earn rewards in DCA, in the BTC into a multi institutional wallet. But that's an insane proposition that's able to be happy with this technology were before banks. You get to do all these crazy things. So there's a lot of value, but it's the same thing with like AI or just the Internet. You can use it in different ways. And if you're not ready or knowing where the market's going, you can effectively almost like, I don't say kill yourself, but you can end up, you know, getting trapped. And so I'm not really making a case for her dancing. It is. It's just the stat, the status of how it is. And it's it kind of ties back into the structure, micro strategy. Thing is, it's less about is it good or bad. It's more about calling out the risk because I think a lot of retail just get sold on something. So anyway, yeah, this for me was the most fire part what we're talking about, right? Like you can have this Stripe link for dedicated for your agent. So it's, it's kind of like a proxy for your main account, but it can spend after you approve it, right. So if you have an agent monitoring your inbox and there's an invoice coming in from, I don't know, the, the, the dentist or whatever, it's just gonna automatically text you and it's gonna be like, hey, there's an invoice from the dentist. You wanna, you want me to pay it from account 123 or 4? Or maybe you've designated, you know, account number 4 for all these types of, you know, expenses. And then it's just a yes. And the agents base, the base, the invoice, right? Like it's, it's, it's crazy. I I think it's really. The Bridge acquisition is going to go down as like one of the best ROI acquisitions like we've already seen it because I think before the Bridge acquisition that Stripe made it was there were $100 billion firm. I think their last capital raise was at 150 billion and you can't attribute all of it, but there's some of that to the round. But when you look at this and you compare it to the Fiat system and money movement, they are so far ahead, especially because they already understood and like owned the Internet from, you know, one Click to incorporate payments that I would encourage anybody interested in tech to go here because there's so many things to be built that you can like vibe, coda, pull in capital and this goes across any global currency and any off ramp. It's just not USD, which obviously opens up the tan if you have an Internet native business to loop in Agentic commerce coupled with stripes rails. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean I'm using, I'm using Bitcoin where it's possible or I'm using Wise, which is transfer wise, right, which is basically just like a virtual virtual USD bank account. I can switch to, you know, virtual EUR and whatever. But I'm now thinking about just switching to Stripe because the event, you know, everything is just in, in one place, but also you know what, what you're what you just what you just launched, right? This whole idea of, of, of saving in Bitcoin and spending in whatever. I just, I just think it's extremely interesting, right, because you just want to live cash pour in that sense, whether it's digital, you know, dollars, stable coins or whatever, it doesn't really matter. It's whatever else the other person takes, right? But you just save in Bitcoin like Bitcoin is your capital pool. Whoever wants to be paid in whatever way. There are now so many tools and platforms for for people to do that right. And so I also feel like this is a lag story again, like banks are not here, dude. Like. Yeah, they're they're in a tough spot. Like imagine you have a multi institution wallet and it doesn't have to be with us. You can mean anywhere. But just imagine you have custody of your Bitcoin. You understand what you do that inflation is probably 10 to 20%. So you're willing to withstand Bitcoin volatility because of the upside and you're sweeping. So you're kind of netting out and you have a car that you can just spend via stable coins, dollars anywhere you go. And it's just auto taking out and maybe doesn't take out to the end of the month because that floats there. So they know you're good for it. And then you can either pay the dollar balance based on your, you know, payments from direct deposit from your job, or you can decide to sell a little bit of the Bitcoin. Like that's where this all goes. And it just streamlines because all this is programmable. And to your point, yeah, the banks are so far, so far away, and they're just trying to turn on stable coins right now, but they don't even know what they're going to use them for, which is the most fascinating part of all of this. Yeah. And it's going to take away from their core business, right, which I don't think they they understand. I even saw I can't remember the the company, but there's now a company that gives you a. Credit card I. Think a 10K or 20K credit line, USD credit line if you just have one Bitcoin as collateral, for example, right. Yeah. So it's super interesting, like if you if you want to be cash poor, but you have Bitcoin and you just. Park it there, you know, and you, you, you don't have to have Fiat right? Like I live like a Fiat bump basically. And I think that's the strategy eventually it's you know, it's it's just saving and saving in Bitcoin for now and whenever you have to pay whatever you just convert or use this credit line or whatever thing right. Like I I think it's also going to make it easier for people in general to just have a very simplistic overview of their own finance. Yeah, think about it. I'm saying this out loud because I'm going to take the transcript and have our team to do a report. But also want to get your thought is imagine you just did an analysis of five years because everyone complaints about Bitcoins growth of over the past five years. And you effectively took every dollar you brought in from your job, your work at the podcast, anything else you do and it got dumped into Bitcoin instantly. And then every dollar you spent was market sold behind the scenes spending those dollars. I'm fairly confident you would still be up in dollar in Bitcoin terms because you're buying low, you're buying high in bitcoins growing. And if you think about inflation, inflation is also going. So it's not like you're just like getting hit by the BTC price. You're playing off the kegger of Bitcoin. But you see what I'm saying, Like you're going to keep getting those dollars and you're going to keep accumulating Bitcoin whether it goes up or or down it in, you know, it's there's opportunity cost and everything you spend in. So you're just not like spending dollars because you have extra. You're like, OK, I'm just buying the things I need because I'm a human and Bitcoin's doing it's thing. You're living how you were supposed to, spending less than you make. I'm fairly confident you put five years out. You're probably way ahead if you just adopted Bitcoin. And so that's also part of the education around the volatility actually is your friend. You just have to understand it and then also understand how cooked the dollar is. And then the last part, which is the hardest for individuals, is just to spend less than you make. Yeah, for sure. I you know, it's, it's so interesting that it's eventually also so logical and, and beneficial. And it also ties into the link you shared. Like is sleep like a baby portfolio, right. With what you just said? Like, if you don't have to play all these stupid games, you kind of free your mind, right? Like, and you have, you know, I, I call it like mentally retired, right? Like, it is it it it Yeah. You just don't have to participate in this stupid fake Ponzi stuff basically, which, well, at least it helps me sleep better at night. Yeah. That those were all the things that that we wanted to talk about so. You know, and hopefully at least that gives you a lens into why I get so animated and about all the stretch stuff because you reference it doesn't have to be so like crazy to sleep like a baby. I couldn't sleep like a baby if all my money was in stretch or MSTRI could sleep like a baby if it's in Bitcoin. And then what we're talking about plays out. And that's how I have slept like a baby. And I think that it hasn't been communicated to the point that it's not logical to most. So you can make it complex or you don't make it complex. It's really up to you. Oh, I think anything outside of Bitcoin, whether it's holding fiats or having certain investments or yield generating products and whatever, it's just a different, it's just a different action. It's a different asset. It's a different risk profile. So you know, to a point, I, I fully agree with you, but I also understand why people would actually use it. And everyone has their own risk profile in that sense. Like I own like 1 stock, I just have like 1 stock, right? So, you know, and other people are like super down into stocks. So whatever. So I, I, I, I think, I think it's fine and time will tell. I think BTC is, is just the, the most logical and rational, at least for me, lowest risk asset that I can own to actually bet on my own future. And yeah, everyone views that differently. Some like to say stay humble and stacks ass. Do it. That's always a great ending to any stream. Stay humble stack sets, guys. All right, well, thanks everyone for watching and join us on the next one. Cheers.
Transcript source: fountain