Bullish Selling: Why Bitcoin is Going Much Higher with Galaxy's Alex Thorn

What you're telling me is that music is about to stop and we're going to be left holding the biggest bag of odorous excrement ever assembled in the history of darkness. 1974198792972000 and whatever we want to call this, it's all just the same thing over and over. We can't help ourselves. I say when we sell. Hey, OK, I say when we sell. This is exactly the episode you need. We sat down with Alex Thorne back on the last trade. Sentiment is not great in the Bitcoin space right now, and so we unpacked a lot of things that are happening behind the scenes. I think you're going to come away from this conversation with a few laughs as well as some restored bullish sentiment to get you through the end of the year and into 2026. We discussed a number of things happening on Wall Street from wirehouse adoption, so large wealth management firms to M&A activity. We discussed America's advantage in the Bitcoin era between Bitcoin and stable coins, why America will be able to out compete their adversaries that are accumulating gold. We also discussed the dampening of volatility in Bitcoin. Ultimately this is a sign of the assets maturity. We've seen a lot of selling in the past month from large holders, old holders of the asset and this distribution of Bitcoin into new hands is ultimately a good thing. So we unpack the IPO moment for Bitcoin and what that means going forward. There's a plenty of other things we discussed as well, so I'll leave it to you to check out the episode and leave a like and comment if you end up enjoying it. Really appreciate it helps us to get the last trade out to more people. Thanks for being here. All right, we are back. How's this energy sound? Is this energy good for you, Michael? You're, you're meeting Alex where, where he's at. So I, I appreciate it and you got it. You're in a new office as well. So that's a, that's a big deal for us today. Yeah, well, my energy is so high because we're joined by Slop King himself, Alex Thorne, head of Firmwide Research Galaxy. Alex, what's going on, man? Thank you for joining. Us great to be back, Jackson. Thanks for having me on. Yeah, I, you know, I love, I love slop in all its forms. OK. Like, I think everything's actually always been slop. And let's get sloppy, you know, Is that, is that a new? I think. Yeah, I think. We're going to get a little weird, you know? The meta for the slop, at least the way I interpret it and we've talked about it for for years at this point, is you remember Marty back in the day called the top of clown world or P clown world, and that was probably one of the worst calls ever. This was like 2021. This is the version of like slop only is directly correlated to the amount of monetary units in in the world. So as they increase, the slop increases and so we can only expect it to increase from here. For a while what what you're saying is there is no slop top. No, there's no slop. Because there's no bottom. Are you talking about slop flation? It's never ending. Rampant basement of slop. Yeah, we should. We should acknowledge Brian is here as well. We missed Brian on last week's episode. Brian, nice to see you. Thanks for. Thanks for joining us. Yeah, We weren't sure with the price being, you know, in the gutter. We weren't sure if Brian was coming back. But thank you for gracing us with your presence and let's get into it. So there's a couple of things that we have on the agenda today where I would personally like to start because I need something to bowl me up a little bit. The the price action the past month has just been brutal to watch. And what I'd like to get some thoughts on Alex, we'll hand it over to you. First is what does it mean when the Treasury Secretary is tweeting about Bitcoin on white paper day? What does he mean by Bitcoin network is still operational and more resilient than ever and Bitcoin never shuts down. I mean, it's top tier slop. OK, It's a phenomenal pleb slop. He's clearly got some top men helping write his tweets that know a lot about Bitcoin. I respect that a lot. I think it's, I mean, if you had told Satoshi Nakamoto or frankly anyone or even me just two years ago that the Treasury Secretary would be, you know, congratulating and celebrating the anniversary of the Bitcoin white paper, no one would have believed that. So, you know, the simplest take is, wow, look how far we've come and isn't that great? And I, I don't really read much more into it though than slop, right? Like this is not some people are like, oh, if you actually were to scroll through, like the quote tweets on, on that tweet, there's tons of people with like elaborate conspiracy theories about how they're definitely moving forward with selling gold for Bitcoin because of this and stuff. And I'm like, brother, this is slop And like, it's good slop like, but that's it. Like I know some of the folks in the government that work on Bitcoin and like guys like there's no grand conspiracy. Like, you know, they're working on stuff and like, that's a slop post. It's a good post because it's a real milestone 17 years from the white paper. And, you know, Treasury Secretary Besson does both personally like Bitcoin and have a mandate to like Bitcoin from the White House. So, like, it all fits, right? But it's not. I don't think that post is some precursor to a, you know, giant, you know, billion dollar Bitcoin purchase. And if you read the quote tweets, a lot of people fell for that slop. Yeah, I mean, before we'll let the guys be the, the bold up side of it, I do think there could be something to it. But regardless is the the the comments you mentioned, the cognitive distance level of like this is who I voted for, while the most insane shits also happening for the people that that people voted for. It's like, oh, you just get to pick this one isolated deal versus all the other things. I thought it was interesting. Yeah, it's it's great a Wagyu slop. You're totally right that the sort of shrouding the the Bitcoin commentary within a dig at the Senate Dems just beautiful, beautiful, brilliant slop. I would say, you know, just to to take some some bullish takeaways from it. You know, I put it in context of some of his prior comments, right? Like when gold was ripping a couple weeks ago, he he was he came out and said like, this is good gold going up is good for the United States, which is like a pretty, pretty wild statement when you zoom out and just think about it. Like his reference for sound money, just generally, you know, a form of gold bug on Wall Street. Like it is constructive in my mind that he is, you know, putting this out into the world, whether it's slop or not. You know, he's going for the clicks, the engagement and it's working. But generally, yeah, you're totally right. Like even two years ago, imagining this is is kind of wild. Like, I'm not saying it's not bullish, OK, Slop is bullish, right? I mean, the fact that this is even on on the Treasury Secretary, slop Genda is bullish, right? Like, and it is bullish. It's just also slop, which is great. I mean, you know, we want this what we want. I'm I'm frankly a little upset that the president himself didn't post about the white paper, to be honest. Like I'm kind of expecting that at this point. Well, and. Yeah, well, The thing is that they're running the the old Dosey Doe or the, you know, good cop, bad cop, because Trump can't treat bullish tweet bullish stuff about Bitcoin. He's the one tanking the market. You know, they're just like he does the other side. He goes and gets the market to correct 10% in a couple hours. But it is true, Scott Besson is genuinely a famous market participant. Like he is a very, very smart and well respected institutional investor. So like, even aside from the fact that he's the Treasury Secretary, like I'm calling it slop just because it's a good post. But like the reality is like he, he is among probably the smartest people about Bitcoin in the administration and among the, the institutional investor class generally. Like it does matter that he's saying it, you know, like he is a, a well respected investor and obviously probably the second most powerful person in the government usually is the Treasury Secretary in my opinion. And he's internationally well known and respected. So like it's a it's meaningful. It is meaningful, but it's still slop. Yeah, I mean slop is good. To your point, Alex, to your point, the sentiment is so poor online right now that I think people are just trying to grasp its straws and try to construct bullish narratives it out of just about anything. My opinion is the same as as the groups here. I, I think it's quite interesting, you know, that took, took the effort, however a little effort it may have been for him and his team to at least tweet it and acknowledge it. And it's better than where we've been in years prior. Alex, I didn't want to get your thoughts. So because you had, you had published a, a piece last week, you authored something on acknowledging Bitcoin's 17 year anniversary of the white paper. And you mentioned that it's, it's really come a long ways, but it's still a paradox in the sense that it's owned by anarchist, but then it's also owned by the asset manager. So I'm curious if you want to just distill your thoughts from that piece and then we can we can riff on that up and. Be curious. Well, I mean I think it's a a, a triumphant and historically very significant moment October 31st 2008 when Satoshi published that white paper. I think it'll it continues to be reinforced as a very key historical moment every day that Bitcoin survives. It does. Bitcoin hasn't just been surviving, it's been massively growing. And I think there is, you know, there's always been infighting and debate within, you know, the Bitcoin community or the people that you know, like Bitcoin and, and talk about it with each other about what is Bitcoin empirically and what is it meant to be right. And this is partly where that paradox, you know, is born from is that, you know, is it freedom money for, you know, hacktivists? Is it is it primarily censorship resistant online freedom money or is it a scarce digital commodity meant to help diversify an institutional portfolio? It's obviously both, right. But like that, that is there is some tension there. I mean, I was even asked, you know, I've been pointing out one of the things that I'm bullish on is the wirehouse is finally authorizing their wealth channels to actually recommend Bitcoin ETFs, which Morgan Stanley has done with an initial allocation of 4%. So like a Morgan Stanley, that's bullish, right? That's a catalyst I've been watching and waiting for since the ETFs launched. But then I was talking about this and somebody was like, do you think Satoshi would be proud of that? He went from his anarchy cypherpunk money to a Morgan Stanley RIA managed portfolio. And I was like, first of all, I don't care, OK. And second of all, proud, I don't know. But like, it's certainly not like it doesn't seem like what he expected, right? Like it's and that that tension in paradox, I think is is strong. It's wrong in internal ongoing debates in Bitcoin, such as about like how to handle spam or scaling. Like it's, it's an ever present and constantly reinforcing, reinforcing paradigm in Bitcoin of like what is the purpose of Bitcoin right? Like you know who, for whom is it existing right? And the, the, of course, the irony is that Bitcoin is an autonomous amalgam of, you know, network topography. The one answer is Bitcoin doesn't care, right? And it certainly doesn't care. So it's all of this narrative generation that we, you know, we're storytellers, humans. We, we, we, we got to add slop to everything in our lives so that we can understand it. You know, we got a slop of five Bitcoin in order to right, we have to tell a story to ourselves about what it is and what it means. And that story is has always been evolving and it continues to evolve in really interesting and sometimes paradoxical ways. But you know, the growth and success of Bitcoin is undeniable. Yeah, I I didn't have a chance to read it because there's a lot of slop online, so sorry for not. Being able to write this, this actually, and now I'm we're really beating this word to death, but this actually absolutely was white paper slop. Like this was white paper anniversary slop, you know? Well, it's, it's important to to look back and also because you've been here a while looking at this space. What you shared though, as a summary is something that I, I deeply thought about. It's also came into the founding of this business was there's very actually few people that had professional lives before Bitcoin that deeply got into Bitcoin and understand it, right. Most people got in very young. They didn't really, you know, had first out of college, maybe early entry level. So their mental models were kind of flawed. And so I've had this standing of historically for the first, call it 10 to 15 years, Bitcoin was run by hobbyists. And so as Jackson was saying earlier about the sentiment on Twitter when you were talking to basically was able to like hit a converge that the sentiment in the friction is basically because a lot of people that were early and that provided economic value into this network are becoming increasingly irrelevant. It's really that simple. Because as billions and billions and trillions come in, that economic value will start to overweight when it comes to we're seeing this with the ETFs, the dad. It's not saying they're right or wrong. It's just irregardless, like this is how monetary flows will occur and this is where we're headed. And so that's just, I think a big component of like this 1st 17 years versus the next 17 years are to look fundamentally different. The players, the way that people can incentivize, influence, the network and how it's adopted are going to be completely different. And I think that's what we're seeing over this. And the last part is this whole like malaise and chop is honestly good long term or even for next year because of the fact that we're just kind of hanging around here setting up for 2026 and all the macro tailwinds, I think set us up for a pretty bullish next couple of years. Also, I also go back to like safes, like gunpowder analogy in the sense of like, how else did you think this would play out? Like if we are right about Bitcoin, if it is, you know what we all think it is like these other rungs of society, we're going to adopt it at some point just out of, you know, a, a Darwinistic mentality, right? Like, so I, I struggle to even envision a path where like that wouldn't happen over a long enough time scale. So like, it, it, while it feels incongruent on the surface, like you're totally right. Like multiple things can be true. It's obviously both and it's just a matter of people's perception. Yeah, my my stance has been that it it really doesn't matter. Like Alex, I agree with you. When we were talking about state adoption earlier this year with some of the legislation getting passed and there was just more focus on it at the time in the news, people would comment on the show and be like, oh, well, why, you know, why do you advocate for governments to adopt Bitcoin and well, bitcoins meant for the people. People are supposed to hold it directly. And so my stance is that, yes, I agree with that. But at the end of the day, where 17 years after the white paper and most people still haven't adopted it, right. And so at some point, we've given plenty of we've given plenty of time and opportunity for people to adopt Bitcoin. Many still overwhelming majority is still chosen not to do that. And it doesn't impede on your ability to use Bitcoin in a self sovereign manner if a government or Morgan Stanley wants to offer it and manage portfolio. So I don't really know what the big deal is here and why people are are upset about that. Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, I think, you know, if you believe that Bitcoin is going to whatever your utopian end state is, you know, hyper bitcoinization, replace money and be digital gold, whatever it is, you're going to have Bitcoin everywhere, right. I need Bitcoin in my bank. I need Bitcoin in my fintech app. I need Bitcoin in My Portfolio. I need Bitcoin in my cold storage. I need like, you know, like so it's inevitable and there's I think there's no need to be upset. I think one thing that you point that I want to comment on Michael's point about the, you know, the people online versus like the early, early adopters. There is a very interesting aspect of like the zeal or zealotry of the convert. I don't know if you guys are familiar with this term, but basically like in religions and cults like the later entrants tend to be much more zealot, you know, zealous right than the early adopters. And it's because they came of of age or got interested in the thing, in this case Bitcoin, you know, by hearing it evangelized by, by people, right? Like where is the early? And this is totally true about like early Bitcoin whales that that I know and that that we work with. Like somebody was like, are the whales selling? There's been historic level of distribution from old hands to new hands as a major feature of this last market that we've been in. And they're like, oh, are they selling? Because I was asked today by a hedge fund, are they selling because they don't like the vision of where Bitcoin is headed, for example, the same. And I was like, no dude, they don't give a shit about that, OK. They're selling because it's liquid enough for them to finally sell. By the way. Like that's the reason you see big whales, right? Like it's since the ETFs launched. But no, it's the bro. Like the people that learned about Bitcoin last year on Twitter are more zealous, usually about like a more fundamentalist about the asset than the long term. People who are, you know, tend to be. It's just, it's, it's natural, right? It's that's actually, if you go and check that out on, you know, people should look that up. Zeal of the convert. There's a whole story here about Paul the apostle and whatnot and all this other stuff. But I I think it's totally at play. We see it every day that new people coming in have no idea why they need a self custody. They just know that they have to. And like Alex Leishman has a great quote is like if you have to be told a self custody, you probably shouldn't like if you don't understand. I think that's right. Yeah, Alex was the hedge fund you're referring to, was that Peter Thiel? I'm kidding, because he had that bear, that bearish video was circulating in the past couple days here where his his position just seemed more ideological where he, I don't know if you guys caught it, but he pretty much just said he had liquidated a lot of his position in Bitcoin. And his reasoning was that it doesn't seem that Bitcoin is really living up or meeting expectations that we had or Satoshi had in the early days. And so again, just like more proof that there's just even at the highest levels, right, you have billionaires that are seemingly very ideological about this and willing to just sell off because it's not, you know, this anarchist money. Time out so Jackson just giving like softball slot hits to Alex because like these are like 3D3D slot kings when you think about Jamie Dimon Peter Thiel like what they say. Do they really, you know, I mean, maybe Peter Thiel believes it, but like you've heard, how many times is like Chamoth talked about Bitcoin in different lights over the past 10 years? So true. He's been bullish bearish. Bullish bearish. Yeah, we're like Jim Cramer. Well, I'm not trying. I'm not trying to get bearish on it. I'm just saying like it's it's. I'm just saying that like, I don't even know if he actually what he's saying is, is is. Peter Thiel's slop with a grain of salt is what I'm hearing, Michael, I mean it. Could just be very, you know, as simple as he sold, you know, when the price was 304050K and now he is, you know, updating his priors and now he's biased being like, yeah, it's not really what it was supposed to be, even though he's missed out on another double. Or he's long ETH zilla. Well, yeah, that's a fact. Sensor like whatever whatever else is the du jour to make the next trade, you know, because you can still have the bags while still like saying hey guys, they got the the next Bitcoin for you. You know, one thing, Alex, you brought up earlier that I think you just have a great lens on given your background and the type of clients you work with, the Galaxy, you mentioned the Morgan Stanley integration of Bitcoin and portfolios, 4% allocation. Can you just kind of speak to what you're seeing, whether it's the wire houses or it's more independence OR it's other, it's just institutional investors. Curious what you're seeing in terms of like access opening up interest, because again, sentiment, I want people to know like sentiments bad online, but it's not real. It it doesn't make the case for Bitcoin irrelevant. It doesn't mean that there's not going to be a lot of new entrants into this space that, you know, are suddenly not going to invest or allocate because of the price action. This year hasn't been, you know, historically aligned with the four year cycle. Yeah, I mean the access is growing. I think also, you know, the Bitcoin is a maturing asset and it's it's going to be characterized not by, you know, 1000 and thousand XS, but by passive bids and flows. And like that's where this appears to be heading. You're going to start with like, you know, eventually, you know, probably half of the wealth advised clients in the world will have like a one or 2% allocation in Bitcoin. Like that's this is where it is heading. You might might happen in four O 1 KS, right. You might get like, you know, like like if an MSTR joins the S&P 500 or whatever, then it's going to be in every. Index fund right like that this is it's no longer hobbyists, you know trying to catch catching a flyer right like this is this thing's going to be a slow grind up and it's going to be characterized sometimes by volatility, though probably lower. That's why even now, you know, we have a debate, you know, I, I did lower our official Bitcoin end of your price target from 185, which was a year ago that I said that to 120, which is still plus 20% from here as we speak, right? Like so, but, and people are like, Oh my God, you're so bearish. I'm like saying that it's going to go up. It could go up 20% in six weeks is bearish. Like, I don't know. But the reality is like, you know, this is going to be characterized by passive flows. I think long term ETFs, investment advisors, it's going to be because it is a great asset for that. Now it may and it's just not going to be, you know, and those types of of investors, institutional investors, advisors, they're not rotating in and out like every month because they trade on finance and they read Bitcoin Twitter, you know, it's going to be like that. And it's still I mean, look, this is one of the biggest cases for the ETFs in general, the largest cohort of wealth that needed the ETF is the wealth advised the RIA channel, right? Like they can't buy spot and they can buy ETFs like the ETFs are really for them. And yet still they're only just starting to, you know, they need to wait like seasoning periods and then compliance departments need to like write a bunch of stuff and blah, blah. It's now almost 24 months after the Bitcoin ETFs launched and and one of the four big wire houses is only just letting their advisors off the leash in terms of recommending. Now it's going to take a while. Maybe not every advisor is going to know how to recommend it or that they should or may not want to, right? So now they're their investment strategy team is going to end up producing some research explaining how to pitch Bitcoin and why you might want a portfolio. It's going to take even more time, right? It's not like coming around the corner, but I think we we see that happening. You see it an acceptance of Bitcoin as a mature asset. That doesn't mean it's going to be a stable coin in the 100, you know, 95 to 120 range like it's been basically all year. It's going to have upside, but it's it's we we kind of need to wait and see like what that the character of it is going to look like. And there's, you know, I, I don't believe in the four year cycle. I don't, I'm not quite sure it ever did exist. Maybe it existed into the 1st and 2nd halving. But like, you know, there's other interest, you know, for example, did Bitcoin go up in in May 2020 because the halving happened? Or was it because we were all locked at home and the government sent money to everybody? And also the idea of money became hilarious with them printing so much. And so Bitcoin shine really well, right? Like, I don't think it was because of the halving. It's pretty coincidental and, and you know, and supportive of, you know, but if you, if you look at historic money printing and then it just so happens that at that moment Bitcoin was slashing its its debasement rate, right like that, that's coincidental and positive in my mind. I think you're going to see obviously, you know, like in like pure nominal terms, like the impact of the halving is reduced by half every time and to now like it's such a minor percentage of the daily flow that it has no meaningful impact from a pure volume and flows obviously. But also these do we think the passive bid is going to do they are they following the the halving like to the is it the four year cycle? I think that'll be further dampened right by growing institutional investment. So will volatility. You know, people now are saying, oh, we're down what 20 we're down 25% from all time high. They're saying don't worry, past bull markets have been characterized by many 30% drawdowns and I've done that chart and 17 in particular. That's true, but it's not going to be like that. You're not going to have giant like long term bull markets with seven 830% drawdowns. It's just it like it at this point, like you're going to have tight lower volatility, you're going to slower rise and less meaningful dips. I mean, even the dip, you know, of course there can always be exogenous factors, right? Like the tariff tan from an April, like, you know, Bitcoin did dip from over 100 to I think 74 five is where it bottomed out there in April. That's a massive decline. And but again, everything did right. Like that's an exogenous thing. I think generally the Raas are going to be an increasing part of this story, which will be more and more characterized by a sort of a passive less, less active bid that is nonetheless, you know, accumulating. Here's what keeps bitcoiners awake. 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Just to go real quick a little deeper on just that part of the market when I think the volatility, something it doesn't get talked about enough is the volatility dampening will let a lot of these things turn on. Because if you remember like 21 and 22, everyone was talking about some form of digital asset exposure being integrated. And then FTX happened and everyone kind of took a step or a lot of people took a step back. And I think that this market being prolonged, whatever the cycle is and that volatility dampening, let's more of these things turn on, which is what I wanted to bring up and just get your take on. There's no shortage. I'll forget a bunch, but the ones that come to mind are like this past week with Coinbase and Apollo Citibank for payment, Citibank turning on Custody, obviously Charles Schwab, there's the BB and K rumored acquisition for close to 2 billion, the one that MasterCard lost out on with 0 hash. There's a lot of M&AA lot of people recognizing this industry is not going away. Just curious how you look at it through the lens of just like an external participant And they're like where Galaxy sits? Because I think that's another really bullish indicator of like, these things have to happen before they can turn on. And they're basically telling you that this market's not going away and now we need to figure out our plan. Yeah. I think the M&A is and the acquisitions are, are, are very strong signal, right? Like it's not, you know, Mastercard's been tinkering with stable coins and crypto for a long time. We know the team there. But like they didn't shell out $2 billion until just recently, right? Like that's a meaningful, I would say uptick in their level of confidence about the technology and the industry. I think it's, it's, it's a really important thing. And it's not just by the way, volatility lets you know service providers and institutional companies enter and feel comfortable building, but it also for an asset manager or an investor, lower volatility means you can increase your position size, right? Like that's how you control for volatilities typically with position size. So you, you that you're never going to get like the world's sovereigns or the giant, you know, pensions to buy Bitcoin at scale when it's a 50 to 100 Volt asset. Like they don't put giant amounts of money into things that are that volatile. That's too volatile, right? So when it gets lower and it has been getting lower, it is lower. It can it everyone can, can put more chips in, right. So on the acquisition stuff though, look, this is another of the interesting paradoxes, right? And Galaxy kind of sits in the middle here is because we're sort of a translation and access service provider to get traditional investment into Bitcoin and crypto. Like we bridge that gap. We sit in like in Lower Manhattan, like I'm sitting here, you know, 100 yards from Goldman Sachs's HQ is where our headquarter, right? Like we are the institutional New York crypto firm basically, which sits at the intersection between the crypto native and the the traditional, just like the anarchists and asset managers in the in owning Bitcoin is so sort of a paradox. So too is like, where will the service providing happen? Right? Like the SEC said that the national, you know, the Exchange Act does not prohibit national securities exchanges from allowing spot commodity crypto trading, AKA they're saying NASDAQ. You, you're allowed to trade Bitcoin on the NASDAQ. So like, what does that mean? Who's going to are people going to buy Bitcoin on Coinbase or on the NASDAQ? Right like this? There's a, there's a, a push and pull in a Venn diagram emerging, an overlap between the traditional and the disruptive and where that lands what and centralization and decentralization and where that fault line ends up is very much in dispute both by the service providers pushing like the crypto industry, right versus the traditional. And we don't quite know where it's going to land. I'm certainly betting that it's going to land farther on the towards decentralization than it is currently. But there's there's going to be, you know, in this the M&A of, you know, traditional payments firms, big banks, brokerages making sort of crypto native acquisitions that that is, that is part of this battle. We tokenize Galaxy stock and put it on on on chain. That's also part they're going to take crypto. Then, then you should probably watch cryptos trying to take stocks. It's the same this push and pull, this ebb and flow of centralization and decentralization that underpins the adoption of Bitcoin also is playing out at the like the industry level. It's going to be very interesting. Yeah, that's been one of the easiest, most fascinating, hardest to forecast which you described. Galaxy is a great example. River is also one that you have native firms to the space starting to incorporate traditional finance. Most people want an aggregated solution. You think well like Galaxy ones launch or River with the the yield bearing account. And then you have the other side Fidelities of the world trying to incorporate digital assets. You got Coinbase launching stock trading and it's like this kind of like push pull, Yeah. And it's gonna be super fascinating to see who wins that race that delivers the best in hand, best in class client experience, but also looks like what looks like today but is ready to blend into like where people are. Going for the future, that's right. And that that is that if you're building in this industry like a company or a service provider, like this is the battle, right? Like where can we stake out and win? And I mean, Galaxy has irons across the fires here and that we're playing and, and pushing and building and sometimes partnering like we're, we're all over this question, right, for digital assets. But like this is a huge question, right? It's kind of like there was an old joke that like every, you know, every app would become a bank. And then I used to joke every crypto firm would become an exchange. And now it's kind of like, well, every crypto company is going to become a stock app and every stock company is going to become a crypto. It's it's, you know, I don't know, I think that in one hand, it's very obviously credentializing that that's the case, right? That, you know, the traditional, I mean, look, the United States has the most vibrant and deep and transparent and effective capital markets in the entire world. A lot of that is because of the companies that provide those services are great companies and there's a lot of them, right? But like it, it goes back. What did you think was going to happen with Bitcoin being widely adopted? Surely it's going to be integrated into the existing financial system. And just who does the integrating upon which app do you see it integrated? Who provides the back end custody or trading or whatever for that? These are all little battles that are happening. They've always been happening. But now, you know, it's like a new, new cohort of competitors has entered the arena with the regulatory clarity that we have here. And, and it's the, it's news flash, it's the big boys, and they're here to play it. Ties into. By the way, this is all. Great for bit corners and consumers to be clear, all of this competition that we want to, you know, win parts of as a service provider or win for the consumer, this type of competition lowers cost, it increases, it makes, it causes better products to be made right. Like it's, this is great, I think for the consumer and for investors, but for builders it's it's, I mean, it's also great. We're pushing, we're all pushing each other to do new, interesting things and do it better. Yeah, yeah. And what I'm hearing as well as you're, you're giving more context and color to effectively what Michael said earlier about the industry being a hobbyist industry for the 1st 10 to 15 years. And this was naturally going to happen. It was going to become, you know, a battle between the native businesses and the incumbents and who's going to own what and how are they going to participate in this asset classes economy. And it, it remains to be seen just because it's still, it is still so early. I, I don't think that people fully appreciate the fact that Alex, to your point, going back to the investment side, it's not really in a lot of portfolios. Like Michael and I had a conversation more recently with a independent RIA that manages ultra high net worth relationships and they have a number of clients that have direct Bitcoin exposure, but they were acquired by a multi billion dollar RAA in the past few years. And the parent RAA doesn't really have like an informed opinion or doesn't have a house view yet on Bitcoin and how it fits into a portfolio. And so that's just one sliver of what you talked about in an overarching theme, but these are all things that need to be figured out in order for that next wave of adoption to happen. The other, the other thing I would mention is like there's almost a third leg of this integration in my mind when you factor in like the prediction market stuff, the gambling, the DraftKings, like all of these things are converging at the same time. And it kind of goes back to the the slop conversation. Like markets are being sloppified in the sense that like we're getting gamify everything, tokenize everything. And it also speaks to just like the nihilistic nature of of, you know, predominantly young people, but a lot of people in this country that don't feel like they can get ahead. They're, you know, there's layoffs accelerating, wages not rising as much as the cost of living. And it's just like all of this is converging at a time when like it's probably not the best Ave. for people to go down, but that's where they're going to go because they have no other, no other options in their mind. Yeah, I think there's an aspect of economic malaise. You know, I think actually, you know, you hear the world's biggest macro investors, the Stan Druckenmiller's and Ray Dalio's and and, you know, Mike Novogratz's and Dan Moorheads and all these people, they're all saying the same thing. By the way, the wealth inequality at this point, you don't have to be a bleeding heart liberal to worry about the poor. It's becoming a structural problem for the economy that also could like ruin portfolios, right? It's I think that's something to pay attention to. But a lot of this, you know, a decade of wealth inequality and crony capitalism and a sense, the creeping sense that you can't get ahead among the world's youth, I think is, you know, it causes or it leads people to look for like moon shots, right? And, and rather than to say, learn about the savings technology that is Bitcoin or to, you know, prepare. So you, you see that rise of meme coin trading and, and, and gambling, sports betting, all that, all around the world, right? And I, I think it's in large part a result of that sense that the economy is not working for the average person and that your life may not be more wealth and, and, and better than your parents, which is, you know, there's a lot of malaise out there in the, particularly among the youth and, and cynicism from like, you know, what the economy has been delivering them. And, and that is a factor here as well. That also showed up this week in the New York election for mayor and mom, Donnie and Brian, I know, was really excited about his his victory. But, you know, I'm just busting your chops, Brian. But yeah, I mean, we did have some things on that topic that we wanted to discuss because I'm not quite sure how to parse this. I'm going back and forth between I just saw right before we, we jumped in here to start recording and I can pull it up, but we just saw the most amount of layoffs in October 150,000 for major employers in the US and that was the most since 2003. And then I saw as well yesterday. I'm just going to rattle off a few things. The median first time homebuyer hit 40 years old. And then you have zombie companies as well as a theme that Michael had pulled up is, is is creeping back in. We saw this in 2020 and 21. And a lot of these companies, the shelf life got extended under Zerp and a bunch of liquidity coming into the market. But it's clearly not a healthy economy. And despite asset prices being at all time highs, right? And so that's where the disconnect is, is because I think a lot of people, they see stocks are ripping. They hear from the media that the economy is hot. But in reality, yeah, stocks are ripping. But if you're a young person, you're totally priced out compared to like, the previous generations on how much, how many hours of Labor to buy one share of the S&P 500, as an example. Same thing with housing prices. And so the social contract is breaking in real time because since 2008, you've just had bailout after bailout speak of slop. You've had central bank slop after slop in terms of acronyms. And there's just been so much liquidity that's coming to these markets and now everything is effectively unaffordable for those who want to get ahead. And so it's pushing the incentives to take take risk in the bad way. Risk isn't inherently bad, but in the bad way of just like I have nothing else to do with this money or I have no, I have no future prospects for a career. So I'm just going to have a nihilistic life. I'm going to embrace this despair. I'm going to elect, you know, people who will tell me they're going to give you money out. And so that's kind of where we are today. I don't really know how that'll look in the next decade. I will say just for the listeners, because they need to get bowled up a little bit. It's bullish for Bitcoin because the is we're at a state where the economy and the markets are so flipped on their head that bad news is actually good news, right? So bad news means more intervention. If layoffs are happening, that means that there's going to have to be money that comes from somewhere right there, else there's going to be blood in the streets. There's going to be revolution. So we're just kind of at a point now where it ties into Alex you're you know, you'd mentioned Dalio is one example. We're not on the great trajectory as a country in terms of where things are headed. And I don't really know the if there is a solution outside of Bitcoin, but I don't even think Bitcoin is really going to fix this either. It's. Just about protecting yourself and your wealth. I think in in this in this spot and I agree. I mean, I you know, this is another take the take the the national debt, right? Like they're pretty much the only way out of that is crippling austerity, which can't happen. I mean, that will just overthrow the government if that happens, right? Any politician that proposes that will not be elected. I'm confident in predicting right. And the other option is debasement and that's historically. So what does that mean? That means money printing. That means you need to own scarce assets, whether that's, you know, your home or real estate or gold or Bitcoin. And and and so I, I still believe now is Bitcoin trading like a debasement hedge right now? Maybe not, but it fundamentally is 1. It fundamentally is scarce and and has a lot more utility than certain other debasement hedging assets, right? You can't send you a share of my house to pay for something, right? Like it's just a very useful scarce asset. It will, I'm very confident that it will trade like that. It will. And that, you know, everybody needs to God, look at the purchasing power decline just since 2020. We're talking like almost 40%, right? Like your, it's not just like, Oh yeah, sure, on a long time frame, inflation's bad. No, on a short time frame, it's going to be bad and it's very likely going to get worse I would say because there's no, there's simply no way out of the hole that we've dug. And if you look empirically at every. Every nation that's ever been in significant debt, they print money to try to get out of it. And I I think it's inevitable. I don't see another the idea we would have to to to get out of this situation without causing what we would need to bet on 50 years of like slightly more restrictive policy. Like there's no chance that we're we have that American politics is way more short term thinking than that, right? Like, I just don't. I don't, I'm not bullish on us. Like, cautiously and prudently solving that problem. Like it either doesn't get solved or it gets solved through money printing, in my opinion. Yeah. And in that spot, Bitcoin looks great. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot to to go through because there's the negatives, but then there's the the other side of it, which is it's the same concept of the dollar being the the the least dirty, you know, piece of laundry in the same way as the United States being the least favorable or the the most favorable when you look at the other countries. Because on this charge is to pull up what Alex was talking about inflation. We're just being gas LED over. You know what 2 to 3% inflation is when you look here, there's dozen eggs, 150%, pound of coffee 100%. You know, you can go down utilities 50% home prices since I believe this was yeah, the past five years since since September of 2020. But then the past few weeks, whether it's the New York election or New York City election or I think this past week, UK imposing or proposed exit tax, exit tax, Paris or France on a unrealized cap, gain tax around assets. I think that there's a reality that at the end of the day, if you centralized money creation, you end up in this socialistic style, 2nd and 3rd order effects because as you have the money closer to the spigot, you end up with these unintended consequences. With all that said, the US, this is something that's unrelated to Bitcoin, but I think is fundamental to the bullish case for where I wanted to pull up when Alex was talking about it earlier. This is Patrick Hollison, CEO of Stripe, talking about interesting trend we're noticing at Stripe, US Starbucks are pulling ahead of peers elsewhere and it shows the amount of growth and revenue across companies. And this is a startup software related to I believe it's the UK and Europe. And then this is revenue again, US, other AI startups, EUUK. And the thing I take from this is what Alex was talking about the amount of ingenuity, grit and forward thinking that we still occur. We know that there's natural things around production and a lot of things we have to onshore and you know, all the things that we kind of would be in the reserve asset have put on our backs as far as like against the 8 ball and we have to fix. We still have this form of liberty and creativity that heading into this new world, we can still lead on. And I don't think we talked about it enough. We hear like all the stuff on Twitter, everyone's always now getting on all the crazy stuff and it is crazy. But but that always gets a lot of the momentum when in reality, which Alex's point like we are leading from the front when it comes to this new race. I think it is a race. What we talked about with Besant, there is some meta to trying to get as much Bitcoin in the United States like we know China's trying to accumulate as much gold. It benefits them if gold's price appreciates and they've all insured from a for their capital accounts as well as their constituents, their citizens get wealthier. It's the same concept here. If we have the businesses, the individuals, the majority of Bitcoin, it does benefit the United States if Bitcoin continues to appreciate. So I think that's the bull bullish cases. If we take the money, it would appreciate more people have it and we build favorable business climates in other states. You know, maybe Galaxy wants to move to Texas. We'll see. You know, you'll, you'll naturally start to get that Nat, that nice competition which will exert itself in other forces and ideally get us out of whatever this craziness we're in. Yeah. I mean, it's so true. There's a couple things could riff on there, but I think it's probably the best time to be alive in the sense of if you're a high agency person, there's just so much opportunity that you can take advantage of, right? Like I do think that it's going to be increasingly challenging for people who find themselves in the status quo or followed using finance or Korea as an example of followed their parents generation or grandparents generation in terms of how to approach that. And so, you know, while it's not, it's definitely not all doom and gloom out there. There's going to be a ton of layoffs. We don't know how technology is going to impact the labor market. We know that inflation is the crisis. It's not going to it's not going to dwindle. It's only going to get worse. But if you're high agency and you can kind of see ahead of the curve here and you can find opportunities and industries that are ripe for disruption that are growing, then it there's actually a great time to be alive. I mean, outside of some of the crazy shit that happens you see online, it's a there's a ton of opportunity out there for those who are willing to take it. Just don't gamble. This is what I was trying to find earlier. I feel like, you know, Marty, Marty's Marty does not like pornography. He's a big proponent of pornography. And I think a lot of people look at it as like a very curmudgeon or prove whatever the version is. I feel like that and what I'm saying just don't gamble like the house is against you. It doesn't make sense, but it's this number here. The first one was Americans bet over 148 billion on sports last year, which is more than they spent on movies, books, concerts and sports tickets combined. And then, you know, the increase from 2023 was was all time high of 121 billion this past year or 2024 was $150 billion. And I would imagine 2025 is even higher than that. Not a good outcome from a societal. Perspective, yeah, it's, we talked about this in the beginning, but the gamification of finance, right? Like this I, I also, I don't like gambling. I don't mind playing against other people, you know, like if we want to play poker together, I don't want to bet against the house and I don't like betting against betting in contexts in gambling where I don't control the outcome, right. Like betting on a sports game, you've literally 0 impact. You can't it's one thing if you can be good at something and you compete with somebody and you put money on the line, right. But so I, I, I, it is it's incredibly nihilistic behavior. Mention that they invested that 150 billion in, you know, anything. It was good, right? Like it's just, it's, it's a net drain on society and it's growing and I think that's a signal that people, yeah, people don't want to work hard and save. They want to get rich quick. And, and I think it's partly because they don't believe that they can work hard and earn enough to save. And, and, and honestly, a lot of the data shows they're right. That's the structural problem in the economy. This brings up something random we were riffing on yesterday, like in Tax or Slack about. I wonder if Bitcoin's price point makes it harder for individuals to understand, even though all the sentiment and somebody paying attention is de risk, it risk adjusted to get in from think about 2017 to 2021. You looked at a price of three to 10 to $15,000. You can stack, you can get ahead. You can still get ahead obviously today. But the point is when somebody looks at that 110,100 and 220, it's really hard to realize, you know, the notion of savings and just curious like your thoughts on that because it's something I've been thinking about. Yeah, I mean, it's that, you know, as people that have been into Bitcoin for a long time, we've been dealing with this question forever. Oh, no, I'm too late and already went to 10K, already went to 20K. And now it's that that sensation, I think, and that impulse of people to think that they've missed it, that only grows the higher gets, you know, I mean, is it? And now if you went back, sure, everybody would like with The Time Machine, they'd be like, Oh yeah, I would definitely buy Bitcoin at $1.00. Well, when it was $1.00, you thought it was crappy, right? Like so it's it's, it's both a Veblen good, but also that plays against it, right, where, you know, it becomes more sought after the the the bigger it gets, it also becomes more useful as it becomes more liquid and big. However, if you think you were late and you've been on the sidelines, you become increasingly it, it only increases that impulse to to feel like you were late the better it does. So I you know, at some point it's, it's really hard to know, right. When have we ever seen the emergence of a new inner, a new organic global asset? I mean, never really. I mean, so, you know, I, I guess you could probably analogize it to like the emergence of a new company that goes public and like not everybody knows it, but eventually becomes like a Tesla and everyone owns it or something. You know, there's probably some analogies that feel similar of people grappling with the like, did I miss it? And then eventually capitulating by getting in and that whatever. But I mean, still, the vast majority of people in the world do not own Bitcoin. And I think you're right, Michael, a lot of it is probably because they feel like they missed it. You know, at 10K, don't kid yourself. At 10 and 20 felt good to stack. A lot of people thought they'd missed it then. I mean, I can't tell you how many people thought they were late then. And that's what we have to keep telling people now. Look, if you like Bitcoin and you understand Bitcoin, then you should own some Bitcoin, OK? And don't worry about whether you're late because in five years you're going to think this was this was early, most likely. Most likely. That's always been the case. My big request for builders or investment I want to make is, is really just a SAT's denominated exchange. Like I want it tied to. It could be starting with like youth literacy and really heavy on the education on like just either money or savings and grow from there into just traditional investors. But there's a huge opportunity I think to just get somebody on another unit outside of like, you know, .000 whatever and also 110,000 for the the unit. I think this is partially where the ETF shine. It's just surprising. I'm fairly confident between 100 between where we're at to 2:50 that's going to exist. And I think that'll probably bang because from a global perspective, if you're ever to figure out whether it's via a mint or however you elegantly design how they can get that exposure and even take it off the platform, you can basically open up a whole segment of the market, especially as stable coins proliferate that's just not there yet. 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 phrase hidden in your house, the hardware wild and the safe. That complex multi 6 setup. You understand it, but does your spouse? Do your children? Billions in Bitcoin are already lost forever because people did not plan for this moment. On ramps Inheritance solution is built into our multi institution custody from day 1/3 institutions. Clear beneficiary designation and professional succession planning. No technical knowledge required from your heirs. And with our new flat tier pricing starting at $250 monthly, your family won't face surprise custody costs just because Bitcoin 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. You know, it's it's interesting to like the totally agree with you guys on the unit bias. The IPO analogy has gotten some attention this week with Jordy Visser's post. And as you guys were talking through that, particularly you Alex, I was just thinking if like Bitcoin was a privately only a privately investable asset, like let's say it was right. And so only a certain amount of people. And that's the only thing that changes about it was that it was privately, you can only privately invest in it and there was limited access to people who could do it. But the everything else is the same. And there was a lock up period and people started to sell like early investors similar to an IPO. But everything about the economy, the markets, everything we're discussing today and the things that we discuss every single day are exactly the same. Then you as a public market investor would want to buy the thing that is now available on the public market that you couldn't do if the investment thesis remains true and the problems that it's solving for are still true today. So it's like, yeah, I mean, people are are dumping, Alex, please tell the whales to stop dumping on us, but that we're going to get through that period of distribution at some point. And just because there are large pools of capital that are exiting some of the position, all the position, I don't fully know, it doesn't invalidate the idea that Bitcoins properties are still remain the same, they're intact, they're objective. And the problems that we want to solve for by investing in Bitcoin are only getting worse. They're actually accelerating. So I don't fully understand like why it's a problem that it's 100K outside of you can't buy as much as you used to be able? I mean, it's, it's the frenetic nature of like always on markets, right? Like 115, no one was concerned. 100 people are losing their minds. Like it's, it's literally not a big deal, guys. Everyone can calm down. I agree, Jackson like the, the this is bullish selling. I, I just, I don't know if that's a thing, but if this certainly is for all that distribution that has happened and it's at least I mean 100 plus billion dollars of five plus year revive supply has changed hands in the last two years on, on. And that's 75% of all the five year old supply that's ever moved ever in the history of Bitcoin moved in the last two years in dollar terms and 45% of it in Bitcoin terms. But that was absorbed, right? Like it is literally like for every whale that exits, it's a it's being bought. The fact that you can have the biggest distribution ever in the history of Bitcoin in both dollar and Bitcoin terms. And we're at 102 K as we talk right now. Like that's incredibly bullish and it shows the it's just that it's not so much the exit of OG whales. It's more the passing of the torch to the rest of the world like it is, you know, was it bullish when an early founder sells some shares on the NASDAQ after his company goes public? Or was it more bullish 10 years later when that company turned out to be like Microsoft, right? Like the it's not, it's not, it's it's a, you know, a near term headwind for price. But by the way, there's a theoretical unlimited amount of demand for Bitcoin and there is an extremely scarce and finite amount of early whales who can sell right? Like this. Would you rather have had this distribution happen now or when we get to 150K or 200K? Like at some point everyone has a number and you know, I'm going to I've, I'm going to huddle my Bitcoin indefinitely. But like, you know, maybe I need to, you know, buy a home one day or, or who knows what people go through stuff estate planning. I mean, some of the, you know, big whales that we've seen seller literally just doing estate planning or they died and it's their kids receiving the the coins. Like that's some of what's happening. It's totally normal and natural. And in fact, I think it's a sign of significant maturity. This is also kind of what Jordy meant and wrote about in this bitcoins IPO moment is that like every asset has to go through this, right? Like the motivations for somebody buying at $1.00 and having 10,000 BTC are very different from the motivations of somebody buying A at 100K as part of a portfolio or some, you know what I mean? Like it's just, this is the evolution of Bitcoin. It's Bitcoin becoming a mature asset. It's totally bullish in my opinion. Yeah. I mean, that's incredibly well said. And the only the one other thing that I would add as well for the audience that maybe haven't appreciated it is the fact that these whales couldn't really sell prior to this year, this administration, right? Like imagine wanting to sell billions of dollars of Bitcoin and then you have billions of dollars land in your bank account and then, you know, the government wants to seize your bank or, you know, like that's I think an under appreciated risk and and fundamental shift in market structure as well. Yeah. And not that's a good point though. The bank, it's also the liquidity profile, right? Like that's that you couldn't exit if you sold $9 billion of Bitcoin, you would tank the market in prior years, right here we've got a market that's significantly deeper and more liquid, right. So you actually have the capability of of not only exiting a large amount, but entering with a large amount, right? Like that's, this is what we need. We need Bitcoin to be bigger and more liquid and deeper, and that's what's happening. Yeah. One thing I couldn't help but think about when you were discussing Bitcoins fundamentals, and they are to your exact point, there's only a certain level of individuals that are wanting to sell and there's a increasing demand for all of Bitcoins properties and fundamentals. And that's why people withstand volatility and hold on, this was always part of the meta around why Dats, if we go to our favorite part of the show did never, never made sense. Because I think we agree here, at least Alex and I like we're going to see a resurgence. The market's going to come back. People are it's going to get frothy. The Dats either existing ones or V2 will come back, but the point still stands at 100K wherever these things are trading at, people are looking at themselves and their portfolio and like what did I put my money into? And they're all underwater and they don't have any fundamentals. So it's very hard to hold to the volatility and that's were inherently going to be more volatile than the underlying. And so that was another component that just isn't widely understood by the proponents. Advocating for them is not only do they lack the fundamentals long term, but as they go through the volatility profile, nobody can anchor back to what the hell did they invest in. And so then they just get shaken out of their positions. And so sure, it may come back, but they'll probably not even be be owning the underline. And I don't think that gets deeply like explaining. I think it's worth just talking about or at least calling out, because when this thing does come back, I think people should just recognize they should not be buying these assets. I just think that a phase two, I mean, look, if a company's equity price, you know, goes down 99%, but they still have a billion dollars of assets on their balance sheet, like it's going to survive. It might be brutal to have held the the shares, right. And who knows what happens to their share prices, but there are piles of assets in a lot of these dats. And so I, I think that a revival will happen, but I think it'll be characterized kind of along what you're saying, Michael, by businesses. I think they're going to have to actually make money, not just be acquisition vehicles. Like I don't think that, you know, outside of maybe strategy like which you know, is of a size and financial engineering acumen to maybe be able to just be that pureplay vehicle. I think the vast majority of these are going to have to do something with as a business, whether that's like just using your Bitcoin and becoming a Bitcoin lender. I think that's what Metaplan has announced. They're they're lending and cash and Bitcoin. OK, that's something maybe just straight up buying stuff, buying an exchange, buying a Bitcoin company by, you know, acquiring, spinning up while it's who knows what I mean, I'm just saying I think the future, I think they will come back, but I think it'll be characterized by consolidation, by revenue generation. It's going to look different. I think it has to in my mind, it has to or because again, we've seen the pureplay freshly launched acquisition, acquisition vehicle corporation. And you know, in the short term like that, you can't just raise a bunch of money and then instantly dilute and then, you know, what do you do now? Right, Like it's. Yeah, I think they'll be the V2 slot will be what you're describing. It'll be like just add any like slot to the to the meta of over this, this and that. I think the recognition from like firms like Galaxy Coinbase is if you have sustainable businesses and then you add Bitcoin to your balance sheet, that long term will be how allocators will underwrite the market cap. Because you do have pristine collateral, you do have increased optionality. You do have this upside of this asset, but it's not the focus of the business. The focus of the business is delivering value. That was always how like these things got conflated was businesses should be holding Bitcoin. It's like, yes, that's obvious, but businesses shouldn't solely be in the business of accumulating Bitcoin because you, anybody can do that and they shouldn't get a premium on that is the point. Right, We wanted the corporate adoption. Michael Saylor started the Bitcoin for Corporations conference like and but then everyone just did exactly what Michael is doing. And what we really want to see is corporate treasurers add some Bitcoin, right? Like instead we got 200, you know, digital asset treasury companies adding only the crypto. Like you would know, it's the the more bullish thing and really has yet to play out. You know, there's a couple SpaceX and Tesla own some Bitcoin, right? Like there's there's some. Like figma is probably the most. Interesting Figma yeah, they but right. But like that's, I mean, again, the the same argument about Bitcoin being a good diversifier and, you know, in a portfolio, you know, increasing the sharp ratio, which has historically been true. It it's not just for a, you know, a 6040 portfolio or a retail that that would be that's true at the corporate level too. Like we would love to see that story still hasn't played out really right. We instead of that, we got the, you know, endless dat bonanza. So I, I would love to see that story play out. It's kind of the reverse of the DAT adding an operating business. Why not an operating business add some Bitcoin? That would be crazy. I hope we see that. You should see it at some point if Bitcoin continues on this maturity trajectory that it's on and has been on. I don't I don't see why not. I mean, I'm not a corporate treasurer. Maybe certain types of commodity type investments don't make sense for them. But again, from a purely like, you know, portfolio design construct like I think it seems inevitable to me. Yeah, I hear you. I, I think we'll see that as well. But for now, everyone wants to be debt maxing. So we'll just have to continue to observe from the sidelines. Alex, one thing I want to get your thoughts on and was the, the big liquidation we saw in the markets like 2 weeks ago. I'm curious. And then I also want to pull up a chart from Galaxy as well. The shitters aren't doing too hot. And so I was just curious from your perspective, like institutional perspective, wealth managers, do you think anything changes into 2026 in terms of Bitcoin versus the rest of the space? I feel like sentiment on Bitcoin Twitter is, is bad, but then every once in a while I'll see the crypto Twitter sentiment pop up and it's like really bad. And so I'm wondering if the liquidation and the fact that just like some of these are, you know, permanently impaired assets, how does that impact institutional interest for this market? Yeah, some of the assets on this by the way, we this is not a chart showing draw down from this year's all time high. This is actually all time high. And so some of the assets on the far left are actually down 99% from like their 21 all time high. But yeah, look, I mean, the, the, the 1010 leverage wipeout, as we were calling it happened about 4:15 PM right after market closed when President Trump tweeted mean tariff headlines about China, right? That caused material dent. And I mean, this is a part of the catalyst for re rate formally re rating our, our, our, you know, year end call on Bitcoin lower. It's dented liquidity like $75 billion was wiped out from futures markets. That was 35% in, in about 6 hours, right? Like that's a serious, serious wipeout. We know of funds and, and some market makers that whether or not they've lost everything, they've they're closing shop like they're and you can see this in order book depth across the industry. Like there's there is less liquidity and that makes things move more violently. And the the the, the part about altcoins that that you know, some more story about that chart is that you know, who is the bid for altcoins like on that, that's the top 100 coins, right? That's like, you know, maybe there's a couple XRP army or Cardano, whatever they call themselves, like in your friend or family group that buy that stuff on Coinbase. But the vast majority of true retails not buying low long tail crypto assets, right? Like they they may be buying Bitcoin or ether solar, who knows what, like you did something somebody's kid or nephew told him to do it, right. The people buying the long tail assets is what I call like sophisticated retail and crypto funds. And they're the ones that got like torched. Like this was an event that took place mostly on Binance and like hyper liquid, like average normies don't use Binance and hyper liquid, right? So who who is the it's not it was neither retail nor institutions. It was someone in the middle. And it's, you know, just broadly painting the brush. We're talking about people trading with like 100K to $1,000,000 that are sophisticated that use on chain stuff that are trading on places like hyper liquid using, you know, Phantom wallet And like that's a specific sophisticated cohort. And they are the ones that got absolutely torched on this leverage wipeout. And they're also the ones that are the bids for these altcoins, right? So like that, that the, the, the, the, the broader crypto complex is down significantly worse than Bitcoin. But part of the reason for negative sentiment in crypto is also that the 2025 crypto trader didn't, doesn't own Bitcoin. Bitcoin's not widely owned on crypto Twitter like anymore. It's it's thought to be, you know, a boomer coin or like we know what Michael, we were talking about about, you know, or they thought they were too late. They're looking for the next Bitcoin. It's that classic story. I mean, the space is, I would say like the the online, you know, diaspora in crypto is historically underweight Bitcoin today compared to prior cycles. And so like I said, the people buying Bitcoin are increasingly mature investors, not degenerate ones on Twitter, right? So the sentiment is very negative, I would say right now. And if you think that like there's a lack of catalyst for Bitcoin in the near term, like just brother, I've got to tell you the, the, the altcoin, you know, catalyst landscape looks even bleaker at the moment. I look all that stuff, whether it's cryptos or or Bitcoin specifically, that sentiment can change in a heartbeat. You know, couple weeks, foundation gets rebuilt, you know, get some slightly better economic numbers. The macro people stop freaking out. Like a new AI app comes out that like blows everyone's minds like ChatGPT did two years and all of a sudden there's no more talk about an AI CapEx bubble burst, right? Like all of this stuff is so narrative driven in markets these days and narratives can evolve a lot. But that that wipeout was, was materially damaging to the marketplace, like it and, and to the liquidity in the market in general and in, in Bitcoin also like not just, you know, not nearly as bad as the rest on, you know, the left side of that chart, but like, you know, the, the Bitcoin liquidity profiles diminished since then. So I mean, it's still pretty Dang liquid, but like I'm just saying like had a big impact. We don't have to go deep here, but I think what you just called out is also an important part of why I like our chances and emergent players in this race. When we talked about the incumbents, because the incumbents obviously aren't as D Gen. but they're still guided by these notions of false primitives and things that will happen that aren't necessarily. So you think about, we talked about the MasterCard acquisition as an example, but there's others that they've heard all these like promises of decentralization and crypto and they're going to chase that, especially to your point if other apps or narratives come about. And it's just pretty wild to see the amount of capital that's been injected in crypto versus Bitcoin and a lot of this infrastructure. And so I think it's just going to be interesting to watch play out over the next couple of years because that's the topic Jajour of like how much capital is being invested in these companies via M&A or companies starting like being raised via dats or whatever else. But the reality is like when the bear market comes out, there's no volatility or there's no, there's no volume, like everything just kind of like dies. And so you have these acquisitions, you have these Rd. maps to incorporate all this stuff, Even stable coins, like obviously stable coins are going to deliver a lot of value, but you hear a lot of these banks and firms figuring out a playbook for them, but they don't know the use case because it's the same thing as Bitcoin. Like if you get into stablecoins, you still have to figure out how to use them. How are you going to like manage your cross-border from AB to B perspective or individual perspective outside of your degen trader you reference? Like who knows why they would use it or how to use a stablecoin? I think we'll get there, but everyone's making plans for stablecoins with no fundamental way to monetize. They gotta, you know, it's a, it's the, if they don't, then their competitor will. That's, that is absolutely the vibe when it comes to stables. Like we talked about Stripe and all those guys like that's the, you're right. They're in sort of like shoot first ask questions later mode on integrating stables. I happen to think that's the right call because I think the genius act implementation is incredibly bullish for the adoption of stable coins, right? Like it is, it is going to force it upon the world to the, you know, and I think it's a brilliant geopolitical move by Congress and, and the administration as well. I think, you know, instead in sort of like simple distilled terms, I don't know, you know, this is a heuristic and it's not a real number, but the genius act probably extended the life of the US dollar as the dominant world reserve currency for another 30 years from, you know, theoretically, I don't know if it's 30 or 50 or 1000 or whatever, but like it's materially supportive. And every bank and fintech knows this, whether or not they know how to use it or figure it out yet, they're just, but doggone it, they're going to try as fast as possible. And you're starting to see an arms race among the visas and Mastercards and Stripes and Paypal's like they're all working on that a lot, right? In fact, I think it's the banks that are like the slowest to move here. And they're also in some ways the most at risk. The banks have like the bank Policy Institute is just putting out so much negative anti stablecoin slop these days. They are obviously concerned. You know, if you judge the the positive to negative ratio of slop, it's like on on on stablecoins. It's extremely negative from the banks because you know why would you keep your money in a bank if you even you send a wire or an ACH, this thing just disappears until it arrives. Sometimes you're like did it get there You don't even know stablecoins much better than that. I think once the tooling is there yes, but I agree with you Michael. They are shooting 1st and hoping to figure it out later, but I, I think that's the right play because this thing, I think that is going to be a rocket ship. And by the way, like there's another like OG narrative versus new entrant, you know, zealotry, like is what, you know, Jack Dorsey's sort of the last major figure out here, bang the table on Bitcoin being used as a medium of exchange, right? And that's a very bullish from Jack. And, and that block is, and I think this week or next week actually rolling out Bitcoin payments at every square terminal, which is incredible. Like that's the, that's the way it might get used for, for payments at true scale. I happen to be a, a, a believer that it doesn't need to be used for payments to be incredibly successful, but like that and then disable coin. I mean, would you rather pay with the, the, you know, the, the dollar or like the asset you're being so bullish on? I think personally, I, you know, if you'd spent Bitcoin in the past, like you probably regret it now, right? So, like I, you know, I don't think it need, but that that's that's another thing to play out like in stable coins. Could possibly, you know, make Bitcoin as an Moe irrelevant. It's it's totally possible. Yeah, I think on that note, that's really where Long live the whole loan time preference or long term thinking where we get in traditional whether it's traditional public markets or individual entrepreneurs where the whole notion is that people think in decades it gets like thrown out as a a meme or just but it really is true. Like if you have you have to be right, right. So there's like non consensus and right. But I do think like on a long enough time arising, I agree with both that in the short quarter people will spend stables or be more tool and it'll be understood. But on a long enough time arising, I think the thing that generally is forgotten is that if everyone demands and wants Bitcoin and then the merchants just have the direction to say, well, you pay me a Bitcoin. And then if you want that nice hoodie, you either going to spend some of your Bitcoin or you're that's not going to get the hoodie. And that's that's the thing. And that's where this ends. But there's a whole thing between. Totally agree with you. Like in the end, like whether it's a depreciating asset or an appreciating asset, at some point people still might want to spend their Bitcoin, right? Like this is kind of safety. And so thesis of like, well, So what they'll probably do is not spend it unless it's better quality. And so rather than spend Bitcoin to build a house out of shitty wood and vinyl siding, they'll build a stone or a brick house, right? Like, and that, that's, that's sort of the core of safety's thesis. And, and I, I agree with that also, you tell me, do I want to buy a coffee with Bitcoin? No. Do I want to buy like some like, you know, stone maybe, right? Like, you know, and I think I think that's true. I, I also think, you know, another thing that's bullish, you know, the Bitcoin is that the stable coins might make it easier to send and receive dollars and cheaper and faster. And they do, they don't solve the core problem with the dollar, which is that it's been depreciating to 0 for its entire existence and being debased. It certainly doesn't solve debasement, right? So like they're, they're too, you know, money is a lot of things. It's not just a medium of exchange. It's also a way to store value from your labor across time, right? So, and stables don't stables don't change that, right? So it's. Yeah. Well, on the stables thing, I think the stables about six months to 12 months ago when he saw Tether making a huge play in the US and the genius act, I thought it was the most bullish thing for Bitcoin for like a few narratives. 1 is just the digital digitization of money. The notion of being able to swap a digital dollar for Bitcoin gets a lot easier in that world. But then the one that's like in the background is when you think about stables and just interested in this sector, you start thinking about, OK, well, all the plumbing you mentioned with Stripe, people's different protocols, they're getting built. The banks that have to house the treasuries, there's going to be other forms of stables. And you think about all this kind of like muck and plumbing. And then you really start to really appreciate Bitcoin because it's like, wait, Alex can pop up AQR code and I can send him any, any amount of money like with no intermediary. So simple. It's so simple and it's it's like it brings you back to like the essence of like how much value can you know it? Why this thing has value which is I don't think appreciated. That's a. Great. No, that's a great juxtaposition. I haven't thought of it that way, but you're totally right. Like even this battle between incumbents and and challengers on the service provider side, I mean, this is one of the reasons why it's been really hard and rare to see. I mean, we don't really have any giant Bitcoin specific companies. There's not really that much to do. Bitcoin does a lot of it for us already, you know. We're working on it, Alex. We're fucking. Custody and trading though, have been the business and mining, right? Custody, trading and mining, it's not all the other stuff that you, you know, and I'm saying like, you know, if you're mostly buying Bitcoin and storing it like that's, there's not a lot of intermediaries required for that. Actually. It's quite simple and elegant, which is obviously, you know, part of the bull case for Bitcoin. 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 work flows behind the scenes. It's strength of many delivered through the simplicity of 1 multi institution custody is the foundation for everything. We build sound infrastructure that distributes counterparty risk and provides fault tolerant resilience with clear audits and institutional controls. And now on ramp is piloting flat predictable pricing, making best in class Bitcoin custody and financial services more accessible now than ever. On ramp strengthen many simplicity in one. To learn more, check out on rampbitcoin.com. So Alex, before we let you off the hook here, you hit us at the Bear Sloth. 120K for the end of the year. What about 2026? What are your thoughts? What are you paying attention to? What's exciting to you? I don't have a number that I'm willing to say yet, but I, it will be higher. And, and I think it's so funny by the way, like guys, we're six weeks out from the end of the year. I'm calling for Bitcoin to go up 20% by the end of the year. But I was called a dirty bear. Like just sell your Bitcoin. I was like, why? Why would I sell my Bitcoin? Like, right, People are so sensitive online. They, they don't like you unless you exclusively tell them that they're brilliant and their money will appreciate at all times, right? So yeah, I just think it's pretty realistic given the situation in the where the market is to to when I said 185 that was December 31st of 2024 for the end of this year 25 and I posted in January giant list of everybody like prominence whose price calls I was aware of and mine was like low to conservative by most. I haven't seen anybody else formally re rate really. And, you know, it thought it was an interesting opportunity to, you know, jolt the market a little and show that we're really trying to be credible. I'm not trying to just post like bull slop all day long, right? Like we, we work and trade with real people. We're active, ongoing participants in the market. I'm not here as like a blind salesperson who tells you that Bitcoin's all, you know, you know, flowers and, and, and and perfect all the time. Like we're trying to be serious market participants that tell the truth about what we see. But it is, it's funny people are saying it. I mean, actually the Coindesk headline about that report said Galaxy head of research capitulates on year end price calls. Like capitulates. I'm saying it's going to go higher. What is the problem here? I'm just saying like 185 just seems pretty unrealistic. And, and by the way, options markets are pricing for deck 31, a 20% chance of 92K and a 20% chance of 120 K. So like it's, that's, that's where the options traders are are buying and selling volatility and, and, and betting and you know, like, so I, I think it's reasonable for next year. I don't man, it's, it's going to be tough one, because, you know, last year was really easy to feel bullish going into the start of the year, right? You just had President Trump's election, the the Republicans swept Congress. You knew that there was going to be some giant pile of positive stuff about for Bitcoin, for crypto and regulatory sense, possibly a legislative sense. You knew it was coming. You didn't quite know what and so you just knew you were meant to be long like whatever was about to happen, right, like and you know that that you know that euphoria and blind optimism has dissipated throughout the year. And Bitcoin was the not long. Bitcoin was the number one trade in the world following the election. Literally every it was the top trade in the whole world. Like that's everyone. It was crowded long for good reason, right? But throughout the year now you've got things like AI and hyperscalers and nuclear and quantum stocks and gold, which had a great year. Like imagine getting the return on gold without the volatility of Bitcoin. Like it was a great trade. Anyone that did that trade, Bitcoin just isn't the top trade right now. It's not that it won't be again or that it isn't for some people, it's just that like it was literally the number one trade across all types of investments in the entire world last year and it had a lot of competition this year, you know, So I where, what, what that story looks like next year. It's I think it's really unclear. We don't have the blind giant pile of catalysts that we had last year. We have This is why I'm saying I'm going to characterize it as passive bid increasing, you know, boring mature adoption is sort of the my guidepost. Now, will there be exogenous factors that cause it to spike or dip like always, right? The road to Valhalla is not a straight line, but we're, we're bullish on Bitcoin, right? I mean, I'm going to, I'm going to look at that and and sort of make a prediction for the end of next year in a couple weeks, I think. But I, I would, I would bet higher, I mean higher than one in new all time highs, you know, at least that's, I don't think that I think that's pretty table stakes, you know. I think it's very Bitcoin. And at the at this size, though, at a $2 trillion asset, right, for Bitcoin to go to 200 K to double in a short period of time, probably some really disruptive stuff is happening in the world that may not be good, right? Like you don't really want to see it moon. It's so big. It's it's one thing when it moons when it's a little tiny thing. OK, great. Like a low cap mooning is you know more people found out about it and bought it. Bitcoin at this size is genuine macro asset. If it double s in price, I'd be concerned about the state of fiscal and monetary policy and possibly the solvency of governments and economies. Right, like you, you don't want it to rapidly appreciate. Are you talking about gold or Bitcoin? Bitcoin and Bitcoin. But The thing is, there's another member cup. Bitcoin Gold kind of had a little bit of a blow off top a couple weeks ago and right before it was at almost about 4500 and went back down under 4. That's a big move for an asset that big. And right before what did you see pictures of people lined up around blocks all over the world buying gold? There's never been a time in history when people lining up to buy gold was a good sign for the macro economy or the governments of the world, right? That stuff is, is scary. So technically you want to hope for a slow grind staircase up. So it's, it's kind of hard to predict where it ends the year, but I'm we're bullish on it, that's for sure. Shame on you for not putting the JP Morgan slot today. About 160, I think 170,000 for for 2026. I love it. Jamie Dimon. Let's go. Jamie. He calls. He, he always says Satoshi, I'm like you. Surely he knows how to pronounce Satoshi, you know? Surely. Thank you, Satoshi. Thank you, Satoshi. It was fun. We'll have to do it again next year. I was going to say it was honorable for you to acknowledge your price prediction and and re rate it. We're still waiting for Michael to do that. He called for Thank you 750 Ki. Said at the end of this cycle, it's at the end of the cycle we got, we got room to run. This thing's going to go go much longer than we expect. What is the cycle though? What is the cycle? Cycles are dead. It's as long as he needs it to be in order to be. Right on that projection that's. Exactly right. All right, Alex. Well, thanks again. It was a pleasure. Thanks guys. Thanks for having me on the last trade. Thank you. Thanks for listening to this week's episode of the show. 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