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It all comes down to computers communicating. The information superhighway can be a confusing mix of on ramps and off ramps. Bitcoin is worthless artificial gold. Is it still rat poison? Probably the rat poison squared. We need to get into the world of OK, this is actually foundational technology. What the Internet of Money does is it creates a single network which can do a microtransaction to a giga transaction. The Internet is going to be one of the major forces for reducing the role of God. The one thing that's missing, but that will soon be developed is a reliable E cash. Thank you for joining us for this week's episode of Final Settlement, a podcast from On Ramp Media. On today's show, we're joined by Mark Connors, former Head of Research at 3 IQ Digital Asset Management and 30 plus year veteran of financial markets, who earlier this week announced he is joining On Ramp as our Head of Global macro strategy. Mark shares his insights on the flaws of the traditional finance system and how Bitcoin can be a remedy. He discusses the fragility of the incumbent system and the increasing debt load of governments and institutions. Mark also highlights the importance of retaining the optionality to take possession of Bitcoin and the risks associated with ETF products that do not provide that option. He emphasizes the need to understand the unique properties of Bitcoin and how its native properties of governance and decentralization free it from counterparty risk, making it a superior form of base money. We also discuss on ramps hybrid approach to custody that allows for the retention of control over assets while providing an option for self custody in the future. We also discuss the price appreciation of Bitcoin and how it validates its fundamental thesis, making it less risky over time as it gains wider acceptance and adoption. Now time for the show and we're live Welcome back to final settlement very special episode today we have our friend Mark Connors on the show today. He most most recently was the head of research at at 3 IQ digital asset management and prior to that spent several decades over 30 years in the traditional finance space. So has, you know, wealth of knowledge about macro financial markets and, and everything in between. And so really excited to have have Mark on the show today and, and talk through, you know, really his learnings and experiences in, in traditional finance and, and ultimately recognizing that that Bitcoin is a remedy and a solution to a lot of the sort of inherent issues that exist in the incumbent system. So lots of lots of different topics to to talk through, but but Mark, welcome to the show. Hey, Brian. Thanks. Thanks for having me, Michael. Welcome. Thanks again, always love chatting with you guys. I think it's my second or third with you. Yeah, you may. You may recognize Mark from past appearances on the last trade and he's also joined us for one of our our webinar episodes. But this is your first time on final Settlement. So yes, it is happy to have you. Thank you. So maybe a good place to start is sort of what I alluded to in, in the line of thinking around, you know, your experiences and, and really learnings from 30 plus years in traditional finance and, and you know, all the different things that you, you worked on and, and worked through, you know, through the O 8 crisis and all of that. And, and just recognizing some of the issues and, and flaws of the incoming system. And you know ultimately sort of secondarily to that, how that led you to Bitcoin, but would love to hear just sort of, you know a bit about your background and, and what you learned about the incumbent system over your your entire career. Thanks. So I'll do that in just 90 seconds. So if I just your question reminds me of an old joke that I had a friend just graduated medical school and on their way out, they said, well, you know, people you really didn't have to go through, you know, four years and then six years of residency because there's only one thing you have to know. And that is that the skin covers it all. And I bring it up because when it comes to finance, settlement covers it all. You know, you go back to the buttonwood tree. You need to have people together to see each other to agree on how to transfer risk for mutual benefit and the transfer, the risk included offering, giving and taking. And then the giving is easy often as we found out through different scams over time and getting back or the taking is usually often one way. And So what I've found is that over the last 35 years since I started in 89 downtown at at Dean Witter and I was at Salomon Brothers on the desk before that doing internships when Michael Lewis was there and saw not just great traders, but I saw people taking advantage of the current opportunity. So back to Salomon Brothers first job internship. No one knew who they were until they were bought in 1981 by a commodity firm. Commodities were king. Think of the movie Trading Places, Eddie Murphy. They weren't talking about bombs. They were talking about commodities because we just got out of the inflationary period where gold and oil went up, you know, 1418 times. And and the media was still on that narrative even though it was 83 when that movie came out. But it had changed. In 81, Volcker started cutting rates. In 81, Solomon was bought and Solomon ran the roost. They were riding the wave of 16% down to, you know, when they were finally purchased, I guess by was it City or, or, or bankers and and rolled in. They were just riding the wave. So as far as settlement, there were losses, there were failures, but there was so much money to be made, those could be papered over and absorbed. When yields compress, asset prices go up. We've all experienced that with the housing market. So that was something that unfortunately I didn't really fully appreciate for a while. No one really, we were too close to it. We just saw our neighborhood be filled up with more people from finance than say from the phone company over time in Bronxville and Westchester County. And only when we hit the financial crisis did we say, hey, well, what what's going on now? Then we look at the 10 year, 40 year run over, oh, losses. We used to have a lot of banks, 16,000. Now we have 8000. We used to have 45 primary dealers in 1988, all US. Now we only have 20. Five 2/3 of them are foreign. What's changed? We had control of our financial, our unlevered UN and unindebted complex after the ravages of the 70s because they went through and caused bankruptcies. They caused a bloodletting and they allowed real value to happen and that was harvested for the next 40 years. So when you look at what I've done, I lived through something. Yes, I benefit from some of it, but boy, oh boy did I miss a lot. And so now what I'm working with you guys is saying, this is like that September 81 moment when the, I'll think of the commodity company that bought Solomon, when they bought it. That was the bell that went off. That was the opportunity to get into into risk assets and financial assets because they just went to the moon as the cost of capital went down and it invited everybody to spend and invest. That was that. That moment has not been written about enough. Now you have the Federal Reserve not quietly announcing or telling people, but you have them going on 60 minutes and pleading like Kevin Bacon on another 70s movie Animal House, saying all his calms stay well because he doesn't have control. And he effectively said so. So yeah, the 35 years of my career, I, I didn't see it, I lived it. But now I, I would say I see, I see a new rise of a new animal, which is a commodity, which is Bitcoin, which that will now determine the winners and losers, just like those who got into the financial markets in say, 1981. So that's, that's, that's an overall view that sort of those are my learnings as you would say. Brian at On Ramp, we believe that Bitcoin will be the most important asset to own in the 21st century. Our Multi Institution custody solution is the safest and most secure way to ensure that your Bitcoin remains in your in your family's possession for decades to come. Multi Institution custody maximizes security and minimizes counterparty risk. Leveraging Bitcoin's native properties to eliminate single points of failure that have historically complicated Bitcoin ownership on ramp provides Peace of Mind for your Bitcoin journey. For more information, check us out at on rampbitcoin.com. Does that mean that 20/21 was not necessarily the the top of the the the craziness, but just as a precursor or preview of what's to come? I think so. So now you go into you're, you're now entering what's starting O 8, which was how do we do this all in? So they, the Fed and the Treasury, more Fed went in and purchased assets from banks, ring fenced them, provided new forms of liquidity like the TLG and term loan guarantee and other aspects of corporations and banks. And they basically supported everybody because the banks were over levered. The banking system was the problem. The sovereigns went in and ring fenced them and then they took on the debt. Fast forward to 2020 when there was a global pandemic, the governments doubled down and added more debt. So at this point you have a similar situation with an indebted animal now sovereigns, not banks. So the question is, who bails them out? Who's watching the Watcher? So who's going to come in and do it? And you know, back to everyone talks about when they got involved in Bitcoin, it was at my desk at Credit Suisse looking at my favorite 10 year versus S&P correlation chart among the G4 currencies. And I'm like, we have a currency crisis evolving. In the old days, there was always something to bail out, whether whether it be gold or whether it be a default. We can't default at this level. We've never had this much debt at the G4, the G10 ever in the history of of finance period, there's always been one that fails and other comes. So Bitcoin is that layer that I think we step on, Michael, I think that is, is the is the animal. And I don't know if I answered your question, I got a little more involved in in in how I saw in 2021. I guess you said, is it, is it more silliness? And the answer is yes, because there's nowhere to go. I'm not going to quote my third movie, but I may officer and gentleman, I ain't got nowhere else to go. You can see, you know, you can see where I really watched most of my movies in that in that late 70s, early 80s period. But there's no option but to keep the US Treasury function operating. And we'd love to go on late. I know this is his last settlement. And the topic is very relevant for what's going on in the Treasury machine. 2021 will happen because there'll be distortions, because the Fed cannot let defaults or failures happen. We are too fragile. System we can go into why. So yeah, we're going to have serial bouts. Look what we just did. You said 21. Look, look at GameStop and AMC. Add it again. I mean, and hold on. And this is something that hasn't been picked up. How funny that you have Bill Huang on trial as all this is happening as if the flash. Yeah, this is the, this is the same guy who was squeezing shorts and over leveraged and not and not submitting his proper ownership as he should have. And that's why he's on trial right now for among other reasons. But Wang was in the middle of the all this craziness in March of January, February, March of 21, he was there and he's on. So look at that clean up. It's three years later and they're just cleaning up that mess. Yeah, it's a scary thought about 21 because you see the higher interest rates, you see people bleeding out. But to your point, there's nowhere else to go. It's just scary because you get these ETFs coming. Now you have a ETF. What's to say there's no Solana Doge? And and the way I think about your analogy in early 80s is a similar concept of you have these tokens that are going to absorb and a lot of people are going to get burned. Like I would imagine a lot of people got burned in early 80s. Yes, you mentioned sort of just the, the broad fragility and, and I'm curious, you know, in circles, your friends, past colleagues, is there broader, is there, is there any sort of inflection occurring in sort of recognizing that fragility? I mean, I think you know, earlier this week there was a report that 63 U.S. banks are quote UN quote on the problem list and effectively insolvent. It's, it's becoming harder and harder to ignore that fragility, right? Like, is that? Is that something you've noticed in in your circles at all? People in credit more so. So I was at a recent event with former colleagues and one of them came up to me and said, you know, there's this and I, I'll get the program and we can hit it on the, on our blog or if you guys can share it on, on the postscript. There's this program. Think of it like the Fed window. But it was, it was a, a program where banks would be able to push off bad assets and not doing it justice. But let's just say that it was foreign banks with US presence, they would push things off. Think of it like the longest banks in Germany or something like like that. And he said now it's all but the money center banks, a lot of banks are using this, this, this risk relief valve that used to signal problem and they're doing it with abandoned because of either poor assets. It's now OK to, to, to raise your hand and ask for help from the teacher because you can't handle your balance sheet or produce enough net income relative to capital. So they're at they're basically getting more relief. And so I don't know the name people get it. It's not the SLR, which is another discussion we will definitely talk about on on the banks and what's happening there to buy treasuries. So my friends in Credit R, because this person rose raised a question to me and I have another friend who's working at a firm that is in the risk recycling business where they'll go into banks and they'll take trades down and they'll get in between and do swaps on risk and recycle risk. You know, what can go wrong in there? And so there's just a lot of financial engineering in order to address heavy debt, regulatory entanglement or restrictions in order to give the appearance of being in compliance and having a stable system, which I don't think it does give that result. But there's no other option for them to try it. So they are aware, but you know, people will, you know, my high school coach ran off tackle till they stopped them. So people will keep in the jobs as long as, you know, why would you change the job that pays you 400 to a million to a year if, you know, granted, your stock may be going lower, you know, ergo credit Swiss, but you know, the, the system's not going away. It can't go away. You know, it's going to be, it's going to be curated by the Fed actively. The 63 banks will be folded in to JP Morgan others just like it is. So that's not the problem. There will be fewer banks. The problem is the cost of doing that, the loss that is written down, whether it be FDIC, et cetera. That is why you, I and all of us in Bitcoin have focused on Bitcoin because it's not value accrual, it's value deterioration in dollar denominated assets. There is a cost. That's the thing that people don't see. They see the problem with the system, they don't see the actual cost. So if we can, you know, as I say, name that, tune in three notes and really get crystallized on what it means to take FDIC losses, to forgive $187 billion in student debt. Hey, why not? What is that cost? Where does it accrue? And I think people are slowly realizing that, but not empirically, Brian. You know, they're not saying, Oh, well that added 8% to my property tax like that. That's not there so. Yeah, smaller. The one we didn't talk about, Mark and I, I wanted to bring up was if you saw the plural site write down $3.5 billion that was invested by Vista Equity Partners. I think they had a $20 billion fund. I think the initial investment was like maybe 1.5 to 2 billion and they couldn't pay. There was spinning off like 150 million in in free cash flow and they couldn't make the interest payments that are write it down. That's just like one example and one fund. And like that, yeah, I didn't see that. Yeah. So you recognize sort of the OR you began to recognize that some of the structural issues. I'm curious if you can sort of pinpoint any moments in your head that were sort of, you know, the wake up call to Bitcoin as a potential solution? Like were there any events or happenings that actually sparked that idea in your mind that, hey, maybe this is actually the lifeboat or the way out of these these structural issues? So I'll go back to the structural issues. That was the, I think the more important part for me. And I say this because as we talk to other people, you know, my vintage that that may be instructive. We have we we have four boys. One of them was at school out West, liberal arts school, Colorado College. And he, you know, been around the business and run around the firm a little bit. He's like, this is really interesting. Dad, no one knows how to work with data. We all are concept based. Do you mind coming out? So I did AJ term out there. The career counselor agreed to do it and I did something on markets and data and everyone pulled data down from the IMF, from the Fred site and they would create analysis, correlations, volatilities just to get their hands dirty. Say, you know, so they can go to a recruiter when they graduate and say I know how to work with data. Here's what I did. So we did like a six page deck. Everyone was in charge of one section, and it was about how debt and demographics are a common thread driving uncommon times. That was 2018. So that got my attention enough where I thought that we had already jumped to shark. And then COVID happened. I went back to the students. I'm like, remember what we talked about? I'm like, I never envisioned this. I'm like, it's game over it. Then you know, like the speakers went to 11. I'll leave that to the audience to, to know what movie that came from the seven. So like to have the debt load go up almost 2X or the Fed balance sheet and the debt load, the Fed balance sheet of 2X from where it did after after 08. That to me then really got my attention. I think I was on alert for where the escape valve was because there was no coming back from that. And I think that's when I went back to my knitting on that, on that correlation sheet, because when I look at US and Germany and and UK, we all had the same correlations. We're one water table. You know, Bretton Woods brought that on 71. We or or in in 44, we are a global financial system run by the US. the US allows dollar liquidity to help reduce risks across the firm, across the globe. When our channel got stuffed with debt, it reduced our options. We had to keep buying. And so I guess to try to make that in, in regular, in simple parlance, the supply of money has to go one way now globally and it has, it's a monetary ratchet. We have turned it globally one way for decades. the US turned it the other way for the last 18 months or so to the greatest degree we ever have, reducing it, But the rest of the world has increased it. And we've also done things like the TLG and deficit spending to offset some of that money supply. So the global liquidity will continue to go higher. And all that means is in a world of finite assets, call it houses on a block or Bitcoin on a chain, those numbers will go up and they'll go up faster than they have before because the need to provide liquidity has gone higher, which is not a concept we'll get into right now. But basically, think of 2018. I was worried in 2020, my hair was on fire. I couldn't believe it. We have, we are probably three years away from the next ratchet stepwise function higher to address the growing debt and the needs to service that without going into default. So that's that's where that's what I think. So there was no moment. There was one moment, but it was more important about me feeling painted into a corner where I felt the need to look for it. And then I was sensitive to it because I wasn't, you know, people came up to me and said, oh, Bitcoin in 2017. I'm like, Nope, the 10 year matters. The 10 year will tell me where markets are going. And that's changed now. It doesn't, it's, it's, it's, you know, it's, it's a not 1/2 risk asset, but it has lost its safe haven status. So I and the other thing is, you know, we, we mentioned the big short a lot or, you know, you guys have and, and I certainly have quoted it more than once and I was short a little bit in O seven O 8 and then I couldn't be short And you know, I had to get out of the way. What Bitcoin is, is, is it's the first time where I'm, I'm comfortable about the mess that we're going to hit because I'm long and I'm sharing the message. We're out there trying to get in front of other investors to have them step on this next layer. Not a lifeboat, really, a next emerging continent that will allow for assets to maintain and actually grow value as others submerge. So very different than being a doomer and gloomer. Not at all. Things change. They change in the 70s, they change in the 90s, They're changing now. And this is the paradigm that we think will emerge as go ahead and land the plane, Brian, the last settlement the. Last trade and final. Yeah, based on all your knowledge, Mark, like in your experience, can you squint because nobody knows it for sure, but and see how Bitcoin can serve as base money risk free rate of return, you know to future state on a bond. Like can you see that in some level or, or is it still too early for you? Because like for us, like we, we, there's a bookend, but we just conceptualize it. You've lived through the financial plumbing to like see how this actually like insert itself into the system, get that soft landing and actually move us over into a more sound, you know, monetary economy. It's yeah. And Brian and I were talking about this ahead of time. You you use the term cost of capital or is there another term you use because I think you use cost of capital. I don't. Know well, yeah. I mean, when I think, when I think about Bitcoin, it's, it's effectively, you know, it's really an opportunity cost of, you know, if you're deploying capital to any investment opportunity, either as AGP or a business owner, what you, what you have to just just suppose that investment opportunity against is the appreciation potential of Bitcoin. And so in that sense, it's, it's the cost of capital, it's the opportunity cost, It's all of these things wrapped in one. And I think, you know, we're just scratching the script, the surface of people coming around to that idea. And really all that means is like, you know, it's, it's looking at Bitcoin and saying this isn't just a store of value, This isn't just digital gold. This is new money. And therefore it can also be the rational unit of account for deploying capital effectively. I liked how you said opportunity, opportunity cost and cost of capital because I think they are and being former head of of risk or running risk, I was I like to define terms so that when someone would call you out as PMS would because they love their own P&L, they want to have their own ideas. So you had to define everything and the cost of capital is using past data to look forward and opportunity cost is almost like a scenario analysis, which I found instructive as well. So to use the two of them, the answer is yes. And I didn't think about this until recently and it was because of what you guys had written about in one of your decks about it. I look at it as more of an asset layer, but it is the bellwether. I think opportunity costs may be the easier way to look at it, but you need to then because that's all upside. You know, I could have invested in a house. I mean, in, I guess we can be transparent now. We, we, we had, we bought a small house in the shore, Jersey Shore and our main house in Bronxville. We sold our house actually in, in Yonkers. We sold our house in Yonkers recently because my wife and I did the math and we weren't going to be there. We'd rather be, you know, up renting periodically in the New York area and having that at that capital allocated to Bitcoin. So you have a test case right now. You know, May 13th was the closing date of this year. Let's see how the housing prices have done versus Bitcoin even on a levered basis. And I'm pretty sure I know the answer. Congrats on that trade. Thank you. So. You got in before we take off. But 55 digit Bitcoin people are going to be like what you bought 5 digit Bitcoin. So I think the cost of capital is or the oh, here it is. And this is what we had also talked about pricing the downside. You can always price return bitcoins, you know, made this much money, but pricing downside is almost impossible. Back to Bill Huang. So Credit Suisse, when you had the Bill Huang blow up asked or the board orchestrated a 240 page report done by Paul Weiss, there were a bunch of outside consultants involved in it. But in it public data, it showed that the firm had chosen to allocate capital because the revenue went up to fold, I think or so from like 10:00 to 20 million in revenue. So that's the opportunity double it. And in a in a bank in sales, 10 million bucks great. But now you got to do the cost. How much money we're lending in that report? You know, I think there was, I don't know, was it 10 to $20 billion lent to him? All right, so we look at the opportunity. Here's a little, it's a little pinhead 10 million and then and then here's here's the risk. Well, Chris was realized that risk again in a public document. Nobody in finance spends enough time pricing the risk to that bolus to that Corp, to your investment to to getting final settlement. How do you know when you invest in an asset that you're going to get it back, that there is an eminent domain coming in saying I think your house is worth X, I'm only going to pay you this because we need a highway. You don't know it's unusual, but what's happening now is not unusual. There is debasement. The world has changed and how to price the return versus the risk and the risk in investments now is purchasing power period. And any asset manager allocator that isn't having that at the top of their deck to say I'm here to help maintain your purchasing power 152030 years from now, then they're not. I think they're not acting as a fiduciary. They should revisit their mission statement because that has become the most important thing is purchasing power, which is both inflation and also loss of capital from failure of the institution. You know, what's interesting about that is you're talking at a, at an institutional more macro level, which is obviously relevant, but it happens at the micro level. Me and Marty used to do this exercise for years. It's like, would you rather have a million in a bank or 500 in BTC that you know, you can move without any of the like you wake up and it sounded crazy until SVB happens. You're like, well, wait, you know, you got a zero, you're looking at a 0 and the best somebody will say, well, FDIC steps in, but like how much the basement steps in to that. So even if you get paid back, you're getting paid back $0.50 on the dollar, whatever the number is. So that's the analysis. That's where like the last trade comes in because once everybody recognizes like the counterparty risk of anything, they hold that monetary premium on top. You're looking at it like, wait, why am I in this trade? Like why am I holding any of it? You're the best example just right now that the house, it's like, why do I have this house? Like what's, what is I can go rent it. I can be for risk free. I can step out at the end of the month, get in my car and drive off with the keys and all my Bitcoin, you know, like it's just a different dynamic now. And it's not, it's nowhere near priced in as individuals know. We still know people that have 30 houses in Detroit, like what happens when they wake up? And like, why do I have these 30 houses in all the overhead at this monetary premium versus just holding the underline and not having the counterparty risk that exists with it? Yeah, you know, and back to Jesse. Jesse's now famous graph of the value accretion, you know, or the osmosis that's happening about the monetary premium going from houses and bonds into Bitcoin. It's it's happening and back to the house dynamic. And my mine wasn't that Bitcoin is a solution. Mine was so beaten in the head over me again and again with looking at every turn about how poor and dire our financial situation situation is in the US, that state, local and federal governments will need to be not just increasing the tax rates, but the number of taxes and violations that are going on. They're not going to change. Things like the millionaire tax in Yonkers that was put in I think in the 70s, maybe 80s for a house that sells above $1,000,000 is then taxed, I don't know, another 1 1/2 percent that is not adjusted for inflation over the last 20-30 years. So that is a tax. By not adjusting that, you're taxing people because that was nothing. And there are other items. There's the, the number of other taxes coming in. So when you have a trapped asset, whether it be at a bank or in a jurisdiction, those agencies will come to tax you, whether it be cash in an ATM, that number's gone from three to four to five dollars or percent rather percent to, to, to take out. So that's all happening. So the neat thing about Bitcoin is that it's not in the system, right? Yes, you're subject to, you know, to, to capital gains like everyone else, but you're not in that you're not paying that kind of anyway. We haven't had the ETFs yet, but. Yeah, that that that was going to be my transition in in sort of digging into the the point Michael made around, you know, basically, you know, Bitcoin is this very unique asset where you can take possession of it yourself very easily. So you have that optionality to not have any counterparty risk, right, You yourself become the counterparty. And so in that sense, it's a wholly novel asset in in the ability to do that it with relative ease. And so I think where that becomes very interesting is you look at these ETF products that don't have that optionality. And so I think it's sort of 1st order thinking, 1st order sort of approach to the Bitcoin investment thesis is saying, I just want price exposure. I, I, this thing's going up, probably don't even really fully understand it, but I know I need, I need some exposure or else I'm going to look silly in, in 5-10 years. And so I think that's sort of the first level thinking, let's get price exposure to this thing. I'm fine trusting BlackRock or Coinbase as a, as a custodian, but I think, you know, everything that we're building in on ramp is really centered around this idea of, OK, the 2nd order, thinking of this investment thesis is This is Money. It will be money in the future. It'll be not only a store of value, but it will be an exchange and a unit of account. And you want to, you want to retain that optionality to take possession of it. Even if you never do it, You, you want to retain that optionality because that's ingrained in the value prop of this asset. This the unique characteristic of the ability to take possession of your private keys and not have to trust anyone. I think that is the ability to sort of fall back to that trust model is, is integral to to the actual value prop of this asset. And so these ETF products, they don't provide that. So you're, you're sort of handicapping the thesis by going into these things. And so, yeah, curious your thoughts broadly on any of that or or just, you know ETF products in general and and how you think about them? It you're, you're dead on and the ETFs are excellent, they were I think an overall net positive for our industry, for Bitcoin and for wealth management. And you need to then migrate ASAP into a self custody or as you're offering the multi institutional custody. Without doing that, you are giving up the optionality and you're taking on a risk that I talked about as becoming more and more in the money of some sort of failure. Is BlackRock going to fail? Highly unlikely. Will BlackRock not perform on an asset? I know that they stopped on one of their real estate funds. They did stop redemptions. I mean, you know, so you look at incentive structures you are aligning with BlackRock as a, you know, 10,010 million, $100 million investor on a $10 trillion firm that is an agent of the government when it comes to market interventions. So you may you may matter to them, but maybe you won't at a certain point in time. So if you own Bitcoin through the ETF through BlackRock custody dot Coinbase, you are subject to their performance. And what we're saying is back to like did I like Bitcoin? I am more nervous about this fragile system that will continue to persevere, but with casualties. And I'm not smart enough to figure out who or what is going to be a casualty as that consolidation and self preservation happens on the debt load on a system that needs to be funded. So yes, you are absolutely ripping out one of the core features of Bitcoin, which is that you have it and you can move it and you don't have to rely on someone to give it to you in a custody or self custody option, multi institutional custody rather. Yeah. And I would echo what you what you began your comments with in that I fully believe it's a, you know, broadly a net positive for the industry, mainly from the perspective of it allows more people, individuals, entities, corporations to participate in the game theory of Bitcoin adoption, right? Like that is, to me, the most important part about the ETFs is, is opening the aperture of people that can do that first order thinking of I need the price exposure. And ultimately, as they learn more, it becomes the best performing asset in their portfolio. They're going to learn more about it and they're going to understand it more deeply. They're going to understand the unique custodial considerations of the asset, it's unique properties and and they're going to want a better form of exposure. They're going to want a form of exposure where they have greater ownership assurances and they can they can have that optionality to take possession if they need to. And so I think I totally agree like it it on net, they're extremely positive in the sense that now more people can participate in that first order thinking of, hey, I need to not only learn about this thing, but I need some price exposure. Or I'm going to be left behind from even just from a fiduciary perspective of, you know, 5 or 10 years from now client, you know, comes to their advisor and said, you know, you didn't, you didn't even bring this up to me. Why, why was that? So I think that's going to be a, a real concern for advisors and, and fiduciaries going forward is if you didn't think about this, why what did you just not do the work or did you have a, a fundamental reason why? So I think that's going to be a, you know, a accelerating trend of the next 5 to 10 years or so in that you need to, people need to get off 0 genuinely. And, and the ETFs allow a greater ability for people to get off 0. And so I think that is critically important, but these products do come with sort of go forward concerns of centralization of the asset. Like, you know, these ETFs have accumulated 1,000,000 Bitcoin that's, you know, a pretty large number in a few months of existence. And so that is something to think about just from, you know, while, while it can be positive, generally speaking, we do need to be concerned that this is Bitcoin is the most decentralized asset that's ever existed. And to allow it to centralized with, you know, largely 1 custodian, You know, Bitcoin base is the custodian for 90% of the ETFSI think that's just something that as Bitcoiners and, and as an industry, we just need to be cognizant of in that, you know, there's only however many, a little over a million Bitcoin left to be mined for the rest of human history. And these ETFs have gobbled up almost that amount in a few months. So that's, you know, one-on-one hand, it's extremely positive in the sense that these are the most successful ETF products ever launched. So that's a signal to people that there's something going on here. Maybe you should pay more attention, but signal to us, the people who already deeply understand it, that this is something we need to solve for is a centralization of the asset. This, this reminds me of it's the, the stakes are a lot higher. But this was goes back to the question to mark earlier about more of like base money and how you can see this asset rebuilding kind of like what gold was. And before we go into that, it's like this notion of a Webvan, which was almost like a Instacart back in the early 90s. The way you would it was online, but the way you would order your food is you would get your, you know, Rotary phone or whatever and you call it. And that's how like they would, they would do it, right? So you have this like analog, digital hybrid. You still didn't know how to figure out what it was going to look like. And you see them go with this is like this notion of frequent different. And the big thing that's different obviously has all these properties, but the main one that I anchor too is it has this native property put governance into how the keys are held. And we've seen all the counterparty risks that exists with bonds in Russia and gold centralizing. And this is the thing that frees it from that counterparty risk. It still has risk. You have to work with who are the key holders. But this is how you can start to like anchor to a point where you can take yourself out of a position to lose all the assets. When I go back to the the stakes are high. The worst stakes for Webvan was it just was an efficient way to build a business, calling and delivering all the things you needed a smartphone and, you know, you have, you know, GPS and mobile applications. And the asset or the technology matures in the same way that we've treated this asset like traditional Wall Street has treated everything where you have a single entity and they're your counterparty. And they haven't woken up to the fact that like, this is native. And it's just part of like the growth and maturation. And it's also part of people will get burned naturally because that's how people learn. They don't go and do things because they want to. They get educated because they touch the stove and people blow up. And this is how we've seen like, you know, markets grow. And so that's where I anchor back to like how you think about justice serving as a base money, because I can't see it getting to that point without this being widely adopted where financial institutions and other partners are not unilaterally in control of the asset and playing around. Because we've already seen what happened in 2021 and 2022 and 17 and all these years and Mount Cox, like you can't have a single counterparty with it, especially if it's global based money. Because to Brian's point, the decentralization is what gives it value to go put it at a central custodian is the complete opposite of that. And it's right. It's destined for failure. Whether you're a seasoned bitcoiner or brand new to the asset class, On Ramp provides a best in class private client experience to ensure that your Bitcoin remains accessible, secure and in your control. You'll have a dedicated advisor to guide you every step of the way. If you want to meet in person, we now have On Ramp branches in New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Nashville, Dallas, Austin, Houston, Los Angeles, and Denver with more on the way. Check out on rampbitcoin.com/branches to learn more and get connected with our team. Yeah, and back to basics. So when I was an intern on Solomon's desk, I was an English major, didn't know much about bonds, had to learn about it, read about it. It was, but I, I read a credit page in the, in the journal and it was written Usually I don't by the same person or not. But what they would explain is, you know, today the, you know, New York Mongahila Munis went up 26 basis points. A basis point is 11 hundredths of a percent. And that was great because when I went in there, I didn't know what a basis point was. And I think when we're talking on this once in a while, I'm going to, you know, pop in things like what you said about the monetary layer. What I think is not fully understood is that Bitcoin as a monetary layer is unique versus gold or Fiat in that it is both Big B Bitcoin, the chain, the system of account, the Ledger that's across what, 18,000,000 nodes globally in a decentralized network. And there's Little B Bitcoin, the 19.8 million or so tokens, the governance tokens that are the actual unit of account. It is two things. It is uniquely positioned. We've never had something like this. That's why when we say it's digital gold, maybe Little B is digital gold, but the whole thing is like something that has never existed. It is better than SWIFT, better than the Fedwire. And so to your point. It has final settlement. Thank you for letting that plane because I said final trade again, Brian, throw something at me. And so yeah, it's it was made. It was made for final settlement. Like it's that, you know, there are no new ideas, just an unequal distribution. I mean, obviously Satoshi saw this, he wrote about it. I didn't wake up until, you know, a couple years ago on it, but that's it. It is a unique animal that is serving a purpose. The trash can fire that is trad FI with over leverage, narrowing support of financial institutions, a balkanization of sovereign support that's now being splintered that causes friction and inflation very different than the last 40 years. So what do you do? Well, oh, we got this decentralized layer that you run core and you have access to your own wallet nested right within this chain. And you can check on your little, you know, Bitcoin booty all day, all day all you want. Or you can do in a multi institutional like what on ramp does in order to split the risk out but still maintain governance and sovereignty over your asset. It's absolutely not understood. That's why I like to go back to that. A basis point is one 100th of a percent. Once in a while, sort of naming, you know, the definition of what Bitcoin is once in a while would be maybe helpful to people. And, and I think this is where it's really fascinating on this notion that Bitcoin and the ancillary ideas are always like the Canary in the coal mine of the markets because you're so close to the volatility. It's the first thing sold or it's the first thing that, you know, you see when when it is sold and somebody's naked. And I think about this idea of individuals, whether they're looked at as crazy or not, the idea of self custody and not your keys, not your coin matters because you don't want that counterparty risk. And everybody talked about it and it was like, no, don't worry. And then you have Russian sanctions and then you're like, oh, everything's on the table now when it comes to to risk of counterparty risk. And then if you if you push that even forward and nobody talks about this, it's just like, well, if you want to settle an oil tanker of a billion dollars of oil and you got to settle with your enemy, what are you sending? You know, like, how are you actually structuring that? That's where we're going. Like we know, we know, like everybody, I mean, we see it. It's like tit for tat every week now, right? We're like Russians seizing US entities on their soil. And, you know, Western entities are seizing Russian, you know, infrastructure that's sitting on the other side. Like it's, it's only going one way. And then you need money that's free of that counterparty risk. And there's two sides of it, right? There's like the printing of it that's debasing you, and then there's the other side of the counterparty risk where it's sitting somewhere else. To your point, it's the house or whatever and you can just take it. And we've never seen that asset that you have. And that the way the game theory changes and incentives is completely different as well because you referenced taxes earlier, but what happens to the notion when you just take all your money and you? Leave. I was watching Buchelli yesterday at a Tucker and it's just like just playing out. Just like leave. You just go, go somewhere else with the beach and you have an Internet connection, you have your money. It's like nobody's prepared for that. No, no one's prepared for that. And you know, as, as, as we, you know, going back to the ETF and it's going to go back a couple of the frames. You know, we're talking about the ETF being good. When, when I was working at 3 IQ and was, you know, at, at events. And there's, you know, the Bitcoin maxi with, you know, the boots and the big buckle, you know, sitting in the, in the, in the audience saying, Hey, you know, looks good on you rent taker, but you know, why are you doing this? I said, well, you, you tell me what's going to be quicker for adoption, teaching people how to self custody or getting them into ETF. And I said, and we write about self custody as well. We will invite it and as a model changes, you know, I imagine asset managers will evolve with it because, you know, to meet the client needs. So, you know, that was us as rent takers explaining the fact that we don't say it's the best. We think it's, you know, it's like it's not Mr. Right, It's Mr. Right now like this is the best option because you need to get off 0 and you don't have the ability to to handle self custody because we've seen failures. We invite it. You may, I hope you know, if you think you do and you can support it, great. But it's that middle ground that you want to strike. It's almost. Like you need, it's almost like you need a good on ramp. I just all right, I got to give Mark here's. The layup, right? That's it. Seth Curry to the big guy under the hoop thing. No, but this is a good opportunity to maybe share some share some news with the audience. Mark is actually joining on ramp the the newest member of of team on Ramp as head of Global Macro strategy and couldn't be more thrilled to have him on board. I think. But you just hit on exactly sort of our foundational mission statement in some sense of there should be a hybrid approach here where you you don't have to give up unilateral control of the asset to a single custodian. And you also don't necessarily have to come up the learning curve of self custody, but you still retain that optionality to take self custody in the future. And then that's, I think, you know, our first conversations over a year ago now, Mark, I think that's what that's how I probably articulated at the time was there needs to be this hybrid approach. And I think on ramp is, is that's exactly what we're building. We're building that hybrid approach that has effectively, you know, an advantage custody model in the sense that you're not trusting a single entity and you always retain that optionality to take self custody. And so, yeah, I would love to just, you know, hear your thoughts about joining on ramp and, and being on board this mission and, and your thoughts on not only multi institutional custody, but just, you know, everything else we're building around, you know, Bitcoin financial services and and really providing people with with better avenues to to get exposure to this asset. Before Mark Jones said, I just want to say it was not a prerequisite to sell his house for Bitcoin to to join the the the company. It was it was his own choice. That's right. Coincidence. I don't think I even shared that with with you guys there. There's there's another personality in our community who who publicly said that she was doing it and I hit her up. I said I'm in process and I haven't circled back with her too. But Mark, do you know, like, I don't know how much time you spend on Twitter. You know, there's the meme that you sell your chairs for Bitcoin, like your your short Bitcoin. If you still have chairs in your home and you've taken this to another level, you don't even have a house anymore. You have your house like. I did, I did, I was, it was. We did, we did. We went to a little the little bungalow at the beach to. Buckle in. You know, when I when I hear stuff like that, though, it just makes it doesn't make it. I don't flinch, but I, I brought it up to my wife and she's like what? Excuse me, like you can't register right And I'll tell you like when the price went to 17 K in 22 I, you know, thought about selling everything as well, but then, you know, got to got to be pragmatic too when. You get kids and. Stuff you get. Yeah, no, mine, yeah, mine are mostly out sort of just, you know, so flying, flying with my wife and I and you know, she's definitely I won't speak for her, but you know, she's I think aware of the opportunity as well. And so supportive. It would it's it's hard not to have the supportive spouse if you're in this game. But the so I as far as the multi, you know what, what on ramp offers? What now I can say we offer and yeah, I'm way just beyond excited having been at an asset manager in that offered ETFs in Ethereum and Bitcoin from from early 22 through last month, the word integrity kept popping up. I like honestly, I didn't know much about FTXI. Remember seeing SBF on a, on a call with, with a very well known digital asset crypto guy from like 2012, a soft spoken guy. I forgot his name. I'll think of it. And he was talking about his magic box again. And I'm like, what are you doing? Like what I go. And he was so the he, he showed lack of integrity. We did a lot of work and we're like, there's a there's a problem. We went on ether scan where like he moved his assets, like the point is no one looked, there was no integrity in the system. There's no accountability. Everyone got around them. And I just bring up SPF because that's still in people's minds when they think about digital assets, about Bitcoin theorem in general. When again, when we went through this, I was like, we're like, how's it working? You know, it's like when my, when my wife was involved with, you know, the kids when they were young and she go to these, you know, nursing things and she ran them, You know, the, the questions would come in. Unfortunately, if she's out, I had to answer the phone call with these women. And like Kelly goes, well, you know, the only, there's only one question got to ask him. And then if, if the answer is no, give me the phone. Is your kid giving you 7 wet diapers? And the answer was yes. And so I said, I know I'm a guy, but I'm going to tell you right now. My wife tells you, I can tell you everything's fine. Like on the whole part, like the machine's working because, you know, as a newborn mom and whatever, I don't know, but this is what I saw. You get anxious. Were the blocks printing? Did the did the difficulty adjustment change when necessary? When China, you know, banned mining and people went through the four corners and then reasserted yes, Bitcoin had its O 8 moment. It passed in flying colors. It had integrity and we called it, you know, it was, you know, there was integrity of the protocol and it was the bad behavior of the player, just like you have with Al Chainsaw from Sunbeam when he bankrupted that company with Dick Fold. At Lehman, you had people who played, who cast the dice with other people's money, you know, on relatively good assets. Lehman was a good asset for a long time, a good business, and then it went away. Bear Stearns, you know, the, the, the, the fable was that you had the CEO go around and test the mark on everything and you say, great, sell 5 million at the mark. And if and if you couldn't sell the mark, you were fired. There was integrity, there was accountability. And then over time people get fat and lazy. Think of that, that 10 year going from 16% to 8 to 4. You know, we can take a loss. It's all right. We'll, we'll make it up with an IPO no problem. So that's what we had. We had old Tradfi cocking up Bitcoin and Bitcoin suffered on price, but not on integrity. So without sounding a little bit too high and mighty or whatever, I've been around people and in businesses that have not had integrity at times and you pay the price. And what Onramp is offering by saying we recognize we want to leverage the multi sig protocol within this blockchain in a way that gives you optionality without the burden of single point of failure in your own home. I'm in, you know, that's that's the main reason I do see the opportunity. But when I see what you and the team have done here is you've really done a very optimal solution for delivering the value of the chain without again burdening you with the potential loss of doing something that's very unusual, which is self custody. You you said two things very fascinating there is you like in 21 two O 8, which is something that I've seen building previous Bitcoin companies that the closer a Bitcoin company can align to Bitcoin in just like different ways ethos. It's like they're on the right signal and you know, OA Bitcoin was, you know, born in that 21 or it was 22 moment that we were actually born. I went and looked back. It was something it was the November. It was like 1617 K when honorant came about, because we were looking at the market and all the smart, the smart, the quote UN quote smart money, smartest players weren't. And it was like DCG was the main one, right? Like they thought every they were the kings all the way from Genesis to everything that, you know, broke down in that organization of like just there has to be a better way. But then the other component you you reference, I don't think it's talked about enough, is the reality of like winning in this game is you got to take yourself out of the position to effectively lose to your point in the sense of like people get cute, right? Like I forgot yesterday on the the Potter, he said, what's the point of a money printer to print money? It's like this idea, if you have it, you're going to do something with it because that's just how human nature acts. Whether you have a money printer or you have the asset, you're going to go play around, you're going to try to get some additional yield. It's like it's impossible in a system like this. And I think that's the point of how you get out of that system. That's not to say things can't happen. Obviously things can always happen, but you want to like take yourself out, whether it's from bad actors or yourself for being able to go and do that. And, and this is where it's really interesting in traditional finance, because I'm convinced they won't be the winners because this is against our model of net interest margin, all the things that are associated with playing with the asset. And so when you go talk about it, they look at it and think it's a joke. And if you play that long enough it you know it, I think it only goes one way because the volatility will kind of show out that kind of counterparty risk because it's too volatile to measure. And we've seen this happen time and time again. You can try to financialize it, but unless you understand the volatility profile and how to construct financial products, you ultimately get you're, you're naked. And I remember this at previous firm Unchained, we're the only lender last standing like on a commercial, on a commercial side, because we couldn't rehypothecate the collateral because all the keys were segregated. It was all Unchained. You didn't do it. So everybody else was blowing up because everybody else was somebody else's counterparty. And you're just looking at your asset and you're just like, you know, if you're, if you know, you have a loan in value that needs a margin call and you're, you're depositing more dollars or Bitcoin, but the assets not like you're not blind, you're not wondering where it is. So anyway, I think there's a, there's a lot here that you recognize and also your background, which is incredible because we're, we're going for it and we recognize we, we can't do it without the experience of individuals that have lived in the existing system that we have to go. And I don't think we reconstruct. We're just going to rebuild in a, in a different way. Or maybe we're not going to rebuild, we're just going to reconstruct. We're going to put a couple pieces. But that's a general theme in this space that I've seen is everybody thinks we're going to reinvent the wheel. It's like, no, we're not going to reinvent the wheel. We're just going to repurpose it a little bit with a more sounder base layer. You're letting Little B ride on Big B in a way that makes it easy for the client. That's it. You know, bakers bake, surgeons cut and don't be surprised when you go in there and a firm is going to add a product and lend out your Bitcoin or do what Genesis did, you know, which I guess they paid a fine on their merry way. So that's the nature of the game. They have to because the the cost of running a financial firm now has is higher almost on, on every level. And they have systems that haven't caught up with well that are just legacy, just legacy. And you know, the, the idea of fintech is great, but there's no way that a bank is going to be able to migrate. Look at, you know, there, there's some if the New York Times did, I don't know where they got the information, but they looked at the banks in O 8 and they said, let's look at some of the firms. You know, Lehman was a cotton trader in 1780. That was the start. And then they went through all the tendrils. There's so many stacks of tech stacks and different databases that all these firms have. They don't really talk to each other after all the mergers and integrations. So they can't be efficient. They're like a they're like a cold blooded animal. They need to sit on a rock for three hours to warm up before they can go look for their lunch. Like they just don't have that efficient system to go. And then also there's a there's a degradation of talent. That's just a fact. You can look at it. Look at the failures in 21. One of the banks didn't even have a risk manager. And, you know, and so it's pretty well documented that people aren't taking action or they're not even resourced to be able to do it because the good talent's going elsewhere. Yeah, the incentive model is a big one that doesn't get talked about. You know, this nature of venture capital and you're referencing, you have to go out on the risk curve because it's required you, you start by raising some money and then you naturally get trapped in that. You start hiring, you're looking, you get investors breathing down your neck. And it's not really publicly known, but like, so we work was a great example of this where they would give away desks. You know, they give away these things for SoftBank. Those are KPI to raise billions and billions of dollars. And that kind of fell through and you know, you go bankrupt, but you're not managing somebody else's money. Block Fi did very similar where they were consistently raising and their KPI was like, you know, like monthly or annual ARR, so annual reoccurring revenue, but it was based on the amount of loans and the, the interest payments on those loans. So when the market was volatile, the risk managers were supposed to close out the positions. They couldn't close out the positions because they couldn't actually raise any more money. So they let the positions keep sliding and that basically put them out. They, you know, basically shot on the back of the head and themselves. But this reality is like, why do you do that? Well, because you had the wrong incentives. You didn't have the route like sound principles all the way down. And it goes back to degradation of talent and everything aligned. And that kind of aligns also just with how we think about even just building this firm and the the sound, either individuals or the principles that it's based on. And there's other firms doing it. We're not special. But that's I think how we get out of this mess is you got to like align on what you're building versus having people move in different directions and loose money really skews that up a lot in 2024. Yep. So, Mark, now, now that you're now that you're on team, on ramp, on board, ready to hit the ground running and, and start talking to folks not only about Bitcoin, but about how they should be thinking about custody. Sort of, you know, what, what are the things in your mind that need to be communicated most effectively to people on the fringes, people on the outskirts who are beginning to get curious. They're, you know, they're seeing Wisconsin State pension making an allocation. They're seeing different corporates make allocations. So people are starting to get more curious what, what sort of thoughts and lines of thinking are you going to bring to market? And when you're out on the road and, and talk to folks, what are what are sort of top things in your head that need to be communicated about this asset? Well, we're going to do 2 things that we that we talked about is provide context. So as you said, I've been in business 35 years. I can do a lot of things. You know, I don't have a machine learning background, but I do have a perspective on markets. And I think providing that context and perspective is number one, this is not 1990, you know eight, it's not O 4. This is a very unique period that's a mix of of the 70s and I would say the 90s and we'll and we can tease out why so that you can get that context that's not going to be given to you by the by the broad stream media. And the 2nd is we got to meet them where they are to an RIA. We're going to talk about the quality of the instrument as far as as an investment for an individual. We can talk about what their risk profile is because this is still a more volatile instrument, even though it is, as we said, more upside Vol and downside Vol, which will be lost on 95% of the people until we show our our slides. You need to know the downside because there's two things. It's coming, it's not forever and it also presents, prevents presents an opportunity to dollar cost average. Something else we can talk about. There's so many unique and complementary aspects about Bitcoin for the individual who just wants to add a little bit for an RIA who's managing and obviously a SWIB so publicly stated and demonstrated for the institution that has 100 year outlook on assets. So it's a little bit of everything, but we'll provide the context and we're going to meet them where they are because everyone has unique constraints and preferences and they're going to be told they're wrong. They're going to be out and told they're an idiot for buying it because the other people don't understand it. And then we just, I'd like to give them sort of information. We call it anti FUD, right? Anti fear, uncertainty and doubt. So you can just sort of put people at base. I hear you. Yep, I've heard that too. But this is what I know about it. Whatever that baseline is, Brian, that's what we want to do, sort of baseline. And it's as Michael, you said earlier, like it may be a conversation with someone. They say, yeah, I I hear you. And then they'll see things happen. They'll be like, wow, that sounds like a playbook I heard eight months ago from the team at on ramp. It's unfolding. All right, what's their e-mail? So that's those are two things, contacts and and meet you where you are. Because I think I'm not a we're not a salesman. We're a fiduciary in this without sounding too, too sanctimonious. We're just presenting what it is. The thing is, it's a little bee sitting on a big bee ready for you to participate, and that's what we want to show you A. 100% and you make a good point is it is that you know I think people often need a few touch points right The first time they hear about it first time someone you know presents the investment case to them. There's natural, there's a natural inclination to be resistant and, and part of that is just psychological sort of inherent biases of they've probably heard about it before, they didn't think critically about it. And so now there's a natural tendency to be reluctant in the sense that, well, I could have bought it five years ago when I first heard about it and I didn't do anything about it. And now I feel like I've missed it. So there's always sort of as we move up the adoption curve of Bitcoin more generally, that reluctance almost grows over time because the more and more people who haven't done the work and gotten in, that bias actually grows in the sense of, well, shit, why didn't I, why didn't I actually look at this five years ago? So I think that's, that's a natural, just dynamic that would that we're, you know, sort of up against and have to have to communicate and like you're saying, meet people where they are and, and give them multiple touch points and, and presented in different ways because it's, it's, it's not easy for people to one. And, and this is a, you know, to, to use Jesse, Jesse Myers quote on this, like you, you don't buy Bitcoin until you admit you are wrong about it. And that's a foundational truth that I think is easy to say, but it's, it's, it's really very true. And, and I think part of why, you know, these adoption waves occur in the way that they do in that it does take some humility to adopt Bitcoin at this stage, right? You know, 10 years ago, it was different than it was obviously far more risky. And, and maybe you invested because you were curious and you're a technologist and you were interested in it for, for other reasons. But at this point of the journey, it actually does require humility because you've almost certainly heard about it in the past and you've heard various headlines, the FUD that you referenced. And so you have to come to the place of giving it another chance and actually doing the work and, and putting in some time to to more deeply understand the sort of fundamental properties at play. And, and that requires some humility. And so I think that is, is somewhat what, what, what, you know, we have to solve for at on ramp in, in our education and our research that we put out, because that's like I said that that dynamic probably grows over time, right? You know, if, if things, if things ripped to numbers that we've we've all talked about like that, that bias actually grows for that person who's still on the sideline. I, I have a question on that that I've been thinking about, Mark is do you think that that does happen? I've seen it. We've all seen it, especially like on the institutional side. If you heard about it at 2000 and then it's fifty, you're like, like, I can't get in now. But I've had this feeling that at 100K that kind of moves away for some people. And the reason why is like my instincts tell me that sub 100K Bitcoin can go to 0. So it goes up 17. What's it not? What's to say it doesn't go back to 15? Maybe it's this, but 100K that 6 figure barrier kind of flips on like, wait, this isn't going away anymore. Now where can it go? Is it a million? Is it 5 million? Is it 10 million? Is it like everything that everybody said that it can do all of it, If that that's like, I, I've been toying around like I feel like 100K changes the barrier on where what the perception of it. It's like, OK, this isn't going away anymore. And now it's flipped from like, how do I size it? And that, yeah. You just created I think a Internet meme. 100K goes from Bitcoin being characterized by SBF to SFB 6 figure Bitcoin and off to the moon. I think, I think that's what that's, that's what 100K does. It puts the past of flood behind us. And I, I mean 6 figure Bitcoin. I, I think that could and and that just goes to what do you want to call it? People's preferences. I'm going to call them irrational, but six figure Bitcoin puts us up at we're up to another 30%, so just inside 2 trillion, right? And you know, to be fair, it makes sense like from a human behaviors like this notion of really smart money or people I've met that are allocators or just preserving wealth. They're not trying to like time the market. They're just not trying to find a catch, a falling knife. So if that 100K is what gets them in and they're like, OK, this preserves their wealth. Like you can see how like there's a lot of dynamics that happen at that 100K and this notion will, you know, joke around and Bitcoin looks like a is disguised as a get rich quick scheme and it's a great rich slow scheme or it's a, it's a, Bitcoin's a get rich slow scheme disguised as a get rich quick scheme. So that keeps people out naturally because if everybody, everything looked like Bitcoin, you, everybody would get scammed. So it makes sense that people go away. But then you get BlackRock banks around at the same time, probably playing around with custody, all the other things associated. 100K is like, OK, this is, you know, by that point, you have to have a position. And I think what Brian was alluding to, if you kind of was referencing earlier about Bitcoin and aligning the business to it. If you were the way you were explaining, having to get somebody convinced or explaining and they have to go back, I was thinking in my head, multi institution custody versus Bitcoin because they're like, Oh no, I don't really get it. I don't know. And then and then I saw this before. It's like FTX and Block Fi were the top two, you know, busiest, you know, weeks from a previous firm because you see the flow coming because all those thoughts and all those things that you knew they were so late. It's kind of like inheritance planning. Nobody ever gets the trust, the revocable or irrevocable trust until either somebody passes or they start to like feel a little weird or feel a little off and, and, and you know, you're like, all right, maybe I need to get my things in order. And it's not until the, the two things that are happened, the price goes up and that'll be a big driver because the pain gets too strong to have it at Coinbase or on a little plastic device or failure. And both of those things I can guarantee are going to happen. Yeah. I think the I think the other component, which I've alluded to in the past is like, you know, just from a sort of traditional investment lens, Bitcoin and its price appreciation are are, you know, reflected a totally different sort of playing field for looking at appreciation and and sort of wrapping your mind around how that actually de risks the like the price of Bitcoin going up is actually a a de risking element, whereas that's not the case for any other assets. So you could call it AV bling good or or whatever you want, but it's Bitcoin is is. Lovely drop terms, right? I love it. Quote UN quote riskier at a trillion market cap than it would be at 10 trillion market cap, right? And so I think that's something to keep in mind too, is that, you know, for stocks, bonds, most other assets, if the price double S overnight, that becomes a much riskier investment, right, Because it's based on cash flows. Is valuation over stretched, it's overheated. You don't want to step into that. Whereas if the price of Bitcoin double S tomorrow, that is validating the thesis at hand, right? There's no cash flows. The valuation, that price going up is purely a function of demand, which is more people buying it, more people appreciating the thesis. So it's actually validating what's happening, what's what's going on. And so that dynamic does not exist for any other assets. So I think as we, as we move ahead, you know, 66 figure Bitcoin is coming. I think that people will will begin to grok that element of the price going up is actually obviously bullish for clear, clear reasons, but it's also validating the underlying thesis, which again is just different than any other asset. And Mark, to give you a little bit more mind benders is as the price appreciates, it gets riskier to have it in an ETF structure for two reasons, a counterparty risk, balance sheet risk. But two, if the price is appreciating, then by definition, that means people, more people want it. And because of that, they will start to accept it for goods and services and they may even incentivize or may only take it. And if it's in an ETF, what do you do? You're you're the boy in the bubble. Yep. Another 70s movie. So I'll tell you, you are. Yeah, You're you're you're wrapped up. Your nose is pressed against the window. You're just not able to play in that game. It it is. Obviously I'm, I'm here for that reason. I'll go back to that Little B riding on Big B. You're not on that ride. You're not in that game. If you own the ETF, you're in the stands, you can't move your coin, you can't take advantage of the ability to take it with you. You don't access it or as you said, the increased demand for other services related to actually owning one of those 19.8 million, ultimately 21 million, probably only 16,000,000. We'll go into why that is, tokens or coins out there. So absolutely. But again, it's good for now. Buy your ETFs today if you want folks, but please don't have the price go up too, too much because you're going to, you're going to want to own it in this manner in a multi institutional. We can tell you why. Awesome. Well, maybe that's a good place to wrap Michael. Anything else? Any other words? No thanks for joining us, Mark. I feel like we're going to be getting to know each other a lot on over podcast series and looking forward to. It Yep, same thing. I agreed. And Brian, thanks for hosting final settlement. Michael, thanks for having me on OF. Course, great to have you Mark. All right. See you guys in a few weeks later. Thanks for listening to this week's episode of the show. If you found the information valuable, please share the episode with a friend or leave a rating on your favorite podcast app. All the links we discussed in today's show will be in the show notes inside your podcast app. Before we finish, a quick reminder that On Ramp Media is for informational and entertainment purposes only and nothing should be construed as investment or legal advice. Regardless of where you are on your Bitcoin journey, we'd love to hear from you. Visit onramp Bitcoin com contact schedule consultation with one of our private client advisors.
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