Onramp Webinar Series E005: Bitcoin is the Ultimate Savings Technology

Welcome back to the Onramp webinar series. In this edition of the show, we tackle the concept of Bitcoin as a revolutionary savings technology which addresses the shortcomings of traditional currencies and other saving methods. Our speakers on this edition of the show include Jesse Myers, Onramp's Co founder and Bram Constein, Onramp's head of growth. They discuss the problem at hand in terms of Fiat debasement and the solution that is Bitcoin. The speakers discussed the inherent problems with Fiat money, the mechanics of Bitcoin supply and demand, and its potential valuation in the global asset landscape. They emphasize the importance of understanding Bitcoin's properties and the long term outlook for its adoption as a store of value, as well as the migration of capital from other asset classes into Bitcoin. To stay up to date with everything that On Ramp produces in terms of education and research, please be sure to sign up for the On Ramp Research and Insights newsletter, which can be found on our homepage at on rampbitcoin.com. And if you'd like to learn more about our products or services and our approach to Bitcoin custody, please reach out to schedule a consultation with our team. Now time for the show. Without further ado, I will kick it over to Bram first to elaborate a bit more on the problem at hand and why we think that coin is an important part of the solution. Yeah. Thanks, Brian, and welcome everyone. I think or we think it's good to start with the problem, right? Like we can think of a solution, but if we don't have a clear picture of the problem beforehand, then we also think that the solution that we obviously think is Bitcoin will land a bit a bit less. So yeah, what is the problem? I think Brian already mentioned it. You know, like if we think about saving, you know, why, why do we actually save? What is the purpose of of saving? And I think the the discussions that that we have here kind of revolves around certainty and uncertainty, right? So for everyone, the future is uncertain. We literally do not know how much time we have. And so within the limited or finite time that we all have in our lives, we expend energy either every day or every week, every month, which is basically our productivity for which we get rewarded. But the reward that we use, which represents, you know, in an abstract way, are our productivity or that energy and time, which we call Fiat money, is kind of corrupted in a sense, right? Because we can create that money, that money can be created infinitely. So we basically trade our most finite asset of our time and our energy and time for a reward that can infinitely be created. Now that doesn't really sound like a good trade, but we all basically do it. But what is the what is the effect of that? Well, because we all don't really know how much time we have in our lives, you know, like they, we all have some sort of anxiety or insecurity about the future. There is a level of how do you say that like risk towards the future because we don't know how much time we have. So the uncertainty that that we have, we basically want to mitigate that. And we were able in the past or our parents or our grandparents were able in the past to just gather more units of a currency, which we call saving, right, to kind of lower that uncertainty towards the future. So they could build some capital to eventually spend that on, you know, whatever they wanted to spend it on in their life, whether it was starting a family or buying a house or moving somewhere or, you know, whatever they wanted to to spend it on. But we can still, you know, gather more units of the currency that's used in in your country. But because of the monetary debasement, each unit is devalued over time, which actually increases the uncertainty towards your future. So that is basically the problem that kind of our TS is also around Bitcoin revolves around because we think and and Jesse will elaborate on that, that Bitcoin is the ultimate savings technology. Bitcoin is kept in supply. As Brian said, that is also the entire point of Bitcoin is that it's monetary rules that are captured in in the computer code basically are continuously checked every 10 minutes. We check the entire Ledger, we check if the code is still running and we say, OK, this, this can still go on, which basically the output of Bitcoin is certainty, the certainty that it stays the same as long as it's protocol is running. And So what we believe is that if you use Bitcoin as the savings technology, so basically, you can choose to get rewarded in Bitcoin for, you know, spending your energy and time, or you can turn the Fiat money that you get as a reward into Bitcoin and help you yourself and your family and your progeny to lower the uncertainty towards the future, which will actually eventually give you the time and space to build by whatever you want. So whatever that is, whether that's a family or a home, etcetera. So we see Bitcoin as a superior savings technology, which eventually helps anyone who adopts it lower the uncertainty towards their future, which frees up the space and time to build out their life basically. Yeah, I think that's a short intro. I'm not sure if Jesse has anything to add. No, yeah, that that's, that's the right frame framework to think about what we're going to talk about here, you know, because, because what and we we say the ultimate savings technology, what is savings really? It's, it's propagating your value today into the future so that you can use it at a future date. And doing that in a, in a way, in a manner that has high certainty that it will propagate safely through time is paramount. And, and because of the properties of Bitcoin, we believe that it not only does it in a higher certainty way than any other asset out there, but because of its properties, it has a more attractive uplift to the purchasing power of that savings over time as well. And so we can. So I guess that's a good, good place to tee up the slides that we will be getting into here at On Ramp, we believe that Bitcoin is the most important asset of the 21st century. The hard part is securing it, right? There are shortcomings with keeping your coins on an exchange, but also with setting up your own self custody arrangement. On Ramp solves for these concerns. Our multi institution custody solution maximizes security and minimizes counterparty risk, ensuring that your Bitcoin remains securely in your possession and provides built in inheritance planning to ensure your family is protected as well. On Ramp provides Peace of Mind for your Bitcoin journey, whether for your whole stack or for part of it as a compliment to your existing self custody setup. For more information, check us out at on rampbitcoin.com. Maybe before Jesse starts, I I had to think of one of the insights that really helped me in my journey is and it ties into what you said, Jesse. So if you want to save towards the future and eventually spend that basically monetary energy on something else, once I realized that everything that you know, we have. So if you're sitting behind your screen right now and you look around wherever you are, like everything you see costs energy to create or maintain. And so if you eventually see money as a reward for your energy, but also as like an like a tool to eventually spend on energy again in the future, as as everything is uses energy to, to be created or be maintained and realizing that Fiat money as a tool to do that basically loses energy every year. And that is, I think again, the core of the problem. But also as Jesse will show the magic of Bitcoin in the sense that it cannot leak that energy over time, actually more people will store more energy into Bitcoin as a, as a tool for that. So I think that's what what that Jesse's going to show. Yeah. And and Jesse, before, before you jump into the to the slides, just wanted to mention to the audience, if you have any questions during the presentation about, you know, things we're talking about or anything else related to Bitcoin, please submit them in the Q&A chat and we will get to as many of them as possible. Yeah, our our goal here is the back half of this will be a conversation based on your questions and and hot topics. So please submit those. OK. So, so sort of two topics here that we'll we'll dig into is Bitcoin's full potential evaluation and and that's this report that I that I put together most two years ago now. And then and then as part of that. And then these are kind of interconnected, the savings technology mechanics of Bitcoin and how those go hand in hand with Bitcoin, Bitcoin's full potential evaluation and where this, this thing is headed. So as of now, Bitcoin has been the best performing asset of the last 15 years. And so it feels like you missed it, right? It's, it's over, it's done, it's, it's already become what it's going to become. And it, it feels like there's no opportunity left with Bitcoin. But all of this performance and, and you know, Bitcoin being the best performing asset most years has gotten us to here. So Bitcoin is still only 0.2% of the world's assets. It's now a $2 trillion asset class. And and that is in this $900 trillion global asset ocean. So it's still a very small bucket here. And this was kind of the important jumping off point for figuring out what is bitcoins full potential valuation. You know, how big how, how much of the, the pie, how much of this picture can Bitcoin eventually eat? And that's kind of the, the starting question for that line of inquiry. And this the, the full details of the analysis and methodology are available on on ramps website. And that link points you to where it can be downloaded. Brian, if you could actually add that to the chat, maybe that would be helpful for everyone. So the, the core of of this analysis is that you know, at all these, all those different buckets that that we saw on that, on that graphic, they're all value, they're all value stored in different assets in the world and because of bitcoins properties. And that's what we'll dig into in the second-half here, I believe. And we believe that value will migrate, will be siphoned off, will osmotically flow from those buckets to Bitcoin because it it has more attractive properties as a store of value asset and as an investment asset than any of the other buckets out there. And so I went through the exercise of of in my opinion, somewhat conservatively assessing all right, of the capital sitting in the buckets that were outlined in in that overview of global asset value. What percentage of the capital stored in those buckets might be interested in shifting from that bucket that it's currently in to Bitcoin because of its superior properties? As the individuals and companies who hold those assets learn about Bitcoin because the reality of it is that 99.9% of the world doesn't understand anything more than the very surface level of Bitcoin. And it takes some some learning and, and some time to understand the properties underneath that are very compelling and make it, in my opinion, the most attractive asset in the world to hold. And so going through that exercise personally, I kind of put out some rather conservative numbers in my view about what percent of their capital in those buckets would would flow towards Bitcoin. And you can see my, my Bitcoin capture numbers here. And I, and when I summed all those up, came out to $200 trillion of the $900 trillion of, of value in today's dollars. And that would mean $10 million per Bitcoin in today's dollars, which would be 100 X in real terms from today. And so I think that for me, that's the, the quick summary of the report of that's what I think is bitcoins full potential evaluation. And this, this framework was also adopted by, by Michael Saylor. So he, he found this approach to, you know, establishing what Bitcoin could become in the global asset landscape compelling. And he used in, in my report, I, I recommended running your own analysis, you know, using this sort of framework and deciding for yourself what percentage of those different buckets Bitcoin could capture. And so in the in the bottom left, that that is Michael Saylor's version of what he thinks Bitcoin can do. And based on his numbers, he came out one important difference is he includes inflation in his numbers, whereas I did everything in today's dollars. So you can see in the in the bottom right, his global asset value landscape grows for X over the next 20 years because of that inflation. But his numbers come come out to his base case is a $13 million per Bitcoin valuation in 21 years should be 140 X from today. And so, so I guess my what one point to make is I recommend you take a look at that report and think through it for yourself. And like this table in the bottom left, come up with your version of what percentage of value sitting in the existing buckets might migrate to Bitcoin in order to come up with your full potential valuation. It's not to say that that is what Bitcoin will do, but what's the scale of what this, what digital capital could be in a world of $900 trillion of analog physical capital. So that's the that's my numbers on what Bitcoin can become. And now it's that that doesn't really make sense out of the context of the mechanics of Bitcoin and how it has gotten to where it is today and why I believe it will continue to attract capital from other buckets. And, and the answer to the answer to, to those questions, to those topics is bitcoins, savings, technology, mechanics. So it's worth, we'll breeze through this, but it's worth understanding what it is about Bitcoin that makes capital drawn to it and why that will likely continue into the future. So for me, everything that's special about Bitcoin as a store value asset comes back to its supply expression, supply function. How do you go from zero Bitcoin in existence on day one to eventually at 21 million Bitcoin hard cap in the future? And that supply expression is here on the left. This is how this is, you know, bitcoin's entire monetary policy. And what it comes down to is this concept of increasing scarcity of new supply issuance. And that's the table that we see on the right here of the block subsidy per four year era. And that's what this expression shows on the left. Every four years, the amount of new Bitcoin issued per block gets cut in half. And, and that's very special and, and hasn't, was never possible in the traditional asset landscape because you can't do that with commodities. You can't say we're going to decrease the amount of gold produced from mining every year. It's it's just not possible. But it's possible in the digital landscape where you can establish these rules and and have a, a supply issuance schedule that's set in stone. And this is it. This is what it looks like in the Bitcoin protocol. This is that supply expression manifested as as code and by using the Bitcoin protocol, you are agreeing to this supply schedule and and you know, all it takes for it to be enacted is new blocks being found. And that's the entire incentive structure of of Bitcoin mining. So and that's how Bitcoin works. So the blocks will be mined and then halvings will be triggered and then new supply issuance will decrease over time. And that's what this chart shows. This is where we are currently in the in the supply issuance of Bitcoin. We just had the 2024 halving about 8 months ago now and we are the existing supply of Bitcoin is this asymptotic line going up into the right which is approaching that flat line of 21 million will only ever be 21 million Bitcoin. And the gold bars here show the the Bitcoin released per block. So the newly issued Bitcoin per block starting at 50 Bitcoin per block and you can see that exponential decrypt decay down to 0 eventually over time. So this is you know, bitcoins supply issuance is increasing scarcity of new supply issuance terminating in absolute scarcity. There will never be more Bitcoin created beyond 21 million. And this moment in time is, is pretty special too because this having means that we have dipped below gold's annual supply growth historical average of 1.5 percent per year. And so now we are down. Now we now Bitcoin is a harder asset to make more of than gold, And that, in my view, lends it to being a better store value asset that should attract more capital over time to park in that store value asset because it has this this smaller dilution per year effect. So to take a step back a little bit and kind of take this to the abstract, I think this is a helpful way of thinking about how Bitcoin supply issuance schedule is special. So this is your your classic Marshall Cross, your econ one O 1 stuff where supply this is your supply curve and your demand curve and prices set where they meet. But Bitcoin is different. Bitcoin has a completely inelastic supply curve, meaning that no matter how much people want Bitcoin, Bitcoin is pre programmed to release the set amount of it every four years based on the supply issuance per block and that and that table progressing through time. So so you know, in theory here supply and demand meet at at that price point, but then the next having comes along and half as much supply as being issued per block. And you can see how that change in the supply issuance amounts to the intersection of supply and demand now going up on the Y axis, which is price and that process continues. So the next having reduces supply issuance again. And you can see how that might impact where price between is, is, is set because of where supply and demand meet. A different lens of the same idea here is this is where we were at right before the having based on the market price of of Bitcoin at the halving and, and the price had been going sideways for a few months before that. We had been mining $1.8 billion of new Bitcoin every month in the 30 days before the halving and because the price had been going sideways. There's a lot of noise here. There's a lot of external variables, but in theory there had to have been $1.8 billion of net inflowing demand for the price of Bitcoin to be going sideways at that point in time. It had to absorb the new supply issuance, and that's what was happening. Then the having comes along and suddenly half as much new supplies being created per month, dropping that down to $900 million at at the prices at the time of of the having. But ostensibly there's still $1.8 billion of demand flowing into the market every month because that, you know, that wouldn't change. Of course it does because of noise. But on average, you would expect the same sort of net interest in Bitcoin and accumulation of Bitcoin to be occurring. So this is what happened. This, this is what they're having triggered, which is a $900 million shortage per month and overtime that accumulates. So a quick walkthrough of of those mechanics is this is in in my mental model of how the halving plays out over time to generate a a post having bull market. So the prior slide that we saw was, you know, the left half of it was the orange square here and the Blue Square being in balance for a month and price goes sideways. Then the halving occurs. Now there's half as much new supply being created, but just as much demand. And the key here is this available for sale portion, because the the full circle below is the the full circulating supply of Bitcoin, but not all Bitcoin is available for sale at any given time. In fact, it seems to be a much smaller portion, something like 5% based on that's that's my assumption based on how much Bitcoin moves in in an average month. And so that that available for sale sets the price in the marketplace because that, you know, the marginal sale of Bitcoin is the price for for all Bitcoin and you and we'll see how the accumulation of the supply shortage impacts the available for sale bucket and how that impacts price. So the having happens, nothing feels different. That supply shortage starts to accumulate and you can see here three months, three months worth of bites out of the available for sale supply. And after six months of this price starts to drift upwards. Suddenly there's a big chunk taken out of available for sale supply. Buyers need to raise their bids in order to find supply because the low hanging fruit has been eaten through here. That process of the price starting to drift upwards does an interesting thing with Bitcoin where people get excited and now there's more demand coming into Bitcoin because market participants and especially people who've been sitting on the sidelines see the price of Bitcoin rising and they want in. So now demand increases in the imbalance between new supply issuance and inflow and demand increases. And now you're starting to eat through chunks of available for sale supplied at a greater clip. Granted, you're also inspiring holders, long term holders to start selling as well. But this process keeps playing out. And you know, 12 months after the halving, you have a real shortage and demand has net inflowing. Demand has continued to grow and now you're starting to look at the conditions of mania. So, so this process naturally fly flywheels. What starts out as a very small supply shortage per day over 12 months has flywheeled into a, into a, a mania where there's more and more demand coming in and the price starts to run and that causes a bubble. And so the mania flywheels into a bubble and that bubble pops. But on the back end of that, the on the back end of the of that bubble, the changes that the halving had created are not undone. So the the new supply issuance each day that the halving triggers is is permanent and compounding. And so you don't undo the conditions that created that bubble, the halving and that new supply issuance level. So you can find the equilibrium where, you know, you you overextend in in the run up of that bubble that that mania causes you to overextend. What is equilibrium for that era of new supply issuance? And then the crash causes the, you know, the opposite effect of it goes below where it probably should be based, you know, based on supply demand price equilibrium. And then it's, it spends the next couple years finding equilibrium just in time for the next having to set the process in motion again. So this phenomenon, this is my, my sort of mental model of how Bitcoin's price moves over time when shown on a log graph. And this takes out, obviously takes out all the noise and ignores the numbers on the axis just to show the mechanics of how I think this thing plays out over time. But this up into the right trend of purchasing power amounts to a savings technology. And that's what's really special about Bitcoin. If you put value into Bitcoin today and you hold for more than four years, you will grow that purchasing power because of this of these mechanics playing out over time and adoption of this asset because of those mechanics also helping to to lift the purchasing power of the the Bitcoin that you hold today for four plus years. And so then the question becomes if, if Bitcoin's mechanics cause it to be a savings technology, how much of the world's value sitting in this $900 trillion global asset ocean will be interested in migrating from these assets like bonds or real estate or any of them into Bitcoin as individuals and companies and state, nation states learn about the properties of Bitcoin as a savings technology. So that's, that's where I wanted to, to leave that conversation. And we can, I can, I guess I got first of all, open up to Brahm for any additional thoughts or commentary there. And then we can get into Q&A. Yeah, yeah. So I think what's good to add is that, you know, sometimes it might sound like people see Bitcoin as an investment, right? You could perhaps even draw that conclusion from what Jesse just shared. But I think it's better to see it as moving your economic energy that we talked about in the beginning, basically to a different monetary system. That's also why we call it the savings technology, right? We focus on the long term preservation of the purchasing power that we acquire right now with again, you know, the productivity that we expend in in any amount of time. So that's also, I think part of understanding Bitcoin is, you know, from the paradigm that that we live in, it might be quick and dirty to look at it as an investment, but over the longer time, yeah, we see it as a totally different monetary system and a better savings technology. As we mentioned. I think maybe, Jesse, if you can show the slide of the, the few, the future slide of this one with the blocks, because I think 1, you know, one thing to add there, which is important is that, you know, sometimes when people talk about Bitcoin, it's like all the dollar is going to fail or all the field money's going to fail, etcetera. I think what this example greatly shows, let's say the bottom right one of, of sailor is that it's more about this. Jesse also alluded to it's kind of moving around and kind of like getting store value dollars basically that have now been put into real estate or art or collectibles, whatever, moving to, to Bitcoin. So even when we get to, you know, the base case of sailor in the middle, I think it's a honey badger, right? The 13 million per Bitcoin, that doesn't mean the world breaks or the, the, the legacy financial system breaks. I, I, I think that's a, a good point to further iterate and, and this is a great illustration. I think that that shows that. So in order for Bitcoin to succeed as a superior savings technology, that does not mean that all, all the Fiat money dies or, or are we going to some terrible chaos or, or something like that. So currently, you know, some people will trade it. They do see it as an in, as an investment. I think we are proponents of a a buy and hold strategy with a long enough time time horizon and you know, like these boom bust cycles that that Jesse showed is basically human psychology. I don't know. We, we do not have what the so-called hollow waves in this presentation. But I think just from the top of my head, probably like 60 plus percent of all the Bitcoin in circulation has not moved in in three years. I think I can say that, but Jesse, correct me if I'm wrong, but like so the people that that hold this, they understand what this is and they have a long term outlook. And so the Bitcoin that's actually actively traded, that's actively leveraged with, you know, sometimes we see these flushes or you know, shoots up or down, that's actually not a lot of Bitcoin that's involved there. So that trading market is smaller than the amount of Bitcoin that's being held by by long term holders. And I think we also see, but I'd love to get your thoughts on that, Jesse, that, you know, the possibility that the that the time of of -80% draw downs could be behind us as more and more capital finds its way into Bitcoin also with this longer term outlook. And so that means, you know, once this asset class grows, more capital is also needed to go either either go up or down. And so, you know, I personally think that that these bigger draw downs are behind us. But again, you know, that's just human psychology of, of, you know, plus understanding of people that, you know, do gamble with it in terms of leverage and, and, and stuff like that. Last point, as we see in in these blocks, right, we really talk about store of value in original white paper of Bitcoin. You know, it's, it's, it's called peer-to-peer electronic cash. You know, eventually we can see Bitcoin moving to becoming a medium of exchange. So people exchanging Bitcoin for for goods and and services. But actually today I saw a really great tweet about it. I'll quickly look it up here. It's very important to understand that store value comes before medium of exchange, right? So if I cannot save with this new type of asset, why would I ask it for or as a reward for the work that I'm doing on the products or services that that I'm selling? So store value comes before medium of exchange and that might take some time already as as we can also see in these in these graphs like this, this will not happen within the next year or or two years. You know, the the outlook of Michael Saylor's 2045 in order to get to that 14,000,000 Bitcoin price. So I thought that would be an important addition to make as it might be confusing, you know, hearing people discuss Bitcoin saying well, I cannot buy a cup of coffee with it. You know, the entire point is that we first established it as a store of value before it can even become a medium of exchange. Yeah, that's, that's a great point to highlight here that when I when I put out the full potential evaluation piece, I was, I didn't put a timeline on it. I said decades and because I think that's the right way to think about where Bitcoin is at in its life cycle and its development. It is very early in the S curve of monetization, in my opinion. And and that's, that's Bitcoin becoming a store of value for, for the world. I think right now Bitcoin is, is viewed as a store of value, as as the preferred store of value asset in the world by a very tiny bunch of people that we call Bitcoiners. And that's, that's a, you know, that's a contrarian group at this point, truly small in the grand scheme of things. Maybe a million people as Brahm and I have talked about, maybe it's 100,000 people really in the world to who understand Bitcoin as a, as the best store value asset to be holding. And if Bitcoin's properties are, you know, what are what we talked through? And I think they are the world will eventually wake up to those properties and discover, wait a second, this this Internet money, this Monopoly money online that doesn't have any intrinsic value is the best store value asset in history. And I want to hold that. And so I think we're, we're, you know, if you think about the the S curve of monetization of bitcoins total value over time, we haven't really reached that hockey stick yet. But I think that's coming as, as we make our way through the bell curve of technology adopters. And you know, the bulk of the those individuals are in the center of the bell curve. And as we kind of progress into that bell curve, we'll see larger and larger cohorts of new adopters come in with bigger chunks of capital per year than we have seen. And that will, I think, rapidly scale that'll be that the fast part of the S curve of the coins monetization. And, and again, that's this is all in the context of Bitcoin becoming the store of value for more and more people in the world. And the, the, the step after that is, is once, once a large portion of the world views Bitcoin as a valid store of value asset, then you can start to price goods and exchange value in that medium of exchange, because people want to settle in Bitcoin as a store of value. Then you can conduct trade in that medium of exchange. And all the infrastructure that is, is being built on layer 2 on lightning and and whatnot for that transactional future. But you know what we're focusing on here and what I think the investment opportunity is for individuals with Bitcoin is because we are early in the store value monetization phase of Bitcoin. Yeah, few things to add to that. I, I think the, the long term outlook is perhaps difficult for, for some people, but I want to remind everyone that Bitcoin is basically taking on the biggest topic in the world, right? It's money. It's how we exchange value with each other. So the fact that it has already survived 15 years and and we are in the midst of this monetization period, the fact that there are countries using government resources to mine Bitcoin, the fact that, you know, multiple presidential candidates in the US have taken Bitcoin as an important subject. There was a Treasury report this week that put Bitcoin or define Bitcoin as digital gold, gold. You see the path opening, but the path is is still long. But we have seen this in the past, right? So this is nothing new. Currencies come and go, but also what Jesse said eventually the moving to a medium of exchange. There are several examples of stores even in Canada taking on U.S. dollars and giving Canadian dollars in return. I heard someone, I spoke to someone last week who mentioned that in the Eastern Caribbean you have the Eastern Caribbean dollar. People take U.S. dollars, they give the weaker currency, the Eastern Caribbean dollar back. So we can also imagine a time where there will be a like a dual pricing in our economy for the people that understand that Bitcoin is a better reward for whatever they are selling. Perhaps you will get a discount if you pay in Bitcoin, but then you also get a weaker currency like the US dollar, for example, in return. And the last, the last point I wanted to add, you know, sometimes we hear critics mention this, you know, intrinsic value. I think there's a, there's a whole that's a whole different discussion, even to talk about what is value and, and, and then definitely what is intrinsic value. But I wanted to share a read a tweet that I saw yesterday, which I think illustrates it well, right. We mentioned that, you know, what does Bitcoin produce? It produces the certainty that basically stays the same. But what is this Ledger of Bitcoin and, and, and this was the tweet that said all data must live on a Ledger in order to record truth for dissemination. The Bitcoin network is the first time in human history the ledgers are incorruptible, immutable and publicly audited every. 10 minutes. And this is basically what the product of Bitcoin is. It's not only that certainty that it stays the same, but all the information in the Bitcoin network is basically the pure truth of that system. And if the system is a monetary system, then we can basically conclude that, you know, this is this is the best money, it's the fairest money, right? If we talk about the dollar, which is the best currency of all the currencies, we don't know how many dollars there are in supply. The Federal Reserve has never been audited. Like, you know, just two simple examples that are just a total 180 of Bitcoin and anyone can verify that for themselves. That's also the entire point. You know, if you listen to us talking about Bitcoin or anyone talking about Bitcoin, I think we always share, you know, you should study Bitcoin yourself and you don't even have to believe us or anyone else. You can basically verify it for yourself. And that is part of the core of the value of Bitcoin as well, that you are in total control of judging whether this is what it says it is. Does your Bitcoin custody setup keep you up at night? Maybe you still have coins sitting on an exchange worried about hackers. Or maybe you've set up your own self custody but don't feel safe with your Bitcoin savings stashed on a little plastic device in your desk drawer. Gain Peace of Mind with On Ramp and our Multi institution custody solution. Here's how it works. On Ramp creates a dedicated multi sig vault just for you. 3 separate institutions each hold a key on Ramp bit go and coin cover, but none can move funds unilaterally. Instead only you have control over your coins. 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I think one question that comes to mind and, and really for both of you is, you know, this idea or this concept of a monetary premium, I think is, is important to elaborate on. So most of those other asset buckets which you've you've shown on that global asset landscape page, Jesse are not valued purely on their utility value per SE. And so there's some amount of monetary premium associated with all these other assets. And so in your mind, you know, do you have a, a sense for which particular asset buckets are most likely to cede ground to Bitcoin over time? Are there any that are more likely in your mind? I think, you know, I've heard arguments for real estate or bonds in particular as being, you know, the most likely areas where we'd see capital flow really that monetary premium flow or a road out of those asset buckets and into Bitcoin. But any thoughts around that? Yes, it's, it's really interesting and fun topic. I think that. So I guess part of the, the full potential valuation report is establishing that all the value in the world is, is relevant, meaning that when, when people buy an asset, they're buying that asset because they're trying to propagate their value into the future and hopefully grow that purchasing power over time. And that's true of like anybody allocating any amount of, you know, their portfolio. That's constantly the question that's being asked, which means that any, any value in the world is, is, is relevant to what Bitcoin can take or, or, or, you know, where Bitcoin can siphon off from. And then of those buckets out there, the ones that I think are most likely to have outflows that go point towards Bitcoin bonds is the number one for me by a lot. And I think that the important thing to consider there is, you know, what is the value proposition of bonds to A to a buyer, to a holder of bonds. Well, that is OK. You will park dollars here today and you will receive a 4% per year nominal yield. And, and you know, that's, that's your reward for tying up your capital. And the idea there is that it, that should outpace the 3% CPI inflation. We, we, we believe we have. But I think inflation is higher than the CPI numbers state. I think there's every cent incentive in the world to massage those numbers down and I think they do that. I think a better barometer of true inflation is the growth of the money supply over time, which has been averaging M2 money supply growth has been averaging 7% a year and has been increasing over time that that rate of growth has been increasing. So Sailor in this model, in his model assumes 7% continues into the future for inflation. I think that's right at minimum. I think it could be higher than that. And so if you're holding bonds generating a 4% nominal return, but inflation 7%, you're destroying 7%, three percent of your value every year that you hold your bonds. And so that's a burning platform. So it's $300 trillion of capital in the world that is sitting in a in an asset that looks like it's growing your value over time, but I think is actually destroying value in real purchasing power terms every year that you hold it. So as bondholders wake up to that, they have the greatest incentive to get the hell out of bonds and go to an asset that provides a similar utility, a similar value proposition. Park your money here today, grow it over time, but it does it with different mechanics and has a much better performance because of its endogenous properties and also where it is in the early stage and its adoption curve as a financial asset and that's Bitcoin. So I think that bitcoins becomes the 21st century substitute for bonds in a portfolio. If an investor wakes up enough or, you know, does their homework enough to understand, here's what bonds do, here's what Bitcoin does, but it does it way better. And so maybe I should sell my bonds and, and buy more Bitcoin. So in, in my, in my calculations, I, I said only 30% of the capital stored in bonds will migrate to Bitcoin. But I think that the number could actually be much higher than that. It could be 90%. Even that wouldn't actually surprise me because there's no there's no utility to holding bonds as an asset it it's purely a store of value and investment value proposition. So all of that capital will should be interested in migrating to an asset that fulfills the same value proposition but does it much better maybe. That interesting? Go ahead, go ahead. Mark, I think the interesting thing here is that because and, and I think the 7% is a, is a, is a good percentage to calculate with, right? I think it's somewhat conservative, but I think it's good, good enough. Yeah. Like if you have a 10 year bond and and that rate is lower than 7%, then you basically also lose money, right. So in some ways. And, and I mean, if you, if you, if you, if you study a little bit, you sometimes see like. OK, Well, nominally I, I will get a certain amount of of dollars, so that seems like more than what I put in. But you know, over 10 years, 7% of the year is more than half a loss of more than half of the purchasing power of those same dollars. And that is what you need to take into account there. The difference with Bitcoin, right, because we talked about this debasement, where does that come from? It comes from the inflation of the, the, the money supply, which debases the value of the existing supply, which eventually inflates, you know, all the prices that, that we see. And so one of the kind of like memes or, or, or topics talking points that people have in Bitcoin is that they say one Bitcoin equals one Bitcoin. And the one Bitcoin now is the same Bitcoin as in 10 years because the supply of Bitcoin cannot be diluted. But the $1.00 now in 10 years will not be $1.00, right? It will be like 40-2 cents or something like that. So I think once you approach it like that and integrate that into your calculator calculations of, OK, where do I store the money that I have right now? Yeah, you can store it within the the paradigm of all the field money with, with all the instruments that are also there or you move it to this newer paradigm that basically promises and shows you in a way that you can verify yourself that it's not being debased as happens in the in the older paradigm. And so even having a small percentage of whatever you want to park or save somewhere already, if you take let's say the 10 year example already gives you a lot of return even with conservative numbers. I, I think that's probably a, a great time to dip into some of the questions that we have in, in the, in the chat here. I see the this recent one from Stanley asking if we're talking about the $2 trillion in Bitcoin in the $900 trillion asset landscape. What about the other digital assets that amount to $1.6 trillion on top of that? Where do they belong and, and, and why does this view exclude them? Funny enough, if anything, that maybe they should be included in equities. My view is that the other digital assets out there, other cryptocurrencies are largely, if not entirely unlicensed securities. They're, they're really companies. They're venture venture companies masquerading as a currency. And so my view is, is that Bitcoin is different. It is the invention of digital scarcity. It is the invention of digital capital. And it's the only real story. It has won the store value use case for digital assets. And in my opinion, that's 95% plus of the, of the value of digital assets is to have a digital store value asset. And so I, I think that over time Bitcoin grows based on, on that value proposition and that use case and other cryptocurrencies remain a sideshow and shrink in relative scale compared to Bitcoin. As Bitcoin continues to monetize and grow much larger, I don't think crypto beyond Bitcoin will keep up. So that's that's my view on that we can. Yeah, maybe I'll, I'll combine a few here that we have in the chat really, you know, talking somewhat about cycle positioning, where are we in terms of this current bull run? And you know, one of the questions is around, you know, should people be tempted to take profits off off the table during a bull run in order to, you know, redeploy that in the next bear market? And then alongside that, you know, a question around on chain metrics, is there any particular metrics that you guys focus on to get a sense of where we are in the cycle? I'll, I'll answer that that last part first of on chain metrics I think are very interesting and there's probably some value in there. The last time that I tried to trade Bitcoin, I got burned because I paid too much attention to it. And a particular on chain metric that had, you know, incredible fidelity of back testing, you know, if you look back in time was NVT signal, which was being popularized by a Willy Woo four years ago. And I got burned by that. And I, and I ended up with, if I had not dabbled in that, I would have 10% more Bitcoin than I do. So and that was an on chain metric. It was, it was, it was the darling of the era. And it, it ended up not, it ended up predicting that we were going lower and we didn't, that was the very bottom. And I got caught on the sideline and I regret it. So that's my take on on chain metrics is that they, it can be very interesting and there probably is some information, you know, actionable information in there, but there's so much other noise or contrasting information, information that that would point you in the wrong direction that my take is you're better off by and holding then acting on on chain signals. To trade, I I would agree with that. One thing to add, you know, part of the way I think about it is all on chain metrics are of course backward looking. So I don't necessarily put predictive power in on trade metrics, but it can be helpful in getting a sense of, you know, where we are in terms of, you know, historically during bull runs, you you start to see long term holders distribute coins. It's happened every time. It'll happen again this time in terms of people taking profits who have a very low cost basis. And so seeing that on chain, I do think is actually helpful in terms of getting grasp for where we are in the bull run. The most recent data I've seen on this is, you know, we're not, we're not anywhere near sort of overheated levels in terms of that long term holder cell pressure. You're starting to see it here and there, but we're still, I would say early innings in terms of some of those metrics. But like I said at the at the beginning, you know, I, I don't think there's predictive power necessarily in these because, you know, the future can always change. We have a new class of buyers that are now in this market, which I think is important to consider, you know, harkening back to what Bran was suggesting around, well, you know, are we going to have another 80% drawdown? My thinking is, you know, it'll probably be less severe than that just because we have new market participants that are looking for a better entry. And so that, you know, there's a lot of capital on the sidelines that is now, you know, looking through to a new administration, you know, better regulatory environment and saying, you know, when I get a chance to buy this thing in mass, I'm going to do it. So there, there could be just larger, more sophisticated dip buyers effectively as the next couple of years plays out. So that's another thing to consider that, you know, the future is not necessarily going to be indicative or or you know, look like it did in the past. But Brandon, do you have any other thoughts there? Yeah, I think, I think it's an interesting question. I will, I will. Which question were you referring to? I'll, I'll share in the chat. I can type an answer I found. There was a. Few that we were speaking to just around cycle positioning and on chain metrics. Yeah, I'll type an answer here to Patrick. I think that would be public. There's a guy on Twitter called the Rational route who I think has an interesting model where he kind of follows these. You probably know like this classical graph of like what's it called like despair, hope, etcetera, euphoria, we go up and down, etcetera. But he made it into like a circle, which I think is an interesting angle. But again, I think to Brian's point, it's all backward looking and it's good to consider that we are going through, as Jesse mentioned before, the monetization phase of a totally new asset that at least to our understanding based on information that anyone can study is superior to any other store of value asset that's currently out there that people are using. So I mean the fact that we are going through this phase, I think it's an added dimension with which makes it harder to trade it. Jesse maybe knows this better, but there's probably in the last cycle there's like 10 days where you could have made the most amount of money if you if you paid attention as a trader. Overall for the general person, once you understand that having the long term outlook is the best, you will just buy and hold. I always say, you know, I bought at 300, I sold everything at 4000, which at that time I felt great, but now I have less Bitcoin than before. This is 10 years ago, right? 810 years ago, you know, overtime thinking about that use case of lowering your uncertainty towards the future, acquiring this asset to create capital to build whatever you want to build in the future. Once you look at it at at it from that viewpoint, yeah, that at least personally. But I think the guys who are kind of tested that like the trading questions kind of our fears and stuff kind of disappear because then it becomes more about accumulating more of this thing and doing your best in the field world or however you make money in order to acquire more of this asset. So I think, yeah, we can share our thoughts around these questions, but I think they're mainly geared towards, OK, like how do I, how do I trade? And notoriously, yeah, trading has been difficult if you're not a, you know, professional day trader, basically like trying to time the market, it's very hard. And I've also been burned quite a few times. Did that so. Yeah, every time I've tried to do anything fancy, I get burned. So hold is the winning strategy. And that's because it volatility with Bitcoin is to the upside, meaning that you got your down days, you got your up days. And then every so often there's a there's a + 510% day and it catches everybody by surprise. It comes out of nowhere and you better have been holding. Otherwise you missed out on that. And that's the real that that's what really moves Bitcoin over time is, you know, 10 days like that a year is where all the games happen and you want to be holding to to enjoy that. There's a question from Michael here about given the transition to a new type of buyer, you know more sophisticated investors in nation states, do you still expect large boom bust cycles that we've experienced before? So my mental model for that, even though we just talked about how inactionable, unactionable market cycles maybe for trying to time the top and and trade, my mental model is that we will continue to see what we've seen, which is actually a decreasing draw down over each subsequent cycle. I think the first bear market for Bitcoin was like a 91% draw down, you know back in like 20-12 and then 85% and then 80%. And then I think the most recent one was like 75%. And I think that trend will probably continue. And I think that's the the maturation of an asset over time. And part of that is the increasing confidence of the market that, OK, if you're, if you're experiencing experiencing a strong downturn, that's a buying opportunity because this thing keeps coming back. And also that, you know, as this asset matures, you start to view it as a long term asset that you're going to not be as as moved to try to trade in and out of or you know, view as a short term asset. So I think that trend continues. I my sort of base case is we'll probably see like a 70% draw down at some point. It is possible that the scale of these new end market entrance changes that and you know, like micro strategy will be buying the dip in the next bear market that that you can be sure of. And and does that mean we only see a 60% draw down as possible, But my mental model for you know, until that is proven wrong, I, I will continue to believe we'll just see decreasing amplitude of draw down each subsequent bear market. Well said. We, we had a question around custody, which I think is worth elaborating on. So self custody is really hard for those familiar with it or even for those familiar with it will, will Bitcoin adoption accelerate rapidly when a customer friendly solution is launched? Jesse, maybe you could speak to this and and also the realities around different custody models, the trade-offs and also what we're building here at On Ramp. Yeah, absolutely. It's a great question. And and I, I think it's the right question. I, I think that self custody is really hard even for those familiar with it exactly as Johnny here stated. And I think that part of moving through the bell curve of adoption and getting into the mainstream of technology adopters is having more user friendly solutions that the don't sacrifice much at all. And, and I think that's the, that's what has to happen for the technology as it, as it develops in order for adoption to happen with, you know, the mainstream, mainstream individuals are not that tech savvy or, and, and I think self custody as it exists maybe more daunting than people in the middle of the bell curve are, are willing to, to take on. And so that's, that's really why where on ramp came from. So what we do at on ramp is multi institution custody, which is a type of multi sig custody, which provides the best security possible for an individual's Bitcoin where they don't have to participate in the technical or security requirements of setting up and maintaining that custody arrangement. Instead, they're hiring the best companies in the world to act on their behalf as key holders in this three key multi sig setup. So, you know, on ramps product on ramp holds the key, bit go holds the key and coin cover holds the key in a two of three multi sig setup, meaning that two of those keys need to sign any transaction for it to be processed. And and so in that way, you've you have you have fault tolerance where two of three, but not all three are required. So any one of those companies could go under or somehow lose that key and the the assets in that vault would be just fine because two of three is still there. And it also means that no individual, no no key holding institution can you unilaterally control the funds in that vault. Only the end user, the client has the legal relationship directly with each of those three key holding institutions to authorize that institution to sign any transaction on their behalf. So in that way, this this new form of this evolution of the multi multi sig format is very attractive for removing a lot of the complexity and technical and security requirements from the end user and making it more accessible to the mainstream or or the the average adopter of Bitcoin to have their Bitcoin in an on chain address that they that they control without having to figure out the technical and security requirements that are that are quite daunting for self custody. Yeah, it's, it's, it's really well said. And I think the question is well stated and it's the right question to be asking because I think, you know, the reality to me at least, is that the reason Bitcoin is in a much larger asset already today is because of the difficulty of self custody and also the peril of trusting a single counterparty. And so everything that we're doing in on RIP is trying to solve for exactly that, to extract away complexity of key management while still eliminating a single point of failure in a third party custody set up. And in my view, that will allow us just on board for more people at a much faster rate than, you know, telling people that they need to take hours, you know, potentially years to learn cryptographic security in order to adopt the asset, while also saying we recognize it's not, it's been a pretty poor decision to just trust one single counterparty unilaterally. Historically, whether you know, from Mount Cox to FTX, there's countless examples of of that going wrong. And so everything that we're doing is, is really trying to solve for exactly that and be able to more quickly and more securely on board people to this asset. OK, One other question you know, I had going back to the asset buckets, Jesse, you know, there's been a lot of conversation recently from the sellers of the world and also from people in government around the idea of selling gold in order to buy Bitcoin. So when you look at that bucket of gold, do you think that that gold just gets demonetized by Bitcoin over the next couple decades or you know, I think there is also a an argument on the other hand, that because of, you know, rampant inflation and Fiat debasement that there's a value prop for gold still in this world over the next couple of decades. So maybe you see gold sort of grind upwards in tandem with Bitcoin, but obviously at a much slower rate. Do you describe ascribe to either of those lines of thinking of well, if all these nation states are going to sell their gold and that could be pretty bad for the price of gold, but any thoughts there? Yeah, I think that, yeah, I think you, you nailed it with one of your, your, your possible scenarios. I, I think that gold does well, but very interestingly, I, I think that gold underperforms Bitcoin significantly. So, you know, I, I think that what we've seen over the last 50 years, well, I guess I'll, I'll, I'll start by saying Peter Thiel put out a great slide a couple years ago. I think it was 1981, global equities were the same were $1 trillion and I think it was $1 trillion and gold was $1 trillion. All, all the gold in the world and all the equities in the world were the same value. And what we've seen since then is equities has 10X relative to gold roughly. And then now gold is starting to catch up a little bit. And I, so I think that gold has suffered in the Fiat era as other assets have been monetized and possibly the price suppression of gold from paper gold issued by central banks has played into that. But I think that the, the sovereign debt levels that we're currently facing will cause a flight to hard assets in general. I think there'll be a, a, a major shift. I think this is going to be a prevailing trend for the coming decades of people shifting value from bonds and, and money and Fiat money itself, which are two of the larger buckets on that page, which in in those two assets are Fiat money itself or contracts for future Fiat money. And I think you're going to see a transition from those buckets back towards hard assets and, and gold will do well because of that. But I think that Bitcoin will vastly outperform gold. So I think, you know, while gold will grow and and probably grow as a relative relative to other assets in the global asset landscape, bitcoins growth will probably order a magnitude outpace gold's relative growth. So you know, if you think about the hard asset category as Bitcoin plus gold today, that's like a $20 trillion asset class, roughly 10% of which is Bitcoin. And I think we will over the coming decades see that flip where, you know, 90% will be Bitcoin and 10% will be gold, even though gold grew relative to bonds and, you know, the other traditional asset buckets. Yeah, I, I think what I can add to that, that's that that requires just a rational approach. You know, I think there's, there are two main arguments for gold. 1 is the narrative of gold. You know, when you look at, you know, these overview charts of characteristics of, of of gold and Bitcoin, for example, of course, gold has been used for over 5000 plus years. That's mainly the only thing where it basically wins in terms of characteristics from Bitcoin. I think the other part that's not necessarily in the kind of like these overviews like that is that of course central banks are still buying gold. So that helps in in the narrative for gold. But if you just look at it in an objective way, I once heard someone say, if you want to move 100 million in gold, it'll cost you 10 million. We can move 100 million of Bitcoin for $3 basically to anyone in the world without any counterparty risk with final settlement, etcetera. And so, yeah, just wanted to add that as a little, I don't know tidbit because I, I, I do believe there's a place for gold in the world. I also, but I do believe it's part of the, you know, inflated asset classes as, as, as Jesse just described, you know, if you just look at the properties Bitcoin is, is a better, has better characteristics. There's no fake Bitcoin. For example, you know, you need like 3 machines to figure out if your gold bar is real, You know, so there's like these these pretty important things that I think show the benefits of, of Bitcoin there. Maybe one question that sort of circles back to how we started the conversation around the problem at hand of inflation and Fiat debasement. And could, could each of you talk a little bit about, you know, why that is likely to persist if we think about 36 trillion in debt in the United States, You know, I think with the new administration coming in, there is A at least reinvigorated sense of the government needs to be more efficient. And so that's on net a positive sort of development. But you know, even if they're able to RIP out 2 trillion of, you know, wasteful spending and, and sort of cut back on, on the deficit deficits that we've been running, that's 36 trillion still exists. So I think if, if each of you could talk about, you know, just circling back to the problem at hand and why the Fiat debasement will continue to persist over time and why, you know, Bitcoin as a as a sort of release valve for that persistent reality makes sense. Yeah, maybe I was thinking maybe to quickly answer one more question that I saw in the chat from Nicholas. Yeah, before we we talk about this and I, I think eventually wrap it up. Wrap it up. He says, as a software engineer, I know how the sausage is made. Can you speak to the code security vulnerabilities? Well, I think that's a wonderful question, right? Because we talk about, you know, what is the promise of Bitcoin, What does it deliver us, right. Like it never changes. That's basically the premise. And because it never changes in the sense that one Bitcoin will always stay one Bitcoin, no one can change the code and say like, oh, there's going to be 100 million Bitcoin, right? That is of course the, the, the promise of stability that that it gives. I think there's two things. Bitcoin is open source software, right? Anyone can copy this code. You can start Nicholas coin tomorrow. I can start Brom coin tomorrow with the same code as Bitcoin and then make it maybe 100 million Brom coin units for for example. Why is that not happening? It's because Bitcoin has this network effect, right? So this code or the proliferation of the code of the network is basically secured by a growing amount of not only nodes that check the Ledger, the blockchain of Bitcoin every every 10 minutes, but also by miners that put electrical power towards the computers that are used to mine Bitcoin, which is I think at an all time high or or almost at an all time high, this this computing power. And it's basically the most powerful computer network in the world. And it's also decentralized. And so if someone would want to change the code of Bitcoin or for example, double spend a certain amount of Bitcoin or have control over the network for 10 or more minutes, the attack costs are, I think just from the top of my head, probably like 10 to $15 billion to control this network for for 10 minutes. So if you want to know how the sausage is made, you can actually look up the source code. You can go through the source code. This is software code that has been scrutinized for 15 years already. And I think what could help you in that assessment is understand that there are a lot of participants or all the participants, the main participants in the network, the notes and the minors basically validate that this code is the right code that that we are using. I don't know if the guys have anything to add but that that will be my quick answer to to that question. Yeah, the, the, the one small addition I'd make is, you know, it's interesting that that Bitcoin is this live experiment. There's $2 trillion in Bitcoin now. And if anybody could figure out how to break Bitcoin, they, they could win up to $2 trillion by shorting it and then breaking Bitcoin. And so that, you know, that's that incentive is always there and has been there and has been material for 15 years. And nobody's done it. In fact, everybody who's, you know, really taking a look under the hood has come away more certain that it, that it, it is resilient, robust and, you know, and unbreakable. So, you know, that's, that's the, the other way to think about it is, is everyone in the world has had an incentive to try to break it, to profit massively for 15 years and, and has been completely unable to do it. So at what point does that speak to this sufficient security and, and strength of the network and, and the protocol? You know, for me that that's, that's enough. But, you know, maybe, maybe your individual threshold is higher and maybe it takes 30 years before you're persuaded. Yeah, good point. Brian, can you repeat the last question? Yeah, I just wanted to tie it back to, you know, how we started the conversation around the problem at hand and why Bitcoin is a solution and why in particular that problem is, is likely to persist, right. The, the, the debt problem is not going away. The interest expense on the debt is only accelerating as we roll over some of that debt at higher interest rates. So just talk, talk a bit about sort of why that's likely to persist and why it's sort of imperative that people think about Bitcoin right now and, and today and, and start figuring this out because those problems are are not going away. Yeah, I think Jesse probably has a deeper answer to this, but I think I'll refer back to the the path that I mentioned in the introduction, right? Like the we have Lynn Alden in the in the Bitcoin space who says this, this train ain't stopping, you know, and, and she means the dollar depth train. And why do we talk about the dollar, right? It's the, it's the best of all the Fiat currencies, but it's inherently flawed in the same way as as all the Fiat money systems that are used around the world, but it has the advantage of being the world reserve currency. I approach it like this. If anyone goes to theusdebtclock.org, you can see that the US debt is probably 36 trillion something something Per citizen, it's around 100,000 from the top of my head. Per taxpayer, it's 250,000 from the top of my head. So basically Americans work three days, three out of five days a week to pay tax on that income tax to help their governments pay interest on that outstanding debt. None of the principal, just interest. So that doesn't go to any other things that the government can do. The yearly deficits are more than or the interest payments yearly are more than the entire defense budget. I think there's a stat from history that once that happens, the the end of that Fiat money system is or that's the beginning of the end of of a, of a of a Fiat money system. But also, if you go to theusdebtclock.org and you go to the bottom right, you will see all the unfunded liabilities, which are like 220 ish trillion, which are basically all the promises made by the government that are set in law like Medicare and, and pension and and stuff like that. That's basically promised. But in essence, it's not there, right? Because it's unfunded like that money is not there. And I think the simple case to be made is that, you know, to add income or to create debt for the US government. They sell their treasuries. But yeah, what is the point at which the former buyers of those treasuries will realize that this debt will never be paid? Or if it's nominally paid back, then, you know, each unit of what is paid back will have, will, will have lost significant value. So that will eventually lead to the US government printing their own money to buy quote on, you know, air quotes to buy their own debt, which eventually, you know, will, will, will, will be socialized in, in terms of, of, of inflation of prices for anyone and debasement of, of all the existing money units. So the, the train that's not stopping is in my understanding this which other people like James Lavish, for example, that talks who talks a lot about, you know, the, the American debt that the US dollar debt spiral. It's basically accelerated. It's like you're paying off your credit card with a new credit card, but the interest rate and the total amount that you need gets higher and higher. So I think that is a good realization to understand that that is the system that we are all in and that, yeah, we see Bitcoin as the lifeboat to kind of get out of that or protect yourself against that inevitable end result. Yeah, you nailed it. I think that the unfunded liabilities thing is that the real smoking gun that most people ignore. I mean, we talked about $36 trillion in debt and and I'm certainly guilty of this, but it's much bigger than that. If you account for the, the full obligations of the of the US government into the future, it's much bigger than that. And yeah, I mean, we haven't, we haven't balanced the budget in 22 years. We've normalized multi trillion dollar deficits. Now we have a trillion dollars of interest expense because after a decade of 0 interest rates, interest rates set at 0, now we have real interest rates again. And and we, we got used to having debt for free and now we have to pay for it. And now that's a trillion dollar expense that didn't exist five years ago and will only add to our deficits. And again, we we just entirely lack the political will, especially as an electorate. You know, think about the last time you heard on, on the news, people talking about the importance of balancing the budget. It just doesn't happen anymore. It used to happen 15 years ago, but it doesn't anymore. So the political will to rein in spending and, and balance a budget is non existent. So, you know, that means we won't be able to, to really materially change things. And, you know, Elon and the, the Doge branch of the government is, is well-intentioned, but I have a feeling they'll run up against a whole lot of red tape as they actually try to extract money out of the budget. And, and, and we'll see how effective they, they actually are. They, they could be entirely effective and it still couldn't solve the problem. I mean, we'll find ways to spend and, and add to the deficit even if they take $2 trillion out of our budget. And, and even if they've managed to balance the budget, it doesn't address the fact that we've already over promised with Social Security and other unfunded liabilities that, you know, we're not running surpluses. So we're not, we're not going to be able to like shrink the, the, the magnitude of those future promises into the future. Yeah, and I think that's the urgency that that in general we try to emphasize is that and, and, and, and anyone can verify this for themselves, of course. But the fact that this path exists and, and we have our whole future in in front of us. And can, you know, basically argue that that will be a very, very uncertain a future makes at least us when we, you know, going into Bitcoin act on the fact that that we know that that is the road and that is the the the endpoint of the road basically makes us act and, and, and move into Bitcoin. And I think that's general, in general part of what we're trying to communicate here. Very well said. Well, we're just about at times. So maybe we'll we'll wrap here. Just wanted to reiterate, thank you everyone for joining, carving out some time to to spend with us today. And and like I said at the beginning, to stay up to date with everything that On Ramp is producing from a content perspective, future webinars and research, please sign up for our research and insights newsletter, which you can find just right on the homepage of our website on rampbitcoin.com. And also, if you are interested in learning more about our products and services and how we can help you with your custody set up and all financial services that surround Bitcoin, please reach out and and schedule some time to meet with our team. And you can find that on our homepage as well. But yeah, that's it for today's session. Thanks everyone for joining and thank you Jesse and Bram for leading the discussion. Thanks for listening to this week's episode of the show. 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