Stablecoin Supercycle: The GENIUS Catalyst for Bitcoin’s Next Surge

What you're telling me is that music is about to stop and we're going to be left holding the biggest bag of odorous extra ever assembled in the history of that business, 1974198792972000 and whatever we're going to call this, it's all just the same thing over and over. We can't help ourselves. I say when we sell. Hey, OK. I say when we sell. This week we sat down with Steven Pollack from the Bitcoin Policy Institute. As you may guess, we talked a lot about policy, what's happening in DC, the federal level, the state level. Talked about the Genius Act as well, which passed the Senate this week, implications for stable coins on dollar dominance, and also Bitcoin adoption. But then we went pretty deep on what is happening with the Bitcoin Policy Institute, what they're seeing on the ground, what they're advocating for, some of the challenges there. And ultimately it tied back into just how early we are with with adoption. We cited A stat about 3% adoption for Bitcoin in the world, maybe lower though, depending on how you measure it. So it's incredibly early. We also talked about some of the things that happened in the Middle East this week with the largest crypto exchange and the believe it was one of the largest banks or perhaps the largest bank in Iran that was attacked, a cyber attack happened this week. And so we just talked about digital and physical security in the context of Bitcoin ultimately ties into what we do here at on ramp. And so you can see here check out our website on rampbitcoin.com. You can sign up in about 15 minutes, get access to multi institution custody. You have seamless inheritance planning, financial services support from the team, including you can see Cam there in the bottom right. Or if you just want to learn more about what we do here and how it might be a good fit for you, you can always schedule a consultation here. You see as well on the screen. So hope you enjoyed the episode and maybe we'll see you next week in DC for the Bitcoin Policy Summit. All right, we're live. It's the last trade we're recording Thursday, June 19th. We're here today with Brian Cabela's and Michael Tanguma from On Ramp. And then we have a honorable special guest from the Bitcoin Policy Institute, which will be hosting the Bitcoin Policy Summit next week. Steven Pollock, thank you for joining us. How are you doing? Well, Jackson, Michael, Bryan, thanks for having me on. It is a very busy week in BTI land with the summit next week. So I think I'm doing OK. I'll be doing really well once we, you know, RIP the Band-Aid off and start announcing speakers next Wednesday in DC. Yeah, We appreciate you carving out time. We know it's a busy time for everything going on and you guys are doing special work there. So appreciate you joining us that this week. No, it's a it's an honor. I think it's important to I mean, we've got a lot to talk about just what's happening this week. I know, and you guys got some things you want to hit and and then anyone talk a little bit about the summit. So there there is a ton going on. The world doesn't stop for the Bitcoin policy summit, unfortunately. So, you know, thanks for having me excited to excited to catch you up and and cover some things. Excellent. And yeah, thank you, Steven. Really appreciate you joining. So what we do, just real quick, Michael sometimes gives me grief, but I do it. I don't do it for Michael. I do it for the listeners of this show. We pull up the price just every week, get a baseline of where we're at. So we're trading at about 104. We've actually notably enough, we've been here for probably at this point over 40 days over 100K despite all of the volatility in markets and what's happening in the Middle East and just geopolitical tensions rising. And so I think this is a remarkable thing just to call out. Not to say that anyone on this show or people listening are necessarily short term trading the asset, maybe a few of you are, but we are long term oriented here. And this is just I think a testament to how resilient the market is currently. Curious if we have any thoughts before we talk about something very timely which will be stable coins because some big news just broke this week. Yes, Steven, just to just to call out real quick, the reason, the reason why Jackson focuses on the price is because he's been looking at look taking out leverage for a while and I've been trying to caution him against it. And so he's seen this price fluctuate from 79 back to 110. And he's just trying to figure out if he leverages the house so he can move out into the burbs in Philadelphia if he's going to be stuck in the city for much longer. Yeah, that's smart. I'm glad you guys are talking about that. And, you know, and now I know why he really brought me on was for some financial advice. No, so I mean, Bitcoin has crashed all the way to 104,000, Jackson. So it's a perfect time to go 100X Max full cent. Do you see? I mean, who was it like chef or you know, whoever everyone that's been, you know, been saying Bitcoin was going to die for however many, you know, 10 years that there's. There was some like, yeah, now the bitcoins crashed to 104,000, which is the funniest sentence I've read in a very long time. Yeah, people, people love their premature victory laps in the sort of immediate aftermath of some of these geopolitical global shocks. And but it is fascinating, right? Like, I think if we reround the clock a few years, even 12 months ago, I think you would have expected Bitcoin to sell off much harder in the wake of, you know, boiling tensions in the Middle East than it than it has this time around. Yeah. In all seriousness, yes, like it's I think it's an incredible feat that bitcoins maintained like 6 figure status through not just, you know, through everything that's happened last couple months and then specifically, yeah, the last couple weeks with but maybe bitcoiners have finally gotten better about fading geopolitical risk. You know, I like normally, you know, something happens, even the, you know, you get a whiff of war or potential war and everything's going down and Bitcoin showing resilience. And I think it's smart to fade that risk. Usually. Usually things are either never nearly as bad as they're made out to be or as good as they're made out to be. So when things, you know, and we're kind of in the as bad as they're made out to be, hopefully we're right to fade the risk. I hope, hope, hopefully this isn't something that in, you know, we're listening to in three weeks. And you're like, man, I wish you wouldn't have said that, but we'll find out soon enough. I'm, I'm not taking any leverage by the way. I guess I'm not sophisticated enough. I'm good with my spot exposure. It's actually. Real quick before transitioning, it is a good thought that maybe that's embedded and we've seen Bitcoin and the the the volatility when real geopolitical risk comes on. I think previous to the tariffs, there was another, there was something else that happened. There's been no shortage, but the most notable, but the tariffs were real. There was real uncertainty in the markets. And that's where we saw a lot of that dipping into 78. I think maybe that's maybe a component of this is that what's happening isn't as big as what the market would try to get you to perceive. And your friend and colleague who was recently on Matthew Pines had a tweet I think last night was said shortly after this Iranian brouhaha concludes. I suspect attention will turn, as it periodically does to G and the silent coupe rumors, you know, and Matt, Matt's a sharp dude, so maybe he kind of is. That's his way of saying there's, you know, this is just a short blip in Bitcoins prices reflecting that. I don't think we've talked about that before. That's come up. That's an interesting angle. Yeah, I think whatever Matthew Pine said, you can, you can just take that to the bank. And I don't have anything to add or detract from that. Learned that I've learned that over the years. I've known Matt a long time. He was our first fellow at Bitcoin Policy Institute. I've been here a few a few years now and he actually wrote the first white paper for BPI. So he other than David and Grant, who like started and launched BPI, Matt is, has been there as long as anyone else writing papers. And so now obviously or not obviously to to some people who don't follow us closely or obsessed over all the details, they're like, he's now our executive director. He's announced that a few months ago. And I mean, we couldn't have made a better choice for spoiled rotten to have him. And he's, yeah, he's one of the sharpest individuals I've met in a long time. And so whatever Matt says goes. TLDR, whatever Matt says. I I generally think even if I don't agree with it, I will and and act accordingly. Totally agree. He's usually one of the highest single folks in the space. And it's great to say that because then you get to talk about Uaps and then kind of counterbalances because then people will naturally have it's, it holds some validity when bringing it up that he's very, very gets in the weeds there. Yeah, that's one of the few people can talk about aliens and people start taking in more seriously, right? Everybody else I know if you start, if you start bringing up aliens or Uaps, you know, start kind of talking about that, suddenly people are just like not listening to you at all. If I, if I started talking about aliens right now, everybody would just turn off the podcast. But when Matt talks about it, everybody's like, Oh yeah, wait a minute. Yeah, I'm taking this seriously. Not too, which is great. Glad we haven't. We do have a lot of alien talk to get through toward the end of this podcast, so I just want people to be aware about that so they stick around until the end of the show, but not too alien talk. One thing I did want to talk about, especially since Stevens on today, let's talk about some policy, one thing that happened this week that is going to be incredibly important for not only Bitcoin, but really I would say this country and certainly the dollar and that's why there's so much embedded interest in it these days, is the Genius Act, which is the stable coin bill passed the Senate by a wide margin this week. And so I want to go through a couple things here and then I want to get reaction. So this is Alex Thorne from Galaxy. We had him on recently. He actually did say something I think is incredibly true about the way to think about the Genius Act is it's a dollar bill. It's not a crypto bill. It's and people in Washington, they recognize that and that's ultimately why there was such widespread approval for it. It's going to support dollar dominance in a world where trust in the US Treasury market, trust in the dollar is decaying. Unfortunately, people are going to be forced to take their medicine. They're going to have to be, you know, buying and disable coins to access dollar liquidity. That's where this all goes. I want to bring this up as well, just a funny post from Donald Trump on Truth Social where we're talking about an incredible bill which ultimately will make America the undisputed leader in digital assets. It's pure genius, he says. So I always just like to bring up the Donnie, but more importantly, we have somewhat more, more balance takes here from the Treasury Secretary. So reactions to the bill here. He besant mentions that stablecoins could grow into a $3.7 trillion market by the end of the decade. And this scenario becomes more likely with the passage of the Genius Act. So he says that a thriving stablecoin ecosystem will drive demand for from the private sector for U.S. Treasuries, which backs stablecoins. This new found demand could lower government borrowing costs and help rain in national debt. It could also on ramp millions of new users across the globe to the dollar based digital asset economy. Also, you can see these hyphens here. I think this was ChatGPT generated, but we all use it. There's no shame in that. And then finally here and then I want to get the group's reactions. We don't have to play the clip, but it was interesting. He mentions this is still the Treasury Secretary mentions a a book that was published this year called King Dollar. And I forget who authored it, but it was someone who's been adjacent to the Treasury for about 40 years and talks about how every time there's a lot of narratives about the end of the dollar, you know, the dollar is done, etcetera. There's always a new narrative, there's always a new shift in the market structure that extends dollar dominance. And so Besson talks about how stablecoins is ultimately going to be the tool to extend dollar dominance and get U.S. Treasuries in the hands of more people. So big news here. Maybe, Steven, I'll toss it over to you. First is our Guest of the week. Just initial reactions to the Genius Act passing the Senate. Yeah, I think, well, first of all, I know Senator Bill Haggerty and his team have been working on this a long time. And I'm, I'm a Tennessee guy. He's one of my senators here along with Senator Blackburn. And, and so, you know, shout out to them. They've pushed and pushed on this and has to feel good to get this across the finish line there in the Senate. Great, great guy, great team. And you don't get things like this done without. I mean, you can be the most incredible, you know, Senator since you know whoever and but without a good team around you, just you just don't get these kinds of things done. And I think what's really, really stands out to me is the vote count 68 to 30 with quite a few Democrats voting in favor. I think that's, I think that's pretty bullish for not just this, but like sort of the some of the other priorities for the administration and then specifically for, for Bitcoin and digital assets. So that's what I'm saying. And I think that's, I think it's fantastic. Glad it passed. It hasn't been like a major focal point for BPI for obvious reasons, but we, you know, it's glad it got glad they got it done. And I think you know kind of what it signals is is also really important. Yeah, 100%. I think it's it's a signal, at least for one that they're serious about this stuff. And I think there was always an order of operations to you know, how Senator alumnus has talked about this, that stablecoin bill would come first. And so now there's been real follow through on that and even Trump's tweet being like, you know, no delays on this, get this to my desk ASAP. I'm ready to sign. It is all super constructive. I think, you know, something that we've talked about a bit in the past and, and Michael and I have sort of been thinking about is like, I think you can get tripped up by thinking like this is not good for Bitcoin in the sense that, you know, if you're extending dollar dominance, you know, that sort of impinges perhaps bitcoins adoption, particularly in the medium of exchange realm. But I think that's missing the larger picture of general normalization of digital monies and crypto rails that is now about to proliferate in a, in a real way. And so I think it's, it's insanely bullish for Bitcoin because, you know, we are as a, as a country, as a, as an administration leaning in heavily to crypto native dollars. And what that, what the 2nd order effect of that is, is that Bitcoin becomes a natural extension of someone's understanding of this, this sort of new realm of, of how money operates. And it'll become commonplace. The frictions will be reduced to effectively spending dollars and saving Bitcoin. And I kind of think that's where this is all headed. And this is a really first, you know, important first step in, in terms of normalizing that sort of ideology or or line of thinking. Yeah, I think, I think like there's nothing really new under the sun. You know, we know history repeats itself. But also in the crypto cycles, like you can probably go back to 9 to 12 or 13 and 13 to 1717 to 2121 to 25. Like they're naturally when you hear about like the Bitcoin individual talk about the having cycles and having cycles, the way I look at them is accelerated business cycles because you ultimately don't have anybody like animal spirits come in because it's a free market. And then liquidity things deleverage and you kind of wash out the bad actors. And we saw FTX Celsius block 5 point and sharing that is it's similar to I had this acknowledgement or realization a few months ago when I don't know what it was, whether it was percent or somebody realizing like this bill was going to happen at some point and it was going to be insanely bullish for BTC. And also just for the recognition of what Brian was alluding to is digital money, because this is how Tether has operated. This was the main reason for Tether and the trading pair with Tether and BTC. But then also how Circle and before it was called Circle, I forgot the consortium that was built on was around FX trading for BTC to dollars and really net settling capital accounts after hours and on weekends because the banking system didn't. If you're going to provide tight spreads, you need to be able to settle those assets. Obviously super microscopic example, but in the same way FTX is going to be microscopic versus what's going to happen with these treasury companies. And whatever else is going to come down, at least from my point of view, because we've already seen these things. We've seen what happens with centralization, we've seen what happens with counterparty risk and so similar we've seen what happens when you inject a little bit of, you know, digital dollars into the bet cone ecosystem and how that supports bitcoins price. And so to Brian's point, like now we see, you know, part of that bill is interesting about fintechs and other companies within certain, you know, regulatory, you know, framework, they can actually launch stablecoins. And so we saw Walmart, Amazon and other firms come to the table that they're working on this stuff. And so the notion that every bank and every checking account and every wallet you on board to is going to have, you know, U.S. dollar that can be converted to BTC. I don't see how like Jackson was looking for $1,000,000 call from Brian so he could have a, a big thing to push. I don't see how we don't get to these like crazy prices if all this stuff comes to fruition in the next 2024 months because it just normalizes that there's a digital form of money and bitcoins right next to that after you get your dollars. So what's the price target then? No, I'm just kidding. I'm curious like anyone in the group, how I should think about and how people should think about just stable coins as it relates to the financial services companies stepping in. Like you think about banks and Wall Street stepping into stable coin markets versus technology companies. We don't need to spend a ton of time on it, but like just an interesting, interesting development. We'll see, you know, Fortune 500 companies of all shapes and sizes, I guess look to launch stable coin. So how do I think about that? It's a good, it's a good question because this is something I've sort of wrestled with around stable coins for a while. Is like, well, you don't need like dozens or hundreds of different stable coin issuers. Like I, I don't see a world where you know, you have your Amazon stable coin, you have your bank stable coin. Like I do think that, you know, there will be sort of winner take most over time with these things where I think it gets really interesting is like, OK, well, how does that occur? How does that play out? How do these issuers actually differentiate between each other? And I think where it ultimately ends up going is like, you have to offer some sort of yield or return on holding the stable coin. So like right now, Tether just takes all of that yield for themselves, buys Bitcoin, buys gold, et cetera. They're not passing any of that along to the actual holders of the stable coins. So I think that's a natural progression of this is you're going to see people have to differentiate to out compete each other and offering, you know, some form of yield, whether that's just from the treasuries backing them themselves or it's partially backed by Bitcoin. And then you're passing along some, you know, portion of the appreciation of Bitcoin in your reserves. That's the really interesting thing to me that I think is an open question of how this evolves because I, I, I don't see a world where there's, you know, 100 different stable coins and none of them are doing anything different. Yeah. I mean, I, I line there, I think like the, the more macro theme is we go back to free banking and free banking is the maybe it's not exact free banking, but it's basically reputation based. So in a world where Amazon's effectively going to be a bank because they can naturally issue these stable coins into to Brian's point, they will not only have feature sets because they have a large customer base, but then what do they provide, whether it's discounts or. A creative, you know, passing back whatever yields or however they're backing it. We had this conversation over like maybe a year and a half ago with Joe Rebel when Wyoming was talking about announcing their sovereign stable coin and backed by kind of, you know, assets based in the state of Wyoming. And we kind of work through in real time how this was the natural progression of all stable coins are going to have to back with the most credible asset, which is BTBTC. And then it was interesting because Safe had a similar talk, you know, at this past conference referencing it's just the logical progression that Tether, they're already doing this with gold land and treasuries backing their stable coin because that's what's implied, right? If the, the stable ever deep eggs, you naturally are going to have these other assets for the credible to make people whole. And so that's where I think this all goes is just free banking. And then you'll have interoperable dollars, but then people have certain affiliations, affinity via brand recognition to start, because everyone knows who JP Morgan is. But as volatility inserts into the system, then you're naturally going to start to have reputation based on who you want your dollars to be parked with. One thing we didn't touch on here is while stable coins are going to be great, it's also going to actually accelerate this notion of bank runs and movement of capital. And there's going to be increased volatility because now money can move a lot freer. And I don't think people are prepared for that, including the people that are passing these bills because you can't actually prepare. I mean, we all know what happened with SVB and that would they, you know, put a product of that is because of digital flows in the in a banking era, that's online. Well, what happens when you can move it at 3:00 AM? There's a big problem there. Yeah, with, with bills like this or, you know, guidance or any sort of there's, there's AI, don't know if it's a motto, but the way I think about it is like you have regulation or deregulation, but I call it regulation because you're just saying what the rules are, you know, and if it's a deregulation, you're just, you know, there's less rules, you're just restating the rules. So regulation and you said you get regulatory clarity, regulation, then you have proliferation. So then everybody jumps in the market, nobody tries to do it. And then you have consolidation. And so you have your regulation, you have your proliferation, you have your consolidation. And I think we're going to see that. I don't know how many years it takes for that to play out. I don't think it's going to be like a consolidation, a sense of like what we've seen in some things. You mentioned bank runs and hopefully it's not, you know, sort of banks collapsing and, you know, rug pulls like we saw in the whole Define mess a couple years ago. And, and so, but I think we're going to see lots of people try lots of different things to get really creative. Kind of like, you know, we're seeing now different Fortune 500 companies sort of floating the idea that they might be doing something, looking at their competitors, see even if it's worth it. And then some of them are going to probably regret that or they're not going to, you know, you're going to see other people do it better. I think it's going to slowly kind of come back together, not to like a single currency or anything like that, but those are going to be definitely going to be a number of winners and losers in the sense of, you know, and I think what you said like the Bitcoin backed type of stables or if there's any sort of, you know, way to kind of L to it, that could be interesting. I think it's going to. I think if you don't do that, you probably wish you had. Yeah, just Speaking of all these different, you know, threat factors and I guess risk to consider. Steven and Michael, you both mentioned bank runs. Something that happened this week in Iran was both the largest crypto exchange there was hacked. They had hot wallets that were hacked and nearly 100 million was drained from those hot wallets and then I guess just burned. And then also I think it was the largest bank as well. There was a cyber attack that took place this week. And so I'm curious just like general thoughts on the the evolving digital threat landscape, Like we're obviously in this very tumultuous time, you know, from a very macro level with tensions seemingly rising every day or at least fluctuating back and forth. And there's just a lot of uncertainty in the market and, and things are evolving to, you know, financial warfare. And so I think a lot of what we need to think about in this space, and it could certainly tie into policy, is just how to ensure that there are adequate protections around Bitcoin custody infrastructure and how people should be thinking about these concerns. I mean, there's also something else we want to talk about that I believe we hit record on a massive data breach. So there's a lot of different directions we could go in. But this is going to be incredibly important for people to think about as we go forward because of course, Bitcoin's at 100K and it's a beautiful thing to be able to protect your wealth in something so scarce, finite. And the flip side of that, of course, is that it's becoming increasingly valuable. And Bitcoin is going to become, if not it already is a asset that a lot of malicious actors are going to be coming after. And then of course, you have to think about the old, you know, the traditional financial system in that context as well. So curious, just like between the the few piece of news that I cited this week, if there's any reactions there or or thoughts you want to share? We, we talked about this, I'll be brief. We talked about this earlier because we had a pod with Brahman. I think it goes to the notion of just like custody in general and how their traditional financial institutions aren't necessarily prepared for Bitcoin custody because the way that they traditionally have done it is via omnibus structures. And so you're housing a pooled amount of assets and you have a Ledger and a database. And while the assets are secure and you can know where the Bitcoin is via, you know, the blockchain of the UTXO said, you don't actually necessarily, you don't have a bulletproof version of unless you keep them offline records whose Bitcoin tracks to whose ownership. And so this kind of like I've been thinking about it more and more, but the Iranian situation, there was multiple, one was the banking system was supposedly hacked. But then we brought this up like, well, what if they just said, you know, their accounts were wiped out or they couldn't access it? But like what happened in the world where somebody says they were hacked in there? They weren't like, how do you prove that it was, you know, Iran that was hacked by external partners versus they, you know, their balance sheet was offsides and they couldn't make holes. So what a convenient way to say and you get, you know, made pennies on the dollar or whatever. So that's just one angle on the banking side. But then on the the crypto side, there was an exchange that was hacked and they burned the Bitcoin or whatever crypto assets. But point being is there's going to be other ways like obviously what we do with multi institution custody, there's, we don't talk about it enough, but that there's three independent custodians that are effectively attesting to the Providence of the Bitcoin because again, it's just still it's nerdy and early, but it's never been done where you have an address on chain and you can basically have three independent regulated custodians say that BTC belongs to that person because they've all gone through the onboarding process. And the point where that's valuable is because not only is the record there, but via multiple jurisdictions, but also could be multiple jurisdictions. It's not an omnibus. So it's directly tied to that person. But if something bad happens to 1 entity and they get wiped out completely, EMP or whatever you want to like make up, the assets are still going to be a track or a record, which that just historically wouldn't be there in an omnibus fashion depending on the construct. So they're just going to be a lot of things. I think they're in the digital age that I don't think we thought. And that's outside of just all the data leaks that are coming and then the realization that physical attacks are increasing because most people don't realize people are holding 500K in their house and when they do, it's going to be a very bad day. Yeah, I, I the only other thing that's very well articulated, but the where mine mine goes with this is sort of higher level, more bird's eye. Like what is the, you know, while these types of events are very unfortunate for the individuals and the citizens involved, like if there's any silver lining, like it is in my mind a very important catalyst for education and learning. Like these events speak directly to why Bitcoin exists, the ability to have, you know, decentralized ownership, better property rights, greater assurances over your ownership is, you know, speaks directly to the value prop and merit of Bitcoin. And so it's, it's sort of akin to like, you know, when the Canadian truckers happened a few years ago, like that was a big wake up call for people and it educated a lot of people on the merits of Bitcoin. And so while they're unfortunate in the moment, like I, I do think that it's kind of just the necessary pain to to help educate and catalyze education on why Bitcoin exists. Yeah, I, I think where, where my mind goes, I mean, it's a, you know, kind of kicking that off. It's a between, you know, data breach like privacy, the kind of bite of the elephant. I think that we're focused on right now and think you'll see next week. We kind of talked about what what BP is working on next week. One of our major focuses is on this clarity Act, which is sort of this market structure Bill and another another focus, and it's kind of part and parcel of that that we've been working on for over a year is the PDP rights fund, PDP rights campaign. So peer-to-peer rights, privacy tools, not non custodial developers, self custody. I think it this when, when these things sort of, you know, bubble up to the surface of the public consciousness, when you see whatever it was 60 billion people or whatever that got, it's not funny. It's just so ridiculous. 16 billion, sorry, only 16 billion people had their data leaked. This is sort of top of mind. It's an opportunity to to to highlight something that a lot of times when, when I'm talking with someone who doesn't, you know, isn't super familiar with Bitcoin or quite understand the rationale behind why it's so valuable or why it's important. You talk about like self custody and they're like, OK, whatever, you know, self custody hasn't really isn't really something at least U.S. citizens have been that concerned about or felt that they needed to be that concerned about. But when you look at you start seeing leaks and things and it's like, oh, that's your personal information. Suddenly it, it sort of sort sort of makes sense. A lot of times I've had to share stories or kind of make up scenarios for people in third world countries and it's like, oh, that clicks. People understand why self custody is important when you're, you know, in Afghanistan or whatever, right? Whenever you're in Iran right now, your regime's being able to thrown and there's all this like turmoil. And I think when they see these type of headlines to understand, they start to understand it a little, internalize it a little more versus just, you know, it's like 3 seconds. And I'm moving on to what I'm having for dinner tonight. And I'm not that worried about it. Everything's going to be fine. So when we look at and we're doing a lot, we're focusing on the so the BRCBRCA language that that was really important has now been incorporated the clarity Act. And so clarity Acts, what we're focusing on. We're going to be talking about a lot of the summit and this protects or, you know, stops the Bank Secrecy Act from applying to non custodial developers. Non custodial tools protect self custody. So I think that's how that's what I see. I'm like, man, we have to get this done and it's more important than ever to be able to to allow, you know, free individuals to access these type of tools, freedom tools. So that's like, that's my bite. I've seen that, Apple. I'm curious from your vantage, is there similar bipartisan support for the stuff that you just referenced in the Clarity Act? You know, relative to what we saw with the stable coin bill, where I think it was pretty easy to get people on board for, as we said, like this is a dollar bill, not really a crypto bill. Do you see similar support or is there more dissidents on that side? I hope so. I, I really do. I think there's an article kind of came out earlier this week that, you know, not all Democrats hate digital assets like you're kind of taught to think or told to think. I think there's a lot of centrist Democrats that are, that are friendlier than it than it seems. And again, that's why I'm bullish on the genius act passing like a dead. It can kind of signals like, hey, maybe there's maybe more allies here. He would otherwise think so. And I think, you know, I don't think it's a long shot to pass clarity. I think I think I think we can get it done. There's not a slam dunk by any stretch. And you know, I think if you look at you look at our agenda for next week at the summit to be surprised seat, it's not just Republicans who are speaking at a big point policy summit. So again, I think we do, I think we do well to in this, you know, BPI, we're a, we're A5O1C3, we're non profit. So in our charters, we're, we're non partisan and we've always maintained that we will work with anyone who's willing to work with us. I don't care who you are or you know what you said a month ago, if you're like, oh, no, you know what? I want to work. We, we have, we have short, short memories and we'll work with everybody because it, the stakes are too high to, for us to or for anyone, I think to play games, you know, Hey, you know, I didn't understand, but there were, there was a time not that long ago, you know, a few years ago that I didn't understand anything about Bitcoin either, you know, and, and so I think we're, I think it's an industry we do well to remain arms open and embrace both sides at as often as as we possibly can. And I think that's what we're seeing, man. I think that's one thing Bitcoiners are great about, you know, kind of the heart and soul of it is, is welcoming people in and and helping educate, get them up to speed, help them understand being patient. And that's and I take it, you know, one step further. We have a, we haven't done this before, but I don't mean to go on and on about the summit, but it's a good time to mention this. I had made a note because I'm really proud of it. It's not something we've done, but we did a day two this year for the summit. So Summit's on Wednesday, day 2's on Thursday and we stood up a day on the Hill, which I don't know if you guys have ever been on a day on the Hill or heard of a day on the Hill. But it's sort of this industry play where you know, if you're a trade association or whatever, which we're not, or a lobbying group, you bring your clients in or you bring, you know, a bunch of construction workers in or whatever, whatever your industry is. And you take them to Capitol Hill. You walk around the halls, you meet, greet, greet, meet and greet, you know, staffers and elected officials. And we've never done that just for a few reasons, but we felt like it was the time was right. Ken Egan, who's our government affairs director, helped stand us up. And man, we have sold out. We have so many Bitcoin, not that just coming to DC, but staying for a second day and then going on the Capitol Hill and meeting some of them. They're elected officials, some of them that they just want to kind of like, you know, meet generally with staffers and talk about Bitcoin. I think of any industry of any, of any trade group, if you're just bringing like people who don't do this every day, I have, I would bet on Bitcoiners to be able to bridge the gap, whether it's people who staffers who maybe kind of understand a little bit, want to know more people are maybe a little hostile. I trust the Bitcoin crew. I think we have like almost 200 people going to Capitol Hill next Thursday. And and so I'm super excited to hear what comes of that. And I think, you know, I think we're seeing like, I think if I did this two years ago, we said, let's do a day on the hill. I don't know if anybody came. They're really why. What do we do? You know what we do up here? And now I think it's starting to get it. Bitcoiners are getting it and they're like, no, we're showing up. We want to do it. Let's go. So really, really sad about it. No, I, it's, it's well said and I think that that's something that that doesn't get talked about or is underappreciated enough is the economic weight as Bitcoin grows to execute on what you just described. Because you know, not a student of this, but you go back to choke .1 point O with gambling sites and other kind of like illicit or quote UN quote illicit services that were cut off. And you go back to even like firearms and some of the unconstitutional ways that you have to register and manage that aren't necessarily, and I know like the, what is the big group for? Not the I guess the NRA like there's a there's a lot of like push and pull, but historically it all goes into One Direction, which is centralization of control. But and it's still early in this game, but it's trending in the direction of positive. What Stevens saying, because historically you didn't have the unit growing and purchasing power and starting to embed in self in different politicians pockets. But also the people that are fighting for these things that are actually getting wealthier and able to affect their express their version of the the future and how they want. And it's really this whole like every time we look at Bitcoin, it just gets crazy and crazier. The amount of alignment of incentives, and I think that's what Stevens referencing specifically around two years ago, well, Bitcoin's price was, you know, 50% less or whatever. So you don't just have the economic weight and coordination that you can from the highest levels to the president all the way down to individuals. And so that's that notion of I think where a lot of people feel the inevitability because as long as Bitcoin's successful, you're going to naturally be able to do that. The last thing that that says that's kind of the meta angle of everyone gets Bitcoin at the price they deserve. It's because it's this notion that like the people that were meant to see or adopt Bitcoin at the time were the people that were going to affect the change. And then it's kind of like the center of Warrens that are the last people to see it. It's like, yeah, you kind of don't want her to have really much control in the future. So it's like it was always that taken. I think that's the sub context of a lot of these memes that are really expressed have a lot of validity to them. So anyway, I think that that what we're seeing is just kind of playing out. And if we're here today at 100K, just crazy. What is it going to be at 250 K, $500 million in the amount of change we're going to see in the world? All right. And I think, sorry, I'll let one of you guys hop in on your, on your podcast here soon. But I, you said economic weight and, and that, you know, brought this to mind. I think I'm sure Matt probably brought this up when he was on, but do you guys talk about the sort of like gold versus Bitcoin US holdings? Did he hit that the other day? You know, US holds roughly of gold supply like around 10% of total gold supply. United States holds between like individuals, companies and government around 40% of Bitcoin. And so you're like a $2 trillion asset, 40% of its domestic, you know, either in somebody's hands inside these walls, you know, inside these inside the borders, the United States, that economic weight. And then when you begin to, like you said, project that out over what's this going to be in two years and five years, you know, not just the market cap, but the percentage of the economy market cap. You know, it's hard to know, like you say it's a $10 trillion asset, but you know, what's happened with inflation in those 1020 years. But the percentage of wealth and the the, the demographic of Bitcoin owners and suddenly you realize how they're like, yeah, OK, we need to we need to get, we need to, you know, interact with these guys. We want to hear what this industry has to say. We want to start kind of listening. And it's when you hear JD Vance, Vice President Vance at the Bitcoin conference in Las Vegas, get up there. One of his main points was we need to not try to be this bureaucracy telling you guys what to do. The second most powerful man in the world. On track to be the most powerful man in the world. Like he's got. Last I checked, he was like plus 250 odds to be the next president. Next closest was +2000. So, you know, one in three odds. This is the, you know #2 guy for four years, number one guy probably for eight years. So 12 years, You know, Pop two said, we want to listen to you. We want to know what you think we want to hear. And I think we need to do a better job of that. And I don't think I've I've made this point a lot. So this last week. But like, this is not a campaign speech either. This isn't a guy who's like trying to jump off some votes, trying to get some, you know, donations. He's not running for office. He's good. You know, he's not in the midterm, he's getting elected in the midterms. He's good Now he's got a presidential campaign coming up, but like he's saying he really means it. You know, there's policy reasons, not campaign reasons that he's saying some of these things. So I it's. And just to be clear, mind blowing. Stevens referenced referencing like future potential nominees or bids to be president. Not saying something's going to happen to Trump and Vance would be coming in because there are some conspiracy theorists. No, no, yeah, I'm saying I'm saying that's why it's a 12. Years or whatever. Yeah, All right, Yeah, I I'm like, there's no telling what I just said on accident, so thanks for telling me. You're. Yeah, I think it'll be. I think it'll be. I think it's, I think it's one of the coolest things I've. I I heard was him, was him speaking to Congo. Trump speaking last year was awesome. But that's a guy campaigning for president. He's not. It wasn't the president and this is the actual vice president. And I think sometimes we get those people have been like, you know, it wasn't Trump, but, you know, JD did pretty good. Like now this is a complete paradigm shift. It was wild. And you, you were too humble to admit that he mentioned the, the Bitcoin Policy Institute as well in that speech. I forgot about that. Sure. Well, you know, a lot of what you said resonates with me because I, I was thinking about that the week of the conference. The fact that it, I think it wasn't Vance's speech where he cites 50 million Americans owned crypto or Bitcoin, however he phrased it, but then we talked about it before, might have been a recurring theme of the show where sure, 50 million people have maybe a Coinbase account or a Kraken account, whatever, and they have $100.00 of Dogecoin and $200.00 of Bitcoin. But when you really drill down, it's a very small contingent of people who have a material allocation to Bitcoin and have a deep understanding of the technology and of the asset. And so that even puts it into more perspective, the fact that you do have the sitting vice president going to an industry conference to address a crowd of 35,000 people. And then maybe it's streamed out, you know, a couple 100,000 over YouTube and socials. But we're incredibly early, right? Just to put that in perspective, we have the incentives aligning from the highest powers from the most for the most influential people in the world that are now coalescing around Bitcoin. And in large part, I think Steven, it does tie into the stat you mentioned about 40% of the wealth or industry. However I want to think about it or we think about it of Bitcoin sits within the United States. And I, I don't know, I don't, I don't know every single industry enough to say if there are any others where there's that much concentration within the borders of the United States. But my gut instinct is there's not. And so I'm really curious, you know, we talked a little bit about just the support as a whole, But I would love to hear in a little more detail the conversations that are happening now in DC at the federal level, at the state level. And as politicians and other stakeholders really come to terms with the amount of influence and the amount of wealth and technology that exists within the United States for Bitcoin specifically. And why and how, what you know, what's going on behind the scenes now that is going to keep the United States as the leader? Yeah, well, let me, I'll, I'm going to answer your question a few different ways, but one, and, and this isn't something I've actually said before, but as you were saying, it kind of combined a few, a few thoughts. If I'm a politician and either just trying to do a good job, which I think there are a lot of those that are like, hey, I'm here. It's it's sort of public service. You know, I don't know if I'm the best person for the job. I'm one of the best, but I'm, I'm the one in the job and I'm going to, I want to do well by my constituents. I, I genuinely believe that, that there are many politicians that that's the way they operate. I know not everybody will agree with that assessment, but I've worked with a lot of them over the years. And but whether it's that or whether it's sort of the, and I always, always do this because there's so many different people who listen and kind of see it different ways. And I don't think it matters if it's, if you're a little more cynical about it, right? And you're like, I just think they're in it for the, you know, whatever the money or the power or whatever, I don't think it matters. I think if I'm a politician and I'm looking and I say, you know, there's 50 million people using digital that have digital assets in America. And I think you raise the point like, well, most of them like what couple 100 bucks got a little bit on Robin Hood or whatever the case is and they dabbled. They probably got rugged a couple times. You know, they're buying, they bought a little Bitcoin. They got $100 in Bitcoin in case, you know what if, you know, they got a little bit of doge, whatever. We rewind to the 90s. I think probably there were people on a podcast similar to this. I don't know if they had podcasts. They didn't have podcasts. They're on a whatever little public forum and, and meeting and, and talking about the Internet, right? And maybe a chat room, one of the first first Gen. chat rooms. But they're like, Hey, you know, how many million people and maybe the late 90s by that point, how many million people? There's X million people that have Internet access in the United States. And people like us from the Internet Policy Institute are probably like, yeah, but like, come on, man. Like if only a million of those people really even know what the Internet is and really use it on a daily basis, you can say that millions and millions of people have Internet access. But like, they don't even, you know, they don't barely even know to turn on a computer. And I think we're in a similar spot. I think you guys think that too. Yeah. These people only have a little bit now and I'm only dabbled in it now, but you, what do you, what do you do before you become a daily user of like the Internet, you have it. I remember the reason I brought up chat rooms is and this came to mind. I remember the first time I used the Internet. I had an uncle. him and I were both like really into dirt bikes. I was young, you know, and he, you know, he got me into dirt bikes and like talking about dirt bikes and super fun. And he was over at my house and he was kind of the tech guy of our family tree. He was like, check this out, you know, and he plugged in, you know, plugged our phone into a computer. It took our phone line into a computer and dialed up. And he was like, does anybody like dirt bikes? I was like in this AOL chat room and all these people like, I like dirt bikes and everybody's talking about dirt bikes. And he moved the computer like this and it cut the Internet off and we lost. He was like, you know, and every time we would just barely move the computer. It was like cutting the Internet off and we would have to start over and find more dirt bike people. And I just remember thinking like, this is really cool, but is this it? Is this like the whole everybody told this Internet thing? Like come on. Like I thought it'd be there's a little anti climatic. And I think that's how people experience Bitcoin, right? Right now. They're like, man, all these other things are, you know, going way up and down as well as volatility. And Bitcoin's got a little boring. It's 6 figures. You know, it goes from 1:14 to 104. Nobody cares. And but I think when those 50 million people turn into like legitimate users, which is going to be super fast. I think politicians are looking at that and they're like, Oh my God, this is about to get insane. And if you have 2550 million serious users, I mean, you're, it's unstoppable. It's over. And so we better prepare for that title wave to hit. We got to think through it from the policy standpoint, from a political standpoint, both parties are having this come to Jesus moment. I think that's what you're seeing on the Democratic side too. They're like, what are you talking about? We're anti digital assets. That's like saying you're anti Internet. Well, you have we, this is not a, we have no leg to stand on. This is this is actually irresponsible from a, from a platform standpoint. So I think that's why we're seeing some of the migration, some of the, you know, kind of bipartisan support on some of these bills. Hope you're enjoying the episode. Just a quick break. Would really appreciate if you can hit the like button to subscribe. Leave a comment if you're on YouTube. But yeah, a five star rating on Spotify, Apple, all this really goes a long way to support the show. We spend a lot of time to prepare for it, book guests, have the conversations, edit them. And so if you could show your appreciation, just hit the like button, leave a comment, leave a five star review really goes a long way. We appreciate it and if you haven't checked it out already, would also point you to our website where you can subscribe to our weekly research newsletter. So you'll get information on what's happening in Bitcoin markets, macro. You'll get podcasts that you might have missed as well, deep dive reports, white papers, just a great way to stay up to date with everything that's happening at our business and also how we're viewing the investable landscape for Bitcoin and the broader macro picture. Hope you enjoyed the rest of the episode. Yeah, I love a lot of the analogies you made there. And thank you for pioneering the chat room. So then by the time I was in elementary school, I was able to easily communicate with my classmates. Forget which one I was at this point, But this reminds me of a chart that River put out this week. I think it's interesting. I mean, it may be redundant for us and for some people, but it also is important to put in perspective because I know there's people who listen to the show, I know that this will be distributed in other places. And they look at the price of Bitcoin and they think immediately I miss it, right? And then they go down the shit coin rabbit hole because everything is so cheap and the market caps are small. And I'm going to, you know, I'm going to 100 X my position and then sell and buy a Lambo and I don't have to work for Michael anymore. But that's not how it works. You were actually incredibly early and you have 3% adoption of Bitcoin. And when I think about these other things here for reference, online banking in 1996 or social media in 2005 or the Internet in 1990, I would have to imagine like in social media in 2005, there were very few proponents of it who understood how fundamentally that would change traditional media, how people would communicate more online than they do in person. Online banking may be even a better parallel because everyone used to bank in person. And that's really sensitive information, right? And people are, you know, like to keep their finances close to them. Still, even to this day, some people don't want to bank online. They prefer to go into a branch. And now you have Bitcoin. It's in even more radical proposition in the sense that you're we're putting our, what we perceive to be physical dollars, but they're digital dollars right into a new form of money that didn't exist like 17 years ago. And so that is probably the biggest inertia to overcome out of any one of these. And and still to this day, we're only a 3% adoption, you know, 15 years later. Yeah, I think that ties into the Bank of America analysts report that came out about, you know, bitcoins like a once in 1000 years technological disruption. And I think you guys the one that I come to, and I don't think there's a right analogy, but his e-mail because e-mail was like valuable for people, allowed you think about having to like send a snail mail and the process and all of that. And e-mail was relatively easily for people to get access to. They can just get on their phone. It provided value similar to Bitcoin has a store of value. But if you looked at that was all the Internet was good for you were missing, you know, so much more. And it took years. It took time for the Internet to proliferate, mobile phones to come out and GPS. But yeah, this is AI think what's I think the most interesting is that we've all known this, but the powers that be, whether it's the banking sector or from a policy perspective, people in those realms have also known it. But the, the zeitgeist, the narrative, it's changing in our direction that OK, it's here, it's here to stay. Now they're ready to like embrace it, which is what matters at the end of the day. Everyone's known. There's been negative yielding bonds, but now people are talking about it and they're going to do something by holding money and hard assets, specifically sovereigns. And so that's really where things changed. Gold bugs have been talking about this forever, but it didn't really matter until now. We're stacking gold and Bitcoin. Yeah. Can you go back to that river slide real fast if you can? So just a couple quick things. So first of all, River, I'm really excited. Alex is going to be doing a presentation at the summit next week about some of this like Bitcoin and adoption in the United States. And some of the research they're doing is is phenomenal. And they have just the access to data and kind of the way they parse it. Some really, really interesting things. The other thing I want to hit, if you look at social media in 2005, Jackson, you were saying thanks for the chat room, you know, kind of kind of breaking ground there. Date. So I'll date myself. My freshman year of college was the year Facebook came out and piloted with with with freshmen. And so I was the first batch of Facebook users that year and it was like a LAN, you know, type of thing where you only were within your own little university circle and you and, and yeah, I think, you know, your point. Like, it was crazy. It's crazy to see like, well, you know, what am I do with this fake Facebook thing? Like, I thought it was kind of stupid. I still kind of do. I don't have a Facebook account anymore, but but you know, I, I, I saw, I rode the way for, for, you know, whatever, 15 years and, and it's crazy to see how some things go. You, you start out and that was like a 3% that was probably 3% penetration of the market that first year. And now it's, it's insane. So, but yeah, man, everybody TuneIn to that river talk. If you if you think this is interesting, like Alex is going to, Alex is going to go to town, it's going to be great. Yeah. The only thing I would add to that is, you know, I think that 3% that's quoted on that chart is, is probably looking at users. So these these numbers that we've been referencing and I think those are always inherently overstated because if you're just looking at, you know, unique addresses, you know, people could have multiple addresses. So typically overstates that amount. And I would almost, I think a better gauge of like adoption is just like the actual monetary value relative to global assets, which is much lower than 3%, like the 2 trillion versus 1000 trillion or a quadrillion of global asset value at, you know, 0.2%. Like that's the real adoption rate to me because it's like this, you know, put aside like how many users there are, it's just how much, how much value is being stored in this new store value is like the real adoption rate in my mind. So it's just like there's different frames of reference you can look at the adoption reality is we're we're extremely early no matter how you slice it, But just wanted to add that. Yeah, go ahead. I was going to say there are two sides of the same coin, because as more dollar or more value goes into the system, that means that more people value the asset. And so then they inherently will want to receive it. And so that's the big thing that like if you look at one like one out of 100 people, if we agree that one out of 100 hold any form of Bitcoin, when you look at the number of pairs that like are tied in the, there's only .8% of the total amount of connections that would be able to be made via that one out of 100. Or like I think roughly like in that ratio, maybe it's like 2 out of 100. But the notion is as you increase adoption and connectivity, the value starts to grow because people are naturally starting to find value and not having a centralized entity. And then the middle and the amount of connections grow similar to the Internet, like as more it's the Metcalf's law effectively. And so that's the other side is that we don't still have the connections. People aren't like accepting this for payments. And as that starts to grow because the value's grown, then that naturally brings more value to the system. So it's a chicken or egg problems like you have more value in it than more people recognize it as valuable, they want and accept it, which derives more value from the network like connectivity. Price target, Steven, I have AI have kind of like A2 fold question for you. So yeah, there's been circles online in the Bitcoin community for a while that talk about Bitcoin obsoletes the state, and clearly that doesn't happen anytime soon at least. And so there was this thinking within the US government, at least that's from my perception of it, because of how hostile the government was, you know, an administration ago or even 2 administrations ago. So there was this shift in thinking from your Bitcoin is a threat to the dollar to really it's part of the statecraft of the United States. It's a tool for advancing your prosperity within the country. It's a new technology. Some of the things we just discussed, I'm curious, you know, when you perceive that inflection point to happen since you've been at BPI for a while now. And then the second part to that question would be, you know, now that that inflection point has happened and we talked about, you know, some of the adoption metrics and just the prosperity and, and concentration of wealth and technology of Bitcoin in the United States. What is resonating the most with people now? So it's like when did the inflection point happen in, in you and the team's opinion? And now with ongoing conversations, what are some of the core narratives or or focal points, topics that are being discussed to further that? Yeah. Big questions good, good stuff to to cover here. So you know, there there are a number of different opinions in the Bitcoin ecosystem, individuals of like bitcoins interaction with with the state. Our thesis is pretty much always been the same. I mentioned Matt, Matt Pine's first white paper, if you have asked and look like our one of our very first white papers, like 100 pages, Matt Pine's talking about Bitcoin's role in the US versus China geopolitical conflict. And I mean, here we are and we're in the middle of a tariff war and hopefully, you know, not more over the next few years. I think there's we're on a collision course with China and I think he knew that because of his background and and rightly called that out and did 100 pages on why, you know, why should we should think about Bitcoin? We're with regards to China, their belt and Rd. initiative, like all of the sort of tentacles of this conflict that, you know, we're already making their way through the system back then. And I know a lot of a lot of people, you know, a lot of Bitcoiners think Bitcoin, you know, or thought or do think Bitcoin obsoletes the state. If that's the case, then don't worry about it. You don't really have to worry about, you know, the government or like what any institute or whoever's working on if you think the state's a concern. Or an obstacle or a potential, you know, just whatever issue then I would say whether it's us or whoever, I think it's really important that we have been preparing for Bitcoin to be taken seriously by the United States government for quite some time. To me, I know it's I'm sorry, I'm getting a little echo. So if I start him and Holland, it's hard to hear yourself on the echo when you're when you're going probably my Airpods are dying. But I think if you think Bitcoin's going to, you know, become what it's already become $2 trillion asset class and then keep going. Like we were just talking about if we're if we are that early, then it was just a matter of time for the largest, most powerful government in the world starts to take it super seriously. It starts to look into it, be like, what is this about? Who's behind this? What is this a threat or this an asset? And when they're asking that question, it's a little too late to start making the case. When you're in front of the judge, you know, or the jury, it's a little too late to start in your in your in your speaking. It's a little too late to start figuring out what you're going to say. And so I'm just making like dumbing this down like super simple. So we've been thinking, OK, one day we think bitcoiners going to be super successful. We are bitcoiners, we believe in it, we think it makes sense. It's freedom money. It's like one of those powerful tools, technology, technological tools that's ever been thrown out there and people are adopting it like, you know, like Mad Men. It's mayhem and the market's right, but Bitcoin's going crazy. It's $100,000. US government's going to take a hard look at this and there's going to be legislation, there's going to be regulation, there's going to be all these sorts of things. There's start to start to notice it and do things about it. That's what the government does. That's what bureaucracies do. They take notice and they start doing things. And sometimes they're bad things. A lot of times they're, they're wrong because they don't understand something. They're I got to get my mind around it. Like if you're actually start trying to get their head around things and they make rules and you know, like a like, you know, if you're a parent, you have teenagers, you don't really understand, you know, your first couple years, I don't know how to handle this teenager. So you start trying to figure things about, get your arms around the situation and you probably make mistakes. And that's what the government's best at. That's what bureaucracy is the best at. It's groupthink, like the worst example of groupthink ever. It's just like these institutions making sweeping decisions about things they have 0 understanding on. And in this case, the stakes are even higher because you're talking about a top five asset on its way to being number one. Many people listening to this podcast think this is the, you know, the best asset, the hardest money ever invented. And it's going to be, it's going to quickly surpass gold in terms of market cap. And, and, and so if that's the case, then the stakes could not be higher for us to make sure that the right people understand, at least at a kindergartner level, why Bitcoin's important and why and, and maximize the public benefit, you know, for individuals, but and maximize the, the benefit of the United States, which is kind of our charter. We, we think Bitcoin in the United States can be, can be good. This can be good for that. And, and making that case, select officials, agencies. And that's, that's why we're doing what we do. Next week's third year. We've done it. I know I'm kind of going down a, going on a tangent here and answering all of your questions, but, but I, I just wanted to get that out of the way. Like, that's why I think that's why I think our work and the work of other groups and, and now we have Senator Alamis is we have all these, you know, elected officials, Senator Blackburn, Senator Haggard, leave anybody out. I could, I could go on and on about, you know, them, uh, elected officials that are advocates for Bitcoin and they get it and they understand it. They think, Oh my God, this is, we can't mess this up and we need them. We need, you know, groups, we need lobbyists, whoever to keep pushing because we we don't want what's really dangerous and when isn't just people who are like curious and don't understand Bitcoin at all because they're not, you know, they're going to say, OK, hey, we need to kind of get our heads around this. It's the people who think they understand and they don't, they're wrong. Those people are dangerous. And so we want to find them help, you know, help bring them up to speed. Yeah, it's, it's well said. And the other thing I would reference is like, you know, we're talking about them trying to get their arms around it. Understand it, but at the same time, like they're themselves looking at becoming a quote UN quote user, right? Like we have this Bitcoin. Maybe this is a good time to ask, you know, status of the SBR, where's the audit? How much Bitcoin do we have? I think that's a first step in like their literal adoption and becoming a user, which will be very a very powerful signal if and when that does happen where we explicitly state this is how much Bitcoin we have, we're holding it forever. We're going to look to acquire more. That's that's a very strong signal that like we ourselves as a government, as a sovereign are going to become a user of this network. Yeah, I wish I could tell you the what what the hold up is on the on the audit. I think obviously they're running some snags, but I'll leave it at that. I think I do expect that audit to come through. I know the deadlines and deadlines have been broken, so I don't know when it'll happen, but I'm optimistic that we'll get that. I mean, it's executive order, so it seems like you kind of got to do it. But I think, yeah, I think, you know, you look at the Bitcoin Act, you look at Senator Lemus's bill, which has been Co signed by a number of people getting a buying program going. I'm optimistic that we're going to, you know, this stuff just doesn't happen as quickly as we've been a little spoiled as an industry saying, Hey, we had our timeline's hilarious. Bitcoin, Bitcoin's timelines are hilarious, right? We're we, we're like gradually, then suddenly, well, like most things are just gradually and then gradually and then gradually, you know, use people grind in Washington DC as lobbyists for like decades to get things done. And some of that's by design, you know, because if you pass the bill and like, well, I guess you don't have to, I guess I don't need to pay you anymore if you got it done. And so we've seen go. We went from like complete regulatory, I would say capture, but like, you know, choke point, like a chokehold, regulatory chokehold, you know, 2 point 2.0 to candidate who was kind of mentioning Bitcoin made some crazy promises. There's like no way he's going to do any of that. Did most of it. One won the election. President's talking about Bitcoin executive orders day week 1, but that doesn't happen like that. That's insane. Like I don't, you don't fully appreciate it because we've, you know, we're like, Oh yeah, great. Because how it works. Presidents talk about you and they do all this stuff. It doesn't work like that. It's it's hilariously like bullish like this is wild. And we've I spent years and years. We're going to we're going to the state level, just trying to get like state representatives and governors to do basic things. And it's like maybe next year, you know, maybe next cycle. And so to have the president United States do all that is just so wild. Not to mention the executive order, which was a huge win. And so I think, I guess I'm encouraging some patience. I I mean, I want to see it all here, too. I'm just like, there's so much going on. And I think the, the fact, I guess what I'm trying to communicate is the fact that it has been delayed. It has taken a little while longer than we thought or than it was originally said. Doesn't surprise me and doesn't like send me into like, you know, I'm not like, well, the whole thing's over now. I mean, I'm just, it's kind of what I expected. It's just going to take a while. Poor. It's poor Brian. It's a great point to contextualize like it goes back to the accelerated business cycles like we witnessed first hand and asked to go from 0 to $2 trillion, which it's never really happened at that speed. You see what happened with the ETFs and the record versus gold. And similarly, just the notion like calling out, we could have been in a different spot if an alternative universe, if Trump's not president, like completely different, like not like 180 right in where the left and a lot of the things happening from regulatory, the the, you know, from the KYC to exchanges to the market structure. So, yeah, it's been interesting to watch that happened in real time, whether it was like Ross took two days instead of 1 and all the way to, you know, if it makes sense, right? Because in a world of TikTok, it's not the same, but it is that we see this price moving and it's insanely volatile and it's usually volatile to the upside. So we're just like primed for that serotonin hit till you like the the movement goes and you're waiting for the next like bullish catalyst. When in reality, it's you just got to like take a step back and realize where we're at. Right. Yeah, I, I just think we're, we're really, we're spoiled a little bit and, and we can't control that, You know, it's, this is like the coolest roller coaster ride. And we talk about the BPI like, I'm like, this doesn't work like this, you know, and, and it does, it has for for for us and for the industry. And it helps, I think something else I've said just like beating this drum, like, OK, why? Like, why is this working like this? Well, it helps to be right. It helps to be on the right side of history. And I think bit corners are like helps to be right that like, yeah, hey, the Internet is one of the most powerful inventions in the, you know, last 1000 years. Like this is going to like forever change civilization like you out of your mind, you know, like for what for e-mail like sounds crazy. Helps to be right. I was going to say earlier just I feel bad for Brian in particular because Brian really wants to see the audit, Steven, he was hoping. Where's the corn? He's hoping that you brought the audit with you today. So I know he's he's a little disappointed, but that's all right. Next up to say? I have a tally sheet. It's just, you know, but I promise, Brian, that they do not have more than 21 million. I can guarantee you that. Good. Take that. I was concerned about that actually. But all right, I mean we get, we're a little over an hour into this. I'll be curious to hear if maybe there's anything else topical from the week that we might have missed. And if not, I would like to just discuss a little bit more about the summit that's happening next week. Give a teaser to what will be happening there. You know, some of the notable speakers. Let's get people excited about what's going on with the Bitcoin Policy Summit, if if there's nothing else. Brian, Michael, anything else from From your side? No, let's talk, Let's talk, summit. Cool. Yeah, let's talk Summit. I, I encourage, I'll just do the, do the bit here, like if you're in DC, if you're going to be in the area, if you want to just fly in last minute, we'd love to have you. We do have a few tickets, not a lot. We have a few left though. Did not expect that to be an issue. We moved to a larger venue this year and we're like, all right. We just like, we want people to be able to show up and want to be like, you know, just so update of and register and I don't think it's going to happen. So if you can, if you're interested, go to btcpolicysummit.org, btcpolicy summit.org and you can request a ticket there. It is pending approval to keep the riffraff out. So it's going to be a full day, man, we have packed so much. It's we're basically packed 2 summits into one day because so much we want to cover. I think the important one important thing I kind of give you the history. This is our third annual summit. We started this back, you know, a few years ago because we realized we had a massive issue the first time most people in Washington, DC ever were acquainted or introduced to Bitcoin. Who's in the wake of the FTX collapse. And so Bitcoin was finally in the headlines like for the first time in a while, price, you know, price is doing well. It's something crazy. And then FTX, of course, you know, super, you know, Super Bowl stadiums are named after it. So everybody's like, wait a second. And it hit everyone. The fallout kind of splattered everywhere. So we're like, we need to get the the key people in a room and kind of re educate. You never want to re educate. You want to educate people. You want to catch someone there a blank slate. It's far more difficult to, if you've ever had like a bad teacher growing up and they, they tried to teach you something, but it was like all messed up. And then you kind of got to reprogram that. It's way more difficult to learn something after you've thought you've already learned it. And we so we had to step up to that challenge. And I think our website said basically like FTX collapsed. Many people think Bitcoin, you know, is a scam. Is it a scam? Like what's wrong with Bitcoin? You know, come find out. It was like, let's just lean into it. You know, policy makers are are faced with protecting the public from, you know, things like that. So we just leaned into it and said, like, let's be curious together, show up, let's talk. We got Bitcoin experts and we're we're going to we're just, you know, stoned unturned, you know, this isn't a marketing play. Let's just talk. And they did feel like, OK, I like that vibe like. So that's what that was the launch of of the summit last year. We said, OK, should America embrace Bitcoin? Like we're starting to get there. Things are starting to happen. And now that America seemingly has at least at some level, first is a year ago we said, OK, America seems to be embracing Bitcoin. What what happens now? So that's the point of departure for the summit. And we have a number of keynotes. We have industry players, we have mining companies. I kind of mentioned River. Let me just kind of go through the kind of different buckets. I'm not going to read the entire schedule, but kind of give you a vision for it. So we're kicking off the future of Bitcoin in America Part 1. So we just released not that long ago Bitcoin Policy Institute did, it's top of our website. Kind of first thing you're going to see if you look at our our white papers and our publications like a like a policy framework, like what we think's important, why we think it's important, kind of like on the policy side, like what we're working on and focused on. And Zach Shapiro, our head of policy, he's going to unpack that in like 10 minutes. I have no idea how, but he's going to do it in 10 minutes. And then we have Bo Hines who I know everybody here is familiar with White House cancel and digital assets executive director and Connor Brown from Senator Lemus office going to do a fireside chat there about Bitcoin and the future of America is sort of like like kind of broadcasting out like what what were things to look like down the road. We have three US senators talking about the Bitcoin legislative agenda and and then you mentioned Alex Thorne. Alex, he's doing a keynote. We have some of our fellows speaking. Then we're kind of going to pivot for the second-half of the morning to domestic and global Bitcoin adoption. And that's where Alex River, CCO River is going to do like do a, do a bit on the American Bitcoin advantage, like the advantage we have, and that's a huge part of our, our pitch to Washington is like, we have an unprecedented advantage. We have a lead. And the last thing we do when you have a lead like this is just fumble the ball. So we got to seize the momentum. And it's sort of this once in a generation opportunity kind of like we did with the Internet. We we could have, we could have, could have messed that up. Good thing we didn't look at what look what's happening. We have some of the most valuable companies in the world that had, you know, the most valuable companies in the world. They're all here and we're losing some of that now. This is a chance to take it back. Let me find another one. There's another couple cool bits we have planned. So this is, I'm really excited about this illicit finance. Let's touch on illicit finance in America. Like how do these work? Where's Bitcoin fit into that? Is Bitcoin used for money laundering? Let's blow some of these false narratives out of the water. Obviously, if you want to launder money, you use cash. If you don't, you're going to get busted. Just launder your money. If you want to launder money, don't use Bitcoin. Some of those types of basic things. It's we need to tell this, we need to tell these tales. We need to dispel these like false narratives. And then the other big farsight. I think I think the thing I'm I'm really look forward to more than anything is Matt Pines, our executive writer sat down with deputy director, the CIA, Michael Ellis, and that's going to be fascinating. We're super honored to have him join us. And I think this first time publicly speaking about Bitcoin, coming to Bitcoin event, so excited to have that. That's going to be awesome. It's like can't miss level TV right there. And then we're going to pivot to BRCA and Richie Torres. We were talking about Democrat Congressman. He's one who's on the right side of history here and doing everything he can fight hard. So he's coming in joining us and that's just the first like third of the day. Any questions so far guys? Yeah, I mean, it's a great recap. I think one of the the big things that sticks out about Bpis, like you guys are genuinely having a lot of fun. And I remember when we first met before Pines came on full time, you were referencing just the prerequisite to come on as a fellow. And it was just like like, you know, the Navy Seal's and Marines of kind of Bitcoin and understanding, but also come and having a professional experience. And I think you're keen in on something that's super profound is you guys are just right. And it's just true. We all know where Bitcoins going and that it reminds me of the notion of like technology acts as a fulcrum and it's like a point of leverage that the greater the technology, the larger the amplification is. And similar to like what you guys are able to achieve with the budget as it compares to the other kind of. I know it's different in the sense that you guys aren't a trade association, but similar in the sense that you're advocating for an industry that's growing, but you're advocating for the right area of the industry and being done in the right way. And I think that presents itself in like how the taste of what you guys have achieved, but also the group coming together and so super excited. I won't personally be there, but they I can't make it for some personal reasons, but the team will be here along with some other folks. And so I'm going to feel the FOMO, but I know they'll they'll fill me in and the on ramp and early writers presence will be in DC in full force. Yeah, I, I said to have some of you guys join and, and I mean, we have, I don't know, 708 hundred people coming right now. So it's going to be, it's going to be awesome. It's going to be packed. I think you mentioned being right. I think for an industry, for trade group, for, you know, for, for think tank, whatever. I think being right is a necessary but but not sufficient condition. To being successful. So like you can be right and still lose. You can be right and be, you know, a number of different things. It can be pricks and I think you know, you still lose. But I think being being correct and then also just like being honest about what you know and don't know what you understand and what you don't understand is important. I think then working just your tail off and being kind, being generous, you know, and, and bringing the right people together, being strategic. I think those are all like, you can be right and not do all those things well and, and still still pretty, you know, get cooked. But you also it helps when you're, if you're doing all those things and you're right, then you're going to find success. And I think that's what we're seeing as an industry man. Like everybody, everybody works hard. Everybody's real sharp. Everybody's very strategic, but also like sort of generous with their time, generous with their, you know, like social circles, you know, our political circles, like we, we're open and I think we have the right posture to find success in DC. And I think that's what we're seeing like elected officials kind of pile in. They're like, not only, you know, there's the what we were talking about like for the 3%. Now we're headed toward, you know, whatever market cap, like whatever percentage of the market cap is going to be in the United States. There's that there's like the population thing. And then there's like, we like being around these guys. We like speaking at their events. They're nice people. They're they're good to us. They help us. Like I've said this a few times about lobbyists, like the best lobbyists, which we're not lobbyists, we're a think tank, but like advocates, I guess I should say the best advocates and lobbyists are those who have strong subject matter, subject matter expertise and experience. And so when you are a staffer, when you're an elected official, you go to those people and you give a couple, you know, you get one or two shots and one of the few things happened, you either embarrass them because you told something that was a lie. And you might win that day, but you're going to lose the rest of your kind of career. You're a liar or you're just like an idiot or another other things. But if you're reliable and sharp and you're like, I'm here to help you, to help you do your job and make your job easier and make you look good, then generally they're going to like being around you. And I think that's what we're trying to do it as like a BPI. And I think I see a lot of Bitcoiners like the 200, some that are coming today on the Hill. It's like, hey, we're here to support. We don't agree with everything you guys do up here. I don't agree with everything everybody does individually, right? But like with this, we can come together, we can work, we can be collaborative, we can educate you If you have questions, we're here to answer and we'll give you damn good answers. Answers. Some of them are 100 page white papers like here. Is this helpful? All right, you know, and we won't be able to give talking points. If you're like, I'm trying to figure out, you know, whatever, we're here to deliver that. Why are help me get my head around? Why is self custody important? It's not like you idiot, you don't understand stuff. No, no, let's bring in some self customers, let's bring in some wallets like you guys talk talk to them. We're just, you know, think tank guys, whatever it is. What's Bitcoin mining mining is that data centers? Well, sort of you know, let's let's educate you. Let's like how deep you want to go, man, we can do, we can, we can do a week of, of meetings, but then also being able to like package that we're, we're a, we're an industry of engineers. You know, like mentioned to somebody the other day, they even talked to my wife about it. I was like, man, Bitcoiners, man, so sorry for outsiders. Because it's kind of like your neighbor, you know, and you're like, hey, man, my car's kind of running a little rough or you're or you're, you know, I said neighbor because one of my neighbors was a mechanic at one point. It was like you and your mechanic cars run a little rough and they're like, OK, I don't need to know why, you know, I'm not a mechanic. I just need to know what you need me to do or pay you, but that's it. And they're like, no, no, no. Here, listen. So when they built this car, well, actually, let's go back to the, you know, the Ford Model T and then they iterated this and then they did a diesel engine and then this like, man, I don't have time and I just don't like understand anything you're saying. I don't need to know how the car was built. I seem to know kind of why what's wrong with it, why this is important, You know, and I think that bitcoins are a lot like engineers and mechanics like we want to because we we think this is the most beautiful engine ever conceived. You know, it's a, it's a 57 Hemi, like you don't understand, like how the Hemi came to be. We're passionate about it. And I think sometimes we forget other people. They they just want to know the benefits, like why? And they don't need to know the entire history. And we think if someone's not interested in that, that that means maybe they don't take it as seriously. But anyway, I think that that's what we're doing in Washington is like wherever, how do you want to go or not go? We'll meet you right there. I love it. Well, yes, Steven, really appreciate you joining us today. Michael just had to jump, I think for another call, but it was a great conversation. It was a pleasure to get to know you. And we'll share as well in the show notes, the link to the summit. So if there are any stragglers on the fence that are local or maybe even have the opportunity to fly in and join, just go to believeitsbtcpolicysummit.org and there you can find the tickets online. Steven, is there anything else you wanted to shout out before we wrap up here? No, Jackson, Brian, Michael, I just want to say appreciate you guys. Appreciate on Ramp. It's a great show and thanks for having me on. Look forward to seeing some of you guys next week. Really, really do appreciate it. Thanks, Steven. Thanks for listening to this week's episode of the show. 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