Transcript+
It all comes down to computers. Communicating the information superhighway can be a confusing mix of on ramps and off ramps. Bitcoin is worthless, artificial. Gold. Is it still rat poison? Probably rat poison squared. We need to get into the world of OK, this is actually foundational technology. What the Internet of money? Does is it creates a single network which can do a microtransaction to a giga transaction. The Internet is going to be one of the major forces for reducing the roller gun. The one thing that's missing that will soon be developed is a reliable E cash. Welcome back to Final Settlement everyone. Today is February 11th. It's a Tuesday, gentlemen. How are we doing? I'm joined by my Co host Michael Tanguma and Liam Nelson and special guest today, Mitch Kochman, Chief Revenue Officer at On Ramp. Very happy to have you on the show today. Lots of lots of topics to get through, but how are we doing boys? Doing all right, all all things considered flooding down here in Texas, How to move location so the Internet could work. It looks like bitcoin's prices flooding and bleeding out as well. We're down to we're in a bear market at 95,000, crashed to 95,000. Dollars per coin. Yeah. So things, things are rough. These are always a good time historically though, so you know I'm shop. Solidation exactly a good time to add. Exactly if I. If I had any Fiat to add, I would get in. Here, Yeah, when things are quiet, it's generally a good sign too. Don't want too many hyper bullish headlines all across the news. People need some time to digest. So yeah, all is good. Just kind of keep on chopping. I'm excited to have a Mitch on because Mitch has been talking my ear off or our ear off for over a year now about SAB 121 being repealed. And hello, the banks were rugging the industry and once the the banks, you know, had the handcuffs taken off that we were going to go and up only. So I want to, I want to see if it's going to actually play out in that direction and what the latest is. Yeah, I'm pretty sure banks are going to want to make money. So I'm, I'm pretty bullish about leveraging them to, to access new, new pools of liquidity for this industry. I don't know how much banks actually like making money. I was listening to yesterday. Bank of America, I guess, has $100 billion like on the books and losses. Is that right from the? In what? From the the bonds that they hold, yeah. That tracks. Yeah, I mean they're. Making. Money, but that's just generally been the wrong trade for them because they back in 2021, the move to get like marginal extra yield was to go out and buy 3330 year assets rather than, you know, one to three or one to three month bonds that were yielding nothing. And so they wanted to make money that way and they really like to make money. They just are caught on the wrong side of that trade. We will get to the repeal of SAB and all its implications, but to kick things off, wanted to go through some news over the past couple weeks, some topical headlines and deals that I think are worth covering. The first of which I'll pull up on screen here was Stripe acquiring a stable coin API bridge for 1.1 billion. I think this is sort of just, you know, reminiscent of of what we've been talking about for the past several weeks of, you know, because this new administration, Trump and his team is digital asset working group are are seemingly very much leaning into stable coins. And that being, you know, the vehicle or the avenue by which we really spread dollar dominance across the world. And, you know, sort of walk this fine line of continuing to kick the can down the road, devaluing the currency, but still maintaining reserve status by just spreading stable coins all over the world. And so now you're seeing the stripes of the world, I think see the see the sort of posturing from the administration and say, you know, we need to lean into this area. So any thoughts from you guys on this move from Stripe or the deal terms or anything else? I mean, I think the, what I'm curious to hear like, because I haven't fully thought out the position other than it's super bearish for like all the Bitcoin companies that try to create cross-border products and solutions. Because at the end of the day, those were built to move Fiat independent of what the movement of like Bitcoin is doing. They're trying to get dollars from one place to another. And it, this is kind of ties into the last week's news with the tether rolling over lightning or whatever. But it's this notion of, well, if the rails already figured out from bridge, I would imagine has relationships cross-border, they've done compliance with different banks. There's already plumbing with the existing system. And how do you transfer into stables on whichever blockchain? And there's a standard being formed, which Mitch, you said on the other side of this on like an infrastructure perspective. It's really hard enough to go and explain this stuff, the legacy institutions, but they can, if you can again, help them make money, they'll buy into it. But then to have to go and explain why you need to do this on Bitcoin, a different protocol with a different prop, you know, it just doesn't feel it feels like it, it takes out the air with a lot of these like pitches. And so I'm just curious, like Liam, I know you looked at a lot of deals even at your previous life, just, you know, being a student of the industry and how is that take make sense? Or do you think there's a different angle why people would use lightning from a cross-border remittance perspective? Yeah, I think a lot of times too people are just, they already have enough issues with respect to tax, getting money across borders that they don't want another volatile currency to be involved as well at a very broad sense in terms of all companies. So I think a lot of Fiat companies that just want to have dollar treasuries will want to use this product and it's also a need for them. You know, I think there is a use case for some Bitcoin only companies that really want to have, you know, their entire treasury and Bitcoin to get across borders. But at this point, it's just a little bit too early for mass remittances of Bitcoin across countries. I, I broadly think that, you know, when you've got large players like Stripe building on other chains, I think it, it is going to be harder to build these solutions on Bitcoin, at least initially. That said, when you know, over the medium, long term, when, you know, let's say stripes hold on Etherium here, you know, if usage of Etherium is going down, they're going to find themselves forced to, to go migrate to somewhere else. And ultimately Bitcoin, you know, we're picking a market dominance, picking up, you know, usage, you know, it's the same, you know, similar to, you know, my background, the infrastructure world, you know, do you want to keep hopping vendors or do you want to go with, you know, the strongest, most resilient one that you might have to pay a bit more, You might have to, you know, might move slower, you know, in some cases. But you know, do you trust that your money's going to get there? And, you know, so I this can be a cost benefit analysis for all these firms. I'm not surprised that, you know, they're going on another chain first, but now I'm pretty I'd say in the short term, pretty bearish with this stuff happening on Bitcoin, at least the major players going to Bitcoin, but in the medium long term, very bullish. I think it's in general though, you know, firm and this is what I'm going to probably get into a little bit on Saab, but firm like Stripe that you know, what are you looking for? I'm looking to acquire. I, I don't have, you know, the skills as much to, you know, the proof of work that I've gotten done this. I'm looking to acquire, you know, knowledge, resources, technology that have proven out that they can, they can move this money. This traditionally has not happened, you know, stables on Bitcoin prior. So if I'm going to go acquire a firm, I'm probably going to acquire one that's doing doing this on Ethereum or Salon or whatever it is today, which is why I think they go in a direction like this. Yeah, I think that's all right. I mean, I think the reality of the situation is that the vast, vast majority of stable coin volumes and flows on these other chains like Tron and Ethereum. And to your point though, Mitch, like I do think there's a medium to long term rationale for trying to build stable coins on Bitcoin. You know, we've seen early iterations and attempts at that and the the thinking really being like, you know, do you want to build these dollar based payment applications on a sound foundation that you know is going to be here in 50 years or do you want to do it on the most popular one right now that might not be that in 10 or 20 years. Like that is, I think the real crux of the question and it particularly if these guys are just going to go buy a player like this, you know, with it like a deal like this, then obviously you're going to go the route of a shorter term. Like where's the volume today, right? Like, I think because that's, that's how you justify a a billion dollar purchase of this. This company is by saying, well, this is where all the volumes are and we're going to build out capabilities to to service these people today. Yeah, I think like the value accrual. We're straight. We're. Bridge I think is interesting is like they have like regulatory framework on ramps, all of the plumbing for it, different institutions like it's a, it's a like a liquidity game. So the more people that pipe into their AP is you get more access points from bringing in dollars and then it's a creative to the network. So I think that's interesting today because a lot of people haven't done it. But what I think is more interesting on the stable coin side is at the end of the day, the value is not where the protocol it's being sent on because it's actually the database that it's being referenced because the protocol can just be turned off and you can move over the database to whichever 1. So I think the question is like less or the thing I'm less find interesting is what the rails that are being used. It's actually the mechanics and the integrity of the underlying asset And how do you, what makes circle tether or if on ramp or whoever spins up a stable coin that delivers some kind of like additional yield in like passing through treasuries? And then if something gets dislocated, what's backed up by BTC, maybe offers BTC on an annual basis to those wallet. Like that's how I think who wins? Because that's a, that's a, a brand recognition and trust game, because that's why you're using those stables, not because of the rails that are used, because any of those, including lightning, something could happen to a channel, but the assets are still a counterparty or the counterparty still the, the issuer. And so I think like that's the real interesting aspect of who can accrue the most value is who builds the brand around stables that has integrity and forward thinking on how do you bring in more liquidity so you can issue more stables which you can get passed through more revenue. And when that I think is like the next version of Staples and why I would want to use one as I would look at who has the best kind of economics around it. Economics risk, I think we're we're very early into that the productization of this step. Yeah, I think that that'll make sense. I mean, if you look at like, like, Michael, what you're sort of alluding to is like the integrity of the underlying, IE for all these stables, like if they're just buying U.S. Treasuries. And then, you know, if you look at Tether, like they haven't historically passed along that yield, right? Like they're just keeping that themselves as profits, rolling a lot of it into BTC. What is your assumption that people will pass along whatever those you know those yields are with respect to the Treasuries that they're holding as the underlying? Yeah, I mean, I guess going back to like the bridge, I guess their value comes because the people using them most likely have no idea who Circle or Tether are or understand have done a lot of the diligence maybe somewhat. But it's really like bridges their interface into accessing this and thinking through their capital movement in the same way that like they would go to Stripe and then plug in their bank accounts and they can move funds. They're getting access to that platform and the they'll be agnostic to what chain it's being used. Like whether it's Salon or theorem, they probably don't even know to be honest. So I don't, I'm like less interested or even like, maybe it does end up on Bitcoin because of the integrity over time, the pipings there, it's just not there yet. So like all that, I can almost guarantee bridge is not probably have integrations with anything Bitcoin related. And if it is, it's probably very like not a lot of liquidity. But the other thing that's actually more interesting because if you're, if the AP is and that plumbing can continue to grow, well then like what's the mode around that? And there's something there. But then there's also how do you create a real mode around the integrity of the, the stable coin? And it has to start looking differentiated because right now tethers making acts billions of dollars, there's not a lot of competition. But what happens when somebody gives back X percentage of those billions back to the end holder, passes it through the other digital wallet and then also anchors a portion of the their holdings into BTC. So it helps with if there's any like dislocation, there's a run, right? We saw what happened with SVB in circle like two or three years ago where the price started to dislocate. Well, if you have the Bitcoin back in it up now you have higher integrity and and it goes back to like the free banking style of different banks will have different custodial relationship or custodial models also have different stable models. And so if we're going to live in a dollar denominated world for at least a while, you may need those dollars and you're maybe you're whipping them around online. But if one's paying less interest or one's potentially seized or the counterparty that issues that stable, there's assets are encumbered, right? Like it starts to look like, well, what are my dollars? Who's being held in this world, this digital native world? And that's what's kind of interesting because now you have an opportunity to to differentiate in the financial services and the stables that you offer. No, that all that all makes a lot of sense. I think pivot to the next deal a a strong departure from what we were just talking about where there's real demand for for U.S. dollar stable coins. This is a deal where, you know, I, I don't think there's actually a ton of demand for, for what this company, Tapper Wizard is trying to do. They raise 30 million. And if you're not familiar, Tapper Wizards has sort of pioneered or worked on Bitcoin inscriptions, which is effectively a form of, of NFT on the Bitcoin blockchain. And a lot of also sort of the undercurrent of what this group and and others have been pushing is, is effectively vouching for advocating for a Bitcoin improvement proposal called OPCAT, which would enable a lot of different things, including, you know, what they want to do basically with these ordinals and NFTS and making them more usable, better user experience, things like that. What what do we make of this? I, I also wanted to pull up here just to look at the volume of ordinals over the past several months. But while I pull that up, any any thoughts on this deal guys? It's pretty easy to say, but raising money to with guarantees or or soft guarantees of a change to the Bitcoin protocol is probably not a viable strategy long term. I it seems like a promise that they can't make. And so it's going to be very difficult for them and their investors to, to monetize this kind of on a hope. It's definitely something that I would want to stay away from personally, but we'll we'll see how this plays out. Yes, I I have pulled up here just inscriptions over time. You can see there's a good amount of activity back in 23 and then really fell off for most of of 24. Slight, slight blips over the past couple of months, but not a not not what I would deem sustainable demand for ordinals and inscriptions. And even just to carry a piggyback off of that, like, yeah, you can see how fall, how far these inscriptions have fallen. And it's kind of just the same thing that we're seeing with the proliferation of all these different meme coins being raised, which is essentially there are so many different ones at the moment that you can gamble on which ones are going to go up short term. But in the end, it's mostly a 0 sum game. And essentially back in 2017 with like the mass adoption of Icos and a lot of these mean coin craze. And when that started back then, there's been kind of a bit of a decline in all these other coins just because people now have a better way to bet on leveraged Bitcoin, which is essentially through the public markets, which is significantly easier buying micro strategy or buying calls or puts on micro strategy, which just have like massive amounts of volatility, which I think is mostly the demand for all of these different things like Bitcoin Ordinals and all these different meme coins. And so I see a lot of demand for all of these different products declining long term. But I'd be interested to hear your guys opinions as well. Yeah, I don't follow, you know, the ordinals and and all this stuff very much. But like, you know, I didn't pull this data, but I can always guarantee you that that is easily a top five single funding or top ten and probably top five single funding round for a theoretical Bitcoin company. There's no shortage of affinity scams that tie to Bitcoin that happened for since its very existence. And when you see somebody invest $30 million in something like that, it's ultimately telling you that they've gotten some economics on the next altcoins that are going to get spun up. And how do they get access to. It's just similar to like what we've seen in the altcoin space with Multi Coin and these other VC firms that they're investing because they're going to get access early to these altcoins that they're going to be able to dump on retail. Yeah. I think that's, I think that's well put the sort of what you're alluding to around the perverse incentives of something like this, where in order to really profit from it, you need to be effectively the earliest to it and then basically capitalize on the late liquidity and and dump on real retail. So we've seen that with all coins, with meme coins, with NFTS and with inscriptions. It's kind, it's kind of the same story. So I mean, to, to just looking at the fundraising round a bit, you know, they're building probably applications to go build, you know, and interact with this stuff. So, you know, it's probably, you know, they're trying to build the pickaxes to, you know, to go create this world, which, you know, feel there will be plenty of, you know, rugging retail and early investors that are making money on it and what not. But I think they're trying to build the applications here. My stance on this stuff is like, I don't pay attention to it, but I'll defend the right to do it. And some, you know, open source protocol that, you know, probably they can use it as they wish. I don't care. It's not what I want to focus my time on. As long as the we're not seeing the network getting, you know, flooded with DDoS. Attacks, but I think that's pretty much where I land on it as well. Like I, I don't have like a super fundamental issue with it because I am sort of a free markets maximalist of people want to get rugged on these things, go for it. But raising 30 million on this idea I I struggle with, I mean from an investment. Perspective So I mean, it's once again, it's not my cup of tea. But that said, you know, the president just launched a meme coin like there's there's a market for this stuff, unfortunately, for better or worse. And, you know, people are always going to be after or seemingly, you know, environment that we're operating in, you know, where, you know, inflation is ruining, you know, they're buying power. They're going to be after that 100 X return, unfortunately. You know, we try leading them in and informing them to go a different way. But until that mechanism changes where, you know, inflation isn't attacking their buying power, like there will be something in human nature that's going after that return that's looking to gamble and, you know, unfortunately like, but these people are building the infrastructure to go to go provide that. I think that's what this is. Yeah, but I think what's more nefarious is that again, it goes back to the affinity scamming on Bitcoin because we saw this with the layer 2 stuff that he gets a pass because, you know, he worked with the president or whatever. But Bailey and all those guys just like investing in all this layer 2 crap that is effectively has a token that's not needed to dump on retail. This is a cousin of that. Stacks is another great example where we talk with clients that would never touch quote UN quote altcoins, but then are happy to invest in Stacks because they believe there's some fundamental utility token around that. That's where the problem with this arises is like OPCAD, Bitcoin, whatever you're going to derive from it. Liam showed the, the, the not really the volatility, but ultimately, like, it's like all altcoins, it gets heavy when the market's out there. Similarly, like step in, it's just my favorite because you know, when everything's hot, the price is up, and then when liquidity goes out of the market, it's just dead. It's zombie zone. And so that's what you're banking on in a $30 million investment is to get access to when the price is running so you can dump and then you can effectively get your bags packed from whatever the investment was. The next one more one more piece of news before we we jump to the next thing. But I thought this one was interesting just in the sense of so so SoftBank made an investment in cipher mining. And so why I thought this was particularly interesting was so SoftBank. They've made some other Bitcoin and crypto related investments in the past, most notably in 21 believe they invested in Digital Currency Group, DCG and, you know, the parent company of Grayscale Trust. And then they also invested in FTX, which which they wrote to 0. And so this I think is the first time since that FTX investment that they've gotten back into the space with an investment. And I think it's particularly, you know, interesting that they decided to invest in a Bitcoin mining company as opposed to something in broader crypto. And any thoughts on this guys? I can jump in. I do agree. You know, it's a sign of things to come. You know, you look at a firm like SoftBank, what are they typically after they've, you know, extremely long time horizons when the mining space, you know, in the short term, even medium term, you know, you've got countries mining, you've got actors that are not primarily focused on economics that are getting into the mining space. It's an extremely competitive area in the of, of our, of our industry. But that hash rate, you know, when you look at the medium long term, when blocks, you know, blocks begin to fill up again, you know, that's, you know, it is absolutely worth something to be able to, you know, be able to guarantee the fact that you, you know, you've got to stay some blocks, you know, should, you know, you win the, the block board. So I, I, I'm not shocked, you know, folks at SoftBank are, are looking at the mining space with, with that long term time horizon, it definitely matches up to, you know, how they typically invest. Yeah, I also wouldn't be surprised if like they have their ears to the ground all across the world and, and understand what's going on with hash rate and understand that there are likely nation state level hash rate accumulation going on right now. So I, I, you know, in the in that sense, I think this this deal and investment make a ton of sense if, if that's what they are seeing on the ground, which is, you know, what we've heard anecdotally and is, is sort of rumored to be the case right now. So in that sense, it, it makes total sense that the most positive signal to me was that they're not investing in something like crypto company, like they're getting into Bitcoin mining. So it it does seem like a shift from where they were two years ago basically. And another thing is this is also kind of going into taking a step back. SoftBank also was one of the investors in the Stargate program, which was the 500 billion AI data center program, essentially trying to build out the infrastructure of data centers that is needed to host all these data centers to run the AI programs for these companies. And I believe that they they're part of their investment in Cipher is just understanding, OK, they are a massive data center company that has a bunch of cheap power and potentially they are looking to drift them to skew a little bit more into AI rather than pureplay Bitcoin mining because a lot of demand for that pretty much all across the world. They as companies look at the Stargate program, which is essentially building out a ton of data centers that are competing with Bitcoin miners to get the same low cost electricity contracts. They are increasingly going to run into wait, why does this industry consume so much power? Are they actually generating any economic returns that make sense from this? And will we be? Does it make sense to really focus as much on investing in data centers to help run services for AI, or will there be a benefit to just mining Bitcoin with that excess power if we're not using all of it? I think we're just going to see some more industry leaders become a little bit more familiar with the industry as a whole and dip their toes into the industry as well. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. I think with the nuance a little bit flip there is they have the downside protection of mining as long as they make the right investment. And then it's a call option on the acquisition because everything I've seen and I'm not close to mining, but is that the Co location or acquisitions? It's more economically, it makes more economic sense to turn off the miners and actually Co locate to run models. And so it ties into like Bitcoin mining being like the Canary in the coal mine for cheap cost of energy because it's a lot easier. It's more modular to go into the darkest, deepest corners of the earth to find low cost energy. And once you've proven that out, now you can actually Co locate and start to put GPUs to to run the data sets for LLMS. And so I think that's the trend we've kind of seen with like Core and some other firms. And that could be an angle like you're referencing that they're in Stargate, they have to start looking for more power sources to go and deploy these GPUs. And Cipher could be like one of the first parts of that play. It's a really good point. It feels like that Co location and sort of blending these two industries of Bitcoin mining and and AI data centers is certainly a trend that's occurring and and this could almost be viewed as like a two birds one stone situation effectively. OK, well, that's all I had. For one thing, you. Can't give SoftBank too much credit on that because I mean, they're like wild in the sense that they can produce these crazy returns. But then also we've seen their their write offs or their investments been their write offs there. But then also like, I don't know if you remember they bought a shit ton of Bitcoin back in like I want to say 2020 and then sold it all like in 21 right before the run up something crazy like. So they don't have a fundamental grasp on like at least previously on what was happening in this industry. So you got to take everything they do with the grain of salt. Yeah, if you look it up, you'll see there you can kind of track it. Interesting. I didn't realize that. OK. Switching gears a little bit, Mitch, Chief Revenue offers Officer at on Ramp. You joined us, how long ago is that again? About a year, yeah, from previously bit go and and IBM before that. You've been on some of our pods in the past, but it's been a little while. So maybe for the audience, it would be helpful just to to walk through sort of your background, what you've done in in tech and infrastructure and then ultimately crypto and Bitcoin and and really what led you to on ramp. I think that would be a helpful, helpful place to start for folks. It feels good to be back. I've had a baby 16 months ago and dusted off the mic for the first time since baby was born. But my background came from IBM spent 11, little over 11 years there largely servicing major banks helping them with their infrastructure. My last role there was I LED IB miss relationship with JP Morgan and so under the covers, you know, massive infrastructure stack, sporting Chase Bank and JP Morgan operations. Had a moment where I looked at my son and said, do I want to be helping Jamie Dimon automate jobs or am I? Do I do I want to, you know, inspire you and you know, be a better example. So I went to Bitco and spent almost, I'd say almost two years over there, but came two months before FTX and that two years was largely spent helping, you know, I'd say nearly every Bitcoin company and a number of crypto companies as well make it through all the challenges of 22 and 23. It started with FTX, but then went to Silvergate, went to Fortress Trust, Prime Trust, you know, in Bico being safe harbor for, for many exchanges, you know, during, during that tumultuous time, August 2023, Michael came to Bitco with the idea for multi institution custody. I'd say 5 minutes into the discussion, I, I knew right away, this is, this is something that number one, Bitco had to be a part of something #2 that our industry needed because it's a, the single party custody system had failed. And then my primary part of my job was, you know, you know, being safe harbor, you know, for, for, you know, the situations when it didn't fail, but you know, very much knowing that we needed some sort of, you know, better resiliency for our industry if we're going to get the adoption that we all hope, you know, to to come here. So, you know, I grokked up pretty quick and I went to Mike Belshibico CEO said there's something we've got to be a part of. So we met for a couple days, talk through sort of disruptive forces here, but painted the picture of, you know, if multi institution custody is the future that, you know, our industry is moving towards Biko being the best key agent possible in this model, you know, ends up being very fruitful for Biko when there's more copycats, you know, for multi institution that, you know, come into the industry. BICO having the reps, you know, that they've done this before. You know, they'd be the first client, our first key agent that that they would jump to, you know, as A to set up a new new instance, a new custodian got on board. I spent six months standing up anything from onboarding to legal agreements and, you know, getting BICO where where we needed to be from a sport perspective and ultimately had the choice of, you know, if I knew in my heart of hearts, multi institutions, what you know, the impact that I I know I'd say what I wanted to work on to go make this industry more resilient to, you know, make my time well spent. I could have went to onrap and ultimately made us and I did I guess the the Notre Dame in multi institution make this a success so that other firms key agents, you know, capitulate income into the model other you know, there are copycats, you know on their way, but you make this a success more come or I could have sat there a bit go and tried to drum up interest to to go be, you know, to create more on ramps. Ultimately success is going to bring followers. So came to Onrap, spent a year here, you know as Chief Revenue Officer. Broadly what I do on a day-to-day basis is we've got this multi institution custody framework for how to hold keys and it's building products and services around it for you know the three demographics that we largely serve individuals and building products around that being IRA lending trade. They're institutional clients that are enterprise offering probably creating products and services for those client bases. So that's what I've been spending my time for the last year. Awesome. Appreciate you walking through that. I think if you could go back like and think back to the time at Bitco and cleaning up the messes of the FC XS of the world, like, and this is, you know, this is before the idea of multi institution custody had been incepted into your brain. Like at that point, what did you think was best in breed, right, in terms of custody and security? You know, we had this there's this notion of qualified custody, which I think sort of got blown up in the sense of there were quote UN quote qualified custodians who didn't fulfill their obligations to to a certain extent or something went wrong. And so how did your view of custody and security sort of evolve from the time of cleaning up FTX to to realizing there was another another way with multi institution distributing counterparty risk, reducing single points of failure? But like, what is I guess, you know, putting yourself back in those shoes, like what was the most secure custody at that point? And what was like the big unlock for you being like, OK, there's a whole nother way to do this, basically. Yeah. So I'd say at the time, you know what was best custody, it was it was making sure you you were in deep cold storage market proved over number of years that if you've got a hot key, it ultimately will be exposed through some sort of security vulnerability. So that was, you know, certainly a perk to bit go slower withdrawal process. But broadly, you know, that help keep keep funds there. You know, strong balance sheet. It does protect against risks like that, which is why, you know, your Coinbase, your Fidelity's, your bit goes of the world Anchorage as well tend to do better here. But I'd say that and and really track record. But that said, you know, if you're looking, you know, at a, what a, you know, like post SAP 2121 repeal, what that means for the industry, if we're just looking at single party custody, you know, all that is, you know, stuff that the banks are going to catch up to. You know, they've got the balance sheet. You know, they're going to, you know, having a, you know, speed is not necessarily, you know, a requirement by the US banking system. You know, deep cold storage is going to be the way that they go here, you know, whether they go build themselves over, you know, period of time or much, much more likely, you know, moving to a, you know, acquiring, you know, the talent and services like that's banks. If, if, if sitting in those shoes in 2223, that's where this industry was going. And it was the the change was, you know, the eye opening model of it didn't need to be this way. Yeah, I've, I was talking to, to major, major, you know, firms that are holding, you know, largest Bitcoin holdings in the world. And their methodology for for choosing custodians was go after the biggest balance sheet and write terms in the language that say should you go under? You know, my claim is 1st. And or, you know, you're backstopping me with you with your funds, not, you know, what's in trust. That's not a way that, you know, this industry sustained. You need something better because this is the first industry where fundamental loss of the asset means it actually goes away. It's not just installing a row in the database. So you know, that's why multi institution was so high opening. It's because you know all these losses, you know they're the reason why our industry does get a bad name. You know why there is resistance, you know, from those who are just following the stories on, you know, FDX and reading major news headlines that not necessarily even seeing things like ETF inflows that we see every day. You build trust by not having these events happen, by improving work and time that, you know, between, you know, losses. So, you know, on the other side, what that looks like is, you know, we can have firms go bankrupt and customer funds don't get impacted. That's the world I wanted to go build and what I didn't think was possible in 2223, you know, outside of just having a major, you know, a large balance sheet, secure this stuff. Yeah, that that's, that's a good way to summarize it. It's effectively, you know, how I talk about the unlock of of multi institution custody is it adds fault tolerance and redundancy to a custody setup for really the first time outside of what you just described of like you hope their balance sheet is big enough. You hope you have some language in the contract that could cover your ass in in basically a a single point of failure being exposed. But like that doesn't scale. It doesn't work for the average person. Like not everybody you know has has the ability to negotiate those types of contracts. So like you did just need a fundamentally different architecture for the setup. And I'm glad that I'm glad that you latched onto that idea early with with conversations with Michael. And it's been it's fun. It's been fun to build out sort of what this looks like in real time. You sort of alluded in there to what we've referenced a couple times around SAB 121 being repealed and this idea of banks getting involved in custody. I guess opening up to the group broad thoughts on what that looks like. Do banks build this themselves? The, you know, the expertise needed to custody private key material is very different from any other asset they've ever custodied. So do they go hire people to do that? Do they outsource it? You know, like we saw basically with with the ETFETF issuers just saying, hey, we're just going to hand this to Coinbase. Do they do something like that or do they just outright buy some players? What what are the thoughts there and, and sort of what is the trajectory here for banks to really get involved in a, in a material way in any of your views? Yeah, I would love to hear Mitch's opinion here because he's obviously got a lot of experience here. But but also love to hear especially on your view of like what, what you think they'll get right, how you think they'll do it. And more importantly, do you think that they'll learn from any of the mistakes of the 2021 cycle? Because people really have short memories and even like Mount Gox is very distant memory at this point. So I was just curious on your thoughts there. Yeah, there's a ton. Of maybe before you go, Mitch, because I want to hear that. But I think before going into that, just I think laying the scene for what is available for banks because it's actually a very small window if they have to establish a position, right? They're kind of caught flat footed because historically they were told not to touch this. And if you have kind of had research groups are built in house things, but they haven't been able to turn them on. So if you can lay out like what are even the players that could opportunity like could opportunistically partner? And then how do they think about build versus buy before even going into like, I think that's also important how to think about, you know, counterparty risk. But that'd be helpful just to like lay the scene, lay a little bit of the scene of like what's going on in the space and what are their options? Yeah, yes, I've worked with banks for quite a while. You know, fundamentally who who's involved in it was vital for the thumbs up, thumbs down of and whether a business gets approved, it's the risk department. It's always risk. And you know, if I'm sitting, I can imagine the conversations right now. You know, you've got all all these banks do employ people, you know, on the digital asset side, where they've got these teams that have been researching and, and doing the work on your diligence on companies, diligence on chains and you know, where they may want to be. What these people haven't been doing over the last couple years is moving money, holding key, holding keys. If I'm a risk department and I'm, you know, going to turn on Bitcoin custody, crypto custody, do I feel comfortable with a framework that is not battle tested, that is not actually custody Bitcoin that is not people who have not been in the trenches on boarding and, you know, doing these these these asset transfers? That's a scary thing if I'm sitting, you know, in a risk department right now. So what do I expect to see? You know, there, there's been some M&A in the space broadly, you know, some of these banks, Oregon custodians buying wallet technology. I think that's going to massively, massively increase. You know, look, even just looking at like the, the Stripe acquisition, you know, the, the economics of, you know, what it costs to go buy some of this stuff compared to what that could mean to, to these banks from a revenue perspective. There's a mismatch there. You know, it's, it's not there. There's certainly economies of scale that they pick up because you know, the, the access that Bitcoin firms and you know, well, you know, some of these numbers are big as far as reach to, compared to like major banks and even some of the regional banks. You know, it's, it's the, the scale is hard to comprehend. And I've seen those numbers on the IBM side. So I think we're in for massive MNA. I don't think, I think you'll see some products that roll out Q1Q2 stuff that's been cooking up. But you know, I, I think it's probably end of 2026 before, before these banks do have the, the comfort to offer the products that ultimately like need to come. That said, once that does happen, goodness, are they going to be formidable players, You know, from the balance sheet, from the relationships that they have, you know, with wealthy people, with, you know, really every, you know, everyday people too, you know, trust that they've built up. But that said too, like, you know, as we've seen with the ETFSI think many of them are going to, you know, first see this as a revenue opportunity, but then also a potential opportunity to go gain new clients. And, you know, they're pretty ruthless on the competitive landscape. So I do think on the technology side, on the strategy side, they're going to be, you know, looking for the cheap strategy credits to differentiate, to pick up new clients. So I'm, I'm, I'm fascinated to see what plays out over the next two years. I said it's going to be a ton of M&A. The deep pockets of this industry is it's, it's hard to fathom, you know, I've seen software deals, you know, for, you know, a year run rate run a lot more than, you know, some of what these acquisitions are going to cost. So, you know, I, I do, you know, I, I, I just, I think the access that they have is going to, you know, totally blow away the valuations of some of these firms because the tax can be so important to, to gain. It's an interesting dynamic that probably naively I didn't think about. It's like there's only so many players you can partner with if you want to custody. But ultimately, if they buy somebody, they're just good. It's going to be like their custody offering to the market, which is kind of a problem when you think about specifically from like community banks and other banks that have been disintermediated by the big four or five banks. Now you have to use them for custody of assets, which is just like an interesting dynamic. And then to your point, Mitch, that's a very like interesting acquisition framework when you have like a bit go that has over 100 billion in AUM. Coinbase just came out with over 700 billion in AUM. So there's like 2 angles. You're like acquiring the assets and it's like venture on assets because the assets grow because it's asset class is growing. So that's an economical like you got to like model that out. But then you're also buying like to your point, there's only so much talent in the space because you need the tech, but the tech doesn't actually matter if you don't have the operational excellence in understanding how to manage this. So it's like a it's a very, it's super fascinating. I think 2026 is kind of ambitious as we know how slow they may like force this stuff, but there's just so much complexity that you have to layer in. So yeah, it's it's wild. I. Think they're going to be forced though, like when one of them comes out with a Bitcoin product, there's going to, if they're going to lose clients because they don't have a Bitcoin product. So I, I think they're, you know, it's weighing the risk of actually, you know, offering it and not having the chops to necessarily do that versus, you know, the FOMO and, you know, the real business drivers of, you know, we're losing clients. This is stuff we're going to have to, you know, be talking on our earnings report calls, you know, that, that we need to go bring a product to market here. So I, I think you're going to have both sides of the coin, which is why, you know, I, I think acquisition is absolutely the way they go, because you can instantly get the credibility and instantly, you know, you know, like I I don't I, you know, you referencing a bit go, you know, 11 years of battle Festivala technology is a much different, you know, animal than, you know, to, for a risk department to go digest then, you know, zero, we're starting up. So I, I think that's that, that's the only way that I, that I see, you know, firms actually, you know, these larger banks going. Yeah, it's a. It's a good way to frame it in that there's risks of you want to do this stuff right and you also don't want to necessarily overpay for assets that are going to be bid up because there's only a few basically players versus there's also probably clear benefits to being early and being a first mover in offering a product or offering different services. So that that will be a balance. I mean, I, I personally expect that kind of deal activity like end of this year to really start. Like I would be surprised if it if it doesn't start until 26. Well, he's just the way, yeah, yeah, yeah, I, I thought he was talking about just like the deal, the M&A activity in general. I I think we could start to see that the other summer. I think we see it now. It's truly the discussions are happening 3:00 to. Six months, yeah, I'm sure they're they're happening now, but everyone's trying to like I'm sure it started in November. They knew this was coming and it's frantically working on the plan of you How? What does phase one look like and what is our strategy for the long term? Which is all it's, it's very interesting on the timing, right. So like, if you if you assume deal making happens throughout this year and maybe they go live with products in 26, it could just be very interesting timing. Depending on like if, if Bitcoin cycles continue in the fashion they have, that could be right around the time that, you know, things are selling off and they're launching a Bitcoin product. Do they then, you know, does it, do we repeat what happened a few years ago where everyone then pulls back from whatever they were about to launch? That could just be interesting timing or there's no such thing as cycles anymore. And it's a super cycle, boys. Yeah, I don't think that it's a super cycle. I think we honestly, the industry has a lot more credibility than it has in the past just because of the timing of the ETS. And the people have made like 100% plus returns if they bought like immediately when they launched. And both like big financial institutions are making money and their consumers are making money. And so it could be really bad timing if the banks launch right into a bear market or at the very top of the bull market. But I think the ETFs have legitimized this asset class for the foreseeable future. So I mean, at the risk of, you know, saying the Bitcoin cycle is, is that because I, I don't necessarily think it is at all, but thinking about the reach these banks have when these banks turn on custody, it's not that's not the bottom of like the top of a cycle. It's, you know, the ability to go like this is the supply and demand game. And when you know that when demand or you're going to have so much new demand that then feels comfortable, you know, with the idea of buying Bitcoin, holding Bitcoin that their marketing machines. We saw with ETS turning on and pushing these Bitcoin products. There's no way that's the top, you know, and we could experience the top beforehand and you know, we get pushed up. You know, I'm not here to make price predictions what not, but you know, we saw with the ETFs of, of what happens when new demand gets turned on and we, we, we were going to see that again, you know, with the, with the bank industry. Yeah, And there's a confluence of things happening here. Like there's the natural stuff around Bitcoin being destigmatized and all of that. But then there's this reality. And I know there's a lot of bearish people on gold, but like, inflation is going to be persistent. There's a lot of things that have to happen to get out of this situation with, you know, the Treasury, Trump, all the things that we know, like the writings on the wall that inflation runs and so scarce assets, you know, the 6040 is going to is up for grabs and like, what does that look like in the future? So these banks are going to naturally have to think about new structures as far as how do you custody a model portfolio. And so Bitcoin's obviously part of that. I think gold will also be a part of that. Obviously, we're seeing what's going on with the gold markets and there's going to naturally need to be better consumer products for gold because people just don't. I think that's the thing we just forgot about. It's like not everybody just apes in. It's like Bitcoin's the thing. I'm 100%, what if you're 70 years old? What are you going to do? Like put 20% in Bitcoin and then deal with, you know, negative yielding bonds? Like, sure, some people are going to do that. Maybe they want to buy gold, but they're going to naturally need a better product for that where they can get better protection, they can get better visibility. So I think there's just structural changes happening to the financial landscape when it comes to like assets and wealth preservation that these banks are going to have to catch up to. So like kind of fits into both what Brian and Mitch was saying is there's like a, there's going to be this natural persistent bit. I think independent, like we'll still get the volatility of cycles, but they're just going to be higher. We're going to be at higher bases in the low and the high. 100% and it's this idea of just like additional passive flows coming into Bitcoin that are just going to be kind of set it and forget it. Either some additional money going into your Roth IRA or any type of IRA just going into Bitcoin, whether it's the ETFs, if you can have it directly with banks. So it's just going to be a kind of passive bid that typically happens with S&P or any other similar financial products that will, I'm, I'm not saying this is the death of cycles. So I could see one where there's potentially one that's not 80% drawdown if there's more of a passive bid for a long time with these ETFs and banks that are custodying it and just like doing the marketing of Bitcoin for it. That passive bid could also just dampen volatility in general, though, because of rebalancing that would occur, you know, when asset prices increase. Yeah. I also think like we're, we're trying to compare this to like what we saw in 24 with the ETFs, but like, I think the magnitude and scale is just going to be entirely different. Because even just looking at ETF flows, like yes, they are the most successful product launches of all time, but like they're barely even turned on at a lot of financial entities and wire houses. And, and so I, you know, we're genuinely just scratching the surface of like those untapped pools of demand that want exposure either through a product like an ETF or they want direct exposure custody by, you know, their bank. I think when that really gets turned on, whether it's end of this year 26 like I, I think it's hard to, it's hard to compare what we've seen with the ETFs to like what the magnitude of, of demand and capital flow could be from that actually being like fully turned on. There is a a crazy amount of anxiety and I personally feel because like you kind of know the future because we've already lived through it. Like everybody even in Bitcoin that we're in early. I've seen the volatility, the cycles when we talked about Ordinals earlier, like that stuff's existed in Bitcoin forever. You just have to like rinse and repeat and it comes in a different narrative. In the same way counterparty risk and education doesn't just, you know, there's only proof of work. You can only get it by either learning from somebody and accelerating that or ultimately having to touch the stove and go through it. So it's like the anxiety comes from where we know it kind of where it goes. We know what we're building. We know what the, the, the consumer, the individual wants, which is important because that's who holds all the Bitcoin. But then we also know how Wall Street and individuals are going to build and how they understand omnibus structures. And we've seen this with like the ETFs and the products and solutions they do. And they're going to be ripe for gaps and, and losses. So we just have to like you kind of like kind of know directionally how this all goes. And then in the meantime, you just have to like sit around and stay alive and help as many people get it right until it gets to the other side. And maybe that maybe you guys have different opinions, but just like all the conversations we have, everything I've seen, you just there's too much of a gap in what we know and what we've seen and then what the rest of the market doesn't. And you can isolate that to Bitcoin and everyone listening or here on the pod knows like you go pitch somebody brand new and they're like, well, what about, you know, Quantum or whatever? It's like, you know, what's going to come up or you just, you know, the rebuttals, you know the things and everyone has to go through that progression in the same way. Like most institutions and most firms are going to naturally have to go through that until standards are formed. And so like, it's just a it's a interesting situation to be in to know that like what Mitch said is coming and it's true, but at the same point, it's going to leave a lot left. And that's effectively what this podcast and you know, the education is about is like, not only what we do, but then if you're wanting to build in the space and you understand the space deeply, that's the the alpha or the gap is understanding Bitcoin, but then thinking through what is commercially viable products that the market will absorb. Because our stance is the market's not going to absorb people holding, you know, plastic devices under their mattress for a very long, and it also isn't going to be JPMC holding all the Bitcoin. And so if those two shouldn't be like very controversial, but they kind of are that Bitcoin's going to be 500 K or $1,000,000 and everyone's going to be fine with their inheritance plan with the treasure map. And so now that it's like, well, what do you do? How do you build around that? I, I think with the, with the anxiety that you speak of, you know, I'd say if we've learned anything, it's that this world we speak of, it's all playing out faster than I think any of us could have anticipated. And, you know, if that continued that cycle and, you know that perspective continues, what does that mean, you know? Obviously banks are going to be getting into this industry. Obviously they're going to have, you know, larger, you know, these are large exposure points and there will be a tax, you know, from we got massive honeypots of Bitcoin and client data. You know, there will be there will be losses, there will be issues there, you know, or, you know, potential attacks, you know, may not, may not be successful, but the the vectors are going to be there. You know, So what, what do what do we do now about it? You know, that's that's what we're doing every day of, you know, there's 21 million of these things and it's helping clients go secure it and secure it for their families. And, you know, create a fault tolerant solution that, you know, if we can get clients to demand something like multi institution, something like having, you know, on chain addresses that parent. The more that becomes the norm, the more we prevent issues like this playing out and ultimately people getting hurt. So, you know, it's credence to to what we do it on ramp. It's what I want to be spending my days doing is, is, you know, ultimately helping people secure their wealth and, you know, creating the systems that ultimately, you know, lead this industry, that, you know, we end up in a better place and hopefully feel less of the pain that we know ultimately will come because we've experienced them before. Yeah. And maybe even worth taking a step back because we kind of glossed over the fact that I might be wrong here. But I think the majority of the banks are going to like end up adopting some kind of proprietary like multi party computation system whether they like acquire or set up an incidence. And they'll do that for a number of reasons. One, because a lot of them been commercialized to sell to banks, but two, because this ties back into the education of like banks are going to look at diversified basket of crypto currencies and digital assets and they're not going to be able to leverage multi sig for all of that. And so they're naturally going to turn, you know, draft towards what is the all-encompassing solution. We all know if anybody's done any diligence, like it's an inferior solution, it generally gets thrown out with the bath water when you secure Bitcoin in that environment. So that's like a whole thing in itself that we're going to have like that's just going to be a thing where banks are going to adopt an inferior custody solution and offer and also adopt all these cryptocurrencies and have to figure out how to sell to them, explain them, educate them. And it's kind of like a crazy situation because like Leishman's posted about this a lot the past two weeks about like, you know, they've like Coinbase and these other firms, they've already done and played this out. They're not going to learn from it. It's like Coinbase has a problem because what was the coin like? I feel like this past weekend got as as quick as it pumped and they try to get it listed, It was already like just bleeding out. There's so many, but it was like some it was like something. It was you, yeah. I think it was like gel coin from like. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Kraken had that next day so like like which which is the perk you can do at MPC. It doesn't work on the multi six side. But that said, you know, if, if that's where they think the money is, they're they're in for a very rude awakening because that's where the short term capital is. But you know, when you're talking to serious people, they're looking for true cold storage, they're looking for the actual auditability that you get with multi sick. So look, I, I do think ultimately though, because some of the M&A we've seen very early has been on the MPC side. But I, I, I definitely think, you know, there will be, there will be plenty of voices at these firms that, that demand, you know, both on the client side, but also on, you know, the actual, the talent of the banking, you know, banking industry employees, they're going to demand multi 6 solutions. So I not naive to think that that that they don't come, but off that off the jump it may not. Right. I'm curious like because like there's one thing on the the technology, but even ahead of that is the education. We talked about focusing on education. Well, it sounds like the softest value prop is actually the hardest because it's hard to distill these concepts. But then ultimately if you have an educated client, it's, it's a client that you taking care of and all the things associated with it. If these firms are selling all this stuff that their clients are losing funds on, it's to Mitch's point, short term, it's short sighted. But if you're building a long standing institution and originally I asked you, Brian, is because you were at a previous private bank that was around for I believe over 100 years, that you can only get away with so long selling this stuff and being wrong before you leave. Because usually people are exit liquidity in the space and they're not getting educated. And the best analogy I have is because it's not perfect, but it's like if you were trying to build Instagram or a photo application in a digital environment, you went to Kodak. It would be nonsensical. I almost feel it's very similar if you're going to go to a traditional bank to try to get a specified or specialized asset management with a bank because it's fundamentally different asset across the board. Yeah, I mean, I think that's right. I think my, my prior firm, Brown Brothers, would, you know, they've been so reluctant even when I was there and, and since I still, you know, I'm in contact with some, some buddies there, like they, they haven't moved anywhere effectively in turn in terms of digital assets or Bitcoin. And I think that they will be last to move effectively. But it, it comes back to what you're describing of like this is a, a firm that was founded in 1818. They've built their entire reputation and business around being a trusted long term oriented partner for their clients and offering a a basket of crypto currencies that go to zero against Bitcoin is how you like destroy trust in a pretty rapid fashion. So I think the Brown brothers of the world, I think will be late movers to all of this. I'm hopeful that some of those folks, institutions like that, we'll take a more principled approach and before they do anything educate themselves or at least attempt to and get to a place where they're going to offer something. But it's not going to be, it's not going to be enabling a casino effectively. Which I think if the, the, the risk that some of the, you know, the existing stratified players run today is they try to move quickly and they offer something that is effectively, you know, a skin on Coinbase, if that makes sense. Of you're offering a basket of crypto currencies, various exposures, and you're not really providing any expertise or knowledge around what differentiates all these different assets. And you're just, you're just opening up the, the floodgates effectively, it's very, you know, short, short term oriented and runs the risk of, of destroying credibility over the medium to long term. So I think that's, that's exactly right. And it'll be interesting to see how these different banking players play this effectively like which how do they how do they sort of balance these different trade-offs and, and enter this market in a way that doesn't destroy their reputations in the way a. Couple years. The way I explained it to an RA yesterday was we're like in mid 1990s. This isn't perfect apples apples, but it's like we're 1990s and you have an opportunity to get your clients in Amazon or you can decide to get them in Amazon with also a bunch of other things. And when the blow off top happens, because I kind of feel like that's where at we're pre like 2000 bubble. I think this next cycle will be that and then we'll kind of come out the other side with a chip and then we'll still have, you know, Ponzi's, but it'll be like less temporary. The standard will be established around having custody, but between now and then you try not to rug yourself and go into pets.com and whatever else was, was part of that fraud. And so like, it's like you guys get to make the decision, but we're letting you know like there's a fundamental difference between Amazon and these stocks in the same way there's a fundamental difference between Bitcoin and the rest of these cryptocurrencies. Make no mistake, 80 to 90% of these firms are going to offer every dog coin and whatever the heck they can make money on. They will and ultimately it'll be the reputations on the line years later. People don't forget, you know these decisions, but they're going to go grab the money because because it's certainly there. It's the reason why a lot of these crypto exchanges offer, you know, gel stool coin too like. What's that old? Demand's going to be there your. Reputation's my margin. Love it. Look, we're going to see a play out. They're going to make the same mistakes. So, you know, I just be prepared to go see a Dogecoin logo on Bank of America, you know, whoever else turns this stuff on because it's, it's, it's going to be there. Mitch has been trying to get us to support Ethereum, hence hence the hence the bull. Hence the bullishness for for all coins. I'm not, but Bitcoin dominance is like, you know, I, I I throw that, that that chart to, you know, anybody, you know, my my former peers at Bitco, you know, it's very clear that serious people are are seeing through the noise, you know, and the strategic reserve news, you know, certainly, certainly helps our case too. There's front running that's certainly happening. Yeah, that definitely I think fuels the Bitcoin dominance case. But you know, I'd say serious people understand it. The question is, you know, what's are, you know, what is going to be the motivation that that drives, you know, these bank, this banking behavior? Is it are we building the products for the serious people or are we maximizing short term revenue? And you're both those answers could be the same. I'm not sure. I'm not sitting in their shoes, but you know, I excited to see who does make the decision for Bitcoin only or or nearly Bitcoin only compared to, you know, ultimately the rest. Yeah. It's an open question, but I think it's the right one. We're a little, we're a little over an hour here, boys. Anything. Anything else anyone wanted to to raise or bring up before we RIP it? I was just looking through any notes to see if there's any, any topical things. I think, I think the only thing without, you know, sharing too much on our plans is like, at the end of the day, the, the biggest insight for me, and it kind of ties into this and the strong feeling of, of where this goes is because Bitcoin's an emergent asset, you have the most, the majority of individuals holding it, so roughly 70%. And that's ties into what Mitch is sharing about like having the right financial products, the right things built. Individuals that have carried the asset for that long have figured out something out, which is you have to keep it offline, severed from the Internet. But the and so ultimately, the only way to get them to differentiate or change that position means that has to be a step function improvement. So not only do you have to improve on the custody layer and provide redundance and resilience, but then you also have to be able to provide financial services. Because unless you're holding this asset till you die and pass it on, you may want to get access to inheritance, which is a part of that or lending or trading or, or just there's a whole slew of other things that you would need. And so the banks and the firms that build that are going to be able to win those clients. So it's going to be a market driven approach from the bottom, not the top, which is historically completely opposite of everything we've ever seen. So it's even hard for us to wrap our heads around it. But that's how I think we all see this playing out. And that's the opportunity for individuals building the right way is because B&Y can turn something on, but doesn't mean people are going to go move their Bitcoin there. There will be because of their brand and their name, but they're still going to be large holders are still going to be people. And then when counterparty risk happens, those holders are going to flee because it doesn't matter if it's BNY, Bitco, Coinbase and you can put a whole slew, they don't know the difference between their custody FTX or another firm. So when all that goes bid and counterparty risk people flee. And so that's when you know better products establishes, standards are established. So I think that's like the caveat to all of this is the banks won't drive this. They won't have the nimbleness or the the the taste for what's needed in the market. And so that opens up a huge opportunity that I don't think we've ever seen before. Usually assets are driven top down or financial products are and that's a huge opportunity. You mentioned a point that I hadn't really thought of on the banking side, and it's something that, you know, for better or worse, you know, something we've took advantage of here at Onramp is most of your single party custodians, your big goes coinbases, anchorages. They build products for probably the institution space, institutional space. And and why is that? It's because everything besides Bitcoin, primarily the largest allocations sit with institutions. They seed, you know, many of these token projects early on. They, you know, over the long term dumping on retail, but they build their products big go, you know, Coinbase Anchorage, they building their products for, you know, for the institution. It was a business driven decision. But at on ramp, our first use case was the individual. Why 7 The chart that Michael just showed 70% of that Bitcoin sits with the individual made sense to go building products and services, you know, so while it's 10X better than, you know, the existing, you know, single party custodial landscape, many of the clients we're talking to, you know, have never talked to a custodian before. They are either sitting on exchanges, sitting in collaborative custody setups or sitting on single party single, you know, Ledger treasure, you know, cold card setups. They've never been talked to about risk. They fear everyday with, you know, things like inheritance, things like, you know, loss of funds, you know, things like, you know, their personal safety risks. And that, you know, a lot of the success we've had is because we're actually, you know, reaching these clients that that have very much have these needs that, you know, they they've never been spoken to. You know, that by by anyone in the custodial landscape, which you know, going to the banking side. This is what they've lucked into is, you know, primarily, you know, they've got plenty of, you know, entity clients of course as well. But you know, banks have the, the, the individual relationship, they're going to build products for the individual. I think they're going to end up in, you know, just by nature of the relationships that they have, Like they, they've got a gold mine here and an opportunity to, you know, reach a client base that is not like the same success we've had it on ramp is reach a client base that has not been spoken to. So I'm really excited to watch products for individuals in this industry develop and and be creative because quite frankly, you know, that's where the Bitcoin sits, but you know, a lot of the innovation has not been there. Yeah, it's very well said. If anyone wants to learn more about what we're doing in on ramp, our products, our services, please reach out to any of us or visit our website to schedule a consultation to learn more and see how we can help you. But with that, wrap it for this week, boys. Thank you, Mitch, for joining us and see you guys in a couple weeks. Thanks. Thanks for listening to this week's episode of the show. If you found the information valuable, please share the episode with a friend or leave a rating on your favorite podcast app. All the links we discussed in today's show will be in the show notes inside your podcast app. Before we finish, a quick reminder that On Rat Media is for informational and entertainment purposes only, and nothing should be construed as investment or legal advice. Regardless of where you are on your Bitcoin journey, we'd love to hear from you. Visit onrampbitcoin.com contact to schedule a consultation with one of our private client advisors.
Transcript source: fountain