Transcript+
What you're telling me is that music is about to stop and we're going to be left holding the biggest bag of odorous excrement ever assembled in the history of gutless 1974198792972000 and whatever we want to call this, it's all just the same thing over and over. We can't help ourselves. I say when we sell. Hey, OK. I say when we sell. Hey, guys. Last trade, yeah, no, we're, we're live. It's the last trade. We're live. We have five of us here for the podcast today. We also have some landscapers that are joining the podcast as well. So apologies if you hear that a bit in the background, but it's the typical lineup. I I feel like, you know, Tim, you're kind of old news. You're not that exciting anymore, Michael. Yeah, your days are long gone and bright. Well, I still like Brian, of course. He always brings the house view. But the special guest today is Peruvian Bowl. PB. Welcome back to the show, man. It's nice to see you. How are you? Doing really well. Thanks for having me on again. It's exciting to have you guys as the first podcast. However, I got back from this trip so there's and there's a lot to talk about right when I got back so. No, nothing's really happening. It's a pretty calm. Pretty boring, right? It's pretty boring week. For like PBS, a round trip to his portfolio from the flight from like Asia Pacific back to the States, what was the thing they showed like from Thursday? You were up like 1%. It was like some time period. Yeah, I saw that. It was like if you had like if you had like frozen time right before the terrace to now it's just like a complete just chaos and then just back up to where we were before minus like 1/10 of a percent. It it before jumping in this stuff, it is wild to see. We're before we were reporting, I was talking to Tim about being one of the, you know, hardest working men in Bitcoin. Every time I open up Twitter, he's in a different, you know, big city, just wearing the tie, selling the dream of Bitcoin and you think about just three years ago, let alone 6, you know, PB in Japan, what's going on with Meadow planet Paris, London, Latin America. Like this thing is, it's truly like taking over and affecting, like intertwining with global finance at the highest levels. Yeah, I mean, these are these are the things that are unimaginable, right? Just like what you said like five years ago and so funny because like I see people on Twitter all the time doom posting about, you know, Bitcoin and saying that there's no adoption, there's no, you know, real use case. And I'm like, guys, like five years ago, there were basically no public companies other than exchanges who had any Bitcoin whatsoever. There is no nation state ever talking about owning this on, you know, the treasury level. There were no discussions of issuing debt to buy Bitcoin. Japan was completely, you know, unbit coin eyes and had no idea about, you know, Bitcoin adoption or the use case or the value of this asset. And we're now sitting in a situation where all those things have changed and yet these people will still claim that, you know, we're still living in like 2013 style Bitcoin adoption. People people like to doom post it gets gets engagement for sure. But yeah, I totally agree, PB. It's like I I mean, I was saying it earlier this week to the guys. It's like I'm, it's hard to believe this, but this is this is by far and away the most bullish I've ever been on Bitcoin. Like all of everything else that's happening outside of Bitcoin is just strengthening the value prop of a credibly neutral finite asset. And it's just like the pieces are falling into place and most people are still totally unaware, but like, very smart, sophisticated allocators are getting there, as are literal nation states. Yeah, yeah, I accidentally jumped the gun and our our gracious host Jackson is ready to kick it off. And by the way, Jackson I think is a a favorite of the show. I talked to a lot of clients that come in and they just referenced Jackson. It's the hair. It's kind of, I don't know if I shared this with you, Brian, but they like his the positive takes and they want him to to talk more, but then they also enjoy his youthful leftist liberal takes. PB, you weren't on one of the pods where Jackson referenced we should do Ubi with Bitcoin and and we had to walk. Him through boy. We had to walk him through why that wouldn't work and this particular person was like, you know, it was really nice though, because you could see him go through how dumb a take that was while. I'm here to redeem myself. Thank you for all my gracious supporters. Yeah, I mean, I have some bad takes. I'll, I'll own up to it. But I guess I have some good takes, too. So I appreciate some people that are here to support the show. So yeah, let's formally kick things off here today, as we do always. We got to just take a look at the price, because where else would you start? I mean, this is and it's actually worse. It's it's way worse than I would have ever expected because I. Was I was, I was really hoping, you know, we've been talking the past few weeks we've been stuck in the 80s. And then, you know, last week I think we were, we were cheering on the the potential for being back in the 90s and then we're back in the 70s. So here we are. Yeah. No, so this is ugly to look at. We don't need to look at it for any longer, but I just want to at least acknowledge where we are today at 79 K. And you can kind of see here, over the course of the week, it's been extremely volatile, not only in Bitcoin but also in broader markets. So I think that's the obvious place to start. It was, this was an easy episode to prep for because PB makes it easy. He's just got a wealth of knowledge, but there was also a lot of things that happened over the course of the past week. And so I was joking. It's like, oh man, I don't even know what to talk about this week. There's nothing happened. But in reality, we recorded I think last Wednesday. And so now we're recording Thursday, April 10th. So maybe just to recap things really quick for the audience and, and for ourselves. So April 2nd, last week, Donald Trump proclaimed A liberation day. And so that was really initiating significant changes to U.S. trade policy that was really aimed at addressing trade imbalances and then also bolstering domestic manufacturing. So there's more and more chatter within the administration now talking about the hollowing out of US manufacturing and just the massive trade deficits. The country's been running for quite some time now. So there was, I believe, a universal tariff. And if I get anything wrong, please correct me, but there was a universal tariff that was announced. It was like a baseline 10% tariff all on, on all imported goods that were, that was introduced on the 5th of April. And then there was also reciprocal tariffs. So that was targeting about 90 nations with rates varying based on existing trade imbalances is I think that's how they positioned it. And so Chinese imports face the total tariff was 104%. It may even be higher now, maybe a 125. And then there were some like 20 percent, 25 percent, 30%, kind of all around the board. So initially, because all these reciprocal tariffs were announced and the reaction from the markets was pretty catastrophic, I think in the next trading day, wiped out like 5 or 6%. So, yeah, just so everyone knows, Bitcoin is not the only thing that actually has downside volatility. I don't think people know that. And then so in a matter of two or three more days, I think we saw maybe close to 15% correction, certainly over 10% correction, which was the largest, I believe the largest 2 day decline since 1950 was Thursday and Friday of last week. So pretty catastrophic things happen in the markets, but we're all long term investors here. So I wasn't, I wasn't worried about it and I wasn't worried as well because we're going to have PB. Tell us, what do you think of just the past week in markets? What are the most before even drilling into the details, what's like your 30,000 foot summary of what's happened? And let's just start there. How about that? Well, I would just say, you know, it's like I wrote in that piece, you know, I have to have a couple glasses of wine with dinner to, to digest everything that has happened. Because this was like, you know, when they, when we joke about the meme of roller coaster markets where markets emotionally react to events and then move down and then move up and then move back down. This was essentially that entire that entire roller coaster being played out in real time within the space of a week. Because not only do we have that obviously the initial sell off that that you mentioned on Thursday and Friday and you know, credit spreads start to blow out the the 10 year, 2 year spread starts to uninvert at the fastest pace since before COVID. But we also had, you know, a lot of people missed us. We had a tweet on Monday erroneously saying that the tariffs were over and then markets ripped upwards. You know, the Dow was up hundreds of points in like 30 minutes after that tweet just by a anonymous faceless account on Twitter. And then the White House came out and said that that was wrong. And then the markets continued to sell off. And then on Wednesday, the White House had actually they were right. There is a 90 day pause, you know, and you guys can, you don't have to worry because most of these things aren't going to be implemented yet. And then markets rallied again. And so, you know, we've had this, you know, we've had this just escalating trade war, I guess with the rest of the world, but particularly with China for the past two months. We started with that, obviously that 10% initial tariff in in February, China retaliated. Then we escalated on, on certain goods, you know, to 2534% and then threatened to take it all the way like you said to 104%. And the 104%, the reason that they're using the four numbers and China also said that too. They said, obviously they've matched us tit for tat with with their 34% tariff and then they escalated to 84%. Is that 4 and 8, for example, are, are numbers in the Chinese numerology system that are significant. They're actually lucky numbers. So it's kind of like A twist of fate for them to say like, screw you guys, we'll still be good. We'll still be lucky even if you put tariffs on us. And so, but but this, this escalating trade war that we've seen has been ironic because again, it's like it's almost as if it's a game of chicken and Trump is playing it as if he doesn't even want to do it really. He just wants to see where the other side is in the bargaining table and then try to come to come, come to agreement. But it's something that, you know, I don't think we've seen, at least in in recent history, in terms of trade and economic policy. And it's just jarring to have markets move like this just based on volatile economic policy. Yeah, it's it, the whipsaw has been fascinating to watch. And, and also just like what's been interesting to me is the commentary around the strategy itself, like whether this is 5D chess or if it's completely reckless and there's not really a plan. I I sort of land in the camp of like it's somewhere between those two extremes. Like, I don't think it's like this perfectly crafted 5D chess plan, but I also don't think it's just like Willy nilly doing whatever, you know, Trump feels on the next morning. Like I think there's some semblance of a plan. And and that's really to your point, is like to to bring people to the negotiating table in some sense and try to sort of sort out who, you know, who the dissenters are in terms of like this reordering of trade policy in general. And like zooming out, the bigger picture to me is not even like whether you know, it's super strategic or reckless or it's not even really about tariffs. To me, it's like there is sort of a a broader reordering that is happening at the economic and monetary level. And one clip that resurfaced this week, which I found fascinating was so this is pre election. Scott Besent was being interviewed and he was basically talking about, you know, Bretton Woods monetary theory and him being like a student of monetary theory. You know, I think he's even self-proclaimed himself to be a gold bug from his Wall Street days. And he was basically saying like, I want to be part of the next global reordering. And so I think that's literally just what we're watching play out right now. And so like, if you're zooming out and sort of looking through all the noise of of, you know, tariffs, escalating reversals, all of this, it's like there's, there's something deeper going on here where, you know, if we just rewind a month or so ago, the US created a strategic Bitcoin reserve. Like that seems to be people just forgot about that. But that happened. And then you have Scott Besent, who seems to appreciate sound money, stores of value. In another interview this this past week, he unprompted brought up Bitcoin when they were, they were talking about gold, they were talking about the recent price rally and it being exempt from tariffs. And he just out of the blue brought up Bitcoin as a as an emerging store of value. So this guy understands sound money. And I think he's he's positioning us in a place in the broader administration too. You know, I think it's sort of resetting things from a trade perspective, while also embracing stable coins, trying to spread dollar dominance even further, plug somewhat of a hole in terms of treasury demand with these stable coin issuers, and then also embracing hard assets like gold, Bitcoin and minerals and the like. And so I think it's like you kind of got to just zoom out and look at the bigger picture here, like there's a grand reordering happening. And so that that's, that's been my take away from the past week. Yeah, I love that, Brian. PB, I'm curious to get your thoughts on that as well, just because and if anyone is extremely well researched in this group between the five of us on just monetary history and just economic reshuffling and changes to the monetary order, it's got to be you. And So what are your thoughts? Sorry, I want to go with the lame. I want to go with the lame and take before PV comes with his expertise because there's a. Few there's. A few things I was on mute and I wanted to respond to Brian's 1 is, is Trump not like just the ultimate bro And like what's happening here in the sense that like a if what PB said around the one, the four and eights, like just goading. If you think about if the Internet existed back in the 70s and 80s, how much they would have just been like doing deals in front of everyone to mess around. Like they're just like they're the the old school kind of, you know, like this is just what they've always done. They're just getting to do it in front of people and part of the volatility that's been fun is just like, again, this is outside of our portfolios because that's not fun is just seen on Twitter, the reaction between crypto Twitter and then the the volatility and tratify because they're like, this is just another Sunday night. And like all the stuff that happens of like bonds trading, like all coins. It's just it, it's funny, but it also is the reality that good friend Parker would say that Bitcoin trades short term stability for short term volatility for long term stability, where the dollar trades short term volatility for long term or short term stability for long term volatility. Like they're they're just supposed. And ultimately the volatility like energy always lives somewhere. They're just pushing it out. And that's why you see these like things come about. The other, the other take though, is on Brian referencing it's in the middle. I don't think you can be in the middle here. Like like that's an out for a lot of things. When somebody says, well, what is it? I think there's a lot of things that aren't like, you know, on the on each side of like they know exactly what they're doing. They don't know it's like they're playing like some crazy games of chicken. And unless you have a plan, like I can't imagine they're doing any of this stuff. And then that underpins what, you know, breaking the pound best scent. What's happened for the past two years with the ETFs getting individuals exposure to hard assets like Bitcoin via that gold onshore and bringing all this gold on before they like are like started to, you know, do all of this. So I think that they actually know what they're doing now to say if it works or not. Like, you know, I don't know if anybody can be 100% playing a game of chicken because somebody else might just kill, kill you or you might just have to kill yourself. But I do think like they know exactly what the plan is. And the last part is what's been funny is I think they know what they're doing. And I think Trump is like the guy that they gave the it's like they're all at a bar and the guys, the other guys are smarter, but Trump's the only one willing to drive like drunk home. And they give him and he's like, look, I'm driving. And they finally had to like move him out of the front seat. And this was like them putting Lutnick because Lutnick and then the other guy, Navarro are also crazy. And they're like, hey, like, can you guys move on? Let like dad drive us home? Like he drank probably the most, but he kind of got his stuff together as the experience. And that's where Besant comes in to step in and Jamie Dimon and all this stuff. Like it feels like he just went haywire. Trump in making the markets more volatile than they should have. But again, that was the layman take. I have no idea what I'm talking. Yeah, clearly. I mean, that was that was good. Thanks, Michael. So point point being is you really like Donald Trump. You wanted to if he listens to the show, you want to take him out for a Big Mac Diet Coke. Yeah, sounds good. So back to PB under more important things. We were the left bell curve. We'll hear the right bell curve take now. So PB, what I was trying to get at was, so you've studied all sorts of, you know, monetary history in many different countries. You've looked at how financial systems are constructed, not only the US but abroad. And you were just in Japan for what, 2-3 weeks filming a documentary there. So I'm curious, as you studied Bretton Woods, the, you know, 1971, Next Nixon, Gold Shock Plaza Accord, all these different things that have happened in the monetary system over the past century. What do you make of if you drill down a little bit deeper into what's happened with these trade wars, what do you make of it all? And and does it tie into what Brian shared about his thoughts on more of a monetary reset? Yeah, absolutely. And you know, something I an actually an analogy I would, I would provide here is basically what Trump has speed run through in the last few weeks, or you could say just a few months in general, is like essentially what the Bank of Japan has done in the last three years with their monetary policy of, you know, having in the same sense that debate the BOJ pinned rates at the zero bound and did basically yield, you know, yield curve control and QE Infinity and complete financial repression over the entire Japanese economy and banking system for like 30 years. The US has had the open border, you know, WTO, infinite globalization trend for the last, you know, few decades. And Trump has been the first one to come in and shake it up. And I think that Trump's mistake was not understanding how fragile our Fiat system is, right? How how our markets still live on this knife's edge of liquidity. And if you just tip things over the wrong way, things can very quickly start moving in the wrong direction, especially when we're in a period where, you know, the Fed is not doing QE, the reverse repo has been drawn down and there's not much more left in the tank and the TGA. And so like the alternate sources of liquidity are kind of depleted and, and there's just difficulty in sustaining a market rally continually without, without that source of additional liquidity. And I think Trump very quickly found out how severe this was. And so I, you know, as to whether his, his actions are are, you know, some sort of 4D or 5D chess or if it's just a reaction to, you know, the severity of this move and kind of a, a surprise. I mean, I'll leave that for other people to guess. But overall, I see this is very similar to the strategy that the BOJ did starting in 2023 and 2024, where, you know, they'd had these decades of monetary repression and then they just decided to flip the switch and started raising the bans on yield curve control. And then they started, you know, they ended yield, yield curve control altogether. Then they started hiking rates and shocking the markets with emergency rate hikes. And just doing everything they can, the interventions, everything they can to basically scare the markets and to make them think, hey, like we've had this stability, this low volatility in our policy itself for these last 30 years. Now we're going to do the inverse. Now we're going to have volatility and bring the actual change of of policy back into into markets. And that again, it, it could be cope, it could be just us rationalizing their actions. But it does make sense because these players become so entrenched and so lopsided in their positions that, you know, the BOJ was catching them offsides. It was forcing carry traders to short, you know, short close their position, short cover. And it did strengthen the yen at least temporarily as to their credibility. It's damaged it significantly. And I think that the same is true of this Trump trade war doing this, you know, we're going to do a full board trade, you know, full blown trade War One week and then, oh, just kidding, it's all a joke. We're pausing now for 90 days. The next week is is kind of insane to watch. But I think at this point, you're right. Like Trump doesn't really care about what other people think. He's just trying to play the play the game as it's as it's, you know, being shown to him and is clearly the markets are not ready for this kind of economic pain. Renew like a breaking news at Trump. Tariffs on China now total 145%, White House clarifies in big Bitcoins tanking now we're at 78. K. Reversal. Reverse. TV One, it's 20. Go sorry, one last thing. So it's funny, I tweeted out this the other night, actually got some traction and I said, like, what if Trump just decides for the next few weeks just to randomly announce tariffs and then cancel them the next day and just makes markets whipsaw? And it like that's the new policy. It's just, let's just confuse everybody and freak everyone out for the next few weeks and just show how much of A, you know, narrative dependent system we have now. Like this is what it's come to. Yeah, that's, that's an interesting thought. My, my question was, was kind of related. It's like, do you put any credibility behind the notion that, like, the chaos itself is purposeful and there's like, you know, some desire to force the hand of the Fed and Powell to cut rates to to look into that at all? Yeah. And that's, that's kind of what I was getting at with the Boj's moves, right? Like the BOJ again, this, this policy volatility is, is kind of crazy to see in real time and it causes confusion in markets and obviously, obviously loss of credibility. But the one thing it does do is it it, it reveals the players for who they are. It shows their their hands, right, because they're forced to play their hands and respond to what they think is going to happen. And so in the same way that yen Schwartz had to cover, you know, every time the BOJ shock hiked rates or every time they did a intervention, Trump is forcing these nations to to really show which ones are willing to, you know, retaliate and escalate and which ones are more, you know, amenable and willing to come to the table. And clearly China's kind of single itself that itself out as the one that is the most adamant about keeping their trade relationship with the US the way it's been. They don't want to have, you know, a higher, more expensive tariffs and they don't want to lose access to the US markets. And so now that they're losing it, they're kind of over over playing their hand and over reacting and pushing their own tariffs to try to, you know, stop us out of that out of their market. But it's kind of laughable because I think the amount of goods we export to China's is very, very low. So because they they're just a net export of so many things. Yeah, I feel like there's two things that I keep coming back to. And the first is that Trump really campaigned on ship, you know, shaking things up in the economy and trying to help the middle class and support an area of the United States demographics that just been crushed over the past two decades by monetary and fiscal policies. And so I do think that they're they're I think that Trump's administration is sticking to their word and their plan that they actually see the severity of the trade imbalances and what's happened in terms of the manufacturing base being hollowed out over the past 50 years or so. And so I do think that if anything, it's just kind of sticking to the plan and also going through with it's kind of like the promises made, promises kept idea that this is what we talked a lot about on the campaign trail. And so we're going to try to reshuffle things here to be more favorable toward the people have been crushed over the past few decades. And I also think that ties into, you know, looking for external sources of revenue and potentially looking to decrease other tax loads, you know, income tax on people that earn less than a certain amount. And so I think that's one thing just that I've been thinking about is it just seems like we're at this point now where things are really breaking just the wealth concentration in the country that is due mostly to financial engineering since the great financial crisis and just how all this money has flown to the people who are closest to it. And and that's just obviously structurally unsound and something that if it's not course correct, and who knows, it could be potentially too late to course correct it. But if it's not addressed, then it ultimately ends up in calamity of one sort of another. So I think that they're just proactively trying to do something and shake things up that's different than what's been done over the past couple of decades here. Yeah, I mean, the Cent and others have been pretty explicit about it. Like we don't, we don't care about Wall Street. This is everything we're doing is geared towards Main Street. And you can just call that rhetoric if you want. But I do think that you're you're spot on, Jackson. Like they wanted to do something different and and change sort of what the trajectory has been for the past few decades. Yeah. I mean, I think this all goes back to what we we wrote about or in what Groman's been talking about a lot of from a just a national security perspective. We have to onshore and make things here. And so if that's the case where you have to figure out the trade balance to incentivize for things to be made here. And so this is all just part of the playbook that they plan when coming into office to restructure trade. And then ultimately there's the amount like the currency flows, which is going to be a big component. I think like that's the next shoe to drop, which works in a lot of people's favor. The prices lower to be able to absorb capital, especially gold and Bitcoin. So I think this is just like all part of that process. And then the China thing is just like the wild card. Yeah, PB, I'm curious. One thing we talked about over the summer, I think it was on a Twitter Spaces was the idea that a Bitcoin strategic reserve and just pro Bitcoin policy in the United States could be a tool to leapfrog adversarial countries that have been moving toward gold over the past decade or so and moving away from U.S. Treasuries. Do you think, you know, how has your thesis or thoughts changed over the past, call it nine months or so since we spoke in the summer? Do you think that the Trump's administration's policies and actions towards supporting Bitcoin and you know, wanting America to be the crypto capital of the world? Do you think that that supports A thesis or or or not? Do you think that these countries are already kind of too far ahead with what they've done with gold and moving to a more a political form of capital? No, absolutely. I think if the thesis is still in play and, you know, my view has always been right as the dollars, the global reserve currency, and really the linchpin of the, you know, the world's financial system, the Fed holds unique power as a central bank that no other central bank, you know, holds. I view almost, you know, almost all central banks in like, as basically vassals of the Fed in some sense. Because whenever there's a crisis, especially like a financial crisis globally, they all ask the Fed for swap lines. They all open up swaps to, to get dollars and to use dollars to fund their banks who are usually short on dollar obligations. And their move and, and their, you know, strategic way to, I guess disentangle themselves from the dollar system has been slow and, and tedious and difficult. And in some ways it's even counterproductive because you can't, you can't get rid of dollar demand without also getting rid of dollar debt. And it's essentially impossible to get rid of dollar debt obviously in a system that is continually adding more and more dollar debt every single day. And so for these for these entities like the question is not should we not use dollars, it's OK. If we're going to hold a reserve asset, what should the reserve asset be? And historically that was the 30 year Treasury bond, right? And for 30 years that performed extremely well under Volcker and, you know, Greenspan, Bernanke, like rates kept lowering, bonds were performing well, low inflation was low globally. So it was like a winning trade on all fronts. And it made sense for these nations to recycle their dollar surpluses back into the US and specifically back into U.S. Treasuries and even long bonds, obviously. But the change we've seen in the last few years has been these nation states are are selling their treasury portfolio, but it's basically exclusively on the long end. So they're not getting rid of their their bills. They're not getting rid of, you know, one year bills or two year notes or five year notes. What they're getting rid of really is the 2010 twenty and 30 year bonds. And I think this will move, you know, down the down the yield curve as we get towards this more terminal debt situation and the sovereign debt crisis, at least domestically starts to to exacerbate. But these are the early warning signs, right, that something's wrong with the global monetary system if these central banks are dumping their their long term use treasury bonds and buying gold. But ultimately, like I've said on that space, the, the real differentiator is the difference between gold and Bitcoin as a reserve asset. Gold fails the intermediation test because it doesn't allow for easy, you know, easy settlement and transfer of value, right? If you want to settle some trade balance between the UK and Canada, you actually have to physically ship the gold and have it guarded with, you know, the Canadian Royal Mounted Police or whatever over the ocean to settle a trade balance. And it's like that's we don't live in the 1800s anymore. That's insane to think of doing that in the 21st century. And Bitcoin is really the, you know, you could call it the, the, the nuclear bomb that can hit the death star of this global financial system and really change the entire structure of, of the global monetary order overnight. And the Fed is the Fed in the US and the US Treasury by extension, obviously is are the people to do that, right? If you, if you get the US on board, my thesis is that every other nation state will have a target on their back, right? If the US is issuing bonds and stacking Bitcoin, then if you're Japan, if you're China, if you're the UK, if you're Canada, if you're Germany, like this suddenly is no longer an option. Your U.S. Treasuries are now not only melting ice cubes, they're complete water and they're just flowing out the door. And you have no option other than to start to start copying the US, the US Treasury, or you'll be left behind in the dust. And so I think it's extremely bullish that the US has made so much advancement in the last nine months, let's say, towards more Bitcoin adoption. And although the SPR obviously hasn't been implemented yet, it's still a fact that's even been talking about is is something that's definitely turned the heads of world leaders. Yeah. I think the one thing I would say on that is we probably end up with like bit gold bonds before pure bit bonds. It's kind of interesting that that narrative is coming because it's like the BPI stuff and Bitcoiners referencing it. I don't know if gold bugs aren't clever enough or whatever, but like why that? Or maybe it's been talked about maybe for years. But I think what PB referenced on the intermediary delivery and all the aspects of why bitcoins better and more valuable are true. But I think the notion of somebody going from no exposure to understanding Bitcoin in the lens of gold and why does that is like a multi year process. And safe had a good podcast like years ago referencing like what this would look like. And I think it ties into they wake up one day because they're net settling with different countries in gold. And then you show up with a pallet of gold and there's a bunch of tungsten wrapped in it. And then you're like, wait, what did I just do? Like, why do I have to assay this? And you naturally start to progress through that. So I think it's a slower process and we're probably expecting. And part of that is putting some component of gold and Bitcoin in the treasury until you realize, well, wait, why am I even backing this with this gold thing? And that's what I've just been keying in on. Like I'm personally hope I'm wrong. I hope like our bags pump faster and Bitcoin becomes a reserve currency. But I mean, we all have calls and discussions with institutions and people in high finance and they're just so far from here to like what we're describing about Bitcoin's properties that like it just feels it's going to be a longer thread than what we're what we think. Oh, absolutely, yeah. And I, you know, I incorporate that into my thinking, right? I know that like this is going to be a process. This isn't, you know, complete re education. And maybe Tim obviously would know more about this, a complete re education of like the financial professionals and a retooling of their, of their mental toolkit, right? They have to completely change how they think about assets, how they think about sound money, how they think about storing wealth the long term. Because again, for the last 30 years, this 30 year Treasury bond was a safe investment and it just no longer is. Yeah, it's a great call because on the other side of it on the retail and it's something we're just thinking about internally and like how do you form partnerships and take products to the market is historically the market was literally, you know, the 6040 and everyone just assumed they like they made-up the reasons. I think somebody had a post about this like it's always narrative driven around the multiples around equities and they're eventually gonna what you're describing is changing narrative of weight. All this stuff was overvalued and then going back to like what drives value? And then you end up back at gold and Bitcoin and then everyone's like, well, now I need this in My Portfolio. But when you think about the structure of a checking account all the way to your brokerage, it has no place for Bitcoin or gold, right? Like it just doesn't have a spot and, and how the APIs are integrated or how they're custody and how you're secure. So it's just a fundamentally different change in the landscape from sovereigns all the way down to individuals and how they protect their wealth. That's probably we're going to be like, it's going to be changed over and there's going to be people that are just refused to like adopt it. At Onramp, we believe that Bitcoin is the most important asset of the 21st century. The hard part is securing it right. There are shortcomings with keeping your coins on an exchange, but also with setting up your own self custody arrangement. Onramp solves for these concerns. Our multi institution custody solution maximizes security and minimizes counterparty risk, ensuring that your Bitcoin remains securely in your possession and provides built in inheritance planning to ensure your family is protected as well. On Ramp provides Peace of Mind for your Bitcoin journey, whether for your whole stack or for part of it as a compliment to your existing self custody set up. For more information, check us out at on rampbitcoin.com. Yeah, there's two things I wanted to touch on PB time back into some of your previous points and you can decide which direction you want to go in first. And so you mentioned the aspect of liquidity and how crucial liquidity is to driving asset prices. So a lot of people have been talking about liquidity trending upward over the past couple months. But to your point, QE hasn't picked up again yet. So I'm curious to hear what your thoughts are on global liquidity. What do you pay attention to on the global liquidity side? And you know, what would you point people to to show that it is trending upward and, and I guess what does that mean for the price of of Bitcoin and other assets? So that's one piece is just like liquidity. And then the second you can figure out what you want to discuss. First would be more so around bond yields and maybe the these are interconnected probably, but just with the long end of the curve, you mentioned sovereigns moving away from 3020 year bonds. So someone has to step in. I guess I know who that someone is, but what are your thoughts just on the bond market right now and where it goes? Sure. I'll answer the liquidity question first because that's an interesting one. It's a puzzle I've been trying to piece together for the last, you know, two or three years setting macro. Because if you look at, you know, there's a really simple metric to check out called, you know, Fed balance sheet or SPY divided by Fed balance sheet. And you see like the metric, the ratio obviously climbing in the early 2000s and then crashing with the tech bubble. And then it's slowly climbing during 2008 in the lead up to 2008 and then collapsing completely and then basically staying flat for the last, you know, 16 years. And that essentially to me showed me the change in the monetary system where we went from a fundamentals and at least, you know, moderately based economic system and financial system to a completely liquidity driven 1 where the markets would rally just based on if the Fed was doing QE or not that day. And if they weren't, then the markets would fall and expectations now became so warped that good news became bad and bad news became good, right? Because everything became dependent on the Feds response. So if there's a bad jobs print, it's like, great, the Feds going to do more QE for longer. Let's rally markets. And then, oh, there's a good jobs print or there's, you know, a good unemployment number. Well, then we need to pull back because the Fed might be tightening and the Fed might be, you know, allowing A taper. And so we live in this kind of upside down world where fundamentals are kind of disconnected now from from markets. And the liquidity picture is complex because there's no single metric that I would say encompasses the entire liquidity picture, right? It's very, very difficult. You have to think about liquidity on the corporate side, on the banking side, on the retail side, on the government side, and then try to piece all that together and all those, you know, pieces have moving parts and the data isn't always available, you know, minute to minute. So it's, I would say it's, it's very difficult to piece together the entire picture, but we do have major puzzle pieces. And so some of the major puzzle pieces I look at are for one is Fed net liquidity, which is just the Fed's balance sheet minus TGA, minus reverse repo. You can also add in foreign repo pool if you want in there as well as BTFP won it when it was active. For the global side, you do the same thing as the Fed net liquidity, but you just add the balance sheets of the Bank of Japan, the ECB, the Bank of England and the People's Bank of China. And that metric, like you've mentioned, it's been basically slowly grinding upwards. But when I say like, you know, slowly grinding upwards, I mean that literally. Like it's basically been flat slash up a couple 100 billion for the last two years. And historically that that essentially means it hasn't moved at all because usually it's moving upwards much faster than that. So globally, the liquidity picture has been pretty flat, which has meant that markets have had obviously not much more downside, but also at least from the central bank side, not enough overt support that would push them to like the 2021 mania highest. And you know, on the in the US, we've seen markets continue to grind higher, but that's because of a multitude of factors that are separate from global liquidity. So you know, you obviously have the carry trades, you obviously have portfolio rebalancing effects and just the buying power of Americans that continually auto buys ETFs, which pushes money into SPY into, you know, the the MAG 7 just continues to grind these stocks higher. And then obviously dollar milkshake effect of pulling all this capital globally into the US. But the thing to look at, I would say, especially on the shorter term would be something like, you know, cash assets at banks, Oregon reserve balances at banks. And you can see how that correlates very quickly with more mediate market market movement. So something I was tracking is that starting on March 3rd of, you know, this year, cash assets, assets at banks, at commercial banks, according to Fred data started to contract and it's down, still down by about $100 billion for the first time in like about a year. And so that indicated to me that like we were preparing for some potential downside in markets just because there's a little bit more, I guess, constrainment or or, you know, whatever you word you want to use on on the bank, on the bank side for for lending, for borrowing. And that could affect, you know, customers. And clearly we've seen that that play out. Now again, these things aren't you can't tick for tick trade this like it's not, oh, cash assets go down 50 billion. I want to short the this week because that's what's going to happen in markets. No, but what it means is that markets just have more air gaps to fill, right? It's like there's less of a ready buyer. And I think that's exactly what we've seen play out right these last few weeks with the trade war. If you had told me like a year ago that we would have a 20% or basically a 20% correction in SPY within two months just based on tariffs, I would have thought that wouldn't be the case because I would have said the liquidity picture was strong enough. But in late February, we saw an end of the basically like the two year long drawdown of reverse repo and and it bottomed around 80 billion. Now it's refilling, which means that liquidity is being drained again from the system. Again, the TGA hasn't hasn't been increasing to its highs. So that liquidity pump has been kind of frozen for now. And so we've had this kind of like I would call like doldrums of liquidity. It's like there's no huge drain on it, but there's no huge additive component to it. So the markets are kind of just like in limbo. And that means that this, you know, anything that Trump does or anything that happens globally will now cause more volatility than otherwise would if we were in a global easing cycle, for example. Because if you remember, like during Kovid during the 2021, you know, I guess we call it QE 4 or QE Infinity cycle, there were, there were tons of days with bad news and the markets would knee jerk. But then the next day they would rally back to the all time highs and, and beyond. And it was just like kind of this upwards jigsaw pattern for basically two years. And that was just because of the huge amount of cash that was flowing into the global financial system. So again, that I, I have those metrics and I post them on Twitter. So if you want to check those out, you can go check those out. And so that's what I would say for the liquidity side. And then your last question was about bond yields, right, and where they're moving? Yeah, exactly. And and particularly in the context of just what you mentioned around sovereigns and the trend of moving away their assets from U.S. Treasuries into gold and potentially in a Bitcoin in the future. Yeah, absolutely. OK, that's a great, Yeah, that's a really great point. And so I mean, obviously we've seen like the 20 year go to almost 5% or actually it, it went to 5%. The 30 year went to almost 5%, like 4.98 or something less. I checked in trading Wednesday night and the the overall consensus has been like this move in in races is has been very severe, right? And people have been asking why is, you know, why, especially the 20 and 30 year bonds, why are they moving like meme coins? Why are they trading with with such volatility when typically this market's so suppressed? And I would bring it back to something I pointed out in a sub stack piece back in, I think it was April of 2024, which is if you look at the Fed's balance sheet and you break it down by, by the Treasury holdings, by maturity, and then you stack that year over year, you can see like what they're actually doing with each, you know, tenor and how they're either buying or selling it during the QE or QE cycles. And you see, obviously during QE 4, they're buying all across the yield curve, you know, 20 year, 30 year, they're buying FRN's, they're buying, you know, five year notes, 7 year notes, and then obviously all the bills. And then when they started QT, they started laying everything off, including, you know, 20 or 30 year bonds, But on net, they didn't lay enough off to actually cause a dent. Meaning like there are total holdings, you know, might have decreased of, of bonds, but their 20 and 30 year holdings essentially remained stagnant or, and, or like slightly increased. So they were unable to completely layoff the 20 and 30 year bonds. And they were able to obviously to get rid of bills and, and short term notes. And So what that told me at the time was that, you know, if the Fed itself can't do a cutting cycle or, you know, a tapering cycle, excuse me, without actually laying off the bonds, the long bonds, What does that tell you about the health of the long term Treasury market? What does that tell you about the health of demand if they're not even able to do this during a tapering cycle? And so again, I think that this, this problem of, you know, trust and, and fidelity in the, in the long term debt of the United States has been emerging in the last few years and it's been getting worse and worse. And obviously as we continue down this debt spiral path, it's going to move like inwards on the yield curve, right? It's going to move to shorter and shorter term debt as the debt crisis gets worse. But it starts obviously with the weakest links in the chain. The weakest links are the third year and then the 20 year and the 10 year bonds. And so, you know, having the bonds trade so volatile, you know, with so much volatility is not that surprising. And I'm, I'm, you know, not going to be shocked if Yellen continues her trend of also moving her issuance towards the short end and, you know, reducing issuance of the long bonds just because the appetite is no longer there for them. Global central banks don't want them. Global sovereigns don't want them. You know, hedge funds don't really want them except to maybe do basis trades. You know, holding your debt now for or holding long term debt just exposes you to way too much risk, as you know, in either inflation risk or or interest rate risk. And I think everyone's slowly realizing that this long term store value thesis for the US Treasury is is finally dying. Banger, I have, I have some thoughts that we go in two directions. But first, Tim, could we do the tie reveal? You know, it's extra long today. This is it just kind of keeps going. That's Jesus So. That's very long. And like just just to give you an idea like it's just this is way up right away, way too long for where we are in the in the 80s. So I'm going to have to adjust it a little bit shorter because we need, we need some rope for when, uh, we're over 100,000 again, right? It seems like that almost never hit. It didn't even happen, but it happened. Yeah, And Tim, Tim, I guess you told me this in confidence, but I'll share it anyway. You said you weren't going to do next week's episode. You mentioned. So you came back from Paris last night. Yeah. You were at the the Bitcoin Investor Day in Paris and you were exhausted, but you decided to show up today, put on the suit, put on the orange tie, particularly long orange tie. You did that for the listeners. You didn't do this for yourself. So is it is it true that if is it true you're not going to do next week's episode if people don't like the video? I mean, we can only do so much, right? I don't know. We have a lot going on. Next week we're going to be in Boston. No, that's the following. That's the following two weeks in. OK, well then maybe I can be here next week, but only if people like subscribe and and comment mostly nice things on on the video. That's a good call out though. So yeah, for anyone who is based in Boston or the area, Tim, Brian, myself and some others will be doing a presentation on Wednesday, April 23rd. So please join us. We'll be talking about Bitcoin treasuries and we'll also be talking about evolution of Bitcoin custody. And so, yeah, now back to the show TV. So I appreciate all that. I think there's a mindful of time. We've been recording for about 45 minutes or so. I do have, if you could answer like somewhat, it's probably a complex question, but I'm just curious like what will happen in the next couple months here with $7 trillion of U.S. debt maturing. And so there's something that Brian mentioned, it's kind of been passed around on the Internet quite a bit, just the idea that maybe part of the strategy is to just drive yields lower. Typically, the Federal Reserve, right, is the one in charge of monetary policy. And they're allegedly making informed decisions on what the interest rate should be based on all this economic data that they monitor and who who's to say how effective that is? But typically, the Fed is the one calling the shots on monetary policy. But then you also have on the fiscal side, this is a big issue, right, $7 trillion of debt rates are much higher than they have been over like the past previous decade. So what are your thoughts there just in terms of refinancing the debt and what does that mean for America's fiscal situation? And then I really want to get into the Japan stuff with whatever remaining time we have, and GameStop too. Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's I would even say that's like a bigger. Yeah. So you can keep it quick. I'm just curious like high level thoughts on the debt stuff. Yeah, sure. So no, absolutely the the 7 trillion rolling over, you know, is a is a huge, huge burden on on the on the Treasury. And again, this is part of this kind of like 40 chest that that Janet and you know, and Powell are playing is how do we, how do we refinance all this? How do we keep everything, you know, under the hood running without letting anyone know that like the engine, the oils leaking, you know, the carburetor isn't working, the coolant is, is, is seeping out. Like how do we basically not tell them that there are serious, serious problems in our financial system? And you know, I think there are multiple ways to do this. Obviously, there's been rumors of a, you know, exemption for the SLR, for example, for U.S. Treasuries for major banks, which basically means, you know, it's kind of like complex finance shark and speak for letting the banks hold treasuries without any capital against them. And historically, that's been a constraining factor on the bank's ability to swallow treasury issuance because post 2008 and especially post, you know, 2014, the, the regulatory changes to the banks meant that they could or that they had to buy, you know, U.S. Treasuries as part of HQLA assets to maintain their, their capital ratios. And the problem with that, obviously, is that when you have a capital ratio or you have leverage ratios and you're for, you know, forcibly swallowing all this debt, especially on the long end, you have to hold actual, you know, capital against that debt. And if you have so much, you know, so much U.S. Treasury debt coming down the pipeline that you're needing the banks to swallow 60% of it, that becomes a constraining factor for banks. And so for them to propose, you know, in March of last year to basically make a permanent exemption, it's just an example of like them trying to jockey the system around to allow more and more Treasury issuance to be shoved into the banks without having, you know, appropriate safeguards against that. So I think that that's one move they could make. Obviously, the probably the the move that is going to be most used is the shifting of of issuance. So they'll just try to refinance the debt by, you know, basically issuing a bunch of bills because they have a lot more appetite for bills, the investor appetite for bills than they do for bonds. And so I think that we're going to see a continued the whole of the, you know, the issuance table towards the short end. And there's obviously the third option of just outright QE again. And so that's something else that I've been arguing with people on Twitter about is, you know, there's there's this talk of the slow and steady cutting cycle, this talk of this like moderating inflation and, you know, mild recession that might be coming up. But if you look at the past, you know, 20 years of monetary policy, we haven't had a rate cutting cycle that ever. First of all, that ever didn't end with us going basically back to zero. And second of all, that didn't end with QE. So if those two things are true and we're beginning a rate cutting cycle, you know, now, then, you know, why would this time be different when the debt situation is worse? Why wouldn't we be cutting eventually back to zero? And why wouldn't that also mean QE at the end of it? And so, and no one's been able to answer that for me. So I think that's that's the base case is that the the most likely option is eventual restart of QE and you know a complete compression of rates back down to 0 or maybe you know below 1%. Yeah, no, that makes a ton of sense. So Tim, I guess the main take away for you is that $1 million per BTC is still in play for your target by the end of the year. So just hang in there, man. It's going to be OK. You know, I'll tell you a story real quick. I was at the Louvre. We're walking through. Adam back is flanked by me on his left hand side and Alexander Lizze, the CEO of the blockchain group, on the other side. I realized at one point as we're walking that there's a videographer like walking backwards in front of us. So I don't know what's going to happen with that footage. But it was just like this surreal experience where we walk in, walk in room to room to room. And we finally get into the room where they have the Mona Lisa and it's a private event, but there's still like 50 people in the room, right? So we're talking, we're talking. And then the one guy said, Hey, can I be really annoying and try and get a picture with Adam right in front of the in front of the Mona Lisa? And I thought they were still going to be, like, 50 people in front of us. You could barely see it. Whatever. And Adam goes, oh, yeah, that'd be really cool. And he's like, I think we can get closer. And so I'm like, OK, so I walk a few feet, and then like, I walk a few feet more. And before I know it, I'm like, right up against the rail. And we get this awesome picture, just the two of us with the freaking Mona Lisa. I'm like, this is the highlight of my year so far, obviously. And you know, we're probably tied with meeting you guys right at Bitcoin Investor Week here in New York. But it's like, I think we can get a little bit closer. And I think that's going to be the theme of the rest of this year is, oh, we're at 200,000. Well, we're at 300,000. Like just think about everything with this administration and the volatility. And if that really is vitality, I'll wrap it up here. But it like I think we can get a little bit closer and I think people will be shocked at how close we are to one point, $2,000,000 Bitcoin by younger here. I just think anything's possible and like being optimist. Fantastic, fantastic moon juice, Tim. I appreciate it. I mean like. That sounds like financial advice, actually, yeah. I think it's possible if if you keep traveling the way you are with that tie and evangelizing for corporate adoption of Bitcoin, I think, you know, that's kind of a bear, you know, base case at least. So, you know, we just got to keep you, keep you on the road. Right. I'm going back to the airport right after this. PB want to be respectful of your time. What do you want to talk about? So you went to Japan. There's been a ton of GameStop news as well, so I'll toss it over to you. What do you want to? What do you want to talk about? I think the GameStop stuff is is more interesting. I mean, the Japan stuff is obviously fascinating, but I'll have a whole dock come out about that and hopefully like a month or two. So you know, we're going to have, you know, potentially more time to talk about that later, especially we know once it comes out and there's like an actual doc to see. But the the big news obviously is that GameStop has finally, you know, taken the orange pill. And so I don't know, you know, I think Sailor was the one who really drove the nail home. But for us like retail investors who've invested in GameStop, especially back in 2021, and we followed the story. It's been really encouraging to see because you know, the, the question has been for the last year or so since ever since they raised that 4.5, now $4.7 billion of, of cash, what are they going to do with this money, right? Like once you fund an ATM and and once you get that amount of capital at your disposal, the question is like, what are they going to do with it? And everyone had said that they're going to do a merger or acquisition, that they were going to find some dying, you know, retail store and reinvented another Bed Bath and Beyond or potentially, you know, Toys-R-Us or Sears or, you know, any number of dead, you know, old retail companies to reinvent. But me as well as you know, Ben Wareman, like some other Bitcoiners and GameStop people have been promoting this idea of of them moving their treasury into Bitcoin. And we wrote a letter to the board in in July of 2024 that was ignored. We wrote multiple bills on Twitter, obviously no response back. And to see them completely switch from basically just sitting on their hands to actively pursuing a Bitcoin strategy has been extremely encouraging, right? They, the first thing that was like a hint that this could happen was the the post with Ryan Cohen and, and Michael Saylor and then some of Ryan Cohen's tweets obviously that were kind of like interpreted as pro Bitcoin were, were also very encouraging. But the big news is that obviously, you know, during earnings week just a few weeks ago, in late March, they announced that they were adopting a Bitcoin treasury strategy and considering Bitcoin as an investment for their, for their, you know, 4.64 point $7 billion of cash. But then they followed that up with, instead of just buying Bitcoin outright with the cash, they issued a convertible bond for like 1.3 billion. And then their plans are to use that to buy. To buy the Bitcoin. So you know, when that when that came out like that was even more encouraging to me because it showed that they really understood at least, you know, on paper the, the sailor strategy. But not only that they were keeping, you know, this asset on their balance sheet, the cash that was yielding 4 1/2 percent or 4.7% or whatever it's yielding. And they're funding the debt with extremely low interest or the funding the Bitcoin purchases with extremely low interest rate debt. So they're essentially creating their own arbitrage, right? Like if investors are willing to fund them at 0% for Bitcoin bond, then they can they can just service that with the cash that they get from their the interest they get from their cash on hand. And then they don't even have to worry about ex expending their own capital. They can just use the investor capital to buy Bitcoin and just shove it on their balance sheet. And then from there, like the possibilities for the company's reinvention are are, you know, innumerable. What do you what do you make of the actual sort of implementation of the strategy over the past month or so? Because I think one thing that's has stuck out to me is like, obviously when Sailor started doing this, he was extremely overt in his strategy, like going on pods, talking about it constantly, really enumerating the strategy, how he was thinking about it. I don't think we've seen the same level of articulation from Cohen and the team. It's obviously there's some plan in place with the issuing of the convertible debt, but curious how you what, what you make of that? Like, do you think that they need to be articulating their strategy more upfront, get ahead of it and and you know, let existing shareholders and prospective shareholders know how they're thinking about Bitcoin? You know, I think that for any normal company that would be the case, but you have to remember that that GameStop is basically a one-of-a-kind in the in all senses because it's the most, right. This is stock that is for one, was one of the most manipulated stocks in history, obviously in the lead up to 2021. It's one of the most flooded and propagandized stocks from the mainstream media. There were thousands of fake news articles that came out, especially in the initial squeeze, but also during the subsequent squeezes about about GameStop that were, you know, miscalculating their cash position, blatantly lying about the short interest positions, you know, claiming that certain funds were bankrupt, shorting games up when they weren't so that people would assume that those those shorts are closed. And Cohen has responded by obviously, you know, taking all these strategic steps to try to reinvent Bitcoin or reinvent GameStop. And excuse me, but be extremely cautious with how he does it because, again, he's worried about libel lawsuits, right? If these hedge funds are underwater on these shorts and he comes out and does anything that would appear to be, you know, promoting his own stock or manipulative or, you know, I guess, you know, retail gaming in some sort of sense, then that he could be sued for that very easily, right? And that would be an unnecessary cost and burdens For the last few years, they've been very tight lipped about their operations. You know, Cohen has essentially just been tweeting Mystic, almost like, you know, puzzle tweets that everyone has to figure out and we still don't fully know the meaning. Roaring Kitty has done that as well. Obviously, when he returned, he he came back with a bunch of memes and, you know, video clips with captions on them. You know, everything from The Matrix to, you know, Orange is the New Black to, you know, like all these movies and shows and just clipping them together and then, you know, having them, I guess kind of hint at his future actions, but not actually say it over at least so that he couldn't be pulled, you know, tried in court for it. So this entire community has been used to this kind of backroom deal quiet like here's a little hint, here's a little like tinfoil over here attitude and and mindset of the GameStop board for the last two or three years. And so this is nothing new. You know, I didn't expect them to, to make some grand announcement or to go around and hit the, you know, hit the ground running with all the major podcasts. Ryan Cohen himself has done maybe 2 podcasts in the last four years with GME. So yeah, I think they're going to continue this. They're going to do the work behind the scenes, be quiet, buy Bitcoin, and hopefully they're going to incorporate Bitcoin into their business model as well, right? Like being able to be buy to be buying games or getting redemption rewards in Bitcoin for your GameStop reward points would be amazing things they could do. And obviously bitcoiners would be happy because now you have another business that you can go to and spend your Bitcoin at and you know, potentially get rewards or get your, your, your cash back in Bitcoin. And that could obviously increase adoption and and further promote the cryptocurrency. Yeah, that's an interesting angle in itself. Like Trump's saw this right with the the event evangelical nature of like this this sector digital assets in Bitcoin particular like just mobilizing that for your company's advantage. But also makes sense from a pure being a listed company being careful, which always has brought up I think people have brought up about Sailor like he kind of is pumping his bags and nobody's ever you know slapped him on the wrist. I'm curious, Tim, in PB, like anybody else, you're just like rumblings on thinking about this strategy because when you reference the cryptic tweets, who else I think we kind of forgot was Michael Dell. And what's interesting about Dell is we just hear Dell and like, I think we're all old enough to remember when Dells were in every, you know, school. And I don't know if they still are, but he's the 10th richest man in the world, right? Like he's no slouch. And there's like, I just wonder how long because like how much of A snowflake in the truest sense of like not a snowflake being a pejorative, but like a snowflake in the like different business structure and governance that MSTR had versus all these other companies that do. They take 12 to 24 months to actually get consensus from a board level to execute on a strategy like this. And that's what we're seeing. And that's where this period is taken from, whether it's Dell to GameStop to other listed companies. You know who else has a lot of cash is Warren Buffett. And if we're going to get to your 1.2 million target, I think we see Warren Buffett is going to, we'll be buying Bitcoin between that period if that's how we get there. I mean, if Sailor just takes 1% or, or or just some basis points out of the bond market, right, he wants 1% of the $300 trillion bond market. I mean, if, if he does 3 trillion worth of buying that might get us a little higher. But again. I got a bowl call for Jackson. Jackson's always trying to put me on a price prediction, I think within within 12 months and is head of strategy for strategy or head of corporate strategy for strategy. Like who? Head of head of tie. Procurement. Yeah. I mean, Saylor did like my tweet when I tweeted out the $2.50 orange tie available on Amazon. After I saw that he liked the tweet, I went to the link that I sent out. There were only four ties left, so I bought all of them. So it's sold out because I can't run out of orange ties, right? Like something that people don't know about. Pomp is like the tie he wears, They're not making it anymore. So when he actually like, ruins or loses all of his ties, he doesn't know what he's going to do. You might have to edit that part out. It's probably confidential. Well, you know. Yeah, like I can't lose these orange ties. Well, you know what else you can't lose is your Bitcoin, because you can't make any more bitcoins. So just something for people to pay attention to. I didn't come prepared with a single point of failure, which could be a good thing for the industry, which means I didn't see any news of people losing their Bitcoin or their Bitcoin being hacked. But you got to treat your Bitcoin like you treat Poms tie. And you can't lose it. It can't be stolen. And so just something for investors to pay attention to. You got to secure that Bitcoin like it's 10X of value. And if you listen to Tim's podcast, it may be sooner than you think. Yeah, I didn't. Amen, brother. Something something I would say, though, to Tim's earlier or yeah, Tim's earlier point about like why they haven't done this yet. So again, like you have to realize that the whole GameStop like this is like its own rabbit hole. This is his own. Like there's its own community with tinfoil, with weird things going on. You know, Ryan Cohen, for example, is listed as a creditor to Bed Bath and Beyond and a debtor. And there's evidence that his law firm is also been billed for 800 hours of of M and a activity with the with bed Bath and beyond bankruptcy from April of last year. And that lawsuit is still continuing. And so it's hopefully wrapping up end of April, early May. So you know, there's potential here for, you know, he's doing he's playing, he's doing multiple plays out a single time, right? He's not just buying Bitcoin, he's trying to revive another dying brick and mortar or he's trying to, you know, take this company out from from under the ground and get get his assets all together. And and he wants to make sure that all of his ducks are in a row before before he does everything. And again, I'm not, I'm not a full-fledged member of their tin foil Bed Bath and Beyond community where this, you know, this and Blockbuster and Toys-R-Us are all going to rise from the dead and the 90s are going to revive. And we're all going to be living, you know, playing Game Boys and hanging out at GameStop and, and Bed Bath and Beyond for, for every Friday night. But, you know, I think that this again, this is just very on brand. Like for people who are not familiar with GameStop, it seems like very strange. Like, why is he creeped, you know, tweeting cryptically and why is he not doing things immediately with when he has the cash? It's like, yeah, that's true. But that's also been what he has been doing for the last for the last four years. They've they've raised cash in June of 2021 and they didn't really do anything with it for months until they finally paid off a bond with it. So, yeah, trying to use like conventional logic here to understand this, like meme stock is very, it's very difficult to do. But I'm, I'm, I'm pretty certain that given their announcements for the Bitcoin treasury and they're obvious, obviously the issuance of the comfortable debt, that they're going to do it eventually. And you have to remember that Ryan Cohen and the board, right? They're like reluctant Bitcoiners. They're not people that are as hard, you know, hardline as Michael Saylor. And it took Saylor meeting with him personally to finally pull him over the edge. You know, despite the, like I said, the the multiple letters to the board and shareholder proposals we made for them to buy Bitcoin, it's just like all that fell on deaf ears. Finally, it was it was Sailor pounding into him and in person and just yelling at him about Bitcoin and hard money and energy that that really pulled it over the edge. It would be nice if they bought now though. I mean, we're still in the 70s. Seventy, 879. Let's not. Be here for long. Yeah. So let's let's wrap up here with anyone wants to go rapid fire bullish and bearish takes. I'll start bullish take. Pay attention to Michael's private jet because we might see if we pull up the flight tracker, we might see him meeting with Warren Buffett and Donald Trump over a couple Big Macs. And that could be a very bullish indicator for where bitcoins going. But in serious, seriously, there's so much news. One thing we forget about is that Eric Trump was added to Meta Planets board of advisors last month. So just remember there are these Nuggets of information hanging out there. The the bearish take real quick is I think we're living through it right now. We're about a year out or a year after the halving of April of 2024 and the price is about 12% higher than it was this time last April. So I think we're already living through the the bearish timeline at this current point of moment. I like to look at like instead of just starting at the halving. I think it's a little more useful to look at like from prior low, like bear market low. It looks a little less bearish if you look at it that way. One thing that caught my eye this week was there was a report put out by Vanek that China and Russia were settling some energy transactions in Bitcoin like that. That seems that seems pretty bullish and constructive in my mind that not only are are people recognizing increasingly Bitcoin as a a store of value, but also as superior payment rails, superior settlement network. So that was that was what caught my eye. I don't know if I have anything bearish necessarily. Like I said at the beginning, this is I'm very bullish right now. Yeah, to piggyback on the the bullish stuff, I think like the geopolitical nature of the asset, what Brian just referenced, it makes complete sense in settling large scale trade with a form of money that can't is immutable. You can't reverse, you can't seize because you know, treasuries is the best example of that with Russia, but then also Pakistan coming out and I got to like I saw it multiple times. I didn't Fact Check it. So I'm hoping this is true. But Pakistan adding, you know, one of the largest or wealthiest people and head of finance and CZ or I guess he's not head of finance now CZ to their board of advisors like this notion of figuring this stuff out at the sovereign level and where this sits. And I think that ties into the price action because we've seen some of this like deleveraging before. We've seen what happened to Bitcoin in March 2020. We saw that through 3800. This feels a little different where the dips are getting bought even at these price points. And it feels like we should be even lower based on everything that, you know, PB's walk through. So I think that's that's pretty big bullish in itself. I can go next time things I'm bullish and bearish on. Bullish on ships to Japan. It was it was very really eye opening experience. I highly recommend everyone who has thought about a trip to Japan or wants to go, you have to go and you especially have to go during cherry blossom season because it's absolutely beautiful. There's tons of people, there's tons of things to do. The food there is incredible. And you know, the people are, are one-of-a-kind. Like it's one of the most unique cultures you could ever be a part of. I'm, I would say I'm bearish on the Japanese debt situation and just the global debt situation after being there and, and seeing like how zombified the entire economy has become, you know, essentially no growth for 30 years and 260% debt to GDP means that everyone's kind of frozen in time and no one can really innovate or, or do anything because all the capitals misallocated to these zombified companies and zombified players. So again, that'll all come out in the dock, but that's bullish and bearish for you. I love it. Timbo, what do you got? I am bearish and I'm never bearish, but I'm bearish today on the US dollar. And I'm bullish on US publicly listed zombie companies because they're in the best spot to adopt A Bitcoin treasury strategy. And I think someone should come out with like a zombie company ETF or something, right? I think that'd be kind of a interesting take on everything. So yeah. Yeah, why not you, Tim? You don't have enough on your plate, so maybe you should start that ETF. Zombie ETF incoming. Is is there an ETF of all the companies that buy Bitcoin for the balance sheet like that? Follow the Sailor strategy. Yeah, there's a bit wise Bitcoin standard ETF for every company that has over 1000 Bitcoin and it's capped at 20%. So like strategies like 20% of it and then marathons X percent of it. Yeah, OK. Well, yeah, it was a fun episode. PB, if people are not aware of your work, where do you want to send them? I know you mentioned the documentary, so when, when should people expect that and where could they find it? Sure. So that'll be dropping, dropping on the get based YouTube channel. Just look up get based on on YouTube and it's run by Julian and Isabella and Adam and so those three have been been instrumental in filming and helping to plan that doc. But my work is mainly on sub SAC. So if you look up dollar and game at subsac.com, that'll be the link you can use. You can also check out my Twitter, which is Peruvian under score bull. I also have a YouTube channel. I've been posted on there in three weeks, obviously because I've been traveling, but I'll be back to posting some more live streams as well as just, you know, long form market commentary videos, so you can find me there. Awesome. Well, PB, Tim, Brian and Michael, thanks for the time. Thanks gentlemen. 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 Onramp 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