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What you're telling me is that music is about to stop, and we're going to be left holding the biggest bag of bodarous extras ever assembled in the history of. Doubtless 1970, 419-8790, 297-2000, 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, I say when we sell. This is perfectly timed because Novogratz has been the pinata of Bitcoin when it goes down. It's been the genius of Bitcoin when it goes up and all of a sudden Larry showed up at the door to say hey, big respectable firms can prosecute and do Bitcoin. Link Lawrence Fink of BlackRock. To Mike Novogratz. Well, what's happened is people, as you suggest, make fun of Bitcoin, other crypto currencies. But now the establishment, Larry Fink at the BlackRock is now saying they're going to have an ETF if approved by the government in Bitcoin. So you're saying, wait a second, the mighty BlackRock is willing to have an ETF and Bitcoin? Maybe Bitcoin is going to be around for a while. Lisa wants to jump in here, but I'm going to cut to the news moment. It's Carlisle announcing this morning a Bitcoin advocacy. No, I don't think so. But there's no doubt that Bitcoin is something that I wish I had bought it at $100 a Bitcoin when my Mike Novo got started buying. It's now at $29,000. So he's made a lot of money, and a lot of people who bought it at the $100 or less are feeling pretty good. Welcome back to the last trade. Started out with a little clip there from David Rubenstein of The Carlyle Group diving into Bitcoin and does. Does that mean bitcoins gonna be around for a while, Marty? I think so. I think we just made I think our wives may wind up saying we're not as crazy as as they currently think we are at some point in the next decade. No, but I I think with the ETF approval too. I mean we wanted to dive into CPI but that just made me think about the Fed announcement earlier this week and they the Fed announces new oversight programs for crypto activities. And so it seems like the the setup for the Bitcoin ETF, the infrastructure on the regulatory side is is beginning to get laid. So I think this week was a positive signal for for the ETF approval and to introduce our guests, we're joined by Cam duty from Brickyard venture firm out of Chattanooga, TN who's been really getting into Bitcoin in recent years. I guess before we dive into what you're doing at Brickyard Cam, I guess just your general thoughts on what David Rubenstein was just saying there, the overall tenor of institutional capital becoming more comfortable with Bitcoin as an asset? I mean, when I first saw that, you know, you're looking at the, the, the top dog at Carlisle, it's like. You can tell his level of understanding of Bitcoin. It's just so surface level. It's like you're talking about like, yeah, I wish I would have bought it because it's now at 30,000. It used to be at 100. Like, is that the insight that you're that you're giving? I don't know. It just feels like every time I see these you know legacy high finance folks talk about Bitcoin. You know when, when Jamie Dimon's talking about Bitcoin? When it's like. You can just see it on their face like they they really do not. They don't understand the asset. It's like they're being forced to pay attention to it. But they've still done feels like they've just done like the minimum amount of work to be able to, you know, throw something out on on national television and not look like an idiot. But I don't know, it's just unimpressive when I saw that. Yeah, and and that's. But that's the trend, right? Like, that's what's happening to all of these guys. They're all being forced to shift from laughing at Bitcoin to like, now acknowledging. Well, you know, I wish I had gotten in earlier and and I'll take it that that's going in the right direction. And you know, how many times are we going to see this? Like how many Wall Street Titans are going to drag their feet on learning about Bitcoin? When you know they're the set of friends or you know colleagues they have in their investing community that are bullish on Bitcoin keeps growing like all you have to do is listen to Paul Tudor Jones, Bill Miller, Stan Druckenmiller, Novogratz, now Larry Fink to to get some. Information that says actually Bitcoin is something that you should be including in your in your strategy. And so there's there's some tipping point coming and and I think we're like we're seeing the precursor to that, right, like the the shift from laughing at Bitcoin to acknowledging that Novogratz had a winner. That's that's pretty big, yeah. Totally, Yeah. I mean, I. I I think it was that, you know, the the the fray, the talking about somebody like that when when Fink came out and started talking, when Jamie and Diamond started talking about about Bitcoin, it's like it's the classic first they, you know, they ignore you, then they laugh at you and they fight you and then and then you win. I think, you know, for a lot of these people, they're being forced to to think about. You know what stage are we really in here? I mean this is the beginning of the assimilation of high finance. And I mean to your point, like I'll totally take it, but it's it's the people that that know the most about the current system that that are going to have the hardest time really understanding this, you know this paradigm shift because they they have to unlearn everything that they know. And so anyway, I guess my point was just that. It's kind of funny watching somebody like that try to dip their toe in something that's, you know, dip their toe in the in the, you know, the deepest ocean, deepest point in the ocean. It's just the It's funny to watch. To to be fair and Level said on some of these guys, I think we like maybe doing disservice or some of these names. I think that Druckenmiller's and the Paul Tudor Jones are in their own class. I think No Regrets has randomly found himself with all these names. When I was looking for that clip this morning, I stumbled on his clip that I think they were referencing where he was starting talking about crypto in the universe and like money is a social construct, it's like. These guys don't even really. You know I I would have it far hard to believe that nobody actually fully understands what's happening here. But to Rubenstein's credit he did like probably another 60 seconds in that clip does reference a lot of like they're the value proposition of Bitcoin from a permissionless nature and also not being you know govern or controlled by anyone sovereign. Which is interesting from like somebody like that because I fully on board with kind of the think and. You know BlackRock and what they're here to do and and controlling it and long term plans. But his reference was like, hey, this thing's not going away. Not because it's A at least what I perceived was a talking point. But I I like, understand that this thing is actually not going away. So now we have to play ball and he was probably the first person in that realm of somebody. That's not like that. The traders are looking at it as a trade. This guy's looking at it like shit, I don't think. At least my perception was. Like this isn't going anywhere and it's not going anywhere because I understand there's some fundamental permissionlessness, sovereign nature to this unit that I can't control or nobody can control. At least that's how I perceived that. I'm curious Marty, because we had a friend share that earlier in the week and I think that's where he was coming from. And if you. If you kind of pick that up as well. Yeah. No. Out of all the high finance Titans that have come out and spoke spoken about Bitcoin, I think David Rubenstein actually had the most cyberpunk take where he was like, yeah, people are going to want to send money to each other outside of the purview of their governments and there's going to be a lot of demand for that. Many people may not like that, but that demands not going away. And yes, agree with you Michael. To his credit, I do think the talking points he was handed, at least I think he definitely rocked that like oh, and a political sovereign currency that can't be controlled by governments does have a lot of value and I do think that is the main value prop of Bitcoin. Obviously the last trade what we're trying to do here, we're trying to talk to high net worth individuals and institutions and really tap into that crowd. And I think it is actually a really strong validation from David Rubenstein to recognize that that is the main value prop. Yes, Bitcoin, there will only ever be 21,000,000. There's a bunch of energy dedicated to the network. But if it does not have the ability to act in that cypherpunk nature where it's truly peer-to-peer and individuals can send to each other outside the purview of the government, that may rub a lot of people the wrong way and make people unnerve. A lot of people, however, like Bitcoin, the 21,000,000, the hash rate, none of it really matters unless you can use the asset with that fundamental primitive of being able to send peer-to-peer. So while we all agree that institutions are going to need to get exposure to Bitcoin, hold Bitcoin in their balance sheets, hold it in their portfolios, transact with it at some point in the future, I think David Rubenstein coming out with that line of thinking is actually pretty critical because people do need to get comfortable with the fact that Bitcoin only has value if it is able to be transacted in a peer-to-peer fashion. If you can't do that, then there's no reason for people to continue securing the network and and investing in Bitcoin. The 21,000,000 is secured by the distributed network of full nodes at the end of the day, and if you don't have that, you really don't have anything. Yeah, I I have an additional thought on this. Like when I see these clips keep happening and and I can't help but think about. The Wayne Gretzky quote of you know, you don't skate to where the puck is, you skate to where the puck's going to be. And and I feel like that's that remains. The fundamental difference between Bitcoiners, people who have arrived at Bitcoin today and the rest of the world is that if you're listening to this right now, you have a mind that appreciates where the puck is going and you see that that's where you want to be. And most of the world for whatever reason, operates with, you know, their operating system is reactive to where the puck is today and that's where they want to be. And so I think, you know, Wall Street is this microcosm of of they need more dots before they can connect them to see where the puck is going. And you know, if you're listening to this right now, it's it's because your brain thinks in a different way than most people. And that's your edge. And it's exciting to think about how it's the asymmetric investing opportunity of our lifetimes. And the difference is whether or not you can appreciate data points like this and where they lead to or not. Yeah, it's a really good point, Jesse. Like there's a predisposition for somebody. To be a bitcoiner that's not even a bitcoiner like you know them and this is like this type of show or the clip you send to somebody that is like there and it kind of ties into Cam and what you're doing. We don't know each other too well, but knowing what you're doing in Chattanooga, you're. You know your background and you can share more about it. But there's something there that before you your Bitcoin journey. I would be hard pressed to say that you were a Bitcoiner. And recognizing like the value and the things that you're doing with the the firm and some of the first principles from getting back to the basics of like how to actually build a sustainable business, how to incentivize and provide like value I think is a very, it's a, it's. A. Value oriented thing that probably was done for a very long time and we've moved away from it and we're going back to it and so maybe that's a good kind of segue. I'd be curious you're going to hear the the origin story of Brickyard but also like the I think where that intersects with Bitcoin because I don't think it's a harder harder way to explain it. I don't think a bitcoiner it took it would have taken a bitcoiner to build Brickyard even though you weren't a bitcoiner and knew a Bitcoin at the time. If that makes sense. The very first principles way to build a brand new. The venture firm and also to help entrepreneurs get off the ground. Yeah, Cam understood proof of work before he learned what Hashcache Shop 256 was exactly. Yeah, I mean, I think it goes back to the core desire that I've always had even before, I mean, well before being an entrepreneur, being a founder. You know, it's never been about money. It's never been about power. It's never been about, like, status or vanity. For me, you know, when I graduated, I didn't know what I was going to do. But, you know, I graduated in the middle of the financial crisis. And, you know, a lot of my friends are taking a year off work. And I was, you know, I was just anxious. I wanted to get started. I wanted to do something. And I I started. I I took a job that it kind of just opened my eye. Very few people were hiring. And I took a job as like one step above a teller at a bank, at a bank, in a bank branch, in a Mark Mall parking lot. And it scared the absolute dog shit out of me. And it made me realize, like, OK, the real world's a real thing. If, if, if I don't take. Responsibility for my own financial destiny. I'm going to be on somebody else's path and they're going to dictate that path for me. And so it was always freedom that that pushed me into, I guess the way that I've acted my entire life, it all kind of always goes back to freedom. I remember being on A at A at a. A field trip in like 7th grade. We were like walking down this boardwalk at this camp on the ocean. And we were like in a full uniform, you know, like button down a tie and, you know, slacks. It's like, you know, hot outside. And I'm looking at these title pools and like all I wanted to do was just jump into these title pools and like, you know, find crabs and in like lure the the majesty of nature that was in front of my face. But instead, I'm going to have to, you know, walk in a single file line. To, you know, some class that I have no interest in and that stuck with me. I think it was why, you know, school was always difficult, you know, for me to actually get interested in it. And it pushed me to to be an independent thinker on, you know, across most of the facets of my life. And then when I graduated college, it was like, OK. This is like, it was the final straw. I was like, I I have to take, you know, financial responsibility for my own destiny here. And that's what almost like was scared into being an entrepreneur. And you know, when I heard about Bitcoin in 2015, my buddy actually and Grant Morgan, who's an amazing founder, started R0. He was like, you just need to buy some Ethereum. He was like an Ethereum guy and he's like buy some Ethereum and just Start learning about it. And and that's actually how I got into it. I bought some Ethereum back in 15. And that the the world of decentralization just captured me. And the deeper and deeper that I got into it, I started getting this pit in my stomach where it was like. A very serious topic run by like very unserious people. And and what I mean by that, it's like, you know, metallic and Fanny packs and like monkey suits at conferences and like everybody that I talked to in the space is like you're talking about something that's very important to mankind and you are going about it in about the least serious way that I can imagine. And then I started talking to Bitcoiners and it was like, Oh well, here's the signal. Like these are serious people. And I started mixing out of the theory I'm in a Bitcoin and then we sold our company a chunk of our company in in late 2019 and the Dow was like 30,000 or something and and I didn't want to go into cash or didn't I didn't want to go into the market. So I just was sitting on on on cash and then I just the luckiest thing in the world. You know, for me it was, you know COVID half and the Dow went down to 18 or whatever and that's when I just. Piled into into Bitcoin, among other things. But since then Bitcoin has just completely taken over my mind. Around the same time that I, I started, you know, really going down the the Bitcoin rabbit trail a rabbit hole. We we, we realized that, you know, there's a big opportunity in venture capital in this, this frothy market where. The culture of the founders that changed so much over the last 10 years. Where you used to feel sorry for founders, you just be like, fuck, I'm sorry, keep going, you know this is hard. You know, founders in like 2021 and 2022, just you'd go raise $1,000,000 seed round and you'd think that you were a celebrity. And there's so much ego involved and like the work ethic had gone away and work from home was this new thing and people were like building their companies and like Bali and. It was just like what is what's happening and that was the impetus for Brickyard and why we we kind of like swung the pendulum all the way to the to the other side and we just said we know that everything's going to correct. You know, people are going to start taking this seriously again, we're just naturally drawn to serious people and and that's really how how we we built the whole. Brand around what Brickyard is and and it really every component of Brickyard is around how serious are you? Are you ready to go to war for a decade? And, you know, go through the pains of firing your best friends and you know and and having anxiety so sick you can't sleep for three days. And you know all these, you know the the toil that every entrepreneur deals with this as they, you know, go through their path to an exit. You know, most people think it's easy and it's extremely hard. So anyway, that's that's sort of my my story, Bitcoin and Brickyard and we can kind of dig into anything you guys want to talk about. That that's really fascinating like the juxtaposition that you referenced. I don't know if you've if you said that on purpose or have caught that like E to Bitcoin, similar to like what traditional venture looks like in the Fiat world to what you're doing. And the seriousness and it comes down to the money, right? Cuz like money's just truth and it's tied to like a certain finite value. That is proof of work and all the things we know, whether it was gold or Bitcoin and Ethereum just came out of magic smoke out of it. Vitalik's ass or whatever. The other what was it Lubin and the other two like one other guy and. Yeah. And and so you tie that to why at all Like you were looking for the, you know, the signal, the heart, like the proof of work, the people that were serious in the same way of like the person that gravitates to like, hey, I'll take maybe less, you know, capital. But because this is like I'm actually about this like I'm not here for the, you know, the the flash that I just raised a million and a half or whatever it is. It's very interesting, like the same thing that you saw in both tied like you back to kind of like the the first principles of value. Yeah, as you say that it it hadn't occurred to me, but you you're spot on. I mean, that's yeah, totally. No, like to build on this, I had a very similar disposition coming up out of college. I mean, I was in high school. I was a senior in high school when the financial system imploded, went to college, studied economics, got a job at a fund. And it wasn't necessarily that people were unserious, is that they were complacent like at that time. It was transitioning from Bernanke to Yellin. We were in like Operation Twist and then QE two and three. And I would sit there as a young portfolio analyst on a small portfolio management team and we were fund to fund. So I got to literally ask some of the most successful Chief Investment officers in the commodity trading advisor space like questions and. At the ripe old age of 2122, I was really honed in on Fed policy because I'd been radicalized in 2008 as a senior in high school and then really stuck with it throughout college. And I just remember the the rampant complacency that that existed at that level of the investment world when I would sit in meetings and be like, hey, do you guys think like Fed policy is going to affect markets at all? And they were still back then, 2012, 2013, 2014. Sitting from the position of no, like the Fed is sort of apolitical, like they have to do what they have to do but I don't think they're going to affect markets that much. And that complacency really scared the shit out of me and I was like, oh man, like this is not going to be good. So similarly like I do not do well working for others. And so, throughout my 20s I quite a few jobs until I finally dove into Bitcoin and decided to carve out a little niche for myself and. Not to talk too much about my story, but I really want to dive in to the comment you made about the seriousness between Ethereum and the difference of the the serious approach at Ethereum to Bitcoin. Like, what did you see in Bitcoin? Or is it really made you think like, oh, these guys are serious, they're actually doing something here? Well, you know, I I think it's probably important to provide some context on like. How my journey into Bitcoin came about like probably unlike maybe all of you guys you know I don't there is no community there. There was no community in like 15/16/17. I mean, even now in, you know, in in my circles I'm like the bitcoiner that I I'm not constantly around a bunch of other bitcoiners and I went to Bitcoin Park. Maybe six months ago for the first time, and that was the first time where I was actually surrounded by other Bitcoiners. But the feeling that I got there was like the most purely validating experience I can give you. Like I I had been years and years of sort of like toiling with this idea. That's like taking over my mind like a virus. My wife thinks I'm absolutely nuts, but it was all it was. Me poring over content on the Internet, it started that way. Like I I was I was as interested in in Ethereum as as you know, or I wasn't as you know it. It was a captivating idea to me. And the one thing that I just could never understand was there was just a disconnect between This is a very serious subject. These are very unserious people. I must be crazy. I'm missing something because. Something doesn't feel natural about this and and then over time I I realized that I think they they just had something wrong. And and as I started, you know, meeting one Bitcoin 22 bitcoiners here and there, you know you, you'd sit down and and you had the same serious topic, but now you had a person that was like totally in it for the good of humanity, the. The sort of altruistic view of this is good for everybody, everywhere. And as a bitcoiner, like every every bitcoiner that I ever met, it I almost feel felt like that I was talking to somebody that felt obligated to to tell me why this was so important and and that was that level of serious that I found. And I said OK, this is serious topic, these are serious people. Maybe I need to spend some more time here. And and that's what I ended up doing. I started sort of mixing into Bitcoin and like every time I did it, I felt better. And then you know, by 2020, moving everything into Bitcoin was a very easy decision for me to make. And and you know, I I just haven't looked back since. I mean, it's just a, I guess that's how I put it. It's just a very serious topic with very serious people. Yeah. It's so interesting to think about like the the Ethereum crowd, the whole ethos, the entire culture there is like a it's a it's a malignant tumor version of move fast and break things and software is is eating the world. And that means software will eat money. But money doesn't play like that. Money is its own thing. It supersedes everything. Money is the foundation of human civilization, and software can eat it. If it's playing on money's terms, you know if it. If the software is designed to abide by what gives money value, what gives it a commodity value, then software can eat money. But you can't. Brute force your way into a takeover of money by applying the Silicon Valley ethos of move fast and break shit. And that's what Ethereum is doing. And and and they're drumming up hype on stage by doing little badger dances. That's that's not how this works. That's where they lost me. Well that's, I mean been around Bitcoin for decades, like solve Ethereum, come and launch and. Really understood intuitively during its ICO and post launch, like this isn't the way to do it. And for the longest time it would frustrate me and I'd find myself like in Twitter battles with Ethereans, like trying to explain to them why their approach to this is completely off. And I think over the last three years, I found what I call my bitcoins in where it's like, it doesn't matter, like. Yes, they're going to get a lot of hype and we can get into a bunch of back and forth arguments on Twitter. But at the end of the day, going back to what I said earlier in in the context of David Rubenstein's comments, like if this is going to be successful, I'm going to say this. I've been saying this on podcast for years and I will continue to say it because I do truly intuitively believe that there is an order of operations to all of this. If these things are going to succeed, Bitcoin is going to succeed like you need to fulfill. In order of operations, in the front end of that order of operations is distribution of full nodes, distribution of hash rate, security, like boring lending products, multi sig, all of that and then we can get to the fun things and then that. That seriousness that you reference Cam is something that I'd like to think I've always tried to focus on. And Bitcoin is like, hey, like all that stuff looks fun and sparkly and a lot of people are making a lot of money, but. Like you said, like this is an imperative for humanity moving forward and we have to be dead serious about this, like focusing on this front end of the order of operations. Totally, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I was just gonna say and like the the easiest way to project like what you just referenced, Marty, that we don't talk about enough and being so early and that like a lot of the things that have been built aren't actually the things that will be, you know, in 10 years is the the price. If if we all believe this works, we we know where this goes. We know the amount of adoption we have like maybe .1%, whatever the number is of actual people across the world using it and that the people aren't here, the the products haven't been delivered. And so we're not, we're still that early in reference to like the the order of operations. There's all these like different ideas whether it's on, you know, Ethereum or just, you know, Bitcoin and the different things that are being built and it's necessary. But then there's also, just like this Core Foundation that's still required to to be built. Yeah, I mean, when I think about the, you know. I guess what I described earlier is like what initially got me into it what what has captivated me recently over the last year or two. It's like one you know jets booths, understanding of you know prices will fall the marginal cost of production like that that set off an atom bomb in my brain because it it was the smoking gun for for how the Fed steals and then. As I follow you all you guys, you know you guys do such a good job to like spending time in the macro of like what is actually happening in our in in the macro and that that's that's not my day job. I I don't spend time doing that. So I follow you guys who who spend you know all your time really paying attention to what you know is is happening in in all the levers that that the Fed you know is pulling but like if the Fed doesn't print. OK. If we assume that technology is going to to accelerate at a massive pace which me being in venture like I know where this is going. Moore's Law is not slowing down. We we are. I mean this the advent of a, I, I is I think the greatest thing ever happened at Bitcoin because it's going to make everything happen much faster. But you know, technology driven deflation is coming and and happening right now. If the Fed doesn't print the dollar goes up, so does the real value of our debt economic activity. Consumer spending decreases which you know is going to affect tax revenues which is going to make things worse. You know interest rates going to have to drop which reduces the the Treasury's balance sheet, makes it harder for them to make payments. You know printing will will be will become this like justified thing like we have to do this because this is happening. And it, you know, which this this all means, you know, hyper bitcoinization has to be in this in this decade, in my opinion, because I I don't actually think Powell and Yellen are like malicious, evil people. They're they're just flying a plane that's going down with every American on it. And they're limited to the controls they have in the cockpit. But they're they just blew the engines out. Like the engines are blown. Okay and the only control input still available are like stick and rudder you know and are they going to just nose over and be like well might as you know might as well make it quick like no of course they're not going to do that And and I don't think any of us would do that either I I it's like The thing is is I don't think that they actually understand Bitcoin either. And and if they if they did understand Bitcoin then they would then they would be malicious. But I I don't think they do. I think that they're literally just like their world is so small they've got tunnel vision, they're in this cockpit, it's like here my control inputs what do I do now And yeah, I mean this is that serious subject is is that is is just kind of you know. Crazy to think about that we're living through these times. Yeah. And and and we are living through these times right now. I mean I I was just digging into the numbers a little bit on, on the debt like it's moving so fast that you have to revisit it every few months. So we had the debt ceiling debate and inevitably they, they lifted the debt ceiling for the next few years. That was two months ago and we've issued $1.3 trillion of new national debt. Since then, now the US Treasury just came out last week with their guidance, their updated guidance for the rest of the year. So you know, 5-6 months, five months left for $1.85 trillion more of of debt issuance. It's going to be necessary to keep the lights on for the country to just to get us through the rest of the year. So that's 7-8 months. Of the the last seven or eight months of 2023, we're going to issue $3.15 trillion of new debt on top of our tax receipts. You know, this is deficit spending in excess of of what we're we're bringing in in tax receipts right now. That's that's happening right now and it keeps getting revised upwards because. The thing that's that's also hitting the country right now and and I think you know the policymakers are are somehow surprised by this is the interest expense on our existing national debt is rolling over at these high interest rates right now of 5%. We have $9 trillion of national debt rolling over in the next 18 months. Over the last 18 months, we've had our annual interest expense. Go up $400 billion, that 9 trillion that's going to roll over in the next 18 months will result in $300 billion in additional annual interest expense on the debt. So together, that's $700 billion of incremental interest expense every single year going forward on our national debt that we didn't have 18 months ago. And and how big is that? That's an entire extra U.S. military every year. That's how big that is and that that's an impact that we're facing right now. And how are we going to fund that we're we have to issue more and more debt and here's the debt spiral. But Jesse Chamath said it's not a problem. The All In podcast pulled up some of my charts on like I wrote a piece on the National Debt, Debt Spiral, and the All In Podcast they pulled up the charts. A couple of them follow my writing and. And and Chamath just dismissed it as like, yeah, it's not a big deal because because the US dollar is the best currency out there. Gonna still want the US dollar, but it's not true because there's a better currency out there and it's super sovereign. So of course. It goes beyond the national level. I got so frustrated. Listen to last week's episode of the All In podcast, and I listened to it just to keep a pulse on like what? That side of the investment world, like how they're viewing the world. I do. I think there is a lot of insights that they bring to the venture world. There's a lot of bad takes as well. But when it comes to like macro, I do think they're completely missing the mark and have a massive blind spot. And so yeah, like jamas rant last week that where's everybody else gonna go? Like on a spectrum of relativity. Like the dollar and Treasuries are the only safe haven in the world. And that's just completely missing the mark. They're just missing that that that was the thing, you know when we kicked off this podcast, like I have this like sort of deep frustration that people can't see. You know, I I have to remind myself that that people haven't spent the amount of time thinking about this than we that we have. And my first move is like WTF like, but I have to remember, you know? They're the beginning of the of their journey and really understanding like the Titanic's going down, you know, they don't really fully understand that there's a perfect boat with no holes in the hull that just pulled up right next to that boat. And the people are going to make a decision whether they stay on this boat or whether they just swim over to this other boat. Like, they don't even they're not even aware that that thing is here, you know? But it goes, it goes back to this deeper like 100 year battle against hard assets that that I don't the Federal Reserve won in in the in the hearts and minds of the people. You know the average the typical portfolio is 6040 zero. That zero being hard assets and people don't hold gold because they don't think that it matters because. We've been trained to think that yield is the only thing you know worth having and that the dollar is a stable measuring stick to. The times are over. To be fair, though, all those guys know that this is unsustainable. They just don't know the end. And so that's what makes the they're like every take that they they have. Because, like Chamath knows that this doesn't work. He's just talking his book and it is a mercenary, so he's trading it. Sachs actually is a Bitcoin or like he invests in Bitcoin companies. It's not in his best interest to talk about that. Freiburg is the one that sounds alarm on all that crap. But he doesn't know the end in Bitcoin and they call Candace. Well, he's fucked. So, like that's that's he literally has no idea. What's going on? I don't like to Let's focus on the ideas. Like, I don't want to talk about Chamath particularly, but like the I wrote the newsletter about it this week, and the blind spot that he has is like even if you run with the assumption that on a spectrum of relativity, people have to pile into treasuries and the dollar because it's the best on a relative scale, like the blind spot. With that line of thinking, we don't even have to bring Bitcoin into the mix. Is the weaponization of the dollar over the last two years like? Yes, on a relative scale, from an economic standpoint, the US may be way better than all the alternatives. However, the weaponization of the dollar over the last two years is going to force sovereign nations to seek alternatives, even if they may be considered less optimal than Treasuries or the dollar. And that's like. Taking Bitcoin out of the mix and just focusing on that scale of relativity that he mentioned, he has a complete blind spot where yes, relatively speaking, the dollar and treasury is maybe better place to park your your assets, your wealth. However, like the weaponization of that system is going to force people to seek alternatives. What that ends up being, we think it should be Bitcoin, but I think we'll find out in the years to come. They're going to try a bunch of different alternatives, and that is being driven by the fact. That they are now forced to because of the weaponization of the dollar system. But he knows that like is the smartest person on that pod. It's the same reason we're like on the past week it's talked about Joe Rogan and how he doesn't talk about Bitcoin. You think Joe Rogan doesn't have an idea of like, what the fuck's happening here? He alludes to it. There's a reason why they don't talk about it publicly. It's not because they don't understand the weaponization. Like that's one order from which has happened with Russia. Like he's talking a book for his investors. He understands what's happening here. He cannot. Just like. Speak of it for a number of reasons but he he knows like that he's these guys are smart like it's not. I wouldn't give it. I don't know if Rogan talked about it. He's talking about issuing 100 year bonds like and like, yeah, we can do. That well, because that's how he trades it. That's how he plays that he's made a billions of dollars. He has investors. He has. His social capital, like, there's a whole thing. He even talked about it years ago. He's like, OK, I'm going to quit leaking out for like, I'm just not going to explain how I'm going to play this. It's like what where would he benefit? It's like, oh, this is all fuck the dollar's done. You get bonds are screwed. Like going into that. Where does it benefit him in any world that he plays in to say that and to all his investors Like, he he he knows that what we're talking about. It's just like. Anyway, I I totally agree. I I wonder though like, but why would Rogan not talk about? Talk about. It somebody had an interesting point on this. If like it's too polarizing. If you if Rogan was to talk about Bitcoin, then he'd have all every alt coiner like, you know banging on his door. So you have to give equal time to this other side of the story, and he doesn't want to do. It Yeah. But Rogan, Yeah, but Rogan loves that shit. Rogan will take will go hard on a topic that's massively unpopular. I haven't thought deeply, but I saw the same take and that's what sparked with the the reference to Rogan. I think there is an angle where this stuff is at serious where he's like fuck it like I can't I'm not going to go there because it really is that it really is that serious. Like Rogan is such a big following that you start going down the rabbit hole and he already alludes to the CBDC. It's not like one connection from CBDC to money that isn't controllable and it's there and so like again, do you expect Rogan hasn't caught like understand one step from CBDC is a money that can't be controlled like. We have to be, you know again we it's an yeah, it's just it's fascinating because these people are smart. I think they have it's it's Odell's whole thing. Like once they're on the platform that can censor them and take them off they're they're going to self censor. So as much as even all in likes to say that they're against establishment and Wall Street Journal and all that at the same time like they're always thinking like what are. It's not even about what the establishment cares because they're not the ones giving them money. It's the people that are their Lps and their investors and that are, you know. The like shareholders and whatever different fund formations they have, that's the problem they have to basically speak to at the end of the day. For sure. For sure. For sure. Yeah, for sure. I don't want this into an all in critique episode. However, I we do have more things look and put the first chart obviously about the Fed and the Treasury. They only have so many levers in front of them that they can manipulate to try to land the plane softly. One of those levers is manipulating the data. And so CPI came out today. I believe the print the official print was 3.2%. The Logan if you can pull out that tweet, the first one with the meme, it is. It's crazy how bad they're manipulating these numbers. So USB prize 3.2% food away from home inflation 7.1, shelter inflation 7.7, transportation inflation 9%. And if you take out those latter 3 metrics like core CPI was only up .2%. And that's the headline they're running with full CPI is 3.2, core X food, shelter and energy is .2. We got inflation under control. Trust us. Yeah. Just besides your major cost buckets, it's under control. The signs are everywhere. It's it's really fascinating to see like the news and everybody talk about soft planning and CPI and then you go wherever you go and there's just this grim like whether it's you walk in somewhere it's like Oh yeah man times are tough right now or you just it's across the board. There's a number of anecdotal references that I've experienced the past couple weeks and I'm sure you guys have as well. We're, we are already are deeply in a recession right now and nobody's Speaking of it. Yeah, well Logan pulled the second tweet too and that's the point I wanted to make with this is that there is that class of incumbent high finance venture that do believe what the Fed is feeding them and so, but when they are faced with the reality of of the economy, go back to the first suite so we can read it for people who aren't aren't watching. So this is Jason Calcadus again. Don't want this to be an all in critique podcast episode, but it's turning into that quite a bit. Jason tweeted on August 4th, less than a week ago. People are complaining about the economy in some fields never been worse. We have the lowest unemployment and largest job openings of our lifetimes. Inflation is moderate. You can get anything you want delivered to your house in two hours to two days. Consumers complain constantly and then a few days later, the next week on August 7th I believe between about 3 bags of groceries $350.00. Some high end items like locks, but my Lord, everything is $12.00 now. So I think with these two tweets is essentially like proving the archetype of the person is going along with the narrative that the Fed and the BLS are putting out there. Like the numbers are good getting back to this recovery. But then, when faced with the reality of the situation in real life, that cannot help but call out like, oh shit, like this is expensive, which you just hit the mill in the head, Marty. You said not turning this into an all in critique, but the idea is going as far as saying this is like. You know, a little bold statement. This is where the alpha is and what that, what I mean by that, and it ties into why they're saying. What they say is they're telling you how they want you to play it. We're telling. People how we want them to. Play it like how they should. Play it like they need to protect themselves. Any Bitcoin, this is how you should be thinking about the world from first principles. They're telling you, Oh no, everything's fine. CPA is fine. Like, just go back to your business, like bonds, you know, 2%. Like there's two different things happening in the same way. When you look, you go to CNN or whatever, it's like, oh, inflation's fine. It's there versus like who's actually telling you the truth. And that's like the delta or the thing that we're describing here is like they have a good view of the world because they're experts in their own field and which is very important, but they're just missing the other side. Whether it's because they truly miss it or because they're just talking their bug, it's it's. Hard to see it. If you're in the Ivory Tower and all of these guys are in the ivory Tower, they've been too successful and they're in the insulated bubble of only hanging out with very successful people. You know, they they aren't barely detecting the fact that there's pain for for most consumers. And it takes a $350.00 of of groceries to figure that out for them. But you know, go talk to, go talk to the families who just cancelled Disney Plus because they're they're tightening the belt and Disney Plus down what it was 9% in subscribers or 7 or 9% in subscribers this quarter because people are tightening the belt. That's. That's middle class and upper middle class people and working class people who are are looking at their budget thinking, man, groceries are a lot more expensive now where can we find a little extra money And and they're crossing off the streaming services. That's the pain. And and that's what Jason and or any Silicon Valley venture capitalists can't see because they're not, they're not going through that exercise themselves, going looking at their budget. Going down the list of of their credit card expenses for the month and trying to find things to cut, that's not what Jason's living. And so he's not going to see Bitcoin, he's not going to see the pain of inflation and IT that will drive him to appreciate Bitcoin. Whereas middleclass families who are trying to save for their children's future, they'll be able to get it quicker. And hopefully they do. Yeah. And I mean this actually provides a good segue into really diving in the state of venture with Cam here. I mean you mentioned the ivory tower in the venture space, the ivory towers obviously in Silicon Valley, San Francisco. But like we were chatting before we hit record, the state of Venture right now is in a state of disarray for many people in can. Like what are your thoughts on #1 the state of Venture? But like the trends, obviously Brickyard, you guys are stationed in Chattanooga, far away from Silicon Valley. Like, is there a tectonic shift happening in Venture or maybe you don't need to be in Silicon Valley or San Francisco to be backing the best companies? Like is Venture sort of distributing a bit more? Yeah, I mean. The venture industry has gone through like a pretty radical change. Post COVID so like COVID happened and. All of a sudden venture like. All of venture funding like basically stopped during the lockdowns and then it came like roaring back and then you know the prices just went through the absolute roof the the, I'd say the venture investors have been investing. Steadily more outside of the tech hubs over the last like call it like six or seven years. COVID just like just rapidly accelerated that. So teams that were NSF or in Seattle or in New York and like they were fed up in the lockdowns, talent just went poof. They went you know went all over the country cities you know bigger the the big recipients were like bigger like non giant metro cities like Nashville. Charlotte, Raleigh, Atlanta, Dallas, you know, Austin, those cities just got hammered by, you know, talent leaving big metros and and flooding in. And so venture investors started to have to like chase it. You know the the talent to those cities and for like the first like year or two, you know it was all zooms and it it. Pretty much now still is is all virtual terms of like diligence in companies I'd say like you only make. An inperson visit to. A city that or to a company that's not in your city like you know well well into the diligence process of of of a company maybe like even like the partner meeting and in in some cases checks are just written, you know without ever meeting in person. So that that has all happened in venture on the valuation side valuations are just like. Plummeting, you know, they went through the roof when everything sort of crescendoed in like 2022 and in prices. You know the the, I think about it like money's like a river. You know, the big money managers are basically like behind the dam or or like the Fed, you know, or or right under the big fish sitting right underneath the dam and then the further you go downriver. You know it goes down from like you know the black rocks the world to like the big private equity of the world, you know to eventually get down to venture capital. And then even that's broken out by like growth stage venture and early stage venture. And so like by the time prices get down to like the really, really early stage venture capital, everything else has corrected. So like the early stage, see precede and seed is the last to correct. And that's where we invest is is in the in precede and seed which is like your first institutional check that you takes company. Those prices are are now being affected and that's probably that's been happening for the last you know two months or so, two, 3-4 months or so. But I think it's they're going to continue to to correct but I think. We're, we're, you know we're. Probably, you know, 50% of the way there. Kim, can you talk about? You know you referenced through your journey like 1920 and then starting Brickyard like where the the Bitcoin lens has helped because I think that's a big component to this, right. It's like we talked about you know whoever in in VC and we can make fun or not and their lens of the world. But I think we'd all agree here that the lens of Bitcoin and going back to first principles and opportunity costs help, and how you navigate and think about risk and opportunity and where you place your bets. Would be curious kind of like how how that's changed your perception if any and then how you kind of like help the firms and how you provide you know other value outside of just like capital. Yeah, I mean, I think. You know, it's weird being in venture and being a bitcoiner. And I learned this, you know, when I went to Miami, this last year was the first Bitcoin conference that I went to. And I was like welcomed with open arms and and got to meet like some of those amazing people like Marty, obviously you one of them. And and Michael, I don't think we saw each other down there but it was like a moment where I I realized like venture investors are not really respected in this world because we are like you know in the other system. And I think it's it's like a first move. Any Bitcoin would be like, well, AVC doesn't really understand like that they're playing in the wrong sandbox and. And so I had to continue kind of remind people like no, no, no, I'm a bitcoiner. This, you know, this is what I'm doing. I'm, you know, I'm allocating capital into early stage companies you know, that I believe in. And I I I've started investing, you know, I want to do as many Bitcoin first companies that I can do. I started actually. I've done a couple now. But it's it's mainly more of like a mindset of like it just goes back to the serious people thing. Like if you go to justlaybrick.com to Brickyard site, it's just you'll immediately understand we're drawn to serious people. And it's a, you know, I think the bitcoiner and me is, is probably that voice that you hear resonate across. You know, what we really think matters stylistic likely with early stage you know, founders. That they're they really understand that they're the game that they're getting into and they're taking it, you know, super seriously. Yeah. I mean, that's one thing we really try to focus on, on 1031 too, like taking the what? Many would deem the exuberance of the the probably like the last 15 years until a year and a half ago that existed in. Venture and just in markets more broadly but especially when you're investing in Bitcoin businesses like that's one thing that we really focus on. I was like all right, you really have to focus on on profitability and like getting there as quickly as possible. Like this game is not going to be the same as it has been throughout the 2000 tens and early 220 twenties. Like you're really going to have to figure out product market fit, go to market strategy, getting revenue, getting profit as quickly as possible. And and I think that's another interesting topic we dive in is like especially with the emergence of AI, like what are your thoughts on like how these companies actually scale up with as little as possible, like, yes, getting venture capital in the door, but having somewhat of a bootstrap mentality to make sure that they're actually running profitable businesses. Yeah, well. I mean what AI is going to do is it's going to make, it's going to allow operators to operate with much. Less purchasing power is what I'd say is you know it's going to create this deflationary force. It's like significant. I mean like yesterday I got I launched our like swag store for Brickyard yesterday which I just opened a Bonfire account and I went and and toggling between mid Journey and Photoshop like I spun out like. 5 tshirt designs in like 30 minutes that are like really good and it it's like. That would have I can't even I. Can't imagine how much that would have got cost to like get exactly what we wanted and something like that. But it would have been in like the, you know, it would have been a designer's time for a week or more, you know. And now it's like something that a non-technical person can go in and and spin up and, you know, in a few minutes. And So what a I is going to do for these companies is going to allow them to operate on on less capital And so we're yeah we're we're huge components of our teams like you know burn you should look at your purchasing power, the dollars you have in your account as like this is this lifeline. I mean your default debt, all these companies precede and seed are are still burning money. If you're leaning. Into growth. I mean, it's very. Difficult to be totally profitable from from day one but if you have that mindset of of you know staying really efficient from day one and that your burn really doesn't have to increase that much you know as a percentage of of like your your revenue or your your that you're driving it you know it's. That's the way you should think about building these these businesses. But a, I just gonna allow these teams to go way faster unless. Unless purchasing power. Yeah, yeah, Cam. That's what really gravitated. When I conceptually had thought in my in my mind of certain concepts that Brickyard's doing and hadn't seen it in practice and I don't know I think it was Trey from Unchained initially had mentioned mentioned what you were doing and then Cam obviously made the the introduction this past year at the the conference. But this idea and Marty was there at the first beef summit in Kerrville, TX, a small town. This was the last year. I think the years are kind of blending together. But it was the first beef summit by Texas Lynn and one of the core ideas was it was in the middle and over in Texas. And it was meant to be very intentional. If you, if you went out there, it was like the proof of work. You were serious about business and you were serious about the the mission that they were on. And I think of what you're referencing in the same way of like firms and companies have been started and they've burned capital. They've assumed that they have to hire HR and marketing and design like your reference to a I and you get the the dollars in and they go out and head counts the name. You know whether you got a big company like Google or you've been starting. It's like how many people do I have reporting to me. And I still think that exists like we still even though even though we're talking about all this kind of like pain and and you know. Companies either going under or laying lean laid off, that is still like built into the same way that like a Fiat mindset is built into that the dollar is going to last for forever. But what what I saw was like that. Not only did you set up the, you know, the the place in Chattanooga, the all the resources, but then then you required the entrepreneurs to go there. And I don't know the exact mechanics and you could probably, you know you can clarify them but you know roughly 12 plus months fine product market fit because somebody willing to do that was that like heuristic of oh this is the person from a like a capital allocator that is your dream person you want to give a dollar to because it's going to go 10 to 100 X further than it would go anywhere else. And that's what a I effectively does, right. It just like allows for Max leverage on what somebody's attempting to do. We think about this here at honoring too how we build the business from a very first principle because at the end of the day like our opportunity cost is BTC and so you're for every dollar every minute you're spending doing something else. Well that's a, you know a sat less earned or sat that couldn't be coming in. And so it's just a very interesting this right tie back to you being a bitcoiner before it because you had this concept before really fully going down the rabbit hole. And it plays exactly to like the, the version of how I see the world plays out of capital is abundant. It's everywhere. It's really about and it's not even access anymore. Like access. Oh, I know this person is actually what can you instill in the learnings like yours at bellhop that can say, oh, this is a difference from going to 0 to one or one to 10 or 10 to 100 And that's what's in my mind. What's really been lacking for the past, let's call it 30 plus years adventure is like it's more of capital allocators versus like actual builders. Oh yeah. I mean I think we have like a domesticated animal problem in venture where like founders are like wild animals and and like you're you know you're Harvard MB A who you know who graduated went and worked for an I banker for a number of years and then you know got a job in venture capital and sort of work the way like this is a very and I'm not shitting on those guys like. They that that's a very specific you know they out of the world it's like they know how to run an operation when a playbook is given to you like from from the time that they were 10 years old their their parents were grooming them in like how do you get into Harvard and how you and so you know without without shitting on NBA's I just. Want to make delineation? There's a difference between, you know. There's a. Your pure founder who is is this like independent thinking like ball of of sort of like like manic energy of this neuroticness of like I have a problem and I have to solve this problem and you know the the natural path of any startup like. You can get by with breaking a lot of rules early on and like in a lot of cases like you have to break a lot of rules early on. You have to think totally outside of the box. You have to be willing to you know take risks and do things that you could never do. And you know if you're working in corporate gig but then as you grow like you, you have to start taking on some of those like domesticated aspects of like how do you run a board and how do you you know manage your your your investors and and. How do you run like a large organization? I think the the thing that we've sort of witnessed and venture is just like we have a whole lot of people who are domesticated animals who are like vetting these wild animals. It's like golden retrievers that are like vetting Siberian wolves. And in a lot, in a lot of cases, they there's just this disconnect and you know, it's the classic like. You know there's a herd think that's happening and and. You know, I think a lot of the capital. Allocators are in the business, you know are just are. They're missing the point that like especially at an early stage when you're not looking at financial statements and you're not looking at you know like a ton of traction data or like historical data in business. It's like you have to stare into the heart of this founder and understand It's like, is this a wolf or is this a dog? And and and if you can place all your bets and wolves, like that's how venture returns happen yeah that's that's. Exactly right. I think cuz you have to back test the story like it's the idea maze right? You know the whole everybody knows Bezos was successful, but then they don't know that how many times he failed. And so he'd go and you know you go direction and then you have to reverse back out because you're more time is gonna fail than not. But when you hear the story of like the anecdote when somebody's pitching, it's like, well wait, let's back into how you got to that story cuz it's easy to tell the story. Everybody's a storyteller. But it's like did you actually like to your point cuz you said it and it's probably something that you lived through that most people would. It's like I didn't sleep for three days cuz of anxiety cuz capital or I had to make budget and those little things are I think to your point. Yeah, what's been missing in that true venture sense of like somebody that built then when you allocate the dollar again goes further for the LP as well in the same instance because you've been, you've been there and you know where to place the bets. You're referencing the the little ball and you're trying to write In Texas, we call them Cowboys, yeah? I was born in Texas. I was born in. I was born in Houston. I'm a I'm a Texan. I love. I love my Texas boys. That's what you're sending me. You're sending me pics. Your your. I think it was your grand. Your granddad's ranch was right by where I grew up near outside Antonio. So we're gonna we're gonna get that the the plane going back and forth from Tennessee to to Texas. Let's go. Let's do it. I do think we should know we have a. Redeemed MBA on on the call right now. That is possible for every time I every time I bring. This up I know I'm offending a shit ton of people and I don't mean it that way. I just it's like Venture in a lot of ways is a relay race you know and I I know a lot of NBA's who are absolute wild animals you know and it's just I guess my point is it's like venture capital used to be this like non. Fully optimized. And now? It's like a fully. Optimized thing where it's like there's now a playbook. Online that you can go and talk about like how do you maximize like your, you know 10 minute interview with YC. If you want to go raise venture capital, it's like OK, you need to get in a Y combinator. How do you get in a Y combinator? Well, there are literally like. You know how do you. It's like it's now this, the playbook is out there for how to raise capital. There is no playbook for how to build a company. If you're building something that's never been built before, which is hopefully any venture business that's, that's getting funding is building something new. Yeah, yeah. You're you're actually. Preaching to the. Choir basically I, I, so I, I have a Stanford MBA and and I know a lot of venture capitalists classmates of mine and frankly none of them have ever been hurting for for you know. Where is their? Next paycheck going? To come from you know how are they going to make a make their mark. You know, I wrote, I wrote a piece three years ago now that that it's probably still my best bit of writing called Why the Yuppie Elite Dismissed Bitcoin and it's all about my personal journey of of coming from that world. And having to reckon with how Bitcoin undid everything that I was taught at Stanford and and how that created a rift between where I was at and how everyone I know still thinks. And they're all in the ivory tower. And I used to be in the ivory tower, and I used to think that way too. And those are not wolves, because wolves are hungry. And you have to grow up hungry to be a born wolf. Or the alternative is you get wrecked. And so I went through all points and I got wrecked and I got humbled. And that's actually what allowed me to shift my mindset outside of what I had been trained in and. You know, I think that's the difference between the wolves you're looking for the wolves that that are out there is the hunger. And you know, we're, we're making fun of Silicon Valley VC's today because they don't have, they've never known real hunger, real desperation to prove themselves or or fury about, you know, the system and and those are the ways that you make a wolf. Yeah, yeah, I. Agree. Yeah, it's almost like when. Once the playbook's written, that arbitrage opportunity is out the window. That's why I think particularly with Bitcoin focus venture, that's why obviously at 10:31 we think there's a large arbitrage opportunity there because being able to find the founders, those wolves that not only understand Bitcoin but understand the differences between Bitcoin and all coins and then on top of that what? Bitcoiners as users need from a product standpoint and then the arbitrage opportunity that exists for the 10:30 ones and brickyards of the world are the capital allocators who understand those differences too and can allocate that way. You know, it's funny. To me, you know. When I think about Venture, it's funny that it's. More like ironic. That the vast majority of venture funds. Will have no allocation in the highest returning technology in human history for. Because. Because of like two things. Like one, it was inherently accessible to all people on earth from day one, and they couldn't justify the feeds for investing in it. Like. That's those are just the two. The two reasons you know and. You know, I, I, I love what you guys are doing at 10:31 because you're you're allowed to you're able to get a force multiplier on like you know this thing that we know to be a certain thing. You know the the companies that are building inside of Bitcoin like Bitcoin native businesses today. You know there there's such a massive upside there. I mean it's funny for me saying I I run a venture fund and it's like you know, we I went to my partners and like. We need to like we need to have like 15% of our fund at Bitcoin. You guys realize that and they're they're not as as like down the rabbit hole as I am. It's just funny like it's never going to happen at at Brickyard because you know you go raise a fund on like we're going to invest in these teams that fit, you know this, you know this sort of archetype. But unfortunately you know Satoshi Nakamoto is is not going to come to Brickyard for a year. So we can't. We we can't. Put an allocation in it. It's funny, you. You mentioned that as we have more conversations with capital allocators that's a common thing that that comes up. It's like well where do I put it like how do I bucket this in an asset like that's what precludes them from it. Is it is it or you know real estate, is it under commodities like where does it fit And there's these like little, there's these like legacy areas or frameworks that has kept people so far from it. And to your point, I think that's exactly what it where it ends up. You'll probably be one of the first on a traditional venture side where you hold BTC because it just helps de risk the overall, you know, return of the fund. But then that just sounds, this seems standard, right? Whether it's the same as a balance sheet of a company or as we were you know, pensions, endowments, family offices like they have. It's just like a personal balance sheet, right. You start with one 2% because you're looking at it and ultimately it ends up being your, you know, it's your your base unit. It's just an interesting dynamic where the legacy framework of how you evaluate your portfolio or your how you preserve your. Purchasing power precludes individuals like a venture firm for the past 10 plus years or you know, bitcoins existence from holding any of it when they would have just helped them return the capital to Lps instead of writing down zeros or whatever. Whatever mess we're going to see happen in 21 and 22, well. Like to that point? Too, like, I guess we can. Do like a live. Sort of. Like Spitball. Like on pitching. To these institutions, obviously this is what this podcast is speaking to is that caliber of investors like you have to internalize the fact that this is a completely different framework to operate within a base to operate from like and there's obviously something here you're trying to figure out what framework, if it's in from your investment mandate or whatever it may be your personal preference and it's like if you want. To benefit from the monetization of Bitcoin, throw all of your frameworks out the door and just get in some way. Somehow you have to either an excuse to get in or just create a whole new, different framework for it, because it is a whole new animal and it's not going to fit perfectly into any of the frameworks that you've worked with historically. It's. Make a. Make a new damn bucket. It's the short of it, you know, like it doesn't fit into. Real estate. It's Okay. Yeah, it's a scarce, hard asset. Doesn't fit into real estate. Most people don't touch gold. If you do touch gold, you're closer to being able to find place in your portfolio for Bitcoin because you have this hard asset commodity mindset as part of your strategy. But yeah, the alternative is miss out. It's make a new damn bucket for this thing, this technology of this digitization of value. Or miss out on the digitization of value, Marty? You'll love this or I was getting you know we get some advice and go and chat with mutual friend one of the not full time there anymore but at one of the largest alternative investment firms and he was giving some guidance on that when he was selling one of the funds that they were to institutions they were like well where do we fit it. And he's like, I don't care where you fit it, just put it like it's it's returns. It will return what you're looking for. It's up to you. It's not my job to do. But it was alluding to like what can was referencing. It's like there's just this framework that everybody's stuck with and like I can't touch this. Like it doesn't fit within the, the the guardrails of how it's real estate, commodities, it's it's really fast. Here's how. Here's what I am hopeful is going to happen over the next. Like through this election cycle, I. Think is when like a lot of this is going to happen. And I know all of us falling. RFK and and and all the other, you know, presidential candidates that are that are that are bitcoiners. But you know, this is going to be the first time where Americans realize like, wow, there's there are multiple presidential candidates that believe in this like whole different thing. And I think what's going to happen is is. You know, I struggle with figuring out like how RFK actually, like mechanically makes his way into the presidency. But I sure hope that he sticks around for a really long time because he's he's providing some really good things for the American public to think about, namely like, what is purchasing power. And I think the problem that Americans like as a whole that have today is. They they think of money in like monetary units and they're not thinking about money in purchasing power. So even though they've heard inflation, they haven't like grasped that that like energy versus like units sort of like dynamic. And as as Americans start to understand what is purchasing power, they're going to realize what the Fed has been doing. And you're going to have candidates like, you know RFK, they're going to be beating that drum about how the Fed is the reason that we've been able to fight all these wars and how the Fed's the reason that we're doing this. You know, I think people are going to finally come to the understanding of like where Jeff Booth is at with price tomorrow and and with you know, dropping price. It's like when people understand that money is like this is is energy. It's it is like I was thinking. Prior to this. To coming on I was. Like what are the one thing? What are some of the things that I want to say? It's like the Apollo commute. Computers consumed like 70 watts during operation and iPhone 10 use uses like 3 watts to operate. You know the iPhone 10 has 100,000 times the processing power while while consuming like you know, like less than 5% of of the energy that goes into it. And like if Watts could somehow by be inflated by like an international science Commission or something, an iPhone 10 today would probably cost like 120 watts to use when it when it should just cost 3, right. And and so the thing that I'm excited about it is people are going to realize, you know, over the next few years like what purchasing power is. And there really is only one answer you know of. What is the alternative? And, you know, it's the thing that's like irreversibly ties money to physics and then lets the prices, you know, fall as like the people you and me like as we create value in the world. Like that value wasn't created by like empty dollars that were thrown into the economy. It was created by like us going to work and creating value and creating new efficiencies and inventing new things. You know. And that's that's. Where the value in the world rises and you know money just needs to be this perfect one to one representation of all the value in the world. Like it doesn't need intrinsic value. It's just it's intrinsic value is that one to one perfect bridge to the value that you know we all have have created and you know and earned in just going to work every day. So anyway, that's my. That's my. Soapbox that I wanted to get off my chest while I had this awesome platform. Yeah, it reminds me. The MBAs and PhDs on Wall Street, it's haven't figured out real returns versus nominal returns like this inflation thing. It's kind of funny that's only we've been talking about it for two years. It's like roughly talking about it two years. Reality is, 2% inflation hasn't been 2% inflation for a decade. Plus it's probably been 5 to 10%. Now we're at 15 to 20 and everybody's saying it's 3. Right. Like, I mean, it just really nobody says it. But it's true. Like you go and look at what it costs to do anything and it's like, this isn't three, this isn't even 7, it's closer to 10 to 15, if if not higher. But nobody talked about. It's just like, no, we're just in this like thing. And the 2% of everybody's benchmark was was really probably 5 to 10. It's like the NBC meme of like. To do with the shitty beard and the bald head just like pointing with his mouth open like CPI says 3.2 like saying. So don't believe your line. It's 3 point. 2%, yeah, and to. Add on the cam's point, that's entirely right. I did have a hang up when I was going down the Bitcoin rabbit hole of. Thinking in in terms of what you were saying, but then not having faith in humanity to figure it out and to get there like, like that's a leap of faith. But then you know the other piece of this puzzle that comes into play is what Safety and emphasizes in in the Bitcoin standard of You can't insulate yourself from other people having a harder, better money than you. And so, you know, people will either figure it out or it will happen to them and they will be forced to react to it. So thankfully, it doesn't even rely on people figuring it out. It's economic reality. Goodness said it better. And I mean, yeah. We we we have a minute left here. We need to be respectful of everybody's time. I think this last 10 minutes has been. Exhilarating. Can that that soapbox monologue was was impeccable. That's the other thing, like any. High net worth individual institution listening to us like what? Can't mention that connection of the digital in the physical realm via Bitcoin, the digital money that is connected to the world. Very tightly connected to physics via energy that is necessary to produce that money via electricity is an innovation and an unlock for humanity that has never existed. That that, that connection, not even correlation, that direct connection between energy and the digital world in the scarce asset. I think that is what makes this go around. Money doesn't grow on trees. No, it does not. There's a. But oh man, it's a. Terrible Bitcoin Dad joke. I love it. Thank you. Thank. Y'all, so I mean this has been, you know, I'll just say I'm, I'm sort of on an island. And you know, I'm not in in the, you know, in the Bitcoin world every day with what I do for for work and it's. Like I swear, I I I go home. At night. And my mom or my wife knows when when I've been talking to Bitcoiners, it's like I I love, I I love it. Thank you all for one, just having me on here. But, but two, you know, I'm going to just know, like for the rest of today, that my heart's going to be a little bit happier that, you know, I got to be around other people that, you know, understand something. Pretty important and I I I appreciate everything that you guys are doing. Like you guys are the best, are the best and Please wait, keep making that happen. Wait till we record in person in. The Brickyard studio, we got to make it, make it happen anytime. You guys want to come in? I'll come pick you guys up. I I I'll do anything. You you y'all bring it on. Well, next time we do it. We'll do it in person, Cam. The feeling is mutual. We're really honored to have you on and love what you're doing at Brickyard and sort of seeping your way into Bitcoin. It's really important to see. And that's like what we're trying to portray to the audience is like, hey, it's not just us crazy bitcoiners thinking about this. Like, people in your world are beginning to think about this more and more. And I think you're an incredible example of that. So thank you for taking some time to chat with us today. Thank you, guys. Right. Thanks, Cam. We'll see you guys next.
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