The Last Trade E030: Bitcoin ETFs and Shifting Macro Tides with Mark Connors

Before we get into the episode, a quick reminder that the last trade is for informational and entertainment purposes only and nothing should be construed as investment or legal advice. Now for a word from on RAMP on RAMP is a Bitcoin asset management platform built on multi institution custody. We serve high net worth individuals, institutional investors and financial intermediaries with the best in class suite of products which include multi institution custody, a spot Bitcoin fund, Onram Wealth for Rias and private wealth services for high net worth individuals. Leveraging our partnership with Bit Go and other industry leaders, Onram's Multi Institution Custody is a first of its kind institutional grade vault requiring two of three institutions at any point in time to sign once a client's unique permissions have been met. Our multi institution vaults utilize cold storage, key signing and authentication at the direction of the client to maximize security for client assets. This pioneering approach to custody is the foundation of On Ramp's financial products which reduce counterparty risk associated with trusting a single institution. To learn more about how On Ramp can help you secure a new or existing Bitcoin position, please visit our website at on rampbitcoin.com, where you can schedule a consultation and connect directly with our team. What you're telling me is that music is about to stop, and we're going to be left holding the biggest bag of odorous extra ever assembled in the history of darkness, 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, I say when we sell. And we're live, gentlemen, back for another week of the last trade, this week joined by Mark Connors, the Director of Research at 3 IQ. Mark, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thanks for having us here. It's a good it's a good foursome. Yeah, we were just saying we're all pros, so it's good to have a bunch of pros in the room discussing. There's no one else, and there's no one else here to refute it. Which I like that. I guess before we jump into an intro, are you comfortable riffing on what we were discussing before we had recorded on the ESG narrative what you're seeing there? Yes, yeah, sure. So we're just talking about you know what I was doing and I was I've been aggregating information on on the ESG and the whole idea is that Bitcoin in general is is complex and moving fast and most people are still looking at 2017 news stories or or even the technology. They're not really catching up to what it's doing now. And a perfect example is how Bitcoin mining is now even being recognized by the UN for helping solve global warming. Just to start with a big old nugget punch right there. And then what I was talking about was, is it Dan Batten I think is the as in chapter four. He runs a fund, he's I think he's an Australian or New Zealander and he's been migrating into the Bitcoin space because he is a environmental lead oriented investor. And the whole idea about Bitcoin mining is really the only option to help reduce methane flaring and how that has not only attracted ideas and people in the space, but investors. And I think you were just talking about how your firm was bought out by a an energy company that is engaged in that exact process. Is that right? That's Caruso. And it's funny. Cully from Caruso, their CEO, was on 60 Minutes this week telling the story. I'm not sure if you saw that clip. No, I didn't. Wow. Yeah, it's one of the few bright spots of mainstream media coverage of Bitcoin mining. And I mean it is the flare gas mitigation is probably one of the most ironclad narratives the mining industry has. It's a very visible problem quite literally with the the flame in the air and the fact that you can reduce that to nothing and get value out of it is it's really hard to combat say that that is not a a net benefit to humanity at the end of the day. And and isn't there a case? I don't have the raw data, but I've I've read recently that methane flaring got a bit of a pass by the either environmental but I don't know if it's a carbon emissions group or you have to buy offset that so they don't have to offset it as much for carbon emissions for for flaring. Flaring gets a pass, but if it's used for Bitcoin money, it actually becomes a cost. In other words, they don't account for the mitigation it provides. But actually it's again, Bitcoin so far has occurred that the regulators and the taxing authorities don't know how to deal with with certain aspects of it. So if you weren't aware of that, we can maybe put that in the notes after. I'll follow up on it. Yeah, it's it's different between depending on the jurisdiction. Up in Canada, you can't flare at all. They're not allowed to flare at all in Canada. That's why upstream data, this had a lot of success up in Canada. They're selling their their hash huts because the producers can't flare at all and so they're doing extraction of oil and gas. The associated gas needs to be taken care of. Bitcoin mining is a perfect example in the Bach and if I recall correctly it's been a couple of years since I was deeply involved with their operations of Great American Mining. But they have I believe like a 90 day flaring post initial drill. So you can drill and flare for 90 days and after that you have to figure out mitigation. You start getting fined by the EPA. New Mexico has very strict flaring laws down here in Texas they're a bit more liberal with it. But yeah, there's inter jurisdictional differences between how much you can flare, how long you can flare, and whether or not you can flare at all. Yeah, I think the whole capital spec starts to change. I've been further removed from it. But I remember in 21 and 22 in Texas specifically when it came to mining on you know land and we think the capital structure of you have the landowner, you have the lease holder and then somebody that's going to leverage the natural resources and there's a certain like threshold of that's due. But then that starts to change with the economics of the price going up and those leases started, I think Marty's talked about those lease started like somebody they have certain like standards built in and now people are going back to rewrite them because you got to account for this asset that can just, you know, reflexively go up you know at such a fast pace compared to like what you've seen in oil and gas. Historically, yeah. What you're touching on there is the mineral rights owners and how the lease are written from them. So somebody owns the land, owns minerals beneath the land. They lease that out to an extractor and typically they get their royalties at midstream. So and that gas goes to midstream and then sold to the broader market and they get typically I believe 12, 1/2% of the revenue in royalties on those sales. And that's where Bitcoin mining strung a bit of a wrench in that set up because you do the extraction and the monetization of that gas upstream and not at the midstream. And so like you said, Michael, people are beginning to rewrite their leases to ensure that they're getting their royalties from the monetization upstream. Mark before we jump into the episode in your background, I was thinking I know for Marty and myself and I think majority on the Pod of you mentioned global warming and Bitcoin solving it, that there's this like, sweet irony in a lot of these tropes that have happened. And that it, I thought it made me think of when you're a child or younger and you're told not to lie and the reason you're told not to lie. There's lots of reasons. But once it always comes back, like you cannot like run from the lie long enough. And there's always like common things that are said and like, you just get trapped in your own kind of propaganda eventually. And it's like, wait, this is the thing that it was supposed to boil the oceans and end everything. And this is actually the thing solving what I I'm going and now you're just like stuck it up in a pretzel, like wondering what the hell am I talking about? Yeah, it it's almost too big a nugget to present. That's why I almost walked it down after I said, like, all right, let's just go into the details first before we throw out that little, you know, reversal of narrative that people are are not going to be ready to almost, you know, take in. It's almost like you want to sort of do incrementalism, just talk a little bit at a time because you're right. Yeah, it's a, it's A and I don't know how much was like a lie or was it just self-serving or fear or misunderstanding. It's just a bunch of you know to look at incentive structures about why the WAFF or others would would say it other than maybe they don't control it. It's the only thing I can think of. Yeah, they don't like that. They can't control it. It's it's scary. Brave new world. Sometimes you can't control everything. Become apparent. Find that out soon. Found that out last night, I was telling Jesse and Michael before you hopped on. We had a a midnight trip to urgent care for an asthma attack last night. Can't control that. Nope, can't control that. But I guess diving in, I just straight into Bitcoin mining, flare, mitigation, all that good stuff. But let's take a step back and allow you to introduce yourself, Mark, what you've been doing. I think your background, it was extremely fascinating, particularly coming from Credit Suisse to Three IQ, to focus on research and advice on how to allocate the Bitcoin. Yeah, you know, it's. I feel a little bit, little bit like Will Ferrell in old school where he says, you know, we're going to streak the squad, you know, or the quad. Come on, follow me like numb. No one, no one from from track by following me. I am like come on guys, the water's warm. Let's go. And there are some, you know, I got Pete Janney over at night dig and and a few others. But when I go back to you know meetings meet holiday parties, they kind of look at me with like a little bit of a, you know, we still like you. We're not going to call the authorities or have you in straight jackets. OK. We still like you. So I I mention that because yeah I spent 30 years in you know firms from you know Dean Witter, Smith Barney. I was at some smaller firms like CRT Capital that focus on distress debt which that process actually is most applicable to this investment thesis. I, I think we can touch that later. And then in the hedge fund community for about 15 years doing risk management across multi asset and then credit Swiss. And the reason why I came over is we would we would help our team helped hedge funds with alternative data whether it be positioning data and and the like. And then we would compare it to the market data and say oh here comes another market shock, be careful, it looks like positioning will change and you guys should you know deleverage. So we were communicating to, you know, the major funds and their and their PMS etcetera. But I noticed that a lot of them are going out of business and these were smart people, a lot of resources and they couldn't beat the S&P but the NASDAQ even on a risk adjusted basis, you know, only the larger ones like Citadel, you know, Millennium Bally's done a good job, you know, over the past five years changing their process and I wondered why. And then I'm like, Oh my God, the money. The Fed is becoming more centralized and they're becoming the volatility extinguishers and they're coming in with QE like they did and you know August of 9th of 19 and obviously in 2020. But the dead load was getting so big and the number of buyers of our debt so small, there used to be like 45 primary dealers managing the distribution of our auctions. Now they're 2425. They used to be all US. the Fed only dealt with US entities and now only a third number US. We had to spread it out because it became so big. So we have fewer people managing our debt load. We have more of it and now the Fed's buyer of last resort to its own auctions essentially. So I saw it from a macro standpoint and the effect was that these, these tremendously resource hedge funds couldn't beat the Fed because things change so quickly from a macro standpoint that he just had to just as I say, don't fight the Fed, but we'll go into how that's going to turn sideways. And then over a period, two years, I started to understand Bitcoin a little more and I'm like and it's funny, I just think they didn't until now I literally had the visual of people leaving treasuries and equities and stepping on at Bitcoin. So maybe, I don't know if that's how you got the name on ramp there folks. But that is literally I said maybe we don't have to go through a default if there can be a new asset kind of like when Nixon broke the peg in 71 and Citibank was bleeding losses in emerging markets, but they developed a brand new market that never existed which was foreign exchange and saved their ass. So maybe this is that new sort of punch to the new realm of opportunity, I believe so where, you know the burning fire behind you, you escape by stepping onto Bitcoin. So that's how I came here. That's my background. And so it's global macro, it's markets and now it's including digital assets. I mean, Bitcoin really as the main animal. That's so interesting. It's fascinating to hear your your journey there and that you know that's exactly how I view it too of we talk about as like the the lifeboat you know bitcoin's the lifeboat for for what's coming this this storm of sovereign debt and what the hell is gonna happen here and it is it's I share that hope of I think that this is what with bit without Bitcoin I think there's a much greater chance of like like global catastrophe in terms of like the Great Depression level of upheaval as the sovereign debt situation plays out. But with Bitcoin it it could be that that smooth lifeboat to for us to transition to and and the lifeboat builds and gets bigger and stronger over time and and turns into the the new boat. So I'm hoping that that's how it goes. Mark, if if we still have you there? Jesse, why don't we? Why don't you just rehash the last 10 seconds of your question there all? Right. We're going back, Mark. Thanks guys. Yeah, Mark, I don't know if how much of you caught it. I'll just roll into it here. Yeah, it's fascinating to hear about your, you know, suddenly becoming aware of bitcoin's actual value proposition. And I'm, I was just curious what were the pieces that you read about Bitcoin because if my if my timing is right there, Paul Tudor Jones would have been right around then coming out, you know with his bitcoin's going to be the fastest horse this decade his his May 2020 BVI letter. And there were a few other you know Bill Miller and and Stan Druckenmiller were starting to make comments around then. Is that right or am I totally off of my timing there? Yeah, that was it. And then it was it was a friend who I was speaking to who said, yeah, you're just supposed to own a little. I mean, that's how early it was. And so I bought a little and then I started reading. So I was that sort of live, you know, take action and then read, you know, small amount. And and one book I read, which I really like, 'cause I like getting the context was digital gold. I don't know if you guys have heard of that. Yeah, I I read it quite a while ago, and in my recollection of it is that it he recognizes that crypto currencies are digital, digital gold, right. OK, but. But is it specifically focused on Bitcoin? I might be, I might actually be misremembering which one this. It it is mostly on Bitcoin because it's it. It finishes in 2015 and what I liked about it is I love stuff. Frozen in time is what did they say back then? You know, That's why following The Economist's articles over 10 years and as I said, it's going to die 1000 times and they were wrong. But I like about digital gold is it gave you a narrative and Popper doesn't even like Bitcoin. I think he's not a fan. No it. Wasn't allowed to buy. But yeah, I don't think he owns much, but it it gave me the background. I understood it. It was from a obviously a disinterested or an unbiased party because he's not a fan and everything that like is a guy. The Argentinian wensis. I thank the guy who had the. Cesarus. Yes, Cesarus Wensis or Wensis Cesarus. I forget how it goes. The latter. And and everything that they're talking about has happened. So I I love the historical perspective. It wasn't the tech that got me that came later on the understanding. I had to get the concept down and then the tech later, so so that was helpful for me. I had to read about it, and then we I went in deeper. Yeah, it so I I definitely did read that book, but that was this the beginning of my altcoin arc. So whatever it was about that book, like it didn't prevent me from taking that that idea of like, OK, these things are digital gold and then and then saying they can be an infinite number of them. So I guess it was missed, or maybe I just missed that part and I needed to learn the hard way. Mark, going back, I'm curious if you can share and it's probably pretty, there's a lot of info there. So you can, you know give us the short version or a longer version. But you referenced 4X being like this Valve and supporting from a crisis previously. Can you talk about where you see or like how you you see mechanically and structurally Bitcoin being able to support and like this kind of easing their transition to a different monetary base? Sure. So what? What when Nixon broke the peg, which is crazy, right? I mean, the fact that, you know, after World War, 243 countries agreed to put all their gold on ships and bring it over during the war down below Maiden Lane and then after Fort Knox is kind of bananas. But that meant that obviously we could rebuild faster. And then the global growth helped a lot and actually was. Beneficial because then we could chew through all our all our debt inflated away in a very efficient global coordination. So there was a purpose behind it. And that held true. When Nixon broke, that trade went crazy. Everyone. So then everyone's own currency started to float against the dollar, not against gold. So then in order to to do trade, you had to then get a relationship, had someone foster an exchange between A&B and I guess what I the, the reason it's relevant to today is that as we know with, you know, Russia invading Ukraine, what's happening in the Middle East, there are disruptions to trade. When trade gets disrupted, growth goes down and people get hurt. You just obviously as growth, as GDP declines, death rates go up. So what happened with the FX is that people found a way to foster trade and that's what I think Bitcoins doing. It's being faster settlements, it's it's serving a need that's slower money and less integral money is bringing to us. So it's it's it's a not a direct analogy, but technology has always provided a solution and Bitcoin was there, FX was the technology at the banks. This time it's not going to involve the banks as much. So that's that's one take away. No, that makes sense. There's a monetary base with integrity, basically that we all agree on. And so it's the intermediary between other currencies that are facilitating trade or economic activity and that we agree on. Yeah, and this is a fascinating framing I've never heard. Typically when bitcoiners talk about Nixon ripping us off the gold standard, Bitcoin's the solution to the problem that that started. But I've never heard like the parallel sort of narrative of oh, it's gonna do something similar to what happened after we got ripped off the gold standard, which is pretty unique. Perspective does paint a picture of optimism moving forward more. That and and and that's it. Because part of our narrative is that there's a problem and no one really wants to hear about, you know the debt problem and you know Lavish brings it up about the about the spiral. And he's not wrong. It's it could take longer and it's it is there we jumped a shark but you don't have to focus on it and and I I agree that we have too much fun out there. I got kids and you know this this whole negative narrative garbage is just creating a real mental health problem with kids in general just makes for a bad mood on the weekends. So I think you know, and and and we know that social media gets sad without getting too, too far afield. Just because mainstream has not adopted it doesn't mean people shouldn't get curious on their own. And that's basically what I think. What I like work with you guys is not everyone in our industry, you know, is sort of, as we found out trustworthy or worth listening to. So I'm trying to, you know, be not too far afield, have a sound, you know, argument or presentation to get people to just take a look because I I agree I think it's way constructive and can, but that's and part of it was, you know what I, as you saw from my publication last week, Jesse, I went front and center with your asset pile. I mean, that's just clear as, you know, rain just wonderful. Thank you. Yeah it it, it really is it. I I when we had some technical difficulties here I was beginning to talk about how you know it's the lifeboat analogy and but it but it's a funny sort of lifeboat analogy because Bitcoin continues to grow and develop and and as the adoption curve progresses more and more people fit in the lifeboat, but the lifeboat grows with it and into a point where it can it can grow into the ship itself, right. So we sort of have this ailing current system and this, this wonderful lifeboat that creates you know an opportunity for constructive growth and development and solution to many of the problems that we are facing with the traditional system at the moment. Such that it, you know it's it really is the only thing that's giving me optimism at this point in time about how things can play out fiscally, economically into the future. Because because that debt spiral is very scary if you don't have a way out. And and as a millennial without Bitcoin, I would not have any optimism about ever being able to retire for example. But with Bitcoin, I have that optimism because it it creates this tailwind for my finances and it allows me to plan for the future in a way that my peers are not. You know, I'm focused on building a family right now and most of my friends are not. And I think that that's just as an an outcome way downstream of having Bitcoin as my store of value currency versus the dollar. And and so you know, there's probably a better way to to encapsulate that that hope, that optimism, that relief that the Bitcoin lifeboat allows for and and and represents. But it's unmistakable that it it can. It has the ability to make a better future for us as individuals and collectively at a time when the math is starting to look a little scary, with the current ship starting to list a little in the water and taking on, you know, a little too much seawater. Yeah. Yeah, I think, I think what Jesse's alluding to is like there's two parts of Bitcoin in the sense of like you have the monetary for preservation of wealth, that obviously matters. But then there's also this lens that you start to to get on the world. And I'm sure you've seen Mark, you know, we discussed of like when you see that there's a like, there's these two parts and it comes up more and more. And you referenced it about pessimism, depression, all the stats that we know that are happening in the US and like globally. And it's one thing to like not know what the problem is because that's already disconcerning and like disorienting. But then even if you know what the problem is, then not having the solution is the second kind of like part of like where you just don't have the hope. And so being able to have both of those from like the Darwinistic, kind of like preservation of wealth and being able to build and and have children, all those things are irrelevant. But then it's also starting to see the the world for what it is in in the problems. Then you can actually diagnose. But then the other part where you're referencing Mark is like on, you know, this stuff's happening and being used now today. And so you made this reference point about 4X and how we can see this kind of like transition. And we've talked about it on previous podcasts on this like Oscillation that we think we'll see over the next decade between like gold, Bitcoin and then whatever the you know, digital currency is whether it's a dollar, CBDC or alternative you know other countries currency but there's all these other and that's already kind of happening Now when you have all these cryptocurrencies in this different trade, we see what happens with Forex or like remittances with Bitcoin. So you can kind of squint and already see the market structure happening and the utility that's being provided it's it's you know without goes without saying it's at a very micro scale. But it's to your point that like these concepts have been delivered for for years now by people that were came way before us and they're playing out. And so we're kind of right in the thick of it in the middle whether it's how we custody and these other things that we're talking about or doing these primitives we're we're building in the financial structure that you can kind of squint and see larger and larger cross country cross you know commodity bases on how you settle with Bitcoin. Yep, it it is there. And I still think the Bitcoin UI, which is what you guys are trying to solve for, is terrible. You know, there was this, I mean relative to to how easy Web Two makes things. And you know, there's this story about AOL back in the day that is early. And Steve Case is saying, you know, we have a problem, why isn't this happening? Why are we getting adoption? And this engineer actually relevant doesn't, But she said, she picked up the phone and said until we get this, until we get a dial tone on on demand, we will not have full scale adoption. I think it took 18 months and it involved connectivity. It involved getting more you know coax as opposed to dial up. So you know we we, we have this throughput, we just don't I think have a great UI which is why you need trusted partners in the beginning and that's why it's going to be, you know, we are a regulatory rapper and through ETS and funds you guys do the custodial work. And as we said in the other call, we support you know sovereign holdings but without going down that one, we need to be a better UI. That's why Bitcoin is only trading at a $780 billion market cap and not, you know, 20 or 100 trillion right now. Yeah, so that's it. It makes sense to me that it'll happen, but no one's thinking about why they need it until they see it. Right. I I like to talk about how there's there's two parts of the digital revolution. There's the digitization of information and there's the digitization of value. And we've lived through the the former that's the Internet and you know the the Internet was started in in the 70s, I think it was 79 like the first really true Internet. And so you know your AOL moment is 15 years into that you know and and we don't think about it that way retrospectively we we think about the Internet as starting in the 90s but that that's not true. It it was already 15 years in the making before AOL came along and that's really that hockey stick in the global adoption point that everyone remembers. So you know, where are we right now? We're 15 years into Bitcoin and and what was the 1st 15 years for the Internet? It was like super clunky, super technical, very hard to find information. You needed to be very technical to understand what the hell to do and you were troubleshooting a lot of it, your own and and eventually those those sticking points were obfuscated away, abstracted away as as we bet got better and better UI and and there therefore the UX improved to a point where you know eventually you you don't even have to click anything to log on to connect to the Internet. You just literally pick up your phone but you know that's way further down the road. But you know in the early 90s you were you were dealing with you you had your own dial up Internet and you had to be running some code on your computer to to connect to the Internet at night. You know, I remember watching my dad struggle with that stuff basically as as like an early Internet adopter and you know, in Bitcoin, we're 15 years in and we're still in that phase like and it's understandable that we are, it's still pretty technical. Things are getting better and better, the apps, the the services, the infrastructure is becoming better. And we're solving some of those problems that prevent mainstream adoption. And you know, at what point does that take off? Don't don't know. Don't know if it's you know external factors that that add up to to make the value proposition for Bitcoin suddenly clear to everybody. ETFs and the marketing that'll come from people like BlackRock saying that Bitcoin should be a part of your portfolio could definitely be a big part of that. But then it's the the technology and the services that keep getting better and and simpler and there's a going to be some sort of point where the majority of people can understand bitcoins value proposition and find it not as technically intimidating as it currently and and historically has been. And that's gonna be that hockey stick moment for Bitcoin adoption too. Well, this leads into a good point. I mean, Mark, you mentioned earlier that people need to get curious 1st and very interested to get your perspective on that and your work at 3 IQ. As you've been building out the research arm there, what are you seeing on your end? Are people getting more curious, so they asking better questions? Jesse mentioned the Black Rock ETF. Has that been a catalyst for increased curiosity? And I I would say it's it is very hard we've we've gone to what I call hand to hand combat where we're travelling more and we're doing shows or you know presentations with financial advisors companies etcetera. And I do believe I think pictures and stories help. I spoke to one advisor about, I said I was amazed at the at the performance distribution of Bitcoin. I didn't realize how much it punched far to the right. It's not a normally distributed performance pattern over any kind of weak months, year or quarter a year. And it's more logarithmic. And that is for a period in time Tesla had that type of distribution. But it it then became a little bit more normal. And I said that's why Black Rock's involved because Bitcoin and BlackRock thinks Bitcoin is going to survive. So that's that's what you know Larry Fink got orange filled by someone and so now they're saying well, it's going to survive and so now let's monetize its performance because the bonds are not providing downside support. So they're looking at it as a remedy to the 6040 among other reasons. And I bring it up because that was a huge utilitarian moment for me coming from the investment side. And when I relayed that to another RIA, they said no one said this, I never realized that. So there's still a lot of Nuggets and the question is always have a nugget around that someone can digest and then walk out from there, but just find out, you know, what they like to eat, what their diet is. So that's that's been a bit more again hand to hand, it's it's hard to do in a publication. It's a little bit easier with these types of podcast. So thanks for having me on. But face to face is still worthwhile because that's how unusual it is to get someone to invest. It really is a tough conversion. It's happening a little faster. We're getting inflows, but that's that's where I'm. As a solution to the the problems of the 6040 portfolio, you know that that resonates with me as like that really is what people should be locking onto with Bitcoin. But what are the other types of like? Depending on what a person likes to eat, you know what narratives they're worried about, or thinking about what are the like the other anecdotes or or facts or, you know, angles that resonate with the Wall Street crowd to wealth managers, various audiences you're speaking to. Making it look like a, you know, understanding technology stocks. So obviously we all know about the Magnificent 7 in the US we have a Canadian audience. So they look at the TSX and that's been you know, dead in the water, think up three and a half, 4% of the year. So they're looking for remedies and if you look at how tech stocks are valued, they have high book to high price to books. You know we we did a piece, we showed that the bank index is like called it 1.2 or .9 price to book, it's it, but it has assets, it's price trades around it. JP Morgan's at a premium and other banks that are at discount. And then you move up the curve to maybe like Visa, which is kind of like not, not not a bank. It's like moving up the curve of trying to dematerialize from the financial system that has a higher price to book. And then you go to NVIDIA and that's like a 40 price to book because you can't use it's book value to value it. Technology stocks are valued on how much, how well management can convert intelligence and strategy using hardware and software and it's a much faster and dynamic work industry. So also cash flow per share is very high for these companies. If you look at Bitcoin and you look at cash flow per token, very high. If you looked at price to book, even if you roll in and say the Bitcoin money network is 10 billion, you have a pretty high price to book. So that's how we kind of convert people to say, I know where you're sitting, I know what you look at. Let me show you how I view the, you know, the Bitcoin protocol. It is a technology. It's odd because it's the Internet of money or it's a monetary Internet. You couldn't own the Internet. So let's say it's more like NVIDIA than it is like TCPIP. So that's one way, Jesse, that we've done as well. Yeah, yeah. Makes a lot of sense. It's sort of backwards from how I would have thought about it of like you. You want to. You want to. Focus on that before Jesse that I'm kind of back here, so don't, don't, don't worry about. It but it makes sense because it's just backwards like I I guess I I fall into the trap as as not you know I've I've never been a stocks person but I fall into the trap of thinking man PE ratios are just way too high. But it you're right that it's like kind of a different animal when you're talking about technology. And so a lot of that is warranted. And if it's warranted, it's great that Bitcoin happens to to be something like that, you know? So it's kind of a funny, a funny way of looking at it freshly. Yeah, basically they're the wrong metrics. People are still using some metrics. You know, we look at the Bohr models still, even though we're like, you know, maybe that's not exactly how that stuff flows around, but it's a good starting point for us to walk into, you know, the great structure. Yeah, that's the Is that the soup? The atomic soup one. No, no the the the the Bohr model is the Styrofoam ball with the toothpicks for the electrons flying around. Got it. OK. OK. Yeah, Yep. Yeah, yeah. I think all the things you just explained are important from just providing mental models for people to start to like anchor to something that doesn't you know you can't touch or feel but you you hit a point like business. It's always been relationship driven. You've always needed to meet individuals in in space and meet space to shake hands and look eyes. I feel like marking my experience and I think what you're alluding to it's it's it's pronounced or it's higher like there's higher conversion slash just trust building when it comes to this asset class and meeting because of there's just historically haven't been a trustworthy individuals like you referenced early. But then also the fact that like you're tying some component whether you're it's implicit or explicit like to this asset versus it just going online going to a Coinbase clicking a button and then you're hoping that it's still there when you look for it, it's like I'm looking at somebody in the face. I'm shaking hands. I'm understanding what's happening and that there's a a team of business behind this which makes sense that like it it probably and we think about our business and what you've been doing, it's probably be a heavy part of this for the next couple of years is anchoring to the real world something that doesn't have any kind of like tangible feel in it? Yeah, yeah. And that's why you know your model when you are trying to say you don't have to do it. You can get you know related parties to help. You know just like how you have a trust agreement. You meet with a lawyer and they hold it your you know last long testament or your your other documents. You know this is how we can do it here too. You know that someone calls it not someone. A few folks have highlighted the term skeuomorphic which if you're on you know Bloomberg or something they ring a bell when you use fancy language or something. No no. No jargon language. Yeah, but but it means it's it's like when the automobiles in the beginning had a horse head on them because they wanted people to be familiar. They're used to seeing horses on the streets, not cars. So they may not move out of the way because they don't know what it is. So I I I think that's kind of what we're doing here. Bitcoin doesn't need to be in an ETF, but there's behaviors that are going to be lagging the opportunity that have to be accommodated and that's that's where we are. Thanks for tuning in to the last trade. If you're enjoying the show and want to dive deeper, check us out at on rampbitcoin.com where you'll find a full suite of institutional grade research and analytics including our recently published white paper, Bitcoin's full potential valuation and our new tool, the On Ramp Terminal. Now back to the show. You mentioned bad actors in the space. Obviously last year came with Terra Luna, Celsius block 5 FTX 3 arrows go down the list. How much does a model like the multi institution, multi sig model that on Ramp's going after help people get over the fears of the bad actors in the space? Historically, this idea that you can distribute custody risk amongst multiple trusted institutions, is that a good selling point? Yeah. Well, let let's go back to what we wrote about last year and when when it was happening and you know I came into right at the like week after first rate cut and two months before Tara Luna. So our analyst and I were trying to sort through what was going on, see a pattern and we finally came up with soon unregulated centralized bad actors with bad business models. There's an asset liability mismatch and that last one was a biggie. You know, whether it be Terra Luna, you know with with their model, whether it be 3 arrows, certainly Machinsky, forget the fraud, the business model wasn't really sound Asset liability mismatches, you know, taking down a lot of firms. So that is a big one. Is there leverage involved? Is there an asset liability mismatch? Those are the two biggest. And then is there transparency, You know, it wasn't transparency into you know, 3 arrows. If you read those trustee reports on the emails between the prime brokers and three arrows, they're like, yeah, no problem, we got it. You sure you guys have enough you can make the margin call? Yeah, we'll, we'll do it. Never made. So I I I think having transparency onto it and then knowledge because here's a big one and I'd like to actually take this across the side I want to put it say put a pin in it because I'm I'm not sure I like that term but let's I'd like to focus on this one. FTXS movement of four plus billion out of the FTT deployer wallet in June to Alameda and then back to FTX in September was caught on ether scan. I know we're talking about Bitcoin here but that blockchain had transparency on it. No one looked at it. So I think part of it is the tools are there but no one it's it's too much too fast. So back to on ramp, if you guys can clarify it, provide the provide the transparency and you have that sound unlevered model then I think you know those are the boxes. I think differentiate what you're offering, then what the other bad actors, you know, how people were harmed in 2022. Yeah. I think I think it's important to to take it like to your point, the skeuomorphic don't know that term. But I'll, I'll go with your. I'll go with your. I'll trust your definition in that sense of like how do you anchor back to what people know And this idea of people know financial institutions they know banks but there's this natural aspect of Bitcoin that's different than other assets that you can split up that trust in in in movement. But to your point, Mark, it's like there has to be an education and this is really where you kind of like joke around it's like we're so early that you know it's obviously like maybe we have, but I I don't believe so and I think a lot of people this call would agree that we haven't really figured out custody. So we're so early that we haven't even figured out just like how to hold the asset long term and this idea of, you know, like how do you actually get somebody to earnestly look at the asset. And I generally will go as far as I say, it's like the education is almost secondary because people can't earnestly look at it because historically if you look at the long tail of firms that have existed in the space, they don't exist very long. So all people generally know is that if I buy it, I can only buy so much because it's there's a good chance that I won't get to have it or it won't be around and it's not my own. It doesn't have to be, they get hacked. It could just be like the the, you know, the third party that they're leveraging. And so I think by anchoring too and it doesn't have to be like on RAMPS model, it's more of this whole notion is really valid of like not your keys, not your coins hardware or things offline. Because at the end of the day and this is something we used previously, it's like the keys don't get up and walk away. So if you have a single hardware device the reason why it's it's lasted and been a A use case is because that that hardware device if you back it up and you put it somewhere it doesn't get up and walk away. Now there's things that can happen. You want redundancy built in as the the net value of your as the asset appreciates as a percentage of your net worth and that's where like multi say comes in And then those keys don't also walk away because you distribute them and there's obviously like trade-offs with that. And then you you pick that up into this like multi institution model where now there's different institutions that have those keys offline. They don't plug themselves in. They have like governance processes and controls in place and that's historically what financial institutions had and that they have processes and now you distribute that where if one's a bad actor you have this ability. So to your point, Mark, I think that like the skeuomorphic, like this idea of multiple institutions and the process starts to anchor back to the the old world and has a check on all the things you just referenced with FTX. But also to your point, there's a lot of education that goes into play and like why it's a standard, why it's not like proprietary to a certain firm, why it's you know the it's native to the protocol and all those things. But I think just like everything you start somewhere and then you start to build up and it ultimately with trust and reputation and other firms come in and doing this you start to build a standard in the industry and that's part partially where a lot of the folks on is calling on ramp believe it's like we're establishing kind of a standard and then others will will follow and it's generally like all things and technology. It's not like the coin bases of the world. It's a tier 3 exchange. It's a tier 3 fund or some other kind of family office that starts And then as others demand it, others start to look around and the game theory starts to dictate. Or you know like hey, are you going to do this or why aren't you doing this And then you see it establish. As you know it's the same thing with the banks right now and and BlackRock getting into Bitcoin. It was. It was starting to become too big to ignore. Yep, Yep. And it will take time. Yeah. And that, I mean that's the question is how much time, like how much do you think the macroeconomic tailwinds will force people to become more curious like the, I guess pivoting this back to the macro backdrop, do you think it's chaotic enough to force the issue on people learning about Bitcoin quicker? Not in the USIII think that. You know we people in our industry talk about the global S Argentina just let their peso go as not as promised but part of plan by 54% yesterday. Yeah, and and that's, I mean it, it is on our neighbours are on fire, so it is happening there. I think here it does have to be dressed up as a delectable delight that can maybe be passed on to your children and partially understood, but an amount that won't hurt you. If I had to be put my salesman hat on which I have one, we're a small firm and I do try to get people to buy it based on our research, is is exactly that. It's an investment vehicle. It's full blown When it metamorphosizes, metamorphizes for its when the metamorphosis happens and Bitcoin becomes what I think is a settlement layer and price, you know, transforms from being priced in Fiat to being the unit of measure that's that's not even worth talking about. People are already starting to text their phone on their phone by the time you bring up that topic. So I I do think the investment thesis is a big one for getting people involved now and the benefit of that for the longer plan. If you are a Bitcoin believer that it it's real services being fully distributed, you want to get as many people in now with 50 to 150 basis points of their portfolio. Don't have me even think about it being a unit of measure in 2010, 20-30 years. Just have them be in it now, yeah. Do you have a strong opinion on like you know how these ETFs manifest themselves in the long tail like risk associated where if you have to get you know sexy up your version not yours, but in general the market's version that people may hear you know, leverage or yield and all the things associated. And we kind of get orders of magnitude larger kind of carnage I guess for lack of better words that we saw in 22. But at the like institutional level, have you, have you thought anything about that? Do you? Do you you want to read your perspectives to see if the issuer or custodian can rehypothecate the coins? That's one. I I don't believe that's in there, in the ones. I haven't read all 13 by any stretch, but I know what our ours are in cold storage separate. When I read the BlackRock one, there wasn't any language at all about that and I sort of wondered if the lack of addressing that topic implies that they would potentially follow, you know, ETF normal practices and consider rehypothecating. I don't know the, the biggest discussion now and suggest that's something to go back. I mean definitely for me to go back and look at the, the part that is on the table now is whether or not the, I think the APS, the redemption creation folks, the broker dealers, whether they can do in kind or whether they have to do cash. And I think I believe a purist, we'd like to see it be in kind in order to reduce the potential for spoofing or more paper Bitcoin even temporarily for a day or two being on the books. So that's that's the biggest piece I I think Blackrock's going back to try to get it to be in kind. Yeah, that's right. They're they're one of two that's fighting for that, which sort of surprised me. Maybe Larry Fink really, really is more of a believer that I thought. It yeah, I I I agree. I agree. Well, while we're on this topic, obviously there's 13 ETF filings out there to assume that most of them will get approved at some point potentially in the next month or two. How do you see the competition amongst these ETS playing out? You see Pareto distribution of who gets the most AUM versus others. How? How vicious is this competition for AUM gonna be? And and and Mark maybe you want to tell everybody what you shared in the webinar of like your knowledge and and expectations about when and the likelihood of of approval? OK, so the the Ark investment isn't is the next firm up with a or Ark has a final deadline of January 10th and the SEC has the ability to pass twice. If they pass the third time on a application, which Ark did a while ago, they have to give a new reason and it'll be a final kill shot. We don't think that's going to happen because on August 29th, Judge Naomi Rao, who's the who's the Chief Justice in the the Washington DC Federal Second Circuit Court, said that the SE CS argument was arbitrary and capricious, a term she used eight times. And. And their argument was that yes, yes, the SEC approved a futures based ETF for Bitcoin in 2021. I think but that's very different because the CFTC overseas it, they understand, you know the eight or the 9:30 to 4:00 trading. So they surveil it well, they understand the futures of the underlying that underlines the ETF. But this spot market, holy moly, no one knows what's going on there. You got finance out, you know, without even a headquarters trading 70% of the market, there's no way we can know what's going on. And the judge in March when they, when the hearing happened said that's an arbitrary and capricious approach essentially, which she then used later. It's illogical because the future is based on the spot. How can you approve a future without a spot? And and we and we belabor that point because for the listeners out there think of that a future is based on a spot whether it's the E Minis in the S&P based on the S&P index or gold on the gold spot, they're based on the spot. If you don't trust the spot, why would you do a futures. It made no sense. So that's why in her 21 page opinion, her last word, she says what she felt and deemed their argument to be unlawful. Strongest words I've ever read in any court filing and I was involved in distress for about 10-12 years. So I think they heard her loud and clear and that's why they didn't appeal on October 13th. And if you look at your Bitcoin charts that's when Bitcoin started take off. So they're going to approve it or they're messing with a with censure and potential civil I don't think they knew criminal but but civil liability from the court. So generally and that was a big long segue because that's how strongly I feel it's going to happen and it's going to happen sometimes people think the 8th to the 10th. So that's when we think the approval will happen. The part I don't know fully well and maybe the other Jesse you whether can is whether or not BlackRock and others are can roll it out that day. I don't think that's clear. Yeah the the speculation I've I've seen from the the Bloomberg ETF guys is is their their base cases that the SEC just kind of quietly stamps them all at the same time so that nobody has like a leg up or gets to claim a win you know? Yeah. Yeah. And I've heard like ranges of approval to launch anywhere from days to 45 days. For some reason that 45 day figure has been out there, but I believe somebody was saying that futures Bitcoin ETF, when that was approved, it launched three to five days after. Who knows if there will be some different outcome for this, but that's what I've heard. And Mark, what do you what do you expect from your your previous colleagues and peers like are they finally gonna go streaking with you Like what What's your phone gonna be like what's what what's your phone gonna be like that week when that when you know it it finally does get approved. I will get some pings I think. I think there will, there will be some pings and and unfortunately it'll be at 6070 thousand that's when you're going to get most of people buying I believe. Yeah, I I mean Marty's been through this a little, little longer than the rest of us, but in invariably it ends up being like well north of a new all time high. That's when that's when my friends start taking interest. And so if that was the play out again that we're talking 100K before people even start being like should I buy some now is now a good time, which will be very frustrating to see you again. It must be. It must be a nice world to be with the the big boys. When you think about you reference the October filing But then BlackRock had announced in the the summer. So like you know it's very, very nice alignment And then you know two days ago with Google relaxing the, you know the ad spend which they had put in like 2020 like oh it's so nice, so convenient going into 20 as these like everybody goes, you know crazy on spend to to market themselves like just it's nice, nice beautiful dance into the to the big ball. I I don't think we're prepared for for the marketing arms of these investment giants suddenly telling the world, telling every American with an investment portfolio at least you should really have some Bitcoin like that, that's gonna be a very different world to live in very soon. And what do you mean by that, Jesse, that they won't be able to do it or that the impact would be meaningful? Yeah, that that for the for bitcoin's entire life, all the media on it has been, you know, dubious at best. It has been this is a scam. This is Internet drug money. You know, it's used by criminals. And we're not we we've never lived in a world where BlackRock is saying hey this is a great product you should buy some you know and and not not just BlackRock but these thirteen other EDETF providers really like as soon as those ETFs go live all of Wall Street has an incentive to to then funnel money to these new products and take a cut along the way. That's going to be kind of a a a light switch I think in terms of what people are exposed to with regard to you know how they're shaping their perspective about what Bitcoin is and is it a good idea or a bad idea. So suddenly we're going to go from like, it's just kind of the sketchy thing that nobody really talked about. And there's occasionally a very negative news piece to, you know, investment marketing saying it's a good idea that's going to be pretty night and day. I agree. I agree. I mean, over the weekend, even people I talked to in the industry outside, they're like, Oh yeah, wasn't that, you know, they just talked about the SPF, you know, the guy was hugging Tom Brady's Super Bowl like that is that's going to have a bit of a tail in people's minds, unfortunately. And I, I agree with you about the impact. Wall Street loves transactions. You know, Bitcoin captures energy, Marty. You know, you've, you've lived it from the ground up, you know whether it's capturing it from sustainable or other energy and transferring and minting a coin, it captures energy. Wall Street does that in trades. They take in money. They have an idea, they have a bid, they've asked, they tell a story and they capture a a transaction in time and price and they take a Commission. So this is going to be big. They're going to say what I do something. It has 80 basis points on it. When the other ETFs are, you know, anywhere from a nickel to 25 basis points, this is going to get attention. Well, and that also leads me to question too. Like Wall Street is vaunted as the experts of the financial world and trading and how to allocate money appropriately in size and at the right time. Like in we're talking about retail reaching out to us above an all time high. That's the one thing I'm wondering is like how many of these trading desks actually recognize the opportunity and will get the timing and sizing right at the beginning of this gun being shot to start the race with the ETF being approved? What? Do you think, Jess? I don't think, I think they're they're noobs. I think they're Bitcoin noobs and there's no way around it. And and you know I I write about this sometimes the the hubris of having having training in finance and business and you think you know and you think you know about money. You think you know about investing and you think you know assets. And so you're going to bring that hubris to this. And we're going to get a whole wave of that. And Bitcoin will, will welcome these newbies in and will some of them will make a lot of money and some of them will make a lot of the classic mistakes that that we made in 2017. And you know, the learning curve is going to begin for a lot of them at that point in time. And that's OK. You know, like as we're talking about this, a thought popped in my head of like, how's Marty, How's Marty feeling about the suits arriving here? And you know, the reality of it here is what we're talking about is the suits are here to pump your bags and and tell you that they're that you know that the big boys are here now. But yeah, which will be annoying, but it will also be Bitcoin growing up and Bitcoin succeeding and it comes with the territory. So I it's a whole, it's a whole mixed bag. It's going to be very annoying to have Wall Street telling everybody about, oh, we just discovered Bitcoin, but great, I'm glad that they're joining the party. Yeah. Well on that like this has come up from I don't know I think Larry talked about it Larry Leopard on on previous pod. But like because of the we're talking about the reflexivity of of the the asset and then like it go in no bid and and how can people facilitate the trades. Do you have any like take on that mark or like where you see that because again that's the thing that is not is so foreign to the market is there's a world where they can't find or source enough liquidity. And that's I think that things like the question that's going to be hanging out there across desks, whether a crypto native desk or in the traditional finance space. Yeah and and that is a big deal when the new, you know we just talked about transactions when you have an IPO, the issuer usually gives the the book running manager a green shoe, the ability to pull down more to satisfy or to short and then cover lower. So they there's a there's a creation mechanism beyond what is transparent as you said, you can't do that with with Bitcoin. In fact, going back to the specifics in that January 8th to 10th window where we expect it's the SEC to approve all 13. I think we're in agreement on that or at least that's it. I I agree with that and I think Marty said as well, when that happens, two things are going to happen. Folks like Grayscale may be able to convert their existing trust. Fidelity has a wise origin trust. They'll likely offer that conversion to their clients and should probably take it. And there might be a few other trusts so that'll be a conversion that might allow for some selling. But any new orders have to be bought on that day. There's no pre buying big. You know, I I don't believe, I don't know, I don't believe that they're pre buying this. So will there be a a gap in this, this, this absolutely there could be a gap. You know you don't have gold sitting you know at the London Stock Exchange they can you know this is very different. So that's why we we, that's why I did the piece with you Jesse last week is we started looking evaluation model because you have to talk price because it's going to move and it'll be volatile to just like we saw last week with the you know down 1015% move. This is very different. To answer your question Michael, this is new to Wall Street. They don't understand it. They like to control processes and they do not control supply on this. Perfectly said yeah, I, I, I I think that's a big a big question with these ETFs. And I think that it's something that that people are generally assuming incorrectly about how this will play out where like on the day that ETFs are approved doesn't. Does that mean there will be suddenly you know Blackrock's been waiting to deploy 2% of of their clients assets into Bitcoin and boom you know you suddenly rock it up to 100,000 +. I I I don't think so because I think you know the mechanics you described there's there's a moment in time where suddenly it's possible for people to start allocating into Bitcoin and and and for these ETFs to start purchasing Bitcoin to enable that. But it's you know, I I don't think that there's like people sitting on the sideline just chomping at the bit waiting to get in who haven't, you know, already found a way to get exposure to Bitcoin. But what it does is it adds this this ability for capital to start flowing in in these new channels and continue flowing in. And so like that's one thing about the mechanics that I think people are like assuming incorrectly. It will suddenly skyrocket. I we could totally have a gap up because you know, if there is suddenly, you know, if there's some amount of excitement to buy on that day and the and the total shortage of interest and selling because suddenly there's an ETF and so why would you sell? We could, we could have a gap up. But I think that gap up is you know and Mark, I think you're thinking this is it, it could be maybe it's 10,000, but it's probably not going to be like suddenly we're at 200,000. I think, I think there's there's something worth like also it's anecdotal but like we can make the case that the existing stock of Bitcoin being held is being held by the most sophisticated Bitcoin holder in basically the past 15 years. And what I mean by that is you had the run up in 17, those were like, you know a lot of O GS people have their price points, the price sells or people sell the price you go. And we've oscillated you know back and forth from like 1718 hovered in this like range but then going in 20 late 2020-2021, yeah, this new entrance into the market. But a lot of people were shaken out and what I mean sophisticated, I mean like shaken out from positions that they held on all the quote UN quote bad actors in the space. And we I think Marty mentioned and there's like the data behind kind of longest bear market. So you've kind of had it, you've had this chance to not only shake out people like unwillingly based on just they thought they held Bitcoin that doesn't exist and they're they're sitting in bankruptcy, you know court and everybody else was sitting in whether it's a better exchange or in in cold storage. But then we've been in this long bear market for people to fortify positions, increase positions where I think again making this case of like we've basically SAT roughly 25,000, you know give or take for five years, you ran to 20 and 17, we kind of ran up to 68. But we've like oscillated between on average in this in this area where this next leg up. There's a lot of people that aren't really their position for a longer term hold. And obviously this is like anecdotal, but you can start to make that case of who's holding Bitcoin is not the same holder that existed in a net you entered in 2020 and 2021 coupled with newer liquidity pools coming in. It just it's a it's ripe for, you know what we're talking about this like gap up or explosive setup. Yep. Yeah, and that's a look. And I put a chart that unchanged as posted earlier today just to quantify all this, Bitcoin's up what, 100 and more than 2 1/2 X this year? And only 12.9% of the coins have moved in the last three months. And So what you're describing, Michael, it's really playing out in these hotto waves. You see these peaks of the orange usually when the price goes up. But if you look at what's happening right now, despite the fact we're up well over 100% this year, it's it's not peaking. People are not moving. Yeah, and go actually, can you pull that, pull that back up where where, when that first time it hit 40K, where's the if you hover over I'm trying to look at. It's a tweet, so. I know I'm just but I'm just trying to think is that 21 probably like 21 right there like that peak, that last circle that was roughly the the last kind of 40K run up the huddle the yeah. People are unfazed by by unimpressed by 40K right now. And you know I think this, this, this is goes back to there's a very good case to be made that right now the the spring is compressed for a variety of factors. And I, I think Michael's right that you know we've been in this zone for quite some time now, really five years is that's fair You know that that we've been in this sort of transitional phase for the last five years maybe even you could call it the last two bull markets of this asset is no longer just a a toy for crypto anarchists and it's now like becoming digital gold, but it's not quite there yet. And then looking forward, there's a pretty distinct new era on the horizon of like this is digital gold for the investment community like starting in a month, you know. So we've been in this compressed spring zone for five years of it being in this like stepping stone to to Bitcoin, graduating to the next stage of its life and and and you know, graduating into becoming a global store value asset and we're right on the cusp of that moment happening. So you know, I, I, I think I, I did some analysis earlier this year of like what's the, what's the probability that this next bull market is bigger than the previous one. And yeah, kind of impossible to say but but I I, I pegged pegged it ultimately at like 30 to 40% chance that next this bull market, the next two years is a bigger bull market than the one we saw in in 2020-2021. Specifically because in that era we had, we had the, you know the negative factors, the headwinds of the China mining ban and then the pivot from QE to QT by the end of 2021, which just kind of cut short the the mania that I think would have happened under normal conditions. So we had this, this very unfortunately timed headwinds occur in 2021 that caused it to I think be a less explosive bull market than it otherwise would have been. And right now we're in the in the opposite conditions of we are in QT. And I think it's probable that they'll be pivoting back to QE if they, you know, they sort of already have liquidity is already up into 2024 plus the ETFs plus, you know the sovereign debt crisis and and global macro things going on with Argentina and and elsewhere. And the case for Bitcoin is suddenly clear. All those are all those things are tailwinds that could mean that this next bull market ends up being more explosive for the first time ever, more explosive than the bull market before it. Not my base case, but the the the spring is compressed because we've been in this same price zone for so long despite all this development that's happened. And the fact of the matter is that a month from now, we're in a totally new era for Bitcoin. Yeah, the we, we haven't really touched on the on the whole digital gold part, but it's about I think for the viewers or listeners. If you look at the amount of our economy has gone online in the digital realm, no one's really looking to build warehouses to get people to get in the cars to visit them too often, you know baseball game, a concert etcetera. But with more the economy going online to have a monetary layer that settles every 10 minutes is a big deal. It's it's an odd concept but just it's been talked about for three decades and that's something that you know you can ask Jesse or myself or anyone on here for information we can give it to you. So yes it is digital gold, We are in a coiled spring. We are priced along with equities and bonds in a an environment that is QT ridden. So we're already pricing pretty bad things. We haven't priced in QE, we haven't priced in fully the ETF yet. And if you look at Bitcoin in particular versus stocks as we said, it punches to the right, it has such a positive skew because of events and adoption and it solves a a problem. So you're 30 to 30%, you know bigger bull market is, is is a fair to conservative in my opinion. I there's just a lot of data that supports. That it's just, yeah, go ahead. Chelsea was gonna say it's funny you mentioned potential quantitative easing coming. Funnily enough, as we're recording this, Jerome pal is going through his meeting and one of the headlines out of there is most Fed officials expect Rate cuts in 2024 Bitcoins ripping interesting today. So, so they have, they have come out and said that now. So the the narrative they've they've rolled out the carpet in advance of that happening. That's what that says to me, right? Like they don't want anything to ever be a surprise to the market. So they're they're priming the market for that, eventually coming sometime soon now. We heard it from Marty first, folks. You heard it from Marty. Seriously, that's that's a big difference. Yeah, you all be hearing this on Friday. It'll be a couple days late, but we're, the, the pros in this talk are hearing it now from Marty. Yeah, Bitcoin approaching 43,000 again. Marty, are you are are they gonna start calling you Marty the Fed Whisperer? I hey, I'm not at Nick Tamaros. I'm not at his level yet. But if I keep keep my eyes on the tweet deck long enough, maybe I could be, you know, but I did. I know we got to wrap up here soon, but I did want to bring it back to the discussion about the immediate demand post ETF launch and particularly focused on BlackRock and that could be completely out of bounds with this idea. But is there the potential like once they launch the ETF, maybe they don't want to wait for demand for new customers to buy into the ETF? Could they put the ETF in a commodities basket? Because I'm looking at, look when you pull up the GSCI index that they have tracking commodities and if you look at historical performance, it's not doing great right now. And if they want it to bolster the returns in their commodities portfolios like Bitcoin has been deemed A commodity by the CFTC. Is that an Ave. they could go through? Or could they put get exposure to Bitcoin in these commodity portfolios via their own ETF product, something I'm completely ignorant to? I'll I'll give a a shot at that. I I know it's it's deemed an asset by the IRS. I think the SEC has stated on a publicly that it's a commodity. I do know that BlackRock has an unconstrained bond fund and they could change the allocation there or a molten up bond fund, a multi asset fund. So yes they could have captive funds where they control the allocation. So that could happen. Yeah, my my thinking there Marty is that they would probably surprise the holders of the existing holders of that fund, the commodities fund who most of those investors probably don't think that Bitcoin is a a valid commodity. And so they would be maybe pissed off to be like why, why are you changing, why are you putting Bitcoin in My Portfolio all of a sudden. So they, they may may not want to surprise their, you know their clients with that, but I think Mark's right they they could and if they really want to deliver performance that's what they should do. So who knows? Right, because even though I set a multi asset fund which has more latitude on on asset types, they would have to sign an asset and say it's a commodity or digital asset and maybe that's not you know in the original prospectus. So yeah, I got I got some homework to do to figure out if if an agency has deemed it to be a full commodity in writing, and I I don't know if that's the case. Maybe that's why this ETF matters. Yeah, no, I just had that that harebrained thought while you were talking earlier, Jesse. It's like, I mean they don't have to wait for the manage of their clients. They have a bunch of other funds that they could dump it into. Yeah, I so I'm hoping, I I do want to say I'm very constructive on the on this on this year and this first quarter and there's going to be volatility. Grayscale could see some redemptions. There could be a lag between the announcement when Amy shoots up to you know up 10K like Jesse said from today's levels and it could go back down when it's not met. There's going to be volatility no doubt, but we love the trajectory on on the year. Yeah, I I kind of have this, I have this bad feeling this it's probably pattern recognition at this point of like people are a little too excited as about the ETFs as like the saviour that's going to send the Bitcoin price soaring. And historically whenever those events happen or anything like this, it's very bullish in advance. It becomes a a buy the rumor, sell the news event, you know, where like very exciting Bitcoin suddenly up a bunch. Maybe it gaps up 1000 or 5000 or 10,000 and then it turns out there's actually not like sustained demand created by this ETF yet. Possibly that's a possible scenario and then the bottom falls out and we go back towards where we were. But the reality is that that that new channel is now live and that demand keeps growing through those channels and that has a cumulative impact over time. So you know, whatever happens, the volatility will be there and and it'll be driven a lot in large part by speculators who are already in the market. I think trying to position in advance of it misjudging how much it changes demand day 2 and and but it and probably underestimating how much it changes demand for Bitcoin. You know Day 300. I know Jesse's playing devil's advocate, but just to, you know, the, the, the, the opposite side of that is what we reference like all the marketing push, it's like you can't give up, right? You can't like let up because of somebody else winning out the gate. So I if that's the idea, then they're going to be relentless with it so they don't end up in the back. And the one that we always forget about is fidelity. Like Fidelity's been involved, but I think everybody pretends like they don't support Bitcoin. It's like, Oh yeah, they're like abuse fidelity. They're so standard of trillions of dollars. Abbey, it's like, Oh yeah, they've just been playing around and so now it's Fidelity and BlackRock in that full push that would be like the counter to like they're just going to go and they're not going to stop because they're have to win out on like they're the de facto or one or top 2-3 asset managers that support have the technology and they just don't, they don't let up. No, I mean we tell you Fidelity has the biggest team in the US far not. They have 200 people. They're they're dedicated and yeah, and you and you and you throw some high margin product out there, they're gonna be getting it. And as I said you know in Canada we, we've seen inflows in November, some of the biggest posts the FTX. So people are front running Black Rock in Canada. God bless the Northern. And we we should give a shout out Fidelity like we we kind of talked a little bit you know BlackRock and us not being you know whether it's their their interests in the space, their technology, their parties was chatting with some folks that are closer to fidelity and they've like made a very concerted effort to like transform their business to like appreciate this asset class invested in the technology. I think they're the only ETF provider that is leveraging their own infrastructure when it comes to multi signature custody And so they're in it for the long haul. So it's nice to see that there's, you know, actual incumbent that's appreciating it from like a vertical integration perspective and doing things the right way. Yep. And to your point, there are people who have been there and I think that's this is not new Cathy Wood, obviously he's been owning Bitcoin person for a long time. She's been a holder. You know, I won't talk about her holding, but they're public and they're in the digital asset space. So you know, don't get get curious folks. Give us a call. I was going to ask what are what are your final thoughts to wrap up this conversation, but I think it's a call to action. Get curious? Get, get just read our stuff. Jesse's report on the on the valuation is just is a you know from salad to dessert has got it all and just eat it. And we we have some information on our website as well. Yeah, Mark, what was the what's that report, What's the report that you guys have of answering all the questions that like a wealth manager would have? So we'll make that available to wealth managers and it's called the advisor care kit because you're going to get a call about Bitcoin. And if you do not, if you cannot answer these questions, you will not get the order and they're going to sell stock in your account and buy Bitcoin away. So we actually saw that happen in the last run where advisors. We know this because we lived it. As a reference for advisors who say give me some information because I'm losing 5 to 10% of my assets people are throwing on Coinbase. That's exactly right. And we have this other thought that those assets that they moved over that sit outside when the price because it's 1%, they don't care when it's 5 to 10%, they're like, hey, can you bring them back? We have a solution for it. So that's a whole other pool of capital that we haven't really touched on. And back to what the question you asked, and it isn't on an unregulated exchange held in an omnibus account. You guys do it a little differently there at the Hunt ramp. So all all the more reason. Yeah, Mark, thanks for for coming on. We'll get an e-mail from you to any links that you want to include. And I'd be remiss to say we've talked about on this call out a a report, it was Jesse, maybe you want to plug the full potential evaluation and what happened last week because we've talked about it multiple times, we haven't announced like where it is and how they can find it. Yeah. So I put together, I turned my full potential evaluation article into a full report that we put out through on ramp and that's available on our on our website. If you go to on rampbitcoin.com/FPV full potential evaluation, there's a link there to download the report and and you can take a look through that. The idea there is for it to be you know like a a high quality piece of of educational material that packs a lot in and is very accessible and readable that makes a case for you know where Bitcoin is going, what's, what is the full potential valuation for Bitcoin, how high could this thing go. And the hope there is that people can, you know, use it as part of their own education. But I think it's particularly valuable to have to in order to give to your friends and colleagues to help them, you know, wake up and and see the potential of his assets. So go check that out on rampbitcoin.com/FPV. And last week we did, we did a webinar session walking folks through. We had like 200 joined for that and and we walked through the report and what it meant and then had a great conversation with Mark, myself and and and Brian from on RAMP where we talked through bitcoins full potential valuation various approaches to valuing Bitcoin and then had a a great Q&A from the audience that was our first webinar. We're we're planning to do that on a on a regular basis going forward. So if you want to be aware of those events going forward, the best way to to find out about them is to either follow us on Twitter at On RAMP Bitcoin or get on our our e-mail list and get our our weekly market updates and news from On Ramp about upcoming events, which you can find on our website. Awesome pros. It's been a pleasure. Mark, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you, Marty. Michael, Jesse, always a pleasure. Thanks, Jess. Yeah, it was great, Mark. All right. This is the last trade, but we'll be back. Next week was another episode of The Last Train.