The Last Trade E074: Reunderwriting America with David Thayer

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 gutless 1974198792972000. And whatever we want to call this, it's all just the same thing over and over. We can't help ourselves. I say when we sell. Hey, OK, I say when we sell. All right, welcome back to the last trade. We got an exciting one for you this week. We have all time highs once again and it might have something to do with our special guest who's joining us this week, David Thayer. David, want to hand it over to you in just a moment here to give a quick intro. I know you've been on the show previously. You're an advisor to the business. So we'd love to have you just give a quick intro and also want to just for those who are not on video listening audio, we have my Co host Michael Tanguma and we have Brian Cabela here, who's the Chief strategy officer at On Ramp. So the four of us really excited to get into this recent price action. David, maybe before we pull up the chart and just be enamored by this weekly move that we're taking a look at, could you just share a little bit more about your background and maybe what led you to Bitcoin in a couple minutes? Sure. Thanks, Jackson, by the way, for in passing giving me credit for the Bitcoin pump. So I much appreciate that. By the way, everyone's welcome. But yeah, so David Thayer, currently an Executive Advisor at Blackstone. The background is that some years ago with some other colleagues, we launched a fund called Harvest, which was then later bought by Blackstone. And I should mention as well, while we're on the topic that obviously I'm speaking in my own capacity and not Blackstone's for the remainder of the pod. But, but yeah, so then was a partner Blackstone for five years and stepped down a couple of years ago. I'm still with the firm now. And then, you know, it's sort of a lifelong libertarian. The, the Bitcoin phenomenon first came to light for me in 2010 actually, or maybe it was 2011 and literally it was trading at like $1.80 cents or something. And, but silly me, I, I, I thought it was kind of too complicated. And you know, in fairness, it was at the time to kind of buy. So I'm not much of A techie and, and watched it, you know, go from there to all the way, all the way up until like 2020 when I finally took the plunge, idiot that I am, but I've been following it the whole time. It was always from a natural by product of, you know, our collective desire, I think at least among fellow freedom lovers for an alternative to Fiat currency. And this finally seemed to be one that was going to work. And given all the qualities and properties that we know make it work. You know, it's had staying power, not surprisingly. So it took a deep plunge a few years ago. Been really involved in the community ever since. And one of the things, by the way, that I should mention that that helped drive my interest in the orange coin was then, you know, I'm long time friends with Alex Gladstein, have been with a Human Rights Foundation, big supporter of theirs really since their inception in 2005. And we've been communicating about it over the years. And he had a lot to do with kind of pushing me over the edge. So, you know, seeing from that perspective as well, it obviously has human rights implications, which is why I think it has, you know, it's so laughable when a lot of folks think that somehow Bitcoin is, you know, bad for humanity, bad for the environment, some of the other tropes that we've heard over time. So anyway, that's that's kind of my origin story. Are you ready to secure your future with Bitcoin? At Onramp, we're revolutionizing how you can save for retirement. 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Onramp provides Peace of Mind for your Bitcoin journey, whether for your whole stack or for part of it, as a complement to your existing self custody setup. For more information about our services as well as our new Bitcoin IRA product, check us out at onrampbitcoin.com. Yeah, Well, I mean, just to throw David on the spot, you know, this Trump election, you were, I would love to hear about Pub key and and, you know, I saw a couple photos there and I saw you in the in the background. I don't know if you got a a McDonald's burger, but would love to hear kind of how that went down and that that evening was because I haven't really talked to anybody. I know a couple individuals over there, but never talked about it afterwards. And obviously we've seen what's happened after. Yeah, that was, it was a neat day. So as it happens, I'm involved with Travel Venture Partners and and they were going to host a reception that evening anyway. And then I got a call later from Thomas Paki and whom we all know who owns Pub Key, launched it. And he said, guess who's coming to Pub Key? And I said, sailor, He's like, Nope, Trump. I'm like, what? And I was so I was like, you know, when is he coming? Because I want to be there. He's like, he's coming September 18th. I'm like, well, I'm already going to be there. And so is this confluence of events where, you know, Trump was showing up. And then also there was this function later the in the evening that TVP was hosting. So, you know, in this tiny little cramped dive bar, you know, you had a bunch of people in there, you know, meeting and greeting the former president of the United States and the soon to be president. And, and, you know, it's the standard kind of thing where we all had to be vetted before we went in. And, and then we're standing around for two hours, you know, just stand and nobody's drinking because they weren't even serving beer. And, and so finally it shows up. But thankfully, because of the close quarters, we're actually able to interact with the guy and it was kind of fun to watch. And silly me, I didn't get better positioning. I could have stood anywhere. I'm like, oh crap, if I'd known he's going to be there, I would have actually stood closer to him when he's actually transacting in Bitcoin for for a hamburger. So anyway, it was great fun. Yeah, that that was exciting to see. And that was probably the one thing that I had serious FOMO about not being there, like don't don't have it frequently. But when I saw that Trump was in pub key, which is a bar that I love as well. It's it's a great community. That's quite an historic moment. And to see Trump be the first president to ever complete a Bitcoin transaction, albeit, you know, he need a little bit of assistance. But don't we all on our first go around? Yeah, exactly. And he kept talking about crypto, by the way, because he was also trying to pump his little. Yeah, he likes to do that. Or whatever it is. But, but there were plenty of people in the audience correcting him on his, on the error of his ways. But yeah, it was a thrill. Yeah. And well, it seems like he's surrounding himself with the right people that actually do understand Bitcoin. So maybe we should be talking about that now because it's been a really exciting week since the election results. And I think the markets, I don't think the markets have responded very positively to the news. I think in part it's has something to do with just a lot of certainty around Trump being the president-elect with the popular vote and the Electoral College as well. And I think there was some uncertainty if it would be a contested election. So now I think that we know Trump is elected. We seem to have the red wave underway with the Senate flipping and and the householding. And so Bitcoin is reacted extremely positively. Like before we had just hit record here. We were talking about this this past Monday, veteran's day, the 11th, Bitcoin moved from 80,000 to almost breaking through 90,000 in one day. So that's moving a 10K daily candle. That's something that we've never seen before. I don't think we've even seen anything close to that before. So let's pull up the chart here. We are recording at all time highs. I thought I, I did have a, a feeling that with David coming on the podcast, we'd be breaking through 90K and I was certainly right about it. So I guess David, I'll also take credit for that with you there. But if we pull up the charts, so we're at 91743, so almost $92,000 per Bitcoin. This is the weekly chart here. So you can see that we're up about $18,000 in the past week, which is about a 25% price gain. Last week we flipped, I believe it was meta that Bitcoin flipped and to be the 9th largest asset. This week silver was flipped Bitcoins the 8th largest asset and now that we're recording it is now the 7th largest asset in the world I believe flipping or or surpassing Saudi Aramco. So we're at I think $1.8 trillion or so and change as a market cap. Gentlemen, what do we think about this? I'm. I'm glad you brought up that the rankings of, of top assets because I think we can't, can't overstate the potential mimetic power of that ranking over like this, this bull market in the sense that as you mentioned, it just passed Saudi Aramco. I think there's four or five other companies ahead of it still in terms of market cap. And then obviously gold is, is number one in terms of largest asset in the world. So I think like just as we sort of tick past these, because I think the, the dollar per Bitcoin thresholds for the next ones are like range from 95 to like 170. So like we're, you know, if that happens, we're going to tick past these other companies and then we're going to be #2 right behind gold. And I think that'll flip in some people's brains or, or just get them to reconsider. Like, oh, it actually is competing with gold. Like, and, and I think it's literally just that ranking, that chart that'll incept that into the minds of, of people who hadn't been thinking that. That's a, that's a real comparison to be making. And I think as we just tick past those other companies, it's going to become more and more real. And there's obvious sort of mimetic power behind that. That you're referring to so we, we've all spent some time with in the Middle East and you know, they love like everyone to compete. And I thought you're referring to, you know, Saudi Aramco maybe starting to stack some Bitcoin on their balance sheet because you know, you may, they may not like being surpassed by Bitcoin. And the only way that you're going to help face it is, as you've seen with Sailor, just put it on your balance sheet. So that's going to be an interesting dynamic play out over the next couple months as well. Is that what's happening? I mean the, the you know, one of the thesis circulating is that we're being front run as Trump has announced this strategic Bitcoin reserve together with Senator Loomis. So would you agree with with that as having been at least one of the underlying causes for the current pump I. Would think. I think it has to be like it. It is entirely logical that other nations would try to front run this thing that we announced months ago. You know, the bill was put forth months ago. Now that Trump's won, it's much more of a potential reality, particularly because, you know, red sweep across the House and the Senate. Like, they actually might be able to get this through. I would be more surprised if people weren't trying to front run it. At the. State level I mean it also. Goes back to the notion of like, I was sitting, it's going to be a little bit from our Philadelphia friends on the call, like blasphemous. But being a Texan, you kind of think of Texas 1st and you know, the US and where all this stuff that's happened over the past 20 years, you kind of just feel the millennial disenfranchise, right? And sitting back and seeing the rhetoric and what Trump stood for, it's like we are the greatest, not only country, we're the greatest startup in the world, right? We effectively have come from nothing to lead in all of these respects. And we've kind of taken a back seat the past, call it 10 years, not to say from innovation, but countries are starting to be run like startups. And in the Middle East, as an example, the UAE, Bahrain, there's these countries and well, what does a startup do? They counter position and they do things that the incumbents can't do. And one of them has been mining Bitcoin heavily and it's been rumored without knowing for certain that they've been actually mining with nuclear in certain certain countries. And that's kind of would be the reason for some of the hash rate increase. I don't know that for certain. But either way, you would posit that then they've also been accumulating. We've known like the the high net worth, the sovereigns independently have been accumulating, but now the countries themselves. And I saw some of to your point, David, that it was potentially like top five holder now is a country or that is like there's this new top five holder that's out there. So you can't build that position because Trump announced, right? You built that position for for months, if not years. But to Brian's point, it makes sense, right? This is just always going to play out this way because if you might want to get some in case it catches on. Right. Yeah. Well, it's also, you know, if Michael, what you say is true, it would seem that it is in fact the case that, you know, we're all kind of working in parallel with only, you know, validates the thesis. Yet again, if, if several other countries have already recognized the the validity of mining and and holding Bitcoin, then, you know, front running or not, that just means several other sovereigns are kind of moving in the same direction as we are. And, and, you know, more power to it. Yeah, that was that was eye opening. The first trip that we had out there this year to the Middle East in February. We went out, there was a Bitcoin only conference in Dubai and we really were out there to do some fact finding and information gathering as relates to just the Gulf region and what Bitcoin adoption looks like there. And I was pleasantly surprised to see that to Michael's point, how forward thinking these countries are. I mean, I knew it just from observing afar, but actually being boots on the ground there and getting to figure out that. And this is all public information, but sovereign wealth funds like ADQ, which is in Abu Dhabi have venture arms that are funding Bitcoin custody and infrastructure companies, they're funding Bitcoin mining. So in part this could be particularly Gulf countries front running the strategic reserve now that we have certainty with Trump being the president-elect. But in part to these, these countries have been forward thinking for a while. They've been they've been allocating to this space for several years now. And, and this is all kind of the culmination I think of say sovereign nation competing at a game theoretical sense. So now that the strategic reserve is on the table, if you give some credit to Polymarket, it's like a 35 or 40% chance of, of happening. And that would allow the big, the US Treasury to accumulate a million Bitcoin in the matter of I believe five years, So about 200,000 Bitcoin per year. So you have to imagine that with the radical shift from a administration and government in the US, regulatory bodies that have been very antagonistic to Bitcoin in the broader crypto space to now having the certainty and having support and pro Bitcoin folks being likely appointed to leadership positions. You have to think that these countries that have already been forward thinking and have been implementing, let's say, allocations to the space through companies are now probably becoming more serious about adding to their balance sheets as well. What's cool? Yeah, I'm sorry. Go ahead. No, I was just just on that note. So this was shared with me last night, is from Grant McCarty, who runs the Bitcoin Policy Institute. It says can you guess which member of Trump's cabinets push internally for strategic reserve? And it's not the person you expect. And we're kind of debating, you know, who, who it might be and it. Could be like 5 different people now there's there's so many Bitcoin advocates in his circle at this point. Well, I think, I think the the kicker of the hen, and I don't know, I'm just referencing like is that he says it's the person you'd least expect. So I don't know if you guys had any thoughts on somebody that would not be the because that's that's kind of bullish, right, in the sense like there's a lot of people that are positive, but now there's others that aren't or maybe dissenters now interested. Yeah, I'd have to think of that for a second. But it actually relates, Michael, to something I was about to say, which is that, you know, I like your your metaphor for, you know, country as startup or company because, yeah, we were and I think we'll be the ultimate, you know, startup in the world. But I think we migrated away for that first time. We came more more of a sort of an ossified country. And I really do have hope with this new administration, given that Trump has surrounded himself with, it seems to me not only Bitcoin friendly folks, but people who are innovation forward that, you know, this could be sort of a new birth of freedom for the country. Let's hope. And, you know, specific to your point just now, yeah, so there's Vivek, there's RFK, Elon, all of whom are, you know, big fans of the space. So even those voices alone would, I think, push him in this direction. Not to mention some of the other people are whispering in his ear, like Cynthia Lomas and and and so forth. But I don't know. What do you guys think? Who's the unexpected player who's nudging us in this direction? Michael, Michael, do you have thoughts? I don't, I'm not as familiar with like the cabinet and who would be influential there. But to, to your point, David, about it truly feels like a, and I hope we're right. Like I think everyone's pretty positive on our side about like a real renaissance. I think we were talking maybe before we started about, you know, the vilification of Bitcoin holders. And I think that could have been or would have been true if if you know, somebody else would have won instead of Trump, because now the narrative's like, you know, the notion of all the things that the media said and all the spend, you know, that we knew that was going in, that that was just factually incorrect and was not true, could have been weaponized for against this. But now, like there is this, you know, alternative media. There's I think yesterday again, I don't have enough time to Fact Check all these, but I would imagine they're true like that CN NS releasing a bunch of people because like ratings are down. It's like this notion of like you're almost like it's being drained out that that a level of of amplification. And with that comes media like this and the and the other stuff. I guess it was rumored also that sailors going to go talk about Joe Rogan. It's like if you get the this, the the truth out there, it effectively allows you to say that this helps everyone. It doesn't just help the people that adopted it early because you're able like all the things that are bitcoins value prop. So anyway, that's part of that renaissance, you know, thesis that we're just going to be able to get the truth out there and the truth is on our side with all this stuff when it comes to people just need a better form of money to protect their wealth. So something related to that, Michael, that I've been thinking through, it's it's not only like alternative media on the rise, but like what occurred last week, Trump winning the election in the fashion that he did. It's sort of solidifies the the role of alternative media and really almost condemns traditional media to an extent. And then the other parallel to that is like, I don't know about you guys, but on election night, I was watching the Bitcoin price and polymarket like I wasn't necessary. I had CNN and and Fox on, but I was really watching Polymarket like these these, you know, free and open markets. Curious if you guys have thoughts on because polymarket's interesting, right? It's like, you know, there isn't like massive volume there. It's technically illegal in the US. So like, who's really using this? But I mean, by and large, like they were far more accurate than any pollster, any traditional media outlet. And then also just like Bitcoins price ripping as literally as votes were counted, just like ticking up as a new batch of votes came in and it looked more likely that Trump would win, Bitcoin would go up. Like it's just again, like similar dynamic of this referendum on traditional media. And, and really just like, no, let's just use free and open markets, free and open media. And that's how we get the the, you know, the most accurate, truthful information. Yeah, well, quick anecdote on my end was election night. I was watching the Bitcoin price and I, I get some Flack internally for being the, the person who who goes to bed earlier on the team. So, so the Bitcoin price, it was ripping around like 10:00 PM and I was like, you know, Trump's going to win, I'm going to go to bed now. And I was right. I mean, Bitcoin is the, the leading indicator for not only geopolitical news, market news, economic data, but now we're seeing, Brian, to your point, it's really interesting to see that this free and open market, global market that is Bitcoin 24/7 liquidity is able to shed some light or potentially even be a kind of a leading indicator for unrelated or it is still related to markets, but it's not directly related to market. So I thought that was fascinating and that for me, I was like, you know, I think Trump's going to win just based on the Bitcoin price going up. Yeah. Well, I was also going to say that, you know, I remember having this conversation, believe it or not, all the way back in 2004 with somebody because there were betting markets back then too. And it was clear even then that the betting markets were the place to be because people actually have money on the line, as we know. And, and therefore there they're more reliable for that reason, but they're also crowd sourced and therefore more reliable. There's a great book written by a guy who does not actually embrace free markets called The Wisdom of Crowds. And, and he talks about as a quick example, that if you go to say, I think he opens the book with this, if you go to a country fair and you're asked to guess the number of Jelly beans in a jar or the weight of a cow or something, most of the guesses are wrong. But the amazing thing is that the average of the guesses is almost always exactly spot on. And and that's crowdsourcing in a nutshell, right? So that's also why markets work and polls don't Pulse 2 can be biased and so forth. And, and it's why Bitcoin works as well. It's, it's decentralized and it's, you know, it's, it's a bit of a voting machine, right? We are voting in favor a more reliable store of value in addition to all its other, you know, laudable functions. But I think currently that's how people, you know, correctly view it as digital gold. The people on this call know that it has other functions, too. They're going to be pretty, pretty cool to see. But yeah, I think the two are kind of operating parallel, which is why in part Jackson, we saw them kind of moving in the same direction that evening. Yeah, it's, it's a fascinating thing, like the, you know, a lot of people say it's the last free market on Earth, you know, the Bitcoin market and that it's this Canary in the coal mine as Jackson was referencing. And we saw this. I remember I was actually out in the UAE when I don't even know this year, how many times has there been Israel and Iranian conflict. But it was one of the nights where they started striking them. And the price is just like nuking, I think like even before maybe. And it's almost like the synthesized version of the Internet, right? Because the Internet you have to like go to your point and get the aggregate. Like the get the aggregate. Who's voting on the Jelly Bean, who's voting on the election. You start to get the sentiment. You could get close. But then to the point of that night, it was like it broke out of 79, I guess. I don't even remember No 69, like, yeah, because it was 6869. And then it just kind of took off. And the rest of the evening, you kind of saw it just moving away and, and, and that was like, it was almost like the leading indicator And then Polymark, it was like following behind it, which is fascinating to watch. It's a it, it is like a sniffing machine, right? I mean, I remember this is a while ago, but when the Fed was claiming that they were reducing their balance sheet, you know, Bitcoin was still pumping for a time. This is, you know, post 2022 and, and, you know, it's a measure of global liquidity, so you can only look at the Fed. But still I remember thinking like there is another way that liquidity is entering the market. How do we know that? Because Bitcoin is telling us that. And, and I still think that it's like a really reliable indicator of those sorts of like geopolitical movements. Yeah. So Speaking of free markets and just say capitalism and maybe less crony capitalism in the United States, why don't we shift focus to the Department of Government efficiency known as DOGE? I'm really, there's a lot of things that we could talk about. It ties into what you guys were discussing earlier around the US being kind of like a startup nation and now having people in Trump's cabinet that are not creatures of the swamp, but are entrepreneurs and people who have built very successful businesses and know how to manage a business's balance sheet and make capital allocation decisions. What are the implications of more people in in office and within the cabinet that have these backgrounds for, you know, the the US economy? I mean, there's plenty of directions to go into some of the things around Bitcoin policy, energy market, deregulation, maybe potential tax incentives. How do you think about the fiscal situation? Like if anyone wants to just jump on that, there's, there's certainly plenty of directions we could go in. Well, I'll just dive right in. I remember, and I'm the only guy on the call who remembers this. But back in the 80s, you know, Reagan appointed a guy whose name I think was Gore, Might have been Grace. He later founded something called Citizens Against Government Waste. And his idea was to come in and start cutting government waste. You know, we have to recognize it's a big old sort of BLOB, big marshmallow. And it's going to be really difficult, I think to to to pare down these expenses. Once a government program, Reagan talked about this too, but once a government programs institute, it's like so impossible to kind of RIP that Band-Aid off. And, and you know, I'm hopeful though, having said that, that this new, more entrepreneurial spirit within the, the government will at least be able to kind of reverse course in some of the more egregious ways that we've seen kind of unfold in the last several years. I mean, even just getting us back to a budget like from 2020 would be a massive, a massive advancement. And and the one final thing I'll say about Doge is that I was just mentioning somebody that I'm like 1° separation away from some of the folks who are being pointed to these positions. And I don't know a lot of them personally, But again, like work, we have lots of mutual friends. And that's what gives me hope and also leads me to believe that one of these people may be the ones who are Michael behind the sub Bitcoin friendly stance that the President Trump's taking. But I only mentioned because I was thinking about reaching out to the VAC whom I actually do know a little bit and even later today like volunteering to help with doge and and to see where that goes. So if he accepts my offer then I'll keep you posted. That's amazing. Yeah. I mean, I think it's it's exciting. I think like do we, we've talked about this before, there's just levels of fat, right, that exists across the Fiat system, because if you're, if you're, if your unit is always moving, well, it's hard to be efficient with it. So even the most efficiently run startups are still having the wrong measurement stick. And then once you get to the government, it just gets insane, right, with the amount of bloat. And so there's a lot of levels that I think this efficiency will, or the efficiency will get to. But I think the end state, which is the, the real like Renaissance, the real version is like, and Bailey has said this a while ago, it was like the real party starts when the dollar ends because like you get to the tightest unit. Obviously it'll be a while. But the notion of imagine like the government efficiencies metric or KPI and Brian and I were talking about this is like, you know, a lot of people talk sats per share and all this stuff. It's like, well, it's a financialization metric. Ultimately. Right now. It's like maybe in a future world where it's just like amount of equity a company has versus amount of Bitcoin. But right now it's like there's no productivity, real economic productivity happening for micro strategies. It's it's financialization, but the real metric should be employee Bitcoin per employee like a Bitcoin per like Bitcoin, you know, that's a sign of efficiency. And so you can imagine, you know, again, still early, but a department of government efficiency having that now that's an interesting metric and that will happen effect just because if Bitcoin becomes associated reserve asset and people start to hold it, it permeates their culture. And we all know as an individual what happens when you start to adopt of form money that appreciates invaluable. You just are more discerning with how you spend and you think more critically and that's going to effectively permeate to the highest levels because that's just how the world works. So it always did and then we moved away from it. So I think that's what's really exciting is once all these like narratives and things. And, and I guess the last point is it's really smart. I forgot who tweeted this about like the amount of wealth that gets brought back to the country with Bitcoins price of you're not brought back but increases because of the majority or a large percentage of Bitcoin sits in the United States, right? So by you pump the bags 3-4 X the amount of, you know, trillions of dollars that are effectively here and what you can do with that helps offset those liabilities on the debt side to get us back to where we want to be. Well, you need, it needs to be like a pincer movement. And I, you know, I was just having this conversation with somebody else in that, you know, I think one of the things that can get us out of this pickle too, when it comes to our fiscal situation is, you know, productivity gains. And my fear, though, is that we've already seen that movie play out these last, say, 20-30 years because we had a whole bunch of technological revolutions that I think we tend to take for granted. But again, I'm old enough to remember the PC revolution and the Internet revolution and the mobile revolution. Now we're arguably witnessing an AI revolution. And, you know, this is not typical in history. I mean, we're living through a special time right now. But, and Jeff Booth talks about this too, but I've long observed that, you know, the Fed essentially stole that from us. What we should have seen was prices plummeting as they did during the 19th century. We went as we when we had a similar sort of revolutionary period technologically. And that's good. By the way, we were talking about this earlier this morning. It deflation good. This runs exactly counter to the narrative in Keynesian land, which dominates economics, that that deflation is bad and deflation is great. Who doesn't want lower prices, for crying out loud? And so we should have seen mass deflation as Jeff Booth has, has, you know, said so eloquently. And we did. So the Fed stole it. So we see a productivity gains. My, my hope is that we'll have intelligent people in office, in Congress in particular, who don't steal that from us and allow prices to plummet. And we can all benefit from, you know, a lower cost of living. I'm just going to bring this up in the middle just so nobody don't get, don't get distracted. We're just currently looking at the price of $92,500. But David, yeah, that's spot on. And let's go back to the teal, you know, euphemism of we were promised flying cars, was it flying cars or whatever. And all we got was 240 characters like we should have been in the Renaissance 30 years ago. And we're just barely getting there, but better late than ever. But back to your back to the sort of startup analogy, it is like just wildly encouraging in the sense that, you know, this is basically, you know, what sounds like Doge and, and Elon and Vivek and and potentially others, maybe even David are going to be focused on is really re underwriting the country, right? Like you're re underwriting the startup and you're saying, where's the fat? You know, Vivek has talked about this, you know, multiple times around like, and it's the same thing that Elon did at Twitter, right? He fired what, 80% of the staff and I and in my opinion, like Twitter's better than it ever was, you know, particularly in terms of like actual, you know, not censoring people and and suppressing information, obviously, but it also works well. And they didn't need all those people clearly. And so it's the same idea. And frankly, like, I never, I never thought I would see something like this actually be, you know, put into motion in my lifetime in the sense that like, I'm very maybe too optimistic. But I think like we have a real shot at gutting a lot of the bureaucracy that, you know, has, has allowed this start up to stagnate, arguably, right? And so it's a very unique opportunity. And and you know, the fact that if you just think about like, you know, what the Democrats and traditional media have have sort of purported about Elon over the past year, two years, it's insane. Like this guy is, you know, say what you want about him, but he's wildly successful entrepreneur and clearly has a knack for, you know, getting more efficient at at a, you know, business level. And like you saying, Michael, like the country is a business to an extent. And the past several decades, I think we've gotten, you know, fat and complacent and, and there's, there's a lot of room for, for work to be done. And it's just very encouraging that we have seemingly like the perfect minds on this. And so credit to Trump and his team for, like, putting this coalition together and getting people on board to really go after something that, again, like, I never thought I'd see something like this actually come to fruition. One thing that relates to both of your points, Brian and David that I've been trying to grapple with is so David, you mentioned deflation is, is good, it's natural for productive economies. But we also on the flip side have about $36 trillion of federal debt. There's hundreds of trillions of unfunded liabilities. So there still is a there still is a great incentive for the US government to want to inflate prices because how else do you pay off the debt without insane productivity gains, some of which could be potentially achieved by the technologies we're discussing. But I'm trying to grapple with the idea that so Bitcoin in part, obviously not solely, but is driven by liquidity and debasement and compounding debt. So how does a more fiscally responsible government potentially impact the Bitcoin price? Well, I mean, they can't stop printing is a problem. There's too much debt and not enough dollars. So like the like the structural problems like there is there's deflation in like any loan that exists because just companies don't bat 100 and so they won't be made whole. And so you ultimately always have to print dollars. It's not enough, not enough of them that exists. It's like the liquidity isn't just dry. You can offset the deficits of like what you know to this doge side, but you still have the liabilities that exist. I know that's what's so dangerous and totally unrestimated is these, these unfunded liabilities when it comes to the promises we idiotically made to the Ponzi scheme, you know, as part of the Ponzi scheme, otherwise known as Social Security, where, you know, the people paying into the system are immediately underwriting those who are collecting those funds. You know, there's no kind of fund that's going to ultimately be tapped to pay future recipients of Social Security and other welfare programs. So, you know, as you guys probably know, it's it's envisioned to flip. We're not going to have enough workers to pay people who are then retired in the early 30s. And so, yeah, I mean, no matter how efficient we are without radical change, but I don't see as politically palatable, even with this administration, we're going to run into a real serious problem in the early 30s as currently projected. So that's point number one. And then also as far as Bitcoins price is concerned, you know, all right, what if the US house gets its or the the US fiscal house gets its house in order? We still have the rest of the world. We're not, you know, themselves fiscally responsible. Let me just look at Europe, let alone sort of developing nations. So wherever fiscal irresponsible, your responsibility prevails, I think is where we're going to see, you know, the need for Bitcoin as a secure source of value. And and I think therefore the price just continues to to go up. Yeah. And one thing that I've been thinking about as well as, so there's these realities of the interest expense. So even though you know, we're not officially in a recession and asset prices across the border, all time highs, we're still seeing the Federal Reserve have more accommodative monetary policy with the rate cut last week and you know, more forecasted in the future. And that's just because fundamentally we're at about a trillion dollars in interest expense. It's the second largest line item behind healthcare spending. So even if there is more fiscal responsibility as it relates to managing the government, you know, getting rid of waste, cutting the fat, the reality is that lower interest rates are going to be stimulative to the economy and to asset prices. So that's another dynamic as well, I think at play that will continue to be accretive to Bitcoin, equities, housing, etcetera. And I also agree with the idea. I mean fundamentally Bitcoin. Like we said at the start of this call was that it's an alternative to Fiat currency. So governments being more responsible with how they manage their budgets doesn't make Bitcoin irrelevant. It's still the only way that you can send money around the world instantly with final settlement. It's still the best store of value. That story's not going to change for the next decade just because the US may be successful in, you know, reducing some of the deficit spending. So totally agree. I mean it is still a global phenomenon. And also like we said earlier in this call, we're we're starting to see what we think is sovereign nations competing for Bitcoin. So that's only going to ramp up as well. So it may be we'll see this maturity in Bitcoin where the 1st 15 years is primarily primarily driven by excess liquidity in the market deficit spending. 2020 obviously being a big surge of monetary and fiscal policy. Maybe we see Bitcoin mature into that still drives the price, but maybe it's not as impactful because now we have much larger balance sheets stepping in. We're seeing, you know, more integration of Bitcoin into businesses, both public and private. So I think it'll be interesting to see how the market evolves over the next decade. It might look very different than the first. I would agree. And by the way, you know, this is parenthetical, but I should mention it anyway. Yeah, partly because I speak from personal experience for anyone who's listening, you know, it's not too late. Like the, the, the best years are ahead of us. And you know, I myself had to watch it go from like a dollar to to 20,000 bucks. And I still took the plunge. And of course, I don't regret it. And, and yeah, my fear is that people like, well, I missed the move, you know, that's why I told myself for years. And, you know, I thought when it went from like a dollar to 100 bucks, I'm like, oh, I missed the move, you know. So, you know, we have so far yet to go. And I think there are lots of reasons to be fans of Bitcoin, not least the price appreciation. But it's, you know, it's also a great, as mentioned earlier, human rights tool. You know, I would do it for that reason alone, but beyond that, you know, it has lots of different current and potential uses and therefore it's worth investing in the network for that reason as well. But it's great to have found an investment where you do feel like it's going to sound trite to say it, but I'll say it anyway. You can do good and do well at the same time. I think we're doing good for humanity, but also thankfully we're going to be doing well. And I I mentioned this set of recent well in natural the HRF gathering. It's like I think we're also collectively long time bitcoiners going to have to prepare ourselves for, you know, future wealth, frankly, and how we're going to allocate it prudently, both in our own lives. But then, you know, how are we going to give back to humanity? This is a total tangent now. I might as well go there. The yes Do you guys follow Stack Hodler, the guy in Switzerland on on Twitter, he's great he talks a bit about this too. So better to to predict now how we might allocate that wealth in the future then then to suddenly find ourselves like lottery winners and and and blowing it in stupid ways. So anyway, what while I have this box, I would just encourage everybody to also think about humanity more broadly. And so, you know, HRF comes up, but since for liberties really involved in the in the Space Atlas network, you know, freedom from the organizations to which we can maybe plant some seeds and and see maybe freedom flourish elsewhere as a result. 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It just makes you, it's an amplification of who you are, right? That's where like, you know, capital raising, if you're an efficient company, you're just going to spend more money more inefficiently. And that's where, you know, it's just these are things that have always existed and I think we forgot about. And to your point, I think there's a real meta thing that happens. And I I've been saying this recently, but it ties into your point of like a lot of people wish they got in at that dollar. It's like, you really don't because you don't want that. Like if you got it too early and you didn't earn it, you didn't go through like the time, right, the huddle that like drawing down, then you don't really know what you were holding you. You had to like harden that. So when the price gets to this and it's going to go much higher, you're more you're you're as discerning as ever. You remember all of that to get there. It's just the same thing with like building wealth versus, you know, winning the lottery and help people generally lose it. So I think that that's kind of the part of that. But then the other part is the, the IT sounded trite when sailor came out and had the hope.com. And now, like I really just viscerally get it in the sense that not only is it hope like from a renaissance from a country perspective, but we're talking with an individual to come on. That was coming from like the private banking side, younger guy, I think a little younger than Jackson, where he's kind of his he was referencing himself, how he stuck in this interesting spot because his cohort is like hopeless, right? They're like, we're never going to get a house. We got the the raw end of the stick, right? And then the other side is like the boomers are just like rugging just complete rug. Like, you know, it's been crazy to see because I never really felt it. But then just like when I get in conversations with, you know, there's like, oh, it's all crazy. It's like, well, man. But anyway, this individual is like, you know, I'm kind of in a weird spot because I have like, you know, I'm storing my value. I see the vision. I see how this can bring back being able to buy a home, have children, all of those things. And to your point, David's like nobody's missing the boat. This just lets everyone get back to the level playing field of working, reducing value, having a meritocracy, holding it in a form of money that appreciates, and then you can go back to the things you were supposed to do versus the past acts #30 plus years, whatever it is. People have just been hopeless and we've seen this in society with all the crazy things that have been happening. Yeah, there's a ton of productivity gains to be had as well, just from people having a better way to preserve their wealth and not having to become a fund manager for their personal finances like that. That's something that we'll continue to see play out over the next several decades. And it gives me great Peace of Mind to just know that I can have a weekly DCAI, can watch the Bitcoin price and if it corrects, I can do a lump sum purchase. And I know that I, well, part of it is having secure custody, but I know that that will be there for me over the long term. And Michael, to your point, I mean, so I'm on the younger side of millennials and my cohorts like late 20s, thirties, a lot of these people are in the same position where they don't really seem to get it yet. Just in terms of how Bitcoin can be a way to, it's almost like a generational reckoning in the sense that you have this opportunity to level the playing field a bit, as you mentioned. And I don't know where I'd be without Bitcoin because I really don't think, you know, buying into, like I'm in the Philadelphia area and, and David, you know that home prices here have, like they have in, in many parts of the country have gone up astronomically. And if I wanted to buy a starter home outside of Philadelphia, it's probably going to be depending on what I want, $600,000 to $800,000. And you look at the mortgage payment on that and it's like $4000 a month, $5000 a month. There's really no way without, I guess, being a very high earner or building your business and being very successful, there's almost no way you could afford the same level or, or quality of life that your parents could have without Bitcoin. So I mean, that's how I view it is this is just a great opportunity for people who, you know, are in this general demographic as millennials. And to your point, David, it is still very early. It's hard. The, the Bitcoin price is such a hard unit bias because you look at $92,000 per Bitcoin and it's easy to think, oh, well, I should have got in five years ago or I should have started buying two years ago. And of course, maybe you should have, but at the same time, it's like, well, now is the present moment. Bitcoin is still just this global asset competing. As you know, Jesse writes a lot about $900 trillion of wealth. We're a little shy of 2 trillion now. And when you see that price, it's it, it seems high. But when you realize that this is a global asset store value payments network, you start to recognize that you know, the, the ceiling for Bitcoin is in five or $10 trillion. It's hundreds of trillions most likely if things play out as we expect. And then the flip side of it is, David, you came across Bitcoin when you said it was about a dollar, right? And maybe what if you did end up buying some? Well, you probably would have gotten rugged at some point. Like I, I speak to people very frequently who made their first Bitcoin purchase in 2013, but very few of them actually held from 2013 until 2024. A lot of them, you know, thought that they hit a big when the price went from a couple $100 to a couple thousand. And some of them sold their position because they still didn't understand what they owned. Others lost seed phrases along the way. Others ended up on exchanges that failed. So Bitcoin, yes, the, it's possible that Bitcoin won't have 100% kegger for the next 20 years, but it might have a 20 or 30 or 40% kegger. And, and what other asset class are you going to find that offers that level of return? So hopefully that's helpful for some folks that are listening that may be a little bit newer to the space and still trying to figure out how to approach this from, you know, their personal balance sheet. Yeah, it's it's funny I I get that question here and there around like am I too late? Should I, should I be smashed buying at all time highs? And I'm like, yes, you should always be buying Bitcoin. No one's ever lost money buying the top sellers, buying the top forever. Like the, and the, the other reality is I always send, you know, someone asks a question along those lines. I, I either send them Jesse's global asset landscape chart or just give them their percentage. Like what is Bitcoin out of the 900 trillion today? And just let them know like, you know, this thing is the best performing asset ever and it's still tiny. So I'm not, you're not too late. I'm curious, have you guys been getting a ton of texts over the past week or so? David, I'm curious like in your network, in your circles, do you have any skeptics who've reached out over the past week to say, hey, can we talk about that Bitcoin thing again? I would love to say yes, but you know, it's, it's amazing to me the extent to which individuals, but also certain companies I know are, you know, maybe not resistant, but just indifferent to these, you know, Bitcoin generally, but also even just the recent price movements, which, you know, again, reinforces this notion that, you know, we're still very early. And there's one thing I do want to mention that we can get back to your question, Brian, which is that, you know, I'm a believer in AI went to Chicago for my MBA and and this, this theory kind of originated there. But you know, I'm a believer in weak market. The the, the weak form free market hypothesis, which is to say prices are generally correct. Yes, there can be dislocations as we are self sold in like N22 driven by FDX and others. And that was kind of an exogenous sort of factor that that drove prices down. So yes, of course, in all markets, there are going to be temporary dislocations. But price discovery brings those, those, in this case, asset prices back up, which is exactly what we've seen. I mention it because like, yeah, OK, so bitcoins now trading at 92 grand, but that's what it's worth. I mean, it's almost like a tautology, but it's true. And and so, yes, you're getting in later, but it's also safer now when you were buying it like 100 bucks for all the reasons Jackson articulated, you know, is really risky, exceedingly risky asset. You know, I had a conversation with Marty Bent here in Philadelphia maybe last year, two years ago, and Bitcoin might have been trading like 30 grand, but I totally forget the timing. But you know, he's been in the space for a long time, as a lot of us have. And he said, I think he first ended with space in 2013. He said bitcoins never been cheaper. I was like, what? He's like, yeah. Like there was so much uncertainty back then. And the one shoe that yet to drop back then when we're having this conversation is, you know, that the SEC was still engaging in certain regulation by enforcement. Nobody knew the rules of the game. And then, you know, they'd be caught out and and you get in trouble. The SEC, well, now we have that regulatory clarity. We have some of it already established in the last year or so, but it seems like we really are going to have clarity going forward. So that's why the price is pumping and it's only fair. But now I feel like the landscape is pretty wide open. I I don't see what other risks there are. You know, of course there are going to be sort of marginal risks that are in danger any asset class. But I think right now it's like an open field and Brian, but I think it, it opens up a broader discussion. I. Mean that's, I think I found I, I find just saying this often, I think it's because we're so close to the space that risk adjusted. That's what effectively Mark Marty was saying, like risk adjusted. There's never been a better time. Because when you see all the infrastructure and all the regulation, people stepping in behind the scenes before it's public, you know, you're like, holy crap, I can't believe it's still only this price, right? Because if the price was 250 K, like what would have, what would have to change other than, you know, there's nothing much that needs to change or would change. But I do think the other side of this coin of like how early we are, is everything we're saying is still taboo from anybody with real capital, right? Like anybody sees us move and it's like, OK, maybe that's interesting. I want .1 or 1% as a speculative bet in a sector of digital assets because other things are moving, right? So nobody's coming to this conclusion like, oh, this is the thing and this thing's going to be worth Midlands and, and total addressable market. It's going to eat XY and Z. They're literally like, because we have these conversations all day long, they're basically looking at, well, this is very speculative. Maybe I'll get 1%. And so you're still so far before they realize, wait, what am I? What am I actually holding and what's happening? And that's kind of like where, and this is really credit to you, David, for seeing like what we're doing to the vision. I remember when you reached out early and we had like an hour and a half just like off the cuff conversation about everything we're building and that like we're building these products because it's a fundamentally different sector. It's a different asset class and so it has to be treated fundamentally different. It's not like it's a like everybody's building 2D products on Bitcoin. I think of us is building 3D products. Like when you think about custody and delivery and all the things that have to be built, that an ETF is like the least sexy thing that exists in the market. It's the thing that got is getting capital in, but it's also full of counterparty risk and things that are wrong. And GBTC was like the thing we first had looked at because that was the before the ETF was the benchmark and you had the 2% management fee, the lock up, right, the the custodial risk with Coinbase and the ETFs are effectively the same thing. They just got blessed by the SEC. And so we're still early innings, but the forward thinking individuals like, and we haven't been too public about it, but I'm sure you saw the, the pensions that that came out leveraging the on right Bitcoin trust. Those are the most sophisticated investors. And the reason they went there is because they're just looking at risk from a first principle perspective and seeing, well, wait, what could go wrong with the custodian? Well, 15 years things have gone wrong. What what could go wrong when a GFC happens, Well, nobody's going to make hole on the asset. I want to be able to take delivery right. Do I want Bitcoin only because they don't want Bitcoin only because they don't get Bitcoin. They wanted Bitcoin only. So when the pensions go like when the mark, when the price is 93, about to be 93,000, when it dips to 67, they're like go talk to these guys like there's another group that will provide you air cover and explaining why it did that. We're not just telling you that. And there's not really any firms that do that. And so anyway, it's just a dip. We're still so early from people recognizing like what this can be. And that means that there's still so much more capital to come in. Yeah, that's, that's a critical thing because while we're having these conversations and you know, we've been around the block for a while and are able to articulate some of the concepts that got us to understand Bitcoin and hopefully that's helpful for people newer to the space. The reality is that, Michael, most people are not even at a 1% allocation yet. We at on ramp, we have the private client side of the business. So those are typically more seasoned Bitcoiners that understand Bitcoin and they're looking for better custody and in inheritance is a big gap. But on the institutional side of the business, we're speaking with financial advisors, which is mostly independent Rias. We're speaking with institutional investors. And I can't tell you how many people you know, I'm reaching out on behalf of the business to endowments and foundations and family offices and we're getting meetings here and there. But it's still like you get a lot of nose. We don't invest in Bitcoin, we don't we don't look at crypto, right. So there's still this misunderstanding as it relates to institutional allocators where a is Bitcoin, Bitcoin is not even different than crypto in their eyes. That's that's one thing. And then I get way more no's on code outreach than I get yeses, right, because people still have this inherent skepticism. They lack understanding as it relates to Bitcoin and the investable opportunity. And so we haven't even seen anywhere close to 1% allocations in the institutional investment community across the board. And then another component to this as well, and Brian and I have chatted about this I think on the show and offline is that, so we both worked in manager research before. So you're looking at hedge fund managers and private assets like equity, credit, real estate? And so these managers, they get money from their LP's to outperform a benchmark, right? So Bitcoin hasn't even made its way into indexes yet. So what are the implications of Bitcoin being included in a benchmark? And if you're underperform and if you don't have an allocation to Bitcoin, then perhaps you're underperforming the benchmark. And then you have to explain that to your investors, why you don't have an, why you don't have an allocation to Bitcoin and why that's leading you to underperform the benchmark. That's a big problem because investors are paying pretty generous fees to a lot of fund managers. And if you can't deliver alpha, then what are they paying you for? So just a side note on how I think about it from the asset management community. And then, Brian, I know you have something to say. It's an important point. Or go ahead. I was just going to say for people who are on their podcast, yeah, we're at 93 K, So that's that's exciting. The index point is fascinating. I think no one's really thinking about that. The the closest people have gotten to thinking about that is when does MicroStrategy get in the S&P or the NASDAQ and it would have a similar dynamic of passive flows heading into Bitcoin or a proxy for Bitcoin. I wanted to go back though, to point David was making around, you know, Bitcoin actually de risks as it goes up. And I was literally having this conversation with a buddy last night and I was trying to think if there's any other assets that have this quality. I'm, I'm fairly certain Bitcoin's the only one. And it's unique in the sense that as the price goes up, it's actually more valuable and it's de risk because the, the thesis is being validated. And so Bitcoin at 93 is more established, more credible as what we all think it is than it was at 70 or 50 or 30. And no other asset really has that quality if you think about equities. That's why I think a lot of people in traditional finance, they get confused when they look at Bitcoin because they're like looks a little, looks a little frothy here. Might have to trim some exposure at 93. It's like, well, no, like we're not valuing this on cash flows or you know, if it was real estate, like rental capacity or anything. There's the the fundamentals are that this is global money. So the more people think it's global money, like the thesis is being validated. So like it's actually more valuable at 93. Obviously in terms of like magnitude and market cap, yes, it is, but it's like it's not overvalued, could never be overvalued because it's, this is how much value people have put into it as global money. So you don't need to think about it as a tech stock that's, you know, over its skis a little bit. And I think that's where a large percentage of trad 5 folks are still there. And that's why they to, to your point, David, like they think I'm, I'm a little late on this. It's like, no, like it's never been a better time to buy Bitcoin, and that will continue to be the case. Well, you also mentioned Brian earlier that you know as long as you hold four to five years, it doesn't matter when you buy. Exactly. So just go ahead and take the pledge and tactically speaking, you know, I'd recommend, I think we would all agree. But you know, it's my personal view that if you are wondering about getting in and and how to do it, obviously you'd sign up with on ramp. But beyond that, you know, take the plunge to make a meaningful investment and then DCA dollar cost average into the position on whatever served periodic basis you want. And and that's the way I think to do it. And, you know, that that's oriented toward, you know, newer entrance into the space. But it's yeah, it's on a risk adjusted basis. It's never been a better time, even at 93 grand. And and someday when people are watching this podcast in 1-2 years from now, 93 K is going to look like a joke. Right, right. What do you guys friend, what do you guys think happened? Sorry, Michael, just wanted to get your guys thoughts on this. Like Michael, we've talked about this in the past, but like what do you think psychologically, behaviorally happens at 100K? Like is there, do you think there's a lot of pent up sellers at 100 Ki? Almost think it's the opposite. I think there's pent up demand at 100K because a lot of people that have been sidelined or watching this move and you know, the other part of it too is I think we anchored for some reason, like the community anchored to 100K last cycle and we didn't get there. So now I think a lot of observers and skeptics are like, you know, they were talking 100K four years ago. Like this is nothing like, oh, they're just now getting to 100K like they were, they were calling for that four years ago. So I think that's a component. But I think when it does get over 100K, it's like the the mental model flips of like, oh, this actually might go to a million. And I don't think people are there yet in terms of thinking like it could go to a million. I thought that for a while, basically like the Hung and Bitwise take of like 100K is the real IPO for Bitcoin, not the ETF. Because now people are not anchoring to a bias of well, this can go to zero. It's like, well, where actually can this go? The thing that's fascinating and thought you need to talk a lot about it. This wasn't like a novel rumor or theory, but the whole FTX debacle and like how much paper Bitcoin was out there. It's like it probably should have hit 100K. There was a lot of people that thought they had Bitcoin that had zero. That was cell pressure that. So to your point, like, you know, we always have to temper where this goes because it's just 2020 was a that cycle was just like brutal and you know, where people thought and what happened. But yeah, like where, where is it going? Because there's no retail stepping in. Like there's not, no, but there's very few like actual net new people. We referenced people texting us and calling us and you know, we see some here or there from a net new buyer. But yeah, like this is this is some some real like interesting bit and and a couple of people looking at each other trying to like, you know, stack as much coin as possible. You see too, it was so helpful when in the summer of 2023 was it when Larry Fick made the announcement that BlackRock was going to try and get an ETF approved because you just knew that BlackRock had enough haft to influence the decision as to whether or not be approved. And then it also gave trend 5 validation to the space. And now you have Howard Bluntnick Catter also validating the space. These are meaningful guideposts in Triadfi land. Because, you know, I know from personal experience, and this is not a knock on Wall Street, but it is true that they're kind of looking at each other like, well, what are you doing? It's a kind of a memetic space. And we're just humans, you know, it's not like, you know, as I said, it's not their fault or anything. That's just a human bias. And so they're kind of looking around and I think what we'll see is a gradually then suddenly kind of moment where suddenly it's OK to announce that you're a Bitcoin or to wear a hat like this and, you know, like announce that you're pro Bitcoin. By the way, on a related note, we saw it a little bit with the Trump phenomenon. You know, for those who were Trump supporters in the 16 to 20 period, he almost had to say it in hush voices. And and I get it because he's a controversial character. But more recently it's been like, OK, to come out and admit that maybe you are a Trump supporter in part because he has a much more diverse team now. Tulsi Gabbard and some of these other folks we've already mentioned, which makes it more palatable. And I think it's becoming more palatable for Tratify investors to accept Bitcoin as a potential space to explore. Yeah, One, one thought on that. Would love to hear some takes. So what are the implications then for Bitcoin and traditional finance adoption, you know, corporate banking, investment banking? David, you mentioned Howard Ludnik and Cantor. They're obviously advocates for Bitcoin and working on Bitcoin strategy internally. BNY Mellon got the exemption earlier this year to provide custody services. So with this AB 121 repeal that likely happens. What do you guys think? So we're, you know, we're playing in the Bitcoin custody and infrastructure space, financial services, asset management at on ramp. What might we see next year with BNY and other traditional custodians and banks stepping into Bitcoin? What what might that look like? You guys have any thoughts on that? Well, I personally think that if things go as we believe they are, and I think the market's also telling us this, given the, you know, 25% rise the last 10 days or whatever it's been that, you know, it's just going to take a couple of itty bitty steps. So the B&Y validation, Howard Lutnick having Trump's ear, etc. Obviously the the flows that are being observed into the ETF's that are just absolutely mind blowing and unprecedented that you don't we we could well see kind of a spike not just in Bitcoin price, but just broader interest. That's my main concern. You know it'd be great if you know our net worth went up, but it's more just about broader adoption and it's just a vote to your point Brian as to the value of the network. So I'm primarily concerned as I know you guys are with just broader adoption. I think we will see that and then as Wall Street becomes more comfortable with tiptoeing into the space, then that's going to give the green light to to other smaller players, they are raised and so forth to say, yeah, OK, it's only right to do this. And then the benchmarking point that I think Michael you would brought up becomes sort of a self fulfilling prophecy like you, you have to be if Bitcoin to be taken seriously, if you're an RAA or whatever it might happen to be. So it's going to be, I think like real estate or stocks or bonds or anything else, it's just going to be an asset class to which one naturally allocates a portion of one's portfolio. Right, I'm curious because you're you're the closest to in inside on room and seeing kind of day-to-day of like what we're doing. But also, I don't know if it's apprehension the right word, but how traditional finance looks at the space. And then also being, you know, the private bank. Where, where do you think? Like, do you think the, the large players that are players today will be meaningful players 10 years from now and Bitcoin? Or is it that is it too disruptive to their existing model that they'll they'll effectively get left behind? And the analogy, it's not apples. Apples is like Blockbuster and Netflix. Yeah. I, I don't, I don't have a singular answer. I think it's very much an open question because it to some extent it's inevitable, right? That like banks will get into, you know, the space more deeply and, and want to custody the assets, but the question is like they don't have the competence competency to do so right now. So like how long does it take them to build that out? Like if you look at, you know, one example of just like Fidelity, which came from the traditional side and was a very early mover into Bitcoin, you know, it took them several years to build, you know, first, you know, sort of mining focused business and then more on the custody side took several years. Like so it's not you can't flip a switch. You know, if we get some regulations passed and say, OK, you know, banks, you're good to go. These banks aren't like ready to be securing private keys. So like that's, that's the open question is, you know, who moves first, who moves quickly and how long does that, you know, realistically take? I don't know. I, I, I'm assuming it's going to take longer than most people assume, but I don't know. Michael, do you have thoughts? I do. They're they're very strong, so I'm going to tell them to temper them. But. No, but David, like I think the thing you'll probably kind of appreciate, it's embedded in this. A lot of folks will, will come and they'll talk to us about their wealth and, and how we can secure it and they'll, you know, sometimes ask about different competitors or different places in the industry. And I can, I kind of like try to like leapfrog because it's very easy to talk about human capital keys, who the level of key holders infrastructure. But I kind of say it's a philosophical 1 and it kind of sounds soft. It's like when you're dodging the question and it cut. But it kind of ties into what Brian's saying is what we just talked about in individuals barely being able to get off of 0 to 1% of a speculative asset is so fundamentally different than thinking about long term wealth planning for this asset class when it comes to tax advantage accounts, privately private placement fund lending against it and how to do it in a way that you don't get blown up, which we have a team that's done it previously. Nothing we're doing that. But just like an understanding deeply of the asset class that takes real battles, scars and wounds to like take. And this re underwriting that Brian said is happening is going to happen across the spectrum. It's kind of what we talked about at dinner that one night, David, about the early writers. It's like the market's going to reprice businesses, but individuals are going to reprice or re underwrite their careers. And what effectively happens at these large organizations as they're too slow. And when somebody groks this stuff and they listen these pods and they see what we're doing, they reach out, they want to join because it's they're looking at like a dying beast and they're like, well, shit, I cannot do anything here. It's too big, it's too antiquated, it's too bureaucratic, right? And so then they naturally go. And so that's kind of my take without saying how strongly I feel like where those incumbents will play. And it's not to say everyone, it's just that the, the analogy I like to think about is like if you were trying to build Instagram today, it's not apples to apples, but it's, it's a directional, it's like you're trying to build Instagram today and trying to go up to Rochester and go to Kodak and ask them how to do it. You'd be like, that's nonsensical. It doesn't really make sense. So the only relation is that it's photos and that one and this one, that's it's a financial asset. But then once you start getting underneath the, the, the, the price that shows up on a screen, it's a completely different thing. And if you give it to somebody, to Brian's point, that doesn't know how to manage it, SMA, private keys, wallets, all the things, redundancies, you're just like hoping to God they don't mess something up. And for 15 years, that's effectively what happens, which goes back to the 2D version of looking at the asset versus the 3D version. And for the 1st 15 years, there's been a bunch of individuals looking at it in a 2D version. I hold the gold, I hold the Bitcoin, I hold the dollars, right? And it's like, wait, this is the only 21 million. You need some fault tolerance or redundancy in here, or you're not really doing it right because you never want to be in a position to lose it. Well, you know, you touched on something that I think might also be with wrenching, which is that, you know, I get a lot of incoming players are conscious of their brand. They've built a great brand, by the way. A lot of them, at least within the traffic space, have benefited handsomely from the existing Fiat system. So is there an incentive even to explore an alternative? But let's just say they do as have BlackRock and Cantor Fitzgerald. You know, I think understandably, given that, you know, they've built this carefully crafted brand and they have successful products already, do they really want to put it at risk? But this is where this is where others taking, you know, the the Spears as they kind of lead the the the charge into the Bitcoin battle come in handy because once it's established that, hey, you know, Cantor and BlackRock have done well with this, others will follow and and arguably improve upon what's already been done. So I'm personally, and of course, I'm in that world myself, I would just say a lot of Bitcoiners fear the infection of tranfight into the space. And we were talking about this a little bit earlier prior to going live. Like first of all, I think it's inevitable. And secondly, I don't think as a result there's anything we do about it. Thirdly, I don't think it's bad necessarily. We just have to adapt to it as a space. It's whether it's government involvement or tried 5 involvement. Let's just embrace it and adapt and go forward. And yeah, it might not be as decentralized originally was. And some of the original cyber folks are not cyber punks, are not, you know, seeing the exact version of their thesis play out. But I think it's going to be OK And I think it's generally good for Bitcoin adoption for the network itself. Yeah, it definitely is. I think the the angle is where the competency comes from, from, from a long term like like counterparty risk and longevity. But to your point, the it's kind of you just made me think about the existing large Tread 5 players that have come in. They're all like founder, quasi founder, CEO LED right. When you think about BlackRock and Fink and Lutnick or Abby Johnson and Fidelity. And with that, with that person at the helm, you can put more credibility because they have more autonomy where once you get the bureaucracy and like, oh, we'll do it because we got we have to. But now you're just like, you know, tokenizing the world and basket of currencies. Like that's what we're seeing. What I mean, me and Brian were up in Wyoming for the blockchain symposium and you know, God bless. There's a lot of noise and and that's going to come into this space because to the point it's like, well, digital assets, it's a, it's a sector and we got to get exposure. Well, you guys are perfecting the model and you know you have some peers who have done really well as well. But I think what's what's, what is appealing about your model is exactly what we're describing here, right? I mean, like for those who are not comfortable with the technology and holding their own keys and what have you, they can gain some comfort by essentially outsourcing this. And yet it's also secure because you have this multi custodial model and and soon to be multi jurisdictional model. And you know, we've talked about this Mike, I think I've talked about with all three of you guys. But as a long time gold holder for all the reasons we've described before, that's exactly what I've been doing myself. I have a little ETF and I have a little gold held in other jurisdictions and so on and so forth. And just to replicate that model I think is really powerful. It's it's exactly what I think a lot of institutional players will want to see. Yeah, it's, it's a great point. And I know we'll wrap up here in just a couple minutes. David, want to acknowledge what you said as well as as it relates to ultimately this is all a good thing because if we want Bitcoin to proliferate globally to the degree we wanted to, then these solutions need to exist, right? Because just because traditional financial institutions step in and provide Bitcoin custody services or offer ETFs doesn't mean you have to use it, right? So this is still, it's still up to the end user of that Bitcoin how they want to choose to interact with the asset and protocol. And can't fault people who might just want to have ETF exposure in their Fidelity account, right? Or people who maybe have in it. Maybe an institution has a banking relationship with BNY Mellon and they end up using them for custody of some of their Bitcoin. It doesn't mean that the individual Hodler who's been in for two or three cycles now has to do that. You're still free to hold your own keys if you want to. You're free to work with on ramp if you want to. And that's the beauty of it all. So I think more options are better. Doesn't there's no force involved, right? It's all voluntary. So I, I ultimately think that this is a great thing for the asset class and I also think that just the success of the ETFs have proven that out as well. I mean, it's been remarkable how successful they have been with the Black Rock ETF surpassing in assets under management. Their Bitcoin ETF has surpassed the gold ETF in a matter of ten months, right? And the gold ETF has been around for 25 years. So that's just a testament to the insatiable demand for Bitcoin and also the need for easier solutions. Like we're not going to be in a world where I think some of the earlier Bitcoiners thought that we would be where everyone holds their own keys and you have your seed phrase memorized and you fly around on a private jet and you don't interact with any financial institutions. Like maybe some people could do that. And if and if you're great and if you can do that, that's great. But the reality is that for this asset to be widely adopted, these solutions need to exist and you need to meet people where they're at. Because for the 1st 14 years without ETFs and Bitcoins history, the only options were open up a Coinbase account or Binance or now some better exchanges like River. And you either leave your Bitcoin on there or you have to take full responsibility. And a lot of people have taken full responsibility and they've kept themselves safe. And that's really critical. But now they're realizing when they made that decision maybe three or five years ago, maybe they had a couple $100,000 of Bitcoin or maybe they had $50,000 of Bitcoin. And now they're looking at, you know, a million or maybe more than that. And they're like, well, I'm the only person who knows how to manage this. If I want this to be multi generational, I need to figure out more redundant and robust solutions, which is ultimately why a lot of the more seasoned Bitcoiners who have, you know, 5 Bitcoin or 10 or 20 or 50 are working with on ramp because these realities are setting in where the risk of managing everything yourself is actually increasing over time as the price does. So ultimately, I think it's very important for there to be these Bitcoin native solutions and then also solutions that are more native to traditional finance and may even offer more seamless and easier access, of course, maybe with some additional trade-offs. Yeah, I threw up the chart. Jackson, you referenced about the ETF versus gold. David curious like back in your day, you know, and maybe even now, like what do people say to this in the, you know, a Blackstone like this is just it's just a wild. Chart it is I've heard no scuttlebutt because it doesn't get a lot of or it is not today gotten a lot of traction within the firm. However, I have to believe that they're looking hard at this. You know, we don't have a lot of public equity exposure if my business unit happens to be in that space. But but as you know, it's, it's largely an alternative asset firm. And so, you know, it's not a topic of discussion and granted to I'm an executive advisor now, so I'm not a partner meeting. So I don't know exactly what's what the latest skull butt is. But having said that, I'll say going forward, it's bound to be getting, if it hasn't already, gobs of attention within the Tri fi space. And you know, I've said it before, but I mean, it's just, you know, there, I almost said this earlier. It's like the last several years have been a pretty dark period in American history in my view. And and I think a lot of us feel certainly I do that for a whole host of reasons, whether it's, you know, fiscal prudence at the national level or is this embrace in Bitcoin. There's a little spring my step more recently. And I think for a whole host of reasons, it's there's reason to be hopeful right now, both for us in the space and for us as Americans. Absolutely. Very well said. Well, David, appreciate you coming on today. Thanks for breaking through 90K with us. Really enjoyed the conversation. Thought it was a good one so hopefully listeners do as well. Is there anywhere you would want to hand off people if they wanted to get in touch with you directly or some of the organizations that you're involved with? Where would you like to point people to? Sure. Well, I'm on LinkedIn, so feel free to reach out there. But you know, I would, I would encourage people to and thanks for offering up that, that opportunity to, to look into. We've mentioned Human Rights Foundation students for liberties doing great work on college campuses. The Atlas Network, which is an aggregation of freedom friendly organizations around the world is also worth exploring. They're having big dinner, big events, as they do on an annual basis next week in New York. And then a final organization with which I'm pretty heavily involved is called a Global Liberty Institute. And what TLI is seeking to do is essentially recreating the World Economic Forum, but instead of for tyranny, for freedom. And, and so that may be overstating the case. I'm sure the WEF over the years has done some good work, but nonetheless, right now it's kind of evolved into something that I think a lot of people find objectionable. And so it's it's for lack of a term, kind of grooming young emergent leaders to and and helping them get networked into positions of authority so that they can be down the road advocates for freedom. So anyway, we're all freedom friendly on this call. And I suspect everybody watching this podcast is too. So, you know, I maybe just ask that you look into those organizations, especially as Bitcoin does well. And as earlier mentioned, we look to do some good. Yeah, we got to get them holding. Holding some Bitcoin, yeah. Absolutely, and I know just where to go, so I'll make the necessary intros. Well, thanks, David. Appreciate you coming on today. Again, all time highs fun RIP with you and thanks for all the great work that you're doing not only in the Bitcoin space, but more broadly as it relates to just human rights and liberty globally. These are fantastic organizations. So just commend you and your involvement. So thanks for that. Thank you, guys. Thanks for doing what you're doing too. Thanks for listening to this week's episode of the show. 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