The Last Trade E081: Confronting the Chaos of Currency Collapse with Ralph Gebran

What you're telling me is that music is about to stop and we're going to be left holding the biggest bag of odorous excrement ever assembled in the history of 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. All right, welcome back to the Last Trade as always joined by my Co host Michael Tanguma and Brian Cabela's. And this week we have Ralph Gibran, Managing Partner at on Ram Mina. Great to have you on, Ralph. How are you doing? Doing great. Thanks for having me guys, always a pleasure. Long overdue to have you on the last trade. We've had so much exciting stuff happening in the Middle East and I think a number of trips for this whole team. So it's fun to be able to talk about what's been going on out there. The the conference that happened in was it when did the conference happen? This month? No last. Month 4 weeks ago. Yeah, four weeks ago. Yeah, time. Time's been in a weird spot with the holidays and then the conference. Yeah, it was early December. Yes, that's correct. Yeah. It's a good conference, Ralph. It's, it's great to have you on. I think you've actually been on some of the other shows that we produce here at On Ramp, but you haven't been on the last trade before. So maybe for those who are not familiar with you, we can just start with your background in traditional finance and what shaped your personal, personal journey into Bitcoin and ultimately LED you to join On Ramp MENA early on. And then from there, we can go into, there's a lot of things to talk about in the region, including the conference last month, but why don't we just start there so people could be more familiar with who you are? Yeah, for sure. So I had spent the vast majority of my career both academically and professionally in traditional finance. So the last 10 years I've been in the institutional asset management space where I work with two top asset managers, CIBC Asset Management and TD Asset Management based in Canada, Montreal. So I I spent, you know, a lot of time in that space. Before that I worked on trading desk. So I've done foreign exchange, treasury management. So at my previous firm while back, we managed the foreign exchange reserves of a bank in Lebanon because that's originally where I'm from. I worked also at a Western, so TD brokerage where I also traded a variety of instruments across, you know, equity, fixed income, commodities, foreign exchange. I also traded derivative assets. But you know, when you're so knee deep in traditional finance and especially institutional finance, you fail to look at the underlying layer, which is the money. What got me into Bitcoin really is kind of tied to where I'm from. So it was really when the banking system in Lebanon slapped me, my parents, my family and everyone in the face by basically placing unofficial capital controls on withdrawals. And so we had to withdraw limits, you know, $100 per month, $50.00 per month, basically what they determined to be fair so the country didn't go bankrupt officially. So these capital controls are actually imposed purely by the banking system and not by the government itself. Now that was a wake up call. And you know, I had been in Canada at the time, so I was a bit more lucky, even though, you know, I did have some savings back home. Because what they did is they incentivize people to actually move money back home because when the US dollar was paying .5% on your deposit account, you could get 10% in Lebanon on your U.S. dollar deposit account. So a lot of Jaspora, what they did, they transferred a lot of their savings back home and placed it in these term accounts where they were making 10%. So you know how everyone's trying to beat inflation and everyone's trying, you know, to make money with the least amount of risk. So that's, that's what happened. And that, that's kind of what got me into Bitcoin and to, to really try to understand it. Because if that was something that happened once, who's to say that's not going to happen again? So right now there's this whole convoluted solution. We're now in Lebanon. You have 5 different accounts. You have your old accounts where technically there are numbers on the screen. You have something called the fresh account. So these accounts are post that day where you can actually withdraw the money. But who's to say these fresh accounts won't be blocked in the future? And then they create new accounts where you can put in and move money out. That's kind of how I got into Bitcoin. It was really pain. So I'd like to say pain is the best educator. And, you know, we learned the hard way that, you know, trust is something that comes at a cost. So there's, there's risk and trust and trusting institutions, large scale institutions now, especially in countries that have, you know, very tense political environment such as Lebanon. And you know, following that, the currency peg, which was, you know, 1500 Lebanese # to a dollar on average skyrocketed to 80,000 and to 100,000 per dollar. So in Lebanon, it's similar to like Venezuela, where you walk around with a little purse that has millions of Lebanese pounds and that that just covers potentially a dinner for two. The country has fully dollarized since then. So right now in Lebanon, the dollar is king and the Lebanese pound is, you know, barely used. It's just used within the banking system, etcetera. But it's really just representative money. What? What year? Just for context, the from a timeline perspective was that And then also just just to piggyback on the second part and that is you being insulated in the West. I think you said you had some losses, but not not too big. How can you share, like how, because I would imagine friends and family suffered a lot more, you know, have your assets there, how that affects and like what somebody has to do when they realize that only a certain percentage of their wealth may be available to them, like, how do they move forward? Yeah. So that was a year or two before the port explosion, which added to the problems of Lebanon, that major explosion that happened. So 2019-2020 were the peak years of the economic collapse of a few years now. And we haven't fully recovered. So we've hit the fully dollarized stage. But the reaction is, yeah, so we were blessed being outside of Lebanon and have lost, you know, a single portion. But, you know, friends and family, you wake up one day and some individuals have worked their entire life in Lebanon. Some individuals have transferred every penny they made outside of Lebanon to Lebanon. And you wake up overnight and you realize that it's just evaporated. So what happens is it changes societal structures entirely because those who were untrusting of the system, and there's quite a few of them who had invested in like gold or in real estate, the initial stages were much better off. But after the collapse, because even real estate, which a lot of people say it's, you know, store your money in real estate. But in Lebanon, you bought a house for $500,000 because there's no mortgages in Lebanon right now because the entire LBP system has failed. Now it's a cash economy. So if you need to buy a property, you literally pay cash and people are going to sell it to you for half the price because they're going to be paying you in cash. So did you really store the value of your life, energy and hard work? Not really, because you know, you ended up having to liquidate at like half the price. You purchase the property, you've lost all the upside. And the problem is you get that money. You need a bank account outside of the country because, you know, smart people are not going to keep the money at home, nor are they going to, you know, keep it in the Lebanese bank, even though, you know, they say you can withdraw it with these new type of accounts. You've learned your lesson once. So really bank accounts in Lebanon are used just for, you know, into like small time frames. Like you keep the money in there for 5-10 days and then you move it out and find some better investment to put it in that. That's really the situation right now. But it's it's a very big swill, big pill to swallow, waking up and realizing that, you know, if you're at the age of retirement, you can't retire anymore. And it opened up a black market. So one of the consequences of that is people started selling the checks, right? Because you can still write a check because then the money's transferred from one account you can't take money out of into another account that you can, you can't take money out of. But on the screens, you've gained money. So what people would do would they would cut a check and they give you cash for that check and they give it at a discount, right? So they'll tell you, OK, I'll buy that $20,000 for $10,000 cash. And then you go, you deposit it on a computer screen, you are now more rich. But this is something more that corporations did to settle transaction between each other because that's a way to get some of your money out. But it's at a significant haircut, as you can imagine, similar to selling a property. You're going to sell it at a significant haircut because $100 today is much more than $100 it was before the collapse, right? So people value a harder asset. So they're going for the dollar. Even though in the West you view the dollar as a debasing, depreciating asset, in countries like Lebanon, the dollar seems stable. So that's that's one of the consequences of this. So it's really a paradigm shift in thinking and one that the vast majority of the country hasn't really come out of. And then you add to that, you know, tons of people made lots of money in Lebanon playing this check games and, you know, speculating on the black market rates. So it, it creates really mayhem, chaos and things change really fast. You see less and less US or external products and more local products come into market. And that's just a state of affairs right now. Yeah, not to be real this too much, but this I can't help but call out how uncanny this reminds me of like the crypto markets and claims on bankruptcy notes because there's a reason where we talk about people haven't stepped into this space and like what Ralph described happens all over the world and is it is it's not obviously like it is it's existential to the person because you lose everything you may like lose your life. So it's a very serious thing and that you have to deal with it. But in the digital asset crypto world, like you can make an option to come in or not. And so some people come in and get rugged, but others they look at it and like, why would you want to participate in what happened in Lebanon? Like you don't, but in the digital asset world, you have that option. So you just stay away. You don't touch it because A, you may wake up and all of it's gone and then B, now you have to deal with this headache of like moving out claims and all of this like it's, it's very eerily similar like to this free banking style. That's like started to be what happened with digital assets. And some are trustworthy, others aren't. And it kind of ties into maybe later in the conversation, what we talked about what we do here in the reality where we're heading. You shouldn't have to trust a single entity with your assets because they've been shown that maybe they can be trusted for a while. But at a certain point, you know that trust kind of fades away and you want to check and balance on that. At Onramp, we believe that Bitcoin is the most important asset of the 21st century. The hard part is securing it right. There are shortcomings with keeping your coins on an exchange, but also with setting up your own self custody arrangement. Onramp solves for these concerns. Our multi institution custody solution maximizes security and minimizes counterparty risk, ensuring that your Bitcoin remains securely in your possession and provides built in inheritance planning to ensure your family is protected as well. Onramp provides Peace of Mind for your Bitcoin journey, whether for your whole stack or for part of it as a compliment to your existing self custody set up. For more information, check us out at on rampbitcoin.com. Ralph, how does appreciate you sharing your background? I mean, it's it's really devastating to hear kind of first account stories of friends and family that have lived through that. And it's as Michael mentioned, it's not isolated to Lebanon, right? Like this is happening all over the world. And in fact, in even in 2022, right, we saw financial controls and bank account freezes in the Western world too. And so do you kind of see the challenges that exist outside of the West? Do you think that that is kind of a precursor to what happens in countries like Canada, for example? Or do you think do you think I may be missing the mark there? No, actually, the way I like to see it, what happened? So the vast majority of the world has hyperinflating currencies. Like realistically when you count the numbers, very few countries have stable solid currencies. And usually it's the countries that have those strong currencies that, you know, make it harder for other countries to get out of that environment because they export the inflation. But what happens in countries like Lebanon? Basically they happen at hyper speed. The exact same thing is happening in Western countries, but at a much slower rate is the way I view it. So it's really is gradually then suddenly in the Western world, in the less developed world, it's actually suddenly it just happens overnight just because of variety of influences. The political environment is much less stable. So that just amplifies the collapse overnight versus in the West. You know, there's much more whether they're real or not, but there's much more checks and balances that kind of slow the process. But what happened in Canada? I mean, I was in Canada and for almost 10 years, so right before Trudeau took power and Canada was a different country. Even my dad and my mom, they immigrated to Canada. So I am Canadian and they have a very different vision of what Canada is and they visited us a few years back and they hadn't been to Canada for quite some time and they were really shocked by the state of the country. So there is a deterioration, but you don't see it if you live there unless you're actually looking for it. And, you know, being in Bitcoin, understanding sound money, understanding the consequences of the basement, monetary printing, you start to realize changes at a much faster pace than if you were just ingrained in the system and just a part of it. What happened in Canada? I mean, you know, there was a trucker incident, which was surreal. I mean, they used executive wartime hours to freeze accounts. I mean, the banks, supposedly they are independent entities from the government. They're not public entities, like, they're not owned by the government. But the problem is when the government states something the banks have to, for example, you know, not be on the wrong side of that statement in fear of repercussions. It's the same thing, you know, with the vaccination process. They never said you have to get vaccinated, but they made a few statements and then all the companies basically they understood it as, oh, you can't work here if you don't get vaccinated, maybe because of insurance problems, Essentially the incentives become all whack. But definitely, you know, over the years, Canada inflation has skyrocketed. The cost of living is crazy. There's been a massive deterioration in the healthcare system. It takes nine months to get an appointment with a specialist. Yes, it's universal healthcare and it's free and you're paying on average 5055% in annual tax. But you would expect to get a better service, but you don't. The roads are deteriorating, so you start noticing small things. And really the peak of this was when the trucker convoy was basically had their whole accounts frozen. And some of them are coming out now lots of years later, winning their cases. But that doesn't mean that they didn't suffer. They didn't struggle throughout their years because being unbanked in the West is not the same as being unbanked in Lebanon. Because in Lebanon people are used to, you know, barter trade. They're used to, you know, cash. It's in the West. I, I never held cash in my wallet, for example, ever. And if you're unbanked, you know, some places you walk into, they're like, oh, no cash or like, we don't take cash or stuff like that. So things have started changing. But yeah, I think now is a good time because things are changing. We're witnessing change across the Western globe with, you know, Trump in the United States, Trudeau resigning in Canada and upcoming candidate Pierre Poliev being more on the, you know, sound monetary side. I mean, say what you will, some people will tell you, yeah, but he's not, you know, he's not a St. either, but who is? I mean, Trump isn't saying either, but what he says and what he claims, like just sending to him to talk talking about, you know, fiscal spending, monetary debasement. I mean, it's just common sense. And it's either that or, you know, the handout economy, which Canada overtime really took to heart where, you know, just pay taxes and we'll give you everything you need basically. But the everything you need is it up to the standard that you're expecting? Well, that's you know what? For me it wasn't at least, but I don't know. It's a, it's a fascinating dynamic. When I was in Dubai last, Ralph was telling me about the healthcare system and just the deterioration, deterioration of everything. And it was just like, so it was so fundamentally different than what the media portrays. And then I came home and maybe I was just more aware to it and it was, it was in the news, like a guy that went to the emergency room, got told he was OK, went home and passed away, like had a heart attack. And there's this, it's this very interesting dynamic where you would look at like from an the way that the media portrays just picking on a few as California and New York and Canada as these bastions of like progressiveness and and the like pinnacle of societal, you know, whatever you want to like make up. And then you go boots on the ground. And these are like third world countries. Like we know what's happening in New York City subways. We know what's going on right now in California. Canada sounds like it's even worse than both. It's just a very interesting dynamic on the things the way it's these societies are portrayed as being progressive and it's usually the closest to the money spigot. The academics are the people that are closer to high finance that are living the best while everyone else is effectively just getting like suck drive of all like capital or time. Yeah, And you know, this might surprise you, but you'll get way better healthcare in Lebanon at a fraction of the cost. At a fraction of the cost. You just show up to the doctor, they see what's wrong with you. If you need the surgery, you do it in a week and you're in and you're out. And it cost you a fraction of the cost. Like some people, they don't do their dentistry in Canada, for example. They go to Lebanon because it's way cheaper. Even with insurance. You end up paying less in Lebanon with no insurance and that's crazy from a third world country that has a hyperinflating currency. But yeah, I mean, it's fascinating how the media portrays certain things. And in Canada, you know, this is a problem with socialism if you ask me, because everyone under the same nationality. So if you have a Canadian passport, you are considered equal in a way and certain angles that's, that's, that's a good thing. But let's say you have a salary of 150,000 in Canada. You're going to be in the, you know, clearly in the top 5% of income earners in Canada, you're going to pay around 55, maybe 57 effective annual tax rate. And someone is making 20,000. When you enter the healthcare system, there's no distinction. So a homeless person in Canada, because Canada is really cold, will go sit in a hospital because he's Canadian and will go sit in a hospital the entire day. They don't care about waiting 10 hours to see a doctor because for them, they're sitting in warmth and they are, you know, have no income. But because they're Canadian, they are in the same queue as you are. So basically those who are creating value or, you know, having higher salaries are giving the same service level as someone who produces no value in the economy. It's a sad thing, of course, and you want everyone to be treated right, but the system is not equipped to do that. There's not enough doctors because for example, even if you're American or like if you studied medicine in Paris, you can't come and study and be a practitioning Dr. in Canada. You have to go through a education process as well. So they have a lack of dog. And if you're a Canadian doctor, why would you stay in Canada? You have a quota on the number of clients you can get. So most of the good doctors leave to the US, They get paid maybe way more in the US and you can have as many clients as you want. Yeah. And I think to like reframe this to you can't insulate yourself from a bad form of money over a long enough time arisen. So this can happen to anyone and you kind of see where the states the the states that have adopted, whether it's lower income taxes or making it more favorable. I would think post like 2020 because I feel like that's a big line of demarcation. And a lot of this Tennessee, Florida and Texas have really thrived. And I think we're going to increasingly thrive given everything we just talked about where the best human capital is moving there because of those favorable things. I think ideally with this post administration that supports, but Jackson, I, I know there's some geopolitical stuff we want to talk to that ties into that I do. Yeah, I want to appreciate that. And Ralph, I want to drive toward your experiences now in the Emirates. So you lived in Canada for a while, you're Lebanese and you've since moved back to where you've moved to the UAE, which is now closer to home for you and your managing partner at On Ramp MENA. So you've been there now for not a full year, but maybe six months or so, right? And so how do your experiences in the UAE, in Dubai, Abu Dhabi compare to what you've seen in your traditional finance background, mostly in Canada? And then after that, I want to drive toward what you're seeing in terms of Bitcoin adoption and growth and interest among institutional investors, high net worth individuals. But first, I think it'd be interesting just to hear a quick compare and contrast to life in the Emirates. And how does that compare to the experiences that you've lived so far outside of in the Western world? Yeah. So the Emirates is big, right? So I'll speak to Dubai for starters, and we can extrapolate on that. But one thing I'll start off with. So there's no income tax and there are roads and tons of infrastructure. So you don't really need income tax to build infrastructure. There are a variety of ways you can do that. One thing that's fascinating and you know, it's a young city, but they've been at it for 30 years or so, 40 years. And if you came 40 years ago, it would be like images you see of the desert, like there was no infrastructure. And one thing that's huge contrast to Canada is the quality of the infrastructure. The stuff they're building here is, you know, out of a sci-fi movie and there's a level and Michael, when you were in town, you said something which I found really interesting, a level of excellence. Like if they want to do something, they're going to do it big and they're going to do it right now that is is very different. They have a much more entrepreneurial mindset. So you feel like a young person, you know, they're more willing to take risks. They're more willing to try new things. Well, the UAE is taking that mindset when it comes to building a nation, so they are willing to try the untried or to test the untested to grow the economy. They've been labeled in the past, especially in the GCC, as, yeah, they're only in oil. That's their only thing. But if you come here, you'll realize that, you know, you don't really notice oil in any form of way. What you see is, you know, a very thriving economy that's really diversified. All you have to do is look at the, you know, fintech industry. You have to look at the, you know, tourism and service industry, which it's uncomparable. There's one thing they do here which is to rather in comfort you in the sense that if something were to happen, you just go to the hospital and you're taking care of. You don't have to pay a dime. What they do here is more of a enablement so they don't take the money away from you. They will find other ways to take it away from you by making life so easy. I mean, you can get gas delivered to your home while your car is parked outside. Anything you want can be facilitated here. And even one thing that was really different is the government aspects of things. So in the West, at least in my experience, getting something done at the government level is slow and painful. Here, everything is digitized. I mean, government agents are quick to respond. You can get on a call. I almost never wait on a queue line when I call a government agency, which is something that was a shock to me. I just call and someone picks up. So what they're trying to do is incentivize growth and to do that they are enabling people to come here and they enable them when they are here to actually build. And that's extremely noticeable in the digital asset space because that's what we're in and within the digital asset space. I'll segue into the question about Bitcoin adoption. So the UAE has taken a very different stance than Western countries in the sense that they saw an opportunity and they decided they won't take advantage of that while the West was still, you know, battling between all, should we legalize this? There's no regulatory framework. We don't know what to do with it here. They decided to sit down, build a whole framework around it to incentivize people to come here and build something. So that's the approach they took. So unlike other countries, here, you're very quickly capable of knowing what you can and cannot do. So the Gray area has been removed from the equation, which allows entrepreneurs to build effectively. And you would say, oh, but now there are rules and things are set in stone and there can't be changed. But that's another thing that's very different. Rules are not supposed to be broken, but rules are supposed to be enhanced when they are outdated. And so one thing we've noticed, because for example, we're trying to bring multi institution custody into the region to save keep Bitcoin the right way. The regulators are always fascinated because it's new and different. And the first thing they're thinking is how can we grow the ecosystem and how can we do something to improve the ecosystem? And when you come with a solid value proposition and a product that you know they can't deny is a upgrade to the current state of affairs, even if it's not regulated under your current guidelines, they will speak to you. So the answer no doesn't come across often. It's more like, OK, let's talk more about it, walk me through how this works. And then they will work with you to trying to find the fit either within the current framework or if they need to, they have a division called regulatory enablement. Meaning if they notice that there's something they want to bring in, but the rules don't allow it, and they think maybe they put in the wrong rule or an outdated rule, they will work with you to try to adjust that rule or to find a way to fit you in the economy. So that's, I mean, every entrepreneur's dream. If you have a crazy idea or something really outside of the box or different, you want a regulator that's willing to have a conversation with you. And if they see that, you know, no one else is doing this, but we have the opportunity to bring this technology and be the first to bring it into the region, then you know what? That's what they're going to do because they're they always are trying to catch up or, you know, improve upon the current standard, which is, you know, everything in the West is better. But over time, we've seen a lot of the teacher variation in the West, even from a technological point of view, most of the tech in the West maybe is designed but is not built in the West. And so they're trying to bring some of that on shore and actually own the space, whether it's AI, digital assets or fintech striving environment. And I think you can see that across the UAE. Of course, there are areas that are more conservative than others, but they found a loophole to that. So they created these islands called free zones that use basically common common law, so foreign companies can come and set shop in a very familiar way than, you know, stuff that they are used to outside of the GCC and start working the market from those free zones. And the UAE is just one of those countries. Bahrain, it's a tiny country, but the regulators there are, I mean, a few months ago we were inside the central Bank of Bahrain. As someone in Bitcoin, I never thought in my entire life I would set foot in the central bank even less so that I would have a very productive convert conversation around Bitcoin custody and multi institutional custody. And you know, I don't think anyone in the West can say that. I mean, if I wanted to meet with someone at the central bank, it might take two years to get that meeting through between all the background checks, making sure, you know, it's just that's just my viewpoint. I hope that answers your question. Yeah. I appreciate that Ralph 11 thing that you mentioned maybe like 30 seconds ago or a minute ago that I think really ties into this conversation. And what we're seeing is there's an attitude of complacency versus competitiveness, right? What you anchored to was in the Middle East, maybe they have a perception that everything is better in the West or we're ahead in terms of innovating. But we have that same attitude, right? In the United States. We think that we're the best at everything. And we've had that attitude for decades now. And that's ultimately led to the deterioration and this pain that we're kind of living through as a society. And now, hopefully, on the other side of this, there will be more of an attitude of competitiveness in the United States, which I think would mirror more closely the competitiveness of the Gulf countries. Right? And so now with the Trump administration coming in, I think this ultimately ties into sovereign game theory. And what are we seeing in terms of geopolitical competition for Bitcoin, for gold, hard assets, outside money versus inside money, right? Because ultimately, what's going to drive these economies forward and what drives Bitcoin forward this next decade is competitiveness between nations and who wants to lead within Bitcoin. So to that extent, I know the team worked on a report recently about sovereign game theory around Bitcoin adoption, particularly anchoring to Trump's administration and what they've said on the campaign trails as it relates to policy and regulatory, let's say, a more positive regulatory stance around Bitcoin. And so maybe what we could do is just talk a little bit through the high level of that report and how does that ultimately tie into what you're seeing in the Emirates, in the Gulf countries? Before jumping into that, I just want to call out one thing because I think this is an important distinction. Dubai gets an interesting rap because you usually have polarizing feel like it's either super pro, everything's amazing, or you'll get the other side, which is, well, it's a dictatorship or kings, or they have oil and they're both like not fully in my like everything's nuanced. And you can look at Canada and say Canada has a bunch of oil, but they don't know how to pull out of the ground because it lacks leadership, right? And so just calling out a lot of these things come down to leadership, but also this notion of we talk about startups like the UAE is effectively like a really well run startup because they have leadership that has autonomy and control. But any good startup, you know that the leadership while you can move fast and they're directing, you need the buy in from your effective constituents, your employees to be bought in or they won't be there very long. And so that's where we're kind of seeing in the West. He's like populist movements and like new leadership is because eventually people get tired of being cold and poor and broke. And so because they have a different government structure and style does not necessarily mean it's good or bad. It's just a different. It's the way I think about in my mind is ultra conservative. So they they they've been a little slower for things. And now Dubai is one of the ones starting to move like this way. We're over here. We got way progressive weeks, like insanely compressive and we kind of see these in the states where certain conservative states have been more from a revenue, from an innovation perspective, people are going there. So it's just a constant battle of like conservative progressiveness. And then the natural, like whatever we call it, employees, constituents, citizens are ultimately always going to be able to move with their feet at a certain point. And now they're capital Bitcoin. And that's where the game theory starts to take off. So just going to set that stage because I think a lot of people generally look at the GCC, it's like they have all the money. That's why they have all this stuff. It's like, well, that's only one part. Venezuela has a bunch of oil and they can't get it out of the ground because they have no leadership and no government to be able to do that. So you have to like need to be able to coordinate economic activity while also having the natural resources. And also the government, yes, some people have, you know, negative things to say, but the government here is extremely efficient. I mean, I, I, I do have to say that they've aligned their incentives. They are very patriot. And all they really care about is to see their people prosper and to have other people come here to build and prosper as well. So what allows them to do that is like you said, they have, it's a lot of control over decision making. There's no bureaucracy, like the level of bureaucracy is really minimal compared to like in the West where 1000 people have to look at a document until, you know, a final decision maker signs off on it. Well, here, if something is crucial and needs to happen, it will happen at a much faster pace. And that's how you have, you know, these crazy infrastructure projects that are being built, these crazy initiatives because, you know, you can just go ahead and build it if you choose to. So in a way, there's our pros and cons. I know Saifuddin has a lot to say about, you know, monarchies. I don't think we should get too much into that. But it I think people, when they come here, a lot of them are surprised about the openness, the progressiveness, and they're shocked by the amount of freedom they have here. I mean, Michael, you've been here. Did you ever, I mean, you forget your wallet in the middle of the road. No one picks it up. I mean, there's so much security and so much comfort. It reminds me of like, would you rather work for like Uber and be an employee number 11 or the SEC employee number like 5000, right? Like, because there's two different people that want to do that, but one wants to be able to have a meritocracy and be able to exceed and the other one wants to be part of like and go to work and go home. And like, I think there's a place in society for both, but over time, 1 ends up just eating itself and the other one ends up innovating and becoming a leader. And that's like effectively where you start to see these disconnects to your point of the bureaucracy built into that. That's why I, I do love the, the analogy of, you know, America being the greatest startup ever, but, you know, sort of losing, losing our way in some sense. And also ties to what Jackson was saying around complacency. And that's, that is the perfect metaphor because you know, if you think about, you know, whether it's the United States or other countries in the West getting complacent, thinking that they're ahead, and also just having this sort of administrative state build up, metastasize over time. And that's what the your the bureaucracy you're talking about, Ralph. And it's like, yeah, you can't, you can't move fast and make decisions and be innovative and forward thinking if you have all that sort of holding you back, that that bureaucracy holding you back. And I think that's why it's been refreshing. I, I don't know about you guys, but I feel like we we have turned a corner in some sense, at least in the US. And now it looks like Canada with Trudeau resigning, which Ralph, I don't know if if you have any thoughts there. Like, what do you think prompted him to to actually resign? I mean, people have been calling for him to resign for for several years now. Do you think it was just Trump winning and, and kind of, you know, jockeying back and forth with him threatening tariffs? And he was just like, I'm, I'm over this. Let me get out. I don't think it was that moment itself. What I think this has been something in the making for quite some time. I mean, if you look at the approval ratings of Justin Trudeau over the past few years, they've been in decline consistently. And a lot of the policies that he's implemented have been extremely unpopular. For example, the carbon tax, like Michael, you said they have tons of oil, but they just can't take it out of the ground. Well, you know, you have tons of oil, it's your natural resource and then you go and you tax every time they they pull it out of the ground, which means everyone has to suffer because those costs are transferred to the consumer, not really the corporations, because the corporations are just going to push the price up and then transfer it on. I think it's a few combinations. So the trucker incident was the kick off the COVID vaccine. Authoritarian policies was secondary and then similar to the US, the cost of living, that was one of the biggest issues he had and the amount of spending. Canada has no gold, for example. And I mean, it doesn't really produce a lot of stuff, if anything of significance. I think they also pushed out the Pharmaceutical industry as well, if I recall. So really they have no. Industry or you know, foundation and their, their energy sector is taking a hit as well because of all the carbon tax. I think. So it's a combination of people seeing what happened in the US as well, which also helped a lot because, you know, Trump is loud and Trump has had a lot of saying he's backed by a lot of very influential people. So when you're in Canada, you look a lot at what's happening in the US because they're your direct neighbor. There's huge trade in between those countries. So what they decide to do or who's coming to run the show is definitely going to affect your living standards here. And Trudeau just seemed somewhat weak in that record and couldn't, you know, stand face to face and negotiate with someone like Trump. Now also, Trudeau has been able to maintain power because of certain alliances with other socialist parties like the NDP and the Conservatives, even though they've had a weird history. I mean, not all Conservative year has been have been great. Pierre Poliev is kind of the equivalent of Donald Trump in a lot of the things he says. You know, he wants to build things internally. He wants to reduce the cost of living. He wants to stop fiscal spending. And basically, he wants to audit the government and figure out where the waste is happening. So I think the world hit a turning point. So when you're in pain, you look for solutions and, you know, you start to think, I have nothing else to lose. I mean, I'd rather change than no change. So it doesn't matter who the other candidate is. You just want a fighting chance with someone new. So I think all those factors, add them together. And you saw, and what's funny is he was overthrown by his own ministers. I mean, basically they all turned their back on him. And I think here there's political incentives to do that because they felt that he wasn't going to be able to maintain his position of power. And so the pieces of the chess board starting already positioning themselves in a way that was advantageous to their 'cause that's what led to the collapse, in my opinion. Like from a Oh yeah, go ahead, Michael, sorry. Was the same time back to Jackson's. I think the game theory aspect, there's like the game theory on the coalition that happened in the US with, you know, technologists and just business individuals realizing what the other administration look like. And you have to make a, you know, a concerted effort to like who you're in a back. And we saw this with the Trump election win. But then time back to what Jackson was referencing, whether it's game theory of Bitcoin or any hard tech, every government, every country is fighting on behalf of their own constituents, natural resources. And so the UAE, among others, have started to invest heavily, whether it's an AI, you know, mining. We know like a lot of these countries have been mining, you know, years before this. But I think that there's this notion and Luke Roman was and was a big inspiration for this piece that our team put together referencing this dates back to post 08 financial crisis. I won't be able to do the justice for the report justice, but I would encourage anybody to go listen to the podcast Luke did with Robert Breedlove or the report. But in its essence, it ties back to post 08/09. There hasn't really been a sustained treasury buyer because at the end of the from an external perspective, because at the end of the day, if you're exporting natural resources and then re. So those are resources that you need for your constituents and your citizens. And if you are recycling those assets into treasuries that are effectively losing capital and you can't go buy the things that you need to import them, well, you're in a really bad spot over a long enough time horizon. And so that's where the heavy gold accumulation and dumping of treasuries has occurred. And then I think it was accelerated post Russia being sanctioned. And so countries starting to realize all of this are making this bet that I need to hold something else other than government debt. And this goes into the inside, outside money. I don't know, Brian. You want to pick up Jackson? Yeah, real quick on that. It's almost the perfect analogy just at the sovereign level to Ralph, what you described at the start of the show about the banking system in Lebanon. The the same thing happens at the sovereign level where historically and, and still to the state, but at a declining rate. Other nations are purchasing U.S. Treasuries and other US assets, but are inclined to decrease those purchases over time because of A, the inflation embedded in fixed income securities issued by the government and then B, because it could be confiscated. There's kind of capital controls tied to, to those investments, right? So it's pretty much the same thing that you described earlier, but now it's happening at a sovereign level. And I think that ultimately kicks off what we've seen since Michael you mentioned post 2008 certainly accelerated in the past couple of years here where other nations are looking for a political and investments or sort of values that are free of counterparty risk. Yeah. I would even go as far as to say like I think the past three or four years, like that is the, the, the preference or the recognition by various cohorts that you'd rather own or at least have some allocation to a form of outside money. Like that's been the main driver of Bitcoin adoption and demand for the asset in my mind. And I think to to your point, Michael, it was very much exacerbated by Russia's treasury being seized. So this asset that everyone sort of perceived as risk free or at least you can trust the counterparty that sort of collapsed or deteriorated. And you know, a a piece that I think was formative in my understanding of this was Zoltan Pozar, who was formerly an economist at Credit Suisse. Now he's he's launched his own business. I think it's an advisory business, but he wrote a piece, I think in 21 perhaps around there that was talking about this concept of inside versus outside money and this new monetary order that he was sort of recognizing was, was in the midst of, of developing. And then the other, the other note, which I think is not often talked about or, you know, under, under, you know, represented it when people talk about game theory in general and also sovereign game theory when it comes to Bitcoin specifically, is it's very different than every other sort of instance historically of sovereign game theory in the sense that the individual can participate. So if you think about like other instances in history of, of sovereign game theory playing out, whether it's, you know, resource control or nuclear arms race, or, you know, any of these things where nation states are competing against each other in almost all of those scenarios, like the individual, the person is completely removed from that game. Like they have no say, no influence. And this sort of Bitcoin game theory is this, you know, very egalitarian thing where like, yeah, now we're seeing it play out at the sovereign level, but it's like the individual is very much involved and can play in this game. And that's just extremely unique. And something that isn't, is I don't think anyone, I've heard many people bring it up when when they talk about this game theory and it's it's it's very unique. It's different than any other game theory we've watched play out because you and I, the individual, can participate. Well, and it is the thing because I think it's the interplay that the sovereigns are playing at a level this like ties back to in its essence. And I don't think many people talk about what you just described. And I would again encourage to go listen as pod because it references that you usually think the common notion of Bitcoin becoming or competing with the dollar. People are saying that it's it's competing with the dollar and the government will never allow. But there's like 2 factions or concerns when you think about 1 is coming with the doll and the other one's competing with national security. And national security effectively means that you have to produce arms and weaponry to protect your citizens. And in Luke, growing makes the case that in Ukraine, it was shown that we cannot manufacture the things that are needed at the scale of other sovereigns. And so if you're going to come back and reassure all these, you know, things that need to be made here, which we understand from all the things that we know about hollowing out and manufacturing, well then that isn't a natural cause for inflation. Well, your citizens have to be able to have an asset A, if you're going to inflate that they can benefit so it can increase GDP, but B, that they actually hold a form of money that's inflating faster than the assets cost so they can still be able to buy things. And that's the interplay that doesn't get discussed on why this would make sense from it's the game theory plays into it from a national level to create a sovereign stockpile, but also from everyone that's holding, which just happens to be the United States citizens hold the majority or a large percentage of the total Bitcoin supply. Sorry, Ro. Yeah. And I'll just add so the way I view Bitcoin, because I'll tell you just from my personal experience, 20 years ago, it was unheard of that, you know, Russia or China would be so involved in the Middle East and Africa. Nowadays that's just a regular occurrence, and the reason we've seen the shift over the years is, especially since the Russia Ukraine war, with the financialization of the financial rails. Because at the end of the day, sovereign game theory is reliant mostly on financial rails. Yes, weaponry and national security is important, but none of that could exist without being able to move money around. The easiest way to choke your opponent is to cut them off the financial system. It will stop import of needed resources to build any type of equipment you want. It will just isolate you. So these countries, China, Russia, have been trying to position themselves in areas where the US has started to lose geopolitical power or influence. That's why sometimes rumors come out about the bricks, for example, separating from the Petro dollar, etcetera. So the Russians and the Chinese are in the region trying to influence them so that they are a player within the energy rich area. But Bitcoin solves, you know, this political maneuvering because it is much more efficient to be able to just buy or mine Bitcoin and build a strategic reserve than to have to move human capital, resources and investments into those areas to try to build loyalty and influence. So by owning Bitcoin, these nation states really technically are, you know, reducing the capital load on their nations and trying to basically secure what Bitcoin already does, which allows you to move value anywhere and to settle within 10 minutes. So I think they're picking up on that and now in the region here, you'll notice most of the countries have been stockpiling tons of gold. So that's another, you know, money that's sitting outside of the system. So out money that the term you use in the report and Bitcoin just makes sense because as an asset is it would be much easier to transact at a global scale. So I view Bitcoin as you know, the end game when it comes to political influence. And the reason why is because it removes the need for excessive deployment of troops to secure the financial rails of your nations. So that's that's just one thing I view because 20 years ago it was unheard of that Russia would be in the Middle East or that China would be involved in the Middle East. It was purely AUS dominated area or European dominate dominated area. Yeah, the other the other component too is and you know, whether it's if you want to talk about, you know, some of the work that Jason Lowry has done on this in terms of, you know, Bitcoin being this new form of power projection. And effectively, if you if you can get to the assumption that this is going to be a heavily trafficked monetary rail into the future, then you want to be able to secure some amount of that. And Bob Burnett I think also does a really good job about talking about this in the sense that like not only is Bitcoin itself scarce, but block space is scarce. So it if there's blocks every 10 minutes, you as a nation state want to be sure and, or even just as a private company or an enterprise, you want to have some amount of confidence that you'll be able to transact on the network. And so that means either, you know, setting up hash rate. And so that's why I think, you know, what Lowry talks a lot about is sort of these hash rate wars that will probably have already started playing out, particularly in the Middle East. I think that's, that's pretty readily apparent. And you could argue what's happening here too. It's just they're, they're public companies, but they're they're within our border. So I think that, you know, if you're being honest about it, like that would count in terms of United States house, right? So I think that's, that's the other component too, is like you need to have access to the rails to the scarce block space in order to truly participate. Like yes, owning a stockpile helps you from more of a financial or economic perspective, but like in terms of actually using the rails, that's where the mining mining game theory comes in too. Yeah. And in the UAE, I mean, no one will confirm that the government at the sovereign level is building hashtray. Why would? But I mean, every single person you speak to that's involved in energy infrastructure or data centers and mining will tell you that the government is mining. I mean, their sovereign wealth fund has an allocation to Phoenix Group, which is one of the biggest miners in the region. Bit Main and Giga are really present within the region as well. So I mean, there's a reason for that. There's someone that's buying up the equipment and setting up these shops, right? I mean, energy isn't necessarily cheap at the, you know, retail level, but somewhere it's cheap for this demand of mining companies setting up shop here. There is someone who is buying these machines and building these mining farms. And, you know, we can't really say who I, I, I don't think we'll, we'll know until some major announcement happens in the US where the actual Bitcoin reserve actually goes live or is officially announced. At that point, I wouldn't be surprised if some country within the GCC, mainly Oman or you know, the UAE comes out and says, yeah, we've already been doing this for 18 months, for example. The best part about all the stuff we talked about and I think how everybody's talked about Bitcoin in the space at all these levels is they always sound theoretical, but they're generally rooted in some micro, like practical example. And like the one that came to mind when Ralph was sharing, thinking about mining is like Texas having a deregulated grid and then 22. I think it's like up to 23 1/2% of all money hash rate lives in Texas. It's like it is an actual example of game theory playing out. And then it happens at the micro example from every individual buys Bitcoin because they're expecting others to buy Bitcoin because there's only 21 million. And so all these things are already been playing out. It's just at what level does the education, the again the, the, the bureaucracy live at the organizational level, which is why we see at the treasury in company level, it's usually smaller companies before it gets up to publicly traded because you have to generate consensus. And this is a hard asset to generate consensus on given the polarizing and nature of all of it. Yeah. And the difficulty it's Bitcoin is funny in a way because it's much easier for the individual or the small corporation to get into it than it is at the higher levels. Because, you know, one of the most complex aspect at those institutional levels or sovereign levels is, you know, securing it because the amounts are extremely big. And, you know, history hasn't been kind to safekeeping Bitcoin at the institutional level. And so I think a lot of them would rather internalize it until they see a better solution come into the market that they can leverage to hold the asset. But definitely in the UAE, we see a lot of, you know, qualified custodian coming out, but what we've been talking to them about, you know, for example, multi institutional custody. And when I first got here, people were kind of reluctant to look into that. But over the last few months, a lot of these players have found interest and are starting to understand it. I mean, just a funny story. I met a guy when I first got here and he was into all types of, you know, digital assets and investing. He's like, yeah, I mean, I have a small stack of Bitcoin. I saw him two months ago and he's like, dude, I sold everything. Now I'm Bitcoin only. So you see a shift in mindset because because altcoins, what he thought was going to perform, did not. And the only thing that's basically dominating the market is Bitcoin. And with the ETFs, with, you know, the Bitcoin strategic reserve, he's like, yeah, I'm wasting my time. I sleep better at night and this is just where I want to be. The this is the polarizing take and we don't have to go deep on at Jackson, but I will call it out because it's the perfect contrast of what Ralph started the beginning of the conversation referencing the gravity of having a bad form of money and what happens if it's not sitting your control and over the course of bitcoins 15 years, every cycle, every couple of years there is a new thing that takes your Bitcoin and it always looks good until it's not in retrospect. And so the referencing of all of this notion of financializing it into the asset and creating publicly traded companies and Bitcoin only companies and people like there is that next wave. You can see where you end up with these like elegant or these over complex forms of Bitcoin exposure that effectively will take people's Bitcoin from either ever purchasing it or moving Bitcoin into what they believe is going to have a return multiple. But again, it goes back to the outside money notion of like, if you have your money, you can control it. You can have, you know, trust minimize ways to have a bare asset that you know, you can sleep good at night knowing that somebody can't rug you the next day. It's a literally the opposite of what we're describing what's happening in the financial markets. And not to say that these companies don't need the exposure and they can't do it, but there's something fundamentally different than protecting your purchasing power as a corporation versus turning into a financialization of it because it's part it's it's intertwining the whole system that we know eventually has you. Know problems I think I think that's also what what you're describing is also just part of how adoption plays out because there are various pools of capital that aren't necessarily prepared or don't have the mandate to go to the fully sort of outside version of the Bitcoin right. And so that's why MSCR everything sailors doing from sort of you know creating these different sort of flavors of proxy exposure to the asset. I think it's super important just generally for broader awareness, people adopting not Bitcoin natively. But getting exposure, learning more about it, I think that's all super important. And I think where it eventually goes is they realize there's a better way to own it outright and you don't need to do various leverage games because it's just going to continue to be the best performing asset regardless of what kind of leverage you put on it. I think what you're getting at is like more on the retail side of like people, you know, I, I get concerned when people say they're selling their Bitcoin to buy MSTR like that. That feels like a bad idea. And it's kind of what you're describing like this financialization that is ultimately getting people to to not own the asset outright. Well, there's. Yeah, Yeah. I think there's two aspects to that because I think like you can make the case that if somebody can't get spot equity exposure or spot exposure via like some ETF, you would adopt A company with good fundamentals that holds Bitcoin from a fiduciary perspective. Then buying a company that has turned into financialize because you're effectively take, it's like if us as individuals took out a bunch of credit cards, bought Bitcoin, we do looked at degenerates with no cash flow. Like if we made a bunch of money, it's not a big problem, but the second that we reduce our cash flow versus like the the obligations on liabilities, we'd be looked at as degenerates. Well, if companies are getting spun up just effectively to do the strategy and don't have the financial acumen to do that and as a fiduciary, that's your angle to get exposure. Well then that makes zero sense. But people will tell the story that that's their only way to get it to like justify either start in the business or investing in it as the multiple. Like from a first principle perspective, it just, it's also a symptom of like how messed up the system is because those people should theoretically be able to figure out how to get exposure to the underlying that doesn't layer like 10 levels of risk on. It and financialization doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing. I think it's how the product is built that that gives it a bad Rep. Like if you read the filings of the ETFSI mean basically what they're saying is that, you know, if the custodian goes bankrupt or whatever, basically you're gonna be an unsecured creditor. And so the Bitcoin's not even yours, so you might lose everything. I think it's, you know, a bit more transparency. I mean, having the ability to actually take out, because with stocks you can't take out the stocks from an ETF, you can't take them and self custody them. But with Bitcoin, because it's a better asset, it just makes sense that any financial product that you build, because pension plans for example, cannot own spot Bitcoin. Certain institutional entities just can't from a regulatory legal point of view, they can't own the underlying commodity directly like physical gold or oil, gallons or barrels of oil, etcetera. So they need a financialized product, but you want that product to be closer to actual ownership than less similar to the ETFs that we have right now. So you want something that would allow you to take custody of the asset and that's secured in a more decentralized way? Agreed. Yeah, I mostly agree with Brian here too just in the the instance that 2024 was really just the first touch point for mass adoption, at least here in the United States as relates to the ETFs and getting exposure for and for many people, they still have not gotten exposure. And for, for the folks who did get exposure through the ETFI think it'll be a learning process just as it has been for all of us in terms of understanding the, the monetary properties of Bitcoin. And Brian, I think I know we're kind of coming up on time, but I do want to give you some airtime on the shareholder letter that you published yesterday because I, there's a lot of things we could talk about. It probably warrants a separate discussion. But the thing that I, I thought of immediately was that you call out in that letter that in 2024, there's only four top tier hedge fund managers that beat the S&P 500, which returned about 24%, right. And so we're, we're getting to a point now where more investors, whether it's the individual or the institution will recognize that they can hold a better form of money, a savings technology that will pass passively outperform the active money managers and also equity indices. So Brian, I want to I have some questions, but maybe you can just give an overarching context about your public. Yeah, sure. So for starters, I, I always love putting this piece together, mainly because in my prior life when I, when I worked at Brown Brothers Harriman, a lot of what I did was read not only shareholder letters, but quarterly letters from a variety of, of asset managers and investors across the asset class spectrum. So always enjoy, particularly in sort of the January, February time period, digging through people's letters, hearing their thoughts and, and how they were thinking about the year completed and sort of looking ahead. So it's, it's been fun to put this together the past couple years. And really given that, you know, in my mind, a shareholder letter is, is very much a traditional finance sort of practice that I want, I like to tie in certain themes that would resonate with people sitting in that world, sitting in those seats. And So what I wanted to talk about with this one was this trend of really the past two decades of, you know, there's there's been this debate around active versus passive management and active management. All that really means is your stock picking, you are picking individual securities as opposed to just allocating to an index like the S&P 500 or the NASDAQ, which would be considered passive investing. And so there's been this massive trend of capital flowing from active managers to passive managers really for a few reasons. One, just the cost associated. So, so index funds are much lower cost than an active managed strategy. And the other reason is that there was just continued underperformance of active managers. So, and it's sort of this recursive flywheel in the sense that the, you know, index funds like the S&P are increasingly driven by a handful of mega cap stocks. And what that does over time is, you know, capital flows into these index funds. It sort of adds to the performance of those top names in the fund. Their weight then increases that that increases their performance, increases the flows. So it's like this recursive loop of over time. If you want to just pull up that that chart that I had on I think Page 3 Jackson in there that just shows just the past two years. And like I said, this is a multi decade trend, but just the past two years of the weight of the top seven companies. So the mag 7 you know what you would think of as as the sort of mega cap stocks, the weight of that of those names has increased. It's now, you know, over a third of the S and Pi Think page for Jackson. It's on Michael's screen. And the the contribution to the returns of the index is also, you know, outsized from these these particular names. And so if you look at, you know, the performance of the S&P minus the MAG 7, it's like basically flat, very meager returns without those those seven names. And so all this is really to say, you know, Jackson, you led with at the beginning, like a very select few of what you would think of as like top tier hedge funds actually outperform the S&P. And part of the reason is that it's just driven by, you know, that that benchmark is getting harder and harder to beat year over year because it's just driven by these few names which, you know, have economies of scale have really significant business modes. It's not to say that these businesses aren't good businesses and won't continue to be, but there's still a ton of execution risk, key man risk. Like these are individual companies that, you know, I think the, the concept of index investing when it was first originated was like, OK, this is like diversified, a little less risky than stock picking. But really all it is today is like stock picking, but you're just picking the seven biggest stocks in the market. And So what I, what I go into after that is sort of like, well, where's Bitcoin fit into all of this, in this, in this active passive debate? Because it's somewhere, it's somewhere in the middle. It's it's, you know, in, at its core, it's very passive in the sense of, you know, the, the predominant strategy is just accumulate the asset, buy and hold it, don't trade around it, don't leverage it. So that would, that would appear very passive on the surface, But on the, on another hand, like it is the most active sort of macro bet you could be making in the sense of going back to the inside versus outside money conversation. It is a digital form of sound money, outside money that is completely detached from stocks, bonds, you know, real estate. And so it's a, it's very much an active bet. So I, I, I sort of coined this phrase actively passive as, as an allocation because it doesn't really fit within this, you know, traditional finance active passive debate somewhere in the middle. And it's actually very unique in the sense that you're taking a a very deliberate stance that you're concerned about currency debasement and you don't want to own all these other assets that are linked to that currency debasement. Well, at the same time, it's very simple, like you don't have to be a stock picker, you're just owning a better form of money. So it is this, this elegant sort of solution for everyone from the individual up to, you know, institutional allocators going back to sort of the, you know, the egalitarian nature of it, which we referenced earlier. But yeah, that was that was sort of the main point of of this report, this letter. And yeah, Jackson, if you had any questions on it. Yeah. Brian, I really liked what you did with with the letter. Overall, it was very well done. I'd encourage anyone to check it out. We'll include it in the show notes and the actively passive framework is such a good way to describe it and the the way you positioned it. You mentioned trying to fit it into an active or passive bucket. It kind of reminds me of conversations we had early on, right, in communicating with institutional investors and trying to fit Bitcoin into an existing asset allocation framework where we could position Bitcoin as a real asset. Or is it more akin to a venture type of bet? It's, it's not right. It's, it's, it's it's own asset class. And I think we're, we're finally getting to the point now where we can have these conversations with institutional allocators, with registered investment advisors and we can use new frameworks, Brian, like what you just developed here with Bitcoins, a passively active investment. And we can describe why that is. And we're also able to describe why Bitcoin is its own unique standalone asset class, which we finally kind of have now an industry in within traditional finance that is coalescing around that standard as well. That Bitcoin is different than crypto. Bitcoin is not a, it's not an asset that fits into one of these existing buckets. It is a new bucket that investors need to think about. And so I don't know if you agree with that, Brian, but it's generally just like a take away that I had after reading the report as well. Yeah. I mean, I think that that was certainly part of my intent is like, you know, crafting ways to talk about what Bitcoin represents as an out allocation in your portfolio and really speak the language of traditional finance, but in in a different flavor that that speaks to the unique nature of of Bitcoin. The other component which you reference, like maybe I'm a little less optimistic of like people recognizing the distinction between Bitcoin and crypto. Like, I don't know, Michael, you, you texted in, in our, in one of our threads, like, you know, Fidelity's referencing Solana as a legitimate competitor to Ethereum. They talk about Ethereum a lot. And we've and you know, we have a lot of respect for Fidelity. I think they have a lot of really smart people there, but even them are still not fully rocking the distinction or at least portraying the distinction that we believe in. And I think that's, that's largely true across the board is still in the institutional space. Like I, I do think there's still a lot of conflation that's occurring and you still see this even on like CNBC, like Jackson, there was that clip that you tweeted out the other day of, of I forget who it was or what network it was, but like the woman was, was aghast. She was like, well, how can Bitcoin be legitimate or a thing if like hawk to a coin just rubbed It's like what would like? So I, I don't think we've actually come that far in terms of people understanding the differences here. I think there's still a ton of conflation and that's just going to take time and it's going to take more ruggings. Unfortunately, people getting wrecked on these other coins. Like Ralph said his, his buddy was just like, Oh yeah, it took me a while, but now I'm now I'm Bitcoin only because, you know, I, I wasn't lucky enough to allocate to fartcoin and get a, a massive return. Like I, I invested in the, you know, one of the other thousand of, you know, options I had and got wrecked like that. That's what if you give it enough time that that's ultimately how it plays out. I think the price is actually going to take care of that randomly. I was talking about everyone conflating and I think is a bias projection because they missed Bitcoin. So everything else has to be like Bitcoin. They're going to lose the money because it must all be hooked to a coin. But once it gets to 5500 strategic reserve, it's like, OK, this is something else than this other stuff. It's just a function of price. I don't even think it'll have to be education. It'll just be more of like this is the obvious thing. Jackson has a nice chart of 60% market cap or of the market of the crypto market. It is the market and just most people when you go share that like credit to Jackson, we have a nice slide deck if anybody's curious and seeing of the market of Bitcoins dominance being roughly 60% at the time. And then the way he analogizes it is to the the magnificent 7 or 35% of the S&P 500. And when you tell that to people, they're just like, wait, what? Like they don't they don't that one in the and that 1.2 to 1.4 trillion of the two trillion and Bitcoin sits with individuals. Those two just like mess with people's head in the trap fire world because it just paints a completely different picture on like how this assets emerged and what is that like the obvious winner. Yeah, it's a great, it's a great point there, Michael, because it ties into Brian what what the work that you did on the passive verse active and Bitcoin being actively passive. People want to own the ETFs, right? They want to own S&P 500 because they want exposure to the broader market, but more importantly want they want exposure to the largest companies that are driving the outsides of the return. So if you take that same lens to the digital asset market, same thing applies. But even at a greater scale, you have Bitcoin that's currently sitting at maybe 55 to 60% dominance in the market. So Bitcoin really is the market. And so as long as you have an allocation of Bitcoin over the long term, that's really what you want to be paying attention to, similar to if you if you're going to own equities, you're going to want to have an allocation to the companies that are driving most of the market return. That's a key point because if you, I think I put the A line in the report about this, it was just like if you had just, if you had not bought the S&P 500 and you had just bought those five to seven names, you would have vastly outperformed the S&P. And so that's a very similar dynamic where it's like you just need to own Bitcoin. You don't need a, a diversified basket of crypto currencies to get exposure to the market. You just need to own what is actually driving the performance of the market. Yeah, and. Yeah. And Brian, just the report was amazing. So I encourage everyone to read it. It made me think of one thing, especially when you talk about MicroStrategy being now a part of NASDAQ, right, NASDAQ 100. So let's say MicroStrategy joins SMP 500, another Bitcoin, another company that holds Bitcoin joint as well, the SMP 500. Over time, what's going to happen, similar to what happened with the Magnificent 7, the top performers of the index will be Bitcoin companies that hold Bitcoin under treasury reserve. So inevitably what will happen is you'll still underperform potentially Bitcoin if they're just holding it without leveraging it and using that stuff. But at the end of the day, passive investing becomes Bitcoin investing over the next maybe 1520 years. Like that's just something that I thought of when you were talking. I just went there because I'm like if more companies hold Bitcoin and more companies in these indexes are holding Bitcoin and they're performance is also tethered to bitcoins performance over time. I mean it might not make sense anymore to diversify into an index and you would just hold Bitcoin. Yeah. No, that's exactly right. I think part of what I was trying to get out in that part was just like this sort of osmosis of capital flowing from all these other asset buckets into Bitcoin, like micro strategy is what that looks like. It's in some practical sense, at least right now in the current time, like it's that is forms of capital flowing through these other instruments to get proxy exposure to Bitcoin. And over time to your point, like as those equities and other instruments enter indices that goes back to the same like recursive flywheel that I referenced earlier, where it's like higher performance as to the weight more flows like and so that I think you're exactly right. That's what we're going to see out, you see play out over the next 1020 years. Yeah. Well, I'd encourage anyone who hasn't seen it to check out the report. I called it out already. We got a wrap here in just a moment. But we first have to call out the single point of failure of the week. I think it's going to be, it's going to be a good segment to just call attention to risks that people should be thinking about less. So at the institutional level, I think institutions will naturally be isolated from these risks just in terms of how they hold the asset. But certainly investors at the retail level, individual Bitcoin hodlers should be thinking about various types of risks. One of those includes something I saw come across Bitcoin news recently. I can't remember 1 exactly, but there was this crypto influencer, someone who moderated a forum, I think it's some sort of event with in Canada actually, and was kidnapped. Him and his family were kidnapped and tortured for their, I guess Bitcoin and their crypto. And so I don't necessarily think that when I think about the risk profile and what people need to think about, I still think that these types of physical threats are more isolated to people who have public images, whether you're, you're known as a, an early adopter or you work within an organization. Unfortunately, like us, for most people, I don't think they have to worry about this just yet. But I do think there's a recognition that is Bitcoin appreciates we're, we're in a bear market right now. We're at 92,000. So, but when Bitcoin, you know, recovers back above 6 figures and into 20252026 and beyond, this is going to become a more real threat for more people. And so there's not enough talk about the industry, but people should be thinking about these types of physical threats. And how to protect yourself and your family. It's an unfortunate thing with a bare instrument, just like if you had a bunch of gold in your home and that became public information, eventually someone would be motivated to try to take that from you. So I don't know if you guys have any thoughts there. It's obviously a sad thing to see and it feel like we're just seeing more and more headlines, certainly as of the past couple months about it. Yeah, I think part part of it too is, you know, you reference, it's most likely to occur with with known folks in the space or if you're vocal or public about your ownership of the asset. That's certainly true today. But I think, I think we all agree, like, you know, I don't, I, I think we in a future state 10 years from now, like everybody's holdings are docks, like whether you're famous or not, like someone's going to be able to sleuth, an attacker is going to be able to sleuth out how much Bitcoin you have and where you live. Like just that's the, that's the reality of, of data leaks and what I expect to occur over the next decade. So to your point, yeah, maybe right now it's it's primarily someone is is very vocal in public about it, but that's not going to be the case forever. Yeah, Jackson, thanks for reminding. We got to figure out when in the segment. So we just do it every, every we get the exact same point because we almost forgot or I almost forgot. But to Jack, to Brian's point, I think it's just a part again, of broken or not fully developed market structures in a similar way, like where you have FDIC and you have to park all your money across all these banks because you can't plan on them to be whole in the same way that you have to, you know, in the digital asset space, every week we hear about some crazy thing happening because, you know, you can take somebody's family or wealth by just there's a point of failure there, whether it's them or their homes. And you can see again, the micro examples how this played out with like single sig and the multi sig happened Because then you could, you know, theoretically have a it like you can pretend to use multi sig if you had single sig. And then you can imagine you have multi institution and you could say, look, I use this. So you start to build market structures like I can't just take all my Bitcoin or you can't take all somebody's Bitcoin. Similar how you can't take all of a billionaire's wealth or equities sold in over the course of a day. But the other thing I was going to reference is doesn't have to be people. We saw our latter late middle of last year, the natural disasters in the southeast of the US. Now we have a lot of things going on in California still in real time, you know, praying for folks there. So I think this is just a natural thing to look at and underwrite your exposure because that's the last thing is especially with what Ralph went into with the Lebanon situation, it's like just, it's just God forbid, like I can't imagine waking up all the things you've worked for and then just the next day not having them. It's just a crazy idea to be in. And I think where it's been tolerated in the Bitcoin or crypto spaces because it's generally looked at as a risk asset. So people put one percent 2%, but people have done the work or holding material wealth there and you want to be able to protect that and protect it for your family. So that's also just re underwriting why we're going to focus on having a quick piece on this every week. Yeah, I love that. Well, appreciate it guys. And Ralph, thanks for joining us this week. Always a pleasure. If anyone were just wanted to get in touch with you to learn or to have a conversation about on Rammeno or just if your story resonated with them, where's the best place for them to get in touch with you? Yeah. So through our website on rammeno.com or through LinkedIn, we're extremely active. It's at on Rammeno, similar to Twitter or X at on ramp Meno. So we're very proactive and very responsive. So please feel free to reach out. Happy to walk you through bitcoins value proposition, how to custody it and you know, talk about multi institution custody. And even if you're just curious about what we're up to in the region, have to share details on that. And one last plug on ramp Institutional series kicking off next week with James Lavish and Dave Foley. Brian shareholder letter like to think of as the kickoff for the institutional work that we'll be doing this year. So if you want to attend, we'll have you'll be able to find it on our LinkedIn and Twitter page. But there'll be some other stuff coming out between release tomorrow on Friday and then the series that kicks off on Thursday. Amazing. Sweet. Thanks, Ralph. Appreciate you joining. My pleasure. Thanks guys. Thanks boys. See you. Thanks for listening to this week's episode of the show. If you found the information valuable, please share the episode with a friend or leave a rating on your favorite podcast app. All the links we discussed in today's show will be in the show notes inside your podcast app. Before we finish, a quick reminder that on Ramp Media is for informational and entertainment purposes only, and nothing should be construed as investment or legal advice. Regardless of where you are on your Bitcoin journey, we'd love to hear from you. Visit on rampbitcoin.com/contact to schedule a consultation with one of our private Client advisors.