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Before we get into the episode, a quick reminder that this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only and nothing should be construed as investment or legal advice. Now for a word from on RAMP on RAMP is a Bitcoin asset management platform built on Multi institution custody, leveraging our partnerships with industry veterans, Bit Go and Coin Cover on ramps. Multi Institution Custody is a segregated vault requiring two of three institutions at any point in time to sign once a client's unique permissions have been met. Our industry leading best in class approach to custody helps individuals and institutions secure new and existing Bitcoin positions. All keys are held in deep cold storage and kept 100% offline. Managed with institutional grade security best practices. The custody solution eliminates single points of failure and reduces counterparty risks, ensuring maximum security and Peace of Mind on RAMPS Suite of products includes our custody offering, a spot Bitcoin fund, private wealth services and inheritance planning, and managed wealth for advisors. Whether you're new to Bitcoin or a veteran in the space, we would love to connect with you to understand your needs and how we can serve you. Please visit our website at on rampbitcoin.com where you can schedule a consultation and connect directly with our team. What you're telling me is that music is about to stop, and we're going to be left holding the biggest bag of odorous extra ever assembled in the history of darkness, 1974198792972000. And whatever we want to call this. It's all just the same thing over and over. We can't help ourselves. I say. When we sell, hey, I say. When we sell. Well, we're live now. We've got 37 minutes ETF launch day. We're joined by Alex Thorne from Galaxy Digital. Yes, sorry. For being late, I'm having some technical difficulties with this Macintosh computer. Are they called Macintoshes? I think originally they're just called Macs now the nomenclature is. Yep. Yep, Alex is a scarce asset. He's been busy this morning. This is your second or third. Recording ball and I got to head over to Pub Key in a little bit to do another, so God, I know. I love pub key. It looked fun last night. Were you there last night? I was there briefly, yeah. But we were, we were celebrating a little bit you know, right, right around market close. So I it was an early night for me. We'll say that, yeah, if. You haven't been to Pub Key in New York City and you're listening. You got to get there, make the pilgrimage. It's worth, Yeah, big thing. So this summer. How are we feeling today? I I'm feeling great. I think these things are are moving. I'm seeing pretty big volume in the scheme of things here. I mean grayscale with the the highest volume, but I think we know you know most of which direction that's probably going, but a lot of success out of the gate, it looks like seeing tight spreads. The the last number I said was 1.7 billion in volume in the first hour. So we're two hours in now. Yeah, I have higher than that. I got to update my Bloomberg worksheet here. I'm looking at share count, so I'd have to do some some quick tabulation, but I I think that I think we're probably over 2 now. Well, it's been a, it's been a long run, Alex. I feel like out of the group here you've been around closest to the the hoop when it comes to financial services. Fun fact, me and Alex connected years ago. So it's a long game in this space. I think 2018 or 19. I was at the walk selling into Fidelity when he was there on the enterprise stuff and curious on like what's going on, you know, with your former colleagues at Fidelity right now at a Galaxy, like what's the sentiment, people excited. What's going on? Yeah. I think people are very excited. Obviously, it's been a long time in the making. I think I'm seeing Fidelity's doing quite well as well. Keep in mind, they have their own Giant distribution platform, right? I mean, they have 30 + 1,000,000 brokerage accounts. They're the largest 401K provider in the United States. So they they have A and and of course they're self custodying their their Bitcoin, right, because they have Fidelity digital assets, their own regulated spot Bitcoin custodian. So yeah I think they're quite excited. I know we're very excited. I mean Galaxy and Invesco filed in 21 and were rejected along with everyone else. So it's been a long time in the making here. I think you know from when you think about the the sort of the the Bitcoin brokerage and expertise smashing into the traditional finance, there's a couple that stand out. Fidelity's obviously one Invesco's the second largest issuer that has a Bitcoin ETF, right. They're the 4th largest ETF issuer in the world and and of course Galaxy has been a a Bitcoin company for a long time and and I hope it remains 1. So, yeah, and then you, I would say Arkan 21 shares right as another combo of sort of crypto native and and traditional. But I think it matters a lot. I mean there's there's some real, it's tricky to do this actually and you know Galaxy is in a is in a pretty unique position. We actually already operate these in two other countries. So whereas I think only 21 shares is the only other firm that actually has experience running a crypto native ETP. So look, we're excited. I think there's fast we can finally move on that you know, I'm not, we're not moving on, but we can move on from the endless months of discussion of you know, tea Reed leaving on on tea leave, reading on the ETF announcement and such. So I think people are just excited to get down into the actual race among the issuers. It's going to be interesting what happens to Bitcoin itself, right? I mean, I think you're going to see significant changes in the Bitcoin brokerage space, right? People buying and selling spot Bitcoin. I'll obviously personally always buy Bitcoin. I use River personally, but there's plenty of of good places to buy Bitcoin and I'll be storing it on my myself and I have a I have a powerful multi sig set up. I don't want to show too hard or give too many details on, but there's good reason to own the ETFs also and I think you'll start to see you know, multi custodial models emerge. I think I'm hoping that the SEC will eventually allow shareholders to take physical delivery of the underlying. Obviously that's a huge, you know, limiting factor. If you're bullish Bitcoin with the vehicles today, it'll be a problem too for four O 1K providers that decide to offer Bitcoin exposure. Because if you're long term right on on this thesis, you don't want to get to the end of the road. You know, I'm 37. If I'm going to retire at 67, I want to put Bitcoin in my 4 O 1K and then take it out at 67. I don't want dollars. If if we're right, you're going to want the Bitcoin, you know, so more to come on on these products. I think they they they will evolve further. But for now I think it's just, you know, it's it's going to be good for Bitcoin spot markets as well will create significantly more liquidity I think over time. So it's going to be interesting. You're going to have a fracture. We already have one between investors and Bitcoin network users, but that gulf is gonna widen. Yeah, it's gonna be exciting to see the custody landscape evolve. I think it's three right now for the ETFs between fidelity bit, go with one and then Coinbase with the rest. And to see, Yeah, definitely. There as well. OK. Yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah. And to your point there about like the physical delivery, I think on that issue, I think it's just gonna be forced at some point. Yeah, for especially 30 years down the line, it's gonna be I'm not taking dollars. Yeah, I'm like, I don't. Demand. If you're right about Bitcoin becoming like global money, you don't wanna end up with like selling into, you know, a hyper inflating Fiat currency. I don't make any sense. No, Ridiculous. No. And I I guess, I mean, we just had a discussion with Larry Leopard and David Foley about this. I mean, we can rehash it today, especially since this episode's gonna go out immediately. Like, do you view this as a pivotal inflection point in Bitcoin's history? Yeah, I absolutely do. This is Bitcoin on every screen, on every and every account, right. I think this is a pivotal moment. Bitcoins had many pivotal moments, right? I mean certainly nation state adopting it was a pivotal moment. You know, we don't have to name them all. Hal receiving the first transactions, probably the second, you know, after the genesis was blocked. There have been many milestones I think in terms of global adoption this this is a major, major one truly and honestly, I don't think Bitcoin or traditional finance will ever be the same after this. How do we reconcile 15 years to the date from Hal running running Bitcoin? The ETF gets approved. Yeah, I know it's, it's really, it's it's it's poetic. I mean luckily anything that happens in early January is always going to line up with one of these big days, whether it's the genesis block or the first transaction or the OR or Hal's tweet or whatever, right. I mean, that's the first tweet about Bitcoin basically ever. And I think it's very poetic. I mean how it also goes back. I mean, I I cannot help but keep reading Hal's post on Bitcoin banks right now. He's talking about something a little different than certainly ETFs. I saw somebody say that Liquid was what Hal was talking about. That's also not true if you read the post, he's really talking about literal banks for in a free banking era, issuing their own paper that's backed by Bitcoin. But the the the question remains right, What is the place for institutions in something that is inherently A peer-to-peer network and and that the answer to that continues to evolve. And I'm of the view that if Bitcoin is wildly successful, it needs to be and will be available everywhere, right. It'll be in every fintech app. It'll be at every bank account. It'll be in every brokerage account. It'll be in yourself custody, it'll be everywhere, right in hot wall, it's cold wall, it's banks like. And so I I don't know what that means long term for Bitcoin the network it's it's going to mean something. I think it only becomes more pivotal that Bitcoin stays secure and and and developers stay supported and I don't know it's going to impact Bitcoin culture and so it's going to be which is always evolving we'll just have to wait and see. But I can't. I can't help but again, I encourage everybody to go into Bitcoin talk or find someone to send you a a screenshot of Hal's famous Bitcoin banks post, which he wrote very early in the history of Bitcoin and and we're we're making progress. December 2010, I believe it was December 30th, 2010, right before the New Year, he wrote. That, Mark, it's. Right on his mind. I love it. And it's extremely prescient, whether it's Liquid, Chummy and Mint or banks, I think it is materializing. And it was crazy how prescient Hal was less than two years into the protocol launching, recognizing that this network specifically at the protocol level would have scaling limitations and you would have to have this proliferation of layers above it and a more private banking enterprise on top of it leveraging Bitcoin as a reserve asset. Yeah, that one. That one hit a little bit. Sorry. I was gonna say the what Alex is referring to. I don't know Logan, if it's if it's up but or if you have it, but it hit a little different because I've read it a few times but when it got posted the other day because what we're describing whether it's chumming mints, I guess Fetty Mints would be that liquid what we're doing it on. It's all effectively the same thing. It's multi sig controlling Bitcoin. You have transparency knowing where the Bitcoin sits. So you always have that audit ability. At the end of the day to the main point which we talk about a lot is this free banking idea of that it's reputation based and you can take delivery of the asset to keep everybody honest just hasn't naturally hasn't happened and that's kind of where gold kind of fell off. And so, yeah, it's it's going to be interesting to see where the next decade plays out, especially as people get educated and that's what they demand from like their custodial relationship. Yeah, absolutely. I I actually, it's crazy. I'm on Bitcoin talk right now on Hal's account and you can he actually talked about banks a lot. It's amazing. I put it in there. Logan. Wow, I got the date exactly right from Emory. That feels good. That's nice, Yeah. Actually, there's a very good reason for Bitcoin backed banks to exist issuing their own digital cash currency redeemable for bitcoins. Bitcoin itself cannot scale to have every single financial transaction in the world to be broadcast to everyone included in the blockchain. There needs to be a secondary level of payment systems which is lighter weight and more efficient. Likewise, the time needed for Bitcoin transactions to finalize will be impractical for medium to large value purchases. Won't read the rest, but that's the first pack graph. Yeah yeah. You know this this goes back to like it's a settlement layer. Bitcoin created a digital settlement layer and that solves that sounds solves the very foundation of finance but you need to have all of your like usable interfaces built on top of that settlement layer. And so how was in my opinion just recognizing reality that finite block space 10 minute block times you you need some solution above that and lightning solves a large part of that. But but having having a free banking sort of model where people are companies are competing to be your home for your Bitcoin financial life of course makes sense. It's it's just the rediscovery of of free market capitalism in banking after you know several centuries of it becoming increasingly less free market. Yeah, I think it's like individuals that have looked at Bitcoin for a while, it's generally thought like we're going to recreate the wheel. And if you look more and more it's just we're just re purposing it. We're looking at the existing market structure and we realized that there were certain flaws or you know holes in the mechanics. And so I think it starts to look a lot more like the existing world with just checks and balances which is effectively like existed for a reason. There just need to be a better unit to measure it all by. Well, not even a better unit, just you change the incentives where there's no lender of last resort. So the banks are forced via economic incentives to actually run a good business and not actually reserved to an extent that their their users can't get their money at the end of the day. I mean the, I mean the unit in the sense of like I joke around and I kind of don't joke around. It's like the difference between gold and Bitcoin is multi sig like that unit and the programmatic ability to like have it segregated within different entities is what will keep us from doing what in my opinion what happened with gold or centralized unit, too many paper claims on the the unit. Yeah, I think, I mean it, it comes down to to what we you you either want Bitcoin to be or think Bitcoin will be. I mean, if if everything ends up in let's say a centralized, a layer of centralized intermediaries like banks, Oregon, like ETFs or or whatever, right, then it, it, it probably does mean Bitcoin is not no longer going to be used for unstoppable payments, right? But even in which I don't like, right, I don't want that to happen, I don't think anyone does. That's why we need also proliferation of truly decentralized layers that we can do Bitcoin with. But I would say that even in that world you could still take on the dollar, right? It can still become the world's reserve asset. It may not be used for payments, but it can like it because Bitcoin is doing multiple things, right? It's simultaneously challenging the never ending, inflating Fiat money supply. That can still work if it's Bitcoin banks that are the primary holders and users of it, right? That can still win. But if you want it to be for unstoppable payments as well, then then we need something more, right? It can't only be that. And luckily there's a lot of people working on that stuff. So it absolutely is unstoppable. Payments and a store of value today that can't be inflated but you know the the the there's the fork forks in the road in the future will will lead us down different directions and I want it all right I want it. I want, I want both. I want everything. So I'm very supportive of people using Bitcoin for payments and for and and in a in a non custodial self custodial way. I think that's the obvious core of how Bitcoin should be used and will be used. I don't think that the ETFs for example challenge that. I just think that they grow the base of users and that's why I say I think it's so important. I hope that eventually these ETFs will allow physical delivery because then then you're, you know, first of all that reduces significantly the, the, you know, the trade off that you're making by owning the ETF and not the physical underlying. I love calling Bitcoin spot physical. I think it's hilarious, right? Because you'd be able to get it out theoretically right and and right now you you can't right. So if you own this ETF, you can't send the shares like the like. It's money over the Bitcoin network So it's not for payment that those vehicles and you can't get the Bitcoin itself out. So all you can do is just rely on, you know the DTCC and your brokerage and the issuer right to to honor its value and and and operate it well. And luckily there are very trustworthy issuers here and you know, I trust personally that stocks that I own and at Fidelity are are actually being held there or whatever, right. But we shouldn't have to trust. So I'd love to see them evolve and and and offer that physical delivery one day. Thanks for tuning in. If you're interested in exploring any of these topics further, or want to learn more about how we can help you secure a new or existing Bitcoin allocation, get in touch with our team at on rampbitcoin.com. We look forward to supporting you on your Bitcoin journey. Alex the the mental model I I have right now at least for the for these ETFs is that that classic Trojan horse meme you know of of of bringing, bringing into the citadel of of mainstream America. Wall Street is introducing these wonderful Bitcoin ETFs. And you know, I I can't help but feel that as people you know invest a little bit into these Bitcoin ETFs, they learn a little bit more about Bitcoin. They start to value the properties of actual Bitcoin and and want that as you know maybe in addition to their allocation in in the ETF and then you know what's inside the Trojan horses Bitcoin adoption because people are learning about Bitcoin and and and flipping the the the script entirely where we've had 15 years of just kind of baseless FUD floating around in the media and now there's going to be Wall Street singing the praises of Bitcoin as an asset and people coming around to its its properties as as being desirable. And some of those are attained through the ETF. But some of those you know especially if you can't redeem in kind live outside of the ETF. Any thoughts on on your perspective on, is that part of how this plays out or your thoughts around that? Yeah, I think it. I think it's going to play out. It's going to be tricky. I mean, I I I really just want to see the ETFs be. I want to see the education materials that everyone's going to be putting out on this. I mean, we've got a bunch together. You can go somewhere. I forget on Invesco's website, I'm in some fancy videos explaining how Bitcoin works. I hope that it leads to real Bitcoin usage and not just ownership. I can't see how it would decline it. So I I think we'll, we'll see marginal increase understanding in Bitcoin broadly and I think that can only help. And I agree. I mean the Trojan horse meme is perfect here. It's, you know come come by this asset. But actually it's, you know learn about Bitcoin, spread the, spread the Bitcoin story right. We've now deputized the world's largest asset managers to to tell that story. There it is. It's pretty. Unreal. Yeah, there it is. Yeah, we're now I, I I think for me the demarcation point is, yeah, bitcoins gone public today. But really what's different is that now Tradfi is going to sing the praises of Bitcoin And that that creates this pretty strong demarcation in the history of Bitcoin, where the mainstream goes from 15 years of just general Bitcoin is bad to now, you know, now and into the future tradify having an incentive to educate and to praise Bitcoin to to to inform the public about why this is actually a really cool asset that you should consider including in your portfolio. And I think that's the the true demarcation here. You know, the the fact that these things are trading now is is great, but the psychology is going to be night and day from the last 15 years to the future. Yeah, I totally agree. I think that's that's where this goes and I think, look it's getting easier to buy real Bitcoin also, right? I mean I mentioned that I use river personally, but I mean you can buy Bitcoin on fidelity.com as well, right? And and you will be able to get it everywhere soon. I I I'll be shocked if you eventually can't just buy spot everywhere. I don't think the ETF like it might slow down some brokerage that's on the cusp of deciding. But again, like don't tell me that if you have one of the world's most popular best performing assets and it's natively digital that every digital platform is not going to eventually offer it. So I, I, and I think also like you're going to learn, people are going to learn how to use it that don't already know there'll be at least some net new marginal Bitcoin user base growth from the ETF ownership. And we already know. I mean guys, you thought we were all around and like nobody, only the tourists that would buy the ETF anyway, left. We net stacked bitcoiners through all the bear markets. That's exactly right. I think it's just a different segment where we have precedent for this with like, you know, very different segment but like cash app and just making it easy for somebody to buy. But some people just left their Bitcoin there. Maybe they bought a small allocation, but there's a lot of people that learned bought the Bitcoin, took it off into self custody and then also looked at larger allocations post that initial like taste to understand what's happening and then where to go. You know, buy in size. But Alex, your point about everybody's going to offer it that like is an interesting reason, interesting dynamic with the authorized participants in Goldman and JPMC in particular. And is it the SAB 121 rule with the banks not being able to custody like how do you do you have any inkling into like where banks start to play into this and and is it like do we think it's going to happen in the next 12 to 24 months or is that still further out where banks being able to custody the asset to participate? It's tricky, yeah. SAB 121 requires actually not just banks, I believe public companies to carry Bitcoin on their, on their balance sheets, which is crazy, right? Because like you know bank like take like State Street which is I think the largest custodial bank in the world, right. But or BNY right, which is also a large one, like they the assets that they hold belong to the clients, right. So you you don't hold, they don't hold, you know, a trillion dollars of assets as if they were theirs, right. In a bankruptcy, those are remote, right? They're, they're held, they're owned by the clients. It's a they're trusts, right. So and that's how custody should work for everything, right. You're not you're not giving it over, you know your your life savings or if you're a company your foreign currency or whatever to a bank and saying yeah, actually you know what like just promise to give it back. It's legally segregated on the balance sheet and and and you know, actually. Right. So SAB 121 makes it impossible for banks to hold it because like let's say you put, OK, maybe if it's $1 million the bank and put, you know, count that as their own asset. Sure. But if if let's say it's 20 to 11 and that one million becomes, you know, 10 billion over the next five years, they've got to segregate capital out to match that. They're not going to do it. And that's why they don't do it. It's why even though BNY Mellon has Bitcoin custody, they have, they just self-described their custody assets there as de minimis because they because they don't, they't, they're not really operating yet. I think that is what that's coming under congressional review. I think, you know with the change of leadership at the SEC and or at the OCC and the banking regulators, you'll see a change there. But capital requirements make it hard for banks today, which is again stupid like right. Wouldn't you want people to be able to store their Bitcoin in the safest quote UN quote place there is like I don't understand the move from a regulatory standpoint. It seems backwards. It's very similar to like not having any regulated products in the US and and effectively pushing people into offshore exchanges which is what happened for so long. I it should change. I don't know if it will change within, you know, this year, but you know, I think we know that banks and others would like it to change and. When you consider the liquidity profile of Bitcoin, it's doesn't make any sense. It's. You can liquidate this immediately if you need to. But with that being said, let's talk about the landscape of these ETFs. Obviously 11 approved, 11 launched today. I actually caught CNBCI caught Novo this morning explaining why you guys have done so good historically in Canada and Germany. It's because the the way you guys track spot is very, very good. I believe you said something like around 1% slippage in the spot price too the underlying shares of your Etps historically. So how do you see this playing out with 11 ETFs? Obviously it's probably gonna be a Pareto distribution where a few take a lion share of the market. How does this play out? How long does it take to play out in your mind? Yeah, I think it's probably if we Fast forward a year, I think you probably have one or two big ones and then theoretically like each one down on the list is half the one above it. So you know obviously there are a real tricky one to think about is grayscale. They are already very large, right. But you'd imagine with their fee and and and whatnot that they'll see outflows. I I think of it primarily as a as a grayscale versus BlackRock, Invesco and Fidelity game at the AT true scale just because you know Blackrock's the largest asset manager but also the largest ETF issuer in the world. Invesco is the 4th largest with and and even when you think about Fidelity, Invesco has 10 times the assets under management in ETFs than Fidelity does, right. So Fidelity is like 13 on the list, right. Wisdom Tree and Van Eck are bigger than Fidelity in ETFs but it's going to be a bit longer of a game. I mean there are some that you know even like when we look today what, what, what, wherever we end up having closed in this horse race, like I don't think any of the advisor platforms are turned on yet, right. And there are issuers that have significant advantages there like BlackRock and Invesco, which are deeply connected in the advisor community, right. So I I think I've always viewed the ETF as primarily a product for advisors. Obviously it's for anyone, any retail can buy the ETFs. But you know this is the first asset in history that Retails had access to before institutions, right. We've all, we've all been buying Bitcoin already, right. We have plenty of places to buy spot Bitcoin. So I view the net new like market for the ETFs primarily being wealth management and that's a $48 trillion market in the US alone in terms of their AUM. So and those aren't on today as far as I know none of them have turned it on yet. We're talking about you know the Morgan Stanley's, the Merrill Lynch's etcetera. The we're we're advisors are affiliated with banks and broker dealers those are that's a huge pile of assets that should now gain access. So you know there's a couple games here, right. I mean I think day one flows matter, day seven day flows matter three months, six months a year it's it's it could look different. I don't think you're going to see 11 a year from now with meaningful assets under management but they'll they'll be a couple and I think they'll be a few big ones. I think we just sort of have to wait and see. There is more to it. These are not all created equal, right. I mean I know again I I talk about wanting it to see a multi custodial model. I think it's clear that the the issuers primarily decided that Coinbase was the fastest way to approval probably because they're a public company. I don't know they're also I'm willing to bet are good at Bitcoin custody, right. There's there's never been at least a publicized like theft or anything from Coinbase custody that I'm aware of. But it's not just that, right. It's it's where and how you execute who your authorized participants are, how many liquidity providers you have, right. There's a lot more that goes into managing these vehicles than simply buy Bitcoin and and you know store it somewhere. So I I think that obviously Invesco has advantages here. We're the only ones are are fun, which with which really they're fun. We're a partner of theirs that doesn't use Coinbase Prime as an execution venue, right. So we because Galaxy is the execution agent and of course we're one of the biggest Bitcoin trading firms in the world. So there look there's a variety. Yeah. You got to look at things like liquidity and bid ask bread and and tracking quality right. There's a but we we need some time. I know the horse race has just begun but we need a couple days and a couple weeks to really start to see how these things are performing and and who's doing a good job and who who's doing less of a good job. So just it it's honestly more to come. I know making fun of Eric and James at Bloomberg like they're they're they've got so many demands for like real time. Like, I mean people. I mean, they just need to launch like a cable news show and call it like a sports game at this point. That's what people want. Take a little. It's gonna take a little while, I think, for it to play out. Yeah. And another question I have is, do you think the unit bias comes into play in terms of the way the shares are denominated? Because I believe, I think Black Rock's just dividing the price by 2000. Yeah, it's a good question. It looks to me and I don't have all the, I'm looking at the the sort of slate here. Most of them again are trading at like the 40 or $50 range. So I'm going to make them just I don't have the all the prospectuses up in front of me, but but yeah, I see BlackRock is trading at 2650 right now. So presumably they have smaller units. I I don't know, but I I don't think it's going to make a huge difference between them like but it does matter. The broader point which I'm sure you guys have talked about in the past, the unit bias versus Bitcoin, right. It's that old question between like one BTC or a bit or a SAT like how should these, how should it be quoted right? Because you know at 47 K that looks like a pretty expensive thing to buy, right? But at, you know, $26 which is Black Rocks is trading at or you know BTCO is trading at $46 like that seems a lot more reasonable, right? I'll set. Up a few bitcoins for $26 a piece? Sure. Exactly. That's going to be how people think about it. Yeah, I think it's important. It's a similar reason as to why sometimes you see really valuable equities do a stock split for the same reason. It's it's also maybe the reason that like Berkshire Hathaway it hasn't done one right and it's such an expensive equity quote UN quote, just from your unit price. Maybe they like the sound of that, right. Like who knows? I I don't know, Marty, I I I think, you know I think maybe. I think the main things that people care about are liquidity, spreads fees. That's the main, I think most people know, but look again like Fidelity out of the gate here, pretty strong with a lot of volume probably. Again they've got a giant platform, right. They can advertise on one of the biggest brokerages platforms in the world for free because they own it. Yeah. It's been a crazy week. The SEC Twitter account getting hacked. Truly wild. Jumping on the gun by the CBOE yesterday morning and then the eventual capitulation. Everything's a go. And then Gary writing a letter saying he doesn't advise the people investing. Yeah, he's not a fan. Yeah, he's no, they're asset neutral. But then he proceeded to shit on Bitcoin. Yeah, that's strange. It's just been a strange. That you had. Strange. Then you had Hester Pierce counter signaling them on the SEC website as well. It's been Bitcoin drives people crazy. Yeah. I mean, they couldn't even like do. I mean, I guess, look, I guess it was a pretty unique situation with 11 issuers, a, a new asset class quote UN quote and you're like, OK, all right, it was different. I'll give them that. But like, yeah, it drives people crazy. It drove the process crazy and they had to be sued in order to even do it, which is also crazy. Like, they shouldn't have had to be rebuked by the DC Circuit Court of Appeals to the extent they were, which was significant, a significant rebuttal from that court that shouldn't have had to happen, right? None of this should, shouldn't have had to be this way. You shouldn't have had the you shouldn't have to have had the chair of the SEC approve, you know, voting to approve a bunch of products and simultaneously disparaging their underlying collateral like that's it's just bizarre that shouldn't have to be that way. But when you talk. About it at MIT just a few years ago. Exactly, exactly what what? Well, it does. It does beg the question, what's going on behind the scenes? I mean, I saw a meme this morning of Gary Gensler talking to Elizabeth Warren. She's like, what happened? Gary. He's like, I don't know, there's nothing I could do. We had to. We had the load of shit. Yeah, I want to. I'm not going to describe it, but there was a people, one of his, you know, he does a thing every day. He had a good one yesterday. It's worth checking out. And then all the naysayers, you have better markets come out with a letter. I mean they've been writing suggestion letters to the SEC, don't approve this, don't approve this. Now they're like, oh, you guys are enabling crime. Obviously we have the Alex Deviers of the world who've been opining against Bitcoin mining energy use for the better part of the last half decade. We've got Greenpeace, a lot of the tractors out there that are going to have to eat crow in the the months and years ahead. It just it doesn't seem, I don't. It is strange to me that people that have defined their public personas as being opposed to Bitcoin. There's that guy, the Steven deal, even, like, he's the worst. I don't know, he blocked me a long time ago, 'cause I I asked like, I mean, I genuinely was like, are you OK, dude, 'cause this is on something, he said. It's just again like to imagine defining your your life by being opposed to something especially something that like it doesn't care about you. Bitcoin never replies to your tweet. You know, like I don't know who you're like. It's just a strange thing. You know these people who are so professionally anti Bitcoin, I don't understand why we you know we hear some things they try to come up with reasons the the Bitcoin usage of electricity is 1 or or it's use in illicit finance. But these are these are small. Even if you believe they're real, they're tiny, right. Like they they have to strut find some real world externality that Bitcoin is causing because otherwise they just look crazy. Why don't let people just use what they want. It's it's not impacting you in any way. Right. And of course we know that we know that it's used in illicit finances paled in comparison by the dollars. We know that it's and even take the thing with Hamas, those first of all it was all tether on Tron primarily that was seized by Israel. But it was seized. It was tracked and found right like that's because it's not good for crime. It's it's the blockchain is forever and we won't do the whole energy usage thing. But Bitcoin is is supportive not not negative to the environment in my opinion. Yeah, great. And and invariably, with all those the tractors, it turns out that they are salty because they had an opportunity to buy it in 2011 when they reported on it then, and they didn't. And and now they've been forced to watch all these shitty Internet people get rich while they didn't. We used to call that the Nathaniel Popper's Syndrome. Like they couldn't buy. Or was there was an article the other day that in the the IT was a guy snarks? Is that his names? And somebody found tweets from him in 2013 having bought and sold Bitcoin? Yeah. Like, I get it. Like it's just it it you gotta guys, let's, let's just, I don't know focus on positivity in your life. Don't. Unless it's Jim Cramer. Unless it's Jim Cramer, like, continue to hate it. It's cool and just has been all over. He's been up he's been he's been for it. He's been against it and he was like he defined the flip flop on this asset. Jim Cramer. But you know I I like the the folks at CNBC particularly Joe Kiernan, but that's AI think that I think we all like Joe. Nobody is more scoring than the individual bought Bitcoin early and sold. Yeah, it's a bad syndrome, Alex. I know you've got something to do here. In a minute. Thank you for joining us for an emergency rip of the last trade, Big day. Thank you for doing what you do. I know it's been a very long couple years for you and your team at Galaxy. Congrats on you guys getting this across the line and it'll be fun to watch how this plays out over the next year. Yeah, I really appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Marty. Cretius. Michael, thanks so much. Love the love the show. Thanks for having me. Awesome. Thanks. Alex Also, if you guys listen to this, go check out Galaxy Brains, especially if you're in the good rap. Alex opens up your. Show with the good rap. Good one this morning. Go to listen to this one. We have JFK talking about going to the moon on the intro rap. It's pretty good. Go. To the moon in this decade. Yes, and do the other things. Not because they are easy, but because they are hard. That's a great speech. All right, guys. Thank you so much all. Right. Thanks. See you guys later.
Transcript source: fountain