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Thank you for joining us today. We're excited to bring you a brand new show from the On Ramp Media umbrella. Wake Up Call is a weekly show that will be streamed live on LinkedIn every Monday morning. To catch the premiere of each episode, follow On Ramps LinkedIn page and add Wake Up Call events to your calendar. After the live premiere on LinkedIn, we will distribute each episode across On Ramp Media's podcast channels and YouTube page. Wake Up Call aims to educate financial professionals on the merits of the Bitcoin investment thesis, how this asset represents both a threat to legacy financial service businesses and an opportunity to differentiate oneselves and retain and attract new clients. Hosted by Mark Connors, Onramp's Head of Global Macro Strategy, and Rich Kerr, Onramp's President of Managed Wealth, this show seeks to provide financial professionals the wake up call they need, prompt them to have an open mind with respect to Bitcoin, rethink their prior assumptions, become more educated on the topic, and learn from others who are already farther down this path. Mark and Rich bring a combined 60 plus years of experience across traditional markets and financial services and will share their unique perspectives and how their peers and colleagues can approach the realm of Bitcoin. Wake Up Call will feature guests from various backgrounds and industries will also share their own journeys to Bitcoin and how others can get up to speed. Now time for the show. Well, good morning everybody. We are live with the Monday morning wake up call and we've got a great guest today. We've got Paul Scudeleri, who is the founder of RIA Apex RI Apex, Forgive Me, Paul, which is a business consulting firm out on the East Coast and they represent a number of registered investment advisors and helping them solve all sorts of problems inside of their businesses and unlock potential that that lives with inside of those firms. And so Paul, we're delighted to have you. But before we kind of kick over to you, I just also want to, you know, mention that Mark just got back from Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where he was spending the week at the Wyoming Blockchain Council Summit sponsored by Salt and Kraken. And, and, and that was the place to be last week, Mark, you had not only the Blockchain Council Summit, but you also had the Federal Reserve Symposium that was there, which had quite some or some, some very relevant information that was shared by Jerome Powell that's relevant to our guests or not just our guests, but our audience here today. And so, Mark, maybe I'll throw it over to you to just hear some of your observations that you took away from from the past week and and maybe Paul and I can rip off of that a little bit. Yeah, it was. It was a great Crucible for what's going on both on the macro environment, like you mentioned, Rich, as far as interest rate guidance, which everyone seems to be waiting for information to say, you know, please lower rates make life easier, which we'll touch on because that's not really the panacea for anybody, including the advisors out there or their clients. And it was a bit of a little brother pulling it at the at the trousers of the Big Brother by having the digital asset summit just right next to, you know, the multi trillion dollar, 800 LB gorilla in the room, the Fed having their annual Jackson Hole summit. So the folks at Salt, you know, part of Skybridge, Scaramucci's outfit did a great job getting just 200 people out there. We spoke about macro. Obviously you had folks, Wyoming natives like Joe Revelle, you know, former Citadel now out there with a entrenched digital asset and traditional trust business bringing people over. Like what we're going to have Paul talk about today about how to maybe get folks digging, you know, dipping their toe into the Bitcoin world. And yet gal people like Caitlin Long, who's a juggernaut when it comes to banking and Bitcoin and trying to get a seat at the table. And and you also had folks like on ramp there who are speaking to folks about how to hold this thing. So it was, it was well done. And again, I, I think we'll look back on this in a few years and you know, the, we're at the kids. Table having a little bit of a connection issue. Oh OK. Is that still there on the connection side? Yeah, I think we had a little bit of a connection issue there with you with your final comments, Mark, but. How is it? How does it sound? Now I want to. I want to make sure you and the Fed are hearing me about my comments. Is it? Is it thumbs up or thumbs down, right? Now, yeah, I think, I think, I think the Fed interrupted your comments. They totally don't the the reach, right? The reach from the Federal Reserve goes deep into the into the cost and the supply of money. So we'll we'll leave it with that. What we spoke about was the trenchant adoption of Bitcoin and Rich, you and I and Paul were talking beforehand is what they said, which is that we're ready to lower rates is what everybody. That's the only thing that came out that really people don't care about what we said because we're going to tell them what today what they should listen to about Bitcoin. But out of Wyoming, the Fed said what happened in March and caused bonds to go down by 3040% on price basis and caused the banking crisis of March 23. He said that's over. We're now pivoting back to accommodative. That's the biggest news. And the other one which surprisingly came at the same time was that revision of jobs which was over 800,000 jobs were revised. Lower. Let me let me hop in here. Mark, I think you're you're you're struggling a little bit with the technology side of this live stream. So forgive me, but this might be a great chance for me to to talk a little bit about our guests today. So Paul, thrilled to thrilled to have you join the show today. 25 years working within and around supporting the registered investment advisors. Hey, Mark. Yeah. Yeah, we lost Martin. Yeah. Yeah, that's. OK, we're we'll, we'll, we'll continue on here. So one of the things I was that really strikes me, Paul, about your background is not only have you worked inside of an RAA and, and have done that for a number of years, you also spent significant amount of years working, you know, in the custodial side as a, as a senior relationship manager. You've worked as a wholesaler into registered investment advisors, but you've also flipped the lens and, and launched your business consulting firm and, and working with Rias to help them, you know, through a myriad of challenges that they're, that, that they're, that they're trying to resolve. And you know, one of those, you know, areas that you know that I've always been impressed with you is you've got such a, a multi dimensional lens around looking at problems and in and trying to find the right solution. You're deeply aware of the cultures that live inside of, in the various cultures of, of registered investment advisors. And you have a real perspective around growth and, and differentiation in particular. And in my mind, you know, if I'm a registered investment advisor, your sets of experiences are absolutely amazing. And, and you know, so I would one, I just want to say we're delighted to have you here today to talk a little bit about Bitcoin and and more importantly talk about why registered investment advisors might want to be thinking about Bitcoin. Sure. So welcome. Welcome. Hey, thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. You guys have a great cast and it's going to be fun to talk to you and hopefully we get Mark back. Yeah. So, yeah, you covered it pretty well. Since at the very beginning of 2000, I've been spoiled basically working in in the RA community. Great people within, you know, they have a great business model. They do, they do what they do for their clients for the right reasons. And, and that that's kept me really involved. And I retired from Schwab two years ago and I got my consulting practice off the ground. You know, for me, as far as the advisors, you know, it's hard to, it's hard to say what they're doing wrong, right, Rich. They've been, they've grown fabulously over the years, strong growth. I will say though, that the one theme that I've heard from them over the years that's never really gone out of, it's never not been a hot topic, is they all seemed at some point struggle with consistent organic growth. And so when I, when I left Schwab, I said, you know, my consulting practice is going to really be anchored on that as, as a business issue that we're going to solve. And so I have a program in place that I'm working with firms that really helps them figure out, you know, where is this organic growth and how do I harvest it more regularly? And the funny part of it is, is the the growth is sitting there as a paying client. They're already at the firm. It's just a matter of calling through the clients, figuring out which ones are really wired in a way that they would love to promote you. But to do that, they got to know you better, not just as an advisor, they need to know you as a person. So that's my little advertisement for our Apex today. But as this comes to Bitcoin, hey Mark, you're back. All set no. Problem I'm just I'm starting to lean into Bitcoin here with with rich and and now you thankfully. So when it comes to the advisors and why I enjoy working with them so much, it has to really to do with their ability to really always try to do the right thing for the right reasons. And but they have certain commonalities across them. It doesn't even matter what size of their firms are, they're very deliberate, right? They're very, they tend to be very conservative and they tend to really take their time to explore the benefits of maybe a new solution for their clients. And that has served them extremely well over these years, right? But I'm going to say right now, I think it's a headwind against them when it comes to the adoption of Bitcoin for their clients. I think we're at the point now and I'm going to tell you a quick my first Bitcoin story, my first experience. I had just left Schwab in 2011. I was two times Schwab in my first time leaving and I was an RIAA and I went to Schwab's impact conference in 2012 and I didn't have any duties as a Schwab employee. So I was bouncing around different, you know, different educational sessions. And I happen to go into this thing called talking about Bitcoin. And I don't think I even ever heard the word before. It's 2012. And I, you know, I gave it a good 10 minutes of my time before I decided I didn't want to become extremely wealthy. And I walked out the room and I think Bitcoin was trading around $15 then. Oh. What was the thing that that didn't catch you versus Nat like? Oh, well, let's go again. You know, I was born in 1964. I'm not very technical in nature. And I, you know, whatever they were talking about, I probably wasn't, you know, making a lot out of it as far as sense. And I figured, you know, here's a great scam somebody's come up with. And so I left. And, you know, you would think maybe I would have done a little homework after that. But I think I can honestly say I did not change my opinion on Bitcoin until 10 months ago. That's what I think. A lot of folks that were born in the 60s or earlier or 70s, they're suffering from this inability to see the forest of the trees, right? Yeah, Yeah. Go ahead. And you guys kick in a little bit and I got some some things. I have three things that I would love the advisors to consider before, you know, after today. And I think it'll help some of them maybe at least know that they did their due diligence. Go ahead. Yeah. Well, I was just going to say, Paul, you know, on my end and then I'll kick it over to mark that. We all have that story. We all have that story where, you know, we, we've come up through traditional finance channels, you know, mine through, you know, 30 plus years at Schwab. And, and yes, I'm, I was born in the 60s as well. And so, you know, I remember the same situation. I had a, you know, an individual come to me and asked me if they should put, put some of their, their, their assets in, in Bitcoin and that they were very serious about putting a sizeable chunk into it. And this was 2017. And I, and I just immediately dismissed them out of, you know, I, I think, you know, arrogance in some way thinking, OK, well, wait a second. This just sounds wonky. I mean, everything about it is, is a little bit unusual. It's not traditional. There's no issue. Or I don't understand it. And so rather than say I don't understand it, I said, no, you shouldn't do it and you should be a little bit more disciplined and asset allocation and diversification and you know, the whole 9 yards and that and basically told them every reason why they shouldn't do it. And I felt terrible about it because it violates, you know, it violates everything that a good advisor would do, which is to actually have an informed opinion and, or if they don't be able to disclose that confidently, and that's OK, that's OK. But, you know, it put me in a place of, of action, Paul. It made me want to start getting into a movement of understanding what this is. And I finally, you know, became an investor myself in 2020 after doing all of my work. And, and, you know, once you, once you do your work, you, you realize, Oh my gosh, you know, this is such a unique technology and the capabilities continue to be rounded out through open source protocols and people coming to it, new people coming to it and improving and, you know, evolving the technology and the asset itself. And to me, I just think it's a, a, I think it is as big of a disruptor to traditional finance as the registered investment advisor themselves were over the past 30 years. That's how significant I see it and the parallels between what registered registered investment advisors are in this industry and and what Bitcoin is globally are, are striking right there. There's so many altruistic natures that are embedded, so many principles that are embedded that empower people. And it's one why, you know, transparency, empowerment, all of these things, you know, that live inside of a solution. And to me, I think that, you know, it's a it's a match made in in heaven. Can I? Jump in on the on the on the back of that point about the disruptor, which I love because that's what Ria is want to be as as Paul's noted and Paul, I'm going to link this to your three points hopefully is when you talk about disruptors. Disruptors solve a problem too often. You see some folks in technology provide a solution when there's no problem and you know that means they're earlier, they're fakers or whatever. But you look at one dis disruptive element that our Rias had to contend with and that's the ETF which has been a bananas grower and disruptor to the mutual fund industry, ripping out a lot of financial revenue for legacy firms. And I'm going to say that that vehicle, the ETF has been the has been the on border for Bitcoin to a lot of the retail in many institutional worlds. So you're looking at, I think people don't understand Bitcoin, but they understand ETFs and they're digesting more than they understand, more than the opportunity. They even appreciate, I think sometimes because of the vehicle, meaning it was a familiar wrapper, the ETF. So what we're trying to do here is expand people to say, yes, ETF was great. Bitcoin is even more than you'd likely appreciate, not to talk down to people, but we understand that the vehicles can do it. So when we look at what has happened this year, Paul and you coming into this in the last 10 months, where is the opportunity? Is there still an opportunity for Rias? And what were those three points you were going to bring up? Yeah, All right. So this this is what I got and I think this should be enough for most advisors to maybe if they haven't already considered just performing some due diligence, right Feel good about your, you know your wanting to start to introduce this as an asset class to your clients or you feel better that there's no need for that. So one is that and the, and again, I'm a newbie, so I'm starting on my end. These things I have to go back far to when I first realized these points. So Bitcoin launched early, I guess early January of 2009, right? The the blockchain technology and as yet it has yet to fail in any way and it's never stopped running. So let's think about a company or two out there that are worth trillions in market cap, maybe at Microsoft. And if they had never failed any other technology, what would they be worth today? Yeah. Amazing, Right. Yeah. Worth trillion. Fascinating. Observations. Right now, yeah. Fascinating observation, right? And even you look at any financial services for down times and things on that nature that disrupt the the client experience, impact the revenue, you know, creation on for those companies. You know, it's just it's it's amazing. That's it. That's an interesting observation. And you're right, yeah, Bitcoin has not failed. So I'm dying to hear point number two. Well, I'll get. There next in a minute, but but along what we just talked about as far as financial services online, you know downtime, I've got a good friend who got his doc his master's in cyber security and he was pointing out to me because you wouldn't believe it, but every day some of these firms online and their big names are hacked every day and they just put money the money's back into the accounts. So there's a lot going on that we don't know about right. So I'm just pointing out a few things that are factual and the next piece is? The audit. So there's a Bitcoin audit done every 10 minutes or so, and it's not done by one person, one company. It's done by 10s of thousands of computers worldwide. And every time they do the audit, they have to go back to the first transaction on the Bitcoin Ledger and make sure it's all the same. Still, that is an astounding fact, hence maybe why it's never been corrupted. Yeah, Paul, yeah, you've got 10s of thousands. And what Paul's talking about is that there are, you know, 10s of thousands of miners and nodes that are, are participating in the Bitcoin network every single day and every single minute of every single day. And so in order to produce a block, you know, and, and, and you know, the common phrase is TikTok mix block. And that's ever approximately every 10 minutes that gets audited by every active node and every, every miner out there. And, and so Paul, that's a, that's a great observation. I wish. When's the last time we did an audit on the the gold holdings of of Fort Knox, as Paul would say, or the Fed or the Fed? So it's it's amazing stuff, right? The more you look at it, the more you're like, how did I not see this? Well, I just. Came at this the exact same way, which was not at the opportunity, which is like how IT services other countries and you know reduces the 8% fees for remittances. You know that people, you know that it's use cases. Mine was great. If I buy it and I put 1020% of our net worth in it, whatever the number may be, and it goes S, will IA be unhappy? Yes. Will I be married? No. And there are other things. If I'm an RIAA, will I have a business? So I for Rias, there's this thing called the the trilemma, which is blockchain has to solve three things. It usually a trilemma solves two of them very well, and the third one is incrementally added. It is decentralized, it is secure and the and the scale or business cases are coming over time. But the point is this animal has to remain integral for more programmers to realize. I'm going to get off those other, you know, chains that are just really kind of wishes and and solutions looking for problems. And so I love the fact that you that you vibed the exact same thing. It's like, wait a minute, in, in in a growing world of complexity and as you said, hacking this thing is a silent hero because so I, I just, and, and the reason I belabor the point is it's worth the time to study it because it's not going away. In our opinion. It certainly hasn't. It's a transparent bank that no one's been able to get into 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. On Ramp 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. On Ramp 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. Right. And and by the way, 15 years, I wonder how many attempts there's been quite a few. So my final point is really the, the, the, the, the, I think it's the linchpin to the value creation of, of Bitcoin in that it's a truly finite supply that, that I don't think it could ever be changed. And then I'll kick it to you guys and talk about why it would never be changed based on the current participants back to the nodes, right, and the miners. Yeah, yeah. So you're hitting on the scarcity, right? 21,000,021 million Bitcoin will maybe another. Maybe another financial asset widely used that as a finite supply. Yeah, even real estate, they just build straight up. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's just it doesn't make a difference what you look at, right? You know, the, the, the power of scarcity is that's where the game is always, right. It's where the game is always at. And so it's impossible to deny the fact that 21 million coins have been created and it will only be created, you know, and, and, and, and the reason why is why would anybody in you know, this is just simple, you know, why would I want to debase, right, my holdings, right? And if everybody has the equal participation, if you're participating as a node or a minor or whatever you might be, however you might be participating, would you want to debase yourself? No, you wouldn't you and you have your ability to, to ensure that that code remains strong and, and altruistic in that sense. And, and, and oddly enough, for those who are listening in, who may be on their own Bitcoin journey, right? And there have been, you know, millions of coins that have been lost, you know, forever. And that's largely due to poor custodial care or hacks or you know, of individual setups, things on that nature. But that being said, you know, the, you know, it's probably something more realistically like 1718 million, you know, coins that are going to be in circulation, right? So when you do the math, by the way, you know, you know, you look at the global population and, and you just divide that into the current, the current number of coins that are actually, and that have not been lost, you know, to people. Then you, you basically start understanding how significant just being a whole coiner is a single Bitcoin, a single Bitcoin. And you know, 'cause all you have to do is divide that number by the number of people in the in the world, whenever that might be so. Rich and it's. Pretty amazing. So scarcity. On that on a scarcity point, I'm going to pull on it on the character Bitcoin for a second and then I'd love to throw it back to Paul about if people were to go back to their to their desk Rias what our next, you know, how's it fit in? So here's some Nuggets. Some Nuggets are we talk about scarcity. You know, gold is considered a scarce asset. It's outperformed every Fiat since 1920. It's held value better than any Fiat that has debased. So price of gold's gone up in dollar terms, yen terms, euro terms, everything. And gold, the the amount of gold on the planet is has grown by 60% since World War 2. Technology has accelerated the mining of gold. So even though gold only comes out at two 2 1/2 percent a year, when the price goes up, more gold comes out and that compounds at a big rate. Bitcoin will own the 19.7 million coins that are out there today will increase to 21 million or 6% over the next 140 years, 120 years. So I just want to put that in perspective. It is like gold. It's better. And then the the the last two points is one on the market side, Bitcoin was the fastest to a trillion asset in the planet. So that's that's the urgency point. It's it serves a lot of it basically is being recognized for the points we brought up. So it's a reason to pay attention. It's around 15 years. It's over trillion. It did it faster than NVIDIA, Amazon, any asset in the planet. And then lastly, Bitcoin isn't just a coin. Bitcoin is more than gold because it has a little B Bitcoin that trades at 62,000 or 64,000 and it has a big B network Bitcoin and that's what Paul was talking about. No other asset has both a its unit of, of account, which is the coin or the OR the say the dollar and its own rail system globally that runs efficiently secure. That's the value proposition. And then so I'll kick it back to you, Paul about or, or rich about as people go back, are there analogs to where they can say, well, this is just like private debt or this is like CD OS or, you know, collateralized mortgage obligations or this is like what in the past? How would they go about incorporating this through an analog asset in the old days or is there one? Well, let me jump on this while I'm thinking of it. We, we spoke about how the RA business model and the RA themselves have been a fabulously successful disruptor right to the, the old school way of doing finance and investing from the big wire houses. And I don't think that's ever going to I don't, you know, I think they've proved what what they do is, is the right way to do it. But but you know, you know, we don't want to see them get disrupted based on their lack of adoption to some degree of Bitcoin. Now, what I proposed, you know, the advisors do and they're a lot smarter than me is just at least look at it. Take a look. I just gave three points that I think are enough to get you to start looking at it. And then there's so many reasons and there's so much more as far as the information behind Bitcoin and, and the blockchain that it sits on. But they need to basically just decide, is this something that needs to be part of my clients, you know, portfolios? Should I document that I brought this up with a client to make sure they're aware of the opportunity? They could tell me no and I can document that or do I just keep on doing what I'm doing and what I did till 10 months ago and ignore it completely? Now? The disruption that could potentially come to them will not be a good one. They, you know, the advisors have had the greatest, highest retention rate of clients probably in all of finance, you know, different business models that can deteriorate quite quickly should the price at some point reach a certain level. We don't know what that is to where everybody's like, where's my Bitcoin, Mr. Advisor? How do we not own any yet? We don't want to get to that point. So I'm just saying, hey, do your due diligence, decide yay or nay. And if it's towards the, you know, let's do it. Just make sure every client, I would have every client sign off that if they don't want me to buy their Bitcoin, some Bitcoin, make sure they sign a piece of paper saying you don't want me to do this for you. Yeah. Yeah, that's an interesting observation, Paul. I mean, it's part of part of why I'm, I'm, you know, not retired. It's why I continue to just, you know, grind and, and try to get the word out because I, you know, I've always, I've always held the registered investment advisor in, in the highest of regard because of the disruption that they brought forward in and the alignment of principles that, that, that they bring forward for clients. They do, they do great work and they and they offer, you know, that sitting on the same side of the table with the client, the people who are working hard to to achieve their dreams and, and, and, you know, empower their families and, and, and they and they provide just tremendous care along the way, along with expertise. And, and So what I would say is I don't want to see that, that the disruptor create disrupt the, you know, the disruptors, right? I'd rather see in an RIAA look at the look at what Bitcoin represents, which I think we all agree it's a disruptor and, and say I choose to embrace it and bring this disruption forward for my clients and, and you know, continue on as a healthy business because now you're the trusted advisor or you are the trusted advisor and you continue to thrive and, and be and evolve and be the trusted advisor. Because I think what ends up happening to your point, there's a 15 year track record that is, you know, up and up into the, what do they say? Far right to the right. And, and it is undeniable #1 asset class. You can't deny that. And then the secondary piece is that you've got, you know, a traditional system that has been built, you know, and you can go back and look at the US dollar and, and you have 111 year track record going in the opposite direction, debasing the heck out of your clients currencies. And so those two things are powerful enough just to start getting into, you know, how do I, how do I think about this? What do I need to know about it? How do I continue my education around it? How do we integrate it into the firm and more important, how do we bring it forward to our clients with the level of thoughtfulness that it really does require? And so in my mind, you know, a firm like on ramp, we provide that educational support, we provide a vehicle that allows you true ownership assurances, not an ETF, which doesn't. And, and, and to me, like those are the things that we're trying to solve is making certain that that advisors have a way or a path to be able to one, play the role that they're asked to play, which is, you know, to advise clients, do the due diligence and, and, and earn a living right for the great advice and, and services that they provide. And so, you know, kind of maybe that's my bridge to a broader conversation, which is our advisors going to differentiate in assessing this, right. I think Bitcoin and Bitcoin education and integration into a broader portfolio is a significant differentiation even 15 years into its existence. Totally. And I would also argue not just how do they differentiate, but how do they really grow? And and in, you know, we can, we can sit here and spend another 30 minutes talking about the kegger, right? You know, you look at the the kegger of Bitcoin in its worst performing any four year track cycle and you're at 25%, you know, kegger. But if you look at Bitcoin, you know, on a normal basis, I mean, you're probably up in the what 56? I don't know, that number is just kind of sitting in my head 56%. So maybe 60. I heard somebody say 60. I got, I got, but we're going to do ACNN Fact Check on you on that. So the, so the, the, the point on the growth, which I think Paul touched on and you just mentioned is dead on. And, and we have, we've seen that in Canada where folks got involved in Bitcoin when my former firm brought the first spot fund, Bitcoin fund. And it was a lot of young folks who understood it to Paul's point earlier. And they got involved in 2020 and they're now not, you know, they're not cold calling clients anymore. They have a seat at the table in their firm because their assets have grown, say it was only 5% of it. Those assets have grown 10 to 12 * 10, yeah, 10 times from where they got in. So they just had to get their client in the door. And again, we don't know if that's going to happen again. I certainly think it is. I can't tell you that I want, I want you to make your own decision. But as you said, folks, the value proposition is well beyond the ETF. So that was a bridge that you talked about Rich as an advisor understanding Bitcoin and why maybe the ETF limits it like a processed food where the nutritional value of the blockchain does not flow through your client. And that is something that you as the RAA, if your client picks that up and they're able to, you can see that happen over the next year or two, Man, you are set for the next generation I believe because your kids sure as heck know that. Hey, before I forget, Mark, I want you to to to address some of these statistics, you know, the waiting, if you will, of Bitcoin. We're not asking advisors to do perform due diligence and then, you know, get a huge footprint of Bitcoin in each portfolio. We're just saying if you don't have any exposure, that's how the disruption that you might experience would not be of the good kind. So and you have some great data. I think that speaks to just a very small position of Bitcoin based on its historical performance can really bring some nice extra gains inside of a investors. Yeah. Thanks for that, Paul. We did. We've done the classic 6040 portfolio, which obviously disappointed in 22 and it's been kind of lagging for reasons we can talk about later. But instead of getting disrupting everything we said, how about if we just put a 3%, We we messed around with one, three 510% allocations and we said, how about if we put in of those, the 3% allocation, Paul really was a sweet spot. And we didn't just put it in there statically, we rebalanced it, which people often do in a 6040. So if we took say the worst five year period recently, actually it's I think on, on record the worst five year period, December 22 to December 2000, December 17 to December 2022, you had two 60% draw downs of Bitcoin. So even if you put in 3% allocation at the very top at like 20,000, when Bitcoin fell to 3000 between 17 and 19 and you rebalanced it and you rebalanced it all the way through when it went to 69,000 and then it fell again to 18. Like it's a roller coaster ride. It would make you throw up if you had a lot of your assets in there, but we're not asking for that. Just give your advisor 3% and reallocate that 3% allocation actually grew to be. Over 20% of the returns of that portfolio, it added to the portfolio because when it went up, you said let's rebalance. And when it went down, you added to it. And the most important part is that Bitcoin jigged when the rest of the portfolio was zagging. It did not correlate as people often say it does. It has a very different return distribution. And most importantly is that if you looked at it as a drawdown for the regular 6040 without any Bitcoin in it, it barely moved the Max drawdown. It's like less than I think 50 or 60 basis points, Paul. And that is the number one measure an allocator looks at because they cannot be in that position of not compounding tax free returns. They want to be back up. So BlackRock did a dog whistle to that number two and they're in there to to that 3% number as well. Fidelity made it, you know, hinted at it as well as 3%. And there's a reason it's almost like a low risk best optimization entry point. It's a gateway allocation where you're not going to get, historically speaking, blowback from your client. It's it's so we'd love to speak more about that, but that's it. And we agree. And no other asset has the return profile of Bitcoin. That's why it happens. You can't leverage gold. You can't use a hedge fund portfolio. And nothing that we've seen gives you this. I have an opinion on the subject that you can tell. Yeah, no. You've got great data. That's all, it's all real. And that's what I just again, we, we, we hope the advisors that see this, this cast, you know, maybe take some of this to heart. And it doesn't take long to do the due diligence. They already have a process in place. It's just a different asset they're going to look at. Yeah. So, you know, kind of before we shut down, just kind of thinking through growth and you know, obviously just the return characteristics that Bitcoin has exhibited, you know, is a way to continue to thrive and grow AUM through the, you know, through those return characteristics. But one of the things that that I, you know, have had conversations with advisors is, you know, look, if, if you, if you have a good strong foundation in your due diligence process and you access Bitcoin correctly, incorrectly for me means ownership assurances for your, for your clients that they could actually take possession of the Bitcoin at some point should they wish. And you can't do that with an ETA. But one of the things that is it strikes me is you have what, what, 2 1/2 trillion dollars in digital assets today, you know, of which I think Bitcoin represents roughly 56% in, in terms of market dominance. And you know, a lot of clients have Bitcoin. They went out and got it on their own, right, because it wasn't a solution. They said, I want to participate. They saw they understood something right? Something about Bitcoin spoke to them, whether it be that it was, you know, the what it does from from an energy, you know, standpoint and how it stabilizes grids and maybe it's that, you know, it's, you know, helping those who are, you know, under banked around the globe. Maybe that speaks to them and they and they found their way to Bitcoin. Everybody finds their way to Bitcoin completely different and and that's a beautiful thing because it's such neutral money, neutral sound money. I should really emphasize that, but but one of the things that that that strikes me is advisors can't go get those that they can't. They can't compete for that 2 1/2 trillion if they one, don't have a Bitcoin thesis. Two, they can't compete for it if they don't have the right custody set up, if they haven't thought through custodial implications. And by the way, a quick plug, we have recently released a the evolution of Bitcoin custody paper and anybody can go to on rampbitcoin.com and be able to download that. It's absolutely fantastic. Quick read. I'm talking, you know what, 7 pages, something like that. And but it's worthwhile. And, and where I'm where I'm going with this is if you, if you ask, if you come through your due diligence and you do develop a Bitcoin thesis and you do, you know, want to put in what 3% like marks it, you know, suggests and then regularly rebalance at or whatever it might be it now it becomes what's the right vehicle? How do you ensure, you know, ownership assurances? How do you make certain that you are minimizing counterparty risk? How do you help improve the client's current situation and, and get them to a better custodial arrangement so that they're not part of that 4 million points that got lost forever due to poor setups? And, you know, I think we'll get our solution in many respects, and I'm a Homer here, Full disclosure, but I look at your solution as a way for advisors to be able to grow and tap into those untapped markets and be able to say, look, you've got money sitting on an exchange. You've got money sitting in a, you know, you know, a hardware device, you know, these are bearer assets. They require titling, they require at the proper registration. You need to have an inheritance plan built around it, right? This is an easy win to be able to say, go to clients and say, I have a way to help you, a way to help this holding that you really believe in. We we too believe in it. And here's the way that you can do it and we can integrate it into your financial plan and let's let's move forward. So to me, I just look at, you know, what happens if when the Rias get this right, they get the thesis down, they've done the due diligence and now they go out and they start playing, you know, and, and resolving bad, you know, setups for people or inferior setups. Maybe I'll just say right. Yeah. So, so you just added a very important part to all this. But you just had me thinking, you know, somebody's going to interview an RA. They're not quite a client yet. They're a lot of times they're interviewing more than one RA, right? Yeah. And you know, you can be the RA that's got this, this Bitcoin as part of a portfolio, the great custody system like you guys offer these any time you can differentiate your story, right. What's the backdrop, what's our background? What do we do here? Again, the differentiating yourself from all the other Ras and again, part of the success and the, the disrupting that they've done as an RA community, he gets a lot of Ras. So, you know, you've got to have, you've got to have something that you're talking about that makes a lot of sense that they're not going to hear from the RA down the street or across town. Yep. That's right. I'll throw one last little interesting nugget at you Paul, but I don't know that if I don't know if it will surprise you or not, but you know Jackson Michaela who is our Head of Institutional Sales and on ramp, great guy. Both he and I have been, you know, fielding a ton of inquiries. And those inquiries are coming from traditional wire houses, Merrill Lynch, UBS, Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley advisors. And they're calling us and they're and they're trying to figure out, OK, what are you doing? How do you do it? Why is it different? Right. We're having nice conversations with the with these folks. They're hamstrung, right? Oh yeah, they're going to figure out. How do I get out of here? And and they're and, and their thesis is sound, right? So they've developed a thesis and around Bitcoin, they're trying to figure out what, what, what this next solution is. I think honestly that this is going to it, it, you know, be the next wave of wirehouse advisors going independent, either starting their own RAA or plugging into another RAA or going to a, a larger platform that that will help them in that process. And so the question becomes, you know, if you if you're in the game of trying to attract advisors as an RIAA and you don't have this product match, right, this solution set, you're not going to be the one who's going to be talking to all of these people, right? Right, well, you need to pick that one up offline because what I do is help make those connections. Yeah, no doubt and we'll and we will take that offline. But I just, I find it fascinating just the the sheer volume of of wirehouse advisors who are seeing the light and saying I I need to do something here in the ETF, you know, whether or not they allow them to solicit or not, you know, that's that's not going to keep this crowd. This crowd knows that they need to have a better solution. Yeah, you know, to meet what their vision is. So the ETF, the big problem with the ETF, it's like any ETF of any asset. It's just price exposure. If you don't, if you don't hold it, have your keys in the in the case of Bitcoin, then you you don't own it. You know, you think you own it, but you really don't. You just, you just have precious and. There's a, there's A and. And that's a good thing, by the way. I'm delighted that they're in the space. But look. At the trap, there's there's a cautionary tale about jumping, you know, look leaping before you look with the folks who got into grayscale, which then they changed the rules and captured you and people made a lot of money in it. And when the ETFs came out and even Grayscale kept their fees high because they knew they trap people in and didn't want to take take tax realization. So, so the same thing here say Bitcoin does what we think it's going to do, let alone what other folks think and which is a multiples higher and you get into a security and then you can't, it limits your ability to move it or maybe borrow against it. Other solutions like what on ramp offers gives you the flexibility because you own it fully all the time. It's not a security. So that that is, I think something, as you said earlier, Paul, if someone comes in and says, OK, what do you offer me? And it's very different than the person who says I got 6 ETFs that are really handsome. I can really put you in any one of them. You're going to smear. With this other. Offering. I know we're we're coming to to the close. Paul, you know, it is so enjoyable to have somebody like you who has such a broad perspective into the RIAA world. And I would love to invite you back if you're willing to come in and just talk about themes that that you're seeing from NRA consulting standpoint and, and spend a little bit more time there in the future. But but before we before we sign off, let me just ask you what what's the magic number? What's what's the magic number where 100,000? I think it. Is I think at 100, things changed in a lot of people's brains that are I think people pay attention to Bitcoin and I probably fell into this camp without realizing they're paying attention to Bitcoin. Yeah, if that makes. Any sense it does? Mark, what do you think? Magic number? Yeah, I. Agree. I do agree because then it's then people will reassess. Did I really miss it or is this thing really going to have escape velocity, which obviously we think it already has escaped. So yeah, I think, I think 100,000 gets people's attention because then at that number, it is a, you know, $1.8 trillion asset, $1.7 trillion asset or so and that puts it up. But like at the 5th largest asset in the world, it's now 10th. So you can ignore all you want, but as it approaches the asset value of gold, maybe you want to reconsider, you know? Have you guys seen the statistic on the Bitcoin price? However, every four years it adds a digit. So I start out single digit, double digit, triple digit, yeah. Right. Yeah, in this. Word that we're in that 6 digit, we have a little. Saying that it's going to go from last cycle was SPF that that little near do well sandbank been freed to now it's going to go to SVB 6 figure Bitcoin. So we're going to have a little flip of the figures and when it and when people forget about that, you know, the fault of the player, they're going to realize that this protocol just keeps marching on. Yeah. Well, this has been, this has been a lot of fun. I think we could have, you know, we could sit here 3 old guys with Gray hair and and don't take. Any color hair and. Anyway, we can continue on, but you know, we just want to wish everybody a great week. Yes, we'll be doing next week on Tuesday because I believe we've got Labor Day, do we not? Yep, AM. I on yeah, that's right. So we'll, we'll do wake up call on Tuesday, but I want to thank Paul for for joining us today. If you are looking for, you know, someone to talk to about your business and or you're considering an independent move, you know, rapex.com, but you can certainly hit Paul up on on LinkedIn if that's an easier pathway for you. Yeah, and. Thank you Rich and and Mark for having me today. This has been really fun and happy to, you know, get back together you guys anytime down the road and and absolutely Paul. I. Love it. Awesome. Well, everybody have a great week and, and, and thank you so much for joining. Take care, everybody. Alright, 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 Onramp 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 onrampbitcoin.com/contact to schedule a consultation with one of our private Client Advisors.
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