Bloomberg Analyst: Everyone Says Bitcoin Is Dead — Here's Why They're Wrong

Jackson Mikalic (00:01.227) We are back, welcome. Eric Balchunas, it's nice to have you back on The Last Trade. Good to see you, thanks for making some time. What's going on? Eric B (00:10.958) Not too much. I was just telling you before we went on, I got to write some evals for my team. That's like an annual thing. And then I got a couple research notes to get to. So nothing too much. Just trying to stay out of trouble. Jackson Mikalic (00:28.759) Good. Aren't we all? Well, look, you're our favorite boomer of the podcast. I say that in jest. I know you're not a boomer, of course, but we're excited to have you back on the show. And I think just a great place to start is for anyone who's not familiar with your background. We got into it in the last episode, but Eric to me and your counterpart, James at Bloomberg as well, are really the Bitcoin ETF guys. I mean, in terms of the best analysis, the best insights on flows, Eric B (00:35.904) I know, I love it. Jackson Mikalic (00:56.055) over the past almost three years now, it's been the two of you. so Eric, I'd be curious. The first question for you is you really kind of grew in popularity as your analysis picked up in 2023, at least with my perception when BlackRock first filed for Bitcoin ETF, Bitcoin has traded around 25,000 at that time. And then the ETFs actually went live and you had a lot of analysis between that date in June and January of 2024 when the ETFs went live and we were trading around 50,000. Right? And so we've seen a major move to the upside from 24 almost three years ago now to 126 and now things are falling through the floor. We're trading at 67 sentiment. I know you're partially on Bitcoin Twitter. You're in TradFi, but you're also in tune with what's going on in the Bitcoin space, of course. And look, this is a, it's an ugly chart, right? I think we're down about 20 % in just the past week alone. But I'd be curious from your vantage point, having really started to follow the asset class more closely with the filings of the ETFs, just kind of like, could you summarize the journey that we've been on so far and contextualize this and move away from just kind of the short-term noise that we're seeing here in the past few weeks? Eric B (02:09.484) Yeah, sure. my take on it is this is not fun. Sell-offs never are. And I think it's, you know, now that it like it's getting below 70s in the 60s, you know, you get to an area that gets a little panicky for sure. But what is this like the eighth time Bitcoin has like had a serious drawdown? In fact, it might not even be serious yet. We're talking, let's say over 50 percent would be like a big one. It has like eight of them. So I'm a big fan of patterns. This is what Bitcoin does. I have been lately equating it to Rocky. I live in Philly, but it doesn't matter. I grew up watching Rocky movies. Every single movie, he gets beat down, and he comes back and wins. And there's how many Rocky movies? There have been like eight. It's a very interesting metaphor. So if you go to see Rocky IX, do you think he's going to die halfway through the movie and it's over? No, he's going to get beat up somehow. And then in the third act, he'll come back and he'll win. So I don't see any reason, based on the other eight Rocky movies, why you won't have a comeback here. It's just what happens. It's just horrible when it happens. It doesn't feel right. And there's questions on why would it go down when all the narratives feel pretty good. But my take on that is my thesis is what happened was there were so many good narratives. After FTX, the ETFs came in and just like legitimized it in a way, brought in a lot of the retail, I mean, the advisor world. Then Trump winning. It was like a bunch of narratives quickly priced in. And so this year, last year, 2025, all the narratives actually played out. And they all happened. And the pricing had already been priced in. mean, 450 % in two years. So in 2023 and 2024, you're up 450 % in two years. That's insane. If you could borrow some of that, make 2023 and 2024 up, I don't know, 100 % each year, you would have had plenty for 2025 and this year to still be up a ton. So if you could have like, if it's like you got a gigantic sundae, it's too much ice cream, I wish I could just put some in the next two years. That's sort of, I think, what happened. It got way too... Eric B (04:35.906) ahead of itself. That's number one. Number two, I think there was a silent IPO. I think some of the OGs who were in it a long time saw it, know, let me, there's now new liquidity. Let me take some profits from my long-term investment. They earned it, honestly. They really went through a lot. And so think those two things are at play. I think sometimes Bitcoin always looks for the next narrative and it's like, well, what is the next narrative? But I really don't think there needs to be a next narrative. I feel like the debasement happens. It's gonna happen. It's happening more. That is the fundamental case. Still seems pretty solid. The network has not been hacked. I don't really see anything too wrong, except it's just that corrections are hard. They don't feel good. That's my take on it, but I don't know. Like I said, I would just never... This happens with stocks too, when stocks go down. I'm like, well, they have 100 %... Their track record of coming back from a sell-off to hit all-time high is perfect. Literally, like, in Stock's case, it's like 1,000 times, let alone eight. And I'm like, why would I not, why would I worry then? mean, unless the pattern's gonna break forever, and the thousandth oneth time is gonna be the one where it doesn't happen again. So, I don't really know if there's too much else to take away here. If you're a long-term investor, if you're a trader, maybe you go in and out. You you're trying to look for spots, I get that, but for long term, I'm not totally sure what has changed. Jackson Mikalic (06:10.271) Yeah, makes a lot of sense and you're on fire with the analogies. I don't know if you know Eric, but I'm also in the Philadelphia area as well and grew up in this area. So Rocky is near and dear to my heart. It sure does. And, you know, it's, it's a great point. I've been thinking more about this just because I came from the traditional finance world. my father-in-law is a financial advisor. It was kind of a path that I saw myself on back in high school or college. I wanted to do wealth management and I did a little bit of that, but Eric B (06:18.481) okay. Yeah, I'm sure that hits home for you, I'm sure. But Jackson Mikalic (06:39.671) That point aside, what would you do if you, what would your advisor say if you were to call them up and you're panicking about the S &P being down 15, 20 % right? They're going to tell you, stay the course, sit on your hands. You don't sell. You don't let the fear get to you. And Bitcoin, think it's even more challenging, right? Because the volatility is even more pronounced to the downside, but also to the upside to your point as well, how explosive 2024 was 2023 and 25. So It's all great points. It's good takeaways. And to your point as well, there's really nothing that has changed. I think the narratives have gotten quite negative. Sentiments quite poor. And I don't know if you would agree with this, but a lot of it has to do with expectations as well. Right? So the sentiment was awful in 2022, but that was after so many firms kicked the can. And that was after FTX blew up and Bitcoin crashed through the previous all time high of 19,000. But people were kind of already expecting that we were already in a bear market. We had already corrected 60, 70%. And I think the difference this time is that we had such high expectations. Well, I won't speak for the entire group of investors in this space, but a lot of people had incredibly high expectations of 2025. Like many people are disappointed about 126 is an all time high. And then there was the expectation that, well, maybe cycles don't repeat at all, right? So 2026, we're just going to be back off to the races, but here we are trading in the sixties and it just doesn't feel good. Right? so there's that component as well. Just expectations are misaligned. Eric B (08:12.334) Yeah, I mean, there's a phrase I like. came from this, my, I would say he's a friend, but he's a colleague. Morgan Housel wrote a book called Psychology of Money. It's very good. And he talked about volatility is to take the price that you pay for the returns of stocks. If you can't handle that volatility and you don't want to pay that price, you should be in bonds or something. Bitcoin is like that on steroids. The price you pay is this. This is the cost of admission. And the more it hurts and the more you have to stare into the void and contemplate the whole thing and think, is this it? That's why people who who could have done that multiple times and hung in there have been so greatly rewarded. The cost is very high. Obviously, when I say cost, I just mean that the mental ability to sort of have another part of your brain say this isn't happening. Just because this chart goes down and it's red doesn't mean it's dead. In fact, it could even be healthy. You have to play these tricks with yourself to hang in there and you got to really believe in it too. And I think that's why those people have been greatly rewarded. If you look at Bitcoin investors who have been in it since 15 years or even 10 years ago, they have beat every other investor by a magnitude of whatever 10 or something. And this is the price they paid. You know, because it's brutal. It's like popping depression medication or something where you're like, not that it cures depression, but it literally depresses you. Like it's almost like taking A pill that just makes you depressed and contemplate your whole existence. With stocks, it never gets that bad because you can hang on cash flows a little bit. You can go, well, yeah, this sucks. Maybe I should sell. But you're like, it's not like IBM is going to stop making compute. And you start to think, it's not that bad. So it's easier with stocks, in my opinion, although it gets scary there too. Like a 2008 can get scary. But this is like a whole other level. That's why anybody who is Eric B (10:23.726) made it through has my respect and deserves to cash out a little. That's why the Silent IPO doesn't bother me. It seems natural to me. What does make me a little nervous, and this is something you probably better take to me on, is if you're an OG and you're really into the concept, and it's not just a Ponzi scheme for you, and you really do believe that it's a place to store value against the declining currency, why? Why would you pull all out? I don't know. Why not keep 70 % in Bitcoin, no matter what's going on, if you're a long-term believer? So I do sometimes wonder if some of these OGs, either because they think, well, TradFi is involved now. It's not cool anymore. Or they just want a ton of money. I don't know. I just wonder, if you got in early for the concept that it's hard money, that the government can't dilute, That is completely intact, so why would you not stay at least a majority of your holdings? I don't know if you have any thoughts on that. Jackson Mikalic (11:24.213) Yeah, I'll let Brian chime in too. one thing that this is something I have been thinking about as well, Eric, and I think it's a challenging. First of all, it's challenging to understand out of the cohort of people, let's say the whales of the past decade plus that have been selling. It's hard to say, are they selling? What percentage of them are selling a full position versus selling part of the position? I have spoken to some people who say that. that are not happy in terms of the capture that they perceive of Wall Street traditional finance of Bitcoin. And some people genuinely feel like Bitcoin no longer is aligned with the original vision that Satoshi had. And so I think some people are ideological driven and may have resulted in fully liquidating, but I would love to see some more concrete numbers in terms of what is full liquidation of these sellers versus partial liquidation. And then in terms of the IPO moment, you spoke to a lot of the aspects to it. I think one other aspect that maybe is often under looked is the fact that, there is the psychological number of 100K, big milestone to hit and cash out some of the position. I think what some people miss as well is the fact that you couldn't really cash out a sizable position of Bitcoin in previous presidential administrations. You ran the risk of having those dollars frozen in your account. even the previous Trump administration, right? Trump has really changed his tune in terms of Bitcoin and crypto. And so I think there was also that aspect of, look, we can't sell. I mean, we definitely can't sell into onshore bank accounts. There's no way to liquidate billions of dollars of Bitcoin a year or two ago. But now that's changed. And so I don't know, Brian, if you have other thoughts as well, just in terms of some of these points, but it's something I think it's worth asking, Eric, and it's a little bit challenging to parse out fully. Eric B (12:50.53) Yeah. Eric B (12:59.544) Thanks Brian Cubellis (13:15.146) Yeah, I I agree with all that. think there's there's different components to it. But I think what makes this most recent sort of drawdown or chop downwards particularly painful for folks is that you've watched gold and precious metals run aggressively over the past year and you had the debasement trade become more mainstream, be less of a niche, you know, crazy conspiracy theory type mental model. And it really it did become much more legitimate in terms of like, yeah, this is happening. The dollar is being debased. You need to protect yourself with outside money, hard assets. And Bitcoin hasn't sort of kept up with that narrative necessarily. Now, I think there's a few sort of possible reasons for that. One, I think there's a lot of people that still anchor to the historical four year cycles. And I think there was a lot of front running last year of that dynamic. And so you if you think about that four year cycle, you know, last year was supposed to be a green year. And I think people got ahead of thinking that 26 would be a down year. And so they just front ran that trade. And I think that's part of what we saw. But, you know, I think there is to your point, Jackson, there's certainly, you know, a lot of people who've been in Bitcoin for a long time who are ideologically driven around seeing what has happened with ETFs, with banks getting into the game and That just rubs them the wrong way. And I think that's reasonable, but at the same time, at least from my vantage, and maybe I'm somewhat biased because I came from the TradFi world, spent a decade in private banking, but I always kind of thought that would be the path. If Bitcoin's going to be digital money for the future, an internet native currency, there's going to be adoption from people you don't like, institutions that on their face may seem adversarial to the asset or the original ethos of the asset. But to me, that was kind of always going to be the path. And so I think it's reasonable for early folks to not like that aspect of sort of where adoption is headed. But I just think that that was always going to be a reality of the situation. If Bitcoin is going to grow from a one to two trillion dollar asset to a 10 to 20 trillion dollar asset, you're going to need those other rungs of capital to be involved. Right. Like I don't think Brian Cubellis (15:38.176) just pure retail speculators get us to those numbers that ultimately really compete with gold. I think you need other rungs of institutions and allocators to come in. Eric B (15:52.662) Yeah, I mean, that seems to be pretty, I mean, think there was even, there's a couple of the old founding father types who wrote that. I mean, so it doesn't seem that weird. So I don't really get the ethos thing. Plus nothing about, in a way, mean, the FTX and there's been a couple exchanges that were hacked. FTX is probably the best example, really high profile. If you say, that wasn't Bitcoin's problem, that was just a bad intermediary, then you could then come to the conclusion that, we need better intermediaries. Well, that's where TradFi is filling this void. If FTX hadn't messed up so much, it would be harder, I think, and if they had lower fees, too. The ETFs probably wouldn't have been as big of a hit. I think all this time, whether you're getting your Bitcoin through an ETF or a crypto native exchange, I guess you call it. It's just intermediaries. The actual base asset is exactly the same. Hasn't changed at all. This did nothing. So that's why I really think it doesn't take too much mental work to get through that. yeah, sometimes equate it. Somebody had said it's like your parents joining Facebook. There is just generally a, this is back in my day when I'm not a boomer again. By the way, always say, son, have some respect. I'm Gen X. We fought the Boomers before you were even born. We were fighting the Boomers before cell phones, OK? Yeah, we were like, have some respect. No, it's true, though, because my father is a Boomer. Boomers had young kids. So Gen X is like only 20 years after the Boomer. So anyway, but we were first. Anyway, we, uh. Jackson Mikalic (17:27.671) Thank you, Eric. Brian Cubellis (17:30.144) Thank you for your service. Eric B (17:47.702) It's just sometimes the boomers, I think, really pissed off the millennials the most. don't know. Those two generations are like, I think they're alike, and they're like opposite ends of a, But anyway, enough on that. The idea of these intermediaries being just a little more trustworthy is good. And it's cheaper, and it's just easier to access. The Jack Dorsey thing about, it has to be a currency. That's one where it is a more interesting question. But maybe you need it to be something people are familiar with as an investment. Because if you own iBit, and then you go to the store and you see it takes Bitcoin, all of sudden you're way more curious than you would have otherwise been. So I just think it's fine. It being a global currency, I also just think it needs to be a little more easy to use on the phones. Like someone compared it to fantasy football, and I you play that, A total moron can use Fantasy Football app on Yahoo. It's really easy. And I was there when it was more complicated, but it's gotten like really easy. Just boom, boom, boom, and you're done. Bitcoin needs to get fantasy football level easy, I think. And it will then potentially be a currency as well. I just don't know if it's there yet. I tried to get Bitcoin myself and a wallet and all this stuff, and it's got a lot of friction. It takes time. Jackson Mikalic (19:06.271) Yeah, I mean, it certainly does. And your point, Eric, I mean, I think what people miss in this industry is if we would agree the three of us and then more broadly, people who participate in the Bitcoin industry, asset class, money, whatever you want to think of it as, if we would agree that it's early, then that also means that the infrastructure is early, right? I mean, we wouldn't expect that everything that will exist in its final state would exist 15 years after the white paper and Brian Cubellis (19:06.412) I totally agree with that. Jackson Mikalic (19:34.401) Bitcoin subsequently goes live, right? So that's ultimately a big part of our business and we don't need to get into the details there. But one of the biggest challenges Eric, you spoke to directly. mean, it's really hard for most people to go to an exchange, buy Bitcoin, send it to a wallet that they fully control. I mean, it's a non-starter for most people, right? So that was the great innovation of ETFs was the access. It made it a click of the button. It made it fantasy football easy for most people to just participate in at least the price appreciation of Bitcoin from a brokerage account, from a retirement account. Brian Cubellis (20:12.81) Yeah. The other thing I wanted to mention just in terms of like, I think there's a tendency with all assets, but particularly with Bitcoin for people to look at price action and then try to ascribe the reason for it. you know, it's obviously multivariate, could be a lot of different things, most simply sort of, you know, somewhat cliche, but like there's more sellers than buyers right now. That's why the price is going down. But I think, Eric, I'm curious to get your thoughts on this. Eric B (20:13.068) Yeah. Brian Cubellis (20:42.858) Just over the past two weeks, sort of this violent downwards pressure, I think I've seen some people try to attribute it to Trump's pick for the new Fed chair, Kevin Warsh, who's historically been looked at as a bit of a hawk, even though it's likely that he's probably going to listen to Trump and cut rates if and when he does become the chair. I'm curious to get your thoughts on that just from sort of the Fed environment, the broader macro picture, liquidity. Do you attribute any of this to that? Eric B (21:10.542) Yeah. Yeah, sure, a little bit. Because he does have some past comments and whatnot where he sounded hawkish. But on the flip side, some people were relieved that it looks like the Fed share will have a little bit of his own mind. That way, it's not just the pushover and a yes man for Trump. know what I mean? So there was a lot to unpack from that. But it did sound like maybe, OK, this guy might not be as rate cutting. And so the market had to reprice a little. I still think that you've seen Trump's other picks in the second term. They've been a lot more like people very agreeable with him and not people who like already work in government who were recommended to him. And therefore, think given that, I'm a fan of given that pattern, I just have to think Kevin Warsh will be pretty much doing what he wants. I mean, like I said, I don't study this every day. But the pattern would tell you he picked somebody who would fulfill his wishes, which is lower rates. So I try not to over complicate it. You can really start getting mid-wit here and going, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah. And I think the market does that sometimes. And analysts certainly do it. The expert class does it all the time. But I think if you're like either the dumb dumb or the Jedi, you have the same thought, which is Trump wouldn't pick somebody who wasn't going to cut rates pretty much immediately and be very accommodative. I don't know if anything's really changed there. And after Doge, where Elon is the most creative, richest person, right? Eric B (22:53.166) there's a tailwind of an election, they created Doge, and it just didn't really, couldn't, that was like a good shot at curbing debt and debasement. So if he can't work in this administration, maybe the next administration's like an MMT fan. So I just think the bigger issue is war, it's just probably going to be the same old thing. If you look at the money supply, it's... think it's gone up 10 trillion in seven or eight years. I mean, that's a lot. And I think ultimately from the signs I've gotten based on moving, instead of leaning into Doge, Trump kind of moved away with it with the big, beautiful bill. That's when him and Elon got into a fight. That was one sign that he's probably going to be a little more traditional. He's not going to be the debt guy who's going to balance the budget like Clinton did back in the 90s. And so I think it just seems like what's really a priority is just making sure the economy is nice and juiced and everything's like, you know, the best it can be. And that does seem to involve the basement and lower rates. So I just don't, I've always been like thinking that the Trump put has always been real, whether he talks a big game or not. At the end of the day, he likes talking about how the market's up, likes talking about how the economy is good. He's not going to like let the economy suck for like a year and not do anything, you know, and Just seems like at the end of the day, that's still totally intact. So I think in the short term, though, maybe a little repricing of a slightly less dovish Fed share. again, this is, I'm not, don't do this every day, but as just a general observer of the markets through ETFs, that's my general take on it. And I will say that when we look at ETF flows, the general Vanguard investor has not changed at all. They have just completely allocated business as usual. Sometimes this stuff is involved in our little bubble of finance and the day to day, it's a lot of times the sell offs are simply algos. It's not even real humans. It's just computers trading against each other. Until there's like a 20 % drawdown that lasts over like 12 months, I just wouldn't give too much worry about it. Bitcoin obviously is, that's a bigger drawdown, but it also went up way more than it probably normally would have. I mean, that's, a, I don't know what standard deviation event that was, but. Eric B (25:19.214) What'd you say? 20,000 to 120 in two years is like almost too fast. It's like too many G's or whatever. You've got to be like, and it's weird that people forget that happened. They'll be like, oh my God, Bitcoin, like it was supposed to go up. like, okay, you know, if gold is the debasement trade this year, well then if gold was only up 10 % when Bitcoin was up 200 % in 2024, does that mean gold failed that year? It's just, these narratives drawn from like a year of information are so dumb. And that's what really bothers me. I'm like, OK, everybody just got like this short term reference point and they make these long term inferences. It makes no sense. There's just a lot of noise. Different assets are mean reverting at different times. You know, if you go back five years, know, silver and gold are frankly catching up to Bitcoin if you're talking about a debasement trade. So, you know, and you zoom out further, then it just blows everything away. So. I don't know. I don't really, I know I went from the Fed to that, but it is related to a degree, only because I think the stock sell-off is very small. The Bitcoin went a little bigger. think some due to worse, but I just think those other bigger things are at play more than that. you know, if anything, though, I think one thing that's a true maybe concern is these true OGs who got into it for like something that the government can't control. I think it is important to keep the base. I think those people, you want them around talking about this and being as excited as they were. So I think that is one thing to look for. But I would say that in the regular traditional finance world, if BlackRock is saying it's an asset class and Fidelity is saying it's an asset class, Vanguard is now letting it trade, it's an asset class. I mean, it's fully accepted. But I would say that it would be better if the OGs came along for the ride. Jackson Mikalic (27:22.335) Yeah, makes sense, Eric. I wish I could call them up for you and we could let them know, hey, stick around with us for a little bit longer. Why don't you? But you know, I think it is a lot. Eric B (27:28.686) Yeah, I mean, I mean, we say geez, I'm, you know, it's a very, very general term. Jackson Mikalic (27:36.959) Right. Yeah, I do think that there is kind of a lot of like the middle of the curve type of discourse on X in particular. And going back to there's a lot that we could react to going back to the first component just around the Fed chair, Warsh and just it just kind of the realities, right? I mean, the fiscal reality is that the basement needs to continue. There is no balancing the budget like you mentioned. And so while this is the short term noise about, is he more hawkish? Is he more dovish? What's going to happen? Well, we know what happens over the next five or 10 years, right? I mean, it's kind of an obvious trend line that is not going to change because it structurally cannot. And then we love the boomers. Let's talk about the boomers for a second. Well, the boomers don't want the stock market to go down because they have $150 trillion of wealth. I know that's not all the stock market, but collectively they have a shit ton of wealth and there's a lot of political interests to keep kicking the can down the road. And we want the market to go higher. Trump wants it to go higher, doesn't matter. Everyone wants it to go higher because that is signaling to people that we have a strong economy, know, things have never been better. But the reality is it's just interest. It's just self-interest where most people are going to have most of their wealth stored in equities and real estate. And now you even see this with the real estate market too, right? You have Trump talking about how, we don't want more, we don't want house prices to go down because that's bad for the people who own homes. Well, it's what about the people who want to own a home, right? So you have this dichotomy of the people who have amassed all the wealth and they don't want that wealth to be destroyed or at least depreciate. And then the people who want to build wealth are looking, okay, well, how do I do that? Right? Because everything's at all time highs and it's only going higher over the long term. Eric B (29:22.606) Yeah, mean, the stock market is basically America's retirement bank at this point. And they got this new plan where they're going to every baby is going to have $1,000 assigned to them invested in an index fund, probably S &P 500. So like, the 50 % of people who weren't investors are about to be invested for the most part. So we're locked in there. I think and the net interest on the budget now I want to say 14 % of the budget that's a big number and at some point like you think of to like This is where I when I really dove into Bitcoin and I'd always been interested in the national debt What really struck me is a very powerful thesis for Bitcoin is this idea that The government rarely if ever makes hard choices, you know Because they wouldn't even get elected for the first like they it's not even their fault. The politicians are they have to not get elected. Right. And would you ever get elected saying I'm going to cut a bunch of Medicare and try to balance the budget? Probably not. And so there's this cycle that seems unstoppable. And so if you have an asset that can be a hedge against that, I just that's where I think it in other words, because I will say I will see people being like Well, Bitcoin, what even is it? has no cash flow. And I think in order to really understand it, you have to understand that other part first. You have to understand the situation that the government is with and how the money works and that kind of thing. Once you lock into that, Bitcoin does make a lot more logical sense. So that seems to be completely intact. That has not changed at all. So given that hasn't changed and the ETFs have made it very accessible. And the fact that it has these sell-offs routinely, there is a case we made is like, everything's completely normal, even if it feels bad. Jackson Mikalic (31:29.953) Right. Yeah, you know, I would love to get your thoughts more on the new investor class of Bitcoin. And before we jump into that, I do want to react to the fact that you're totally right. mean, you have to understand the problem to understand why Bitcoin is interesting and why it's a potential solution. Right. I mean, if you don't understand the problem to begin with, then Bitcoin doesn't make any sense. Why would scarcity make sense? Why would the halving make sense? Why would sound money in general? make sense if you don't understand the context of the debt, the debasement, right? Like these are just prerequisites. And in many cases for investing as well, like I would make the case that, you know, most of the Vanguard ETF investors probably don't understand it that deeply, but they recognize it enough to the fact where I don't want to be sitting in dollars. I don't want to be fully allocated to bonds because I need to be participating in the market because I need my money to grow, right? There's this perception I need my money to grow and I need it to work for me. So, I think people are directionally and have been for a while directionally identifying the problem, is dollar to values. But now it's just to your point to valuing even quicker, but you need to understand all of that for Bitcoin to make any sense at all. Eric B (32:42.87) Yeah, totally. yeah, mean, gold has the same case to be made. then you have to figure out, OK, what's better to do it? I think they both can work. that's the first. If you don't do that, then you end up in this it's just beanie babies situation. But also, think understanding the Jackson Mikalic (33:02.359) All right. Well, look, I would love to hear. Eric B (33:06.882) Just the fact that a bunch of people who don't know each other and may not even like each other can run this network is pretty interesting technology and incentive system. So when you actually unopen it up and look at that, and the fact that it's user run money, that's also really interesting. That seems to have some value too. And that's why the more you learn about it, the more you tend to respect it and give it some. You can't blow it off hardly, you know what mean? So I think a lot of times in a sell-off like this, the people who are like the haters, or some people in the media who haven't done that deep of a deep dive into it, they're excited to dump on it, and that's what makes it feel worse. They're like trying to egg it on to go down. And so then you get this just nasty buildup of sentiment, even though nothing has changed in a way. So anyway, but yeah. Jackson Mikalic (34:01.525) And in the white paper, too, right? You mentioned the fact that it is peer to peer. People forget that there's a reason owned Bitcoin outside of just the debasement story and outside of it appreciating. And, you know, that was clear talking about the problem and then the solution that was clear from the very start that was in the white paper and that was in the Genesis block talking about Chancellor on the brink of bailout. And so this is definitely a core part of Bitcoin. But, we don't need to, you know, I don't need to go on any longer about that. I would be curious to hear more about your thoughts on just the new investor class of Bitcoin ETF investors. You did point out a couple of data points. I can pull them up real quick that I thought were interesting and the general gist for people who are not going to be watching here on on YouTube. The general gist that we're going to be referring to is Eric put out some tweets just about Bitcoin ETF inflows despite the price crashing. This was two days ago, so I'm sure maybe it looks a little bit different today as we continue to crash. But the biggest point that stuck out to me was the fact that only about 6 % of the assets in Bitcoin ETFs have actually left. And so about, you mentioned Eric, about 94 % are hanging tough. And this is despite the major correction that we're currently experiencing, despite being down 45 % from the all time high. So I'd be curious, like, what are you seeing out there in your space as it relates to just the investor psychology? Eric B (35:18.786) Yeah. Yeah. Jackson Mikalic (35:27.185) And why do you think the ETF investors are holding on so strong? Eric B (35:31.246) Yeah, number one, ETF investors are the smart money. This is not GameStop dumb dumb retail. ETF investors, if you found the ETF, you're smart because no brokers are incentivized to sell them to you. There's no middle, like there's no payoffs. Some other products, people get paid for you to be in them and sometimes they're not that good. So ETFs are something where you have to find them and they're a good business, it's a clean business. And so people who find them tend to know things about behavior. They tend to have relationships with wholesalers. So if you take a wholesaler from Fidelity talking to an advisor who loves, advisors love ETFs, they've probably explained to them, they didn't say, hey, Tom Brady's in a commercial, FOMO, have fun staying poor. They're not talking like that. They're like, this is a, just like we said, this is an asset that's a good hedge for debasement. It's volatile, maybe 2 % allocation. So the person goes in going, okay, maybe I'll do a five, four or five year commitment to this asset. And it's only 2%. And you know, right now stocks have still been really good last year. I mean, they're down a little bit in now, but they've had nine straight months up. So like this investor who's got like this problem with Bitcoin, it's only a 1 % problem right now or 2%. So they're like, well, it was meant to be hot sauce. I knew it going in. I think more of the bad vibes are coming from people who are 50 % or over. These are the crypto people where they're like, shit, I was banking my whole life on this. That's where it gets more scary, I think, than your average boomer investor where this is just a little something. It's like a call option on just in case these maniacs are right. Or I do believe in debasement. I want a little something there. Some of these boomers also bought gold. I don't think they're not as mutually exclusive. I think that's a big reason that they're hanging in there. But you go down another 30%, 40%, yeah, they'll start to peel off a little. But there's been cases, I've studied ETFs all the time, like SPY lived through the dot com bubble, it lived through 2008, saw some months of outflows, but generally held up fine in those stock sell-offs. Eric B (37:46.446) Also, the Qs was launched in 1999, that's the NASDAQ 100. So it launched a year before a vicious 2001 sell-off, and today it's like the fourth biggest ETF. Gold launched 22 years ago, it went up immediately, probably for like four years, then it had a real nasty sell-off around, say 2011 or something, where it went down 40 % in six months, and it actually saw, I think something like seven billion of outflows. which at the time was about 32 % of all the assets. So a lot of people left. But again, you gotta, you know, I think gold's more of a trader tool, but either way, since then, gold's taken in like $30 billion. you, the good news is the ETFs are there, they're pretty liquid, they're established, they're, this just happens. Like things go up, things go down. When it's up, usually you see a little more inflows. When it's down, you sometimes see some outflows, but I've never... really seen an ETF where the core just got up and left. Whether it's stocks, even ARK, which remember ARK was like ARK mania, they still retain well over half of their investor base, even if it went, and it went down 80%. I mean, that, that drawdown was really nasty. So I just think the way ETFs design, people design their portfolios with a cheap Vanguard core, it gives them more intestinal fortitude for the hot sauce. So I think that's what you're seeing here. And again, Matt Hogan pointed out also that the people who would buy Bitcoin in the first year or two of the ETFs were the most convicted because there is still a little reputational risk for like real, real big gigantic conservative advisor shops. Those people might eventually get in, like the people who got in the first year or two were a little more like predisposed to thinking Bitcoin is valuable, but one of the ETF to do it. So you throw all those things together. That explains why I think they're holding, holding up. better than maybe, this is also why I've told crypto people when I'm on their podcasts, you should buy some stocks and bonds. It's nice to have diversification because it can help you stomach the bad times better. And that's why advisors make diversified portfolios, because I people get crazy. So it's interesting how, so I think your nerves right now are kind of. Eric B (40:08.398) correlated to how much Bitcoin is in your portfolio. Jackson Mikalic (40:12.597) Yeah, maybe the human or monkey brains were not equipped to be all in on Bitcoin and watch it go down 80 % a few times. But yeah, it makes sense, right? If you just have a small position, then you stomach it. You see where we end up in the next couple of years here. But it is tough. mean, it's tough being all in and it's tough watching it go down 40 or 50 % since October. And I'll speak from firsthand experience, but it's... I don't know what else I'd be doing, Eric. So I'm here, I'm committed to it. And to the point of this conversation, we, you know, we're here for the long haul. And I can see your point too, like diversification. I don't know the exact numbers of my personal net worth percentage wise, but it's like overwhelming majority Bitcoin, but I still have stuff that I just like didn't bother to sell and convert into Bitcoin. So I still have some equity exposure. I still have some precious metal exposure. I don't own a house. I don't have any real estate exposure, but like, Yeah, I mean, I'm well over allocated to Bitcoin, but I could also still appreciate the fact that, at least not all of my net worth has gone down 40 to 50 % in the past six months. And I think that in general, we're just seeing more of a maturity in this group of investors, right? Like the people who got into Bitcoin a decade ago, mostly younger guys, probably not married, not children and like... As you get older, you kind of recognize that maybe it's not the best idea to be 100 % in something that can go down so quickly and such to a large degree. If you have obligations besides yourself, right? Like you gotta mean you gotta manage the cash flow to the cash flow is important. If you have great cash flow, then maybe you do weather the storm. Maybe you take the 80 % on the chin because you have that conviction. But for most people, it doesn't make a lot of sense. And I think people are starting to recognize that. And I don't think that's a bad thing. I mean, it doesn't mean that the thesis is dead as we spoke to, but yeah, just kind of a general maturity that's happening right now, at least from my vantage point. Brian Cubellis (42:13.466) Yeah, one thing I was just going say just on it's so fascinating the investor psychology or the monkey brains as you termed it Jackson, like I tweeted this morning and I just put out some quotes like I come from a value investing background and it's it's there's some very prescient learnings from from that style of thinking. So I had Howard Marks quote, a hugely profitable investment that doesn't begin with discomfort is usually an oxymoron. Eric B (42:14.038) Yeah, ahead. Brian Cubellis (42:41.848) And then from John Templeton, the time of maximum pessimism is the best time to buy. And then from Baron Rothschild, buy when there's blood in the streets, even if the blood is your own. And it's like, it's easy to think these things, but to actually execute them in practice is the hard part and where the sort of the monkey brain can take over. But just coming from that world, like that's what I always try to remind myself when this this type of stuff happens is like, I have a I have a multi-decade thesis on this thing. Eric B (42:57.6) totally. Eric B (43:02.136) Yeah. Brian Cubellis (43:10.254) I should be excited that the price is giving me the opportunity to add exposure. Eric B (43:15.454) yeah, I, and I, I can't remember if you were on for this, but yeah, the, volatility and these bad feelings is the cost of the returns. So if you are in, treasuries, you don't have to feel this hardly ever, but you only get 4 % a year. So you have to pick your lane, you know, how much potential depression and like existential crisis do you want, you know, Forget the expense ratio, that is a cost, the technical cost, but the figurative cost is this. And it does exist with stocks. Stock investors go through the same thing, just not quite as extreme. But their returns aren't as extreme. there's, I don't know, that's just the way I look at it. But I think time will tell where this goes. The other thing is, I think Bitcoiners are perpetually online. And so they're... able that it's hard for them sometimes to zoom out. I think some people who are in Vanguard, they forget they're even investors for like six months a year, they're just doing shit. And they're like, I'm in a good fund, I don't need to worry about it. And then but the crypto people are on like 18 hours a day on Twitter looking at every intraday chart and like freaking themselves out. So that energy spreads and it's crazy. Yeah, so I mean, there is a touch grass element here. Yeah, but Jackson Mikalic (44:22.741) you Jackson Mikalic (44:29.676) Ha! Jackson Mikalic (44:37.575) It's a, it's a, Eric B (44:41.134) Because this sell-off was also interesting. There's that phrase, you know, the only thing we have the fear is fear itself There were really wasn't any narrative change Except that maybe Profit-taking because 1010 I whatever that quirk was I don't know if you can blame the whole thing on that But it's like fear just started to spread out of nowhere and it was just fear. I didn't there wasn't really any driving factor, but I suppose the FOMO also spreads too, where you get extra returns just for no narrative either. So I think that's why Bitcoin's so volatile. It's got packed with FOMO on the way up and then fear on the way down, and that's on top of, and that can cloud the fundamental case of like normal annualized return of say 40 to 50 % a year. Jackson Mikalic (45:33.343) Yeah. And people will chase performance too, right? I mean, you see something going up and that's, that is part of the FOMO. That is part of investor psychology. And so it's working the same way to the downside. And look, I'll tell the audience right now, I'm doing this for you. If I wasn't doing this podcast, then I wouldn't be checking the price so much and I wouldn't be chronically online. That's your, it's your fault that I have to do this. but it's, it's a great point. It's I like, Eric B (45:54.688) Yeah. By the way, you quoted Buffett and the blood in the streets and all that. We've talked about the team. Like, when someone starts quoting, like, Psalms from the Bible, like, that's when the bottom is probably close. And then the Mike Tyson quote that's in there, you know, everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face. These are the things you typically see around the bottom. You know, we'll see if that plays out. Brian Cubellis (46:06.394) Ha Brian Cubellis (46:10.276) Yep, exactly. Eric B (46:21.334) Yeah, sometimes we'll see Bible quotes and we're like, all right, it's got to be close to over. Yeah. Brian Cubellis (46:26.786) One thing you mentioned 1010, the sort of flash crash in the broader crypto space. I do think there is something to that in the sense that obviously Bitcoin is still very correlated with the broader crypto complex. And I think a broader narrative that we're seeing play out in the crypto space is like these native tokens aren't being ascribed the value that the crypto people thought they were going to be. You have Stripe. just building their own blockchain, you have these banks wanting to do more private style blockchains and not necessarily building on Ethereum or prescribing value to the native token. And so I do think that's part of it. And I think Bitcoin is obviously wrapped up in that sort of broader contagion of a lot of these other tokens that people are recognizing, like there isn't necessarily the need to own the native token. You can just build your own blockchain and accomplish a lot of the things that you want to do with stable coins or real world assets, you know, tokenizing the world. all those things. And so I do think there's a broader shift in the sort of ex Bitcoin crypto land of a recognition that a lot of the things that people thought about these all these native tokens maybe isn't going to amount to much. so I think that's part of it too is like there's still these tokens that have multi tens of billions, hundreds of billions of dollars of market cap that there's a lot of room for those things to fall. And Bitcoin obviously gets caught up in that. Eric B (47:51.362) Yeah, no doubt. Seems to be like stocks do the same thing. There's high beta stocks, go up, know, betas market so high beta means it goes up more and up and it goes down more and down. That's to me seems like the tokens. The tokenization story. I've always thought was a little overblown, but it wasn't a lie. It's, I feel like a lot of the blockchain technology is going to get absorbed by traditional finance like in the end, tradfies too big and too powerful. And I think like They will utilize like seems like an ether platform and Solana for things and so that just seems really good the only thing about the crypto space that is That it makes me maybe not totally excited is that they're competing with each other Which means that there's just like this can be this brutal fee war and anytime you have like a fee war in tech Or finance it can really the revenues are tough. You know, I see it in ETFs all the time Bitcoin meanwhile, it sort of has the So this whole lane to itself as the store of value anti debasement thing. And it's also the first one and it's got this kind of special halo almost religious thing connected to it. So I've always thought Bitcoin is like this special gold like thing that was almost like a miracle. The way it can again be run by a bunch of users who don't even know each other. And then on the other side you have these tokens that took one part of it and are now competing like small cap tech stocks in the 90s. Who will win? Who will lose? you know, there's gonna be like some, you know, that's why I think a basket approach is probably best for those. And then you pick, so I, my personal feeling is a lot of people say, okay, pick the Bitcoin you want, how much to basement are you worried about? So you do Bitcoin with that percentage. And then how much do you wanna link onto this trend of like blockchain and what you call that, you know, basically making the bowels of Wall Street, much more instantaneous, you know, and how much of is that? Yeah, exactly. And it's boring. You know, it's actually more boring, like plumbing work. And so that's where you just buy a basket and like, let the market figured out because who the hell can track all this stuff all the time. And a lot of the coins that were like the popular ones 10 years ago, like we looked at the top 10 list 10 years ago, I think three are on the list still. So Brian Cubellis (49:54.372) Yeah, faster, cheaper databases, ultimately. Eric B (50:18.286) It just reminds me of the tech stocks in the 80s and 90s. So anyway, that's generally what we see with the tokenization stuff. But I sometimes battle with people on that. They think the whole thing is going tokenized. And we'll see how this plays out. you've got some good fans in Larry Fink. He's always talking about it. Fidelity. So their opinions matter a lot. If they say it, it's almost like gospel. Larry Fink says Bitcoin's NASA class. It kind of is. mean, it's just a way. Because a lot had to happen for him to utter those words. It's not just him saying it. It's the culmination of everything that happened that he says it. And it's just the final stamp like, OK, this is fine. So tokenization is kind of getting that stamp too. just don't know how much it absorbs TradFi versus the vice versa. Jackson Mikalic (51:10.613) Yeah, you know, Eric, we traded the the OG's. The OG's left us, but it meant that Larry Fink could join us. He, you know, now he's the talking head for Bitcoin for better or for worse. But yeah, I don't know about where the tokenization stuff goes. Eric, I'd be curious real quick because I know you got to run. You have a lot of stuff on your plate outside of Bitcoin. I'm just curious what else is exciting in your world in the ETF space. I saw you tweet out something the other day. It might have been earlier this week about Vanguard overtaking or soon to overtake BlackRock in the ETF space. I'm just curious, like what else is exciting to you? I know the world doesn't revolve around Bitcoin for everyone, so what else are you paying attention to? Eric B (51:56.046) Um, you know, the Vanguard fighting Blackrock is like, it's like tracking Godzilla versus King Kong. Like they've been fighting for years and you know, it's like, and everybody else fights over the crumbs that falls out of their mouth. So there's always like a smaller source fighting over like, no, those two firms take in two thirds of all the money. Isn't that crazy? And so then you've got 298 firms fighting over the other one third of the money. So it's so Blackrock and Vanguard, we take it for granted, but they are just so ginormous. Jackson Mikalic (52:16.139) Yeah, wow. Eric B (52:25.902) And Vanguard now takes in, I don't know, 1.5 billion a day. Jackson Mikalic (52:31.841) Holy cow. Eric B (52:32.024) Isn't that crazy? As somebody who's like in like that world, like that just seems like bizarre, but we, so we always track that because it's just so big, but it can be boring. I'd say an exciting thing we're tracking is everybody wants to get ahead now of these potential unicorn IPOs. SpaceX might make IPOs cool again. You've also got Neuralink and XAI, which is joining SpaceX. And then you've got OpenAI, Anthropic. Then there's a bunch of these like drone delivery services, all kinds of really cool companies that are in, private world. And a lot of investors want access because they feel like small caps aren't where those stocks can be had because large caps are great, but they're like adults, right? People want to get some exposure to the toddlers and the teenagers of the stock world and privates are now where those are happening. so we're all ETFs, which technically have to hold liquid things are starting to put privates in their portfolio in like smaller doses, but it's actually getting bigger and bigger. ETF like to push the envelope. So There's gonna be this interesting tension between something not that liquid being put into the liquid wrapper and ETFs The demand is there anytime someone adds a little private they all this all the sudden see inflows So there's a clear instant response from the marketplace that they want privates in the ETF wrapper But it's not technically the correct wrapper the interval fund is the correct wrapper, but no one wants it there there's just no assets like the You have funds that have a lot of privates and not a lot of investors. It's My metaphor is you make like a great album, but you're only put it on compact disc. You would sell a lot less even if it's the greatest album, right? You put that thing on Spotify, you get tens more millions people. can you put, how much privates can you get on the Spotify, if you will? That's been a huge theme for me this year and SpaceX could be the biggest IPO. It might IPO with the size of Walmart. So this is major league stuff. And so getting exposure to that ahead of the actual public is gonna be an interesting thing. Given ETFs traditionally have only owned public stocks. So the race to push the envelope and jockey for position reminds me of crypto four years ago where the issuers would tweak prospectuses and I'll do futures, I'll do this. Everyone was trying to get out first, bend the rules, not get caught by the, not get their hands left by the SEC. Eric B (54:59.138) very similar dynamic taking place here in privates. Jackson Mikalic (55:03.625) Interesting. Yeah, I remember a few years ago back when I was in traditional finance still, we had some interval funds on platform and I just can't remember if there was ever really any serious interest in them. There was plenty of interest in other type of alternatives, but not the interval funds so much. just how does that end up working out then, Eric, in terms of having those private assets held in exchange traded vehicles? what are the, I know you got to jump soon, but like what are the Friction points there, how does that actually work out mechanically? Eric B (55:35.682) It's complicated. So I'll just give you an example. Ron B, which is the Ron Barron's ETF, he has, he put 22 % of the fund into SpaceX. So SpaceX was the largest holding. Now people started buying into the fund because they're like, Ooh, SpaceX. so they took in, assets grew by 40%. So the SpaceX percent drops because it doesn't go out and buy more SpaceX like it would a stock. It takes cash for that position. And then just it ends up putting that cash into more of the public name. So the more assets that grow, it gets diluted unless they go buy more. But it's hard to buy more because it's buy appointment kind of stuff. However, SpaceX is the most liquid of the privates easily by far. So there are places they can buy them. And also Ron B probably has Elon on speed dial. He probably and his mutual fund has some SpaceX. So certain. Firms might have a better position to be feeding certain stocks into their ETFs. We had Kathy Woodon who has an interval fund with all these privates and she's obviously close to Elon or at least friendly with him. And she said that she asked some of the private companies, can I put you in my ETF and they didn't want to be put in there. And so there are some other artificial, there's some barriers in that regard too. it isn't, that's the problem is how do you, but. I would say that let's say your ETF has 20 % SpaceX, I buy it and the SpaceX gets twindled down because more and more assets come in. Okay, fine. I'm still got SpaceX exposure. It's not the craziest thing. And if it does trade at a little bit of a discount or premium to NAV because market makers are unable to like arbitrage, I mean, they're unable to make a market cleanly because they don't know where SpaceX is trading. they widen their bid ask and where they'll buy it and arbit at. So you have a price that's maybe a little lower than the NAV. and we call that the arbitrage band. So the less liquid stuff in an ETF, the more the arbitrage band stretches, obviously. And that would be called the premium discount. I don't want to get wonky here, but most people are fine with that. They're like, I don't really care if there's a premium discount. I trust the ETF price. It's usually based on competition, and the market makers are very good. So I think for the most part, ETFs can handle it. I think the bigger issue is how much should they handle? Eric B (57:56.492) you know, should it be 50 % of a fund? Like, where's the limit? And then the other one is like, well, how do you market it? Because you don't want to go out and market it and say, hey, we're the SpaceX ETF. And then everybody comes in and they get the exposure gets diluted. There's some non truth and advertising there. Then the other thing is, you know, this whole idea of like, private equity firms wanting to democratize private, there's a little bit of a red flag there because Why do you want to democratize something if it's so great? You know, I've never totally trusted that. And I think that's one thing to watch. personally, as an investor, when I look at some of the privates in ARK's venture fund, I'm like, you know, it would be kind of cool to be invested in the idea. I just saw a video on Neuralink where the guy's brain can play a video game just thinking about it. And I'm like, my God, like, that's why you invest. You invest to get your hooks into something like that early. And right now you can in an ETF. And so that's pretty legitimate. So that's going to be really fascinating. I don't know if yet. The rule is you can only have 15 % of your ETF in illiquid stuff. So Ron B actually just denoted SpaceX as less liquid, not illiquid. So he's making that call. And I guess there is a potential he could get sued maybe if somebody doesn't agree. But it's up to him to make that call. So we're trying to think, OK, what else is less liquid? Anyway, this is the semantics that are involved. if I know the ETF industry, they are going to push the envelope. We'll see where it goes. So I would just say, if you're an investor out there and you're thinking about doing it, just know that where you buy it, that percentage could go down if the assets and the fund go up. That's the main thing you should know. Other than that, it's not a ton of worry, I don't think. about it but you know I honestly I never said this because I'm a big fan of ETFs but an interval fund with like 80 % privates and like 30 of them is probably a better move right? ARK's interval fund is up 56 % in a year. It's beaten the cues nothing beats the cues and like nobody cares it's crazy it's so weird it's Eric B (01:00:14.382) I think mutual funds, I think it gets tied in with mutual funds and I think mutual funds over 50 years have just done a disservice. They didn't lower fees, they underperformed and a lot of people just feel like they don't trust the mutual fund wrapper and like they just are repelled by it. in this case, it's like actually the better deal, but like it's got to get over this reputation it has. Whereas the ETF has like a halo over it. It's like, I don't care what's in it, ETFs I trust. So that's what's going on. really, it hits it so many things. That's what crypto did too. So I love topics that have three or four subplots at the same time. Jackson Mikalic (01:00:48.843) Thanks for walking us through that. Yeah, so that's that is interesting and then we'll let you go because we're over an hour at this point. it's interesting the fact that so these products exist because people want exposure to private market investments. But at the same time, if you invest in them, then you're diluting your ownership of said private market investments. So that's that is an interesting dynamic. Eric B (01:01:09.55) And you're getting, in Ron B's case, 80 % is regular public stocks, which you probably own in your index fund already. So there's a redundancy. Whereas if you bought an interval fund with almost all privates, that's completely separate exposure and adds to your portfolio. So everything says just buy the interval fund, but people are like, ew, it's got five-letter ticker. I'm not interested. It's like, OK. You know what? Isn't that weird? Yeah. Anyway. Jackson Mikalic (01:01:35.093) Yeah, yeah, it is weird. Huh. Well, cool, Eric. So where do want people to find you? Online. For those that are chronically online, they spend 18 of 24 hours a day on X. You're probably already following Eric on X, but what's your handle there again? Eric B (01:01:50.862) Yeah. At Eric Valchunas. So that's probably the best place because I also tweet like other things I'm doing there. But I have a podcast called Trillions, which you can get on Spotify. And I have a TV show called ETF IQ, which is on Bloomberg TV. But if you Google ETF IQ, you can go watch all kinds of back episodes. And we interview all kinds of people. We actually just had Kathy Wood on our last show talking about her interval fund and this dynamic that we just went over. That's, that's, those are some ways to find me and, look out for a week. James and I wrote a book called both sides of the coin, about our experience with the ETFs and crypto. basically the risks, you know, we tried to just lay out the risks and rewards potentially of this space. And that comes out in like October, but it, we handed it in. I mean, we're not editing it now, but yeah, we finished it. So it's a ways off, but I'll go ahead and flight, you know, put it out there. Jackson Mikalic (01:02:40.439) nice. Brian Cubellis (01:02:41.135) Awesome. Jackson Mikalic (01:02:44.577) Congrats. All right, so. Brian Cubellis (01:02:44.784) Congrats, yeah, that's awesome. Jackson Mikalic (01:02:50.055) So you already know Eric that I'll be reaching out to you to have both you and James on the podcast after the book launch. Cool. Well, thanks so much. Eric B (01:02:55.062) Yeah, I would love it. Yeah, I just want to how much will we have to edit it based on what happened this year? We show charts, we went over everything, but we'll probably have to add a little bit about this year at some point. anyway. Yeah. It also could, I mean, who knows? It could just go right back. mean, who knows? Anyway, but thanks for having me. I'll see you next time. Brian Cubellis (01:03:01.08) Hahaha Jackson Mikalic (01:03:01.823) Yeah, it's not worth it, but probably a lot. Brian Cubellis (01:03:08.912) Yeah. Jackson Mikalic (01:03:09.419) Hopefully it's good stuff. Time will tell. Jackson Mikalic (01:03:17.533) Awesome. Thanks, Eric. It was a pleasure. Brian Cubellis (01:03:19.462) Appreciate it, Eric. Thanks. Eric B (01:03:20.92) All right.