Inside Venezuela's Regime Change, Global Asset Seizures, Dollarization & Currency Wars

It all comes down to computers communicating. >> The information superighway can be a confusing mix of on-ramps and off-ramps. Bitcoin is worthless artificial gold. >> Is it still rat poison? >> Probably rat poison squared. >> We need to get into the world of Okay, this is actually foundational technology. What the internet of money does is it creates a single network which can do a microtransaction to a giga transaction. The internet is going to be one of the major forces for reducing the roll of gun. The one thing that's missing but that will soon be developed is a reliable ecash. All right, gentlemen. Welcome back another episode of Final Settlement. Today is Monday, January 5th, 2026. Boys, the new year. I uh I take it you both had great holiday seasons. Ring in the new year with friends and family hopefully. And um you know, a few things did did occur while we were away. We were you know, we had a about a two week maybe a two week plus hiatus uh from the show. So it feel good feels good to be back, but a lot occurred. Just just to name a few things, gold and silver continued uh to rip through the end of the year. I think silver went over 80 uh at a certain point. I think it's back around 75 now. You the uh there was a really good chart that showed basically inflation was the most persistent consistent theme uh of 2025. I'm pulling that up right now. You can see, you know, we live in a very short news cycle these days. So you can see all these blips on uh you know various things that came up throughout the year. The time the the date axis is is on the bottom here. But you see inflation here uh just persistent the the really the one thing that rang true through the entire year. Uh individuals, businesses, nation states were thinking about inflation. Um in tandem uh you know a few days ago we uh captured the president of Venezuela. Maybe we took 600,000 Bitcoin. Not really sure. Still waiting for details on that. Um, but we also had a uh an interesting tweet from uh Patrick Wit uh who is the executive director uh president to the president's council of adviserss for digital assets and also the deputy director um for the department of war of strategic capital. Uh he said something to the effect of uh Venezuela should adopt US dollar stable coins. Um, and so this is uh maybe indicative of of the trend of 2025, but really I think where we're headed in 2026 is uh further integration of digital assets, namely stable coins, whether that's uh banks in the US um or countries that were now proverbally running for an interim period. Uh maybe we just force them to use US dollar stable coins. Uh gentlemen, what do we think about all this? Where where should we head? There's a lot of different directions we can head. Uh I guess first and foremost, how were your breaks? I take it uh you guys are happy to be back on the show. >> Well, my break was good until you just outlined uh the world is completely changed in seven days or 14 days. >> That's great. No, that the break was good but um excited to be back. It was uh it was well needed. We try to take you know good 10 to 14 business days off the entire team to recharge. But, you know, you get to enjoy what you do and you're you're looking forward to Monday. You didn't have the Sunday scaries and getting to recap uh all this stuff. In reality, it's like this podcast, at least personally, serves as a good way to synthesize and articulate like what the hell's going on, think about it, pull some of the main threads, and then discuss them. And I think it's going to be important heading into 2026 and and beyond because there's just so much happening. And when you get to like talk about um these different angles and then how we all know they relate back to a broken monetary system, you can start to spot trends. You can start to realize what's happening. what are the other uh implications? So yeah, it was a crazy seven to 14 days new cycle. So kind of like quick, but all the things you alluded to, I mean there was the stuff with this uh silver and gold just like ripping is something that's just widely not still under uh talked about or understood in the traditional markets and those are real signals that things are breaking. And then obviously the oil situation as well. We're going to start to see, you know, we've been talking about this, but scarce assets and commodities specifically where they look and how they perform in the coming 5 to 10 years with the proliferation of inflation. Uh it's going to be crazy times. I didn't even I didn't even mention this, but uh Bitcoin's kind of ripping. This is uh the year-to- date chart. 7.32% up. Uh all but erased 2025's losses. So, are we are we back, boys? good year. >> We're we're going to have some more volatility, especially in the first half of the year, but pretty optimistic, especially about the second half. There's uh there's too much volatility out there and um sooner or later people are going to recognize Bitcoin as a safe haven in a sea of noise. Yeah, I think I think to that point a lot of this stuff would look obvious in retrospect where it was a little crazy in Q4 the bearishness around um specifically like Luke Groman and some of some of the other macro thinkers selling their Bitcoin because of quantum or because of other fourear cycles still mapping when in reality we've talked about this there's been a structural change and there's a consistent bid for scarce assets mainly gold we've seen silver bitcoin um and so when you tie that into a a secular trend. Well, why would the price of Bitcoin go down this year because of like who's selling uh and what are they selling for? Especially when you look at the things we've been talking about when it comes to Trady and other relevant participants getting involved in this ecosystem. So, so yeah, I think we've we've held that stance that we're going to have a big year in 2026 and excited to see it play out. >> Yeah. And you mentioned um sort of the you know I think one of the big takeaways from last year was despite the choppy price action in Bitcoin in particular there were a lot of fundamental positive constructive developments in terms of basically you know one the Overton window moving sort of the the stigma around Bitcoin and digital assets being um somewhat removed. I mean there's still some of that um but institutions whether it's banks, fintexs, um traditional incumbents that are putting their chips on the table either um acquiring cryptonative companies uh partnering with them as subcustodians basically figuring out what their game plan is. And so Michael, you had shared um a 2026 outlook report that uh the block put together. And there's a lot of good charts in here. Uh maybe tell me which pages you want me to go to first. But this really tells a a a pretty compelling story of you know a lot of the well what we do know around the regulatory environment which has shifted materially over the past call it 12 to 18 months um the passage of the Genius Act last year and really um a lot of people uh coalesing around like stable coins are going to be a thing and uh in addition to that real world assets. I think you you'd shared a chart in here that um they grew about 3x in 2025. I will say they grew to like 16 or 17 billion like total real world assets that exist. That is like not that crazy of a number. I I know the growth is strong, but like Cardano's market cap is like 16 billion. Um just to put it in context of like other crypto stuff. Um but where where do you want to go in this report, Mike? >> Yeah, I think I think they're not necessarily apples. Apple's just given that Cardano doesn't have any kind of um there's no backing real world assets theoretically are tied to some physical asset so somebody had to um pledge it have prominence but before going to that I think the biggest one and I don't remember if it was this report or another one uh but it was the regulatory uh slide I think I I had posted that in the Slack channel we don't have to pull it up but there was a regulatory slide that that popped up um I think this was in Grayscale's report and it really just showed um let me find it real quick so I can just uh read off a a few of the uh crazy I mean like when you see them all together so there's SEC resended the uh SAB121 there was SEC dropped investigations uh in the lawsuits the white house uh creating the strategic Bitcoin reserve federal reserve FDIC and OC dropped you know reputational risk SEC uh issued staff statements staking activities activities were allowed. White House and Department of Labor um allowing 401ks to get exposure. SEC 20 in June withdrew a variety of proposed rules that would have brought certain smart contracts. I don't I don't think anybody cares about that. White House and Congress passed Genius Act. Uh SEC approved general listing standards for crypto exchange traded products and then Treasury IRS issued safe harbor rules for staking and cryptos. I feel like that's not even like half or that's about half of them. But I think that is a huge one um for when you look at the opportunity set in this market specifically with like incumbents and why they hadn't figured out their plans hadn't developed M&A strategies or anything alike is because and specifically for also high net worth and institutions because of the regulatory uh concern and then um I think also in that doc that you had a the M&A uh aspect continuing to grow the It's very interesting because there's a lot of notable smart folks that play in the crypto digital asset investing lens and they recognize that banks need to acquire custodians. There's not enough uh assets to go around. Um so I think that will be a growing trend. The other one that's fascinating, I don't know if it came up in this report, but uh and then we can go back to the RWA, is really the notion that a lot of people in their predictions expect a very large hack. You know, they recognize that security I mean, we see this I think every week there's a pretty sizable hack that happens in the industry. Sizable is relative. uh and then also as it related to Bitcoin or other crypto assets. But I think that is um just how much opportunity side we have when it comes to early riders and we're building at on-ramp with multi-institution custody is the vast majority of the market doesn't even necessarily know that there's a differentiated way to custody the assets where we don't have a single point of failure and they're all ready and waiting for something like that to happen. But I think, you know, tooting our own horn, I think this year will be a big year for the rest of the market to really wake up and realize um that there's a better way to custody the the cornerstone. It's not even the blue chip that is the market when you think about it being 60 to 70% of the total market. >> Yeah. And looking at the um everything you walked through in terms of updated regulatory guidance, I just feel like everybody's really forgotten about everything that happened with FTX, Blockby, Celsius, etc. Because in reality, what most consumers actually want is just asurances that there is nonrehypothecation if you just buy Bitcoin on an exchange. Um, and ultimately that is not anything that has any um regulatory legs within the administration and people are um maybe even just forgetting that that even happened and that's the reason that there was um you know a lot of losses back in that 2021 time frame. Obviously, there was just straight up outright fraud, too. And maybe it's just the fact that banks are getting involved and um they have more lobbying power than the crypto uh industry in general, but it seems like a massive misstep and something where uh despite everything that happened back in the 2021 time frame, there's really been no meaningful change in market structure that would uh prevent any significant loss of customer funds moving forward. Yeah, I mean it's a good point in the sense that I think a lot of what has transpired on the regulatory front is not being properly priced in in the sense that you know if you think about you know uh Bitcoin sort of being in this range for 12 months. Uh it really it never making a new alltime in gold terms. So kind of being in this um quasi bare market in in our in our view um for a couple years now. every other time that that's sort of been the case of of Bitcoin bare market like you see an exodus of participation from either institutional uh banks fintex incumbents all of that stuff is moving in the opposite direction like in a positive direction in terms of their embrace and their adoption of these things and that is directly related or a function of the regulatory environment and the pivot that's occurred um at basically all the agencies um whether it's CFTC or the SEC which has a very pro crypto um new chairman Um all of that is sort of like the exact opposite of what we saw in uh 22 when things sort of collapsed. Um where everybody just like ran away from the asset class. Um and that happened multiple times right in past cycles whereas we haven't seen that this time despite the sort of uh lackluster um or you know lackluster performance but really you know it was fine performance. It just didn't live up to the expectations that people had going into 2025. One thing in this uh in the other uh the block report that I just came across was this is an interesting chart. The VC uh funding by category you can see this massive spike in the middle of the year where you know basically all of the capital was was going into funding these DATs and it's just interesting in the sense that like you can see you know there's kind of growth throughout the year again despite you know choppy price action. Um but to me this is just like uh just clearly showing like a lot of capital you know most capital still being misallocated in this market. Um and I think this is something we know intuitively but like seeing this on a chart is pretty um pretty ridiculous to see that there's just this massive spike. It looks like almost uh 1 point or 12 billion poured into like uh just DAT structures which you know those corrected materially and a lot of those are I'd say most of them are below 1x MNAV now a lot of the stock prices are down 95% plus um so just a lot of capital destruction in this market um and then on the other side you have people you know funding stable coin projects effectively like it's kind of barbelled it's either you were chasing DAT structures or you were um looking at infrastructure that was going to be adopted by these traditional incumbents, banks, etc. >> Yeah. Yeah. That's that's interesting. I think um your your point around the regulatory and in the market, I think there was a chart we had that was uh showing 2025 had the lowest volatility for Bitcoin in Bitcoin 17-ear history. And I think like when you take that into account, it's really a feature u and helps Trafi adopt this asset and feel confident in where it's going. Um you also look at like what the Trump admin did as it relates to u or the not necessarily the Trump admin but their friends and family what they did as far as packing their bags and their involvement in this industry. Um there was a lot of setting the stage for what's happening uh we expect to happen in 2026. I think you also tie in a lot when it comes to holding Bitcoin securely. Peace of mind starts with architecture. On-ramp's multi-institution custody distributes control across three independent regulated keyholders in a two of three quarum. No single point of failure, no pulled or omnibus exposure, segregated client titled vaults. You retain full legal ownership while on-ramp coordinates security, compliance, and operational workflows behind the scenes. It's strength of many delivered through the simplicity of one. Multi-institution custody is the foundation for everything we build. Sound infrastructure that distributes counterparty risk and provides fault tolerant resilience with clear audits and institutional controls. And now on-ramp is piloting flat, predictable pricing, making best-in-class Bitcoin custody and financial services more accessible now than ever. On-ramp strength and many, simplicity in one. To learn more, check out onrampbitcoin.com. of the the things that have happened publicly and that we've heard privately in the banking sector around turning on custody, lending, stable coins. Um, a lot of this stuff just took time and I think a lot of people forget that the industry was so antagonistic um from regulatory policy to the administration to digital assets that Trump winning and then their favorability to the asset class really took a lot of people by surprise. And so they had to recourse correct uh into what's our plan and they're still doing that today. Um and so you can see maybe part of that price appreciation was the market pricing that in but we haven't got anywhere near um you know the interesting blowoff top reflexivity of retail coming into like a new asset class. We're just seeing like the smart money really place their chips right now. we haven't really seen the the retail buzz which I kind of suspect similar to AI we saw in 25 like digital assets will be in that same vein they kind of they will end up like uh intersecting together because of a lot of the stuff that's related to you know LLM and needing stable coins or other units um to power them >> yeah and and I forget which one of you mentioned this but like the the notion that these incumbents are you know uh either doing acquisitions or doing subcustodian partnerships like they aren't fundamentally solving for what we've discussed around single counterparty risk, right? Like there is um you know in all of these outlook reports there's sections on you know the increasing risk of both physical and digital attacks for you know digital bear assets uh whether it's Bitcoin or other crypto assets. Um it's increasingly being talked about as a problem. There was a uh um an article in Bloomberg uh that talked specifically about this uh a couple days ago. I'm pulling that up now. Um but no one has really solved for this in the sense that um you know all of these partnerships and subcustodian relationships are just effectively grafting on to what already exists. So that's you know Coinbase custody, other single entity custodians. Um, and so I think there's a um a focus on sort of the uh symptoms of this, but like not actually how to solve for it. Um, and so I think um as we look ahead this year, I would expect a lot of this stuff to uh accelerate in terms of what's talked about here in this article. So, uh, the title is small-time crypto investors are facing violent attacks. And it's a little misleading because it's not just small-time crypto investors. It's really um you know we've seen COOs and and CEOs of of crypto companies be targeted in this stuff. Um but what this article really talks about is um you know effectively you know think about the um sort of normal average person who has some some holdings on Coinbase. Um they are extremely susceptible to social engineering attacks. Um, and there are effectively these criminal rings of people that just are targeting these specific people who don't have um, really sophisticated crypto knowledge. they probably don't understand that um you know it's a bare asset and if they um are to give up the credentials to their account, you know, their account could be wiped in in seconds and there's really no recourse um both in terms of you know their ability to stop it from happening but also um you know the Coinbase side of things like they are not uh held liable for either wrench attacks or digital social engineering attacks. So there's really no recourse when this stuff happens. And so, you know, there's been, you know, reported billions um of these types of theft thefts, which is uh likely super under reportported because, you know, if this type of attack occurs, uh you probably don't want to be super public about it um in anticipation that it could happen again uh if that information is out there. Um so scary stuff but this is um you know I think something that we need to continue talking about like better products do need to exist for this stuff because um effectively these institutions and and other allocators are coming into this market and really just um thinking about sort of 2D solutions that have already existed um basically just seating control to a a single counterparty um which we just know hasn't worked uh historically. >> Yeah, that's a good point. Um it's it's not fun to talk about this stuff too, especially in light of the Ledger leak this morning of customer personal identifiable information. Um but it's something that I've been thinking about a little bit more. Um and just the fact that really PE one of the big gaps in the market is just that the self-custody principles are are 100% right. You want to sever the internet connection. You want cold storage Bitcoin. You don't want a single um a single counterparty that can essentially lose your funds even if it's yourself. Um so many people use multisigs for large holdings etc. But it's just something that unfortunately is not operationally scalable either at the personal level um you know because many people are unwilling or to take the time to do that or um un you know it just can't scale to businesses um funds etc. And so there, you know, a lot of people who aren't willing to take the time to do that or or can't for one reason or another or or know about things like this and their families don't want them to do it. There's just no other real great solution. just given everything that we've talked about about um the hacks that have continued to happen and and will likely persist in the into the future as well as um just the the social engineering on the exchange front the uh and in instances of customer mismanagement of funds. Um so it's something that you know I've just been thinking about the industry needs to kind of get better at as a whole in the future. Yeah, I think um the the reality is that we're like we talk about being early, but this is a pure product of how early we are because uh Liam had recommended a good book because a big part of what our plan for on-ramp this year is to really there'll be more news and announcements, but making multi-institution more available to a larger portion of the market. So reducing cost having self onboarding just making it really easy for almost anybody that has material allocation to use multi-institution custody and not necessarily has to be uh a substitute for self custody but to be a creative um especially as these things start to increase it can even be leveraged as a uh as a uh like error cover it's like look I don't have possession it takes you know x number of days that you set up to move the assets um but while we do that there's this notion of um the adoption wave and like crossing the chasm and and the the general and I might butcher a little bit but directionally this will make sense is like you have the tech uh forward people that are adopt things early and then you have the innovators that come right after that and then there's just like chasm to to cross which I think we're at as a $2 trillion asset which is the early majority and then you kind of go to the late majority and then you know the lagger it's at the end and the reality is the technology has to increase the the commercial viability has to increase if you're going to cross that chasm. So, a lot of people never get there and there's great examples like VR as a as a good one. It's like you can get the early people really interested, but then how do you actually get it to be commercially viable, cheap, you know, not look like a crazy person wearing it? And um one of the things I've been thinking about, it's not perfect, but it's like because a lot of people don't necessarily even know that they have a problem with inflation. And then they also don't necessarily know they have a problem with custody because most people have a very small exposure to Bitcoin. So they're like, I don't really care how I custody it, whether it's in a ledger or uh and they're leaking my PII until somebody shows up, then you have a problem or until if it's at Coinbase because if they lose it, it's only, you know, 1% of my net worth. But the reality is like I feel like there's a mental model here because at least a lot of people recognize that LLMs and AI, whoever wins that race wins kind of the future. And it's like by holding or allocating a bitcoin basically gives you the best form of AI that's ever existed and you effectively get to out compete everyone else the to use that. Uh and the angle though is that the only way to use that is you have to like if you're going to hold a large percentage of your wealth and this kind of like correlary with a large percentage of your time to use it is you have to feel really good about how do you custody it because if you don't feel really good about it how you can tell somebody you have the best LLM but like how do you use it? How do you like power? Whatever the the example this analogy would be it's like well you need to be able to safely custody it with assurance it was there. And so that's really what's happening. It's like people's wealth is deteriorating, their time is deteriorating, their mental bandwidth and uh they don't have peace of mind because they don't actually a know that the problem exists and then if they get the problem well they don't feel comfortable in allocating a sizable amount and I think as that just proliferates and grows from a marketing perspective and then multi-institution grows and the ability to get the asurances of self-custody without the friction you can really start to like cross that chasm into mainstream adoption. there'll be different uh uh iterations and implementations of multi- institution. I think this really helps in a market where people go from speculating to like all Bitcoin is it, you know, is the best savings account that's ever existed and like everyone wants the best savings account that's ever existed. It's just like they don't know how to do it because either they think it's a Ponzi because they can play it with crypto or they just don't understand how do you custody an ephemeral asset that you can't touch. Um, so yeah, it's it's an exciting time and like Liam and I were on a conversation with a large bank and potentially getting involved and and one of the things they said started off a little warm uh and then towards the end they're like wait so once somebody gets hacked this will all be obvious and it's like yes exactly. >> Yeah. I mean I agree with all that. The only thing I was going to say is like I think part of the near-term uh issue is that like most people don't think in long time horizon. And so like even if they want to be able to save money for the future, um it's very difficult for them to see the light of Bitcoin as superior savings technology, particularly given the past 12 months of like chobby price action, watching gold rip, watching silver rip, like it it becomes very easy to dismiss Bitcoin as savings technology if you watch it for 12 months and it doesn't really move. Um, so most people don't have one the deep understanding of like what it is, how it works, why it's resilient, um, why its monetary properties are superior to gold, etc. Um, and they just typically have a shorter time horizon on it. So I think that's part of the rub today and part of why one, you know, you see the nihilism in markets, the casinoification of everything, uh, predictions mark prediction markets really taking off this past year. um because people's time horizons are just not oriented towards the long term and being able to hold an asset like Bitcoin for four to five years to really see the benefits uh of of sound money. Um and so I think that's part of the story too is like there is this intense nihilism in markets today. There was a good uh Twitter article uh that spoke to this and and very sort of succinctly summarized where we're at. It's it was kind of a doomer doomerism post of like you know basically young people in particular have no other option uh other than to gamble because um they see the wave of AI taking their jobs um and they see basically you know assets like houses really out of reach and so they're they're forced into this uh speculator mode and gambling on prediction markets etc. I would say that that's a little bit too doomer in my take in my in my mind in the sense that like if you have agency as a person like you can leverage those deflationary tools that you think are taking your job um to create value in the world like it's never been easier to spin up a business um with one person and very little capital. And this is something we talk about a lot in the context of you know our thesis at Early Riders and the ability to do more with less. like all of these things are changing in real time and it takes someone with agency and recognizing um the power of a lot of these tools to actually harness them. And so that that goes across software, AI, but also the money itself, right? Adopting Bitcoin as a superior u treasury asset uh for a business for or a builder or a founder. They're they're related and they're sort of connected. But like if you don't embrace those things then yes you're going to be still on that treadmill um and getting out competed that by those who do adopt these standards. Um I I would say that is a part of it like it is the short-term thinking denialism that's sort of confronting what you described Michael of like yes this is the obvious thing you should be adopting Bitcoin you should be uh using superior savings technology but I think that it's still a big leap for people and it goes back to what you said like we are still just early. Yeah, I think um I'm optimistic in the sense that this ties into maybe um there was a lot going on over the past two weeks. Uh maybe I felt more because I had more time on my hands to be on Twitter as it relates to um the new models that are coming out and the efficiencies and like where we're heading. But I think there's a reality of um the market corrects to um the current thing and and where it's going. So the example is all the slot that exists on Twitter and just like social content like we recognize that we're going to have more and more of that. And so in that worldity reigns supreme. You're going to have a uh resurgence of just like a more authentic media opportunity set. And so the point in sharing that is as like more and more people recognize how to navigate that. It's a very similar concept of right now people are speculating they're nihilist uh they're nihilistic. But as you start to see like whether you're holding crypto and you're getting rugpulled and you know whatever happens there um you start to realize whether it's gold and silver and you see them run and you start to go down the rabbit hole of like scarce assets and what like derives value or ultimately bitcoin like it'll there'll be a chasm that's crossed where people just realize oh this is the savings account for the digital age and I just sweep my funds into there and then that kind of shifts that whole notion of nihilism because you end up going from wait I can't get ahead to wait, this thing can't be be debased and now you can start and so I think it it just will take time. >> Yeah. The fact that Bitcoin isn't even in the um top financial nihilism assets in terms of you know gambling is just the fact that we're not in a real bull market either because historically that's just unfortunately for better or worse like how most people have allocated to Bitcoin at least for the first time and then they'll like learn more to see if they're actually on something or crazy too. So um you know ultimately for better or worse like that is how most of the people are going to come into Bitcoin is just the reflexive price. Um, but I've also been thinking about this AI um topic more too. And I think we're kind of using it like caveman. um almost like and I really do want something to be built or or kind of almost social proof sharing how people who are either freelancers or or at the top of their game and um to be able to show their historical usage of AI in order and then out uh end products in order to um you know almost create like a YouTube type sensation where people like today they will go to YouTube or or some other website for how change like a a chain on your bike or something but there are much more complex systems and products that people are trying to use with AI whether it's coding whatever sort of app etc and there can be a lot of um essentially profiles of people who go use it for certain um aspects and people can go follow along with that and then use similar end products in order to in order to kind of recreate or or use the frameworks that others have used in order to um create better end products. And I think that's going to be something that as you mentioned the the slopification out there that there needs to be some way for other humans to really understand how people have used these tools in a uh real way in order to create end products and uh that are actually viable as well as there there will end up being just you know payouts to these content creators that they're going to call them or uh and that'll be used for more information sharing. I think that's probably my uh one of my predictions that I missed um or that I wish I did is that somebody like Facebook who already has a social graph will lean into this in a big way um in in 2026 and that just has a lot of farreaching implications for both enterprise clients how they can share information across um doing things from a certain business perspective as well as other freelancers using um you know best practices that others have done. uh anybody who's starting a new business, I think that many people are using these tools in 2D ways and they're they need to learn how to use them in a faster evolving manners too in the future. Yeah, it's interesting. Are you kind of describing like um almost like uh this is this is going to be poor terminology, but like a social uh a social credit or scoring system for like your ability to leverage the tools like something to that effect of like because yes like people are using the tools but it ends up being um very sloporiented unless you're doing it in a specific way. Is that kind of what you're getting at like uh assessing someone's talent in using the tools? Well, almost but like more of like a algorithm based thing where you know likes people based on your uh existing almost like this is a crude example before you page like if you're interested in topic X Y and Z um you can find other people who have been successful there and um who you know have liked things that are similar to your interests etc. Um and that will allow you to better find other tools um that can help you in the future too. Yeah, I think I think we kind of described it as like a marketplace. Um, which I think is very interesting. I think I think it ties into um the post that Brian had up um I forgot who had it. The the Barely app is pretty cool, but I think it was somebody maybe they were at Instagram um but they had a report on like content and just the proliferation of the amount of content given uh utilization of AI tools that it's going to be hard to discern like what is real, what's not. And I do think that that's going to grow. I think for the first time um over the break I was thinking about like Noster and a lot of the the different u tools built on that that we had uh David King and Max like almost like two years ago at this point talking about one application called Highlighter which ultimately like you highlighted a part of a blog post and then you could really have like an algorithm or feed that would show the amount of Satoshi's that were uh had highlighted or be contributed. So you can you can't really uh do like the um you had proof of work, you had stats that have been attributed to to surface like what was relevant and what's not. And I think with how crazy uh Twitter and other just uh social media and just the internet in general with the the like proliferation of so much content that the way to discern uh we've already seen this, right? Reddit's a great example. Uh, I think that's why Reddit probably has a big following is because they really created the right way to uh gatekeep uh some of the slop or posting because SEO is kind of cracked where you can't really search for anything outside of like you'll see what's ads pop up versus you go to Reddit and you can see real people liking and and surfacing relevant content. Um, and I I could for the first time kind of see where that starts to play out. So, I do think in 2026 we'll see more of that. Where how do you embed value? it's probably going to end up in stable coins um to start because of just the amount of inertia and like people just understand what a dollar is worth. And that's the hard part. I think most Bitcoin investors and and folks in this side of the market don't really attribute that it's uh there's huge mental friction in having to spend your Bitcoin whether it's spend and replace or whether it's getting a wallet and seeing those stats move and then having to allocate versus like imagine you have your uh bank account. It's the same reason why it's so easy and e-commerce has grown so much. It's like you can just Apple Pay out, you can just quickly load a wallet. Dollars are so much easier to be moving around online. Um, I do think it'll start there and then it'll be interesting to see what those use cases are where people would actually use Bitcoin versus um, you know, a stable coin. But I do think that that'll naturally be a bigger part of the story in 26 is just with how much content's created, there's going to need to be some kind of proof of work mechanism via monetary uh, value. >> Yeah, it's a good point. I don't know when the sort of that uh transition occurs where people would rather uh it be denominated in Satoshi's as opposed to dollars because I think you're right. I think at least initially people are just going to gravitate towards stable coin payouts particularly when you think about like you know what Coinbase launched a few weeks ago like basically anyone's going to be able to spin up a a sort of branded or themed stable coin um for whatever content they're producing. But your your broader point around like the sloppification of of just content generally, sort of what where we're headed in terms of waves of of content and being able to discern what's actually valuable or even just being able to discern what's human uh human generated, right? Like I think that that that's partially where we'll head in terms of like there will be a premium and whether that's expressed in uh stable coins or Satoshi's. There will be a premium on uh content or information that you can verify is human generated and not um explicitly slot. Now some of that AI generated content will also sort of quote unquote do well in terms of virality. Like we see that on Twitter today where like certain slot posts get you know massive views and engagement. Um, but I think increasingly there there will be a recognition that because basically we're going to get so flooded with that type of content that there's going to be there's going to need to be basically a way to discern what is uh highly valuable and and partly what um you know Max Webster has talked about in the past around um value uh basically valuedriven um engagement. It's like instead and this is what like stacker news uh does today. It's like you can tip a post in Satoshi's and then you know things rank towards the top that have gotten the most sort of monetary value ascribed to them. And so in this world where um you know information and content is basically commoditized and can be produced um in mass uh very cheaply and quickly um those types of sort of uh rank ordering value ordering systems I think are going to become very important um and and to your point like I don't know I don't think it jumps right to like Satoshi's uh necessarily because you know these stable coin networks are being built out and being adopted by these people that would would want to discern that type of value, right? >> It it definitely doesn't. I think like um the the notion of um I guess going back like I think that the real angle or value that's added is surfacing content that people find valuable independent if it's made by AI and somebody could put a bunch of research together using tools um and that can be much more valuable than somebody that puts writes the whole piece and just doesn't have any relevance but is able to gain the system. So I think like that's just in in general a very interesting way that the the internet will go. Now where I think majority of investors have really missed the boat uh and this is where the crypto investors and tradi has at least somewhat gotten it is like most um companies with large distribution channels or just legacy modes when they look at something that's Bitcoin only makes zero sense to them. It's like, well, why would I want that for whether it's an asset? Well, that's super singular in focus. Um, my clients want more or whether it's like um perpetual features or um uh what is it called the um the uh uh prediction markets like imagine you just had only Bitcoin. It's like well people have stable coins and all other things. Point being is so from a commercial perspective you would want more than Bitcoin meaning stable coins but also just from a like viability of the consumer adopting it. For every person that wants to spend bitcoin to interact on the internet there is going to be 100 to 1 million that will rather interact with the US dollar because that's their unit of account. And so it's not to say to get rid of one or the other. And this is really where I think we have an edge is looking at well what are the things that have signal? What are the things that won't rug? is not offering salon and all this other crap. It's like well stable coins will be there and probably the category winner will be offering stable coins and bitcoin next to it and then we'll transition over to bitcoin because on a long enough time horizon I don't think anybody knows but it's the logical progression for somebody to want somebody something that can be a base that doesn't require KYC all the all the positives that we know exist but it's kind of crazy to believe like well that would just start today and you get enough market share um and so I think that's just a big component and like if there we can chat about that but if there if if there is anything else I think that ties in a lot to like gold and silver running our argo investment even RWA's is that you're going to just see a lot of I think where the real opportunity sits are and tether is a great example of this I think tether is one of the most sophisticated private public uh actors in the world and they have had an exchange you know obviously pioneered tether stable coin uh the next exchange but then their gold um allocations uh and then their real estate or land allocations. Like these are people that are getting behind tokenized gold, dollars, MBTC because if you like play out those are things that will have value over the course of the one next one to 10 plus years. So I think anyway I think that is like the lens from an investor to look at is what are the things that will persist not like a year from now or 24 months because obviously probably Salana will be around but when a faster bigger whatever more distribution blockchain comes about it's like who's using Salana and so you want to build things that have natural moes and needs to persist in the future and dollars gold and bitcoin I think are the lenses and very few people hold that lens because most people that like bitcoin don't think gold is going to have any value and most people that have like gold, don't believe Bitcoin's going to have any value and they both hate dollars because they're both, you know, uh, short the dollar via those trades, but the reality is the majority of the market's going to take time to get to that. And so, if you can integrate that across different media, financial service products, I think that's really going to be some category winners. And the beauty is those can play across different world uh, geographies just based on your distribution as an entrepreneur. Here's the conversation no one wants to have. If something happened to you tomorrow, could your family access your Bitcoin? Really think about it. The seed phrase hidden in your house, the hardware wallet in the safe, that complex multi-IG setup. You understand it, but does your spouse, do your children? Billions and Bitcoin are already lost forever because people did not plan for this moment. On-ramp's inheritance solution is built into our multi-institution custody from day one. Three institutions, clear beneficiary designation, and professional succession planning. No technical knowledge required from your heirs. And with our new flat tier pricing starting at $250 monthly, your family won't face surprise custody costs just because Bitcoin appreciated. The same predictable fee whether Bitcoin hits 200K or 2 million. Don't leave your family's future to chance. There's strength in many. Visit onrampbitcoin.com/inheritance. That is onrampbitcoin.com/inheritance. >> Yeah, this is uh it's a great point, too. And one of the things that I mean it's it's a little bit of a segue too, but this is uh really showing the importance of Tether really has their um fingers all in the third world countries and understands that people there aren't going to naturally only go to Bitcoin because of historically its volatility and gold's been around for so long and their currencies have been um so depreciated that they are naturally out of their existing currencies and so they'll go to uh dollars naturally because they depreciate slower and also gold because you know that's what they can touch and it's been around for a long time. It, you know, doesn't naturally seem like a Ponzi. Um, and I with the with the news of uh Venezuela adopting dollars and stable coins too is uh or at least that's what Patrick Whit um really is is focusing. It's going to be interesting to see if uh if they do USAT or Tether or whatever is naturally the most popular locally. Um which I honestly don't know. And then I also think that within the next 5 years or so, somebody's going to you um at least try to have tokenized gold as their national currency. maybe even in collaboration with something else is um their citizens naturally start to um opt for USD stable coins or or something else and they just try to um latch on to any existing gold that they have or market momentum and so uh naturally I think that these types of assets will um persist for a longer period of time than most people think. >> Yeah, I would agree with all that. I mean I think just the just to highlight Tether a bit like I would I would consider them you know probably the most if not one of the most sophisticated actors in these markets and to Michael's point like if you look at what they've done in terms of their treasury allocation sort of portfolio construction over the years like they are planning for this future that we're describing where people continue to transact uh in dollars whether that's USAT or USDT depending on your your local jurisdiction maybe that varies um but increasingly tokenized gold and bitcoin sitting right next to those things. Um and uh Paulo from from Tether tweeted that they are building a wallet. I found this interesting because just a few weeks ago they led an investment in uh Speed Wallet which prior to this uh announcement I had never heard of, but they led a $8 million strategic investment into Speed Wallet. Um and then PaloAl comes out you know a week or two later and says that they're going to build their own wallet. So, they're clearly focused on like this future that you want to own basically that interface where people are interacting with either dollars uh Bitcoin or um tokenized gold. And so, I think um it's just it's it's worthy to just watch what Tether does because I think that they've been in this market a long time. Um they've been allocating, they've been building. Um and so I think they do have sort of an edge particularly given, you know, their coziness to this current administration. Um, I think it's it's very logical to to watch what they do and sort of um see the writing on the wall for where things are headed, but what did you guys make of uh them announcing the wallet after leading this investment? >> Well, I I don't necessarily know how much of speed business is a wallet. It's my understanding they're more of like um uh like interchange like merchant services. They powered like Shake Pay famously integration. I'm assuming they have a wallet, but um >> I think they do make a decent amount of money by just allowing people to buy Bitcoin directly into their wallet as well as just like buy um like Bitcoin uh debit and credit cards and uh gift cards, things like that. >> Yeah. And and to Brian's broader point, I think that they have their hands tethered in so many things that like they're building a portfolio of products that are creative to their endstate goal. Um, and that wallet makes sense in the this in the context of everything else they do, whether it's like Bitfinex from an exchange perspective or Tether to house it, offer other services. The the funny part about wallets alone, unless you're providing like Privy, which is like B2B TOC integrations for other FinTechs to like house wallets on behalf of your clients, like wallets in general have historically been very low. Uh, like there's no margin really there and there's no business model there. Um, so it's similar to like some of the other stuff Tether's pushed out, um, like Hole Punch and some of these other things. I think they like they have their own R&D labs where they like to scratch their own itch. Um, so it'll be interesting to see what kind of uptake that picks up. I think it it'll just be generally fascinating to watch how Bitcoin proliferates in this new world when it comes to um, the sizing in in an individual's portfolio. And I say portfolio, but some people don't necessarily look at their net worth as a portfolio. So they may have only $10 to $50,000 and it's like how much does that sit in a singular asset and then does it make sense to park it into a mobile or like wallet that's tied to the internet especially we talked about AI like the amount of agents and things that are going to be out there trying to like you know basically steal people's hot assets is going to be incredible. The other thing that I think gets discounted a lot and this is kind of where I'm paying attention to like what happens in real world assets and real world assets uh can be a synonym for like um tokenized gold right it's just anything that exists in the real world that is going to have some kind of like digital presence even dollars I would consider real world assets I know it's not under the same context point being is that like I think people discount the um intellectual interest and uh curiosity and benefits people get from just being like either are allocators or diversifying, right? Like it's a crazy thing for most people just to say, "I'm going to get rid of everything and put it in into BTC." Uh, and it's like a cousin of that is like drunk and Miller and some of these world-class investors are saying, "You pick your winner and you like triple down on it. You put all your eggs in one basket. You watch that basket." Those are world class people. There's very few people that do that. So, I think that's a big mised notion on the Bitcoin side. And I've been there where it's like, oh, everyone's just going to see Bitcoin. They're going to adopt it versus like people are just naturally going to go and hedge and diversify and have other assets. And that's really where the RWA stuff comes into play, whether it's real estate, equities, private equity. I think that when we start to see this world of digitized money, you'll naturally see stable coins, Bitcoin, gold, and then this other portfolio of people getting exposure to these assets, and they'll free float u because of the the lack of intermediaries required. Now obviously that opens up a lot of counterparty risk and a lot of people will have to touch the stove and there'll be a lot of you know bad things that happen but the the bet as an investor is not to like you know uh it's not wishful thinking it's just the reality of like where the market goes and I think that's really you've seen this from Tradfy in general. Um, the only other last interesting part is like I forgot what they were called back in 17 and 18. There was like STTO, security token offerings. Like this stuff's been tried for a while, but like there's enough of like infrastructure coupled with like administration and Trafi stepping in and very much interested that you can see how this is going to play a big theme uh heading into 2026 and beyond. >> Yeah, absolutely. One other thing I did want to mention was um sort of this uh bit of a departure from what we were just discussing, but um the sort of uh proposed billionaire tax in California and the exodus of talent. And so uh David Saxs tweeted the other day uh he is moving Craft Ventures, his venture firm to Austin. Uh I think there were a couple other announcements to a similar effect. Um but you know, we kind we've kind of talked about like, you know, adapting to this new world. one, you need to assess um hard assets, storing your value in in something that can't be debased. You need to embrace uh the the right deflationary tools uh leverage AI in the right ways. And then I I would say a third bucket is like jurisdictional arbitrage effectively. Like if you're going to be operating uh to the best of your abilities, you probably need to be in a jurisdiction that isn't going to uh try to seize your private property. Um, and so I think that that was um, you know, fully on display with uh, if you guys watched the most recent all-in uh, where David was talking about this announcement and and basically just the the the sort of shifting tides away from Silicon Valley. There's still obviously a lot of activity there with the open AIs of the world um, and more traditional venture u, but you're starting to see that that slow exodus to places like Austin. Curious, Michael, if you have any thoughts on this one. Yeah, I mean I think this is incredibly fascinating. I mean from a business perspective for us being headquartered down here, having deep presence in Texas, specifically Austin and Dallas. Um it's really like we're kind of skating where the puck's going. When you think about the capitals coming here, the entrepreneurs are coming here, and then the friendliness um to this asset specifically. Um it's incredible when you talk to to folks about what's happening what's happening in West Texas. Um, everyone kind of knows Midland, but there's like Abalene and other towns where Google, Amazon, um, Facebook, Nvidia, like they're setting up like large multi-acre, multi-gawatt facilities, uh, for where we're heading like Project Stardate, my understanding, a component of it is out there. And so, you see all this growth and you naturally want to be there. Um because I think like there's a lot of things that are this time they truly are different because a lot of the back not backlash but comments when it was a real interesting couple days with I think Peter Teal is also setting up one of his offices down here obviously Elon but for every one of these big billionaires there's no shortage of 10 to 100 other multi-millionaires and entrepreneurs that are also moving that um these themes will only continue and the market the markets like they're basically saying well the concentration of talent is in New York and is in San Francisco but we're heading to this new world where from a viability from a continuity from not being taxed all the things that are happening at the political level in these states it's going to make the logical sense if you're going to stay alive and you're going to flourish that you're going to want to be in friendly jurisdictions um and so this time is different in the same way we look at this time's different with Bitcoin and gold because of the structural change that's happening. I think there's also very struct large structural changes uh that are happening that will really set up Texas to to lead and then some of these other states to increasingly see a mass exodus. the UK the interesting part is we can look at other countries they're like uh canaries where states you know they're kind of like forward looking where you've seen what's happened in Canada you've seen what's happened in UK and Europe and they're like 12 to 24 months ahead of what you can see the mass amount of people that have left the UK from a millionaire perspective is going to be a common theme that's already happening but I think will accelerate um in the in the new year. >> Yeah. I mean, it's um you know, I'm not going to compare the two yet. Uh you can see if you squint really hard, but the number of people who left Venezuela over the past like 20 or so years because of the mass that happened down there is staggering. I think it's like a quarter of the population, and that's like I'm sure a lot of people had to leave behind their families, etc. Um it's obviously not quite the same situation here yet. Um but people will always move from their existing status quo to better situations. Um uh but it's also like a similar instance. It's probably not uh you know just because Bitcoin is better money doesn't mean everybody's going to uh you know identify it instantly and and go there right away. Um it'll take some time and uh there are network effects in each of those distinct places. But uh yeah, it's not great to see from California and it's uh it's very positive for Texas in general. Well, and I think it's like a flywheel that compounds because we don't have to go deep here, but there was also all the discussions around the fraud and like the Minnesota fraud's kind of an interesting thing because you can imagine the Minnesota fraud is >> just pales in comparison to other large states um that are very like you know have a bunch of SBA and other loans that are out there. So I think there's a reason or you know whatever that really picked up steam on on social but point being is what you're seeing is people with agency leave their current situations to go to other locations and you want those people within your borders you want to work next to those people because they produce value right they don't take value away and so as that happens well it turns into the culture well we have x y and z we talk about money uh and what's being utilized and like the proliferation of that for merchants you and then from a just pure self-preservation perspective uh this is something friends you know believe in I don't necessarily know where it stands and how fast it happens but as a dollar breaks down you want the people around you to be already prime to understand sound money and to be able to accept it right and so that's like a logical progression from an individual perspective like you don't even have to leave to go work at you know Starlink or um SpaceX or uh any of these other firms, you can just want something better for your family. But once you get into that gravity and that culture, you naturally start to learn about X, Y, and Z. You see this happen all the time. I've seen this happen with family that left the Northeast and they come down to Texas and then they start questioning. It's happened a lot during COVID when it's like, well, why aren't you guys doing it like this? And then when you have to leave Texas, you're like, well, why are they doing it like this when you go back? It's just like once you get out of that perverial m uh or that water you're boiling in. So, I think that this is just naturally bullish for business. uh in regional growth and it'll be fascinating to watch how some of these like countries that have the inertia going or states and countries that have the inertia going the wrong way how they can course correct because that's like the big thing is in the same way we would tell a naysayer what would cause Bitcoin to go back like what would cause it to go to zero right like there's this inertia this momentum the debasement the decentralization everything that's in its favor so now there's this inertia in places like Florida and Texas and then let's take it the other side and what's happening in the Exodus in California and New York as examples. What would cause it to to retreat? What would cause it for them to get their [ __ ] together and everyone to go back there and then to do it? Because like unless you can point to that, that is really where we're at as from a United States perspective on like where capital and will continue to go and it's just accelerated post 2020. >> Yeah. And I think there's also a a recognition of, you know, whether you're talking about a specific state like California. Um, but as it relates to like the fraud, I thought this this was a good tweet from um our buddy Macroscope. Like I think there's a silver lining here in the sense that like sort of exposing a lot of the government waste, fraud, and abuse. I think it naturally like if you follow that rabbit hole and you follow that down the path like you eventually get to recognizing that government's ability to print money is what causes inflation and the fact that there is so much waste, fraud and abuse being uh exposed. That basically, you know, is a light bulb moment for the average person who's never really thought about money. They've they've never really thought about the causes of inflation. But when you see very explicit uh waste occurring at the government level and you recognize that you know their ability to print money is is what enables that fraud and and waste to occur in the first place. I think there is a path here for people to start start to you know uh really go down the that path of understanding why hard assets are important and how you need to leverage these things to protect yourself whether it's your specific uh jurisdiction or just the money itself. Um I think this was a very salient point like you know there is a path here for a lot of this stuff to actually send people you know down the right um learning curve effectively. >> Agreed. Uh we'll see how many people actually go and and take that. >> Yeah. Maybe maybe I'm being too optimistic as always. It's uh >> Yeah, for sure. I uh I I think that you know a lot of people would just be like it's it's the Democrats or you know it's Elon Musk being able >> it's also might just get memory hold like a lot of this stuff might just get memory holed like in a few months. Um so we'll see. All right boys, anything else you wanted to cover about an hour? Maybe one just quick thing to pull up. This is something that was on my radar. I think it's a very interesting opportunity. There's a post by Joe Lansdale. they invested uh 8VC who's actually based down here in Austin as well uh into a company I believe it's called um Main Street uh or something something close to that but the the core idea is it's like roughly $10 trillion in capital and um investment or enterprise value in small to mediumsiz businesses that will be um handed off to somebody that doesn't necessarily have anybody to transition and they invested in a firm that's going to work like on a roll of strategy um that will take the time to not only underwrite but really influence and leverage a lot of um the new tools whether it's AI software and uh we'll link to this but I thought this is really interesting because I think like it's kind of what we've been discussing here um we're not in that area we we've discussed at some point maybe in the future you can get into that space but there's a huge opportunity to what they're describing I think it's pretty straightforward that there's legacy businesses that don't utilize existing tools. But I think that it's almost like a fool's errand to try to do that unless you fix the money the the stack the total capital stack because you can go and do X Y or Z, but if the money's working against you via inflation and you don't understand that it's not only enough to like put the money there uh and park some capital, but you have to understand what's happening because until you do, you don't have the right lens to build your business because you're ultimately just always swimming against the current. And so I think like that is just going to be a very large opportunity whether it's for a business, a private equity, a fund stack, and anybody building something like that or thinking about it, we'd love to chat with them because that's just a very interesting place where we go is that real capital efficient, smart, strong businesses that are looking to p persist or um grow into the future, but know that they need better management, but also better capital stacks and how do they utilize new infrastructure that's coming about? Uh that's going to be a real interesting economic advantage, especially if you're already cash flow, you know, positive. You're able to sweep those funds into a better money and go really think about roll up and uh acquisition and just taking more market share, you know, being defensive and then offensive. Um we're still so early. The market doesn't understand Bitcoin's that like best, you know, LLM we talked about earlier, but I do think that once the market gets there, there's gonna be a lot of opportunities in that space. >> All right, gentlemen. >> Good stuff. Think that was a good rip to uh to start the new year. Thanks for joining me as always and we'll uh see you guys next week. >> Thanks. >> Great. >> Later. >> Here's what keeps Bitcoiners awake. You're still securing millions of dollars the same way you secured thousands. That hardware wallet in your drawer, your family's entire future depends on you not losing it, forgetting the PIN, or something happening to you. On-ramp's multi-institution custody removes that burden. Three independent institutions hold your keys. No single point of failure, no seed phrases to protect, no explaining complex recovery processes to your spouse. And now we're offering flat tier pricing. One predictable monthly fee starting at $250, whether Bitcoin is at 100K or 500K. 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