Mark Yusko: Everyone Says the Cycle Is Dead — Here’s Why They’re Wrong

What [music] you're telling me is that music is about to stop and we're going to be left holding the biggest [music] bag of odorous extrem ever assembled in the history of data. 1974, 1987, [music] '92, 97, 2000, whatever we want to call this. It's all just the same thing over and over. We can't help ourselves. [music] >> I say when we sell. Hey, MUHAMMAD. I SAY WHEN WE SELL. >> Got to have the strong immune system to be a recurring guest on the last trade. >> Exactly. >> Mark, yeah, it's nice to see you. We had a had a nice 10-minute dialogue before we hit record that I'm sure the audience would have loved to hear, but that is that may be for an exclusive Last Trade Inerson event whenever we get that on the books of Mark. >> Yeah. Yeah. Again, that's a teaser, right? that you get the behind thescenes stuff, you get the outtakes, you know, if you if you show up in person. Yeah, I like that. Love that idea. So, but uh great to be back and uh great to see everybody. Hope everybody had good holidays. Yeah, it's great to have you back, Mark. It's uh you are a fan favorite. You're a host favorite. We enjoy the conversations and we're looking forward to having you back on. Um, you know, there's a lot of topics we could discuss, conspiracy or not, but I think where we should start because people listen to this podcast not for our >> It's only a conspiracy if it isn't true. >> Right. Right. Fortunately, we can't get to that just yet. Maybe we could we can save the last 10 minutes for that if people stick around. But what we really need to talk about first is what's been going on this year with the Bitcoin price. and less about the price, but more so about just market structure. Because if we take a step back, we had you on the show >> in in May, actually, Bitcoin pizza day. I remember you standing on your desk chair and you showed us your socks. >> Oh, okay. So, I'll do it again. I'll stand up. I don't I don't have the Bitcoin pizza socks, but I do have, interestingly enough, I have the the Bitcoin moon socks. >> Okay. Well, that's a good sign. I wanted to >> You're like, "Wait a minute, Yusco. You're the guy who says we're in crypto winner. How can you be wearing the moon socks? They're not mutually exclusive, right? It's just about time frames. It's just about, you know, ultimate destination. The ultimate destination is the moon. But I also do believe we are, I said, it's cold outside. Um, it is crypto winner, but we can talk about why I think that. And and look, I talked about this on the on this the show. Um, but I interrupted you with my socks. So, you were gonna say I showed you the Bitcoin pizza socks and and the price at the time was 111,000. So, we're recording on December 4th. This will be live tomorrow on Friday. The price is currently 92,000. We withstanded a draw down to perhaps even below 80K. And we did not see a euphoric blowoff top that would be categorized by previous market cycles. And now there's debate on both sides. is are we going to be in a bare market prolonged bare market like we have historically or are things going to be looking up in 2026 but before we get into 26 Mark I just want to better understand where you're coming from like what yeah what's your assessment of what's happened this year >> I want to add one extra layer because of the timing um if we're going to further this chat GBT prompt let's say that uh it's a year from Thanksgiving last year last year you're bullish Bitcoin's running now your family's asking what the hell happened Mark this the prices we're we're backwards. Trump's in >> well abs. Well, and look and and to that point, Thanksgiving is such a wonderful Bitcoin holiday, right? And the interesting thing about it is for years it was like kids table. We we're not going to talk about this. This is we're going to talk about football. Oh, we're going to talk about politics, but we're not going to talk about this crazy magic internet money. So, you go sit at the kids' table. You really weren't welcome as a Bitcoiner. Then, call it, you know, 5 years ago, we broke out of the remember, you know, 2009 to 15, not only wasn't it talked about because that was the first they ignore you phase. No one really knew. I mean, a few people knew about it, but most people had no idea. and and you certainly weren't going to bring it up at a family conversation where no one else had anything to say cuz it just wasn't wasn't useful and you hadn't made a ton of money yet. Some people had made some money, but but a lot of people hadn't made a lot of money yet. So then we get into the then they laugh at you phase and that was the, you know, 2010 to kind of 16. Sure, people made some money and and the price started to get to meaningful levels. You know, by 17, you know, we we hit 10,000 and then 20,000. And remember that was the thanks that was the first Thanksgiving where everyone was talking about it, 2017. And on November 6th, we hit 10,000 for the first time. And it had been 900 bucks in January. So people were like, You come off the kids table, come over to the main table, right? You can sit at the main table. And literally enough, you know, kids, because it was mostly young people, convinced Uncle Mike or cousin Joe to buy some. And in five weeks, by December 18th, we hit 20,000. Think about that. We doubled kind of between Thanksgiving and 3 weeks later. We doubled. And then the proverbial shittth hitth the fan. If you watch 10 things I hate about you, one of my favorite movies. Um so what happened? Well um there's this guy Leo Melamid. I don't know again you want to talk con this is not conspiracy, right? Conspiracy is when something's not true. This is true. Leo Melamemed is a real person. He is the chairman emeritus was the former CEO of the Chicago Merkantile Exchange. And in 2017 before the kind of during the runup, he famously said, "Oh, don't worry. We will tame Bitcoin." That's a weird word, right? like it's not a wild animal. What do you need to tame it? Well, December 18th was the peak at 20,000. It's not a coincidence that that was the day that the CME introduced Bitcoin futures because why does that matter? Well, in the good old days, if we wanted to transact in Bitcoin, I either had to have a Bitcoin or one of you had to have a Bitcoin and we could transact that Bitcoin. It's like like the again, you guys, what Michael, you were just in in Oklahoma. I was in Oklahoma for for the holiday. Um, and you know, Earl country, oil country. And in the old days, if Clan Miller, so what's what's your family name in Oklahoma? I wasn't in Oklahoma, but I'm from Texas, so I might as well I might as well be close. >> I thought you said Norman. I thought you said Norman. All right. So, let's pretend your family's in Norman. So, it's the Tuma family. Um, so Clan Miller, that's my wife's family, wants to trade some oil with Clan Tanguma. And that had to clan Miller actually had to have the oil to send to the other family. But then futures came along and now we don't have to have the oil anymore. We can just write a contract. And the nasty thing about contracts, you can take one side out of the thin air. Like you can literally sell a paper Bitcoin. And so if you again follow the the money, some big institutions started going short BTC through the futures market and the price started to fall and then people got afraid and it fell more and we dropped to 10, then we dropped to six and we we're in the the crypto winter. And if you remember the following November, kind of November 7th, 8th, I can't remember the exact day, we were sitting at 6K and we dropped to 3,400 like in two days. And and I remember sitting around our our partners group meeting saying, "What the hell was that?" And [snorts] you go back and you can look, it was a a liquidation of, you know, some lever traders. Um, long story short, that Thanksgiving back 2018, back to the kids table. In fact, maybe you're not even invited this year. So, you know, next Thanksgiving, fine. 19, fine. 20, fine. 21, that was the best Thanksgiving ever, right? We're at 69,000. You get two turkey legs. Like it's the Madden turkey, right? You get multiple turkey legs. Did it the the the the top. Yeah. Awesome. [laughter] Exactly. It's unbelievable. Right. Everybody loved you. Uh 2021 and then bang, crypto winner. And I remember being I was on a podcast pretty regularly back then uh before [snorts] we started Digital Currents and I said, you know, four year cycle still intact. And again, not coincidentally, and it's actually not a four-year cycle. This is part of the problem. It's a 3.11 cycle. It's 3 years and 11 months because it's not based on months. It's based on blocks. So it's 3 years 11 months. So December 2017, November 2021 and October 2025. So now we have this problem of this year, right? Which is October 6th is the peak and then we'd go down. So now you go you show up this Thanksgiving and while we were all getting ready for, you know, Mvember, like my socks, everybody was like, "Oh, okay. October didn't happen. October got cancelled, but we're gonna have Moonvember and it's gonna be awesome. And so everybody's all excited. Gonna get double pumpkin pie this year. And then you know, we're hitting 80some and I'm Yeah, I'm sure you guys experienced it. We weren't talking a lot about Bitcoin. People were kind of So Mark, what do you want to talk about? How about them Irish? I mean, nobody wanted to talk about about Bitcoin. I'm like, guys, it it it's okay, you know? We're we're okay. I mean, yeah, I I I first of all, I didn't buy all my Bitcoin at 126,000, so I'm I'm fine. But, um, but it was it was a little it was a little dicey. So, this all goes back to where are we? Um I still I believe and I might be more minority you know maybe it's 7030 8020 who are leaning now into the nope for your cycle's dead and institutions are here and it's up only yeah I'm I'm in the other side I I think the 311 cycle still exists and humans are going to human and I think this cycle was truncated in amplitude for a couple reasons. And you say, "What do you mean?" Well, one 2017, we got to two times fair value. Or what are you talking about fair value? Fair value actually very easy to determine. Tim M Tim um Peterson at Nqued Value does it all all the time. He's got a model. He actually even releases it on the internet sometimes. I've been looking at it since 2014. And it's been incredibly accurate. And it's it's just math, right? You can value a network based on a bunch of criteria. And you can calculate a value. Fair value was 10. We got to 20. That's 2x. That's too high. We were going to crash. And the problem is you don't crash back to fair value. You crash through fair value because leverage gets involved. The only way you get to two times fair value of anything is leverage. So fast forward to 2021. Fair value was 32. 33. We got to 69 again. Two times fair value. Bang. We collapse. Go all the way to 15. Now, we probably shouldn't have gone quite as far the second time as the first time, but we had the FTX scandal in there. So, that exacerbate. So, this time we get to 126. Fair value is 91. Not two times fair value. Kind of, you know, 135% of fair value. Oh, how much downside? Well, not as much downside. Well, why didn't we get as high? I actually thought, and I I talked about this in January, saying, "Look, no one's going to want to hear this. People are going to yell at me, but I think we're going to have the cycle. I think we peak late third quarter, early fourth quarter. fourth quarter is kind of crappy and we enter another winter and we have to suck it up until, you know, next Thanksgiving 26. So, um, here we are and we we fall, but we don't fall as far because the reason we didn't get up as high is there wasn't much leverage. You used to be able to get 100 times leverage, then it was 50, then it was 20. It's still I mean you can still get decent leverage in some places but it's not as much. And to me that that's the first piece. The second piece is there's a massive amount of leverage in the traditional markets like super high levels of margin debt. Everybody is you know playing in the options market. I mean it's become like so I I read this this morning. I wish I could give credit to who said it but it's so true. It's the greatest rebrand in history to call gambling prediction markets. I mean, that is that is magical. Like, if you were the person who was so addicted that you'd go to Vegas and gamble on sports, that was you were less of a person in other people's eyes. Now, oh, you're a participant in part in prediction markets. Oh, you must be really smart. It's hilarious. So, and you know, she's the wealthiest self-made billionaire in history. I mean, the youngest self-made billionaire in history. I mean, that's crazy. But good for her. Good, I guess. Because gambling is probably the second oldest profession, right, in history. Um, and you're not going to control or stop it. So, and it's and it's partly, you know, it's interesting. depends what you believe lockdowns [clears throat] were. If you think lockdowns were an accident and a response, then you know the fact that people couldn't go to Vegas and so they started gambling in the stock market is just happen stance. If you believe, and I won't say which side I'm on, but it's probably pretty clear, if you believe that it wasn't an accident and it was purely intentional, then perhaps this has been the game all along. And if you if you go really deep into 1984, this is how you you know you destroy societies, right? You threaten family values, you get people addicted to certain things, whether it's substances or drugs or or uh activities and you know, you make people dependent on government large s. >> All right, loyal listeners of the last trade, we are piloting out flatbased pricing. That means that your fees do not increase with the price of Bitcoin. We also have lowest cost trade fees in the industry, an IRA included in every account at no additional charge, and a special end ofear incentive. We only have a few more weeks left in the year. So, anyone who wants to get more information on the end ofear incentive, email me directly, jackonrampbitcoin.com. Again, no fees that increase with the price of Bitcoin, lowest trade fees in the industry to buy Bitcoin, and an IRA included in every account. >> Maybe taking a quick detour. Um just on the prediction markets uh curious where you sit there because I think there's two discussions like one is gambling and um there's been good I need to get off X but there's been some good uh dialogue around how like sports are cooked like just in general like products are are cooked just with this system for a number of reasons and so the main reason people look at sports today is really gambling. Um and then the other side of it is ultimately um it's the lottery ticket. it's either you know per or prediction markets. So that's one side of society just like in decay. But on the other side I initially was like all prediction markets. I still don't know where I sit. That's why I'm curious on your response ofing to you know Joey Krug talking about how and then how Poly Market was initially founded and looking at um there was another I guess Susuana is the largest market maker and so they come out and of course they're talking their book but explaining how from a geopolitical perspective >> you can have uh I think it was like the Venezuela whatever's going on down there and they have it priced at like 50% when if you ask most people they would say like that's not going to happen nothing's going to happen down there so curious do you see there's any signal of like a societal improvement by having an open free market, being able to discern where the signal is versus having it within a tight group. I don't know where I said that's >> a great it's a great it's a great question to ponder. I I I I would not I would enthu not only would I not argue, I would enthusiastically support the construct that that prediction markets and the hive of mind is far better at discerning probabilities of of unknown events than individuals. Right? I I I think there's lots of data on that and and make sense because some of those individuals might actually have some some knowledge or some inside information so to speak um or know how to you know do probabilities better whereas most people are are you know generally pretty bad and and generally less informed not uninformed but just just a whole group of people distributed around the world are going to have more information. Now that doesn't mean that that groups are good at everything. Like I say all the time, right? Investment committee should be an odd number and three is too many, right? The best investment committee is a single person because groups tend to make decisions that keep them in the group as opposed to say what's really on their mind. And so there are things that the prediction markets aren't good at. But I I I think I would say it's incontrovertible that your point on is there information content, is there more signal than noise? Definitely. Right. And and in fact, they're really important in the sense of in a world of digital abundance or electronic abundance, whichever one you want, where everything's now available all the time and a whole bunch of stuff that isn't real, isn't useful. Like opinions, they're not really useful. Like one of my favorite, you know, stories is Seth Clarman, famous manager of Bowpost, you know, they're at their Monday meeting and and he says, "All right, what do we know about this particular merger?" And the one analyst says, "Well, I think he says, I did not ask you what you think. I will never ask you what you think. Your job is not to think. I ask you, what do we know? What facts do we have? go get me the facts. And he he wasn't trying to be dismissive. He's like, look, I I I'm not asking you to think. I'm not asking for opinions. I want us, who's a pretty smart group, to analyze facts and data. And so, in a world full, like look what's happening with the CFP stuff right now. Oh my god. I mean, it's relentless. the consternation, the the torturing the data and and everybody's biased and everybody's got opinions. Like that's not what matters is the facts. Like >> let's just talk about Lane Keifin. If we're going to go to college football, we don't have to go to >> Oh my god. And here's the funny thing about that, right? You know, we were talking off air about, you know, familiar relationships, spousal relationships. You know, there's things you disagree on. There's things you really disagree on. There's things you just can't talk about and then there's stuff you like you get divorced over. But Lane Kein, all the women love this guy. I mean, what a dirt bag. I mean, he is a bad person and he's not even based on data. Based on data, maybe he's not even a great coach, but man, how do you show your show your true stripes? And maybe I shouldn't say this about another person, but holy moly. I mean, I I just I I I'm I'm blown away at the lack of loyalty, the lack of of polish, just the the the lack of I mean, and but worse are the people who want to penalize the kids, but they shouldn't be in the they shouldn't be in the tournament. Are you joking? I mean, the kids did nothing wrong. And I would make the argument, I've made this argument many times, there's a whole bunch of times where if you just took the coaches off the field, the kids would be better because they know what to do. They just don't want to be yelled at. They don't want to be belittled. They, you know, that was Brian Kelly's big problem. That's why he's no longer at LSU. Then I I I will I will give my dig to Louisiana like everybody else. You're paying three coaches $140 million to have the lowest literacy rate in the country. That's a priority problem. >> Yeah, the college football stuff's fascinating. I haven't paid attention as much sports ball, but seeing the Lane Kein situation and how it was happening mid-season, I couldn't help but notice um to help Jackson bring this back because I want to share two things to uh one disagree with something he said and then instead of saying this is what I think, say the facts. I would say we're objectively still we've still been in a Bitcoin bare market in gold terms. >> Ah no, I love that point. And and here's the thing. If two people always have the same opinion, one is unnecessary. >> So I love dialogue and debate, right? I live for dialogue and debate. I don't >> if if people always agree, that's just not fun at all and it's not interesting and we'll never find truth. So I you never have to apologize for for quote unquote disagreeing or or taking the other side. Um >> well let me just finish the thought and then get your response. So uh because you were keen on something that we're in potential over uh fair market value and the cycle maybe topped and how you're going down that thread. I don't think it's even started yet. >> I could share more but I mean that's the basic genesis. >> I I am I am compelled I am compelled by that argument. I I I would have to look at the data and starting points because I I will agree voiciferously with with the premise that 1 ounce of gold is 1 ounce of gold the same way that one Bitcoin is one Bitcoin. Those never changed. Every was like, oh, the price of gold went up. No, it didn't. Gold did not change. Gold did not change. What changed is the currency you devalue you value it in whether that be lera or boloulevards or dollars or yen. So gold has never changed. And gold undisputed champion of this 5,000 years same store of value. If you exchanged a single ounce 5,000 years ago you got a fine person's suit. 2,000 years ago a fine person's suit. 100 years ago, a fine person's suit. Today in Savil Row, a fine person's suit. So a single ounce has been a perfect store of value, a perfect money. Up to Bitcoin, it was the only money in the world. Like Mark, what are you talking about? There's lots of money. No, there's lots of currencies, but there's only ever been one. And that's not true. There were things before gold, shells and stone wheels, but we eventually ended up with gold. But money is an asset that exists in the absence of a liability. So I I totally agree with you that gold is the standard. We might quibble a little in that like people say, "Well, gold outperformed this year and bit gold outer bitcoin this year." I'm like, "Yeah, but all you got to do is back up three months and it's a dead heat. And if I back up 13 months, Bitcoin's ahead." So the the beginning and the ending period matter and I will argue that if you go back to the seinal event lockdowns uh and it wasn't the lockdowns themselves but the response fueled by the cult of Kelton as I refer to it Stephanie Kelton maybe the dumbest economist in the world which is like jumbo shrimp Right. I mean, it's an oxymoron to say a dumb economist. I mean, it's called the dismal science for a reason. It's not really a science. I mean, it's a bunch of opinions. And and we we cultify them. There are Keynesians and there are, you know, Eduardians and there and there are, you know, Austrians. So, we cultify it. But at the end of and the Austrians are the closest thing to real because they they base it on gold. But but the cult of Kelton is crazy. I mean, this woman actually believes that you can issue as much debt as you want and it won't cause inflation. I mean, that's just it's mathematically disprovable. It's just it's just a silly statement. But anyway, they they printed more money in an 18-month period than the previous 245 years. that was going to end up in both the price of gold and the price of Bitcoin. So if we go back to that date and look then the comparison I think is >> well I think the two things to add is they're not in a vacuum. I think most people would agree that the trading pair for money is energy. So barrels of oil would be the all-time highs and it hasn't passed that in gold terms. But the other side of it is breaking down like three anecdotes. um that what I think drives Bitcoin's bull markets is reflexivity because reflexivity is what drives in net new demand and three particular anecdotes is one most people listening to this and us haven't had net new people, friends, networks step into the market um in size. >> Yeah. >> The other one is just randomly talking one of the largest hardware manufacturers have just been a decline since 21. So there's been net new buyers there. And then the last one just stumbled on because we have a venture arm and you just don't see a lot of net new entrepreneurs which are generally a signal for a positive market because of wealth appreciation and recognition of the underlying. And so when you tile that into it and then you look at the trading pair which is barrels of oil, I just don't think it's gotten started which I think is bullish because it means we have a lot more room to run. Um but anyway, that's just kind of I was going to initially say that as an opinion but it's objective uh when it comes to >> No, and and and I agree with it. I do agree with it. Um and and and yet maybe I would step back a little bit and say that [snorts] probably is more inextricably linked to the liquidity cycle and the business cycle, which historically has been a seven-year cycle. Lately, it's been extended because of QE and QT and all that that kind of nonsense. So, it's been a little bit tough to read the data. Um but historically it was seven years like clockwork and and then every 14 years we had the technological innovation that when you couple the innovation wave with the liquidity cycle and the entrepreneurs who get laid off from real jobs during the previous downturn. When you get those three things you get massive venture returns. And the last best one was 1996. Since then, we've had a number of venture years where you get two of the three, but you need all three. And I will argue this cycle 24 you got you had all three. And so I think the venture returns from 2425 are going to be spectacular. But I agree with you that since then there has been a a noticeable decline. Um, and I think part of it is unlike the internet. So if you think about all the the cycles, right, there was the mainframe cycle in 54, then the microchip cycle in ' 68. There were a lot of industries that you could improve with those innovations. You know, first it was like governments going to business and then it was big business going to small business. Then the personal computer came along and and that was the beginnings of connectivity. But it really wasn't until 2010 when we had these things, right? I mean, what's crazy is in 2007 when Apple released the first iPhone, their stock fell 40%. Because people were like, "I'll never pay $500 for a phone." No, you won't. You'll pay $1,500 for a supercomput. It's not a phone. When was the last time you actually talked on it? I mean, you do stuff with it that's seemingly impossible, but but you extended so many businesses and so many opportunities to create wealth by creating new businesses. This innovation, the the truth net as I call it or blockchain or Bitcoin or whatever, whatever you want to focus on, there's only one industry really. I mean, it's financial services. I mean there are some other applications but it's really about money and financial services which is the biggest industry in the world and it's not close like you know the internet revolutionized commerce media $7 trillion of value huge awesome financial services is seven trillion a year of fees that we pay for the trust of safekeeping of our assets. We can displace all of that. Now, the problem with that, as you guys have experienced, Jamie and and co don't like that, right? They they kind of like their revenues. So, um now I said, you know, 2009 to 15 was the first they ignore you phase. Then 16 to 21 was the, you know, then they then they laugh at you phase. And now we're in 21 or 22 to 27, the then they fight you phase. And so we're still a couple years away from the fight and the fight is is real. But then, you know, you know how the the the the story ends is then you win. I will argue if you're here, if you're listening to this podcast, if you are a holder of of Bitcoin, you've already won because you you get the joke. We were talking before we came on air. You I finally busted out of Twitter jail. I was in Twitter jail for better part of two years and I couldn't figure out why. I mean, I got in jail the first time because of saying the wrong thing about the wrong topics around lockdowns, but whatever. But I got out of that one. But then I got in again like what the hell? And it wasn't that I did anything wrong. It was just I was I was using Twitter wrong. The fact that I won't call it X and I call it tweets instead of post is probably part of it, but which I'll never do. Um, but I busted out because I asked Rock, "What should I do to get the algorithm to like me again?" And I said, "Do these things." And I did these things and bam. And a bunch of things happened and people started seeing my stuff again. But I did tweet this out the other day. I said, "The goal isn't to have the most currency, right? The goal is to have the most purchasing power. That's how you win. And purchasing power can be stored in lots of different ways. Can be stored in barrels of oil, can be stored in bricks of gold, can be stored in Bitcoin, can be stored in land. I mean, there are a lot of ways to to store uh purchasing power, but it it isn't to have a bunch of numbers on a page because those numbers on a page have to be converted into dirty fiat to pay for the $20 hamburger, which is about to be 25 or 30. So, crazy stuff. 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 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. So Mark, if I could get your thoughts um trying to bridge the gap between your thinking and Michael's thinking and some of mine as well, right? So you' made you' made the case that cycles over time are still intact 3 years 11 months fair value for Bitcoin price. Michael makes the case that if you denominate Bitcoin and another asset like gold, then we're still in a bare market. Haven't hit new all-time highs there. I have a question if you can kind of pull in the macro story now because if we look back to the previous cycle um we had the alignment between easy monetary policy and fiscal policy that you spoke to and then the cycle peaked out in tandem with the Federal Reserve and global central banks hiking rates quantitative tightening and now we're kind of in a opposite situation where we've completed the threeear 11month cycle to your point but now it's a question mark of where do we go from here from the macro picture it seems that things are going to be easing and so I want to get your thoughts in terms of like macro conditions and what the implications are for Bitcoin and other asset classes. My other thought as well or question is well you know you have a case for fair value for Bitcoin but the people in the equity markets who have been pointing out that equity markets have been well beyond their fair value for um a number of years now if you look at different fundamental ratios well equity markets continue to price new all-time highs. price earnings continue to go up and so like why is Bitcoin correcting a fair market where you have other asset classes that continue to stretch valuations in addition to a macro condition that seems to be pretty you know pretty uh supportive. >> It's such such an insightful question and such an important question. One little thing chart crime you got to use log scale if you show anything more than five years. But but that said, um uh it's my personal pet peeve. >> Did Michael get me in trouble or did Brian? >> No. No. Again, it's it's not a big deal. It's just everyone shows these charts and they need to be log scale. If it's a long period of time, it's got to be log scale. Like everyone shows the debt chart. Well, yeah, because you're showing a hundred years, you know, the first increase for the first 90 years. Anyway, your your question is so important because at the end of the day, Michael and I are talking about the same thing on different time frames. I'm talking about kind of a trading time frame. He's talking about an a wealth accumulation time frame. And so, both can be right. It's it's like when someone's long a stock and someone's short a stock. They can both be right. It's just about time frames, right? Someone could miss earnings, but still be a great buy long term, but you don't care about earnings and you're not going to trade, you know? So, so that that's the first part of it. The second part, again, the the really really insightful part is well, wait a second. These other asset classes that are huge by every measure are the most expensive they've ever been. like worse than 2000, worse than 29, worse than 1846. I mean, bad, but they stay they say that. Well, it's because the game's rigged. And the game's rigged because all my brethren and sisterin are in charge. So, the boomers, right, have been in charge for a while. And the boomers created a system to perpetuate the system that their f that their parents created. And the silent generation created entitlements. Now what's an entitlement? An entitlement is a promise that you make to yourself that you don't fund and you ask your kids to pay for. Who would not vote for that? Everyone would vote for that. So [snorts] the first generation, the silent generation scarred by the depression said we are never going to have that again. So we're going to set up these systems like social security uh and then later after post-war other things to make sure that we take care of the vulnerable. Okay, it's good. Now, basically what you created are insurance companies. If you create an insurance company, you should run it like an insurance company. What does that mean? Well, what does an insurance company do? They take in premiums. They invest the premiums and make money and then pay claims later. So they use the money to invest while they hold it and then they pay out and they keep the spread. It's a beautiful business. One of the best business in the world. The reason Bergkshire Hathaway is so important is they're an insurance company that has negative cost of capital money because they get paid to hold the money and they invest in a leveraged index fund. Mad genius. And it's tax deferred so it's even better. So, Governor of Singapore does this, Tomasic does this. We don't do that. Like, my mom believes that there's a little pot of money in DC called Judy's money. There is no pot. She's getting paid by me and my wife. Okay? That's who's paying for her. Not specifically out of our paycheck, but it's the kids who are paying. The problem when you set up the system, there were 17 workers for every retiree. When I reached retirement age, notice I didn't say retire because I will not be able to. There will be two. And I always said, you know, we had two kids or had two kids and I lose. The money goes to my wife. I lose. So, I had to have a third kid. So, we had a caboose. So, you know, I have a 14-year-old now in addition to my older kids. Still need one more to to get paid. But, but a pay as you go system will go broke. So, you just as long as you die before it goes broke, you're happy because you don't really care. So, the boomers set it up. But when they saw that the only way out was to inflate the value of the fiat assets, stocks, the tax act of 1986, which had nothing to do with taxes, had everything to do with 401ks and corporate earnings. So pre-1986 again silent generation company will take care of you in your old age. You have a pension and it'll be a defined benefit meaning you work for a number of years you get a certain amount that was very expensive because you had to put the money in you had to invest it and there were professionals that invested it. That's a very important point. Professionals invested it and we modified from the 1950s when it was basically deemed irresponsible to own anything but bonds. But over the long term, the dumbest thing you could ever own is a bond because every day you own the bond, all your returns are getting chipped away by inflation, the devaluation of the currency. So you need to own equity and private equity and real estate and commodities. So they had diversified portfolios and Orisa came along and and in 73 and said you got to diversify and you got to own these other assets and so they're professionally managed and they gave people a defined benefit a comfort but they were expensive because you had to put money in. So, someone came up with this. They said, "What if we created this new thing called define contribution?" And here's the cool thing. It'll be portable because in the 80s, people were starting to leave jobs. They weren't staying with one company for 40 years. They might want to change jobs and so they could take their assets with them. Oh, that sounds good. Um, and guess who wrote that bill? Vanguard and Blackstone. Um um Vanguard and Fidelity. Huh? What do they do? They offer these things called mutual funds. Where's all the money go into mutual funds? And they charge fees. Now, they've convinced people that oh, they they charge low fees. It doesn't matter. They still charge fees. worse. The average person when they get their 401k, they go into the HR person and they do one overn. If they have five choices, they put 20% in each. If they have 10 choices, they put 10% in each. If they have five choices and three of them are bond choices, they are 60% bonds. If they have 10 choices and seven of them are bonds, they're 70% bonds. And they never change. It should be against the law to own a bond in a 401k. Should be against the law because you can't touch the money for 45, 50, 60 years. You should be forced to own equities and private equity and venture capital. But lots and lots of bonds, tons and tons of bonds. So the average 401k is underfunded, not going to provide the same level of benefit as DB. But then what really happened because it's always the contribution for DC versus DB was 30% lower. So corporate earnings went up 30%. Who made all that money? Management. Because at the time no one owned any stock yet. They were starting to accumulate. So all the money went to management through options and other things. [snorts] So then what happens? So then Warren, Uncle Warren comes along and says, you know, these bunch of these companies look really good. How about I buy a bunch of them and then we cut a deal where you buy back the stock and so I get a dividend into my trust that I'm buying with levered assets and then I have a tax deferral. So his stock, if you plot it against the S&P, it's like a 1.5x the S&P except when he goes to cash, which is always an interesting warning sign. Anyway, I've digressed a lot, but but the point is that the game is rigged. Every two weeks, money goes into stocks into the S&P index fund. And the S&P index fund are dumb. And I don't mean unintelligent. I mean they are rule-based. Three years ago, the waiting of Nvidia in the S&P was 0.7%. Today is 7.8%. every dollar that went in on Monday because Monday was a contribution day had to buy 7.8% of Nvidia irregardless of the fact that it's selling at 30 times revenues which is a dumb number and will eventually come home to roost. But when that's the tricky part. As long as the 401ks are coming in every 2 weeks and they are forced to buy index funds because now we have more money in passive than active, [snorts] that will keep happening. So that's the long-winded way of saying the problem with Bitcoin having more volatility, the ownership's not as broad. It's not systematized at all. Now that's about to change. what happened yesterday or two days ago. Vanguard said even though the original guy I said over my dead body basically said as long as I'm CEO he's gone. So his body you know got dead I guess >> still alive. >> He's still alive but but he's gone. And um they are now going to let Now if you want to get into really deep dark conspiracies um you can make a really good argument that uh all the FUD around deindexing MSTR that started on the same time as the peak around the first week of October and the you know Trump back whale you know people were saying it was Trump. I I don't know if it was or wasn't, but the Trump back whale who got short on that same time. All of this stuff might have been the oldest trick in the book. Like I tell this story, you know, Julian Robertson, you know, dear friend, mentor, you know, God rest his soul, one of maybe one of the greatest inves, not maybe one of the greatest investors of of all time. There's a great story. White Anderson, famous hedge fund guy, worked at Julian Shop. Julian said,"All right, Dwight, you know, you're the you're the macro guy. I want to get long copper." And Dwight said, "Okay, great. I I'll I'll go put an order." He says, "No, no, no, no. I don't want you to buy copper. I want you to go short 50 million of copper and I want you to call Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs and I want you to tell them how much we hate copper." And Dwise like, "No, I thought you said you wanted to get long copper." He says, "Well, I do, but I want to get long at a lower price." So this has been going on for a very very long time that when when somebody knows that they have to buy a bunch of something, they FUD it to make the price go down so they can buy. So, I'm not accusing Black Rockck or Vanguard of anything, but it is certainly possible if you look at the futures data that someone's been shorting the crud out of and someone's been, you know, uh, >> picking up spots, >> say closing out the the lever long. Well, maybe can we dig a little there because um it's an interesting time recording this off the backs of um price retrace and then this specific call it 3 to five business days. Late last week it was JPM coming out with a structured note. There was Vanguard obviously we just touched on uh Charles Schwab. They've been talking about it but highlighting that it's going to be like Q1 or Q2. Uh BFA now 1 to 4%. There's probably one or two others like it's very interesting. Oh, and then the credit mark u credit ratings and the tether FUD coming out. Um curious like >> any any takes or color you want to add on on where we're at right now. >> Look, I I don't believe in coincidences. I don't and I certainly don't believe in coincidences when the parties are so inextricably linked, right? I mean, it'd be one thing if if one of those organizations was in China and another one was in Brazil and another one was in but if they're all four doors down from each other on on Wall Street, it's probably not surprising that, you know, they're doing the same thing around the same time. And and look, there there are other things that that go into it. I mean, the end of the month is always super tough. Um, because when you start futures, the futures price is always a little bit higher than the spot price because humans are are optimistic and then you roll down the curve over the course of the month to get back to spot. That's called roll yield. And so one of the challenges of these closed end funds that that deal in futures instead of spot like remember when the only thing you could buy was the Bitcoin futures fund that you know um I can't remember which firm it was but but the guys I think they're in Nashville did. And people say well Bitcoin's up 10 and they're up seven. Why is that? Well it's because the roll yield cost them money all month. And so you know GSCI futures the same thing. So every month at the end of the month, you've got this this resetting of that trade for the next month because you know I love when people say, "Oh, Millennium, they they bought two billion of IBIT." Yeah, but they're short two billion of futures against it. So don't don't they're not long. They are a market neutral fund. You know, if if you say they're long Nvidia, they're short Cisco or something else. I mean, they they don't take long positions. They go market neutral, dollar neutral. It's never market neutral, but dollar neutral and they lever. So, um, if you can make 10 11% in the futures ro yield trade and lever it up four or five times, even if you're paying 5%, you can make 30 40% compounded. Jane Street and Jump and, you know, Sesuana and all these guys, they love that, [snorts] but it all has to get reset at the end of the month. Now, the other one, you guys are going to love you're going to love this. You're going to say, "We're never inviting him back after this one." So, there is a very interesting study that was done. So, so do you guys know Sam Brandom? Do you know that name? Um, >> I don't think I >> he was a famous commodity trader in the 1800s and he wrote this book and you see the one page from his book all the time and it's basically this up and down cycle and it has peaks and troughs in markets and he wrote it in 1860s and it basically predicted the crash in 1929. It predicted the crash in 73. It predicted the crash in 2000. It predicted the rallies. It's been spot-on for 150 years. And it's based on the position of the sun, moon, and planets. And that's voodoo. What are you talking about? Well, human beings are uh controlled, shall we say, by uh emotions and and there is a lot of evidence that says we tend to cycle. You know, women absolutely cycle just like you know uh but men also follow cycles and one of them happens to be the lunar cycle. And so a guy did a study. If you bought assets on the new moon and sold them on the full moon, so you were invested two weeks of the month and in cash two weeks of the month, you do 1,400 times not 1400%. 1,400 times better over the last hundred years. Everybody's like, "Mark, that's just bullshit." like it's data. You can you can do the data and you can look at it and you say well that that's spurious correlation maybe. Now what's interesting you say okay but but Mark this week was the full moon so you should be selling Bitcoin and I can't explain this one but Bitcoin so I actually dug into this. Bitcoin does the opposite of everything else. It is better if you buy on the full moon and sell on the new moon, which is weird. And anyway, so that's >> it's alien techn it's just alien technology. >> Well, you know what? Maybe it is. Or or you know, is Bennett in China so it's on the upside down? I don't know. >> 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 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. Onramp's inheritance solution is built into our multi-institution custody from day one. 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I have one question, Mark. um on some of what you discussed around like you know hedge funds netting out positions right with futures contracts uh one thing so Brian writes our weekly research roundup and people should subscribe in the in the description if they don't follow that but Brian was writing about some of the endowment portfolios and there was an article that came out from institutional investor about um I can pull it up here but it was pretty much like crypto is the secret sauce that endowment portfolios don't you know don't want to discuss here we go >> um and So Harvard, Emory, Brown, I believe there's others as well are quietly allocating to IBIT in particular, but some of the other ETFs. And I'm curious what you make of institutional allocators. I know they're not using or I think they're not using uh Moon and Lunar Cycles to invest capital. >> Certainly not. Well, no, I mean, they are and they aren't. You know, it's funny. Someone Ducken Miller talked about this one time in one of his one of his interviews and the interviewer just went went batshit crazy on him and said there's no way you actually use this. He says, "Are you joking? I don't care what I, you know, I can use to get an edge, I'll use it. You tell me horoscopes will give me an edge, I'll I'll let people read my palm." So, um, but it is interesting. I mean, there's a lot of people Paul Tudtor Jones etc. talked about this. So the idea that that these cycles are real, I mean there's again it's just data and it and it makes a lot of sense on on a lot of but they're they're not doing it. The what the endowments are doing [snorts] is partly intentional and partly call it luck because it wasn't luck luck but but partly happen stance. What I mean by that is so, you know, I got I start I I came from that world, right? I was the number two guy up there at Notre Dame and I was the number one guy down here in in Carolina Blue. Um, and and I ran endowments. And the reason the endowments have the best performance of anybody else, they're better than the pensions, they're better than family offices. There are certainly some individuals that do better, but of all the institutional investors, the endowments are up here, you know, up and to the right. So, why is that? Well, it's it's a couple things. One is they have the longest time horizon, literally perpetuity. Now, a foundation has perpetuity, too, but they have to spend 5% a year. The endowments don't have to spend 5% a year. most of them do or somewhere close to that, but but they don't have to and they get more gifts generally speaking and that helps with cash flows. So, they're constantly able to buy the new idea. But the most powerful edge in investing is time arbitrage. If you have a longer time horizon than other people, you get paid for that. Full stop. Second thing they do better than anybody else is they overweight innovation as an asset class through venture capital. Right? Yale is 23%, Notre Dame's like 20 something%. We were, you know, 18 19% in Carolina. So, and they have the allocation to the very best of the very best. So, Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia, etc. because they were early. Like when we started investing with Kleiner and Sequoia back in in the 90s, they weren't famous. In fact, Sequoia was on the verge of breaking up and we made a bet with Don Valentine and it turned out really really great. You've heard me tell the story. We put 500k in Google, it turns into 200 million. That's a good thing. So venture is amazing. So what happened to a whole bunch of these? They're invested in Sequoia. This guy Matt convinces Sequoia to buy some Bitcoin. It goes up at first and then crashes. And they say, "You know, Matt, why don't you go do this thing, call it Paradigm, and he gets Fred to come down from Coinbase and join him." And basically, there's a game. If you're in Sequoia's main fund, you would like to have as much of that fund as you possibly can. So every time they come out with a new product, Sequoia China, you you have to do some Sequoia Israel, you have to do some Sequoia Europe, you have to do some paradigm, not called Sequoia because they were kind of nervous about Bitcoin back then. Got to do some because you're playing the game that, hey, if I support these other things, maybe it'll give me more allocation in the main fund because everybody wants it. So they got into Paradigm and Paradigm has crushed it. Okay. Second thing is a bunch of them also had done some stuff with with Andre. I was saying, you know, I spell my name with a K instead of a C and I didn't invent the browser, so I'm just not as famous as the other Mark. But he uh he built a nice business and they raised a crypto fund and a few not a big number but a few of the endowments waited in and and that fund has done really well and Katie has you know gone on to do some stuff. So um so that was part of it now lately and and and look I went to all of them in 2017 and 18 and said let us do it and they're like what do you know about crypto? you you're not a tech bro. Um so none of them I mean not none we had two endowments invest with us but most didn't they went with the big dogs. Um, I also went to a whole bunch of people, endowments, foundations, funds, healthcare systems, and Pomp and I made a pitch that we stole from Peter Teal that was, "Give us Bitcoin. I mean, give us money. We'll buy Bitcoin up to three times your money. You pay no fees." And then we split at 7030 above that. You get 70, we get 30. We got zero takers at $6,000 price. So would have been good for everybody, but no one did it. Well, now I boomerized invested because now you can tell your board, oh, we just own this this ETF. And so they got smart and and a little bit lucky to get Paradigm and Andrea early. A couple have done some other good things as well, but only lately did they jump in. So their cost basis is not, you know, 5,000, 6,000, 8,000, 10,000, but it's it's lower than, you know, where we are today. Mark, could I ask you um you know in in sort of the context of endowment adoption and allocations, what do you make of because a lot of what that article in institutional investor calls out is kind of like the the persistent stigma around sort of broader crypto digital assets. People still have uh PTSD from FTX, etc. And so the the spirit of the article was like they're slowly accumulating and beginning to make these positions, but they really don't want to talk about it. Um because they don't want to have to justify it to colleagues, peers who maybe, you know, particularly the past year or so, you know, lump in Bitcoin with like, oh, that's just a Trump thing, right? And so there's a lot of politics around it effectively. And so yep, >> what do you make of that? And I guess what are you seeing on the ground in in your circles in terms of that stigma, the differentiation between Bitcoin and the rest of crypto and and how people are going about it. So two things. One, headlines sell. You're never going to get Look, S investor is a great publication. They're great. And you know, I've had the privilege to be in a couple times and and they are a great organization, man. they're going to write the headlines the same way you know the asset no one wants to talk about. It's just not true. It's true in the sense that sure there are doubters. There are alumni who are doubters. There are board members who are doubters. There are faculty who are doubters. But they doubted. You know, the faculty would have had you sell all your shares of of Nike years ago because they sold soccer balls in in China or whatever. they would have had you sell all your oil companies. So faculty's been on the case of the investment firm. Yeah. At some point you get to the point of okay well what can we invest in? Well I can't invest in government treasuries because government's an instrument of war. I can't invest in you know birth control so I can't do biotech. I can't invest in you know oil and gas because that hurts the environ. So what can you invest in? Um so that that war has been going on forever. So, you know, they're doing the FUD about, oh, there it uses too much energy. I'm like, you mean more than the banking industry, which is like 30 times more? I mean, do you use a bank? Do you go to a bank branch? I mean, that uses a lot of energy. So, um, I think that's part of it. I think the other part is negative headlines. I'll give you examples. Um, our first institutional client was not an endowment. endowments did come in, but our first instrumental client was a municipal uh pension fund in Fairfax County. Credible CIOS, I mean leaders, just not afraid to to do what's right for their pensioners, but take a lot of heat. And you know, in the board meeting, and I may have already told you on the last time we got together, but in the board meeting, the chairman, who is a policeman, like in uniform, gun and helmet on the table, hardly outside, says, "Yeah, Mark, I hear what you're saying. Get it, but you want me to tell my guys I just put their pension in drug dealer money?" Like, "No, I I do not want you to tell them that, but but okay, I see your point." He said, 'N no, what I want you to tell them is making 7 and a half% long-term is hard, right? And you're a fiduciary and you have to do it. And so the only way to really do that, and that was back when interest rates were zero. So the only way to do that in a ZERP world is to invest in innovation through venture capital and and new technology. He says, "All right, I get behind that." And so next day, Washington Post has an article, pension fund in drug dealer money. And yet he was quoted, "No, we as fiduciaries have to make 7 and a half% so we need to invest in innovation and venture capital almost word for word." And look, I just sent them back last week $3 for every dollar they put in. And we have another $5 to send them back next year. So I was up with them a month ago and they're very, very happy. There's still doubters. There's still people on the committee that think it was a mistake. It people don't like what they don't understand. That's always been the case. They don't like what they didn't do. Right. I I'll give you another one. So, I I I shouldn't throw them under the bus, but you know, [clears throat] my beloved university, um you know, big picture back there, right? Um, my wife and I stole an idea from a scholarship program down here called the Morehead Scholars, which is a merit-based program where you try to convince people that were going to go to Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Princeton to come to Carolina and you give them a special scholarship and special privileges and special teachers and and it was been successful over the last 40 years of getting some of the greatest people on planet Earth to come to Carolina and go to school here, We're like, "Let's do that in Notre Dame." So, we go up there, you know, back in whatever it was, 2006 or 7. They're like, "No. What do you mean no? Like, we don't believe in merit. We only think you should give scholarships to people in need about No, there's nothing wrong with merit. Merit is good. Merit is what what builds everything. I mean, you wouldn't have these buildings if it weren't for merit. They all have names of people who were very meritorious, by the way. Blew me away. Now, I'm persistent. So, I persisted and and we did get them to take our gift, which is hilarious. But, um, but the point is that institutions, there's no upside, right? They don't have big bonuses. Board members don't get bonuses. That's why groups make bad decisions, right? If you ask a group of a board to do Bitcoin, they're like, "Well, if I say yes and it doesn't work, then I get kicked off. I kind of like coming to football games and basketball games. I kind of like being able to say I'm on the board." So, they will always dumb down to the lowest common den. Let's just put on index funds because then I don't get fired. It takes really strong leadership at the CIO level or at the board level. a lot of, you know, Notre Dame has a great board chair, amazing board chair. We had great leadership down here at Carolina, Duke has great leadership. Um, you know, Stanford, I mean, there's a lot that have good leadership, but some don't. And and that's that's really the difference. You need you need to be bold and being bold has consequences sometimes. And I don't know, it's it's I get why institutional investor wrote that article, right? because it sells newspapers and I in in a backhanded way they're kind of complimenting them >> but not really right. It's a compliment. >> It's I live in the south. >> It's the bless your heart. [laughter] >> That's >> that's not a compliment. When someone in the South says bless your heart, they're like you. That's what they're saying. It's because they're pissed off that they didn't do what you did, right? Or they're pissed off that you have an idea that moved down here and I shouldn't pick on this out, but I moved down here from the north and we go to put money down on a house and it wasn't done yet. And I said, "All right, I want to have a a $5,000 hold back in case, you know, they don't finish the house, right?" And the broker, very southern woman, says, "Oh, we don't do that down here." Like, "What? You don't you don't protect yourself? You don't do intelligent things? What? What? No, we're we're not rude." Like, are you joking? I want to protect myself. And and and of course, you know, the end of the story. They didn't finish the house. And I still paid the money. And I joke in in North Carolina there's no word for mñana because there's nothing with that sense of urgency, right? When they say we'll be back tomorrow, that means 3 months, 6 months, 12 months, it's it's bad, but I love it. There there's a lot there. Um I uh just a random anecdote. I was up in in Dallas and I have an investment banker friend. Um there's an annual event. It's uh like um phil philanthropic event where all the banks go and attend and he asked me to go and join and and um he's been in this space long for a while and long story short I'm at this event he's introducing me to a bunch of people and and they asked well what do you do obviously and it it was the the bless your heart a very kind like uh you know at least five to seven they were all great people but it was all like oh good good you know good for you >> good for you >> um but going back >> crypto kid nice >> yeah yeah we'll back uh that that was a funny anecdote when I started this business. My mother-in-law, >> you'll come begging us for a job. >> That was the aneote my mother-in-law brought up back in the day when I started this business. She goes, "Um, I'm curious. Could you ever go work at Black uh Black Rockck Infidelity if it didn't work out?" And she's just being sweet. But I just sat there and I'm like, "Do you know how much of a like just slap?" Um >> and they they actually they actually don't mean it as a slap because they don't actually think the second thought, >> right? >> Yeah. Yeah. They think they're being nice, but look, we all chose to be here. >> And that choice is is hard, right? And and and hasn't worked out perfectly all the time. And there plenty of nights, you know, I sweat about, you know, promises I made to to LPs and and promises I made to my family. And and look, no one's crying for us. Everything is is fine. But it's hard. But everything worth doing in life is hard. Working out is hard. Having a strong relationship is hard. I mean, everything in life that's worth it is hard. 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. Onramp'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. Plus with on-ramp IAS you get the same institutional security with tax advantage growth. This is how smart investors protect generational wealth without the weight on their shoulders. There's strength in many. Learn more at onrampbitcoin.com. >> I want to go on to that because there's two themes you touched on that tie into um like the the venture aspects. One is the thing we come up with a lot and we talk about with our clients and then the existing market is that this is for the first time uh been emerging asset. So individuals have adopted it and it's really simple. because it's a consensus of one, maybe two if you have to talk to your significant other about, you know, going very long versus when you look at pub codes, endowments, institutions, you sit around a room and they're just like somebody's like, you know, nobody's going to get fired for not, you know, going a different direction. >> So, because of that, we see that in our thesis is that the uh category winners long term will come from outside of those markets um because of just naturally and also they're the most sophisticated because they've had the longest time in the market. So, they had to figure out all this crap that everyone else is just barely getting into it by just, you know, yoloing into a third party custodian and saying trust Black Rockck and the rest of it. Um, but I'm curious your take on how you think about like so there's venture capital allocating to meratic uh organizations, the things that we're recognizing you want, but then there's the legacy firms that haven't been able to be disrupted because of the existing um regulatory and everything that exists in that apparatus. And for the first time, it feels like we're seeing it kind of come to a head, whether it's like Tether and stable coins, and we saw JPM now with their tokenized deposit that I'll be able to offer yield, uh, potentially them offering the structure products, yes or no, competing with MSTR, um, custody coming out and like what is it going to look like? I'm just curious how you think about how you think about that market playing out in the middle, short, and long term. We have our view, but but we want to hear yours. No, look, and and I apologize because I'm have to run here, but I I want to come back and and dig into that because there's a whole bunch of things in your question again, just so much insight that are are critical to not whether we're going to end up where we all believe we are in a in a digital first future. We are, but how long it's going to take. And and it has to do with these regulatory things and it's like little things like the be careful what you ask for. You might get it right. Everyone's like, "Oh, yay. We got classified as a commodity, not a security with Bitcoin. That was not a good thing. That was intentional. That was we're going to tame Bitcoin because if it's commodity, then we can have futures on it and we can FUD it and spoof it. So be careful what you ask for." Same thing with the Genius Act. The Genius Act has some elements that and again this is why we need to do it on in another show because I go deep into this. If you were a country that knew you couldn't pay back your debt and you had very smart technology people, you would create a new accounting system very similar to what the UK did in the 1840s. They had a debt problem. They uh had uh everybody uh kept track of debts, believe it or not, using pieces of wood. They were called tally sticks. There was no dual entry accounting yet on no, you know, green eyeshade, you know, ledger pads. And long story short, they had the epiphany that if they gathered up all the tally sticks and destroyed the evidence, they could erase all the debt and start over. And so if you had borrowed money, you didn't have to pay it back. So you got super rich. And the people who were owed money got super poor. And but the government was good. And so they started over and adopted the dual entry accounting from the the Medaches. And uh you guys should have Pipa Mgrren on the show and talk about it. She she talks a lot about this. And her dad was, you know, a long time political guy in Washington. So uh again, God rest his soul. But um long story uh if you created Bitcoin as a triple entry accounting system and then you forced through the Genius Act all of these new digital assets to be backed by treasuries, huh? you're kind of forcing this new triple entry accounting system. And again, we go down the sinister path of then you're just one step away from CBDC's and controllable money, programmable money, which again, we've all seen the Austin Karsten's thing. That's a scary future. Um, I look I think I don't believe in coincidences. I don't believe Gary Gendzer was a coincidence, right? He was appointed by the guy whose biggest donor was Sam Bankman Freed and he worked for Sam Bankman Freed's girlfriend's dad. It's not a coincidence. None of that's coincidence. Um, it's not a coincidence that, you know, Ms. Warren funded by the banks was the you know initiator of operation chokepoint 2.0 and I think we're now in operation chokeoint 3.0 and everybody loves the Donald and you know he's a you know fan favorite in crypto but at the end of the day let's remember who he was for most of his life which side of the aisle he stood on. Let's remember what he really cares about in terms of dollars and cents and let's think about who invested in Tether right before he was appointed Secretary of Commerce. So that I said there's a lot to unpack there. And um I I don't think it's all sinister, but I do if you read the Genius Act really closely, it's got some dark side to it. And if you read the Clarity Act really closely, it's got some more dark side to it. Um I think long term >> we'll still win with Bitcoin. Um, and I'll leave you with this and I gota I got to run. You know, I told you the one time that I had the this fear that, you know, it was created by the CIA and there was a back door and they were going to steal all the money, right? And so I asked Scott Stonetta, who was our venture partner, what do you think? He's like, no. Like, you didn't even think about it. He's like, I don't have to think about it. It's impossible. There's an air gap. He said, with Ethereum, it could happen. I was like, oh, okay. Again, topic for another day. Uh, so I don't worry about that anymore. So I don't worry about them stealing it. But I do worry about whether we like it or not. We we don't live in Bellagi's nation stateless world. I think it'd be awesome, but we don't live there. And the threat of violence is still real, right? Don't pay your property taxes. See what happens. Right? So, um I do think self- sovereignty requires what you guys do and and love you for doing it and love all the people you're helping do it. But I I I do worry that there's a another group that's planning a different future. And I haven't watched it yet. I just sent it to myself. There's a there's a podcast on uh an AI guy uh talking about that. We're only two years away from some of the things I'm talking about. So, I'm going to watch it over the the weekend. Um and I'll come back to you after I >> We know you got to run, but we'll leave you with two things. Yeah. Base case 19 uh 1929 2029 that whatever you're describing, that's a 100red years cycle of whatever you're saying. But the other side of it, I think the mental model, you probably thought of this. If not, you'll appreciate it. It's the same thing as the internet. Like the internet opened up, but the architecture is pretty much permissioned, but it still offers edge cases and you can't shut down the internet. And it's the same and it changes that logic and ROI of violence. It's the same thing that's happening right here. It's just a constraint. >> You can't, Michael. You can't accept the little thing that happened with the um >> register >> the open AI browser where the guy said, "Show me pictures of Hitler." It's like, "No. So you can shut down the internet. You can not only control what people see and how they see it, but then they had that the funny part about and we've reported you to the proper authorities. So >> well, what I'm referring to is if you locally host your model, that's the same thing as like being open, >> right? I mean, there are ways around that VPNs and but but my point is that people say we can't shut down Bitcoin. Let's shut down the whole internet. even that doesn't work because we could exchange, you know, using stuff in our brain. But and maybe if we all have chips, then we won't be able to do that either. But, uh, anyway, um, more for another day. >> I, uh, we'll have to have you back, Mark. >> But when we when we set this up for an hour and a half, I'm like, there's just no way we can talk now. But I talked too much, so we did. >> No, we love it. We'll send you some follow-up info. Hopefully, we'll get you back on scene. Have a good one. One more one more one more thing, Mark. Uh, Notre Dame, BYU, blind resume. Who gets in? >> I think it all just comes down to this weekend. I mean, >> yeah, if BYU wins. All right. >> And look, BYU against Texas Tech a couple weeks ago doesn't belong anywhere near the CFP. If a different team shows up on Saturday, I'll change my mind. But that team that was playing Texas Tech is not a very good football team. At least I didn't see it. >> [snorts] >> Fair take. The last trade. College football. College football. >> I just tweeted about this. College football is an F1 race. It's not how you were on lap one or two or three or four. It's the last lap. And if you're, you know, if you're in third place and someone else is in seventh, you don't get to say I passed them on on the first lap. Doesn't matter. You're in seventh place. So where you are matters. And the problem is like an F1 race, you're seated. And you can say, well, BYU got a shitty starting position. Yes. So that meant they had to drive better. Maybe not fairly, but they had to drive even more better than Notre Dame or anybody else. So I can I can argue both sides. And I and but I'm just saying the team I saw play Texas Tech, I wouldn't put in the CFP. But if they show up a different team on Saturday, then I'll change my mind. >> We shall see it. >> Thanks, Mark. >> Thanks, Mark. Have a good day. >> Thanks, guys. >> Thanks for listening to this week's episode of the show. 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