Still Early: Bitcoin’s Mispricing, ETF Flows, & the Quiet Race to Accumulate

Jackson Mikalic (00:01.973) Alright, welcome back to The Last Trade. We have yet again five people on the podcast. We have Tim holding up his orange juice. Tim, I don't know if that's actually good for you. There's a lot of added sugars in there. Brian Cubellis (00:14.563) The Tropicana is no bueno. Tim Kotzman (00:16.612) Orange coin good. Jackson Mikalic (00:18.627) So yeah, we're kicking things off here before we hit record. Tim Cotsman was eating a Calzone at 10 a.m. Eastern. Tim, that's... Bram Kanstein (00:19.102) That's what it makes you say. Brian Cubellis (00:27.107) 10 a.m. calzone very rare Michael Tanguma (00:28.846) Tim was eating a calzone. We were just like, we need to start this thing. I slept really well last night. You know, when you get a good night's sleep and you just you're ready to rock and roll. This past week, I've chatted with so many people that listened and they just have like wonderful feedback. Somebody was referencing the plastic device notion and was saying how with their friends, they talk about the American peso in a same fit, fashion around joking around. And I really appreciated that. So Tim Kotzman (00:35.642) you Michael Tanguma (00:58.466) Thanks for listening and we get a lot of emails and appreciate getting more of them. But it's a fun show. Jackson Mikalic (01:04.566) Yeah, no, it'll be a good one. So we have, like I said, five people on here. So it's the usual crew. got Tim Cotsman, Michael Tanguma, Brian Cabellus. And then we're joined by Bram Kahnstein. Bram, thanks for joining us this week. It's been, I guess, about a month or so since you previously joined The Last Trade. How are you doing? Bram Kanstein (01:23.454) I'm very good guys. also talked to like six people today about Bitcoin and I'm still bullish guys. It's crazy. I love that I can think about this every day and I love that I'm joining you again. So happy to be here. Jackson Mikalic (01:38.529) Yeah, I'm excited for it. For the listeners, so what can you expect this week? Brahm, I think you're the one who's really coined this idea of Bitcoin being asymmetric opportunity based on publicly available information. And so that's really the best way to describe it. And what I hope to bring to the table, this group will bring to the table for this week's episode, for those who are tuning in, is we're just going to be breaking down a lot of the publicly available information over the past week or so that is going to support the thesis for Bitcoin, not only this year, I know I like to joke around, we're still looking at the 80s on the Bitcoin price and it's been two months certainly, perhaps three months of this and it's very tiresome but what gives me hope is to know that there is a lot of bullish momentum behind the scenes, the five of us and those that are listening to the show as well are in this weird place on the internet where we're just tuning into a ton of information and For those who really aren't paying attention, they're missing the force for the trees. There is an opportunity here. Bitcoin is incredibly mispriced, and so we have a lot of information that we can get into this week that will support that thesis. So what do you guys think? Am I the only one who thinks the price is a little low? Shouldn't it be higher? I I just pulled up the terminal. Brian Cubellis (02:55.395) mean 84, 84 kind of feels like a new base, maybe a new 58k, which I mean, I think that's pretty bullish just holding this level, which a few years ago would seem pretty incredible to most. Just going back to the comments around the asymmetric opportunity on publicly available information, I think one important thing to call out there is there's an ever-increasing Bram Kanstein (02:56.478) Yeah. Brian Cubellis (03:25.123) amount of publicly available information that is well curated, well crafted, and more easily accessible than it was five, 10 years ago. So the reality is, you know, all the information you needed was available 10 years ago as well, but it took a lot more effort and digging to get to the truth, to get to having a very constructive thesis on Bitcoin. Today, as we sit here, like it is much, much easier. There's much less friction. to understand Bitcoin, to find the materials you need to get there. You have Larry Fink and BlackRock providing educational materials on Bitcoin, calling it a risk-off asset. So there's just much less friction in the way. And so right now is literally the best time for someone to learn about Bitcoin, to actually open their mind to it and put behind them a lot of the preconceived notions and FUD that they've heard for years. and just actually dig into the publicly available information. And they'll realize pretty quickly that it's a very asymmetric opportunity and very mispriced. know, Saylor has his quote around the thousand hours of research or whatever. Like that level of research that's required is on a downward slope over time. So like 10 years ago, it was probably multiple thousands of hours of research required to really understand Bitcoin. Now it's probably, you know, five years ago, it was probably a few hundred. Now it's maybe 100 and if you find the right materials and you're already a pretty intelligent person, maybe it's a few dozen hours of research for you to grasp why you should own some Bitcoin. So very interesting times, but yeah, it's good. Michael Tanguma (05:07.054) I will caveat, it's all true except for there's 37 million crypto tokens today. And so for as much of the signal, there is a lot more noise in a market. You know, I think we talked about it last week or on final settlement, like a hundred billion dollars has been invested in crypto venture capital and less than a billion dollars in total into Bitcoin. It's an insane, just like proposition when you think about it. So anyway, just worth throwing out. There's a lot of signal, but there's also just no shortage of noise given people's mental models of something, this is very hard to like wrap your heads around. Jackson Mikalic (05:41.643) Yeah, you know, if you're unintelligent like me, just a good place to get information is from Brian's research that he publishes every week, so I would call that out. One thing, on that 37 million crypto token data point, Michael, one thing I wanted to talk about, maybe we could start here, is that there was an interview yesterday with former SEC chair Gary Gensler. And so, Gary, you're a little bit outdated. He said on the interview there's 10,000 to 15,000 crypto tokens. The numbers... Brian Cubellis (06:11.681) That amount gets created in like a week, by the way. Jackson Mikalic (06:16.258) Yeah, and so we need to upsize that number a little bit for public interviews, but his point remains true. So what he said, the core thing to call out there is that every asset, so outside of just Bitcoin and this cryptocurrency noisy space, every asset trades on fundamentals and sentiment. And what he said in the interview is this field referring to cryptocurrency is 99 % sentiment. Bram Kanstein (06:16.894) It's a million a month now, actually. Brian Cubellis (06:19.021) That's crazy. Jackson Mikalic (06:45.634) So he noted that there's 10,000 to 15,000 tokens. We know there's way more than that. But he's like, you should just start to question the fundamentals actually behind these tokens. And then he also compared it to the precious metals market, right? Where there's only two, it's really gold. mean, gold is over $20 trillion asset. I think silver is like one and a half, $2 trillion. And so there's only one other asset class that is similar to precious metals and it is this, let's call it digital asset market, but really the market is Bitcoin. Did you guys catch that interview yesterday? Were you surprised to see those comments? Do you have any other thoughts on what Gensler shared? Bram Kanstein (07:22.718) Well, yeah. Brian Cubellis (07:22.755) I did see it and I think Gary definitely owns Bitcoin. I would go as far as to say that he definitely owns some corn. And it's not entirely surprising to me because this is a guy who taught a blockchain class many years ago before he was the SEC chair. I think while he was in the seat, while he was in the position, he was very much just focused on what his mind was like consumer protection and protecting people from the crypto scams, cetera. Now, you could very easily argue that he went overboard in terms of enforcement action without really due process around a lot of these things. But I think now he's in a position where he can be a little bit more honest and transparent about his views. I think, yeah, he sort of danced around it, but was pretty clearly saying Bitcoin is different than the rest of this crypto space. And that was sort of his core message of that interview. Bram Kanstein (08:18.902) Yeah, I just want to say, like, I watched part of that class. yeah, I You know what think? This is clearly an intelligent person and I just really like to think that if you do the work, if you teach a class, know how I've seen him talk about Bitcoin, I cannot imagine he doesn't understand what it is and how it's different than the rest. I agree with Brian that in that position as the SEC chair, he's also forced to follow some sort of... policy of course that was there and kind of like bark his personal beliefs maybe that's the world he operated in but I thought it was really interesting how actually quickly he turned right this is one of his first media appearances after he was removed from that position so to then come out like this I thought was interesting. Michael Tanguma (09:20.334) Yeah, I mean, they're all tokens. They're all tokens in my mind, whether it's your negative yielding bonds that you'll never get claim on or the equities that are 10 to 100x multiples your altcoins. As our friend John Pierpont Morgan says on the screen, gold and Bitcoin are money and everything else is credit. Whatever you can take delivery of and reduce counterparty risk for what money is, everything else is a derivative of it. And we've just lived in a 30 to 50 year anomaly where we de-pegged for anything that was sound. And so everyone's made up reasons why things have value, including Nvidia and including the 57 million tokens and whoever gets left holding those bags are ultimately going to be losing out. And like that was taboo to say five years ago, even three years ago, maybe three months ago. But the reality is there's like a global monetary ordering being reset with people taking delivery of BTC and gold. And so whoever figures this out sooner than later is going to have more purchasing power than others. It's really that simple. Jackson Mikalic (10:18.282) Yeah, I mean, on that point though, if you can take delivery of something, does it make it money? mean, Tim, are your orange ties money? You take delivery of those every single day from Amazon. How many do you have at this point? Tim Kotzman (10:30.362) You know, it's give or take a dozen, but back to the former SEC chair for a minute. I mean, I think you guys are being a little too kind or just not covering the fact that he is literally freaking public enemy number one. There's no one that has been more detrimental to this entire space than that individual. And I hope that I never meet him in person. I do not respect the man and I think he needs to go away. That's what I think. Brian Cubellis (10:56.567) mean, that's a fair take, Tim. I think even when he was chair and he was doing, you know, he was propagating a lot of the choke point stuff, which is a totally fair criticism of him. But at the same time, even when he was chair, he was one of the only people that would stick his neck out and make the distinction, call Bitcoin a commodity, and refer to pretty much everything else as a security. And so that was, you know, back then, like when he was chair, like that was not really being talked about as prominently and now it's pretty much accepted common knowledge that like okay Bitcoin is is at least from a legal perspective and In terms of like how it's regulated it is a commodity because it has no central issuer Etc is actually decentralized and all of these things these other things are probably unregulated securities And so that's why they need this this market structure bill to you know Probably carve out some other designation for these crypto tokens, which are like quasi securities But yeah, mean, Tim, it's a fair take. I like to see you get emotional and angry at Gary, but I think he does understand Bitcoin, for sure. Michael Tanguma (12:03.192) Especially with the pink, especially with the pink painting, it's perfect for the sentiment. I do wanna just caveat that like whatever all these people say, I can never like take, you take them with a greater than a greater assault, whatever something greater than that would be, greater than that would be because a handful assault, a boulder, because like if some, Brian Cubellis (12:10.306) you Brian Cubellis (12:20.801) handful of salt. Michael Tanguma (12:25.142) You know, with Larry, it's like almost the opposite of what they say. So when they're in their place, they're saying something, they're thinking something else. And when they're out of their place, they're saying something, they're thinking something else. It's like they all have these like strings attached, whether it's their pocketbook or whoever is paying them. So like, I don't know, it's kind of hard to discern what's happening. Jackson Mikalic (12:40.194) Yeah, no, I'm glad you said that. I'm glad you said that because we talk about Larry Fink on the show. I don't like Larry Fink at all, actually. There's a lot of things I don't like about him. But we can put my personal vendetta aside. These people, they just go where they see an opportunity. So like Black Rock was pretty early in the ESG stuff. They felt there was a big opportunity there. They wanted to make money from all this stuff. That obviously has totally cratered in terms of a thesis. Brian Cubellis (12:47.587) You Jackson Mikalic (13:07.874) Let's hope that Larry Fink stepping into Bitcoin doesn't mean that something catastrophic happens to Bitcoin since he's now a big, loud, loud and proud proponent of the asset. But I totally agree. mean, these people all have vested interests. They want to make money. One thing I did see, despite the choppiness in the Bitcoin price this year, I don't even know what we're down here to date. I don't look at that. But IBIT still has positive flows. So what we're seeing is, Brian, to your point, Bitcoin's been hanging around 80,000 for a while now, and it feels like this is the new floor. I mean, we did go into the mid-70s, I think around the announcement of the tariffs and just kind of the broader uncertainty in the markets, but we've recovered. We're back in the mid-80s. I don't want to be here next week, but it's at least good to see that there is this support. And iBit and now other buyers, mean, strategy's an obvious one, but the ETF flows are supporting the price. There's still been... two billion of inflows into iBit alone. I'm not sure what the broader ETF ecosystem looks like. It's certainly a fraction of what we saw last year. There was $50 billion of inflows into iBit. was the most successful ETF in history. But even at two billion inflows for iBit this year, it's still in the top 1 % of ETF inflows for 2025. So it's still a successful product. Regardless of what Fink actually thinks about Bitcoin, regardless of what I think about Fink, there is... a lot of interest and there are people who are continuing to want to pour money into Bitcoin. They haven't figured out that the ETF isn't the best way to do it, but that's okay. They're at least getting exposure. Brian Cubellis (14:45.505) Yeah, that's right. And I think all of this is indicative of, you know, it's related to what I referenced earlier around, it's easier to learn about Bitcoin right now in the sense that the sort of some of the veil has been lifted around the toxicity of the asset. And this is I'm speaking particularly about the TradFi world. And, you know, I think to date, a lot of the ETF flows haven't necessarily been like what you would consider TradFi or institutional allocators. It's been a lot of retail through their brokerage accounts. That being said, think going forward, what to look for in these ETF flows is actual institutional allocators stepping in because these people have long diligence processes. So, you know, the ETFs went live a little over a year ago and probably three to six months ago is when they started to have that veil lifted of like, okay, this is going to be an acceptable thing to own. I'm not going to get fired for owning it necessarily. And so now that that veil is lifted, it opens up the door for them to educate themselves on the asset. And so I think that's what we're just starting to, I think we're still very early in that process of actual institutional capital flowing in, but it's an education process. And again, it takes them time to run it up the chain, get approvals from various investment committees, all of these things. And so I think that's what I'm focused on in terms of the ETF flows in particular is like, when do we start to see a little bit of a mix shift in what is actually driving those flows as opposed to retail through their brokerage. When is it actually larger institutions stepping into the ETF? Because I think that'll be a very strong signal of like, okay, this education is permeating and people are getting now comfortable with the thesis and not feeling like it's this super toxic asset that they can't touch. Tim Kotzman (16:31.918) Brian, Brian, let's be honest. The veil's been lifted because we fired Gary Gensler. That's why the veil's been lifted. Brian Cubellis (16:35.971) That was, I mean, that was part of it, you know, stopping the choke point stuff. you know, that was certainly a part of it. I think it's also just signaling from the administration, right? That like they're embracing it. So like it's okay. And not only is it okay for individual citizens to own it, but you as a institutional allocator, it's okay for you to learn about it and think about it in the context of your portfolio. Jackson Mikalic (16:58.134) Yeah, it's okay, don't worry. You can own it. You're not gonna get fired. I could actually, maybe I could get fired for owning the ETF. But you're not gonna get fired now if you own Bitcoin. That's a great thing. Brian Cubellis (17:00.887) You Michael Tanguma (17:05.966) you Okay, Jackson, you want to, I don't want to go into here, but I do kind of disagree in Brian's take of, I think we're still in a mini bear market and outside of sailor. He's the only person and then like hedge funds on the basis trade. Nobody's stepping in, but that's a different conversation. Jackson, do you want to share? talked to the family office the other day and we spent 45 minutes talking to a gentleman. We met in New York and then he was like, wait, BlackRock doesn't hold the Bitcoin. It's Coinbase. Brian Cubellis (17:36.525) Hahaha Michael Tanguma (17:36.974) Because I think there's something there that's worth just calling out that there's a very big gap in understanding of where the risk lies in this market. Jackson Mikalic (17:47.434) Yeah, I mean... Yeah, I was kind of dumbfounded actually from that conversation. But you can't really fault these people, right? You see BlackRock steps in, they're sponsoring ETF products, kind of assume that there's adequate due diligence done. The issue though kind of lies, it primarily lies in the fact that Bitcoin is a digital bearer asset and there's a finite amount of Bitcoin. And that's crucial to understand from a counterparty risk perspective because if your counterparty loses the Bitcoin or is hacked or compromised in some way, it does result in a permanent loss of capital. And with Coinbase in particular, that, in my opinion, is one of the most existential risks to the industry. It doesn't mean that Bitcoin ceases to exist, but the fact that Coinbase has their hands on about two million Bitcoin out of the 21 million total, and guess about 20 million or so have been mined, we're getting close to that point. So they have about 10 % of the total Bitcoin supply in custody, which is a major issue. And so even firms like BlackRock are using Coinbase as the custodian for their product. Coinbase has hundreds of millions or hundreds of billions of dollars of assets under custody. They have an insurance policy that covers a couple hundred million dollars. So they have insurance actually on like a, call it like 10 basis points of their assets under custody. And if you're investing into the ETFs, I think outside of Fidelity, and there may be one or two others that use other custodians like Bitgo, you just have counterparty exposure to the largest honeypot in the industry. So just something to pay attention to there. Brian Cubellis (19:29.335) Yeah, I always think about Steve Lee who works for Block was on a podcast a few months ago and he referenced like if something happened to Coinbase, he estimated it would like sort of set back the industry at least a decade. And so it's maybe existential is not the right word because I agree with you like Bitcoin doesn't just go away if something like that were to happen. Michael Tanguma (19:29.475) Yeah. Brian Cubellis (19:54.679) But it would be extremely detrimental to sort of the trajectory of adoption that we're on. Michael Tanguma (20:00.718) Yeah, I mean, there's there's that and then there's the component of the the more the more successful Coinbase is the more likely they are to fail. Because we did a report breaking down the Bybit hack and ultimately as the honeypot grows, the return on investment grows with it. And so whether it takes five years, seven years of social engineering, embedding yourself in an organization. And then there was the other aspect that I was telling him that I think we we kind of talked about on this pod, or maybe behind the scenes, but it came out publicly that like Coinbase people sell their, like employees sell their credentials. I don't know if you've heard this, Bron, but like they like the dark web, the most expensive data is Coinbase credentials. But then it came out three weeks ago that Coinbase people were taking the data and selling it. And this is where social engineering, yeah, they had to send an email from a legal perspective. So it's just a whole can of worms that Bram Kanstein (20:51.689) Wow. Michael Tanguma (20:57.206) most people just don't understand and they think BlackRock is holding the Bitcoin in some like, I don't know, in Larry's briefcase, what would they hold it in? They have no infrastructure. They have no acumen to understand this asset class. Brian Cubellis (21:09.771) And on top of that too, like it would be one thing. It would still be bad. It would be one thing if like the the custodian that BlackRock chose was like a Bitcoin focused company. Coinbase is not that. They are a shitcoin casino. Just this week they had, I guess, an employee kind of go rogue and launch a meme coin on their like L2 called base. It ran up to 20 million market cap and then dumped 99 % in like 30 seconds. And so like that's a like a literal insider who created a meme coin, tweeted from their main account about it that then led to the run up. And then obviously the people who knew about it dumped it on retail's head as it came in. So like this is not anywhere close to like a Bitcoin focused company. They're completely distracted by broader crypto and you know. think they own a very small amount of Bitcoin in their treasury. So it's just like, you know, it would be one thing if you had single custodian risk and they were actually a Bitcoin company, but like BlackRock has single custodian exposure to a non Bitcoin company in my mind. Michael Tanguma (22:20.846) And they do have precedent for doing this because I Charlie Lee was their CPO and back in the day, they dumped all their Litecoin before they listed it on retail. But anyway, keep your Bitcoin at coinbase at your own risk. Jackson Mikalic (22:35.158) Yeah, one direction I wanted to go in was talk a little bit about Bo Heinz. Bo, everyone's talking about Bo these days. He's the executive director of Digital Assets for the US government. I guess they're Digital Asset or Crypto Arm. And so one thing I wanted to call out, kind of ties into what you said, Brian or Mike, I forget at this point, but. You're not gonna get fired for owning Bitcoin anymore. I think it was you that said that, Brian. And so, you're certainly not gonna get fired for owning Bitcoin if the US government is taking a positive stance on the asset and wants to buy more of it. It's funny because Pomp did an interview with Bo Heinz. I didn't catch the whole thing, but I kinda read a summary of it and it was funny in the trailer video, Bo Heinz is like, we wanna buy infinite amount of Bitcoin. It was like, come on, man. That's like maybe Ethereum. Maybe Ethereum has an infinite amount of supply. there's only 21 billion Bitcoin, but he knows that. I think his broader point was the US government is incredibly, yeah, exactly. I know, I'm just nitpicking. I'm sorry, Bo. We know Bo's an avid listener of The Last Trade, but point aside, the most important thing here is that the US government in a matter of like six months or so went from very... Brian Cubellis (23:40.161) as much as they can, I think is what he was going for. Jackson Mikalic (23:57.215) adversarial to this asset or this technology or form of money to let's acquire it. We gotta do it in a budget neutral way. We're still trying to figure out where it's gonna come from in terms of budget neutral acquisitions. looks like bit bonds will be something that could happen. I think one of you said maybe this year has a bullish take, but it perhaps will take longer than that. But the really thing, this is all about the publicly available information, right? So if you're piecing together different parts of the puzzle, information that lives online, The US government has taken a very positive stance. They've made it clear that they are not selling, right? There's a strategic Bitcoin reserve. They're not selling the Bitcoin that's currently held in custody from previous confiscations, criminal activity, so that's about 200,000 Bitcoin. They want to acquire more Bitcoin. And the critical thing here too is that there's a deep enough understanding that they recognize that Bitcoin is a geopolitical chess piece. They know that there is a waning demand for US treasuries, specifically on the long end of the curve, so we can also talk about what's going on in the treasury market, but there's a waning demand from adversarial countries to buy US treasuries. They've been accumulating gold at a substantial pace. There's actually an interesting chart we could look at too with the PBOC, so the China Central Bank, acquiring gold at a rate far more than they've publicly disclosed. So these other countries are... they're acquiring gold because they want a store value, they want to de-risk themselves from confiscation, from debasement from the US government. The US is aware of that. But now they understand that Bitcoin is part of this pro-dollar dominant stance and that Bitcoin is actually an opportunity to leapfrog all their adversaries. So I just think this is incredibly bullish. I don't care anymore. I'm not upset anymore that the price is at 80,000 because what I'm realizing in real time is we have a lot of things to be excited about. And you just got to You gotta just peel back a couple layers of the onion, but all the information is there. Bram Kanstein (25:47.103) I 100 % agree. Maybe I have a little contrarian take because I did listen to the whole thing. Brian Cubellis (25:51.267) Yeah. Michael Tanguma (25:51.781) Brom, Brom, what do think? Bram Kanstein (26:02.63) I mean, isn't it wild that this guy in the White House is talking about Bitcoin like he's doing? know, I mean, we're joking that he says like, yeah, we're gonna buy an infinite amount. Of course, you cannot buy an infinite amount. But I think he's more saying like, we want to buy as much as we can. And I think it ties into what Jackson said. I mean, I'm in Europe, we're pretty cooked. But with the level of debt that you have, you know, you're also pretty cooked. And I think they know. Brian Cubellis (26:26.061) You Bram Kanstein (26:30.662) Right? Of course they know, like how can you ignore that? Right? So I think it's been interesting to look at the US from my European viewpoint and look at Europe also, you know, and how they are reacting that America is basically focusing on themselves. You know, I think it's a pretty crazy reaction. You know, they're now calling America a bully and this and that, but I'm thinking like, no, there's finally an administration and that seems to understand that there is a mathematical certainty that this path that you're on is a pretty doomy and gloomy path, right, in terms of servicing the debts. And so my idea here is kind of that the people that are there now, you know, if you hear Besant talk, for example, you know, we are. going through some sort of monetary reset, I'd like to be a part of it, et cetera. Like professionally, for them, this sounds like the pinnacle of their career. Like these are the guys that saved America from the infinite debt spiral. And so what I actually think is that they are so vocal about it, which is also strange, right? Because it would be strategic if you'd if you wouldn't talk about it and then you just buy and then you talk about it. So I think that is interesting. I don't really know how to judge that. But just announcing like Bitcoin is a thing we want to buy as much of it as possible. Scott Bessent talking about Bitcoin becoming a store of value when he's asked a question about gold. I sometimes feel they're thinking about it every day like we are doing. And with the bit bonds that were mentioned, that is such a logical concept to try, at least, when you can easily reason that, as you mentioned, the long dated government bonds, who's going to be crazy enough to buy them? It was Europe before, but now they are like, that. Bram Kanstein (28:49.5) I don't know if that was very contrarian, I just think like it's, I do think they're serious about it. I really do think they're serious about it, but we need to understand that we are in a crazy bubble and that the rest of the world really isn't paying attention. Like it could even be that even if the U S well actually comes up with an audit that shows how much Bitcoin they have, that's one we're still waiting, right? Let's say they start buying. I think the scenario of the rest of the world thinking America has gone crazy, know, they're ditching gold, they're buying Bitcoin, they're really crazy. You know, so we're not even going to follow them. You know, it might as well be something that could happen. Michael Tanguma (29:30.543) I'll caveat. That's, that's all right. I think that for every time they say Bitcoin, they say gold at least 10 to 100 times more and we're in our own bubble bubble like focusing and I'm just super and I know I get shit for it for being super fascinated with what's happening with gold. But it's the ultimate it's the thing that every Bitcoin Bram Kanstein (29:40.14) Possibly, yes. Michael Tanguma (29:53.953) investors should look at as the precursor to what's going to happen with BTC, not only price, but like reserve status and the fact that these countries are taking that first. There's a liquidity profile and a global inertia for thousands of years that has existed and Bitcoin just can't do that today. So all the bit bonds and all that stuff, think is true. It's just like, it might be a small portion of Bitcoin and then majority of gold. there's a crazy stat for like every hundred to $200 of gold price movement. It's a whole market cap of BTC. Right? like, so gold right now, like $3,300 a troy ounce, you know, Jackson, I don't know if he pulled up the chart, but there's a PBOC chart that's just insane about the tons. And the other angle to just, when you think about the monetary reset, the person or the group that I look at is like really forward thinking is Betfinex and Tether. If you go listen to Apollo and you look at their balance sheet, it goes back to almost like biblical times. It's like a third in their land. They're buying all this land all over the world. It's a third in gold. They own 50 tons of gold. And then they own 50,000 to 100,000 BTC. And so you can kind of see this framework playing out. And I think part of it, Brahm, I don't know if it's intentional on their part, but the reason why it's being discussed is because... People are eventually going to have to wake up that their 60-40 doesn't actually hold the weight that it did. And they're going to have to realize they have to revert to hard assets. And that's a hard thing for everyone that you go talk to your friends and family. And they're like, that's crazy. What do you mean? got my, you know, magnificent seven and there's just going to be a rude awakening coming with a... Bram Kanstein (31:27.704) Mm-hmm. Brian Cubellis (31:30.467) Yeah, on the gold piece, I totally agree with you, Michael. think the dynamic is very logical to assume that if gold is ripping, making new all-time highs every day, every week, what that naturally leads to is individuals, corporations, other entities, financial allocators, and even nation-states. looking at that and saying, okay, well, why is that happening? Why is that happening? It's because it has, it's a hard asset with objective monetary properties. And so then the second order thinking from that is like, okay, well, what else is a hard asset that has objective monetary properties? And so like, I think, you know, one in the data and just price performance, you've seen gold lead Bitcoin historically, but it's also back to the education part of it. It's like, if you see gold ripping, there's a higher likelihood or a higher tendency for someone to seek out other hard assets with objective monetary properties, because it would logically follow that in this environment where people are searching for neutral reserve assets that can't be debased or seized, then you would look for other ones outside of gold as well, primarily a digital version of gold. And so I think it's all very constructive and you're spot on that the inertia of gold is actually very important for the educational process around Bitcoin. particularly in this moment as nation states and really everyone around the world is watching gold's price just rip. Michael Tanguma (33:06.254) Yeah, it's an absolute constructive mental model and framework for everyone from an individual to a sovereign, individual, most individuals would have to underwrite their Bitcoin thesis on gold in some capacity, but that layers into how we built this business. Like gold failed because it ultimately centralized and lacked transparency and there was too many claims on it. So anybody, any for the past 14 or since OnRamps existed, specifically multi-institution, everyone would be happy with the plastic device or leave it on Coinbase. And it's like, well, shit, man, I kind of want this thing to work because I got a lot of money in it. We might need a better form of custody when you think about sovereigns holding it. Are they going to park it at Coinbase or in the central bank and then have a problem with it again? so that logically, to your point, Brian, when somebody starts to like allocate 1%, 10 % of their sovereigns, balance sheet, well then they're going to have to look at where gold ultimately failed, who does it sit with? And they're going to have to come to these like natural conclusions on maybe I want a better form of custody. I think it's the whole notion of, know, history doesn't repeat, but it rhymes. It's very similar here. Jackson Mikalic (34:11.746) Yeah, one thing I wanted to talk about as well, it ties into all this, is the MAG-7. I mean, I almost don't want to own any of the MAG-7 just because of the name Magnificent 7. I mean, come on. I don't know who came up with that. But one thing that a lot of investors maybe aren't paying enough attention to is just the impact on the trade war. Brian Cubellis (34:22.307) you Jackson Mikalic (34:34.626) on technology stocks and specifically Apple, being consumer facing. I know there's been some back and forth in terms of what might be included or exempt from tariffs, but everyone loves to talk about Bitcoin's volatility. Why don't we just talk about Apple stock volatility? I mean, everyone owns Apple stock, right? So one thing I wanted to point out here, it's recovered a little bit, but you can see on April 2nd when the tariffs were announced, there was a 23 % drawdown in a week, right, in five trading days. This isn't Bitcoin, this isn't the spooky cryptocurrency that everyone's concerned about. This is one of the largest companies in the world, that little shy of $3 trillion market cap now. So 20 % correction. I think it has recovered a bit now, so we're down 12 % since the tariffs were announced about two weeks ago. But I think what a lot of investors are discounting the fact that Bram Kanstein (35:05.362) Didn't see that. Jackson Mikalic (35:30.786) their retirements are so heavily concentrated in a handful of companies that are 25 or 30 % of the S &P 500. Why aren't people more concerned about that? Or maybe they are, I'm just not paying attention to it. Brian Cubellis (35:44.397) Yeah, I mean I was gonna pull this up as well. Go ahead Tim. Tim Kotzman (35:44.996) Jackson Jackson, sorry. Sorry, but this is it is Apple stock is a volatile. It's too volatile It's a speculative asset and everybody needs to sell it. Why would you own a speculative asset that can go to zero? Brian Cubellis (36:00.675) a good point, Tim. But I wanted to bring this up. This was originally a table that Black Rocket put together and some of their materials. Friend of the show, Sam Callahan, updated it since Trump's Liberation Day. And so this is sort of tracking major geopolitical events and how various asset classes, so it includes SPX, gold, and Bitcoin on here. And so I think this is Jackson Mikalic (36:00.748) Tim Cook is absolutely cooked. Brian Cubellis (36:30.607) you know, not being talked about enough that in this very short window and, know, caveat all this, like, I don't like talking about short periods of time in terms of analysis, but like, for the purposes of this chart, I think it is important to reference that since April 2nd, when these tariffs really went into effect and all of this volatility and uncertainty sort of manifested, SPX is down and Bitcoin is basically flat and gold is up. And so it'll be very interesting to see what happens going forward from here because this is just a 10, 12, 15 day period. But the reality is, that Bitcoin's actually held up very well relative to other asset classes in this extremely volatile period. so while it hasn't ripped like gold, just the fact that it wasn't down more than the S &P is a stark divergence from, you where we were even a year ago in terms of the correlation to broader markets. And so, yeah, I just thought this was worth pointing out. Bram Kanstein (37:35.283) I mean, guys, this is why it's an asymmetric opportunity. I think what Brian said before, a rational next step is to look at digital gold, et cetera. Yes, that's all true, but we know that. And I was thinking about, I was looking it up, I had a tweet last week. I said something like, gold adoption is based on narrative and Bitcoin adoption is based on math and physics. The only thing that gold has on Bitcoin is a 5000 year old narrative or the narrative of it's been used for five for 5000. Huh? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Well, digging more gold out of the ground isn't the flex that you think it is. wait, no, wait, wait, wait. So my point is that why why is it an asymmetric opportunity? One of the things is, you know, and connected to the public information that you can find is that on Brian Cubellis (38:09.251) You're piss Michael off. You're gonna piss Michael off. There's physics involved in Gould's proposition. You Bram Kanstein (38:33.724) the characteristics of all the characteristics of gold, except for how old it is, are inferior to the characteristics of Bitcoin. If you just take a neutral rational approach and study that, that is what you'll end up with. But the narrative is so strong, you know, I mean, I've heard there's Dutch guy who has a commodity fund and he talks about gold. He's also a Bitcoiner and he thinks Bitcoin is better than gold. But his conclusion is just like, yeah, central banks. are buying gold. So you can be pro Bitcoin, but they are still buying gold. know, and my idea around that is, yeah, that's because of the narrative. It's they buy gold because everyone else buy gold, right? Who's going to be the sucker that buys Bitcoin if you see all their reactions? once you realize we are living in an exponential digital age of humanity, you know, this is postmail and email and candles and electricity and horses and cars like this is gold and Bitcoin, you know. So this takes some time so we can go through it strategically, we can philosophize about it, right? But I think it's the asymmetry that's here that shows us that not everyone made the most rational decision and move into Bitcoin. Michael Tanguma (39:47.887) Yeah, I would say there's a big fallacy and hole in what you just described is that you can't say, no, no, you can't say it's a narrative because then somebody will just tell you that there'll be a better narrative for Bitcoin. You have to anchor back to why gold has value and there's objective properties to that and then Bitcoin improved on them. And that's why it's the logical next progression for the people that are missing it. But if you layer that gold just has a narrative, then the next thing that somebody, if I was on the other side of that table, be like, well, Bitcoin has a narrative and something else will change that. Bram Kanstein (40:11.422) Yeah. I'm saying that's the only thing that trumps Bitcoin. If you compare them next to each other, the narrative, right? The narrative that surrounds the history is stronger than that of Bitcoin. But part of the narrative of gold saying, you know, it's used in jewelry, that's actually pretty bad, right? That's a flaw, I would say. But I agree with you. It builds upon the characteristics of gold that are good in gold, but... Once you research them, there's only one logical conclusion is that those characteristics are stronger and better in Bitcoin. So I think we're saying the same thing. Brian Cubellis (40:50.591) Yeah, you guys are saying the same thing. You guys are agreeing because I think, Brahm, your point is just like, it's very clear that on those other lists outside of the history and the track record, it improves on the qualities. Michael's point, I think, is like, those qualities, though, even though they're inferior to Bitcoin, they still exist and they're still important. And that is also outside of narrative what drives Gold's price. Bram Kanstein (41:02.332) Yes, exactly. They still exist. Yes. And I agree. Yes. I agree. But I'm saying the asymmetry, the opportunity here is that once you understand that those characteristics are better in Bitcoin, you know, that's what you should act upon. Michael Tanguma (41:18.744) Yeah. The thing that we can only pontificate because we didn't live through it is that this is happening so fast. So independent of if the whole world figure this out, like these sovereigns are Apple from a liquidity profile. I don't, don't haven't fully baked this out, but they can't just all ape in to BTC at this current moment. So it's just independent of like if they got it today or not. there's still a situation that has to go through a natural progression of the capital flows coming in in an orderly fashion. So it's not just like, well, I get this is going to be the next gold and I'm going to buy it. I don't, I don't know how that bully bakes out, but that's another aspect of this is like people just can't. There's also the risk profile, like 15 year track record. You're going to ape your company or like Apple's balance sheet or Warren Buffett. There's still a chance it's not like predestined preordained that it Bram Kanstein (41:52.157) Mm-hmm. Michael Tanguma (42:15.775) it exists gold, it's pretty sure when it's not going away the next 10 years. So like Bram Kanstein (42:19.456) What's in your water bro? You almost sound like a bear. Brian Cubellis (42:21.43) You Michael Tanguma (42:22.658) What do mean? Brian Cubellis (42:27.363) No, it's yeah, it's it's it's a realistic take. I think that's fair Michael Tanguma (42:28.128) No, it's just being pragmatic. Bram Kanstein (42:30.91) I'm making a joke. think it's pragmatic. These people have to be pragmatic. But then again, that's where the opportunity is. mean, where we are at after all the study that we did, we wake up and think like, damn, I don't have enough. Those people are definitely not there yet. So that's the opportunity, that gap, for any one serious to move into that. Michael Tanguma (42:48.194) Yeah. Michael Tanguma (42:54.99) The, and the other problem I forgot, I think it was the guy we talked to this week, Jackson is most wealthy individuals are not in the game of getting wealthier than the game of not losing their shirts. like Bitcoin is looked at as you can still lose your shirt. Like that's their mind frame. like, that's just, again, a natural order of thinking about gold monetizing and there was something else before it. Somebody didn't just ape it all into the shiny rock that it was surrounded by or it's like, this is the thing. It's just a process. It sucks, but it, yeah. Bram Kanstein (43:19.966) You Good point. Now, great point. We need patience. Michael Tanguma (43:25.548) This is why this is why I'm brought by the way, Bram. This is why multi-institution exists. I told canvas we were walking out of an office and like we make no one happy. So we're either crazy or we're onto something because if you think about it, being why Mellon doesn't want to do multi-institution, they love holding the asset and doing the things they do. And then the hardcore Bitcoiners want to hold a plastic device and devala. And it's like, well, shit, man, maybe that doesn't actually make sense. So we're either crazy or we're onto something. Jackson Mikalic (43:25.729) Thanks. Michael Tanguma (43:51.609) But when you think in that frame, got to like be neutral to like just how do you actually get there? And that's where a lot of this like stems from is just having all these discussions. Bram Kanstein (43:59.972) I agree. Jackson Mikalic (44:02.146) Yeah, the two of you. Oh, go ahead, Tim. Tim Kotzman (44:02.146) Hey Jackson. Jackson, you can tell me if this is exactly what you're about to say. Maybe we need to schedule a of gold versus Bitcoin and Michael can take gold and Ron can take Bitcoin. And it's just like a whole 90 minutes of them just going at it. I would watch every minute of it. Brian Cubellis (44:13.411) You Jackson Mikalic (44:14.188) Yeah Bram Kanstein (44:14.76) No, we don't. No, no, Michael Tanguma (44:19.726) funny enough where we're not doing that because there are complimentary and accretive but we're actually doing a report and golden Bitcoin and I sent it to Larry last night and Mark Volic from incrementa and ideally they both come on the show and it's less about what's one versus the other it's just how do you actually like navigate this new world with because an 80 year old doesn't shouldn't have 100 % of their BT their money in BTC that cuts in half they're like retirement just cut in half and their hearts gonna their hearts gonna go out in the meantime because Brian Cubellis (44:45.453) Right. Michael Tanguma (44:48.514) They just lost half their purchasing power. Brian Cubellis (44:48.823) Yeah, that's why it's tougher. Because I mean, if you just think about where a lot of the capital sits, it's in the hands of people that are, you know, over the age of 50, 60, 70. And so in their minds, even if they understand Bitcoin to some extent, they don't think it's going to zero necessarily. They don't necessarily want to subscribe to a potential 50 % drawdown. And so, yeah, I think you're totally right. it, you know, someone's... age demographics also matters in terms of how they perceive gold versus Bitcoin. But it's not an either or thing. I think there's going to be flows back and forth between these two assets for the next several decades. Bram Kanstein (45:30.11) You Michael Tanguma (45:30.19) It's just funny because I don't know gold. I'm just explaining. I'm like, it's not holding gold. Brian Cubellis (45:32.355) You got some chains, dude. You have some jewelry. That's your allocation. Tim Kotzman (45:36.865) Yeah. Michael Tanguma (45:37.11) Yeah. But that's just, that's, that's only if I go visit Brahman, I get stuck going out one night with him and like, I lose everything. I at least have, you know, can take, I can take the jewelry off and sell it. Yep. Jackson Mikalic (45:38.72) Yeah. Bram Kanstein (45:41.234) Yeah. That's how you save yourself. Yeah, exactly. Tim Kotzman (45:49.146) you Jackson Mikalic (45:49.27) Yeah, you can't wear your Bitcoin, you can only play with it apparently. Brian Cubellis (45:52.739) You Tim Kotzman (45:54.394) That's our new slogan. Michael Tanguma (45:54.509) You can put like... Bram Kanstein (45:55.762) That's what Trump said, Trump said that, right? Have fun playing with your Bitcoin or something. Jackson Mikalic (45:59.554) Now, Yeah, speaking of Trump, I wanted to say, well Tim, first you reminded me, I was like, who does Michael remind me of? And then your comment was, oh yeah, he reminds me of Peter Schiff. He just loves his gold so much. But Michael and Brom's debate reminded me of what's been happening this week with Trump and J-Pow. What's happening there, guys? mean, we got the two titans battling it out. Yesterday, Pow was like, you know, we're not cutting rates, blah, blah. Trump, I think said this morning, he's like, Brian Cubellis (46:11.459) haha Brian Cubellis (46:25.731) Yeah. Jackson Mikalic (46:31.414) we need to get Powell out of the Fed chair role as soon as, yeah, but he reinforced, yeah, he reinforced his stance, because Trump wants rates lower, Powell's doing his dance, we're so independent, we make all of our decisions based on all this data we have. And so you have... Brian Cubellis (46:33.623) Yeah, he said that a few times now. like, we need to just fire this guy. Bram Kanstein (46:36.829) Yeah. Bram Kanstein (46:43.678) Yeah, yeah. Brian Cubellis (46:48.291) And he has breakfast with Besant every week though, but they're totally independent. No, that was a, I watched that whole interview that he did yesterday. Cause as you know, I'm an avid Tea Leaves listener and it was, there was a few interesting points. think one was just the outrageous claim that Jackson Mikalic (46:51.234) They're just crushing cow zones. Yeah, so now I... Brian Cubellis (47:15.779) You know, he admits that we're on an unsustainable path From a debt perspective, but then he caveats out by saying we're not yet at an unsustainable level. It's like well, dude like Interest expenses over a trillion. It's the largest line item You've got 36 trillion in debt. Like how could you possibly say that we're not already at an unsustainable level? That's one and then to the broader takeaway for me was sort of comparing and contrasting him with Besant. So Besant also did an interview earlier this week. I think he was in Argentina and he, you know, they're saying things that are similar in the sense of like, you know, we're not basically signaling like it's not yet time to like push the panic button and Powell's being, I would say a little bit more conservative saying like, you know, we're here, but we're here if we need to be, but like we don't see signs of needing to like step in and really turn on QE or lower rates. And he's being pretty firm on that. Whereas Besant had a few comments in his interview where he was basically saying like, have the treasury has a big quote unquote big toolkit to deploy. If this uncertainty and volatility were to continue or worsen. And there's there's a few things in that proverbial toolkit. I think the one that he referenced that would be sort of a primary move would be treasury buybacks. So basically that would entail the treasury. So not the Fed is not involved in this. So it's basically what you could call like a stealth version of QE where the Treasury Department is buying back Treasuries on the longer end of the curve. And so that would in theory sort of stabilize and support longer dated Treasuries. And so I think, you know, the Treasury is always doing buybacks. So they're already doing buybacks, but his basic signaling was like, we could increase that if we needed to. And so I think that's kind of what we're seeing play out now is like if Trump can't get Powell out, which like I'm kind of skeptical that that'll happen. Like I think Powell probably sees out the rest of his term. It might be that Besant and the Treasury are sort of enacting other forms of stealth QE prior to getting someone else in the Fed chair that would actually just cut rates and actually turn on the printers. So that was sort of the takeaways for me from those interviews this week. Bram Kanstein (49:35.716) Maybe Jackson, you can pull up what I send you about LBJ. This is crazy guys. just saw this. I said this to Jackson, but I'm thinking about how the interaction between Trump and Powell could be. don't know, Jackson, if you can show. This is like an excerpt from the book. from a book, I'll read it. So. Jackson Mikalic (49:41.761) Yep. Jackson Mikalic (49:53.569) I got you here. Bram Kanstein (50:00.56) Here's LBJ literally slamming fat chair William McChesney Martin against the wall to print money. And there's an excerpt from a book that says, there Johnson got Martin alone and did not mince words. According to different accounts, the six foot four Johnson pushed the shorter Martin up against the wall. You went ahead and did something that you knew I disapproved of and that can affect my entire term here, Johnson said, as Martin recalled later in an oral history. You took advantage of me and I'm not going to forget it because here I am a sick man. You've got me into a position where you can run a rapier into me and you've run it. And then below that, says something like, you know, Martin, my boys are dying in Vietnam and you won't print the money I need. Pretty crazy. That's pretty crazy. But imagine these conversations right now, right? Because as I just said, like, I think there is a plan. Like they have a plan to do something. They understand the problem. So they It's a crazy plan. think it's very brutal, you know, what they're doing. It's very unpredictable also, but I don't think there is no plan. So it feels like they're constantly running into these little challenges, right? One is Jerome, listen to me. And if he's not doing it, you know what you said, he's doubling down in the media saying four or five times like Jerome Powell should be removed. You know, I think this is a huge battle at that level. They're really battling it out. depending on the outcome, because Jerome Powell, like he said a few months ago, do you think he's going to reiterate that a president cannot really fire him? That is part of the whole scheme, is that no one really actually knows how the Federal Reserve works. Michael Tanguma (51:48.569) They don't actually know how it works. don't know Brian, I mean anyone here, but specifically Brian. Parker Lewis had a report called Ender's Game. He had written it prior to like, I think even coming into Bitcoin, he was tasked from his hedge fund to learn about what would happen if the Fed had to unwind its balance sheet. And so he went through the, I guess it's the minutes of the Fed meetings. They released them five years after the meetings. So like they don't release them, you know, one month or one year, five years later. So every, you know, if you go back from like 2015, it would be 2010, 2016, 2011. And they were just every time consistently wrong about everything they thought they were doing. Like everything objectively was incorrect. So they don't have much of a handle on what's going on or what needs to be done because of the notion of the reflexivity. it's a market with too many variables. You cannot centrally plan it, but they still haven't caught up to that. Brian Cubellis (52:44.291) Yeah, I think that was one of the other quotes from Trump this morning or yesterday. He was like, you guys are always late and you're always wrong. Michael Tanguma (52:51.886) It's like the worst employee and you can't get rid of them. Jackson Mikalic (52:52.716) Great, great take. Jackson Mikalic (52:57.218) It's a great take. So where do we go from here, guys? I wanted to talk about Ethereum. I'm sorry, if any people on the show are holding Ethereum still, you should be questioning all of your life decisions. Bram Kanstein (53:11.728) In Bitcoin, we talk about ego death and in crypto, they talk about ether death. Jackson Mikalic (53:17.794) So speaking of Parker Lewis on that topic, I like this tweet that he shared. think it was yesterday. The guy who got a Luna tattoo is selling his ETH. Not everyone is going to be able to get out. The institutional guys that were pushing this fraud coin like the Winklevoss brothers and Novogratz are rejecting. If you're still holding no one to blame but yourself. That is an ugly chart. That's a really ugly chart. Michael Tanguma (53:41.817) Do the bank, I've been meaning to look this up, do the bankless guys still have like a Twitter? Like do they still exist online? Because, can you imagine just going to work every day and like talking? They have a, there was another tweet that said, I guess they have the ETH.sound or ETH.sound money. It's like a chart that was meant to show post whatever upgrade and the deflationary and somebody posted it like, that's not what that's supposed to like show on the website. Cause it's actually inflationary. Bram Kanstein (53:47.878) Yes, they say Ethereum is sound money. Brian Cubellis (53:48.589) think they do. Bram Kanstein (53:53.822) my god. Michael Tanguma (54:10.078) I don't even know, I can't follow all the mechanics, the tokenomics, but. Brian Cubellis (54:13.271) Yeah, because no one's using it. So what that was supposed to show was that as people use Ethereum, there was a, when they did the transition from proof of work to proof of stake, changed the sort of mechanism that would then burn tokens as transactions happened. And so that would in fact make it deflationary over time. So you see on the chart, it's like goes down for a little bit and then just starts spiking back up and is now above where it was before they did this transition. because no one's using it. And that is also related to like just the flawed system in general where they tried to push activity to these secondary layers that were faster and cheaper. But then it's like, okay, well then nobody's using the main chain. So it's actually inflationary now. And so yeah, it's a total mess. Michael Tanguma (54:59.694) If you're listening to this podcast and you want to know about other cryptocurrencies, please reach out to Brian at onrampbitcoin.com. He was a professional institutional research writer for Coinbase and he was forced to write some very interesting things. And so he knows much about crypto. On a different topic, we should talk about Brahms. One of his other things he says that I love is never stop talking about Bitcoin. Brian Cubellis (55:15.255) Way too much, way too much, honestly. Michael Tanguma (55:27.406) And in that same vein, you should never stop building in Bitcoin. And we recently announced Brahm joining on the early writers side and also the Guild Network. So Brahm, do you want to share a little bit about this tweet you shared on now, given everything we've talked about, the importance of actually building and kind of changing the world from the ground up. Bram Kanstein (55:49.128) Well, I think we have to realize, like we talked about, right, we are very early, but I do think we all see the world going towards a certain place, you know, and especially with AI, like I think Bitcoin and AI are like the main things that I'm looking at. I really think that this idea of abundance of how the internet created the democratization of information. Bitcoin does that with sharing value, access to private property, digital private property, AI is doing that with productivity. And so you now see that pace is so quick that more more creative people are actually invited to build, right, in tech. And I think that when we have like these two tracks that are developing next to each other, right, a better money that's replacing a bad money, more democratized technology that's actually inviting more people to build and create an abundance together, we need a certain way to measure the wins that could possibly be made with all the technological innovation. think we talked about this before in many different ways, but yeah, if you measure any technological advancement that's deflationary in an inflationary money, then you're gonna offset all the possible gains. And I think we all agree that, you know, Bitcoin is the best way to measure any value in the world, but especially everything that's coming at us with all these, you know, rapidly... like rapid technological advancements. And so I love the idea behind early writers and you know, as a Bitcoin denominated venture fund that yeah, because we can literally build everything that comes as an idea to our mind, we have to be very diligent about what we spend our time and energy on. But I think adding the Bitcoin element actually, yeah, kind of enforces Bram Kanstein (58:00.025) that and really gives us focus in the things that we are building and hopefully also finding entrepreneurs that see this future developing, wanting to build in this space, having investments into Bitcoin actually makes you, I think, a more diligent and focused entrepreneur. So I'm excited to see if we can combine these different developments that are happening next to each other. basically together in a Bitcoin denominated venture fund focused on building the world of tomorrow. So I'm very excited to see where we can take that. Michael Tanguma (58:37.526) Yeah, Farrell said, think what has me personally excited on all of it is in you particular getting involved is the network and your background, but also network that you've accumulated via the Bitcoin for Millennials podcast. It's one of the my like, think greatest pleasure isn't the right word, but like, I think it's something I'm like proud of is helping individuals get off the rat race and into the Bitcoin world to build in it. Because ultimately what happens and everyone this resonates with is like, Once you see it, you're kind of dying a little bit inside every time you go to the fiat job, whatever it is, because you know they're building not for the future, but you obviously have the responsibilities from the family, the children, and all the things associated. And it's hard because there's not that many opportunities yet in the Bitcoin space. And so the idea is for individuals, and we've seen this already, is from individuals that... want to seat at the table to see what the next thing is. They want to take their professional experience at the Googles, the Apples of the world, and their certain disciplines. And they want to be next to other builders that haven't fully made that leap yet, but want an inside track to when do they actually join a company or how do they like come up and form an idea. So you're a point around deflationary tech and remote work. There's a huge opportunity for like overachievers to actually do multiple things at once while still, you know, mining dollars. And I think that's how we further this whole thing is to de-risk it for individuals because historically it's been, have to leave my company, but people have liabilities. have people counting on them. And I think that's just the ultimate way to produce value. It's like, if you can give that vehicle via the guild where we can all come together, riff, fund new companies, have new people found them, join firms. You're just going to accelerate this. And the last thing I'll say for, and we talked about this on your podcast is, There's a notion that flies around about their risk adjusted. There's never better time to buy Bitcoin risk adjusted. There's never been a better time to accumulate a shit ton of Bitcoin because all the ideas are floating out there, but they actually haven't really been executed by the highest level operators yet because those people still work at the Googles and you know, whatever deals or whatever the hot Silicon Valley firm is. Michael Tanguma (01:00:47.372) And so either that person is just finding Bitcoin or they haven't even heard about Bitcoin yet. And that's what this next wave has me most excited about is that price is the ultimate barometer from awareness. Brian Cubellis (01:00:57.793) Yeah, I would add that this idea, this concept really emanated from what was already happening sort of organically across OnRamp, our sort of base of clients, as well as on the early rider side and our LPs and sort of our network of founders and entrepreneurs. And the guild is really just an attempt to formalize that in some sense and create a private forum for people that understand the principles of Bitcoin or at least curious about them and have some domain expertise, whether in Bitcoin or outside of it, that want to talk about it, want to riff on ideas, want to maybe found a business, want to, like you're saying, Michael, like get off the fiat rat race and actually contribute to what they know is sort of the future and this new monetary order that's forming. so what, you know, part of it too is like the really doesn't exist that type of forum for folks because Twitter is extremely fragmented and disjointed and obviously full of a ton of noise. And so it's hard for someone who's, you know, and we talk to people all the time that are like interested in Bitcoin, but they're totally on an island because none of their coworkers in their TradFi job and none of their peers understand Bitcoin, but they want to talk about it. They want to explore ideas and think about these things more regularly and they don't really have a forum to do that. And so The Guild is really an attempt to formalize a structure and a forum for folks. And so sort of the initial members of the Guild will be on-ramp private clients, as well as people in the early writers network, including LPs and sort of our group of advisors. But obviously this will grow over time. So if you're interested in learning more, please reach out to any one of us about Tim Kotzman (01:02:43.78) So Brian, that includes me? Am I in? Brian Cubellis (01:02:46.147) Yeah, you're in the build, Michael Tanguma (01:02:47.982) wait, do we talk about? Jackson Mikalic (01:02:48.416) You know, tell you, Tim, you're only in the guild, hang on Michael, Tim, you're only in the guild if you do the tie reveal. we've been recording for over an hour, we haven't seen the tie yet. I was assuming maybe you got some of the calzone on it, you were embarrassed to show it. Tim Kotzman (01:02:52.111) Ha Tim Kotzman (01:02:58.134) it's fair. No, no, it's clean. It's clean. It's a reasonable length today. Reasonable length. And I would just request that we have at least one guild event at Pubkey because I just love their cheeseburgers. Brian Cubellis (01:03:07.181) Yeah, that's not too crazy. Brian Cubellis (01:03:16.609) Yeah, definitely. There will be events, both virtual and in person, are a part of the guild as well. So, good call out there, Tim. Jackson Mikalic (01:03:23.778) All guild events will be in New York, just so Michael has to go to New York because he loves it so much. Brian Cubellis (01:03:27.619) You Michael Tanguma (01:03:31.832) Rom's gonna hold one in Vegas, I've heard. Is everyone here going to Vegas? I think Tim will be there. He lived in Vegas at this point. Bram Kanstein (01:03:43.42) I think you are coming too, Mike, right? Michael Tanguma (01:03:46.434) I don't know if there's enough likes and comments on these pods coming up about Vegas and what people's plans are maybe we can coax into to get me out there. Brian Cubellis (01:03:51.021) You Bram Kanstein (01:03:56.51) All right. Jackson Mikalic (01:03:56.769) Michael, there's actually a gold conference happening at the same time as the Bitcoin conference. You might want to go to that? Tim Kotzman (01:03:59.482) You Brian Cubellis (01:03:59.491) You Michael Tanguma (01:04:01.954) We should get a yellow tie. We'll get a yellow tie for the gold conference. Jackson Mikalic (01:04:05.558) Wow, that would be something. Well, might be good place to wrap it unless, Michael, you want to just do a single point of failure of the week. Just really quick. think you had mentioned something a couple days ago where there was an issue with a password manager. Does this ring a bell? Michael Tanguma (01:04:26.062) Yeah, that just came to mind was somebody we just hear we hear about these all week long, but the one particular stood out that somebody stored and this happens a lot. I don't really understand why, but people assume that encrypted password managers are always encrypted. And so they parked their seed phrase on the password manager. But the problem was that two years ago, the password manager had some form of I don't know if it was infiltration or whatever happened. The data had been hacked. But there was a lot of data. it took two years for whoever had got this information to sift through it. And their, their funds were swept. And two years later, and you know what just came to mind is it probably wasn't even the initial hacker because they sell the data afterwards. And what it is is like, you just run scripts on the bit 39 C words, and then you can find it. And this is what I think I've heard from other people that have used like collaborative custody. They'll take like One person had one key and this has saved them in that sense. They had one key stored on their Google cloud. So they took like the picture of the seed phrase and they put it in cloud. But whether it's Google, people that work at Google or somebody gets access to your G suite, they can just run a script based on those words. And now you can do it via like whatever image processing. So you can get the words off the actual image to find it. And so they were able to get the words. uploaded into the device. It was only one key, so they weren't able to take the funds. But the key story there is just don't put your seed phrase or any personal encrypted information for a digital bearer asset online. Jackson Mikalic (01:06:05.396) Yeah, and you can understand why people would do this too because they perceive there's some level of security, whether it's like an encrypted password manager or it's something else, but the challenge, the embedded thing in that is that... A lot of people don't feel comfortable with managing the seed phrase physically, indefinitely. They may not feel comfortable themselves, and then in most cases, they don't feel comfortable that their spouse or children, whoever would be able to recover this, and naturally they look for easier solutions from a tech perspective to store it. but then you open up other vulnerabilities. So I mean, it's, it's really challenging. It's, it's not as simple as just memorizing words and you know, forget about it. That could work if you're like a single person and you have no one else that relies on you. Maybe you don't want to do that though. Even if you're a single person, if you have a lot of Bitcoin, because something you can have an injury and you could lose all your Bitcoin, who knows? But the point being is it's just increasingly difficult. And then Michael, you pointed out that this is only going to get more sophisticated. So technology is moving incredibly quickly. We're using a lot of tech. every day at OnRamp to make ourselves more efficient. so people that have mal-intent are also using these technologies to go after something that's becoming increasingly more valuable at times. So just something to pay attention to. It's ultimately why we have a business and why our clients are happy and how we help them. Michael Tanguma (01:07:29.194) On that, Tim, we can't let you leave without what's happening in the corporate Bitcoin adoption world. Bitwise put out this report. What's the rumblings from the True North and MSCR crew? Tim Kotzman (01:07:43.814) They're basically just saying hire, right? Over time, we're not going to be in the 80s forever. No, it's super interesting to see more and more structured products, ETFs coming to market and the fact that you have less than 100 or so public companies and less than 100 or so... Structured products on the market. It really just kind of tells you how early we are Yeah Michael Tanguma (01:08:16.376) Can ask a very dumb question. What is MSTY? Tim Kotzman (01:08:21.69) It's basically a covered call strategy. Michael Tanguma (01:08:24.76) What does that mean? Tim Kotzman (01:08:25.996) It means that you're selling the shares and creating income from it. Michael Tanguma (01:08:32.942) I don't fully understand, all I see it is on my Twitter feed and I didn't know if it was like the latest crypto token or if it was what it was. Everyone was saying that they were selling their Bitcoin for MSTY. Brian Cubellis (01:08:43.745) It's an altcoin. It's an altcoin. Tim Kotzman (01:08:46.424) Yeah, so basically anything that's not Bitcoin is an altcoin, right? Michael Tanguma (01:08:50.231) Hahaha! Brian Cubellis (01:08:52.611) Tim, did you see your boy AP Abacus tweet out I think last week that he was saying there's two large corporates considering a Bitcoin allocation? Any rumors around who those might be? Tim Kotzman (01:09:07.18) Yeah, one of his first tweets on that basically said that they're big corporates, but they're not going to be like a levered log strategy, like micro strategy sort of thing. and of course, one of my, Bram Kanstein (01:09:19.094) you Tim Kotzman (01:09:25.092) friends said, you know, it's funny how people can put stuff on the internet and word it in such a way that they can't be wrong, right? It's like at some point this will happen with two companies. And it's like, it's, that's good to know. Brian Cubellis (01:09:35.723) Right. It was vague enough. Tim Kotzman (01:09:39.434) Yeah, yeah. And certainly, Michael, how I described that MSTY covered call strategy is like literally not accurate or complete, right? It's a whole strategy where your shares could be called away, but you're creating income because you're giving people the option to buy it at a certain price and we don't need to go into all of it. the fact that that specific product within a handful of months has to Bram Kanstein (01:09:42.847) . Tim Kotzman (01:10:09.358) billion dollars in AUM is super interesting, especially in the mini bear market, right? 30 % drawdown that we're in, as you mentioned. So I think it's really interesting. You saw Rex, think earlier this week or late last week, come out with some filings for like a whole slew of additional ETFs, and I think it just makes sense that like what some of the true North guys are saying, Ben and Jeff and others is like, take advantage of this time to build, right? That's what I'm trying to do is like, how can I be thoughtful right now and put things in place so that when we do get some sort of bull market price action that we're in a really strong position to take the next step and not be flat-footed from an investment perspective, from a business perspective, from a education perspective. Michael Tanguma (01:11:00.398) It's a good point. Like we're all insanely busy on this pod and we're kind of in this little like wall. Imagine when things rip. I know we need a rep, but just that reminded me of the Intuit stuff. What's the deal with, is there any legs to that? Or is that just like a blind? Tim Kotzman (01:11:07.185) And so I think that's largely the takeaway on that front. Michael Tanguma (01:11:28.878) call the action of like, hey, quit censoring Bitcoin and you guys should adopt it or is there more to it? Similar to like, feel like there's been a few, some things happen like GameStop and then others you don't really hear again about. Tim Kotzman (01:11:44.034) Yeah, there was a specific college group that was censored by Intuit and that's what got on Matt's radar. But yeah, I mean, from what everyone said, I think it's an engagement letter. don't personally think there's going to be anything constructive that comes out of it other than kind of shining a spotlight on it. But I hope I'm wrong because like people should not be. censored just because they own Bitcoin, want to have a business in Bitcoin. I mean, I'm not going to, you know, name names, but people in the True North Group that are setting up entities right now, like, they can't get bank accounts still, if you put the word Bitcoin anywhere in there, right? You got to say the word media. You got to say the word, you know, digital marketing. Michael Tanguma (01:12:38.612) Gold. Gold. Tim Kotzman (01:12:40.686) say gold, right? And real quick, something... that you guys are really hitting on today is this education piece, but also the job piece. And I've been getting some inbound from people that are like, hey, I'm really excited to meet you in Orlando or Vegas or wherever. And like, I want to get into this space. what do you, what's your advice for or thoughts around like how to create a business, how to get a job. And I know there are some job websites out there, but think anything that we could do on that front to just point people to the resources that are already out there and shine a light on that would be really helpful because that's some of the inbound that I've been seeing. Michael Tanguma (01:13:30.52) sure. Jackson Mikalic (01:13:32.771) Yeah, and so real quick before we wrap up, and Tim, that's well said. Couple thoughts. First, we gotta do a bullish and bearish round. It can be really quick. So just everyone get those ready, teed up. And then before we get into that, I just would ask for the loyal listeners of the show if you can rate five stars on Spotify or Apple or if you could like or comment. That would go a long way. I frankly don't want to listen to Michael talk about gold every week, but I do it for the listeners of the show. And so if you could show your appreciation to like and comment, I would express my gratitude. Maybe I'll give you a shout out on next week's episode if you want one. If you don't, if you just want to give back a little bit. Tim Kotzman (01:14:04.312) Ha Brian Cubellis (01:14:04.931) you Jackson Mikalic (01:14:16.516) that adds some value, that goes a long way. So, let's do a bullish and bearish. I'm bullish on bodega owners near Tim's apartment. He's crushing cow zones every morning, some fresh OJ. Good business idea that ties into Tim. People wanna get involved in the space, maybe open up a bodega that accepts bitcoin near Tim's apartment. That's a good one. Bearish. Brahm, I hope I'm not stealing your thunder, but the price, the chart of bitcoin's performance post-having. Brian Cubellis (01:14:25.699) You Jackson Mikalic (01:14:46.178) is pretty ugly right now. So I can pull it up just really quick. And sorry if that was yours, but look at this real quick. Look at where we are. We're living, I already said this last week, we're living through the bearish, post-having world at the moment. Or look at this purple line, it's just, it's really sad to watch, but it's not gonna be there that much longer, so tune in for next week. Let's see, if we can go higher, Tim's always. Bram Kanstein (01:14:47.673) Mm-hmm. Jackson Mikalic (01:15:12.598) Tim always likes to point, he likes to say higher. So maybe next week we'll be higher. Who wants to go next? Tim Kotzman (01:15:20.066) Is that a segue for me to go next? I'm bearish on meme tokens that are not Bitcoin. And I'm, I said bearish, right? I hope so. And bullish on... Jackson Mikalic (01:15:22.06) Sure. Tim Kotzman (01:15:38.158) the interview at the White House with Bo Heinz where he did say, hey, it's possible we're gonna sell gold and buy Bitcoin. It's possible we're gonna use money from tariffs to buy Bitcoin. And there's a lot of other ways that we can figure out how to buy Bitcoin. I I don't know that it was anything that wasn't said previously, but to be repeating those things. They've done everything that they have said they're gonna do to date. so watch what people do sort of thing in addition to what they say and everything seems to be lining up for a pretty bullish rest of the year. Brian Cubellis (01:16:19.703) Yeah, I'm bullish on Bitcoin's emergence as a risk-off asset. So going back to that chart, that table that I pulled up earlier, and just the past few weeks, again, if we were here a year, two, three years ago, it would be remarkably surprising to see Bitcoin hold up in this environment how it has. And so I think that is indicative of people beginning to recognize Michael Tanguma (01:16:19.732) Yeah. Brian Cubellis (01:16:48.899) Bitcoin and its true nature, its objective monetary properties that make it really one of the more risk-off assets you could possibly own. And my bearish take, I'll take the opposite side on the Bo Heinz interview. I kind of think he's just like, you can just do things. He can just say things. And I personally don't put a ton of stock in what he's saying because I don't think he's necessarily in a decision-making seat of like when, if and when the US government buys Bitcoin, like I don't think it's Bo Heinz that's like driving that decision. So I think he's kind of in this mode of like, I can just say things and get people bowled up. So that would be, that'd be my somewhat bearish take. Jackson Mikalic (01:17:34.07) Yeah, we're gonna clip that Brian, we're gonna send it to Bo, see what he has to say. Brian Cubellis (01:17:37.219) Seems like a great guy. I don't know Bo, seems like an awesome dude, but yeah, he's just saying things. Bram Kanstein (01:17:46.205) All right. I'm bearish on central bankers not figuring out Bitcoin, but that may is bullish for the plebs. I'm saying it because I think, yeah, if as a country you're fading Bitcoin, then yeah, you're really going to fall behind. I'm bullish on the fact that I was thinking about a tweet I wrote, why am I bullish, you we're in this whole trade war thing. You know, once the trade war dust settles and there will be like Michael Tanguma (01:17:50.861) Haha. Bram Kanstein (01:18:15.898) many accords that have been signed out of logical necessity, Like countries eventually will want to trade with each other. So I think that's happening. But yeah, after that, do you think that countries or certain blocks will happily trade using a currency someone else controls? I don't really think so. You know, so I'm very bullish on the need for a neutral decentralized alternative, which, you know, I think we all think is Bitcoin. So It's gonna be interesting to see how that eventually pans out because there's this term that is a neutral instant cross border final settlement. That is Bitcoin. And eventually that is what all these countries and blocs need because the trust is clearly gone, which is okay because the whole point of Bitcoin is that you don't really have to trust each other in order to exchange value with each other. So there is technology for that. Michael Tanguma (01:19:14.744) Love it. I was going to be consistent and go bullish with gold, I'll take a turn and say, bullish on Bram and the network that's growing within this ecosystem that we're crafting on Onramp, Early Riders and the individuals listening here. It's just true. We need best-in-class people to get us where we want to be. All these things are fun to talk about, but the reality is you need the individuals to build it. So very bullish on folks that are coming in that are world-class as this price rises. And then bearish on, I think just the conflation of digitization of value in Bitcoin. I think that this next bull cycle is just going to see a lot of people lose their shirts, chasing the shiny objects. yeah, anything anybody can do to help them, whether it's sending them the right information, sending them to Brahms podcast, ours or others, it's going to be important now more than ever, because there's going to be no shortage of ways that people are going to lose their money as this asset appreciates. Brian Cubellis (01:20:15.364) bearish real world assets. Bram Kanstein (01:20:18.119) Yes. Michael Tanguma (01:20:19.138) There's Real World Assets on the blockchain. Bram Kanstein (01:20:21.726) organized real estate. Jackson Mikalic (01:20:23.404) Another quick business idea. Someone can start a great orange tie company. Figure out a way to let people embroider their BIP 39 seed phrases on them. Figure this out. Everyone wants an orange tie now. There's a business opportunity around the orange tie opportunity. I'm telling you. Brian Cubellis (01:20:33.891) You Michael Tanguma (01:20:34.904) Will it hear- Bram Kanstein (01:20:35.015) yeah, this is good OPSEC. Michael Tanguma (01:20:40.686) The opportunity is somebody does the drop shipping with the Bitcoin company's logo on it and then gives 20 % to the company. So they get the branding and there's a business idea if anybody wants to start on. Jackson Mikalic (01:20:53.293) There we go. Love it. All right, guys, it's been fun. Brian Cubellis (01:20:57.795) Thanks, boys. Later. Bram Kanstein (01:20:57.951) Bye.