$120 Oil, Gold Trapped, Drone Wars, Credit Cracks — Bitcoin Won't Stop

Jackson Mikalic (01:21) We are back. It is the last trade. Brian and Michael. Gentlemen, what's going on? Just the three of us today. How are the two of you doing? Michael (01:31) I'm doing good. Jackson, do you want to share our new format? Because I think we're going to have to prepare after this pod to let people know tomorrow morning they should be looking out, which will be Thursday morning. Jackson Mikalic (01:38) Yeah, you know, that's, that's a great point. So you're either going to be deeply offended or you're going to love it, but we are going to be releasing the last trade Thursday mornings, 9 a.m. Eastern for the past two years. You've been looking forward to the last trade on Friday. So we're going to actually want your feedback in the comments section. Let us know. Do you like the Thursday release? Do you prefer Friday? Want to hear from you. And then the other thing too is I really need you to like and subscribe. to this podcast if you like it because it really my life depends on it. say that jokingly, but it's also kind of serious. ⁓ if you're enjoying the content, nothing means more than your support. I love all the comments we get, even the ones that tell us that, ⁓ you know, we're not the brightest bulbs. I know that I don't pretend to be. And so let's get on with the show. I think for today's show, what people can expect. Brian Cubellis (02:11) you Five stars, five stars on Spotify too. Five stars on your favorite podcast app. Jackson Mikalic (02:30) So what people can expect today is the three of us and we're be doing a lot more of this because apparently people like it I truthfully don't know why but we're gonna give the people what they want and so we're gonna kick things off with maybe what is taking the most attention currently is The monitoring of the situation in the Middle East so there's been a lot happening and actually Glenn Cameron who leads The on-ramp institutional team put together a note and by the way if you want to be on that note We'll be able you'll be able to find it in the comments below But every week we're going to be distilling the biggest macro events, market events happening, not only in Bitcoin, but just broader as well. Cause I think I find this too, where a lot of the conversations in the space are very narrowly focused on Bitcoin. And what we want to do is deliver the best Bitcoin related content, AI, macro, et cetera. So what we want to start with is talking about what is happening in the middle East. ⁓ Michael, I know you have some thoughts there, so I'll hand it over to you, but really for anyone who's not paying attention. There's obviously a conflict happening, a war, depending on what media outlets you listen to. And there's a lot constrained from an energy perspective. You may have seen on Monday that the price of crude went from like 80 or 90 a barrel on closed Friday to almost 120 back down to 80 around trip in one trading day. So there's a lot of volatility. There's a lot of uncertainty, not only in Bitcoin, which actually held up remarkably well in this context. We'll talk about that. but in commodities and equities, bonds, et cetera, there's just a lot of volatility and uncertainty in broader markets and seems to be more of a flight to safety, ⁓ which with what we're seeing here in the precious metal space too. So Michael, what would you like to talk about in that context? know you've been paying closer attention than I have. Michael (04:07) Yeah, I mean, I did to have a take and also discussion point. I won't pretend and I don't think anybody actually fully understands from a geopolitical perspective and an incentive perspective. what actually is going on, right? There's a lot of discussions around the Petrodollar in China and Venezuela, or I'm sorry, Iran and Venezuela supporting a lot of the BRICS nations with oil and potentially cutting that off ⁓ along with obviously a lot of things going on in the Middle East. But I think the angle that I want to talk about, and that's important and ties into this, is the disruption and the asymmetry around ⁓ intelligence and specifically warfare that's changing and how that has changed the dynamic from a lot of like where the US and other regimes have been able to politically posture or posture from a wartime perspective. an example of this we saw when the Trump administration first came in with tariffs and the example of that worked until it effectively broke the bond market and things started to get hairy and they had to basically pause that. And very similar here, I think that from everything I've heard We over indexed, and again, you can go back to treason or incompetence on the amount of power we had to be able to do what we needed to get Iran to do, what they needed to do. And we ultimately had to fold very quickly because of Sharia Hameus and the amount of oil that generally goes to there, I believe it's 20 % of all the oil in the world had to effectively. ⁓ It got shut down and when you shut that down you saw I think you touched on it oil went to about $118 a barrel which effectively breaks everything when you think about oil is the derivative of all ⁓ By products that we actually naturally need in some form or fashion when you think about petroleum and so by closing that down they effectively change the dynamic of Okay. Well, what do we do? How do we do that? Just to like, you know being able to continue this if they're able to do that, but here's the crazy part And this kind of ties into the Bitcoin asymmetry in money and ⁓ AI asymmetries around intelligence of warfare. This has been talked about a lot from asymmetry around drones and the amount of costs to produce traditional missiles and how drones can effectively counteract that. And so you have the US Navy, that's the largest, you know, by 50 to 100 times in spend versus whatever Iran is able to do. And they're able to effectively shut down the share of your moves with either water drones or missiles. on land and I don't think that's fully appreciated or understood how that changes like geopolitics and where we have like power dynamics. The last thing to talk about or reference ⁓ is you take all of that and there's that dynamic happening and that's just changing where everyone's thinking about their livelihoods, their jobs and AI and then you have to look at now geopolitics and do we have the same posture? And then you go and look at money. And I know we want to talk about, A, how Bitcoin's performed, but then also capital that's been stuck in ⁓ that area of the world where historically you have this level of capital you're holding and you know you can move it. You know at a moment's notice, counterparty risk isn't the biggest deal where I think that's part of where we've seen Bitcoin look like a risk off assets. And since the war started, it's actually increased in price is I think that there's a lot of components of real capital needing to out of that area of the world and that's really where Bitcoin shines and that's something that most people don't appreciate. Brian Cubellis (07:36) Yeah, you pulled out a few things in there which I think are super interesting. One is just like you're right in that we really don't know what's going on. Also in the sense of everything that you see on social media, would say 50 to 75 percent of it is like AI generated. So like a lot of the videos coming out of the war, it's very hard to actually discern what's going on. The other component is like the administration itself is sort of doing some amount of misdirection, right? Like when oil spiked earlier this week to 120, Trump literally came out in the beginning of the day and said like the war is over, we've accomplished what we needed to. Oil comes back down, markets close, and he's like actually we're just getting started here, have more to do, this is going to be a long drawn out thing. It's like so we're just going to like say what we need to say to get oil back down for 24 hours. So like there's a lot of chaos, it's very hard to discern what's going on. I guess where I come from on it is like well what do we know? We do know that this war effort ⁓ I'm going to call it a war. They're going to call it an operation a conflict. We're at war. ⁓ It's costing us at least a billion dollars a day. Roughly those are estimates from the Pentagon. So call it 365 annualized billion a year. ⁓ That's about half of the existing defense budget, which is pretty startling. And so it just comes back to thinking through, we can't afford this war. We can't even afford the interest on our existing existing debt and now we're spending a billion dollars a day on this conflict or this war or whatever you want to call it. To me it really just does speak to the notion of a money that can't be printed out of thin air and I think you we talked you alluded to a little bit Michael that you know since this conflict started call it February 28th bitcoin is actually up about 7 % whereas I'll pull up a chart right now but most other assets are flat or down. And I think this actually means a few things to me. One is, I think there is... appetite for a decentralized ⁓ form of money borderless that can be moved. You mentioned there's gold that's stuck in the region right now. It's very difficult to move it. It's costly to move. It's heavy. It's physical, et cetera. You can move Bitcoin much more easily. So think, one, there's a recognition there. But more importantly, I would say this is kind of an indication that sellers are exhausted. And maybe we have sort of bottomed. And maybe that low $60k range was a bottom. because typically with this amount of chaos and uncertainty, you would expect Bitcoin to plunge even further, sort of alongside some of these other assets. And it really hasn't, it's actually gone the other direction. to me, it's more of an indication, less about like, people now understand why Bitcoin's ⁓ super necessary. I think it's more ⁓ to me an indication that there's not a lot of sellers left to sell around these levels. And so I think we might just start a grind up higher here as both of those things converge. just sort of ⁓ more technically where we are in terms of the price and sell pressure, but also ⁓ broadening education in this super uncertain time, ⁓ the value prop of Bitcoin becomes clearer and clearer. Jackson Mikalic (10:59) Yeah, I mean I like a lot of the things that both of you said and I think it ties into something that Michael shared I think earlier this week, but Brian what you're describing is Bitcoin is Superior in many ways to many other asset classes, but particularly in times of conflict uncertainty It is very easy to get capital into Bitcoin ⁓ and it's easy to get capital out of Bitcoin if you need to and so Michael I think you had a point about ⁓ Gold specifically in Dubai. There's a lot of people who have held gold ⁓ vaulted in all places in the world for a number of reasons for risk off sentiment, for risk, uncertainty, geopolitics, whatever war. But then when it actually comes to trying to get liquidity in times of uncertainty, it can be very challenging to do so. So Brian, I think that naturally ties into what you described where maybe Bitcoin is benefiting from this market environment because naturally people are able to get capital in and out very easily. Whereas Michael, you have like those premiums or rather discounts a spot. gold happening in the Middle East because people can't actually get liquidity out of those positions. Michael (12:01) Yeah, 100%. There's a couple key points to call out. One is, heard Luke Groban say he would have expected the price of equity to 55k right now, given what we know. And I think it ties into something that we've talked about, that part of this drawdown maybe was pricing this in already when you think about ⁓ global conflict. I think the other thing that you referenced is the key point that really underpins, because I know there's a lot of listeners that you're either maybe, you know, nominally in two to five, 10 % in BTC and they look at it as potentially risk on, but I think this example is spread throughout all society, all countries that there is counterparty risk that exists and you just don't feel it because for 40, 50 years it hasn't been apparent and it's in this world. of volatility and disruption and we see the layoffs and all these things happening, bond markets, specifically credit funds, ⁓ effectively closing redemptions and having their issues and crack showing that this is only going to increase. And I think this particular incident is a great example because it was reported that Gold via Bloomberg, that Gold was trading at a discount. But more than that, that there was already reports that people were taking caravans through the desert to spend, I think it was like $250,000 plus to fly out of Riyadh. And so that area of the market has understood, we know firsthand that people hold material amounts of BTC, but they also hold other assets, that there probably was some pump because how easy can you take real material assets if you're leaving that area of the world? And that's just like a tech forward kind of ⁓ sector of people that have moved to Dubai. But the other side of it was this tweet that you're referencing. Peter Schiff commented and said tokenized gold was the solution. And I thought that was really interesting to call out because, know, what does Peter Schiff say? I don't even know if it maybe got buried, but ultimately he was basically saying tokenized gold is the version. And this is, I think, really important to call out because I've been playing, not devil's advocate, but calling out why. goal does is a form of money why the liquidity profile and people do own it and should own it But at the end of the day, this really shows the importance of custody and being able to move your assets ⁓ instantly or with low friction. We had Matt O'Dell last week on the broadcast and we came out and he was referencing self custody as a gold standard. And I knew he was gonna, know, he's a good friend, so it was okay, but I called out like, hey, let's take a step back because if you're self custody and you're in Dubai and it's, you know, shit, it's a fan and somebody hits your condo or whatever, are you going back to your condo to get your hardware device? getting out of there, maybe it doesn't go, or whatever the case might be, you flow out because why would you fly with all your money? And so there really is this world to rethink kind of the whole stack. ⁓ And it's not saying anything's perfect, but it just really highlights counterparty risk and you don't want to be caught off sides in how you think about managing your wealth long term. Brian Cubellis (15:00) Yeah, the other thing that that just made me think of and I believe you guys touched on this in the broadcast last week as well, but like the Chamath stuff around, you know, saying Bitcoin isn't private enough, all these things. And I think Matt did a good job of explaining why, you know, there are ways to use Bitcoin privately, whether it's Lightning Network or different techniques. Now, can that be done at scale? I think that's a different question. Like if we're talking about central banks using Bitcoin privately, I think that's a little bit of a different question. But where my mind was going was like, There's just trade-offs right like okay, so bitcoins more transparent. It's an open ledger But you can move it without like Having to move you know billions, you know billions in gold to move is like it's super apparent You're moving that gold right like so there's I guess it's more private, but like it's actually More out in the open in that sense so it becomes more difficult when you actually need to move it so it's just like there are different levels to this thing and Bitcoin transparency and its digital nature is actually a huge benefit in terms of one, the counterparty risk being able to custody yourself, but also being able to move it in a way that you don't need to rely on, you know, massive ships or ⁓ armed guards. ⁓ And so in these times of like serious conflict, like it's such a massive advantage for it to be digital in nature. And I think some of Chumat's comments are just discounting like that element of it where it's like, okay, yeah, it's an open ledger. But if you're comparing it specifically to gold in this context like There's there's trade-offs, but there's also huge advantages here. Does that make sense what I'm trying to Michael (16:40) It does. mean, one thing I want to share. Jackson Mikalic (16:40) you Michael (16:42) and throw out is, ⁓ we will settle ⁓ and honor like billion dollar ⁓ oil tanker shipments, right? And what do I mean by that? Well, since like 21, I've had this notion and idea that in the same way, because if you go back and understand Bitcoin and mining, and it's probably still operated to this day like this, that you just ship money, BTC, wires into China, and then they ship the miners in, and it's effectively, you're just waiting on your hands for the miners to show up. And when you take geopolitical conflict, you take ⁓ coordinating or navigating the seas when we have this level of asymmetry with drone warfare, you're going to naturally, it changes the dynamic on settlement of whatever goods, let's call it oil. And so the idea has always been that you would have multi-sovereign, multi-level custody arrangements where you effectively can have two, three, three or five where you're net settling based on the delivery. of whatever goods and if they're not delivered, you're able to sign those transactions and move them back. And I was thinking about this the other day, I'm gonna get forced to start writing and like this is part of the stuff I was thinking about, like this is an example of. From a geopolitical perspective and money movement, there's no other asset that can do what you just described because if you're trying to send a billion dollars of gold for the billion dollars in oil to make sure your sovereign is whole when it comes to creation and whatever you need to do so they don't riot, well, how are you gonna do it if you have to put on a plane or a helicopter and where drone warfare exists and there's intelligence agencies that know you're moving that amount of capital? The last thing I'll say, if anybody hasn't listened, I've called it out before, probably best podcast at 60 Minutes about like Bitcoin was Maraad Mamadou. It's kind of gone down the crypto route, but it was 2018 with pump and he said something that nobody else has called Bitcoin or geopolitical monetary nuclear weapons Because at the end of the day when you get to this asset being a million dollars and three million dollars and five million dollars and how you're gonna net settle energy production AI chips Whatever else you need. Are you really gonna just like have one entity? You're gonna send all those like physical commodity goods and then trust them to do it You're gonna need people to make sure you're navigate to get where it's where it gets and then the incentives to line to tranche out those payments. Jackson Mikalic (19:46) I mean, yeah, there's a lot there and you know what? I'm going to be the first subscriber to Michael's new substack when that releases. So I'll be there. Michael, don't worry. I'll have your support. But, ⁓ I mean a lot of what you said makes sense. And I'm also mindful of we're trying to keep this. We're trying to keep the ship. We're trying to keep the cargo ship moving in the right direction with this podcast. So one thing I wanted to talk about in the context of, ⁓ all the uncertainty that's happening, like I don't know what the hell is happening. ⁓ Most people don't. think Brian or Michael said that at the start of the show. But what I do know is things are moving exactly as designed with Bitcoin. And what I mean by that is this week Bitcoin's mine supply hits 20 million. I mean, like this is, this is such a stark dichotomy between all the mess that happens in the traditional monetary system versus a system that's just like block, block, block, going right as initially scheduled and released in the white paper 2008 and then 2009 going live. And this at least gives me a little bit more clarity because I don't know what's going to happen with the conflict in the Middle East or the war in the Middle East. And ⁓ Brian, I didn't know that stat about the government spending a billion dollars a day. Like we already know the debt's unsustainable. We already know that this is a total mess. It's like, what is the alternative? And it's nice to see that a good old Bitcoin is just delivering tick tock next block. And I think ⁓ there's a lot, a lot that we could talk about here, but maybe the maybe the most important aspect is that 95 % or so of the total Bitcoin issuance has been mined already. And now we have 1 million more Bitcoin to be issued over next hundred plus years. Like that is, and then you tie into everything that Michael and Brian are talking about where most people still don't understand that Bitcoin's a risk off asset. Most people have 0 % or 0.1 % allocation of Bitcoin and they probably have a bunch of other shit coins and they don't have the difference between the two. And now you only have 5 % of the supply that's going to be dripped out over the next hundred years. I don't know what happens next, but it's at least nice to know that this system is working exactly as designed and there's no one here that can tamper with it. mean, come on, like that's a, that's a pretty good value proposition. Put all the other narratives aside. Like it's just nice that the system works and there's no altering that. And I think that's especially true in today's world where you can open X every single day, you'll get a different feed, a different algorithm, algorithm pushing a different narrative. And you can never know what the hell is actually going on. At least with Bitcoin, you know, what's happening. Michael (22:09) Yeah, I mean, when you put it that way, it really simplifies the whole notion of Bitcoin being a common sense test versus an IQ test, because whether it's the amount of dollars that have to be created or the denominator for all other assets deriving from that, in nominal terms, you're just getting crushed and people don't necessarily know it yet. ⁓ But the AIs and the five-year-old will pick the common sense. I don't know if this was a topic, but this is kind of... Further underpins what you're describing Jackson is smart money understands this. ⁓ According to Glassnode, $42 billion in Bitcoin was accumulated between the 60K and 70K price. That's roughly 600,000 BTC, 8 % of the circulating supply in two weeks switch hands, which is pretty crazy to think about in just two weeks with this drawdown. And so I think that's where to start the year, we're still pretty bullish. for the, where we end this year because I think that the cat's out of the bag in understanding debasement and Bitcoin being a viable solution for everyone that lives on this planet, whether you're sovereign or individual. And it's just a function of time now before the price reflects that. Brian Cubellis (23:16) It's well said. The only other thing on the 20 million I would say is like it seems sort of maybe like mundane or obvious to people that are following Bitcoin closely like okay yeah obviously as expected we're now at 20 million but I do think it's important to call out because it's it's a milestone that is like a it's an opportunity for education in the sense that like most people still don't know there's 21 million Bitcoin they don't understand that there's a programmatic supply issuance schedule so it's it's worth it. for us to call these things out as milestones because it's just ⁓ a moment and opportunity to educate the masses on these things because again most people aren't as tied into this stuff as we are and they don't even understand these concepts and so when you have these nice round numbers to point to ⁓ it's a great opportunity to explain what's actually going on here and why it's important. Jackson Mikalic (24:11) you Michael (24:11) It just made me think, I'm just gonna say it out loud, so ideally it puts a fire. We need like a campaign, like, did you know, like 21 million question mark, or did you know there's only 21 million? Because Brian's point sounds crazy, but when you talk to people in normal land, they generally have no idea that Bitcoin's supply is fixed. And then just that number of the contrast, 20 million's very small when you think about global demand. And then the next million, I think, takes like another 100 plus years. Jackson Mikalic (24:40) Yeah. Michael (24:40) to be issued, which is just crazy to think about. Jackson Mikalic (24:43) Yeah, we're all gonna be like, you got it. Brian Cubellis (24:43) And the, I was just gonna say, like, so you said we're at 95 % now. We get to 99 % within the next, call it like five to eight years, I think. So it's really like that last 1 % that takes the 100 years. So like, we're gonna get most of it within the next few years here, which is crazy. Jackson Mikalic (25:03) Do think we'll be around for the last block would just or the, the last Bitcoin mind would just be like hooked up to the neuro link and like, we'll be hanging out with James camp and you know, we'll be doing who knows what, just, just vibe coding from our brains. Brian Cubellis (25:07) Well if we all, we get, yeah, we're Neuralink, if we're... Right. you Michael (25:15) way things are going, might make it to the 99, just the 99, but we'll see. Jackson Mikalic (25:20) Yeah. Um, well look for listeners of the show, we're going to try out a new segment here, signal or noise. So get a couple of things I want to pull up and we can just go around the horn. Let's riff on a couple of notable things happening, not only in Bitcoin, but also in broader markets economy. And so we'll start with, um, Michael, this one is one that you had brought to the table here. So NASDAQ partners with Kraken and plan for 24 seven tokenized trading. What's your just high level take here? Is it signal? Is it noise? What should be people be paying attention to? Michael (25:52) I think this is extreme signal. think ⁓ at the end of the day, we've been talking about this, probably one of the only on the Bitcoin side talking about stablecoin and then now tokenized assets will be bullish for BTC. It ultimately goes back to these tokenized stocks and I didn't go deep, but they have a certain level of... ⁓ ownership that is reflective of what you would own in a traditional equity brokerage. It's not like when Robinhood was issuing like SPV that was like married ⁓ to the equity, like this is actual equity that can be recognized. Jackson Mikalic (26:25) You're just saying like fractional shares, right? Michael (26:27) Well, not necessarily fractional shares. was like the equity that Robinhood initially did like last year when they did when he looked like the bad guy villain and whatever he was at in Italy was not even sanctioned by the company to be traded there versus like this is actual stock that like the NYSE would recognize because this was a partnership I believe between NYSE, Kraken and then maybe one other broker. But the point being is that regardless of we like it or not what the, as James alluded to, the machine or the subtle hand is going to tokenize everything. Larry Fink has been saying this for years. And so you're going to have the aperture and ⁓ just inertia change in the traditional finance and tech world around stable coins, tokenized equities, and then BTC. And those will all be interoperable. They'll all be able to be swapped. They'll all be able to be taken into your FinTech, NEO Bank, or traditional Morgan Stanley account. And then you'll be able to do things with them. An easy example of it is if you had a million dollars of... ⁓ tokenize equity in SpaceX and you wanted to get some margin to go buy BTC, you will be able to lend against that, you will get stable coins and you will be able to go buy BTC in the same way in reverse, you'll be able to lend against your BTC, you'll be to get your stable coins, you'll able to transfer it into SpaceX and that whole plumbing has never existed before. That's what they're gonna do. They're gonna do it because they naturally have to, again, obviously real versus nominal returns. So when everyone's pumping all this stuff, there's gonna be a bunch of money lost, a bunch of crazy things. It's not right or wrong, it just is and I think This is just an example of what was already coming. It's just kind of made headlines because it was one of the first. Jackson Mikalic (28:03) Yeah, I mean I agree with a lot of what you said it makes sense ⁓ One thing that comes to mind as well though and it ties into maybe some of this private credit stuff We could talk about ⁓ we don't need to jump ahead to that just yet But it comes to mind because essentially what you're describing and Larry Fink has been talking about for a long time ⁓ Which by the way, I'll go on record I'm not a fan of Larry, but like we're just talking about what he said, right? So, ⁓ he's been talking about just democratization, like whatever that means to him. And my interpretation of that just means maybe particularly in the private market context is one to open up the aperture for retail investors who historically have not been able to access markets until companies are public, allow them to invest earlier on. But it begs the question where you see with all the dislocation happening in private credit happening in private equity where Maybe they just want more investors to participate in these markets because they need backholders. Like a lot of the money is made in private markets very early on and then a lot of it's made in like growth equity now and then it delays the IPO. Some IPOs go well, some IPOs don't. But point being is I think ultimately we're just looking for, or not we, but they're looking for more people to participate in these markets that are already held and propped up or the wealth's already owned by older demographics. And they want to kind of loosen the restrictions or rails or ease the point of access to let people who have not historically had those accounts start to tap into those markets. But ⁓ I also think that it just a matter to your point, Michael, it's like, it is more efficient. It does make sense to a degree of where things are headed. Like we're not, we're probably going to live in a world where, ⁓ You know, we can tie into stable coins. There's just going to be a lot that happens there. And the system we already know is incredibly inefficient today will be a little bit less inefficient on stable coins, but it still has all that like nonsense and counterparty risk baked into it. So generally my thoughts there, Brian, I know you may have some, things to share there as well. Brian Cubellis (29:58) Yeah, just on the Kraken stuff, I agree with everything Mike said. I would say... The actual, the larger signal to me related to Kraken last week was them being granted the ⁓ Federal Reserve account, the first digital asset firm ever to be granted that. It's something that's typically ⁓ only given to like actual banks. ⁓ And basically just allows them to reduce some cost and friction ⁓ when dealing with the Fed and basically dealing with a lot of their institutional clients. So I think that that's like pretty wild in the sense that like, think they were embroiled in like an SEC lawsuit not only like two or three years ago. So to go from that to being the first firm to be given a Fed account, ⁓ now sort of these various partnerships that are going to enable the stuff on the tokenized equity side, ⁓ it's interesting to see because it feels like they've, Kraken's kind of out of nowhere been like anointed as like, okay, now we're ready to go here. And we've seen sort of other examples of this, ⁓ It is just wild to think, like... the full 180 from where we were with some of these firms, not even two, three years ago, to now be granted a lot of these types of access. really what this is, is these firms looking more and more like actual banks. And whether it's BitGo and those other firms being granted ⁓ OCC charters a few weeks ago, and now this with Kraken, that's where we're headed. And so I think this is incredibly bullish. As you mentioned, Michael, while it's It's easy to get distracted and be like, this is about stable coins, this is about equities. It's like, no, no, no, this is all bulls for Bitcoin in the sense that it's normalizing these things. It's allowing digital assets to become normalized. And why are you guys laughing at me? This is just really loud. Jackson Mikalic (31:50) Dude, what is this? Michael (31:51) Because it sounds like something's pounding in the background and you didn't go on mute. So one thing I wanted to share with you is I think Jackson picked up on it, but I meant it's signal. Brian Cubellis (31:56) Alright, well that's all I had. Michael (32:04) in the sense of like, this is where the market's going and to pay attention. don't, I think like, I like Brian's take in that he started to put on the tinfoil hat of like, that's interesting cracking in the same way. it's interesting SPF and FTX went up and then down and then everything came in. I do think that there is an overarching meta of crypto and all the craziness from the past 10 to 15 years was effectively the test net for what we're gonna be breaking in here, meaning high velocity, high throughput, high leverage. to Jackson's point, dumping on retail, giving ⁓ global markets exposure to US equities. Which increases the demand there and then ultimately you're gonna see insane amounts of leverage and losses I think the understanding is ultimately that it is really really hard for individuals to change their whole mindset around a 60-40 like that is so entrenched like you know gravity or oxygen that That's why people will adopt these things It's less about even being more efficient because maybe in the private markets tokenized equities are more efficient But we have the most efficient liquid markets already that exist. Maybe they don't trade 24-7, but you can make the case should stocks trade 24-7? I think the real thing that is lacking is just natural first principles thinking about like what is money and what's an investment? And so we're gonna have a lot of pain through what we're talking about that is quote unquote signal where people are gonna lose their shirt and then they're gonna have to realize shit, Bitcoin was money, everything else was an investment, now I should just hold this and then I only invest in things and that'll just like change the whole dynamic. But we're gonna maybe decades before that's realized. Jackson Mikalic (33:35) Yeah, I think it will be decades because at the end of the day, a lot of this is generational. So when you were describing that, Michael, I was thinking, well, yeah, who's actually going to have tokenized equities? It's not going to be my parents, like not going to be their demographic. You know, think about like baby boomers, Gen X, they already know they already use what they know. It's going to be younger generations that are already more akin to or keen on trying these different types of solutions. actually ties into a conversation we had back in ⁓ Miami a couple of weeks ago with our buddy Shaolin and we were just talking, or actually before you got there, we were just talking about all the generational differences. Like I, I always think about how, my grandparents grew up during the great depression and never like after living through 90 % drawdown in the equity markets would never touch equity markets. Like they just owned government bonds. They own CDs. Maybe they had some precious metals, but they didn't have a lot of money. So I don't even know. It's probably just like some bonds here and there and some cash. but they would never touch equity markets, even though my dad was like, Oh, well, you know, maybe like this and that you should invest in equities. They're like, yeah, we're not, we're not going to do that because we saw everyone get wrecked 90 % in the 1920s and thirties, or at least grew up during that time. And so I think for the tokenized stuff, it's going to take a very long time. I know the narratives are in the seeds are being planted, but I can't imagine where most of the wealth sits today is actually going to want to use those solutions. I think it'll be a barbell where you have Probably traders who want access to 24 seven liquidity and markets will use those types of solutions over the traditional stuff. And then it'll be younger demographics that will be using these different types of like digital asset, neo banks and all this nonsense or not nonsense, but like all these different things that are perceived to be nonsense by people who sit in like the 40 to 70 age range currently. Michael (35:19) I will see you. There is incentives that are in the background that I think would subtly tip the scales to be against it and simply because I didn't pay too close attention, but if you saw two or three weeks ago, there was some guidance by the office of the comptroller, the currency that manages the banks around ⁓ the ratio on reserves on tokenized securities. And it's the same angle of like the, ⁓ it's like a cousin of the version of Bitcoin furthering dollar dominance, A, by treasuries and stable coin liquidity, but also that that it's been expected that when banks get in, they're gonna have to have a reserve ratio of somewhere. used to be one to one, meaning you have to have every dollar secured versus for every Bitcoin dollar held in custody. It might be 25 to 50 % of that point being is I think they're gonna do something similar around that so you'll naturally have people go into there to create more of a financialized economy. So it's just something to keep on your radar. I think that there will be incentives at play to get people to participate there. Jackson Mikalic (36:18) player game. There's always incentives to play the game. Brian, let's talk about private credit. So I'm going to pull this tweet up here real quick. Cooked. It's so funny because I remember when I was at Stiefel and Brian Cubellis (37:35) Cooked. Cooked. Big cooked. Jackson Mikalic (37:41) whatever it was like 2019 to 2021 I think. Everyone loved these types of interval funds. Everyone loved private credit like, oh yeah, you can get awesome yields. It's fairly liquid. You can redeem quarterly, this and that. And now just a couple years later, more than a couple, but handful of years later, you have all these fire sales happening of just illiquid assets. People are at the gates trying to redeem. And it ties into a different type of counterparty risk, like different than what we typically talk. similar and different than what we talk about in the Bitcoin space, but you essentially had investors that were allocated to these types of private credit funds, meaning it's, you know, funds that allocate and do, ⁓ loans that are not traded publicly. And in this case, it's Cliffwater corporate lending fund, which has 33 billion in assets under management. And it's an interval interval fund, meaning investors can only redeem at quarterly windows capped at 5%, but redemptions meaning people who want to get their money out just hit 7%. way higher than the gate of 5 % quarterly. And so now you have these funds, this is not just Cliffwater is happening across the board. You have these funds that are now having to sell illiquid assets and are going to have to take a big haircut just to meet redemptions over time. And they're not even guaranteed. It's going to take a long, cause it is pretty much a self fulfilling prophecy. Cause once you see other investors running for the door, then it kind of incentivizes more of that behavior. So it's a total mess, Brian. I'm curious, ⁓ curious what you thought of this. Brian Cubellis (39:05) you Yeah, a few things. Very similar to you, back when I was at BBH in 2018, 2019, private credit was super, super hot. It became sort of the new alts that everyone was interested in. And so I think naturally with asset classes, there tends to be a little bit of bloat when something gets that hot and there's basically too much capital chasing not that many opportunities. The other big factor with these funds and it's not only isolated to private credit, but also private equity. It's like those, success of those funds. sort of like five to ten years ago was very much a function of like the interest rate environment. So given that interest rates had risen so aggressively ⁓ over the past few years and still remain elevated, you know, relative to the previous decade, that was a huge part of the strategy of these funds that it's finding these companies, whether on the equity side or on the credit side, ⁓ and basically just doing ⁓ financial engineering ⁓ and taking out debt, you know, cutting operations, cutting headcount, those kinds of ⁓ sort of machinations ⁓ to then sell them at a slightly higher valuation. ⁓ So that's kind of out the window. So I think that's part of the story here. ⁓ And then to your point, like it's not isolated to this Cliffwater company. There was a report last week that ⁓ one of BlackRock's funds, I believe, was ⁓ halting withdrawals. And the first one that really was ⁓ one of the initial cracks was a firm called Blue Owl, which was probably two or three weeks ago now. That one was particularly interesting because a lot of the private credit that they had been dealing with was on the ⁓ software side. because software stocks were kind of collapsing alongside a lot of the chaos and volatility, I think that sort of led to ⁓ the Blue Owl situation. But you're starting to see these cracks and to your point, Jackson, there is some amount of self-fulfilling nature here where ⁓ if people read these headlines about a lot of these funds, ⁓ BlackRock included, That's scary and you start to question what you own. You start to question the underlying. You start to question the assumptions of these managers. And that leads to more people wanting to pull out their money because they don't want to be left holding the bag. So you want to get out sooner rather than later. ⁓ So this is definitely an area to continue to watch because it could have real sort of knock on effects and ramifications. Like even just thinking back to 2008, like there were very similar ⁓ sort of parallels to like. ⁓ smaller funds beginning to crack that led to basically a larger cascade of deleveraging. ⁓ So there could be something like that going on here. So definitely something to keep an eye on. Michael (41:49) Yeah, mean, oil at $118 a barrel doesn't help any of that. I think, as well said by Brian, I think the only thing to call out that... This is really where I think we have an interesting edge and opportunity for this pod and Jackson and I are discussing other things to be doing in different mediums around the level of operating a business with AI and understanding the level of deflation that's coming firsthand. Because I don't think people like being practitioners in that field because there's an angle of, okay, sound money, Bitcoin, counterparty risk is one thing, but then when you're day-to-day operating and you're leveraging these tools and you see firsthand what's happening from software, in these other sectors of the market. Like imagine if we sat there in a private credit fund and we're allocating to whatever industry or sector you knew, and you know inflation's running rampant, you know people are getting squeezed from their pocketbooks, doesn't matter where they're at, and spend, and then you also understand ⁓ the risks that are associated with the execution there, how would you be able to fulfill a mandate to make sure you're returning that capital? You wouldn't, and that's just gonna start to become more more apparent. And it goes back to those air pockets. Like they're just everywhere. And it's kind of an interesting dynamic of the self-fulfilling prophecy in the sense that once people start to smell that, like they're going to have to juice the system or they're just going to have a run. Blackstone last week also came out I think that a pay of their own bet off their own balance sheet like 500 million to meet Redemption's and then there was some of the other automotive ⁓ Like mishaps that happened late last year where there was just a bunch of firms that were insolvent Once they started to look into the financials, so I think we'll see more of this. This is just getting started Jackson Mikalic (43:30) Yeah, I mean, it's really not that complicated from a from an inflation versus deflation perspective, but I think what we're it's not complicated, but it's very misunderstood or not well understood. And what I mean by that is, Michael, you're totally right that so much of portfolio allocation is going to need to be re underwritten in the coming years and decades. but I think most people don't even know where to start because they've never really questioned any of the assumptions that they were taught. And that's incredibly problematic. And I actually just, it's, I had this conversation yesterday. I won't name the firm, but very large private wealth management company based out of Manhattan talked with someone on their investment strategy team. And they're, you know, they're in a position where they're recommending less fixed income to their clients, but we still had a conversation about, the entitlements and he was talking about how entitlements coming due really within the next decade. And he was talking about like, well, you know, Trump's not going to do this. Trump's not going to do that. And I told him, I was like, what do you think, what do you think ends up happening in the next decade? Realistically, when people come knocking at the gate and they were told that they were owed some amount of money as part of whatever entitlement program, do you think that the government's not going to pay it or do they just print the money? And so I don't know. I really don't know why it's that complicated because there's just countless lessons over history in the past hundreds and thousands of years where the money just is created and people are made whole nominally. And I actually don't know. I don't know if people actually appreciate real versus nominal returns until that moment happens. Like as much as we talk about it, I think most people will just look at the house going to a million dollars and they will never kind of think critically about, okay, well house went to million dollars, but Everything else that I need to buy on an annual basis is also going up like 10-20%. So it's like I'm not actually getting wealthier, but I don't think people realize that until shit really hits the fan. Michael (45:29) Yeah, I mean, think the only other thing to add to that is like this was all forecasted and easily seen when they rose when interest rates rose because I always like a lot of these things end up ephemeral or they seem so large when you hear billions of dollars and Redemption's gates and all of it. But I always just go back to like think about a restaurant taking out a loan when interest rates are one two percent and you have employment at a different level, you have consumer spending at a different level. Another example or corollary is Airbnbs and the of people underwater now from like 2020, 2021 that are just all vacant and real estate prices. So you have a restaurant, you take out the loan, you have expected goods, ⁓ cost inputs that you're charging and then... year over year as inflation runs and as those costs increase, ⁓ so they're increasing on like how you can make the good or service the food, but then also on the other side of that people are feeling it because they're getting hit in real terms so they can't actually go out as much. And so that loan on the restaurant that you underwrote to be able to be paid back is effectively insolvent because they go out of business and then they just have the debt that's outstanding. Like that's a micro example, but that plays out across every sector, every economy, every individual. Credit cards are an example. ⁓ Credit loans consumer vehicle loans like this always was the case as you like Whipsaw interest rates from one to five percent that everyone was gonna get squeezed and things are gonna break So this was easily like forecasted. I mean we knew the probably thing we didn't forecast is Bitcoin sitting at $70,000. Well, this was all happening Yeah Jackson Mikalic (47:01) And me sitting in my grandmother's attic at 70k. Didn't expect that one. ⁓ Michael (47:06) Brian's in the kitchen, that's how bad things are. He's in a kitchen in a bodega. They were nice enough to let him piggyback on the wifi. So we have to like count our... Brian Cubellis (47:14) Great Wi-Fi, great Wi-Fi at the local bodega. Jackson Mikalic (47:18) Alright, so let's do one more ⁓ in this segment, signal or noise. I guess we didn't even say if it's signal or noise. We're still learning. We're still learning, people. I'm gonna say the first one's noise and the second one is signal. ⁓ But the next one I wanna call out, and this actually got a lot of attention from a number of different people in the space is, let me make sure I'm pulling this up, is... Michael (47:26) I think we all think it's Signal. Yeah, it's all Signal. Jackson Mikalic (47:44) This new crypto audit form. So I have a couple thoughts here. I'm sure you guys have a ton. there's a lot of different directions we can go in here, but the general gist, let me make this a bit bigger. This is from a Marty and his team at TFTC. They're doing a great job by the way. They're on all the news. So great job to the TFTC team. But for those who are not paying attention, it says the IRS just created a new crypto audit form designed to design to make you incriminate yourself. They're sending you a new historical digital asset form that lists a hundred plus exchanges and self custody wallets, Coinbase, Binance, Kraken, FTX, blah, blah, blah, all these different ones and demands you check yes or no for every single one, then sign it under the penalty of perjury, not a tax form. They just want you to know, this is, I guess that's AI slop. That's okay. ⁓ but then talks about just like you pretty much need to comply or you could be potentially and you need to tell the truth or you could be charged potentially with perjury. And there's a lot of outrage. over this rightly so. mean this is incredibly invasive. It's ⁓ very problematic. I think what a lot of people are missing though is people are talking about how this is just going to become a honeypot. But what I think people are not already appreciating, that was Pierre's take as well, is ⁓ this is the information that French tax authorities sold to violent foreign criminal gangs causing a wave of kidnapping and torture of Bitcoiners. So I think what people are kind of coalescing around is the fact that This is incredibly problematic for a number of reasons, but I think what a lot of people don't already appreciate is a lot of this information is already out there. It's just not held yet ⁓ in one centralized honeypot by the government agency, the IRS. But think about anyone who's been in Bitcoin three, five, 10 years, used a number of different platforms, more than likely your information has been leaked at least once, maybe twice, maybe three times by a number of different providers. I know I've had personal information leaked and ⁓ not only that, when we talk about all the technology ramping up ⁓ on the AI side, it's just going to become increasingly easy, and Michael has been talking about this for at least a couple of years, to piece together the puzzle and directionally discern how much Bitcoin people own. And so what I would like to say is for people who are concerned about this, rightly so, the information's already out there, and this is structurally why... new solutions need to be brought to market to address this because you can imagine a scenario where it only gets worse. There's only more information leak. There's only more incentive for violence and people know where you live and how much Bitcoin you own. And let's say maybe one day the Bitcoin price is much higher than it is today. And so even still we're seeing stuff like this happen where armed attackers force French couple to transfer 1 million in Bitcoin during home invasion. This was just from yesterday. This stuff is happening a lot, albeit it seems to be reported more outside of the US than in the US currently, but this is a problem that will scale ⁓ quite considerably with time. So there's a lot we could talk about, but it's certainly something that is worth calling out and needs attention. Michael (50:45) Yeah, I mean, this is the signal versus noise section, but I Jackson wants to call it the humiliation ritual section because that's all I can think of when, you know, he alluded to. mean, the reality is we know, you know, the government prints money out of thin air and they don't necessarily, the use of our taxes ⁓ go to, you know, the worst things imaginable at best. At worst, we don't even know. ⁓ But yeah, I mean, it's the reality of like, there's the point I won't belabor around. just being ready for everyone to know everyone's balance and then how you want to live in that world. It's the other side of the coin of being stuck in whatever may happen in your local area. The thing I'm always thinking about here is like fires, like fires can happen. They happen around and it's like, well, what do you do? It's like, you don't want to be knocked out of the game in your financial life. ⁓ But there's the other side to it. That is you just got to figure out how to you know, not go to jail, right? Like you don't want to be perjuring yourself. You don't want to be lying to the government. It's the world we live in. ⁓ So it's something you have to manage and think about. And so if you're forced to do that to Jackson's, I think main point is you want to just be cognizant that that information will ultimately end up out there. It's not a matter of if it's just when and then how you're prepared for that because you don't want you or your family to be at risk. Brian Cubellis (52:01) Yeah, I don't have a ton of thoughts to be totally honest. Payor taxes. think, correct me if I'm wrong, Jackson, but I think this form is only being sent to people that are like actively being audited. Because, and so that's why it's historical in some sense, because they're doing a look back, because you're being audited for some various year. Is that correct or incorrect? It's not like this is going out to everyone this year. Jackson Mikalic (52:24) Yeah, my impression it's not going out to everyone, but I haven't been able to discern who is receiving it. ⁓ But it says it's coming alongside form 1099 DA, which is the digital asset 1099, which means the exchanges are reporting to the IRS, blah, blah. But yeah, it's not, I don't think it's widely distributed. mean, I haven't, I mean, I haven't received one. ⁓ So I don't know who exactly is receiving it, but I think the broader point stands where I'm going to put this in the signal bucket because... People should be just thinking about these different things as the years go on, the price goes up. It's gonna get worse before it gets better. And so don't do yourself a disservice. Think about it while it's still relevant and timely and you have time to act on it. So last segment, we ⁓ are going to do what is called the last take. Let's go around the horn and each one of us is going to... Ideally come prepared. I don't know if any of us came prepared this time, but again We're we're flying or learning how to fly the plane in real time here So we're each gonna give one take and we can all just react to it in real time and Just really really light really fun casual stuff here. And so Michael I'm gonna throw it over to you because you seem to have something something ⁓ some of the wheels are spinning up in that brain of yours I can tell so what's What's your last take of the day here? Michael (53:50) ⁓ I think there was something that stuck out about ⁓ I think it was Eric Prince from Blackwater reference like drone warfare similar to ⁓ stirrups for the for saddle like to be on a horse and what it meant for ⁓ like warfare and just conquering an asymmetry of violence. And I think that in this new world we're heading to, there's the notion of everything ties back to money. There's that idea of every war is a banker's war. And so there's capital to be made. There's energy production that's at the highest level needed now. People are recognizing it because of AI and just everything else, ⁓ know, the derivative we talked about with oil. But then there's this like notion that everything will kind of remain the same and things don't change and things are drastically changing. The money's changing, it's going digital. Intelligence is changing. We know artificial intelligence and people paying attention there. But then I think the geopolitical world and the power that has been kind of ⁓ Expelled or kind of like just impressed upon the world is changing as well where we don't necessarily have the leg up that we thought we did and I think that all of that combined I don't have really have an answer. It's just more something to be aware of and then prepare accordingly because It's going to just be an insane rest of the year Let alone rest of the decade and I don't think people are really just prepared for that across how they think about their livelihoods their jobs or financial order or even how they custody their Bitcoin Jackson Mikalic (55:17) Yeah, you cut out at the end there, at least you did for me. But what I discerned is pretty much, my main takeaway is in the United States, we've been living in a situation of complacency where we've just kind of assumed that we're the best. We're ahead of everyone else. And I remember this definitely going back to Dubai in 2024 and just being in the GCC and seeing the attitudes of the people that live there and they were just totally different. mean, it seemed like to me there was an attitude of wanting to pursue excellence, of being competitive. And then I came back to Philadelphia and everyone just like fat and they're slow and they, ⁓ you know, don't have any motivation. And that's incredibly problematic for a number of reasons. And I think just outside of the individuals, the state itself has gotten incredibly complete complacent. We've been the center of the financial system for a long time, which de facto means that we're the center of just about everything. And I think that complacency What do they say? The chickens come home to roost at some point. And so we're probably seeing the very early stages of that. I don't know exactly what it means, but yeah, you don't want to be complacent. just, especially now, I mean, there's a number of reasons why you wouldn't do that, but it's certainly not good to have a complacency attitude for the country as a whole. Michael (56:29) I have an actual anecdote in my bag. Jackson Mikalic (56:33) Yeah, you are. Michael (56:33) I have an anecdote on that. won't dock to where, this is a publicly traded company. The person was at an all hands about AI and in their chat, they were referencing Blocks Layoffs because it's a company tied into a similar sector. And I don't know who the person was because I just got a screenshot, but you can imagine this person was like a Stanford MBA or whatever Ivy League school. And his claim was Blocks Layoffs are because of their Bitcoin allocation and Bitcoin. hit. That was their angle. like companies are telling everyone the opposite of what you're saying. It's like, it's fine, don't worry about it. In reality, they're getting everything in place so they can mass lay off people. That's what's happening, that's what's coming. ⁓ I think that is just what you said complacently just stuck out because I wanted to bring it up, but also because that's really where the world is, is that people are telling them nothing's happening, it's staying the same. In reality, it's going to hit people over the head. Brian Cubellis (57:30) That's hilarious. It kind of ties to what I wanted to say in the sense that, Jackson, if you could pull up that... ⁓ Jackson Mikalic (57:30) Yeah. Brian Cubellis (57:37) Daniel Batten tweet and I'll make the link make sense. like basically my take, my last take is like think for yourself. Think critically, think from first principles because so Daniel Batten who has done a great job educating the masses on Bitcoin's environmental impact. He had this tweet here that's if you scroll down to the chart that he's showing here, it's basically there was this one report in 2018 from DeVry. Jackson Mikalic (57:39) Yeah. Brian Cubellis (58:07) as ⁓ some author that wrote some paper about ⁓ Bitcoin's environmental impact. And it was totally wrong. Like it was just factually incorrect. But then you can see based on this chart, like how much that just was pervasive. Like that piece of incorrect misinformation was then cited hundreds of times from 2018, still up until today it gets cited. Now he mentions here that it's being cited much less over the past couple of years, ⁓ mainly because there's been sort of ⁓ counterfactual academic papers put out that specifically debunk this one paper. So my point is like, it kind goes back to the beginning of discussion around just general misinformation on the internet. It's very hard to discern what's real or what's not. And that's why it is so important to think for yourself, particularly in this world where it's like, yeah, you just ask Claude. It's like, well, yes, to get a sense for things, but like you still need to do some ⁓ second and third order research yourself and critically think from first principles because ⁓ stuff like this can be pervading. and get cited as fact even when it's not. ⁓ And so it takes a while for that to sort of like churn out of the system in some sense. And I think that's a great case study of it. ⁓ So it can be combated, ⁓ but sometimes it takes a long time. So it's just a reminder to think for yourself, critically. Jackson Mikalic (59:28) Yeah, it's so true. It's incredibly important because it's so easy to outsource your thinking these days, Brian. You mentioned Claude. mean, part of me just wanted to take the transcript of what you just said and give it to Claude and say like, should I, should I trust this guy? Like should I actually not outsource my thinking and see what Claude says? But yeah, it's, it's a, it's actually remarkable. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw that thing that you just pulled up, the fact that that was just one piece back in 2018 and then thousands, probably tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of different journalism pieces have been published since then on just nonsense. mean, that's, and in the context of LLMs, I mean, that is also concerning. just like, that could be, that data could be easily junked up as well. And then we're relying on that for all sorts of things related personally, business, et cetera. Michael (1:00:15) Can I just throw the last one on? ⁓ to, no, this is a spicy one. I'm gonna start to hold myself accountable by announcing it and then you guys make me write it. We've been talking about stretching that ass. ⁓ Because about stretch, look, he finally did it. ⁓ So this is like, whoever's listening, Lord, say, Jackson Mikalic (1:00:18) How many last takes do you have, man? Dude, I was gonna pull, I was gonna pull off this stuff for mine. Michael (1:00:41) Lord and Savior, I didn't even realize it was audio with it, makes it even better. But what I need to do is put a piece effectively breaking down the 11 % nominal versus real, the counterparty risk associated versus, and then not understanding that versus just buying the BTC and then if you want... Some counter-party risk in your dollars just by the bonds and how that will outperform so like that's another one But anyway, I just wanted to call who's been joking around like stretch that ass is just a funny thing because that's effectively what's gonna happen at a certain point or happen in a real time these why don't you just go by the Bitcoin and then ⁓ park less of it in Bitcoin if you don't want to manage volatility and reduce the counterparty risk. But then he like now slot posted yoga pants in a high rise. ⁓ It's really just, ⁓ and now people are calling it out. I think it's going to start to become the cool thing of like how much Bitcoin is too much or whatever. anyway, expect to see more of that. Jackson Mikalic (1:01:27) you Yeah, no, it's funny. I don't need to pull I'm not gonna play it but I had a another sailor slot video ready to go for my last take and I was just gonna say This is definitely not good for Bitcoin. I don't know what happens next, but this is it can't be good I know some people don't want to hear that but I Don't like what I'm seeing but that's okay. I'm gonna stay on the sidelines I have a little bit of MSTR which I'm definitely underwater on haven't opened that account in a while, but Michael (1:01:54) Okay. Jackson Mikalic (1:02:01) Definitely under water on a small position there. And ⁓ yeah, this is strange, strange behavior. Michael (1:02:07) The thing is it's going to It's going to become more and more apparent people are already calling out of like oh This is an issue of the amount of Bitcoin, you know being purchased So anyway, I'll have more yeah, but go ahead Brian Cubellis (1:02:21) Yeah. No, I mean, I don't have a ton to add. would say I would I would differentiate like I actually don't think the amount of Bitcoin is the problem. I think it's like the perception and how absurd and ridiculous these posts look like it just makes the whole idea of Bitcoin seem so unserious. It's like, the biggest buyer of Bitcoin is like just posting this AI slob. Like it's it's a very bad look. It's particularly given like, yeah, they're marketing this stuff to institutions like just have some self-awareness on this ⁓ So it's Michael (1:02:53) mean, imagine if you're a sovereign. But imagine if you're a sovereign looking to allocate and they're holding X amount of BTC. I did think there was a tweet, oh, by our good friend SF Hottle, who's I know listening, so he'll appreciate the shout out. I don't know if you saw it that said, I think Sailor will get to one Nakamoto before Nakamoto gets a strategy. I thought that was tier one ship hosting. Brian Cubellis (1:02:53) it's unfortunate to see. Yeah, mean same, yeah, same deal. crazy. That was good. That was good. Michael (1:03:19) Dad at your own peril. Jackson Mikalic (1:03:24) And with that we will conclude the last trade. Please like and subscribe to the channel. Let us know what we can do better. Let us know if you like the new format here, any other ideas and segments and leave a comment. Really appreciate it. especially if you ridicule Michael, I always, I always get a laugh out of those. Like you hear in there, people are like, they, they just have to pick a fight with you for whatever reason. Maybe they want to, they want to stretch that ass man. Michael (1:03:50) Or comment. Comment. Comment. ⁓ If you're underwater at a DAT and then Jackson's offered ⁓ to send a certain number of Sats to a wallet ⁓ underneath. you put the, if you comment that you're underwater and you put an address, maybe Bitcoin will end up in your wallet. I can promise some Bitcoin will end up in some people's wallets. Jackson Mikalic (1:04:10) Wow, he can promise you that. All right, gentlemen, thank you. Brian Cubellis (1:04:13) Thanks Michael (1:04:14) Good stuff. Brian Cubellis (1:04:14) boys.