The Last Trade E064: Future-Proofing Multi-Asset Portfolios with Jeroen Blokland

Jeroen (00:03.903) dog is dead. Jackson Mikalic (00:04.143) that. right. All right, everyone. Welcome back to The Last Trade. Today we're joined by Yaron Blockland and of course my co -hosts Michael Tanguma and Jesse Myers. How is everyone doing today? Michael (00:17.416) Doing great. Jesse Myers (Croesus) (00:18.413) doing great. Jeroen (00:18.582) Bye. Jackson Mikalic (00:20.017) You're in great, great to meet you. We're just catching up a little bit before we hit record, but really excited to have you join today. I know we've just got recently connected, but was able to do some homework leading up to this podcast. And really there's a lot of synergies and alignment between how you seem to approach the global investment landscape and specifically sound money assets or scarce assets such as Bitcoin and what we focus on here at OnRamp. So I think it'll be a great conversation. You have 20 plus years. of investing and portfolio construction experience, multi -asset investor managing multi -billion dollar portfolios. Now you're the founder and manager of BlockLend Smart Multi -Asset Fund, which invests a combination of scarce assets such as Bitcoin, gold, and quality stocks. So maybe you could just start by walking us through the past 20 years or so. I'm sure there's plenty we could talk about there, but if you wanna just give us an overview of the career path that you've taken. and some of the notable work that you've done and where you find yourself today. I think that would be an excellent place for us to start. Jeroen (01:26.422) Yeah, okay. Well, first of all, thanks for having me. I agree that there are definitely synergies in what we do and bridging a gap. I feel right in the middle of the traditional and old investment world. My background is from the traditional investment world. So I worked for over 15 years with the biggest independent asset manager in the Netherlands. And that my latest role before I left was the head of multi asset. solutions. So my team was in charge for all non -pension related multi -asset funds for retail and institutional clients. This is basically my key career path in the sense that I've always been involved with multi -asset portfolios and I have seen so many other asset managers, portfolio managers falling in love with their own asset class. Well, the thing with multi -asset investing is there's always some asset class to like and also to dislike so you don't have to fall in love. But I guess I like a couple of them better than others, but we will talk about that a little bit later. A couple of years ago, I always had the urge to start my own company. I have friends who have done that. I find it intriguing. It's another idea of realizing something from the scratch. So I started a research company. which was fine. I think that's the best word to describe it, which was fine. The most important thing that was lagging was I did not have a solution ready for my clients and people that I spoke to. So a lot of people like reading research, but in the end the question is, can you not do it for me because you have this experience in the asset management industry. After two and half years, I told my wife I'm going to spend a lot more money even though I had not had a salary for a couple of years and she was okay. We have two small kids, right? But then I decided to launch my own fund and the reason to do it by myself. First of all, an ex -colleague of mine has done the same thing. Totally different fund by the way, but I could look at his path, how difficult or not difficult that was. And the other thing is that Jeroen (03:47.89) And when you do this from scratch, you keep maximum flexibility. So when you start a fund that invests in the three asset classes, quality stocks, physical gold and Bitcoin, that is literally in between nothing. So it is a bit of a, well, not a gamble, but you don't know if that will attract investors from either side, because on both sides, they have difficulties aligning the different asset classes. But yeah, that turned out great. must, I could tell my wife after four months, this is it. This is going, this will make it. And yeah, that is where we are now. So this is the, we now go in the ninth month. We attract quite a few assets and yeah, we have all kinds of idea how to expand it. But yeah, I think I will be doing this for quite some time now. So I'm back, portfolio manager still very... active on social media, trying to connect these worlds and yeah, that's the main game. Michael (04:51.699) That's such a story and I can see how maybe in hindsight it looks obvious, yeah, people would love Bitcoin, but to your point, you're pulling on almost two extremes. Like you have equities, are exposure to an underlying value that's physical and tangible, then you have this digital asset that nobody recognizes. And so it's like, well, is somebody gonna be interested? But the other side of it is, well, maybe there's a lot of interest because maybe somebody doesn't want concentrated exposure. to BTC but a little sprinkle on top is very interesting. Curious like how you came up with Bitcoin as the second, know, gold and equities make sense but how did your journey to Bitcoin come about and how did you figure out how to size that? Jeroen (05:36.841) Yeah, yeah. Excellent question and one of the most asked questions, of course. So maybe also in that whole career path in 2021, I wrote a piece for my company about Bitcoin. Is this an asset class? So I went to all the standard characteristics, risk, return, diversification, size, liquidity. And that went up to the board if we could publish this, because yes, you know, traditional asset managers are not that keen on exposing themselves. But yeah, the idea was if we do not say something about it, don't have to invest in it immediately, but we have to say something about it. Myself, I invested for the first time, I bought Bitcoin for the first time in 2013. A lot of people are surprised when I say this. And obviously that was not because I think that Bitcoin would become so large or... such a big movement. This was mainly if my one of my principle, so to say, is if you are going to speak about something or say something or research something, you have to to experience this. So all of these stories with the potential of losing your computer with the codes, all of these wallets that did not work anymore with the updates, all of these things I went through. It was not until I think 2019 ish that I saw some of the potential that I see now. So, and then back to your question, why add Bitcoin to the mix? The whole idea of course of my fund is scarcity. But also I'm very realistic that we live in a digital world. Our debt is digital, our money is digital. We want to have everything digital. Why not a digital kind of gold or store of value or something that potentially and I hope we can talk about that a little bit more rebalance let's say the financial market and because this is also I'm in between those worlds I don't think we need a doom and gloom scenario by definition to make these assets gold and Bitcoin great so so I'm very much of the idea that there can be a market driven gold standard or Bitcoin and gold standard Jeroen (08:03.868) as long as these asset classes rise in their value relative to the digital debt and currencies, then for every dollar in debt, there is more store of value behind it. And that was basically the idea of the gold standard. The only thing, of course, and that brings me to the portfolio, you have to participate. If you sit back and wait for others to do it, central banks to do it, for Bitcoin Maxis to do it, for Gold Box to do it, then you do not participate in this whole rebalancing, great rebalancing thing, right? So that is my idea. I like gold and Bitcoin. like gold because it has 5 ,000 years of track record being a store value, being a safe haven. I like Bitcoin because of the technology, the fact that it is built to be scarce and that it fills the gap that gold cannot in the digital space, but it has a track record of 15 years, to be honest. And also it has quite a some policymakers, central bankers that will be against it, right? That we have to be very clear. think gold is much more liked by central banks. Take the central bank of Poland. They are buying gold like there was no tomorrow, right? So you have to, so for me, these three are very sound and maybe then one remark on the quality stocks, because everybody understands stocks, but why quality stocks? Well, quality stocks as the name already suggests, these are companies that are special. So there are two scarce elements to quality stocks. First, there are there's a lot of buybacks. So that means that equity capital relative to debt is becoming increasingly scarce. So if you look at all the budget deficits and so on. And second is that a quality company can do something that other companies can't. They have low debt levels and they have reasonably stable earnings. And in my case, that means if you have the MSI world, you throw 80 % of that MSI world, the number of stocks you throw away and you keep the top 20%. And that also means that you have a very specific subset of equities, which I then call scars. Jackson Mikalic (10:21.841) Really appreciate that background and fascinating to hear that you were first in Bitcoin in 2013 just to have some skin in the game and to be able to actually experience digital scarcity and start to understand things, right? And go through, you mentioned some of the challenges in terms of self custody. There's certainly a lot we'll talk about there later in the conversation. And also appreciate the overview of just in terms of your portfolio management process and construction, thinking about quality stocks, precious metals such as gold. Jeroen (10:28.714) Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jeroen (10:37.482) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Jackson Mikalic (10:51.795) and Bitcoin, there's a lot I know we'll want to get into on Bitcoin specifically. I am curious before getting further down the Bitcoin rabbit hole in this conversation, just to hear a little bit about how, you know, those 20 years of investment experience and multi -asset, like you had mentioned, not getting married to an asset class, right? Being able to change your mind and be dynamic and like an asset class in a certain environment and dislike others during that same environment. So maybe could you talk about why you chose to focus specifically Jeroen (11:11.755) Yeah. Jackson Mikalic (11:21.815) on like we talked about it at a high level but specifically on these three asset classes as part of your you know the anchors in your portfolio and why why those three and and what circumstances exist today that maybe didn't exist five or ten years ago that allow for this new type of portfolio construction to benefit investors. Jeroen (11:40.416) Yeah, yeah, yeah. So obvious question. So whenever you think of a philosophy of your investment framework or your investment thesis, it has to be simple, right? Because if you look at the number of multi -asset funds already that are out there, they're gigantic. So for me, the whole idea is basically if you have one asset class that is the core of most portfolios. So most people... to a certain degree invest along the 60 -40 narrative, right? So for some younger people, 70 -30, but they have equities as one of their core holdings and then they have bonds. So that's the 60 -40 ID, of course. Now it's extremely clear, it's objectively clear that one of these core holdings are abundant, so the word that I use is abundant. So if you look at the amount of debt that is in the financial system, then the amount of debt that is added to the financial system, I have this chart of the budget deficit of the US. There's no war, at least not close to the United States. There is no recession and they're running 6 to 7 % budget deficits. This is truly amazing. It never happened. There is this chart that shows The only times we had similar, but even sometimes a little bit smaller budget deficits are during the wars, right? So it is abundantly clear that one of them is abundant. And then you can take the dictionary and you look up what is the opposite of abundant and that is scarce or scarcity. Now, and then that is basically where I start my journey. And then of course you go, you look at the traditional world and the let's say alternative world and you look for the best scarce assets that are out there. Now we already discussed Bitcoin and we do a little bit more. think gold stands on its own. Most people acknowledge the scarcity. Of course, some people then dislike it because it has no cash flow, is fine if you believe that, but it's irrelevant if you think what the purpose of gold. Jeroen (14:03.894) in a financial system is, but okay, whatever you want. And then in the end, there are three assets left. One from the traditional world, two from the alternative world, so to say. Although gold is a little bit in between. So I have one of each side and I cannot think of another one. We can talk about old timers, but suppose I buy an old timer and 10 % of my... clients or 10 % of the assets go out. At what point I cannot sell the steering wheel, I cannot sell the engine. At what point do I sell the whole old timer, right? So the same is with fine wine. It's a nice asset class, but how do you really incorporate it in an investment framework? Now we now have the blockchain art, which is very interesting development. So they buy Andy Warhol. They slice it into blockchain pieces and you can buy and trade that. But that market is so tiny, so illiquid. Right. after doing that, it didn't take that long. It's pretty obvious that you want to have these assets tick a couple of boxes. And for me, quality stocks, physical gold in a vault in Switzerland and Bitcoin came out on top. And so far, I'm very pleased with that, because since we launched the fund, especially when it comes to gold, it's very clear that this is not some central bank, federal reserve pushed rally. This is a development, a trend that fits with, let's have some scarcity in our portfolios because the risk return characteristics of those bonds in my 60 -40 portfolio are not that great anymore. So that is basically, it's, yeah. Which asset survives the, in this case, the Blockland test? They did, yeah. Michael (16:03.425) It's such a fascinating logical progression and pragmatic progression from someone that I think it says a lot about yourself and that you referenced, you had to buy some to be able to speak about it. Because I think that is, I've never been that way. I'll talk about anything and it's like that's a very visceral needing to touch it, which I think is probably a good. know, philosophy to have for almost anything, right? But then the notion that you're referencing... You said something early about the positive nature of where we end up with hard assets providing the seamless transition, right? So this notion of like gold or Bitcoin. think if you know of Leon Woncombe, he writes a lot about this and, know, kind of refinancing or incorporating BTC or potentially gold into debt so you can help in from a structural perspective payback. Jeroen (16:55.712) Yeah. Yeah. Michael (16:57.963) And that, I feel like has manifested either subconsciously or consciously in your portfolio construction because there's this notion that most people will be okay with equities, scarce equities, premium equities, and then gold, and maybe a little bit of Bitcoin, and that's how you can outpace either the debt or what's a proxy is inflation, right? Because year over year, Inflation equities are just barely keeping by if not in real terms lower than inflation Which is ultimately the ultimate goal right is to outpace, you know in real terms the cost of capital or their story to value And what I'm driving towards is like again be curious if this is intentional or not But I can see how as debt increases and inflation increases or purchasing power decreases BTC can add to that portfolio mix as the investors become, it's less risky, they're more inclined, the performance increases, gold also is moving, and you can start to move out of that potential equity position into these other harder currencies like you referenced that can help reprice things. Jeroen (18:00.758) Yeah, so the weights of my portfolio are now such that because I mentioned the 6040 portfolio, what I want to do is give people a better, a future proof so to call it 6040 portfolio. That means, and I think I cannot stress this enough, my starting point as a multi -asset investor was volatility, not the return. The volatility was my starting point. So my volatility in the backtest, of course, you have to do a mandatory backtest. is between 9 and 10 % volatility, which matches the 60 -40 portfolio through time, right? So you are right in the middle. The first eight months, we now have data. The realized volatility of the fund is 8 .8%. So it's spot on. And we all know, also, when you have a little bit of institutional background, that volatilities are much more stable than returns. So my first thing I start to talk to people when I visit them, do you want to invest in my fund? I start to talk about volatility. Most of time they don't fully grasp it, but when I explain it in terms of drawdowns and things like that and where it comes from. And then of course the result is the return. So that is one thing and that indeed means that if this whole, let's say that in my world, central banks and policymakers will try to keep this debt driven growth model for as long as possible for decades if they don't want to. And this is also why this MMT is such popular because it fits the narrative to postpone it because yes, US Treasuries are a nice asset on someone's balance sheet. Yes, if you do not ask the question who wants to hold those Treasuries, if you end there, then it's perfect. say, yeah, it's an asset. It's always an asset. It pays a nice return, which is also not the case, but So whenever the balance shifts to what you call sound money and I call scarce assets, then there is room to the weight of these scarce assets as long as the volatility target is not impacted dramatically. So at this point with volatility of Bitcoin of 70, there's not that much room for adding volatility. in time, Jeroen (20:29.086) Nothing is fixed and indeed I can imagine that the weights of these assets will change over time as my view of the world how we can have this market driven implicit gold Bitcoin scarce asset standard evolves. So they can also be the other way if governments start to clamp down on Bitcoin and crypto really really hard then that process is perhaps delayed so it can accelerate, but it can also be delayed. And this is also nothing is fixed. You have to be realistic about it. And there's also, if you look at the information on the random of my fund, it says that the strategic weights can change over time, but I will communicate about that, why that is and things like that. So yes, I agree that some of these assets could larger. I must say that with my 10 % direct Bitcoin exposure, this for traditional investors, this is crazy, but also 25 % in physical gold is also pretty large. So I'm but I have this gap of 40%. Let's say to fill out that old 6040. And that is the whole ID. And now you see that mainstream media financial media, there was this the most, most written financial newspaper in the Netherlands, they they did an article that gold has realized an all -time high 20 times already this year, right? This is something you hardly ever see. You see, what is it? The state pension funds of Michigan, revealing a small but Bitcoin ETF exposure. So my thesis is every day, a sound investor, not a speculator will wake up, look at the data, look at what is going on and says, yeah, maybe a little bit less of those 40 % bonds. Give me 5 % gold, give me 1 % Bitcoin, I don't know. And every time the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, I actually save it so that I can count it basically. Every day there will be some kind of investor walk. And to come back to your question, at some point this likely will involve a reallocation of these scarce assets versus quality stocks. But I don't know how that will... Jeroen (22:51.968) pan out, yeah, that's definitely possible. Jackson Mikalic (22:56.315) Yeah, one thing that... Go ahead, Jesse. Jesse Myers (Croesus) (22:59.477) I was just going to follow up on, it's very interesting having volatility be kind of. one of the two parameters, obviously you're looking for returns, you're trying to maintain volatility around the 60 -40 classic portfolio. And does that speak to the types of investors that are interested in your fund vehicle? I guess what I'm really wondering is, does your fund product attract people to gold and Bitcoin who otherwise would not be investing in gold and Bitcoin because it's delivering the performance that they're hoping for, but it's also sort of future performance? proofing and providing like a defensive tranche to their portfolio? Or do you find that this is helping people who are interested in gold and Bitcoin get a larger percentage of their overall portfolio allocated to those asset classes because you're balancing this and reigning in the volatility overall for something like Bitcoin? Jeroen (23:58.102) Yeah, both and even broader. So what was a massive eye opener for me that let's say the groups of clients, so to say, are exactly those that you mentioned there. So from the traditional world, what they do, they have a private banker, for example, they have this 60 -40, they have 20 different thematic ETFs in their portfolio. It's really rubbish. And then they say, have nothing in these other assets where so many people are talking about. I see these debt issues, but I don't know what to do with it. I'm going to allocate some of my money to, in this case, me to have some exposure to these assets classes. Right. And of course, whenever I'm in, my goal is to prove to them that this is a much better proposition. So that is one thing. and then, but the other. side of the investment universe is also part of my investor base. And these are the people that have allocated 80 % to crypto and not Bitcoin, but crypto. And they are tired of these crypto winters. They are done with it. They don't want to do that. So what they see actually, even though my volatility is roughly nine, it still can have a drawdown of 20%, right? We have to be very open about that. They see my fund as a really safe alternative to continue having exposure to their assets that they like, but with some kind of, yeah, let's say volatility risk management behind it and they don't have to worry about it. And so I had this Dutch guy who joined me last month. He said, I'm so happy already. I don't feel the urge or need when I wake up to look at the prices, to look at what my portfolio is doing. And so, so. To my surprise as well, the range of people wanting to do this, wanting to invest is pretty broad. And I do think that it helps that I'm from the traditional world having experience as a multi -asset investor, daring to look on the other side of the spectrum, right? So I think it's a combination of that. yeah, so on both ends, I have clients coming in and each with their own reason. Jeroen (26:22.343) to invest and to manage their portfolio and their risk. Michael (26:27.123) I think it's fascinating to talk through because we always, whether it's on this show less, but behind closed doors, there's no shortage of talking about. Traditional portfolios and we laugh at inflation and air down inflation but bonds and real returns and how can people do this? But I also think they probably laugh at us and that a lot of the people in our networks and groups are very over allocated to BTC We've stomach the volatility or kind of sick in that way It's just like deal but that's not realistic for most people especially older individuals and this really dawned on me probably 12 months ago I'm sure you're familiar with Larry Lepard who's a good friend good friend of the show and just referencing gold and where it fits in somebody's portfolio. It's like they cannot, like volatility is effectively just synonymous with like psychology of the individual. And can they, do they feel good about that volatility? Cause you know, we know what Bitcoin volatility return profile is, but at the same time, if somebody made their whole net worth, are they really 65 years old willing to see it draw down 70 % or whatever the number is in their allocation? And between that and then just this notion of the Lindy of gold in 5 ,000 years, it's just like, personally and I think this is a little bit, at least on the Bitcoin side, not common knowledge, but it sounds like, Drew, you follow along with this, that gold and Bitcoin play along for a very long time, if not forever, and that the like mimetic nature of the risk premium, I heard you say on macro voice is about the insurance, that when this inflation persists and grows and debt grows, You said it earlier too, it's like 5 % goes to gold, 1 % goes to BTC. Like the notion that everybody just leaps frogs and goes to BTC while we'd like to is just not a natural instinct for most, which is just very interesting all around because I don't think it gets talked about enough in the Bitcoin side of things. Jeroen (28:14.74) Yeah, so let me add a little bit on that because this is a key notion to talk about or to discuss. going back to the traditional investment world. So suppose you are an institutional investor. So first of all, when you go to your boss and you talk about, let's do Bitcoin only, that is a career risk, right? but also in practice, in practice. I mentioned that in 2021, I did this analysis on Bitcoin as an asset class going to all these things. Now, one of the things that is extremely important and you do not want to burn yourself on while having a new asset class is size and liquidity, size and liquidity. So suppose this institutional investor wakes up. Jesse Myers (Croesus) (28:44.981) you Jeroen (29:10.49) There's this waking up again. He goes to the bull and I think it's great to have these two asset classes in my portfolio. And that portfolio manages a hundred and a billion US dollars, euros, whatever. So if you look at the size of gold, the liquidity of gold, I can tell you, even though no matter what they think, what their beliefs are or where this could go, and that Bitcoin could go much faster in terms of return than gold. a lot of these institutional investors will have to go to gold first because the liquidity is there. So the market cap of gold, this is also something interesting. People continue to talk about the market cap, total market cap of gold being 16 trillion US dollars. It's extremely easy to calculate a real time market calculation. It's 19 trillion US dollars, right? that's 19 times roughly as much as Bitcoin. For going to your compliance manager, your risk manager, I don't know, they will be inclined to go to gold first because it gives them size and liquidity. And I think we should not underestimate that. And that is also why I like both. It's a path. At some point, it could well be that when everybody embraces Bitcoin and the convenience of paying with it is easier than with euros of dollars, but it has to be better, not the same because... Most people will not think about that. If they can spend Bitcoin as easy as euros or dollars, they will continue spending euros and dollars because they don't understand what is going on behind it. It has to be easier. at some point, you meant the word leapfrog, it could well happen. But I think it's a gradual path. go through gold to Bitcoin. So the guy or girl who dare to ask his boss, let's do a little bit out of the bonds, away with the bonds. into gold after a few years, it will say, let's do another one. But now let's take Bitcoin. Let's do 1 % to 2 % Bitcoin. This is what I think will happen. And that is the money or the return is being made on that path to some end point we don't really know. Not the end point. Bitcoin Maxis are totally focused on the end point, which is intrinsically uncertain because it's 20 years from now, 30 years from now. So I cannot forecast that. Jeroen (31:35.731) And so I like the gradual path of having both. yeah, that I think that is where the return is made when you take volatility into account. Michael (31:47.11) Yeah, the incremental steps are the important part. The smartest people have known and know the bookends where we end up, but it's actually how you build and stay alive in between now and then is the important factor. Jeroen (31:56.458) Yes. Michael (31:59.964) The analogy here, it's not apples to apples, but it reminds me of like, it's like going to investment manager and say, we're gonna go into venture all in. It's like, wait, let's start with the equity profile of like an Amazon or whatever, and then we'll go down to venture. It's very similar to like how I could imagine, which you're describing a conversation. Like we're just gonna eight ball into BTC. just, it doesn't make complete sense. Jeroen (32:15.85) Yeah, yeah. No, nobody dares that because there's a clear career risk, right? So this is the traditional world. It's not called traditional for a reason, right? So it will take time. But yeah, I'm also here. So why not all the other ones? So that is the idea. And I wanted to go not slowly, but not too volatile, perhaps that you can expect to a certain extent what will happen. That is much better for your Michael (32:28.426) You Jeroen (32:47.194) risk return profile than going all over the place and calling the end of the financial system every day. Not necessary also in my view, but I don't think that Bitcoin will come out on top at this point because it does not have the track record of being that safe haven. So you don't want to have that. You can believe in it. That's fine. Jackson Mikalic (33:09.605) Yeah, I'm curious as well on that just in terms of institutional adoption of gold because I came from a traditional finance background as well. And I was always amazed by how little exposure traditional allocators had to gold, precious metals or commodities in general. I'm not sure if that was your experience as well, where typically it was a very small sleeve of the portfolio if it was there at all. And how has that changed over the past couple of years? I'd imagine, and I'd love for you to correct me if I'm wrong, but I'd imagine some tailwinds for gold in institutional portfolios would be just heightened geopolitical risk and people seeking a more neutral type of reserve asset in portfolios and then also heightened inflation over the past couple of years looking for ways to preserve purchasing power and not have negative real returns by holding bonds. And then maybe it calls into question some folks are thinking about the US treasuries as really the linchpin of global financial markets and the increase increase in volatility there over the past couple of years. think the move index is much more elevated than it was five years ago, isn't it? So are these like some of the themes that you think are being discussed in institutional investment committees or am I wrong there? Jeroen (34:16.054) So, yeah. Jeroen (34:21.803) Yeah. Yeah, they will have to. So I love this question because did get me. So as a multi -asset investor, you always have the question, what is your strategic asset allocation? Right. That is it. And I don't know if I'm allowed to say that, but that is a cover up job. What you do, you look at historical data. You look at as much historical data if you have. then you say, this is history. These are the risk return. It's not my decision. No, no, no, no, it's the data. This is the data and for a very long time that 6040 portfolio brought you a lot of good data, to say. So you did a mean variance optimization and said, no, this is it. So pretty close to the 6040 some some bond like like high yield bonds you added, even though that is an equity asset class. Just look what happens when the equities go down, right? But this is this is you use data. So a lot of these traditional investors, asset allocators, also they are backward looking. They use the data in, fear is maybe too harsh, the forward looking aspect, that is the sigma. But the interesting part is now, I just did a post on gold versus bonds the other day because of the Dutch newspaper saying that 29. So the last all time high in the Bloomberg global treasury index was when? Have a guess. Jeroen (35:55.51) 2020, 2020, yes, four years ago. Four years ago, there was the last Alton high of this safe asset that is going to give you a return almost everywhere. If you go back 10 years, then you see that the return on the treasury index was 2 .1 % on average annually, right? 2 .1%. This is if you hedged to US dollars, but I'm in Europe. If you hedge to euros, which is a... Michael (35:55.582) 2020. Jeroen (36:24.566) No, let's less attractive currency. Then it was 0 .4 % 0 .4 % and if you did not hedge it was minus 0 .7%. This is without inflation calculated. I can also add you some global inflation for the last 10 years was 5 % and it was more than 6 % over the last four years since that all time high, right? So, so. The longer it takes, you can also create this chart from 1976. Now you can go back to 1976, bonds did not beat gold. So there you go with your data, your robot, your algorithm, your mean variance optimization will screen. Mapp Faber, you know Mapp Faber, he did a very simplistic study showing that the Sharpe ratio of a 60 -40 equities bond. is now pretty much the same as a 60 -40 sharp ratio for 60 -40 equities gold. If you take a more recent period, the sharp ratio of the 60 -40 with gold is higher. if this continues, and I expect it to continue, even without any forward -looking indication, with any boldness in your forecast, the models will scream, If you have two assets that have the same diversification benefits, why not take them both? So that means 20 % gold and 20 % bonds. I don't know, something like that, right? It will be very hard for all of these number crunchers to keep on thinking of saying, we don't have to change anything. So that is one thing. And then of course, maybe then if you include, and I think you already said something, if you include some forward looking, the whole, let's have a market driven gold standard, is that really attractive? One of you said that debt is getting more volatile. The realized volatility of treasuries, also outside. Treasuries are special status. They the preferred or required collateral in the world. Italian bonds, not so much. So the relative volatility of bonds versus equities is spiking. It's not going higher, it's spiking higher. Again, Jeroen (38:44.982) This is not just about returns. This is also about diversification benefits. And this is about volatility. These are the inputs for these mean variance optimizations, right? It's going to spit out an increasing amount of the other asset in this case, gold. You cannot continue believing, and this is on hard data, no forward -looking aspect required. When you do that, when it spits out 4 % gold, you want to do eight, right? That's another thing. even historical data will push traditional asset allocators towards gold. It's stupid not to do that because the data tells you so, apart from the fact that you should not build a whole portfolio around historical data. this is what I do a lot of research on this. How far can we go back to see that gold is not less or even better than bonds in a multi -asset portfolio? Michael (39:44.178) How do you think about, and may not come up, but curious counterparty risk? Because I feel like everything you referenced is completely valid and to add to it, you add the counterparty risk, depending on the underline. This might be an unfair statement, but it's the way I think about either gold or Bitcoin is like, can eat it in the sense that I can take delivery if I wanted to, depending on the construct, and I can transfer it into the market. Somebody individually appreciates it, will take it, will give me a will give me food, will give me anything that I need in the physical world where equities and bonds, depending on what you're invested in, how far you're on the risk curve, they may not actually be transferable for anything that you need in the real world, specifically bonding the counterparty risk with debt. How does that, did that come into your kind of logic, thought, custody, your client base, or is that too far? Because I do know a lot of the things I just said are still maybe taboo in some traditional models or... Jackson Mikalic (40:41.489) Could I just? Could I add to that as well? Just because I've noticed you've explicitly said physical gold a number of times in conversation today. So we're talking about distinguishing between actually having physical gold secured in a vault versus having claims on paper gold. And so really curious to hear your thoughts on Michael's question and then maybe in addition to that, thinking about some of those counterparty risks and institutional investors thinking about allocating the gold, would they? Jeroen (40:48.406) Yes. Jackson Mikalic (41:12.433) actually look into physical gold or would they lean toward paper gold? Jeroen (41:16.918) Yeah, so first why physical gold? So the whole I so let's go back to the gold standard. You had central banks. So again an example from the Netherlands, but they invited I think 20 journalists to come and look because the Dutch Central Bank has quite a lot of gold. They invited journalists to come and watch that gold and then do a little bit of talk and also the the boss of the Dutch National Bank is a very big fan of gold. So you want it to have there. So if you say, I trust my dollar or my euro because I know that my central bank somewhere safely has stored that physical stuff that we all believe that is worth, that is of course, then you must be sure that your central bank is able to get it. Read, they have their own vaults, they can touch it. they can so they can actually use it. The whole concept is the same when you believe that scarce assets will be a as mentioned before a market driven system to to get more trust in the system with all of this debt. That means that the relative value of gold and Bitcoin and all other scarce assets should rise relative to debt. Then you solve part of the problem. Then you have to be able to touch it or it's actually in your. So, so and then you have different varieties of that. So first you have paper gold ETFs. I think a lot of traditional investors that do not doubt the financial system or have no trust issues concerning the amount of debt in the financial system will go with paper gold. Then you have the physical gold ETFs. The thing there is that you have 80 % coverage. It's something like that. It's not not 100%. And also there's no name, your name is not on the bar number, for example, right? So then it's, I think pretty straightforward. I thought about this when designing the fund. If this is my basic idea that I believe that gold will be once we have some kind of new gold standard, digital gold standards, then I must be 100 % sure that the gold of my investors is the gold of my investors. It has to be physically. Jeroen (43:41.398) somewhere to be able to join that right and you don't want any hiccups. Now then also then is the question why it's in Switzerland. Switzerland does not have an official law that it can confiscate it when there's something bad happening. Either way, when something bad happens, they will go after your cash money or your digital cash money at the bank accounts. With a strike of a button that's there. So in the Netherlands there's 600 billion euros in in savings so so they will not go after your gold anyway because they don't need it but but that is it so on the counterparty thing okay my idea is i'm the counterparty for my clients but then let's stop there let's let's minimize the counterparty risk by having these gold bars and and it's not that the infrastructure is not there there are so many companies doing this this so let's do this so so that is the idea if if you have this whole scarcity It has to be tangible. It is your store of value. Let's make sure as much as possible that it is your store of value. That's the simple reason. And then still there are people that I talk to this year. I really like your fund, but I'm never going to invest with you because I want to be my own counterparty. My gold is three 10 yards out in the garden. Then so many yards deep that that is there. They don't they they don't want me as their counterpart. Right? So I think that is going because. Michael (44:44.872) Mm Jeroen (45:08.842) being your own counterparty risk is not safe to be clear, but okay. But this is why it's in a vault in Switzerland. So don't have any argument. I will have arguments with traditional investors that say that this perhaps it is more expensive than have a paper called ETF. Now, then we have this discussion that we are having, I try to explain and I hope that they understand. I think they will do. Jesse Myers (Croesus) (45:34.899) When Michael (45:35.217) Risk adjusted, it's cheaper. Nominally, it's more expensive. Risk adjusted, it's cheaper. Jeroen (45:41.002) Yes, yes, yes. Jesse Myers (Croesus) (45:41.686) And I'm curious on that. as you're having flows in and out of the fund and you're trying to rebalance the relative proportions of those assets, how do you find the experience of adding or subtracting gold from the vault in Switzerland versus adding or subtracting Bitcoin exposure? Jeroen (46:04.416) yeah, now, so for me, doesn't really matter that much because I have partners who do that. So I'm an experienced multi -asset investor, not a gold vault allocator, right? So you have to be very clear on what your expertise is and what not. As mentioned, there are so many people or companies that can do that better. I don't feel the hassle. Perhaps also because we have not had one month that anybody exited the fund. We only had the inflows. So that's easy for now. I think having the right people who are specialists on their area is what you should incorporate. There's no upside in reinventing the wheel every time. So I reinvented the wheel with this fund, I hope. But then you use the expertise of others. And that's the same with Bitcoin. And there's also when you trade the quality stocks, right? So you build on the infrastructure of others. So in the end, there's always a bit of counterparty risk. yeah, that's... Michael (47:17.522) Yep. Yeah, it was very informative how you thought from a first principle perspective of the custody and counterparty risk, because Jesse and myself, as we went back to 2022 and saw, if you're familiar with the Grayscale Trust and all the mishaps that happened there, we saw multiple layers of counterparty risk. We like to say like it kneecapped the properties of Bitcoin by at least 50 % in the sense that you couldn't take the delivery of it, right? It was a close in fund, realized a taxable event. Jeroen (47:35.403) Yep. Jeroen (47:46.41) Yep. Yep. Michael (47:50.054) And in a very similar vein, you don't have to, you can reduce, there's always going be counterparty risk, but we ultimately, it ended with us. And then you can start to distribute if you're familiar, we have the keys that are distributed globally. The client end state has optionality to take delivery and you start to map to these, I think where you said market driven, I think ultimately what we see is these are market driven demands that will occur over time as inflation persists as counterparties, especially in the, we're like, Like in Bitcoin and crypto, it's just accelerated versions of what's happening in the traditional world in the sense of like these cycles that we see every two to four years or like maybe every 10 to 40 years that we see the traditional financial world that we see these belly ups where the counterparty has zero Bitcoin. And it's important to design products where you can take the delivery if you can. So it's very similar what we set up just on a sliver of just BTC, but. not having a single counterparty on the custodial side, because that is the value prop in our opinion with Bitcoin versus gold is that you don't have that centralization risk that traditionally is inherent there. But then also the, there's no reason to not have it not deliverable. It's almost a check on the system to make sure that you can take delivery if you wanted to. Jeroen (48:53.611) Yep. Jeroen (49:03.222) Yeah, yeah, I agree. I think that's a rough estimate, but I think a third or something like my investors are really drawn to this aspect. The most questions are, it ours? Because it's a fun test. So, but is it ours? Is it somewhere safe? Why do you do this? What is the counterparty risk? And for others that are more from the traditional world. And this is interesting because When does an equity investor at a well -known bank or asset manager ever question if the depository that the custody server that he takes, it's never questioned. My guess is that it's also pretty solid, but it's never questioned. But with gold and Bitcoin it is, but my question would be then ask everywhere also for the traditional part. So I find it very comforting. And I'm very happy that I made this decision to do it like this, because as mentioned, a lot of my investors have these questions. reduce counterparty risk, reduce counterparty risk. And at some point I'm willing to have some because I'm not a specialist on everything. But yes, it's, and if there, this is also what I say to my clients, if there are developments, especially of course in the Bitcoin world, which make that custody. Better then you should change you should change. It's an hassle, but you should change you must you should Try to have the best custody self custody or That is possible. And yeah, the guess is in my guess is of course that Bitcoin will change in that area a couple of times already. Yeah, so you guys Know better than me. You have to be on top of all these developments every day to make sure that this state of the art and and Jeroen (51:01.002) counterparty risk is minimized, even though it will never be zero. Michael (51:06.278) Yeah, have a, I don't know if you'll agree with this, but I'm gonna throw it out because it's a very controversial take, at least in my mind is that you hit the nail on the head earlier referencing you need specialists, right? That's what you trust, you trust specialists that are native and that I think even personally, you think BlackRock Fidelity, the largest institutions will come in and be able to adopt this asset and think of it and build productive assets. I'm increasingly becoming... or come into the belief that it's actually not true. And the best analogy I can describe is because this is so, I don't even want to say disruptive, it's just such a radical idea from the volatility aspect all the way to how do you build financial products and the custody nature, that it's like Instagram going to Kodak. If you're familiar with like the Kodak from the late 80s and 90s that we're doing the like Polaroids in the film, it's like Instagram building on a different platform to go back to Kodak and to ask them or to leverage their solutions. Jeroen (51:54.208) Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Michael (52:05.232) a completely different game except for this one has a unit tied to it which effectively you can lose and there's investors capital at bay so anyway I don't know if you have any thoughts or comments but it's just something I think about in the traditional sense that this is such a radical new thing that the old counterparties will probably not be the future leaders in this particular field Jeroen (52:27.063) You know, I'm definitely not a specialist in this area. But what I do know when these spot Bitcoin ETFs, US spot Bitcoin were approved, the way that they had to do their transactions, the whole in kind thing, there had to be another counterparty involved that does the actual buying. If you look at the number of counterparties that you have with this ETF, These are massive, so they are more than a regular equity ETF. I think when it comes to, so I think this resonates with your idea, you're trying to build something that is what you call radically new on top of an existing infrastructure with also a regulator that says you have to do it on the old system. So yes, I agree that there is lots of room for specialists, let's call them like you guys, to stay in front. I would expect that because these old models are not fit for this whole digital store of value thing, custody thing. So yeah, I agree as far as I'm equipped to tell something about that. Jackson Mikalic (53:42.769) Yeah, I think you made such a great point earlier, too, just on how custody is virtually an afterthought in traditional financial management, right? In your 20 years of managing portfolios, I'm sure custody was at toward the bottom of the list in terms of considerations when allocating capital and not to diminish the value of custody and traditional assets, but more so the idea that investors are focused on other things in terms of delivering returns to their investors, choosing asset classes that have Jeroen (53:50.24) Yes. Jeroen (54:11.232) Yeah, that's it. Jackson Mikalic (54:13.623) you know low correlation to benefit portfolios being strategic and tactical in terms of how capital is allocated to meet changing macro regimes or how Fundamentals are changing within an asset class, but it's so different to approach something like Bitcoin right where the alpha isn't necessarily Trying to outperform the spot Bitcoin price the alpha is more so having exposure to Bitcoin and in your case it's 10 % of the portfolio, but really crucially to that is securing it the right way and thinking about counterparty risk first and foremost as part of that allocation. I think that just naturally stems from Bitcoin being a scarce bear instrument where if those private keys are lost, more likely than not, those Bitcoin will never be recovered again, which is entirely different than the traditional world where custodians are record keeping for for equities or commercial real estate, whatever asset classes may be. And those records are maintained in many different places. And losing the record doesn't necessarily mean that the asset is lost. So I think that's part of the reason why counterparty risk should always be part of the conversation when allocating personal capital or on behalf of investors to Bitcoin and the broader crypto space. And we're seeing kind of in real time the challenges over the past 15 years of custody in Bitcoin. There's been nearly $400 billion of lost capital from counterparty risk. And that's only in a two and a half trillion dollar market. these are considerable losses. These are things that have never been seen before in traditional markets just because it's a totally different asset that requires new types of infrastructure and custody. So not curious if there's any thoughts on that directly, but more so just an observation of what we see trying to map the old world to the new and some of the frictions and risks that brings for investors. Jeroen (56:17.2) No, not, I think that's a very good explanation. What I could add is that from that perspective, gold, but also Bitcoin, even though it's digital, has to be tangible. It's representing a value and if you lose it, then it's gone. Whereas a stock is of course an instrument from a US dollar derivative with Michael Saylor say, right? So I think that is, yeah. that I can, you want to own it, touch it. So for Bitcoin, that's of course not physically possible, but that is what represents its value, right? So if you lose it, and this is also, you mentioned of course Bitcoin, but if you lose digital money, a lot of the times your bank will reinstate that. your credit card is stolen or whatever, a lot of the time that'll... reinstated and of course there's a security or an insurance behind that but that already with gold would a large bank put other gold back into your vault when it's lost? Most likely not. So I think this distinction is I think, yeah, fair, fair. I think you described it better but yes, I can relate to that idea, yes. And that's why custody is important. Jackson Mikalic (57:45.263) Yeah, appreciate that. you know, maybe we're coming up on an hour here. Might be good just to get a pulse on what you're seeing in terms of appetite for Bitcoin and digital assets, you know, in the Netherlands or maybe just Europe more broadly, because we're all the three of us are based in the US. We have conversations and clients in Europe and globally. So we have these conversations, but I'd be curious to hear from someone who has had a career in the Netherlands. in Europe and been allocating capital for 20 years and now thinking about Bitcoin as part of a portfolio and how are individuals or institutions perceiving it? I know we talked a little bit about it, but how do you think maybe the next cycle or two look for Bitcoin and investors starting to incorporate that more broadly into asset allocation? Michael (58:36.743) Andrew, just to add one point that may be in contrast to gold, because I'd be curious like how your conversations are going from a market interest and demand gold versus BTC and is it more weighted in one direction versus the other? Jeroen (58:44.042) Yeah. Jeroen (58:50.784) Yeah, yeah. So concerning gold, think when you start in a traditional investment firm about gold, that's then a topic on the agenda. It's most likely not in the portfolio, but it is something that I would not say everybody, but a lot of investors have, we had the discussion about running the numbers and looking at historical data. They should be, and my guess is they will be aware of the diversification benefits, to put it in one sentence, of gold in your portfolio. So that is one. And I think, and this is perhaps the interesting part of my answer, I hope, I think truly traditional investors will use this to not talk about Bitcoin. So this is their defense. Yeah, but there's no, we have no track record. But let's focus on gold first. This is already different than what we do. Let's do one thing at a time. I know from the other side, how do you do the demand pool or the, I don't know, but investors are very, very aware about the other asset classes that are out there. Let me put it like this. And that means that an increasing number of asset managers, bigger asset managers, now actually get requests on do you have solutions including crypto most of the time it's crypto. Do you have funds that have equities for example that have specific exposure to bitcoin mining, bitcoin related, micro strategy, know all of these. So the bottom of demand is definitely there. I think this is a I don't want to be the first mover because whatever happens Good. So this is, so my understanding as far as I know is they will use the discussion about scarce asset and gold in a portfolio to shield from the discussion of Bitcoin and definitely about crypto, which is not Bitcoin, of course. That is, but at some point, and this is why I like the stories coming out of the United States that two of the state pension funds and one of them, I looked down how Jeroen (01:01:10.058) How is the board of investors received? How are they looked upon? They are known for their innovative nature, but also that they are very, let's say, skillful, knowledgeable, whatever. So, and my guess is that in the end, clients will continue to push for them. My idea with the bigger institutions or the traditional investors is that they are in no hurry. to be in the front of this movement. So, and of course, for me, I'm extremely happy about that because that gives me time to create a track records. the world is pretty much divided in crypto specialists, crypto asset managers. are even, I looked up the combination of gold and Bitcoin. I think I have five or six. competitors globally and even they don't come even close to what I do even though they have some of the same whereas if you want to have an MSCI world fund or ETF you can pick thousands of them right so so I thought I expected it after the last upcycle that we would be a little bit further ahead but even with the spot Bitcoin ETFs and this is you know better than me and you know but in In Europe, this has not ignited some kind of spark. but now it's for me as an advisor, it's pretty straightforward. I don't think this is the case. think clients will ask and behind the scenes bespoke, they will get it. But it's not that there are a massive number of traditional investors coming out with reports, you should do this and you should do this. It's always Fonek and others that we already know, ARK, you know, the usual suspects. So I'm waiting for the traction. I'm not seeing it, but perhaps also because Bitcoin is not at an all time high and gold is, but yeah, I'm waiting for it. But if it takes a little bit longer, give me some time to build that track, guys. I'm happy to do so. So yeah. Michael (01:03:09.97) you Jesse Myers (Croesus) (01:03:12.097) Yeah. Yeah. And it's an advantage to people like you who can see the data, you know, think critically and move before the big guys with their career risk can take action. You know, I think the game plan was laid out best by Paul Tudor Jones in May 2020 when he said Bitcoin is going to be the fastest horse this decade. Jeroen (01:03:36.885) Yeah. Jesse Myers (Croesus) (01:03:37.215) so far he's been right and I think that'll continue to be the case. again, I think you're right that there's interest when scarce assets are at all time highs. And so we probably have a little more time before the halving does what it does and the price drifts up into all time high territory in the coming months. And then there's gonna be a lot of people giving you a call at your own. Jeroen (01:03:57.355) Yeah. Michael (01:04:05.018) Jared it's it's X Your excitement is a it's palatable in the sense of like I'm excited for you that you You're just in a prime position. I'm a little like jealous and the sense of like because we like No, no, I I you know in our internal meetings, I can be pretty high -energy, but I'm just thinking about like the Jeroen (01:04:05.642) Yes, I hope so. Jeroen (01:04:21.965) Because of my energy level, I get that a lot. Michael (01:04:32.402) The the palette like the nature of your products are so suited for a market as you referenced to Incrementally come in and you reference nobody really doing this the one guys that I think we're familiar with is incrementum we had some of the team on but their gold Bitcoin that without the equity component which I think is crucial because Gold Bitcoin by itself you end up in a kind of now I don't see doomsday or scenario But you end up with a certain cohort of the market versus somebody that is wanting to you know move that bond Jeroen (01:04:41.109) Yes. Jeroen (01:04:50.336) Yeah. Michael (01:05:01.48) exposure out for other assets that are empirically performing. But then also to your point where I think we're all aligned that this has moved a little slower. Than we thought especially after 21 and what we found is probably similar to you is like we talked with a lot of institutional investors on the pension side and There's two parts. There's the one that is career risk. So there's waiting for more people to step in they're all Acknowledged there's an asset class here, but they don't know the difference between digital Bitcoin and crypto and they lump it all they lump it all in together So that's inherently keeping them from understanding any of what we're talking about because they're thinking about it all of it as a risky asset Jeroen (01:05:33.93) Yes. Jeroen (01:05:39.819) Yeah. Michael (01:05:42.976) But to your point, it's kind of great for us because we get to build out all the like muscle memory and all the the fibers of like how do you educate? How do you go into the Schwab's and the Morgan Stanley's and educate Bitcoin only? How do you evaluate it? How do you think about risk? How do you build custody? Because nobody else is doing what we're doing in the sense of I said we're jealous, but on the other side, I'm not necessarily jealous because our bank is that this is the future, and if we become the best at it, then that's where everybody's going to. So we're just in a different side. But equally, I think you're doing very interesting stuff, and it's very exciting. Jeroen (01:06:17.462) Thank you. So yeah, I agree to that story. It's a little bit slower, maybe not even than expected, but when you talk to clients, this is an asset class now. So people want to deny that it's fine, but this is an asset class. It's a small one. It's an illiquid one at some point. It is a volatile one. But yeah. So, you know, I think what we share is that we have to be patient. There is nothing coming out in the sense of data or developments that does not stick with the story that you should truly diversify your portfolio. And that means away from the traditional bond thing, but also from the traditional thinking. And I think the easy part with gold is that it hits an all time high. People write more about it. But yeah, that that neatly fits my idea. That's one step first for the traditional world and then the other, but it will come. So when you start a fund, of course you have very strong conviction on your own philosophy, but I can say with 100 % honesty, I've grown so much stronger on the philosophy. So I'm so much convinced this is something that has a long way to go and that feels great. So also when it's a day it's not great and things go down or whatever. But yeah, so so. I think we are on the solid page. And for me, it feels wonderful to be right there in the middle. Jesse Myers (Croesus) (01:07:50.265) Yeah, it took 5 ,000 years, 6 ,000 years for gold, you know, build that history. And so we're only 15 years in with Bitcoin. And I think that, you know, every single day, I think you're right that every single day some. Jeroen (01:07:58.859) Yes. Jesse Myers (Croesus) (01:08:04.921) smart investor looks at the numbers with a realistic objective lens and says, you know what, I should have some gold and I should probably have some Bitcoin and I maybe don't want to have all these bonds. And that process plays out day after day for the next couple of decades, really. Jeroen (01:08:24.513) Yeah, that's exactly my thought. Michael (01:08:24.68) Yeah, and that flow can stay contained, which is exciting, because generally if somebody has exposure to gold and naturally moves over to Bitcoin, you can support there in that rebalancing or that increasing exposure versus having to go somewhere else, which is just gonna be congruent with, I think everybody's thesis here is like assets are gonna move into gold or BTC and you can naturally help with that versus seeing that flow go somewhere else. Jeroen (01:08:49.162) Yeah, agree, yeah. Jackson Mikalic (01:08:52.548) Yes, so to wrap up here, maybe we have four months left of the year. If you want to just give us your room maybe a minute or two as to what you're paying attention to in markets, maybe what listeners should be thinking about as well, could be really to any of these asset classes we've discussed today or even broader macro thoughts too. Jeroen (01:09:11.35) Yeah. Well, so I think the broader macro is of course the election, the elections, the US elections. to fit that on the philosophy, I think in the situation in the US is perhaps a little bit more extreme because you only have now two people left to vote, but there is no middle, right? The middle is completely gone. But also in the Netherlands you have 20 to 30 parties. It's crazy, but still, but even the ones in the middle have left the middle and I like voting in the middle. I like the middle and then I leaned a little bit towards this and that. But I think a lot of people in the democracy like the middle. If you add to that that these these this polarization leads to ever more aggressive behavior, data sharing, financial media. What do you believe? This underpins the notion that trust in general is declining. So if you don't have trust in general, how will you trust your financial system with all of this debt going up? So I think in the end, is, the US elections are good for the whole philosophy, but not necessarily the world. And also I'm very, it's very clear that whichever one wins that the budget deficits will remain one way or another, right? So I think that will be a very interesting topic because it will shape the landscape, what you see with Trump and China for years. that is one thing I'm keeping an eye on. The other one is of course, a little bit closer to home. Do we get that US recession or not? So the jury is still out. That will determine again, bringing back to the previous topic, the pace of adoption, the pace. So if we get a recession and everything goes down 50 % or whatever, then this phase will be pushed back a year or two years. If we don't get one, it's likely confirming my thesis that central banks have to keep rates low because that sustainability is an issue that fits the whole liquidity story. So I think these are the two, let's say a little bit closer to home for the rest of what. Jeroen (01:11:35.52) what will shape the trend of markets. So yeah, these two things. Jackson Mikalic (01:11:43.493) Yeah, those are great points that the US election is certainly highly anticipated and could impact many different things, including our industry and Bitcoin. There's pretty, at this point, there's kind of two different stances there, but generally agree with you that kind of regardless of who's in power, what we're seeing is continued kind of irresponsible fiscal spending. And there's really no incentive for that to stop. So agree that scarce assets are really the way to go here in terms of Jeroen (01:11:53.323) Yeah. Jeroen (01:12:05.128) Overspending. Michael (01:12:09.726) you Jeroen (01:12:09.856) No. Jackson Mikalic (01:12:13.427) preserving purchasing power and you really appreciate all the insights that you've shared with us today. Kind of a remarkable journey and investment philosophy that you have and I'd imagine that more and more people into the future, whether it's five or 10 or even longer from now, will have portfolios constructed similar to what you're doing with the Blockland Fund. you know, it was just great to learn more about it. To wrap up here, where should people go to just find more about what you're working on? and get in touch with you. Jeroen (01:12:45.364) Yeah, so we have a website that is bloglandfund .com and then blogland not with CK but only the K as in my name. From there you will get the fact sheets, the philosophy you can download the presentation bloglandfund .com and then you can also contact me directly. So whenever you reach the website, you will be all right. Michael (01:13:07.154) Very cool. Thanks for running through that. would imagine you're going have some folks reach out. So that's awesome. Appreciate it. Jackson Mikalic (01:13:07.237) Your room. Jeroen (01:13:11.734) I hope so, yeah, okay. Jackson Mikalic (01:13:13.167) Everyone, yeah, thanks again. Great to meet you. Appreciate you coming on today. Jeroen (01:13:17.162) Yeah, okay. Thanks for having me. Ciao.