Latest / Bitcoin for Financial Services Podcast / Profitable Businesses Choose Bitcoin
Transcript
- 0:00We're really encouraging businesses, just be profitable, store your money in Bitcoin,
- 0:05and just have a low time preference.
- 0:08Look five years down the road, 10 years down the road.
- 0:11You want to be operating a business that's providing something that's productive,
- 0:17and then storing your time and energy in a better form of money.
- 0:21Bitcoin is a currency on the internet.
- 0:24If you don't trust any other currency, this is where you go.
- 0:27It's going to outperform everything.
- 0:28Bitcoin can eventually be worthless.
- 0:30Every day is a good day to buy Bitcoin.
- 0:32Bitcoin reached its highest price to date.
- 0:34Bitcoin hitting a new high.
- 0:35It really has reached escape velocity.
- 0:37There is no second best.
- 0:38Who cares about Bitcoin?
- 0:40It's the only secure database that's ever been invented.
- 0:42Antisocial.
- 0:43Bitcoin is the real deal.
- 0:45Stupid.
- 0:46Everything is bullish for Bitcoin.
- 0:48Immoral.
- 0:49It's going up forever, Lauren.
- 0:51Fix the money.
- 0:52Fix the world.
- 0:56White Rock is a registered investment advisor,
- 0:57and the opinions expressed on the show are their own
- 0:58and do not reflect the opinions of the CILIC LLC.
- 1:00Joining us as a CPA and the opinions expressed on the show
- 1:01are their own and do not reflect the opinions of trusted CPA
- 1:03or other affiliated firms.
- 1:04Information presented is for educational purposes only
- 1:05and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation
- 1:07for the sale or purchase of any specific securities,
- 1:08investments, or investment strategies.
- 1:09Investments of all risk and almost otherwise stated
- 1:10are not guaranteed.
- 1:11Information expressed does not take into account
- 1:12your specific situation or objectives
- 1:13is not intended as a recommendation appropriate
- 1:14for any individual.
- 1:15Listeners are encouraged to seek advice
- 1:16from a qualified tax legal or investment advisor
- 1:17to determine whether any information presented
- 1:18may be suitable for their specific situation.
- 1:19Past performance is not indicative of future performance.
- 1:21Any statements or opinions are subject to change
- 1:22without notice.
- 1:22Welcome to Bitcoin for Financial Services Media, the podcast where some money means professional services.
- 1:33We explore how to build a financial services industry within the principles, ethos, and values of Bitcoin.
- 1:39Today, we're honored to be joined by Bitcoin for Financial Services Summit veteran and CEO of Sovereign, Brandon Capellas.
- 1:48we dig into building a Bitcoin business. Let's get started.
- 1:57All righty, welcome back to another episode of the Bitcoin for Financial Services podcast.
- 2:03We've got Brandon Karpelis from Sovereign visiting with us today and talking about
- 2:09what he's been up to in the Bitcoin ecosystem. And this is our Christmas week episode. So
- 2:14very excited for that. I know we're probably working today, maybe tomorrow, and then
- 2:19looking forward to maybe a very long holiday weekend. So Brandon, how's it going, man? It's
- 2:26been a little while since we've talked. Awesome, man. Yeah, I think since the Financial Services
- 2:30Summit actually was probably the last time we've formally talked other than some back and forth on
- 2:36emails and things like that. So looking forward to catching up. Absolutely. Wyatt, how are you
- 2:42doing sir i'm good man like you said a big christmas week uh it's funny it's like this
- 2:50combination of nobody works from like here till the end of the year but a lot of people want a
- 2:58lot of work done from here till the end of year so it's like a balancing that is always fun yes
- 3:04yeah this is the first first year of my life i'm gonna get the end of the year to actually enjoy
- 3:10uh look at that in fiat land it was end of year quarter end and any deal that didn't get done
- 3:18this year obviously got pushed in the next year and so that affects the numbers and so
- 3:23you know always have the c-suite call in what's going on with this deal are we closing this year
- 3:28are we going to get it booked or what are we going to have to charge off blah blah blah and so
- 3:33it's going to be nice and then and then of course you would need to get something done and there's
- 3:37nobody around absolutely no one's work every single you go in the voip system every single
- 3:43person unavailable on vacation and it's just like uh i'm i'm uh i'm glad i'm not gonna miss that
- 3:51this year so well it's a it's a great segue brandon i i actually i want to get into you have
- 3:58an extensive background in fiat world i want you to talk to the audience about what that
- 4:04looked like. And, uh, and then I'd love to get into, you know, what made you jump ship. Uh,
- 4:10and now you work in Bitcoin full time so we can get into that as well.
- 4:14Yeah. So without the full Epic saga, I spent almost two decades in fiat land and really,
- 4:21as I started going down the Bitcoin rabbit hole, just found it harder and harder to go into my
- 4:26job every day and be doing something else that wasn't involved with Bitcoin. And specifically,
- 4:33as I learned more and more about sort of the predatory nature of the fiat system and commercial
- 4:41lending and creating money out of thin air and what that did to people that didn't understand
- 4:48the system and weren't able to protect themselves against the system and insulate themselves against
- 4:54the system. All the rich people understand the game and they're very good at playing it and
- 4:58they buy assets and they, they know market cycles and they know how to use debt well and, um, never
- 5:08pay it back. And that's something that I was watching business owners really struggle with.
- 5:14And obviously the amount of money that was printed in 2020, 2021 for COVID. And then the subsequent
- 5:23rate hike a relatively high you know rates only went up to like five and a half percent i think
- 5:28was the peak maybe it was five and a quarter which is a very reasonable interest rate but it compared
- 5:34to zero or 0.25 basis points that it was a few months before that it just it relatively it was a
- 5:44very high uh rate hike and a lot of businesses and people were over levered and had become accustomed
- 5:52And some of them, yes, you should have understood what you were doing.
- 5:55You should have some financial literacy around debt and interest rates and how levered your business is and all sorts of stuff like that.
- 6:03But at the same time, they kind of just got accustomed to cheap money.
- 6:06And it was almost a decade of rates being down there.
- 6:10And no one imagined the day when they would tick up even a little bit.
- 6:13And so people maxed out leverage, spent as much as they could with debt and really got burned.
- 6:20And a lot of them just don't even understand the system they were operating in.
- 6:24They just knew money was cheap.
- 6:25Their banker would always give it to them.
- 6:27And that's how they kind of ran their business.
- 6:30And I got to a point where I really wanted to go help educate businesses about this problem, help them understand it.
- 6:41And the businesses I was dealing with were distressed businesses, troubled businesses.
- 6:46and a lot of them, not all of them, but a lot of them were just kind of caught in the financial leverage gears of taking on too much debt,
- 6:55not understand what they were doing, low interest rate environment, etc.
- 6:59And then watching their input cost explode as they were grappling with supply chain shutdowns from all the COVID lockdowns
- 7:11And then all the money that was printed also led to a massive increase in the cost of everything.
- 7:17And they just got burned and ultimately ended up on my desk.
- 7:22And then we had to work them out.
- 7:24And I think, you know, we had a couple turnaround success stories, but most of them were liquidations or business sales or the bank had to take a loss.
- 7:34And I just wanted to go out and help business owners figure this out.
- 7:41And that's when I came across the opportunity at Sovereign. Our founder was assembling a team of consultants to basically go out and educate businesses about this problem, help explain Bitcoin to them. And I thought, what a great opportunity this was.
- 7:57And then a few things unfolded over the next few months where something happened at my job where I just, it was kind of a sign from God of, hey, I think it's time to move on, time to take a step in this new direction.
- 8:16Coupled with the fact that our founder was looking for some serious help running the company.
- 8:21And it all kind of just coalesced in March of this year.
- 8:24And I decided to take the leap, start helping to run Sovereign.
- 8:29And over the course of the next few months after that, I've effectively, uh, been CEO
- 8:35and running the company with, um, uh, you know, sole decision maker, but with the help
- 8:42of a couple other guys who effectively make up the C-suite at our organization and have
- 8:48been doing that probably for the past six months or so is in that sort of arrangement.
- 8:53So a bit of a long-winded answer.
- 8:56Apologies.
- 8:56But that is actually the abridged version.
- 9:01No, it's great, Matt.
- 9:02I noticed you left out HOA president.
- 9:05Oh, yeah.
- 9:06Well, that's on my resume.
- 9:07That's first and foremost.
- 9:09HOA president.
- 9:11And then I have 19 and a half years in traditional finance below that.
- 9:18I think that background is very pertinent.
- 9:20is obviously, you know, our podcast audience skews towards, you know, traditional kind of
- 9:25finance land. We're trying to bring these folks into Bitcoin. So I think it's very important for
- 9:29these folks to hear from, you know, guys like yourself who spent a lot of time in that world,
- 9:35saw the light and you decided to do something to get out of it. And I think you're a perfect
- 9:41guest for us to have on because we really want to be almost kind of intentionally speaking to
- 9:45like the pre-Bitcoin businesses
- 9:48in the financial services space
- 9:50and help give them the tools
- 9:51to move into servicing Bitcoiners,
- 9:54accepting Bitcoin.
- 9:55Why don't you just kind of give us
- 9:56an overview of what Sovereign does?
- 9:58And then I kind of want to dig
- 10:00into each of those individual pieces.
- 10:02Yeah, so I like to say Sovereign
- 10:04has three different categories.
- 10:07We have the education category,
- 10:08the integration category,
- 10:10and then the operational category.
- 10:12And so we kind of see education
- 10:14is step one integration is step two and then operational is step three and we come in any
- 10:21part of whatever whatever part of the bitcoin journey the business owner is on we can come in
- 10:28and step in for a lot of business owners they get the value proposition of bitcoin maybe they
- 10:34understand it a little bit but they really just want some help getting set up hey how do i how do
- 10:39I accept payments. You'd actually be surprised how many Bitcoiners are running businesses and
- 10:46they don't know how to accept lightning payments or they don't, they don't know what tools are out
- 10:52there available for them. And they listen, they're busy. They're working 10 hour days. They're
- 10:57trying to watch their margins and they're running a business. And they kind of,
- 11:02even if they may know how to do all of this stuff, they may just want some help with it.
- 11:07So that's one part of it. And then the education piece, I'm sorry, I'm kind of jumping around steps
- 11:13here, but the education piece is really for an organization that is like, I know I need to do
- 11:19something about Bitcoin, but I don't know what to do. And I need some help with that. Please come in
- 11:25and do that. And that's been less of our focus. We've done some webinars, we've talked to CPAs,
- 11:30We've provided some services like that, but the majority of what we're doing now is helping do the actual hardware and software setup for these businesses, getting treasury, being able to buy Bitcoin at reputable exchanges.
- 11:50As we've all known, the quote unquote crypto world is littered with failed exchanges and scams and Ponzi schemes and all sorts of stuff.
- 11:59And so really directing people to trusted names in the space, making sure they're buying their Bitcoin from reputable exchanges and then moving it into cold storage.
- 12:09however they want to have that set up is really important to us along with appropriate platforms
- 12:15for accepting payments and understanding the difference between custodial which is fine if
- 12:21you want to use a custodial service to accept payments in bitcoin that's fine you just need to
- 12:26have a program where you're moving that into your own custody and eventually taking your own custody
- 12:32and not leaving it in there for extended periods of time or high dollar amounts in there as well or
- 12:38high sat amounts, if you will, in there as well. And then the last part is we have a lot of business
- 12:44professionals on our team. We have extensive experience in the, in the banking world and the
- 12:51business world, um, all, all sorts of different, um, places of expertise and business. And we'll
- 12:59actually come in with you and talk about how we start implementing this Bitcoin into the operations.
- 13:07You know, do you want to start a long-term financing program?
- 13:10Do you have capital projects coming up that you would like to spend this money on?
- 13:14Do you have benefits you would like to offer your employees?
- 13:18How do you see this playing out?
- 13:20And sometimes it's just, no, I want to hold it and use it as a capital asset and just
- 13:26give out higher distributions in the future.
- 13:28And that's fine too, but we will talk through all of that with you, help you plan through
- 13:33that.
- 13:34what are your needs and wants with the asset and really lay out a plan for them and be there along
- 13:43the way too. We have packages where you can put us on retainer and we'll talk through, we'll sit
- 13:49down, we'll block out five hours a month, 10 hours a month, whatever you want. We'll sit down and we'll
- 13:54do this planning with you and go through all this stuff with you. So that's sort of the full suite
- 13:59services, I'd be remiss with Jordan on here, not to mention that we have other
- 14:04partnerships like with CPAs and that sort of thing uh as well for people that need specific tax or legal advice That really the one thing we can sort of advise and coach and directionally show you but getting into the actual nitty gritty
- 14:20of putting your books together or doing true tax planning or estate planning or wanting to draw up
- 14:28contracts or something like that, that's really not our expertise. That's kind of the one area we
- 14:33farm out and partner with other people as well.
- 14:37Your wealth deserves intention. Basilic Financial is a Bitcoin-focused wealth management firm built
- 14:45to help our clients find balance between money and meaning. We integrate sound money strategies
- 14:49across four distinct personalized services. Financial planning, individual wealth management,
- 14:54retirement services for SMBs, and Bitcoin financial services. Your prosperity, your purpose,
- 14:59intentionally guided at Basilic Financial. Visit our website at basilic.io to schedule
- 15:04free consultation. Brandon, the first time we met in person was a little bit earlier this year.
- 15:11I potentially want to take the conversation a little bit, a different direction just to spice
- 15:16things up a touch. And you guys tell me, you guys feel free to shoot this down. But if I had to sum
- 15:23up 2025 for Bitcoin, it's kind of like we have been in this weird treasury, Bitcoin treasury thing.
- 15:32And I think especially for a lot of the guys and gals in our audience, when I talk to someone who's in the traditional financial advisor world, they're like, yeah, but this whole thing with MicroStrategy and all these other companies springing up, they just seem, it just seems like it's not legit.
- 15:48And so I'll throw it to you, Brandon, first.
- 15:51I want to get your thoughts.
- 15:52Again, we met at that Sailor, or I guess the MicroStrategy event back in, I guess that was in April or I don't know when it was.
- 15:59It was earlier in the year.
- 16:00May, I think actually early May. Yeah. Okay. And I just, so obviously strategy is, is one thing,
- 16:08but then there's been all of these other companies that have sprung up and have tried
- 16:12to do something similar. Uh, we don't have to name any of them. We could, if we wanted to,
- 16:16to make it real spicy, but, um, I'm just curious if you had one of those come across your desk,
- 16:22this is just, as you were kind of talking in your background, if you had a company come across your
- 16:27desk in your previous seat, what would your reaction have been? Or maybe what is your reaction
- 16:33today on these companies that tried to go out and raise a lot of money? Now they're trading well
- 16:38below their MNAV. And does that pose a big risk to the overall system? I want to maybe go off on
- 16:46this tangent. We don't have to. And then of course, I want to make sure we get back to,
- 16:50you know, because I think it does roll into your all's, your thesis on how you deal with companies
- 16:55and it's sovereign and how you're pushing more business first and treasury, you know,
- 17:03that comes later once you make a profit, right? Yeah. So I'm happy to talk about this topic. I
- 17:09have tons of thoughts. I talked with Robin Sayre. I went on his podcast and we actually talked for
- 17:15a while about this. So I, but it's, I actually went back and listened to, I think I recorded
- 17:22the episode back in like September and, and, uh, I must say it aged very well. I think the,
- 17:28the points I made then sort of when we were still in kind of the hype part of it. And I think it
- 17:34played out sort of as I, uh, had cautioned people that we actually had a company come to us and they
- 17:43did very well. They had 10 Bitcoin on their balance sheet already. And so the owner was
- 17:50trying to have us go in, convince his board that they should convert to a Bitcoin treasury company,
- 17:56and then ultimately help him become that, tap the capital markets, get even more Bitcoin on his
- 18:01balance sheet. And we actually advised him against that. We said, this is not a good plan. You've
- 18:08built a great business here. Your entire life's work is in this thing. You've built up a nice
- 18:14little cushion here, a nice little nest egg. It's sitting on your balance sheet. You run a very
- 18:20effective business, just keep taking your profits, keep buying Bitcoin. You don't
- 18:24want to go out and tap these capital markets because that's not what you do. You're not a
- 18:31company full of financial professionals trying to go out and game the market, for lack of a better
- 18:38term. And as you said, Jordan, strategy is a whole different animal. They're light years ahead on this.
- 18:44They've figured it out. They have really, really low leverage. I know everyone thinks that if
- 18:49Bitcoin goes down to like $60,000 that the whole micro strategy is going to get like liquidated.
- 18:56Like people have people, they have such low leverage and such an insane amount of Bitcoin.
- 19:01Like it's just, they're not even worth the conversation.
- 19:05And the only way micro strategy really or strategy gets, gets burned as if they go too
- 19:14far out on the leverage curve and they start adding a bunch of debt and start levering
- 19:19up way more than they are, which brings me to my next point was one of the things Jordan, I think
- 19:23I remember talking to you about it and Jeff Newman from sovereign as well, our, our chief sales
- 19:29officer, we were talking about it. One of the companies that went up there was bragging that
- 19:34they were, they had 65% leverage and against their Bitcoin. And like, that's how they were adding more
- 19:41Bitcoin. And I was like, this sounds like a terrible idea. If basically if there's a 35%
- 19:48or somewhere in the neighborhood drawdown on Bitcoin,
- 19:51your whole stack gets liquidated.
- 19:52Like, what are we doing here?
- 19:54This does not sound like a good idea.
- 19:56But it was interesting to hear them pitching this,
- 19:59basically saying we're going to go farther and farther out on the leverage curve,
- 20:03and that's why we'll be attractive.
- 20:05That's why you want to buy our stock.
- 20:07Don't take the safe equity play if you're looking to buy stock.
- 20:12And obviously our advice is everyone buy Bitcoin, put it in cold storage,
- 20:16And that's the safest, best bet. You're not going to get burned. But for people trying to quote unquote, find more yield or find more return and get more dollars, the way to do that is to buy more, buy stock of company that's going to take on more and more leverage.
- 20:36And then obviously, as those companies take on more and more leverage, they get riskier and riskier and riskier.
- 20:41And so the idea I was talking with Rob and Sarah about was like, you can effectively play this game where your Bitcoin, if it's if the tagger of the Bitcoin, if the annual growth is more than the is more than the your debt.
- 21:02So if you're adding less debt than the amount Bitcoin grew, so Bitcoin grew 40%, but you only added 20% more debt, you could effectively do this forever, right?
- 21:13Like that's the sort of promise of these treasury companies that you're going to be able to run this.
- 21:19They literally had a slide at that conference, Jordan, and it said flywheel strategy on it.
- 21:26I'm like, that's what FTX did.
- 21:29That's flywheel strategies end in pain because eventually you have a drawdown and then you
- 21:34can no longer fly or do the wheel.
- 21:37And that's when you get liquidated.
- 21:39And that's when you go bankrupt.
- 21:41Yeah.
- 21:42That's the problem with all these treasury companies.
- 21:46And by the way, this isn't a 30% drawdown from all time highs.
- 21:51Like this is not some sort of cataclysmic bear market we've entered.
- 21:55This is like a minor hiccup along the way.
- 21:58And these companies are getting absolutely massacred.
- 22:01And so if we do go down another 20% or another 30% and have a more sort of traditional bear market, these companies are all done.
- 22:11They're all done.
- 22:11So because you can't run the flywheel anymore, the value of your Bitcoin is decreased.
- 22:17So you can't lever it up anymore.
- 22:20And that's when you get liquidated.
- 22:22that's when you have to sell and that's when your penny stock goes to an actual penny and you
- 22:27that the whole idea that was sold was bitcoin's kaggers 40 to 50 percent and we're just going to
- 22:35take on 20 percent more debt or 30 percent more debt and we're just going to keep doing this well
- 22:40the problem is bitcoin's kaggers 40 50 but it's up 200 percent one year 300 another year and then
- 22:47it's down 80 so like at some point you're going to get caught off sides in this trade and that's
- 22:53when you get liquidated and i think there are some companies that understand this concept and will
- 23:00manage their balance sheet micro strategy is doing this they manage their balance sheet very
- 23:05conservatively and they're able to stomach a huge drawdown and they know that and they position the
- 23:10company in a position where they can stomach that huge drawdown. The problem is strategy is the
- 23:18benefactor of being at Bitcoin for five years, putting profits on their balance sheet, and now
- 23:24they're doing these sort of financial alchemy. Whereas these other companies don't have an
- 23:29operational business, don't have any profits, didn't put anything into Bitcoin, and they're
- 23:33jumping straight to the financial alchemy part, and they're getting over levered, and they're
- 23:38going to get over their skis and they're going to get wiped out. And at the end of the day,
- 23:43the ones that do survive, it will either be prudence. Like they actually understood this
- 23:48concept. They took on very low leverage and they just decided, Hey, we're happy with small gains
- 23:55and a little extra juicing of our profits. And that's how we're going to manage it.
- 24:00Or it'll just be sheer dumb luck. Like, okay, we levered up to this level, but Bitcoin only came
- 24:06down this level and we basically skated by luckily not not by any sort of planning or understanding
- 24:12of what was going on and and they may make it till the next cycle or maybe we're done with cycles
- 24:19maybe they'll just make it to to live to fight another day basically so that's kind of what's
- 24:27going on with these it's sovereign we're really encouraging businesses just be profitable store
- 24:34your money in Bitcoin and look and just have a low time preference. Look five years down the road,
- 24:4010 years down the road. You want to be operating a business that's providing something that's
- 24:46productive and then storing your time and energy in a better form of money as opposed to just
- 24:52trying to game a system, put a bunch of Bitcoin on the balance. I mean, I even asked these companies
- 24:58like, now what? Okay, it's, you got all this Bitcoin, it's five years from now, we just,
- 25:03all take our dollars and go like, what did we do? I mean, it just, it doesn't seem very exciting to
- 25:11me. It's, um, I don't know. It's, it's just more of the same game, right? Like we were talking
- 25:17about at the beginning that, that rich people understand how to lever the system. They understand
- 25:22how to get assets, but you're not, you're not doing anything. You're just, you're just taking
- 25:28advantage of us. You're no different than, um, you know, the, the mom that's cheating the welfare
- 25:34system with eight kids and no dad to like, you're no different. You're the same thing. You're just
- 25:40fleecing a system where you didn't add any value. You're actually extracting value because as you
- 25:46borrow more and more money, you're causing inflation for everyone else holding dollars.
- 25:50So you're, you're actually a net negative on the system. And it's like, great. You won the game,
- 25:56But can you do you go to bed at night feeling good about yourself or, you know, what are we proud of?
- 26:02Like, what did we do here?
- 26:04Yeah.
- 26:05Well, and I like I kind of go back to like even Pierre's talk at our conference, you know, as maybe the counter argument.
- 26:14I think he was mainly arguing on behalf of strategy, if I had to guess.
- 26:18But this whole trade of, you know, you're short the dollar, you're long Bitcoin.
- 26:24and I think that's really at the core of what all of these companies are trying to do right
- 26:29but he's right by the way Pierre is right but it's like does that make you feel good is this
- 26:36some sort of I are you happy with what you're doing in your life I mean I don't know it seems
- 26:42wholly unfulfilling to me to be like I figured out I can short the dollar and long bitcoin
- 26:48and yay, I have one life.
- 26:51It just seems wholly unrewarding to me.
- 26:54Yeah.
- 26:55Well, and I guess, but even you have to be a very special,
- 27:00honestly, type of person to really do it well.
- 27:03And to your point, I mean, yeah, Sailor got into the game
- 27:06and everyone threw at his head for how many years?
- 27:11Probably two, three years.
- 27:13I mean, even still, even now, people are like,
- 27:15oh my gosh, it's drawn down.
- 27:16And it's like, dude, he took a $1 billion market cap to $45 billion.
- 27:20That's pretty impressive in my book, at least.
- 27:22But I think all the copycats, yeah, it's just tough sledding.
- 27:29And I think for Bitcoin plebs and businesses that are trying to build their business using Bitcoin as one of the main tools to do so,
- 27:39I think they're the real potential losers in the end if these treasure companies go under, they get liquidated,
- 27:46that sense of price in this kind of like a bit of a death spiral until it can find its footing.
- 27:51And at the end of the day, what it really does is it keeps us in this part of the conversation
- 27:57where Bitcoin's unserious. And I think that's what everyone on this call, like what we're trying to
- 28:02really push forward, right, is have Bitcoin be taken seriously amongst all parties, you know,
- 28:08be it small businesses, high net worth, individuals, governments, the whole list. So anyways, I don't
- 28:15know if you why don't do you have any thoughts on any of that as from the
- 28:18advisor standpoint yeah I fairly agnostic on Bitcoin Treasury companies they probably come you know somewhere in the middle of youtube the high level i think this is a bitcoinization of
- 28:34finance playing out so this is creating instruments financial instruments to get
- 28:38dollars into bitcoin and ultimately i think that's a good thing i think it's a serious thing
- 28:43and i do think you appear also says that you know these bitcoin treasury companies will be
- 28:49able to recapitalize the market i think he does have a a leg to to stand on there that being said
- 28:56i don't think the equity markets is necessarily the most appropriate instrument to use and and
- 29:03get dollars into bitcoin and i think it will be a winner take most market um yeah i think very
- 29:10highly of you know michael saylor and strategy i think he'll go down as a captive industry for what
- 29:16he's done for corporate finance. I do think it's interesting and how some of these other companies
- 29:21are developing in markets, you know, their own kind of individual stock markets where,
- 29:27you know, those investors may not be able to easily get access to U.S. capital markets. I've
- 29:34talked to companies in Thailand, Brazil, Hong Kong that are more or less, you know, copying the
- 29:39strategy and deploying them in their local markets. I think those companies more than likely will be
- 29:46successful in the u.s at least i'm worried about yeah the 20th 25th treasury company that's your
- 29:52copycat and the strategy to your point granted that doesn't have as good as debt terms and
- 29:56i do think if i'm disappointed in one aspect of this it was just kind of the i can go to market
- 30:02and do this without an operating business i think that was pretty foolish and i was in
- 30:08bitcoin amsterdam and listened to you know mauler sit down with peter mccormick that you know really
- 30:15stuck with me and you know this isn't i don't have any inside knowledge on this i don't know
- 30:20those guys i'm just reading between the lines here jack and his talk was like there's four
- 30:25profitable business models in crypto it's exchanges lending treasury companies and stable coins
- 30:32well if i'm reading between the lines here you know they just launched 21 they're backed by
- 30:37tether stable coin they launched a bitcoin treasury company strike does exchange and lending
- 30:43like if 21 is successful it's more than likely going to be because they acquire strike and they
- 30:50have this well-functioning operating business getting back to your base point brandon that
- 30:56stacks bitcoin on their balance sheet they just happen to be in the public markets and can
- 31:00use some additional tools available to them that private companies don't have but yeah i do think
- 31:07it was too much hubris just to think i can put bitcoin on my balance sheet my stock will rip
- 31:12that's what i think happened with game stop you know they announced at the bitcoin conference last
- 31:16year they bought x amount of bitcoin their stock didn't do anything and if you are doing this
- 31:22strategy like you really have to commit to it yeah i think game stops like the perfect example it's
- 31:26like you can't just put bitcoin in your balance sheet and expect your stock to perform well they
- 31:32i mean that's a whole separate issue he i i seem to recall he said he like might buy ethereum too
- 31:38and he still wasn't really a Bitcoin believer.
- 31:42And so, I mean, he definitely shot himself in the foot.
- 31:45But I agree with you 100%.
- 31:49That's the problem.
- 31:50You nailed it, Wyatt, when you said
- 31:51they didn't come in with an operating business.
- 31:54They just thought they were going to build some shell
- 31:56to raise money.
- 31:58And then it's like, okay, well, at the end of the day,
- 32:00if you do that, this is a trade for you.
- 32:05So who's your exit liquidity?
- 32:06so who are who are you dumping on to get your more dollars back when bitcoin appreciates and
- 32:13you're not actually selling any more bitcoin you're selling shares of a company that doesn't
- 32:18do anything before the music you know so it's yeah that that's what rubs me the wrong way too
- 32:26is you didn't come in making anything doing anything valuable and you were basically just
- 32:31trying to raise a bunch of money, pump it up, and then dump on someone. And you never really
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- 33:21Well, I think where we could go from this part of the conversation is, okay, so if we're,
- 33:26If we're skeptical of that part of the Bitcoin ecosystem and how it's been playing out, if you move over to operational businesses having the opportunity to dip their toe into Bitcoin, whether it's the Treasury sweeping profits into the Treasury or taking Bitcoin as payment.
- 33:44And Brandon, I guess, tell us what you're seeing on the ground with the business owners
- 33:48you've spoken with.
- 33:49Of course, we can talk about some of the point of sale implementations that have come out
- 33:55this year that's making things a lot easier for businesses to onboard into Bitcoin.
- 33:59But I think that that honestly is the most bullish story of this whole year is honestly
- 34:05the work that you all have been doing on the ground, speaking with business owners and
- 34:09trying to help them solve a core problem within their business and personal financial life that
- 34:15is inflation and how Bitcoin helps to offset that. Yeah. And this square rollout has been amazing.
- 34:23I mean, that's to even be able to say, do you just have a, I actually talked to a guy, he owns a
- 34:31wine shop up by me and he's a really cool shop. It's all organic, biodynamic, natural. And Ben
- 34:38justman would be very proud of this place i was gonna say did i sell perry lane yeah well i've
- 34:43talked i have actually talked to him about that and he went to the website and he said that's very
- 34:47cool and so i'm actually gonna bring a bottle buy for him and just be like sample this let me know
- 34:52uh i asked ben if he wanted if he would be willing to go into other markets and get some other stores
- 34:57but he he didn't uh he didn't respond to me on that one so anyways i went in and he had a point
- 35:04of sales it's called like light speed or light something i'm i'm actually or lightning speed or
- 35:11something i'm actually forgetting the name was one of the ones i actually hadn't heard of but i started
- 35:15talking to him about it and he said yeah and he i said would you ever think about switching over to
- 35:22a different point of sale and i started talking to him because peony lane was brought up and i
- 35:27mentioned how i met him through bitcoin and would you think about switching over he's like yeah i
- 35:31guess I really wouldn't care. And I would just accept whatever people just wave their card in
- 35:37front of this thing. Anyways, Square has been trying to get ahold of me. They're willing to
- 35:40offer me a 25% discount to get set up with them. I'm like, okay, well, so there's a year one
- 35:46savings for you. I'm guessing it's probably similar in cost. It's not going to be a,
- 35:51it's not that hard to switch infrastructure here. And he said, no, absolutely not. And so
- 35:57that's been a really cool development to even be able to go into stores and be like here's here's
- 36:04a merchant option for you i mean you could do it at bars restaurants that was always a hard part
- 36:09and that's sort of what pub key had figured out that they were running all their own infrastructure
- 36:13and doing lots and lots of transactions and it's all only inbound there's no outbound transactions
- 36:19so and flash made things easier and unchained had ways you could do it but it then it was a
- 36:27custodial wallet. So there's all these tools being built out to solve these problems of business
- 36:34owners getting it, um, getting it through payments. And then the treasury option as well is super
- 36:41easy. There's so many great exchanges. There's so many great self-custody options. There's great
- 36:46multi-sig options. There's business concierge options as well out there. And that's, that's
- 36:53really who we've been dealing with so far is profitable companies who have actually done quite
- 36:59well and they're they're sitting there going i have this cash i have these reserves but it's a
- 37:06melting ice cube i i don't have some massive capital project i don't want to go hire 10 more
- 37:11people just to have more headcount i you know i don't want to do all this stuff like what do i do
- 37:17Where do I put this money? How do I save it? And these are people who understand that they're profitable, the value of hard money, or at least the lack of value in soft money.
- 37:32They, they understand that, that they just can't store their, their time and energy in fiat. And so they'll come to us. And so it's been really cool so far. We're in 2026. We're going to try to branch out a little more and maybe get into some bigger institutions or companies where we're kind of pushing them like, Hey, you need to understand that. Why this, why don't you, why don't you bring us on?
- 38:00we'll get you set up, blah, blah, blah. But this year has been a lot more of people who have,
- 38:07they've taken a step or two into their Bitcoin journey already and are looking for help. And
- 38:14so we're going to try, obviously we'd love to keep doing that. And it's been exciting working
- 38:19with those people and we're going to continue to work with those people. And those are our best
- 38:22customers, by the way, is people who wanted help, came to us, got the help and have just been
- 38:29eternally grateful. They're super happy with everything. And we have great relationships with
- 38:33those people. I imagine they're going to be customers for life. And we're not even, we didn't
- 38:39even have a full year of operation last year. And so to have that already is super cool.
- 38:46But we are also going to be trying to get out there and say, and push those people into their
- 38:54first couple steps of their Bitcoin journey as well to explain that to them. And that's been a
- 38:59tougher hurdle, but I do think we're going to, we have some good plans and good people to make
- 39:06that happen. And I think we're going to do it. So. Yeah, that's awesome. And one of the things I
- 39:13talk about a lot is just like, I'm so bullish on the development within the Bitcoin ecosystem,
- 39:18and then specifically in like the subject of Bitcoin financial services of what entrepreneurs
- 39:23are doing in the space.
- 39:26Brandon, do you think Sovereign was possible five years ago?
- 39:30And you want to like list out some specific tools and products like you recommend to your
- 39:35clients for the audience and just kind of elaborate on like the development in this
- 39:39space and how it makes, you know, our jobs easier.
- 39:42Well, I would say that Sovereign five years ago, just from a just from a culture and sort
- 39:49of zeitgeist standpoint would have been impossible.
- 39:51no i mean i used to try to talk to people about bitcoin four or five years ago and i laughed out
- 39:59of the room i mean just i one in 20 i would get some sort of favorable response or even like a
- 40:05willingness to talk about it and today everyone's heard of bitcoin and they're at least like okay
- 40:12they'll at least start asking questions even if it's like well i heard it uses a lot of energy
- 40:16or I heard only criminals use it.
- 40:21Like you even get FUD responses back
- 40:24before they would just be like just nothing,
- 40:27just a zero.
- 40:28And so I don't even think it would,
- 40:31I don't even think businesses
- 40:32would have even considered the possibility
- 40:34of doing anything with Bitcoin five years ago.
- 40:36So just from a mission standpoint of the company,
- 40:40I don't even think we would be able to exist five years ago.
- 40:43But in terms of the tools,
- 40:45companies like Unchained, they now have, you can get, you can get multi-institution custody
- 40:53through them if people don't want to hold their own keys where they'll effectively be your Bitcoin
- 40:59bank for you. And, but via separated keys. So it's not, you don't have concentration at one
- 41:05institution. That tool exists. We've had people ask us for that. Unfortunately, one of the people
- 41:12that asked us for that was not in the U.S. and unable to take advantage of it, but I'm sure
- 41:18services will expand globally. Stuff like Flash, stuff like ZapRite, even BTC Pay Server,
- 41:27way easier to use now, way more user-friendly, and the UX of BTC Pay Server has gotten so much
- 41:34better, the ability to, and also just the liquidity on the Lightning Network as well, just the amount
- 41:40of money that's available on the lightning network to be able to facilitate a lot of these channels.
- 41:49I mean, lightning payments, I don't know if you guys remember, but lightning payments used to fail
- 41:53all the time. I mean, if, and you're talking a hundred, a hundred bucks, 80 bucks, stuff like
- 42:00that, you couldn't get it. It was hard. Now it's seamless. It works like 99% of the time. So even
- 42:07just the ability of completing payments and the liquidity of the lightning network has improved
- 42:13so much and the channel routing the ability to get to other channels and accept payment has
- 42:19increased dramatically so those are a lot of the tools and then just having having an array of
- 42:27really good bitcoin only exchanges out there strike unchained um companies like that or um Yeah strike river unchained um just even having a really good stable of competitive exchanges that are bitcoin only to go to as opposed to four to five years ago a lot
- 42:48of these companies were sort of in their nascent stages we didn't know who they were and it was
- 42:54kind of like you know there's coinbase or some of these other places have been around but no one
- 42:59wants to deal with them and they have the crypto casino going on there as well. And so even those
- 43:06options, having trusted people, you feel good about sending people to as well has proliferated
- 43:15to a point that would not have been possible four or five years ago. This episode is brought to you
- 43:23by Satoshi Pacioli, a full service accounting and tax firm built for the Bitcoin economy.
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- 43:50one thing that you touched on just a little bit ago that i know even wide and i are trying to
- 43:57figure out ourselves is trying to get this message out to a more uh traditional audience a more just
- 44:05like an audience it's like they're just not they're not following you know the filter versus
- 44:10quantum debate on on x or something like that right that's probably for the best actually but
- 44:15yeah sure yeah yeah definitely for the best for their mental health and and everything else but
- 44:19But I guess, does Sovereign have any strategies going into the new year that you'd be willing to share about trying to get the word out to someone who's like, they're not even looking to get into it, but we're trying to explain to them why they should care about Bitcoin.
- 44:38Again, not from a price action standpoint, but from a, hey, this is why your life feels so hard right now standpoint.
- 44:46And we have a solution that we think is a really good idea.
- 44:50I'm just curious, any channels that you guys are potentially going through on getting that message across?
- 44:56And then making sure that that message is like really dialed in so that, you know, new customer kind of understands exactly the problem you're solving.
- 45:05yeah we've thought about this a lot actually and there's a couple things we're gonna be doing we've
- 45:11started doing them already but we're gonna start getting out on the for lack of a better term the
- 45:18normie business circuit we're gonna um we're gonna start applying for speaker positions panel
- 45:24positions at um business expos small business expos financial um expos and conferences and that
- 45:34sort of thing. So we're, we, we actually hired a media guy who is helping us with that, just source
- 45:40a bunch of different stuff. And so if there's something, for example, there's one in Iowa,
- 45:45I'm in Chicago, I'm going to, I'll drive out to that one and do it. So I'm going to apply to that
- 45:49one. And we have people in New York, people in DC, people in Vegas. We found a couple in Vegas,
- 45:55the conference capital of the world out there. So we'll have our Vegas guy, try to get on that one
- 46:01and just try to infiltrate that.
- 46:03And then at the same time,
- 46:05we're going to start joining some networks,
- 46:08some business networks,
- 46:09especially if we're in big cities like Chicago
- 46:12has tons of different options.
- 46:14There's tech stuff, there's finance stuff,
- 46:16there's middle market business stuff.
- 46:19And try to just join that network with people that way
- 46:23and be sort of the Bitcoin guy there,
- 46:26be the only person that knows about Bitcoin.
- 46:29Who is this?
- 46:31What is that?
- 46:31Pique some curiosity.
- 46:32And then lastly, we're going to start trying to get on or have on people in the normal finance world or the normal business world that aren't Bitcoiners and see if we can talk to them about Bitcoin, see if they'll be open to that.
- 46:49And so really continuing a focus in the Bitcoin community with Bitcoiners and all that, but really going hard into the non-Bitcoin community and putting our time and effort there, saying if we can ingratiate ourselves to people, build trust.
- 47:06And given all of us have extensive backgrounds and, you know, multi-decade backgrounds and doing other things. And so hopefully that provides us some, some credibility and at least a willingness to listen to what we have to say that, okay, these people aren't totally crazy. They, they left a lucrative career of a very long time to go do something else, to go do this. Maybe they're not nuts.
- 47:32um and so that's those are going to be our avenues of focus and i i think i think it's
- 47:39going to be awesome i think it's going to be really cool and i think it's going to be a
- 47:42great opportunity but we'll we'll see how all of this goes next year that's awesome uh
- 47:49are most of folks you guys talk to would you kind of like predominantly say they're like
- 47:54services business you know is it like the one shop down the street gives them insight of that
- 47:58um i would say so far generally speaking it's owner operators with sole decision making authority
- 48:08that really understand sort of the proof of work idea maybe they're not fully orange pill or
- 48:15whatever but they get it like hey i'm doing something productive here i'm making something
- 48:20but i can't keep up with the rising costs and i i heard a bitcoin is a potential solution
- 48:27explain it to me why and I would say that's been much more the mix and then we've had like I said
- 48:33we've had a good deal of Bitcoiners who just want some extra help like hey maybe I have my own cold
- 48:40storage set up or I have my business and I just take my salary and I buy Bitcoin on my own but I
- 48:47really haven't set it up for the company I don't have a good setup will you guys help me come do
- 48:53that. And that's actually been, uh, maybe, maybe like half of, uh, our clientele so far as well
- 49:01as it's been that kind of Bitcoiner, give me some extra help and expertise as well.
- 49:07Yeah. I mean, even on the individual side, I mean, I know I hired, uh, someone, uh, if anyone
- 49:14knows Armin De Parman, uh, yeah. I mean, I, I, yeah, legend. I engaged him, uh, and I'm, it was
- 49:22all through. I met a guy. We had known each other on, on X or Twitter at the time we met at the
- 49:28conference in Miami in person. So I was like, okay, you're, you're a real guy. And then he actually,
- 49:33uh, put me in contact with, with, uh, Parman and, um, and yeah, I mean, I paid Parman some sats
- 49:40that honestly that, you know, I paid a lot of money for that consulting now. Um, but you know,
- 49:45it's, it was one of those things that it was very necessary in my learning journey, even though I was
- 49:51very willing to like put in the hours myself but it's it's just so helpful to have somebody kind of
- 49:57hold your hand especially if you don't have you know someone in your family or close to you that's
- 50:01willing to do it uh you know for free so i love that you guys are doing that so um well jord just
- 50:09just something i want to add to that point just because i think a part of this is something we
- 50:13talk about a lot you know it's like oh i have bitcoin like what i need financial services and
- 50:17to speak kind of like more to your line of business, Brandon, or if you're a business owner,
- 50:23it's like crucially important you make data driven decisions and the amount of due diligence
- 50:27and intentionality you have to make or put into those decisions is paramount to the future success
- 50:34of your business. And it's valuable just getting a second opinion on that, right? And like leaning
- 50:38into, you know, folks like yourselves who have done the work that can add a different perspective
- 50:43that you can bounce ideas off of.
- 50:45That's something that I think crosses Bitcoin,
- 50:49that Bitcoiners should ignore.
- 50:50It's important that we build out this ecosystem.
- 50:54So I just love that point, Jordan.
- 50:55I think that's very pertinent.
- 50:57Yeah, there's so much that goes on in running a business
- 51:00that, listen, some businesses,
- 51:02you might be fine holding all your Bitcoin.
- 51:04And if you need to sell a little, you'll sell it,
- 51:07you'll get the dollars, whatever.
- 51:08Other businesses have incredible seasonality.
- 51:11And it's like, hey, I need a line of credit for this season and then I pay it back then. And so there's all sorts of different factors that come into running businesses and thinking about these things beyond even even the companies we like to work with, the profitable businesses that are, hey, here's my profits.
- 51:29I like to take my profits, store some or all of it in Bitcoin.
- 51:33That's great.
- 51:34But there's also like running a business that happens all the time.
- 51:38And there's other financial considerations you have to have along the way.
- 51:45Unfortunately, you may need to put a new roof on your building.
- 51:48Well, guess what?
- 51:49I don't know too many roofing companies taking Bitcoin.
- 51:52So it's like you may need some dollar reserves for that.
- 51:56Let's at least think through this.
- 51:58And are you going to be comfortable, uh, in 30 days from now selling $25,000 worth of Bitcoin?
- 52:05If the price drops 20%, will you be happy with that decision?
- 52:09If so, great.
- 52:09Okay.
- 52:10You know, some people can live with that and that's cool.
- 52:13But other people are like, no, let's just, I know the roof's going to be 25 K let's just
- 52:18set aside the 25 K and do it.
- 52:20So that's a super simple example, but that's just one of hundreds of decisions business
- 52:26owners are making every single day.
- 52:28So, yeah. Well, Brandon, it's always so good. I mean, there's so many topics we could go,
- 52:34you know, on and on for, but you know, for better or worse, this is, uh, we're not at the Joe Rogan
- 52:39level of like the three, four hour, uh, not with that attitude. Well, not, well, not with that.
- 52:45And then why it was like, Oh, well, I got a hard stop. And to his credit, I actually do have a hard
- 52:50stop as well. I've got a little mining, uh, mining webinar. I've got to hop on and talk to all the
- 52:56people who are like last very last minute planning trying to get some bitcoin miners plugged in
- 53:01before year end so should i be going long asics here jordan is that what you're telling me
- 53:06um i'd be long tax planning for bitcoin mining companies there's a little bit of planning that's
- 53:14going into with all the big beautiful bill stuff uh so that's been uh fun but also a lot of a lot
- 53:20of work so um brand i'm excited for us to continue working together and just sharing
- 53:26clients back and forth. It's been just a true pleasure to get to work with you and Jeff and
- 53:31the whole team. So this is great. And we'll have to bring you back on very soon. What's the handoff
- 53:37if there's an advisor out there who has some clients, either they want to do it themselves
- 53:42or they have clients they want to send your way, what's the best way for them to get in contact
- 53:46with you? Yeah, the easiest way is just go to the website, Sovereign, S-O-V-E-R-E-I-G-N,
- 53:53sovereignwithoutthefirste.io and just reach out to us. There's a contact us form there,
- 54:01or we also have a referral program. So we will pay 10% of the first year's billings that we have
- 54:08to you if you refer someone in and we close business with them. So that's a great opportunity
- 54:13as well. If you do have an actual referral, someone you want to send over to us,
- 54:17check out the referral tab on the website and then Sovereign has accounts on LinkedIn
- 54:24X we're sovereign at Sovereign X again that's S-O-V-E-R-E-I-G-N and we're on Noster but I run
- 54:34the Noster Sovereign account and I suck at running social media accounts so um it if you if you do
- 54:41reach out to me I will respond but I will probably move us over to a different platform to chat so
- 54:47that being said yeah and we might have an instagram account i know we were talking about
- 54:52bringing it back but i don't know so just go to go to the website sovereign.io or x or linkedin
- 55:00or uh naster those are those are the four best places beautiful all right well this is fun why
- 55:07any last words from you yeah thanks so much for coming on brandon it's always good to have a
- 55:13Bacorn for Financial Services Summit veteran on.
- 55:15We're looking forward to having you out next year.
- 55:17Yeah.
- 55:18And looking forward to staying in touch.
- 55:20Absolutely.
- 55:20I appreciate all you guys did with that, by the way.
- 55:23It was incredible.
- 55:25I know I told you guys separately,
- 55:26but you guys really knocked it out of the ballpark with that thing.
- 55:29So well done on that.
- 55:32And I always love chatting with both of you.
- 55:34It's never enough time.
- 55:36So maybe next time we do this,
- 55:37we will have to do like a Rogan-style episode.
- 55:41Maybe in person.
- 55:43Yeah.
- 55:43Oh, yeah.
- 55:43Maybe in person.
- 55:45That would be fun.
- 55:46That would be great.
- 55:46All right, cool.
- 55:47Well, Merry Christmas, everyone.
- 55:49And Merry Christmas, Brandon and Wyatt.
- 55:50I will talk to you guys soon, okay?
- 55:52Thanks.
- 55:52Merry Christmas, guys.
- 55:53Thanks.
- 55:54Okay.
- 55:54See you, Johns.
- 56:00We appreciate you joining us.
- 56:02If you want to help build the future of Bitcoin and financial services, hit subscribe, leave a review, sign up for a newsletter,
- 56:09and share this with someone in your network
- 56:11who's integrating Bitcoin into their practice.
- 56:14The more professionals we reach,
- 56:16the stronger this ecosystem becomes
- 56:18and our clients are better served.
- 56:20Stay sharp, stay sovereign,
- 56:23keep leading from the front.
- 56:39Thank you.