Latest / Bitcoin for Financial Services Podcast / Why 99% of Advisors Will Be Unemployed in 3 Years

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Why 99% of Advisors Will Be Unemployed in 3 Years · Bitcoin for Financial Services Podcast

• 0:00
  This is going to be just a tough realization that the financial advisory industry is going to have to get through and overcome and innovate through.
• 0:08
  Is that, you know, you're going to have to come up with ways to generate revenue for your firm aside from just charging on AUM.
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  It's going to be more of I need to be proactive in an advisory capacity and I need to help them accomplish and diversify risks that they're, you know, strictly custodial portfolios not quite accomplishing from a geopolitical perspective.
• 0:27
  For those who look at it with the right lens and say this is actually an opportunity, they're going to be able to differentiate themselves and thrive and win over business that the legacy advisors who aren't willing to adapt, evolve and change are going to wish they had been able to keep.
• 0:44
  Bitcoin is a currency on the internet.
• 0:46
  If you don't trust any other currency, this is where you go.
• 0:49
  It's going to outperform everything.
• 0:50
  Bitcoin could eventually be worthless.
• 0:52
  Every day is a good day to buy Bitcoin.
• 0:54
  Bitcoin reached its highest price to date.
• 0:56
  Bitcoin hitting a new high.
• 0:58
  It really has reached escape velocity.
• 1:00
  There is no second best.
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  Who cares about Bitcoin?
• 1:02
  It's the only secure database that's ever been invented.
• 1:05
  Antisocial.
• 1:06
  Bitcoin is the real deal.
• 1:08
  Stupid.
• 1:08
  Everything is bullish for Bitcoin.
• 1:11
  Immoral.
• 1:11
  It's going up forever, Lauren.
• 1:13
  Fix the money.
• 1:15
  Fix the world.
• 1:18
  Wide Work is a registered investment advisor,
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  and the opinions expressed on the show are their own
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  and do not reflect the opinions of the Silicon LLC.
• 1:22
  Joining us as a CPA,
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  and the opinions expressed on the show are their own
• 1:24
  and do not reflect the opinions of trusted CPA
• 1:25
  or other affiliated firms. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend
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  to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments,
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  or investment strategies. Investments of all risk and unless otherwise stated are not guaranteed.
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  Information expressed does not take into account your specific situation or objectives is not
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  intended as a recommendation appropriate for any individual. Listeners are encouraged to seek
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  advice from a qualified tax legal or investment advisor to determine whether any information
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  presented may be suitable for their specific situation. Past performance is not indicative
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  of future performance. Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice.
• 1:48
  Welcome to Bitcoin for Financial Services Media, the podcast where sound money meets professional
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  services. We explore how to build a financial services industry within the principles,
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  values, and ethos of Bitcoin. Today, we're joined by Zach Wichler, Director of Sales at Casa.
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  We'll be discussing how they are building for the future of Bitcoin financial services.
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  Let's get started.
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  Welcome back to Bitcoin for Financial Services Media. Jordan, great to see you. Bombed on this
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  last episode it's good to be back uh we're joined by zach director of sales at casa good friend of
• 2:28
  the pod good friend of mine good friend of the space so we're honored to have you zach
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  thanks why glad to be here happy friday to you guys and yeah and it's uh cool to see how
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  the i think he said bitcoin for financial services media it's it's growing beyond
• 2:46
  growing and beyond the summit man you guys are building a brand it's it's really cool to see it
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  come together so quickly i have to give jordan credit for that i was just thinking like a small
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  little ant he's like now dude we got something here like let's do a big and i was like oh are
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  you sure are you sure i'm scared he's like stop being almost four almost four family friendly
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  podcast here but anyway zach why don't you give us a little intro on your on yourself yeah
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  My name's Zach, Director of Sales at Casa. I've been here almost five years.
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  Former financial advisor, so it's always fun to be on that side of the table in this conversation.
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  Got the orange pill somewhere in the late 2010s, early 2020, and really just dove in pretty deep.
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  left the financial planning industry,
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  was like working on sitting for a CFP exam and all of that.
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  And just kind of saw the writing that with the 2020 bifurcation of all the
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  money printing that Bitcoin was going to be the future.
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  And it kind of felt like a fork in the road moment where it's like,
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  I'm either going to double down in financial planning or I'm going to go into
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  Bitcoin.
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  And little did I know how much it would come back around.
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  I'm going to be doing a podcast about financial planning.
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  So it feels very familiar.
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  but also very different. So hardcore advocate of self-custody and sovereignty. And I think some of
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  those same things that attracted me to financial planning and the sort of liberty or sovereignty
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  or financial independence maybe is probably the better word in this context that attracted me to
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  financial planning in the first place is also what brings me to Bitcoin and the self-custody
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  aspect or CASA. Also writing a book, The Bitcoin Tao coming out in February. So depending on when
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  this comes out very soon um bitcoin magazine books is our publisher and uh how do you spell
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  the second word by the way uh tau t-a-o so it's a 81 verses based on the inspiration of the tau
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  to ching it's like an old chinese wisdom book and uh wrote each verse for uh kind of like
• 4:58
  reapplying the wisdom or rewriting it for bitcoin so it's not a education book it's not a not really
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  something you read to learn, but I hope you learn something. It's more of a culture book,
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  and I hope we'll stand the test of time over the years as Bitcoin evolves and just becomes
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  money. I love it, man. Well, we'll make sure to link that. Is it sort of be available
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  through the Bitcoin Magazine website? Yeah, for pre-order, probably next month or so,
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  and there'll be some limited edition hardcover leather-bound collector's edition copies. That's
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  a library edition with a cover, gold foil, the whole deal. The publisher of Bitcoin Magazine
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  books has been great to work with and uh we'll have like a cheaper paperback version for those
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  who just want to you know have a copy on their shelf or gift it out but yeah bitcoin all day
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  every day that's my life um helped co-found the space with wyatt and some of the other
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  gents in denver and yeah man it's um and you played a big role in our summit so shout out
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  honestly shout out to that you're a jack of all trades because you stepped up and did all of the
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  uh, all the sound and all the recording. And honestly, that was a huge help to us. So thank
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  you for doing that. My pleasure. It was fun. And, uh, it's nice to be on the other side of the AV
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  recording and just like show up and join. Yeah. We could have used your help, but obviously yeah,
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  behind the scenes, we were on the wrong, if we were each on the wrong side of the link for the
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  show for 10 minutes, but we're, we're not professional podcasters at the end of the day,
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  we're all financial service guys and just uh we're doing this out of the goodness of our hearts
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  you know to really bring everybody else else up to speed so well give me more background zach of
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  like okay so you went to college for i guess finance and then you worked in trad fi like as
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  were you kind of on like a cfp type of route or what was that looking like for you yeah i studied
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  econ okay uh graduated the econ degree first job out of college was at merrill lynch and i was like
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  a asset acquisition specialist basically so my job is to cold call and get people to give us their
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  money hard when you're like 21 um but always kind of been grinding in the sales side and still run
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  sales today but yeah basically like saw the mutual fund world coming to an end as soon as i got into
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  it and you know people coming and buying us chick-fil-a sandwiches and i was like where's that
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  chick-fil-a coming from oh from the advisor's expense ratio v's that they're putting clients
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  funds in and a couple years later moved to denver and joined personal capital and that was much more
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  of like a tech forward company and did financial planning from a lot more quantitative and less
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  like rub elbows type of technique so that was really cool and kind of brought me into the
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  digital world for for financial planning and that is where i really got into bitcoin and started
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  meeting people who were mentioning this sort of forward thinking in the financial planning world
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  and from there like i said caught the bitcoin bug and it was uh it was all downhill or uphill
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  from there depending on um which time you when you when you listen to this and uh what your
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  perspective is but yeah the uh the financial planning side was always just like very interesting
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  to me because i was like how do some people have the ability to like go on vacations all the time
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  and do this and how do other people not and something that stuck with me early on in college
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  was chris martinson's uh video about the exponential growth and compounding and you know i think warren
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  Buffett says like compound interest is like the eighth wonder of the world and I don't know for
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  some reason that's really stuck with me and so I started very young thinking like the things that
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  I do now will have an outsized payoff later if I have that discipline to do it now and of course
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  the Bitcoiners low time preference mentality I mean fits in that like a glove and uh also the
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  idea of having true control uh over your money in a way that even having like traditional financial
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  assets that are held at custodians just doesn't offer. Teeter-tottering on conspiracy theory
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  versus just actual planning. But sovereignty is something that's like, oh, we're only...
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  You never know how much you really take it for granted. And having that lever to pull,
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  it's just a nice thing to know that exists and know you have that ability versus having no recourse.
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  So the true sovereignty aspect of Bitcoin is really appealing to me and I think has a place
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  in people's portfolios,
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  though I don't give financial advice anymore.
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  There is something to be said about money
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  that cannot be controlled
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  or that you don't have to ask for permission to use.
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  And I think in an ever-growing AI digital world
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  where everything's automated and constantly monitored,
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  that it's only going to become more of a valuable part
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  of Bitcoin.
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  And yeah, so that's kind of my soapbox
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  and what I hope people take away is, you know,
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  Bitcoin's here to stay and it's a tool for freedom,
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  not just inflation protection. And it's a tool for many, many people around the world.
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  Yeah, totally. I think that's beautifully said. One thing I want to circle back on, Zach,
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  that you mentioned in the intro is when you were still working in TradFi and you were thinking
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  about making the leap to Bitcoin, at that time, did you really kind of see it as like this
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  bifurcation where there's going to be two teams? It's going to be Team Bitcoin, Team TradFi,
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  those two worlds aren't really going to merge or work together?
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  No, I think I, I mean, you got to remember, like, my perspective, again, has changed as I've been in Bitcoin.
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  So it's hard to put myself exactly in where I would have been back in 2017, 2018, when I first started learning about it.
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  But I definitely didn't.
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  I was a skeptic about the Bitcoin ETFs.
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  I didn't think they were going to happen.
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  When it did, it started really working on changing my mind.
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  I now see it clearly why it exists.
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  And it's not, you know, that writing is on the wall and is going in further that direction.
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  But the financialization of Bitcoin, if you will, is certainly a momentum that's not going to be stopped and probably only growing.
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  And then also there's a lot of, you know, rhetoric around from, you know, OGs or people who've been around a while that says like, you know, Bitcoin is going to be used by everyone.
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  By banks, the people you like, the people you don't like, criminals, good people, you know, it's literally a money that's used for everyone.
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  That's the value of it.
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  I didn't quite see.
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  And I think what has surprised me over the last few years is that how much the aspects of self-custody has been minimized and how like swept under the rug.
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  It's just been like, yeah, it's not that important.
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  And it's because of the ETFs, right?
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  It almost feels like we're overdue for that lesson again.
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  Every couple of years, the exchanges have collapsed or been caught up in a waterfall of fraud or whatever.
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  I mean, maybe this time is different, but those are dangerous words.
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  So I'm surprised at how the sovereignty aspect has kind of fallen by the wayside on a lot of people.
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  but the inflation protection aspect is still like like nobody's like peer-to-peer permissionless
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  cash everyone's like infinity over 21 million right and those to me are they're both value props
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  that bitcoin offers but they're different ones and you only get certain ones with certain types of
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  uh of custody so interesting to me how much they've melded um part of what i end the bitcoin
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  tau with in the last few verses is uh talking about how you know bitcoin will become what it's
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  going to be and not what you think it should be. And that also those things, that definition itself
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  will change. And so it's been a humbling process to say, oh, I know how Bitcoin is going to be in
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  10, 20 years and then have to reel it back in and say, you know what? I don't know what the world's
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  going to be like in six months, much less 10 years from now. So it keeps us on our toes.
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  Well, how do you approach it? I mean, I even have a lot of calls with folks that, you know,
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  they're dipping their toe into mining, for example, and they're doing it through a hosted set up.
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  And, you know, a lot of them actually, surprisingly, are older folks. And I got, you know,
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  a lady comes to mind that I spoke with earlier this week. And it was just one of those things
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  where I was like, man, I don't, I don't even know if, if, if I recommend you go down this path,
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  just because unless you're really, you know, I don't know, you have someone helping you hand in hand in hand or you or you're just really technical yourself.
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  You have that background. It's it's a hard thing for someone who's always relied upon a custodian,
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  whether it's their bank or or their financial institution to hold their funds for them to now say,
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  okay now you're going to take full self-custody full sovereignty and go like zero to one overnight
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  i guess i'm curious to ask how how is that how do you think through like is it a specific type
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  of person for how the tools are now that should be looking at this or is are the tool sets easy
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  enough that it's your thought that hey you know take responsibility you know take how many ever
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  hours that you need to learn all this to just go full full on on the self-custody route
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  yeah i mean i think there are tiers of it so i would say like mining is like all the way like
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  even like way beyond self-custody even like there are other ways of accumulating bitcoin that are
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  much simpler much more reliable you'll probably also be more effective so if you're not like i
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  I would not really recommend mining to anyone unless you are talking to the guys at Exergy and you're trying to heat your home.
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  Shout out to Exergy.
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  Shout out to Exergy.
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  So, I mean, there's a benefit to mining, but that's a whole new rabbit hole.
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  Like, you know, heat is a product, not a problem.
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  But I mean, if you're just, if your point is to get exposure to Bitcoin as an asset, mining is not the way I would suggest it.
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  It's far more complicated than necessary.
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  Like you just trade your fiat on an exchange.
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  Casa even offers like an OTC desk and a buy and sell.
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  So like we can help you with that and it goes directly to your wallet.
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  But like the, you don't need to go mine.
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  So unless there's like a, you know, appreciations or like depreciation schedule that you're trying to take advantage of or some like tax thing that's maybe you would know more about Jordan than me.
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  But like unless there's some kind of other driving force, if the point is to get exposure, you're going to buy it on exchange or you're going to mine it.
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  That's really the only two ways to get it.
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  So buying on exchange would be the preferred way I'd say from most.
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  And then you need to withdraw to self custody, which if you're holding real Bitcoin, you
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  should have it in a way that you can't just like mess it up and lose it tomorrow.
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  Otherwise, the whole point of holding real Bitcoin is gone.
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  And that's really what Casa, our company focuses on.
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  I mean, we're a neutral institution for neutral money, right?
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  And so it's only neutral so much that you actually have access to that money.
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  If you lose it or you get cut off, I mean, there's no more value prop to that real Bitcoin.
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  So I think for most people, if you're going to get exposure to Bitcoin, you're going to buy the real thing and not the ETF.
• 16:20
  Then you definitely need to consider self-custody.
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  And most oftentimes, when you're considering self-custody, if it's some meaningful amount of money, you don't want to put it all black.
• 16:31
  Right. So you don't want to have a single point of failure with just a ledger or treasurer sitting in your home.
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  My favorite like word anecdote is like, oh, yeah, I got more money in this flash drive than the whole in the house and the whole house is worth.
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  And it's like, that's, if that is you, we should talk.
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  Like, if you have more money for the ledger in your home than the home is worth, we need to talk.
• 16:51
  We can solve your problem for a fraction of your homeowner's insurance monthly costs, more than likely.
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  So, yeah, I mean, it's just, there are better ways to do it.
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  And when you look at like self too it I mean we just like at Casa we just recreating the institutional security model for the individual So companies that hold a thousand Bitcoin or Bitcoin or micro strategy with they don hold their own Bitcoin so they a bad example
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  But let's say, if you're holding 600,000 Bitcoin,
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  you're not going to hold that on a hot wallet.
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  And you're certainly not going to hold that in a single key.
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  There's going to be layers of redundancy and protection built in.
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  That's the same approach that we do.
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  And it's really not all that different than the whole diversification strategy
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  that you apply in financial planning.
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  It's that you don't bet your entire portfolio on one stock.
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  You don't bet it on one sector.
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  You maybe don't bet it on one size or style box either, right?
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  Or even one asset class.
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  And so there are this concept of redundancy and caution.
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  Security by diversification is a principle that should resonate with financial advisors.
• 17:55
  And I think where I hope our industry evolves to is a place where financial advisors, because
• 18:01
  I know, I mean, this is often, I'm just, you know, from talking with Wyatt.
• 18:04
  And it's like, you know, clients like look at Bitcoin in different ways. They have different levels of education about it, why they should hold it, what it's for, what they can do with it, how likely they'll lose it.
• 18:15
  You know, but from an advisor's perspective, it's like, well, look, maybe it's like, you know, already hard enough getting my clients to say, yes, let's put 5% of our long term holdings in Bitcoin.
• 18:27
  And it's like, cool. And we're going to self-cust you in this flash drive in your house where, you know, and it's like, wait, what?
• 18:34
  You know, but I think kind of just like redefining the narrative that it's actually that there's a benefit to that.
• 18:40
  And that's the true money that has not just a inflation hedge, but a geopolitical hedge.
• 18:45
  And in the world of uncertainty, we're going into with infinite money and question marks around lots of things.
• 18:52
  I think having that, you know, go bag or I mean, it sounds kind of crazy, but but truly like it is a tail risk insurance for an individual in a way that there is not.
• 19:04
  quite the same delivery in anything sitting in your Schwab account. Like, does not matter
• 19:10
  what custodial product you're holding, because the custodian itself would be a part of that
• 19:18
  systemic failure. So, yeah, I mean, I think Bitcoin is going to continue to evolve and
• 19:24
  how people use it and hold it is going to continue to change. So it's a, we're here to help,
• 19:32
  And we were here to demystify this stuff, just like a financial planner would give you a... Actually, you can retire. You can withdraw 4% a year or give you strategies. It doesn't have to be this big black box of unknown. And we have support to help with that too.
• 19:48
  So anyway, Bitcoin's a very cool, different thing to lots of different people.
• 19:57
  And it's also not a stagnant thing either.
• 19:59
  Although the 21 million part, that better stay.
• 20:03
  Yeah, right.
• 20:04
  Absolutely.
• 20:08
  Your wealth deserves intention.
• 20:11
  Basilic Financial is a Bitcoin-focused wealth management firm built to help our clients find balance between money and meaning.
• 20:16
  We integrate sound money strategies across four distinct personalized services, financial planning, individual wealth management, retirement services for SMBs and Bitcoin financial services.
• 20:26
  Your prosperity, your purpose, intentionally guided at Basilic Financial.
• 20:31
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• 20:35
  Well, I think it's such a good point, Zach, because one of the things, you know, self-custody is something we take very seriously.
• 20:43
  you know, at Basilic and something, you know, we've talked about a lot. And I'm happy you brought up
• 20:48
  the point that we are in uncertain geopolitical times, you know, just listen to you, you know,
• 20:56
  Tucker the other day, and he had, you know, this whole monologue about, you know, American empire,
• 21:00
  and if power gets consolidated into the executive branch, you're literally flip flopping back and
• 21:05
  forth every four years, like what type of regime you could be, you know, living in. And, you know,
• 21:10
  We even saw during the last regime and the Elizabeth Warren war on terror on, you know, crypto.
• 21:19
  Yeah, OK, an ETF may be a decent stopgap or somewhat of a starting point, but you really do leave yourself exposed to a lot of things you don't need to be exposed to because you're a Bitcoiner and it allows you to take full control of your wealth.
• 21:32
  And I just don't think people are talking about that enough specifically in the financial services world.
• 21:37
  and I got, we didn't, I should have pressed him harder on this, but I was trying to be a nice guy.
• 21:42
  But my theory is that, you know, the wealth management industry is slow to adopt Bitcoin
• 21:48
  because it threatens their business model. We had Gerard on and he disagreed with me.
• 21:53
  We'll have to pick that back up and I'll poke him in the ribs about it. Just because I think
• 21:57
  they want to add the ETF and continue charging their 1% and it's so easy for them. And they
• 22:03
  really do fall short, I think, of their overall fiduciary duty about encouraging self-custody,
• 22:08
  which is why I'm super thankful for companies like Casa that allow these advisors to utilize
• 22:13
  the tools you guys have built to further help their clients. But I do just want to double click
• 22:19
  more on the ETF point. And do you think it's more of a net good or a net bad? One of the arguments
• 22:27
  I don't personally like about it is just like helps give people off zero more. And it's like,
• 22:31
  okay yeah sure i guess but if it's a wrong way to get off zero is it really a net good and then the
• 22:37
  second part of that conversation is do you think you know 10 years from now we'll just be looking
• 22:42
  at the etf is like a point in time like it captured so much attention for like three years and then it
• 22:48
  you know kind of devolved into you know something we don't really talk about anymore yeah yeah it
• 22:53
  could a couple things there um if i can remember them all so yeah i think the first thing like when
• 23:00
  we're talking about advisors and you know i mean we we at casa like provide that tech support that
• 23:08
  sort of intermediary bridging the gap for your clients where if the client is dead set maybe
• 23:15
  maybe the advisor's not not going to convince their clients to hold self-custody or be so
• 23:20
  intentional about promoting it as you would and part of what i think will help differentiate your
• 23:25
  firm. But the reality is that there are going to still be some clients who are insistent on
• 23:32
  self-custody for whatever reason, just like you've got clients who are like, I'm holding the gold ETF.
• 23:36
  I don't care what you say. And they're feeling good right now. They finally got their
• 23:39
  opportunity at time in the sun. So I think for clients who want to hold self-custody,
• 23:46
  who their mind is made up for whatever reason, it doesn't matter, that they want to hold self-custody,
• 23:52
  We can be an advisor to you as an advisor where you're handling the financial side of the things, but we're helping you bridge the gap.
• 24:00
  We're not Coinbase's support in India, like that.
• 24:02
  You're just like, how do we do this?
• 24:04
  We have a private client advisor that you work with and that can help you bridge the gap between the financial planning goals that you're trying to do and the security considerations that need to be taken into account.
• 24:15
  So I think, you know, and we also don't KYC our customers unless you're doing like buy and sell.
• 24:20
  So we can have a higher touch level of privacy preserving support there too.
• 24:26
  So I think that's something that just like, you know, it's not even like you don't have to go at it alone, whether you're a client or an advisor who is helping you or is helping your client on their behalf.
• 24:37
  so i think that that is going to be one area where we just need to continue to double down
• 24:43
  and like make sure that we're we're we're promoting that hey self-custody is not that hard
• 24:49
  if you do it right uh and it is important and it's looking at that like net benefit of
• 24:54
  i think once you realize that you could wake up one morning and they could have a hard fork that
• 25:02
  BlackRock doesn't honor or like there's just things that can happen that are controllables,
• 25:08
  but not if you don't do it right or do it in a certain way.
• 25:13
  There are controllable risks that you could mitigate.
• 25:15
  So self-custody is going to be the gold standard, I think, forever.
• 25:18
  So like on the point about like 10 years from now and ETF, I think the ETF is here to stay.
• 25:24
  I also think that, you know, the hill, I'm not going to die on the hill of trying to
• 25:29
  we get everybody out of the ETF and into self custody.
• 25:33
  Something I've had to like humbly learn is that self custody is not for
• 25:37
  everyone because personal responsibility is concept.
• 25:40
  It's not for everyone.
• 25:41
  Some people don't want to be responsible for themselves.
• 25:43
  Maybe they got a drug problem or whatever.
• 25:44
  Like maybe they're,
• 25:46
  they're,
• 25:46
  you know,
• 25:46
  they're in hospice care.
• 25:47
  And so like,
• 25:48
  they shouldn't be like,
• 25:49
  that's not a good situation to be self custodying where you might have
• 25:52
  critical information lost.
• 25:54
  So,
• 25:55
  uh,
• 25:55
  we actually have inheritance.
• 25:57
  We help people plan for that stuff.
• 25:58
  But,
• 25:58
  you know,
• 25:59
  I think where we're going to find our value in serving advisors is both that advisory capacity
• 26:05
  with tech support and security considerations that sort of bridge the gap between the legacy
• 26:10
  financial world and also just having tools and infrastructure to help advisors grow their
• 26:15
  practice and differentiate it. So making sure that, you know, if you like, I think you do some
• 26:19
  of this already, right, where you may hold keys on behalf of clients. And this is actually a whole
• 26:24
  do a different line of business. So the days of charging 1% and then charging another 25 bps on
• 26:30
  top with the ETF, I mean, like you said, you nailed it, Wyatt. I mean, sure, some people are going to
• 26:34
  probably ride that out as long as they can until the end of their career and then retire off in the
• 26:38
  sunset. But for advisors who are looking to truly differentiate themselves and grow and not just
• 26:43
  kind of do what the old ways have been doing and subsist, yeah, I think there's going to be an
• 26:48
  opportunity, but also a requirement for people to change and evolve their business practices. So the
• 26:53
  days of selling Asia or mutual funds are pretty much over. The days of, you know, charging 1%
• 26:59
  and just putting people in a client portfolio of ETFs are probably also being compressed from a
• 27:06
  fee perspective. So I think there's still value in that. And when you serve as an advisor,
• 27:11
  whether it's cashflow planning or strategic tax planning or estate planning, and we have an estate
• 27:17
  advisor or estate planner who does this with their clients, where he serves as like a trustee or
• 27:23
  in this role where he's holding a key or perhaps multiple keys, but not the full custody, only,
• 27:30
  you know, a minority of the total number and can help work with the heirs to help distribute the
• 27:36
  assets if something ever happens to the grantor. And so the idea of like, hey, you have to,
• 27:42
  we have a, CASA has a case study on this. I'll have to send it over to you guys. The idea that
• 27:46
  You have to give up your custody to a custodian to satisfy the tests of giving up custody for an irrevocable trust isn't necessarily true.
• 27:56
  Where because Bitcoin is a bearer asset, there are certain unique properties that it has and requirements that are different than something that's held as a title, not a custodian.
• 28:06
  And so when you think about if Bitcoin is held like in a revocable trust or something, it's basically just in your own name, right?
• 28:13
  But when you start getting into the tax and asset preservation or asset tax strategy and asset protection strategies of irrevocable trust, you can't hold it anymore.
• 28:25
  And this is where something like a collaborative custody partner can make sure that you don't hold it, but that you didn't just give it to the guys who want to just package it into the ETF and fractionalize it to all hell.
• 28:37
  So there are ways to keep it within the custody of the family and meet both the security goals and the legal requirements that sometimes kind of feel like they're, you know, juxtaposing or it has with one another.
• 28:50
  So lots of things that are going to evolve within the landscape.
• 28:54
  And yeah, man, it's it's I can't imagine being in any other industry anymore.
• 28:59
  but like i said earlier it's it's funny to like i've come full circle it was just like
• 29:04
  without all the letters and the name i'm still basically doing financial services
• 29:09
  yeah jordan weren't you just uh chirping brian armstrong on on x about his customer support
• 29:15
  well i was just saying um that they leaked my email and my phone number and i get texts every
• 29:23
  day and emails of like, we saw a new login. Was that you or whatever? And so that's kind of,
• 29:30
  and I was at one of the Naples, Florida meetup two nights ago. And there was a lady who, I mean,
• 29:37
  if I had to guess, she was probably like in her mid fifties that she was like, I hold all my stuff
• 29:42
  on Coinbase. And it was a really good opportunity to, you know, try to talk as a group on, you know,
• 29:48
  why that's not a good, this is not a good thing to do for a host of reasons, whether it's personal
• 29:55
  information or risk that, you know, Coinbase is a honeypot that potentially they don't have all the
• 30:01
  Bitcoin they say they do, all those kinds of things. So it's, it's definitely, it's funny
• 30:07
  because, you know, I think we're at the point now where enough people are like, oh yeah, I,
• 30:11
  I've heard enough about it. It seems like it's legit because people on CNBC say so, Larry Fink
• 30:18
  says so even maybe my advisor says so um but i'm most curious to see how do we shift the incentive
• 30:27
  structure specifically for the advisor that is still just on the AUM i don't think they if they're
• 30:35
  just looking at their costs and their team that they've got to meet payroll and they've got budgets
• 30:40
  based off of this AUM model.
• 30:43
  I'm curious, Zach, I guess your thoughts on,
• 30:47
  okay, someone says, hey, I want to get into Bitcoin.
• 30:50
  And the advisor says, hey, great, we've got this.
• 30:53
  We've got a partner at Casa.
• 30:54
  They can help us with that.
• 30:56
  And the client's like, okay, cool.
• 30:57
  I want to move half a million dollars out of my portfolio.
• 31:02
  And they just see that leave their coffers all of a sudden.
• 31:07
  And now they've got to reallocate their budget.
• 31:09
  I guess, is there any thoughts there on a nice transition for an advisor so that we're not just stripping them of all this revenue?
• 31:19
  Obviously, their role shifts as more of a planner, but it probably needs to from a fiduciary duty so that they're not just saying,
• 31:29
  hey, stay in this position because it really benefits us as a firm, even though it's not the
• 31:36
  best thing for you to do for you and your family long term. Now, that's exactly why the fiduciary
• 31:42
  standard exists because you're required by law to do what's in the best interest of the client.
• 31:46
  So anyone who holds themselves out as a fiduciary and is intentionally, vehemently,
• 31:52
  you know against self-custody and pro-ETF i would say you know debatable you know case by case
• 31:58
  based on the case by case basis on each client again if they're 90 years old maybe the ETF is
• 32:04
  the way they should get exposure but uh generally speaking like the the the compounding effect of
• 32:11
  those fees is not in the best interest of the client long term when their percentage is like
• 32:15
  that and especially when they're also packaged and on top of the already built-in expense ratio
• 32:20
  that the ETF holds and then the advisor.
• 32:23
  So I think that, you know,
• 32:25
  this is going to be just a tough realization
• 32:27
  that the financial advisory industry
• 32:29
  is going to have to get through
• 32:31
  and overcome and innovate through
• 32:33
  is that, you know,
• 32:34
  you're gonna have to come up with ways
• 32:36
  to generate revenue for your firm
• 32:38
  aside from just charging on AUM.
• 32:41
  Why it's a great example
• 32:42
  of how you can actually do this, right?
• 32:46
  Differentiating yourself,
• 32:47
  not using this as a,
• 32:48
  oh well my half of my revenue is gone because i'm just collecting you know one percent pass and go
• 32:54
  and passive etf holdings not really doing anything but auto rebalancing based on an ai
• 32:59
  you know that's doing it so it's going to be more of i need to be proactive in an advisory capacity
• 33:04
  and i need to help them accomplish and diversify risks that they're you know strictly custodial
• 33:09
  portfolio is not quite accomplishing in a from a geopolitical perspective and you know you can
• 33:14
  charge on that i mean like the estate planner that we work with at casa i mean he's got he's
• 33:19
  built his whole practice like when we first met many years ago he was a estate planning attorney
• 33:25
  and cpa but i mean over the years he's now basically his whole business is now very
• 33:31
  sophisticated multi llc trust estate planning for ultra high net worth bitcoiners and he's built an
• 33:38
  entire specialization and niche brand around that uh so uh paul nylan and associates i'll give him
• 33:47
  a shout out because oh nice he does speak with paul i think on monday so that's good to know
• 33:51
  oh yeah he's great this is a quick intro so yeah so i mean i think that's a he's a great case study
• 33:57
  of where for those who look at it with the right lens and say this is actually an opportunity
• 34:02
  um they're going to be able to differentiate themselves and thrive and win over business
• 34:07
  that the legacy advisors who aren't willing to adapt,
• 34:10
  involve, and change are going to wish they had been able to keep.
• 34:17
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• 34:27
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• 34:29
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• 34:35
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• 34:37
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• 34:44
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• 34:49
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• 34:54
  I mean, it also might just be a marketing component to go straight to the investors themselves.
• 35:04
  Because even in our industry, right, in tax, you know, clients know exactly how much they pay our firm every year because they have to pay invoices, right?
• 35:12
  whereas with the financial advisor the AUM model if you go into if you ask 10 people how much do
• 35:18
  you pay your financial advisor each year like what's the dollar amount I would say nine out of
• 35:24
  10 do not know what that that amount is well you won't know in the 31st you know because you can't
• 35:29
  so yeah totally it's uh so if you bring that up though if you're like no let's look and I'm sure
• 35:37
  why it's done this uh with clients to say no let's look at the last statement that shows it
• 35:41
  and you know if that's a big number like say that's a six-figure number for a really high
• 35:46
  net worth person and you're like okay well what are all of the benefits that you're getting out
• 35:51
  of that um versus if you held out in self-custody at least the assets you're able to and we'll see
• 35:59
  i think i know i'd be curious maybe to get your thoughts on all this tokenization hype that's been
• 36:04
  making its way through the cnbc uh talking heads but even if you step back and you're like okay
• 36:11
  you're going to be able to potentially hold your own keys for your Apple stock.
• 36:14
  Maybe, I don't know in that world, that is really okay.
• 36:18
  Now it's not just Bitcoin that you could hold in self custody.
• 36:21
  You could hold a whole lot of stuff in self custody and the financial advisor
• 36:26
  then is forced. There's no,
• 36:28
  then there's no way around it because it's not just this Bitcoin piece.
• 36:32
  Tokenization is interesting. I mean, with physical assets,
• 36:34
  at least there's the Oracle problem. It's like tokenized house,
• 36:37
  house burned down. How's the blockchain? No, the house burned down.
• 36:41
  with digital assets like equity or I guess those are somewhere in between.
• 36:48
  I don't know.
• 36:49
  I mean, I guess I just asked myself, like, why?
• 36:51
  Like, custodial for that stuff works perfectly fine and there's no material gain.
• 36:56
  Like, I'm a shareholder on the record books of Apple's company.
• 37:02
  So, like, it's not custody to begin with, right?
• 37:04
  It's not money.
• 37:05
  It's an on-record ownership of the company.
• 37:09
  But so anyway, I don't I don't see the same value there, but I do see the liquidity value and 24 seven trading ability.
• 37:18
  No more market hours. They've already started to move that way with like some after hours trading.
• 37:24
  It's getting larger, the wind, you know, those getting larger and larger.
• 37:27
  I remember it was just like two hours a day when I started working as a financial advisor.
• 37:30
  And now they trade on Saturdays until 7 p.m. or 9 p.m.
• 37:33
  And so, yeah, I mean, I think there's some liquidity benefits and some efficiency that can be found from that liquidity.
• 37:43
  Not so much on the other end, though.
• 37:46
  But, yeah, I think advisors are going to just have to evolve.
• 37:50
  And, you know, CASA is going to be able to serve the needs kind of in between because we aren't a custodian.
• 37:57
  We are a partner.
• 37:59
  Right.
• 37:59
  And I think Wise got a really good job of, like I was going to say, like growing and you're just going to have to evolve your business.
• 38:07
  It reminds me of what I keep saying to my wife about none of us are going to have jobs in three years.
• 38:15
  Like I work in sales, right?
• 38:16
  So I was like, we're all unemployed in three years.
• 38:19
  And she's like, don't tell me that.
• 38:22
  But I like say it in jest, but I'm also saying it somewhat truthfully in that, you know, the industries, all service-based industries are going to change so radically with AI when we get to a level where the outputs are context aware and they really are solid.
• 38:41
  And so, you know, you can either look at that as like a very dystopian future that say we're all unemployed.
• 38:48
  They're going to print a quadrillion dollars, which they are going to do that.
• 38:52
  to give everyone universal basic income, but it won't be very basic and won't be what you need.
• 38:57
  So you better hold Bitcoin to absorb that. But at the same time, there's going to be
• 39:03
  opportunities like a vibe code at a contract maker app for Casa in an evening. And now anytime I want
• 39:09
  to build a contract, I can just like modularly add certain sections and upload company logos into
• 39:14
  this and probably about an hour and saves me hours of work in the future. That's much more manual,
• 39:19
  much more the worst part of my work that i do the like the oh here we go again i gotta like edit a
• 39:25
  contract line by line so i think there are opportunities just in the same way that there
• 39:31
  are going to be threats to the current way of doing things and that's just straight out of the
• 39:38
  bitcoin tau is a change is the only the only constant so uh or the tau the ching itself
• 39:45
  so okay so i want to maybe pivot over to casa because i want to maybe spend the rest of our
• 39:51
  time really getting into the weeds because you know one of the main reasons for the summit in
• 39:56
  person and this show is advisors who are wanting to be on the cutting edge of just where everything's
• 40:02
  going you know how where do i send my clients who's a trusted partner i want to make sure i'm
• 40:08
  not sending to an FTX or someone like a company like that. So maybe walk us through, we can start
• 40:15
  maybe on individuals, high net worth individuals, how that would work. And then I know I saw on the
• 40:19
  side as well, there, you guys have support for small business owners as well, uh, for how they
• 40:25
  can manage their treasuries. So I want to get into all that. Yeah. And just to add on top of that too,
• 40:30
  Zach, like any advisor specific tools you guys have built or thought about building that you
• 40:34
  think while service the industry moving forward yeah yeah great question so you know costa is a
• 40:42
  i guess on the high level is a was a swiss bank for bitcoiners um we are more technically
• 40:48
  a collaborative custody service that uses multi-sig wallets and a world-class advisory team
• 40:56
  to help individuals small businesses even large institutions there's an infrastructure
• 41:04
  on the back end, accomplish self-custody in a way that they feel confident in.
• 41:09
  So, you know, how we do that in each way is different, but also has a very similar foundation.
• 41:18
  So the core concepts are good UX, good design, empowers people to know they're doing the
• 41:25
  right thing, not making mistakes along the way, complement that with client services.
• 41:29
  so live human advisor like myself uh to make sure that as questions come up or oh shit moments come
• 41:37
  up that you don't hit the big red button without checking with us uh and then the multi-sig
• 41:44
  infrastructure gives you the ability to manage bitcoin like a human because humans make mistakes
• 41:49
  uh regrettably and the same is true in navigating changes so even if you don't make a mistake
• 41:57
  I promise you that your plan will change over time, whether it's your security plan, your financial plan, your life plan, your career plan, maybe all of the above.
• 42:07
  It's all going to change.
• 42:08
  And the same is true with businesses, too.
• 42:10
  So, you know, maybe someone you have some change in leadership, you have some change in executive team or perhaps an employee passes away suddenly.
• 42:18
  And so there are certain flexibilities that have to be in place to allow an individual that's holding high net worth value in Bitcoin or companies of any size to manage those changes, right?
• 42:35
  And accommodate for whatever life throws them.
• 42:38
  So in our most basic sense, we use a two of three multi-set wallet.
• 42:42
  This means there are three total keys.
• 42:44
  Think of it like a keyhole, a key.
• 42:47
  there's one lock three keyholes right and if you put two keys in their corresponding matching key
• 42:53
  holes you open that lock and there is the bitcoin there behind it that's great if you have like just
• 42:59
  a little bit of bitcoin or maybe even like you know 10 20 000 but we start to get up into the
• 43:03
  hundreds of thousands millions or tens of millions hundreds of millions you need a little bit more
• 43:09
  robust redundancy and with that also comes a lot more configuration with how you can set it up so
• 43:14
  So, you know, on the far end, just to contrast, you know, we have clients who are multinational and have houses in different places all over the world.
• 43:25
  Must be nice.
• 43:27
  And in that, they have, you know, hardware keys distributed across the planet.
• 43:32
  So, you know, they're not diversifying against asteroid risk.
• 43:36
  Told them to, but they also have given themselves sovereignty in a way that many, many, many people on Earth, even the world's elite.
• 43:44
  maybe just don't have. And so, you know, you can construct a plan like this in a way that you just
• 43:53
  can't do with a single point of failure or a single key. And so you can get sophisticated
• 43:58
  with this where you can set, you know, maker checker permissions where certain people can do
• 44:03
  things in the enterprise and then only others can approve it, you know, in these operational flows
• 44:08
  that are very familiar in standard business,
• 44:11
  but very unique or different in Bitcoin
• 44:14
  because it's a new industry, it's nascent,
• 44:16
  and the needs for Bitcoin companies
• 44:19
  are being found out newly every day, right?
• 44:22
  It's like, oh, we need to do that.
• 44:23
  Okay, well, let's solve that with software.
• 44:27
  So we have historically, I mean,
• 44:29
  we protect a lot of Bitcoin, over $10 billion.
• 44:32
  dollars um and across that is a wide variety of you know from somebody with 500 in bitcoin to
• 44:42
  very very large institutions with uh much much larger balances and you know our goal is to
• 44:48
  again give you confidence along each part of that whether you're new in bitcoin and you're
• 44:53
  just getting started or whether you're an enterprise or some kind of you know uh even
• 44:59
  larger institution that has very custom requirements from a security, compliance,
• 45:06
  management, operations, secret to secrecy, like the whole gamut. So, you know, just depending on
• 45:11
  where you are, I think we can meet you typically where you're at. The one exception is that,
• 45:15
  you know, if self-custody is not right for you, then our product is not right for you because
• 45:20
  we aren't a custodian. And I'm very proud of that because I think that's, there's plenty of
• 45:25
  custodians. And we offer infrastructure for custodians to accomplish that custody. So if you
• 45:33
  are a custodian, we can help you build rather than handing all the coins over to Coinbase or
• 45:41
  Galaxy or a single point of failure, or you hold your custody on behalf, we can help you accomplish
• 45:46
  that with our infrastructure and manage that internally in your company rather than handing
• 45:50
  it over to an external custodian so there's a lot of potential with primitives and building blocks
• 45:58
  and that's what's so cool about this industry is that it's open source and a lot of it and
• 46:02
  we're able to kind of build on each other's work and see how those composable blocks come together
• 46:07
  over time um yeah so i'm curious to see like how things are going to evolve and something i'll
• 46:15
  mention too is just like you know haven't been a cost of half a decade at this point it's
• 46:19
  Interesting to see how the conversations have changed from the pre-ETF days where, you know, our biggest competition was, you know, other wallet providers.
• 46:28
  That was like every conversation was like this wallet versus this wallet because there was no alternative.
• 46:34
  Now it's not that.
• 46:38
  Eight out of 10 times, especially those in the, I'd call it high net worth or ultra high net worth cohort of wealth.
• 46:45
  it's custody or etf those are the alternatives cost is often looked at as a i want to hold
• 46:57
  my own keys i've heard not your keys not your coins over the years
• 47:01
  but i just don't feel confident in a way that it's worth it right like i can just plug it into
• 47:08
  schwab or plug it into whatever brokerage i've got or my financial advisor can buy the etf in
• 47:13
  their platform and and i'm not a i'm not an etf doomer like i said i think they're it exists and
• 47:21
  it's right for some people and it's also right for some holding time frames too
• 47:25
  but it's certainly not the same thing and i think for those who want that or who recognize the value
• 47:32
  in that real bitcoin that you can't afford to lose through a mistake or changing times or
• 47:38
  situations and that's cost it can be a partner there for whether it's an individual an institution
• 47:43
  a trust, uh, an advisor to one of those, uh, various types of entities too. So.
• 47:50
  Yeah. And then talk me through, cause I think another big value prop for you all from an
• 47:56
  advisor standpoint is the inheritance plan. And I know that that comes up all the time,
• 48:02
  especially if someone's like, Hey, I want to take full self custody. But you know, if I die,
• 48:08
  if me and my wife both die tragically together, what does that look like? And I think you all have
• 48:14
  solved that problem very well. And so that's a huge value prop for individuals and companies.
• 48:21
  Absolutely. Yeah. The coolest thing about our inheritance is that it doesn't use
• 48:23
  that certificates. It's uses time delays and prior, you know, consent to keys. So
• 48:31
  you essentially, and what that means is that you can do it anywhere in the world with any type of
• 48:36
  relationship for a trustee or inheritor beneficiary. So as an example, simple,
• 48:43
  husband and wife delegate an adult child as their inheritance recipient.
• 48:50
  They share a minority number of the keys. So in, let's say the three of five scenario,
• 48:55
  they would share two of the keys. So the child doesn't have access because they need three.
• 49:00
  And CASA only holds one key and so would not be able to move funds. And that's the whole goal
• 49:06
  the inheritance is we're not transferring the assets. The assets are yours. They're in your
• 49:11
  control. CASA can never touch them, never move them. We only hold one key ever. But what we can
• 49:18
  do is help collaboratively get to that majority threshold when the time is right. So with this
• 49:23
  situation where a husband and wife were to pass away, the assets go to the kids, there would be a
• 49:28
  six-month waiting period where the child through the recipient delegation could essentially go on
• 49:34
  the app and say, request access to inheritance. And a six-month series of notifications, emails,
• 49:40
  push notifications in the apps goes by where if you don't respond to them as the account owner,
• 49:45
  we, after six months, assume it's valid. And this allows it to work without a death certificate
• 49:50
  anywhere in the world. But it doesn't give them access because you have to also have three keys,
• 49:56
  right? So when you enroll a person in inheritance, what we do is you share a QR code of your mobile
• 50:02
  key and you can literally text it to them, export it. It's an encrypted QR code of one of the keys
• 50:07
  and they'll have that and they have it backed up to their iCloud or Google drive when they import it.
• 50:12
  And then they sign a message with it and it sounds complicated, but they literally scan the QR code
• 50:17
  and hit a button. So they can probably do that. And they get confetti when it's done.
• 50:22
  Like I said, UX, but the goal is that basically you share everything they need from day one,
• 50:29
  They don't have access, but they have everything they need to get access when the time is right.
• 50:35
  So you share a encrypted copy of one key and a physical copy of another or the seed phrase of that.
• 50:40
  And then Casa steps in after that six month period and helps that beneficiary get the three keys.
• 50:46
  And what's cool about this is you didn't give them access early.
• 50:49
  So you didn't you didn't create a new problem by trying to solve one.
• 50:55
  And it's often what happens.
• 50:56
  It's like, well, I want to make sure my kids have access to the Bitcoin.
• 50:58
  So here, here's the Bitcoin.
• 51:00
  All of a sudden, now the kid is a point of failure.
• 51:04
  All of a sudden, now maybe they'll rug you if your relationships aren't good.
• 51:09
  But if from a security consideration, maybe you don't even want them to know how much Bitcoin you've got, if you've got a large amount, what they're going to inherit.
• 51:18
  So cost allows you to do that.
• 51:20
  You can actually make sure that your heir has access to everything they need without knowing what they're going to inherit.
• 51:26
  They only see the balance after that six month period is elapsed and you haven rejected it And the same is true for succession planning as a business So you can set up much more customizable delays and criteria where you have to
• 51:40
  have multiple people on a video call, you know,
• 51:42
  think about like inside job planning. But the goal is that, you know,
• 51:46
  each type of entity or situation is going to require some sort of customization,
• 51:49
  but we're using the same principles of not your keys, not your coins.
• 51:53
  We don't need to know who you are and minimal trust, maximum access to for you.
• 52:00
  So speaking of access, sovereign recovery, right?
• 52:02
  So we don't hold your Bitcoin.
• 52:04
  So even if Kasa, the company, disappears, it's on the blockchain.
• 52:09
  We just built the lock on the blockchain for you and help you manage it.
• 52:13
  But that's not the only way to get it.
• 52:14
  So Kasa used BIP-49 for wallet construction.
• 52:18
  And basically, you can recreate it in any compatible wallet like Sparrow, Blue Wall,
• 52:21
  there's specters so many of them and uh so even if our company or app goes out of business there's
• 52:27
  nothing proprietary about our wallet structure and we've taught you potentially if you're one of
• 52:32
  our higher tier to support that kind of service we've actually taught you how to recreate it in
• 52:36
  case doomsday comes and we get disappeared or i'm forced to do some sort of canary so
• 52:42
  it gives you a lot of flexibility in a way that you just don't have when you're holding
• 52:46
  the custodial option.
• 52:48
  And it gives you confidence
• 52:50
  in a way that,
• 52:52
  I mean,
• 52:52
  I still worry about Bitcoin.
• 52:54
  I'm more worried about like
• 52:55
  the forks or quantum
• 52:59
  or like,
• 53:00
  but I'm not worried about like
• 53:01
  messing up a seed phrase
• 53:02
  or like basic wallet construction.
• 53:04
  And for so many people,
• 53:05
  that's where they stop.
• 53:06
  And they get so
• 53:08
  timid
• 53:09
  because of that.
• 53:11
  And this is a very real risk.
• 53:12
  I've lost Bitcoin before.
• 53:14
  That's not why I'm here.
• 53:15
  So
• 53:15
  So people stop there and they don't go any further.
• 53:18
  And they never see what this could actually solve for them in their portfolio and their financial life and how it's going to come into play in the changing world of AI.
• 53:45
  handles bookkeeping, financial reporting, tax compliance, and strategic planning for Bitcoin
• 53:50
  focused companies and individuals. They speak the language of Bitcoiners and help you stay
• 53:54
  compliant while building for the longterm. To learn more or book consultation, visit satoshipacioli.com.
• 54:02
  Yeah, that's awesome, man. Tip of the tap to you guys. Correcting if I'm wrong,
• 54:08
  but you guys are SOC compliant now as well? Yeah. Yeah. I'd say my director of sales would
• 54:14
  And you're remiss for me not mentioning it, but that's supposed to be, that's me.
• 54:18
  So yeah, the, yeah, we got our SOC 2, Type 2.
• 54:22
  We got a SOC 2, Type 1, and Type 2 last year.
• 54:26
  Most recently, the Type 2 and kind of overkill, you know, like we don't even hold your funds, right?
• 54:32
  This is like a, this is something that your custodians do.
• 54:37
  And they do this because they hold your funds.
• 54:39
  So they have to have all, I mean, we don't even hold your funds.
• 54:41
  like in theory like whatever happens our company or a key shouldn't affect your wallet uh but we
• 54:48
  hold our company because we're a security company to the same standards that the custodians that
• 54:52
  actually hold your bitcoin do um so a little bit of just like you know humble bragging there so
• 54:59
  no man i think it's important you know because like if i get a little jaded at bitcoin sometimes
• 55:06
  because they don't feel like you need to be like quote unquote like corporate but you know you're
• 55:11
  just mentioning with something like your enterprise tools and stuff it's like we don't get to hyper
• 55:14
  bitcoinization without large entities buying bitcoin holding bitcoin and they need these
• 55:19
  controls like this isn't something we should you know brush off as like chat fire unimportant or
• 55:24
  lame or old or or whatever uh i you know love that you guys have taken that upon yourself because
• 55:31
  it's important and institutions you need it um you one of the questions i have that we've talked
• 55:38
  about you privately i think you have some really interesting thoughts on it's just the business
• 55:43
  model of custody solutions and you we were talking about you kind of poof-pooing your advisors
• 55:51
  charging AUM fees on bitcoin one of the things i have kind of a pet peeve gripe with is custody
• 55:57
  solutions charging AUM fees as well and i think kind of their general parroting line is well as
• 56:05
  your value increases. We need to do more to secure your Bitcoin. I think that's kind of hogwash
• 56:12
  because, you know, why wouldn't you take the same level of care to secure a hundred thousand dollars
• 56:17
  worth of Bitcoin versus a million dollars worth of Bitcoin? So just curious in your thoughts in
• 56:22
  general, kind of working in this, you know, sub industry, how do you, do you see that business
• 56:28
  model kind of being a flash in the pan and dying out? How do you feel like the business model of
• 56:32
  custody solutions evolves over time yeah i don't know that i have a firm opinion on this
• 56:39
  and very tau-esque maybe one should not have a firm opinion about much
• 56:45
  lame that's a lame opinion but good thank you um we charge a flat fee for all our retail plans
• 56:56
  the only thing we charge a percentage on is our enterprise tier and that is on a case-by-case
• 57:03
  basis so um different pricing because it's totally different set of requirements um but for our
• 57:09
  retail product it's a flat fee you could hold a trillion dollars in bitcoin or you can hold five
• 57:14
  dollars it's just dependent on the tier of service and the vault tier that you unlock
• 57:19
  so i think for most people the flat fee model and similar to what you may charge to be a you know
• 57:28
  key manager for one of your clients as a financial planner it's like there's a certain level of
• 57:32
  time spent that we expect to do and correspondingly like if we know what we need to charge in order to
• 57:40
  make sure that we can deliver that and you know continue to operate as a company i don't set
• 57:45
  pricing you know in sales uh so much but there are um there's a different set of needs at enterprise
• 57:54
  that are different uh and actually like amazingly because we are such a lean company i mean we still
• 58:02
  have less than 50 employees like we've been around almost 10 years because of that we're able to
• 58:08
  price competitively uh especially like on the enterprise side where companies that have these
• 58:13
  like controls and customizations and compliance and all of these things like they're like oh yeah
• 58:17
  you're paying for that buddy and so i find that like even when when we're looking at like a
• 58:23
  percentage basis where you don't always see the same level like a bloat um and still smaller
• 58:33
  companies like ours and as a result that you know those savings pass on to the customer
• 58:37
  um so i think there's gonna they're gonna exist and it's a different way of thinking about it
• 58:43
  as well. But for most people who just want to get exposure, my like talking point is like,
• 58:48
  hey, like our private client, our most expensive retail plan is 10K. So like if you have $4 million
• 58:53
  in the ETF, it's literally cheaper to have our private client plan and have real Bitcoin
• 58:59
  and also have true self-custody with a 24-7 advisor that you can ask about how to set up a
• 59:05
  VPN or two-factor security key or anything else about security that can complement your financial
• 59:12
  planning side. So it's very easy for someone to run those numbers with a 25 bps, you know,
• 59:19
  round trip fee for IBIT. But again, that said, there are other benefits to IBIT that, you know,
• 59:25
  I won't lean on because that's not the soapbox I'm trying to make, point I'm trying to make. But
• 59:29
  I also want to be clear that like 100% self-custody of all of your assets forever is not necessarily a
• 59:36
  sound financial plan for the same reason that you don't buy and have your entire portfolio in one
• 59:41
  single stock or one asset yeah no that's good zach tell us uh anything you know we just entered
• 59:49
  into the the new year 2026 um couple things you know again an advisor who's listening to this
• 59:57
  thinking hey i want to stow this away for when clients ask about this so i've got a solution
• 1:00:02
  or i might want to go and reach out and and um open up a dialogue with casa just so that
• 1:00:08
  when the time comes, I know who to talk to. How does an advisor kind of go about that? And then
• 1:00:15
  also, if there's anything they should be able to look out for 2026, where cost is kind of heading,
• 1:00:21
  anything that you can speak to on that front, that'd be awesome. Yeah. So our big focus this
• 1:00:26
  year is deepening our financial services for Bitcoiners and what we can do. We've been known
• 1:00:32
  for years to be the place where real serious hodlers hodl their bitcoin i pray one day that
• 1:00:40
  people will use their bitcoin holding is using your bitcoin by the way let me set the record
• 1:00:46
  straight there you were using your bitcoin every second that it's protecting you from fiat inflation
• 1:00:50
  uh every second that it gives you permissionless peer-to-peer money i like that in self-custody
• 1:00:56
  only but uh but the reality is people don't make a lot of payments with it today we've ran into
• 1:01:02
  that aspirational goals at the space where we have lots of things for sale for bitcoin but very few
• 1:01:08
  people want to spend their bitcoin because like it's going to go up it's going to go up so
• 1:01:11
  that will change and i think there's new tools like square that like turning it on for everyone
• 1:01:16
  that has been really cool with the bitcoin merchant community so um you know looking forward
• 1:01:20
  the other other uses for it but um you know in the long run i think like people will use bitcoin
• 1:01:26
  and spend it and do so in a way that promotes a Bitcoin circular economy instead of this
• 1:01:34
  like hodl mentality.
• 1:01:36
  With that, you can't spend the ETF.
• 1:01:38
  So good luck buying coffee with the ETF to all you coffee Bitcoin buyers out there.
• 1:01:47
  I'd say for the roadmap.
• 1:01:49
  So again, financial services and really allowing people to unlock more of that value that they
• 1:01:53
  have and that they plan to continue to hodl. This ties in very well to the estate planning goals that
• 1:01:59
  a lot of our clients have, just being in that kind of upper echelon of net worth and tax planning
• 1:02:04
  that comes with that, estate planning that comes with that, security planning and inheritance.
• 1:02:09
  If you've got, you know, $50 in Bitcoin, you're probably not planning a multi-generational wealth
• 1:02:13
  inheritance plan just yet. But if you got 500 Bitcoin and you think you're holding onto something
• 1:02:18
  worth holding onto, you certainly are going to be thinking beyond just your lifetime. And with that
• 1:02:22
  comes a whole new set of constraints, limitations, requirements, considerations. So
• 1:02:28
  helping people unlock through financial services like our OTC desk.
• 1:02:34
  From the enterprise side too, I think the infrastructure is we are noticing that even
• 1:02:39
  your custodians today who are starting to get into Bitcoin maybe don't want to reinvent the
• 1:02:46
  wheel of how to custody digital assets. Being that we've mastered that, I really see a lot of
• 1:02:55
  traction in the enterprise segment where we aren't just serving the retail customer
• 1:03:00
  as the software provider, but serving the institution who serves the retail customer
• 1:03:06
  as the backend infrastructure play and allowing that company to manage the assets that they
• 1:03:11
  custody on behalf of users in a way that feels more intuitive and more secure than just recreating
• 1:03:18
  all of that in-house you know um so that's another area where i see our business growing quite a bit
• 1:03:23
  and then you know it's unfortunate that this is true but i think a lot of it is going to just also
• 1:03:30
  be contingent on what the bitcoin market price does so we all got rug pulled last year with the
• 1:03:36
  bull market was a bull market for ants i don't know if i've seen a bull market like that i mean
• 1:03:41
  it wasn't that bad i guess but we uh we didn't make the two three four x multiples that many
• 1:03:48
  were expecting shocker retail is always wrong um so this could be the bull market year or this could
• 1:03:56
  be the bear year only you can be the judge of that tell you in december but uh i think a lot
• 1:04:03
  of that will also like just what our strategy will be will i mean so those are our core and
• 1:04:08
  what we're focusing on this year,
• 1:04:09
  but our core is to also be flexible,
• 1:04:13
  be ready to change.
• 1:04:16
  That's awesome, man.
• 1:04:18
  Okay, so if anyone's curious
• 1:04:20
  where they go to find CASA,
• 1:04:23
  those services,
• 1:04:23
  and then if anyone wants to reach out to you
• 1:04:26
  individually,
• 1:04:27
  where can they find you
• 1:04:28
  on different social channels?
• 1:04:31
  Yeah, so CASA has a couple different plans.
• 1:04:33
  Just go to casa.io, C-A-S-A.
• 1:04:36
  you can check out our individual and business plans if you want to contact me you can email
• 1:04:44
  me at zach z-a-c-h the only correct way to spell zach at team.casa that was a look back to our
• 1:04:52
  pre-call notes i like that yes the uh or sales at team.casa that might be easy to remember you
• 1:04:59
  don't have to remember how to spell zach uh sales at team.causa no.com at team.causa bane of my
• 1:05:07
  existence at team.causa domain sometimes someday we'll change it but the wet marketing websites
• 1:05:12
  dot com at butchering it casa.io uh that'll be the easiest way casa.io um personally social media
• 1:05:22
  btcbap btcbap um don't ask what it stands for i don't remember uh you'll also find uh me using my
• 1:05:32
  real name docs af uh on the upcoming bitcoin tau book that'll be coming out in february for the
• 1:05:41
  paperback and then the collector's edition which why i thank you for pre-ordering uh the hardcover
• 1:05:46
  will come out in june uh and we'll be doing like some kind of event at the space for like a book
• 1:05:51
  signing or something i'm sure we'll do something there um so yeah following on social media
• 1:05:56
  i'm uh pretty quiet on there these days i just like to keep my opinions to myself
• 1:06:02
  for better or for worse um not everyone always agrees with you and i've lived long enough to
• 1:06:11
  know that you know that doesn't mean you have to change your opinion you just give it to yourself
• 1:06:16
  so uh it's just like you know you know just live on and and and and keep keep calm carry on so
• 1:06:25
  um but i will be more active on social media this year because i've got something to sell
• 1:06:29
  so i got a book to promote maybe a second book coming out who knows her why it's in a second
• 1:06:35
  book already you know bitcoiners man you could just do things you just do things and you know
• 1:06:42
  you only got so many trips around the sun on this earth unless you fuse with ai and some kind of
• 1:06:48
  upload thing and no that's a whole nother podcast about someday our next generation may have to
• 1:06:56
  grapple with that realization but uh you know try to make make every day a good one and i'm just
• 1:07:03
  thankful to be here and so as long as i'm healthy i'm gonna keep doing what i love and building for
• 1:07:09
  the movement that i care about making the world a better place um i know you guys know man it's fun
• 1:07:14
  to do we're gonna win so that's what i just heard right there so we're gonna win it's gonna require
• 1:07:20
  some work you know yes absolutely worth fighting for it'll have to be fought again and again um
• 1:07:26
  well thanks so much for coming on why thanks for uh organizing this one kind of last second so
• 1:07:32
  any closing words from your side, Wyatt?
• 1:07:36
  No, man.
• 1:07:37
  Thanks so much for coming on, Zach.
• 1:07:39
  It's always great chat, and I think you have a ton
• 1:07:41
  of great insight to share with the industry, so
• 1:07:43
  appreciate you doing it on the BFFS
• 1:07:45
  media.
• 1:07:47
  My pleasure, guys.
• 1:07:49
  All right.
• 1:07:50
  It's been great. We'll leave it there. Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:07:52
  All right. Thanks, Zach. Talk to you soon.
• 1:07:55
  Have a good weekend, gents. Bye.
• 1:08:01
  We appreciate you joining us.
• 1:08:02
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• 1:08:12
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• 1:08:17
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• 1:08:32
  Thank you.