Latest / The Income Show / The Investment That Beat Bitcoin | The Income Show | Ep. 24
Transcript
- 0:00They have all, even with the drawdown, if you had put $10,000 in one of these digital credit
- 0:04offerings since inception to now, you would have outperformed Bitcoin, you would have preserved
- 0:08capital more effectively, and you would have earned a dividend. I just think that Bitcoin will
- 0:12be that accepted upon monetary language that everyone would agree upon. Cannot be debased,
- 0:17cannot be corrupted, cannot be controlled, and therefore everyone will, for lack of a better
- 0:21term, speak the language of Satoshi through Bitcoin. If Bitcoin was at $200k right now,
- 0:27Do you think that strategy would need to do buybacks?
- 0:28Probably not, right?
- 0:29That's a simple question I like to ask people.
- 0:31Intuitively, people would say to themselves,
- 0:33yeah, Bitcoin is at $200K right now.
- 0:35Of course they wouldn't need to do buybacks.
- 0:36Let's drill into that.
- 0:37Why is that?
- 0:46Hey, everybody.
- 0:47Welcome back to The Income Show.
- 0:48This week I have on Adrian Morris.
- 0:50Adrian, welcome.
- 0:53Joe, nice to be back on.
- 0:54We talked early this year?
- 0:57We did. We talked. I forgot the exact last day, but we did talk somewhat recently.
- 1:02But this is going to be a great conversation.
- 1:04Yeah. Yeah. Looking forward to it.
- 1:06Yeah. So maybe let's start kind of broadly.
- 1:10So at this point, I believe strategy is now bought back about $2 billion of stretch around that.
- 1:17Obviously, we had the digital credit mini bear market kind of this summer.
- 1:24What's going on with those buybacks?
- 1:25How are you thinking about the space at a high level?
- 1:29So the space overall, I think, is good.
- 1:32I mean, digital credit, you know, I've posted about a lot.
- 1:35You've posted about a lot.
- 1:36A lot of us have.
- 1:37I think that Strategy, Strive have really found a way to create a new capital market for Bitcoin acquisition.
- 1:47They're bringing in a cohort that I think would, you know, would be in Bitcoin, but they're also bringing in individuals that would not be.
- 1:53and I think that has kind of been shown
- 1:56by the level of interest
- 1:57that's been around digital credit, right?
- 1:59And both companies have done a lot
- 2:01to facilitate the conversation
- 2:04around digital credits
- 2:05and then you have SmarterWeb
- 2:06that has more that just went live.
- 2:08MetaPlanet is doing certain things.
- 2:11I know that Capital B is looking for
- 2:13opportunities for digital credit as well.
- 2:15So I think that digital credit
- 2:16has turned into its own subset
- 2:20of the Bitcoin space rather quickly.
- 2:23um and it's and what we're seeing with all the conversation around all the opinions around
- 2:27around it are kind of indicative of all the interests around it and in terms of the buybacks
- 2:32you know i did the the deep analysis with regards to um the stretch buybacks i was as of september
- 2:374th and you know buybacks in of themselves do benefit the capital structure you know they're
- 2:44retiring dividend obligations or retiring shares in the market so there's a capital structure
- 2:49benefit but one of the things i've been trying to help people understand is that that is not the
- 2:53same as the buybacks directly leading to stretch to stretches rebound or directly supporting the
- 3:00price and that's kind of what my analysis was about um i went into a very very deep breakdown
- 3:05of um what's driving price variance around stretch and the other preferred offerings and i was trying
- 3:09to give people some insight into the different dynamics in the market i love it yeah i think
- 3:13that's a great broad high level overview of where we can start and i definitely want to go deep into
- 3:18your analysis and kind of think about like how you're thinking about things in regards to stretch
- 3:23and buybacks and so much else.
- 3:25But maybe first, like for someone that's, you know,
- 3:28still new to this entire concept of digital credit
- 3:31or dollar income powered by Bitcoin,
- 3:35what is strategy actually trying to accomplish
- 3:37with these buybacks?
- 3:40I think that they're trying to signal to the market
- 3:42that they are doing a few things.
- 3:44One, that they're willing to support the product, right?
- 3:46Very, very broadly.
- 3:48And, you know, I'm using the term support rather generously,
- 3:51rather generously, but that's what they want to do.
- 3:53They want to instill investor confidence.
- 3:54They want to tell the market that we understand
- 3:57that price has been, was somewhat hampered
- 4:01by the market activity and we're doing what we can
- 4:04to show investors that we are willing to support the price.
- 4:07And I think that what they are also doing,
- 4:08and I wrote about this in the paper,
- 4:10is that they are ironically providing exit liquidity
- 4:12for individuals looking to leave.
- 4:15So while on the surface that can seem counterintuitive,
- 4:20I understand the rationale behind it.
- 4:23They are thinking through different ways that they can come to the market with different capital structure actions that will bolster confidence and stretch and support the price.
- 4:32The challenge is, is that actually what it's doing in terms of the broader market dynamics?
- 4:40So as I said earlier, there is capital structure benefit.
- 4:43There is potentially narrative benefit, but there is also the reality of what is stretch actually doing?
- 4:50What is digital credit actually doing as a whole that strategy is, I don't want to say fighting against, but they're working within.
- 4:57And in terms of the messaging, I think the fact that they've done what now, 14 weeks of buybacks, I think it is.
- 5:05They're showing that they have a lot of resolve in terms of what they're willing to do to try to defend the price.
- 5:13And I think what the market is doing right now is testing that resolve.
- 5:17So strategy is trying to show that they're willing to defend the product.
- 5:20They're trying to instill investor confidence in the products.
- 5:23But I also think that that is inviting counter market activities that are counter trading their interventions.
- 5:31And that is what we're seeing play out in the market right now.
- 5:33Quick pause. Our whole mission here is making investment grade Bitcoin content available to everyone for free.
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- 5:47That's it.
- 5:48Now back to the conversation.
- 5:50So diving kind of a little bit deeper into like your specific analysis that you kind of shared.
- 5:56What's driving the price of stretch and all of these kind of Bitcoin powered preferreds?
- 6:02Like are buybacks powering it or is it a multitude of other factors?
- 6:08I would say a multitude of other factors.
- 6:10And let's kind of try to, I don't want to say speed run through it,
- 6:13but let's try to do that to give a very, very high level overview.
- 6:17When it comes to strategy, when it comes to my investments as a whole,
- 6:20whether that be AI investments, whether it be Bitcoin treasuries,
- 6:24what I like to do a lot of statistical modeling and analysis on one price
- 6:28variance with regards to what's driving the price action, right?
- 6:31So with NVIDIA and NeoClouds and the AI trade,
- 6:35I have one series of models that I use, right?
- 6:38And they're quantitative models, driven by statistics, of course,
- 6:41but quantitative models at their heart.
- 6:43Then for Bitcoin Treasuries, because of the Bitcoin dependence, I have another series of models that I use.
- 6:48And I was inspired to do this for the prefers because I've been doing it for MSTR.
- 6:52As you know, as you probably saw, like in 24 and 25, I was doing my variance analysis on MSTR and doing analysis in the ATM.
- 7:00I will be driving price and, you know, so on and so forth.
- 7:03So I kind of modified that model to look at the preferreds.
- 7:06It started with strike, then moved on to strife, then stride, then stretch, then SATA.
- 7:10And now I have enough of a historical data set where I can model all five of them in tandem.
- 7:17I model them individually still, but I also model them all in tandem as well.
- 7:23And what I found is that in the initial beginnings of digital credits, what was driving a lot of price action was Bitcoin and the parent equity.
- 7:33and by the parent equity I mean in the case of the strategy prefers that'll be MSTR
- 7:37and in the case of SATA that'll be ASST right and I kept modeling it out and I was doing this
- 7:44at various time frames I was doing this at one minute 15 minute 60 minute four hour and one day
- 7:49so five different time frames for each preferred every single day so one day the one day time
- 7:56frame would give me one series of analysis for the day then the four hour would give me two breakdowns
- 8:02this one hour can be seven and so on and so on and so forth. Right. And I just kind of kept seeing
- 8:06that pattern pretty consistently. Then something happened and it flipped. I started seeing that the
- 8:12preferreds as a whole, when I was able to start modeling them together, were accounting for more
- 8:18and more variance in the price action as time went on, which I thought was very interesting.
- 8:22So I kept modeling it out. Right. And it kept growing larger and larger and larger in terms of
- 8:29on attributable price variance.
- 8:31And when I say price variance,
- 8:33I want people to understand
- 8:34that is not me predicting price action That is me looking at historical data looking at historical price action and saying what has occurred in the data set essentially right And what I doing is for lack of a better term I looking for think of it as wobbles in the data
- 8:51If you think of the things very, very common sense, you have Bitcoin at the base of the capital structure, then you have MSCR, then you have digital credit, right?
- 9:00So it stands to reason, conceptually, that risk assessment, price variance, price action from Bitcoin will matriculate through to MSCR, which will then matriculate through to the digital credit ecosystem, right?
- 9:14And the reason why I say digital credit ecosystem is because they're very much being traded as a block based upon my analysis.
- 9:20they are their own asset class now and it seems like the market is treating them as such
- 9:24now conceptually if that is coherent you should see that in the data set and that's what i started
- 9:31seeing the data set at first with bitcoin and then with mstr and then with digital credit as a cohort
- 9:36within each digital credit offering whether it be strike or whether it be all the way through to
- 9:43SATA, this was showing up. So, and as I kept modeling that out, the attributable variance
- 9:51with regards to the digital credit cohorts, as I mentioned, kept getting larger and larger and
- 9:55larger. And I started noticing that stretch and SATA were taking up more and more space in terms
- 10:02of price variance with all the other preferreds. And then when the price breakdown happened, I
- 10:07actually watched it in my data set happen. Day by day, the variance just kind of went,
- 10:13it just flipped even larger. And the digital credit cohort became disproportionately large.
- 10:18And then Bitcoin and MSTR became the second and third. And then as price broke down more and more,
- 10:24Bitcoin started going up and MSTR started going up. And I just started noticing all of these very,
- 10:29very interesting things in terms of the price variance. And that's why on X I've been saying
- 10:34these are meta derivatives when it comes to digital credits.
- 10:38They are derivatives of Bitcoin and they are derivatives of their parent equity,
- 10:42which is also a derivative of Bitcoin.
- 10:44So it is a derivative of a derivative or a meta derivative.
- 10:48And I think that what's been going on in terms of the price action
- 10:51has been the market forward pricing Bitcoin expectations,
- 10:55Bitcoin risk and capital structure risk through to the digital credits cohort.
- 11:00And the buybacks, when I directly model them into my model, accounting for nothing else, so accounting for nothing with regards to Bitcoin, nothing with regards to MSCR or ASST, and nothing in regards to digital credit as a whole, for strategy, for stretch specifically, the buybacks account for something like 1% to 3% of price variance as of September 4th.
- 11:28And that price variance has actually broken down even further as of October 23rd when I updated my analysis.
- 11:35However, what I found very, very interesting is that as of September 4th, when I account for everything else in the actual model,
- 11:44and at that point, I believe it would have been eight weeks of buybacks, it's statistically indistinct from zero in the actual price variance model.
- 11:52and then I dug a little bit deeper and I said well what what would buybacks most directly impact
- 11:59I think trading volume right so when I broke my model apart and then I assessed it a different way
- 12:05I'm assuming more of a I want to say correlation but more of a factor association with trading
- 12:12volume the results were consistent and the results stayed consistent two weeks after four weeks after
- 12:20and six weeks after. So my assessment is that are the buybacks providing support for the price at
- 12:29the margins? That's possible, but at the margin does not mean a setting a price level, right?
- 12:37To understand the buybacks, people have to understand strategy is a price taker. They are
- 12:43not a price setter. So the market is still setting the price that strategy is buying shares at,
- 12:50right? So if they are, if the trading volume factor is statistically indistinct from zero,
- 12:57and then when I incorporate other things like daily shorting volume, so that's not short interest,
- 13:01but that's daily shorting volume in terms of how many shares are shorted on a daily basis.
- 13:06If that is also statistically indistinct from zero, and then the buybacks as a factor are going to
- 13:12live within trading volume and when I come for everything else they're statistically indistinct
- 13:16from zero you have a lot a confluence of factors that comes together that says that the buybacks
- 13:21themselves as a factor and as a variable have not been the main driver of stretch's rebound
- 13:27and when I look at digital credit as a whole stretch was rebounding before the buybacks
- 13:32strike strife stride and SATA all recovered without buybacks and now what we're seeing the
- 13:38price action now is that bitcoin is showing a little bit of weakness and notice how all
- 13:41the preferreds are now trending down as well. So I think that the takeaway for that, and I'm sorry
- 13:47that this is a very long answer, is that yes, there are broader market forces that are driving
- 13:52the price action around digital credit. And the three largest market forces are Bitcoin,
- 13:58the particular parent equity of the digital credit offering, and digital credit as a market cohort
- 14:03that is essentially being treated as its own asset class. And the buybacks are providing capital
- 14:09structure support, but capital structure support does not translate into price support and does
- 14:15not translate into driving the rebound back to par. Yeah, that analysis is super interesting. And I
- 14:23think I generally lean towards your perspective that I do think it makes sense. I think a
- 14:30counter argument or a counter question, I'm curious to hear how you would answer this,
- 14:34is someone would be like, oh, well, you know, the market is set by supply and demand.
- 14:40You know, you are sucking up the supply of stretch and you're buying it off the market.
- 14:47Why? Like logically, in many people's minds, that that probably makes a lot of sense.
- 14:53And why do you think that like that's just like not how it's really working in reality?
- 14:58Well, in terms of the supply and demand argument, that would be true in of itself if the market was purely driven by supply and demand.
- 15:07So the other factor that people are not talking about enough with stretch is leverage.
- 15:12The reason why stretch had a more violent unwind, in my view, and I think that Fong Lee even spoke about this and others have spoken about this, is that leverage on top of stretch accelerated the unwind.
- 15:24unwind now in terms of pure supply and demand it is not as if one share is bought one share
- 15:30or sold right you have leverage you have options you have a lot of other factors that come into the
- 15:34market that kind of skew a purely supply and demand argument on top of that let's think about
- 15:41what strategy is doing when they're buying back shares when they come into the market and they
- 15:45buy back a share what they are doing is they are retiring a dividend obligation and they're removing
- 15:50a share from the market, right? So without sufficient organic demand, their inorganic
- 15:57demand is actually reducing potential liquidity. So what's been happening in the price action and
- 16:02sorry, in the trading volume and the trading activity that I've been showing over the last
- 16:06several weeks is strategy has been buying up a larger and larger amount of the trading volume
- 16:11and decreasing demand. So their share is proportionately larger, yes, but the demand
- 16:18has also been going down as well.
- 16:20So it is not a one-to-one
- 16:22in terms of understanding demand.
- 16:25And this is to be grossly simplifying it, right?
- 16:26But there is organic demand
- 16:28that is market-driven
- 16:29and then there's inorganic demand
- 16:32that is issuer-driven.
- 16:35It is not seen in the market the same way,
- 16:37especially when you are taking shares
- 16:38out of the market,
- 16:39when you are retiring a dividend obligation,
- 16:42you are driving down
- 16:43the available shares in the float.
- 16:45If you are driving down the shares in the float
- 16:47and then organic demand is going up,
- 16:50then you can say, yes,
- 16:52there's probably a correlation between them buying down shares
- 16:55and demand going up.
- 16:57But what we've been seeing is demand has not been ticking up.
- 17:01If, in fact, when I did the analysis for September 4th,
- 17:06one of the things I was looking at the most
- 17:08was daily short volume flow, as I mentioned, right?
- 17:11At that point, strategy was about 17% of trading volume.
- 17:15daily shorting flow was 17 So what people need to understand is every intervention in the market will be counter traded by the market
- 17:26And I think what the market is doing
- 17:28is they're counter trading strategies intervention.
- 17:30The more shares that strategy buys up,
- 17:32the more people are using them as exit liquidity,
- 17:35but also the market is not viewing that as organic demand.
- 17:38They're viewing that as weakness.
- 17:40And that is causing the market to buy down
- 17:43every single level that strategy is willing to defend.
- 17:45If they're willing to defend 99, they're selling at 99.
- 17:48If they're willing to defend 99.50,
- 17:49they're selling at 99.50.
- 17:51It is not as if strategy is acting in the market
- 17:54without counter forces, right?
- 17:57So when you intervene in a market that you created,
- 17:59and let's be honest, strategy did create this market,
- 18:01they did create this asset class,
- 18:03you invite testing of levels.
- 18:05And I think what the market is doing
- 18:07is that they're testing strategies resolve.
- 18:09And until strategy steps back,
- 18:12I do not think we're gonna have an accurate gauge
- 18:13of how much organic demand remains.
- 18:15yeah it's a really interesting perspective um i think my my past guest uh framed it as
- 18:23buybacks benefit the holders that are exiting stretch uh and then dividend dividend rate
- 18:30increases benefit the remaining holders of stretch i would imagine you'd agree with that
- 18:35on on some level so the the the benefiting the people looking to exit yes that's the exit
- 18:41liquidity point, right? I do agree with that. I think that strategy is essentially saying we will
- 18:45give the exit liquidity. We want people that are in stretch to be actually ones that want to hold
- 18:50it. I want to leverage it. And when I say leverage it, I don't mean I'd leverage. I mean,
- 18:54receive the dividend and they want to be holders of stretch, right? But the thing about the dividend
- 19:00yields is that, you know, I think Fong said this in the last earnings call that they didn't find
- 19:05that that dividend yield was an effective way
- 19:06to drive demand for stretch.
- 19:08And the notion of dividend yields or dividend frequencies,
- 19:14whether it be 10% to 12%
- 19:16or whether it be going from monthly to semi-monthly to daily,
- 19:21I've added all that into my model
- 19:23and it's indistinct from noise.
- 19:25It's not really distinct from noise in the data set, right?
- 19:27If we think about it logically,
- 19:30if dividend rate was something that was driving price action it would show up in the data set
- 19:37because we had them go from monthly to semi-monthly and now announcing to daily right
- 19:43we would see those for the lack of a better term ripples in the data set we would also see
- 19:49changes in the data set in terms of dividend rates right was there really a noticeable change
- 19:56in the trading activity when you account for other factors like Bitcoin, MSDR, so on and so forth
- 20:01in the data set, in the data, when you look at them going from 10 to 12 and having the variations
- 20:09in between. They show up in the data set, but they are not statistically significant in there.
- 20:14And in many cases over many timeframes, they have not been statistically indistinct from zero.
- 20:18So my view on it is I understand the benefit in terms of narrative,
- 20:24increasing the dividend, being willing to increase the dividend, trying to spur demand and whatnot.
- 20:30But people keep treating these preferred offerings as if they are separate and apart from Bitcoin and the parent equity.
- 20:37They are trading in tandem with them.
- 20:39Digital credit is an asset class now.
- 20:41And if we think about it using the kind of frame you set up, let's think about it logically.
- 20:46Everything from what is backing the digital credit to the BTC rating and everything,
- 20:53It is all dependent upon Bitcoin and it's all dependent upon the capital structure.
- 20:58How is a dividend service?
- 21:00It's serviced by issuing equity.
- 21:02What's backing the digital credit?
- 21:04It's being backed by Bitcoin.
- 21:05What is the BTC rating?
- 21:06That is Bitcoin.
- 21:07Do you see what I'm saying?
- 21:08Everything is kind of wrapped into Bitcoin and the capital structure of the parent equity.
- 21:14So thinking that there's a factor that is somehow separate and apart from that,
- 21:18that's driving price action, in my opinion, I think is the wrong view to take.
- 21:22and I think that the reality of it is,
- 21:27is that strategy is doing the best that they can
- 21:32to push against that current until the market turns
- 21:36and I think the market will turn
- 21:38and everything will be fine.
- 21:39I don't think digital credit is broken.
- 21:40I don't think that digital credit needs to be fixed
- 21:42but what we're seeing right now is growing pains.
- 21:45This is a new asset class
- 21:46and I think that this is gonna be par for the course
- 21:49over the next few years.
- 21:50so would you argue that neither buybacks nor dividend increases effectively really have
- 21:57anything to do with with the price of digital credit not much no um and let's use a counter
- 22:03example if bitcoin was at 200k right now do you think that strategy would need to do buybacks
- 22:07probably not right so and and this that's that's a simple question i like to ask people
- 22:14intuitively people would say to themselves yeah bitcoin is at 200k right now of course they wouldn't
- 22:19need to do buybacks. But let's drill into that. Why is that? That's because Bitcoin price actually
- 22:25will be driving up the entire capital structure, right? So it stands to reason that when Bitcoin
- 22:30is range bound, it's going to drive down the capital structure. It's going to exert force
- 22:35on the capital structure. And if we look at digital credits, and I don't want to seem repetitive here,
- 22:40but it's really helpful to rethink this through in a very simple matter of fact fashion.
- 22:44if Bitcoin is at the base of the capital structure
- 22:47and MSTR sits on top of the capital structure
- 22:49and digital credit sits on top of MSTR
- 22:51stress and risk assessment from Bitcoin
- 22:54and from the capital structure
- 22:55will flow through the digital credit
- 22:57and given the fact that the entire backing
- 23:00and impetus of digital credit is Bitcoin
- 23:02is a capital structure
- 23:04no, buybacks, dividend frequency
- 23:07and dividend rate
- 23:10are not going to overpower those market forces
- 23:13so would you like if sailor asked you adrian like what should we be doing right now what would you
- 23:21recommend like would you recommend pausing buybacks uh and not doing any sort of dividend increases
- 23:27would you recommend continuing the buybacks for a little bit and ease them off how would you
- 23:31suggest strategy moves forward well here's the challenge now that they have established a
- 23:37precedent that they're willing to do buybacks a sudden stop will be viewed by the market
- 23:41perhaps interestingly and I'm very I'm kind of have two minds to think about how the market will
- 23:47would view that right if I were giving advice from the beginning I already thought that buybacks
- 23:55wouldn't work for entirely different set of reasons but I would not have done the buybacks
- 24:02in the first place I think it was it was too reactive I think sometimes the best thing to do
- 24:06was nothing they created the markets i think that they should in my view stepping back and letting
- 24:13the market establish itself for for whatever period of time that would be that would take
- 24:19would have been the more
- 24:21advantageous option because if we if we kind of think forward now if stretch is ever impaired again
- 24:33let's say that Bitcoin has a huge crash and my analysis is right and that Bitcoin has a big crash
- 24:40at some point in the future and stretch gets driven down the market's natural expectation is
- 24:44going to be the strategy is going to start doing buybacks right and if they don't start doing
- 24:47buybacks that can facilitate testing of levels to say okay what will make you do a buyback
- 24:53you kind of open the door for a lot of additional factors that you that are outside of your control
- 24:58so that's why I say sometimes doing nothing is the best thing and that would be my advice
- 25:02Do not continue with the buybacks.
- 25:06Let the market establish an equilibrium and then see where you're at.
- 25:10Yeah, that's very interesting and seems to make sense.
- 25:15You mentioned like the main driver of what's driving Stretch and the other preferreds is kind of they're all moving together, all kind of moving like a block.
- 25:23And obviously, like Bitcoin's driving a lot of the price, too.
- 25:26Have you seen the beta relative to Bitcoin decreasing over time, increasing over time?
- 25:33I get that they're all correlated together, but is digital credit becoming more stable over time or no?
- 25:41So in the case of Stretch, and I could probably pull this up if I can share it.
- 25:45That might be easier to do.
- 25:47So while I'm talking this through, I will do that.
- 25:50So please bear with me.
- 25:52I have the analysis that I been doing on the digital credit offerings right And what I want to share is the actual like series of dashboards I built out that kind of give a simplified view of what they have
- 26:11And I apologize, bear with me.
- 26:18I'm just pulling up a few things here for us to reference.
- 26:21okay i'm going to share my screen here
- 26:30you should be able to see sata at this point correct or what i'm sharing my screen okay
- 26:42so i'm going to zoom in a little bit here yeah that'd be great because i know this is a small
- 26:49I apologize. My monitor has crazy resolution. You should be able to see that, right?
- 26:54More clearly? Yes. Perfect. So you're asking about the correlations, right? So let's take a look.
- 27:01Right here, I have, you know, Bitcoin transmission and sensitivity, and this is as of October 23rd.
- 27:07So the BTC beta is 0.27. Now, what does that tell us? That tells us that its beta to Bitcoin isn't
- 27:14as strong as, you know, ASST, of course,
- 27:18but it's not non-existent, right?
- 27:20So there's about, for every 1% move in Bitcoin,
- 27:25that's the relative move we're going to see
- 27:28in terms of SEDA, right?
- 27:30And the overall BTC correlation is 0.49.
- 27:33So what that means is, you know,
- 27:35about 50% roughly of the matched daily returns,
- 27:40the correlation for SEDA could be, you know,
- 27:43explained by Bitcoin.
- 27:44But then I kind of also do a more specific analysis for SATA in terms of up days and down days.
- 27:52So on up days, SATA is actually a little bit less sensitive to Bitcoin.
- 27:57But on down days, it is a little bit more sensitive to Bitcoin in terms of the price moves up and down in terms of beta that you'll see in SATA.
- 28:09And the correlation holds the same.
- 28:13So it's a little bit less sensitive in terms of a purely price match correlation with Bitcoin on up days, but on down days, it is more sensitive.
- 28:22And this is from November 10th all the way through October 23rd, 2026, right?
- 28:27So what that shows is that over the entirety of SEDA's history, if you just look at those two factors in terms of the beta to Bitcoin and the correlation with Bitcoin, it's fairly consistent.
- 28:38And it's fairly strong in terms of down days for SEDA.
- 28:43And one of the things I also did is I did it for ASST as well.
- 28:48The ASST beta is much weaker in terms of the understanding, the kinds of movements you'll see with regards to ASST.
- 28:58The correlation is fairly strong in terms of ASST.
- 29:04But the up-down beta is weaker for SATA with ASST.
- 29:10and the up-down correlation is somewhat weaker
- 29:14for SATA when it comes to ASST.
- 29:17And this is what I mean by meta derivatives.
- 29:21People are, and this is just two factors, right?
- 29:23I haven't gone into, and this is what drove my paper,
- 29:26if I go all the way down to the bottom here,
- 29:28and we won't get into this
- 29:29because we will lose everyone on the call,
- 29:31but maybe we can have a more detailed call.
- 29:33When I go to, when I have a more,
- 29:35I have a far more detailed model
- 29:36that's looking at BTC core,
- 29:38is looking at ASST residualized for Bitcoin
- 29:42because ASST will have a mechanical link with Bitcoin, right?
- 29:44So I have to residualize away the BTC movement
- 29:47to get what is just the ASST movement.
- 29:49Then I have stretch, then I have strike,
- 29:51then I have strife, then I have strive,
- 29:52then I have trading volume,
- 29:54then I have the short volume flow,
- 29:56then I have market volatility in the VIX.
- 29:58I have price to par state
- 30:00in terms of are people chasing effective yields.
- 30:02I've created a residualized factor for that as well.
- 30:05There's, as you can see,
- 30:07there's a lot more driving the price action in these than dividend frequency and dividend rates
- 30:15which I used to have in here but it didn't even show up in the model so I used to have a actual
- 30:20residual link for dividend frequency and dividend rates that didn't even show up and that and I
- 30:25replaced it with price to par states which is more consistent in the model because as you can see
- 30:30if I remove it we're losing explanatory factors for the actual price variance model up until
- 30:36October 23rd going back to inception. That's a very, very long detailed way of me saying that
- 30:43yes, there's a lot more driving the price action. And yes, the correlations and the beta to Bitcoin
- 30:49and the parent equity has been fairly consistent over time. And the strength of those correlations
- 30:56has varied over time. And I can even go further with SEDA. And before we move on to stretch,
- 31:03I have a rolling correlation here that shows that it's been a fairly consistent correlation.
- 31:09We've had periods of breaking down here, of course, naturally.
- 31:13And that's with Bitcoin.
- 31:15And the same has been true for ASST over time as well.
- 31:19So I highlight all of this to show that it is not as if these perpetual preferred equities are existing in a vacuum, right?
- 31:28They exist in a broader market.
- 31:30And now if you'd like, we can go to say to stretch and I can, I can show that as well.
- 31:35That'd be great.
- 31:39And this time I'll zoom in first so that people aren't, you know, trying to go blind looking at it.
- 31:45And I will share my screen here.
- 31:50So now you should be seeing stretch.
- 31:53and if we take a look at stretch and go to the BTC transmission and sensitivity,
- 32:00this paints a more nuanced picture.
- 32:05The BTC beta is 0.2.
- 32:07So again, not super strong, but not necessarily what I would say non-existent.
- 32:11The BTC correlation is 0.4.
- 32:14So a little bit stronger in terms of purely single factor,
- 32:18what is driving the price correlation
- 32:20with regards to stretch when it comes to Bitcoin.
- 32:24But the up-down beta is weaker
- 32:26in terms of a 1% price move in Bitcoin
- 32:31will lead to an equal price move
- 32:33or would lead to a proportional price move
- 32:36in terms of stretch.
- 32:38And up-down correlations are also weaker
- 32:40as opposed to Seta, right?
- 32:43It is not as if they are trading the same.
- 32:46This is clearly showing that the market
- 32:47is treating these differently.
- 32:49And we can speculate as to why that is.
- 32:53But when we go to, however, stretch when it comes to MSTR,
- 32:59the MSTR beta is fairly weak,
- 33:00but the MSTR correlation is fairly strong.
- 33:06The up-down beta with MSTR is somewhat weak,
- 33:10but the up-down correlation with MSTR
- 33:12is a little bit stronger as well for up days and for down days,
- 33:16as opposed to SEDA, which was weaker on up days, stronger on down days.
- 33:23That is just another kind of view into how the market is treating these.
- 33:30Digital credit is a cohort, but it's clear that the market is treating them differently.
- 33:35Now, we can say that that is because maybe it's because strategy has a larger balance sheet
- 33:39and the market perceives them as less risky, or maybe because of the size of strategy's
- 33:43market balance sheet. The market is saying that they should have a stronger down correlation with
- 33:48MSTR as opposed to Bitcoin. There are all kinds of different ways that we can look through and try
- 33:54to rationalize it. But my overall guide to the investor base is these perpetual preferred equities
- 34:03are not trading in a vacuum. And there is only so much that the companies themselves can do
- 34:08to overpower the market forces when it comes to dividend rate,
- 34:13dividend frequency, and when it comes to buybacks.
- 34:17Yeah, that definitely makes sense.
- 34:19I mean, I'm thinking back to when Stretch,
- 34:22like when digital credit broadly sold off this summer
- 34:25and Stretch hit, I guess, 71 or whatever the low was.
- 34:29Obviously, as you pointed out earlier,
- 34:31it started to bounce back significantly even before buybacks.
- 34:34Bitcoin was obviously like wasn't crashing I guess at that point doing better and kind of the whole preferred complex.
- 34:42like rose up the digital credit complex like do you think that that market sell-off was like
- 34:49not based on fundamentals like was it was it just like a leverage flush and so therefore maybe next
- 34:55time it shouldn't sell off as much or or no like you disagree that like it's it's if bitcoin you
- 35:02know wicks down it's completely reasonable for these things to sell off just as much
- 35:07so so let's let's focus on on stretch first so this this is my view bitcoin started to sell off
- 35:15mstr started to sell off stretch started to sell off and because of the leverage on top of stretch
- 35:19the sell-off was accelerated that that's kind of the simple view right and when bitcoin started to
- 35:24rebound and i had this in my my analysis as well bitcoin started to rebound rather strongly mstr
- 35:31rebounded very strongly stretch rebounded very strongly and all digital credit as a whole rebounded
- 35:37very strongly as well and one of the things i've been saying is that you know the market is using
- 35:42these um preferred equities as a way to forward price expectations of bitcoin and kind of forward
- 35:46price the risk assessment of the entire capital structure so to your question if bitcoin were to
- 35:52sell off again do i expect digital credit to sell off again yes now do i expect it to sell off as
- 35:57much I can't say if leverage builds up on stretch like it did and if and because
- 36:03Seda has a larger footprint now if leverage starts to build up on Seda and
- 36:06leverage starts to build up on digital credit as a whole which I think is a
- 36:10likely outcome because digital credits I believe will grow and it will scale it
- 36:15stands to reason that you will have events where the price sells off because
- 36:20of leverage and because of the capital structure and because of Bitcoin but I
- 36:24I don't think that's a flaw. I just think that, you know, because I view them as metaderivatives
- 36:29and because I view them with that kind of a lens, I expect that the forward risk assessment
- 36:35and the market's assessment and the market price expectations for Bitcoin and the capital
- 36:40structure of these companies will matriculate through the digital credit and digital credit
- 36:44will see some stress. However, digital credit has removed a lot of the volatility away from
- 36:51what you would see with the capital structure and what you would see with Bitcoin, right?
- 36:55They have all, even with the drawdown, if you had put $10,000 in one of these digital
- 37:01credit offerings since inception to now, you would have outperformed Bitcoin, you would
- 37:05have preserved capital more effectively, and you would have earned a dividend.
- 37:08So there's nuance in it, right?
- 37:11Just because Bitcoin sells off and the capital structure sells off and digital credit sells
- 37:16off doesn't mean that these are flawed offerings.
- 37:17It just means that they have a mechanical structural market link to the broader capital structure.
- 37:24And as a cohort, because of that, the market is trading them as a block.
- 37:29And people and investors need to understand that until Bitcoin gets to that future state where we all know it's going, $500,000, $250,000, $500,000, so on and so forth, it becomes much larger.
- 37:40And perhaps the drawdowns become less volatile.
- 37:43I think that it's likely to expect that when Bitcoin draws down, digital credit will draw down with it.
- 37:51Yeah, that's super interesting.
- 37:53I also want to bring up the dividend rate again because you brought up in the past, like with your analysis,
- 37:58like it's clear that the step function increases, at least from your analysis, like didn't really drive the price.
- 38:05Is it possible that just like the dividend increases were one, like there's just not that much of a sample size for like stretch,
- 38:12like increasing its dividend that much and then two they are like relatively small increments so
- 38:18like i'll like i'll give it like i'll exaggerate to kind of give an example you know if you had a
- 38:23digital credit instrument that yielded one percent at a hundred dollar par price doesn't matter like
- 38:29how much you buy back of that instrument it's not going to trade at par because you can buy some
- 38:34like a risk-free instrument like a t-bill and earn significantly more than one percent and so
- 38:40So if you but on the other hand, like if you jack the rate from 1% to 20%, maybe all of a sudden you might you might have a lot of buyers.
- 38:48Like, how do you think about that in regards to the dividend rate?
- 38:51That's a possible factor, because if you think of it just as you as you as you kind of pointed out, the change in rate may not be enough to spur buyers to come into the market and to spur demand.
- 39:05and because of that, I think this is what
- 39:07Fong Lee was alluding to
- 39:08that I think that could be why that they weren't
- 39:11seeing that increasing the dividend rate was
- 39:13enough to spur demand in and of itself
- 39:15because I don't know if
- 39:17it's a matter of it not being large
- 39:19enough or not being
- 39:21disproportionately enough over the course
- 39:23of time so perhaps if they had
- 39:25kicked up the dividend rates
- 39:27much much higher
- 39:28over a longer period of time
- 39:31that it would
- 39:33spur more demand. I can't say because it's kind of hard to test a counterfactual that didn't happen.
- 39:39But I think that could be a factor. Now, the flip side of that that I would say is that
- 39:44I don't want to give the impression that there is any one lever that can be pulled that's going to
- 39:48make these equities trade at a certain level. I think the market will trade them as the market
- 39:53will see fit. But yes, that could be a potential factor. How do you compare this space to
- 40:00like perpetual markets like you know bitmex pioneered the the bitcoin perpetual swap
- 40:07hyperliquid i believe it's like a new perpetual kalshi has their new perpetuals and like i believe
- 40:13like from what i've seen like the way it works is the funding rate is like variable it's regular
- 40:18and it adjusts like quite significantly if everyone wants to go long then the interest rate that longs
- 40:25have to pay the shorts blows out and it rewards people for going short the opposite is true like
- 40:32is it possible to adjust the rate rapidly if the rate was able to adjust more rapidly would that
- 40:39potentially keep something like stretch more stable or or no in your your mind
- 40:43um i can't really speculate on would the ability of stretch to more effectively adjust to market
- 40:55conditions keep it at par more effectively because i have to look at it in in the totality of the
- 41:02overall of overall modeling i've been doing right i would have to say to myself whatever i've been
- 41:08seeing in the data in terms of dividend rates and dividend frequency, does that
- 41:13lead me to believe that there's a further adjustments that can be made along
- 41:17those lines on any level of the capital structure that would allow stretch to trade at par more effectively I mean I inclined to say no because again just going off of my analysis
- 41:32when I put the dividend rate,
- 41:34when I put the dividend frequency,
- 41:35when I try to model it out a half dozen different ways,
- 41:38it still shows up as noise in the data.
- 41:40I think that the larger market forces
- 41:44are still going to determine
- 41:45how the levels that these preferred offerings trade at.
- 41:50and things like the frequency and the rates will help at the margin.
- 41:55But the margin, in my view, the margins call that for a reason.
- 41:59It's those incremental changes that happen at certain price levels.
- 42:03So can it smooth out those levels?
- 42:05Yes, but it still will not set the level.
- 42:08And that's just based upon what the data is telling me.
- 42:11Now, at some point in the future, it is very, very likely, very, very possible
- 42:14that the data will present a different picture
- 42:17because I think that as these offerings mature,
- 42:22the volatility in them may abate somewhat, right?
- 42:27And the breakdowns from par may abate somewhat.
- 42:29But I think that comes through time.
- 42:32And that comes through a variety of factors.
- 42:34That'll be time of the dividend being paid,
- 42:36market stability in the sense of that they have been at the market
- 42:39and the dividend has been missed,
- 42:42stability in terms of Bitcoin having more time in the market,
- 42:44and Bitcoin's risk perception moving further in on the risk curve
- 42:49instead of still being somewhat further out on the risk curve,
- 42:53all of that will grow the footprint of digital credit
- 42:57because as Bitcoin is perceived to be less risky,
- 43:00more capital will come into Bitcoin.
- 43:02As more capital comes into Bitcoin,
- 43:04there will be more capital for strategy to buy,
- 43:06to have capital markets access to buy more Bitcoin,
- 43:09which will be able to increase the footprint of digital credit.
- 43:12Digital credit will be able to support a larger and larger footprint.
- 43:14And it stands to reason that the risk perception and the stability of the offering will stabilize over time.
- 43:21But I think that time is going to be the largest factor in terms of how these things are going to trade and how stable they become, as opposed to any particular corporate action.
- 43:29yeah i definitely agree that just time and you know bitcoin growing adoption bitcoin
- 43:35increasing price kind of kind of solves a lot of the over engineering type problems that uh you
- 43:40know people seem to be trying to come up with try to fix things whereas you know if bitcoin does
- 43:46what we what many of us think it will do um so this will just all get resolved over time um i
- 43:52kind of want to shift topic a little bit here as we start to close it out it was super interesting
- 43:57going through that analysis.
- 44:00But Saylor did an interesting tweet recently
- 44:02kind of comparing Bitcoin to like a language,
- 44:06like the English language.
- 44:08You made a comment on that.
- 44:09I'm curious, like, how do you think about,
- 44:11you know, how do you think about that?
- 44:14So I think what I said is that Bitcoin
- 44:17could be the lingua franca of money,
- 44:20like of a future base layer
- 44:22in terms of what Bitcoin can do.
- 44:25And the way to think of a lingua franca
- 44:26is just an accepted language that everyone understands,
- 44:31everyone can speak, everyone accepts.
- 44:34They still speak their own language.
- 44:35So, right, someone that speaks French will still speak French,
- 44:37someone that speaks Spanish will still speak Spanish,
- 44:38but everyone can come together and understand this lingua franca,
- 44:42this common language, which English is, right?
- 44:44English is the lingua franca of the world, and one of them.
- 44:48And I think that Bitcoin will serve to be a similar kind of apparatus in the future.
- 44:55You will have other currencies that exist.
- 44:57You will have other currencies that are used.
- 45:00But I envision a future where Bitcoin is one of those currencies, just like the U.S. dollar,
- 45:05that everyone in the world will agree upon using as a potential sentiment layer, as a potential base layer.
- 45:11And I think that things like digital credits serve as a way to, for lack of a better term,
- 45:18translate Bitcoin from one state to another.
- 45:21So if we're using the language analogy, we're thinking of it in terms of, you know, someone speaking Spanish and translating into English.
- 45:27We can think about some of Bitcoin existing as a base layer being translated into other currencies and when it comes to digital credit being translated and transmitted into yields.
- 45:38I very much view digital credit as a yield curve on top of Bitcoin.
- 45:41I envision a future with stable coins existing on top of Bitcoin.
- 45:45I envision a future where a lot of countries perhaps settle a lot of transactions on top of Bitcoin, in addition to corporations, in addition to individuals.
- 45:54I just think that Bitcoin will be that accepted upon monetary language that everyone would agree upon.
- 45:59Cannot be debased, cannot be corrupted, cannot be controlled.
- 46:03And therefore, everyone will, for lack of a better term, speak the language of Satoshi through Bitcoin.
- 46:09yeah it's uh it's an interesting thing because i think like you know people have many critiques on
- 46:16bitcoin too volatile but one of the common critiques is like well you can always create
- 46:21another currency and like you know your point and sailor's point is like well you can always
- 46:25create another language doesn't mean everyone's going to want to speak your language you kind of
- 46:30need to choose the language that everyone else is speaking it's kind of just an interesting way to
- 46:35to think about it, I guess.
- 46:37Well, I agree.
- 46:38And, you know, not to kind of ruffle anyone's feathers,
- 46:41but we saw what happened with Bit110, right?
- 46:43So I think that, yeah,
- 46:47anyone can try to spool up whatever coin they want.
- 46:49Anyone can try to fork it however they want.
- 46:51That does not mean that you would be speaking
- 46:53the agreed upon language of the network,
- 46:55sticking with the language parlance
- 46:57that we're using right now, right?
- 46:59So, yeah, you can,
- 47:01And there's a reason why Bitcoin has the largest share of the, I hate using the term cryptocurrency, but Bitcoin dominance is as of this one, I think it was like 59, 60%.
- 47:14There's a reason why it is the largest digital currency.
- 47:20There's a reason why it has the longest time frame, the longest history.
- 47:24And there's a reason why corporations are adopting it.
- 47:28Institutions are adopting it at scale.
- 47:30We have countries that have adopted it.
- 47:32We have legislation talking about the U.S. government adopting it.
- 47:35It is because it is the best money.
- 47:37It is the best monetary language.
- 47:39It is the best monetary framework.
- 47:41It is the best monetary software.
- 47:42We can go on and on and on.
- 47:44Bitcoin has shown itself to be the best, and that's why it's adopted,
- 47:47and that's why people speak its language, and that's why people are willing to use it.
- 47:50So to Saylor's point, yeah, you're right.
- 47:52I mean, someone can try to create whatever currency that they want.
- 47:55It doesn't mean that people are going to want to use it.
- 47:57No, that makes sense.
- 48:00So Saylor has also kind of talked about this idea of like digital money being built on top of digital credit Obviously like digital money like his view is like a dollar like coin or a euro like coin or or whatnot that built on top of digital credit which is like a dollar income like security
- 48:22effectively how do you see that kind of evolve like one do you think that that concept will play
- 48:28out and i guess two like how do you see that evolving like will the dollar and bitcoin coexist
- 48:34Will there be like different versions of the dollar that are built on top of Bitcoin or Bitcoin derivatives?
- 48:47Yes, I think it's very possible.
- 48:49And I think that's kind of where we are going.
- 48:52So if we if we just look at what Saylor did with MSTR first, right?
- 48:57He was the first out of the gate when it comes to a Bitcoin treasury.
- 48:59I don't think it's impossible to say that we had a Bitcoin treasury, then we had digital credits, then other offerings will exist on top of digital credits and other differentiated offerings will exist on top of Bitcoin.
- 49:14I don't think that's impossible at all.
- 49:16I think that people will package and have offerings that are built upon digital credit.
- 49:23But I can see, I don't use the term stablecoin, but stablecoin-like offerings or stablecoin-like rails existing on top of visual credits on top of Bitcoin.
- 49:35I think that is all coming.
- 49:38As Bitcoin's footprint increases, as one Bitcoin is worth, as I said earlier, $250, $500, $1 million one day, it'll be able to service a larger and larger cohort of individuals on top of it.
- 49:51So that base layer will remain pristine and we are building the rails on top of it.
- 49:56MSTR is a derivative rail that's on top of Bitcoin.
- 50:00Digital credits is a yield curve rail on top of Bitcoin.
- 50:04I think we'll have further curves and further rails that exist on top of those and on top of Bitcoin as well.
- 50:09I don't think what Taylor is saying is outside of realm of possibility.
- 50:12And in fact, if I were a betting man, I would say it's within the realm of probability, not just possibility,
- 50:17that those things will happen and they will exist on top of Bitcoin
- 50:20and top of digital credit at some point in the future.
- 50:23Yeah, I mean, you mentioned like you don't want to use the word stablecoin,
- 50:27but also it's like there can be these digital money things.
- 50:30Call them whatever you want. I agree.
- 50:31Like they're the ones that I know of.
- 50:34They're not pitching themselves as stablecoins.
- 50:36But theoretically, stablecoins, you know, they own credit assets, right?
- 50:41There's no reason that they could not allocate a small portion of their reserve to digital credit.
- 50:48I mean, Tether already owns Bitcoin.
- 50:49Like that's obviously a lot more volatile than digital credit and pays no yield.
- 50:54So like it makes sense that like dollar, anyone that issues dollar liabilities or stablecoin like things should have some sort of like Bitcoin exposure or like Bitcoin derivative exposure.
- 51:07I agree.
- 51:08So taking this like, kind of like what you just said up there.
- 51:11So let's take it a step further.
- 51:13One of the things I've talked about online and on other pods is that I think that corporate adoption of digital credit is going to be another wave that we're going to see.
- 51:24So we already have, you know, Strive.
- 51:27They already own Stretch on their balance sheets.
- 51:29I think you have Orange BTC that owns Stretch as well.
- 51:34You have, I think that we're going to, you have MetaPlanet that's allocating potential capitals towards buying digital credit securities.
- 51:42I think they earmarked that as well.
- 51:44I think that's a trend that we're going to see, right?
- 51:46So let's expand it further.
- 51:49If we have corporate adoption of digital credit, it makes sense that Tether could adopt digital credit as well, right?
- 51:55It makes sense that pension funds and other kinds of allocators can allocate towards digital credit.
- 52:01the footprint for digital credit, I think, is entirely dependent upon Bitcoin's footprint.
- 52:06As Bitcoin's footprint grows, the potential footprint and TAM for digital credit and for
- 52:11Bitcoin will grow proportionately. So I do think that that is possible.
- 52:15The one caution I will give is that we don't want to have a situation where digital credit grows
- 52:21disproportionately quickly. And then we have a situation where, you know, there's tons of
- 52:26leverage built up and, you know, it's gotten too far ahead of its skis and has grown too quickly,
- 52:31right? I would like to see a nice organic structured build out and growth of digital
- 52:36credits through adoption, through having a larger footprint, through having more people
- 52:41adopting digital credits, whether it be individuals like us that are in the Bitcoin space and that
- 52:47have worked in the Bitcoin space, people in our family, individuals that have no exposure to
- 52:53Bitcoin, but like the idea of getting yield through digital credit. Tether, the list goes on and on and
- 52:59on. I would love to see a slow build out over the next several years as opposed to a large leverage
- 53:05driven degenerate build out that we saw perhaps a little bit early in the summer where there's a lot
- 53:10of leverage. And yes, I do think that's possible. And I don't think it's as far fetched at all for
- 53:16Tether, for others to have digital credits as part of their allocation. And it'd be seen as
- 53:22something just as normal as holding T-bills at some point in the future.
- 53:27Yeah, that definitely makes sense.
- 53:30Yeah, I mean, I agree.
- 53:31Like, I don't want that Bitcoin's price to be built on a house of cards.
- 53:36Although, like, if you look back, I mean, Bitcoin's history, you know,
- 53:39is kind of people getting over leveraged through countless bull markets.
- 53:45And then that's part of the reason I think why we have such steep bear markets in Bitcoin.
- 53:50how do you see digital credit playing out like in a bull market like you mentioned yeah in a
- 53:56perfect world people don't do crazy things and get over leveraged or over amplified but as the
- 54:03market grows i mean keep in mind digital credit has pretty much only existed in a in a bear market
- 54:08at this point or sideways to bear market so as bitcoin grows i imagine we're gonna have a lot
- 54:12new issuers i imagine people are going to be trying to start businesses in the hype they're
- 54:17going to be issuing a lot of like digital credit in the hype as well to acquire more bitcoin and
- 54:22the market's probably going to love it if if the if the price is going up for for the that that
- 54:28period of time like how do you see this evolving over the the bull market um i and i i did a post
- 54:35last a while ago i think that in a real bitcoin bull market strategy will have five engines firing
- 54:43Strive will have three engines firing.
- 54:46Maybe MetaPlanet will have a few engines firing as well.
- 54:49And I think that we see weeks where you know Strive and Strategy have an 8K that comes out and we issued x amount of common stock we issued x amount of sata and sats and stretch and and and um stripe and so on and so
- 55:04forth week after week after week after week after week i think that is possible in a bull market um
- 55:10because the the thing that i think will be interesting to see play out is that there will
- 55:18be individuals that come into the market when we're in a bull market that want Bitcoin exposure.
- 55:22There will be people that come into a market that want that additional amplified leverage
- 55:28exposure through MSTR, through ASST, through MetaPlanet, so on and so forth.
- 55:32And there will be a cohort that come into the market and say, you know, Bitcoin, a little
- 55:39too volatile.
- 55:41MSTR, ASST, way too volatile.
- 55:43Digital credit, I can stick around in digital credit for three to six months as we're
- 55:48in a bull market and get some yield on my idle cash and see what happens.
- 55:52I don't think that's impossible.
- 55:54So it is likely, in my view, that in a bull market, you will have multiple cylinders firing
- 56:00for these treasury companies.
- 56:02And it is possible that, and again, this is my view, there'll be an opportunity to build
- 56:07up large cash positions for whether it be USD reserves or cash reserves, buy large amounts
- 56:13of Bitcoin week over week over week for extended periods of time. Of course, there'll be market
- 56:19corrections or what have you. But I think that the lessons learned in this last bear market
- 56:25will position the companies to be better equipped for the next bear market whenever it does hit,
- 56:33right? So whenever we come onto the next bull market, we hit another bear market or another
- 56:37lull, I think companies will probably have larger cash positions. They'll obviously have larger
- 56:42Bitcoin holdings as well.
- 56:44And they'll be better positioned to weather the storm,
- 56:46which will only make digital credit as a result stronger
- 56:49because they'll be better positioned, better allocated,
- 56:52and more structurally willing to adapt to the market
- 56:55and more structurally sound because of, of course,
- 56:59they went through another bull market.
- 57:01They're into another bear market.
- 57:03They've experienced a previous bear market
- 57:04and they've learned from the experiences as well.
- 57:07One more question, then we can close this one out.
- 57:10the next Bitcoin bull market, you know, has it started?
- 57:14Where do you think it might be going?
- 57:15When do you think it might end?
- 57:17And how are you thinking about what's,
- 57:20why a certain bull market would play out
- 57:22and why it would last a certain amount of time
- 57:24and kind of where Bitcoin goes from here?
- 57:27Well, do I think the bull market has started yet?
- 57:29No, but I do want to bring up
- 57:31certain things for consideration.
- 57:33So we topped out at what 126 and change, right?
- 57:35Whatever it was.
- 57:36And we've drawn down a little bit more than 50% from that, right?
- 57:40Now, people keep focusing on the drawdown, but they don't focus on it in comparison to other markets.
- 57:48The drawdown in this market has been more shallow than other markets, right?
- 57:52And when we dropped down and we hit, what was it, 58 back in June or was it May?
- 57:58One of those dates.
- 58:00We've bounced back pretty nicely from it, right?
- 58:03And we've been ranging in between, let's say, the 70 to 84 range for a while now, right?
- 58:11We had that, we had the, we crossed 84, almost 85 in May.
- 58:14We crossed 84 almost and went a little bit higher.
- 58:17And then we came back down in the recently.
- 58:21So that tells me that we are a little bit range bound.
- 58:24Now, I think that 27 could be a good year for Bitcoin because I would have expected with the situation in the Middle East,
- 58:31with inflation where it is,
- 58:34with the, you know, people are very,
- 58:36very anxious in the markets.
- 58:39There are a lot of macro factors
- 58:40that are acting not necessarily as tailwinds
- 58:44and not necessarily as headwinds,
- 58:45but kind of as quicksand
- 58:47is the best way I can describe it.
- 58:48We can't go up and we can't go down.
- 58:50We're just kind of ranging.
- 58:52And Bitcoin has just been doing this thing.
- 58:54It hasn't crashed down to 40K
- 58:55like some people were thinking
- 58:56and calling for, right?
- 58:58So I think that with a little bit
- 59:00of relief in the market,
- 59:01that Bitcoin could spend 2027 in the 90 to 110 range
- 59:06and we're ranging there.
- 59:07And then we see what the next halving brings us.
- 59:10Now, that said,
- 59:13do I think we're going to go to 400K next cycle?
- 59:15No.
- 59:16I thought it was possible
- 59:18that we could have gotten that this last run
- 59:21because we just had so many positive narratives.
- 59:25We had corporate adoption.
- 59:26We had the potential for the SBR, right?
- 59:29We had the potential for all kinds of macro narratives.
- 59:33People were thinking that we had a real chance of getting, you know, the U.S. government coming in and really buying a lot of Bitcoin.
- 59:40And that kind of fueled a lot of fervor.
- 59:43Those narratives didn't play out.
- 59:46But even with those narratives not playing out and the huge leverage flush on October 10th, we're still been ranging.
- 59:51So we can see 27 be a nice ranging year.
- 59:56and I think we are positioned to have a very, very good 2028.
- 1:00:00I don't think we're going to hit like 400K or anything like that,
- 1:00:02but I think we can see some nice price action.
- 1:00:05And I think that Bitcoin treasuries will see a lot of disproportionate growth
- 1:00:11because this is where I'm going to sound like a toxic Bitcoiner.
- 1:00:14I think all coins are pretty much done for.
- 1:00:16I don't really see them having the same kind of draw that they had in years past.
- 1:00:20They certainly did not have that draw in this last period that we saw,
- 1:00:25and I think that was because of treasuries.
- 1:00:26And I think that trend will continue, except with more capital and the companies that are still, the treasuries that are still around, and digital credit obviously is still going to be around.
- 1:00:37Digital credit is going to suck a lot of capital that would have gone to all coins.
- 1:00:41Bitcoin treasury companies are going to suck a lot of capital that would have gone to all coins.
- 1:00:44I think that we have created a new wave, a Bitcoin-focused wave, and we're going to see a lot of capital move into those and into the next halving.
- 1:00:54I definitely agree that I think a lot of capital will be moving into Bitcoin.
- 1:00:58Adrian, this has been an awesome conversation.
- 1:01:00I appreciate you taking the time to do this and going through your analysis.
- 1:01:04Thank you for having me on anytime.
- 1:01:07And to anyone that has concerns about digital credit, I would say don't.
- 1:01:11I think digital credit is doing what it's supposed to do.
- 1:01:14And we as early adopters are being compensated with dividends.
- 1:01:18We are being compensated with, you know, effective yields.
- 1:01:22But as a result, we may have to deal with just a little bit more volatility.
- 1:01:25But I think we'll be in a very, very different place in a year, two years, three years, and everything will be fine.
- 1:01:32Yeah, it's going to be a fun couple of years.
- 1:01:34Adrian, thanks again.
- 1:01:35This has been great.
- 1:01:37Thank you.
- 1:01:38Bye, everyone.