Latest / Simply Bitcoin / Did The New Middle Eastern Bitcoin FOMO JUST SAVE The Bull Run? | EP 1209
Transcript
- 0:00Yo, did the UA's secret closed door meeting with President
- 0:04Trump and crypto czar David Sachs save the Bitcoin bull run?
- 0:10Well, the Internet broke when the UAE chic and brother of the
- 0:13president publicly tweeted that he was in the US to discuss AI
- 0:18and digital currencies. Following this meeting, the
- 0:21White House confirmed that the UAE is going to invest $1.4
- 0:26trillion into America. But the real question is, is
- 0:31Bitcoin or Bitcoin mining going to be part of this $1.4 trillion
- 0:36investment since since this is a closed door meeting.
- 0:39Since this meeting took place, the price of Bitcoin has rallied
- 0:44aggressively to 90K, which makes us wonder, is the Middle East
- 0:49saving the Bitcoin bull run? Before we jump into it, I do
- 0:53want to bring up my legendary Co host, always optimistic optimist
- 0:56Fields in the Co host chair and of course, our special guest
- 0:59today, Mighty CEO CIO of Leaden in the House and good friend as
- 1:04well. All right, gentlemen, let's jump
- 1:06straight into today's show. I mean, this is pretty crazy.
- 1:10We're not click baiting you guys.
- 1:12This actually happened. Let me show you guys proceeds.
- 1:16So what am I talking about? What was I talking about in the
- 1:18beginning? So check this out.
- 1:20I'm sorry guys, I can't pronounce this Opti.
- 1:23Do you want to give it a a shot? Tahoon tahoon bin Zayed.
- 1:31So he is the Highness Sheikh Tahooni, deputy Ruler of Abu
- 1:36Dhabi, and he met with crypto crypto czar and AI Czar of the
- 1:42White House, David Sachs. And check out this post.
- 1:47I explored with David Sachs, the Special Advisor on AI and
- 1:51Crypto, the transformative effects of artificial
- 1:54intelligence across various sectors, the expanding role of
- 1:59digital currencies and in reshaping financial systems and
- 2:03the investment opportunities emerging at their convergence.
- 2:07As technological advancements accelerate fostering
- 2:10collaboration and adoption, forward-looking strategies
- 2:14remain essential pillars for driving sustainable growth and
- 2:18achieving long term impact. Now, what's really interesting
- 2:22as well is you guys have to remember to zoom in, zoom out
- 2:26When in doubt, they the Bitcoin conference.
- 2:30Our friends over at the Bitcoin conference, Bitcoin magazine
- 2:33through an amazing conference over at Abu Dhabi, and here's
- 2:36David Bailey with I believe the Sheik of Abu Dhabi and David
- 2:41Bailey of course, is pitching them on the UA, the UAE becoming
- 2:47a Bitcoin superpower. We know that Dubai is a huge hub
- 2:51for the Bitcoin and crypto industry due to the the very,
- 2:56very favorable tax regulations happening over there.
- 3:00And here of course is the man, the myth, the legend, President
- 3:04Trump and the UA chic and of course talking about the $1.4
- 3:10trillion investment. Now, if it was just this picture
- 3:14alone, I think it would be a nothing burger.
- 3:16But the fact that, you know, the one of the chic met with the
- 3:21crypto czar, the AI czar, I think speaks volumes.
- 3:26And again, we know that there was just a massive Bitcoin
- 3:30conference in the United Arab elements, the United Arab
- 3:34Emirates. Anyways, let's check out this
- 3:36article by Coin Telegraph. Trump's crypto czar meets UAE's
- 3:41National security Advisor on crypto and AI White House crypto
- 3:45and AI czar David Sachs was among a number of Trump
- 3:48administration officials who recently met with UAE officials
- 3:52to discuss emerging technologies and UAE's potential plans to
- 3:57increase its investment in the United States.
- 4:01The Sheik, the Gulf nation's national security advisor and
- 4:04brother of the country's president, said in a March 20th
- 4:08ex post that he had spoken with Sacks about a is impact and the
- 4:13expanding role of digital currencies.
- 4:16U.S. President Donald Trump hosted
- 4:18the Sheik for dinner at the White House on March 18th and
- 4:21posted this on his Truth Social platform a day later that he and
- 4:25senior U.S. officials discussed with the Sheik.
- 4:28But ways for our countries to increase our partnerships, for
- 4:32the for the advancing of our economic and technological
- 4:36futures. I mean, it just it doesn't take
- 4:40a rocket scientist the United States just posted from their ex
- 4:44account the why the current administration that they have
- 4:48every intention of the United States becoming quote the
- 4:51Bitcoin capital of the world. So I mean, you can make a pretty
- 4:55good bet. I mean, he didn't mention in the
- 4:57post, but you can make a pretty good bet that Bitcoin or crypto
- 5:01was definitely part of those conversations.
- 5:04The exact details of the Sheikh's multiple discussions
- 5:08were not made public and it was a closed door meeting.
- 5:11But Bloomberg reported on March 19th that people are familiar
- 5:15with his meetings with Trump said he planned to talk about
- 5:18technology, energy and increasing the UAE's investment
- 5:22in the US. Anyways, it just keeps on going.
- 5:26But you guys get the point. I'm going to, I'm just just
- 5:29leave it right here. Look at that.
- 5:31They definitely brought up Bitcoin once or twice.
- 5:33Anyways, I do want to open it up to the panel.
- 5:36I do want to give a shout out to our boy Mauricio for joining us
- 5:38on the show today. Guys, this is pretty exciting.
- 5:43What I posted the other day and Mauricio and I were talking
- 5:46about this before we got on air, but what I posted the other day
- 5:50was I think it was like two or three days ago is in terms of
- 5:54news, this cycle has been the best cycle ever.
- 5:59In terms of price action, this cycle has been pretty boring.
- 6:04So I mean like it is, is it, you know, is it, are we heading into
- 6:10the next, are the next four years going to be absolutely
- 6:13bonkers? Because if you look at the
- 6:14fundamentals of Bitcoin, the strategic Bitcoin reserve, all
- 6:18these other countries looking at Bitcoin, the rubber stamp of
- 6:22approval by the United States government, There's an official
- 6:27the the IMF finally concedes that Bitcoin can be used as a
- 6:33form of money. There's news coming out of
- 6:35Russia that they're looking into following in the footsteps of
- 6:40the United States. Obviously, from a strategic
- 6:42perspective, they have to like, I think these next four years
- 6:47are going to be absolutely explosive.
- 6:49But I think a lot of people are let down that this amazing news
- 6:53isn't being properly reflected in the price action as of yet.
- 6:57I mean, things have changed. We definitely ran up from 5082
- 7:01K, 83 K, we're at $88,000. I think we hit like 88,700 this
- 7:07morning. So I think things are definitely
- 7:09warming up. My opinion, I don't think we're
- 7:11out of the woods yet till we cross 100K Monisi, I'm going to
- 7:14pass it on to you, man. Welcome to the show.
- 7:17Hey guys. Hey, Opdia, Nico, I, I think I
- 7:21echo a lot of what you just said.
- 7:23I think my my take or my interpretation of what's what
- 7:27we're seeing in the market and why you're not seeing the Quinn
- 7:30rally when you get news like these or headlines like the one
- 7:34you just went over is I think we're at a point in time where
- 7:39the market has gotten a lot of exciting announcements of things
- 7:43that are going to happen. So the digital asset or the
- 7:47Bitcoin strategic reserve, you know, it's announced, it's still
- 7:50up in the air around how it's actually going to materialize.
- 7:53What is actual mechanics? What are the actual amounts?
- 7:56Same with these types of, you know, we are going to
- 7:59potentially invest up to this amount in the United States.
- 8:02Like these are promises and promises.
- 8:07A plethora of promises has already been made by the Trump
- 8:10administration. Some of them have already been
- 8:11kept like releasing Ross and these others.
- 8:14There was an executive order around the, the digital asset
- 8:17stockpile or the Bitcoin strategic reserve, which I think
- 8:20a lot of people, you know, the, the, the reaction there was that
- 8:25it was an executive order. Executive orders are can be done
- 8:28by the next administration too. This wasn't something that was
- 8:30passed through Congress or the Senate through the look through
- 8:33the actual ringer of the law making process and got stamped.
- 8:36This was something that the 11 president wrote and the next guy
- 8:39could potentially write the opposite.
- 8:41And so I think the market is kind of expect announcement out
- 8:48like there's been too many announcements into the market
- 8:51about things that might be coming, might be coming, but
- 8:53there's nothing that's actually coming into the market.
- 8:55Like another example would be the repeal of SAP 121.
- 8:58Yes, great that was repealed. There haven't been since any
- 9:02banks necessarily announcing that they're going to be coming
- 9:05and doing these investments and the amounts for these
- 9:07investments and the specifics around these investments.
- 9:10So in general terms, I think what the market is waiting for
- 9:14is the translation of these announcements into practical
- 9:22realities, right? Like will any of this $1.4
- 9:24trillion be deployed into any type of Bitcoin infrastructure
- 9:28in the US at TBD? There's no commitments there.
- 9:30There's nothing signed or guaranteed.
- 9:33Similarly with, you know, some of the SAB 121, it's right like
- 9:36it's been repealed. OK, how many banks are going to
- 9:38come in? How big are their operations
- 9:40going to be? How heavy are they?
- 9:42They're going to come into the space.
- 9:43So the market's really saying, OK, the announcements have been
- 9:46made. Some of these changes have been,
- 9:48you know, enacted. Where's the action?
- 9:51Where's the money actually going to come in?
- 9:53And can we can we stop making announcements and of things that
- 9:56are going to happen and start making announcements of things
- 9:59that they've actually gone out and done?
- 10:01And so I think that's the, the, the sort of frustrating, not
- 10:06frustrating, but this sort of highly anticipation.
- 10:08There's a lot of anticipation in the market and we're waiting to
- 10:11see these announcements turn into actual investments.
- 10:15I think that's where we're at right now.
- 10:18Yeah, 100%. And I think everyone, I think
- 10:20everyone feels that right. Like everyone's like, OK, you
- 10:24know, show me the goods, right? Show me the goods, you know,
- 10:27strategic Bitcoin reserve. You know, you, you're hearing
- 10:31the talk from Bo Hines. We're going to play you guys a
- 10:33clip during the numbers basically saying that look like
- 10:36we're looking into potentially selling, you know, some of the
- 10:40gold to buy Bitcoin. You know, the Bitcoin act was
- 10:43reintroduced by Senator Lummus, but it's kind of like show me
- 10:46the goods, show me the goods. And then also not to mention the
- 10:50current monetary environment, right?
- 10:52The rates, you know, they're still a little bit high, right?
- 10:56People are anticipating that by the end of the year, you know,
- 10:59they're going to be lowered. We're still in a QT environment.
- 11:02I know it's slowed down. You know, that was that was
- 11:06Powell mentioned that last week, but you know, that's the
- 11:09reality, right? Are we ever going back into a QE
- 11:13environment? Are they going to turn on the
- 11:14money printers again? That'd be absolutely awesome.
- 11:17But but that's the reality of the situation.
- 11:19I think a lot of people are frustrated, especially because
- 11:22of, you know, the the their previous experiences in the last
- 11:25cycles. I mean, if if you you can't deny
- 11:28this, right? If you compare this cycle to the
- 11:30previous cycles, Bitcoin would be a lot higher right now.
- 11:33Like if you put the 2021 cycle on top of the 2025 cycle, 2021
- 11:42already made it all, it already peaked, the first peak already
- 11:45happened, right? So that is, that's not.
- 11:50Another consideration on that is that back in 2017 or 2021,
- 11:55Bitcoin was half the price, right?
- 11:58Like it today. It takes hundreds of billions of
- 12:02dollars to move the price of Bitcoin.
- 12:05And as in 10 more people coming in or you know, on the margin,
- 12:09another, you know, another million people coming in, it
- 12:11becomes harder and harder and harder to move the price of an
- 12:15asset as the asset becomes bigger.
- 12:17And so as these cycles grow and mature, everyone's expecting, I
- 12:21think the sort of textbook view of this is that volatility
- 12:26compresses over time and the and and sort of the peaks of the
- 12:29trouts are less and less extreme until this thing starts trading
- 12:32a lot more like gold. So it's just another thing to
- 12:34consider is that I don't think that the in order for the
- 12:39quantum rally size of each cycle to continue, there's got to be a
- 12:46relative size of new money vis a vis the existing pie coming in.
- 12:51So you know, if it's a trillion dollars, we're going to need a
- 12:54half a trillion dollars to move it.
- 12:55If it's 2 trillion, we're going to need one full trillion to
- 12:57move it. So on, so forth.
- 12:58And so that that's additional demand on the margin will not
- 13:04necessarily maintain the pace that it takes for every cycle to
- 13:08be exactly the same regardless of the base size of the pool of
- 13:12the asset itself. So I think it's something to
- 13:14consider, which is, you know, $100 million coming into the
- 13:18market in 2017 had a very different impact that $100
- 13:22million coming into the market today.
- 13:23Like if Microstrategy's order of 584,000,000 market buy over the
- 13:27weekend had come in, in 2017, this thing would have broken the
- 13:31charts. So it's, it's today, it's just a
- 13:34drop in the bucket. So I think it's just important
- 13:36to consider how big this thing continues to get as we look look
- 13:41at potential further more aggressive price appreciation.
- 13:45Absolutely. I think that's a really, really
- 13:47good perspective, right? The market cap is absolutely
- 13:49massive. It's what 1.811 point seven,
- 13:52$1.8 trillion, it's absolutely enormous.
- 13:56It was a lot easier when it was, you know at $100 billion, two
- 13:59$100 billion market cap, you're 100% correct on that.
- 14:03Now my question to you before I pass it on to Opti, my legendary
- 14:06Co host Maunicio, is is is you know, is Bitcoin becoming
- 14:10boring? Is the opportunity gone?
- 14:12Like, you know, like are, are we just looking at, are we just
- 14:15looking at the SNP? You know, like, Oh my God, 3%
- 14:19movement today. OK, You know, Maunicio, what's
- 14:21your take? So So what what I, I think it's
- 14:24funny because sometimes people tell me that the Bitcoin
- 14:29mimicking the S&P 500 is is boring.
- 14:34Do you I, I don't think people fully appreciate that 90% of the
- 14:38free world doesn't have access to US equities.
- 14:41And the best thing they can do with their money often times is
- 14:45turn it into cash and put it under their mattress because
- 14:48even keeping gold safe is very difficult in most of these
- 14:51markets. So if I told a person that is
- 14:54keeping dollars under their mattress that they can go out
- 14:57and buy an unseasonable, unsensible, unstoppable asset
- 15:00that mimics the returns of the greatest equity market in the
- 15:03world, that would be the most exciting proposition you've made
- 15:08this person probably since they found their first job where they
- 15:11understood what money was. So for me, the S&P, Bitcoin,
- 15:15mimicking the S&P or just mimicking the world's money
- 15:18supply, A is not boring. It's an incredibly effective
- 15:22shield for someone's wealth no matter where they are.
- 15:25And for someone who thinks that having access to the S&P 500 is
- 15:29boring, I can I can understand that coming from a North
- 15:32American sort of OECD point of view.
- 15:34But for most of the world, having access to the S&P 500 or
- 15:37quasi S&P 500 ish instrument is one of the most liberating
- 15:43things that you can propose to them.
- 15:47Yeah, 100% no. And again, they they have
- 15:49access. It's part of what you guys do as
- 15:51well. Like what?
- 15:52What I love what you guys do is that you guys offer loans to
- 15:57anyone worldwide because of the with the power of Bitcoin, that
- 16:00was not possible before. You'd have to, you know, run a
- 16:03credit check or it'd be too high risk.
- 16:06But you know, it doesn't matter where you are.
- 16:08You offer Bitcoin as collateral. You guys don't put yourself at
- 16:12risk and they have access to capital, which is insane.
- 16:16That's absolutely revolutionary. So I'm really, really glad that
- 16:19you brought that up. Now I, I do want to pass it on
- 16:22top to you, But one more question Mauricio, is it, is the
- 16:25opportunity in Bitcoin gone? No, no, absolutely not.
- 16:30The the opportunity of of of Bitcoin is going to go away when
- 16:34Fiat starts acting that would should act and government stop
- 16:37being irresponsible. I think this is not at all, you
- 16:42know, a a question mark around bitcoins value prop.
- 16:47I think just like everything else, it'll go in cycles, right?
- 16:50There will be times where Fiat currencies are managed more
- 16:54responsibly than others, right? Like in the twenty 20s, we we
- 16:57printed what, 20-30 to 40% of the money supply globally.
- 17:00So yes, Bitcoin ripped over the next four years.
- 17:03Like can we is there a case for the money supply supply to be
- 17:06managed slightly more responsibly over the next four
- 17:09years after a drunken episode of 40% of the money supply
- 17:12printing? Yes, I think that's what we're
- 17:15going through right now. I think everybody's hungover
- 17:17from all the printing. Everybody's saying, OK, was that
- 17:19really necessary? What can we do to not make the
- 17:22pain be so dramatic? And that gets reflected and and
- 17:26you know, it's funny safer. Dean says this like the what is
- 17:29the biggest risk to Bitcoin? Well, the biggest risk for
- 17:31Bitcoin is that central bank stop running deficit.
- 17:34And, and it's funny because right now we're going into an
- 17:38era where deficits are being questioned.
- 17:40They are being called out. Governments are being put, you
- 17:43know, in the hot seat for overspending.
- 17:46And you're going to have a little bit of reversion of the
- 17:48mean. And and that may mean that some
- 17:50of the risk assets have, you know, are there's not enough,
- 17:53there's not as much fuel getting thrown into the fire.
- 17:55Therefore, risk assets aren't going to be going at the sort of
- 17:57supersonic speed that they had gone.
- 17:59But what what life has showed me is that these are cycles and
- 18:03that eventually they will find the next excuse to print 30% of
- 18:07the money supply and the next excuse to print X percent of the
- 18:10money because it's the easy way out.
- 18:11And so for us, we just need to, you know, keep our heads down,
- 18:15continue to build the assets, going to do what the asset does.
- 18:19And when, when they're when they're when the drunken sailors
- 18:22come out again, Bitcoin will do its thing again, as it always
- 18:25does. Amen beautiful beautiful put
- 18:29Opti in the house before I put before I pass it on to opti, I
- 18:32do want to give a shout out to the live stream absolutely
- 18:34kicking ass this Monday. This Monday 1611 of you guys
- 18:39watching live between YouTube and X and about 100 of you guys
- 18:43watching live on rumble. If you guys are enjoying this
- 18:45show so far, make sure to smash that like button.
- 18:50Help us break 150 likes within the 1st, let's say 30 minutes of
- 18:56the show. So smash that like button if you
- 18:58guys are enjoying the content so far anyways, Opti 20 minutes
- 19:02before you've had your chance to speak.
- 19:04I was just so, so interested I. Was saying first thing first W
- 19:08drunken sailors. We want them drunken sailors
- 19:11back in the market. Please pump the bags.
- 19:14Obviously, you know, we are kind of trolling.
- 19:15But one thing you did say, Nico, is like, is Bitcoin boring?
- 19:18Is Bitcoin basically the S&P 500?
- 19:20If I remember correctly, the S&P 500's like roughly $50 trillion.
- 19:24So I don't know, it sounds like we still have a lot of room to
- 19:27run considering Bitcoin's less than two trillion right now.
- 19:29So if that's boring to get to that number, like, I don't know,
- 19:33I think we're super jaded here in, in terms of Bitcoin price
- 19:36appreciation. But it is very interesting.
- 19:38I think Mauricio makes a really good point because if you would
- 19:41have told us years ago, like when I got in Bitcoin 20, 17,
- 19:44all the news we're hearing, would the Bitcoin price pop?
- 19:47You'd be like, yes, of course, like this is outside of probably
- 19:50the realm of what a lot of us thought would happen this
- 19:53quickly, But we haven't factored in that the market is a lot
- 19:56bigger now. And yes, there is a lot of
- 19:58players that are talking about getting into Bitcoin.
- 20:00Like the rhetoric around Bitcoin has fundamentally changed, but
- 20:04we haven't seen that much actual capital flow into Bitcoin.
- 20:08Yes, we got the best ETF launch ever.
- 20:11Yes, we're seeing talks of nation, state, FOMO.
- 20:14And that's all very exciting, but the actual, you know, the,
- 20:17the real, real movements in action hasn't actually happened
- 20:21right now. But we are starting to see that,
- 20:23hey, no matter what's going on, Bitcoin is still holding pretty
- 20:26solid around 8090K right now. And now we're looking like we're
- 20:30going to start making that move towards 90K.
- 20:32So I would say everything is super bullish around Bitcoin.
- 20:36I think it's going to pop at a certain time, but we do have to
- 20:39factor in that there is a lot of economic certainty going on in
- 20:42the world right now, especially with all the things Trump doing.
- 20:45I mean uncertainty. What I say, yeah, economic
- 20:47uncertainty, especially with all the stuff that Trump's doing so
- 20:50like people aren't sure what to do with their money.
- 20:53And for the vast majority of people, they still look at
- 20:55Bitcoin as a risk off assets. So they're obviously are a risk
- 20:58on assets. Sorry, we're the ones that think
- 21:00it's a risk off asset. They think it's a risk on asset.
- 21:03So they're not going to dump a lot of money into Bitcoin right
- 21:06now when they're just like not sure what is going on in the
- 21:08markets. So there's a lot of things
- 21:10playing out, but I think as Bitcoin does start to make its
- 21:13move and I, you know, obviously it's a good speculation whether
- 21:17it's coming from the UAE or the Middle East is is saving this
- 21:20bull market. We did hear for a while the
- 21:22rumors about them waiting till Trump denounces SPR strategic
- 21:26Bitcoin reserve to start to announce their move.
- 21:29So this could be part of that kind of slow rollout.
- 21:32Maybe they don't want to really expose their hand so much yet,
- 21:35but part of this economic framework and this is coming out
- 21:38of the hill is essentially saying that the UAE will
- 21:41increase its existing investment and U.S. economy and AI
- 21:44infrastructure, semiconductors, energy and American
- 21:48manufacturing. So it doesn't necessarily say
- 21:49Bitcoin, but there is a lot of stuff that does kind of announce
- 21:53Bitcoin. But once the framework like kind
- 21:58of came out afterwards, you know, that discussion was like
- 22:00we're discussing digital currencies and then the 1.4
- 22:04trillion investments didn't actually say Bitcoin or digital
- 22:07currencies yet. But I think it's loosely
- 22:09essentially saying like, hey, we're going to invest in energy
- 22:12and everyone knows that Bitcoin coin is backed by energy.
- 22:15And it's like if they're going to do smart stuff with AE or AI
- 22:19infrastructure, we know that Bitcoin mining and AI
- 22:23infrastructure is basically one in the same thing at this point.
- 22:26So I think there is a lot of bullish information kind of
- 22:29building up and we're not going to see anything kind of probably
- 22:33until like, you know, next month, I think once Q1 ends,
- 22:37we'll start to hear some of these big announcements of
- 22:39people buying Bitcoin. But it's all leaning towards
- 22:41bullish. And I mean, I, I think we're, I
- 22:44think we're all a little jaded right now.
- 22:45It's like, why isn't the price pumping?
- 22:48You know, I, I was promised 150 K first 100 days and we're what,
- 22:52like 90 days in and we haven't got it yet, but maybe the next
- 22:5520 days is going to be super lit.
- 22:58Yeah, absolutely. I do want to give a shout out to
- 23:00the live stream 1800 of you guys watching live between YouTube
- 23:04and X and almost 100 of you guys watching live on Rumble 500 live
- 23:08viewers on YouTube alone. Anyways, smash that like button
- 23:12if you guys are enjoying the content.
- 23:15You guys are listening to Simply Bitcoin Live.
- 23:17We have a loaded show for you guys.
- 23:19We're going to be talking about Trump's advisor.
- 23:22According to this article, US may sell gold to buy Bitcoin.
- 23:28I just want to echo what Mauricio is saying, right?
- 23:30We have all this news, but I, we want to see action.
- 23:34We want to see action right Where that's where we are in the
- 23:37movie anyways. Also, Mauricio is an absolute
- 23:40legend and he wrote an article for Forbes and the article is
- 23:45called Breaking Down Strategies, recent preferred stock offering.
- 23:50So we're going to be talking about that and we're going to be
- 23:52talking about the highlights of the week and the highlights of
- 23:55the previous week. So it's going to be interesting
- 23:57during the news segment and of course during the culture
- 24:00segment we're going to be talking about all things LED in.
- 24:03So guys, it's going to be a jam packed show.
- 24:05Like I said, if you guys are enjoying it, smash that like
- 24:08button help us break. I'm going to raise the target
- 24:11200 likes by the end of the show. 200 likes 250 likes smash
- 24:17that like, but if you guys are enjoying the content anyways
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- 25:54We have tons to talk about. We will be right back.
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- 27:44Bitcoin price is 88,000 block height 889,250 sats per dollar
- 27:501136 market cap 1.75 trillion Bitcoin versus gold market cap
- 27:568.29% Percentage issued 94.48% decline from all time high
- 28:03-19.4% Realized monetary inflation .91%.
- 28:09Continuing to take Fiat currencies to absolute school.
- 28:15Anyways, this is what I wanted to talk about.
- 28:17This is crazy. So according to this article
- 28:21from Forex live.com, this is the headline for the audio
- 28:25listeners. Trump advisor said US may sell
- 28:29gold to buy Bitcoin Robert Bo Hines, executive director of the
- 28:34President's Council of Advisors on Digital Assets, spoke with
- 28:39media on Friday. If the move to sell some of the
- 28:43gold and Fort Knox to buy Bitcoin remain budget neutral,
- 28:47it could be considered. This is of interest because in
- 28:50Trump's announcement of a Bitcoin reserve earlier this
- 28:53month, he said that the government will acquire Bitcoin
- 28:56in the future through budget neutral ways.
- 28:59The reason that they keep having to say budget neutral ways, by
- 29:03the way, is there's only so much Trump could do via executive
- 29:08order. What really needs to happen?
- 29:11And for this, for this strategic Bitcoin reserve to have
- 29:13longevity, right, it needs to be, it needs to go through the
- 29:17legislative process. The Bitcoin Act needs to be
- 29:20passed in the Senate. Do they have the votes?
- 29:23I asked Senator Lummis this question in DC Actually,
- 29:27Mauricio was there. He came on the show that day
- 29:30that I had the interview and I was in a full suit and I asked
- 29:33Senator Lummis this. I said, do you have the votes?
- 29:36She felt really good about it. But I think that, you know,
- 29:38that's the question, do they have the votes to pass this?
- 29:41But anyways, more details here. Later in Heinz interview, he
- 29:45referred to Senator Lummus's Bitcoin bill as an example of a
- 29:49budget neutral way to buy Bitcoin.
- 29:51The Lummus legislation and brief to create a Bitcoin strategic
- 29:54reserve would direct the government to purchase 1,000,000
- 29:57bitcoins over five years. Funds for the Bitcoin purchases
- 30:01would come from diversifying existing funds in the Federal
- 30:04Reserve System. That mean, does that mean
- 30:06selling gold? Who knows, Is the gold even at
- 30:08Fort Knox Anyways? I have I have a clip of Bo Hines
- 30:14on a recent interview. Let's check it out and then
- 30:16we'll all talk about it. The US has already acquired
- 30:22about 200,000 BTC. That's worth about $17 billion.
- 30:27Strategy CEO Michael Saylor is suggesting that the US acquire
- 30:30up to 25% of the Bitcoin supply by 2035.
- 30:36What would be the target amount for the United States in your
- 30:40view? Well, you know, I, I get asked
- 30:42this question a lot and I, I think the answer to that, like I
- 30:45said at the summit yesterday is as much as we can possibly get
- 30:48so long as it's in budget neutral ways that don't cost the
- 30:51taxpayer a dime. I think we have a lot of high IQ
- 30:53people in the building. They're working on this and
- 30:55folks over at the Treasury office and folks over at
- 30:58Commerce working with the internal working group that was
- 31:01set up in the first digital asset CEO.
- 31:03We'll be able to come up with with ways to accumulate more
- 31:06really over the course of the next few years.
- 31:07And beyond that, I mean, look, we view Bitcoin as being digital
- 31:10gold. That's why we set up the
- 31:12strategic Bitcoin reserve in the way that we did, right?
- 31:14Bitcoin is a commodity. It's not a security as our AI
- 31:17and crypto, as our David Sacks like this likes to say, it has
- 31:20the Immaculate Conception, meaning that there's no issuer
- 31:22that has intrinsic stored value that's traditionally accepted.
- 31:26And we feel like it's in the best interest of Americans to
- 31:28hold on to this asset long term and accumulate as much as we can
- 31:31get. You know, that's why we have a
- 31:33canvas to digital gold and talked about building the
- 31:35digital Fort Knox for the United States.
- 31:37And you know, you mentioned the Bitcoin that we have possession
- 31:40of. We've actually been in
- 31:40possession of nearly 400, 100,000 Bitcoin and we sold
- 31:44roughly half of that prematurely at about, I think it was close
- 31:47to, you know, $370 million is what we sold it for.
- 31:49If we would have held on to that, it would have been worth
- 31:51$17 billion today. I mean, it just goes to show you
- 31:55how important this asset is and, and what we can do with it to
- 31:57benefit the American people. You know, one thing that I've
- 32:00said repeatedly throughout the media circuit is that I think
- 32:03it's really nice that we have a president that's actually
- 32:05looking to accumulate assets for Americans rather than take it
- 32:07away, unlike the last regime that we had here at the White
- 32:10House. But we feel very confident about
- 32:13our plan. We feel confident about the
- 32:14internal working group that was set up in that first EO and and.
- 32:22All right, everybody. So I mean, I'm going to, I'm
- 32:24going to pass it on to Marisa. Marisa, what's your analysis
- 32:27here? I mean, this is crazy.
- 32:30You know, if we were talking about this, you know, back in
- 32:33the day, man, the 2017 era, one of the copes that we had in
- 32:3820/17/2018, when the bear market hit in 2018, we all kept saying
- 32:43the institutions are coming. The institutions are coming.
- 32:46They were never coming. They weren't even close to
- 32:48coming. The institutions are here
- 32:50without a shadow of a doubt, not only the institutions, the most
- 32:53powerful and influential government on the face of the
- 32:55planet, you know, the US. But again, proof is in the
- 33:00pudding, man. It's what you said like in the
- 33:01beginning. I think what you the point that
- 33:03you made was excellent, right? Like, you know, a lot of talk.
- 33:07We we got to see action here. So what's your take, Mauricio,
- 33:11on this recent clip from Bo Hines?
- 33:14I think, I mean, I mean, first, when I, when I look at a clip, I
- 33:19like to sort of dissect who's, who's speaking, what's their
- 33:22audience, what's their agenda? What are the, you know, what,
- 33:24what is their mandate to try to get out of the interview?
- 33:26And obviously as as an advisor for the economic, as an economic
- 33:31advisor for digital assets, obviously you're you're, you're
- 33:36what you want to convey is that there is this plan to go and
- 33:40acquire Bitcoin. Now.
- 33:42I think why this is, you know, meeting some resistance as far
- 33:47as public opinion and and markets really translating this
- 33:51from an announcement into an actual price change is because I
- 33:56think what people are rightfully recognizing is that the United
- 34:02States is a government, right? Like they have a mandate to the
- 34:06entire country. They don't just have a mandate
- 34:09to Bitcoiners, right? And so, although we would love
- 34:12for people to sell gold out of the reserves and buy Bitcoin
- 34:15with it, you have to you, you have to understand that that is
- 34:19going to be a big political debate.
- 34:21Like there, there's going to be groups and constituents
- 34:23everywhere that are going to be vouching or, or basically
- 34:27putting their hand up to get some of that money.
- 34:28Like I'll give you an example. What if you sold part of gold
- 34:32and reinvested that into the equity of other US businesses
- 34:35that could grow faster and then employ more people, build more
- 34:38things in the United States? I think that's going to be a a
- 34:41big tension, right? Like it's one thing to say the
- 34:44US won't sell the Bitcoin it seizes that I don't think anyone
- 34:48has an issue with because they're not necessarily going
- 34:50out and spending money that could be spent elsewhere to get
- 34:53it. They're just taking something
- 34:54that they seized. They're not selling it.
- 34:56They'll put it into the reserves and then they'll you know, it'll
- 34:58do its thing. But when you're actually getting
- 35:01rid of something else, IE your gold, and you're going to use
- 35:04that money to replace it with something else, how you do that
- 35:08is going to be subject of political debate and
- 35:11conversation. And it's not going to be a fast
- 35:14process. It's not going to be quick.
- 35:16I think, you know, again, I'm, I wouldn't call myself a, a, a
- 35:22political expert per SE, but just from my experience, I can
- 35:27tell you that any process to get rid of any part of any, you
- 35:31know, country's reserves and to turn them into something else is
- 35:35going to be subject to very heated political debate, not
- 35:38something you can get done through an executive order.
- 35:41And so this is where I think you're, you're seeing some
- 35:45resistance. It's like a lot of promises,
- 35:46yes, but where's the bipartisan commitment to turn those
- 35:49promises into a reality? Until we have bipartisan
- 35:52commitment to make this a long term thing, it's going to be
- 35:55perceived by markets and investors as a one party issue,
- 35:58IE if they don't win the next election, this goes away.
- 36:02So I'm investing on a four year horizon, right?
- 36:05When I get bipartisan support, the horizon goes away.
- 36:08This thing is, it has longevity. I can go in and I don't have to
- 36:11worry about what the next administration is going to do.
- 36:13So I think until we start seeing some bipartisan actions that
- 36:18help Bitcoin go forward and that can be perceived as sustainable
- 36:22beyond this administration, that's when you're going to
- 36:24start seeing it translate into price.
- 36:26Until then, it's just going to be the ideas of one party that
- 36:31may or may not get to support it needs to become, you know, a
- 36:33sustainable alternative. I think that's an excellent
- 36:36point. And that's actually a question
- 36:39that I asked Senator Lummus as well, because there was a, there
- 36:43was a bill that was introduced into the House last year.
- 36:48And essentially the bill would forbade the US government from
- 36:53launching a central bank digital currency.
- 36:56And it was literally along party lines.
- 37:00It was all the Republicans voted for the bill that would
- 37:04essentially forbade the US government for launching ACBDC.
- 37:08And I would say 90% of Democrats voted against the bill.
- 37:15And if you take a look at the previous administration and how
- 37:18they treated the industry, it wasn't that great.
- 37:22Now, to be fair there, it's not monolithic, right?
- 37:27There's ROH Khanna, a congressman from congressman
- 37:31from California, and he's very pro industry.
- 37:35But the Elizabeth Warren camp, I mean, Elizabeth Warren is the
- 37:39head head of she's the head of the head of the Senate Banking
- 37:45Committee for the Democratic Party.
- 37:48And we all know how Elizabeth Warren feels about the industry,
- 37:51right? So I completely agree with with
- 37:55Mauricio. And also another thing too,
- 37:57guys, for you guys to understand about American politics in the
- 38:00House, you just need a simple majority.
- 38:03In the Senate, if you want something to be filibuster
- 38:06proof, you need 60 votes. Republicans have 53 votes right
- 38:10now and not all of them vote, you know, with their party,
- 38:16right? So really it's like 51 votes.
- 38:18You're still missing 9 votes, meaning you need 9 votes from
- 38:21the other side of the aisle to support that bill, right?
- 38:24And that's the reality now to be totally transparent and clear
- 38:29with you guys, Bitcoin is a non, it's a nonpartisan technology
- 38:33and neutral technology. It's for everyone.
- 38:35It empowers everyone. But as, as long as it's still
- 38:39not seen that way, you know, I, I agree with Modista, right?
- 38:43It's, it's just, you know, that there's a lot of elements from
- 38:46certain parties that would want to get rid of the income tax.
- 38:50But of course, there's just not enough political support for it.
- 38:53This is what I've been saying this for, for many months now.
- 38:55And I'm really glad that you, you, you, you know, you, you
- 38:58broke it down the way that you did Juanitio.
- 39:00Anyways, I'm going to pass it on to Opti.
- 39:02Opti does have to catch a flight in about 20 minutes or so.
- 39:06I think after this segment I'm popping off Nika just to be
- 39:08safe. He's going to be joining me down
- 39:11here in Fort Lauderdale. We're going to be live streaming
- 39:15the Mining Disrupt conference, the largest Bitcoin mining
- 39:20conference in the world. Simply Bitcoin will be live
- 39:23streaming the entire conference. That's going to be happening on
- 39:25Wednesday and Thursday, so of course, the whole Simply Bitcoin
- 39:29crew is coming down for it. But we'll have a show for you
- 39:32guys today, tomorrow, and of course, for the rest of the week
- 39:36as well. Anyways, Opti, what's your take
- 39:38on this my friend? Before you got to catch a
- 39:40flight? Yeah, I mean, look, I am as
- 39:42bullish as anyone on Bitcoin, but I think Mauricio is right.
- 39:46Like, I don't think it's politically viable for them to
- 39:48sell their Bitcoin or sorry, sell their gold to stack
- 39:50Bitcoin. Like not only is that not
- 39:53politically viable in just America in the terms of left and
- 39:57right paradigm, but I think globally we are just not there
- 40:00yet. Though I do like this idea that
- 40:02they are just, you know, spitballing ideas publicly.
- 40:05Maybe this is some, you know, misdirection stuff or as Nika
- 40:09likes to say, moving the Overton window.
- 40:11So the fact they are even talking about like, hey, you
- 40:13know, potentially maybe we'll sell the golden buy Bitcoin.
- 40:16Us bitcoiners are like, yo, like as bullish as I am on Bitcoin, I
- 40:20don't think that's going to happen.
- 40:21But the fact they're just like. Kind of throwing it out there
- 40:23like, yeah, that might be a budget neutral way to make this
- 40:25happen. We're just like, what world are
- 40:26we living in right now where we are just completely going away
- 40:30from this idea that will ever go back to a gold standard?
- 40:33We're like, Yep, you know, that's the past.
- 40:34We're just going to sell it all and buy Bitcoin.
- 40:37Obviously, I don't think we're there.
- 40:38And like Mauricio was saying, you know, in America itself,
- 40:41there is pushback from the other side.
- 40:43It does seem like this is just a conservative Republican idea to
- 40:46go. Oh, I think we got we dropped
- 40:52Opti. Now and so we don't even have
- 40:54Opti. You're in the matrix.
- 40:56You're in the. Matrix Alright, well anyways
- 40:58I'll pop off. Love you guys, I'll see you.
- 40:59Tomorrow. Thanks, Optic.
- 41:03I'll see you soon, brother. But yeah, no, I agree.
- 41:06I think right now it's, it's, it's, it's definitely more in
- 41:09the Republican camp and it's not monolithic, but I would love to
- 41:14see more Democrats join. And that's really how bills get
- 41:18passed. And, and, and not only is that
- 41:21bills, is that how bills get passed, but in terms of policy
- 41:26longevity, it, it needs to be bipartisan.
- 41:29I, I completely agree. Anyways, guys, we still have a
- 41:31loaded show for you guys. We have 2160 live viewers
- 41:36between YouTube and X500 of you guys watching on, on YouTube
- 41:41alone. And of course, shout out to the
- 41:43rumble audience. The Rumble audience is the most
- 41:45hardcore in the chat. They're absolutely savage and
- 41:49we're on the verge of breaking 200 likes on the live stream on
- 41:52YouTube. Guys, help us break 250 likes.
- 41:56By the time the show ends, we'll be right back.
- 41:58We're going to hit the news segment and we're going to be
- 42:00talking about Mauricio's latest article on Forbes.
- 42:04The name of the article is breaking down strategies, recent
- 42:08preferred stock offerings and we're going to be doing a quick
- 42:11recap on what is ahead this week for Bitcoin and what happened
- 42:16last week for Bitcoin. Anyways, ladies and gentlemen,
- 42:19we will be right back. I want to give.
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- 44:53Right, everybody, we are back. Felicia is famous.
- 44:56He is a published author on Forbes, and this is one of his.
- 45:02I think he was famous before that before that, but now he's
- 45:04extra famous. Let's check out this recent
- 45:08article. I mean, first of all, before we
- 45:09jump into it, because I think a lot of people and Mauricio, one
- 45:12of the times that you came on simply Bitcoin, I actually even
- 45:15asked you, I said, dude, like, how does this infinite money
- 45:18glitch happened? And you did such a great job.
- 45:20Like how does it work? It like it feels fake.
- 45:24And you did such a great job, like breaking it down, you know,
- 45:27and kind of explaining the, the like the nuances of it based on
- 45:31your experience, right? So you you wrote this article
- 45:35called Bitcoin Breaking Down Strategy's Recent Preferred
- 45:38Stock Offering. So I have a question for you.
- 45:41What inspired you to do and what inspired you to write this
- 45:44article in the first place? Yeah, thanks, Nicole.
- 45:48So typically when I write, when I write an article is is I'm I'm
- 45:53often times seeking to understand the subject better
- 45:56myself. And as you know, I've been
- 45:58pretty interested in the, you know, instruments that micro
- 46:03strategy has been putting out the way they're using their cap
- 46:06table or their equity stack effectively to raise more
- 46:10equity, purchase Bitcoin, make Bitcoin part of the reserves.
- 46:12So I've been following their actions or their offerings
- 46:16relatively closely so that I can stay attuned to what is getting
- 46:20picked up by the market. And, and every time an offering
- 46:22is put out, you can tell a lot about the the appetite for that
- 46:26offering based on the reaction to the offering, whether it was
- 46:30oversubscribed, whether it's sold at the rate that it was
- 46:32planning to sell. So when I saw the the, so about
- 46:36a month ago, they issued their first preferred stock which was
- 46:41their STRK offering and then last month they issued that SDRF
- 46:47offering. Why I became interested in these
- 46:50instruments and and I wanted to write about them is because up
- 46:54until up until this year, MicroStrategy had been issuing
- 46:58debt at 0% coupon. So these are bonds where micro
- 47:03strategy didn't have to pay interest on these bonds.
- 47:06They were zero percent bonds, they just had a convertibility
- 47:09factor, but that's not a net cash outlay for Micro Strategy.
- 47:12So they were basically getting 0% money and no interest payment
- 47:17obligations to acquire the Bitcoin V via the bond
- 47:20issuances. Similarly, when they were
- 47:23offering at the money equities, they were selling shares from
- 47:26the treasury into the market at the price of what people are
- 47:29willing to pay and then taking that money to buy Bitcoin.
- 47:32Again, no requirement to pay anybody any monthly anything.
- 47:37It's just a, a straight sale of equity to buy Bitcoin.
- 47:40And then the and the bond, in the case of the bond, it was
- 47:43just a 0% bond with no interest payments to buy Bitcoin.
- 47:47So in neither of these cases, there's a cash flow strain on
- 47:51the business because there's no ongoing cash flow requirements
- 47:55for these ways of raising interest enter the preferred
- 47:59shares. And so when SDRK was announced
- 48:03earlier this month or sorry, earlier this year, I believe it
- 48:05was end of January, he announced the first preferred offering
- 48:09that had a dividend. So this is a 10% a year dividend
- 48:15that has the options and you can read the article for the
- 48:17nuances, but it starts at 10% and if it doesn't get paid, it
- 48:21can basically it starts growing and it can go up to 18%.
- 48:26And this was true for SDRK and I believe this is the same thing
- 48:29for SDRF. What's very interesting about
- 48:33these instruments is that they are the first time MicroStrategy
- 48:37is putting out an offering that has a monthly cash flow
- 48:42obligation. So in the case of this of these
- 48:45STRF and FCRKSTRK, the two offerings actually have the same
- 48:49yield. So what does this mean?
- 48:52If you read through the article, you will realize that, you know,
- 48:56they offered the first issuance. The the, the key thing to focus
- 48:59on this conversation is this idea that these preferred shares
- 49:04carry a yield or a dividend. OK.
- 49:06And this is important for a few reasons.
- 49:08One, it means that MicroStrategy has to in theory pay out 10% of
- 49:15the money that it raised through these sales.
- 49:16So to put these to put some numbers around these things, I
- 49:19believe the first offering was 584.
- 49:22The second offering was another, call it 584.
- 49:25So let's call it, I think if they both go to to according to
- 49:31plan, it'll be about $150 million worth of debt that
- 49:35MicroStrategy is taking on every year.
- 49:39Now, these are dividends that the board has to call.
- 49:42So it micro strategy is not obligated to pay if the board
- 49:47believes that it cannot pay it if they're not in the financial
- 49:50shape they need to be to pay it. But there's already a commitment
- 49:54out to the market that these will get paid.
- 49:56So even though they have the option not to pay them, if they
- 49:59don't pay them, they could greatly hurt their stock price.
- 50:02So what I did is really just say, OK, how much is
- 50:06MicroStrategy committing to paying in terms of these
- 50:10dividends, which are, by the way, not legally binding?
- 50:12They can be called off, but let's just say everything played
- 50:15out the way it's supposed to play out.
- 50:17MicroStrategy is then having to pay $150 million a year worth of
- 50:21interest for these preferred shares.
- 50:24And that number could be higher if they if they go unpaid.
- 50:28Then you turn around and you say, OK, well, what is
- 50:30Microstrategy's operating cash flow from its software business?
- 50:34Because we know Bitcoin doesn't give him operating cash flows.
- 50:37So if you look at the software business and you look at the
- 50:39operating cash flows of that business based on their earnings
- 50:43reports, you can basically you can get into a pretty good
- 50:46estimate that the company has around 150 to $180 million worth
- 50:50of free cash flows every year. What that translates to is that
- 50:56if these offerings play out the way they would, they know the
- 50:58way they're designed. And if there are no material
- 51:01changes to the operating business of MicroStrategy, Micro
- 51:05or Strategy has now committed to effectively paying almost all of
- 51:09it it potentially more than the operating cash flows of its
- 51:12business. Which then begs the question,
- 51:16what happens if these dividends have to get paid and there's not
- 51:20enough operating cash flows in the business?
- 51:22What are the options? And at the end of the article,
- 51:25just to summarize it, the options are either a
- 51:28MicroStrategy doesn't pay it because they don't have to
- 51:30legally pay it. They could just say, I'm sorry,
- 51:31we, we believe the, the board believes we're not in the
- 51:34financial fitness shape. We need to pay this out.
- 51:36That would hurt the stock price. And then if they do then decide
- 51:40to pay it out, then you have to see, are they making enough
- 51:43money from their software business?
- 51:44So it's a long way of saying, you know, as Microstrategy's
- 51:48offerings become more and more sophisticated and they start
- 51:51tacking on things like dividends and others, you really have to
- 51:55dig deep to understand what are the potential outcomes from
- 52:00these offerings and what are the potential risks?
- 52:02Because I don't believe in infinite money machines and
- 52:07I'll, I don't believe in, in 0 risk anything.
- 52:10So I, I always like to try to understand what are the risks,
- 52:14what could go wrong? And that was basically my my
- 52:17summary of the analysis I did for strategies offering.
- 52:20And that money, so that was first of all, a excellent
- 52:23breakdown. And clearly you did a ton of
- 52:25research and just kind of exploring into because again,
- 52:29it's, it's insane financial engineering, right?
- 52:33Like what? What is happening in a way like
- 52:37the the he's not paying very much to borrow this money at
- 52:41all, you know? What?
- 52:43Well, if you look at it, that's actually because if you, if you
- 52:47start reading into it, he's, he's paying more for this than
- 52:52he paid for the bond because the bond he got a 0% with
- 52:57convertibility. And in these, in these ones,
- 53:02he's, and this is another part of the nuance of this offering,
- 53:06which is important to know. These offerings are getting sold
- 53:08into the market at $80.00 and then $85.
- 53:12STRK was 80, STRF was 85. They have a liquidation
- 53:16preference of $100 each one of them.
- 53:20So he's already having to offer a higher liquidation preference
- 53:24in the market he's selling it for than the market price he's
- 53:26selling it for. On top of that, you're tacking
- 53:29on the 10% dividend. So let in loans come out at
- 53:3412.4%. Michael is not that far off now
- 53:38at 10%, the borrowing to buy Bitcoin.
- 53:41So what I'm trying to say is that the the cost of capital of
- 53:46Bitcoin back financing if if you're looking at us in the free
- 53:50market because right now, because SAB 121 and and the sort
- 53:53of restraints that have been placed on the banks, the cost of
- 53:57capital for this business is basically 10%, around 10%.
- 54:01And Michael was getting away with just offering a convertible
- 54:04option on the bonds because that would make up the 10% back then.
- 54:07Today that option, you know, he has to give the preference plus
- 54:10the option or plus the yield. And so it is still working, but
- 54:15it's becoming more and more expensive is what I would say.
- 54:18Yeah, absolutely. Let me ask you something to
- 54:21Mauricio like what is the risk? Like what, where can he you
- 54:26know, because of course like it and I'm comparing it right with
- 54:30with let in its loan to value right.
- 54:32Like, you know, you obviously you want to have enough
- 54:36collateral or else, you know, you, you risk essentially
- 54:40getting margin called. Is it a very, and the reason I'm
- 54:44bringing that up is like, just try to make an analogy.
- 54:47Does he find himself in a very similar situation?
- 54:50Like is he over leveraging micro strategy?
- 54:55I don't think he's over leveraging today.
- 54:57I think if you look at the stack or or the of the position they
- 55:01the Bitcoin positions they hold and you look at the debt plus
- 55:05the press. So he, he put out about a
- 55:06billion five of these press. He's he's got about 5 or 6
- 55:11billion out in bonds. His Bitcoin position is
- 55:14somewhere in the 40 billions. So right now he's call it 25%
- 55:18loan to value is, is what I would say, but that's creeping
- 55:22higher, right. And the interesting thing with
- 55:25that is I, I, I, I think he still has, I think he's still
- 55:33managing this responsibly, but I think you're starting to bump up
- 55:37into that edge because right now the cash flows of the business
- 55:41are basically matched to the servicing cost of your press.
- 55:44And so anything from now onwards is going to start getting very
- 55:49scrutinized by the market. And, and I don't think the
- 55:53market feels too concerned because if you look at the price
- 55:55action, the, the press are actually outperforming the
- 55:59Commons and both the press and the Commons are outperforming
- 56:02the ETF. So the market still likes this
- 56:07combo, but it's getting more and more hard.
- 56:11It's getting harder and harder to understand.
- 56:13And as things get harder and harder to understand, you, you,
- 56:16you start, you know, people start buying it without fully
- 56:20grasping the whole thing. And that's where you start
- 56:21getting it to risk, taking on risk you don't understand do.
- 56:24You think you can get to 1,000,000 Bitcoin?
- 56:32I, I, it'll be hard. It'll be very hard.
- 56:37I think so. I mean, did, can he get to it?
- 56:39Theoretically, yes, anyone can get to it theoretically, but
- 56:43practically speaking, you're going to be driving up the price
- 56:47quite a bit and there's going to be, you're going to have to take
- 56:49some risks along the way to get there, right?
- 56:51And so it's not really about can he get there?
- 56:55It's how does he get there and is it sustainable?
- 56:59Like I'll give you an example, if, if you look at like the, the
- 57:04lending business is a great business, look at Lenin today,
- 57:06because it was responsible to where it got.
- 57:09We had other guys that were bigger than us theoretically had
- 57:11more money that they had more equity.
- 57:13They had raised a lot more. They they didn't know how to get
- 57:16there responsibly, right? Like lending is five times today
- 57:19where it was back in 2021, but there's a lot of guys that
- 57:22didn't get there because they were very responsible along the
- 57:25way. So can he get there?
- 57:28Yes, but it's not necessarily like in theory, yes, you can get
- 57:31there. How is where the, the nuance and
- 57:34the risk is. And so the, the reason I got my,
- 57:39my, my Spidey senses got perked up when I saw these offerings
- 57:42because when I saw a dividend, when I saw a dividend and I know
- 57:45you have no cash flow or very limited cash flow.
- 57:48That to me was when I said, OK, what happens if they don't have
- 57:52it? Then they have to go and sell
- 57:53some Bitcoin to pay it off. And so that starts depressing
- 57:57the price. And the same thing that was
- 57:58virtuous on the way out becomes vicious on the way down.
- 58:01And so This is why I think now that there are these obligations
- 58:07for these dividends and the cash flow that the business offerings
- 58:09generates is very limited. I think from now on I'm going to
- 58:13be paying very close attention to a lot of these offerings.
- 58:16Interesting. It's so it's becoming more and
- 58:19more, more and more sophisticated, more and more
- 58:21complicated in order for him to raise money in order for him to
- 58:26to buy Bitcoin and more risky, right?
- 58:30What you were saying, it's not he's not getting 0%, getting
- 58:34closer to 10%. But again, as long as number
- 58:38goes up, things are OK. But eventually number goes down.
- 58:44Have you been in this industry long enough?
- 58:46Number eventually goes down. I'm going to drop the article,
- 58:49by the way, in the live chat for you guys.
- 58:51If you guys want to go check out Mauricio's and now he's a he's
- 58:56he's a top, he's in Forbes. Everybody go check out this
- 59:00latest article by by Mauricio. I dropped it in the live chat.
- 59:05I do want to bring up this. This was a total coincidence.
- 59:09We we did not plan this, but check this out.
- 59:12So simply did a weekly recap, which of course is powered by
- 59:16our friends over at Leaden broke down a couple things that
- 59:20happened last week. So Elon Musk exposes 14
- 59:23government, 14 government magic money printers.
- 59:26That video was crazy. By the way, BlackRock calls BTCA
- 59:29global monetary alternative. Trump's executive director US
- 59:33will acquire as much Bitcoin as possible.
- 59:35Trump America will be the undisputed BTC power BTC
- 59:39superpower and then our friends over at lead end.
- 59:43You guys did the the opposite of we did, which is highlights for
- 59:46the week ahead instead of highlights of what happened,
- 59:50highlights of what's coming. So let's do a a quick breakdown.
- 59:53And also Mauricio did author this as well.
- 59:56That's that's correct, right Mauricio?
- 59:57Yes, yes, I do that. I've been doing them for, I
- 1:00:00don't know, six years now. And this is, this used to be
- 1:00:04basically my homework for the week.
- 1:00:06So every time a new week is starting, I look at what's
- 1:00:09coming up for Bitcoin. What could move the markets?
- 1:00:11So that I'm not caught off guard when they actually happen.
- 1:00:14And so it this takes quite a bit of work, but I like putting it
- 1:00:18out and people seem to find a lot of value for it from it.
- 1:00:21So basically the what I do is I go through the week ahead, what
- 1:00:24announcements are coming from either the feds, central banks,
- 1:00:28SEC, etcetera, that could impact the space House hearing Senate
- 1:00:31hearings. And then I put it all in this
- 1:00:33quick summary that that people can read.
- 1:00:36And if we look at the week, if we look at this week, I'm just
- 1:00:40going to pull it up here on my screen, today is a pretty light
- 1:00:43day. Only two Fed member speeches.
- 1:00:46Tomorrow we have this interesting House Financial
- 1:00:49Services hearing titled Beyond Silicon Valley Expanding Access
- 1:00:53to Capital across America. Why I put this in here is
- 1:00:56because access to capital could, you know, relate to crypto and
- 1:01:00anything that can impact crypto could potentially filter back
- 1:01:03into Bitcoin prices. Wednesday we get inflation out
- 1:01:07of the out of the United Kingdom, not too much there in
- 1:01:11terms of macro, but then Thursday and Friday is when
- 1:01:14things get exciting and I'm going to spend most of my time
- 1:01:17talking about Friday, which is the options expirations for
- 1:01:20Bitcoin. There's about 11.6 almost $12
- 1:01:23billion worth of options expiring on Friday at 4:00 AM.
- 1:01:28And for those of us who've been in the trading space or in the
- 1:01:30mark in the in markets, you, you paid very close attention to
- 1:01:35these options expirations and what what, what does this mean?
- 1:01:39What, what, what is this concept of a Max Payne price and why
- 1:01:42does this have gravity in the markets?
- 1:01:44Like why is 85 an important number going into Friday?
- 1:01:47The reason 85 is an important number going into Friday is
- 1:01:50because what Max paint price means is that on the selling
- 1:01:55side of options, there's usually a sophisticated investor.
- 1:01:58You either hold the shares and you're selling calls or have the
- 1:02:01cash and you're selling puts. So if you're selling these
- 1:02:05options, you're you're generally a sophisticated investor or a or
- 1:02:08a market maker. If you're on the buying side of
- 1:02:11these, you're generally a speculator.
- 1:02:13So the Max paint price is basically when most of the the
- 1:02:16price at which most of these options expire worthless and it
- 1:02:20creates the maximum pain to the speculators who bought them and
- 1:02:23the maximum benefit to the institutions that sold them.
- 1:02:27And the institutions that sold them have very, very large
- 1:02:30balances. Therefore, they can in many ways
- 1:02:34participate in the markets such that come Friday at 4:00 AM, it
- 1:02:38lands on a price that they are benefiting from.
- 1:02:42So 85 K is the Max Payne price for this expiration, which is a
- 1:02:46quarterly expiration. Every month you have expirations
- 1:02:49at the last Friday of the month, but every quarter, the last
- 1:02:52Friday of that the of the month at which the quarter ends, you
- 1:02:54have the quarterly expirations. And the quarterlies are used by
- 1:02:58a much a larger number of institutions and so they have
- 1:03:02much, much more concentrated basic volumes expiring during
- 1:03:06the quarter at least. So I would be paying close
- 1:03:08attention to 85 going into Friday.
- 1:03:10And to keep an eye out on these things going forward.
- 1:03:13You can just check in and turn on your alerts every Sunday.
- 1:03:16We post what's up for the week ahead.
- 1:03:17And we'll, we'll keep posting them under your amazing summary
- 1:03:21so that people can get, you know what happened and what's coming
- 1:03:23all in one go. That's right, guys, if you want
- 1:03:26to see what happened in the week before, check out simply and you
- 1:03:30want to see what's going to be happening in the week ahead,
- 1:03:33check out leaden and you guys will be able to see it in the in
- 1:03:36the simply in the simply thing and also manicio very impressed,
- 1:03:40man. It's it's like this is like a
- 1:03:43crystal ball of what's to come. Right, this to me is one of the
- 1:03:47most under appreciated assets in the entire Bitcoin space because
- 1:03:51it is the homework that every institutional grade investor,
- 1:03:56every sophisticated investor, we are all looking at these markers
- 1:04:00whenever there is a move on a Wednesday because the Fed
- 1:04:03announced the Fed rate decision, we have to we can't be surprised
- 1:04:06by this. We need to be going into the
- 1:04:07week knowing exactly what we believe will happen so that we
- 1:04:11can then adjust and re jig. But it's basically an amazing
- 1:04:15tool and when that it's free, anyone can come and use it.
- 1:04:18Even if you're not a lead in client, you can come and check
- 1:04:20this out every week. Absolutely.
- 1:04:21Guys go to follow Leaden on X at huddle with Leaden.
- 1:04:26Anyways, guys before we move on to the culture segment, which
- 1:04:30we're going to talk about all things Leaden or anyone who
- 1:04:32doesn't know we, I do want to give a shout out to or my CFO is
- 1:04:37going to kill me. I do want to give a shout out to
- 1:04:39the new simply Bitcoin merch that just dropped.
- 1:04:42It's limited get yours while supplies last This has been
- 1:04:46flying off the shelves. One of the the snapback is
- 1:04:50already sold out so we're already kind of sold out on some
- 1:04:53sizes as well so check out the hoodie I'm wearing the hoodie
- 1:04:56right now it's extremely comfortable it literally says
- 1:05:00simply Bitcoin in the tags. We pay attention to detail,
- 1:05:04very, very high quality, so head over to simplybitcoin.com and
- 1:05:09buy some Bitcoin first. But if you want to support the
- 1:05:13show and the channel, check it out.
- 1:05:15Anyways, guys, we're going to hit the culture segment.
- 1:05:18We have tons to talk about. We will be right back.
- 1:05:22I want to give a shout out to our partner Hive Digital
- 1:05:25Technologies. As the first ever public miner,
- 1:05:29Hive's position to quadruple their global footprint in 2025
- 1:05:34and as the first with an AI strategy, Hive continues to make
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- 1:05:43They consistently topped the industry in Bitcoin mine per
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- 1:05:58following them at Hive Digital Tech or check out their website
- 1:06:02at hivedigitaltech.com. I want to give a shout out to
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- 1:08:10Anyhow, we got muddies too in the house today and we're going
- 1:08:14to talk about all things lead end.
- 1:08:16So I want to talk about my experience first with lead end
- 1:08:20because I think it would Maidicio like kind of walk me,
- 1:08:23walk me through it. I was like messaging him and
- 1:08:26anyhow, so without naming any names, I had AI had a loan or I
- 1:08:31had a loan. I had a Bitcoin back loan for a
- 1:08:34while and me and Maidicio were going back and forth and I ended
- 1:08:40that loan, but I obviously didn't want to sell Bitcoin.
- 1:08:42So I just, I kind of rolled it over, like, you know, paid it
- 1:08:47back and then I started another loan, a new loan with Leton.
- 1:08:51And one of the things that surprised me the most was the
- 1:08:55fact that there's no monthly payment.
- 1:08:57That blew my mind. I, I remember I hit up Mauricio.
- 1:09:01I was like freaking out. I was like, Oh my God, like,
- 1:09:03like, dude, like, am I not making my payments?
- 1:09:07And I hit up money? So I'm like, yo.
- 1:09:10And he's like, no, dude, like it just it just accused and you pay
- 1:09:14it back at the end of the term and then you can roll it over.
- 1:09:17That to me was my favorite feature because essentially you
- 1:09:23need you need like if you need cash, you don't want to sell
- 1:09:27your Bitcoin. It's not a taxable event because
- 1:09:30it's a loan. You know, at the end of the day,
- 1:09:33you still have to make monthly payments, but you guys don't
- 1:09:36have monthly payments, which was very, very, very nice.
- 1:09:39So that was one of my favorite features.
- 1:09:41And then, OK, so that was my first experience.
- 1:09:43My second experience was the how fast you get the cash, right?
- 1:09:48So think about it, you know, like you have to put yourself in
- 1:09:51the mindset. Let's say you send a coin or
- 1:09:54whatever, you send a coin, you know, to a platform and you're
- 1:09:58like, Oh my God, what's going to happen?
- 1:10:02And then I think I messaged Mauricio.
- 1:10:03I was like, yo, dude, I sent the coin and within 24 hours I got
- 1:10:11the cash in my account. Bing bada boom.
- 1:10:15I was like making sure when he says like, did I put the right
- 1:10:17account number? And now it's been a great
- 1:10:20experience because it's all about, it's all about trust,
- 1:10:23right? You, you kind of, you have to
- 1:10:25establish trust and at the end of the day, you know you're,
- 1:10:30you're, you are giving away custody of your Bitcoin, right?
- 1:10:32You are doing that. So you have to do it with an
- 1:10:36institution or a company that you trust.
- 1:10:39And so far I've had such an amazing experience using you
- 1:10:43guys personally. So it's been great to to partner
- 1:10:48with you guys as well. And you know, seems like the
- 1:10:52fans are the, the the audience is liking it also.
- 1:10:56Now I do want to talk about, I do want to talk about the like
- 1:11:01the use cases. So why would someone take alone?
- 1:11:05Like why would why would someone, you know, give up
- 1:11:08custody of their Bitcoin? Why would they, you know, why
- 1:11:11would they give up custody of the Bitcoin?
- 1:11:12Why would they take on a loan? What is the most what is the
- 1:11:16most common thing you guys see on your end?
- 1:11:20Yeah. So I'm thank you.
- 1:11:21By the way, a couple of points before I go to answer your
- 1:11:24questions. So number one, you have the best
- 1:11:26partners in Bitcoin for the show.
- 1:11:28Like I love Casa, I love Cold Card, obviously love Latin you,
- 1:11:32you have like an amazing suite of the things that I use, which
- 1:11:35is which is excellent. So the the other point that I
- 1:11:38was going to mention is on this point of no monthly interest
- 1:11:41payments, there is a very real economic benefit to this.
- 1:11:45And I'm working on on, on I guess an essay or some content
- 1:11:51to demonstrate the economic value of not having to pay
- 1:11:53interest rates or not having to pay interest every month because
- 1:11:56we are in fact allowing you to not come up with 1% or or
- 1:12:02approximately 1% of the amount you borrowed every month.
- 1:12:05So if you assume that the cost of your capital for those
- 1:12:07interest payments, it's the same cost of capital for the loan
- 1:12:09itself, you're actually, you know, tacking on almost one
- 1:12:13extra percent if you're, if you're borrowing from a company
- 1:12:16that does require monthly interest payments.
- 1:12:18So there's a very real like their 12 is not hour 12, their
- 1:12:2213 is not hour 13. Your your actual money out the
- 1:12:24door is a lot higher when you're having to make monthly payments.
- 1:12:28But to bring you to the to your question, the matter at hand,
- 1:12:30which is what do people take loans for?
- 1:12:33So a loan is not necessarily something a loan is AI would
- 1:12:39something I'd like to define as a non discretionary use.
- 1:12:43What what does that mean? People don't typically wake up
- 1:12:46one morning and say, Oh my God, it's a great day for a loan
- 1:12:49today. I'm going to take it.
- 1:12:50And then I'm going to see, well, what what happens with my life
- 1:12:54after I take out the loan. The, the way this process
- 1:12:56generally comes about is you're going about your life, you get
- 1:13:01hit with say an unexpected tax bill, right like you, you now
- 1:13:05have to come up with a couple 100 grand or 100 grand to pay
- 1:13:09the government for whatever transactions you did the year
- 1:13:12before. You didn't necessarily, you
- 1:13:14weren't necessarily accounting to have to put that cash all out
- 1:13:17the door. And now all of a sudden you're
- 1:13:18saying, OK, I have to pay 100 grand.
- 1:13:21What do I do? I have 100 grand at the bank.
- 1:13:23No, Can I borrow that 100 grand from my home lien on the credit?
- 1:13:27No, I can only borrow this much. So you'll start going through
- 1:13:30the sources of cash to pay and then eventually you will realize
- 1:13:34that your Bitcoin can be used as collateral for the loan that you
- 1:13:37need, that you can get the loan within 24 hours and you don't
- 1:13:40lose the upside on the Bitcoin. So the two main reasons you
- 1:13:43would, you would borrow from, from your Bitcoin instead of
- 1:13:45selling it is #1 you don't trigger a taxable event most
- 1:13:49often because borrowing from it is, again, most often not a
- 1:13:52taxable event by way of selling. You're not parting ways with the
- 1:13:55acid. The second one is you get to
- 1:13:57keep the upside. So a, a, a, a big thing that
- 1:14:00used to, you know, the bitcoins used to say is, oh, why don't
- 1:14:02you just sell Bitcoin, do what you need to do, and then buy
- 1:14:05back Bitcoin later on. And anyone that's tried to do
- 1:14:08that will tell you, you just don't buy back the same amount
- 1:14:12because Bitcoin goes up and to the right and because you have
- 1:14:15to pay taxes on the initial sale.
- 1:14:16And so you're just never able to get back to where you were.
- 1:14:19So you lose the, the trajectory of the asset itself, and then
- 1:14:22you may trigger a taxable event. The use cases that we are seeing
- 1:14:26today, believe it or not, in North America, one of the most
- 1:14:30common use cases is buying property.
- 1:14:32So people are, are no, are holding on to the Bitcoin they
- 1:14:36had for, you know, five years. It's gone from about 30 K to now
- 1:14:41500K. They are married.
- 1:14:44They are having their first baby or their second baby.
- 1:14:47Wife wants to move to a bigger place.
- 1:14:50Husband doesn't want to sell the Bitcoin.
- 1:14:52What can we do? Let's find and I'm saying that
- 1:14:55there's these memes out there that like of, of these cases
- 1:14:58where my husband doesn't want to sell the Bitcoin like this is
- 1:15:00real. We, we have dealt with these
- 1:15:03people and they will come in and the compromise generally
- 1:15:06becomes, well, I'm not selling the Bitcoin.
- 1:15:08I'm going to use it as collateral.
- 1:15:10I'm going to get the cash I need.
- 1:15:11I'm going to buy the home you want love and where our kids
- 1:15:13can, you know, we can buy the take, send this kids to the
- 1:15:15school we want, etcetera. It's this way of porting your
- 1:15:20Bitcoin wealth into your real world experience.
- 1:15:23A lot of our clients have ample amounts of Bitcoin.
- 1:15:26They will go to a bank to ask for the same mortgage that
- 1:15:29they're coming to Lenin for. And the bank will say no because
- 1:15:32the mortgage, anything the bank gives you is not really based on
- 1:15:35your assets. It's based on your income backed
- 1:15:39by your assets. But if you don't have the income
- 1:15:43and if you're, if you're a contractor, if you're a self
- 1:15:46owned business, you won't have that deductible, the tax
- 1:15:50deducted income that came into your your bank every month.
- 1:15:54Therefore the bank says you're no good to us.
- 1:15:56And so people come to us to really basically get the
- 1:16:00financial services they can't get at a bank.
- 1:16:03And so the big ones we're seeing now is buying property, starting
- 1:16:07businesses, divesting, even buying more Bitcoin is a common
- 1:16:11one. People, people often times come
- 1:16:13borrow with the Bitcoin to buy more Bitcoin.
- 1:16:15But those are the use cases. You know, I like to think of us
- 1:16:19as we don't really power loans. We power your life to do what
- 1:16:22you want through the loan. So you're, you're not taking the
- 1:16:25loan, you're buying a house, you're not taking the loan,
- 1:16:27you're starting a business. I have a lot of clients that are
- 1:16:30relocating to places like like El Salvador or Thailand.
- 1:16:33And so they'll come to me to either build their home with
- 1:16:36drop draw either monthly or quarterly to, to build the home
- 1:16:40itself. They'll buy, they'll draw a
- 1:16:42couple 1,000,000 bucks to buy the home outright.
- 1:16:45And they'll also borrow from me to like buy their car.
- 1:16:48So they'll, you know, there'll be like $1,000,000 loan to buy a
- 1:16:50house. Then later on it'll be like a
- 1:16:52$50,000 loan to buy a Jeep or to buy a, a, a Bronco or something
- 1:16:56along those lines, right. And so it's really interesting
- 1:16:59to see, but basically we're powering Bitcoiners to build
- 1:17:02things, had to do things and to buy things.
- 1:17:05Without selling their Bitcoin. Without selling their Bitcoin.
- 1:17:07And then money. So let me ask you something.
- 1:17:09So if there's no monthly payments, how do you guys as a
- 1:17:13business, like how, how does that work?
- 1:17:15Like how do you guys have cash flow?
- 1:17:18It's a great question. So you would think, I mean, at
- 1:17:21first glance, you would think that the cohort of people that
- 1:17:28keeps these loans for many, many years is, is a very high number.
- 1:17:32The, the reality is that because Bitcoin is so volatile, people,
- 1:17:39most often people end up closing their loans after a big run up
- 1:17:43right after Bitcoin hits your target.
- 1:17:45And then and therefore you no longer need the loan.
- 1:17:47And so you've you've either been able to repay it and then your
- 1:17:50way back, Bitcoin comes back down, you'll take out another
- 1:17:53loan depends on what you're using it for.
- 1:17:56But typically speaking, the the average, the average duration of
- 1:18:00a, let alone is somewhere in the six month range.
- 1:18:04Because again, it moves so fast. You know, if, if you took out a
- 1:18:07loan at 50K because you, you needed it for like a few months
- 1:18:11or whatever, and then in those two months, Bitcoin went to
- 1:18:13100K. A lot of times you don't want to
- 1:18:15wait for the money to come back. You're just, I want to lock in
- 1:18:17the, the, the new price of Bitcoin.
- 1:18:18I'm going to settle my debt and I'm going to just let it ride.
- 1:18:21And so that, that is how it's worked today.
- 1:18:25You know, later on, if, if the use case evolves and the way
- 1:18:28people are using these loans evolves, we may have to adapt.
- 1:18:30But so far it's been working very great for our clients and
- 1:18:34for us. Amazing.
- 1:18:35And one of the things also too that I really appreciate what
- 1:18:39what you guys, what, what you guys have done is the barrier to
- 1:18:44entry. So what do I mean by that?
- 1:18:47So the minimum loan you guys offer is $500 number one.
- 1:18:51And #2 is this is not just a, which is which again, not to
- 1:18:57name any names, but this is not an American centric product.
- 1:19:03You guys focus a lot on the international because the access
- 1:19:09to capital in the US we are very privileged or in Canada as well,
- 1:19:13we're extremely privileged. But Aicio, as you and I both
- 1:19:17know, not everyone has those types of privileges in the
- 1:19:20global S, So could you talk a little bit about that?
- 1:19:24100% that the reason Len has a $500 loan to start and no one
- 1:19:29else does is by design. When we were starting this
- 1:19:33business, we were looking at who would need this product, and I'm
- 1:19:37from Venezuela. A lot of the people in our team
- 1:19:38are from Latin America, and we knew how badly people in this
- 1:19:42part of the world needed these services.
- 1:19:45It's already scary enough to enter into Bitcoin when you're
- 1:19:50in a hyperinflationary or authoritarian regime that, that
- 1:19:53you're already doing something you don't understand.
- 1:19:55Then we were looking around at what are the other options and
- 1:19:58people other companies were, you know, their minimum loan sizes
- 1:20:01were 10 grand, 5 grand. A you can buy a house with with
- 1:20:07in parts of Latam with that collateral and B it's a it's an
- 1:20:12It's an amazingly high number to try something you've never tried
- 1:20:15and to work with someone you've never worked with.
- 1:20:18And so at Lenin, we needed, we wanted to be able to offer the
- 1:20:22lowest ticket size loan efficiently without losing money
- 1:20:25in processing that loan, which is, by the way, you know, takes
- 1:20:29a lot of coordination to put out $500 to the other side of the
- 1:20:32world for, for whatever 2025 buck admin fee that we're
- 1:20:37getting. But we made it, you know, we, we
- 1:20:38got it. And the intention here was was
- 1:20:42many fold, but the main, the main things we wanted to achieve
- 1:20:44was one, whether you were wealthy or not wealthy or no
- 1:20:49matter where in the world you are, you should be able to test,
- 1:20:51let in with an amount that you're comfortable with and
- 1:20:54$1000 to use as collateral for your loan.
- 1:20:57We thought was a pretty the sort of good balance between friction
- 1:21:01and what we need to make the, the, the the loan itself viable.
- 1:21:04And it would give people the ability to, to live through the
- 1:21:08experience of getting a loan funded, sending the collateral,
- 1:21:11closing it out, getting your Bitcoin back.
- 1:21:13And with 1000 bucks, 500 really, cuz you're, you're putting 1000,
- 1:21:17you're getting 500 bucks, you're really putting $500.00 at risk
- 1:21:20per SE to test out the service. Importantly, if you were
- 1:21:24somebody in Latin America that was taking out $1000 loan to buy
- 1:21:28a computer, if I asked you to send me $10 interest payments
- 1:21:32every month, you're going to be paying more money going to the
- 1:21:34bank and sending us the wire than the 10 bucks we were
- 1:21:37getting. So we also wanted to design a
- 1:21:39product that was easy to use no matter where you were.
- 1:21:42And so that's the reason. And the beautiful thing about
- 1:21:45the whole thing to wrap it in a bowl is that we at the
- 1:21:50beginning, when we initially launched lead and we, we know
- 1:21:53what Bitcoin could do or we believe the Bitcoin can help
- 1:21:56people regardless of where you are, whether you're in the US,
- 1:21:58whether you're in Latin, who needs it more Clearly, people in
- 1:22:02places where there are access, no access to financial services.
- 1:22:05That's not to say people in America won't experience the
- 1:22:07basement and inflation. They'll need it too.
- 1:22:09And we love our American clients as well as international
- 1:22:11clients, but our platform, we were one of the first ones to do
- 1:22:14it in Spanish, offer these products in Spanish.
- 1:22:17And we're not just lip servicing Spanish legal agreements,
- 1:22:19customer support, the whole 9 yards.
- 1:22:21Same with Portuguese, same with French.
- 1:22:24And so that and, and our customer support team speaks
- 1:22:29these languages. You're not just, you know,
- 1:22:30writing into some AI system that spits out an answer.
- 1:22:33We'll get on a call with you if we have to in your language and
- 1:22:36we'll help you get what you need.
- 1:22:38So a lot of those things came together to make Lenin what it
- 1:22:42is today. But it was always it, it always
- 1:22:45came from a point of, from a place of giving people something
- 1:22:50that they could test easily and giving people something that
- 1:22:54they could access when they needed it.
- 1:22:56And that's really the, the, the thinking behind the features you
- 1:22:59mentioned. Beautiful.
- 1:23:00So before we wrap it up, I, we do have some questions in the
- 1:23:03chat. Bill C says what percentage of
- 1:23:06loans get margin called? Margin called it depends on I
- 1:23:11mean you mean liquidated or margin called margin?
- 1:23:14Calls is when they ask you essentially liquidated I think
- 1:23:18is what he meant. Yeah, liquidated.
- 1:23:19So I'll give you I'll give you an an interesting data point and
- 1:23:23I'll have to I'll have to double check my letter BI.
- 1:23:26So don't, don't I need to double check.
- 1:23:29But as as of Friday, this was true.
- 1:23:31We haven't liquidated a single Bitcoin loan this downturn.
- 1:23:34And so just to give you a sense of of, you know, the, the moves
- 1:23:39versus the actual liquidation. And again, if you if you want to
- 1:23:43paint the picture for yourself, when you go to the Lenin website
- 1:23:47right before you apply for a loan, it shows you if I take a
- 1:23:51loan here and price does this, what are my key levels?
- 1:23:54You can model all of that in and the little scenario player that
- 1:23:58we have in the calculator at the bottom.
- 1:23:59So you can see roughly it equates to about a 29% drop in
- 1:24:03spot from the time you got your Bitcoin for for you to have to
- 1:24:07send more additional Bitcoin to the loan.
- 1:24:09Second question from Barcenic can use let in if you have BTC
- 1:24:16in an IRA with I trust. We can only take spot Bitcoin as
- 1:24:21collateral today. So we will not be able to take
- 1:24:24your IRA Bitcoin as collateral for the loan.
- 1:24:27It would have to be spot Bitcoin that you sent to us that it
- 1:24:29wouldn't. We wouldn't be able to do it
- 1:24:31through a trust. Last question from I'm sorry
- 1:24:36bro, I don't know how to pronounce your name but someone
- 1:24:38in the chat why do you help some jurisdictions and not Nevada?
- 1:24:43So we love all jurisdictions and our goal and our plan is to open
- 1:24:48up as many jurisdictions, as many states as possible.
- 1:24:51In the United States, lending is regulated at a state level and
- 1:24:55so in some, some states have differing laws than other
- 1:24:59states. And so the reasons you see, you
- 1:25:02know, lens, let alone is available in some States and not
- 1:25:05others is because in some states, you know, the, the, the
- 1:25:08requirements are different in places like Nevada.
- 1:25:11So we are working diligently to open up the states in the US
- 1:25:15where our loans are today not available.
- 1:25:17We, we obviously want to service them as much as they want our
- 1:25:21loans. We trust me, we want to service
- 1:25:23them more than that. But at Lennon, we've always had
- 1:25:26a squeaky clean track record with regulators.
- 1:25:29That is what enables us to interface with banks.
- 1:25:31That is what enables us to get the licenses we have and we will
- 1:25:34continue to do so. We will get to you, but we will
- 1:25:37get to you diligently and it'll be like everything else we do.
- 1:25:41We were just laying the the regulatory foundation so that we
- 1:25:43can be there and and get there through the front door and and
- 1:25:47stay there and grow with you. Beautiful, beautiful.
- 1:25:50All right guys, if you guys want to go check out leaden, go to
- 1:25:53leaden dot IO today we're going to have Mauricio on the show on
- 1:25:58a semi regular basis of it seems like the fans are a big fan.
- 1:26:02We had Adam on the other day, which was absolutely awesome and
- 1:26:07absolutely love these guys. Personally use them as well.
- 1:26:09Big fan. Before we close out the show, I
- 1:26:12do want to give a shout out to simply Bitcoin sponsor bitblock.
- 1:26:16Boom guys, the conference is literally next week.
- 1:26:20Hope to see you guys in Dallas, TX, one of the best Bitcoin
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- 1:26:26So it's literally right around the corner.
- 1:26:28Hope to see you guys in Dallas. If you use promo code BBB 21,
- 1:26:34you get $100 off your ticket. I'll pull up a QR code for you
- 1:26:39guys right there on the screen. BBB 21, you get $100 off your
- 1:26:43ticket to Bit block. Boom, it's next week, it's in
- 1:26:47Dallas, TX. We hope to see you there.
- 1:26:50The entire Simply Bitcoin crew is going to be there Myself,
- 1:26:54Ruston, Dante Opti can be a great time.
- 1:26:57You definitely don't want to miss it.
- 1:26:59Anyways, I do want to give a very special special shout out
- 1:27:03to our guest today. Let in no Lennon Mauricio from
- 1:27:07Leaden. Today is March 24th, 2025.
- 1:27:12I hope you guys enjoyed simply Bitcoin live Smash that like
- 1:27:15button. We will be back tomorrow for a
- 1:27:18brand new episode. Take care, everybody.
- 1:27:20Today's episode was brought to you by bitcoinwell.com, a
- 1:27:23Bitcoin only platform on a mission to enable financial
- 1:27:27independence.