Latest / Simply Bitcoin / Eric Weiss | The Man Who Orange Pill'd Saylor | Simply Bitcoin IRL

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Eric Weiss | The Man Who Orange Pill'd Saylor | Simply Bitcoin IRL · Simply Bitcoin

0:00
What's up, man? How you doing?
0:02
1st in person interview. Honored to have you or anyone
0:05
doesn't know there's Eric Weiss, orange pilled Michael Saylor.
0:09
But how was that like man? Like we've come such a long way.
0:12
I think that was like 2020 or 2021.
0:14
That was 2020, yeah. So how are the early days?
0:17
How? How did you receive it?
0:19
I'm sure it took a while. It did.
0:21
Thanks for having me. Honored to be your first in
0:23
person interview. We've been friends for a very
0:27
long time, and I got into this space before Michael did.
0:33
I discovered Bitcoin and bought my first Bitcoin in 2013, and
0:38
I'd been mentioning it occasionally, and he was not
0:42
interested in hearing about it at all.
0:44
It was varying degrees of dismissing the conversation, but
0:49
you know, Michael was running a company with a couple thousand
0:52
employees and competing with the likes of Microsoft and
0:56
Salesforce, which is like brutally impossible.
0:59
I mean, you know, he's he's competing against companies that
1:02
are giving away the product that he's offering essentially for
1:05
free. So it's just a really tough
1:06
business. And he was he was out there, you
1:09
know, he's running the gauntlet every day and wasn't really
1:12
interested in this Internet money thing that I was raving
1:16
about. And so he was like no interest,
1:19
very dismissive for a long time. And then it was during the
1:23
pandemic, we were hanging out at his house during the days here
1:27
in Miami, just because the surroundings, they're quite
1:30
comfortable as, you know, relative to to my apartment and
1:34
trying to make sense of what was going on in the world.
1:37
Everything is closed. All businesses are closed.
1:39
And yet the stock market's going up.
1:41
And, you know, things just weren't making sense.
1:43
And I said, anytime there's big change like this, there's
1:49
opportunity. We just have to find it.
1:52
And then I started talking about Bitcoin again.
1:54
And instead of dismissing the topic, you know, he'd said, OK,
2:00
tell me more about that. And I was like, OK, you know,
2:04
here we go. And we spoke about Bitcoin for
2:08
days and days, maybe weeks. When Michael's interested in
2:12
something, you realize how quickly that you don't know that
2:15
much about it. It was like probably the second
2:18
day that we were talking about it, you know, he's asking me
2:21
about hashing and stuff and I don't know.
2:25
So yeah, we went pretty deep. And then after a while he said,
2:31
well, if I wanted to buy some of this stuff, how would I go about
2:33
doing that? And so I got him set up to buy
2:37
it. And that took, at the time,
2:38
couple months. And then one day I was pulling
2:42
into a restaurant down here, Smith and Wilensky's, and the
2:45
phone rings. Normally he'll text, you know,
2:48
but the phone rings. I'm like, oh, no, something
2:50
might have happened. So like, what's up?
2:52
And he's like, well, I, I bought Bitcoin and I'm like, great.
2:55
And at the time, Bitcoin was exactly $10,000, you know, for
2:59
BTC. And he goes, yeah, 10,000.
3:03
And I go, you bought one Bitcoin.
3:05
It's like, no, Eric, I bought 10,000.
3:08
And I went from being very excited that I, you know, I'd
3:11
gotten my buddy into Bitcoin to being like, oh, shit.
3:14
Because you know, if you've been in for a while, you know, nobody
3:18
gets like a clear path up and to the right that there's
3:21
volatility and $100 million commitment is an extraordinary
3:25
thing. And as we sit here today, you
3:27
know, that was a that was a billion dollar trade.
3:31
Yeah, so 10X10X10X and it's just just getting started in my
3:36
opinion as well. We agree on that one.
3:38
We agree on that one. So Eric, let me ask you
3:41
something so incredible story by the way.
3:43
And I mean like you technically could take credit technically,
3:49
of course, like you facilitated, I don't.
3:51
Know what good it would do to me?
3:52
But yeah. Did you ever, would you, have
3:55
you ever imagine like would you at that time, did you ever
3:58
imagine Microstrategy's performance this year?
4:01
Because like in the beginning of the year, like I'll be honest
4:03
with you, I'm like, why didn't I just buy Microstrategies out of
4:07
Bitcoin, which is like such a non Bitcoin thing to say, but
4:10
it's performed extremely well. It put pressure on Microsoft,
4:14
put pressure on on Amazon. There's news the other day that
4:18
Meta was like, you know, shareholders are like putting
4:20
pressure. Doesn't mean they're going to do
4:22
it, but it's a step in the right discussion.
4:24
And I think it's an inevitability that they, you
4:26
know, they're just going to buy at a higher price.
4:29
And but did you ever imagine that MicroStrategy was going to
4:32
do what it did this year? When we were having those
4:35
discussions, the conversation wasn't about MicroStrategy.
4:39
I didn't know he didn't share with me, you know, that he was
4:43
wrestling with, you know, finding a store of value for
4:46
Microstrategy's cash position. And he felt like, you know,
4:50
they're sitting on 500 million in cash.
4:52
He, you know, deemed inflation to be about 10%.
4:55
They're losing about 50 million a year in purchasing power.
4:58
And he's got 2000 people working their ass off to try to make 50
5:01
million a year. So he felt like he was on a
5:03
treadmill. That was a big part of his
5:05
motivation and why he was receptive to hearing about at
5:07
that time. But this was all kind of
5:10
unbeknown to me and I guess now we know that he couldn't get the
5:14
company quite to act so quickly. So that first purchase, the
5:17
10,000 Bitcoin, that was personal.
5:19
That's not MicroStrategy purchase.
5:21
So as far as Microstrategy's performance, no, I, I didn't
5:25
really have any idea and I'm not sure that anyone did.
5:30
You know, it required a lot of execution on Michael and
5:34
Microstrategy's part to deliver that.
5:37
And you know, I think people are getting a lot of insight into
5:40
Michael's personality through the podcast and through his
5:44
actions in Bitcoin. And you know, it's very kind of
5:50
Michael Jordan esque. You know, if you ever read the
5:53
book Relentless, you get real insight into Michael Jordan's
5:57
personality and how competitive he was and you know, how
6:00
important winning was to him. And you see a lot of that in
6:04
Michael. So when you apply that to
6:06
MicroStrategy, you know, it wasn't enough to get
6:09
MicroStrategy out of this struggling company range into,
6:13
you know, higher performer like his, his his goals for
6:18
MicroStrategy are very high and he's very resourceful and very
6:23
determined. So he keeps, he's become an
6:25
expert on economics, he's become an expert on Bitcoin, obviously
6:29
he's become an expert on balance sheet optimization for a public
6:32
company and issuing securities in a creative way from a Bitcoin
6:37
point of view. And yeah, I I think he's going
6:40
to continue to do great things. Absolutely.
6:42
I mean, that redemption arc was insane, right?
6:45
So like in the 90s youknow.com bubble and then essentially the
6:49
stock went somewhat sideways for, you know, 10/15/20 years
6:54
and then all of a sudden, you know, redemption, the
6:56
vindication, which I think a lot of us Bitcoiners feel right
6:59
initially you get in, you kind of feel stupid.
7:02
Most people get in the, you know, the bull market the first
7:04
cycle and then after the second or the third cycle, you're like,
7:08
I'm vindicated. But of course, Michael Saylor or
7:11
nation states, it's on a different level, you know, much
7:14
more capital involved. But I still see it as the the,
7:18
the redemption arc, the vindication that a lot of us
7:20
Bitcoiners go through. Without a doubt, I think that,
7:23
you know, one of the interesting things about Bitcoin is people
7:27
find it kind of when they have a need to find it.
7:30
And generally when you need to find it, there's some form of
7:34
desperation in your world, right?
7:37
You either have a zombie company that's struggling, that's fallen
7:40
out of favor. MicroStrategy arguably fell into
7:43
that category, you know, back in 2000, similar scientific, some
7:47
of these others, right? These are not so much micro
7:51
straight, but they're zombie ish companies, right, that are
7:54
having trouble competing or winning in their area.
7:57
And this is a solution. Same thing for individuals,
8:00
right? It's like you're getting crushed
8:01
by inflation. You're having trouble winning
8:03
and getting ahead. It's very hard to get ahead from
8:06
the pack, especially if you follow traditional financial
8:08
investment advice. And so people find Bitcoin when
8:11
they need it and when you don't need it.
8:14
In those early years that we talked about with Michael Wright
8:16
where he's like crushing it in business, he has one at life,
8:19
right? Starting from nothing to become
8:21
a billionaire and you know, entrepreneur, public company,
8:24
etcetera. So it's like you don't need
8:26
that, right? You're running your own
8:27
successful business. You got all these employees,
8:29
you're a master of the universe. You don't need this.
8:32
And it's only when there's an opportunity to need something in
8:36
your life that you kind of discovered Bitcoin and your mind
8:39
is open to it. And so it's kind of an advantage
8:42
for those of us who got in earlier that we were, you know,
8:44
looking for something in some way earlier.
8:47
And so those people, you know, when I tell people when they're
8:49
trying to orange people friends, orange people friends or
8:51
something who aren't getting it or family, just be patient, you
8:54
know, just just wait. People in, in Bitcoin parlance,
8:58
obviously we say, you know, people get Bitcoin at the price
9:00
they deserve. But the truth is, people get
9:02
Bitcoin when they're ready to get Bitcoin.
9:04
Absolutely. You plant the seed.
9:06
Yeah. And then what ends up happening
9:08
is a cycle goes by. They didn't listen to you, but
9:11
they sure do remember. They watch.
9:13
When you told them and when the price was.
9:16
And eventually there's this inevitable capitulation.
9:18
That's been my experience. I'm nine years in the industry,
9:21
a little bit shorter than you, but you know, again, I've seen,
9:25
I've seen this happen over and over again now.
9:28
You earn your stripes though, like you said, right, like
9:30
nobody gets straight up. So that first cycle, you know,
9:33
all the bitcoiners are like, yeah, you're going to rug us.
9:35
You're not here for the long haul.
9:37
You're just coming to make a quick buck and then you live
9:39
through your first cycle. And then they say to this person
9:42
huddled, are they sticking around?
9:44
Are they still buying? Do they buy through the dips?
9:46
Are they buying at the highs? You got to earn, you know, it's
9:49
like, you know, verify, don't trust in Bitcoin land, right?
9:52
So and then you, you get that redemption and you know, you do
9:56
get that validation and it feels good.
9:59
And then you also get an appreciation for it's not, you
10:01
know, people will say you got lucky kind of narrative, right?
10:05
It's very hard to huddle. It's hard to huddle through it.
10:08
I think it's harder to huddle through the good times than it
10:10
is the bad ones because nobody wants to sell at the bottom, but
10:14
it's hard not to sell at the top.
10:16
It's hard not to sell when you could sell and do things in Fiat
10:20
that are important to you. Yeah.
10:21
So you know, those, the people who have huddled for all these
10:25
years, I'm happy for them. They they deserve the rewards
10:28
that are coming their way. Yeah, you.
10:29
You change. There's a cost to it, like
10:31
huddling. If you describe it, it seems
10:34
easy. It's so hard.
10:35
But you change it. You change as a person.
10:38
Yeah. You know, the years it goes by
10:40
this. It's an emotional journey.
10:41
It is. And you again, you, you, you,
10:45
the, the more of your net worth is in Bitcoin, the more
10:48
questions you start asking about money, the more questions you
10:51
start asking about the system. Initially it's like, oh, I want
10:54
to get rich. But it then, you know, you come
10:56
for the money, stay for the revolution.
10:58
Very interesting phenomenon. Now I want to talk about the
11:02
incoming administration, right. So we're five days from
11:04
Inauguration Day at the time of recording.
11:07
I think what happened last year with Operation Choke .2 Point O,
11:11
and then that creating an opportunity for the opposing
11:14
political party to capitalize on it and say, hey, look, these are
11:18
voters, you know, let's do it. And it happened a lot sooner
11:22
than anticipated. I thought that Bitcoin was going
11:24
to enter into the political discussion by 2028.
11:27
You know, it was going to happen.
11:28
It was in, in, in inevitability. It happened a lot sooner.
11:32
And of course, Trump won the election.
11:34
We know he's pro Bitcoin. David Bailey, there was a clip
11:38
of him going viral at the 100K party at Michael Saylor's where
11:41
he's saying that Trump owns a lot of Bitcoin.
11:45
How do you feel about the incoming administration and the
11:48
regulatory environment in 2025? Yeah, I think you have to give
11:52
Donald Trump a lot of credit here just for a little history
11:58
lesson. For those that don't know, what
12:00
really happened was it kind of goes back to SAB 1/21, which is
12:06
this recommendation from the SEC and Gary Ginsler that banks
12:11
can't custody Bitcoin or digital assets without holding 1 to
12:15
$1.00 reserves. And banks just don't do that.
12:18
That's not the banking model. They don't want to hold one for
12:21
one reserves. It defeats the purpose.
12:23
They can't lend the money out and earn money on it, right?
12:26
So it's essentially a death blow for banks, custody and crypto.
12:30
And So what happened was this was taken up by Congress.
12:34
It was pretty, you know, certain that the Republicans were going
12:37
to vote to repeal this, that banks should be able to custody
12:39
crypto. The Democrats were going to kind
12:41
of keep the party line and vote against it.
12:43
And it probably wouldn't pass and it would be a non issue.
12:48
But what happened was the Democrats also agreed that banks
12:51
should be able to custody crypto like mainstream Democrats, the
12:55
Nancy Pelosi's and Chuck Schumer's of the world, right?
12:58
And what happened was the Biden administration was forced to
13:02
veto this right. And that was a big deal because
13:07
the entire crypto world freaked out and people got a glimpse of
13:11
just how many pro crypto people there were.
13:15
And Trump, so I give him credit, he recognized this.
13:18
And he said, wait a minute, there's like 30 million crypto
13:21
voters out there who are single issue voters for the most part.
13:25
There's a lot of votes to be had for being pro crypto.
13:28
There are no votes to be had for being anti crypto.
13:32
And so it was at that point that he came out really strong
13:35
vocally, you know, in our favor. Biden administration freaked
13:40
out. I think someone in the
13:41
administration reached out to Gensler and said, hey, you just
13:45
cost us this election and you need to get us our crypto voters
13:49
back. And then the Ethereum ETFs were
13:52
clearly getting rejected at the time.
13:54
And I think that's the only card they had to play.
13:57
So there's Ethereum ETFs got approved overnight as a way to
14:01
like, you know, show that the administration was pro crypto to
14:03
try to get some of those votes back.
14:05
But Trump, to his credit, he went up the learning curve,
14:08
leaned into it. And, yeah, I think he really is
14:11
on our side. It's not just Trump, right?
14:14
It's his entire administration, assuming everybody who's
14:18
nominated gets confirmed. But you've got a secretary of
14:21
treasury that's very pro Bitcoin and crypto.
14:24
You've got a, you've got RFK who's obviously on our side.
14:30
You've got Howard Lutnick, Secretary of Commerce, who super
14:34
pro Bitcoin and crypto. You've got Paul Atkins coming in
14:37
as chair of the SEC, who's very much on our side.
14:40
And now we're hearing, which I've heard couple Times Now in,
14:45
you know, backroom conversations that day one SAB 121 is going
14:48
away and that is a major catalyst for Bitcoin.
14:52
You know, I think that Bitcoin can probably get to 500,000 on
14:55
its own without SAB 121 going away, but it's SAB 1/20/21 going
15:01
away. That really makes the upside
15:03
unlimited because you really do need to be able to borrow
15:06
against your Bitcoin and not have to sell it to do the things
15:09
you want to do in life in order for this asset to really
15:12
explode. If you know perfect analogy
15:14
would be homes, right? Like what would home prices be
15:17
if you couldn't get a mortgage against them?
15:19
So. Yeah, and I, I want to talk
15:22
about the and, and appreciate that insight.
15:25
I didn't know that back story, which is quite interesting.
15:28
And you said that it, the repealing of the SAB 121 is one
15:31
of the catalysts and it kind of reminds me of the spaces that
15:34
Sailor joined. He said three things need to
15:36
happen in order for Bitcoin to hit $5,000,000.
15:38
The ETF, the fasby accounting rules, and the ability for banks
15:43
to custody Bitcoin, which is what you just.
15:45
Talked about third leg of the stool.
15:46
That's going into play in January.
15:50
I think, I think it'll, I'd be surprised if it's not into play
15:54
within a week after, you know, Trump being inaugurated.
15:58
I've been hearing for a while that it's a day one thing.
16:01
So that will be interesting. And then, you know, it's not
16:05
like that's going to be repealed and then banks are going to
16:08
start. You're not JP Morgan's not going
16:10
to custody your Bitcoin tomorrow.
16:13
They've got to go up the curve in, you know, developing custody
16:18
solutions, technological solutions for this.
16:21
So I do think it'll be a massive catalyst, probably be 12 to 24
16:25
months before it's really in full effect.
16:28
But that's a really, really big deal.
16:31
I don't think it could be overstated.
16:32
Happening. I realized that, but I didn't
16:36
know the details and I appreciate you explaining that
16:38
to me. Now, there is something that you
16:39
said earlier, which I want to touch on because I've heard you
16:42
say this on other podcasts, which is the idea of don't sell
16:46
your Bitcoin, don't use your Bitcoin to buy goods and
16:50
services. And this idea of, and I've heard
16:53
sailors say this as well. I'm just connecting the dots.
16:55
This idea that Bitcoin is pristine collateral, right?
16:58
You're going to be able to borrow against that.
17:00
So could you elaborate a little bit on that?
17:02
Because Bitcoin is like myself, you know, like we've just been
17:05
here a while, We're stacking. We don't want to sell our stack.
17:08
And you're like, Nico, you shouldn't have to do that.
17:10
You know, it's the best collateral the world has ever
17:13
seen. So are we going to see more
17:14
services? Are banks supposed to be
17:16
offering this? Yeah, we're not there yet.
17:18
So it's really hard now like I'm we're all in that situation, all
17:23
of us that have been stacking for a long time.
17:25
I'm personally in that situation, right?
17:26
Like I would, I would love to buy a new home right now, but I
17:31
can't because I know that if I wait a year or two, that home is
17:36
going to be free, right? So, and, and there's no way to
17:41
borrow against it right now kind of thing.
17:43
So when I, when I said don't sell your Bitcoin, it's going to
17:46
be very tough to get back on that podcast, which went more
17:49
viral than I had anticipated. It was really that stem from I
17:54
had a lot of a lots of relative thing, but for me I had a lot of
17:57
Bitcoin in 2013 that I bought it roughly, you know, $600.00 per
18:02
Bitcoin. And then in 2014 I sold that
18:07
Bitcoin and it took, how many was that 2016 till now.
18:14
So it took about eight or nine years for me to get back to
18:20
where I was. So it's very once you sell your
18:23
Bitcoin, it's very hard to get it back.
18:26
Yeah, and very hard. It's interesting that you tell
18:28
me this because I was with Oh my God, I can't, I can't pronounce
18:32
his name. I'm going to butcher it.
18:33
But I was with one Bitcoin OG. He was like the first programmer
18:38
that he, Satoshi ever spoke to. And he did a presentation Lugano
18:44
in Switzerland called My Pizza Story.
18:48
And essentially the Long story short, he ended up selling like
18:51
10,000 Bitcoin to buy a one bedroom apartment.
18:54
Yeah, feel like everyone has that story, you know?
18:57
It's an expensive apartment. And then you burn your finger
18:59
and you're like, OK, this is this is probably not a good
19:04
idea. So Erica, another thing that.
19:06
Billion dollar apartment. Right.
19:09
So one of the things that happened in 2024 that was also
19:13
pretty exciting was the introduction of the ETFs, right?
19:17
And then not only the introduction with the SEC
19:20
dragging their feet and the launch was pretty butchered like
19:24
someone hacked the account or something like.
19:26
That the SE, yeah, the SE CS Twitter account was hacked and
19:31
there was a false announcement of approval.
19:33
And the volatility like swung like 10%.
19:36
And yet it was still the most successful ETF launch in
19:39
history. That's what I want to talk
19:40
about, right? The idea that the Bitcoin ETFs
19:43
was the most successful ETFs in history.
19:45
Larry Fink, right? Very influential, powerful
19:48
person. He's essentially saying
19:51
Satoshi's gospel on CNNBC. I, I would have never have
19:54
imagined that, you know, five years ago, I think his quote
19:58
from 20/17/2018 was Bitcoin is an index of money laundering.
20:02
And of course, number go up, technology does.
20:04
What number go up? Technology does.
20:06
And he changed his mind and now we have BlackRock in the game.
20:09
Yeah. So is that just going to
20:12
continue to accelerate? Do you see the ETFs?
20:15
I think the big the, the big thing about the ETF approval in
20:20
my opinion, was not just that we had a domesticated form of
20:25
Bitcoin that nation states don't have to be afraid people are
20:30
going to, you know, they don't have to be concerned about
20:32
capital controls. It's a, it's an exchange traded
20:35
item, right? So you don't have to worry about
20:37
people, you know, like Bitcoin moving it around.
20:40
It's more that we cost cross this regulatory chasm into
20:45
legitimacy. So it was, there was a lot of
20:49
discussion which, you know, people who are, you know, newer
20:52
to Bitcoin, you know, going forward in the next handful of
20:55
yours won't ever know. There was discussion as to
20:57
whether or not this was going to get outlawed or be legal or not.
21:01
And we crossed that chasm with the ETF.
21:04
And we crossed it in a way that we're never going back because
21:07
it's now in the hands of retirement funds, pension funds,
21:12
endowment funds, municipalities. It's, it's there, it's never
21:17
going to be outlawed, right? And that to me was the big
21:20
significance of the ETF approval.
21:22
So that's a big, that's a big deal.
21:24
Yes, it was great for capital inflows.
21:26
And that's why the most successful ETFs, I think that
21:30
90% of the people, companies, countries that are going to buy
21:34
Bitcoin haven't bought their first set yet.
21:36
So I think there's plenty more adoption to come.
21:41
Yo, I want to tell you about the best place to build your
21:44
automatic self custody Bitcoin stack.
21:46
I'm talking about bitcoinwell.com.
21:50
What makes bitcoinwell.com different is that it's a
21:52
completely non custodial platform, meaning as soon as you
21:56
buy Bitcoin and the funds clear, it goes straight to yourself
22:00
custody Bitcoin wallet address. And that perfectly aligns with
22:04
simply Bitcoin ethos of the separation of money and state
22:07
support Bitcoin on Rams that are self custody by default.
22:11
To get started, go to bitcoinwell.com today.
22:14
Takes 2 to 5 minutes to sign up and bada Bing, bada boom, you're
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ready to buy Bitcoin. So we and, and we do.
22:22
We just continue to see all this good news, right?
22:24
Like the I, I, I have to make YouTube videos every single day.
22:28
And you know, initially when you talk about Bitcoin strategic
22:31
reserve, you'd get a ton of views.
22:33
Now that has been normalized, right?
22:35
Which we would have never have imagined this four or five years
22:38
ago. So my question to you is, why
22:41
are we still at 100K? Like, what's going on?
22:43
This is boring. We're like poking.
22:45
I don't know if you've seen the meme, the guy poking Bitcoin
22:48
with the stick. Things things take longer than
22:52
people think. You know, investor behaviour is
22:56
slow to change. It's really most people who have
23:03
investable capital. Their primary job is not
23:08
investing that capital. They're they have a profession
23:11
of some kind. They're a doctor, they're a
23:12
lawyer, they're an entrepreneur. And they give their capital to a
23:15
trusted third party who specializes that.
23:18
And they say whatever you think. And they've had this playbook
23:21
for decades of this diversified portfolio and certain amount of
23:25
bonds, certain amount of equities.
23:26
And there's no place for Bitcoin in that portfolio, right in this
23:30
mentality. So the first place that people
23:34
start to think about maybe Bitcoin, there's a place for
23:36
this is, well, OK, it's a digital gold, right?
23:40
And maybe we can put some in, you know, take X percent of my
23:43
gold allocation and let's let's put some Bitcoin in there.
23:47
But the challenge with that is most people don't want to own
23:49
gold, right? They're like, yeah, I don't need
23:52
that little store value thing. That's not appealing to me.
23:55
So the market that we're talking to there from the investor world
23:58
is relatively small. And as people start to realize a
24:03
couple things #1 the biggest problem the entire world has is
24:08
a store of value. Inflation rates are not what
24:11
your government is telling you. And I, I feel like this
24:14
narrative is growing and people are starting to understand this
24:17
more that the real inflation rate is different than what
24:19
you're being told. And once people understand that,
24:23
and once people understand that your S&P 500 thing that's
24:27
delivering you 10%, you're, you're on a treadmill, You're
24:30
not, you're not getting wealthier, you're not making any
24:33
progress. And they start looking for ways
24:36
to actually store their, you know, value outside of this Fiat
24:40
system. I think we'll see a lot of
24:41
traction from a variety of, you know, places.
24:46
In particular, I think nation states with Fiat currency are
24:50
going to be huge adopters. There's more than 160 Fiat
24:54
currencies that still exist, you know, 50 years from now, I'd be
24:58
very surprised if we have more than 20.
25:00
So what's going to happen to 100 plus Fiat currencies that are
25:04
going away? I mean, all hundred of those
25:08
countries could print their own crappy currency, which is dying
25:11
right now and buy Bitcoin with it.
25:13
Or they could buy Bitcoin and back their currency with it or
25:16
switch to Bitcoin. There's a number of things they
25:18
could do, but the bottom line is there are a lot of people in
25:21
those countries, in the countries themselves that are
25:23
dying, right? They're find they're, they're
25:26
experiencing financial death. So there's a lot of demand.
25:30
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, so And one of the things
25:32
also, Eric, which is the idea of inflation, right?
25:36
I, I think most of society has been sold on this idea that
25:40
money needs to lose purchasing power in order to function.
25:44
Yeah, I personally like that. To me is the most perplexing
25:48
thing, right? Total total BS.
25:50
And you know, there's never been a money that has existed like
25:54
Bitcoin, where every single day that Bitcoin continues to exist,
25:58
it proves that not only can money exist without inflation.
26:03
I know it's not deflationary, but I'm going to use the term
26:05
anyways. Money can exist that is
26:08
deflationary. I'm just using it for the sake
26:11
of this conversation. So what's your take on that?
26:14
Like do you think this is a, a like, of course there's
26:16
institutional adoption, there's potentially nation state
26:19
adoption. Talk about the strategic Bitcoin
26:21
reserve on the federal level and the state level.
26:23
What about individuals? Do you do you see this becoming
26:26
like individuals all over the world adopting Bitcoin as they
26:30
realize that it's just better money?
26:33
I mean, it's the most egalitarian thing on the planet,
26:36
right? The truth is, and this always, I
26:39
was always perplexed by the fact that there wasn't more support
26:42
for Bitcoin on the Democrat side of politics because the
26:46
constituency that they claim to represent, you know, your your
26:51
paycheck to paycheck worker who does have a little bit of
26:54
savings, whether it's $20.00 a month, $100 a month, $1000 a
26:58
month, whatever it is, they're saving in a Fiat currency that
27:02
is getting killed and they're the ones suffering the most.
27:06
Whereas if they were saving in something that was actually
27:09
appreciating on a relative basis to Fiat currency, they might
27:12
actually get ahead. And then you talk about how
27:16
there's so many people on the planet that are unbanked, you
27:19
know, who can't get banked and that's why they can't save.
27:22
But they all have a smartphone, an Android phone of some kind.
27:24
As long as you're going to have an Android phone, you can bank
27:27
yourself in Bitcoin and something that is going to
27:29
appreciate in value, not depreciate.
27:31
So I do think that individuals are going to be the biggest
27:35
beneficiary of Bitcoins benefits.
27:38
Nation states, companies obviously will participate and
27:41
they'll do it on a larger scale, but it's most important for the
27:43
individual in my opinion. Yet inflation is just like this
27:47
pernicious tax on people. And if you're really cynical,
27:51
you could take a view that this is government's way of
27:53
suppressing the masses and keeping people down.
27:57
I don't think you need to be that cynical.
27:58
Like like you said, we just didn't have money this perfect
28:02
before and now we do and it just takes this is some, this is some
28:07
pretty high level education and thought stuff for the average
28:11
person to grasp. Most people don't start
28:14
questioning, is the inflation rate that I'm being told real?
28:19
What is inflation? What does it mean?
28:20
How does it even affect my life? Most people think, yeah, it
28:23
doesn't matter to me, man, I don't care.
28:24
I don't have any stocks. Like, you know, it doesn't, you
28:26
know? So most people just don't get
28:29
it. So there's a lot of education
28:31
that needs to take place. What do you think is going to
28:33
happen to governments, right. So like one of the and a lot
28:37
again, this is like you said, this is deep down the rabbit
28:39
hole, but one of the primary funding mechanisms for
28:43
governments that have popular Fiat currencies, I'll put it
28:46
like that is printing money. You can make a solid argument
28:52
that with the adoption of Bitcoin, all of a sudden that
28:56
revenue stream starts to go away.
28:58
And no I. Mean it could.
29:01
I think that's too cynical. And also.
29:05
Well, governments can embrace Bitcoin.
29:07
So like I designed these U.S. Treasury bonds for Bitcoin that
29:15
hopefully are are getting presented to the future
29:17
Secretary of the Treasury. That's fascinating.
29:19
Where the government could issue these 0 coupon bonds.
29:25
So 0 coupon bond doesn't have a coupon that pays an interest
29:28
rate. You buy it at an original issue
29:30
discount and it accretes to the face value at maturity and then
29:33
you get paid. So say A10 year 0 coupon
29:37
treasury bond, now you might buy for it's got a par value of
29:40
$1000. You may pay $650 today and in 10
29:44
years you get $1000. And I don't know, that probably
29:46
equates to something like a six or 7% yield.
29:50
But the government could issue those bonds and say we're going
29:54
to use the proceeds to buy Bitcoin.
29:57
And then that bond could be callable every year at par,
30:01
right? So if you paid 650 for it today
30:04
and it gets called in the end of one year, you're going to get a
30:08
much higher return. Like you'll get a 35% return if
30:11
you paid 650, right? Because you're getting 1000
30:13
after one year. And the government could tie
30:15
that to the performance of Bitcoin.
30:16
So if Bitcoin is up 100% at the end of year 1, we pay off the
30:21
bond and you make 35%. The government's thrilled.
30:25
They issued a billion dollars of this 10 year note and they took
30:28
the billion dollars. They bought a billion dollars of
30:30
Bitcoin. The bitcoins now worth $2
30:31
billion and they share some of it with the investor.
30:35
So and you could have that callable every year up until
30:38
maturity. So in the worst case scenario,
30:40
the investors getting whatever the normal yield for a 10 year 0
30:44
coupon treasury bond would be. And if Bitcoin performs really
30:47
well in the interim, they're going to get a better return
30:50
than they normally would. So it's kind of a win win.
30:53
The government gets to raise money to buy Bitcoin and gets to
30:56
share some of the, you know, profit with that.
30:58
Investor, that's that's fascinating.
31:00
And do you think so and so and you said that there's interest
31:04
in the current administration to do this I.
31:07
Don't know. I don't know that there's
31:08
interest. I, I have a a friend and a
31:11
business partner who is friendly with some folks in the
31:14
administration who's going to share this idea with them.
31:17
So we'll see. Hopefully they have an interest.
31:19
I mean, one of the things I, I never forget that that Sailor
31:22
said was the first country that uses their money printer to buy
31:25
Bitcoin is going to win. Yeah, I think a lot of people
31:30
are going to win. But yes, there's certainly
31:32
advantages to being first, just like we have a little bit of an
31:36
advantage to the 90% of the population that hasn't bought
31:39
Bitcoin yet that's probably going to pay a slightly higher
31:41
price than we did. So one of the things also that
31:44
you said, and I think we were talking about it earlier in the
31:46
conversation, but I, I just want to explain to everyone who's
31:49
watching the audience, the potential here, right?
31:52
So I'm sure that you felt this in 2013.
31:55
I definitely felt this in in 2016, right?
31:58
I'm late. Like, you know, like 700, seven,
32:01
$800 Bitcoin, like I knew people that bought it at $10 to $100.
32:05
Like this is over. I've lost the ship has sailed.
32:09
What would you say to someone that they see Bitcoin at 100K
32:12
and they're like, you know what? I I've missed the boat.
32:16
Yeah. Are they late?
32:18
Not even a little bit. Everything, everything investing
32:22
has to be viewed on a risk adjusted basis.
32:26
What's the risk you're taking for the return that you expect
32:28
to get or hope to get? And I think it's very, very
32:33
clear that Bitcoin today at roughly $100,000 per Bitcoin on
32:39
a risk adjusted basis is a much better investment than it was at
32:44
5 dollars, 500 dollars, $5000 per Bitcoin, right?
32:48
Because at that point, it was essentially venture capital.
32:54
You know, there's a one in a hundred shot that this is going
32:56
to work out and, you know, fulfill the expectations that
33:00
even the biggest believers had, right?
33:04
And so, and this is evidenced by like people like Adam Back,
33:07
right, who played an integral role in the technology proof of
33:10
work that's behind Bitcoin. And he has said, you know, like,
33:15
yeah, it was kind of cool, but he didn't think it was going to
33:17
turn into what it turned into. And he didn't start getting
33:20
involved until much later in buying Bitcoin himself.
33:23
So it was just a very high risk thing with no certainty that it
33:27
was going to achieve any of its objectives.
33:30
And now where we sit, it seems highly likely that it's going to
33:34
achieve these objectives. And from where we are now at
33:38
roughly a tenth of the valuation of gold, right?
33:44
You know, we probably, we have 9X from here to get to gold
33:46
roughly. So, you know, I think, you know,
33:50
all you really have to do is have the reasonable opinion that
33:53
maybe bitcoins going to flip gold, that this digital gold is
33:57
going to exceed analog gold. And there's plenty of precedent
34:00
for that. Every pretty much every digital
34:04
successor of an analog predecessor doesn't just equal
34:07
it. It goes way past whether you
34:09
think of like, you know, Rotary phones and mobile phones is like
34:12
a great example, right? And so it's likely that Bitcoin
34:16
will materially surpass gold and that seems probable at this
34:20
point. It's not venture capital type
34:23
one in a hundred kind of stuff. So on a risk adjusted basis, I
34:26
think you know looking for a 9X return here is like a very
34:30
reasonable outcome. And 9X is solid.
34:32
What? What is that?
34:33
What? What's the timeline?
34:34
I know we're heading into speculation.
34:36
Territory that's above my pay grade, I don't know.
34:38
It depends on so many things that are outside our control.
34:42
You mentioned a strategic Bitcoin reserve a couple times.
34:45
I have no expectation that that happens.
34:48
If it does, great. That would accelerate things
34:50
dramatically. I think it makes great sense for
34:53
it to happen whether or not we get there.
34:55
I don't think it's really material to Bitcoin.
34:57
There are nation states around the world that will absolutely
35:01
do that out of necessity. US, you know, one could debate
35:05
the degree of necessity. It would be great.
35:07
It would be smart. Trump has kind of expressed that
35:10
he wants to be a leader in that. And if he did, it would be a
35:12
genius move on his part. And it would could really help
35:15
the United States from a solvency point of view.
35:18
So I hope, I hope we get there. But it's going to get adopted
35:22
and there's so little of this stuff out there.
35:24
I mean, there's six, there's 6365 million millionaires in the
35:28
world. There's not even enough Bitcoin
35:31
for every millionaire in the world to own like 1/3 of a
35:35
Bitcoin. Yeah, it's it's easy.
35:38
We're. Talking about, we're talking
35:39
about something really scarce and it doesn't take too many
35:43
individuals, companies, nation states, municipalities to adopt
35:47
it for all of a sudden they're just, I feel like there's not
35:50
not a lot to go around. Yeah.
35:51
And then and then out of those 21 million, like 4 millionaire.
35:54
Lost forever? Yeah.
35:55
Yeah. So it's it's like 17 million.
35:57
Another couple million hasn't come out yet.
35:59
Be waiting around to the year 2140.
36:01
So yeah, it's pretty scarce. Yeah, absolutely scarce.
36:06
Absolutely scarce. Absolutely.
36:07
I don't think, I don't think anything else you could say that
36:09
about. No, there, it's not just the the
36:13
scarcity is key, but also the bare aspect of it is as well.
36:17
OK, you know, you really you really need to be able to take
36:20
possession of it for to have value in for it to you know to
36:24
be something that no one and nothing can seize from you.
36:27
So in Nashville, Michael Saylor had a presentation.
36:31
So this base case by 2040, right, was 20402045.
36:37
So it's 21 years, 21 years, 21 years.
36:40
So 2020 years from yeah, 2045. OK.
36:43
His bait, his bare case was $3,000,000 per coin.
36:46
Yeah, his base case was $13 million per coin.
36:50
Yeah. And his bowl case was $49
36:53
million per coin. So.
36:56
I remember those numbers. What do you think about that?
37:01
I mean, Michael's an intelligent guy.
37:04
He put some work into the model. I think he's looking at like a
37:07
29% kegger in his base case or something.
37:11
That's bearish, isn't it? I don't really, I don't find it
37:17
constructive to like get into that.
37:20
I just look at it from a more simplistic macro point of view,
37:24
right? It's like it's very scarce.
37:27
There's a fixed amount. Everybody in the world is
37:29
starting to want this stuff. We went from being persona non
37:34
grata by the administration to in control, not just like, but
37:40
in control. And that's powerful.
37:42
And when the world sees that the US is embracing this, then you
37:46
get a lot of that game theory and you'll see other nation
37:48
States and country, you know, and companies and municipalities
37:52
clamor to get this. And it kind of starts a little
37:55
bit of of an arms race of, you know, folks around the world
37:59
trying to accumulate Bitcoin. So where the price goes, I don't
38:03
know. I do know that relative to other
38:07
investments, there's no execution risk like there is
38:10
with a company where management could screw you and miss 1/4 do
38:15
something unsavory. There's no current, there's no
38:19
nation state risk. There's none of these massive
38:22
risks that face every other type of investment, right?
38:27
Yeah, absolutely. And and one of the, and it
38:28
reminds me when you're saying this of something we were
38:30
talking about earlier, right? And that was a very interesting
38:33
right, which is the idea that the official inflation rate is
38:36
3%. Yeah, but you say it was 10%.
38:40
That's like what people are hoping they get on a yearly
38:43
basis. And if you're saying that you
38:46
know the anticipated, you're not saying this, but and Michael
38:49
Saylor's presentation, he's expecting 29% for the next 20 or
38:54
so years. It seems like Bitcoin is the
38:56
only option when you look at it that way.
38:59
And I think he actually made that case in Nashville.
39:01
There will be, there will be assets that outperform 29% in
39:07
any given year for sure, right. There'll be plenty of them.
39:11
The challenge is can you do it year after year?
39:15
And what happens the year after you outperform?
39:18
Do you outperform for two years in a row?
39:20
Do you outperform for three years in a row?
39:22
What happens in the year that you don't outperform?
39:24
Do you go bust? And you know, one thing that is
39:28
proven that investors can't really do is you can't make
39:31
those predictions. You can't.
39:32
If it was so easy to pick the top, investors would do that.
39:35
You can't pick a top so easily. So Bitcoin really eliminates a
39:38
lot of that execution risk, which is part of what makes it
39:43
unattractive to people on Wall Street, right?
39:45
It's like Wall Street is based on charging people money for
39:49
your investment advice, your continued investment advice.
39:51
If your investment advice is buy Bitcoin, how are you going to
39:56
make money on that as Wall Street, right?
39:58
Like what what's your, what's your, what are you going to tell
40:01
them next week or next year? Buy more Bitcoin.
40:04
So you know, it just it goes in the face of a lot of what's
40:08
ingrained in our society. And so I think it's great that.
40:12
There are enough naysayers still.
40:14
That's why the price is what it is and it's not 10 million a
40:17
coin right now. And if one believes that this is
40:21
going the direction it's going, then this is a gift to you that
40:25
there are as many skeptics as there are.
40:27
Because that skepticism and those people shorting it, that's
40:31
what keeps the price down and makes it so that you get to buy
40:33
more Sats for less. So one of the things that you
40:36
talked about was just Wall Street, like how are they going
40:38
to make money? Some people, I'm not saying
40:40
this, but I've heard other people say they call it rent
40:42
seek, right? What happens to Wall Street?
40:46
Because, like, you know, there's a whole industry built on
40:49
getting you a yearly return. Don't underestimate Wall Street.
40:53
Wall Street, There we go. Yeah, Wall Street is very savvy.
40:57
I mean, they will productize Bitcoin in a way that is very
41:02
lucrative for them. MicroStrategy is a great example
41:05
of, right. I mean, look what MicroStrategy
41:06
is doing. They're issuing bonds.
41:08
They're talking about doing preferred stock, they're issuing
41:10
equity. They're doing all, they're,
41:11
they're securitizing Bitcoin in a number of different ways.
41:14
They'll be Bitcoin back mortgages, bonds will be Wall
41:18
Street is extraordinarily innovative.
41:21
The good news is when they become innovative like this,
41:24
it's good for the underlying assets.
41:25
So it's good for Bitcoin, but they will have a seat at the
41:28
table. They absolutely will.
41:31
The counterculture Bitcoin, anarchist view, you know, yes,
41:37
those people will have to unfortunately get wealthy at the
41:41
hands of groups that they may find distasteful, but they're
41:45
welcome to go find other, you know, anarchist kind of
41:49
endeavours. It no longer suits their need.
41:51
But the truth is, if you want to, if you want to win a war of
41:55
money, it's one with money. And Wall Street has the money.
42:01
I love that and and it, it reminds me of a quote that I
42:04
heard, I forget who said this, but one of the things about
42:07
Bitcoin is you have to be OK with even your worst enemy using
42:12
it and you just have to be OK with it, right?
42:14
So I think Bitcoin in its early history, it kind of lived in the
42:18
shadows for a little bit. And I think since the approval
42:21
of the ETF essentially became legitimized in the eyes of
42:25
traditional finance and now with the Trump administration going
42:30
in, you no one knows, but there's a non zero chance that
42:36
it could be legitimized in the eyes of the US government in
42:39
2025. I think it's been legitimized in
42:41
the eyes of the US government. But I, I agree with your point.
42:47
You know, I think people are just going to have to get
42:52
comfortable with the fact that Bitcoin is about freedom.
42:55
And you could say exactly what you said about freedom, right?
42:58
Whether it's freedom of speech, freedom of speech is, you know,
43:01
tolerating, you know, someone saying exactly what you don't
43:04
want to hear them say. That's freedom of speech.
43:07
Bitcoin is about freedom and sovereignty.
43:10
And part of that is people bitcoining in a way that you
43:14
don't approve of. And that's what's beautiful
43:16
about it. There are no shortage of
43:18
Bitcoiners who hate the ETFs. There are no shortage of
43:21
Bitcoiners who hate, you know, a variety of other actors
43:26
participating. Anybody who doesn't self
43:28
custody, anybody uses a custodian.
43:30
Their Bitcoiners have problems with lots of things.
43:32
I don't understand that really. You know, it's like some
43:36
maximalist think if you're not all in that it's weak and you're
43:38
an idiot. You know, I think you have to
43:40
extend people the freedom to Bitcoin, whatever's right for
43:43
them, and allow for their view to evolve.
43:45
Just like, you know, all our views evolved over time.
43:49
Nobody, nobody comes to Bitcoin. Maybe nobody might be strong,
43:53
but very few, if they're being honest with themselves, really
43:56
come to Bitcoin and say this is it.
43:58
I'm all. Yeah, yeah, no.
44:00
And, and the I think the free speech it it, it's so spot on
44:02
because free speech, you could say I, you know, we live in the
44:06
USII really appreciate it. I understand why the founders
44:09
did what they did. And you you can make a very
44:13
strong argument that it's imperfect, but what is the
44:16
alternative? Right, The alternative is worse.
44:18
And that's Bitcoin, right? It's, you know, people are going
44:21
to use it in ways that you don't approve of.
44:23
Just be happy they're using it, whether they're your enemies or,
44:26
you know, do you want your enemies using something else at
44:28
the expense of what you love being successful?
44:31
Like when your enemies use Bitcoin, they're making Bitcoin
44:34
more successful. So like they're helping you?
44:37
It's aligned incentives that that's the part to me that's
44:40
really fascinating. And with Fiat, you can make a
44:43
very strong argument that it's misaligned incentives.
44:46
What I love about Bitcoin, it's aligned incentives.
44:48
My incentives are aligned with everybody else who's holding
44:51
Bitcoin, supporting the network, mining, running nodes.
44:54
If you're huddling, we're all in the same boat.
44:58
And more people join the boat. The boat gets bigger, the
45:00
network gets stronger, right? And it kind of becomes a self
45:03
fulfilling prophecy. There's human nature.
45:05
I mean, not all humans are inherently good, right?
45:08
And just because your asset's good doesn't mean there aren't
45:12
humans that are going to use your good asset for bad things.
45:16
Yeah. So Eric, 2013 right now we're
45:20
2025. Time is flying.
45:23
What are you the most excited about for the next 5 years?
45:28
I'm really excited to see what this administration does.
45:32
I think that, you know, the time is now.
45:35
We have the momentum. The administration is currently
45:39
on our side. If we know anything about
45:41
politics, we know that there's no guarantee that current views
45:45
last forever. So I hope we make a tremendous
45:49
amount of progress in the very short term while we have the
45:53
wind at our back. Absolutely.
45:55
And what can people do, right. So, you know, and you were
45:59
talking about this earlier, right?
46:00
Where I remember this, this phenomenon, like most of the
46:05
community, most of the industry was apolitical.
46:08
We, we didn't, we didn't, we were, we didn't, we, we were not
46:10
concerned, right? Things start happening.
46:14
And it's almost as if we were forced to like throw our hat in
46:17
the ring. But I think it's still kind of
46:20
in, I think what I learned specifically is that politics do
46:25
matter. Elections do matter.
46:27
Elections do have consequences, especially where we are in
46:31
Bitcoin's history, and I think this incoming administration is
46:34
going to do that. So what can individuals do to
46:37
kind of contribute? Like, is it do they get vocal?
46:40
Do they speak up on Twitter? It's a great question.
46:44
I mean I agree with you that bitcoiners were fairly
46:49
apolitical. If anything, they were maybe
46:51
anti political and but then you know, nothing makes you nothing
46:57
polarizes you like someone identifying you as an enemy,
47:02
right? And it was the administration
47:04
vilifying us that polarized us. It made us think, you know what?
47:11
I don't like being debanked. I was debanked right?
47:14
My my friend was. Debanked.
47:15
I didn't know that. Yeah, I was the first crypto
47:19
related account that Signature Bank in 2017.
47:23
And it was because your association with the industry.
47:26
Yeah, it was in the title of the account that I had with them,
47:29
you know, Bitcoin Investment Group and, you know, Signature
47:35
Bank was forced to close even though they were not at all
47:38
insolvent, according to Barney Frank, who was on the board,
47:42
who, you know, was the author of Dodd Frank, right.
47:45
And a Democrat, I might add. And Signature Bank was forced to
47:49
close over a weekend. It was a public company, by the
47:52
way. And so everybody's account who
47:55
was not a crypto account got purchased by transferred to
47:59
another bank and everybody who is a crypto account, you were
48:02
told by you have until such and such date to take your capital
48:08
out that that happened to me. That's crazy.
48:11
And but that was 2017. That was.
48:14
No, that's when I that's when I created the account in 2017.
48:17
At the time Signature Bank became a very big bank and it
48:23
was like 100 plus billion dollar bank with 20 billion of crypto
48:28
related accounts. It was primarily a New York real
48:30
estate bank, really good bank. And then this was what was this
48:35
2023 probably. OK, do you do you do you think
48:40
that this because right now the way that I I just kind of see
48:42
the political atmosphere. The Republicans made it part of
48:45
their official party platform, right.
48:47
The protect the right to self custody, protect the industry,
48:50
protect the right to mine. It almost seems like the, and
48:55
again, it's not, it's not black and white, but it almost seems
48:58
like the Democratic Party has taken a more hostile stance.
49:01
Do you think that they'll change course after this election?
49:04
You can make a very strong argument that being anti crypto
49:08
or perceived as anti crypto might have cost them the
49:11
election. You know, I want to be careful
49:14
of pigeonholing an entire political party.
49:19
If you look at kind of this woke mind virus, you know, that has
49:25
is going away, you're seeing a lot of people on the Democrat
49:29
side saying, you know, yeah, I never really agreed with that
49:32
anyway. So I want to make sure that we
49:35
leave room for Democrats whose party was doing things or the
49:40
administration was doing things or a handful of high profile
49:43
individuals within the party who took a view that that doesn't
49:46
necessarily reflect the view of those individuals.
49:49
So, you know, you look at what happened with Saab 121, right?
49:52
The Democrats did vote in favor of banks being able to custody
49:57
crypto and digital assets. So I think that as education
50:02
goes up and there's more understanding of the benefits of
50:05
Bitcoin and digital assets that we're going to see Democrats
50:09
embrace it, if only because they're politicians and they're
50:13
pragmatic. And at the end of the day,
50:14
politicians care about getting elected or re elected.
50:18
There's no votes for being against crypto, there's no votes
50:21
for being against Bitcoin. There are millions of votes for
50:24
being for it. Absolutely.
50:25
And, and I strongly agree with you.
50:27
I, I, I don't, I do not think that this should be a partisan
50:30
issue. I think Bitcoin is extremely
50:33
bipartisan. It doesn't matter who you are,
50:35
Bitcoin will help you. And I hope, you know, I hope it
50:40
goes towards that direction. I hope that it does.
50:42
I think it will. I think it will.
50:44
It'll take, you know, Bitcoin always takes, always takes a
50:48
painful path when it almost everything it does.
50:52
But we'll get there, you know, we will.
50:54
I mean, there's real merits to it, and people on both sides of
50:59
the aisle will ultimately see the merit.
51:02
Absolutely. Well, Eric, my first in person
51:05
interview, this is an absolute honor.
51:06
Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.