Latest / Bitcoin for Financial Services Podcast / Bitcoin 2026 Recap, Stretch Breakdown & The Family Office Launch

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Bitcoin 2026 Recap, Stretch Breakdown & The Family Office Launch · Bitcoin for Financial Services Podcast

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But at the same time, speak to our role specifically, we need to have some hubris and understand
0:06
that we're not going to hyper-Bitcoinization without the finance industry.
0:09
We need these tools, products, and strategies to get dollars into Bitcoin.
0:14
I was extremely encouraged to see a lot of the folks at the conference that are interested
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in doing that.
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Do they wear a sport coat?
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Yes.
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Do they respect themselves?
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Yes.
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Do they take their work seriously?
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Yes.
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And that's something we should not be scared of.
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Bitcoin is a currency on the internet.
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If you don't trust any other currency, this is where you go.
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It's going to outperform everything.
0:35
Bitcoin can eventually be worthless.
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Every day is a good day to buy Bitcoin.
0:39
Bitcoin reached its highest price to date.
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Bitcoin hitting a new high.
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It really has reached escape velocity.
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There is no second best.
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Who cares about Bitcoin?
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It's the only secure database that's ever been invented.
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Antisocial.
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Bitcoin is the real deal.
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Stupid.
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Everything is bullish for Bitcoin.
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Immoral.
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It's going up forever, Lauren.
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fix the money, fix the world.
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future performance. Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice.
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All right. Welcome back to another episode of the Bitcoin for Financial Services podcast.
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I'm joined today by my co-host Wyatt O'Rourke. And man, we were supposed to have Sailor on.
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and I don't know what's going on with Mr. Sailor,
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but, you know, talked to him in Vegas,
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and I guess he got busy.
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So we'll have to have him back on.
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Time that works better for him.
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Yeah, yeah, it's a shame.
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His PJ must have got, like, grounded or something
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to get back to the recording studio.
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He texted me that he got delayed a little bit
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So because the fuel cost for the PJ is a little bit higher and there's some mishaps and he's pissed.
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So but we'll have him back on.
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So but today we just you know, just the two of us.
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And of course, we're not joking about sailor.
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They're totally serious.
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So what?
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Why today is Friday, May 1st.
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Happy May.
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You're flying by.
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we just touched down in our own airplanes that we paid for paid tickets to fly on I don't know
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you got back yesterday I think I also got back yesterday so how are you feeling three four days
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in Vegas feeling good um wouldn't be the first word I would describe um yeah I I'm feeling great
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I'm really, really tired, but it was a phenomenal conference.
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You know what?
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I tweeted about this before.
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It was fun to do a solo episode.
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I'm happy we were doing this.
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We haven't done a solo episode since our first one,
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and it'll be good just for us to go back and forth.
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But we really kind of want to focus on the conference.
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Our experience is a lot of fun on Twitter,
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but I guess a kind of preference.
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I tweeted about this before, but I like conferences.
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Like people always crap on conferences and I don't know, maybe they're, they're doing conferences poorly and I excel at them, but I always feel like I walk away with, you know, great takeaways.
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this conference specifically I actually don't sit on too many of the talks like if a friend is
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is talking I generally try to like to attend to support them but all the talks are you recorded
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and there's you know I think there were 20,000 people there this year and so it's just such a
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great opportunity to you know meet people that I've known for a while but have only talked to
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online you know there's a case for me and a couple clients you know we got to meet in person
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for the first time, which was awesome.
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Do some networking, some business development.
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It's a great opportunity to talk to partners
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and touch base, different other professional service providers
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we utilize or have relationships with.
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It's always good to show face.
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And then I think specifically the Bitcoin conference itself
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is the best opportunity to just see as many people
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in the industry as possible in one place.
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So, you know, people I don't do business with or maybe never will, but we're still, you know, friends or just work in different parts of the industry.
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It's always great to say, hey, check in on them, how they're doing.
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And that's how I think you really learn the most of what's really going on in the industry and best way to kind of keep tabs on it.
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Yeah.
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I mean, the in real life stuff is just so important.
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And, yeah, this year I know we spoke about it a little bit.
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some point I don't know if it was on on a stage or just over dinner but there was so much FUD this
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year about the conference in general uh I genuinely just don't understand that I mean you gotta you
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know you kind of gotta play that the hand you're dealt as a Bitcoiner and not everything is going
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to be perfect you know and so you might have your complaints with uh with Mr. Bailey but um yeah we
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We were, I was very, you know, just happy about the conference and thought it went really well.
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And to your point, got to meet a lot of people, got to see a lot of people that we already work with.
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And I know that I didn't, well, I thought you might rub it in right there.
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But, you know, we were keeping tabs on how many opportunities each of us got up on stage.
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I'm going to have to talk to Brandon and David because they got you up on stage twice as many times as I was up on stage.
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So we'll work on that.
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But what give everyone real quick to run down.
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What were you talking about up on stage?
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And also go ahead and talk through the event that we put on in the Venetian as a as an official side event on Tuesday.
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Dude, you just keep working hard.
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Keep grinding.
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You'll you'll get on stage more.
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Don't worry.
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I need to work more.
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My wife's going to love to hear that.
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Yeah, well, I even told her that.
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It's like, Jordan's not working hard enough.
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Let him be.
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Yeah, I was on two panels.
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Very fortunate and excited to be.
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So, you know, one was on Bitcoin backed lending and scaling operations.
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So this is very pertinent to the work I'm doing over at PAX with the credit fund.
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You know, know those guys I was on panel with very well, familiar with their business models.
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And what's, I think the biggest takeaway there, you know, debt markets are just kind of core infrastructure of financial markets.
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You know, like price risk, they move capital, they scale economic activity.
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And we're really kind of starting to see the phase one of that being pretty well solidified in the Bitcoin ecosystem, which is great.
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You know, SALT, for example, Hunter, their chief revenue officer was on the panel.
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They've been around since 2016.
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been operating for 10 years you know this isn't exactly like a new thing um and so it's just really
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exciting understanding we've gotten to the point where that that industry is pretty well established
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and now we were having conversations about how that that industry grows and and how we deepen
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bitcoin capital markets like salt specifically they have some really neat insurance products
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like you can purchase on top of your loans to prevent you know liquidations and those are kind
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of like pseudo insurance products and you can you can price those and then we can assess better
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assess the risk of Bitcoin with additional information and products like that which is cool
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Arch Lending was also on the panel they have moved pretty heavily into the kind of institutional
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you know borrower space and they've developed a collar loan specifically for you know their
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products so you're actually buying like derivative products to hedge against you know any you know
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price movements of bitcoin like up or down so that was pretty pretty neat to see and talk about
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um then the other panel was um inheritance and wealth building within bitcoin that's obviously
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you know what i do with your basilic on a on a day-to-day basis we had jeff andrew
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and Zach Townsend and Jake Calivar.
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They all work in the industry.
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Jeff's at Unchained, Zach's at Meanwhile,
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and Jake's at Digital Family Office Group
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and just really great folks.
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Jeff does a lot of work on the gain of trust side of things,
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so he was taking it down,
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like the importance of different legal structures
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and how it can help protect your stack,
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how it can really be beneficial to your heirs
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or whatever charity or cause that is close to your heart.
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And I think he's so level-headed and a former lawyer,
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so he's pretty straight to the point.
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But I think it's a good message for Bitcoiners to hear in general
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because they can get kind of antagonistic towards different legal structures.
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I'm certainly sympathetic to that
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and understanding where Bitcoiners are coming from there.
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But I think Matt McClintock, our mutual friend, does a great job explaining.
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It's like, look, these are the cards we've been dealt.
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If we operate within this legal system, let's use it to the best of our capabilities, use
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it to our advantage.
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And Jeff is of a similar mind to that.
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So that was just really good insight for the audience.
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And then Zach, meanwhile, we had Danny Barrett, their head of asset management.
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And audiences are already very familiar with that product.
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I personally love that product and applaud them for what they've done within the Bitcoin
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financial services industry, you know, fully denominated. Their whole company is fully
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denominated in Bitcoin. Their investment products are denominated in Bitcoin. That instrument itself
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has some really cool attributes when it comes to inheritance and earning true Bitcoin denominated
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yield. So it's always fun to talk with Zach. And then, you know, Jake's done a lot of work with,
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you know, high net worth individuals, specifically in the digital asset space. So he's seen a lot of
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what those folks need, what they want, how they can better serve them.
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And so two great panels.
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And then lastly, we saved the best for last, of course, the star of the show,
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star of the conference I heard people say was the De Minimis tax event
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that we hosted for Bitcoin for Financial Services Media.
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We've been doing a lot more side events, which is great.
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One of the things we tried to be very intentional about the start of the year
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was while we love our summit, the summit's like the main thing,
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we want to give our community our partners like more exposure more access like throughout the year And we held a side event in Austin at Bitcoin Takeover We be having a few more side events coming up at the Midwest Bitcoin Summit
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And then either Imagine If or Treasury in Custody Summit in Nashville, depending on how the dates for those work out.
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But our one at the Bitcoin Conference here, this is by far, I think, the biggest side event.
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You know, we've hosted phenomenal partners. We were working with Bitcoin Inc., Bitcoin Policy Institute, Block, Bitcoin Well, Falcon, Rampaport and Berkman, TFTC. And they really helped us throw amazing event. I think we had 75, 80 people in the room and it was a very intimate setting.
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you know setting david zell president bpi janessa lopez head of policy at block
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uh they had pretty much an hour to lay out where we're sitting with diminutist tax legislation
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these are people you know are in dc talking to actual legislators and i was just really excited
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that there were there were a lot of great questions that that setting gave the people
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the opportunity to ask them you have good questions and it's not like you're getting
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drowned out in a massive expo hall.
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So really, really stoked with how that turned out.
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And, you know, just a huge shout out to and thank you to Marty and the TFTC team for streaming
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that as well.
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So folks that weren't in attendance could also participate and learn.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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And that stream is available as well.
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I know we're pushing out a subsec article on our side on Monday morning to all of our
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clients to make sure that they can catch that.
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But if you want to go back and watch the video stream, it's TFTC.
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It's just on their YouTube channel and on their X feed.
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And my biggest takeaway from that event that I think even took David and Janessa back a little bit
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was when David asked the question, raise your hand if you've ever transacted in Bitcoin.
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And he kind of went down and was like, all right, what about if you've done it in the last month or so
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and a bunch of the hands still stayed up?
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And then even he asked the question, it was 10 a.m. in the morning.
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Raise your hand if you've transacted in Bitcoin today.
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And there were still like six or seven hands that were up, which I was like, huh, that's crazy.
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I mean, I don't know if they're just lying or if that's true, but that's cool.
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And then they also asked the question, raise your hand if you run a business that accepts Bitcoin as payment for your goods or services.
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And a ton of hands went up.
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and I just remember them being like you can see it in the video they're like wow we need to take
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this to the different legislators and and show that real Americans are using Bitcoin either to
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pay for services or goods or or to receive goods or service you know pay for those goods or services
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and um that was a just a surprise for me um and then I think another big thing that like the
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The question I asked Janessa specifically was about any ways we can try to continue down the path to make sure that Bitcoin is looked at as a, you know, something like the Internet or email or like a more of a public utility where it's not, you know, of course, it's not viewed as a partisan type of topic, which is easier said than done.
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And we still have quite a bit of work to do on that front.
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and but I think that's going to be important because they they did bring a sobering a little
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bit of a sobering reality of look we've got to get their market structure then we can get to
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crypto tax the odds that we get there before the midterms are you know that's a tough thing and so
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that just means well you've got to make sure that it's a bipartisan bill assuming that the democrats
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take uh take back the house maybe even take back the senate in november so I was very excited because
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obviously that's not the world we live in. We don't, you know, we aren't in the swamp, um,
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really ever. Right. But, um, whether Bitcoiners like it or not, you do have to interact with the,
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with the lizard people from time to time and, and see if we can get some legislation passed that,
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that moves the ball forward. Cause ultimately people are not going like the mainstream,
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you know single mom or or someone who runs a shop in chicago and they're not really a bitcoiner but
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they would love to see their credit card processing um bill go down on an annual basis
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that you know they'd love to use bitcoin but if it's going to come with all this additional
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reporting and potentially put a target on their back um from the tax standpoint they're just going
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to be much less likely to use the technology versus, hey, you can stay in compliance.
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Your accountant doesn't have to go read the Bitcoin standard.
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It just works and it's easy.
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And so we really need that.
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And then my one panel that I was able to sit on was actually about 1099DA reporting.
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And so kind of in a similar vein, if anyone's selling Bitcoin, what does that look like on
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the forms that went out this this past tax season and what's going to be different in 2027 for the
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26 forms you know right now they're just reporting proceeds no cost basis it's a complete mess to say
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it mildly so we discussed that up on the enterprise stage for about 30 minutes um and so so all that
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to say there's still a lot of work to be done um it was kind of funny there was i i walked away
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it didn't feel like there was as many plebs there this year.
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And there was actually a lot more folks that are running in our circles
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in the Bitcoin for Financial Services space.
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I got stopped by several different advisors, actually, the day after
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that either came to our De Minimis event or sat in on my panel and just said,
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hey, I work at Charles Schwab or I'm from Fidelity or I'm from KPMG.
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and we've spun up a digital asset department
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and we're here trying to learn and meet people
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and all that kind of stuff,
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which again, people might say,
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oh, Bitcoin's bending the knee.
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But at the end of the day,
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most Americans are making their financial decisions
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based off of those advisors,
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be it on Wyatt's side or on my side on the tax.
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And if you can't win the hearts and minds
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of those professionals,
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then it's going to be very tough to rely on people to swim upstream and really be adamant with their advisor.
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No, I am going to sell this bond portfolio allocation and I am going to withdraw it to cash.
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And then I am going to push it through Bitcoin well and hold my own keys.
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You know, even just getting to the point where the advisor says, yeah, we're going to allocate 2%, 5% to Ibit.
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That's just a step in the right direction.
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and then you have to hope that the education that folks like wide and i and everyone else in this
19:27
space are putting out are you know allowing that trojan horse to kind of do its thing
19:32
and they're like oh wow so what is this bitcoin thing let me go watch some videos oh i see so me
19:37
holding ibit it's not real bitcoin it it's synthetic i need to i need to get my hands on
19:43
real bitcoin how do i do that and um so i was really bullish i think um i'm hopeful that the
19:50
that the overall Bitcoin community can in some ways mature a little bit and kind of just come
19:59
be a little bit more pragmatic that the whole world of like oh we're gonna you know shut down
20:06
the Fed and everyone's gonna be doing peer-to-peer money and there's not gonna be any synthetics any
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derivatives built on top of Bitcoin we're gonna tear down all these financial institutions I just
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think that's kind of pie in the sky and you should just be a bit more realistic to say
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we want more families that are able to use this technology so so like what is the most realistic
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path to get there totally well and i think it's a great point i'm happy you brought it up because
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that is something that has you know irked me for a while and you know i say it a lot but it's worth
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repeating. I think as Bitcoiners, you know, something we talk a lot about too is, you know,
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building whatever you're doing within the principles, values, and ethos of Bitcoin.
20:54
You know, we open and close every show with it. And that is really meant to pay homage to the
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cypherpunks and people that came before us in Bitcoin. Like we definitely don't want to
21:04
be dismissive of everything they've done for us. But at the same time, you know, speak to,
21:10
our role specifically, we need to have some hubris and understand that we're not going to
21:14
hyper-Bitcoinization without the finance industry. We need these tools, products,
21:18
and strategies to get dollars into Bitcoin. I was extremely encouraged to see a lot of the folks
21:24
at the conference that are interested in doing that. Do they wear a sport coat? Yes. Do they
21:28
respect themselves? Yes. Do they take their work seriously? Yes. And that's something we should
21:34
not be scared of. You should talk about that because we've talked about that.
21:40
Anytime I've like showed up to an airport to fly to Denver and I'm wearing like sweatpants, you always scold me.
21:47
So maybe talk through, maybe speak to the plebs, speak to maybe just the broad community about what is the,
21:56
we're dressed down a little bit today, but we were dressed up most of the time at the conference.
22:00
What does that, what does it mean to you, Wyatt, to how you present yourself anywhere?
22:05
it would totally no it means a lot and some of this has to do with bitcoin some of it doesn't but
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you know i have two gripes with the bitcoin industry it's like one they make bitcoin an idol
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and then two they dress awfully and both can easily be addressed um you know bitcoin idol is
22:27
like pick up the bible and go to church i will not answer that much better than i can dressing
22:32
off late i talked about this in one of my interviews where bitcoin is a noble cause it's
22:39
a noble endeavor it was a noble project like the utmost respect for you know satoshi whoever he is
22:47
like wow what an outstanding guy and obviously don't know him personally but you can tell
22:53
he's a noble person just given the design of bitcoin like the game theories and the incentives
22:58
are brilliant. And if we are really a good steward of a noble invention, we should act
23:07
nobly. And, you know, this is something where I think, you know, Bitcoiners really miss,
23:12
like a lot of the times, like how you present yourself is important. And it's like, are you
23:16
living up to that standard? Are you representing yourself and your family, you know, in a
23:21
conscious way, you know, do I elevate the people around me with my actions and my intentions and
23:29
dress how you dress is like one of the easiest and simplest ways to do that. And that doesn't mean
23:35
like, you know, if you're wearing a hoodie, you should be looked down upon. But by elevating
23:42
your dress, you're adding more professionalism, you're signaling to people like this is
23:47
something I care about. I care about, you know, myself, I take myself seriously. And it's like,
23:53
Bitcoin should be taken extremely seriously. And so there's a lot of, you know, different
24:00
rabbit holes I could go down with that. But I think that's like the big takeaway is like,
24:04
let have some respect for not only ourselves but Bitcoin itself and the work we doing And if we do that it will be translated into you know all of our work and on all of the causes we care about
24:18
So just to be clear, are you specifically calling out people
24:21
who did not wear a tie to the black tie gala?
24:27
What do you want to get at here?
24:29
Do you want to throw me under the bus?
24:32
I didn't wear a tie, okay.
24:34
okay yeah i couldn't remember who you know who was wearing a tie who wasn't but i just you know
24:41
i did want to set you up for that and it was the first time jordan's ever stunted on me with uh
24:47
the dress and he he looked really sharp look well did i wear the tuxedo well oh without a doubt
24:53
you i saw you and i just got like immediately envious and i was like i hate it when this happens
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25:31
well at least it's never happened before probably will never happen again so um yeah so okay let's
25:40
talk through what we see well i have a question for you can i ask you a question what was it like
25:46
having a booth and working the expo hall the booth was so the booth was busy i i really enjoyed
25:56
uh monday monday was the you know you kind of had to have the the pro pass to make it into the uh
26:03
expo hall so got to see a lot of just partners a lot of familiar faces um you know you open it up
26:12
to the general admission and it's just there were a lot more people there on Tuesday Wednesday
26:17
but you just kind of you never really know what you're going to get when they're when folks are
26:22
walking up and so it was it was definitely really good to make sure we had our name out there
26:28
for you and I specifically it was great to be able to push de minimis by having the flyers at
26:35
our booth, having the flyers at the Square booth. And then also, you know, I don't think we know if
26:42
we've ever even really talked about it publicly, but we have been in the background building out
26:47
the Bitcoin or Family Office initiative. And so we got to speak to people about that. And man,
26:53
there was a ton of interest in that service offering just because people want to work with
27:00
professionals who understand Bitcoin at, you know, from a technical level to a degree, right? Of
27:07
course, like we don't know the ins and outs of like ZK roll-ups and all the, you know, code-based
27:11
stuff, but understand Bitcoin at a core level of, okay, you've listened to a thousand hours, at
27:18
least of Bitcoin podcast. You're well-versed in all the different pieces. But they also want to
27:25
work with someone who has you know just that baseline okay we think about the world the same
27:31
right from for the most part of course bitcoin does have a ton of diversity and it's not it's
27:37
not everyone is just thinking the exact same way which is one of the most beautiful things about
27:42
bitcoin and one if you go on twitter you see a lot of infighting uh just because people have very
27:48
strong views. But when you meet a Bitcoiner from any country, right, maybe they speak their language,
27:55
maybe they don't, but you know, at the core that they believe in Austrian economics, you know,
28:01
they probably have a bent towards strong personal responsibility. They hold themselves and their
28:06
families to a very high standard. And a lot of that is, you know, if you just go out into the
28:12
world that's lost on a lot of people, sadly. And so, yeah, we got a lot of folks who came up and
28:18
said, you know, my CPA doesn't understand Bitcoin, scoffs at it, things that you and I hear all the
28:24
time. I want to, you know, at least have a call and see if it might make sense for us to work
28:28
together on the tax side. And then you start talking a little bit more and they're like,
28:33
yes, I want to, I want to allocate more, more of my portfolio into Bitcoin or more of my income
28:39
into Bitcoin. Maybe I do that through mining, through abundant mines. Maybe I go and talk with
28:44
Riley or Chantel over Bitcoin well, or I want to build a trust or I want to have my financial
28:52
planner actually understand this asset, help me set up the custody, things like what you do, Wyatt.
28:58
And so got a lot of just good feedback on the family office specifically. And I know one of
29:06
the main reasons we've spun that up you already mentioned mr mclintock you know matt only works
29:11
with folks who are 50 million net worth or more and so we think that there's quite a gap um from
29:20
the call it five million dollar net worth all the way up to the 50 million dollar net worth
29:24
where their professionals are not speaking to each other as often as the client wouldn't would like
29:29
and um and there's just these different silos maybe one's a bitcoin or the other several are
29:35
not Bitcoiners. And so we're just trying to make, you know, create the easy button where
29:40
you can have all of your things, whether it's estate planning, financial planning, tax planning,
29:46
all of it done by practitioners who believe in Bitcoin and all that are all well connected.
29:53
It's not a referral network. It is, hey, you speak to Wyatt, you sign a, you know,
29:58
a data sharing agreement. Okay. Now the information you shared with Wyatt,
30:02
you don't have to tell the the other two practitioners call it the tax and the attorney
30:06
side uh the same story right um they go into all the different calls being able to know
30:13
okay they last spoke about wanting to set up a solo 401k for their small business all right let's
30:20
talk through what that would look like if we put x amount of dollars or if we maxed it out
30:26
what would that do on the tax side for you know this given tax year and so
30:30
So, yeah, the conference, there was a lot of good interest in that.
30:33
We've already seen some interest even before the conference and the family office set up.
30:38
And so I was very bullish.
30:42
Of course, on the Bitman side, you know, one of the things that I spoke about on stage is the cost basis schedules.
30:50
It's one of those.
30:51
It's kind of a bit of a dark horse because nobody wants to think about it.
30:54
They're like, it's so confusing.
30:56
I've been in Bitcoin since 2017 and my stuff is so scattered.
31:00
I don't even know if I could find all the data that I would need to build a full cost basis schedule.
31:06
But there is just this pure forcing mechanism now of these 1099 DA forms are going out.
31:13
And that means that there's not a question of whether or not you should report it, will report it.
31:22
It's like it is reported.
31:23
it's reported to the government by the exchange that you transacted on and so now you're going to
31:31
have to have a cost basis associated with that either the exchange can provide that you can
31:36
provide that and so we're having to you know help clients make sure that they're set up well
31:41
to to have that in place whether they need to sell bitcoin to cover operating expenses for
31:47
their business they want to donate it to you know something that why it might set up for you
31:53
or they want to take a loan against it down the road.
31:56
They want to gift it to their church.
31:58
They want to pass it on to their heirs.
32:02
You need to know cost basis in order to correctly report all those transactions
32:07
and also know, all right, I'm selling this because I bought it last year
32:12
and the cost basis is pretty close to the proceeds maybe.
32:15
All right, so very small gain versus, all right, I'm going to donate these lots
32:20
because if I sold that, it would be a huge tax hit and I don't want to do that.
32:25
So yeah, we got some good interest on the cost basis tax reporting stuff as well.
32:32
Bitcoin mining is still a very hot topic,
32:35
especially for folks who are earning $300,000, $400,000, $500,000 a year on a W-2 or more
32:41
and looking to allocate to Bitcoin but also get some tax offsets.
32:46
All right, I'm going to throw it back to you now.
32:47
So last year, I feel like it was stable coins, right?
32:51
There were all these memes, right?
32:52
Of all these people just saying the word stable coins over and over again.
32:56
This year, I forgot about that.
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33:07
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33:37
right i feel like the whole the whole thing this year was 11.5 you know yield on stretch
33:46
give us your since sailor didn't end up showing up give us your your uh your unfettered um view
33:54
on stretch and what are the pros what are the cons of that product what are the real risks of
34:02
someone allocating a big portion of their portfolio since i mean he was up there he was
34:08
preaching the gospel i was in the whale room once he came over and did a q a um i think a lot of
34:13
people are scared to ask sailor some hard questions sometimes because i think remember we were both in
34:19
new york and someone asked him a question they did a little q a with him and he ripped that guy to
34:23
shreds i don't know if you remember that no i do it's a scary thing to stand up and ask mr sailor
34:30
a question and especially one that might be a little bit, you know, I don't know what
34:36
the word is like, hey, I'm trying to call you out on this specific risk, but I'm curious
34:39
to get your thoughts because I know you have strong thoughts about stretch.
34:43
And since it was such a big topic this year, we should probably discuss it a little bit.
34:49
Yeah, certainly.
34:50
And before I do your point about the family office group, we were really excited to kind
34:57
of, you know, soft launch out at the conference.
34:59
That's something we've been putting quite a bit of work in over the last three, four, five, six months, like whatever it's been here.
35:09
I think to your point, what we're really trying to do is like eliminate this pit in client's stomach, just hoping and praying that specifically when it comes to Bitcoin, that my financial plan works with my tax planning strategies, my state plan.
35:26
And we want to remove that.
35:29
And to Jordan's point, all Bitcoin native, all communicating with each other.
35:32
I'm really stoked with the partners we have on board with that.
35:36
You know, I'm handling the financial planning, wealth management.
35:38
You're handling the tax side of things.
35:42
You know, Falcon, Rappaport and Berkman handling the estate planning, asset protection, legal side of things.
35:47
You have Bitcoin Well and their infinite programs.
35:49
So it's simply for, you know, OTC purchases of, you know, very large amounts of the clientele we're catering to.
35:55
and then abundant mines on the hosted mining side
35:58
to take advantage of some of the tax benefits
36:02
that that strategy allows.
36:03
And so I'm really excited about that.
36:06
I think that's going to be a great initiative
36:08
in the broader market.
36:10
But specifically to your point about strategy quite a bit of conversation on that I not a fan of stable coins The stable coin stuff kind of irked me a little bit last year because it like that annoying I obviously biased just being in your finance
36:26
I think this stuff is cool and very exciting for the industry.
36:29
People maybe disagree with me on that.
36:32
But Stretch specifically, like if we break it down
36:34
and we had a great conversation with Jeff Walton the other day.
36:37
He's at Strive.
36:39
They have a similar product.
36:40
But Saylor's game is essentially, can I continuously raise dollars to deploy that capital into Bitcoin and grow my balance sheet?
36:53
And so he has like multiple different levers he can pull at any given time.
36:59
And so Stretch is going gangbusters right now.
37:02
I think they've done a few hundred billion since the start of the year.
37:07
And so they're selling preferred equity.
37:10
they get those dollars in, they buy more Bitcoin. What people get hung up on or have a concern is
37:17
they obviously have a very high dividend rate. I think it started at nine when they released it in
37:23
like July or August of last year, and it's up to 11.5%. It's up to them to determine what the
37:30
interest rate is going to be any given month. But the more shares they sell, they have a higher
37:36
dividend liability and they don't have a, you know, technically they have a, you know,
37:42
data analytics and AI software company that nobody's actually aware of. It generates very
37:50
small amounts of revenue. So it's not even take that into consideration that the operating
37:54
business is able to pay, you know, the dividend liability. So it's like, well, how do you pay
37:59
the dividend liability? Well, you have to raise capital a different way. And I think this is most
38:06
commonly done through the common shares and so they issue you know more common stock of mstr
38:13
specifically and you as a common shareholder get diluted when that happens because there's
38:17
more stocks in circulation the way this actually works is you're likely to come out ahead
38:26
on a bitcoin per share basis because they took all the proceeds they raised from stretch and
38:32
bought Bitcoin with it. So, you know, people say, it's like, well, that's a Ponzi scheme.
38:38
You're paying off old investors with new investors' money. I don't think so because they're ultimately
38:45
purchasing Bitcoin. You know, it's like they have $815,000, or excuse me, 815,000 Bitcoin
38:52
on their balance sheet. It's not like they're not doing anything with their money. Like they're
38:57
acquiring you know an asset that they can utilize to benefit their their
39:08
shareholders or you know deploying different different strategies and so
39:11
that's really kind of high level you know how it works it is still fair you
39:16
know fairly new product even Pierre Richard at you know our summit last year
39:19
was like these are experiments you know like these are new and old instruments
39:26
in the marketplace. Obviously, Saylor didn't come up with a preferred stock, but deploying a preferred
39:30
stock in this way, I think, is fairly novel. And so we'll see how this all plays out. Like anything,
39:37
do your homework, size your position correctly, understand the potential risks involved. And
39:43
once you have those three things mainly, you're able to make an informed economic decision. So
39:49
I think it's exciting. I think this is a good step in the Bitcoinization of finance.
39:59
Yeah. Yeah, no, it's very, I mean, it's a little over my head, but it's definitely very interesting.
40:05
It was kind of the, there's like this breakdown, right? Even in the conference between like more
40:13
the freedom tech folks right who are like i'm i'm here to you know push things like nostr push things
40:19
like peer-to-peer stuff with bitcoin um and then there's kind of like the micro strategy
40:26
uh sect right that's like a very different type of uh attendee and so and obviously our brand really
40:35
tries to cater actually to both of those uh simultaneously because i think that there's
40:40
there's really good value for either one. And you talk to most MSTR holders or stretch holders,
40:46
they do have a chunk of Bitcoin that they hold in cold storage, self-custody or with the collaborative
40:52
custody model. And then they're trying to go out the risk curve a little bit, which, you know,
40:58
to each their own, right? I feel like Bitcoin, I know it's not risky if we think about in Bitcoin
41:04
terms but in dollar terms it is quite volatile and so it is uh it's just one of those things that's
41:10
that was kind of an interesting uh way to see the conference and um and we'll see where it goes from
41:16
here i mean i've got all their i've got the strategy dashboard actually pulled up right here
41:22
and you know their debt i think is still yeah i mean their debt really has not moved um in quite
41:29
some time like i'm showing their nominal uh debt is still at 8.2 billion and they're uh and the
41:36
balance sheet is still showing um you know like you said where they've got the 800 something thousand
41:42
bitcoin at 78 000 and it's back and mstr is back over and over one mnav so so let's say i mean it
41:52
I think it all fits together in a balanced Bitcoin, still heavily exposed portfolio.
42:01
And we'll kind of see.
42:02
I mean, I think the thing on the tax side that I've always found interesting on Stretch is that they've structured the dividends to come back to you as a return of capital.
42:13
And so you're not having to pay taxes on that income, which is very interesting as well.
42:21
when you put it up against regular, I guess, other dividend type of products
42:26
or other interest-bearing income products.
42:29
So, yeah, we'll see where it goes.
42:32
All right, I know we're going to try to keep it fairly short today
42:36
and just kind of give a broad overview of what we learned at the conference,
42:41
what we got to see, but any final thoughts to leave the audience with?
42:45
Yeah, I think, you know, Jack Mauler's announced 21 was buying Strike.
42:52
I thought that was the most obvious thing ever.
42:55
But I think that's ultimately cool and good for the industry.
42:58
They're doing great work.
42:59
And we have another example of, you know, I would say awesome, you know, Bitcoin financial
43:06
services company going in public, which is great.
43:11
I think that's healthy for ecosystem at large.
43:13
I think that's healthy for public markets.
43:16
So I think that's cool.
43:20
Brandon Green talked about this the other day,
43:23
but bear markets are for building.
43:26
I think there were still 20,000 people there
43:30
as opposed to like 30,000 last year.
43:32
So it's like, okay, 10,000 less,
43:34
20,000 people is still a crap load of people.
43:36
I never thought it's like, wow, this place is dead.
43:39
I was like, holy smokes, there's a ton of people here.
43:41
You're on your feet all day, constantly talking to folks.
43:43
Great conversation.
43:45
So I was super stoked about that.
43:46
I saw a post going viral today on X about, I don't know, those poor gals just getting
43:52
absolutely trolled.
43:53
But I didn't actually see that many like token schemes or like shit coins or anything like
44:02
that.
44:02
I didn't go talk to every booth, obviously.
44:04
Were you seeing any of that?
44:05
Like I had zero conversations or like really insight into that.
44:10
Yeah, it was very small. I mean, we definitely got a few questions. Like KPMG guys, for example, were asking about if the software supported shitcoins.
44:21
And so, you know, because a lot of the big financial services folks are still, you know, they're dealing with people who are, you know, still have a lot of the dollars that they were able to acquire by dumping whatever their token was on retail.
44:40
and so then and once you make a lot of money on a specific token that is kind of what you
44:46
hit your wagon to I feel like at least with the experience I have with that community on the tax
44:52
side is like you know if you if you ran up with ETH or you you were part of the pre-sale or
44:57
something like that is just that's what made you wealthy right and so you you just latch onto that
45:03
and then you end up the professionals that are working with those folks they end up that's kind
45:09
their identity right it's like well i deal with people who hold solana or ethereum as well as
45:15
bitcoin and so they see it as this this broad digital asset um definitely saw as everyone saw
45:23
there's the big uh xrp uh thing on the caesar hotel
45:29
Bitcoin doesn't have that marketing budget because it is legitimately decentralized.
45:39
And so anytime you see one of these tokens being pushed behind a huge marketing budget,
45:48
if you're an intelligent person, you should stop and ask yourself,
45:52
how is it decentralized if it has a marketing budget?
45:55
you know the conversation I had with my Uber driver on the way into the airport as he left the hotel
46:02
was that Bitcoin is the only actually decentralized digital asset that's out there not stable coins
46:09
not any of the other tickers that you might see on Coinbase and so yeah I think it was definitely
46:15
down but purely because those folks have just run out of money either on that token specifically or
46:20
they've dumped on retail and they've just exited the space altogether because they never truly
46:25
believed in the technology they they just were looking for a way to make a quick buck and uh and
46:32
then go do whatever else they move to the next scheme kind of thing so it was good to see mostly
46:39
bitcoin only um and i hope that that trend continues but as bitcoin price rises generally
46:47
there's all these different things that kind of latch onto those coattails and and deceive people
46:55
and like Wyatt and I say on all the just about all the episodes we do that's one of the main
47:00
reasons we exist is to help all the different financial professionals actually understand what
47:07
Bitcoin is and why it is so distinct from any other cryptocurrency and should not be lumped in
47:12
with all the other, frankly, garbage that's out there.
47:19
Without a doubt.
47:20
Beautifully said.
47:20
Big J.
47:22
Yes, sir.
47:22
All righty.
47:23
Well, we will be back next week with another guest,
47:26
but I appreciate everyone joining,
47:29
and we'll talk to you next time.
47:32
See you, folks.
47:40
We appreciate you joining us.
47:42
If you want to help build the future of Bitcoin and financial services, hit subscribe, leave a review.
47:47
And most importantly, share this with someone in your network who's integrating Bitcoin into their practice.
47:52
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47:57
Stay sharp, stay sovereign. Keep lean from the front.
48:12
Thank you.