Latest / The SEANC View / Bitcoin and the State Retirement System

Transcript

Bitcoin and the State Retirement System · The SEANC View

0:00
Music.
0:09
Hello, and welcome to another edition of the Scenic View podcast.
0:12
I'm your host, Jonathan Owens, a slash communications director here at Scenic,
0:16
and also have Artis Watkins, our executive director here.
0:19
As always, Artis Watkins and Sam is manning the equipment over here, Sam Klein.
0:25
We have some special guests in here today. You probably remember these guys
0:28
from two weeks ago, but we got them back on the podcast.
0:31
Retiree Council Chairman Jamie Robinson and Cliff Johnson. We're going to call
0:36
you the membership chairman this time, because last time you were the Western Region.
0:40
He holds many offices, has many hats.
0:42
He's wearing one of the hats right now. They stopped in today for our retiree
0:46
council meeting, and they were kind enough to give us about 10 minutes here
0:50
to talk a little bit about what they heard.
0:52
We had a special guest, Treasurer Brad Briner, made his first appearance at
0:56
the retiree council, which I know is something that former Treasurer Dale Falwell
1:00
was often a guest of the council, and we really appreciate him coming by as well.
1:04
Yeah, it was something he agreed to back in December.
1:07
I think he was excited to talk to the group and the group was excited to hear from him.
1:11
Yeah. Jamie, what were your first impressions of your first?
1:14
Well, you've met him before, right? You've been over to his meetings.
1:17
I went to one of his meetings and I like it. And I was so happy that he showed up here today.
1:21
That says a lot that he's willing to listen to us and we want to listen to him
1:25
and work with him, do the right things for all active and retirees.
1:28
Talked about a lot of different topics.
1:30
As we all know, he has a lot of different tasks as treasurer.
1:33
I think you said it best. You said it's probably one of the hardest jobs in state government.
1:37
No, it's the hardest job in state
1:38
government. And you told him that in the meeting. I remember that. Yeah.
1:41
And he didn't quabble with you on it. So he probably already knows that.
1:45
It's an astounding amount of responsibility.
1:47
One of those responsibilities is the state retirement system, obviously.
1:51
I guess, what is it now? A $128 billion retirement system, I think,
1:56
the last time I read about it.
1:58
There was a bill that came out this week to allow some of the state treasurer
2:03
to purchase certain virtual currencies with our state retirement system up to
2:08
10 percent of the fund, right?
2:10
Yeah, and my understanding is it's Bitcoin is the only one that would qualify
2:14
the way the bill is written.
2:15
So up to 10 percent or 12 billion dollars worth of Bitcoin if the treasurer
2:20
so chose. What do you think about that, Jamie?
2:23
Well, I don't think the council took good to it. I don't find it that it is
2:26
a good investment way, but let's hope it don't go that route.
2:29
See, my idea was that we could have a scenic coin.
2:32
Start a scenic coin. Yeah, and then that way they can invest in their scenic
2:36
coin and we get our money back. At least we can protect that 10%. I mean, we might as well.
2:39
It's got as much value as any other crypto as far as what a lot of the experts in finance tell us.
2:46
And so I think that is giving state. There is no question this is freaking state
2:51
employees out all over the state, not just scenic members, because we're hearing about it.
2:55
That's kind of a shocking headline if you read it. And then I think when Janet
2:59
Cowell was here, we argued against risky investments like this as we see them.
3:04
Well, I mean, what we were arguing against were alternatives,
3:07
hedge funds and things like that. I mean, this is as alternative. This is riskier.
3:12
What did Warren Buffett call it? Rat poison times two. I mean,
3:15
this is riskier than alternatives.
3:18
There's not a whole lot of debate about that. And risky is fine.
3:22
If you want some risky in your portfolio, that's a way to make a lot of money.
3:25
But for a retirement system, very, very unorthodox to be that risky with that amount of money.
3:31
Because if the economy goes south in the first place and you have up to 10 percent
3:36
of something that risky, that's a recipe for complete disaster.
3:39
We're really, really concerned about that.
3:41
And Artis, this is a question that I wanted to ask and I didn't ask.
3:44
North Carolina would be one of
3:45
the first states to even adapt to something like this also, wouldn't it?
3:48
Well, I think that was what the speaker was saying about the bill is that he
3:52
wanted to be kind of the leader on this in terms of Bitcoin investments and
3:56
the state, which is fine if the state wants to do that.
4:00
But where the retirement system comes into play and our members are affected,
4:04
that's where we're. Billion dollars.
4:06
So that would be 12.9 billion dollars.
4:09
I bet the Bitcoin folks are chomping. Oh, for goodness sakes,
4:12
it would be, you know, Christmas in February.
4:14
So it limits. I didn't know that it limits to just Bitcoin.
4:18
Well, the parameters would, at this point in time, Bitcoin's the only one,
4:22
it's my understanding, that would qualify.
4:24
Okay. What else did he talk about from the retirement system?
4:27
Well, there was a lot of things.
4:29
And, you know, we were just kind of asking certain questions.
4:32
And, you know, we were talking about transparency.
4:34
We were talking about contracts. Or lack thereof. Or the lack thereof.
4:38
We also were talking about contracts on both sides of it, on the health care
4:42
side of it, and also in the investing side.
4:44
You know, a lot of them came up. And I like to just go back and talk a little
4:47
bit about the council itself.
4:49
Our council is made up of three personnel from each region.
4:52
We have five different regions across the state. And what makes this council
4:55
so good is all their backgrounds and all the public services that they gave
4:59
across the state of North Carolina for several years.
5:02
And this council has such a, I call it a legendary to it because there's been
5:07
some great leaders across the state that's been involved with the association
5:11
before 1984. and also the retiree council is very special.
5:15
It's special to me, and it's got a lot of special people that serve on it.
5:18
The Retiree Council has definitely been something Scenic's leaned on heavily.
5:23
Such good leadership over the years. And so y'all are the barometer.
5:27
Y'all tell us as staff where you want us to go and work with the Board of Governors.
5:32
The Board of Governors really listens to the Retiree Council because the folks
5:35
in that room are living the experience as a retiree and have made it their business
5:39
to learn everything about this stuff that they can.
5:42
Well, in ours, even on that, there's a lot of past presidents that serve on
5:46
that council, a lot of big leadership that got scenic where we're at today.
5:50
And so, yeah, totally agree with that. And you briefly mentioned it,
5:53
but the retirees are also very concerned about the state health plan.
5:57
And I guess, Cliff, that's why we have you here. You have the finger on the
6:00
pulse of our membership as membership chairman.
6:02
What are you hearing from members who are concerned about the premium increase
6:06
that may come? I'm getting a lot of input and emails, texts regarding the tier-based
6:13
premium increases, increases, period, but the tier-based especially.
6:17
Well, Cliff, hang on, let's back up one second and set the scene.
6:20
Friday of last week, the Board of Trustees of the health plan met.
6:24
This is what Cliff's talking about.
6:25
And they voted not to increase premiums, but to give themselves the authority,
6:30
if they increase premiums, to do that in a way that would charge more.
6:35
The more you make, the more you would pay. So that's what Cliff's talking about.
6:38
I'm sorry to interrupt you, but keep going. Not a problem. Thank you for putting
6:41
that out there because they may need to know that.
6:43
Based on what I'm hearing from the members, they're not happy every time that
6:47
something needs to be balanced.
6:49
The members feel like that the state goes to them and wants to balance the health
6:54
care system or the retiree system.
6:56
They won't put it on the backs of the state employees, not members of Scenic
7:00
Just, but all state employees.
7:02
So it shouldn't be just Scenic members that are upset about some of these things.
7:05
All of our state employees should be getting involved.
7:08
That's the reason our membership is so important. The more members we have,
7:12
the louder our voice is when we go to speak about these issues.
7:15
And all state employees should be taking a very, very close look and interest.
7:20
Like I already said, it's not a done deal yet. They just gave themselves the authority.
7:24
So now is the time as members that we can speak out and let our voice be heard.
7:29
But if we can get all of our members and the state employees to speak out against
7:35
it or to find alternative measures, We brought up in the meeting with Treasurer
7:40
Briner the lack of transparency from the hospitals.
7:43
There's lots of hospitals that have billions of dollars, if not trillions,
7:46
in profits. We don't know because they're not transparent.
7:50
Yeah, the contracts are secret. By legislation. By legislation, they're secret.
7:55
We don't have access to them. So we don't know which hospitals or which corporation,
7:59
medical corporations, as you'd call them, or as Del Falwell called them, cartels.
8:04
We don't know which ones are making the profits. When you say,
8:08
Cliff, that people don't, you know, members don't realize that, they don't.
8:12
But we even had legislators in the last week by law that if you have a contract
8:17
with taxpayer money through the third party administrator,
8:20
so through an insurance company, a hospital has a contract to take care of people
8:24
under the state health plan, they don't have to report what they're charging.
8:27
People generally don't like that. When they find out that government has contracts
8:32
paying taxpayer money but never telling anybody what the cost is, people hate it.
8:37
And so we had some legislators ask us, where do you get that?
8:40
Where do you get that it's secret?
8:42
And so for anybody who's wondering, it's General Statutes 135-48.10.
8:48
And the name of that section includes confidentiality of patient information.
8:54
Semicolon, vendor contracts.
8:57
So that is making equal in terms of the importance of secrecy your medical records
9:03
with the records showing the profit of a hospital.
9:05
Nobody thinks that's right when they learn about it. That's a little bit nuts.
9:09
And also, what about being number one in the highest ranking of cost?
9:14
You know, and I think about that when you brought that up earlier in some of
9:17
our other meetings. If I'm a senator or in the House of Representatives,
9:20
I would not want my state to have them labels like that.
9:24
We have the highest costs, but some of the worst outcomes from our health.
9:29
We have some great health care systems in North Carolina.
9:32
Don't get me wrong. But for what we're paying, we should be getting outstanding treatment.
9:38
I mean, there should be no health issues in North Carolina because of the amount
9:42
that we're paying for insurance.
9:44
And that's not just the state employees. That's overall, that's a statewide
9:48
issue, not just a state employee issue on the health care system.
9:52
The members, like we talked about a minute ago, the transparency,
9:55
there's the same issue with the contracts for the retirement system.
9:58
I sit on that retiree board, another hat, but I sit on that board and I was
10:02
at the meeting when Treasurer Briner and we asked him all these questions regarding
10:05
the health care system and the retirement system.
10:07
So Scenic right now is the only voice that's out there putting the information
10:12
out to all state employees that are open to listening.
10:15
If they're looking at their information, we don't just limit our information to Scenic members.
10:20
It's available for all state employees. This podcast is open for anybody.
10:24
So any state employee or any citizen in North Carolina, the cost of the health
10:29
care doesn't just affect the state employees. It affects the entire state of
10:33
North Carolina and the taxes of all of our citizens.
10:37
So tax dollars are having to be spent to this also. So it shouldn't just cause
10:41
concern for state employees. It should cause concern for every citizen in North
10:46
Carolina that's concerned about where our money's going, what are our tax monies
10:49
and what are our tax dollars being used for?
10:51
If we're paying these hospital exorbitant amounts, it's not just coming from
10:55
state employees. It's coming from all of the different citizens in North Carolina
10:59
that engage in health care, which is almost everybody at one point or another. It's true.
11:04
And the health plan is the number one purchaser, the biggest purchaser of health care in the state.
11:08
So if we overpay, everybody overpays. If we get reasonable rates,
11:12
everybody's going to get a reasonable rate.
11:13
But, you know, Speaker Hall has an effort that he's created.
11:17
A doge effort similar to what Elon Musk is doing on the federal level.
11:21
He has appointed Representative Torbett and Representative Kidwell to oversee on the state level.
11:25
And, you know, on social media yesterday, I was saying, look,
11:28
this is a great opportunity. If you're going to do that, that's awesome,
11:31
because you need to start with the biggies. And what are the biggies?
11:34
The amount we're overpaying in this health care that's a secret,
11:37
the amount we're overpaying in the retirement system that's a secret.
11:41
We've heard DOT contracts to private contractors are out of hand.
11:44
There's, you know, the list goes on and on and on.
11:47
So I'll be interested to see if they dig into any of that. Yeah.
11:50
And we're also make sure you follow your scoop this week because hopefully we'll
11:54
have some information in there.
11:55
But right now, I would suggest that our members contact their legislators.
12:00
Absolutely. Let them know their opinions. Find out who your legislators are,
12:03
who your sender is, who your representative is, and do an email,
12:06
do a phone call, do a letter, call them, contact your legislators and give them
12:11
your concerns on the health care system, on the potential tier based increases
12:16
and on the Bitcoin issue.
12:18
So don't be afraid. We elected them. They are your representative.
12:22
So they should be open to your comments and your opinions regardless.
12:26
So contact those legislators. That's one way to start. Yeah,
12:29
Artis, so where are things like that right now?
12:33
Where are we in pretty much the opening stages of these discussions?
12:36
On the premium increases, potentially?
12:38
Well, yes, but it's going to move really quickly. Yeah. So last week's meeting
12:42
where the board said, okay, so if we were to go the route of premium increases.
12:47
We want to make them dependent on your salary. That's kind of a great indicator
12:50
in government. If somebody says, if we were to do this, you can pretty much
12:54
assume it's getting ready to happen.
12:55
But, you know, I have not heard, in fairness, trying to have a meeting with
12:59
the health plan again, and the health plan is equally trying to have that meeting.
13:03
We're just trying to work out the date.
13:04
So I don't know yet exactly what's going to happen.
13:07
What do I assume based on the remarks Treasurer Bronner made while he was here?
13:10
I think we're right in assuming right now they feel like there's no one they
13:15
can go to but the state employees and the retirees.
13:18
Go to the workers because they feel like they can't get anything from the providers
13:23
right now, even though we know some providers are making four times what it
13:27
costs to run an efficient hospital at a profit, according to healthcare economists.
13:32
So our contention is if they go that route, we cannot support and we can't ask
13:37
our members to support their costs going up when nobody's touching what the
13:42
hospitals get paid for this year, and it remains secret.
13:45
If you open it up, you'll get that information immediately.
13:48
And if you see it's as crazy as we hear it is, well, gosh, you should immediately
13:52
demand you stop paying some of that.
13:54
So we've posted a lot of things about this on our social media,
13:57
and it seems like one of the first comments we get is, you know,
14:01
one that everyone thinks, like, how can you raise somebody's premiums without
14:04
giving them a raise? That's the first comment that we get.
14:07
Yeah. Well, first of all, I'm concerned about the board considering doing it based on salary.
14:13
Because then the discussion becomes between folks who make a lower salary,
14:18
pitting them against folks who make a higher salary, and they're fighting each
14:22
other, and then they lose focus.
14:24
Hey, none of us should be paying an increased amount. The hospitals that have
14:28
been overpaid, anybody else in this system that's been overpaid,
14:31
they should have skin in this game as well.
14:33
But instead, it really creates the debate right there.
14:37
The debate's going to be between lower paid state employees and higher paid
14:41
state employees, and that's it. I mean, we've seen instances where we feel like
14:45
that's by design, specifically like us fighting teachers for raises and things like that.
14:51
Do you think that's their intention or is that just a byproduct of what?
14:55
Oh, I think it's the path of least resistance.
14:57
I mean, I think that we are not the big money people. We've talked about it before.
15:01
The amount of money that goes into the political system from rank and file state
15:06
employees is a fraction of what goes in.
15:09
The biggest lobby in D.C. is health care. the biggest lobby around here,
15:12
probably health care. I haven't even looked at it recently. I just know they're
15:15
everywhere in the legislature.
15:16
Good for them. They're protecting their turf, but we're protecting the turf,
15:20
the backyards of our members.
15:22
And we're never going to match that effort in terms of money or bodies.
15:27
But I think so far, Scenic's doing a good job of getting that message out to
15:31
the public, because like Cliff said, when we overpay, all of you overpay.
15:35
That's why we're number one most expensive state in this country,
15:38
therefore in the world, for health care.
15:40
So the doge effort that you're talking about in state government,
15:44
wouldn't you be better served to tackle health care than you would to be to
15:48
tackle state government?
15:50
But isn't that a government efficiency? If taxpayer money's being used.
15:55
You can't track it, but actuaries tell you the range you're paying includes
16:01
amounts four times what it takes to make a profit.
16:04
Isn't that the first place you'd look for an efficiency? Sure.
16:08
I don't want to get too partisan, but. It's not partisan. This is the thing
16:12
about it. It's not partisan.
16:14
Guess who has protected those profits for all these years? Both sides,
16:17
right? Everybody. Yeah. Everybody.
16:19
Democratic, Republican leadership. Everybody. I feel like Elon's time would
16:23
be better served going after health care.
16:25
Well, yeah, well, not real worried about what Elon's doing.
16:28
But if we're going to have an effort on this state level, we would request.
16:32
If you hear it, Representative Torbett or Representative Kidwell,
16:35
we'd request. That's the first place you look, because my goodness,
16:38
it's that offensive to people when they learn about it. And there's all kinds of waste in government.
16:42
We could just talk about this for days and days, right?
16:45
But that's my concern. Are the private contracts going to even be on the table?
16:50
Who knows? I hope they will be.
16:52
And the term DOGE, Department of Government Efficiency, shouldn't part of looking
16:57
at government efficiency, look at those contracts?
17:00
How we can efficiently spend government? If you're in part running the government
17:04
through contracts, yes.
17:05
Yeah. Okay. Well, do you guys have anything else you want to add?
17:09
I know we've kept you from the west for far too. I don't want you to get caught
17:12
in the I-40 traffic, although you might. It's too late. It's too late.
17:17
We might as well get you a hotel room. No, no.
17:20
We'll go back towards the west. We're westward bound.
17:23
Sorry about that, guys. Thank you all so much for coming in and everything you
17:26
do for Scenic, you really work. Your tail's off for us and all of our members.
17:30
And I will just say that Cliff said not just Scenic members,
17:33
but all state employees.
17:34
We think that all state employees should be scenic members, correct? Most definitely.
17:38
If you're not a scenic member, please come join us because like we said,
17:43
The more members we have, the more doors we open, the louder our voice is.
17:47
If we wanted to get that section repealed and we had every state employee and
17:51
every retiree as members, we could get it done.
17:55
I mean, that's just about no doubt. If we all stuck together and did it as one
18:00
voice, we could get it done. But it takes the numbers.
18:03
So that's the purpose of membership.
18:05
All right. Thank you guys for coming in. Thank you.
18:11
Artis, I got a question. Well, what is Bitcoin? Because as far as I know,
18:17
it's trading your money for invisible nothingness in the air that you can't see or touch.
18:23
I think a lot of people have that saying. I mean, I don't even I don't really.
18:28
OK, first of all, let's talk about how is it valued by itself?
18:31
Like it's it's valued by whatever people want it to be valued at. Right.
18:35
So if you have an investment and in a fund and that fund puts its money towards
18:40
companies doing business, you can track real estate investments or this,
18:44
that or the other things.
18:46
Right. And you can say, at least in your mind, I own a certain little part. Right.
18:51
Or gold. You can see it. You can hold it. If you think about it.
18:55
So Bitcoin is a type of digital or virtual money that exists only on the Internet.
19:02
It's only on the Internet. You can't hold it. You can't have it except on the Internet.
19:08
So it's like Fortnite V-Bucks, right? So, again, it feels like this invisible
19:13
little gold coin that I will never be able to touch or hold.
19:17
But supposedly it's my money.
19:20
Right. And it's to cut out banks or anything, you know, any third party in the
19:25
transaction when you buy things. But you can do things outside of going to your
19:29
bank now. You can set up payment methods that are Internet only.
19:34
The problem is, OK, let's say the Internet goes down. Where's my money?
19:38
Right. I mean, that's literally one of my power outage. What are.
19:42
Yeah, but you don't have money now. No one has like dollars chilling anywhere.
19:47
You do have dollars in the bank.
19:49
You went to a bank. I know that I can physically go grab it if I need to.
19:53
But if it's all in Bitcoin and it's all like on the Internet,
19:56
giant power outage in an area due to a hurricane or something.
20:00
No one can access that money. And one of my questions would be,
20:02
again, we have some really technical questions about this.
20:05
But one of the questions is, if somebody hacks into it, what is your redress
20:09
or recourse for having your, let's say, your Bitcoin is taken?
20:13
And how are you going to prove all that? But now let's talk about the other side.
20:16
The Bitcoin folks would argue that if you invested a dollar 10 years ago,
20:22
that dollar would be worth $277 today. Yeah, but if you got in on Apple on the
20:28
bottom floor, I mean, that's in any stock.
20:31
That's in any investment. If you got in at the very bottom.
20:35
Of course you'd be a builder. What if you invested 10 days ago and lost?
20:38
Right. You know what I mean? So it's... So, I mean... Yeah.
20:41
We need an expert to come in.
20:45
It's so confusing to me. I'm still just sitting here thinking,
20:48
imaginary, fake gold coin that I can never touch or hold.
20:52
But it's mine, supposedly. How do you know it's a gold coin?
20:55
My brain just automatically goes to a gold coin. Are you thinking the Dogecoin illustration?
21:01
No, I'm just thinking about how much money it costs to invest into Bitcoin.
21:05
It better be gold. Right. If it costs that much money to invest into it and
21:10
have one single Bitcoin for the cost of what one single Bitcoin is today, it better be a gold coin.
21:15
For the record, Scenic coin would be blue. Scenic coin would be blue.
21:20
The Bitcoin started, didn't it start like on the dark web?
21:25
Yeah. Or at least, see, this is the thing. This is, if that's not true,
21:29
that's definitely what everybody thinks.
21:31
So we need a whole lot more information for. From what I hear on TV shows and stuff, is it traceable?
21:37
Are they able to like trace transactions? All of these are great questions.
21:40
Because I like knowing where my money is going. If I'm making a transaction.
21:44
You can't know now in the retirement system.
21:46
Yeah. It's just like health care.
21:49
Because I like to go and look at my bank account and say, OK, I spent money here.
21:53
I spent money here. And if I don't recognize a transaction, I can be like,
21:56
I did not spend my money there.
21:58
Call the bank. Get that fixed. You know what we need? We need a call-in aspect
22:02
to this show where people can call in.
22:05
Exactly. Where people would call in and talk about Bitcoin. Send us your questions on Bitcoin.
22:10
Please do. Actually, that would be great. Send us your questions for the podcast. Yeah.
22:15
Yes, we'll do that. We'll do that. So for being about Bitcoin,
22:18
besides being something that literally no one can define, and we have a list of questions.
22:23
We won't get into them. It'd be too boring on this, but we do have a very specific
22:26
list of technical questions for anybody. think of doing this with the pension anyway.
22:31
But John, you were talking about just in the last month what the price swing has been.
22:35
But the deal is the price swing on Bitcoin, it's been really volatile for its
22:41
whole existence, right?
22:43
So as on my back of the envelope, John is not very good at math projections here.
22:48
From what I've been reading, the Bitcoin price right now is around 95,000 per, I guess, Bitcoin.
22:55
It's lost about 10,000 points or dollars. I don't know.
23:00
10,000 since January 30th. So that's what, 13 days.
23:06
If we had $12.9 billion invested in Bitcoin, we would have lost $1.3 billion in the last 13 days.
23:15
Now, I know it does violently swing backup, but... Well, it's almost double
23:19
right now what it was a year ago, right?
23:22
Yeah. This is sounding more and more like the stock market to me.
23:25
It is the stock market pretty much. It's like the stock market without anything backing it.
23:30
Maybe. I don't like that. You know, we need a Bitcoin expert on here.
23:33
Here's the problem with getting, quote, a Bitcoin expert.
23:37
What we'll do is we will reach out to the folks who are really excited about this bill.
23:42
Daniel Spuller is the co-chair of the North Carolina Blockchain Initiative.
23:47
Maybe we can entice him to come on and explain exactly what Bitcoin is.
23:51
And then we can say even more, what in the world are you talking about?
23:55
Well, I mean, that would be fair. I mean, maybe he's got something to say that's
23:58
going to make us say, give me more of that. I don't know. But we should.
24:02
We will, in the interest of fairness, invite him to come or,
24:07
you know, be on by Zoom, whatever he needs to do, to be able to explain to us
24:11
why that would be a really good thing for the state.
24:13
I will just tell you that the knee-jerk reaction to people is that it feels
24:18
like taking their money to Vegas and going to the craps table.
24:21
I grew up with my parents always talking about how they used to go from handling
24:25
cash and only paying for things in cash to now using debit cards and stuff.
24:29
Please don't tell me that you guys think we're moving in the way of Bitcoin
24:33
and cryptocurrencies being a way of transactions. Maybe, but, you know, who knows?
24:37
There's been so many suggestions over the years. I mean, there have literally
24:41
been bills in the General Assembly that I've seen before to move to a different currency.
24:46
So we're going to do exactly that. We're going to ask Daniel Spoiler to come
24:50
on here and or anyone else who is in that industry and thinks that Bitcoin's
24:55
the answer to all of our woes.
24:58
We would like to hear from you because, again, the gut reaction, the visceral.
25:02
I mean, I've not seen any reaction this quick and this strong from our members in a long time.
25:08
Yeah. And I think that's going to be our question of the week.
25:10
It's not going to be John's question of the week. It's going to be Sam's question of the week.
25:14
Yeah. That was the question of the week. What is Bitcoin? You'll have to make a whole new song.
25:19
I already have a theme song for me because I posted a couple of times where
25:22
I had to ask the question.
25:27
Well, thank you all for doing this with us. And thank you, everyone, for listening.
25:31
And if you know what Bitcoin is, drop a comment on the Facebook post of this
25:36
episode. Let us know what Bitcoin is. Please. Thank you.
25:39
Music.