Latest / The Income Show / Bitcoin Is The New S&P 500 | The Income Show | Ep. 18

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Bitcoin Is The New S&P 500 | The Income Show | Ep. 18 · The Income Show

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Bitcoin is becoming the new S&P 500.
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It's becoming just the new standard growth index of the world.
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Him talking about digital credit is what re-brought me back to like,
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this is very revolutionary.
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This is the way that Bitcoin competes with treasuries
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and proves that it is like a capital asset.
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Like I actually do really believe that is very revolutionary.
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What does digital credit actually solve?
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It solves the number one complaint that people have,
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which is the volatility of Bitcoin.
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How do you make a successful product?
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you make something that people want people want stable cash flow people don't want to deal with
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volatility let this bull market be different think fresh keep all the best parts about the
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bitcoin philosophy whatever it is you've picked up along the way but try to shave off a little bit
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of the 10 to 20 percent that just might not be really hitting the reality of where we are right
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now and then same thing if you feel new to the bitcoin journey or whatever you are part of what
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is going to make Bitcoin hit larger numbers.
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Hey everybody, welcome back to The Income Show.
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This week I have on Brian Harrington.
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Brian has been using Bitcoin since 2015.
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He spent six years inside Bitcoin startups, including Fold, and now runs a YouTube channel
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and private think tank focused on what he calls Bitcoin personal finance.
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He is best known for the idea that 0.21 Bitcoin in one house is the new American dream and for spending the past year publicly rebuilding his own portfolio around income.
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Brian, welcome to The Income Show.
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Yeah, thanks for being here. I mean, I love the title of it. It's Bitcoin Income is Here.
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Love it. Yeah, we've got a lot to talk about, a lot of different topics.
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But maybe let's start talking about current market conditions.
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you basically called the bitcoin bottom around 60 64k in august what made you confident that
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this was likely the bitcoin bottom uh honestly by this is going to sound weird but by branching
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out into kind of like crypto uh creators like more just i call call it the trenches i don't
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love the term trenches the same way i don't love the term plebs anymore but i actually think that
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But kind of the guys that are trying to really be streamers could just kind of feel it like they could feel it.
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And I do think there was a lot of everyone calling for October and then you kind of just get there sooner.
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Like it was a little bit of that.
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So vibes, vibes against would be the way to describe that.
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I like it.
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That's a that's a pretty intelligent way to do it, I would say, because I mean, I think even you've referred to this past.
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bear market and I know other people have felt this the same way is like it was painfully brutal.
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I mean, it was and, you know, other bear markets have been pretty bad, but this was painfully
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brutal. You know, how did how did you think about that? Like, why? Why was it so brutal? And how did
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you kind of survive the bear market? I think I mean, the Bitcoin, this Bitcoin bear market was
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brutal because a lot of people have put their life on hold for the idea that the future is going to
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be better like the grass is greener on the other side because i'm buying bitcoin cheap and the world
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is realizing bitcoin and the future will be better because of my decisions today then when you see
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that path kind of man now we have to climb the mountain again like when you cross a hundred
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thousand you cross 125 000 you come back down you realize oh man now we have to cross the line again
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people are just tired like that's why that's why it was brutal um for me it's i i've said this on
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my channel and i've this is my first bear market that i haven't been inside a bitcoin fintech and
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so it's the first time that i've been able to i'm actually really proud of the way that i
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navigated it, like, dare I say, like traded it. And a lot of that is because of me not being like
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inside per se this time that I could, I think I was able to accept that there was a bear market
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even whereas before, and I've said this, like, I've, I didn't really consider myself like a
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markets guy or like an investor guy. Like I, I was a personal finance nerd. Like I like personal
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finance and got the budgeting basics and everything from my from my family and then I wanted to you
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know I wanted to work at a bank and wanted to do finance because that was what was cool and that's
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what you went to study at business school for um but then I skipped the like dividend snowball on
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financial independent retire early the e-commerce drop shipping like I skipped a lot of that like
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YouTube stuff because I just jumped straight into the Bitcoin philosophy land and sat there with all
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of you for all those years um i i think it's so it's it was less brutal for me this time now being
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on the outside um yeah just because i i stepped back and just accepted that it was a bear market
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and treated the whole thing more just kind of like a finance decision rather than like a kind
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of life philosophy decision quick pause our whole mission here is making investment grade bitcoin
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us is simple. Like this video and subscribe to the channel. That's it. Now back to the conversation.
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Thinking also about this bear market, you had strategy selling Bitcoin near the bottom or at
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the bottom. You had the cold card vulnerability. You had the clarity bill kind of stagnate.
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did that kind of tell you anything also as well like a lot of bad things were quote-unquote
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happening yet bitcoin couldn't make a new lower low i think the so let's just go in the order that
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you call them out in strategy selling the fact that they were able to sell as much as they did
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and it didn't go um like lower yeah that was a big part of why i was like wow like it's probably
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over like it's probably over uh the bear market's probably over and they and they're gonna come out
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like bloodied and messed up and their reputation is a little bit like has been a little bit muddied
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but it didn't kill them and that was the other thing i kind of bring up is that there wasn't
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one company or brand that really screwed this up really bad this time i think it's actually the
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exact opposite like the the nba finals were right during some of the worst times of this thing and
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you have coinbase and ledger like just there the entire time just very like normalized um of that
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and so yeah i think strategy selling that much and not making the price go lower i think was
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actually like really bullish and puts in the thing of it was the shallowest and bear market history
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okay the cold card thing 130 million on a one and a half trillion dollar asset is 0.007 percent
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here's the other thing that like when i'm not inside a bitcoin fintech company i'm not having
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to jam in the product marketing of the specific product and like say the specific lines or
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whatever.
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And with the advent of Chad GPT and all this stuff, like anyone can do the data analysis
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at whatever level they want and stats at whatever level they want.
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So that version of Bitcoin maximalism, that version of Bitcoin personal finance had a
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0.007% adoption rate.
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That's not very high.
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Like that's not very high.
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And that causes a lot of there's a whole bunch of introspection on the culture side of it.
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But as being a YouTuber now, I've also realized that like the market for people that want that level of introspection is actually not that high either.
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So I think it's a fascinating thing to talk about with guys like you and friends that built up along the way.
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But it truly actually isn't that impactful from like a societal perspective or from a financial perspective.
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And so, yeah, like that, that didn't impact the bear market at all, like really.
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And then the Clarity Act, the Clarity Act is somewhere between a big deal and not a big
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deal and kind of a big deal.
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And I don't know which one of those three that it is like, I don't know.
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I don know what it can or can do or what we are waiting for it to do I all for like I a politics guy like i used to work in politics before i worked at bitcoin startups i down like i think voting is fine
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and good i do hope that bitcoiners become city council people and state assembly people like i
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do think that is a good thing for people to grow their influence and do um specifically right now
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I don't know if Clarity Act would help or not help the price.
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I want to maybe take a step back and also just ask you more broadly about your investment philosophy.
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I mean, I think a lot of people, maybe more normal people outside like the niche Bitcoin group,
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probably think of their investments in maybe two buckets.
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Like one is a growth bucket, one is an income bucket.
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Do you think of your portfolio that way?
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Or do you think you should think of your portfolio that way?
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so I never had done that before this year I never had done that before this year I had never even
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really thought of my investments as a portfolio like when I sit around with other people again
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that come at it from the from the personal finance side or from the like investing side they know the
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like percentage allocations like all the way down to the percent of across all these different things
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that they're doing and I I guess the philosophy that I built up along the way was I like again
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I came out of very just like regular budgeting as a kid,
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worked at Safeway, regular budgeting,
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and then went to college,
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wanted to study financing, got a job,
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and then immediately, almost immediately,
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fell into like Bitcoin philosophy
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and the like hard money and that kind of stuff.
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So that made a ton of sense.
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And the debasement trade,
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like Bitcoin has a fixed cap,
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dollars are effectively infinite.
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Like banks just create money.
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I've also always been a credit guy, actually. So like 0% credit card transfers, when I would have a business idea as a kid, like my dad would finance the idea and we would always just do it on 0% credit card offers. So even to this day, when people are like, wow, like Bitcoin, like you've really been able to like step up your lifestyle from Bitcoin or whatever. And I'm like, dude, like my wife and I have been like intelligently like rolling 0% offers now for like nine years.
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like they just mail them to you and if you just if you just work and like build your credit and you
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just every six months just ask for a credit line increase and type in your new income and so they're
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always raising your credit lines and then you just have five or six cards and you always just rotate
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zero percent offers so down to the thing of like my philosophy my philosophy then i fell into real
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estate YouTube and real estate YouTube.
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Some of those guys would say the same thing of like inflation induced debt
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reduction was like a thing they would talk about.
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And so,
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Oh,
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like real estate is both on the same fundamentals as Bitcoin.
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And so my,
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my percent allocation has always been Bitcoin dollars and real estate there.
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There hasn't been a,
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as soon as,
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as soon as I was orange pilled,
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I never really wanted to do stocks.
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Because this is kind of like jumping ahead, but people like to talk about how like tokens and like crypto has like a value accrual problem.
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Like, I believe the stock market has a value accrual problem.
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Like people are just buying the index.
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They're just treating the index as the thing.
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And it's not really connected to cash flow or to dividends or to anything.
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And so, yeah, I've never been like a, any marginal dollar was always going towards either Bitcoin or another house down payment.
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Maybe I'm focusing on the hardcore Bitcoin maximalism type group.
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Why do you think that they are so kind of allergic to things that you just said and perspectives that you just said of like income investing as even a category?
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yeah um i think because they they they saw around the corner that bitcoin is better than fiat money
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but then we kind of labeled everything else as like like this was the the error the bitcoin
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standard the book was a great book for the time it was a fine book for the time read it and it
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It helped. It helped fill that need during that time that it came out.
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The thing that it got the most wrong was calling crypto and tokens money printing.
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It's not. Crypto and tokens is not money printing.
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It's not money printing.
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And in the same way, in order to understand Bitcoin at the very beginning,
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You had to have this weird blend of finance and like politics, like like Federal Reserve
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stuff combined with an enough computer science or enough like not being afraid of computers
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that like you saw software as like a real thing, like you weren't tripped up on the
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like it's digital, it's digital like that in that intersection.
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Not a lot of people have that intersection.
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And so that's why the amount of people that even became Bitcoin maximalists was very small.
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I've now, fast forwarding all these years, I've now realized the same thing is true about like crypto, like crypto and tokens, you have to have like a very pretty niche understanding of, I hate using the word capital markets, because I don't want to talk like, like, I'm not an investment banker, I'm not like a thing and we can throw around these big words and all this stuff.
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But like understanding the stock market and understanding how a company goes from being a private company to a public company is a pretty niche thing to like understand how that is and why that's good for both sets of investors.
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So to understand that and then to understand that like on like crypto or tokens being this kind of hybrid between what a company even is, it's not money printing.
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And then you layer on all the government stuff of it.
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The people that were even working in crypto and were passionate about this,
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they weren't able to product market it directly
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because of fear of what the government would do about it.
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And so that gave way to kind of one version of Bitcoin maximalism
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viewing crypto and tokens in specifically one way.
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But foreshadowing, foreshadowing, the Bitcoin maximalists out there,
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what is their favorite token?
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Do you know what their favorite token is?
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Their favorite token is called a safe note.
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It was invented by Y Combinator.
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It stands for Simple Agreement for Future Equity.
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This is the preferred token of the Bitcoin maximalist,
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like VC and Bitcoin maximalist kind of fintech building crowd back then.
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So to me, that was very foreshadowing of like,
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they're not actually against tokenization.
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they just aren't they just like aren't really buying that it could happen on chain back then
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but you know now we're in a now we're in a new world yeah earlier you you brought up how you are
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not interested in index investing like spy and boo and and other things like that or qqq can you
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maybe elaborate in a bit more detail like why that just does not interest you whatsoever yeah
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so investing in the indexes doesn't interest me because there's too much dead weight in the index
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because i believe what's happening is either i i believe two things are happening from the same
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side you have the whole ai story of ai has sucked the excitement out of bitcoin and crypto that's
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very real and it's sucked the excitement out of the other um stocks right and so ai is continuing
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to consume more and more of the indexes.
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And then at the same time,
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you have what the Bitcoin income products are now doing,
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which is forcing this conversation
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on what is an acceptable rate
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for these blended products.
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And they're making dividend stocks more popular
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than they ever have before.
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Because you already have people,
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you already have investors
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that don't want to deal or they want income.
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And those people aren't buying the index either.
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They're out in private credit.
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Like I actually did this.
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I actually did this when I left Fold.
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I called a financial advisor and I said hey I switching to being an income investor This is how much I want to make per month This is how much your portfolio is And like he very plainly
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like he sent me back like 30 ticker symbols
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of just different commercial real estate stuff.
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And I'm just like, and then you just compare it
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to the Bitcoin income products that are available.
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And it's like, why?
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Why would I pick these random 30 things
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when in the wheelhouse that I already know
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is pays higher than what most of these are paying.
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So I believe what's happening
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is that Bitcoin is becoming the new S&P 500.
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It's becoming just the new standard growth index of the world.
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And then in order for your company to receive investment,
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you either need to be growing faster than the index
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or you have to be paying a dividend.
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Like either you got to be growing faster
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or you have to be splitting the money with me.
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If you're not doing either of those things, then private company or public company, I believe you're going to keep getting caught in no man's land.
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And for me, yeah, the S&P 500 and NASDAQ is no man's land.
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Yeah, that's very unique, but seems pretty logical perspective, I would say.
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you talk about something also called like the Bitcoin yield curve where you'll put something
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like BTC, Stretch, BTCI, digital credit, SATA, etc. How do you think about that maybe broadly?
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Real quick on the last point, when I say Bitcoin is replacing the S&P 500, I mean that in very
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broad terms. Like I'm not, maybe Bitcoin itself is not going to, but Bitcoin exposure is also
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increasing in the S&P 500. Coinbase like is in it, like SpaceX has Bitcoin on the balance sheet.
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So regardless of it, like, actually replaces it or if just the same way AI is eating more and more of the index, Bitcoin just becomes entrenched in it.
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That's to me, that's the same thing happening.
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But yeah, so I guess.
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Yeah.
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Real quick, I guess on that point, like you're saying, obviously, the S&P 500 as an index still exists.
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But like the purpose of of the index and the way investors treat it, they will now treat Bitcoin like this ultimate long duration savings technology.
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Is that kind of just like they treat the S&P 500 today?
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Correct.
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And it still is for the S&P 500 to screw up
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and like kind of shoot its reputation more and more
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the way that we're watching like other indexes do it.
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Like index is just a committee of people.
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Like it's just a committee of people.
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And so if they, if them or any other index
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chooses to make weird side edge case rules
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on like putting people in and out
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to where it's no longer the kind of what it's meant to be,
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then yeah, people are just going to find other indexes
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and other index replacements.
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Totally agree with that.
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And if they make obscene rules or adjustments
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that limit Bitcoin and Bitcoin happens to be
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this great long duration savings technology,
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well, that's going to show up in the performance
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and investors are going to pick the indexes
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that perform best.
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Yes. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
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How about the Bitcoin yield curve, though?
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Yeah.
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So the Bitcoin yield curve is a helpful term that I think has arisen very organically from all sides of everyone involved.
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And it serves the age-old question.
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What was the original age-old question was, well, how much Bitcoin should I hold?
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How much dollars should I hold?
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like that that was five six seven years ago that was the extent of bitcoin personal finance there
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wasn't really any bitcoin personal finance and that's part of what i say of like og bitcoiners
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were great at talking about bitcoin but they weren't great at talking about personal finance
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there the converse there weren't there weren't tools to make it any more complicated than that
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and um the conversation wasn't more complicated than that but now because there's the bitcoin
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yield curve, you can go on any spectrum from stability to volatility, and no income to high
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income. And every single investor, every single person can pick whichever blend of that matches
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whatever they're trying to do. And so yeah, one, one, I know that the strategy preferreds like
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And Saylor talks about their yield curve and has the way that those rank.
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What happened when he was explaining a lot of that stuff is that, you know, just like any, like 70% of it was like go over my head.
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So I just like take the best 30 that I can and combine it with the covered calls concept that I also like.
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And then I kind of just created my own and I called it a simplified yield curve, which is, yeah, just stretch and SATA all the way up to MSTR.
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and then there's a leveraged Bitcoin covered call fund
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from NEOS now called XBCI.
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So you have the ones that try to hold par
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all the way up to leverage.
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And then in the middle,
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you have just regular Bitcoin and regular IBIT.
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And to just, to further prove,
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one point that I like to make is that
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this is not just a strategy like and strive thing happening,
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which I think gives it more legs.
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Like I think there are a lot of legs here.
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Like, BTCI from NEOS Investments was, I'm pretty sure, the first Bitcoin covered call fund to make it to a billion dollars assets under management.
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And then BlackRock created their own Bitcoin covered call fund, which is ticker symbol B-I-T-A.
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And NEOS Investments just either got absorbed or co-branded into Goldman Sachs now.
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So the concept of combining these things and one other like more sad story.
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There was another issuer, I'm blanking on the name of it off the top of my head right now, but they were combining Bitcoin and treasuries for a while.
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And there was a ratio of 80% treasury to 20% Bitcoin.
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That one didn't end up getting enough asset center management, so they shut it down.
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But lots of people are trying to add on to the Bitcoin yield curve and creating products along the entire stretch of it.
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as a I guess like one critique that I think people would would maybe suggest like when it
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comes to income investing and and just that broadly is compare some of these strategies with total
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return like in a in a long maybe a long-term thinking world maybe like total return will be
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higher if you just buy bitcoin rather than do all these other things what's your what would be your
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response to someone that kind of brings up that point? Yeah. So this is the, like the 4% rule is
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the perfect example of that, or just simply like, yeah, build up this, go 100% growth bucket,
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and then sell off of it for the income. My initial response is just like, basically,
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if you have the ability to do that, sweet. Like if you have the ability to do that, sweet. If you
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can actually put your money where your mouth is and sell on a schedule and do that awesome
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i've talked to thousands of people now about this about and i've talked about how they incorporate
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bitcoin into their personal finances and i've i've never i have not personally met like a retiree
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or a yeah i've never met a retiree that is actually doing that and then i want to clarify
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what I mean by retiree also because so so look I'm I'm 34 I don't I don't claim to be like
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financially independent enough to retire early I do hope to organically show that I don't actually
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I think I don't think you can plant this is my one gripe with like the fire movement like it's
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not that simple like like live frugally for 20 years and then quote unquote retire 10 years early
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or whatever and like flip the switch.
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I actually don't think that's how it happens
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for the majority of people.
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I think what truly happens for the majority of people,
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like I'm talking like millennial Gen Xers,
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like head on their shoulder,
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like kind of core demographic American suburbs people
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with like, is that both spouses will work
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and then one spouse will go work optional
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and then you'll do the whole blended,
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like just this year when I went work optional
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or whatever and became a real estate professional
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and then I did the cost segregation,
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the bonus appreciation on the rental properties that offset the w like it that i believe that what going to happen at that level actually that there isn like this switch that happens And so why what does that have to do with the question that you asked What that has to do with the question that you asked is that like it doesn you I don I don I don think for the majority of people that they are going to find enough mental safety in the high number to be able to just like chunk off of it regardless of what the spreadsheet says
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And so the quote unquote underperformance of the scheduled payments is a bridge to that world.
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Because retiring or like actually living your dream life or like actually stepping up your lifestyle or whatever is like, there's so much of a mental game, like identity component of that that like people don't talk about at all at all, especially in America where we like, I think career is like really important.
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like like i'm i'm honestly really jealous like of people that have like extremely awesome like
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corporate careers like they in a lot of ways like i wish i had that i wish i could have that
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but it just never it never lined up um and so yeah that's that's what i say back to it is that
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just like sweet like if you you want to have a three-hour conversation about why the spreadsheet
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math is like better by sticking in growth and like selling off of it i sweet like show me the rubber
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on the road of like how you're actually navigating the other like identity conversations and what
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you're doing and that stuff because because that same person is going to be like yeah but i also
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like just drive uber for fun to the airport like because i wake up at four in the morning like
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and it's like okay sweet dude then like that's what you're that then is your dividend that's
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your income investing is choosing to dedicate those hours which i don't think there's anything
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bad at that at all or it's the whole thing of the like well yeah i'm just gonna hang it up and like
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try to run a coffee shop that that loses 5k a month and then like maybe makes 2k a month and
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like I don't know then that's your dividend while you're selling off the other part to you know
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cover the gap yeah it's I definitely think a large large majority of people find comfort in income I
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mean and it makes perfect sense like you have your set expenses that you know you're going to be
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spending and you want to pair that liability with income it's it's it's pretty logical um
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maybe specifically we can dive into digital credit in particular like stretch and seda
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what are your what's your just general thoughts on that and like within the the bitcoin community
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how do they think about it but then also within the broader investment community that might be
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discovering it now yeah so i i buy it like i think this is the i i think this naturally
28:50
makes sense and i actually think that digital credit as a concept builds on the builds on the
28:58
concept of bitcoin being better in the fiat money like all so we love to talk about first principles
29:02
we love to talk about game three we used to say we were really good at these things like all the
29:06
way back to first principles fixed supply of bitcoin versus infinite dollars bitcoin is better
29:11
than fiat money like i hold the fiat money like still in my office to like talk about this what
29:16
is fiat but fiat money is all backed by the whole treasuries and like demand for treasuries and all
29:21
this stuff and so having like proving proving that bitcoin balance sheet corporations have a higher
29:32
credit rating and have a higher like higher belief and higher trust that they can pay
29:37
scheduled obligations versus the supposed like most risk-free obligation in the world the treasury
29:45
that is that battle that decision is taking the guts out of fiat money that is taking the guts
29:53
out of fiat money so like philosophically i'm aligned with the talking points like all the way
29:57
through and I can say them like in my own words um I I think that the current talking heads that
30:08
are available for digital credit have reached their influence ceiling I'm gonna say publicly
30:15
and within the niche which is not bad it's that's not bad that's just truly the rubber on the road
30:22
of like something going from a niche to mainstream.
30:27
And I've thought about this a lot of like a non,
30:30
here's a non-Bitcoin example.
30:31
Like Elon Musk, I've gone up and down,
30:35
love him, hate him, love him, hate him, love him, hate him,
30:37
like five or six times like in my life.
30:40
And that's from like a dude, like I have a Model Y,
30:43
like I have the power walls,
30:45
like I have every product that you can have
30:47
like inside the thing.
30:49
And I truly think it's gonna like a transform,
30:51
like I have so much solar in my house I transform the entire thing but then the way he talks and the
30:56
way he like goes on podcasts and is like joking around and like saying weird joke like is like
31:01
so frustrating because I'm like dude like you have the mantle like you have the mantle you have the
31:06
ability to like hit this next level but I just think I just think that's what's incredibly unique
31:12
about humans is that even no like no matter who you are no matter what resources are available to
31:18
you like your person your personality might not be convincing to like every single person out there
31:25
um and i think that's what is happening inside the concept of digital credit being like built
31:34
out right now is i just think i think every person has kind of hit their ceiling of of how
31:40
well they can talk about it and then there isn't great pollination into the crypto folks yet
31:51
actually like i don't think i don't think that um this is what i just talked to parker at apex
31:57
about actually is that i don't think there's two things that are happening you have the bitcoin
32:02
maximalists laggards that are lagging to the story because of whatever frustration they have with
32:09
paper Bitcoin.
32:11
And then, like, I literally tweeted yesterday,
32:14
strategy is the new Berkshire Hathaway.
32:16
And someone replied back to a paper Bitcoin.
32:18
And I'm like, that doesn't, like, what are we talking about?
32:20
Like, it's real Bitcoin, as real of Bitcoin on,
32:25
the Bitcoin in their account is the same as the Bitcoin in my account.
32:29
And in my wallet, it's the same Bitcoin.
32:30
It's same there.
32:31
It's on the network.
32:32
Like, so there's that laggards.
32:36
And then you also have the ones that have been like on like pounding the table of like,
32:42
DeFi is better than TradFi, DeFi is better than TradFi, DeFi is better than TradFi.
32:45
And I'm like, bro, this is literally, that's literally happening.
32:48
Like you have your guy here now, like saying that more publicly and actually proving it.
32:54
And then I feel like you're still kind of late to like, yeah, but he like,
32:59
he like sells, he like sells bottoms and buys tops.
33:03
And I'm like, I don't.
33:05
So both, there's a lot going on in lots of directions.
33:11
No, I mean, it's definitely crazy.
33:14
What do you think is required for digital credit
33:17
to actually gain mainstream adoption?
33:27
Probably more of the dividend snowball, guys.
33:29
Like, yeah, just the people that are already like that guy that sent me the financial advisor that sent me back the 30 ticker symbols.
33:37
And it just is like getting them inside that same list of the commercial real estate like ticker symbols is I think what's going to make it normalized.
33:52
And I think and just Bitcoin price itself being higher.
33:57
Yeah, no, it makes sense.
33:58
another topic is that's kind of common among bitcoiners is like borrowing against your bitcoin
34:05
and doing certain things i know that you you've done stuff like that in the past i think you may
34:09
have done be doing it kind of like right now potentially um how do you think about that
34:13
concept as a whole i think it's fully related to the digital credit stuff it's the same thing
34:18
it's the same like i there's three buckets of things that are happening in crypto right now
34:22
like stable coins are replacing the ACH network.
34:26
Bitcoin is augmenting everything debt and credit related,
34:29
both at the corporate level and the individual level.
34:32
And then you have all of the on-chain finance,
34:34
all of the crypto like stuff, right?
34:36
Exactly in that bucket,
34:38
an individual,
34:39
an individual believing that they can,
34:42
build up a stack and then take loans off of it
34:44
is the same thing as a company
34:47
holding Bitcoin on its balance sheet
34:50
and then issuing yield off of it.
34:54
And so it's the same market.
34:57
And I would say that what I'm most excited in that realm
35:02
is like Fidelity has on-chain Bitcoin accounts.
35:07
Like this is the other thing about like the ETF,
35:10
you almost is just is what it is like fidelity has on-chain bitcoin accounts you can buy and
35:16
sell bitcoin at fidelity and hold it at bitcoin or at fidelity schwab added on-chain bitcoin
35:22
accounts and i think those guys are going to add on like bitcoin backed lending figure figure just
35:31
bought kiave which was like the number the number one hard money like whole like run and gun home
35:37
flippers like Kiave was like the the like instant close two days like home flipping thing and so
35:46
yeah I think yeah I think borrowing your borrowing against your Bitcoin is going to be perfect I don't
35:53
I don't think it's a magic bullet for everything personal finance related it's I give the same
36:01
answer that I do about the kind of stick in growth and then sell off of it. I actually believe the
36:08
majority of people, the majority of people are going to have all three sides. And it's going to
36:13
be you sell some, you take loans against some, and you have an income plan. I think that's the
36:20
actual reality that happens for a lot of people. And each individual is going to know which one of
36:25
those three they're strongest in. And the other two is going to supplement.
36:28
it you mentioned you um spoke with parker and apex uh obviously related to that michael saylor
36:36
talks about this concept of digital money being built on top of digital credit what's your general
36:42
perspective of of that i i like it i'm not sure it's going to i'm okay with it i'm very i'm neutral
36:55
on it it kind of falls in the bucket of what i'm talking about of how the talking points are still
36:59
being decided kind of in real time and the exact right way of saying it hasn't cut all the way
37:05
through the one reason why i'm a little bit hesitant of it is because it kind of brings me
37:11
back to and i like telling people this i i have not been like a strategy common holder for like
37:17
going back five six years and been like retweeting sailor the entire time like i actually
37:22
I would I personally was like more in the camp of like no like I want bars to like take bitcoin
37:28
directly like I have a soft spot like I truly have a soft spot like bitcoin meetup lightning
37:33
wallet like tried and true like way of doing like I really do have a soft spot for that bitcoin
37:39
replacing fiat money like like actually um and kind of when when strategy was going through it's
37:49
kind of I don't know if you'd call it its initial like getting popular phase but there was a time
37:55
when I think Saylor would say like very revolutionary like pretty aggressive like kind of pro freedom
38:00
things that I think like that side of the internet liked and I was and I appreciated that and then
38:05
there was a time when he kind of like definitely moderated a little bit and his of like Bitcoin's
38:10
not replacing the dollar it's helping it like he was just there's a little bit of that undertone
38:14
and that was the time that I kind of like tuned out for a little bit I tuned out for a little bit
38:18
and just was kind of working on the products
38:19
that I was working on.
38:21
And then to the point about digital credit,
38:24
this is actually one of the biggest endorsements
38:27
I can personally give of it
38:29
is like him talking about digital credit
38:31
is what re-brought me back to like,
38:33
no, this is very revolutionary.
38:36
Like I do, this is the way
38:38
that Bitcoin competes with treasuries
38:40
and proves that it is like a capital asset.
38:44
Like I actually do really believe
38:45
that is very revolutionary.
38:46
And so now this version of like, yeah, just the refining down onto the thing.
38:55
I think it's fine.
38:58
I think the refining story is correct.
39:01
I don't love the part that says like, oh, then the money will be like five letter long like thing or whatever.
39:11
That's the part that I'm like, ah, like that.
39:15
That's why I actually would bring it back to like,
39:18
at a technology level,
39:20
at a technology level,
39:21
something that thinks that actually happening sooner
39:22
is stable, like USDC replacing the ACH network,
39:28
I think can actually make dollars 24 seven
39:32
and self-custodial.
39:33
And then the like tokenized,
39:37
stepped down derivative version of stretch
39:41
in your wallet, paying you a yield
39:44
just becomes like a savings account on your USDC.
39:49
So to me, USDC and Bitcoin is still the money,
39:56
is still the capital.
39:58
And then that is a money.
40:00
And then there's multiple versions of money markets
40:03
that exist on it.
40:06
Because I do see one soft spot I still have for the future is kind of this like this dual pricing model of like you know when you go to a gas station it like here the cash price here the credit price
40:22
And there's one each.
40:24
I do, one potential version of the future is like, here's the straight up Bitcoin price and here's the credit price.
40:31
And I think you're kind of already seeing this at places like Apple.
40:36
so like apple if you use the apple credit card you can get zero percent financing straight up
40:40
like on on any product that like any product that you want if you go to starbucks and you load
40:45
starbucks token before you pay with your credit if you use your credit card to buy starbucks token
40:51
which is load the gift card and then pay with the gift card then you're like giving discounts or
40:56
whatever at the thing so i think every store this is why i don't think tokens are like so
41:01
So every store is going to have its own credit.
41:05
And if you pay with the money, which is Bitcoin or USDC, you get one price.
41:12
If you pay with the credit, it's one price.
41:15
And then each company will be able to do things with their credit, you know, to kind of hit their revenue goals.
41:21
And so it's there.
41:23
It's there.
41:24
But I don't love saying that something else will be the money.
41:30
Yeah.
41:30
I mean, it is funny how he posted that thing.
41:34
And the thing that was called digital money was like ticker XYZ.
41:38
Yeah.
41:39
YYY.
41:40
And everyone was like, what?
41:41
And that's why, yeah, people were just like, oh, can I have, like, can you pay me back DCX5?
41:46
Like, yeah, obviously that's funny.
41:49
I mean, I definitely agree that that needs a marketing and branding overhaul.
41:54
But I think like his concept of stripping volatility, stripping return over and over again, whether it's a digital credit, which is like a senior tranche of Bitcoin, and then whatever you want to call it, another senior tranche of that.
42:06
It's like that could be something interesting that behaves a lot like a dollar or maybe a stable coin buy that thing.
42:14
And that's what backs their stable coin.
42:16
Like Tether buys Bitcoin and effectively backs part of their stable coin.
42:20
I could see that playing out.
42:21
I guess you kind of agree with that.
42:23
yeah no i do and i guess actually that so another analogy i've had about the future
42:28
is in the same way that a store has the stickers that are like we take mastercard we take visa we
42:35
take discover like that's the way that i've thought about when i think a lot about like l1s
42:39
competing with each other or whatever like that's another version that i thought of like oh like we
42:44
take bitcoin on this network bitcoin on this network bitcoin on this network that's another
42:48
version of the future is like because that's the other thing people when you ask like oh what do
42:53
Bitcoin kind of what do Bitcoin focused people need to kind of level up on to continue getting
42:58
up to speed with this one thing is crypto like acts a lot more just kind of like tech investing
43:07
or like startup investing it's all built on just marketing and business really business development
43:12
marketing business development marketing business development the the ticker the thing the layer
43:18
that wins that version,
43:21
it's all just based on marketing and business development.
43:24
Obviously, there has to be some functioning tech there also,
43:27
but the network that wins is going to, yeah,
43:31
build on the brand.
43:33
Like if strategy establishes Stretch
43:35
as the leading brand in the world of Bitcoin-backed yield,
43:41
then you back your thing
43:44
that you're trying to grab eyeballs to with that
43:47
and you are good enough at marketing and business development
43:50
and product marketing in order to gain adoption
43:52
and get stores to adopt to a thing
43:53
and get people to adopt to a thing,
43:55
then like, yeah, you're going to win.
43:58
And so, yeah, it's just a game.
44:03
Do you think that these income products,
44:05
whether it's digital credit
44:06
or any sort of other like Bitcoin-powered
44:09
or Bitcoin-backed income products,
44:11
do you think that that accelerates capital
44:14
and flows into Bitcoin?
44:16
uh and if so like maybe more broadly like where do you think we are in terms of like global bitcoin
44:21
adoption maybe in terms of its price like is it still early is it is it late um and and you know
44:27
how do you see this this new capital flowing into bitcoin i think yeah i think it'll definitely i
44:36
think it'll definitely help more money get into bitcoin because it what what does what does digital
44:43
credit actually solved it solves the number one complaint that people have which is the volatility
44:46
of bitcoin and and that's back to just how do you make a successful product you make something that
44:52
people want um and so people want stable cash flow people want stable cash flow people don't
44:59
want to deal with the um volatility and so if people
45:05
yeah i i think it's as simple as that i don't know i hesitate to like
45:13
I don't want to be the guy that's like pontificating about like,
45:16
oh yeah, major, major capital institutions.
45:19
Like I don't, I don't know.
45:21
I don't have any like institutional information,
45:23
but conceptually it is true that the number one complaint
45:29
about Bitcoin is the volatility.
45:32
Yeah, I agree with that.
45:34
I mean I think like I still believe that that you know 99 of people definitely think that And that you know if Bitcoin went up 30 per year like every single year I think everyone would want to own it
45:46
I mean, it seems pretty obvious to me.
45:48
But why do you think some people push back on that idea that, like,
45:53
volatility is not a hindrance to people getting Bitcoin exposure?
45:57
I think it's that they don't, that they only talk to, okay.
46:05
So categorizing humans is hard. Categorizing humans is hard. One thing that is true is that people that are online and good at personal finance are not great at seeing life from the side of people that are not.
46:26
Like in taking and what I want to say is something broader, like even taking Bitcoin out of it for a second, the concept of dealing with volatility and dealing with uncertainty, even the word volatility, like we kind of throw it around so much.
46:38
So like, let's swap in a new word, uncertainty, the ability to deal with uncertainty is very uncomfortable.
46:47
Like at a base level human skill, people don't like dealing with that.
46:52
Like I have a five-year-old and a three-year-old.
46:54
like raising kids has been the hardest thing i've ever done in my life like it exposed a lot of my
47:01
own emotional volatility of like why like why is a three-year-old crying why does that trigger me
47:07
so much like why why like actually and why and then i feel the need to like control like control
47:15
the situation and control the like chaos right i i just think i think that the majority the majority
47:23
of people in the world do not have bandwidth to handle more up and down in their life.
47:34
Like their actual mental load is like already tapped out. And I think people that if you do
47:41
have the ability to handle the volatility of Bitcoin and think long term, and not even just
47:49
think long term, like you can think long term, but then have the ability to actually execute
47:53
long term, execute navigating the like, balancing your lifestyle with the like saving of it and
48:00
dealing with the like, mental stress of watching it go down and beating yourself up and feeling
48:05
like you made a bad decision. That's there's very few there. The more people in the world
48:12
don't want that when choose to not do that or can't do that then do and so that's
48:20
being i've i've developed a lot more empathy for like other people's investing styles over the last
48:27
year um than i had before yeah i mean it's what do you think about this analogy and like in some
48:37
ways it's a good analogy in some ways it's a bad analogy it's like everyone would want to be
48:41
jacked and be able to run a marathon in a certain amount of time and like that requires a lot of
48:46
work dedication time and requires a longer time horizon but obviously if you look around the world
48:53
most people are not jacked and can't run a marathon and not because they don't necessarily
48:57
want to be it's just like it's hard to do that is is holding bitcoin kind of like that analogy
49:02
i think no yeah i think so yeah i i think that is a fine analogy i i think that works very well
49:07
And I think that to that point, one message that I've been trying to share on YouTube is the reverse of that point of like the people that have done it.
49:17
Like, I think you almost, this is my, like, gripe with pleb culture and whatever, is, like, no, like, dude, you crushed it.
49:27
Like, you crushed it.
49:29
And you have to be, you do have to, like, have a little bit of, like, internal pride and, like, just recognize that what you did is extremely hard.
49:40
And you have to, in my opinion, you have to let that confidence flow into other areas.
49:46
and I think where
49:48
people experience almost the most
49:51
leveling up from their Bitcoin is
49:52
allowing that confidence to flow
49:55
into other areas of their life
49:56
because no it is I think it is
50:01
really hard and having
50:02
any amount of Bitcoin is
50:04
a big deal and that's why yeah that's the whole
50:07
the whole 0.21 thing is like
50:08
trying to combine back to that of like
50:10
if you have more than 0.21
50:13
that's a big deal
50:15
If you have 2.1 Bitcoin, you're in the top 0.01%.
50:19
Yeah, it's definitely a big accomplishment.
50:26
When you look forward to the next 5, 10 years,
50:30
I think a common thing that people have been talking about recently
50:33
is the Bitcoin quote-unquote price models again.
50:36
The power of law is obviously the go-to model
50:39
that a lot of people are talking about now.
50:40
do you subscribe to any particular model how do you think about what bitcoin's future returns might
50:48
actually be um i don't really yeah i don't i don't have a favorite i don't have a favorite
50:56
and i haven't really tracked them it kind of goes in my like i've been really bad at even noticing
51:01
if we in a bull market or a bear market and so i this is the first like bear market i just honestly accepted and like been realizing it and let it realize and then this is the first time we like turning back to the bull and like realizing it um and so no the more paradigm i i go through actually is the like percentage of population
51:21
actually and and no so 2.1 is 0.1 of the population so not to not to beat a dead horse or like that
51:29
just truly is like the main way i've been looking at it through because i think a lot about influence
51:34
Like there's one thing to think about notional dollars.
51:37
Here's, here's why the power loss stuff and whatever.
51:41
A model for developing notional dollars is fine and interesting.
51:45
And it's valuable for when guys like Gary Cardone say that 5 million is a pipe dream.
51:51
That's valuable then to like throw some real math back and be like,
51:54
why that doesn't make any sense.
51:56
Why is that a pipe dream?
51:57
Like here's some reality.
51:58
The other version to think about comes across really in this,
52:02
in the short sentence of like there's less whole coiners than there are millionaires in the world
52:07
i think dealing in like volumes of people actually translates to some people's brains better than
52:14
straight notional dollars um because if you if you have a net worth of a hundred thousand dollars
52:23
there's not really conceptually you can't really feel you can't really look forward what the
52:30
difference will be between a million dollar a five million and a ten million dollar net worth like
52:34
you just don't you don't have the life experience of understanding that and so it's more about like
52:41
oh like realizing that like x people in your town are at x level and there is a world where the
52:50
amount of bitcoin you have right now puts you with them and making it just bringing it back more like
52:57
hyper local like that is the way that I think about it.
53:03
Maybe one of the final questions for you today.
53:07
We talked about income products, digital credit,
53:11
other Bitcoin related income products,
53:13
like bringing in additional capital to Bitcoin.
53:16
Do you think it also over time will bring people closer to Bitcoin
53:20
and help them understand and hold Bitcoin themselves?
53:24
Or do you think that that's kind of like a pipe dream
53:27
in and of itself.
53:28
No, I think it will.
53:29
I think it will.
53:30
And I think the Bitcoin-backed lending
53:32
being built out at the same time will also.
53:35
Because I think what's going to happen is,
53:38
so we already established
53:41
the majority of the population
53:42
can't deal with volatility.
53:43
And then you have a lot of people in the middle
53:44
that believe that passive index investing
53:47
is the way you deal with the volatility.
53:49
And so then you have Bitcoin
53:50
continuing to eat into the index
53:52
from a reliability standpoint.
53:54
And you have the people that are relying
53:56
on income products, the normalization of some of their funds going into Bitcoin related income.
54:03
And then after 18 months of getting paid by this thing and watching the price go all the way up,
54:09
and then you log into Fidelity one day and the Fidelity home screen is like,
54:13
oh, by the way, like mortgage rates for Bitcoin holders are half a percent less.
54:20
Like all of that is normalized and that holding the underlying gets you perks.
54:25
and then you need less than you think
54:28
of the actual underlying.
54:29
And so that's then when someone's like,
54:32
oh, if I've already had X amount of the credit,
54:36
yeah, I can now be a person
54:38
that like begins to hold some of the underlying.
54:41
I definitely think that path will happen.
54:44
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
54:47
Brian, this has been an awesome conversation.
54:49
We covered a lot of ground.
54:50
Any like final closing thoughts
54:52
that you want to leave the audience with?
54:54
yeah i just like think fresh like let let this bull market be different like just let it let it
55:01
be different think fresh and expand your um like keep all the best parts about the bitcoin philosophy
55:07
whatever it is you've picked up along the way keep the keep the best parts that you can but try to
55:12
shave off a little bit of the 10 to 20 percent that just that game theory might not be really
55:18
hitting the reality of where we are right now. And then same thing, if you feel like new to the
55:23
Bitcoin journey or whatever, like just you are part of what is going to, this sounds cheesy,
55:30
but like make Bitcoin hit larger numbers because there are major, major blind spots that people
55:37
that have been in the movement for a long time have. And you laying on your own vision of how
55:44
you see it playing into your personal finances today is what I believe is going to take it to
55:49
the next phase. Because I think this really is about like personal influence. Like I think,
55:53
I think personal, like well, doing well families in the United States having more of an allocation
56:00
to Bitcoin is actually going to be the self-fulfilling prophecy that makes it all move
56:04
forward. And so kind of just closing on that, like I have a really big passion for those people doing
56:09
that just like americans that are bitcoin philosoph like philosophy aligned and want to
56:15
grow their net worth want to grow their influence and so yeah i'm holding an event uh this november
56:19
you can go to events.brianherrytid.org you can search brian harryton on youtube and x and send
56:25
me an email i'm there like talking to people i love it yeah your youtube videos are great so
56:30
people should definitely go check that out uh but brian thanks again this was a an awesome conversation