Latest / The Starting Block / Is the Bitcoin bear market over? Ft. Cory Klippsten

Transcript

Is the Bitcoin bear market over? Ft. Cory Klippsten · The Starting Block

0:07
Welcome back to The Starting Block.
0:08
It's Thursday. I hope you've had a
0:10
fantastic week so far.
0:11
It's getting to the business end and
0:13
we've got a jam-packed show today.
0:15
Some big headlines in The Block
0:17
briefing coming up, including
0:19
BitMEX announcing that it's gonna be
0:21
closing. Crazy news, I think.
0:23
Another headline this week that I
0:24
just didn't expect after
0:26
we saw Jack Mallers walking away
0:28
from Bitcoin Treasury Company
0:30
21 earlier this week.
0:31
So we'll be jumping into that on The
0:33
Block Briefing.
0:34
And then I'm really looking forward
0:36
to having Corey Clipston, who is
0:38
the founder and CEO of
0:39
Swann Bitcoin, to be joining us for
0:42
a wide ranging Bitcoin
0:43
conversation.
0:44
If you know me online, you know that
0:46
I'm a big Bitcoin supporter and
0:48
advocate.
0:49
So really looking to having Cory on
0:51
the show to talk all things Bitcoin
0:53
today.
0:54
That's what's on the agenda.
0:55
If this is the first time that
0:57
you're joining us for the show,
0:58
welcome to the starting block.
0:59
This is the block's daily show.
1:01
It's our flagship show.
1:02
And we are into week number
1:04
four of the launch of the show.
1:06
Three weeks ago, we were in Abu
1:08
Dhabi for a very special exclusive
1:10
live interview with
1:12
CZ that we broadcast right here on X
1:14
and YouTube.
1:15
If you missed that conversation, you
1:17
can go to the block's YouTube page
1:19
and check out the full interview.
1:21
It's about 70 minutes.
1:22
If you haven't seen it, I recommend
1:24
you go and listen to that because
1:26
I managed to ask CZ some things
1:28
that no one else in the industry has
1:30
asked him to date.
1:31
And I think it was a really
1:33
enlightening conversation with
1:35
arguably the most influential man
1:37
in crypto.
1:38
So please do go ahead and do that.
1:39
And if you don't already subscribe
1:41
to the Blocks YouTube channel, and
1:42
if you're watching the broadcast
1:43
here on X this afternoon or this
1:45
morning for in the United States,
1:47
please like and retweet the
1:49
broadcast so we can get more people
1:50
joining us for today's show and
1:52
for todays conversation with Corey
1:54
Clipston a little bit later.
1:55
First things first, let's jump into
1:57
the block briefing, which is, of
1:58
course, a rundown of top
2:00
headlines and news.
2:01
In the past 24 hours.
2:03
And as I teased at the beginning of
2:05
the show, it's a big one to kick
2:06
things off.
2:07
An era in crypto is ending.
2:09
BitMEX, the exchange that gave the
2:11
world the 100X leverage
2:14
perpetual swap, will shut
2:15
down permanently on September 23,
2:18
closing out an 11 year run.
2:21
The board of parent company, HDR
2:23
Global Trading, made the call after
2:25
a strategic review and new
2:27
account signups have already
2:28
stopped. Arthur Hayes co-founded
2:30
BitMEX back in 2014 to
2:32
bring professional grade derivatives
2:34
to retail traders.
2:35
And that perpetual swap went on
2:37
to become the most traded product in
2:40
all of crypto.
2:42
The exchange has been hunting for
2:43
a buyer since early 2025,
2:46
but none materialized.
2:47
Hence this final announcement
2:49
that BitMEx will be closing
2:51
down on September 23rd.
2:54
So really.
2:55
An end of an era and
2:57
definitely we'll be reaching out to
2:58
Arthur Hayes to see if we can get
2:59
him on the show to talk about this
3:01
and get his thoughts on the
3:03
markets going forward.
3:04
Our next headline, Washington is
3:06
inching closer to sweeping crypto
3:08
law. Senate Republicans have
3:10
released the latest text of the
3:12
Clarity Act, a 616
3:14
page bill that merges the
3:16
banking and agricultural committee
3:18
versions and it could hit the Senate
3:19
floor as soon as next
3:21
week. The block obtained the
3:23
draft. The final sticking point has
3:25
been ethics, how to stop presidents,
3:28
members of Congress, and other
3:29
federal officials from cashing in on
3:31
digital assets while in office,
3:33
a debate supercharged by Trump's
3:35
meme coins and his family's
3:37
world liberty financial ties.
3:39
The new text adds software
3:40
development protections and
3:43
an ethics provision that sunsets
3:45
in 2029.
3:48
Our next headline, a rough day for
3:49
bridge security, AFX trade,
3:52
a protocol built on Arbitrum.
3:53
Was drained of about $24 million
3:55
in USDC, according
3:57
to security firm Blockade,
3:59
which says the exploit was specific
4:01
to a bridge AFX operates.
4:04
PexShield reports the attacker moved
4:06
the funds from Arbitrum to Ethereum
4:07
and swapped them for roughly 12,000
4:10
ETH.
4:12
Arbitron was quick to distance
4:14
itself here. Off-chain labs CEO
4:16
Stephen Goldfeder said the
4:18
transaction originated from a
4:19
third-party protocol and the
4:21
Arbitrum native bridge itself was
4:23
not hacked.
4:24
Or exploited in any way.
4:26
Circles going deeper into South
4:28
Korea, the stablecoin issuer
4:29
announced two partnerships
4:31
earlier today, one with
4:33
Kakao group and the other with
4:35
TOS Bank.
4:36
With Kakaos, the company behind
4:38
Kakaotalk, Kakaopay and
4:40
Kakaobank, Circle signed
4:42
a memorandum to explore
4:44
blockchain-based payment
4:45
infrastructure.
4:46
With internet-only TOSBank, it's
4:48
assessing stablecoin-based payments.
4:51
Both deals build on circles ongoing
4:53
push into the country following
4:55
April agreements with
4:56
exchanges up but them.
4:59
It's another sign the USDC
5:01
issuer sees Korea as a key
5:03
battleground for stable coin
5:05
adoption.
5:06
Our next story, more consolidation
5:08
in Korean crypto, financial
5:10
heavyweight Mirai Asset has
5:12
completed its acquisition of local
5:14
exchange Corbett and it's about
5:16
to push its stake even higher from
5:18
92 percent.
5:19
Up to roughly 97%.
5:22
Mirai Asset Consulting is now
5:24
Corbett's largest shareholder after
5:26
clearing the required regulatory
5:27
hurdles and a revised filing to
5:29
buy another $5.3
5:31
million of shares is expected
5:33
to close out by the end of the week.
5:35
For users, Corbitt says it's
5:37
business as usual.
5:38
The operating entity, user deposits
5:40
and personal data handling all
5:43
stay the same.
5:45
A year-long fight between Coinbase
5:46
and its regulators over,
5:48
and this is a really interesting
5:49
story that I put out a tweet earlier
5:51
today about the SEC reached a
5:53
settlement with the exchange
5:55
yesterday, ending a dispute
5:57
over records tied to the Gensler
5:59
era crackdown.
6:00
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed,
6:02
Coinbase chief legal officer Paul
6:04
Grewell accused former chair
6:06
Gary Genslow of waging a litigation
6:08
campaign against the industry.
6:09
Back in 2024,
6:11
Coinbase sued both the SEC and
6:13
the FDIC.
6:14
For failing to comply with freedom
6:16
of information requests, arguing
6:18
the regulators were stonewalling
6:19
the settlement finally closes
6:22
that chapter.
6:24
And a second bridge hack on the same
6:25
day. The Verus Ethereum bridge has
6:27
been exploited for around $7.5
6:29
million, its second breach
6:31
in roughly two months using the
6:33
same class of vulnerability seen in
6:35
May, according to reports from
6:37
Blockade.
6:37
The attacker abused the bridge's
6:39
import path to trigger unbacked
6:41
payouts on the Ethereum side,
6:42
Training E3.
6:44
TBTC, USDC, USDT,
6:46
and more from reserves.
6:49
Sirtec pegged losses around 75
6:51
million and says the funds were
6:53
swapped for nearly 4,000 ETH
6:55
and funneled into tornado cash.
6:57
Lastly, our final story of the day.
6:59
Polymarket is fighting back in
7:00
France. The prediction market says
7:02
it plans to legally challenge a
7:04
decision by France's gaming
7:06
authority, the ANJ,
7:08
to block access to its website.
7:10
Last week, the regulator ordered
7:12
French internet providers to cut off
7:14
Polymarket ahead of the World Cup
7:15
final, even though the platform had
7:17
disabled trading in France more than
7:19
a year ago back in November 2024.
7:22
Polymarket says it was surprised
7:23
noting it had kept the site open to
7:25
French users only as an information
7:27
source. It calls the block sudden
7:29
and unilateral.
7:31
If you're interested in reading more
7:32
on these stories you can go to
7:36
the block.co.
7:38
And of course, you can also keep an
7:39
eye out on our X feed, where we are
7:41
posting up to the minute
7:43
breaking news on anything related
7:45
to crypto.
7:47
If you don't already, please go
7:48
ahead and follow the block at the
7:50
block co right here on X.
7:52
And once again, if you're enjoying
7:54
the show, please like and retweet
7:55
the stream.
7:57
We'll be taking a very short break
7:58
and we will be back with a
8:00
market pulse and hot seat segment
8:01
amalgamated as we welcome
8:04
Corey Clipson to the
8:06
show. We'll see you right back.
8:07
Don't go away.
14:35
Welcome back to the starting block.
14:37
We're moving into the hot seat
14:38
today. We've got Corey Clipston,
14:40
who's of course the founder and
14:42
CEO of Swann Bitcoin,
14:45
very well known in Bitcoin circles.
14:47
And actually the first time we're
14:48
chatting, Corey, so it's great to
14:50
have you. Unfortunately, we've got a
14:51
little bit of tech problems.
14:53
So we're just gonna be having Corey
14:54
joining us today over voice,
14:57
but Corey, first things first, how
14:58
are you? Thanks for coming.
14:59
Thanks for having me, Gareth, and I
15:01
appreciate it.
15:01
I don't know, you don't have any
15:03
idea whether I'm in a hot seat.
15:04
I could be lying down on the couch.
15:06
I might be standing and walking
15:07
around, but yeah, I'm here
15:10
in London visiting,
15:11
and unfortunately, my promised
15:14
150 megabyte upload
15:16
ended up being about 150 kilobytes,
15:18
so we're gonna do audio only for
15:20
today.
15:21
Well, we'll make it work.
15:23
It's not a problem.
15:25
And of course, if people can hear
15:26
you, that's all that really matters.
15:28
Well, you look great.
15:29
Well, you look great, Gareth, and
15:30
you have the Bitcoin symbol on the
15:31
background.
15:32
So just imagine that when I'm
15:34
talking, I also have nice Bitcoin
15:36
art in my background.
15:37
Yeah, exactly.
15:38
I mean, like just a shout out there,
15:39
like I'm still kind of
15:41
fixing up my studio here, but the
15:43
piece of art over my left shoulder
15:45
is from Cypherpunk
15:47
now. He's a quite a well-known
15:49
Bitcoin artist, been in the industry
15:50
for many, many years. He actually
15:51
gave this to me.
15:53
It's one of his, you know,
15:55
I think he only does like 25 prints
15:56
a year of some of his best
15:58
art pieces, and that's that on the
16:00
left. And then obviously I'm rocking
16:01
the Bitcoin Neon and just
16:03
in case anyone wasn't sure if I.
16:05
Or was it a Bitcoin or not,
16:08
I had to make it categorically clear
16:09
with the studio.
16:13
Corey, let's take it back a
16:15
few years and get your Bitcoin
16:17
origin story for the audience
16:19
here at the block that doesn't know
16:21
you and what you're about.
16:23
Yeah, happy to.
16:24
So, look, I like to
16:26
give it real brief in the upfront,
16:28
but grew up on the West Coast,
16:30
used to work for big companies,
16:32
worked for Microsoft and Morgan
16:33
Stanley before B-School.
16:35
I went to University of Chicago,
16:37
which was a very different kind of
16:38
place for someone that grew up in
16:40
San Francisco and Seattle, as you
16:42
can imagine, opposite end of the
16:43
spectrum and very illuminating.
16:47
A couple more stops did McKinsey
16:49
in New York, worked on a lot of
16:50
financial institutions and media
16:51
work out there, private equity for
16:53
a few years.
16:54
And then basically the global
16:56
financial crisis got me looking at
16:59
tech again and a lot of
17:00
my friends that I had been.
17:02
Around in the late 90s early 2000s
17:05
when I kind of fled tech and went to
17:07
business school They wrote the
17:09
wrote it down after the dot-com bust
17:10
and all the way back up and we're
17:12
kind of really well-placed and the
17:13
iPhone Came out and the social
17:15
network and global financial
17:17
crisis, you know basically made
17:18
bankers not cool in New York and
17:20
all of a sudden tech was awesome and
17:22
I just started really looking at It
17:24
and I I realized I didn't really
17:26
want to work for big tech I
17:28
wanted to be in early stage
17:30
so that I could have more of an
17:31
effect on what would happen.
17:33
So that Google stop was the
17:35
first time that I really took a
17:37
daub. With a real plan.
17:39
And I went to work for them for
17:41
a little over two years.
17:42
And I networked like crazy with that
17:44
Google.com email and Google
17:46
on the LinkedIn. And I met probably
17:49
1,000 founders and VCs in
17:51
a little bit over two year.
17:52
I had a few teams that I was
17:55
supporting and helping run out
17:57
in the Bay and
17:59
in LA and ended up
18:01
deciding to move and transferred
18:02
with Google to Los Angeles.
18:04
Started cutting angel checks into
18:06
Silicon Valley venture backed
18:07
startups and advising venture
18:09
backed CEOs on strategy,
18:11
fundraising, maybe the highest level
18:13
biz dev, occasionally helping with a
18:15
senior hire, things like that.
18:17
And created a nice little niche for
18:19
myself and then proceeded
18:21
to leave Google and do
18:23
exactly that full time for seven
18:25
years.
18:25
So I basically had a seven year
18:27
partnership where I was an angel
18:29
and an advisor to Silicon
18:31
Valley Venture backed.
18:33
Startups and built up a nice
18:35
portfolio of over 50 companies.
18:37
I've had 16
18:39
hoping for a 17th exit
18:41
here soon.
18:42
Looks like one final one is coming
18:44
of a handful of
18:45
companies that are either not exited
18:47
and not dead yet.
18:49
So that was a really, you
18:51
know, fruitful and successful
18:53
part of my.
18:54
Career and I thought that was
18:56
just what I was going to do.
18:57
I enjoyed the, you know, light
18:59
travel and raising kids and SoCal
19:01
and coffee meetings and
19:03
everything's basically remote and
19:05
you don't, you, know, the, I guess
19:07
the comp per hour is off the
19:08
charts.
19:09
But this Bitcoin thing,
19:12
you just ravaged
19:14
my social and professional network
19:16
in spring of 2017 along with
19:18
all the crypto ICO stuff
19:20
and it just really caught my
19:21
attention and made me take a notice
19:23
and kind of dive in.
19:24
So I started reading and listening
19:26
and meeting everybody I could around
19:28
crypto and Bitcoin in
19:30
May of 2017.
19:32
It took me about 10 months to do
19:35
Is this a family show, can I say the
19:36
S word?
19:37
You can say any word you like.
19:39
Any words you like. So it took me
19:40
about 10, 11 months
19:42
to get through the shitcoin
19:43
horseshoe where you kind of start
19:44
with Bitcoin and you explore all the
19:46
altcoin crypto blockchain DeFi stuff
19:48
and come out the other side focusing
19:50
on Bitcoin which is what I did.
19:53
So I've basically been
19:55
all Bitcoin since mid-18,
19:58
started looking around for something
19:59
to do because it was 40,
20:01
50 hours a week that I was spending
20:02
on Bitcoin by fall 2018.
20:05
And had the idea for an
20:07
education-focused on-ramp like a
20:09
broker in early
20:11
2019, kind of validated it,
20:13
tested it a little bit, and got to
20:15
the point where I was comfortable
20:16
announcing it in June of
20:18
2019 and raised money and started
20:20
building in Q3.
20:23
Brought on Jan Pritzker,
20:26
author of Inventing Bitcoin.
20:27
Which he put out in spring of 2019
20:29
and sent me a PDF of it to,
20:31
you know, kind of give him some
20:32
feedback and everything.
20:33
And I just thought it was brilliant.
20:35
I think it remains the best book
20:37
ever to introduce somebody to
20:38
Bitcoin and explain how it works and
20:40
why.
20:41
So we got along really well and
20:43
brought him on as a co-founder right
20:46
at the end of 2019.
20:48
And we launched swan in
20:50
March of 2020.
20:51
So just, it was 17 days
20:53
after the COVID crash.
20:55
So swan.com went live.
20:56
I guess it was swanbitcoin.com
20:58
before we could afford the domain
20:59
back then, went live on
21:01
March 30th after the COVID
21:03
crash of March 13th, which is
21:05
interesting because I
21:08
think we've done a great job and I
21:09
think we're awesome at client
21:11
service. The app is amazing.
21:13
We have the broadest range of
21:15
services of any of the Bitcoin
21:16
focused fintechs in the U.S.
21:18
By far. But
21:20
we also benefit from having
21:22
our first cohort of
21:24
customers loving
21:26
the fact that we got them into
21:27
Bitcoin in the single
21:29
digit thousands, right?
21:30
And so we kind of all rode that up
21:32
together and it's just created this
21:34
incredibly strong
21:37
and enjoyable kind
21:39
of tribe of people around
21:41
Bitcoin, obviously, but also just
21:43
around Swann and this team that
21:45
a lot of us have been here
21:47
since inception, which is also
21:49
super rare in startup land to have
21:51
this many people that have been
21:52
around since the beginning.
21:54
Yeah, I mean, like,
21:56
there are a handful of other,
21:58
I think, Bitcoin-only kind of
22:00
exchanges or platforms in the U.S.,
22:02
I mean Jack Matters and Strike jumps
22:04
to mind just with the news that came
22:05
out this week, and I don't want to
22:07
probe too much about that,
22:09
but just, I did want
22:11
to get your thoughts on that in
22:12
general, and, I know you
22:14
have a lot of views about Tether,
22:16
etc., which I don t want to go into
22:18
too much today, but
22:20
Jack announcing his departure from
22:22
21 and saying that he's going to
22:24
focus on strike again, to me
22:26
sounds like a good thing for
22:28
Bitcoin, Bitcoin.
22:29
And I wanted to get your thoughts on
22:31
that, like him coming back into
22:33
the main Bitcoin
22:36
fold again.
22:39
Yeah,
22:41
you know, I mean, it was only
22:43
ceremonial anyway.
22:44
Him being at 21 was just for
22:46
marketing and promotion of the
22:48
stock. Obviously that was completely
22:49
owned and controlled by Giancarlo
22:52
Devesini, the majority shareholder,
22:55
and controlling, well, he's not
22:56
the majority shareholder but he does
22:58
control more than anybody
23:00
else and he does have a majority of
23:01
the voting shares at Tether.
23:03
So it's his company.
23:06
You know, they obfuscated it to some
23:08
degree, but obviously tether plus
23:10
Bitfinex had 71%.
23:11
Now it's just come out this week
23:13
that Heka,
23:15
a Heka
23:18
fund entity,
23:19
I think it was called
23:22
Actually,
23:24
HECA, it turns out, was 75%
23:26
tether. And it turns out that GDAF,
23:28
which was 7% of 21's cap table,
23:31
was a HECA entity.
23:32
So you can pretty much assume that
23:33
was Tether too.
23:34
So they basically kind of obfuscated
23:36
the fact that it was all Tether.
23:38
And then obviously,
23:40
SoftBank sold their shares back to
23:42
Tether in May.
23:43
And so now it appears Tether is
23:45
about 93% of the cap table.
23:47
So it's just a Tether entity and
23:48
it's kind of their US entity
23:50
for them to do US things and,
23:53
you know, line pockets where needed
23:54
for political reasons in the US.
23:56
So. I think
23:58
understanding that that's what it's
24:00
for explains both why they
24:02
didn't need Jack anymore.
24:05
He did his job, which was to shell
24:07
the stock last April, which he
24:09
did very aggressively
24:12
in a very gray area,
24:14
putting out falsifiable
24:16
numbers about strike in violation
24:19
of probably four SEC rules to
24:21
pump the stock. Um, so.
24:24
You know, I think it was the right
24:25
thing for him to move.
24:26
I don't think it was his idea
24:29
or decision.
24:30
I think he just got asked by the
24:31
board and they decided to go in a
24:32
different direction.
24:34
And unfortunately they probably got
24:36
what they needed out of him a long
24:37
time ago. And it just took a while
24:38
to let it play through.
24:42
Yeah, I mean, I
24:43
will be honest that I didn't
24:45
expect that turn of events and
24:48
I've interviewed Jack
24:51
a handful of times.
24:52
I've interview Paolo a handful times
24:54
as well. And when I spoke to Paolo
24:55
last year about Jack
24:57
coming on board with 21,
24:59
it was exactly that.
25:00
He's like, you don't get a better
25:02
kind of spokesperson for Bitcoin.
25:04
And that's really what 21 needed.
25:06
And I guess just to...
25:08
Take the conversation in a
25:10
slightly different direction but
25:12
still in the same vein.
25:13
It does beg the question in my
25:15
mind about the overall
25:17
trajectory of Bitcoin treasury
25:19
companies.
25:21
Anything can happen.
25:22
I don't want to say strategy is too
25:24
big to fail because anything can
25:25
happen, but I really do think
25:27
there's only going to be a handful
25:28
of these companies that are able to
25:30
survive on the model that was built
25:32
out less than two years ago.
25:35
Obviously for strategy, It's been a
25:37
lot longer.
25:38
But what's your general thesis on
25:40
the Bitcoin strategy,
25:42
Bitcoin treasury company movement
25:43
and where you see it going from
25:45
here?
25:47
Yeah.
25:49
So first off, I would
25:51
say it's not really about
25:53
any of them surviving.
25:54
There's only two actually
25:56
functioning in the U.S.
25:58
Today as what the
26:00
actual goal here, and it was
26:02
always a Remember to call it a
26:04
Bitcoin treasury company because
26:05
that is clearly inclusive of
26:08
If you just use words as they're
26:10
defined in English, that would
26:11
include Tesla and Mass Mutual and
26:14
tons of tiny companies that just
26:15
have Bitcoin on their balance sheet.
26:17
They have Bitcoin in their treasury
26:18
and their company. So that's a
26:19
Bitcoin treasury company.
26:20
A much better term is the one that I
26:22
gave, what strategy does leverage
26:24
Bitcoin equity, which is Bitcoin
26:26
exposure with a bit of leverage.
26:29
So LBE, that's, that a better
26:31
term for what they
26:33
have done and what Strive
26:35
has joined them in doing, which is
26:37
having perpetual leverage,
26:39
it has to be actively managed.
26:40
You can't just set it and forget it,
26:42
but you can't do that with an ETF
26:43
either.
26:44
Leveraged ETFs always have tracking
26:46
errors and that's why traders never
26:47
use them as long-term holds.
26:49
They're supposed to be hedges
26:50
because they just decay horribly
26:52
over time.
26:53
You just can't track an index with
26:55
leverage perfectly.
26:58
And so if you look at them as
27:00
being essentially actively managed
27:02
levered exposure to Bitcoin
27:05
and you can do that well or poorly
27:06
and you can do that.
27:08
Efficiently or not efficiently.
27:11
They're the only two in the game
27:12
that are actually doing it.
27:14
All the rest essentially were
27:16
attempts that
27:18
thus far have failed.
27:19
It doesn't mean that they fail
27:21
forever because they could
27:23
catch a flyer and be able to get
27:25
enough Bitcoin to issue
27:27
preferreds and ideally perpetual
27:29
preferred seems to be what the
27:30
market wants to buy to help
27:32
you lever up and you could
27:34
see other entrants in the
27:36
future.
27:37
You know, you basically just copy
27:38
exactly what Strive did.
27:40
And, you know, if you could be in a
27:41
game too, and you could offer 13.25%
27:44
and maybe have a more credible
27:45
marketing team than they do or
27:47
whatever, and be in the game.
27:49
But there were, there were
27:51
really only four
27:53
U S companies that even got into
27:55
the race and took a shot at it
27:57
last summer, despite all the noise,
27:59
there was a Pomp's thing,
28:02
a Burr, which failed,
28:04
there was Sequance, which was a U S
28:06
listed stock.
28:07
I tried to help them, so Swann
28:08
advised them with strategy
28:10
marketing, but we came in too late
28:12
in the deal.
28:13
It was way too levered up.
28:15
I mean, these things need to be like
28:17
15, 20% levered, not freaking
28:19
50% lever.
28:19
So that one struggled and
28:22
the bankers just unfortunately,
28:24
actually I probably can't say
28:25
anything about it, but let's just
28:27
say it wasn't structured for
28:29
success as things it out.
28:32
And then there was Empory,
28:34
which had a great team and took a
28:35
shot at it, but also didn't get
28:37
enough Bitcoin.
28:38
What it turned out, and I guess
28:40
there was Naka, Nakamoto,
28:41
which everybody knows about
28:43
Nakamoto.
28:45
All of them basically ended
28:47
up subscale.
28:49
So you needed at
28:51
least 500 million, preferably
28:53
800 million to a billion of
28:55
unencumbered Bitcoin Nav,
28:57
just to be able to issue
28:59
a press.
29:01
At decent terms and
29:03
have the market buy that preff
29:04
because they wanted at least 125
29:07
million, ideally 200 million
29:09
in that first offering and
29:11
wanted coverage of at least 4X
29:13
of unencumbered Bitcoin nav.
29:15
That means it wasn't subject to the
29:16
terms of a convertible, right?
29:19
And so everybody, unfortunately
29:20
last summer was that
29:22
summer of 25 paper Bitcoin
29:24
summer as it was affectionately
29:26
known at the time.
29:28
You know, Nakamoto did the first
29:30
deal and loaded up with a massive
29:32
convert and all the bankers
29:33
and hedge funds wanted the exact
29:35
same thing for the other deals.
29:36
So basically they all shot
29:37
themselves in the foot out of the
29:39
gate, except first drive,
29:41
which only did a pipe and did not
29:43
take a convert.
29:44
And then, you know, unfortunately,
29:46
and this is why these things are
29:48
path dependent. And that's why I
29:49
don't, I see these things all
29:51
it's like.
29:52
They were honest attempts and
29:54
they were executed with varying
29:56
degrees of quality, but
29:58
as bad as the marketing
30:00
was for
30:02
NACA last summer, like, I
30:04
got to share, you got to share, like
30:06
all that stuff was just terrible.
30:08
They almost got away with it because
30:10
they almost acquired similar.
30:12
And if they had, you know, they
30:14
didn't have so much leverage.
30:16
So they would have acquired, you
30:17
know, four or five hundred million
30:18
dollars with a Bitcoin.
30:19
And they had $500 million worth of
30:21
Bitcoin.
30:22
And only a $200 million convert,
30:24
they could have wiped that out,
30:25
replaced it with a preferred.
30:27
And they basically had that deal,
30:29
I've heard through hearsay,
30:31
whatever, it's not third degree, but
30:32
got it second degree that they
30:34
spent about two or three weeks
30:36
actually structuring the deal to
30:37
acquire a similar.
30:38
And basically at the last second, in
30:40
the last two or two days, Strive
30:42
scooped it up and got the
30:44
deal on the terms that basically
30:46
Nakamoto had negotiated with them,
30:48
but slightly better.
30:49
And that's why Strive made it,
30:51
because Strive didn't have enough
30:52
Bitcoin to issue a preff either
30:55
until they acquired similar.
30:57
So in that respect, it
30:59
could have gone a different way here
31:01
or there.
31:02
Some different firm, maybe Empory
31:03
and Pomp would have combined at
31:05
some point, both being in Newark, if
31:07
their shareholders had all gotten
31:09
together and they would have been
31:10
big enough to survive and on
31:12
and on. But as it is,
31:14
there's only two in the race, but
31:15
that doesn't mean that it's to stay
31:16
that way forever.
31:18
There is a lot of large
31:20
numbers. A lot of people understand
31:22
exactly what I've just laid out
31:24
and know the playbook that
31:26
works.
31:27
They also get to watch and
31:29
potentially be fast followers
31:31
in the next cycle or something like
31:33
that. I don't have any interest in
31:35
it now that I've kind of seen what
31:36
the game is and just how
31:38
kind of Wall Street-centric it is
31:39
and the types of people that get
31:41
into these deals and what they're in
31:42
it for.
31:43
And the fact that my thesis was all
31:45
around this actually being something
31:47
that smart money would buy and that
31:48
didn't end up being the Case and
31:50
I don't think and I have a you know
31:52
Even back last summer when I was
31:54
talking about this I always said
31:55
that I thought that LBEs
31:57
were for Institutions that it
31:59
wasn't something that retail should
32:00
buy that retail's should buy the
32:02
real on-chain Bitcoin They
32:04
you know, frankly is after you get
32:05
your your
32:08
You're a little taste of an ETF,
32:11
like you shouldn't get over like 1%
32:13
of your liquid net worth in
32:14
an ETF before you move to
32:16
self-custody.
32:17
Like that should be where you stop,
32:19
you know, if you got a million bucks
32:20
in your brokerage account,
32:22
you get 10 grand of Bitcoin, it's
32:24
time to move to Self-Custody, you
32:25
got 5 million bucks, you got to 50
32:27
grand, it is time to figure out
32:28
Self- Custody
32:30
Yeah, look, I completely agree
32:32
with you, and I think most people
32:34
that are big proponents of Bitcoin
32:36
will first and foremost tell you
32:37
that. And I'll caveat that as
32:39
well by just saying like, when I sat
32:41
down with Jack Mallers
32:43
and Dylan Leclerc last year at
32:45
Bitcoin Vegas, it was the first
32:47
thing that they said to me was like,
32:49
first things first, like, get some
32:51
Bitcoin and self custody.
32:52
That's where you should start.
32:53
But this is a different product for
32:55
a different audience in a different
32:56
market.
32:57
And I think it's kind of clear to
32:59
see that, you know, Sailor has
33:01
pioneered in that direction.
33:02
But I will say that, you know
33:04
the other players in the
33:06
market, especially just with the
33:08
launch with Sata
33:10
and daily dividends being paid out,
33:12
I think that
33:14
actually probably caught
33:16
Sailor in strategy by
33:18
surprise. And I wanted to, my last
33:20
question about Bitcoin treasury
33:21
companies, but yeah, these, you like
33:23
the stretch and the Sata
33:25
products, Do you think that?
33:27
That in itself just tapped into
33:29
a market that was dying to
33:31
get a reliable
33:33
dividend every
33:36
day or every month.
33:37
And do you think that has more
33:39
longevity than everything else?
33:40
The frequency of the dividends is
33:42
just something to talk about on
33:43
Twitter and podcasts.
33:44
It really doesn't matter.
33:47
What does matter is like the rate
33:48
that you're paying and what
33:50
the effective yield is depending on
33:52
what the price is when you actually
33:53
buy the perpetual preferred.
33:57
And so,
33:59
you know, I would just say like,
34:02
both of those teams are
34:04
full of some very smart people.
34:06
Yep. And it's been rough,
34:09
but what do you expect when
34:11
you are buying a leverage Bitcoin
34:13
equity and Bitcoin has gone down?
34:15
Leverage works both ways.
34:17
You're gonna get fucking wrecked
34:19
when Bitcoin's down 55%.
34:22
You're gonna go down more, not
34:23
to mention that it's a theme and
34:25
that the wrong people own it and
34:27
they have paper hands, lettuce
34:28
hands, they obviously don't
34:29
understand Bitcoin because they
34:30
didn't buy the real thing, they
34:32
bought a stock, so you're
34:34
just, you're going to be compounding
34:36
it on either direction.
34:38
It's not just going to go up
34:39
1.2x and down 1.3x,
34:42
it's gonna be more
34:43
precisely because
34:46
of the type of investor that it
34:47
attracts. That
34:49
said, like...
34:51
I'm not
34:53
long-term, I wouldn't ever
34:55
be like long-term bearish, something
34:57
that Ben Workman
34:59
and Matt Cole and
35:01
Jeff Walton are working on.
35:03
They're very, very smart, diligent,
35:05
high integrity people busting
35:07
their ass trying to make money for
35:09
themselves and their shareholders
35:10
and it's the same thing
35:12
over at Strategy.
35:13
I know Sharish pretty well, I know
35:15
Sailor pretty decently well for six
35:16
years now.
35:18
I don't know Fong much, watch
35:20
him a little bit, but at
35:22
least the two guys that I do know
35:23
are trying really, really fucking
35:25
hard.
35:29
I definitely have
35:31
gotten the
35:34
max allocation I was
35:36
ever okay talking about
35:38
into any kind paper Bitcoin
35:39
product, whether it was, you know,
35:42
strategy or an ETF or whatever.
35:44
You know for any of our private
35:45
clients that said just make sure
35:46
you're like 80% in real on-chain
35:48
Bitcoin.
35:48
If you want to trade around with
35:50
some other things like
35:52
fine go do you but like
35:54
make that your trading stack
35:56
not your long-term hodl
35:57
stack and your
36:00
Bitcoin price exposure, your Bitcoin
36:01
exposure, your Bitcoin ownership
36:03
should be at least 80% the real
36:04
thing.
36:06
Really the only thing that's
36:07
happened for me is I've probably
36:08
started recommending 90% over
36:10
the last few months.
36:12
So I just think the way it's
36:14
played out and just how far these
36:16
things have fallen and
36:17
just how much operational risk there
36:19
is, especially when you see
36:22
some of the marketing missteps and
36:24
some of obvious blunders, I don't
36:26
even call them out, it doesn't
36:27
matter, like whatever you think they
36:28
were, I certainly have the ones I
36:30
think that were made,
36:33
it's obvious that these things had
36:34
a lot of risk in them and
36:36
using the language of savings
36:38
accounts for.
36:41
Perpetual preferreds with yield that
36:43
are equities
36:46
Isn't it's disingenuous.
36:47
It's not it's not that much better
36:49
than machine ski and BlockFi.
36:51
It's a little better, but not that
36:52
much better I Still
36:55
didn't really ring rake
36:57
anybody over the coals for the
36:58
digital credit thing because I think
37:00
there was a lot of Everybody made a
37:01
lot caveats and kind of put out the
37:03
language and said we're calling it
37:04
that but really, you know It's a
37:05
hybrid equity blah blah blah
37:08
The only thing that really drew
37:10
my ire was a couple of months ago
37:11
when they started calling
37:14
a derivative of
37:16
a perpetual preferred
37:19
digital money and
37:21
saying we turn Bitcoin into digital
37:23
money and I was like yo Fonzie,
37:25
you fucking jumped the shark bro,
37:27
like Bitcoin is digital money, don't
37:29
get it twisted, like a derivative
37:31
that's packed with like 7
37:33
other risks on of Bitcoin.
37:35
And now you're calling that digital
37:37
money, like that's a bridge too far
37:38
and you kind of lost my support at
37:41
least around that.
37:43
So hopefully they have learned their
37:45
lesson. There will be fewer AI
37:47
videos about hot
37:48
girls retiring to
37:50
Thailand on stretch dividends.
37:54
And just like,
37:56
I always thought these things, like
37:58
do the hard work of going and
37:59
banging on the doors on Wall Street
38:01
and don't just tweet.
38:02
Just focus more.
38:04
Give the dumb
38:06
money more confidence in
38:08
what you're selling them by going
38:09
and signing up the smart money.
38:11
Because I always thought that this
38:13
was supposed to be for institutional
38:16
buyers and that's
38:18
the only buyer that I ever wanted
38:20
to market to, you know, getting
38:21
involved in this
38:24
last year.
38:25
And I just don't like that it ended
38:27
up being almost purely
38:29
just a retail kind
38:31
of dumb money market.
38:32
So I hope that changes.
38:34
Yeah, I hope so too.
38:35
And I echo your sentiments when,
38:37
you know, say the release, I can't
38:39
remember when it was. I think you're
38:40
right, like three or four months
38:41
ago, that that ex post that,
38:43
you know was speaking about, you,
38:44
know, digital money and stuff.
38:46
I was also like, come on
38:48
guys, like, this is what
38:49
Bitcoin is.
38:50
Like, as soon as you start talking
38:52
about that, you're going down a
38:54
dangerous path here saying like,
38:56
we have figured this out, and
38:58
we
39:02
have Come on, this is not what
39:03
Bitcoin was supposed to be.
39:05
But I'm gonna pull it in another
39:07
direction now.
39:09
You obviously, before you came on
39:10
the show, you shared with me your
39:12
essay, The Battle for Monetary
39:14
Independence. Really, really great
39:15
read.
39:16
Enjoyed reading it through today.
39:19
And I wanted to talk to you just a
39:20
little bit about where you see
39:22
the Bitcoin movement right
39:24
now and how important it
39:26
is to remind people what
39:28
Bitcoin actually is.
39:29
And how far a road we still have to
39:32
walk for Bitcoin to become
39:34
money that we all use and
39:36
sort of the real vision of what
39:37
Satoshi wanted.
39:39
Yeah, look, first off,
39:41
I appreciate you reading it.
39:43
The guys actually just put it on a
39:45
short URL, so I could just say
39:47
it. It's swan.com slash battle,
39:50
and that'll go right to it.
39:51
But I put it out on the 21st.
39:53
I like to release things on 21s.
39:56
And the whole idea here is,
40:02
I'm often inspired
40:04
going back and
40:06
reading little bits and
40:08
pieces of my grandfather's
40:10
war journal. Both of my grandfathers
40:12
fought in the Pacific Theater in
40:13
World War II.
40:15
My dad's dad was
40:17
a comms guy, so it was like radar
40:18
and comms for
40:20
the admiral passing notes back and
40:22
forth and trying to get other
40:24
generals and admirals on
40:26
the radio for him to talk to you on
40:28
the phone, whatever.
40:29
And.
40:31
He kept a journal every day of his
40:33
entire time on the Yorktown.
40:35
So this was the second Yorktown
40:36
after the first one got sunk in
40:38
Midway in 43.
40:39
So it launched from Bremerton up
40:40
near Seattle in 44 and he was on it
40:42
for its entire commission all
40:44
the way through bombing
40:47
Tokyo and taking their surrender
40:49
and everything.
40:52
Just what that generation
40:54
went through.
40:55
You know, just always gets me
40:57
and, you know all of
40:59
the, what did we call the 250th
41:01
for America, Sasquacentennial I
41:03
think was the 250 anniversary of
41:05
the Declaration of Independence.
41:07
You know, so there's just kind of a
41:08
lot of America, America, but
41:10
a lot really
41:14
Insightful conversations among me
41:16
and my friends and network and then
41:18
you know Just throughout the media
41:19
and social media and you know, just
41:21
being honest like these are the good
41:22
things These are the bad things, but
41:23
like let's let's be very clear that
41:25
there are some really good things
41:26
about The
41:28
protocol that was set
41:30
250 years ago at the founding of
41:32
America So anyway,
41:34
the the conceit of the article is to
41:36
just draw a through line of kind of
41:38
the day-to-day things that my
41:39
grandfather was going through
41:42
in World War II and
41:45
mapping that onto the
41:48
big battle for political
41:50
independence that the founders of
41:52
America went through 250 years ago
41:54
and drawing analogies
41:56
to the battle of
41:58
our generation, the
42:00
one thing that clearly we are
42:02
charged with, which is
42:04
the tremendous amount of good that
42:05
we can do not just for America but
42:07
for the whole world and all humans
42:09
now and in the future.
42:10
If we actually win this battle for
42:12
monetary independence and wrest
42:14
control from the money printers of
42:17
this thing that they inevitably
42:19
use, regardless of
42:21
how well-intentioned they may or may
42:23
not be, they
42:25
always will print money and they
42:27
will always give it to their friends
42:29
or their own causes and
42:31
let the market do its thing and we
42:33
just can't help it that we're human
42:34
and we want good things for our
42:36
kids and our friends and so we'll
42:38
always print money and give it them.
42:40
So that is just
42:42
what's gonna happen.
42:48
So I wrote a
42:50
piece in 2020 at the foundation
42:52
of Swann called 10 million
42:54
Bitcoiners, the intransigent
42:55
minority, which was the mission
42:57
statement for Swann and what
42:59
I thought the mission was that
43:01
we selected to work on.
43:02
I wanted to work the one that I
43:04
think is the most important,
43:05
frankly, which is I I think Bitcoin
43:07
has unbounded upside,
43:09
as long as it...
43:11
Doesn't die.
43:12
I don't think it's going to die at
43:14
this point, but I do think there
43:16
remains a risk that
43:18
a concerted coordinated
43:20
effort from lots of governments
43:22
could make life really
43:24
difficult for Bitcoiners and
43:26
Bitcoin businesses, Bitcoin holders,
43:28
whatever. And so that's where I
43:30
think protecting the downside really
43:32
comes from. And what I wanted to do,
43:35
I happened to be, despite this
43:37
into labs.
43:39
Vitriol toward Bitcoin,
43:42
mostly the result of the
43:44
emotional disagreement he had with
43:45
safety in a moose years ago,
43:48
not because of any actual
43:50
understanding or true arguments
43:51
against Bitcoin.
43:53
He does remain a really good
43:54
synthesizer of classical knowledge
43:56
and the whole idea of antifragility,
43:58
but also just the popularization of
44:00
the concept of an intolerant
44:02
minority or an intransigent minority
44:03
that Once you reach
44:05
3% of a population, if
44:07
they hold a view and won't move off
44:09
of it, you can basically flip
44:10
society to be in line with
44:12
that, and it's been proven across a
44:14
lot of different domains in a lot of
44:15
different places.
44:16
So that was the idea of you got
44:17
300-something
44:19
million Americans and you get 10
44:21
million of them to actually give a
44:22
shit about Bitcoin, to actually
44:24
store a meaningful amount of
44:26
their wealth in the protocol where
44:28
they would fight for it to some
44:29
degree. You know, I would qualify
44:31
that as like maybe writing a letter
44:33
to a congressman or something like
44:34
that. You know various levels
44:36
of fighting for it would be over
44:38
the bar.
44:39
You would essentially be inoculated
44:41
and protected against really
44:44
the only entity that
44:45
could ever coordinate something that
44:47
could really make life difficult for
44:49
everyone that was into Bitcoin.
44:51
It's really just the State
44:52
Department at the USA.
44:53
That's it.
44:54
There's no one else that can
44:55
actually affect everything globally
44:56
for everybody.
44:58
And so, you know, this.
44:59
This This
45:02
next article I wrote, I
45:04
don't know, it was 22 or 23, I put
45:05
out the race to avoid the war, but
45:07
it was really just, that's
45:09
the race we're trying to win
45:11
is to basically flip society,
45:13
get to 10 million Bitcoiners in the
45:14
USA so that we never
45:16
end up having to fight this war
45:18
and have like a dark long
45:20
period where everybody has to, you
45:21
know, it's just dystopian and
45:23
we really do have to basically be
45:25
black market Bitcoiners and you can
45:27
never just find a soft landing
45:29
for the dollar where you know,
45:31
like Lavera and Lin Alden and a lot
45:33
of folks in the space kind of hope
45:35
that we'll just slowly
45:37
see demand for dollars decline
45:39
as demand for Bitcoin rises
45:41
and you can have a soft landing for
45:42
the dollar sometime later this
45:43
century. And you know this is
45:45
what Nick Carter called the, you
45:47
know a peaceful revolution or the
45:49
most peaceful transition or whatever
45:50
it is.
45:51
And I love that framing.
45:53
Nick and I have our quibbles,
45:56
but I still think he's
45:58
got a good way with words.
46:01
You know, so I like that framing
46:03
and that's what I aim for and what I
46:05
hope for and that is why I do
46:07
all the things that I do personally
46:08
and for Swann is really just trying
46:10
to further Bitcoin adoption so that
46:12
we don't have to ever fight that
46:14
war and you do that through the 10
46:15
million Bitcoiners.
46:16
And so this battle for monetary
46:17
independence was really just,
46:20
I'm just trying do
46:21
what I can to know that
46:23
I kind of left it all on the field
46:25
and basically kicked off 50
46:27
days for freedom.
46:28
On the 21st and we're just kind of
46:30
going hard all summer.
46:32
The 50th day will be September 8th,
46:34
the day after Labor Day in
46:36
the US.
46:37
And we're basically just doing a
46:39
lot every single day.
46:41
Brought back Cafe Bitcoin, which
46:43
back in the heyday of the clubhouse
46:45
was by far the most listener hours
46:46
of any club on that platform that I
46:48
owned and started.
46:50
Had 158,000 subscribers and
46:52
14, 15 daily rooms
46:54
and different languages around the
46:55
world, et cetera.
46:56
We brought that back to Twitter
46:58
Spaces and going live every day
47:00
at, I think we're doing 10 a.m.
47:01
Eastern every day, so I got it in 40
47:03
minutes from now.
47:06
And then we also dropped our buy
47:07
fee, so like, you know,
47:09
and we've always covered withdrawal
47:11
fees, so we always pay the network
47:12
fees on withdrawals.
47:13
So like, for 50 BEPs, which
47:15
is lower than the
47:17
market order on Coinbase Pro,
47:20
Oh. Ha ha.
47:20
Especially if you haven't bought in
47:22
a while, we're in the fine print.
47:23
It's always double.
47:24
So you actually pay 1.2% if you
47:26
do good volumes in the last 30 days
47:27
on Coinbase.
47:29
So you make those buys
47:31
on Swann.
47:31
We pay withdrawal fees.
47:33
We coach you on how to self-custody.
47:35
We have collaborative custody with
47:36
Swann Vault.
47:37
It's all about getting people to
47:39
buy and actually own
47:42
real on-chain Bitcoin.
47:43
And if you can do it yourself,
47:45
great. It's the cheapest place to
47:46
buy. If you need some help.
47:48
We can do guided self custody with
47:50
Swan Sovereign or collaborative two
47:52
out of three multisig with Swan
47:53
Vault.
47:55
And that's what we're all geared up
47:57
around is we're are all fired up
47:59
and it's just gonna be
48:01
a really fun summer.
48:03
And a lot of people are kind of
48:04
rallied and jazzed up and
48:06
we all got the Bitcoin Twitter
48:09
algorithm back in line last
48:11
week, which has just been
48:13
amazing and quite a gift for
48:15
the effort that we all already had
48:17
underway.
48:20
I also just want
48:22
to stave off this
48:24
trend of the last few years
48:26
where so many people in
48:28
space have just been co-opted
48:30
by dollar merchants.
48:31
And been fed and in many
48:33
cases bought and then promoted
48:35
a bullshit line that somehow
48:38
getting into dollars is a gateway
48:39
drug to getting into Bitcoin, where
48:41
it's actually the biggest
48:42
battle that we have to fight is
48:44
the battle versus the strongest
48:46
current monetary network, which is
48:48
the dollar.
48:49
So that actually is the enemy
48:50
of Bitcoin adoption and stable coins
48:52
are just more yacht printing and
48:54
more extension of the Ponzi that's
48:56
gone wrong.
48:58
It's just a lot of silver
49:00
tongue folks in DC and New York and
49:02
Lugano that have been
49:04
pushing dollars like crazy and
49:05
fooled a lot people and bought a lot
49:07
a people off.
49:10
It's definitely trying
49:13
to pull people back to the mission
49:14
and I just wanted to pull on one
49:16
thread. I know we've been chatting
49:17
for a while so we'll probably try
49:18
and wrap things up in the next
49:19
minute but one of
49:21
the things that kind of sticks out
49:22
to me about your essay and
49:24
just people trying to understand
49:26
what Bitcoin is and the power
49:28
of what it is, is the simple
49:30
fact that the US government
49:33
had the gold recall back
49:35
in 1933 and
49:37
if we do get past this kind of.
49:38
3% of the population that
49:41
holds Bitcoin in self-custody,
49:43
part of the beauty of Bitcoin is
49:45
that it's almost impossible to
49:47
confiscate it from someone if
49:49
they've gone about their op-sec
49:51
really well and either
49:53
memorize their seed
49:55
phrase or whatever, but they've
49:56
protected their Bitcoin adequately.
49:59
No one can ever take it from you.
50:01
And I wanted to just get your
50:02
thoughts on that in general.
50:03
And perhaps like.
50:05
The overall kind of future in which
50:07
you see us using Bitcoin as
50:09
money.
50:10
Because I mean, I don't offer like
50:12
a financial advice or anything, but
50:14
my general approach to Bitcoin is
50:16
DCA every month and
50:18
just keep stacking as
50:20
much Bitcoin as I can up until
50:22
the point where we use it very
50:24
freely as money and then
50:26
at that stage, I should have
50:28
enough of it to live my life
50:29
comfortably using the money of the
50:31
future and...
50:32
The money of freedom, that's my
50:34
general thought, but when do you see
50:35
that becoming a reality?
50:37
Gareth, why would I try to top
50:38
your mission, just
50:40
get fantastic.
50:42
Look, I think when you're talking
50:44
about using it as money, you mean
50:45
paying for things that's medium of
50:47
exchange, more
50:49
probably accurately a currency.
50:51
Look it can't be a widely used
50:53
medium of exchange until it's
50:54
already a widely use store of value.
50:56
And it can be a widely use story
50:58
value until the network has a lot
50:59
more capacity, meaning
51:02
a lot more value stored in the
51:03
network. So I don't think that
51:05
you'll see medium of exchange take
51:07
off, especially in the West, until
51:08
Bitcoin is at least $1-$2
51:10
million in current purchasing
51:12
power. So like $20-$26,
51:14
let's say.
51:16
So I think that'll be a
51:18
minute. I do think it'll come next
51:19
decade.
51:20
So 2035 or something like that,
51:22
you'll start to really see.
51:24
The first will be charging up
51:26
the steep part of the store value
51:28
S curve. There's like a 20 year lag.
51:31
Between that and the next S-curve,
51:33
which is move exchange.
51:34
It's still on the flat part.
51:36
We haven't even hit the inflection
51:38
point of Bitcoin as a medium of
51:39
exchange, but at some point we will
51:41
start charging up the S-Curve.
51:43
And then 20 or 30 years after that,
51:44
you'll start up the unit of account
51:46
S-curve, which is the third function
51:47
of money. So I
51:49
do think it's inevitable that
51:50
Bitcoin fulfills all three
51:52
functions. And I think that people
51:53
that talk about Bitcoin
51:56
not.
51:57
Ever serving as a medium of
51:59
exchange. First of all, can't see
52:00
the future.
52:01
Second, don't understand the
52:02
functions of money.
52:04
And third, don't understand monetary
52:05
history and how things have
52:07
developed in the past.
52:08
So I just think it's kind of
52:09
inevitable that we now have a
52:11
currency that can settle at the
52:13
speed of telecommunications.
52:14
And we'll look back at that
52:16
weird era from 1861
52:18
with the launch of the telegraph all
52:19
the way through to 2009 with the
52:21
invention of Bitcoin and be like,
52:23
how did we ever survive with this?
52:25
You know, distance between getting
52:27
it all done and actually being able
52:29
to settle it.
52:30
Like no wonder we needed fiat and
52:32
digital dollars and all this
52:34
Byzantine bullshit.
52:35
It was just to catch up with
52:37
telecommunications and now we have
52:38
Bitcoin and we don't need that,
52:41
you know wacky 148
52:44
year interregnum
52:46
where none of it made sense and it
52:48
was all just, you
52:50
know tortured.
52:52
So now everything can make sense
52:53
again and we can back to building.
52:56
Yeah, a hundred percent my last
52:58
question to you and like I don't
52:59
really love talking about this
53:00
anymore, but but 110 has
53:02
been very divisive
53:04
in the Bitcoin community.
53:05
What are your general thoughts on
53:06
that? And what do you think is gonna
53:07
happen?
53:09
I'm staying out of it really.
53:10
I just I think that we
53:12
don't understand.
53:14
We don't understand the effects on
53:15
either side.
53:17
It's it's a divisive and
53:19
hard one because a
53:21
lot of the people that I look to for
53:23
signal and and
53:25
have for many years worked with
53:27
and been friends with are in
53:29
the camp of like this ain't gonna do
53:31
it.
53:31
And right next to them are
53:33
all the people that have always been
53:35
the scammers around Bitcoin
53:37
the shit coins on Bitcoin promoters
53:39
The fake Bitcoin layer to
53:41
people the NFT scammers
53:43
like and they're all you know on
53:45
that side, too So it is
53:47
just one of those things where you
53:48
know, the social signals are not
53:50
going to tell you the right way to
53:52
go as often they do
53:53
and you actually have to go deep
53:55
into the tech to understand it.
53:56
And when you get into the Tech, it
53:58
actually is murky.
53:59
And you know, it is true that
54:01
something, you know happened that
54:03
you can reasonably say, well, that
54:05
that sucked and you know coercion
54:07
of upgraded in that way to be
54:09
30 and shouldn't have done, you
54:10
know, from 83 kilobytes to 100,000
54:12
kilobites.
54:13
And then you're like, well you know
54:15
there is reference implementation of
54:16
Bitcoin because the protocol is the
54:18
code and it's like it would be nice
54:20
if we kind of had a spec that
54:22
people could build to instead of
54:23
just forking core if you wanna do
54:25
something new, but then you realize,
54:27
oh wait, hold on, that's how Linux
54:28
works too and that seems to be okay
54:30
and they have kind of like a
54:31
magnanimous king, you know, Linus
54:33
Torvalds that just does it for them
54:34
and it's like, okay, hold one.
54:37
Like do I have the time really
54:39
to be an expert
54:41
in all of this shit?
54:42
Like it is basically like
54:44
unpacking and being a Bitcoin expert
54:46
which. I am not but
54:48
I've been at it for nine years now
54:49
and I'm not a Bitcoin expert yet so
54:51
I'm supposed to like render an
54:53
opinion on something this complex
54:55
when the guy that got me into
54:56
Bitcoin, Jimmy Song is staying out
54:58
of it because he can't render an
54:59
opinion.
55:00
I'm okay.
55:01
So my contribution is that
55:03
Cafe Bitcoin every day
55:05
all summer is a BIP 110
55:07
free space and
55:09
We're about to do day three
55:11
the first day on Tuesday
55:13
We got to minute 35 before
55:15
somebody said BIP110 the
55:17
second day yesterday we got to a
55:19
minute 59 out of 90
55:21
minutes before somebody's said Bip
55:22
110 and We're
55:24
gonna shoot for 90 today.
55:25
So we'll see if we can get there.
55:27
There's enough Hopefully we can
55:29
Anyway, I appreciate the time,
55:30
Gareth. Thank you so much.
55:31
Yeah.
55:32
Yeah, awesome. Thank you so much for
55:34
coming, Corey. And we look forward
55:35
to having you back on the show in
55:36
the future.
55:38
On better wifi.
55:39
On better Wi-Fi, so we can see your
55:41
face this time.
55:42
Sounds good.
55:42
But I appreciate you taking the time
55:44
to chat to us.
55:45
And if you don't already, go ahead
55:46
and follow Corey on
55:48
X. It's at Corey Swan,
55:51
very easy to find.
55:52
Thanks again, Corey, for coming.
55:53
And thank you very much for joining
55:55
us for the starting block today.
55:57
If you don't know, we broadcast
55:58
every day at 8.30 a.m.
56:00
Eastern time if you're in the U.S.
56:02
That's 2.30 Central European time if
56:03
you are here in Europe like me.
56:05
Please come and join us for the
56:06
show.
56:07
We've got an interesting guest on
56:08
the show tomorrow, a big name guest.
56:10
None other than Charles Hoskinson
56:12
will be right here on the starting
56:13
block and be talking all things
56:15
Cardano. I'm going to talk to him
56:16
about Bitcoin as well.
56:18
So set a reminder on your calendars.
56:20
We'll have a pinned tweet up a
56:21
little bit later this afternoon to
56:23
remind you if you don't want to go
56:24
and put a
56:26
calendar reminder yourself.
56:28
Please come and join us tomorrow.
56:29
I promise you'll be entertained.
56:31
Until then, have a fantastic morning
56:33
or evening wherever you are around
56:34
the world. We'll catch you tomorrow.