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James Lavish | Explaining Saylor's Bitcoin Strategy | Simply Bitcoin IRL · Simply Bitcoin

• 0:00
  Hello everybody. Welcome to another episode of
• 0:02
  Simply Bitcoin IRL. Today we have a very, very
• 0:05
  special guest, James Lavish. I consider him one of the macro
• 0:09
  heavyweights of Bitcoin, Twitter, and just Twitter in
• 0:12
  general. This guy drops so much sauce on
• 0:14
  his newsletter and on his tweets.
• 0:17
  Definitely recommend following him if you have if you aren't
• 0:19
  already doing so. But before I bring him up on
• 0:22
  stage, I do want to give a shout out to the Bitcoin company that
• 0:25
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• 0:47
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• 0:50
  Check out bitcoinwell.com today. All right, ladies and gentlemen,
• 0:54
  no more delay. I do want to bring up James
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  Lavish. We recently crossed paths in
• 1:00
  Portugal. James, it was great to see you
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  in person and it's great to see you once again.
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  How you doing? Awesome to be here Nico.
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  Thank you for having me and especially in such a busy time.
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  Yourself and you, dad and all awesome.
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  Yeah, it's, you know, it's kind of in The Twilight Zone where
• 1:17
  you don't be in. Survival mode for years.
• 1:22
  Oh, God. OK.
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  All right. Well, thank.
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  God for picking, and then they'll get to college.
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  And I have a girl, so that's that should be interesting.
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  That's awesome though. It's so much fun.
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  Oh my God, I'm. I'm excited.
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  I'm excited. Anyways, yeah, so I want, I want
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  to start off this episode relatively spicy.
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  I have a clip for us, so I I want to get your thoughts on it.
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  Yeah. Well.
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  Because they want to sell it eventually, Michael.
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  I mean, let's be honest, most of the people who are, yes, sure
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  some people pass it on to their children, but like most of the
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  people who are buying assets at some point want to sell the
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  assets at a profit. So I.
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  Guess, let me say it a different way.
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  People that use Fiat currency as a store of value, there's a name
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  for them. We call them poor.
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  OK. Anybody that's rich in the?
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  Yeah, I mean, that's pretty intense.
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  He's he like, he doesn't mince words.
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  The issue here, Nico, is it's extraordinarily difficult for
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  anybody to get out of their own way of thinking of the, you
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  know, the world they grew up in. We grew up being told and taught
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  that inflation is normal. It's a it's just part of life.
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  And you invest in order to make more money.
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  You know, investing. You know, some people invest and
• 2:45
  make more money in that you're creating productivity, extra
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  productivity. You know, you're finding
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  something that's really scarce and value like real estate in an
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  area that's really expanding and so you beat inflation doing
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  that. But really, people invest to
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  keep up with inflation, and so they sell things because they're
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  investing it to hold on to something while they're waiting
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  to buy something else. And you know, he's right.
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  And and I understand where she's coming from.
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  I grew up in that world and that's where most people still
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  live, especially especially institutional investors,
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  traditional investors, Tradfi, that's where they live, That's
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  where their brains are. And it's difficult for them to
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  get out of their own way. Yeah and and I've you know I've
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  experienced that personally trying to orange pill just you
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  know close family members of mine and stuff like that.
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  And you know if you know let let's say you have a decent
• 3:44
  sized portfolio and you're used to having to operate in this
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  mindset where you have to become a part time investor just to
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  maintain your purchasing power whether that's you know going to
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  real estate, you know you look into wealth, you know wealth
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  managers, wealth advisors etcetera, etcetera.
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  So you know the idea of approaching them and saying hey,
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  listen, all you really have to do is just DCA, Buy this stuff,
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  take self custody. They'll never it it it doesn't
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  compute. It does not compute.
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  It still doesn't compute. I I still talk to people in my
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  old world and they kind of chuckle.
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  They're like, Oh yeah, I was into Bitcoin back in 2014, 2015
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  and it's a fun rabbit hole to go down what And that's it.
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  That mean like, Oh yeah, I sold it.
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  You know, it's like they then you didn't understand it.
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  You you truly didn't do the all the work you went down the
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  rabbit hole of. This is a cool technology to own
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  and fun. That's it.
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  You know so. It's it's definitely interesting
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  to say the least. So James, you know, Michael
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  Saylor continues this extremely aggressive kind of, you know,
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  this, this rinse and repeat cycle he just announced
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  recently. And of course Bitcoin Twitter is
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  losing their minds. You know, March 11th, you know,
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  he announced a, you know, complete say, $800 million
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  offering of convertible notes at, you know, these crazy, you
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  know, kind of rates and stuff. And he just announced another
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  one today, March 13th. So just continues to raise
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  money, leverage his company to raise money to buy more Bitcoin.
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  It's like this never ending cycle.
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  So James, for our audience, could you kind of explain what
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  he's doing, what mechanisms he's using, how he's leveraging his
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  company in order to continue to raise more and more and more
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  money to buy more Bitcoin? It's it's almost as if he's like
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  printing money to buy Bitcoin, from my perspective.
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  Yeah, you look, he's got a a horde of Bitcoin on his balance
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  sheet. He's got a underlying company on
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  top of it. But he's just leveraging the
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  balance sheet in order to borrow money using, you know, borrowing
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  money and convert convertible bonds and and buying more
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  Bitcoin. Those those will convert at a
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  much higher price. And so that allows him to borrow
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  at a super low rate. Why?
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  Because whoever owns those owns those bonds.
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  They have a they basically have a call option on on the the
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  stock too. And so it it's a it's a great
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  deal and he's just continuing to go back to the well and that's
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  why you see a premium in the share price if you you know if
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  you if you take how much Bitcoin he owns and and MicroStrategy
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  and you you divide by the shares and and the the price of the
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  shares are. And you you take down the the
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  other business down to a minimal value that the the shares are
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  trading at 6780% premium you know in the last few days to
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  that underlying Bitcoin. And it's because the expectation
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  he's going to continue to do this and as as Bitcoin goes up
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  he's going to benefit from it. It's a it's a brilliant strategy
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  and I don't understand why some other companies don't do it why
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  they don't put some Bitcoin on their own balance sheets.
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  It's it's absolutely madding to to think that you've got Apple
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  and Microsoft with you know over $100 billion between them on
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  their balance sheets and they're just not they're if they are
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  buying it, they're being extremely quiet about it.
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  But now with the with the Fasby ruling where you can mark to
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  market rather than having to take an impaired loss on it,
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  that's a really big deal for these guys.
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  So I think these are all doors that are opening now there's the
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  the, the, the barriers are being toppled for institutional
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  investors and for companies to add to their balance sheet, so
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  in their treasury. Yeah.
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  And I I kind of want to double back to you know what we were we
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  were talking about like right in kind of in the beginning of the
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  of the podcast and it kind of connects to what you're saying.
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  And I remember it. I had the privilege of being
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  able to speak to Sailor and I asked them exactly what you just
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  said, which is like, OK. You had, you know your your
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  quarterly report and I remember in the quarter report it was
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  awesome because it was sailor and it was a slideshow basically
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  showing that MicroStrategy is just outperforming everything
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  else. And one of the interns or
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  producers and they tried to put that slide down and sailor's
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  like, no, no, no, no, no, leave it up.
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  And he just continues like for 30 minutes explaining why
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  Bitcoin is this everything. And I and I told him I was like,
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  look you've already proved it. You're vindicated, right.
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  You know, you, your, the MicroStrategy Bitcoin strategy
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  is clearly working. Why is it taking so, why is it
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  taking so long for people to really switch?
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  And this connects to what we were talking about earlier.
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  And with your background, James, right, You were in the belly of
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  the beast, so to speak. You know why is it that it's
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  taking so long for people to fully understand this new
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  emerging asset, especially if you come from that legacy
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  background? Yeah, I mean there's no
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  incentive, right. You've done so well off the off
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  the traditional finance, off the legacy Fiat finance system,
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  financial system. There's no, there's no incentive
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  you're you're the stocks are still going up.
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  You know yeah we have inflation but the companies are expanding
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  they're and and these guys are taking down massive pay
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  packages. So if you think about it this
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  way, continue to do what they do in the system that they know and
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  they're very good at it. Financial engineering, you know
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  buying back shares, setting themselves up with these pay
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  packages that are tied to share, you know the the stock
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  performance. They can use PayPal, they can
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  use stock purchases and to buy back stock and then put them in
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  the treasury and then hand those out to to executives.
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  And they they just do that like they that this is the way they
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  get paid and they're incentivized to continue that
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  way. But why would they change that
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  model? You know, if they go out and buy
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  Bitcoin and put that on their balance sheet, that's something
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  different. They're stepping outside the
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  norm. They're taking a risk personally
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  and professionally to do that because if something happens
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  where Bitcoin does drop in value by 70 or 80% like it did, then
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  they could be fired. You know Michael has the you
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  know he and I talked to him about this long ago is that he
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  has the he has the not the luxury but the the the ability
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  to do this without anybody questioning because he owns over
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  50% of the stock. You know the these guys don't
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  most of these CE OS own just a fraction of their company.
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  They don't own 50% like literally just a fraction.
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  They sold out of most of it when they did their IPO or they've
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  they've sold out of most of their stock along the way.
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  They, you know, they're that's that's the problem is that if
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  there's too much personal and professional risk and there's
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  too little incentive for them to do it so.
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  OK. And and and you know and and I'm
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  glad that you kind of broke it down based on your experience
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  and you know the fact that they're what do you think that
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  we'll ever reach a, a point where the incentive is there?
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  I mean like how long, you know, and I don't think it's a
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  coincidence by the way that the CEO of Vanguard resigned, OK,
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  especially with the whole BlackRock thing going on and the
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  amount of institutional inflows that are that are going into
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  that ETF. But you know what?
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  When do we and I think there was a, there was a panel on this
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  actually at Bitcoin Atlantis. When do we jump that chasm?
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  Like when do we go from early adopter to early majority?
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  What, what needs to happen in order in order for us to make
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  that jump, so to speak? Well we're we're experiencing it
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  now with the ETFs. This is this is created an an
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  easy on ramp for all these institutions that just couldn't
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  buy before. OK.
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  So there's there's there's two things going on #1 the the CEOs
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  of these big companies they could buy and put on their
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  balance sheets. They have the they have the
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  ability to do that. They have to go through some,
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  you know, some headache to do it.
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  But they could do it. Institutions like pension funds,
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  endowments, you know they they can't really just and registered
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  investment advisors, some family offices, they don't have the the
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  ability to go and just buy Bitcoin on its own.
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  I've talked about this many, many times.
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  And so it's not just professional risks it's just
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  huge barriers to entry for them. But now that we have the ETF, it
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  makes it so simple because instead of having to go through
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  meetings and compliance and structures and operational
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  issues and getting things approved and you know things
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  that take months and months and maybe years.
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  Now they can just say, hey, this is an asset that I want to own
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  and put it on our balance or put it in our portfolios.
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  And now we can just buy it through the same traders on the
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  same exchanges with the same prime broker, settling it and
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  and custodying it with the same prime broker and and then
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  pricing it just like any other stock and the and the market
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  values it makes it super simple. And so now all you're seeing is
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  that that highway's built and it's easy for them to get on.
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  All they have to do is build their own on on ramp and that
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  has to do with if you're an institution you have to have the
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  meetings you have to decide do we want it in our portfolios.
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  And then you know how are we going to message like what is
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  the messaging around that to our investors to you know to the
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  people that we need to answer to.
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  And then if you're an RIA you have to get approvals from your
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  your your overriding company. You have to have the the right
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  verbiage. You know that you you can have a
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  sales pitch or you can agree to to allow them to buy this and
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  they have to check a box to understand that there's high
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  risk because it's so volatile. Whatever they want to say just
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  to see YA cover your ass and then that's it they can once
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  they have that built and they've got the Q SIP in their in their
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  system, well they can buy it for their investors just like any
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  other stock And we're seeing that happen every single day.
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  Just a few more IRIAS, you know maybe a couple institutions
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  they're just kind of coming on and they're and they're putting
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  on their on their on ramps and that's why you're seeing every
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  single day three, four, $500 million is coming into net of
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  the the GBTC outflows is coming into these ETFs and yesterday we
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  had like a billion dollars come in and so and then the function
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  of the price is a whole another matter but that's what we're
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  seeing happen. When does it, when does it go
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  widespread? Good question.
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  I believe that it happened slowly and we're seeing it
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  happen and what's what is going on here is that everybody's
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  looking around and going hey do you own the are you.
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  So you're buying this and so oh, I should have, we need to put
• 15:03
  this in our portfolios. And So what we would do and I've
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  and I've mentioned this before is if there was a new, if there
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  was something that we really thought we should own.
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  You know, you sense like this risk reward and my first glance
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  looks like something I really want to own.
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  Just looking at the whatever it is, the financials or the
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  opportunity. What I'm going to do is I'm just
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  going to buy a little bit and then I'm going to dig in and
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  that's called legging into the trade.
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  You just leg into the trade by buying 1% or 2% and then you
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  really dig in or half a percent, anything just to make yourself
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  do the work because now it's on your portfolio and it's on every
• 15:38
  single day you're going to see it there.
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  So you got to say, oh, do you want, is this something I want
• 15:42
  to own or not? Do I want to add to it or I want
• 15:44
  to just take it off the books because it's staring at you
• 15:46
  every single day as you look at your sheets.
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  So that's what they're, that's what you're seeing people do.
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  And so they're just going to continue to dig in and continue
• 15:55
  to learn more and understand why it's different.
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  And then suddenly you're going to see people put it in a lot of
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  portfolios and have it a a segregated kind of allocation to
• 16:05
  an asset across the board. And that's what that's what I
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  believe we're going to see. And and that kind of it reminds
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  me of your presentation at Bitcoin Atlantis basically and
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  you're making the case, the 3% Bitcoin allocation versus the
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  6040 portfolio. Do you want to elaborate a
• 16:25
  little bit on that 'cause I really enjoyed that
• 16:27
  presentation, James. Yeah, I mean basically if you
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  look at all of the the different assets out there that you could
• 16:36
  own instead of Bitcoin, right? Or you, you know, you could have
• 16:40
  owned Bitcoin instead of if you look at Treasuries over the last
• 16:45
  12 years and this is before I I did that presentation Nico,
• 16:49
  before we even left for Madeira. So and the Bitcoin was at
• 16:54
  $50,000, so now it's up another 40%.
• 16:57
  Wait, wait, hold on. Let me let me clarify what do
• 17:00
  you you you prepared the presentation before you left to
• 17:04
  my data. Yeah, So.
• 17:06
  And so it reinforced. And and I and the all these
• 17:10
  numbers that I'll quote to you is they're they're old.
• 17:14
  You know I mean they're really stale but let's they're the
• 17:18
  numbers in reality are far better.
• 17:21
  So you know Bitcoin over versus long term Treasuries over the
• 17:26
  course of the last nine years like it's it, it's out it's
• 17:29
  outperformed by 16 times, you know Bitcoin versus Gold 25
• 17:34
  times, Bitcoin versus S and P / 10 times and then it even even
• 17:40
  outpaced the magnificent 7 by three times.
• 17:43
  But when you look at this was a a great, this was a great kind
• 17:50
  of chart that that Morningstar put together and it and it
• 17:54
  basically it just showed how if you owned a 0 allocation in in
• 18:01
  Bitcoin and you just had a 6040 bond allocation.
• 18:05
  You know over the course of the last nine years you had like a
• 18:09
  175% return or something, right? And then if you add just 1% or
• 18:15
  2% you you went up to 200%. You went up to 225%.
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  If you had a 3% allocation to a 6040 bond portfolio and you took
• 18:25
  out that 1 1/2% of the bonds and 1 1/2% of the equities and and
• 18:30
  you had a 3% position in Bitcoin, you doubled your
• 18:35
  return, you're up you're up over 300% you're up like 300 and
• 18:39
  33140% over the course of those nine years.
• 18:41
  So it it it just the bottom line is you know it's the best
• 18:48
  performing ad and but people would say well but look at all
• 18:51
  the volatility during that time. Look at the volatility and if
• 18:55
  you if you look at the returns over the course of that period
• 18:59
  of nine years, the the biggest drawdown was only 21 percent,
• 19:05
  21.3% if you added that 3% Bitcoin versus 20% for the 6040
• 19:11
  portfolio. So you didn't really add much
• 19:13
  volatility to your portfolio. You just added alpha because
• 19:17
  your your your annualized return went from 8.9% to over 13%.
• 19:23
  And again this is before this move, you know this is this is
• 19:28
  through the end of the year. So but over the last 11 years
• 19:33
  Bitcoin's been the best performing asset out of eight
• 19:37
  out of the last 11 years. Like there's if you're and the
• 19:41
  punchline of that of that whole presentation was.
• 19:45
  If this doesn't convince you to add Bitcoin to your portfolio,
• 19:49
  then maybe you shouldn't be managing money, at least not for
• 19:52
  other people. Yeah.
• 19:54
  And and and and no and and it it's OK.
• 19:58
  So it's to the point where if you don't add if you're a wealth
• 20:03
  man. And by the way, I have a, a best
• 20:05
  friend of mine, we grew up together.
• 20:07
  Now he's VP, Goldman Sachs climb the ladder.
• 20:09
  You know, and I and I've been telling you I've been I've been
• 20:11
  Bitcoin for eight years and and the, you know eight years ago I
• 20:15
  told him I was like, hey man, you have to buy this.
• 20:17
  Buy some, buy a little. Bit and out of all my friends,
• 20:20
  all of my high school friends, I've convinced them all right.
• 20:22
  And then as soon as the Black Rock ETF got approved, I said,
• 20:25
  hey man, welcome to team Bitcoin.
• 20:27
  You know, and he just responded, FU right.
• 20:30
  But the point I'm trying to make is it is irresponsible not to at
• 20:36
  least have a, you know, 1% or 2% or 3% allocations of Bitcoin at
• 20:42
  this moment in time. You're hurting your clients if
• 20:46
  you don't do that. And so when we were at dinner
• 20:48
  one night, we had a big table with, you know, with Jeff and
• 20:51
  Preston and we're all sitting around and there's this there.
• 20:53
  There's a couple behind us and they're a retired couple.
• 20:57
  And and they were listening to us and they came up and they
• 20:59
  said, so you're here for the Bitcoin thing.
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  We're like, yeah, you know, we're, we're, you know, at the
• 21:04
  conference. And he's like, yeah, we've heard
• 21:07
  about that thing. I don't own any.
• 21:08
  I don't need it. I'm, you know, I'm retired and
• 21:11
  I've got enough money. And I said, well, you know, have
• 21:14
  you seen what's going on with the, with U.S. debt and and and
• 21:19
  how, you know, our deficits are growing and how, you know,
• 21:22
  honestly we'll never pay it back and your your money is melting
• 21:25
  every year. And he said, yeah, but I don't
• 21:26
  really care. I mean I've got enough money.
• 21:28
  It doesn't matter to me. I said, OK, let me ask you this,
• 21:30
  what happens if, what happens if you're wrong and the dollar
• 21:35
  fails? Dollar will never fail.
• 21:37
  And I said, well it will fail and we just don't know when.
• 21:40
  What happens if you're wrong and it fails before you're before
• 21:43
  you're you're you die. And and he was like, he's
• 21:47
  literally walking out. I was like, I'm going to orange
• 21:49
  fill this guy And so he goes, well, I don't think that'll
• 21:53
  happen. I said OK, but let's just
• 21:55
  pretend that I'm right and you're wrong.
• 21:58
  What if you own 1% of your portfolio, you own one 1% in
• 22:02
  Bitcoin, just 1%. And if I'm wrong, you lose 1% of
• 22:06
  your money. Who cares?
• 22:08
  But what if I'm right? What if I'm right and that 1%
• 22:12
  saves the whole rest of your portfolio?
• 22:15
  And he said he stopped and he's looked at his wife and he looked
• 22:18
  back and he goes, you know what, That's almost impossible to
• 22:21
  argue against. I think I'm going to have to go
• 22:23
  and buy a percent of Bitcoin. Wow.
• 22:25
  I mean, it it it's, it's so obvious.
• 22:30
  It's not obvious, right? And it's it's what you said.
• 22:34
  It's, you know entrenched people like it.
• 22:37
  It the way the way that I describe it is really like the.
• 22:41
  Entrenched. That's it.
• 22:42
  It's entrenched mentality like you can't get out of it.
• 22:46
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly.
• 22:49
  And I and I understand, I understand, 'cause that that was
• 22:52
  the way of the world like that. Was I I know people that I used
• 22:55
  to work with. I know I I I mean, I don't know.
• 22:57
  But I, I, I have a strong sense that they're chuckling, thinking
• 23:02
  what's lavish doing in this whole Bitcoin thing, this whole
• 23:05
  Bitcoin world, has he gone crazy?
• 23:07
  And I don't care. You know, this has been an
• 23:10
  incredible experience and I've met so many intelligent people,
• 23:15
  far more intelligent than your average, you know, traditional
• 23:19
  in finance guy. I mean it's it's absolutely
• 23:22
  incredible. And really what it comes down
• 23:25
  to, Nico, is the curiosity and the critical thinking.
• 23:30
  You know, bitcoiners can't be told what to do on anything.
• 23:33
  They want to know for themselves.
• 23:34
  They want to dig in for themselves.
• 23:36
  They want to back it up themselves.
• 23:37
  They wanted the proof of work. They want the, you know, they
• 23:39
  want to understand why, How? What does that mean?
• 23:42
  I mean, what do you mean, why does this work this way?
• 23:45
  Why are the ETFs doing this? Well, I mean, the fact that when
• 23:48
  the ETFs were announced, the fact that the ETFs were, you
• 23:53
  know, about to start trading and bitcoiners, true bitcoiners were
• 23:57
  like circling around going wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, how's
• 24:00
  this going to work? Like I want to understand this.
• 24:02
  When do they buy, How do they buy?
• 24:03
  Who settles it? How's it who?
• 24:05
  What's an approved participant? Who's, you know, what are the
• 24:07
  market makers and how is this all happening?
• 24:09
  I want to understand the function of it.
• 24:11
  Like, like across the board, I had so many people asking those
• 24:14
  questions. You know, when the gold ETFs are
• 24:18
  announced, even when the euro was announced, we weren't
• 24:21
  getting questions like that on the street.
• 24:23
  You know, it's like, oh, now there's a euro.
• 24:25
  We'll just, you know, we'll figure it out along the way.
• 24:29
  You just tell me how it works. Somebody tell me how this thing
• 24:31
  works instead of, you know, digging in and figuring it out.
• 24:36
  That's it's a big difference. The curiosity and the critical
• 24:39
  thinking is a huge difference. Yeah.
• 24:41
  And and I also got to say we have the best people on our team
• 24:47
  on Team Orange. I just got to say you know the
• 24:51
  the intellectual powerhouses that we have on our team.
• 24:55
  You know, I, I, I I just, I know we're going to win.
• 24:57
  I I know we're going to win anyways.
• 24:59
  So in in the beginning of the show I played a Michael Saylor
• 25:03
  drop Mike moment and Mr. James Lavish had a drop Mike moment
• 25:09
  last night. This is how he this is how he
• 25:12
  left it. James, you said good evening.
• 25:15
  The Bitcoin ETFs are still not priced in.
• 25:18
  In fact, they will not be for months, maybe years.
• 25:22
  Have a good night. So what did you mean by that?
• 25:26
  I mean exactly what I was talking about before is that you
• 25:29
  know we're watching it happen in slow motion, the institutions
• 25:32
  getting on board and to understand it and they they
• 25:36
  don't have any choice now and so they're figuring it out, but it
• 25:40
  takes time. I was even and I'll admit this,
• 25:44
  I was optimistic on just how much capital will come in and
• 25:48
  how quickly. And the reality is all these
• 25:52
  guys were standing around flat foot like the even the brokerage
• 25:56
  firms my brokerage firm for my my hedge fund.
• 26:00
  You know I had to instruct them to add the the Q SIP for IBIT
• 26:09
  and FBTC and to add it so we would be able to buy some if we
• 26:15
  wanted to. And that's my prime broker and
• 26:19
  you know they're kind of they're they're Bitcoin friendly ish you
• 26:23
  know like they nobody nobody knew what was going on.
• 26:27
  So the SEC stonewalling for so long and refusing to give any
• 26:34
  information about you know what the process was going to be, but
• 26:37
  just kept asking questions, kept asking questions you you had
• 26:41
  indications that this was going to happen.
• 26:42
  It was imminent but there was no surety.
• 26:45
  So none of those brokers and none of those houses had
• 26:49
  anything set up. And so when they rug pulled you
• 26:53
  know two or three times with the tweet that they pulled down that
• 26:58
  the intern put up and then you know the the filing they they
• 27:02
  issued and then pulled it down, it was like it was, it was
• 27:06
  amateur hour. And so the street was like well
• 27:10
  tell us when it's live, OK, just tell us when it's live and then
• 27:12
  we'll figure it out. And that's literally what
• 27:14
  happened. So and it's been a slow adoption
• 27:19
  curve since then and we are literally it's still at the very
• 27:23
  bottom of that adoption curve like it's barely moved.
• 27:26
  So this is going to happen for a long time and it will pick up
• 27:31
  pace in my opinion. It will gather momentum and
• 27:35
  there will be some serious FOMO moments and you know you you
• 27:40
  could see 234-5000 dollar candles in a blank and part of
• 27:45
  that is not because they're chasing after it.
• 27:48
  Part of it is just a function of how these, how these trading
• 27:51
  firms operate. So when you're an institutional
• 27:54
  investor and you want a percent of something, say you've got
• 27:58
  $100 million portfolio, I mean you've got a billion dollar
• 28:01
  portfolio and you want to go buy, you know a percent of it
• 28:05
  you want to go buy $10 million worth, you're just going to say
• 28:08
  hey I need $10 million that of that I bet.
• 28:11
  And you can tell the broker, just go buy the $10 million
• 28:14
  worth. And so they're not going to go,
• 28:17
  oh, you know what, it traded at $72,100 and now it's at $72,700.
• 28:25
  Let's wait to see if it comes back.
• 28:26
  They're not going to say let's wait until see it, come see it,
• 28:28
  come back to 69,000. They're going to be like, I just
• 28:31
  want a percent go figure out and just go along.
• 28:34
  And then at the same time, you can have another institution do
• 28:37
  the same exact thing. Hey, I need $25 million worth.
• 28:39
  Just go figure it out and at the same time you have another one
• 28:42
  that says hey I need $50 million just go you know participate,
• 28:45
  maybe buy 25,000,000 here and then play around with the rest
• 28:49
  or just V WAP it. And V WAP is it's a, it means
• 28:53
  volume weighted average price and they have sophisticated
• 28:56
  models now they just plug it into a machine and it just
• 28:59
  participates all along the way. And so if they're, they're just
• 29:02
  not that price sensitive. Typically, you know, if you're a
• 29:05
  big institution just like it just, you know, go along, don't
• 29:10
  embarrass me, just make sure I get kind of the average price of
• 29:12
  the day. And I think when you have,
• 29:16
  there's going to be a day or two or more, We've got a bunch of
• 29:20
  these institutions that just happen to come at the same time.
• 29:23
  They're big and they're like, hey, we need, you know, instead
• 29:26
  of you're not going to see like $1 billion come in, you'll see
• 29:31
  like 3-4, five, six, $10 billion come in all at once just by
• 29:36
  happenstance or by timing or whatever.
• 29:38
  And that will that will produce a very big candle in my my
• 29:42
  opinion. And I completely agree.
• 29:44
  I and what and what's really interesting too is you know and
• 29:48
  James I think I've I've mentioned this to you and Larry
• 29:50
  and you know and Jeff when you guys come on the show it I I, I,
• 29:54
  you know I I did the exact opposite right.
• 29:57
  Where you know a third of my life basically I've been in
• 30:00
  Bitcoin and being in Bitcoin I've had to actually look back
• 30:05
  and learn the traditional financial system.
• 30:08
  Right. So it it's like and it's you
• 30:10
  know you you kind of see things and it's it's a little bit you
• 30:13
  know it's a little bit different but one of the things I know is
• 30:16
  is with gold right. You know if the price of gold
• 30:19
  goes up the production of gold goes up with it.
• 30:21
  Right. If the price.
• 30:24
  And and and the issuance of derivative paper, gold goes up
• 30:29
  by a factor. By a multiple, yeah.
• 30:32
  And and pour more paper on it. We can't have gold go too high.
• 30:37
  So there's that with gold, right?
• 30:39
  And with Bitcoin, it doesn't matter how high the price goes,
• 30:44
  the production not only does it stay the same, it's about to get
• 30:47
  cut in half in less than a month.
• 30:49
  And then you've got psychopaths like you are never going to
• 30:51
  sell, you know, we're like. Good luck, man.
• 30:56
  Oh, I had. I had Fred Krueger the other
• 30:58
  day. He came on and he's like, you
• 31:00
  know, it's like there's going to be a point, you know, where
• 31:03
  there's going to be a point where, you know, Bitcoin gets to
• 31:06
  a certain price and you know you're going to want to sell
• 31:09
  Nico. And I'm looking at him like,
• 31:12
  like, I don't think you understand what this is about
• 31:14
  for us, that you understand what it's about for the millennials
• 31:18
  and the zoomers. We want separation of money and
• 31:20
  say we want the the the the money is is is nice.
• 31:23
  Don't get me wrong. Of course everyone's money.
• 31:25
  But no, I, I, I, I, I really believe that we actually want
• 31:28
  change. We want to make the world a
• 31:30
  better place. Yeah.
• 31:31
  Yeah. And that, well, that's why we're
• 31:33
  here, right? Ultimately, ultimately, why
• 31:35
  we're here. Yeah, so anyways, you did post
• 31:39
  this as well. You know, Silver did had a, it
• 31:41
  had a, you know, a couple thousand year head start.
• 31:45
  It seems like Bitcoin is catching up, kicking its ass and
• 31:50
  very, very close. I mean I wouldn't say very
• 31:52
  close, but it's it looks like it's about a 10X to gold.
• 31:56
  We were just talking about gold not too long about a second ago.
• 31:59
  So I think it's superior to gold in every which way, the physical
• 32:04
  characteristics, the fact that it's absolutely scarce versus
• 32:07
  scarce. So how long is this process
• 32:11
  going to take? You know it's a superior asset.
• 32:14
  I think Sailor continuing to doing what he's doing and it's
• 32:18
  going to continue to work and it's going to continue to show
• 32:20
  the world that the micro strategy strategy is the way
• 32:24
  forward. You know how long until you know
• 32:27
  Bitcoin takes the the market cap of gold.
• 32:30
  Are we talking about, you know, this cycle, we talking about the
• 32:33
  end of the decade? What are your expectations in
• 32:36
  that sense? Well, I mean, let's work through
• 32:38
  it, right? So to take over gold, it's got
• 32:41
  to have a 14. It's called a $15 trillion
• 32:44
  market cap according to this. I think this includes jewelry
• 32:47
  and all that. But let's just say it's got to
• 32:49
  go up 10X from here, right? So it's got to be like a 700,
• 32:53
  eight, $100,000 asset. I mean look Nico, I believe that
• 32:59
  it hits that before 20-30. My personal opinion is that
• 33:04
  there will be enough capital that comes into this, into this
• 33:07
  space that that it will just continue to gravitate up this
• 33:11
  ladder. It could jump into the number
• 33:13
  two spot this year, who knows? I mean it just has to pretty
• 33:17
  much double in price, right. So and trade in the one 40s,
• 33:22
  that's distinctly possible this year.
• 33:26
  But As for the long road and getting up to be the number one
• 33:29
  asset, I mean I I talked about this in Madeira too and updated
• 33:35
  some some of the information on this.
• 33:37
  But you know if you look at all of the investable assets in the
• 33:41
  in the world and and you kind of you kind of break them down.
• 33:45
  There's a, there's a chart that I had but you know, there's
• 33:51
  about $950 trillion of global assets, you know, $500 trillion
• 33:56
  of residential real estate. On another hundred 120 of
• 34:00
  commercial real estate, about 100 and 2000, and 30 trillion in
• 34:03
  bonds, 100 and 100 and 10120 trillion in stocks.
• 34:07
  You got 90 or $100 trillion in M2, you've got gold of $10
• 34:12
  trillion. You can also include, you know
• 34:16
  like rare and collectible items for another 20 or $30 trillion.
• 34:20
  But then you got Bitcoin. That's just one little trillion
• 34:22
  dollar down there. It's just .1% of the total.
• 34:27
  But you know, if you've got a a quadrillion dollars of global
• 34:33
  assets, you know, then Bitcoin, you know, it doesn't.
• 34:38
  Think about it. It doesn't have to be that big
• 34:41
  to become a $14 trillion asset as far as a percentage of that,
• 34:48
  right? So you know Bitcoin at 700,000
• 34:56
  it's got to be you know you're going to you're talking about
• 34:59
  taking you're talking about taking just a a a few percent of
• 35:03
  this basically it's not you you you know at 1 trillion you're at
• 35:08
  .1%. So you know I mean multiply that
• 35:14
  by your your 10 times and you're there and that's that's that's
• 35:19
  nothing that it's just you can you can have either an
• 35:23
  allocation out of stocks you can have some allocation out of
• 35:27
  bonds. You'll definitely have some
• 35:28
  allocation of real estate because people invest in real
• 35:30
  estate for long term hold of value.
• 35:34
  Definitely seeing an allocation out of gold and into Bitcoin
• 35:38
  especially with the ETS, it's been clear now I was unsure of
• 35:42
  that at first. I thought maybe that's just
• 35:44
  coincidence that gold ETFs are are reacting to the, you know,
• 35:49
  the inflation numbers in the Fed and rates staying high, but gold
• 35:54
  is kind of moving away from that.
• 35:55
  So this is showing that that the ETFs are clearly some of that
• 36:00
  ETF capital is coming into Bitcoin, much to Peter Schiff's
• 36:04
  chagrin. So when does it happen?
• 36:09
  I think by in this in in this decade it it happens and I would
• 36:14
  be surprised if we're not knocking up against $1,000,000
• 36:18
  per coin by 2030. Yeah.
• 36:22
  And and and I, I completely agree and I I think this, this,
• 36:26
  this cycle is also a little bit different and I think that it
• 36:30
  might happen sooner, a lot sooner than people anticipate.
• 36:34
  And the reason I believe that is because the last cycle was cut
• 36:39
  short two primary reasons in my opinion.
• 36:41
  I have. I come from a mining background.
• 36:43
  So the China mining ban and the fact that the hash rate dropped
• 36:47
  50% and those miners had to literally sell corn to relocate
• 36:53
  to more favorable jurisdictions and you see the price literally
• 36:57
  falling off a Cliff with the hash rate coming off a Cliff and
• 36:59
  of course the, you know, the whole FTX debacle.
• 37:02
  So I think that the only reason that we didn't hit 100K last
• 37:05
  cycle was, you know, due to these artificial, you could say
• 37:09
  factors. But I think that this cycle, for
• 37:13
  the first time in Bitcoin's history, we're making an all
• 37:16
  time high before the halving. And I think the ETFs played a
• 37:21
  major role in that. Yeah, and.
• 37:26
  You know, go ahead. Sorry, I did not.
• 37:27
  Continue, continue. You know, I'm, I don't hold a
• 37:32
  lot of weight in the cycles and you know diminishing returns
• 37:37
  like I don't you're talking about, you're talking about just
• 37:41
  a few data points there, right. I mean I'd rather liken it to an
• 37:46
  adoption curve and watch that adoption curve and how that's
• 37:50
  happening. And that's really much it's it.
• 37:53
  It to me it seems to be following that much more closely
• 37:57
  on a, you know, a technology adoption curve kind of like the
• 38:02
  cell phone or kind of like you know Facebook or whatever it
• 38:07
  would be that that curve, the way that happens and it's
• 38:11
  following that pretty closely. Now the difference here is that
• 38:15
  we have had structural challenges that you didn't have
• 38:21
  elsewhere. And so now you've got this huge,
• 38:24
  huge, huge bump in the ability for adoption, the adoption curve
• 38:32
  to to kind of bump up or or accelerate and that has to do
• 38:36
  with the ETFs and with FASB, the FASB ruling.
• 38:39
  Those are two big things. You know, I wouldn't discount
• 38:42
  that FASB ruling either. What's going to be interesting
• 38:45
  though, Nico, is when we have filings in a month and to see
• 38:50
  who who actually has been buying these, these ETFs and and what
• 38:55
  and what those holders look like, that's going to be very
• 38:58
  interesting. Oh, that's fascinating.
• 39:00
  That's right. Because oh, OK and you're and
• 39:03
  you're wagering that you believe a a major Fortune 500 company.
• 39:09
  I don't. I don't think that they're going
• 39:11
  to. I think if they're buying
• 39:14
  Bitcoin, they're gonna do it in their in their treasury more
• 39:18
  like, yeah, well, I don't know. Let's see, let's let's see what.
• 39:24
  What? So, so, so then what?
• 39:26
  So what exactly are you curious about with the with these?
• 39:28
  Files. I'm curious to see what names
• 39:30
  come up on these on these ETFs. I'm curious to see if we see a a
• 39:34
  Texas Teachers or we see a CalPERS or.
• 39:37
  You know. You know we see a A A a big
• 39:41
  retirement fund or big pension fund.
• 39:44
  I'd like to see like who kind of shows up in there.
• 39:48
  I I don't expect anything big, but you just never know and it
• 39:53
  behooves these guys get in there out of the gates pretty quickly
• 39:57
  now. I mean you you see it every day.
• 40:01
  And so I would say that one of the things that would temper
• 40:05
  demand is. The the economy and what's going
• 40:10
  on with the economy and if you're if you're concerned about
• 40:14
  there being a big downturn in the economy, you probably are
• 40:17
  not adding. However we have entered a stage
• 40:22
  of just lunacy with the fiscal spending and just how
• 40:29
  irresponsible it is. And just you, you have the Fed
• 40:32
  that's been tightening monetary policy and you've got you've got
• 40:36
  the the government who's been spending recklessly and running
• 40:41
  7% deficits, 7% of GDP deficits, which is just insane.
• 40:47
  It's unheard of like you don't do that unless you've got like
• 40:50
  five 810% unemployment. Typically you you don't do that
• 40:54
  unless you're in a recession. And here we are running multi
• 40:57
  trillion dollar deficits which is expansionary, it's
• 41:02
  inflationary, it's it, it is, it's it's injecting liquidity
• 41:06
  into the into the the economy. You know it's it's literally
• 41:13
  stimulating, it's stimulative. So I think that's why you're
• 41:19
  seeing, you will see some players come come into this that
• 41:23
  you may not have otherwise in this stage of of the the, you
• 41:28
  know kind of the monetary cycle so.
• 41:32
  Gotcha. Yeah.
• 41:33
  No. And and the the you're talking
• 41:36
  about it and and I could tell that you've obviously you spend
• 41:40
  tremendous amount of time, you know, thinking about this and
• 41:42
  writing about this, you know, the debt spiral.
• 41:44
  The debt spiral. And like from a from, you know,
• 41:48
  again from my generation, you know, and we just had a on on
• 41:53
  the live show today, we had a zoomer, you know, and I was
• 41:55
  like, man, we got the short end of the stick.
• 41:57
  But dude, like, he really got the short end of the stick.
• 42:01
  And it's really interesting, 'cause, you know, there's this
• 42:03
  really famous website called Price for Bitcoin 21 and it
• 42:07
  shows you that even in I live in Miami.
• 42:09
  Right. So real estate has literally
• 42:11
  doubled, maybe tripled in the last, you know, two or three
• 42:14
  years if it wasn't for Bitcoin, you know, like, like, holy cow,
• 42:20
  you know, things even with real estate doubling or tripling real
• 42:24
  estate has actually gotten cheaper for me, 'cause I'm on a
• 42:26
  Bitcoin standard. Right.
• 42:28
  But the point that I'm trying to make, James, is that with all
• 42:32
  this deficit spending, right, with all this money printing
• 42:36
  that's happening, that the government's just going crazy.
• 42:39
  There are real life consequences to this.
• 42:43
  It affects people. Guy Swan did an incredible video
• 42:46
  the other day. Robert Breedlove mentioned it on
• 42:49
  on Peter Mccormack's show, right.
• 42:51
  This idea that it you're essentially stealing time.
• 42:54
  I think that the figures that I saw from the Guy Swan's video is
• 42:58
  when the government printed that money, it equated to stealing
• 43:03
  the working lifetime, like the amount of time that someone
• 43:08
  works in their entire life, and it equated to 3 million people
• 43:14
  whose time was just evaporated. It just just disappeared.
• 43:18
  Incinerated. So and and it doesn't look like
• 43:22
  this path, you know, is sustainable.
• 43:26
  It, you know, Lynn posted that very famous chart.
• 43:29
  It went viral, went absolutely viral, where it's just like that
• 43:32
  the line just keeps going up, Jerome Powell was quoted in an
• 43:35
  interview the other day. He's like, I think we're on an
• 43:38
  unsustainable fiscal path. You know, like they're even
• 43:41
  admitting it themselves. Yeah, they all admit it.
• 43:43
  What happens? What happens when this breaks?
• 43:46
  What happens when this falls apart?
• 43:48
  What happens when this debt spiral starts to spiral out of
• 43:52
  control? Like a black hole sucking in the
• 43:54
  star or something? Well first of all it could take
• 43:58
  a long time you know I mean you're seeing the, you're seeing
• 44:01
  the US dollar just swallow other currencies here.
• 44:04
  You know we we we have the benefit of of being the
• 44:07
  strongest currency and with rates up here with our economy
• 44:12
  doing what it's doing and the ability to keep the rates here
• 44:16
  we're you know our 10 year is higher than than any of the
• 44:19
  other major currencies. You know the yen it's way
• 44:22
  higher, Germany, Italy, France doesn't matter like there it's
• 44:26
  higher than all of these and so all of the the 10 year rate
• 44:32
  which means it's more attractive which means it it makes a
• 44:35
  stronger dollar. So but how did how do we get
• 44:40
  there we that that that chart that you're talking about was a
• 44:43
  chart that was actually published by the treasury itself
• 44:48
  they and they was publishing a report that was about the state
• 44:52
  of the treasury in 2022 and and it's basically it said actually
• 44:59
  was the beginning of 2023 when they published this and it and
• 45:03
  the subtitle of the chart was an unsustainable physical path and
• 45:06
  it just showed debt to GDP rising exponentially and they
• 45:09
  know it. They know it's it it's
• 45:11
  happening. Why would the Treasury issue
• 45:13
  that for the whole world to see like they're just signaling hey
• 45:18
  we're we're absolutely you know moronic we are printing to
• 45:22
  oblivion we're going to you know hyperinflate at some point.
• 45:26
  We're just letting the world know, no, that's not what they
• 45:28
  were doing. They're warning Congress.
• 45:31
  They're saying you guys got to stop spending.
• 45:32
  Man, we cannot continue like this.
• 45:34
  Because remember, it's not the Treasury making these decisions.
• 45:37
  The Treasury's just trying to manage the budget that the
• 45:41
  Congress is handing them. They're like, hey, we need to
• 45:43
  borrow another $2 trillion this year.
• 45:45
  Can you go ahead and make that happen?
• 45:47
  And so the Treasury's like, this is unsustainable, you guys
• 45:50
  understand? Like we cannot keep.
• 45:51
  You're making us issue so much debt.
• 45:54
  You know, you heard Yellen say it today.
• 45:57
  We've got to cut the deficit. We must cut the deficit.
• 46:01
  We've got to stop this. This is insanity.
• 46:03
  And So what will happen is we will see entrenched inflation.
• 46:10
  We will see the, the continued, you know, injection of liquidity
• 46:17
  to make sure that Treasury markets continue to operate and
• 46:21
  function with liquidity And normally because if they don't
• 46:27
  function normally, if we have a hiccup in the treasury market,
• 46:31
  we're toast. And so that'll be, that'll be a
• 46:34
  dump of liquidity. We saw it happen in 22,008.
• 46:39
  We saw it happen in 2019, we saw it happen in 2020 and we're, you
• 46:43
  know we're just there there, there comes to be moments where
• 46:48
  there's just not enough liquidity and it looks like the
• 46:50
  treasury market's going to kind of lock up and so the Fed and
• 46:53
  the treasury just flood the market with with more liquidity
• 46:56
  and that's what they will need to do.
• 46:58
  So we're all waiting around for a few things to happen.
• 47:01
  First, we're we're just watching structural inflation.
• 47:04
  It's going to, we we've seen it, it's it's it's settled in around
• 47:07
  3% here. the Fed is not going to, you know, they're not going
• 47:11
  to raise rates at on a three 4% inflation.
• 47:14
  They're going to watch, they're they're, you know, they're
• 47:17
  probably going to lower rates soon.
• 47:19
  How can you, how can they argue that it's OK to lower rates when
• 47:22
  you see that structural inflation's at 3%?
• 47:26
  Well, because they know, they all know that the the the
• 47:31
  Treasury is issuing so much debt, the government's spending
• 47:36
  so much money, the deficits are so high that they've got to
• 47:39
  somehow inflate GDP nominally by creating more dollars.
• 47:44
  And that's inflation. They just need more dollars out
• 47:48
  there so they can continue this charade until something breaks,
• 47:53
  until something you know happens where you have you just need a
• 47:57
  tsunami of of liquidity and then you have inflation that will run
• 48:04
  and and you know Luke Roman talks about this, you could have
• 48:09
  periods of inflation there 12/15/18 percent will go back to
• 48:12
  the 1980s and just runs hot for a while and they allow it to run
• 48:16
  hot for a while. Why?
• 48:18
  Because that will help lower that debt to GDP number because
• 48:22
  you're you're paying down old debt with cheaper dollars.
• 48:26
  I fully expect it and that'll be, you know we've we've it's
• 48:30
  kind of like we had that we had that first wave of liquidity in
• 48:36
  2008. You know, we kind of had a
• 48:39
  warning back in 1980, seven, 1998, we had a couple warnings,
• 48:43
  but you've had this earthquake and the the tectonic plates have
• 48:47
  shifted and now you had this one wave came in and it was 2008.
• 48:52
  You had another wave that was bigger come in in 2020 and this
• 48:58
  next wave is going to be an absolute tsunami of capital that
• 49:03
  comes into the markets because they don't have a choice that
• 49:08
  that's where that's the point we're at.
• 49:11
  Does that make it fail? Does that make it go into hyper
• 49:13
  Bitcoin bitcoinization? Does it hyper inflate the
• 49:16
  dollar? Possibly, I don't think so.
• 49:20
  I think we can we can sustain this for another cycle or two,
• 49:23
  especially because we're the global reserve currency and the
• 49:25
  global reserve asset. But it remains to be seen.
• 49:29
  All I know is it cannot continue forever.
• 49:31
  Everybody knows it. And like you said, even Jerome
• 49:33
  Powell said on 60 Minutes the other day, it's unsustainable.
• 49:37
  Yeah, yeah, I know. And and and I I, I, I you know.
• 49:40
  And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the death spiral, right?
• 49:45
  James, let me ask you something. So you know, this is a a, a, a
• 49:49
  bleak future. But at the same time, it's a
• 49:53
  bleak future if you have the green tinted lenses on.
• 49:58
  But if you have the orange tinted lenses on, even with all
• 50:03
  this madness some people call the clown world your your life
• 50:10
  is still getting cheaper. Your cost of living is still
• 50:13
  getting cheaper. Your you know, your your hope
• 50:17
  for the future increases, your optimism increases.
• 50:20
  So it's you know. Sleep at night.
• 50:22
  You sleep at night. You can sleep at night, right?
• 50:26
  So what advice would you give? And there's different kind of
• 50:30
  spectrums to this, right? There's, you know, people that
• 50:33
  are just starting out their lives.
• 50:34
  You know, they don't, Perhaps they don't have a really high
• 50:37
  net worth, but they're just starting out, right.
• 50:40
  And what advice would you give to perhaps the older generations
• 50:44
  where, you know, they've accumulated some wealth and they
• 50:48
  want to maintain it? What advice?
• 50:51
  And of course, this isn't financial advice.
• 50:53
  Ladies and gentlemen, this is just an opinion.
• 50:54
  This is just a conversation between me and James, but what
• 50:57
  advice would you give? Because these are very bleak
• 50:59
  topics, you know these are this is hard hitting stuff.
• 51:04
  What advice would you give you know to people watching the show
• 51:08
  right now? Yeah, I mean this.
• 51:10
  The thing is I I can't give anybody advice and it's not
• 51:13
  because I'm not willing to. It's 'cause I don't know your
• 51:15
  situation. I mean, you have to sit down and
• 51:17
  look at everybody's situation is different.
• 51:19
  You know how much money they make, how much money they spend,
• 51:22
  what their you know needs are what their future needs are.
• 51:25
  What their future expectations are like Everybody's risk
• 51:27
  tolerance is different. Like it depends.
• 51:29
  It's it's different for everybody so but that being said
• 51:34
  the one thing you can do if you're a young person and you
• 51:37
  you've done your work you start to do your work on Bitcoin is
• 51:41
  just start to dollar cost average in each week just take
• 51:45
  whatever it is 100 bucks out of your paycheck figure out a way
• 51:48
  to to you know minimize other expenses to to to make that
• 51:53
  happen if it's possible. I know it's not possible for
• 51:56
  everybody that inflation is out of fucking control and it's been
• 52:00
  it's been very painful for a lot of people and I and I and I know
• 52:04
  people who are suffering from it is not good.
• 52:07
  It's not cool. So I understand that especially
• 52:10
  for the younger people who are just trying to get by.
• 52:13
  But if you can, that would be a good start.
• 52:17
  If you get a big lump lump sum bonus for something you made a
• 52:19
  big sale, or you've done a good job for your boss and they give
• 52:23
  you some bonus, won't take a chunk of that or all of it if
• 52:26
  you can and and put it away if you're.
• 52:29
  If you're getting on, you're older, you know and you're you
• 52:34
  know. If you're in your 30s or 40s and
• 52:37
  you're still looking to buy a house, well, this could be a way
• 52:41
  for you to continue to save toward it.
• 52:44
  If you're close, then you might have a different, you might have
• 52:47
  a different perspective. But anywhere from 2 to 5% is
• 52:51
  just to me is like, well, even if you lose 2345 percent of your
• 52:56
  portfolio, you know, you're you're exposed.
• 53:00
  I I fully believe in this protocol.
• 53:03
  I fully believe that Bitcoin's going to be around.
• 53:07
  I fully believe that we're going to have the right to own it here
• 53:10
  in the United States. I may be wrong, You know, they
• 53:14
  may, they may, you know, pull like they did with gold back in
• 53:21
  in the early 20th century. They may make it illegal for you
• 53:24
  to own it, but I doubt that. I think it's too entrenched.
• 53:28
  And so I think we've got way too much Wall Street firepower
• 53:33
  behind it now and that want it to happen so.
• 53:37
  But if you're older, how can you, how can you argue against
• 53:40
  owning just a little bit? You know, just a few percent And
• 53:43
  if not for you, for your kids you're sitting on, if you're
• 53:47
  sitting on millions of dollars, how can you not own some of this
• 53:50
  for your kids and your grandkids?
• 53:52
  To me, it's just that it's a no brainer.
• 53:55
  So, but it it it, it all depends on each person's individual risk
• 54:00
  preference and their needs. 100% I I I completely agree.
• 54:05
  Everyone's different, you know, and you know, it kind of kind of
• 54:10
  depends on how you want to approach it.
• 54:12
  But again, if you know you're you're a little bit older and
• 54:15
  you've build up some wealth, you know, I'm gonna use your
• 54:18
  argument, James. From now on it's like what what
• 54:21
  does 1% cost you? You know, like what?
• 54:23
  What? What does it matter?
• 54:24
  And and typically when you do that, you're legging in and
• 54:29
  you're legging into the trade. And so you're gonna start doing
• 54:33
  your work. You're you're not gonna just buy
• 54:35
  1% and forget about it. It's gonna needle it here,
• 54:37
  You're gonna go. Let me look a little bit more at
• 54:39
  this and then you're gonna. And if you're a smart person, if
• 54:42
  you're a critical thinker, then you'll, you'll, you know, you'll
• 54:45
  go deeper down that rabbit hole, rabbit hole.
• 54:47
  Next thing you know you'll have 2% and then you know, next thing
• 54:50
  you know you'll have 4% and then you know.
• 54:53
  And if in in a in a few months, you're probably hiding your
• 54:56
  Bitcoin purchases from your wife.
• 55:01
  Yeah, it it tends to do. And sailor's going through this
• 55:04
  moment right now by the way. It's just like boy but no and
• 55:09
  and and Jay. I just wanna say something to
• 55:10
  James is is that you? You don't just walk.
• 55:13
  You you don't just talk the talk.
• 55:15
  You walk the walk. Right.
• 55:17
  You put your money where your mouth is.
• 55:19
  This is something that you have, you know done yourself
• 55:22
  obviously. Me as well, you know, started
• 55:26
  stacking him like 20-3 years old and maybe I went like 90%.
• 55:30
  What I was making at the time into Bitcoin went a little bit
• 55:35
  crazy, but I but the. I own none.
• 55:40
  I own 0. Me.
• 55:42
  Me too. I lost everything in a boating
• 55:44
  axe. I don't even know what Bitcoin
• 55:45
  is. I know you're talking about.
• 55:46
  Yeah, it's what are you what have you been talking about for
• 55:49
  an hour? OK, but look, we're we're
• 55:51
  getting almost to the top of the hour.
• 55:53
  And I wanna say this right, Which is second to last
• 55:57
  question, which is the idea, especially for the younger
• 56:00
  generation, right now bitcoin's at 73,000, right?
• 56:04
  It it's, it's basically, you know, I just gotta say,
• 56:07
  everyone, like I've been telling you for five years and so has
• 56:11
  Bitcoin Twitter. But you know, the reality is
• 56:14
  though that you know, this thing's at 70, seventy
• 56:17
  $73,093.00. You know, are people too late to
• 56:23
  Bitcoin? Are people too late to benefit
• 56:25
  from this? Specifically if you're younger,
• 56:26
  if you don't have that much capital accumulated?
• 56:29
  Well, I said I I think that Bitcoin continues to accumulate
• 56:33
  momentum here with with institutional investors in
• 56:38
  particular. And it just grows and this
• 56:40
  ecosystem grows and the benefit grows and you know it if it's
• 56:46
  gonna, if it's gonna 10 or 20X in the next 7 to 10 years, how
• 56:51
  is that a bad deal? You know, I mean that's that's
• 56:54
  not, that's not late to me. And then what happens if you own
• 57:00
  nothing and the debt spiral accelerates all these, you know
• 57:05
  fools up in in DC and at the ECB they drive this thing, drive the
• 57:12
  whole ship into hyperinflation and Bitcoin is the one place
• 57:17
  that everybody runs to and you don't own any.
• 57:20
  I mean that that to me, if you just own a little bit, you'll
• 57:24
  you'll save yourself. I mean, think about it this way.
• 57:27
  Yes. OK, you're right, Nico.
• 57:31
  Bitcoins at 70,000, there's only a 21 million coins that are ever
• 57:35
  going to be created. We've probably lost a few
• 57:37
  million of those, you know, So let's pretend that there's going
• 57:42
  to be 17,000,000 left. It's likely less than that.
• 57:45
  And they're they're coins lost every day.
• 57:48
  But with over 50 million millionaires in the world, not
• 57:53
  every single one of those millionaires can own a whole
• 57:55
  coin. Why wouldn't you want to own at
• 57:57
  least part of one? Amen to that very, very powerful
• 58:02
  statement and I think we're going to wrap it up with that.
• 58:05
  I do want to be respectful of James's time.
• 58:09
  Very, very busy these days, guys.
• 58:11
  Go follow James on Twitter. He drops some amazing signal and
• 58:16
  check out his newsletter. Go to jameslavish.com/newsletter
• 58:20
  has over 30,000 readers. I'm personally subscribed big
• 58:23
  fan. I might not understand
• 58:25
  everything that's being said. This is why I bring James on the
• 58:28
  show so you could explain it to me.
• 58:30
  But but yeah, James. It's super simple.
• 58:33
  It's super. Simple.
• 58:35
  Like I said, man, I'm, I, I, I understand Bitcoin like the back
• 58:38
  of my hand. I'm I'm still like learning the
• 58:40
  traditional financial system. Oh man.
• 58:43
  I have to tell you this, James. I sent an international wire
• 58:46
  today. It took me 3 effing hours.
• 58:50
  Oh my God. And and and and half a tree and
• 58:54
  paperwork and, yeah, and you. It won't settle for for at least
• 59:00
  another day. Yeah.
• 59:02
  And how much it'd cost you? Oh no, they it's the the
• 59:06
  exchange rate. The thing.
• 59:08
  What? What's your favorite color?
• 59:10
  What girl did you date 5 1/2 years ago like?
• 59:14
  Yeah. What address did you live at
• 59:15
  when you were three? It was, it was absolutely crazy
• 59:19
  anyways, and Bitcoin's going to win after you.
• 59:22
  After that experience. I'm like, alright, it's done,
• 59:24
  it's dusted. I I understand.
• 59:25
  I get it now. Anyways, James Lavish, always an
• 59:28
  honor. Thank you so much for joining us
• 59:30
  on Simply Bitcoin IRL. Really, really appreciate you
• 59:33
  and keep kicking out because man, you're you're one of the
• 59:37
  brightest minds in the space and really appreciate you James.
• 59:39
  Well, thank you. I appreciate you having me on,
• 59:41
  Nico. Always a pleasure and I'll see
• 59:43
  you next time. All right, take it easy, James.
• 59:45
  Bye. All right, guys, that was our
• 59:47
  show. If you enjoyed the show, you
• 59:48
  know what to do. Make sure to smash that like
• 59:49
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• 59:51
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• 59:54
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• 59:57
  right now, so just smash that like button.
• 59:59
  It really helps with the show. Anyways, I'll catch you guys
• 1:00:01
  tomorrow. Peace out.
• 1:00:03
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