How Trump became a Bitcoiner | David Bailey

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Yo, what's up?

What's up?

Thanks for having me on.

Dude, I don't know how to introduce you anymore. I feel— I— the, the intro that I initially wrote down was, uh, founder of Bitcoin Mag, but you're doing like, I think, 17 other things. So how do you introduce yourself these days?

I don't even know. Uh, Bitcoiner.

That's Bitcoiner. Yeah, Bitcoiner. You've been in space for a while, huh?

Yeah. Uh, got my first Bitcoins in 2012. Um, kind of went all in, uh, my senior year of college in 2013, just like emotionally, mentally, like, is like, okay, I'm— I either have to jump on this right now or regret it for the rest of my life if it works out. And so, uh, since May of 2013, this has been my, my full-time career. So I really have no real-world experience or valuable skills other than Bitcoin.

Saudi Wealth Fund calling you about, uh, about their Bitcoin purchase? Well, so we're recording this February, uh, 14th, recording this Valentine's Day at noon, and like 3 minutes ago, the Saudi Wealth— I think it was Saudi Abu Dhabi. Abu Dhabi, thank you. Um, Wealth Fund just announced that they, uh, bought a bunch of Bitcoin, so we'll talk about that in a second. But, but I guess back to your story. So do you— you started Bitcoin Mag, or did you buy it from someone?

No, so I started a magazine called Why Bitcoin which was like, uh, it just, it was, um, like evergreen content that just explained to people what it is, how to buy it, like what, what's it worth, like how do you store it, you know, what's Bitcoin mining, just like basics because no one knew anything. So anytime you said anything about Bitcoin, you got hit with the same list of questions again and again and again. So I made this magazine and I really had no idea what I was doing. I mean, I was 22 years old, so it was just like kind of just making it up. And, um, quickly learned that, like, you know, being in the print media business is the wrong business. But, you know, Bitcoin Magazine, when I got into the space, was like the authoritative source. Like, it was like the comment threads on Bitcoin Magazine articles is like where I learned what multisig was and like where like the most important things were talked about outside of like the Bitcoin talk threads. And so, yeah, when Vitalik and Mihai— I built a relationship with them, and then when they decided they want to go do their little Ethereum thing, they needed someone to be like the exit liquidity for Bitcoin Magazine. And so I bought it from them in 2014. And yeah, been paying the bills there ever since.

So what was— okay, so I mean, I remember 20— I mean, you guys did a bunch, right? You had the magazine and then you did like, you did Poet, you raised a bunch of money for a bunch of different things. You had like, you guys did an ICO at one point for something or maybe multiple things. Like what's the— and dude, I remember like Rizzo, who we both are very good friends with, Rizzo's like, dude, you just talk to David about resiliency. 'Cause like that dude's been through some highs and some lows, man.

Oh man, dude. Like, man, there's so much that can be said on the side.

I remember we FaceTimed at one point, it must have been 2018 or 2019. I think you were eating Chick-fil-A and you were just like, dude, we're, we're in— you're— I think you're in Tennessee, or— yeah, you're like, we're in it now, man. Like, this is the bear. Like, yeah, yeah, dude.

I mean, uh, I, um, so like, I think most people, like, you know, this has been All people, honestly, this has been a journey. And, you know, when I first got into it, like everything was Bitcoin other than like, you know, there was, there was altcoins is what we call them at the time. But, you know, they were just all kind of like, you know, let's say experimental at best. And the idea of an altcoin was really like just coming about. And then, you know, the first bear market hit and like it became all about like enterprise blockchain. And so it was like, okay, you know, all these big enterprises like Deloitte and all these people, they're all saying they're going to use blockchain for their systems. And so we built like a media brand around like enterprise blockchains. Like, if that's what the market wants, we're going to like, you know, respond to the market. And it took me a while of just like watching every enterprise blockchain company fail to understand like that wasn't really a real thing. And that the people who were saying they wanted blockchain, they didn't really understand what they wanted. They just wanted They wanted Bitcoin without the controversy of Bitcoin. But, you know, like they couldn't say they wanted Bitcoin. They didn't even know that that's what they wanted. They just wanted to like, you know, make it more— what's the word— clean for corporate activity, I guess. Yeah.

So like peak blockchain, not Bitcoin days.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then, then it was the ICO world and like, dude, I've never been able— I've never been good at fundraising for Like I can fundraise for other people's stuff, but I can't fundraise for my own stuff. I don't know, I just like, I'm not good at it. And you know, I, yeah, I'm not good at it. So I've always operated our business where like we have to like make money, like we have to follow the money, like we have to make a profit, like, you know. And so when the ICO mania started popping off, a lot of my friends were doing the first ICOs. And, you know, I know these guys really well. And they're like nice guys, they're my friends, but they're not like super geniuses. And I'm like, okay, dude, if these guys are, you know, doing these ICOs, they're making $10 million, like, why couldn't I do an ICO? And so we did one called Poet. And this was at the time, this was like, there was definitely a lot of skeptics of ICOs and tokens and stuff. But also it was like, no one really knew, we're just kind of like, like forging out into the unknown. And, you know, we hadn't gone through like the disillusionment phase of like what it like with enterprise blockchain, the way everyone got bearish on enterprise blockchain is they watched all the enterprise blockchain stuff fail. So, we hadn't really seen all the kind of crypto projects, ICO projects fail at this point. So, yeah, we did an ICO, and then we got into, you know, basically building services around the ICO business. Like, we had a venture fund, advisory business, and a marketing services business. And, you know, like, when the bull market was running, like, all these businesses were making money. But it was all built kind of like on quicksand. And when the bear market came, dude, it just, it was vicious. It was vicious.

What'd you guys go to from like the, the, the top of the top line to the bottom of the top? Like best revenue month, best revenue year or something down to the bottom?

I don't remember the exact numbers, but like when I was, I was like 27, 28 at the time. And like in 2017, we made like half a billion dollars, like like maybe two-thirds, three-fourths of a billion dollars. You know, a lot of money. Um, now, like, all— I mean, not all paper gains. Like, I mean, we made a lot of the money in all the different cryptos, but a lot of it just like paper gains and bullshit. Um, and then when the bear market came, uh, not only did we proceed to lose like all of that, but we also had, uh, we were burning, I don't know, 2 million, 2.5 million a month because we had scaled up this business to service this like vaporware industry. And, um, and it's like, okay, it's really hard to realign that ship when you're just burning insane sums of money and like the, the market has like fallen out and the customers have fallen out. And like, dude, it really, you know, caused like— I'm not gonna call it a midlife crisis because I was in my 20s, but it caused like you know, it's like, damn, I lost so much money this year. Like, I, I could go bankrupt this year. And I like bet it all on shit that I really didn't even believe in. Like, I was just doing these things to make money. And I wasn't really like asking myself the question, like, fundamentally, like, is this something that I'm willing to bet everything on? And I had kind of made that type of bet without even realizing I was making that type of bet. And, you know, there was a conversation with someone from our team that really kind of like changed, you know, how my perspective on it. But it was, you know, like, if I'm going to go bankrupt, I might as well go bankrupt, like, in a way that if, you know, I looked in the mirror, I could be like, I'd do it all over again. And I've always believed in Bitcoin from the earliest days. Like, that's why I was here. And, you know, even amongst my friends when I was doing crypto stuff, like, people always thought, like, David, you're a Bitcoin maxi. Um, and so it's like, okay, I'm just gonna go all in on Bitcoin. And so I divested everything, um, that wasn't Bitcoin related. If I couldn't sell it to someone, I just shut it down. Uh, we, from, from the peak to the, the bottom, you know, we laid off, I don't know, like, we were 110 people at our company, but we had all these subsidiaries that I don't even, I don't even know how many people were employed across the whole operation. Like, maybe 150 or more. And we went all the way down to 10 people. Like, that's how much—

wow, that's great. That's, that's intense.

Yeah. And every single person was like, you are insane for doing this. Like, there is no Bitcoin market. You're, you're, you're dooming yourself.

Do you ever, do you ever think about just either shutting it all down and just maybe becoming like some guy who just had a lot of money and, you know, bought Bitcoin, or like launching a fund, or like selling it all, or Did you ever think about that?

Yeah, well, I mean, I did, but there's so much inertia in an organization that I didn't think about it seriously enough until it was like, okay, well, by the process of shutting this all down, I've basically just round-tripped everything. So it's like, yeah. And dude, I mean, when you have an organization with that many people and that much deals in the pipe and contracts and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, like to say, hey, stop, shut it all down, everything that's not Bitcoin, shut it down. Like, it is not something that you can just like do it. I mean, I mean, like, it's, it's, it's tough. And then, but, you know, ultimately, we made the decision to do it like summer of 2018. And by like January of 2019, or December 2018, we announced that we we had— we were doing it, and, and we had already executed most of the, the trade. And, um, then we, like, the, the pivot was like, we're just going to do Bitcoin. Um, we had Bitcoin Magazine return to just covering Bitcoin, and there was no Bitcoin conference at the time. The only conference that existed was like Scaling Bitcoin, which was really more like, you know, uh, a very technical event. So we're like, we need to create a Bitcoin conference, um, that can compete with DevCon. And then it was like, and, you know, we have been investors this entire time in the space. And so it was like, we need to make our fund Bitcoin-only. And so, yeah, that was kind of the start of the Bitcoin-only journey. And I think that was really the inflection point where our business took off.

Yeah, 100%. All right. We'll come back to the biz actually at the end, but Tell me about the Trump story. How'd you get connected?

Dude, I mean, I'm curious before we get into that, like, I'm curious, like, how much of that story do you, do you, uh, can you feel like from your own experiences, man?

I'm like, I'm living it with you. I remember, I remember, like, I mean, we could do no wrong. Like, we, our business was like up only for 5 years in a row. Like, you know, $200K revenue to $2 million to $5 million to $10 million to $25 million. It was like, I mean, and you know, we were, we started when we were 23. So it was like, we, you know, we could do no wrong and we also knew nothing. Right. We were like, I mean, it sounds like similar shoes to you. I think by the way, a media company is the best business for like an early 20s person to start. Cause I didn't, for just many reasons. Um, but then yeah, we got, so we were one cycle later than you, right. Just in our learning journey. And it was 2020. It was like the '23 bear market that just whacked us and like everything got cut in half. And yeah, we just, you know, we got completely clobbered too. So it was—

dude, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm sure that there are people that are hearing this that are like, you know, they're looking at like all of their tokens right now and there's no liquidity, they just get fucking crushed. And it's like, dude, you know, you really, you get a lot of self-doubt when you're like, dude, why did I put all my life savings in fucking Fartcoin? You know, like, why did I, why did I do, like, why did I go all in on meme coins? It's a dark place to be. And I think for, you know, if someone's listening to this and they're like, have that sort of self-doubt about, you know, the, um, what are they doing here? It's like, dude, zero in on the thing that you can go all in on and not think, not second-guess yourself on.

Hey everyone, just wanted to give a quick thanks to today's title sponsor, Geodnet. By setting up a base station, you can get involved with this groundbreaking Web3 ecosystem. Learn more by heading over to geodnet.com or just by hitting the link in the description of today's episode. Today's episode is brought to you by Unichain, the layer 2 designed to be the home for DeFi and cross-chain liquidity. With up to 95% lower fees than Ethereum and launching with 1-second block times. UniChain is the L2 purposely built for DeFi. Powered by Uniswap, UniChain enhances DeFi experiences with faster, cheaper, and seamless transactions, even across chains. UniChain mainnet is live and available for everyone to use, so click the link in the show notes to find out more. Thanks to UniChain for making today's episode possible. 100%. And you just need to survive. Like, we've— I've shared this story before, but I'll share it again. It's like, we had this advisor in the really early days of Blockworks, and he said, he's like, look, in an industry as volatile as this one, you just need to survive both financially and mentally, honestly, because it's so violent on your mindset and even on some people's body and stuff like that. So like in the bear, in the bear markets, you just got to get through. You just got to get, make it to the other side and get through. So yeah, I commend you for that, man. I commend. And then I remember like I was down in Miami for the first Bitcoin conference was in, was in Miami.

SF, the first one was in SF.

Oh yeah, of course. Of course. That's right. Yeah, that's right. Okay. That was 2020. No, 2019. Yeah.

And that was like, that was, that was when we knew we had product market fit and like I had never experienced product market fit before that. And I always like, oh, we have product market fit. It's like, no, if you don't know you have it, you don't have it. And after that conference, it was the first product we'd ever done where the customers were pissed that we couldn't give them the details on the next conference, when they can book their sponsorships, when they can start buying tickets. They were pissed and it's like, oh fuck, I got people angry that I won't take their money. Yeah, like, the conference trajectory. I mean, honestly, one day there has to be like a case study or something on it.

Because I mean, tell us, tell us about it. So for first year's 2019.

Yeah.

Okay, 2000. Then tell me, and then I don't know how much you're comfortable sharing the top line of the event and like bottom line too. But as a conference organizer, I'm very curious about that. But tell me as much as you can tell about the trajectory of that event.

Yeah, so like, I could share it. I mean, so 2,000 people, you know, uh, $800K revenue, uh, like breakeven event. Um, you know, uh, 2020 we had to cancel because of COVID but I mean, we almost fully baked the event. Like, you know, the week— it was like 3 weeks before the event that we canceled it. Um, and that was the whole situation in its own right that was crazy. But, um, that event was like on pace to be like a 4,000-person event. And then, um, we did, uh, 2021. We were the first event in the world back from COVID That was crazy.

I remember that event. That, that event is like up there in my mind.

Yeah, it was like Woodstock. Yeah, I have people come up to me that like to this day they're like, hey, like I was at the event in 2021 and like that was the like most meaningful event I've ever been to in my life. Um, so that one was like, uh, 11,000, 12,000, but we don't have the exact numbers because people like tore down the fences and we're just like stampeding in and stuff. So, uh, uh, we think it was like 12,000 and, and change. Um, and we made— I don't, I don't remember the number. I think we did maybe $20 million in revenue on that event, or maybe that's what I, that's what I had heard from some folks too. Yeah, yeah. And then, um, we did 2022. 2022, we, I mean, did the, the, uh, we've messed up some things on 2022 just because we, we were growing way too fast. But, uh, 2022 we had 26,000 people, um, and that was top line $44 million, um, $43 million, something like that. And then, uh, then we did, um, 2023 we dropped in half. So we went to 13,000 attendees and top line was like, like 20. I don't remember the exact number. It was a huge decline. Maybe it's even lower than 20. And then 2024, which is pretty hard to plan a business when you have like that much volatility and like revenue, income. I'm in it, man.

We're a conference business too. I know the game. So yeah.

So, and then, uh, 2024, we were at, uh, like 20— 23,000, 22,500, something like that. And, uh, you know, it was tied for the biggest because with the 2022 event, we had a music festival that we added on to it. And so like 4,000 of the attendees like just came to the music festival. They weren't really like real, real attendees. Um, so it was about the same size as, as the 2022 event. And we did revenue-wise, um, we did, uh, in, in the 20s somewhere. I don't— I, I forget what the number is. And then for, uh, '25, we're expecting between 30,000 and 40,000 attendees, uh, based on our, our registration data. And top line will be We'll find out. We'll find out soon enough what the top line is. But it's looking good.

Nice. When is it? When is that one?

May.

That's May. That's, that's the May Vegas. Okay.

Yeah. And that's like the trajectory of the, of the US events. And then now we've also added 3 international events. So we have one in Europe, one in Hong Kong, and one in Abu Dhabi.

I would guess those are just pale in comparison to the size though.

They do. But I, I've been surprised. Europe, Europe, I love the European event. So for any European listeners, like, you know, Europe's a great place, but the European market sucks. It just—

yeah, yeah.

So, um, that event has like— I think its biggest year was like 4,000 people. Um, the Hong Kong event and the, uh, uh, Abu Dhabi event, like both those events, uh like we think will get quite large. And the Hong Kong event was like maybe year one was like 6,500 people, 7,000 people. And the Abu Dhabi event was 8,500 people. And people were very surprised by that because Abu Dhabi is like off the beaten path, like we didn't do.

And how are you getting 8,500 people to Abu Dhabi? Is it because Bitcoin Mag has such a big distribution? Are you giving a lot of these tickets away for free? Are you like, do you guys run a bunch of paid ads? Like, what, how do you get these people there?

Yeah, I mean, we, uh, it's a little bit of all of it. Like, we, we have a ticket strategy on like basically how do we build momentum around an event. And so like we will be aggressive on the front end to like get the snowball effect going. And we, um, you know, the, the, um, it's, it's always hard to build a year one event, but we, we get people on the ground in those areas that have relationships And like, we also— Bitcoin Magazine has great distribution. And like, our sales team, I think, is the best in the industry. And so, we just have a very deep Rolodex of clients. And then, we do deals with those clients that help also create the momentum. And then, we have a great programming team. So, you know, like, for Abu Dhabi, we had Eric Trump speak. We had Steve Witkoff speak. It was like the first place that the Trump administration had people deployed. And, you know, we— the product is a good product. People have fun. It's unique. And there's a lot of people that go to it because Bitcoin is just like at a different caliber of quality than the rest of crypto. Like, people don't like the buy my token, you know, like rah rah stuff in the same way that like when they're like ideologically bought in on something.

Yeah, I mean, there's a, there's a power in building conferences around one— tokens are just cults in my opinion. And like whether it's Bitcoin or something else, like I think it's, I think there's a powerful thing in building a conference around just one cult community. So actually like, like Solana, I think has done this well too, even if you don't like Solana, like they've done it well with like Breakpoint, right? It's like everyone's like, so like everyone knows why they're there. It's like for this one thing, or like the Bitcoin conference, everyone is a Bitcoiner at your event. So I think, I think that's powerful. How do you, I have one more question. Question on conferences and then we can move past it, which is because this is something Blockworks thinks about a lot is like, how do you think about planning for conferences years in, in the future? Right. So for like, I mean, let's say you guys have 30,000 people this year or 40,000 people this year, like you, the natural progression of an event business would be like, great, like next year let's go to 50,000, next year let's go to 60,000. And for anyone who hasn't been in the events business, you have to book those venues years in advance. But in our industry, you can't, it's very tough to do that because I mean, you guys, you know, we could be in like a deep bear market and you guys get cut by 50% again. So how do you think about like cycle planning?

Yeah. So I mean, you know, I'm sure you and Rizzo have talked about this, but I think this is actually one of the things that we are really good at that we get zero credit for because no one really cares, I guess, but, but us. But We've always been big believers in the 4-year cycle. And so like when we're planning events, we're like, okay, like, you know, 3 years from now, that's going to be a bear market year. So we should like go ahead and plan on like not just growth being flat, we should plan on a 50% shrink. Like for 2023, we were expecting our revenue to fall by 50%.

So you just build everything around a 4-year cycle.

Yeah, basically. And, and, and like, so we were expecting— now it was— ended up being worse than 50% drawdown. I think like it was like a 60-something percent drawdown. But like, if we had been anticipating like a flat year, like we would have been smoked. So, so yeah, like we definitely project like even when we booked Vegas, like we booked Vegas on the, on the presumption like, okay, this is gonna be like a bull market year. Like we need to have venues that can go like way bigger. And so we try to negotiate contracts so we have some flexibility, but we are picking destinations and timeframes and venues based on like, okay, we need the capacity for this many people, et cetera, et cetera. And yeah, we're not good about booking venues many years out. So we'll pick a city, we'll pick a location, we'll start negotiating. But dude, we need to be booking an event our size. We should be booking venues 5 years out and we're like barely 2 years out.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, let's pivot. Trump, Trump headlined the Bitcoin conference in July, I want to say, of '24. Yeah, I was like, that— damn, that's crazy. How did they get that? And I remember folks telling me, they're like, well, David is like very behind the scenes with Trump. And I was like, oh, that's cool. Good, good for— and then your tweets started to make sense for me and I was like, oh, that's cool. What is the early backstory of how you got involved with the Trump administration?

I was hanging out in Puerto Rico with a friend of mine that lives here, and we were like sitting around like we—

like, we're like, this is '23, '24.

This is '24. This is like January '24. And like, like our company, like we're a company, but like we are all in on Bitcoin. Like we are all in emotionally, spiritually. Financially, like, like we— our mission is hyperbitcoinization. And like, you know, we actually believe like all the time, like, how do we accelerate hyperbitcoinization? And so we were sitting around, it's like, damn, if we could just get in front of Trump, like we could, we could like pitch Bitcoin to Trump and get him bought in on it. It'd be huge for Bitcoin. And my friend who's sitting there is like, well, I know someone, someone who might be able to get us in touch with Trump. I'm like, sure, whatever. And they're like, her sister's godfather was Paul Manafort, who was the previous campaign manager for Trump in the last election.

Yeah.

And, um, and so she was able to get a call set up with, with, uh, uh, Paul. And so that's how it started. And then like, we like basically pitched Paul and then Paul on what?

You pitch Paul on Bitcoin or on like—

on Bitcoin, like why Trump should be supporting it.

What's the pitch?

Yeah, uh, well, you know, I, I don't want to betray any confidence, but we made multiple decks. We went back and forth many, many times, at first with Paul, then when, when Paul like basically like got the door open to Trump, then with Trump's team, then, you know, um you know, back and forth responding. Like, they, they knew not a lot on the topic, so there's a lot of education that had to happen. And then, like, as they got bought in, then it was like, okay, well, if we were bought in, like, what would even be our policies on this? And it was like, okay, well, you know, now we need to, like, create a Bitcoin— an America First Bitcoin policy platform for y'all. And, um, and, like, so we went, like, through that process, and then it was like, you know, then I think, like, the key moment was like like it got all the way to the big man, all the stuff we'd gone through. I don't know, we've been working on it for months, every day, like full-time job basically. And like Trump is like, okay, well, everyone I know who's a Bitcoiner says that Bitcoin's going to destroy the dollar. Like, I like the dollar. So, you know, like, what's your response? And we were like, well, you know, like America built Fort Knox and like stored like the world's gold in America. Storing the world's gold in Fort Knox like didn't undermine the dollar. It made the dollar stronger than ever. And if you want the dollar to stay strong into the future, then we got to build the digital Fort Knox. And we need to have the world's digital gold, you know, stored in America as well. And, um, and that like, that's how we get another 200 years of the dollar being relevant. And like instantly. It was like, okay, I agree with that. Like, next step, let's meet. And so, um, went to Trump Tower to make the, the pitch in person. And, you know, there's also like the political calculus, like, this is how many votes we think are out there, this is how much money we think we can raise around these different topics and stuff. Like, you know, Trump's like an entrepreneurial guy, so he's looking at this from the standpoint of like, you know, uh, not only like how is it good for the US, but also like how's it good for my election prospects. And yeah, and he liked, he liked the pitch. I mean, we were making up the numbers on like how many voters we could get and how much money we could raise. We had no idea. Nobody had any like actual data on any of this stuff. So we're just kind of like, you know, flying a little bit by the seat of our pants. But he kind of gave us a chance and he's like, let's do this. But like, you know, let's like, let's see some tangible results. And then we did, we like gathered all the miners in the country for Mar-a-Lago to do a mining roundtable and We raised some money and also like I tried to like basically show him the most legit part of our industry where it would like, you know, uh, uh, get excited about. And, um, it went really well. And, you know, then we started helping him with some tweets to put out there. And, and, um, like as he like kept stepping deeper and deeper, the reaction he was getting from the world basically on it was like really strong. And so they were like, wow, like I'm raising money.

I mean, I'm sure he loved it. His tweets were getting all this engagement and he's raising money. And like, you— I'm— I, I heard you guys raised a good amount of money for him. Like, I'm sure, I'm sure he loved it.

So, and he— so he just kept doubling down. Like, he basically— like, the more— like, it was like dating. It's like, you know, you don't just go straight to marriage. It's like, you know, like, you, you go on dates and like the relationship builds and the trust builds, yada yada. And so that's kind of like what the whole process was like. And then it culminated and him speaking in Nashville and us working with his team on kind of like what, you know, what he was going to say. I mean, it's the first ever presidential address to the world on Bitcoin. And we put together a fundraiser for him and we raised a lot of money, $25 million, which was his—

You guys raised $25 million at the Bitcoin conference for him?

Yeah, it was the— I mean, we raised the money leading up to the conference and stuff, but like the kind of key event was there. And it, you know, it was his second biggest fundraiser he'd ever had across all three presidential elections. And the only one that was bigger, one guy wrote a $50 million check. And if you took that out, then it was the biggest fundraiser ever amongst all three races. So yeah, and then like after that, like he was on cloud nine about Bitcoin community, you know, Bitcoin, crypto. That's when he decided to do a token. He's like, oh, I love these guys. Like, you know, everybody wants me to do a token. Let's give them a token. You know, I was like, So, uh, uh, but you know, Trump is like, you know, just taking away like the politics of it, is an awesome person. Like very kind, very funny, extremely charismatic, um, very entrepreneurial, amazing instincts. Like doesn't understand all the details, doesn't need to understand all the details. Like he can, he, the, the things that he needs to understand, he understands. And, uh, uh, very loyal team around him that are vicious executors. Like, I am like, like, our team works hard. Like, these people work, they make me feel like so lazy. Like, they're up at 4 AM. And they're like texting you back at 1 AM. Like, it's like, when do these people sleep? So really just very impressed by Trump in general. And it makes sense, like why he's been as successful as he has been. And like the media persona that they build of Trump, I just think is like total, total fantasy. And he kind of leans into it, like the You know, um, yeah, it's like, let this— let the fantasy be what, you know.

Yeah, yeah.

But, um, so yeah, and then like, uh, I've built a good relationship with this apparatus and team around them. Um, you know, a lot of the people who ended up going into his cabinet, uh, which I, I called the first Bitcoin cabinet, um, were people that we got into Bitcoin, or, or, uh, like, you know, we were a platform for them. Like, we, you know, RFK got into Bitcoin through Bitcoin 2023, through what we did with the truckers in Canada. You know, we have a good relationship with Tulsi, with Howard Lutnick, with the new SEC chairman. I mean, like, there's— it's kind of crazy the level of access our industry has across the new admin. So, yeah, we've just been on this ride. And then I guess the last thing we just did was the Crypto Ball that we hosted, the first ever.

You guys ran the ball, right?

Yeah, it was us and David Sachs. And so, and it was like just an amazing moment for the industry. I mean, really, it felt like something like historic was happening. And yeah, I mean, it's, and like Trump has, you know, there's been mixed reception to some of the stuff Trump has done since the ball. I mean, he launched the Trump coin there, which I would, you know, wouldn't have advised him doing. And, and, um, but whatever, you know, uh, the, uh, he freed Ross Ulbricht, uh, you know, he, he, uh, uh, rolled back SAB 121. He, you know, put together this working group that became— went from Bitcoin Strategic Reserve to Digital Asset Strategic Reserve. So, you know, there's like—

it's not like— yeah, yeah, subcommittee with Lummis.

So he's delivered on tons of stuff. I mean, I— he is an amazing partner for our industry, but also also, like, as more and more people have, like, uh, gotten access and a seat at the table, the messaging has become much more mixed, and it's, you know, been kind of trickier to navigate. So, um, I think, you know, uh, the next 4 years are going to be very interesting. Like, this is not like one and done with the president. Like, this is like, uh, I would expect new things to come.

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Um, is it like, um, yeah, like, I don't know the answer of like what exactly is going to happen. And the truth is, is like no one does. What I know is that Trump fully intends to deliver on every promise that he made to the community. Like, he is a promises made, promises kept guy. Like, that is like what he's about. And so, and like the media doesn't give him credit for that, but like truly, like that is how he thinks about stuff. Loyalty is like one of the things he cares most about. And like the, the working group that was formed, like, you know, there wasn't— like, exactly what happened is how it should have gone down. Like, you assemble the top people in the government who are responsible for touching America's money, you get them together, you give them a very tight deadline to articulate a plan, and you say, okay, I want y'all to tell me what the plan is in 90 days. And then you have another 90 days to get to tell the rest of the world what the plan is. And like the reason that it became the digital asset stockpile and like Trump's team is always very consistent with me that it's a stockpile, not a reserve. But it's because like they didn't want to show that they were just like blindly picking Bitcoin. They wanted to show that like they, they're not picking winners and losers. They're approaching this in a methodical, like with a methodical approach of like, okay, we're going to create a framework and we're going to make a determination about how do things get added to this reserve, et cetera. And so I think for people from our industry who know how much bullshit there is in a lot of the industry, they hear that and they're like, okay, great, you're going to be putting bullshit in there. From their perspective, they have no idea how much bullshit is in our industry. And so they're like, You know, we want to be like fair and like approach this in the right way. And we don't want to be, you know, like, like, so, you know, I think the reality is, is like the reason why there isn't clear-cut lines at the SEC about what is a security or what isn't with tokens or any of this stuff is because it's very hard to differentiate. Like once you get past Bitcoin, like, you know, maybe once you get past like the top 3 or 4 cryptos, it's very hard to differentiate number 7 from number 30 from number 200, you know. So, like, once they get into this process, like, either they're going to come to a conclusion that, like, everything goes in, or they're going to get to the conclusion that, like, Bitcoin goes in. And maybe there's one or two other things, but, like, that's kind of, like, the extremes that I see. And I don't think everything's going to go in because like, I don't think it makes sense to put securities or, you know, we want to put stocks in a strategic stockpile. And so, you know, why are we going to put—

Yeah, I agree with that. I agree. It seems silly to put a— even to put something like— as much as I'm not like— I like other things outside of just Bitcoin, but like, to me, it feels ridiculous to put like Solana and Ethereum and stuff in like this national stockpile or reserve.

But and like, the thing that like gives me kind of confidence on this uh, like what the final outcome will be is like Lutnick, Bessant, uh, Atkins, um, like all the people that he gathered for this, uh, uh, to put this together, like they know what's up. Like, like Lutnick knows what's up, uh, and like Lutnick is not gonna let trash be added to the, the, the strategic stockpile. So, you know, what's actually an interesting dynamic that I think a lot of people haven't thought about at all is like if this working group comes together and says, hey, here's the framework that we, we developed. And like the framework says the only thing that qualifies is Bitcoin. That has massive downstream implications. Like you've just gathered the top regulators in the most powerful country in the world to come up with a framework of like what's an asset that qualifies for like your sovereign country to hold, you know, on its balance sheet. And they just made a determination that like if you're proof of stake, whatever their framework is, like, oh, like if there's, you know, however they're going to define centralization or etc., like that's like a new Howey test almost, except it's not whether you're security or not. It's like whether you're an asset that reaches the caliber of like being—

I see. Yeah, that's interesting.

And so like the— this is going to like— this report's going to have implications in other countries around the world. It's going to be a report that people are going to reference for the next decade. So, um, yeah, a lot of the line.

What, uh, so right now in Polymarket there's a 40-ish percent chance that we get the SBR. What would you put that at?

Well, when they say SBR, do they mean like, uh, just we're gonna get a stockpile of digital assets?

Well, what's your— okay, what is your, uh, what is your prediction for like if you had to apply a probability to it of like, okay, we're just gonna get a stockpile versus we're going to start doing maybe Lummis's plan of buying— what was Lummis's plan? I think a million Bitcoin.

Yeah, I would say a stockpile to hold what we already have. I put the odds of that at 95% plus. So, and, and I think we get it this year. In terms of buying, you know, the, the, the EO doesn't actually— doesn't say that there won't be acquisitions. Like, the EO is very vague. So What's the chances that we get executive action to acquire more Bitcoin? I think it is, you know, probably lower than 50%. But if you told me it's 50/50, I think that that's probably— I believe that.

Yeah.

And that can also take other forms and fashions like this sovereign wealth fund kind of came out of nowhere. Like, Lutnick is running the sovereign wealth fund. Like Abu Dhabi just announced their sovereign wealth fund just aped into Bitcoin. Like, Ludnick, if he has the opportunity to ape into Bitcoin, he's aping in. So like, okay, maybe the buying actually happens in the sovereign wealth fund. That's still from the executive branch.

Yeah.

And then, you know, in terms of the likelihood of the Lummis Bill getting passed, I don't think that that happens until next year, but I think it's very, very likely to happen. When I look at the political dynamic that exists, there really is not a counter political group to Bitcoin. Like, we basically trampled our enemies. And the Democrats want a reset. The Republicans are like wanting our lobbying dollars, and they're wanting our votes. Like, and like, who's the counter constituency? Like, who's the voter, the marginal voter you lose by saying, hey, we're going to do a— we're going to vote for America to hold Bitcoin on its balance sheet? Versus like who's the marginal voter you gain if you say that? And it's like massively lopsided.

Yeah.

So I think like as this builds momentum, as the price of Bitcoin goes up over the course of the year, like this is what people want. And like you can already see it in the, in the, you know, they've announced the stablecoin stuff, market structure stuff. Guess what the price has done? Nothing. Like womp womp. No one cares. Like, in fact, like I talked to a lot of CEOs of these companies. I don't know how much they care. Like, like this market structure stuff, it's like, how much is that even holding us back at this point? We've, we've done such good jurisdictional arbitrage. Like, who isn't able to launch a token, you know? I guess maybe like legit companies, but like the, like, it's not like, um, uh, having clarification that the CFTC is our regulator now, it's gonna like solve the problem.

Yeah, I see what you're saying.

Yeah. And so I, I think like The only thing that people are going to respond to is like, is America buying Bitcoin like it buys gold? Do you think that's—

do you think that's a problem though, David, that like the price is not moving unless Trump says I'm buying Bitcoin? Like, is it too dependent on that?

No, but it's, it's, um, uh, uh, I'm not— I don't think that that's why the price is not moving. I'm saying that like, like all of these other announcements that they thought were going to give juice to the price. Like, Trump wants the price to go up. Trump wants the price to be $150,000 in his first 100 days. Like, he said that, uh, like, he is looking at the price of Bitcoin like it's the Dow Jones for the next generation, and he wants it to go up every day. And so when it doesn't go up and he's doing stuff for it, it's like, well, what, what's going on? Like, why is the market not reacting, uh, to all this stuff we're doing? Yeah, and it's like, you know, at the end of the day, they're gonna figure out, like, You know, Lummis puts out a tweet where people think the SBR is about to— something about the SBR is going to be said, price is up 10%. You know, a bunch of senators come out and say, here's all the clarification the industry has been saying they need for a decade, and we're going to hand it to you, and the price goes down 2%. It's like they're going to figure out like what this— what the market wants. Yeah. And so I think the Lummis bill is very likely to happen, but it's going to be a year plus out from happening.

Yeah. What about the Crypto Council? So I saw a headline that said Trump is having second thoughts about the Crypto Council. Trump admin may nix his promised exec council in favor of informal industry summits. New plan is seen as a way to avoid rife tribalism and infighting within the crypto industry.

I mean, I, you know, I, I, you know, no one— no, there's no one knows exactly what's happening. So like, I mean, the, like, these are things like, there's a lot of like floating stuff out there or whatever without before things are final. But yeah, I mean, it's, it's, there is a very real chance that that's the case.

Yeah, I just finished reading Jared Kushner's book about his, about his time in the admin. And it just struck me. I mean, he, every, every chapter, he talks about how many leaks happen when you work in— he's like, especially, he's like, especially for one reason or another in, you know, in D.C., but also in Trump's admin. He's like, there are just so many leaks we couldn't get. He's like, we figured out so many things we couldn't, we couldn't get a handle on the leaks. So I think about Kushner's statements when I see something like that.

Dude, I have never seen anything like it in my entire life. The amount of palace intrigue about Trump.

Yeah.

Is I honestly can't even articulate it in a way that's like, until you see it, you can't understand it. Like, I can be having a conversation with someone in the airport on the phone and like someone overhears that I said the word Trump and they start listening and then like they pick up like, you know, some words that I said and they send a text message to someone like, I just heard a guy at the airport saying this. And then it's like, ding dong, ding ding ding. Like 4 hours later, like New York Times, Trump says this, and it's like some like regurgitated, like half-true thing. And it's like, dude, like, like you literally, like, you know, one time I had a meeting. I had a meeting with someone that happened spontaneously. And before the— it was a dinner, we went to dinner. Before the dinner was over, I got a text from The New York Times asking me about, like, having that dinner. And it's like, yeah, yeah. So, uh, yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's crazy. And it's really hard to do stuff when that's, um, when that's the, the environment. But like, also, you can weaponize it too. Like, you can, like, you can turn it against itself. So, um, you just gotta have the experience. And the Trump team does. But for people who have never seen it before, like myself, etc., it's like shocking to see the intrigue.

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It means 100% penetration, 100% adoption of every, of every, every transaction, financial transaction that happens on the planet, on the individual level, on the corporate level. On the sovereign level, on the, on the machine level, on the intergalactic level happens in Bitcoin.

That's crazy. Yeah, that's nuts. I'm laughing because you said on the intergalactic level, but yeah, sure.

Yeah.

I mean, I mean, what you don't think Sending wires to Mars?

No. You know, like you're going to be using, you know, math-based money that that's digital. Yeah.

What, um, you don't think there'll be any dollars? You don't think there'll be any fiat?

I think the timeline that this plays out over is, is long and complicated.

And so hundreds of years or, or many decades?

It's really hard to say.

And by the way, do you think this will happen or you want this to happen?

I think it will happen and I want it to happen. So what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to take it from—

because you think it's better for the world or because you'll be like, you know, a multibillionaire 100 times over?

Yeah, no, I mean, I'd be lying if I didn't say the second one factored in, but because I think it's better for the world. I mean, that's, that's why I got into this in the first place is like, wow, like we can have a true golden age for humanity.

And even, even though the world would have to burn so hard to get there, you think it's worth it?

Oh, I don't, I don't agree with that, with that conclusion.

I don't think if the US dollar collapsed, we would go into just a—

well, I think, I think the US dollar collapsing is the wrong way to frame like what that process looks like. Like, you know, you know, the, the, there was a time not that long ago where the English pound was the reserve currency of the world. And, you know, it became the dollar. And it's not like the United Kingdom burned to the ground or the world burned to the ground because we switched from the pound to the dollar. So, like, I think how the systems transition and evolve is way more complex than— like, people want to be very—

it's much more gradual than like a civil war moment in time in the year 2045, you're saying? I see.

Yeah. And like, and not even that it's necessarily just gradual, like it can happen fast. But like, like, it can be much more complex. Like, like, if, if the United States ends up dominating Bitcoin, like, the dollar actually could become a relevant asset for a while because of the position the United States has in the Bitcoin ecosystem, the United States economy has with Bitcoin, etc. So like, there are— there— it's not just a, a simple equation of like Bitcoin's rise to power means like the collapse of all the institutions that we've ever known. Some of those institutions get co-opted, some of those institutions go away, some of those institutions evolve and morph. So I think it's just a very complex thing. And I think that our goal at our company is to accelerate the timeline that this happens over.

Okay, tell me about building mini MicroStrategies. Like, tell me about— Yeah. Are you wearing a MetaPlanet hat?

I am.

Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, you guys, you guys own or you're a board member or something. I don't understand the relationship. But Metaplanet, by the way, for people who don't know, I think it's the best performing stock in the entire world on any stock market right now. And then there's also you're running a similar playbook with 1723 in Hong Kong. But yeah, tell me about these.

Yeah, you broke up there for a minute, so I missed what you said, but it like, yeah, it's, you know, it's pretty— it's actually a very funny thing. Like, I'm a diehard libertarian, like Ron Paul libertarian and like, you know, anti anti-the Fed, anti, you know, not anti-Wall Street, but like definitely sympathize with like Occupy Wall Street. And now like this past year, I'm like, you know, funding politicians and, you know, getting involved in political races. And I'm like, you know, doing like Bitcoin plays on Wall Street and like working with like trad fi institutions. So It's definitely come full circle. But yeah, dude, I mean, I think in general, like, uh, Meta Planet, um, yeah, so first off, Meta Planet, uh, us and 3 other people like basically bought this company, uh, and partnered with the CEO of the company, uh, to pivot this hotel company in Tokyo that had like 1 hotel making $1 million a year, um, into a Bitcoin company. And we just copied the Saylor playbook. I think we're the first company to copy the Saylor playbook. And we've like speed-ran that from a $15 million market cap to the other day. It was just shy of a $2 billion market cap.

You guys took it from $15 million market cap to $2 billion.

Yeah, in like 10 months.

And that, that's nuts. Congrats. That's awesome. That's awesome. And you're just buying— and it's because it's the best proxy for Bitcoin on the Japanese stock market.

It's more complex than that. Like, we can go deep on this conversation, but you know what, what Saylor pioneered is like, there are pools of liquidity and capital all over the world. And these, these pools of liquidity have different needs. And when you're selling Bitcoin to these pools of liquidity, you meet the liquidity where it is in the form and fashion that it needs you to be in in order to sell to it. And so there's money that has to go into debt. Okay, well, then you wrap, you securitize Bitcoin in convertible notes and you sell, you know, debt that is backed by Bitcoin or has exposure to Bitcoin to that liquidity pool. You know, there's pools of capital that can only buy public equities. They can't even buy ETFs. Okay, so you wrap, you securitize Bitcoin in the wrapper of a corporate company and you sell it to those, that liquidity pool. There's money that's stuck in Japan or South Korea or Brazil or South Africa. I mean, there's capital controls all over the world for different reasons. So you wrap it in some structure that's in that jurisdiction and you sell it to the liquidity pools there. So we're just like repackaging Bitcoin into every possible financial form so that we can sell it to some pool of liquidity that wants access to Bitcoin but is just stuck. And so like this process is actually in the early stages. It's going to get way bigger. And Saylor like pioneered this vision, but like there's room here for tens of thousands of products to be created. Like, like you've seen nothing. Like we haven't talked, tapped into sovereign in any meaningful way. We haven't tapped into insurance in any meaningful way. Like this is, this is at the very early stages. And yeah, so like we, we did Metaplanet and the results and the reaction to it, it was like kind of like, oh, like this, like MicroStrategy is about Michael Saylor. Michael Saylor is just the visionary who saw it like, like the strategy.

What are you doing with MetaPlant? What is the strategy for someone who doesn't— who hasn't been following?

We literally just copy Michael Saylor. I mean, it's, it's— we, we buy Bitcoin, we put it on the balance sheet, and we either issue debt to buy Bitcoin, or we— if the market cap of the company is at a premium to the value of the underlying assets, we dilute and issue shares to buy Bitcoin. And, you know, MetaPlanet has accrued a few hundred million dollars of Bitcoin. It's already— it's buying now like $30 million slugs of Bitcoin, no debt. And, you know, it's trading at a big premium. But like, you know, this company had no assets. 10 months ago. Now it has hundreds of millions of dollars of Bitcoin. So, uh, it's, uh, like the, the strategy, it was very effective. And so we're like, okay, we need to do more of these. We should do one of these in every capital market on the planet. So that's, that's the goal this year. We want to do one in the top 20 capital markets, top maybe top 25 capital markets. We want a public company that we have controlling interest in each, each of those doing this play.

So you've done it in 2, right?

But 5, and, and we have So we've done it in 2 in Canada, 1 in India, 1 in Hong Kong that we just announced a couple weeks ago, and then 1 in Metaplane in Japan. And then we are working right now deals in, we just closed on a deal in the United Kingdom. We're working on a deal in Brazil. We're working on a deal in Taiwan, South Korea. Um, in Thailand, in Indonesia.

And who's we, David? Is it— is this Bitcoin Mag, or this is you and like your family office slash like, like group of operators?

Or we have an investment arm, uh, as well. Um, so that's UTXO Management. And so that has two different funds, a venture fund and a hedge fund. And the hedge fund, you know, was in all sorts of of Bitcoin strategies, trying to just generate alpha on Bitcoin. Did I cut out there?

Yeah, just kind of— you said the hedge fund was in all sorts of what?

Bitcoin strategies to try to generate alpha on Bitcoin. So, you know, we benchmark internally against Bitcoin. We want to beat Bitcoin. And but now, like, this play has become so successful that I think like 70, 80% of the of the hedge fund is, is in public equities because like this is where all the returns are right now. So, so yeah, so we like, like, so we have a team there. It's pretty small team. And then we have like a network of what I'll call like our Bitcoin bros around the world that we've just done deals with over the, over the past 12 years, 13 years. And so like we've just started like as these deals come together, there's maybe a couple of our friends that are like getting in there with us. We've done a lot of deals with Jason Yanowitz from Sora. But like each of these deals maybe has like a different like kind of key person who's like kind of like—

Yeah, I saw Dylan. Is Dylan running MetaPlanet or he's like one of the leaders of that strategy?

And he's, he's an employee of our company.

Yeah. And he's also, he's like 24 or something. That's amazing.

Yeah. So like every one of these companies we're doing, there's going to be a Dylan in the company. Every one of these companies needs a Michael Saylor. So you got to have like the public market CEO who's going to be like the champion in that local market. Then you need like a Dylan who's like going to help with like the messaging, with the— going to help with like the structuring, like best practices, etc. And so like we're like hodgepodge-ing these deals together, like pulling together different people. You know, if you get bored at Blockworks and you want to like take over as Bitcoin's, you know, strategy officer at a public company, let me know and we can plug you in somewhere. But yeah, so what's the pitch for—

okay, so if all these public companies are doing it, why doesn't Why don't you— like, what do you guys do with your balance sheet? Or like, should— like, what's the pitch for Blockworks to move our— you know?

Yeah, I mean, we're in the process of RTOing right now, and I think we're going to be public very soon. So I heard—

I heard that. I heard you were raising a bunch of money to go public.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know how much I am able to talk about that without like getting into any trouble. So—

so Bitcoin, you think— and that— what's the— what's the entity? Bitcoin Inc. or Bitcoin Mag?

We're going to take over a public company and roll our assets from both of our operating companies into that business.

Wait, say that again. You cut out.

We're going to take over a public company and then we're going to roll both of our operating companies, BTC Inc., which has the conference and Bitcoin Magazine, and UTXO, which has our funds, into one. One.

Oh, so you'll do a PIPE, basically?

Yeah, basically.

Okay.

So more complex than that to optimize for time. But yeah, that's effectively what we're doing.

That's crazy. That's cool.

Yeah, we're all in on this strategy right now. The returns are just like— I mean, we took over this Hong Kong deal. We deployed $24 million split amongst 3 partners. We each put in $8 mil. We own almost 80% of this public company, like 70-something percent of this public company in Hong Kong. It started trading a few weeks ago. Last night, it tapped like $180 million market cap. So our stake is worth like $50-something million. We're like 3 weeks in. So it's like, you know, it's like, just do more of these. What are we doing? Like, this is just, just do this. So yeah, I mean, we want to do one in every capital market. And then as like we, as the resources keep growing, you know, we started off doing these deals like million-dollar checks. Now we're doing like, you know, $10 million checks. Like we want to get to the point where we're writing, you know, multiple hundreds of millions of dollars.

Is this internal capital, or is this internal capital, or are you raising— do you have external capital that flows into you guys?

Both. We're— it's primarily coming from our fund, but part of the reason that we've been taking our, our company public is we want to do as much of this as possible from our own balance sheet. So like, uh, you know, doing Mediplan, we wrote the Mediplan check out of the fund you know, we should have doubled the investment size and done it from our own balance sheet as well. So, but yeah, it's—

Dan, what have you learned about like over the years? I do feel like every entrepreneur in crypto, every cycle, they do crazier things and they think bigger and they get a lot better at executing too, obviously. Like, how do you— I mean, I'm very— I just love— I'm really enjoying this because I love hearing— I feel like I've seen you in the early days. Like, I mean, we were like slinging podcast ads together.

Yeah.

And it's very cool to see just what you're doing. So I'm like, what? I mean, how does it feel to be doing these like crazy deals and stuff?

Honestly, it feels right, to be honest. Like, it feels like— I was talking about this with somebody the other day. It's like, The reason why we're— this is going to get really big is because like we have absolute conviction in Bitcoin, like absolute conviction, and, um, to a degree that other people can't have without living the experiences that we've lived. And, um, and like we are absolutely reckless in a way that no one who has this amount of resources is reckless like that. And so like those two things put together mean that we're gonna do deals that other people are going to, like, be afraid to do and that they're not going to have the conviction to follow through on. And like, you know, whereas like, yeah, we have no problem buying Papa John's pizza for $1 billion and then just saying, okay, now you're a Bitcoin company, divest the pizza and take their, take their bounty. Like, we, we, we will roll.

I did see you. I did see you tweet about Papa John's.

I was like, yeah, I mean, so it's like, who else is going to do that? You know, and like, Saylor's like crazy. Like, Saylor's an amazing person, but like, he has a very unique personality. And so like, we just feel like, you know, this cycle, like we've just had, you know, it's been building up to us doing this. And I, for whatever reason, like we are not really afraid of making decisions that have multiple $100 million implications on these companies. Like, it just— I don't know, it just feels like the right thing to do. So, um, yeah, dude, it's been fun. And it's, it's, uh, it's definitely— I'm learning a new game. And, you know, it's kind of like funny, like, how much— you know, I, I've always been in crypto my entire professional career, uh, and you feel like, you know, we're inventing so much stuff in crypto. And then the more time you spend in like trad fi, you realize like like, we really haven't invented, like, shit. Like, we really just, like, did a bad job copying what, like, was invented, like, you know, a long time ago. And in the— so long ago that even the Wall Street guys had forgotten, like, how it got created. But, like, it already exists in a much more, you know, polished format. So yeah, uh, uh, it's cool. And, like, the stuff we're doing on the corporate side, I feel like it's just the prelude to what where we take this next, which is the sovereign side. Like the Bitcoin Strategic Reserve is just Bitcoin on the balance sheet of a sovereign nation. And like the BitBonds and like Bitcoin-backed debt that's issued by a sovereign nation, that's just the convertible note of the sovereign on the sovereign level.

Yeah, I saw. Yeah, yeah, I saw it. I saw those BitBonds. That's interesting. What I've— okay, so if you extend out your like public markets thesis of like I feel like you're half joking and half serious about Papa John's. Probably more serious than joking, actually.

But I was pitched that, that, that company and like, we sort of like, we have looked at like, we're now trying to find these like, what's a billion dollar market cap company that we—

So, okay, so let me ask, let me ask the question, which is the Papa John's. If you wipe out the pizza, then it's just a Bitcoin company. You can't do that with all companies in the world because Some companies need to deliver services like, you know, you wouldn't go into Apple and wipe out the iPhones because like they need—

but what you would do is you'd stop investing the capital into trying to grow the underlying business because the, the, the— you're going to get better returns on capital.

So I thought, so I thought you would get there. But then what happens to the growth of eventual GDP and like how do you actually improve things if you're stripping away all of the innovation, like, investment, the R&D.

I, I would argue that it's not that you're, you're stripping away the innovation. I would say that you are, you are stripping out the 80% of investment into R&D that generates 20% of the returns. And the, that they're like the, like the things that are actually innovation are still going to get funded. You're just— hurdle rate is going to be much higher. And so, like, as the price of Bitcoin matures, the market cap of Bitcoin grows, the rate of return of Bitcoin reduces, like, that hurdle rate is going to be like, okay, can, can your technology, you know, can this investment generate us more than a 40% return on investment annually? And it's like, if the answer is no, you should buy Bitcoin. If the answer is yes, then you should do, do invest into that R&D and there is so much wasted money spent on brand, on marketing, like on marginal changes to the business that, yeah, I think there's a lot of misallocation of capital. And, you know, when you buy Bitcoin, you know, it's not like you delete the money. Like, it's not like you like somehow like the wealth has just been like gone into this like black hole and it doesn't like when you buy Bitcoin and you send the price of Bitcoin up, there are hundreds of millions of people around the, the world that own Bitcoin. You're just redistributing the wealth within society to people who hold this specific asset. And then the people who hold that asset, they have different behavior or consumption behavior or economic decisions that they make based on the value of the assets that they hold. And so you're really just empowering a different set of economic actors to make decisions, and those decisions are going to result in them having increased consumption or funding a business that they otherwise wouldn't have been able to fund. And so, like, it's not like it's, uh, uh, you're removing resources from society, you're just redeploying resources in society.

Hmm. All right, I need to process that one.

Um, You know, I mean, like this, like, like you've, you've benefited from the appreciation of, of—

so here's the— okay, here's like, here's the thing. So Blockworks, like Blockworks, like Blockworks, right? Okay. So we, I mean, about half of our balance sheet is, is like we sit on a bunch of Bitcoin. Like we, we also— and like our board actually likes it. Like they, they're like, yeah, you got to think about it's a capital allocation game. But let's say it was 100. Let's say we took 100% of our cash and we put it into Bitcoin. Well, I mean, I think Bitcoin's going to rip this year, so like we'd make a lot of money, but then we go into a bear market like that happens. We don't invest in our data product where like a lot of the valuation and the future of the business revenue is going to come.

So like, why would you invest in the data product? Like when your Bitcoin appreciates, does that not change your investment decisions? Like if you have a balance sheet with $100 million of Bitcoin, versus a balance sheet that has $1 million of cash. Like, would you not actually—

Oh, I see. Okay. So you do spend the Bitcoin eventually if you need to invest it. You're just— hurdle rate is much higher. Okay. I see the point. Then how do you, how do you make financial planning decisions when your, your treasury is going like this all the time?

Well, yeah, I mean, the volatility definitely is, is like, it is a reason why you don't want to have— it's a reason why it makes sense to make fixed investments into certain assets that have a predictable yield. So like, I'm gonna buy, I'm gonna buy my house, and I'm gonna sell my Bitcoin to buy this house rather than doing it with debt, because Bitcoin's a very volatile asset, and I don't want to be caught in a place where like I can't make a payment on my home. And so like, I've made the decision, the trade-off, like I want the predictability of owning this asset outright than, you know, increasing the volatility of my balance sheet by financing this home. So like, yeah, it's like you factor that into your economic equation, you know, it's like, yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Makes sense. Okay. You believe in the 4-year cycle forever?

You know, that's a very complex question. You know, I believe in the underlying dynamics of the 4-year cycle for quite a long— like, I think that that plays out for a while. But like, I actually— I've— as I've gotten close to this TradFi, this TradFi convergence with crypto that's occurring right now, ever since the ETF launched, I don't think that the 4-year cycle can work in this run. Like, the 4-year cycle would dictate to us 2026 is a bear market. There's not enough time for the capital to be deployed from TradFi that is being deployed. But like, there's too much liquidity coming into the market for, for it to be possible to have a sustained bear market at this point. Point, the price needs to go up way more so that the, the, it's the instability of that price can justify a prolonged bear market environment. So I don't see that that happening by the end of this year.

So you think, you think the 4-year cycle could be, could be over then?

I think it could be elongated, but I, I do think that the underlying dynamics of, um, uh, like stock-to-flow, and I, I feel like stock-to-flow is also like too reductionist, but like the underlying mechanics of like the inflation rate of the system versus like the illiquidity of the system, that is going to maintain itself for quite a while. Like, the, the, the people misunderstand the liquidity of Bitcoin. It's like, like, there's like 4 million Bitcoins. Like, they're like, that's it. Like, that's the entire liquidity picture is based on 4 million Bitcoins. And if you have a $100 trillion or you have a trillion dollars, like, there is bidding over the same 4 million bitcoins.

Yeah.

Oh, you know, like, the price runs to some point that the inflation rate of the system on a daily basis surpasses the— plus the outflowing liquidity surpasses what is inflowing on a daily basis. It's like, like liquidity in, liquidity out. And at some point in time, that imbalance has to rear itself. And I think that like the 4-year cycle is actually— it's a healthy part of our system because the bear markets wipe out the, the, the, the malinvestment that's going on. It's like the forest fire you need to happen in the forest so that like it— the forest can regrow healthier. And so if we lose— like, imagine how horrible it would be if we just had like a, you know, a linear growth rate forever up on Bitcoin. People like like SBF, they would have run their Ponzi to like unbelievable, unbelievable levels.

No, no. Yeah, flushes are good, right? Like, like a Poet, like, uh, flush Poet out.

Exactly. And it's like, you know, you know how many people's time I was wasting and how much money I was wasting on Poet? Like, you know how many smart people worked there that could have been doing other shit that actually mattered?

Was it— did you hear it? Was Jared running that?

Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, dude, we, we had a huge organization there and it's like like waste of fucking time. And so like, we need— like the market needs to tell us like how to deploy our resources by like fucking punishing us for dumb shit.

What do you think about crypto?

What about crypto?

Let me read to your tweets. You said, I'm not rejoicing at my ETH friend's loss, but to state the obvious, hugely bullish confirmation of Bitcoin if Ethereum loses number 2 spot. Will mean there is no staying power for any network beyond Bitcoin, will cause crisis of confidence amongst OGs who became ETH maxis. That's one. Second one is right now crypto is almost entirely secure. Also, I like you put quotes around crypto every time you say right now crypto is almost entirely securities with zero cash flow. Until they generate cash flow, they will trend to zero. It's not investable. Embrace that you are a company, generate a profit, distribute to investors. And crypto plus Bitcoin will explode. Only path forward. Oh, that's interesting. So you do think crypto— you're fine with— like, let me ask you about a specific company. Like, what do you think of like Uniswap?

You know, the problem with Uniswap is that Uniswap is a platform to trade, uh, worthless tokens. So it's like, like, uh, if it was actually a tool that was being used for— and I don't know the, the like, like the thing about decentralization is like the way decentralization is used in crypto is like decentralization, like pixie dust that you sprinkle on your security to like a great enough degree that then you can basically claim like regulatory arbitrage and be like, oh, well, like we don't control this, we don't control that. And so therefore, like, you know, we are immune from whatever it is you're trying to tell us. You know, so I don't know like what pixie dust Uniswap uses. I've used the product. I think it's a great product. And, you know, if there's a day where I can swap tokens of Apple for tokens of Google using a product like Uniswap, I think that that would be cool. I think that would be cool. You know, I think like probably the token out there that I think has done the best job, maybe there's like a couple that I would reference. One would be BNB. Because BNB, like the exchange token model, all they're doing is like redirecting the cash flows that they would otherwise generate from charging fees into automatically buying their own fucking shitcoin. And so they've, they've like the core— the reason the token is up is because the core business, which is an exchange that generates fees, like is the bid underneath the assets, like a continual stock buyback. And so like, that's like the most—

Binance is the same thing as Uniswap because it's, it's the exact same business. You're just trading— to you, you're trading worthless tokens.

Yeah. Well, like Binance could trade— I mean, Binance has all sorts of financial products and derivatives, etc. So I mean, like, I mean, Binance is just NASDAQ. It's like if NASDAQ was just like, hey, like, we're not going to make any profit. We're just going to like every dollar as soon as we make it, we're just going to buy our shares of our own stock back. So like, like, uh, I think that's done well. Another one that I think did well was Bitfinex. When they got hacked back in the day, they created the BFX token.

That was actually the best— still the best way to do a bankruptcy, or a, um, a hack, to, to solve a hack.

Yeah, it was, it was, it was a bond. I mean, they issued a bond and it was like, okay, face, face value of the bond, it matures at like $1, and you know, it can trade free float and like Dude, and it worked. It worked. So, um, I, I am totally on board. Like, I, I feel like the person who said it best, and, and, you know, it was, it was very bold of him to put this out there just because of the blowback you could get, is Saylor. He, he, he did his policy framework that he published, and he, he really reduced it to first principles. And it's like, I totally agree with where his mind is at on this. Like, using crypto, uh, like, like the, um, the technological cost of issuing a security, trading a security, doing a public offering has been reduced dramatically. Instead of it costing $1 million to do it and a year, it can be done in an hour and, you know, with $100. And so like, that is a step function improvement in the process of creating securities. And securities have a fundamental purpose in society to organize the economy and resources so that people can go and create shit. So like, there's a reason why we have stocks. They're a useful thing. And so, you know, that efficiency gain, we should unleash for society. But like, the reason we have securities laws is because we want to protect people. Fundamentally, Saylor laid out 3 things that we want to optimize for. We don't want people to lie, we don't want people to cheat, and we don't want people to steal. That's the fundamentals of it. If we could have some common sense reform of the securities laws so that it doesn't cost $1 million to file an S-1, no one even reads these S-1s. I've asked every investment banker, Who reads this shit? No one reads it. It's like the terms and conditions on a piece of software where you just click agree or whatever.

I know I clicked Coinbase's earnings yesterday to read Coinbase's earnings and it was 382 pages and I was like, who's—

no one's reading this. Only people who are reading this is the lawyers who wrote it and they're probably not even reading it. Probably just like, you know, so it's like that is not helpful for society. And so if we could reform the securities regulations, then it would be easy for companies to comply with securities laws, it would be cheaper for them to use tokens to track like ownership of their, of their security. And then like we just have an explosion of our capital markets because like right now we have this huge fucked up situation where if you're public, you have a massive advantage over companies that are private, like you have a much cheaper cost of capital. And so what ends up happening is these public companies snuff out these small companies And so it actually kills innovation. It actually kills like the most efficient companies in the market because you're giving these entrenched powers this special privilege that other people don't have because they don't have the requisite resources to get to that point already. And so like, like I'm bullish on like I have, I have played with tokens and I have also managed the cap table of a private company. It is an absolute shit show. After 10 years to like track down options that were paid. I mean, it is a shit show. And, you know, like I have like shitcoins that like no one's even fucking looked at these things in 10 years' time. And I can go log into the wallet and I can see all the latest transactions that can happen. Like, I like, like it still exists there. And so it's fundamentally better, but it's not better as long as Like these things are securities and you—

I think I understand your point. You want the companies behind the products to build good or behind the tokens to build good products and make money and have P&Ls that generate profit.

Like, yeah, yeah. It's like, you know, like, like tokens are just fucking stocks with no cash flow, no profit, no product, no management team to hold accountable. What the fuck is that? Like, that is bullshit. Just make it where they can have those things and then all of a sudden it's real. And like, as soon as that happens, dude, this thing goes like—

like, so, so why are you guys going public? Why don't you guys just flip your equity into a token?

Why are we going public? Because there is massive benefits to tapping the public markets.

Like, yeah, because it's a much bigger pool of capital than—

yeah, yeah. There's passive buyers, there's index funds, there's like, it's, it's an advantage. So we're signing up for the unfair advantage. And so, um, but like, yeah, dude, it's, it's, I, I think it's such a simple fix. And you know, when the way you get TradFi to come into, into crypto, like into Bitcoin, is there has to be investments that they, that like, if they want the highest rate of return, they have to go into crypto to get access to those. Like the next Apple has to be something that trades in crypto and it pays dividends in Bitcoin. And if you fucking want Apple, you have to go in through this vehicle. That's how you get the fucking flows to come over to this new world. As long as it's meme coins, bro, these people do not give— like this, like it's— we're embarrassing ourselves right now. I mean, it's like it's just kids gambling, like, you know, on 4chan. And it's like, yeah, I think, yeah, I mean, that's my view.

Yeah, yeah, point taken. When do we hit a million?

Now I'm all like worked up talking about fucking tokens. And like, you know, every time I talk about that, like all the Bitcoiners are like, they're shitcoins. And like, you know, I'm like trying to give like a substantive critique.

And it's like, I actually enjoyed that. And I thought you were good. I thought there was like a philosophical, like, I am against crypto with a capital C, like I am against, I will never be into crypto. But actually, that was not— that's not the answer I thought you were going to give. I think your answer is very reasonable, which is, yeah, look, a lot of this stuff is like a much better system, like a lot more efficient. Like, tradfi rails suck, but I want to see good businesses built behind the tokens.

Yeah. So you win $1 million. I think it's a very real possibility that we could see $1 million like in the next 18 months. I think it's very real that we could see a million bitcoins in the next 4 years. And I think it's possible that it takes a decade. So it's like, that's a wide range of outcomes. But I think like the, the, the where we're at in the adoption cycle of tradfi, like, you know, the, you know, the like the adoption curve, the S-curve. It's like there's like S-curves on S-curves on S-curves. So there's S-curves for retail and there's like S-curves for VCs and tech, and there's like S-curves for institutional adoption. There's S-curves for like sovereign adoption. Like the institutional adoption S-curve is right at the inflection point where it goes wild. And the ETF, like, dude, like if you think about this stuff as just like ICOs or whatever tokens, Like, Saylor plus iBit, plus the ETFs have like sucked up like net, like 1.5 million bitcoins, 2 million bitcoins over the past like 2 years, basically. You know, the ETFs have sucked up 1.2 million bitcoins in less than 1 year. Name the last token project that was able to pull in 1 million bitcoins. Name the last token project that was able to pull in 100,000 bitcoins. Like, like, I mean, EOS was like the last one. I mean, like, there's just not— that doesn't exist.

And then EOS converted into a Bitcoin company just holding Bitcoin.

Yeah. So when I look at like the ETFs, like, dude, like, this is— if you fast forward 1 year from now, there's going to be another million bitcoins sucked up by the ETFs. And back to your point earlier, like, there's 4 million bitcoins out there. Like, that's what we're really fighting over, these 4 million bitcoins. And so, uh, the, the price is going to get massive lift from that process. So I think it happened fast, but, you know, I also think that there are things that could happen that could slow it down.

Yeah. David, man, always good chatting with you. This is awesome, dude.

Thank you for having me on, man.

Uh, you'll see how far you've come. It really is.

Cheers to another decade, you know. Uh, how old are you?

Uh, 30.

30. So I'm 34. So hell yeah, dude, I feel like we were born in the right place in time for, for this journey. And it's like, you know, I, I don't even know— I couldn't even go back to the real world now at this point. And so it's like, dude, I got another— I got another 30 years in me. Like, we got a long time.

Oh yeah. Oh yeah, let's go.

So cheers. Cheers to building it, man. Cheers.

Cheers. Hey everyone, just wanted to give a quick thanks to today's title sponsor, Geodnet. By setting up a base station, you can get involved with this groundbreaking Web3 ecosystem. Learn more by heading over to geodnet.com or just by hitting the link in the description of today's episode.