PBD Podcast - MicroStrategy's Michael Saylor: Bitcoin To $13M? MicroStrategy's $4B Bitcoin Bet | PBD Podcast | Ep. 508

Episode Date: November 18, 2024

Patrick Bet-David is joined by MicroStrategy's Michael Saylor. Michael Saylor is a prominent American entrepreneur and executive known for his role as the co-founder and executive chairman of MicroStrategy, a publicly traded business intelligence company. Saylor gained widespread recognition in the cryptocurrency world for his company's significant investments in Bitcoin. As of November 10, 2024, MicroStrategy holds approximately 279,420 bitcoins, acquired at a total cost of around $11.9 billion, averaging $42,692 per bitcoin. With Bitcoin's price recently surpassing $90,000, the market value of these holdings exceeds $25 billion. 💻 PBD'S "NO MATTER WHAT" WEBINAR: https://bit.ly/4hVTkPK 🎄 PURCHASE THE VT CHRISTMAS COLLECTION: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4hDCt3S⁠⁠⁠ 📰 VTNEWS.AI: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3Zn2Moj⁠⁠⁠ 👕 VT POLO SHIRTS: ⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3Y4Npig⁠⁠⁠ 🎙️ FOLLOW THE PODCAST ON SPOTIFY: ⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3ze3RUM⁠⁠⁠ 🎙️ FOLLOW THE PODCAST ON ITUNES: ⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/47iOGGx⁠⁠⁠ 🎙️ FOLLOW THE PODCAST ON ALL PLATFORMS: ⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4e0FgCe⁠⁠⁠ 📱 CONNECT ON MINNECT: ⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3MGK5EE⁠⁠⁠ 👔 BET-DAVID CONSULTING: ⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4d5nYlU⁠⁠⁠ 🎓 VALUETAINMENT UNIVERSITY: ⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3XC8L7k⁠⁠⁠ 📺 JOIN THE CHANNEL: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3XjSSRK⁠⁠⁠ 💬 TEXT US: Text “PODCAST” to 310-340-1132 to get the latest updates in real-time! SUBSCRIBE TO: ⁠⁠⁠‪@VALUETAINMENT‬⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠‪@vtsoscast‬⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠‪@ValuetainmentComedy‬⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠‪@bizdocpodcast‬⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠‪@theunusualsuspectspodcast‬⁠⁠⁠ ABOUT US: Patrick Bet-David is the founder and CEO of Valuetainment Media. He is the author of the #1 Wall Street Journal Bestseller “Your Next Five Moves” (Simon & Schuster) and a father of 2 boys and 2 girls. He currently resides in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pbdpodcast/support

All right, folks. So I got a question for you. I got a question for you. I got a question for you. What's the biggest purchase you made today? I'm curious. What did you buy today? Did you buy, maybe we went to lunch, you bought something at Chipotle, maybe you bought a car today, right? Maybe you bought a house today.

My guest today bought $4.6 billion of Bitcoin today. Okay, that's Michael Saylor with MicroStrategy. Now here's a kicker before we get into it. We've had him on, I think this is the fourth time Michael you've been on. Let's go to the first time we had him on, Rob, with the picture of how many signatures was on the wall. We barely had any signatures on the wall, right? This is Michael coming on the first time.

We're talking about Bitcoin. Every time he leaves, you know, everybody here would buy a Bitcoin or two. It's like, man, I got to buy something here. First time on, you came was May, March 1st of 2022. At the time, the valuation of MicroStrategy stock was $41 a share. Then you came back December 5th of 2022. That's nine months later. The stock value dropped 50% from $41 to 2069.

Then you came back on May 9th of 2023. The stock went up a little bit to $28. The stock today is valued at, if you can pull it up Rob, $370, give or take, as of right now. And I think the last time Net Worth was around a billion dollars or so. Today Net Worth, just in these last months I talked about, folks, went from that billion, billion and a half to roughly $9 billion. Michael, it's great to have you back on the podcast. Thanks for having me.

I'm counting your money. I hope you don't mind it. I'm counting the money that I got here. I like the trend. If I just keep coming back back the stock will keep going up. I like it. I like it I like it. So right off the bat today bitcoins 90,000 91,000 did you already have it planned? Are you gonna make the investment today was a purchase already scheduled? The pre-scheduled thing was it now the market doesn't know let's make the announcement. We're buying this You know on October 30th, we announced our 21-21 plan.

So $21 billion worth of equity we're gonna raise and $21 billion we're gonna raise in fixed income securities. And we filed this shelf registration to sell the 21 billion in equity and at the market offerings. So then the next week, we had the election, a lot of activity, the red sweep. And then that Monday, Monday, a week ago from today, we announced we'd actually bought $2

billion of Bitcoin. So that was a, that was like a $2 billion week. And it's like 27,000 Bitcoin or something, but then another week went by. So the announcement this morning was from last week's activity, so that's five days in the marketplace. So we did about $2 billion the first week and we did $4.6 billion the second week.

This is the biggest ever biggest purchase yeah i think it's the biggest bitcoin purchase ever yeah yeah because i see this year august 2020 you made a quarter of a billion september 2020 175 december 2020 you bought 50 million february 2021 you bought a billion november 11 2024 last week 2 billion and today 4.6 billion. Yeah, so 6.6 billion since we had our quarterly results. So, you know, I think it's like 41, 42 times we bought Bitcoin in that range. So ever since August of 2020, we keep buying, we don't sell. It's a very simple strategy. Bitcoin is Manhattan in cyberspace. I just want to keep buying Manhattan in cyberspace.

I have this theory that one day 8 billion people want to put their money in Manhattan in cyberspace. And of course, the more we bought, the more transparent we are, the more the capital markets get behind us. So now, if you're an investor on Wall Street, and you're looking for the company that's going to buy up cyberspace, then you're buying MicroStrategy stock. And some people like Bitcoin, so they buy Bitcoin. Every day of my life, I tell people to buy Bitcoin. Some people want more Bitcoin, right?

The joke I have is the only thing better than Bitcoin is more Bitcoin. So we borrowed $4.2 billion at 82 basis points and we bought Bitcoin with it. So for the people that like Bitcoin, they buy it, but people that really like it want to borrow a lot of money and buy more. And then there's another group of investors, the convertible bond investors. And how do you buy Bitcoin at the all time high and get the upside, but don't have the downside? So you buy the bonds and it turns out that our bonds have outperformed Bitcoin, but they're

bonds. And so that blows people's minds that we can actually sell you a bond. They don't just outperform all the other bonds. Some of these bonds are, I mean, they're trading 200 plus against 100 basis. So they're up 100%. So they outperform all the bonds, but they also outperform the Bitcoin. And that's because we've created a public company with a tiered capital structure, and we've got a lot of permanent capital.

Then we've got the senior bonds and the capital structure, and then the equity generates a BTC yield. And so a lot of Bitcoin maxis pile into the equity, and that gives us a premium. And we're able to use the premium from the equity in order to create very accretive capital markets transactions with the bonds and the rest of the equity. Now the question is like when you went from you know 41 to 30 to 20 dollars and the markets reacting to you.

Michael Saylor was wrong. He made a mistake. Look what's going to happen to all his investors' money. Biggest mistake, he's going to get a margin call. He's about to lose it all, right? Did you ever get a margin call? Did that ever happen? No. Nothing. Were you ever close to a margin call? No.

Not even close? No. Why weren't you close to a margin call? Well, we just weren't. I mean, like most of our debt is convertible debt. It's not margin call. I mean, you can't call it. It's unsecured No recourse. I got it. I like so we borrow a billion dollars for five years for zero percent interest There's no margin call possible who gives you a billion dollars for five years at zero percent Is that when money was convertible?

Actually, they still do we just we borrowed a billion dollars two months ago at 82 basis points. And so the way it works is we're selling convertible bonds. And the convertible bonds are have a bond component and then they have an option component like a call option. And so the convertible arbitrageurs and the options traders, they like the volatility in the stock. You know, one thing you might not know is, is we have the most volatile stock in the stock. You know, one thing you might not know is we have the most volatile stock in the S&P 500. So if you took all 500 stocks in the S&P 500, you said, which is the most volatile? We're like 100 vol. The S&P, the VIX is like 15.

Most of the Mag-7 stocks, they would be like 20, 25 vol. Bitcoin is 50, so it's like three to four times the volatility of the S&P index. Micro strategy, we lever the Bitcoin, so we get to X that. So we get to 100. And conventional investors are afraid of volatility. They fear it. They're like, I can't handle the volatility. But volatility is like RPM in an engine. It's like spinning at 100 RPM instead of 10 RPM. So if you plug volatility in the Black-Scholes equation, the options are a lot more valuable if you have volatility. So when I'm selling a convertible bond,

it's got an option attached to it. So if you're an investor, you want to buy a convertible bond from a company with large volatility, large liquidity and durability, right? You wanna know the company's gonna keep going. But if you think about liquidity, that's like energy. So like maybe I spend that little Merry Christmas hat, you know, at 50 RPM, it's a little kid's toy

or little balsa wood propello on your kid's toy. But if I take a baseball bat and I spin it at 100 RPM, it's a little kid's toy or little balsa wood propeller on your kid's toy. But if I take a baseball bat and I spin it at 100 RPM, it's a weapon. But if I take a 20 ton flywheel and I spin it at 100 RPM, it's a turbine. Like I can move a ship. And so we have, well now we have $30 billion worth of capital and when we're spending it at 100 vol,

that's a huge opportunity for options traders. So there's a massive options market, a massive amount of liquidity, a massive amount of volatility. And so the convertible arbitrage guys, let me say it differently. If you have 100 vol, you can generate 100% interest just by selling the upside. So people, there are funds like MSTY,

all they do is just sell the calls. They just sell the volatility and they generate like 180% dividend yield. So who loans us the money? People that want that volatility because the volatility is worth a lot more than getting paid 12% interest. So who is giving you the money?

Who's it coming from? What does a typical investor look like? Well, it depends. For the equity, it's Bitcoin maximalists and people that believe in Bitcoin that want to outperform Bitcoin. It's also institutional investors that like Bitcoin, but they can't buy Bitcoin because of their charter. They can only buy an operating company. Many investors have large pools of capital and they're not allowed to buy the commodity. They have to buy a company. So the question when a lot of people ask and says, why would you why would you give your money to MicroStrategy to invest? Why not just go do yourself and buy

Bitcoin? This is because some can't do that, right? Well, there's a lot of answers to that. One is, can you borrow a billion dollars for free for five years with no recourse and unsecured? Probably not, right? Individuals can't borrow money for free for long periods of time. It's difficult. Companies can. So one reason why is because we can borrow $4.2

billion unsecured for a long period of time and pay less than 1% interest. So when you're investing with us, you're not just getting the Bitcoin, you're getting the access to the company that has the cheapest cost to cap. We probably have the cheapest cost of capital in the entire market. If you look at every S&P company, if you look at every S and P company, if you look at every company in the market, who else can borrow billions of dollars for less than 1% interest? So one thing they want is they want our financial power. But then if you go to Europe, like in the UK, I think, uh,

it's impossible. It's illegal for a Europe, uh, for a UK investor to buy Bitcoin They can't like the regs don't allow them to buy it anywhere in the UK They can't buy it and they're like retirement fund. They have like they have retirement plans and 401k So a lot of times there are regulations that prohibit investors from buying Bitcoin, but they can buy companies We're a company so they can buy our stock but they can buy companies. We're a company, so they can buy our stock. So if you had money locked up in your retirement plan and you loved Bitcoin, but you can't buy the Bitcoin,

you can't even buy the ETF, you can buy MicroStrategy. There are a lot of pools of capital that they could buy us. And there's another example, which is, there's been no options market on Bitcoin ETFs, and you can't margin it, so you can't borrow against them. But with MicroStrategy, we have very healthy options. We have an $80 billion open interest in our options market, that's extreme.

The options market in our stock is 20x bigger than the options market in Beto, which is the only Bitcoin ETF that had options. So sometimes people wanna use those for leverage. And then the last point is, you can't borrow against those ETFs, but if you had a million dollars of Apple stock, you could borrow against it.

It's SOFR plus 100 basis points. If you have a million dollars of MicroStrategy stock, you can borrow against it. If you have a million dollars worth of IB stock you can borrow against it if you have a million dollars worth of ibit or BTC you can't what percentage of micro strategy stock is in Bitcoin So the hundred percent or what's the percentage of it? Well one all of our not the technology I know the technology but of the investments you guys make what percentage is Bitcoin? We have 30 billion dollars of Bitcoin and we have $30 billion of Bitcoin

and we have $60 million of cash. I got it, I got it. So 99%. More than 99 point something. Sure, that makes sense. All of our liquid assets are Bitcoin. We're a very pure play and we don't diversify and we don't hedge.

Sometimes people say, well, why don't you diversify or why don't you hedge? And the answer is because everybody that buys our stock doesn't want us to hedge. The people that short my stock, they want me to be long. The people that are long want me to be long Bitcoin. You can diversify using our stock. If you wanna be 5% exposed to Bitcoin,

you can either buy 5%, you can put 5% if you had 100 million bucks and you wanted 5% Bitcoin, you could buy 5 million dollars of iBit or you could buy less you could buy two or three million dollars of micro strategy because we're like 2x Bitcoin. So and if you want to be 98 percent something else, that's your decision. I wonder I wonder who shorted you guys I'm looking at Carriesville Capital a Hedge fund that has shorted micro strategy, right? Who else anybody else that's known that shorted you guys that was against you first of all I think there's like 35 or 40 billion dollars of put interest short interest in the options market a lot and there's probably

Billion ten billion dollars of short equity, short interest in the options market a lot. And there's probably billion, $10 billion of short equity. But they fall into two categories. Some people don't like crypto, or they don't like Bitcoin, actually. So that's one reason they might short it because they don't like the asset class, and they just short it naked. Another group of people might be macro traders and maybe they're shorting it to hedge another bullish play or because they think there's gonna be a negative macro event and Bitcoin is a macro asset. So if you want to take a negative short macro play,

like when there's a missile scare, the Iran-Israel Israeli missile crisis and people think there's gonna be war in the Middle East Bitcoin trades down and so if you you know on Saturday night or something or if you think something like that you might want to take a short macro view and Because you can't short Bitcoin with leverage, but you can short micro strategy With you know with these options. So if you wanted just a macro handle you might do it. And then the third class are these arbitrageurs that think that they want a short micro strategy and go long bitcoin because they're going to bet that the premium we trade against is going to compress and that was the Carisdale trade. I got it and I'm looking at

an article that says over the next three years you're planning on buying another 42 billion dollars of Bitcoin. Yeah. So you can't get enough of this. No, well, I mean, look, I think Bitcoin was, you know, it was a 90 billion dollar asset class in March of 2000 when I was first looking at it. And then by August, it was about 180 billion dollar asset class. August it was about a hundred and eighty billion dollar asset class and right now four years later it's one point eight trillion dollar asset class and I think it's going to 18 trillion then 180 trillion and it's going to go beyond that so I think it's a very simple thing I think Bitcoin is going to grow from point one percent of the money in the world to seven percent of the money in the world over the next 21 years and of course you should just go long and keep buying it.

Point one percent to you said seven percent? Yeah it'll go from like one in one point eight trillion to two hundred and forty trillion dollars and it'll go up 29 percent a year ARR that's that's that is my base case. And I've heard you say that in 21 years it's going to be at 30 million dollars. That takes you to 13 million a coin. 13 million a coin. 13 million a coin at 29 percent. Every Bitcoin you don't buy is going to cost you 13 million dollars, my friend.

Every Bitcoin. So let me let me let me ask this. Your four Bitcoin Ferrari is going to be a six fifty five million dollar thing. Let me let me ask this question. Let me ask this question. Let me ask this question. So right now, what's MicroStrategy worth today? What's the number?

$74 billion? Whatever the number was, right? Can you look up MicroStrategy market cap? I'm just curious. Okay, $73 billion today. If you're saying 0.1% today is going to go to 7%, that's 700X, right? So if it's 90,000 today, if I do 13 million divided by 90,000, you're expecting to 144X, micro strategy in 21 years. If I do 144 times 73 billion, you're estimating to be a 10 and a half trillion dollar

company in 21 years, is that correct? Give or take? Yeah, I guess with that math, yeah. Bitcoin goes from 90,000 to 13 million, so multiply 13 divided by 90,000, it gets you to a big number. You were giving it, you were giving it. You know, but Elon's forecasting 30 trillion so we're still chasing after the robots of the self-flying cars. So the 30 trillion he's forecasting is what? That's not Bitcoin. That's just what he's forecasting. Oh, for Tesla. For Tesla. For Tesla. And that's what he's saying he's going to be at in 21 years. That's what I heard. Actually, I think he's going to go faster.

I don't think he said 21 years. Mine is a long range forecast. I don't know what time frame he wants. How's your relationship with them, with Elon? We all love Elon. Okay, but you're also a super psycho competitor as well. I don't think you're a guy that's sitting on the sidelines just wanting to be, you're also a very competitive guy. I stay in my lane.

He does rockets and satellites and cars and robots. I'm gonna stay in my lane. I'm just about Bitcoin. So let robots. I'm going to stay in my lane. I'm just about Bitcoin. So let me ask this. When somebody sits there and you're like, okay, I'm going to build a company, right? If you build a company and you're going to take the money, you're going to say, I'm going to reinvest it in whatever I operate. Okay? And what I operate, I can foresee growing it. Pick a number, 100% of your, okay? Even if you grow a company 100% of your, let's just say your first year you do, whatever, million bucks, okay?

Second year you do 2 million, 4, 8, 16 million, 32 million, 64 million, 128 million, 256 million, half a billion, 1 billion, 2 billion, 4 billion, eight billion, 16 billion, 32 billion, 64 billion, 128 billion, 250 billion, half a billion, one trillion. Let's look at this. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty, 21. If a person started a business today that did a million dollars this year and they grew out 100% the next 20 years, even in 20 years when you're a 10.5 trillion dollar company, they're just going to be a trillion dollar company. So you're seeing this as rather than operating a company, we're going to be better off just

knowing what's going to happen to Bitcoin because Bitcoin is going to be the next Manhattan. Basically, what I'm saying is that the 29% ARR is the risk-free cost of capital in the crypto economy. And the way you get to that number is Bitcoin has been going up about 55% or 60% a year for the past four years. It's been going up a little bit faster before that. But right now Bitcoin's appreciating 60 percent a year. The S&P index, which is the conventional cost of capital, is more like 14, 15 percent a year. So you've got like a 4x difference. The mainstream economy's plus 15 points, Bitcoin is 60. they're going to converge. Bitcoin is, as Bitcoin gets to the size of the S&P,

when it's 100 trillion or 200 trillion and it's close to the S&P, it's going to be 1.5x the performance of the S&P and 1.5x the vol. The VIX, which is the S&P volatility is about 15, the ARR is about 15, Bitcoin is like 60-60. You can figure it out from the law of large numbers when Bitcoin is a $100 trillion asset class, it's not going to be as volatile. And of course, at some point, companies in the S&P

are all going to hold Bitcoin. And so like, if MicroStrategy gets in the S&P and Tesla owns Bitcoin and other companies, you know, if Microsoft starts buying Bitcoin, pretty soon the performance of Bitcoin is going to goose up, is going to improve the performance of the S&P and then Bitcoin's gonna converge. Bitcoin's always gonna be more volatile because it's 24,7365

and it's always gonna be higher performance because it doesn't have the risk factors of property or companies and the like. I think this is what you showed, right? You were showing this at the presentation, Brad. Bonds, gold in the last four years, 6% real estate, 10 S&P, 15. You know, that's a very useful chart.

You can pretty much understand the world if you focus on that, which is if you capitalize on bonds, you're minus 5%. That's why all the banks are struggling, and that's why operating companies can't accumulate capital. Because what that's telling you is that if you're using bonds as capital, it's toxic. It's sucking 5% of your life out of you. And look at the cost of capital, 15%. So here, if you use bonds, you're minus 20% versus the S&P.

That means that it's an awful way to build shareholder value. If I asked you, do you want to hold $100 billion of cash in bonds and your Apple or Microsoft, the answer is no, because it's minus 20%. You might as well just give it back to the shareholders. They put it in the SP index. But now look at the other side, right?

Bitcoin is 4X that. So if I said you could put $100 billion into bonds or $100 billion into the S&P or $100 billion into Bitcoin, which of the three charts do you want? It's pretty obvious. You take the 60%. So what MicroStrategy did is we capitalized on Bitcoin, which is 60%, and

then we levered it up with cheap convertible debt and equity raises, and we got to 120%. And that's how we ran 30x. That's why we outperformed Nvidia, like we're 2 or 3x Nvidia over this time period, because we're actually capitalized. Now, coming back to the idea of growth, look, the best, the big idea here is there's, is there's $450 trillion of money invested in bonds, invested in real estate, invested in equity by wealthy individuals, families, and institutions. And it's just for a long term, long term store of value.

People that are wealthy just want to stay wealthy. People just want to keep their money. So they're buying these store of value assets from the 20th century. And those store of value assets, they kind of bleed 3% energy because of famine and hurricane and war and inflation and competition and obsolescence and accident and torts and unions and fill in the blank with all the things that cause your investment not to work. That's 3% of 450 trillion. That's like 10 to 15 trillion dollars of entropy of chaos every year.

So the big idea is Bitcoin is just here. The money is just running from the 20th century to the 21st century. It's moving from physical space to cyberspace. It's moving from the finance space to the digital economy, the analog to the digital. What we're saying is sometimes the most lucrative thing you can do is do nothing. That is to say, I'll give you an example. You have a billion dollars, you're in Africa,

and I tell you, you can go and invest in anything in Africa. You gotta hold it for 30 years. I'll give you a thousand guys to analyze everything. Or you can buy a billion dollars of Bitcoin. And you're like, well, the billion dollars of Bitcoin is doing nothing. I'm like, yeah, you're keeping the billion dollars forever and you're doing nothing. The billion dollars invested in Africa

is I'm taking Egyptian risk. I'm taking South Africa, I'm taking Zambia, Central Africa risk. I'm taking Nigeria risk. I'm taking risk on that ranch. So most of the time people have to take risks and then they got to worry about it. Bitcoin is risk stripped away from the capital and inflation stripped away from the capital. So when I evaluate any investment, my view is, okay, well, is it going to give me a risk

free 29% ARR? By the way, coming back to that, it's like 60% ARR collapsing down to like 20% over 21 years and the average works out to 29%. And the assumption is the dollar supply keeps growing at seven, eight, nine percent. And then you get an additional gain because we invent robots and AI and flying cars.

And so the actual S&P index is growing because the US prints more dollars, but it's also growing because we invent obscenely cool, useful things like the iPhone or like electric cars. So the future is good, but at the end of the day, Bitcoin's future is just pure digital capital. And I look at it as, why don't I just keep buying something going up 29%? All I gotta do is borrow the money or raise the money at a cost of capital less than 29% over 21 years.

And it makes sense for us, because we're a pure play, right? People want us to do that. I mean, the people that are short, they want us to be pure play. The people that are long want us to. That makes sense. It's very honest relationship both ways.

The guys that want you to fail, they want you to think long-term because they want you to fail long-term. So you're patient about it. So they're gonna make money off you. But the guys that are also pro you, they also want you to be long-term, that you're patient with it so they're going to make money off you. But the guys that are also pro you, they also want you to be long term, that you're patient with it.

And I get that part. I guess the question, the part that you explained which was very simple was, this is something anybody can do. It's duplicatable. I'm not sharing anything with you that's complicated. Rob, can you go to that one slide that he shared about Manhattan, which I think is the best one. If you can go to the one with Manhattan where you're breaking down the different ones that

he had, this right there, yeah. This is the one. 1626 Manhattan. Can you zoom in a little bit, Rob, so I can see it? You know, what was it, 60 Gilders? What I'm saying is if you have a chance to buy Manhattan for 60 Gilders in 1626, you should buy it. But what I would say, which is deeper, is you could buy Manhattan real estate every decade

for 300 years and always pay more than the previous guy paid and it would still be a good idea. And that's because it's the greatest city in North America. Everybody wants to do business there. There's a limited amount of land. It's a perfect rock, limited amount of land. So there's never a bad time to buy Manhattan. Even if you look at this though,

Louisiana we bought it for 15 million, APR 6.3, payoff 12 trillion. California 1848 for 18 million, 7.78 trillion. Alaska for 7.2 million in 1867. It's a trillion, 7.78 trillion Alaska for 7.2 million in 1867 It's a trillion seven eight point is seven point eight you're saying Bitcoin is gonna be two hundred and forty trillion and twenty one years Yeah Yeah, just very easily the way you say this heck it's not a big deal to you I mean the takeaway from that slide is

This the key to getting rich is by scarce desirable property, pay for it with fiat. I mean, how much does a guild work today? Like pay for it with money you printed, borrow the money, but you know, we borrowed the money to pay for Alaska. I mean, the country was broke in 1867. We just fought the civil war, but what did we do?

This guy's Seward had the vision to print a $7.2 million check, pay off the Russians. And so number one thing, buy the property. Number two thing, hold it for a long time. Right? I mean, because it might not feel like much, but when you're compounding over 100 years or 200 years, and so, so what all those four have in common? They're all something you would want to hold for more than 100 years. And so what is Bitcoin? Bitcoin is the next frontier.

We've already gone as far west as we can go. Now we have to go to cyberspace. I mean, eventually we'll go to outer space, but we're waiting for upgrades and propulsion to go to Mars and the asteroids. But between now and then, you go to cyberspace and the real point is Chinese billionaires, Russian billionaires, African billionaires, South American billionaires, every company on the planet would rather have their money in the US, but they can't get it to the US. So where else can I put it?

I can put it into the city of Bitcoin. I buy Bitcoin. I sell Africa, I sell Venezuela, I sell Russia, I sell Siberia, I sell China, I buy Bitcoin. Bitcoin is digital capital. Everybody wants it. Everybody knows about it. No one can steal it from you. And what's the use case? Well, the use case is to get rich or stay rich, which is like half of everything. The great irony is people can't figure out what it's good for. It's like for the last 10,000 years, people have been trying to figure out how to get money and keep it.

What it's good for is the wealth that allows you to power your family, your country, your company. Yeah. I saw in an article where you were suggesting Apple should buy $100 billion of Bitcoin. You said Bill Gates, call me if you want to make the next trillion, meaning buy Bitcoin. And then when I saw a number that just recently came out is that Berkshire Hathaway, if I'm not mistaken, they're sitting on $325 billion of cash, $325 billion of cash where they're sitting at.

If you, right there, yeah, $325 billion of cash, are any of these guys in communication with you, have you spoken to Bill Gates or Warren Buffett or Tim Cook, any of them? I mean, I speak to anybody about this in confidence, but that I never disclose what I say or that I spoke to them. But I do speak to a lot of mega billionaires and public companies about it. And I make a few points on this one. That 32, 320 billion, that is destroying $32 billion a year. They are destroying $3 billion a month in capital because they're generating a 3% after-tax yield at best, and the cost capital is 15%.

So take 12% negative real yield on that. That is the cost, multiply 325 billion times 12%. That's what the shareholders are paying right now for that. The second point I make is, if you look at Microsoft, for example, 98.5% of the equity value of Microsoft is based on forward expectations of quarterly earnings. And 1.5% of the value of Microsoft is based upon tangible liquid assets. And another way to say it is Microsoft is 144 times levered to their quarterly earnings. If they earn 3 billion a quarter or X billion, whatever the number is a quarter, more than

that I guess, but you multiply it by 144 X, right? And if they miss by a billion, it's 144 billion where you move. And the reason why operating companies are like that is because the SEC 33 Act and the SEC 40 Act required that operating companies hold no more than 40% of their liquid assets and securities so normally they'd use treasury bills. And treasury bills, as we just showed on that chart, are toxic. It's toxic capital. It's toxic capital. It's poison. You might as well just inject poison into your veins, right? You're bleeding 10% of your capital a year. So they don't keep the capital. And Bitcoin is a major

revolution because starting in 2025, you can account for Bitcoin on fair value basis, which means that Bitcoin is just as good as treasury bills, and it's a commodity, so you can have 100% of your balance sheet in Bitcoin. And what that means is Microsoft, if they just stopped divoting out their cash flow and stopped buying back their stock and they converted to a Bitcoin buy

and you crank in like a conservative, like a 21% assumption, like half their cash flow in Bitcoin, you make a trillion dollars over 10 years. You know, you put all your cash into Bitcoin, you make two to four trillion dollars for the shareholders. Right? If Berkshire did that. No, if Microsoft did it. If Microsoft did it. If Berkshire did it, they would the shareholders, right? If Berkshire did that.

No, if Microsoft did it. If Microsoft did it. If Berkshire did it, they would make more, right? I mean, they've got, if they flipped that, you know, put $300 billion into Bitcoin and grow 21%, you're generating $60 billion a year of investment income. Michael, how much do you call call? Like meaning, how much do clients call you

versus you call them? Are you also prospecting? People contact me. Okay. Like I'm not out there, like I'm not out there trying to get in the doors to pitch this, I just do it as a public service. I mean, my day job is I focus on micro strategy

and our capital markets activity. And you know, we're gonna do an equity or a debt raise or something. And then my copious free time, I advocate and educate on Bitcoin. And then as a result of that, I've got 3.7 million followers. So I get a lot of people, a lot of inbound people. I talk to people like similar scientific, you know, where the CEO calls me and says, I want to talk about what you did, explain it. And I'll get inbound calls from people that want to be on a Bitcoin standard and I'll explain

what we did and how we did it. And sometimes I'll brief the board of directors or the officers and directors. How often are those calls prime ministers or presidents of countries? Sometimes it's politicians. It's sometimes it's governor. Sometimes it's senators. Sometimes it's congressmen. Sometimes it's others and a lot of you know, I guess what I'm asking a question is like I wonder if If you would be you know open to the idea or would it even be that way? Because I think in this space, if you were to call somebody at Berkshire and say, hey guys, can I come, can we spend an hour together? Can we get 30 minutes together to talk to you about this? You know, to see what that would look like.

I wonder what that conversation would look like with you and Buffett if you sat across from each other. You know, I'd be willing to bet you that if I had an hour alone with Buffett in a calm environment, I'd walk out and he would say, this Bitcoin thing's a pretty good idea. Charlie would have liked it. We're going to buy some.

Have you made the call call? I have not. Why not? Because Bitcoin's on a need to know basis and people have to need, they have to feel like they need to understand it, like they've got a problem in order to have an open mind. And if they don't, if they don't acknowledge they have a problem, they order to have an open mind. And if they don't acknowledge they have a problem, they don't have an open mind

and they take a conventional view toward the world. It's like the people with a strong corporate view and a healthy company and a strong conviction in their company, they don't have an open mind to a profound paradigm shift. They don't wanna embrace that idea. Maybe the call shift. They don't want to embrace that idea. Maybe the call to Buffett could be seen as a public service, and you want to be a public servant.

So if you were to make that public service phone call, and you guys sat down and spoke, and you went to Omaha, and all of a sudden he comes out and says, you know, we've made a decision to buy 100 billion dollars of Bitcoin after my conversation with Michael Saylor. I think that's a public service. I will say for the record, I'm happy to go visit anybody that has a hundred billion dollars of cash that's sitting

and burning $10 billion of shareholder value a year, I will go visit you and I will provide you with all of the information you need in order to be convinced that you should flip to the Bitcoin standard. It's got 325 billion of it. But by the way, when I looked at the numbers with you guys, you got roughly what, is it 331,000, if I'm not mistaken? Is that how many it is?

331,200 Bitcoins, right? As of this morning. And I saw that BlackRock, their Bitcoin trust, the iBit iShare has roughly 471,328 as of November 15, which is 2.2%. Yeah, they're ahead of us. I'm jealous. So, but here's the question I'm asking. If they have 471, which is roughly 2.2% of all Bitcoin, you got 331, which is roughly

1.5% of all Bitcoin, right? Neither one of you guys are selling. So 4% is gone Okay of the 21 million shares many times you'll hear that Three million of it people are not gonna get access to right whatever reason 18 and a half million give or take so let's just say 18 million so there's another three million gone there, so you have yours they have theirs, so let's just say three 17 million and then you've also brought up the idea of what I think the US government right now, if I'm not mistaken,

holds 183,000 Bitcoins at $12 billion, right? If I'm not mistaken. 183,000 Bitcoins at $12 billion. I think you've proposed the president to buy a million shares of Bitcoin, a million Bitcoins, which would be roughly 90 billion. And if they wanted to go to the highest level, if they would buy six million of it,

which would be roughly half a trillion dollars. At that point, if that happens, and others typically to buy and hope a situation, if it gets to a point that most of it is locked up, what happens to the store value? Can you put up the slide with the Bitcoin strategic reserve and the different plans there that's in that presentation? So I mean, first of all, it's Senator Lummis, Cynthia Lummis has put forth the proposal

that the United States establishes strategic Bitcoin reserve and it's a brilliant idea that she's presented to the Senate. And I have a slide in my presentation at the very end that actually shows it. Oh, we don't have that one. Just so you know, we don't have that one. Okay, well, then I'll just describe it verbally. So that the geopolitical logic here is simple. It's go where all the money is going to go

and buy it first. And so if you knew that everybody was going to move to Manhattan and you could buy 20% of Manhattan in 1650, it would be a good idea. But maybe more to the point, the British came to the new world and they grabbed the new world and that's what created the British empire.

So the United States runs the world's reserve currency, but Bitcoin is emerging as the world's reserve capital network. If you just want to keep your money forever. And everybody in the world loves that idea. I'd like to just keep my money forever. So the smartest thing for the US to do is to buy up as much of that as they can. So you buy a million coin

That's 5% of the network by 4 million coin. You got 20% of the network Why not buy 20 25 30 percent of the network by? If you if you buy the network you can buy it for for money, which is effectively free. In fact, you could just sell the gold Swap it to Bitcoin and then as Bitcoin becomes a 200, 300, 400 trillion dollar asset, you're sitting on anywhere from 40 to 80 trillion dollar gain. And so the logic of this is pretty clear. First of all, all the foreign capital in the world is going to be drawn into the Bitcoin

network. So if the United States owns it, then that's like the same as the money coming to the US. You're just drawing capital from Russia, from China, from Africa, from South America. It's going to come to the US on the Bitcoin network if the US owns it. The second logic is all the capital from the 20th century is stampeding into the 21st century. So all the money that was invested in crappy bonds and decaying real estate and warehouses falling down and companies that are going out of business,

all that money is gonna go into the Bitcoin network. So you own the 21st century. And the third idea here is, right now a lot of people use US sovereign debt as their capital asset, which as I just pointed out is minus 5%. Every business person knows it's not as good as the S&P index. So if people start to swap out the treasury bonds and they start to buy Bitcoin with it,

then you would want to own the Bitcoin because that way you don't have to worry about people replacing the US Treasury asset with a Bitcoin asset because the US owns Bitcoin too. So this defends the US reserve currency status. It defends US economic leadership. It attracts capital from our enemies. It attracts foreign capital and it actually lays in place a peaceful, equitable solution to working out our differences with everybody in the world

that a business person would appreciate. And so yeah, like if you could buy Manhattan for free with 60 guilders or some glass beads or something, and you knew that it was the best port in North America, and one day all of Europe's gonna come and do business in North America, it would be the best port in North America, and one day all of Europe's gonna come and do business in North America, it would be the best investment going. Yeah, I mean, if again, if,

are you in communication with Trump, do you guys speak often or no? You know, like I couldn't tell you if I did. I'm not even talking about anything like that. I talked to a lot of people in confidence about this, but maybe more to the point, I'm very public. I mean, the presentation at Bitcoin Nashville that I had had like a million views,

and the presentations I've uploaded, the keynote I put up last week is like half a million views online. So everybody in the industry knows what I think. That's a difference because there is that and then there is the conversation where, you know, if there's a relationship for somebody to be in someone's ear, for example, you know, Musk is in there, they're doing things together, right? So what is that organization that they build is called Doge, right?

Department of governmental efficiency Efficiency, if I'm not mistaken, something like that, right? So how did that come about? Well, it's probably because Musk is in Trump's ear, and Trump is always looking for smart people around him that are giving ideas. I'm asking the question because I'm wondering if somebody like you is in his ear. Well, he's got a lot of smart people around him and I'm talking to all those people. Okay, so in other words, the answer is directly or indirectly yes is kind of what it looks like.

I would say that. Okay, I like that, I'll take that. I mean, you know, whatever the audience, however the audience wants to process it, they can. In regards to when you see companies like BlackRock, them getting into it, yourself, you getting into it. You know, when BlackRock got into it, it was a market shift. It was almost like a level of validation where the market's like, wait a minute, who got into it? A critic? Somebody that wasn't for it?

They're flipping? They're not buying? Yeah, you know, we were wrong about it and we're doing this, right? How many of these stories that are public, again, I'm not talking private stories, how many of these stories are public, Michael, that people who were fully against it are now coming around and saying, no, we have to add this to our, you know, to our portfolio? Michael Svigel I mean, I think Larry Fink of BlackRock is by far the most compelling spokesperson for the Bitcoin movement. And he is, he kind of and for the Bitcoin movement. And he is, he kind of epitomizes the intellectual journey, which is a successful financier first hears about it

and hears about all the negative things and good financiers, they go through the checklist of what are the hundred risk factors, right? Because if you're really good at finance, you can tick off all 100 risk factors. So you do the check, you think about it, and you think, well, you know, kind of scary, I'm gonna hold off on it for a bit, and you're skeptical.

I was skeptical in 2013. He was skeptical. But at some point, if you're around it enough, if there's a need, if you have a need to know, maybe you get pushed and you realize, I need to open my mind and I need to embrace a new idea, find a new idea for growth. Maybe it's defensive, maybe it's a growth initiative. And then sometimes when a critical mass of people that you respect begin to speak with you about it, then you open

your mind and then you take the position that this is actually a new profound revolutionary thing, it's digital capital. I misunderstood it before. I was wrong. I see a place for it in the world. We have this saying, which is everybody's against Bitcoin before they're for it. Every, everybody is against Bitcoin before they're for it.

And so, yeah, it's not unique. It's pretty common. It's like one hour to denier. After 10 hours, you're a trader. It's like, well, it's an asset. I'll buy it cheap and sell it when it's too expensive. After a hundred hours, you start to move to be more of an investor.

Maybe this is a good investment like Apple or Facebook. And after a thousand hours, you're a maximalist. You're like, actually, maybe this is a good investment, like Apple or Facebook. And after a thousand hours, you're a maximalist. You're like, actually, this is an ethical good, this is freedom and economic and property rights to eight billion people. This is a chance for 400 million companies to capitalize on an asset which isn't toxic. Wouldn't it be great if you could just buy something

and get richer forever without taking risk? Pretty profound idea. And so I think it's- You'd have to buy in and you'd have to be patient. Those are two things that are very hard because the American people, the investor, flips very quickly and they change their mind very quickly. And that's why the buy-in whole counts.

Remember back in the days, the mutual fund by American funds, Investment Company Act, whatever, of 1934, I don't know if you remember that. And it would say, if you were with us since the fund started, just type in Investment Company Act of 1934, if you would have started with us since 1934,

we would have been at 12.5%. And it would say, but if you missed the top five best days, you're at 8 percent if you miss the top 20 best days would remember that whole thing yeah that's the challenge right the buy and hold this you can't trade it how do you teach that Michael how do you teach the discipline of buy and hold do you think there must be conviction for somebody to fully bind to the buy and hold every day for the past four and a half years, I get up and I say, buy Bitcoin, and then you do not sell your Bitcoin. Very simple mantras.

And I don't recommend anything else. There's 100,000 other investment ideas where it might be appropriate to sell them at some point. That's why I don't talk about them. I just talk about Bitcoin. And I say, if you're going to buy it, be prepared to hold it more than four years. The short period is four years, the mid period is 10 years, the right period is forever. Buy it so you can give it to your grandchildren so your family will be rich in 250 years.

That's what I would say about Bitcoin. And you know, Patrick, when you look at generations, you know, when you're in your 20s, you know, you have a lot of time on your hands and you want respect and you want prosperity. You want to make it in life. I need to make money so I can buy a house, have a family, buy a car, do whatever I want. And so you take your time and you invest it in making money.

That's why the millennials, the Gen Zs, they get crypto, they get Bitcoin because they get Bitcoin, because they have 100 hours or 200 hours or 1,000 hours. Now when you get in your 60s or 70s, 80s, how many people, you know, past the age of 55, spend 100 hours studying a profoundly new investment idea to figure out? Very rarely. It's because you've already made it. You already got a family.

If you're going to have kids and a family and a house and a's because you've already made it. You already got a family. If you're gonna have kids and a family and a house and a whatever, you've already done it. And you did it by exercising your trade because you were good at something and you're confident and that's your worldview, like Warren Buffett's worldview, et cetera. So I don't blame people. It's just when you're successful at the end of your life,

you know what made you successful. You don't have a need to know. When you're at the beginning of your life, you're not successful, you've got no respect, you've got no future, you've got no... you better find something new. That's why Led Zeppelin, they picked up electric guitars and they played rock and roll because Beethoven and Mozart had already done the other thing too late for that new thing

right the the the new people get the new thing and so Occasionally you find a 30 40 50 60 year old who will embrace the the new idea, but it's like What is it? You have to be profoundly, you know intellectually curious. Larry Fink is. That's why BlackRock is going to make a fortune on this. Or you have to be desperate, frustrated, nothing to lose. The truth is I'd characterize myself that way in 2020.

The stock is like $6 a share enterprise value. The company's enterprise value is six bucks a share. And my choice is sell the company and retire or take a risk and open my mind. And I remember I'm sitting at my poolside next to my friend Eric Weiss and it's March and the lockdowns hit and interest rates go to zero and the stock stock market's crashing, and all hell is breaking loose, and I say, so tell me about that Bitcoin thing again? It's like, so that's what you'll find when, you look at people and they're one or the other,

but it takes a while for a paradigm shift. You gotta really need it or want it, and that's why it's an exponential process. So you're sitting there in 2020 and he said tell me about that Bitcoin again with Eric Wise. Yeah. And then from the moment he told you what was your step process of researching? Was it an all nighter till four o'clock in the morning you sat up here like I can't believe

this is what's going on? Were you calling friends? Were you doing research? What were you what was your process? I said give me the five most the top influencers on the internet on Bitcoin. You gave me a list of people. Then I went and I watched all their YouTube podcasts. Then I went and I read all their books.

I read the Bitcoin Standard. I read Andreas Antonopoulos' books on Bitcoin. I watched the debates between Eric Voorhees and Peter Schiff on Bitcoin. And once I got through all that, and I had done a deep think, then I started going in execution mode. How do I get an account? How do I buy this stuff? KYC me, set me up.

And then after that, it's like massive education with my company too. Partly, it was a personal track, what am I going to do? And partly is, what am I going to take my company? And that became, I send a text message to all the officers of the company and all the directors. I said, I want you to watch these three videos on YouTube. And I want you to read this paper about Bitcoin, you know. John Pfeffer wrote a paper, an institutional investor's view of Bitcoin.

I said, read this stuff and then we're going to talk. And so after they read it, I had a one-on-one with each one of them. And it was like, it was like basically doing the rounds, every officer of the company, every director of the company. And gradually we formed a consensus. We, you know, we formed teams, we started to power forward. And then you presented it to the clients.

Hey, here's what we're thinking about doing, this is the direction we're going. Is that what the next move was? It takes from March all the way to August of, August 10th of 2020, and on August 10th of 2020, what we did is we said, hey, we're buying 250 million of Bitcoin, but we're also going to buy back $250 million of our stock in a tender offer.

The stock was like 120. This is like $12 post-split. And we offered a premium. We said, well, you can tender your shares if you don't like the Bitcoin strategy. And so that took 20 days. So the way that we actually rotated the shareholder base and got the shareholders on board with the Bitcoin strategy was we said, we're doing this, we know it's risky,

we know some of you may not like it, we'll buy you out at a premium if you don't wanna go along for the ride. After 20 days, only about $60 million got tendered. So we had $175 million of cash left. And so we went from 250 to 425 million in Bitcoin. Then the stock rallied, generated a lot more cash from stock option issuance.

We bought another $50 million of Bitcoin. And pretty soon we're off to the races and the strategy's working. And all of our investors were on the board. They wanted to be invested in a company on a Bitcoin strategy more than they wanted to be invested in a company that was going to continue with a conventional low growth approach.

Let me ask you, how big of a victory was, when you talk about the red wave when Trump won, and how different would the climate be today, Bitcoin right now is at what 90, 91,000, 92,000, 89,000, whatever the number is. How 90,711? How different would it have been if it was a Kamala victory? I think if you look at the difference between a red wave and a blue wave, I'll take the blue wave first. If it had been a blue wave, Bitcoin would grind up plus 20, 25%, 30% against resistance,

and the rest of the digital assets industry would degrade down 20%. Like every digital exchanges, digital tokens, digital securities, digital currencies, they would degrade and Bitcoin would grind up. And there would be that tension that you see right now for the last four years where Bitcoin is grudgingly accepted, you know, under protest, but and the other ones are are being attacked all the time. But I think the red wave was the headwind becomes a tailwind. Bitcoin surges up, not plus 20, but maybe plus 50 or plus 60. I think we go from that to this.

And then the digital assets industry goes from degrading down to surging up, it goes from minus 20 to now it's coming back. Now there's a little bit more uncertainty with digital assets because we gotta wait till next year to figure out what the framework will be. But basically the polarity got switched from negatively polarized on the entire digital assets economy to positive with the red wave.

And I think you just gotta have a much more bullish view toward growth and prosperity and innovation in the next four years than you would have had in a blue wave. Okay, so what do you think is going to be by the end of Trump? Give or take? Hi, love. You're saying in 21 years it'll be 13 million.

You're saying it'll be at 100,000 by the end of the year. What do you think it'll be by 2020? You know, I got a Bitcoin 24 model that's actually published on GitHub. You can Google it and if you Google it, you can download it. And then you can crank in your assumptions and see our base case assumptions. And I think my base case assumptions, and it actually spits out the price of Bitcoin every year.

And to tell you the truth, I don't have the top of my, off the top of my head, I don't have the exact number for the end of 28. But I could tell you basically the model says it's like 55 growth to 52 to 50% a year. So it's like 50 to 45% growth a year for the next four years,

and that's like doubling every 18 months or less than 18 months in that range. I got it, I got it. So roughly 350 is, if we were to say $300,000 to $400,000, that's about the number. I wouldn't be surprised. You wouldn't be surprised if it's a number like that. But because you're long-term,

you really don't care what it is. You're playing 21 years, you're not playing four years. No, I'm like, I'm in it forever. And all your clients, how do you sell them on being in it forever? Okay, well. How do you sell them? If you're talking to me on the phone, I'm like, Michael, you want me to do what?

You mean my customers or my investors? Customers. Yeah, well, the phone, I'm like, Michael, you want me to do what? You mean my customers or my investors? Customers. Yeah, well, the customers of the software company, they're getting MicroStrategy software. They're delighted with the software. Let me rephrase that, investors. Investors. Yeah.

Okay, well, the investors are investing in the company because they want more Bitcoin. They don't want Bitcoin performance. They want to invest in a stock that can outperform Bitcoin. So we are a Bitcoin treasury company. And the way to think about us is if you just want straight Bitcoin exposure, you buy iBit from BlackRock. And that's like overnight deposits.

I'm buying a million dollars of Bitcoin and if Bitcoin goes up 50% a year, I'm getting 50% a year, I'm getting the downside and the upside. MicroStrategy will sell you bonds. We're basically the leading issuer of Bitcoin backed bonds in the market. So what if you wanted the upside of Bitcoin without the downside? I want like 75% of the upside, but no downside or something like that. You buy the convertible bond. And so a lot of investors of ours are bond holders and what they want is low risk, low volatility Bitcoin. And you can do that through those fixed income instruments.

And then the equity holders, they want high voltage Bitcoin. They want 1.5x or 2x Bitcoin. And so you can imagine when I give someone half the return of Bitcoin in the bond, I can give the difference to the equity holder. So I'm stripping the risk in the vol and the performance off of the bonds. I'm handing it to the equity holder. And then you've got derivatives and the options guys, they want 10x leverage and they want 10x long and 10x short. So ultimately, you've got different classes of investors, you've got the 10x short, the

10x long, the 3x. There's actually two interesting ETFs, MSTU and MSTX, okay? I think MSTU went from like nothing to $2 billion in AUM in three weeks. And MSTX last I checked out a billion. So imagine an ETF that siphons up two to $3 billion of capital in like a few weeks, no marketing. And what they offer you is two X micro strategy exposure.

So when I think about it, I'm like, well, if we're hitting, if MSTR is 1.5 X Bitcoin, then those things are three X Bitcoin, and then the other bonds are like 0.75% of Bitcoin. What we're really doing is we're refining this crude capital. I use the analogy of standard oil or refinery. You put crude oil in one side of the refinery and out comes kerosene, gasoline, and asphalt.

And of course you put kerosene in the jet engine, but you don't put crude oil in. And so what people want is they want refined petrochemical products. Or you could think of us as a transformer. I want high voltage power and I also want low voltage power for my daughter's hairdryer. And you're like, well, you know, you're losing a, you know, if I put low voltage in a battery and I put it in my little kid's toy, it's very inefficient. There's a massive markup in it. But the point is the family wants batteries for the kids toys. They don't want to electrocute junior, right? So what

we're doing is providing low voltage Bitcoin, high voltage Bitcoin. And the only way to do that is to have a 100% Bitcoin balance sheet. Because I have to have the 30 billion of Bitcoin to sell you the $3 billion of bonds that are 10x overcollateralized that also give you the return of Bitcoin and the frequency of Bitcoin. Half of this is the return, but the other half is the volatility. The reason those instruments have value is because they're volatile because I can arbitrage them and sell the volatility. So a lot of times people think volatility is a bad thing,

but I would say it's like radioactivity and heat. And a lot of people are afraid of a fire and they're afraid of radioactivity, but you can't have nuclear power without radioactivity and you can't have an internal combustion engine without a fire. And so MicroStrategy has put this crypto reactor in the middle of the company.

And because we have that high volatility, high energy reactor, and we're, it's like people are like, aren't you gonna diversify it? That's like taking this water and pouring it on the fire. Of course I'm not gonna diversify it. Like I give you fire, you're freezing to death. And the first thing you could think to do

is throw water on it, right? freezing to death, and the first thing you could think to do is throw water on it. So we're actually running the reactor, and that is really our unique value proposition to all those investors, and they can't get it, except from a public company that's 100% committed to Bitcoin. Let me ask, there's rumors going on that the CEO of XRP met with Trump, right?

Ripple. I think there's a rumor. Rob, if you want to pull it up, if there's something like that, I thought I saw something. Did Ripple CEO meet with Trump critics, remarked fuel XRP surge and speculation CEO? Brad Garlinghouse remarks amid XRP surge and a fuel speculation Trump stock. So if Musk is in there, Musk, you know, my view, I may be wrong, Musk is meme coins, Musk is Doge, Musk is crypto, Musk is Bitcoin,

for the most part, he's open to the idea, he's not specific to one thing. The community with XRP right now and Ripple, has anything with your position with Ripple changed since the last time you and I were together? Yeah, what I say today is it's clear we have a pro crypto president. They're all in on crypto. They're all in on Bitcoin. They're progressive. They're all about freedom and and freedom means, you know, the 20th century security regime was you got to spend 40 million dollars on compliance to bring a company public but what if I only want to raise four million in capital how does

it make sense that I got to spend 40 million on insurance in order to take a four million dollar risk so I think actually when we come come January depending upon who runs the SEC I think you'll have a pro digital assets SEC, a pro digital assets treasury, a pro digital assets White House, a pro digital house and Senate. Now, if you want the crypto industry to grow and prosper in the United States,

you need a digital assets framework that is ethically sound, technically sound, economically sound. And that means this is ethically sound, technically sound, economically sound. And that means this is a digital commodity, this is a digital security, this is a digital token, this is a digital currency, this is a digital NFT, this is a digital ABT, asset-backed token. If you define all those, and I did, by the way,

in my keynote at Canter Fitch Gerald last Thursday, which has gone viral, I said said here is your digital asset classes now we need the regulators to give us that framework tell us how I issue how I operate how I own how I trade and and if they do that well I think actually we're gonna see a massive explosion in digital assets in this country. There's no reason why half the equity on the NASDAQ can't start trading digitally. Why not Apple stock trade digitally 24-7-365?

Why not Katy Perry issue a Katy Perry token if she wants? It's not an, it's not on or how about Joe or how about your company PBD why can't you actually go public and issue your own digital security or digital token there ought to be an ethical way to do it. You know I think that the law ought to be simpler it ought to be just don't lie cheat and steal right. If we go back to this, right, if you believe in free markets, the free market view would be I'm going to give people a way to do these things and just remind them don't lie, cheat and steal. I'm going to give them

a practical legal framework. If you do that, I think you've got, there's 400,000 big companies that are private. There's 400 million companies. And I think the note that I made last week is 0.06% of the businesses in America are able to tap the capital markets. And so we have a crushing over-regulated capital market regulatory regime that started in 1933. And I think that you need an alignment of the White House, the Senate, and the House to put in place a freedom innovation oriented digital economy. So I would say right now I'm fairly bullish it'll happen. I think they want to do it.

And I think that, you know, again, I wouldn't, I don't recommend any particular security or any particular investment other than Bitcoin. But I do think that it's better for the world if we have hundreds of thousands of digital assets created, launched, and I'd like to see the industry go from a trillion dollars of digital assets to 500 trillion dollars of digital assets that are tokenized. Could there come a time where you're pro-ripple

and maybe even to the point that you recommend clients to it? Is there a possibility? I'm Bitcoin only, 100%. The truth is, I wouldn't even recommend Apple stock. There's no security. I'm not gonna recommend. Zero percent chance.

Yeah, I wouldn't recommend a security because there's a counterparty to a security. But the position is, if you came public and you had your own security or token or whatever you had, I wouldn't recommend you either, but it's not because I'm not in favor of your business. I just think that you have to stay in your lane. I'm not going to give you recommendations on diet or politics or any particular investment

other than to say, I think Bitcoin is digital capital and it's a long-term store of value. And so having said it though, I'm very much in favor of digital. I would like to see digital currencies, digital tokens, digital NFTs, digital ABTs that are commercialized in an ethically sound, economically sound, technically sound fashion. I think that's reasonable. For storing purposes, Bitcoin, but how about transaction when it comes onto, because the argument typically will be made

for the transaction on how it is with Bitcoin. I think that there's a massive opportunity for digital currencies, and that would be like stable coins, tether, circle. If you look at how people wanna transact in the world, they all want to move digital dollars at the speed of light. And the challenge is in the US there is no regulatory regime for a company or a bank or anyone to issue

that stable coin. And I mean there's two issues they got to resolve. Like how do I back it? Presumably with treasuries. And then how much freedom do I have with regard to the transference? That's an AMLKYC issue. And I think that under a red administration, you probably get a lot more freedom. But ultimately, it's above my pay grade to decide that. I would just say that right now it's about $150 billion asset class, and it's very obvious the people have spoken.

They want it. They need it. It's a humanitarian thing if you live in Venezuela or Cuba to have access to digital dollars. But I think that with a digital framework for digital currency that's endorsed by the administration, I think it goes from 150 to a trillion to 2 trillion to 10 trillion. And I actually think that that would create $10 trillion of demand for US sovereign debt. It would be good for the dollar.

But I also think that that would ripple through to China, to Russia, to South America, to Africa. The biggest geopolitical issue is our enemies and our friends may complain because nobody wants to use any currency other than the dollar. The biggest geopolitical issue is our enemies and our friends may complain because nobody wants to use any currency other than the dollar. Look, no one wants to use the euro in Europe. They wanna use the dollar in Europe. So you're gonna actually have all sorts of politicians

complaining to the State Department that our citizens are using the dollar. But if you wanna spread the dollar to the world, you gotta do it digitally. And I think it would be good for American values. And ultimately it would be good for the world you got to do it digitally and I think would be good for American values and ultimately would be good for the world if we did support it. I want to transition to the next thing you you had a moment with Scottie Pippen which I thought was kind of interesting you guys are sitting next

to each other Rob if you can play the clip and while you're sitting next to each other this is him the interviewer asks, I don't know if this is it, Rob, I sent you one that's a lot shorter than this. This is 33 minutes and 40 something seconds. There's one I sent you that is, let me see, I don't know if I send it to you or not, but there's one that's literally, here, I have it, I'll text it to you if you wanna look at it.

You're sitting next to Scottie Pippen. Scottie Pippen is a basketball player, used to play with Michael Jordan, and he's being asked about Satoshi, and Pippen makes claims about the fact that he's known him since the early 90s. And Michael, if there's any facial reactions that should end up being a meme or should be used for other videos, it's yours. Because folks, I want you to focus on Michael's face. You don't make a lot of facial reactions you're typically very stoic but in this moment you couldn't control yourself.

I want to know why. Go ahead Rob. You mentioned you met Satoshi in Seattle in 1993. He also came to you in in a dream You have a nice relationship with Satoshi. I feel like I do. Yeah, I feel like I have a story to tell Definitely have an opportunity to meet him back in 1993 you mentioned now What happened previous to that what happened after that is he saying? 1993 is he confusing Satoshi with Michael Jordan? Who in 1993 Seattle? Is he thinking George Carlin is Satoshi? Sean Kemp? 93 down the plug? Who is he talking about here? Look, I like Scotty, you know, and he came over to my house and we had a nice dinner

on my yacht and we talked all about Bitcoin and it was awesome and I have the greatest respect for him. I think that the interviewer kind of asked him an unfair question. And I was a little bit uncomfortable because us Bitcoin maximalists, we are very protective of Satoshi. And we don't like, well, we don't talk about Satoshi other than with reverence. So yeah, I don't know. I don't have much more to say on that other than, you know, we know Satoshi came on to the world scene Halloween 2008 and we like to have all of our commentary starting Halloween white paper 2008

onward and otherwise I think it's look I think it's constructive that Scottie Pippen one of the greatest basketball players of all time has a relationship with Satoshi and talks about Satoshi and it's and it's it's endemic of the fact you know, Satoshi is the bringer of fire, Prometheus. He brought us sound money, and I think that's awesome. But otherwise- Did you guys speak backstage where you're like, Scottie, what are you talking about? Otherwise, I'm not talking to you

about my relationship with Satoshi. Satoshi is reverent. To him, to Scottie is what you're saying. Or you're saying to you as a reverent. I just think Satoshi's very special, but. Did you guys have a follow up like you and- Oh yeah, he came to my house that evening. We had a great time, a great discussion.

Did you ask him like, what do you mean you met him? Did he share anything with you or no? Like when he met him? I have no other insight to offer on this subject. I got it. Well, listen, the rest of the world was curious when Scotty said that. One, I was concerned about your neck

because I thought you cracked your neck when you turned. Rob, I don't know if you saw that or not. It was a very quick movement you made. And then the second part, everybody, you play one more time, Rob. Again, just look at the neck reaction, folks. Not anything else, but watch this, go ahead. You mentioned you met Satoshi in Seattle in 1993.

He also came to you in a dream. The speed, twice. You have a nice relationship met Satoshi in Seattle in 1993. He also came to you in a dream. You speak twice. You have a nice relationship with Satoshi. It is not fair that Vacella asked him the question and I felt a little bit surprised. Is that inappropriate to ask the question in the world? Why did you get a little bit uncomfortable?

I think it's inappropriate. Why do you think that is? I think it's inappropriate. Why do you think that is? I think it's inappropriate. It's inappropriate for a big, you know, it's like just inappropriate. Satoshi came onto the scene in 2008, Halloween with the white paper, asking anybody about their relationship with Satoshi

before that date is an unfair, inappropriate question. It's almost as if it's... It was awkward, but that's all I have to say. I'm a big fan of Scotty, he's greatest ever. I'm a big fan of Satoshi. I would rather not be in an awkward situation. I'll say it and you don't have to say anything. I get the feeling like, is there an element of looking at Satoshi as God, as Jesus in that space? Like do some people look

at him that way where it's not just this mysterious anonymous investor, inventor of Bitcoin or is it like a you know almost like a worshiped type of a character? Satoshi is a spiritual figure in the Bitcoin community. I mean, Satoshi is equivalent to Prometheus. Prometheus gave us fire. Satoshi gave us money. Bitcoin is the first perfect money, the first perfect money in the history of the human race. I spend my copious free time reading economic history,

and I've read thousands of years of economic history and tens of thousands of pages. And it's one chaotic, you know, disaster trainwreck of we use seashells, we use bales of tobacco, we use silver and gold, and we clipped the coins, and we had bi-metalism and it crashed, and we had fiatiat currency and we had a debt crisis and, and no one ever had a money that was not defective. I mean, I can show you examples of monetary crashes every 30 years for the past 3000 years in every single culture. And Satoshi comes along for the first time and says, oh yeah, here's money is not broken.

And it's so profound. It's, it's like, you look at this water, you know, you sit down at a table and and the poor person thinks, oh, I got to drink water. And the rich person wants to drink a thousand dollar bottle of champagne or wine or something. But for one hundred thousand years, humans didn't have clean water. wine or something, but for 100,000 years, humans didn't have clean water. Right, and if you read the history of civilization, people are dying in their 30s and 40s and 20s because the water is dirty, because they're getting infected.

If you were Henry the Eighth, you didn't have clean water. The reason they all had gout is they had to drink wine with alcohol in it, and they ended up with degradation of their limbs because they didn't have clean water. So we only have clean water, clean air, clean food that doesn't kill us. We only have it for the past hundred years. We had dirty money from 3 million BC all the way up to January 3rd, 2009, we have dirty money and there's one guy that actually finally gives us clean money, non-toxic, it does not kill us. So is it spiritual? Yeah,

it's spiritual. It's like, what happens when I inject poison and toxic into the veins of my kids? They're dying. It's like forcible chemotherapy to a 12- old athlete, you know, that's the problem. All these companies have a useful life expectancy of 10 to 15 years. You know why? Because the capital is toxic, because the money that they capitalize on is toxic, it's sucking the life out of them. Satoshi comes along and he gives you non-toxic money. And who else did it before him? Nobody. Nobody. So, so you got to actually

hold with reverence the person that actually gave the human race the first clean, perfected money. And you look after that point, you're like, oh man, like we're not dying anymore. You know, infant mortality rates 40% before clean water. It's like four out of 10 of your kids are gonna drop dead and I give you clean water and I say, this is take this, it won't kill them. And you're like, what? So the point is it's a pretty profound paradigm shift.

And for those of us who are maximalist that actually believe Bitcoin is an ethical imperative, it's an instrument of economic empowerment, we're just very protective of Satoshi. We don't like what anybody pokes at, Satoshi, right? You have five kids? No, I do not have five kids. Do you have a family?

I don't have any children. You don't have any children? No. Okay, got it, interesting. Yeah, I wonder like have five. Do you have a family? I don't have any children. You don't have any children? No. Okay, got it, interesting. Yeah, I wonder like your level of conviction, it was very interesting, your reaction to that clip with Scotty, because it changed in a very interesting way

while I'm sitting here talking to you. And I appreciate you sharing that with me because I didn't know you viewed it that way. Is that pretty common in this space? Is that pretty common in folks in Bitcoin who are influencers like yourself that they have a similar feeling? The maximalists, yeah.

The maximalists. Yeah, like I said, it's like 10 hours and you're a trader, 100 hours you're an investor, 1,000 hours you're a maximalist. You think it's an instrument of economic empowerment. It's an ethical imperative for 8 billion people. For example, you think the world's better with electricity? Sure.

What if I took your family, I took away electricity, clean water, clean air, clean food, and metal. Do you feel like you've been ripped back to the stone age? Like maybe stone age, yeah. Would you be angry about it? So what if I turn around, now what if I said the opposite? I don't think you should have those things. What if I said I don't think you should have

clean air, clean food, or steel, or glass? What if I, or internal combustion engine, I'm gonna take away your car. Would you not be a little bit angry at me, a little bit irritated, a little bit irked? I'm gonna pass a law taking away your rights to electricity and glass and airplanes, right, from your family and all your friends,

and you're like, what the heck are you talking about? Okay, that's how we feel about Bitcoin. When we, that's how we feel about money, or in this case about. Okay, that's how we feel about Bitcoin. When we, that's how we feel about money, or in this case about digital money, perfected digital money, where like, you're gonna take that away from people? Or if you said to me, if I said, you know, I got this idea for your kids,

we're gonna give them clean food and clean water in their first five years. And then another friend of mine says, it's not really important, you don't need that. It's like, we're just gonna give you half swamp water and we're gonna have them eat mud. And that's okay too, we're gonna diversify. And I'm like, don't feed your kids mud and don't give them swamp water.

And by the way, they're gonna, and here's antibiotics, You don't need antibiotics. You know, they're gonna die without the antibiotics. Like, no, it's not a big deal. The point is, yeah, we got worked up about it because we see it's like critical technology and you're not gonna move the human race forward in the next millennium without electricity,

without digital energy, right? Bitcoin is digital energy, just like you had electrical energy, just like you had. It's just like, you know, if we took away crude oil right now, 95% of the people on earth would starve to death or freeze to death. The world comes to a grinding halt. So when people actually attack oil, or they attack nuclear power, they attack electricity, you think like you just must hate humanity.

And when you attack Bitcoin, you're attacking digital energy, right? And you must just hate humanity. So where are you going with this? Are you going to Gary Gensler? Is that who you're going to like individuals that are getting in the way? Is that is that like when you said if you think like who do you think you are to prevent us from having access to all this stuff? Who's doing that? Individuals like Gary are getting in the way? I think I think access to all this stuff. Who's doing that? Individuals like Gary are getting in the way? Regulators? I think it's the just tradition, there's two, there's traditionalist that just are clinging to the 20th century. And then I think, you know, there are just people that are distracted or can, you know, close-minded anti-technology or,

actually there's another group, the traditionalists, they wanna cling to the 20th century systems. Like this is the way the stock market works, this is the way- You put Buffett in that category. Buffett's in that category, Charlie Munger's in that, they just grew up in that, so I- Sure, nothing wrong with that,

that's just the way they've been, right? And there's another set of collectivists or authoritarians that just don't want you to have freedom. Is that a Gary Gensler type? I wouldn't characterize what I would say. Probably Gensler falls more in the camp of an enthusiastic traditionalist, like he has a reverence for the 33 Act and the 40 Act and what Franklin Delano Roosevelt did and

the way the capital markets work. So, yeah, you know, like it's okay for the stock market to trade 930 to four, okay? There's another view, which is why can't I actually trade 24, 7, 365? That's a great question. And why can't I give, why can't I trade Apple stock on my iPhone and take self custody of it and send it to a dude in China on Saturday afternoon.

Why can't? There's nothing unethical about it. It's the future. But I think there's three dimensions to this. Do I want to do business the 20th century way, like where NASDAQ is the only place my stock trades and it trades 930 to 4, but not on bank or holidays? That's the traditional view. Then you've got the anti-technical view

that no innovation. It's like, I can now issue a token in four hours for 40 bucks, or you can go public on NASDAQ for $40 million in four years. And the Gen Z people are like, well, why can't I just do something a million times faster, cheaper for four bucks in four years. And the Gen Z people are like, well, why can't I just do something a million times faster, cheaper for four bucks in four hours? Why do I need $40 million of lawyers in four years?

Right? And so that's kind of the innovation and some people get that technology, they're pro tech and some aren't. And then I think you've got the authoritarians, you know, you've got the Chinese being the example of we wanna give you money, but we wanna be able to expire the money in 90 days if you're not a good citizen.

Right. And so I think there are forces that are of control. They don't want freedom. And in the United States, we're like, we go back and forth. We're like, we want you to have freedom, but we don't, we have, you know, not like we don't want you to like, I can't carry $20,000 through an airport right now, even though we're the land of the free. So there's this love hate relationship with freedom

everywhere in the world, you know, that goes on. And then there's a love hate relationship with technology. And then you've got the systems that work, right? Visa and MasterCard and NASDAQ and New York Stock Exchange and DTC and custodians. You've got the systems that work from the 20th century. And if you're wanting to protect those systems, I understand why, because you're worried about burning

$100 trillion to the ground. And then you've got things you can do that are new. Like I can move the money a million times a second for a thousandth of a penny. And what if I want eight billion AIs to move it a billion times a second through 10 billion computers? And that scares some people, but that's the future.

And so I would say, I give everybody a benefited out. Some people are just not progressive because they want to protect the past Some people just don't understand the promise of the future, but there are some Authoritarians that just generally don't want you to have freedom I mean I remember this clip here with Trump right at the Bitcoin conference when he made that comment and Rob if you want to Play this clip Day one, I will fire Gary Gensler and appoint a new SEC chairman.

He did it twice. I didn't know he was that unpopular. Why is he so unpopular amongst specifically this community? You know, I think what you've got is a struggle between the 20th century and the 21st century. And I think Gensler's view is the rules we have and the laws we have are adequate and they're good enough and you should conform to them. And I think the crypto community and the Bitcoin community think, why can't I do everything a million times smarter, faster, stronger from my iPhone on Saturday night? Why can't I? I wanna do new things. Why can't 10 million influence, like if you're 10,000 influencers, you got a million followers,

why can't all 10,000 issue their own token and have their own access to the capital markets? And why do I gotta actually take four years and $40 million to do it if it's only worth 4 million bucks to me? So there's this, the tension, and the two sides have talked past each other. If Gensler had put forth a digital assets framework and he had said, okay, look,

here's how you ethically issue a token. Here's how you ethically issue a security. Here's how you ethically prove your commodity. Here's how you ethically prove that you're a currency. And by the way,ically prove that you're a currency. And by the way, don't lie, cheat and steal. If he had done that and given people a route to register, I think 95% of the industry would have come into compliance because no one in the industry is standing up arguing we want to lie, cheat and steal.

But in fact, there was no framework, there was no process to do it. And on the other hand, I think the industry wasn't able But in fact, there was no framework, there was no process to do it. And on the other hand, I think the industry wasn't able to generate the support through Congress or the Senate. And I think the administration wasn't very constructive. So I would say there's been a non-constructive dialogue. The people in the crypto industry, their position has been, well, you don't respect us, so we

don't respect you. And the entire relationship broke down to kind of mutual yelling back and forth. But the right question for the crypto industry to ask is, why is it unethical for Katy Perry to issue Katy Perry token to a million people if she has no intention of lie, cheating and stealing? Why is that unethical? Why can't Joe Rogan raise capital from the general public

in an honest way cheaper? Why does he have to spend infinite money to do it? And then why can't I trade Apple stock on an iPhone on Saturday? What's unethical about that? And if I take you at face value, you know, the SEC says just register. But if I did register, it's illegal to trade on Saturday. And so the point is, micro strategies register.

You can't trade micro strategy stock on Sunday. Binance once listed our stock on the Binance exchange, the German regulators made them shut it down. And so what we really need is we need to elevate the conversation to constructive, cheerful, progressive. How are we actually going to make things a million times cheaper, faster, better, more efficient? And the dialogue devolved.

It started kind of optimistic in 2021, and then it devolved to two sides, kind of screaming at each other, and it became a deadlock and very non-constructive. Did you see this exchange? Rob, if you want to play this clip. Oh yeah, I have seen it. I have seen it.

Play this clip, Rob, for the audience to see. Go ahead. The SEC broke the law, your attorneys lied to the court, and no one in your leadership here in DC has been held accountable. That tracks. It seems like business as usual here in Washington. Okay, switching gears very quickly.

It's been recently reported that Vice President Harris has finally said she'd craft clear rules of the road for the digital asset space if she becomes president. Is this your approach too, sir, or do you think she's rebuking you because she doesn't think you've done a good enough job establishing these clear rules over the last three years of her administration? I think that there's laws in place. If Congress wishes to change them, they'll change them, but we are enforcing the laws and there are many people in this field who are not following the laws.

Reclaiming my time. Well, it's very interesting that you view your performance that way because we have a litany of court cases, extraordinary confusion in the marketplace, and millions of Americans pining for clarity from you. You've abused the agency's enforcement tools and you've even baited companies eager to comply with you only to hit them with enforcement actions. You've retaliated against businesses and people who have come before this committee to talk about the next generation of American finance.

And perhaps, somehow, worst of all, you've made up the term crypto asset security. This term is nowhere to be found in statute. You made it up. You never provided any interpretive guidance on how crypto asset security might be defined within the walls of your SEC. Yet, you made the broad proclamation that you believe a majority of tokens are crypto asset securities. You did this, and you deliberately used this made-up term as the basis for your entire enforcement crusade over the past three years, only for your lawyers to retract it in a footnote

to a court just last week. Your inconsistencies on this issue, sir, have set this country back. We could not have had a more historically destructive or lawless chairman of the SEC. And I yield back. Do you agree with them? I would say the Democratic administration has not been constructive or constructive in providing any kind of digital assets framework over the last four years that would allow the industry to grow. And I think what Emmer is saying is, we need clarity, but what they need is they need a constructive way to do business. I think that Gensler is a traditionalist, and I think that if you add his traditionalist with Elizabeth Warren's

you know, negativity, I mean she has been non-constructive completely across a variety of things, that has dominated the administration's political views. Look I read the history of money and banking in America, it's Rothbard's book and Rothbard is one of the great libertarian Austrian economists and he notes in 1930s, the 33 SEC Act, it was actually an act put forth in order to restrain the capital markets and lock out entrepreneurs from being able to raise money and create a cartel. This is in 1933. So on one hand, the administration and Gensler have been very glowing in their reverence

for the 33 act. But the bigger issues that that no one is addressing in these debates that hasn't been addressed by either side is why does it why doesn't it cost $40,000 to issue a token or 44,000? How do you actually provide access to the capital markets to 40 million businesses instead of 4,000? I mean, the elephant in the room right now is that American public companies are dying. We had 10,000 public companies in the US 25 years ago. We have 4,000 now. So the fact is we have a choking onerous regulatory regime, which makes it so obscenely risky, difficult and expensive to engage in the capital markets. Nobody can afford to do it.

And if you choose to do it, it's illegal to do every cool, interesting thing that we can now do. And so the person that's in the best position to offer that framework would be the head of the SEC and Gensler has refused and you've heard him, he says right there, he doesn't think it's his responsibility, he put it back on Congress, but I think that there was a dysfunctional relationship

between the Republicans and the Democrats for the past four years, and there's not really any constructive dialogue to create that digital assets framework. Yeah, and Mark's not really any constructive dialogue to create that digital assets framework. And that's been holding us back. Yeah, and Mark Cuban was interested in that job. If you remember, he wanted to be the head of SEC.

He made that clear that that's what he wanted in one of the interviews. I remember when I took my Series 7 back in 01, and this lady from Kaplan, I think it was Kaplan, could have been Dearborn. It's probably, no, it's Dearborn. Dearborn, I don't know if you remember him, when Dearborn studies or manuals you would

take. The lady told the stories about SEC and she said, you know the first person that was the chairman of SEC was Joseph Kennedy. I'm like, oh, okay, interesting. So you're like, Joseph Kennedy? Yeah, Joseph Kennedy. Do you know why we did fingerprinting? Once he asked everybody if you want to sell stocks, you got to come to New York to get

a register and all this stuff. Nobody showed up. He says, you know what? You can't sell moving forward if you don't do fingerprint stocks, you got to come to New York to get, you know, registering and all this stuff. Nobody showed up. He says, you know what? You can't sell moving forward if you're not under fingerprinting and you got to come to New York. That's the story she's telling us. Till today, we did fingerprinting because you were controlling money. What the hell are we doing fingerprinting for today?

For getting job applications or applications to fill out the client account form? It's a very outdated system, the SEC is, and it would be interesting to see what Trump's going to do with this. He said day one firing. It would be, again, we have a few days till day one. I'm curious to know who he replaces it with. I think it's constructive to note that my company came public in 1998 and in 1998 our stock could trade on NASDAQ from 9.30 in the morning till 4 in the afternoon with banker's

hours and not on holidays. And in the 26 years that have followed, there's not been a single functional upgrade. Like there's not one innovation. Like you would think after 26 years of infinite money that we would figure out how to trade the stock on Saturday at four PM. No. Right. would figure out how to trade the stock on Saturday at 4 p.m. No, right? So what you have is you have a 20th century, what I'll call antiquated oligopoly

that's reinforced by a regulatory regime where, I'll give you another example. You own a bunch of Apple stock, you don't really own it, you can't take custody. It's like your bank, you know, JP Morgan or Morgan Stanley has it. They might lend it out, but you can't just take custody. I mean, and so the idea of self custody,

the idea of freedom, the idea of an open competitive, what if someone in Singapore offered you 3% yield on your Apple stock? How do I pull it out of the bank, send it to them? Oh, there's like one monopoly network that moves the stock around. So we have a system which made sense in the 20 to them, oh, there's like one monopoly network that moves the stock around. So we have a system which made sense in the 20th century, maybe. But the point with Rothbard is it was always about restraint of trade.

It was to create a cartel and to centralize power, centralize access to the capital markets to just a small set of big companies. They were locking out the entrepreneurial bankers and the entrepreneurs in 1933. It's just been turning of the screws to make it harder and harder. And the elephant in the room is, if there's 400 million companies in the world, how come there's only 40,000 publicly traded ones? And when you're publicly traded, how come you're not publicly traded on Saturday night? What's unethical?

What's unethical about wanting to take custody of my own property? But I think that's coming. I think that's coming. I mean, think about what happened with New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ, and you're looking at what Texas Stock Exchange is doing. We're not gonna go by the DEI

and all the ESG bullshit that you guys are doing. Here's how it works. Come on in. It's all about profits, growing a business, etc., etc. Obviously, we'll see what's going to happen with it. I think disruption's coming. They no longer have a choice. They can try to play as many games as they want to.

But Rob, I want to play a couple other clips and then we'll wrap up. We're at 3.50. We'll finish up in five minutes. Here's a clip on when it was Bitcoin a few years ago. And remember, young guys watch stuff all the time. Here's Dan Pena who amongst the young he he's gone viral many times. Here's what he said about Bitcoin one time. Rob, if you want to play this. I know who's behind Bitcoin and it ain't some fucking Japanese guy in a cave.

I know the guy. And when that comes out, you heard it here first, Bitcoin is going to zero. Zero. And I know who's behind Bitcoin. This is why we're protective of Satoshi, because people say this stuff in order to attack the network. And it's like me saying, you know, I know who founded, you know, your religion. And as soon as I let it out to the general public, people will realize you're living a lie.

You know, it's like, it's just, it's... But the point is, the great thing about today's market is everybody can talk. Someone's going to be right, someone's going to be wrong. And when it's wrong, it's public to everybody. We've all had it before. It's happened to me, it It's happened to you It's happened to all of us right when when you get it at a public level like this Saying you know exactly what's gonna happen to it and then a market sees it I don't know what happens with the markets reaction to by the way last thing before we wrap up I like Michael Burry have you ever had any what are your thoughts on Michael Burry?

I think he had a position on Bitcoin at one point and he said he recommended to sell I shouldn't have said that. Do you follow what Michael Burry says with Bitcoin? I guess Michael Burry would be at my trader level. Michael Burry would be at your trader level. He's not a Bitcoin investor or a Bitcoin maximus for sure. He's a guy probably that sometimes he thinks he should buy it and sometimes he thinks he should sell it, but I don't have any other opinion on him.

Got it. Okay. Well, Michael, it's great to have you on again. Every time we come, I get smarter, I get better, and people buy more Bitcoin. So, appreciate you for doing your, as you say it, public service. Thank you for having me. Anytime. Take care, everybody. Bye-bye, bye-bye.