TFTC: A Bitcoin Podcast - #564: Retiring Early With Bitcoin with Trey Sellers

Episode Date: December 11, 2024

Marty sits down with Trey Sellers to discuss how Unchained will be moving forward in light of the recent $100k breakthrough. Trey on Twitter: https://x.com/ts_hodl 0:00 - Intro 0:36 - Marty on Tucker and Andrew Hohns on CNBC 3:59 - Guiding hodlers and pioneering collab custody 14:04 - Unchained 14:54 - 100k changes the frame 17:46 - Where does Unchained go next? 21:27 - Zaprite & SOTE 23:00 - Large capital bringing in the supercycle 26:57 - FIRE framework 41:30 - Signature white glove service 47:01 - The bitcoin rabbit hole cascade 49:15 - Lloyd Blankfein on bitcoin in geopolitics 52:43 - Bitcoin credit products 55:00 - Unchained event Shoutout to our sponsors: Unchained https://unchained.com/tftc/ Zaprite https://zaprite.com/tftc Salt of the Earth https://drinksote.com/tftc Join the TFTC Movement: Main YT Channel https://www.youtube.com/c/TFTC21/videos Clips YT Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUQcW3jxfQfEUS8kqR5pJtQ Website https://tftc.io/ Twitter https://twitter.com/tftc21 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/tftc.io/ Nostr https://primal.net/tftc Follow Marty Bent: Twitter https://twitter.com/martybent Nostr https://primal.net/martybent Newsletter https://tftc.io/martys-bent/ Podcast https://www.tftc.io/tag/podcasts/

You've had a dynamic where money's become freer than free. When you talk about a Fed just gone nuts, all the central banks going nuts. So it's all acting like safe haven. I believe that in a world where central bankers are tripping over themselves to devalue their currency, Bitcoin wins. In the world of fiat currencies, Bitcoin is the victor. i mean that's part of the bull case for bitcoin if you're not paying attention you probably should be probably should be okay those those cnbc interviews must be like so much easier to do in person though yeah you you've done it before right where you're like looking into the camera

and are we live see what you're doing oh we're live yeah oh hey yeah i've done it with tucker tucker carlson i've done a couple of the blaze uh tv interviews as well all remote But Tucker was insane because I was in Florida with my family. This is a great story. I don't think I've told this on the podcast before. We've got sitting down with Trey Sellers, remote rep, first rep in some time. We've done rabbit hole recap in the parlor here at Pub Key Bar and Media House in New York City. But Tucker, the story of Tucker was incredible.

They called me that morning. It was Canadian truckers getting their Coinbase account shut down. and i'd been talking to one of tucker's producers for a few a few months educating her about bitcoin when bitcoin stories would come out she texted me like what should we cover here i'd be like oh this that morning i thought it was the same thing canadian truckers like what should we be focusing on i sent her a few thoughts she was like do you want to come on the show and talk about it it was like i'd love to but i'm in florida she was like don't worry we'll send a production van to your airbnb and so that's what it was it was my father-in-law's who i love to

death love my father-in-law to death a uh i'm not a big fan of talk for the record for the record fan of tucker carlson it was the 72nd birthday and we were having dinner that night and i had to go to my father-in-law on a 72nd birthday and say hey sir thank you for giving me your daughter's hand in marriage uh we're gonna have to push your birthday dinner back so i can go on tucker carlson and graciously he accepted but getting back to what you were getting at the experience for that spot was literally getting the production man that put some makeup on you and they're like all right you're gonna be on in 30 seconds and you're just sitting there you're waiting for the red light to go and goes on the lights in your face and you're talking to Tucker

Carlson in the studio and it's on it's live so you have to be on and it was 90 seconds that felt like two hours but that's what it was that was the experience and it was like all right your two minute spots up get out you could see him yeah i could see him on the tv okay so you actually had some cues to be able to play off of yeah it wasn't just like scare staring at a camera with nothing to go on in terms of like facial cues and when is this guy gonna stop talking let me talk well that's the thing too you had the delay when you're remote too so i was working with that and so if you look at the interview it's like three second delay i'm gonna answer the questions but it was fun we started this i think before we hit record here because we're talking about andrew hones

his appearance on cnbc a couple weeks ago in person 10 minutes much yeah and he nailed time to absolutely nailed it he crushed it and i was saying i think andrew is an incredible advocate for the space in that particular medium cnbc joe kernan the best bitcoin podcaster in the world joe kernan um most popular he's becoming more based over time when when it comes to like his bitcoin views here he's just like coming out you missed it firing yesterday you missed it the 500 billion dollar asset manager you missed it just and and he said yeah i know i missed it yeah yeah but what else can you say to that we did have good public equities exposure though didn't miss that we can hang our hat on that yeah people are missing it though

that's i mean that's what we're here tonight to talk about it's not that people are missing it but But I think I was explaining before we hit record, this is the first episode since we crossed over the chasm of five-figure Bitcoin to six-figure Bitcoin. We're sitting here today, I believe we're at $102,000 after a slight dip below $100,000 yesterday. and this is pretty profound when we were talking about the unchained the letter that joe wrote to unchained clients um about the journey that it took to a hundred thousand i think maybe the context of this conversation and what we're here to talk about tonight like from your perspective what has it been like being at unchained for many years getting people on board into bitcoin helping them develop the intestinal fortitude and the understanding to

make them comfortable to hold to all the volatility that's existed over the last few years yeah i have like the best job in the world you know i get to talk to bitcoiners on a daily basis and help them secure what is extremely substantial amounts of wealth in like the best asset on the planet and an asset that they are not a lot of times comfortable actually holding themselves, even though they're starting to understand the importance of doing it and having those conversations over the years. I mean, you really start to understand where people's fears are and what they're trying to accomplish in owning the asset, but then also like thinking about it for a multi-generational perspective for their family. And like the two

questions that everybody has, or the two, the two things that everybody's trying to solve for when they're talking to us is how do I not lose my Bitcoin? Because I'm holding it myself and it's a bear asset. And if I mess it up, it's gone and there's nothing you can do to get it back. Like it is gone, right? That responsibility is great, but it also has extraordinary benefits in terms of sovereignty and being able to like truly own your wealth. And the second question, which is very related to that, is if something happens to me, how do I pass this thing down to my family? Because it is multi-generational wealth. And it doesn't matter what the paperwork says. It doesn't matter what your will or your trust documentation says. Again, if you can't access

the Bitcoin because something has happened to those private keys that you're controlling or your family doesn't know what to do then the bitcoin can't actually move right so you know we spend a lot of time with our clients working through those two main questions and getting people comfortable with holding very substantial amounts of bitcoin in a way where they know that it's secure where they can't make one mistake and just lose the bitcoin but they also have a plan place for succession the the first few months and year really with a lot of our clients is spent really diving deep on those two questions and so what's it like you know over the years at unchained i mean we've grown so much right the the business is certainly correlated to the price

and um you know when it's nothing but down over the course of 2022 things start slowing down you know there's there's no way to get around questioning like okay what's gonna happen from here you know but we kept building we kept adding clients we kept educating people and we kept getting ourselves into a position to be ready to really expand and explode to capture so much opportunity that's coming in this bull market and so we're in kind of like an acceleration phase now. And we've grown up from what, when I joined was, was still very much a kind of a startup feel to the company, to a very mature organization with like all of the control infrastructure that you

would expect to have and want to have when you're helping people secure, you know, a hundred thousand plus Bitcoin. Yeah. It's funny as you were explaining that, like the journey for Unchained particularly particularly um it's crazy that we're back in this room we're doing this event here tonight and it just hit me while you're saying that i remember gosh this had to be 2017 or 20 it's probably 2018 uh druve came to town and did the first ever demo of the multi-sig two or three collaborative custody vault uh i forget where it was somewhere not too far from where we are right now in the west village i feel like it was a little southwest from from where we are now but it's funny like two of the 10 people that were at that demo i think are in this this

room right now i remember it was me drew armstrong specifically aj scalia parker was there um but just remember like literally six years ago it was before the vault was even a commercial product at unchained yeah drew being like we're thinking about a crazy way and a more secure way to help people secure their bitcoin and basically demoed what would inevitably turn into the unchained collaborative custody vault for the first time yeah i mean we've pioneered what collaborative custody really is over the years and you know that comes with working through a whole bunch of design questions and operational questions, you know, it's not enough to just say, okay, we're going to leverage multi-sig, which is built into Bitcoin. And, you know, yeah, you can create

this setup where you've got three keys and, you know, it's two of three multi-sig and we're holding a key alongside our clients. But that's really just a very small portion of what it takes to actually manage this at scale and create a situation where when clients have questions and issues and when a key is compromised or something that you've got the proper controls and operational overhead in place to be able to manage that concern that the client has or that issue that they're trying to work through. It's not enough to just leverage the technology. You have to have this um this you know infrastructure built around it in order to make it actually um long-term viable and and and scalable in a way where you can serve thousands of clients with hundreds of

thousands of bitcoin yeah and i think what you guys provide is something that's been lost in a lot of areas of our life today particularly when it comes to client facing product building and interacting with a company just any company whether that be um the fintech app a banking app whatever it may be you guys are really bringing customer service back to the fore where it's like it's hands-on we're going to get in the weeds with you really help you develop the knowledge and the comfortability with securing your bitcoin and then not only that but once you have it secured and you're confident that we're going to build out this slew of services whether it's the inheritance protocol um the ira the the lending desk to allow you to use your bitcoin in in ways

that are advantageous to you in the long run yeah we've always been very service-led i would say where you we're kind of going above and beyond to make sure that our clients feel comfortable in the security setup because they need to feel that comfort in order to want to do more with us and to grow you know their business that they're doing with us so obviously that's that's a mutual really beneficial relationship there where we're, we're making sure that the questions that our clients have and the fears that they have and the questions that their families have and all that are being addressed in a way where they can feel confident, not just putting half a Bitcoin in there as a test, but actually tens or hundreds of Bitcoin, thousands of Bitcoin as some of our

clients have. Yeah. What are, um, what are some of the biggest hurdles or actually before we jump to that maybe that's a leading question like what are like your typical client particularly that you're seeing these days we pass this is we see it at the podcast we see it at 10 31 when the price goes up interest goes up downloads go up people reaching out yeah ask questions about potentially investing goes up i mean coming to unchained uh what's the the ratio of people that are completely new to bitcoin versus people don't understand bitcoin and recognize like if i'm gonna do this right way i need a partner like on chain typically people who come to us already own bitcoin although that's becoming less and less true as the pan the the pie grows um but typically people already

own some bitcoin typically it's fairly material amount uh an amount that they're starting to get uncomfortable either holding themselves or holding on an exchange and they recognize that they need some help to make sure that they take custody appropriately. So they're starting to recognize the value of actually holding the Bitcoin. But they're, they're just not confident that they can do it themselves. And they don't want to feel like they're out on an island. And they don't want to spend 1000s of hours like going down the technical rabbit holes to really understand the way that, you know, public private keys are working, and the way that the hardware devices are working, they're looking for a partner in that journey to make sure that they're not going

to screw it up. Right. And so, you know, that's, that's really the key value that we provide along that journey. It's very educational in helping people understand how Bitcoin works so they can feel confident in that. And then helping them explore what they can do to kind of maximize the value of the wealth that they're holding, and really get the most out of it. Sup freaks, this episode of TFTC is brought to you by our good friends at Unchained. Do you have an old IRA or 401k that isn't keeping up with Bitcoin? Roll over into an Unchained Bitcoin IRA and take advantage of Bitcoin's long-term potential while enjoying tax-deferred growth.

With Unchained, you hold real Bitcoin and keep control of your keys, reducing counterparty risk through their collaborative custody model, while Unchained handles the tax forms. It's very important they handle the tax forms. Get started now with no setup fees and no account fee for the first year. Not only is this the only standard Bitcoin IRA where you can control keys unlike other Bitcoin IRAs, you can take distributions directly in Bitcoin, avoiding exchange fees. Set up a Roth or traditional Bitcoin IRA for no charge today at Unchained.com slash TFTC

and experience true ownership of your retirement savings. Go to Unchained.com slash TFTC. How big do you think this crossing of the chasm to six-figure Bitcoin is? like what do you think it means for for bitcoin if any of your have you had a lot of reach out from existing clients like oh shit didn't think we'd get here or maybe i knew we'd get here maybe not this fast my phone probably like yours was like overheating the other night when we first crossed it uh and it was a mix of clients and friends and you know unchained team members and and all that which is which is a lot of fun you know i think um when you cross a hundred thousand

a million doesn't seem all that far off anymore right i think the same way that when you cross 10 000 100 000 didn't quite seem as far off anymore and so it's it's more of a psychological switch where people's perspective can be broadened to say like oh man like there is actually a possibility that bitcoin trades at a million dollars at some point in the future whether that's five years from now six years from now 10 20 it doesn't matter like the uh the overton window has shifted to include the possibility of a million dollar bitcoin yeah i think it's much harder to go from zero to a hundred thousand that will be to go from a hundred thousand the first hundred thousand is definitely the hardest it feels does it feel like the end of the beginning

to you that's why i wrote the the bent i stayed up way too late when we crossed a hundred thousand dollars 3 a.m wrote a bent and it was really like i felt compelled to write um that particular night because like this feels like a big deal feels like the first almost 16 years were basically 15 years and 11 months into bitcoin being being live as a protocol um we've we've had to fight a consistent fud bitcoin is a bubble bitcoin's tulips tethers manipulating bitcoin bitcoin's too slow it can't scale you saw goldstein's yeah yeah man that was a powerful video it really was he's been working on that for years he showed that to me like two years ago i'm ready for i'm ready for a hundred thousand bitcoin um you don't really have to update it because all the fud is

the same yeah there's nothing new under the sun when it comes to that and that's like what like i feel like again like am i over indexing the the gravity of like hundred thousand dollars as the psychological market because it seems like once you reach six figures because that's what i said in the the the newsletter the other night is like a hundred thousand dollars is some i mean with inflation where it is like maybe it's not as respectable as it was four or five years ago but a hundred thousand dollars respectable annual salary in many people's eyes i mean to the wider public they're not thinking about inflation adjusted terms really anyway so you know a hundred thousand dollars is a hundred thousand dollars um but it's it's huge in terms of that

psychological barrier yeah absolutely huge where do you think we go from here in terms of it's been established as a trillion dollar market we're at two trillion two trillion dollars now we talked about the the primitives of like you got to secure this asset first it's what is at the core of unchained this multi-sig primitive using it in the vaults the lending the ira trading desk straight into a vault um like once you secure your bitcoin it gains value we have this tipping point of recognition that bitcoin is here to stay looks like the united states government has a i don't know if i want to say high probability but there's certainly a immaterial probability of adopting bitcoin as a strategic bitcoin reserve after this event

tonight i'm hopping on a plane to go to bitcoin maina in abu dhabi and there's a lot of fervor around that particular conference and rumors being spread that's some sovereign wealth funds are going to announce some bitcoin allocation like in the context of unchained like now you have these primitives of custody and you have new financial services built on top of that like where do you think like the evolution of a bitcoin company like unchained goes into the future in next five, 10, 16 years? I mean, I think all of the people who are building in Bitcoin are still working on the same problems that we've been working on for a long time, which is how do you make Bitcoin more accessible and easier to use? Cause it's not all that easy. At least it hasn't

been historically. It's like light years better than it was four or five years ago. You know, just, and I'll come back to custody and all that in a minute, but I think we make some meaningful progress on the medium of exchange type of use case over the next few years as more people come in and they want to like quote unquote use bitcoin right um and we didn't have any of the tools that we have now four years ago going into 2020 and that and that bull run right lightning network was like barely functional none of the wallet infrastructure node infrastructure um there were no businesses really supporting it or anything like that. Very few people held, you know, enough Bitcoin to want to understand how to use it. You know, we didn't have Fold and River and Strike

who have integrated Lightning into their business model. It's just like so much easier to make that use case possible for people to take advantage of. And so I actually think we're going to see a lot of ground gained um in in medium of exchange over the next over the next few years which is hugely bullish in my mind um on the on the store value mechanism i mean it's it's very clear that that is the primary function of bitcoin at this point and it really does solve the biggest problem at least in the western world that we have right which is just that your money is the the dollar is designed to lose value and bitcoin is designed to gain value and so people will just naturally move capital in that direction. And we need to make that as easy as possible for them to get

to the lowest level of the stack as possible. And that's what Unchained does, right? Like we operate at the base layer of the stack when it comes to Bitcoin adoption. And we'll be working on broadening the top of funnel and the different types of people that we can serve. But ultimately, it needs to drive down to that base layer where people are actually taking sovereign control over their money, or at least they start to understand how they can go down that path. This rip was also brought to you by good friends at Zapparite. If you're a Bitcoiner and run a business or an independent contractor, you should be accepting Bitcoin as payment. If not you, then who? If we believe that fiat is systemically fragile and is a risk, the rails that that

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take this the wrong way but i think it's just like objectively true the trying to think of how to say this without pissing too many people off but i mean it's been talked about justin moon who's talked about it on this show a lot but like ideally not ideally but if we're being honest with ourselves like the most impactful adoption is going to come from people with insane amounts of wealth who are worried about that wealth dissolving because of the inflation of the dollar and recognizing this is a better asset obviously you want it from both both sides of the spectrum you want grassroots individual um adoption like middle class people adopting bitcoin as a savings technology but when it comes to the impact on the price and and whether you

like it or not validation for the asset itself like it's important that large amounts of capital recognize that bitcoin is a superior store value asset and act quarterly bitcoin is savings technology and so you need savings accumulated in order to move into bitcoin right like so it makes sense that the people with the most accumulated savings or accumulated capital are going to be people who are kind of leading the charge in moving a large amount of capital into the asset um but i think like that's how a lot of technology and a lot of different um protocols and networks are adopted anyway there there stands a reason that that bitcoin would be you know following that same type of shape but we're entering in my mind into like the

the acceleration part of that s curve of adoption right that that that 100k barrier being broken starts to like turn the s curve upward in a extremely we were talking about this earlier super cycle let's get it let's get hand up super cycle yes or no joe we're at the we're at the beginning super cycle yes uh just saying for the heck of it what the fuck is a super cycle thomas is asking what the fuck a super cycle is suzu you remember suzu remember that guy of course but what does it mean it's all it's all a super cycle yeah that sounds really fun i want I think in terms of you have steady adoption, steady price drift upwards without the typical four-year price cycles we've seen. Heat death.

Heat death. Heat death of. We're still going to see volatility. Yes or no? Yes or no? I don't know. Thomas is saying he doesn't know. He's refusing.

There's no clear definition. Feel free to. Yes. You can define it and then, you know, answer the question based on your own definition. That's a good way to continue to go up. Okay. No super cycle. So that's a no from Thomas.

I could, I could see, I could see it being the other way. Um, I mean, if the nation, what else? Yeah. So if you're defining it in terms of price, like there's definitely going to be volatility. If you're defining it in terms of just the wave of adoption that's happening, we're in the super cycle. Yeah. We were talking about how you want the high net worth individuals recognizing Bitcoin as a viable savings technology, store of value asset.

Nation states are pretty big pools of liquidity, and their treasury reserves are pretty big savings accounts, if you will. They're actually not savings accounts. A lot of it is debt. But you can use Bitcoin to turn it into a proper savings account. And it sounds like they might. It sounds like they might. It sounds like they are. this guy had president trump in here using bitcoin we we all did that we all did that

that was fun um but again a lot of like we started this too talking about andrew's we started talking about andrew's interview on cnbc because we're saying how good joe joe kern has come uh become at basically warding off naysayers like oh you missed it uh and something i've observed you really leaning into is trying to get the fire movement is it financially independent retire early to recognize that bitcoin is a much preferable way to achieve your fire goals compared to something like airbnb real estate or something like that yeah bitcoin fits really nicely into a fire framework how did you all right so explain the fire framework to people and what is your pitch to the fire stands out there many of which

are denying the possibility for Bitcoin to fit into that framework. Yeah, there's definitely been a lot of skepticism in the past in the financial independence or personal finance, generally speaking, world. So financial independence retire early is essentially a framework of personal finance that is very intentional about controlling expenses for things that really only provide value and making sure you're not wasting money and taking whatever excess earnings that you have and what they would call invest those savings as much as possible, as quickly as possible to get you to a place where you've got a portfolio that is large enough to sustain

whatever your expenses are or you expect them to be on an annual basis. And when you get to a portfolio large enough, you can start to draw down on that and live off of dividends and you know, other, um, you can live off of the portfolio and the assets that you've built up in order to sustain your lifestyle. Doing so means you don't have to work because you've built up enough assets that you'll never run out, or at least it's going to sustain you for a 30 year period or a 40 year period into the future. And so when you get to that place, you're financially independent, you can quit your job, you can go work on passion projects, you can do whatever you want to do and not be beholden to a paycheck that you've got coming

from a boss you don't like and dealing with the commute and all that kind of thing right and so you know one of the things that i was honing on there is that the fire community really focuses on this idea of saving and investing but they're not actually investing they think they're investing they talk about it as if it's investing but really what they're doing is just building a savings portfolio. What do I mean by that? Well, most FIRE practitioners are using index funds in the stock market, the S&P 500, or something like the Vanguard Total Market Index Fund, VTI, or VTSAX is like the mutual fund version of that. And they're just stacking as much of that index as possible. But there's no analysis on a particular company,

the price to earnings ratio, debt to equity, like all of the things that you would think about as important metrics to understand whether or not an asset is overvalued or undervalued. They're just stacking assets as quickly as possible. Well, that's what you're doing if you bring Bitcoin into your framework, except you're using an asset that is fundamentally better, that has a better profile for access, for liquidity, for just being able to go up faster because it's perfectly fixed in supply. And so the reason that the FIRE framework works, even when you're using stocks, is because the practitioners understand that they can't hold on to cash. So they've got to invest their money. Their cost of living is constantly going up.

And so if you're able to build this portfolio, you can sustain those expenses going forward. That's a very intuitive understanding of the exact same problems that you and I and all the Bitcoiners understand very explicitly because we spend time actually studying the monetary system and the financial system that creates this debt based money that we're all forced to live on that constantly loses purchasing power. And so by bringing Bitcoin into your framework, even just a little bit, you can start to accelerate your path to financial independence and gain. You can gain financial independence beyond just the use case of covering your expenses, but actually taking full control of your wealth. So it's like this dual purpose ability of not only controlling your lifestyle and being able to not be beholden to a job, but then also actually having full control over your wealth. So, you know, once you recognize Bitcoin as a superior asset for that purpose, it makes sense to just start bringing that into your framework. and then ultimately like as we all know the more you understand bitcoin the more you think that is the only place that your excess cash flows need to go yeah it's the only framework necessary

and this i mean a couple questions um how's it been received by many in the fire community number one number two i gave a presentation at my rival high school funnily enough my alma mater has not asked me to give a presentation but my rival has and that was i think one of the aha of things for the for the uh gentlemen in that class was another all boys school was uh at the end of the chart i had jesse myers's uh total asset value in the different buckets and i explained the concept of monetary premium to the uh to the students and i think i visibly saw some kids like oh crap i never thought of it that way like why do you think stocks are that high and like you said people are just passively investing into indexes and not really doing the diligence on individual

stocks their debt to equity ratio revenues cash flow profits actually underwrite and allocate capital based off of what many would be many would deem to be necessary benchmarks and check boxes to check off before you actually invest capital into a business you're supposed to be investing into fundamentals cash flows profits etc we've gotten completely away from that and a lot of investing is just throwing it in these passive funds yeah you're using the index as a savings vehicle it is not an investment and how much monetary premium the point i'm trying to be a little controversial here for the fire community is like if bitcoin adoption continues and people recognize that this extremely scarce asset much easier to underwrite incredibly transparent you

can verify everything on your on your own you don't have to go meet with the management team to understand their future strategy or how they're going to invest in r&d and what they're going to do you just know there's 21 million bitcoin new supplies issued every 10 minutes that issuance gets cut every 210 000 blocks between then you have a difficulty adjustment that affects how easy or hard it is to mine every two weeks every 2016 blocks like you know what bitcoin is and it is a superior savings vehicle and for the fire community using the the index strategy specifically like at some point and it could be happening now people are going to recognize like uh i am using these indexes as a vehicle for savings and it's an inferior vehicle now that i know what

bitcoin is and like how many people in the fire community that are running this are going to get completely blown out as people recognize that there's way too much monetary premium in these passive indexes and just float into bitcoin i don't know that they get blown out okay i'm i'm not like so bearish on the stock everybody else must suffer for me i'm kidding i mean they're certainly going to underperform relative to bitcoin right like the stock market will continue to go down toward zero btc over a long time horizon we just broke out into a brand new fresh low of you know the smp versus bitcoin um so that will continue to happen but that doesn't mean in fiat terms that they're going to continue to do poorly if they just follow that same strategy

like i i'm still fundamentally bullish on like the traditional fire approach it's just that you're leaving a lot on the table you know and you're constraining yourself to assets that are permissioned that you have to you know ask for permission to use that are really only accessible to people in the US. So that's another point that I like to make is, you know, the S&P, the US stock market has outperformed the rest of the globe in terms of, you know, the returns it's been able to provide because the US is a global leader. But if you're somewhere else in the world, you don't necessarily have access to any stock market at all, let alone the S&P. So Bitcoin is really the only choice if you want to have a savings asset that everybody has access to, right? So that's

that's another point i think people are there are certainly some people who are starting to come around to bitcoin as a um an okay fit to incorporate into a fire framework you're starting to see that that ice thaw a little bit um in in certain pockets and what i've discovered in being vocal about this and like starting my newsletter um you know on substack and all that is that there are a lot of Bitcoiners who have come from a similar journey that I did, which is they were already doing like a fire type approach. And they too found Bitcoin as a superior asset to incorporate into that framework. And they too are looking for other people to like share those ideas with. And they too are wanting to help the traditional fire movement to actually understand

this because it does fit so nicely there so i think we're starting to make some some headway we're never going to see mr money mustache come out and say he was wrong to call bitcoin mall strip guy is another one isn't he or strip mall guy strip mall guy strip oh yeah i think i put him on blast on twitter with my massive following there um you know like mr money mustache i wrote about this in the very first issue of my newsletter he wrote this thing in january of 2018 why bitcoin is stupid and you know it's all the same very easy to do it's all the same funds down like 20 from a blow off top it had it had just reached 20 000 dropped 50 and then it was back on the way up to like test those highs and it was like 14 000 at the time

and you know it's all the same garbage fud that we've all heard a million times beanie babies and all this stuff right um so there's no like serious inquiry into what bitcoin is and what problem it actually solves even though it solves the exact problem that you're using the index for it solves but like a guy like that is not going to come out and be like oh yeah looks turns out i was wrong to write why bitcoin is stupid but there are others um who are kind of coming around to recognizing that hey maybe this does deserve at least a small allocation in a portfolio and then and then start to learn about it right it's it's like everybody else right we all go through that that journey where you get a little taste and then you watch the price a little bit

and then you think oh well this is kind of interesting and your mind starts to open up to all the things that we talk about on a daily basis in terms of the problems that bitcoin solves yeah a lot of these people have the uh the yuppie elite problem for sure where it seems it almost seems too good to be true too is that a problem or not a problem but like is that something you have to explain to people like so i just buy this one asset and people are going to adopt it for the same reasons it's scarce distributed it certainly does sound more sophisticated to say that you are investing that you're an investor as opposed to just saving in good money you know so i think maybe there's a little bit of that the fire community i wouldn't call like they typically

like the general practitioners they're not like the yuppie elite in that they're like your uh super high iq harvard type people um it's more like everyday people who are you know probably don't make a whole lot of money but they're again being very intentional about the way that they spend that money so they can widen the gap between their income and their expenses and then start to put money away because they don't like the job that they're working anyway right yeah you know there aren't that many people who can say what i can say at the beginning of of this this rip here that they love what they do right they're just they just aren't um and so it's it's a it's a nice thing to be able to go after something with a dedicated and intentional framework that has an

extremely high chance for success to kind of get you ahead of the game yeah and it's important if you don't like what you do trying to find a way out is extremely important and that's like going back to like fire like the whole reason for fire existing is to do that and like bitcoin for me personally it's that is exactly what it has allowed me to do no sneezing joe please um is i i mean got into it in college stayed humble stacks that's a little bit every paycheck and um got to the point where i was able to get some breathing room to figure out what to do started the newsletter started this podcast and um bitcoin was a pivotal tool in creating that personal liberation for me to go pursue my passions and not have to sit in a cube pulling

data from Bloomberg and running return analysis and talking to, um, talking to funds about their strategies. I mean, it was interesting, but yeah, it was buried in spreadsheets for quite a few years. I did not miss the Excel spreadsheets. I actually enjoyed it. Did you? I was, um, a bit of an Excel whiz and I liked doing the coding stuff. Yeah. The V lookups. I couldn't make a V lookup today if you asked me to, but it did feel powerful when you, when you successfully create a a workable vlookup um let's talk about tonight signature clients here sir this is something that you guys have rolled out and really leaned into rolled out a while ago but really leaned into it last six months we have an event for signature clients at pubgate tonight um

there's another part of the special hands-on touch you guys are bringing to the market is having this white glove service where you're there to not only educate people um make sure they have the support that they need but helping further their education and get them together with like-minded individuals to spitball ideas and um confirm with each other that they're not crazy for getting into this crazy internet money uh i've seen this behind the scenes not only at tftc but 1031 it seems like people are really liking the signature product specifically yeah it's been about a year and a half since we have essentially elevated the brand on the service that we provide to a level that is more all-encompassing all-encompassing right so

um signature has become the standard for how a lot of people come into unchained and get integrated into their setup on their custody side and then answering that succession planning question in those first few months. And whether you want to explore in very deep conversations what that succession plan looks like and bringing family into that conversation, bringing estate attorneys into that conversation to make sure everybody just understands what this model is and that you can feel really confident that it's going to work if something happens to you, people really like to go down that rabbit hole. A lot of people are hesitant on putting large amounts of Bitcoin into something that's new, or a new setup. And they want to really

explore the technical aspects there. So, you know, Signature is an all inclusive, all encompassing experience in not only helping you onboard into Unchained, and really understand how this collaborative custody model works and get that succession plan in place, but then providing you with dedicated support in an ongoing fashion from somebody who is a single point of contact with a team behind them, in case you have like priority issues that you need to have addressed from a technical perspective, in case you want to explore some of the educational aspects of Bitcoin and really like go down whatever rabbit holes you'd like to do there. And then we have a whole bunch of other benefits that are included in the signature service as well. You

get reduced trading fees if you're using our trading desk. All of the accounts that you have with us, which would normally be paid for in kind of an a la carte manner, are included personal accounts, trust accounts, IRA accounts, right? If you are, and most of our clients do have like multiple contexts that they are securing Bitcoin in, right? They've got Bitcoin that's in their personal name. They've got an IRA that they've rolled from the traditional financial system, business account. They've got businesses that they are building Bitcoin treasuries with. And so, you know, we want to make sure there's an option for people to just take care of everything with like the highest touch service that you could possibly have. And that's what we are really

leading with as we are facing the market these days. And there's huge, huge demand for it. My The guys, David and James and Jared, who are like, you know, kind of on the front lines of supporting these clients will attest to the fact that they are just absolutely slammed with the amount of demand that we've had for having this high touch service. And we're going to continue to stack as much value into that experience as we possibly can because people love it so much. And then just to kind of bring it back to tonight, Unchained, um, I, I'm not afraid to say has had a very good reputation for the parties that we throw, the private events that we throw, whether it's at like conferences and that kind of thing. They're always like very, um, very well done and people, people really love them. Like we always get really good feedback. And so in doing those events, they're typically like private invite only type of events. And so all of our signature clients get, um, get invites to those like first right of refusal

to make sure if they want to attend, they've got an invite there. And then from there, we, we work to build some other invites from people who are in the area, wherever we are. So like a couple of months ago, we were out in LA and did something out there. Um, and all of our signature clients are invited to that. We have this event tonight here, um, at pub key, all of our signature clients are invited to that. And then on a monthly basis, we do virtual events as well.

So bring in thought leaders in the space to talk to them and like kind of like a private podcast where they can ask questions and get some kind of exclusive, you know, alpha that these people are able to provide in a much more intimate setting. So anything that you want in your Bitcoin journey, that signature experience is built and designed to give to you. And it's extremely popular, as I mentioned, for people who are new to Unchained and coming in and really want to make sure that they're taking care of all of the loose ends that they might have in getting that custody set up and that succession plan set up and accessing the financial services that we provide. yeah and it's great we we see this at 10 31 too with our tribe where we do quarterly events where that's in person um or uh virtually and it's to get lps and founders in front of each other founders basically say what they're building and the lps get an opportunity to ask founders questions and feel like they're they're actually learning about what's happening behind the scenes cutting edge stuff and that's the one really cool thing that i've just observed over the last three

years through our journey at 1031 is how like once somebody catches the bitcoin bug they want to learn as much as they it's like the only not that i played with many other assets uh since i was 22 but i did work at a fund and like we had lps at that fund and i don't think anybody cared about hopping on a call with somebody running a commodity trading advisor fund learning about their momentum strategy or their trend following strategy but at 1031 like the lps uh are maniacally like focused on learning as much as they can and getting exposure to as many thought leaders in the space just because they want to continue to build that knowledge there's something contagious about it like once you catch the bug it's like i need to learn everything yeah it's

Bitcoin is endlessly fascinating. It touches so much around, it touches so many different aspects of the way that we live our lives, economics and politics and money, which touches everything in and of itself. Right. And then, you know, we see it bleed into the decisions that we're making on a personal basis when it comes to health and exercise and all that kind of thing. So yeah, people like they they they start to develop that bit of it sounds bad to say it like a mind virus but it really starts to take over the way that your thought process works and and yeah people like to talk to other people who have a similar experience there and exploring those some those same similar topics yeah yeah almost cult like if you embrace the cult like nature of bitcoin people

embrace it it's natural i'm kidding but um we gotta end here in about seven minutes did you see lloyd blankenfein tweeting about bitcoin i did i worked for goldman sachs for three years what did you think about your old boss's um thoughts on bitcoin what was the exact quote i think he was like uh trump i don't see how trump could be against brics currency he's trying to i'm paraphrasing here um compete with the u.s dollar reserve system and out of the other side of his mouth be supportive of bitcoin as a strategic um reserve asset yeah because bitcoin is implicitly acknowledging that it competes with the dollar it does yeah um yeah you know some people say the quiet part out loud when they shouldn't you know and that's what lloyd did

there uh he's he's definitely admitting that this is something that could be you know play into the strategic approach that different countries take to geopolitics right um putin same day was it same day the other day right saying that you can stop bitcoin nobody Like this acknowledgement that not only are leaders of nations recognizing the value of Bitcoin and what it can do, but implicitly saying that they've already been stacking. I mean, Putin has all but come out and said, like, Russia is stacking sats. And I think that particular acknowledgement yesterday on stage, wherever he was, was a shot across the bow of Trump, who's been very vocally posturing towards BRICS countries, particularly like, don't try to create competing reserve currency. The dollar, we will tariff the hell out of you and make sure that your life is miserable. um meanwhile here in the united states i mean part of that strategy bricks have has been

choreographing for the last a few years has been we're gonna try to shift to maybe an sdr but like a currency with gold at its core and you can look at the numbers central banks of russia and china particularly have been accumulating a butt ton of gold over the last decade and if you look at the bitcoin strategic reserve act but for by cynthia lummis um there is uh an overt attempt to if that bill gets passed make sure that the fed um gives the u.s government their gold certificates back which are currently priced at 42 marked on the market just sell the gold to buy bitcoin um which would um which would impede the bricks country's attempt to go build this gold-backed currency because if their u.s is dumping its gold for bitcoin it's going to be

bad for the price of gold and good for the price of bitcoin i think poon what he was saying on stage yesterday was just like a slate like hey we're paying attention to bitcoin too like we can play in that game yeah that's the direction you want to go in absolutely yeah it's pretty amazing i can't honestly believe i don't think any of us could have believed like three four years ago that we would be in the position that we are now with the u.s seriously considering this strategic bitcoin reserve and with putin and all these other global leaders adopting bitcoin essentially like again we're in the super cycle here in terms of adoption the the price the price will be volatile but we'll see we'll see we'll see we'll see that's what actually it's a good

segue into uh the chat we're about to have with andrew i think that's um and joe and i we're sharing notes on questions asked but i think the you guys have the lending desk you use bitcoin as collateral um one uh one year duration what andrew and battery are doing and sort of trying to do the same thing use bitcoin as collateral for these commercial real estate deals but extend the duration to a decade and that's one thing i'm very curious to see this cycle particularly is can battery and others basically prove this model and get others to recognize that this is probably a better way to finance these types of real estate deals and many other types of structured credit products that exist out there. And do they get enough

demand to pull enough Bitcoin off the market into these structured credit products for 10, 20, 30 year durations? That is a type of demand lever that hasn't existed in the past and is beginning to emerge i love what battery is doing and how they're pioneering that i it's going to be super interesting to see how bitcoin can worm its way into various different credit products as the the pristine collateral that it is you know um and it's it's it is like it is going to find its way into a number of different financial products that we haven't seen yet um you've got wall street coming to the game with their you know quant the the quant bros on wall street like figuring out how to incorporate the volatility that comes with bitcoin um and

you know all the different aspects that make it good collateral into this like fiat financial infrastructure um and there's going to be some interesting ideas that come up some of them probably going to blow up and that that will that will bring some fireworks and some fun for us but sailor tries to give uh his bitcoin to jp morgan again a five percent yield like he could get into some trouble there might win it michael if you're listening think twice about that yeah i mean definitely don't go all in with that strategy i don't think i need to give michael sailor advice but think about it okay yeah yeah but this does come full circle stratify getting in the reason i brought up lloyd blankenfein that's the way i've always envisioned unchained especially with the

calculated progression of the product offering over time collaborative custody landing desk trading desk ira inheritance getting into financial planning with sound advisory like you can squint and see unchained becoming a goldman sachs like entity under a bitcoin standard what are your thoughts on the potential for that i think we are set up to help people secure material amounts of bitcoin that is their general you know generational wealth and to access financial services that are built around that bitcoin in new and novel ways that are that take advantage of the unique properties of bitcoin you know i think wall street comes in and they take bitcoin and they they kind of try to like, jam it into the fiat world, and are not really taking into consideration

what they could do with the actual asset. And the properties that it holds, we take the opposite approach where we we lean into the fundamental properties that Bitcoin has, we lean into the ability of using multi sig for various different purposes. And we purposely build products that leverage those native properties in, in ways that wall street can't do because they're not willing to go down to that base layer. Right. So, um, I think, you know, we're, we're going to continue to pioneer in, in that regard and, you know, uh, you know, bring it back to a little bit of a shill for an upcoming event that we have on Tuesday. We are doing this online, massive online event um helping people think about how they can get their bitcoin house in order for 2025

we're at the beginning of the super cycle you just said it thomas definitely believes it thomas is he must have left now he's in the corner giving us a thumbs up he's him yep yep um and you know as we move into this new regime of six-figure bitcoin you need to be thinking about how you're protecting your wealth in Bitcoin that you already own, how you're going to acquire more of it over time, and what that succession plan looks like. And that's what we do on a daily basis. We help our clients get their Bitcoin house in order, whether it's custody and security, whether it's succession planning, whether it is thinking about making their annual contribution to their IRA that they're moving into Bitcoin. We recently launched a donor advised fund product

where people can donate Bitcoin in this DAF structure, which follows all the same rules as a traditional DAF, with the exception that you can actually hold one of the three keys in a collaborative custody model, along with the DAF administrator, and see for yourself that the Bitcoin hasn't been sold for dollars that you can take the same tax benefits in the current year and then direct those funds as and when you see fit. Um, it's a new and novel way to approach an old product that is extremely popular. And we've gotten tons and tons of people reaching out to us saying, Oh, I love that model. I would love to be able to take advantage of, um, you know, making these donations, take the, the, uh, tax benefit today, direct that money in the future

And in the meantime, the beneficiaries of those, whenever you're directing that money, get all the upside of Bitcoin, right? Because it's just sitting there waiting for the super cycle to play out. And maybe you make a $500,000 donation. And by the time you're giving the money away, it's 5 million, right? Pretty, pretty powerful stuff there. So just a perfect example of how we build from the base layer. We use Bitcoin's native properties to create new and novel ways of approaching people's generational wealth and giving them the tools to get their Bitcoin house in order. Yeah. And that's going to be led by Tur and Jeff Andrew. Yeah. Some OG guys. Tur has been like.

Tur was out there beating the drum at $100 Bitcoin saying it's going to $100,000. Tour has absolutely nailed the last like three cycles, like right at the bottom. If you're not following or listening to what tour has to say, like you are really missing out, you need to absolutely start with this event. You can go to the website and sign up for that, register for that. Um, and then Jeff Andrew is like one of the smartest dudes I know. Um, he helped us build this IRA product that we've had for the last three years. Um, he has a wealth of knowledge around the tax side and the legal side and can really answer a lot of those questions, uh, from a technical perspective that people have around how they're managing their wealth there. Uh, and so it's a really like dynamic duo that we'll be presenting on, on Tuesday, uh, December 10th, I think it is, um, to, you know, help kind of kick off the new year in the right way. Yeah. And if you don't want to go find it, you can go to unchained.com slash TFTC. I checked that that URL is going straight to the onboarding for this, this online

event. There we go. Go check it out. Let's go have some beers. Let's enjoy our Friday night. Let's enjoy Bitcoin. Are we still over a hundred K? Where are we at? A hundred, a hundred. I think we see new all time high during the event. Do we not? A hundred point eight. It could happen. It's Friday night. All right. You know what? It's fair game. Let's go do it, Trey.

It's been a pleasure, sir. Been a pleasure. We've got to do it at TFTC Studios. We can't just meet here. I mean, it's great meeting here at PubKey Media House, the parlor at PubKey. I'm happy to, anytime, man. We've got to do it at the Commons the next time you're in Austin. Yeah, absolutely.

All right. Let's go have some fun. All right. Peace and love. Bye-bye. Thank you.