We Study Billionaires - The Investor’s Podcast Network - BTC025: Bitcoin Security & Lending w/ Parker Lewis & Joe Kelly (Bitcoin Podcast)

Starting point is 00:00:00 You're listening to TIP. Hey, everyone, welcome to this Wednesday's release of the show where we're talking about Bitcoin. On today's show, I have Parker Lewis and Joe Kelly, who are two major influencers and contributors to the Bitcoin space. Joe is the founder of Unchained Capital, which is a premier Bitcoin Native financial service company. The company is focused on providing a platform that ensures everyone can secure and maximize their Bitcoin holdings. Today, the company offers borrowing services, which allows the customer to control one of the three private keys. And in the future, they're rolling out a service that allows customers to deposit Bitcoin and earn interest on their

Starting point is 00:00:37 platform where the depositor controls one of the three keys. During the episode, we talk about the mechanics of this. And we also talk about numerous other important topics as it relates to the future of Bitcoin and its further maturation into the existing financial system. So without further delay, here's my conversation with Parker and Joe. You're listening to Bitcoin Fundamentals by the Investors Podcast Network. Now for your host, Preston Pish. All right. So like I said in the introduction, I'm here with Joe Kelly, Parker Lewis.

Starting point is 00:01:23 Gentlemen, welcome to the show. Preston, great to be here. Yeah, thanks for having me on. I listen to a lot of podcasts and glad to finally be here and to riff with you. You know, Parker, you were a huge influence on Michael Saylor becoming a Bitcoiner. I know he referenced some articles that you wrote. And from what I gather, some of the stuff that you were writing really kind of convinced him to take a deeper look. So kudos to you.

Starting point is 00:01:50 Exciting stuff. Well, it does mean a lot to me that there are people like Michael Saylor out there and others who value the work that I've put out. both as part of Unchamber, then also specifically to the writing. And it's one of those things where, you know, if it's not Michael Saylor, it's hopefully a lot of other plebs out there. I like to, you know, I kind of think about Michael Saylor as like half billionaire, half club. But I also like to, you know, remind people that it does mean a lot to me, but, you know, he also mentioned a lot of people. And that I think when it takes a village to help somebody become a bitcoiner, there's a lot of podcasts out there and a lot of people that are writing and you never know what piece of

Starting point is 00:02:31 information said a certain way is going to click with people. So it's just in the interest of putting more ideas out there rather than less and, you know, a few of them are going to click. And I think we're all glad that Michael Saylars did. And if it wasn't my, you know, blog, it was, I think comps podcast or Safe's book or Dan Held's videos, Andrea Santinopoulos. So I think it's a whole collective effort and you're included in that. Yeah, it's kind of fun just to see how the whole culture and community is just grooming each other. When I look at companies that really just carry the torch well, that have good fundamental focus, they're not doing scammy type things, I can honestly say you guys are at the top of the list with your product, just your

Starting point is 00:03:17 whole, you know, when you go to your site and I see what you guys are doing and you're trying to allow people to keep possession of their keys as they're doing borrowing and lending. I just, you know, my hat's off to you guys. And when I talked with you, Parker, about doing an interview, I was really excited to do this because I think you guys are really kind of setting the example, but more importantly, are going to be a leader in this space, especially as we get further down this peer-to-peer type of environment for borrowing and lending. And I've been talking a lot on this show about why this is important and just the construct of having interest rates that are based on Bitcoin. And here you guys are kind of leading from the front on what right

Starting point is 00:04:03 looks like. So let's get into some of the specifics on what this is. But I want to start off with Joe. Tell us what the impetus was for starting unchained capital. Sure. So we started by myself and Drew Bonsall. He and I had started a business in the data analytics space together before Unchained called Info Chimps. We sold that in 2013 and had a little money and decided buy some Bitcoin with it and hung on to it. We were curious. We knew we wanted to start another company together. So a couple of years down the road, we're looking at ideas and our minds, like for a lot of us, it just kept coming back to Bitcoin. It was too interesting for us. And And we thought about where we want to dedicate the next decade or a few decades of our career,

Starting point is 00:04:46 we wanted to need to be in that kind of space or Maloo that would be intellectually gravitating enough for us. So that was, we'd settle on Bitcoin. And in terms of like what to do, we kind of made some mistaken assumptions, honestly, early on that things like exchanges and how to store Bitcoin and Harvard Walls were around at the time that we thought those were solved problems, that the unsolved problem for Bitcoin and Bitcoin owners was financial services. You know, we'd had the experience of like hanging on our Bitcoin for a long time, thinking we owned an okay amount of it. But there's no, you know, there's no golden sacks out there. There's no people trying to sell you wealth management products for your Bitcoin. It's like 2015 or 16. So it was still, you may be a $10 billion kind of

Starting point is 00:05:25 market cap. And we thought that was impressive in us to us, that there has to be, you know, some number of Bitcoin millionaire, some number of people in the United States that own this. And they're not getting enough attention from financial services. And if we bet right, if we're, if we think our timing is right, In four or five years, that whole market is going to wake up and want everything they can do to get into Bitcoin and get in that market. So probably a good time to start a Bitcoin company now and start focusing on that. And as we triage, the different products we could offer, like I said, we thought some of these things really solved.

Starting point is 00:05:54 So we landed on secured loans, secured lending through interviews and research on different wealth management teams and desks like secured asset loans, loans against stock portfolios or real estate is a really common phenomena in any of those wealth management circles. So we thought that was going to be a kind of potential good core product, good place to start. It really married traditional financial services in the Fiat world and lending with this new asset as Bitcoin. And Drew and I are software people. So when it came to analyzing Bitcoin, the network and how it worked, you drew quite technical and spent a lot of time considering what is the right approach and what is the right thing to build here. And to build a secure loan product, the number one most essential thing is the collateral and the security of the collateral.

Starting point is 00:06:37 So that's what really set us down on the path to building custody kind of natively and inside of unchained, forming the principles of how we wanted to do that with using multisig. And then that just kind of formed the core strategy and like base of product that we've built ever since. So let's just talk through the product for people that are just tuning in and maybe they're just not completely sure what securitized loans even means. Because there are people out there that they hear that and it just kind of doesn't necessarily mean something to them. So let's say I take two Bitcoin and I want to borrow against that. It's, you know, approximately, I just say that's $100,000 worth of value. If I do a loan to value ratio of 50%, I can then borrow $50,000 of, I'm assuming it's USD cash or some type of token, USDC token or something as I lock up

Starting point is 00:07:28 those two Bitcoin. Talk to us about the specifics of what I just described, if there was anything that was off. Roughly accurate. And we did indeed start for about the first three years of operating history about a 50% loan to value. Our main focus, within the beginning, has always been on delivering actual dollars to people. That was really hard and often was hard for a while in Bitcoin and cryptocurrency because banking rails were hard to access for cryptocurrency companies. And dollars are scarce. They're having the dollars in your checking account is the thing that usually people value and they're trying to have at the end of the day. We just offer US dollar loans So we had to wire or disperse via ACH to the client.

Starting point is 00:08:06 But the model is correctly correct. You know, a client, they'll ask us for a loan in dollar amount, or they'll ask for, hey, I'm going to put this much collateral. How much can I take? We actually reduced our LTV, our loan to value in February this year. I was really in response to the elevated prices and the volatility. Our motto here, then you'll read on the back of our T-shirts is, friends don't let friends sell Bitcoin.

Starting point is 00:08:26 And so we really hate the idea that through margin calls or any risk management practices is that we honestly, we have to comply with our policies, like, don't want our clients to lose the Bitcoin. And so making that change, I don't know that any other lender did that or like have the wherewithal or the desire to do that. I think they're mostly hungry for volumes, but we take a more conservative approach. You can find really across all our product families. And it was actually really well received and got a lot of borrowers and clients kind

Starting point is 00:08:51 of mentioned, hey, appreciate that you guys said that. It feels like that's for Bitcoiners that have been around the block and been there a couple of these cycles, they know there can be a bear market around the corner. and so having a cautious and conservative approach with LTVs make sense to people. But back to the product, yeah, essentially they post the collateral necessary for 100K loan or 100K collateral that we get a 40K loan right now, not unchanged. We disperse that via Y or ACH, having monthly only interest payments. Our terms range from three months to three years.

Starting point is 00:09:18 Our average term is about 12, sometimes they launch 18 months. And once the client pays, once they get to the end of term, they make a payment on the principal and then they get their Bitcoin back. So we're not talking about low interest rates. Like when we talk typical finance, 10-year treasuries at like 1.5%, you look at home loans, they're really small. But when you look at the amount that people are putting up in an over-collateralized kind of way, and the interest rate that they have to pay, we're talking like 9 to 11% kind of

Starting point is 00:09:52 interest rate for something that's over-collateralized. So anybody who hears that is just like, who is doing this? Why are they doing it? So how would you kind of quantify the different buckets of people that are taking out these loans and what are they using it for? Maybe I could explain kind of the dynamic with interest rates. And I think that if I think about Bitcoin, that one of the reasons that exists is because we got to start to get a little bit loose with our money and people started to print trillions

Starting point is 00:10:21 of dollars. And those dollars in the traditional banking system can be lent out without you having to give your permission to it. just inherent to fractional reserve banking. If I think about the Bitcoin world and Bitcoin with a fixed interest rate, that makes the most scarce asset. And I think for all of us Bitcoiners, it's the most valuable asset that exists in the world. It's also volatile. But when I did a poll to try to make this clear for all the people on Twitter, I asked the question, at what rate would you lend your dollars to give somebody else the opportunity to hold Bitcoin rather than

Starting point is 00:11:02 yourself? And I put four options, zero to five percent, five to ten percent, ten percent plus, or just never just buy Bitcoin as the fourth option. And the split was like one percent, zero to five, 4%, 5 to 10, 24%, 10% plus, and then like 70%, never just buy Bitcoin. And that is really the dynamic that I think about in terms of why the interest rates are where they are. That one, we lend in the most conservative way possible. And that's really important when people think about lending. The core of our business is custody. We've got a standalone custody business, but if Bitcoin is money,

Starting point is 00:11:49 the natural financial services to pair with custody and money are financial services like lending. So when we think about our context, because it is important. When we are lending dollars against Bitcoin, we're doing nothing with the Bitcoin. Bitcoin are sitting in segregated, dedicated multi-sig vaults and our clients can hold one of three keys. And in those cases, we only have one. Through that, we insure and clients, every single one of our clients can guarantee audit without trusting that their Bitcoin is not being a re-hyposicated. And what the client is essentially getting in return for those dollars is essentially the right to continue to hold Bitcoin at the expense of somebody else.

Starting point is 00:12:27 And so I really think about our loans, given the nature of what we do and not re-hypothecating collateral, is that our rates are the true rates for somebody that's willing to commit dollars to somebody else. And in the nature of that person that's wanting to commit dollars knows enough about Bitcoin to know why they should like it as collateral. and then it becomes setting a market interest rate. Okay, what dollars am I willing to provide to unchain capital clients? And the benefit that they get there, and if you think, well, what the average annual

Starting point is 00:12:59 rate of return on Bitcoin versus the dollar is 220%. And so, you know, if you were just to simply imply it, you know, 10 to 12% rate of interest at a 40% kind of discount, that that only implies an annualized 25% kind of break-even. price on Bitcoin. So I think about Bitcoin, its price appreciation, it's different in its medium than any other typical type of loan, right? Because if it's a traditional bank and they're lending against real estate, the bank doesn't want to own the real estate. They're specifically not in the business of owning the real estate. If it's an investment bank and they're lending to corporates, high yield or IG, they don't want to own the equity of the investment grade credit or the

Starting point is 00:13:43 or the equity of the high yield credit. They just want to own the loan. In the case of Bitcoin, it's money. So we're lending against another monetary asset. And that monetary asset is something that literally every company in the world is going to want and need to own. And it also happens to be the most scarce asset. So I just like to lay that as a framework for people.

Starting point is 00:14:05 I do think about it as a forward interest rate or an implied forward interest rate on Bitcoin relative to the dollar, just at, a level where they're shielded from some level of volatility, approximately 40% on the bottom. I love how you framed that. And if I was going to guess why somebody would be doing this, so somebody who's borrowing has some type of USD denominated liability that they've got to pay off. They don't want to sell their Bitcoin because they don't want to have a capital gains event. And they probably don't want to go and they can probably pay it back quickly. So let's just say, let's just use an example. Let's say a person had,

Starting point is 00:14:43 a tax bill that they had to pay for the last quarter. And it's $20,000 or $50,000. And they're going to come up with that free cash flow in the next two months or whatever to pay it back. But they don't want to go through all the hassle of the traditional loan system through traditional banking. And so they just, you know, they put up their Bitcoin. They immediately get the cash. They make the payment on the on the, on the tax, and then they just quickly pay it back. Is that the type of person that we're talking about here that's posting Bitcoin as collateral to borrow, or is there other use cases that they're using it for, call it in the derivatives market for spreads and things like that? I'd say, I mean, most of our borrowers are still individuals. Our average loan sizes tend to be

Starting point is 00:15:28 higher than that, usually in the six figures. And they're usually longer term loans. And usually the principal purpose is something either around investment or real estate. So they're either buying a new home, and this is a down payment or the whole house, whether buying investment property, or we had a cabinet maker, you take out $200,000 to buy equipment for a shop and grows business in a long-term loan. So, yeah, like I think I mentioned, you know, our loans have an average duration over 12 months, so people tend to have this. Many clients renew or keep the balance kind of rolling into other loans. So is it because they're having difficulties getting it through the traditional banking system because those rates are just such a drastic difference? Right. So there's a few key characteristics

Starting point is 00:16:11 for people to think about, that I'd say kind of a cross-section of which defines people that come to unchain capital. They are people that have held Bitcoin for a long time, such that they have a relatively low cost basis in their Bitcoin. So imagine somebody bought Bitcoin at $100, and the price of Bitcoin is $50,000. That if they were to sell that, then they, as you described, they would have a very high cap gainset. Also, though, there's somebody who, whose Bitcoin represents, significant share of their net worth. Now, when they bought Bitcoin, it might have been a 1% or 5% position, but they held it through cycles,

Starting point is 00:16:49 and now it's maybe 95% of their wealth. And they are also, so people that have a high amount of Bitcoin relative to their net worth, high amount of Bitcoin relative to implicitly to the number of dollars that they hold, and a high net worth relative to potentially a W-2 income, that would make them eligible for borrowing from a traditional bank. it. Currently, banks doesn't take Bitcoin as collateral. And so if they are in, if they fit all those criteria, but also more of those people exist as the price of Bitcoin goes up. So when Bitcoin goes from 10,000 to 50,000, that unlocks a new universe of people. But also, if you think about it,

Starting point is 00:17:29 whether you're somebody who bought Bitcoin at $10 or $100 or $1,000, if you're still holding it at $50,000, you also expect that it's going to a million dollars. And when you're thinking about the opportunity cost of 10 to 12% a year. Yeah. Relative that you're thinking about both the cost as well as the potential upside fork on should you sell Bitcoin today to buy some other asset that you need because there's a lot of Bitcoiners out there that might have $10 million worth of Bitcoin or $5 million worth of Bitcoin, but they couldn't afford a million dollar house.

Starting point is 00:18:05 And they don't want to sell their Bitcoin as an example. Yeah. You've also got clients that have exercised stock options where, again, they, They still hold the Bitcoin. They've held it through cycles for a reason. They're not about to give up that future optionality and that future asymmetry. It does require people hit a few different boxes, but those people become greater and greater on a numbers and net worth perspective with each passing cycle in Bitcoin as knowledge

Starting point is 00:18:30 distributes. So let's talk a little bit about the direction of interest rates. And this is just more out of curiosity because, I mean, it's a supply and demand thing. Like you guys are saying, the market is making these these interest rates. interest rates that you're seeing. So talk to us about the trend over the last 12 months, what you've seen, and then what you kind of expect if this bull market that we're all expecting to go into the end of this 2021 bull market that we're seeing right now, if it would go up in a dramatic way and we start getting six-figure Bitcoin prices, what do you think

Starting point is 00:19:01 that would mean for the direction of interest rates? There has been some compression, but not a lot. And I think a naively thought early on that because it's such good collateral that, of course, in a couple of years, people lending this like they would other traditional assets or securities. But we haven't seen that. And I think Parker outlined the real case, kind of why. There are other market participants coming in, like banks, Silvergate and others have announced lending against taking Bitcoin as collateral. So I think that's had some effect, but honestly not a lot.

Starting point is 00:19:32 If anything, our rates are slightly higher than when we started out. And part of that's just because of our model where we don't re-hypothicate. And we have a much different kind of security models that clients prefer. Let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors. All right. I want you guys to imagine spending three days in Oslo at the height of the summer. You've got long days of daylight, incredible food, floating saunas on the Oslo Fjord. And every conversation you have is with people who are actually shaping the future.

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Starting point is 00:23:51 All right. Back to the show. Yeah, and I would just add, I think naturally as allocators come into the space on the supply side, that will be willing to take that Bitcoin, you know, I think we all look at Bitcoin and we say, yeah, it's volatile, but it's volatile to the upside and it accrues to our benefit. But if you start to think about the type of people with the type of allocators that say are very happy with a 4 to 5% return, those are some of the most conservative allocators that exist. And we look at it and we're like, Bitcoin's conservative. And they look at it and say not in my last year, 40 years of credit investing.

Starting point is 00:24:31 And so I think that interest rates will come down as the pension funds and endowments and insurance companies really look at this space. And the banks, you know, the banks have a high regulatory burden to potentially even look at this space. So there's a lot of, I'd say, regulatory clarity that would need to exist. more at a state-by-state level, more so than at the federal level, but that it will be a function of knowledge distributing and getting more of the large insurance companies, pensions, endowments to allocate the space to really bring the cost of capital down materially. I think that we're

Starting point is 00:25:07 never going to live in a world where, you know, if somebody can go, you know, it's like some wealthy dude gets a 30-year mortgage for two and a half percent, and you're like, hey, who are all these poor people that are lending to the wealthy guy for two and a half percent? Like, that only exist because of the market structure, which is broken, which Bitcoin is fixing. But then there's also, if people think about it, you know, when we work with our investors and capital partners, that there's a time continuum that as they start to understand Bitcoin, they start to really like our loans. But then as they start to really like our loans, they start to really like Bitcoin. That knowledge, it goes both ways. And so that the thing that will buoy the interest rates that

Starting point is 00:25:48 will prevent it from going down to 1 to 2% is that it's like until banks are truly able to tap the Federal Reserve and basically borrow the discount window and just plow them into Bitcoin loans, which I don't think is anytime soon, that it's going to be, whether it's public companies or private companies, it's going to be people that are making direct allocation decisions to Bitcoin. And those people, whether it's the mass mutuals, when they announce that they buy 100 million dollars with Bitcoin. They're going to be thinking, okay, how much do I want directly exposed to Bitcoin,

Starting point is 00:26:22 and then how much do I want and say Bitcoin back loan? And as that aggregate pool expands, then I do expect our interest rates to come down, but they'll also want to increasingly increase their exposure to Bitcoin. It will become, hey, maybe it's, you know, today, you know, they have a very small position to Bitcoin back loans, but maybe they start to increase that exposure. And so it's just, where's the equilibrium? Is it 50-50, 60-40, 40, 60. So, directionally, they should come down, but don't, don't expect them to be at your rates of 30-year mortgages anytime soon. So the thread that I don't know if it was with you, Parker,

Starting point is 00:27:00 or just the unchained capital account that kind of sparked a big discussion between myself and you guys, started with the deposits of when and how in the world can I start making deposits with Bitcoin and start collecting interest on my Bitcoin deposit. Because right now you guys are just operating on a borrowing basis, right? Do you guys have something in the works, something that my understanding is that you do, but do you guys have something that you can talk about that talks to this idea of a person like myself or whoever, taking their Bitcoin, making a deposit, still holding one of the keys, and then collecting interest in some type of denomination?

Starting point is 00:27:42 I'm curious what your thoughts are on this. Yeah, and as you've researched, there's quite a few programs out there that offer these deposit account features. All of them are risk, and all them couple a bunch of risks together around how the coin is custody, where it moves, and who the counterparties are for where it goes. So it's kind of this risky black box. And it's not something we've been comfortable with, just philosophically. And so our model and our approach, our foundation is this secure approach to custody using

Starting point is 00:28:10 multi-sig. And so that's with leads and guides, the kinds of products we develop and where we want take them. And so we have been working on, you know, how to crack this problem of developing some kind of yield for clients where the Bitcoin can live in multi-sig. And we do some strong leads or just some promising developments in there. So we are working on a pilot with some partners to have that sort of offering for folks, but a client could hold a key. At least initially, it wouldn't be the client holds a key, but there would still be a transparent multi-sig address and that while all the Bitcoin is on loan, it's in there. It's a kind of loan and lending product

Starting point is 00:28:42 that couples with like exchanges and trading venues. And so that's, that's the kind of activity that would kick off the interest and yield for the coin that's in that type of the deposit account. But ultimately it's, yeah, the only kind of structure we think is, you know, most sound for doing these kinds of loans and giving someone, even the kind of interest rates that are in the market, we just don't think are the right kind of risk return ratio. Now, are you using stable coins to do this? I would imagine it'd be the only way you could, you could do something like this with deposits. No, so maybe just to take a step back.

Starting point is 00:29:16 So when we think about the business, the core of our business is the custody piece, and it's built on multisig and specifically collaborative custody. That is really the foundation that the whole reason why I'm at in chain is because when Joe and Drew launched on chain and decided that they were going to lend dollars, they recognized that the most important piece of the lending equation of the dollar side, if they were going to use Bitcoin's collateral was how that Bitcoin was secured. And there was nothing in the market that solved the problem that they had to their satisfaction. And so that was the course that they set off on.

Starting point is 00:29:51 And then I stumble upon them and I'm like, hey, guys, you should really carve out this custody piece because this will become the foundation of the business. 100% of people need better Bitcoin security and better custody. And over time, those people will need loans, but it will always be some subset. Joe and Drew decided that they wanted to pursue that, and they asked me to come on board and help build out that vision. That was September 2018, October of 2018. There have been a number of Bitcoin lending products that are in the market. There's a reason why Unchained Capital has not started lending Bitcoin in the traditional model of rehypothicating collateral. We think of ourselves as a Bitcoin custody security business, and that is our core assets, our core expertise.

Starting point is 00:30:35 Our core asset and expertise is not underwriting the balance sheets of large market makers. We think about the service that we're offering to our clients is an integrated financial services platform built on that foundation. The thing that defines us as if you just want custody, you can have your Bitcoin, you can have your keys. That same collaborative custody foundation where our clients have two keys and we have one and two are required to spend aligns all incentives with our clients. If we have other clients that want to borrow dollars and take that risk and the reward or return that they get for not selling Bitcoin today and that benefit that that provides them, something happens to that client or they don't fund a margin call.

Starting point is 00:31:15 Are other clients that are in collaborative custody and have their own keys totally unaffected? There's no financial exposure to that. We think about the same as we think about lending Bitcoin. The analogy that I like to use is, you know, if you think about the New York Stock Exchange, New York Stock Exchange doesn't have a bunch of stocks sitting at New York Stock Exchange. New York Stock Exchange trade stocks, and then there's custodians in different ways that stocks are custody. Now, most of the stocks are custody to DTCC. But point being is that how the stocks are custody is not where they trade on the exchange. There's a reality that virtually all Bitcoin denominated yield is generated by somebody that's producing or pursuing some sort of trading activity. if that makes sense, that people aren't lending Bitcoin and then having a plant being built, and then that plant kicks off Bitcoin cash flows to pay the loan. That if you're lending Bitcoin into a black box, that the person that's someone on the other side of the counterparty that's on another side that you don't know is pursuing some sort

Starting point is 00:32:20 of trading activity. What that means is that Bitcoin that's on loan is somehow, some way, finding its way to an exchange. And so when we think about it, it's working with exchange partners to say, hey, if the Bitcoin that's on loan is finding its way at the exchange, let's find some exchange partners that understand that we can carve out custody that will be creditable or tradable on exchange beyond loan, where the borrower, the lender, unchained an independent third party in our pilot program would each have a key. But that Bitcoin that's sitting identifiably in a multi-sig vault, then be available to trade on exchange and be on loan and generate yield. And through that, we effectively solve for three things. We solve for how the Bitcoin is custody. We solve for transparency around who the counterparty is.

Starting point is 00:33:11 And then we solve for transparency in terms of the type of risk that is being taken and underwritten. We also like to think about it because we're a Bitcoin company that Bitcoin is the most scarce asset in the world. It's the greatest asymmetry that's ever existed. And if you can't quantify the risk that you're taking, which you, by definition, can't if you're lending into a black box, then you shouldn't take that risk. Today and to this point, that has been the market structure and has been why we're unwilling

Starting point is 00:33:39 and have been unwilling to pursue. And that we're only pursuing it based on the kind of architecture where we can use our core asset, which is collaborative custody, to be able to offer a solution that no one else can offer because no one else has the architecture that we do and has the platform that's built on financial services like we do. So it's kind of that core idea of staying true to our principles, but ultimately building on that foundation of security and transparency to deliver to Google clients on either side of that, whether it's a borrower, a larger pool of capital at a lower cost of capital. And if it's to somebody that's contributing it on the lending side, might be a

Starting point is 00:34:18 lower nominal rate, but a way a higher risk-adjustive return because we've isolated and de-risk the equation at three different levels. For the person who's making this deposit in your pilot program, they're depositing BTC. Are they receiving interest payments in BTC or yes? Yeah. Okay. So, yeah, that is the idea. And the pilot program that we're working on is still kind of in implementation phase.

Starting point is 00:34:43 So kind of we're in integration and planning, but it is something that is that we're in the process of operationalizing. So I want to be clear that it's not the deposit. The pilot itself is not fully alive. It's still we're integrating with partners and working on testing when we expect it to be in market later this year. The pilot later this year, or you guys have completed the pilot? No, we expect that we're in the final stages of launching the pilot. Okay. How long do you guys expect it to run, a year or six months?

Starting point is 00:35:16 Pilot will be a few months, and then it's a matter of kind of sizing, you know, where we can go from there and how we want to watch that publicly. I think you guys are going to have a hot item on your hands when you guys do launch. You know, it's really about solving for the market structure that is healthy for the Bitcoin ecosystem. And again, coming back, I'll just reiterate it once because I do think it's the most important part that you have a lot of people. There is a legacy world where everyone is used to just putting, they believe their money is in a bank and they believe that money is supposed to magically make interest without

Starting point is 00:35:52 any risk being taken, that it just shows up. I think people that are in tune to Bitcoin realize a couple things. One, the money's not actually there. Two, the banks aren't really actually paying interest rates anymore. And so when we think about the core value proposition of Bitcoin, it is if you truly understand how precious of an asset that thing is, that you, if you are going to take risk with it, basically take it from, I'm sitting here holding the greatest asymmetry that's ever existed in the world and I can do it without counterparty risk, that if I'm going to put it into any sort of arrangement to generate yield, I'm fundamentally changing my value proposition. I'm not just taking counterparty risk, but I'm taking credit risk. And what I'm

Starting point is 00:36:40 potentially losing in that equation is if there's a loss event is the upside of my So I can't take that risk or you shouldn't take that risk unless you can quantify and truly understand all the moving pieces. And that's it's a complex equation. It's all bringing partners together that can understand the vision and the benefits to them and why it would be healthy for the for the Bitcoin ecosystem as a whole. And that's why, you know, again, it's been something we've been working on for two years. So it's hard to say whether it will be one month or three months before, before it's truly

Starting point is 00:37:15 operationalized. but we won't stop until we get it done. There's a lot of us cheering you guys on. So we're pretty excited to see what you guys come up with. Hey, so when I'm looking at your site and I just, you know, I'm looking at under the services and I look at the lending of all the various states, I'm just immediately thinking the regulation that you guys have had to deal with over the last, well, since 2015, really. Talk to us about just in really broad strokes, how this has changed or your vision.

Starting point is 00:37:45 vantage point now in 2021, how it's evolving, the direction it's moving. Because from my vantage point, so I participated in the bull market in 2017. And I just remember back then there being so much unknowns about the regulatory side of things. Like if anybody was going to raise a risk, that was at the top of the list. Now in 2021, it really feels like you don't see anybody really bringing that argument up. And if they are, it's because they're really not intimately involved in the space and they're just kind of throwing something out to defend their non-position. So talk to us a little bit about your opinions on how that's evolved through the years and kind of where you see it now and moving forward.

Starting point is 00:38:26 Yeah, and that was one of the things that I think helped us launch with the secured lending model first is kind of online lending had been around for a long time. Bitcoin exchanges, crypto exchanges were something new and that did have a lot of a lot more uncertainty around that. So starting as a lender was actually a little more straightforward because it kind of been a solved thing. It does involve state-by-state licenses and a lot of registrarious. illustrations and things like that. But we just happen to be one of our early framings and we

Starting point is 00:38:49 we got bank accounts early on was where a lender that happens to take Bitcoin is collateral. And that is its own, I think, area of one personal interest of mine has been around when you take Bitcoin as collateral. Something that governs secure transactions and loans is the uniform commercial code, which is a every state has its own form of this. They try to keep a uniform, but that's where the law says if you get a mortgage, there's a title registry and that's where the lien goats or if you borrow someone's or you lend against a chainsaw, like here's how the bond broker says your chain saw gets custody kind of a thing. So Bitcoin kind of always fell into a really awkward category in that uniform commercial code, which does create contract risk.

Starting point is 00:39:30 And what's the kind of risk that does affect institutional participants if they decide to come in and lend a Bitcoin? So it's something that the Wyoming bill and the legislation they passed kind of solves that for Wyoming, people in Wyoming. It becomes really clear what happens if you're a lender and you decide to take Bitcoin as collateral, how you have secured, how you feel like you're in any kind of worst case scenarios, you're fully protected. It's something that state in Texas, there's a, there's a bill that we hope will pass. It's gone through some committees in the House and things like that that will also do that here. And so that's kind of one way you're starting to see that's, that affects snowball. It's like there's enough of a commercial

Starting point is 00:40:05 market around Bitcoin and there are real participants like ourselves. They get to kind of lobby and educate people that, hey, there are some things that really need to change. So Bitcoin, kind of becomes defined in these state statutes and this activity can kind of, we're not all going to end up with messy court scenarios later on and people are trying to figure out after the fact. So that's one really promising development and just a thing that's kind of come full circle for me is like four years ago, I just knew. It was like, man, someday it'd be really fun to just ensure we get this right and we get some loss pass that affect this. I do think, yeah, overall, it's been a much healthier regulatory environment to operate. They're banks a lot more open to banking

Starting point is 00:40:44 Bitcoin companies. And there are still things like money transmitter licenses in certain states, if you're going to custody Bitcoin for people, we have to pay attention to. But, you know, there's not a ton that we have to worry about. I think the greatest 180 or I don't even know, it might be a 360 slam was Jamie Diamond, 2015 Bitcoin is a fraud to 2017 kind of regret calling Bitcoin a fraud, then 2018, their banking Coinbase, 2021, Bitcoin products. And so that it's, it's one of those things that Bitcoin becomes de-risk as the network grows. The network grows as more people adopt it. And now we're seeing corporations adopt it. And now we're seeing U.S. senators being Bitcoin advocates, that the mainstream adoption of Bitcoin, not only

Starting point is 00:41:36 de-risk it from a store of wealth perspective, but it also de-risk it. If you have a bunch of wealthy people that have exposure to Bitcoin and that want to monetize it themselves, that that provides a lot of cover. There is a reality that as a startup financial services company that's innovating around Bitcoin, you also start to very much appreciate how heavy-handed regulation advantages incumbents. And so we do have to be better, which we are, because we think in ways that a large financial institution like JP Morgan or Goldman Sachs with all their life. liabilities would never think about. And so we will still out-compete them despite the friction

Starting point is 00:42:17 imposed by a lot of regulation that favors incumbents because they're set up to be able to manage large compliance departments. So yeah, we deal with it. It's certainly getting easier. And I think as more and more states begin to lead on this to create greater regulatory clarity, just as more capital comes in a space, it helps all the infrastructure companies in the that coin space grow. Talk to us a little bit about a bank charter. Are you guys pursuing a bank charter at Unchained? Not at this time.

Starting point is 00:42:47 No. What kind of advantages? I know Caitlin Long secured a bank charter out in Wyoming for Avanti that she's going after. Is this something that you think you could evolve into? What would be the benefit to do that? Just help people kind of understand what advantage is having a bank charter brings. I mean, it depends.

Starting point is 00:43:06 I think in the Wyoming charter, the special purpose depository institution charter. I mean, it's important. And it's nuanced. It does, I think, it's important access rights to like the Federal Reserve system and how you interface with other banks, but they can't do lending. And it's just purely kind of a custody and moving client funds kind of regulatory license for them. So I think so really important. So a good cornerstone for any business, but the revenue is not going to come from lending or lending out client assets for better or worse depending on the business model? The principal benefit would be access to the banking system, right?

Starting point is 00:43:41 Being able to connect into the Fiat Rails. And so to us and the way I think we think about it is if that has so sufficiently become de-risk that there are, Grakken has become a bank in Wyoming, Zavanti, then also just the reality that J.P. Morgan is now banking Bitcoin companies in every mega bank in the world slash every bank is going to now need to do it to be competitive, that if one of the principal benefits is access to the Fiat Rails, that us and the banks that we work with or the potential that we,

Starting point is 00:44:17 you know, lose a banking relationship is significantly de-risk in where it was four years ago. I think, you know, ultimately when we think about our business, the most interesting thing about it is Bitcoin and that keep coming back to that core asset of what we excel at is Bitcoin and Bitcoin custody. And if we look toward a future world that is Bitcoin denominated and our vision is Bitcoin ubiquity, that it's a matter of connecting into those rails, but always be building products and services with a Bitcoin first, not in the sense of other cryptocurrencies, but in terms of everyone is a little like Bitcoin is going to power the global economy in the future. So kind of building an architecture, are we ever going to be a better bank than J.P. Morgan in terms of

Starting point is 00:45:03 the dollar world? Probably not. But are we going to be better Bitcoin than them 100x? And so kind of its focus on the core of what we're good at and then figure out how we can work with banks, like Silver Gates of the world or like signature bank or any bank that wants the bank companies like unchained because what we have, they don't have. And what they have, we can use, at least in the interim period of time during Bitcoin's monetization. Let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors. No, it's not your imagination. Risk and regulation are ramping up, and customers now expect proof of security just to do

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Starting point is 00:48:52 You know, I think one of the frustrations that a lot of investors have over the last few years is in their IRA account, one of the only ways they can get access to Bitcoin in it, without going to lawyers and everything else is through GBT. And as we've seen, the premium on GBT has just got crushed over the last six months. Not only that, when you look at the direction that this is all going in the next five years, I mean, if you actually custody Bitcoin, now you have the opportunity to be earning interest on that. It's an interest-bearing asset, which smashes the arguments we heard in 2017.

Starting point is 00:49:33 It doesn't kick off any cash flow. Well, now it does, right? And I think people are starting to wise up to how important it is to actually take possession, physical possession of your Bitcoin. And so I'm curious if you guys plan on stepping into the space for IRAs. to assist people with getting a self-directed IRA so that they can take physical custody of Bitcoin and as your deposit and earning interest product eventually gets stood up, that maybe you give people a kind of a turnkey solution for IRAs. Is this something you guys are thinking about?

Starting point is 00:50:10 I think the market for this is very ripe and everyone's looking for something that's easy, quick, experts in the space. Is that something you guys are thinking about? Yeah, for sure. And we do have some offerings around that. And a lot of it's been accomplished. We want to shout out to our partner. A keykeeper IRA is Jeff Andrew, who's watched a lot of clients through this process. And Parker's much more familiar with, you know, in hand with a lot more clients on the actual setup and use with Unchained. But you said that's key IRA. Is that right? Key Keeper. Keykeeper. Keykeeper IRA. Yeah, so Jeff Van Drew runs keykeeper, and he specifically focuses on IRAs where individuals can hold their own private keys, which is what we specialize in, and which is why a partnership between us has made so much sense. There's a couple of key things that people need to know about if they're thinking about IRAs. And it is holding Bitcoin in your IRA when you hold your own keys, in my view, is optimal savings. Like you can't save better than that.

Starting point is 00:51:15 Tax advantage. is you got Bitcoin, you got your own keys, you don't have any counterparty risk. One of the things I like to go out and tweet about, I don't know if you recall, the GBT commercial that was drop gold by Bitcoin, I think that, you know, the next four years are going to be known for drop GBT by Bitcoin. Buying Bitcoin and holding your own keys as people become more knowledgeable and more comfortable, becomes fundamentally more secure than holding it in a GBT

Starting point is 00:51:46 like structure. And what we're focused on is helping people with safe and secure Bitcoin custody where they hold their own keys. And what many of them find is that once they are comfortable holding their own keys and they become more engaged and more interested and more knowledgeable about Bitcoin, like a fiction level goes up. They don't think about it as a speculative asset. And it just so happens that those people who don't think about it as a speculative asset are also the people who generally hold their own keys, which makes our offering so perfect for them. Now, in the traditional world of IRAs, Bitcoin is new, just like Bitcoin is new to practically everything. And so where you might be able to show up to your Schwab account and buy every

Starting point is 00:52:30 stock and bond, potentially even levered ETFs, I don't even know, I don't dabble in those, but you can find virtually every other financial product in a traditional IRA today. Bitcoin doesn't exist that way. And there's a few key. things that are specific to Bitcoin and specifically holding your own keys that complicate things. You need a legal IRA custodian. You need a bank to have a bank account with the funds because you've got to transfer funds from a traditional IRA or from a 401k, converted into an IRA and move it to a bank that's willing to be your IRA custodian. And that IRA custodian has to be willing to invest in a private trust for which you are the trustee, which there aren't many of them out there.

Starting point is 00:53:17 And Jeff Van Drew from Keykeeper has really helped find some solid partners to make this process, even though it's a bit complicated, to be as seamless as it can be. Where we really come in is you need the IRA custodian to basically facilitate the dollar flows to get U.S. dollars from one IRA to another IRA that's capable of buying Bitcoin in a way that you can hold your own keys. So we are not yet solving the IRA custodian piece. I think that that could be a future potential where we can help make this process even more seamless. But then there's two other critical phases, how the Bitcoin's custody and how you acquire the Bitcoin.

Starting point is 00:53:55 And certain clients will, if we're not yet available to help facilitate the execution directly, we do have an OTC desk that's available in certain states. We either just help facilitate the custody of the Bitcoin and people onboard their IRA trust entity onto our, so you can have a personal account with us, a retirement account and business account or multiple business accounts and multiple retirement accounts. They open up an IRA account, hold their own keys, and deposit Bitcoin, or they work with our OTC desk. So we can eliminate two steps of the three complicating factors when they can also use our

Starting point is 00:54:28 OTC desk. And it's a beautiful thing. You convert an IRA from dollars that are exposed to like zero yielding bonds or equity risk premium that you're not being compensated for. and in, you know, you basically, as soon as you roll over that IRA, at least with us, you can convert that in a single transaction to Bitcoin and then we'll deposit it to a cold stored multi-sigbal. And that completes the virtuous circle. You now have Bitcoin in your retirement and you have the keys, you're the trustee. There's an legal IRA custodian that's responsible

Starting point is 00:55:01 for reporting. I do think that over the next two to three years, I believe every single one of our clients who have an IRA, I believe we'll be making more investments to make this even more seamless. And oftentimes when people are feeling a little bit tapped, you know, in their personal bank accounts and they realize, oh, shoot, I've got all these IRA funds. And that becomes a source to increase allocations to Bitcoin. So it's not just our clients that will have IRAs. I think that it is the single best way to hold Bitcoin. And that more institutions will invest in will increase our investments, but I've done it personally and swear by it. So we've talked about interest rates, and we talk about interest rates, it kind of

Starting point is 00:55:47 in an on-chain kind of way where you're taking your Bitcoin, you're potentially lending it out here in another year, and then you're getting Bitcoin interest paid back to you. How do you guys see lightning evolving as far as lightning pool? And because I look at, you know, and this is my opinion, I'm really curious if you guys would agree with this or how you see it. But when I'm looking at it and I look at how there's like no maturation in the Lightning Network today relative to where I would say it's going to be in five or ten years from now. And I see it being very similar to the early days of Bitcoin on chain where miners weren't making really any type of fees for the memple, you know, being fully loaded with a bunch of people that are trying to get on the next point. block. And, you know, if we could go back six, seven years ago and look at that and say, and show people where we would be today and how much those fees are really kind of already

Starting point is 00:56:42 adding up to these miners that are mining a block, I think we would have all been like really kind of surprised at how much value that that's really adding up to as far as those fees. And so do you guys see that being similar in the Lightning Network? If we could warp ourselves five, ten years from now where people are able to capture interest rates, by just taking their Bitcoin and opening channels on Lightning to route almost like transmission control protocol TCP, but you're routing money, right? You're routing Bitcoins. Do you see that providing any type of meaningful interest rate for people that have Bitcoin to plug them in and open up these channels on Lightning in the future?

Starting point is 00:57:25 Yeah, I think that the single greatest dynamic that is going to cause Lightning Network investment, and to allow this path to accelerate is on-chain fees. So if every on-chain fee, while it's going to go down on-a-bases point's perspective, it's going to go up in real purchasing power. And that that dynamic is what will incentivize companies like unchained. Lightning Labs are already making big investments in Lightning companies like Strike. But I think every single financial institution that deals with Bitcoin will be making investments in Today, in this point, we focus really on kind of base layer and multi-sig because that's how

Starting point is 00:58:09 the vast majority of people will hold 95% of their wealth. But then when we think about a future and I think about Bitcoin commercializing as a transactional day-to-day currency, it's going to be lightning or something like lightning. And let's assume for now that it is lightning and that there's a reality. I do believe that it's always important to have an architecture where just as I as an individual can transact on chain, that there's going to be individuals that are connecting directly to businesses to facilitate lightning transactions. But there's also a reality that payments are generally one-way flow. And I think that that dynamic is what will dictate

Starting point is 00:58:49 how the network topology forms for lightning. And what I mean by that is the people that you pay on a day-to-day basis regularly, practically speaking, never pay you. And so that it doesn't necessarily make sense for American Airlines to have lightning channels open with Preston, Parker, and Joe. And because I'm only flying periodically, so are you, or even Uber, right? Like, if I make, I think it's a great example of like Uber transactions are probably on average between five and $15. And that's not economical to facilitate Bitcoin transactions on chain. And so the way I see that evolving is that Uber is going to have a lightning channel

Starting point is 00:59:43 likely with a financial institution. And it's going to process 10 lightning dollar transactions or the equivalent, you know, every minute. And then periodically through the day, they're going to settle on chain. Basically, they're going to use that to batch flows. and then institutions will rebalance channels with with merchants. And so I think that there's a reality too that on the payment side, that payments role is basically marrying goods fulfillment with currency settlement,

Starting point is 01:00:15 right, where how do I know that the Uber actually satisfied my ride to affect final settlement of a Bitcoin transaction, right? Like, you know, what if I, it make me pay for the Uber transaction in Bitcoin before I, ever take the ride? I don't think so. And so that the payments layer is in the Fiat world, I think this oftentimes gets a little bit distorted, is that they're actually essentially a counterparty risk management function, marrying two processes that happen at different times. And I think about,

Starting point is 01:00:47 I think the same type of functions will exist in a much more decentralized way and a much more competitive way, but that the value delivered will in part be the capital, but it will also be that fulfillment, the same service. And so that other than it being routing fees, which I believe will exist, I believe that the primary economic incentives will be in facilitating transactions between consumers and businesses. And that businesses, similarly to how they pay transaction fees today, will pay for transactions to have liquidity committed via lightning pools and that they'll pay for it per transaction that gets consummated rather than at least that's kind of how I'm thinking about it, or at least from the first principle, that one-way

Starting point is 01:01:34 payment flow will dictate that there's certain people that can most efficiently use capital and that they will allocate that capital and connect buyers and sellers much as kind of payments networks exist today and that the transaction fees will be derived as a function of the commercial transactions. So, Parker, what I think you're saying here is you see the bigger companies, the ones that are the nodes between the everyday people that are making transactions at Target or American Airlines or whatever. I'm a customer, right?

Starting point is 01:02:06 I'm an individual. I'm making those payments. But because those payments are going through those big business hubs and then those businesses are interacting with their primary businesses that they're dealing with at a B to B kind a level. I think what you said was that that's where you see the fees being collected on lightning or at those major hubs of financial activity, correct? Yeah, and I don't want to present. Like, I don't think it's going to be, we're going to have five megabanks doing that. That's not the vision of the world that I see. But that I do think that as a micro example,

Starting point is 01:02:42 think about unchained. Unchain will inevitably be running a lightning hub at some point and will be servicing unchained client. And we'll have unchained businesses that want to have final settlement to unchained vaults and will be in the best position to help fulfill their payments as well via lightning. And then there'll be other financial institutions helping intermediate. And then there also will naturally be applications where individuals can also send particular transactions to merchants. But I think when people start to think about the dynamic of those fund flows and the reality that there would that rebalancing is an expensive activity, that there will need to be people that specialize in routing liquidity and that

Starting point is 01:03:27 those institutions will typically be financial institutions. You know, it was fascinating. I saw a tweet from Jack Mullers talking about using strike to do something on the fold where you were basically paying with lightning. So I have this strike app on my phone. I went to the fold app. I selected pay with lightning. It gave me an invoice QR code and I scanned it with Jack's app. And when I did that, that app for me, I don't have connected to my full node at all. Like I just deposited 50 bucks on strike straight from my bank account. It's sitting there. And I scanned with that app a lightning QR code. And I just deposited 50 bucks on strike. And I just deposited 50 bucks on strike straight from my bank account. It's sitting there. And I scanned with that app, a lightning QR code. and it was like ready to lock and load, like ready to send and fulfill that lightning payment right there to fold. And I'm sure Will's running his own full node, right? And in his own lightning channel.

Starting point is 01:04:24 And for me, it was just this huge light bulb moment of here I am as your typical person that's getting ready to make a transaction. If I was not running a full node and not doing all this swoopty tech stuff of opening a lightning channel, I didn't do any of that stuff, but here I am able to conduct a lightning payment seamlessly. And it was just kind of a total aha moment. And it kind of plays to exactly what you're saying, Parker, as far as these rails between businesses is where you're going to see a lot of this technical expertise and transactions taking place and probably interest being paid to the people that are processing these coins that are going back and forth between these hubs.

Starting point is 01:05:06 And then they'll settle on chain like you're saying once a week, once a day. whatever it might be, whatever makes the most sense for them to reset. Yeah, and I think in that equation, exactly. Somewhere there was some lightning liquidity that strike, they may have either gone direct to Fold or gone through some other routing or some other route. Strike is offering you some set of services that are of value to you, one of them being this ability.

Starting point is 01:05:36 And Fold might be competing directly for your business, but if they don't have your business in this capacity, then it may not make sense for Fold to connect directly to you, but to route through strike. Absolutely mind-blowing stuff. It's just mind-blowing stuff. And it was so seamless. That was the part for me that was just like, if I can see how this is going to change a whole lot of things for people because you don't have to know any of this stuff or really kind of

Starting point is 01:06:02 understand any of the technical aspects of it. And it was just as easy as, hey, send some money from this bank account into, this app, then I scan the QR thing, and here I am doing lightning, and you don't even, you know, if you don't have that technical background, you'd never even know. Yeah, I think when people talk about how Bitcoin's too complicated, like, oh, no one's ever going to get it. Nobody knows how telephones actually, you know. I mean, I've worked with a telecom company, so I know more than most, but people pick up the phone, they talk to people all over the world, and they have no idea how that technically happened. Better example to this case is

Starting point is 01:06:37 nobody actually knows how the dollar system works. You know, like they swipe a credit card and they think that money went from Starbucks or from their bank account to Starbucks magically. No, that didn't actually happen. That transaction basically checked to see if you had enough money and they're going to net and settle it later with about a million other transactions. And the same will be true of Bitcoin, that we're in the process. We're making it very seamless for people to secure millions and millions of dollars of

Starting point is 01:07:04 wealth are very low to virtually no cost. And the idea that we won't do the same for routing payments and in solving that piece of the equation. It's just a matter of the value of the network rising and having the proper incentives to dictate that the investments be made in those payments applications, which feels like we're getting to now. Gentlemen, that was incredible. I learned a ton. I'm really excited to see your next big moves here and to get the pilot going. And I know there's a lot of people in the space that are watching what you're doing very closely, mostly because we're very excited to have a product that allows us to continue to hold one of the keys, to lend Bitcoin out and receive interest, and just everything

Starting point is 01:07:54 you guys are doing. So I really appreciated this interview and having the opportunity to talk to you and hopefully we get a chance to do this again soon. One final question. What is the best brisket in Austin? I'm partial. There's this place called Mums. They sell at the farmer's market here. My wife might have worked there for a minute, but that's the best brisket around.

Starting point is 01:08:16 This gets really great A. It's all about the meat quality. And if you find the spot, that gets like the highest quality meat, that's the volume right there. Parker. Yeah. I'm going to go with Coopers because it's where the Austin bit devs, there are, after BitDev's partner. So, you know, I'm going to stay true to the home team.

Starting point is 01:08:36 There's a lot of good barbecue. There's a lot of good Bitcoin to move in Austin. I was joking with Justin on Twitter, Justin Moon, that I was supposed to hijack this conversation to try to convince you to move to Austin. And I figured we'd better spend time talking about Bitcoin and Unchained, but we'll get you to at some point. Next time I'm in Austin.

Starting point is 01:08:55 I'm hitting you guys up. Please do. Yeah. Welcome any time. All right, guys. So tell people where they can learn more about you. Any papers you want to highlight, website you want to highlight, throw it out there to the audience. I'd say, you go to our website. These days, you can actually use unchained.com, soon be our principal domain. So make it easy on yourself. And if you haven't experienced holding your own keys or using multisig, you should definitely check out our cancierge starter kits. Really simple process. We can get people going and there's a lot less as 24 hours. And we have some experts, a bunch of folks working here that's standing by to help people onboard into. the full multi-sig experience with Unchain Faults. Yeah, and I would just add that to re-emphasize that if you haven't held your own keys,

Starting point is 01:09:37 there are things that you will learn about Bitcoin by going through that process. And that if you go through the process of concierge onboarding, set up your keys, you don't necessarily have to deposit all your Bitcoin at once. But through that process, you will definitionally learn things that have been extracted away from you. And our team specializes in helping people graduate to that point. And when people realize that the longer they hold Bitcoin, the more likely they are to hold their own keys, they'll also realize that it's not for ideological reasons. It's for security reasons. And we are helping to commercialize and standardized multi-sig and collaborative custody. And so come check us out at Unchain Capital. And if you're in Austin, come and visit us. We're right downtown. Gentlemen, thank you for your time. This was really fun. Appreciate Preston. Hey, so thanks for everybody listening to the show. If you enjoyed the conversation,

Starting point is 01:10:31 be sure to subscribe to the show on whatever podcast app you're using. We really appreciate that. And if you have time, leave us a review. So thanks for joining us this week. And we'll catch you next Wednesday. Thank you for listening to TIP. To access our show notes, courses or forums, go to theinvestorspodcast.com. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any decisions, consult a professional. This show is copyrighted by the Investors Podcast Network. Written permissions must be granted before syndication or rebroadcasting.

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