We Study Billionaires - The Investor’s Podcast Network - BTC027: The Bitcoin Rewards Trojan Horse w/ Will Reeves (Bitcoin Podcast)

Starting point is 00:00:00 You're listening to TIP. Hey, everyone, welcome to our Wednesday release of the podcast where I'm talking about Bitcoin. On today's show, we have the co-founder and CEO of Fold Bitcoin Rewards program, Mr. Will Reeves. We'll provide some incredible insights for how Bitcoin is now starting to be part of every single transaction for people using his Visa card. Not only that, but we have an in-depth conversation about the Lightning Network and how it's going to be an instrumental part for Fold moving forward. If you're wondering where this entire space is moving forward, you'll definitely want to give this episode a listen. So without further delay, here's my conversation with the one and only Will Reeves.

Starting point is 00:00:43 You're listening to Bitcoin Fundamentals by the Investors Podcast Network. Now for your host, Preston Pish. All right. So, hey, like I said in the introduction, I'm here with Will Reeves. I am so pumped. to have you on this show right now and to be having this conversation because, hey, you and I do not have a business relationship together. I think a lot of people think that you and I have a business relationship together because I'm always talking about my fold card on Twitter. And it's just because I'm having a blast. I'm enjoying the experience. And I can't say I've ever

Starting point is 00:01:32 enjoyed the experience of any rewards card in my life. And you've made that a very different experience. So I'm excited to have you here. Welcome to the show. And I'm pumped to have you. Well, Preston, the feeling is a very mutual. I'm a big fan as well. I'm glad you're enjoying what we put out there. You know, the team and us, we put something weird out there. And we are pleasantly surprised by how much it's kind of changed people's behaviors and experience of what used to be an everyday thing and just spending savings. For me, the first thing that I thought about was you want Bitcoin, or at least I've always wanted Bitcoin to start becoming part of people's everyday transactions. But, you know, until the tax laws change, it was just a non-starter for me.

Starting point is 00:02:17 It's just like, well, that's just not going to happen as long as people were paying capital gains on the difference from what their basis is to the transaction. So I like, I just kind of wrote it off, even going into the start of this cycle as just being something that wasn't going to happen. And then your platform came along and I started, you know, reading up on it. I'm like, oh my God, I can still do the normal transactions that I'd be normally doing with my debit card. And, you know, you still got to eat. You still got to do those things that everybody's got expenses for. But now I'm going to be getting a reward. And instead of it being like air miles, I'm getting Bitcoin rewards. And I was just like, okay, yeah, sign me up, right? Like, this sounds awesome.

Starting point is 00:03:01 So I want to start off by just really kind of talking about your background before you even got involved in any of this stuff. Like before Bitcoin, what were you working on? What's your expertise? Like all that fun stuff. You just basically described the journey with Fold right there. So I can't wait to get to that. But before this, you know, I've been forged in the fires of Silicon Valley startup product life,

Starting point is 00:03:26 been a founder, entrepreneur for pretty much the last decade, primarily building. The payment space, retail, e-commerce, sometimes they didn't always work out and I'd find myself down in Mountain View, did some time down in Google. But really, the whole thing has been around introducing new technologies into people's everyday lives. And so I've worked in things from peer-to-peer marketplaces. How do we bring two strangers together who are exchanging a very expensive good, a lot of money, and how do we remove any sort of middleman from that equation? And that's a really hard problem to solve. It hasn't been quite solved yet.

Starting point is 00:04:03 I have worked in social payments. So, in the early days of Stripe, how could we create a platform to collect recurring payments monthly from subscribers, fans, you name it, who could provide a revenue stream, ongoing revenue stream for your business, who's essentially, you know, how to Amazon Prime your business. Some of these were just ahead of their time. I love to look back at now at the success, Patreon and all these. And it's amazing to see that some of these early products that I've worked on were kind of glimmers of what would become and manifest and has become a central part of a lot of entrepreneurs and creators' lives now. And so it's really my focus is how to introduce new technology, make it relevant in people's daily lives.

Starting point is 00:04:47 But more importantly, how do you create an incentive structure to have people adopt a new behavior or a new technology? And I think that plays a lot into what I'm doing here at Fold in that trick or that Trojan force, as Satoshi would call it. So, Will, talk me through the moment that you got the idea for Fold. Where were you? Who were you with? It popped in your mind. And then after you kind of described that, how long did it take for you to act on the idea?

Starting point is 00:05:18 So Fold has an interesting long history that has kind of evolved with Bitcoin as the world has kind of tried to grasp what is Bitcoin, what is it for, what do people need, problems to solve around Bitcoin to use it. I met my co-founder, Matt Luongo, at a project we were working on down at Google. And he was telling me how he was working on this new project, you know, Bitcoin, magic internet money days. And the real thing was, okay, there's a lot of people who have this new type of money, Bitcoin.

Starting point is 00:05:48 But the problem is there's no way to use it. How can you have a money that you can't use? And for a lot of people at the time, and still to this day, you'll see the trend line throughout Bitcoin's history of if you can't spend it or if no merchant accepts it, is it actually real money? So we started with that problem. How can we turn this magic internet money that people are now accumulating, curious about, and the world is starting to understand, how can we create a public moment that makes

Starting point is 00:06:13 the number one usable so that you could spend Bitcoin at your local merchant? But also, I think equally important, how do you create that moment for others? to see, hey, I have Bitcoin and someone is accepting it. Someone is valuing this magic internet money. And how can we do that in a place that's in a Starbucks or in a merchant where that moment is a kind of a collective shared reality? And we started with that inkling. It was a simple website.

Starting point is 00:06:41 You send Bitcoin on chain. You can get in line. You get your Starbucks coffee and you turn around to your friend and say, look, Bitcoin is real and now I have my coffee. So that was the original part. It was a really simple thing to try to solve. It was really just about our own curiosity about this money. Also, you know, everyone's journey starts somewhere. And for a lot of people, they have certain preconditions about what Bitcoin and what money should be and how it should be used. And so the first problem we tried to solve was primarily around the medium exchange use case. When you're saying that, it would make a lot of sense for me that, and I'm assuming this conversation happened before 2017, that when we got into the fork wars, that a person like yourself who's really trying to bring Bitcoin to the transaction level would have become a person

Starting point is 00:07:34 who was wanting larger blocks and all that kind of stuff. We know that the code got forked. We know that Bitcoin Cash got started in the summer of 2017. And so walk me through why you did not go with that side of the movement and that you stayed with the smaller blocks. What kind of conversations were you having with Matt at the time? Did he agree with you? When we think about Bitcoin and what it is, you have to think of it not as just technology. It's a cultural phenomenon. It is a movement of builders.

Starting point is 00:08:08 It is a movement of people. an idea. And there are certain parts of what Bitcoin is that you cannot take away without making it into something else. And so that was something that was a shared idea from myself and Matt and the team is that we are not making Bitcoin into something for coffee payments. What we're doing is building infrastructure on top of Bitcoin because it provides such a bedrock foundation that a new monetary system could come up. And we're here to provide the proto rails, for proto payment rails for how this money would come to fruition and how it would touch people in their lives. And so one thing that we knew and all agreed on is that by changing or forking

Starting point is 00:08:47 in the ways that we're being proposed was just making it into something that it wasn't and it wasn't going to be viable. We weren't here to make a faster visa. We were here to make something a new money more usable, more value for the holders. And this wasn't an easy thing. Like you said, it's kind of hindsight is 2020. But we had this decision. We had supporters. on our board who were part of that fork that we had to part ways with pretty dramatically. And we still have interesting back and forths to this day. A lot of them have created those other forked splintered coins that are out there and just trying to stay alive.

Starting point is 00:09:22 And we couldn't be more happier with the decision. This again, this was when, you know, this was pre-2017, right? So we saw, you know, the Bitcoin winter come through. We've seen bear markets. And so much so that when these bare markets come, Bitcoin spending drops precipitously. And so when your whole business model is around the spending aspect and the bare market comes and you know, you know it's going to be a year or two before the cycle recycles, you have a problem. And a lot of Bitcoin companies were forced to confront some of these issues.

Starting point is 00:09:54 Number one, Bitcoin is heavily on your balance sheet. Number two, the usage and the cycles change what behaviors people are using it for. And so we had to make a decision. Do we shut this down, put it to bed and say, hey, this was a good run. Let's see what we can do maybe down the line. Or there are a lot of emails in my inbox of other coins that are showing up, like an absolute Cambrian explosion offering a lot of money that could keep the lights on for a long time.

Starting point is 00:10:20 Should we accept those? Should we go there? And we had to make the hard decision of number one, no, we're not going to. We're going to shut down fold. And Fold went through a period where we actually put it to rest. and we kind of had some conditions about what would need to be present for us to revive that. Talk to us about some of those conditions. That's amazing.

Starting point is 00:10:41 I didn't know this about this story. Well, number one is that me deeply familiar and focused on what product market fit means and what product market fit feels like when you create a new service, new product that touches people's lives. It's not something that feels like you're constantly pushing or having to do the Sisypian rolling this rock up the hill. When you achieve product market fit, you feel it, and it is a jet field beneath you, whether you're ready or you're not. We just didn't feel it with that product. We knew that there was a good amount of people. We had a great fan base. A lot of OG Bitcoiners

Starting point is 00:11:15 had used us great product in that way, but it just didn't do it. And why? Well, first of all, not many people had Bitcoin. And not out of the people that did have it, those that wanted to spend it were even a smaller subset. So we're looking at an addressable market that is very tiny. at that time. And the second part is that the technology wasn't even there yet. So we knew we weren't going to have anything to do with any of the forked coins. That wasn't where we are going. Again, we shut down the business in order to not do that. But we did know that layer two was coming. And we knew that the national transition of and kind of establishment of currencies is a layered process. It is something that needs to start from the most base unit. And so for us,

Starting point is 00:11:57 We knew a layer two would come along that would provide an experience that would actually support the use case that we were originally intending. And so for that, we really waited on those two things. Number one, we need to rework the business model. What it is, how it is, so that number one, the market is larger. And we're solving a problem that actually will generate a demand that we're just going to have to keep up. We just weren't feeling that.

Starting point is 00:12:20 And the second part was, is the technology ready? Is it there? Is layer two there? When is it ready? And those two questions weren't quite figured out yet, though there were glimmers of hope for them both. So at what point did you guys start to feel? You're talking about this feeling of fit and getting the timing right. And for people, I'd tell you a lot of the stuff that Will's talking about right now, there's a really famous book that was one of Steve Jobs's favorite books. It's called Inside the Tornado. The book is all about this timing of these emerging, fast-moving technologies and being able to get this. timing right. The book talks about getting the timing right. And what for you, Will, sorry, just from an education standpoint for people listening to the show, I think it's a great

Starting point is 00:13:03 opportunity for them to do some more research if this is an idea that's something that they have an interest in learning more about. But for you, when did you guys feel that that fit was really firing on all cylinders? I think for me, it started at Thanksgiving in 2017. when suddenly we had the great bull run of 2017, and there was something different about this bull run. The on-ramps were in a much, much better position. Coinbase as a company was established literally because it was the only one there that had semi-good user experience,

Starting point is 00:13:38 and it just happened to be there. Speaking of your timing thing, there's, it's only that they did a better job at being exchanged. They had good U.X for a retail audience, and they just happened to be there at the right time. And so seeing Bitcoin in that time enter the mainstream. It took over all of the headlines. It was something that friends and family that knew I was interested in this, but by no means

Starting point is 00:14:02 would actively bring us into conversation, suddenly were. It was entering the public conscious in a very different way. And I think some of that have to do with Bitcoin as the idea, but also of Bitcoin as actually being accessible to them for the first time. There was actually a place where I could legitimately say, hey, dad, you're interested in Bitcoin, go to this and you can actually get some. And from my, that kind of started a shift in my mindset because for me, I've had many different experiences with Bitcoin pre-2017, pre even falling down the rabbit hole, really magical ones of remittances from migrant workers in the Snow Valley,

Starting point is 00:14:38 sending home to Mexico from Occupy Wall Street accepting donations to, I was living in Argentina, and we had a one of the guys I was living with was a software engineer. And he was talking about how he uses Bitcoin to make sure the government could not debase his savings. So these really poignant, very strong examples of some of the most incredible qualities of Bitcoin were thrown in my face. But for me and my personal journey, the actual really powerful moments were all about skin in the game was how can I get my first bit of Bitcoin so that I am aligned with the asset. I'm educating myself increasingly about it. I'm paying attention to the cycles. To me, is one of the most powerful mechanisms for educating and for Bitcoin adoption overall

Starting point is 00:15:23 is that we can talk about ideas and that's important. But at the end of the day, I think exposure to the asset in your portfolio, there's nothing that will make itself known faster to you than by that vehicle. So when did you have the idea for the debit card? Was this back in 2017? You're like, man, we need a debit card with rewards that are paid in Bitcoin. Was that kind of the timing and then you got it rolled out by this cycle? We saw these new on-ramps come into place, right? Coinbase, the exchanges, all of that, those were essentially the best business models, the only real business models that were actually available in the Bitcoin space.

Starting point is 00:16:02 Everyone else was having to get very creative. And so for us, we looked at what did we already do? What infrastructure had we already built? Merchant relationships that essentially the old infrastructure took Bitcoin payments coming in, converted it into Fiat prepaid cards or open prepaid cards you could use these merchants and get a discount. And so all really in my mind really was like, okay, what is the real problem to solve right now?

Starting point is 00:16:26 What is the most lucrative biggest problem to solve? And that's getting Bitcoin in the hands of more people. So how can we use what we have to get Bitcoin in the hands of as many people as possible in the shortest amount of time? And so just flipping that infrastructure we had away from spending Bitcoin, converting it into Fiat, what about spending Fiat and earning Fiat? Bitcoin rewards. It was just literally reversing the infrastructure that we had built. And in doing so, in that small switch, we go from speaking to an audience that has Bitcoin and wants to spend it,

Starting point is 00:16:58 which is very small, to an audience where 97% of North Americans are part of rewards programs. Now we are talking to everybody, nearly almost everybody in the world is now relevant to this business model. And not only that, it brings up this really great other benefit, is that removed every single barrier to entry to getting it. So even what Coinbase did and the other exchanges with KYC, setting up a wallet, setting up your bank account, now we can give you Bitcoin into a wallet without KYC, without long waiting periods on your bank. And it can happen with the infrastructure we have. And so it was a combination of looking creatively at what is the biggest problem that's facing Bitcoin today and its adoption cycle. And what do we have right now that we can

Starting point is 00:17:44 put together to service that use space. I'm really curious, and I suspect a lot of people listening to this are as well, of the rewards card, why is there a market for this? Talk to us about, and I suspect you're going to get into the international demand for rewards or for coupon cards. Talk to us about that first phase where you're receiving Bitcoin, you're then buying rewards cards, coupon cards for you name it business, whether it's Amazon or whatever, and just walk us through what that looks like and why, what's the incentive or what's the motivation for people to go about this process? Everybody right now, again, this is the timing part. There's an interesting moment that's

Starting point is 00:18:33 happening with Bitcoin where people know about it. Most, the majority of people know about it. And there's this deep curiosity about it. Today, we heard around 46 million people in the U.S., I think own Bitcoin in that number seems to be doubling each year. The fact that the economic context that we're all living in is forcing people to look creatively at their own finances. And the debit card concept is something that fits into the daily life that doesn't require you to change your behavior in any way. You're not putting up any risk with your hard-earned money to speculate into an asset that

Starting point is 00:19:08 you might not really understand. And a debit card or credit card that pays you out in Bitcoin, when you start to look at it, at an asset that's increased 200% average year over year, it becomes an asset that is a no-brainer to earn as a reward. There is no reason to be earning airline miles or points when you can have access to the upside potential of this new asset. And so we know that rewards were an already existing behavior that's very widespread. And just offering a better reward is enough to transfer.

Starting point is 00:19:39 These millions of people who are earning rewards every day into a card like the fold card that would generate Bitcoin on every single swipe. 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. That's what the Oslo Freedom Forum is. From June 1st through the 3rd, 2026, the Oslo Freedom Forum is entering its 18th year, bringing together activists, technologists, journalists, investors, and builders from all over the world, many of them operating on the front lines of history. This is where you hear firsthand stories from people using Bitcoin to survive currency collapse, using AI to expose human rights abuses, and building technology under censorship and authoritarian pressures. These aren't abstract ideas.

Starting point is 00:20:36 These are tools real people are using right now. You'll be in the room with about 2,000 extraordinary individuals, dissidents, founders, philanthropists, policymakers, the kind of people you don't just listen to but end up having dinner with. Over three days, you'll experience powerful mainstage talks, hands-on workshops on freedom tech, and financial sovereignty, immersive art installations, and conversations that continue long after the sessions end. And it's all happening in Oslo in June. If this sounds like your kind of room, well, you're in luck because you can attend in person. Standard and patron passes are available at Osloof Freedom Forum.com with patron passes offering deep access, private events, and small group time with the speakers. The Oslo Freedom Forum isn't just a conference.

Starting point is 00:21:23 It's a place where ideas meet reality and where the future is being built by people living it. If you run a business, you've probably had the same thought lately. How do we make AI useful in the real? because the upside is huge, but guessing your way into it is a risky move. With NetSuite by Oracle, you can put AI to work today. NetSuite is the number one AI cloud ERP, trusted by over 43,000 businesses. It pulls your financials, inventory, commerce, HR, and CRM into one unified system. And that connected data is what makes your AI smarter.

Starting point is 00:22:00 It can automate routine work, surface actionable insights, and help you cut costs while making fast AI-powered decisions with confidence. And now with the NetSuite AI connector, you can use the AI of your choice to connect directly to your real business data. This isn't some add-on, it's AI built into the system that runs your business. And whether your company does millions or even hundreds of millions, NetSuite helps you stay ahead. If your revenues are at least in the seven figures, get their free business guide, demystifying AI at netsuite.com slash study. The guide is free to at NetSuite.com slash study. NetSuite.com slash study.

Starting point is 00:22:40 When I started my own side business, it suddenly felt like I had to become 10 different people overnight wearing many different hats. Starting something from scratch can feel exciting, but also incredibly overwhelming and lonely. That's why having the right tools matters. For millions of businesses, that tool is Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all e-commerce in the U.S. from brands just getting started to household names.

Starting point is 00:23:09 It gives you everything you need in one place, from inventory to payments to analytics. So you're not juggling a bunch of different platforms. You can build a beautiful online store with hundreds of ready-to-use templates, and Shopify is packed with helpful AI tools that write product descriptions and even enhance for product photography. Plus, if you ever get stuck, they've got award-winning 24-7 customer support. Start your business today with the industry's best business partner, Shopify, and start hearing sign up for your $1 per month trial today at Shopify.com slash WSB.

Starting point is 00:23:47 Go to Shopify.com slash WSB. That's Shopify.com slash WSB. All right. Back to the show. We'll talk to us about the rewards cards. So on the app, when I log on to the app, if I want to buy a $100 Amazon rewards card, I can do that. And I mean, I think the rewards I got back were like four or five percent back. I mean, I'm using Amazon all the time.

Starting point is 00:24:16 So like this is a total no-brainer. I mean, I just don't understand why anybody would pass up on this. It's just free money, right? So I go onto the rewards on the app. I click Amazon. I buy $100 or $200 worth of rewards cards. get that 5% back. And it's just a total win. So why is Amazon doing this? Like, what is it that Amazon gets or is it because they're just banking the money earlier? I'm pulling my consumption to

Starting point is 00:24:45 the left. And they're willing to offer a 5% reward for people to pull their consumption to the left that much? When we talk about merchants and rewards, the only reason that they're offering rewards is to generate more business, either new customers or more loyalty. And that comes with the cost, right? There's always a cost of acquisition for a new customer and there's a cost to retaining a new customer. And prepaid and gift cards are a wonderful way of doing so. Again, I think it's 90% of Americans will either gift or use a gift card sometime in the given year. So it's really prevalent medium exchange. And for them, the fact that that value is booked ahead of time, prepaid cards, is another huge benefit. You know, Starbucks, I think the stat is that 10%

Starting point is 00:25:30 all Starbucks gift cards purchased go unused, which essentially provides them a interest in loan in perpetuity on these unused cards. Wow. I didn't realize that the number would be that high. 10%. You start to think about all the drawers that are collecting dust, you know, probably in your own home of these gift cards. I would assume the number is very similar for, other vendors, maybe even worse, or for the vendor, it's better. But do you think the number's higher for other vendors than Starbucks? Yeah. So, you know, I think absolutely. It also depends on, you know, how much a merchant gives is really a factor of their own margin. Grocery stores, gas stations have give less back. Digital services, gaming software, give a lot more. And so

Starting point is 00:26:18 it really depends on what their business is and what their cost of acquisition and doing businesses. So the breakage point is one of the pieces that Fold is actually trying to actively come back. It's the number one, we don't think it's a good thing that 10% of these cards go unused. We would rather that you purchase something and you're able to actually use the full value. And so it's in that is where we really started to know in this product market fit that we saw with this very simple app that let you connect a debit card, a credit card, and buy these prepaid cards and earn Bitcoin. With that little experiment, we were able to see the beginnings of product market fit. For us, it was a clear path and gave clear confidence that it was now time to build the

Starting point is 00:27:03 full product, which was allowing you to earn Bitcoin on everything you do. And this is where the partnership with Visa came out, where we would launch a debit card and a checking account that would make sure that you earn Bitcoin every time you swipe. So, we'll talk me through the mechanics. I would think it'd be extremely difficult to manage the volatility in the Bitcoin price as you're also managing this percent back. Let's just say the average percent back is 2 percent, just as a generic number. I spend $100. You now have to procure 2 percent of that, so $2 worth of Bitcoin for my account at that moment. You have all these people that are using this card throughout

Starting point is 00:27:46 the day that are buying Bitcoin within minutes of each other. And you've got on-chain fees that are pretty expensive relative to this amount that if I go and spend $10 and you're pulling 20 cents out for the cash back on that, that becomes a really tricky thing to manage with such a volatile underlying asset. How are you guys doing that? I'm just kind of curious mechanically how you guys would go about that and kind of managing that risk of the volatility and the price. It's something that's constantly on my mind. And it's honestly a problem that it just increases with the amount of swipes on that card. You know, you start to look at what Fold is doing. And you start to look at Fold and you realize it's actually an exchange. It's an indirect exchange.

Starting point is 00:28:35 We are now taking essentially you're swiping your card. So the order of operations, you're swiping your card. We are receiving interchange, denominated in Fiat, which then we have to flip into Bitcoin in real time to convert and give to you and your Bitcoin wallet. And so again, it's just an exchange, but instead of a user directly purchasing, it's done through the revenues generated from the interchange that is subsidizing these rewards. And so we have to act and we have to prepare and build just like an exchange does. We need to make sure we're over collateralized. We need to make sure that we are overcovering our bases. But Fold has to have to be. a secret weapon here that gets back to our roots that has really helped us, is that we accept

Starting point is 00:29:16 Bitcoin as payments. And because we are operating the Lightning Network, we have generated a lot of people that are transacting in Bitcoin, and we incentivize them to do that, so that we are receiving a constant flow of Bitcoin into our treasury every single day. And that inflow is higher than the current outflow of rewards going out. And so you can see this becoming an essentially a a glimpse into what a circular economy of Bitcoin starts to look like, where we have a segment of our users that are purchasing goods and services with Bitcoin. And then that Bitcoin is then redistributed back out as rewards to all of our other users, whether they're paying with lightning or they're paying with their Fiat, debit, or credit card. And so those inflows are

Starting point is 00:30:00 coming through the rewards cards program? So on our app, you're able to have, you can pay with three, you have three payment options. You have a, uh, a credit card debit card that you bring to fold your own. You can pay with the Lightning Network in your own wallet and the fold debit card itself. So we have three different options and each of them have a different level of cash back. And the way that we derive that level of cashback is what do we want to incentivize? So in the early days, when Bitcoin, when Lightning Network was was very small, we actually subsidized nearly and gave all of our margin to Lightning Network users so that we could make sure that we would bring more and more Lightning Network users into

Starting point is 00:30:42 the Lightning Network ecosystem. So because of Fold offering very generous cash back, we had an outsized effect on bringing new users and building the Lightning Network community so much so that, you know, at times we've been the largest merchant on the Lightning Network. We've been some of the most connected channels. And we've been at the forefront of building and being a user of the Lightning Network, which just so happens to have a kind of a good alignment with our current business of the debit card rewards. So let me tell you a personal story of something that happened to me on your platform.

Starting point is 00:31:17 So I had not funded my account and I was low on the amount that was in there for my debit card. And I wanted to buy, I don't remember what it was. It was some type of rewards card on your platform. And I got a higher kickback if I paid with lightning. Well, I was not at my house where I run my full node and I have my lightning set up at the house, but I did have Jack Maulers' strike app on my phone, right? And so through the strike app, I was able to scan the QR code that your platform gave me, which was a lightning address.

Starting point is 00:31:55 I scanned it with his strike app, which there was like, I don't know, $50 or whatever on my strike card, which just said US dollars, 50 US dollars. I scanned it. And it immediately recognized his strike app, recognized that it was a lightning address. And it was just like, do you want to pay this? And it was like, yeah, you know what? Let's see if this will work, just out of curiosity, right? And it did. His strike app recognized that that was a lightning address. He immediately took the USD that was sitting in that app and paid your lightning invoice. I'll tell you, man, my mine was blown, not just for your app, but also with Jack Mahler's app and how he was able to recognize a Lightning QR address versus a regular on-chain Bitcoin address and immediately do

Starting point is 00:32:45 the conversion into the Lightning Network and make that payment. And then there you are managing this account balance between rewards, people using the debit cards, and receiving Bitcoin, which was exactly what happened. And I can just see how everything is becoming the user interface is becoming seamless for the person who doesn't even understand the technology behind what's even happening. But there's a lot happening in that. What you got to experience was actually the future of where payments, where finance is all going.

Starting point is 00:33:20 Completely decoupled, distributed relationships that do not require any foresight or you don't need to go and call. I didn't not need to call up Jack to say, Jack, I really want you to be able to be able read fold invoices. He didn't have to do that to me either. What we're building is a large community that are building all of these services that are completely interoperable without the need of asking for permission for anybody. And again, this is where the network effect of Bitcoin comes in, both from a consumer standpoint from what you had, the seamlesslyness of saying, oh my God, my debit card is not with me. And being able to activate and just scan a QR code

Starting point is 00:33:56 there to on our end to be able to accept payments from wherever. This is the future of where it's going. And the network effects is both happening, both on a consumer standpoint, but also for builders. This is going back to what we did with the Lightning Network in the very early days, is that we saw that we knew Lightning Layer 2 would have to be the right solution in order to unlock this medium exchange concept. And so as Fold, we knew that if we started and saying, hey, everywhere we're collecting lightning payments now, very few people would do that. There was no infrastructure back then. The wallets were very primitive, let's say. And so what we did was we made it irresistible to not to ignore the Lightning Network.

Starting point is 00:34:39 Basically, we jacked up and subsidized the rewards rates across all of our cards in order to bring in, number one, consumers who are going to demand access to these cards, which means that that puts pressure on the wallets to build better and better and better wallets. And it's a virtuous cycle. The better the wallet's got, the better fold got, the more business fold got. And this gets back to why my approach to business and building products are so focused on incentives. It's not enough to build technology. You need to have the incentives right in order to actually seed the ecosystem,

Starting point is 00:35:15 especially because what we're now talking about are not Waldgarten individual centralized products. We're talking about a network. And a network involves a lot of participants independently acting. And in this scenario, this is where incentives become even more. or even more interesting. So with Fold, we've always tried to, you know, go ahead and try to make an on-chain payment on Fold. You can't.

Starting point is 00:35:37 And we did that. We know we're leaving money on the table because we want to funnel everyone to the Lightning Network. And with that, it has made our business better. It has increased the quality of wallets and ultimately seeded a lot more users who consider the Lightning Network somewhere where they live every day. So it seems like the real fundamental piece to all of this is that your lightning deposits are exceeding the rewards that you're paying out for people that are swiping their debit cards.

Starting point is 00:36:05 So as I think about that in kind of a graphic, is that accelerating? Is that or the deposits accelerating and growing faster than the rewards that you're paying out? Is there convergence? If there is convergence, is that a concern? So the thing is that, again, going back to Fold's initial quandary, right? We have a Bitcoin payments app, now is with the Lightning, which involves you having Bitcoin, then being in the mindset to spend Bitcoin, and then being actually set up to spend on the

Starting point is 00:36:34 Lightning Network. Those concentric circles get smaller and smaller. On the debit card side, we're now talking to an audience, which debit cards and credit cards touch 97% of everybody. And so that concentric circle goes bigger and bigger and bigger. And so to answer your question, the inflows of Bitcoin are quickly going to be outstripped by a rewards liability going out. And that's going to happen very, very best already happening where we're needing to set up different sources for to source our Bitcoin. But we do see a lot of activity on the Lightning Network still. It's still growing. It's still in its infancy. And this is why I really want and have challenged and have talked to a lot of builders in the space, not just about access to a technology, not just Fold, need to create the incentives

Starting point is 00:37:17 for people to be there. We need to have more companies like Fold who are actually prioritizing and privileging, the incentive to use it, not just the ability to use it. And so we're doing it in our own way. We're doing it in the back, through a kind of indirect way, the Trojan horse, which I consider fold a complete Trojan horse of it, but we'll get into that a little later. So when I'm thinking about traditional just clearing mechanisms, it seems like there's such a massive incentive for all these credit card companies and anybody who's conducting clearance type actions to get on lightning as fast as they possibly can because it's going

Starting point is 00:37:57 to reduce cost that reduces the whole Rube Goldberg machine of clearing. So it almost, to me, it seems like the incentives there, but it's almost like Wall Street and all the big banks are just a little behind the power curve figuring it out. Is that an accurate characterization from where you sit? What are your thoughts on that? This is where you need to look at the incentives for them. They have wonderful business models that are working quite well for them, very profitable, and in fact, record profits, even the last few years alone.

Starting point is 00:38:27 There's very little incentive for them to go and adopt an open source technology that makes it very questionable how they can make money in the ways that they used to make money. And so the idea of fees, transaction fees, interchange, all of that starts to get very murky on how they would maintain their market dominance. Because once they adopt this, everybody has access to it. When full, let's say, lightning payment go, any lightning wallet can fulfill that. It really doesn't, the only thing it competes on is experience at that point. It doesn't compete on regulatory capture or compliance or anything, but who just has a better

Starting point is 00:39:02 experience and treats their customers better, which has not been the incentive for a long time for business. This is one of the beautiful parts about open source and networks like this. It really drives businesses to a optimal user experience because that's the only way you're going to make money. You can't force people into a closed garden anymore. And so for them to adopt this is essentially their undoing. And unless they have a plan on how they're going to recover from that in a new business model, they're going to do that. There's really little incentive. And this is where Fold enters the space. I think the only way that this is ever going to happen is through an

Starting point is 00:39:36 indirect, indirect means. This is the Trojan horse. This is, we would go to merchants back in the day, Starbucks and all them, say, hey, let's have you. collect except Bitcoin payments. And they said, no, not a big of a problem. We make a lot of money on the interchange anyway. This doesn't make sense for us. But then we go to them and talk about rewards and we talk about new businesses, new customers coming to them, new volume, and then their ears perk up. It's this same method that we're going to have the same transition over to this more open network. And Fold is doing this by meeting customers where they're at today, leveraging these networks, letting them go about their daily lives, swiping their

Starting point is 00:40:16 cards as they always do and start amassing this balance of Bitcoin that now can be withdrawn directly to the Lightning Network. So we're basically changing the balance and flow of capital away from these closed network systems and now releasing it into this new network called the Lightning Network. And every single time you swipe, the network gets stronger and stronger and stronger and people that may not have been in the Lightning Network or had a wallet or anything now do. Now they already have it. Now they get that same experience that you do where, hey, I can just pull it.

Starting point is 00:40:46 out my phone and fulfill a lightning invoice from anywhere in the world at any time without any permission, without any fees, that suddenly becomes an unstoppable user experience that is very, very hard to compete with. For me, it sounds like the natural business growth fourfold is to start just going to all these different credit card or debit card issuers, banks, whatnot. You already have the solution in place. And then you're just supplying that to them. So like if you've got a USAA account or you have a Bank of America debit card credit card, there's an option for them to start receiving rewards in Bitcoin. And then they just come to use the turnkey solution in order to provide these rewards for them. Is that something that you're actively working from a business standpoint to grow the

Starting point is 00:41:42 the company? I'll give an anecdote that tells you where this is going. So when we launched and announced our fold card, we did so a little less than a year ago, and we now have over a quarter million people who are signed up for this card. Not only that is that we launched this to a very small beta group of people, closed access, Preston, you've been able to enjoy it of only several, you know, tens of thousands of people actively using this card. And we constantly get emails from Visa and the card network saying what is happening on the fold card. The level of usage that we see is indicative of either a very old incumbent card program or something that we've never seen.

Starting point is 00:42:22 One time they call us up and says, it's weird. Our data says that this program looks like at the program in Asia where people are breaking up payments and paying for everything off the debit card. So taxes, groceries, bills, copies, everything is going through this. They're like the normal North American behaviors to have multiple credit cards. And we're seeing them consolidate into this one card. This is a black hole of these users' money that are just going into what what is going on. And then they inevitably say, well, why did we start working with fold in the first place?

Starting point is 00:42:53 Well, Bitcoin. And all of these card networks are going to very rapidly realize some are doing it faster than others. Is it just like what's happening to the existing incumbent banks when they look at cash at Robin Hood? And they see they offer Bitcoin and suddenly they're seeing accounts close on mass at their bank. And now they're opening up these cash debt banks because the demand is so wide. It's been a latent demand that has not been fulfilled.

Starting point is 00:43:20 And just opening up access sucks all of that energy, demand, and financial power away from them. They now know that this cat is almost out of its bank. If you will see in a year or a year or less, if your credit card or debit card program is not offering the ability to earn Bitcoin rewards, you are going to be out of luck. You are going to see users transfer to other programs like Fold, but what's been in Folds, plans, and cards the entire time is that Fold has built our entire stack on a platform and an API that will allow any credit card and debit card company to plug directly into Bitcoin rewards and via the Lightning Network. So this is going to be a massive wave that we're about to see. Let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors.

Starting point is 00:44:03 No, it's not your imagination. Risk and regulation are ramping up, and customers now expect proof of security just to do business. That's why VANTA is a game changer. VANTA automates your compliance process and brings compliance, risk, and customer trust together on one AI-powered platform. So whether you're prepping for a SOC 2 or running an enterprise GRC program, VANTA keeps you secure and keeps your deals moving. Instead of chasing spreadsheets and screenshots, Vanta gives you continuous automation across more than 35 security and privacy frameworks. Companies like Ramp and Ryder spend 82% less time on audits with Vanty.

Starting point is 00:44:45 That's not just faster compliance, it's more time for growth. If I were running a startup or scaling a team today, this is exactly the type of platform I'd want in place. Get started at Vanta.com slash billionaires. That's vanta.com slash billionaires. Ever wanted to explore the world of online trading but haven't dared try? The futures market is more active now than ever before, and plus 500 futures is the perfect place to start.

Starting point is 00:45:15 Plus 500 gives you access to a wide range of instruments, the S&B 500, NASDAQ, Bitcoin, gas, and much more. Explore equity indices, energy, metals, 4X, crypto, and beyond. With a simple and intuitive platform, you can trade from anywhere, right from your phone. Deposit with a minimum of $100 and experience the fast, accessible futures trading you've been waiting for. See a trading opportunity, you'll be able to trade it in just two clicks once your account is open. Not sure if you're ready, not a problem. Plus 500 gives you an unlimited, risk-free demo account with charts and analytic tools for you to practice on.

Starting point is 00:45:54 With over 20 years of experience, Plus 500 is your gateway to the markets. Visit Plus500.com to learn more. Trading in futures involves risk of loss and is not suitable for everyone. Not all applicants will qualify. Plus 500, it's trading with a plus. Billion dollar investors don't typically park their cash in high-yield savings accounts. Instead, they often use one of the premier passive income strategies for institutional investors. private credit. Now, the same passive income strategy is available to investors of all sizes

Starting point is 00:46:30 thanks to the Fundrise income fund, which has more than $600 million invested and a 7.97% distribution rate. With traditional savings yields falling, it's no wonder private credit has grown to be a trillion dollar asset class in the last few years. Visit fundrise.com slash WSB to invest in the fundrise income fund in just minutes. Fund's total return in 2025 was 8%, and the average annual total return since inception is 7.8%. Past performance does not guarantee future results, current distribution rate as of 1231, 2025. Carefully consider the investment material before investing, including objectives, risks, charges, and expenses. This and other information can be found in the income fund's prospectus at

Starting point is 00:47:17 fundrise.com slash income. This is a paid advertisement. All right. Back to the show. The answer to what I was saying was yes. You guys are doing that. Resounding yes. Wow. Holy hell. Just think about this.

Starting point is 00:47:32 Think about this. So $200 billion is paid out every year in rewards. That $200 billion is paid out every single second of every single day. It doesn't matter of really anything except that people are swiping. And so when you think about what this means for Bitcoin, and even if we're able to divert 10%, 20%, 25% of that to Bitcoin, what, that means 24-7 heartbeat of Bitcoin being taken off the table, whether that's in a bull market, a bear market, it doesn't matter. And this is one of the only methods of Bitcoin buying that

Starting point is 00:48:07 matches this behavior that is regardless of bull or bear market. It just thumbs on just like blocks every single day. Bitcoin rewards will take Bitcoin off the table every single day as well, every single swipe. So I think you would have a really good beat on maybe the direction that this would be going. On the Lightning Network, when you think about you're running your full node, you're routing all these transactions on the second layer, and you're probably collecting a very small fee for providing that service today. But in the future, there's a lot of people that suspect that the fees are going to go up significantly, not significantly, but they're going to go off significantly from where they're at now. And this is going to be a pretty lucrative thing if you

Starting point is 00:48:54 run a hot hub of channels between all the different nodes that are out there. So do you see this being a substantial source of income in the future, almost like what you see for on-chain fees, probably not as high as on-chain fees, but something like that? What do you see this becoming in the future. There's a lot of speculation. We talk a lot about this internally. We try to model this out. And it's all very interesting. But to be honest, my main focus is creating the best possible user experience right now. And if this leads to a fee market that generates revenue and at the levels you're talking about would mean that Lightning Network has succeeded fantastically. That is the native layer for any retail or consumer interacting with Bitcoin would be on Lightning Network in the

Starting point is 00:49:47 in the scenario you outlet. And for us, that comes with a whole host of benefits that didn't exist before. Number one, it's much cheaper in terms of operating the business, a lot less overhead, a lot less fees coming on our side, and a pure interaction with our users that opens up our user base from the small jurisdictions, the current banking jurisdictions to the entire world. And so just that alone, even if we're not making routing fees, is enough incentive for us to pursue this. And so it is exactly something that will probably happen if it does come to fruition. But we're not banking on it right now. We know that this stuff is still fairly early.

Starting point is 00:50:26 But even just the effect, as I just said of this amount of rewards being paid out every year, now not going on chain, but directly into lightning wallets that now users can interact, you're going to see on a vehicle that allows people to be onboard, it's lightning on mass. And that's the whole genius of rewards overall. This is actually something that Satoshi even talked about in his cryptography mailing list is that he says the real trick is to get people to actually value Bitcoin so that they become currency. And he says, I think you get started somewhere in a narrow niche like rewards.

Starting point is 00:50:57 Because he understood the distribution mechanism of the reward space that it captures almost every single person. Yeah. And that it gives them a way to be natively onboarded into the network without having to do it themselves necessarily. So, Will, you had talked about previously the potential for providing interest for people on their rewards. Is this something that you're still pursuing? And if so, or if not, just give us some details on it. I always say we're 10% done with the fold experience. We're building a Bitcoin

Starting point is 00:51:28 bank. So what does that mean? That means that there's a lot more services than just the debit card to a checking account. Even if you're interested in coming to the new world of Bitcoin, you still want some services that the incumbent and traditional services offered. So right now, they have a debit card and checking account. Users are funneling every single dollar they have through us, whether it's rent, their tax payments, really everything. And with that comes with, hey, I usually do this and I can't do a full now. Can you do this?

Starting point is 00:51:57 And so we are very much interacting with our community to see what are those main things that we need to prioritize to build out this Bitcoin bank that we're building. And one of those critical ones are savings account. I'm already direct depositing on my entire paycheck to fold. I need a place to park it, and I would like to earn yield on it as well. And so we are very excited to be rolling out our savings account program later this year. They'll allow you to earn yield on your USD savings and pretty lucrative yield. We'll be announcing that soon.

Starting point is 00:52:28 But really what I see this doing is rounding out the banking experience. Really, again, full meeting you where you are today, providing the services that enjoy today, not requiring you to change a single thing about your life just by adopting full. Now, welcome to the world of Bitcoin. This is an adoption machine we're building here, and we're taking the lead from our community and our users. And so when you say substantial, I suspect you're not saying like 10-year treasury yields. You're saying like real yields. We're saying real yields. So everything that we do, your grandparents yields.

Starting point is 00:53:01 This is not the anemic 0.1% that you're going to be seeing here. This is actual several points that are going to be generated off your USD and your account all through Bitcoin. And the good thing there is that in what we've learned already with our card. Hold on, Will, real fast. So you're saying the U.S. dollars that are sitting in my account as I'm waiting to spend them and get Bitcoin rewards, that U.S. dollar is going to be getting interest. Yes. And so we made that a conscious decision. We are at the top of the funnel. I think we, besides exchanges, we are the number one of the number one funnels of new entrants into the space. We have people who only heard of Bitcoin and now have their first Satoshi through full. I don't think

Starting point is 00:53:45 there's another entity that is quite funneling this new of a user into the Bitcoin ecosystem. And with that, we take very high responsibility for being a good shepherd here. And one of those things is that we want to not only just slap Bitcoin on your experience, but bring the ethos of Bitcoin with it too. And so one of those tenants is not your keys, not your coins. We're truly taking ownership of your Bitcoin is fundamental to your Bitcoin journey. And by doing that and not forcing, you know, only doing yield on Bitcoin means that you're going to give up custody of your Bitcoin for a while. So we're going to first start off on your USD balance.

Starting point is 00:54:22 So how are you guys going to be able to offer high yields on that? Are you going to tokenize it? And that's some type of stable coin in the background. How's that achieved? This will be based on stable coins. There'll be a conversion from your Fiat balance into stable coins that will all be done in the background that you don't have to take advantage of. They will be insured these accounts are going to feel like proper savings accounts. And it is going to be a passive yield that you're going to earn. So some of these, there are some existing services out there that are providing yield like this.

Starting point is 00:54:55 And it's going to look a little bit like it. I'll feel that like that. But one of the things that we've learned about our program is that, so I think we have had over $100 million flow through this fold card since November or so. But if you look back at the total value of the Bitcoin we've paid out with the appreciation of Bitcoin, the last six months or so, the cashback rate is 9%. And now you start thinking, okay, if you're offering a savings account that gets you three, four, five percent back in Bitcoin, and you're taking into account the appreciation

Starting point is 00:55:26 of that Bitcoin, a funny thing starts to happen. The rewards and interest you've earned in Bitcoin starts to be bigger and more substantial than your actual savings account that you have that you may have been working on for years. It also means that the amount of money you've spent on goods and services to get those rewards are now essentially paid off because of the appreciation of Bitcoin. And this is how we bring you from one world into this new world, this Bitcoin native world where we turn Bitcoin into your unit of account because of that very experience. And you start outperforming many hedge fund managers from Wall Street.

Starting point is 00:56:04 That's a byproduct. With a better sharp ratio. Oh, my Lord. Yes. And this is something, this is not just, now this, this power is in the hands of individuals. One of the things about Fold is to, let's bring down the genie coefficient of Fold, right? Let's make it more equitably distributed. Let's give it to the people before the billionaires and hedge fund.

Starting point is 00:56:23 the managers take it all, let's create a product that is going to efficiently distribute as fast as possible to as many people as possible in the shortest amount of time. And what's going to happen, we already have users today, Matt O'Dell. He tweets, I bought some golf clubs a year ago on full. The rewards I earned on those golf clubs are worth double what I paid for those golf clubs. It surprises me. This was the hypothesis of Bitcoin rewards was that rewards is the Trojan horse for individuals to actually go from a world denominated in fiat. to a world denominated in Bitcoin. The rewards is seeming indirect Trojan horse that gets you from point A to point B in a very

Starting point is 00:57:02 indirect way that almost happens subtly right under your nose without you really realizing it. Boy, oh boy. Hey, let's talk about something that is a little bit of a gripe that I heard from the questions as I was preparing for this. Some people said, I don't like the wheel. So for people that aren't familiar with how this works, so you. You conduct the transaction.

Starting point is 00:57:25 After that, your smartphone will ping you the app that, the fold app that's on your phone. And then there's like a little wheel and you spin that and you can get, hey, last week, I was getting 5% on anything that I purchased. That was a one day kind of thing. And sometimes you get a real small reward depending on where you land on like this wheel of fortune wheel. People said, I don't like the volatility. I wish it was just a fixed rate or I had the option to select a fixed rate. of whatever it is. Is that something you guys plan on rolling out or making available for people

Starting point is 00:57:59 if they would like that? Where Fold is going to be over the next year is that we're going to arm every single credit card and debit card with the ability to turn on Bitcoin rewards with their existing program. The 99% of other cards operate on this fixed rate, fixed rate program. And so with Fold, when we look at that as a startup, where do we want to be? We know we want to do something different. We're going to create a different category of rewards because we already know that the fixed rate opportunities are going to be well covered. We are going to be providing them.

Starting point is 00:58:28 We're going to let you have access. Our upcoming credit card may have a little piece of that in there, and you may be able to get that in fold eventually. But what we wanted to bring the table is something different in rewards overall, too, not just replacing the asset of airline points instead of Bitcoin instead of airline miles, but we also want to change the reward experience into something that was a social experience and something that was an engaging experience and something that happened. in public so that when you see, you know, we already have, we have clerks at Whole Foods saying,

Starting point is 00:58:58 oh, that's that Bitcoin card. We have people spinning in line and other people see these wins. We wanted to create something. And again, this is the focus on incentives and creating a new experience that generates a moment, a ritual, kind of a public moment for this to happen. Because we know our customers, the best customers, are our own users and Bitcoin holders today. They're already evangelizing Bitcoin, and this is just another way to expose them to that. And so with any new experience that you build, you have a lot of kinks to get through. By no means, does the spin fully is fully perfected yet. There's a lot of things coming that will give you the option for flat rate.

Starting point is 00:59:39 But at the end of the day, we're not going to deviate from this new thing. Number one, because the vast majority of our users absolutely love it. But also because we know we are going to be seeding the world with Bitcoin rewards and you'll be able to find a card that works for you and it will be provided by fold. But for the experience to add this, it has already brought an untolds amount of new bitcoins because of this spin, this social kind of moment. I'm laughing because just personally, when I first started using it, my immediate thought was, God, I wish this didn't have a wheel and I wish I could just get a fixed rate back.

Starting point is 01:00:15 having used the card for multiple months, I actually enjoy it now. I look forward to it. It's just funny for me. Sometimes, sometimes I have an awesome reward. I'll give you an example. I purchased a meal for my kids at one place and then a meal for myself at the other. And both times, I got a significant reward back because I had a big purchase earlier in the week. I mean, it was like an $8 purchase and a $9 purchase, and I think I got 30% back on both of them or something ridiculous. You know that's rare. I know that's rare, but it just made me smile. Like, it was just kind of a fun experience.

Starting point is 01:00:53 Now, the next time I roll it, I might get, you know, a pittance for my reward. But I've actually started to enjoy it. And I'm not the type of person that would typically, like, I am a very, like, down to the numbers type person. You know, when I first got the card, it was like, hey, if it's 1%, if it's 3%, if it's anything in between. Just give that to me on every purchase. I don't want to open the app. I just want to get the reward and not have to think about it. So I hear you on it. I think some people might still want the fixed portion. There's a market, you know, this credit card market is something

Starting point is 01:01:27 that every, there's never been a different way of earning rewards ever. So changing behaviors is exactly what Fold is all about. And so we're learning a lot. But what we do know from our users, that they love the experience, it draws them in, it's fun. And there's something that, you know, when you're thinking about the credit card market and debit card market, it is the most competitive consumer market outside of automobiles, outside of, in software sales. Like, it is one of the most cut-growth competitive environments. So the fold is trying to do is cut out a new portion, a new experience that delivers

Starting point is 01:02:01 you fun every time, but also make sure you have a lot of Bitcoin in your wallet. Now, we look at the numbers. And again, if you've been using this card or fold out for over six months, between the generous awards we're giving and paying out, but the appreciation of Bitcoin, you should be up 9%. Number one, no other credit card, debit card that's doing that, especially not a debit card, but also you start to look at all the other things. You know, today they announced 4% inflation. Well, bold users don't feel that inflation.

Starting point is 01:02:27 Bold users have been riding the appreciation of Bitcoin that's almost made that 4% inflation, almost not even something that they feel. And so it's a point heard. And I think you'll like to see some of the developments that we have coming up around this very thing that provides an experience I think anyone will like to enjoy. How about a credit card? I think a lot of people have seen that most cards and you're seeing them come out from a couple other vendors revolve around it always being a debit card. Why is that? And is there a credit card in the works where you're going to get rewards back with that?

Starting point is 01:03:02 Yeah. So, you know, with us, how we think about this, you know, there's a, There's a lower barrier to entry for launching a credit card, especially as a team of our size. We're not, you know, we're 10 people. We are not a, you know, a large conglomerate yet, although we are growing fast, hired five people last week. We launched the debit card to make sure we knew how to operate a card program, right? It's not easy. It's not easy thing. There's many people involved. There's banks, enablement partners, manufacturers, you know, you name it. There's a lot of moving pieces to this. And so we launched the debit card first,

Starting point is 01:03:33 which, by the way, has more volumes spent through debit cards. Although the difference is that people spend on credit cards with higher ticket items, and especially most of our users would spend on a credit card too. And so we know it's important. It fills out your kind of portfolio. We want you to come to full and know that whether you're putting a purchase on credit, purchase on your debit card, or in your savings account, you're earning Bitcoin. And you really need all of those aspects to really round out someone's financial needs.

Starting point is 01:04:03 on a daily basis. And so we will be launching our credit card this year. I'm very excited about that. It is going to have elements of this card where it's fun, but I think we'll be recognizing some of the things we're trying to improve and make even a better experience there. But I will say one of the unintended consequences of this is that we have seen and have not a small amount of users who have totally abandoned using credit

Starting point is 01:04:27 and are not purchasing on credit anymore. They send us photos of their credit cards cut up into our, our DMs and say, I'm done with this. They're living what many would say, kind of more within their means. And actually, the data speaks to this since the pandemic started. People have been putting far less of their expenses on credit and have been moving to debit cards. You know, primarily, I think a lot of that has to do with uncertainty about maybe where the economy will be. And so extending credit seems to be, number one, most people have been in a bad spot in that before. You know, So people, average millennial is deeply in debt and has very little in savings.

Starting point is 01:05:04 And so you start to see when the economy and the other macro things start to become precarious, people start to kind of pull back and look for things that are more manageable and within their means. And so I think the debit card was perfect timing. I think as a basis for your finances, the bill, the direct deposit your paycheck there, pay bills out of there. And then on top of that, being able to use a credit card is ultimately what you're going to get through fold as a full package.

Starting point is 01:05:29 but that should be launching later this year. Will, what is a book that has been very influential to you that has shaped just kind of your worldview and feel free to mention more than one if there's multiple? Oh, man, I'm big into biographies. I love reading about people and their lived experiences here. And so I just finished one on Abraham Lincoln. I have one in here. Look at my bookshelf.

Starting point is 01:05:58 And it is one of the most motley things ever. We have payment systems in America. We have game design. We have an Abraham Lincoln biography and a lot of fiction. I'm a heavy science fiction reader. Ursula Le Guinine is one of my favorite science fiction writers. And I think I draw from just about everywhere. Again, pretty voracious reader actually more and now listening more and more so I can actually

Starting point is 01:06:22 free up my eyes and do things when I'm not listening to your podcast. They'll probably pop in an audible or something. I draw inspiration from just about everywhere. So I'd say in there, there's a few good ones. All right, Will, had a blast chatting with you. I'd really like to do this again in the future and just kind of hear about the progression of what it is you're building here. This is just amazing.

Starting point is 01:06:45 Give people a handoff to where they can learn more about you and where they can learn more about Fold. Every once in a while I'll say something smarter, interesting on Twitter, but a lot of updates on where we're doing with Fold. We build Fold out in the open. So every single thing and feature that you see there has been suggested or asked for by our users. And so we welcome that conversation, whether useful or not, or just have ideas.

Starting point is 01:07:08 So you can get me on Twitter. I'm at WLRVS. And you can find Fold app at Foldapp.com. I suspect over the coming months, you're going to want to get your hands on our card. There are some pretty massive updates coming, a new features coming that are that just haven't existed before. and I've been wanting to release this to the world for a very long time. And I think will be the beginnings of this kind of bridge for millions of new people into Bitcoin. So whether you like Fold, whether you want to use Fold, this is all good for Bitcoin.

Starting point is 01:07:41 And with that, Will Reeves, thank you for coming on the show. Thank you for your time. Hey, so thanks for everybody listening to the show. If you enjoyed the conversation, 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.

Starting point is 01:08:03 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.

We Study Billionaires - The Investor’s Podcast Network - BTC027: The Bitcoin Rewards Trojan Horse w/ Will Reeves (Bitcoin Podcast)

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.